Having chosen PMC IB2S XBD-A as main monitors for his production studio at London’s Metropolis Studios, producer, mix engineer and composer Gareth Johnson has recently added a pair of PMC’s twotwo.6 loudspeakers for close-field monitoring.
Since founding Stand Alone Productions eight years ago, Johnson has worked on remixes or productions for major label artists including The Who, Suede, Noel Gallagher and Kasabian, as well as scoring for films, PlayStation games, TV programmes for all the major terrestrial channels, and for international ad campaigns. His latest project is mixing the audio for a coming release for the Who in 5.1 surround – which has run concurrently with production of his own using a 30-piece choir and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra recorded at Abbey Road.
‘In any given week, I’m working on a cross-section of music so that I don’t get bored,’ he says from behind a vintage Trident console at Metropolis. ‘Last week, I had a rock session on Monday and Tuesday, tech metal on Wednesday, then I was mixing my upcoming electronica/orchestral crossover project on Thursday. So reference monitors that sound good just for electronic dance music or for rock aren’t much use to me. I need something that I can trust on all styles of music, and will give me mixes that transfer between playback systems without sounding different.
‘PMCs have always done that for me. I need to be able to trust what I’m hearing from top to bottom, so a top-notch full-range monitoring system was essential. I always try to buy British for my main kit, just because I like to have support nearby. PMC have been great in that respect, too.’
Johnson has been a PMC user for many years, using TB2 close-fields in his old studio.
‘When I was designing this place, I wanted the largest monitors they made that would work in here. That’s why I got the IB2 Actives with the XBD bass unit. Tracking with them is really exciting and they’re brilliant for checking that you’ve got the bottom end right. They have headroom for days, which is great when you want to shake the room, but they are just as detailed and revealing when I’m monitoring at more sensible levels during mixing. It’s been amazing having proper full-range monitoring in the studio. I’m not looking back.’
After running in the IB2 XBD-As and getting used to them, Johnson wanted to add close-fields of the same quality and tonal balance. ‘I looked at PMC’s AML2s initially, but then I heard the new twotwo.6s and that was it,’ he says. ‘They’re incredibly detailed.
‘Since I got the IB2s and the twotwos, I have been absolutely hammering them with everything I can throw at them. But they’ve got tons of headroom, and they’re helping to make everything sound great. The Who concert has been produced to sound look and sound good on high-quality systems, and on a big screen with high-resolution monitoring, it sounds incredible.’
More: www.pmc-speakers.com
