AudioTechnology App Issue 33

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Editor Mark Davie mark@audiotechnology.com.au Publisher Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Editorial Director Christopher Holder chris@audiotechnology.com.au Publication Director Stewart Woodhill stewart@alchemedia.com.au Art Direction & Design Dominic Carey dominic@alchemedia.com.au

Regular Contributors Martin Walker Michael Stavrou Paul Tingen Graeme Hague Guy Harrison Greg Walker James Roche Greg Simmons Tom Flint Robin Gist Blair Joscelyne Mark Woods Andrew Bencina Jason Fernandez Brent Heber Gareth Stuckey

Additional Design Daniel Howard daniel@alchemedia.com.au Advertising Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Accounts Jaedd Asthana jaedd@alchemedia.com.au Subscriptions Miriam Mulcahy mim@alchemedia.com.au E: info@alchemedia.com.au W: www.audiotechnology.com.au

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.

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All material in this magazine is copyright Š 2015 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process with out written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974. The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 01/11/2016.

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COVER STORY

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Damian Taylor Reamps the Temper Trap

ISSUE 33 CONTENTS

30

New Life for The Living End

Chill Wave Vocals with Pip Norman

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Rüfüs Alter Live Profile to Avid S6L

Izotope Ozone 7 Advanced 52 AT 6

Hillsong: Sunday Best

26

Aston Halo Reflection Filter

Reason 9 DAW

34

46

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GENERAL NEWS

SOUNDELUX U195 FET MIC MAKES A COMEBACK You probably wouldn’t call the Soundelux USA U195 a new mic. It’s a cardioid FET microphone originally produced for a decade as the Soundelux U195 from 1996, and then as the Bock 195 from 2007-2014. With near-identical resemblance to both its predecessors, David Bock is bringing back the Soundelux U195. It maintains the famous ‘FAT’ switch LF control, plus the massive output transformer. It’s a versatile mic around the studio

that will handle anything from overheads to vocals. Improvements over the original U87 — its ‘inspiration’ — include a new one-inch K67 capsule, removing bandwidth restrictions, multiplying the transformer size and removing the atonal inharmonic FET bias system.

Audio Chocolate: (03) 9813 5877 or www.audiochocolate.com.au

ARTURIA DRUMBRUTE A third Brute has been born that’s sure to delight the Arturia faithful. Joining MiniBrute and MatrixBrute is DrumBrute, a completely analogue drum synthesizer and sequencer. Designed with performance in mind, DrumBrute has 17 fully analogue drum and percussion instruments onboard which cover most bases. It includes two kicks, snare, clap, open and closed hats, high and low toms and conga, maracas, rimshot, clave, tambourine, zap, cymbal, and reverse cymbal.

Chunky pads, wiggle-free knobs and a rugged

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housing make it road-ready and stage-friendly.

You can have up to 64 sequences, each with up to 64 steps. These can be chained together in Song mode. Connection to other synths, modular and sequencing gear is easy with options like Clock, 1PPS, 2PPQ, DIN24, and DIN48. Physical outputs are 3.5mm and 6.25mm headphone jacks, plus audio outputs for each instrument.

CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au

ROLI ROLLS INTO AUSTRALIA Excitement is Rise-ing — the first shipment of Roli keyboards have traversed the Seaboard, crossed the Equator, and made a Grand arrival in Australia.

Soon coming to a Stage near you. Seaboard Rise is a MIDI controller (no built-in sounds) that fuses digital technology, materials technology and industrial design. Five dimensions of expression make the keyboard experience pretty unique — Strike, Press, Glide, Slide and Lift. The XY touchpad

and three touch faders put a new spin on ‘feeling the groove’. Plus, Seaboard Rise’s size makes it nice and portable. Equator is included as standard; Roli’s software synth for multidimensional sound control.

Available in both 25- and 49-key models. The larger, 61-key Seaboard Grand has its own internal sound engine to run Equator, or you can use it as a controller if you choose.

CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au

KLARK TEKNIK 1176 CLONE Well, this is weird. Of all the brands that’d be inclined to clone the classic 1176, Klark Teknik doesn’t spring to mind as the most likely. The company’s new 1176-KT FET-style compressor pays homage to Urei’s respected classic, albeit with an ‘entirely modernised’ signal path that uses Midas input and output transformers. Ratios available are 4:1, 8:1, 12:1 and 20:1, and of course the ‘all-buttons-in’ mode for that super-squished 1176 punch. Controls are an identical match to the

original, nice and simple. In addition to the ratio buttons you get attack and release knobs, input and outputs knobs, and a power switch. A vintage-style VU meter can display gain reduction or output level based on which button is selected to its right.

The 1176-KT is housed in a 2U rack enclosure. The unit has Neutrik connectors and a universal power supply with automatic voltage sensing.

National Audio Systems: (03) 8756 2600 or sales@nationalaudio.com.au

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GENERAL NEWS

APOGEE IN ITS ELEMENT Apogee has chosen a fitting celebration method on its 30th birthday, the release of a new line-up of Thunderbolt audio I/O boxes called the Element Series. The three models in the family — Element 24 (10 in, 12 out), Element 46 (12 in, 14 out), and Element 88 (16 in, 16 out) — feature varying I/O counts of both digital and analogue connectivity.

Conversion quality is on par with the Ensemble recording interfaces. The new Elements Control software lets you set up workflows specific to your

needs, and is also available on iOS App for control over wi-fi. If you’re a Logic Pro X user, Element’s I/O settings can be tweaked right from the Logic Channel strips. And if you’re the old-school desktop control type, the optional Apogee Control hardware gives you eight assignable buttons and a master control knob in a form factor similar to the Duet.

Sound Distribution: (02) 8007 3327 or www.sounddistribution.com.au

RED 8PRE: KING OF THE PACK Perhaps four preamps wasn’t enough, because Focusrite has outdone its Red 4Pre by releasing the new Red 8Pre. With eight digitally-controlled Red Evolution, Air-equipped microphone preamps on board, the Red 8Pre handles up to 64 inputs and 64 outputs (16 analogue ins and 18 analogue outs). Connectivity includes two front-panel DI inputs, dual Thunderbolt 2 connections, dual Pro Tools HD DigiLink and Dante network audio via Ethernet. That’s a lot of options crammed into a 1U unit. Software control of the mic preamps means easy recall of settings, as well as stereo

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linking capability and configuration of HPF, phase invert, and phantom power. All these parameters can be adjusted from the front panel using the multifunction controls, dual knobs and colour LCD displays. And of course the ‘Air’ effect, introduced in the Clarett range mimics the topology of Focusrite’s ISA preamps. Purchase of the Red 8Pre includes Focusrite Control software plus the Red plug-in suite and Softube’s Time & Tone bundle.

Electric Factory: (03) 9474 1000 or www.elfa.com.au

MORE FADERS IN THE PORT Apparently Presonus reckons the popular Faderport deserved another seven faders to form a ‘proper’ control surface, so we’ve now got the Faderport 8.

The elevator pitch for any control surface usually includes the ‘get your hands off the mouse’ speech.

Not here. Presonus states upfront the FaderPort 8 is designed to be a companion for your mouse, not a replacement. And it’s got buttons for days, 57 of them, all of which are illuminated. The eight touchsensitive motorised faders have a 100mm throw. All eight channel strips have their own Solo, Mute and

Select buttons, plus a high-definition scribble strip to display track names and the parameter being tweaked. There’s a jog wheel, transport controls, Session Navigator buttons for quick access to important functions, plus four user-programmable buttons. FaderPort 8 supports the Mackie Control and HUI protocols and comes bundled with Studio One Artist (Presonus calls it ‘downright magical’ when FaderPort 8 meets Studio One).

Link Audio: (03) 8373 4817 or info@linkaudio.com.au

SSL NUCLEUS2 GETS DANTE AND TALKBACK The SSL Nucleus2 has certainly been worth the wait. The DAW controller, audio interface, and monitoring hub makes a comeback in a new shade of white, with some suitable additions under the hood. One of these key additions is a Talkback input with adjustable gain that feeds the headphone output. A large Talk button is added near the transport controls and the talk circuit can trigger a switchable -20dB Dim in the monitor inputs if you want it to. Another response to customer feedback

is the addition of a second set of speaker outputs, and a Mini monitor button for mix-checking. USB has been replaced with an SSL Dante network I/O interface. Nucleus2 has a built-in switch with two Ethernet ports — one for your computer and another for adding other Dante devices to your setup. All the original features remain, plus of course the ‘Made in UK’ badge.

Amber Technology: 1800 251 367 or sales@ambertech.com.au

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LIVE NEWS

DIGICO S31 BIRTHED PREMATURELY Digico planned the S31’s release later this year.

But, thanks to console sightings prematurely making their way onto social media, the company had no choice but to make the S31’s release official much earlier. If you’re oblivious to the latest haps, the new Digico S31 is the bigger version of the anticipated S21. The S31’s expanded worksurface offers 10 additional faders for more control and an additional 10-inch multi-touch screen for faster access and more visual feedback. Ideal for applications where you need more instant control

and feedback. The S31 still offers 24 mic inputs and 12 line outputs as physical connections on the console. There are also two DMI ports as standard, as well as a UB MADI interface for DAW recording.

The S31 comes with the new V1.3 software recently released on the S21. It’s the biggest upgrade for the S21 since its launch a year ago and we’re told future updates and upgrades have already been planned.

Group Technologies: (03) 9354 9133 or sales@grouptechnologies.com.au

QSC TOUCHMIX-30 PRO QSC’s new TouchMix-30 Pro adds expanded I/O options to the much-loved TouchMix user interface.

TouchMix-30 Pro has 32 input channels (24 mic/ line, six line, stereo USB) via eight sub-groups, eight mute groups or eight DCA groups, and 16 outputs. The large central 10-inch multitouch touchscreen offers plenty of information at a glance. The mixer is loaded with 120 live instrument, microphone, and other audio source presets to give a head start on channel setup. Each channel features a six-band fully parametric EQ, AT 12

variable HPF and LPF, limiters and more. There’s a 1/3-octave graphic EQ over all outputs, plus a six-band parametric EQ, limiters, delays and 12band notch filters. 14 mono mixes can be paired as stereos and two pairs of auxes can drive wired in-ear monitors directly. The six built-in effects engines include pitch-correction, anti-feedback, room tuning wizards, two RTAs, and more.

Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or info@tag.com.au

MACKIE MASTER FADER v4.5 OUT NOW The latest version of Mackie’s DL mixer control app has been released. Master Fader v4.5 gives you some new features, including support for the new Mackie Axis digital mixing system. Delivering on a persistent user request, the update also brings brand new reverbs and a more in-depth control section. A spectograph is now available alongside the RTA and visible on every input channel. Other goodies include new factory presets for all EQ, dynamics and effects, new metering ballistics choices, and the inclusion of the effects return EQ

when saving an effect preset. Master Fader v4.5 is available for immediate download from the App Store. In other Mackie news, Loud Technologies has appointed Matt Frazier as APAC Director of Sales for the Mackie and Ampeg brands. His new position will see Frazier work with distributors to expand the footprint of both brands throughout the Asia Pacific region.

CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au

TURBOSOUND BRIGHTENS UP FLASHLINE Turbosound revs up its flagship Flashline monitors range with two new models, the TFX122M-AN and TFX152M-AN. Both feature 1100W of peak power from a portable and lightweight integrated Class D amplifier. The 12-inch TFX11M-AN has a carbon fibre loaded 12-inch ferrite low frequency driver with a titanium dome one-inch compression driver.

The larger TFX152M-AN has the same compression driver with a 15-inch LF driver. Both options are designed to do a good job as stage foldbacks, FOH

or sidefills with 60° x 40° dispersion. Klark Teknik DSP is on board and you can control the speakers with the built-in user interface with LCD display, via remote control, or with the Turbosound PC Edit software. Music’s Ultranet digital audio networking lets you connect the speakers to consoles and other compatible networkable devices like stageboxes and personal monitoring systems.

Australis: (02) 9698 4444 or www.australismusic.com.au

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SOFTWARE NEWS

SAMPLE A BECHSTEIN GRAND Who better to create a sampled piano than piano manufacturers themselves? The idea made sense to C. Bechstein, German based piano-makers.

Feeling the need to fix the gap left by the lack of a sampled C. Bechstein piano, the company chose to create a virtual instrument of its own baby. The acoustic piano of choice was a carefully selected C. Bechstein D 282 concert grand, known for its harmonic richness and powerful tone. Recordings were made in Berlin’s Teldex Recording studio over three weeks, where each note was recorded with

multiple variations and articulations, resulting in over 10,000 sample zones voiced individually.

Mid-side and a close stereo pair form part of the soundscape options you get from the five microphones, which fed into Merging Technologies converters. C. Bechstein Digital Grand runs in Native Instruments Kontakt sample player, so it’s easy to use in your DAW. You can download the 25.5GB sample pack, or purchase it on a pre-loaded SSD. Gospel Pianos: (02) 9724 2022 or pianos@gospelpianos.com.au

BFD METAL SNARES PACK It can be hard to nail the right snare sound, and there’s no shame in using a sampled alternative when it’s just not cracking like it should. Adding to the plethora of sampled options already out there, FXpansion has released BFD Metal Snares, a collection of metal-shell snare drum samples to use with BFD3. Each snare was recorded with two top mics, one bottom mic, and one side mic. Mono room, ribbon room, and far room ambience channels were also recorded. If that’s not enough, you get two

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more stereo reverb channels if you want to go all ’80s. The five snare drums that went under the mics were sampled with wires on and off. FXpansion sound designers Drew Vernon and Mike Bugh say, ”The end result is a collection of snares that punch and crack with clarity, cut through a mix, and are instantly usable.” BFD Metal Snares requires a copy of BFD3 to run, and goes for US$70.

Innovative Music: (03) 9540 0658 or info@innovativemusic.com.au

SMARTEN UP WITH NEUTRON Neutrino, iZotope’s most recent freebie, was just a teaser of the company’s newest mixing plug-in called Neutron. Geared toward making the mixing process easier, Neutron combines both analysis and metering to “deliver unprecedented focus and clarity in mixes.” Targeted to those who are new to the mixing game, Neutron’s Track Assistant ‘listens’ to your track and recommends custom starting points for processing it. iZotope says Track Assistant can intelligently distinguish instruments, recommend EQ node placements, and set optimal settings for other modules. Think of it

as a robot mix advisor. Neutron’s other half is the Masking Meter, which gives you visual feedback of frequency collisions between instruments, with the purpose of creating more space and definition in your mix. Zero latency and CPU efficiency makes Neutron handle multiple instances with ease. On board processing includes two multiband compressors, a multiband transient shaper, a multiband exciter, limiter, and both static and dynamic EQ. Electric Factory: (03) 9474 1000 or www.elfa.com.au

VOCALIGN ALIGNS WITH STUDIO ONE Synchro Arts’ VocAlign software is now available with intuitive Audio Random Access (ARA) integration in Studio One Professional. Basically, that means VocAlign and Studio One now work together so tightly that it “feels like working in one piece of software,” according to Presonus general manager Arrnd Kaiser. If you haven’t heard of VocAlign, it’s a super useful tool that’s ideal for time-aligning things like ADR or foreign language dubbing for post production work, or even

tightening double-tracked vocals or harmonies.

