Los Angeles, California:
Engineer and mixer Mark Linett joined the Parrotheads in paradise, recording Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefer Band at a special charity show on the Caribbean island of Anguilla in late March. Linett, whose Your Place Or Mine recording service is equally at home operating out of his Los Angeles-based, API-equipped private studio or on location, shipped a rack of API/ATI 8MX2 mic pre/mixers to the island especially for the occasion.

"We have three remote systems," explains Linett, who is well known for his work with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys and has also worked with artists such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Paul Simon, Love and the New Cars over the years. "Our smallest and most portable system consists of six of the API/ATI 8MX2s as the front end. For doing a capture it's a great way to avoid having to carry a console, as they are a nice little stereo mixer."

Ideal for pairing with a digital multi-track recording system, the compact 8MX2 offers eight proprietary API/ATI high voltage mic preamps in a single rack space and incorporates a stereo mix buss with full monitoring capabilities. Each channel features a variable threshold limiter plus full cueing capability with level and limiter attenuation metering.

"The sound is excellent and it's a great package," enthuses Linett, who has engineered location recordings for Chris Cornell, The Bravery, Jane's Addiction and numerous projects involving Brian Wilson. "Frankly, the kick-over point is the mixer and the flexibility. How else are you going to cram that much into that small a space?"

Linett reports that he needed to expand his recording flypack for Buffet's show, which was presented by one of Anguilla's best-known reggae stars, Bankie Banx, at his idyllic beachfront Dune Preserve property, with all proceeds benefiting Banx' Project Stingray music and education program. "I have a 14-space rack with six of the API/ATI 8MX2 mic preamps, a hard disc recorder and power. That and a mic splitter are about all that you need. But they needed slightly more than 48 tracks, so we were using a 48-track hard disc recorder and a couple of MDMs and we were actually running seven of the API/ATI preamps."

After two days working with Buffet and his band, says Linett, "I stayed on for a week to also record Bankie Banx at Moonsplash, which is an annual reggae festival down there." The three-day event, also presented at Dune Preserve, featured Onaje Allen Gumbs, Bunny Wailer and other reggae stars in addition to Bankie Banx and his Roots & Herbs band.

The API/ATI flypack has been hard at work this year. "I also took the same package out for three or four Brian Wilson shows in January," reports Linett, whose home studio is also outfitted with vintage API recording equipment. "I have a lot of classic API stuff, including a heavily modified API 2488 console, which has all 550A and 560 EQ modules."

Linett's projects with Brian Wilson over the years have included the "Live At The Roxy Theatre" album, the "Pet Sounds Live" DVD and CD, and the 5.1 remix of the original album release for DVD-A, as well as the "SMiLE" DVD and CD. Linett also mixed "Gettin' In Over My Head" and "What I Really Want For Christmas" by Wilson at Your Place Or Mine in Los Angeles.