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Introducing the new NTR active ribbon microphone from RĂ˜DE The finest ribbon microphone ever made. Hear it for yourself at rode.com/ntr
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Editor Mark Davie mark@audiotechnology.com.au Publisher Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Editorial Director Christopher Holder chris@audiotechnology.com.au Publication Director Stewart Woodhill stewart@alchemedia.com.au Art Direction & Design Dominic Carey dominic@alchemedia.com.au Additional Design Daniel Howard daniel@alchemedia.com.au Advertising Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Accounts Jaedd Asthana jaedd@alchemedia.com.au Subscriptions Miriam Mulcahy mim@alchemedia.com.au
E: info@alchemedia.com.au W: www.audiotechnology.com.au
Regular Contributors Martin Walker Michael Stavrou Paul Tingen Graeme Hague Guy Harrison Greg Walker James Roche Greg Simmons Tom Flint Robin Gist Blair Joscelyne Mark Woods Andrew Bencina Jason Fernandez Brent Heber Gareth Stuckey
AudioTechnology magazine (ISSN 1440-2432) is published by Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd (ABN 34 074 431 628). Contact (Advertising, Subscriptions) T: +61 2 9986 1188 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086, Australia. Contact (Editorial) T: +61 3 5331 4949 PO Box 295, Ballarat VIC 3353, Australia.
All material in this magazine is copyright Š 2015 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process with out written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974. The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 27/7/2015.
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For Product Information & Technical Inquires Call 0401 649 201 Monday to Friday 1 – 6pm
Sales 03 9482 1744 www.hitekav.com.au
UNIQUE
With over 20 years of experience, we pride ourselves on expertise, product knowledge and support. Our friendly team takes an interest in you, so as we can help provide the perfect tailored solution for your requirements and budget.
We conduct a number of in-house education programmes for the novice through to the professional. We also have a unique relationship with the very fine Australian audio manufactures.
BOUTIQUE Here at Hitek Audio Video we understand that Boutique has many definitions-The one we adhere to is: Boutique: Products designed by fastidious Designers with a no-compromise philosophy achieving excellence at the highest degree possible. There is a certain way this culture interacts with the obsessed professional. A lot of time is spent on getting these products
to this professional user, alongside patience the relationship between the re-seller, Designer, Distributor and Manufacturer has to be excellent. This is the only way the fastidious boutique designer can achieve their objective. Hitek Audio Video is a part of this culture... ensuring you have access to audio tools that will last longer then a life time.
~Sebatron~ made in Australia
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Fostex has been manufacturing speakers for a long time. They also provide a variety of speaker parts for many speaker manufacturers. With monitoring Speakers such as the PX-6’s and variety of High End monitoring Head Phones -Hitek and Fostex have your transducer imaging needs covered. Flat and accurate performance with a price tag for the project studio arena. Come into HiTek and listen to the difference flat and accurate makes to your mix. Let us show you how with the FOSTEX PX series today.
Audio Solutions ART is a company comprised of musicians, engineers and recording enthusiasts. Since its inception in 1984, they have been striving to redefine the performance versus price barrier with a series of innovative new audio products designed with the needs of the musician in mind. With a full line of vacuum tube preamplifiers and compressors that deliver warmth, tone and character; and a full complement of cool little useful tools designed for stage and studio, ART offers affordable audio solutions that deliver quality, tone, versatility and reliability. Hitek is proud to represent the ART brand of audio solutions and we are confident there is a quality solution, at a price point to suit your project, and your budget.
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ios iPad Compliant
Save up to $700 on Pro Tools 12 Buy a Fast Track Solo or Duo plus the crossgrade (from Pro Tools Express) and get the latest full version of Pro Tools at a heavily reduced price. Pro Tools redefined the music, film, and TV industry, providing everything you need to compose, record, edit, and mix music and audio. All Pro Tools purchases, upgrades, and subscriptions now come with an Avid upgrade and annual support plan that ensures you always have the latest features at your fingertips. This means that you’ll get all future software updates and upgrades (as long as your plan is active), including the upcoming Avid Cloud Collaboration. Hitek Audio Video runs a 2 hour tutorial on Protools Basics with every purchase of Protools bought from Hitek Audio Video during this limited Protools special.
Artist Series Take deep hands-on control of your favorite EUCON-enabled audio and video software to speed up editing and mixing tasks.
COVER STORY
13 Years in the Making: D’Angelo Stays True to Analogue on Black Messiah
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ISSUE 23 CONTENTS
Big Things, Small Package: FOH Engineers Bring Avid S3L-X Hand Luggage to Laneway
A Prettier Kind of S**tty with 42 The Bamboos & Tim Rogers
Ribbon Roundup: including the Full-Package Rode NTR
ATC SCM20 ASL MK2 Pro Monitor Speakers
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22
Kiddies Playground: Ásgeir Unleashed 30 in Iceland’s Coolest Studio
56
Traktor Kontrol S8 DJ System
Avid S3L-X Live System & Studio Controller
62
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Musos Corner
Try before you buy in our world class studio showroom
Microphones; everyone has an opinion. Not everyone has a studio. We do. A world class studio where we actually use the brands we sell to record. Musos Corners’ 90Degree Studio, the only place you can listen to, compare and experience the microphones you’ve only read about. Let us advise you on your choices and options with the biggest range of microphones and the best prices from people who know...because we use them! We used over $50,000 of microphones to record Jack Dawson including 1x Neumann M149, 2x AKG C12VR, 2 x Neumann U47 Fet, Audio Technica AT5040, Audio Technica AT4060, Electrovoice RE20 and an AKG C451B. Hear them at www.90deg.com.au. Buy them at www.musoscorner.com.au
1300 687 672 | 02 4929 2829 Musos Corner & 90 Degree Studio 1 National Park St Newcastle West NSW 2302 02 4929 2829
www.90deg.com.au | www.musoscorner.com.au AT 6
REVIEW
AKG K812 HEADPHONES Expensive headphones… ’cos you’re worth it. Review: Christopher Holder
Justifications for buying a pair of $2600 headphones: You’re a hedge fund manager. It’s cheaper than buying a pair of studio reference monitors and acoustic treatment for your room. A ‘significant’ birthday is coming up. “Because you’re worth it.” — L’Oreal A sound engineer’s relationship with headphones is complex. Headphones can be a commodity item tossed about the live room or they can be another reference source for checking a mix or recording. And when it comes to monitoring we don’t always expect reference quality reproduction from our headphones. Often it’s enough to double check a delay setting we’re concerned about, making sure a compression setting isn’t pumping or how the vocals are sitting… most of us rarely turn to a pair of cans as the last word in monitoring a mix. Sometimes that’s because ‘reference-quality’ headphones can be too ‘clinical’ — they’re all detail and sensitivity but not particularly warm or enveloping. It’s clearly tough to nail the perfect combination of fidelity and listenability, otherwise every headphone manufacturer would be doing it. AKG has a new flagship pair of headphones and they’re exquisite. I knew I was in for something special when the K812s arrived in a bomb-proof aluminium road case (like you might transport a Fabergé egg… minus the armed guards). Inside was the presentation box that revealed the headphones snuggled about a bentwood timber stand. They were on my head in a thrice. Lightweight
Price: $2599 Hills SVL: (02) 9578 0137 or www.akgpro.com.au
carbon fibre construction; leather ear pads; circumaural… They really are the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever worn. There’s a spaciousness about the fit, nothing is touching your ears they’re simply being ‘housed’ in the K812s, like a wellappointed executive condominium. They’re an open back design. And by that I mean, really open back. Put them on and there’s very little protection afforded by the ear cups from the outside world. The flipside is that everyone is hearing what you’re hearing when monitoring. Needless to say, this precludes you from using the K812s on any studio recording duties. The K812 stereo sound stage is detailed and expansive — direct-to-stereo recordings stretch out for days. Tonally, the K812s make my beautifully detailed Shure SRH1440s sound shrill, and my Sennheiser HD500s sound dull and comparatively lifeless. The bass reproduction is punchy and extended — much like a great pair of closed backs. There’s always a danger in monitoring with headphones for extended periods. You can get lulled into a false sense of space and detail, and be crestfallen with how mono and lifeless your mix translates in the real world. This is doubly true of the 812s. Such is the detail and
sophistication of the soundstage that you’re best to use them sparingly — only when you need to cross reference your mix. That said, you’ll want to keep putting these headphones on. Whether you’re working or listening recreationally, they’re such a treat. Are they revealing? Yes, they are, but not at the expense of listenability. For the ultimate reward, reserve the 812s for monitoring your final mix. Place them on a plinth, mounted on their curvaceous timber laminate stand, next to your Jason recliner. Have your slippers, fez and pipe ready, because I can’t think of a more decadent personal listening experience. Oh, almost forgot. One other justification for buying a pair of $2600 headphones: You’re a professional sound engineer who demands the best. Hard to argue with that.
KEY SPECS Frequency Bandwidth: 5 – 54,000Hz Sensitivity: 110dB SPL/V Max. Input Power: 300mW Rated Impedance: 36Ω Transducer: 53mm AT 7
PREVIEW
ZOOM F8 FIELD RECORDER
Zoom is taking on the likes of Sound Devices and Nagra with its grown-up field recorder, the F8. With 8-input/10-track recording, low-noise preamps (-127dBu EIN), and support for 24-bit/192k audio (with onboard limiters), the F8 is built to capture pristine audio anywhere. The F8’s timecode clock uses a precision oscillator that generates timecode at 0.2ppm accuracy for rock-solid sync. Weighing in at under a kilo, the F8 is easy to lug but durable thanks to an aluminium chassis. Meanwhile, the display is a revelation – a bright 2.4-inch full-colour backlit LCD. The F8 records in BWF-compatible WAV format at 16- or 24-bit resolution, and at any standard sample rate up to 192k. When recording files in MP3 format, you can choose bit rates of 128, 192, or 320kbps. There’s plenty of redundancy to ensure you get your recording, including two card slots and three power sources. Files are saved periodically during recording and there’s a dual-channel recording mode, which allows you to create safety tracks on Inputs 1-4, each with independent level, limiting, delay, phase inversion, and high-pass filtering. Also for peace of mind there’s a pre-record function which allows you to capture up to six seconds of audio before you hit the Record button. There’s plenty of monitoring flexibility along with a beefy 100mW headphone amp. Zoom’s launching the F8 as the first field recorder to come with wireless Bluetooth control. The F8 Control App for iOS provides extensive wireless remote control. The F8’s onboard mixer enables signal routing from all inputs to all outputs, either pre- or post-fader, with user-adjustable level, pan, and input/output delay. Price: Expect to pay ~$1600 AT 8
Dynamic Music: (02) 9939 1299 or www.dynamicmusic.com.au
ZOOM F8 SPEC ROUNDUP Recorder Specs • 8-input/10-track recorder @ 24-bit/192k resolution • 8 gain control knobs and six-digit LED level meter for each channel • 2.4-inch full colour LCD with ‘monochrome mode’ for outdoor recording • USB ready 8-in/4-out audio interface Mic Preamps • Maximum 75dB gain • Less than -127dBu EIN • +4dBu line input supported Output Configuration • Mini XLR (TA-3) balanced main outs • Stereo minijack sub out (for DSLR camera)
• 1/4-inch Headphones Out (100mW for monitoring in noisy environments) • Free routing from input to main and sub outputs Battery & Back-up Options • 3 x Battery/Power Options (‘AA’, AC Adaptor and Hirose for ext. packs) • Dual SDXC card slot (recording and backup) Other Functions • Integrated mixer • BWF and iXML metadata • On-board slate mic • 47.952k, 48.04k sampling rate for HD video • Low-cut, limiter, phase invert and MS decoder • Input and output delay
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LIVE NEWS
BOSE F1 PATTERN CONTROL By now it’s likely you’ve seen/heard the L1 stick PA in action. Bose has gone further with the launch of the F1 or the ‘F1 Model 812 Flexible Array Loudspeaker and F1 Subwoofer’ to be precise. Designed to serve an even broader set of applications than L1 systems, F1 Model 812 is the first powered portable loudspeaker that lets users optimise sound by creating up to four different vertical coverage patterns. The F1 system provides versatility for a wide range of applications and venues, easy setup, aesthetically pleasing design, and rugged durability. With the F1 system, sound can be optimised for playing at floor level, on stage or facing raked seats or bleachers. To control the vertical coverage pattern, users simply push or pull the array into position to create ‘Straight’ (tightest vertical control, for floorlevel audience coverage), ‘J’ (adjust vertical splay down, when PA is placed on stage), ‘C’ (adjust vertical splay up
and down, to cover extreme raked seating), or ‘Reverse J’ (adjust vertical splay up, eg. for bleacher seating coverage) dispersion patterns. Once set, the system automatically adjusts the EQ to maintain optimum tonal balance for each coverage pattern. Engineered with an array of eight proprietary 2.25-inch drivers, 100° horizontal waveguides, a high-powered 12inch woofer and a lower crossover point, the F1 Model 812 loudspeaker delivers high SPL performance while maintaining vocal and midrange clarity. For extended bass response you can opt for the F1 Subwoofer. The loudspeaker and subwoofer have a combined 2000W of power (1000W each), able to fill small- and mid-sized venues with immersive sound. Bose: 1800 659 433 or pro.bose.com
IT’S dLIVE! Allen & Heath’s large format digital consoles haven’t set the world on fire — not like its small format Qu Series anyway — but it hasn’t stopped them from re-entering the fray with what looks like a formidable beast, the dLive digital mixing system. Perhaps it’s the Digico corporate link but A&H has opted for a FPGA-based core, which makes for some powerful and flexible architecture, processing, expansion options etc. The dLive system architecture separates MixRack and surface with the processing brain housed in the MixRack. Three MixRacks are available — DM32 (32 input), DM48 and DM64 — along with three accompanying control surfaces — S3000, S5000 and S7000.
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Each rack contains a XCVI core providing capacity for 128 inputs with full processing and 16 dedicated stereo FX returns, offering 160 inputs to the mix. On the other side are 64 fully configurable mix buses with full processing on all channels. dLive incorporates the ‘DEEP’ processing portfolio of embedded plugins, including graphic EQs, compressors, multiband compressors and dynamic EQs, alongside its 16-slot FX racks, featuring Allen & Heath’s range of FX emulations. Remote I/O expansion is provided at both the MixRack and surface through dual-redundant Cat5 DX ports. This enables connection of up to three modular DX32 expansion units. Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or info@tag.com.au
MACKIE FREEPLAY FREEDOM Don’t let appearances fool you, this is no cheesy, fully-sick boom box. Say hello to the Mackie FreePlay, a portable, battery-powerable PA that features Bluetooth music streaming, a four-channel digital mixer and a control app for iPhone and iPod touch. The obvious application is as a busker-style personal PA — play along to your backing tracks (via Bluetooth). But like a few things Mackie has done in recent times, it’ll crop up in some unlikely places as people find new applications — for example, there’s no doubt FreePlay will be in just about every school within a year or so. FreePlay features a high-output eight-inch woofer, you can connect microphones, line or instrument level sources, while the mixer has some basic EQ controls.
One of FreePlay’s most innovative features is complete wireless control using the FreePlay Connect app for iPhone and iPod touch. The app allows for anything from simple level adjustments to control over performance features like a built-in feedback eliminator, applicationspecific speaker voicing modes and 16 vocal/ instrument effects. For corporate audio applications like presentations or public address, the app provides discrete level control from anywhere. If you buy the optional rechargeable battery pack you can expect up to 10 hours of operation. CMI: (03) 9315 2244 or cmi.com.au
TOUCHMIX DOWNSIZES QSC has released a smaller, eight-channel version of the TouchMix digital mixer. TouchMix combines a good chunk of DSP with a ‘touchscreen and big knob’ interface, replacing the majority of controls. It’s an intuitive setup, and it’s easy to see why the TouchMix-16 has found plenty of roles within a wide range of music applications from live bands to performance venues, schools and houses of worship. Although featuring the same touchscreen size, TouchMix-8 is slightly smaller than TouchMix-16. It offers eight quality microphone preamps (four with XLR/TRS combos) plus two stereo inputs along with L/R outs and four mono aux outs. DSP is the same on both units with on-board setup wizard,
preset libraries and help menus to assist users with channel configuration, proper gain adjustment, effects selection and more. All input channels include gates, compressors, four-band parametric EQ and channel selectable phantom power. Four multi-effects processors offer reverbs, delay, chorus and pitch change plus a pitch corrector. In addition to touchscreen control, TouchMix can also be fully controlled by iPad and a USB Wi-Fi adapter is included for this. Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or info@tag.com.au
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SOFTWARE NEWS
APOGEE MAKES WAVES Once upon a time, the only company Apogee was drafting any alliances with was Apple. Perhaps because it saw itself in the mirror; makers of sexy, top-shelf hardware. Brushed aluminium exteriors with a minimum of external fuss, and identical power buttons — a match designed in California. But then the Mac Pro showed its dark side, and Apogee followed suit with a new blacked out look that came with fresh alliances. First Avid, now Waves. It means you now have two options to think about when buying an Apogee interface. You can either opt for a Pro Tools-branded Apogee Duet or Quartet and receive a full copy of Pro Tools software as well as one
Tier Two and one Tier Three plug-in gratis. Or if you buy a straight-up Apogee interface from an authorised dealer, you’ll receive a bundle of Waves plugins with it. You get the Waves Silver bundle (16 plug-ins, $600 value) when you purchase an Apogee Duet, or the Waves Gold bundle (35 plug-ins, $800 value) if you go for a Quartet or Ensemble. Either way, that’s a number of compelling reasons for choosing Apogee, besides the impeccable conversion. Sound Distribution: (02) 8007 3327 or www.sounddistribution.com.au
WAVES TRACKS LIVE Waves plug-ins are fast becoming a live sound/broadcast staple, thanks to hookups with Digico, Avid and Lawo. Which makes sense of the release of Tracks Live, a multitrack recording software solution created with and for live sound engineers and designed to capture live performances of any kind, from the smallest gig to the largest production. Tracks Live enables easy switching between stereo out and multi out modes, allowing you to toggle back and forth between recording and virtual soundcheck with the click of a button. The automatic multichannel rerouting engine also adapts to any changes you make on
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the fly, making it easy to set up big shows with hundreds of tracks. Highlights include: ASIO/Core Audio-compatible and works with virtually any audio interface; PC- and Maccompatible; Record and play back hundreds of tracks; Supported sample rate of up to 192k; File formats compatible with all popular DAWs; Automatic track routing configuration; Meter bridge view for easy monitoring; System lock (to protect against accidental key pressing). Sound + Music:: (03) 9555 8081 or www.sound-music.com
WALDORF ‘NEW’ NAVE & ATTACK Waldorf has been busy moving its pieces around. The Nave wavetable soft synth is now available as an AAX/ AU/VST plug-in for Mac and PC, while the Attack virtual drum plug-in has now been migrated to iOS (recent iPads at least). Nave comes pre-packed with sounds ranging from spatial pads to vivid wavetable scans and cutting leads to solid basses, as well as an abundance of imaginative sound worlds — many of
them professionally produced by some of the top sound designers around. Meanwhile, Attack (first seen as a plug in 2001) offers 24 instruments — each entirely programmable through touch-optimised user interfaces. Its oscillators are fat, the filter flexible, and envelopes lightning fast. Each drum sound can be enriched with one of four independent insert multi-effects with Delay, EQ, Drive, Phaser, Flanger, Chorus, and Phrase Vocoder.
DIGIGRID CONTROL ROOM DigiGrid is expanding its line of advanced audio interfaces with DigiGrid IOC, a control room I/O for SoundGrid systems. Designed for the control room, the DigiGrid IOC audio interface offers a range of connectivity options, including two mic/line inputs with broadcast/studio-grade preamps; eight line inputs/ outputs; 16 AES and ADAT inputs/outputs; and two powerful headphone outputs. With DigiGrid IOC and a dedicated SoundGrid DSP server on their network, users
will be able to run hundreds of SoundGrid-compatible Waves and third-party plug-ins, all fully integrated within their DAW of choice. By plugging DigiGrid IOC into a SoundGrid network with a single ethernet cable, users will enter a new world of real-time tracking, mixing and monitoring, with extremely low latency of only 0.8 milliseconds. Group Technologies: (03) 9354 9133 or gtaust.com
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FEATURE
DYING FOR ANALOGUE
A 13-year-album recorded and mixed entirely without plug-ins, automation or instant recall. D’Angelo might be calling for a Black Messiah, but is engineer Russell Elevado the saviour of analogue, or a martyr paying the price for his craft? Story: Paul Tingen
Artist: D’Angelo Album: Black Messiah AT 16
The liner notes of D’Angelo’s third album, Black Messiah, contain the following striking pronouncement: “No digital ‘plug-ins’ of any kind were used in this recording. All of the recording, processing, effects and mixing was done in the analogue domain using tape and mostly vintage equipment.” It should probably be unsurprising the politically-motivated artist draws distinct lines between things as arcane as analogue vs digital technology. But the sentiment common in the nineties — when many were convinced of analogue’s superior sonics and resisting the digital revolution by battening down control rooms and locking up their Fairchilds — is eye-catching for its rarity these days. Digital got its act together with the arrival of 24-bit resolution, the maturity of DAWs, and when capable AD/DA converters became the norm, forcing the analogue versus digital war to retreat to smaller battlefields. Almost everyone agrees that today’s pro audio digital recording gear sounds as good as analogue chains. Add the obvious and overwhelming practical advantages of DAWs and its small wonder analogue-centric facilities are on the endangered species list. HOLD THE PHONE
On the phone from MSR Studios in New York, Russell Elevado, the main engineer and mixer on Black Messiah, explained why he and D’Angelo steadfastly stick with the dwindling camp of analogue diehards, and why Black Messiah wears its anti-plug-in stance as a badge of honour. Even the word ‘plug-ins’ is in quotation marks, as if describing something suspicious held aloft between the fingertips of one hand, while holding your nose with the other. But why would anyone not want to use any plug-ins on a mainstream album released in 2014? “Primarily it’s about the sound,” began Elevado. “Analogue just sounds better. I feel even more strongly about that now than I did a few years ago. Digital sounds okay, but I still don’t like the workflow — I hate mixing in-the-box. All the great albums I’ve done were mixed on an SSL, using SSL automation. In recent years I’ve had to get used to doing automation in Pro Tools when I’m working on a smaller console with no automation. But I will not compromise on using a desk. “I get the argument all the time that the new generation of plug-ins sound as good as the analogue gear they emulate. My reply is that over the years I’ve invested a lot of money in some of the best vintage mics and outboard, so why would I buy a plug-in package that might or might not be obsolete in a few years? MY GEAR WILL NEVER BE OBSOLETE, AND I DON’T NEED TO GET A PLUG-IN OF IT. I HAVE THE ORIGINALS!
