Real World Studios

Installing the 9000K at Real World

As the loyal XLogic Blog reader will know, one of SSL’s owners is Peter Gabriel. Part of Peter’s creative community is Real World Studios, deep in the south-west of England near to the historic and very pretty city of Bath. When we are out doing events we are often asked about Peter so we thought we might show you his studios. If you want more info (or to dream about booking it for your next session) you should visit the Real World website www.realworldstudios.com but as something to whet your appetite here’s a pic of the install of the 9000K console in the Big Room.

Real World is a fantastic place to make music, and if I were a millionaire rock star that’s what I’d buy 🙂

More Paisley Park

Looks like there are a lot of Prince fans out there…. so here’s a couple more pics of Paisley park. This time, the monster 80-fader G Series that went into Studio A in 1993 replacing the 6000E.

Paisley Park G+

What a beastie!!!

SSL at Paisley Park

Here at SSL towers we are very big fans of vertically-challenged musical geniuses. Especially funky ones. As such, it was with great pleasure we stumbled across some cool stuff in the dusty archives down in the dank, dark oubliette below the factory. Nestling amongst VAT recepits and deserted spiders webs in our filing cabinets we found a folder titled “Paisley Park”, and we just couldn’t resist a peek. In the folder were all of the details, specs, and designs for the 2 consoles that we have sold Prince – one a SL6000E with 48 mono channels and 8 stereo channels (in 1985), and the other an 80 input SL8000G(in 1993). Aaaah those were the days…. huge record company advances, hoardes of groupies, and stacks of coke so big you could ski down them! Back then, the “battleship” console was an indispensible item for any serious studio, but Paisley Park really took the biscuit. A huge facility where skill, craftsmanship, and 6 tonnes of Italian marble went into building one of the most legendary hit-making rooms of all time.

So naturally when we found this stuff we thought we should share it with you, the loyal XLogic friend. The attached PDFs show; the Paisley Park brochure (check out the size of that production room!),  and a plan of Studio A where the SSl’s worked their socks off. You Sexy Motherf*cker!!!!!!!!!!!

Paisley Park Brochure

Paisley Park Studio A circa 1985

On the road again – Damien

So my suitcase is packed and I’m ready to hit the road for another mammoth tour. As always this is a great opportunity to get some “hands on time” with our latest products and to ask any questions you may have about SSL.

For those that are able to attend I will be bringing some special “multi-track” sessions for an ultimate SSL mixing expericence! See you all soon.

France – Paris
Tuesday 22 September:
10am – 4pm
Apple France
l’EBC
7 place Iéna
Paris
Click Here for more details
http://www.sounddesigners.org/

France – Paris
Wednesday 23 September:
All Day
Univers-Sons
159 rue Amelot
75011
Paris
Tél: +33(0)1 43 38 51 80
Click Here for more details

New Zealand – Auckland
Tuesday 29th September
Rock Shop (Back Beat Bar Above the Store)
100 Karangahape Road
Auckland
Rockshop: +64(0)9 377 6397
Amber Nz: +64(0)9 443 0753
Click Here for more details

Australia – Brisbane
Thursday 1st October:
6.30PM
JMC Academy
75 Grey St
Sth Brisbane
Click Here for more details

Australia – Gold Coast
Friday 2nd October
12.30PM
Griffith University
MultiMedia Building (G23)
Parklands Drive
Parklands
Click Here for more details

Australia – Byron Bay
Saturday 3rd October
1.30PM
SAE Institute
Auditorium
Ewingdale Rd
Byron Bay
Click Here for more details

Indonesia – Jakarta
Tuesday 6th October
11am – 17.00
Hotel Sunlake
Sunter
Jakarta
For details contact: Sherlyana – 08158412788
setiadi@chandracom.net
SSL Mix Seminar-indonesia.pdf

Sneak preview – new SSL controller

SSL's new control surface

We all have our own words to describe how things sound. Things like warm, up-front, rounded, ballsy, and sometimes even “fluffy”. Here at SSL towers we always like to listen to our customers, so when we were asked about “colour” (or “color” when we spoke to Americans) we started to think about how a mix engineer could control the colour of his mix. We thought about tactile control and blending of sounds to create an inspirational canvas of tone. The big brains gathered round a freshly-brewed pot of PG Tips and set about how to interpret this, and thus the SSL Artist Series was born…

