Vintage Ampeg Gemini 1 guitar amp at Memphis Magnetic Recording Co
All of our gear is here for a reason, it is time tested on thousands of recordings, it’s our go-to equipment that we know works in specific applications. Before I even go on, let me just say that there is NO rental fee, ever on this gear. Our collection of vintage guitar amplifiers and drums, is here for you to use, we know these are good sounding examples and record well on tape.
This is not to say that we force anybody to use our guitars or amps or drums, it is just to say that, I consider the Memphis Magnetic to be a rock-n-roll playground. We are tone searchers and listen to guitar amps under the microscope of microphones everyday and have figured out why some amps record and feel better than others, take our experience and use it on your record.
Vintage Ampeg B15 and Fender Bassman amps and some house instruments, at Memphis Magnetic Recording Co
Growing up in Detroit, I went to my first “real” studio in high school, it was a state of the art, nice place but, there were no amps or anything like that hanging around for the band to use, my band brought our amps which at the time, consisted of a peavey and a gorilla amp!
Flash forward to after college when I moved to NYC to play in the Matador band, Spoiler. While living there I started to record off and on with Roscoe (Eric) Ambel, at a great studio in Brooklyn named 33 & 1/3rd, Roscoe had tons of cool old amps sitting around. So of course, why use that road worn beat to hell amp the band dragged in, when we could use a well maintained real vintage amp, that drips…tone. To me it just makes recording sense to have a collection of known good sounding tools at hand.
When I moved to Nashville in 2000 and set up Fry Pharmacy Recording, I just thought this was the normal way studios were ‘sposed to be…. a bunch of cool stuff sitting around for the bands to be inspired by, and this philosophy continues at Memphis Magnetic Recording Co., our guitar collection and amps and drums set, etc are here to inspire you and for you to use if you want…. no rental fee ever!
One of our favorite Irishmen Mark Short at Memphis Magnetic Recording Co.