After a successful introduction to Prism Sound technology via a Titan multichannel audio interface, production and mastering engineer Julio “Fragancia” Abreu is about to add two more Prism Sound units to his studio in Miami, FL.
Abreu specializes in Latin music in working with top artists in the genre such as Bad Bunny, Henry Santos and Don Omar, and has been nominated for awards that include a Latin Grammy, two Tally Television Awards and a Latin Billboard Award for Mastering, which he won in 2006. “I had my eye on a Prism Sound converter quite a while before I actually bought one,” he explains. “I’d heard about them and knew many well-known mastering facilities were using Prism Sound Dream ADA-8XR and Dream AD-2s, but I didn’t take the plunge until the company came out with the Titan. At that point I decided it was time to buy because eight channels of great conversion at an excellent price point was a no brainer.”
He adds that although he has used many good converters over the years, the Titan’s channel count made it very well suited for the stem mastering projects he’s increasingly tackling. “It is definitely the unit for the job,” he says. “The sound quality is insane. It is ultra-clear and when you clip the converters it handles very well — not like others that distort and crack in an unpleasant way.”
Designed to offer high-quality analog and digital I/O for Mac or Windows PCs, Titan delivers sample rates of up to 192 kHz via a USB interface. As a mastering engineer, Fragancia says his signal flow is relatively simple and mainly involved playing mixes from Pro Tools and, if necessary, manipulating them “in the box” with corrective software or plugins. He then uses the Titan to come out of Pro Tools and into an analog Dangerous Music master transfer console.
“This connects my two compressors (Rupert Neve Portico II master bus processor and Manley Vari MU) and my two equalizers (Maselec MEA-2 and Manley Massive Passive),” he says. “Once all analog processing is done in the anal domain, the audio goes into the Titan and I clip the converter a bit hard to get the beautiful punch and loudness that Prism Sound is known for.”
Abreu completes the process by capturing everything on Pro Tools so that he can print WAV Masters. “At the moment I’m using ProTools Native for playback and printing but lucky for me I recently picked up a HDX PCIe card that works perfectly with the Titan’s HDX card port. It’s a match made in heaven,” he says.
