JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.
Checkout using your account
This form is protected by reCAPTCHA - the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Checkout as a new customer
Creating an account has many benefits:
When Alaska-based Frostline Studios owner Richard A. Cooper, and Senior Recording and Mixing Engineer, Derek Haukaas completed the extensive upgrade on their recording studio, they had no idea that the console sitting at the heart of the space was special in more ways than one.
The console they opted for was the Neve Genesys Black, a 16-channel digitally-controlled analog console that, with the G3D upgrade, allows mixing in the Dolby Atmos format directly from the console.
The first ever Neve Genesys Black G3D console to be shipped from the Neve factory resides in Studio A at Frostline.
Richard and Derek sat down with us recently to talk about what inspired their big Atmos upgrade, what drew them to the Genesys G3D console, why they’re loving their new Genelec monitors, and what it was like working with Vintage King during the installation.
Tell us a bit about your studio and the work you do.
Richard: Frostline Studios started primarily in video production, but, coming into this facility, we've been a recording studio for six years now. Our two main things are film & television mixing, and also music production from the ground up, as a recording studio.
We do ADR work as well, which is dialog replacement for television and film. We’ve worked on season four of HBO’s ‘True Detective’, which was pretty awesome; we’re on season five now of the Fox animated series ‘The Great North’, which takes place up here in Alaska, so we've got Alaskan voiceover artists doing a lot of those voices.
We also remote people in from all over the world for projects. We have a full video setup where they can direct talent and we can record everything for them. It works really well.
What inspired you to make your recent upgrades – in particular, making the studio Dolby Atmos-enabled?
Richard: In 2018, I had the opportunity to mix a documentary called ‘Boneyard Alaska’ that I edited and did sound design on for a good friend of mine, Paul Lawrence at Glacier Films. We did all the post-production here, but Paul really wanted this final mix in Dolby Atmos, which we didn’t have at the time. He called me one day and said, “Hey, we're going to Skywalker Ranch and we're going to mix this thing in Dolby Atmos!”
So we flew down to Nicasio, California, checked in at Skywalker, and it was basically the highlight of my career as far as experiences go. We spent ten days there and it was like a year of college! [Laughs] Our re-recording mixer, Christopher Barnett was a wonderful artist who had just worked on the documentary ‘Icarus’, which had just won an Oscar, a BAFTA Award, and 3 prime-time Emmy awards that same year. From that moment on, I thought, ‘We have to work with Dolby Atmos at Frostline!’ I think we were one of the first independent documentaries to even have a Dolby Atmos mix.
What drew you to the Neve Genesys Black console and G3D Atmos upgrade?
Richard: Derek and I had always been talking about upgrading to a Neve console in the recording studio, and boy, when we saw the Neve Genesys G3D it ticked all the boxes, we thought, “Wow, we can swing this.”
What drove us in that direction was that it had the best of both worlds – we could work on Dolby Atmos for film and things that are destined for streaming services like Netflix, as well as delivering music in Atmos for iTunes and other streaming services that support that. It came together really nicely – the timing was right, we've had a few really good years and a lot of good growth in the company, so we decided to pull the trigger.
What are some of your favorite features of the new console?
Derek: I'm still learning the console, but it's a ton of fun! I'd say right now, one of my favorite features is the console automation within Pro Tools. The GenesysControl Plugin makes recalls and automation phenomenally easy.
I'm also really enjoying the overall – I don't want to overuse the term – sonic weight of the Neve. It’s really unmistakable. We got one of the Neve 1073OPX units a few years ago and those sound so rich and cohesive, so, in my mind, that was a really big selling point for going with the Neve sound on this.
And then, like Rich was saying, we needed something that would tick the boxes for music, film, and Atmos. To my knowledge, this was the first console on the market that met those requirements and isn’t on the astronomically high price, custom-build side of things.
It’s also great to have digital control of console parameters from the sweet spot itself, right?
Derek: Yeah, that is fantastic! It’s amazing to be able to stay in the center and not have to reach way over and get out of that sweet spot. I can use the mouse but there’s also tactile control with the encoders for all the EQ and dynamics; it's fantastic.
What’s it been like mixing in Atmos with the G3D hardware?
Derek: It's been really smooth so far. I love writing in my automation via the touchscreen or using the encoders at the same time – you can use the touchscreen for one plane and the encoder for another.
It does have a couple of basic space curves on the control window within the touchscreen, but you can get more detailed using it two-handed, to really dial in the X, Y, and Z axes.
How did you customize the console for your studio’s needs?
