The album is sponsored by ATC and you can listen and buy the album via Gemma’s Bandcamp page.
“Words can’t express how much joy is brings me to put music out into the world. It was an absolute honour to play with two absolute legends, Kenny Baron and Ron Carter.”
The album was recorded at Sear Sound, New York by, Chris Allen.
Mixed by, Clint Murphy.
Mastered by, Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound Nashville.
Nashville, Tennessee – October 2023: Vance Powell recently completed a studio makeover at Sputnik Sound, installing the popular ATC 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos monitor system to add the future of immersive surround sound to his arsenal. In 2014, Powell, an innovator in studio design, teamed up with producer Mitch Dane in a rambling house in the famed Berry Hill section of Nashville, naming it Sputnik Sound and filling it with virtually every audio tool past and present. A producer, engineer, mixer, and winner of seven Grammy awards, his credits read like a Billboard list of chart-topping artists: Phish, Chris Stapleton, Jack White, The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and Buddy Guy for starters. His career has spanned from working with Jars of Clay, to a chief-engineer role at Blackbird Studios, to outside work with many of Jack White’s groups. With his new Dolby Atmos room, Powell has complete control to mix immersive audio in his singular style.
As soon as Dolby Atmos Immersive Sound Systems hit the marketplace, Powell was on it. Consulting with the Dolby engineers and famed studio designer Michael Cronin, Powell tore apart his existing control room, totally rebuilt the front wall, re-installed his existing SSL 6000 console and selected ATC monitors for his 7.1.4 system. For left and right configuration, Powell chose the ATC SCM110ASL, an active three-way reference monitor with high-resolution, featuring twin nine-inch ATC “SL” bass drivers, an ATC three-inch soft dome midrange, and an ATC one-inch “S-Spec” soft dome tweeter. The center channel is handled by an ATC SCM50ASL, the company’s benchmark design for a world-class loudspeaker with a sweet-sounding, refined ATC tweeter, ATC soft dome midrange and massively engineered ATC bass driver. Four ATC SCM25A three-way active studio monitors deliver for the surrounds and four ATC SCM12i two-ways for the overhead channels, again all featuring ATC drivers. Dolby engineers worked with Powell for exact speaker placement. The LFE emanates from an ATC SCM0.1/15 Pro Sub capturing the low end with clarity and efficiency.
Dolby Atmos Immersive Sound promises to give the listener the feeling of being in the room with the musicians, noted Powell. “ATC monitors have always impressed me for their clarity and tonal balance. Same goes for the ATC Atmos system performance in immersive audio. It’s perfectly nuanced listening and meets all Dolby standards. All this technology helps me fully realize great music. I’m really happy in this room.” Powell recently completed the Atmos mix of The War and the Treaty’s Lover’s Game album and the 49 Winchester’s Fortune Favors the Bold. “The new Atmos system allowed me to give these already beautiful, organic records an added layer of depth,” said Powell.
“If you’re ready to bring your studio into Dolby Atmos, listen to an ATC system. Their sound is so musical and accurate, somewhat hard to describe,” added Brad Lunde, president and founder of TransAudio Group, ATC’s U.S. distributor. “But when you hear them, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.”
ATC products are distributed in the U.S.A. by Transaudio Group.
Starstruck Entertainment, the parent company of Starstruck Studios was founded in 1988 by Narvel Blackstock, who remains in control. Over the last 25 years, Starstruck has developed and managed top selling acts, including Blake Shelton, Carly Pearce, Maggie Rose, Emily Ann Roberts and have recorded artists such as Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, and Taylor Swift in their studios. Famed for its’ unique studios – The Gallery and The Pond – Starstruck opened their Dolby Atmos room in the spring of 2021. Starstruck ranks as one of the most chosen recording, production, and mix venues on Music Row. Top recording engineers, such as multiple Grammy-award winner Chuck Ainlay, frequent the facility.
Noted Nashville-based acoustician, Michael Cronin, Michael Cronin Acoustic Construction, designed and built the mix room at Starstruck. Cronin, an expert at meeting Dolby’s strict guidelines, re-worked Starstruck’s existing lounge and listening room into a Dolby immersive sound studio. Cronin had years of exposure and experience with ATC speakers and suggested the ATC Dolby Atmos system would work perfectly in the new studio. Narvel Blackstock and the Starstruck staff engineers concurred as most were familiar with ATC monitor performance and value. The ATC system purchase was made through Westlake Pro Audio in Nashville.
Shawn Daugherty, Starstruck’s chief technical engineer, installed, calibrated, and integrated the immersive system room. The ATC 7.1.4 system is composed of three ATC SCM110A Pro handling left-center-right, four ATC SCM45A Pro for surrounds, four ATC SCM25Ai Pro for height, and two ATC SCM0.1/15 subwoofers. Noted Daugherty, “Accuracy, placement and performance are strategic in meeting the specifications of a Dolby Atmos system. The ATC system was strikingly easy to calibrate. In fact, when the Dolby engineers came out for the final tuning, they literally could copy and paste settings from one speaker to another – somewhat of an audio rarity. The ATC’s detailed tonal balance and exact reproduction makes it hard to imagine working in a studio that doesn’t have them.” One of the first recording engineers to use the Dolby Atmos room was Derek Bason, who was mixing tracks from Carrie Underwood’s catalog into Dolby Atmos.
Todd Tidwell, Starstruck’s chief engineer, concluded, “The ATCs live up to the hype and are worth every penny you pay for them.” He used the system for various projects for Carly Pearce in the July 11 CMA Fest in Nashville. “The ATCs are a joy to work on. I’m super confident I’m hearing every detail from every angle. Basically, you just have to hear it for yourself.”
ATC products are distributed in the U.S.A. by Transaudio Group.
As a compact, three-way, high-performance active studio monitor, the SCM25A Pro Mk2 is based around a 6.5”/164mm bass driver loaded in a vented enclosure, tuned to 32Hz and featuring a 3”/75mm diameter port with flared entry and exit to minimise port air noise. It’s exceptional combination of exceptional mid-range clarity; high-output, extended bass response; and modest 25-litre/0.9 cubic foot size make it ideal for nearfield monitoring across a wide range of critical applications.
