AMI September 2018

International www.audiomediainternational.com

September 2018

PRINCE CHARLES ALEXANDER

The Grammy award-winning engineer and producer recounts his career in pro audio

FEATURE

We explore the latest developments in AoIP tech

REVIEWS

UA Arrow interface, QSC KS212C and more

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CONTENTS

17

SHOW PREVIEWS 07 IBC 09 PLASA

REPORT

38

14 Training We catch up with Brittania Row Productions to ďŹ nd out how the company is preparing the next generation of sound professionals..

23

FEATURES

17 Prince Charles Alexander AMI speaks to the Grammy Award winning producer and engineer about his life in music and audio 23 AOIP Stephen Bennett reports on the latest developments in the world of Audio over IP technology

PRODUCT FOCUS 29 AoIP technology

REVIEWS

32 Dutch & Dutch 8c 38 UA Arrow Interface

September 2018

3

AMI SEPTEMBER 2018

www.audiomediainternational.com

WELCOME

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Recording Studios (GCRS) engineer and GCVRS technical lead Steve Lane explores the phenomonon of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR). On page 13, Focusrite senior technical support engineer Jack Cole shares his views on the beneďŹ ts of making the move to Audio over IP-based solutions and adds that the implementation of AoIP tech in an existing set up isn’t as complicated as some may think.

For this issue’s producer proďŹ le we’re really proud to be able to feature an interview with legendary producer and engineer Prince Charles Alexander, who started out as a funk musician in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, before dedicating his career to engineering and production, which

CONTENT Editor: Murray Stassen murray.stassen@futurenet.com, +44 (0)207 354 6035 4UBŢ 8SJUFS Tara Lepore tara.lepore@futurenet.com, +44 (0)207 354 6021 Designer: Tom Carpenter tom.carpenter@futurenet.com, +44 (0)207 354 6041 Production Executive: James Marinos james.marinos@futurenet.com

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elcome to the September edition of Audio Media International. With the summer festival season slowly becoming a distant memory, we’re gearing up for two of the most significant trade shows in the business, Amsterdam’s IBC and London’s PLASA, both of which take place in September and for which you’ll find previews on pages 7 and 9 of this magazine. We hear from the organisers about what their respective events have to offer and how you can make the most of them as an attendee.

Both PLASA and IBC feature stellar line-ups of conference panels, talks, technology showcases and software and hardware demonstrations, so whether you live locally to either of these events or make the journey from where you live, we hope you’re able to get as much out of these shows as we always do!

Elsewhere in the magazine on, page 13, Grand Central

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saw him work with Bad Boy Entertainment for around 10 years, working on recordings by the likes of The Notorious B.I.G. and many others.

Also in this issue, Stephen Bennett reports on the latest developments in Audio over IP technology, featuring representatives from Focusrite, Genelec, Merging Technologies, Martin Audio and more. Following that we have an AoIP-themed product focus.

In the reviews section, mastering engineer Nigel Palmer tests the new high-end 8c loudspeaker from Netherlandsbased Dutch & Dutch, with other reviews of products from Universal Audio, QSC and PreSonus.

And last, but not least, in our regular pro spotlight feature on the back page you will find a Q&A with Womens Audio Mission staff engineer and instructor Veronica Simonetti.

We hope you enjoy the issue!

Murray Stassen Editor Audio Media International

Experts in the issue

If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions.

Veronica Simonettii is a staff engineer and instructor at San Francisco-based Women’s Audio Mission (WAM).

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Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne Non-executive chairman Peter Allen Chief financial officer Penny Ladkin-Brand Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244

4

September 2018

Jack Cole is a senior technical support engineer for British audio manufacturer Focusrite.

Steve Lane is an industry leader in the world of VR sound a sound engineer at Grand Central Recording Studios.

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SHOW PREVIEW: IBC

INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS This year’s annual International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) takes place at the RAI, Amsterdam from 13 – 18 September ast year’s annual media, entertainment and technology spectacle, the IBC show in Amsterdam, saw 57,669 people from 170 countries visit around 1,735 exhibitors in the Dutch capital’s RAI conference centre, with this year’s event expected to welcome an equally sizeable global attendance base.

The 2018 event is set to showcase “big advances” in the latest developments in the likes of artificial intelligence, 5g and blockchain technology according to IBC CEO Michael Crimp.

“It may be an odd thing to say, in a technological industry, but it is not the technologies themselves that are exciting,” he says. “Certainly there are big things happening. I think we will see big advances in areas like artificial intelligence, 5G and blockchain.

“The real excitement comes when these raw technologies are put into action. IBC puts these ideas in front of people who can imagine the possibilities and create the applications that transform our creativity and our business models.”

Crimp says that IBC’s content offering is kept fresh each year “by listening” and that “IBC is organised by the industry for the industry”.

“Through bodies like our content steering group and the IBC Council we get input from those, around the world, who are leading the industry today,” he adds.

The IBC CEO’s advice on how to make the most of the event is to “immerse yourself in the whole experience, drop into conference sessions that interest you and go to the awards ceremony to see what the really innovative people are achieving today”.

“Above all, talk to people,” he concludes. “Share your knowledge and experiences. We are expecting more than 57,00 people this year, so seize the opportunity to be a part of the big global debate.”

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In addition to the wide range of talks and seminars, here is a small selection of the product showcases you can expect to see at this year’s event: Sennheiser will showcase its Memory Mic professional wireless microphone for smartphones at stand No. D50 in Hall 8. The new mic features a high-quality Sennheiser condenser capsule with omni-directional pick-up pattern.

Via the app, the sensitivity of the microphone can be set at three levels in order to adapt to louder or softer voices. “High sound quality remains an important area for differentiation and a hallmark of quality for video content.

Currently, there is no other product on the market that is able to compete with the Memory Mic and offer the same fantastic combination of audio quality, price and mobility,”

IBC CEO Michael Crimp

says Tobias von Allwoerden, senior product manager, Professional Audio at Sennheiser.

Nugen Audio’s newly released post-production bundles as well as updates to its Loudness Toolkit bundle of products will be on display for the first time at IBC 2018 (Stand 8.D56). The Loudness Toolkit, which includes the VisLM loudness meter, ISL limiter and LM-Correct quick fix tool, will natively support track counts of up to 7.1.2, suitable for monitoring and limiting Dolby Atmos bed tracks in real time.

“Following the introduction of updated ITU guidance for the measurement of multi-channel audio beyond 5.1, NUGEN will update its Loudness Toolkit family of products in order to enhance the workflow for engineers in the industry,” says Jon Schorah, founder and creative director, NUGEN Audio Calrec Audio is giving its widely used Brio audio console a boost in channel count and will be demonstrating Brio at this year’s IBC on stand 8.C61.

New expansion packs are now available that increase the Brio12 DSP count from 48 to 64 input channels and the Brio36 from 64 to 96 input channels. “Calrec’s range of Brio consoles has proved to be very popular,” said Dave Letson, VP of sales for Calrec. “With its small form factor, broadcast-focused feature set and affordable price point, Brio is incredibly versatile and the consoles are now suitable for applications requiring a larger

channel count. We’ve made the range more powerful to accommodate the expanding needs of broadcasters.”

In conjunction with its Dutch distributor Amptec, DPA will exhibit and demonstrate a range of microphones that reflect the company’s “core values of clarity, durability and consistency”. A highlight will be DPA’s recently launched CORE by DPA amplifier technology that powers its line of d:screet miniature microphones, among others.

Jünger Audio is exhibiting at IBC 2018 on the same booth (10.A49) that it has occupied for the last five years and will be demonstrating a new audio processing solution called flexAI that it claims will “redefine how broadcasters approach their audio processing requirements”. FlexAi (Flexible Audio Insfrastructure) enables a range of audio applications to be implemented without hardware or rack space constraints. By buying additional software licenses, broadcasters and post-production facilities can customize this versatile system to suite their demand for processing capabilities and channel count.

RTW will present its new MA4U 19-inch TM9 Rack-Mount Solution, which provides all the audio monitoring features of a standalone RTW TM9 in an easily accessible broadcast studio format. The company will also discuss the forthcoming availability of floating licenses for its Masterclass Plug-ins – Mastering Tools, Continuous Loudness Control (CLC) and Loudness Tools.

