The Pop Machine
Nestled on a private, leafy estate on Indianapolis' northside, The Pop Machine has hosted hundreds of recording sessions for iconic music legends and independent artists since opening in January 2000.
The studio's discography includes "Visual Love" from the 2013 GRAMMY-nominated Best R&B Album "Better" by Chrisette Michele (Motown Records), "ErrryThang" by Ace Hood featuring Yo Gotti from the Billboard #1 R&B/Hip-Hop; Billboard #1 Rap Album; Billboard 200 Top-10 album "Blood, Sweat & Tears" (Island Def Jam/We The Best Music Group), and the latest and upcoming releases from Sublime With Rome, The Why Store, The Late Show, and Zero Boys.
The Pop Machine was designed and built by co-founder Terry L. Monday and his Monday Designworks firm and features stunning acoustical spaces, a Solid State Logic AWS 924 Delta SuperAnalogue console, Avid Pro Tools and Logic Pro X digital audio workstations, analog tape machines, and the finest classic analog outboard gear and effects processors with access to the owners' private vintage instrument collection, supported by the highest caliber producers, engineers, programmers, and musicians.
The studios
Live Room
20 x 15 x 13.5
The main tracking room is adorned with hardwood floors, tonewood-clad walls, and custom diffusors with configurable acoustic gobos. The live room is flanked by an adjacent isolation booth and remote upstairs amp closet. Musicians monitor performances with an Oz Audio Q-Mix cue system and Sony MDR-7506 headphones.
The studio is wired throughout with oxygen-free Mogami, Monster, and Marshall Soundrunner cable with Neutrik gold-plated interconnects.
The studio's microphone collection includes modern and vintage vacuum tube, ribbon, condenser, and dynamic microphones from AKG, Blue, Coles/STC, Neumann, Royer Labs, Shure, Solomon Mics and Soyuz models, with Class-A, vacuum tube, active, and passive DI boxes from Uncle Albert's Amplifier, Avalon Design, Acme Audio, Radial, and Tech21 NYC.
Control ROOM
19 x 17 x 12
The centerpiece of the control room is a Solid State Logic AWS 924 Delta SuperAnalogue workstation, which combines a state-of-the-art analog console and dual DAW controller. On the analog layer, the AWS 924 is a complete 24-channel, 8-bus console with 24 analog inputs. Each of the AWS 924's channels features a top-of-the-line SSL SuperAnalogue microphone preamplifier, a line-level input, and 4-band E- and G-Series EQs with floating dynamics and the legendary stereo bus compressor, all based on classic SSL technology.
Augmenting the SSL are 24 channels of the world's finest outboard microphone preamplifiers and equalizers including vintage Neve 1066, 1073, and 1081 modules, API 500 racks, stereo-matched Calrec PQ modules, Chandler TG, Tube-Tech, and Universal Audio pieces.
Highest resolution audio is captured through a Lavry AD-24-200 Savitr Gold analog-to-digital converter and Avid HDX I/Os to Pro Tools HDX and Logic Pro X workstations (with a vast plug-in library) synchronized to an Apogee Big Ben 192k master digital clock. A beautifully restored Ampex ATR-102 1/2" 2-track and Otari MX-80 2" 24-track tape machines are available for analog purists.
The 'wonderwall' is the studio's well-appointed rack of effect processors and analog outboard equipment featuring classic gear from API, Avalon Design, Calrec, DBX, Focusrite, Lexicon, Neve, Smart Research, Spectra Sonics, Teletronix, Tube-Tech, SPL, and Universal Audio.
The control room boasts super-accurate monitoring with Hafler-powered original-issue UREI 813A mains and Bryston-powered nearfields from JBL, ProAc, and Yamaha.