London, UK (January 2, 2024)—After the pandemic shuttered live venues, audio engineer and musician Ed Thorne upgraded his home studio and now has a thriving YouTube channel that aims to help people get the most out of their own personal spaces.
Thorne’s investment in growing his Ed Thorne Music Production YouTube channel has been part of a larger effort to make studio music production his primary focus. The opportunity to share his exploration and educate his fellow engineers on how to navigate the various pitfalls of setting up their own studios grew organically out of this. “There’s so much choice now in the type of equipment you can use to set up a studio, and I find the learning aspect of it all fascinating,” Thorne says. “Sharing it all on YouTube was a natural extension of that.”
As an advocate for hybrid studio workflows, Thorne has made the Flock Audio Patch digitally controlled, all-analog patchbay and the Patch App DX software a centerpiece of his work and content. Using his favorite analog outboard equipment alongside the latest digital plug-ins has given him the opportunity to educate his audience.
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“There can be a real polarization on YouTube—and engineers at large, really—between analog purists and ‘in-the-box’ guys, and I think being either way misses some real advantages to both,” he explains. “Plug-ins have come a really long way and it’s unbelievable, but when you spend time with analog gear, you start to understand where these classic sounds come from and why they work. It’s a very different, non-linear way of thinking at times, but once you wrap your head around it, it can be an incredibly creative thing to add back into the process of recording music. There’s a depth of sound that you can’t replicate there, so I use the Flock Audio Patch to bring those elements into my workflow.”
Thorne has more than two-dozen 500-series rack units which encompass his favorite analog preamps, EQs and compressors. “The immediate benefit of Patch was the sheer speed of using it,” Thorne says. “I was able to spend more time on the creative process rather than having to constantly plug and unplug things to put together the signal chains I wanted. It was amazing and fueled my desire to make analog more a part of what I do.”
Additionally, being able to instantly create and recall go-to combinations that have yielded his best results while also being able to document the knob settings with Patch App DX has allowed him to take advantage of sounds without compromises to his workflow. “Being able to audition any combination of my hardware instantly with my saved chains has been amazing to have,” he says. “I always have photos of the knob settings documented in Patch APP DX for each preset as well. That’s an incredibly useful added feature that gets you right where you need to be quickly.”
