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It’s no surprise that when mix engineer Sam Zornow aka Shiftee describes the bass response of the speakers in his brand-new Brooklyn studio, he does so in a more evocative way than some of his peers might. He did, after all, cut his teeth in clubs, where bass is not just another frequency, but more of a full-body experience.
As a DJ, he won two unique DMC World Champion titles, and since then, Sam has built an impressive discography as a mix engineer for the likes of Doja Cat, Janelle Monae, ODESZA, Teddy Swims, Austin Millz, Fetty Wap, Coco & Breezy, and James Patterson, to name a few, and he continues to expand into diverse genres.
Read on to find out about Sam’s vision for the new studio, what drew him to the Neumann KH 420 studio monitors, how the sonic character of the monitors impacts his workflow, and how the bass response takes him back to his days behind the decks.
Tell us a bit about your studio and some favorite projects you’ve worked on recently.
The studio is located in Fort Greene/Downtown Brooklyn, a very busy, bustling area, and it’s just an incredible place to work. It was designed by Gerhard Westphalen and built by Alan Miller Acoustics, and it sounds amazing. I've been here for about three months, just flying through work.
One recent project is a Japanese dance competition TV show called D-League, where they do a full, original song with vocals and really high-level production each month that all gets choreographed into an amazing dance piece. I've been working with one of the crews called LDH SCREAM, so that's been really fun. Shout out to my buddy XLII in Tokyo, who brought me in.
Recently, I also worked on the cast album for a Broadway show called “Stereophonic”, which is about a band recording an album in the ‘70s with original songs by Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire. It was really fun to dive into that era of sonics and try to, on the one hand, get those kinds of sounds, but then have them exist in a modern context as well.
I came up in club music and DJ culture, but bit by bit, the range of projects that I've been working on has been expanding, and it's been really rewarding to learn about all these different genres that I'm brought into and see how my tastes and my background can work well with them.
What is your core studio setup?
My core setup is very minimal. I have a one-bay desk with a small form factor that was designed by a company called e2MusicDesk, and otherwise, there’s not a lot of gear around. It’s meant to be pure sound. There's not a lot of visual distractions, or a lot of furniture reflecting the audio; it’s all designed to be streamlined and focused.
My signal chain is a Prism Sound Titan to a Grace Design m905 monitor controller to a TOPPING DAC. I do have some select analog pieces that have really distinct flavors, but many times I'm working entirely in the box so I don't need a whole big setup, and this modern evolution allows this kind of tiny desk situation. [Laughs]
What drew you to the Neumann KH 420 Studio Monitors?
I’m on a Discord called Live With Matt Rad with a lot of great engineers, and right now on that Discord, there’s 420 mania! A lot of highly respected people who know a lot about acoustics and high-level mixing and mastering are all raving about the speakers. Everyone is trying them and switching to them.
When I built this space, I wanted to try different speaker options, and the KH 420 was obviously on the list. I was able to get in touch with Josh from Neumann, who was nice enough to set up a demo pair for me to try, so that's what drew me to them. Once they were in my studio and I started working on them, that was the best way to bring me in.
What stood out for you from your early experience listening to them?
Early on, strangely, I was almost expecting more excitement. They are objectively incredible in terms of a pure listening experience, but, coming from what one could call a more enhanced or more stylized set of speakers that I was used to, these were sort of neutral-feeling. They're incredibly accurate, and the sound you hear is the sound that you get.
Once I started working on them, I didn't think about them at all. I just thought about sound, and I realized that they're an incredible, intuitive tool, especially for working and hearing sound that is accurate. It's not hyped, it's not enhanced; it just is what it is.
That’s great because it means fewer surprises when you check your mix on different systems, right?
Exactly! The translation has been fantastic, and when I hear stuff elsewhere, it sounds like I'm expecting it to. From a client perspective, I'm getting easier approvals and fewer notes, all the things that you want. And yeah, no surprises.
Also, the experience of working feels much more streamlined because I'm not fighting the speaker or trying to adapt to something in the speaker. It becomes very clear what I need to do and what I don’t need to do; the roadmap becomes very clear.
How have the KH 420s impacted your workflow?
In addition to confidence, the speakers plus the room have allowed me to work much more quickly and efficiently every day. I've been in this room with these speakers for probably two months now, and it gets better and faster every day.
My decision-making becomes even more confident just knowing that I don't need to do a whole mental calculation about the sound to have it translate. I know I can trust what I'm hearing and it’s going to translate how I'm expecting. So, yeah, all the things in the Daft Punk song – better, faster, stronger – that’s all happening. [Laughs]
How do they rate on ear fatigue?
I’ve had no ear fatigue at all. I listen at a pretty reasonable level anyway, but even in situations where I've had people come over and we turn the level up beyond where I normally work, at the end of the day, the lack of ear fatigue is almost surprising; it just feels good. Once again, the room plus the speakers allow that I don't have to push beyond a certain level to hear what I'm trying to hear.
What do you think of the bass extension of the KH 420s?
