Today's News

December 3, 2001

Ainlay Cuts Tape Ties with Lucid

Nashville, TN--Engineer/producer Chuck Ainlay has fleshed out his Steinberg Nuendo and Tascam MX2424 systems with three Lucid ADA 8824 (ADAT) converters. He selected the Lucid converters for their "analog open" sound and their combination lightpipe and AES/EBU interface formats. The acquisition brings his Nuendo system up to its maximum 48 channels and provides 24 channels of high-quality input for a portable Tascam MX2424 rack.

Ainlay recently completed Nate Barrett's, Lyric Street Records debut album, tracking and mixing back to the Nuendo hard-drive system using the Lucid lightpipe and AES/EBU combination to interface with a Sonics System for mastering at Final Stage with Randy LeRoy. Other completed projects are Mark Knopfler's 5.1 mix of Sailing to Philadelphia and up-and-coming heavy metal act, The Blue. Future projects include a 5.1 remix of a famed Ray Orbison recording.

Ainlay, a partner of BackStage Studio at Soundstage Studios, has long championed digital technology, but, until recently, he felt the decision to go digital was a tradeoff between production efficiency and sonic quality. "I've been a proponent of digital technology from the beginning," notes Ainlay. "I was working with 3M digital machines before Sony had introduced its venerable decks, and I introduced producer Jimmy Bowen to the format. He subsequently pushed Nashville to take the lead in digital technology. I always had misgivings about the digital sound, but never about the considerable production edge that digital delivers. However, with the latest generation of digital technology, such as the Lucid converters, I don't see any reason to use analog tape except as a signal processor." Severing ties with tape-based formats, Ainlay sought to expand his Nuendo system to a full 48 channels so that he could mix on a full-size console. He selected the ADA 8824 converters from the spectrum of Lucid equipment because it boasted lightpipe, which is necessary for the Nuendo sound card, and AES/EBU, necessary for the studio's SSL digital desk. Steinberg converters provide the other 24 channels of I/O, but they don't offer the AES/EBU interface. A Rosendahl master word clock drives all of the digital equipment.

Lucid
425-742-1518
www.lucidaudio.com