I've been on tour with Nine Inch Nails for...two years, (at interview time) and been working on my own band, modwheelmood at the same time. Modwheelmood's EP, Enemies & Immigrants came out on Buddyhead records last August and we toured the west coast with Mellowdrone and Monsters Are Waiting...fun!.

At the moment, I am working on modwheelmood's new album, which has been almost completely recorded at home, besides from drum tracking. Also working on a remixes album which will include mwm tracks off the 2 EPs, remixed by some of the artists I like the most. Proceeds from this album will go to charity.

Let's get down to the nitty gritty; what are your preferences for DAW and studio recording?

In the studio mostly use Logic Pro as my software. I started pretty early with it, and I always found it a lot easier than other sequencers to use. I use Ableton Live at times too. I have a fairly simple set up...I have been using mac laptops exclusively for the last six years, pretty much. I gave up desktops in order to be able to work on stuff wherever i go.

I am using a Metric Halo 2882 DSP firewire interface, connected to a Yamaha 01V96, which handles most of the routing for synths and instruments. I use my Phoenix DRS-1 preamp for most of the tracking, and sometimes use a RNC compressor or MIO channel strip off the DSP portion of the soundcard to compress stuff on recording, but most of the stuff is pretty much the pre straight into the 2882.

I use mainly a TLM 103 to record vocals and acoustics, and recently started using an Avantone ribbon mic i got for super cheap, and like it a lot! I use a pair of Genelec 8030s as my reference monitors and I love them.They sound great and they pack up nicely when i go on the road.

What about your touring setup?

Live, I've been mostly using a Monome 40H controller with the Max/MSP application, MLR. (Check them at http://monome.org). Mr Crabtree and company created one of the most interesting controllers for electronic music, i have to say. It makes it easy to translate a session from Logic into something that can be built in real-time during a show, as opposed to having a session running off Logic or Ableton Live. And it lights up too!!!

I also have been known to surround myself with several Line 6 delays and looping the shit out of my vocals and samples, in order to make up for the lack of other players on stage.So far, it worked out pretty well.

Getting back to the studio for a moment; how do you like to use VST plug-ins? Where do you find them most useful in the recording process?

I use a lot of plug-ins, but only after tracking, most of the times. I try to be as happy as possible with the raw recorded file, so all I really need to apply is a good EQ or compressor, if needed, in terms of sound sculpting. In that case URS plug ins are all I use, since I can run a lot of different instances on a new intel machine.

I recently purchased the URS bundle, and I love it. URS plug-ins are extremely CPU friendly and sound great.

I just switched to a MacBook Pro so I am still waiting for some of the plug-ins I own to be ported to Intel. PSP's Vintage Warmer is the one I miss the most, probably...it's kind of a one-trick pony for me but I realized I ended up using it on everything on the last EP.... I also use a lot of Native Instruments plug-ins, I love their products....Reaktor in particular. It's really easy to come up with original sounding material and a lot easier to customize than people think.

What Native Instruments stuff are you using these days? Are you off stompboxes or do you keep them as a backup?

I've started using NI's Guitar Rig 2, too. It comes real handy when I am looking to come up with a particular guitar tone and don't have access to real amplifiers and certain effects, which is most of the time. I still use stomp boxes for certain stuff, especially delays.

I run a lot of tracks off logic into a Diamond Memory Lane delay pedal. It's probably my favorite delay right now. I also really like Audio Damage's plug-ins, especially their Dubstation Delay (needless to say) and Reverence plate reverb.

In part two of our interview with Nine Inch Nails vet and modwheelmood founder Alessandro Cortini, we talk more abouit VST plug-ins, home recording, and the obstacles a band needs to overcome when recording in the studio.