Headliner Magazine Issue 53

SoundOn is TikTok’s all-in one platform for music creators

Paul Watson

CEO

Keith Watson

Chairman

Rian Zoll-Kahn

COO

Dan Gumble

Head of Content

Colby Ramsey

Group Editor

Alice Gustafson Editor

Adam Protz

Senior Writer

Rick Dickerson

Reviews Editor

Marc Henshall

Head of Digital

Grace Mcguigan

Artist Relations Manager

Rae Gray Head of Design

Welcome to Headliner Issue 53.

You may have noticed that the cover star for this edition of Headliner is none other than UK music icon Craig David. With a career now spanning some 25 years and counting, he has notched up a lifetime’s worth of achievements, from becoming an overnight sensation and spearheading one of the most vibrant musical movements in generations, to the platinum records that have topped charts the world over.

As such, it would be easy to while away hours in his company poring over these stellar accomplishments. And while we do indeed spend a portion of our interview reflecting on some of those career highlights, arguably the most insightful aspects of our discussion arise when exploring what continues to motivate him a quarter of a century after the release of his now legendary debut record Born To Do It.

As he puts it, one of the most important factors in his longevity has been a reluctance to rely on former glories. When entering the studio with new and emerging talent today, he’d far sooner prove his mettle with something new than simply pointing to the awards and accolades that have come before. It’s a refreshing approach that is evidently serving him well.

In understanding his reputation while focusing firmly on the future, he’s been able to connect and collaborate with some of the UK music scene’s most exciting new talent. What’s more, he’s drawing on his knowledge of the business to attack the market on multiple fronts. By embracing social media and the more immediate nature of today’s release model, he’s dropping singles out of the blue with the likes of rising star Wes Nelson, while simultaneously building anticipation around a brand new body of work that will be perhaps more familiar to those fans who have been in the journey with him from the late ‘90s.

In short, it’s a must read for anyone seeking to navigate the music industry, whether just starting out or already well established. Next year, he’s taking his TS5 DJ show out on the road in conjunction with his live solo show for the first time and is hinting at much more new music to come.

25 years into his career, he seems happier and more excited about the future than ever. And that’s arguably the biggest success of all.

Dan Gumble Head of Content

By Alice Gustafson

By Dan Gumble

By Dan Gumble

Martin Lighting’s MAC One 80 THE GLEEMAN

Making ‘Something To Say’

86 THE PINKY RING

Inside Bruno Mars’ new venue

Orchestral recording with Merging

DEVENDRA CLEARY Mixing ‘Twisters’ with Lectrosonics

I AM MUSIC

CODA Audio powers Polish live events

WORDS by ADAM PR O ZT

SANSHA NEVER BEEN BETTER

Blending bedroom pop, elements of jazz and classical, and her unique tongue-in-cheek swipes at finding her way in life and relationships, Sansha is a South-London-based artist and producer. Having performed at Latitude Festival and two runs of her one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe, Sansha chats to Headliner about her recent single releases as she looks to build on the success of her third EP, and announces one of her biggest headline shows yet.

A fear that Sansha shares from regularly gigging around the UK capital and her recent foray into compèring live music events is the realisation that so many musicians are trying to ‘make it’. And while she’s right that there are a lot of artists vying for Spotify playlist places and social media followers, there is still plenty of room for the Sansha sound — especially as she is one of few artists who can truly claim to be offering something unique in a saturated scene. This was marked by the release of her 2018 debut EP, A Good Time, a showcase of her individual voice that combines spoken word, operatic yet jazzy vocals,

bedroom pop production, and her multi-instrumentalist capabilities on the trumpet and violin.

“I started violin first when I was about five, then I did trumpet, and then I started singing when I was about 11,” Sansha says on where it all started. “I was the freak who would play instruments in school assembly. I was totally inept socially and academically. I was an absolute freak, but I was good at music, so that was why I did it so much, because I couldn’t do anything else.”

Another key element of the Sansha oeuvre is her vocal delivery, which sees her swapping between sung lyrics with spoken delivery. The latter is often either bitingly direct or simply very funny. That’s not to say Sansha is a comedy music act like the Lonely Island, although many have remarked that her between-song-banter on stage is so entertaining that it verges on stand-up comedy.

“The comedy aspect wasn’t actually deliberate,” she says. “When I first started doing comedic lyrics and being a bit comedic on stage, it just happened like that. I think I’m just quite a literal lyricist, and eventually realised it was kind of funny. And with doing funny stories on stage, I wasn’t particularly trying or really inspired by anyone. I was just explaining my songs and a venue owner said to me, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were going to do comedy.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I didn’t either.’ Then it became a bit more deliberate after that.”

Of course, there were more overt musical influences, as she recalls “Anyone around my age grew up listening to Kate Nash — I don’t know if you would call her lyrics funny, but they are very on the nose. The talksinging was definitely inspired by Kate Nash and Lily Allen [Sansha is regularly compared to the latter], that whole era. Who did [sings] ‘Why’d you have to go and put stars in their eyes?’ Jack…? Just Jack!” she remembers. “There were all of these English singers who would use spoken words when I first started writing songs.”

The debut A Good Time in 2018 is a pretty clear manifestation of all this, with its blunt and relatable song content: the opening title track is about a bad family holiday, while The Boy Never Left You Behind is about a time she realised her neighbour on the opposite side of the road was watching her get changed. A Good

“THE COMEDY ASPECT WASN’T ACTUALLY DELIBERATE.”

Time caught on at the BBC, as their BBC Introducing track of the week upon its release.

The music kept coming, with a slew of 2019 singles including the lo-fi goodness of Purple Patches, vocal harmony anthem The Moon, and Blank Fall, each of which makes up some of her strongest songs to date, and three of the five songs on the resulting Story Time EP in 2020.

“Purple Patches is about how my dad gets really affected by the weather and how I think he might have seasonal affective disorder. And it’s about depression as well. I feel like the topics of A Good Time were really straightforward, whereas they got a bit more complex in Story Time The Moon isn’t actually about the moon — it’s about being in a relationship but secretly being in love with someone else.”

More singles ensued, one of which very quickly became the most successful so far — Dream Dancer was released in 2021 and currently sits pretty at almost 250,000 streams on Spotify alone. A disco-infused bop with strings about when her brother was a father-to-be, Sansha released an accompanying music video in which her friends perform the song in a karaoke bar.

Sansha explains one of the biggest driving factors for the success:

“Dream Dancer was featured on an H&M playlist that played in places all around the world, like Malaysia and Indonesia. It was really cool.

People commented on the music video, saying things like, ‘I’m here in Indonesia, listening to your song in the shop.’

“But for that EP (Big Time) I wasn’t using a typical singer-songwriter approach. I was writing in higher BPMs and basically making dance tracks. It was the first time I worked with another producer because Aria Wood reached out to me on Instagram asking if I wanted to collaborate. So I would create the entire track with all the instruments, then send it to her. She would then redo it, but more towards what I was intending. It was a funny process because I would think the track was pretty much done in my demo, but when it came back, it would sound so much fuller.”

Despite much of her music coming across as jovial and these successes she’s enjoyed, Sansha is nonetheless very happy to highlight how difficult it is to be an independent music artist as things stand.

“It’s really difficult. What I enjoy most is the in-person stuff — gigging, meeting other artists, and organising gigs. I do like making music, but releasing it sometimes isn’t nice, and it’s actually affected my mental health this year. It’s easy to feel that if your song hasn’t done well on Spotify, then your art isn’t legitimate. It can feel like you’ve made a pretend song, or that your success isn’t real. As an artist, there’s pressure to be successful or you feel like a failure. I don’t think this is solely due to the current market; it’s just part of being a musician.

“You feel the need to prove the legitimacy of your art — if I’m at a barbecue with friends, I feel there’s this pressure to have something to say, like ‘I’ve been on an H&M playlist!’ Otherwise you feel weird or lame. I’m trying to think about what makes your art legitimate if it’s not the industry approving it, because I do believe music can be good without industry approval.”

Thankfully, none of this has deterred Sansha from sticking to her guns and releasing the music she wants to release. And her left-turn into making more dance-inspired music continues to yield fruit with Never Been Better, her first song to come out in 2024. More disco-inspired strings (the music video sees her playing violin on London balconies), an irresistible bass line, while she sings ‘Pain is energising / I feel it pulsing through me.’

“That was so much fun to make,” Sansha says. “That song went through so many iterations. My friend Matt, a producer called Portamento, added a load of analogue synths and changed some sounds, which made it sound completely different and way more upbeat. Then my producer friend Will took all my drums, changed the sounds to make them sharper, and I ended up re-recording everything. It literally took me about a year and a half to finish. I was listening to a lot of Donna Summer and old-school disco.”

And we arrive in the present day with Swans , another exciting turn as Sansha shows her more introspective side, with lush, soundtrack-esque lo-fi piano chords and keys. “I kissed this comedian on a beanbag at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, in one of the bars where all the comedians hang out. I actually went to the Top Secret Comedy Club last month and he was performing — I was dying inside because I’d

literally written and released a song about him. When I came back to London, I was still seeing this guy, we weren’t exclusive and we weren’t sure about each other. Secretly, I kept thinking about the comedian. I couldn’t be explicit in my lyrics so I used a lot of metaphors.

“The song is really about how people can become symbolic of things you want but don’t have. I don’t think I was specifically obsessed with him; he symbolised total freedom and being single, which I think I still wanted. So, I was fixating on him and what he represented for me — that’s what the song is about.”

You may have gleaned by now that the Sansha live experience is very special, and highly entertaining, especially now that she’s cut her teeth with her one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe. So it’s brilliant to hear her announce one of her biggest London headline shows yet.

“I’m actually announcing my next headline gig today, which is on the 8th of November. It’s going to be at The Ivy House in Nunhead, Southeast London. I really wanted that venue, and I’m so glad I’ve booked it because it’s a communityrun pub, and the room where they have the music is like going back in a time warp. It feels like an old-

school cabaret room, which really fits the vibe of what I want to do. There will be loads of different art forms in my gig, almost like a cabaret, except that I’m going to be doing everything myself.”

And regarding what ‘Play Out Loud’ means to Sansha, she says that it’s “Connecting with people in a meaningful way through music. Because sometimes, if you spoke about the topics of what you’re feeling to a group of people just through speech, it would just be really random and intense. But music gives you the opportunity to connect with people in that way.”

The Sansha Cabaret in Southeast London sounds pretty unmissable, so earmark the 8th of November with the Ivy House. In the meantime, Never Been Better and Swans are both out now and demand listening. As if anyone needs a reminder to get a bit introspective, while not taking life too seriously.

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CRAIG

25 YEARS IN MUSIC

In a year that marks a quarter of a century in the music industry, UK garage icon Craig David is still finding ways to test himself. This summer, he has taken on the challenge of transporting his TS5 DJ sets to the live arena, blending elements of the former with the live musicality of his solo shows. He’s also tapping into the current well of new UK talent, and in doing so, adding further still to his status as one of the most successful and influential artists of his generation. Headliner caught up with him to talk the past, present and future of TS5, new music, and the art of surviving 25 years in the industry.

Hard as it may be to believe, a quarter of a century has now passed since Craig David exploded onto the UK music scene with his groundbreaking debut album Born To Do It. In that time, he has sold over 15 million records the world over, landed a sparkling array of Top 10s in the form of hits such as Fill Me In, 7 Days, and Walking Away, and achieved multi-platinum hits in more than 20 countries.

He’s also created and developed one of the most sought after DJ events on the calendar, with his TS5 sets taking in new cities, countries, and continents year after year. And in 2025, he’ll be

fusing TS5 with his live solo show in the form of the UK Commitments tour for the very first time.

New music is also on the agenda. He recently featured on the song Abracadabra with rising UK star Wes Nelson, which the pair performed on Love Island All Stars, and during our conversation he discusses his fondness for being able to flip between dropping surprise singles and EPs out of the blue, and building towards a more traditional and substantial body of work over a greater period of time.

Despite the hectic schedule – our conversation takes place via Zoom during a short break from his TS5 tour – David is at once bubbling over with excitement yet innately serene. There’s a youthful exuberance that feels somewhat at odds with an artist about to enter their 26th year in the business. At the same time, he speaks with an ease and a calmness that can only come with that degree of experience. The warm smile he greets us with barely leaves his face throughout our conversation.

“I’m currently in London in my home studio,” he says, gesturing to the brightly coloured space behind him, all light blues and hazy pinks. “This is one of the places I spend most of my time in. We’ve made a couple of albums here so it’s a special spot. I do a lot of my vocals here. We did the KSI tune Really Love here and I’ve tried to make it as colourful and fun and playful as I possibly can. It reminds me of my little bedroom when I was making my first album. It’s funny how we love those creature comforts.”

At the time of our chat, the news that David will be incorporating TS5 into his live show next year is still only a

matter of hours old. It seems like an opportune time to explore the origins of the phenomenon, as well as its evolution through the years.

“TS5 really started as something I did when I was DJing and making mixtapes back in that small bedroom in Southampton,” he recalls. “Throughout my teens I was buying vinyl, mixing records, selling them at the local barbers, and then I got gigs as an MC for DJ Flash. Then I started to DJ myself around the south coast while my first album was being written. As soon as that was released it changed my life overnight and I was able to incorporate the DJing element into it. All of a sudden, I was going from Southampton high street to Wembley Arena, which was unbelievable. I was doing full band shows and acoustic performances, so for me it was always a loss of part of my arsenal.”

It wasn’t until over a decade into his career that David would take the essence of those formative years on the DJ circuit and transform them into the formidable spectacles they have become today.