All new to the SCM25A Pro Mk2 is its high-frequency driver, replacing its popular predecessor’s OEM part with its own ‘S-SPEC’ SH25-76S, which is manufactured in-house with a no-compromise engineering approach (as fitted to the two-way SCM20A Pro and larger, three-way SCM45A Pro, SCM50APro, SCM100A Pro, SCM110A Pro, and SCM150A Pro models since 2015). This driver is a 1”/25mm soft-dome design, handling high frequencies above 3.5kHz, but, unlike almost any other 1”/25mm tweeter on the market, it employs both an upper and lower suspension to better support and control the coil and dome motion. This, therefore, makes for a narrower magnetic gap, resulting in higher magnetic flux, which, in turn, extends the high-frequency response and reduces 3rd harmonic distortion. As ATC R&D Manager Richard Newman notes, “We feel the new tweeter lifts the capability of the SCM25A Pro Mk2 to a higher level, retaining the outstanding balance of the monitor, but extending the high-frequency response and reducing distortion to really help lower-level detail in the high-frequency band cut through. This will greatly aid faster decision-making and outstanding translation outside of the studio.”
Meanwhile, mid-band frequencies between 380Hz and 3.5kHz are handled by ATC’s acclaimed 3”/75mm soft-dome mid-range driver, duly combining high-efficiency, high-power handling, low distortion, and wide dispersion characteristics to ensure class-leading performance for the SCM25A Pro Mk2 in this critical frequency range. As a mainstay of ATC’s Pro product range, this component features in eight models, making certain consistency spans from nearfield through to main monitors.
Mid- and high-frequency elements are supported by a 6.5”/164mm proprietary bass driver that takes care of the SCM25A Pro Mk2’s low frequencies below 380Hz. This features a carbon-loaded paper cone while the driver motor employs a short-coil operating in a long magnetic gap, helping to minimise distortion generated by drive force modulation. Additionally, a large 2”/50mm voice coil and generous excursion capability ensure outstanding dynamic range.
Rear-mounted, a three-way class A/B amp actively drives the SCM25A Pro Mk2 with each drive unit having its own dedicated power amplifier. Audio balanced input is via a rear panel-mounted three-pin XLR and power is via an IEC mains power inlet. Input sensitivity and Bass boost controls are also accessible to the user. Ultimately, crossovers are 4th order Linkwitz-Riley and all-pass filters are included to optimise the phase response through the crossover regions, improving the tonal quality and imaging, as well as on- and off-axis frequency response. Furthermore, FET (Field-Effect Transistor) peak limiters are included to reduce amplifier ‘hard-clipping’, while Power/Limit is indicated — ‘on’ and ‘active’ — by a front panel-mounted bi-colour LED. Just like the cabinets and loudspeaker drive units, the amplifier is designed and manufactured in-house.
The SCM25A Pro Mk2 carries a UK retail price of £7075 per pair + VAT and will be available from 1st March (country/region dependent).
For more in-depth information, please visit the dedicated product web page here.
For availability and pricing internationally, please visit the ATC website to find a distributor here.
I am extremely sad to announce the death of my Dad, ATC’s founder and owner, Billy Woodman.
Dad passed away peacefully surrounded by his family on 21 July 2022, aged 76 years old. Although Dad had suffered with a number of health issues over the years, he had always defied the odds and recovered, his death has been a shock to us all.
Dad founded ATC almost five decades ago. His principles, philosophies, and absolute commitment to achieving engineering excellence are the foundation on which ATC is built. At the heart of this was outstanding transducer design and engineering that focused on achieving the best sound reproduction possible.
Dad’s emphasis on running ATC as a family business has remained and under his leadership and guiding hand, we have ensured that ATC has continued to grow and succeed with the constant support of fellow Director and lifelong friend, Bob Polley.
Dad was an extraordinary man, not only gifted as an engineer but also as a jazz pianist and undertook exquisite restorations of vintage cars. He was truly an exceptional man in every aspect of his life. He was one of life’s true gentleman and leaves a remarkable legacy. He inspired many, not least me, in how he led his life, always with courage, kindness and generosity.
The loss of my Dad is profoundly felt by not just me, my darling mum, Mumble, his grandchildren, his family, and friends, but the entire ATC family that he created and very much loved.
My family would appreciate some privacy during this incredibly difficult time.
Yours Faithfully,
Will Woodman
Managing Director
Loudspeaker Technology Ltd
ATC SCS70 Pro
Advancing ATC’s proven philosophy of developing loudspeaker systems from component level up the subwoofers feature a new sub-bass driver, developed by ATC’s R&D team, and optimised for reproduction of the lowest four octaves of the audio band. To best achieve this, it is designed with a 30mm magnetic gap, 50% longer than any other offered by ATC. The long-gap and short-coil configuration takes a long-standing ATC design feature to its limit, minimising distortion while simultaneously delivering the high linear excursion required to produce accurate and dynamic low frequency output. Generating a high level of magnetic flux over such a long gap required extensive FEA computer modelling and the resultant 6″/150mm N48M Neodymium magnet is the most powerful ever assembled by ATC and a first for the company. As well as minimising distortion, the short-coil long-gap configuration ensures the voice coil remains surrounded by the steel motor structure at all times, maximising cooling, reducing power compression, and improving reliability. Turbulent air noise within the driver is minimised via a large, flared vent running through the centre of the motor structure, which has the added benefit of increasing voice coil and motor cooling.
The SCS70 Pro subwoofers deliver an extended low-frequency response without employing electronic equalisation, quite unlike many subwoofers available today. Instead, the more elegant combination of exceptional transducer engineering and a marginally larger cabinet volume is used. The simplicity of this approach reduces phase shift and group delay, aiding the integration of the sub with the partnering monitor loudspeakers. Ultimately, it delivers a more balanced and coherent experience for the listener, extending the low-frequency response without masking details or changing the tonal character in the upper bass/lower mid-range.
