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Editor Mark Davie mark@audiotechnology.com.au Publisher Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Editorial Director Christopher Holder chris@audiotechnology.com.au Publication Director Stewart Woodhill stewart@alchemedia.com.au Art Direction & Design Dominic Carey dominic@alchemedia.com.au Additional Design Daniel Howard daniel@alchemedia.com.au Advertising Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Accounts Jaedd Asthana jaedd@alchemedia.com.au Subscriptions Miriam Mulcahy mim@alchemedia.com.au E: info@alchemedia.com.au W: www.audiotechnology.com.au
Regular Contributors Martin Walker Michael Stavrou Paul Tingen Graeme Hague Guy Harrison Greg Walker James Roche Greg Simmons Tom Flint Robin Gist Blair Joscelyne Mark Woods Andrew Bencina Jason Fernandez Brent Heber Distribution by: Network Distribution Company. AudioTechnology magazine (ISSN 1440-2432) is published by Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd (ABN 34 074 431 628). Contact (Advertising, Subscriptions) T: +61 2 9986 1188 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086, Australia. Contact (Editorial) T: +61 3 5331 4949 PO Box 295, Ballarat VIC 3353, Australia.
All material in this magazine is copyright Š 2013 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. 26/11/2013.
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ED SPACE Text: Mark Davie
Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year to you all. We’re taking a break to enjoy Christmas turkeys, hams and other meats, veg and festive drinks — we hope you are too. This is our sign off for the year. A little something to read over the break. But come February, we’re marking the 100th issue of our print edition with a bang, and a lot of that will hit this app too. So expect big stories, special guests, and huge competitions and giveaways. It’s going to be a post-Christmas cracker. And if you’re wondering what the deal is with the print edition. Best wishes, The AudioTechnology team
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The Sound Librarian Workshop Goes off with a Bang
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Mixing Masterclass: Janelle Monae Revives the Concept Album with Neal H Pogue
Rode NT1 Back In Black
Recording With Attitude Tony Buchen on the Art of Production
SAMPLR Get In Touch with your Sound
Waves’ J37 Models Abbey Road Down to the Formula AT 7
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Audio Interfaces & Control Surfaces
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YAMAHA LS9 DIGITAL MIXER
YAMAHA 01V96i
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GENERAL NEWS A RIBBON MIC WITH MUSCLE $1000 | www.ribbonmics.com
AEA has developed a ribbon microphone designed to bridge the gap between the clarity of quality condenser microphones and classic ribbon technology tone, plus you may no longer need to discreetly lock your ribbon mics away before certain people rock into your studio. The AEA N22 is the first of a planned Nuvo series of ribbon mics aimed at home and project studios with regard to pricing — RRP price is around the thousand dollar mark, which for a ribbon mic like this is comparatively inexpensive – and a more tolerant design. The pure aluminium ribbon is highly protected for use in close-miking applications even with high SPL sources such as electric guitars and drums. The N22’s electronics require phantom power making it compatible with a wider range of preamps including the kinds of Firewire and USB interfaces commonly used in home studios. The microphone promises less colour and a more faithful, accurate reproduction of the source without needing any EQ, yet still imparts a true ribbon tone. It certainly does sound like the AEA N22 offers the best of both worlds and it’ll be interesting to see what else the impending Nuvo series brings us. Mixmasters: (08) 8278 8506 or www.mixmasters.com.au
50 YEARS BETWEEN TWEAKS $2649 | www.rupertneve.com
Only from Rupert Neve… the Shelford Series 5052 Mic Pre/Inductor EQ and the 5051 Inductor EQ/Compressor are based on designs Rupert first dabbled with 50 years ago in his factory that was a converted rectory in – take a guess – Shelford, UK. These aren’t 500 series, but half-rack units designed to be vertically mounted in several new Rupert Neve Designs (RND) rack products. You’ll need one of a few options with regards to external power supplies – or you can drop these into a 5088 console. The Shelford 5052 echoes the 1073 with a mic pre, high-pass filter, and three-band inductor EQ, and incorporates modern features like the variable Silk/Texture control from the Portico II Series and simultaneous pre/post ‘tape’ operation. The 5051 Inductor EQ/ Compressor features the same high voltage line driver and EQ topologies as the 5052, plus a linkable VCA compressor similar to that found in the Portico II Master Buss Processor. Awave: (03) 9813 1833 or www.awave.com.au
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them that if he doesn’t come down, we are stopping the show.
Recently, San Franciscan rapper George Watsky took stage-diving to new heights – or new lows – when he jumped from a 10m-high lighting truss into the crowd injuring two fans. It was nothing short of a miracle Watsky didn’t kill himself or, more importantly, anyone else. We asked the question; if you were part of the production crew and in a position to stop Watsky’s foolish act, would you? Is it part of your responsibility? Here’s some comments.
Rexx Fernandez: Are there no occupational health and safety regulations in London to protect punters (and artists) from stupidity like this? Can of worms it is. Time for some production companies to add some new clauses in their contracts!
Bill Kelly: What an idiot. As an (occasional) Festival Stage Manager I would try and stop him, and then get his touring people to take responsibility. Then (with the benefit of thinking of this in the calmness of my house), I would tell AT 10
Ragnar Bezerker: It’s not up to me to stop someone from their own stupidity.
Andrew Burch: It is his tour manager’s place to stop him and maybe the rigging crew who left access to the ladder. IMHO Dave Boulden: Why was the rope ladder still in reach for him to use? But if he got up there, I’d prioritise moving the audience away and “let evolution do its work.” Andrew William Spence: What a tit.
Fronz Arp: Surely someone would be on the phone to a tour manager or venue manager shutting the show down. I’m all for a stage dive but that’s crazy. We posted a copy of Iggy Pop and the Stooges’ 2006 stage rider which made for… interesting reading. Perhaps it’s not as crazy as it looks? Ben Moore: I recorded the Stooges at the Hordern earlier this year. Received a similar spec sheet but they have edited this down. Very pleasant guys to work with...I’m glad I survived. Kenneth Brian Hay: When you meet Joss this document makes a lot of sense. Peter Scott: What were they on when they wrote it?
MAKE & DO
From US$254 | www.teenageengineering.com If you love modding; if you’re into Arduino; if your favourite board game is Mouse Trap, then we have the ‘thing-o’ for you. Oplab, produced by those crazy Swedes, Teenage Engineering, is a hub and nerve centre for making a racket. Oplab is based on a ‘musical experimental board’ that allows you to interconnect virtually any electronic musical instrument. There’s MIDI, CV, USB, LED I/O, switches etc. There are three sensors available, Tap TS-2 (a piezo mic for triggering sounds), Flip TS-3 accelerometer (control by shaking, throwing and impact), and Poke TS-4 (a pressure sensor — the harder the press the higher the value). What about TS-1? Well that’s a sand shoe… actually it’s called the Team Sneaker (US$127). Teenage Engineering teamed up with Spalwart Industries to create its own sneaker with rubber side pocket for electronics. (Apparently, Spalwart made the only sneaker available behind the iron curtain and is still made in Slovakia.) Use the sneaker (or at least the accelerometer in the shoe) as a kick drum pedal, for example. Yes, it’s all nuts, but that’s the point. Teenage Engineering: www.teenageengineering.com
True To Your Pitch Wi-Fidelity
Epic digital wireless technology, now amazingly affordable.
DAWING, NOT WAVING www.steinberg.net
Possibly the R&D department at Steinberg has been putting a little too much sugar in the coffee. After years of telling us that dedicated DAW controllers provide a vastly superior, tactile experience over just the humble mouse and keyboard, Steinberg has developed a system where you don’t have to touch anything at all. IC Air for Cubase (it only works with Cubase) recognises specific hand gestures which you can map to any parameter. These are ‘seen’ with either the Leap Motion device, which is a USB motion detector you place within reach, or a camera mounted on your video monitor. It’s a choice – you wouldn’t install both. First impressions are it’s a clever gimmick, but far from actually improving you DAW workflow. The gestures need to be specific and deliberate, and thus are a very slow interface compared to a hotkey or mouse click. The library of gestures is still limited – at least there’s no risk of inadvertently wiping your hard drive when you wipe your nose. IC Air is probably more of a nicely-resolved ‘proof of concept’ at the moment. There’s not a lot of precision in evidence. But smarter brains than ours will undoubtedly already be seeing applications.
Introducing the DWZ Series with affordable 2.4 GHz technology. You get solid-gold, 24-bit linear PCM digital audio to keep you sounding your best. You get robust transmission and easy channel selection. Even automatic feedback reduction, encryption and battery charging are available. And Sony has pre-assembled DWZ packages for presentation and speech, as well as musical instruments. Sony’s DWZ Series. Sound like a million bucks without spending it. pro.sony.com.au/audio
Yamaha Music Australia: (03) 9693 5111 or www.yamahamusic.com.au AT 11
SOFTWARE NEWS NI SHARPEN RAZOR
US$49.50 | www.native-instruments.com Native Instruments has upgraded its Razor additive synthesizer to version 1.5. Most of the brains behind Razor is a chap called ‘Errorsmith’ (he may want to rethink that one), a producer, solo artist and DJ based in Berlin. Errorsmith developed Razor initially for his own use using Reaktor 5 and apparently caught NI’s attention with his ninja-like Reaktor skills. With Razor 1.5 you get over 100 new leads, basses, and unique sounds — many, but not all, designed by Errorsmith — using 12 new modules. A multimode filter offers unusual shapes for irregular filtering and sound design, a distortion module adds extra grit and a further eight different dissonance modules range from frequency modulation to metallic frequency stretching and pitch manipulation. There are also new dynamic effects and a stereo reverb, plus Razor 1.5 includes a macro control system that maps single or multiple parameters straight to the eight control knobs on NI’s own Maschine hardware. Razor was half-price when we went to press. You’ll need at least the freebie Reaktor 5 Player unless you own Komplete, in which case you’re sorted. CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au
MOTU’S MACHFIVE 3 SPEEDS UP $699 | www.motu.com
It’s been over two years since MOTU launched its MachFive 3 software sampler with a complete rebuild and a view to properly take on the likes of Native Instruments’ Kontakt 5 (MachFive first appeared in 2003). MachFive 3 offers an impressive list of features and comes with a 45GB library of samples. The latest free upgrade, MachFive 3.2, includes 32-bit and 64-bit AAX plug-ins with full compatibility for ProTools 11 and above, plus MachFive 3.2 includes legacy RTAS support for earlier versions of ProTools. Performance has been tweaked to use less RAM and CPU resources. A new WahWah Filter plug-in emulates the sound of a classic wah-wah pedal with all the parameters, including amount (Wah), Drive, Model and Master assignable to remote control via MIDI or OSC. MOTU has also updated MachFive 3’s soundbank libraries to provide better scripting and smaller, more efficient file sizes. These are backward-compatible with existing projects. Network Audio Solutions: 1300 306 670 or www.networkaudio.com.au
If you’re tempted by Steinberg’s Cubase IC Air you can try it out on the new Cubase 7.5 release. New features include Track Versions for managing parallel variations of tracks, a Track Visibility function, HALion Sonic SE2 gets some new sounds plus a totally new synth, Groove Agent is up to version SE4 with 30 new drum kits and a smart user interface, and there’s an EDM construction kit. REVelation is a reverb that ‘brings back the memories of those old fancy hardware units’, and Magneto2 adds warmth to your tracks. Plus, of course, a long list of small performance tweaks and fixes. Yamaha Music Australia: (03) 9693 5111 or www.yamahamusic.com.au
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Propellerhead has released the Parsec Spectral Synthesizer for the Reason Rack calling it the ‘futuristic sound of additive synthesis’. With two independent sound engines, up to 1024 oscillators per voice, a wide range of sound sculpting tools, built-in effects and free modulation routing, Parsec is a powerful and easy to use additive synthesiser with a bank of inspiring sounds for electro house, bass music, minimal techno, electronic indie and pop, far-out experimental, and more. You get a built-in high quality reverb and delay, plus it’s a vocoder with modulation from Parsec’s audio input. There’s plenty of time to make up your mind with the free, fully functional, 30-day trial from the Propellerhead Shop. Electric Factory (Elfa): (03) 9474 1000 or www.elfa.com.au
The new Impact LX 49 keyboard controller from Nektar is a 49-note velocity-sensitive keyboard with full-size, piano-style keys, eight pads (also velocity-sensitive) and a host of controller sliders, knobs and buttons that will keep most people happy. Impact LX49 integration supports most popular DAWs – note that Pro Tools isn’t among them – and, while most DAWs are different, the Impact LX49 DAW integration caters for each one and still maintains a common workflow. We should see stocks in Oz by December at a RRP of $229. Sound & Music: (03) 9555 8081 or www.sound-music.com
Rob Papen is keeping himself busy. We know a new version of his Blue virtual instrument, Blue II, is on the way (the original version is seriously discounted to US$99 as a promotion), plus Rob Papen Soundware has announced Punch 1.0.4, the latest update to its drum synthesis/sampler software instrument for Mac and PC. The latest version of Punch comes complete with many more presets, drum presets, samples, and grooves, plus three new tutorials on Rob’s website to help you rock and roll with the punches. Rob Papen Soundware: www.robpapen.com
UR iPAD UNLOCKED BY UR44 $419.99 | www. steinberg.net
Steinberg has added to its UR range of USB audio interfaces the UR44, a six-input/fouroutput device that also offers full iPad connectivity. Four of those inputs are Class A D-Pre microphone preamps with two line inputs on the rear making up the numbers. There’s also MIDI I/O, two separate headphone outputs with individual volume controls and, with a bit of thought, Steinberg has split the phantom power switching into two pairs rather than a global on/off across all four inputs. The UR44 comes with VST3 versions of the onboard DSP plug-ins offering useful sound-shaping and FX tools: the Sweet Spot Morphing Channel Strip, the REV-X reverb and Guitar Amp Classics, all of which can be tracked into your recordings and routed to the headphones, too. Steinberg’s dspMixFx software allows this with latency-free monitoring. As you’d expect, the UR44 is compatible with any DAW software and the iPad connectivity works with any iOS recording apps, not just Cubasis. However, working with iPads requires an Apple iPad Connection Kit and switching to CC Mode. A reminder that of all the UR Series, only the UR44 has this feature. Yamaha Music Australia: (03) 9693 5111 or www.yamahamusic.com.au
True To Your Sound Wi-Fidelity
Epic digital wireless technology, now amazingly affordable.
