4U Recording Atlanta, located in the city’s West Midtown neighborhood and comprised of two large rehearsal/event rooms, four recording studios, and a podcast room, recently underwent a renovation to improve communication and networking throughout the facility in a process that includes the addition of an Allen & Heath SQ-6 console in the Studio A rehearsal/performance space.
“We wanted to make things more up to date, and incorporate Dante,” explains Vohn Keith Jr., manager of the studio that’s owned by Tony Alexander and noted songwriter/producer David Porter. The 4U team also added a DX168 expander for I/O at the stage, which runs back to the SQ-6 via a Cat-6 digital snake.
With the addition of the console, Studio A can now capture multitrack recordings of live performances and rehearsals via Dante. “It really opened up our possibilities,” notes facilities manager Reo Harris. “With all the individual tracks we can access and feed to our other studio spaces,” adding, “for all the features available, there was nothing else on the market that really compared.”
Harris had never previously used an SQ, but says he was able to quickly pick up on the workflow: “I love the touch screen capability, and being able to patch in local I/O or networked input sources quickly. I also really enjoy working with the reverb and delay plugins built-in, it’s so easy to route to them — the whole console is very intuitive.”
The event spaces at 4U are host to a diversity of performances “Sometimes it’s big artists preparing and rehearsing for tours,” Keith concludes. “But we’re open to everyone that has that creative sense and is looking to find their sound. Our goal is to make our clients reassured and confident in all our studio spaces.”
