Recording and Production in the News

Prism Sound's 'awesome' converters help producer David Fridmann win a Best Engineering Grammy

New York State, US - March 2007: Legendary producer David Fridmann is celebrating success at the 49th Grammy Awards after winning the category for Best Engineered Album - Non Classical for his work on The Flaming Lips' album At War With The Mystics.

The Flaming Lips

Prism Sound is delighted to share in his success as the company's ADA-8XR multichannel converter, Maselec MEA-2EQ and MLA-2 compressor were all used during the recording and mixing sessions, which took place at Fridmann's Tarbox Road Studios in New York State.

As an internationally acclaimed producer, David Fridmann has worked with many top artists including Mercury Rev, Thursday, Phantom Planet, Mogwai, Weezer, Jane's Addiction, Sparklehorse and Low. However, he is most renowned for his work with The Flaming Lips - a collaboration that has earned him the affectionate title of 'the fourth Flaming Lip' because he has co-produced the majority of their records.

Fridmann first became aware of Prism Sound products in 2005 when he was looking at ways to enhance the various surround mixes he was handling. These included The Soft Bulletin and a Flaming Lips video compilation entitled V.O.I.D.

He says: "At the time I was doing a lot of Pro Tools work and realised that the system's built-in converters were adding too much colour to the sound. I was using my 16 bit 44.1KHz Radar-1 as the interface because I didn't want to hear the included converters. Then someone recommended Prism Sound converters so I decided to give the ADA-8XR a try. The results really blew me away and I bought one immediately."

Fridmann adds that when he first got his ADA-8XR, he did some A/B testing to see how much the converter affected the sound.

"At first I thought perhaps I was doing something wrong and directly monitoring the input without it going through the converter because I couldn't hear any difference," he explains. "I became so confused that I eventually went the extra step of actually recording material to prove to myself that it had gone through the converter. The sound really was amazing and as a result I no longer have any reservations about going digital."

The Maselec units were added to Fridmann's arsenal in 2006 and all three products were put to use on the award winning Flaming Lips album, along with a variety of other projects including Sleater Kinney's The Woods, Trespassers William's Having and the latest Thursday album.

"I'm very proud to have won a Grammy," Fridmann adds, "and I'm equally delighted with my Prism Sound units, especially the ADA-8XR. It is a truly awesome converter and I only wish I had more!"