When asked about their first experience with the API brand, many engineers, producers and artists can describe the session or studio in great detail.
For The Blasting Room’s co-owner and chief engineer, Jason Livermore, however, API goes hand-in-hand with his entire career.
“Pretty much immediately upon becoming interested in pursuing the recording arts,” the tone and warmth was integrated in his work.
The impact of API was strong enough that when The Blasting Room recently began looking for a console from local dealer Wind over the Earth, Livermore knew it had to be API.
Livermore describes the studio’s history, which traces back to 1994, when “members of the seminal punk rock band The Descendents built The Blasting Room as a personal recording studio, but since the first day they opened, people were banging on the door wanting to record.”
While the band is from California, they chose Ft. Collins, Colorado, to build their studio, where “it has grown into the multiple room studio that it is today, recording some of the biggest names in the industry.” As just one example, Livermore explains that almost all of Rise Against’s discography was recorded and produced there, including their American platinum single “Savior”.
The studio has also worked with Alkaline Trio, Flobots, Air Dubai, Puddle of Mudd, The Lemonheads and Train. The 1608 is currently employed by a band recording their newest album, though they have not gone public with the project yet.
Like the studio itself, the 1608 has been busy since the beginning, working across the wide-spread genres that the studio works with. While best known for their punk rock and other heavy styles of music, Livermore says they’ve also worked on everything “from folk to hip hop.” One of the more eclectic genres was brought to the studio by Japanese ska band Kemuri, who just cut their eighth record with The Blasting Room.
Livermore says the 1608 has kept up admirably. “The console is exactly what we had hoped for and expected from API. Extremely clean and sleek design, intuitive functionality, and the ability to craft our tones into exactly how we want to hear them.”
While the 1608 has made business flow more smoothly, it has also changed a few things—and Livermore says that the change is for the better. “Before, we just had an ITB setup with eight channels of summing, so now we have the ability to lay out entire sessions on the desk and mix from there, which has been a huge improvement.”
In reference to the 1608, Livermore says “it’s perfect for our room”, and is routinely used for everything from tracking drums or individual instruments to recording live bands. Before settling on API, Livermore says the studio shopped around quite a bit, but ultimately “the 1608 offered exactly what we required, on top of API’s legendary sonic stamp.”