“I ended up moving to Miami in 2010,” David continues. “I was doing these house parties, and I started to DJ at them. I’d grab the mic and sort of host them, and I was playing other people’s songs. Next thing you know, I started recording them and people were asking me to give them out at the end of the night and put them up on SoundCloud. Then they were getting heard back in the UK; radio stations were playing them and they were being broadcast live. I thought, if we could do shows with TS5 it would be unbelievable.

“So, we started doing shows in Hackney and then Brixton Academy, and eventually Glastonbury. I always wanted to incorporate it into my full band show, and now feels like the right time to amalgamate it properly. Rather than having two separate sets in the same show, we will have the band playing in and around what I’m doing with TS5.”

While the millions of sold records, the chart-topping tracks, and the sold out tours all serve as tangible landmarks in what has been a stellar career to date, David insists that the opportunity to continue to test himself creatively is the thing that excites him the most.

“We’re on our seventh year doing a residency at Ibiza Rocks and that pool party could only really function with me presenting it as a DJ set,” he explains. “We could do an acoustic set and a full band show as well, but they are each completely different. They live in these beautiful worlds but in isolation. To bring it all together as one is great, and it means everyone in the band has to be on their toes, because TS5 is me as a one-man band. So, I can change something on a dime, and I need to have that synergy with every member of the band on stage. I don’t want it to be some time-coded triggered thing. Like, you’re going to have to riff over this and vibe with me.”

The new look live shows for 2025 will also be accompanied by plenty of new music. And as an artist whose career has thrived on either side of the streaming boom, he’s keen to harness the more immediate nature of today’s singles-driven music market, as well as the more albumfocused approach that framed his breakthrough.

“I’ve been working so diligently in the studio to finish things off and now I just want everyone to hear what I’ve been working on,” he beams. “And the landscape is really beautiful right now for music to land in different ways. It’s not like everything has to be geared towards the big new single… you want to have all eyes focused on something but also you can drop two tunes just like that at the same time. Or you could drop something new through radio, but at the same time have something else that just drops and lives in streaming land. That’s something that this year is going to be about for me, about music just being out there.

“But also, there is definitely a focal point in having a full album,” he continues. “I grew up in an era where the pinnacle of releasing music was having a body of work that represents where you are at that chapter of your life. And even with the landscape changing, the premise of making something that feels like a body of work shouldn’t change. It’s still as important as ever. Otherwise, it’s a bit algorithmic, like, that was a hit, that got a lot of Spotify plays… and then it becomes a NOW 2025 thing. That has a place, but to make moments that aren’t always the goto radio tracks, the ones that live in your heart, are really important.”

One of those more instantaneous releases of which he speaks landed recently in the form of Abracadabra, his hit single with Wes Nelson. Much like the release of the track itself, its creation almost seemed to arrive out of nowhere.

THE PREMISE OF MAKING SOMETHING THAT FEELS LIKE A BODY OF WORK SHOULDN’T CHANGE.

“It’s fun and exciting to have an opportunity come along and be able to land like that,” he says. “You can have all these plans set up, but then something comes along that you just weren’t expecting. Like meeting Wes at my Ibiza Rocks pool party. We got in the studio, recorded the song, it lived for about a month between us, then all of a sudden there’s a call asking if we’d like to perform the song on Love Island . And it wasn’t even really to do with Abracadabra ; they just asked if we would like to perform because it was an all-star season.

“So, you have that moment. You have Wes who was on the show and is now forging a career as an artist in his own right; we have a song together; he’s got his distribution going on with TikTok; and Love Island is like the Apex of all this. It changed the dynamic. You can be hoping that those moments come, but they tend to come when you least expect. I’m like, when you feel it and the iron’s hot, strike. Strike, strike, strike!”

The collaboration with Nelson, the Love Island appearance, and the ongoing evolution of TS5 are each emblematic of David’s place in the world today. The runaway success of Born To Do It and the juggernaut singles it spawned will forever be defining features of his career. Yet the ceaseless desire to connect and engage with new audiences and artists alike has ensured he maintains a contemporary appeal. Fans who may not even have been born when Fill Me In was dominating the airwaves are discovering his music through those collaborations with new talent and TS5, while those who have been there from the start seem captivated as ever by his work.

When asked if he ever reflects on how he has continued to stay in the game for more than two and a half decades, his response is thoughtful and considered; the enormity of what he has achieved during that time far from lost.

“When you say 25 years it’s just, like, wow,” he says looking skyward. “If someone said to that young kid back in Southampton they’d have a career that would last this long and that they’d go to the places they’ve been and work with the people they’d go on to work with… it’s just crazy. When you first start off you are the new thing on the scene. Garage was the new sound and I was at the front end of that. Then I drop this debut album that connects around the world. And when I looked at artists who had long careers like Sting or Elton John, I always recognised that there would be ebbs and flows.

“You don’t really know about the lower ebbs of your career until you are in them. And it’s a different juxtaposition as you look at it from a position of,

OK, my spirit and my essence haven’t changed, but maybe the focus has shifted. So rather than chasing the spotlight all the time, if you stay in position, that spotlight will come back around. But if you remain stationary and don’t embrace new things and try new things, and keep telling the same old story of how good it was back then, and how many records you sold back in the day…

“It’s like, if you’re in the studio with an 18-year-old artist, generally they do not care about that. They’re like, cool, my older brother or sister used to listen to your music, and I respect that, but I’m the guy or the girl right now doing my thing. So, you have to get back into the essence again. Forget the story. Let’s get in the booth and play a track, a couple of chords, and I will sing my

heart out. I will sing like it’s my first record. I’ll give you ad libs for days. I’ll give you the melodies coming off the dome. I’ll give you everything I’ve got just to get that, ‘Craig, you still got it!’ reaction. Because all of a sudden that reaction is real time, we’ve landed, and we have a relationship.”

“THE NO. 1S AND TOP OF THE CHARTS ARE BEAUTIFUL, BUT YOU CAN’T DEFINE YOURSELF BY THE NUMBERS.”

It is, he continues, all about striking the perfect balance between recognising what you have accomplished while always moving forward.

“I’d say for any artist who has been around this long, you have to savour those moments and have that relationship with the current place you are in,” he states. “The stories are beautiful legacy things, and we can all sit down and reminisce about how great it was and look at the awards, but the currency is what you are doing right here, right now. That has served me really well. If I like a song and someone wants to work with me, I’ll work with them. I was working with

AJ Tracey early doors; LMA early on; Muni Long; Sigala. I love it when you are on the precipice of someone else about to go off. I don’t need to be on the rocket with them but it’s nice to just be amongst the mix.”

With a creaking schedule to return to, David thanks us warmly for taking the time to speak with him, emanating a genuine sense of warmth and gratitude for the career he has had so far, and an almost childlike optimism for what the future holds. Before we part ways, he takes a moment to express precisely why he still loves what he does.

“When you’ve had a long career it’s all about using that wisdom you’ve acquired in constructive ways to help people. The No. 1s and top of the charts are beautiful, but you can’t define yourself by the numbers. You can never get too lost in that because time will tell how the music hits. I’m just grateful to still be going onstage and delivering those songs and giving people those memories,” he says with detectable emotion in his voice. “Because that’s what it’s all about.”

CRAIGDAVID.COM

WORDS BY ALICEGUS T A NOSF

CAROLINE ROMANO BRINGING EMO MUSIC TO NASHVILLE

At just 22-years-old, Nashville-based alt-pop sensation Caroline Romano has established herself as a versatile artist, effortlessly transitioning between misty-eyed ballads and fiery alt-rock anthems that capture the highs and lows of young adulthood. With each new release, Romano reveals new levels to her artistry. On her latest run of singles, she’s tapped into a bolder, alt-rock sound that has been resonating with fans. In this Emerging Headliner interview powered by JBL, the self-proclaimed “loudest sort of introvert” explains why she appeals to an anxious generation.

“In middle school I started writing journals about my days at school, because I was a nerd,” laughs Romano. “I knew I wanted to write songs, and I put my journal entries into two little chords I learned on guitar. I really fell in love with it and it became very cathartic for me.”

Romano’s songwriting abilities showcase her witty, introspective and hopeful take on modernity, romanticism and the highs and lows of being young in today’s world. Her music is refreshingly honest, which is probably why it’s struck a chord with millions of listeners.

“I feel like one of my biggest problems is that I’m such an oversharer,” she considers. “I really should have more of a filter on the things I let out about myself, but that’s always come very naturally to me. Also, as a listener, my favourite music has always been songs that are so raw, and almost shocking to hear that someone would admit that about themselves. I come at it from that perspective of knowing

I’d want to hear someone else say this, so I feel more understood. I try to rationalise it like that at times,” she grins.

Driven by steadfast determination and undeniable talent, Romano released her first single, Masterpiece, at the tender age of 15. By the age of 17, she’d moved from her hometown in rural Mississippi to Nashville in order to fully commit herself to her craft. Just one year after relocating to Nashville, she caught her big break with the release of I Still Remember (ft. R3HAB), which became a global sensation and entered the Billboard Dance Chart. “I’m from Mississippi; there’s really no musical community down there. Mississippi never felt like home to me and never felt like where I needed to be. I came here for the first time when I was 13,” she says of her first impressions of Nashville. “I asked my parents to take me up here to play open mic nights and I just fell in love with it. It’s kind of strange that my parents let me do that, because I was playing college bars and I was 13, but it’s awesome!”

Nashville may be known as something of a mecca for country music, but other genres are thriving there as well. “The songwriting community here has definitely flourished,” she nods, “and the pop and rock sphere as well. When I first started coming here, it was still very country. But I have so many friends who have really broken out into the pop and rock space because it’s smaller here, but growing. It’s a great time to be an artist in a genre other than country in Nashville, for sure.”

Aged seven, a young Romano became obsessed with Taylor Swift and absorbed the musical tastes of her parents (Bryan Adams and Shania Twain), and as a teenager gravitated towards the likes of Twenty One Pilots, My Chemical Romance and Five Seconds of Summer. “I was kind of an emo kid,” she smiles, adding that songwriting-wise, something clicked when she heard the raw emotion and candid thoughts captured in Twenty One Pilots’ Doubt and Migraine

“These were thoughts that I’d never heard articulated [in a song],” she reflects. “I’d never heard someone admit these feelings of doubt about their faith or their mental health, and feeling in such a descriptive and weird way, but it made so much sense to me. Those were two really big influences for me.”

After releasing a number of successful singles in 2021, Romano shared her 16-track debut album, Oddities and Prodigies in 2022 – a vivid snapshot of her personal and musical journey over the past few years. From tackling what it’s like to struggle with depression and anxiety to examining first loves and first heartbreaks, the record is an all-encompassing look at Romano’s personal growth and resilience, although basing her songs on real life events does have its downsides when living in a close knit musical community.

“It’s been a challenge at times for me, especially in Nashville when we’re all musicians and we’re all constantly writing about each other and breaking up and writing about each other,” she laughs. “I typically draw from real events. Songwriting has always been my diary and it’s how I cope with life. I write plenty of songs that aren’t as real, but I’ve been into releasing the really real stuff lately.”

Since her debut album, Romano has released a string of singles. She reflects on the way her songwriting has matured since then: “Even with my debut album, so much of it was songs I’d written throughout high school and when I was very young,” she acknowledges. “You can hear that juvenile way I was describing things and the way I had not experienced certain things in life yet. I think it shows through. By the time I put A Brief Epic out, I’d changed a lot. I’d had a relationship and I had grown up a lot. I write every day, so it’s a little bit more artistic in the writing form. I can’t say it’s more advanced, but it’s just different,” she considers. “It’s all the same themes I find myself writing about, but through a different lens based on where I am in life.”

Romano certainly has a knack for channelling the more messy, relatable emotions of young adulthood into buoyant, unflinchingly honest songs. Does she find it hard to step out of that emo comfort zone? “It’s definitely hard for me at times, just because it’s what I’m comfortable with,” she says. “People want to write about what they know and what they feel. Sometimes it’s a fun exercise to totally detach yourself from the song and just say, ‘I’m just gonna write something totally different’. For me, that’s any upbeat song whatsoever! I’m not typically writing about positive love songs or anything like that. I’m naturally a much moodier person when it comes to artistry stuff. I love writing about heartbreak, drama, self sabotage and all the terrible things,” she laughs.

Romano shares that she wrote recent single, Girl In A China Shop, after her 22nd birthday. “A few days afterwards, I was in a perpetual state of feeling like, ‘I am like my own worst enemy – self sabotage’. “It’s basically just how I break things in my life. A lot.” Meanwhile, Tell Her I Said Hi is a cathartic release of anger packaged into an addictive alt-rock anthem. Equal parts tender and tenacious, the song navigates the messy emotions that arise after a transformative heartbreak.

“I’M NATURALLY A MUCH MOODIER PERSON. I LOVE WRITING ABOUT HEARTBREAK, DRAMA, SELF SABOTAGE AND ALL THE TERRIBLE THINGS!”

Photo credit: Kelsey Runge

“I viewed it as the final song about the chapter of my life that I wrote about on the EP,” she says. “I wrote it to the girl that I knew he ended up with after me. I really was so jealous of her. If I ever saw him again, I didn’t even know what I’d say, but the phrase, ‘Tell her I said hi,’ kept coming to mind. It was my last hurrah for that songwriting escapade.”

