Challenging the male-orientated stereotype of pro audio, the Women’s Audio Mission (WAM), a non-profit organisation that provides comprehensive training and job placement for women in the recording arts.
Over the past 12 years, WAM has trained more than 6,000 women in the technical disciples of audio and placed hundreds in prominent positions with artists and companies. WAM engineers and students have worked on award-winning recordings by Angelique Kidjo (2014 Grammy for Best World Music Album), the Grammy-winning Kronos Quartet and the Academy Award-nominated soundtrack to Dirty Wars.
Growth in its services has seen the WAM to outgrow its main training facility and so, with the help of supporters and the community, it recently purchased the former SF Soundworks recording studio where REM, Radiohead, Alanis Morissette and Timbaland have recorded. Since the new studio serves as both professional recording studio and training facility, WAM needed a mixing console that could meet both needs.
‘WAM is unique in that we are an educational organization but we also run a commercial recording studio,’ says WAM Executive Director, Terri Winston. ‘The 8024 is an amazing-sounding console but it is also really great to teach on. It’s very spacious, the channel path is intuitive, it has transparent mic pres and really great routing capabilities so that we can have very complex and multiple headphone mixes for musicians performing or working in multiple rooms.’
The ASP8024 is a premium recording and mixing console designed by David Dearden, which combines Audient’s analogue circuitry with DAW control and automation. Each of the input channels features proprietary class-A preamp and four-band EQ. The console features 24 bus routing, 12 auxes, two dedicated cue sends, four stereo returns, stereo bus compressor and a comprehensive monitor section.
‘I had used various DDA consoles so I was familiar with David Dearden’s console designs and was already a fan,’ Winston says of the choice. ‘WAM also had the pleasure of being booth neighbours with Audient at the last AES Convention, and I had a great time learning the inner workings of Audient with owner Simon Blackwood. I felt like WAM would be very well taken care of and my instincts were correct. It’s been a joy working with everyone at Audient and the console has been fantastic.’
For Laura Dean, WAM’s staff engineer and instructor, the console’s sound and flexibility is key: ‘The sound is transparent and modern, the routing options are powerful and it’s a great combination of minimal inline design with just the right amount of flexibility for current industry needs.’
More than 1,200 women and girls will learn audio production and recording arts on the ASP8024, plus an additional 80-100 independent artists will have projects recorded with the console in the coming year.
