Starlite & Campbell

 

Suzy Starlite and Simon Campbell are a powerhouse songwriting and musical partnership. Together they have recorded and released three studio and two live albums plus one electronica side project. Their most recent to drop is – STARLITE.ONE – which received a host of four and five-star reviews. 

Suzy has a folk-rock background and plays keyboards and bass. She is a regular contributor to Bass Musician Magazine. Simon had a major label deal in the 90s and has released two solo albums plus a host of side projects.

We chatted with Suzy and Simon about how they’ve been using the Tempest and Prophet-5:

What made you choose the Tempest and Prophet-5?

We first bought the Tempest as we were looking for the finest drum machine on the market and its pedigree made it the only choice. Not only did it have the finest sounds available but they can be edited to a very fine level of detail. Simon had used a lot of Sequential and Roger Linn drum instruments in the past and has a great amount of respect for Roger and Dave.

When we heard the Prophet-5 was to be rereleased and Dave Smith’s comment saying it’s “the best of all Prophet-5s” – we just had to get one! It happened to coincide with the conceptualizing of STARLITE.ONE which is more focused on analogue synthesizers.

How are you using them?

We used the Tempest on our last two studio albums and all the time when writing. The Prophet-5 made its debut on STARLITE.ONE and features throughout the album: pads, punchy brass, lead lines and bass. The Tempest is used conventionally as a drum machine but also provides bass lines on two of the tracks.

What’s one of your favorite things about them?

It’s difficult to summarize one favorite thing but it has to be the richness of the sound. Our studio is almost exclusively analogue, sporting a 52-channel CADAC console and the only plugin we use is the power cable. Just out of interest, we blind-tested our Prophet-5 against a reputable plugin but there is no comparison against the real thing which is massive, rich and meaty – is the Prophet really mono? We can’t wait to buy the Prophet-5 Voice expansion card. The question is can our monitors handle it?

There is no escaping the flexibility of the Tempest and the intuitive programmability of the Prophet. All the sounds are infinitely adjustable but to us, there is something about the gravitas of these instruments when you play them. They enhance your performance and creativity because they make you feel special. The instruments feel beautiful, sound even better and never disappoint.  

Any interesting tricks or techniques you’d like to share?

We love tube (valve) amps and analogue tape machines. Try sticking the Tempest through a big fat bass amp and cabinet then push it into overdrive: same with the Prophet. For more subtlety try the Prophet with a ‘70s tape Maestro Echoplex or new EchoFix EF-3XR – which has a killer analogue chorus built in which we use live. Try the Tempest with an Oto Machines BIM 12-bit delay – totally killer.

LINKS

starlite-campbell.com/links

supertonerecords.com/recording-studio


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