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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 Editorial Assistant Preshan John preshan@alchemedia.com.au Art Director Dominic Carey dominic@alchemedia.com.au
Regular Contributors Martin Walker Paul Tingen Guy Harrison Greg Walker Greg Simmons Blair Joscelyne Mark Woods Chris Braun Robert Clark Andrew Bencina Brent Heber Anthony Garvin Ewan McDonald
Graphic Designer 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
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 2016 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. 02/05/2016.
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COVER STORY
Playstation VR: Soundtracking a New Reality
Valentine Hearts Strings: Eric V’s Guitar Obsessions
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Driving Downtown: Mixing a Moped Masterpiece
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ISSUE 30 CONTENTS
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Harping On with Joanna Newsom
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EV EKX 12P Powered Loudspeaker
Audio-Technica Video Mic Roundup
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LIVE NEWS
UPDATES FOR QU SERIES Allen & Heath’s Qu Series has received a host of enhancements accompanying firmware V1.9, including a thorough update for the Qu-Pad app. Alongside control of live mixing functions, processing, routing and effects, Qu-Pad now gives you complete access to scene management, control of the 15 mixer SoftKeys across the Qu range, I/O patching, and Qu-Drive stereo and multitrack recording/playback facilities. Password protected user profiles are also introduced. A&H has teamed up with Shure and Sennheiser to provide channel Library presets for a number of popular mics,
with the presets designed to offer an improved starting point to get the best possible sound out of the respective mic/mixer combination. The new Qu-Control is a customisable iOS app offering five screens with up to 15 control ‘widgets’ on each. The DAW Control driver emulates HUI and Mackie Control protocols. It was previously available for Mac only but will soon be released for Windows OS. Qu firmware V1.9 also adds support for the miniature Qu-SB mixer/interface. Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or info@tag.com.au
BOSE F1 GOES PASSIVE Bose has released a passive version of its successful F1 Model 812 flexible array loudspeaker system. As with the active Model 812, the big deal about the F1 speaker is its ability to be configured into four different shapes, giving you more control over how you focus sound to target listening areas. The F1 passive loudspeaker is ideal for permanent installations, for venues like clubs, schools, houses of worship, and other small to medium size spaces.
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Each speaker features eight of Bose’s proprietary 2.25-inch drivers, 100° horizontal waveguides, a 12-inch woofer, and a lower crossover point. It comes in a rugged enclosure with six M8 threaded insert points and there are a heap of optional mounting accessories including pan and tilt, yoke, and U-brackets. Bose: (02) 8737 9999 or info@bose.com.au
JBL CONTROL SB2210 JBL comes out with yet another subwoofer, this time a dual 10-inch model targeted to the installation market. The Control SB2210 packs high output into a small footprint, making it ideal for situations where space is short. “The JBL Control SB2210 is an update of our popular Control SB-210, offering a range of improvements all within the same compact dual 10-inch cabinet,” said Rick Kamlet, Senior Manager, Commercial Loudspeakers, Harman Professional Solutions. The JBL Control SB2210 has undergone some
performance upgrades that bring serious low frequency reinforcement to the table. The sub is an ideal complement to the recently updated Control Contractor Surface-Mount Loudspeaker models — the Control 23-1, 25-1 and 28-1. Power capacity has been increased to 500W, and it features a flatter frequency response with bass extension to 38 Hz. The cabinet is available in black or white and is paintable. Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or www.jands.com.au
FIRMWARE UPDATE FOR SOUNDCRAFT UI Soundcraft’s Ui Series digital consoles can now benefit from a free firmware update, which adds several new features and extends browser and device compatibility. Taking user feedback into account, Soundcraft engineers have included many requested features within the firmware update. The software now supports Microsoft’s latest Edge browser, and the Ui12 now includes stereo recording features—previously possible only on the Ui16. An improved password-protected Access Limitation System lets you assign secure access
privileges to other users, with more flexibility to create individual user control. A new Sync ID feature means you can open multiple GUI Edit windows (EQ, DYN, and FX) and have them maintain channel sync. The user can select a channel on any of these pages and instantly view and control all EQ, DYN and FX values across devices and displays. The free update for the Ui Series mixers is available now from Soundcraft’s website. Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or www.jands.com.au
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SOFTWARE NEWS
FIVE ADDITIONS TO V COLLECTION 5 Arturia’s V Collection of virtual classic keyboards has been expanded and updated with its latest version — V Collection 5. It comes with 17 virtual instruments (five of which are new) that recreate desirable synths and keyboards. The B-3 tone wheel organ is one of the classics modelled in V Collection 5. Other instruments include the Synclavier, Farfisa, Piano V with nine acoustic piano models, Stage-73 for ’60s- and ’70s-style suitcase EP, along with the ARP 2600, CS-80, Jupiter 8, Prophet,
Wurlitzer, and more. V Collection 5 sure won’t leave you short-supplied — the package covers organs, electric pianos, acoustic pianos, synths and strings. Native Instruments’ new NKS, which allows advanced integration with third-party software instruments, is a feature across the board. All instruments have also been updated with resizable GUIs, and are AU, AAX, VST2 and VST3 compatible. CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au
SOFTWARE DISTRESSOR 20 years ago, Empirical Labs release its first compressor that made a definitive mark on the industry — the Distressor. And since those early days, the company has received persistent requests for a plug-in version for those working in the box. Enter the Arousor — the first ever compressor plug-in from Empirical Labs, designed to bring that classic knee compression to your DAW. Empirical Labs says the toughest part in the development of the plug was minimising common digital artefacts
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— something that was made even more challenging due to the non-linear characteristics of the plug. To list a few of Arousor’s cool features, it’s got a controllable broadband saturator, AtMod attack modification control, high-pass and low-pass sidechain EQ, Blend control to mix the compressed/ dry signals, and 20 presets to get you started. Arousor is available in all major plug-in formats. Audio Chocolate: (03) 9813 5877 or www.audiochocolate.com.au
iZOTOPE VOCALSYNTH We love how every new plug-in released by iZotope seems to increase in unconventionality — and VocalSynth would be no exception. It’s a vocal morphing machine featuring several different processors that’ll transform your vocal tracks into just about anything except normal. The Vocoder does the whole robotic thing, Talkbox lets you put words into a side-chained instrument’s ‘mouth’, Polyvox generates vocal layers and harmonies with its built-in pitch shifter, and Compuvox models the ‘handheld talking and teaching toys of the ’80s’ — whatever that is. It even gives you text-to-speech
emulation for some extreme diversion from sanity. If that’s not enough craziness for you, VocalSynth comes with plenty of effects to mangle your vocals even further — automatic pitch correction, Distortion, low-pass Filter, Delay, Transform (convolution speaker models) and Shred (glitchgenerator). iZotope is offering VocalSynth for an introductory price of US$149 until June 16th, after which it’ll go for US$199. Electric Factory: (03) 9474 1000 or www.elfa.com.au
MORE REASONS TO LIKE REASON Reason 9 is coming soon, and it’d seem Propellerhead wants to make it easier than ever to create cool tunes without needing a music degree. The main new feature introduced in v9 is a new type of rack device called Players. One of the Player devices, Scale & Chords, rules out any ‘wrong’ notes when playing MIDI instruments. Dual Arpeggio has two parallel arpeggiators for creating unique patterns. Note Echo is similar to a delay effect that allows for alterations to repeated notes, again opening up some original possibilities. That’s not
all — Reason 9 has an improved Pitch Edit workflow while making full use of Reason’s time-stretch feature too. And Audio to MIDI conversion lets you sing your melodies or hum your bass lines and export it to MIDI data with a click. And of course, you get more sounds — 1000 new patches, as well as a collection of sounds from professional sound designers. Reason 9 will be released on June 21st. Electric Factory: (03) 9474 1000 or www.elfa.com.au
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FEATURE
Virtual Reality is experiencing a rebirth and Sony is right in the game. The pioneers of PlayStation VR audio give AudioTechnology tips on how to get it right. Story: John Broomhall
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Until recently, Virtual Reality has been most comfortable in the science-fiction realm. Much like anyone wearing a ye olde ‘futuristic’ VR headset, early attempts at actually creating fully immersive 3D worlds stumbled along, cut off at the knees by primitive graphics, horrific frame rates and appalling motion lag. Slowly but surely, VR technology caught up to the future, though sky high costs rendered a consumer offering improbable — until now. Consumers are buzzing at the prospect of in-home VR; at CES punters were lining up around the block to don some snow goggle-sized headsets for a virtual tour of VR’s capabilities. Global corporations — unperturbed by 3D’s lack of wide scale take up — have also been digging deep, funding research and development to make Virtual Reality a reality at retail. No surprise that gaming giant PlayStation has been, and remains at the forefront of this pioneering endeavour with their PlayStation VR (PSVR) system due to hit the streets during 2016. Until you’ve personally donned the PSVR headset and some decent headphones, VR may seem like an interesting idea and something you might like. However, as soon as you try it for yourself be prepared to get broadsided by a massive paradigm shift. You instantly get it. You can look up, down and all around you, and the settings — like being underwater in Sony’s The Deep scuba encounter — feel breathtakingly expansive. PSVR delivers on VR’s necessary promise; it immerses you in a deeply compelling world that makes you feel like you’re leaving the real one far behind. VR, A NEW DAWN FOR AUDIO
The sound, music and dialogue components of these experiences are crucial. They can subtly draw a player in or psychologically bump them out, so members of Sony’s London Studio — where the operation, originally dubbed ‘Project Morpheus’, was nurtured — have put plenty of thought into PSVR’s application of audio. Alongside them in the UK capital are members of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s Creative Services Group: a collective of experts servicing the music, audio and video requirements for a plethora of videogame titles and their marketing campaigns. It’s primarily fallen to these pioneering sound designers, music creatives and software engineers to establish the platform’s audio requirements; create the technical train tracks for PSVR audio to run on; and explore what does and doesn’t work creatively, for a new dimension of interactive entertainment. London Studio Director, Dave Raynard, reckons VR is putting the spotlight on audio again. Having to wear a visor and headphone combo to experience VR properly means game developers have the entire audio attention of the player. “VR is really audio’s day in the sun,” said Raynard. “Audio plays a huge role in taking people to another place, it’s half the experience. One aim of VR experiences is attract the player’s attention — to make them look around using the ‘VR-ness’ of it — audio is a great way to do that. If you get audio wrong, it’ll be very, very noticeable.”
VR coming along is really audio’s day in the sun — Dave Raynard, London Studio Director
objects the lower priority sounds can mix down into this bed until a 3D voice is available. “Thirdly, you can send a signal directly to the headphones, a really important option for nondiegetic music and abstract ambiences. We’re also using it as a kind of LFE channel where we send a low-passed copy of a 3D sound straight to the headphones for explosions and other big sounds. This feature also gives you the ability to play back binaurally-recorded material in the game which can give great results for certain sounds — e.g. an object striking a helmet of an in-game avatar.” HOW TO MIX IT
HEADPHONICS
Fortuitously, Sony has not only a long history in audio, Raynard says Sony has put a great deal of effort into developing binaural audio systems for PSVR. Alastair Lindsay, Head of Music, says binaural audio is the perfect audio companion to VR: “It really helps create the illusion of a virtual 3D world. It convincingly reproduces the location of a sound: behind, ahead, above, or wherever else the sound is emitted from.” Lindsay offered a concise explanation of binaural audio: “In short, this is achieved by taking a piece of audio and processing it such that it includes all of the key cues the brain uses to locate sounds in space.” Sony’s audio system uses head-related transfer functions (HRTF) to filter the sound emitters depending on their position in the world, taking into account things like ‘Interaural Time Difference’, i.e. the difference in time taken for a sound to reach either ear. “The small adjustments to the different sounds using this technique, as well as a number of other factors, create compelling positional audio,” said Lindsay. Nick Ward-Foxton, Senior Audio Programmer, explains PSVR uses real-time binaural processing to achieve the most realistic-sounding and immersive experience possible: “Headphones are a great output format for us; the best option for delivering HRTF and binaural sound. Audio developers don’t need to worry about head tracking because the output is already aligned to head orientation.” To create the overall soundscape in the most efficient way, the team developed options for the route a sound takes through the 3D audio system. Ward-Foxton described three of the basic paths they find really useful: Discrete 3D object, Surround Bed, and Straight To Ear. Ward-Foxton: “Discrete 3D objects are the highest fidelity. The majority of sounds will be this type, and you may need a priority system to manage the number of voices playing versus the number of 3D voices available. “We also have a 10-channel Surround bed made up of virtual speaker positions including height. It’s useful for lower priority positional sounds and still gives you a good sense of position. If your mix is busy, then once you hit the voice limit for 3D
While the origins of binaural recording can be traced back to over a century ago, creating and mixing real-time binaural audio for VR is still yet to become anything close to commonplace. The people involved in project’s like PSVR are still pioneering the format. Simon Gumbleton, Sony London Technical Sound Designer, says VR experiences require full immersion; a complete suspension of disbelief on behalf of the player. A state that must be maintained by not triggering the subconscious ‘reality testing’ our brains do in the background. “The reason our dreams often seem so real is because this ‘reality testing’ mechanism is effectively switched off when we sleep,” he explained. Gumbleton shared some of the hard fought lessons the team has learnt along the way to keep players from ‘reality testing’ VR. APPROACH TO ASSET CREATION
Simon Gumbleton: “Choose audio content that’s as dry as possible and let the system add early reflections, late reverb and decide the balance between those and the dry signal. Fully anechoic material works best through HRTF filters and dynamic reverbs, but isn’t always practical or possible so aim to find or record material with minimum room or reflections baked in. That sonic information can end up giving the player incorrect cues and make spatial localisation difficult.
WHAT IS PLAYSTATION VR? PlayStation VR combines a landscape-scanning, custom 120Hz OLED display and specifically developed optical unit with an approximate 100-degree field of view to create a 3D space in front of your eyes. The PlayStation visor has a high-sensitivity accelerometer and gyroscope run at a very high frequency, allowing PlayStation VR to detect your head’s movement with almost no latency. When used with a PlayStation camera, your head’s movement, and the movement of the controller can be tracked and reflected in the game’s images in real time. To experience Playstation VR, all you need is the visor, a PlayStation4 and the PlayStation Camera.
