Whether in the studio or on stage, Peter Dyer is usually found surrounded by keyboards. Dyer’s work as a musician, arranger, producer and composer has paired him with artists including Mariah Carey, Adam Lambert, Aloe Blacc, & St. Vincent; placed him as a member of the house band on the new season of ABC’s American Idol; and earned him national spots for BMW, Apple, Chevrolet and WWE.
Dyer has very specific signal-path requirements among the dozens of synths he uses in his L.A. studio. That’s where the Focusrite Red 16Line 64-In / 64-Out Thunderbolt 3 and Pro Tools | HD compatible audio interface, which he acquired last February, comes in. Since integrating the Red 16Line into his workflow, Dyer says creativity and productivity have been significantly enhanced.
“I have a lot of keyboards, both new and vintage, and I like to keep a lot of them ready to record,” Dyer says, noting that he has several keyboards permanently normalled to the first six channels of the Red 16Line. “The largest interface I’ve used before was eight channels, but the Red 16Line doubles that. I can walk in with an idea and just start playing, and not have to repatch when I want to change keyboards. That’s the way it’s always supposed to be: you’re only supposed to be thinking about the music.”
Dyer says the Red 16Line also gives him cleaner signal path, directly from the instrument to Pro Tools, without having to pass through other electronics stages that can add color to the sound. “What I hear from the instrument is what I hear coming back through the speakers,” he says.
This kind of flexibility has benefits beyond the creative ones — Dyer says he can work faster and smarter through the Red 16Line. “The commercial projects in particular have very tight deadlines; it’s not unusual to have as little as two to three days to go from concept to delivery. The Red 16Line has really helped keep that process moving. Also, I don’t have a big studio here — it’s more like a typical L.A. apartment studio, so I need a way to minimize cabling and streamline all the connections. That’s another way the Red 16Line helps me. It’s really provided some big benefits in a small, one-rack-space unit. I love it.”
Red 16Line is a 64-in/64-out Pro Tools | HD and dual Thunderbolt 3 audio interface with ultra-low latency A-D/D-A conversion, Red Evolution mic preamps, up to 121dB dynamic range, low round trip latency, and expansion over Ethernet for networked audio. Since Red 16Line provides both DigiLink connectors and Thunderbolt connections, it’s now easier than ever to switch from Pro Tools | HD to a second DAW, without the need to reconfigure option cards in the interface. Simply change the host mode either in the remote control software, or on the device front panel and change DAWs in seconds.
