Award-winning classical violinist Rusanda Panfili learned some new skills during the pandemic, adding audio engineering and music mixing to a list of talents that already included composing, arranging and producing.
Panfili, born in Moldova, raised in Romania and now living in Austria, has been a soloist on the Hans Zimmer Live touring production. As well as on the orchestral recreations of the Oscar-winning composer’s music, The World of Hans Zimmer, for nine years.
Her violin playing can be heard on Zimmer’s film scores for Boss Baby 2, Army of Thieves and Wonder Woman 1984. She also releases projects under her own name, as a violinist and as a synthesizer player, and leads her own world music ensemble, which also works with Zimmer.
She is a featured soloist on renowned tenor Andrea Bocelli’s 2024 European and U.S. arena tours. But after being forced off the road by the coronavirus in 2020, Panfili began working on remote recording sessions via her laptop, eventually leading to assembling a well-equipped home studio that hinges on a pair of Amphion One18 reference monitors.
The Importance of Good Speakers
Early in the pandemic, unable to work with a large orchestra because of the coronavirus threat, Zimmer contacted Panfili and asked her to record her band and send him tracks for a film score that he was working on.
“I thought, how am I going to do that? But of course, I said, ‘Sure, no problem!’” she says. “I needed a few days to get my hands on a few microphones and an interface, and I recorded everything into GarageBand on my MacBook. Hans said, ‘I don't care how you record it, just be creative.’ When he heard it, he said, ‘This is nicely mixed,” and everybody told me, ‘You've got a good ear,’ so that encouraged me to continue.”
It wasn’t until she met Johannes Winkler, a sound engineer, composer, producer and her future husband, that Panfili realized just how good her mixes could sound. “I went to his studio and listened to music on his Amphions. He has the Two18s with the FlexBase25 bass extension system. I realized how important listening on good speakers is. There was a quality and transparency,” she says.
On her speakers, or in headphones, she says, “It never really felt like I was listening to something real; it felt produced or colored. But when I listened on the Amphions it sounded so real, so transparent, so accurate. I didn’t have a studio yet, but from that moment I knew that one day I would have my own Amphions.”
To learn more about Amphion Loudspeakers, please visit https://amphion.fi/.
