AudioTechnology Issue 76

AudioTechnology THE MAGAZINE FOR SOUND ENGINEERS & RECORDING MUSICIANS

REVIEWS:

SHURE SM27 FAIRLIGHT EVO dB TECHNOLOGIES OPERA D NEUMANN TLM 102 RETRO 176 ROLAND GAIA SH-01 sE X1 BUNDLE

Subscribe & Win THREE SETS OF SENNHEISER HD 380 PRO HEADPHONES!

BRUCE JACKSON The man of 1000 anecdotes returns!

2010

24th - 26th August Hordern Pavilion & Royal Hall of Industries Moore Park, Sydney

STAGEONE SOUND Inside Australia’s first Dolby Premier suite ISSUE 76 AU $6.95(inc gst) NZ $10.95 (inc gst)

presents: Attention all lovers of audio, AudioTechnology Magazine presents AT World! AT World is a show within a show at Integrate 2010 at the Hordern Pavilion and Royal Hall of Industries. It will have its own presentation area where you can dip in and out of whatever happens to be going on — no matter what time of day, you’ll find something interesting. Here’s a snifter: Mastering Summit: AT’s Editor Andy Stewart convenes a high-powered panel of Australia’s mastering crême. Reporting for duty is: Rick O’Neil, Will Bowden, Leon Zervos and David Briggs.

Live Mixing Forum: Bruce Jackson (Elvis, Streisand, The Boss) and Mark Woods (Tina Turner, Men at Work, TISM) head a hefty panel of live sound heavyweights.

Talking Techs: Bruce Jackson, Rob Squire, and Joe Malone comprise an über-panel of Australian tech talent. International ring-in – most welcome, we might add – is AEA’s Wes Dooley.

Smaart 7 Workshop: Smaart 7 comes with a bunch of powerful new functionality. Smaart Aalec, Ben Clarke, will demonstrate how simple it is to set up and deploy.

Mulch Munch: AudioMulch software progenitor, Ross Bencina, takes us through this live performance dynamo.

Open Tuning Guitar: Brendan Gallagher, ARIA Award-winning Karma County frontman and author of the best selling The Open Tuning Chord Book For Guitar, presents his ever-popular Open Tune/Slide Guitar Masterclass.

Better Sounding Small PAs: Greg Simmons offers sensible ‘hands on’ advice that will help you achieve greatly improved sound for your band when playing in small venues. The techniques have worked for countless bands across Australia and they can work for you too.

Speaker Design: Quest Engineering’s technical guru Guillaume Boda takes us through the fundamentals of loudspeaker design, including measurement systems and devices used.

Free Stuff: Finally, largesse. Make sure you don’t miss out on the minty scramble of free gear and giveaways throughout the three days.

Head to the AT World website for a full schedule.

Where will you find AT World? At Integrate, 24-26 August 2010, Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park, Sydney. How much will it cost? It’ll be absolutely free.

AT World: www.integrate-expo.com/atworld

2010

sponsors:

STAGING & TOURING AUSTRALIA

AT WORLD PACKS ’TOOLS STUDIO Stop Press: AT World is very pleased to welcome Avid, which is setting up a full-blown, state-of-the-art Avid ProTools studio. The studio will include a D-Control console, ProTools HD, M-Audio DSM3 monitoring, along with the latest ProTools plug-ins. An Eleven Rack and LE setup will also be functioning, while you can get hands-on with the new Venue SC48 console.

The ProTools Studio will play host to three days of free workshops and demonstrations, including sessions from visiting engineers and producers.

Keep an eye on the AT World site for more as we confirm names and times.

24–26 August 2010 Hordern Pavilion & Royal Hall of Industries Moore Park, Sydney

integrate-expo.com

AudioTechnology Editor Andy Stewart andy@audiotechnology.com.au

ED SPACE

Publisher Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au

Taking (tape) stock

Editorial Director Christopher Holder chris@audiotechnology.com.au

Text: Andy Stewart

Online Editor Brad Watts brad@audiotechnology.com.au Art Direction & Design Leigh Ericksen leigh@alchemedia.com.au Additional Design Dominic Carey dominic@alchemedia.com.au

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” said the engineer to the tape machine as the new owners wheeled it out of the studio and onto the truck. “I would kill thee with much cherishing if I hang onto it much longer,” the engineer added, wiping a tear from his analogue eye.

“So many albums have I printed with thee, and drop-ins – more than three.”

As my old Studer A80MkIV VU 24-track two-inch tape machine departed for fairer shores recently after many months of soul searching about its future, I was almost moved to tears. Watching it sail into the sunset filled me with a sense of loss that I’ve not felt before with a piece of audio equipment. That recorder and I had been through thick and thin together, tracking all manner of indie records across its superlative heads. In the time I’d owned it the A80 had been loomed to a diverse range of consoles: everything from a brand new Mackie eight-bus to Richmond Recorders’ classic quad-panning MCI JH416, an SSL 5000 and finally a Neve 51-series that I still use today. The Studer taught me almost everything I know about analogue tape recording and defined my sound before I even knew I had one.

I can still recall the day we met. We were in Studio Two at the old Platinum building in Melbourne – in the front room overlooking Chapel Street. I was a musician and budding engineer; it was a narrow-bodied in-house hottie with low hours and impeccable heads – in many respects way out of my league. I’d heard around the traps that the machine was for sale and was very keen to check it out – shuttle some tape back and forth and do a rough mix through Platinum’s Harrison console to get a feel for its tone. At the time I remember I’d reduced the choice down to two multitrack options: the Studer two-inch or three brand new, cutting-edge black-faced ADATs ‘locked together’ with a BRC (Big Remote Control) – which incidentally would have set me back over 30 grand had I chosen that option. I guess this was in around 1993 or so, during the final years of Platinum before it was sold and transformed into the corrugated iron-clad monstrosity known as Kiss Studios.

The Studer was a child of the early ’80s, built with a level of refinement that made all other tape machines look positively neanderthal. Tape whirred back and forth through its spools with a precision that sometimes made it hard to tell whether tape was rolling or standing still.

It’s familiar ‘click’ as it locked tape into play, and again as it dropped out and spooled this way and that, became a comforting sound during those lengthy and sometimes nervy tracking sessions we later shared together. When I first dropped all 24 channels into record that fateful

day it was as if Christmas had arrived in an instant, each channel glowing green, red and amber in celebration of the recording it was capturing – on this occasion, a 1k test tone. I was sold… ‘This is what professional recording is all about’, I mused to myself, feeling like a pirate that’s just discovered buried treasure.

As we methodically lowered the Studer down Platinum’s steep staircase, hoping to avoid being crushed by 250-odd kilos of runaway two-inch, the anticipation of a future where the tape machine would benefit rather than hinder my recording projects was intense. No machine has felt so important to me over the course of my now relatively lengthy history with audio equipment.

‘What had upset me about selling it?’ I wondered, as I stared into the vacant corner where the machine once stood. The Studer hadn’t been used much at all in recent times, so it wasn’t a critical loss from a technical perspective. Nearly all my mixing in the last few years has been done with a ProTools rig hooked up to a Neve console – the Studer has been little more than a silent onlooker during these sessions. So what was the problem?

I’ve had countless recording computers over the years and none of these have engendered such nostalgic pangs… on the contrary, I’ve been glad to see them go.

I suspect it’s the loss of continuity that I’m feeling, like losing a good friend or burning an old diary. That machine had been there during some of the most formative tracking sessions of my life. It had flattered me on the days when I’d messed up, forgiven me my technical ignorance and served me like a faithful hound. It had travelled with me to Byron Bay and back in a panel van, to Sydney and back in a moving van, even to the Gold Coast and back. In all that time, never once had it damaged a tape or broken down.

But possibly the most important thing it has consistently done is remind me of those early years when I knew very little about audio. It’s always been my silent witness, my humility gauge that monitored the room for BS. Without it there’s now one less physical link to those past tracking and mixing sessions, one less reminder of those humble beginnings.

If there’s anyone out there looking to buy a tape machine, who’s nervous about feeling unqualified to use it, align it or maintain it, just go for it I say! There’s nothing more liberating than trying something new, unencumbered by the precise knowledge of how to use it. The machine will teach you soon enough. In the meantime just give it a go and enjoy the honeymoon period. There’s no shame in ‘not knowing’ or ‘being wrong’ when it comes to sound. It’s the path to originality.

Advertising Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Accounts Manager JenTemm jen@alchemedia.com.au Circulation Manager Miriam Mulcahy mim@alchemedia.com.au Proof Reading Calum Orr Regular Contributors Martin Walker Rick O’Neil Michael Stavrou Calum Orr Paul Tingen Graeme Hague Paul McKercher Hugh Covill Adam McElnea Greg Walker William Bowden Anthony Touma Greg Simmons Rob Squire Robin Gist Michael Carpenter Mark Woods Andrew Bencina Mark Bassett Chris Vallejo James Wilkinson Distribution by: Network Distribution Company.

AudioTechnology magazine (ISSN 1440-2432) is published by Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd (ABN 34 074 431 628).

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All material in this magazine is copyright © 2010 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process with out written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication.

It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974. The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 02/08/10.

CONTENTS 76

44

28 FEATURES

REGULARS

28 BRUCE JACKSON:

LIFE ON THE CUTTING EDGE

Bruce Jackson continues to ride the cutting edge of pro audio. AT catches up.

36 SLASH!

Engineer Eric Valentine talks us through the recording and mixing of Slash’s recent solo album, Slash.

44 STAGEONE SOUND

Sydney has a new Dolby Premier mixing stage that already has several runs on the board including Australia and Daybreakers. AT caught up with Anthos Simon and Peter Weir to find out more about the impressive new complex.

14 YOUR WORD

Readers’ Letters.

18 NEWS

News and new product information, including the latest on Integrate and AT World.

64 HOME GROWN

We take an 8-bit trip into chip music.

68 WHAT’S ON

Studio roundup featuring Oaklands Recording Studios and Studio Zapata.

72 PC & MAC AUDIO

Martin Walker helps you choose your PC interface while Brad Watts conducts a Symphony.

TUTORIALS 52 STAV’S WORD

REVIEWS 78 MINI REVIEWS

Stav shares a secret effects patch designed to wrap your lead vocal in a hooky pattern of textured colour.

54 ON THE BENCH

82 SHURE SM27

Troubleshooting: This issue Rob urges us to think logically about the problems in a studio, write down faults as they appear and clean the joint up!

58 DISTORTION:

DOWN ‘N’ DIRTY

Good sound comes in many forms but in a world where so many engineers strive for sonic purity, sometimes distortion is the missing ingredient.

Phoenix Audio Nice D.I. Allen & Heath Zed-10fx Eigenharp Pico Triton Audio FetHeads Large-diaphragm condenser

84 FAIRLIGHT EVO

Production Console

88 DB TECHNOLOGIES OPERA

402D & 405D

Powered Speakers

92 NEUMANN TLM 102

Cardioid Condenser Mic

94 RETRO 176

Valve Compressor/Limiter

98 TASCAM MH-8

Headphone Amplifier

104 TRACKING THE CHANGES

& STAYING BESIDE THE TIMES

100 ROLAND GAIA SH-01

102 sE ELECTRONICS X1 BUNDLE

Rick O’Neil goes in search of a trackball but winds up with a parking ticket instead.

