Montréal, Canada (May 28, 2015)—Installing a 48-channel automated API Legacy Plus console proved to be a smart business move for Montréal’s Studio 270.
“I think the API Legacy saved us,” says Francois Hamel, co-owner, with Robert Langois, of the facility, which has been in business since 1987. But before they added the Legacy to 270’s “great collection of outboard gear and microphones, and one of the best tracking rooms in Montreal,” the owners began to notice a slow decline in business.
Hamel believes that the tendency for artists to work at home or “in the box” on digital gear is drawing them away from studios that can’t compete. But he also believes the Legacy Plus is what sets Studio 270 apart. He notes that once the Legacy was installed, “Business picked back up and has been sustained.”
Hamel has noticed that the Legacy doesn’t just draw artists into his studio, but it keeps them there as well. “A new client books a few days to track with the intention of taking the tracks home to mix. But we get a rough mix up on the Legacy, and the automation allows us to save that mix.”
Once the clients see how fast and efficient the process is, one that may take “twenty hours of clicking the mouse and tapping the keyboard” on a digital mixer, they “almost invariably” decide to keep working on the Legacy. “API delivers the sound they’re desperately, and unsuccessfully, trying to simulate at home.”
Studio 270’s newest efforts include a record label, The 270 Sessions, for modern jazz artists, which, together with folk musicians, represent most of the studio’s clientele. Label artists work at a rapid-fire pace, typically spending three days tracking, one day editing and three more days mixing on the Legacy Plus.
