Recording and Production in the News

Leading UK writer/producer Fraser T Smith purchases Prism Sound flagship converter

London UK: Award-winning UK music writer/producer Fraser T Smith, the man behind multiple hit songs for artists such as Tinchy Stryder, Pixie Lott, James Morrison and Taio Cruz, has become the latest high-profile customer to buy a Prism Sound ADA-8XR multichannel converter.

Fraser T Smith

"I was looking for the highest quality A/D and D/A converters possible - and for an amazing master clock. The Prism Sound ADA-8XR was an obvious choice," says Smith. "I looked at dedicated A/Ds and D/As and super high-end master clocks, but the Prism Sound unit won in every blind test that I did. I spoke to a lot of mastering engineers and everyone rated the ADA-8XR in terms of sound quality and reliability."

The ADA-8XR is a multi-channel AD/DA converter that can be configured in numerous ways using plug-in modules to suit a very wide variety of applications. Since its release it has rapidly become 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 on the market.

It has also fitted in very well to Smith's studio. "What's great about the ADA-8XR is the way that it integrates seamlessly into a ProTools HD set-up," he says. "I literally replaced a 192 i/o box with the ADA-8XR, made the Prism Sound the master clock and got going!"

Since buying the ADA-8XR, Smith has used it on all his mixes and tracking, mixing Taio Cruz's number one hit 'Break Your Heart' and recording James Morrison and Adele with the unit. "I've done enough with it to hear an amazing difference in the detail of the audio and the placement of sounds within the stereo field," he says.

With four number ones under his belt, 2009 has been a highly successful year for Smith, but 2010 show no sign of him slowing down with projects for Willoe, Clare Maguire, Adele and Tinchy Stryder already lined up. Plus there's even more work waiting for him in the US, for which he may well be investing in more Prism Sound kit.

"As I'm going to be travelling around quite a bit, I can see the need for upgrading my mobile set-up so I'm looking into a getting a Prism Sound Orpheus FireWire computer interface to take away with me," he concludes.