“Some also argue that what you record ends up on CD or a lossy format anyway, so why not use plug-ins as it’ll make a recording project easier and cheaper. I call myself an ‘analogue gypsy’, because every time I go to another studio, I pack my gear into my car. It may take two or three trips and a few hours to set up, because I don’t trust anyone
to transport my gear… that’s how committed I am to the sound. When I get requests from people who want me to do something for them on a more limited budget, I tell them I’m happy to think through solutions with them, but I can’t give them what they want unless I can use my gear and mix on a desk. “I encourage people who want to work with me to make decisions based on a ‘final mix’ mentality. So once we leave the studio, there’s no need to go back and change anything. It’s about commitment. For me to revise a mix, it requires paying for studio time and manually recalling settings on outboard gear and the console. The only concession I make is that I’ll print instrumental and a cappella versions of the mix, to give people some options. I’ll only print stems on rare occasions; no one has the right to do recalls of my mixes. For me a mix is like a sculpture. Once a sculpture is done, it’s unheard of for someone else to take a chip off it. My approach is very old school. Luckily there are enough people willing to accept my way of working, and they’re usually very happy in the end.” OLD-SCHOOL PRINCIPLE
So far so principled, and to add serious weight to his pro-analogue arguments and old-school methods Elevado can point at a glittering career, recognised with a whopping nine Grammy Award nominations (for his work with The Roots, Al Green, Roy Hargrove, and others) and five Grammy Awards (twice with Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, Angelique Kidjo and D’Angelo). Elevado mixed D’Angelo’s debut album, Brown Sugar, in 1995 and was the sonic mastermind behind D’Angelo’s now-classic second album Voodoo (2000). Also recorded and mixed entirely in the analogue domain, it’s become the most influential and critically-acclaimed album of the neo-soul genre. Expectations were sky high for the follow-up, but no one, least of all Elevado, could have foreseen that the making of Black Messiah would take a whopping 13 years. Black Messiah’s gestation is matched only by Guns N’ Roses’ notoriously drawn-out comeback Chinese Democracy, which took about the same amount of time and $13m of Axl Rose & Co.’s cash. The final budget is likely to be significantly lower for Black Messiah, but multiple studio lockouts ranging from a couple of weeks to several months will have pushed the final tally to well over a million dollars. An article in the New York Times quoted D’Angelo’s tour manager, Alan Leeds, as saying: “25 accountants were still trying to figure it out, and none of them agree.” REVISIONIST HISTORY
While studio time isn’t cheap, for much of Black Messiah’s recording, the only person in the studio with D’Angelo was Elevado, both of whom remained impressively tight-lipped about what they were up to. Reports did circulate that work was impeded for a number of years by D’Angelo’s drug and alcohol issues, and The Roots drummer Questlove leaked a track in 2007 (as a result of which the two fell out), but that was more or less
all that was known, until the album’s unexpected release last December. Over our two long phone conversations, Elevado sounded relieved to finally spill the beans on the project. Even if it did mean reliving some of the album’s serious challenges; like the vexing question of how to remain objective when laying out a mix on the board for the umpteenth time, with different mix versions sometimes spread out over several years. “D’Angelo would come in and ask me for a mix version dated April 3rd,” recalled Elevado, “which we might have completed a couple of days or a couple of years before, and he’d notice if it didn’t sound exactly like he remembered it! He could focus on the most minuscule detail and would insist on perfecting it until all possibilities were exhausted. Sometimes I had to tell him that it was impossible to get any closer and he’d have to work with what we had. Because I worked on Voodoo, I knew it was crucially important to keep extensive and detailed notes. There were mixes on Black Messiah that we’d last put on the board 10 years before, and had to lay out again after all that time! I always had to be at the top of my game.
Everyone uses a laptop these days, but D’A ngelo insists on bringing a Studer A827 into his hotel room!
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“TO BE ABLE TO KEEP OUR OPTIONS OPEN I WOULD
OFTEN HAVE ALL 80 TRACKS OF A MIX SESSION UP ON THE DESK, INCLUDING SOME OF THE SMALL FADERS, BECAUSE THERE MIGHT BE A 24-TRACK VOCAL COMP BLEND THAT COULD CHANGE AT ANY TIME. I did not dare to print
a comp and use those faders for something else, sometimes for years! There were times when I’d print something and just hope I wouldn’t have to go back and find the individual tracks again, but Murphy’s Law dictated that D would come in and want to change something! On one song I had four takes of Questlove’s drums, and D had compiled a drum track from them. We kept that comp for probably a year, and then he suddenly said, ‘I want to find a new take of Ahmir for the first minute of the song.’ So I had to find a way to match those sounds, but we’d lost one of the recall sheets and in the end I could not pull it off. He had to live with it. That sort of request didn’t happen all the time, but it got crazy on a couple of songs. “You might have been working on a song for years, and not have a clue or hint about a lastminute change he’s been planning all along that transforms the song. Meanwhile, he’s had it in his head for years! That could be frustrating. AT 17
BEHIND THE CHARADE
As with all songs on Black Messiah, The Charade — a strutting Prince-like soul-funk track with a sitar motif — went through several changes. “I did the first mix of The Charade at Henson in LA,” recalled Elevado, “D had done some new vocals and wanted to hear the song in a more mixed form. So I had some of my gear shipped to LA, to be able to match the sounds, and then had it all shipped back to MSR in New York where I finished the mix.” The final Pro Tools session of The Charade is relatively modest, totalling 63 audio tracks. Elevado stressed that a lot of the automation process took place on the SSL board, which can’t be seen in the screen shots, barring a few Pro Tools volume rides “for convenience.” He also notes, “The comment boxes mark that tracks came from ‘tape,’ or were transferred from a slave, ‘xfer from slave,’ or where it says ‘req’, it means I processed that track and signed off on it.” “The neat thing about the Studer A827 is you don’t need to flip the tape to play it backwards, so you don’t have to deal with all the track numbers being flipped. So I recorded the reverb clap to the tape running in reverse, and then played it back in normal mode. It’s quite simple, and it sounds better than any plug-ins that simulate the process. Drummer Chris Dave added a number of claps to the session, which he triggered, using samples, then D wanted to change the sound and added yet more clap samples.” “Those are real claps recorded with D’s mic, and underneath that is the MPC clap, as well as other MPC tracks which were part of the original loop they started off with. I just used SSL board EQ on the MPC claps and the toms. They were really dirty sounding and I wanted to keep them like that, nasty and hissy! As a matter of fact, the very first impulse for this track was a shaker sound from Ahmir’s iPad, which we put on and aimed to replace later, but never did.” “This guitar track has my Fulltone Deja Vibe pedal for a Hendrix-like sound, and the other guitar track had the built-in phaser on it from my Music Man combo amp, which sounds killer. I often use that amp for re-amping sounds. “The vocal treatments varied quite a bit across the record. We were going for a consistent vocal sound on Voodoo, but this time round we did what was appropriate for each song. What you see in the session are comped vocal tracks, often distilled from dozens of tracks. The vocal effects on D’s voice in this song were a combination of slap, from the Roland Chorus Echo, and reverb from MSR’s EMT plate. I might also have used the Fulltone or a Maestro for a slap echo. Kendra Foster’s backing vocals would have had the Urei 1178 compressor and sometimes the Fairman TLC. Below the vocals are more guitar tracks, which D or I would have muted in and out on the board, and I’d have added similar effects as to D’s two guitar tracks.”
“The final mix went to ½-inch tape. We printed it back into Pro Tools from the repro head for a backup, but the tape versions were always used during mastering. It’s a real problem how so many things are smashed to bits these days during mastering because of the loudness wars. When I do a full album, I’m present at the mastering nine times out of 10. But I almost always find I have to make compromises. I’ve decided to accept that, otherwise I’d drive myself crazy. It’s the only choice I have. So I get the mixes as good as I can get them, with minimal compression, and then I have to let it go.”
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“The green tracks are all Questlove’s drums, including some effects tracks I printed back in. These two effected tom tracks have a nice dirty sound and add some overall rawness. Every once in a while, the crash cymbal comes through in the mix on those flanged tracks. The effect is tape flanging, achieved by offsetting a two-track, ½-inch machine with the 24-track. I had to keep doing it until I got it right!”
“I parallel compressed the drums using the Gates Sta-Level with the phase reversed. The reverb on the drums is the room sound that came from the compression I used on the overhead. I then added the Roland Chorus Echo or Fulltone Echo for the tape slap. For the rest it was a matter of using my four 33115 channels, which sound amazing, and MSR’s Neve 1081s.”
“The main bass track has heavy fuzz from my Univox Uni-fuzz pedal, and ‘pino EQ’ is the bass track with EQ from a Neve or Quad Eight, and compression from the Gates Sta-Level.”
“I added a Mutron Flanger to the Fantom synth tracks for a warbling effect. The sitar was an electric sitar, with the Fulltone Tube Echo or Roland Chorus Echo. And the piano went through a real Leslie cabinet that was printed back in.”
ELEVADO PROFILE
Born in the Philippines in 1966, Elevado and his family moved to New York when he was five. He started playing guitar aged 11, and became serious about the instrument, but thinking a studio career would be more stable than life as a professional musician, he attended the Institute of Audio Research in New York. Elevado went on to intern at Arthur Baker’s Shakedown Studios and later started assisting at Soundtrack and Skyline, and eventually became staff engineer at Quad Studios. Elevado went freelance in 1993, and worked his way up from there, in addition to the other names mentioned, he’s also worked with the likes of Roberta Flack, Common, Norah Jones, Mark Ronson, Jay Z, Nikka Costa, Rick Rubin and many others.
“Some songs were technical nightmares. We’d done loads of sessions in several different places, with most songs going through a number of permutations, and there could be a thousand technical details swimming in my head. So when it finally came down to me finishing, it was a question of, ‘Okay, now where do I start?’. “On an emotional level, mixing a song like Really Love, which he began in 2002, became increasingly difficult. How do you keep perspective when you mix a song more than 10 times, and how do you stay in touch with the original vibe 13 years later? “There were definitely moments during this project when I felt things were getting out of control. EVEN THOUGH WE OPERATED IN THE ANALOGUE DOMAIN, EVERYTHING WAS ALWAYS VIRTUAL! There was so much to remember and document, and we had such an unstructured way of working that at times I was quite uneasy about whether the final result would be up to scratch, especially when I really started digging in with the final mixes.” RECALLING 13 YEARS AGO
With endless changes, permutations and mix recalls of each song, if ever there was an album screaming out to be made with a DAW, it was Black Messiah. Given that Elevado tells other clients he only does a couple of recalls for each song, he conceded that the amount of recalls he was doing with D’Angelo definitely was, “ironic. Had everything been done in Pro Tools, each change and recall would have been instantaneous. “The earliest studio sessions for Black Messiah took place in 2001, right after he came off the Voodoo tour. The first studio we worked at was Sear Sound in New York. It was a crazy time. D was definitely ready for experimentation, and he was really into the black rock thing, like Jimi Hendrix, Parliament Funkadelic, Sly Stone and psychedelic music from The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. There was an element of him
experimenting with drugs in the way his heroes had during their classic recordings. “After Sear we bounced around between different studios; Avatar in New York, and two studios in the San Francisco area, one of them being The Plant Studios, and a few studios in LA like Paramount, and Henson for a while. Sometimes we were in a studio for a couple of weeks, sometimes much longer; we worked for a couple of years in total at Avatar. Then in 2007, D signed to J Records, which is part of RCA, and we got a new budget. Following that we spent a few more months in San Francisco, and then a number of studios in LA again for several months. Finally we came back to New York in 2010 for the home stretch. For the last three and a half years we were mostly at MSR Studios working pretty much full-time on the album — more than all the previous years combined. “Although the focus on mixing became stronger towards the end, I had been mixing throughout the project. D likes me to get things in shape so he’s inspired to do other things. The very last year we were in mix mode all the time, with us going to and fro between MSR Studios A and C, which both have SSL desks. Ben Kane was very involved by this stage as well. He started out as my assistant at Electric Lady Studios, a couple years after Voodoo and eventually he started engineering sessions for D’Angelo when I was out of town or working with other artists. He was my right-hand man during the project and has a mixing credit on The Door. He was invaluable to me. “Voodoo had to a large degree been collaborative, but on Black Messiah D really needed to experiment, get things out of his system and just craft songs all by himself. Though that changed after the 2008 LA sessions — when D was jamming with James Gadson drummer and Pino Palladino bassist — which Sugah Daddy came out of. “He had started breaking the ice with Ahmir and in 2011 they started working together again. The
Charade, Till It’s Done (Tutu) and Another Life came out of D and Questlove jamming at MSR, after which they were joined by Pino. While we were in New York we had quite a few people coming in adding new parts. For example, Quest replaced the drum machine on Really Love from the very first Sear sessions, and eventually his parts were replaced by James Gadson. This went on all the time. We also recorded sketches for many songs that weren’t released. You can’t imagine how many reels of tape we used!” REEL LIFE
Apparently the answer is about 200 reels of 24-track tape made by Quantegy and ATR. With one reel of two-inch tape costing US$300 or thereabouts, just the tape budget would have topped the recording allowance for most of today’s mainstream albums. However, while Voodoo was exclusively recorded with tape, without a DAW in sight, Pro Tools did get a guernsey on Black Messiah. Elevado explained why it became inevitable — despite all their articles of analogue faith — to use some good old digital technology: “Up until 2010 I was using only tape, with Pro Tools purely for backups. Most of the time we ran two Studer A827s together, so we had 48 tracks running. I’d also transfer stems to slave tapes and record on them. For example, D’Angelo recorded all his own vocals to 24-track slaves that I’d loaded with music stems. He started doing that in the middle of recording Voodoo. I showed him how to run the tape machine, and he sat alone with the remote control in front of him, sometimes in the control room, sometimes in the live room. “We set up a little mini studio for him, with the tape machine and a vocal chain of a Neumann U67 or U47, going into a Neve 1081 or 1073 preamp and a Teletronix LA2A. He also had a little Mackie board for monitoring, so he could pull up the tracks he wanted from the tape. He doesn’t like other people to be around and he does a lot of variAT 19
Elevado’s studio setup at MSR Studios doesn’t exactly look portable, but when he’s out and about he doesn’t hesitate dragging those racks with him. And when you see what’s in his racks, you can understand why.
speeding with tape the way George Clinton and Prince used to. He’s so used to it, he’s in his hotel room right now doing some vocal overdubs using my Studer A827 24-track. Everyone uses a laptop these days, but D insists on bringing an A827 into his hotel room! “It shows how committed D is to using analogue tape. I’m the same, but by 2010 I became afraid we were losing something by playing the analogue tapes back too often. So with some of the older songs we started working off Pro Tools, purely to preserve the original tape recordings. We tried to stay on tape as long as we could, but in the end we were always surpassing 48 tracks, and the most efficient way to handle that is to use Pro Tools. Trying to sync up three or four tape machines is cumbersome! There were a couple of songs on Voodoo I had to rent a third tape machine for, and the mixes took forever because it took 10 to 15 seconds for the machines to sync after I hit play! “After 2010, we still always went to tape and the choice take was transferred to Pro Tools. If somebody came in unexpectedly and wanted to immediately do an overdub, I would record in Pro Tools, just because it was faster. Then right afterwards I’d bounce it out to tape and back into Pro Tools. 100% OF TRACKS ON BLACK MESSIAH TOUCHED ANALOGUE TAPE AT SOME STAGE OR ANOTHER. ANALOGUE TAPE DEFINITELY ADDS A COLOUR, BUT MOST OF ALL IT ADDS DEPTH, THAT’S THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE. THERE’S A FRONT AND BACK TO THE SOUND IMAGE IN ANALOGUE, AS WELL AS TOP AND BOTTOM, AND LEFT AND RIGHT. IT’S A SPATIAL THING.
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“I work at 24-bit/88.1k in Pro Tools. There’s a big difference between 16 and 24 bits. We did try Pro Tools on Voodoo, but the sound of the 888s was atrocious. Even ADATs and the Tascam DA88 sounded better than Pro Tools at the time, because they were using better chips! Apogee convertors were an option but you had to rent them and they were expensive. In fact, you had to rent a Pro Tools ‘rig’ in those days as they were still not a studio standard. Can you imagine me paying to rent Pro Tools! But today’s higher quality clocking and converters make a big difference, and higher sampling rates are essential if you’re using plugins. But even then, the moment you start using several plug-ins, things start sounding weird again, because plug-ins are not processing things in the right way. You’d be surprised how much character you can add simply by re-amping things instead! So we used Pro Tools purely as a multitrack machine and storage medium, without any plug-ins.” A CLASS SIGNAL PATH
In the context of Elevado’s pro-analogue/anti-plugin convictions and dedication to the tape medium, you’d expect him to be fanatical about recording signal chains. But he doesn’t seem too bothered, provided he uses any of his own vintage and Class A pieces of kit, that is, or something equivalent if he’s in another studio. Though sometimes they might be hard to find. “When I started making money, I began collecting gear that could give me different textures and colours,” said Elevado. “Rather than surgical tools or gear most studios had. So I got vintage
How do you keep perspective when you mix a song more than 10 times, and how do you stay in touch with the original vibe 13 years later?
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As well as his collection of tape, tube and spring echos, Elevado also collects vintage and modern effects pedals from Mutron, Maestro, Moogerfooger, and more.
mic pres, compressors, EQs and effect boxes, and I also got into envelope filters and pieces that could bring out certain hidden timbres in instruments and would help me dismantle the frequencies and sounds of any type of instrument I came across. I now have things like an original Gates Sta-Level compressor, which I had modified; the Gates SA-39B limiter; one of my favourites, ‘The Bomb’ I call it, a crazy mono Altec tube compressor that has about 25 tubes; and other modified Altec compressors, like the 436c and 438c. I also have an LA2A, UA 1178, WSW 601431A, Dynax and Fairman TLC compressors, and my EQs include the Quad Eight MM-312, 712 graphic and 333c, Neve 33115, Helios Type 79 and Telefunken 395As. Plus I have reverbs/echoes like the Fulltone Tube Tape Echo, Roland Chorus Echo SRE 555, Maestro Tape Echo and Demeter Realverb, and many vintage and new effect pedals from Mutron, Maestro, Mooger and so on. “I also have tons of mics, like a Neumann U47 I paid US$7000 for back in the ’90s that looks brand new and sounds incredible, and a matched pair of U64 tube mics. My mic preamps include a vintage Altec 9470a from the designer of the Langevin AM16, plus Neve, Quad Eight, Telefunken 676A and the Siemens V276. In many cases I don’t mind what preamp I use, as long as it is one of the latter three. I used to be pickier, and I’d love to say that for this album I was mostly using Neves, but all these mic pres are of high quality, and I might get a little surprised one day when I have the Telefunken on the snare, instead of the Neve. They’re all good. It’s like having three different Ferraris to choose from.
Just some of the highlights from these racks; an original Gates Sta-Level, Altec tube compressors, WSW 601431A compressor, and a rack of Quad Eight MM-312 preamps.
When you get to that level of mic pre with that kind of character, you could be using anything, so I don’t have a go-to mic pre anymore. “I changed my signal chains once in a while, but for drums they would have for the most part been a Neumann FET47 on the kick, sometimes with a secondary mic like my AKG D12 or Electro-Voice RE20. The snare would usually have an AKG C451 on the top and a Shure SM57 on the bottom. I’d occasionally swap them for the harder stuff, with the 57 on the top and the 451 at the bottom. I find that if you swap the mics, you instantly get that rock sound. I usually have just one mono overhead, a U47, but I will use an AKG C24 or a pair of U64s if I need to cover more cymbals that might be spread away from each other, and I have Sennheiser MD421s on the toms. I use many different room mics depending on the room and the sound and texture I’m after — they could be an RCA 44 or 77DX, Beyer M160, or Neumann U47 or U67. “Some of the bass sounds on the album came from D’Angelo’s Ensoniq ASR10 synth, which I DI’d. I usually record the bass cabinet with a FET47 going through one of my main three mic pres, and then a compressor like an 1176 or an LA2A, but also sometimes a Gates, Altec, or UA 175. On Really Love Pino played a semi-acoustic bass with flatwound strings, and I tried to make it sound a little bit like an upright. The classical guitar on that track is played by Mark Hammond, which I recorded using a U47 without compression. I only really use a compressor in the recording chain for bass and vocals.
“I also had either a U47, 421, SM57 or combination of those on the electric guitar cabinets. I recorded D’s acoustic piano with the AKG C24 they have at MSR, or if that’s not available, a pair of KM56s or U67s. I like using tube mics on the piano. Though it helps when you have a good player, and D is an amazing player who really owns the instrument. In addition to playing guitar and piano, he programmed a lot of drums on an Akai MPC2000 using samples from records and samples I’ve recorded, as well as the Ensoniq KT-88. But 90% of the synth sounds came from his ASR10, which he’s used since his first album.” ANALOGUE DIES HARD
Clearly, the making of Black Messiah was an epic journey for Elevado and D’Angelo. But any fears that the 13 year time span would only return stodgy and overcooked work proved unfounded. One critic amongst the cavalcade of effusive reviewers, Joe Goggins of Drowned In Sound, noted, “Like Voodoo, Black Messiah’s greatest strength lies in D’Angelo’s understanding of how to create mood by weaving an impossibly complex instrumental palette,” and that “everything from D’Angelo’s voice to the crackle of the snare is treated with a delicate mastery.” The master over the weft and warp of Black Messiah’s fabric was Russell Elevado. He’s managed to make Black Messiah sound truly great. How much this is due to D’Angelo’s and Elevado’s commitment to the analogue medium is a question that no-one who truly cares about good sound can afford to ignore.
