Musician-producer Kevin Keith recorded his latest EP, titled “Rebirth,” utilizing RME Fireface UC interfaces that play a significant role in his music workflow both in the studio and on the road.
An RME user since his days working for Warner Brothers in the mid-2000s, Keith now owns four Fireface UC audio interfaces which he employs across all his projects — including two for his music rig, one at his recording studio and one at his gaming studio, where he creates music for everything from online social games to lottery machines.
“The Fireface UCs have been wonderful,” he says. “The mic preamps sound absolutely amazing, and the interfaces feature the best of both worlds: they have a good number of ins and outs, and, at the same time, they’re still small and I can fit two of them side-by-side in the same rack space. I use it in everything I do.”
“Rebirth,” due out later this month, offers a blend of vocal and instrumental performances, including Keith’s signature instrument, the stick — an electronic musical instrument that’s part of the guitar family. While recording, he deployed the Fireface UC for its dynamic range.
“I play stick and it has so much sonic power that every other interface I used just couldn’t handle the dynamic range,” he explains. “But with the Fireface UC, you can really just be crunching away at the dynamic range, and it will catch everything. It won’t collapse or saturate. It just sounds fantastic — the detailing is there, and the imaging is there. It makes your music sound like a lot more than what it is.”
Keith frequently travels across the U.S. as well as internationally, with the Fireface UC’s small footprint an added bonus. “My stick rig is elaborate, and there’s a lot of stuff happening with it,” he says. “Today, it’s hard to fly and bring equipment with you. It’s like you have three rack spaces and you have to figure out what you can fit in it. But the amount of tech I can bring with me thanks to the Fireface UC is wonderful.”
His travel rig consists of two Fireface UCs side-by-side in a rack case, a patch panel and a guitar-to-MIDI interface along with some guitar plugins.
“It’s great for when I travel internationally because everything fits into two cases that I can check and, on top of that, they are very durable units,” Keith concludes, adding, “It sounds just like an audio console — just obviously a lot smaller and with less ins and outs.”