SEE PAGE 77

SUBSCRIBE & WIN

Three sets of Sennheiser HD380 Pro headphones!

Synth

Microphone & Ref lexion Filter

NEWS: INTEGRATE 2010 2010

24 – 26 AUGUST 2010 Hordern Pavilion & Royal Hall of Industries

AT WORLD: ONLY DAYS TO GO The AT World program is looking tastier by the minute. If you’ve not heard, AT will be requisitioning a full corner of the Hordern Pavillion at Integrate, where – no matter what time of day – you’ll find something interesting going on. Here’s a snifter: Mastering Summit: AT’s Editor Andy Stewart convenes a high-powered panel of Australia’s mastering crême. With some of the country’s biggest brains connected to some of the nation’s biggest mouths, this is sure to be a lively session. Reporting for duty are: Rick O’Neil, Will Bowden, Leon Zervos and David Briggs.

Live Mixing Forum: Bruce Jackson (Elvis, Streisand, The Boss) and Mark Woods (Tina Turner, Men at Work, TISM) head a hefty panel of live sound heavyweights.

Talking Techs: Bruce Jackson, Rob Squire, and Joe Malone comprise a über-panel of Australian tech talent. International ring-in – most welcome, we might add – is AEA’s Wes Dooley, who apart from decades of sound engineering experience brings a whole pile of expertise in ribbon microphone design.

Smaart 7 Workshop: Smaart 7 comes with a bunch of powerful new functionality. Smaart Aalec, Ben Clarke, will demonstrate how simple it is to set up and deploy, while also running us through an intro to FFT measurement and data analysis.

BRUCE JACKSON: LIFE ON THE BLEEDING EDGE Mulch Munch: AudioMulch software progenitor, Ross Bencina, takes us through this live performance dynamo. Includes demos from Peter Kennard and Donna Hewitt.

Open Tuning Guitar: Brendan Gallagher, Karma County front man, creative force behind albums like Jimmy Little’s instant classic Messenger, and author of the best selling The Open Tuning Chord Book For Guitar, presents his ever-popular Open Tune/Slide Guitar Masterclass. Brendan never fails to attract a crowd. Find out why.

ProTools Studio: Finally, AT World is also very pleased to welcome Avid, which is setting up a full-blown Avid ProTools studio. The Avid Studio will play host to three days of free workshops and demonstrations, including sessions from visiting engineers and producers.

Better Sounding Small PAs: Greg Simmons offers sensible ‘hands on’ advice that will help you achieve greatly improved sound for your band when playing in small venues. The techniques he’ll be presenting have worked for countless bands across Australia since the late ‘80s, and they can work for you too.

Speaker Design: Speaker Quest Engineering’s technical guru Guillaume Boda takes us through the fundamentals of loudspeaker design, including measurement systems and devices used.

Australian audio royalty, Bruce Jackson, headlines Integrate 2010. Bruce has spent four decades living a life that pushes the technical envelope. Whether it be as the go-to sound man for some of the biggest touring acts the world has ever seen – think: Elvis, Springsteen and Streisand; acting as audio director for some of the most ambitious one-off events on the planet – think: Shanghai World Expo opening ceremony; or starting up companies that would entirely change the way we work – think: Apogee converters or the Dolby Lake Processor – Bruce has never been one to stay in his comfort zone.

2010

What with this history you’d suspect Bruce would have a helluva collection of war stories, and you’d be right. Sit back and marvel as Bruce recounts some of the most daring, audacious, hilarious, and thought provoking anecdotes you’re ever likely to hear, along with some amazing photographs from Bruce’s personal collection.

Whether you were humping PAs around the traps in the ’70s or a Gen Y audiovisual whiz-kid, this Headlining session provides a unique opportunity to hear from a dead-set legend that’s still the best in the game.

Head to the AT World website for the full schedule.

AT World: www.integrate-expo.com/atworld

SIMMO’S SOUNDS OF ASIA

PROTOOLS MASTERCLASSES

STAV TAKES FLIGHT

SURROUND SOUND FOR FILM

Greg Simmons has spent the noughties taking various combinations of microphones and portable recording gear to SE Asia and the Subcontinent.

In that time he’s compiled a fascinating and formidable collection of location recordings – atmospheres, chants and musicians. Greg will showcase a ‘best of’ selection of stereo recordings and recount the audio challenges he’s surmounted to get them. Lovers of location sound and/ or stereo/surround miking techniques will find Sounds of Asia absolutely gripping, For those who attended Greg’s Sounds of Asia session during last year’s Integrate, we’ve been assured that there will be plenty of ‘never heard before’ new material to sate your appetite.

UTS: Pro School presents two ProTools masterclasses, conducted by the incomparable Brent Heber – Avid Certified Instructor, and author of the blog www. protoolsprofessional.com. The two masterclasses will cover the same turf, and ensure you’ll have ProTools jumping to your command. Topics include a look at the latest features like Elastic Audio, windows configurations, session templates and recent MIDI additions. Alongside the new bells and whistles Brent will revisit key features like tempo mapping, keyboard shortcuts and creative ways of using the industry’s standard audio workstation.

These sessions sold out last year so best secure your ticket now.

Mike Stavrou will surprise and astound as he demonstrates key ‘Stav Approved’ tips and techniques. Stav will conduct one 90-minute session at Integrate packed full of rarely-seen demonstrations that will ‘turn your ears up’ and be guaranteed to send you away inspired. Those who managed to catch Stav at last year’s Integrate, will attest to what an earopener the Stav Session was. Don’t miss out this year – be a part of a fast-paced presentation, jam-packed full of real-life, real-world practical demonstrations.

Here’s a rare opportunity: Integrate, in conjunction with the Australian Film Television & Radio School (AFTRS), is presenting a seminar on surround sound mixing for feature film. This seminar will focus on many of the practical aspects of surround mixing, including surround workflows and setups, placement, dynamics, reverbs and other surround processing; as well as mixing for film vs DVD vs TV surround. Attendees will experience the environment of a full-blown feature film mix stage within the AFTRS Mix Theatre. The seminar will be presented by Chris McKeith, Head of Sound at the AFTRS. Chris has mixed many short drama films, docos, and television programs. Seats are strictly limited for this session. Click on ‘AFTRS Session’ in the Seminars tab for more

THE MAIN EVENT

PAIN IN THE ARTS?

CALLING ALL CHURCH TECHS

‘The Main Event – Sound & Vision for Winter Olympics and World Expo Opening Ceremonies’, is a panel discussion presided over by Integrate’s guest of honor, Bruce Jackson. Bruce was Audio Director for both events, and has years of enormo-events experience under his belt.

Upgrading your performing arts centre is like giving birth… to triplets – painful and prolonged, with plenty of sleepless nights. Which is why Integrate is convening a Performing Arts Centre panel discussion. The panel will be populated by veterans of a lifetime of upgrades and will walk you though the minefield of funding approvals, shootouts, and specifying. Hear about all the mistakes the panel has made so you don’t have to! Quiz the panel on the ‘small stuff ’ that can make all the difference. Not up for a big chunk of change just yet? Then learn how to properly prepare the ground for an upgrade once you get the nod.

Praise Be! Integrate 2010 is partnering with the US’s Technologies For Worship Magazine (TFWM) to host a House of Worship pavilion. TFWM’s House of Worship pavilion has been a popular addition to international shows such as LDI and PLASA, combining hands-on interaction with gear, seminars and people who understand the unique and diverse demands of church production.

Productions such as Olympics and Expo Opening Ceremonies provide unique case studies. With so much at stake and with the whole world watching, the productions are lavish, using state-of-the-art gear and with the sort of redundancy levels you’re unlikely to find outside a NASA Shuttle launch.

Bruce has pulled together a panel replete with some amazing creative and technical brains: Chris Kennedy, Norwest Productions: The Norwest supremo brings his experience in supplying large-scale sound to the panel.

Peter Milne, The Electric Canvas: The Electric Canvas is a world leader in large-scale projection projects and Peter Milne will share his considerable expertise in how to meet the technical challenges of turning a huge space into a ‘big screen’.

Nick Newey, David Atkins Enterprises (DAE): DAE is synonymous with big events. Nick Newey will provide an insight into the technical challenges and logistics of pulling off ‘best Games ever’ grand flourishes.

On the panel you’ll find: Marshall Day theatre consultant, Craig Gamble, who will recount his experiences working on the Melbourne Theatre Company and the Geelong Performing Arts Centre, and how to make the budget work for you without the ‘what might have been’ regrets that often plague technical upgrades. Sydney Opera House Technical Director, David Claringbold, will have plenty to say about the enormous technical upgrade recentlycompleted at the Sydney icon. Craig and David will be joined by Gold Coast Performing Arts Centre’s Chris d’Bais, who is fresh from a $5m upgrade. The panel will be moderated by AV Magazine Editor – and long-time performing arts centre stalwart – Andy Ciddor.

Integrate is super-excited to have The Main Event dream team convene for this session. Doubtlessly Boris Johnson will be along to gets some tips for 2012.

OPEN TUNE/SLIDE GUITAR

DR RIBBON TAKES TO THE AT WORLD STAGE

Brendan Gallagher, Karma County frontman and ARIA award-winning producer of Jimmy Little’s instant classic Messenger, takes to the AT World stage.

He talks about his career as a guitarist of 40 years and what led him to open tune/ slide guitar playing and ultimately to writing the best-selling The Open Tuning Chord Book For Guitar. He covers aspects of his distinctive guitar style, how open tuning has impacted upon his songwriting and recording projects, and shares some insiders’ tips and insights into the world of open tune and slide guitar. Brendan’s book will also be available for sale on the day.

Great news, head honcho of Audio Engineering Associates (AEA), Wes Dooley, will be hitting the AT World stage. In the past 10 years, ribbon microphones have experienced a renaissance – they’ve gone from being a niche tool to a mainstream product in quick time. One of the key players responsible for this renaissance has been Wes Dooley, whose ribbon mic presentation will examine the strengths and limitations of vintage and contemporary ribbons for studio and live applications. In the 1930s ribbon mics were the first to achieve well controlled, broadband, directional (polar) patterns and high-fidelity sound. Their excellent reach, gain before feedback, and reliability made them the microphone of choice for audio

The TFWM Pavilion is an interactive environment where attendees can: • Mix on digital front-of-house and monitor consoles.

• Design and operate control surfaces for lighting.

• Discover tricks for creating worship video backgrounds.

• Learn about edge-blending and video-switching solutions.

• Auditorium upgrade and building strategies.

• Selecting the right volunteers.

• The basics of video and video formats.

• Microphone Applications for worship.

• How to make for a ‘greener’ church.

The TFWM House of Worship Pavilion is exclusive to Integrate and will be stationed in the Horden.

The House of Worship’s educational program will be free of charge, but they’re ticketed, so get onto the integrate site and follow the links to the seminars page. You’ll notice that some of the sessions are ‘sold out’. Don’t fret, there’s still plenty of standing room and opportunity to quiz the guys from Forefront Productions and Yamaha between sessions.

engineers in live sound, film, broadcast, and records.

Wes Dooley is president of AEA, which manufactures ribbon microphones in the RCA tradition and has been servicing STC/ Coles and RCA mics for over 25 years.