Drawing on 34 years of experience in amplifier design and development, ATC’s electronic engineering team have delivered an all-new amplifier for these two new subwoofers. The 300W class AB design is hand-built by ATC at their UK facility and precisely optimised to the requirements of the drive unit, resulting in fast, dynamic bass with minimal colouration. Two balanced inputs provide connectivity suited to both stereo and multi-channel/immersive audio systems plus two balanced outputs provide connections to monitor loudspeakers or to ‘daisy-chain’ multiple subs. Low-pass filters are analogue, 4th order Linkwitz-Riley and filter frequency options ensure optimal integration with a wide range of studio monitors. An industry-standard 80Hz low-pass and an ‘off’ option (for use with external processing) are also provided. A polarity switch plus a continuously variable 180° phase adjustment allows further optimisation of the subwoofer crossover and a stepped attenuator with a 21 dB range provides precise level matching.
ATC SCS70iW Pro
SCS70iW Pro
Integrating active subwoofers designed to operate ‘free-standing’ into control rooms designed for flush/ in-wall monitoring can be a challenge, but the SCS70iW Pro (In-Wall) is dedicated to this application, simplifying installation, and ensuring optimal performance. Featuring a shallower cabinet and recessed input connector panel it maximises floor space while the accompanying R1-300 Pro remote mounted 7U/19” amplifier offers the user the flexibility to install the amplifier in-wall close to the subwoofer, in a control room rack or in a machine room. Connection between the in-wall sub and remote amp is via NL4 speaker cable and 5-pin XLR cable (sold separately & available in multiple lengths).
Output of the SCS70 Pro can be muted via a single latching footswitch connected via the mute Input ¼” / 6.35mm jack). Additional subwoofers can be muted using the same footswitch, connected via the mute ‘Thru’ jack.
The size and performance of the SCS70 Pro make it the ideal partner for a wide range of ATC studio monitoring loudspeakers, including the SCM12 Pro, SCM20A Pro, SCM25A Pro, SCM45A Pro and up to and including the SCM50A Pro. Multiple subs can be employed to elevate performance, to fill larger rooms and also when partnering with larger models of loudspeakers. Buffered linkable inputs and outputs makes connection of multiple subs simple as does the linkable ‘mute’ circuit. Surround and Immersive Audio formats can be particularly demanding of subwoofers and these two new designs both offer exceptional clarity at higher SPLs. It is recommended that the Dolby Audio Room Design Tool (DARDT) should be used to aid the design of ATC monitoring systems for Dolby Atmos, ensuring the format guidelines are met and best possible performance is achieved.
Designed and engineered with a focus on resolution and integration, the SCS70 and SCS70iW Pro offer users additional low frequency extension and dynamic range but without compromising balance in the upper bass and lower mid-range. They provide an upgrade path to customers owning smaller monitors and lacking space for larger mid-field or main monitors whilst also offering a greater choice for surround and immersive audio applications. Whichever way anyone chooses to use them, the new SCS70 Pro and SCS70iW Pro are two strong additions to the Professional Series product line-up.
The SCS70 Pro and SCS70iW Pro are available now. For a list of authorised ATC distributors and dealers, please see here.
The SCS70 Pro UK recommended retail price is £3125 + VAT.
The SCS70iW Pro UK recommended retail price is £3750 + VAT (inc. R1-300 Pro remote amp).
For pricing in your country/region, please contact your local ATC representative.
SCS70 Pro & SCS70iW Pro Product Webpage
Biography:
Australian Music Prize twice-long-listed composer Luke Howard has been described as “absolutely heavenly” (Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC Radio 6) and his music as “an ambient masterclass” (Musos’ Guide), but no words can fully capture the potency of Howard’s enthralling compositions. A pianist since childhood, Howard has scored films and performed with artists as diverse as Lior and Jeff Mills, capturing audiences with contemporary classical arrangements that curl and twist around the boundaries of a particular emotion. Though wordless, Howard’s songs perform a function unique to music as a medium – that of evoking without describing, bringing listeners to a feeling which defies articulating.
Back home in Melbourne, Howard recently composed music for the short film The Sand That Ate The Sea (nominated for best soundtrack in the 2019 ARIA Awards) and the theatre work The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes (Back To Back Theatre). He has worked with choreographer, Juliano Nunes on pieces for the Royal Ballet in Covent Garden, and the Atlanta Ballet.
Howard is one of Australia’s foremost practitioners of contemporary classical music whose work continues to captivate audiences worldwide.
ATC caught up with Luke back in May, to find out a little more about how it all began, how he works in the studio and his experiences playing live….
ATC: Can you tell us a little about how your background and how your career in music began?
L.H: It’s probably not an uncommon story – I learned piano as a child at my parent’s suggestion – and I’ve just kept going. I suspect persistence is likely the real secret to a career in the arts. Of course, the story is a bit more nuanced: I studied jazz and improvisation at university as I enjoyed making things up, and didn’t have the technique nor repertoire to be a concert pianist. Much of my twenties and some of my thirties I oscillated between being a jobbing jazz pianist and a software developer, but in the past few years I’ve focused mostly on composition. I miss playing the piano as much as I used to, but I feel I can address bigger ideas, instrumentation, etc. as a composer. In a way, I’m just chasing the sentiment I first felt when I heard, say, Keith Jarrett. Trying to recreate that.
ATC: ATC’s founder, Chairman and fellow Australian, Billy Woodman has a great passion for jazz and has played piano from an early age, even covering the cost of his journey from Australia to England by backing a singer onboard the boat that he travelled on. One of his great influences, and all-time favourite pianists is the late great, Bill Evans. Which musicians have had a strong influence on you and your music?
L.H: Well, Bill Evans of course is an influence, but I think in my study of jazz piano I looked both before and after – I transcribed many Bud Powell solos, and then spent a good few years on a diet of Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau. They really define the language of modern jazz piano. The sadly departed pianists Lyle Mays and John Taylor were also huge influences, and aesthetically much more aligned with the music I make today. This of course is just a very narrow jazz piano lens – there’s much more music I love, including the artists I’ve mentioned so far, along with Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Ryuichi Sakamoto, The Blue Nile, I could go on for days…
ATC: Piano is your primary instrument, but do you have any other instruments you are particularly fond of, both acoustic and electronic?
