Prolific Los Angeles–based film composer John Ottman (pictured) has installed a pair of Klein + Hummel O 300 D speakers with a K+H O 800 subwoofer at his private facility. Ottman says that he was sold on the sound of the compact K+H three-way, self-powered monitors during scoring sessions last year with his regular music mixer, Casey Stone, for Superman Returns.
“When you go to those large recording studios there are these massive speakers built into the walls, and you have this conception that those are going to give you the biggest, most realistic sound,” Ottman says. “When Casey flipped the switch over to his K+H monitors I didn’t even know that he had. I said, ‘Are you sure you don’t have the main speakers on?’ I thought, if I could bring that sound home, that would be good. I think they just give a big, warm sound, in addition to faithfully reproducing the sound of the orchestra. There’s nothing harsh about them, and with the subwoofer they’re just terrific.”
Ottman is currently using his K+H monitors while scoring Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and The Invasion, a film inspired by The Invasion of the Body Snatchers that stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. He says the K+H monitors are ideal for high-energy adventure film scores. “But these monitors are great in the quiet cues, too, because you can hear a lot of detail. You can have a quiet underscoring moment underneath dialog and still hear every little detail, especially with the subwoofer. You can totally hear the pizzicato bass.
“I have a pretty basic home studio,” Ottman says. “I have a Yamaha Motif ES8 keyboard, two Tascam GigaStudios, a couple of PCs running V-Stack and a couple of monitor screens.” He reports that his music editor, Amanda Goodpaster, also bought a pair of K+H monitors. “Now we all have the exact same setup,” Ottman concludes.
For more information, visit Klein + Hummel’s exclusive U.S. distributor, Sennheiser Electronic Corporation, at www.sennheiserusa.com, www.klein-hummel.com and www.johnottman.com.
