Cloudbusting -- Kate Bush In Her Own Words

Equipment

Having built your own studio, are you like a gadget freak? Do you like all the latest toys, electronic toys, or not?

Yes, I think everyone likes new toys. And it's really getting the time to look around, and also the money, of course, is the big thing, to get new equipment. (1985, Picture Disk)

We now have an SSL. It's an expensive board, but not the most expensive, and it's very versatile. It has a good sound, and all those facilities. For the money the Soundcraft was great, but the SSL is much more efficient to work with. On the last album we spent a lot of time working around the desk, and on this one it was just working around me.

We're still using two A80s - we work on 48-track all the time, though it drives people crazy. When you get outside people in, you can see their impatience with the machines. We use them with the Lynx, though we used to have a Q-Lok. I'm not sure there's that much in it, but I think the Lynx is quicker. It would be even better if we had 800s. The A80s seem a bit archaic now.

With outboard, I love the Quantec. It has a crystalline quality to it, very distinctive. I use it on instruments sometimes, but particularly vocals. We've got two Lexicons - the 224 and the 224X. We hire stuff in when we mix outboard eqs, like a couple of old Pultecs, they have a really warm sound - warmer than the SSL eq.

We master analogue half inch. A lot of noise, but I still prefer working analogue. At this point we've found it wise not to change machines mid-stream.

Monitoring is on AR18s, and we did get some Gold Spot Tannoys, they're useful for some things, though generally we stick to the 18s, and Auratones. We don't use big speakers. We had some but they sounded awful.

As we have a Fairlight, it tends to negate us getting in other sampling gear. We're pretty well covered with the Fairlight and the DX7 for keyboard and the quality of the Fairlight is much better, though so difficult to use. Everyone says that. I used to programme it myself, but since the new software... I can't keep up. They keep changing it as soon as I learn to programme it.

Sometimes we're happier just flying in the half-inch, the old fashioned technique. There's something about it - I quite like the purist approach. Like tape delay - you can't get that same sound. It doesn't have the same presence, it has a whispy quality. With tape delay it's lovely.

I guess I'm just a sucker for analogue sounds. (1989, International Musician)

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