Wes is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and was awarded its silver medal “in recognition of his significant contributions to recording technology”.

Wes will be presenting on the AT World stage, and if you’re a fan of ribbon mics then this session the Holy Grail. It’s free; all you have to do is register as an attendee at Integrate.

FEATURE

BRUCE JACKSON:

LIFE ON THE CUTTING EDGE Bruce Jackson is arguably the most versatile, most influential, most innovative man in audio. We track Bruce down to his Santa Monica hangar for a natter.

Text: Andy Stewart

This was classic Bruce Jackson: I was on one end of the phone from my home on the outskirts of Melbourne, Bruce was on the other from his private aeroplane hangar at Santa Monica Airport. This is where Bruce’s plane has been located for many years and apparently it’s all getting a bit messy in the hangar…

“Anything in Los Angeles that sits in storage for a while gets this layer of black soot all over it,” Bruce starts up. “It’s all over the floor, all over the boxes… so I’m currently in the process of clearing the decks in here. There’s stuff everywhere from floor to ceiling: tools, microphones, EQs, an old Clair folding console… it’s a real mess. I’ve had this space for I don’t know how long – decades I guess – so stuff has piled up.”

While Bruce is saying all this quite matter-of-factly, I’m on the other end of the blower thinking to myself: ‘Who on earth has their own private plane and hangar, besides maybe André Agassi and U2?’

No matter how normal or nonchalant Bruce Jackson tries to be, every time I talk to him he’s doing something outside the square, and the more he tries to play it down the weirder it seems to get.

Whether he’s supervising the sound for an Olympic Games, testing a new top-secret Dolby surround format – “unfortunately I can’t speak about that just yet” – or clearing the crap out of his hangar under the shadows of the airport control tower, Bruce is always up to something.

And so it has always been. In his teenage years Bruce did what all Sydney boys do (not): he built PAs, TV sets out of radar tubes, guitar amps and speaker columns. He even built a makeshift radio station with his school buddies from where they used to broadcast illegally on the AM band via, as Bruce puts it, “a highly efficient antenna” that spanned the length of the school and was too efficient as it turned out: “We thought we were broadcasting across the

neighbourhood when, in fact, we were actually transmitting right across Sydney. Eventually the PMG van triangulated in on us, busted us and shut us down. But it was fun while it lasted.”

In his twenties Bruce’s career took off, quite literally.

By the time he was 21 he’d secured his pilot’s licence, established, developed and already sold the successful manufacturing, PA and lighting company, Jands, and moved to the United States. (Jands, by the way, is an abbreviation of Jackson and> Storey – Storey being Phil Storey, his partner in crime and the ‘S’ in Jands). Over in the US Bruce worked for the regional PA hire company, Clair Brothers, where he designed (along with Ron Borthwick) the foldout console, which Bruce subsequently used regularly on tour as FOH mix engineer for Bruce Springsteen during the 1980s.

In the early ’70s, this mix of electronics tinkering and touring led to an event that defined Bruce’s career: “It was during my tenure at Clair Brothers that Elvis Presley started touring again. Initially many different sound companies did Elvis’s sound on a regional basis. Fortunately (for me, as it turned out) most had problems with the logistics of hanging the PA – and they didn’t notice the troubles we were also having – so before I knew it I’d become Elvis’s touring engineer. It was an exciting time and a period of great innovation. It was the first time a live show had hung the sound system from the now ubiquitous CM chain hoists (although the Ice Show had previously hung a very basic rig) – not for sound quality reasons mind you, which is why they do it now, but so the Colonel could sell every seat in the house. We had to turn them upside down to enable them to pull themselves up the chain; a standard practice nowadays. The PAs were much smaller then of course, but I still don’t know how we ever got away with it. It was all evolving and real seat-of-the-pants stuff.”

Big Stage: Bruce in the ‘80s mixing Bruce Sprinsteen.

The foldaway console was his design.

“

Obviously in huge events like the Olympic Games – that simply cannot fail – dual redundancy, backups and failsafe measures are critically important, but for all the talk of dual redundancy what you’ve also got to worry about is stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with the failure of cutting-edge technology … like generators running out of diesel!

”

LAKE CONTOUR/CLAIR IO

The project I embarked on with David McGrath and Ed Meitner that resulted in the Clair I/O [later repackaged as the Lake Contour, albeit with slightly different software] was bank-rolled by Clair Bros in the US with my estimated development cost of around $800,000. Two million dollars (and then some) later we were still developing it. No one person could ever have produced that product, it was a team effort.

CUTTING EDGE Bruce Jackson has often been described in this magazine as ‘audio royalty’, and not only because of his association with The King. Way back in Issue 40 when Bruce appeared in our ‘Name Behind the Name’ series, I described him in these terms:

Bruce Jackson has always worked at the cutting edge of technological advancement, but unlike many others in the audio industry, his youthful perspective has never waned. As most people gain experience and become established in a field of expertise a strange and ironic process begins to engulf them. Their knowledge and skill – the very thing that defines them as experts – tends to date them, and the learning of new ‘tricks’ becomes harder and harder until eventually they’re outmoded. Not so with Bruce. He’s as cutting edge now as he has ever been. Ideas are in plentiful supply and there is always a new and innovative audio solution just around the corner.

This statement still rings true today…

DOLBY LABS Apart from his recent involvement in the sound production of two of the biggest gigs of recent times – the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the World Expo in Shanghai – Bruce is currently involved on a full-time basis with Dolby Laboratories, where he’s working on a small team that goes by the name of: “Platforms and Products”.

“We fit between the research side of things and the product side,” Bruce explains, “developing and promoting new technologies. It’s a bit of a departure from my live sound world – I’ve never worked for a large company before. Mind you, with under 1000 employees, Dolby is not a large company, but it still feels that way to me. I’m really enjoying the exposure

THE FAIRLIGHT DAYS

to all the cool technology of the non-hardware world. And Dolby really looks after its people.”

His relationship with Dolby probably needs some explanation at this point, as his association with the company is no accident. Clair Technologies LLC was the company that Bruce, his partner David McGrath and Clair Bros Audio forged in the late ’90s and early noughties, where cutting-edge speaker management systems like the Contour and Lake Processor were built. This company eventually evolved into Lake Technology in 2001 and was acquired by Dolby in 2003. I remember quizzing Bruce about this soon after the deal went down and getting a cagey and somewhat mixed response that involved a lot of gazing into the distance, long pauses in the conversation and internal musing.

This had been his baby after all, and now it was out of his hands. In the half a dozen or so years since the takeover I was curious to know if this caginess remained: “I’m really enjoying it actually, although David McGrath and I were really disappointed that Dolby chose to not continue making our live sound products any more – they couldn’t have been more successful after all. Most big sound companies loved the technology, but from a Dolby perspective it was a very small business.”

But how was this possible? Seemingly every large event involving a PA, whether it was a rock concert, Commonwealth Games or Football Grand Final used a Dolby Lake Processor – several in most cases – and in each case they seemed to be linchpins of the system. How could Dolby have put the kibosh on such a successful processor, and more significantly, how did Dolby not know that the live sound industry was, as Bruce put it: “a very small business?”

BJ: When Kim [Ryrie] and Peter [Vogel], who started Fairlight, finally got the sampler up and running, their main problem was that they didn’t really have any contacts in the international music business. I flew all over the US promoting Fairlight in my plane for almost a year before anyone bought one. Then out of the blue I got a phone call from Herbie Hancock, who said he knew this guy in California who was interested. So I put the sampler in the back of the plane and flew solo for 15 hours, landed in Los Angeles and took the Fairlight straight over to Herbie’s house. Soon after, Geordie Hormel [self-styled singer songwriter and owner of The Village Recorder in LA] came by in his motor home and said that it was just what he’d been looking for, so he said: “I’ll take two”. And I said, “but they’re $27,500 each!” and he said “… I’ll take two.” At my next house call, Stevie Wonder bought one on the spot and signed a personal check with his thumb print. He then talked me into taking it out on tour with him on his Secret Life of Plants tour and before long Fairlight was finally up and running.

“I think the feeling was that it would grow, but then they looked at my engineering team and said: ‘If we put your guys onto mobile phones and online gaming development we could grow much, much bigger, much, much faster…’ and that’s basically what happened. So essentially my live sound team suddenly found themselves developing apps for mobile phones and that’s proved to be very successful.”

CINEMA ADVANCES Dolby is of course synonymous with the cinema, noise reduction technology and various other hi-tech developments at both the professional and consumer level. Bruce is no slouch with a digital algorithm himself so the inevitable question of what’s currently under development at Dolby was eventually raised. This was the response from the hangar:

“We’ve been developing some cool stuff relating to the cinema space, and experimenting with different multi-speaker surround sound formats that we’ve been testing at Skywalker Sound using Avatar as the guinea pig. We’ve mixed it in a variety of formats through new speaker configurations, so all in all it’s pretty interesting.

“The important thing is that we’re conscious of the fact that you constantly need to raise the bar, so we’ve been working on potential new formats and that’s why we’re showing, for example 11.1 at the cinema trade shows.

It’s pretty effective, but the trick with it is to be able to take that format and down-mix it. With some of these new experimental formats there’s now a vertical component. So, for instance, in the case of Avatar, we were able to make the helicopters feel

like they were flying over you, which sounded pretty amazing. You’d be surprised how enveloping it is when you add these extra channels. With this format a mix engineer is able to pan a sound up into the ‘left-height’, ‘right-height’ screen channels, and from there into the left and right ‘voice of god’ speakers and all the way though to the back left and right rears on the back wall. That’s really, really effective.

“There are scenes in Avatar where the main characters are in the forest and the canopy is alive with the sound of all these weird creatures… using this format it sounds pretty amazing. Combined with the Dolby 3D image rendering dichroic glasses, as opposed to the polarised 3D, which has a certain degree of cross-talk – there’s full-immersion. The philosophy behind it is that if you’re going to go to the cinema you want to have an experience you can’t have at home.”

GAINING SOME PERSPECTIVE When you can rattle of acts like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Barbara Streisand, Bruce Springsteen, Dianna Ross, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart and the Faces, Barry White, Jefferson Airplane and Ozzy Ozbourne as but a small fraction of the names you’ve worked with in your career, you’re in an extreme elite. In fact, in some respects Bruce is without peer. From this perspective then, how have things changed, and has it all been for the better?

“When I first did shows on a large scale in the ’70s with rock ’n’ roll groups, you just went up there and did it. It wasn’t so organised: you had good shows, you had bad shows, but basically it was very raw and musically variable. It was all about simple music; it wasn’t so theatrical as it is now. I remember some incredibly intimate shows with Bruce Springsteen where we’d be playing smaller venues like The Roxy

LIVE MIXING CREDITS INCLUDE: The abridged version of this rollcall includes Clair Brothers, Fairlight, ProTools, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Striesand, Dianna Ross, Johnny Cash, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart and the Faces, Barry White, Jefferson Airplane, Ozzy Ozbourne (Black Sabbath), Stevie Nicks, Carly Simon, Three Dog Night, Jackson 5, Cat Stevens, Glenn Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Lou Reid and Procol Harum… just to name a few.

