Noted composer, singer/songwriter, musician and music producer AR Rahman recently added a Harman Professional Studer Vista X digital console to the studio of his YM Movies film production firm in Chennai, India.
A Grammy and Academy Award winner, Rahman is probably best known for his scores and soundtracks in feature films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours and Jodhaa Akbar. His compositions are popular for their eclectic blend of musical styles and wide range of instrumentation, and to date, he’s sold more than 250 million albums worldwide.
Rahman will be using the Vista X to mix audio for the extensive variety of YM Movies projects as well as other works, including his own solo albums and numerous humanitarian projects.
“The console’s massive number of channels and outputs will speed up laying stems, for big scores in particular,” Rahman states. “I first saw the Vista 5 at the Harman store in New York City and I loved the controls. I soon learned about the Vista X and had to have it. It has a very user-friendly vibe and processing redundancy.”
In addition, his previous experience with other Harman audio equipment provided reassurance that the Vista X. “When I started my Panchathan Record Inn studios, the only speakers I had were JBL Control 5 and 4412,” he notes. “I’m also a big fan of Lexicon reverbs as well.”
The Vista X offers an intuitive user interface, retaining the patented Vistonics and FaderGlow user interface, providing control of 800 or more audio DSP channels and more than 5,000 inputs and outputs. At the heart of the system is the Infinity DSP core, which uses CPU-based processors to provide huge numbers of DSP channels for large-scale, high-resolution audio processing and mixing.
“I’m using the Vista X as a full-fledged post-production console,” Rahman concludes. “Geoff Foster from Air Studios is here mixing over 600 tracks of ProTools on it right now.”