Derek: Because we knew we’d be doing both mixing and tracking, we wanted to have the option of having different EQs. So we got the upgraded 1084 3-band EQs on the first 8 channels, and the second bank of 8 channels has the standard 88R 4-band EQs that come with the console. We also got Neve VCA dynamics on all 16 channels. Other than that, those were the only changes we had made from the base model.
I didn't want to go bigger than 16 channels as far as the footprint of the console went – no bigger than the desk I was working at previously – because I didn't want to lose the acoustics of the room, which sounded so good already.
Richard: We were just going to upgrade with dynamics modules on 8 channels and not on the other 8, but at the end of the day, Neve ended up including 8-channel VCA dynamics in the base build so we were able to get the dynamics parameters on all 16 channels, which was pretty nice.
How has the console impacted your workflow?
Derek: To be honest, last week was the first week of really having it up and running fully. We found out that this is the first G3D console out of the Neve factory, and there were some changes they had to make with power going to the USB ports on the console computer, so we had some downtime. It’s still fairly new in my workflow, so not a lot of changes to the workflow so far, but it’s definitely been more fun! [Laughs]
Richard: Moving forward, I think it’s really going to help our workflow because we can create templates, so not just Derek, but myself or our assistant engineer can come in and do sessions as well – hit a button and we're ready to go because everything's patched. So whether we're doing voiceovers, ADR, mixing, or drum tracking, we can have different templates set up in advance for a great starting point.
I must say, when we started to have that issue with the power, Neve was just absolutely brilliant; they were on it so fast. We did a few tests and they immediately said, “We’re sending our engineer over, he'll be there on Monday”, and they flew him in from the UK! He spent two days here getting to the bottom of the problem, which turned out to be fairly simple – it was just a power supply issue from the motherboard to the USB – but he fixed it. Neve handled it so well; they were wonderful to work with.
That’s when we found out that we had the first Genesys G3D ever to come out of the factory! We thought we were one of the first two or three in the United States, but this is the first one! [Laughs]
I feel like the first one should come with a sticker or a plaque or something, right? It’s special!
Richard: [Laughs] Yeah, that would be awesome!
What has it been like working with Vintage King during the purchase and installation of the console?
Richard: Vintage King has been great from start to finish, and David Fisk is amazing. We leased the console so we went through the financing part of it and that went really smoothly; VK made it pretty painless and gave us lots of information.
We ripped out Studio A, 100%! Everything came out and we rebuilt with everything new – not just the Neve console, but also a whole new AVID MTRX II system, the Dante system, brand new cables…I think it was a five-day install just to put it all together and get it working. With something that large and that in-depth, it was great to know David was there. Things needed to be switched out, there were several cables that we had wrong, and several different things that we shipped back and forth – it worked great.
VK was so responsive and so top-level. That's the way I run our company as well, so to deal with other people that really care about what they're doing and really understand what it takes to do something like this is great. I didn't feel like we were in over our heads at all during the whole process; I felt like we were very well supported and well taken care of.
Derek: I didn't work too much with David personally, but I did work with Frank Verschuuren on the install and he was phenomenal. He is a wealth of knowledge and we had a blast. There were a few times where I was like, “Actually, I think I want the system to be this, in addition to what everything else is doing”, and we were knee-deep in the install at that point, but Frank was like, “Alright, this is how we're going to do that.” He had a solution for everything and was really, really wonderful to work with.
Let’s talk monitors – what made you choose the Genelec 8341A, 8330A, and 7360 APM monitors?
Derek: I've had a stereo pair of the 8341s for about three years – I got those through Vintage King as well – and I’ve really enjoyed the transparency and the low-end response of the monitors. Also, when you take something that’s been mixed on them over to other systems, they translate really well; I was really happy with them.
When it came time to do the full Atmos upgrade, the main thing that I loved about the Genelecs was the SAM System and the GLM software. Knowing how easy it was to tune in the system, based on working with the stereo pair, made it a no-brainer for me.
To give you an example, someone will want to do a film shoot in the control room, so they’re moving gear around and a speaker gets moved by accident. At that point, to have a simple solution for retuning a room that doesn't take an entire day was, in my mind, well worth the cost. I'm really happy with them. I found that they sound great in our room and translate really well in other spaces.
I was just going to ask how easy it was to tailor them to your space, and from what you’re telling me, it’s easy to set them up not once, but repeatedly, if you have to.
Derek: It's super easy. You put up the GLM microphone, it runs sound through each of the monitors, and with a stereo pair it takes a couple of minutes to retune the room, but with the full Atmos system, it takes around 20 minutes, which is phenomenal.
