Alongside composing and producing music for film and television, Steve Ouimette has provided original music for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Ghost Recon Wildlands and The Crew 2, among others. He has also established himself as a ‘forensic re-recording expert’, with more than 270 tracks created for music-based franchise game series’ such as Guitar Hero, Just Dance and Rock Revolution.

A key part of his engineering toolkit for the faithful these re-recordings are Amphion One18 monitors, which have become a trusted part of his studio set-up.

American Ouimette first became involved in forensic re-recording – the act of accurately recording a new version of a song to match the original when the recording masters are unavailable – when he was hired to work on Guitar Hero 3 in 2007, a culmination of a lifetime of listening to and obsessing over the sonic details imbedded in his favourite songs.

‘I used to drive my band mates and music teachers nuts because I was more interested in trying to nail the sounds of my favourite records than stand around and jam,’ he says. ‘It ended up becoming an obsession that paid off.’

After his audition with a faithful recreation of ‘Schools Out’ by Alice Cooper, Ouimette became a go-to producer for the series, recording dozens of re-recordings and originals for the series. ‘Forensic re-recording is something of a black art that requires a few different skills,’ he explains. ‘In addition to knowing the history of how these records were made so that you can accurately recreate them from a sonic standpoint, you also have to be able to listen very carefully for the minute details that ultimately are the things that define these recordings .’

To ensure that he’s hearing all these details, Ouimette uses Amphion One18 speakers as his main studio monitors. ‘When you’re trying to disseminate what’s going on in a track, you can spend hundreds of hours listening to something to try to expose different elements of the mix,’ he says. ‘What I liked about the Amphion One18s right away was that they were honest while still being enjoyable to listen to, so I could listen for a long time without tearing my ears off. It’s a real pleasure to listen to them.’

For recording, Ouimette currently runs a 2019 Mac Pro with Studio One wirh a Softube Console I Fader and Console 1 for control surfaces, and Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk2 for Midi. For inputs he has a UTA Undertone Audio MPDI44, Aurora Audio GTQ2 and an Apollo 8XP. In addition to using his Amphion One18s, he also has two pairs of subwoofers and a Linea Research ASC48 DSP to tune the room for the best bass response. He uses a variety of classic microphones, amplifiers and guitars for both re-recording and original work.

Ouimette does the majority of his composing and production work in a private studio in Scottsdale, Arizona. He hired studio designer Alex Otto to redesign the space when he first started work on his original soundtrack for Ghost Recon Wildlands, a project that required him to compose authentic corridos for the game’s characters, as well as a variety of in-game and incidental music. The combination of his new studio and his recently purchased Amphion One18 monitors ultimately helped to fuel his process. ‘It was the first time in a long time that I didn’t have to fight the room, and the combination of the new studio and these effortless speakers really helped to bring the project together,’ he says. ‘I had so much fun working on it because I could finally hear everything, and it kept my creative flow going.

‘What’s funny about doing all of this is I’m basically just a grown-up version of my kid self,’ he reflects. ‘I’m still working in my room, studying recordings, and making music…’

More: http://amphion.fi