Grammy-nominated producer and engineer Damien Lewis knows perfectly well what Top 40 artists are looking for and need, since he has worked many times with many of them, such as Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Lizzo and Skrillex.
However, Lewis isn't one for working in big studios and prefers to do his mixes from home. Recently, he opted for a more minimalist home studio setup that would allow him to focus entirely on the music.
And since there's no good studio without a good monitoring system, Lewis decided to rely on Amphion One18 monitors and the Amp700 to give him the perfect formula between what he needed technically as an engineer and the assurance and seal of quality he had to offer his clients.
In search of number one
It's not like it used to be. The frequency spectrum of the biggest hits has changed enormously over recent decades. Aware of all these changes, Lewis set out to design a studio that would let him record and play back music while preserving every nuance. The monitoring had to offer, of course, faithful reproduction of the music's dynamics and fast transient response.
"Transients are the first thing to go when you turn up the volume on modern music. That's because of the huge amount of compression and limiting that takes place. It was obvious I needed gear that could keep all of this under control"
Lewis went on to talk about the importance of having a magnifying glass on the midrange when mixing, since that's precisely where some of the most important information in pop songs lies, such as the vocals and the drum frequencies. Getting all these parameters right not only guarantees success but also makes it last. "If we want a song to go down in history and still be pleasant to listen to, everything I've mentioned is essential. The best thing about the Amphions is that they substantially improve low-mid reproduction on vocal tracks, and let me fine-tune all kinds of options to increase clarity in the upper extension. Without a doubt, the result is much more pleasant for the listener."
In Lewis's home studio we find a Mac mini with an Avid S1 control surface, Apollo interfaces, several of his favorite plug-ins and, of course, his Amphion One18 and Amp700
The revolution that begins at home
Lewis is part of a growing group of producers and engineers (including other Amphion users such as Finneas O'Connell, Sounwave and Lu Diaz) who prefer to move their workflow away from the hustle and bustle of studios, adapting to a much simpler but far more efficient environment.
"At first I spent a lot of time wondering whether I was doing the right thing. I wanted to have everything just right," he explains. "But I soon realized that if I was still working with the biggest names it was for a reason, and that I was really enjoying my own space, focusing on what I considered truly important. We're definitely getting great results with this new way of working."
