ASP4816 Makes Beliefspace Studio

Audient's ASP4816 came along at just the right time for sound engineer, teacher and now studio owner, Stu Welsh who's just set up Beliefspace Studio. Stu's the Audio & Music Production course leader at dBs Music recording school, so he knows his onions when it comes to choosing gear. Getting it absolutely right for his latest project, Beliefspace Studio, was non-negotiable.

Introduced to the desk by Audient's own Gareth Williams at a workshop at Plymouth-based dBs Music, he knew immediately that he'd found The One. “I knew Audient from their excellent reputation and the ASP4816 fitted my needs exactly,” he says, his aim being to “...build a digital studio with an analogue heart.

“If I were to design a console, this is exactly how I would do it,” he continues, having linked it to a patchbay, where everything in his studio is routed first to give maximum flexibility. “The routing is absolutely key for me. The console needed to be able to handle both a DAW signal path and a purely analogue signal path, which it does with ease. The I/O on the ASP4816 is phenomenal, especially for a console in this price bracket and, if the routing hadn't swayed me, the fold back and monitoring sections would have.”

With Beliefspace Studio up and running later this month, Stu is grateful to colleagues Ray Hendriksen and Leo Brown from dBs Music for encouragement, support and the generous donation of recording gear. “We now have one the best microphone collections in the South West boasting over 40 microphones, new and vintage. We also have Ampex MM1200 24 track 2" machine,” he beams, clearly a man who loves his craft. “Every mix is a performance, it's great to get the artist/s involved in muting channels, panning and pushing up faders on a mix down because they feel much more involved in the mixing process.”

With the first session in scheduled for the end of the month, and Hendriksen (who has worked with Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, Mick Ronson, John Entwistle and Greg Lake) joining Stu on the project, the stakes are high. So who will be the first artist to record at Beliefspace Studio? “It's my wife's group, The Lena Smith Band.” No pressure, then!

The ASP4816 was supplied by Academia Music, supplier of audio technology and music solutions for education.