The Campus of Performing Arts (COPA) in Johannesburg has installed an Allen & Heath GS-R24 Firewire recording mixer in its main recording studio. The desk will serve as a teaching console as well as being used to manage music students’ projects..

‘I needed a mixer to satisfy my students’ obsession for all things digital, and to teach them the value of what they call “old school”,’ says COPA production head, Neill Pash. ‘Enter the GS-R24, new kid on the block and what I believe to be the future of modern recording consoles.

‘Everything the modern day producer and musician needs has been included in this little gem: musical fully parametric EQ, two great-sounding onboard valve preamps which also serve as instrument DIs, with onboard Midi control of your DAW including transport and plug-ins, automated flying faders (GSR24-M) and the flexibility to route your DAW effects or stereo outputs to the two stereo returns, or route your outboard effects, is just brilliant.’

The mixer has already seen action on the recording projects and demos of more than 400 of the college’s students, in music ranging from metal, rock, pop, hip-hop to jazz. The students have made taken advantage of the desk’s DAW and Midi control features, with drum-n-bass and electronic productions mixed in-the-box using the channel faders as controllers, back to the DAW, then back again through the onboard valve preamps.

‘This console is flexible and intuitive to use, has everything you need for today’s recording productions, and most of all, and as you would expect from Allen & Heath, it just sounds great,’ Pash says. ‘The students are so impressed many have bought the GSR’s little sister, the Zed-R16 Firewire for their home studios. The GSR is truly an all-round workhorse for any production studio.’

More: www.allen-heath.com