Relocating his Hinge Studios from Chicago to Los Angeles gave producer Craig Bauer an ideal opportunity to make some changes to the studio setup and workflow.
Having been located in Chicago – where he worked with the likes of Kanye West, The Clark Sisters, Justin Timberlake and Kurt Elling – over 20 years, one of the improvements he has made is adopting a DAD AX32 AD/DA converter, multichannel preamp, monitor controller and audio router from NTP Technology.
The unit plays a central role in the new studio design: ‘I conducted an extensive shootout of various converters and the AX32 became the clear winner,’ he says. ‘And not only in terms of the ‘sound’ of the conversion, but also the amount of flexibility the AX32 offered for my Pro Tools rig.’
Mixing ‘in-the-box’ allows Bauer to create a studio setup where he can control everything hands-on from his Avid S6, and via the Eucon control protocol the AX32 and S6 integration happens seamlessly: ‘I have fitted my AX32 with AD cards, each with eight microphone preamps, and being able to control every parameter of the mic pres directly from the S6 surface is perfection,’ he says. ‘I never have to leave the centre position or turn my back to the speakers to adjust a parameter. Further, integrating the AX32 Pro Mon monitor controller license for complete control of my monitors, cue and talkback directly from the surface is indispensable.’
Adding Dante AoIP option was also a game-changer at the Hinge Studios setup: ‘The flexibility in Dante combined with the DAD software is very powerful, and it solved a long-standing annoyance as well,’ Bauer reports. ‘I can now route audio directly from my Mac into my control room monitors without having to quit or change anything in other audio applications while mixing. Subsequently, I can reference a track from a streaming site, iTunes, or browser simply by selecting a different monitor path from my S6. That’s not just a small thing in terms of my daily workflow, that’s huge.’
More: www.digitalaudio.dk
