Links to manufacturers of the best music gear that Rik uses (and loves!) in the studio, along with some of his comments.

Ableton Live One of my favourite DAWS, fast and intuitive.
Apple Logic becomes more powerful and fun to use with every incarnation.
Arturia The best emulations of vintage synths, recently developing hardware analogue mono synths too.
Aston Microphones A British mic company that draws on classic concepts but with an entirely new twist.
Audio Ease Altiverb has redefined the concept of plugin convolution reverb.
Augspurger Speakers The next level of speaker design, nothing can prepare you for how big and clear these speakers sound
Barefoot Speakers Loud, proud and detailed, I hate working without them.
Celemony Melodyne is the most creative pitch manipulator there is.
Echofix The Space Echo lives again! What a wonderful tape echo.
Elektron Makers of hardware synths, drum machines, samplers and effects, great performance options and Swedish style
Eventide Harmonisers and reverbs of unequalled quality (their H9 pedal is excellent)..
Exponential Audio The best algorithmic reverbs there are, luscious.
IK Multimedia Amplitube is still a great amp emulation after all these years and IK's other instruments are great too (Modo and Sampletank in particular).
KMI Instruments These guys make amazing MIDI controllers, very expressive when playing drums and keyboards.
Kush Audio Great hardware and software, units full of character. I'm putting UBK-1 on everything currently.
Izotope I love all their products; RX, Neutron and Ozone in particular.
Maag Ok, these guys have this thing called the Air Band on their boxes that adds life and excitement, I love it!
Modartt Pianoteq is a thing of wonder, it's a software piano but because it models the sound rather than uses samples you can literally defy physics and, if you want, make a piano that's 50 foot long.
Moog The original East Coast synth makers have evolved with the times and continue to make great synths.
Native Instruments These guys can't go wrong, amazing synths, samplers, drum machines and fx.
Output I don't understand how they do it, they make sampler packs that push the boundaries and make stuff sounds current and real.
Slate Digital These guys have gone from strength to strength, amazing tape and compressor emulations, drum triggers and also harden, mics with virtual modelling and touch screens!
Solid State Logic The UK console old guard are as innovative as ever.
Teenage Engineering Hardware synths and sound making devices from Sweden, great fun to use and sound cool
Thermionic Culture Another classic British sound shaper. Valve mic amps + distortion + musical tone control = CHARACTER!
UDG Cases Everyone needs to carry their gear around in cool cases, these are them...
Universal Audio Great hardware and software, the latter of which are the most authentic emulations of vintage gear around. Mic Amps, eq's, compressors, tape delays, reverbs.... all amazing.
UVI Software analogue synth emulations, sample libraries and effects, wide ranging and all incredible sounding.
Zynaptic Mad, left field effects from another realm.