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Showtek chooses ATC SCM50ASL Pro

After an intensive listening test, Showtek brothers Wouter and Sjoerd Janssen decided to choose ATC for their main monitor system. It was love at first sight. Not only did the SCM50ASL Pro offer far higher sound quality than what they were used to listen to, the monitor also gave them much more useful information to base their decisions on. The active powered SCM50A SL’s are fed from a Grace Design m905 monitor controller.

Sjoerd: Our new ATC’s really sound super. No matter whether you play them on high or low volume, the energy of the high, mids and lows is so much more balanced now. Over here we produce club- as well as pop mixes and for both music styles the ATC work wonders. With our previous monitors it was quite hard to get the vocals placed well into the mix. That is so much easier now.

Wouter: “If your mix sounds good on the ATC’s, that track sounds good on any system”.

Sjoerd: There’s no need to play loud if you want to mix right. Which is a blessing for your ears. Especially when you’re making long studio hours like we do. And they look extremely cool, of course.  The SCM50A SL is like an Audi RS6. A “muscle car” that doesn’t attract much attention at first. But once you step on the gas, it takes of like a rocket.

Showtek

Helios Pro Audio Solutions

SCM40 Active to launch in January 2015

January 2015 will see the introduction of our new SCM40A floor standing loudspeaker. As the name suggests, the SCM40A is an active version of our highly successful SCM40. The 3-way design, employing all hand built ATC drive units is complimented with a built-in 235Watt class AB tri-amplifier. The MOSFET based amplifier is a modified version of that found in our larger active loudspeakers, the SCM50ASL , SCM100ASL and SCM150ASL.

More details to follow soon.

UK RRP is set at £6280.

Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences Outfits Control Rooms with ATC

GILBERT, ARIZONA – NOVEMBER 2014: The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences – or “CRAS” as it is more affectionately known – is a top-tier technical school dedicated to placing its well-trained students in entry-level positions in the music, game audio, live sound, broadcast, and post-production industries. Unlike most similar programs, CRAS obligates its students to obtain internships in order to graduate, and it has a excellent record of helping students obtain their first paying gig. Part of its success, which has resulted in literally hundreds of CRAS grads working on literally hundreds of Grammy Award-winning projects, is exposing students to high-end professional tools. Thus, when CRAS recently expanded its facilities with the addition of control rooms F and G, it put ATC SCM25A Pro reference monitors – among the industry’s most-trusted tools – in both.

“Our rooms reflect reality in the industry,” said Tony Nunes, music production instructor and manufacture liaison at CRAS. Nunes, together with Mike Jones, director of education, travels to trade shows, recording studios, and post-production facilities around the country to keep CRAS’s facilities and instruction in perfect synchrony with the latest (and enduring) industry standards. “We sculpt our technology and instruction to remain always at the current standards in the industry,” he continued. “Two years ago at AES in New York City, we visited a lot of the big studios in town, like Stadium Red and Electric Ladyland, and talked with our grads who worked there. A consistent theme that studio managers/staff stressed was the persistent requests they received for ATC monitors; so persistent, in fact, that most studios invested in their own ATCs.” CRAS’s ATC SCM25A Pros join Pro Tools HDX rigs with Apogee converters, [soundBlade HD] rigs with Mytek converters, and SSL AWS 948 combined console and control surfaces.

“The ATCs are certainly the most transparent monitors we have at CRAS,” said Nunes. “Students don’t get to studios F and G until they are a little ways into the program. By that time, they can really appreciate the details that the ATCs reveal. For example, when we’re tracking in those control rooms, students will notice the smallest details, like fret buzz on the bass. One time we had a vocalist who was struggling with an allergy and sinus problem. After he rested and had some tea, he came back and all the students could really hear the physicality of the difference. One student said it was like he could see the vocal cords in the ATCs. They’re a really great tool.”

Because students use the ATC SCM25A Pros later in the program, they get an opportunity to scrutinize their earlier projects. “They know so much more six months later, and now they’ve got these great monitors that reveal so much; it can often be a painful experience,” said Nunes. “But we bravely turn it into a learning experience. We find and analyze the mistakes, and then students may remix their projects. Every time, they come back happy with the results. Because the new mixes pass the test on the ATCs, they translate everywhere else, like students’ cars, apartments and computers.”

