SAFETY HARBOR, FLORIDA: Andrés Millán has a lot going on! From his home base in Bogotá, Colombia, Millán serves as the director for both Diffusion Magazine – the most popular sound engineering website in Latin America – and Boutique Pro Audio – a high-end pro audio representation and distribution firm with service in Colombia and neighboring countries. He is the Chair for Colombia’s section of the Audio Engineering Society, and, by dint of dedication and long hours, Millán manages to maintain an active freelance business recording, mixing, and live sound for classical, jazz, rock and popular music. Millán is an avid user of Metric Halo interfaces, plug-ins, and SpectraFoo analysis software, and Boutique Pro Audio distributes Metric Halo products in Colombia.

“I visited Metric Halo headquarters in Safety Harbor, Florida this summer to get to know the team of professionals behind the design and construction of these amazing products,” Millán said. “I saw how the company works. It’s basically a family business. Everyone is friendly and working toward a common goal, and the company has been growing over time on the merit of the products they create.”

Given Millán’s deep interest – bordering on affection – for professional audio equipment, he took notice of Metric Halo, a company that has been producing pathbreaking pro audio interfaces and software since the late 1990s. “Metric Halo products are extremely solid, and they offer a complete catalogue of products,” he said. “The company has been a pioneer in several aspects of both the analog and digital audio domains. They were the first manufacturer to support FireWire, to offer interfaces with a software console and DSP, and to devise analog-sounding digital algorithms that their competitors are still trying to replicate. And unlike almost every other company in existence, Metric Halo offers their customers true future-proofing. Metric Halo owners are never left holding hardware that won’t work with current Apple hardware and software!”

He continued, “Metric Halo builds the only interfaces on the market that can work as standalone preamps, offer archival-grade conversion, possess onboard DSP, allow cascading of units for additional channels, include a pair of DIs, and include a control monitor section, a software console [MIO Console] with 80-bit summing, MIDI in/out, SMPTE for sync, incredibly precise clocking, an amazing headphone preamp, and much more in just one box. Furthermore, Metric Halo interfaces do not have an internal fan, which allows me to use short mic cable runs. I basically put the unit in the middle of musicians!” Indeed, Millán recently recorded Cocó Nonó, an amazing local gypsy jazz and bluegrass band, with his Metric Halo LIO-8 interface outfitted with eight Metric Halo preamps and additional DSP resources. “Apart from all the stunning technical specifications, the results are clear and transparent without being sterile or boring like so many other interfaces in its class.”

Millán spends a lot of his time mixing projects that either he or others recorded, and he uses Metric Halo ChannelStrip, Character, Precision DeEsser, and TransientControl constantly. “It’s true that ChannelStrip is probably the most complete tool on the market,” he said. “The gate, compressor, and equalizer sections are all best-in-class, and because Metric Halo plug-ins are so efficient with their resource use, I don’t hesitate to use instances when I just need, say, ChannelStrip’s precise gate.” Given his deep involvement in so many technical and artistic aspects of music and acoustics, Millán uses Metric Halo’s SpectraFoo sound analysis software on a regular basis, and he’s excited about its integration into Metric Halo’s latest generation of plug-ins, such as ChannelStrip 3.

Millán’s firm, Boutique Pro Audio, began working with Metric Halo in 2014 and rapidly spread the word about Metric Halo’s quality, affordability, and dedicated future-proofing. Indeed, Millán’s alma matter, the University of San Buenaventura, included SpectraFoo Complete licenses for their research programs and for their audio programs, and the SAE Institute of Colombia purchased Metric Halo Production Bundle plug-in collections for their audio and music production programs. In addition, Metric Halo (via Boutique Pro Audio) sponsored two Student Recording Competitions for the Audio Engineering Society Colombia Section and a Professional Mixing Contest from Boutique Pro Audio with Production Bundle and SpectraFoo licenses for the winners.

“While I was there, BJ Buchalter gave me a sneak-peek of the new 3D Card, which will be affordably offered to owners of all digital Metric Halo interfaces – even those going back to 2000! The 3D Card will bring all of the interface and technical specifications of those units right up to the cutting edge and that’s a great example of Metric Halo’s commitment to future-proofing. The improvements and vision they have for the 3D Card are impressive and confirmed for me,” he concluded, “that Boutique Pro Audio made the right decision in partnering with Metric Halo.”