"Five/Four Article, Michael Bishop," Pro Sound News, March 2009, Page 26
“‘Matt Lesko who runs UpState Audio, designed a preamp, Sonic Lens, that we’ve been prototyping for a few years,” Bishop adds. “This preamp is going to knock the socks off people. It is such an incredibly accurate preamp, extremely musical, transparent. It does everything that I want a preamp to do, without introducing a different color on what I’m putting into it. Those are definitely going with us on all FiveFour sessions.”
"George Strait, In the Country Comfort Zone," by Elianne Halbersberg | June, 2008, MIX
Working with Ainlay at Shrimp Boat and at Ainlay's Back Stage studio at Sound Stage in Nashville was Jim Cooley, his assistant of six years. The two men and Brown used a plethora of gear to create the classic Strait sound: pristine, traditional and flawless. At Shrimp Boat, they relied on a Neve 8068 with sidecar "just to monitor channels 29 and up," says Ainlay. The Neve was used for toms and some guitars; also in use were discrete Neve modules: four 1081s and four 1073s. They used Martech MSS-10 mic pre's and eight channels of Sonic Lens mic pre-amps in beta form from UpState Audio. "Matt Lesko is the designer," says Ainlay, "and he hopes by next quarter to have a 2-channel version available."
"Charles W. Ainlay (Chuck) Bio," chuckainlay.com
...In 1999 Chuck entered into a partnership with Sound Stage Studios to create BackStage Studio, a state of the art, surround sound studio based around the Solid State Logic 9000J console.
Pro audio equipment Chuck endorses include AMD, Apogee, ATC, Audio Technica, DPA, Royer, Millennia Media, NHT, Steinberg - Nuendo, Universal Audio, UpState Audio, Waves and Vintech Audio...
"Telarc's Michael Bishop Wins Sixth Grammy for Best Engineered Classical Album," sennheiserusa.com
...As might be expected, Bishop keeps his signal chain short and minimal. He uses the same UpState Audio custom mic preamps that are currently being used by Al Schmitt, Chuck Ainlay, and a few others. From the preamps on stage, the signals enter a "heavily modified" Studer 962 via the insert returns. Custom busses allow him to mix for stereo and surround simultaneously, and both masters are recorded on a Sonoma DSD workstation with EMM Labs DSD converters. Bishop relies on five ATC 150 midfield monitors to give him critical perspective on his mixes...
"Making Vocal Magic," by Rich Tozzoli | July, 2006, eqmag.com
...Chuck Ainlay: For this record and generally my first choice for vocals is my Martech MSS 10 preamp, serial #002 for vocals, although I’ll try some of my other favorites, like a Neve 1073 module, a GML 8300, JMK JM 130, or the new Presonus ADL 600. I’ve also got these killer prototype preamps that ought to be available later this year made by UpState Audio that blow just about everything else away, definitely be looking for them.
