Ten-time Grammy-winning engineer and producer Darrell Thorp is increasingly turning to Focal Trio6 ST6 monitors for both tracking and mixing, deploying the system across a series of high-profile projects in leading studio environments.

Working out of 101 Studios and EastWest Studios, Thorp has used the Trio6 ST6 monitors on releases including Roger Waters’ Dark Side of the Moon Redux and This is Not a Drill, as well as tracking sessions for Deafheaven’s Lonely People with Power and Bret McKenzie’s Freak Out City.

Thorp was brought into the Waters project by front-of-house and mix engineer Sean “Sully” Sullivan following live recordings captured at the London Palladium. “Roger did a couple of live dates at the London Palladium, they recorded it all. Sully was asked to mix the album and he told Roger he wanted me involved for the mix,” Thorp explains. Reflecting on the sessions, he adds: “As Sully had planned, he basically just sat in the back and told me to ‘turn this up!’ and ‘turn that down!’”

Central to Thorp’s workflow is the sonic performance of the Trio6 ST6 monitors. “Introducing the Trio6s into my workflow I have been enjoying hearing and feeling that extended low end that I haven’t been used to for a long time with my other set of monitors,” he says. “And I’m always enjoying the top-end, the air that comes from the Trio6s. That’s just a nice crispy, beautiful image, I really rely on that a lot.”

He continues: “Whenever I work at EastWest, which is often, I choose the pair of Trio6 ST6s. They’re freaking rad. I love working on them, whether it’s tracking or mixing.”

Thorp highlights monitoring as a critical factor in recording quality. “I think a big shortcoming of a lot of people when they’re recording is their monitoring situation is not up to snuff,” he notes, pointing to the combined impact of speakers and room acoustics.

Even in world-class facilities such as United Recording Studios and Capitol Studios, Thorp emphasises the importance of speaker choice. “So with speaker choice, I’m able to make sonic decisions quickly, whether or not it’s too dark, it’s too bright, it’s too small, it’s too big,” he explains. “Or I’m thinking of a timbre in my head with sticking a microphone in front of a Vox AC30 guitar amp for example… and right away knowing through the speakers, like Focals, where I’m getting a huge, big image.”

This immediacy feeds directly into his tracking approach. “The Focals are a huge benefit to my tracking ability,” he says. “I’m sort of ‘pre-mixing’. I’m trying to get the music to just sound done and finished… I’m constantly analyzing the timbre of a song. That’s where the Focal monitors come in, I can actually hear what’s happening.”

Thorp also underlines the monitors’ ability to reveal detail during complex sessions. “Sometimes I’m soloing instruments in a tracking band scenario: ‘Is the snare drum distorting?’… Because a lot of times it’ll sound good in a program, but soloed, it can be like, ‘Oh, that’s too crunchy.’ And then once it gets too crunchy, there’s no going back!”

He adds: “I’m trusting these Focal monitors now. I’ve used them a lot. And I know that it’s too crunchy. I’m going to back that off.”

Describing their overall performance, Thorp concludes: “Trio6 are huge, beautiful, and bright. I love the image and the detail from the top end all the way down to the low sub info. Trio6s work well loud and quiet and are very versatile in any room.”

Alongside the monitors, Thorp also relies on Focal Clear Mg Professional open-back headphones, particularly when travelling. “I travel a lot for work… I get a balance going… and then I turn the speakers off and I grab my Clear Mg Pro headphones – I know them so well and I trust them,” he says.

The headphones serve as a consistent reference point across unfamiliar environments. “It’s little things like that where it’s just this amazing security blanket, quite frankly. So I really rely on the Clear Mg Pros,” he explains, noting that he also uses them for mix recalls on the road.

Reflecting on his setup, Thorp concludes: “I’m super happy with the Focal brand and super happy and thankful that I have the speakers and headphones at my fingertips. It really helps the workflow. It helps me do what I do every day. Seriously.”

With credits including Foo Fighters, Beck, Radiohead, Switchfoot and Molotov, Thorp’s continued reliance on trusted monitoring tools underscores their role at the centre of modern recording and mixing workflows.