September 2018

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SHOW PREVIEW: PLASA

LONDON CALLING PLASA 2018 takes place at the London Olympia, National Hall from 16-18 September this year, with a wide range of seminars, panel discussions, product demonstrations and training sessions on offer for attendees

nce again, PLASA Show will return to London Olympia where attendees can expect to see products on display from the likes of d&b audiotechnik, L-Acoustics, Bose, Audio-Technica, Yamaha, Adamson, Adam Hall, Nexo and many more.

The seminar programme is fully-loaded with thought-leaders and seasoned experts, including pro audio experts Britannia Row Productions (see our

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training report on p14-15), who are hosting a series of seminars to help both up-and-coming audio and seasoned professionals alike.

They will discuss the future of immersive audio, outline their training courses, run a demonstration of speaker system prediction software, and assist legendary sound engineer Simon Hodge (Robbie Williams) to build a mix from scratch using a multitrack recording.

Elsewhere at the show, Avnu Alliance representatives Genio Kronauer of L-Acoustics and Henning Kaltheuler of d&b audiotechnik will present the new application layer protocol for guaranteed future-proof AV networks, discussing how the Avnu Pro AV specifications and certification programme promises reliable, and futureproof delivery of networked media.

This year will see SoundGirls make their debut at PLASA Show with a future-focused panel looking to bring the audience closer with live mixing apps, immersive sound systems and a whole new generation of technology.

Monitor engineer Becky Pell and audiologist Gisele Flower will discuss how the use of in-ear monitors have changed the live experience, and protected performers from hearing loss. They will also explore future developments which hope to overcome the ‘disconnect’ that live artists can often feel when performing on stage.

In addition to the panel discussions and heavyweight conference programme, there will be a number of audio demonstrations over all three days from the likes of OHM, Shermann Audio, KV2 Audio, Aura Audio and RCF. Holoplot, a Berlin-based PA manufacturer developing a fully modular WFS systems, will demonstrate how wave field synthesis can build scalable solutions that function in harsh acoustical environments and support immersive audio experiences for retail and other industries.

Meanwhile, Sennheiser will offer training sessions focussed on their Speechline Digital Wireless System.

PLASA MD PETER HEATH: ‘WE WANT EVERYONE COMING TO THE SHOW TO BE WOWED AND ENTERTAINED’ What is the main focus for this year’s event following the successful 40th edition last year?

We have spent a lot of time in the past year working with the audio community to learn more about what they’re looking for in a show, which is something our previous operation didn’t do so well. Last year we had 23% more audio companies exhibiting, and this year we’ve seen a further increase, including brands such as L-Acoustics taking a stand at the show for the first time in quite a few years. We have opened up more space for audio brands to demo the latest sound systems, as well as more keynote speakers, workshops and training.

We want everyone coming to the show to be wowed and entertained – something this industry knows how to do better than anywhere else, and hopefully people will feel this the moment they enter the lobby! There will be more live entertainment, and we are integrating more technology into the show including large LED screens to display show information.

Finally, we have taken on board the positive feedback that visitors and exhibitors value the sociable and networking elements of the show, with 56% visiting for that reason, so we have decided to have late night opening on the Monday of the show.

What are some of the technology trends you expect to see this year?

Immersive Audio has been a major topic this year, with some impressive developments being showcased, among others, by d&b audiotechnik, L-Acoustics and Outboard on the show floor. A seminar session covering this topic will also be hosted by Britannia Row Productions, which involves DiGiCo, Clair and L-Acoustics.

Other topics include In Ear Monitoring, Mental Health in the industry, Audio Modelling and Analysis and Audio Mixing Techniques to Personal Development and Business Coaching.

September 2018

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OPINION

SIGHTS & SOUNDS Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is the endorphin hit many people did not know they needed, writes Steve Lane, who is a sound engineer at Grand Central Recording Studios and technical lead at GCVRS...

STEVE LANE

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or those who have not yet come across the phenomenon, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response is a feeling of tingles or chills when hearing specific sounds. This could be something tactile like hair touching or grooming, it could be visual stimuli – like eye gazing or observing slow hand movements. Most interesting to me are the audio triggers which often feature soft whispering voices, mouth sounds including chewing and blowing, and object-related sounds like tapping, scratching, cutting and crinkling.

I head up Grand Central Recording Studio’s VR division (GCVRS), where we have been experimenting and developing spatial sound capabilities for over eight years, so finding online groups obsessed with sound in such a practical way is incredibly interesting. I am well versed in their effectiveness because, not only have I been interested in binaural audio for 15+ years, I also have a wife who uses the online videos and audio clips on occasion to help her get to sleep.

Some of the most popular ASMR artists have millions of followers, with many role playing and

using pitch to achieve the desired affect. They often have a specific theme, such as kind, caring, empathic, attentive, focused, trustworthy, dedicated, or expert.

I have worked with several ASMR artists over the years and find the concept of binaural audio eliciting such extreme emotional responses fascinating. At our studios in Soho, we have previously invited ASMR artist Whispers Red in to combine her skills with our equipment. As most artists tend to do their recording in home studios, it was really interesting to see how her usual techniques were changed or enhanced by using our purpose made studios – notably the quietness we are able to achieve here at GCRS is tricky to achieve anywhere else.

However, for many, it can be a confusing concept – perhaps because for some people it simply does not work or perhaps they find the idea of someone whispering in their ear unsettling. It is, however, undeniably effective for others.

For the ASMR community, binaural sound and VR audio are an exciting prospect. Combining 360 films with spatial audio could be a way to enhance the

experience in interesting and creative ways, and as software that can recreate binaural playback in a post production environment gets better and better, the opportunities to incorporate more sound design into these experiences becomes a very exciting prospect.

We are lucky to live in an age where we are able to learn about techniques like this so easily. Although explaining the concept to someone who has not yet encountered it can be tricky, I believe that learning more about this can only enhance the work I do.

Steve Lane is an industry leader in the world of VR sound, having spoken at numerous events, including talks at Dolby, the BFi and VRWC. Lane joined GCRS over fifteen years ago, and has been a sound designer with them for over a decade. The last five years have seen him focus specifically on immersive audio. His portfolio includes global TV campaigns, binaural experiences, live installations and theme park rides and has worked with a wide spectrum of clients including the Natural History Museum, Google, Sky and Samsung.

September 2018

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OPINION

‘AUDIO OVER IP IS NOT AS COMPLICATED TO CONFIGURE AS IT MIGHT APPEAR’ Focusrite engineer Jack Cole tells AMI why Audio over IP solutions are the best option the industry has for various applications...

JACK COLE f you’re considering making the move to include products that implement technology you’ve not used before, then it’s only natural to be somewhat cautious.

For many, this is especially the case when looking at Audio over IP solutions, in part because the technology and connection methods used are ones that we’ve all come across before, we’ve just never associated them with audio transfer.

Being a sound engineer is not the same as being a network engineer. For the vast majority of sound engineers, particularly those who have been in the business for many years and who were around before Audio over IP was a viable solution, this is how things should be. Manufacturers of Audio over IP equipment will often go to great lengths to explain that little to no networking knowledge is required to use their product and, in the overwhelming majority of cases, this is absolutely correct.

For those who are sceptical of the above point I invite you to consider this - how many pieces of ADAT, SPDIF, AES3 or MADI equipment have you used over the years? If the answer is “at least one, and it all worked fine” then unless you have in-depth knowledge of how that particular format packages and transmits data, the question of whether Audio over IP might be too complicated or require an abundance of specialist knowledge is already redundant.

When using any digital transmission method we generally don’t require insight that goes any further than knowing what cable to use, whether we need to alter the clock source of any of the devices and whether there’s anything special we

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need to set up in the control software to route those signals… that’s about it.

The same is absolutely true of Audio over IP. Our RedNet and Red products use Dante as the Audio over IP method of choice - in the case of Dante, you don’t even need to consider clocking in the vast majority of cases as the system works out which device has the most stable clock and automatically sets that as the master, with no user input required.

If you mix and match products with Dante support from different manufacturers then you’ll still only need to learn how to use one piece of software to route between your devices, Dante Controller. Dante Controller uses a simple ‘Transmitter’ channel to ‘Receiver’ channel matrix so you just need to click at the intersection of the channel you’d like to send from and receive to.