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FEATURE
BIG THINGS IN SMALL PACKAGES The flyweight Avid S3L was punching above its weight at Laneway Festival. Story: Mark Davie Main Image: Jacquie Manning
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This year, St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival was like the Oaks Day of festival season; droves of punters poured in from Footscray station to see the ladies showcase their signature styles — musical styles, that is. Rising star Banks headlined one stage, St Vincent top billed another, and the run up to Flight Facilities’ festival-ending party featured FKA Twigs and downunder deadpan darling Courtney Barnett. But the real diva of the day was a mixing console that’s been on a strict weight-loss routine, slimming down just enough to fit into the latest luggage sizes — Avid’s S3L. The stock provision of large festival FOH tents these days is typically an Avid Venue Profile console. If you want to mix on your preferred Digico, Midas, Soundcraft, Allen & Heath, Yamaha, or whatever console it is you typically tour with, it’s BYO. But flying a concert-sized digital console on a seven-stop tour like Laneway will cost you an arm and a leg in excess baggage. For that reason, most engineers will carry a basic Profile session for their band on a barely scaleshifting USB stick. But unless an Avid Profile is what they mix on at home, it won’t be the full preproduction enchilada packed with the show’s exact effects, cues and snapshots. Funny then, that the most shipped-in console of the day was a mini-Avid desk. S3Ls appeared three times throughout the day, and AudioTechnology caught up with Andy Carrington at FOH for FKA Twigs, and Ryan John, who mixed Banks. Both having taken advantage of Avid squeezing its powerful Venue line into a couple of Pelican cases. We also chatted with Royal Blood’s FOH engineer Phil Jones and Pond engineer Adam Round who were both running the USB stick gauntlet with some rocking results.
TWIGGY PROFILE
FKA Twigs: FOH Engineer Andy Carrington
The control element of Andy Carrington’s S3L configuration is built into a neat hinged roadcase. The bottom half houses the slim 16-fader control surface, and the top half has a touchscreen monitor
mounted to the lid [see photo]. It and the other two racked and packed system pieces — stage rack and E3 engine — come in around 23kg each, right on that perfect flying weight. Carrington took delivery of the S3L last October, right on the day FKA Twigs started her UK run. Prior to that, he’d been mixing the show on a Midas Pro2C. Carrington: “I just tried it, and actually preferred the sound of the S3L. I mean, the Pro2 is great, but it’s a big box. And for this gig, it just made sense.” Carrington could see a future for himself with the desk, so he bought one outright. Buying his own console is not something he’s ever been able to do before, because it would have to go with him on every gig for it to make financial sense. “There were other ones, the Digico SD11 obviously has a lot of power for its size, but I just prefer this,” he said. “When you A/B against the S3L, it’s just a ridiculous size and the sound quality came out tops. “Having a big desk and channels is an ego thing. Once you get in there, you cannot deny the sonic capabilities. Even a Profile is quite old technology now, the S3L processing improves on it in every way. Once you get your head around it, it’s really fast to process and it’s stupidly practical. PLUS, WITH PRO TOOLS RUNNING, ITS JUST A CAT5 CABLE OUT INTO MY LAPTOP FOR RECORDING AND VIRTUAL SOUNDCHECK.”
TWEAK WITH TIC
Virtual soundcheck gets a big workout on the FKA Twigs tour. The whole show runs off one Ableton Live session, but every sound is triggered individually — there’s no playback tracks. Monitor engineer, Jon Simcox, has a Novation Launchpad which he uses to line up each song in the set. And from there, the three band members — Cy An, Tic Zogson and LJ Howe — play a collection of drum pads, synths and live instruments to back Twigs’ vocals. There are only 18 channels coming off stage, but each is treated to an ongoing kaizen regimen to find the balance between tweaking sounds in Ableton Live and what’s best left to the S3L. Handy then that both Cy An and Tic produced tracks on Twigs’ debut LP1. “Virtual soundcheck has been
amazing for refining our gig,” said Carrington. “I can spend ages tightening up bits of the show and go back with Cy An and Tic and tweak it in Ableton or the FOH snapshots. “Whatever we can’t do in Ableton — or if it will sound better — we do on the S3L. Tiny bits of EQ, adding flavour to make things stand out, or drum sounds we couldn’t get in Ableton. Ableton has its limits, it’s really creative and fast, but sonically, it can be better to do things on the S3L.” Carrington loves the flexibility of the S3L, with the ability to place any fader next to another on the user banks. “SO YOU CAN HAVE A VCA NEXT TO THE MASTER, NEXT TO THE KICK DRUM; THAT’S REALLY USEFUL,” said Carrington. And with the touchscreen
monitor, he can dive straight into most plug-ins with a finger. For controls he can’t access, or if he just wants to twist a knob, there are 32 encoders onboard. Compared to the Profile’s mushroom knobs, they look miniature, but Carrington says they have a nice, satisfying feel to them. When he’s back in the UK, Carrington usually carries a few choice bits of gear including a Rupert Neve Designs Portico 5045 Primary Source Enhancer, “just to get higher gain from the vocal,” he explained. “I’m using the Sonnox Expander at the moment, but I get more out of the Neve. At home I also usually have my Avalon 737 for the main vocal.” On the trip, he did manage to sneak in his Roland Space Echo pedal, “which has a nice musical feel to it,” continued Carrington. “They don’t run off clicks on stage, so I can’t program delays in. I have to tap them in, and I’d rather have a nice big button. Plus I run a lot of feedback on it as well, so it’s nice to have a dedicated tactile pot.” Big reverbs feature in the set right from the start, and some can take off if he’s not careful: “Preface is the first song in the set and it’s got a 6.5s reverb on it. On some songs we get up to eight seconds — it’s a very wet, effected album.” He uses the Sonnox reverb with a different setting for each song, and doesn’t mind if things go a little bit wrong. It adds another human element that the band is already trying to convey by playing every sample and hit. For Twigs’ vocal, the crew hired Sennheiser 5200 series wireless for her main mic. “We’re going to try some different capsules when we get back, like the DPA d:facto,” said Carrington. “We haven’t settled on what we’re going to use yet. The Sennheiser has been working well though, it’s a nice size mic for her. “Usually, I have an Apollo Twin, which is one of the most powerful sound-shaping devices there is. That, with the Space Echo in a ruck sack, and you’ve pretty much got everything at hand. I’VE USED THE TWIN ON THE MULTICORE AS A MAIN VOCAL INSERT — THROUGH THE API PREAMP WITH THE TELETRONIX LA-2A COMPRESSOR ON IT — AND I KNOW IT’S RELIABLE ENOUGH TO DO THAT. It gives me what I need to get really
good main vocal sounds.” With Carrington and Simcox so involved in the show dynamics, it’s important that there’s constant communication. So each of the band members has a mic on a Radial pop switch, which is plumbed into the monitor and FOH talkback system.
AT 23
I had her vocal so high that when she said, ‘Everybody put your hands up’, it absolutely scared the crap out of me
”
BANKS FALLS FOR REVOLUTION
Banks: FOH Engineer Ryan John
In the style of Lorde, Banks emerges on stage flanked by two plinth-riding multi-taskers disguised as a drummer and keyboardist. In reality, both are playing back samples, as well as an amalgamation of acoustic and electronic instruments. Drummer boy has a Roland SPD-SX to trigger samples and sound effects from the record, and his electronic snare and kick triggers are supplemented by two live snares, cymbals and hi-hats to give the live show a bit more energy. Across the stage, his companion has a Yamaha Motif XS8 and a Nord, which cover the majority of sounds, anything else is loaded into Mainstage. He also plays guitar on the odd occasion, which doesn’t necessarily appear on the record, but adds excitement to the down-tempo set. Banks spectrally slides around the stage in her black batwing-cum-nun’s habit of an outfit with just a Sennheiser wireless vocal mic in hand. The whole show comes in around 28 inputs, which is perfect for the S3L. Mic-wise, FOH engineer Ryan John has a pair of Heil PR31s on the snares, and Earthworks QTC40 omni microphones as underheads. “The drummer’s only got two large cymbals and the hi-hat,” explains John. “So I mount them about a foot out from the stand. And the distance between the crash and the hi-hat is about the same, so I’m kind of using one as both the hi-hat mic as well as an underhead. “The guitar amp has a Beyerdynamic M80 on it. It’s a duller sounding mic, which is great for his Fender amp, which tends to be pretty bright and a little bit bitey.” On the Banks show, riding her vocal is the AT 24
crucial element. When critics describe her voice as having a ‘frail vulnerability’, what they’re really touching on is a lack of projection. It’s partly her style, and partly due to the fact she’s only been performing for 18 months — whisper-quiet is how you would describe what’s coming to John through her favourite Sennheiser 945. Though, besides her sometimes mousey interaction with the engrossed crowd, you couldn’t tell by what was coming through FOH. Currently, he’s running the Sennheiser G3 series wireless, though he’s trying to move to the SKM 5000 series, because he “can hear the compansion in the G3,” said John. “It makes it a little bit harder to get the gain-before-feedback because it’s compressing in the microphone.” The switch isn’t simple though, Banks really likes the feel of the bigger handheld, and the next one up is thinner, made of more solid metal, and will take a bit of getting used to. Her mic preference is still a handy one though, with the 945’s super-cardioid pattern at least giving a bit of spill control. But with the mic gained up so hard, John will often find he’ll pull his underheads completely out of the mix because he’s got plenty of cymbals coming through the vocal channel itself. John also has to keep an ear out for audience bleed, which can be a big problem too. And because Banks’ tunes are so sparse, their foundation is often a lot of sub content. So John has to ride that fine line between getting her voice over the top of the subs, without turning it into a weak-sounding show. To complicate matters even further, even though there’s no wedges onstage, she can still run into feedback trouble from the main PA. THE ONLY TRICK JOHN REALLY HAS AT HIS DISPOSAL IS INSIDE INFORMATION; KNOWING HER VOCAL LINES, AND RIDING HER MIC THROUGHOUT THE SHOW.
John only has mild compression on Banks’ vocal, using Avid’s multi-band compressor on her channel, and a 1.3:1 ratio compressor gently squeezing her vocal group. But he does have a limiter set at 20:1 beyond her singing range in case she decides to amp the crowd up. “I didn’t have that limiter on the first show I did,” recalled John. “And I had her vocal so high that when she said, ‘Everybody put your hands up’, it absolutely scared the crap out of me. “When we’re not at festivals, before the show starts I always max out her vocal and let it start to ring out so I can get a couple of those feedback frequencies out. There’s a limitation to the maximum volume I can achieve for the show because I can’t get her vocal above a certain level. It physically cannot happen. “Her backing track is very electronic, so there’s quite a bit of processing to make her fit in. On her vocal I’ve got a stereo delay set so it’s roughly 55ms on the left and 65ms on the right, and roughly pitched down nine cents on the left, and plus nine on the right. IT WIDENS IT UP AND MAKE IT SOUND A TINY BIT DIGITAL BECAUSE IT’S COMB FILTERING A LITTLE DOWN THE CENTRE.
“Since we’re doing all these outdoor shows, it is basically a completely dry environment and you have to create any of the space you want yourself. The room reverb makes it seem just a little bit more natural than just a dead microphone in an open space. The long reverb is a very dense plate generally used as an effect. Then I have multiple mono delays. I use the Reel Tape delay with the drive all the way up so it grits a little bit. The other one is just a standard mono delay but it’s also a flanger as well to try and emulate the record in a fashion.” MIX BUS SHOOTOUT
John: “There’s a Profile at the festival everyday so I could pretty much load the same show file, but the mix bus on the S3L sounds different to me. I’ve loaded up compatible show files from a Profile onto an S3L with all the same plug-ins, and done a virtual sound check. So at that point you’ve taken the preamps out of the equation. I BOUNCED OUT THE SHOWS, AND COMPARED THEM WITH THE TWO-TRACKS FROM THE PROFILE — IT’S JUST MUCH WIDER ON THE S3L.
There was lots of clarity on the sides, so much so, I had to re-tailor my show files. “The surface itself is obviously a little bit limiting,
BANKS: DEALING WITH SUB
Counterintuitively, despite relying on sub content to underpin Banks’ material, Ryan John usually ends up pulling the subs back. John: “On shows where I haven’t had sub control, it’s been almost problematic. Because a lot of the source sounds are very sub-heavy, and these days most people set up a PA with a haystack in the low ends — sub-80Hz or so is usually 6-10dB up from the rest of the rig. But for me, you do the show the way it works best, and for that I need a very flat transfer function. It’s uncommon because people like kick drums to punch in live shows. But we don’t actually have a kick drum, we have a lot of electronic low end; it’s very different content.
“If you pull down a sub, you end up moving the crossover point even lower, just because of the way curves work, but sometimes it’s a good thing — the crossover often gives you that odd bump in the 100-110Hz region, which can make the low end sound a little less than tight. “If they don’t have the transfer function on hand, I kind of have to guess. Luckily the intro to the set is very sub-heavy, so as long as I’ve got my separate sub send on my matrix I can just pull it down to where the intro sounds like it’s right, and then I can let the rest of the show go from there.” If he can’t supply the four lines of AES — left/ right, sub, front fill — to the system, or get control
over the subs, the only option left is to tinker with the processor, which is less than ideal. John has a few tips for getting around potentially awkward confrontations. John: “I look like I’m about 20 years old, walking in carrying this fancy new S3L nobody’s seen, so guys assume I don’t know much about what I’m doing. But all you need to do is drop in one or two sentences that ask exactly the right question and then people seem to open up. Once you do that, it’s kind of about how you ask. And I guess people don’t tend to ask to pull things back, usually they ask for more. So because I’m asking for that, people take it a little more seriously.”
I bounced out the shows, and compared them with the two-tracks from the Profile — it’s just much wider on the S3L
”
by which I mean you need to prepare really well before you use it. I build scenes for every song. I’ve built user fader pages and user knob layouts, and my user fader page has changes per snapshot to parameters relevant within that song. “What’s nice is if I have fewer than 16 faders on any given user fader page, I can still put in blank strips so the important ones are always in the exact same place even if I bump through scenes. So my lead vocal, all-vocal DCA, all-band DCA, effects DCA, and my master bus will be the last five every time.” There is a limitation of only two plug-in slots per channel. But that’s not including your onboard channel strip, and obviously doesn’t impact your effects sends. Also, the obvious benefit of having touchscreen plug-in control is not lost on John: “You can just touch it and drag up or down and you’re turning that knob up or down, so it makes plug-in usage very easy. Same with patching. It’s really quick to patch on a touchscreen, you just tap the squares to do your crosspatch.” He also points out that the 32 encoders are user-assignable too, meaning you can assign a full channel strip to one row, with the ability to flip encoder functions by pushing down on them — between EQ Frequency and Q, for instance — all while keeping an eye on your output levels on another. It’s all in how you choose to set it up. THE CASE FOR FLYING
While not as neat as Carrington’s flip-top road case arrangement, Johns has taken full advantage of the S3L system’s low weight. His
four parts (including two stage racks for 32 inputs, the engine and the surface) are packed into two Pelican cases, which brings the whole package to 31kg. He also manages to squeeze in a 24-inch touchscreen monitor, keyboard and mouse, Ethernet cables, power strips, and 70m of Ethercon as a spare snake. John: “I show up, toss my two stage racks on stage, plug them in and plug Ethernet in and out to connect the two up front. The desk doesn’t even take up a metre across, and my display base sits underneath it so it almost feels like one piece. The engine rack sits underneath all that. THE WHOLE THING TAKES UP SO LITTLE SPACE THAT I CAN LITERALLY PUT IT ON TOP OF A SMALL ROAD CASE, ROLL IT UP, PLUG IN MY POWER, PLUG IN MY TWO ETHERCONS AND GO. The engine itself has four AES outputs, so I give them left/right, sub and front-fill. “Then the virtual sound check is literally just one Ethernet cable from the engine or surface into my laptop, so I can record 64 channels or playback 64 via one Ethernet cable.”
A ROYAL SMASHING
Royal Blood: FOH Engineer Phil Jones
Laneway at Melbourne was one of the first festivals I’ve ever been to where every show I saw sounded good. The only technical snafu was Flying Lotus losing his audio output for a minute… DJs. But talk to the engineers, and a lot of them would ask if you caught Royal Blood. Which I did. And the sound coming from just a bass/vocal and drums two-piece was disproportionately massive. Phil Jones, who used to mix a lot of pop acts — Katy B, Taio Cruz, Icona Pop, Aloe Blacc — has been on the road with Royal Blood for 18 months. In that time, the production has gone from Jones driving a Sprinter van around the UK to a full home turf crew with a bus and truck. He also has a budget for ‘his toys’ now. He has been touring with a Midas Pro2C in the UK, but he’s in talks with Britannia Row to pull the old Pink Floyd Midas XL3 out of its training college and get it back on the road with a fully analogue setup for the UK Festival AT 25
I love analogue, especially with a band like this, where it’s just tuning and the right mics in the right places
”
season and The Brits. “Why not?” said Jones. “It’s only 18 channels. Turn it up loud and squash it with some valves. YOU CAN BE QUITE LIBERAL WITH COMPRESSION WITH ROYAL BLOOD BECAUSE IT’S IN YOUR FACE. I used to play jazz drums for a living, so I’m not necessarily a fan of using lots of compression, but you can make it sound massive, and that’s fun. “It’s bits of compression here and there, and a parallel drum group that gets compressed quite a lot. At home I use a purple dbx 162SL stereo compressor as the parallel compressor on the drums. I also use an Eventide H3000 Harmonizer, and a Distressor. I love analogue, especially with a band like this, where it’s just tuning and the right mics in the right places.” While he’s been ‘relegated’ to the Profile for Laneway, he still has all the mics in the right places. Vocalist Mike Kerr plays short-scale basses through a pedal chain centred around a couple of Electro-Harmonix POGs that make his instrument sound like a guitar, bass or both at the same time. Company policy says Jones can’t dish the specifics. The result gets split across two Fender guitar amps and a bass amp with a dynamic and condenser on each guitar amp — A SHURE SM57 AND
Royal Blood’s engineer Phil Jones rocks a lot of AudioTechnica microphones in his setup. They play a big part in making this two-piece sound so impressive, even the AT8022’s for in-ear ambience. But every so often a DPA mic
pokes its head through, including the tiny DPA 4099s on toms and bottom snare, as well the DPA d:facto vocal mic, which he didn’t think was going to be rock ‘n‘ roll enough, but now thinks it sounds amazing.
THE LEFT/RIGHT AND THE VOCAL GROUPS GO TO A MATRIX.
was great, but it just picks up too much for a band like this. It can be a feedback disaster. Whereas the d:facto is really tight. I’ve had him in 300-cap clubs in line with the PA, and it’s fine.” One of the more interesting mic positions, is one only the band gets to hear. “On each side of the stage, there’s an Audio-Technica 8022 mic for in-ears ambience,” said Jones. “Dave, our monitor guy, usually has two of them set up, one on each side. IT’S A STEREO MIC, BUT HE’S GOT ONE SIDE FACING
THAT WAY I CAN SQUASH THE BAND AND KEEP THE VOCAL
THE BAND, AND ONE SIDE TO THE AUDIENCE. SO HE CAN
Especially when you’ve got noise limits like this, it helps to contain it and keep the vocal sitting on top. “I’ve got these really great tiny DPA 4099s on toms and bottom snare, which are very expensive. I was speaking to the UK distributor for DPA when we first started Royal Blood, and he insisted we take out the DPA d:facto vocal mic. I was like, ‘dunno, it’s a rock band and that’s a condenser, it’s not going to work.’ We tried it for a month, and it was just amazing. I used to use a Shure KSM9 a lot, which
FEED EITHER CROWD AMBIENCE OR BAND AMBIENCE TO THE
favourite Digico console. When he tours with Pond — another Western Australian band with some Tame members — it’s a different console every night. For Pond’s Laneway shows he only has a gain snapshot for the Profile, which keeps it all pretty rock ’n’ roll. “Tame’s very different,” said Round. “Lots of snapshots and cueing through sections, pre-production every time, and virtual soundcheck to go in deep with the automation without having to play a song 10 times to get each bit right.” There are some common elements between the bands though. “Both bands have quite a smashed drum sound on the record. It’s the sound of mic pres getting driven really hard, then attenuated, and loads of compression. I TRY AND EMULATE THE SOUND
AN AUDIO-TECHNICA 4060 TUBE MIC. “THE WHOLE SOUND OF IT,” EXPLAINS JONES. “IS THE FIRST AMP IS HARDPANNED LEFT/RIGHT, AND THE OTHER ONE IS RIGHT/LEFT AND ACTS AS A THICKENER. IT DOESN’T SOUND PANNED, IT’S JUST WIDE.
“There’s absolutely no delaying or phase. I played around with the Midas Pro2C’s little phase alignment tool for 45 minutes once, but it made it sound weird. We just use amp clamps to get the positions right. “All the band — 16 channels of drums and bass — goes to the L/R output bus with a big fat limiter on it, and the vocal goes to groups. Then
ABOVE ALL THAT.
AT 26
EARS. IT’S A BIT FANCY, BUT THE BOYS LOVE IT. That said, Mike still pops out his ears… and we’ve still got side fill… We’re trying.”
SMALL FISH, BIG POND Pond: FOH Engineer Adam Round
When West Australian engineer Adam Round mixes Tame Impala, he tours with a stage setup devised over days of pre-production, and his
OF THE RECORDS THE BEST WE CAN IN A LIVE SCENARIO WITHOUT FEEDING BACK THE WHOLE GIG. THERE’S A COMP ON EVERY CHANNEL OF THE DRUMS, AND GATES ON ALL THE CLOSE MICS THAT FEED THE DRUMS GROUP.”
