Hilversum, Netherlands; July 2024 – Prolific Dutch producer, Morgan Avenue has recently added an iD44 to his kit. As demand for the hip hop heavyweight continues to rise, he finds himself working in a lot of different studios.
Often on the move and mindful of keeping things compact and portable, he explains, “I needed to drastically scale down my setup. It’s basically a laptop, the iD44, a pair of really good headphones and some keys. It’s the perfect mobile setup and serves me equally well when I’m working at my home studio.”
An alumnus of the SAE Institute in Rotterdam, Morgan Avenue interned in New York and has since clocked up countless hits in his native Netherlands – and a billion streams. He’s the producer behind many big artists on the Dutch hip hop scene, including Willem, Sef and Glen Faria. His credits also include Rita Ora, Yendry, Khea, Imanbek and S10. Last month he won an International BUMA Award with Mae Stephens’ If We Ever Broke Up which went gold in both the US and UK and boasts over 310 million streams.
Explaining how he came across Audient, he continues, “I have a friend who really raved about the iD44. When I had a session at his studio I was immediately impressed by the preamps. They definitely don’t sound like your typical interface preamps; they have a musicality to them that I really love,” he says. “When you work at different studios, the quality can vary a lot.”
The iD44 features the Audient Console Mic Preamp, essentially the same discrete circuit design found in the flagship mixing console ASP8024-HE – as with the entire iD range. As soon as he got his own iD44, Morgan knew he’d made the right decision. “The quality of its preamps and conversion is great. The two DI inputs sound amazing as well!
“Since I’ve had the iD44, I’m comfortable doing recordings anywhere. I needed a high quality solution whilst being on the road, but now it’s become the centre of my home studio setup as well. When I get home, I just connect my monitors and my external gear via ADAT and I’m good to go again! I don’t think I have ever seen a portable interface with so many connectivity options.”
He adds, ”The preamps are clean while not sterile with plenty of gain, and if I want some extra colour added while recording, I’ll add my tube compressor to the inserts on input 1 & 2.”
Find out what Morgan Avenue is up to by clicking through to his website, listen to his songs on Spotify and follow him on Instagram.
The Audient iD44 was supplied by local sales outlet/distributor Pro Media Connect.