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Famous dub engineer, Ryan Moore, finds Metric Halo's Mobile I/O 2882 a valuable digital addition to his mostly analogue Twilight Studios in the Netherlands.
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NIJMEGEN, HOLLAND: Ryan Moore's Twilight Studio, located in Nijmegen,
Holland, boasts a mouth-watering complement of vintage analogue
processing, recording, and mixing equipment, which he uses to
add the special sonic sauce to his Twilight Circus Dub Sound System
releases. But Moore's latest acquisition, a Metric Halo Mobile
I/O 2882 audio processing system, has brought him kicking and
screaming into the digital world and, he says, has opened up a
whole new way of working.
Moore's tongue is firmly in cheek when he says that he resisted
the move to digital. But the accomplished musician, producer,
re-mixer, and collaborator is not joking about the creative possibilities
that have been opened up to him using the MIO, V1.5 software,
Logic, and a PowerBook running OS X.
"I realized that I could go anywhere," says Moore,
a Canadian who relocated to the Netherlands and has been collaborating
with reggae vocalists on artist releases as well as Twilight Circus
productions, on his own M Records imprint. "I could record
stuff on location, such as in a hotel room. What's been great
about this style of working is that there's this incredible flexibility
and freedom to adapt to the circumstances and the situation at
hand, without having to depend on studio rental. It's guerrilla
recording."
Recording some of the top names in reggae in hotel rooms between
shows, Moore discovered that their vocal performances benefited
greatly from the relaxed environment. "Even the most subtle
things in the atmosphere or their surroundings can affect their
performance, either detrimentally or positively," he observes.
"I found that in recording the vocal sessions in locations
that were not the typical studio session, there was a lot less
pressure. The artists seemed to open up and feel a lot more freedom."
Those collaborations have led, not only to a succession of vinyl
single artist releases but also, to the Twilight Circus "Foundation
Rockers" full-length, which features Mykal Rose, Big Youth,
Luciano, Ranking Joe, Brother Culture, and others.
"It opened up a whole new world for me, and proved to be
very flexible and cost effective," says Moore. "Have
Metric Halo and mic, will travel! For the projects that I was
working on there was no other way to coordinate things. It's also
cheaper not having to rent a studio."
Moore, who appears on over 60 albums, jumped into the digital
audio world and Metric Halo while collaborating with U.S.-based
DJ Spooky. "The only way to do this project was to go into
'computerland' and to have the ability to exchange files and discs
and upload stuff to FTP sites."
Following a recommendation from a producer friend of mine in
Toronto, Darryl Neudorf (54-40, Neko Case, Sarah McLachlan), he
says he checked out some photos on the Metric Halo website that
showed the MIO circuit board. "They were using some juicy-looking
components in the analog stage that got me thinking there were
some sound freaks behind this box." The dedication of the
early adopters of the Metric Halo technology also impressed him.
"Those two things were the clinchers, and I decided to take
the plunge."
Having had excellent results recording vocalists in makeshift
studios and other locations, Moore says that he'd like to take
it to the next level. "I'd like to try to record some vocalist
in a rural setting, like off in the mountains in Jamaica, and
see how that effects things, without the pressure of a studio
environment."
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