Audio Random Access (ARA) is a new extension for plug-in interfaces that was co-developed by Celemony and Presonus. It’s designed to enhance the communication between a plug-ins and DAW to give both host instant access to the audio data.

Presonus: www.presonus.com Link Audio: (03) 8373 4817 or info@linkaudio.com.au

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FEATURE

TEMPERING PROCESS Even though they lost a member, The Temper Trap have managed to expand on their DNA with the help of a cadre of contributors, producer Damian Taylor and their new London studio.

Story: Mark Davie Damian Taylor Portrait: Victoria Dimaano

Artist: The Temper Trap Album: Thick As Thieves

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There were two dots that seemed a bit too easy to connect. One, Lead guitarist Lorenzo Sillitto left The Temper Trap at the end of 2013.

Then directly after, the band began work on their latest album Thick As Thieves, and for the first time ever brought in a cast of external co-writers that reads like the credits of a 21st century pop album.

With Lorenzo gone, were they in need of a little songwriting ‘help’?

Guitarist Joseph Greer and bassist Jonathon Aherne understand the intrigue, but aren’t buying it. “Lorenzo leaving marked a point where we had to change things up,” said Joseph. “But it wasn’t necessarily why we started using outside writers.”

“Our writing had been a very insular process, we had some hesitations about extending it out, but ultimately it’s been a good thing,” reflected Jonny — who elevated singer Dougy Mandagi as the central songwriter of the band, not Lorenzo, with his main songwriting partners falling into a seasonal pattern. “Album one, Lorenzo was obviously a big contributor,” continued Jonny. “Album two, Joseph was the second major songwriter. It’s probably me on this one. Our drummer, Toby [Dundas], is also an engineer and has a hand in helping craft them.

He wrote some big songs on the first record, like Beta, with Dougy.”

In fact, Jonny says it’s common for other artists on the road to comment, “‘Wow, you’re actually a real band!’ I think it has something to do with the fact we all write and there’s space for everyone’s opinion.”

The co-writing process began incidentally.

Dougy had been invited on a writing trip to sit on the opposite side of the table; a co-writer for other artists. He was teamed up with Malay, Frank Ocean’s producer, for a speed date round of writing, and ended up showing him one of the songs the band had already demoed, Summer’s Almost Gone. The pair rearranged parts and changed the outro into a half-time, sub bass section that was apparently quite different to the original. Malay then went back to the band’s studio to work on the song as a producer, and while that production didn’t make the final record, the process was a turning point for the band.

“We thought it was awesome, and another way of working,” said Joseph. “It happened quite naturally, not because we needed other writers.”

Once the floodgates opened, the guys got a taste for collaboration and started trialling different collaborators, like stacking two ice cream flavours on a cone. They’d never know if that boysenberry or peppermint was going to complement their choc honeycomb base unless they tried it.

There were a number of songs the band wrote themselves, but the collection of co-writes ended up including Justin Parker (Lana Del Rey, Sia and Bat For Lashes), Ben Allen (Bombay Bicycle Club, Animal Collective, Deerhunter) and Pascal Gabriel (Ladyhawke, Goldfrapp).

It wasn’t always a home run, there were plenty of songs that didn’t make the album. Joseph flew to LA for a writing trip with Dave Stewart, none of which made the cut. The band wrote a song with one of Max Martin’s writers which also didn’t work. “There were a lot of failed

experiments,” said Jonny. “Sometimes you lost some of the essence of what Temper Trap is, even with really class writers. A couple of the boys wrote a song with Rivers from Weezer, and it sounded awesome, but it ended up sounding like a Weezer song.”

Overall, the band feel the experience has made them better writers, not less active ones.

“It was always a learning experience,” said Jonny.

“Even having a conversation with someone and dicovering how they see the world.”

Jonny described it as a tempering process, where plenty of great songs fell by the wayside because they didn’t feel like the band’s song: “It’s a two-edged sword. Some people might say, ‘that’s not Temper Trap’. But we get who this band is; it’s our DNA. It’s like clothes, you can suit up or look like a hobo, but you’re still the same person.” The same thing happens with songs written internally, said Jonny: “You might love what Dougy’s playing on acoustic guitar, but the song doesn’t see the light of day because you don’t get the right riffs around it.”

CHANGE OF LEAD

Of all the ways the band had to adapt to Lorenzo’s departure, the biggest lot fell on Joseph. He’d played rhythm guitar parts before Lorenzo left, but had primarily been a keys player. Now he was The Temper Trap’s lead guitarist. He took up a practise regime only a conservatory graduate would identify with — eight hours a day, every single day. It’s what you have to do when one of your first gigs is to a crowd of 150,000+ at Lollapalooza. “I remember feeling absolutely terrified when we played the first shows as a four-piece,” he said. “Getting through it felt amazing.”

The album opens with a chorus-laden guitar upstroke into a heavy, low driving riff that propels the title track. It sounds like the statement piece of a guitarist confident in his new skin. The other single Fall Together is much more dancey, driven along by a pumping sidechained bass and staccato synth arpeggios. The entire album fits between guitar-driven and programming-heavy songs, but the common element is the band’s uncanny ability to deliver anthems. More than any style, that’s the real DNA of The Temper Trap.

MINI MISSION CONTROL

Some of the songs were demoed in writing sessions, but many were conceived in The Temper Trap’s new personal studio (see The Studio Build for more). The small dual room studio in the new Tileyard complex is cosy, but just the hub to launch a series of co-write missions from. “Once we got that space,” said Joseph, “that’s when we felt like the album was becoming real.”

“The demos were a good opportunity to try out the space,” said engineer Russell Fawcus, who used the time to learn how different instruments and mic combinations reacted to different sides of the room.

After the demo process, Montreal-based producer Damian Taylor flew over to London to track the bulk of the album in their studio with

Fawcus engineering.

Damian had come out of the London studio scene as a programmer, engineer and creative collaborator, leading to a long working relationship with Björk; programming, engineering and occasionally writing or co-producing tracks on Vespertine, Dancer in the Dark, Volta and Biophilia, as well as acting as Björk’s musical director on her 18-month Volta world tour. He became Björk’s technically enabler; programming Max patches

Sometimes you lost some of the essence of what Temper Trap is, even with really class writers like Rivers from Weezer. It sounded awesome, but it ended up sounding like a Weezer song

that let them write and perform songs with video game controllers and Lemur touchscreens, and incorporating radical inventions like the Reactable and Tenori-on into the live set. He’s also been a silent member of UNKLE, collaborated on two albums by The Prodigy, and produced and mixed much of The Killers’ Battle Born.

Damian keeps an eye out for Australian projects, having strong family ties here, he relishes the chance to visit. He’d emailed Wally de Backer to see if anything was on the boil. Long story short, Gotye and The Temper Trap share the same management, Lunatic Entertainment. After meeting at Osheaga Festival in Montreal, and a trial back in London, Damian got the gig. Funnily, he never set foot on Australian soil the entire project, which was all done in London and Montreal.

GOLDEN RATIO

Damian has always been on the move. He was born and raised in Canada to British parents, then spent his teenage years in New Zealand where he sold his mountain bike to buy a four-track. “It was the tail end of grunge, which got really formulaic,” said Damian. “Then Drum ’n’ Bass happened, DJ Shadow arrived, and I was exposed to a bunch of mind-blowing music coming out of England.”

When he turned 19, he followed the music to London, where he worked in the studio system under a cadre of producers and mixers, including one of the co-writers on the record, Pascal Gabriel.

A decade later he moved to Canada; a real estate refugee looking for an affordable place to setup.

After a couple of years in an idyllic location an hour north of Vancouver, he eventually settled in Montreal. It was the perfect place to setup his AT 19

MONITORING SETUP — The gear installed at The Temper Trap’s studio is a mix of Fawcus’ equipment and new gear bought by the band. A new Pro Tools HD Native system with HD I/O conversion is strapped to Fawcus’ Mac Pro. The original plan was to lug a console and tape machine up to the top floor, but the cost of fixing up the desk and installing it was going to be too much. It ended up being a blessing in disguise. “We had to move between things really quickly, because of the way the studio worked,” said Fawcus. “It would have been a real headache.”

Fawcus brought in his set of KRK 9000s, some NS10M studios and a Bryston amp for monitoring. “Gary from Focal brought in some SM9s, which were epic, but probably a little too big for our room,” said Fawcus.

“We tried a Coleman speaker switcher for a while, and then changed it over to a Dangerous Monitor SP.” The sleeper addition was a pair of M-Audio DSM2 monitors. Fawcus: “I’d used them at Alan Moulder’s Assault & Battery studio a few years ago and liked them. I wanted to have a pair of powered speakers that could be turned up really loud for tracking and it wouldn’t be the end of the world if a driver blew. Up until then we’d been using the 9000s, which they don’t make drivers for anymore. The DSM2s were really useful for a lot of different stuff, mixing, all sorts — a surprise package.”

THE STUDIO BUILD Towards the end of 2013, Toby and Russell Fawcus, who engineered Conditions, had been searching London for their own production space with modest expectations; a control room possibly with an attached iso booth. It happened to coincide with The Temper Trap beginning their third record, which inflated the size requirements and made the search harder. Soon after, they got the tipoff about Tileyard studios, a boutique design-your-own studio complex in a big industrial estate just north of Kings Cross.

At Tileyard, artists, producers and engineers sign a long term lease on a studio space, with the cost of the custom design and build worked into the rent.

Acoustician Chris Walls of Level Acoustics designs each studio and a full-time team of builders executes that vision.

“The first time we went it was just a three-storey space, now it has about 50 studios in it,” said Fawcus.

“They take you around to see what other people have designed,” said Jonny. “The Prodigy are here, Mark AT 20

Ronson has the biggest studio downstairs, and Zane Lowe had a studio next to us for a little while.”

The band managed to secure a spot on the top floor that matched the size they were after. “It’s quite small and cosy, but it had a skylight because we were on the top of the building,” said Jonny. “Natural light in a studio, fancy that!”

Fawcus: “When we went up there it was just a big open office space. The boys were really keen to have a live room no smaller than 20sqm. We then built the control room based on what was left over, which was defined by structural beams that couldn’t be moved.”

Other than size and rough shape, the band also specced a live room with a live side and a dead side for maximum flexibility. They also wanted a dead control room considering the limitations of the size, especially in getting even extended bottom end.

Fawcus: “Chris was in charge of the actual materials and the build itself. The entire floor is wood. The dead side has floor-to-ceiling absorption panels all

the way around and we put rugs down. The other half has more diffusion with a big wooden ceiling diffusor separating the two halves. Most of the time we tracked drums and guitars on the dead side. Anything that needed air or brightness was on the other side.

Sometimes we might put something we didn’t want too flashy into the dead space, but put a room mic out into the live space.”

Damian Taylor: “You couldn’t leave gear set up in there. For basic live takes of the band playing together we’d put the guitar amps in the closet up the hall. Then when the drums were done, you’d pack them up to make room for guitar amps.

“The control room could have three people sitting down, including Russell and myself, and one or two people standing. Even though it was a luxury for me not to operate Pro Tools, I had to sit so I wasn’t facing the screen, otherwise I’d backseat drive Russ.

We found a little chair for me off to one side of the speakers that faced the opposite way!”

OUTBOARD — When the console didn’t work out, aside from monitoring systems, patch bays and cabling, the band had to buy a whole collection of preamps and outboard. Fawcus: “It was predominantly API mic pres and EQs. We had 10 modern 512 preamps, one of those API 3124+ quad pre boxes and I got a couple of old ’80s API 312 mic pres that Brent Averill racked up. We had a couple of Brent Averill’s 1073s too and got a great deal on a Focusrite ISA115HD. We also had four vintage 550A EQs and a couple of the reissues.”

For compression, the band added a couple of ELI Distressors to the one they already owned, a couple of Urei 1176s, a Summit TLA-100A, Smart Research C2, and a couple of dbx 160XTs.

studio, Golden Ratio, custom-built from the slab up with the help of acoustician John Brandt.

It’s in the same time zone as New York and not far from London and LA, putting him at physical distance from the music business without being isolated. “It’s a Berlin situation because it has lots of really cheap warehouse space,” said Damian.

“The Quebec separatist movement drove a lot of commercial enterprise to Toronto, opening up Montreal to become and artists’ haven.

“Golden Ratio is built to be as acoustically accurate as anywhere you’d work in London or New York. There’s three rooms; the main control room is 6-700 square feet and and was designed to incorporate up to four live performers in addition to all my electronics and mixing gear.

“Next is a small live room that is very precise, then an echo chamber linking back to the control room. To get a big drum sound, I put mics in the echo chamber and leave the door open to the live room. You get drums that are super precise with close mics, but with an explosive, controllable ambience. It can be more useful than a really big live room, which can get indistinct and washy.”

Of course, most of the album was recorded in the band’s tiny studio in London, but Damian still managed to imprint Golden Ratio’s signature on the record when the sessions moved to Montreal for some final tracking and mixing. He has developed an elaborate reamping system that uses his rooms, pedals and spring reverb to create distinct sounds and a sense of space.

“I’m obsessed with Auratones,” said Damian. “I really like running tracks through them into the live room to get the right depth. Often if you want to get more excitement into a track the midrange area is the place to do it. I’ve got a bunch of generic two-way monitors I’ll sometimes use, but that tends to get a little boring.

“I’ll typically have a couple of close mics on the Auratone, usually an AKG D119 dynamic and a small diaphragm condenser, a more distant mic from the speaker, then a pair of small diaphragm condensers in the echo chamber, only about 11 feet away. I do a huge amount of my mixing work on Auratones too. I switched to Avantones a couple of years ago thinking they’d be more durable, but both my pairs have blown up because I love those speakers really loud!

“I’ll send the dynamic mic through the IRL

Audio Big Mouth mic splitter. It splits a mic signal, passing one through beautifully cleanly while the other has a preamp which feeds an effects loop for pedals. I can send sounds from Pro Tools direct to the Auratone then process things through pedals on the way back. Those returns then have sends to a Demeter spring reverb and an old MXR stereo pitch shifter. Sometimes for vocals I might just end up using a Memoryman return through the Big Mouth for a bit of slap. Other times I’ll take the pedal return from the Auratone and send it back out through another speaker to feed delay back into the room and record it all with the echo chamber mics. The drum sound on What If I’m Wrong is a good example of this.”

For the mix of Tombstone, the entire main vocal track was recorded through the Auratone, which wasn’t just a spatial decision. “Dougy’s got a really beautiful voice, but he’s really into making it sound unusual on record,” said Damian. “I’ll usually have around eight effects sends on a vocal, all those as well the direct vocal channels come back through a single bus. So the entirety of the vocal sound will then go through more processing to glue it together. Endless ways to shape it until it sounds right for Dougy.” Other times it’s what suits the lyric. Damian: “In Thick as Thieves the whole guitar amp, telephone type of vocal was really critical to the message and mood of the song, which plays on surveillance state themes.”

