A collective of producers, songwriters, musicians and publishers, MidCoast Music headquartered on the shores of the Great Lakes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. With 20-plus years in the production music business, production credits stretching back to the 1970s, and catalogues with industry powerhouse Warner/Chappell Production Music, MidCoast Music has carved out a niche delivering material for a range of genres for television, film and online.

In addition to its core group of musicians, MidCoast Music draws on a talent pool that includes Matt Sorum (Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver), Robben Ford (Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis), Joe Bonamassa, Roscoe Beck (Leonard Cohen), Jon Cleary (Michael Jackson), Victor De Lorenzo (Violent Femmes), and countless others, and it has credits with every major network and shos from the Academy Awards to the Super Bowl.

MidCoast Music owner, executive producer and guitarist Chris Hanson keeps busy recording new material in the collective’s studio and on location around Milwaukee, the Midwest, and the nation.

‘We have two main catalogues at – MidCoast Music Artist Songs and the MidCoast Wired Catalog,’ he explains. ‘The Artist Songs Catalog features artists and bands who have a life outside the world of production music, and we work with them to craft and record material that satisfies the requirements for production music while retaining the soul of their original creations. The Wired Catalog is more traditional production music created by composers with production music in mind at the outset. I end up recording a lot of the music in our catalogs and have worked with everything from singer-songwriters to traditional rock combos to full orchestras in every imaginable genre.’

Both in the studio and on the road, Hanson relies on Metric Halo hardware A/D and D/A conversion, preamps and Production Bundle plug-ins. In fact, he built the studio around Metric Halo conversion using four LIO-8 converters, a ULN-8 preamp/converter, a 2882 interface and a ULN-2 preamp/converter. The ULN-8, 2882, and ULN-2 regularly travel with him for remote recordings, and two of the LIO-8s are ready to travel as well for remote sessions that require large channel counts.

‘All of the Metric Halo interfaces work with all of the major DAWs, which is critical because we regularly bounce back and forth between Digital Performer, Pro Tools, Logic, soundBlade and even Cubase,’ Hanson says. ‘That’s especially appreciated for our remote sessions, where we have plenty of other things to worry about. Having a solid Metric Halo interface that works every time makes it possible to focus on the performance and the sound – not the technical details. In addition, I love Metric Halo’s preamps – they stand up there with our high-end hardware preamps back at the studio.’

After many years using other converters, Hanson went all-in on Metric Halo for MidCoast Music’s studio: ‘I suspect I’m not the only person who has built out a studio around Metric Halo conversion,’ he says. ‘It’s just so damn good.

‘The first time I stemmed out a mix through Metric Halo, my jaw dropped. This is the very best hybrid analogue/digital studio solution I’ve ever heard.’ Hanson pairs the Metric Halo hardware with analogue processors, especially Manley gear. His usual studio workflow involves primarily Manley preamps fed through the Metric Halo converters and into whichever DAW makes sense for a given project.

He uses Metric Halo Production Bundle plug-ins in the studio and especially on remote sessions, where bringing extra hardware is a burden. ‘Metric Halo plug-ins are really indispensible,’ he says. ‘I know a lot of manufacturers are coming out with a lot of great plug-ins these days, but when push comes to shove and I have to get the job done and done well, the Metric Halo versions do everything the other guys do and more – and Metric Halo does it with better sound and functionality.

‘I’ve been using Metric Halo ChannelStrip since it came out in 1998,’ he contines. ‘I love that the frequencies aren’t over-hyped. I can really shape the sound without colouring it, although it’s capable of colouring the sound as well. Really, you could put me on a desert island with just a Metric Halo ULN-8, Metric Halo ChannelStrip, and a couple of good microphones and I’d basically be able to do what I do in the studio. In fact, I did exactly that at a vacation cottage here in Wisconsin.’

He cites Metric Halo Character’s ability to add subtle distortions to a track and hold a mix together: ‘Metric Halo TransientControl is the best transient plug-in on the market – it’s punchier and more articulate than the other leading plug-ins. I’m also a big fan of using Metric Halo Multiband Expander to do frequency-sensitive noise reduction.’

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