Manchester, TN (October 16, 2015)—This summer, Bonnaroo Festival’s pop-up Haybale Studio captured the spirit of the event with a little help from an SSL AWS 948 SuperAnalogue console.
Music and podcast producer Lij Shaw is normally found in residence as the owner of The Toy Box Studio in East Nashville, TN. Every summer he packs his essentials into a trailer and heads—along with 85,000 other people—60 miles south to a 700-acre farm where, with the help of a local farmer and an SSL AWS 948, he creates the now legendary Haybale Studio.
The Haybale name originates from a practical solution to the need for sound isolation. The studio is set up behind the Which Stage, so the fans and a very big PA need to be suppressed somehow. Sean O’Connell of Music Allies, who originally invited Shaw to set up a recording studio at Bonnaroo in 2005, was inspired by some large bales of hay in a nearby field, and asked Shaw if these could be used to soundproof the studio.
Originally a two-man operation, recording a few bands on limited equipment, now Haybale Studio aims to record three-song sessions with 40 bands over the festival’s four days. Shaw says, “In the festival, we’ll have everything from all-night DJs like Deadmau5, to Scrillex, to Kanye West, to rock bands, to bluegrass. All sorts of stuff. And that is reflected in the studio.”
At the center of it all is an SSL AWS 948. “This console does some incredible stuff,” says Shaw. “This is like having a rocket ship in the studio. The sound, the tone of it, and the flexibility—and the fact that I can mix on it in real time. I’ve tried this with other mixers and I’ve tried to emulate this by mixing in the computer somehow. It’s just not possible.”
Solid State Logic
www.solidstatelogic.com