Companies that Bruce has started up, designed electronics for or been otherwise associated with include: Jands, Fairlight, Clair Brothers, Apogee Electronics, Digidesign, Lake Technologies, Dolby Labs and Luna Digital Corporation.

TOURING AS ELVIS’ SOUND ENGINEER

Flying Lisa Marie.

Typical Elvis stage.

BJ: Did it seem like a big deal at the time? No, I had no idea. It was just a lot of work. I did hundreds and hundreds of shows with Elvis across mainland USA and Hawaii. It was chaotic really, by today’s standards. You just had to do the best you could, and hopefully you’d be lucky enough to get through the night. Some nights would work well and others would be a total train wreck. After a while it became self-evident that Elvis’ ability to hear himself on stage was crucial to the show’s success, so I pushed for the establishment of an engineering role that would involve a stage PA and an engineer to manage it. Eventually I became ‘foldback’ engineer on the tour because Elvis wanted me to be right there next to him and that’s all he really cared about. He wanted me to watch him all the time and would look for approval when he had done unusually well. I would sit beside the stage with Elvis’ girlfriend (whoever that happened to be at the time) and record producer, Felton Jarvis. But because there was no sound check, Elvis would walk out on stage and have absolutely no idea what to expect. It was very stressful for all of us. I remember a number of times he stopped the show and had me come up and stand right next to him while he sang with 20,000 people watching. Eventually we all agreed that this approach was insane and from that point on Felton and I would meet before every show and make some attempt at preparations. But there was still no concept of sound check…

Elvis never did a check of his foldback… ever.

in Hollywood where it was truly electric.

“These days there are bands whose sound is tailored to the venue, like stadium rock: not too fast, not too busy, lots of space.

There were no such considerations back in the early days. And yet even though the equipment wasn’t that great, the amps weren’t that great, it would just come together. Today you have far more complexity; all these different layers to contend with both on stage as well as in the console: pyros, timecode, flames shooting out of stuff and dancing… and some people don’t sing and dance at the same time either let me tell ya, they cheat… there’s lots of it going on out there.

Look Out Below: Bruce was a pioneer in hanging PAs and the use of chain hoists. And when you look at this OH&S nightmare, you reckon he probably was the only one game enough.

“So what is gained, what is lost? Obviously what’s gained is more control, more reliability, better fidelity and more predictability.

Whether or not that equates to better shows is hard to know.

The distribution of the sound is much more even, that’s for sure.

It’s certainly easier to control – much easier. But for instance I often despair at the way I hear people use subs – it doesn’t make sense hearing those frequencies coming out with the music they’re playing sometimes. It seems like engineers now feel obliged to put subs on everything – the result being that you’re hearing the same thumpy note all night.

STEAM DRIVEN? Bruce goes on to add that part of his reaction to modern rock concerts stems from the fact that he’s “steam driven,” meaning that he’s old and out of touch. But this is nonsense of course – it’s just Bruce being his self-effacing best. He’s not employed by the IOC to run the audio for the Olympics because his thinking is ‘old school’. Take also for instance Bruce’s involvement in the development of the Danté network; a no hassle, selfconfiguring, extremely reliable, sample accurate, low-latency audio networking solution developed initially by the Federal Government funded NICTA labs, and then spun out by Aidan Williams and his partners to become Audinate Pty Ltd in Ultimo, Sydney. Bruce worked closely to define the features and create the world’s first implementation as a feature of the Dolby Lake Processor. This is hardly the hobby of an old fuddy duddy. Interestingly, many of the technological developments Bruce gets involved in are about making complex tasks simple to manage.

WHY BRUCE STARTED APOGEE DIGITAL BJ: I was initially inspired by my disappointment in the sound of digital audio, but because I’d worked closely with Fairlight I was well aware of its potential – and weaknesses: like noise and inharmonic distortion – that’s what inspired me to start up Apogee in my garage at home in Santa Monica. We just started with filters, the weaknesses of clocks, and we quickly established a patent on low-jitter clocks. The first design that got Apogee started was a filter for the digital converters in Sony 3324, Otari and Mitsubishi digital tape machines. We figured if we sold a few

thousand filters we’d be doing pretty well – in the end we sold 30,000, which was a great success. While on tour in Japan with Springsteen, I was given one of the very first CD players. I went out and bought some CDs and it was all very exciting – but when I listened to it through the PA that night it was just horrible; my cassette sounded way better. It turned out that the Japanese had developed these textbook filters with extremely steep roll-offs, resulting in the phase being twisted around a couple of times at high frequency – it was way, way out. So we said, ‘do we really need these incredibly steep filters?

What if we try and straighten out the phase?’ The filters

we made had much gentler roll-offs and they were also linear phase. We also looked at a whole bunch of other things: intermodulation distortion, the choice of amplifiers, resistors and capacitors – we made a much better ‘mouse trap’ and the results were amazing.

Then we got together with a mathematician and started playing with ideas to make better dither and that ended up resulting in the UV22 algorithm. We realised that whatever aspect of a digital device we turned our attention to could be noticeably improved. It was great to have my own team of engineers to do whatever seemed like a good idea.

“There’s nothing like keeping it really simple,” he comments.

“With too many toys on hand you can definitely dig yourself a hole. In a lot of cases there’s almost too much control available to live engineers and they can get lost in the minutia of effects and forget to maintain a solid musical bed. Who cares if there is a nice reverb tail on the guitar if the PA wants to bite your head off? Often engineers seem to rely too heavily on the measurement tools and forget to trust their own ears. On the one hand complexity has generated an unforseen set of problems, but on the other hand it’s added processing power, and I think if you use the right combination of measurement tools and your own hearing, shows can sound much better.”

OLYMPICS PRESSURE It’s not only the athletes that are under pressure during an Olympic Games. For the technical crews behind the scenes the pressure is unbelievable. Live-to-air broadcasts draw colossal viewing audiences and any stuff-ups are witnessed by literally hundreds of millions. This is presumably why someone like Bruce Jackson is hired to oversee pressure cooker events such as these – I guess the powers that be figure once you’ve survived a few death stares from the likes of Elvis and Babs, you’re match fit for anything:

“Put it this way, I’m certainly not as nervous now as I was back then! But the pressure is certainly there. After a while though you start to get little formulas going and if you’re working with the right operators around you things usually work out. These

“Take for instance the Winter Olympics that I recently worked on as the Ceremonies Audio Director. During the Opening Ceremony one of the main ‘ice crystal’ structures of the giant crystalline cauldron got stuck because the sliding door in the stage was frozen partially open, kind of like a faulty garage door. Somehow one of the sensors that triggered the ice shard to elevate into position got toasted, and although the hydraulics underneath were working the door just wouldn’t open. This was happening at the most dramatic moment of the ceremony of course, and the delay caused a domino effect. We were forced to go back in time – ie, jump to an earlier Timecode location – but of course each ‘segment’ of the event starts at the top of a new ‘hour’ and once you change it, everything that syncs off it is forced to change too. In addition to extending the music playback via loops we had to be very careful not to go back in time on the Timecode or all hell would have broken loose. Let’s just say things got a bit interesting… When that sort of thing happens it really comes down to everyone knowing what to do and staying calm, and that’s how it played out. Fairlight operators Steve Logan and Rob Stefanson calmly muted the Timecode and looped the audio while others ran around under the stage looking for a fix to the stuck roller door. My job in that situation is basically about pulling everyone together and onward through the process.”

ELVIS & BRUCE The conversation meandered on between Bruce and I for another hour or so, Bruce kicking back in his Santa Monica hangar with a beer by this stage. We chatted about everything from hearing protection and mixing with earplugs – “I think mixing with earplugs is totally rude. It’s not fair on the audience

Early Jands production line.

JANDS

BJ: Jands was just two eager electronics enthusiasts – myself and Phil Storey – who built whatever the hell they felt like. Jands started to become really successful and the rental thing started to pay for us to design new stuff, and it just went from success to success. But we were young and eventually we got the shits with each other and sold out to four guys who still own the company today.

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“What experience teaches you (the hard way sometimes) is the types of things that can go wrong, and how to hopefully prevent them. Obviously in huge events like the Olympic Games – that simply cannot fail – dual redundancy, backups and failsafe measures are critically important, but for all the talk of dual redundancy, the chances of losing something like a console are pretty damn remote, especially if it’s a Yamaha – even though that’s not my choice. They’ve just got reliability nailed. What you’ve also got to worry about is stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with the failure of cutting-edge technology… like generators running out of diesel! In some ways it’s not about the technology failing at all. The amount of dumb stuff that happens in these situations is truly unbelievable.

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big shows are always a team effort.

that you should protect your own hearing and blast theirs” – to digital amps – “maybe they sound solid on the bass but in the mids and highs they suffer from the same thing that CD suffered from back in 1980. They’re nice and light and all that, but you’ve made a serious compromise in my view.”

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We also chatted about Elvis and Springsteen, and on this last topic he mentioned another couple of classic anecdotes: “Elvis and I had a lot of intimate conversations over the years, but he was older so I never really got to know him the way I might have if I’d been closer in age. I remember he used to sit me down and we’d have these strange conversations about numerology, which his hairdresser had got him into. I was a non-believer so I was always making wise-arsed comments back. I remember one night we were sitting up in his suite for ages talking about this stuff while all the show members were on the bus downstairs waiting to leave… he made them wait for quite some time from memory while he went through all these examples in a book where he’d taken a bunch of notes.

“It was nice to have him respect me and like me, of course, but in truth I think I had a much more extensive relationship with Springsteen – we were pretty much the same age. I remember once Bruce bought me a Jeep to thank me for all the work I’d done. I was shocked because he wasn’t one to do that sort of stuff…

“Have you still got the Jeep?” I asked.

“No, I sold it. I got sick of bouncing around the place in it.”

In one final classic insight into how Bruce lives his life, I got this email from him the day I sent this article over for him to read before AT went to press: “I’ve got a depressingly high stack of old pictures stashed in my hangar, but most aren’t particularly hi-res. I’ll pull out a couple of storage boxes when I’m at the hangar later today. I’m meeting a friend of mine at the airport today and we’re flying out to Mojave Airport to see the Virgin Spaceship, which is being built and tested there.”

!

SBruce Jackson is headlining this year’s Integrate expo. Hear Bruce present at 3pm on Day 2 of the show (25th of August). Also on Day 2 of Integrate, Bruce will be heading a Main Event Panel with other members of the Winter Olympics and World Expo teams. Otherwise catch Bruce on site at AT World.

BJ: I was pretty young when I first started meddling with audio equipment. As a kid I just enjoyed electronics.

I had a little lab under the house in Point Piper, which coincidentally, was right next door to where Kim Ryrie [co-founder of Fairlight] had a setup under his grandmother’s house. Kim, in fact, named his company after the hydrofoil that went past us every day – the Fairlight.

One day when Kim was searching for a company name, the Fairlight went by, and the rest is history.

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TUTORIAL

TROUBLESHOOTING

When things go wrong in your studio – and they always will – how prepared are you to diagnose the cause?

Text: Rob Squire

Nothing lasts forever! Indeed, scientists have suggested that the universe will ultimately consist of nothing more than a disassociated haze of photons. Under those conditions I figure it’s going to be hard to keep studios running, but until this awkward eventuality takes hold, studios of all shapes and sizes will continue to fight the entropy in their equipment and walk the fine line between maintenance – keeping equipment working – and using equipment for its intended purpose.

