Young Guns, in the process of writing and demoing for their upcoming third full-length album, turned to Focusrite’s Saffire PRO 40 FireWire and Thunderbolt compatible interface and OctoPre MkII Dynamic preamps/compressors as the hub of their home recording studio based in Marlow, UK.
Their recording/rehearsal space – which was constructed by the band themselves – acts as their central writing and practice facility, and is where they have written most of their material, including their debut EP Mirrors, first full-length All Our Kings Are Dead and second full-length Bones. When approaching the writing process for their third full-length, they decided they wanted to take more creative control in terms of production, and for that they required a great sounding, comprehensive and easy-to-operate audio interface solution. “The idea was to allow us to put down solid demos in our own time,” says guitarist John Taylor. “We wanted to be able to multi-track record live performances as a whole band as well as track great sounding drums, guitars, synths and vocals for demos.”
Focusrite’s Saffire Pro 40 Firewire and Thunderbolt compatible audio interface, which includes eight award-winning Focusrite preamps, 10 analog outputs, ADAT I/O, S/PDIF connections, two DI channels, a dedicated stereo monitor mix output and two independent headphone buses, covered all the bases in terms of an ideal audio interface. For added channel count expandability, they also chose Focusrite’s OctoPre MkII Dynamic, which they connect via ADAT, giving them eight more channels of Focusrite mic preamps with a VCA-based compressor on each channel.
For recording drums, the band is taking advantage of the OctoPre MkII Dynamic’s on-board compressors, which help to add life and character to drum takes on the way in.
