Producer and DJ Luke Solomon has bought a pair of PMC6-2 monitors for his studio in North London.
The monitors replace a pair of PMC TB2s he owned for nearly 20 years.
“I love the sound of these monitors and really appreciate the fact that they are non-fatiguing,” he says. “Maybe it’s an age thing but listening at loud levels for a long time can be exhausting.
“What I like about the 6-2s is that they reproduce the bass really clearly, even at low levels, so I can stay in the studio for longer. They are a great pair of speakers.”
Luke, who set up the seminal dance label Classic Recordings with Derrick Carter in the early 1990s, is also one half of Freaks, a production team he established with Justin Harris.
Among the many notable production credits to his name is the Black Girl Magic album, which he produced for US DJ Honey Dijon.
It was during that period that he and Honey Dijon were approached by Beyoncé’s record label and asked to submit material for her current studio album Renaissance, which was released at the end of last year.
“Beyoncé’s people told us that she wanted to take her new music to the clubs because she was convinced that, after the pandemic, people would want to go out and enjoy the club vibe again,” he explains.
“She asked Honey and I if we wanted to collaborate, so we set about writing songs and creating concepts built around drums and samples and music that came from our world, which Beyoncé wasn’t familiar with.”
Eventually two of these ideas were chosen and ended up on the album as the tracks Cosy and Alien Superstar, both written and produced by Luke and Honey Dijon.
“Beyoncé team sent someone to the UK to play us the tracks, so the first time I heard them with her vocals was in a hotel room in London with me listening through EarPods,” Luke says.
“I was expecting the songs to have changed dramatically but they hadn’t and that was incredibly exciting. The whole experience was quite a trip!”
Moving from the dance scene into more crossover projects is another reason why Luke wanted to upgrade the monitoring in his own studio.
“I bought my TB2 monitors on the back of the success of The Creeps, which meant there was money around at the time to invest in studio equipment,” he explains.
“They became my staple. I went through a lot of tweeters – totally my fault – and I also had the crossovers changed at one point, but throughout the years they stayed with me.”
Apart from wanting to build a larger listening room at his home in Barnet, Luke’s future plans include writing songs with Honey for a new musical that he acknowledges is very different from anything he has done before.