So, here are my top tips for keeping the wheels of industry turning in your studio.

WHAT’S CHANGED? A few weeks back I was sent a small mixer by an owner who complained that his console had developed severe crosstalk between channels. The mixer in question is getting long in the tooth, but before this problem reared its ugly head it had provided many years of good service. There was no pressing reason to toss it away for a new model – if it could be repaired at a reasonable cost – so into the workshop it came.

Upon hooking it up to my test equipment it quickly became apparent that the described fault certainly wasn’t going to be easily demonstrated. Further discussions with the owner and time spent hooking the mixer up with all sorts of combinations of balanced and unbalanced cabling, floating grounds and plugging into inputs with cables that weren’t connected at the other end finally revealed the issue. As it turned out a unique combination of connectivity would result in crosstalk between channels. The solution therefore lay, not in any repairs to the actual mixer, but rather, simply addressing the wiring and connections between the mixer and the rest of the client’s equipment. The clue I’d missed right at the start of this job, which had resulted in me taking far too many wrong turns

along the way, was not understanding that this so-called ‘fault’ had first appeared immediately after the owner had changed the mixer’s role in his setup. The cables had changed, and the gear it connected to had also changed.

The first question to ask whenever a piece of gear doesn’t work is, ‘What has changed?’ When a piece of gear works one day and then you make some change – physically move it, change the wiring to it, flick switches that have never been flicked before – and it now doesn’t work, chances are there’s something about this change you’ve made that has caused the problem.

That ‘something’ can obviously include the possibility that the item has simply curled up its toes with a sense of synchronicity and stopped working, but far more likely is the possibility that the problem has nothing to do with the item itself, but rather, its new surroundings. Restoring a unit to exactly its original setup is the quickest way to discount this possibility.

With the current resurgence of gear using audio transformers, even the physical proximity of one item of gear to another can cause issues, in particular, the creation of low-level hum and buzz. So if you’ve just mounted that boutique tube mic preamp on top of your 500W studio power amp and now you’re noticing a buzz in the audio from the preamp... move it!

KEEPING TRACK The bane of everyone’s life – both the equipment owner and technician – is the intermittent fault. In the flurry of activity we call recording and mixing, a bug in some signal path, a random noise, or something ‘not quite right’ is often worked around.

To keep the creative process happening you can’t afford to get hung up on technical glitches, and if there’s a way to keep the session rolling most seasoned engineers will find it. Indeed, ‘working around’ a technical problem to keep a session or live

gig on track is, in my book, one measure of an experienced engineer. The trick is to remember to return and deal with the technical problem that arose during the session when the heat is off. This may be hours, days or even weeks (and possibly a few brain cells) later, but failing to address the problem promptly is bad form.

We’re all familiar with this ‘workaround’ mentality I’m talking about, right? If you are, I assume that when you last faced this challenge you took notes when the problem first arose? You didn’t?

If you’re one of these studio owners or engineers that doesn’t take notes, do yourself a favour and lash out on a student’s lined notebook from the supermarket and keep it only for taking notes about technical faults or issues. Note down faults in the book right at the moment when any glitch or issue occurs. If the notebook is always at hand and is not being used by the singer on the couch to try and pen that troublesome last verse, it takes only a few seconds to scribble a note sufficient enough to point you (or your tech) in the right direction when the time comes later to fix it. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been on a service call to a console where the owner says, “There was an auxiliary send that sometimes didn’t seem to work and it was somewhere around here…” waving his arms over about dozen channels of the console. Now, if instead of this more ‘theatrical’ approach, there was a note that simply stated: “Chan 14’s Aux 3 cuts in and out,” the chances are high that I’d be onto that fault and have it repaired very quickly. Penning notes like this into a book (that can be later found and read) means a fault is far easier to trace. It also makes the repair time shorter and therefore cheaper and causes less interruption to the studio.

FUSES: CONFUSED? Everyone knows that not all fuses are the same… or do they? It’s always tricky writing up an invoice for a repair where the work description reads something like: “Replaced fuse, tested… all okay.”

I mean, this does take time and a fuse does costs around a dollar, but who really wants to pay a tech to do a job like this? Taking matters into your own hands occasionally requires some specific information, forethought, and, if you really want to push the envelope, planning. But if you own a studio and can’t replace a fuse, surely it begs the question: why can’t you?

Fuses exist to protect circuitry downstream of the fuse in the case of component failure, and can also protect against the wrong mains voltage being applied. This latter aspect was never much of an issue in the past but thanks to the increasing numbers of people buying their equipment directly from overseas suppliers, blown gear is now piling up in workshops right around the country. Despite international suppliers making noises about presetting equipment to run from Australia’s mains voltage of 230VAC it’s risky taking them at their word. Indeed, the first thing anyone should do upon receipt of a piece of equipment – particularly if it’s supplied from the USA where the mains voltage is 115VAC – is to check that it’s set up to run on your local (230VAC in Australia) mains power. In some cases this will be easy and obvious,

but in others it won’t be and a technician may be required to check it over. Should a 115VAC unit be powered up from 230VAC, if you’re lucky you’ll blow the fuse, if you’re unlucky you’ll destroy the unit.

The majority of equipment made today uses either toroidal mains transformers or switch-mode power supplies and these necessitate the use of a slow-blow or time delay fuse. It’s fundamentally important to understand that there’s a world of difference between a fast and slow-blow fuse, and that in many applications where a slow-blow is specified, a fastblow of the same current rating will usually blow. It may not blow every time you switch the unit on, but in a seemingly random event it will blow, and when it does it will always be at the moment you flick the power switch. Slow-blow fuses have the letter ‘T’ marked on them usually next to the current rating.

They’ll typically read something like ‘T500mA’.

You’ll need better eyes than mine to read the little markings, so a magnifying lens may be required.

“

Should a 115VAC unit be powered up from 230VAC, if you’re lucky you’ll blow the fuse, if you’re unlucky you’ll destroy the unit

”

Of course, a fuse – just like any other component – can fail all by itself. It doesn’t always need help from a faulty circuit. A blown fuse could therefore mean that it simply broke, rather than that the electronics failed and the fuse blew as a consequence.

Whichever is the case, replacing a blown fuse is always a reasonable first measure but doing so with the wrong type of fuse, or one with the wrong rating can confuse the situation no end. So, next rainy day, cast your eye around the studio and check out the types, sizes and ratings of the various fuses in your equipment, and if you really want to push the planning envelope, go and invest in some spares and file them away. If that all seems far to organised for your sensibilities, at least buy some spare fuses for that one mission-critical piece of gear you own – it might be the console – and keep these in the top drawer where you can find them.

Fuses: Know your ratings, know your slow-blow from your fast-blow, and keep some spares.

When something new is added to your rack, don’t just plug any old cables into it. If you do intend to use cables that were previously connected to something else, make sure the pin connections are correct first, and that the soldering work inside the cables is of a high standard. There’s no point buying a new piece of kit and connecting it to your studio with faulty or out-of-phase wiring.

KEEP IT NEAT Let’s face it, wiring is just plain messy. Just keeping the bird’s nest of wires behind the home stereo in order is enough of a challenge, let alone the profusion of cables in even a modest studio setup. I’ll admit, neat and tidy cabling doesn’t necessarily work any ‘better’ than a messy tangle. However, what it does do is engender a certain state of mind. It’s a clarity you’ll appreciate when you’re next replacing or adding to some item in your setup, or chasing down that intermittent signal path. Dressing cables into place, fastening them to the interior side panels of equipment racks or tucking them into the corners of the room, and keeping any excessive lengths wound up away from the ends of the cables can make it so much easier to replace a loom or piece of equipment plugged into an existing cable. Keep power leads, extension cords and power boards away from audio cables. You don’t have to keep these separated by much, just don’t bundle audio and power cables together and don’t dump a pile of audio cable on top of a power board.

If cables are strapped or dressed into place this allows you to ensure that the weight of the cables is kept from placing undue strain on the connectors. Cables so tight you could pluck a high C off them are good candidates for breaking off at the solder joint inside the connector. The increasing use of D-Sub connectors for audio also means there’s often the potential for a substantial weight of cable to be straining off a connector that’s not really designed to carry it.

Use good quality power boards for distributing your power, which hopefully for all but the biggest sets of equipment are running from just one mains power outlet in order to minimise earth loops. A mains plug should connect smoothly with a socket on a power board and feel tight in the socket once fully plugged in. I’ve seen plenty of plugs hanging half in and out of power boards making intermittent contact and

causing weird random noises in other pieces of gear as this poor connection to the mains power fizzles and arcs. The profusion of gear running off plug packs makes the selection and placement of power boards even more important in order to ensure you have both a robust connection and a neat layout.

It never ceases to amaze me when I see 50 grand’s worth of pro audio gear hanging off a supermarket no-brand extension cord and four-dollar power board.

For those who like to commit, cable ties are a neat way to strap things together, or if you like to stay flexible, velco straps are readily available. Simple things like this can make a big difference to the order behind your outboard rack.

QUIET & CONFIDENT My mum used to say ‘cleanliness was next to godliness’ and while we could discuss what that might mean for the rest of our days, what I would contend is that keeping things neat, tidy and clean does provide a measure of confidence, not just for you but also to any clients passing through. Sitting down at a console or workstation that’s free of dust, clutter, cables and unrelated crap is always a good starting point for a good day’s work. Then, when something does go wrong, or you want to hook up that latest gadget you just bought, you’re not scrambling around in a mess of cables, power boards, plug packs and dust. That has to make life simpler and more pleasant, doesn’t it?

Efficient and effective troubleshooting is as much an attitude as it is a skill. It requires a logical and ordered approach that is best supported by the foundations laid down in the organisation and order of your studio or equipment setup.

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REGULARS

PC AUDIO With so many PC audio interfaces on the market, it can feel like an impossible task to decide which to buy. Here are some handy guidelines to help you narrow down the options.

Text: Martin Walker

I often get asked ‘which is the best PC audio interface?’, but even when the available budget is known, this question is basically impossible to answer without knowing what you want to achieve.

The most important question to ask yourself is, ‘what do I want to record?’, since this determines how many simultaneous inputs, and of which types, you’ll need.

If you’re working with pre-recorded samples, loops and software synths, you may not personally record any signals at all, in which case the most basic stereo line-level input will almost be more than you need. If, on the other hand, you’re recording your own live performances, you may only need one mic input for vocals and one instrument/line-level input for guitar/bass/ keyboard, or two if you want to record your sources in stereo, so looking at interfaces with two ‘versatile’ inputs that can accept mic, instrument and line-level signals seems a good bet.

right, centre, left surround, right surround and Low Frequency Effects channel). Pairs of inputs and outputs can also be pressed into service to patch in outboard effects such as analogue EQ, compression or tape/tube enhancement. For this you’ll need to allocate one interface output per mono send and one input per mono return.

However, possibly the most fashionable use of spare inputs and outputs at the moment involves patching in an analogue summing box or analogue mixer, so you can mix computer-based compositions ‘outside the box’, by allocating each audio track (or stem submix of things such as drums, vocals and so on) to a different hardware output connected to the summer/mixer, and allocate two inputs to route the resulting stereo mix back into your computer. Given analogue gear of sufficient quality, you can add a certain something to the mix that ‘glues’ it together compared to a totally ‘in-the-box’ mix.

