– Atlanta’s Reach Records purchases PhantomFocus™ System with the goal of upgrading their album releases and garners a 2013 GRAMMY® Award for Lecrae’s Gravity, mixed by veteran engineer Carlton Lynn –
Nashville, TN: “The PhantomFocus™ System (PFS™) could not have come at a better time,” quotes Atlanta’s Reach Records founder and CEO Ben Washer. “This [award for Lecrae’s Gravity] is our first GRAMMY®, and it is also the first album we mixed on our new PFS. We owe a big thank you to Carl for showing us a totally new monitoring experience.” Proud papa Washer continues, “Most people do not realize how important a mix is to the listener’s perception of the music. The PFS™ coupled with Carlton Lynn’s talent helped to raise the quality of our music to new heights.”
“I’ve worked in many, many studios over the years, including the ‘cost-no-object’ super studios in Tokyo, London, Paris, L.A. and Nashville, but I never heard the precise imaging, detail and sonic impact that near-fields could deliver until I heard the PhantomFocus System at Reach Records,” states Atlanta-based top-tier mix engineer Carlton Lynn (Leona Lewis, India.Arie, Ciara, Pink, Fantasia).
Ben Washer, CEO of the uber-hot independent label Reach Records, consulted with Carl Tatz for over a year about implementing a PFS, encouraged by media coverage, reviews and press releases as well as Lynn’s urging. Washer indicated that it was taking way too long to mix and no one could figure out the low end in the Reach Records control room.
Fast forward to the present – on his drive back to Nashville after the Reach Records PFS implementation, PFS creator and award-winning studio designer Carl Tatz received an email from Washer, who commented, “I spent several hours this morning listening to some CDs I bought. There is a large puddle of drool on the studio desk now. I hope heaven has sound this good. We listened to some of our old mixes and see much room for improvement. We’re excited to see how we use the system to upgrade the quality of our releases. My only regret is not doing this earlier.”
“It’s really fun to know,” muses Tatz, “that until the next Atlanta studio implements a PhantomFocus System, Reach Records has the best monitoring in the state of Georgia – hands down. Anyone who has a chance to sit in the engineer’s chair at Reach will have that fact revealed to them in very short order.”
