JASON DONNELLY: We're sitting here in DNA Studios in Madison, Wisconsin with Brian Daly.

I was really curious about here, this rack over here. You know there's these pres a lot.

BRIAN DALY: Yeah. I use those for all the percussion. Actually, almost all the percussion -- You know, because we were working quickly, I wasn't like I was like I'm going to pick a set of mics because I know it's going to work and everything, and mic pres and so. That was the Neumann KM 184's...

JASON DONNELLY: Okay.

BRIAN DALY: ...and I ran them on all the percussion that we did after we were done with the first round. Those are what I also use on the overheads, and like, you know, for the overheads I ran those Neumanns in through the mic pre above that, which is the Universal Audio 610...

JASON DONNELLY: Okay.

BRIAN DALY: Which has a really soft kind of sound, but it has a really smooth sound, it has a nice character but it doesn't handle transients so well sometimes so like the ones below it are the Vintechs. Those are a Neve reproduction.

JASON DONNELLY: Really? Okay.

BRIAN DALY: Yeah. It's basically a Neve knockoff. There's a lot of that kind of stuff coming out now and a lot more affordable than a real Neve, and it has a really nice transient response, so and it has like it has a lot of character. It's a vintage design and it has an EQ on it. So basically, we have a --

JASON DONNELLY: I noticed that. That's what I liked about [INDISCERNIBLE] here. You can a little bit dial up an EQ.

BRIAN DALY: Yeah. Yeah. There's a Summit mic pre and we got a lot of Distressors, a Summit limiter. We have a Lexicon reverb which actually gets used a lot. It sort of has a classical digital reverb sound, and then you know we hav a rounding out of other compressors and some EQs and --

JASON DONNELLY: [INAUDIBLE] compressors here?

BRIAN DALY: So, you know, we essentially have, you know, a modest selection of outboard gear that let's us kind of achieve a lot of different effects, you know.

JASON DONNELLY: I noticed. It's streamlined. I like that about it.

BRIAN DALY: Yeah, it is streamlined.

JASON DONNELLY: [INDISCERNIBLE]

BRIAN DALY: Right. Yeah.

JASON DONNELLY: You know, nothing too flashy.

BRIAN DALY: Exactly.

JASON DONNELLY: It gets to the point.

BRIAN DALY: Right, which is pretty much what our whole studio is about. It's like nothing too flashy but like what is functional, how can we achieve like, you know, the top results at minimal cost. It's essentially what it is.

JASON DONNELLY: Very cool.

BRIAN DALY: You know I mean I worked at Smart Studios for a long time, which is a great studio but, you know, we have a fraction of what they have invested in our equipment but I, you know, I'm biased but I think we do very well in terms of how our production compares to theirs.

JASON DONNELLY: Oh certainly.

BRIAN DALY: And we take advantage of, you know, Pro Tools is really, was a big equalizer actually. I mean in my opinion, the analog console like they have a Trident A Range which is a classic...

JASON DONNELLY: [INDISCERNIBLE]

BRIAN DALY: ...analog console and it's a wonderful-sounding machine. I mean it just sounds incredible, so that can't really be replaced but at the same time, more and more people are going into Pro Tools anyway so you know I mean honestly I'd love to have something like that to track with but...

JASON DONNELLY: Oh yeah.

BRIAN DALY: ...the point is you can take some, you know, a few pieces that you need for your main instruments like the guitars, I usually use outboard mic pres, and just -- And then we have a very respectable but midline console from the '80s. It has a decent EQ so between those and this, we got up to sound as close as we can.

JASON DONNELLY: This thing, this Atari, this is awesome. It's a 24-track. What year did this come out? This is a 2-inch, 24-track.

BRIAN DALY: Yeah, 2-inch, 24-track. I think that came out in the early '80s. We use that as basically it's like a form of signal processing now. It's like it's pretty rare that --

JASON DONNELLY: Just to get the character [OVERLAPPING].

BRIAN DALY: Yeah, and it's pretty rare that someone will do a whole album or song on that but a lot of times we'll track to that and then dump it into Pro Tools.

JASON DONNELLY: To get the analog [OVERLAPPING].

BRIAN DALY: Yeah. We'll use -- reuse the tape then too because...

JASON DONNELLY: Yeah. Well it's expensive.

BRIAN DALY: ...it's expensive. Right. And so it -- but it does have certain character that really can't be gotten in any other way.

JASON DONNELLY: It's really cool. Did you use that a lot on your last CD that you just finished?

BRIAN DALY: No. I didn't actually do that. It's kind of a taste thing like it's something that some people really want that sound and then you go say okay we got to do this, you know, I just -- I'm just really -- you know, I'm really focused on like just the arrangement and the music and you know I'm pretty happy with the sound out of the workstation so.

JASON DONNELLY: Yeah.

BRIAN DALY: It sounds pretty damn good actually.

JASON DONNELLY: This is Jason with Gearwire.Com. Anything you want to say to the folks out there? Last words?

BRIAN DALY: Well thanks for watching and listening, and keep rocking.

JASON DONNELLY: All right. You heard it. That's it.