BELGIUM, FEBRUARY 22, 2022―Belgian guitarist Isaac Delahaye says music is “in his genes,” and, looking at his history, there’s no denying that. Raised in a musical family, Delahaye spent his childhood and teenage years learning, teaching, and performing with different hometown bands. After going to school for music and touring internationally through his 20s, he settled down as a guitarist with Epica, a Dutch symphonic metal band. Delahaye has been performing with and mixing demos for the band for the past 13 years, but it wasn’t until recently that he discovered the KRK V-Series 6 Studio Monitors, which he now relies on for all his home studio mixing needs.
The guitarist was first introduced to KRK while visiting Gibson’s showroom in the Netherlands. Having heard good things about the brand, he wanted to test some products himself, and eventually settled on the V-Series. “Compared to all the other brands’ monitors I’ve used, the KRK V-Series is a very flat audio system, and the monitors don’t color the audio at all,” Delahaye shares. “This is great, especially for the metal genre, since the speakers have such a complete low end that you can hear everything clearly.”
While Epica is part of the metal genre, that’s only half of what the band truly encompasses. “Epica is a female-fronted symphonic metal band. If you break that up, symphonic metal contains two words. One being symphonic, which means we use all the components of a symphonic orchestra, like a full choir, and the other being metal, which is the six members of our band,” explains Delahaye. “With this combination, we have a ton of musical options to explore, which makes it really interesting. One song might be an intimate ballad with violins and piano, but the next is a hard death or black metal piece.”
To accomplish that electric mix of symphony and metal, Epica primarily uses backing tracks when performing live. All of the band’s albums, however, are recorded with a full orchestra and choir. “Epica’s demos are recorded in my home studio with the V6s, while the actual mixing of albums is done in a studio,” says Delahaye. “I’ve been using the monitors for a little over a year now. I used to always look for other options, but ever since I added KRK to my studio, the search is over. Plus, with the V6 being an active two-way speaker, it’s great for a small home studio like mine.”
Besides the V-Series 6 Studio Monitors, KRK parent company Gibson can be found with Delahaye both in-studio and on-stage. “When performing with Epica, I use the Gibson Les Paul Standard ‘50s Tobacco Burst and Heritage Cherry Sunburst guitars,” he says. “I also have the KNS 6402 Headphones. For me, KRK shares a similar story to Gibson. Once you start playing, you just don’t want to play anything else; and that’s exactly how I felt when I started using KRK.”
