A few weeks before beginning a TV shoot in New Orleans, actor Mike Chiklis sat down with his new 24-channel Audient ASP8024 mixing console to record a few music tracks.

Better known for his acting career than for his Los Angeles studio, Chiklis put shooting the television series, American Horror Story: Freak Show, on hold to record a cover of a Police song just to test the system. ‘It really went beautifully,’ he reports.

‘Very basic bass, drums, guitar and vocal tracks sounded warm and clean through the mic pres,’ he continues. ‘In fact, I’m very impressed just how good everything sounds with no compression or effects, just solid musicianship captured with Bob Heil mics through the Audient pres into Pro Tools 11.

Chiklis grew up in a musical family and is himself an accomplished drummer and vocalist, and also plays guitar and bass with his band, MCB.

‘I am over the moon with this console,’ he enthuses ‘I even engineered one of the songs myself. I am definitely not an engineer but between the intuitive lay out of the board and the relatively self-explanatory new Pro Tools 11 HD, I was able to do it – the tracks sound amazing.’

The British-made desk uses Dual Layer Control module, allowing the console to operate in both the analogue and digital domain.

‘The three engineers that I work with can’t wait to really put the console through its paces,’ Chiklis adds. ‘They seem to all be very impressed with the clean, simplicity of its layout as well as its warm analogue sound. I have a number of incredible musicians waiting in the wings to lay down tracks as soon as we are up and running.

‘I’m very excited to start recording originals now. We have some soundproofing and trapping tweaks to finish, but we’re essentially ready to go at this point and now it’s all about the music.’