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When Tennessee-based musician Chris McClarney set up a studio, his goal was simple: to make music with his friends and have fun doing so.
Vintage King understood the brief and worked with Chris to outfit the space with some of the best gear in the business, including a Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console and Avid HDX Core and MTRX II interfaces. For this install, Vintage King partnered with Trace Audio, who designed the metalwork and dressed and built the cabling for the console and patchbays.
Read on as Chris tells us what inspired him to make the upgrade, what drew him to the RND 5088, and how the new Avid interfaces fit into his workflow.
Tell us a bit about your studio and the work you do.
We're a brand-new studio in downtown Franklin, Tennessee; actually, it’s kind of an old studio, but this is a brand-new re-opening of it – it’s called McClarney’s Fun Time Studios.
I had written out of this space, a buddy of mine had been working out of here as well, and when he put it up for sale, me and my wife snagged it and turned it into an actual studio again, which is amazing! The goal is to make music with my buddies.
What inspired you to make your recent upgrades?
My best buddies are the band guys – the drummers, bass players, and guitar players – and when 2020 happened, I realized that since they couldn't tour and we couldn't record together in the studio, they weren't able to pay their bills and support their families.
I have done well because I'm a songwriter – that's where I made all my money – so I sold my old catalog and decided I wanted to make music with my friends, and create a different world for them. So, the inspiration really is just to make music, have some fun, and then, hopefully, generate a little income that will support my friends through the ups and downs of life.
What drew you to the Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console?
When you think about the pinnacle of sound, you think of Neve. For years, plugging into a 1073 and singing to my heart's desire has always been the dream. And then Rupert Neve went and made a console that was so cool: it had more headroom; was more modern; was definitely going to cost me less money to take care of than a vintage Neve product; was a little bit cheaper than the AMS Neve console that had the same amount of channels that we wanted… it just felt like a no-brainer.
During the process of looking at boards, I was like, “This is the one I want!”, and people kept trying to talk me out of it, saying, “But have you looked at the API? It’s beautiful!” The API is beautiful, but the 5088… it's gorgeous and it's making me happy. It's got the Silk button on every channel which I just turn all the way up! [Laughs] It makes things just a tiny bit fuzzy and I like it a tiny bit fuzzy. We got the 32-channel version, fully loaded with the EQs. The whole goal of this console was to be a tracking console.
What are some of your favorite features of the new RND 5088?
It’s fairly new here in the studio and we've been wearing it out for about three weeks now. What I'd heard from everybody was that there's infinite headroom – they said “You're never going to reach the top of it” – and that has been true to my experience so far. It feels like you can just keep driving it! All of the inputs into the computer are wearing themselves thin before the board is even starting to work. It's amazing!
Also, the Silk circuit is another big thing – it’s like putting a little love on everything! I just turned them all up to 10, and my engineer buddy was like, “That's not the best way to do it”. [Laughs] I just love it!
How much did the fact that it’s completely modular factor into your decision to purchase it?
A lot! That was definitely a big piece of the conversation around it. I said, “Wait, you're telling me I can have a whole SSL channel and it just busses to the Neve? Yeah, I want that!” This was Round One, so we're not there yet on the outboard gear, but in Round Two, we're going to get some vintage 1073s, some API pres, and some SSL EQs.
At the end of the day, the people that were arguing for API or for the AMS can have that if they want – I'll plug in an API pre and an API EQ and it will just go through the bus. That's the beauty of the modularity of this – you can make it sound like whatever you want and know that the summing of all of that is going to be pristine.
How has your new 5088 changed your workflow?
We're trying to figure out workflow right now, but so far, the way we've got it set up – and what makes it easy – is that you just push unmute and you can record. When my friends show up, there's an acoustic channel set up and ready to go if someone has an idea. It's dialed in fairly well and then we just do tweaks in the moment.
We're not quite there yet, but the ultimate workflow goal is that we can record whenever we want, just by pushing unmute and arming it in Pro Tools.
When inspiration strikes, you can’t waste time setting up gear!
