Atlanta, GA (November 28, 2017)—Like many musician/engineers, Richard Devine is comfortable in the digital realm, creating music, sounds, patches, remixes, you name it, with the gear in his studio. But while he prefers mixing in the box, lately he’s been eschewing plug-ins in his mastering set-up, favoring the sounds of numerous vintage EQs he owns, as well as a modern-day Manley Massive Passive.
“I was interested in the Massive Passive, because it’s in that classic style of vintage EQs,” he says. “I wanted something that had a little bit more control, and slightly a different flavor than what I already have…. You can sculpt the sound in really interesting ways, but it’s never harsh; it’s very smooth. But you can still do some radical things with it, which is what really impressed me.”
The Massive Passive is typically applied on his mix bus, but also winds up in his mastering chains for sound design as well as his own music. “It’s like that perfect end-stage EQ,” he says. “Sometimes you don’t want that much coloration. You just want the right amount, and at the same time have enough controls to shape the frequency spectrum in a way to where you’re not completely destroying the audio material that you’re running through it.”
Devine has found the Massive Passive to be particularly valuable for polishing his work for television, which comes with extremely tight deadlines. “A lot of times, there is no mastering stage,” he says. “So I’ll master the production myself and try to give them the best quality product I can, right before it goes to the sound editors and gets sent off to the network.”
Manley Laboratories, Inc.
www.manley.com
