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Dave “Hard Drive” Pensado Mixes with AvastorNew High Performance HDX Drives Are First Choice
Pictured (L-R) are Avastor VP Richard Wilson and co-engineers Jason Joshua and Dave Pensado, with the Avastor HDX hard drive, at Larabee Studios. Photo by David Goggin. Los Angeles, CA, June, 2007 – Dave “Hard Drive” Pensado is one of the most successful mix engineers working today, consistently delivering finished work that dominates the charts. His recent hits include Nelly Furtado’s album Loose; Christina Aguilera’s album Back to Basics; Pussycat Dolls, PCD; Mary J. Blige, Breakthrough, Macy Gray, Big; and Rich Boy’s new album Rich Boy. “Everything about the Avastor HDX hard drive has been thought out,” explains Pensado. “And although many people think a drive is just a drive, they are not all the same. Everything about Avastor has been optimized for the professional.” Pensado is typically doing a mix a day, under considerable pressure to deliver superior product without costly delays. “When you get a ProTools error message that the information cannot be retrieved fast enough from the drive, you have to split your session across two drives, and sometimes three. With Avastor I don’t have to do that. It’s efficient, it’s fast, and sessions that would normally require me to spread out across multiple drives, I am now doing on one Avastor.” Although Pensado is primarily a mix engineer, he offers this comment about tracking with Avastor: “When you are tracking and you are under the gun and getting some great stuff, the last thing you want to do is turn around and tell everybody in the room to give you five minutes to back everything up. The reliability of the drive is everything in the track, so I would highly recommend these HDX drives for tracking.” Songs that Pensado has worked on, many of which have reached #1, include Pink, "Get the Party Started"; Keyshia Cole, "Love"; Destiny's Child, "Check On It"; “Lady Marmalade" (Christina Aguilera, Mya, Pink); Christina Aguilera, "Beautiful"; and Keith Urban, “I Told You So.” Among other artists he has worked with are Missy Elliott, Ice Cube, Lil' Kim, Brian McKnight, Justin Timberlake, and Warren G. “ProTools is not a big fan of sessions with a lot of little regions,” Pensado continues, “And fades especially slow it down quite a bit. Avastor doesn’t mind a lot of regions and a lot of fades because it is such an efficient drive. The standard hard drive solution is to consolidate tracks, but it takes time and that adds up. Even though it is a small amount of time, when you multiply that by 10 or 12 times a day you’ve saved an hour. Getting to go to sleep at 3AM as opposed to 4AM doesn’t sound like much, but if it’s every day of the week it is quite a bit. So, I thank this drive for a some extra sleep.” Avastor drives feature cooling fans and an internal power supply, as opposed to the typical wallwart “powerbrick.” “An internal power supply is much steadier,” remarks Pensado. “You can generate a lot more current. It’s not the voltage that you are worried about, it’s the current. To get that much current out of a wallwart would require a big one. And also they aren’t grounded, so if there is an earthing problem it goes straight back into the drive electronics – ouch.” Although Pensado’s work subjects drives to more than average stress, he feels that the technology would benefit anyone serious about music recording. “Any home studio recording engineer can profit, because of the reliability. If you’ve been working on an idea for four or five hours, you will eventually appreciate this drive.” Summing it up, Pensado concludes: ”The fan, the power supply, the Lockbox™ case, and a number of other factors are all part of the Avastor picture. Some sharp engineers and demanding users sat down and tried to figure out how to build a better mousetrap. In my opinion, Avastor has done that.” Avastor offers one of the most comprehensive lines of external hard disk
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