Established PMC user dBs Music has added several twotwo nearfield monitors to the recording facilities at its new Higher Education facility in Bristol, which opened earlier this year. The main monitors in Studio 3 are twotwo.8s, while the surround mixing room across the hall has five twotwo.5s arranged in a 5.1 configuration, combined with a twotwo.sub1 Subwoofer.
The twotwos at the Bristol campus follow the installation of IB1S-A MkII speakers at the college's Cornwall campus two years ago.
Matt Bernard, dBs Music's studio and technical manager, explained at the time why PMC was chosen. "We wanted a critical listening space with some ultra-accurate monitors, and were influenced by a couple of mastering houses in the area that use PMCs, such as Star Delta Mastering in Devon. We needed something that our students were going to be able to pick apart their mixes on, and the PMCs have been perfect for that. When we auditioned them, they blew us away. I ran a couple of mixes through them and could really hear that there was too much compression on the vocals, which was not picked up on other monitors. But you really need that kind of brutal honesty with a speaker for mixing and mastering."
At the new HE Centre in Bristol, the PMCs are used alongside other nearfield and large-scale monitors, the variety provided in a bid to give students as many diverse types of studio to work in as possible, and reflect the world of work after college.
The PMC twotwos, however, are proving popular amongst all of the students and staff.
HE Centre Manager Ben Philcox echoes Matt Bernard's comments. "We've found the PMCs to have incredible precision, clarity and depth for recording and mixing. They are amazing monitoring!"