![]() It wasn’t something that I initially decided. Although he’s tremendously passionate about music, he is also refreshingly humble: “I kind of fell into engineering. “I started out as a drummer, but I was lucky enough to become an audio engineer before I went deaf,” Ashby joked. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. IN-DEMAND RECORDING AND MIXING ENGINEER MICHAEL ASHBY USES ATC SCM25A TO MAKE RISKY MOVES WITH CONFIDENCE ![]() A huge thanks go out to Dan Physics at Alto Music in New York who was instrumental in his quest to acquire the ATCs. Thoroughly pleased, Duro is convinced he now has the monitors that will see him through the decades to come. 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. “But even beyond the balance between the instruments, the more nuanced texture of the sounds translates. “The translation on the ATCs is great,” he said. Although he has only had them for a short time, Duro already completed Kiana Ledé EP Myself using the ATC SCM45As. I decided to just get the ATCs that I was wanting.”īased 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. “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 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. ![]() They came after two decades on the same monitors. It was a really enjoyable and productive mixing experience.”Īround 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. The top end was smooth and not at all fatiguing. I could mix quiet or loud and still have the same stable relationships and all the bass information. I loved how the volume didn’t affect the mix. 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. Even beyond that, I’m thinking in actual depth. I’ll put things, say, to the left-rear or center-up. I think in three dimensions, which makes imaging especially important. As a mix engineer, I don’t think of things as just left or right. The first thing I fell in love with on his ATCs was the imaging. “He had a pair of soffit-mounted ATC SCM150ASL Pros and some other well-respected nearfields. “I discovered ATC working at Q-Tip’s studio (A Tribe Called Quest),” Duro explained. After twenty years on the same monitors and two years in dissatisfied flux, Duro recently upgraded to ATC SCM45A three-way nearfield monitors. 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. 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. 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. SIX-TIME GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING MIX ENGINEER KEN “DURO” IFILL SWITCHES TO ATC SCM45A NEARFIELD MONITORS
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