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Binaural audio is the perfect audio companion to VR — Alastair Lindsay, Head of Music
“Sounds should ideally be mono sources, so that our 3D audio system has full control over adding the spatial information. Design them how you want without worrying about the HRTF process, and don’t try to correct for it with EQ. Otherwise you’ll break the spatialisation cues added by the system. “Humans are much better at localising sounds when they move their heads and get that change in content between ears, so you might design slightly longer sounds for situations that require precise localisation.” PROCESSING TIPS
SG: “Channel-based content is definitely still possible in VR, but it’s important to restrict it to non-positional and non-diegetic material. Mood stuff like abstract drones work fine in 2D, but positional content that ‘sticks’ to your head when you turn is distracting. “Keep ‘player sounds’ subtle and neutral — a subconscious reinforcement of player actions in the virtual world. If they become too noticeable you’ll create a disconnect between player and avatar. The player will be distracted, conscious they’re not making that sound. “Too much compression on dialogue can pull AT 16
it out of the world and make it feel 2D. Use less compression than normal on dialogue to keep it feeling like it’s coming from the characters, rather than a phantom centre speaker somewhere in front of your face. When recording dialogue, capture a performance that relates to how it will be played back.” SPECIFICALLY PLACE AUDIO
SG: “Location of sound sources in the world needs to be accurate. This means using more emitters in multiple locations. For the vast majority of sounds in a scene, you can’t just emit them from the root of an object. “Respecting head tracking is very important. Sounds should move correctly in the world. Much audio that previously might have been piped in stereo will benefit from being positioned correctly in the world. You might treat almost all the elements of an ambience as positional sources. It really helps place the player in that space; they can move around, lean in, turn their head, and what they hear makes sense in the virtual world. “If you’re using any sort of dynamic obstruction or reverbs, you need to have a good relationship with the environment creators on the project. You
also need tools which allow physics authoring that works for audio. We’ve often found that ‘accurate’ physics doesn’t always give the best results from a design perspective — you need to find what works for your audio design.” MAKE AUDIO REACTIVE
SG: “It’s crucial the player feedback you provide with audio is believable, especially with object interactions. Design sounds for these interactions in a way that reacts believably to any player input. It really helps to be able to easily get player parameter values like speed, acceleration, rotation and angular velocity from any player input at any time so you can design reactive blend containers. “Another key aspect of placing sounds is distance modelling - 3D audio systems don’t give you this ‘out of the box’ - you need to design it. Volume and basic filtering over distance is a great starting point and still works in VR. But there are some extras that really help sell distance. For example – dynamically driving the send levels to reverbs over distance. This works for simulating proximity as well. You can exaggerate certain properties at very short distances and drastically reduce the reverb send level to emulate very close sounds.”
CASE STUDY: THE DEEP Descending through ocean layers in a cage, The Deep diving simulation comes complete with a terrifying shark encounter. Joanna Orland, Senior Sound Designer talked about the audio vision and its implementation: “Before doing any hands-on sound design on a new project I investigate the audio identity I’d like to give it. It’s important not to create assets in isolation; every sound must fit into the audio world you’re building. “For The Deep I listened to how films have portrayed underwater sound and found they tend to give space a similar treatment too. The Abyss, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Gravity and Battlestar Galactica all recreate the feeling of being underwater or in space, not the reality. “Sounds were somewhat muted and everything was quite soft. Object sounds were often vibration and movement rather than literal audio. All of this led me to define the audio of The Deep as: Very ambient and motion-driven rather than realistic; you’ll hear movement of sea-life rather than overt animalistic qualities. The deeper you get, the more muffled and also ethereal the sound will become. The soundscape will be very ‘soft’. Player sounds will be subtle but real (making a player
sound realistic and believable facilitates an emotional attachment with the avatar, aiding immersion). “Working alongside composer Joe Thwaites, our mission statement was: The sound will be felt, the music will be heard. “We’re not trying to make something real per se. We want our virtual version of cage diving to have drama, evoke emotion and put people inside a ‘Hollywood movie’ version of this compelling underwater adventure. We push the sound design into hyper-real, especially when the reality can be rather underwhelming, break immersion or deflate the drama. “For example, I didn’t want to hear constant breathing (even though that’s the reality) because your brain would filter it out after a while. We decided to filter it ourselves then bring it in for key moments to help create tension and fear." Once Orland knew her creative aim, she broke it down to figure out the exact approach. The sound itself would be realistic — breathing through apparatus — but not the emotionally manipulative implementation. The breathing would be heard at first to establish its presence, and the presence of the oxygen tank, but once the player was fully submerged, it would be subtle to the point of nearly inaudible.
“The player would feel like they’re breathing, but wouldn’t hear it as an obtrusive sound because that might ruin the ambience of the underwater experience and create distraction rather than immersion. “We also decided to change the volume and pace of breathing at key points. For example, breath sound would be removed before a big shark attack and brought back at a higher intensity immediately after the attack. This enhances the player’s ‘scare experience’. The objective is for the player to take on some of the emotive experience internally through the avatar’s frightened breathing. Testing revealed it worked and players’ own breathing was often affected heightening their emotional engagement. “To me, player/avatar sounds are the most subjective area of VR audio design — they can make or break immersion. We keep things very vague as people are used to their own body sounds, which vary person-toperson according to size, height, weight and gender. “The great thing is there are no rules. With every sound now able to be in a binaural space, we have more room to play. That’s led to things like our FOCUS system, developed on The Deep, where some sounds only become audible when the player focuses on them intently for a while.”
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DYNAMIC MIXING
SG: “With high fidelity azimuth and elevation, plus a 360-degree sound field, 3D audio systems give you more space in the mix. You need to move most of the run-time mixing controls out of the bus structure and into your sound object hierarchy. By using lots of side-chaining, meters, states and ducking to dynamically drive different sound objects, you can still create dynamic and reactive mixes. “However, too much ducking quickly becomes obvious and can pull the player out. The trick is lots of side-chaining in small amounts. Where dialogue needs to be heard in a busy scene, having the dialogue a little louder is better than ducking other elements too aggressively. “You also have the ability to influence the player’s focus, which can be really powerful. Thinking back to tracking player input parameters — you know exactly where the player is looking in the scene, so you can use that data to manipulate the audio focus of the scene, enhancing specific elements whilst suppressing others. “Decide on the focus and be aware of your ability to grab the player’s attention, particularly with respect to how new elements enter the soundscape. “Mixing audio in VR is probably the biggest
departure from our old workflows. This is primarily because 3D audio systems change the end point of our signal chain. With channels and busses, the end point is way down at the master fader, but in 3D audio systems, the end point is at each audio ‘object’. “This has some implications for how you construct and sculpt what the player ultimately hears. Concepts like summing and buss processing don’t make sense in an object-based system. You can’t stick a multiband-compressor or EQ or tape saturation on the master fader any more — not only because you need to maintain the individual object signals — but you would also end up wrecking any ILD and HRTF filter cues. “This means effects processing must be done at the object level which, depending on the number of objects you have, likely means an increase in real-time DSP. It also means group processing is more difficult — for example you can’t run all your vehicle sounds through a single compressor on a buss. “By using traditional techniques such as sidechaining, states and meters, alongside a few VR specific systems we’ve built, we’ve found that even without a traditional mixer structure, we can still create immersive, dynamic and reactive mixes.”
A FRESH PERSPECTIVE
Perhaps the most valuable thing you can do, said Gumbleton, is experiment. The entire VR spectrum is relatively new, and a lot of the things that worked for the team were found by simply trying out ideas. “You’re working on totally new experiences and systems,” reminded Gumbleton. “You’ll face new and exciting challenges in VR that no-one else has faced.” Despite the infancy of this generation of VR, some are already predicting its universality. Raynard is one of those. He’s been around for the debut of many game technologies in the past — camera tech, motion gaming — but this is the first time he’s seen a technology’s potential extend so far beyond games, and that makes him excited about its future: “There are film people interested, medical people, business to business. That’s why I think it will become established as a ‘medium’ — just like theatre, radio, TV, film — and that’s what makes it so exciting.” That said, he’s wisely not putting a timeline on its adoption. “It could surprise us and be really quick or there might be a longer tail,” mused Raynard. “When film went from silent movies to sound, it took 10 years for all the cinemas in America to change over. This is just the beginning.”
MUSIC LESSONS Alastair Lindsay, Head of Music, and Joe Thwaites, Composer & Music Systems Designer, talk about the role of music in virtual reality gaming, where it should sit in the mix, and the importance of musical interactivity: “There’s a common misconception that virtual reality implies simulation — and therefore non-diegetic music isn’t appropriate. But VR experiences come in many forms; abstract worlds as well as more realistic environments. Players suspend their disbelief if the content is both audibly and visually consistent and believably presented. Most traditional game and film music approaches are still pertinent in VR experiences. “In general, provided the player is invested in the experience we’ve found that sending the music straight to the player’s ear (where the music position persists as you move your head) can work effectively, though not necessarily in every scenario. “Presence is the single most powerful feeling created by VR. Maintenance of presence is of great importance, as it transcends the user from spectator to participant. But presence is a delicate construct easily disrupted unless all elements work well together to create a coherent experience. “In most cases you need music to act on a subconscious level, to avoid drawing attention to itself and to support narrative. If it draws attention,
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there’s a risk the player’s subconscious will respond with a ‘reality check’. It’s like how you accept a dream as reality until something from outside the dream world, like an alarm, intrudes. “We’ve found music affects presence most when it starts and stops. Getting music in and getting out are often the most jarring moments in audio continuity. Much of our prototyping has been addressing how music enters the experience without drawing attention. “However, different levels of presence can be used to creative effect, adding a new layer of dynamics to an experience. In The Deep, a piece of music scoring the manta rays’ approach enters relatively boldly helping the player feel they’re a spectator of a magical moment. As it fades away with the departure of the manta rays, the reality (virtual reality) of the situation comes back into focus, making the imminent danger more pronounced. The music acts as the calm before the storm. “Many of the challenges regarding making audio and music for VR experiences actually spring from the player’s heightened environmental awareness. If music-to-visual sync points don’t hit precisely, the music draws attention to itself much more than in a traditional game. We use many of the same techniques learnt from interactive music best practice in traditional games to address
this, but we’ve also been exploring alternative approaches to push the flexibility of our interactive music. This even includes combining MIDI sample playback together with streamed audio stems which allows us to balance timing precision with audio quality. “Being able to monitor and respond to what the player’s looking at is a totally new opportunity that VR enables. It allows us to customise the music to the player’s experience. For example, the manta ray moment is only triggered when you first see a manta ray. So if you’re looking in another direction when that animation starts, the ‘magical music reveal’ will wait until you spot the creature, making the moment much more powerful and cinematic. “Another example is just looking around in The Deep. Look up to the light and the music is subtly high-passed and a new high sparkly music layer is introduced. Look down and the music is low passed with more bass frequency layers added. It’s subtle but really effective in creating a dynamic soundscape that ‘sells’ the environment — for instance, looking down gives many people a sense of dread. Overall, the combination of 3D audio and knowing where the player is looking allows us to create totally new audio experiences that take the experience of VR to another level.”
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FEATURE
classics e h t g in n n hu t mics, to s cking guitarists in o b o R m o r F ar and lo e g e r ’t afraid to o t n s is k e n in ju t r n o f ale cage, Eric V sounds. a Faraday ar t with guit experimen Interview
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: Mark Dav
ie
Eric Valentine doesn’t know what it means to settle. The Vari-Cap instrument cable is just one small example of what he’ll achieve when he gets a little restless. He showed AT around Barefoot Studios, where he’s in the throes of dividing his main live room in half. Most studio owners wouldn’t dare chop up a gorgeous live room, but he’s been there over a decade now and felt the space was getting a little too predictable for him. Valentine’s designed and built custom consoles with a perforated top to minimise surface reflections, erected Faraday cages to cut down guitar hum, and built a remote mic positioning robot just for guitar cabs. AT asked him about those guitar innovations and how far he’s gone with Queens of the Stone Age and Lostprophets to get unique sounds. ROBOTIC APPROACH
AudioTechnology: What prompted you to spend the time and $2k building a robot just to move a mic around? Eric Valentine: The idea for the guitar robot came about when I got a guitar sound I liked and the time came to try and recreate that exact guitar sound. We document everything as detailed as we possibly can; take pictures of the mic position, pictures of the pedals, amp settings, everything. But when we set it all back up, it just didn’t sound the same. It never sounded the same. The smallest change in mic position would cause very audible differences in the sound. There’s a lot of weird reflections and filtering going on as you move the mic tiny distances. The robot was the only way I could find that spot without having to endlessly run back and forth. Plus, I could sit in front of the speakers in the control room and listen to how it was changing as I was moving it around. THAT WAS THE BIGGEST THING; MAKING ADJUSTMENTS TO THE MIC POSITION WHILE LISTENING IN THE MONITORING ENVIRONMENT I’M FAMILIAR WITH. IT MEANS I CAN DECIDE IF A CHANGE IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE.
I also collaborate with artists who don’t have a band and play drums and guitar on the project. It means there’s a lot of times I’m in here myself and I don’t necessarily need someone hanging around all day for that single five-minute window when I need a microphone plugged in. Sometimes I’ll adjust it entirely by ear because I haven’t bothered to setup a video camera and it’ll end up in a really weird spot I never would have thought of. Like in the middle of the cabinet inbetween two speakers. There are limitations to its range of movement, so it’s not like a remote control car that will end up over the other side of the room. It uses a linear slide, which is often implemented in automotive manufacturing. It’s basically just a rail that has a little wheeled carriage on it and a motor that pulls it back and forth. The slide has a limited range, the second generation version I’m using is a foot-and-a-half long. Then you have three axes of movement — in and out, up and down, left and right. This second generation one also has a little controller with a digital readout and position
storing. I can find a spot I like, store it and see if I can beat it, then go back and forth and see which one I like better. You can put any mic on there: Shure SM57, I use Beyer 160 ribbon mics a lot, and the Sennheiser 441 dynamic and RCA BK5 ribbon are both great. AT: Position is one thing, but how do you decide which mic to start the process with? EV: There are two ways I’ll start the mic selection process. I’ll either lean on my 20 years of experience recording, and go straight for the mic I know worked right on that amp for a particular type of sound. Or I’ll go totally random and force experimentation to happen. Take whatever microphone in the room is closest to the amp and point it that way. Sometimes there’s a bunch of mics hanging about in the room from the session and I’ll just start turning up faders and see what they sound like. Sometimes one will come up where you’d never think to use that mic in that position on that amp, but it sounds really cool. FAVOURITE COMBOS
AT: What are some of you favourite amp/mic combinations at the moment? EV: I recently got this interesting amp. It’s actually a record player, called a Califone. It has a turntable and two speakers, but if you get the right model from the right era, it actually has a really desirable original Jensen Alnico 5 speaker in it. The amp is essentially just a Fender type amp with a 6L6 tube in it. Miking it with a Sennheiser 441 is a very, very flattering combination. I did a record with Grace Potter that came out earlier this year and her guitarist, Benny, fell in love with it. We miked both the front and the back of the speaker with 441s maybe a couple of inches away from the grille of the speaker cabinet. The BK5 RCA ribbon mic on my Fender Vibroverb is a great combination that’s been used on a lot of records. I’ve got a Vox AC30 I really like. I use Neumann M582 tube condensers about 8-12 inches away and again have them on the front and back on the cabinet. I flip the phase and blend them. If it’s really freaking in the mid-range I’ll put a really low, low-pass filter on there. THE SIGNAL YOU PICK UP OFF
It was actually kind of great to make guitar players go sit in a cage, they deserve it
THE BACK OF THE CAB JUST HAS A DIFFERENT RESONANCE TO IT THAT I DON’T FEEL I CAN GET BY USING EQ ON THE FRONT MIC. It makes it deeper and heavier sounding,
without messing with the high-end clarity you get from the front. It all depends on the key and what’s going on in the song, but most of the time I’ll get rid of everything below 100Hz on both channels, sometimes higher to make room for other things. I’ve experimented with it on closed-back cabinets, because I heard it was something Mutt Lange did, but I never have any luck with it. Maybe it’s an erroneous rumour. But any combo openback speakers, I’ll put something on the back. For classic rock sounds, I have some really great vintage Marshall amps here that I put through a four by 12 and mic up with either a Shure SM57, Beyer M160 or even the Sony C37A. That’s for a
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Jimi Hendrix-style of sound. That mic was used for some of his recordings. It’s just a great sound; a Marshall and a four by 12 is tried and true. LIMITLESS LIMITATIONS
AT: As a producer and engineer, how does song arrangement and guitar sound choice intersect for you? EV: I’m always looking for ways to be able to hear all the parts and ideas in a song. If the rhythm guitar is played with a particular guitar and amp setup, we will not use that for lead guitars or overdubs. If you want to sound unique, imposed limitations can really help. Josh Homme is very much about that for Queens Of The Stone Age. THE CLASSIC MAGIC COMBINATIONS THAT SOUND INCREDIBLE LIKE A LES PAUL THROUGH A MARSHALL WITH A 4 X 12 CAB IS SOMETHING HE WILL NEVER EVER USE. BECAUSE EVERYBODY USES IT, HE IMPOSES THAT LIMITATION ON HIMSELF.