With Tame Impala, Round gets to create the effect with more acuity. He gets fed wet drums, which are processed on stage with a Metric
1300 30 66 70 • salesdesk@networkaudio.com.au • www.networkaudio.com.au AT 27
I actually ride the parts of the PA throughout the gig as well as the mix
”
Halo interface, dbx 165s, and other gear. Head Impala, Kevin Parker, used to force Round to use a Shure SM57 on kick, an intrinsic part of Parker’s recording process. But he’s since relented and it’s now Sennheiser 9 series across the whole show, which is what Round prefers. “We do use quite a bit of EQ to get it to do what it does, and loads of compression. They are quite a polished-sounding microphone, so I open it up and introduce all the extra harmonics with distortion. The wet drums go through the Waves EMI TG12345 strip, Scheps 73 EQ and Waves J37 tape plug-ins. I gate it all with the SSL strips first, smash the hell out of it into the mic pre, then squish it, and squish it again on the drums bus. It’s quite a lot of work to get the records to come to life. But it’s so much fun, and I get a real kick out of trying to find new ways to get the same colours.” But back to Pond, now a four-piece after losing bassist Cam Avery from the lineup just prior to the Laneway tour, which required some fast rearrangement. There are five keyboards on stage, including a Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 08 and an old Tandy Realistic synth. And now, most of the bass lines have fallen into the realm of keyboardist Jamie Terry and his Moog Sub Phatty, while the keyboard workload has been spread around. With a collection of pads and stabs ported over to a Roland SPD-SX for drummer Jay Watson to trigger during the set. “It’s sometimes a little easier to deal with to be honest,” said Round of the new synth bass. “It still gets run through a Sansamp. And if I’m on my console of choice, being Digico, I can drive it up pretty hard and get a bit more ‘grrr’ out of it, as well as using all the Waves plugs.” While Pond may not have an elaborate onstage drum chain, the occasional wet vocal gets sent down the multi-core via a Roland Space Echo pedal. It gives at least some continuity when playing console musical chairs. Without continuity in his effects, Round typically shoots for a “short room on the drums, about 700ms, just to open them up a whisker without actually hearing the reverb. I also sit a small hall reverb on the whole show to give you an impression of a room, and use a really long hall for the epic tracks. I typically have three drum reverbs that get changed throughout the show, two vocal reverbs, two delays — a long delay and a slap, along with the wet vocal. It all gets pretty wet and fun.” Round was mixing on the Misteltone Stage, a natural amphitheatre where the FOH tent is stationed towards the top of a steep incline, AT 28
Pond giving it all in the name of Aussie psych-rock on the Mistletone stage. Having just lost their bass player before the run of Laneway shows, the four-piece pulled off the transition to synth bass with aplomb.
meaning the top box of the JBL Vertec system is “hitting you in the nut sack. It’s pretty barky, but -12dB at 4kHz, and -10dB at 3 and 5kHz had it sounding pretty good to me up there. “AT FESTIVALS I ALWAYS MAKE SURE I HAVE THE PA ON DURING LINE CHECK, IT JUST HAS TO HAPPEN. BECAUSE IT’S SO WET UP THERE, AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE WALKING INTO — especially in other parts of the world, where it might not be quite as pro, and we don’t all speak the same language. It’s mainly just to hear kick drum, bass and your vocal, and where possible I’ll also tune it with my voice. Today it was just a bit of kick, bass, and wet vocals to hear how it’s going to react. And after touring for quite a while with Hando [Pond’s monitor engineer] I recognise the sound of his voice, and what it should sound like on a fairly flat system. You can work pretty fast. It took us about 30 seconds to tune up today, and it was pretty close. Just to hear it once and know you need -6dB on your subs, for instance. I run matrixed subs if possible, especially in multi-console scenarios. “I prefer to matrix the PA to use the subs as colour throughout the set. Take a song like Don’t Look at the Sun or You’ll Go Blind, which is arranged like a banging dance track. To make that style of music sound the way you want it, you need a bit more bottom end. So I actually ride the parts of the PA throughout the gig as well as the mix. We’re not chasing consistency, where every drum sound and song sounds identical, it’s not that kind of band. It’s about using the tools you have to create shades and colours.”
The PA for this year’s Laneway in Melbourne was provided by JPJ Audio, and every stage was on song. There was a combination of L-Acoustics and JBL Vertec hangs on the different stages, as well as a classic Nexo Alpha rig for the Red Bull stage.
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FEATURE
KIDDI’S PLAYGROUND Iceland has always been a geothermal hotspot, but these days it’s a melting pot of creativity, community and collaboration. We follow the collaborative trail of the latest Icelandic star to bubble over internationally, Ásgeir. Story: Dax Liniere
Artist: Ásgeir Album: In The Silence
AT 30
Kiddi and his pug at the centre of Iceland’s cultural export market.
It’s late afternoon when I roll up to the Syrland studio complex in the quaint Icelandic fishing town of Hafnarfjörður. Like many Icelanders, producer/engineer Guðmundur Kristinn ‘Kiddi’ Jónsson is warm and welcoming, and leads me into a sun-soaked live room designed in 1975 by acoustician and architect John Storyk, whose rap sheet includes New York’s Electric Lady Studios. Kiddi somehow still manages to oversee the entire complex, despite producing Ásgeir and touring the world with the talented 20-year old who erupted onto the international scene in 2014. It’s just the way the self-confessed workaholic likes it. Syrland has been one of the bubbling crucibles of Iceland’s musical landscape ever since it opened, and Kiddi doesn’t want that to change. If he had to put Syrland in a box, Kiddi would lean towards describing the last decade as having a Motown Records-like work ethic — just Icelandic, and with completely diverse artists. “I have my friends here and we just record albums with all kinds of artists,” said Kiddi. “Often we have a few bands going on at the same time. We have a reggae band called Hjálmar and a country band called Baggalútur. We’ve also done many albums with an Icelandic legend called Megas, he’s like our Bob Dylan. And most musicians will also have a solo project, so the same group works on lots of different projects. “We’ve also produced a TV series which lasted three seasons and won the biggest TV award every year. The concept for the series was to ask young up-and-coming Icelandic artists and older established ones who they idolised, then put them together to write a song. The TV series is about pairs of artists working together and making something new in the studio. We also did a New Year’s Eve party where the concept was to start with only one guy, then add artists to the stage. The rule was that once you go on you can never go off, so by the end, we had 50 people playing the same song. It was really expensive, but it was really fun!” HOMETOWN RULES
Like a lot of talented engineers, Kiddi played in a band, then went through the gradual metamorphosis of recording his own band, realising he was quite good at it, and flying more on the technical side ever since; with a bit of international weekend warrior touring for kicks. Kiddi really got serious about the Icelandic studio scene in 2002. “I used to work from an old studio in my home town of Keflavík that belonged to an Icelandic legend, Rúar Júlíusson,” recalled Kiddi. “When he was 18 he was in the national football team and the ‘Icelandic Beatles’, and was also dating Miss Iceland. I met him in his sixties, which was a good time since I had just bought Pro Tools — he didn’t even have a computer! When I moved to Reykjavík, I moved out of his studio into another old legend’s studio in Hafnarfjörður called Hljóðriti, which had been closed for 10 years, and is now part of Syrland. It’s quite important to our history; in a book of the top 100 Icelandic albums, 35% came from this studio. It was the first serious studio. Before that everyone went to New York, London, or Denmark to record.”
It might have a serious heritage in Iceland, but Kiddi prefers to keep things light at Hljóðriti. “I like to work in situations where you give yourself rules like that New Year’s Eve party. It doesn’t make any sense to do it that way, but it’s fun. Like when we made an album with only one Sennheiser MD421 microphone, or another album where we only used ribbon microphones. Just add some rules that make your work fun. SET A DRESS CODE FOR THE STUDIO, OR PERMIT SMOKING OR DRINKING. EVEN BETTER, MAKE IT THAT YOU SHOULD SMOKE AND DRINK IN THE STUDIO!” [laughs]
It was one of the biggest hits in Iceland for many, many years. 10% of the population bought the album
”
And as for how the Icelandic music culture seems so diverse, Kiddi has a simple answer for that: “There are no competitive bad vibes. People here say, ‘Since we already have an afrobeat band, let’s do something else.’ Everybody is thinking how to be different, because the market is so small. It sounds weird if you’re all the same. We have all kinds of artists here — big-bands, afro-beat bands, three or four different reggae bands, a really good techno band, plus lots of folk and electronic; we have everything. What I think is really good in Iceland is that it’s so easy to get around and get people to the studio; everybody works together in some way. “For me, the problem with the music industry today is how studios are changing to grass-roots home jobs. There are lots of people who can play all the instruments and they want to do everything in the computer themselves — BUT THEY’RE MISSING
THE BENEFITS OF MEETING A LOT OF PEOPLE IN A STUDIO WHILE WORKING TOGETHER. THAT’S WHERE THE MAGIC OFTEN HAPPENS. You put five or six really good
musicians in the same room playing together and record that. And also mixing it together; it can be boring and uninspiring when you’re stuck working alone on a laptop.”
BREAKING THE ICE
Kiddi has had many successes in his career, but in 2012 a young man from a small farming town made his mark with domestic sales of his first album, In The Silence, out-pacing Björk and Sigur Rós’ debut albums combined. AudioTechnology: How did you end up working with Ásgeir? Kiddi: Ásgeir contacted me because I’d been working with his brother, who is the singer in Hjálmar. Somebody told him he should take his songs to a studio, do some demos and see where
it can go. We got into the studio and did one song, then I said, “Just two more songs and if it’s fun, and you like it, then we can record more songs.” So we did the first song and put it on the radio and on my TV show and it just blew up. It was one of the biggest hits in Iceland for many, many years. 10% of the population bought the album. We thought that in these times of internet, downloading and Spotify, you couldn’t sell 10% of the nation any type of music, but it appeals to people of all ages. It was really nice to see it grow, and it’s still growing outside of Iceland. His father (an Icelandic poet) writes the lyrics, along with a friend from a farm in Ásgeir’s town. It’s more collaboration, people working together and I really like that. It’s a beautiful story. AudioTechnology: What was the production and recording process of In The Silence? Kiddi: It wasn’t until we really got started that we realised Ásgeir would play most of it himself, except the drums. Originally, I brought a lot of musicians into the studio, but most of the time it ended up just the two of us messing around with synthesisers. Half of the songs are electric and the rest acoustic, written before he met me. Those songs were brought in basically ready, so it was mostly recording them, adding some little twists here or there. THE OTHER SONGS CAME ABOUT WHEN ÁSGEIR SAW SYNTHESISERS AND DRUM MACHINES FOR THE FIRST TIME. I would say, “Check out this machine, it’s called a Moog.” Songs were born in the studio with synths and drum machines, but what we wanted to do from the beginning was combine those with acoustic guitar and grand piano, little bits of both worlds. Of course we don’t know how the next album is going to sound, but Ásgeir basically fell in love with synths working on this album and it rekindled my love, too. I had a few synths when we started, but now we have a lot. We’ve been buying them like crazy over the last two years. For Ásgeir to go into a studio like Hjóðriti made a lot of sense. We have Telefunken U47, Neumann U67 and DPA mics, great preamps, great compressors, plus lots of other cool gear. Normally when people get signed and receive their advance from the record label they buy Pro Tools just to make demos, but we had everything already. It means we could go buy something different. Hjóðriti is like a recording heaven for us. I don’t know how many guitars or amplifiers we have — it’s a lot! I find sometimes it’s hard to record outside my studio because I’m used to having such a variety of gear on hand. But the good thing about going away from home is that you get to try new gear and you also get ‘work peace’, which is especially important when you’re working with a whole band. No one has to pick up their kids or go to the bank when you’re stuck in Cuba! After that kind of recording, we would normally go back to my studio in Iceland to finish it off with overdubs and mixing.
ON TRACK
Kiddi: ÁSGEIR’S VOCALS ARE ALWAYS TRIPLE-TRACKED, USUALLY WITH A U47 IN THE CENTRE AND HARD-PANNED LEFT AND RIGHT, THOUGH SOMETIMES I’LL USE AN AEA44 RIBBON ON THE SIDES.
quite a lot.
I like Chandler preamps
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I like to work in situations where you give yourself rules… like when we made an album with only one Sennheiser MD421 microphone
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A pensive Asgeir contemplating Icelandic life on the Syrland leather couch. Kiddi has an amazing array of gear, including API 3124 preamps, Vac Rac TSL-4 tube limiter, Chandler preamps and compressors coming out his ears and a whole rack dedicated to Tube-Tech blue. He also has a real EMT plate reverb squirelled away in the complex.
On acoustic guitar I love DPA 4041 Gold omni microphones. They are so good, especially when you have a great guitar player like Ásgeir who is tight and ‘equal’ across all the strings. It gives a good guitar sound and you don’t get any phase problems because they’re omnidirectional. On the grand piano we always use Coles 4038s above the keyboard from the listener’s perspective — that’s our grand piano sound. They are dark microphones so they give a really nice warmth. I use ribbons a lot on drums and actually, lots of things. Ribbons on digital recordings get you a good spirit, they’re a good match. I also have an old pair of Philips ribbon mics I like to use as room mics to get some dirt on the drums. The Chandler TG2 is my number one preamp, along with the API 3124. I use Chandler’s TG1 compressor and Curve Bender on everything, Vac Rac TSL-4 Tube Limiter on vocals and, of course, I love Distressors. I usually have them set pretty fast for bass and guitars, and I do use the distortion options sometimes. I like them, but it depends on what I’m doing. It’s a great compressor; a real workhorse. For the reverb, I use the TC Electronic 4000 and I have a real EMT140 plate. I really like the UAD EMT140 emulation and normally use it a lot, but on Ásgeir’s album I used the real one. I really love the UAD EMT250, too, and use it frequently, along with many of the UAD plugins as they sound really great. But you have to balance it carefully. I don’t want to use only plugins and on the other hand it would take a long AT 32
time using only outboard. I do use outboard a lot, but I take almost everything out of the computer and back in again. I use it mostly in mixing more than during recording. AudioTechnology: You’re credited with mixing the Icelandic version of In The Silence, but not the international release, why’s that? Kiddi: When we did the English translation of the album, we worked with Dave Bascombe at The Pool studio in London and ran it through his old EMT A100 [30-channel, 8-bus] desk to sum the stems I had mixed. I was just curious to hear what would happen as I had been reading a lot about summing through a desk. I was also curious to watch someone else work, to get another man’s opinion, as this was the first album I’d produced that’s gone big internationally. Just to be sure everything’s okay. AudioTechnology: How was that experience? Kiddi: It was fun, and nice to talk about what we’ve been doing with somebody who wasn’t involved. It hasn’t changed the way I work, but it was very interesting. Later we went to Electric Lady Studios in New York for a radio session with Ásgeir and there we ran our programme through the Neve 8078 desk they have. You could feel that desk is good — the holy grail. AudioTechnology: And what about the translation into English with John Grant? Were you and Ásgeir worried the meanings would be lost in translation? Kiddi: It took a long time to get him to the studio, but he had a week off in Iceland which was perfect timing for when we needed to record. He just came
to the studio with one song ready and while Ásgeir was singing those lyrics, he translated the next one on-the-fly. That happened for two or three days until it was finished. And he was there to help with the pronunciation, too. It was really good because he can speak many languages. He’s very clever, he learned Icelandic in three months. SCENE CHANGE
AudioTechnology: What is the future for Ásgeir? Kiddi: In The Silence came out in 2012, but at some point we have to say ‘stop’, and start working on the next album. We are so looking forward to writing new songs and recording them, but we have to tour a little bit more to get what we’ve already achieved out there. The album is still pretty new in America. How is the next album going to sound? I’m not sure, but Ásgeir is writing a lot of new material on the road and at home. AudioTechnology: What else have you been working on? Kiddi: Ásgeir’s brother Steinni (Þorsteinn Einarsson) is also a talented songwriter, he writes all the songs for Hjalmar. He plays keys, guitar and bass in Ásgeir’s live band and while we’ve been on tour he’s been writing a lot of music for his solo project Uniimog. We’ve been recording both Ásgeir and Steini on the road in hotel rooms all over the world. We had some time off from touring, so Steini, Ásgeir, myself and some of our friends went into the studio to finish it. The music is electronic-ish and not far from Ásgeir’s. It’s electric and it isn’t. Most songs are written on
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guitar and the electronic elements are added later. It’s a beautiful album that was released before Christmas, but we’re not sure if we’ll be able to tour it. Maybe it’s a one-off, but maybe there will be more. You never know when you start a project where it will take you in the end. You cannot control it, sometimes it gets its own life somehow. AudioTechnology: What do you see the future holding for you? Kiddi: Me, I’ve always been a hard worker, some people say a workaholic. It might be a TV show or a new band or studio project — I always find something to do. There’s already been a lot of international touring with Ásgeir this year, and we’ll be back in Australia with Alt-J in May. When you get something this far, you have to keep going to see how far you can get. I used to work on a lot of high budget projects, but these days I prefer to work on smaller projects. It gives me a different kind of satisfaction. When I was working as a producer for all kinds of famous Icelandic bands I got a lot of money doing every album, but I prefer doing lowerbudget albums that are more fun, like a kid’s album. In the end, it will give you much more pleasure to do the things you love. And the funny thing is, it will probably pay off better in the end if you take fewer gigs and try to make money out of them in some other way besides just getting money from the label. Of course it’s a bit more work, but when you’re doing something you like it doesn’t really matter. AudioTechnology: How have you seen the Icelandic music scene change over time? Kiddi: I think the Icelandic scene has been changing a lot lately. Not many years ago it was only the underground or non-mainstream bands like Sigur Rós and Björk who made it outside of Iceland. Now I think eyes are on all of Iceland’s music scene, which could open up avenues for more mainstream music going out of Iceland. I always like it if you don’t really know the road, otherwise it’s boring. It’s even more fun if you don’t really understand what’s going on and that is basically the music business — you never know what’s next. It’s kind of a weird world to live in, and especially to work in. You never know when you’re going to be in or out of fashion, but it’s fun because I’ve been in and out of fashion twice already. It happens to plenty of great artists, look at Neil Young. It doesn’t take you by surprise, it’s more like ‘ahh, this is my time-out for a while’ and then you just do something else you like and get back in. You have to be a bit of a fighter, a workaholic and enjoy what you’re doing. I think that’s number one; if you don’t like what you’re doing, you should find yourself something else to do. We are really lucky, we’re the people who are basically working on our hobbies. That’s really special… that’s luck. Asgeir found a love for keyboards and synthesisers while recording his album at Syrland, and it’s not hard to see why. There’s a whole extra rack in Kiddi’s control room. Of course, there’s the ‘wall of guitar sounds’ too.
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FEATURE
Halo: The Master Chief Collection updates the entire Halo series for Microsoft’s XBox One platform, dragging over a decade of audio technology into the future and necessitating a return to Skywalker Sound. Story: John Broomhall
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Nearly 15 years ago, Microsoft launched its first videogame console, the XBox. A landmark in game audio history, its dedicated sound hardware positioned it very favourably in the race for high-quality music, cinematic sound and credible dialogue in games. It even boasted real-time 5.1 encoding of in-game sound FX. Audio for games was coming of age. The poster child for this audio revolution was Halo, whose original release showed just how engaging and powerful the aural experience of games could be, a point it proved through multiple releases in the beloved series, over two generations of Microsoft consoles. But what about Halo fans kitting out their dens with Microsoft’s third, latest, and even more powerful videogame station — the XBox One? Enter Halo: The Master Chief Collection, an audacious ‘nu-gen’ homecoming for the franchise, billed as the ‘definitive Halo experience’ and featuring a re-mastered Halo 2: Anniversary, along with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo: Nightfall (the live-action digital series made in partnership with Ridley Scott), and access to the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta. Paul Lipson, Senior Audio Director for 343 Industries/Microsoft Studios managed and directed the audio team through this gargantuan undertaking. Lipson: “I’ve been a huge Halo fan since the original release, Combat Evolved. An innovative and aesthetically groundbreaking title which transformed the way I look at game audio; a creative landmark. However, moving Halo 1-4 over to XBox One with a brand new unified UI and at 1080p/60 frames a second was a Herculean task. We were looking at four different integration schemes and audio engines that needed to play nice together. Meanwhile, Halo 2: Anniversary hitting its 10th anniversary was a massive project in itself, with a full update of all audio content — 198 minutes of all-new music, over 16,000 new sound and foley assets, and 58 minutes of all-new cinematics with bespoke post-production content. “One of the coolest features in Halo 2:
Anniversary is that WE INCLUDED BOTH THE LEGACY SOUND AND THE NEW SOUND — LITERALLY TWO COMPLETE SOUND TREES RUNNING SIDE-BY-SIDE. You can play the
game in remastered mode and do all the fun things like dual-wielding weapons, then instantly switch to the legacy content running in perfect parallel. It’s quite astounding and really showcases the power of the XBox One and how far game audio has come in a decade. “Looking back, I’m amazed at how much we accomplished. We never sacrificed audio quality — from the very first note recorded to the very last moment of mixing. Bringing all of this amazing talent together and focusing our collective energies to make something this cohesive is certainly a bright moment and a satisfying feeling.”
SKYWALKER BOUND
Lipson partnered with Skywalker Sound and multiple Grammy Award-winning engineer, Leslie Ann Jones, to record 85 members of the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra (players from the San Francisco Symphony and Ballet), 40 singers from the SF Opera Chorus, and 28 singers from the Boys Chorus. He also commissioned two new cues from guitarist/producer Misha Mansoor (Periphery, Animals As Leaders), and brought back guitar hero Steve Vai for work on the main themes. Lipson: “We have a strong relationship with the American Federation of Musicians (the largest musicians’ union in North America), and we’ve had great success recording with them. They love games — and it’s fun to hear them come in after a night of playing Mahler or Rachmaninov and say, ‘wow, it’s so awesome to stretch out and play this amazing music’. The AFM players have been instrumental in helping us shape the gorgeous sound of our Halo soundtracks. Leslie Ann Jones and the Skywalker Sound team also make all the difference — their expertise coupled with one of the finest recording environments in the world really brings the music to life. I’m lucky to be working with such a talented group of people, and I think our results reflect that.”
MASTER CHIEF: PAUL LIPSON AT: What drew you to this industry? Lipson: I used to program machine code on my old Apple IIe and write little interactive audio programs using a Mockingboard card when I was a primary school student. I’d toured with bands and taught after earning my Masters degree from the New England Conservatory, but I knew I wanted to pursue games as a full time profession. I grew up idolising early trailblazers like Bill Budge, Richard Garriott, Nasir Gabelli, Jordan Mechner, and it just evolved into a full-time pursuit. I started my first game audio company in 1998 and haven’t really looked back since. The evolution of the industry has been staggering over the past 20 years, and from an audio perspective, it’s going where many of us hoped it would. The size, scope, and production values of our scores and audio rival anything in entertainment — and the bar has been raised to that of a true art form. AT: What’s the future of game audio and game scoring? Lipson: There is a continued forward charge toward higher fidelity and an unabated evolution of how we express and capture our content, but we are now finding ourselves on the cusp of another technological renaissance that is going to create myriad opportunities for audio in games. The cloud is becoming a factor, platforms are evolving and becoming unified — many common technologies are harmonising in ways that we are just beginning to understand. All of this platform evolution needs gorgeous music and sound, which is great news for musicians, designers, integrators, and audio professionals around the globe.
