Anyone with even the most casual interest in studio recording, mixing, and mastering will have very likely come by Mark and James of PresentDayProduction. As well as being experts in Audio Mastering (Mark has been doing that since 1988), they also set up a YouTube channel in 2020 which has grown in popularity due to the informative and educational content they provide, often in a humorous and completely transparent way. The audio industry sometimes has a reputation for being full of snake-oil salesmen; the guys at PDP certainly aren’t pedalling.
This story begins around 2022 when the guys were considering a move towards incorporating a Dolby Atmos setup but “couldn't find a monitoring solution for under £10,000 a pair that satisfied (them) - and many at £10k a pair didn't satisfy either”. At this point they decided to make their own!
“Many months, over 35 test cabinets, and a whole heap of expert help later, we ended up with a design that beat the main mastering monitors we'd been using for years in every measurable aspect, including percentage of revisions, which is the only measurable aspect we really care about. Folks came in (to the studio), heard them, fell in love, and asked us if we could build them a pair in a more traditional studio-style cabinet. So, we set to work designing and refining the best studio monitor we could. The result is the PresentDayProduction MUM-8. The last monitor you'll ever need to buy - and it's fully upgradable as technology improves and your skills progress”.
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Featuring a Purifi PTT8 8 inch Aluminium bass woofer, a choice of either Silk or Beryllium BlieSMa midrange drivers and tweeters, and making use of Hypex N-Core amplifier modules, the MUM-8 certainly delivers a premium spec.
To assist with the project, our metalworking team at our Portland (Dorset) site manufactured a unique, precision-crafted 3U rack case as Mark describes below:
"We recently brought a three-way active studio monitor to the market, the MUM-8, and as many studio monitors are destined for soffit mounting in a control room wall, or might be used on a ceiling for surround purposes, we decided we wanted an amplifier that could traditionally be placed at the rear of the speaker, or be removed and placed in a standard 19" equipment rack. We therefore needed a custom 3U rack case that was only 60mm deep, with cutouts for our circuit boards, connectors, and LED indicators that were accurate to within a fraction of a millimetre.
We approached several companies, and ordered prototypes from many, all of which have experience with rack equipment for pro audio use, and Canford came out on top in every measurable aspect! The initial contact was friendly and helpful, the quote we received was extremely competitive, lead times were encouraging. The team at Canford answered all our questions, suggested a few changes and a two-piece design to ease with manufacture and, as we had no experience with ordering metalwork, interpreted our back-of-an-envelope designs into superb and easy to understand technical drawings for our approval.
A couple of weeks later we received a prototype case for testing, and everything fitted perfectly, first time. Canford then took care of all the screen printing for us on the production models, and our initial order of 30 units was delivered a couple of weeks later. By comparison, we waited three months for a single prototype from one competitor!
The result is a fantastic product we are truly proud to present to our customers. The Canford team have been exceptional at every step of the way, from initial contact right through to delivering a superb final result. We have just ordered the second batch, and are pleased to be keeping manufacturing in the UK, and know that we need look nowhere else for a top quality product, backed up by the finest customer service."
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Martin Puckett – Production Manager at our Portland site:
“It was a real pleasure to work with the guys at PDP. We were quickly able to adapt and deliver a custom solution that matched their exact requirements. The final product looks so good, and the whole team are rightfully proud to have played a small part in making the MUM-8 a reality”.
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