Recording Engineer Jimmy Douglass Pushes The Limit With KRK

Five-time GRAMMY® Award-winning Recording Engineer and Producer Jimmy Douglass has a prolific career spanning over four decades.

Throughout his time in the music industry, Douglass has worked with renowned artists like Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, and Foreigner, to contemporary performers such as Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, Pharrell Williams, and many more.

As someone who lives and breathes music, Douglass has always felt the most creative when he taps into the feeling of the music. He says his goal is to create music that makes everybody in the room feel good. "Music is all about the vibe," he shared. "Whether it’s rock, R&B, or soul, when you get that certain feeling, that is when it's right."

Douglass' Miami studio consists of two stereo rooms and one Dolby® Atmos room, which requires gear that can withstand various musical applications. A longtime KRK user, his studio currently consists of a collection of V-Series V8 Powered Studio Monitors, Classic 8 Powered Studio Monitors, and S10 Powered Studio Subwoofers.

"KRK speakers can handle the levels required for hip-hop. I can blow them up, and they can really push that power out," he shared. "They have tone even without a subwoofer and are nice and crisp sounding. I use them a lot in both my Dolby and stereo rooms."

After nearly two decades of using KRK in his workspaces, Douglass knew it was the only brand he would trust when it came time to build his Dolby Atmos studio. "I had about 20 KRK monitors in my inventory, so I decided to use those to build my Dolby system, and I love how you really get to hear the definition and the distance in the surround production," he said. "Another advantage of KRK is that I can move them around with ease. I have them on stands around the room, which makes it a portable configuration. I can break it down at any time, and I don’t have to commit. To me, that is the beauty of that system."

Douglass also appreciates the aesthetic appeal of the KRK brand. "One of my favourite elements of KRK is the easily identifiable colour of those woofers; the yellow really stands out," he added. "My KRKs also take punishment well. Durability is a major consideration when using a speaker, especially doing a lot of hip-hop with all the extra energy that is being pushed out," he added.

Douglass has had a long-standing relationship with KRK since the early 2000s and has used his KRKs on a few recent projects, and he does not plan to stop anytime soon. "I was lucky enough to get to redo Justin Timberlake's catalogue in Atmos," he said. "My KRKs were very instrumental to that project. The songs sound amazing when you get to hear them on the speakers in the immersive environment. I tried to listen back on my phone in binaural, but I was not getting the spatial dimension that I was experiencing from listening through speakers. So, those were very important throughout the whole process. Whatever projects I have coming down the line, I am working on them with my KRKs."

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