Priory, an up-and-coming electropop band from Portland recently signed by Warner Bros, utilizes Metric Halo ULN-8 integrated devices both live and in the studio.
“These days, I feel like the only way for a band to succeed is to be self-contained – the band has to be able to take care of everything for itself,” says producer/engineer/musician Brandon Rush, who, together with long-time friend Kyle Sears, fronts Priory. “The Metric Halo ULN-8 contains mic pres, converters, routing logic, and DSP, and it’s absolutely world-class.”
Rush and Sears fuse hard-hitting electronic elements with organic-sounding acoustic elements that bring warmth and personality to the band’s catchy tunes. The duo, who studied audio engineering in college, self-recorded their Warner Bros. debut in a converted studio space, relying extensively on the Metric Halo ULN-8.
An EP, “Weekend” preceded the release of the full-length, “Need to Know.” The group also tours with two Metric Halo ULN-8s, which together act as a self-contained, plug-and-play in-ear monitoring system.
“Even though we have a nice collection of outboard gear at this point, the ULN-8 played a big role in almost every track we laid down for ‘Weekend’ and ‘Need to Know’,” Rush notes. “Kyle and I are both gear nerds, and we’ve each owned plenty of other converters at various points. The ULN-8 is unique in its ability to stack track after track after track without losing any of the clarity or distinction when all those tracks are mixed together. Plus, we’re able to use Metric Halo’s fantastic plug-ins.”
Unlike most projects, in which the recording and mixing phases are clearly separated, Rush and Sears carefully mix as they build up tracks. In this process, they also utilized Metric Halo’s flagship plug-in, ChannelStrip “all over the place” for equalization and compression. In addition, Metric Halo TransientControl found favor in a range of situations.
“TransientControl is invaluable,” Rush states. “It’s incredibly transparent and thus great when I don’t want to color a sound but still need it compressed. It sounds great on drum overheads. It allows me to squeeze the room into the sound in a very nice way. It’s also killer on DI bass; the result is really fat and smooth. TransientControl is a smart alternative to traditional compression.”
With plenty of touring experience to draw on from previous bands, Rush and Sears wanted to avoid the uncertainty of traditional monitoring. Instead, they employed two Metric Halo ULN-8s, together with Metric Halo MIO Console, to build a self-contained, plug-and-play in-ear monitoring system. MIO Console delivers flexible routing, volume control, and Metric Halo DSP. MIO Console gave Priory the power to fully-customize its in-ear setup.
“The problem a lot of touring bands have – especially when they’re just starting out like us – is that they’re not given much time for a soundcheck,” Rush says. “The ULN-8s and MIO Console allow us to do all our own gain-staging using splits from all the on-stage mics and DIs. Every night we get the same mix in our ears.”
The Metric Halo ULN-8s reside at the bottom of the tour rack and have performed without so much as a hiccup for 20,000 miles and counting. The band brings a laptop to make any adjustments to the mix as necessitated by the acoustics of a particular stage, but MIO Console maintains the proper routing and mix even without hooking up the laptop. Having Metric Halo’ DSP resources on board adds the finishing touches.
For example, Rush puts HaloVerb on all the channels. “HaloVerb has a very natural, transparent, and accurate sound; it’s not artificial at all,” he says. “We dial in different settings depending on the space and our guys love it.”