The Leipzig branch of the SAE Institute has given its Studio 2 an overhaul, including upgrading its mixing console from a Neve VR Legend to a 36-channel Audient ASP8024 Heritage Edition with patchbay and Dual Layer Control.
‘It was not an easy decision to part from that old lady,’ says Audio Head Leo Baron, referring to the Audient’s 30 year-old predecessor. ‘Yet it was not until I started using the Heritage Edition that I realised how convenient it can be to work on a fully functional piece of gear – no missing channel strips waiting for repair, no dicky potentiometers… But in an educational environment like this, sometimes a desk simply needs to be reliable and working, which is exactly how it is with the Audient.’
Feedback form colleagues after recording a song to get tracks for their classes accords with Baron’s impressions: ‘They told me afterwards that working on the ASP8024-HE was a piece of cake,’ he says, citing the microphone preamps and EQs as stand-out features. ‘Reliability and clean design make it extremely useable. Everything does exactly what it is supposed to.
‘Besides the analogue sound, I also like having controls and real faders at my fingertips,’ he continues. ‘An education in the audio engineering sector would not be complete having only covered the analogue or digital domain. You need both to be able to combine them in the way that suits your application.
‘A mistake that I see a lot of young engineers make, is to look at a screen with their eyes permanently on FFT analyser tools and fancy graphic plug-in surfaces, rather than using their ears and actually listen to what they are doing. Of course, being able to pop hundreds of plug-ins onto all the DAW tracks is great, but some people forget that simply adjusting a good compressor and EQ correctly could do the job just as well (and quite possibly in less time). One of the things I like about the Audient console is the EQ section; it simply gets you to the expected result in no time.’
Baron tailored the new desk to the studio’s needs by taking advantage of Audient’s bespoke layout option. Top of his list was the DLC module, which integrates with the DAW and provides hands-on control.
‘The patchbay is mandatory in an educational environment, especially when flexibility is an important factor,’ he explains. ‘We even got a double arm rest, which turned out to be really comfortable to have it twice as wide.’
Students graduate to Studio 2 after using smaller digital environments and have learning how to mic up a whole band. ‘In these advanced courses they need to know how to get the right sound. At this stage they need to be able to be very flexible depending on what the project demands. They can either decide to work completely in-the-box using DAW automation, plug-ins or to get the “real thing” with full analogue processing, a desk full of signals with literally every fader to hand and make the song breathe with valve sound. Or even a hybrid with a combination of both worlds. They have all the possibilities. This is the whole point of Studio 2 – not being limited, but rather figuring out what approach is appropriate for the desired outcome.’
