The Ears have it: Future Sonics celebrates anniversary
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jan 19, 2005 at 12:30am
This year Future Sonics is celebrating their 20th anniversary as the original developers of the in-the-ear type personal monitoring concept and the Ear Monitors brand created by company founder and president, Marty Garcia. With the enormous migration of iPod, PowerBook, iBook and all varieties of digital audio/video to personal monitoring, a lot of people may not realize that these are not just earphones.
After having developed a production company in 1979 that provided audio systems for regional, national and international tours, Garcia’s innovations started early on with his development of some very specialized pro-audio systems and hardware designed for achieving better sound quality in all areas of a given venue. He told Macsimum News that he “brought together a lot of key people” in 1985 to focus on how the same priority towards achieving P.A. systems with the best quality of sound and performance would be the key focus in his personal monitoring products. And when Garcia started Future Sonics in 1991, it was the only game of its type in town. He had, in effect, created miniature loudspeakers that offered a full, rich sound.
“It goes back to responding to a real need during the time when I was working with Todd Rundgren,” Garcia says. “It was in 1982 and I was trying to address the issues of vocal fatigue while touring in a wide range of venue sizes. Todd had said that if I could just put the sound ‘in’ his head … and, well, I was on a roll from there.”
They merged with another pro-audio company in ‘85 to build up business. Based on the success of the initial earpieces for the entire band, they now needed to keep the set changes between bands down to a very few minutes and a clear stage was a necessity. Now there were more reasons to develop his concept and more experience to draw from. Garcia developed the original custom earpieces by using a gel-based denture adhesive and various of earbud-type drivers—literally going through thousands at a time for the right quality—until realizing that he had stumbled onto something that could be very effective when properly used. It wasn’t until later that other benefits (Clear sight lines, reduced shipping weights, reduced vocal and hearing fatigue, etc.) of these products would be realized.
“As more and more artists and engineers got behind what we were doing, I developed my own proprietary transducers and custom casings with such strong success that I sold my production company at that time and started Future Sonics in order to focus on the Ear Monitors brand exclusively,” Garcia says. “I’ve found that my own proprietary drivers are still unique to all other brands in this category and offer something that no one else has – and the sound speaks for itself.”
For 20 years now he’s worked to find audio solutions that will prevent singers from stressing out their vocal cords so much. Theater and arena venues don’t lend themselves particularly well to acoustics, so artists tend to sing too loudly in order to compensate. This was also true in broadcasting, smaller venues and houses of worship, but as more and more performers and engineers came on board, the more success stories came back to Garcia.
Future Sonics’s client list includes Destiny’s Child, Lenny Kravitz, Jimmy Buffet, Jennifer Lopez, Brooks and Dunn, U2, Shania Twain, Trace Adkins, Clay Aiken, Reba McIntyre, Franz Ferdinand, R.E.M., , Stevie Wonder, Green Day, Madonna, Luciano Pavarotti, The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, Fox News and more.
“In twenty years, we have learned a lot and we keep working in the field in everything from live music to stage and theater to broadcasting,” says Garcia. “With the new audience that has discovered our products in the iPod and portable audio/video markets, we’re very pleased to embrace that market as well. It is an exciting time for us.”
With so much to choose from in terms of quality earphones for personal audio products like the iPod, there are differences. Garcia continues, “when you compare any stock earphone to a pro one—of any brand—it will generally sound better, but it isn’t until people listen for themselves to our products side-by-side to others that they can really understand why our products’ signature sound is so outstanding. We really hearing from so many people who want to know where we’ve been and, in truth, we were here from the beginning.”
Future Sonics not only develops their own products, but also manufactures products for Sennheiser and other companies as well. What’s more, Future Sonics is continuing to work with hearing education and conservation organizations like H.E.A.R. to educate the public on issues of responsible and safe listening levels.
With personal monitoring moving forward as the new standard in sound reinforcement, it is still a niche category with nuances and a great deal of finesse involved to really apply it properly in such a wide range of applications, Garcia says. He spends a great deal of time out with clients, engineers, broadcasters, schools and hearing organizations working with each client—and even other brands—in order to help demystify this concept as it continues to evolve in the industry.
The Future Sonics products have gotten a thumbs-up from a Mac-savvy list of reviewers, product users and clients that includes such Mac-notables as Steve (“Woz”) Wozniak, Bob “Dr. Mac” Levitus, Deb Shadovitz, Jason O’Grady of O’Grady’s PowerPage, Dave Marra, Your Mac Life’s Shawn King and Jay Curtis, and Macsimum News’ own Frank Petrie, as well as some major heavyweight performers in the world of music.
Audio is a very personal and subjective thing. With a lot of brands and models to choose from, it is very important to listen for yourself in a side-by-side comparison so that you find the one(s) that you prefer overall. If you decide to upgrade your earbuds, earphones or replace your current model, take some time to educate yourself and understand the differences. Most of all, listen.
A few tips on testing:
° Set your EQ/Tone settings to “flat” (i.e., no added or reduced bass/treble).
° Pick a good quality song/selection that you are familiar with.
° Turn the volume down and then play the track, bringing up the volume to a comfortable level (with each model)
° Listen for each instrument and/or voice for natural tone and sound quality
If you’d like more information on Future Sonics products, visit them online.
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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