Date: February 2007

SOUNDTRACS DS-00 IS CROSSFADE’S FLEXIBLE FRIEND

Four years ago, Dean Humphreys set up a sound post production facility,Crossfade, at Twickenham Studios. It has quickly become one of a new breed of facilities emerging onto the post production circuit: a studio that can support both film and television almost from conception to birth. The recent investment in a Soundtracs DS-00 console is set to help him further establish this ‘one stop shop’ as a practical and financially beneficial option.

“There are lots of reasons we bought the DS-00,” says Dean. “But the original was actually one of perception. The initial set up at Crossfade was computer based and, whilst we knew it was possible to provide the service the clients wanted within Pyramix and Pro Tools, we were finding resistance when they presented themselves as a mixing suite. Customers would look around and say, ‘where’s the mixing console?’ And as much as we would say to them, ‘we can do what you need’, for them it was an issue.

“We half-heartedly looked around at a number of manufacturers, bearing in mind that one of our main issues was space. But pressure was being brought to bear from various quarters so we knew we really had to do something.

“We were being seriously pursued by another console manufacturer that was very keen to get its console in here, so we took it on demo for about a week. It was the right size, but it just didn’t make any sense. It was the least intuitive console I’ve ever worked on and the rest of the team just looked at it in stunned amazement.”

Then, by chance, Dean came across Soundtracs. “It was the website that caught my eye and I knew Tim Shaxson [technical sales manager for Soundtracs] and asked him to bring one in. Well, we just couldn’t believe what it does for the money! We were amazed,” he laughs. “I thought there must be some deception going on, or I’d misread something, because it really was ready made for us.”
With the decision quickly made, the DS-00 is now fully integrated into the studio and has completed its first project, a new BBC series called ‘Jekyll’ starring James Nesbitt.

“There are two different facets to what we do and sometimes, for speed of use, it’s still quicker to use the EQ within the Pyramix,” Dena continues. “But certainly when it comes to faders, you can’t replicate the feeling on a mouse: that instinctive thing when the balance is constantly changing, for which physical faders are great. And the on-board reverbs and echos within the DS-00 cover 90% of what we need.

“At the moment, we’re highlighting to film producers that we have the capacity to do the work they would normally do in a traditional mixing studio. This means that they can sit in our room and get a very good idea of the end result they are going to hear in the cinema. From that point of view the Soundtracs is another great benefit to us: we can now sell ourselves as a complete facility offering a complete audio package with ADR, Foley, mixing and editing.

“This console gives us the ability to be able to do so much; to contain all the work here in this one small facility without any compromise at all. In some ways its flexibility is greater than that of traditional consoles. There’s nothing on the market that comes anywhere near it for our purposes. We’re huge fans.”

[ENDS]

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