Another recent single, Used by You, tells a tale of unrequited love. Romano describes the song in one word: brutal. “This was very hard for me to put out, because it paints me in not a good light,” she admits. “It’s like, ‘I let this guy use me because I’m so in love with him,’ kind of thing. No one wants to admit that! At least I didn’t. But I felt like it was important to say because I found out that a lot of people feel that same way too. I’ve always tried to spin some heroic or positive ending or something to make it feel lifted at the end, but with this song there’s none of that. It’s just very, ‘Dang, that’s sad’. That’s what I think people will think when they listen to it. It’s just brutal.”

Inside her home in Nashville, Romano shares that she gets ideas down in her studio space, where she’s been using an AKG P220 microphone, K240 MKII headphones and a pair of JBL 305P MKII powered studio monitors. “The first thing I noticed was they were very warm-toned, which I love in a speaker,” she says of her monitors. “The bass has a very present low end, which I always love. Those are two very positive things to me when listening and I’m very excited to keep diving into those. I tested them out by listening to some of my own music and music I’m very familiar with in general, and you’re able to hear everything very clearly. They make for a great listening experience: you can hear all the elements you’re trying to hear. I would highly recommend them as a speaker.”

She also points out how quick and easy they were to set up: “Oh my gosh, it was ridiculous! They’re super easy

to set up. I just plugged it in; the cord was right there. I didn’t have to do anything. I just put an instrument cable into my Scarlett interface, and then I was there. It was great! Plus, they are pretty light, which is awesome because if you’re like me and you’re always moving around, or you decide you want to work on the floor today, that’s great.”

The AKG mic has also left an impression on Romano, which she uses at home and on the road: “I love this mic because it has a great amount of high end – it’s very sparkly and bright. I really like that sound, particularly with my voice. I like to do lots of delicate things with layering and adlibs and things like that and it picks up those very nicely. As a female, sometimes mics catch my voice a bit weird – they’re hit or miss – but this one really brought out the best in it. Again, it has a super easy setup and has an awesome case that I can take with me when I’m travelling on tour in case I want to record any ideas.”

AKG’s professional over-ear, semiopen headphones deliver a wide dynamic range, increased sensitivity

and high sound levels, which Romano is also impressed by: “They’ve been great because they’re sensitive and I don’t have to absolutely blast my headphones. I feel like I’m always losing my hearing anyway with how loud I play music! But I don’t have to do that with these. I can hear everything I need to hear. They’re very dynamic and comfortable to wear, which is a big bonus. They have a really great scope of being able to hear all the little details.”

Before the interview wraps up, Romano teases some upcoming music news: “I’m putting out a project later this year; it’s going to be another EP, so I’m super excited about that. Lots of new music to come,” she smiles.

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“IT’S ALL ABOUT SURVIVAL”

JAKE BUGG

On September 20, UK singer songwriter Jake Bugg releases his new album A Modern Day Distraction, a bracing return to his guitar-driven roots that explores how the social and political issues of today are impacting people in their everyday lives. Headliner caught up with the artist for an in-depth look at the inspiration behind the record, as well as a glance back at the highs and lows of a 12-year career that has now spawned six albums and counting…

It seems hard to believe that Jake Bugg has only been making music for the past 12 years. To navigate a decade-plus in the music industry as it stands today is no mean feat, but there are many an indie rock act out there who would consider six albums in almost double that time par for the

course. With so much music recorded and released in that time it simply feels like he’s been around much longer than he has.

When Headliner joins him over Zoom from the living room of his home, he still bears more resemblance to the boyish bright star that emerged back in 2012 as opposed to the world-weary troubadour that his half a dozen albums might suggest. In conversation, however, he has demonstrably learned valuable lessons from all that he has enjoyed and endured to date. From the initial chart-topping success of his self-titled debut album and its well-received follow-up Shangri La to the middling reviews of some of his later work, he has experienced the ups and almost inevitable downs that arrive in tandem with an excessively hyped explosion onto the scene. Today, it seems he’s almost managed to tune out any external noise, instead focusing on making the music he wants to make, with little regard for what anyone else may think.

It’s an approach that appears to be serving him well, as A Modern Day Distraction is without question the most urgent and energised he’s sounded in a long time. His influences, namely The Jam and The Clash, are worn proudly on his sleeve, as he spins tales of everyday lives and everyday struggles to a driving musical backdrop that recalls the most immediate moments of those first two records.

“With everything going on, they are subjects it’s hard to avoid,” says Bugg of the themes that dominate the record. “The first song we wrote for the album was Zombieland. It starts off with this one character who feels like he’s stuck in this circle in life, and then it developed from there. We thought maybe we had some kind of concept here. It’s something that needed to be addressed. And my last couple of records haven’t really touched on that stuff, they have been a bit more pop. So I felt this was a record where it was better to play to my strengths.”

Having made forays into pop and country with his most recent records, A Modern Day Distraction places the electric guitar front and centre, with the return of Bugg’s live band to the

“WITH EVERYTHING GOING ON, THEY ARE SUBJECTS IT’S HARD TO AVOID.”

studio – the first time since his debut – adding further to the lively, spontaneous feel of the album.

“I didn’t want to be as shy with the guitar on this album,” he smiles. “It’s probably the most guitars I’ve had on an album. But everything on here serves a purpose - each melody, each line, each guitar part. We really scrutinised everything. And having my live band on the album definitely brought a bit of heart and soul to the record.

“This sound is something I’d always have come back round too,” he continues. “This album feels to me and those who have heard it like a natural progression from the first two albums. In that time there has been a lot of me trying to experiment, trying new things. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But I think it’s those roads and adventures that lead you back to where you should be, so it was a conscious decision to play to my strengths and have more of those influences I grew up with in there than more recent ones. I would have always ended up back here, and the next album will probably be quite different to this one, but it’s nice to know I can get back to that place where its best for me.”

This talk of a return to Bugg’s roots prompts a glance back to those first records and the various paths he’s trodden during the intervening years. He has, he explains, always sought to mine different influences and genres in the pursuit of his own musical evolution. Yet, he accepts, his best work tends to reveal itself when following his most instinctive impulses.

“If anything, I’ve got more disciplined when it comes to writing,” he ruminates. “When you’re younger you’re a bit lazier and you think whatever you do is great [laughs]. But as you get a bit older you realise the more you learn the less you know. There have been times like on the last album where I consciously wanted to make a pop record, and there are some good songs on it, but I feel like my best stuff comes from an instinctive point of view.

“It’s usually when you’re just sitting around strumming a guitar and you go, ‘Oh, there might be something there’. Then comes the hard work of it being a puzzle and you have to put a structure in place, make it more interesting. And then you just write from what’s coming within. I definitely work best when I’m not thinking about it so much.”

We broach the subject of how much music he’s made in a relatively short expanse of time. Has he ever considered taking a break? A moment to pause and reflect on all that has come before?

“It’s a very difficult industry to stop in really, because there is so much new music coming out all the time and you are competing with

more music than ever,” he says thoughtfully. “People have relatively short memories, so you have to keep going. It’s more about survival at this point, when you’re not the new artist and not everyone wants to interview you every day. When I was making the third album that was a very hard period for me; it’s never just an upward trajectory. You have lows as well. But at the same time, I haven’t really stopped. I stopped touring during Covid so it was nice to have a little break there, but even during that period I was working on the soundtrack for the Ronaldinho documentary (Ronaldinho: The Happiest Man In The World) which was a lot of work, and by the time I’d finished that we were back out on the road promoting the album from 2021 (Saturday Night Sunday Morning).

“Without sounding too spiritual about it, one of the reasons I haven’t taken a break is because music has given me a life that I’m so fortunate to have,” he continues. “It’s a lot of people’s dream to do this for a living and fortunately for me I get to do it, so I feel in that regard like I owe everything back to music. I’d feel guilty if I stopped writing or recording. It’s all I know how to do. I feel quite worthless when I’m not doing something to be honest. I can

relax for a couple of days and then I feel like an absolute loser because I haven’t done anything [laughs].”

With A Modern Day Distraction still a matter of weeks away from release at the time of speaking, Bugg is already working on ideas for album number seven. His focus is fixed squarely on making the best music he can without second guessing what fans or critics might expect.

“The funny thing is that when you make an album you always think it’s the best thing you’ve done, until it gets released and then you see the criticism and think, oh yeah, maybe it wasn’t that good,” he laughs. “I know it’s a cliché but I probably am my harshest critic. I look back at my third album and think, I’m better than that; I could have done better than that. But that’s the kind of mindset it’s given me. I won’t just settle for something that I think is ‘cool’. It has to mean something. Those are things that you learn, and I have been lucky to get away with that period. I also realised I should just stick to making the music I want to make.

“I know the fourth album (Hearts That Strain) is not everyone’s favourite, but I really wanted to go to Nashville and make a record with those country and folk musicians. I love that album. And I got to meet some great people along the way. So, it’s about the journey as well. If you can look back at the experience you had making an album and have fond memories then that’s brilliant.

“I’m sure there will be some records I make that are absolutely terrible as well,” he closes with a chuckle.

“Some of my favourite artists have made albums where somebody should have probably gone, ‘are you sure you want to release that’?! It happens, but you have to write some bad songs to get to the good ones. It’s just part of the process.”

HEADLINER STAGE SPOTLIGHTS ASPIRING ARTISTS

PUB IN THE PARK 2024

In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare wrote, “If music be the food of love, play on”. And if there’s one festival that combines the love of music and food, even the “excess of it” that the great bard wrote of, it would have to be Pub In The Park. Firmly established as a mainstay in Verulamium Park (named after the ancient Roman City on which it stands), this year saw even more music to complement the St Albans festival’s food stalls and cooking masterclasses thanks to Headliner debuting its first Aspiring Artist stage at this year’s edition of the feast festival.

Pub In The Park is the brainchild of celebrity and Michelin-star chef Tom Kerridge, who can be seen around the site taking part in cookery classes and recording live podcasts. Over on the main stage, the punters, who are very well provided for with food and drinks (or freebie alcohol-free cans of Gordon’s gin and pink lemonade, for those that way inclined), also have such mainstream acts as Tinie Tempah, Paloma Faith, Olly Murs and Scouting For Girls to bop and burn the calories to.

With up-and-coming acts playing on The Headliner Stage all weekend, Saturday is the main day of music for both stages, with the former showcasing independent artists from midday right until nightfall, while not clashing with The X Factor star Olly Murs to close out the day’s festivities.

Opening proceedings on The Headliner Stage on Saturday lunchtime is BoThai, and with a lot of guitar-in-hand singer-songwriters populating the lineup, this spiritual songstress offers a unique prospect. She’s a singer who is also involved in sound bath and yoga events, so needless to say, the early audience finds themselves lulled by her peaceful music from a higher plane, via her wonderful piano playing and vocals.

Next up is Georgina White, a songwriter with a strong background in acting on both the screen and stage. Her love

of jazz and soul, plus her naturally theatrical air, ensures a delightful performance that is full of vim despite being relatively early in the day.

Speaking of disregarding an early slot and performing exactly as if it’s the main stage at 9pm, Bertie’s set is characterised by singalong moments, bantering with the huddled crowd, and even a cover of Kanye West’s Gold Digger, which sees two ladies suddenly appearing in the audience and singing it back word for word — Bertie forgets the opening lyrics for the third verse, but thankfully these two prompt him straight back into the song. Bertie shares that he quit a job in finance to pursue music, and the appreciation he gets back is a lovely affirmation.

The penultimate performer in the afternoon slots is Grace McGuigan, entering the stage with her powerful vocal chords and her guitarist. It’s a wonderfully raw and earnest performance as she showcases some of her original songs including Raining In July (thankfully she doesn’t speak any actual raindrops into existence), Time Of Your Life, and Love Sick.

There’s a lovely singalong moment as she ends with a cover of Riptide by Vance Joy, and we even get her personal food recommendation for the tacos by local favourites The Boot x Dylan’s, which is conveniently just a few stalls along.

And, before the stage takes a short late-afternoon pause, there’s just the matter of Rolo Vango to address. The London band with a London sound begin their set as a duo, then a keyboardist takes the stage, then next thing you know, there’s a six-piece group bringing big energy on this sunny mid-afternoon. Songs such as Day Drinking, which could hardly be more appropriate at this festival, go down a storm, and the audience needs no invitation to dance along.

There couldn’t be a more ideal artist to kick off the evening slots than Megzz, who brings the evening in with a brilliant blend of R&B, pop, and neo-soul. Each artist has 20 minutes to showcase their abilities, but Megzz ensures her runtime is packed with huge, anthemic sounds, and her powerhouse voice.

To ensure the indie rock genre doesn’t get passed by, Fletchr Fletchr arrive in an ensemble of long hair, ripped jeans, with songs such as Life that you can sing along to even if it’s your first time listening. The four piece have recently graced festivals such as Brighton’s Great Escape and the Isle Of Wight Festival, and with the manner they wear their hearts on their sleeves, it’s very easy to see why they are fostering such strong connections with the audiences they encounter.

Next up is a band who live by their “noughties nostalgia” mantra, which translates to big energy and huge choruses. Apex recently performed an unofficial slot at Glastonbury and Boardmasters festival by setting up in both festival’s car parks, and that rock and roll DIY attitude lives on at their Pub In The Park slot. Huge tunes such as Visa get the raucous reaction they deserve.

Rock and roll lived on right into the evening with one of the day’s youngest acts in The Evening. Despite their youthful visage, there was zero shortage of confidence, with the band’s frontman channelling Matty Healy by lighting a cigarette midsong and leaving it in the neck of his guitar for future drags. The band’s set is a fantastic warm-up for their upcoming Camden Assembly show, and it sees Grace McGuigan return to the stage as she is invited up to join them for a cover of Valerie (although a note for fellow music pedants, the song is originally written by Liverpool’s The Zutons, not by the great Amy Winehouse as the singer suggests).