Although CRAS is explicit in stating that it does not teach students to be mastering engineers per se – which necessarily requires skills that can only be acquired through years of experience – it most definitely teaches its students about the mastering process and about the technical details that mastering engineers will expect of their work. There again, the ATC SCM25A Pros, which are mastering-grade reference monitors, benefit CRAS students.

Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences
Transaudio Group
SCM25A Pro

ATC SCM20PSL Pro Monitoring Makes Val Garay’s Musical Day

“The main reason that led me to getting ATCs was the need for a relatable second pair of monitors. I was working in a studio in Northern California where the mains were ATC SCM300ASL Pros. I got accustomed to them and then I got back to my studio and found them to be really true. So when I was told that ATC was starting to make passive two- way monitors I had to try them and now I have a pair of SCM20PSL Pros. They are great!”
– Val Garay, 2014 (Grammy® award-winning producer/engineer)

TOPANGA CANYON, CALIFORNIA, USA: specialist British loudspeaker drive unit and complete sound reproduction system manufacturer ATC is proud to announce that Grammy® award-winning producer/ engineer extraordinaire Val Garay has installed a pair of SCM20PSL Pro compact, high-performance passive two-way studio monitors in The Barn Studio, his current state-of-the-art recording facility nestled in the heart of Topanga Canyon, California…

With an accomplished career spanning four decades, during which he has garnered over 100 Gold and Platinum status records for a lengthy list of renowned recording artists with combined sales totalling over 125-million units worldwide, multiple Grammy® award-winning producer/engineer Val Garay is truly a music industry legend in his own right — one who surely needs little in the way of introduction to any audio aficionado who has laid ears on those truly ear-expanding productions, yet is worthy, without doubt, of one all the same. This talented and iconic individual can claim to have worked with anyone who’s anyone with a recording roster spanning Kim Carnes, Mr Big, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Burdon, Dolly Parton, Queensrÿche, Neil Diamond, Ringo Starr, Linda Rondstadt, Sarah Brightman, Kenny Rogers, Santana, and Joan Armatrading, to list but a few notable names from rock ’n’ roll’s historic hall of fame. For Garay helped to create and define the legendary ‘LA Sound’ that’s still reverberating around the world today, thanks in no small part to his proven production prowess — think memorable hits like the ‘We Are The World’ charity single from star-studded supergroup USA For Africa, Toto’s ‘Rosanna’, Don Henley’s ‘The Boys Of Summer’, and you’ll soon be on a roll.

Starting out as a performer and songwriter, Garay soon stepped offstage and set the console controls for the heart of the charts when Dave Hassinger, owner/operator of the illustrious Sound Factory Studio in Hollywood, took him under his wing to teach the finer points of crafting carefully engineered productions. Within a year Garay had refined his own technique, perfecting a punchy bottom-end and guitar blend with a mixing approach that has distinguished his work ever since. Indeed, it was the 1981 release of Kim Carnes’ Mistaken Identity album that truly cemented Garay’s well-earned reputation as a well-oiled one-man hit-making machine. Its attendant stratospheric-selling single ‘Betty Davis Eyes’ went on to top the charts in no fewer than 31 countries earning Garay a Record Of The Year Grammy® in the process and coinciding with a move into his own state-of-the-art recording studio.

“I owned Record One, a huge state-of-the-art studio built to my own exacting standards back in 1980,” notes its former owner. “It’s still in operation today, but the original cost to build it back then was 3.5-million dollars. Today you can put together a state-of-the-art studio for a tenth of that cost because of the technology that’s now available. When I sold that studio I bounced around for seven or eight years until I got tired of fighting for time in the studios I liked and decided to put together my own facility here in Topanga where I live — hence The Barn Studio.”

Comfortably ensconced in the more cost-effective though no less state-of the-art environs of The Barn Studio, Garay’s achievements as a super-successful and still-sought-after producer/engineer speak volumes — clearly he has no need to prove anything to anyone. Arguably this makes it all the more amazing that he has opted to post some exceedingly enlightening and eminently enjoyable engineering and production tips and tricks on the blog page of his website (www.valgaray.com). “Sharing my techniques is something I’ve always done over the years,” he says. “Some engineers are very secretive about ‘their process’, but my thoughts are: if I teach you exactly what I do and how I do it — which I’ve done with all the engineers I’ve taught in the past that have all gone on to become notable engineers — then I find they will never sound the same as myself. And even if they did then it wouldn’t matter as I’m always on to something new anyway.”

