Germany (July 12, 2021)—New German studio Session One is nearly ready to open to the public, having had its original plans derailed by the pandemic. That didn’t stop it from getting down to work, however.
“The plan was to open at the end of 2020,” says owner Michael Thoma. “Covid obviously delayed things, but we are now in the final stages of construction and almost ready to go. For the past three months, however, we have been using the studio almost exclusively for live streams.”
The fledgling facility houses two live rooms and a control room, making it suitable for multiple uses, including production, recording and mixing as well as livestreams, tour rehearsals and songwriting workshops. Key to all those efforts is an Allen & Heath DM0 MixRack, capable of handling 128 channels of 96 kHz audio, installed in a server cabinet away from the control room. Analog inputs for the system are provided by GX4816 and DX168 expanders, both also installed in the server cabinet. “The 48 inputs of the GX4816 plus the additional 16 of the DX168 Expander are enough for almost any application,” Thoma notes. On the output side, an Allen & Heath DX012 expander is used to feed the studio’s monitoring system.
Allen & Heath Expands Everything I/O Range, More
The MixRack is controlled via dLive Director software, running on a computer in the control room, with an IP6 Remote Controller serving as the main monitor controller. “We can switch talkbacks on and off via the IP6, choose between different studio monitors, and control their volumes,” explains Thoma. “In each of the live rooms, there is also an IP8, configured as a personal monitor controller, so that the bands can create their own monitor mixes. They get the sum of the Logic DAW, a click-track, and the respective mics from us.”
With the studio nearing completion, it will soon be time to celebrate. “We are planning a big charity event as a stream for the opening of the studio,” Thoma says.
Allen & Heath • www.allen-heath.com
