A 100% digitally recallable mixing and mastering studio has been a dream of mine for many many years. That day has finally come at Audio Animals in September 2024. With the advancements in the industry combining analogue equipment with digital elements, we are finally in a position to be able to have analogue hardware recall instantly as it was in the session.
The process is very simple. Analogue hardware connects to the computer via a USB cable and a plugin is hosted within your DAW. When the session loads the plugin settings are sent to the connected hardware and the hardware changes to those settings.
There are multiple benefits of having digital recall built into an analogue hardware unit.
- Digital recall of analogue equipment
- Advanced features inside the plugin such as visual analysers and EQ curves
- Hardware automation within your DAW via the plugin
- Mid / Side processing in almost all units as standard
- Plugin control of hardware
Why Did You Want To Create A 100% Digitally Recallable Studio?
There were a few reasons why I wanted to do this, but the main reason is that due to our business model and the way we work, we must recall a mix identically every time. Which has always discouraged me from using analogue equipment when mixing. I used to have a 36 channel Solid State Logic console and it was a pain to recall perfectly every time, even with SSL total recall. Due to my business model being non attended and revisions being delivered over email, there are almost always one or two revisions to be applied to the mix before mastering. Using digitally recallable hardware I can know with confidence the session is exactly as it was every time.
Who Is Leading The Way In Digital Recall?
There are quite a few companies leading the way in digitally recallable hardware. Wes Audio and Bettermaker are leading the charge and excelling. I currently own the entire Bettermaker and Wes Audio range and I can attest for how good their products are. Not only do they all sound exceptional, they also work flawlessly with digital recall. There are other companies such as Cranborne Audio and Freqport who both have one product each released with more to come.
There are also a few new companies that are releasing digitally recallable hardware in 2025. Elysia are going to become major players in the world of digital recall in 2025. I firmly believe by the end of 2025 Solid State Logic will have released their first digitally recallable product. If I were to guess we will see digitally recallable versions of the SSL Fusion and SSL Bus Plus.
What Did You Install Into Your Studio?
I removed almost all of my analogue mastering chain that didn’t have digital recall, the only two units I kept were the Hum Audio LAAL and Hendy Amps Michelangelo XL. The reason for keeping these two units is that the LAAL is effectively digitally recallable. Using a digitally recallable unit before it with output gain control, I can use the output gain to apply the correct input gain into the LAAL. Using the Michelangelo XL a bypassed instance of the plugin sits on my mix bus as a parameter guide and is then manually set by hand to where it was in the mix. The reason for keeping these two units in the studio even though they don’t have digital recall is that they are very easy to recall by hand and have such an incredible sound to them, I would highly miss them and would have a detrimental impact on my sound if I removed them.
I already had a couple of digitally recallable Wes Audio products in my studio which included the Wes Audio NG Tube EQ and Wes Audio NG Bus Comp. Knowing already how good these two units are by Wes Audio it was easy for me to install two Wes Audio Titan 500 series racks. In the 500 series racks I have included 2x Hyperion 4 band parametric EQs, 2x Prometheus passive EQs, a Rhea tube compressor and a Dione bus compressor.
I have also included 5 new Bettermaker units. Covering Bettermakers entire product line. The Bettermaker rack includes a Bettermaker Limiter V2, Bettermaker Mastering Compressor, Bettermaker Mastering EQ, Bettermaker Bus Compressor and Bettermaker VSPE (Valve Stereo Passive Equalizer). All 5 units sound very good and the digital recall aspect works flawlessly.
I already had a Cranborne Audio Carnaby HE2 installed in the studio, so this obviously stayed. A brilliant 3 band saturation box that sounds incredible when processing snares. Brings anything you want to run through it to life.
I previously had a McDSP APB8 installed into my studio but would only ever use it on single instances. Because I only had 8 channels to use I never made much use of it. But I always knew it’s potential if I had more. So I took the leap and installed 5 McDSP APB16s. By adding 5 APB16s to my existing APB8 I am now able to add 88 channels of analogue processing. The McDSP analogue processing boxes allow you to add anything from EQ, compression, tape, limiter or saturation to any audio source. The hardware is controlled via a plugin
I installed a Flock Patch early 2024 and wanted to keep this in the studio. The Flock Patch gives me a digitally recallable patchbay. I can change the routing of my mixing chains as well as my mastering chain. Combining different channel strips depending on the source.
