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Mixing GrooveGrass with the UAD-1
Nashville producer Scott Rouse really mixes it up - mixing bluegrass with blues; mixing analog with digital. His latest projects involve bluegrass giants Doc Watson, Del McCoury, Mac Wiseman and chief funkateer and space bass master Bootsy Collins - together known, tongue firmly in cheek, as the GrooveGrass Boyz. His tool of choice? The Mackie UAD-1, running digital emulations of the classic Universal Audio 1176LN and LA-2A compressors. Producer Rouse is a man with excellent timing. During his days at the Berklee College of Music, he spent much of his class time in demand at Mission Control, ground zero for the first wave of boy bands , New Edition and New Kids on the Block. He made his move to Nashville just in time to ride the country music rocket. One act alone made him the hot ticket in town - it was Rouse's call to mix a relatively unknown comedian with music. That project put Jeff Foxworthy and Scott Rouse on the map. He returned to his bluegrass roots - Rouse grew up around Doc Watson - just as the "O Brother, Where Art Thou" phenomenon caught on. Not content to take the straight path, Rouse has earned his moniker, dubbed by Rolling Stone Magazine "the most dangerous man in country music" with his latest foray, his trademark blend of hardcore bluegrass and hardcore funk he calls GrooveGrass. Rouse has long been a devoted user of the classic Universal Audio hardware. "You just don't do records without an LA2A or a couple of 1176s before you get to tape. You never mix a record without an LA-2A - at least I never have!" When Rouse began working with Pro Tools, then Nuendo in recent years, he still kept his trusted UA hardware in the chain. When he heard about the UAD-1 card and the vintage plug-ins he was unimpressed, assuming they'd be more cool looking, but ho-hum sounding plug-ins. His friend and fellow producer Travis Wyrick convinced him by bringing a card to Scott's studio and installing it. His reaction was instant, "Holy smokes, where do I get one? It sounded the way it should, it sounded real. That's what floored me and that's what everyone who's heard it says." The Mackie UAD-1 and Powered Plug-ins are ideally suited to Scott Rouse's production style and particularly appropriate for the GrooveGrass Boyz. One GrooveGrass CD has been released (GrooveGrass 101, Warner's); another (GrooveGrass 2.5) is on the way and a Bluegrass Christmas CD featuring Doc Watson, Del McCoury, The Osborne Brothers. Mac Wiseman, and Ronnie McCoury is in production now. Says Rouse, "The card is so important to the sound. The 1176s sound like the old school real thing. We're able to capture the analog acoustic material and Bootsy's gritty funk sound - it gives us the best of a warm analog acoustic and that funk grit. What's so great is that we've got everything we need - we've got more 1176s packed into this card than you could ever haul around, and we can even use the LA-2As in stereo! I've never used any computer-related product that was so easy to install - in less than a minute we were up and running. And it just sounds so right." |
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