Brooklyn, New York and São Paulo, Brazil – February 2014… Whether the project is for advertising, TV, film, or interactive media, quality audio plays a huge role in the product’s ability to catch on with its target audience. Such is the challenge of Antfood, a full service creative audio studio that creates music and sound for visual media from concept to mix. Working from offices in both North and South America, the studio reference monitors used at the company’s studios play a pivotal role in helping to ensure the project’s success—and for much of the company’s endeavors, D5 and D8 reference systems from San Diego, CA-based Equator Audio are integral to the company’s work.
Wilson Brown is Antfood’s Creative Director. In addition to being one of the firm’s partners, he is also a composer, producer, and engineer who has an active role in most every project the company is involved with. Antfood has completed projects for Emirates, Budweiser, ESPN, and Childline that have been seen the world over. Further, its piece for New Zealand based non-profit Good Books won ‘Best in Show’ at this year’s AMP (Association of Music Producers) Awards. Brown and his associates have been working with the Equator Audio D5 studio monitors for the past two years and they recently added Equator’s D8 monitor systems. Presently, the company has two pairs of Equator Audio D8’s and seven pairs of D5’s that are distributed between the various control rooms of both the Brooklyn and São Paulo facilities. Brown discussed his company’s use of the Equator Audio monitor systems.
“We have a pair of Equator monitors in each of our seven control rooms / project studios in both Brooklyn and São Paulo,” states Wilson. “In some cases, the Equator monitors are our A system loudspeakers while in other rooms they share these responsibilities with other systems. Regardless of the speaker setup, they are always used for mixing.”
I find the greatest strength of the D5 and D8 monitors is their ability to not only quickly and accurately show what’s problematic with your mix, but to do so with a much more even, pleasing, and modern frequency response than many competing studio monitor systems,” Wilson continued. “The Equator monitor systems allow for efficient level and EQ adjustments and their concentric design provides excellent imaging—especially in small spaces. One of my Brazilian partners, Lou Schmidt, said that he’s never had an easier time getting low frequencies under control than with the D8s.”
Brown reports that most of the company’s projects of the past two years have been completed using Equator monitor systems at some level. These projects include: Childline (http://antfood.com/childline_reel.html), Fruitsnacks (http://antfood.com/gushquito_reel.html), and the Science Channel (http://antfood.com/science_reel.html).
Reflecting on those Equator attributes that he finds most appealing, Brown offered the following thoughts. “The sound reproduction of the Equator monitors is honest and revealing, without being harsh or in any other way unpleasant,” he said. “Most importantly—and the main reason we’ve invested heavily in Equator products—we find that our mixes on the Equator systems translate very well to a wide variety of playback systems, including small speakers like those on TVs, laptop computers, and even smartphones!”
For a high profile studio operation like Antfood, quality customer and technical support services are essential should they be required. Here too, Wilson was very complimentary in his evaluation of Equator Audio. “We haven’t encountered any issues with our Equator Audio systems,” he said. “But throughout our various sales inquiries and ordering, both Marty Bradley and Ted Keffalo have been fantastic.”
Before shifting his attention back to the company’s projects, Wilson offered these final comments, “At their price point, there is no studio monitor system that is a more functional production tool than the Equator D5’s and D8’s. I think every project studio should have a pair of Equators and every pro studio should have a pair as an alternate reference from their mains. There are few speakers that appeal to both markets and, compared to the other speakers that do, the Equators sound and translate better! For those of us at Antfood, they are an excellent tool for post production as they help us save time and worry about how our music/sound design is going to perform on a wide range of playback systems from movie theaters to smartphones. We couldn’t be happier!”
To learn more about Antfood, visit the company online at www.antfood.com.
About Equator Audio
Equator Audio is committed to delivering studio reference monitor solutions that overcome the myriad of challenges faced in today’s audio production. Whether the challenge is on the production line or in the studio control room, Equator is dedicated to identifying and addressing it. Our products are used daily in mission-critical applications at many of the world’s finest recording studios. For additional information on all Equator Audio products, visit the company online at www.equatoraudio.com.
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Antfood: (left – right): Charlie Van Kirk, Andrea Ryan, Spencer Casey, Wilson Brown, and Sean McGovern (kneeling).