It forces his stuff to sound different and it can be a struggle. For Songs for the Deaf we went to this place called Black Market Music, which is a graveyard for broken, shitty band equipment and bought all the shittiest stuff in that place. A bunch of garbage like old Peavey Musician 3 transistor amp heads and brought it back here to see what we could pull out of them. We used a lot of that stuff on the record. AT: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done to get a guitar sound? EV: On the Lostprophets record Start Something we decided to try high-gain heavy guitar sounds with single coil pick-ups, because we realised it was something people never do. It was a Les Paul Junior and Lee [Gaze] was playing a lot with a Jazzmaster. It was really challenging because you have no humbucking so the guitar’s just buzzing like crazy. We had to build a Faraday Cage to be able to have that much gain on single coil guitars. We were determined to do it so we just made it work. I bought these 4 x 8 foot sheets of pulled steel and made a completely enclosed cage with a little door that would wire shut. There was a monitor speaker in there and the guitar players would have to sit in this cage and play their parts. It was actually kind of great to make guitar players go sit in a cage, they deserve it. BUT IT REALLY WORKED. HOLD THE GUITAR OUTSIDE THE CAGE AND IT’S JUST HUMMING. AS SOON AS YOU WENT INSIDE THE CAGE IT WOULD GO AWAY.
It wouldn’t have worked without the cage. If you were trying to hit a note and have it sustain out, it would just turn into a really loud buzz; you couldn’t get any notes to decay and fade off. When you’re playing full volume you might be able to get away with it, but it takes away the focus from the sound because any time you lift off that buzz starts filling in all the gaps.
Valentine's triple-axis, mic positioning robot can handle any mic and gives him exact, repeatable control over his mic positioning. Who needs EQ or assistants?
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FEATURE
Story: Paul Tingen
Artist: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Song: Downtown
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ABOUT JON CASTELLI Originally from New York, Castelli studied saxophone at the Hartt School of Music on Long Island, and started and ran a studio together with his father in the same area, where he cut his engineering and production teeth. In 2013 he signed to Mirrorball Entertainment in Los Angeles as mix engineer and producer, where co-founder and star mixer Tony Maserati took Castelli under his wing. Castelli: “The first thing we mixed together was a Lady Gaga song, then he invited me to move in across the hall from him, where I still have my studio. It’s all in-the-box, my only outboard being a Rascal Audio Two-V preamp and a Kush Audio UBK Fatso compressor, both
Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk was a very well orchestrated pastiche of ’80s funk. All the key elements were there — keytars, horns, low fisheye lenses and squareshouldered pastel sports blazers. But there was still a collected, serious side to the parody. Whether it was yammering on the phone while getting a perm or reading the paper while their shoes were shined, Mars and Ronson were getting down to the business of being funky. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis don’t have to parody jack. Their songs and videos are too oddball to attract direct comparisons. Especially so on their latest hit, Downtown, which, on the face of it, could be read as a direct response to Uptown Funk, but is so much more bizarre. Downtown’s chorus — top-lined by Foxy Shazam singer Eric Nally while riding a chariot pulled by Royal Enfield motorcycles — doesn’t come in until almost the two-minute mark. The verses — oneupping the anti-cool vibe of Thrift Shop by geeking out on mopeds — are made up of completely different sections, featuring not only Macklemore, but also rap pioneers Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee and Grandmaster Caz. The song has echoes of both the ’70s and the early ’80s funk aped by Uptown Funk, and is almost entirely played on live instruments with prominent sax, trumpet, tuned percussion, and piano.
of which I use over the master bus. I also have two of Tony’s Neve 1066 mic pres, plus the Black Lion Microclock MkIII and Sparrow AD/DA. My monitors are PMC IB2s, with a Bryston 4B amp. I also have Chris Pelonis Mode 42 MkIII speakers with concentric drivers that I use like Auratones. They are awesome.” Castelli’s credit list already includes mixes for Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande and Backstreet Boys. As one half of 4FRNT, he also did a remix of Somebody That I used To Know that was endorsed by Gotye. As well as Downtown, Castelli eventually mixed the entire yet-to-be-released Macklemore & Lewis album.
The song’s unconventional nature apparently also initially foxed its makers. Mixer Jonathan Castelli recalled, “Ryan called me and said they had been working on this song for two years, and they really needed fresh ears and perspective to help finish it. When my assistant, Ryan Nasci, and I listened to it for the first time, it sounded crazy. It was going to take a lot of work to make it feel like one cohesive concept. It sounded like four songs stitched together with transitions that made the sections sound completely different. There were no effects and the voices weren’t cutting through enough. The challenge was to make it sound like one whole piece so America would not be freaked out by it, as well as getting the voices to step out in front, make the whole song jump out of the speakers, and take it into the radio world.” A big job for an already unwieldy song. GETTING DOWN TO IT
Castelli got the gig through Joshua ‘Budo’ Karp, a frequent collaborator with the Seattle duo he’d met at a writing session a few years ago. 18 months after that first meeting, Budo sent Castelli a text asking if he was up for mixing some Macklemore & Lewis material. He was hardly going to refuse, and got stuck into the mixes at his Mirrorball studio. The uncertainty around exactly how to approach Downtown surprised Castelli. It was the fourth
song he’d mixed for the album and the direction for the first three had been fairly clear. Although the duo weren’t exactly clear about the direction for Downtown, they did recognise that Castelli’s first mix wasn’t what they were after. Castelli: “For my first mix, they had given me no direction, and when I sent it to them, I was very happy with it. Ben [Macklemore] contacted me and said, ‘Man! How did you get Eric’s voice to cut through in such a loud arrangement?’ But when Ryan [Lewis] called he said ‘Jon! I really like that mix, but it is completely the wrong direction! I like that warm, fat, more tube-like sound with extended bottom end, that you got on the other songs, but this song needs to be a little more natural sounding. It needs to be less EQ-ed in the low end, with more of a natural mid-range — more solid state.’ “I immediately knew what he meant. I love tube gear and tend to go for big fat bottom with subharmonic stuff and saturation. That worked on the first songs I mixed, but for this song he said, ‘do yourself a favour and go listen to Grandmaster Flash’. Finally he gave me some of the vision. If he’d given it to me earlier, I could have saved myself three days’ work! I had worked really hard on it, because I knew it was earmarked to be the first single from the album. Usually you can backtrack in a mix, but not with this song. I decided to start again. Downtown eventually turned into a two-week mix!” AT 25
DOWNTOWN MIX The Pro Tools session for Downtown is an impressive 112 tracks, including group and effect tracks. From top to bottom it consists of five mix tracks in purple, including the rough mix right at the top, eight group tracks in bright green (drums, guitars, keys, synths, strings, horns, vocals and effects), 34 drum and percussion tracks (mostly red and yellow), three effect tracks, five bass tracks (mostly orange), one piano track, seven guitar tracks (dark green), one Oberheim synth track, and five horn tracks (yellowgreen). The bottom of the session is taken up with a massive 45 vocal tracks, including 14 for Ben Macklemore (though the three tracks labelled Mod are of Macklemore demoing guest rap vocals), 18 tracks for the three guest rappers, Eric Nally’s, the choir, and other incidental vocals in between. While 112 tracks is indeed large, Castelli’s mix session actually comprises the stems Ryan Lewis’ engineer Stephen Hogan supplied. Hogan had bounced them out of an original session that added up to well over 200 tracks.
TWO-WEEK MIX
Two weeks for a mix sounds exorbitant, but Castelli said his mix for Downtown required a lot of finetuning because, “Ben and Ryan wanted to come out with a song that was unlike anything that had been released in the last 10 years. They’d had three No. 1s, and although they want to be successful, they really wanted to ‘wow’ people. High chart positions were less important. During one phonecall I said to Ryan that I saw the song as their response to Uptown Funk. Those guys are posh and living in uptown, whereas Downtown is more down-toearth. He really liked that perspective. “Specifically, instead of going for a big bass, R&B sound as with the first three songs, my challenge was for Downtown to sound more like a throwback to the seventies; more Neve and API than tube. Of course, it still needed enough bottom end and punch to sound current. The problem with my direction at that stage was more sonic, as I had already to some degree resolved the issues of AT 26
Downtown — with rap verses and a clean chorus that transfers into something akin to classic rock — sounding very segmented. And, as Ben had indicated, I had managed to get the vocals to cut through. Bringing all that together was a big challenge. But I love being challenged!” With so many pieces to assemble, more than ever, Castelli just took the time to listen. He “just listened to it for a good hour, soaking it in. For me mixing is about the journey and emotional connection you get with a song, not about what plug-ins I use. With other songs I might dive in right away, perhaps starting with getting the drums sounding good, but with a proper production and a great song like this I first listen to it a lot. When I have a connection with a song I tend to do less nitpicking and mix more from an overall picture. I do listen in solo mode at times, of course, but you have to be careful not to go down a rabbit hole, as your mix may start to sound disjointed. Everything has to fit, so I mix a lot with everything in. “Like most people I generally start with the
rhythm section, but in the case of Downtown I began the mix by focusing on Ben’s vocals. The drums were already in a good place, though perhaps not quite hitting as hard as they are now, so I focused on getting the vocals to be in charge, and then built everything around them as support. After Ben’s vocals I worked on Eric’s vocals in the chorus, and then the rest of the vocals, so they told me the story of what needed to happen between each section. After that I worked on the horns, followed by the drums and bass, really making sure the groove was solid; and then I worked the other instruments in.” Somehow, Castelli managed to make everything work together. Over the course of five and a half minutes, the song takes you on a journey that is partly a throwback, definitely inventive, and, most importantly, fun. Pop songs aren’t typically this diverse, and Castelli’s mix makes those transitions effortless so you can just get down without a thought for the business of how it all came together.
LEAD VOCALS Castelli: “Ben’s main vocal track sounded really good, and didn’t need too much work. I have five plug-ins on it. The FabFilter Pro-Q2 is a high-pass at 100Hz and also takes out some 700-900Hz — a frequency range that I tend to dislike in vocals. The UAD API Vision Channel Strip adds a nice aggressive sheen. You can make it sound hi-fi if you want, but it’s best suited to that solid-state aggression with a rock edge that I wanted here. I boosted high end and took out some 240Hz with it, and also used the compressor, set to a ratio of 3:1. The UAD Pultec Pro is boosting 200Hz, adding some broad warmth, plus I also had the FabFilter Pro-DS. Ben’s vocal has no reverb. They don’t like reverb on his voice; I only used it on him in one song.”
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CONSOLE VS THE BOX Castelli: “When I was nearly finished with the mix, I went to Ben and Ryan’s studio in Seattle to work the three rappers they’d recorded into the session. They asked me to put the mix through a console, so I rented EastWest Studio B to use the vintage Neve for a more classic 1970s sound. It didn’t work, it didn’t sound as good as my in-the-box mix that had gone through my Rascal Two-V and UBK Fatso. We spent $2000 for a day, and it didn’t sound any better!
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“I mixed a song for Robbie Robertson on his Neve at the Village in LA, as well as in the box, and via a Dangerous summing mixer. In that case we also ended up using the in-the-box mix, because it sounded better. The Neve and summing rig made it sound mushy; the mix lost its edge. “That said, I recently mixed a couple of songs at a studio in Burbank on Chris Lord-Alge’s old SSL. I don’t think I could have made it sound the same in-the-box. I also went to Blackbird in Nashville a month ago and summed a mix through a console, and again it sounded great. I’m open to either way of working. In-the-box is definitely easier for recalls, but as far as the sound is concerned, you can mix in-the-box or on a console. It depends more on the room, the monitors, and most of all, the song.”
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ERIC NALLY VOCALS
HORNS
Castelli: “Eric’s main vocal track has eight plug-ins on the inserts and a send; though all the plug-ins are making subtle changes. I started his vocal chain by hitting the Waves API 2500 compressor pretty hard, then I boosted 100Hz and took out 500Hz on the Waves API 550B. He has a quiet voice, so I needed to give him lots of body. As with Ben’s voice I used the FabFilter Pro-Q2 for its hi-pass filter and ducking around 700-900Hz. The FabFilter Pro-Mb is controlling some of the 800-2000Hz range that comes from the mic. The Softube TubeTech PE1C EQ is attenuating some 10kHz, and the Plugin Alliance Maag is boosting 160Hz, 650Hz and 2.5kHz. Finally, the Softube TubeTech CL1B is doing some mild compression. The send is a UAD EMT140 plate, set to a short, bright reverb, with a long pre-delay, to give his vocal a short but big glow, so he sounded huge. His vocals are also parallel compressed using a Universal Audio LA 610 and a Bomb Factory BF76.”
Castelli: “The horns are a big part of the song. You don’t get many horns in pop music these days, so I wanted to make sure they sounded special. I wanted a grimier, darker horn sound, rather than the ’70s funk sound the track already had. I opted for a dark tape machine vibe, with very little compression. It was more about filtering the top end and finding resonant peaks so it cut through the track without sounding too fancy. The horn tracks are all sent to a bus on which I placed the UAD Studer A800 tape machine emulation, the Waves SSL E-Channel to try to make it sound more classic, the Softube TubeTech ME1B EQ dipping around 2kHz and boosting at 200Hz and 5kHz, the Pro-MB, and the ProQ2 which is a hi-pass. Mostly it’s about the A800, which is set to 15ips, aiming to make it sound darker.”
EXTRA VOCALS
DRUMS & BASS
Castelli: “Towards the bottom of the session are the rest of the vocals, including the big choir with about 60 voices compiled in stems and the three rappers. All of them have no plug-ins at all. They were more about balances and rides. Many engineers feel they have to do something on each track. I may have used a lot of plug-ins on Ben and Eric’s vocal tracks, but in general I subscribe to Tony’s school of thought, which is that you don’t have to do much, and you only do things when really necessary. If it’s already good, don’t touch it!”
Castelli: “The drum tracks fall roughly into two categories. The more obviously programmed drums are sent to a bus with the Studer A800 and parallel compressed using a dbx160. The rest of the drum tracks comprise drum samples that aim to sound live. The drums already sounded great, so I just used EQ to make them sound a bit harder and added a sample to reinforce the kick sound. The bass also didn’t need much. I put on a bass amp plug-in and Culture Vulture parallel compression to make it gel with the drums. It was all about the glue.”