L.H: I am fond of many instruments, but I can’t play any of them save the piano (I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to play the French Horn and oboe by now). I have a small cadre (which Google informs me is actually a tautology) of musicians I use on almost every record: effectively a jazz rhythm section, with guitar and violin, but used in more creative ways. So I love those textures. And, really, string orchestra is still my favourite ‘instrument’ for its emotional depth. I do look forward to the time when it will be possible to record with one again.
ATC: You incorporate electronic instruments and programming in your compositions. Is this an area of music you have been interested in for a long time or, a more recent development?
L.H: I’m a definite nerd but I’ve usually kept the two worlds fairly separate. I have been using synthesisers since I was a high school student thanks to some particularly forward-looking education programs in Australia (electronic music was offered as instrumental subject at my school). I’ve been reading audio magazines since approximately 1987 when my Dad bought me an issue of the now defunct Music Technology! As a jazz musician I didn’t listen to a whole heap of electronic music until recently, but I have been particularly inspired by how artists such as Nils Frahm, Jon Hopkins, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, et al. have integrated acoustic and electronic elements.
ATC: Could you give us an overview of your studio setup?
L.H: I work mostly ‘in the box’, I have a few nice bits of outboard but beyond the things necessary to actually get the music into the computer in the first place, that doesn’t see a great deal of use. So what really matters are the room and the speakers. My room was designed by Adelaide acoustician Chris Morton. I have a very beautiful desk (of the non-mixing sort) designed by my friend, Thomas Jouanjean of Northward Acoustics. My speakers are a pair of ATC SCM50ASLs (fed by a Cranesong Solaris DAC), which to me are a perfect combination of musicality and truthfulness; not fatiguing to listen to for long periods, not flattering, but also not so clinical one doesn’t feel inspired. My piano is a Yamaha upright, nothing particularly extraordinary but one which records quite well. I’m a bit of a collector of reverbs and tape delays, too.
ATC: When you are in the studio, do you have a pretty structured process you like to follow when recording and do you have a favorite place to record?
L.H: I do a lot of recording at my own studio now, so I tend to record rough ideas on the piano, then work and edit them in the computer, and then re-record them if the original version wasn’t up to scratch. It depends on the piece: an orchestral piece might start as an improvisation on the piano or the computer, but most of the work will be done in notation, and it doesn’t really exist in a tangible form until it’s been performed. Other pieces I’ve improvised on the piano have ended up on the record with very little editing.
Regarding a favourite place to record: I loved recording at Rainbow Studio in Oslo when Jan Erik Kongshaug was alive…but it wouldn’t be the same without him. Again, it really depends on the composition, but I learned the lesson early that acoustic instruments need good rooms, and it’s a lot easier to bring recording equipment to a great sounding room, than a good acoustic to a poor studio. High land prices have forced the closure of many studios here and elsewhere, so nowadays we are usually recording ensembles in a concert venue, and solo instruments in smaller spaces. One of my favourite released albums, Ten Sails, was recorded in a Berlin apartment. Good music recorded in a less than ideal room will always trump the converse, but great music in a great room is ideal!
ATC: Are there any technologies that have had a particularly strong influence on your ‘sound’?
L.H: Most of the music I make has an acoustic genesis, using instruments which haven’t changed for hundreds of years. I am fond of treating sounds using delays, reverbs, etc. but I’m fairly certain I’m using exactly the same tools as everyone else, and I arrived at a ‘sound’ simply through experimenting with them. I love a beautifully recorded Steinway just as much as an upright piano with some felt draped between the hammers and strings (I’ve actually been using a distinctly Australian cleaning cloth – Chux – as a replacement for felt of late!). I did buy a Prophet 6 synth a couple of years ago, which I’m slowly getting to know, so you might hear more of that on the next album.
ATC: I read that you performed live as part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra alongside iconic techno artists Jeff Mills and Derrick May. On paper, an unlikely musical combination! but can tell us a little about how that came about and the experience?
L.H: Well, my name must be somewhere on a list of casual musicians as the Melbourne Symphony calls me occasionally when they need someone who can both read music and improvise. It was an interesting gig, certainly a lot of fun but the nature of amplifying an orchestra means that I couldn’t hear what Jeff and Derrick were doing too clearly. I do have a good story from that gig though, which might also explain why I haven’t heard from them since: I had a long solo feature just before the final song Strings of Life, and as I took a bow for this, my earpiece (with the click track) fell out. By the time I got it back in, I didn’t know where in the bar I was, let alone which bar! It was a pretty excruciating moment in front of many thousands of people – suffice to say when the gig ended I snuck away very quietly. To this day I’m not sure if anyone in the audience noticed, but the conductor certainly did!
ATC: Many people have had more time on their hands the past few months and are listing to more music and/or are looking for new artists and sounds to explore. Can you recommend three artists or albums that you have been enjoying recently?
L.H: I often go back to Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden. It’s a perfect record. Keaton Henson’s Six Lethargies is a beauty. Other favourite artists to check out that your readers may not have heard of are Bing & Ruth, Ben Lukas Boysen, Marty Hicks and Hania Rani.
Quick plug! – a new live record of solo piano music, All That Is Not Solid, releases 30th July on Mercury KX (Decca/Universal). It was recorded in January this year, at the height of the Victoria bushfires. Listen to the track Passions of All Kinds here. I also recently released a book of sheet music which is available here.
Luke Howard: Website – Instagram – Facebook – Spotify – Tidal – Qobuz
Smith’s career in music began in the 90s as a guitarist, before progressing to be an in-demand session player and eventually into a role focused on production and writing. Since then he has worked with or written for Adele, Sam Smith, Kano, Ellie Goulding and Stormzy to name but a few.