OLDIES, BUT GOODIES FROM UA US$229 & $299 | www. uaudio.com
Universal Audio has released two new plug-ins for the UAD Platform and Apollo audio interfaces. The Maag 4 originated from Cliff Maag’s self-professed quest for “audio perfection”. Maag designed the EQ4 to provide transparency and top-end presence while maintaining a true, natural sound. Based on his classic — and long-discontinued — NTI EQ3 from the ’80s, the EQ4 features Maag’s Air Band control, a major component to the vocal mix chain on Madonna’s Ray of Light as well as Celine Dion’s Taking Chances. Also new, modelled on the Fairchild 670 and 660 tube limiters, is the Fairchild Tube Limiter Plug-In Collection. Universal Audio first released the Fairchild 670 Legacy plug-in in 2004. For this version UA improved the original time constants and gain reduction curves while modelling the complete tube-powered amplifier and transformer sections of the hardware. The Fairchild Tube Limiter Collection offers ‘digital only’ features such as sidechain filtering, dry/wet parallel blend, and headroom controls. Both the Maag 4 and Fairchild Collection are included as a 14-day trial in UAD Software 7.4.
Introducing the DWZ Series with affordable 2.4 GHz technology. You get solid-gold, 24-bit linear PCM digital audio to keep you sounding your best. You get robust transmission and easy channel selection. Even automatic feedback reduction, encryption and battery charging are available. And Sony has pre-assembled DWZ packages for presentation, speech and vocals, guitar/bass and wind instruments. Sony’s DWZ Series. Sound like a million bucks without spending it. pro.sony.com.au/audio
CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au AT 13
LIVE NEWS HK AUDIO’S NEW STAR ATTRACTION TBA | www.hkaudio.com
HK Audio has unveiled a line of powered speakers called the Pulsar series, aimed at the crowded 1000W class of systems. Its trademark features include ‘transparent, balanced midrange response’, paired with plenty of low-end punch, and HK assure us the signal’s transparency and balance is maintained even when the bass and master volume is increased sharply. The line features two full-range models, the PL112 FA (12-inch woofer) and the PL115 FA (15-inch woofer) and a hybrid subwoofer. On both full-range models the LF/midrange amplifier is rated at 650W into 4Ω , while the HF amplifier is 350W at 4Ω allowing HK Audio to label the Pulsars a respectable 1000W cabinet. Onboard protection includes a subsonic filter, peak limiter and RMS limiter. Two EQ switches for DSP offer a choice of Standalone Monitor/System mode and a Flat/Contour setting. Three inputs – two XLR combo connectors and RCA stereo provide plenty of connection options and thru ports are there, too. The subwoofer, should you like a bit more bottom end, is the PL118A (18-inch woofer) with a 600W amp and an onboard crossover. All the Pulsar series have optional covers, tilt units and rigging yokes. CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au
MEYER KEEPS LOW PROFILE $8290 + GST | www.meyersound.com
Meyer Sound has released a self-powered MJF-210 low-profile high-power stage monitor, the MJF-210, announcing ‘it’s the lightest stage monitor in the company product line’ and yet still promises the performance of the MJF-212A stage monitor – which apparently gets a flogging by the likes of Metallica, Judas Priest and… Michael Bublé (okay, fair enough those Big Bands can make a heck of a racket on stage). The MJF-210 features a low-profile design with an impressive power-to-size ratio and very low distortion. Each monitor measures less than 355mm high and weighs 30kg. The front of the MJF-210 slopes at an optimal 40° from the stage, while the constant directivity horn (50° H x 70° V) gives the performer more freedom to move on stage while staying within the wide vertical coverage. The MJF-210 houses two high-power, long-excursion, 10-inch lowfrequency drivers, as well as a four-inch diaphragm compression driver. The drivers are powered by a three-channel class D amplifier. For real-time monitoring of loudspeaker parameters, the MJF-210 can be integrated into the Compass RMS remote monitoring system using the optional RMS module. Compass RMS features the RMServer and can be controlled in the Compass software. Meyer Sound: 1800 463937 or australia@meyersound.com
Audio Brands Australia is a new audio distributor focused on the installation and production markets. The new biz is headed up by industry veteran, Don McConnell, who has over 25 years of experience in the Australian commercial and professional audio markets. To kick-start things, Audio Brands Australia has been appointed the exclusive Australian distributor of FBT. ABA will be introducing the latest models of FBT’s self-powered products as well as installation speakers. Audio Brands is also offering a range of power amplifiers, self-powered speakers, stands, cables and general audio accessories under the Kempton brand. Audio Brands Australia: 0499 828 521 or don@audiobrands.com.au AT 14
Dynacord is expanding its Vertical Array loudspeaker family to include two full-range boxes, the TS100 and TS200. Aimed at the premium market segment, both models promise high sound pressure levels, excellent acoustic performance and versatility. Their application range includes both the reinforcement of live music and AV installations. Light aluminium cabinets make them sufficiently robust to survive the rigours of touring. Bosch Communications: (02) 9683 4752 or boschcomms@au.bosch.com
Professional Audio Technology (PAT) is now the official distributor of JoeCo’s range of BlackBox multi-channel live audio recorders and players in Australia. JoeCo has established its series of computer-free 24 and 64 channel 1U recording and playback systems that are compatible with virtually all analogue and digital consoles and other equipment. Various I/O options are available including MADI, Dante, AES, lightpipe and analogue. Audio is recorded directly to an external USB2 drive in Broadcast WAV format and can be instantly accessed for archiving, re-mixing or post production applications. Professional Audio Technology: (02) 9476 1272 or sales@proaudiotechnology.com.au
Sony Australia’s Professional Solutions Division announced the appointment of The Resource Corp (TRC) as its official distributor for professional audio. The launch of the company’s new DWZ Series of digital wireless microphone systems, operating in the 2.4GHz band leads the charge. The DWZ range includes several models specifically designed for vocal, guitar and instruments. Sony also has a large variety of wired microphones, professional headphones, portable digital recorders and AV mixer/amplifiers. The Resource Corporation: (03) 9874 5988 or www.trc.com.au
TWO SUBS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE $6950 | www.nexo-sa.com
The new LS18 sub-bass cabinet from Nexo is designed to provide extra options for two of its existing product ranges. The LS18 is compatible with both the Geo S12 line array and the PS Series cabinets. Identical in width to the height of a Geo S12 cabinet, the LS18 is compatible with Geo S12 rigging hardware, making it simple to configure the appropriate scale of ground stack for any venue, or alternatively the LS18 can be flown above a series of Geo S12 cabinets to provide a clear stage. The LS18 can also be flown in tandem with PS15s as a low-profile solution for fixed installations in clubs with a low ceiling height. Available in two versions, the standard LS18 features a steel polemount on the top of the cabinet and plates on the side for that compatibility with Geo S12 and PS Series rigging hardware. The LS18e is a stripped-down version, dispensing with rigging plates, handles and pole mount. Group Technologies: (03) 9354 9133 or www.grouptechnologies.com.au
THE GROUNDBREAKING
ZOOM H6 It will change the way you think about recording forever. Here at Zoom we’ve been building innovative products for the past thirty years. But with the revolutionary H6 six-track recorder, the bar is raised further still. Four interchangeable input capsules – X/Y, MS,
GET UP TO SPEED WITH THE M5 $249 | www.rodemic.com.au
Røde Microphones’ new M5 compact condenser microphone is based on the existing small diaphragm NT5, with a half-inch cardioid electret condenser capsule and comes in acoustically matched pairs. Designed and made in Australia, the M5 exhibits low noise and has a full frequency response that makes it ideal for studio recording and live performance. The M5 is equally at home on a range of acoustic instruments, choirs, or anywhere you would employ a small diaphragm condenser microphone, either individually or in a stereo array. The matched pairs have been carefully selected to ensure a variation of no more than 1dB sensitivity between the microphones. The M5 is finished with Røde’s proprietary ceramic coating for a matte black finish, and is supplied with WS5 windshields and RM5 stand mounts. We should see stocks in store by December at a RRP of $249 a pair. Rode Microphones: (02) 9648 5855 or www.rodemic.com.au
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FEATURE
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I was a musician first and foremost. I had no aspirations to be a producer. Then, back in 2000 I was making records with my band at the time, The Hive, and I felt out of control — I didn’t like that feeling. I was at the shoulder of the engineer all the time. I knew exactly what I wanted to hear but I just didn’t know how to execute that vision. So I began to learn the craft of production, programming, and then engineering, with my musicianship always informing what I did.
I have an intrinsic belief that if things are done well — purposefully, intentionally, skilfully — then you’ll always have a role and relevance. But I’m not saying you need the best gear and the best studio to really cut through and produce something epic. Take Wally De Backer [Gotye] as an example. Look at Wally’s dedication; look at the fine detail, the hours, the years, the deep sense of aesthetics, of going deep into record collections and the discovery evident in that. It just speaks for itself.
