Mix engineer Cenzo Townshend has added a pair of PMC twotwo.5 nearfield monitors to the mix room at Decoy Studios, the White Mark-designed facility he established in a converted barn in rural Suffolk.

Since moving out of London in 2013, Townshend has been busy mixing hit singles and albums for a range of artists including Florence and the Machine, The Maccabees, George Ezra, Kaiser Chiefs, Jake Bugg and James Blunt.

Initially providing SSL-based mixing facilities for Townshend to work in, Decoy Studios has expanded to incorporate recording spaces including a live room, a control room based around an Audient Heritage Edition console, and a compact overdub/vocal chamber furnished in the style of an Edwardian gentleman’s library.

The recording facilities at Decoy have also been much used in recent months due to their proximity to Framlingham, the home of Suffolk’s Ed Sheeran, who recorded some of the tracks featured on his 2017 album ÷ at the studio, and his recent collaboration with James Blunt, the single ‘Make Me Better’ from Blunt’s new album The Afterlove, was also recorded and mixed by Townshend at Decoy.

Townshend mixes with a number of permanently installed monitors including Yamaha NS10s and a Pure digital radio, which he employs to check radio mixes. The PMC twotwo.5s have now been added to those installed in the mix room.

"I like the twotwos when I’m working on vocals," explained Townshend. "They really open up the top end of vocals, specifically — if I’ve overdone something, if it’s a bit unnatural in the high frequencies, or a de-esser is grabbing, for example, they reveal that to me instantly.

“At the low end, I can work very quietly if I choose, but still hear the definition between the kick drum and the bass — and the PMCs will very quickly reveal to me if I’ve got phase problems between the two."

A short video about Townshend’s recent work at Decoy Studios can be viewed below:

https://pmc-speakers.com/