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ATC Loudspeakers do Withstand the Test of Time
With continual new developments and built-in obsolescence consigning any number of professional audio products to the scrap heap, it’s reassuring to discover that at least one company offers its customers an upgrade path that extends over 25 years of manufacturing. ATC (Acoustic Transducer Company) Loudspeakers offers driver upgrades and amplifier overhauls that extend the working life of their products, in production since 1980, allowing customers to maximise their investment in the essential tools of their trade.
Hollywood film score and music mixer and recordist Frank Wolf first heard about the ATC upgrades from US distributors Las Vegas Pro Audio president Brad Lunde, and having changed the subwoofers in his 12-year-old ATC SCM100 reference monitors for the company’s new Super Linear drivers, he could not be happier with the results. “They're dramatically improved,” says Wolf.
It’s an easy do-it-yourself job, he reports. “I pulled them apart myself, replaced the ports, and put the new speakers in.” ATC also offered to service the amplifier modules, he adds. “They suggested that if I wanted to pull the amp packs out and ship them they would check them and tweak them and make sure they were up to scratch. They turned them around fast and didn't keep me off the air for long at all. That's about as good customer service as you could ever hope to get.”
With his LCR setup of SCM100 monitors sporting new woofers and fresh components in his amplifier modules, Wolf was able to get back to work as one of the top music mixers in Hollywood. “What I've done since the upgrade is recorded and mixed the new Pixar movie, Cars, which is coming out next summer. I mixed the album for The Producers, the new film of the Broadway production inspired by the original Mel Brooks film. And I'm just now working on a Spike Lee movie with composer Terrence Blanchard.”
The hotly anticipated new Pixar Animation Studios feature, Cars, “looks like it’s going to be great,” says Wolf. “I’ve done four other movies with Pixar. I did Toy Story and Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc. with them and Randy Newman. They’re a great group of guys to work with.”
Pixar's animated features have garnered multiple nominations and awards worldwide, and have won many Oscars. Wolf’s busy career also includes such movies as Meet the Fockers, Seabiscuit, Tarzan and Mulan.
These same ATCs were used for scoring The Producers. This task was arduous, Wolf reports. “I spent four months this year working on The Producers.'There are 25 songs plus an underscore, so it was a lot of work. We cut the tracks at the scoring room that Right Track built in New York, and mixed it at Sony.”
ATC reference monitors are a longstanding and firm favorite with many music mixers. Wolf is happy to report that he was able to find a pair in New York. “Sony has an interesting pair of ATCs that they had custom made for (former Sony Music label boss) Tommy Mottola some years ago. They're pretty amazing.”
ATC's drivers are manufactured in-house to exacting tolerances and are legendary for their many design innovations, such as the innovative SL magnet system and the company's renowned Soft Dome midrange driver, which achieves exceptionally broad and even dispersion to produce a flat response anywhere in the room.
In picture: Frank Wolf uses his 12-year-old upgraded ATC loudspeakers on Pixar's upcoming blockbuster Cars and Mel Brooks’ ‘The Producers’.
6th January 2006
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