Musician 1984

Prince’s home recording studio consists of a control room and a small overdub room. It contains an Ampex 1200 24-track recorder, a Soundcraft board and Lexicon 224X outboard. David Leonard is “pretty sure” it’s a Westlake installation. Prince mixes down onto an Ampex ATR-100 (half-inch and quarter-inch) mastering deck. He uses Scotch 250 recording tape.

Sunset Sound also has an Ampex 1200 and ATR-100s. The Los Angeles studio’s board is a custom-built console with API components; in addition there are smaller Yamaha NS-10s and Auratones. Peggy McCreary rents Prince drums and a Fender Precision bass. He brings his own Telecaster-style Hohner guitar. The studio has refurbished Steinway 7B pianos. For vocals McCreary likes old Neumann tube 47 microphones. Guitars are amplified through a Boogie amp, with a Music Man for a spare.

Lisa Coleman considers herself “more of a pianist than anything else,” but with Prince she plays an Oberheim OB-Xa and an OBX/S [OB-SX], Arp Omni and Yamaha DX7. Wendy Melvoin favours Rickenbacker guitars, but modified with EMG pickups. Solo she plays a custom Telecaster “for jazz”, and an Ovation acoustic. She plugs into a Mesa Boogie amp, and uses a Boss board for effects.

Prince “uses a lot of Oberheim synthesisers” at his home studio, according to McCreary. Besides his trusty Hohner guitar, in Purple Rain he plays a white Stratocaster [Dave Rusan Cloud Guitar] with gold-plated frets and tuning knobs. His drum machine of choice is a Linn LN-1 [LM-1].