EastSide Sound Nabs NYC’s First Harrison 32Classic Console

New York, NY (November 21, 2024)—One of New York City’s longest-running studios, EastSide Sound, has installed a Harrison 32Classic analog mixing console—the first in the Big Apple and, more broadly, one of the first anywhere in the world.

The studio, established on Manhattan’s Lower East Side by Lou Holtzman in 1972, has regularly hosted clients such as John Zorn, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, John Lurie, Les Paul, the late producer Hal Willner and plenty more, many of whom used the Harrison SeriesTenB that was onsite for more than three decades.

Andres Pollak, a producer, engineer and musician who acquired ownership of EastSide Sound in late 2022 (Holtzman continues to work at the facility) explained, “Harrison has been a very important part of the studio,” adding that the new desk was chosen because “this console has an inline architecture that is based around the modern type of work we all do now.

“We needed a very flexible tracking console, because we want to have our clients come in, record with no problems and go,” he said. “Everybody’s very busy and they don’t want to spend much more than they need to. Not every studio can track, because you need a very good system with all the interfacing and peripherals, a flawless patchbay and cables, a good room with ISO booths and instruments, and fast engineers. You’ve got to be prepared, and you’ve got to work fast. Another ingredient that is very important for us is that it has a modern power supply with no fans. The console is so efficient that it barely even gets warm.”

Harrison Offers New 32Classic Configurations and Options

The Harrison 32Classic features integrated onboard A/D and D/A converters along with a Dante interface to connect over a single ethernet cable to the DAW. Pressing the Inline button on any input module selects the associated Dante input to that channel’s monitor path.

The team at EastSide has additionally integrated two Solid State Logic controllers, a UF1 DAW control center and a UF8 eight-fader advanced DAW controller, which sit on the 32Classic’s deep front bolster. The UF1 provides transport control of Pro Tools, Andres Pollak says. “And if you want to mix something in Pro Tools with more than a few faders, you can just grab the UF8 faders. It also has macros; it’s a very comprehensive unit.”