‘If I were to design a console, this is exactly how I would do it,’ says Stu Welsh, owner of new Plymouth (UK) studio, Beliefspace. ‘I built a digital studio with an analogue heart – ‘I knew Audient from reputation and the ASP4816 fitted my needs exactly.’
The role of studio owner joins Welsh’s duties as Audio & Music Production course leader at dBs Music recording school. In fact, it was after he had tried the desk at a workshop at dBs Music that he knew he’d found the centrepiece for his studio.
‘Routing is absolutely key for me,’ he explains. ‘The console needed to be able to handle both a DAW signal path and a purely analogue signal path, which it does with ease. The I/O on the ASP4816 is phenomenal, especially for a console in this price bracket and, if the routing hadn’t swayed me, the foldback and monitoring sections would have.’
With the key features of a large-format recording console, the compact, cost-effective ASP4816 features Audient’s characteristic design and analogue circuitry. ‘I prefer to work on the board, out of the computer,’ Welsh continues. ‘Personally, I feel that the tactile nature of mixing on a console, using your ears more than your eyes (something that I am guilty of when mixing on computer) puts you more in touch with the music.’
Walsh readily acknowledges the encouragement and support – as well as donation of recording gear – made by dBs Music colleagues Ray Hendriksen and Leo Brown. ‘We have one the best microphone collections in the Southwest,’ he reports. ‘More than 40 microphones, new and vintage. We also have Ampex MM1200 24-track, 2-inch machine. Every mix is a performance, it’s great to get the artist/s involved in muting channels, panning and pushing up faders on a mix down because they feel much more involved in the mixing process.
The ASP4816 was supplied by Academia Music, a UK-based company specialising in audio technology for education.
With the studio’s first recording session in scheduled for the end of August (2012) and Hendriksen (who has worked with Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, Mick Ronson, John Entwistle and Greg Lake) joining him on the project, the stakes are high. So who will be the first artist to record at Beliefspace Studio? ‘It’s my wife’s group, The Lena Smith band.’
No pressure, then…
More: www.beliefspacestudio.co.uk
more: www.dbsmusic.co.uk
More: www.academia.co.uk
More: www.audient.com
