PAYA LEBAR, SINGAPORE – Designed as a unique state-of-the-art performance and recording space, Leo Studio boasts a full complement of high-end recording gear and musical instruments, at the heart of which is a 24-channel Solid State Logic Duality. Opening its doors just two months ago, Leo Studio is already highly-regarded, with famed Asian celebrities and many established local artists using the studio even before the doors officially opened. 

When considering the design philosophy behind Leo Studio, chart topping Asian Pop music producer/Leo Studio Consultant, Eric Ng (黃韻仁) and veteran recording/mixing Engineer, Frank Lee primarily focused on creating an inspiring recording environment for musicians. “A recording studio should not only have great equipment like Duality, but should also be a comfortable, creative space.” says Ng “We wanted the live room to be a stimulating environment that would excite the artists and make them feel welcome. The first thing clients say when they go into the studio is ‘wow!’” And hence the decision for Eric to rope in Thomas Ng as interior designer to please the clients’ eyes as well as their ears.

Ng [Eric] and Lee built the studio from the ground up, tapping into their experiences in the industry for inspiration, with Ng specifying the equipment, and Lee handling the acoustical design. “For the past ten years or so, we have been doing most of our work in-the-box.” continues Ng. “When it came time to build the studio, we asked ourselves, ‘What do we miss about having a great studio?’ The first thing that came to mind was an SSL mixing console. There’s no question about the sound quality — it’s the best.”

Duality’s streamlined hybrid workflow was also an attraction to Ng and Lee. “We record almost exclusively in Pro Tools®, so we knew we needed a console and a controller with total recall. Duality seemed like the obvious choice because it integrates the classic SSL design with DAW control. We are really impressed with how quickly we can get back to a previous session.”

Interestingly, the control room at Leo Studio is not outfitted with hoards of expensive outboard gear. “We knew we could get amazing results from Duality’s onboard processing, so we found we didn’t need a lot of outboard gear for this studio!

“One of the features that really struck me about the Duality is the dual SuperAnalogue™ and Variable Harmonic Drive™ (VHD) mic preamp.” continues Ng. “You can run the preamps clean, but when you switch to VHD, you overdrive the preamp to get this saturated sound that is perfect on some instruments.

“After everything was up and running, we started doing some test recordings and were overwhelmed to hear what we’d been missing over the past decade without the SSL: it sounds so good!”