Stellar producer Tony Platt on acoustics, attitude and Aston mics

Producer, mixer, recording engineer and leading audio industry figure Tony Platt has worked with glittering array of iconic artists, across a range of genres. His illustrious career has seen him working with the Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, Stranglers and a who’s who of heavy rock legends including Led Zepplin, AC/DC, Motorhead and many more. More recently he has added French Ska/Punk band Two Tone Club and Chilean virtuoso guitarist Nano Stern to his eclectic - and extensive - credits list.

Tony is an active member of the professional audio community as Managing Director of the Music Producers Guild Awards, as a member of the APRS/MPG education initiative J.A.M.E.S. (Joint Audio Media Education Support) and as a BA Hons Music Degree teacher and lecturer.

On top of this already staggering list of commitments Tony also finds time to be a friend and advisor to Aston Microphones and, as a member of the Aston 33 panel of top producers, engineers and artists, uses his experience and talent to assist in the development of new Aston products.

The panel (now with more than 90 members but named affectionately after the founding 33) take part in blind listening tests between a number of prototypes of a new mic alongside a couple of industry standard models from other manufacturers. Only when a prototype is tuned and voiced such that it consistently comes top in the voting, even up against far more expensive opposition, will the project move on towards the manufacturing stage.

Tony, who now uses Aston Origins and Spirits in his work, continues this theme with his students, with mic comparisons featuring as part of his teaching. On one such occasion, he told us, he had an Origin lined-up next to a Neumann U87:

 “We were recording an acoustic guitar and when I pushed up the faders I thought that the students had patched the microphones the wrong way around because one of the mics sounded so much warmer and smoother I assumed it must be the U87 – it wasn’t!”

In terms of production and recording Tony remains as busy as ever and recent work includes an album for the Peter Edwards Trio (mixed in Tony’s own studio), an album with Soweto Kinch and The ‘Pessoa Project’ with Tammy Weis & Antonio Forcione and featuring the poems of iconic Portugese writer Fernando Pessoa. He also recently used his Astons on a direct-to-disc session with USA jazz/funk band Butcher Brown.

“I want to choose a piece of kit because it will bring something tangible to the process. Aston microphones do this – I already know which instruments they are going to perform well with and so I am able to use them to craft the sounds I want.” He told us.

We are fortunate and proud to have Tony Platt as a part of the Aston family!

Read more about Tony’s career, gear and recent projects in our full interview here:
https://www.astonmics.com/EN/artist-details/Tony-Platt