Seeking a new mixing desk for his cosy recording studio in the south of France, where he loves to record acoustic, jazz and pop music, owner of Les Fauteuils Rouges, Julien Lebart, alighted on Audient’s ASP4816. Running a hybrid studio, he was keen to maintain a good workflow with Pro Tools, so invested much time researching the right desk for his set-up. And from the moment he bought his Audient, he knew he’d made the right decision.
Lebart also commissioned bespoke studio furniture for his control room, roping in his friend, sound engineer Tom Chiesa to help build in the console, a DAW controller and a few additional mic preamps into the main worksurface. This way he has quick and easy access to Pro Tools transport control and the option to adjust levels of various tracks in the digital domain via the controller, while the ASP4816 is also in reach, doing all the heavy lifting of mixing audio in the analogue domain.
‘It’s perfect for tracking a music band,’ he says of the Audient desk. ‘The preamps are awesome – super clean but have character if we push them up. The EQs are also incredible and certainly good enough to use before Pro Tools when recording. This saves so much time.
‘I love to use the console for mixing too,’ he continues, often noting that clients’ favourite mix is the first version – the one that he did with the console. ‘I use buses to compress the entire drum, for example. The stereo bus compressor has something really special.’
It’s not just the sound that lifts his heart, though, he reckons that it looks the part too: ‘It really is a pleasure to see it when I come into the control room in the morning,’ he says. In addition to the control room, les fauteuils rouges comprises three recording rooms with a much-loved Schimmel baby grand piano enjoyed by jazz and classical musicians alike.
Originally, Les Fauteuils Rouges – directly translated as ‘the red armchairs’ – was owned privately by French singer, Cali, whose debut album l’amour parfait sold half a million copies back in 2003. Lebart (who was also his pianist) has continued to work with Cali, producing, mixing and songwriting with him over the years.
For the past ten years, it has been a commercial studio under Lebart’s command, with a number of notable artists passing through its doors – sitting metaphorically on the red armchairs. ‘We have the pleasure to record, mix and master famous French artists, including Eric Cantona, actor Tcheky Karyo, and of course a lot of others well known in France,’ he says.
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