Focusrite Producer Pack

Time for another gear review! This time, we will be taking a look at the Focusrite Producer Pack (also known as the ISA430 Mk11). According to the Focusrite website, it is “the pinnacle of Focusrite’s analogue channel strip technology”. We are inclined to agree, we like it a lot and use it on many of our recordings here at the Rooms of Red Bull.

We’ve been using the Producer Pack mainly on vocals, with the likes of Esperanza and theFringe getting some time in on it, but we have also had the chance to use it on some instruments. A bass recording was the most successful experiment, and it was sounding pretty good!

Here, you can see an image of the back of the unit. This is slightly different to the one we have here in the studio, as ours does not include the digital card (seen on the upper left hand side of the picture).

The I/O

On the device itself, there are various inputs. A balanced line and mic input (both XLR) and two unbalanced instrument inputs, one on the back and the second on the front of the unit. The mic input has four different impedances to choose from: low, medium, high and ISA. We don’t use the post-mic output, instead we stick to the main output which goes to the Tascam DM-4800 (channel five, to be exact). There are also two sets of insert points (sends and returns) available for use in the strip: there is a manual on/off button for both of these.

Features

We use the ISA 430 MKII quite a lot in the RoRB studio, and we have found quite a few features that we like about this piece of kit. Lets start off with the gain stage. This has not one, but two gain knobs. The first is your average gain knob, which goes up in steps of 10dB, but the second allows you to fine tune between the steps on the first.

The EQ section is fairly straight-forward to begin with. It starts off with hi- and lo-pass filters followed by two parametric EQ’s: lo-mid and hi-mid, moving on to the lo- and hi-shelves. As with many modern EQ’s, the separate sections can be activated individually. This, we think, is a nice feature, but we are not so fond of the fact you have to press the ‘all EQ in’ button to get any of it to work (although it does come in handy for bypassing the whole EQ section at once when doing A-B comparisons). Because of its clear and precise layout, the EQ section allows you to get what you want pretty fast, and many of our engineers have commented on the nice sound of the EQ. One last highlight is the ability to use most of the EQ’s to trigger the dynamics section.

There are a couple of things we haven’t used yet on this device: the compressor and the expander/gate. The compressor has two circuits: a VCA and a vintage opto-electric circuit. You can place the compressor either before, or after the EQ section. We haven’t had much chance to use this compressor as our engineers generally compress after recording. However, it does a good job of preventing clipping when high-level signals are being recorded. The expander/gate presumably does what it says on the tin, and no doubt it is good at it’s job, as the rest of this device does things well.

From things we don’t use to something we frequently use, next on the list is the de-esser. This comes after the expander/gate and you can select which frequency band you want to de-ess, rather than only have one choice. It works well and is pretty transparent, which is always important to our engineers. It gives the results fast without compromising on sound quality.

Many devices nowadays have VU meters, they are a popular element of audio units across the board. This one can be set to several sources including input, output and compressor gain reduction.

All in all the Focusrite producer pack is a very clear sounding pre-amp with an extremely flexible and advanced channel strip. You can get hold of one from Thomann for €2275.

Tascam DM-4800 Digital Mixing Console

We are starting off our Gear Reviews with a look at our digital mixing console, the Tascam DM-4800. As I’m sure you all know, this is an important piece of kit in the studio. This desk can be used as more than just a mixing console though, it can be used as a live mixing console, recording console or any other audio routing purposes you may have in mind. The current price according to Thomann is €6500, with the optional extras of the meter bridge and FireWire card. However, you can buy just the desk for €5180 if you don’t want pretty lights on top or FireWire capabilities.

It has become quite popular since its release: it might be small and compact but it packs in more than its fair share of features. For those who are used to Mackie (or other brand) digital consoles, the menu layout of the DM-4800 can initially be very confusing. However, with a bit of time and effort, it soon becomes an intuitive desk to use. All our engineers are now very comfortable with working the desk, and even the coordinators have been having a go!

With all the inputs and preamps, there can be plenty of flexibility in what you do with the console. Although the on-board preamps are more than capable at doing their job, here in the SAE studio we have chosen to use some preamps in some channels: so we can get the best combination of all our gear. From channels one to four we have the Liquid 4Pre, channel five uses the Focusrite Producer Pack and for channels seventeen to twenty-four we use the Focusrite ISA 828. 48 of the modules can also have internal EQ’s and compressors on them.
A closer look at the inputs: there are 24 line-ins, the usual 2-track in, a built-in 8-channel ADAT, 4 DINs, 3 (optional) ADAT cards that handle 8 inputs each and 3 TDIFs. We may have missed something on here, but you get the point!

Normally, the DM-4800 is used in conjunction with Logic. However, we occasionally run Ableton and Reason through it too. It’s brilliant for mixing tracks, again because of all the great outboard gear we’ve been given to play with. There are also built in compressors and EQ’s, which can come in very handy for us. There are also two TC Electronics Multi-FX units built into the desk.

Some features that we really like about the DM-4800 are the FireWire card, the Remote layer and the automation engine. The FireWire card can send 24 channels to your chosen DAW (in our case, Logic Pro 8 ) and receive 32 channels. The Remote layer also concerns the DAW, as it lets you control whichever program you are working in on the desk. This is really useful for us when people want to use the desk a little bit, but aren’t confident enough to use equipment outside of Logic. The automation engine in the desk can be synced via MIDI Time Code to Logic and is capable of automating various parameters (such as sends, volume and panning).

Some other things that we have found useful are the 8 assignable ins and outs, and the channel ‘strip’ setup. The assignable ins/outs can be used to program inserts or feed reverb units as you would expect. However, they are very flexible and you can send/receive from most of the ports on the desk. This kind of flexibility is great if you have a complicated studio setup. Moving on to the channel strip layout, we find that this is also brilliantly laid out because of its adaptable nature. After the preamp, everything is soft so you can arrange the modules in whichever way you want. While not ideal for some, we think this creates extra creative opportunities in a studio like ours.
One last little thing we like is the meter bridge. It does what it says on the tin, but it also allows you to meter another layer of the desk whilst the fader banks etc are on another layer. For example, your meter bridge could be on channels 25-48 whilst the rest of the desk is on channels 1-24. Again, this just adds to the flexible nature of the desk. When you have a console with these kinds of capabilities, you have to appreciate all the hard work that has gone into creating it.

Overall, the versatility of this console means that we can quickly adapt to all our artist’s needs, which is essential for us when they have so little time in our studio. So, thank you Tascam for letting us use this fantastic piece of kit!

Gear Reviews

We will soon be adding reviews of the equipment we have here in the studio at the Rooms of Red Bull. Keep an eye out to see who’s been using what, and how they liked it!