Audio Animals Mixing and Mastering Studio
Latest photos of Audio Animals Mixing and Mastering Studio:
1176 Compressor Clone by Hairball Audio. At a fraction of the price of the original 1176 units by Universal Audio the Hairball Audio version is a custom built exact clone. We have had this unit side by side with an 1176 and there is little or no audible difference. The reason we opted for this unit was simple. Price and the fact that we could customise and upgrade the insides to our exact spec. If you were ever thinking of buying an 1176 we would fully recommend a Hairball 1176 unit.
We own 3x bantam patchbay custom built for us for our exact needs. A patchbay is an incredibly important part to any high end studio that has multiple pieces of analogue hardware that needs to be patch into certain chains. Analogue Addicts 1960′s La2a compressor clone. One of the best sounding La2a’s I’ve ever used. We opted for thiscustom La2a for both price and additional features such as 3 stage release settings and line inputs and outputs on the front panel. Would fully recommend any engineer or producer to get one from Analogue Addicts website here.
Access Virus Ti Snow. One of the best sounding virtual analogue synths on the market. We also have the larger Access Virus Ti2 Keyboard. The Access Virus Ti Snow is used at our studio as an fx unit. We use it in this way purely because we have the larger keyboard to use as a synthesizer. The snow can used as an fx unit as well as a synth, we use the snow with the fx sends on our SSL X Desk to apply reverb, delay and modulated fx to mixes.
Korg MS-20 and Moog Minitaur analogue synthesizers. The Korg Ms-20 is an amazing sounding synth with a very unique tone. Great synth for fx sounds and oldskool bass sounds. The patching at first seem complicated but once you have got your head around it, patching is simple. The Moog Minitaur is a smaller cut down version of the Moog Taurus pedal synth. Great sound and feel to this synth. The Taurus is awesome for all low end sounds like bass and oscillating wobbles. We use this a great deal with our moogerfooger analog delay pedals.
Our Moog Voyager RME is a fully expanded and quite a sight and luxury for any musician. Our Moog Voyager is expanded using the Vx-351 and Vx 352, which allows us to use control voltage to control the amount certain parameters on the voyager increase or decrease. The Moog Voyager is by far one of the best analogue synths ever made. Renowned for it’s unique sound and warm analogue bass.
The Oktavamod Hulk 990 is a custom built Neumann U87 clone. When we purchase any cloned gear we will test prior to purchasing. We tested this mic in a studio in West London at a recording session side by side with a Neumann U87. We carefully listen to the vocal recordings of both the U87 and Hulk 990. They recordings were exactly the same and when I say exactly the same I mean to the point of not being able to tell them apart. The Hulk 990 is what I would call and exact clone. The Neumann is priced around £2000 where as the Oktavamod custom built will cost you only around £250. I have recommended this mic to various vocalists and recording studios and will continue to recommend them to others. The Focusrite Isa One is an amazing sort after mic pre. Incredibly good mic pre to add harmonics and distortion to synths. We mainly use this mic pre for recording vocals through. Recording vocals with this mic pre produces a beautiful rich tone. I like to record vocals clean and will often opt for this mic pre over the SSL superanalogue and VHD pres.
Our API 500 series rack consists of two Lindell units. I love these units on bass and drums. We own both the compressor and eq. The eq is a pultec style eq including attenuators which is a great feature unlike other eq’s we have. Awesome eq for mono snare drums, which is my favourite use for this eq. The compressor compliments the eq and generally is used alone or in chain with the eq. My favourite use for the compressor is on sub bass. A warm rich full sub is produced whilst running audio through this compressor. Again this is a very unique compressor unlike many of our other compressors.
Our API rack also consists of two beautiful Elysia units. We own both the Elysia X Filter Stereo Eq and Elysia Nvelope Stereo Transient Designer. Being stereo units we do like to include these units into our analogue mastering chain. The X Filter eq will have the purpose of a more rounded eq rather than a surgically precise eq. Amazing eq for adding frequencies to a mix that lacks in a large range. The Elysia Nvelope Stereo Transient Designer is an incredibly precise transient designer used a great deal on drums. This transient designer is far more precise than others on the market. The Nvelope 500 unit has the added feature of being able to hone in on the frequency of both the attack and sustain.
Our API rack consist of two of the API 500 series most sort after units ever made for the 500 series. At our studio we own both the Shadow Hills Dual Vandergraph stereo compressor and 2x Rupert Neve Portico 542 Tape Saturation units. Shadow hills compressors are widely known as one of the best sounding compressors in the industry. We use this compressor a great deal in the master chain for single band compression. With ratio from 2:1 to 8:1 it is ideal to add into any mastering chain. This compressor is by far one of the best compressor for controlling peaks on vocals. I’ve used many compressors on the vocal bus before but the Shadow Hills compressor is by far the best I’ve ever heard. The Ruper Neve Portico 542 Tape Saturation units are quite simply a work of art. Bringing unique analogue tape saturation to any studio. We opted for two of these units in order to use them in the final stages of the master chain. Being able to master our clients track with a truely unique tape like sound really sets us apart from other companies. Some mastering companies will use reel to reel tape but at Audio Animals we go one step further by recording through Neve tape heads and including Neve’s amazing silk red and silk blue. Silk red adds 3rd harmonic high frequencies to a mix where as silk blue adds warm rich 2nd harmonics to the mix.
The Maselc MLA 3 is known as one of if not the best multiband mastering compressor the industry has ever heard. 3 bands of compression for pin point accuracy other the mastering bus. Industry leading analogue gear like this means we are able to offer mastering to the finest level. We use this compressor as the glue that gels the mix together. An incredibly precise unit that has the ability to isolate each band solo for pin point accuracy and monitoring.
4x Solid State Logic VHD pre amps used in conjuction with our SSL X Desk to offer 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion of the highest quality. Amazing unit for use with both drums and synths. 3rd harmonic distortion introduces high frequency distortion when driven using the input gain. 2nd harmonic distortion introduces low end harmonic distortion which is favoured with us on synths and kicks drums. Our Technics digital piano is probably the piece of kit we have had the longest of all. From the age of 12 we have learnt to play on this piano and was what introduced us to music at a young age. Even after 16 years of playing this piano it still works and feels like it back when we were 12.
Audio Animals Solid State Logic X Desk is the centre console of the SSL desk. 20 channels of summing on the X Desk summing with our 4 8 channel X Rack summing modules adds up to a total of 52 channels of SSL summing. Offer our clients high quality SSL summing sets us apart of many other mix engineers summing in the box. We’re able to offer a high end professional sound with amazing headroom and crystal clear clarity. Our X Desk is where the mixing magic happens, allowing us to insert any analogue hardware into chain and send audio from the desk to reverbs and delays if needed. Audio is summed to the master bus where we can insert our master chain and give the mix a high quality professional sound, much needed in today’s modern music.
Audio Animals Solid State Logic Console consists of both E and G series eq’s and compressors as well as a G series bus compressor known for it glue like compression of a full mix or drum mix. Offering not only 52 channels of analogue SSL summing, we offer both 4000 and 9000 series eq and compression on truly unique custom Solid State Logic console. We also own an SSL DAW controller which is used to control all DAW operations. Using a custom SSL console we are able to have total recall of all functions across our SSL desk.
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