After an introduction to Prism Sound technology through the Titan multichannel audio interface, production and mastering engineer Julio ‘Fragancia’ Abreu is about to add two further Prism Sound units to his US Fragancis Studio facility.

From New York City, where he studied music engineering at the Center for the Media Arts school, Fragancia initially pursued a career as a DJ and became a prominent figure in the Tri-State club scene. A move into studio production followed and, after setting up his own facility, he became established as a recording and mix engineer before moving into mastering in the early 2000s.

Now based in Miami, Fragancia is currently one of the most in-demand mastering engineers in the US, particularly among Latin music artists. He has worked with some of the biggest names in the genre including Bad Bunny, Henry Santos and Don Omar, and has been nominated for numerous accolades and awards including a Latin Grammy, two Tally Television Awards and a Latin Billboard Award for Mastering, which he won in 2006.

‘I had my eye on a Prism Sound converter quite a while before I actually bought one, Fragancia says. ‘I’d heard about them and knew many well-known mastering facilities were using Prism Sound Dream ADA-8XR and Dream AD-2s, but I didn’t take the plunge until the company came out with the Titan. At that point I decided it was time to buy because eight channels of great conversion at an excellent price point was a no brainer.’

Although he has used many good converters over the years, the Titan’s channel count made it a good match for the stem mastering projects he is increasingly tackling. ‘It is definitely the unit for the job,’ he says. ‘The sound quality is insane. It is ultra-clear and when you clip the converters it handles very well - not like others that distort and crack in an unpleasant way.’

Designed to offer high-quality analogue and digital I/O for Mac or Windows PCs, Prism Sound’s Titan delivers sample rates of up to 192kHz via a simple USB interface. It is a popular converter among recording professionals who use external hardware devices such as Pro Tools but want easy access to Prism Sound’s internationally acclaimed high quality audio. Titan offers all the award-winning features of the company’s competitively priced Orpheus, but with USB connectivity and an MDIO interface expansion slot that allows for direct connection to Pro Tools HDX systems.

As a mastering engineer, Fragancia says his signal flow is relatively simple and mainly involved playing mixes from Pro Tools and, if necessary, manipulating them in-the-box with corrective software or plug-ins. He then uses his Prism Sound Titan to come out of Pro Tools and into an analogue Dangerous Music Master Transfer Console.

‘This connects my two compressors (Rupert Neve Portico II Master Buss Processor and Manley Variable Mu) and my two Equalizers (Maselec MEA-2 & Manley Massive Passive),’ he says. ‘Once all analogue processing is done, the audio goes into the Titan and I clip the converter a bit to get the beautiful punch and loudness that Prism Sound is known for.’

Fragancia completes the process by capturing everything in Pro Tools so that he can print WAV Masters. ‘At the moment I’m using Pro Tools Native for playback and printing but, lucky for me, I recently picked up a HDX PCIe card that works perfectly with the Titan’s HDX card port. It’s a match made in heaven,’ he says.

Since installing Titan, Fragancia has used it on many mastering projects, including the single ‘El Amor es Una Moda’ by Latin artists Don Omar, Alcover and Juan Magan, which was nominated for a 2021 Latin Grammy in the Best Urban Fusion Performance category.

Currently, he is working on diverse projects across numerous genres with artists from New York, Los Angeles, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Ghana, Jamaica and Canada. He is also about to add two Prism Sound Atlas converters, complete with Dante cards, to his tracking and mixing studio.

‘I’m glad I decided to go with the Prism Sound Titan,’ he says. ‘It was the right choice, and I don’t regret it at all.’

More: www.prismsound.com