The Pop Machine
Nestled on a private, leafy estate on Indianapolis' north side, The Pop Machine has hosted thousands of recording sessions for iconic music legends and emerging indie artists since opening in January 2000.
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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 Son Lux, Sublime With Rome, The Jim Irsay Band, The Why Store, The Late Show, and Zero Boys.
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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 live room features hardwood floors, high ceilings, and tonewood-clad walls with custom diffusors and configurable acoustic gobos. The live room is flanked by an adjacent isolation booth and remote amp loft. Musicians monitor performances through an Oz Audio Q-Mix cue system and Sony MDR-7506 headphones.
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Rooms are wired with oxygen-free Mogami, Monster, and Marshall Soundrunner cable with Neutrik gold-plated interconnects.
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The studio's microphone collection includes modern and vintage vacuum tube, ribbon, condenser, and dynamic models from AKG, Blue, Coles/STC, Neumann, Royer Labs, Shure, Solomon Mics and Soyuz, with Class-A, vacuum tube, active, and passive direct injection boxes from Avalon Design, Acme Audio, Radial, Tech21 NYC, and Uncle Albert's Amplifier.
Control ROOM
19 x 17 x 12
The control room's centerpiece 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.
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Augmenting the SSL are channels of the world's finest outboard microphone preamplifiers and equalizers including vintage Neve 1066, 1073, and 1081 modules, API 500 series racks, stereo-matched Calrec PQ modules, Chandler TG, Tube-Tech, Avalon Design, and Universal Audio pieces.
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Highest resolution audio is captured through a Lavry AD-24-200 Savitr Gold analog-to-digital converter and Avid HD IO to Pro Tools HDX and Logic Pro X workstations (with a vast plug-in library) synchronized to the Lavry's master digital clock. A beautifully restored Ampex ATR-102 1/2" 2-track and an Otari MX-80 2" 24-track tape machines are available for analog purists.
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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, Eventide, Focusrite, Lexicon, Neve, Smart Research, Spectra Sonics, Teletronix, Tube-Tech, SPL, and Universal Audio.
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The control room features ultra-accurate monitoring with Hafler-powered original-issue UREI 813A mains and Bryston-powered nearfields from JBL, ProAc, and Yamaha.