SOLAR-POWERED RECORDING IN MALAWI WITH AUDIENT

8 September 2015

Mobile recording studio, Wired For Sound revisits Malawi this summer to record young musical talent in the region. On the gear list was Audient’s iD22 USB interface and ASP880 8-channel mic pre and ADC as a part of the setup. Three weeks into the third phase of the project, and beset with power cuts and connectivity issues, they still managed to record 40 local musicians.

Sound engineer Simon Attwell explains how they overcame the problems with the electricity: “We have done all the recordings using our solar set up built into the vehicle, powering a MacBook Pro, the iD22 and headphone amp. In fact, we are going solar all the way, using a Studer 200w pure SW inverter. It gives us excellent clean power free from clicks or interference.”

With the iD22s compact design and portability making it ideal for location recording, recording jobs like these show its reliability too — even when powered by the sun. “We’ve been mostly tracking using an AT4047MP and SM7, which both sound superb through the iD22, and of course the built-in DI is super useful for bass and guitar overdubs.

“We’ve also installed two solar powered recording studios (mirroring our set up — two channel interface and laptop powered by solar panel) in Monkey Bay and in Mchinji.” One of the project’s goals is to gain access to young musicians in remote areas, and in order to do so they partner with radio stations as an entry point into the community. This year however, they’ve also found themselves in jail. “We used the ASP880 in Kachere Youth Prison in Lilongwe to record the prison band. It was an amazing experience. We were a bit concerned about getting it all up and running, but it linked perfectly and we were recording eight tracks within minutes.”

Audient’s South African distributor, Benjamin Pro Audio supplied the units.

More info:

Audient: www.audient.com

Australian Distributor: www.innovativemusic.com.au