NAMM 2020: Barefoot Sound release Footprint02 studio monitors for smaller environments

There were plenty of booths to visit at NAMM 2020, however we couldn’t resist a chance to pay a visit to Barefoot Sound. We were first drawn in using our ears, which was a super clever decision made by the booth designers. In a hall floor where one is overwhelmed with visual attention-grabbers, in a convention full of musicians, the hook and line was thrown out by its booming low end and audio clarity. It stopped us dead in our tracks, and eventually one of Barefoot Sound’s representatives approached and asked if we’d heard of the new Footprint 02 studio monitors. These were revealed quite stealthily at the conference start, but we were definitely intrigued.

Features

The Barefoot Sound Footprint 02 maintains the same smaller dimensions as its predecessor, the Footprint 01. It stands at just 12.12 x 8.7 x 13.0 inches, and is designed to bring Barefoot into the arms of engineers with smaller, home studio, or control room setups. Once hooked up, the Footprint 02 brings out a sound you will instantly get hooked onto.

One of the coolest new features of the new Barefoot Sound monitors, is its built in Multi-Emphasis Monitor Emulation (MEME) technology, and switcher. This comes in the form of a little box and knob to switch between its four settings: ‘High-Fidelity,’ ‘Flat,’ ‘Old School,’ and ‘Cube.’ High Fidelity will emulate more of a consumer-based, casual listening Hi-Fi speaker system. Flat, explaining itself, delivers a standard, truly flat frequency response for mixing. Old School will emulate an older pair of studio reference monitors, specifically the Yamaha NS-10. And finally, Cube will emulate a pair of smaller cube reference monitors that can be found in plenty of recording setups. As you can tell, even though the built-in MEME technology has a funny name, you definitely won’t laugh at it. This will be a very useful tool for mixing engineers down the road, and may just set a precedent for future studio monitor companies to do the same.

With affordability in mind, the Barefoot Sound Footprint 02 pricing point is quite reasonable, considering the technology in play. You can buy a pair of Footprint 02 monitors at just $2,750. Enough for a home setup engineer to save up for a few months, or just shell out some credit card room for a pair of studio monitors that won’t leave your side, no matter how large your studio environment grows over the years. You can get the monitors for yourself from the Barefoot website.