Hello and welcome to our Website! Unreal has been around since early 2000, but it’s only recently that we decided to build a website. “Why” you ask? Because a. we are not very good at marketing, and b. only being good at marketing is not good.

Most people rush and advertise everything just after they’ve created it. While that might be appropriate for a videoclip and might help bring in the initial clientele, it is somewhat indecent (provided that this company is newly founded). You are not gonna state that “we are just starting out, please give us a chance”. NOOOOO, you are gonna say “fuck yeah we are the best, we have the best equipment, the best acoustics, trust us, millions of years of experience, package deals blah blah”.

It’s all bullshit. A lie.

When we started out we had some knowledge, NO experience whatsoever in making records (and no mentors for that matter), and no money. Just love for music and the technicalities surrounding its capturing and reproduction. Instinctively, we never even mentioned that we should build a website or print out calling cards etc, because there was nothing TO advertise. We would have to lie. In the long run, that is not gonna help your studio. Your work will speak for itself, and people will judge accordingly.

So here we are, almost 12 years later. We have lots of experience in making records, we are huge sound nerds, but we still don’t lie. We are not good at all kinds of music, just the ones we like or respect. We don’t do everything. We are engineers. And you know what? This has helped us tremendously. People respect that. You can’t be GREAT at everything. You might be “good”, yes, but “good” is not gonna cut it when making records. That is why there are Recording engineers, Producers, Mixing Engineers, Assistants, Editors, Studio managers, Studio Techs etc. You can only wear so many hats before looking silly. Now, there are obvious exceptions to the rule but more often than not, these guys are OLD. They’ve had the time to refine all of their skills. Maybe in 10 years from now we might be like that too, maybe not, who knows. Specialization is the word.

Our myspace page reads:

“No, we do not presume to have the best equipment available to modern man. They do. We also do not have the best acoustics They do. We also don’t have a bar. What we DO have though, is really good equipment, really good vibe, and huge amounts of technical knowledge. Combine that with passion for our craft, and the “never say no” attitude, and you have Unreal. We do not act as producers, nor do we like ourselves being called producers. On occasion, we do take production decisions, but that does not a producer make. We are sound engineers, and our aesthetics revolve around shaping sound. Name is of course inspired by unlimited hours of playing Unreal Tournament, back in the years when there was little to worry about. It also kind of describes the “unreal” way of building up the whole thing from scratch. What Unreal is today, is an outcome of long hours of study, monstrous DIY and careful picking of kick-ass equipment. We can do: multitrack recording, mixing, midi programming, (rarely) mastering and (if we like you very much, which happens rarely) rehearsals.”

This pretty much still stands. Although these days we have a great control room in terms of translation, damn good gear and we take many more production decisions. We just don’t like to call it that. The word “producer” has been associated with many hacks and “knowitalls”. Come to think of it, so has the word “Sound Engineer”. Damn.

The reason for this website is twofold. First and foremost, to make us rich! Second, to act as a kind of database for our equipment, and our views on their functionality and sound. We hope that this might provide a more interesting experience than the usual equipment list.

Enjoy.