The times that having at least some networking knowledge really comes into play when large facilities (such as universities) wish to integrate Audio over IP products in their studios, while also having those studios run through the main university network. Dante network traffic generally plays very nicely with other bits of network traffic, but sometimes there are some additional considerations that need to be taken into account.

For example, by default Dante devices stay in time with each other by sending (and listening to) multicast messages (these are PTP - Precision Time Protocol messages). The amount of data that’s sent in this manner is very small but it’s important to consider that there’s the potential for this data to be sent to every single device on the network (Dante or otherwise) if the network isn’t set up to filter those messages accordingly

and ensure that they’re only delivered to devices that actually need them. In a university network with potentially thousands of devices, there’s the possibility of some undesired behaviour if this isn’t properly considered.

To anyone who is completely bewildered by some of the terminology in that last paragraph I have some great news for you - if the facility that you’re considering adding Audio over IP products to is large enough that my last point might conceivably cause a problem, it’s likely also large enough to have an IT department that knows exactly how to deal with this situation.

With all of the above being said, it’s almost always beneficial to have at least a grounding in the basics of any piece of technology you’re interested in or that you’re considering using. In the case of Dante, Audinate (the creators of Dante) offer training courses both online and in person at industry events which start with the basics of using Dante and move all the way through to configuration recommendations that may come in useful when designing far larger systems.

In my opinion, Audio over IP is the best current solution the industry has for many situations (both live, broadcast, post, in the studio and in many other circumstances besides) in terms of its flexibility, low latency capabilities and expandability. Luckily, it’s also nowhere near as complicated to configure and operate as it might appear at first glance.

Jack Cole is a senior technical support engineer for Focusrite.

September 2018

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TRAINING REPORT

www.audiomediainternational.com

SOUND KNOWLEDGE

What do you do if you’re struggling to recruit people with the right level of live audio knowledge? If you’re Twickenham-based Britannia Row, you train them up yourself. Here, Tara Lepore speaks to managing director Mike Lowe about the kind of courses it offers and what it’s doing to provide an alternative to traditional sound training...

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one are the days where learning the art of live sound can solely happen on the road.

Yes, practical experience is invaluable and provides opportunities to continue learning every day, but it now helps to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the technology you’ll be using (which is itself evolving at a rapid pace).

In 2013, west London pro audio supplier Britannia Row added training courses to its inventory. Seeing graduates go on to land top jobs in the wider business and receiving university accreditation along the way, the team are now looking forward to improving on the industry-leading training they provide to the next generation of professionals. AMI spoke to Britannia Row Production Training MD Mike Lowe about how the initiative got started and where it all goes from here...

Why did you start to offer training courses (and when)?

We have trained our people internally for decades. In the 1950s and ’60s, audio equipment was relatively simple and people could largely learn on the job. From the 1970s, professional audio equipment began to get more complex and has continued to develop with ever increasing degrees of sophistication. It is not possible today for an audio technician to learn on the job without first having a good deal of training and underlying knowledge and understanding.

We trained our own personnel for decades. From that time and right up to the present, we have found that people who come off audio courses from degree level, college level or down to small private courses, do not end up with the skills, knowledge and understanding that we or the industry requires of them. A lot of audio courses are essentially studio courses with a small element specific to live sound. Training is not just about technology - it’s also about the industry practice and culture of the many market sectors using live audio, all of which are constantly developing.

We had often talked about the possibility of extending our internal training and offer it out to the world at large. In 2012, one of our freelance engineers, Barry Bartlett, approached us and told us that he felt 14

September 2018

that we should look at offering our training to the outside world. Barry was knowledgeable, had lots tutoring experience and was completely passionate about passing knowledge on. We let him run with it and in 2013, Britannia Row Productions Training was born.

Very sadly, Barry died this year. The work he put into the syllabuses and session notes, together with his enthusiasm, passion and commitment, has driven all that worked with him and under him to carry on and build on the foundation he laid.

What sort of thing is covered on the courses, and who teaches them?

Industry overviews, acoustics, electrics, PA operations, rigging and system design - there are loads of things applicable to all of our courses, although at varying levels of content depth depending on the course type.

The tutors for all of our short courses are drawn from our staff and our freelance engineers and technicians.

They also deliver all of the masterclasses on our degree course. All of our tutors are people working at a very high level in the industry which makes our delivery and student experience totally unique.

What are your post-graduation employment rates like for each course?

Very high. We put a great deal of effort into trying to place everyone from each course in an area they want to work in, doing the work that they want to do, or at least on a path where they can reach their goal.

We give most of our students on full-time courses the opportunity to get some paid work with us during their course, although our success is purely the success of our students. Having said this, some of our students come on the courses for a variety of reasons. We have four students from a Japanese manufacturer on our current Live Sound Technology course who work in R&D and product development.

Their intention is not to work in live sound, but to gain a better understanding of what sound engineers and audio technicians want and how they use products.

What’s the feedback been like so far?

The feedback over the last seven years is that the big majority of students have valued their time with us and that the skills and knowledge and contacts they have acquired has given them more confidence and boosted their careers, which is immensely gratifying for us.

What future plans do you have for Brit Row’s training courses? Where would you like to see it taken in the next five years and beyond?

Putting more students through our courses is a definite concentration, along with keeping the courses relevant with regards to changing technologies and the needs of the market. We found that with the educational system as it is, it was nigh on impossible to get funding for young students. This is why we went for the three-year degree course (which is through South Thames College and validated by the University of Northampton) but not everyone is in a position to devote three years to the course and take on big student loans. I want to keep pushing for young people to be able to get grants or loans for shorter courses.

Learning in audio for an effective practitioner should be ongoing for life and there is no reason why young people should not be able to do a bit of training, get a bit of experience and come back for more training without it being only possible through the bank of Mum and Dad. Apprenticeships are not proving to be as effective as they should be for our business. Britannia Row has around 12 apprentices at one time but this is outside of any government scheme.

All of these things mean changes at government level. Government has to listen to industry for the sake of our industry and for the sake of our young people. There is lots of fledgling training activity in our industry right now and it is nearly all borne out of the fact that the system is not delivering what to meet the requirements of our industry. It might all be possible in the next five years if our government has headspace for anything else other than Brexit. www.britanniarow.com/courses

TRAINING REPORT

September 2018

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PRODUCER PROFILE

ENGINEERING

ROYALTY

Prince Charles Alexander’s career has seen him go from prominent funk musician signed to Virgin Records in the 1980’s to one of the world’s most in-demand hip hop and R’n’B engineers and producers.

Working with Puff Daddy and Bad Boy Entertainment for close to a decade, Alexander has worked with some of the world’s most iconic artists, from The Notorious B.I.G. to Mary J. Blige. Here, he recalls coming to terms with the rise of hip hop on his journey to become one of most renowned audio professonals and educators today...

September 2018

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PRODUCER PROFILE

n 1979, funk musician and recent college graduate Charles Alexander released the debut record by Prince Charles & The City Beat Band, In The Street, co-produced

by New Kids On The Block producer Maurice Starr.

He’d go on to sign with Virgin Records and tour Europe with the City Beat Band, supporting the likes of Duran Duran and releasing a total of three albums, Gang War (1979), Stone Killers (1981) and Combat Zone (1983).

“I’m from Boston,” he explains . “ But, I [thought], Maybe somebody in England will pick up on the fact that my name is Prince Charles and that’ll do really good stuff for my music.

“Two years later, Virgin Records picked up my independent project,” he continues. They gave me money for a second and third album and basically my career [took off].”

A musician in the traditional sense of the word, Prince Charles Alexander took music lessons from a young age (he attended Boston Latin, the first public school in the United States), which would lay the foundations of his

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long and distinguished career in music.

I was trying to be a well rounded kid,” he remembers.

They didn’t have a piano or guitar. At those times in those schools, it was like big band stuff, so I took up the clarinet and the clarinet eventually led me to the saxophone, which eventually led me to the flute.”

When he graduated from high school he realised that he wanted to be a professional musician having toured the local clubs since he was 15”, but decided to go to college for four years. It wasn’t long after that however, that he put out the first City Beat Band record, with the Lyricon being his instrument of choice during that phase of his career.

