Sometimes known as Gggarth due to his stutter, Canadian music producer and engineer Garth Richardson has installed a PMC immersive monitoring system at his recording studio near Vancouver, British Columbia, to handle Dolby Atmos mixing.
The 7.1.4 system comprises three PMC6-2 monitors for LCR, four PMC6 monitors for the side channels, four PMC Ci30 monitors for the ceiling/height channels, and four PMC8-2 subs that provide enough power to satisfy even the most ardent rock producer, which is what Richardson is.
In his role as a producer and engineer, Richardson has stamped his mark on albums including Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut, as well as those from Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Skunk Anansie, Mötley Crüe, Biffy Clyro and Taylor Swift. With more than 50 years music production experience, his accolades includie a Juno award for production and a Grammy nomination for engineering. He was also nominated on three occasions for the Jack Richardson Producer of the Year Juno – an award named after his father, an influential producer of the 1960s and 1970s who recorded albums with Alice Cooper, The Guess Who, Badfinger and Poco.
As someone literally born to the role of music producer, Richardson has been ‘knocking around’ studios since he was five years old. ‘My dad had a studio [Nimbus Nine Sound Stage Studios in Toronto], and I used to play under the console as a small child. Later, I’d go down and watch what was happening when he was recording.
‘I trained under my father, and Bob Ezrin and Michael Wagner, eventually working as an engineer and producer in my own right. I spent quite a few years in Los Angeles and recorded in Europe before finally coming back to Canada to set up a studio of my own.’
Richardson’s introduction to PMC was via another Grammy winning producer, Dave Schiffman. He demoed a pair and when he played back the first Rage Against the Machine album, which he produced, he was very impressed. ‘I could hear everything – all the moves I had done in the studio back in 1991,’ he says. ‘I liked what I heard so much that I ended up buying a pair of PMC ALM2 monitors for myself. I’ve had them years and always loved them. They were the main monitors in my control room until we upgraded to Dolby Atmos.’
The control room Richardson refers to is at The Farm, a seven-acre residential facility that was established in 2006 but has undergone numerous reinventions over the years. It has a live room designed by Ron Obvious (who has also built studios for Bryan Adams and Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange) and a control room designed by John Ryan Sullivan of MDRN Acoustic Concepts. It has multiple recording spaces and a control room equipped with an API 1608 desk and API 1608 sidecar. It also has Focusrite RedNet Pro interfaces with Dante to Digi Link and D/A converters; and a large collection of microphones, preamps and outboard gear.
Work to upgrade the control room to accommodate a PMC Dolby Atmos monitoring system began in 2022 and was completed late in 2023. Richardson says it took a while to get everything in place and get it right, but he was happy for the project to progress at its own pace because he wanted the room to sound as good as it possibly could.
‘Doing things right is always my mandate,’ he explains. ‘As a producer I am an innovator who is always evolving and trying to do things better, which is one reason why I decided to embrace Dolby Atmos. I heard an Atmos demo on the PMC booth at NAMM, and thought “holy shit, this is brilliant”. Atmos gives you a 3D canvas and a whole new way of connecting with music. I know there are a lot of non-believers, but for me, hearing Atmos at that PMC demo was the first time I felt the music had given me a hug.
‘A good Atmos mix played back in the right setting through great speakers can literally make you cry. Music should make you feel like you are emotionally involved, and that’s what Atmos does. It’s like you are in the room with the band. It’s magical.’
Given Richardson’s long-standing appreciation of PMC, it was almost inevitable that his Atmos system would be centred around PMC monitors. ‘I spoke to Maurice Patist [President of PMC USA and head of Pro Global] and said I wanted an Atmos system because it was time to keep up with the Joneses. Maurice got involved really early on in the project and gave me tons of help and useful advice. We’ve known each other for years and I can rely on him, which is important as I like to have a good relationship with the manufacturers I work with.’
With the system installed, Richardson says he was overwhelmed by their clarity and the fact that they leave nowhere for a bad mix to hide. ‘If it sounds bad coming out of these speakers, that’s because it is. But, equally, when you get it right, it sounds amazing. The PMCs make it easy to work out how to achieve the best results.’
Richardson and his engineer Dean Maher (Slayer, AD/DC, Rise Against) are now getting to grips with Atmos mixing. They are also educating the bands they work with about the potential of this new production tool, and how to adapt their recording so that Atmos mixing becomes part of the entire creative workflow.
Recent clients at The Farm have included Devin Townsend, Hanggai, The Living, Hollow River, and TRWP. Richardson says they are all highly appreciative of sound delivered by the PMC monitoring system in his new Dolby Atmos mix room.