The bass is one of my favorite parts of the speaker, and I find it probably the most intuitive presentation of low-end that I've ever experienced in a studio. For me, coming from club culture and being on sound systems, these speakers present a controlled version of that kind of sound where it’s not just about the level or the balance of the low-end, but the way it feels in your body.
The texture of the low-end, the texture of kick drums really feels like a club to me, that is to say, [I feel it] deep in my core, which is the way I'm used to experiencing low-end. It changes from something that you have to think about to something that you just can feel; that's what I'm getting from these speakers.
I've had other speakers in here where you’re like, “Yeah, I hear 40 Hz and the level of 40 Hz should be [a certain amount]”, but with these, it's more intuitive; it's reacting with my body more than my mind.
How do you then deal with the challenge of all this amazing bass eventually landing on less-than-ideal phone or laptop speakers?
I've found that since I've started using these monitors, I've needed to do fewer checks, and translation to bad devices like a phone sort of happens automatically. I have an Avantone Pro Mixcube, and I'll listen on headphones and AirPods, but now I'm checking less and less.
I might do this one thing that I picked up from that Discord I mentioned earlier, which is to listen to my mix with a 400 Hz high-pass filter to get a sense [of how it sounds on phones or laptops], but I'm also doing that less and less now because the speakers are so balanced. With the end product, I'm aiming to get the sound loud, dynamic, or wide – whatever the song needs – and getting to the finish line happens faster and better.
The monitors are known for their precise sound distribution. What has your experience been like with that?
There's going to be a sweet spot, of course, but just walking around the room, it's surprising how little the balance changes, especially in the low-end. I would attribute that more to the room probably than the speaker, but the speaker is doing what it needs to do as well.
I can be in different orientations and still have a sense of what's happening in the midrange, what's happening in the high end, and how these things relate to each other. I am mainly sitting in my one little spot, but I've noticed that when people come over, and they sit in this seat, and I'm standing up to the side, I still feel like I'm hearing things very well.
Are you using any monitor correction software or any hardware controllers?
No, I’m not using any correction. Neumann has a high-shelf EQ on the back of the speaker, so I'm doing a -1 dB high-frequency shelf down, which I'd say is more about taste than anything, but there’s no extra software program changing the frequency response. I love the way it's tuned out of the box, and it meets this room perfectly. As I said, I do have a Grace m905 monitor controller, but there's no extra stuff going on with that; it's just sending volume.
When you're auditioning speakers, do you have a go-to set of songs that you play on them?
Yeah, I have a reference playlist – a collection of 50 songs or so that I'm very familiar with – and I actually will listen to some songs from there every single day when I first come in, to sort of calibrate my brain and my ears. Some of them are meant to show me specific things in the bass response, things in the stereo image, or things in the midrange and the high-end.
I know the songs very well, and obviously I'm going through those when I'm comparing speakers, but the most important thing when I'm testing speakers is the work experience – how does the work turn out and how does it feel when I'm doing the work? Does it feel labored or does it feel streamlined? When I'm listening to a reference playlist, it's all theoretical; the real test is when we start to work.
What has it been like working with Alex St Cin and Vintage King to purchase the monitors?
It’s always very easy. If I email Alex, I'll definitely hear back within 24 hours, if not in an hour or two, and he’s always very ready with information, or setting things up for me, or adding things to orders. He’s very flexible and just someone that I have a lot of confidence in.
Is there any other gear in your studio you want to give a shoutout to?
I'll shout out the DW Fearn-inspired Hazelrigg VLC tube preamps. I have two of those, and I'll run sources through them; sometimes it'll be on a whole mix, or that's what I'll record a vocal through, if I record a vocal in here.
I have a Bettermaker Mastering Limiter 2.0, which works very well on a lot of the dance and hip-hop stuff that I work on.
I'll also shout out a more niche one, which is a custom Rascal Audio Solid State Mastering Pultec EQ that has some really juicy transformers in it. I got it off the mastering engineer Dale Becker; he built three of them, and I managed to get one of them.
All these pieces are meant to give me a quick, inspiring flavor that might be a little harder to come by in the box.
What’s a typical day like for you at the studio?
Well, I have an eight-month-old daughter, so I drop her off at daycare at 8 am, get to the studio around 8:30 am, work here on whatever projects come through my desk till about 4:30 pm, go home for family time, and then if there’s something pressing that has a deadline, I might go back to the studio after dinner. It's really focused when I'm in here though; the design of the space really lends itself to being able to separate home and work very, very nicely.
Are you working on any exciting projects that you're able to talk to us about?
A couple of songs just came in from two of my favorite collaborators in Los Angeles: a producer named Glenwood! and a rapper, artist, and writer named KANIN. They work at the intersection of dance music and hip-hop, which is a lot of where my heart and soul is as well.
They're also involved with another great artist named 20XII, and we're working on her EP right now, which is a really fun, interesting blend of dance and hip-hop.
Also, shout out Rubby, an artist in New York who's combining pop, R&B, and avant-garde club music; I'm working on his album right now.
