Vintage King Outfits McClarney’s Fun Time Studios With A 5088
The following excerpts and photos are reprinted with kind permission from Vintage King Audio. To read the full piece, head on over to their blog.
When Tennessee-based musician Chris McClarney set up a studio, his goal was simple: to make music with his friends and have fun doing so. Vintage King understood the brief and worked with Chris to outfit the space with some of the best gear in the business.
Read on as Chris tells us what inspired him to make the upgrade, what drew him to his new Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console, and how the Avid HDX Core and MTRX II interface fit into his workflow.
Tell us a bit about your studio and the work you do.
We're a brand-new studio in downtown Franklin, Tennessee; actually, it’s kind of an old studio, but this is a brand-new re-opening of it – it’s called McClarney’s Fun Time Studios.
I had written out of this space, a buddy of mine had been working out of here as well, and when he put it up for sale, me and my wife snagged it and turned it into an actual studio again, which is amazing! The goal is to make music with my buddies.
What inspired you to make your recent upgrades?
My best buddies are the band guys – the drummers, bass players, and guitar players – and when 2020 happened, I realized that since they couldn't tour and we couldn't record together in the studio, they weren't able to pay their bills and support their families.
I have done well because I'm a songwriter – that's where I made all my money – so I sold my old catalog and decided I wanted to make music with my friends, and create a different world for them. So, the inspiration really is just to make music, have some fun, and then, hopefully, generate a little income that will support my friends through the ups and downs of life.
What drew you to the Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console?
When you think about the pinnacle of sound, you think of Neve. For years, plugging into a 1073 and singing to my heart's desire has always been the dream. And then Rupert Neve went and made a console that was so cool: it had more headroom; was more modern; was definitely going to cost me less money to take care of than a vintage Neve product; was a little bit cheaper than the AMS Neve console that had the same amount of channels that we wanted… it just felt like a no-brainer.
During the process of looking at boards, I was like, “This is the one I want!”, and people kept trying to talk me out of it, saying, “But have you looked at the API? It’s beautiful!” The API is beautiful, but the 5088…it's gorgeous and it's making me happy. It's got the Silk button on every channel which I just turn all the way up! [Laughs] It makes things just a tiny bit fuzzy and I like it a tiny bit fuzzy. We got the 32-channel version, fully loaded with the EQs. The whole goal of this console was to be a tracking console.
What are some of your favorite features of the new RND 5088?
It’s fairly new here in the studio and we've been wearing it out for about three weeks now. What I'd heard from everybody was that there's infinite headroom – they said “You're never going to reach the top of it” – and that has been true to my experience so far. It feels like you can just keep driving it! All of the inputs into the computer are wearing themselves thin before the board is even starting to work. It's amazing!
Also, the Silk circuit is another big thing – it’s like putting a little love on everything! I just turned them all up to 10, and my engineer buddy was like, “That's not the best way to do it”. [Laughs] I just love it!
How much did the fact that it’s completely modular factor into your decision to purchase it?
A lot! That was definitely a big piece of the conversation around it. I said, “Wait, you're telling me I can have a whole SSL channel and it just busses to the Neve? Yeah, I want that!” This was Round One, so we're not there yet on the outboard gear, but in Round Two, we're going to get some vintage 1073s, some API pres, and some SSL EQs.
At the end of the day, the people that were arguing for API or for the AMS can have that if they want – I'll plug in an API pre and an API EQ and it will just go through the bus. That's the beauty of the modularity of this – you can make it sound like whatever you want and know that the summing of all of that is going to be pristine.
How has your new 5088 changed your workflow?
We're trying to figure out workflow right now, but so far, the way we've got it set up – and what makes it easy – is that you just push unmute and you can record. When my friends show up, there's an acoustic channel set up and ready to go if someone has an idea. It's dialed in fairly well and then we just do tweaks in the moment.
We're not quite there yet, but the ultimate workflow goal is that we can record whenever we want, just by pushing unmute and arming it in Pro Tools.
When inspiration strikes, you can’t waste time setting up gear!
It kills all the inspo! I mean, how many times have you been ready to record, and then the gear doesn't work. So you spend two hours or more fixing it, download whatever update you have to, and by the time you're done with that, you don't want to record anymore! It's like, “I don't feel inspired, I've been yelling at my computer, and my throat hurts!” [Laughs]
