London-based Ed Thorne Music Production, a growing YouTube platform that explores the changing nature of studio production and educates up-and-coming engineers on tools and techniques available to them, utilizes a hybrid studio workflow with a Flock Audio PATCH digitally controlled analog patchbay and the PATCH APP DX software as a centerpiece of the approach.
Thorne’s investment in growing his YouTube channel has been part of a larger effort to make studio music production his primary focus after changing over due to the impact of the pandemic. “There’s so much choice now in the type of equipment you can use to set up a studio, and I find the learning aspect of it all fascinating,” Thorne notes. “Sharing it all on YouTube was a natural extension of that. We really live in a world of luxury in terms of choice and as a YouTuber I take the responsibility seriously of helping to navigate these choices to get the focus back on making music and being creative.”
Part of Thorne’s journey has been his use of hybrid workflows in the studio and employing his favorite analog outboard equipment alongside digital plugins. Doing so not only serves his purposes from a sonic standpoin but has also given him the opportunity to educate his audience who largely grew up without them, and as a result don’t understand the connection between them and modern plugin technology.
“There can be a real polarization on YouTube — and engineers at large, really — between analog purists and ‘in the box’ guys, and I think being either way misses some real advantages to both,” he explains. “Plugins have come a really long way and it’s unbelievable, but when you spend time with analog gear you start to understand where these classic sounds come from and why they work. It’s a very different, non-linear way of thinking at times, but once you wrap your head around it can be an incredibly creative thing to add back into the process of recording music. There’s a depth of sound that you can’t replicate there, so I use the Flock Audio PATCH to bring those elements into my workflow.”
He has more than two dozen 500-series rack units that encompass his preferred analog preamps, EQs, and compressors, integrated into the studio with PATCH. “The immediate benefit of PATCH was the sheer speed of using it,” Thorne says, “I was able to spend more time on the creative process rather than having to constantly plug and unplug things to put together the signal chains I wanted. It was amazing and fueled my desire to make analog more a part of what I do.”
Being able to quickly create and recall “go-to” combinations that have yielded his best results while also being able to document the knob settings with PATCH APP DX have allowed him to take advantage of these sounds without any impact on his workflow. “Being able to audition any combination of my hardware instantly with my saved chains has been amazing to have,” he states. “I always have photos of the knob settings documented in PATCH APP DX for each preset as well. That’s an incredibly useful added feature that gets you right where you need to be quickly. It blew my mind how convenient it could be once I was installed, and it’s become essential to what I do.”
