WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, August 5, 2013 — Matt Horton’s Raleigh, North Carolina-based facility Post Pro is a primer on what it takes to keep a commercial studio facility afloat and successful in an uncertain economy and in a secondary market. The most recent location opened last December, but Horton has done business in two other locations over the last two decades. Horton chose early on to diversify his services; he’s hosted recording, mixing and mastering sessions for a range of well-known artists including Matchbox Twenty, Big Daddy Kane, Evanescence, Swizz Beatz and Julio Iglesias, as well as audio post work for corporate clients like Winnow Creative and Brazilian filmmakers. Horton has also been overseeing a transfer of original two-track masters from legendary art rockers Devo. Horton notes, “The way we’ve made it work is to be able to do it all, a bit of everything that the client could need,” from basic tracks to mixing, mastering and video post, to CD and DVD duplication and even audio restoration and forensics services. With the opening of the new complex, Horton sourced a Neve Genesys console through Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users.
The new studio facility consisting of the following spaces: Studio A’s large tracking room and spacious control room, the latter centered around a 24-channel Genesys console with Neve 1073 microphone preamps and Neve 1084 equalizers on each channel and Avid Pro Tools HD and Studer and Tascam analog multitrack recorders; a smaller preproduction studio loaded with over 30 vintage and new hardware synths and drum machines; and the Video Post Suite featuring a Euphonix MC Pro control surface and Blackmagic Design hardware.
Horton notes, “That [Genesys] console is amazing, and having the 1073 microphone preamps on it just takes it to another level,” he says. “You’d actually have to work to make it sound bad. It just sounds great naturally, as soon as you turn it on.”
There’s lots of other gear, esoteric and otherwise, much of it sourced through GC Pro. Horton says they were the only place in the country that could get him the Neve Genesys, which he says he bought before he ever actually heard it. “I’ve worked on a Neve many times and I know what a 1073 sounds like, and it just makes me gush inside,” he notes. “Getting that Neve console was a very happy moment – I was blown away by it. It just sounded like heaven.” Horton says that GC Pro has been a resource for him for most of the years he’s owned Post Pro, and he’ll be back there in the near future to add more Neve 1084 preamp/EQ modules for channels 17-24 on the Genesys.
GC Pro isn’t just a resource when he’s at the studio, though. Horton fondly recalls them being able to deliver a Roland Fantom-G6 workstation keyboard to him while he was on the road with Guns N’ Roses. “I was programming keyboards for them and I called and asked if they could get the workstation to me ASAP,” he recalls. “And it was waiting for me when I got to the hotel. They take care of me in the studio and on the road.”
For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.