The unenviable task of following three full bands as a solo act while being the Saturday night headliner on The Headliner Stage falls to Matt McClafferty. Yet, there’s no sense that he’s even remotely daunted by the prospect, perhaps because he’d already opened the main stage earlier that day. With colourful sunglasses carefully resting on the top of his head, McClafferty launches into his songs, and the crowd magnetically draws as close to the front of the stage as possible, belting out almost every word of each song, despite the fact he only has one officially released song on Spotify. It’s a brilliant and inspiring sight to see.

In The Mix

In line with the Aspiring Headliner podcast and article series, the stage within the 150-capacity

marquee was powered by QSC, quite literally, with a pair of QSC K12.2 active loudspeakers and a QSC KS212C subwoofer belting out each performance. Each artist’s performance was also recorded from FOH using a QSC TouchMix-30 Pro console.

Mixing all four sets across the weekend was experienced FOH engineer, Rick Dickerson, who commented on the quality of the QSC rig:

“It’s a really nice, smooth-sounding system, and I didn’t have to EQ it at all - it was great right out of the box,” Dickerson explains. “It packed more than enough punch - which isn’t always easy with a small PA at an outdoor festival, particularly when you’re dealing with sunshine one minute and torrential rain the next! - but the rig provided a full and tight sound throughout, and vocals cut through without any difficulty at all; the QSC system was a real pleasure to use, and many people commented on how nice our stage sounded… some actually suggested that it was better than the main stage audio, but I couldn’t possibly comment… [smiles]”

What was particularly nice about using the TouchMix, Dickerson says, was its super small footprint and overall functionality; a perfect fit for the fast-paced set changeovers in between acts, and to handle all the multitrack recording.

“Within an hour, I’d set up snapshots in this little desk; it’s the easiest-touse user interface out there in my opinion,” Dickerson states. “It’s a 32-channel interface as well, with very good pres - so you can record straight off it at high quality. We tracked at 48kHz, and I used around 12 channels for the bands. I could quickly swap them using the custom fader bank, and was able to bring all the channels that were used on that particular act together on one bank, including the effects return, so the minute I checked anything, I could save it as a snapshot, recall it, and get all the fader treatments that I’d line-checked earlier. It saved a huge amount of time, and nothing ever ran behind. Given that we had 10-minute changeovers, that was pretty amazing. We were done in a couple of minutes. It just made everything so much easier.”

“THE QSC TOUCHMIX-30 PRO CONSOLE IS THE EASIEST-TO-USE USER INTERFACE OUT THERE.”

All artists who performed on The Headliner Stage used Earthworks SR117 condenser mics, which went down very well with the performers as well as Dickerson himself, who was using them for the first time. He positioned three SR117s out front for the vocalists, and was able to mix them right out of the box without any corrective work:

“There was basically no EQ on the Earthworks mics other than a high pass filter; and in terms of proximity effect, we had no audible pops or problems whatsoever,” Dickerson says. “What’s also so striking about the SR117 is its quite exceptional pattern control across all frequencies, which offered maximum feedback rejection across the whole weekend. Great for the recording element too, of course. It’s an incredibly good vocal condenser microphone, and many of the artists were asking more about it after their performances.”

It’s fair to say that this year’s Pub in the Park has upped the ante not only in terms of attendance and community

spirit, but also in its role as a champion for aspiring artists. By providing a platform for new talent alongside established stars, the festival is opening up vital pathways for a new generation of musicians.

With the momentum gained from this year’s success, 2025 is shaping up to raise the bar further still. Anticipation is high for new talent discoveries, innovative culinary experiences, and unforgettable musical performances. Pub in the Park has firmly solidified its place as not just a festival, but a cultural platform for celebrating community, creativity, and the limitless power of music.

Photo credit: Olivia Brytz Media

LD SYSTEMS LIVESESSIONS

RIKA

In this eleventh LD Systems Live Sessions, powered by Headliner, rising international pop artist RIKA performs original song My Fellow Showman live at Signal House Studios. Her unique sound, which fuses electric guitar, cello, and an impressive lead vocal, is highlighted here as she performs through an LD Systems MAUI G3 rig and MON 15 A G3 Stage Monitors. Headliner caught up with RIKA after the performance to learn more about her artistry…

What have you been up to recently?

The last few months have been super hectic. 2024 in general has just been working nonstop. I put out my EP, had my first headline show, and I started putting out podcast episodes regarding the EP. The EP is called Conversations I’ve Never Had, so I thought, well it’s about conversations - why don’t I do a limited podcast series talking about the EP and some of the themes with some really interesting people.

I’ve been on tour around Europe and the UK with Jamie Miller, who sang

Longshot with me. Most of the shows were sold out, and I was so excited to perform to a bunch of people in a bunch of places I’ve never been before. It’s just been nonstop work, work, work, and I love it. I love a fast paced life. So I’m definitely very grateful for the sleepless nights and the constant hours in front of the computer editing podcast footage. I didn’t have that on my 2024 Bingo card, but here we are. I’m really really grateful.

How did you first get into music?

I didn’t start speaking until I was four, but I was always singing. There’s footage of me somewhere trying to sing Barbie Girl by Aqua. Music has always just been a part of me and my life, and just a way for me

to communicate and express how I feel. It’s like my version of journaling. If I feel emotionally distraught or overwhelmed or anything, I just go straight to the piano and I write and channel it through there. It’s the only place I feel I can actually say

what I want to say properly. It does what words don’t, music. I started songwriting when I was about 16, when I was really starting to go through it in life. I’ve been doing it ever since, and I’m in love with music, honestly!

Photo credit: Olivia Brytz Media

“THIS

SONG SAVED ME OVER AND OVER AGAIN.”

Can you give us some backstory to the song that you just performed?

My Fellow Showman is, I think, the epitome of vulnerable moments which I have on the piano. I wrote a lot of the song alone in my room. Being an artist in 2024 means being on social media a lot, and a lot of that means you can’t always really say how you feel. Even if I’m broken, I still have to put on a happy face and be like, ‘hey guys, stream the new single’.

I’d had it up to here that day, and the song basically came out itself. That song is really special to me, because from the genesis to the finished product – musically, visually –just everything about it, I was so involved in it. It’s taught me so much about myself as well as just about life, and it saved me over and over again. I was going through my first ever breakup while working on the song, and it was the absolute worst period of my life. I didn’t really tell anyone that I was going through this breakup; I only had the music to fall back on which is why it’s really special to me. I think it sounds the best live with the cello and the guitar and the sound system. It just has so much raw emotion which really comes through live.

Tell us about your experience being signed to Warner Music.

I’m the first ever artist who has signed to Warner Music India. Being signed to them is so beautiful. My family manages me and Warner Music India is also an amazing, very family oriented team as well. They really believe in the music and the craft, and they’re so supportive in ways which I couldn’t have imagined. They just let me be and they appreciate the creativity. I feel really lucky to be signed to them.

What did you think of your vocal being cut through the Earthworks mic, and what are your thoughts on the LD Systems setup?

Hearing my voice cut through the Earthworks microphone and played back through the floor wedges in the room was great. A lot of dynamic microphones cut off the highs in your voice, and I feel like my voice has a lot of highs. But with the Earthworks mic, I genuinely felt like I could hear my voice very authentically. It genuinely sounded like me. It was nice, because usually when I’m recording my own vocals at home, I have to up the high frequencies because I just don’t feel like a lot of microphones pick it up. But this one genuinely sounds so nice and sweet, and very well rounded. It’s very, very, very good, and I might need to take it home with me!

The LD Systems sound system sounds so clear. As musicians we’re so particular about how a song sounds, and sometimes it doesn’t come across that way, but I genuinely feel like it sounded like how it was meant to sound, the song and my voice - just everything. Even having the guitar and the cello come through on the speakers; all the instruments were sounding proper, everything had a space and it was just really good. I definitely would recommend them to anyone.

@RIKA

THE SOUND OF LONGLEGS

EUGENIO BATTAGLIA

It’s got evil dolls. Satanic worship. The FBI. Clairvoyance. Nuns. Occult symbols. A complicated mother-daughter relationship. Mysterious orbs. A deal with the devil. Subliminal messages. A string of baffling murder-suicides. A rockin’ ‘70s soundtrack and Nicolas going full Cage. What’s not to like? A beautiful nightmare of a horror film, Longlegs flickered onto screens this summer following a truly unsettling marketing campaign, and before long had become Neon’s highest-grossing film after surpassing the film production company’s earnings for 2019’s multiple Oscar-winning Parasite, also snatching the crown of the highest-grossing independent film of 2024.

Appealing to fans of Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, Zodiac and Mindhunter, the American horror-thriller that is sure to traumatise anyone born on the 14th of the month for a long time to come was written and directed by Osgood (Oz) Perkins and stars Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood and Alicia Witt. Set in the ‘90s, the

film follows FBI agent Lee Harker (Monroe), as she attempts to track down an occultist serial killer (Cage) responsible for murdering multiple families throughout the state of Oregon, despite not being physically present when the crimes took place.

As nightmarish as he looks, (the director takes care not to fully reveal its powder-faced titular character, Longlegs, until well into the narrative), it’s nothing compared to how he who serves “the man downstairs”, and the film, sounds. Indeed, anyone watching Longlegs cannot fail to notice the positively unhinged sound design, which is an unholy character of its own, and one that made a lasting impression from the very first teaser trailer, which simply featured a family photo interspersed with subliminal flashing images and a 911 call from a father who claims his daughter is not his own. The audio plays a starring role that’s almost as erratic as Longlegs himself. A masterclass in sound design, the audio blends guttural demonic utterances with subliminal sounds expertly crafted to set nerves jangling.

“I’m actually surprised by how little cred sound gets in horror films, because it’s absolutely crucial,” says Eugenio Battaglia, sound designer, supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer for Longlegs. “Of course, in any other genre, sound is important, but a lot of the time it has a backing role, but in horror, it’s so front and centre all the time. If you grab a horror film and use a normal track that’s not intense, it basically becomes a comedy, right?”

The idea behind Longlegs’ unusual appearance (and penchant for breaking out into song) alludes to his backstory as a former glam rocker. The film’s ‘70s-esque

opening title sequence hints at this by featuring a song by the famously flamboyant rock band, T.Rex. Battaglia explains how director Perkins, after listening to T.Rex while writing the film, described his vision of giving the horror flick a decidedly ‘70s rock and roll vibe:

“He showed me the film, and he wanted to see what I thought about it first,” he recalls. “The first thing I thought was that I wanted to do something subliminal because of the mind control aspect to the film. When I said that to him, he really liked it. He likes horror films, but he doesn’t like to treat them as horror films. He gets inspired by other films that are not horror. He mentioned to me that he wanted the film to have a rock and roll feel. I wasn’t expecting that because when I first saw it, there was no indication yet that a T.Rex song was in it and that Longlegs was supposed to be a rock and roll artist in the past. I quite liked that he said that because it went really well with my idea of trying to do something subliminal, because of the whole backmasking vibe of ‘70s records. We were on the same page with how we were envisioning the film to be, and we are also both really big fans of David Lynch. I mentioned to him how Eraserhead is my favourite film. It was the same for him. So we were both like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make a very Lynch soundtrack!’”.

Photo credit: NEON

“APPARENTLY, IF YOU REVERSE THE LORD’S PRAYER, IT’S A WAY TO SUMMON DEMONS.”

Battaglia’s woozy sound design leaves the viewer in a constant sense of dread, which was achieved in part due to the subliminal messages incorporated into the audio. Battaglia reveals that he essentially “became” Longlegs while recording himself whispering into a 360 ambisonic microphone (although he had some fun with it by saying things like, ‘Give us a good review on Rotten Tomatoes’) and then reversing it.

“I did a lot of reversing of a lot of elements,” he says. “A lot of it was me whispering stuff into this mic. I made a sound palette of whispers, then reversed them, and then I used them for whooshes to go around your head. The crazier ideas that I used a couple times was from me doing a deep dive on back-masking Satan and satanic stuff on records. I read that apparently, if you reverse the Lord’s Prayer, it’s a way to summon demons,” he discloses. “So in my insane mind, I thought it would be a good idea to summon demons across America and in theatres. To go the extra mile, I had an actual priest say The Lord’s Prayer in a temple and then I fuzzed it so it sounds like it’s coming out of a speaker. I blended that with a bunch of 911 calls for that one scene and at the very end with the doll and – spoiler alert! – Longlegs blowing a kiss at the end. Those two are more intense, dreadful sonic moments, so I thought that would be a good spot to use it.”

During the hunt for the killer, a strangely lifelike doll is discovered by Harker, and is found to contain a metallic orb inside its head – the ramifications of which don’t become clear until later. The silver orbs are later revealed to contain Longlegs’ Satanic orders, which influence each father presented with a doll to kill his own family. Battaglia reveals his unlikely source of inspiration for the sound of the orb: the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings. “A huge inspiration for me was The Lord of the Rings,” he enthuses. “The Eye of Sauron reminds me of this magic orb; it calls to them, and it was very distinct, evil whisper stuff. I’m a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings, so in my mind, it was him touching the orb. When I put the windscreen on my mic, it even looks like an orb, so I did the sounds with that, and that’s throughout the whole movie.”

The film’s soundtrack was conceived by Zilgi, a pseudonym for Elvis Perkins (the brother of the film’s director), who unusually, handed Battaglia the score for him to work with.