Like new monitors, for example, augmenting his tried-and-tested working relationship with a beloved pair of Bryston 4BST-powered vintage Tannoy SGN10Bs acting as mains alongside a pair of heavily-customised Yamaha NS-10 nearfields with a pair of ATC’s relatively recently-released SCM20PSL Pro compact, high-performance passive two-way studio monitors while ‘retiring’ a Genelec 1030A and 1092A active combo in the process: “The Genelecs were powered and I’ve never really loved powered speakers, but the main reason that led me to getting ATCs was the need for a relatable second pair of monitors. I was working a lot in a studio in Northern California where the mains were ATC SCM300ASL Pros. I got accustomed to them and then I got back to my studio and found them to be really true. So when I was told that ATC was starting to make passive two-way monitors I had to try them and now I have a pair of SCM20PSL Pros. I guess, in the final analysis, I like UK monitors!”

Asked how his new SCM20PSL Pros paired up with a favoured old faithful Phase Linear 700B amp are shaping up in terms of contributing to his present-day production workflow, Garay’s generous and no-nonsense response sums it up perfectly (and is perfectly in keeping with his blogged “Trust your ears and believe in yourself…” working mantra): “They are great!”

Val Garay www.valgaray.com
Transaudio Group (ATC US Distribution) www.transaudiogroup.com

Legendary Guitarist Eric Johnson Reilies On Legendary ATC Reference Monitors

AUSTIN, TEXAS – NOVEMBER 2014: “Legendary guitarist” is justifiably the most common two-word description given of Eric Johnson, whose six-string prowess has earned him a Grammy win, several Grammy nominations, a Platinum album, and residency on practically every “Top X Guitarists of All Time” list ever made. He’s regularly played and recorded with fellow guitar greats Chet Atkins, Steve Vai, and Joe S…atriani, and Eric Clapton selected Johnson for his 2004 Crossroads Guitar Festival. Most recently, Johnson collaborated with jazz guitar great Mike Stern on the album Eclectic, which the two recorded and mixed at Johnson’s Austin-based studio with the help of Johnson’s accomplished recording and mix engineer Kelly Donnelly. Although Johnson is known mainly for his prodigious talent as a guitarist, he is also comfortable playing numerous other instruments, including piano, lap steel, bass, and voice. He is an accomplished songwriter and, in more recent years, has plied his skills over the years as a producer and assisting his recording engineers. The common frustration of mixing a song to seeming perfection, only to find obvious mistakes when he played it on other systems, drove Johnson to find the perfect near-field monitors. He found them in a pair of ATC SCM25As, which deliver the undecorated truth so that Johnson’s mixes sound beautiful and balanced on any system, from wee computer speakers to the biggest home theaters.

(PHOTO CREDIT: © 2014 Max Crace)

New Dealer Appointment for Central London – Audio Lounge

ATC are very pleased to announce that Audio Lounge have been appointed as a new Hi-Fi dealer for Central London. Audio Lounge’s luxurious store is located in Mayfair, just a few minutes’ walk from Selfridges and Bond St. tube station.

The store, featuring a showroom at street level and a basement demonstration room has been carefully designed to provide one of the finest listening experiences in the UK, whilst the shop itself is luxuriously equipped to create a space offering superb acoustics and a relaxing atmosphere in which to browse. Since opening its doors in 2013, the store has hosted many live music events for various recording artists to perform to small public groups, and also regularly holds vinyl listening sessions on Thursday evenings (with the odd celebrity dropping by to enjoy the music with us or to give talks about their career!)

Audio Lounge have a very wide range of ATC products on active demonstration. They are also the only company in the South East with ATC’s On-Wall loudspeakers on demonstration. Where space may be at a premium or a discrete solution is preferred, these newly designed slim-line speakers have been introduced to maximise sound quality both for music and home cinema.

Staff at Audio Lounge include Mark Withers, who has 10 years’ experience in Hi-Fi retail, as well as being a CEDIA Accredited Designer within the Custom Installation sector. Mark is extremely experienced with ATC products, including both loudspeakers and electronics and will be on-hand to help specify a system best suited to any customers requirements.

Running alongside Audio Lounge is Nebula Nine, Mark Withers and business partner, Chris Varnham’s Cinema and Smart Home Design Company. Mark’s lifelong passion for music and understanding of the high end audiophile world as well as his exceptional eye for detail has enabled them to create many of Britain’s finest music rooms, cinemas, multiroom audio systems and fully integrated future ready homes.

