Grammy-nominated composer, mixer and producer Richard Tozzoli, who has music on more than 1,800 TV series in 40 countries with credits ranging from the NFL, FIFA World Cup Soccer and MLB to shows such as Discovery Channel’s Shark Week as well as programs that include Pawn Stars, Swamp People and Forged In Fire, has added Sony MDR-MV1 headphones and C-100 condenser microphones to his production toolkit.
As an engineer/mixer, Tozzoli’s also worked with a number of artists he grew up listening to, including Ace Frehley, Al DiMeola, Hall & Oates and David Bowie. He usually works from a fully equipped home studio.
“Sony truly breaks boundaries for me,” Tozzoli says. “I literally rely on these two pieces of gear every day to get my work done. I use the Sony headphones because not only are they ultra-lightweight and incredibly comfortable, but more importantly, they sound amazing. In fact, I literally look forward to using them each day to mix, compose and edit. They are like having clouds on your head.”
He also likes to change environments when composing and recording. Working with a mobile rig, he travels to the Virgin Islands yearly, recording for a variety of television shows. This year, the MDR-MV1 headphones made the trip.
“I can recall that experience vividly because it felt so good to put those headphones on and to sit there with the sunrise looking out over the Caribbean and composing to that view,” he says.
Because of the accuracy of the headphones, he adds that he can hear subtle details such as reverbs and delays that can get lost in a room while using loudspeakers or with other types of headphones. He now has two pairs of MDR-MV1s to make sure anybody working alongside him hears exactly what he is hearing.
Of the C-100 microphone, Tozzoli says, “I started with the classic Sony C-800G and have used that on several projects, including guitarist Romero and Al DiMeola. But now I love the C-100 because they not only capture the lows and mids beautifully, but because of the second capsule, they have an amazing high frequency response.”
“I love the C-100 so much that on a recent project for Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, I had a pair flown to Budapest, Hungary where the Budapest Recording Orchestra was tracking the piece. I ended up using a huge amount of those two mics in the final mix, because they sounded that good. I also used them on the same piece to track Omar Hakim’s drums, using them as overheads, along with some C-80s for the drums. We were both blown away by the sounds. We’re now mixing the piece in Atmos and Sony 360RA, so stand by for that!”
