An interview with Tom Player who composes music for advertising in his Lost Track Studios in West London
Can You Tell Us A Bit About Yourself And Your Work?
My name is Tom player I run a production company called Lost Track and write music for film trailers live concerts and the bulk of it is advertising.
I wouldn’t call myself an engineer by trade I’ve certainly learned some tricks over the years I’ve been composing.
What Were The Challenges In Terms Of Acoustics At Lost Track?
My studio is based in West London, I took it over from Sonic Arts who is a mastering studio, and I was very fortunate to find this place a room within a room construction, it’s got a floating floor with high levels of isolation and used to be a mastering studio. I’ve worked in here for a couple of years and I just found that I had these recurring problems with my mixes where I would just make these weird mistakes over and over, getting my mixes not to translate well on other sound systems.
So after a couple of years, I got Nick Whittaker to come as he’s in an acoustician, he took some measurements to the room, and we found that even though it was a really well-treated room and well isolated, there were still some pretty hideous response curves influencing what I was really hearing. I was really surprised to hear that to be honest because I thought you know you get a studio you treat it well and it’s done but it’s not the case…
What Was Your First Experience With The D-MON?
I don’t like…well, I should say I didn’t like the idea of altering the sound because I didn’t have the belief that it could actually do anything useful, I thought basically you just have to fix it in the room get it right at the source and then Paul Mortimer from Emerging came over and did a demo of the D-MON, turned it on, and it was like it’s not a subtle change it’s a huge difference!
I came back the next day and started working, what I found then is that the sensation of turning the Trinnov on is kind of like bringing the speaker’s closer to you, it feels like there’s less interaction with the room and more direct sound. But even more, so it feels like it does it in a way that doesn’t feel processed, that’s the thing that surprised me the most.
Has It Affected The Way You Monitor And Mix?
Having the D-MON in my system has been probably the single most significant change to my studio, it’s like having a new studio basically but still, in the room that you’re comfortable working with. It switches all the nastiness of the room off, when you think about it but doesn’t touch your master bus, all you do is that you listen more accurately.
Where I had a complete lack of punch in the sound it was now there, it’s the room itself that was taking it away, and it wasn’t the speakers either. When you look at the response curve of the Trinnov it’s like there’s a huge dip at around 200 and that was exactly the area of punch I was looking for in my music. It’s so obvious once you see it on the interface, it really shows you what you should be hearing, but it’s not obvious when you’re struggling on a mix, and you’re like why can’t I get this right ?!
Would You Recommend The D-MON To Other Fellow Composers?
It makes life easier, I just get stuff done faster with the correction on, with it, you just get a sense of confidence that it’s going to translate to other places too, you lose the harshness as well I also gained an extra octave of bass. It’s like the Trinnov is giving a new lease of life to your favorite speakers.
The thing to remember with the Trinnov is that it’s not subtle! For me it’s a very obvious change, when you turn it off it sounds like someone’s just put a phaser on your mix it’s that obvious of a difference!
I can tell like the people that work on this really passionate about getting the best possible technical result, and it’s a nice feeling too so that I don’t have to worry about that you just turn it on, and it works.