Las Vegas’ Studio DMI complex is home to Grammy-nominated mix and mastering engineer Luca Pretolesi (Major Lazer, Drake, Skrillex, Diplo), now houses four Focal-equipped studios including a Dolby Atmos certified all-Focal mixing studio, following the installation of Focal’s Utopia Main 212 soffit-mounted monitors.
‘The Focal Utopia Main sound has an expensive, shiny top end, a very detailed midrange, and a very warm – and not fatiguing – bottom end,’ says Pretolesi, whose stereo mix room features Focal Trio11 monitors. ‘It’s really nice to have speakers in the wall because now you feel it’s one piece – the sweet spot is literally the entire studio, it feels so big.
‘The Utopia Main 212 and 112 are very loud speakers made for engineers, and they sound amazing. The learning curve usually on any pair of speakers takes weeks, but I was mixing the same day on these. The coolest thing is to be able to listen to something that has a lot of power, a lot of space, but listen at 65dB and feel extremely comfortable.’
The studio upgrade, where the Utopia Main 212 were installed, was designed by Haverstick Designs, who have placed Focal monitors in various studio designs previously, while this was their first Utopia Main soffit install.
‘When we are working on a design to soffit mount a set of speakers, the information provided by the manufacturer is crucial to make sure we get every detail correct,’ says Haverstick Designs owner, Gavin Haverstick. ‘Focal’s documentation for the UM212 speakers gave us everything we needed to ensure that we obtained the best performance out of the speakers in this redesign.’
Haverstick Designs had worked with Studio DMI previously and upgrading an existing studio room needed careful planning: ‘Anytime we are upgrading an existing room with soffit mounted speakers, there are a lot of things that need to be considered,’ Haverstick says. ‘First off, there are the construction details that need to be developed. A soffit wall needs to be extremely massive with multiple layers of dense materials so that the wall doesn’t act as a baffle and interfere with the direct sound from the speakers. We also need to get the angles to be as accurate as possible to optimise the equilateral triangle between the speakers and the listening position.
‘We have worked with Built By Rosetone, [the contractor] on numerous projects, so that gave us an extra level of confidence that the design would be carried out accurately and efficiently. At the same time, we were renovating the interior acoustical treatment of the space to be more accurate and address low frequency issues. We had renovated Studio D and Studio M years ago, but we left Luca Pretolesi’s room, Studio I, alone due to how busy he is. This was a great opportunity to address the acoustics with the speaker upgrade.’
Studio DMI is a space that combines innovation, experience, and performance for both established artists and emerging talent. The studio recently offered mixing and mastering workshops, sharing its expertise, and nurturing the next generation of electronic music creators.
‘Working with Studio DMI over the years has been such a joy,’ Haverstick says. ‘That place feels like a home away from home and it is because of the people that work there. I am so excited for this next season with the upgrades that we did in Luca’s space. I’m excited to hear all of the amazing music that will come out of that studio in the coming years.’
More: www.studiodmi.com