Analog studio hardware from Berlin,
built by a sound engineer who wanted this gear for himself.
Who builds this?
Maybe you heard a Creme on someone's mix bus. Maybe it was a name on a rack photo, a review, or a friend who won't stop talking about his Schwerkraftmaschine. At some point you want to know who is behind it.
Short version: I'm Michael Krusch. Sound engineer. Since 2005 I have been building analog studio hardware in Berlin-Tegel, the district the company is named after. Compressors, equalizers, a tube reverb, 500-series modules. The company is small, on purpose. No corporation, no call center between you and the workshop. Short paths.
Why I do this
Aren't we all after that one sound? One guy spends the whole night on his synthesizer. Another moves the microphone an inch at a time.
What has always fascinated me is taking the raw signal from a microphone and turning it into that sound. The sound that carries what was actually felt in the room when the take happened, and brings it to the listener.
You can build a device that stays out of the way: as neutral as possible, the noise of the electrons hidden, every control you can fit on the panel. That was never what I wanted to build. I couldn't build a device in good conscience that leaves the sound as it is, or changes it without making it better.
Electronics is physics. But when it brings an artist's music a step closer to what they heard in their head, it becomes part of the art.
When I sit in a studio and hear a great song, mixed by a great engineer, running through one of my devices, I know exactly why I do this.
How it started
As a teenager I built synthesizer modules to extend a home computer and an analog drum machine. Then came years of working as a sound engineer. Then the electronics bug came back, and I started rebuilding the classics. Rebuilding wasn't enough. I changed them, extended them, and listened, again and again, in my own studio.
Friends and studio colleagues asked for units. Then strangers, by email. In 2005 that became Tegeler Audio Manufaktur. In 2006 the first devices went out to the magazines: the Vari Tube Compressor, the Classic Tube Equalizer, the Tube Recording Channel, the Tube Summing Mixer and the Magnetismus. The Creme came in 2012. And in 2021 the blue turned green. That story is here.
Analog hardware you can recall
For years the strongest argument against analog outboard had nothing to do with sound. It was recall. A client wants one more change, and you're digging out recall sheets and photos of knob positions.
In 2016 the Schwerkraftmaschine became our first device with motorized pots, an Ethernet port and its own plug-in. The audio path stays analog. The plug-in saves the settings with your DAW session. Open the session again, and the motors drive every knob back to where you left it. No sheets, no photos, no guessing.
“Analog hardware digitally controlled from your DAW plugin ... an absolutely brilliant idea!”
Bill Schnee, producer and engineer
The Raumzeitmaschine and the Creme RC followed the same idea. Why Ethernet and not USB? I wrote that down here.
Built in Tegel. Tested next door.
Every Tegeler device is built by hand at Weststraße 1 in Berlin-Tegel. It gets measured on the bench, then it runs in the studio next door under real production conditions before it leaves the house.
You'll meet me at trade shows. And you can come to Tegel: pick up your device, have a coffee, ask what you want to ask. Just let us know beforehand, so we have time for you.
Who works with it
Al Schmitt called the Schwerkraftmaschine his new favorite piece of gear and mixed with it at Capitol Studios. Nightmares on Wax keeps the Creme on his mix bus. Conrado Ruther mixes Sepultura live through the Creme RC.
Readers of Sound On Sound voted the Schwerkraftmaschine Best New Effects & Processing Hardware 2018. Pro Tools Expert gave it their first ever hardware Editor's Choice Award in 2017. Today you'll find Tegeler dealers on five continents.
Hear it yourself
Words about sound are cheap, mine included. Pick a device, run it in your own studio for 14 days, then decide. If it doesn't do what you hoped, send it back.