SMASHING DRUMS

External processing was a big part of building unique sounds into the album’s texture. Damian reckons almost the entire album’s worth of drums was run out through the Auratone to the echo chamber for extra ambience. Even before the drums got fed into Damian’s matrix, Fawcus had done some sonic mangling of his own back in London. Fawcus: “We had it set up where we could send a combination of drum mics to an old Fender Champ or through a classic Sansamp pedal with the toggle switches. The boys didn’t want it too hi-fi, so we were experimenting with what was otherwise a fairly standard setup.”

With such a small live room, they spent a lot of time tuning the drums to capture the right crunch and bite, often removing everything from the room that wasn’t resonating in sympathy. The biggest asset in the drum recording was Toby, himself

an engineer, he was critical to evaluating how different setups responded and how he needed to adapt his playing to them; even playing some songs without cymbals so the distortion and compression wouldn’t mask the kit.

With live drums and electronic instrumentation on every track, Damian said the trick when combining the two was to nudge each in the other’s direction, never forcing one to comply fully with the other. “If you trigger all your electronics purely to the live flow it can sound weird, but if you grid up all your live stuff, then that sounds whack,” said Damian.

TAKE NOTES

Relieved from engineering detail and free to focus on production, Damian carried a notebook with him to every session. “It’s just really simple, old school stuff,” he explained. A detailed assessment of every performance.

Spending years as a Pro Tools engineer, Damian is adept at editing live performances, but as a producer he focuses on throwing the ball back into the musician’s court. He prefers full takes because “it sounds more like music.” He also finds musicians naturally improve their parts as they play, and it avoids any over cerebral tampering when one part gets too much focus. The notebook is a simple way of logging when they’ve got the right elements to make a comp, and where exactly the best moments lie. “I’ve already mapped out the comp on paper and can reel off a series of edits to Russ,” said Damian. “If Toby was playing drums we’d often have a basic comp ready by the time he took off his headphones and walked back into the room.”

Sometimes if the artist is struggling with a take, he’ll reach for a metaphor to direct energy and intention, avoiding the overthinking that can come with instructions like, ‘You were a bit sharp in bar 13.’

Occasionally a metaphor is drawn out of the mechanics of a part. On one song, Alive, “It became obvious that the bass line was a propeller Jonny was having to spin to drive an airship down a canyon,” said Damian.

Other times it’s just a bit of fun and the product of who Damian has spent his career with. “The studio banter is so good in London. It becomes a game; how much ridiculous stuff can you say?

Björk also has really amazing ways of describing AT 21

I’m obsessed with Auratones. I really like running tracks through them into the live room to get the right depth

music that must have rubbed off on me. It’s meant to be fun at the end of the day, isn’t it?”

“He’s quite the intellect,” reflected Jonny. “His vocabulary and imagination was ridiculous which made his metaphors awesome. You’d try go on his metaphor and do it.

“Other times, it’d just be, let’s go again,” said Joseph. At one point, he recalled Damian trying to get him to run up and down the stairs to shake off a difficult part. When Joseph wouldn’t go, Damian chased him down the stairs trying to tickle him.

“There was a split second where I felt I could have lost it,” said Joseph. “It would have been really bad.

It was never horrible, he was just pushing us to get our best and I’m glad he did. You don’t look back on it wishing it was easier at the expense of getting the right performances.”

DEMO X-FACTOR

With 38 demos to listen through, the cull was a massive task. Mostly, Damian said, “it’s identifying the indefinable X-factor. I don’t think about it harder than that. I just listen for what moves me, and note when something impedes an emotional response.

“What If I’m Wrong has amazing vocal melodies and an awesome synth part originally programmed

by Ben Allen, but the demo didn’t sound like a band. Ben defined a real spirit with his idea and initial production, even though the band and I had to flip it substantially to bring it into their world.”

AT 22

Pascal Gabriel’s demos were particularly strong and a lot of his synths were kept. While the composition of So Much Sky was spot on, Damian and the band spent a lot of time finding an unusual groove for the song because the demo felt too straight.

Because Pascal’s demos were were intensely limited to make his demos competitive, it became a challenge for Damian and Russell to achieve similar excitement during tracking across the entire frequency spectrum. “The low mids in the demos were mush, but if you played them on a laptop they sounded exciting because all that energy is in the range of those tiny speakers,” said Damian, who largely banned the band from over analysing the demos during recording in order to keep attention focused in the present moment. However, when it came to mixing, there was no preciousness. “I’ll go deep and mix a version,” Damian would tell them. “Then you guys go walk around the city with headphones, live with it for a bit then tell me what you’re feeling; everything’s on the table.”

MIXING WITH INSTINCT

After recording the bulk of the album with Damian, the band also tracked two songs, Lost and Fall Together with Rich Cooper at Snap Studios in London. In the end, Spike Stent mixed a few songs, Damian mixed the majority of the album, and Justin Parker mixed a track.

Damian is a big believer in mixing fast with

instinct. First, he simplifies. “We used modern techniques like recording four mics on two guitar amps, so pre-mix I would bounce down and strip out unnecessary layers.”

From there he’d build up extra background material. On Burn he used his modular synth to create noise and sweeps, “the headphone-listening subtle stuff that gives you a sense of fluidity through the track.”

After that, lots of parts go through his Auratone and Big Mouth matrix to add “an extra layer of live energy. The echo chamber gives you a more 3D effect, and can provide a balance of gelling tracks together but also creating sounds that are distinct.”

He prints all his outboard processing so he can mix and do recalls faster.

Coming from the breakbeat sample world, he also heavily treats his drums with a variety of parallel processing and lots of automation.

Damian: “I have UAD plug-ins up the wazoo; two Octo and two Quad cards. They’re far and away the best for that analogue vibe where you run something through it and it adds a bit of character.

For drums I’ll tend to have straight up processing on individual channels, then pre-fader sends to parallel compression which thickens up individual drums. That parallel compression joins the individual channels into a full kit drum bus which is processed to taste, often extremely. I’ll then take a pre-fader, post effect send from that bus and feed other layers of other parallel processing like

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Soundtoys’ Devil Loc and UAD Culture Vulture which I’ll ride throughout the song.

“It’s a breakbeat culture influence. I really like getting the drums sounding like one thing as soon as possible. I almost always approach drum recording with the intent that one mic is going to be the main sound of the drums, then mix-wise treating the drums and their effects as a stereo pair.”

Not many elements of Damian’s mixes escaped distortion or parallel buses, especially vocals, the main request from the band being to ‘make the vocals dirtier.’

The dirty diet for vocals consisted of all those previous techniques, Klon Clone overdrive and Memory Man echo pedals, tape emulation, Soundtoys’ Decapitator, UAD’s Vertigo VSM-3, and one of Damian’s personal favourites, the original Digidesign Lo-fi plug-in. “I also find slap echoes really useful for giving a feeling of things being f**ked up without eating into too much harmonic space,” said Damian. “I’m big into delays over reverb; I’ll have one or two slaps going on, then eighth notes, and different lengths of quarter and half notes. They’re all on different faders that get ridden at different points. I also like the mid range of the Demeter spring reverb unit. Sometimes I key gate the spring reverb off the vocal itself so it wouldn’t hang over the end of his phrases.”

Damian brings all his effects returns back into one stereo bus, rather than separate ones. He sees it like the days of tape, where the effects are printed and part of the sound. “I like having that extra layer of processing of all the effects together,” he explained. “I’ll push them in or out together, depending on how they fit in the song.”

Damian brings individual effects returns back into stereo buses along with their sources, rather than separate instrument, vocal and effect buses.

He sees it like the days of tape, where the effects are printed and indelibly part of the sound. “I like having that extra layer of control over effects and sources together,” he explained. “I’ll push them in or out together, depending on how they fit in the song.”

He also uses the UAD Fatso on almost all his buses. “Towards the end of the mix, you can bring things forward and paradoxically tighten them up a bit. With dense vocal arrangements tiny amounts of bus compression means the lead and backing vocals push against each other in a nice way. This control is one of the huge advantages of mixing in the box, down to being able to automate the mix bus at different points in the chain. For example, if you have a bridge that’s kicking off, you can open things up, whereas the chorus might love being slammed really hard. If you turn your mix bus up and threshold down, you’ll get things to pump a lot more in sections where you’ve just got bass, drums, vocals and a couple of noises. It tends to sound a lot cooler, but you need the breathing room when everything piles in. I also really got into the UAD Manley Vari-Mu. It moves in a really nice way and has a beautiful way of squishing things together.

The wet/dry knob is critical as well.”

At the end of the day, said Joseph, through all the co-writes and sonic mangling, “Opening ourselves up to the possibility of not just doing it one way was really good. If a song’s good it’s good.”

AT 24

DRUMS Th drums were typically placed in a corner of the room’s dead side. Depending on the song Russell would add extra room or close mics smashed through compression to add grit and glue it all together. Other than that the drum mic setup was relatively standard he said: “Mostly an AKG D112 on the inside of the kick and an NS10 on the outside. Snare top was a Shure SM57, and the bottom would either be a 57 or an AKG C451E condenser. Hats would be one of those as well and Sennheiser 421s on toms. Coles 4038 ribbons for overheads, a Neumann UM57 valve condenser as a mono overhead, and another as a mono room.”

GUITARS Russell: The guitars were pre-DI’d using an Avalon U5, then DI’d after the pedals too, with an SM57 and Sontronics Delta on the amps. The majority of it was through my ’70s Marshall JMP combo.

Joseph: “Up until that point I’d always been using a Vox AC30. The JMP sound had always been something I’d wanted but didn’t know it; it’s warm and sounds enormous to me.

Going back the AC30 just feels a bit too glassy and toppy.

Generally I’d set the Marshall to break up slightly, then get the rest of the drive from pedals.

“I had a ridiculous array of pedals, but we tried to keep it simple. A nice overdrive sound from a J Rockett Archer, which is a clone of a Klon Centaur overdrive that people pay thousands of dollars for. Nothing crazy, mostly a nice Strymon delay, because we’ve over processed guitars in the past.”

BASS Jonny plays a Marshall VBA400 head and cab, which “can sound really deep but has the right amount of treble and presence to cut through.”

He simultaneously uses both the P Bass and Jazz bass pickups on his guitar, and it was DI’d pre and post-pedals with Avalon U5 DIs, with an RE20 on the cabinet. Depending on the track, Fawcus used an API or BAE preamp into Distressors.

VOCALS Russell: “When Dougy was tracking guide vocals with the band he used a Shure SM7 — the same mic he used on the entire Conditions album — into an API pre feeding the Summit. All the vocals were overdubbed using the Neumann UM57. Singing into a valve condenser was new for him. The mic has the original M7 capsule of the U47 with different electronics. That went into a BAE 1073 preamp and 1176 compressor.”

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AT 25

FEATURE

RÜFÜS UPDATE THEIR LIVE PROFILE With only three days to port Rüfüs’s Coachella live show over to the Avid S6L and develop a new muscle memory, FOH Engineer Cam Trewin had to trust what his ears were telling him… that it was all worth it.

Report: Mark Davie

Standing front and centre on the floor of Adelaide Arena, Rüfüs FOH engineer Cam Trewin was torn between where his muscle memory was telling him to go and where his ears were beckoning him.

For Rüfüs’s Australian run of shows, Trewin had opted to try out Avid’s new flagship live console, the S6L. They’d just stepped off the plane from a North American tour during which he’d meticulously dialled in his Profile show in the lead up to Coachella. The jet lag was giving him the jitters and he was questioning the cogency of jumping on a new console on the eve of an arena tour. After one day in Novatech’s Adelaide factory getting the rundown, he had just two days of preproduction in Adelaide Arena to get the set back to or better than Coachella standards.

The Venue software compatibility worked a treat — his session had carried across from the Profile one-to-one as advertised, and his head amp gain settings stayed put — but without any Waves AT 26

integration on the S6L, all the fine detail he’d spent months crafting on the Profile was gone. “I ended up tipping a Profile as well, because I freaked out a little when I first hit the ground,” said Trewin. “I didn’t feel comfortable at all.” Novatech kindly put in a third iso split so Trewin could pass everything through both consoles at the same time. With a direct comparison between the old Profile and new S6L, the sonic quality was winning him over fast: “You can really hear the new architecture; the default 96k sample rate, and the 64-bit AAX DSP plug-ins.”

There were two areas in particular where Trewin noticed immediate improvements. “My EQ biases are really different from the Profile to this,” he said.

“I was winding heaps more back in on the S6L; my Profile EQs are a lot more aggressive, especially on the vocal.” The other difference was in his parallel ‘drum slam’ bus: “Usually I’d use a Waves Pye compressor or something really aggressive, but I’m just using Smack and finding a lot of front end in it.”

Overall, once he’d committed to learning the new console, Trewin reckons by the end of the three days he felt fluid on the S6L. “The muscle memory has come really quick in comparison to the Profile,” he said. “Even though the layout is quite different, it’s very intuitive. It was a little scary at first because I expected the Profile, but I didn’t want to use the mouse or the screen, I wanted to use the S6L’s encoders and faders, which feel really good.”

REBUILDING YOUR PROFILE

The other reason he had Novatech tip the Profile was to recall a few favourites in a different form.

He’d been a heavy user of Waves’ C6 multiband compressor. Because you can’t see offline plug-in settings, he used the Profile as a recall sheet so he could match up starting points on Avid’s internal multi-band dynamics plug-in. “I was using the C6 to notch out some really problematic frequencies in the spill of the live drums bleeding into the mic,” explained Trewin. “Now I’ve wound a lot back in and I'm not carving as much away.”

There were a few of extra plug-ins he purchased to help mix the all important main vocal; the Cranesong Phoenix tape emulation and Sonnox plug-ins. “I was really heavily dependent on them with the Profile. Room to room I’ll click between Phoenix’s different tape types, biases and brightness, depending on whether I want more low mids or top end lift from the vocal in that room.

“I also used the Oxford EQ to notch out a few spots here and there, with a big 20kHz GML top end lift in the vocal to get a bit more presence.

Now relying on more of Avid’s internal plugins, he also uses the “Avid multi-band dynamics to reign in a little of the high-mid and top end information, and the BF-2A as a basic limiter.”

The track count for Rüfüs’s live show isn’t huge. It sits around 36 tracks, with a mixture of playback and live elements. Over the two years since Trewin has been mixing the band, they’ve brought more and more parts off the playback system and onto the live stage. Originally, the Ableton computer would run almost everything, including the soft synths lead singer Tyrone Lindqvist and keyboardist Jon George played via onstage MIDI controllers. It was putting an enormous load on the computer as well as sounding a bit bottlenecked. These days, alongside James Hunt’s live drums, all the album samples are loaded onto a number of Roland SPD-Xs, the keyboard parts are played direct from Nord Electro 5s, some of the basslines come from an onstage Roland TB-3, and occasional percussion elements are played live onstage.

Now, with more tracks to play with, and better splits from the playback track system, Trewin has a bit more to manage. The S6L’s new user layout page lets him customise an entire fader bank of the 32 fader console, which Trewin spends almost all his time on during the show: “I can condense it all to my key element tracks like keyboards, TB3s, guitar; key element VCAs like vocals; and effects returns. I spend pretty much all my time on that layer and very rarely jump out. Once the kit’s balanced, it’s just a push between the dry and parallel bus. If I want to though, I can just break out that VCA input.”

