Already being used to record tracks for Grammy Award-winning English electro-pop act La Roux’s third album, a Prism Sound Atlas audio interface is the latest addition the arsenal of producer Ian Sherwin.

Working in his West London project studio in, Sherwin has made Atlas the backbone of his current recording set-up: ‘My first impressions were really quite stunning,’ he says. ‘The difference when A/Bing between that and my old Avid Omni interface – which I’d always regarded as a reasonably decent converter – was almost incomprehensible. I literally felt as though I was switching between 24/96k and YouTube. By using the Atlas, we can now hear more and therefore achieve more in terms of the standard of music we’re producing.’

Formed in 2006 by singer Elly Jackson and record producer Ben Langmaid, La Roux released its eponymous first album in 2009 to huge critical acclaim. After notching up a Grammy for Best Electronic/Dance Album, the pair began recording a second album but ran into difficulties that led to Langmaid leaving the group and Jackson continuing alone.

With Sherwin having worked an engineer on the first La Roux album as well as being involved at the start of the second, Jackson felt it was natural to continue recording with him as co-producer and, eventually, co-writer. Their efforts resulted in Trouble in Paradise, described by Jackson as ‘warmer’ and ‘sexier’ than La Roux’s debut.

‘We recorded a large part of the second album in a pop up studio in Devon,’ Sherwin says. ‘It was very much a guerrilla recording project with both of us playing different instruments and really enjoying the creativity of the space and the ideas flowing between us. This approach now forms the basis of how we operate. We like working in unconventional spaces and taking our time so that we get the sound Elly really wants.’

Sherwin’s quest for audio quality led him to Prism Sound – a marque he knew from using the company’s flagship ADA-8XR Multichannel converters in commercial recording facilities.

‘La Roux is not the kind of act where you spend two weeks in a studio and come out with an album – it’s much more of a free flowing, cumulative process than that,’ Sherwin says. ‘Our approach to recording is very flexible, but that doesn’t mean we want to compromise on audio quality. We still want to produce studio quality recordings, even when we are not in a studio, and this is what Atlas allows us to achieve.’

Atlas is a multichannel USB audio interface that is compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms. Once configured with a computer, it can operate stand-alone using its Adat, SPDIF or AES3 I/O. As well as the built-in inputs and outputs, Atlas can accommodate other optional digital interfaces such as Pro Tools HDX and AES3 multichannel options through an MDIO expansion slot.

‘What really impresses me about Atlas, beyond all the things I expected to hear such as an improvement in clarity and the depth and width of the soundstage, is how rhythmically succinct it is. It’s not that everything necessarily feels tighter; it’s more that what I’m hearing is so much more revealing in terms of what’s going on groove-wise. Tracks where I had felt we’d got the feel really right confidently bop along, whereas tracks that I knew still needed some work now sound almost worse than they were before.... but, crucially, in a way that identifies the problems. In others words it’s going to make it a whole lot easier to fix or redo those parts.’

Sherwin is currently using Atlas to capture demo material for the new album, with Jackson performing in a variety of different settings where she feels comfortable and relaxed.

‘Even though these are supposed to be demos, the quality is so good that everything we’re capturing is ultimately useable,’ Sherwin adds. ‘Atlas is such a cool interface and having eight inputs at my fingertips means I can reliable record a performance wherever we are.’

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