Together they have vast industry experience and an extensive knowledge in resolving the complexities of residential AV integration. Their team of specialists provide everything from the initial design and CAD work, with project management through to installation and programming. Their services, available through Audio Lounge include:

• Bespoke home cinema room design and calibration
• Supply and setup of world class HiFi and multi-room audio systems
• Room correction and acoustic treatment
• Tailor made Crestron control system design & programming
• IT, networking and WiFi management
• Specification of future ready wiring infrastructures
• Door entry, CCTV, telephony installation
• Lutron lighting and blind control as well as many other forms of automation

Audio Lounge, 138 Wigmore Street, London, W1U 3SG

T: +44 (0)20 7487 4080     E: mark@audiolounge.co.uk

Nebula Nine Ltd, Studio 8, 231 Stoke Newington Church Street, London, N16 9HP

T: +44 (0) 207 607 3587     E: mark@nebulanine.co.uk

ATC SCM11 – Award Winners!

“We’re delighted to announce that the ATC SCM11 has won the award for, ‘Best Standmounter £800 – £1200,  in the 2014 What Hi-Fi? Awards.

You can read exactly what the What Hi-Fi staff had to say on their website but for starters, we think their summary says it all:

“The new SCM11s are a drastic improvement over an already talented performance,  and they have the good looks to match. ATC has raised the bar it set itself.  This isn’t just a step up – it’s a running leap.” 

Joel Hamilton Records Puss n Boots with ATC

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – AUGUST 2014: Puss n Boots is a three-piece, all-female, alt-country band led by singer-songwriter Norah Jones and backed by accomplished vocalists Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper. All three women learned new instruments for five years before recording their debut album with engineer/musician/producer Joel Hamilton (Tom Waits, Black Keys, Sparklehorse, Elvis Costello) at Studio G Brooklyn. Titled No Fools, No Fun, the album was recently released on Blue Note Records. As co-owner of Studio G Brooklyn with Tony Maimone, Hamilton installed ATC SCM25A three-way reference monitors and ATC SCM0.1-15 subwoofers in Studio A, a change that happily coincided with his first Grammy nomination (Pretty Lights, A Color Map of the Sun), a Latin Grammy nomination (Bomba Estereo, Elegancia Tropical), and a Latin Grammy win (Gaby Moreno, Postales). The ATCs were purchased from Audio Power Tools in New York.

“The ATCs have changed the way I work and improved the quality of my work,” said Hamilton. “I’m lucky to have a nicely tuned control room with an SSL and plenty of vintage outboard gear, and with the ATCs, I’m suddenly able to make decisions that are smaller – and yet more critical – than I have ever been able to make before. I have the ability to resolve a finer shade of the colors I’m hurling at the end-listener, and it’s been a revelation. It’s not a small thing, and that’s why I’m reaching for dramatic words like that. It’s tectonic. The entire continent has shifted.”

The glorious harmonies delivered by Jones, Dobson and Popper are a huge part of Puss n Boots’ magic. They form the emotional foreground. “The balance of those harmonies is crucial,” said Hamilton. “You’ve got these three gorgeous women with gorgeous voices, and they’re all coming at you like gangbusters because they can all project. We recorded everything live to analog tape, including the vocals. That gives a particular nuance to how the instruments sit against the vocals. You can feel the beat push and pull so beautifully. I needed to make sure that all of that nuance would come shining through for the listener. Striking the right midrange balance of those harmonies is critical, and I had to make sure all of that beauty would be immediately apparent to, say, my mom!”

While Norah Jones’ existing albums might safely be described as “polished” and most classic country albums might safely be described as “rough,” Hamilton had to walk the line between those extremes. “The balance is deliberately raw, which is perhaps unexpected by traditional Norah Jones standards, but it also has to be informed,” he said. “We were shooting for a tiny bulls eye, but we also had to make sure that everything felt unfettered and natural; just on the edge of scratchy so that it felt rough but didn’t actually hurt people. With the ATCs, I could find that line and make adjustments with confidence. I could tell where I was overcooking it on purpose. I could dial in just the right amount of ‘road house.'”

With the introduction of the ATCs, gone too is the need to translate for the client how a mix will sound outside of the studio. “After spending a lot of time in front of other monitors, I could tell when certain things would sound bad in the studio but fine outside of the studio,” Hamilton said. “The challenge beyond that, however, was convincing the client that those bad things would be fine later on, which is just one more thing to heap onto the already-skittish nature of an attended mix session. And so clients would ask, ‘why don’t you just get monitors that sound like it will sound like?’ It seems so simple, but of course it’s not.”