TWEAKING WITH A V

The new architecture also means Trewin can run out 64 channels via AVB over a single ethernet cable between the S6L and his Macbook Pro. With a simple button press for V-checking, it’s also far more convenient than the 32-channel optional Firewire card on the Profile, as he can now one-for-one his entire show.

A big part of Trewin’s preparation is making sure the programmed and live elements sit together well. The playback tracks feature all the drums on the album, with the live drums adding a whole new live kit over the top.

“I’ve spent two years trying to massage the two because I don’t want it to be one of those shows where you’re wondering if there is or isn’t a drum kit there,” said Trewin. “I want it to sit at a point

where if you take away the live kit you really feel the energy is gone.”

He will often sit there looping the V-check with the kicks solo’d in place, getting them to sit right.

First, he gets up onstage to tune the kit, then he usually ends up gating the sequenced kit to limit the low end tail of those long 808 hits. It’s the same at the other end, cueing up the two sets of hats and using EQ and multi-band compression to get them sounding the same. Through trial and error, Trewin has found that matching them is best. “If they sound really different, one tends to dominate the other,” he explained.

At the Festival Hall show in Melbourne, the proof was in the pudding. At points during the show, like after the song Tonight, the three members of Rüfüs just had to stand around for half a minute grinning from ear to ear waiting for

the crowd to stop cheering. While the crowd was deafening the mix was incredibly well balanced.

Even the searing synths on You Were Right, which are more subdued on the album, perfectly lifted the song’s energy without taking your head off.

Trewin and the band have nailed the transition from programmed to live instruments, and by all accounts the transition to the S6L has only added to the sound of the show. If you love engaging sound then the Rüfüs live show is definitely worth checking out.

You can find out more about Cam Trewin in our Quick Mix column from Issue 112.

I was winding heaps more back in on the S6L; my Profile EQs are a lot more aggressive, especially on the vocal

PA OF THE DAY The entire console package of the Avid S6L for FOH, Midas M32 for supports and Digico SD7 for monitors was provided by Novatech Creative Event Technology in Adelaide. The PA was hired from 8th Day Sound, who have a stacked d&b inventory after leaving behind container loads from the Taylor Swift tour.

At Festival Hall the crew rigged up 10 a side in the main hangs, comprising eight J8s and two J12s, with another four J12s in the side hangs directed into the stalls of the wide venue. The sound carried well out into the cheap seats, which usually get shortchanged in Festival Hall if there’s no decent side hangs. There were also configured as left/left/right/right. Trewin has used alternating stereo before, but it didn’t work in Festival Hall.

Along the front of the stage were a handful of Q infill with a spaced array of 16 B22 subs stacked in pairs

with the end pair toed out a little. The spaced sub array gave a really even low end extension across the venue, and Trewin has them on a matrix so he can ride the critical low end at points. “ I like to build dynamics through the show,” explained Trewin. “It starts back a bit, then comes up and drops away again before really lifting off in the encore. I like that feeling as an audience member when you have that moment of an exhale and breath before it raises back up. Having the sub on a matrix helps me throw the bass and kick sequencer in those moments to bottom it out a little more.” If he starts to push too hard, he always has a nearby failsafe. Production manager, Steffan Johnson, also does FOH for Cut Copy and Flight Facilities, so he knows exactly how this style of vocal-driven electronic music is supposed to sound.

AT 27

Tyrone uses a Malekko Spring Chicken reverb pedal, Redwitch Empress chorus, and the Eventide H9 Harmonizer, which has been really critical for the show. The Sansamp also adds a little bit of grit. It’s DI’d straight out of the Sansamp, which I prefer. We’ve talked about getting an amp, but the DI works really well for clarity and limiting spill .

We have the Radial ProD8 and JD6 DI racks connected to two W1 Whirlwind connectors which are multi-pinned out straight into a drop. We’re also running a Sennheiser G3 wireless for Tyrone’s guitar.

John’s Roland SPD-X has all the samples from the album loaded into it. He runs the Korg MS-20 with the Moog Minifooger delay pedal off to the side for sweeps. There’s also MIDI in coming off the playback rack.

There’s a MIDI send and receive from James’ MPD to the playback rack. It’s connected to a redundant MPD our playback tech has for track starts or any other track cues if James can’t hit them. The guys are running JH Audio JH16 in-ears. We’ve tried butt kickers with James before, but there’s a little latency he wasn’t vibing, so we’re touring B2 subs as low end fill onstage.

John runs a Roland Bitrazer pedal inline with the Nord Electro for bitcrush effects. He plays the Roland TB3 live, but it also has MIDI programming coming into it.

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“I’ve had Tyrone on an Audix OM7 for two years now. We’ve cycled through a lot of mics and this works best for his low output. The tight hypercardioid pattern really helps, it’s got nice low mid clarity and it’s not hyped in the top end. It does need a lot of gain, but he’s adapted and his mic technique really suits it. He wanted to go wireless, so we bought a Soundtools adaptor from Ratsound which connects it to the Shure UR wireless body. The Shure body has really changed the sound of it, but I like the change.”

I use a Shure Beta 91 inside the kick and Audix D6 out, which works for this style of music. I lean towards the 91 a little more for the attack. Snare has a Shure Beta 57 on top and a normal 57 on bottom, Sennheiser 904s for rack and floor, and Sennheiser MK4 large diaphragm condensers as overheads. He’s playing a lot of shakers into those mics and they give me a nice image. I’ve got the AudioTechnica AT450s on the ride and hi-hats. I love how close you can get with the side address, I’ve had them for years. They’re just a good sounding workhorse, which is the way I feel about all these mics.

Tyrone uses the same keyboard setup as John; Nord Electro 5 with the Bitrazer filter pedal. He uses the cowbell in critical moments in the show. I pick it up through the vocal mic because there’s so much gain. There’s a lot of percussion in the playback, but I like to keep the live elements in the show.

As well as samples loaded into his SPD-X, James also uses the Akai MPD for track playback. The Roland V-Drum has additional pad effects with an inline Boss DD7 digital delay for noise sound effects in song transitions.

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FEATURE

New Life For

The LiVing EnD

The Living End are one of the tightest threepieces around. But Shift was the first time the band has ever written songs together by jamming in the studio.

Story: Mark Davie

Artist: The Living End Album: Shift

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It’s been a while since The Longnecks have surfaced on a bill, or Glen Waverley & The Mentones, The Dovetones, Roller Toasters, and Doncaster & The Dandenongs for that matter.

All band names — pseudonyms actually — you’ve probably never heard of unless you’re a die-hard fan of The Living End. If one of them was written up on a chalkboard at the Barwon Club or Ding Dong Lounge, you knew the boys were up and about road-testing new material.

It’s always been the way the band has honed their tunes. Lead singer/guitarist, Chris Cheney, would write the songs; the band would rehearse them and add their own flavours to it; then they’d assume a fresh identity and refine the new songs in front of a pub audience.

However, five years have passed without a sighting.

Cheney has been living in LA, and only The Living End proper had appeared on any bills. With time and distance growing the gap, if there was any chance of fresh Living End material, it seemed likely to start with Cheney. But he, like everyone else, was a little burnt out. “We did the retrospective tour where we played all of our records — seven nights in each city,” said Cheney about the breaking point. “It was an enormous undertaking to do a tour like that.”

The band had gone their separate ways — the other guys picked up side projects and Cheney played in a couple of bands in The States while songwriting with other people.

At the end of 2014, they played a run of A Day on the Green shows in support of Jimmy Barnes.

It was a relaxed, weekends-only winery tour. With time to kill, the band did something they’d never done before; they rocked up at Red Door Sounds and wrote songs together.

The idea, said Cheney, was “no unnecessary pressure, just lay some sounds down, come up with ideas, and see what happens.” Which is exactly what happened for four weeks.

Paul ‘Woody’ Annison — Red Door Sounds owner/engineer and The Living End’s FOH engineer — co-produced, recorded and mixed the new album Shift, beginning from those very early sessions. “The whole idea was to do the opposite of what they’d done before. It was already four years at the time and Chris was no closer to writing a Living End album,” said Woody. “They’re used to me because I grew up with them over the last 15 years. We’re mates, it was supposed to be fun.” Over that first month, the sessions were free flowing.

Woody reckons they played through over 60 riffs on the first day and started narrowing them down.

By the end of those initial sessions, Cheney, along with bassist Scott Owen and drummer Andy Strachan had crafted five songs. However, there was another reason the band chose Woody — he’s a straight talker. After five years away, the band needed someone to let them know when to push harder and when enough was enough. Being their live engineer, he could also stand-in for the prerecording session run of shows.

“He knows how we sound live and how we wanted to capture that energy,” said Cheney.

“Because he’s a friend we felt comfortable going in and tossing around some ideas. He’s quite brutal.

We knew he’d be cracking the whip and wouldn’t let us overdo it, over-polish it and over think it. Parts of it were absolutely nightmarish! We butted heads on many occasions.”

Woody agreed on the nightmare: “It was supposed to be a three-week project… it took a f**king year! Chris is pedantic and I love him for it.

We definitely had tense moments, in a light-hearted way. Everyone’s got an opinion but Chris and I shout the loudest.”

Cheney said that push and pull was exactly what they needed. If Cheney had a weird idea for a song, he needed to prove it to three blokes eager to move on. “That’s what we needed for this experiment,” reckoned Cheney. “Otherwise we’d go on to make a really beige-sounding record. It’s good, there’s a lot of variety on this album. There’s definitely some more polished, moulded tracks and there’s some that are just abrasive.”

REVOLVING RED DOOR

Red Door Sounds is housed in the remnants of a Melbourne music industry hub. Previous tenants of the Collingwood complex included the Big Day Out headquarters and Crucial Music management. Big Day Out no longer exists, and Crucial, The Living End’s management, moved out long ago. Woody bought the studio in 2010, then called Studio One, along with Crucial Music’s Rae Harvey (Woody’s then partner), as well as Chris and Emma Cheney.

These days it’s just Woody, and he’s feeling the struggle of being an owner/operator, especially because he’s on the road mixing FOH for The Living End and Peking Duk: “If I go on tour, the studio goes empty because everyone wants to make their own money and do their own thing. Just maintaining this gear is a pain in the arse.”

Looking around the studio, it’s a lot of gear to maintain. A stretched out SSL 4000 G+ console takes up the front of the control room, with a Neve 51 Series sidecar sitting off to the side. He bought the console from Scott Horscroft when BJB closed down, and has been selling off channel strips to pay for other gear. He uses the Neve as a recording front end, because the preamps and EQ are “sweet”, while he prefers the nasty bite of the EQ on the SSL to mix.

Woody also loves the SSL bus compressor and the back bus routing for parallel compression.

“Everyone’s talking about parallel compression,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for years because I can on the console. I whack the drums through the Fatso then bring them up as a parallel group in the back bus. THE MORE I PUT IN THERE, THE LESS THEY ARE IN THE FRONT BUS. IT MEANS I CAN SMASH THE SHIT OUT OF IT BUT STILL HAVE THE TRANSIENTS COME OFF THE FRONT. IT’S CLASSIC PARALLEL COMPRESSION, BUT ON THE CONSOLE,

uses UAD and Brainworks plug-ins, sometimes preferring them. For instance, he has a hardware SPL Transient Designer, but regularly uses the plug-in version because he finds it more creative.

HOME SWEET HOME

Being back at Red Door was a homecoming of sorts for Cheney, who co-owned the studio for over a year. Studio ownership had been a trial for Cheney, a chance to have a stab at producing a couple of EPs. “It was good experience,” he said. “A different way of looking at the whole thing, from being in the band to being outside and having to look at every aspect.”

It helped Cheney uncover a more fastidious, experimental side of his songwriting. While some of the jammed ideas were good, a lot needed to be methodically fleshed out away from the studio.

When Woody bought Cheney out of Red Door, he set the singer up with a luxurious home studio; Vintech X73i preamp and EQ into a Distressor, with Pro Tools for a DAW. All of which did nothing for Cheney’s production values. “He just used some shitty sampled drums and DI’d straight into Garageband!” said an exasperated Woody.

For Cheney, it was part of the whole approach, to not get too caught up in spending days getting a sound right, but prioritising songwriting. “I’d take the songs back home, put them into Garageband and redo the lyrics, rewrite some of the chords and melodies and give them a complete facelift,” said Cheney. “I would just follow a tangent and end up somewhere completely different. It’s weird for the other guys because I’d bring the song back after a month-and-a-half away and it’d be completely different. Enemies was really loud and energetic, then we stripped everything back and went for this sound that had real tension in it.”

“We got that song recorded all the way up and thought it was really average,” recalled Woody. “I think we did that song three times before it became Andy playing a simple drumbeat… thud, chk, thud, chk.”

Cheney says moving to LA, wasn’t about escaping personal trials and tribulations, but the tension of his own unresolved struggles still found their way into the lyrics. “They’ve ended up working their way into the songs more so than before,” said Cheney. In the past he’s skirted around those issues, or sugarcoated them from a third-person perspective. This time, those writer’s tricks weren’t working. “Every time I sat down to write something, it ended up being very personal,” he said. “It’s all I could write. There’s nothing like cringing at a lyric to make you really feel it! I don’t mean cringing as in, ‘That’s awful!’ I mean a bit too close to home; so raw it hurts a bit.”

SO IT’S REALLY INTUITIVE.”

STUDIO SPACE CRAFT

Woody’s racks are packed with quality outboard like Neve 1073 and Vintech X73i preamps, Teletronix LA-2A, Tube-tech CL1B, ELI Distressor and Fatso, and dbx 160 compressors, Tube-tech Pultec-style EQ, Lexicon effects and loads of other pieces.

He’s not all out of the box though. Woody often

There are three recording spaces at Red Door — one live, one dead, and another with adjustable baffling. For the sessions, Woody set up the drums in the live room, a collection of guitar amps in the dead room, and the bass amp in an iso booth. All of the tracks were built up from a live performance base, but some were completely re-recorded with AT 31

overdubs. “They’re good enough players to play and replay,” said Woody. “We went back and redid drums on Monkey and a couple of songs where we came up with better ideas.”

Woody prefers the rawer tracks on the album, songs like the energetic vamped opener One Step where the performance has the least artifice. Even the ‘yeow’ and ‘ra-ra-ra’ ad-libs were samples from Chris “just being a dickhead” on the guide vocal take, which Woody chopped up to sound like The Rapture.

We knew he’d be cracking the whip and wouldn’t let us overdo it, over-polish it and over think it. Parts of it were absolutely nightmarish!

SPLIT DECISION GUITARS

Cheney is one of Australia’s iconic guitarists, his rockabilly influences are as identifiably unique as his Gretsch White Falcon hollowbody guitar. For some fans it’s almost sacrilege that he predominantly played a Telecaster on Shift. Like Owen’s upright bass, so ingrained is the hollow body in The Living End’s image, he’s still pictured holding it on the cover of Shift even though he played a Telecaster for most of the album. “I use a Telecaster to get out of my comfort zone of playing the big hollow-body Gretschs,” explained Cheney. “They add a certain attack and are so responsive that I could really dig in. That said, I would also double it with my White Falcon or one of my other Gretschs. I feel sort of lost without that in my hands.

