Recording and Production in the News

Makermid Recommends Prism Sound’s New XR Converters To Its Customers

Spanish recording facility La Casa de Iñaki has upgraded its five Prism Sound ADA-8 converters to the new ADA-8XR multichannel converters and processors, which were on display at the recent AES convention in Barcelona.

The recording studio, which is based near Guernika, acquired its original ADA-8s through Barcelona-based digital audio systems installer Makermid. After seeing the new XR versions in operation with a Logic system at AES, Makermid’s managing director Marc Port approached La Casa de Iñaki and suggested the facility upgraded because the new units were ideally suited to its way of working.

“La Casa de Iñaki has a typical producer based set-up that incorporates Pro Tools and five ADA-8 units offering 40 in/out insert points,” Port says. “The facility doesn’t use any plug-ins for either recording or mixing; instead it prefers to use all-analogue equipment from manufacturers such as Manley, GML, Matt Audio, SSL, Summit, Urei and Empirical Labs.

“Given this emphasis on high quality analogue sound, the new Prism Sound XR converters were something we felt this studio had to have. The XR offers extra headroom and is a significant improvement on the earlier ADA-8. Compared with other manufacturer’s products, Prism converters offer clean, tight and defined audio on all tracks and in all situations. All of the studio professionals we deal with tell us this – and we have now sold units to quite a few Spanish recording facilities where they have been used on a wide range of recordings for local artists such as Extremoduro, Platero y tu and Fito y los Fittipaldis.”

Recently awarded the coveted PAR Excellence Award 2005 by Pro Audio Review and nominated for the 2006 TEC Awards, Prism Sound’s new ADA-8XR builds on the success of the ADA-8 by operating at sampling rates of up to 192kHz and significantly improving analogue performance. Existing ADA-8s can be easily and economically upgraded to XR specification.

Makermid and its customers have conducted a series of A/B tests using customers’ own rock, jazz and blues recording. These, says Port, confirmed that Prism Sound converters bring a touch of quality to any recording situation, whether it is analogue or digital.

“Our customers are prepared to pay a little bit more for quality, but in the case of Prism Sound the additional quality they are getting equates very well with the price they have paid,” he adds.