In particular, this helped to create a subliminal suggestion that Lee is somehow connected to Longlegs.

“The composer gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted with his music, which is so rare – he gave me a great score,” he smiles. “On top of that, he gave me the raw materials and he said, ‘If you want to use them for anything, go ahead’. When we were mixing, myself and Oz thought it would be cool to grab some parts of his music and reverse them completely. So if you hear the film in reverse, you’re going to hear a bunch of the score the way it was actually recorded, which I thought was pretty neat. The main link that I used to hint at a link to him was me pretending to be him by taking a mic and whispering her name, which is a bit more prominent in the scenes where she’s turning around and actually hearing whispers. There’s a lot of him saying her name and trying to reach out to her, and because I also wanted the whole film to feel like the crackling of a record, I put a towel on top of my mic and massaged the towel on the windscreen, which makes kind of a record crackle sound.”

After watching the film, those rewatching the trailer will make sense of the fragmented clips and images featured, perhaps even wondering how they didn’t piece vital clues together from the teaser alone. Battaglia admits that he in turn worried that the sonic clues he embedded in the sound design might be too obvious to a viewer keen to work out any twists, and that they would guess early on that Harker’s mother had a bigger part to play.

“Now when I see the film, it’s super obvious and I’m like, ‘I wonder if I went too obvious.’ But no one has mentioned that, so I guess not! When Lee talks to her mother on the phone, we layered the recordings of the director who did a temp recording of him pretending to be Satan. He did a really creepy little voice, so I blended that in between her lines. It’s very subtle and it blends really well with the static of the phone, but when I hear it now in theatres, I hear right away and I’m like, ‘Oh God, I’m giving away the secret so early!’. If you watch it again, definitely keep an ear for the phone calls. When she takes a break, you hear these creepy devil voices.”

In one scene, Longlegs drives away from a hardware store after creeping out a young girl, where he goes from looking stupefied, to suddenly half singing, half screaming, “Daddy! Mummy! Un-make me. And save me from the hell of living,” which ends in an inhuman-sounding scream.

“That one was cool because Oz was wanting me to make him sound glam – that was his note,” shares Battaglia with a grin. “I thought it was a bit challenging, because how do I make someone sound glam? What makes someone sound glam? Incredible

vocals – which Nic Cage doesn’t have. I mean, he has a pretty great singing voice,” he clarifies quickly, “but it’s not high pitched or anything that sounds glam. It was kind of a happy accident, but while I was going through my sound files, I found this guitar solo that fit really well with the frequency of his voice. I slapped a guitar in there, pitched it to get closer to his voice and it transitioned very well from his voice to a really high guitar solo. It sounds like he’s tapping into some demonic power. It’s actually my favourite moment of the film, that scream.”

The sound design was done at Battaglia’s personal studio, and the mixing was done at a professional stage called DBC in Vancouver BC Canada. Battaglia used Genelec studio monitors for the surround speakers and his colleague and business partner Humberto Corte, who was the sound effects editor on the film, also used an all Genelec system while editing the audio for Longlegs. “I’ve used Genelecs for 13 years now,” shares Battaglia about his preferred studio setup. “I just know that they are going to translate well everywhere. They’re the industry

standard, but also they were very compact. For a small speaker, I can get a pretty big sound, and I know that I can trust in the sound. It also helps that I know how they sound because I’ve had them for so long. In terms of frequency response and clarity, they’re pretty much top. When we went to the mix stage theatre, they had this huge Atmos theatre with Genelecs everywhere. You go to any mix stage and they’ll have Genelecs because it’s the industry standard. My sound effects editor and business partner also has an all-Genelec studio using DSP to calibrate the room. He has a pretty neat app that comes with them where you can control the level of your whole system. They’re very practical and very reliable.”

Longlegs is streaming now on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and Google Play Movies. Watch it not once, not twice, but as many times as you like.

GENELEC.COM

INSTA: @EUGENIOBATTAGLIA

Photo credit: NEON

MYTH OR TRUTH?

The best sounding live console was originally designed for broadcast.

Hearing is believing – sign up and find out for yourself.

ROUTE 66

HACKNEY ROAD STUDIOS

Sean Woodlock - a UK record producer, mix engineer and co-founder of Hackney Road Studios - explains why his work sounds like a cross between Steve Albini and Nigel Godrich, and delves into his love of analogue consoles in a digital world, including Hackney Road Studios’ very own Neve 66 console.

You are one of the few to still mix on an analogue console. Why do you stand by this in an increasingly digital landscape?

I still work primarily only in the analogue domain. I try to stay away from computers as much as I can, which most people find incredibly surprising. For example, I still mix purely

on an analogue console. A lot of people find that surprising. It’s not that I have anything against computers, but there’s something about the process that just doesn’t resonate with me as much, so I’m hanging on. It’s definitely helpful that I’m a studio owner. I’m hanging on for dear life to analogue equipment and an analogue recording console!

You say your approach is a cross between Steve Albini and Nigel Godrich. Albini was a big advocate of analogue recording, and Godrich has said that the recording process is best when it’s fast, because it’s then the smallest obstacle to the actual music. How have these producers and engineers influenced your approach in the studio, particularly regarding a love of analogue consoles?

They’ve both been immense in my career path. Nigel, I’m lucky enough to have met a few times and hung out with a little bit, and that was a pleasure. Unfortunately, I never got to meet Steve Albini before he passed. But I’ve taken so much from both of them, which is why I just outright say I’m a mix of the two. Nigel definitely loves analogue equipment, and pays particular attention to his favourite mics and compressors. Back in the day, he would record on tape a great deal. He has such a sound and imprint with some of the artists that he works with. You only have to look at some of the stuff he’s done, like Radiohead’s The Bends, and then the stark difference between The Bends and OK Computer; the work he’s done with Beck or Pavement…the list goes on and on. I really love his sonic world that he creates, and a lot of that has to do with his love of tape loops. The last record he did with Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool, is layered with tape loops, which I find beautiful and a wonderful approach to music to create these beds of tape loops. It’s the sonics that I love.

And Steve Albini?

It’s a little different. It’s less about the sonics. Most people, when they talk of Steve Albini, they reference the sound that he creates, and I appreciate that sound. It’s not that I don’t like it, but more what I take from Steve Albini is his love for the musicians and the art, and the distrust of record labels. From what I can tell, Steve considered himself purely a recording engineer and did not want to interfere with the musicians at all at any level. He wants to record

it well, and that’s it. He’s not going to pay attention to takes or performances. What happens all the time in the studio is artists will inevitably ask you what you thought of a take, or which take you preferred. He wouldn’t be involved with that at all. There’s something about that that I really respect. The varied catalogue of work that I have, I don’t want them to sound like me. I do want each artist to have a unique and individual sound. For instance my favourite band is Radiohead, so I will inevitably make every artist just sound a little bit more like Radiohead. It’s his ethics that I love and I really respect. He often wouldn’t be credited. He definitely wouldn’t take points or anything like that. I’m the same.

Hackney Road Studios’ Studio 2 is also known as the Neve Room, a go-to studio for producing, writing, mixing and mastering. At the heart of the studio is an iconic Neve 66 console, known for its legendary sound. As studio co-founder, did you personally choose the 66 console?

The Neve 66 is incredible. I don’t want to say it’s unknown from the Neve catalogue, but it’s definitely not one that most people talk about. The VR is incredibly popular, as is the 88RS – the real pinnacles of Neve consoles that everyone talks about and that everybody wants. The 66 is nearly an anomaly, but it is well thought of and comes from an era. It’s a well sought after desk, but it was built for a very specific task, which was broadcast. It’s

a little peculiar, being a broadcast desk. Mine in particular was designed purely for line level. It wasn’t for recording as it was built and designed for broadcast. It’s an incredibly strange setup, but still has enough of a history and lineage from a great era of Neve consoles.

What is it about the console that suits the way you work in general, especially considering the fact it was built for broadcast?

It was never designed as a recording console, so that’s exactly why it ended up in our Studio 2, which is the smaller of our two studios. We don’t really do band tracking in there. All that we do is vocal overdubs, guitar overdubs and mixing, and here’s where it’s worked incredibly well for me through the years. I’ll do my band recording sessions, either in studio 1 at Hackney Road or elsewhere, and then I’ll decamp with the band to Studio 2 where we can do simple things like vocal overdubs, producing, and then, of course, mixdown. For mixdown, I’ve found a really good system that suits my workflow by incorporating the Neve. Our particular version of the 66 is all stereo channels at line level. The method that was created by my mentor Steve Honest, is that we have 12 stereo channels. We chuck all the stereo channels up to zero and then run stereo groups out of Pro Tools. Then you insert any outboard that you want. There are 12 great EQs on the desk, as well as four compressors. We have a Neve 33609 that I’ve had for

“MY BEEF WITH COMPUTER MIXING IS I FEEL LIKE I’M WORKING INCREDIBLY HARD TO CREATE A SOUND THAT THE NEVE CONSOLE EFFORTLESSLY GIVES ME.”

as long as I can remember, and that goes on every single mix that I do, and always has. From there, it goes to an outboard EQ. It’s wonderful! My beef with computer mixing is I feel like I’m working incredibly hard to create a sound that the Neve console effortlessly gives me – it gives me so much colour and harmonics. If I push the level into the desk quite hard, I can dictate how much harmonics and how much drive I want to get. That’s what I love about mixing on this console – the colour that it gives me and how much colour. It seems to do the bulk of the work for me. I try to do very little moving of the faders on this desk, which helps when clients inevitably want recalls. I can just reset everything to zero. The more I drive it, it also gives me some level of reduction in dynamic range, and the nature of summing makes my mix sound huge. It definitely adds width and depth, all without doing a single thing, just by testing ways or trying different approaches at how much signal I should push into the desk.

The studio runs a The Record Producer Program, and part of that covers how to work on large format analogue consoles. Do you think large format consoles are an intimidating prospect to some these days?

They’re very intimidating. They 100% are. I’ve been around them for so long now that I don’t see that, and sometimes I’m blind to the fact that it could make a student or a young engineer intimidated. I’ve definitely been told enough times that they are, so hopefully one can break that down and break that barrier down and make young engineers and producers comfortable in and around recording consoles. Technically, they all do a very similar task, they all just have different approaches. So hopefully, as part of the course, we can make them feel comfortable around them.

WordsbY ALICEGUSTA

JONATHAN WYNDHAM THE VOICE WITHIN

Songwriter. Singer. Nashville ringer. All these talents and more are found in Jonathan Wyndham, who initially lit up the music industry’s radar with a blind audition on singing competition series The Voice in 2014. He originally sought to write songs on Music Row, but soon found his prowess on guitar brought such leading country and pop artists as Colbie Caillat and Jessie James Decker to his door. In 2021, his album Nashville Rock & Soul, Vol. 1 brought him full circle to his performing songwriter roots. In this interview, Wyndham speaks about life after The Voice, finding his true sound and why AUDIX mics are “the best open secret on the market”.

Today you play with Colbie Caillat. Is there a gig or moment in Nashville you’d identify as your big break?

In a way almost every gig I’ve got has felt like that. I certainly felt like I had arrived when I was on The Voice at 22, but before that, auditioning for producers on Music Row. When you’re inside it, you’re always asking yourself, “Is this really it?” But I don’t believe it’s ever one thing, more like a mountain of little moments and opportunities, like stacking rocks up in a stream to dam the water. Plus, there’s a more important lesson to take from that experience. Learn how to ride the relevance-to-irrelevance sine wave, because you’ll do it many times over the course of a music career, whether you’re out in front as a singer-songwriter, or in a supporting role as a touring or session musician. For example, after I was on The Voice, people who I thought never knew I existed and people who didn’t like me in high school all wanted to buy me a beer. But they didn’t really care about me, they just wanted to touch the experience, to get something extra no one else got from their access. It’s not a bad thing, but you as the artist have to know that that interest in you isn’t really friendship, it’s more of a “situationship”. Then that fades until the next thing happens, and so on. People don’t really remember the setlist you play or the accolades you get, they check the internet for that. They remember how you make them feel. The happiest artists I’ve ever worked for were gracious, humble, and kind. That’s

the goal, and to focus on keeping the music pure to me. I think then it will reach others and enrich their lives, whether that’s 60 people in a bar or 60,000 in a stadium.

Tell us about the All Access special you filmed with AUDIX at Studio 606.

My manager, Kevin Majorino, is a bigtime AUDIX user and asked me how I felt about their mics. I had used them from time to time and liked them a lot but wasn’t fluent in their lineup. Kevin said, “I think we can do an entire session using only AUDIX mics.” We wound up at Studio 606, because he’s friends with the guys there. It’s not open for public bookings, so it was amazing to be in those hallowed halls! They basically remade the Sound City A room, but with such a nonchalant gravitas. They bought the Neve console responsible for Tom Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes, Wildflowers and Southern Accents. I mean, it’s oozing with history and vibe.

In this session, where did you first notice AUDIX mics?

As we were getting guitar sounds, Oliver Roman, the house engineer there, let me use some amps from the studio. I chose a vintage (and modded) Marshall and a mid-’90s Vox AC30 (the mid 90’s ones are super consistent and awesome). Oliver went for the double dynamic mic approach on these amps, using an AUDIX i5 and a PDX720. I ran stereo, using both amps, with the i5 and PDX pair on each. Normally I’m a fan of pairing a

dynamic with a ribbon mic, but they had this dialed in perfectly in-phase and we quickly hit this moment where the tone was just perfect. Just going straight into the amp sounded like early James Gang tones. That made me a believer. Straight into the console we were capturing perfect tones.

