Recording and Production in the News

Masterlabs chooses Lyra for dedicated analogue conversion

Cambridge, UK, 3 July 2013: Masterlabs, Ireland's leading audio mastering facility, has invested in a Lyra audio interface, which it is using in conjunction with its SADiE 6 digital audio workstations.

Aidan Foley and Lyra

The facility has attached Lyra to its analogue tape machines and Dolby units where it is performing dedicated high end stereo AD/DA conversion. This configuration allows Masterlabs to capture 192kHz files and feed them directly into its SADiE 6 workstations.

Masterlabs' founder and managing director Aidan Foley says: "Prism Sound's new Lyra audio interface is fantastic. Apart from being incredibly easy to use, it is providing us with very high quality audio conversion and an extremely stable clock. By keeping it separate from my mastering chain AD/DA converters, I can use it directly at the analogue source."

Based in Dublin, Masterlabs operates from a purpose built facility that was designed from the ground up to meet exacting specifications. Since its formation in 1996, initially under the name of Digital Pigeon Mastering, the company has tackled mastering projects for some of the best Irish and international talent.

Prior to acquiring a Lyra, Foley put the unit through a shoot-out against other renowned converters to ensure that he was making the right choice.

"We already own a number of Prism Sound products, including a Maselec MEA-2 mastering equalizer and a Maselec MLA-2 mastering compressor/limiter, so we knew from experience that the company's products were well made and extremely reliable. This reputation for engineering excellence was one of the key reasons why we chose Lyra for our facility."

Based on the award-winning and critically acclaimed Orpheus interface, Prism Sound's Lyra allows music recording professionals to access the power and sophistication of the Orpheus audio path and clock circuitry, but in a smaller package and at a much improved price point.

Masterlabs is using a Lyra 1 interface, which has two analogue input channels - one for instrument/line and one for mic/line - plus two DA output channels and optical-only digital I/O. Prism Sound also offers Lyra 2, which has two AD input channels with switchable microphone, instrument or line input modes and four DA output channels. Both versions incorporate new ARM Cortex processor design offering class-compliant USB interfacing that allows for seamless integration with both Macs and PCs. Both versions also offer digital volume control, a low latency 'console-quality' digital mixer for foldback monitoring and optical S/PDIF capability. Masterlabs handles between eight and 10 projects a week, ranging from classical and Jazz to Dance and Rock.

"We are fortunate to handle all of the Irish output for Sony Music and Universal Music," Foley says. "We also service the ever growing vinyl record pressing explosion that is occuring at the moment, and we have just purchased a second Neumann VMS70 lathe to keep up with that demand."