Secret Sound Adds All-Digital Lexicon 960L to Complement Extensive Pro Tools System

Composer/producer Chas Sandford is enthusiastic about computer-based digital recording. His personal studio, Secret Sound, is built around a massive Digidesign Pro Tools HD 7 system, with 48 channels of 192 kHz I/O and a 32-fader ProControl system with Edit Pack.

When it comes to reverb, though, Mr. Sandford finds that software plug-ins just won’t do. “A lot of plug-ins are great,” he says, “but on any digital audio workstation system it’s hard to allocate the processing power needed to make great, dense-sounding reverb effects.”

His solution is Lexicon. In January, Mr. Sandford installed a Lexicon 960LD Multi-Channel Digital Effects System at Secret Sound. He has been an ardent fan of Lexicon reverbs for many years, and feels that only the 960L could offer the classic reverbs and other audio effects he wants, while still matching the performance of Secret Sound’s all-digital environment.

Secret Sound has served as production venue for many top artists, including Chicago, Stevie Nicks, and Roger Daltrey. It has gone through several re-fits, both in its original location in Los Angeles and more recently in the Nashville area. Through the re-locations and re-designs, Mr. Sandford has stuck with Lexicon.

“No other outboard processor sounds as natural as a Lexicon. So as my recording system evolved and grew, I knew I wanted a 960L to keep up with it,” says Mr. Sandford. “The 960L does the dense-sounding reverb effects I need, and since Lexicon made a version without the analog I/Os, I can access that kind of DSP quality at a more cost-effective price.” (The 960LD is identical to the 960L, except that it provides digital-only inputs and outputs, no analog).

Dave Malekpour, president of Professional Audio Design, which supplied the Lexicon 960LD for Secret Sound comments: “No other system has ever achieved what Lexicon algorithms have. Engineers and producers can spot a Lexicon reverb on a record in a second. So it makes sense that when you’re working in an all-digital environment, especially one as complex and large as what Chas has at Secret Sound, you’d want a 960L, which can give you both the digital interface you need and the great-sounding effects that you want.”

The addition of the Lexicon 960LD at Secret Sound also had something of a back-to-the-future effect for Sandford. “I plugged it in and used it on some older recordings and it just brought new life to them,” Sandford remarks. “It’s just an awesome machine.”

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