Dan Lancaster is a UK-based producer, mixer & songwriter. Known for his work with artists such as Blink-182, Bring Me the Horizon, A Day to Remember and Muse, Dan has been nominated twice for "Best Producer" at the Heavy Music Awards.
Regularly moving from studio to studio, Dan constantly needed to get used to new rooms, a very time-consuming process. This struggle is now over with NOVA optimizing his room and speaker monitors.
My name's Dan Lancaster, I do a lot of mixing/songwriting work and a lot of stuff basically. I'm always in and out of different studios, and over the years I've moved around and set myself up in various rooms.
What was your original take on room correction solutions?
When I was about 29 in 2015, I bought these monitors, and they've stuck with me since. They'll do something different in every physical space when out of the factory, so I've had to deal with that.
My attitude towards this situation was to learn the room, do what you can with it, and that will get you into a space where that is your reference. The problem is, if you keep moving, you have to keep learning the room, so you keep resetting, and that's actually a nightmare.
I've always been a bit reluctant to step into the world of room correction, and that's why, because I was more of a believer in staying consistent with the room, keep working on it, and then it can't possibly be better than that. But it turns out I was wrong...
How did you find out about Trinnov Optimizer?
I was in a studio in London with Rob Swire from Pendulum. He's got a Trinnov and this crazy massive and really expensive monitor speakers. Once I asked: "What's that thing he just did?" And he said: “Oh, it's a room correction thing.” And I was like, “Really? That sounds crazy!”.
When he turned it off, it was so bad...which is odd because his studio, in my mind, isn't awkward. It's actually pretty big and rectangle and everything. It's got all the treatment going for it. It doesn't feel like it's a restricted space in terms of sonics. But it needs the Trinnov to balance everything out.
That's when I realized, when Rob told me and showed me in flicking it on and off and the AB was just insane, that's when I said okay, put me in touch.
What was your firt impression of the Optimizer?
It's really the phase correction that struck me first, and then the EQ. In this room, I've got a massive dip at 100Hz, and a really big curve upwards at 2-3kHz, which is the worst thing ever for rock music, especially. I mean, it's bad in general, but for what I do, that's a horrible curve to have.
When you first switched it on, I was blown away. And through the years of moving these speakers into different rooms, they've always sounded good. But this room that I've ended up in, for the time being, at least, is definitely the worst in terms of physical restraints, so it was super exciting.
Now I just come in, sit and listen to either my work or other people's work and just literally enjoy music through my monitor speakers. And I don't think I've ever done that before.
Has it influenced the way you work and listen?
To have it as flat as a pancake and knowing it's flat as a pancake. To know now that I'm not fighting against anything because it's genuinely flat, because the Trinnov is doing all the work, it has changed the way I work for the better, and I've really already started to feel it with my confidence.
A lot of mixing work and music in general, is about momentum and confidence. You're only as good as your last thing. So the last things I've done have been super fun to do. I've got great results. So it has just really changed recently for me and made everything better.
What benefits of the Trinnov do you enjoy the most?
I'm super happy with the profiles that we've built, because one of the cool things I've got here is a sit-stand. I do like to stand up because it completely changes the sound. So I need two profiles, and it's so satisfying to change them. I love putting the desk up, and then it sounds crap again. And then I flick it back to the standing position, and it sounds flat. It's great, I love that.
Would you recommend NOVA to other engineers?
100%. I had that attitude before about room correction, as I said earlier, and I was wrong. I would recommend the NOVA to all of my friends who I know should take that leap. I've already started doing that.
The problem is they answer the phone and if they were anything like me, they're like, “Yeah, cool. That sounds good. I've just done a bit of extra building work.”. And I'm like: “Stop building. Stop doing that. Just listen to what I'm saying.” And it's a hard thing to get someone pumped about.
But if someone had done it to me and made that phone call to me to try and hype me about Trinnov and genuinely mean it, I would have answered the phone and been like, You know what I mean? You have to hear it in your room with your speakers to get as pumped as I was.