There's an easier way to make a record in 2026. Open a laptop, load a sample library, and everything is available at once — every sound, every era, infinitely correctable. That's not how this studio works.
This is the story of the machines that get used instead.
Choosing limitations in a world without them
The studio is built around hardware first. Synthesizers and drum machines form the foundation of every track; plugins only enter later, during mixdown. Modern technology is mostly in the business of removing limitations — higher resolution, more memory, more presets, more flexibility. But a handful of machines in the room do the opposite. The Korg M1R, Roland JV-2080, Roland JD-990, E-mu Orbit V2 and E-mu Mo'Phatt aren't there for nostalgia. They're there because their limitations sound good.
When "it sounds like the 90s" becomes a compliment
During a studio session, Tom was once told that records made in 2026 shouldn't sound like records from the 1990s. For most producers, that's a warning. Here, it's the goal. The aim was never to reproduce a decade — it was to keep the crunchy digital pads, the atmospheric textures, the synthetic stabs and the slightly imperfect behaviour of early sample-based instruments as part of the sonic vocabulary.
The sound of stretching a waveform
A ROMpler doesn't have a separate sample for every note. Samples get stretched across ranges, and low or high notes start to reveal the seams — the texture changes, the artefacts show. Modern libraries hide this with layers and interpolation. These machines don't, and that's exactly the appeal. The imperfection becomes the instrument's personality.
The machines
The Korg M1R is the obvious starting point — its pianos, pads and bells are embedded in decades of pop, house and dance music, and the goal is to let it stay an M1 rather than dress it up as something modern. The Roland JV-2080 handles pads, strings and layered textures, its expansion boards shaping the palette around a particular record. Next to it, the JD-990 turns PCM waveforms into raw material for synthesis rather than simple playback — the samples get pushed until they're synthetic and strange. The Korg Wavestation and Roland D-550 bring evolving, vector-synthesized textures that move rather than sit still, useful for the ambient layers underneath a track. And the E-mu Orbit V2 and Mo'Phatt swing between atmosphere and aggression — pads and stabs that were built for other genres entirely, repurposed here.
Why hardware makes a difference
There's no infinite library behind any of these instruments — just a finite set of sounds and a defined workflow. That limitation makes decisions easier. A sound comes from the M1R or the Orbit V2 because that's what's in the room, not because it was found after scrolling through a thousand presets. The machine becomes part of the decision.
Within the wider studio — a Juno-106, Nord Lead 3, TX802 and Prophet-6 among them — the ROMplers provide something the analog and FM gear can't: a sonic history. Their waveforms and limitations carry the fingerprint of a specific period in digital instrument design.
The sound, in short
This is the sound running underneath Same Same, But Different, the debut album on We Play House Recordings. The 1990s pads, the digital textures, the synthetic stabs — the ROMplers aren't recreating old records here, they're placed inside a contemporary one. The technology is old. The music doesn't have to be.
Not because these machines are better than today's technology, or more powerful. Because they sound like themselves. In 2026, that's worth more than sounding perfect.
Follow Tom Smeyers for release dates, vinyl pre-orders, and upcoming shows across the underground house and Detroit techno circuit.