Focusrite

An ISA 'must have' for top production duo
Ben Fenner and Nigel Bates
Over the past three decades, production duo Nigel Bates and Ben Fenner have worked with an immense list of legendary artists.
These include Paul Carrack, Steve Winwood, Elvis Costello, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie,
The Cranberries, (we could go on... OK then,) Craig Armstrong, Radiohead, BT,
George Clinton, Duran Duran, The Kinks, Human League, and many, many
more.
At Nigel's French based studio, Beat Poets, all projects that come their way
are almost exclusively generated through Pro Tools. There comes the need,
of course, for additional quality pre-amps, and their studio is filled with an
assortment to rival many of London's top facilities. However, the current
favourite, now almost permanently strapped to the Pro Tools inputs, is their
new ISA 220 Session Pack.
"From an ergonomics point of view we particularly like the way that it's an
all-in-one solution, with top of the range compression, limiting de-essing
and EQ modules all to hand at the press of a button, and then a great-
sounding A-to-D converter for hooking up straight into Pro Tools. The EQ is
very precise and can always be relied upon to zoom in on and reduce
problem frequencies quickly and painlessly."
The newly released Platinum OctoPre has also become a permanent fixture
within their racks:
"For those occasions when more than one analogue input is needed at once,
such as recording drums or percussion, the OctoPre has been used to great
effect. It's also sometimes pressed into service for bass, thanks to its nice
forward sound in the lower mids."
And finally, the MixMaster, Focusrite's Platinum mastering solution, is also
making its mark on the pair.
"The MixMaster has proved invaluable for improving insipid-sounding mixes
that occasionally come our way. It has a useful set of tools which don't
seem to operate in the same ranges as other all-in-one mastering
solutions, resulting in the possibility for meaningful adjustments, without
adding any unwanted digital processing characteristics."
Bates and Fenner are presently seeing a high proportion of 5.1 work in
recent projects, with surround mixes to video of live concerts from Paul
Carrack and Steve Hacket. They've taken this as an opportunity to extend
their sphere of operation to include authoring of the final DVD, thus
providing a complete DVD post-production service.

6/8/2004 1:44 pm
focusrite: users: nigel bates
Page 1 of 1
http://www.focusrite.com/users/nigel.html