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FEATURE
Harping On With Newsom
When Noah Georgeson took over from Steve Albini to produce Joanna Newsom’s latest album, he replaced Albini’s favourite setups with his own — including eight mics to capture the centrepiece harp. Artist: Joanna Newsom Album: Divers AT 30
Story: Paul Tingen
A woman playing a harp should conjure feelings of peace, not controversy. Yet Joanna Newsom consistently manages to make waves. Her fourth album, Divers, ascended almost all ‘Best Albums of 2015’ lists that matter, and had a review average in the high 80s. Even mainstream rock and pop reviewers, who have pigeon-holed her largely acoustic music under labels like ‘New Weird America’ and ‘Freak Folk’, were wheeling out the superlatives — “truly incredible”, “a masterpiece”, “startlingly beautiful”. But even with all that high praise, the singer, harpist, multi-instrumentalist and composer has also been called “one of the most polarising artists of the last 10 years.” While most critics clearly adore Newsom, there are also some that hate her music and voice with a vengeance and aren’t shy of expressing their dislike. My favourite quote from a reviewer was, “What ties both the love and the hate together is bewilderment,” while conceding that “visceral bewilderment” is actually rather interesting. Go figure. So what’s all the ado about? Well, firstly, it’s not just the harp. Divers features Newsom playing an array of instruments including piano, harpsichord, Wurlitzer, celesta, synths, and zither. Other instruments that appear on the album include violin, viola, trombone, English horn, bouzouki, baglama, drums, electric guitar, and the entire weight of the City of Prague Philharmonic. All these colours are woven together in baroque, kaleidoscopic arrangements, over which Newsom sings almost scholarly lyrics and inimitably complex melodic lines. Her mannered, childlike approach to singing borrows from early Kate Bush and Björk, but is otherwise entirely her own. Whatever Newsom’s music is, mainstream it ain’t. The fact that it strikes a chord (and occasional discord) with audiences is largely due to the originality of her song-writing and musical arrangements, but also in its sonic presentation. Newsom’s albums aren’t limp-sounding, folkyaffairs; they kick butt. And despite the absence of deep bass, they still sound in-your-face enough to hold their own in the current loudness-saturated music-scene. OLD FRIENDS, NEWSOM SOUND
Noah Georgeson is the man responsible for the sonic and production aspects of much of Newsom’s recorded output. Georgeson set Newsom’s, and his own, career on course by engineering, mixing and producing her sparsely-arranged 2004 debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender. Newsom’s second album, Ys, was made with Steve Albini engineering, Jim O’Rourke mixing and Van Dyke Parks coarranging and producing, but Georgeson returned for album number three, Have One On Me, recording Newsom’s harp and vocals and mixing most of the album. His contribution on Divers was even more significant, as he engineered parts of the album, and mixed and produced everything. Georgeson is one of the driving forces in the American alt folk movement. He’s worked with Devendra Banhart, Robin Pecknold (of Fleet
Foxes), Vetiver, Mason Jennings, Cedric BixlerZavala (of the Mars Volta), as well as the likes of Bert Jansch, Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Strokes, and a Mexican artist called Natalia LaFourcade; which won him a Latin Grammy Award. There are more than a few ties that bind the pair. Both Newsom and Georgeson hail from Nevada City, a small town in north-eastern California full of artists, ex-hippies and New Agers. They also both studied at the liberal arts Mills College in San Francisco, were part of the band The Pleased and… were romantically involved. From his home studio in Los Angeles, Georgeson shared key points of their musical history: “I played music from my early teens, first piano and then classical guitar. Of course I played in shitty bands during high school, and I was always the one recording us, using both analogue
I hesitate to say I am an engineer, because it implies a technical or scientific approach with an empirical, objective ‘right’ and ‘wrong’
and Pro Tools. When we were at Mills together I helped Joanna record her material, at home and also secretly at a studio at Mills. In working with her I had to figure out how to record acoustic instruments, particularly the harp, which is one of the most challenging things to record, because of the way the sound comes off it. “Those recordings became her first album, and suddenly I was a producer! Then my friend Devendra asked me to help him with his next record [Banhart’s fifth, Cripple Crow], which turned out to be quite successful. So while the first two albums I did were both in the small indie folk world, they also went pretty big. I really lucked out. I was among a group of people who were doing great things, and my career carried on from there. I’ve never had a lack of work since. “I always saw myself more as a musician and a composer, and have to admit that until doing Joanna’s first album it had never crossed my mind that being an engineer and producer was something I could do. Honestly, I am not the most technical guy. I hesitate to say I am an engineer, because it implies a technical or scientific approach with an empirical, objective ‘right’ and ‘wrong'.’ I wholeheartedly don’t believe in approaching music that way, unless you are simply trying to document something — like a field recording or something. I think that every single aspect of music
and recording is entirely subjective. I don’t have the analytical, scientific mindset that the word ‘engineer’ implies. I can get the sound I want out of pretty much anything but am not particularly interested in how things work from a technical perspective. Instead I’m best at making things sound a certain way, and giving my opinion. It’s kind of weird to be hired for giving my opinion, but it’s also flattering!” ALBINI OUT, GEORGESON IN
Recording for the album started at the beginning of 2013 in Vox Studios in Los Angeles. Steve Albini was engineering, but he dislikes LA and is reluctant to work away from his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago, so he left in April and Georgeson took over. Recordings continued on and off at Vox and other studios for another year and a half. The project finally concluded with four months of mixing — partly at Georgeson’s home studio but mostly at House of Blues Studio in LA — then mastering wrapped up in early 2015. In today’s low-budget climate, two years — even broken up — is a pretty long time to be working on an album in commercial studios, particularly for someone who is not a best-selling, mainstream artist. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Newsom said the recordings took so long because she “wanted the character and colours of the instrumentation to shift definitively, from song to song, which entailed a wide pool of collaborators and a lengthy collaborative process with each person.” Georgeson supported Newsom’s vision, and elaborated on why things took so long: “In the months before I arrived, Steve had recorded the basic tracks for about two thirds of the album. I came in literally the day after he left with all his mic setups still in place. He wrote me a long email detailing everything he had been doing. He likes particular mics, but I chose to do a reset because I had a different aesthetic vision than he did. HE HAD RECORDED EVERYTHING TO TAPE AND DUMPED THINGS INTO PRO TOOLS. I DECIDED TO KEEP GOING PURELY INTO PRO TOOLS BECAUSE OF THE WORKFLOW, BUT ALSO BECAUSE I WASN’T HEARING THE BENEFITS OF USING TAPE. The sounds were good, but there was tape hiss, which is fine for some recordings but not for Joanna’s record. “For me tape saturation and compression are a large part of the charm of using tape, and there wasn’t any of that. The recordings had tape artefacts I thought didn’t work for the record, yet none of the things I like about using tape. I’m often looking for that kind of messiness, and imprecision and fuzziness that analogue can give you. But this record did not call for that. It has a lot of detail in the mid and high-mid ranges, and it’s not bass heavy, so it seemed to be calling for a sound image that’s cleaner and more precise. It made sense to stay in digital. “Joanna and I worked full-time for another couple of weeks, and from then on we worked when we both had the time. Sometimes we weren’t working because we were waiting for collaborators to send in their material. I EITHER RECORDED THE AT 31
ADDITIONAL MUSICIANS AT HOUSE OF BLUES, OR THEY WOULD RECORD THEIR PARTS WHERE THEY LIVED, AND WOULD CHECK WITH US ABOUT THE ARRANGEMENT AND TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF WHAT THEY CONTRIBUTED. Joanna
was not dictating the arrangements note for note. Even though she had very strong ideas about the parts, she also gave the players options that we’d sort through later. There was a lot of working from a distance, for instance, the classical music instruments in Anecdotes were recorded in a studio in Northern California. The modern world allows us to do that. “When I arrived at Vox the idea was to record all the overdubs, get the material in from collaborators, and then mix and be ready half a year later. But that turned out to be wildly optimistic. As Joanna listened to what we had, she judged the record to be less and less complete. In some cases she didn’t like the performance, other times we were continually putting things in and taking them out until the arrangement felt right. As soon as that point was reached, we’d go to the next song. We’d move on when it felt sprawling and we’d reached a point of diminishing returns. Overall, we re-recorded some parts, added overdubs, and because things took so long, we also recorded a few additional songs from scratch, like A Pin-Light Bent and Same Old Man.” CLASSIC VOX TONE
The variety of acoustic instruments, Newsom’s synth sounds, and the image Georgeson placed those sounds in, all contributed to Divers’ rich sonic palette. But Georgeson also credits a lot of that sonic diversity to Vox Studios. “Vox is a super old-school place,” explained the producer, AT 32
“with a very special old-time feeling. I don’t like the velvet, brushed-metal and scented candles aesthetic of many studios these days. Vox almost has a laboratory vibe; very Spartan, very cool. The studio has a lot of crazy old gear, both recording and musical instruments — like real Mellotrons, old synths, pianos, and pedals. A lot of the unusual instruments you hear on the album happened to be at the studio and we tried them out.” Vox Recording Studios, which bills itself as the ‘oldest privately run recording studio in the World, since 1936,’ also has some very unique studio equipment, including a Universal Audio/API console custom-built by Frank Demideo in early 1967, which has been used on classic records by Wings, Van Morrison, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and many others. The desk has 24 channels of UA 1108s, 24 UA 508 EQs, and 20 channels of API 560, 550 and 550A EQs. Georgeson made extensive use of the desk and other vintage gear, but not for purist, audiophile reasons: “I don’t mind working in the box, but if there is a desk, I like to use it! That said, I don’t really care about keeping things analogue and pure. For me gear is a tool to get me what I want, and I’m used to digital as much as analogue, both can sculpt the sound however you like. I don’t like getting dogmatic about it. I try to stay as flexible as possible and not to get too attached to any particular piece or kind of gear. If I’m in a nice studio I like to use the old gear, like Neve and API, but in general I only lightly treat recordings on the way in. For Joanna’s record I wanted to record everything as natural, clear and uncoloured as possible, then work extensively on them in the mix. For all these reasons I was happy to use the UA/API desk at Vox
and get beautiful, natural-sounding recordings. “I TEND TO RECORD VOCALS WITH THREE MICROPHONES: A GOOD LARGE, DIAPHRAGM CONDENSER, A RIBBON, AND A CHEAP DYNAMIC. I place them right next to each
other, trying to get the phase right. In Joanna’s case I recorded her vocals with a Neumann M49 or Telefunken Elam 251, which gave me the detail; the ribbon was an RCA 44, which is nice and dark; and the dynamic would have been an Electro-Voice mic, which have coloured high mids and are good at documenting things without too much detail. When you hear too much detail in a singer’s voice, it demystifies things a little bit. I mean, nobody will ever be singing one inch away from your ear with ultra-clear focus; it’s not natural. “I like vocal mics that are dirtier and not as precise. The sound from dynamic mics can cut through and have emotional impact, and then you can add in the smoother, more romantic quality from the ribbon and the details from the large diaphragm condenser. In the mix I balance the different qualities of the three mics against each other. I also often use a room mic and try to find a spot where the vocals sound good, though I usually don’t end up using it. I record the mics using only EQ and some light compression on the condenser from something in an LA2 style. The UA/API desk is very cool, it adds that signature colour to everything you plug in.” THIS TIME WITH HARP
Georgeson applies an extreme version of this multi-mic approach when recording the harp — a whopping seven to eight mics. “The way I record the harp is still more or less the same as what I did when I began 12 years ago. The sound comes off a
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harp in pretty much every direction, so it’s hard to stick one mic up and get a sense of the harp as it sounds in real life. YOU WANT TO GET THE PLUCKINESS
(far left) The old-school vibe at Vox contributed to the aesthetic of the album, mostly because of the variety of vintage instruments on hand. (middle) Steve Albini helmed the beginning of the recording until he tired of LA, then (right) Noah Georgeson took over to finish the job.
OF THE FINGERS PULLING THE STRINGS AND ALSO THE
Occasionally I’ll put up some very coloured microphone options. I use these old crystal microphones that were made for trucker’s CB radios because they sound very particular; they have no highs, but pick up high mids and particularly bass in a strange compressed way. I also have this old STC 4021 ball and biscuit mic, which automatically gives the instrument a pretty unusual sound when I mix it in.”
BODY OF THE INSTRUMENT AND THE DEPTH OF THE BASS.
I put up two small diaphragm mics on either side of the string to pick up the string plucking. I may use Neumann KM84s for this, or if I want to have something more rustic with high mids I may use an Electro-Voice dynamic, something that has its own colour, not too much detail and a little bit of crunchiness. “Next I’ll have a mic on either side of the soundboard — a large diaphragm for the low end, and something detailed with a wide frequency spectrum for the high end — where you get most of the sound of the instrument. A lot of bass comes out of the sound hole at the back of the sound board, so I’ll also put a microphone on the floor to pick that up, like an EV RE20, nothing superdetailed, just something that can capture the power of the low end. Finally, I’ll have two ambient mics in stereo, which may be a pair of Coles ribbons, and maybe also a large diaphragm vocal mic, like a Neumann U47, to pick up the entire harp sound in mono. “I record each microphone to a different track, and during the mix I’ll decide on a balance, for each song, or even for each section of a song. If I want to hear lots of detail and plucking I’ll go with more of the close mics, but if I want a sense of the harp receding into the ensemble, I’ll back off and use the soundboard and room mics. “I enjoy finding that balance during the mixing process. It’s not that I don't like to commit early, I’m just better at doing it during the mixing stage. AT 34
QUAD EIGHT HOME COOKING
In between recordings, Georgeson tinkered with the Pro Tools sessions at his home studio, and prepared mixes there for the final mix stage. “The main piece at my studio is an old Electrodyne Quad 8 rack mixer,” explained Georgeson. “It’s from the ’60s or ’70s, I think it was originally designed as a location rack mixer for film. It’s a little brighter than classic Neve stuff, but it definitely has that old-school vibe. I mix through that. I also have a couple of LA2-style compressors, just some really basic outboard, and Yamaha NS10 monitors, plus old consumer-level Advent speakers, which I bought when I was a teenager, and which are very representative of what the average person might be listening to. When I noticed that a couple of mastering places also had them I felt validated! “I don’t have a laptop. Instead I have an old Mac tower with Pro Tools 8. I still use that, because I fear that upgrading will take me a couple of weeks, and I simply can’t afford the time. I also don’t want to drop 20 grand for another HD system, and find out that plug-ins I like don’t work anymore. When
I’m working in a commercial studio I use whatever is there, but because my system can’t open .ptx files I need to save using an older format. I strip them down when I get home so they work on my system. “After the sessions for Joanna’s album, I did a lot of listening, clean-up and shaping of sounds at home. Most of all it was a matter of getting familiar with the sessions. That way, when we went into the studio I could just put them up on the board and know exactly what I wanted in terms of EQ and compression. I DO BROAD STROKES AT MY STUDIO USING THE PLUG-INS ON MY SYSTEM TO GET A GENERAL IDEA OF WHERE I WANT TO GO, THEN REPLACE THEM WITH OUTBOARD IN THE STUDIO. If I’m doing final mixes
at my house it’s a different process because I’m committing and will send more elements through the bits of outboard gear I have.” MICROMANAGING A MIX
Georgeson mixed the final version of Divers at House of Blues Studios. “It’s great for mixing,” said Georgeson. “They have an incredible amount of gear: a 32-channel Neve 80 series desk with 32 1073 mic pres, and a 16-channel API 1604 sidecar, both of which are great. I laid my mixes out over the Neve, because I like the process of mixing through a desk and the Neve EQs sound great. I ALSO LIKE DESK BUS COMPRESSION, YOU GET MORE HEADROOM WHEN MIXING THROUGH A DESK. SOME OF THE SONGS WERE VERY COMPLICATED AND IT GAVE ME A SENSE OF HAVING MORE SPACE TO WORK IN.