Discussing the new monitoring system, which was supplied as part of a larger studio upgrade by Kazbar Systems and Studiocare, “Designing my new studio, I wanted a pair of main monitors which could deliver punch, excitement, and low-end vibe for production and tracking, whilst still retaining absolute accuracy for mixing and critical listening. I tried a lot of options, and the ATC SCM110’s we’re far and away the most perfect. I couldn’t be happier.“
Smith has co-written, mixed and produced 7 Number One singles in the UK, 2 Billboard Number One singles in the US, and contributed to 18 Number 1 albums, collecting Grammy and Ivor Novello awards along the way. Most recently, he achieved great success in 2019 with UK rapper, Dave, co-exec. producing his debut album, ‘Psychodrama’. The album went to Number 1 on the UK Albums Chart, received widespread acclaim from critics and won the 2019 Mercury Prize.
Fraser T. Smith Website – Wikipedia – Instagram – Twitter
In music, timing is everything. The same could be said about the making of the album “Songs I Love”. ATC founder, Billy Woodman, an accomplished pianist and arranger, originally from Australia knew his relative, Gemma Sherry was into Jazz but it wasn’t until recently that their musical lives coincided.
In his early 20’s Billy made his way to England from Australia as a pianist on a cruise ship. This was followed by many years of touring and performing with some of the biggest name vocalists in England. Gemma, who is from a small town in outback Australia, started off playing saxophone in numerous jazz bands. After being accepted into music school she moved to New York City to study Jazz singing.
Gemma and Billy’s first musical encounter was when she was a teenager and during one of Billy’s trips back to Australia to visit his family, however it would be another 10 years before they began discussing the idea of making an album together. The original concept was to capture all of the musical talent in the family by including Gemma’s brother Jacob Sherry, an accomplished bassist. However with the family split between Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. this was very difficult and it wasn’t until 2019 that Gemma was able to sit down with Billy and bass player, Mike Waite to record a full album at Yellow Shark Recording Studios in Cheltenham, England, with none other than award winning New Zealand born engineer Clint Murphy behind the mixing desk.
This inspiration for this album was to showcase some of the most beautiful jazz songs that have ever been written. Billy & Gemma both have the same approach in that they believe the songs should be allowed to speak for themselves. It’s the subtlety in the music that shines and you can hear that from both Billy’s playing and Gemma’s singing. Their treatment of the melody and chords is with care and thought. Billy’s arrangement of all the songs shows his deep love for piano voicings and getting them, ‘just right’. He is an absolute perfectionist and you can hear that. Even if you didn’t know they were related, it’s hard to miss the effortless musical connection between Billy and Gemma as you listen to the album. There is such an understanding between the both of them. It also helped that Billy and Mike Waite have been playing together for over 20 years, having weekly jam sessions and rehearsals.
With a wide range of influences including legends such as Bill Evans, Kenny Barron, Blossom Dearie and Astrud Gilberto, the album ”Songs I Love” is a treasure.
The album was mastered by Ryan Smith at the new Sterling Sound facility in Nashville, TN, USA who employ ATC monitoring throughout their new facilities.
The album is available now from Gemma’s Bandcamp page. If you would like information on upcoming gigs, please visit www.gemmasherry.com
Clint Murphy Productions. Yellow Shark Studios. Sterling Sound Mastering.
MUSCLE SHOALS, ALABAMA – OCTOBER 2019: Built in the 1960s by Rick Hall, FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama was the first and most prominent studio to curate the Muscle Shoals Sound, a unique and ultimately ineffable combination of country, gospel, rock, and soul. Listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. FAME Studios recorded hits by Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Gregg Allman, and countless others who shaped the face of modern music. It has been in continuous service since it opened, with modern recordings by Jason Isbell, Blind Boys of Alabama, Alison Krauss, The Revialists, Keb Mo’, Demi Lovato, Steven Tyler, the Raconteurs, and Alicia Keys. FAME operations are handled by Rodney Hall, who recently teamed up with Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer Glenn Rosenstein to revitalize the control room of FAME Studio B (paired with a live room that Rosenstein considers one the best in the world) with structural changes, new equipment, and a pair of ATC SCM45A monitors.
“I was deeply influenced by the music that came out of Muscle Shoals,” recalled Rosenstein, who has worked with U2, George Clinton, The Ramones, Madonna, James Brown, Talking Heads, and others. “So, I was thrilled in the mid-1980s to get a call from the late Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section member Jimmy Johnson. He was producing an album for Lynyrd Skynyrd and asked if I would mix. We finished that project and shortly thereafter teamed up on Gary Rossington’s solo album, which cemented our friendship. We worked together over the past thirty-plus years, and recently I started spending more time in the Shoals area. When I needed to track drums or do other ‘big studio’ tasks, I went to FAME Studios and fell in love with the live room in Studio B.”
Rick Hall built Studio B in 1967 due to the overwhelming demand for Studio A. Early incarnations of what would become The Allman Brothers Band put Studio B through its paces immediately after its completion. During large Studio A sessions, Rick would record the horn arrangements in Studio B while other elements were recorded in Studio A. Hits recorded in Studio B include “Hey Joe” by Wilson Pickett, “Greenwood Mississippi” by Little Richard, “I Loved Her First” by Heartland, Sirens Of The Ditch album by Jason Isbell and Dirty South album by the Drive By Truckers. Studio B also hosted Jimi Hendrix, who recorded the song “Mojo Man” there. The song was released a year ago as part of the Jimi Hendrix People, Angels & Hell retrospective project.
In an illustrious career spanning nearly four decades, Rosenstein has worked in almost every major recording studio in the country. “FAME’s Studio B is one of the finest live rooms anywhere,” he said. “I discovered this about a year-and-a-half ago, when I was cutting vocals in B with Whitney Woerz for my record label, 600 Volt/Sony. Rodney [Hall] dropped in, I told him I was getting some of the best vocal sounds I had ever heard, despite the fact that the control room equipment was average. How was this gem of a studio not being used more frequently?”