These days I’m spending most of my time as a producer working with indie artists. It’s really indie-focussed, with the occasional major label gig. But even then, there’s not much difference. Maybe there’s a bigger team on board with the major label artist but the way I work, I always put the musicians first.
I don’t think you’ll find many world-beating songs done on a whim. I believe that what really does cut through is coming from a very accomplished place. Even cheesy, hyper-buffed pop; even that comes from an accomplished place. Years ago my publisher was asking me to write more pop, but my take was always ‘leave that to the guys who are doing that as a craft, because they’re always going to win.’
HAVING AN AESTHETIC
Tony Buchen epitomises the self-made indie producer making records with plenty to say. Here he discusses the art of production in his own words. Interview: Christopher Holder Photos: Nick La Rosa
People ask me what’s the career path to being a good producer. The first thing is: what’s your aesthetic? Because if you don’t have a sense of aesthetics, you can’t be a producer. You might be an engineer, but even good engineers, who don’t call themselves producers, still have an aesthetic as well. If you look at [The Beatles engineer] Geoff Emerick, he’s a great example, because clearly he was doing so much movre than engineering in those sessions. He was bringing what we consider our modern sense of what a producer is. And he transitioned into being a producer relatively easily. If you listen to Elvis Costello’s album Imperial Bedroom, he produced that and he produced Split Enz’s Dizrhythmia. You listen to those records, production was such a natural crossover for him because he had a deep sense of aesthetics. He got it. THE CRAFT
ABOUT TONY BUCHEN As former frontman and bassist for The Baggsmen, which achieved national success and recognition in the early 2000s, Tony Buchen started his career by simply recording his own band. By 2005, Tony had worked with artists such as Bluejuice, The Church and Blue King Brown. More recent projects include mixing John Butler’s Live At Red Rocks (2011 ARIA Nomination), producing an EP for NZ artist Gin Wigmore (certified Platinum, released on Motown label in the US), scoring a spot in Triple J’s Hottest 100 of 2010 with Dog by Andy Bull (feat. Lisa Mitchell) and receiving critical acclaim for his work with Melbourne hip-hop artist Phrase with the innovative album Babylon. Lately, Tony has been working with cinematic art/rock group WIM, a brand new indie/vintagesoul band The Preachers from Sydney (both recorded by Tony in LA) and a score for film from director Andrew Adamson (Shrek/Chronicles of Narnia/Prince of Persia) entitled Mr. Pip which was recently recorded in Bougainville with Tim Finn. Head to tonybuchen.com for more.
Training is hugely important. I trained myself, or, more to the point, I sought out people who could train me. In the early stages of my production career I always insisted on working out of the best studios — I was obsessed with it, I insisted and somehow bands always managed to find the money. I primarily worked out of [the now closed] Electric Avenue Studios in Sydney; Phil Punch’s room, which was a one-off, magical place. Phil has the deepest collection of vintage studio gear in the country, in fact, one of the deepest collections in the world. But the point is, the first eight or 10 records I ever produced, I had either Phil or one of his guys engineer and I was like a hawk. I asked questions about every click, and after five or six records I developed the confidence to start engineering myself. Phil Punch was my unofficial mentor. He probably wouldn’t even consider himself that, but I’m very grateful for his input and I learnt the Abbey Road method. He taught me the proper way, and once you’ve got that down you can mess with it.
APPROACHING A SESSION
I endeavour to run a session where the artists don’t know they’re recording. And so often they’ll remark, ‘Are we recording?’ I won’t even get on talkback. My philosophy: they can start whenever they want, and then you get those magic moments free of self-consciousness. No one’s counting in, there’s no click track. Of course, I will work to click if needs be but I’d rather edit between fluid sections than have a set tempo. In the end, musicianship is everything, especially if you’re gunning for a type of sound. I had an absolutely revelatory moment in my career after I spent five years asking drummers to play like Joey Waronker. Joey’s work has always been a personal favourite. And then finally I got an opportunity to work with him, which lead to an opportunity to hire him on a session I was producing. It was the equivalent of having Mavis Staples sing a gospel/soul song. ‘I need that Mavis Staples sound.’ ‘Okay we’ll get Mavis.’ There it is. Done! WORKING IN THE US
People will ask: ‘Why do you go to America? Can’t you get that sound here?’ The answer is ‘yes’, but it’s not made as easy for you. When you’re sitting in the studio and the assistant has just come off working with Nigel Godrich, the drummer is in Beck’s band and the keyboard player is from Fiona Apple’s group… these guys’ catalogues are deeper than your own. As a result, you mentally rise to the occasion — you step it up. That’s why I go to the US, because I want that challenge. I want to feel like I’m in the deep end all the time. There’s nothing like it. The musicians are impatient in a way, because if you don’t get your shit together and give them clear directions they get antsy. I’ve actually had some guys say to me, “look man, I can play anything you want, you just gotta tell me.” No one would say that in Australia. No one’s got that kind of arrogance. But it’s not even arrogance, it’s just a fact: they could.
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INSTRUMENTS A 1965 Hofner bass: It’s a beauty and wins nine times out of 10 on every audition. As a bass player I have a Fender Precision and old Japanese Kent 60s hollow body and a super pro Sadowsky that I don’t play anymore and cost me a lot of money — but I keep going back to the Hofner. I have an Old Gibson LG acoustic in the corner that I strum in a Nashville tuning. An Epiphone 12 string, and a Gibson J35 that’s on loan from Gibson. Mellotron: Not too many of these in Australia. I had it fixed once by Greg Cameron, who’s a legend, and it’s been perfect since. I’ve got the classic flute, strings and choir sounds. You turn it on and it’s as noisy as a washing machine but you can’t beat it. Play the Mellotron to young guys coming in and nothing warps their imagination like it. They know the sound and they’ve got the M-Tron plug-in but then they hear the tape move inside and the mechanics. ‘Woah!’ I’ll distort the sound through my Roland SH synth filters. It’s just so inspirational and tactile.
So that’s a big difference. And what that does to you mentally when you’re calling the shots in a studio session… it’s a very powerful position to be in so you’d better be ready for it. If you’re not, then it’s very disempowering because you feel very inadequate if you don’t step up. And I freely admit there have been a couple of moments where I just wasn’t ready. But so be it. Everyone goes through that in order to get to the next place.
Maybe some day fans will be able to hold the artist in the palm of their hands like Princess Leia and have them perform a song… but it’s still a recording and without the recording you’ve got nothing
As a generalisation, Americans bring a higher level of urgency and intensity. Here, you’re more likely to need to rev a band up: “Let’s get in there, let’s go!” In America you don’t need to do that. They’re high-fiving each other before they’re even recording — ‘I’m in a recording studio trying to be a rock star and it’s awesome!’ Here, it’s like, ‘I’m cooler than that, I’m not going to do that.’ On the other hand, Australians tend to be far more adaptable and better at problem solving. In America there’s a ‘right’ way of doing things, and that leaves little room for improvisation. Australians don’t play that game, we’re jacks of all trades getting something cool happening. And I think Americans admire that. For example, I’ll walk into the studio and the engineer’s talking at me: “You want the M88 on the inside of the kick and the FET 47…” And I’ll cut him off, “No. Let’s put an omni mic on the inside of the kick and a ribbon mic five feet away.” And they’re like, “Whoah, this Aussie dude, he’s crazy!” WHERE’S THE MONEY GONE?
It’s no great secret that the Australian music industry is hugely competitive — as it is
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everywhere. There’s huge pressure on album budgets and in my experience we’re spending less than we were 10 or even five years ago. There’s a real pressure to produce the goods on less. This can’t go on forever. When I started, you might have a $70k budget, then a $50k budget and now a $30k budget. That doesn’t mean in five year’s time it’ll go to $5k. I don’t think that’ll happen. My view is it’ll stop at around $25k, because any less than that and you’re working out of your bedroom — you’re not going to have a producer. I’ll do my best to reinforce this message to the managers and record label representatives: the recording is an investment in their artist, not just that but the best investment you can make. That recording, that artefact — be it digital, vinyl, CD or anything else that might come along — that’s they’re greatest asset and their best marketing tool. You can have the best photography, greatest video clip, and an amazing live show, but if you don’t have that recorded artefact you don’t have something to leave with an audience. Maybe some day fans will be able to hold the artist in the palm of their hands like Princess Leia and have them perform a song… but it’s still a recording and without the recording you’ve got nothing. Let’s not forget, we’re no longer just selling records anymore, the label and manager will recoup in other ways. Labels have been slow to realise that. They’re coming around now. TRIPLE J GAME
The landscape of Australian music making is dominated by this entity we all know as Triple J. Which is the most wonderful, amazing thing.
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GEAR When it comes to gear, the conversation is inseparable from the studios I like to record in. Electric Avenue [formerly Milk Bar in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown] was my favourite and when that closed I fell into a type of professional depression. The tools I was using had been taken away from me and I felt exposed. I searched elsewhere. I started recording at BJB, and then that closed. I don’t have six Telefunken preamps to call upon anymore. 301 is a great studio but if I want to go all-tube I have to go elsewhere. Rancom St Studios goes almost as deep as Electric Avenue. Again, it has its idiosyncrasies but I worked it out. They set it up for me the night before and I can go. The way I work, it’s not just a case of walking in and saying, ‘I want this and this… okay, thanks’, then record it dry. I run tape echoes, plate reverbs, spring reverbs, printing that as I go so it immediately sounds like a record. I might trash it later but when the musicians are playing they’re feeling it, ‘woah this sounds like a record, this is great’; it improves the vibe. I know a lot of people do that through Tools with plug-ins, but this is how I work in the studio. As far as my own gear goes, my philosophy is to bring a level of ‘boutique’ to the studio’s baseline setup. And there’s a paradox going on, because even though I’m a really tubey guy, all my gear is transistor-based. I can’t do without my two Brent Averill 1073s — the best Neve 1073 clones available. I use original 1073s all the time and these feel the same to me. I don’t need to do an A/B, they feel the same. They perform the same role and provide the same emotional function in terms of the EQ and preamp. I’m so happy to buy beautifully cloned gear because it works. I don’t need a tech on hand. In fact, I’ve not needed a tech’s help to repair my gear for six or seven years. AT 20
The Chandler TG Zener limiter is an extremely boutique piece of gear. People will come in and ask me ‘Can I use that on the mix bus?’ No f**king way, it’s way too coloured. That said, I’ve started to experiment with it as a sidechain compressor across the entire mix, and that’s an interesting function. But it’s great for drums, for guitars, and smashing vocals through it for that squashed vintage sound — it’s just proper Abbey Road transistor compression. The Quad 8s: These are from the MM403, which Quad 8 made for the ABC. Phil Punch had 24 channels and he sold me a couple which I had racked up. The EQ is ridiculous, you can put them on full throttle and it still sounds good. The Q is quite sharp/spikey, but still great. The sound of the preamp is cool — very transistory… the sound of the ’70s, cardboardy, and great for acoustic instruments and snares. The ELI Distressor is an amazing piece of kit. A lot of artists will tell me they’re planning on buying a compressor for their home studio and to me it’s a no-brainer — get a Distressor. You get great everything: subtle to full on; every flavour. Shadow Hills The Equinox: Sometimes you need to turn your world upside down and make a big change. Buying the Equinox was one of those moments for me. I’d only ever mixed on boards, but then I started mixing in the box for some projects and got some really good results. But I still didn’t feel comfortable about coming out of my DAW, throwing it to two channels and squashing it that way. The Equinox is a 32-channel summing mixer with two preamps. When you’re in Summing mode its preamps are linked and are driving your mix. So after the summing you can actually drive your mix and you’ve got the three output transformers giving you the different flavours: brighter, fat midrange, a bit more bass. Go online and you’ll hear
how these three settings are bullshit. They’re not. They’re comments from people with cloth ears in my view. There is a difference. Ultimately it’s a ‘close your eyes’ thing and decide on how it makes you feel. And to me it comes immediately: that’s it, leave it. I’ve got The Equinox normaled to my patchbay, so I can insert my outboard into the mix and the big thing is the extra headroom — I feel like I’m on an SSL again. I can get my kick drum up there and keep turning it up, rather than hitting the red line in my DAW… you can’t do anything about it, you’ve got to bring the rest of your mix down and start again. It was a big moment when I first sparked it up in my room. I bought my Lynx converters especially. And this was the first time I’d hear one of my mixes through The Equinox. My heart was in my mouth. I’d spent all this money... and it was one of those moments where I literally went ‘Whooooah’. It wasn’t ‘oh yeah, I can hear that’. It was: ‘Oh. My. God.’ It was that good. Gunter Wagner 47: It’s been a game changer for me. Just the ease in which you can get the energy and the emotion you want, is quite amazing. I’m still a huge fan of ribbon mics and I’ve got a bunch including a Coles 4038, a very old Reslo, a Shure Sonydyne crunchy Elvis mic, but the Wagner 47 is just ridiculous. I had it with me on my last stint in LA and there would be times where I had three or four Neumann U47s up using them on anything. But the point is: they all sounded different. They’re really old. The Wagner 47 is just a U47 that sounds new. To the layperson it sounds the same. To the studio pro with golden ears, it sounds like a cleaner 47 without the shit you don’t want. It’s the most amazing mic made today in my view.
