Studio

In contrast to Matthias Reinelts first studio, the current one is much more compact and efficient. The central element is of course a computer, as in all professional studios these days. Here it is an M1 Macbook Pro. The software used is Logic Pro X. This program enables composing and arranging. It provides countless sounds that can be played with a keyboard and thus recorded.

On the hardware side, it is mainly acoustic instruments that determine the sound of matthias tracks. In addition, this studio offers another outstanding feature and that is an analog tape machine from the 80’s. It´s a Studer B67 mk2. After everything has been mixed on the computer, the sound is converted back from the digital to the analog world and recorded on a stereo track with this master tape machine. This gives the track a certain colouration, a tape saturation. Producers without a real tape machine nowadays use so-called plugins within their music programs (like Logic). This also sounds surprisingly good. Matthias just uses „the real thing“, certainly also for nostalgic and aesthetic reasons.

You could also easily make a vinyl master directly from such a master tape and press records. But in order to be able to present the music on spotify and co, everything has to be digitized again, of course. In order not to have any loss of quality here, very high-quality converters from RME are used.

The most important thing in a studio are very good monitor boxes. They are not there to make the music sound as beautiful as possible for a producer. It’s about being as honest as possible. They are accurate tools to mix the track so that it then sounds good on all other speakers afterwards, be it headphones, car speakers or high-quality hi-fi speakers. Matthias relies on the PSI 17M here.

But good speakers bring little to a room with poor acoustics. That’s why studios have these acoustic panels on the wall and ceiling. They don´t make sure that the music doesn’t disturb the neighbors. So it´s not soundproofing. They have a dampening effect to enable sound absorption within a room. If possible, you only want to hear the sound coming from the speakers and not the reflections from the walls and ceiling.

So that’s the little overview of Matthias‘ studio. Small but nice, perfectly adequate to produce professional music.