Hamilton used to switch between a number of monitors and loudspeakers all day long, but now he just hangs out on the ATCs. Depending on the task at hand, he can turn the ATC subwoofer on or not. “With the sub on and the volume cracked, the ATCs rock and serve as ‘mains,'” he said. “When I’m listening closely and resolving small moves, the ATCs are my nearfields. Either way, I now have complete confidence in what I’m hearing and doing. When a mix sounds good on the ATCs, I know it will sound good everywhere else. With Puss n Boots, we were able to make solid decisions that stuck. We totally avoided the hell of endless revisions!”

Hi-Fi Wigwam stunned by ATC SCM40

Hi-Fi Wigwam’s James Palmer absolutely loved our SCM40 floorstanders and reviews them in full for the Hi-Fi Wigwam website.

Here are couple highlights from the review:

It’s what I want from HiFi. I want an insight, I want to feel like the Guitar amp is in front of me, the kick drums are not far behind and to feel involved in the music at a very live and connected level. Nothing else I have heard in a small living room has managed this feat. These do it with ease, they don’t shout at you, and don’t need to be played loud to sound their best,  they deliver whether you are listening to Steely Dan, or Metallica, JS Bach or Phillip Glass.

The bass is so taught, yet thunderously deep. My room is shockingly difficult for bass bloom, yet the ATC’s have everything under control. Deep and tuneful, in a way that is entirely new at WigWam towers. I know I’ve said similar before, about other speakers, mia culpa, these are better. Trust me, these are better.

The bottom line.. I’m sold. I can’t live without them. I need them in my life and will have to make the change. Putting my Living Voice OBX R2′s back in was pleasing and frustrating in equal measure. Yes, they are a lovely listen, but the lack of comparative  clarity and speed is something that I can’t live with. Many will disagree, in some systems the SCM40′s will sound too revealing. If the electronics are forward, they will sound forward and with this much detail that will be too much. Audition carefully, but please, do audition. In the right system, you would have to spend £10k to get anywhere close to this sound quality. Genuinely, you could piano gloss them and change the labels, hawk them round the European shows and sell plenty at £10k a pair…. erm… anyone know a French Polisher? I’m off.

James Palmer, Hi-Fi Wigwam, September 2014.

New ATC Dealer – Criterion Audio, Cambridgeshire

ATC have appointed a new dealer for Cambridgeshire.

Criterion Audio is opening soon, bringing the ultimate audio retail experience to the Cambridge area.  With its state of the art showroom and three purpose-built demonstration rooms, Criterion Audio marks the beginning of a new era for audiophiles.

On Saturday, 4 October Criterion will be having a Grand Opening event with live music, food and drinks.  Criterion staff and manufacturer representatives will be in attendance, including ATC’s Managing Director, Billy Woodman, to provide advice and answer any questions you may have.  VIP places include complimentary attendance and a guided tour of the showroom.  Spaces are strictly limited, so please confirm attendance before Wednesday, 1 October by emailing events@criterionaudio.com and mentioning the VIP code <ATC>

Criterion hope you can join them for an amazing sound and music experience!

4^th October 12pm – 6pm

Criterion House

Camboro Business Park,

Oakington Road,

Girton, Cambridge

CB3 0QH.

01223 233730

events@criterionaudio.com

www.criterionaudio.com

SCM19 receives top marks from HiFi Choice Magazine

The HiFi Passive SCM19 has just received a superb review from HiFi Choice magazine. Click here to read the full review.

Production power trio tackle Titanfall gaming blockbuster OST using ATC monitoring

“We all came to these monitors from different paths — writing, mixing, and mastering, which I think is testament to their versatility as a range.”
– Stephen Barton (Composer, Titanfall)

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA, USA: specialist British loudspeaker drive unit and complete sound reproduction system manufacturer ATC is proud to announce that film and video games composer Stephen Barton, music scoring mixing engineer extraordinaire Alan Meyerson, and Grammy® award-winning mastering engineer Gavin Lurssen professionally pooled their formidable resources and talents to complete the recently released Titanfall original soundtrack album using an all-ATC selection of reference monitors… Titanfall is the latest gaming blockbuster from one of the co-creators of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, which has spectacularly sold over 14-million copies to date. Crucially, it, too, benefits from another superlative score from film and video games composer Stephen Barton, a British émigré who headed for the Hollywood Hills back in 2002 to work as an assistant to fellow Brit composer Harry Gregson-Williams, who has won numerous awards as well as receiving widespread critical acclaim for his film and video game scores, including The Chronicles Of Narnia, the Shrek movies, and the Metal Gear Solid franchise.

