Description

Barefoot Sound: A Revelation in Studio Monitoring

MEME™ Technology: Four Speakers in One

Despite the advantages of high-resolution monitors, Thomas Barefoot realizes that many engineers still use their NS10M’s † and mix cubes as secondary references. These speakers have long traditions and people find them familiar and useful for focusing in on certain aspects of their mix. However, crowding one’s console with those extra boxes degrades the sound field of the primary reference monitors. Not to mention, they are no longer manufactured, they need amplifiers, cable runs, and they consume more studio space. The solution is to make the MM45 sound and translate like those speakers. With the turn of a knob, one can switch from the MicroMain45′s brutally revealing “Flat” response to the warmer and sweeter “Hi-Fi” setting, generically emulating the sound of some high-end consumer audio gear. More specifically the “Old School” setting closely emulates the sound of the NS10M nearfield, while the “Cube” setting emulates the mid-centric sound of classic mix cubes The idea is not to perfectly replicate every subtle quirk of these venerable old speakers. That would be impossible. But the MM45 can capture the essence of how they behave and translate, modeling their frequency, phase and transient responses, dynamic compression, and even specific distortion components. If you know how to work on these speakers you will feel very comfortable working on the new MM45′s emulation settings.