Despite the fact that Rosenstein has a studio in Nashville and two home studios near Muscle Shoals, he felt compelled to partner with Rodney Hall & FAME to help bring Studio B to the glory it deserved. “The control room was small and needed to be refreshed,” he said. “Its original UA console had been loaned to the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, and there was a control surface in its place. The next thing I knew, Rodney and I were pulling down walls to expand the size of the control room. We contacted Paul Savasta at Odyssey Pro Sound to broker our console purchase – he found us Stevie Ray Vaughan’s SSL 6000 E Series. We are in the process of restoring the original UA console to serve as a side car. Most importantly, we didn’t touch the live room”
He continued, “It was like archeology, pulling off walls that had been built on top of walls. Many of the surfaces hadn’t been exposed in over fifty years. There were a lot of smart design elements that we used to our advantage, and the room now competes with the best of modern acoustic design.” Rodney Hall added, “I’ve had people ask, ‘what would your dad think of this renovation?’ I’m sure he’d love it! He was always changing things, always updating equipment and aesthetics. We even outfitted a private lounge attached to the control room that had previously been a tape vault. So, it’s got a really cool vibe. You can hang out in there with the Otis Redding masters.”
The choice of ATC SCM45A monitors was not a difficult one for the team. “I’ve used virtually every high-end monitor available, and ATCs always speak to me,” Rosenstein said. “In this room, we’re treading lightly on the shoulders of greatness – if we’re going to equip the studio with the kind of gear that represents that kind of legacy, then ATC was a natural choice. I know that ATCs are an amazing draw that make a clear statement about the caliber of this room. Moreover, we were careful not to pigeonhole Studio B in any particular genre. We wanted a fully-modern room capable of delivering on the Muscle Shoals sound, sure, but also on anything else – EDM, pop, country, you name it. ATCs cut across genres because they reveal a true picture of the work.”
He concluded, “To go from a young fan of the Muscle Shoals sound… to now having some partnership in its most iconic studio… I never would have guessed that would be possible. But here we are, and here we go!”
ATC products are distributed in the U.S.A. by Transaudio Group.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – JANUARY 2020: TransAudio Group, U.S. distributor of ATC and a full line of high-end professional recording equipment, will show a Dolby Atmos Music playback system at Winter NAMM 2020 in Booth #14914. This will be a smaller version of its wildly successful Summer NAMM 2019 Dolby Atmos Music demo held at Blackbird Studios, Nashville. Dolby Atmos Music is a next-generation immersive audio experience that takes music far beyond traditional “surround” that includes 3-D spatial information to bring the listener into the music itself. TransAudio Group has supplied Dolby with ATC loudspeakers applied to Atmos for its San Francisco Market Street headquarters and other multi-channel Dolby executive listening rooms. Now TransAudio will set up an all ATC monitor system at NAMM 2020 for visitors to experience Dolby Atmos Music for the first time. With support from Universal Music Group, Netflix, Amazon, and others, Atmos Music is poised to create a new standard in music playback for listeners around the world. The all ATC 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos Music system at Winter NAMM will also use a new, in-development product from Latch Lake Music, a free-standing, high speaker stand to support the eight to nine foot “height” speakers. This system is designed for Atmos Music playback, suitable for mixing, production, or a very high-end personal listening system.
In addition to the Dolby Atmos demo, TransAudio Group will also have a traditional stereo setup demonstrating ATC SCM25A and SCM45A monitors.
AirHush acoustic isolation panels will form the 350 square-foot demo room with nine-foot walls, and TransAudio Group will take groups of attendees in for a prepared demo experience. Three ATC SCM110ASL monitors will comprise the front LCR channels, four ATC SCM25A monitors will comprise the side/surround channels, and four ATC SCM12i monitors will comprise the overhead height channels. Two ATC SCM0.1/15SL 15-inch subwoofers will handle the LFE channel. One of the current challenges in a Dolby Atmos or other multichannel music production system is that the overhead height speakers need to be installed or mounted. To overcome this, TransAudio Group worked with Latch Lake to develop a prototype free-standing speaker stand for the overhead height channel SCM12i speakers.
“Very few people have had a chance to hear music specifically mixed for Dolby Atmos or other multi-channel immersive formats, much less at the high resolution we achieve with ATC monitors,” said Brad Lunde, founder and president of TransAudio Group. “We’re excited to provide this new and unique experience for visitors at NAMM, and we’re pleased that the setup will simultaneously demo AirHush sound isolation technology and portable, non-permanent ways of building multichannel systems using Latch Lake technology. Our ability to provide these smaller non-permanent systems will allow professionals and artists to work in Atmos and other formats much more easily than before.”
Demos at NAMM will be held on a first come, first serve basis.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – AUGUST 2019: For over 25 years, Ken “Duro” Ifill has been mixing the living history of urban hip-hop and R&B. His client list includes Jay-Z, NAS, Pharrell, Erykah Badu, Will Smith, Beastie Boys, Usher, and on and on, and through a singular focus on making everything he works on as cool as possible, he has won six Grammy Awards. These days, Duro splits his time between the studio, where he still engages his first and enduring passion (mixing!) and Senior VP of A&R at Republic/Universal Records. After twenty years on the same monitors and two years in dissatisfied flux, Duro recently upgraded to ATC SCM45A three-way nearfield monitors.
“I discovered ATC working at Q-Tip’s studio (A Tribe Called Quest),” Duro explained. “He had a pair of soffit-mounted ATC SCM150ASL Pros and some other well-respected nearfields. The first thing I fell in love with on his ATCs was the imaging. As a mix engineer, I don’t think of things as just left or right. I think in three dimensions, which makes imaging especially important. I’ll put things, say, to the left-rear or center-up. Even beyond that, I’m thinking in actual depth. Say, for example, is something three feet back on the left or is it six feet back? I quickly stopped using Q-Tip’s nearfields entirely and just mixed everything on the ATCs. I loved how the volume didn’t affect the mix. I could mix quiet or loud and still have the same stable relationships and all the bass information. The top end was smooth and not at all fatiguing. It was a really enjoyable and productive mixing experience.”
