Pop Punk Power Trio Bowling For Soup and multi-Grammy-nominated Mix Engineer Dan Malsch Put New Solid State Logic Revival 4000 Channel Strip to the Ultimate Test

Music & Audio Production,

30/09/25

East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, September 30, 2025 — Solid State Logic, pop punk power trio Bowling For Soup, and multi-Grammy-nominated mix engineer Dan Malsch recently teamed up to put Solid State Logic’s (SSL’s) brand-new Revival 4000 Signature Channel Strip to the ultimate test. Across a two day intensive tracking and mixing session, every vocal and instrument track on “Holding on to That Hate,” the first original single from the band since their acclaimed 2022 album Pop Drunk Snot Bread, was recorded and mixed through the Revival 4000 modules’ Jensen transformer-balanced pre-amps and processed by Malsch using each strip’s onboard B Series de-esser, E/G Series EQ, HP/LF filters, and E Series dynamics section.

Photo by Amy Russell.

Bowling For Soup – Holding on to That Hate

Recorded at Dan Malsch’s Soundmine Recording in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, the new single “Holding on to That Hate” showcases a full rack of eight SSL Revival 4000 Signature Channel Strips. Released today, September 30, across streaming platforms, the track captures the unmistakable 4000 Series sound. To mark the launch, the stems will also be available as digital download, allowing anyone to experience the sound of SSL’s new all-analogue channel strip and mix their own version of the song.

Watch the video and download free stems!

Something old, something new

Malsch, who has also worked with Ghost, Gojira and Avenged Sevenfold, among others, was an ideal candidate for this project. Soundmine’s Studio A has long featured a vintage SSL 4000 E/G+ console, allowing him to compare the sound and performance of the new channel strip with the originals in the console. The new Revival 4000 was designed to deliver the unmistakable early-1980s signature SSL “4K” sound and includes, among other features, selectable Black or Brown Knob EQ circuits, a discrete class A VCA compressor, classic gate/expander section and a one-knob de-esser derived from SSL’s B Series console.

“Everything that was recorded with Bowling For Soup was all through the Revival 4000, so it was my normal kind of flow, with a lot of EQ and a lot of compression,” Malsch reports. He typically likes to create an aggressive mix while keeping everything super clean. “SSL EQ into compression is what does it for me. You can hear every instrument and have everything sound massive and larger than life.”

Delivering every ounce of sonic character

The Revival 4000 modules delivered all the sonic character of the SL 4000 console, favoured over the years by such pop punk luminaries as Green Day, Blink-182, Fall Out Boy and Sum 41, to the Bowling For Soup session. “The drums sounded amazing,” Malsch says. “I tend to be fairly heavy handed with my EQ and compression, and I brutalized the new channel strips on drums with lots of everything — lots of bottom end, lots of top, lots of mid; more and more of everything.”

As amazing as the drums sounded, “I think the real ‘a-ha’ moment was when we started to record the bass,” says Jaret Reddick, Bowling For Soup’s lead vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter. “Dan ran the bass via DI into the Revival, turned a few knobs and it was the best bass sound we'd ever gotten. That's our bass sound on the track and it's glorious. It has the bottom end that you need but it cuts through just right, and it feels good. That was the moment when I was like, ‘This thing is legit. I'm getting one of these for my studio.’ I'm a voiceover actor, too, and I think running into that strip could give my voice a little bit of luster. We're talking about getting two for Rob [Felicetti, the band’s bass player and backing vocalist], because he records in stereo.”

Leveraging Revival 4000's 'secret weapon'

“I was probably most blown away with the Revival 4000 on guitars,” Malsch continues. “In a lot of the music I record, the guitars can get very aggressive around 3 kHz, 5k, 7k.” Using the de-esser on the channel strip, he says, “I could shave off just enough of that annoying 3k to 4k to smooth it out. I was also filtering out a little low with the high pass and a little bit of high with the low pass, but I was pretty blown away by the de-esser. It was a secret weapon on this channel strip. At the same time, I found 800 Hz, which I use a lot on guitar, was really pleasant. It sounded like my 4k console channel EQ, but much more powerful and more open.”

Reddick says he has gone back and forth between distorted and undistorted guitar sounds over the years. “I'm not a crazy guitar player, but I do little nuances, and what happened with the guitars on this session was the channel strip had the aggressiveness and the clarity, and I almost didn't want to muddy it up too much. I was blown away. Dan was manipulating it in these little areas and made it really, really shine.”

Reddick shares that a producer friend describes his voice as “pointy,” but the Revival 4000 took it in stride. “I started singing and Dan said,’ Do you want to hear it back?’ I thought it was awesome. We were happy right away. He put another strip on a mic next to it and that ended up being the mic that we used for Rob. A couple of twists to the knobs and his vocal was right there, too.” Reddick says he is often not completely happy with the sound of his vocal until the song is mixed, but on this session, “I kept wanting to listen to the song because it sounded like it was already mixed. And that was because of the SSL channel strip.”

More headroom, please

Malsch drove the Revival 4000 mic preamps hard - the exact same Jensen transformer-coupled model fitted in the classic E Series console - just as he typically does on his own desk. “I was driving the mic pre, then backing down the trim. Having the trim on the Revival 4000 is a lifesaver for me, because I tend to hit these babies pretty hard. You'd see lots of red lights, and I was waiting for the audio to start clipping and crackling. On my 4000 console you'd hear it, but I didn't hear anything because there’s more headroom on the Revival 4000. And red just means more power, to me!”

Tracking a group of musicians through identical channel strips, such as on Malsch’s SL 4000 console, immediately brings a cohesiveness to a project. “I think recording with all the same channel strips, rather than using this or that preamp, gives more of a focus and more of a cohesive sound,” he says. “And when you listen to the Bowling For Soup song that we recorded, it’s very cohesive and sounds just like an SSL console to me — but a newer version.”

Download free stems - Holding on to That Hate.

Find out more about Revival 4000 and download the free stems from the ‘Bowling For Soup - Holding on to That Hate’ recording session, here: https://solidstatelogic.com/revival4000