Mizuo Miura [Mixer’s Lab]Audio Excellence with ADAM Audio S2V Monitors

As one of Japan’s most experienced recording engineers, Mizuo Miura has worked with an enormous array of A-list Japanese artists across a wealth of styles and genres.

He is currently based at Tokyo’s LAB Recorders studio, one of the country’s premier recording facilities, and became its director in 2007. LAB Recorders studio is operated by Mixer’s Lab [who also manage the renown mastering studio Warner Music Mastering], which is also headed by Mizuo Miura as president.

Two years previously, he heard a pair of ADAM Audio monitors for the first time. It turned out to be a defining moment for him in terms of the equipment he relies on in his professional career. “I clearly remember how ‘fast’ the sound felt when I first heard [the S3As],” he told ADAM Audio recently. “It immediately struck me that this speed in sound reproduction is what will be necessary for monitoring in the digital era.”

“It immediately struck me that this speed in sound reproduction is what will be necessary for monitoring in the digital era.”

As one of Japan’s most eminently experienced engineers, Mr Miura has developed an exceedingly keen sense of what a mixing environment must deliver. “A common problem with monitoring is that the room acoustics in the control room are not good and it is impossible to perform accurate monitoring,” he explains. “In other words, you are forced to do a guess work.”

Placed in a meticulously attenuated acoustic space like the control room of LAB Recorders’ Studio A, however, an excellent monitor can develop its full potential. Among the characteristics he requires of his speakers, Mr Miura lists “high resolution, good localization of each sounds, good phase alignment, wide frequency range and ample power”.

Yet the ability of a speaker to ameliorate listening fatigue is also crucial, he told us. “For me, it is impossible to work for a long period of time if you do not like the basic sound character of the monitor. I really like the wide frequency range that the ADAM monitors can provide, the speed of the sound you can feel, and the high-resolution sound of the S-ART tweeters. These characteristics have not changed throughout all the models that I have been using.”

“I really like the wide frequency range that the ADAM monitors can provide, the speed of the sound you can feel, and the high-resolution sound of the S-ART tweeters.”

Currently using a pair of ADAM Audio S2Vs, Mr Miura is honest about the extent to which his ADAM Audio speakers inform his mixing decisions. “The sound of the ADAM monitors has become one of my most important criteria for judging sounds. Thanks to its ability to reproduce high resolution sound among a very wide frequency range, I can comfortably conduct live recording of drumming sessions at studios where they do not have large monitors installed.”

Find out more about Mixers Lab and LAB Recorders studio.