Richard Furch

Mixer and Apogee User-Across the Board

Recent Projects: Prince, Chaka Khan, Usher, Mateo

Five floors above the furor that typifies Hollywood Boulevard, in a city known more for its stars in the flesh than in the sky, mixer Richard Furch finds a balance between enjoying the incessant, city-like commotion outside and the quiet he needs within his White Room walls. With double-glassed windows to cancel out extraneous noise, he gets the best of both worlds. Armed with a Big Ben, DA-16Xs, a Rosetta 800 and X-HD cards, Furch says he finally “has a combination that is trust-worthy and without competition.” Since emigrating from Berlin 11 years ago, graduating from the Berklee College of Music, living and working in New York and Los Angeles, and starting his internet-based mixing service, eMixing.com, he has made his way to the top working on records for heavy weights like Prince, Chaka Khan, Usher, The Isley Brothers, Patti LaBelle, Macy Gray, The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, and Fountains of Wayne, among an overflowing pool of others. As his two-room studio is lit and consequently warmed by the sunlight filtering through his bright-red curtains, Furch settles comfortably into his chair and takes us through his setup.

“It’s also good advertising for my business because the Apogee name holds power in our community.”

Furch, who’s married to The Rescues’ Singer/Songwriter Kyler England, admits his Apogees have had another purpose besides completing his high-end studio. “I’m not going to lie,” he says. “It’s also good advertising for my business because the Apogee name holds power in our community.” A devoted Apogee user since 2000, he recalls how he was introduced to the gear when he began as an assistant engineer in New York City. “All the facilities over there were stocked with Apogees at the time for 2-track conversion, for instance, to make DATS, etc. More and more of that gear appeared, and when it came time to build my own studios, I knew that Apogee would be the right choice. I first got an Apogee Rosetta AD. When it came time to move up to HD, the option was there to have Rosetta 800s with X-HD cards, and so I jumped for it.” Compatibility of the gear was a crucial factor in his decision-making process. “The reason why I went with Apogee was specific to my needs. I needed inserts that work well with the analog world, for a hybrid concept of mixing inside the computer in addition to great outboard gear. And for summing, I needed 16 outputs that wouldn’t let me down. Apogee lets me mix and match so I can tailor the system to what I need, specific to my setup.”

About six months ago, Furch decided to integrate analog summing into his studio with the addition of a DA-16X. “It’s going through an SPL MixDream which does the summing. Then the whole mix bus goes back into my Rosetta 800 and gets printed back into Pro Tools,” he explains. “The system is clocked by a Big Ben, which I find to be outstanding. It sounds great and makes it possible to have one tight system; it pulls all the components together and is the centerpiece of my studio. Not only does it sound incredible, but it makes the whole system manageable and convenient. It’s flawless.”

Visit www.emixing.com for more information.