We have a public broadcaster with national reach and, if you get on it, it’s like riding a wave of success. Not guaranteed success, mind you. Nothing is guaranteed in music, especially on radio. I’ve had songs that have been in the Triple J’s Top 10 high rotation that year and not made an impact commercially or even created a vibe for the band — it’s really about whether people connect to the song. Triple J is not the be all and end all, but it is the most amazing access point. The problem is: we live in such a big country with such a sparse population that you don’t have much else. You’ve got the community radio stations which are hugely important, but there’s a big gulf between their impact and Triple J’s impact on the touring career of an artist. As a producer you’re sitting there thinking: ‘I want to get them on Triple J’ — it’s something that’s in the back of every producer’s mind in Australia. Now I’m at a point where I know what needs to be done to at least give a song a fighting chance of being on Triple J. Broadly speaking: it’s about giving a track attitude. How you do that is up to the individual. It depends on the track but it might be distorting a vocal in a certain way that can imbue it with some incredible excitement. Or it might be by EQ’ing the return of a delay — it’s amazing what you can do to the character of a vocal. So it’s about understanding the emotion of a song and the attitude and then executing it. If you hear it on radio, does it leap out of the speakers? And remember: the guys programming radio will be walking down the hallways of the station and be constantly listening to the on-air programming, because it’s always beaming throughout the station. They’re not listening to your song on a CD or a laptop — they’re listening to the radio through their station’s compression, through every different type of speakers in the world, with environmental noise all around, and with people talking at them. That’s the listening experience, so your song has to cut through and say something.
in the ’60s, Todd Rundgren in the ’70s and Bob Clearmountain in the ’80s, were genuine innovators but to be an innovator you’ve got to know the craft first. You can’t just come in with nothing and then innovate. Maybe one in a million will fluke it. These guys were schooled, they trained, and then they innovated. And I would like to feel that I’m of that school. I’m certainly not at their level yet but I hope to be one day. Not to say the kids don’t come up with cool things and to be honest I have no qualms in using ideas from demos that I think sound great — I’m not the first to say it, but if it sounds great, use it. And they’re surprised: ‘No you can’t do that!’ ‘Yeah you can. You can do anything dude!” And that is the difference about working now than in the ’70s or ’80s. The difference is that we have a full, enormous palette to draw from. And that to me increases the value of a producer. Because the kids don’t know where to start. I know where to start, I know where to draw from and I can confidently assert ‘I need to draw on a ’60s technique for the drums on this.’ Or on another occasion I’ll want to distort the vocal in a different way with a plug-in.
Geoff Emerick in the ’60s, Todd Rundgren in the ’70s and Bob Clearmountain in the ’80s… You can’t just come in with nothing and then innovate. These guys were schooled, they trained, and then they innovated
So it’s about a palette and how you use that broad palette. It’s a challenge. Because in the ’60s all you had was four tracks, maybe. These days you have to force the limits on yourself.
And yes, the vocal is the crown jewel in the mix, but it may not necessarily set the tone. You can have an intro to a song where you strip it back, mute everything except the drums and distort the f**k out of them and then blend that distorted sound into the opening of the track. ‘Woah! What’s that?’ It wakes you up. PUTTING IN THE (10,000) HOURS
I’m a big believer in Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000hour rule. As Gladwell points out, The Beatles performed live in Hamburg over 1200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time, meeting the 10,000-Hour Rule. He also demonstrates the rule at work with Bill Gates and others. Simply put, to master an art you need to put in the time. I’m also an avid student of studio history and it’s fascinating to observe how the real innovators went about their craft. The likes of Geoff Emerick
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FEATURE
Stephan Schßtze’s free location recording workshop was all about giving back to the game sound community with a bang. Story: Mark Davie Photos: Nik Harrison
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‘THHWHAAACCKKK!’ goes the tower of bricks as they topple over and slam into the makeshift wooden deck, followed by the tinkles of fragmentary aftershock. Satisfying though the initial sound is, it’s not what Stephan Schütze is listening for. As he cranes his ear towards the impact zone, he rebuilds the tower over and over again in different ways. Kicking, tipping, or nudging it to fall until he’s accumulated a satisfying collection of full-length brick-on-wood theatre. Watching Schütze labour over each sound’s tail was a reminder of what makes great sound. Our attention is easily grabbed, but it’s the complexity of the aftermath that maintains our focus. Take a gun shot. Without the bullet impact, the spent shells ejecting and bouncing on the ground, the echo of the shot in its surroundings — all the crucial information — the ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ is lost, and it’s just another big bang. BUILDING A LIBRARY
Schütze has a 15-year history composing music, recording and designing sound for games, but over the last few years he’s also been building a formidable library of sound effects for game sound and post production. He goes by the moniker of Sound Librarian, and demolishing mini brick towers is just part of the building process. Over the years he’s amassed an ever-growing commercial sound effects library that’s now over 25,000 clips. The key to a good library, says Schütze, is variation. And he doesn’t skimp. Everything from 11 different stereo takes of a 1943 Tigermoth flying overhead to six variations of an 1851 .44 calibre Ruger pistol firing, thousands of ambient textures, everything you’d need to recreate any explosion and debris sound, and much, much, much more. It’s thorough, and well-recorded, which is why you’ll find it in every EA, Activision and Warner Brothers gaming studio around the world. The main library is called the Foundation Sound Effects Library. An ever-growing collection of everything Schütze puts out, “from doors opening and closing, to cars, planes, and firearms,” he listed. “Then we’ve got five more niche libraries. One of them is called Elements, which is made up of 5000 sounds from the Foundation Library. All the banging and crashing stuff. A generativelybuilt 5.1 Ambient Textures library, as well as the Firearms Foley collection. I went to the Small Arms Factory Museum in Lithgow and spent three or four days archiving their collection. Not firing, but all the loading, unloading, cocking foley sounds for 60 different classic firearms. “The Aviation Collection took 18 months to record. There are very few modern, high-quality digital captures of those sorts of vintage planes. But frankly, I did that one because I wanted to. It also means I’ve got work from it. A company, who’s got the best flight sim on mobile platforms
at the moment, wants me to overhaul all the aircraft sounds.” It’s part commercial enterprise, part labour of love. The Sound Library began as, and still is to a degree, a free Creative Commons online resource for Australian users. Schütze just wanted to see his compatriots get a leg up in the industry. But the costs of running the online venture have accumulated over the years, and donations haven’t really matched the cost, making it difficult to maintain the service. But Schütze is still committed to the idea, and at the moment the library is being rebuilt to provide a more robust service into the future. JUST PRESS RECORD
Despite the one-sided charity, it hasn’t stopped Schütze giving back to his community. For the second year running, he put on the Sound Librarian Recording Workshop in the massive 25,000 square foot soundstage at Melbourne’s Docklands Studios. Hence the ever-crashing pile of bricks. It’s an amazing event, and most unbelievably, entirely free. Last year, 60 participants were treated to a recording masterclass involving flame throwers, dry ice creaking on metal, and plenty more. This year Schütze loaded the workshop with all the ‘fun’ stuff — explosions, motorbikes, guns and horror movie sounds. And it didn’t disappoint. The main thrust of the workshop is to remind people it’s not about having the ‘right’ gear — if you’ve got something to record with, then record. As evidenced by the table full of portable Zoom recorders, so many of us are able to record in very decent quality, very easily with the things we already own. Schütze’s own favourite recording is an example of exactly that. Schütze: “I was standing at a bullet train station seven hours from Tokyo in a little country town. And there was a train going to go past before mine. I thought, ‘great, I’ll record it.’ I had a little Edirol R-09, no fluffy on it. And thought: ‘Train, 250kph, not stopping at the station. There’s going to be a lot of wind noise.’ So I positioned myself with my back to the incoming direction of the train, and held the recorder close to my chest. The train hurtled through and I got one of the best recordings I’ve ever got. Because in Japan, people don’t talk. They were all standing at the station deathly silent. And because it’s in the country, there’s no traffic noise so I got a beautifully clean sound. You can hear it off in the distance, then it hammers through and out the other side, fading off into the distance. That was with a cheap recorder at 44.1kHz. The thing is, the content was really good, and I just had to think practically about the limitations of the device. That recording would stand up against anything I could do with a really expensive Sound Devices kit.”