“I played a Les Paul on a couple of tracks and a Danelectro which sounded like absolute crap but in the best possible way. It was so stringy and sharp, but it created a nice blend when mixed in with the other guitars.

“The pedals I used were mainly delays, a couple of Roland Space Echo tape delays, and we cranked up the reverb on this album, no fancy stuff.”

Sticking to convention wasn’t really an option on this record, nor was labouring over guitar sounds.

AT 32

“I’ve had to do a whole EP in three days before,” said Woody. “Whereas with The Living End, that’s just getting a guitar sound.”

For this record, it just wasn’t as important to Cheney as the lyric and the song. Even though the song’s were constantly rearranged, Cheney and Woody didn’t sit down and work out an amp to suit each part. INSTEAD THEY SPLIT CHENEY’S GUITAR SIGNAL WITH A RADIAL JD7 INJECTER AND BLASTED IT LIKE A SHOTGUN SPRAY OUT OF MULTIPLE AMPS. “We had

three or four amps running at the same time,” said Cheney. “My old ’60s Vox AC30, one of my 100W Wizard heads through an old Marshall cabinet, and an old ’60s Fender Bassman. It wasn’t a record where we really mixed and matched the guitar tones too much. It’s always been more about the way we play the song as opposed to relying on really different sounds between tracks.”

Woody miked each amp up with a simple Shure SM57 moved around until it sounded right: “Admittedly 57s don’t have the low and high end, but unless you’re Robert Fripp, why would you need more?” He sent each through a Neve

preamp and compressed the signal a little with the Distressor. “The Distressor is on virtually everything,” said Woody. “I like that it can sound like different things, it’s just handy. Most of the time I won’t let it slam the attack, I’ll use the distortion modes to get tone.

“We miked the back of the amps on a couple of songs, though I don’t remember whether it made it. The trouble is in this control room you’ve got to make it bright. Chris is used to standing in front of his amp to get this really warm tone. But if it sounds like that coming out of these speakers, it’s going to be dull. It’s just about knowing the room and the reality of it.”

They would double track chorus guitars, sometimes recording up to six versions before paring it back to a left and right pair. “Basically blending it till it sounds right,” said Woody. “If you overdo it, it can get a bit like a Foo Fighters block chorus with no definition. All the notes and distortion flow into each other and it’s just a blanket.

If a guitar’s feeling a bit light on, you’re better off gaining it up and adding some tubey harmonics.”

DOUBLING DOWN ON BASS

Cheney isn’t the only virtuoso, all three members can hold their own. Woody says each of Owen’s bass overdubs took no longer than 20 minutes.

“He’s not an over-thinker, he trusts I’m going to get a good tone, his rig is good and his bass is nice,” said Woody. “He doesn’t care as long as he plays tight, and he plays tight.

“We ended up facing the double bass into the corner and used a Neumann U87 to capture the sub element on his bass, either a Sennheiser MD421 or EV RE20 type mic on the f-hole of his bass, then his pickup fed his amp in an iso booth.

HIS BASS HAS GOT SO MUCH SUB AND A BEAUTIFUL TONE, BUT ON A COUPLE OF SONGS WE WANTED TO MAKE IT

“I used the Slate Dragon 1176 rip off, it’s like a plug-in with its mix control, you can ram it but still get the front end so it holds together in the mix. I miked the amp with a Rode Procaster, it’s like an RE20 but a bit cleaner.”

into what they remember something sounded like. Zeppelin is another classic, ‘Wooaahh, the drums are massive!’ Well, no they’re not. If you actually listen to it, they’re quite back, but where he’s playing behind the beat makes them sound big.

Dancing in the Dark has the worst drum machine sounds in history.”

DRUMMING UP FRESH SOUNDS

MIXED APPROACH

The live room, where the drums were placed, makes up in height what it lacks in length. “Believe it or not, it’s a really good sounding room,” said Woody. “I used to use room mics but lately I’ve just been using EV RE20s on the floor and ramming them. I became a bit bored with a normal ‘good’ drum sound.

“Andy’s got a room the double the size of my live room just full of drums, including some nice vintage Rogers kits. We used an 18-inch floor tom he’d converted into a kick drum for some of the tracks. The smaller it was, the bigger it sounded.

Every time I record a 24-inch it sounds terrible, but a nice small kick drum is tight and solid.”

Woody uses a Sennhesier MD421 for the kick drum, but noted it’s still about the drummer.

Woody: “Kick drums are a pain in the arse, especially if it’s not set up right or they belt the shit out of it. I’VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN TO PEOPLE THAT

Woody wasn’t supposed to mix the album, but the band wanted him to have a crack. Ironically, he started out on that unnatural ’80s drum sound from Staring Down the Barrel, and it got him the gig.

These days Woody does a board mix, then gets his assistant to spit out stems, which he takes home to polish off. He’s got the same Genelec monitors and a UAD Apollo at home, he also uses Pro Tools’ Heat console emulation plug-in. “Sometimes it’s good to get that perspective out of here,” he said.

“It’s not like the old days where you’re done and then it’s pressed, anyone can change anything now.

It used to be less stems too — just drums, bass, guitar, vocals — now it has to be kick, snare, kick and snare so the compressor sit them together, etc.”

Woody’s never been afraid of using plugins, especially ones that add a bit of harmonic saturation. He used to have an outboard Shadow Hills compressor, but sold it and bought the UAD version so he could have eight, rather than one instance. Woody: “It’s not going to sound like one of them, but it’s going to take the characteristics of it. I love the Vertigo Sound VSC-2 compressor too because it adds harmonics, I’ve been running it over mixes lately.”

SOUND MORE LIKE A STANDARD BASS, SO I JUST USED THE DI. THE REAL BASS JUST SOUNDED TOO BIG AND LUSH.

THE SOFTER THEY HIT THE MORE SOLID IT IS. IF YOU BELT THE SHIT OUT OF THE SNARE DRUM IT’S GOING TO BE THIN, ESPECIALLY IF YOU RIM IT.”

Apart from the rammed floor-bound RE20s, Woody said “it’s a pretty standard setup, except for Royer ribbon mics as overheads, nothing too fancy pants. I went for a closer sound on the kick and snare so it felt cooler, as opposed to roomy snare drums. Staring Down the Barrel is supposed to be like Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark, which is why the snare goes, ‘Ptt’. People get fooled

Living End song, but “once the band played it, the song sounded a million times better than the original,” said Woody. “I kept on calling it Lion King, because it had this tribal drum beat.”

Because it wasn’t on the radar for The Living End, Cheney had recorded the strings and his vocal in The States… all of it except for three words.

WOODY USED IZOTOPE’S OZONE EQ MATCHING FUNCTION TO KEEP CONTINUITY IN THE NEW PARTS. “That saved my

life so many times,” said Woody. “We’d record the vocal one month, then three months later we’d be recording a fix or change the words. Even when it’s the same mic, same EQ, it’s always different. The matching EQ was always a good place to start. Get it close, then go in and alter it with a bit more EQ. “It’s hard work for something nobody will notice, but I don’t mind doing that. No matter how long I’ve been making records, the most important thing is still the performance. No matter how good or how shit I make it sound, if it’s got no vibe, there’s nothing you can do.”

There are moments on Shift, like Keep on Running that will stretch the palette of The Living End fans, but Cheney reckons the nightmarish side of more fully fleshing out the songs was worth it: “Through butting heads with Woody in the studio, we got a great result. No-one was just bowing down and going with it for the sake of keeping the peace.

We were fighting for the best possible outcome.”

KEEP ON RUNNING

Sometimes plug-ins just plain saved his arse. Keep On Running was the only song that Cheney had pre-written in LA. It was never intended to be a AT 33

FEATURE

SUNDAY BEST Hillsong’s quest to be the best is intimidating. Its tech people aren’t. AT finds out what makes the world’s best-known church tick.

Story: Christopher Holder

AT 34

Execute; review; improve; repeat.

I normally do my best to ensure the first sentence of an AT story is interesting enough to encourage you, the reader, to proceed to the second. But I thought I’d buck the trend and make a point about Hillsong: it does things better than just about any one else because of a happy coming together of big-organisation processes with smallorganisation passion. Put another way: all the tech guys I met for this story really, really care, and they’re happily part of a big structure that allows them to excel.

That’s the story. It’s not sexy or sensational. Yes, there’s a mind boggling amount of great gear to play with. For example, my visit coincided with the commissioning of a new Adamson E12-based PA in the main Hills District campus, but the loading dock was piled high with high-quality kit shipping in and out, as facilities are built and upgraded.

But the real story is the people and their constant striving to do better.

Already there will be a bunch of doubters and haters switching off or cursing this story as a sycophantic Hillsong love-in. I understand that response. When you witness (as I did) 400 shiny/ happy Hillsong college students convening for a mid week, midday ‘chapel’ service at the Alexandria campus, with an Adamson rig effortlessly purring away, Barco 12K projectors providing a huge visual panorama, hands in the air, whooping and hugging, it’s hard not to arch an eyebrow and think ‘what the heck is really going on here?’

I think the truth is, it’s really hard for our sceptical Australian brains to get our heads around the motivations. It can’t just be a faith in God, surely? There must be some kinda cultish mind control or money… it always comes down to money.

Even in Christian circles, and in some cases especially in Christian circles, there’s a deep suspicion of Hillsong. But to really wrap your head around what Hillsong does, technically and operationally, you need to accept the church’s topline mission as, dare I say it, gospel. The mission is ‘to reach people’. That’s the motivation. And if you accept that to be true of all the hundreds and hundreds of staff and volunteers, and the reason

why they work harder, and constantly aim to improve in every regards, then it all makes sense… in fact, it’s the only way to make sense of it all.

STEPPING UP, STEPPING IN

Steve Le Roux is Hillsong’s Technical Facilities Manager. His key role is to project manage new builds — everything from the audio, AV, lighting, security systems, air handling… the lot. Saying that, he’s an audio guy, and a South African by birth. After spending time in broadcast and recording in his home country he moved to Australia. But not before encountering Hillsong’s senior pastor, Brian Houston, while he was at the Rhema church in South Africa. After emigrating, Steve landed on his feet, scoring a job at the Sydney Opera House where he worked for some 10 years.

He was also committing time to Hillsong where his talents didn’t go unnoticed. Steve eventually took up a staff position, project managing the build of a new facility on the Hills campus — he’s been Hillsong’s go-to project manager ever since.

Steve is best placed to explain how Hillsong goes about its business. How it’s possible to pull together huge teams of creatives without ‘clash of the titan’ egos, hissy fits and the endless pulling of rank.

Steve Le Roux: Hillsong is an amazing church. The teaching is about developing and improving people and that trickles right down through all the teams.

Pastor Brian Houston has one vision for the church, and that’s reaching people. All the leaders of all the different departments — youth, kids, etc — they’re all working towards that one vision.

Musically as well. The music teams are working towards that vision and we’re there to support them: it’s about taking what the band is doing on a Sunday and ensuring that vision is translated equally to every single seat.

For new talent that means they’re being encouraged, mentored and educated. If we’re training a FOH engineer, that 16-year-old kid might be assisting one of the more experienced guys and for weeks he would just stand there and watch.

Two things come out of that: The young guy’s watching and he’s learning the flow; how to deal with situations, how to deal with the leadership —

we’re connecting the person to the role. Eventually, once he’s got to the point where we trust him in that role, he’ll end up mixing, and now the experienced guy is standing back watching him.

He may occasionally step in and guide him but that young guy will pretty much be handling the service himself. We’re placing our confidence and trust in that person.

We’re always training because we’re always growing, but our attitude is: if you’re holding onto a role, there’s no room for anyone else. We’re always looking at succession plans, always ensuring we have well-trained people ready to step up and step in.

If you’re a hot shot sound guy and your expectation is you’re going to instantly mix FOH in church on a Sunday; if that’s your attitude, you’re probably never going to get there. If you’re willing to do anything to help — mixing for kids; sound for the youth; mixing in the foyer — and have that humble attitude of ‘wherever you need me, I’m here to help’ — those are the guys that will end up mixing in church.

The same applies to our music team. If you’re not prepared to be ‘just another voice’ in a mass choir, you’re never going to lead worship.

There are over 4000 volunteers at our annual conference. We’ll have doctors and lawyers taking annual leave to serve at that event, helping man an elevator or hand out leaflets. That’s service: ‘wherever you need me, I’m there.’

AUDIO MILESTONES

Before you think that Hillsong has the newest and best of everything, allow me to introduce you to its 15-year-old Yamaha PM1D on monitors. Or the 10-year old Avid Profile at FOH. “The guys on monitors aren’t ready to let the PM1D go just yet,” noted Hillsong’s AV and networking guru, Ricki Cook. “But it’s not that uncommon for them to need to reboot the console on a Sunday morning when it can’t find a block of I/O. That’s unnerving. Everyone on the platform is on IEM, so it’s impossible to start a service without a fully functioning monitor console.”

Needless to say, Hillsong is in the process of auditioning new digital mixing consoles.

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It’s another stage of a relentless upgrade program.

But the PM1D example demonstrates it’s not an ad hoc, finger-in-the-dyke process — it’s measured.

The impetus more often than not comes from the top. If the strategy is to reach people by being better at contemporary worship than anyone else, then you need the gear to achieve that. Similarly, if the desire is to establish new churches around the country and have the ability to ‘simulcast’ the video production up and down the eastern seaboard, you need to invest in some pretty specific gear to achieve that.

I talked to Steve Le Roux about the key generational changes in gear that gave Hillsong a quantum leap.

Steve Le Roux: Upgrading to the Adamson Y10 changed everything [start of 2011]. Up until that point, the system we had wasn’t delivering and it was hurting the team. It was a difficult PA to mix on because it performed differently at one sound pressure level to another level. You couldn’t train and develop people because it was almost like an old gearbox without synchronisation, where you had to build up the revs but you’re grinding away regardless.

The problem was a quirk of the product, the amplification, and the fact the array was too short for the space, resulting in holes in the coverage — as you walked from stage to the mix position you

went through maybe six patchy zones. It really was a difficult system. So to use the gearbox analogy again, moving to the Adamson Y10 was like going from a manual gearbox without synchromesh to a smooth automatic.

That upgrade also built up a lot of trust between leadership and the tech team. The system met all expectations, we got it in on budget and the church just lifted — the worship experience was so much better and the message was heard everywhere.

AT: What are you looking for when you audition an item of gear?

SLR: We’re constantly being brought new product to test. Beyond the performance, it’s about the maintenance, and reproducibility in any situation.

If a headset is on the pastor it needs to sound the same whoever is on FOH. If one guy can make it sound spectacular but it’s feeding back for everyone else then that’s no good to us.

