Multiple Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter Christina Aguilera is in the studio again, working on tracks for her next album.
Aguilera’s personal studio is filled with a wide assortment of world-class recording equipment ,and she and her creative staff rely on their reference monitors to make critical decisions about her recordings. To ensure that no detail is overlooked, Aguilera and her team look to Equator Audio Research for the accuracy so essential when making a high profile recording.
Recording engineer Oscar Ramirez is one of the key members of Aguilera’s creative team and has credits on two of Aguilera’s most well-known albums— “Stripped” and “Back to Basics”. Ramirez equipped Aguilera’s studio with a pair of Equator Q15 studio reference monitors and two Q18S subwoofers.
Having spent the better part of the past eight months working with the Q Series monitor system, Ramirez has high praise for the equipment.
“Ms. Aguilera’s forthcoming record spans a variety of musical styles,” said Ramirez, “so it was really important that our monitor system be equally capable of handling anything we send it, and that’s where the Equator system shines. Stereo imaging is amazing with the Equator setup—it’s wide and very defined.
“When you’re in the sweet spot, it’s as though the individual instruments are on stage right in front of you. The ability to hear subtle changes in positioning is one of the real strengths of this system. Also, the frequency response is excellent. It delivers a low end that is very natural with good definition, while the high end is crisp and clean without being harsh. This is an extremely musical monitoring system.”
Presently, Ramirez and the crew are recording tracks and, for this, he believes the Equator Audio Q15’s and Q18s subwoofers are the best possible choice. “The accuracy of the Q15’s is unparalleled, states Ramirez. “With these monitors, you hear exactly what you recorded, so it’s a great choice for deciding whether or not the track is a keeper. We tend to monitor pretty loudly when we’re tracking and, here too, the Equator Audio setup is right on the money. You can play them loud and they remain extremely accurate.
“Likewise, you can still hear the details at lower levels. Best of all, you can sit in front of these monitors for hours without experiencing ear fatigue.”
“The Q15’s sound great right out of the box,” Ramirez continued, “but when you calibrate your control room for the speakers using Equator Audio’s Secondary Reflection Correction (SRC) software, the system’s capability goes up yet another notch. This software is easy to use and it provides the ability to eliminate factors that could compromise a mix.
“Presently, I’ve created a preset where the sweet spot is a bit wider than it might otherwise be. This is extremely helpful as it enables me to have a bit more freedom to move as I work. Combined, the Equator Audio monitors and software let you mix with confidence. Everything I’ve listened to outside the studio translates really well to other systems, so decisions you make in the control room aren’t going to get lost on some other playback system.”