Was AUDIX also used on the drum kit?

Yes, because it was on everything. Beyond what you would expect on drums — i5 on snare, D6 on kick, D2 and D4 on toms — what I really remember blowing me away is the way they used the piano mics as overheads. They’re the ones people call lollipops because they have a skinny body and a big round capsule — the SCX25A. When I pulled up the session to mix it, the raw overheads were stellar. The sense of imaging through the SCX25As was just amazing. Which is great, because when the main vocal is in the room like a live show, overheads are everything in the mix.

You also produce other artists. What is your own philosophy about picking microphones?

Engineer legend Al Schmitt once said that a microphone is to an engineer as a lens is to a photographer. He thought if you needed EQ, you had the wrong mic or wrong placement for the source. Granted, that assumes a big enough budget that you have a lot of mics to choose from, but that’s the thing about AUDIX. They make so many different mics tailored to different sources, and they’re so good for the money, that you don’t need a huge budget to have something like the options Al was talking about. In a way, choosing mics is like choosing players. If you need a killer B3 organ on a track, you don’t bring in a singer-songwriter who happens to play organ. You bring in a countermelody monster like Carey Frank, who was on this session. Casting is everything.

Do you find AUDIX mics help you avoid signal bleed?

They definitely do, and that’s super important for me. Even when bleed is unavoidable, I’m rarely going to use any other processing to get rid of it – especially if it introduces artifacts. I also don’t like the way gates sound on lead vocals, I’m a manual automation guy. Not to hate on gates, they can be super helpful for BGV’s (& life savers for toms or your snare reverb bus) but if it pulls the ear then I’m out. At the end of our recording of Naïve, you certainly hear some cymbals bloom through the vocal bus. To me that’s okay, because it extends the urgent angst and emotion of the song, and I prefer those little eccentricities to something sounding over processed and fake. All of the records I love have charming mistakes.

If you were recommending mics to a newbie engineer or producer, how would you describe AUDIX?

Here is one thing people who know me laugh about. I’m known as something of an enabler, I’ll always encourage you to get that next piece of gear, because what if inspiration is sparked by picking up that guitar or plugging in that mic? I also never recommend true “starter gear”, I don’t really believe in it. Which means when I recommend AUDIX, it’s because it’s not starter gear. You need pro level gear that doesn’t hold you back, so the only limitation you face is your ability and your imagination.

Just like a better guitar makes you want to practice more, a better audio interface and better mics will inspire you to record more and experiment more. The best way to improve your recording skills is by recording, recording with others and learning from them and recording alone and listening back to see what worked and what didn’t.

Recording myself taught me so much about singing and my voice, I would recommend every singer to record themselves. It’s important to be able to be honest with yourself and find the places where you want to improve or grow without any embarrassment that you might have if it’s in a commercial studio where there are people you admire and the pressure is on.

Vocalists, get yourself an A231 condenser and a good interface and learn your voice. Notice when you are closer to the mic how much breath and low end is added, the low end add is called the “proximity effect”.

Notice how to vary your intensity as you vary your distance from the mic, this is called “working the mic” in the studio. Learn how to get the sound in your head into the recording, this will eliminate all of your recording anxiety and stress. You’ll become an assassin and your confidence, and therefore your performance, will grow and improve immensely!

The ironic thing about AUDIX, I think, is that the company started out wanting to be known as accessible price wise but keep their quality top shelf. AUDIX cares about “bang for your buck” at a cellular level as a company, which is amazing for us users. People bought them for that reason, and then started really working with them and realizing what they had. I’m now one of those converts who thinks that when it comes to bang for buck — both in terms of performance and just how well the stuff is built —

AUDIX is the best open secret on the market.

JOE ELLIOTT

DEF LEPPARD | LEAD SINGER | 8424 CONSOLE

Our Engineer Ronan and I wanted a Neve, and we identified the 8424 - which is a magic desk. I have one in my studio here, and Ronan has one in his studio - it works really well.

Words bYDAN GU M ELB

AUDIOSCENIC BRINGING SPATIAL AUDIO TO THE MASSES

In a world exclusive interview, Marcos Simon, founder of innovative spatial sound software developer Audioscenic, sits down with Headliner to discuss the transformative impact the company’s work is having on the audio industry and its vision to make immersive personal experiences available to all…

In the rapidly evolving world of spatial audio technology, the race to bring not just something new to the table, but something practical and userfriendly is fiercer than it’s ever been. For several years now, immersive, spatial, 3D sound – call it what you

will –has been proliferating all corners of the industry. In the world of theatre, loudspeaker manufacturers are increasingly seeking to identify new ways to place audiences at the centre of the drama unfolding before them, while in live music, immersive sound

systems are being deployed in ever more creative ways. And of course, the rise of Dolby Atmos has ignited a surge in demand for personal listening experiences that extend beyond the realm of simple stereo.

“OUR VISION IS TO MAKE SPATIAL SOUND CONSUMPTION AVAILABLE TO EVERYBODY”

And on the matter of individual listening experiences, one company that appears to be pushing the boundaries of what is possible in truly unique fashion is UK-based Audioscenic - a pioneering force in spatial audio that is on a mission to revolutionise the way we experience sound.

Founded in 2017, its proprietary beamforming Amphi software uses a built-in camera or tracking sensor to continually detect the position of the listener’s ears relative to the audio device through machine learning listener-position sensing. It can essentially be paired with any piece of hardware fitted with at least two loudspeakers and can track the head movements of the listener to create a fully true to life 3D audio experience. At present, the company has entered into hardware partnerships with the Razer Leviathan V2 Pro soundbar and Acer Spatial Labs View Pro 27 monitors.

Helming this innovation is Audioscenic CTO and Co-Founder Marcos Simon,

who joins Headliner at a St. Albans studio, where he opens up on the past, present, and, most importantly, the future of what he considers to be a revolutionary moment in the evolution of sound as we know it.

Possessed with an infectious enthusiasm and passion for his work, Simon is a compelling and engaging presence. Sporting a neatly groomed beard and donning a Parliament Mothership Connection t-shirt with a white New York Yankees baseball cap, he brings a relatable, easy-going air that is underpinned by a fierce determination to share his vision with the world.

“Our vision is to make spatial sound consumption available to everybody,” he states with a smile.

“Spatial audio is something that people love when they experience it, but it’s very difficult to recreate the right settings for that experience. You need the surround speakers, or you can wear headphones, but they don’t necessarily give you the best experience. We wanted to create a technology that enables everybody

to experience hyper real 3D sound whilst still being practical and affordable to use.

“For example, we have this Razer Leviathan V2 Pro soundbar,” he says gesturing toward the hardware sat before us in the studio. “It has our technology, and we would like to create many products that we can put this technology in so that people can experience it realistically in a practical way. I would like my mother to be able to go to her PC, press a button, and have a realistic experience that she loves. People shouldn’t need to understand the mechanics, they should be able to just switch on and experience it.”

This simplicity is perfectly demonstrated before our eyes, as three very different artists are invited into the studio to experience the technology for themselves. One by one, each sits before the soundbar and a laptop while a variety of clips from video games and film, as well as pieces of music, are played to them. Each is unequivocal in their response.

Rising pop/soul singer Grace McGuigan was especially effusive in her praise. “It’s one of the coolest experiences ever,” she beams after the demo. “I’ve listened to spatial audio mixes in the studio before, but coming from a soundbar like that, it’s insane. It feels like the sound is coming from everywhere. And when I listened to my song I was consumed by the harmony. It went all the way around my head. It was like I had stepped inside my own song.”

Indie pop artist Berti Green was equally blown away. “My first impression was that it’s a whole new dimension to the way I’ve heard music,” he says. “You almost feel like you are inside where the music is coming from. It’s a really awesome, intimate experience.”

Meanwhile, electronic music composer Adam Protz described the game-changing potential of Audioscenic’s Amphi software.

“The main word coming to mind is overwhelming,” he says. “I was hearing elements of the music I don’t think I’d ever heard before. I’d love to make some music to be heard through a system like this. And the gaming demo has made me want to take up gaming again. I’m really impressed. It doesn’t take up a lot of space and it’s affordable, too.”

So how has Simon been able to achieve these results?

“With a lot of work and a lot of help,” he laughs. “In 2019 I met our CEO David Monteith and he helped me to raise money from investors. From there we built a small team to develop the software. I was lucky to be working with a core team of outstanding engineers, and we started to take the technology to trade shows. Then in 2021 we were able to demo the technology to Razer and that is how Audioscenic was given life. So, we’ve got to this point with the help of investors, an excellent team, and a bit of luck!”

One of the primary markets Simon and Audioscenic are eager to push into is the gaming space. While this may be just one area in which this technology can be applied, it is arguably the best platform from which to showcase its capabilities to the masses.

“Gaming was our go-to consumer space because most video games have a really realistic sound design, which most of the time is spatial,” Simon explains. “That’s why it was our first focus for the consumer space. But spatial audio is always growing. Netflix has incorporated Dolby Atmos; Dolby Atmos as an audio format has moved into music production; spatial audio is now used by Microsoft Teams; and spatial audio is also moving to YouTube. For us this is not only about gaming. There are many situations in our real life where we will benefit from this technology.”

Crucial to the next phase of Audioscenic’s evolution is the expansion of its hardware partnerships. At present, its Amphi software has been deployed in soundbars and laptops, but according to Simon, there is scope to roll it out across all manner of devices.

“This technology just needs two speakers to work,” he elaborates. “That means we can put the technology in many places. Laptops are the next key step for us, but anything with two speakers can work - smartphones, handheld consoles, tablets. Then going forward we are looking at the automotive industry –new cars have headrest speakers, so we can offer every passenger in the car spatial audio.

“Our software is ready to be implemented into products by our customers,” he continues. “Our job is to take that software and product-ise it in a way that is easy to adopt and then support our customers to really adopt this software.”

The opportunities that lie ahead, it seems, are endless. With the ability to be incorporated into virtually any piece of hardware from which customers can consume content, the Amphi software is ready and waiting to be unleashed en masse. The challenge, however, is simply placing the product in people’s hands so they can experience it directly.

“Hearing is believing, and we can only achieve that by demonstrating the technology to people,” he says. “And then there is the process of packaging it in a way that is affordable and practical. This is a very complex system. There is algorithm design and there is AI, so we are training the technology to know where you are moving your head, when you are leaning in a different direction. And we need to make sure it’s affordable. But gradually people are hearing it, and they are understanding the benefits of this technology.”

In speaking with Simon, there is a palpable sense that Audioscenic is on the precipice of a significant breakthrough. In bringing a fully spatial listening experience to multiple markets in a simple and practical manner without the need for an audio degree or a professional grade budget, the company is undoubtedly bringing something fresh to the industry. And with Simon and his team spearheading the business and the innovation, 2025 is shaping up to be Audioscenic’s biggest year yet.

“We are preparing for the next big show for us, which is CES, and we want to make some big announcements between now and then,” he asserts. “We are looking to bring in some new partners and products that will be really impactful on the market. Watch this space!”

Photo credit: Rich Fury

OW R D S BYCOLBY RAMSEY

MIXINGPHISH

AT SPHERE

LIVE AND KICKING

In the last issue of Headliner, we learned how monitor engineer Robert ‘Void’ Caprio used Lawo mc² 56 mixing consoles on Phish’s four-night, 68-song run at Sphere in Las Vegas; Void discussed his workflow and revealed some of the challenges associated with mixing a band that refuses to do things the conventional way. In this final part of the series, broadcast engineer Vance Powell explains how he webcasts every Phish show from an OB truck, and reveals how the Lawo desk brings all the elements of this spectacular show together…

Tell us who you are and what you do.

My name is Vance Powell. I’m from Nashville, Tennessee. I’m the owner of Sputnik Sound production and mix studios, and I am the broadcast mixer for Phish.

How did you first get involved in this project?

I have been producing or co-producing records with Trey Anastasio and Phish since about 2017. FOH engineer Garry Brown and I have known each other for 25 years or so. I ran into Garry out on the road; he was mixing the broadcast and the PA for the band, and that’s a

tough one because the masters for those are totally different. So, they asked me if I wanted to go down and do some shows in Mexico. I went and did it, and was just struck by how great all the people were, and how enjoyable it was. Then they said, ‘hey, we’ve got a few dates in April; do you want to go do them?’ So I did. Then I was like, I guess I might as well do the summer now, and then it was like, I might as well do the fall, and then the MSG run, and then Mexico came up again, and now here I am at Sphere.

Tell us about your workflow.

Out here at the OB truck, we’re at the end of a long piece of fiber that runs up to the stage, and there’s a bunch of power cores up there. We all have our own mic pres on our respective desks, so we all have control individually. That’s a really good thing for us; I need a different gain structure to Garry because I don’t have 45,000 or 50,000 watts of power and huge speakers behind me. Instead I have tiny speakers going through a tube which is essentially the Internet, so it’s a different concept. All of the feeds come to me, and then I’m processing them with a lot of analogue gear to get the effects that I want. We do have a Waves SoundGrid

that does some of the effects, but I’m basically taking it like I’m mixing a live record, being played live by live people.

What kind of outboard gear are you using?

I have a few things that are go-tos whether I’m making records, mixing records or doing a live broadcast. A couple of them are real simple: distressors, API EQs on kick and snare, LA-2A on the bass. I love these old Lexicon PCM 42 digital delays. I’ve also brought along a couple pieces of my own including this Looptrotter Monster, which is a Polish stereo compressor that’s kind of like an 1176 with a

saturation circuit. It’s really nice. Then we have some Empirical Labs Fatsos, and this Chandler RS124 compressor that I love.

