The first Audient Heritage console to be commissioned in Austria is now up and running in Stefan Sobolak’s Eastendrecords studio inVienna.

‘I used to work with a big analogue console and a whole host of outboard gear in a large suburban room in Vienna back in the noughties, but that place was razed to the ground. At the time I capitalised on the situation, changing my approach of producing to working in the box – and freelance. It was no substitute though, and I always wanted to go back to working with a desk.’

The large-format ASP8024 Heritage Edition analogue desk now sits at the centre of rgw facility: ‘For me the Audient ASP8024-HE is a step up, as well as a step back in time to the way consoles used to be: offering great audio with enough routing to be the centre of the studio. I like the desk very much,’ Sobolak says.

‘The most powerful feature is the quality of the signal chains, which are incredibly clean and give me a platform to build something great. It’s still so much easier mixing on a solid, large format desk when trying to deal with dynamics.’

Sobolak’s opinion is shared by a friend who works on classic broadcasts at national radio station ORF Ö1, who was ‘just as amazed as I was by the quality of the sound’, and a producer colleague has already expressed an interest in mixing his latest release at Eastendrecords.

Having finally found a home for all his writing and production work after years of outsourcing, improvising and being flexible, Sobolak says: ‘It was a great learning curve, but I wanted a stable working environment which would give me top signal chain and an easy, reliable workflow, with a perfect listening environment in a chilled place. The Audient ASP8024-HE certainly plays a very big factor in that, giving me the reliable sound and flexibility of a large format desk at a reasonable price.’

He is now eager to get on ‘writing and producing great music’, including some songs which are to be pitched in LA this year and a German pop production for release on his own label.