Around the same time, Duro was acquainting himself with a new set of nearfields in his own studio that he had committed to before the Q-Tip ATC experience. They came after two decades on the same monitors. “I was having reliability issues with my new nearfields, but because I had made a pretty sizable investment in them, I wasn’t ready to abandon ship,” Duro said. “Then I went back to Q-Tip’s studio and he had upgraded to the biggest monitors that ATC makes – soffit-mounted mains with dual 15s (ATC SCM300ASL Pros)! I said, ‘man, you must really love these things!’ When I got back to my studio and still had the same unresolved reliability issues, I said forget it. I decided to just get the ATCs that I was wanting.”
Based on the size of the nearfields he has always preferred mixing on, Duro went with the ATC SCM45A three-way monitors, which use two 6.5-inch low frequency drivers, a three-inch soft dome mid-frequency driver, and a one-inch high-frequency driver. Although he has only had them for a short time, Duro already completed Kiana Ledé EP Myself using the ATC SCM45As. “The translation on the ATCs is great,” he said. “But even beyond the balance between the instruments, the more nuanced texture of the sounds translates. The same way that two vocalists can hit the same note and still sound different… it’s kind of analogous to what I’m talking about.” That translation of texture allows Duro to reliably mix not just for balance, but also for the emotional edge that separates a good mix from a fantastic mix. Thoroughly pleased, Duro is convinced he now has the monitors that will see him through the decades to come. A huge thanks go out to Dan Physics at Alto Music in New York who was instrumental in his quest to acquire the ATCs.
Michael Ashby is a young recording and mix engineer with an incredible work ethic who has taken the blessing of great sonic instincts and leveraged it with dedicated study at New York City’s SAE Institute. After just a decade behind the console, Ashby has five Platinum albums to his name, was twice nominated for a Grammy Award, and was nominated for “Recording Engineer of the Year” by the Pensado’s Place Academy. His highest-profile clients include Cardi B, Latoya Jackson, Fetty Wap, Zoey Dollar, and Offset, but Ashby’s passion for music and aptitude for recording and mixing have earned him a client list that numbers four-hundred strong. Ashby operates out of his own Krematorium Studios in New York City, where he recently upgraded to a pair of SCM25A Pro compact three-way monitors. The new ATCs let him make risky moves with confidence and create mixes that reliably translate whether he’s mixing alone at a reasonable volume or in a room full of excited clients at a loud (i.e. less-than-reasonable) volume.
“I started out as a drummer, but I was lucky enough to become an audio engineer before I went deaf,” Ashby joked. Although he’s tremendously passionate about music, he is also refreshingly humble: “I kind of fell into engineering. It wasn’t something that I initially decided. People liked what I was doing, so I just kept doing it.” That said, once Ashby knew that engineering spoke to his heart, he had the good sense to formally train up and continued to work while taking classes at SAE Institute. Great work and excellent referrals kept his existing clients and organically networked him with new clients, many of whom were already big names in the music industry. “Things just got more and more serious over the years,” he reflected.
With that growing seriousness and Ashby’s own deepening knowledge and experience, he figured it was time to elevate his monitoring situation. “I wanted to listen and evaluate using the same tools that my favorite mix engineers use,” he said. “I’m inspired by Jaycen Joshua [Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Rihanna, etc.], and he recently made the switch to ATCs. In addition, I saw a pair of ATCs in the room of Craig Bauer [Kayne West, Justin Timberlake, Ed Sheeran, etc.], and I also have a deep respect for his work. So, there I was, seeing different styles of music, different engineers, and the same monitor company. I looked into ATC and learned what a lot of other highly-respected engineers were saying about ATC’s midrange clarity and translation.”
Now several months in, Ashby is more than satisfied with the upgrade. “I can use the ATCs to be super surgical or I can use them to bump,” he said. “I can listen in depth by myself, but sometimes I’m forced to do a rough mix when the room is filled with people. The ATCs let me satisfy the client while still giving me the clarity and balance I need to deliver an effective mix. I think it’s important to point out that they aren’t dangerously flat-sounding. They’re really fun to listen to, but everything I do still translates. For monitors to sound great and bump in the room but still translate perfectly outside the room… that’s everything!”
Blackbird Studio in Nashville, Tennessee is not known for half-measures. “At Blackbird, the bar is extremely high,” noted John McBride, Blackbird’s founder, owner and visionary. “We do everything we can to create a setting where artists and engineers are equipped and inspired to create music that can change the world.” In that spirit, Blackbird is embracing Dolby Atmos Music, a fully-immersive, next-generation multi-channel playback system that has the backing of Universal, Netflix, Amazon, and other major content providers. Blackbird Studio C, a large control room with incredible diffusion designed by George Massenburg, now contains three ATC SCM300ASL Pro monitors in front, six ATC SCM100ASL Pro monitors on the sides and rear, six ATC SCM100ASL Pro monitors overhead, and six ATC SCM0.1/15ASL Pro subwoofers. With less than a month’s notice, ATC built and delivered the speakers and subwoofers.
“Immersive audio is the future of the industry,” McBride continued. “It’s an incredible experience, and once you start listening in Dolby Atmos Music, it’s hard to go back to stereo! For artists and engineers, the format opens up a whole new world of creative possibilities. There are consumer electronics manufacturers building sound bars to give listeners Dolby Atmos in their living rooms, engineers are hard at work perfecting headphones that will deliver Dolby Atmos, Universal has already committed to mixing several thousand songs in Dolby Atmos Music, and content providers such as Netflix and Amazon are incorporating the format into their new material. Of course, the potential for gaming and virtual reality is astounding. All in all, the industry has a lot of momentum behind Dolby Atmos Music, and I’m thrilled to have Blackbird at the forefront of music creation for the format.”