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THE ARBITER: BRIAN FIESER Sound Supervisor
AT: Sound Supervisor sounds like a broad title, what were you handling? Feisher: I was responsible for designing and implementing new audio systems for Halo 2: Anniversary, creating and implementing sound effects, reverse engineering and learning the engine tools Bungie used over 10 years ago, organising and running field recording sessions, working closely with Paul Lipson and Sound Designer Paul Stoughton to establish the direction of the sound, providing audio post work for marketing, and working with our external partners. AT: What are the key pieces of gear that can handle all those roles? Feisher: For software designing and editing, I mostly use Pro Tools and Adobe Audition with many different plug-ins. I carry a Sony PCM D50 as a portable recorder on a daily basis. It usually depends on what it is that we are going to record, but for our larger sessions we’ll generally bring an array of recorders such as the Sound Devices 702s, DEVA, Sony PCM 100/D50, and microphones such as Sennheiser MKH 8040/40/418, Rode NT4, AKG D112, and a few others. AT: What’s given you the leg up in the world of games? Feisher: Being proficient in a DAW and familiar with editing sound through various platforms is a must. Besides needing to be passionate about the medium you are working on, I think playing a lot of games is critical to the job; it opens up your ears and mind to sound. You will identify more with the audience you’re creating content for, and start to understand the bigger picture; that placement of sound and creating sound for player feedback is more important to the art than editing and mixing any single sound on its own. I also think that being open to experimentation and even failure are key components. There are many times where I’ve gone into a recording session with grand ideas, only to have the material not turn out very well. Understanding that and being willing to try random experiments and new techniques will ultimately lead to more success. AT 38
RED TEAM: LENNIE MOORE Composer & Orchestrator
AT: What was you contribution to the project? Moore: I was Principal Orchestrator on both Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary collaborating with Paul Lipson and the team to fulfil the creative vision and update the orchestration to a larger size orchestra recorded in surround. AT: Can you run us through the orchestration process? Moore: Orchestration is the parsing out and balancing of individual parts within a given composition. In another form it could be called arranging. In essence, it’s about translating a composition into something that is playable by a group of live musicians. I’ll usually analyse a composition, make choices about how it will be distributed to separate parts within the orchestra, decide what colours or textures will be used in various sections and render all of this into a notation program like Sibelius; which allows me to layout how the full scores and parts should look. These are then printed out and distributed to the musicians performing on the recording sessions.
AT: How far would an orchestrator go in embellishing the original notation? Moore: Only as far as the ‘boss’ allows! A great orchestrator follows the lead and intent of the composer. It is often a collaborative process where, after analysing the composition, the orchestrator will discuss with the composer how best to translate the original notation into something suitable for the orchestra. As an example, let’s say the composer used a full string section patch in his composition where he played ‘piano style’ (meaning with two hands only) into his computer for his demo. What do the Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello and Bass parts play? My role would be to translate the two-handed version into a five-part version for the strings — dividing all the melodies, chords and various compositional ideas into what makes the most sense for the musicians to play, while maintaining a balanced sound within the entire section.
Moving Halo 1-4 over to XBox One with a brand new unified UI and at 1080p/60 frames a second was a Herculean task — 198 minutes of all-new music, over 16,000 new sound and foley assets, and 58 minutes of all-new cinematics
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Reworking the entire Halo catalogue required a team effort and all hands on deck at Skywalker Sound. Senior Audio Director Paul Lipson sits to Leslie Ann Jones’ right at Skywalker’s scoring stage console.
CORTANA: LESLIE ANN JONES Director of Music Recording & Scoring, Skywalker Sound
AT: Think ‘Skywalker’ and you tend to associate it with movies. How has its involvement in video games come about? Jones: Skywalker has always been involved in audio post for films and now television. But the Scoring Stage has had a diverse clientele from the beginning: rock, jazz, classical and film scores. With the increased interest in videogame scores having a more cinematic sound with large, live orchestras it seemed to be a natural fit for us to start doing more of them. Plus many major videogame publishers are on the West Coast so the location was a factor as well. Our involvement comprises recording and mixing music for scores but our audio post side has also contributed to many games with ADR, foley, sound design and mixing, just like we do for films. AT: Are there any special factors or differences associated with working on interactive music scores for videogames? Jones: Videogame scores are an interesting hybrid between film scores where you have picture, sound effects and dialogue to pay attention to, and records
where you just want to record a great sounding track. But videogame scores are also very different in they deal with levels of play versus what the player(s) hears. And also cinematics, which do have picture, effects and dialogue. My approach to recording doesn’t change much. I like to have things sound big and grand and get as much detail from the composer’s composition and orchestration as I can. But when I mix, then I can pay attention to how the music will be used and any balance adjustments that might be needed. Also videogame scores tend to take more advantage of recording sections of the orchestra separately because of the different levels of play and the sound needed for that. AT: What makes the Skywalker scoring stage so legendary? Jones: I like to think George’s [Lucas] vision of Skywalker Ranch and Skywalker Sound was to create a wonderful, warm, and relaxing environment in which to get one’s best work done. Our staff lives up to that and creates an atmosphere that says, ‘we’ll do whatever it takes to enable you to walk out with the best product
possible’. I think those things, and of course a great sounding room are what makes Skywalker so special. AT: What are the key pieces of tech you can’t live without? Jones: My staff actually. They are all the best at what they do and because of that they enable me to work at my best without having to worry about anything. That and my Lexicon 224. AT: What key skills and personal qualities do you think have led to you being at the helm of such a prestigious world-class scoring stage? Jones: Paying attention to detail is very important as is multi-tasking (and I don’t mean checking Facebook at the same time as recording). But the most important thing is knowing when to say something and when not to. Most of the time it will be not. But my job is really twofold; recording and mixing, and running the scoring stage. Different skills are needed for each, but both require great people skills. The artist/ client is paying the bill but also is the creative force behind the music and it’s important to remember it is their recording. AT 39
GRUNT WORK: BRIAN TRIFON/BRIAN LEE WHITE Project Managers & Soundtrack Co-producers
AT: What were your roles? Trifon: We wore many hats. In addition to working on the score itself, we were also responsible for contracting, budgeting, editing, mixing, asset tracking, sequencing, etc. AT: How do you manage all of those assets? White: Every part of the score eventually found its way into Pro Tools for editing and surround mixing. With so many minutes of material and so many assets to organise and deliver, the new offline bounce workflow in Pro Tools 11 really saved us a ton of time. I was able to simultaneously print full surround mixes as well as surround stem splits all in one quick pass. Trifon: We also used a little known piece of software called Keymap Pro from Redmatica to do the crossfading loop edits. The company got bought by Apple a while back and their software is no longer available, in fact it only works on an older version of OS X, but there is nothing else out there that can touch it for what we needed to accomplish. AT: What skills are key for your success? Trifon: I’d say the main skillset is problem solving and time management skills. Of course, none of it is possible without having excellent musical skills, supreme DAW chops/editing skills, and a refined musical and sonic aesthetic. You can’t be any kind of audio professional without those skills. However, technical skills and even musical skills alone aren’t enough. Making cool music is the easy and fun part! The challenging part is all of the unforeseeable roadblocks and setbacks that will inevitably come up during the course of a project. White: Organisation is so critical in game audio. You literally have to track the status of thousands of assets, know how they relate and be able to quickly verify what state they are in. Has this cue been approved? Has that cue been mixed? Does this cue need a revision? In addition to using a purpose-built project management tool, we also tracked things in huge colour-coded spreadsheets that we could quickly glance at and see where things were. Even during the recording sessions at Skywalker, I had two laptops full of spreadsheets open in the control room, tracking what we still needed to record and where we were with our time. Working with Steve Vai and Misha Mansoor was a blast. On top of each being incredible shredders in their own respective styles, they are both genuinely awesome people to work and hang out with. Steve and Misha both came out to the scoring sessions at Skywalker Ranch and it was like having two eras of guitar gods sitting under one roof, such a special time, we all had so much fun at those sessions.
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It really showcases how far game audio has come in a decade
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FEATURE
A PRETTIER KIND OF SHITTY The Bamboos’ Lance Ferguson and producer John Castle have moved beyond Gabriel Roth’s Shitty is Pretty funk recording
methodology. But haven’t lost any soul along the way. Story: Mark Davie
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21 albums in and The Bamboos’ main man Lance Ferguson and producer/engineer John Castle are only just getting on the same page. Sonically, the two are peas in a pod, having worked on every Bamboos record since the band’s debut, and a host of other projects. But until this year — when Lance downloaded Logic Pro X from the app store — the two have been in opposing DAW camps. There were good reasons, John had been on Logic since day dot, “Back in the PC days of dongles, when it was about two grand.” And Lance just couldn’t let go of Cubase, where he could sprint through high pressure situations instead of floundering in the deep end. It was a workable, but inconvenient position for the pair, who are basically in each other’s back pockets during the production process. Considering they were already working primarily in-the-box and running the same plug-ins anyway, they may as well have been lugging cartons of reelto-reel between Lance’s home and John’s studio, The Shed. Not that tape is frowned upon by either. Early on, Lance was a soldout convert to Gabriel Roth of the Dap Kings’ sneering Shitty is Pretty manifesto. The smack-talking articles, about culturing a heavy funk 45, threw down over analogue tape, Ghetto ’verbs and a healthy distaste for modern studio processes. For someone trying to write and record soul music, Shitty is Pretty was like a Southern Baptist preacher sermonising a gospel of funk. And John, well he started out on tape. His guitarist dad helped him kit out the family’s back shed, the same one he’s still in now, where he recorded jazz demos for locals on his little Teac 3440 four-track machine. But when you’ve only scheduled three weeks to turn Lance’s pre-production demos into mixed album tracks, a whip-cracking workflow is crucial. “It usually takes a week to track everything, which includes rhythm section, keys, horns, vocals, strings,” said Lance. “A week or two of putting it together, and a week to bust some mixes out.” LOOP FROM THE START
So Lance is finally taking the plunge into Logic, because John’s sure as heck “not going to Cubase.” And there are some aspects he’s already gelling with, “like Apple Loops, which is great for writing songs.” It’s similar to how most Bamboos tracks have gotten off the ground anyway, where he’ll sample an old break from his vinyl collection and use it as the underpinning groove. The caveat, of course, is that “by the time we hit the studio, I’m so hooked on that sound that I’m trying to recreate it.” Initially, recreating vintage soul and funk was exactly what The Bamboos was all about. Lance and John started out aping Roth’s Shitty is Pretty aesthetic as much as possible. It’s hard to argue with such an opinionated godfather of modern funk, especially when he’s spelling out the inside track with lines like, ‘I guarantee that you can get a better drum sound from one $20 Radio Shack mic in your garage than you ever will with a $5000 U-47 in a $300/hr ‘professional’ studio.’ He draws a pretty
hard line. But over time, things have changed. “We started out as a four-piece, The Meters-type instrumental band,” said Lance. “We’ve got eight members at the moment. The music has changed so much over the years, but one thing that’s remained a constant since 2000 is recording at The Shed. And the recording quality has evolved, because John’s equipment and concept of sound has changed over that time too,” said Lance. “We realised there was a lot more flexibility to be had, sonically and editingwise, going into Logic.” “After a while we just went to tracking entirely in the workstation,” said John. “And then ran out mixes to the tape machine off the sync heads. Which is the purposefully shitty sound of those records.” “Tape really went out of the picture on the last three albums,” said Lance. “We found we could just emulate it. It’s really easy to put yourself in a box and have a purist’s mindset that you have to record it on tape, like we were in the initial stages. But I just wanted the band to be more progressive and not a time capsule.” WHEN IT’S HOT
The recording shift is reflected in The Bamboos’ musical development. The last album Fever in the Road was an in-house vocal effort, and moved the band the furthest away from three-chord funk standards The Bamboos had been. Lance: “I was more interested in Beck, Stereolab and Tame Impala, and the way they have a nod to those genres, but in a way that’s current.” “There’s still a definite nod to that sound,” said John. “Some of the EQ curves on drum mics can definitely evoke a sound of the ’60s. It’s also about using a lot of darker ’verbs and plates. But that doesn’t have to mean it’s all limited mid range honk with no bottom or top end.” Previous to that album, The Bamboos had recorded their most collaborative record yet, Medicine Man, with vocalists including Aloe Blacc, Megan Washington, Daniel Merriweather, and You Am I frontman Tim Rogers on the track I Got Burned. That particular song was really an afterthought, written after the rest of the album had been mixed because Lance felt the album was missing something. And, as fate would have it, I Got Burned became their biggest hit to date. Since then, Lance and Tim have worked on a TV show together, where Lance was the Musical Director and Tim the host. There was the tour too, the ‘Rock ’n’ Soul Medicine Show’ travelling circus. “It really just made sense to get in a room and write together,” said Lance. So they started working on a new album from Tim Rogers & The Bamboos, called The Rules of Attraction. “I had all my gear set up at Kindred rehearsal studios in Yarraville, then I moved here [his house in Footscray] and worked on a bunch of ideas for him to spend some time with, before getting together for a two-week block to finish it. “Once we had 15 or so strong concepts we were happy to move forward with, Tim went to town working on lyrics. Tim is a real poet, a lyricist of incredible depth. It was inspirational to see the
stories he had weaved around the music I’d come up with.” DEMO-ITIS COME GOOD
The demos Lance sends vocalists are typically complete arrangements — minus the vocals — with middle-eights and choruses set out. By the time he brings those into The Shed, he’s already recorded vocals at home through his Neumann U87ai, into an Avedis MA5 preamp and Metric Halo interface; and has his guitar parts pretty well dusted. On the new album, about half of the vocals were kept, with some lyric and vibe changes responsible for the remaining redos. For those redo vocals, John’s got an old Neumann CMV-563 with an M7 capsule he’ll often put up as a first port of call. But going straight for the cream of his crop doesn’t always work out. “I was doing a Gosling record,” recalled John. “And put her on that mic and it sounded like someone had put a doona over her head. I’ve got two Groove Tubes MD1A condensers, I call one ‘honky’ and the other ‘hi-fi’, because I think one’s not quite right. Strangely enough, the honky one sounded clear as a bell in front of her. Voices are really weird.” If neither of those are working, he also has a whole system of Blue bodies and capsules, all usually going through a Vintech preamp, and the Distressor and Retro Double Wide compressors.
The music has changed so much over the years, but one thing that’s remained a constant since 2000 is recording at The Shed
”
While he typically plays a Gibson 335 live, Lance recorded his guitar parts mostly with a ’62 Gibson ES-125 TDC strung with flat wounds because “it’s got that honky, spanky sound on the middle pickup position.” And a Fender Jazzmaster, “because it’s got a bit more of an anonymous tone.” When he’s at home, even though he’s got a handful of Fender valve combo amps to choose between, he records his guitars straight into the box via the DI on his Heritage Audio HA73 Jr 500 series Neve preamp clone, with a bit of Guitar Rig and Waves stompbox plug-in emulation. “I’m always assuming we’ll rerecord those,” said Lance. “But when we get in the studio, it’s fine. Some got re-amped internally, never physically. I’m not a purist, as long as the guitar tone is right for the song.” “If Lance is doing a demo to a drum loop that’s restricted in its frequency range, that ends up guiding him,” explained John. “So sometimes if AT 43
John Castle still produces albums out of The Shed, the same shed he started from in his parent’s backyard. It’s got a bit more equipment these days than the Teac four-track.
he’s using a thinner sounding drum loop, often his guitar is relative to the existing tone. Plus, I didn’t want to redo them. You just need someone to tell you it’s okay.” “It’s like morale counselling in the studio,” agreed Lance. “Choosing between 50 old amps is just time we don’t have,” added John. “And I’m not sure we’d get a hugely different result. I DI a lot of the guitars through this old Rola preamp, because it’s got a great tone to it. And if you muck around with those amp simulators, you can get some great results. Especially if you get the compression levels and tone right.” MIC REFLECTIONS
If they learnt anything from Roth, it’s that more isn’t necessarily better. So while they’ve departed from a strictly limited microphone diet for drums, it’s for options — not endless ones… the right one. John might put 12 mics up around the kit, but when it comes to mix down, he’ll usually only go with a handful of them. “Sometimes you can do it with just one mic — a ribbon on the floor so it picks up the kick and the bottom snare rattle for that Motown sound. Maybe I just want the ribbon in front of the kit, with one overhead, kick and snare. Or I can go a little bit more hi-fi and bring other mics in. Lately, Lance and I have been trying to make the bottom end a little more modern,” said AT 44
Sometimes you can do it with just one mic — a ribbon on the floor so it picks up the kick and the bottom snare rattle for that Motown sound
”
John. “I just put up all the mics because we’re trying to work quickly, so if Lance wants some more kick or snare later, we’re not limited too much.” Though Roth says ‘any shitty drums will do’, both John and Lance reckon that a lot of those old soul sounds are mostly a conflation of two factors; an old jazz kit — smaller 18- or 20-inch kicks and a high-tuned snare — with a lighter-hitting drummer playing a back beat. “The drums ‘speak’ a lot better,” said John. “It’s really hard to make great sounding soul without a bit of ring in the drums — double heads on the kicks, muting stuff down, using lighter skins, and higher tuning. Cymbals are really important too. Heavy modern hi-hats become a real problem because they bleed into everything
else. Using one mic can be fine, but if the drummer isn’t mixing themselves as they’re playing you’re not going to have a chance in hell of letting the rest of the drums speak. You must pick a mic, compress it, and put that in their cans so every time they hit the hats or ride they feel what that’s going to sound like later; they can play to that.” For mixing that soul sound, John uses a lot of in-the-box mashing. “A lot of the SoundToys Devil Loc and some of the API 2500 plug-in to bring excitement. And, of course, Decapitator is great. I used to set up chains like that in the old days, now you can just muck around with the tone controls and Thump switch. A lot of that soul sound is lumps in the bottom, and the tops rolled off, but pushed. “Though it depends on what the bass is doing, and the key. If someone’s playing higher up on the bass, it’ll naturally sit on top of the kit. If you’re playing around the low E or G area, that’s when you get a lot of 100Hz fight between the kick drum, and you have to pick what’s going to take up that space.” Lance: “Sometimes we’ve scooped the kick out and put a 909 kick underneath.” John: “I don’t want that clarity, I’m not recording at 96k. A lot of the time I’m cutting top end from 15kHz because I don’t necessarily want that air in there. The drums are often in mono too, which leaves a lot of room for other instruments. You can get rid of the 3kHz area too, so the vocals can sit on top of the drums and still be loud and present.”
There’s not a lot of room in the live room at The Shed, just enough to record some funky sounding drums and bass.
LANCE’S GUITARS Fender Jazzmaster (Classic Player Edition): I love that the Jazzmaster has a variety of tones and doesn’t always necessarily sound ‘Fender’ in nature. You can get some rich but more individual and brand-anonymous sounds from this guitar. 1962 Gibson ES-125 TDC: I bought this guitar from Tom Martin of The Putbacks. I have it set up with flatwounds and it really has that ‘spank’ on the bottom E and A strings for percussive, single line riffs. I am a big fan of hollowbody guitars with P-90 (single coil) pick-ups. 1958 Harmony Meteor: I bought this on eBay after checking out the amazing Tommy Brenneck of The Dap-Kings and Menahan Street Band performing a duet with Charles Bradley. It has the original gold leaf DeArmond pick-ups and a really beautiful vintage sound. Not the most comfortable neck I have ever played but so worth it for the tone! Carson P-Bass Copy: This is a cheap, pawn-shop P-Bass copy that seems to have been hanging around with me for close to 20 years! I have used it on many recordings and there just seems to be something special about the tone, which even bass player pals of mine with vast collections of vintage basses seem to concur with.
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STRUNG OUT
With drums, bass and vocals taking a lot of the middle, John uses the strings and horn section to create width in the stereo image. Which plays nicely into how the parts are recorded. John: “Ross Irwin does our string arrangements. He’ll usually have two parts — for cello and violin — and we’ll record three versions of each. I’ve mucked around with changing mic positions between takes, but found once you combine takes from the same position, put an overall ’verb on top and pan them hard left and right, the phasing isn’t too bad. “I used an AKG C451 on the violins, which is a super bright mic, but it works because the instruments have nice warm tones. The cello might have the Neumann with the M7 capsule on it, and a ribbon as well. That way, I can go all ribbon for really dark, a bit of both, or all condenser if I need to shine it up a little bit. “If you’ve got the same trumpet player playing two lines, you really have to separate them left and right, and get rid of the phasey, chorus-y kind of tone you can get. “I change the mic I use all the time, because I think about it a lot and I’m obsessed with it. The last few records I’ve just been using a couple of Sennheiser 421s on the saxes, and a Sony C38 condenser on the trumpet. I’ve gone back to dynamics, because they’re a bit more limited in frequency range, and the 421s have a nice bite to the front end. If you use all large diaphragm condensers, it brings in a lot of room sound when you compress them, which can be a problem. Horns are really dangerous to compress, because they start sounding a bit quacky. Because those guys play so well together, we haven’t done any horn editing, and I try to get the record levels so I can leave the faders flat and put a little bit of compression over the bus.”
[Clockwise from above] You Am I frontman Tim Rogers recorded a lot of his vocals in Lance’s home studio, but redid a few at The Shed using John’s trusty Neumann CMV-563 microphone; Lance and John at The Bamboos’ home studio; Recording strings at The Shed with a modicum of isolation.
EARS FOR IT
When it comes down to the last week, John doesn’t mix with a ‘set faders to zero’ approach. He’s tried it, and says he always seems to end up back where he started. From the very first recording, he’s already trying to give each instrument its own place. “I know what I want, I just have to go and get it,” he said. It’s also why he doesn’t send a lot of channels to the same reverb or delay, most instruments are grouped to their own bus with its own reverb applied as an insert. John: “The drums might have a plate on them, but they’re upfront, with horns and strings further back.” He loves Valhalla Vintage Verb, it’s the right kind of dark, he says, “I don’t want to hear any zing from any reverbs. I don’t want to hear any ‘s’ followed by anything else. I’m trying to suggest emotional responses in each song, and you can do that with the right ’verbs and EQ curves.” The final pair of ears in the line belong to Brian Lucey, who’s mastered The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys and Beck. While both have an appreciation for the mastering engineer’s role, John AT 46
is also conscious of the role his bus processing plays in the final sound. John: “I think the bus sound is an important part of the mix, and I don’t necessarily want to rely on the mastering engineer for those things. I’ve been using the Waves Puigchild, I’ll touch that by a couple of dB at the fastest release. And then I’ll use the SSL bus comp from Waves as well. Different music needs different compression. But I’m typically not looking for an
open jazz sort of sound, I’ll want things contained.” Lance has complete trust in John’s ears and the decisions he makes. The pair have been inseparable from the beginning of the Bamboos and for the last three albums, he’s been credited as a co-producer. “Having John’s ears and musical approach involved on a creative level is invaluable,” reckons Lance. “He has golden ears and also a built in BS-detector I regard as second to none.”