The multi-instrumentalist says that he also used to play bass and guitar lines and even started to experiment with playing drum beats using the Lyricon as the controller”, but when hip hop began to dominate the airwaves, he changed his focus to make the most of the new genre.

“Once that door was open I started to realise that

www.audiomediainternational.com

music production was starting to move away from pure arrangement and into music sequencing,” he recalls.

He says that a “really powerful moment for him” came in 1985 when Run-DMC’s Walk This Way was released.

“Walk This Way was so successful that record companies knew that hip hop was no longer an underground art form, so Kool & The Gang lost their deal, Commodores lost their deal.

I mean it was like armageddon for funk acts.

“The handwriting was on the wall. I felt it was critical enough for me to try to show up my production ability. For me, the answer was to learn audio engineering and that began a whole other part of my career in the audio industry.”

A Professor in Music Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music, Alexander boasts numerous Grammy awards and nominations and many credits on multi-platinum albums by some of the world’s top recording artists. Here, he takes AMI back to the start of an audio career that coincided with the birth and rise of hip hop...

PRODUCER PROFILE

We’ve read that you hated Rapper’s Delight when it came out, which I find interesting because later on you would work with an artist [The Notorious B.I.G.] who would also sample a Nile Rodgers production on Mo’ Money Mo Problems.

[Laughs] Exactly. Well, it wasn’t music, you know?

It was something different and it wasn’t even an original composition that the guys were rapping over. So rapping was like defamation. It’s like, you basically learn some lines and you just rap, you don’t have to be a great singer.

My journey as an audio engineer helped me to interact with rappers and beat makers. I was trying to help them make better and better records and my journey through hip hop as an engineer helped me as a producer to understand the value of hip hop as a tool for communication between generations.

It probably took me until 1995 (I started

engineering around 1986) until I really understood the value of hip hop with audiences, but with that said, as a small business entrepreneur with Prince Charles & The City Beat Band, I rapped on the first, second and third albums, because it was obvious that something was going on.

I didn’t really know what it was, but I knew I had to address it. I knew I had to be present in it even though I didn’t like it. On my first record there’s a song called Tight Jeans - a rap record. My second record is called Don’t Fake The Funk, which is a rap record.

For me, it was definitely a journey that I first came to as a musician going, Where’s the harmony and where’s the melody and where’s the originality? I had to evolve to understand that there is a creative process and once I understood that, then I was able to dissect the process and now I teach and I give that creative process of what hip hop is back to another generation.

When you first started to work as an engineer in the studio with hip hop artists, how were you approaching those sessions initially? Was it very much from an engineering perspective, or from a technical perspective?

In order for me to understand which drum machine to use and what a MIDI and loop sequencer was, I had to buy as much gear as possible in order to really understand it.

That helped me, owning it and using it myself. The second part of it is that I didn’t have to look very far from where the funk in the music was because it was related to funk, it was related to soul and so I understood where the funk in the music was.

I just thought everyone was stealing and once I got over that notion, it was really just a concept of being able to make people dance and make people feel good about their night out. It was really easy for me to use the machines and live in that world.

It wasn’t that I just dealt with it as an engineer. I dealt with it as somebody who wanted to make anybody’s creative thoughts a tangible thought that could resonate with their audiences.

And as time went on, my ability to do that was received well by a lot of people that I worked with.

I got a call from Puffy (Sean Combs) and then I worked with him for 10 years and he basically came up with these ideas and I learned a lot from him, because Puffy is not a musician as I understand a conventional musician to be and he’s not a technologist as I understand a technologist to be, but he is somebody that is totally dialled in and thinks about what audiences are looking for out of their entertainment products.

In my career and in my life, working with Puffy was probably one of the most valuable experiences for me to both understand hip hop and to understand the role of music and audio in the lives of the average person. That was just really huge and what I understood was that a lot of musicians get stuck in our own ways.

We think that our musical thought and our musical idea is paramount and it may have been in the ‘60s or ‘70s, but it changed in the digital era. I marked the beginning of the digital era around 1980, which is when the first programmable drum machines show up on the market like the Linn LM-1 and the Roland TR-808 and from 1980 on, it’s like, it’s just been an accelerating acceptance of digital ideas and digital technologies, so you go through MIDI, you go through sequencing, you go through sampling, you get into the DAW becoming an instrument itself.

You then get into autotune and Melodyne. Hip hop has done really creative things with all of these things when you really think about it. Rock and roll and funk and singer songwriters kind of flirted with this stuff, but didn’t invest in it the way hip hop did. Once I saw hip hop doing that, it really was clear to me that hip hop had a huge value for me as an engineer, so I just kept digging in and digging in. The more I helped another person have a successful record, the more I understood about what it is that my skill set was bringing to the craft of hip hop music making.

September 2018

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PRODUCER PROFILE What was it like on those sessions for the Notorious B.I.G’.s debut album Ready To Die? Bad Boy Records had a studio called Daddy’s House and Daddy’s House, just like Bad Boy Records, was very efficiently run. It was a round the clock shop. There really was something going on almost 24 hours a day every day. I was with Puffy when it first began in about 1990. Me and Tony Mars were the very first two engineers.

It was 1992 that I think he got the investment and in 1994 things started to become clear that Flava In Ya Ear was blowing up. It was clear that we had a hit on our hands and it became clear that Puffy was onto something and if he could do it again, Bad Boy might be around for a little while.

So it got easier for me to come in at about 10am and then go home at about 2am. So 12,14, 16 hours was a short day, 20 hours was a long day and this was like Monday through Friday for me and then you know, begrudgingly you might do a Saturday and it went on like this for 10 years, literally for 10 years.

In those (Notorious B.I.G.) sessions specifically, somebody would come in with a track, I would lock it up with Synthi, because there was analogue tape.

You would do individual outputs sometimes because the outputs were so clean that you would prefer to take the track one by one coming out of the stereo out, because there was a little bit more grunge on the stereo and these are some considerations that we had to have when we looked at the track coming out of stereo and then say, well if I individualise this, will it still sound as authentic?

He said, This guy is incredible. I was like, Yeah sure, everybody’s hot that we’re working with. He said, No, no, no.

This guy is awesome and he put on the track, Warning that we had been working on maybe a few days earlier.

I’m driving home listening to this song and when he got to the point [in the song] that says, There’s gonna be a lot of slow singing and flower bringing/if my burglar alarm starts ringing,” I started thinking about that lyric, like, wow that’s kind of poetic, you know?

That’s when I started to really understand that there was a craft and a magic going on that I didn’t hear in Rapper’s Delight. As a musician I was so resistant at that time. So around the time I was listening to Biggie I was like, I get it, I totally get it. This is folk music. This is the folk music of America in the 1990s and from then on, I was kind of really changed in terms of how I saw hip hop and saw my relationship to hip hop, Puffy’s relationship to hip hop and Biggie’s relationship to hip hop.

So it was like that day after day. We’d be in with Biggie for three, four, five days, then Craig Mack would come in, then 112 would come in then Mary [J. Blige] would come in, Faith Evans would come in.

It just went on and on and so, honestly, a lot of it is a blur, but the blur is, you got a track, we’ve got somebody that’s creative, are they in time, are they in pitch? If they’re not in pitch, is there enough emotion there to give us the thing that we’re trying to convey to our audiences? It was just a proving ground for some of the best of R’n’B ideas and hip hop ideas that were coming together almost every day.

“My journey as an audio engineer helped me interact with rappers and beat makers. I was trying to help them make better records” So these were some of the considerations you had to think about. And then once the track was down, you know, the vocalist would come in.

Let’s say if we’re doing Notorious B.I.G., he would sit in the back and on the first album, had reems and reems of paper, books of lyrics all over the place. The second album, he didn’t have any of that, he just came in and I guess he had memorised it at home and he just walked in and just started rhyming off the top of his head.

But on the first album, he’d go in with a paper. He had a music stand and he’d rhyme and you’d tell him, Don’t move off axis from the microphone, we need you right on axis. After he got that, that’s how he rhymed all the time. There was no bopping of the head or anything like that.

