For over ten years I promised I wouldn’t do it.
To over 100 of my best clients, I
promised I wouldn’t do it.
Regardless of the trend, the current ‘new thing', the latest whatever, I
promised I wouldn’t do it (just switch because everyone else was) …
But I also promised I would be listening and looking and
when the time was right I would consider doing it - convert from an analog studio to a
hybrid analog/digital studio.
Well,
something has happened …
New computers, new interfaces, new control surface, new mic pres and great new software! The answer is not one thing but the beautiful combination of these four, all of which needed to happen in a logical order for us to actually consider conversion. We are very pleased with
the conversion and the clients who graciously agreed to be our test subjects
have ended up with wonderful projects and are very pleased. I am very pleased. All of my session players are very
pleased and my equipment venders are very pleased!
We are currently running the newest version of Avid's Pro Tools, Pro Tools 10 and controlling all of the system functions with a new Digidesign C24 Control Surface. The C24 keeps us with 'hands on' the session and we can control up to 10 things at once (or more if we have more hands working the console) which is certainly an improvement over the 'one mouse click per function' way of working a session with just a mouse.
The sound of English (European) recording consoles is legendary. That sound was our goal! We brought the mic pre decision down to
the new Audient
ASP-008. We have three active rooms and two booths so we needed a minimum of
thirty two active microphone inputs at all times. I love the sound of ribbon microphones (and we have quite a few) and the demands on
the mic pre to drive a ribbon are well known and the Audient did the job with
room to spare! The variable
impedance and variable high pass filter on the Audient effectively tripled the size of
the mic locker. Vintage Mics that like a lower impedance are happy and
contemporary mics that can sail at 5K impedance are happier than they have been
in years.
In addition to the audient pre's we have added 16 channels of Rev. H mic pre's from Avid and the amazing Mindprint DTC, dual channel strip featuring high voltage mic pre's, optical comp/limiters and their unique parallel four band eq on each channel (which can be linked for stereo operation) and the glorious sound that only tubes can give you. The DTC is a pure class A analog tube based two channel Mic Preamp.
My concern about the quality of a2d conversion was solved with two things, the digital card option in
the Audient, and fiber optic I/O to Pro Tools.
Pro Tools 10
is an amazing product and with the addition of the Diamond Bundle of Waves Plugins,
and Logic 9 Pro installed (for those clients who are on the Logic platform) and a fully wireless backup
system in place, we are ready to handle any session - of any size in the studio.
The Mindprint DTC
Take a quick look at 'the studio tour' on the next page, check out one of our first videos (The GSM Hammond B3 Video) and call us to book your session !
I promised I wouldn’t do it … and I didn’t until everything was ready
…
The old console was de-commissioned, all of the modules
pulled and cleaned and then they were installed in a custom wall frame that
hangs as a diffuser behind the mix location in studio A. Cool !
Final Track Studios
402 Campbell Avenue
Roanoke, Va 24015
540-520-3167