“The issue with mixing through a desk today is recall. We tried to stay with each song while mixing
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it and not do a lot of recalling. We had a song on the desk for five days! Sometimes I’d start working on the next song by laying the session out over the API sidecar, then port that session over to the Neve because it sounded better. “Typically I’d get all the sounds sitting in the right places and context, then Joanna would come in with tons of feedback; micromanaging levels and pan placements. At that point I’d zero everything on the board and do all the volume changes in the box. It was a hybrid system.” MIXING ANECDOTES
Georgeson went into detail on his mix of the album’s opening track Anecdotes, which features classical music instruments like a violin, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, bass clarinet, English horn and trombone, as well as Newsom on harp, piano, Juno 106 and Minimoog. “I approached this in a modern sound designlike way because the instruments don't function as they would in a traditional chamber ensemble sense,” began Georgeson. “Instead I tried to give each instrument its own character and function. “I SATURATED THE COLOURS EACH INSTRUMENT NATURALLY HAS, MOSTLY USING DESK EQ. THE ENGLISH HORN, FOR EXAMPLE, HAS A PARTICULAR REEDY SOUND I TRIED TO BRING OUT IN THE MID RANGE — NOT SOMETHING YOU WOULD WANT TO DO IN A CLASSICAL RECORDING.
I allowed the instruments’ natural dynamics to breathe in the track, but the EQ was fairly heavyhanded. Those Neve desk EQs are great because you can get pretty intense with them, and you don’t realise the instrument has stopped sounding real until you compare it to the dry signal. You can AT 36
push them pretty far and get some really interesting sounds without it sounding crazy or horrible. “I didn’t actually do many treatments on Anecdotes other than EQ and some light compression now and then. The other main effect was the studio’s big, analogue EMT 140 stereo plate reverb, which I used on Joanna’s voice. The studio also has the first digital reverb, the EMT250, which looks like a robot. I used some of that on Joanna’s voice, as well as the Eventide H3000, for some crazier delays and stranger reverbs. I also had either an LA2 or a Gates Sta-Level compressor on her voice. I had very little reverb on the harp because it is so resonant on its own. Too much reverb quickly makes the harp sound like a mess. I compressed the harp string mics with an 1176, treating them like an acoustic guitar to get a real sense of pluck, and I definitely used EQ on the harp. I also had a Pultec EQP1A EQ on the master bus and a Fairchild 670 which hit the low notes on the harp in particular. “I only treated the synths with EQ to bring out the mid range and warmth of the Juno, and I added some bass to the Minimoog where it was supposed to supply low end. I didn’t try to create any frequencies that weren’t in the original material. I’m not against making things sound artificial, but for this record that just wasn’t right. The main issue I had to address was that many instruments were playing in a similar mid-range, the same range as Joanna’s voice. I had to find a way for each of the instruments to live together and not get in the way of the voice. “Joanna always has loads of very detailed notes and really wants to micromanage the levels of instruments coming in and out, how they interact
volume wise. Sometimes note by note. We’d also edit parts. If we felt a performance was a tiny bit ahead or behind in time we’d micro-adjust them. NOTHING WAS TO A CLICK OR A GRID, AND THE EDITS WERE NOT DESIGNED TO MAKE THINGS SOUND PERFECT IN AN OBJECTIVE WAY. IT WAS ABOUT PUSHING AND PULLING THE RHYTHM AND THE FLOW OF THE TRACK.
“Joanna has very specific ideas about individual moments, and they are very important, but the broad strokes are the most critical. It’s okay if a vocal is slightly too loud or soft. Records can easily end up sounding too conservative because everyone is focused on controlling the minutiae. The most important questions are: Is the song effective? Is it evoking something? And that happens from the first note. On some old records the hi-hat might be 10 times louder than it should be and hard panned to the left; that stuff is interesting to me. “My interest mostly lies in the bigger picture and the bolder colours, and in creating something that is unique enough to justify its existence in a world that is completely saturated by content. This can manifest in even the subtlest detail of a song or recording, or paradoxically, it can be in its simplicity or incompleteness. The Japanese phrase ‘wabi-sabi’ describes this [Beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete — Ed]. I only recently became familiar with the concept, but I think it perfectly describes my aesthetic and approach to music.”
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TUTORIAL
HOW TO: TUNE VOCALS LIKE A PRO Before Mitch Kenny was getting ARIA nominations for mixing Hermitude, he engineered records for superstars like Beyonce in LA and tuned some megastar vocals. AT pitched the latest copy of Melodyne at him to get some pro tuning tips. Tutorial: Mitch Kenny
Tuning vocals can be one of the most tedious parts of the record-making process but it can also be one of the most rewarding. Engineer’s have enormously powerful tools at their disposal that can make an incredible difference between how a vocal performance sounds when it was recorded to how it sounds on a release. However, like all processes involved in improving the sound of a record, the devil is in the detail. RIGHT TOOL FOR THE RIGHT JOB
The three different plug-ins I use when tuning vocals are Antares Autotune 5, Autotune Evo and Celemony Melodyne. Each of them are used to achieve a specific result and each of them do something better than the other. Auto-Tune 5 is my weapon of choice when going for obviously tuned vocals like T-Pain. Ironically, T-Pain has an amazing singing voice and intonation and needs very little help to sing in tune, but I digress. Autotune 5 reacts quicker than Autotune Evo which makes the overtly tuned sound easier to achieve. Autotune Evo is a little more transparent than Autotune 5 so it gets used when I need light overall tuning on tracks. Its tracking control is also on the main page of the plug-in, not hidden in a menu like in Autotune 5, so it’s possible to make and hear changes while the track is running. Where Melodyne comes into its own when you either need to transparently tune a performance which requires wholesale vocal reconstructive surgery, or to very subtly tune good performances to make them exceptional. YOU CAN’T TUNE EMOTION
When using Melodyne, there is essentially nothing pitch or timing-wise that’s unfixable. Only the emotion of a performance is out of reach. Ideally a choice shouldn’t have to be made between a performance that contains emotion and one that is in tune. Most recording artists can deliver a flawless performance given enough time but that’s not the reality of the record making business at the moment. The very best singers AT 38
in the game can sound even better by minutely adjusting not only pitch and timing but other note-specific characteristics of the performance, such as when the vibrato starts or when a slide between two notes occurs. This is the paradox of Melodyne. By altering multiple parts of a note in a complex, yet subtle, way you can make a performance sound more natural — as long as you listen, listen, listen! If ever there was a time to remember that you are an ear not an eye, it’s while performing micro changes within individual notes of a vocal performance. MY APPROACH TO MELODYNE
My main aim when using Melodyne is to deliver a tuned vocal which sounds like it hasn’t been tuned — ie. sounds as natural as possible. I haven’t found
Here’s my bog-standard Auto-tune Evo setting when I need some light overall tuning. The Tracking control at the top of the window is particularly handy for real-time adjustment.
one single technique which can achieve this alone, but it is possible by using a number of the tools. My starting point is to turn both the pitch and timing grids off then tune the vocals with the track soloed. This means the vocal is tuned to my interpretation of the intonation as opposed to a rigid computerbased interpretation of the pitch. The next step is to move the blobs that need tuning as a whole while keeping any ‘imperfections’ within the notes. The idea is to place the blob where its average is in tune. To make a performance sound more in tune, there are two specific things that can be changed: fixing slides between notes and controlling vibrato.
Step 5: Select the Main tool and move the blob to get the end of the slide in tune.
Step 6: Select the Pitch Tool again to see the pitch contour. Click on the pitch countour line and smooth the transition between the start and the end of the slide. Congrats, your slide is now tuned.
This is an example of a note which has both an out of tune slide and a wobble in the middle. Step 1: Select the Pitch tool.
Step 7: Now to fix that wobble. Firstly, select the Main tool and break the blob up where you hear the diversion.
Step 2: Separate the blob in two at the point before the note became in tune.
Step 8: Select the Main tool again and move the broken blob down in to tune. Then select the Pitch Modulation tool and smooth out the wobble.
Step 3: Select the Pitch Modulation tool and smooth out the modulation.
You can use the same sequence to control vibrato: Break up the blob, pull parts in to tune and use the Pitch Modulation Tool to smooth it out. It’s all about making multiple subtle changes to ensure the tuning is transparent and realistic. Step 4: Separate the blob again to catch the start of the bend and place the note’s beginning in tune.
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Having used the previous versions of Melodyne for years, it took a little time to find my feet in Melodyne 4. It was mainly due to several new features which are accessible from the main edit window including tuning, mode and scale indicators, toggle switches for pitch and timing grids as well as toggle switches for the info pane, track header and the sound editor. Melodyne has been spruiked as more than just a pitch correction tool for a while now, but pitch correction is still what it’s best known for. Even as a committed user I have very rarely used any of its other functions, like using it as a polyphonic editor or to create harmonies artificially. The new functions in the sound editor — including a harmonics editor, equaliser and synthesiser — will change this. The harmonics editor and the synthesiser function in particular look like they will perform a function not found in any other plug-in. For those only interested in using Melodyne for pitch correction, the new multi-track edit functionality is a huge improvement and will come in handy when making multiple vocal parts work together. There is something really cool about being able to hear in real-time how one vocal is affecting another and being able to react accordingly.
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FEATURE
Michael Waters takes on the challenge of mixing Hugh Jackman’s extravagant ‘one-man’ Broadway show in an arena. Story: Preshan John
BACKSTAGE MADNESS
The many sides to Hugh Jackman are bookended by a ripped, shirtless Wolverine action figure and the Hawaiian shirt-wearing Boy from Oz. But which Hugh would feature in his one-man show Broadway to Oz? All of it. While taking a trip down memory lane from his musical theatre days to the first time he strapped on a pair of claws, Australia’s favourite son pays tribute to some of his favourite musicals with some high-energy song ’n’ dance routines. JPJ Audio FOH engineer, theatre expert and 20year Hugh-veteran, Michael Waters, gave AT a tour of the show’s behind-the-scenes setup. “[Hugh] calls it a one-man-show,” said Waters. “But it’s got a 17-piece ensemble, a 35-piece orchestra, and a six-piece indigenous troupe… for a one-man-show, there’s a lot of men and women involved.” AT 42
Jackman is still the show though, and his mixture of story-telling, singing and mid-tap yelping needed to be perfectly reinforced to thousands at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne — a much bigger venue than the arenas on Broadway. “In theatres, Hugh has been able to use the DPA 4061 lapel mic. But it’s an omni, so it won’t respond too well in an arena. I’ve got him back on a DPA headset, which we used on The Boy From Oz nine years ago. DPA has released a new model of the 4088, the cardioid one called d:fine, and that’s working really well. He loves it. He’s always had trouble with headbands, if they don’t fit absolutely perfectly he kinda gets frustrated because they move about on him, but this works great. As a backup I’ve still got a 4061 strapped to that, so if the headset should fail, there’s still something out there that’s better than nothing.”
Michael Waters: “It’s a pretty big operation back stage. In fact, that’s far more complicated than FOH to be honest with you. There are two Avid Profiles back there, one for Hugh and the cast’s IEMs and one for the orchestra mixes. Bob Daniels and Harrison Maher provided the orchestra with 'More Me' mixes via Aviom personal monitoring controllers, which lets them balance the mix with their own signal. There are also 12 audience mics which help keep Hugh in touch with the audience while he’s on IEMs.”
BOLD AS BRASS Michael Waters: “I love that old-school, classic brass sound you get with the Sennheiser 441s and 421s”
INVOLVED MIXING Michael Waters: “There’s quite a bit of soloist mixing involved. In terms of general mixing, there are some substantial button-pushes at the end of the numbers. I’m giving it 10dB extra over the whole collection, then whipping it out real quick before it takes off and hangs around for 10 minutes. “In terms of loop gain, it’s mainly in the low end department because the L-Acoustics K1s are so solid in that area. There’s not an awful lot of EQ taken out of the PA, it’s a fairly flat, well-performing system straight out of the box. It’s really just the summation of the brass mics and piano that wants to get lumpy in the low mids and bottom end. And of course the strings are sort of shelved up a bit higher anyway. But it’s a surprising amount of gain. It’s a nice, punchy orchestra. “I’ve got each of the string sections individually grouped. I widen one side of the stereo pair, and pan them across the room then reverse that orientation on the side hangs. It’s quite spatial and it gives Hugh that space right in the centre. I can do the same with the ensemble; have them as a bed, then Hugh sits right up in front.” MIC DIVERSITY Michael’s mic choices aren’t brand-restricted. As well as DPA 4061s on strings, and Sennheisers, Neumanns and Earthworks throughout the rest of the ‘pit’, he used six SM58s for the 75-piece girls choir. Michael: “I put radio mics across the front of them and pulled this almighty sound out of them.” He also miked up the drums with AudioTechnica AT4050s for overheads, a Shure KSM137 on hats and a Beyerdynamic M88 on kick.
BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE Michael operated the show on a Digico SD7 with 110 inputs coming in from two SD racks. The L-Acoustics K1 system supplied and tuned by JPJ didn’t require much EQ or many subs as there was plenty of bottom end. Having the front hangs set 30m apart wasn’t a problem for Michael, who had to manage the parts of the show when Hugh and co. would come down the central runway.