What I was listening for was clarity, articulation, no distortion, making sure that there was good high end present and enough low end but not over clean, not masking the low end. I remember one of my assistants, a 15-year-old kid, says, Are you listening to what he’s saying? And I said, No, not really, because I’m just listening to all the things that I just told you about.

What recording technology was in Daddy’s House?

There was a Neve VR in Studio A and an SSL G in Studio B. I think the tape machines were a Studer A820 and periodically when we upgraded, I think we went to the 827 or we might have [brought] in a digital machine, a Sony PCM3324 once the digital age starts coming in. Then around the late ‘90s you start getting Pro Tools and things like that.

Outboard gear was interesting. You had the normal cast of characters, DBX 160s - this is before the age of the destressor, so you would have DBX 160X compressors or DBX160A compressor/limiters. Teletronix LA-2As for vocals, and Pultec of course, Pultec EQP-1A, 1B and and 1C. I believe that the 1A is tube, the 1C is transistor and the B is hybrid tube and transistor. Focusrite mic pre EQs, Universal Audio 1176s [were also used].

This was the standard gear in the Hit Factory and in Sony and that’s how I came up. I came up with this as a template.

If you had a studio, you had to have 1176s, LA2As, you had to have Focusrite, GMLEQ, so when the studio was put together, Puffy asked me, Tony Maserati and Troy Germano what to put in the studio and he had all the toys that he

needed. Whatever we didn’t have we would rent from one of the rental companies that were in New York and there were like four or five of them at the time and we could have anything under the sun. If it was a new or experimental piece, we would rent it to see what it did.

This generation of recording engineers, if they’re not in the studio, they just don’t know what they’re missing because, the acceleration back then, I mean it’s fast now but the new toys then and the advent of something new like once every week was stunning and it was all hardware.

It wasn’t like, Oh let me load the software. We actually had to go buy it or rent it, look at it, figure out how to get aux out patched in. It was amazing and honestly, the new generation of toys. I just don’t feel like I’m bewildered. I don’t feel like there’s magic any more. Which is not to say it’s a bad thing, it’s not, but in those days being an audio engineer, I felt like I was a magician. I felt like I was doing things that nobody understood and nobody could make sense of, but just listen to this, doesn’t this sound good?

It’s been democratised. That’s probably a good thing, but there was a huge value in the individual roles of the engineer, of the producer who didn’t know the technology but had great ideas, of the artist who didn’t know what the producer was talking about or what the engineer was talking about but gave us great performances. There was something incredible about that and something magical about that.

On that note, anyone can be a bedroom producer now.

What are your views about that?

I have a philosophy that the music of the day should resonate with the audience of the day and if a bedroom producer is creating music that resonates with the audience today, it’s similar to how I had to come to terms with hip hop.

There’s this idea of what creativity is and who creativity connects with doesn’t go backwards. So my philosophy is, if it can resonate with a large population, I want to know how it’s being done and where the connection is, the lyrics, the music, I want to know that because if I don’t like it, I want to know what it is about it that I don’t like.

What happened to me was my journey through the multi-million dollar studios. I wanted to be a producer and understand more about audio. It led me to a point where I realised that the technology is supposed to be as transparent as possible and what’s really going on in here is a creative artist being able to connect with an audience.

The technology is not the thing that’s connecting with the audience, the conglomeration of ideas that are coming from the creative person is what’s connecting with the audience and you can do that with an iPhone, an iPad, with Garageband, with Ableton Live, with Pro Tools so forth and so on and you can do it at analogue pace and with vinyl ,so at the end of the day, getting hung up about which plugin to use is not interesting to me.

What I did was, I went on a journey to get as much of the technology as transparent as possible, because the idea of connecting with human beings is more important to me than the idea of me interfacing with my technology.

September 2018

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PRODUCT FOCUS AOIP PRODUCTS

AOIP-ENABLED HARDWARE

The global market for networked audio devices is growing. Here’s a selection of AoIP-enable products to get you started.

Focusrite: RedNet X2P RedNet X2P is a compact, portable and robust 2x2 Dante audio interface featuring two Red Evolution mic pres, stereo line out and a stereo headphone amplifier. RedNet X2P allows you to add a high quality Dante audio interface by integrating power, audio, clock and remote control over a single Ethernet cable – simply use a power over Ethernet switch or PoE injector. A local input mixer allows ‘more me’ monitoring control, while a control lockout mode ensures settings cannot be changed when used remotely. Rear panel XLR outputs offer level-controlled analogue outputs of up to 24dBu, while a front panel 1/4” connector provides a high-powered headphone output capable of driving both high and low impedance headphones. A pair of combination XLR/1/4” inputs allow the connection of mic, line or instrument level signals to the mic pres, which include Focusrite’s acclaimed Air mode which emulates the sound of our classic input transformers. The top panel features an array of controls: output level for headphone and line outputs, mic pre controls of gain, high-pass filter, Air, phase invert, phantom power and stereo linking; as well as the crossfader for controlling the balance of mic pre inputs and network receiver channels to be sent to the headphone or line outputs.

Key Features

Stereo 2x2 audio interface for Dante AoIP networks

Up to 24-bit, 96kHz sampling rates

Up to 24dBu line output levels

Power-over-Ethernet supplied: IEEE 802.3af compliant

Meyer Sound: Galileo Galaxy

Key Features

Five-band U-Shaping and parametric EQ Up to 64-bit resolution

Uses open-source AVB technology

Super-low latency of 0.6ms

Meyer Sound Galaxy is a fully networkable, digital audio signal processing hardware platform designed for use with high-performance, critical quality loudspeaker systems. Along with its companion Compass control software program, Galaxy is optimised for use with Meyer Sound LEO Family loudspeaker systems in both installed and touring applications. However, its power, flexibility and exclusive processing features also make Galaxy the choice of many

touring sound engineers as their personal front-of-house master processor when using house systems from other manufacturers. According to Meyer Sound, Galaxy is the first audio processor of its kind designed for interoperability according to the newly announced AVB/TSN Milan standards, enabling direct network connections with other Milancompatible system components such as mixing consoles.

The new generation of FPGA-based processing inside Galaxy

employs up to 64-bit resolution at 96 kHz sampling for transparent response, increased dynamic range, lower noise floor and very low latency. Galaxy incorporates a number of unique processing capabilities, including proprietary U-Shaping filters and a built-in delay matrix. Galaxy is available in three configurations – Galaxy 408, Galaxy 816 and Galaxy 816-AES – for scaled combinations of AVB/TSN, AES3 and analogue connectivity to suit any application.

September 2018

29

PRODUCT FOCUS

www.audiomediainternational.com

AOIP PRODUCTS

Merging Technologies: Hapi Hapi from Merging Technologies is a modular networked audio interface that supports the Ravenna AoIP protocol so is AES67 and SMPTE2110 compliant.

Digital I/O on board includes 8 x AES/EBU and 8 x ADAT/2 x SPDIF. There are two card slots. An optional 64 channel MADI card is offered as is the PT64 Pro Tools HD interface. Analogue cards available are 8 channels with the ADA8 combo AD/DA, and Standard and Premium versions of the AKD8D and DA8. All the A/D cards feature an extremely high quality mic pre as well as accepting line input signals. Standard

QSC: Q-SYS The Q-SYS platform from QSC is an I/O agnostic solution for many AoIP solutions. A softwarebased audio, video and control platform, Q-SYS was built on an open, IT-friendly ecosystem, making it highly extensible. This has allowed Q-SYS to interface with a broad range of AoIP technologies such as Dante and AES67. Users can ingest audio from Dante edge devices such as wireless microphone and digital mixers into Q- SYS via Dante I/O cards for advanced processing and distribution anywhere on the Q-LAN network. Q- SYS also offers native AES67 audio I/O distribution capabilities, eliminating the need for additional hardware and making Q-SYS a native audio solution for the growing number of AES67 devices. QSC Q-SYS Core processors can run AES67 and Q-LAN on the same network interface port, simultaneously providing users a complete media distribution systems for sending audio, video & control capabilities across a standard gigabit network.

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September 2018

modules handle up to 192kHz and the Premium extends the sample rate options up to 384kHz, DXD and DSD256. Hapi is a compact 1U and can be rack mounted or used standalone. Apart from regular AC power, it can accept a DC input from wall wart or battery. This can be a redundant power option or an alternative for remote locations. Channel routing, microphone settings and level can all be controlled from the front panel of from a web browser. There is also the option to manage a larger network from ANEMAN, Merging’s Audio Network Manager.

