Solid State Logic AWS 900 Used on American Idol

Producer/mixer Brad Gilderman relies on Solid State Logic AWS 900+ consoles at Westlake Studios’ Production Rooms 1 and 2 to capture the golden tones of the weekly hopefuls for “American Idol.” The AWS provides Gilderman with signature SSL SuperAnalogue sound and integrated control of Westlakes’ Pro Tools systems. The productions end up on iTunes every week.

“Essentially we are producing an album’s worth of material every week in three and a half days so we really rely heavily on the AWS 900+ to deliver superior quality sound for the vocal performances,” says Gilderman, who has worked with such artists as Eric Clapton, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Blind Melon. “The sound of the AWS is crystal clear and punchy. Our focus has been mainly on vocals and everything we get out of the AWS has just been spot on.”

The production flow for the “American Idol” tunes consists of bringing the instrumental tracks to Westlake, where they are run through an AWS 900+ for vocal performance recording and then the entire production is shipped to Little Big Room Studios in Burbank where everything is mixed through an SSL 4000 G+. The reliable performance of the AWS 900+ is of great importance to Gilderman.

“For the last 10 weeks, we have been running our various instrumental tracks and vocal production tracks through the AWS,” Gilderman explains. “The AWS makes everything very easy as our settings are stored in memory, so each week we just walk in the studio, hit a button and boom, our settings are back. The sonic experience is very clean and the technical experience is very simple. We are able to jump back and forth between any projects and are able to get right where we left off. When you have a production schedule such as ours, there is no time for the technology to get in the way. The AWS offers rock solid reliability and really helps to get our job done.”

Offering a unique combination of a compact world-class analogue mixing console and a comprehensive DAW controller, SSL’s AWS 900+ provides everything needed to record, edit and mix ultra professional audio. Establishing a new category in modern console design, the AWS 900+ provides SuperAnalogue mic pres, signal processing, comprehensive monitoring and superb workflow-oriented ergonomics making the creative recording and mixing experience fast, simple and inspiring.

“With SSL, right out of the box, you automatically start every project with great sound,” Gilderman offers. “We also deal with a wide variety of styles and the AWS always delivers the nuance and expression that compliments all these styles. When you add to this the integrated Pro Tools control, the entire job becomes technically much easier. When we need a quick plug-in, we are able to jump on it right away from the console. We don’t need to interrupt our creative flow by leaving the console, grabbing a mouse and manipulating a computer. The AWS 900+ is a great benefit to our crazy creative production schedule.”

Solid State Logic is the world’s leading manufacturer of analogue and digital audio consoles and provider of creative tools for music, broadcast and post production professionals. For more information about our award-winning products, please visit: www.solid-state-logic.com.