Foo Fighters Use K371 At 606
Engineers at Foo Fighters-owned studio, Studio 606, select the AKG K371 for its isolation capabilities, full frequency response and overall comfort
17 March 2022
The recording space and headquarters to the Grammy Award-winning band Foo Fighters, Studio 606, is a treasure trove for audiophiles and rock music fans alike. Specialising in analog and direct-to-tape recording methods, the studio also houses the custom Neve 8028 recording console from Sound City, the studio where countless artists recorded some of their most notable work. To provide artists with isolated and well-balanced headphones while recording and mixing, engineers at Studio 606 selected the comfortable and reliable AKG K371 as their over-ear headphone of choice.
As the majority of bands who record at Studio 606 prefer to track while playing live in the same room, the studio required high-quality closed-back headphones capable of providing sufficient noise isolation and preventing audio bleed. Additionally, to ensure accurate sound for recording and mixing, the studio’s engineers needed headphones with a balanced and uncoloured frequency response. To meet these requirements, the studio purchased eight pairs of AKG K371 headphones.
“Usually the musicians we record are sitting in the room with the drummer, so it’s loud,” said Studio 606’s engineer Oliver Roman. “It’s a huge live room and there’s a lot of reflections, so you’re sitting in there just trying to combat the sounds of cymbals and stuff. We had these headphones that were great for a long time, but they were starting to fall apart and weren’t the best at isolating. If somebody was blasting a click track or the music in their headphones, you could hear it throughout the whole room, which caused a lot of sound bleed. We were looking to upgrade, and the AKG K371 isolates really well while still letting you feel the liveliness of the room.”
Featuring 50mm transducers with oxygen-free copper voicecoils housed in a lightweight shell, the K371 offers properly isolated audio and comfort so that musicians recording together in the live room can clearly hear their individual mixes while still hearing the rest of the room. A drummer using a click track, for instance, will need their headphone mix to be loud enough to rise above their drum playing but not cause the click to bleed into the drum microphones through the headphones. After trying out numerous brands, the studio found that the K371 offered the best output and isolation without distracting or hindering the artists while recording. “You have drummers under ten or fifteen microphones, and since they want to blast the click as much as possible, you’ll hear the click every time they stop playing,” explained Roman.
Additionally, with an even frequency response from 5 to 40,000 Hz, the K371 ensures that mixes translate accurately and consistently to studio monitors and other speakers. From careful listening in the studio to casual use at home, the K371 delivers clear and balanced audio in any setting.
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