Best of Both Worlds
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| Sabella Studios owner Jim Sabella (left) with engineer Lorenzo Famiglietti at the Neve 8068. |
But while Sabella is on a constant quest for more vintage analog gear, his next big acquisition may surprise some people: an expanded ProTools rig. Right now, the studio has ProTools LE, and Sabella is weighing either Digi 001 or ProTools MixPlus, leaning toward the latter.
Not that he would ever think of ditching the Neve and a 24-track Studer reel-to-reel. "Even the guys I see at AES every year say, 'Don't ever sell that console.' Everybody says, 'Oh well, it's all virtual now.' And then I ask, 'But why are you selling these Neve modules? And they go, 'Because they're great.' I say, 'But that's what I have!"
The studio is in the enviable position of bridging the analog and digital worlds with the best of both. "Nothing is better than Flying Fader automation," he says. "You have that, and you have ProTools."
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| Drummer Billy Auger in the studio. (click for larger view.) |
To Sabella's ears, the Neve/Studer combination gives him a fuller, richer sound -- with much more character than he could get with all-digital recording. And that's one of the things that sets him apart, "along with having a great team to work with and keeping a good vibe in the studio," he says.
"Everybody is beginning to sound the same because of the same console, the POD, everybody has ProTools LE or TDM," he says. "A computer is a computer, ProTools software is the same, the number one copy is the same as the 58,000th one they make, whereas with the Neve, the old Marshalls and microphones, they don't all sound the same.
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| One of the equipment racks. (click for larger view) |
Sabella also knows that ProTools is a lure to get some of the hot producers from nearby New York City to come to Long Island.
"I have some good friends in the city who say that most of those rooms are all closing down because the producers are doing the work on ProTools. But they don't have a Neve 8068 right next to the ProTools. And they don't have a stack of Marshalls or Fenders. I can't charge more money because of that, but the clients go, 'Oh, wow, he has this and that.' And I'm 20 minutes out of Manhattan, so it isn't so bad."
And what the clients see when they get there is impressive, especially considering that from the outside it's a house, although no one lives in it. Sabella Studios was designed by Frank Comantale, the same person who built the legendary Hit Factory years ago. As Sabella explains, "Everything's been converted over. We took the garage, we took the den, and now we've taken the living room."
The Control Room measures 14 x 16, while the Studio dimensions are 17 x 22. There's an abundance of pine wood, and no parallel walls. "It's totally constructed like the Hit Factory in a sense," says Sabella. "It has the real floating floor -- in fact, which is crazy, the playing room and the control room have two separate foundations."
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