Solid State Logic is pleased to announce that multi-talented arranger, composer, musical director, and producer Angel Fernández has upgraded his Queens, NYC-based ‘Missing Lynx’ project recording studio to center around an SSL X-Desk.
Angel Fernández is well known in a touring and performing capacity as long-time Musical Director for Grammy winning Latin American superstar (and occasional actor) Marc Anthony.
When not living in the limelight, touring and performing, Fernández can usually be found in his beloved project studio.
“Missing Lynx has become like a little haven for me. I don’t have to travel long distances anymore to find a place to record, plus I get to say, ‘Welcome to my place!’
“Visiting producers and musicians enjoy the relaxed atmosphere because they’re simply friends stopping by to do a recording session.”
Fernández is very busy during his touring downtime, giving the sought-after trumpeter and guitarist an opportunity to shine offstage in more ways than one with a constant stream of renowned Latin musicians and recording projects passing through.
“I get a good amount of work for arranging and producing, which is a blessing these days in the current economic climate of the music business,” Fernández explains.
No stranger to the international recording scene, Angel instinctively knew what he was seeking, sound-wise, when turning to SSL.
“I worked with producer Steve Lillywhite quite a few times. He always used SSL to mix, and — on the sessions I was involved in — to track as well,” Fernández adds. “I heard a definite sound, which was explained to me in part by producer Nick Launay — who engineered some projects for Lillywhite — when he demonstrated the use of the SSL compressor for sidechaining.
“He played me a drum track, which he used as the trigger for the horn section sidechain, and said, ‘Do you recognise the sound? It’s what Earth, Wind And Fire use to get that tight groove going.’”
Angels’s quest to achieve that same quality of sound in his busy private studio led him to the X-Desk.
“The main goal in switching my console for the X-Desk was to enhance the sound in the final product,” he explains. “Before the X-Desk, I’d bounce the mixes within my Pro Tools|HD system.
“The combination of being able to take advantage of the full capability of the DAW I/O together with the SuperAnalogue summing in the X-Desk has resulted in much clearer mixes.”
This journey to mixing clarity came to a head on Angel’s latest Latino production.
“The LD & Johni project has tons of tracks, and we’d been racking our brains trying to mix it to no avail — panning to the max to achieve separation, using frequency analyzer software to cut unnecessary frequencies wherever possible, EQ’ing, etc, all with the aim of achieving as much clarity as possible,” Fernández concludes. “But once we went with the new setup based around the X-Desk we instantly heard the wider spectrum, pop, and clarity in the mixes that we’d been striving for — without any tweaking at all we’d hit the warm SSL sound.”