Initially introduced in 2012, the Dolby Atmos specification accommodates traditional 7.1 surround sound speakers but then goes far beyond. It allows specific placement of sounds at precise locations along the sides and back, includes overhead loudspeakers, and permits flexible scaling of playback system size to include up to 128 discrete loudspeaker or subwoofer channels. “The first thing people notice about a Dolby Atmos system is the addition of the overhead speakers,” said Zach Winterfeld, western regional sales manager with TransAudio Group and part of the team that installed and tuned the new system at Blackbird. “Just as the experience of going from mono to stereo or from stereo to surround opens things up, the overhead speakers add a whole new dimension. Under the hood, the biggest difference is the use of ‘objects’ that allow the engineer to specify where in the room a sound should localize to. The Dolby Atmos playback engine decodes each object’s location and places it there given the particular arrangement of loudspeakers in a given room. Two rooms can have very different loudspeaker setups, and the Dolby Atmos processing will localize a given ‘object’ to the same place in both rooms.”
Blackbird Studio C already had a stereo pair of ATC SCM300ASL Pro three-way monitors, and ATC mains and near-fields are a fixture in the other studios at Blackbird. “For me at least, the higher the quality of playback, the more emotional music becomes,” McBride said. “I’ve always loved ATC, and we’ve been using ATC monitors at Blackbird since we opened up in 2002. I trust ATC monitors completely, and I love the people behind the product – they do incredible work with integrity and with a deep respect for music. Sitting in the middle of fifteen large-format ATC monitors and six ATC subwoofers is a life-changing experience!”
Ben Lilly, technical sales manager with ATC and another member of the team that installed and tuned the new system at Blackbird, added, “Our monitors offer very low listening fatigue. This is important in all types of monitoring environments, but I feel it is even more important with the high channel count and higher than average sound pressure levels that audio professionals will experience in an Atmos mix environment. Also, the wide, even dispersion pattern of ATC’s monitors help to achieve a larger ‘sweet spot’, a greater feeling of space, and solid imaging within the immersive mix environment.”
Lilly continued, “Blackbird Studio C was already equipped with stereo ATC SCM300ASL Pros so adding a matching center was a natural choice. The ‘base’ specification for Dolby Atmos music systems is 7.1.4 (7.1 plus four overhead ‘top’ speakers), but because Studio C is larger than average, the surround speaker count was increased by four to make the system 9.1.6. The choice of surrounds speaker model and the number of subs was based on the room size, listening distance, and target SPLs at the listening position. Dolby’s DART tool helped select suitable monitors based on the room and acoustic data input into the tool.” Four of the ATC SCM0.1/15ASL subwoofers are positioned along the front of the room and two are positioned on the side walls closer to the back, as determined by a judicious combination of measurement and expert opinion.
“John [McBride] called me to describe a full ATC Dolby Atmos room at Blackbird, and I was impressed by his vision and also by the amount of gear it would require,” recalled Brad Lunde, founder and president of TransAudio Group. “Then he said he wanted it all delivered in two weeks to allow a week of installation ahead of a critical deadline. I love John, but I said, ‘you’re out of your mind, there’s no way!’ But of course I called ATC’s UK manufacturing facility and asked if it would be possible to deliver six flyable SCM100ASL Pros, six stand-mounted versions, a single center SCM300ASL Pro, and six subwoofers. They would have to work miracles to get them all built, but they made it happen!”
“Given how few Dolby Atmos mixing rooms exist in the world and given John’s very high standards, it was strategically important to do an outstanding job, with plenty of insurance against any conceivable problem,” Lunde noted. In addition to Zach Winterfeld, who has deep experience with precision measurement systems, TransAudio Group sent Tony Marra, who operates the TransAudio Group in-house repair shop, to Nashville for installation and tuning knowing that between the two, they had the wherewithal to diagnose and repair anything that might need it. ATC sent Ben Lilly, who worked closely with the TransAudio Group team. The team dug into the analog processing capabilities of the integrated ATC amplifiers to make subtle adjustments to Blackbird’s existing SCM300ASL Pros, which had been in continuous use for nearly a decade, to match the new center channel SCM300ASL Pro. Ceri Thomas and Christine Thomas from Dolby saw to it that all of the Atmos specs were dialed in to perfection.
Following installation of the system, the studio has received a great deal of feedback on the format, room and the system. “Studio C was designed by George Massenburg and incorporates wonderful diffusion,” McBride said. “That makes the imaging, which is already amazing with ATC, all the more lifelike.” Aleks Bars, marketing manager at TransAudio Group, added, “With conventional surround sound technology, things are still focused in the front, and creative use of the rear channels kind of stands out. With Dolby Atmos, I felt like I was inside the track. I couldn’t hear gaps between the speakers; it was really cohesive. The vibe from other listeners overall was one of excitement. You could sense how different the experience was for people, and a lot of people told me they were looking forward to jumping into Dolby Atmos as soon as possible.”
A common refrain from the team of experts who installed and tuned the system, from John McBride, and from attendees at the listening party, was that it was fun to listen to remixes of classics but that they were most looking forward to new works created specifically for Dolby Atmos as the output format. “A good example of how the output format matters is the Beach Boys,” Winterfeld summarized. “They talked a lot about how they wrote and composed explicitly for mono. They would have made very different decisions if they had been creating for stereo. I would argue that so much of that older music that was done in mono is still best enjoyed that way. You get excited by different things and make different decisions when you’re mixing for stereo versus mono. The same thing is true moving to Dolby Atmos. Tracks have so much more room to exist and there are so many possibilities with movement, space, and location. It’s going to be exciting to hear what comes out of Blackbird Studio C!”
Dolby Atmos for Content Creators
ATC has given its SCM50/100/110/150ASL Pro studio monitors a cosmetic update by way of a new front logo panel. The new panel is manufactured from aluminium, with a black anodised finish and the logo laser etched into the surface.The fitment of the logo panel has been improved and is now screw fixed (as opposed to the previous self-adhesive fixing). Practically, this means the logo plate can be easily rotated when the speakers are installed in a horizontal configuration. The limit LEDs are now mounted to the rear of the logo panel via a small PCB so will also move when the logo panel is rotated.
The update only offers cosmetic & functional improvements – there are no performance improvements. Updates to older existing products will not be available. There will be no cosmetic changes to the SCM12/20/25/45/200/300 Pro. The new style product is in production now.
