Focal Alpha 50 Evo
Ayyy UKF crew!
Affording tough gear wasn’t really amongst my options before, so I saved up for Ableton about 14 years ago and rocked with stock plugins since. Turning every button I could find without having any understanding of production or devices. It was a very organic and playful process for the longest time. I do most of my work with Ableton stock plugins and Serum 2. Now a days. Splice’s rent 2 own was a Godsend during my student years. HUGE shoutout to Xfer for hooking us up with the free upgrade to Serum 2.
At one point, someone told me that producing bass music without proper low end monitors was like driving a car with two wheels missing. My workflow changed completely once I upgraded my monitors to Focal Alpha 50 Evos.
Being able to FEEL my sub’s and low end has shifted how I approach my dynamics across all my projects. It’s still not the same as having a separate subwoofer, but ideal for my bedroom studio setup. I still do all the nifty mixdown stuff on my Sennheiser HD25’s, but the 1 thing that got me into this seemingly infinite genre (bass) is the somatic aspect of feeling the music, which these monitors deliver. Just keep in mind that your neighbors might become a part of that process.
My kicks got deeper, my synths & basses contain more low’s & low-mid’s and perhaps the most exciting part is that everything sounds more clear. You could compare it to camera lenses, where higher quality lenses provide higher quality images. My Focals are exactly that for audio. It allows me to appreciate a whole new layer of detail in music. This also means I get inspired more because of things I could not properly hear before.
They played a huge role in the making off my EP, Nova Primal. I think ‘Scavenger’ was one of the first tracks I produced on this system. Kind of like a stress test.
I believe I’m creating my best stuff when it feels like play. Back when I was very little, I’d open our chest of Lego’s and just build spaceships to act out stories with. I tend to see what I do with music in the same way.
I don’t believe you 100% need these things to create cool stuff, but they excite you in ways that get you to create more. And the more you create, the more you learn and improve. That’s the real treasure.
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