When I first started at Aphex as a Product Specialist they were beta testing a new product called Channel. This was a replacement for an older product called 230 Master Voice Channel. The 230 was a product aimed at voice talent on FM radio. Aphex had recently been purchased and the first thing they did was update some of the existing product.s. The 230 was an amazing channel strip for MANY applications, but it was previously only aimed at the broadcast market. Jim Bailey made some smart changes like adding an instrument input to the front panel and moving the word clock settings from the rear of the product to the front. He also added dedicated meters for output level and gain reduction. The 230 used one meter with a toggle switch.

One of my first jobs was to write the manual for this new Channel product. I took a beta unit to my home studio and compared it to my Universal Audio LA-610 MKII.  In my opinion the Channel was a far superior sounding product and I listed my UA product on Ebay the next day!

However, because the unit was envisioned for broadcast it had features that weren't commonly found on recording products. Such as a phaser rotator, a de-esser and a gate. It also had AES/EBU, Toslink and coaxial S/PDIF digital outputs. The next day I said that we need to create a "Project Channel" that is half the price with half the features.

About a year later we did just that. To differentiate the product we created a new Class A preamp and Optical compressor. We also left out the mid range EQ, keeping just the Aural Exciter and Big Bottom processors.

My concept was to make the unit a desktop product. It could sit right next to a desktop audio interface and easily fit in a back pack or gigbag for easy transport. But the powers that be decided to make it a full size, one space rackmounted product. We hit our price point and it sounds incredible.