That’s my general purpose rig if UFOs are invading and I need to grab a boom pole and run outside
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I just had to think practically about the limitations of the device. That recording would stand up against anything I could do with a really expensive Sound Devices kit
These days, Schütze does have a Sound Devices 788T recorder, but he still uses plenty of portable recorders, because he can chuck one in a bag and never be without a recorder, but also because there are places you just wouldn’t put a $7000 piece of kit, let alone fit it. For instance, strapped to a motorbike going flat out. Or, if you look at it another way. If you’re trying to capture the interior sounds of a World War II fighter plane cockpit off the cuff at an airshow, getting a pilot’s approval to stick a portable recorder in his pocket is much more likely than asking him for an hour to rig up a complete kit and pass any safety regulations. His advice though, before upgrading your recorder, is to spend money on microphones. “I’ve had a Sennheiser MKH60 shotgun for 12 years, and it’s been through hell and back, which is one of the reasons I use it. In all honesty, it sounds slightly muddy, but I’ve not come across anything else that has the same level of side cancellation. And recently Audio-Technica lent me one of the stereo shotgun mics developed for the Sydney Olympics. That allows me to have the rig I have now, which is two nice and
thin shotgun mics in a blimp. That’s my general purpose rig if UFOs are invading and I need to grab a boom pole and run outside.” If you’re using a separate microphone, one of the most important pieces of gear Schütze highlighted early on in the workshop is a simple Y-split XLR cable. It allows you to split the microphone signal onto two tracks of your recorder and set different levels for each — one to capture the majority of sounds and another to catch any instantaneous loud outbursts. “I typically set one to 10dB of gain, and one to 40dB,” said Schütze. “So quite a big range. In my point of view, it needs to be that much, or there’s no point. Generally the higher range will give me a good general capture. Where it starts to peak is if a car goes past directly in front of me, an aeroplane, a gunshot or a loud smash. And in those particular cases you’ll find those levels so extreme, you need to go all the way down to the other one anyway. If I’m sitting on the edge of a racetrack though, I crank everything right down.” KICKING OFF WITH A BANG
The workshop began with recording the building blocks for destruction. Out came the bricks,
ABOUT SCHÜTZE Schütze’s journey began when he was accepted into the Victorian College of the Arts because, “they needed a French Horn player.” He reckons he would have been rejected if he’d auditioned with a less esoteric instrument. From there he gravitated towards army bands, where he played the side drum during marches and developed an interest in percussion. Schütze credits the disciplined army environment for shaping his work ethic. He entered the game industry just as it tipped over into distributing on CD. An exciting
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time, because it enhanced the quality dramatically. And like a lot of people that seem to forge their own way, Schütze learnt everything he knows by being dropped in the deep end. Schütze: “A game company, Blue Tongue, was looking for a musician to write music, and they hired me full time. I was their entire audio department for eight years. I thought I was hired as a composer, but within the first couple of weeks I was told I would be doing all the sound design, dialogue editing, video editing, and it was
literally trial by fire. I didn’t know anything about sound design and location recording, it was all self taught through sheer necessity. In the second year we got a franchise project for Universal Interactive. It was a Jurassic Park game, Operation Genesis, and I wrote an hour’s worth of Jurassic Park-style music. I was writing it with an old primitive orchestral sample library. They thought I’d nailed the music but the samples weren’t cutting it, so they asked me to find out what it would cost to use a
real orchestra. Back then, the Aussie dollar was 50 cents to the US dollar, so we did the entire project with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. It was the first ever orchestral game project in Australia, and the first time Melbourne Symphony Orchestra had worked on a game project.” Schütze’s jack of all trades approach continues today. He even literally wrote the manual for FMOD Studio, one of two main platforms for game sound creation.
Paul Norton of Portfire Studios volunteered his time for the workshop, and let rip with an Uzi, 12-guage shotgun, 9mm pistol, and a Magnum revolver. Safety first though.
planks of wood, textile shopping bags full of odds and ends to shake out onto the ground, glass panes, pipe, whacking sticks, and Schütze’s personal favourite, a couple of targa top pieces. Essentially half a targa roof band, which form a mini-ramp when laid on the ground, these beauties allow Schütze to turn what would be a dull thud into a more resonant impact because of the cavity underneath. And often, it’s what’s underneath that really counts. You might think the sound of smashing glass on the ground is all you’d ever need for any glass foley, but puncturing a pane with a stick on a rubberbacked entrance mat delivers a usefully controlled sound more akin to a bullet hitting a window. It goes back to variety. Take the same material and drop or break it in different ways on varying surfaces and you give yourself a much better chance at delivering the right-sounding result. Though one caveat Schütze mentions is a PVC pipe. It will always sound like a PVC pipe. While it seems like a good thing to whack things with, you’ll always have that hollow plastic sound on every recording. Unless it’s what you want, of course.
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There’s also the old tricks of dropping sounds an octave to give a deeper rumble. It’s the main reason Schütze records in 96k now, so he doesn’t lose any detail when dropping effects down. He also demonstrated how easy it is to simulate much bigger towers of bricks falling by delaying multiple playbacks of similar recordings in time. The net effect is a tower of many more bricks that takes a lot longer to come down.
Stephan Schutze with the building blocks of destruction
SURROUND WITH MICS
While he mostly used shotguns (the microphone type) to record, Schütze set up a number of other microphones to capture different perspectives. His main rig was supplemented by a pair of AKG C414 large diaphragm condensers, often set back a bit from the source and spread in a wide stereo on either side of the working area. A surround rig carried four DPA 4023 cardioid mics in an IRT cross arrangement with a DPA4017B shotgun mic providing some directionality, which he had the entire workshop shuffle by for some opportunistic crowd sounds. He also jacked up a Zoom H2 into the air as high as a lighting stand would get it, and had the Rode NT4 stereo mic on hand, pointing at the general vicinity for an XY stereo picture.
The cavernous main sound stage at Docklands Studio in Melbourne where the workshop was held.
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Mic positioning is often a balance of logic, safety and common sense. Motorbikes were next on the agenda. And Schütze went through the motions of miking up two bikes with the rider’s safety in mind. His two main points of capture ended up being tucked down behind the front windscreen and near the exhaust outlet at the rear of the bike (though not in its direct line). He used two DPA lavalier mics because they can handle high SPL, carefully snaking and tucking the cables along the fairing lines so as not to interfere with the rider. It all went into a small backpack on each rider. He had the riders start each bike, leave it idle, then roll through the rev range pausing for half a minute at different rpm intervals, and finally give it a few quick bursts of gas before turning it off. It was a good demonstration of the importance of trying to capture continuous sound for use as sound effects. Otherwise you’ll never be able to loop and lengthen a clip. In a professional setting, all that would have been done with an electronically-controlled throttle to get a perfectly steady rev count, and on a dyno, to simulate the bike’s sound under load, which is quite different. To get more of those real-life sounds, Schütze sent the riders out on a half-hour jaunt. SAFETY BURST
Schütze is a stickler for safety and proper protocols. Film and Television Armourer Paul Norton of Portfire Studios, and his assistant Matthew Weekes, donated their time to the workshop. And while it was impressive hearing Paul fire everything from a .44 calibre Magnum, to an Uzi, and 12-gauge shotgun loaded with blanks, it was the industry standard safety procedures that were the most informative.
On set, the empty barrel is shown to the first AP before loading, and shown again after the weapon has been fired and cleared. The other crucial piece of information was that guns, even theatrical versions loaded with blanks are never pointed at people. Every shot where it seems that way in films, the angles are cheated. Paul demonstrated the devastating power of even the gas rushing out of a Magnum by firing a blank towards an empty soft drink can. Not only did it send the can flying 20m, it blew a hole clean through it too. The specifics of blank-firing guns is a science in itself. The gunpowder formulas can be altered to give different results. On the day, Paul gave a brief estimation of how close to the real sound each weapon was delivering with blanks, and most were about 70-80% true. But to the untrained ear, the sound of them being fired in the cavernous sound stage was impressive indeed. DOCKING THE COST
While the Docklands sound stage kindly donates the space for the workshop — because Schütze offers free entry — last year, the event still cost Schütze almost two grand to put on. This year he had an army of volunteers, and some loaner gear to help ease the burden. Amber Technology lent some DPA mics, John Barry helped out with a second Sound Devices 788T, and Dynamic Music sent some extra Zoom recorders down, though unfortunately a courier stuff up meant they arrived one day too late. It still cost Schütze to put it on, but he wants to keep doing it because he loves the game industry. “There’s almost no ego at all,” he said. “In other sectors there’s this hesitance about ‘giving away secrets.’ I actually had someone say to me about the workshop, ‘you shouldn’t be doing this, you’re giving away all your secrets!’ They’re not my secrets, this is just stuff I know.” So if we get the privilege of a third Sound Recording Workshop from the Sound Librarian, make sure you get along.
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TUTORIAL
Story: Paul Tingen
In a boost to the concept album concept, Janelle Monae has released two wellreceived albums and an EP loosely based on Fritz Lang’s 1927 movie Metropolis. Her latest opus is The Electric Lady, which contains suites IV and V in a projected series of seven chronicling the antics of android Cindi Mayweather. The Electric Lady is a kaleidoscopic, genredefying mash-up of different music styles and influences. Guest appearances on the album range from Prince singing and playing guitar on Givin’ Em What They Love to Solange, Miguel, and jazz bassist and singer Esparanza Spalding. Monae even goes as far as name checking Ennio Morricone, Duke Ellington, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder as her songwriting inspiration in the CD booklet annotations. Lead single Q.U.E.E.N. is no different, it’s a funk-pop-rock song reminiscent of Prince’s music from the ’80s, with echoes of Chic and Parliament/Funkadelic, and a guest vocal appearance from Erykah Badu.
Listen to: Q.U.E.E.N. Artist: Janelle Monae Album: The Electric Lady
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Chuck Lightning, and brothers Roman GianArthur and Nate ‘Rocket’ Wonder have emerged as Monae’s main co-writing and production team; keeping a firm eye on the artist’s influences. Veteran mixer Neal H Pogue drew on his roots in Atlanta R&B and hip hop to wrangle those influences together. IT ALL BEGINS ON AN SSL
Pogue always begins his mix in a commercial studio on an SSL, printing all the tracks back individually into the session as stems, and then brings the session back to his own studio for more tinkering and fine-tuning. As a result, Pogue’s final mix session for Q.U.E.E.N. contains almost 70 stereo stem tracks, most with a serving of SSL EQ and compression.
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Pogue: “I’ve been an SSL guy for 25 years, and I still love to touch a board and use the SSL EQ, compression and faders. When I was in LA I used to go to a commercial studio called The Mix Room and mixed on their J-series SSL. I held out as long as I could, but began mixing in the box in 2009, largely because budgets were getting smaller, and clients were offering all-in deals, meaning they didn’t want to pay for the studio on top anymore. Also, there’s the convenience of being able to do recalls at the press of a button. It takes me a second to bring up a mix and make whatever change is wanted. This means I can offer clients unlimited recalls and don’t have to charge them for it. Finally, the sonics of working in the box have become much, much better. I still think the board sounds superior, but people have come to love the digital crunch that is part of the way people approach working in the box. They love digital distortion-to-the-point-that-it-isshredding and the sound of the Waves L2. Many kids today don’t even know the warm sound that comes with analogue and mixing on a desk. If you’d play them a vinyl record, they’d think it sounds dark, because their ears aren’t used to it. “I don’t do any volume rides on the SSL, the point of using it is for the summing, the SSL EQ and compression, and being able to patch in some pieces of outboard. Because I’ve worked for so many years in analogue, I also approach mixing in the box as if I am working in analogue. I often use API EQs and other plug-ins that I’m used to touching with my hands when working in analogue. I’d say that with my current approach 70% of my effects come from plug-ins and 30% from outboard.” That said, The Electric Lady didn’t conform to the modern budget-conscious and rushed way
POGUE’S PURPLE PETTING ZOO
Neal H Pogue works in Atlanta from his own studio, TheHotPurplePetting Zoo. “I have purple fur on the walls and when people come in they start petting the walls” explains Pogue. “Plus, with all the equipment in here it gets kind of warm.” It’s an in-the-box place with a Pro Tools HD system he recently switched to version 10 (Pogue: “I was on version 8 for a long time. If it ain’t broke, I’m not interested in moving up”), a Kawai MX8SR eight-fader keyboard mixer and his favourite Hafler TRM8 Trans Nova and Anthony Gallo A’Diva SE monitors. Pogue has mixed Franz Ferdinand, N.E.R.D., Nicki Minaj, Pink, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Norah Jones and Stevie Wonder. But perhaps his biggest claim to fame was convincing Outkast’s Andre 3000 that his demo for Hey Ya! had all the ingredients of a hit. Pogue ended up mixing the song, which became one of last decade’s top 20 selling songs in the US.
