Culture Club Colour By Numbers

 (last updated: 19/8/24)

Culture Club Colour By Numbers recording equipment

Instruments

Drums & percussion:

• Gretsch drum kit
• Linn Electronics LinnDrum (and/or Linn LM-1)
• Simmons SDS-V electronic drum system

Keyboards, synthesizers & samplers:

• Fairlight CMI (Series II?) – brought in towards the end of the sessions
• Oberheim OB-8: main synth
• Moog Minimoog: synth basslines
• Sequential Circuits Prophet-5

Basses:

• Music Man Cutlass /w Superwound 606 strings

Guitars:

• Ibanez Stinger 2096NT Natural – likely used

Guitar rig:

• Boss DS-1 Distortion
• Boss OC-2 Octaver – e.g. Miss Me Blind
• Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus amplifier

Recording & studio equipment

Microphones

• Drums:
• Bass drum:
• Electro-Voice RE20
• Snare & hi-hat:
• Sony C36P
• Tom-toms:
• Sony C35P
• Overheads:  
• Neumann KM84
• Room:
• Crown PZMs
• Guitars: 
• AKG The Tube
• Vocals:
• AKG The Tube

Tape machines:

• MCI JH-24 24-track
• MCI JH-110 2-track

Outboard gear (partial list):

• AMS DMX 15-80S delay/harmonizer with extra memory
• AMS RMX-16 digital reverb
• Drawmer compressor
• Drawmer noise gate
• EMT reverb plates
• Quantec QRS Room Simulator

Mixing consoles:

• MCI JH-542LM: Red Bus Studios
• MCI JH-542A 42/32: CBS Studio 2
• MCI JH-556C 52-channel: CBS Studio 1

Sources

Recording Engineer/Producer, August 1984 (page 45)

One Two Testing, April 1984

Musician, October 1983 (PDF page 63 – Culture Club)

Musician, November 1984 (PDF page 96 – Steve Levine)

Studio Sound, May 1979 (Red Bus studios information)

Studio Sound, March 1985 (CBS Studios info, PDF pages 78 & 80)

Steve Levine technical interview (Youtube)

Steve Levine on Roland JC-120 (around 1:50-2:40)