Gavin Lurssen masters major projects with ATC studio monitors
Sep 21, 2007 3:04 PM
Mastering engineer Gavin Lurssen (right) at Lurssen Mastering, Hollywood, CA, with Matchbox 20 and The Break And Repair Method guitarist Paul Doucette.
Gavin Lurssen of Lurssen Mastering in Hollywood, CA, has catapulted himself into the upper echelons of the mastering world in a short time, regularly gaining industry acclaim on diverse projects. With two Grammy awards to his credit, his credentials are unquestioned and his services are in demand.
Lurssen partly attributes his success to his use of ATC SCM150ASL monitors, which enable him to find and correct flaws that can escape detection during tracking and mixing. "The ATCs let me hear way into the audio and identify issues that need to be dealt with," Lurssen explained. "When the participants of a project sitting next to me hear those problems too, I sometimes get compared to a school teacher — like I'm grading them or something. Anyway, everyone knows that all aspects of the mix need to be revealed to make the correct decisions and corrections if necessary. That is why my phone rings. People rely on an outside point of view.”
A year ago, Lurssen upgraded his studio with a set of ATC monitors and has most recently used the system to master new albums for Alison Krauss, Robert Plant and a Matchbox 20 EP, along with the soundtracks for Disney’s “Ratatouille” and Sony Pictures’ “Across the Universe.”
“These speakers are particularly useful when working on high-quality orchestral recordings. I can’t imagine not being able to hear the detail that is necessary to create a proper tonal balance for something like the ‘Ratatouille’ soundtrack that will go out to a lot of fans. They brought out the big guns for this project and we have a huge responsibility to get the audio in the exact position it needs to be.”
Lurssen recognizes that music fans will often play the product of his labors on the best and worst of stereo systems, along with everything in between. "I want to get the performance right so that the music will light up whatever space it is played in,” he said. “The challenge is to make sure that all the dials are in just the right places to make that possible. With the no-compromise design of the ATCs, I was comfortable and confident that I had made the right decisions, down to the subtlest of details."
ATC's drivers are manufactured in-house to exacting tolerances and incorporate features such as the SL magnet system and the company's Soft Dome midrange driver to achieve broad, flat and detailed response. ATC monitors will be available for listening in Demo Room 3001 at the AES convention in New York, Oct. 5-8.
For more information, visit www.atc.gb.net and www.lasvegasproaudio.com.
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