I remember one headset that came in was superflexible and I was on a tour with Pastor Brian and I approached him about trying it. ‘Okay we’ll give it a try.’ He bumped his cheek with his hand as he was walking up to the platform and as he went to speak the mic was sticking out 90 degrees to his head. I had to run up and do a roadie fix on it.

So needless to say, that headset didn’t make the cut — great product, great idea, but didn’t tick the ‘repeatability’ box.

HIM WHO HAS EARS

AT: You’ve got a large Shure wireless inventory, including lots of channels of IEM. Was the process of switching everyone over to ‘ears’ tricky?

SLR: We started to introduce in-ears on the worship leaders first then just stepped through it.

Our backing vocals were on wedges for quite a bit longer, years in fact. Everyone is now on in-ears.

We have a few wedges lining front of stage for the preacher now, but that’s it.

Mixing in-ears is mission critical and we put the same level of training into monitors as we do FOH — it’s not a second rate role, it’s as critical, but 12 times over.

Getting the musicians and singers to connect with the congregation is critical. It’s not like a rock ’n’ roll show where you go in there and the band is belting a song out. At Hillsong you’re leading 3500 people in worship through a song and that connection with the congregation is crucial, and that’s the same with the preacher, he’s got to connect.

That first word the preacher utters is critical.

If he feels his first word is lost, he’s instantly at a disadvantage. He’s thinking, ‘Have they got this?’

Then he starts feeling insecure and the whole message could be jeopardised by someone not being attentive.

While AT was on site, the church was testing Shure VP88s as ambience mics. The mic is a stereo condenser which Hillsong runs in mid-side mode.

The signal goes through the Waves MultiRack where the monitor engineer can play with the stereo width (using the Waves S1 Stereo Imager) for the on-stage team’s ears.

SHOOTOUT HEAVEN

Ever been fascinated by big PA shootouts and what it’d be like to be a fly on the wall and actually experience the nuances in the performance of large-scale arrays? Maybe you should go to church more often! Well, one church at least. Hillsong has its shootout criteria down. Most recently, the

NAILING THE HILLSONG SOUND After hanging out at the Hills campus HQ, I snuck off to Hillsong’s Sydney city campuses (in Waterloo and Alexandria) for a look. Waterloo is a ground-up build while the Alexandria auditorium (pictured) occupies an old factory site, which had proven to be an acoustical problem-child. The S10 rig at Waterloo is much like a scaled down version of the main campus setup. Alexandria has an Adamson Metrix system, with the pattern control tidying up the sound no end.

I spoke to Ryan Johnson, the city campus Production Manager, and asked him about the Hillsong sound and how to achieve it.

Ryan Johnson: “My approach to the mix comes from my studio experience: vocal is king. As a drummer I love drums to sound great but the vocals have to stand up on their own. You should be able to lose the entire band and still have an engaging vocal performance. Instead of forcing a vocal to fit inside a wall AT 36

of band sound I’ll get a vocal to be front and centre, in your face, but not harsh and then supplement that with the band mix.

“I’ve found that if you’re getting the vocal to sit up front and powerful, then you’re probably going to need to get some high/mid out its way. When a worship leader steps back from the mic but wants to say something, they’ve got to be heard. So if you’ve got gnarly electric guitar or keys or playback tracks — if that’s all fighting for the high/mid space — then the vocal disappears as soon as they stop projecting. By making the vocal the main focus, you instinctively get other things out of the way.

“The Hillsong sound needs a punchy kick and snare.

That’s the pop sensibility. If the kick was muddy and the snare was in the background, that’s not the sound. So it’s important to get those elements to sit in front of the speakers and the vocal to be on top…

but smooth. Nothing in our music is harsh; nothing is bitey. We smooth the edges. And if you make things non-abrasive then you can push the whole mix louder, and that’s what we want — big and powerful sound.

“Balancing backing vocals is an interesting exercise.

I’ll use some compression on the group bus. It just can’t be super fast compression. Think of compressing BVs like you would drum mics: you’re taking those individual mics and turning them into one cohesive sound again. So by subtly introducing gain reduction you’ve created this meld of voices. Sometimes group compression can be sabotaged by an exuberant vocal. It’s always a balance. And it’s important to EQ resonances out of the BVs and make space for the lead. Sometimes adding some air to the praise leader separates them from the BVs — a little sizzle makes the lead easier to hear; you just might need to dial up your de-esser a little more to compensate.”

3 x E119 Subs in Cardioid Config

10 x E12 Side Hang

6 x T21 Subs in End-Fire Mode

12 x E12 Main Hang

HANGING OUT WITH ADAMSON The Hills campus auditorium is cavernous and notoriously tricky in the low end.

The 45–52Hz area can lose definition and get away from you pretty quickly.

The Adamson E119s single-19 subs are flown in a position that ensures perfect coupling with both the main hang and the side hang. The theory goes that if you arrayed the E119s alongside the main hangs you would have perfect coupling to the front but once you move to side the path lengths change, and you won’t get proper coupling with the side hangs. By positioning the subs in a way that the distance between the subs and the two hangs is the same overcomes this issue.

One of the three E119s is rear facing to allow for a cardioid mode. In standard mode the E119s achieve around 8dB rearward damping, which isn’t bad for a frontloaded sub. Once cardioid mode is engaged there’s a 3dB gain in the front and a 3dB reduction at the back. Cardioid mode helps to keep the lows off the back wall; keeps the stage sonically clean, and tightens up the LF in the room.

The subs are also rotated outwards somewhat, which goes some way to ameliorating the impact of the ‘power alley’ phenomenon, where LF from the L/R sub arrays combines and builds up down the middle of the room. What’s more it means the subs are pointing through the gap between the two E12 hangs. David Dohrmann, Adamson’s Asia Pacific Technical Director was on hand to explain: “In theory you should be able to fire the subs straight at the back of the main hang, and with the wavelengths we’re talking about it’s like the E12s aren’t even there. But in the real world, by just blocking the air flow, it has an effect on the impact of the sub.”

Rounding out the system (and part of the original Y10 install) are six Adamson T21 subs (two hangs of three) in end fire mode. Not you’re everyday end-fire configuration, they use a proprietary Adamson preset that provides for more consistent real world damping across the audio bandwidth as opposed to great damping in one frequency range and not so much in others. The preset is called EF66, and consequently the sub arrays need to be precisely 66 inches apart. Hillsong’s Ricki Cook is a fan: “It’s the best rear cancelling I’ve ever heard. The bottom end isn’t our friend in this building — it absorbs it then throws it around. Running in this endfire mode, it’s the tightest we’ll get the low end.”

MEET THE ADAMSON E SERIES The Adamson E Series is made up of two full-range cabs: the E12 and the E15. The 12s and the 15s share the same co-linear mid/high section (based on a seven-inch kevlar cone and a four-inch compression driver) and the same crossover frequency. The E12 has a wider and higher (110° x 8°) dispersion compared to the longer-throw (90° x 6°) E15. The E15 is suited to large-scale applications, while Adamson recommends the E12 for use up to a throw of around 80m. With a maximum throw distance of some 50m, the Hillsong system uses a 12-box main hang of E12s.

Adamson manufactures much of its transducers, and the 19-inch driver of the E119 and E219 subs represents the company’s push to improve performance and reduce the size of the driver and weight… and also not worry too much about whether it’s a traditional 18 or a 21-inch driver. In this case Adamson was reassessing the Y Series’ monster sub, the T21. David Dohrmann: “The driver design provides the same output as the T21, but less moving mass, so it’s more responsive.”

The E219 is designed with a high impedance so you can run two in parallel, something you couldn’t do with the legacy T21 — mainly because there wasn’t an amp at the time of its release (2005) that could deliver that kind of performance in a 4Ω load.

Nowadays, a single Lab.Gruppen PLM20K44 can run three E219 cabs, resulting in cost savings. Adamson now exclusively recommends Lab.Gruppen amps. Apart from the performance advantages, Adamson likes having the amps and processing in the one place — meaning there’s nothing between the amp and the transducer, and less to go wrong as a result.

After the E219 came the release of the E119, single 19-inch sub. 8th Day Sound in the US gave the commercial impetus for the product development. The rental company is probably Adamson’s single biggest client, and requested a more portable sub to help get more out of its sea container truck pack. In just about every respect the E119 is half an E219 but it’s more flexible and more easily configurable.

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Hillsong tech team invited a selection of players to temporarily fly a rig in the Waterloo campus, for a week or so at a time, whereupon all the key operators got a chance to mix a service. Scorecards were handed out among the tech team, the musicians and the leadership.

According to Hillsong’s Steve Le Roux and Ricki Cook, the Adamson was a clear winner, as it was when the Y10 was selected.

Next came a global deal. Adamson’s Australian distributor, CMI, kicked off a discussion and Hillsong soon saw the wisdom. The deal allows the church to standardise its technology, which makes the rollout of new campuses just that little bit easier — not only to design and install but in the training of operators. Part of the deal included upgrading the Hills campus to the newer E12 (the Y10 was about to be superceded when it was installed five years ago), leveraging the latest in Adamson’s driver and waveguide advancements.

The new system is based on two main hangs of 12 x E12 with side hangs of 10 x E12. Spaced dead centre between the main and side hangs are three E119 subs in a cardioid configuration (the middle box is facing backwards). There are a further six T21 subs flown in the centre (in end-fired cardioid configuration) for further LF reinforcement [more on how the system is configured on the previous page].

You’ve got to ask yourself, if Adamson won these shootouts so decisively, what does that mean?

Does it mean we can all agree that, at least for now, Adamson has the best performing top-shelf line source systems on the market? And that other vendors are all playing catchup?

Here’s the case for Adamson: Adamson is undoubtedly a premium PA supplier but certainly not the most high profile, so we can rule out the ‘starstruck fanboy’ phenomenon that can sometimes plague a shootout. Secondly, the

If you’re a hot shot sound guy and your expectation is you’re going to instantly mix FOH in church on a Sunday; if that’s your attitude, you’re probably never going to get there

Hillsong tech team is all highly qualified and personally have a lot invested in getting the process right.

The case for the other vendors: Adamson has a ‘home ground advantage’, having dealt with the church for years. The Hillsong staff loved the voicing of the incumbent Y10, and would naturally gravitate to another (albeit more modern) Adamson system.

Whichever way you cut it, Adamson will have churches with high aspirations beating a path to its door. Hillsong is that influential.

PEOPLE POWER

After my trip to Hillsong, I’m ashamed to say I felt envious. Not envious in a ‘hey, good for you’ way but in an ugly ‘you have so much and I have so little’ way. And I expect many of you may feel the same.

ADAMSON S10: THE CAB THAT COULD The S10 is a more recent addition to the Adamson lineup and a response to the market for: something smaller (it’s a two-way), more flexible and more cost effective, that could happily be driven from a minimal number of amp channels (as many as eight cabinets per amp), but still be a true line source.

Like the E12, the S10 provides a 110° horizontal coverage and has the same sonic signature as the E12 above 2kHz (with its four-inch titanium compression driver).

The S10 doesn’t have the nifty colinear drive module of the E12 but has the same waveguide (to ensure phase alignment of the mids and highs).

Unconventionally, the 10-inch drivers splay outwards to provide the symmetrical horizontal dispersion.

Prior to the Hills campus shootout, Hillsong pulled the trigger on a number of S10 purchases for its Sydney City campuses in Alexandria and Waterloo (pictured), as well as its Brisbane campus.

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The E12 rig is immense. It’s beyond amazing.

And there I was, enjoying a familiar Steely Dan playlist of Roger Nichols, OCD-inspired studio perfection through some of the best PA in the world, admiring the Hillsong tech staff ’s collegiality and commitment, when a nagging tick in my brain kept compelling me to look down at the old Y10 rig stacked up on dollies on the floor. ‘It’s such a good rig… Why do you need to upgrade the rolled gold system to the diamond-encrusted platinum option?

The old system… let me have your old system…’

Envy isn’t the classiest emotion going around.

This is Australia, and Hillsong, having to endure its bi-annual tabloid takedown, understands the tall poppy syndrome better than most.

“The church runs off people’s giving,” reflects Steve Le Roux. “So I always bear that in mind: am I doing justice to the little old lady who’s putting her gold coins into the offering plate?”

It feels incongruous to plead the case for ‘every dollar is sacred’ when you’re chatting in a loading dock stacked with dozens of crates of fine pixelpitch LED panel from China. But, as we heard from Steve, that’s not to say Hillsong has always had the best of everything or that its stewardship of people’s dough isn’t anything but exemplary. It’s just hard to get your head around.

It’d be naive to think that Hillsong is beyond reproach. It’s not. From the top down, it’s composed of a bunch of humans and one thing we know about humans is that we’re all flawed.

It’s just that this organisation — from the point of view of training, mentoring and supporting audio people, and the way equipment is selected and procured — is the least flawed I’ve seen.

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TUTORIAL

Producer Pip Norman breaks down the ultimate Chillwave vocal sound.

Story: Preshan John

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Long, saturated hall reverb is all over this kind of music… everything sounds a bit opiated and moody

I unearthed a handful of synonyms to help me get a handle on the ambiguous Chillwave genre to which Troye Sivan has become attached.

‘Glo-fi’, absolutely no help. ‘Downtempo pop’ was probably the most clearcut, yet broadest explanation. Another was ‘hypnagogic pop’, as in that narcoleptic drowsiness that hits you just before you drift off to sleep. Maybe we can lose the labels and focus on the music then, because his song Fools certainly doesn’t put me to sleep.

It’s been a ‘sky’s the limit’ success story for 21-year-old Troye. He has more than four million YouTube subscribers, his album Blue Neighbourhood peaked at #6 on the Australian charts, and he’s sold over 150,000 copies in the US. It doesn’t stop with music, Sivan’s got acting chops too — he played James Howlett in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and in 2009 played a major role in the South African movie Spud, alongside John Cleese.

The young Perth-ite’s music is a melting pot of R&B, electronica, trip hop, psychedelic pop, and

who knows what else. Sure, Fools starts with a simple vocal and piano verse, but by the chorus the song morphs into energetic snare snaps and synths breathing heavily with cutoff modulation.

Producer Pip Norman not only co-wrote the song Fools from the Blue Neighbourhood album, but engineered and produced it as well.

AT caught up with Pip at his cosy songwriting and recording space, Meliodora, in Northcote, Melbourne. It’s full of keyboards aged to perfection, including a Fender Rhodes, Korg MS20, a couple of Roland Junos, ARP Axe, Hillwood Blue Comets 73 synth and an upright piano miked with a couple of Rode NT5s. His collection of mics includes RCA DX77 and B&O vintage ribbons, Neumann M149 tube mic and a Shure SM7 dynamic, which is the perfect ‘just get it down’ mic. He’s also got a collection of guitars and a floor tom, left behind by an artist, that he sampled to turn into a kick drum for a Jarryd James track.

Norman works on Logic, but feeds it via some

BAE 1073s, a UA 610 preamp, Focusrite ISA440 and an old RCA BA43 re-racked by Rob Squire at Proharmonic . He also has a tasty collection of outboard for tracking inspiration, including a Urei 1176, and Roland Space Echo. Norman fired up the session for Fools and talked us through his workflow for producing the song’s vocal tracks including a pre-mix to set the tone for the song and convince the A&R department. The vocals are laid back, yet full and present. They’re not just the hook of the song, but the core ingredient of the Chillwave sound.

