Pop Polymath Uses Clarett 2Pre
Focusrite Interface Brings Sound And Speed To Gil Smith
Gil Smith II is not the kind of guy to do things halfway. After all, the producer, keyboard whiz, arranger and musical director has worked in various capacities with an A-list of world-conquering artists, and you don’t reach that level of success by doing things by half. When you’re talking about Smith’s career, though, ‘success’ might something of an understatement. Over the years, the Berklee College of Music alumnus has worked with a wide-ranging array of music makers that includes Lady Gaga, Eminem, Drake, Lil Wayne, Travis Barker, Britney Spears and CeeLo Green; he’s the musical director for the YG Entertainment label, home to major-league K-poppers like Big Bang and 2NE; he’s directed, produced and arranged for American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, Saturday Night Live, the BET Awards and the Grammys, among other notable shows; and somehow, he still has time to run his own full-service music production company, SAGA Entertainment.
As one might imagine, Smith isn’t the kind of buy who settles for middling equipment, or for gear that simply “gets the job done.” Instead, the versatile veteran, who’s as comfortable at working within the worlds of gospel and jazz as he is with pop, hip-hop and rock, opts for tools that are a step beyond the ordinary. Not surprisingly, that search for the best has led him to Focusrite, notably the Clarett range of Thunderbolt-compatible audio interfaces.
From the start, Smith knew he had found what he was looking for. “Once we got everything running, I started playing with the Focusrite Control software, which I noticed made things much more streamlined from its predecessor,” he recalls. “It’s very easy to navigate, and you can get a session with different headphone mixes up and running in no time. I was especially excited about the Clarett, because I wanted to be able to track a full rhythm section and vocals, and to be able to give everyone their own mix — and having that flexibility within the Focusrite Control software really comes in handy.
“Latency… Wow!” — Gil Smith II
But it was much more than ease of use that sold Smith on Focusrite. “Latency…wow!” he exclaims. “Some of my best friends are engineers who have invested tens of thousands of dollars, at least, on Pro Tools HDX systems, etc. When I tried to explain to them that I’m not experiencing any noticeable latency with the Clarett, we basically got into an argument. [laughs] They just had to come in and see for themselves — and not only could they not believe it, but one of them is reconsidering his HDX setup!”
“The pres sound amazing, as I expected they would. What I wasn’t expecting was the Air, which was great,” he adds, referring to the Clarett’s built-in effect that reproduces the feel of Focusrite’s classic transformer-based ISA preamps. “We’re currently recording pop songs, and it really adds that flare to the top end on vocals that we’ve grown accustomed to with pop music. There’s a lot of headroom as well, and I find that I can push certain things that I couldn’t push before, which is nice. I can’t wait to get back in the studio and record with Focusrite again.”
This article was originally published in April 2016.