Key Features

8 AES/EBU I/O (D-SUB)

8 ADAT / 2 SPDIF (Switching)

RAVENNA / AES67 (RJ45)

Word Clock I/O

Key Features

AES67-enabled devices can stream audio without additional hardware or licensing fees

Analogue and digital audio via Q-SYS I/O peripherals

Edge network support for Dante, AVB and CobraNet

PRODUCT FOCUS AOIP PRODUCTS

Calrec: Type R console

Type R is a new modular, expandable, IP-based radio system from Calrec Audio, which utilises standard networking technology and combines it with configurable soft panels that can be tailored to operator needs.

Type R’s physical control system consists of three slimline panels: a fader panel, a large soft panel and a small soft panel. Each is compatible with COTS hardware and powered over Ethernet to keep cabling to a minimum.

Type R has a simple 2U core with integrated I/O resources to get customers up and running immediately. A single core can power up to three independent mixing environments, with no sharing of DSP resources. Whether used as independent studio consoles, microphone processors or utility mixing, the ability to use multiple mixing engines combined with the flexibility of an AES67 compatible network provides enough flexibility to keep pace with radio’s changing requirements.

Key Features

Up to 256 audio channels per AoIP port

Up to 48 physical faders on one surface

De-esser on all channels

Unlimited VCA groups

Sonifex: Multi-Channel AES67 Audio Interface Mix Engines

These new Sonifex ‘Portals’ consist of three mix engines with different connectivity options. Natively running Ravenna AES67, the AVN-PA8 has 8 x stereo analogue line inputs & outputs on D-type sockets with AES59 analogue pinout, paralleled with 8 x RJ45 connectors using StudioHub pinout. The AVN-PD8 and AVNPM8 offer AES/EBU I/O and microphone/line I/O respectively. The heart of each Portal is the web-enabled mix engine. Any physical input and AES67 stream input can be mixed or routed to any physical output or AES67 stream output, with gain alteration at the input, the mix point or the output. Up to 16 x AES67 input channels and 64 x AES67 output channels can be created in each Portal, supporting the full range of AES67 packet times and channel counts. The Portals’ versatility allows them to be used for any applications where mixing of signals is required, e.g. an 8 channel cleanfeed generator, to send 64 streams of IFB to connected belt-packs, or as

an 8 output zone mixer. They can be combined with the Sonifex AVN-HA1/AVN-HD1 headphone amplifiers to create a headphone distribution system, with dynamic, remotely controllable input mixes. There are options for input/output metering displays and for rear panel connectivity, with XLR/RJ45 or terminal block connectors.

Key Features

Up to 16 x AES67 input channels

Can be combined with the Sonifex AVN-HA1/AVNHD1 headphone amplifiers

Options for input/output metering displays

September 2018

31

PRODUCT REVIEW

www.audiomediainternational.com

DUTCH & DUTCH 8C ACTIVE LOUDSPEAKER Mastering engineer Nigel Palmer tries out the new 8c active loudspeaker from Netherlands manufacturer Dutch & Dutch… ate last year I came across a discussion on an internet mastering forum about a new stand-mounting active monitor, with what’s establishing itself as a standard toolset: cardioid response to the rear, impressive neutrality and bandwidth, plus digital conversion. Also in this case, the ability to use a front wall in a similar way to an in-wall monitor. The speaker, the 8c from Netherlands manufacturer Dutch & Dutch (D&D), particularly caught my interest, as some of the early adopters were mastering engineers.

L

OVERVIEW Measuring 485 x 270 x 380mm (HWD, 19 x 10.5 x 15”) and weighing a substantial 24kg or 70lbs, the D&D 8c is best paired with a suitably robust stand. From the front, the speaker looks at first like a fairly typical two-way design with an 8” aluminium driver and a 1” aluminium/magnesium dome tweeter, crossing over at a low 1.25kHz. These are mounted in a moulded ABS baffle with a waveguide, rounded edges to reduce diffraction effects and a company logo with an LED function indicator. The main body of the cabinet is solid oak on a birch plywood internal frame (no MDF and veneer here!), a rectangular port on each side being the first obvious departure from similarlooking boxes – it’s the key to the 8C’s cardioid response to the rear above 100Hz, helping to reject room effects and promote a more neutral presentation by emitting audio in antiphase to the 8” driver.

The big surprise is round the back – two rear-facing 8” subwoofers, the reason that what would usually be a low frequency driver at the front is described as ‘midrange’ by D&D, crossover occurring at 100 Hz. The subwoofers contribute to a remarkable low frequency performance for a cabinet this size: in combination with the other drivers and clever digital signal processing (DSP), overall frequency response from 30Hz-20Khz is an eyebrow-raising ±1dB. The onboard amplifiers are Class D, developing 500 watts (LF) 250w (MF) and 250w (HF).

Input, output and mains connections are in a panel below the subwoofers. A female XLR can be configured as either an analogue or AES digital input, selected with a small pushbutton; if digital, there’s a male ‘Thru’ XLR to feed the other speaker of a stereo pair. Also on the panel is an RJ45 connector – while the speaker can function 32

September 2018

LOUDSPEAKERS

PRODUCT REVIEW

Key Features

Frequency response: 30 HZ – 20 KHZ ± 1 DB

Dimensions: (H X W X D): 485 X 270 X 380 MM

Crossovers: 100 Hz & 1250 Hz, 4th Order Linkwitz-Riley, Linear Phase RRP: £8,995 ($12,500) www.dutchdutch.com well without it, when connected to a computer with an ethernet switch you gain additional functionality via an internet application.

IN USE I got down to listening to and working with variety of sources including CDs, the internet and mastering projects both completed and in progress. During auditions at Lowland Masters over about a week, there didn’t seem to be any need to run the speakers in – they were on point from the start, so it was down to me to tune them to

best suit my preference and room with the various tools provided. I’m not a computer buff, but I found the ethernet control very easy to set up, each 8c being immediately recognised and identified via its serial number. The first step was to measure the side and rear wall distances and enter them in the app., so the speakers’ built-in DSP could apply suitable EQ curves – this immediately got things in the ballpark sound-wise. The sub level is also separately adjustable, and once I’d dipped this by a few dBs to tailor the setup even closer to the room’s characteristics, overall presentation snapped into place in a most satisfying way.

The ability of the 8c’s DSP and subs to engage with the front wall as part of the system was soon apparent: on tracks with significant bass content I experienced the heft of large soffit-mounted monitors, yet with commendable clarity and lack of ‘mud’. Response was even and smooth from the lowest to highest frequencies, and I’ve rarely heard such a stable centre image, almost like having an additional monitor there. This is indicative of extremely accurate driver matching and phase response, confirmed in the various measurement plots D&D provide. Anything I played, old or new, was presented in its best light: while balance or other errors were clearly shown, the overall

experience was never less than an enjoyable listen. I don’t mind confessing that a couple of times I laughed out loud with the sheer fun of discovery, the music I played giving up its secrets so effortlessly – there were occasions when time seemed to whizz by as I listened to track after track, something I haven’t done in a while.

CONCLUSION I could go on, and it wouldn’t be difficult to write well beyond the allotted space about just how good this loudspeaker is. In short, by any measure I can think of, the Dutch & Dutch 8c is exceptional, richly deserving of a listen if you’re looking at monitors in this price range for mastering and general audio tasks.

The Reviewer Nigel Palmer has been a freelance sound engineer and producer for over 20 years. He runs his CD mastering business Lowland Masters from rural Essex.

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PRODUCT REVIEW

QSC KS212C

Simon Allen tests out this active cardioid subwoofer from QSC in various venues

SUBWOOFERS

aving recently experienced the latest K.2 series of point source PA speakers from QSC, I was very keen to hear their latest subwoofer. The K series from QSC has achieved much success in the active PA market, with the latest ‘dot-two’ versions raising the game further. Notably, their newly improved built-in Class D amplifiers, ought to prove potent in this new subwoofer too.

