Ralph Sutton in Wonderland. (Photo by AVO)

Ralph Sutton, chief engineer and director of studio operations for Stevie Wonder's Wonderland Recording Studios in Los Angeles, reports that he has been using a Phoenix Audio DRS-2 mic preamp, supplied by Mercenary Audio, to record vocal performances to his Digidesign Pro Tools HD system. "When you're dealing with digital audio, the cleaner the signal going into the recorder, whether it's Pro Tools or Nuendo or a digital multi-track like a Sony 3348, the better the reproduction is going to be coming out,” Sutton says.

“That's really what I look for in any device like that. The DRS-2 has the ability to give me what I'm trying to accomplish right off the bat going into the digital domain.

Sutton finds that the DRS-2's switchable high-pass filter convenient for cleaning up background noise when recording vocals. "I'm able to roll off a lot of the room noise and zoom right in on the level that I'm trying to get into Pro Tools," he elaborates. "The roll off is actually very specific in the frequency that it cuts off, so much so that when you insert it, it knocks out all the air conditioning and room noise. Anything under 70 cycles is gone."

"I'm using it almost exclusively on vocals," he adds, "which is probably one of the more crucial applications. One of the things that I really like about the Phoenix Audio unit is that it gives me the opportunity to get a very clean signal path going into Pro Tools."

Sutton, whose career spans three decades, has worked at such prestigious recording studios as Elektra Asylum, Motown's Hitsville USA, Kenny Rogers' Lionshare and Babyface's The Tracking Place, and is an active member of the Recording Academy's Board of Governors.

(The DRS-2 and other Phoenix products are distributed by
Transamerica Audio Group )