We called in a group of synaesthetic musicians and a crack team of research scientists, and tried to collate feedback about how different aspects of sound could be interpreted and manipulated. After extensive review of the data, the crack team of Edward de Bono-inspired lateral thinkers got started on how this might be represented. Dr Sore Wetmam, our in-house master of all things aesthetic, then set about utilising existing technology from the art world together with our unique wood sensor technology (see previous posts) to come up with the Artist Series. Dr Wetmam tells us “We heard a lot of engineers talk about a palette of sounds, so decided to take a literal jump towards other creative thought processes. Combining the visual creative sense with the idea of mixing sounds and combining tones led us to this revolutionary new worksurface. The control ‘brush’ sends an impulse dependant on the ‘colour’ selected by the mix engineer through the electrostatic ‘palette’ which wirelessly controls all of the major DAWs. This allows unprecedented new ways of blending source material.”

One downside of this amazing new technology is the need for a system re-set. Dr Wetmam told us that unless you clear the preferences of the controller using white spirit and some cotton wool, the remnants of your last session bleed into your next one. This often leads to large “smudges of brown”, and some say that prototype use of the new controller is responsible for some pretty low-rent entries to this week’s UK Top 40 hit parade. This rumour is unsubstantiated.

SSL sponsor new studio “wonderkid”

SSL's wide-ranging academy producers another genius

Here at SSL towers we have a long held belief that children are our future. We think you should treat them well and let them lead the way, as well as show them all the beauty they posses inside. We try to give them a sense of pride to make it easier, and we find as a reward their laughter reminds us of how it used to be.

Nothing highlights this more than our continuing commitment to education, and we wanted to show the world our latest discovery. While footbal clubs across Europe are embroiled in a row about the “poaching” of younger players by big clubs, our talent scouts are out there looking for the next Eno, the next Stent, or the next N-Dubz. No playgroup is too small, and Mr F. Arnesen our chief child-catcher (I mean music educational co-ordinator) has had wind of a young French boy called Mateo who is a wizard with the faders. Much like young footballers, it was a video on YouTube that alerted us to his prodigious talent. After talking to his parents and offering them a house, Mateo has decided not to sign professional papers with his home team of Le Havre and sign up for SSL. You can lean more about him

Audiowarehouse Recording Show – Ireland

It was great to be out at the Christmas Craicfest last week and we had a very encouraging number of visitors to the show despite the extremely remote but pictoresque location. The assembled throng consisted of a broad cross section of manufacturers, producers, engineers and audio students and all mingled and shared tales of the crazy world of rock and roll. Rupert Cobb, engineer of the Live at Abbey Road series stole the show with his own inimitable delivery of a detailed walk through of the process involved in making the show. The assembled mic manufacturers educated and entertained the crowd with an impromptu shoot-out of their wares and Dirk Brauner’s VMX was crowned the winner (other microphones are available, terms and conditions apply)

Chris Walls of Munro Acoustics delivered an interesting talk on the processes involved in turning Peter’s shell into a world class studio facility and newcomers to the sport used the opportunity to pick up some really useful and cost effective tips for room improvements.

The studio’s AWS console provided a great centrepiece for the event and we also showed the Matrix and X-Desk consoles. Something there for everyone!

Congratulations to Gerald O’Flynn of OFI Recording Studios for winning the raffle of the SSL VHD Mic Pre. Pictures of him receiving his prize from me and a bunch of other shots from the two days can be seen at recordproduction.com by following the link here

Sincere thanks go to Paul Brewer of Audio Warehouse for arranging a really worthwhile and informative get together and apologies to Peter Maher if I scratched or dinked his beautiful studio furniture in the process of setting up.

I’m sure this will be a regular feature on the Irish audio calendar and if you weren’t there this year, a visit is a must for next year.

Richard

Watch the Timbaland video

Do I need to say anything about Timbaland? I’d imagine that pretty much everyone knows who is is, or if not his line of shoes and clothing (!!). Recently he purchased an SSL Matrix, and we have a video online with him here