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REGULARS
Apple Notes Apple crafts a new memo for musicians. Column: Brad Watts
Well I’ll be darned. Apple has cottoned onto the fact musicians are using iPhones to quickly record song ideas on the go. And why wouldn’t you! The phone is constantly by your side; either in your pocket, or within earshot. Or, it’s directly in front of your face while you’re checking on everything happening on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Flickr, Google+, LinkedIn, SoundCloud, Reverbnation, Yelp, and the list goes on, and on, and on. Blardy blardy bloody blar. In reality (remember that?), you’re without doubt better off jotting down a few melody or lyric ideas than wasting your sanity on any social media platform. I’d best digress. The point is, we’ve all got an excellent recording device on hand every waking hour. Part of the attraction with a simple recording application like Voice Memos is it’s extremely simple to use. You open the app, hit record, and press stop when you’re done. The files sync with iTunes wirelessly and they’re ready to dissect and reevaluate as soon as you sit down in front of your Mac and monitors. Most importantly, that flash of inspiration you had as the 7:30AM train you were riding to work on — still half asleep after a shower and not enough coffee — somehow created a rhythm on the tracks that made you think of the best chorus ever. That little recorder in your pocket could be the key to getting that hook realised. Otherwise, it’s lost. What’s the chance you’d never think of it again? Pretty high. Having learned this, Apple has reinvented Voice Memos specifically for musicians. It’s a new app called Music Memos. Music Memos, just like Voice Memos, is extremely simple to use. Upon opening the app you’re faced with a mostly blank, dark screen, with a big blue button in the middle. Press the button and it turns red to signify you’re recording. It doesn’t get much simpler. Recording can also be instigated when the app senses a sound, so you can sit back, play, and capture without leaving a huge gap at the start of the recording. Once you’ve recorded your ‘Idea’ (the official nomenclature for recorded takes within Music Memos), it appears at the bottom of the screen as a waveform, and here’s where some hefty technology kicks in to make AT 44
Music Memos so much more than a mere digital dictaphone. For starters, the waveform suddenly has notes displayed for each sound you’ve sung into it. It’s nutting out the chords of each section you’ve recorded! That in itself is going to make it easy to play it back when you get your hands on an instrument; or for the non-players, simple to bash into a sequence in your DAW of choice. Recognising pitch paves the way for some other tricks which we’ll get to shortly, but before that, categorise your Idea with a tag. These can be any of the provided tag names such as ‘verse’ or ‘chorus’, or add your own tags. You can also rate the Idea from one through to five stars, much like rating tracks in iTunes. Beneath the waveform are other icons. A trash can for eradicating those late night Ideas that don’t cut it in the morning, a bass guitar icon, and a drum-kit icon. Clicking on the drum-kit adds drums to the recording, and clicking on the guitar adds a bass-line. I kid you not. Music Memos works out the tempo and pitch of your recording and adds drums and bass. Now if you’re not so keen on the backing you can hold these icons and bring up either a vintage or modern drum-kit, and switch between upright or electric bass. You can also alter the complexity and loudness of each instrument, with a matrix style interface borrowed from Apple’s other audio applications such as Garage Band and Logic Pro X. There’s also adjustment of the complexity of cymbals, hats, and kick within the kit. Now if you feel the app has got the bass-line wrong you can edit the chord arrangement to suit your Idea’s melody more accurately. This is done by selecting regions within the recording that have
been designated a chord and readjusting. It’s fast and intuitive. Tempo and time signature of the backing tracks is also editable. Half, regular, or double speed, and 3/4, 4/4, or 6/8 time signatures. Plus, you can shift the downbeat of the backing in 1/8th beats to lock in where you need it. Of course recordings can be trimmed, but bear in mind all edit points are selected via transients of the waveform. Sharing or exporting your recordings, sorry, ‘Ideas’, can be done via various methods. You can export the files via iCloud Drive, DropBox, shift them over to iTunes, or if you have Garage Band installed on your iOS device, export the Idea directly to Garage Band — as separate tracks with the drums and bass remaining editable. Nice! That said, if you export the Garage Band file to your iCloud or DropBox, these can also easily be imported into your desktop version of Garage Band, or indeed, Logic Pro X. There are a couple of caveats here though. I noticed audio mixdowns couldn’t be exported to DropBox — you have to use iCloud for this. Export formats include .CAF files, various mutations of .MP3, and good old 16-bit/44.1kHz. All in all, you can shunt your Ideas painlessly out to wherever they need be. Just to round out the package there’s a tuner built in. The tuner is ok, but I have better tuners on my iPhone. I’ll let you be the judge on this one. Music Memos requires iOS 9.1 or later, and an iPhone, iPad 3 or later, iPad Air, iPad mini 2 or later, iPod touch or iPad Pro. For the muso onthe-hoof it’s a must-have. It’s simple, fast, effective, it exports to the rest of the composition ecosystem readily. Best of all, it’s free!
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www.sounddistribution.com.au AT 45
REVIEW
ELECTRO-VOICE EKX 12P
Powered Loudspeaker EV continues to riff on the portable speaker concept, adding DSP in all the right places with EKX. Review: Mark Woods
NEED TO KNOW
GOOD LOOKER — The EKX 12P speaker is made from 15mm plywood and finished in EV’s semi-matte, textured, EVcoat surface. The wrap-around front grille feels very strong and gives the box an understated but professional look.
PRICE EKX 12P: Expect to pay ~$1300 CONTACT Bosch: 1300 026 724 stsales@au.bosch.com
AT 46
PROS Healthy power-to-weight ratio Wide dispersion & even sound Easy DSP enhances sound & flexibility Good limiter & automatic fan for protection
CONS Only one handle on the 12P
SUMMARY EV has slipped another series into its portable speaker range. The EKX range sits just below top spot, and performs admirably in a variety of applications thanks to its innovative horn waveguide and flexible onboard DSP.
The rest of the EKX family, including the 15P two-way and the 18SP/15SP — ‘P’ for powered, ‘S’ for sub. There's one carry handle for the lightweight (19kg) 12P and two handles for the comparatively weightier 15P and subs.
In its effort to provide class-leading portable speakers at every price point, EV has slipped yet another series into the mix. The new EKX series features active or passive versions of 12-inch and 15-inch two-way, full-range speakers with matching 15-inch and 18-inch subs. For those who know their EV portable speakers, the EKX series is second from the top, ahead of the entry-level, moulded-body ZLX and wood cabinet ELX series, and just below the fully pro ETX series. Aimed at bands/DJs/venues the EKX series puts high power in a wooden box that’s light enough to carry but loud enough to rock. I was impressed with the top-of-the-range ETX series released last year and the EKX series shares it simple, good looks. Minimal weight is a theme for this series of speakers and the EKX-12P weighs just under 19kg, so it’s fairly easy to transport (padded bags available) and lift onto a stand single-handed. Having only one handle is a bit stingy but it’s metal and a good size for easy grabbing. The cut-out angled side for floor monitor use does compromise the space for another side handle but there’s plenty of room for one on the top. LINE ’EM UP
The EKX series incorporates EV’s SST technology (Signal Synchronised Transducers) that places the LF and HF drivers as close as possible and in line with each other for maximum phase coherence. The front of the horn flare sticks out over the top of the LF driver, which means the waveguide can be quite large (for better pattern control) and the gap that’s created acts as a bass port. The transducers are a
DH-1M one-inch titanium HF compression driver and an EVS-12M 12-inch woofer. On-board power is quoted at 1500W peak. QuickSmart DSP provides the necessary protections and user controls but also plays a big part in the overall sound of the speaker with EV’s FIR-Drive digital filtering responsible for internal fine-tuning. The result is a speaker that sounds good straight out of the box. On the rear of the cabinet, connections are made via two combo XLR/jack input sockets, each with its own gain control, and a mix out for linking to other speakers. I noted the omission of RCA inputs on the ETX series, not entirely forgiven by its more professional leanings, so it’s good to see them included on the EKX series. I don’t know when RCAs became part of professional audio but you’ve got to have them on these type of plug ’n’ play boxes, especially if they’re aimed at DJs or bands. ONE KNOB WONDER
I like the one-knob mic/line input level control, it’s safe enough (i.e. the gain doesn’t come on too fast, and there’s not too much of it) and probably safer than the ‘sudden-death’ instant 35dB boost you get from the mic/line switches found in many portable speakers. In fact, there’s no switches at all apart from the power on/off. The Master Volume/DSP knob sits next to the small LCD screen and defaults to Master Volume at the last-used setting — makes sense to me. It will turn the speaker all the way to off, or give 10dB of gain at full level. Pushing the Master Volume/DSP knob in gains access to the user controls. All parameters are selected by turning or pushing the knob, and it’s easy to navigate.
There are plenty of practical options within the DSP, including preset function modes for music, live and speech, as well as settings that optimise the speaker’s response for different physical placements; on a stand, on the floor, etc. General settings include a variable HPF and specific settings for matching the EKX full-range speakers with specific EKX subs. A simple fixed-frequency threeband EQ section is included but should only be used when no other EQ is available as the speakers have a commendably flat response anyway, and can be optimised further with the DSP’s placement settings. You also can’t see when the EQ is active without checking the DSP menus, so if someone uses the speaker after you, it may not be immediately obvious to them that an EQ is inline. DSP KEEPS THINGS TIDY
In use the EKX 12P has plenty of power behind it and stays tidy courtesy of the DSP, especially over the vocal range. The location presets make a significant difference to the low/low-mid response by applying a tailored boost for speakers in the air and a similar reduction for speakers on stage or against a wall. The overall frequency response has EV’s typical smoothness between 1-4kHz with a slightly exaggerated response above 6kHz. The horn is a bit grainy if you listen closely but you won’t notice it in a pub, nor the slightly noisy variable-speed fan that comes on automatically as the internal temperature rises. You might notice the DSP though, as it runs a tight ship. You can give it a full-strength, roadie-style ‘check, one, two’ and it will not overload; in fact, it sounds quite good up AT 47
You can give it a fullstrength, roadie-style ‘check, one, two’ and it will not overload; in fact, it sounds quite good up on the limiter
The EKX 12P showing the I/O and DSP interface. The one big pushbutton knob turns the box up/down and provides access to the DSP parameters. Oh, and there are RCAs for the DJ.
on the limiter. The available input gain is well set for live use, there’s not enough to get you into trouble and it’s reluctant to feed back, even on full gain with an SM58. If you need more gain then get a mixer. As front-of-house speakers in a small room these are easy to set up and perform well. Their strength is a strong, clear vocal range. They’ll fill a small to medium room with a decent level, and won’t overload if the input levels get too high. As you’d expect from portable speakers of this size they start to run out of puff below 100Hz, especially at higher volumes, but these provide good bass depth for music playback and lighter live music. LF response is quoted as -3dB at 60Hz (-10dB at 50Hz). If you want much kick in the PA you need at least the EKX 15P or one of the matching subs. LIFE BEYOND THE STICKS
The subs come in two sizes, the EKX-15S and the EKX-18S, and they both have 1300W of peak power. At 26 and 33kg respectively these have a good power-to-weight ratio and can be safely AT 48
managed by one person. If you have three or more subs per side they can be stacked for a cardioid pattern (rather than the natural omni pattern) by pointing one backwards and selecting cardioid in the sub-woofer options. The DSP takes care of the technicals via EV’s Cardioid Control technology and the result is a reduction of over 30dB in LF energy behind the speakers. As floor monitors the EKX series work better than most powered speakers. This is generally a compromised application for powered speakers as they’re often designed with enhanced LF response for stand use, making them couple uncomfortably with the stage and creating a boomy mess. Plus, the narrow horn coverage you get with the speaker on its side makes for a beamy HF throw with relatively unfocussed LF throw. I used a pair of 12Ps as part of the monitor system at this year’s Blackwood Festival of Music & Culture and they saw bands that ranged from whisper quiet acoustic ditties to the full roar of angry youth. Selecting the monitor setting in the
DSP effectively reduced the low-end woofiness and that was pretty much the only EQ required. The 60-degree horn flare is narrower than ideal but wider than many and worked well as part of a multi-speaker setup. They performed all weekend without fuss or feedback with plenty of detail for the acoustic pickers and enough balls for Masco Sound System. EV’s professional portable speakers are the result of continued technical development and the price/ performance equation continues to improve for the buyer. With the addition of the EKX range, EV has a speaker for every budget and with the low street prices on offer the EKX series delivers a lot of sound for the money.
AT 49
REVIEW
SZIKLA TECHNICAL PRODIGAL Dual Analogue Channel Strip & Monitor Station Is it a tracking device, a post production signal processor or a routing and monitoring hub for your studio? Greg Walker discovers that the home-grown Szikla Prodigal ticks a lot of boxes. Review: Greg Walker
NEED TO KNOW
PRICE $4995 + GST
CONTACT Awave (Retail Enquiries): (03) 9813 1833 or awave.com.au Rhinoceros Music (Pro Sales): 0423 655 838 or david@rhinocerosmusic.com Szikla Technical (Dealer Enquiries): 0416 033 088 or szikla.com
AT 50
PROS Transparent sound & highperformance super low noise circuits Extremely flexible unit with small footprint Comprehensive studio monitoring/routing section Smooth, musical compressor & de-esser Australian design & build with excellent after sales service
CONS EQ has limited controls Expensive
SUMMARY The Prodigal is the new 'Australian army knife' of the audio world. It provides a wealth of features in a super compact space while the quality preamps and signal processors are enhanced by a comprehensive studio monitor section.
