Multi-Award Grammy Award-Winning Engineer Ann Mincieli Installs First Solid State Logic ORIGIN EVO in Jungle City's North Studio

Music & Audio Production

14/04/26

New York, New York, April 14th, 2026 — Multiple Grammy Award-winning engineer, producer and studio owner Ann Mincieli has been operating Solid State Logic mixing consoles almost since she first started in the business, working her way up from intern to staff engineer at some of New York City’s most prestigious studios beginning in the early 1990s. Mincieli, who is Alicia Keys’ engineer, album coordinator and studio director, oversaw the installation of various SSL consoles at Keys’ music facilities, first in Long Island, then in Manhattan and additionally in California. In 2011 she opened her own multi-room complex, Jungle City, where she has just added the very first SSL ORIGIN EVO anywhere in the world alongside her three SSL Duality consoles.

“I thought the ORIGIN EVO was a great fit for my North Studio at Jungle City, and I was ready to redo that room,” says Mincieli, who saw the new console when it launched at the 2026 NAMM Show in January. “Alicia has a creative hub out west where we have an ORIGIN that we purchased last year, and we also have a Duality there that packs up in a case. When Phill Scholes of SSL hit us up at the NAMM Show about the new ORIGIN EVO design and enhancements from the original ORIGIN, it was perfect timing.”

Each channel strip on the new ORIGIN EVO also includes E Series dynamics, in addition to the E Series Black Knob 242 EQ, SSL’s high-pass filter and — new to the ORIGIN EVO — low-pass filter, and flexible PureDrive™ mic preamp. Switching the filters into the dynamics sidechain enables de-essing or frequency-dependent compression. New compression ratios, an insert return for external processing and a built-in sidechain filter have been added to ORIGIN EVO’s Bus Compressor.

ORIGIN EVO lands at Jungle City North Studio

Jungle City, which occupies the upper floors of a building on West 27th Street in New York’s High Line neighbourhood, features a 48-input Duality console in its flagship Penthouse East, and there is another 48-input Duality in Penthouse West. South Studio, one floor below, houses a 24-input Duality. On the same floor, North Studio is home to the new 32-channel ORIGIN EVO. All four control rooms, two Penthouse live rooms and all the studios’ associated lounges offer windows with panoramic views of New York City and there is a 2,400-square-foot deck on the rooftop. “I wanted it to be a destination studio,” Mincieli explains.

“North Studio is one of our premier mixing suites,” she continues. “We record, mix and edit there. It has a small iso booth, so we can also do vocals and drums. I wanted flexibility in my room, because I record every single day of my life, and I work with an artist who is a producer and a musician who works every day of her life on music. The ORIGIN EVO fits perfectly in the room, size-wise. I built my own monitor arm and speaker stands, which really feel like they're part of the desk. It's not only me that's going to work on it, so it also gives my clients 32 mic pre’s, SSL EQ and dynamics. The headroom is also really good on the ORIGIN. That's something else that I really pay attention to.”

ORIGIN EVO: impeccable design and workflow

Mincieli appreciates the inline design of SSL’s ORIGIN series of analogue consoles, which can accommodate up to 88 inputs at mixdown in a relatively compact footprint, she says. “You get twice the number of inputs, and I love that you also get small faders. I also love the mic pre’s; the mic pre’s and EQs really sound just like a Duality. I just love everything about it.”

The new ORIGIN EVO console has only just been installed at Jungle City, and Mincieli is already looking forward to diving in and fully exploring its capabilities. “It has eight stereo faders with direct outs to the mix bus. And you can assign the channel insert to the long or short fader path. Those are really useful features,” she says. “ORIGIN’s sleep mode is also amazing. We put ours into sleep mode because we want to preserve the electronics. If we're not using the room, or the room is not booked for a time, that's a real plus.”

Painting the sonic picture with Ann Mincieli

Jungle City’s clientele includes some of the world’s biggest artists, such as J. Balvin, Cardi B, Lil Uzi Vert, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Coldplay, Rihanna, Depeche Mode, Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams, Mariah Carey and Usher. Keys often works there with Mincieli, if they’re not working at Real World, Criteria, Larrabee or some other SSL-equipped facility somewhere in the world. Whatever room they are in, Mincieli says, they mix as they record: “Because we're honing in on our tone. We're painting the sonic picture as we go along. That's what I love about the ORIGIN and the Duality — you have the flexibility to use the mic pre’s and EQs on the way into Pro Tools as you record."

North Studio will easily accommodate Keys and her writing and programming workflow, she continues. “I have 32 mic pre’s, so the desk allows us to have all her drum machines, keyboards, like Jupiters and Junos, and her own virtual rig connected. She uses a combination of virtual synths and real analogue synths, and the desk gives me so much flexibility, with twice the number of inputs and small faders and large faders. Having the mic pre’s and compressors and being able to patch everything up and follow her creativity, and EQ and compress on the way into Pro Tools, is pretty amazing.”

After years of working at such Manhattan studios as Skyline, Right Track, Axis, Quad and others, on E, G and G+, J, K and Axiom Series consoles as she was coming up in the industry, it was inevitable that Minceli would spec SSL desks into Keys’ Oven Studios when she had the opportunity. “Alicia had two studios on Long Island, and we had an SSL AWS in one of them, and we upgraded to a Duality in our mix room when Manny Marroquin came in to mix her As I Am album. I got Alicia to buy one of the first Duality consoles in 2006. I just love the Duality,” says Mincieli, who travelled to SSL’s U.K. headquarters in the 1990s to train on the Axiom and the 9000J. On her days off she would freelance as an SSL product specialist around New York City. “The point is, I use SSL rooms. Those are pretty much the only rooms that I work in.”

Multi-Award Grammy Award-Winning Engineer Ann Mincieli Installs First Solid State Logic ORIGIN EVO in Jungle City's North Studio

ORIGIN EVO lands at Jungle City North Studio

ORIGIN EVO: impeccable design and workflow

Painting the sonic picture with Ann Mincieli

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