of working. Pogue: “I was given a lot of time, like two or three days per song. Nate [Wonder], the producer, had a sound in his head, and it took time to get that right. Nate is a perfectionist and often he wanted to sit with the mix for a couple of days before making final decisions. We took an old-school approach and tried to stay away from the overly bright and compressed approaches of many of today’s mixes. We wanted to push the envelope and not be bound by 21st century mixing standards. The sound harked back to ’70s Stevie Wonder and ’80s Prince records, but also to the way the guitars sound on Red Hot Chili Peppers albums. They wanted the record to be approached in a funk, punk, and blues way. That aspect was fairly straightforward for me; because of my background I automatically and instantly knew what they needed.” UNIVERSAL COLOUR CODE
Pogue: “One important thing I do is organise the session in my preferred way. I learned from Taavi Mote to colour code everything. The drums are in black, the bass is blue, the guitars are orange, the keyboards green, organs will be off-green, the horns are brown, the strings light blue, female lead vocals pink and male lead vocals red, and the backing vocals are purple. The sessions are also always in the same order, with the drums at the top, then bass, guitars, keys, brass, strings, lead vocals, and the backing vocals at the bottom. I use the same colours on the channel strip on the desk, and this allows me to always know immediately where everything is. My board layout is a bit unusual in that I have the vocals on channel 25 and upwards, and the drums on channel 24 going to the left. So the kick comes up under channel 24, the snare channel 23, and so on. Channels 17-24 are my drums and to the left of that are my bass, guitars and keyboards, and AT 29
I still think the board sounds superior, but people have come to love the digital distortion-to-thepoint-that-it-isshredding and the sound of the Waves L2
perhaps horns and strings on the far left. I have the drums next to the vocals because I start my mixes with the drums and this means I’m right in between the speakers for that.” SNARING THE ACCENTS
Q.U.E.E.N. is a funk-pop-rock song reminiscent of Prince’s music from the 1980s, with echoes of Chic and Parliament/Funkadelic as well. It’s driven by a funky rhythm guitar and heavy bass, and by synthesizers popping up all over the place, which are augmented by massive backing vocals that often are made to sound like synths. One of the most striking aspects of the song is that it continually changes, with new ingredients coming in all the time — no hitting the ‘next’ button after the first verse and chorus in this case. Also, the snare only occasionally plays on 2 and 4, and is mostly used for accents, the downbeats are for the most part handled by finger snaps and hand claps. “To me the way the snare is used in this track is a breath of fresh air,” comments Pogue. “It was part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers influence, and it gave me no difficulties at all in terms of getting the groove right.
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SNAP & CRACKLE IN POP
DASHING DYNAMICS
Pogue: “The top drum track is an 808 kick, and after that there’s the ‘big kick,’ and then two snare tracks, ‘Fat’ and ‘Knock,’—the latter supports the former—and then a hi-hat track, which was very minimal, and natural finger snaps recorded with a binaural head, claps, three tambourine tracks, bongos and congas, three shakers and more live percussion. The only outboard I used for this entire mix was the dbx 160XT compressor and a Tube-Tech EQ on the kick. Later, when I brought the mix back to my studio, I added an API plugin EQ on the snare ‘Knock’ track, to add some high mids and make it crack more, plus I put a Digidesign EQ on the finger snaps, to make them shine a little more.”
Pogue: “The main challenge on this album was achieving the dynamics Nate and Roman were after. They wanted the songs to move and breathe, and with all the elements talking to each other. Janelle might say a line, and immediately afterwards a keyboard will come up and quickly go down again. Particularly with Q.U.E.E.N., Wonder was very specific about how even the slightest move of a synth during her vocals would make the track more exciting. The music has to sing and move right along with her. She and the music had to be one. You can see how I was riding the volume on the Moogs and Junos in particular. All the synths, horns and strings were treated only with desk EQ and compression, where necessary. Stevie Wonder’s albums from the ’70s were a major influence for the synths. I didn’t use plug-ins at all on those tracks, because everything sounded great and I didn’t want to mess with it — I wanted to keep that natural 1970s feel.”
PRINCELY GUITARS
Pogue: “The guitars were influenced by Prince in the 1980s. Mixing this record I learned not to be afraid to do radical things EQ-wise, particularly adding high mids. Today guitars are rarely pushed to the limit, but on this record we did push them, to make them bite and stand out a bit more. So as well as using the SSL EQ, I used an API EQ to cut out some low end.”
ON A HIGH NOTE
Pogue: “Track 48 is Janelle’s lead vocal track, which has the RCompressor and the Digidesign
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EQ on it. It’s then sent to aux track 49 with Digidesign’s Extralong Delay for the delay throws at the end of words and lines. Track 50 is the lead vocal ad lib track, which is sent to Waves’ SuperTap delay on track 51 for a slap effect. As I said, we wanted to push the envelope with this record, and just like with the guitars we also sometimes made Janelle’s vocals sound a little harsher than usual, to create more emotion and make them cut through. EQ is so cool, you EQ something one way, and you add one kind of emotion, and you EQ it another, and you add a different emotion. Emphasising the highs and high mids can add a little bit more excitement to your record. Underneath the lead vocals are the backing vocals, which were sung by Janelle, Erykah Badu and Nate. Things can be so sterile nowadays, with the lead vocalist doing everything. I think it’s much more organic to have different vocalists sing different layers of backing vocals.” KEEP IT DOWN
Pogue: “I mixed back into the session, which was at 24-bit/44.1k. I think going above 48k is pointless, the naked ear can’t tell the difference. I like to send the final mix through the SSL stereo bus and then EQ with either two APIs or a GML 8200, but I don’t generally use compression. I don’t like pushing my mixes to make them sound loud unless I know we’re going for a particular sound that is trying to compete with what’s out there. Nate didn’t want a particularly loud record, mostly he wanted to make sure the nostalgic element in the song shone through. For me that was very cool. Overall the idea was to have a natural sound, and that suited me, because it meant that I could focus on volume and panning in the mix, plus the occasional bit of EQ and compression. Many people reach for tons of plug-ins as if on automatic pilot, but using too many EQs destroys that natural sound. I prefer to keep it natural, and simple.” AT 32
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REGULARS Step 3
Step 2
MAC NOTES Getting the most out of Mavericks without it breaking on you. Column: Anthony Garvin
Apple has recently released Mac OS 10.9 — Mavericks — finally moving away from its ‘big cats’ naming scheme which has been in place for 12 years, instead opting to name the new OS after one of California’s most dangerous surf breaks… nice. But how does it stack up for DAW use? DAW Compatibility: The major DAW developers are, for the most part, already up to spec on compatibility with Mavericks: • Avid has recently released Pro Tools 11.0.3, which is Mavericks compatible.
Step 4
(These instructions are based on Mountain Lion, but should work on earlier OS’s) Step 1: Open Disk Utility in Applications > Utilities (or command-shift-U from Finder). Step 2: Select your hard disk (not the partitions) in the left hand area. Step 3: Select the Partition tab.
Step 4: From the bottom right of the graphic representing your partition, click and drag to resize (smaller or larger). Step 5: Use the + button to add another partition. Step 6: Hit Apply when ready.
• Apple’s Logic Pro X is Mavericks compatible. • Ableton Live’s recent 9.1 release is Mavericks compatible, and an upcoming 8.4.2 will also work on the new OS.
I do welcome the fact I can now hit the DELETE button on an email without even having to flick back to Mail!
• Cubase 7.0.6 is Mavericks compatible with one main caveat: a CoreAudio2Asio patch (from the Steinberg site) must be installed in order to run USB class compliant audio interfaces.
Finder Tabs: These work just like a tab in a web browser, but are for ‘browsing’ files. It’s bound to be useful for those with many clients/files/ projects, allowing you to find and move files in a much more ergonomic fashion.
• Propellerhead’s “initial testing of the new Mac OS X Mavericks has not revealed any problems with Reason 7.0.1.” Here’s a few Mavericks highlights, and tips, that are going to be handy for us DAW users. Firstly, the cost is a big fat $0. What to do with the $20 or so that you put aside for the purchase of Mavericks? I highly recommend purchasing Dadalife’s Sausage fattener distortion plug-in at US$29 (yes, it works on Mavericks — though they still aren’t an ‘identified developer’ so you’ll need to tweak your security settings to install). Display Double: If you are using multiple displays, the inclusion of the menu bar and dock on each display (meaning there’s no longer only one ‘primary’ display) will prevent constant mouse traversing of your screen. Mavericks also allows a fullscreen app to run on each display — a great idea for those using rewired apps together frequently. ‘Improved” Notifications: I say ‘improved’ because personally, I find Notifications (introduced in the previous Mac OS) to be annoying and an unwanted distraction. However, AT 34
Compressed Memory: This under-the-hood feature allows Mavericks to expand and compress an app’s memory usage, according to what is only needed by active apps. This will allow the system to free up memory — resulting in faster “responsiveness under load.” We all want to be more responsive under load! Smb2 (Networking): For those trying to make Macs and PCs cooperate on the same network, the new SMB2 will be of interest, claiming not only faster overall performance, but improved Windows compatibility as well. iBooks: What does iBooks have to do with your studio? Well, I’ve been using iBooks on my iOS devices to manage numerous gear manuals — and with the integration of iBooks into Mavericks, (also featuring iCloud integration to keep bookmarks and the like), you’ll never lose your place in a 500+ page SSL manual again! Power (Battery) Usage: Overall, there has been significant improvements in power usage — much to the benefit of laptop users who might be able to squeeze out a bit more battery life whilst flying between shows… or making beats on the couch at home.
Reminders: Not totally related to music production, but more of a general productivity feature. I’m glad that reminders have been enhanced to include sorting by due date/priority, a ‘today’ list and reusable list options. Perhaps I can become that little bit more organised. Installing Mavericks: Back in Issue 91, I went over the key steps and considerations I make when installing a new Mac OS, and I still recommend taking this approach with Mavericks. [Just search ‘Mac Notes 91’ on audiotechnology. com.au to grab Anthony’s installation guide – Ed] Here are the key points: • Set up a test install on a separate partition or hard drive. If you have free space on your internal disk, Disk Utility can resize partitions — see below. • Make sure all your software (including plug-ins) works on the new OS. If you can’t find documentation, try it on your test system • When you are ready to take the plunge, do a clean install. This reduces the risk of conflicts/ issues with the old OS, and removes any remnants from unused software. Resizing Partitions using Disk Utility I’ve previously talked about resizing a partition using Boot Camp Assistant — but there’s actually a much easier way. This will allow you to use any free space that you have on a drive to create a new partition.
