“In the last year we probably had around 100 platinum records recorded through these consoles,” says House Of Hits owner Vinny DeLeon. The consoles he refers to are the two Audient ASP8024 Heritage Edition desks he now owns, the first in the original studio and the second at the heart of ‘House Of Hits Phase Two’ that opened in July.
“We are the go-to luxury recording studio in Miami,” DeLeon states. “This time I tried to go the extra mile, make it even more modern – more ‘2035’,” he explains. Indeed he has: besides the 24-channel Audient console with patchbay and some tasty outboard gear, the newest control room also boasts a fish tank.
Despite his online alter ego, multi-platinum mixing engineer ‘Mr Mix & Master’ originally confessing to “not being the most analogue mixer”, he now works on the Audient desk on a daily basis. “I went from using a laptop and headphones to an analog console with $60k speakers, and the transition has been quicker than I thought. I get great results as my sounds have gotten super-sized.”
DeLeon recently recorded Busta Rhymes on an El Alfa remix for La Mamá de la Mamá as well as the new Black Eyed Peas single featuring Mariah, he’s certainly been busy. “I got another two Billboard number ones with Daddy Yankee in the last month and six of my records reached 100 million streams on both YouTube and Spotify,” he adds.
According to DeLeon, House Of Hits team members as well as visiting engineers have enjoy working with the desk as well: “The fact that it’s an inline console makes for an easy workflow and the quality is amazing. The built-in patchbay makes it simple and straightforward, too. It has just been seamless.”
He’s planning to open another four rooms across the street for new artists and writers, adding, “My producer, two-time Grammy award winning Vinny Venditto, and I are working on a lot of big records right now. I’m really excited about the future.
He’s also talking about working with his acoustician and studio builder Christopher Bentley to expand even further. “With this business model we have such a great presence online — number one on Google for recording studios in Miami, over 300 reviews and a 4.9 rating — that we are going to go for the moon and franchise it in other cities, like Los Angeles and New York.”