Over the years AudioTechnology has shone the spotlight on a range of Australian audio pioneers, many of whom have contributed to the audio industry on a local and global scale with game changing designs, clever innovations and considerable business savvy. Having said that, it's an unfortunate fact that most of the outboard in our studio racks is designed and built overseas and we pay a premium for importing this gear in the never-ending quest for great tone. With the honourable exceptions of people like Al Smart, Rob Squire at Proharmonic, Joe Malone at JLM, David Peach, and Sebastian from Sebatron, there hasn't been a lot of locally built outboard making it to market in the last 10 years, which is a shame. Helping to shift this imbalance for the better is Melbourne-based electronics designer, audio engineer and musician Andy Szikla with his well thought out and ambitiously feature-rich dual channel strip and monitor station offering, the Prodigal. BOLD AS BRASS
The Prodigal is a comprehensive dual channel strip featuring mic and line preamplifier, DI input, high and low pass filters, three-stage EQ, frequency adjustable de-esser and stereo linkable compressor/ limiter. Not content with these features alone, the Prodigal adds comprehensive LED level, gain reduction and peak metering, three distinct stages of mono switching and can act as a studio HQ for a variety of audio sources with multiple monitor outputs, two stereo source inputs as well as minijack in and headphone out all handily subject to gain control. The design is discrete solid-state with FET circuits in the compressor and de-esser stages. There's no valves or input transformers to be found here and the audio design aims for transparency and flexibility rather than vintage mojo. A look inside the top cover reveals an extremely tidy circuit design and clean build. Much thought has gone into the power supply and earthing layout and a clever sub-chassis design that supports the boards and protects the surface mounted pots from the potential shocks and joint damage usually associated with this approach. The front panel is nice and thick and though I'm not a huge fan of the look, you can't deny the Szikla has one! The thick brass rack 'ears' and silver faceplate proudly distance the device from the black faceplate and chicken-head knob fraternity. PROD ROCK
The Prodigal arrived at my studio on the eve of a drum overdub session so I gave it a baptism of fire on stereo overheads. I used a pair of ribbon mics for this application and bypassed all the signal processing options in favour of simple preamplification. The Prodigal pres had plenty of gain on tap and delivered a nice clean, detailed image of the drums with the thickness of the ribbon mic's lower midrange tone well represented. The sound of these preamps is rock solid and pleasing to the ear while being fairly neutral. Each channel offers backlit switches for phantom power, pad and phase reverse and the metering is
very informative and clear (you can easily check input levels from across the room). I plugged some headphones into the monitor section and quickly checked the phase of my overhead mics by switching in the monitor 'mono' button and flipping the phase (a handy feature). The monitor section delivers zero latency monitoring of any source passing through the unit's inputs. Next up were some fairly loud electric guitar overdubs on another project. The setup was a Telecaster into a Fender amp miked up close with a Shure SM57. For these parts I engaged the compressor/limiter and started exploring the Prodigal's signal processing abilities. Settling on a moderate ratio and a fairly quick attack with a slower release speed to quell some of the harsher transients I was really happy with the results. The melodic lines sang beautifully and there was a nice thickness to the tone. The compressor locked the dynamics down nicely and helped deliver a 'finished' sound. After this recording the Szikla went up a notch in my estimation. Like all the processors on the Prodigal, the compressor/limiter delivers a lot of flexibility with a small control footprint. Simple attack, release and ratio controls are complemented by an input knob that feeds the compression circuit. The FET circuit used here shares some design elements with the famous Urei 1176 compressor and the availability of super fast attack speeds is one of its great strengths. Unlike the 1176 the Prodigal compressor will not spit out heavily distorted tones at extreme settings but maintains clarity and definition as the input level and compression ratio are increased. At moderate settings the compressor can really lock a sound in place without displaying much in the way of compression artefacts. There is a pleasing thickening of the tone and some subtle tonal saturation as extreme compression is applied but the Prodigal is indeed its own creature, which I consider a big plus. ESSING MARVELLOUS
After tracking a number of projects with the Prodigal that included bass guitars, vocals, percussion and strings, my conclusion was that the mic preamps and compressors were of an excellent quality and could be real workhorses in the studio. But I wasn’t done yet, the Prodigal still had more features to explore. I switched the unit's channels to line input mode and began exploring post-production applications starting with some vocal grooming. Sending a very sibilant female lead vocal into the Prodigal gave me a chance to evaluate the unit's de-esser circuit. The two continuously variable controls here are very simple to use — 'ess' (contrary to my expectations) applies more de-essing as it is turned counterclockwise from 'max' towards 'min’, presumably to give the effect of clamping down the threshold. The other pot determines the frequency above which the de-essing is applied (1-10kHz). In use I found this circuit to be extremely smooth and musical. The esses were tamed with very little impact on the overall top end of the vocal's tone (a quality sadly lacking in most software de-essers), and the 'limit'
The Prodigal is indeed its own creature, which I consider a big plus
LED’s activity gave helpful feedback as to how much high frequency limiting was being applied. Szikla explained to me that his circuit shared some aspects of the DBX 902's design and it is certainly right up there alongside the 902 as one of the best de-esser circuits I have ever worked with. Next on the tinkering list was the EQ section. This is effectively a three band tone shaping circuit with two fixed frequencies — a cut centred around 300Hz ('de-mud') and a boost above 9kHz ('air'). The third band is a constant Q parametric EQ with ±10dB available from 100Hz to 10kHz. In practice this EQ is very musical and quite flexible. The 'de-mud' was the surprise package for me as there were many sources from vocals to kick drums to guitars that seemed to benefit from this gentle deemphasis of the lower mid frequencies. I found the 'air' circuit to be a fairly subtle but pleasing addition while the parametric band was extremely useful for highlighting sweet spots in the tone of vocals, snare drums, acoustic guitars, etc. It was also equally adept at removing unwanted frequencies, though it's one to two-octave bandwidth (depending on how hard you push it) means it is not a surgical tool. Further tone shaping options are available via the high and low pass filters which operate in both line input modes (rear XLR and front TRS) as well as on the microphone preamps. These filters roll off at 12dB per octave and have a subtle 1dB boost at the roll-off point for a more musical effect. AUDIO CENTRAL
Last but not least is the built in Monitor Station section of the unit that occupies the far right side of the faceplate. Both the Prodigal source input and playback output sub-sections feature mute and mono buttons. Playback sources can be selected from one of three inputs (including the front panel mini-jack socket for your iGadget) and a fourth setting mutes all inputs. These I/O circuits share a peak meter to keep an eye on hot levels and the nearby headphone output with rotary fader handles discrete output monitoring of all sources. This is a well-endowed headphone amp so you need to watch your headphone output levels! Speaking of outputs the larger 'Studio' control is designed to be your master fader for the two mutable monitor outputs (ideal for two sets of studio monitors) while the independent line outs on the back can be switched between +4dB and -10dB operating levels. Again the design here is compact, well implemented and very flexible. The audio quality is very transparent and there is a ton AT 51
GETTING TECHNICAL WITH SZIKLA Greg Walker: How did you get into electronics and in particular the audio design side of things? Andy Szikla: I’ve had a long association with the AV industry, and early on worked repairing faulty gear and designing odd bits of equipment. Eventually, that turned into proper contract design work and my own Szikla Technical product lines. GW: What was your first breakthrough? AS: I invented a system for big shows where a presenter could advance Powerpoint slides remotely via a wireless button, and it was the first of its kind in the world. It altered the way those shows were able to be conducted at the technical level, and I am still very proud of that fact. These days similar gadgets are everywhere, but the old Cue King is still a benchmark. GW: Can you describe the initial development of the Prodigal and how the collaboration with Australian producer David Nicholas (INXS, Pulp, Elton John) affected the design? AS: I had also been designing audio circuits since the very early days, and had a whole drawer full of ideas but hadn’t gotten around to doing much with them. In 2008, after some years playing and singing in minor bands, I began recording my first solo album Dark Valley for Rubber Records. I rescued
of headroom. For me this section's inclusion of multiple stage mono switches for checking phase and mono compatibility as well as the provision of a simple way of A/B-ing multiple input sources such as reference tracks and previous mixes once again reflects this box's concern with making itself useful while delivering high quality audio results. GIVING IT A PROD
As I got more familiar with the Prodigal I started using it for more creative tone-shaping work on individual tracks and stereo busses. I found pushing the parametric EQ quite hard into the compressor at higher thresholds and ratios gave me some great 'semi-treated' vocal tones while parallel compression on strummed acoustics with the de-esser engaged and the compressor set to fast attack speeds allowed me to boost the guitars' core tones while de-emphasising the transients and high frequency hash. On stereo drum bus the compressors really shine, delivering a lovely wallop to kick and snare while locking down the dynamic range seamlessly. It's worth noting that all stereo sources greatly benefit from the stereo linking feature activated by another backlit button. Manual matching of settings is still required but with the 'link' button in, the actions of the attack and release settings are precisely electronically aligned. Care has also been taken to match FET transistors in the compressor and de-esser sections as well as in the preamps for exactly balanced L/R operation and the results of this can be clearly heard on stereo programme material. AT 52
all my ‘prodigal sons’ from the drawer and made a prototype to use on that recording. I showed David what I was doing and he was full of helpful suggestions, took a box home and fell in love with it. David has used the Prodigal on every recording he has made ever since, in every situation from pro sessions to his own home studio (which primarily consists of the Prodigal and an Apple laptop). His feedback has helped shape its sound, features, and user interface. It was David’s idea to expand the (zero latency) monitor section to serve as the hub of an entire system. He saw before I did that there are plenty of good engineers working in all sorts of varying locations, and a box like this could help them achieve uniform results across the board. So in the end, David helped to change it from a tool kit for making my own record, to a more universal device. Put your laptop on top, plug in your powered speakers… and that’s your studio. GW: Given that valves and transformers are all the rage at the moment in outboard equipment, can you explain why you chose the transformerless solid-state path with the Prodigal? AS: The Prodigal was developed on the bench and in the studio, not merely in the mathematical space,
With some tasteful Prodigal compression applied, stereo mixes have a really satisfying 'glue' to them while activating the EQ section allows for some broad-brush tonal sculpting. The lack of centre detents or 'soft' stepping on the continuously variable controls is a minor gripe as this makes precise recalls difficult (Andy being the kind of guy he is would doubtless make you one with stepped controls if you asked). A few times I felt I was losing a tickle of top end during more intensive signal processing but this was easily remedied by some subtle EQ after I had printed the mixes back into my DAW. The compressor is one of the most addictive aspects of the Prodigal and you have to be careful not to apply too much compression as the effect is quite transparent. Switching the metering to the 'comp' setting gave plenty of useful feedback and though I'm not a huge fan of LED meters these ones performed admirably (they also meter input and output level and even de-essing gain reduction). PRODIGAL SUM
It's quite a feat of engineering that so many features have been included in one 3RU device and, while the front panel layout is understandably busy, the unit is quite easy and intuitive to work with. The legending is clear and the backlit switches, meters and LED indicators all give quick and ready feedback while all controls are easy to operate and have a pro feel to them. The unit ships with a very comprehensive and informative manual that provides lots of technical content and also tells its
and I used my hands and ears for all of it. I love transistors. I play with them like a kid plays in a sandbox, and find them quite magical. I’ve never really got into valves so I guess that’s mostly a personal thing. I do use transformers (which are essential in some cases) but they always sound like transformers to me, so I thought it would be fun to invent my way around them and see if there was a different way of getting something to sound special. That led me to a number of satisfying innovations which frankly are the reason I bother to do it in the first place. I think the sound of the box has a kind of personality about it, which I don’t believe would have crystallised if I just did what everyone else was doing. My design philosophy with the Prodigal was as follows: no matter what rubbish goes in the input, angels should appear at the output and beat you in the head with fluffy pillows. The central question of relevance to me was one I think should be asked of any piece of recording gear: does it help you to produce sounds which, once you hear them, you want to hear again? Transistors are my creative medium and I wanted to use them to design something beautiful. I believe with the Prodigal I have been successful, and I am very, very proud of it.
own story about Szikla's attention to detail. Having used the Prodigal for a month or so, I found Andy Szikla's claim that you could make a quality record using just his Prodigal unit totally justified. While at first glance the asking price appears quite steep, consider that you get two great mic preamps, two 3-band EQs with filters, two super-smooth de-essers, two great compressors and a fully specced studio monitoring and routing system. You can track with it and then process individual elements and mix busses back through it and you won't be disappointed with the results. Not everyone will gravitate to the Prodigal's all-inone solid-state format, but for the money you get an awful lot of features implemented with a very high quality design and build. Best of all it’s an Australian product and it’s got its own sonic thing going on. Before you go out and buy the latest greatest American or European import, take the Prodigal for a test drive and hear what quality Australian designed and built outboard sounds like.
The
REVOLUTION REINVENTED. In the early 1990s we took our studio-grade Dual Concentric drivers and put them in the ceiling, giving birth to our legendary CMS (Ceiling Monitor System) and bringing true high quality audio to the ceiling loudspeaker space for the first time. What followed, was a revolution in installed sound. Two decades later, we’ve taken the best and made it even better.
Featuring a fundamental reinvention of the Dual Concentric driver, the revolution continues with the all-new CMS 3.0. Find out more at www.tannoy.com
WE CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUAL. We’ve subjected the AMS range to the most rigorous environment testing in Tannoy’s history — achieving a catergory leading IP65 rating which is amongst the highest in the industry. This latest generation of Dual Concentric drivers has its genesis in many of the world’s high end recording studios, therefore, the new AMS loudspeakers ensure that playback of recorded material sounds exactly as the engineer intended when it was mixed in the studio, making them perfect for indoor and outdoor entertainment venues – in fact anywhere true sonic clarity and long term reliability is essential. We challenge you to a Dual!
WWW.TANNOY.COM Unit 10, 163-173 McEvoy St, Alexandria NSW 2015 P (02) 9698 4444 E proaudio@australismusic.com.au W australismusic.com.au AT 53
REVIEW
BEESNEEZ OLIVER
Multi-Pattern Tube Microphone Beesneez’ Oliver, though a younger member of the family, carries itself with an authoritative U47 mid-forward stance.
NEED TO KNOW
Review: Mark Woods
PRICE $1098
CONTACT Mixmasters: (08) 8278 8506 or sales@mixmasters.com.au Hitek AV: (03) 9484 9609 or sales@hitekav.com.au
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PROS Identifiable sonic character Multi-pattern Unique looks
CONS Thumpy pattern selector No HPF or pad
SUMMARY Beesneez’s locally manufactured microphones are high quality, and Oliver is no different. Though in the more conservatively-priced Studio series, Oliver doesn’t lack character. Voiced in the vein of a U47, its mid-forward sound is great for most vocals and its multi-pattern selector gives it extended versatility.
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It’s not a shy mic and I found it was easy to pick Oliver out of a line-up of mics I was using for comparison
Beesneez is one of Australia’s favourite boutique microphone manufacturers and a great example of what individuals with passion and expertise can create. The business starts with capsules that are literal re-creations of the original capsules from some of the most famous classic mics. Manufactured in Ballina NSW by Ben Sneesby, these capsules go inside impressive, hand-crafted microphones that take their sonic inspiration from the greats, but share the modern Beesneez family look. The personal touch extends to naming the mics after the family’s children, nieces and nephews — young Oliver should be pleased with his namesake model. Part of Beesneez more affordable Studio Series range, Oliver is a large-diaphragm, multi-pattern tube mic with a voice based on the U47’s mid-forward style of sound. It’s a fairly simple side-address, cylinder design with cut-outs front, rear and top providing access for the soundwaves to reach the capsule, but the handy size and cool colour (dark green in my case) combined with the textured surface make it a pleasure to hold as well as behold. The hand screwed metallic badge completes the look and boldly identifies the brand. It’s a practical design; the mic has a bit of weight to it and is bottom heavy, but not so big that it feels insecure on a stand, and remains easy to place in tight spots. The double-mesh grill protects the capsule and helps hold off plosives. The supplied shock mount is kinda generic but functional anyway. A seven-pin socket on the bottom of the mic connects it to the outside world and that’s it — no HPF, no pad. The supplied power supply drives the tube, selects between nine pick-up patterns and provides a good strong signal at the XLR audio output. There are no level controls, or even a power-on indicator light, but who needs them anyway, you can hear if it’s on. AT 56
LEADING FROM THE MIDDLE
‘FLOCK OF BLOKES’ TECHNIQUE
In use, my first impression was that the mic presented as advertised. It sounds like a tube mic and sonically leads with the mid-range. It’s not a shy mic and I found it was easy to pick Oliver out of a line-up of mics I was using for comparison. There’s a real presence across the vocal range that pushes the source forward, and the hint of valve peakiness gives the sound a familiar, almost retro quality. The high frequency range above 4kHz is accurate and extended but not too prominent, and sibilance doesn’t spit back at you when recording vocals. The lower frequencies are quite neutral with a fairly strong proximity effect up close, and no HPF… so don’t put it too close to something rumbling. Getting right up on the mic brings in some rich lows that work well on intimate, breathy stuff. Harsh or strident vocals may benefit from a reduction in some mid frequencies unless they need to cut through a loud mix. Oliver will pop if provoked, even though the protective grill does a good job stopping them you should use a separate filter anyway. Recording instruments exercises more of the mic’s highs and lows and both ends of the frequency spectrum sound good if you give them a boost. Oliver’s primary use would be recording vocals but it’s one of those mics that you could put in front of anything just to hear how it sounds, you may or may not go with it but it will give you a different view of the source. Above a drum kit it adds a pleasing touch of garage to the sound and this would be a good mic for a simple kick and overhead drum recording. I found it also added some nice aggression to guitar and bass cabs. It’s a good rock mic and you could record a whole band with it.