ONE’S ENOUGH

Pip Norman: Troye laid down a single vocal for the whole first verse at the home studio of one of the cowriters. We tracked the vocals there and then, and that’s the vocal that ended up being on the track.

The chorus is also a single vocal — that’s all it needed to be. I grabbed it and pitched it down for the words ‘only fools.’

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GROUP MENTALITY

PN: In the end we did some group vocals as BVs. I remember all of us standing around the mic doing take after take to get a bit of a group vibe, and I think I ended up processing it and chopping it up.

Because they were done in a demo day, I’ve gone in and edited it quite heavily — we weren’t there labouring over vocal performances. I also chopped it up to make those BVs feel more precise and robotic.

The BVs add to the haunting feeling in the pre-chorus. We got Troye to punctuate parts of the words, so he’s not even following the lyrics word for word — he’s listing all those facts to punctuate the imagery in the pre-chorus. There’s a lower part that’s doubled left and right, and a higher part.

EFFECTING THE LEAD

PN: On the vocal track I’ve got an EQ, a de-esser, and a compressor. I like to use the CLA Vocals plug-in, especially in a co-write situation where you need to dial up a sound real quick. I’ve just slapped AT 42

that on and run with it because it sounded good. I also used SoundToys’ Decapitator just to give it a bit of saturation and modern mood.

In the chorus I’m also using the SoundToys MicroShift plug-in. That’s where I’ve taken the reverb off, so it dries up in the chorus. The single vocal comes in a bit wider, but then the delay is still carrying it. I’ve dialled in a preset and messed with it a little bit, but that helps the chorus open up with a wider vocal. There’s a bit of stereo work going on with the CLA Vocals plug-in as well.

Long, saturated hall reverb is all over this kind of music these days. I was actually pretty conservative here, I’ve only used a pretty short version of it.

Usually it’s cavernous and eternal. It just sets the vocals inside, and it drifts; everything sounds a little bit opiated and moody.

Then there’s a quarter note delay that’s a bit filtered out. It carries and creates that momentum and drifting character. It’s a modern sound; that kind of treatment puts it into the world of modern music. It does the job.

BACK TO BVS

PN: The BVs are going to their own summed bus with delay, reverb and compression. They’ve got their own effects on their summed group, whereas the main vocal has effects sent in an auxiliary. I’m using Valhalla VintageVerb for the reverb, which is always amazing, then the Waves H-Delay. It’s really simple, but that was what I used to try and sell the song and frame the vocals in the right way.

I’ve taken off all the effects before it was exported for mix, but they set the scene and the tone for where the track was headed.

I really rate the Valhalla series. I’ve dialled in the ’70s version which is a bit more saturated and has a little more rolloff on the top. I’m not sure how much I’ve manipulated this from a preset, but I probably would have brought up a preset in the early stages — being a co-write, you just throw it up really quickly. www.pipnorman.com

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REGULARS

Apple Notes Garageband has become a default demo machine, but have you overlooked Mainstage as a budget compositional tool?

Column: Brad Watts

Back in the dark ages of synthesis, many a musician longed for the ability to layer the sound from one synth, with the sound of another.

Imagine the phantasmagorical pad from your Yamaha CS80 combined with a cutting stab patch on your Korg MS20, or, if I’m being honest, a string patch combined with a piano! This was the stuff of dreams. Then 1982 brought with it the saviour of synth performance in the guise of MIDI. Suddenly ivory tinkling musicians could layer over a dozen keyboards and synthesisers to build super hybrid multi-convoluting soundscapes. The late 1980s, and a large section of the early ’90s, were the halcyon days of all-and-sundry synthesis. MIDI sequencing, computer-based patch editors, and an arms-race for as many synths you could run with a domestic electricity account was the order of the day.

Then, from the mid-1990s, the lines became somewhat blurred. Computer-based MIDI sequencers began to sequence audio recordings and the DAW was born. Alongside this boon came synthesisers existing completely within software — one of the first being Rebirth from Propellerhead, which gave you a pair of Roland TB303s and a TR-606 drum machine in an app. This was a tell-tale glimpse of a technology champing at the bit to disrupt. One that would go on to enable banks of instruments to be called upon at a moment’s notice, on ever faster computers.

Let’s step back a bit. Initially software instruments, or ‘soft-synths’ as they’re known, were marketed and dispersed on a per-instrument basis — a Jupiter 8 here, a Rhodes piano there. It then became apparent musicians were asking for ways to layer and combine their soft-synths more easily, ironically akin to those aspirations predating MIDI. Sure, you could jimmy up a system within your DAW, but then saving and retrieving such patches wasn’t exactly a bulletproof scenario.

Toward the late naughties, software instrument manufacturers began to combine entire suites of instruments into get-it-while-it’s-hot packages.

With an overarching control panel that accessed half a dozen instruments, musicians could recall complex patches comprising multi-instrument

AT 44

effects. However, these instrument suite control panels most typically lassoed only the manufacturer’s instruments (Arturia and Native Instruments’ offerings spring immediately to mind). What if, just what if you could combine instruments and effects from any instrument vendor? Enter Apple’s Mainstage.

Mainstage takes up the chase where other manufacturers remain tied to their own instrument stable. Mainstage accepts Apple’s Audio Unit plugin protocol, opening a floodgate of possibilities.

However, because Mainstage is built upon Logic Pro X technology, it includes the raft of instrument and effects plug-ins found in Logic Pro. That’s a whole lot of synthesis, beats, Apple Loops and samples, along with more traditional instruments and effects for a trifling $47. Let’s count them: 80 instrument and effects plug-ins, 750 sampled instruments, 1800 patches, and 4600 Apple Loops.

The full download will take up 45GB of drive space.

You may quickly surmise Mainstage is aimed toward live performance. The concept is that Mainstage can replace a station-wagon’s worth of hardware instruments and effects with a MacBook and controller keyboard. Add your favourite audio interface and you could catch a bus to the next show. This is the logistic attraction with Mainstage — a small processing, and physical, footprint. But one of Mainstage’s less heralded functions is as a brilliant writing and pre-production tool.

As I’ve mentioned, Mainstage allows you to layer instruments alongside each other for complex soundscapes. Layer those instruments and effects up until your processor gives in — but because the software isn’t attending to all the editing and sequencing duties in Logic Pro X, there’s a metric tonne of processing left for virtual synthesis and sampling. So, sit about designing some supernever-been-heard sounds. Maybe with a couple of friends also running Mainstage. One is using only the guitar and amplifier effects in Mainstage, the other is using Mainstage for vocal effects. You’ve used two Logic Pro X instruments and an AU instrument. How do you amalgamate that with a Logic Pro X project?

Here’s the good part. The three of you have come up with a brilliant soundscape — it’s all fitting together quite nicely thanks. Now you need to flip to a recording situation where this theme can be solidified. But you need to attain these same sounds in a recording environment. Just one of the brilliant aspects of Mainstage is its ability to save a patch that can be imported into Logic Pro. It makes sense really — you’re using the same plug-ins and effects from Logic anyway. This way, everyone can have a cheap way of creating sounds and composing parts, but only one copy of the more expensive Logic Pro is required for tracking.

The easiest method when running both Logic Pro and Mainstage on the same computer is this; simply drag the patch from the Patch List in Edit mode of Mainstage, over to the Track column in Logic Pro. Boom. The same patch with all it’s instruments and effects, mixer settings and sends are recreated in Logic.

However, it can be slightly trickier if you’re moving patches between computers. The easy way is this; the Command-E key command will save your new sound conglomeration as a .patch file.

Save this, to your Desktop and then move it to the computer running Logic Pro (ethernet, USB memory stick, whatever), Once there, all you need to do is drag the .patch file into the track column in Logic. Sheer and utter brilliance!

Obviously there’s a lot more to Mainstage, such as file playback, an easy to read Performance screen mode, and the ability to assign MIDI controllers to just about anything anywhere; drums, drum machines, arpeggiators, the list is more than this page allows. But, as a jamming and compositional tool, it really can’t be beaten. Especially when it’s less than 50 bucks. Get patching!

AT 45

REVIEW

ASTON HALO Reflection Filter More than just a reflection of previous designs, Aston’s bold purple Halo adds a whole new angle to the reflection filter concept.

NEED TO KNOW

Review: Preshan John

PRICE Expect to pay $499 CONTACT Link Audio: (03) 8373 4817 or info@linkaudio.com.au

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PROS Good isolation & absorption Horizontal & vertical coverage Lightweight Effective, durable hardware

CONS None

SUMMARY Like the quirkiness of the Origin with its paint-less finish and head-bangable structure, Aston’s first reflection filter doesn’t pay heed to the norms. Halo’s unconventional size, super-absorptive yet lightweight material, and 3D-curved shape make it a superior solution when working with less-than-superior acoustics.

Isolation-wise, the Halo lives up to the hype — the focus is more on the source

Though some regard them as specialty items, it’s pretty obvious what one should expect from a good reflection filter. Recording in a room with irksome acoustics? The hope is that popping up one of these contraptions will help isolate the mic from the unpleasant side effects of early reflections to give you a cleaner, more direct recording.

Typically these reflection filter products are marketed as ‘portable vocal booths.’ Unfortunately in practice, they’re not quite the miracle-workers the phrase suggests. Nevertheless, a good reflection filter can certainly help you get a tighter-sounding track when trying to salvage a less-than-favourable recording situation. The market has been all but dominated by sE Electronics’ Reflexion Filter, but Aston promises superior performance in nearly every regard with its purple newcomer. Time to find out.

‘sinking heart’ moment was short lived. Inside I uncovered a sizeable tortoise shell dome made of PET felt. The felt is created from 70% recycled materials, so while being easy on the scales, it ticks the ‘environmentally friendly’ box too. A number of horizontal ridges aid in diffusion and increase the surface area. The sE Reflexion Filter is comparatively clunky and a fair bit heavier.

Bolting the Halo onto a mic stand is a piece of cake as it threads on directly, unlike others which fasten to the stand’s arm. And because it doesn’t weigh a ton, you can reserve your chunkiest K&Ms for other duties. The steel hardware feels durable and you get a lateral adjustment point to balance the whole rig once your mic and shockmount are in place. A slick metal badge displays the Aston logo on the front.

YOUNG BLOOD

James Young and the Aston team are a driven bunch. It wasn’t long ago that the brand made itself known through its debut mic, Origin, and quickly gained traction with solid reviews all round, AT included (see Issue 115).

Young reckons the Halo is Aston’s next big thing — and his claim doesn’t come lightly. Prior to founding Aston Microphones, Young used to be the Global Sales and Marketing Director at sE Electronics and played a major role in the concept, design and production of the company’s signature Reflexion Filter product.

So while Aston is new to the reflection filter market, it’s not new to the game. There’s plenty of in-house knowledge, and that comes across the moment you screw down the Halo to a mic stand.

Most reflection filters are similar in design — basically a panel that curves horizontally, or a series of angled flat panels to attain a similar shape.

Auralex strayed slightly from this approach with the MudGuard V2, which sports a dual-convex curved structure to deflect sound waves out of the filter. But apart from the box-shaped filters, most tend to curve on a single, two-dimensional axis.

In contrast, the Halo’s rounded, threedimensional surface ‘cups’ the mic to absorb sound from multiple axes — not just left and right. The concept makes sense in theory.

Stick your face in the purple dome and it’s like someone pulls the world’s ambient noise fader down.

You get the same effect with other reflection filter products, but to a lesser extent; proving the Halo’s lightweight PET felt is impressively absorptive.

SIZING UP

PURPLE PHASE

First impression of the Halo? It’s big; 40% bigger than its main competitor, according to Aston. Its size is pitched as one of the primary keys to success — more surface area means more absorption. It also means it’ll take up at a whole car seat on the way to your mate’s place.

The Halo is also surprisingly light. When it was delivered to the office, the size of the box made me involuntarily put way too much effort into picking it up — like when someone offers you an iMac box for your birthday with nothing but styrofoam and a pair of socks inside. The

While trying out the Halo I also doubled up every recording with the sE Space Reflexion Filter, then without any filter at all. Wooden floors and plenty of windows made my living room an ideal space to put the Halo to work. It didn’t take long to start noticing differences, especially on vocal tracks.

Because the Halo is an efficient absorber, it noticeably impacts the tone of the mic. The drop in high frequencies is immediately apparent — there’s less of that slicing sibilance that tends to hang around and self-emphasise in a reverberant room.

The effect is much like you’d expect recording

UNIQUE BY DESIGN

in a ‘proper’ vocal booth where the highs are typically diminished. In turn, it lends vocals a more intimate, closer and fuller tone. Up against the sE, the difference in tone was actually more dramatic than the difference in reflected content. The same went for instruments too. Less sizzle on a shaker, less sheen on acoustic guitar.

Isolation-wise, the Halo lives up to the hype. You simply don’t notice room reflections as much — the focus is more on the source. Recordings made with the Halo just seemed closer — like they jump out of the speakers a little more. Take that with a grain of salt, though. If your singer is blaring into the mic, chances are you’ll still hear plenty of the room.

Differences between the two filters were most obvious when comparing vocal recordings that were made at a conversational volume.

Which brings up something worth mentioning — the ratio of direct-to-reflected sound has a big effect on the perceived effectiveness of a reflection filter. That means that, depending on the size and reflectivity of the space, the isolating effect of any reflection filter is less apparent as the source level increases. A loud singer will excite a room far more than a quiet one, so you’ll inevitably end up with more reverberant reflections in your recording.

Conversely, the SPL emitted by a quiet singer probably won’t have enough energy to bounce right around the room and back in the mic, so the recording will be deader. The more level I pumped into the mic, the harder it was to distinguish between the Halo and Reflexion Filter tracks.

PAY THE PRICE

Based on what I heard, the Aston Halo is a better reflection filter than the sE. If you already have a tight-sounding, acoustically-treated recording space, you might find Halo’s effect less pronounced. However, if your vocal booth is a square-ish plasterboard bedroom, or you do lots of out-and-about sessions with uncontrollable acoustic environments, Halo will almost definitely improve your recorded sound. If you’re in need of its cure, the Halo is worth every penny.

AT 47

REVIEW

Propellerhead Reason 9 PRICE US$399 Reason V9 full version US$129 upgrade

Review: Christopher & Robert Holder

CONTACT Propellerhead: www.propellerhead.se

The Reason 8 update was a little underwhelming — of that, I think we can all agree. In fact, as a Reason user, you may have even approached the release of V9 with a certain level of resignation. You may have not bothered to upgrade at all!

Be encouraged, the Propellerhead team has delivered something special. Reason 9 has plenty of juicy goodness to chew on. We’ve had it running for a couple of months now and have yet to explore it fully… but it’s been an enjoyable journey.

SOUNDS AHOY

Reason 9’s motto could well be: ‘come for the new sounds, stay for the Players’.

Allow us to explain: The most obvious V9 drawcard are the 1000+ new sounds. They’re excellent, and… they couldn’t have arrived soon enough.

