Recording and Production in the News

The Chairworks completes missing link with ADA-8XR

Cambridge, UK: The Chairworks, which proudly bills itself as the North of England's newest, largest and finest residential recording studio complex, has recently installed an ADA-8XR multichannel modular AD/DA converter.

The Chairworks control room

"We have what many believe to be the world's best mixing desk (the SSL 4000 G Plus) with all the best outboard, and the Prism Sound is the missing link," comments The Chairworks' director Ryan Jarvis.

Based in Castleford, near Leeds, The Chairworks (www.thechairworks.co.uk) offers several recording spaces, including a mammoth 1250sqft live room coupled with a 500sqft control room. It also has residential accommodation for up to 10 people and specialises in mixing and tracking rock and pop bands.

"The Prism Sound unit has expanded our previous 24-in 48-out analogue i/o by a further 8 in/out," says Jarvis. "Whilst our existing Digidesign 192s are very good and suit most applications, the ADA-8XR's detail, stereo width and clarity for recording the final two-track mix through is without question better. This use alone, along with the ability to record 8 tracks at once for stem recording, justifies our investment in the converter."

Simon Humphrey, chief engineer at The Chairworks, is also a firm advocate of Prism Sound technology and was instrumental in specifying the purchase of the ADA-8XR. He plans to use the converter as the centrepiece of the studio's new online mixing service, which gives customers a stereo mix and stems of their tracks.

The Chairworks chief engineer Simon Humphrey

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. It can be a 16 channel AD converter, a 16 Channel DA converter or an 8 channel AD/DA converter. It can be a multi-channel FireWire interface, or an AES/EBU / AES3 / SPDIF Digital to Analogue or Analogue to Digital converter. It can act as a high resolution Pro Tools Interface for recording or post-production. Similarly it can work with a wide range of other popular Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) including Logic, Cubase, Nuendo and others. In fact, there's not a lot it can't do when it comes to digital audio conversion.

Despite only having the unit for a couple of weeks, Jarvis is impressed by its capabilities. "The ADA-8XR gives you confidence when you are recording, because you know that you are getting the world's best AD/DA conversion," he says. "In fact I wish I could afford more of them, but just one has made a substantial improvement to the sound of our studio."