On the output bus I’m using the same thing I’ve used for the majority of my career: an API 2500 as a stereo bus compressor, followed by a Kush Audio Clariphonic. And then we have a Manley Stereo Pultec EQ, a couple of Bricasti reverbs, and an Eventide H3000.

“I’M AN ANALOGUE GUY SO IT’S NOT EASY FOR ME TO SAY I REALLY LOVE THE WAY IT SOUNDS, BUT I DO.”

Could you tell us more about your workflow on the Lawo mc² 56 console?

One of the interesting things about the Lawo is that, unlike other digital boards where things are very much in place, it is a little more open ended. Any fader can be anything. Any fader could be a VCA, a group or an input. You can have a group output, a group return, an effects return or an AUX return, and then five channels with a VCA panel control. On each panel there’s six layers with an A-B split, which is incredibly powerful.

The EQ and the compressor sounds great; I’m really blown away by it. I’m an analogue guy so it’s not easy for me to say I really love the way it sounds, but I do. It’s been a joy to mix on, and to me it’s just an impressive piece of engineering.

How have you adapted to some of the challenges associated with mixing in a live scenario like this?

In the studio, it’s all about the load in and the show. In other words, it’s important to have all your pieces together on the front side, instead of going into a building that you’ve been in two or three times and having to sort it out. As far as the actual performance, it’s exactly the same, because they’re both the most important thing there is in the process of the job you’re doing. The live performance

that the band is playing on stage in front of the crowd is every bit as important as when they played it in the studio at the same level. You’ve got to make sure in the studio that you have everything right, so that nothing goes wrong in the session to kill the performance.

It’s also important that the console, the mic pres, and everything else is redundant. So I have my own mic pres, but I’m also connected to Garry’s mic pres, so if something goes wrong with mine I can hit one button and it instantly switches. It’s the same for him and the same for Void. That’s a very cool feature. Also we have the UHD cores, which are the DSPs. I have two, Garry has two, and Void has two, which means that my console is actually running a mirror of itself all the time. If anything fails, it failsafes automatically because the live stream is important. Nobody wants to hear somebody come over the PA and say, ‘hey, the PA is broke’ or whatever, and nobody wants to hear that same thing for the live stream. It’s all really important, and I can tell you that this Lawo mc² 56 has been rock solid.

MAKING A FIRMER HAND

HAMISH HAWK

On August 16, singer songwriter Hamish Hawk released his third album A Firmer Hand. Headliner joins him for an in-depth look at the ‘vulnerable-making’ nature of the album and the art of songwriting…

It can be challenging at times to connect the warm, bright, erudite iteration of Hamish Hawk chatting so breezily to Headliner on a hazy spring afternoon with the version that reveals itself on his new third album A Firmer Hand. Joining us over

Zoom from West Yorkshire where he is visiting family, he is incredibly generous with his time and as convivial a presence one could hope to encounter.

Over the course of his previous two records Heavy Elevator (2021) and Angel Numbers, Hawk’s sumptuous wordplay combined with an uncanny ability to carve out wistful, melancholy melodies has marked him out as a master of language among his contemporaries. Echoes of the humour and wit of Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon and Smiths era/early Morrissey can be detected across the indie rock infused chamber pop of both albums, not least in the form of some of the finest song titles seen this side of the millennium – This, Whatever It Is, Needs Improvements; The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973; and Elvis Look-alike Shadows being just a few excellent examples.

A Firmer Hand, however, is a different beast entirely. The playful nature of those previous two records has been

peeled away to reveal what is by some distance Hawk’s darkest outing yet. Much of the album is concerned with, as he puts it, airing subjects he has previously felt unable to address, whether out of guilt, repression, embarrassment or otherwise.

“It’s definitely a darker record,” he says as we delve into the origins of A Firmer Hand. “People talk about the ‘difficult second record’, but I’m intrigued by what bands do with their third record. A band will often have a clear statement of intent on a first record, maybe follow it up with something similar, and then there are decisions to be made: continue in a similar vein or take an about turn and do something completely different. I’ve found it quite common when looking at third records that there is either a complete departure or a darker twist or turn.

“It wasn’t necessarily that the band and I approached this record wanting it to be darker or take a different turn, it naturally came as a result of the first songs I wrote for the record –Questionable Hit and Machiavelli’s Room Questionable Hit came first. It’s a song that is very much on the attack and is quite honest in a way that surprised me. I didn’t know it would foreshadow a new album - it was actually written before Angel Numbers was written and released.

It’s easy to see how the lyrics to Machiavelli’s Room would set the tone for all that was to follow. Its vivid descriptions of carnal encounters and tangled emotions take much of the album’s subject matter and distil it to its potent essence.

Photp credit: Michaela Simpson

“Since writing and recording this album, I’ve spent some time going over Heavy Elevator and Angel Numbers, and when I was writing the lyrics to those albums I never… how to articulate this,” he begins before pausing to consider his words – something he does often during our time together. “It was never as if I was engaged in or looking to… it’s really difficult to get my words around it! I wasn’t trying to create artifice; I wasn’t trying to hide anything; but I love words, and I love knocking different words off other words and the contrasting ideas that come out of that. I love the interplay of different ideas, and Heavy Elevator and Angel Numbers came very naturally to me, and they created a world for this character Hamish Hawk – even though that is of course my own name [laughs] – to invent a place where that character could reside. I was playing games with words and dancing around with them a lot.

“With these first songs for A Firmer Hand there was a distinct lack of embellishment and overly poetic language. It was almost a test to see how plain speaking I could be. I wasn’t trying to be verbose or fanciful. It didn’t make much sense to me to have such honest and essentially blunt songs next to overly fanciful songs, so the album was

about boiling it down to its essential parts while still feeling creatively satisfied by the lyrics I was coming up with.”

In writing this way, he says he learned a lot about the art of songwriting, and that he expects to learn a lot more about the meaning of this batch of songs once it is released to the masses.

“This album has taught me a huge amount about lyric writing and what’s important to communicate,” he says. “But it’s also been very exposing and vulnerable-making. It’s a funny thing when you write a record because even after recording it you don’t know what it sounds like. When you hear a recording, you hear yourself. For me it’s my voice or the lyric, for the band it might be the instruments, that’s what you focus on for the first several listens. And then, if you’re lucky, 20 or 30 listens later you start to hear something that an audience might hear. You play live enough times, and you get to know that what you experience onstage and what they experience out there are two different worlds. I’m really excited about this album coming out because I’m still in the dark as to what it really sounds like [laughs].”

Photo credit: Michaela Simpson

“THERE IS AN ELECTRICITY IN THE AIR THAT HOLDS A CERTAIN PROMISE. I CAN’T WAIT FOR PEOPLE TO HEAR IT.”

While the process of writing A Firmer Hand was no doubt an invigorating process, it wasn’t without its challenges.

“I wrote and then disposed of far more lyrics than I did with the previous records,” he recalls. “With the previous albums there were times where the lyrics felt like catching lightening in a bottle. A lot of songwriters seem to describe this experience, which is where you sit down to write words, and you don’t know what you’re going to write. You’re sitting with the blinking cursor or the blank piece of paper in front of you, and if you’re lucky you become a vehicle for something that feels like it’s coming from out of the sky. With this album there were those moments, as I think there always will be with any creative pursuit, but it was also a very intentional record. I had lots of verses, choruses and bridges, and I just condensed them down to the bare essential.

“At various times I was tearing my hair out with it. And I still feel like I don’t know what the songs sound like, but I can be sure that for the majority of the lyrics I chose the right path.”

One song that bucks the trend much of the album follows is lead single Big Cat Tattoos. Its disco beat and choppy guitars bear traces of Franz Ferdinand, while you can almost hear the cocked eyebrow in Hawk’s arch delivery on lines such us, ‘How I used to like to watch you fixing me a drink, ‘Til manhandling the

crystalware became your kink’. On an album so sonically stark, it serves as a sparkling, mischievous interlude.

“That was a pivotal song for the record in my mind,” he smiles, as he prepares to offer up another thoughtful, carefully considered insight. “Each album I’ve written has had a song that had so much promise in terms of the lyrics it brought to the table. Sometimes Andrew Pearson (guitarist) or Stefan Maurice (drummer), will send me a demo and I will just spend a day in a café or at home and I’ll batter out some lyrics. I’ll write pages and pages, the majority of which will be terrible, but it’s almost like a blank canvas of a song and I throw the kitchen sink at it. I end up with a collection of images that surprise even me. Big Cat Tattoos is one of those.

“There were all kinds of images when I first started writing it that resonated with me in ways I didn’t expect,” he continues. “Each record has one of those tracks. With Angel Numbers it’s something like Money With Big Cat Tattoos it was Colonel Tom Parker, the hot wars, the cygnet ring, the shoegaze, and the crystalware and the kink [chuckles]. All these words and images, it was an exciting song to write. Those songs are easily identified by me because you couldn’t possibly hope to have a handle on them the first time you hear them. Even as a songwriter you can write something like that and go, ‘seriously’? [laughs]. But as maximalist as those songs are

lyrically, they are very carefully done. I’ll edit and redraft those songs. I haven’t just gone all-out and allowed everything to stick. They almost take the most attention, especially when it comes to things like rhythm. It has to sound right. I’ve heard it on the radio recently and it sounds absolutely bizarre [laughs]. You put it next to another song and it really sticks out. I hope that’s a good thing.”

We round off our conversation by revisiting the theme of third albums and the often-pivotal role they can play in an artist’s career trajectory. He refers to The White Stripes’ White Blood Cells and Arctic Monkeys’ Humbug as notable cases in point. In the case of Hawk and A Firmer Hand, it’s hard to see the record as anything other than a creative cornerstone; one from which new artistic avenues appear bound to unfurl.

“For the band and I, despite it not being out yet, we are happy that this album is demanding its own seat at the table,” he remarks. “There is an electricity in the air that holds a certain promise. I’m really pleased it’s the third album and I can’t wait for people to hear it. I hope it goes down a treat!”

HAMISHHAWK.COM

RAISING THE BAR

MARTIN LIGHTING’S MACONE

Martin Lighting’s Wouter Verlinden – product manager, creative LED, lighting and control – shines a spotlight on the MAC One fixture and explains how the manufacturer is raising the bar in terms of developing fast and responsive lighting fixtures, and how the popular backlight effect on the MAC One was a happy accident.

How did Martin Lighting come up with the idea to create the MAC One fixture?

The MAC One came about in a quite unconventional way. We have had the MAC Aura family of products for a long time, but then we thought, ‘What if we did something smaller?’ – so the MAC One was born out of the idea of making a really small fixture that’s easy to use in large quantities. It’s been a while since Martin did something in that category. The most memorable product would be the MAC 101, which was more than 10 years ago; it’s not really a continuation, but it was inspired

by that small lighting fixture that fits everywhere and is easy to use in large quantities thanks to the weight and the size of the fixture. So the idea of doing a small fixture came from saying, ‘The MAC Aura is a really useful product. What if we take it one step smaller?’.

“AS SOON AS WE STARTED PROTOTYPING A FRESNEL LENS FOR THIS FIXTURE, THE LOOK OF THE LENS GAVE US GOOSEBUMPS.”

The Fresnel lens seems to be a big part of the identity of this product. Was it there from the initial concept?

There were a few different ideas. One of the ideas in the beginning was to do a bubble lens, like the MAC Aura, but to make it smaller, with fewer bubbles, but that didn’t look good. We also know that designers love the single lens look rather than the dotted or bubble look that has become the norm over the last 10 years, or a PC lens. But the problem with the PC lens is that it’s quite heavy, and we want this fixture to be extremely fast on the pan and tilt movements. You need to have a very lightweight lens sitting at the front of the unit, and that’s where the Fresnel came in – to make a really lightweight lens at the front of the fixture, allowing it to be fast and responsive on movements. As soon as we started prototyping a Fresnel lens for this fixture, the look of the lens gave us goosebumps. I’m 100% sure that our designer community also really loves the look of Fresnel lens. It has a little retro feel to it because that’s how lighting fixtures used to be, before we all went LED and modern. The original theatrical-style fixtures used a Fresnel lens. The feedback on that lens has been overwhelmingly positive; it’s a breath of fresh air after 10 years of wash lights all having that bubble look, which Martin also started with a MAC Aura, many years ago.

Lighting designers love lighting fixtures that are fast and responsive. How did you raise the bar in that regard with this fixture?

From the start, it was meant to be a small fixture that produces a very punchy beam when you pull the zoom to an arrow. It’s really important that that beam can move fast and be responsive from standing still, to being at full speed – ramping up quickly.

The weight of the fixture helped a lot with that. In this fixture, we employed a new set of technology. Normally a lot of parts in moving lighting fixtures are metal and aluminium; here we used a lot of composite plastics to reduce the weight, and by making the weight of both the yoke and the head of the fixture much lower, the motors can move them around faster. We kept the pan and tilt motors from the MAC Aura, which is a bigger, heavier fixture, but combined it with a much lower weight of fixture, allowing for higher acceleration and higher speed. We also combined that with our latest motor control algorithms in the firmware of the fixture. This was invented for the MAC Ultra to allow that big fixture to be faster and more responsive. That same technology was used in the MAC One where it allows the speed and the responsiveness, acceleration and deceleration to be insanely impressive. Then we pulled all the strings from mechanical design, to motor control, to firmware design, to all work together and get the maximum out of this.

