Studer A80 mk. II

Peter Gabriel had a Studer A80 tape recorder at his home studio. This was one of two Studer A80's, the other being one modified by Colin Broad.

The stock A80 replaced the Lyrec TR532 during the early stages of the So album in early 1985. The modified A80 (known as the "B" machine) was for Peter to record his basic tracks, while this machine (the "A" machine was for recording other musicians' contributions (including band takes) and was synchronised to the other machine. However, problems arose upon the discovery both machines have different audio cards, and this led to the Adams-Smith synchroniser sending the wrong signals to the "B" machine and the two machines would end up drifting apart in terms of speed. This problem would be overcome with the introduction of the Mitsubishi digital 32-track, so parts can be hand-synchronised when copying parts from different slave reels onto the digital master.