Audio Network composer tools up with PMC
The Audio Network (www.audionetwork.com) is one of the largest production music companies in the UK today, employing over 70 staff and 440 active composers and supplying film and TV music production companies everywhere with production ready music in a variety of ready-to-use formats. One of the trusted composing and production team based near Leeds is Richard Kimmings, who has over 280 tracks to his name on the Audio Network site alone, and also contributed recently to the Kick-Ass 2 soundtrack. During a recent refit, Kimmings needed to upgrade the monitoring at his studio, and he chose PMC's twotwo.6 nearfields.
A drummer, percussionist, engineer, mastering engineer and producer as well as a composer, Kimmings is typical of the most active of the Audio Network's composers in that he co-writes, arranges, engineers, produces and mixes finished tracks, handling all aspects of the creative process from the original musical inspiration to the downloadable files on the Audio Network's site. "We say we handle everything to do with production music, from inception to delivery of tracks to Audio Network for mastering and distribution," says Kimmings proudly from his refitted studio.
Production music is a pretty polished affair these days, and the Audio Network's composers have to be equally adept at programming electronic backing tracks as they are scoring for orchestra — at the time of talking to him, Richard has recently completed a session at Abbey Road with the Royal Philharmonic. But however and wherever the building blocks of his music are recorded, his project studio plays an important role in the process, as its where the majority of his tracks for the Audio Network are mixed. And earlier this year, he had a problem…
"I needed better monitors," he confesses. "My trusty Mackies were great in their day, but they were 10 years old, and I was increasingly aware that my mixes were a little bass light. I was an acoustics lecturer, so I knew it wasn't my room. After auditioning some possible nearfield replacements at The Production Rooms in Leeds, Richard Powell there suggested I listen to the new PMC twotwos.
"I needed nearfield monitors that would be equally forensic at high and low SPLs," he continues. "I master very quietly, but mix loud — I do a lot of organ recording, for example, where you need to listen loud to check for ambient noise. Richard's demo was so impressive, I bit his hand off."
The active twotwo range is PMC's new three-strong family of two-way reference-grade monitors, combining the company's low-distortion ATL™ bass-loading technology, and digital inputs, together with Class-D amplification. The twotwo.5 is the smallest of the range, the twotwo.8 the largest, and the twotwo.6 occupies the middle ground.
The twotwo.6s have now been Richard's main reference monitors for several months. "They've been everything I hoped for from the demo," he comments. "The bottom end's there in my mixes now, but it's nice and tight. Also, I've realised that the Mackies didn't give me much in the mid top range. Now, if there's a harsh frequency on the recording, I know it's really there. "
Richard Kimmings can be contacted via www.kimmings.com.