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REGULARS
PC AUDIO Is your audio PC ready to move onto solids yet? Column: Martin Walker
When solid state drives first appeared on the market a few years ago, many musicians were understandably excited by the possibility of abandoning their noisy mechanical hard drives and transforming their PCs into high speed, totally silent audio computers. Who wouldn’t be, with SSD sustained transfer rates of over 200MB/second, amazing random access times of a fraction of a millisecond, lower power drain, plus a total lack of moving parts? In practice, the relatively high price and low capacity of SSDs scuppered this dream for all but the well-heeled, while the scare-mongering over them ‘wearing out’ after excessive writes also put a lot of people off (the memory cells of solid-state drives do eventually wear out, although admittedly they tend to be rated for tens of thousands of read/write cycles). Today however, while it still pays to buy from a leading manufacturer to ensure your SSD contains high quality flash memory chips, the inevitable march of progress has ensured that modern SSDs are far less vulnerable to ‘wearing out’ than they were a few years ago, and that they are also available in ever larger sizes at ever keener prices. Even buying a modest 120GB SSD and installing Windows onto it can dramatically speed up computer boot times and application launches compared with a traditional hard drive. SSDs won’t demonstrate such performance improvements when used for audio storage, since a modern 7200rpm mechanical hard drive is already perfectly capable of streaming a host of simultaneous 24-bit/96k audio tracks without breaking a sweat. Nevertheless, if you do have the cash to buy larger SSDs (500GB and up), they are worth investigating for audio purposes if you insist on recording/playing back bucketloads of tracks, if you still fancy that totally silent desktop PC, or for a notebook/tablet PC where their greater resistance to knocks, drops, humidity and other environmental issues makes far better sense when gigging! Sample library loading can also be sped up by using SSDs, although once again cost still enters the equation. If you use huge orchestral sample library templates you may notice significantly AT 36
faster project loading by transferring your libraries to one or more dedicated SSDs, but if you work on that same project all day then the one-off loading speed-up may not outweigh the extra expense. You may also manage greater maximum polyphony by going solid state with your sample storage, although once again splitting those libraries across two or more 7200rpm drives will do the same job for a lot less dosh. Where you really will notice a huge improvement in the sample department is with RAM-hungry VST Instruments such as Spectrasonics Omnisphere and Camel Audio’s Alchemy, where an SSD can often transform tedious several-second pauses between presets into near instantaneous transitions while auditioning different sounds. SSD HINTS & TIPS
If you intend to use solid state drives, you should really be using Window 7 or 8, both of which already include support for the TRIM command, rather than Windows XP or Vista (which don’t). TRIM is designed to counter performance drops with SSDs over time, and should already be enabled if you perform a clean install of Windows 7/8 on the SSD. This might not be the case if you cloned an existing Windows install from another drive, but you can always check that TRIM is correctly enabled on any drive by running the free DriveControllerInfo utility (download it from download.orbmu2k.de/files/DriveControllerInfo. zip) and look for the telltale TRIM enabled on its top display line. If it doesn’t appear, you’ll need to right-click the Windows CMD utility from the Start menu, choose its ‘Run as administrator’ option, then type in the somewhat arcane ‘fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0’. Remember that defragmentation is an irrelevant process for an SSD, since they don’t have any moving mechanical parts — however defragmented the files get, it won’t affect their access time, so don’t ever be tempted to run any fancy defrag utilities on an SSD and possibly shorten its lifespan. By default, Windows 7 should disable Scheduled Defragmentation for all solid state drives, but it’s worth double checking this by entering ‘Disk Defragmenter’ on the Start menu and looking at the scheduled defragmentation status for any SSD drive/partitions. In Windows
8 the defrag tool is renamed Storage Optimiser, and although this does include SSDs in its weekly defrag regime it will only in fact defrag mechanical drives, instead sending ‘trim hints’ to any SSDs it finds. To hopefully speed up future Windows Searches across your drives, Windows can compile an index of the names and contents of various file types behind the scenes. However, only strings and file types that Microsoft thinks you are likely to search for are included, while the indexing operations themselves consume processor cycles and once again increase solid state drive wear. It’s certainly worth disabling this Windows Search Indexing for each SSD, as well as for any other drive/partition used primarily for audio or video storage (to avoid any unexpected file access during crucial recording and editing sessions). To do so in Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8, just open Windows Explorer, rightclick on each drive in turn that you want to remove from the indexing process, select Properties, and finally on the General page untick the box labeled ‘Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties’, followed by OK. Some musicians also seem to be confused about whether or not to have a Windows pagefile placed on an SSD, or whether to move their pagefile to a separate hard drive to avoid unwanted write activity. However, Microsoft itself considers that, “there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD”, because typical pagefile activity is small random reads or larger sequential writes, with the reads outnumbering the writes by a factor of 40. So, if you install Windows on an SSD, leave your pagefile on there as well, unless you’re desperate for space, in which case leave a small pagefile on the SSD and create a larger supplementary one on another drive. Finally, for optimum performance you should really try to ensure that 25% of your SSD is left as free space, otherwise write performance is likely to slow down. Space, still the final frontier!
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REVIEW
RØDE NT1
CONDENSER MICROPHONE The NT1, the beginning of it all for Rode, is back… in black. And Rode is really flexing its manufacturing muscles.
NEED TO KNOW
Review: Mark Davie
PRICE Expect to pay $299 CONTACT Rode Microphones (02) 9648 5855 www.rodemic.com
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PROS Classic all-purpose voicing Superlative shockmount Dual-layer pop filter Super-low self-noise
CONS No pad or high-pass filter
SUMMARY Rode is a company that helped create the entry level microphone market. And now, with the reincarnated NT1, it’s fundamentally changing what we can expect for our dollar.
The NT1 is Peter Freedman’s good luck charm. Peter is Rode Microphones’ owner and it was the mic that started it all: the one that put him on a path out of debt, a path that saved his father’s business, and on which he built his own empire. It’s almost like he feels he owes it to the little mic to keep perfecting the idea of what the NT1 can be. As Rode grows, so does it. The original NT1 wasn’t much to speak of. A Chinese import, before Chinese imported microphones were ubiquitous. He imported 20 as a hail mary pass at solvency. Cracked them open, realised they were crap, fixed them up and went about trying to sell them. The ‘U87-copy’ market was ripe for the picking, and the promise of the NT1 led to to his next mic, the NT2, which gave him a foothold in the American market, and things really started taking off for Rode microphones. Shortly after, Rode radically reversed its business plan. While everyone else was importing more and more Chinese capacitor microphones, Freedman became dedicated to the idea of wholly designing and manufacturing all Rode microphones in Australia. The company’s Silverwater plant quickly grew into a full-service manufacturing facility. And Rode continues to build on its manufacturing expertise. In 2012, Rode launched the Rodeworks design facility. A slice of Sydney’s CBD turned into a designer hub for product and design innovation. It’s been working overtime, delivering svelte new packaging, and some ground-up new and redesigned products. The NT1 is one of the first beneficiaries of this intensified focus on design. BACK IN BLACK
The most noticeable departure for Rode is the move to black. Rode has released live and broadcast products in black, but up until the NT1, M3 and M5 pencil mics, all Rode’s studio mics had followed the classic European mic tradition of platedmetal housings or, at least, metallic tones. It was a function of the Neumann/AKG/Telefunken tribute. Once again, the NT1 leads the way. It’s a proper one-inch condenser Rode has voiced to sound like a classic mic, without looking like one. The black finish is not just a gimmick, it’s the final ceramic coating on top of a machined 6061 aluminium body that’s first plated in nickel so it won’t corrode. The military-grade black coating is super durable, so you won’t be scratching it off in a hurry or greasing it up with fingerprints. Also, Rode has stopped using stickers for branding, which is a good thing. A NEW LEVEL OF SHOCK
One of Freedman’s strengths has always been his ability to get a deal done, and strike up golden relationships. Rode’s partnership with Rycote is one of those. Initially, the relationship was devised as a perfect partnership around Rode’s dominance in the camera-top microphone market, and Rycote’s longtime mastery of the top of the boompole. But the relationship has since spilled over into Rode’s other lines, resulting in the new SMR shockmount, which is packaged with the NT1, but
also compatible with most of Rode’s side address condensers. It uses Rycote’s Lyre system, twice. The larger Lyre takes care of the hard work, while a smaller, inner version acts as a tensioning system to keep the Lyre in the neutral position where it’s most effective. The NT1 also has a small internal suspension system. All three elements provide pretty effective isolation, enough to eliminate all stand-borne vibrations, and heavily dampen the effect of tapping on the stand. But best of all, there’s no rubber or elastic bands in sight, and the Lyre system won’t sag or lose shape over time. Also included in the suspension mount is a removable pop filter. A double-thick fine mesh number that is as good as any pop filter on the market. It slides snugly into the shockmount’s protruding lower lip. At first, the lip might seem problematic for placement, but it’s not too much bigger than a standard shockmount, and eliminates the annoyance of trying to get a rogue goosenecked pop filter to stay in place. The fixed positioning means no matter how many times you have to alter the mic position, the pop filter will always be in the right place. If you really need to get the mic closer to a source, or just can’t fit the shockmount through a particular drum crevice, you can grab the optional Rode RM2 ring clip. Lastly, and probably the most brilliant of all, is the tension system. Instead of the same old friction plate design we see in almost every mic clip, suspension mount and mic stand on the market, the SMR shockmount uses a cylinder tension system. When you tighten the mount, it squeezes the cylinder all the way around, making for a much more effective tightening system that easily holds up the mic, and requires much less force. There are a few things about the SMR shockmount that should become industry standards, and that’s definitely one of them. CONDENSED PACKAGE
The NT1 is a single diaphragm, fixed cardioid condenser. It would be tempting to say it’s a progression on the current NT1-A, but the only aspect the two have in common is the grille. What you get instead is a whole lot of design for a $300 mic. While 20 years ago, surface-mounting used to be frowned upon as technicaly inferior, these days it’s allowing manufacturers like Rode to push the boundaries of what’s capable in a mass-produced microphone. In fact, the quality of the technology has enabled Rode to design a mic with even lower self-noise than ever before — far from inferior. The first NT1 had 25dBA of self-noise, which was “kinda like hearing a shower in the background compared to what we’re doing now,” said Freedman. Rode has got that figure down to 4dBA with the NT1, which is as good as that spec gets at the moment. You will essentially never be hearing noise from this mic, especially in home studios, where a lot of these mics will end up. The entire capsule has been designed from scratch. Rode has dubbed it the HF6. The HF1 capsule is the one found in the NT2000 and K2, which was Rode’s
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While moving away from the copy route, Rode has managed to capture that essence of a real workhorse with the NT1
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first tilt at really trying to nail the vintage capsule sonic signatures. So the NT1 follows that development train of thought, and is the better for it. The sensitivity of the NT1 is a little bit higher than the NT1-A, nothing untoward, but you might find you’re putting the pad on a little earlier. It’s well-equipped to be able to take a hit up to 132dB SPL. When you add all this up, the NT1 is a sensitive, low-noise mic, that will pick up detail for days before you’ll hear noise, but isn’t your first-choice kick mic. It’s perfectly suited to vocals, capturing every nuance, with the assurance a decently-high maximum SPL and that double grille windscreen will keep any peaks in range. It has a much smoother frequency response than the NT1-A, with a little less resonance up top. But definitely not a dead mic. With its reduced top end, on acoustic guitar you hear more of the woody mid tones, whereas the NT1-A picks up a bit more boom and pick action — just generally more scooped. Though more pronounced in the mid range, the NT1 managed to stay out of that boxy territory, and captured a nice even, dare I say it, natural sound. It was actually one of the better large diaphragm condensers I had around for reproducing what I know the guitar to sound like. I may not have selected it all the time. The NT1-A was more flattering on picked parts, where the scooped sound really brings out the low resonance you often need to carry the root notes, but with more high-end to pinpoint the picking and make it seem more open. Which was the opposite of what I wanted when recording chordal rhythms. The two flavours aren’t a bad pairing to have around. The NT1 handled vocal duties marvellously. It was much easier on the sibilance, which can often be a problem with the current crop of brightly-voiced condensers. It could do with a bass rolloff switch. While I’m at it, a pad switch would be nice too. There again, if I had to choose, I’d rather have the shockmount, sound and buildquality for this price. The NT1 is a great mic, and not just for the money. It’s voiced with less emphasis all-round, which makes it a great all-purpose mic. It’s part of what made the U87 a classic in the first place — it just works, a lot of the time. But this is no slavish emulation, Rode has managed to capture that essence of a real workhorse with the NT1. When you wrap the fact you get a completely professional-level shockmount and pop filter thrown in, which is nothing to be sniffed at, the value just keeps getting better. AT 40
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REVIEW
SAMPLR
Don’t just play waveforms, play with them. Review: Tim Shiel
Available on the App store for $9.99 www.samplr.net
It’s fair to say that waveforms are rarely perceived as sensual or musical. In the context of music a waveform is simply a functional representation of the physics of sound: a dry visual indicator of passing vibrations in the air — guides that can be cut, copied and pasted with all of the glamour and vibrancy of a word processor. In the world of Samplr, however, the waveform becomes a playable instrument, a workable material like clay or putty that can be sculpted, stretched and finessed. With no piano roll or drum pad to act as middleman, this iPad app allows you to use your fingers to directly ‘play’ a waveform via eight different multi-touch capable modes, with immediately intuitive and musical results. For example, Looper mode allows you to loop fragments of a waveform by using two fingers as start and end points. Expand your fingers to expand the loop in realtime, move them closer together to create smaller granular-style loops. Flip your fingers around and the loop flips into reverse, and move your fingers to slide the loop region throughout the waveform. If your other hand is free, use two more fingers to add a secondary loop. Unlike the rack ’n’ stack ’em workflow of a loop pedal, the mode is designed for expressive melodic or textural performance. Even in the hands of a newbie it feels responsive and musical; in the hands of a virtuoso, I imagine Samplr’s Looper mode (and Bow variant) could be used to devastating effect as an expressive solo instrument. Imagine a virtuoso thereminist manipulating not a single tone but any sound — a drone, a slide guitar, a music box — and doing it not with two hands, but 10 fingers. That goes some way to envisioning the potential for Samplr as a musical instrument.