What’s also really fantastic with the system is being able to switch the calibration on and off so you can hear exactly what you're getting with it and how much of an improvement it is.
How has working with the Genelec monitors changed your mixing process?
Derek: The top end on them is really pleasing, so at first, for a couple months, I had the tendency to overdo my top end because it sounded so nice on them, but since I realized that, I worked on it and it's only got better. They also make the clients very happy; you can play stuff loud. [Laughs]
Richard: I imagine there's a lot less ear fatigue; you can mix on them pretty much all day.
Derek: Yeah! I mix pretty quietly – the only time I crank stuff up is when I’m dialing in the low end, with subs, kick drums, and all that, so it’s for a very short amount of time. I know that I can listen to them quietly and not lose clarity in my space, which, in my experience, is pretty important. It’s good to know that when I crank something up, the mix isn't going to fall apart because it suddenly sounds totally different than when the speakers are down low.
Richard: It’s about trust, right? You need to be able to trust that what you're hearing is what you need to be hearing and, so far, they're bulletproof in that realm.
Derek: When we did the Atmos tests with Frank, we listened to the song "Rocket Man" by Elton John and it was an experience! I was also impressed with the low-end clarity out of the smaller surround speakers – there's some synth, horn, and trombone in ‘Rocket Man’ that was coming from the rears and it was great. It's not just the high end that’s great, the low end is really tight too.
Richard: I grew up on that song and I’m hearing stuff I never heard before!
Amazing! Tell us about the Avid MTRX II interface and how it integrates into your setup.
Derek: Previously, we were using the Apogee Symphony Mk II, which is a really great converter. But we needed to have one system with inputs for live band tracking, outputs for headphone mixes, as well as all the Atmos routing, and additional room correction if needed – all of this was available in the MTRX II, so it was the simplest option to switch over to. With this overhaul, one of our main things was about making this system as simple as possible so it’s a streamlined workflow for whoever is using it; that was the main reason we went with the MTRX II.
Also, being able to have low-to-zero latency, if I'm tracking through plug-ins, is a pretty massive deal for me. Frank did a phenomenal job of setting it up to where I have a handful of different presets depending on what I'm doing.
Richard: We do so many different things at Frostline – it's not just a music recording studio and it's not just mixing for television or voiceover work. We do different kinds of things that all take a different path and I feel like we really built a solution that is bulletproof on all levels.
Derek: The other big thing is that we wanted to be able to have as little turnover over time between sessions as possible. Having that expanded I/O on the conversion inside and monitoring integrated within Dante, so I'm not eating up a bunch of analog outs for the Atmos system, translated into being able to switch to whatever workflow is needed in a way that’s easy and fast.
Any other favorite outboard gear you’d like to give a shoutout to?
Derek: I have really been loving TUBECORE, the vari-mu compressor from IGS Audio. I use it for mastering and it also sounds amazing on acoustic guitars, drum rooms, and vocals. It’s a really phenomenal-sounding piece of gear.
What's a typical day in the studio like for you?
Derek: It depends on the season. Usually, the end of summer is really busy with bands that are coming off their summer touring schedule and want to get in the studio and record. Then we have the ADR stuff that's sprinkled in throughout the year, which is usually a bit more active during the winter. We do mixing for a lot of local filmmakers as well.
Currently, I’m mixing for a couple of different bands, five different short films, and then on Friday, I've got a mastering session,a vocal session, and a band session as well.
Richard: It’s never boring! [Laughs]
Are you working on any exciting projects that you're able to talk about?
Derek: As far as music goes, the first mix that will be completed on the Genesys console is for one of my friends, Ya Tseen, who’s based out of Alaska and signed to Sub Pop Records. He's got a wild vintage synth collection, and he’s a multidisciplinary artist, and I think with that comes a very refreshing approach to making music; it is a lot of fun working with him. We’ve been doing both stereo and Atmos mixes so I’m super excited for that one.
Richard: I'm really excited about some things that we're doing with some really talented filmmakers that now have access to a studio like this where we can mix for them in Atmos.
Also, I can't talk too much about it, but we're in development of our own series, so we’ll be producing our own show. Once we get distribution locked in on that, we'll go full boat into that too and that will be all mixed in Dolby Atmos as well.
There are some exciting things coming up! We’re the only Dolby Atmos studio in the state of Alaska, for sure, and I think when people see and hear it, their minds just explode and that's really exciting. So we're really looking forward to the next five years of growth.
* Required Fields
exclamation-circle