The sounds in Reason had definitely grown tired. Few of us are adept enough as sound designers to spark up a blank Thor patch and generate a bunch of killer leads before breakfast.

AT 48

Presets get us in the ballpark. The range of Reason sounds has always been broad but they were sounding stale; the Reason drum sounds were getting particularly old hat.

The Reason 9 sound set is like a fresh breath of Nordic air. The new sounds are everything a contemporary producer needs — big, expansive, and modern.

Head into the Showcase Folder and you’ll be instantly impressed by the headlining drum patch: a gorgeously playable vintage acoustic kit perfect for break beats — instantly inspirational.

Inspiration comes calling again and again, with many sounds leading you down some very interesting creative rabbit holes.

Many of the new patches were developed by well-known third-party sound designers as Combinator patches (Propellerhead-speak for when a synth is packaged with attendant Rack Extension effects and processing into a Combinator wrapper), which means all the patch’s effects, EQ and reverb are included; ready to throw into that slot in your mix more quickly

NEED TO KNOW

Version 9 kicks Reason into the present with contemporary sounds and creative Players.

than before. The sounds have a contemporary EDM bent. For example, there is a whole folder replete with plucks and mallet percussion for dance music producers — just one demonstration of Propellerhead doing its darnedest to attract the current crop of producers (a cohort largely loyal to Ableton and FL Studio).

PLAYERS GONNA PLAY

As mentioned, ‘come for the sounds, but stay for the Players’. Player is a new moniker for Reason’s suite of MIDI-based creative note generators.

Reason is famous for providing creative inspiration for musicians/producers and these new Players really expand Reason’s palette considerably in this regard. On offer are the Dual Arpeggio, the Note Echo, and the Scales and Chords modules. What do they do? The clue is in the names but they do deserve some further explanation.

The Dual Arpeggio plays two standard arpeggios at once, but it can also act as a small, four-bar looping note sequencer that cleverly maps the notes held on the keyboard to each

AT 49

individual note lane in the arpeggiator. The presets demonstrate the possibilities: complex rhythms that would be hard to arrive at conventionally, making this module a welcome addition, especially for those writing EDM of a heavily rhythmic style (complextro, dubstep etc.).

The Note Echo harks back to the old-school, processor-poor days of creating delays in your sequencer — ie. via MIDI rather than using the scarce resources of a hardware delay or valuable DSP/processor resources. As you’d expect Note Echo provides considerably more sophistication.

The MIDI echo can either share the same pitch or procedurally move up and down in a certain number of semitones until the end of the echo.

Alternatively, set the delay time to zero, use the transposer and select a couple of repeat steps to create ’90s-flavoured parallel chords.

Scales and Chords helps you serve up instant, massive keyboard-spanning leads or allows you to cheat with key signature-specific note correction. Go from Chopsticks to Rick Wakeman without trying.

Oh, and this being Reason where anything patches anywhere, you can combine Players — feed Note Echo through Scales & Chords to create an arpeggio of chords in exotic scales.

BOUNCE IN STEP

Apart from the Players there are a smattering of other good-value additions. Bounce in Place would be at the top of our list. Ableton Live users will wonder what the fuss is about but being able

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to render MIDI performances as audio opens up a whole world of new possibilities. The ability to glitch-up a bass line without resorting to a clunky beat repeater or needing to export then reimport the audio… it all adds to the streamlining of the creative workflow, particularly for a bunch of contemporary genres. It also signals Propellerhead’s willingness to look beyond the rack — and given the rack is core to Reason’s DNA, it’s a courageous move, but necessary to stay relevant.

There’s a Melodyne-style Pitch Edit mode for single line audio clips (seems a bit allergic to distorted basslines; stick to vocals and the like!).

Reason won’t be dethroning Pro Tools as the first-choice DAW for critical vocal comping and recording any time soon but Pitch Edit certainly means Reason users have another classy vocal recording and manipulation tool.

You’ll also find new features such as Audio to MIDI, and Themes to reskin your GUI. Worth noting, Pulsar Dual LFO is now packaged with Reason, and worth diving into, even as another mono synth option.

RACK-TASTIC & MORE

Reason began life as a closed system without audio recording. It meant any project could be emailed over a dialup modem to any other Reason user and it would play exactly as it was produced. A thing of beauty. With the likes of the powerhouse synth, Thor, on board and the SSL-inspired mixer section, Reason’s sonic credentials were never in question.

All this was prior to Ableton’s rise to ascendence.

Some old-school true believers would probably happily go back to the days of the closed system, but for the rest of us, like Amish kids watching TV for the first time, the delights of the world beyond — with its constellation of VSTs and physicallymodelled lushness — is very hard to resist.

Many have their cake and eat it: using Reason for its creativity and sound but use another DAW for the recording and sequencing. Fair enough. But if you’re anything like us, you love Reason and want it to be your one-stop song creation world. So it pains you to hear sounds from other productions and production methods that are not available to you or difficult to reproduce in Reason, your DAW of choice.

Yes, let’s keep Reason self-contained and selfsufficient — a do-everything tool of high-end music production. Still, I like Propellerhead’s willingness with V9 to recognise that it needs to work hard to stay relevant and sound contemporary.

Reason will always be the quirky, hyperpatchable, endlessly loveable, rack-tastic Swedish powerhouse, and thank goodness for that, but with V9 we’ve now got the sounds, the editing tools and the creative inspiration to keep up with the Live and FL drones. Let’s hope V10 comes out with a Live Mode with a raft of live performance features.

Then we might be able to wipe the self-satisfied smirk from the Ableton users!

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REVIEW

IZOTOPE OZONE 7 ADVANCED Mastering Software

Can iZotope’s all-in-one mastering software survive in this age of boutique software solutions and artisan plug-ins? Will takes a break from Game of Thrones binge-watching and journeys to the epicentre of software mastering.

NEED TO KNOW

Review: William Bowden

PRICE Ozone 7: $299 Ozone 7 Advanced: $599 CONTACT Electric Factory: (03) 9474 1000 or sales@elfa.com.au

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PROS Stable, relatively lightweight performer Vintage additions actually useful Type IV algorithm a worthy modern next step Six-band Dynamic EQ is very creative

CONS None

SUMMARY While Ozone 6 had all the looks, Ozone 7 adds a host of new features. An entire ‘Vintage’ set of tools may look like click bait, but actually sound inspired. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the expanded Dynamic EQ and Type IV Maximizer algorithm keep up with modern requirements. Ozone 7 has even more of everything in one package. Great value.

Just over a year ago I wrote a review of Ozone 6 Advanced. I found it to be a proud successor in the fairly lengthy lineage of iZotope’s ‘all in one’ mastering packages. In Game of Thrones terminology it would be called something like ‘House Ozone’s sixth heir’.

At the time of that writeup, whilst I thought it was better than the previous Ozone 5 in many respects, there were causes for concern — for example, the missing reverb algorithm. I felt as though an old friend had been beheaded.

In the intervening period of time — despite having had access to both versions of the program — have a guess how many times I have ‘gone back’ and used Ozone 5 on a job?

None. The fifth heir lies dead on the floor.

It’s history.

It shows two things: Firstly, I guess I don’t use much reverb in mastering, but also, I began to appreciate many qualities of the new version — namely, the flexible workflow, the dynamic EQ, the newer IRC Type III limiting, but mainly the sound.

Since I started reviewing Ozone 7 Advanced, guess how many times I’ve used it’s previous, less advanced forebear? Well… a couple, but only for comparisons with the newer release. Seriously, it’s that good.

Ozone 6 covered a number of bases, Ozone 7 covers far more. While a large portion of the last update addressed Ozone’s visual style. iZotope has kept the same look for version seven, concentrating on packing in more new features than any prior update.

I might be getting ahead of myself, but you could say it’s straining at the bonds of being just a mastering package. It has aspirations to break out into the recording and mixing part of the chain as well, and it might possibly have the charm and skills to do it.

NEW/OLD BITS

I’m not one to automatically assume newer is better, and apparently neither is iZotope, which has gone into a veritable vintage frenzy with this

release. The latest goodies include a Vintage EQ, Vintage Limiter, Vintage Tape emulation, and Vintage Compressor.

There are plenty of modern inclusions as well: a Type IV IRC maximiser algorithm, which boasts frequency specific limiting — no doubt an attempt to tackle competing products such as DMG Audio’s Limitless, a realtime audio Codec Preview, an improved Dynamic EQ, more export options than ever before, and all 10 modules can work as standalone plug-ins.

Finally, iZotope’s excellent music visualiser and metering powerhouse, Insight, is also included as in Ozone 6. We’ve covered that before, so won’t delve in now, but if bought standalone it’s worth the same as Ozone 7 Advanced. It’s a very welcome ‘freebie’.

MASTER OF ALL TRADES

With all these extra features, and wads of conspicuously vintage-y stuff, is Ozone still purely a ‘mastering package’?

The answer is a mixture of yes and no, and reflects much of the user’s own approach to sound.

It appears iZotope is hoping to cover a much wider user base than ever before, and wisely so, because mixing and recording engineers — let alone bedroom musicians — outnumber mastering engineers by about a thousand to one, at least.

From my experience though, almost everything included in the new Ozone can be used in mastering. For example, the Vintage Compressor is fantastic, I successfully gave some glue and patina to a reggae recording that was thin and anaemic, got more level than I would have thought possible, and even introduced a slightly saturated element that helped the smoothness and feel of the groove far more than a modern sounding emulation ever would.

Similarly the Vintage EQ is very useable. It’s yet another version of someone’s version of someone else’s version of a Pultec. No matter that it’s a bastard (iZotope could have dubbed it Snow for a bit more character), because it’s great! You really

With all these extra features, and wads of conspicuously vintage-y stuff, is Ozone still purely a ‘mastering package’?

can get that bright presence and impossibly sturdy bass you hear on hip hop records. Used in MS mode, I found small amounts went very far. It also sounds completely different to the far more elegant, refined, and downright surgical standard EQ in Ozone.

Then there’s the Dynamic EQ — the beastly Direwolf of this tale — that can save your life with ease. The previous version had (in Ozone speak) four ‘nodes’, which are ‘bands’ in my native tongue. The new one increases this number to six. Considering most of us in mastering would not likely use that many bands at any one time it might seem like overkill. However, I think it’s great to be able to expand (or compress) your options considerably.

It’s also a good example of Ozone presenting as more than ‘just’ a mastering program. Even messing around expanding and compressing six different frequency ranges of a simple drum loop can yield a great time and awesome outcomes! Old vocal samples take on a new character when you deliberately ride the noise (or bass or formants) in different ranges along with the speech. It’s a whole new sound I hadn’t heard before and maybe a whole sub-genre waiting to poke its new-born head out.

AT 53

TRACK TO TAPE

TYPE CAST

At this point it’s worth mentioning the Vintage Tape module. It’s apparently based on a Studer A810 machine, which many thought had a lot less appeal than it’s forefather, the A80, for mixing. In archiving and mastering studios it had many fans.

At Festival Records where I used to work we had only the classic Ampex and MCI options, so I can’t really comment.

I find tape emulation has essentially the same odds as real tape back in the day. The chances of it working well over a whole stereo master are less than 20 per cent in my experience, and that’s being kind. It depends on the music, the dynamic range, the tape speed, the tape machine, the operating level, the headroom, whether the client is bearded or not, and what decade you’re born in. On a hard rock band where cool breakup and smashing are required it can work wonders.

However, the chances of the tape approach working well on individual tracks is extremely high. It proved to be case with this emulation.

In terms of the sound, it goes deep (especially at 15ips), has quite an attractive distortion/saturation curve (though it can get nasty) and does the 30ips tightening and brightening very well indeed (while retaining good kick clarity and punch). There are also many different tones you can get out of this one unit alone; the input drive, harmonics fader, the bias, and high and low emphasis sliders mean it has plenty of variation in terms of flavours. I spent many happy hours sending my fretless bass through this unit and at times it reminded me of my hardware Culture Vulture, though without the crazy extremes.

Rounding off the Vintage section is a Vintage Limiter. It looks like a rather slimmed down version of the main Maximiser and has far fewer options. It does have a real sound of its own. It was probably my least favourite of the vintage options as it tended to be a bit pumpy in use. It can easily get you presence, but if you’ve done all your harmonic work earlier on in the chain, it’s not the best bookend.

If all this seems a bit wild, and you prefer purity, there are plenty of cleaner variations as well. If we look at the modern, mastering side of Ozone, then the new kid on the block is the Type IV limiting algorithm in the maximiser section.

It’s multi-band, can get things loud, goes deep and is quite clean in the tops. That doesn’t mean it’s always the best option for a final limiter though.

Several times I went back to the Type III and was happier with the result, it was a bit rounder, warmer and more ‘old school’. Dare I say vintage, even?

I felt compelled to shoot out Ozone’s Type IV against DMG Audio’s Limitless. The results were interesting. In general I seemed to prefer Type IV. It always had a fuller warmer and frankly less ‘limited’ feel to it. However Limitless is quite a different beast. At times it felt a bit smaller, but it also does quite a good clipping simulation which worked on some material. I found the two of them worked well together in series. Maybe I’m crazy but I always preferred Ozone as the final one in the chain.

There are a lot of other features I haven’t covered.

The standalone version of Ozone is practically a DAW in its own right; you can load entire playlists up at the top, fade in, fade out, etc. Because I ran Ozone inside Sequoia on my PC, I didn’t bother with any of this. Another function some people get excited about is EQ Matching, in which you try to make your work sound like someone else’s.

I think it’s better and more rewarding to use your own ears but some will disagree. [For some other EQ matching uses, check out The Living End and Garbage stories in this issue – Ed].

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OZONE LAYERS

I’m running out of space so probably best to begin summing up. As you can tell I think this iteration of Ozone is great. It’s so much more flexible than the previous Ozone. It arrives in a marketplace saturated (no pun intended) with options, but has enough in a single package to either accompany others well, or do a lot on its own.

What Ozone 7 Advanced really got me thinking about was the direction iZotope is heading.

In order to maintain its relevance, apart from tweaking and updating what are already pretty good tools, it will likely continue to add more units into the Ozone mainframe.

Similarly to the Eurorack standard for modular synths, Ozone is a platform iZotope can keep adding new elements to that will go well beyond mastering — we could see things like MIDI sync, sequencing or gates, (another) reverb, delays, etc. Of course, you can already place third party plug-ins into the Ozone interface, but I expect the iZotope umbrella will continue to expand and offer its own.

Did I have any gripes? Funnily enough, not really. If I do want that reverb I can either go backwards down the timeline or just use something else entirely. Ozone 7 Advanced is a marvellously stable version — no freezing, no glitches and not too tough on CPU usage either.

In this ever toughening ‘value for money’ world, iZotope has given a much better account of themselves with this update. If history is anything to go by I hope to review the next version as well.

I know that some may think it cynical to try and entice young people with a whole slew of ‘vintage’ extras, but in this case regardless of your age or skill level these new modules expand your options in musically useful ways. They actually work in their own right. Highly recommended. Electric Factory is still beating US pricing on iZotope products, so make sure you buy locally to save yourself some dollars.

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