With a name won during his days as a battle DJ, Busy has transferred his TrueBusyness Studio operation from Bad Oeynhausen to Berlin and brought in a 48-input Solid State Logic AWS 948 console as the centrepiece of the new recording/mix studio. The studio also houses an SSL X-Rack stocked with E and K Series EQs and dynamics.

Dubbed ‘New York’ to reflect his favourite music, the facility is the new home to his work as a mastering engineer where he will continue to work under his real name – Sascha Bühren – across a wide variety of genres and artists, such as seed, Unheilig, Max Herre, Gentleman and Rea Garvey.

Bühren, owns TrueBusyness with his wife, Laura, and expanded the studio by 190-sq-m into a neighbuoring studio to accommodate a comprehensive new recording/mix studio in 214. ‘We knew the rooms, their sound and the vibe,’ he says. ‘It was the perfect match to blend with our mastering house. After that, choosing a console was easy. From the time I started as an audio professional, I wanted to own an SSL console, and the AWS is the perfect pairing of a great-sounding console in a well-treated control room.’

Bühren particularly likes the AWS’s integration of Pro Tools and other applications: ‘Now I can work in-the-box outside, which gives any digital production a 100 per cent analogue feel, ’ he says. ‘Summing on a real console with 48 channels totally blew me away. You cannot compare it to the old method-I just don’t want to go back, period.’

The control offered by the AWS is also essential: ‘Fast decisions in critical situations can be a lifesaver, and with the size of the console, you can reach all knobs and faders quickly, without leaving the sweet spot.

‘We wanted a high-class facility for anyone that wants the SSL sound, surrounded by a friendly atmosphere where creativity comes before business,’ he adds. ‘The sound of SSL tells a story like no other console in the world, and our clients agree. Sometimes they just sit and listen, as though they had never heard music before.’