He describes his recording kit: "It's based around two RME FireFace UFX and a MacBook Pro running Reaper for recording. The Audients fit in great - D-SUB out of the first one to analogue in on the FireFace and then ADAT out for the other two - repeat for the second rack/FireFace.
"I did a live EP with The Shires at The Green Note in Camden, this was the first time I decided to go out with just the Audients and the RME," he continues. "The brilliant thing for me was that it ended up being such a portable rack that I could take the train down to London and not have to drive." Very happy not to have to find a parking space in Camden, Rob also appreciated the smaller footprint of the equipment; each ASP880 takes up 1U of rack space. "I covered one of the stages for the BBC at 6Music Festival in Newcastle for Mark Radcliffe's Folk show on Radio 2 back in February. We didn't have much room in the venue, so I just went with the Audients and RME and it worked flawlessly.
"I love how clean the ASP880 pres are," he continues. "When you're recording loud bands they sound superb, but also, if you need loads of gain - like for recording interviews with lapel mics - they continue to sound really clean all the way up to the top."
Rob and his kit spent a weekend at Nottingham's Splendour festival last month where for the last three years Re:live Recordings has been hired by local TV station, Notts TV to capture multi-track recordings of all artists on the main stage. "We mix one or two songs from each act for their Splendour Specials which air on the channel. This year we had James and The Specials as the two main headliners," says Rob.
So how did the recording go? "I have had 24 channels of Audient ASP008s for a few years now, along with 24 channels of 'another' brand of mic-pres. Splendour main stage is usually a 48-way patch but more often than not you can fit most bands into 24 - 32 channels and so I can usually work around making sure the most important bits go through the best sounding pres," he explains. "This year, with The Specials headlining - such a big band with strings and brass added to the usual drums, bass, two guitar, keys and vocal line up - it was around 46 channels in all and I wanted to make sure all the pre-amps matched."
(Jim Evans)
