Dr. Dre Upgrades His Aftermath Entertainment Studio Facility with a 96-Input Solid State Logic Duality Fuse SuperAnalogue™ Mixing Console

Dr. Dre Upgrades Studio Facility with 96-Input Solid State Logic Duality Fuse SuperAnalogue™ Mixing Console

04/07/25

Los Angeles, California, July 4, 2025 — Hip-hop artist, producer, record executive and entrepreneur Dr. Dre has upgraded the main room at his Aftermath Entertainment studio facility in Los Angeles to a 96-input Solid State Logic Duality Fuse SuperAnalogue™ mixing console. Dr. Dre, whose influential debut solo album, 1992’s The Chronic, introduced G-Funk to the world and defined West Coast hip-hop, has owned or worked on every model of large format SSL analogue music console since the E series, commenting, "The first love of my life was the SSL board."

Aftermath Entertainment’s Head engineer, Quentin “Q” Gilkey, has worked not just with Dr. Dre but also many of the artists on the label’s roster, including Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson.Paak, The Game and Earl Sweatshirt. He began working with Dr. Dre 15 years ago, becoming Aftermath’s lead engineer in 2014. He reveals that there were two main reasons for the upgrade to the Duality Fuse.

Firstly, Gilkey says, “Because Dre mixes utilizing the whole board — in our case, all 96 channels — we require a method that allows us to recall at a fast pace, and Total Recall offers this.” The fact that multiple people can work simultaneously to recall the console’s previous settings was a major influence on Dre’s decision to purchase a Duality Fuse, he says.

Secondly, he continues, older analogue consoles inevitably require maintenance, resulting in downtime while issues are resolved. “With the Duality Fuse, we knew we were not going to have to deal with that issue. In today’s studio, things move much faster than when tape was involved. Now, we’re able to retain that analogue sound without the analogue maintenance that once stood in our way and remain creative.”

Aftermath Entertainment has relied for decades on SSL analogue consoles for the depth and punch they deliver, Gilkey says. “There is nothing like the depth you get from mixing on an SSL. Duality Fuse has somehow taken that to a new level, and we hear it. That is the biggest difference to my ears — when everything is spread out and mixed on the Duality Fuse you can really accentuate and elevate the height, width and depth, compared to when mixing in-the-box.”

Duality Fuse’s 4-band parametric equalizer is based on SSL’s “242 Black Knob” EQ, which was originally developed for the original 4000 E series console. It can be switched to deliver the characteristics of SSL’s G series console EQ, allowing engineers to choose per-channel between the grit of the ‘E’ or the precision and tightness of the ‘G’ as needed in a session. “We have all 96 channels set to G-EQ,” Gilkey reports, “which maybe plays into the punch and great harmonic gain we get from the Duality EQs. You can also add harmonic drive to each channel path on the Duality, and you can push the EQ and compressors differently than, say, the 9000 K, which we previously owned.”

Correct gain staging also often gets overlooked, Gilkey believes. “When done right, and you push the EQs to the edge of distortion, you get an incredible sound out of the SSL, especially with drums and low frequencies.”

Adding Fusion for sonic flavoring

SSL’s Duality Fuse features an integrated Fusion analogue mix bus processor, adding another layer of sonic colors, particularly flavours the Vintage Drive and Stereo Image processors offer: “The Fusion is an incredible tool,” Gilkey enthuses. “I couldn’t be happier with a piece of hardware. I’ve always said that SSL’s give depth to any sound when used properly and the Fusion takes it to a new level in harmonic distortion and stereo field.”

Gilkey and the Aftermath team had previously tried to persuade Dre to switch out his 9000 K for a Duality, but he resisted until they were working on Snoop Dogg’s new Missionary album, Gilkey recalls. “We’re sitting in Dre’s studio with Eminem and Dre’s playing him the album. Dre asks Marshall [Eminem], ‘Hey, don’t you use a Duality? How do you like it, and is the recall faster?” Marshall praises the Duality and Dre turns to me and says, “Let’s order one”. And that was it.”

It was an easy transition from the older SSL console to the new Duality Fuse, Gilkey says. “An SSL team came in and gave us a crash course over two days on new features, routing, etcetera, which really made it painless for us. But if you have experience with SSL’s previous large format consoles, you will be able to sit down and navigate this rather easily. Visually, it is an easy transition; the difference comes in sonic options — you have a lot more now.”

The Aftermath team workflow

The Aftermath team’s production workflow integrates seamlessly with the Duality in the studio. “Usually, we have Dre’s production team all set up at their computers running Logic, Pro Tools, etcetera. Each computer has its own interface which is output to the Duality on individual channels. Dre sometimes likes to ‘EQ to tape,’ as he would say. Once we like the sound of those specific channels the signal is sent direct out to Pro Tools, where they’re recorded. Sometimes we’re capturing a single producer recording a single sound or sometimes all five producers at once.”

As those elements are captured in Pro Tools, Gilkey continues, “I’ll organize and arrange all the files for playback, outputting each separate sound to individual channels for Dre to have control over level, EQ and compression as we’re creating. In essence, once we’re done with the production, we also have a great rough mix ready to be printed. When it comes time to mix, we’ll check all levels for proper gain staging from Pro Tools then zero all EQ and compression to give Dre a blank slate to start with.”

Dr. Dre Upgrades His Aftermath Entertainment Studio Facility with a 96-Input Solid State Logic Duality Fuse SuperAnalogue™ Mixing Console

Adding Fusion for sonic flavoring

The Aftermath team workflow

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