Producer, mixer and engineer Simon Hanhart recently took a Focusrite Red 8Pre and two RedNet MP8R audio interfaces to London’s Air Studios complex. Working in Studio 1 – home to Focusrite’s original Rupert Neve-designed recording console modules – he explored the benefits of Audio-over-IP and a additional input channels while recording.
With credits including Marillion, David Bowie, the LSO and Yngwie Malmsteen, he set to work on a track called ‘Made of Paper’, written by Tim Harbour and featuring vocalist John Mitchell. Conductor Richard Cottle had arranged the piece for The London String Group and pianist Dominic Ferris.
’In a situation like this, you’re working with natural instruments that need to sound like they would sound if you were standing eight feet away from them,’ Hanhart says. ’You’ve got to capture that, so you don’t want anything in the way of that signal path.’
During the day, he explored the Red 8Pre’s performance: ‘It just works; it sounds great,’ he says. ‘You’re not even aware of it because it’s just translating what’s happening in the room straight into the machine,’ he says.
The unit was racked in the machine room, connected to a Mac-based Pro Tools HDX rig via DigiLink. Out in the live room were the RedNet MP8R interfaces, which were controlled by software in the control room. All the microphones for the 12-piece string section, piano and vocal went into the Focusrite mic pres, and were monitored through the vintage Neve console in the control room.
Having Dante in the recording was particularly useful: ‘It makes complete sense that you can network a number of different units together, particularly in a multi-studio facility like Air,’ Hanhart says. ’You want to make sure that you have one great set-up that can be accessed from a number of different production rooms or studio areas. It’s the next generation really.’
Hanhart owns a Red 8Pre, so everything was compatible when mixing the track at home: ‘I’m always aware that it would be nice to have a little mobile set-up, and of course I could take the Red 8Pre with me – and that would be a Thunderbolt situation,’ he said. ‘Having the options on connectivity is absolutely fantastic. It’s a unit that covers so many bases.’
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