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PC Audio PC laptops and notebooks can be great for music making, but ensure you make a wise investment! Column: Martin Walker
More and more musicians are abandoning desktop PCs in favour of more portable devices, both for live use and for a more compact setup at home or in the studio. Sadly though, while buying a desktop PC for audio purposes is a comparatively safe bet nowadays, buying a laptop/ notebook is still a bit of a minefield. Modern PC laptops/notebooks can certainly provide more than enough processing power for most musicians, but the crucial measurement that will determine whether or not a particular model is suitable for a musician is DPC (Deferred Procedure Call) Latency. ANSWERING THE CALL
Windows handles audio and video streams not in real time, but with periodic blocks of data, queued via an ‘interrupt call’. Whenever the next block of data is required to maintain a smooth stream, the appropriate device driver issues one of these DPC calls, which then gets placed by Windows in a queue, to be carried out when it’s finished dealing with whatever it’s currently doing. So far so good. However, as with most queues, calls are dealt with on a first come, first served basis, so if anything ahead of the audio request in the queue takes longer than expected, you’ll run into problems. The raison d’être of any audio PC is to stream audio smoothly, without any dropouts that result in infuriating audio clicks, pops, and glitches. Any internal computer component whose driver hangs onto the processor for an excessive amount of time can cause these. It’s bad enough when they occur during playback, but if they happen during a recording you can be left with permanent interruptions in your audio that are very difficult to mask. If you experience glitching audio on any PC you can try systematically disabling likely devices one at a time via Windows Device Manager to see if it cures the problem. Thankfully there are also a couple of free utilities that can help track down the most likely candidates. For a long time, DPC Latency Checker (www.thesycon.de) was the first port of call. It provides a graphic readout of DPC latency in real time — if all results remain in AT 48
the green zone the machine is able to run audio streams without dropouts, but if any stray into the yellow area your machine might need its audio buffer size (and hence its latency) increased a little. Sadly, if results enter the red zone then you most definitely need to find and disable the culprit device. DPC Latency Checker is still useful if you have a Windows 7, Vista or XP-based PC, but it’s currently not suitable if you use Windows 8. A suitable utility that runs on both Windows 7 and 8 is LatencyMon from Resplendence Software (www. resplendence.com). The Home Edition is free, but there’s also a Pro version for business use. Their readouts are still fairly self-explanatory, and there’s also a mass of further stats on offer if you need to delve deeper into problem areas. LAPTOP PROS & CONS
Now the fundamental difference between a desktop and laptop/notebook PC is that with the latter, you’re unlikely to be able to replace — and sometimes even disable — the drivers of various internal components that may cripple low latency audio performance. A few settings may be available to tweak, but even one ‘badly behaved’ device driver can bring a system to its knees audio-wise. It could be a cooling fan unexpectedly cutting in to stop your processor overheating, a Wi-Fi device being polled, network adaptors, an internal modem, or even an onboard soundchip. If you can buy a laptop/notebook on the high street, you can try taking in the above utilities on a USB stick and running them before you hand over any cash, but if you’re buying over the internet, your only option is to establish beforehand that if your chosen model isn’t well-behaved with low latency audio, you can return it for a full refund. Sadly, a lot of people still think that specialist ‘pro audio notebooks/laptops’ are a con, but they can save you a lot of heartache. Laptops supplied by audio PC builders are simply models that have already been thoroughly tested across a wide range of audio hardware and software, and are guaranteed not to present the above problems. You also get informed support about high quality audio performance if and when you need it, rather
than a blank look. Audio PC builders may discard many models before finding one that works well down to low audio latencies, while the larger audio suppliers may even have enough clout to ask the original manufacturer to provide a specially tweaked BIOS, offering options mainstream laptop equivalents don’t have. The specialists will charge you a little extra for all their time and effort, but I think it’s well worth this premium to save all the possible hassle. If you want to go it alone, there are also a few good threads across several music forums where musicians detail specific mainstream laptop models that have been found to work well with audio. Although sometimes manufacturers end up changing one or more internal components and their drivers during a production run, perhaps because a particular part is no longer available, has been superseded, or the original spec gets ‘improved’. In such cases, audio performance may suffer, so no forum recommendation is foolproof. Sometimes even the specialists have to drop a previously good laptop from their range for the same reason. Time after time I’ve seen musicians post on forums asking ‘Which is the best laptop to buy for audio from the following list?’ Rarely can people provide them with any specific advice, except on the odd occasion when someone has recently taken the gamble and bought that exact model, and therefore been able to test it out for themselves. Generally, model after model is suggested and discarded, before the poster either: buys a pro model and starts making music, gives up, or buys something blind in the hope that it will work well for them. The latter option is often the saddest thing of all because then the questions start. From the hopeful ‘What settings do I need to change to get acceptable performance?’ Through to, ‘Why doesn’t my BIOS have the settings you recommend altering?’ And the despair of, ‘I could never entirely eliminate clicks at any usable buffer size for playing VST instruments’. I’m still a firm supporter of desktop PCs for music, but when it comes to laptops and notebooks, all bets are off unless you stick with the professionals.
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Apple Notes Apples stream of updates Column: Anthony Garvin
WWDC keynotes are always a mixed bag of interesting new tech developments and awkward tech heads introducing them on stage. Did anyone catch Eddie Cue doing the Cuban dance?! Besides getting a good look at the new tools and toys, Apple will release in the short term, it’s also a glimpse into where the behemoth may be heading over the next few years. Let’s see where our imagination can take us… APPLE MUSIC
For music lovers and producers alike, Apple Music is no doubt the biggest development from WWDC, and already available to the public. I’m going to presume you don’t live under a rock, so I won’t go over the features bit-by-bit, but here a few interesting points for anyone working in the music industry. Generally, music streaming is growing fast. Billboard recently reported that music consumption in the UK has grown 4% in 2015 so far. CD sales are still declining, with streaming making up the gap and growing the whole business some. Hopefully, with the launch of Apple Music, streaming will explode and we’ll be back taking the big studio billings of yesteryear! …Sorry, studio manager side coming through. Probably not, but it does show some promise for a bounce back of even meagre proportions. Apple Music’s Connect feature adds another social media platform to the mix — Myspace rebooted for a mobile world. Time will tell what the up-take will be like, but if you already have music on the iTunes store, you can sign up straight away. And if you don’t, you can contact Apple to express your interest in ‘Connecting’ (though it’s unclear what that means at this point). EL CAPITAN
I thought ‘El Capitan’ was Spanish slang until I Googled it. Turns out it’s a rock formation in Yosemite National Park… which makes sense of the new Mac OS 10.11 update. So far the highlights for the new OS are focused on ‘Performance’ and ‘Experience’ . Better performance we can certainly use; the promises are increased battery AT 50
life on laptops, and faster application loading and switching times. Each update to Mac OS seems to draw closer to the iOS experience. While the gesture additions are mostly for Apple Mail, the Split Screen feature looks useful. It will allow you to split your screen like you have two displays; placing two applications front and centre side by side. This might be useful for rewired apps, or for tidying up your workflow when exporting and importing audio files between applications.
Watch may find a niche in music education — guitar and singing training apps; and with the recording musician — basic demo recording, a simple DAW controller perhaps. Overall, the noise coming out of WWDC shows an Apple committed to maintaining its dominance as a music retailer, and making gradual improvements to its OS’s. Which is probably a good thing for all of us that simply want stable Apple devices so we can focus on producing audio, and loads of people listening to to it.
iOS 9
Artists with an interest in joining Apple Music Connect can find more info here: www.apple.com/itunes/working-itunes/connect/
While El Capitan appears to be continuing in its iOS-driven direction, iOS 9 has in some ways made a move towards Mac OS. A meeting in the middle, if you will. On the iPad, for example, new keypad gestures interface with the device as you would with a track pad, and the same side-by-side app multitasking is built-in. There’s also more functionality for wireless keyboards which can convert an iPad into a small Mac laptop. While not particularly relevant to most audio professionals, as iOS starts to borrow more from OS X, it does re-awaken the question: Where are all the decent production tools for iPad, beyond just control? Avid has finally promised an iPad control app for Pro Tools, but surely in 2015 we could see more development in this area? Ableton Live would be amazing on an iPad. Another new iOS feature might push some developers in that direction; the inclusion of Audio Units. Just like AUs for OS X, this will allow developers to provide plug-ins for (hopefully) a variety of DAW hosts on iOS. It’s early days, but it will be interesting to see the take-up from the big developers. Perhaps that next generation of iOS production tools isn’t as far away as it looks. WATCH OS
While it might sound ridiculous at first — when the iPhone came out I thought, ‘who needs internet on their phone all the time?’ — I’m sure there will be some clever Apple Watch audio apps coming soon. With watchOS 2 developments, and a little more time in the market, I’m thinking the Apple
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REVIEW
AVID S3L-X
Digital Live System & Studio Controller The S3L-X packs light, but can mix it up with the heavyweights.
NEED TO KNOW
Review: Guy Harrison
PRICE S3L-X System 16: $24,699 Stage 16 I/O: $5499 S3 Control Surface: $6899 CONTACT Avid Australia: 0408 778 737 or david.sullivan@avid.com
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PROS Modular system with auto gain tracking Record & Playback 64 ’Tools tracks over Ethernet Venue showfile compatibility Intuitive feedback & colour scheming Extremely portable
CONS Core Audio interface Mac only 48k sample limit
SUMMARY The diminutive S3L-X packs a lot into a couple of Pelican cases, but you won’t find much missing, if anything. With auto-gain tracking when adding more systems, and Pro Tools recording and playback via ethernet, it really makes the most of the AVB protocol. Plus, it’s a killer studio control surface too.
The recessed power input on the back of the Stage 16 I/O lets you roll the unit onto its back for traditional stage box-style use. For everything else, it’s a robust, rackable 16-channel I/O solution that will fly without a problem.
Avid unveiled the S3L live sound system a few years ago at the AES show to an industry poised with bated breath. Its bigger consoles had cemented Avid as a mainstay at big gigs and festivals far and wide, so the introduction of a cheaper, scalable networked system that could run showfiles and plug-ins just like its SC 48 and Control D consoles was sure to appeal to hire companies and end users. Two years down the track and there have been some major changes to the system in both hardware and software. But do these changes make the new, more flexible, S3L-X a home studio contender as well as a live sound system? Let’s take a look. The S3L-X consists of three parts: the S3 control surface, E3 engine and Stage 16 I/O unit. These three components connect via Avid’s own low latency AVB network system to provide 64 channels of I/O at up to 48k. Each component has its own measure of I/O on board so in a live sound context their are options to connect playback devices or provide output splits at the FOH mix position on the S3 Surface and E3 engine and, of course, at the Stage 16 I/O. In the studio it means the S3 control surface can function as a fourinput/six-output AVB Core Audio interface [see inset box]. You will also require a DVI-equipped monitor, which can be a touchscreen, and keyboard and mouse or trackball for navigating and naming. Consistent across all Avid consoles is the onboard Venue software. But because the S3L systems have a different architecture to the older Profiles, D-Shows and SC48s, the software has been forked. It essentially looks and functions the same, so if you’ve ever worked on an SC 48 or Profile it will instantly feel familiar. But while those older
consoles are on version three, the S3L systems are up to version 4.5. It’s a very powerful and well thought-out piece of software. Allowing control of everything from routing to plug-in assignment, snapshots, Pro Tools recording and playback, and everything in between. It’s very much an ‘if you can dream it, you can do it’ system but, as is always the trade off, there’s a learning curve and time needed pre-show for getting the show in order. But we’ll come back to the major changes to the Venue software, for now let’s tour the hardware. SCRATCHING THE SURFACE
The S3 control surface is the biggest departure in form from anything else in the Venue console range, and its diminutive size will have some potential users worried. Rest assured Avid has gone to great lengths to make the S3 familiar to users of its bigger consoles. There’s an assuring quality of build to the S3, from its 16 Alps motorised touchsensitive faders, to the reassuring click of every button, and pleasant resistance to the encoders which makes dialling in settings a simple and precise affair. The E3 Engine is the DSP powerhouse driving the wheels. Housed in a 2U chassis the E3 contains HDX processing cards which allow you to run AAX DSP plug-ins. It’s an improvement in efficiency over the previous engine and is why the new S3L-X provides more plug-in power over the previous S3L System. An amount of I/O is also provided, four analogue ins and outs, as well as two stereo channels of AES digital connectivity. The Stage 16 I/O provides 16 inputs and eight outputs, and is a clever box. It has a recessed IEC connector and switch, which I initially found a
little troublesome to plug in, but a closer read of the literature made it all clear. The Stage 16 I/O can be rack mounted, but the rack ears also cleverly double as handles for use as a stage box. The recessed IEC allows it to be laid on its back, connectors up, like its conventional analogue equivalent. Nifty! ALL AGE STAGE
I took the S3L-X System to an All Ages open mic night at a local venue. It’s typically a hectic night, the perfect baptism of fire for the S3L-X. It’s one of the few outlets for high-school rock bands in the area, so you always get a mixed bag of genres coming off stage. Though there is a common backline drum kit that makes changeover times bearable. As well as bands, on any given night there’s a good smattering of local singer/songwriter talent and the occasional oddity like the guy playing the coil spring from a car’s suspension and a wooden flute! Knowing things would be coming at me thick and fast, I sat down the night before to program my showfile and test all inputs and outputs just to be safe. The S3L-X system is very straightforward to plug together with a redundant network ring joining stage boxes to the E3 engine. And the whole thing came packed in a couple of Pelican cases, showing it’s really unbelievably portable for the power. With everything booted up, I was immediately digging some of the new features in the 4.5 software. Assigning I/O is no one’s idea of fun, but Avid has added a button which now allows you to ‘one-for-one’ patch entire devices, like a stage box. I won’t go through the entire file-building process, but suffice it to say it was straight forward and the AT 53
COLOUR ME TICKLED — Big console familiarity is at hand with the upper bank’s first eight encoders mimicking the Channel Control of an SC 48: User, Input, EQ, Comp/Limit, Expand/ Gate, Aux 1-8, Aux 9-16 functions are all there. And a tri-colour LED above each OLED display gives each of these selections its own associated colour. What’s more, a press of the rotary encoder expands the selection across the upper bank’s first eight encoders bringing the colour with it, so it’s easy to know at a glance what is being displayed there. This colour also highlights the section on screen in the Venue software. Clever!
ON THE LOWER BANK — Six navigation buttons allow for switching between gain, HP filter, compression threshold, pan and aux. These are all spilled across the row of lower encoders, with the exception of auxes. Clicking the navigation button brings up all auxes on the row, requiring a second encoder push to show the channel send values of any one aux. Fader Flip is the final navigation button, which flips rotary encoder values to faders and vice versa.
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GLOBAL CONTROL — The top four buttons allow navigation for the rightmost eight rotary encoders, which govern your Global control. Global control is a set of eight assignments which allow you to quickly navigate to plug-ins, auxes, matrices, VCAs, and on the S3L-X system, monitor and master level control is also included.
FADER BEHAVIOUR — The next set of navigation buttons relate to the faders. These allow banking through all inputs and outputs. Buttons A-D for the inputs, and E and F for outputs, subgroups and VCAs. The Muti-Assign button is also here for assigning channels to Groups, VCAs, etc.
FUNCTION TIME — 16 user-assignable function switches are available in two banks. Here is where you can place mute groups, set tap tempo buttons or any pre-defined events such as snapshots.
TOUCH UP — The four-zone touch strip is yet another area where you can define user functions, including something like my instant USB playback loop (see rest of review).
The E3 engine powers the entire S3L-X system. It’ll run up to 64 channels of I/O, let you record all 64 over Ethernet, and run a variety of AAX DSP plug-ins, yet fits in a 2U chassis.
basic show took no more than 30 minutes to build from scratch. I have had some previous experience on Venue software, but if you spent an hour reading the manual you would most likely achieve the same results. I then waded into some of the Venue software’s new features. Pro Tools integration is now much tighter. You can switch all inputs to Pro Tools with a single button press for virtual soundchecks or you can also choose Pro Tools as an input on the Channel View screen, making it simple to run a mix of Pro Tools returns for backing tracks alongside your live inputs. This is all thanks to Avid’s implementation of AVB over a single network cable. To get the full throughput though, you must have a fairly new Thunderbolt-equipped Macintosh as apparently there is something in the Thunderbolt chipset the AVB network utilises, even though you’re not using this port for connectivity. Lastly, I thought I should also take advantage of another new feature which is the ability to play media from a USB stick. So I decided to use this for my walk-in music. The new Media tab in the software provides a wealth of ways to actuate playback. The USB appears as a routing source so it can be very simple or, as I decided to make it, complex! Just to show off the level of control available I decided to create a snapshot that would load the playlist, play the tracks in a loop, set the fader level and unmute the USB input channel. Then I assigned that snapshot to a function key on the S3 Surface, and assigned another two functions to the Touch strip for stop and play. By the time I had Whole Lotta Love coming out of FOH with one flick of the touch strip, it sounded that much sweeter. PLUG-IN BEAT
On the night the S3L-X didn’t skip a beat. I was a little apprehensive throwing myself in at the deep end with a gig that’s essentially a variety show, but the S3 control surface was up to the task and I was soon navigating it like a big console. You can assign channels to subgroups and VCAs simply and quickly. From there you can select the subgroup or VCA and all its routed channels will spill across the faders,
which saves you paging around looking for things. You get much of Avid’s plug-in inventory included with the S3L-X, including its Pro line, Reel Tape emulation and Smack! compressor. Of course, being a HDX engine, you have to use 64-bit AAX plug-ins, so no Waves straight out of the box. But you have a lot of choice from the likes of Softube, Sonnox, McDSP, Metric Halo, Crane Song, and more. Once you’ve added them to your showfile they’re easily inserted from the Channel screen. I didn’t think I would have much time to think about these but in practice I had 15 plug-ins inserted by the time the night was done. From the 1176 comps to some multi-band compression on my stereo bus, it was all falling to hand easily. It really is quite astounding how much power you have in such a small footprint. Although I was earlier questioning the black-on-black colour scheme of the S3, in use it wasn’t a problem and the tri-colour LEDs for navigation are a stroke of genius — saving you from ever wondering where you are on the console. GOOD TO GO
I was impressed during my time spent with the Avid S3L-X system. While I probably didn’t use it to its full potential, it did what it had to, which was be quick to navigate and solid. It always felt good to the touch and I never found myself wishing I had more faders. The ability to integrate Pro Tools tracks and record shows at the press of a button is a bonus and is where this console really comes into its own. The fact you can record, virtual soundcheck and manipulate your snapshots means refinement is almost never-ending and is why the Venue series has won a lot of friends. It’s only made easier with the S3L-X’s ethernet AVB connection — no extra card required. Another new feature which I’ll mention before signing off is automatic gain tracking. Now you just connect another E3 engine and S3 control surface to your network and presto, your monitor engineer can tinker away just like she’s on an analogue split. Avid S3L-X, what’s not to like!
S3 IN THE STUDIO The S3 is no slouch as a stand-alone control surface/monitor controller for your DAW of choice. You can buy it as a separate unit, without all the live accoutrements, as something above the Artists series but not quite the S3. It also functions as an AVB core audio interface; with two mic/line preamps and another two line inputs, along with four outputs and a headphone output, it can manage an overdub session with ease. Utilising the Eucon control protocol it will happily work with most DAWs and has an integrated monitor controller to boot. You are limited to a max sample rate of 48k when recording through it, but that’s not a major drawback. The S3 is a joy to use in the studio. Personally, I don’t believe smaller software controllers of eight channels or less give much of a speed bump to your workflow. They’re okay for the odd fader ride for automation, or for soloing and muting, but you’re still very mouse bound. On a surface the size of the S3 with its wealth of faders and rotary encoders coupled with well thought out navigation button options, you really can almost unplug your mouse completely. Which is a joy! If I had one wish it would only be for a little more I/O for those bigger tracking tasks. I did ask Avid if there was any plan to allow direct connection of the Stage 16 I/O to the S3 without the E3 engine but unfortunately there are currently no plans to do so. It may very well be a hardware impossibility but if that I/O expansion path was available I think it would see great traction with the mid-sized studio crowd. Even so, what you do have is a top class controller with an interface thrown in. And after mixing an entire track on it I wish it was staying at my place!
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REVIEW
RIBBON ROUNDUP: Rode NTR, Nude Stereo Ribbon & sE X1R We’ve got ribbons coming out our ears at AT HQ. None more exciting than Rode’s first ribbon, the high-output NTR. Review: Mark Davie
Ribbon mics have steadily been making a comeback into popular recording ever since David Royer released the R121 in 1998. It wasn’t that people didn’t have Coles 4038s on hand, had forgotten about the Beyer M160, or weren’t lusting after museum-quality RCA 44s. It was just that everyone was caught up in the Chinese condenser craze, and no one was really pushing the ribbon bandwagon. But then Chinese-made ribbons started doing for ribbon mics what it had done for condensers; made them so cheap, and sounded ‘good enough’, they were getting bought by group-buy container-loads. There were a number of different designs that started to pop up. The same ribbed silver stick popularised by B&O back in the day that inspired the R121 — just not as rigorously built, and without the offset ribbon — was easily cloned. And there were plenty of others squeezed into condenser microphone-looking bodies, with longer head baskets, or shorter ribbons to compensate. Eventually some of the major manufacturers started to get into the game. Shure bought Crowley & Tripp for its hardy Roswellite ribbon material, Audio-Technica dropped its own ribbons, and sE put out its Voodoo line of ribbons, as well as developing one as part of its Rupert Neve collaboration. Slightly slower to the fray was Rode, but it hasn’t stopped the Australian company putting a lot of emphasis on its ability to design something unique. Last issue Greg Walker took the AEA Nuvo N22 ribbon for a spin, so I thought it would be fun to pit it against the new Rode NTR, as well as a couple of other different ribbon offerings, to provide a useful cross section of the market. The other two mics on hand were the Chinese-made SF12-style stereo ribbons that Hugh Covill handpicks under the Nude Microphone name; and one of the cheapest brand-name ribbon microphones on the market, sE’s X1R. So how long is a piece of ribbon?