Today Barton works out of his own well-stocked studio setup in a leased room within Lurssen Mastering, a full-service mastering studio on the famous Hollywood Center Studio lot, a location steeped in over 80 years of entertainment history, which, of course, is precisely where the Titanfall composition success story began, skilfully and sympathetically mocked up on an all-singing, all-dancing DAW. Here he hears exactly what he needs to, thanks to a revealing pair of ATC SCM50ASL Pro three-way active monitors. “The ATCs are nothing short of phenomenal,” Barton begins, before continuing: “There’s nothing out there that equals them to my mind in terms of clarity, lack of fatigue over long-term listening, and truthfulness, which is the most important quality of any studio monitor. I’ve been using them for nearly seven ears now, so, when I started working out of Lurssen Mastering a few years ago, the fact that Gavin Lurssen was using the bigger brothers to hose in my setup was actually a big influence, and a great indication that we were like-minded in our listening approach.”

Cue Gavin Lurssen, Chief Mastering Engineer at Lurssen Mastering, whose sought-after skill-set brought the Titanfall original soundtrack production to its natural conclusion: “I have a strong relationship with Stephen Barton, who wanted me to do what we do to his music that was being released on Titanfall. When you’re also dealing with some orchestral music — beautiful stuff like this that was done in Abbey Road, it clearly falls into the high standards and practices of what we normally do — creating a total spectrum of balance that’s going to translate into all consumer listening environments, which includes mobile devices with little earbuds all the way through to audiophile listening environments.”

Sited within that historic Hollywood building — formerly used to fashion movie sets, Lurssen’s listening environment is naturally second to none with larger ATC SCM150ASL Pro three-way active and smaller ATC SCM25A Pro three-way compact active monitors at its heart: “The way that I ended up with ATC was that I was working at another mastering facility and a client came in with a pair of ATCs so that they could complete a project. Within seconds of hearing them I knew that something magical was happening and also knew that when the time came to open my own place then that’s where I’d turn to. So when that happened eight years ago their US distributor hooked me up with the 150s and I’ve used them ever since. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re the only thing that I can use to create my audio balances. They’re smooth and not fatiguing, and, somehow, make digital sound like analogue. I can sit in a room all day long and not burn out.”

Outside the mastering and compositional confines of the Titanfall soundtrack-spawning Lurssen Mastering building, those epic-sounding orchestral music scoring mixing sessions at London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios fell upon the seasoned shoulders and exemplary ears of Alan Meyerson, one of Hollywood’s top scoring engineers, with extensive credits including the majority of Hans Zimmer’s movie music. “Alan also uses ATCs, and it’s just been a case of coincidence that this amazingly huge project was done down the line on these speakers,” summarises Lurssen.

Coincidence or otherwise, in this case, there’s no doubting the benefits of an all-ATC reference monitoring experience in Barton’s finelytuned musical mind: “The translation across the entire range made the entire workflow incredibly smooth. On mix down there were maybe two or three cues out of 30 or 40 for the IMC (Interstellar Mining Corporation) — one of the two factions in the game — that needed small tweaks. The majority of them were perfect straight out of the gate. Obviously a major part of this is down to awesome mix talent, but I think the fact that we weren’t adjusting to an entirely new monitoring approach meant that it was a much more cohesive process without any of those ‘I didn’t think that sounded like that’ moments. That’s especially true in important aspects of the frequency spectrum for a game like this, which is generally in the low end. Crucially, the translation to the game is superb. We did a direct shootout between the 25s and 150s whilst mastering Titanfall and it was stunning how consistent the sound was. All of these monitors simply tell you what’s there, and that’s a rare quality that’s vital, whether composing, mixing, or mastering.”

For more information on the products mentioned above, visit the product page for the SCM25A Pro, SCM50ASL Pro or the SCM150ASL Pro.

Gavin Lurssen – Lurssen Mastering

Stephen Barton – Afterlight Inc.

Alan Meyerson

SCM40 Review – Hi-Fi Choice

Another loudspeaker from our new Hi-Fi Passive Series has recieved a glowing review from the UK press.  Hi-Fi Choice have reviewed the SCM40 in the October edition of the magazine and, in conclusion, found it to offer, “superlative clarity; excellent phase coherence; sublime bass”.