Deciding on the most useful number of outputs for your perfect audio interface is partly an academic exercise, since products mostly offer an equal number of inputs and outputs, so let’s see what you can do with all the other outputs on the more common eight-in/eight-out models.

I/O FORMATS Digital I/O is important to many musicians, since it enables them to connect compatible studio gear without having to pass their audio through additional analogue-to-digital conversion stages and cause possible degradation. Options include the two-channel S/PDIF consumer format that uses either coaxial phono or Toslink optical connectors, while ADAT uses an identical Toslink optical connector to the S/PDIF format, but as mentioned earlier, supports up to eight simultaneous digital audio channels. Nowadays ADAT inputs are most often found connected to combined preamp/A/D converter boxes to add analogue inputs, and ADAT outputs connected to eight-channel D/A converter boxes to provide more analogue outputs, both in multiples of eight channels. Other digital I/O to be found on more upmarket interfaces includes AES/EBU and wordclock, but if you’re a beginner with a small studio you probably won’t need either of these, and if you’re an established professional you’ll probably already know what specialist digital connectivity you require.

One obvious use for additional outputs is in a 5.1 surround setup, which requires six outputs (left,

The choice of hardware format for your audio interface is far less of an issue nowadays than it once

If, however, you’re recording other musicians your requirements may vary considerably. Interfaces featuring four inputs are comparatively rare, but would cope with a duo or small ensemble. Far more common is the eight-input interface, which is probably the minimum number of channels you could get away with for recording a live rock band.

Further increasing the number of analogue inputs can be done in two ways: you can either combine the features of several identical eight-in/eight-out interfaces into one ‘super interface’ (to do this, the interface manufacturer must offer ‘multi-device drivers’); or you can buy an eight-channel combined preamp/converter box and plug its output into the ADAT digital input port found on many audio interfaces (more on ADAT later on).

was, and in most cases you’ll either rule out certain formats before making your shortlist because your computer doesn’t support them, or ignore format decisions until you’ve narrowed down your shortlist.

PCI and PCIe soundcards still have advantages for the PC desktop user, such as generally tighter timing on MIDI ports, and potentially lower audio latency than either Firewire 400/800 or USB2 formats, but of course users do face the slight inconvenience of having to open up their computer to install them.

USB and Firewire are the two very popular and more portable alternatives, offering the convenience of stand-alone boxes that you can quickly swap between any desktop and laptop machine. USB has traditionally been considered the poor relation, but nowadays high-speed USB interfaces can manage more simultaneous inputs and outputs than Firewire 400 devices. If your computer has Firewire 800 ports, you have double the bandwidth compared with Firewire 400, but few musicians will actually need the extra grunt unless they require more than about 56 simultaneous channels of 24-bit/192k audio. In the case of Firewire interfaces you may have to be careful about the make and model of controller chip found behind the Firewire ports on your computer, since some are not compatible with certain audio interfaces. Texas Instruments (TI) is the make most widely recommended by audio interface manufacturers, but you should consult the interface manufacturer’s website for specific chip-set recommendations to avoid problems.

Finally, debates on which audio interface ‘sounds the best’ abound on forums, but it’s fair to say you mostly get what you pay for, so more expensive models will generally have the edge on budget ones. Having said that, even today’s budget models sound extremely good for the price, while audible differences between more expensive models are often not as huge as some people expect.

Nevertheless, they do all sound slightly different and different manufacturers are perceived to have their own strengths, so personal auditions are a must if at all possible. The important thing to do is establish a shortlist first so you can get yourself off to a flying start!

REGULARS

MAC AUDIO With Apogee’s latest Symphony interface, a once-happy couple should be making beautiful music again.

Text: Brad Watts

I’ll go out on a sturdy limb here and suggest that when it comes to DAW applications and the OSX platform, Avid’s ProTools and Apple’s Logic Pro rule the roost. Sure, there are other options: Steinberg’s Cubase and Nuendo and MOTU’s Digital Performer hold a slice of the market, and we’re yet to see how newcomers like Presonus’s Studio One can shake up the established norms.

But when it comes to established formats, Avid (neé Digidesign) and Apple (previously Emagic) have plenty of runs on the board. Both applications are more than capable of delivering the same, or similar, results yet each has evolved from quite disparate paradigms. ProTools is modelled on the concept of a digitised tape machine, with MIDI integration seemingly tacked on as an afterthought. Logic, on the other hand, kicked off as a MIDI sequencer back when hard disk recording was a pipe dream, then gained such abilities as Digidesign released Nubus and PCI cards that could tackle the audio recording side of things. In fact, for many years, Logic Audio, as it was known, mated quite nicely with Digidesign TDM hardware. For those who preferred the more compositional aspects of Logic, combined with the solid performance of ProTools DSP-assisted hardware and the plug-ins it included, the marriage was downright impossible to beat. During this era it was easy for a studio to accept session files, or indeed embark upon entire projects using either DAW application, due to both applications’ ability to address the same (Digidesign) audio interfaces.

As processor speeds began the ever-increasing ramp upwards from now laughable speeds of say, 66MHz, to today’s 3.3GHz multiple processing behemoths, Logic Pro gradually backed away from its reliance on Digidesign’s extremely capable hardware. Why? Native processing, is the short answer. With the proliferation of faster Macs and a swathe of audio interfaces hitting the market, Logic gradually developed its own suite of audio processing plug-ins.

These progressions allowed less fiscally-endowed musicians and producers to take on Logic as their primary DAW.

Logic continued to add creative processing tricks to its repertoire.

Then the final nail was driven into the happy Digidesign/Logic alliance: namely, Apple’s acquisition of Logic. From then on, Logic’s tricks were based firmly within the native processing arena, with the spin-off being that Logic couldn’t apply it’s new-found magic on split-stereo files – Digidesign’s status quo for audio file management (a system it still uses to this day). Sure there were ways around this separatist movement, such as using ‘Direct TDM’ (previously dubbed, ESB or

“

The Symphony blows both units out of the water and a good distance up the shoreline.

”

Emagic System Bridge) to flakily amalgamate the two systems. But insurmountable time-draining issues would occur with shuffling the split-stereo files of the ProTools system over to the interleaved stereo file format of Logic. Workarounds were convoluted at best. One method involved running a separate Firewire audio interface to shunt Logic’s native processing-based tracks, via lightpipe, back into the Digidesign hardware and consequently onto a channel within Logic. But along with this method came mismatches in latency and perpetual clocking issues. Another stop-gap was to use the Digidesign hardware as a native interface, and have Logic address the hardware via CoreAudio. The problem there is Digidesign’s CoreAudio drivers only access eight I/O channels of the Digidesign interface – a

faulty proposition if the next client wants to track or mix with Logic and more than eight channels.

Eventually, Logic users reliant upon the Digidesign/ Logic affiliation left the now untenable pseudo platform in droves, moving to totally-native systems such as the Symphony systems from Apogee.

Which brings me to the release of Apogee’s Symphony I/O. Apogee has squarely hit the mark with this audio interface. The inherent beauty of the Symphony I/O, apart from its ‘Hi-Fi’ good looks, is the fact the unit will attach to both ProTools HD PCIe cards, and the Apogee Symphony PCIe cards.

For the studio owner wishing to run both Logic Pro and ProTools DAW systems, this is an incredible windfall. With the Symphony I/O, to swap the interface from ProTools duties over to Logic duties, all that needs doing is the repatching of a single cable from the HD card in the host MacPro, over to the Symphony 64 card in the same MacPro. Yes, the Symphony I/O cable and port are exactly the same as the cables and used ports with a ProTools HD system. Gone are the multiple interface issues combined with the expensive proposition of repatching all your analogue lines. Gone is the headache of running a hobbled Logic session that can’t address any more than eight I/O channels.

As for whether the Symphony I/O will deliver the sonic qualities you’re used to with Avid’s 192 I/O converters, or indeed, the third-party interface choices such as the popular Lynx Aurora converters, the Symphony blows both units out of the water and a good distance up the shoreline. The Symphony I/O’s dynamic range for both A/D and D/A is an astounding 129dB (A-weighted), whereas the 192 I/O and Lynx devices manage 118dB and 117dB respectively. Distortion figures are also far in advance of the stalwart converter choices – effectively half the THD and noise specs Avid and Lynx quote for each manufacturer’s interface. In short, the Symphony I/O should sound flipping marvellous! All you need to do now is slip your ProTools HD and Symphony 64 cards in a 12-core MacPro. Goodness me, I’m getting a little sweaty.

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MINI REVIEWS

PHOENIX AUDIO NICE D.I.

The Nice D.I. is a fully discrete, active, stereo Class-A D.I. from Phoenix Audio UK. Originally established to service and maintain pre-1980s Neve recording consoles, Phoenix Audio now also manufactures a range of Class-A audio equipment including microphone preamps and summing boxes.

The Nice D.I. ironically has less to describe than your average D.I. box. It’s devoid of pads and earthlift switches common to most, and sports only unbalanced ¼-inch jacks on the front, XLRs on the rear and two big red volume knobs for less or more gain (max output is +26dBu).

There’s no earth-lift switch for the simple reason that the D.I.’s design incorporates a transformer to balance

a rack requires an extra panel mount that Phoenix Audio is still in the throes of designing, apparently.

The unit’s not wide enough to occupy a full rack space without this accessory, and without feet or a housing, its only practical placement option at the moment is plonked on a flat surface. The shape of the unit seems misjudged in my opinion, especially when it was originally conceived for the studio. Moreover, Phoenix Audio states that it’s been gaining popularity with live acts looking for higher audio quality, but again, for any touring you’d definitely need it to be racked.

the output stage, and this works nicely to eliminate noise from things like semi-acoustic and bass signals etc. When inserted into the signal path of a bass guitar during a recent gig, the ¼-inch jack input’s high impedance value (10MΩ) worked a treat to maintain the integrity of the guitar’s pick-ups, reproducing transients cleanly and making it sound very large indeed. It was simply a case of choosing less or more gain – the bass player having the final word, preferring a less overdriven sound which was established by setting the output knob at 10 o’clock.

The Nice D.I. is not your average pocket-sized unit. It’s a half-rack space wide and 28cm deep. The unit runs on mains power with voltage switchable between 110V (which you most definitely don’t want in Australia) and 240V (which you most definitely do). To bolt it into

The surprise bonus of the Nice D.I. is that it works beautifully as a DAW master bus ‘sweetener’, and with a frequency response stated as 20Hz – 20kHz (±0.5dB), on paper it’s well up to the task of accurately reproducing the full range of a stereo mix.

In this role the Nice D.I. turned out to be a real winner, improving clarity and definition, and adding a silky texture that was very welcome on a mix summed inside the computer. It’s lush, detailed and maintains a good sense of dynamics with heaps of headroom.

If you want to add classic British tone or refinement to an instrument or DAW mix, then this D.I. may be just the ticket. To call it a ‘Nice D.I.’ is an understatement. James Wilkinson Price: $1171 Mixmasters: (08) 8357 8613 or sales@mixmasters.com.au

ALLEN & HEATH ZED-10FX

Ah, Allen & Heath: manufacturers of reliable, great sounding audio console solutions for sound engineers and DJs alike. And this midget console – the ZED-10FX – is no exception.

