Among South Africa’s most sought-after composers, producers, arrangers, audio engineers and sound designers, Adam Howard is the man behind Howard Audio. When the lease came up on his long-time studio space, Howard seized the opportunity to upsize. He hired Jacob van der Westhuizen (CEO of Benjamin Pro Audio) to design and coordinate the construction of a new studio that would meet and anticipate growing needs. In the process, he had the opportunity to select new equipment, which included new converters.

‘Jacob and I listened carefully to all of the big-name, high-end converters and Metric Halo’s LIO-8’s AD and DA converters, as well as its optional preamps, came out on top,’ he says. ‘Although I have plenty of vintage outboard preamps, I’ve found that I commonly opt for the Metric Halo preamps. They have a very flat, very real sound. In fact, with good mic placement and the clean Metric Halo signal path, I can often capture voice and guitar tracks that require absolutely no subsequent EQ.’

‘Designing Howard Audio’s new studio from scratch was a great experience,’ says van der Westhuizen. ‘We gave them one large control room associated with an acoustically stunning live room, plus two adjoining vocal booths that could be associated either with the main live room and control room or with either of two other smaller control rooms. It’s a very flexible design that allows Adam and his employees to tackle multiple smaller projects at the same time or to concentrate all of the studio’s resources for large tracking sessions. The comfort and style of the client accommodations is also noteworthy.’