The main cause for intrigue however, has to be the fact the KS212C is a cardioid subwoofer. While cardioid subwoofers aren’t exactly a new idea, I’m unaware of another active cardioid subwoofer in a single enclosure, especially at this price point. Even QSC are claiming this is a “world’s first-in-class” solution.

I’ve been fortunate to use many cardioid arrangements of subwoofers on several large concert and festival stages, and it’s fair to say there are many considerations to be aware of. If however, QSC have successfully produced a unit that delivers all the benefits of cardioid subwoofers to the smaller stage, the benefits will speak for themselves.

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DESIGNED FOR THE ROAD Before I run away with what my ears thought about this new design, I must mention the practical aspects.

Firstly, there’s the simple fact if you’re using these with a standard stereo pair of satellite speakers, such as the K.2’s, then you only need one KS212C. Sure enough certain scenarios don’t always permit this style of configuration, or two could extend the low-end, but just one sub will compliment a pair of K.2’s competently.

Besides only needing a single unit in a standard application, I believe they’re reasonably compact

Key Features

3600 Watt Class D power module

Dual 12-inch long excursion drivers; Dual 6th order band-pass design

15 dB SPL attenuation front-to-rear

Two M20 threaded sockets (one on top, one on side) accept 35 mm speaker pole RRP: £1,408 ($1,822) www.qsc.com September 2018

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PRODUCT REVIEW too. Subwoofers capable of matching the KS212C’s performance will generally be larger. This subwoofer sports two long excursion 12” drivers, each in their own 6th order bandpass chamber, behind a 3.6kW Class D power amp. Weighing in at 40kg, moving them around is made easy by heavy-duty casters, but I was able to lift them in and out of the van and down a few steps by myself.

The rest of the build quality is equally heavy duty.

These are solid units, just as you would expect from QSC. The rear panel is well designed with everything you would expect, including a clear LCD display with an easy to operate menu. There are two inputs, each with “thru” outputs, so you can use a single subwoofer with two satellites setup in stereo.

One point to note for some users is that the “thru” outputs are exactly that. i.e. they’re not post a high-pass filter. Unlike other products, the main speakers are intended to apply a high-pass filter themselves, just as the QSC K series do. The filter on the KS212C is for its own lowpass setting, which can be set to either 80 or 100Hz.

PACKING A PUNCH Thanks to the inherent physics at play in a cardioid subwoofer design, there can be cause for concern over its response, especially at different distances and positions. My take on the KS212C, is that QSC seem to have played well to it’s natural performance ability.

What do I mean by this? Well, if you compared this subwoofer to a one with a 15”, 18” or 21” driver, then you would probably feel the extreme lows (<45Hz) more prominently. In turn, some of these subs with larger drivers can feel “loose” or “soft”. Whilst the KS212C does drop surprisingly low, that’s not what this sub delivers best. Here, I believe QSC has gone for what many of us would consider as the punchy region; 45Hz-80Hz. Unsurprisingly, what you might expect from dual 12” drivers, but with very capable transducers that really can move the distance.

For example, I found I could achieve a really punchy kick drum sound very quickly. What’s more, this “tight” low-end aspect to the mix transmitted well through the venues I tested the system in. I was really impressed and personally much prefer a more exciting and dynamic response, than one that can sound “flappy”. Within the region that I found these subs to deliver their best, I also didn’t experience anything untoward.

The KS212C produces it’s cardioid effect through complex processing, so that the mirrored arrangement of the drivers in their independent chambers, interact through two ports on the front and two on the rear. The interaction at the rear produces a cancellation, whilst the interaction at the front produces summation. QSC claim the result is 15dB’s higher at the front compared to the rear. I actually believe this is a very fair measurement as the drop at the rear is considerable.

While we could discuss pros and cons of cardioid subwoofers for various applications until Christmas, I will just add that the KS212C presents a surprisingly versatile solution. Without adjusting anything (what

could typically be complicated system processing settings), you can use these subs in a matter of ways.

I did try two KS212C’s in a stereo arrangement, which provided a surprisingly even coverage, despite the usual concentration in the centre. There weren’t any worrying holes in the coverage however, and even the sides of the room had plenty of energy. Two units on top of each other, lying on their side in the centre of the stage was hugely powerful as you would expect.

However, this does compromise the rear rejection slightly and I believe typically impractical for most stages that the K series is intended.

CONCLUSION I was really impressed with the performance of the cardioid effect from the KS212C, which leads on to all the usual benefits of cardioid subs. To compliment this, QSC seem to have achieved this without impacting all the other usual areas of concern, such as general output power and dispersion of frequencies generated.

I believe this is partly because of the concentrated

bandwidth that these subs are effective in. However, I applaud this as the result is a tight and punchy response, which sounds exciting.

This new box from QSC brings a new and exciting approach to PA design for small to medium sized venues. It offers a solution that was previously complicated to achieve, delivering a professional result.

Complete with casters, aluminium handles and solid construction, QSC have somehow managed to top their well-known build quality too.

The Reviewer Simon Allen is an internationally recognised freelance engineer/producer and pro audio professional with nearly two decades of experience. Working mostly in music, his reputation as a mix engineer continues to reach new heights.

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PRODUCT REVIEW

www.audiomediainternational.com

UA ARROW

Building on their success with the Apollo, Universal Audio presents the Arrow, a bus powered, small form-factor audio interface via Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. This compact system opens a world of mobile opportunities with incredibly easy control and setup, writes freelance engineer and producer Alan Branch...

DIGITAL INTERFACES

he traveling music maker has never had it so good, powerful laptops and interfaces have allowed making music on the move so much easier. But how mobile can your recording rig be, especially when it comes to needing a power source? The new UA Arrow interface gives you the opportunity to set up and record anywhere with the help of DSP powered plugins, of which 14 plugins are included with the Arrow. These emulate classic hardware in near zero latency. You can literally plug in a guitar, insert a Marshall amp and start to play...

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Key Features

24-bit/192 kHz audio conversion

Unison mic preamp and guitar amp emulations from Neve, API, Manley, Marshall, Fender and others

Includes studio compressors, EQs, reverbs, and guitar amp emulations

DESIGN

RRP: £435 ($562)

The UA Arrow is approximately 5”x7”x 2” - it’s small but has a nice weight to it (1.38 lbs), cast into a solid Aluminium desktop design with an intuitive control arrangement. The I/O

www.uaudio.com

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September 2018

PRODUCT REVIEW “The Arrow is well designed, easy to use and has a professional feel”

is well placed and makes cables simple to patch in without being messy. The rear has two I/O via XLR/1/4” dual connectors, two monitor outputs via 1/4 balanced jack, and the thunderbolt connection, while the front includes a headphone out and a Hiimpedance instrument input.

On the main surface is a LED meter display with dedicated toggle switches for Input selection, 48v, hi-pass filter, -20dB pad, stereo link and a phase reverse, all of which have a status indicator on the five segment bar graph display. The main large knob is a multifunction controller surrounded by an LED segmented gain/volume display which operates in two modes, Preamp or Monitor, each mode having a dedicated switch, this enables control of Preamp parameters via a clever Gain Stage Mode in the Console software or to adjust the monitor volume/mute.

IN USE Installation was simple but you must ensure you have a Thunderbolt cable and not USB-C. Unfortunately this cable is not included. The UA software is split into two, a DSP meter display which includes access to the plugin library registration/activation and a comprehensive “Console” mixer software that sits in between the Arrow device and your DAW. Changes made on the Arrow are reflected within the Console software, enabling quick setups that can be saved and recalled for sessions. For example, a setup to monitor or record a session for live guitar and a vocal mic with some real time plugin effects. The Console incorporates a wealth of mixing options including

the normal inputs, sends and return auxiliaries busses, but with extras like I/O matrix routing to a talkback section.

Despite it being feature rich the mixer is easy to use, intuitively laid out and has some nice add on’s like the ability to have additional mixer windows open so you can customise your views. However, you don’t have to use Console, the Arrow will operate like a third party audio interface within your DAW, the magic that the Console software gives you when recording is realtime processing, not only do you gain access to normal plugin slots but the UA technology “Unison” preamps. These are somewhat of an industry first, special preamp plugins designed to change the hardware input impedance and non-linearities of classic hardware be it a preamp, a channel strip desk or guitar amp.

