Baggpipe Pipes up in Praise of Genelec
Located in the Johanneshov district of Stockholm, the site now occupied by Baggpipe can lay claim to a hugely significant and varied musical history.
Previously the home of the world-famous Abbey Road/EMI Studios, the site has also hosted sessions by artists including ABBA, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and producer Mutt Lange, to name just a few. Now that tradition of working with artists both established and emerging is continuing under the auspices of Baggpipe and a team consisting of amongst others legendary music producer Anders Bagge, music executive Craig Logan (LME) and CEO Alvora Larsdotter.
A winning fusion of modern and vintage technology, the current Baggpipe Studios complex comprises two main commercial studios and seven smaller, songwriter/producer studios. From the installation of new hardwood floors to the choice of SSL Duality consoles, Baggpipe has been through several significant upgrades in recent years, but until the recent addition of Genelec active monitoring, the inconsistency of the facility’s monitoring remained a cause of concern.
Willem Bleeker is Studio Manager and Engineer/Mixer at Baggpipe, and had found that although he was fond of some of the previous monitors “they had always been an issue with clients, who often said that they weren’t happy with the sonic image. The sound was either ‘too sharp’ or had ‘too much bass’… it never seemed to be quite right.”
Studio 2 was already home to a pair of Genelec 1037B monitors, and although Bleeker only occasionally found himself working in the room, he quickly noticed that “people really liked them; they sounded the way that people wanted speakers to sound.” It was when Patrick Lundin, Genelec Sales Manager for Pro Audio Sweden, organised an on-site showcase for The Ones three-way coaxial monitors that Bleeker found himself convinced.
“It was love at first hearing,” he recalls. “After borrowing them for a while I didn’t want to give them back. It wasn’t long before Patrick and I started talking about something more permanent. He showed me the mighty pair of 1234A SAM studio monitors that he thought would be perfect for the main control room of Studio 1, and the 1238DF SAM monitors he felt would best suit Studio 2.”
In both Studios 1 and 2, these main monitors are augmented by pairs of 8341 point source nearfield monitors from The Ones family, all finished in pristine white with accompanying 7370A subwoofers. Meanwhile, the facility’s seven production rooms each now feature a pair of 8340A two-way SAM monitors, with two of the rooms also boasting 7360A subwoofers. Finally, a multi-purpose meeting and conference space has been fitted with a pair of 8331s from The Ones range, once again finished in white.
According to Bleeker, the use of GLM auto-calibration and smart monitor management software offered not just quick and easy calibration of the monitors within the facility's many rooms, but the potential to rapidly adjust each room's monitoring set-up to suit the task at hand. The monitors have already lent themselves to sessions ranging from 26-piece orchestras to boybands and emerging solo artists.
"It doesn't matter what you are working on, they always do the job," Bleeker enthuses. "There are some other monitors out there that almost feel as if they are specialised for one thing only. But with Genelec, the monitors deliver exactly what you put into them and everybody understands them. You can also work with them for a very long time without your ears getting tired - a really important consideration for those long sessions!" He concludes: "Last but not least, you might not be able to hear design but it is definitely a big factor in studios, and make no mistake, the Genelec monitors look badass!"
