Using a new Audient iD22 USB AD/DA interface and monitoring system to record lead vocals, songwriter/record producer Paul O’Duffy cites transparency and ease of use as key considerations: ‘I don’t want to hear it colouring the sound too much,’ he says.

‘I want the flexibility to colour the sound elsewhere post or pre,’ he continues. ‘The iD22 is very clean to record through, as is the monitoring output options which has gotten rid of my external monitor selector, giving me a direct, truer signal path to my KRK VXT8 monitors and my old NS10s.’

This all takes place in O’Duffy’s north London studio, which he uses primarily for writing, recording vocals, mixing, keys and guitars as well as smaller overdubs.

With a back catalogue of credits that include John Barry, Dusty Springfield, Was Not Was and Amy Winehouse, and new projects incvolving Ella Eyre, Charlotte OC, Will Heard and Purple Ferdinand, O’Duffy’s work brings varied challenges.

‘When deciding to upgrade my interface I made a short list of the main features most important to me: clean sounding class-A preamps, a minimum of two multi inputs and a balanced insert point for external analogue compression/FX before digital conversion, Adat lightpipe to connect to my analogue setup for more inputs when required and a balanced monitor output if possible – and the given of very low latency. The iD22 offers all of that in one sweet little box, yes there are some others (competitors) that are close in spec on some features and functionality, but not all had what I was looking for in the same box. This more than meets my requirements.’

‘I’m in-the-box as much as I can be these days,’ he continues. ‘It gives me the flexibility to take a project elsewhere and recreate my set-up fairly easily. For the first time recently, I found myself comping performances in my laptop on a plane and wondered how much gear would I have needed to do the same thing 20 years earlier? A lot – and my own jet…

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