OUR STUDIO & STORY / NAGAOKA, JAPAN
The studio
behind the sound.
We make music.
And the tools we want to make it with.
01 / ONE CONTINUING PRACTICE
Recording. Hardware.
Plugins.
A microphone in front of an instrument. A mix that needs one last adjustment. A piece of hardware that changes how a performance feels.
These are the everyday questions behind AMATERAS. We record, mix and master music, design audio hardware, and develop plugins for the work we do.
That experience shapes both the sound of our tools and the way you use them. Great sound matters. So does being able to get there without losing the thread of an idea.
02 / TOMONOBU HARA
A music maker.
An engineer.
The person behind AMATERAS.
Founder · Recording & Mastering Engineer · Sugarfields
Tomonobu Hara has spent more than 30 years recording, mixing and mastering music. As Sugarfields, he also writes and records his own songs, taking them from the first idea to the finished master.
He founded Cafe au Label in 1997 and established its recording studio in Ayase, Tokyo. That studio work continues alongside AMATERAS Studio in Nagaoka.
Designing audio hardware and developing plugins are part of the same practice: finding tools that help a piece of music become what it wants to be.
Hear the music of Sugarfields →03 / AMATERAS STUDIO NAGAOKA
A place to listen.
A place to make.
In Nagaoka, Niigata, the studio occupies a former saw factory run by Hara’s grandfather. A family space for making things has become a place for making music.
Today, the room brings together a grand piano, drums, guitars, microphones and recording equipment. AMATERAS hardware is part of the studio’s setup, connecting the tools we design with the work they are made for.
The studio hosts recording, mixing and mastering work. This is the setting behind the name on your plugin.
04 / FROM OUR STUDIO TO YOURS
Choose the tool.
Make it your own.
Our hardware and plugins come from the same commitment to listening. Each solves a different problem, with controls that keep the music within reach.
You bring the ideas, the performance and the final judgement. We make tools to help you carry them through.