Carl Tatz Design's MontAnna Mix Room Nominated for 2012 TEC Award

- Beautiful, ultra high-performance personal mix room, featuring the PhantomFocus™ System (PFS) monitor tuning protocol, reflects growing trend toward higher quality in-home facilities -

Nashville, TN: Following closely on the heels of being selected as one of Mix Magazine's Class of 2012 top studio designs, Carl Tatz Design's MontAnna Mix Room has been recognized for outstanding creative achievement by the TEC Awards panel of professionals as a nominee in the Studio Design Project category. "It is very gratifying to be sited as a nominee for such a high honor by my peers," states Carl Tatz, principal of Carl Tatz Design (CTD). "Especially when being joined by such esteemed fellow nominees."


- Drawn from previous release -

Monty Powell and wife, jazz artist Anna Wilson called on Carl Tatz Design LLC for a second time when they decided to downsize and move from their beloved Nashville home that housed a beautiful Carl Tatz Design studio with 20' tall ceilings in the tracking room into a posh new townhouse mix room nearby. The control room design features a custom application of the Carl Tatz Signature Series™ family of control room acoustic modules by Auralex (soon to be featured in a dedicated section on the Auralex website) along with the now familiar trademark CTD Acoustic Lens™ modules.

"It's clearly the leading technology in monitoring," comments uber successful songwriter/producer, Monty Powell about the new generation PhantomFocus™ System (PFS) “If I build ten more studios, which I hope I don’t,” jokes Powell, “everyone of them will have a PhantomFocus™ System in it - I can’t imagine mixing without it.”

Not unlike those who want to drive the latest model Porsche 911 or Mercedes Benz SL sports car, many veteran PhantomFocus™ System users are beginning to upgrade to the latest PFS technology. “The legacy PFSs still sound terrific and are still a huge leg up over other monitor systems, while the newer iterations are far more powerful, quieter and can deliver even more accuracy in even the most difficult spaces,” notes Carl Tatz, principal of Carl Tatz Design LLC and creator of the PFS.

Since this successful couple is spending most of their time now in their Utah home when they are not gigging around the country at various jazz venues with Anna or songwriting on the road with the likes of country superstars, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Lady Antebellum and others, it makes perfect sense to make this transition. The move reflects a trend where many personal studio owners prefer to track in a commercial studio that has all the amenities you would expect in a professional tracking room and spend the remaining 90 percent of the time overdubbing and mixing in their own facility.

“It’s always a great complement to be asked back by your client to design a second room and Monty and Anna are so much fun to work with, both being very creative people with lots of enthusiastic ideas,” says Tatz. “And upgrading their PhantomFocus™ System was the maraschino cherry on top of the cake. They were very happy with their existing PFS but when I convinced them that they should experience the new system at another studio, their mouths dropped – it sold itself.”

About Carl Tatz Design

Carl Tatz Design (CTD) is an award winning studio design firm offering design and consulting services to homeowners and entertainment industry professionals in areas of: Recording Studios, Monitor Systems, Home Screening Rooms, Dedicated Listening Rooms, Acoustic Analysis, Tuning, and Sound Isolation. Carl Tatz is also the inventor of the industry acclaimed proprietary PhantomFocus™ System (PFS) monitor tuning protocol. CTD’s many resources combine knowledge, experience and expertise in sound, picture and design to serve its clients worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.carltatzdesign.com.

About the PhantomFocus™ System
Once the basic acoustic treatment has been accomplished, Carl Tatz Design’s proprietary PhantomFocus™ Monitor System offers clients a unique opportunity to have a truly world-class monitoring experience in their room, no matter how modest they may perceive it to be. The PhantomFocus System allows their monitors of choice to perform accurately at a full 20Hz-to-20KHz frequency response with pinpoint imaging in an almost holographic sweet spot — this enables their mixes to travel anywhere with a new level of sonic accuracy. There are approximately fifty steps in the proprietary PhantomFocus System implementation protocol, some of which may include phase and laser alignment, damping, isolation mounts, careful assessment of engineer/speaker placement relative to their room’s primary axial modes, proprietary speaker distance and angle, crossover points for pass filtering, and finally parametric equalization. Hardware can include monitor stands, concrete, sorbothane and other isolation materials, custom floating plenum mounts, subwoofer system, custom crossover, parametric equalizers and the monitors themselves (passive or active). The evaluation and implementation is a full two-day process and can be applied to near-fields, mid-fields, and large soffit mounted monitors, regardless of manufacturer. Carl Tatz Design can install the PhantomFocus System in existing control rooms or in studios that are designed and built from the ground up by CTD. The result is like the aural equivalent of HD TV. Once you experience a PhantomFocus System, you can’t go back.

720P Video: Monty Powell talks about the new PhantomFocus™ System in his second Carl Tatz Design studio, The MontAnna Mix Room

MontAnna Mix Room - Front

MontAnna Mix Room - Rear