You can read or download the review in full here: ATC SCM40 HiFi Choice Review Oct 2014

To read the full details of the product, please visit the SCM40 web page.

New SCM20ASL Pro and SCM20PSL Pro Launched

ATC is proud to announce the release of two new high performance reference nearfield monitors — the active SCM20ASL Pro (V2) and passive SCM20PSL Pro.

As implied by name, the active model replaces the previous-generation SCM20ASL Pro, while the passive model is an allnew affair, providing an entry point into ATC studio monitoring at a lower price point, albeit without compromising component quality over features.

Both models feature ATC’s renowned drive units, hand built in its UK facility. Of particular note is the new SH-25-76S 25mm/one-inch soft dome tweeter, the first to be designed and built by ATC, and the result of six years of research and development by Managing Director Billy Woodman and R&D Engineer Richard Newman. “The tweeter is designed and built with the same no-compromise philosophy as all other ATC drive units,” notes Newman, before continuing: “The design takes notes from the highly-regarded ATC midrange dome by utilising a dual-suspension design, negating the requirement for Ferro-fluid, and avoiding the detrimental effects of this drying out over time, a feature considered to be of utmost importance for longterm consistency.” The massive neodymium motor with heat-treated top plate is optimised to ensure an extended frequency response (-6dB @ 26kHz) and low non-linear distortion. The geometry of the waveguide is designed for optimum dispersion and made from a precision-machined alloy so that the entire structure is extremely rigid and free from resonances.

The bass/mid driver used in both loudspeakers is ATC’s proprietary 150mm/six-inch Super Linear device. Constructed with a 75mm/three-inch voice coil and a short-coil, long-gap topology, it combines the high-power handling and low-power compression usually only found in large, high-efficiency systems with the fine resolution and balance of modern high-fidelity systems. Unique to the drive unit is ATC’s Super Linear technology, which, by employing specialist materials in the magnetic circuit, reduces third harmonic distortion in the lower midrange.

The electronics in the active design have also had considerable development time invested in them, resulting in reduced noise and distortion (a further -10dB @ 10kHz) and a reduced operating temperature for improved reliability. The amplifier design is a revised version of ATC’s discrete MOSFET Class A/B design with 200W and 50W continuous power available for the bass and high frequency sections, respectively. The user controls have also been improved over the previous generation with more flexible input sensitivity controls and a revised low frequency shelf control to help achieve good balance in difficult acoustic conditions. The amplifier includes protection circuits for both DC offset and thermal overload.

The cabinet has been restyled to more closely follow the larger monitors in ATC’s professional range and is constructed from heavily-braced MDF. Highly damped, elastometric panels are bonded and stapled to the cabinet’s inner walls to suppress cabinet panel resonances, while the enclosure’s front panel is heavily radiused to reduce cabinet diffraction, improving the frequency response and imaging. The loudspeaker can be wall mounted via a K&M 24120 Wall Mount (available separately). Note that the cabinet requires modification to accept the ‘top-hat’ mount.

Ideally suited to critical nearfield listening applications in all control rooms, LCR surround monitoring in small-to-medium control rooms, and surround channels in medium-to-large control rooms, anyone looking to seriously improve their reference nearfield monitoring experience surely owe it to themselves and their studio setup to take a listen to the SCM20ASL Pro (V2) and/or the SCM20PSL Pro in action? EQ, balance, and edit faster, with more consistent results and reduced listening fatigue using the latest reference nearfields from ATC.

The SCM20PSL Pro passive high-performance loudspeakers carry a UK RRP of £2,083.00 GBP (plus VAT) per pair; the SCM20ASL Pro (V2) active high-performance loudspeakers carry a UK RRP of £3,647.00 GBP (plus VAT) per pair.

The Absolute Sound Review the SCM19

This month, The Absolute Sound have reviewed our new SCM19.  The review, undertaken by, Neil Gader was very positive and here is just a little of what he had to say:

“As I hear it, there’s a very short list of rivals that play in the league of the SCM19. And even fewer at this attainable price point. Although this review should speak for itself, let me reiterate: The ATC SCM19 is, without reservation, a superb monitor that should excite and please the most discriminating of listeners. My highest recommendation.”  (Neil Gader, The Absolute Sound, August 2014).

You can read the review in full on The Absolute Sound website.