Recording and Production in the News

METAlliance Certification for two ground-breaking recording products

Cambridge, UK: Prism Sound, manufacturer of premium-quality interfaces and converters for the recording and broadcast markets, has been granted Music Engineering & Technology Alliance certification for two of its ground-breaking products - the ADA-8XR multi-channel AD/DA converter and the Orpheus multi-channel FireWire computer interface.

ADA-8XR modular converter

Established in 2005 by renowned music producers and recording engineers Chuck Ainlay, Ed Cherney, Frank Filipetti, George Massenburg, Phil Ramone, Elliot Scheiner, and Al Schmit, the METAlliance is a US-based network and collaborative community that allows producers, engineers and audio technology manufacturers to work together to ensure the highest standards of audio production. Alongside platforms for research and development, standardization and education, METAlliance also works closely with manufacturers to evaluate and certify products that offer the highest levels of quality in the recording chain. To date, only a handful of products have achieved this accolade.

Orpheus FireWire interface

Graham Boswell, sales and marketing director of Prism Sound, says: "It is a great honour to receive METAlliance certification for one product, but to receive it for two is very special. We do not mass produce electronics. All our products are specialised performance products built to offer high quality, flexibility and ease of use to the most discerning in the industry. They are not expected to be cheap, but they are expected to do their job in a manner that leaves nothing to chance and nothing to be desired, year after year." METAlliance founders Frank Fillipetti and Al Schmitt have both been using Prism Sound products on recent projects and their satisfaction with the units' performances was instrumental in both receiving certification, which was announced at the NAMM show in Los Angeles in January.

Multi-Grammy winner Filipetti used an Orpheus in conjunction with Cubase to record Carly Simon at her home in Marthas Vineyard.

Commenting on the Orpheus, he says: "The sound quality is fantastic and I'm really impressed with it. I don't make buying decisions lightly, but after evaluating the Orpheus and realising how good it was I just didn't want to give it back."

Meanwhile, at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, Al Schmitt has been using Prism Sound's ADA-8XR converters to record Willy Nelson, Barbra Streisand and Diana Krall.

"In my opinion, these are some of the best converters I have ever used," he says. "I love their transparency and the fact that they don't colour the sound at all. I also love the clarity of the audio I get when I use Prism Sound ADA-8XRs. Although I'm currently based in Los Angeles, I work at many studios around the world and wherever I go I try to make sure I have Prism Sound converters in the control room."

Prism Sound's ADA-8XR is the top professionals' converter of choice in the most exacting applications in music and sound recording, mastering, broadcast and post-production. Offering the cleanest and most transparent conversion available, the ADA-8XR is ideal for producers, engineers and songwriters wanting to produce top-quality results when recording, tracking & overdubbing, mixing to stereo or surround, mastering and monitoring. The ADA-8XR is perfect for recording vocal, single instruments, drums or orchestra and is just as much at home providing multiple outputs for external analogue summing. It is in use in the top studios around the world as well as being used in numerous film sound tracks.

Introduced in 2007, Prism Sound's Orpheus is a 1U, 19-inch rackmount 192kHz-capable unit that is much more than just another FireWire interface. This comprehensive solution offers a wealth of features including microphone pre amps, customizable monitor control, various digital I/O and a complete foldback monitoring system. The flexibility of Orpheus makes it ideally suited to musicians, engineers, producers and re-mixers who are working in a project studio environment using Mac or PC-based music software. When the time comes to transfer projects to a commercial recording studio, Orpheus users will have no difficulty integrating their interface with large-scale systems such as Pro Tools or native setups.