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Samplr is a truly remarkable multitouch performance instrument, whose potential as an expressive sound source is really only limited by your imagination and the dexterity and eloquence of your fingers
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In Tape mode your finger position adjusts tape speed, forwards or in reverse. Scratch mode could probably handle a rename though, as the results are more akin to digital jog wheeling than anything a DJ and a turntable would produce. Slicer is a more traditional trigger mode, where a sample is separated into smaller segments to be triggered individually via multi-touch. The piano roll Keyboard mode, Arpeggiator mode, and simple Loop Player mode round out the full set of playable multitouch modes. A Samplr project can contain up to six samples, each of which can be pitch adjusted on the fly in any mode, and can be run through up to five native effects (compressor, filter, tremolo, delay and reverb). Sequences can be looped and overdubbed, plus a recently released MIDI sync feature allows for tempo matching with external sources. Samplr comes loaded with a range of native samples from percussion loops to voice samples to recordings of a range of well-chosen acoustic instruments such as spanish guitar, hang drum and celesta. User samples can be easily added to Samplr via a Dropbox import feature — a recent update that adds a neat touch. In fact, so much about the app’s interface is thoughtful and transparent. Which is not surprising, since developer Marcos Alonso’s previous work includes the Reactable, the backlit tabletop controller that caused a stir on Bjork’s Volta tour. Marcos is a regular presence on Samplr’s community forum, where users are actively submitting feature requests and suggestions. More than an app, Samplr is a truly remarkable multitouch performance instrument, whose potential as an expressive sound source is really only limited by your imagination and the dexterity and eloquence of your fingers. It borrows styling from Teenage Engineering’s OP-1, which isn’t a bad thing, but isn’t priced like one… also not a bad thing. An absolute musthave for anyone with an iPad. AT 43
REVIEW
ARTURIA KEYLAB 49
CONTROLLER KEYBOARD Not your average controller, with a pile of virtual analogue ready to roll.
NEED TO KNOW
Review: Brad Watts
PRICE Expect to pay Keylab 25 $329 Keylab 49 $449 Keylab 61 $549
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CONTACT CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or sales@cmi.com.au
PROS Vast library of analogue recreations Same synth engines as the V-series plug-ins Solidly built Piles of MIDI input options Good feel to the keyboard
CONS I don’t think those ends are really wood A tad more expensive than your typical controller
SUMMARY In a market where most controller keyboards feel like tupperware, Arturia’s KeyLab range has a solid, industrial feel worthy of doing the gigging rounds.
I’m actually in the market for a controller keyboard, and I think I may have just found the one. Well, the unit I have here isn’t the actual ‘one’ because I’ll be out to grab the 61-note version, but after experiencing Arturia’s latest foray into software-assisted controller keyboards I’m going to put this out there early for this particular review; these Keylab keyboards are ace! And you can quote me on that. Not only is it incredibly well built, with plenty enough features to keep you tinkling and tweaking for years to come, the range is also alarmingly cheap. As I’m sure you’re sensing, I’m suitably impressed.
cheeky-bits, and the KeyLab range provides such. Due to this olde-worlde construction the 49-note version is heavier than your average plastic model, but, this adds a pile of gravitas to the overall feel of the unit. It’s a keyboard you’d keep in a road case when travelling, and be damned with the weight. Arturia has aimed this at gigging rather than sitting on a desk in the confines of a production workstation all its life, and I’m certain it will withstand the task over and over again. Being a player’s keyboard, it also offers channel aftertouch — such an important modulation source with synthetic sounds.
Arturia originally hit the market as a software developer with its ‘True Analogue Emulation’ virtual instrument plug-ins. These emulations encompassed real vintage instruments such as the Mini Moog, Roland Jupiter 8, and the Yamaha CS80 (the CS80V is still a favourite of mine — and I have the T-shirt to prove it). Over the years the French company has branched out into hardware incarnations of its uncannily realistic emulations, initially with the Origin synth module surfacing during 2008, and later with the MiniBrute and the keyboard version of the Origin.
The top panel sports a healthy menagerie of buttons and sliders, along with 16 velocity-sensitive drum pads (the previous Analog Experience series only had four), and transport controls. The drum pads light up blue when you whack them, which is cool, and can be assigned to play chords. The transport buttons, like all the buttons on the unit give a solid click when prodded, and also light up blue — except for the record button, which lights up red, of course. For rotary tweaking there are 10 continuous pots which can be assigned to anything you like, but in their standard state address all the staples such as filter cutoff, resonance, delay and chorus level etc. There’s also nine 60mm faders. Why nine? Eight and a master, perhaps.
In recent years, Arturia has produced various controller keyboards, all with virtual instrument software included. These were marketed as ‘hybrid synths’ — a software-based virtual instrument package combined with a hardware controller keyboard with bespoke access to the virtual synth functions. The previous ‘Analog Experience’ range did include the Analog Factory software — which takes sounds, and synthesis engines, from Arturia’s entire range of virtual ‘V’-monikered instruments. The caveat with Analog Experience keyboards and software was; the larger the keyboard package, the more sounds were included with the software. With the KeyLab range you get the full enchilada regardless of how many physical keys you opt for. Analog Lab is the software, giving you access to 5000 sounds sourced from the more prominent V-series instruments. These include the Mini V, Modular V, CS-80V, Arp2600V, Jupiter 8V, Prophet V, Prophet VS, Oberheim SEM V and Wurlitzer V. Not bad considering these instruments would individually cost around $100 a pop. With access to such a library, and the synthesis engines from all these V-synths, you’ve really got a huge array of sounds to pick from. From the etherial, to the thump, through to plump analogue bass, searing stabs and fill-that-gap-in-a-hurry pads. One couldn’t be disappointed with the quality of these sounds, or the quantity. It’s worth noting Analog Lab has far simpler editing options than the V-series instruments themselves. However, should you have a V-series instrument installed, Analog Lab will call up the editing window of the V-series instrument used for a particular sound, allowing you to edit the patch more thoroughly before saving it into Analog Lab. In fact, you could use it as an ‘Arturia V-series library and player’. It also offers the advantage of layering two sounds from different V-series instruments, so if you’re laden with Arturia V-series instruments, Analog Lab is an extremely practical tool. The software is compatible with OS X 10.6 and up, Windows 7/8, and comes in all the plug-in flavours you would expect, including AAX and a standalone version. But enough of the soft end, let’s investigate the hard end of things. NUTS & BOLTS
As I alluded to earlier, the KeyLab 49 is startlingly well made. In an era where the majority of synths and keyboards are throwaway plastic affairs, the KeyLab is refreshingly comprised of plate steel and something looking suspiciously like timber, although I suspect it isn’t. Arturia enjoys the odd woody end-
The actual keybed feels quite nice — at least in comparison to typical plastic controller keyboards hovering around in this price bracket. The keys are semi weighted and respond to the lightest touch with velocity levels on ‘1’. One thing I didn’t like was the rebound on the keys. Upon release they tend to wobble about — like that thing kids do with their rulers on school desks. But other than that, at this dollar it’s a damn fine keyboard.
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These Keylab keyboards are ace! And you can quote me on that
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To the back of the KeyLab are three controller inputs for sustain and expression pedals, and an auxiliary input which can be set to any controller number you like (in fact, all three pedal control jacks can be set to any controller). Of interest may be the MIDI out and MIDI in ports. Typically you’d use the KeyLab with your DAW and a USB connection, and the MIDI out port would be used when triggering other hardware via the KeyLab. So what’s the MIDI in for? I asked the same question. The KeyLab units will function as a MIDI interface with your DAW, enabling hookup of, dare I say, ‘classic’ MIDI devices. A nice touch Arturia. If you’re using the KeyLab sans DAW, you can power it using an optional 5V power adaptor, otherwise the unit gleans all its power from the USB connection. WORTHY
We’ve already established I’m keen on one of these — the 61-note model is exactly what I’m looking for to replace a very tired Korg machine that’s been reliable, up until the last month or so. After looking around I didn’t fancy the feel of the $150-$300 price range in keyboards. They’re all seemingly ‘disposable’. My previous unit, after 26 years is finally beginning to give spurious velocity levels and the odd ‘blank’ note. I’m basically on the hunt for a replacement that will stand the same test of time. I believe the KeyLab will do it. It’s tough as nails, looks good, and it had a good feeling keyboard and a pile of useful ancillary input methods. Plus, like my old Korg unit, sports aftertouch. If you want a solid keyboard, and a very tasty library of analogue sounds thrown in, look no further.
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REVIEW
WAVES J37 TAPE
Got the ips? Why not use the same tape as The Beatles. Review: Brad Watts
The recording world is acutely aware of the sonic disparities between magnetic tape and digital mediums. Tape sounds nice. If we believe Hollywood, every surveillance team in the USA still uses a reel-to-reel — maybe they’ve a surplus of tape operators. While digital recording captures a more accurate recording, tape imparts a degree of saturation, distortion, and when pushed, a modicum of gratifying compression — most notably with drums.
speed, bias, noise, wow and flutter, and saturation — wow and flutter can be taken to ridiculous extremes for some off-the-wall effects and you can saturate the ‘level to tape’ for utterly bombastic distortion should you desire. But for straight tape emulation, the J37 plug-in sounds very nice. Drums seem to pick up a bit more ‘welly’ and guitars and vocals seem to ‘open up’ — it’s just a very pleasing effect. If your computer is up to it, it’s best to put one on each track but you can always put it over your two-bus outputs.
Most tape-emulator plug-ins offer a multitude of tape and tapemachine options. Waves, on the other hand, has chosen to emulate a particular tape-machine — the Studer J37. The J37 made history as the four-track machine used to record The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It used one-inch tape and ran at 7.5 and 15ips (inches per second) tape speeds. Contrary to the four-track myth, Sgt. Pepper’s used two J37s synced together. The plug-in is the result of a collaboration with Abbey Road Studios, and models its prime J37 machine.
Perhaps the icing on this cake, however, is the additional tapedelay mode. This can be set from 1-2000ms, or can be synced to your DAW and set according to timing measures — unlike a real tape machine which relied on the distance between the record and repro head to set the delay time. This alone is worth the entry price as it sounds excellent. Overall, J37 is well worth adding to your sonic inventory.
Waves’ J37 plug-in doesn’t offer multi-tracking — it’s primary use is for flavouring your recordings with a hint, or a fistful, of tape emulation goodness (although there’s another use which I’ll get to in a bit). To that end, there are three tape types as used by EMI throughout the 1960s and ’70s. Then there’s control over tape
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Starting at $149 Sound & Music: (03) 9555 8081 or info@sound-music.com
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