Designed in Cornwall, England and put together in China, the ZED-10FX is fairly and squarely aimed at the small venue operator, acoustic duo or home recordist that only needs a few inputs. Don’t be put off if you’re a drummer though. At a pinch you can get great drum sounds from the ZED-10FX, you’ll just need to utilise a more sparing mic setup of four mics or less.

So what features does this pip-squeak possess? Well

quite a lot actually, despite its shoe size being only 38cm x 24cm. The first four channels feature mic inputs on XLRs, with preamps that crank up to 60dB of gain into their respective channels. These channels can also be switched to line level and serviced by their dedicated jack inputs. Channels three and four also double as Hi-Z inputs for guitar level sources, and feature rear gain pots that deliver a further 26dB of gain should the source sounds require it. Allen & Heath has made these inputs FET-based and Class-A, to “emulate the type of circuits used in valve guitar combos or head amplifiers.” To my ears they indeed sound beefy, but with a nice openness into the bargain.

All four input channels have a fairly comprehensive EQ section albeit with only one mid band, sweepable between 120Hz and 4kHz as well as low and high shelves centred at 80Hz and 12kHz respectively. Per channel, there are also push-button 100Hz high-pass filters, an FX send (that routes to the ZED-10FX internal FX section) an Aux send (that routes to the Aux send master level), Pan and a level fader, all of which are on rotary pots.

playback from a recording device. Also unique to the second stereo input is its ability to route the USB out, which can have the Record Bus, Aux-FX or the Main Mix routed to it. Pretty comprehensive!

The next two channels on the ZED-10FX are stereo affairs, the first of which features RCA as well as ¼-inch jack line inputs. The second stereo channel has no RCAs but instead two sets of ¼-inch jack line inputs: one acting as the standard line in, the other as

Price: $499

So – to the effects. I was pretty impressed with the sound quality and ease of use of the FX setup.

The internal engine is 24-bit/48k and the presets have been designed in-house. Unique to this type of console is the provision of the Tap Tempo button that enables the easy setting of time-based effects on the first five of the 16 presets. Holding down this button activates the parameter increase/decrease button for adjusting the selected preset’s echo time, reverb size, delay regeneration etc. I really like on-board effects in a console and the ones on the ZED-10FX really deliver.

The ZED-10FX is a must for every gig bag, project studio or small venue. It’s nicely constructed, sounds great and let’s not forget it’s also a recording interface via the USB socket!

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

MINI REVIEWS

EIGENHARP PICO

Eigenlabs has been developing its range of MIDI controllers since around 2001, although the company only released the first Eigenharp instruments toward the end of 2009. Thus far, Eigenlabs offers three MIDI controllers, all of which include wind/breath control, and all of which look like props from the Star Wars cantina band scene.

needs to integrate with the OSX Audio MIDI Setup application, and send its MIDI output to your DAW via an IAC driver bus. This isn’t as simple as installing a driver and going for it. Even if you’re not normally inclined to read a manual, you really should read the online directions first as there’s a bit to come to grips with regarding how the instrument operates.

The smallest member of the Eigenharp posse is the Pico, a foot long MIDI controller sporting 18 velocitysensitive note triggers, along with both ribbon, and breath controllers. The note triggers are extremely tactile and can be ‘wobbled’ through the vertical plane for a further modulation source – for bending the pitch of a note for example. The body of the unit is aluminium, well made and suitably sturdy – it certainly has the feel of an instrument.

Once you’re driving the Pico, it soon becomes apparent how integral the EigenD software is to the instrument. The software supplies an array of sounds in Soundfont format, including drums and drum loops. You’ll notice the triggers aren’t arranged in a traditional 12-tone keyboard layout, and playing the instrument inevitably involves choosing the scale and key you’re intending to play in. These functions, along with countless others such as recording sequences and selecting sounds, are all accessible via the trigger keys.

The concept behind the controller is relatively simple; it hangs around your neck much like a clarinet or saxophone, and allows triggering of sounds from computer-based sound engines. Connection to your computer is via USB; there are no actual MIDI ports for communication with your DAW or hardware sound module. So far the software supports Intel-based Macs, with a Windows version still in its formative stages but available for download nonetheless.

Setting up the unit to shunt MIDI information to your DAW is relatively complex when compared with any typical keyboard-style controller. The supplied EigenD software is integral to how the Pico functions, and

To be honest, I found it took a while before I knew what I was doing with the Eigenharp Pico, but after I’d had some time with the unit I could easily appreciate its worth, especially when emulating clarinet and other wind and brass instruments. These instruments aren’t cheap, but if brass or woodwind is your native instrument, and weird finger positioning is second nature for you, you need to try one of these out.

Price: $759 (inc free shipping inside Australia) Crossroad Guitars: (07) 3805 8049 or remco.mayer@crossroadguitars.com

TRITON AUDIO BIGAMP & FETHEAD

Triton Audio has some interesting nick-knacks on offer with its family of FetHead devices. The products so far consist of four ‘audio helpers’, all of which are built into hard wearing XLR plug casings which, at first, look to be nothing more than a bunch of XLR connectors. Needless to say there’s more going on here. I managed to get my hands on two of the FetHead line: the FetHead preamp, which offers a further 20dB of gain to your microphone line; and the BigAmp, an instrument preamp for bringing unbalanced guitar, bass, and synth instruments into mic channels. The remaining members of the family (only recently added) are a high-pass filter and a condenser mic preamp.

The FetHead preamp is designed to add a healthy 20dB of gain to ribbon and dynamic microphones – handy if you find your audio interface-based mic preamps lack the gain to pull the best from your ribbon microphones. Using the FetHead pre is easy. Simply plug the unit inline between your mic and preamp, and arm the preamp’s phantom power. I must say I was a tad concerned about 48 volts hitting my ribbon mics, but a quick check with a multimeter assured me there wasn’t any herb appearing at the microphone end of the equation. The charming aspect about these units is the Class-A JFet amplifier – apart from suddenly having an extra 20dB of gain and all that consequent headroom at your disposal, they actually sound really good. Plugging in a lowly Shure SM58 turned the mic into a seriously great recording mic, with shades of SM7 about it. With ribbon mics the results were even more spectacular. It coaxed a far more polished response out of both my Carillon Axis 70 ‘Royer copies’ and my ancient Reslo ribbon mics. All these mics suddenly seemed to acquire some serious authority along with the gain increase. The same design FetHead pre is available with phantom power pass through for low gain condenser mics.

The second unit I tested was the BigAmp instrument preamp. Again this connects to the end of your phantom power endowed mic cable, allowing highimpedance instruments to enter a low-impedance

microphone preamp quite nicely. The headroom and tonal quality were far in advance of what could be expected using a ‘pro-sumer’ interface’s lowimpedance ‘D.I.’ inputs. The 15dB of extra gain also helped attain a clear and clean signal from guitar.

I’d recommend these units merely for the sound they impart – they’ll not only add gain and connectivity options, they’ll widen the flavours available from your mic collection immensely.

Price: BigAmp: $92.00; FetHead: $99.00; Fethead Filter: $103.00; Fethead Phantom: $106.00 Production Audio Services: (03) 9264 8000 or sales@productionaudio.com.au

REVIEW

DB TECHNOLOGIES OPERA 402D & 405D

The next-gen Operas are lighter and more powerful, but will our review be singing their praises?

Text: Mark Woods

DB Technologies’ Opera Series of active speakers has proved a popular choice in the crowded ‘reasonably priced’ section of the PA market. First released around 10 years ago now, the Opera Series has a reputation for decent sound quality in an easy-to-use package. Now in 2010, the ‘new and improved’ Opera D series – proudly manufactured in Italy – features re-designed cabinets, more powerful amps and less weight. The midrange 400 (400W) series lies between the smaller and less powerful 200 (200W) series, and the same-sized but more powerful and even lighter neodymium-speakered 600 (600W) series.

WEIGHT TRAINING Lifting the Operas out of their cardboard boxes confirmed their reduced weight over the previous model. At 14.1kg for the 402D and 14.5kg for the 405D, these two-way cabinets are easy to lift with one hand using the large, rubberised handle on top. The side handles are not quite as large but they’re also rubberised, making hoisting the speakers quickly and safely onto stands a cinch for one person.

I must say I’m growing a little sick of the look of molded polypropylene speakers – I much prefer the more discreet and professional appearance of cabinets with flat sides and flat fronts covered by a grille. Despite this, the Opera D’s shape is efficient and distinctive. One such distinctive feature is its new horn flare, which sits between triangular bass ports: it’s wider at the bottom than the top, making it look a little like something out of the modern incarnation of Battlestar Gallactica. The vertical dispersion is 80º while the horizontal dispersion is 60° at the top of the flare and slightly wider (65º) at the bottom.

The idea behind this asymmetry is that the nearfield listening area gets a slightly wider coverage while the distant field gets a narrower albeit more focused coverage for greater reach.

The woofer actually extends beyond the sides of the cabinet, and while it may appear too big for the box, this setup helps minimise the overall dimensions. Interestingly, the cabinets for both the 402D and the 405D are exactly the same size, and since there’s only 400 grams difference in weight and about $100

difference in price, it’s hard to know why anyone would choose the 402D over the more powerful alternative. Be that as it may, both speakers are made to be used as monitors as well as frontof-house and the angled rear panels enable them to be placed on the floor so the horn ends up on the left or the right. They angle up at around the standard 43°·and little moulded bumps keep the cabinets sides from touching the floor.

Both cabinets also share the same Digipro switch-mode power supply and Class-D digital amps that produce 100W RMS for the one-inch compression driver and 300W RMS for the woofer.

The amps are mounted at the rear of the cabinet where a series of protruding black fins provide thermal cooling, eliminating the need for a fan, which is a bonus. If the amp or power supply do (for whatever reason) get too hot, sensors immediately detect the problem and reduce the output until the temperature returns to a safe level. It’s the wrong time of the year to test this in the field unfortunately, but I wonder how this feature would go in the full Aussie sun on a stinking hot summer day? Perhaps we’ll have to give them a run in the sun come January…

SOCKET SET In-built DSP controls the crossover, phase alignment, frequency response and limiting. The rear control panel on both the 402D and 405D is small and the connections and control options are fairly limited. The upside of this is that it’s simple to use… provided your eyesight is good enough to read the small labels. The only input to the cabinet is via an XLR socket, which is a little surprising in this day and age, although both XLR and ¼-inch jack output ‘link’ sockets get a guernsey. The input sensitivity knob controls the speaker level in the normal manner and works in conjunction with a thoughtfully recessed switch to change the overall sensitivity between mic and line level. There are two EQ options: ‘Flat’ for a linear response; or ‘Processed’, which gives you more bass and less mids for a more flattering music playback option. Indicator lights for power, signal or limit are located on the control panel and a switchable blue power indicator light sits on the front of the cabinet. This is a handy little feature – it’s good to be able to turn the front light off in situations where it can be distracting, which is half

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“

One of the bands this particular evening had a singer – well, a screamer really – who insisted on cupping the mic and yelling straight into it… the Opera DSP earned its keep by at least preventing his monitor from overloading

”

Spot the Difference: The cabinets for both the 402D and the 405D are exactly the same size, and there’s only 400 grams difference in weight and about $100 difference in price.

the time in my experience. An even better system offered by alternative brands provides the option of switching the front light to indicate DSP limiting so you can see it from front-ofhouse. Unfortunately the Operas can’t make this switch. Also missing are any alternative inputs and a high-pass filter to save the speaker from dealing with unnecessary low-frequency energy when they’re teamed with subs. I’d also like to have seen the provision of phantom power here too. But to be fair to dB Technologies, I’m yet to see this feature make an appearance on any manufacturer’s powered speakers!