It kills all the inspo! I mean, how many times have you been ready to record, and then the gear doesn't work. So you spend two hours or more fixing it, download whatever update you have to, and by the time you're done with that, you don't want to record anymore! It's like, “I don't feel inspired, I've been yelling at my computer, and my throat hurts!” [Laughs]
What about the new Avid interfaces? How have those helped with your new setup?
The quality was a big thing with the converters. We were spending all this money on the console and we wanted to make sure we got the best converters. We've packed it out: we’ve got eight modules, so there are 32 I/Os – four A/D and four D/A.
We've been creating a lot in Pro Tools and Ableton, but the big draw for me wasn't the Pro Tools aspect as much as the fact that they're just the best converters. The fact that it talks really well to Pro Tools is a great benefit because that's what we're going to track on, most of the time.
What is the latency like?
We have the new Mac Studio, with 190-something gigs of RAM, and then the Avid interfaces, so honestly, there's zero latency. We had it set to the lowest latency setting in Logic the other day, and it wasn't thinking at all – it just did its job! It used no computer power to do it; it was crazy.
How does the flexibility of the MTRX interface affect your workflow?
The flexibility was a big factor for us because all of what we're doing involves different people that have different styles and different programs they want to use. So, what we were looking for was something that could handle everybody's workflow, because everybody is a little bit different.
Even if we, as a studio, have a standard workflow, these producers all work in different ways and to have something that can fit all those roles well…It's been great so far.
What was it like working with Kevin Schuck and David Fisk during the upgrade process?
They’re the best! The best part about working with them is that they're musicians. I met Kev playing guitar, so he's just a guitar player friend of mine. And Dave plays the drums like a maniac! So for me, that's the benefit of hanging out with the Vintage King guys – they know what I'm thinking and can help me make it happen.
Which monitors are you using?
We’re using the ATC SCM45As. Before we bought them, we borrowed them along with some other small boutique company monitors. We kept them all in here for a couple of weeks, listened to them, wore them out, and I just fell in love with the ATCs. They're magic in this room and sound so good
Also, I didn't want anything with the DSP – we've tried to be a real analog studio and I hated the idea of going through this huge analog board and then going into some DSP before it left the speaker. I know it doesn't really matter, and you can't really tell the difference, but it mattered to my heart! So we got the ATCs.
Which microphones do you find yourself using most often?
We've got a big collection and it’s growing every day. The one we use the most, so far, has been the Bock 251 – I have an older one, from before they merged with Universal Audio. I feel like it’s good at everything, for example, it’s good on both female and male vocals. There are some microphones that are so good on male vocals but not on female; or so good on guitar, but not on vocals. I feel like the Bock 251 just sounds good on whatever you put it on.
What are some of your favorite pieces of outboard gear?
The LA-2A. It’s always been a dream to have my vocal run through that and a Distressor – I love those compressors.
How do you feel about plug-ins?
I hate them and I think they suck but I did get a bunch of them. [Laughs] They just cost so much money and they always want me to pay them more money to keep using them, so that’s why I hate them. I don't live in that world – I'm not the guy sitting by the computer most of the time – but I see the benefit and they do so much cool stuff. I just hate that I have to spend so much money on them.
Do you have a go-to signal chain for recording, or do you use something different every time?
It depends. For a while, my vocal would go into a Rupert Neve pre – I forget the number – and from there into an EQ, then the LA-2A, and then into an 1176. That was my vocal chain for a little while, but now we've just been going through the console, and that's it. We haven’t dug into the outboard gear yet.
What's a typical day in the studio like for you?
For the last two weeks, every day around 10 am, my buddies and I show up, make coffee, and just start asking each other what we need to do next. Then we either start pre-production, or hop on the drums, or the bass…
With what we're doing here, it feels like the goal is to be atypical, so we don't really have a plan yet – we're just trying to make music and have fun and I think the rest will figure itself out…Vintage King will help me figure out the rest. [Laughs] It'll be fun!
Any exciting projects that you are able to talk about?
There are exciting projects but I don’t have anything that I can officially talk about yet. In six months when we talk, I'm sure I'll tell you about all the fun things we’re doing!
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