The luxury of nine polar patterns increases Oliver’s flexibility. The thump when you change the polar pattern setting on the power supply is my only complaint. It’s always handy to have control over the pickup area and the more you use different patterns the more you get into them. You can record the main vocal on cardioid then switch to omni for what I call a flock-of-blokes backing vocal where they all stand around the mic, then double it for a huge sound. The off-axis response has a few bumps and dips in the most-used cardioid pattern but the tone stays fairly accurate. The handling noise is quite high but it’s not a live vocal mic so you won’t notice as long as it’s not handled during a recording. The Beesneez Studio Series sits below the company’s Producer Series but shares many of the most important electrical components. The Studio series aims to trade off a few luxuries for a popular price point and there’s a wide range of models to choose from. As well as the U47-style Oliver (also available as cardioid-only) there is sister Shelise with shinier C12 stylings, the Judas ribbon mic (with a tube version), Isobel sporting a LDC FET design and Lulu, the SDC FET aimed at re-creating the KM84 sound. The Oliver has piqued my interest, I’d like to hear them all. You get good value with the Oliver, it’s a highquality mic with a distinctive sound and looks built to last. I like that it’s made in Australia by a family who care and I’d be confident their personal support and back up would be there if it was ever needed.
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REVIEW
AUDIO-TECHNICA 99 SERIES Hot-Shoe DSLR Microphones Audio-Technica makes the case for owning flexible options over a one-trick pony with its triple-threat of 99 Series video mics. Review: Preshan John
Given the deluge of hot-shoe footed mics, there must be something very desirable about sitting a microphone atop a DSLR. In professional filmmaking, the audiorecording and video-recording duties are typically quite separate. A sound recordist or boom operator has a unique role to a cameraman or grip — so the mics point at what they need to hear, and the cameras point at what they need to see — which aren’t always the same thing. The concept of a forward-facing, cameratop mic assumes the camera points at both
what you want to see and hear. Like shining a floodlight into the eyes of a reporter, it doesn’t always deliver the most flattering results. As the category has matured, so has its variety — because often you’ll want to hear different things, or hear things differently. AUDIO-TECHNICA 99 SERIES
The Audio-Technica 99 Series contains a trio of hot-shoe mountable mics made for use with DSLRs. The lineup consists of two stereo mics; an X/Y and M/S model, and a mono shotgun mic. These mics aren’t exactly for the filmmaker
with Hollywood ambitions, and AudioTechnica doesn’t intend them to be. Rather, they’re made to be utilitarian and foolproof — which means they’re great set-and-forget options for the next family birthday party, graduation, or piano recital. What you shouldn’t do is follow the example on the packaging. The photo shows a man in a field wielding a mic-laden DSLR with a long telephoto lens attached. He’s holding his eye to the optical viewfinder, so he’s probably not shooting video. And with a lens like that, it’s a long shot hoping the mic is hearing whatever’s in his viewfinder. DESIGN
AT9946: MIDDLE OF THE ROAD PRICE: $189 The mid-side configuration is favoured by many for its natural stereo spread and mono compatibility. The AT9946 features an M/S pickup pattern with a hypercardioid central microphone and two separate capsules for the sides. It has been designed to hone in on the centre image — anything middle frame is louder and more present than off to the sides. Having said that, the stereo image is still portrayed very naturally with no obvious nulls between the mid and side areas. The side capsules pick up a tasteful amount of room tone or ambience making the AT9946 perfect for scenarios where you’d use a shotgun or centre-heavy mic, but still want to maintain a natural sound with some surrounding audio mixed in. And remember, collapsing M/S recordings to mono results in complete cancellation of the side channels, so weird phasing stuff is ruled out entirely. AT 58
The construction of the 99 Series microphones is unique and well thought out. They’re surprisingly small in your hand, and very lightweight. Between the mic and the base is a springy, latticed piece of rubber that acts as a shockmount to isolate the capsule from handling noise. There’s no rotational adjustment, so the mics face dead straight when you slide them onto the hot-shoe, and a screw-down nut secures each in place. I like that the output cable is appropriately short — nothing worse than a large loop of wire dangling around your hands while shooting. All three mics feature a switchable highpass filter and come with a fluffy windshield for outdoor use. IN USE
What I love about the 99 Series mics is that they’re powered from your camera’s input via the 3.5mm mini jack. The lack of batteries means there’s one less thing to worry about when shooting, and in my experience, the mics don’t have much of an impact on the camera’s battery life. Check for compatibility before grabbing one though. While most major brand DSLRs from the last few years can supply the +5V needed to power the mics, not every DSLR can.
AT9947: SHOOT STRAIGHT PRICE: $140 The directivity of the AT9947 mono shotgun mic makes it great for interview-style shots, or any application where a person is speaking to the camera. Its low-noise also means it’ll work for more softly-spoken subjects. It’s not exactly high-fidelity, with a stated frequency response of 70Hz12kHz, but still plenty good enough to capture intelligible speech and music reproduction. The AT9947 provides a respectable amount of side-rejection for its size; it’s much handier than a foot-long shotgun that’ll make your rig front-heavy. If portability and weight are important to you, this mic is an ideal trade-off over something better but bulkier.
AT9945: SEE WIDE, HEAR WIDE PRICE: $249 The AT9945 X/Y microphone is best friends with a wide angle lens — matching the focal length to the stereo image. It’s perfect for high-SPL applications like filming performances — stick it on a centrally placed camera that’s set up for a locked-off wide shot of the stage for a nice representation of what the crowd hears. Though the AT9945 will do a pretty good job capturing a show log on its own (provided it’s a decent venue and soundie), you could potentially use the audio track to add some ‘air’ if you’re going the whole nine yards with a live recording. Noise can be a problem if you’re recording ambience with the AT9945, but it works a treat recording noisy environments that require less gain.
CONTACT Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or www.tag.com.
SUMMARY Each of Audio-Technica’s 99 Series hot-shoe mics has its own forte. They’re functional, inconspicuous, and diverse in ability. Since audio recording flexibility is often limited for DSLR users, it pays to have a few versatile options in your toolkit for whatever the day calls for.
NEED TO KNOW
There is a downside, however. Without control over the internal gain, it means the quality of the microphone’s capture is more dependent than usual on the quality of your camera’s mic preamp. If you’re maxing it out to pick up a poorly amplified speech, or record some ambience, chances are you’re also amplifying a heap of your DSLRs inherent system noise. I compared the sensitivity of the three mics side by side on the same source. As you’d expect, the most directional of the lot — the mono shotgun AT9947 mic — required the least gain from my camera and was the quietest of the trio. The X/Y AT9945 had the lowest sensitivity and needed more gain from the camera, resulting in the most noise. Sitting in the middle for sensitivity and noise was the AT9946 M/S mic.
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REVIEW
KRK RP4 G3
Powered Studio Monitors Review: Preshan John
Price: $279 each Australian Music Imports: (03) 8696 4600 or www.gibsonami.com
Strap yourself in, we have some new Rokits. Joining the Rokit 8, 6 and 5 is the three-way Rokit 10-3 and the baby RP4 Generation 3 (G3). Sitting under the VXT Series, Rokits are the ‘prosumer’ range of KRK powered speakers, but still maintain respect for neutral response and good translation — especially the larger siblings in the lineup. The RP4 G3 is a 30W, two-way studio monitor designed for those seeking affordability and compactness in equal measure. The system consists of a four-inch glass-Aramid composite (Kevlar) woofer and a one-inch soft dome tweeter, bi-amplified with 10W to the tweeter and 20W to the woofer. Frequency response is quoted from 51Hz up to 35kHz, with the crossover point at 2.3kHz. We received a pair in the black finish, but you can get them in white or silver, too. Unboxing the RP4s makes you realise these things are small. But far from being toy-ish, they still have a certain no-nonsense stance about them, underpinned by their reassuring weight. The four-position frequency adjustment knobs on the rear are firmly detented in 1dB steps (+2dB for LF), and the Volume knob ranges from -30dB to +6dB. The RP4 accepts AT 60
inputs via balanced TRS/XLR, or unbalanced RCA connectors. There's a certain 'awww', baby-animal cuteness about the RP4s and I couldn’t shake the preconception that the sound may match the looks — and no one wants a ‘cute’-sounding studio monitor. Notwithstanding my first experience with the RP4s decisively trashed that preconception — they sound huge for their size. Perhaps most unexpected was their high-fidelity sonic output that spanned the entire audible frequency spectrum with ease. These speakers enjoy being turned up. Which is great, because you can — 30W isn’t dangerous by any stretch. The frontfacing LF ports provide a deceptively extended bass response, and the tweeters emit silky smooth highs. Honestly, it was a big surprise hearing small monitors produce such an immersive soundscape. Maybe my expectations were too low. But if you think a four-inch studio monitor is a joke, some alone-time with the RP4s will force you to reevaluate. After recovering from the ear-opener, I made note of a few niggles. Midrange clarity is a bit average on busy mixes. The high end is slightly restrained for my taste, as with most
KRKs I’ve listened to, but the +1dB HF boost helped out. And while the soundstage is wide and impressively three-dimensional, the stereo imaging lacks pinpoint precision. For the most part, though, I was too busy being wowed by the speakers to care. So other than its small size, why would you buy the KRK RP4s? After all, you wouldn’t want to put all your mixes in the hands of four-inch monitors, right? Well, probably not exclusively but here’s what I believe makes a compelling case for the RP4 G3. You don’t put big fish in small fish tanks. Acoustically speaking, it’s advantageous to use smaller monitors in smaller rooms. It means you don't excite the room in ways it can't handle, limiting the potential for low frequency standing waves to cause peaks and nulls in your space. It also allows you to make wider use of a speaker’s power capability. So home studio owners, don’t bother cramming your dual eight-inch monitors and 12-inch subs into your bedroom — save that for a bigger space. Instead, grab a pair of RP4s for not much more than $500, hear your mixes more cleanly, and be amazed that big sound can come in small packages.
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REGULARS
Last Word with
Ed Cherney
Ed Cherney has learnt from the best — Quincy Jones, Bruce Swedien, Don Was and Phil Ramone — and engineered the best — Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton… even Spinal Tap. In his time he’s been a six-time Grammy nominee and won three times. Ed (in the ’salmon’ shirt) is pictured with Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Quincy Jones.
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I never thought of music as a career. Instead, I was on the road to go to law school. After I graduated from college, some friends in a band asked if I knew how to drive their truck when they were on the road. I did, so I started moving their gear. About a month in, the sound engineer didn’t show up — he got fired or he was drunk — and the band said, “You’re mixing tonight.” It probably wasn’t great but the band had a lot of vocal harmonies and I just had an ear for balancing vocals. I started doing it more, until I was mixing every night. Towards the end of the summer, the band went into the studio to record an album. I walked into the studio and it was like a shot went off in the middle of my soul — I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Instead of going to law school, I enrolled in a technical school to learn electronics for a few months while I worked on getting a job in a Chicago studio. Chicago was really happening at that time — jingles, rock records, RnB records. I made it my quest to get an entry-level job in a Chicago studio. You know how it’s hard to get a job in a studio now? Well, that hasn’t changed. Once a month, for three years, I rang the bell of every studio and was turned down for a job. One day I rang the bell at a place called Paragon Studios. They were doing Styx, Tyrone Davis, the Chi-lites, and jingles every morning. They hired me that day as an apprentice engineer, in November of 1976. I was supposed to start the next day at 5am to help clean up from the night sessions and set up for the morning. I saw a lot of apprentices get fired at Paragon. You had to excel at everything — from cleaning headphones, to cleaning the bathroom, to getting food orders right, to moving microphones and folding cables. Over the course of a year or two, you’d work your way up. But you had to know everything — the operation of every piece of gear — and they’d test you on it. I eventually worked my way up to assistant engineer. People who are born with the desire to be a recording engineer or producer aren’t necessarily born with the ability. I don’t know of a recording engineer that was any good the first time out, or the first hundred times. You have to be willing to fail. Get fired for what you’re trying. If you have a desire and you’re persistent, things are eventually going to figure themselves out. You’ll find your style and a way to make your statement. At some point in 1978 my girlfriend and I got in the car and moved to California, mostly because I was hearing some records coming out that were knocking my socks off. I think I had $120 in my pocket. Later that day I knocked on the door of Westlake
Studios and got hired as an assistant engineer. Within a few weeks, Bruce Swedien came in with Quincy Jones to work on Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall record, and I was assigned to be their assistant. Bruce was one of my mentors back in Chicago who’d done everything from Duke Ellington to the Chicago Symphony. It was just coincidence he happened to come in there and that I ended up working with him. As it turned out, I assisted he and Quincy for about six years at Westlake. Spending time with them was like getting a PhD in music and the music business. Sitting behind them, my entire soul and consciousness paid attention to every knob Bruce turned, and every arrangement change Quincy made. The musical parts, the arrangements, the performances, the quality of the song, the quality of the audio, the way Quincy treated people, the way people treated each other. I paid very close attention to all those things. I was born to be there, I knew it, I had a feel for it. I was the best assistant in the world. I could see 10 seconds into the future, and if you’re going to be a great assistant engineer, that’s what you need to be able to do — to anticipate what’s coming next, to anticipate a problem. Moving from Chicago to Los Angeles was like going from the Farm Team to the Big Leagues. It was spectacular. All the greatest musicians in the world came through the studio working with Quincy. The truth is, what makes a great recording engineer are great musicians, without a doubt. It’s hard to make somebody sound great if they can’t play. On to the present, I’ve got a room at Village Studios in LA, and it’s set up for mixing. It works out just great. I would love to be sitting behind an old Neve but economics just don’t allow us to do that anymore. You still do it if the budget has come in to do it. The way we mix now, you often don’t even see your client in person. You’re going back and forth over the interwebs. Still, having a great set of speakers makes it worthwhile when you can turn it up and excite yourself. I’ve got the new ATC 45s — I’ve gotta say, I really like them. It’s nice having a three-way when you’re mixing. The vocal sits in one component and makes it easier to balance. There’s a Solomon Burke quote on my website that says, “The secret was to just be cool, stay in God’s graces and work it out.” A lot of the time we’re faced with dilemmas, problems, and emotions running high. Just stay cool, believe in yourself, believe in the universe, stay cool with God, just do the best you can and be open, honest and giving. It’ll work itself out if you can do that. Get your ego out of the way, and just serve the music; serve the song. I think by doing that, that’s how you stay in God’s grace.
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MORE connectivity MORE flexibility MORE MEDIORNET MEDIORNET MICRON MICRON slips into any role you want: STAND-ALONE as a 12x12 router with MEDIORNET processing features POINT-TO-POINT supporting 24 SDI video signals / 2 MADIs / ETH (1Gbit) ROUTER as a central video matrix for up to 192x192 HD-SDI signals MESHED 2 as decentralized video routing application
Professional A/V interface for Skype STX-200 for Skype Licensed by Microsoft, the STX-200 is a stand-alone, studio-grade solution that leverages Skype to bring live content directly from reporters to the on-air production. The Riedel unit offers broadcast-quality HD-SDI and balanced XLR audio I/Os and is packaged with professional Microsoft Skype TX software, available exclusively with the STX-200.
www.riedel.net AT 63
Free & Easy
AUDIOTECHNOLOGY: THE MONTHLY APP
Lower latency, cheaper and more in tune ...but with all the soul of the original The AudioTechnology App is made just for tablets. All the latest news, reviews, features, columns and tutorials every month for next to nothing. Stay tuned for more news at audiotechnology.com.au or like us on Facebook.
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