Setting up a recording with the Arrow was simplicity itself, however it has to be emphasised you must have a Thunderbolt 3 computer and a Thunderbolt cable. I used a 2017 MacBook Pro and headed out to record a guitar and voice track in a remote location - a beach hut! Using one of the 14 included UAD plugins, the UA 610 B preamp, for some warm coloration, I setup a phantom powered condenser mic for a singer and a DI’d semi acoustic guitar into the instrument input, added a little EQ and UA EMT 140 reverb for some monitoring atmosphere and used the backdrop of the beach for the vibe. Undoubtably a unique recording session and only possible with the mobility of the UA Arrow, the latency was not discernible and the quality of the recording was excellent.

CONCLUSION The delight of not being tied to a power source can’t be under stated, even though it might drain your laptop battery pretty quickly, the UA Arrow interface opens a world of opportunistic recording possibilities. The Arrow is well designed, easy to use and has a “pro” feel to the unit, especially with UA’s Unison mic amps adding the optional tracking coloration.

Some may ask whats the big deal, ask any engineer worth their salt about great recordings and they may well reply get a great mic and a great mic/pre the two go hand in hand. Lovely analogue saturation from an API desk or sublime overloading of a Neve mic-pre. These are the markings of great recordings, now imagine you can take this gear where there is no power source, in the middle of a park, an old church, an acoustic stairwell, an impromptu jam session is suddenly a recording opportunity. The performance of the inbuilt UA-2 Solo core DSP isn’t huge but enough for a mobile recording with extremely low latency, and a bit of help to your CPU when your’e mixing. With the bundled 14 plugins the Arrow offers an excellent solution to the mobile producer/musician or as a starter audio interface to the home-based music maker.

The Reviewer Alan Branch is a freelance engineer/producer. His list of credits include Jamiroquai, Beverley Knight, M People, Simply Red, Depeche Mode, Shed 7, Sinead O’ Connor and Bjork.

September 2018

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PRODUCT REVIEW

PRESONUS STUDIO ONE V4 The release of PreSonus’ Studio One Version 3 back in May 2015 was a landmark and has gone from strength to strength ever since, so the recent release of Version 4 was bound to be a big deal, writes Alisitair McGhee… odern DAWs are all a mixture of strengths and capabilities - that makes sense when you consider the breadth of applications that DAWs are called to deal with - music composing and production, mastering, multi-track recording, sound for picture and broadcast. And within each of these broad categories there are a myriad options and functions that are more or less important to users depending on exact nature of their workflow.

There’s no doubt that Version 4 of Studio One has hit the music composition production pedal pretty hard. When you look in Version 4’s new features shopping trolley, there’s a bucketload of shiny production tools right at the very top.

Take the new chord track which is grabbing much of the headlines. Studio One can now analyse audio (yes audio) or midi data and work out the chord changes automatically. That new chord track displays the chord information about your tune and there are a slew of features for chord manipulation. One of the simplest uses of the new chord-based features is using them to blag a track you don’t have.

So you have a keys track and you want to add bass.

Using automatic chord detection you can extract the chord information, display it in the chord track and then apply it to a few bars of a bass sequence and hey presto the sequence notes will ‘follow’ the chords of the keys track and you have a bass line for free. You can detect key signatures, replace and change all instances of individual chords and generally speed up your work no end. A word on chord detection remember this is OCR for music - you will want to check the software has made all the right decisions in all the right places.

In sequencing Impact XT is a massive upgrade to the previous Impact incarnation. There are improvements to be found everywhere. You get eight banks of pads all colour codable. Editing has grown up with a raft of new features including auto-slicing files on import - neat. Then there’s Patterns - sort of step sequencing for big boys. A shortcut for this would simply be to use cmd+shift+P, rather than crawling through the menus.

Sampling next. And Sample One XT - offers trimming, normalising, auto-slicing, envelope based editing and extensive effects - in a revamp that means you can bring your workflow inside

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Sample One rather than just relying on it as a sample playback device. My favourite touch is the recording. You can record from just about anything, instruments, busses, tracks even live into your machine. And with the gated recorded option you can automatically split up the recording into individual samples adjusting the gate start and stop thresholds to match your programme material.

Although producers, composers and EDMers, have probably got most to rejoice over - there are still jewels and nuggets for engineers to enjoy.

For many the biggest deal will be the inclusion of AAF (Advanced Authoring Format) support for import and export compatibility with a wide range of other software from ProTools to Premiere. There are some differences in levels of support - ProTools exports stereo files as left and right mono tracks and you will get edits and fades but not plugins. This a great professional step forward for people working cross platform, but all Studio One users can benefit from Song Data import.

Set up a song to use as a template, with all your tracks, busses and effects and then import the bits you want into your current project whenever you like. You invest some time in set up but then get the rewards almost every time you mix. ProTools guys will recognise this as import session data.

There’s a new Ripple editing mode that automatically closes gaps when audio is deleted or altered in length. And Ripple is clever enough to shift material right or left depending on the point at which you are making changes to the timeline.

Studio One Version 4 Pro comes with a copy of Melodyne Essentials and builds on the synergy of the two packages. Version 4 is ARA 2.0 ready and this means access to multitrack files in your tuning workflow.

Studio One just keeps getting better - I’m particularly keen on the interchange options with AAF and the new VST plugin scanner - but maybe you will at last find that ‘lost chord’.

Key Features

External plugin scanner (VST2, VST3)

ARA 2.0 support

Ripple editing

Drag-and-drop sample import from Sample One XT and Presence XT RRP: £41.94 ($54.27 ) www.presonus.com

The Reviewer Alistair McGhee began audio life in Hi-Fi before joining the BBC as an audio engineer. After 10 years in radio and TV, he moved to production. When BBC Choice started, he pioneered personal digital production in television.

September 2018

41

BACKBEAT

www.audiomediainternational.com

PRO SPOTLIGHT Each issue we feature an audio professional from a range of disciplines to find out how they got started in the industry and what they’ve worked on. This month we speak to Women’s Audio Mission staff engineer and instructor Veronica Simonetti…

What do you do?

I am a staff engineer and instructor at Women’s Audio Mission (WAM).

How did you get into the industry?

I grew up playing the cello and have always had an interest in music and technology. When I found out that audio was something I could study in school, I decided that’s what I had to do. I studied Recording Arts at Indiana University and learned a great deal from my professors and recording experience there.

I interned at Women’s Audio Mission while in college and have been working here ever since.

What are some of your credits?

Neko Case and Thao Nguyen of Thao and the Get Down Stay Down for Song Exploder, Kronos Quartet with Clarence Jones (former counsel and speech writer of Martin Luther King Jr.), Meklit, National Geographic Explorer What is your favourite item of audio gear and why?

I use the Josephson C716 a lot at WAM’s studio.

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September 2018

It is such a versatile mic that sounds great on all different types of vocals, such as voice overs, audio books, and all genres of music. I always get comments about how clean and detailed the sound is when using that mic. I also love using the AEA R84 ribbon mic – it is super versatile from guitar amps to violins. Universal Audio plugins are an essential go-to tool in the studio for me.

What are some of the challenges that you face in your job?

Some challenges I face are people assuming that I’m an intern or a student rather than the engineer on the session. I don’t know if that’s because of my age or the fact that they’re not used to seeing a woman at the console. I try to not let them undermining my knowledge get to me and I work really hard to prove them wrong every time.

What was your favourite project and why?

Recording Cleve Jones’ audio book, When We Rise, about his life and history of activism in the LGBTQ community, was probably one of my favorite projects.

VERONICA SIMONETTI He is such a genuine and kind person with an amazing story. Listening to him read his own story out loud was truly inspirational.

What industry professional inspired you the most to do what you do?

Terri Winston is a pretty huge inspiration in my career.

Seeing all of the work she does to further the careers of hundreds of women in the audio industry every day is amazing and motivates me to do better in my own work. Working with her in the studio is very motivating as well and I have learned so many things from her that I use every day in the studio.

What’s the best bit of advice that you can give anyone trying to break into the industry?

The advice that I give to WAM’s interns and students looking to break into the industry is, don’t be intimidated by people undermining your knowledge.

Be confident in your work and others will be too. Also, try to say yes to as many gigs as possible. The more experience you can get and the larger your network grows will only help you in the long run.

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