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RODE NTR: BLACK BEAUTY
Rode is doing this ribbon thing by the book; lasercutting its ribbons for a precise edge, machinerolling accurate corrugations into them, robotically setting the right tension and double-checking they’re sagging just right with test equipment
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PRICE $799
CONTACT Rode Microphones: (02) 9648 5855 or info@rodemic.com
IT’S WHAT INSIDE THAT COUNTS
The first thing you notice, after you’ve stopped stroking the box and pulled out the mic is that it’s heavy; tube condenser-heavy. At over 1kg, it’s hard to find a stouter microphone. Why? There’s a whopping big transformer in the base; something you won’t find in a lot of cheaper ribbons because they dramatically increase the cost. What you also won’t find, is one of the NTR’s defining features — its internal shockmount. While the transformer size dictates that the base of the microphone has an ample girth, this isn’t congruous with the relatively slim form of a ribbon. So to make use of the extra space, Rode devised a shockmount system that sits inside the head basket of the NTR, isolating the ribbon motor assembly from the body, while still fitting the whole thing within the diameter of its base. It means you don’t need an external shock mount, allowing you to place the NTR exactly where you need it. The NTR ships with a knurled travel screw that slots into the top of the microphone to lock the ribbon motor assembly in place when it’s on the move. It’s easy enough to operate with your fingers, but make sure you’ve got a good place to store it in-between moves.
PROS Healthy output level & low noise Classic ribbon tone with high-end extension Runs on phantom power Built-in shockmount
CONS On the heavier side
Rode is doing this ribbon thing by the book; laser-cutting its ribbons for a precise edge, machine-rolling accurate corrugations into them, robotically setting the right tension and double-checking they’re sagging just right with test equipment. It means you don’t have to worry about getting an overly saggy, or out-of-tolerance ribbon from the factory. And what’s more, if you do happen to damage your ribbon, the NTR comes with a 10-year manufacturer’s warranty when you register your product, which includes one free re-ribboning. To stop you using up that free reribboning too quickly, the NTR has been designed to feed off phantom power, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally shooting 48V up its legs and turning it into an Edison globe. There are a couple of other physical design aspects worth noting. Firstly, the aforementioned width of the NTR’s head basket pushes its supporting structure — read: bits that mess with sound directionality — into the ribbon’s figure-eight null spot. The sound doesn’t have to pass through a set of Robocop eye-slit grills to get to the ribbon. Secondly, because of the internal shockmount, the stand connector is an updated RM2 ringmount. I don’t know how Rode manages to get such a secure grip at its articulating joints, but this thing will hold your 1kg microphone, no problems. My only minor quibble is the mount’s articulating piece juts out from the side of the boom rather than the end. It means you often have to turn the mic upside down to get it into the right position.
SUMMARY The Rode NTR is a ribbon microphone done right. It’s designed from the ground up to extract more from the ribbon motor design; starting with its 1.8 micron-thick, laser cut ribbon. You’ll get more out of this ribbon mic than most, including 20dB more gain, so it’ll suit any source and any preamp.
NEED TO KNOW
Rode has really got this packaging business down pat. Every new piece of kit that comes into the office is perfectly presented. It may not be as handy as an off-the-shelf aluminium flight case, but when the box for its new ribbon mic opened up like a highpriced Brandy, with faux-carbon fibre inlay, I felt like I was worth it.
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PREAMP PRE-EMPTED
Where the NTR really shines is the combination of its active circuitry with that whopping transformer to provide oodles of gain with very little noise. The output level is wholly un-ribbon-like. If you come to the Rode NTR expecting to have to pony up for a preamp with 70dB of ultra-clean gain for any quieter sources — a la a conventional ribbon design — think again. The NTR’s output is similar to what you might expect from a condenser microphone; you’ll be padding more than you’ll be struggling for gain. In real terms, it was about 20dB of difference in gain settings between all the other ribbons I was testing and the Rode. And with only 15dBA SPL of self noise, it’s whisper quiet on any low level source. By comparison, the other mics didn’t fair too well in the noise test. The AEA N22 was probably the noisiest of the lot, but also the most tonally varied. It didn’t have the round full bottom of the Rode. In fact, the N22 didn’t have much bottom at all — you have to get the newer N8 model for that — it sounded like it was shelved down 3-4dB below 100Hz. It did have a more pronounced upper mid range though (up almost 6dB at about 3kHz) compared to the Rode, which gave it more presence on vocals, and brought out more of the snare rattle when used as a mono front-of-kit mic. It wasn’t necessarily easy to replicate the AEA’s sonic signature with EQ though. Pitched as a very particular tone for the singer/songwriter crowd, eager to try something different on vocals, it hits the mark. Though not an all-rounder, it’s definitely unique. Anyway, back to the NTR. Rode has been gradually leaning the sound of its condenser microphone line towards more vintage signatures. The recently revitalised NT1 really managed to capture the essence of mics many times its price and many years its age, shaking off any vestiges of the opinion that Rode mics are synonymous with hyped top end. So I’m not saying Rode has completely changed the sound of ribbon mics. In fact, more than any other time, a ribbon fits perfectly into Rode’s sonic trajectory. The NTR has that same slow roll off towards 10kHz we’ve come to expect from ribbons, but with a slight rise again at 15kHz that gives the whole sound a little bit more extension and air than you might be used to. The NTR doesn’t skimp on bass either. While I found the N22 unsatisfying as a front-of-kit mic for its lack of low end, the Rode captured all that round bottom with enthusiasm. The only other mic in the group to really get that bottom end right was the Nude. But by contrast, its mid range sounded more compressed than the Rode — the wood snare I was using came out sounding a little more ‘blatty’ than I would have liked, and while the floor tom sounded rounder, I felt like I was losing a bit of the stick sound I was getting with the Rode. The Rode was the clear winner as a front-of-kit mic delivering the complete picture. While the Rode does exhibit somewhat of a natural ribbon roll off, you can EQ plenty of top AT 58
If you come to the Rode NTR expecting to have to pony up for a preamp with 70dB of ultra-clean gain for any quieter sources — a la a conventional ribbon design — think again
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end and air back in, and it still sounds beautiful. When I boosted above 8kHz with a 12dB shelf just for kicks, there was barely any introduced noise; you had to listen to silence to notice it. And the sound didn’t start to break down as I wound in more top end, it was just nice air. By contrast, the Nude added noticeable noise up top when boosting this extravagantly. It’s not a necessity, but did show a demonstrable difference in the noise specs of these mics. The Rode is super quiet. Overall, the Rode was a joy to work with. It gives you that classic ribbon character, with a little more top-end extension. The key here is a much higher output level than other ribbons and a sound that takes EQ superbly, without the burden of unwanted noise. With the attention to detail Rode puts into getting these ribbons right, the sound I was hearing will no doubt be the sound you will.
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NUDE MICROPHONES $420 hugh@sounddesignsolutions.com
The Nude microphones stereo ribbon is cheap. And for good reason; they’re Chinese-made ribbons. But here’s the catch, Hugh Covill — the man behind Nude — takes all the guesswork out of the selection process for you. The proposition is this: Rather than buying a ribbon with a badge on it and paying a premium, or going the no-name route and getting a saggy, baggy, out-of-spec microphone, Covill goes to the factory floor in China and tests the ribbons as they come off the line. It’s like flying in your own QC manager. He only brings back mics from trusted factories, that have the correct ribbon tension, output specifications, and have a decent transformer in them. The mic itself is a clone of the Royer SF12, which is inspired by ribbon designs from the ’60s. Covill doesn’t presume to say his is an exact replica of the Royer; he, for one, only gives a standard 90-day warranty, not a lifetime guarantee. It’s a stereo pair
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of ribbons arranged in a Blumlein configuration, capturing very natural stereo ambiences. With a clean preamp, it captured plenty of detail, and was killer as a drum overhead. The two ribbon motors seemed very well matched, and the results were highly mono compatible. The only issue I had was getting a handle on its angles. While it would seem easy to line up the middle of the two ribbons on axis, in practise it’s actually a little harder to be confident the centre is where you want it. It would be nice to have a mark somewhere to denote a centreline. I guess there is a downside to not having a brand mark like the Royer badge on an SF-12. While the Nude microphone wasn’t as extended as the Rode, it did tend to look past flaws pretty well. As a front-of-kit mic, it produced a more compressed version of what the Rode was giving me. It didn’t have the same presence to the toms,
but in this case, the floor tom sounded good that way, not hearing some of its skin slap in the room. The Nude ribbon gives you everything you’d expect from a conventional ribbon-magnettransformer design. It will benefit from your cleanest, highest gain preamp, but if you’re looking for a great-sounding, easy-to-rig, stereo microphone for drum overheads, this is it. You don’t even have to have a high-end preamp for that scenario. The Nude stereo ribbon microphone comes in an aluminium carry case, with a five-pin XLR lead, splitter box, shockmount, slip-over pop shield, and a soft mic case. It’s a lot of value for the price, two mics in one really, and a great way to confidently get a ribbon mic without paying loads. You can check out www.sounddesignsolutions.com/ nudemic_FAQ for more info.
sE X1R
$249.99 Sound & Music: (03) 9555 8081 or info@sound-music.com
The sE X1R is an extension of the budget-friendly X1 mic family. It all started with the standard X1 cardioid condenser, and has been expanded to include a USB variant, the X1 Tube condenser, a titanium-sputtered X1D condenser and now the X1R ribbon. It has the same basic body shape as the original X1, and is a pretty standard ribbon mic. If you’re looking for something in the league of the Rode ribbon, you’d best look to sE’s other offerings, like the Voodoo range. But for a simple low-cost ribbon microphone that isn’t going to have you looking online for your closest re-ribboning technician, this is a good option. I’m not sure about the tolerances, and what it would be like from mic to mic, but the example I had was actually quite bright, which, as you’re probably aware, isn’t the stock and trade of ribbons. At times I liked what it was doing; it gave a neat punch to drums while sacrificing only a bit of low end. But at other times I would rather have a rounder, more traditional ribbon tone. When using the mic for the sides in an MS configuration
on acoustic, it sounded more like a condenser than a ribbon, in terms of its string pickup. It was actually quite usable out of the box for that boosted HF-wide, stereo sound. It lacked the subtle sustain the Rode seemed to have, but would be a great ribbon option down the lower end of the price scale, offering something more akin to the AEA N22 than the more traditional ribbon voicing. Heartily recommended if you like how ribbons operate and you already have a ribbon with a more traditional voicing.
Forty years later, a complete revival KORG’s faithful reproduction of the legendary ARP Odyssey will delight users of the past while first time users will revel in the incredible impact and range of sounds. ARP ODYSSEY spans the ages, supporting the music-makers of today and tomorrow.
ARP is reborn! Find a dealer: www.korg.com
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REVIEW
Traktor Kontrol S8 Flagship DJ System Native Instruments has been adding displays to its flagship controllers, so what can it do for the DJ crowd? AT takes the new S8 for a jog wheel-less spin. Review: Jason Hearn
NEED TO KNOW
HOT CROSS BUTTER — The crossfader is buttery-smooth, offering virtually zero resistance — the best there has ever been on an NI controller. In the interests of easier servicing, the panel housing the crossfader and the four up-faders can be removed from the front panel without complete disassembly of the unit.
PRICE Expect to pay $1599
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CONTACT CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or sales@cmi.com.au
DOUBLE JACK — The front face is graced with Channel A/Thru/B crossfader assign switches, curve adjustment (adjustable only in software on the S2/ S4 units) and dual headphone outputs — a mini jack and full-size 1/4-inch jack — in case you forgot either connector.
PROS Displays bring deep features to the surface Professional connectivity Set up for impending Stems format Touch strips feel great
CONS Lack of jog wheels will turn off some
SUMMARY The Traktor S8 is another step forward for NI in delivering professional accoutrements for its Traktor software. While a lack of jog wheels might require some muscle memory adjustment for S4 users, by adding displays NI has pulled deep Traktor features right up onto the surface.
ABOUT STEMS, THE FORMAT
Stems — not to be confused with, you know, stems — is a new open format developed by Native Instruments. It will carry the .stem.mp4 postfix, so they won’t be lossless. The stems will be encoded in the AAC format and wrapped in a .mp4 extension. Each ‘Stem’ file will contains a stereo mix, and four individual stereo stems that make up the stereo mix — e.g. Bass, Drums, Music and Vocals. The files will still be compatible with any system capable of playing back an .mp4, it will just play back the stereo mix. In June, Native Instruments will be releasing full specs as well as a Stem Creator Tool. According to details so far from NI, it appears the Stem Creator Tool will take the four stems in WAV or AIFF, automatically compress them and create a stereo master. From there, users with compatible gear will be able to individually mute, manipulate, and set the level of each stem.
FILTER ZONE — Like the Z2, it has dedicated filter on/off switches. With the S4/S2 series, feeling for the ‘centre click’ in the filter knob is the only way to know when the filter is engaged. Not only will this inspire greater confidence when using the deck filters, but also, opens the gateway to fun performance tricks.
I was pretty excited about the prospect of digging into Native Instruments’ new Traktor S8 DJ controller. A Traktor veteran of seven years, I’ve enjoyed the software’s innovation and endured its growing pains. I’m still a total fan boy who frequently gigs with the S4 Mk2 DJ system and Z2 mixer exclusively, and wouldn’t DJ with anything else. I’ve been salivating over the S8’s built-in full-colour displays — a first for the Traktor line — and the prospect of relegating my laptop from centre-stage. DISPLAYING ITS POWER
My first impression when unboxing the S8 was that it’s stunning — in terms of footprint (substantially larger than the S4 Mk2), sheer mass and premium build quality. There are no wobbly pots or faders on this controller! After integrating the S8 into my setup, there were some immediate indicators of where it sits in NI’s road map. The audio setup options share similar attributes with the Traktor Kontrol Z2 in that the sample rate is locked at 48k operation. Just like Z2, the S8 comes with a full Traktor Scratch Pro license allowing timecode vinyl/CD control (DVS) out of the box. By comparison, the S4 series requires a paid license upgrade for DVS control privileges. The S8 can also operate as a standalone mixer like the Z2, however, sans-FX. In many ways, the S8 is a four-channel successor to the two-channel Z2, but with massively enhanced control of cues, looping, browsing and more, thanks to the visual feedback offered by the pair of displays; which appear identical to the ones
on the flagship Maschine Studio controller — a good thing. Track ‘preparation’ in Traktor — setting the origin point of the beat grid, ensuring the track tempo is accurate, and strategic placement of Hotcues — is a process which had required users to cosy up with their laptop. Now, with the S8’s dedicated Preparation mode for its dual displays, you can break away from the big screen. The workflow will be familiar to those who’ve used the iOS version of Traktor, Traktor DJ. In fact, the overall GUI design for the S8 screens borrows a lot from Traktor DJ. The FX control section has been reimagined to make use of the displays too. It now not only offers an intuitive means for selecting effects — press the FX Select button and the FX names are listed in the display to scroll through and select — but also displays the name of the parameter associated with the knob you’re currently touching. Taking the guess-work out of parameter control is sure to inspire more risqué use of Traktor’s FX section. As I’m certain many casual Traktor users just leave their die-hard favourite FX loaded into slots one and two. JOG WHEELS TAKE A WALK
Novation’s Twitch holds the crown as the first manufacturer brave enough to abandon any semblance of a jog wheel, substituting a touch-strip in its place. For those playing perfectly on-the-grid music genres, their absence may even be celebrated. But for DJs preferring to rock ‘commando’ — manually beat matching and riding the pitch fader
With fluid access to virtually every element within Traktor, for the professional user seeking the ultimate DVS rig, S8 would be top of the shopping list
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on music not recorded to a click — the absence of jog wheels on the S8 wasn’t welcome news. So what do I most miss about jogwheels? It’s not ‘scratching’, since real vinyl or DVS control via turntables reigns supreme for scratching. It’s the ergonomics of being able to reach out and touch a deck’s jog wheel to momentarily pause playback while holding it. On controllers with jog wheels, not only is this immediate and intuitive but also, thanks to the relative size of a jog wheel, compared to a play button, hard to miss! The touch-strips on the S8 operate in a totally different fashion; upon finger contact you’re momentarily pitch bending the deck, while playback continues unimpeded. While the S8’s touch-strips offer greater sensitivity compared to Kontrol X1 Mk2 (NI’s first controller to feature AT 63
S8 FOR PRODUCTION
PRO FACE ON — The rear panel sports four stereo pairs of analogue inputs (all individually switchable to either line or phono), a combo XLR/jack mic input, main outputs on either XLR or RCA connectors, and a separate booth output on 1/4-inch jacks. It’s immediately obvious, this unit is aimed at the professional user.
touch-strips), those DJs with jog wheel musclememory will find the S8’s Play/Pause toggle button is going to get a big workout. For those willing to give touch-strips a go, if you press and hold the Shift key, the S8’s touch-strips mimic the Pioneer CDJ’s needle-drop functionality for rapid seeking through a track. Used in conjunction with the track overview display above it, rapidly locating anywhere in a track becomes child’s play. This is where a touch-strip trumps the sequential nature of jog wheels. When playback is disengaged, the touch-strip behaviour is similar to pulling vinyl back and forth on a Technics SL-1200 while powered off. The touch-strips in this mode have near-authentic acceleration/deceleration characteristics — I found this effective for track preparation sessions allowing accurate placement of beat grid origin points (similar to rocking tape over the heads of a tape machine) and setting hot cue points. There are a few ways of changing the playback tempo of a track from the S8 hardware: hitting the first display button (below brightness) and adjusting the bpm with the Browse knob; syncing it to another tune playing; using the pitch reset function; or syncing it to Traktor’s master clock and then adjusting tempo using the dedicated Master Tempo encoder (hold Shift for finer adjustment). With the S8’s current touch-strip behavior, the absence of jog wheels makes playing tunes you haven’t properly prepared in advance very much a hands-off affair — it feels like driving a car with AT 64
Many a Traktor Kontrol S4/S2 were sold promising to be their ‘first audio interface’ for the digital DJ looking to dip their toes into production. The S8 ups that ante somewhat with more professional connectivity, presenting itself to the host DAW as a 10-input/four-output audio interface. It operates exclusively at a sample rate of 48k, which is fine. Although S8’s functionality as an audio interface won’t overshadow the features of a dedicated highend studio unit, it’s more than capable of hosting four stereo hardware synths with ease, while also providing separate headphone and main output monitoring. For the up-and-coming DJ-cum-producer, the S8 will serve admirably in smaller project studio environments.
a dash-mounted push button for a brake pedal. If you’re going to rock an S8 with any kind of finesse at a gig you must invest the time in track preparation prior to prime-time. Unless… you add turntables, and talent. If you really want jog wheels, just go one step better and plug a pair of 1200s or CDJ players loaded with timecode media and any qualm over missing jog wheels will vanish! Many DJs would be aware of the Advanced HID control mode found on the near ubiquitous ‘pair of CDJ2000s’ rig in most club DJ booths. This same pair of CDJs could be pressed into service for the travelling S8 performer. DECKS REMIXED
Right below the screens is a Remix Deck-specific controller. A Remix Deck is similar in concept to having four-channels of clips in Ableton Live’s Session View. The built-in screens on the S8 make exploiting this feature’s potential much more user-friendly. The names of audio parts are displayed right above the pads used for triggering the content, complete with colour coding. A scrolling waveform view shows the clips currently engaged in playback. For any Traktor power users employing Remix Decks in their shows, the S8 is a big interface upgrade. Recently, NI announced a new audio file format, called Stems, with many digital music stores like Beatport and Juno promising to jump onboard. The new Stem format is a single multitrack .mp4 file containing four stems and a stereo master [see box
item]. Support for the Stem format in Traktor will arrive with the 2.7.4 update scheduled for release in June 2015. This update will add ‘Stem Decks’ which will exploit the physical control elements of Remix Decks found on S8. DJS OF ALL SIZES
To date there is yet to be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ combined controller/soundcard solution which suits every DJ, which is probably good and demonstrates how diverse the category is. For the busy club-hopping, back pack warrior perhaps S8 is a bit much of a burden to bear, where portability is a concern. For the sync-proud DJ, who approaches DJing like it’s advanced on-the-fly remixing — exploiting advanced features like Remix Decks — the S8 is firmly in your wheelhouse. Especially since it’s now possible to remove the laptop screen audience barrier and still get maximum use of all the Traktor fruit on offer. The S8 will be most attractive to the DJ preferring DVS control of Traktor’s decks using timecode vinyl/CD. In fact, the S8’s feature set is without peer in the hybrid mixer/controller/DVS interface solutions space. With fluid access to virtually every element within Traktor, for the professional user seeking the ultimate DVS rig, the S8 would be top of the shopping list. Since the S8 also functions capably as a four-channel standalone analogue mixer, it may well find itself as the centrepiece for a club with Traktor-centric residents.
FOR SALE
Studio Equipment, fittings and fixtures
Rockinghorse Recording Studios BYRON BAY STUDIOS A & B
Two complete fully operational recording studios Including patch bays, cabling and fittings Also available are: Triple glazed windows hanging walls, floating floors, doors and ceilings. See www.rockinghorse.com.au studio equipment P.O.A. Contact Alan De Venda on alan@rockinghorse.com.au
AT 65
REVIEW
SENNHEISER EW D1 WIRELESS Need your own go-anywhere wireless? Time to pack your case.
