Hillier, a longtime producer of Depeche Mode, Elbow, Blur and others, appreciates getting his hands on SSL faders again
Like many engineers and producers who came up in the record business using large format mixing consoles, Ben Hillier prefers to have his hands on hardware faders when he works. Hillier has favoured a hybrid music production workflow for years, combining analogue processing with recording software to track and mix, but it was only recently, when he adopted the Solid State Logic UF8, that he finally found a DAW controller that suits his work style.
Hillier, whose extensive credit list, dating back 30 years, includes projects with Depeche Mode, Blur, Elbow, Doves, Nadine Shah and many, many others, had tried various controllers in the past, but always found them lacking. “It’s a fundamental thing — it's quite nice to turn one channel up while you’re turning another one down,” he says. “And riding a balance on a few things is very handy, I find.”
A shared past with SSL
He spent the late 1990s and early 2000s in studios with SSL 4000 E/G Series desks, he says. “If you've come from large format mixing, as I have, you don't realize how much you miss them. They were great; they were so fast and intuitive.” The eight-fader UF8 is proving to be a good substitute for those vintage mixing desks. “The more I use it, the more I learn about it and the less I have to think about it,” he says. “It's become part of the studio furniture, and that's what you want - you switch it on, and it just works.”
