Recording and Production in the News

Hugh Hardie Adds Prism Sound's Renowned Audio Quality To His Workflow

The acclaimed drum & bass producer has made the company's Lyra Audio Interface a key component in his Bristol-based project studio.

Cambridge, UK. September 27th 2016: Bristol-based drum & bass producer and DJ, Hugh Hardie, has added a Prism Sound Lyra 2 Audio Interface to his project studio set-up, teaming it with Ableton 9 and Reason 5 on Mac, Yamaha HS7 monitors, a Novation 49 key midi controller and a mini Korg to create a seamless workflow for recording and mixing.

Hugh Hardie

"I love the Lyra," he says. "The sound quality results are amazing. The low ends seem to come out with more weight and warmth and the highs have a clarity in detail to them that they didn't before with my cheapy interface. I've found the built-in limiter on the mic inputs is handy as it stops clipping while recording, which can obviously ruin a take. It also looks cool, has a solid, weighty feel to it and overall user friendly."

Hardie, who is signed to Hospital Records, is renowned for his smooth, soulful sounds inspired by an eclectic mix of styles, from liquid drum & bass to old-school house and garage. Since including his track Tearing Me Apart on its celebratory We Are 18 compilation, Hospital has released a number of other Hardie tracks including Kyoto City and Wide Eyes, Hardie's collaboration with Logistics on his album Polyphony was the ‘People's Choice Tune of the Year' on London Elektricity's end-of-year podcast.

"I'm currently working on my latest EP, City Soul, and I'm using my Lyra extensively for that project," he says. "I'm also working on tunes for a debut album on Hospital but may well put a second EP out before the album is released to break up the long silence in releasing that happens when writing an album."

For the second year running, Hugh Hardie has also agreed to join the judging panel for the B-Side Project, a global remix competition that pairs artists with electronic music producers who remix their original tracks. Now in its sixth year, the competition creates networks, merges genres and provides real world opportunities for artists to release their music, alongside additional platforms to amplify their careers. More information can be found at www.b-sideproject.org

Hardie, who won the competition in 2013 with a remix of a track entitled Get Around by Brazilian band, The Outs, says: "Judging the B-Side competition is definitely fun. Listening to the sheer diversity of entries is interesting and inspiring. Overall I love the concept behind the project. When I was a contestant I remixed a band that were definitely not anything like my usual style of production. This forced me to think more creatively about how to approach the remix and resulted in a really cool final remix. I could hear that in last years' entries; by being forced out of their comfort zones, the contestants all came up with extremely creative tracks."