Saturday, May 18, 2019

Interview: Audio Assault


From left to right:
Alex: CEO & Senior Programer
Freddie: Technical Assistant & Staff
Enrique: COO & Senior Designer
Adrián: Junior Designer
Rodrigo: Junior Programer


Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are interviewing Audio Assault, a company that is producing Guitar and Bass amp simulators, drum samplers and many other Vst plugins for music production from Mexico!
Here's our interview:


GuitarNerdingBlog: Hello and welcome to Guitar Nerding Blog! Can you give us some detail on how Audio Assault was born?

AudioAssault: AA was born in the late 2013 in the city of Oaxaca, México. 
Alex Damián, The master mind of the proyect, in that time was the owner of the local recording studio HT Studio which almost always recorded rock and metal bands. He started to study about the plugins creation and amp simulators modeling and coding, at the same time Alex asked Enrique Díaz to help him with the graphics and design work.
Enrique at the same time was studying Graphic design and was starting his work as Music Producer too.
In the Middle of 2014 these two friend launch the first plugin created by Audio Assault called Grind Machine, with which all was started. Now AA is a team of 5 people and it's located in the city of Puebla, México as a real company.


GNB: What do you think about the music production business nowadays? And how is it going to be in the future?

AA: I think that the technology it's a very important part of the music business, not only in the production area. With the possibilities that internet can give us now we can share our music with everyone around the world. At the same time we have access to a lot of information about production techniques, software, hardware, etc. 
In this time a lot of musicians has started to be their own music producers and engineers, as I do. We can find a lot of tutorials and tips in youtube of how to get a great sound recording without spending too much money. The music production business is transforming and expanding to new horizons, where a lot of people can access to it. I think in the future that industry will have a lot of competition, because new technology-based producers will rise, while the classic producers will struggle more to stay in the business.


GNB: What is the design process of your plugins like? What inspires you?

AA: We are big fans of rock and metal music, every band and song we listen always give us reasons to create some new weapons for "bedroom producers". 
We think that all musician must have the opportunity of creating music with the same quality of the biggest bands, that is the principal reason of why AA exist, the process starts with an idea of what we need to get a better sound in our own recordings. Maybe a guitar amplifier, an EQ or a drumkit, then we make samples of the analog component and Alex start to code those sounds while I create the GUI and all the graphic stuff.


GNB: What is the philosophy behind your software: analog modeling, black box approach or else?

AA: We work more in the analog modeling style, because almost all the time we know what result we want and how to get it, but sometimes, in few occasions, at the moment of programming and testing we found results that we didn't expect. 
So, it's a mix of both methods.


GNB: What have been your career highlights?

AA: It is a hard question, because at the beginning we never thought about the future success. 
So, for us right now it's our best moment, we have support of people around the world, we had made many friends too, and finally after almost 6 years we have a place where we can do this as our main job. We are very grateful for all the support and good vibes we received.

GNB: What do you think the future of analog and digital amps will look like?

AA: I'm a big fan of analog gear, I love almost all the tube amps, but we know that it is not too easy for a lot of people to get one. Specially here in Mexico where you can find more expensive that in US or Europe. So, digital amps makes easier to get almost the real tone of a commercial brand. 
Now, if you want to record with a tube amp you don't need just the amp, you have to buy a cab, mics, cables, pedals and fx. 
Amp simulators are great option to get good recordings at low costs.
We are working very hard to bring the people high quality digital amplifiers that can compete with the real ones.
I think in the near future the plugins will emulate at 99.9% the real gear.


GNB: Tell us something about your drum samplers!

AA: Well, that samples were recorded a couple years ago at Westwood studio in Hawaii.


GNB: What plugin do you have in store for the future?

AA: We are preparing some relaunchings, a new bass suit and a killer guitar amp based on a Krank classic tone. Want to creat a new line of digital amplifiers with 99.9% realistic sound. We have some surprise you will know very soon.


GNB: The interview is over, feel free to add anything you'd like!

AA: I'm talking in the name of all who work in AA want to thank you Atoragon and GNB for the interest you put in our products. We will still working to bring you all killer tools for production projects.
Thanks too all people who support this little company!
Cheers,
Enrique.


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