Wave Studios in Amsterdam, a new-state-of-the-art commercial post production house, is featuring two Euphonix System 5-MC’s and one Euphonix MC Pro for controlling Nuendo digital audio workstations.
Wave Amsterdam is the second purpose facility for business partners Warren Hamilton and Johnnie Burn, who have owned Wave London, a multiple award winning commercial sound design studio in Soho, since 1999. Wave has been responsible for many of the most memorable advertisements on UK television.
Located on the second floor of a spacious multi-media building with canal views of Herengracht, Wave Amsterdam is comprised of two surround studios, one Dolby EX Certified, and a separate pre-production suite. Each studio is equipped with a 16-fader System 5-MC in a 9-foot frame with two producer desks while the pre-production suite features a standalone MC Pro DAW controller.
The facility fully integrates into Wave’s London network, allowing instant project interchange between London and Amsterdam.
“Building a studio from scratch was a perfect chance for us to experiment to make sure we choose the right gear to give us longevity,” explained Warren Hamilton. “We’ve used Nuendo for a while because of its versatility with plug-ins, the way it’s self-contained and its friendly interface.
“Once we decided that Nuendo was going to be our main recording and edit machine; it was just a matter of finding the ideal platform for control. That’s where Johnnie (Burn) did his research and came up with the Euphonix System 5-MC. When we saw the system for the first time, we were instantly taken with what it could do.”
“In 2004, when I first started working on Nuendo there weren’t any control surfaces that could elevate it to the status of a “proper grown up piece of kit” that you would put in the studio. Fast forward to 2008 and building Wave Amsterdam, we looked for new opportunities, and not just at the developments of the systems we were currently using.
“I believe host based systems are the way forward; it was just the question of whether the control was advanced enough,” agrees Johnnie Burn. “I was gob-smacked when I saw the Euphonix. I started playing on it and was blown away by the quality and the functionality. Its control over Nuendo via EuCon protocol was exceptional. Technically the way it’s turned out, I think, is brilliant. It’s lovely having a computer that all this stuff runs on rather than having to have two huge racks worth of kit.”
“The Euphonix sounds fantastic and has the ability to behave precisely how you want; it can be tailored to exactly for our needs. The speed and versatility the Euphonix systems offer fit perfectly into what we wanted to do,” further explains Hamilton.
“For example, last week we did a session where we had only 4 hours to turn around a complicated 60 second sound effects track-lay for animation. It was hell of a job, but our engineers got the session up on the Euphonix in less than a minute, and simply nailed it.”
“It’s time to rewrite the speed rules apparently,” Hamilton concludes.
For more information:
Euphonix Website