IPAD APP
Review: Christopher Holder
NEED TO KNOW
By now we should all know the (cordless) drill: UHF rules the wireless roost. Mission critical applications use it and it’s the best sounding chunk of electromagnetic spectrum to be in. But there is another way: using the 2.4GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific & Medical) band. But there are pros and cons… actually, there are mostly cons. 2.4GHz operates in the crazy-busy wireless band inhabited by wi-fi, Bluetooth, garage door openers and the rest. To successfully operate in this band you have to have more error correction to get a solid
PRICE Instrument Set $999 835 Vocal Set $1099 845 Vocal Set $1179 HeadMic Set $1179 Presentation Set $1099
AT 66
CONTACT Sennheiser Australia (02) 9910 6700 sales@sennheiser.com.au www.sennheiser.com.au
By the time you read this there’s likely to be a free Android/iOS app available for the ew D1. Plug in a router via the receiver’s RJ45 socket and Bob should be your uncle. The app, we’re told, will reflect the functionality of the receiver’s GUI. Potentially very handy for a one-man operation.
signal, resulting in some extra latency on top of the digital conversion. 2.4GHz is a much more energetic wavelength than UHF and thus more directional. Bad news unless you’re constantly in line of sight. Systems in this band normally accommodate no more than 12 channels in one setup (although the ew D1 promises a theoretical 15). Which can be limiting. All of which doesn’t sound great. So what’s an ISM band system got going for it? Normally they’re cheap; really easy to set up; being digital, there’s no compansion; and you can use it anywhere around the world without
PROS Great build quality Optional rechargeable Accupacks Easy to use Wide range of capsules
CONS Rack mount kit extra Latency still a deal breaker for IEM
stepping on any UHF wireless spectrum toes. Sabine was the first to explore the space back in the ’90s. Then Line6 was the next most notable innovator (I’ve had experience with the Line6 product for a few years and was quite satisfied with the performance). More recently, Sony, Audio-Technica, and Shure have released wireless product using the 2.4GHz band. Now, it’s Sennheiser’s turn with the Evolution Wireless D1. Up to this point, all the manufacturers have put their 2.4GHz products in the ‘entry level’ category. Presumably it’s recognition that if rock-solid performance, super-low latency and
SUMMARY If you’re a musician looking to buy your own wireless kit then ew D1 is tailor made for you. Perfect for a small church or theatre setup, and great for rentals too: already comes in a great case and will take care of presentations and solo/ duo acts.
great sound quality is important to you, then you’re better off spending more on a quality UHF system. What’s interesting about ew D1 is that the price and features don’t amount to an apology for working in the 2.4GHz band. Finally, here is a system that’s proudly non-UHF. ONE FOR THE ROAD
That said, the price (~$1100 a channel) is still in the lower to mid end of the market, but does put it up against some very worthy UHF competition. So what’s the new ew D1 bringing to the table? D1 is presented as a musician’s or travelling sound guy’s system, with wireless kits arriving in plastic hard cases. The case is very sturdy and allows you to neatly pack away your transmitter, receiver, universal power supply and leads. It does mean the handheld mic, for example, comes without a pouch (you put it back in the case after use). So the emphasis is on ease of use and transportability, rather than permanent installation — though you can buy a rack mounting kit — and there’s no encouragement to buy ew D1 separate components. I think you’re starting to get a picture here of who Sennheiser is pitching the D1 to: performers, small-scale rental jobs, anyone that only needs a couple of channels. News from Sennheiser is, there’ll be an AV presentation product coming out in a couple of months that will run in the DECT specific 1880-1900MHz band. Emphasising the set ’n’ forget suitability of the D1 there’s some neat DSP onboard: de-essing, auto gain control and EQ. The audio features are all accessed via a very clear and bright oLED display with an easy-to-use dial ’n’ press pushbutton arrangement. What’s more, all the features and setup procedure are laid out very succinctly on a cheat sheet A3 poster and an even more succinct A5 card — there’s no instruction manual as such.
24-BIT COMPRESSION? You can think of a 2.4GHz wireless system as somewhat like a smartphone talking to a wi-fi router. It’s digital. Your mic is sending the ‘router’ a stream of 1s and 0s within the 2.4-2.483.5GHz band. It’s an electro-magnetic radiation peasouper out there — everyone’s phone in the room is snooping around searching for a wi-fi router — so your system is constantly switching frequencies finding the cleanest piece of air. It’s a digital system, so audio entering your mic goes through a conversion stage right after it hits the diaphragm. The D1 audio is being sampled at 24-bit/48k. That’s a lot of 1s and 0s pouring out of your transmitter every second into the ‘wi-fi receiver’. If you were doing some equivalent data work on your smartphone, quite likely you might occasionally experience some lagginess with that kind of digital deluge. In the world of audio performance, ‘lagginess’, is unworkable. You simply can’t have a system that occasionally needs to ‘catch up’ — you’d experience drop outs and glitching. In the case of the D1, Sennheiser has chosen to license the apt-x compression algorithm to vastly reduce the number of 1s and 0s the
FLYING CONFIDENTLY SOLO
There’s nothing entry level about the build quality of the D1. The handheld microphone feels great — solid and well balanced, with on/off and mute switches all reassuringly positive to control. Ditto the beltpack. It’s compact and with its steel construction feels bulletproof. Traditionally, I’m a Shure wireless person, so I was keen to spend some time with the Sennheiser mic. I had the cardioid 835 capsule version for review and there was plenty of gain before
system has to deal with every second. Like any kind of super-smart data compression, the idea is to excise the data ‘you don’t need/hear anyway’. Which means, if you’re standing silently on a quiet stage with the mic on, you’re not needlessly sending 1152kbps through the ether to your receiver — the apt-x codec bins most of the data before transmitting it, because nothing much is happening. The apt-x codec isn’t new. One of the first to see the benefits of apt-x in pro audio and broadcast was none other than SSL in the ’90s. In 2010 it found its way into the hands of CSR of all companies (yes, CSR of cane sugar and Gyprock fame). It’s marketed as offering a superior compression quality, which is why purveyors of broadcast gear such as Harris, Digigram and others have all licensed it. Still trying to get your head around encoding the audio with 24-bit accuracy then instantly hacking at it with data compression? Well, you’re still getting the extra bits where it matters, in resolving musical content. Plus you’re getting the sort of extended dynamic range (135dBA) an analogue wireless system could only dream of.
feedback, lots of zing and life, and a proximity effect you could really work to your advantage. Performers I worked with were all complimentary. The level of handling noise is perfectly acceptable. The 3.9ms latency is also fine — although if you’re using in-ear monitoring you may want to think carefully about a lower-latency alternative. This is a good system with plenty of features. To reiterate, it’s a high quality, go-anywhere, limitedchannel setup that won’t let you down. And in that regard I’ve no hesitation in recommending it. AT 67
REVIEW
ATC SCM20 ASL Mk2 Pro Nearfield Monitors For ATC’s half-century anniversary, its popular SCM20s have been given their biggest update yet, with a new in-house tweeter and a return to classic form.
NEED TO KNOW
Review: Robin Gist
PRICE $8000/pair CONTACT CDA Pro Audio: www.cda-proaudio.com
AT 68
PROS Very accurate & detailed A wide listening area State of the art design & construction New tweeter ditches fluids
CONS Big outlay for nearfields
SUMMARY These monitors deliver the goods and reveal accurate detail in all types of program material. The wide listening angle is a boon for commercial facilities and they have been designed and built for long term consistency and reliability.
DIGITAL LINK PROTECTION
for flawless audio performance
OPTIMISED DYNAMIC RANGE for perfect recording levels
PLUG and RECORD
Auto switch on - ready in seconds
e l c a Or e Th PRESENTS
www.sennheiser.com/avx
AT 69
Australian-born Billy Woodman founded ATC in 1974 with the intent of producing drivers for the pro audio market that could handle more power with less distortion while still maintaining wide frequency bandwidth, uniform dispersion and extended dynamic range. 1976 saw the introduction of ATC’s SM 75-150S soft dome midrange driver which, in various cabinet configurations, became somewhat of a benchmark for studio monitoring at that time. Looking to improve upon this original design and wanting to eliminate the effects of magnetic hysteresis as a significant source of driver distortion, Woodman and his research team developed what ATC call a Super Linear driver in 1996. One of the key aspects of the new design was hand and edge-wound short voice coils made from oxygen free copper that operate in a frontand rear-vented long magnetic gap. This reduces heat generation and helps increase power handling and long term reliability. This new design, along with structural improvements, also reduced third harmonic distortion by 10-15dB between the frequency range of 100Hz to 3kHz and it is the 150mm (six-inch) version of this driver that is at the heart of the new SCM20 ASL Pro Mk2 monitor. New to the SCM20s is another ATC speaker innovation — the SH-25-76S 25mm (one-inch) dual suspension soft dome neodymium tweeter. This is the first tweeter to be designed and built in-house by ATC and is the result of six years of research. The design, in keeping with the key elements of the mid/bass driver, utilises a dual suspension configuration. This approach negates the need for ferro fluid in the coil space which enhances long term consistency of operation and avoids the negative effects of the fluid drying out over time. These powered, two-way reference nearfields also come in a passive version, and are suitable for small to medium control rooms, both in stereo and surround configurations. TOOLED CABINET
Weighing in at nearly 30kg each, lifting the speakers out of their boxes gave me an immediate impression of something very solid and substantial. The previous SCM20 model looked wholly different, with a cast aluminium casing with an integrated heat sink for the onboard amp. But the manufacturing tool used to press the shape was slowly getting out of spec, so it was retired in favour of a more traditional-looking cabinet design that fits in with the rest of ATC’s range. The Germanmade MDF cabinets are built to a fine tolerance and can be custom ordered in a variety of veneered woods — the review models came in Henry Ford studio black, which suited my decor just fine. As part of ATC’s attention to structural detail, damped elastomeric (meaning having the properties of rubber) panels are adhered to the cabinet’s inner walls. This helps reduce cabinet panel resonances. The enclosure’s front panel is also radiused to minimise cabinet diffraction in the listening environment.
AT 70
CLASSY AMPS
The MOSFET biamps that power the drivers are also built in-house at ATC. Each driver has its own common grounded amp which operates in Class A mode up to around 66% of rated power, with Class B operation taking over above that point to provide extra headroom. The LF amp has a 200W max continuous output and the HF amp is rated at 50W, which translates into 108dB SPL per pair at one metre. The amps are thermally protected and include a fast acting FET limiter for each band to protect the drivers in the event of unexpected peaks — good peace of mind for when you’re soloing a snare drum at high volume. At the rear of each cabinet is the power switch, XLR and power connector, power fuse, input sensitivity trim pot, input sensitivity switch and the 80Hz low frequency shelf cut/boost rotary control. This control offers between 2dB of cut and 3dB of boost in 1dB steps, which is useful for fine tuning or compensating for the low end balance in your control room/home studio. There is also a power/clip LED indicator on the front panel of the speakers. MIXING IT UP
The arrival of the review units was timely as I had just begun mixing an album for a client, which provided me with a great opportunity for a real world test. Before jumping into the mix, I spent quite a bit of time familiarising myself with them by listening to a raft of my favourite commercial recordings, over a variety of genres. I, of course, also listened to some of my most recent mixes and gained an overall sense of the SCM20s in the process. The overall tone of the ATCs is flat and uncoloured which is what you would want and expect from a serious reference nearfield monitor. I found the imaging to be very accurate and consistent. These monitors also exhibited a high level of sonic transparency and I had the experience of hearing new details I’d not noticed or heard in commercial recordings I’d listened to many times. The ideal horizontal acoustic axis for these monitors is in line with the top mounting bolts for the mid/bass driver. I dutifully set the speakers to this height prior to my listening tests. This is noteworthy because, with your ears placed in this horizontal plane, the dispersion according to the spec sheet is 80 degrees. This means you have a very wide listening area, and are not confined to a small, tight ‘sweet spot’ — which can often be the case with some nearfield monitors. Great for when the client or the producer is sitting at the back of your control room on the couch. I tested the horizontal dispersion by wheeling around on my chair to keep my ears at roughly the right height. I found that the frequency response and volume level was indeed uniform and I had no sense of there being a critical sweet spot. ACOUSTIC SWEET SPOT
In my general listening tests I found these monitors excelled, particularly on acoustic and classical
music. That is not to say that rock, pop, funk and other genres didn’t sound great too, but the general lack of overall compression and the space afforded by acoustic music was exemplified by these speakers. The revealed detail and imaging made for a very realistic and satisfying listening experience. Another aspect of these monitors I thought was significant, was the consistency of frequency response at different volume levels. I found this to be the case in both my commercial recording listening tests and when I was mixing. I like to trim vocal volume automation at a fairly quiet level, and with some nearfields the relationship set at low volume can seem to change radically once you start turning up the monitor level. This was definitely not the case with the ATC’s and I felt the vocalto-music ratio established at a low level remained consistent as I cranked up the volume. If you are working in the area of EDM and are not using large, soffit mounted monitors for low end reference, then a sub-woofer would be necessary but this would be the case with any small diameter driver nearfields, as 12- to 18-inch drivers don’t sit so well on the ledge of a mixing console! This is equally applicable to film and post work as the extreme low end was the only thing I found lacking. The stated frequency response is 60Hz to 22kHz, and it’s not reasonable or even feasible to expect any 150mm (six-inch) drivers to go lower. QUALITY THAT QUALIFIES
How did I go with mixing the album on these speakers? Well, the client absolutely loved the mixes and that is about as good as gets! I will be sad to see the review pair go back to the supplier. The ATC SCM20s would represent a substantial investment for the home user/prosumer but you get what you pay for. For a studio owner, the ATCs provide reliable and accurate nearfield reference monitoring that will be appreciated by your engineers and clients alike. The state-of-the-art driver and electronics designs coupled with high tolerance in-house component manufacturing indicate ATC’s commitment to producing a quality and reliable product for the long term. I would not hesitate to recommend these speakers to anyone who has a sizeable chunk of cash to spend on serious nearfield reference monitors.
Tablet • Desktop • Mobile
videoandfilmmaker.com 150,000 + Likes & Rising! AT 71
REVIEW
Synchro Arts Revoice Pro 3 With added pitch and timing correction, Revoice Pro 3 is the match for any voice outside of a Tibetan monastery. Review: Brent Heber
NEED TO KNOW
Back in the day, VocAlign was bundled by Digidesign in its DV Toolkit option. It was my first exposure to SynchroArts, which had another massive hit in the post world called Titan (for syncing up location sound after the picture had been cut). Vocalign was pretty good at syncing a dub take to an original take, adjusting syllables and transients to match timing between performances. Revoice Pro takes that concept to a whole new level, matching not just timing, but also pitch and inflection, vibrato and emphasis. It promises a lot!
PRICE Full License: £374 CONTACT Synchro Arts: +44 1372 811934 or sales@synchroarts.com
AT 72
PROS Better algorithms, faster processing Wider appeal with new pitch & time warping All-in-one vocal correction suite
PLUG-INS LEAVING THE NEST
One of the hurdles I face with software like iZotope RX4 and Revoice Pro 3 is that in my mind they started life as plug-ins inside my favourite DAW and now they’re all grown up and want to be applications, linked to my DAW. They are forcing me to change the way I work. In the case of RX4 I haven’t looked back. On OS X, switching apps with ‘spaces’ and having RX’s output monitored through my PT HD hardware via a plug-in has proven to be a much
CONS Transport between DAW and app not unlinkable GUI not immediately intuitive
faster way to work. I was expecting a similar experience with Revoice Pro, but instead found that its monitor plug-in not only piped audio into my HD session but also linked the transport between the apps — a bit like Rewire. I can see how for many users this may be a benefit, but in my case, being used to a similar but slightly different workflow I found it maddening. I’d fix my clip in Revoice Pro, audition sync in Revoice Pro, and then spot it into my Pro Tools session to hit play and find two versions playing back simultaneously; the
SUMMARY Version three breaks Revoice Pro into mass appeal as they add best-of-breed pitch manipulation to an already powerful syncing product. Good for music producers, amazing for those in post production.
version in my mix running through my dialogue plug-in chain, alongside the fixed, but raw, take playing back from Revoice Pro. Revoice Pro’s work had been done, and it was just a distraction by that point. A simple fix was to key a gate off my output, so when transport in PT was engaged, it muted the Revoice Pro monitor return, but it would be nice if this workflow was enabled by a preference or tick box in Revoice Pro. TARGETED WORKFLOW
Revoice Pro is supported by all the main Mac and PC DAWs, but I was using it with Pro Tools HD, so I’ll be referring to that workflow. With the Revoice Pro app open and the monitor plug-in inserted on an aux, you can now find an audio region to fix, select it and open the Revoice Pro Connect Audiosuite plug-in. The ‘Send’ button transports the audio to a chosen track inside the Revoice Pro application. You can have multiple tracks inside Revoice Pro because you often need to compare two or more pieces of audio; like your source and a target track to time align it to, for instance. If you’re processing backing vocals you may want to work with a whole stack of tracks inside Revoice Pro. So, when sending audio from your host DAW, you need to assign it to an appropriate track in Revoice Pro from the pull down in the Audiosuite plug-in. Once your source and target audio are in Revoice Pro, the fun starts! THE APT TOUR
Revoice Pro provides a few different functions: Audio Performance Transfer (APT), Doubler and Warp. APT is ideal for post production applications, where you want to take an on-location performance and apply its characteristics to an ADR track. The scope for music-related APT applications is similarly wide; lining up double tracks is an obvious one, and if you’re trying to match live vocals to a pre-recorded take for video, it’s a life saver. Where Vocalign only matched timing, the APT function builds on this with options to match pitch across the take and intensity/ volume changes as well. Of course, you also have comprehensive control over how much of these characteristics are applied, through a pop up window with excellent parameter depth. The system also has a comprehensive preset menu, allowing settings to be easily recalled from job to job, character to character. Doubler is primarily for synthesising a double of a take when one hasn’t been recorded, while providing the nuance and elements of randomness associated with a real double track. Incorporating formant and vibrato controls, you get some very good results. This function, and a basic version of APT, are also available as separate Audiosuite plugins inside Pro Tools, however both still require the host Revoice Pro application to be running in the background to work, which is a small shame. Lastly we have the Warp function. This gives complete freedom to manipulate audio with all the pitch, vibrato, timing and energy aspects available
There are a number of different ways you can use Revoice Pro 3, but once you get inside, there’s not much you can’t do with a vocal take for both post and music. Audio Performance Transfer is a necessity for ADR alignment; Doubler gives you complete control over variations in formant and vibrato; and the Warp functionality has every tool under the sun for timing and pitch correction.
for manual interaction. The GUI is pretty good, given the amount of control. Using three Warp points, you can manually adjust timing, and a pitch tracking line lets you interact with the material in much the same way as other software in this field — though the audio itself is represented as a standard waveform, not as blobs. One other caveat is that it’s primarily a vocal application, so while you can work with other instruments, the pitch correction element is monophonic only. RE-PITCHING THE PACKAGE
for’. Add to that the many best-of-breed functions together in a single package and you may find you are replacing two arguably more clumsy tools with a single integrated interface/workflow. I have some minor issues with the GUI and workflow, but the results are what matters and they are very, very good. A must-have upgrade from VocAlign for anyone doing lots of ADR work and music producers will love the added power and ease this tool brings to their world of vocal production.
Revoice Pro’s results do not disappoint. The maths at the heart of its code is clearly solid, the results often cleaner and less watery than the competition, reinforcing the old mantra, ‘you get what you pay AT 73
REGULARS
LAST WORD with
SKoT McDonald, FXpansion Technical Director SKoT leaning in to toast FXPansions’ first office in 2003
For the last 12 years, SKoT has been living and breathing BFD, and he still thinks multi-tracking drums is the weirdest thing to get your head around. His latest project is an impending BFD collaboration with e-drum manufacturer Nfuzd.
AT 74
It was something dumb we were doing in year seven. It just sort of stuck, and people remembered me as ‘SKoT with a K’. Originally I had an umlaut over the ‘o’. Until some Norwegian guy came along and said, ‘oh, your name is ‘Skoot’. Our first family computer back in the ’80s, was a Dick Smith VZ200. If you spent three days coding away in the built-in BASIC in its 8kB memory, you could make sine tones play your favourite nursery rhymes. It was 1995, and everybody wanted to be Nine Inch Nails. So my Computer Science honours project was to recover all the drums from industrial tracks. I’d do an analysis, work out where all the drums were and pull all the patterns out. Then get a simple expert system to learn all the rules of industrial drum writing, and automatically generate extremely average Industrial tracks. No disrespect to Leæther Strip, but if they had a Z-side to any of their albums, that was kind of what the system was spitting out at the end. My mate Andy Simper — who’s Cytomic [see AT100 for more] — and I were Vellocet, a dodgy Perth industrial band who hardly ever gigged and wrote plug-ins instead. He was at FXpansion for years, before leaving to go look at compressors and filters in ridiculous detail. As poor students, we couldn’t afford Cubase, so we thought we’d write our own tracker and DSP effects units. Then when the VST spec came out in ’97, we realised there were people out there charging $150 for a flanger. It was an unfeasible amount of money, at least two weeks worth of beer to a student! We threw out a freebie flanger, which caught Steinberg’s eye. They asked if they could put it in Cubase’s first bundle of free third-party plug-ins, and sent us Cubase so we could write with real sequencers. The original BFD was a coming together of several minds. Angus [Hewlett, FXpansion founder] was at NAMM in 2003 and got talking to Nine Inch Nails’ sound designer, Steve Duda. Steve had tried to do multi-channel using three or four instances of Kontakt, and the engine was falling over. I’d just joined FXpansion and had previously been working on a streaming engine, so I had a go at it. Steve just wanted to be able to load single ‘snare’ object and have all the articulations and layered sounds load automatically, with some drum-specific mixing knobs on the surface. I thought BFD1 was going to be my last hurrah as a plug-in developer. The free VST scene was exploding on KVR, and it seemed the business model of selling plug-ins was a dead end. Anyone with a bit of knowledge and a good sample set would be able to go off and do it. Our original business plan for BFD1 was to see if we
could sell 600 units over two years. Within a month we were selling 600 units a month. Apparently there still was a market for complex plug-ins. At some point I’d like to do a completely over-the-top BFD recording where not only are we capturing all the drums in ridiculous detail, but also get some high-resolution motion tracking, with cameras and accelerometers on the drum sticks, and laser devices to measure the drum and microphone positions and angles. We could use that data set to find out what we could model further. Drum recording is still the weirdest thing to get your head around because there’s so many channels of microphones with different EQ responses, you’ve got all the phase relationships, and which thing is going to rattle when you hit another thing. That was a big push in BFD3, to try and reproduce those sympathetic mechanical and through-air resonances of the drum kit… something people spend years trying to learn how to get rid of. It’s okay; you can turn them off. A typical BFD recording session usually takes about seven days, and we work it hard for that time. You usually record three times as many hits of the 80 velocity layers that eventually end up on the sample pack. Bang… count to 10… Bang… count to 10. Then rinse and repeat for other positions, rods, mallets, all for just one drum. Since BFD1, people have always asked why we don’t use a robotic drummer. We like to have a drummer involved so they can respond to how a drum voices. We were doing a BFD2 recording, where the drummer was 20 seconds into a really long ride cymbal decay, holding his breath and trying to stay perfectly still. Then you hear him go, ‘Ah, f**k!’ And a fly go buzzing past the microphones. Literally a bug in the audio. After that, we introduced a new part in our recording process, where we do the Australian Customs aeroplane spray routine. The problem with multi-channel drum recordings is the noise floor has to be really, really low. You might have 14 channels for one hit, and 20 hits fading out at the same time. John Emrich always records his sample packs at night, when everyone’s already out of the studio. One night, he was hearing a tap, tap noise. He eventually tracked it down to a piece of water pipe that ran underneath the carpark, which was another 50m away. He looked on the security cameras, and at the far end was the studio secretary crossing the carpark in high heels. He was doing the percussion pack at the time, which had everything including John’s old kitchen sink. So he asked the secretary to come in and walk past his microphones. Now we have high heels in the pack, walking across the floor in various states of duress… duress, not dress.
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