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Housed in a beautiful 5th Avenue penthouse overlooking Central Park lies Grammy nominated songwriter Denise Rich’s home studio which has become so much more than just your average writing room. Denise Rich holds songwriting credit on numerous hit songs for Celine Dion, Patti LaBelle, Marc Anthony, Mary J. Blige, Natalie Cole, Diana Ross, Jessica Simpson and many more which demanded the necessity for a high-end studio built in the most convenient of places, home. Now the studio doubles as a writing room for Rich and also as a tracking and mixing facility for Rich’s publishing company, Denise Rich Songs, and also her independent record label, 785 Records. Sitting in the pilot seat each day capturing and producing each session for all three entities is staff producer/engineer, Mike Beck.
Shortly after a complete renovation to the studio’s interior which included numerous gear upgrades, Beck felt there was something missing. “We installed all of this amazing gear creating one of the most desirable rooms in New York but we skipped out on upgrading the converters,” says Beck. “At first I was skeptical that cleaner converters would really make a noticeable difference, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Without the best converters, the rest of our high-end gear wasn't able to shine anywhere near its full potential.” When Beck received approval for upgrading the studios current converters he chose Apogee’s X-Series, which resulted in the purchase of one AD-16X and two DA-16X’s, each loaded with X-HD option cards for connectivity to Pro Tools HD.
Keeping up with her busy schedule, the now Apogee equipped studio continues as Rich’s personal writing room when she’s in New York. “Denise will come in with a co-writer, sit on the couch with a couple guitars and then lay down a few rough tracks. I then take that and make a song around it starting with tracking and programming each instrument all the way through mixing,” continues Beck. When Rich is not using the studio for her own writing, songwriters signed to her publishing company, Denise Rich Songs, and also artists signed to her independent record label, 785 Records, come in to work with Beck on vocal tracking and also mixing. According to Beck, “many artists that come here to work often come back because they just love this room and are amazed at the gear we have here. Apogee is very much a part of that experience. Making the switch to the Apogee X Series was the final step in designing one of the best sounding, most inspiring rooms you can find anywhere.”
Apogee’s X-Series converters are the flagship of the Apogee product line combining Apogee’s legendary conversion with the very best in high-definition digital audio. With features like the famous Big Ben C777 clock, SoftLimit and UV22HR and also an expansion slot for connection to Pro Tools HD, Apogee’s Symphony System, and FireWire, the X-Series has incredible flexibility as well as quality. For more information on the Apogee products visit http://www.apogeedigital.com/products For more information on Denise Rich: http://www.deniserichsongs.com  
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