HISS-TRIONICS There is only a little hiss from the 402 and 405Ds when powered up, and as long as you’ve got the mic/line switch on the right setting, the speakers are simple to get going. For music playback, the aforementioned ‘Processed’ position adds thickness and removes some bite from the horn, resulting in a pleasing tonal shape that works over a wide volume range. The stated lowfrequency response is –3dB at 70Hz for the 402D compared with –3dB at 58Hz for the 405D. With music playing it’s a noticeable but not outstanding difference. The frequency response is even across the front of the cabinet, with only a slight beaminess on-axis. If the volume on either model is pushed too far the woofer starts to overload and the horn loses quality at about the same time. But this happens progressively so you get some warning that the cabinet is approaching its limits rather than going straight into unpleasant distortion. As disco or party speakers, these would provide plenty of clean volume for all but the loudest applications. Subs would inevitably be required for high-level full-range club use.

Both the 402D and the 405D also make useful monitor wedges and it’s handy being able to lie them down on either side, ie, to their left or right. In the ‘flat’ position, the frequency response is fairly neutral, although there’s an area around 4kHz that sounds a little harsh, particularly on vocal mics with presence peaks. This is where the horn wants to feed back first if the system is up too loud or the mic is pointed at the speaker.

The woofer has a similarly sensitive area around 800Hz that gets unstable if the mic gain is cranked too high, but it doesn’t stick out in normal use.

SAY WHAT? I used the Opera Ds as foldback wedges in different situations and had no problem with the sound. One situation involved noisy bands in a noisy venue – one of those ‘It doesn’t matter what they sound like as long as I can hear them above the stage sound’ type of gigs. And yes, in this context the speakers could indeed be heard clearly above the bands’ loud stage sound. One of the best things about using an active speaker for monitors is its onboard DSP control/protection processes. One of the bands this particular evening had a singer – well, a screamer really – who insisted on cupping the mic and yelling straight into it. That sort of thing can produce horrible distortion at several points along the path from mic to speaker but the Opera DSP earned its keep by at least preventing his monitor from overloading.

Next, the Opera Ds were placed in quite the opposite situation when I worked with French singer Caroline Nin at the Castlemaine Town Hall – breathy jazz vocals, grand piano, double bass and cool nightclub grooves. For this application, the monitors needed to be transparent and smooth sounding rather than simply loud – and they needed to look good too. Compared with my subtle low-profile black-box monitors, I found the Operas distinctive shape somewhat visually distracting in this situation. It’s not a huge issue but ideally stage monitors should be heard and not seen. Regular readers will know that I always like to see the ankles and shoes of female performers. Looks aside, the sound was hi-fi enough for the act’s often subtle and sometimes dynamic instrumental sounds and the performers were happy with what they were hearing.

Overall, the Opera D series speakers work well for their price and I can understand why they’re popular: the design is flexible enough to provide good front-of-house sound for small shows or wedge and sidefill monitor duties for any sized system. Solo performers, duos or combos will appreciate the easy setup and convenience of being able to throw them in the back of the car at the end of the night without having to find a sober assistant.

Generally they will be mounted on a pole, or placed on the floor for monitor use, but there is an optional rigging bracket available for installation in clubs or rehearsal rooms.

NEED TO KNOW Price Opera 405D: $1499 each; 402D: $1449 each Contact CMI (03) 9315 2244 sales@cmi.com.au www.cmi.com.au Pros Keenly priced.

Light weight.

Easy to operate.

FOH or monitor use.

Good sound quality.

Cons Same sized cabinet makes 402D less attractive.

Limited controls.

Hard to read control labels.

Summary Active bi-amped speaker are a dime a dozen these days and the market is growing more crowded by the day.

The upside to this of course is that heated competition is driving companies to greater heights in terms of what they offer, and dB Technologies is no exception. Its newgeneration Opera range offers good value for money, decent sound quality and lightweight bulletproof construction.

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REVIEW

ROLAND GAIA SH-01 Roland has been reinvigorating its synths of yesteryear and recalling some of the company’s greater moments in monosynth wizardry, and adding a good helping of modern amenity into the bargain.

Text: Brad Watts

NEED TO KNOW Price $1199 Contact Roland Australia (02) 9982 8266 info@rolandcorp.com.au www.rolandcorp.com.au Pros All the old-school squelch and punch.

Versatile – it’s an interface too!

So easy to program.

The perfect learning tool.

Cons Audio input to the filter would be nice.

Summary The Gaia is a tidy little synth that will give you the sounds of the SH lineage without the tuning and maintenance problems. If you’re new to the workings of analogue synthesis, or you’re after a synth with bags of ‘tweakability’, the Gaia should be high on your list of potential candidates.

When it comes to synthesisers, Roland is without doubt the biggest name in the field. Sure there were plenty of other contenders throughout the ’90s – Ensoniq, EMU, Sequential Circuits, Kurzweil, and of course, Korg and Yamaha – but no other company seems to wield the gravitas of Roland.

Its synthesis machinery covers the full gamut of musical instrumentation, from the typical keyboard-style synthetic instruments such as pianos and organs, through to guitar, bass, drums, and err… piano accordion.

This prolific output of synthesis engines has been characteristic of the company’s long-term endeavours in the field since day one. Kicking off the Roland name in 1972 with a few rhythm machines, it was a mere 12 months before the SH1000 monophonic synthesiser was released – one of the first commercially available synths in Japan. Ever since then Roland has continually released products of note, but it’s arguably the first 12-15 years of the company’s existence that resulted in the ‘classic’ devices that command exorbitant prices today. One such notable was the SH-101: a monophonic, mono-timbral, 32-key ‘keytar’ synthesiser that won countless friends amongst the soon-to-burst electronica scene. The SH-101 sounded great, and excelled at pumping out bass lines. But that wasn’t the only attraction; the 101 was also dead easy to operate. With an ‘interface’ comprised entirely of knobs, switches, sliders and buttons, a layout that reflected the actual signal path of an oscillator as it was built up, filtered, then augmented with a volume envelope, and an LFO, the SH-101 was the perfect instrument to learn about how synthesis actually worked. It’s this legacy that Roland has now seen fit to reincarnate under the Gaia moniker, specifically dubbed – in homage to the original – the SH-01. But enough of the history lessons, let’s peruse the Roland Gaia.

The Gaia is a 37-note keyboard, with its case finished in a pearlescent white. At 4.2kg it’s extremely light, and won’t be breaking any backs when lugged to and fro’ gigs. In terms of connection, the little tike is adequately endowed: stereo outputs on two ¼-inch jacks, a headphone output, and MIDI In and Out – the latter of these acting as a V-Link port to Roland’s proprietary video control technology. There’s a footpedal input,

as you might expect on any keyboard, and finally two USB ports: one for connection to your PC or Mac for MIDI control, the other for plugging in a USB memory stick. A USB memory stick can be used to save patches, sequencer phrases and system data to and from the Gaia. Speaking of which, the Gaia can store 64 user patches using the now familiar Roland eight by eight patch storage system, with a further 64 factory patches also available. Phrase memory storage amounts to a mere eight phrases, so this is presumably where the USB memory storage will come in mighty handy.

REMINISCING If you’re familiar with Roland’s synths of yesteryear, one look at the Gaia and you’ll be pleasantly transported back to an era when everything a synth could do was right there on the front panel. Working from left to right across the top deck, the lefthand side consists of an LFO section – the LFO can modulate any or all of three parameters: volume, pitch, and the filter, and the modulation amounts can be adjusted in both positive and negative values via 40mm faders. Next is the oscillator section, with seven waveform choices consisting of sine, saw, square, pulse width, noise, and ‘super saw’. ‘Super saw’ is apparently ‘a tone similar to seven sawtooth waves’, with additional sawtooth waves added to the fundamental tone at various pitches.

It’s perfect for sizzling leads and über-lush string-synthstyle pad sounds. A ‘variation’ button allows three different permutations of each waveform, so there are effectively 21 different foundations upon which to base your sound. This section includes an attack and decay envelope over pitch, which is incredibly useful for building percussion sounds, but this envelope can also affect oscillator sync or ring modulation.

Following is the filter section, with 12 or 24dB slopes and far more filter types than any retro Roland synth could muster, including bandpass, high- and low-pass, and a peak filter for some nifty wha action. The filter section even sports its own ADSR envelope. The final piece of the synthesis chain is an amplitude envelope, again with ADSR control via faders.

OUT WITH THE OLD These synthesis tools are far in advance of anything you’d find in a vintage Roland synth, and with them you can get a lot

of interesting modulations and oscillator varieties happening.

What’s exceptional is that you can layer three of these basic tones within a single patch to create incredibly thick and intricate sounds. Add a bunch of effects that can be sync’d to MIDI tempo or a tap-tempo button, an arpeggiator that saves its settings per patch, external stereo audio input for mixing in ‘outboard’ audio (not as in input to the filter unfortunately), and a D-Beam modulation controller and you’ve got one extremely useful synth. It’s also a lot of fun, just like those old synths from the ’70s and ’80s were. A lot of that fun is squarely due to the fact that there are no menus, screens or hidden functions (actually there are under the Shift key but exploring these deeper functions aren’t vital to generating great sounds). Every parameter has a knob, a fader, or a button. Consequently, I’m certain the Gaia will develop a huge club of admirers amongst educational facilities and those dipping their toes into the murky waters of synthesis for the first time.

But that’s not all there is to the little Gaia. USB connectivity allows the unit to interface directly with your Mac- or Windows-based DAW software – both for transmitting and receiving MIDI data and audio. That’s right, it’s an audio interface as well. Heck, there’s even a multitimbral PCM sound generator that supports GM2 sound mapping, so you can have the Gaia playing back standard MIDI files if that’s your bag, and the 64-note polyphony will certainly handle most. Plus, the Gaia will run on batteries if you wish – eight AA batteries in fact – and Roland suggests the use of NiMh rechargeables, eschewing the use of alkaline batteries or zinc-carbon batteries that mostly end up as landfill.

And the sound? Well, there’s nothing lacking sonically from the Gaia; you’ll have arpeggiated bass-lines spewing forth in a matter of seconds. If you’re after that retro monosynth-style sound, arpeggiated TB303 squelch, searing lead or even lush string-synth pads, you won’t be disappointed, but the Gaia does so much more. With three synths under the command of a single patch, you really can get some mighty interesting textures happening, and it’s a handy (44.1k) audio interface into the bargain – old school fun and functionality, with all the mod cons thrown in. Gaia is a winner in my book.

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I’m certain the Gaia will develop a huge club of admirers amongst educational facilities and those dipping their toes into the murky waters of synthesis for the first time.