This fixture doesn’t use the traditional red, green, blue and white mix of LEDs. Why did the team opt for a different mix of colours?

For the MAC One, we developed our own LED module. It’s a custom in-house designed module with different LED dies on a single module. Originally it was red, green, blue or white. The first prototypes, which we still have somewhere in the basement, were using red, green, blue and white LEDs. Then we were working on a lot of different fixtures where the lime gave us something extra. Halfway during the development we modified that custom LED module. We flipped the white LEDs out and put lime LEDs in. We started testing it, and it gave us more than we expected. It was a win-win situation: we got more light out of the products than we had with the red, green, blue and white engine, but at the same time, the lighting spectrum was a lot nicer. So both on a TM-30 scale or CRI scale, or even more importantly, for television and broadcast, a TLCI scale, the numbers went up massively. We got much richer colours – much richer skin tones – out of that red, green, blue, lime chip, so it was obvious for us. We get the same colours, we get even more output than we had with the white version, and now we get a much richer spectrum of light, which is great in theatre applications, but also on television, with cameras being sensitive to how the lighting spectrum is constructed. So that was a win-win and we knew we were staying with this solution.

The backlight effect of this fixture looks quite unique. How did that new look and technology come to life?

I often joke that the backlight on the MAC One was an accident, but it was really an accident! We never meant it to look like that. It was literally me and two of our optical engineers playing around in the optical lab in Aarhus, Denmark. We were playing with some LED tape behind the lens, putting it in different positions and different angles, and all of a sudden we got this really nice look that you see on the MAC One – this turbine look with all these lines in the lens. We thought, ‘This looks quite amazing. It’s totally not what any of us had envisioned’. Then we made a purpose-built circuit board with the LEDs in that pattern and in that position behind the lens, and that became the backlight – just by playing around! Sometimes, when we do lighting fixtures, we plan really well in advance what it is going to look like, what it’s going to do, what it’s not going to do, but the backlight on the MAC One was one of those moments of playing around and finding the magic inside the product. That was one of those really nice moments where you say, ‘I think we found something!’

What’s the idea behind the fourbar accessory and what benefits does it bring?

The fourbar was one of my personal ideas that I brought into the project, as I’ve been doing lighting for many decades. In my early days, we had a fourbar of PARcans, so it was a 1.5

metre aluminium bar with four lights on it, and you would hang that on a stage, and it was great to get a lot of lights on a stage. Rather than hanging the lights one by one, you would hang up a bar of four PAR64 cans. When we worked on this product, I started sketching some ideas and I quickly realised, ‘If this fixture is so small and so lightweight, we can actually take that old idea of putting four fixtures on the bar and bring that into a modern version,’. You take up a bar of four fixtures, hang them up in the lighting rig, and four fixtures are there – so you’re not hanging lights one by one, but just in blocks of four. This really speeds up the workflow on touring shows and festivals because we don’t have a lot of time to hang all the lights. Then as we started designing that fourbar, we put a lot of smart ideas in there. We made it so that our flight case fits the fourbar with four fixtures on it, so you don’t need to put the fixtures on the bar when you’re out and about. The cabling between the fixtures also can stay on the bar in the flight case. You take a bar of four and they’re already pre cabled. We added some safety solutions to the fourbars, so you don’t need safeties on every fixture. We added a floor stand, so if you want to put four fixtures behind the drummer, you just take the fourbar, flip out the feet and put it on the floor. So a lot of smart ideas went into that very basic idea of going back to the retro solution of a bar with four lights that can be hung everywhere. All of a sudden, now it’s a bar of four lighting fixtures, but they can all move.

Is this fixture mainly designed for bigger shows where they are used in large quantities?

That’s often misleading with the MAC One because we do this matrix system and because we have the fourbars to hang them in blocks of four. This is great for touring concerts and for festivals where you want a wall of hundreds of these lights, which definitely looks cool. But then as we started showing this lighting fixture to more traditional customers – working in theatre and broadcast television – they also saw that the fixture is great for those applications I just mentioned, but this small fixture with this high light quality (thanks to the lime coloured LEDs) also works great for what they are doing. They’re looking for small lighting fixtures which are extremely silent that can be fitted in small theatres at low ceiling heights, studios, or low trim height theatres. The MAC One also works great in those applications. It’s a very versatile small wash light – even forgetting about the fourbar and forgetting about that grid mount system – just as a regular, small fixture. It ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of applications. It’s definitely not a one trick pony.

No-compromise 9.1.6 immersive audio package from Merging Technologies

Provides 12 analog outputs, 3 headphone outputs, 8 AES/EBU I/O, 8 ADAT I/Oplus 2 Mic/Line inputs with control at your fingertips.

MAKING

‘SOMETHING TO SAY’

THE GLEEMAN

Singer songwriter Dean Morris, aka The Gleeman, is on the brink of releasing his debut album Something To Say, a collection of intricately crafted pop vignettes that have been decades in the making. Headliner caught up with him to discuss the origins of the record and why the industry needs to do more to support new mature artists…

Something To Say, the debut album from Hertfordshire-based singer songwriter Dean Morris – better known by his artist moniker The Gleeman – has been a lifetime in the making. Technically speaking, work began on the album, which is released on November 1, back in 2019, but there are moments on the record that can be traced back as far as 30 years ago.

A lifelong music fan and musician, Morris had always harboured ambitions to not just release a collection of songs, but to do so in style. He’d write music sporadically in his teens and beyond, but as he puts it, life would soon get in the way of any plans to build a bona fide career as an artist. Now in his mid-50s, he is placing every ounce of energy and commitment into his first album release.

Not content with throwing a bunch of scratchy demos together on GarageBand and calling it an album, he’s created his own label Mean Dorris Music, recruited the services of Ed Sheeran producer Will Hicks, and drummer for the likes of Adele, Ash Soan, and former Noah and the Whale guitarist/keyboardist Fred Abbott, as well as produced a special vinyl edition featuring half speed mastering methods to offer high end audio performance. In short, there are no half measures to be found anywhere on this album.

“I always had it in my mind that one day I would give it a proper crack,” says Morris. “But I went to uni, got a job, bought a house, had a family, and all these things take priority at those times. Then it reached a point where it was now or never. The first point in the process was getting some vocal coaching, as I wasn’t particularly confident having not performed before. Then things started slotting into place from there.

“I was introduced to Will Hicks and the plan was to go to a studio in early 2020 to record the album and thrash it out, but obviously plans changed a little! So, it was put on hold for a little while and we started recording it around July 2020. We came away with 13 tracks and had it mixed by Ash Howes who did a great job. And then it was like, we have this album, now what do I do?”

What followed was a lengthy period during which Morris familiarised himself with the music business and formulated a plan for the release of the record.

“I spoke to a number of people in the industry to try and get some help releasing it,” he explains. “And there are no quick wins in the music industry, so we took our time with it. So, what we initially wanted to turn around in about three months has now taken

about three or four years! But you have to take the time to build a fanbase, get the gigs under your belt, build your social media following, and get some radio and TV support. I’ve been working with some great people, but it’s tough. And as a new mature artist it’s tougher still.”

According to Morris, the opportunities available to mature artists looking to release music for the first time are negligible. And without a more open-minded approach, he believes the industry is depriving swathes of creators and audiences alike the chance to connect and engage.

“The industry at large is very poor at supporting new mature artists,” he asserts. “That stems from the record labels – they are very interested in the hot, trendy, young artists they can hook fans in early. Obviously, you have legacy artists and places like Radio 2 which is great at supporting new music from established acts, but there are very few routes to market for mature artists breaking onto the scene. There are some very talented artists out there who are being ignored and the industry is failing older music lovers by not providing them with new music from older artists.”

Intent on bucking this trend, Morris has not just been exerting his efforts in the studio. From the moment he decided to embark on this project, he started booking solo gigs and turning up at open mic nights to test his mettle on the live stage.

“It’s scary,” he laughs, describing his decision to start performing in front of an audience. “You don’t have the armour and bravery of youth to protect you. It’s daunting and at the beginning I suffered really bad nerves. The first gig I did was OK but after the second one I just wondered why I was doing it. It was torture. Getting over it was difficult, and I’ve come across others who have been through similar situations, but you have to dig your heels in. And the more you do it the better you get and the easier it becomes. But putting yourself out there to do something new when you’re older is difficult.”

While the challenges facing mature artists are indeed manifold, Morris is also keen to point out that there are some benefits to taking up music later in life.

“From an artistic point of view, you have a lot more to draw from,” he continues. “My album reflects that. A 20–25-year-old couldn’t have written this album – they wouldn’t have had the life experiences to draw from. I’m a very story-driven songwriter and all my songs have something to say. There is meaning; there is thought; it’s trying to make a point, and I think music is most effective when it can connect with you on that deeper level.”

With the release date of Something To Say now within touching distance, is Morris now in a place where he can reflect on his achievement? The culmination of a lifetime’s work, one may assume, is surely something to look up on with pride.

“It might be when I can sit down, relax and look back at what I’ve done,” he says with a smile. “To hear these songs, some of which are over 30

years old, finally brought to life has been amazing. The process was a little bit daunting to start with. I was going into a studio with a producer who has made some massive hits and some great musicians. It took me a little while to ease into that in the studio and to find my voice. Fortunately, they were all great and generous with their time. Will was a great teacher, and I learned a lot. And to come out of it with these songs was really nice, where something you had written 30 years ago on an acoustic guitar is a fully realised song and is out there on an album.”

Of course, the work is far from over. In the days and weeks leading up to the album’s release – and most likely beyond – Morris will remain in full on promo mode. As each and every aspect of the album suggests, he is doing everything in his power to ensure Something To Say lands with

as significant an impact as possible. He’ll be looking to build upon recent appearances on Sunday Morning Live and airings on Radio 2 with yet more performances and media engagements. He may be late to the game, but his drive and ambition are as lofty and fierce as anyone’s. Perhaps even more so.

“For the past few years it’s been full pelt,” he signs off. “A lot of people may not have done it as full on as I have. I’d always gone into it with that approach. And it’s been amazing. But you’re just so focused on what needs to be done on a day-to-day basis. You have to just try and make it happen.”

THEGLEEMAN.CO.UK

“A must-listen for fans of classic singer-songwriters and anyone who appreciates heartfelt storytelling and evocative melodies”

Broken 8 Records

“Worth the wait” RecordMagazineCollector

THE DEBUT ALBUM - 2X LP VINYL / CD / DIGITAL

Available to pre-order NOW at Amazon, HMV and all good independent stores.

As seen on BBC One and as heard on BBC Radio 2 & Boom Radio

“A collection of fourteen well written and beautifully arranged songs”

HHHH RnR Magazine

“A troubadour of intelligent pop, bringing his astute song craft to a town near you”

Paul Sexton – Music Journalist, Broadcaster & Author

“Every now and again a new artist emerges and you just go wow! This is one such artist”

Carrie & David Grant – BBC Radio London

“The Gleeman’s music effortlessly touches the heart with amazing grace” Rock Era Magazine

“As a mature artist The Gleeman deftly deals with heavy themes. Listening to ‘Something To Say’ is not only enjoyable, but therapeutic!”

Jim Benner – Global Music Lead, War Child UK

INSIDE BRUNO MARS’ NEW VENUE

THE PINKY RING

The brainchild of global pop star Bruno Mars, The Pinky Ring is a sleek and stylish live music venue and cocktail bar located in Las Vegas’s Bellagio Resort & Casino. Featuring an L-Acoustics A series sound system, the space has been designed to bring world-class, cutting-edge sound to an intimate, old school setting. Headliner spoke to former Mars systems engineer and current L-Acoustics applications engineer Sully Sullivan to find out how the vision of the artist became a reality.

Having shown himself to be a top tier Vegas draw via his staggering nineyear residency run at Dolby Live at Park MGM – home to an L-Acoustics K2 sound system – Bruno Mars has added further still the mark he has left on the city in the form of The Pinky Ring. An intimate 200-capacity new venue inside the Bellagio Resort & Casino has been designed in the image of the artist himself, boasting a glamorous cocktail bar chic and a dynamism that lends itself to both up-and-coming acts and stadiumfilling superstars alike. The venue’s grand opening was marked with a two-week residency by Mars and his group The Hooligans.

Crucial to the success of the venue was an audio system that could

match its vibrant aesthetic. Integrated by PSX, the concert sound system was specified by the acoustics firm Designtechnik, assisted by Sullivan, to assist with the design. Using L-Acoustics Soundvision acoustical modelling software, they created a system featuring ceiling-flown main arrays of one A15i Focus over one A15i Wide above each side of the stage. For low end, four Syva Sub enclosures are horizontally lined and pocketed in concrete under the deck and flanked by a single end-stacked KS28 sub on either side, each topped with a coaxial X12 for front-fill. A pair of X15 HiQ wedges sit in front of the stage for monitoring.

The back of The Pinky Ring’s ‘living room’ and dance floor area sports

three ceiling-mounted X8 delay speakers paired with two low-profile SB10i subs, with additional X8 and SB10i deployed throughout the two primary VIP areas. The rear seating banquettes feature a combined total of six X4i and three SB10i to allow those in the most expensive seats to experience the most intimate of shows. Six ultra-compact X4i speakers plus four SB6i subs are flown overhead along the main entrance hallway, which is lined with Grammy Awards. Power for the Syva Subs and KS28 are provided by an LA12X amplified controller, with the rest of the setup driven by an LA7.16i. An L-Acoustics P1 on the front end of the system handles Milan-AVB conversion.

“WHEN IT CAME TO SOUND, THERE WAS NEVER ANY OTHER OPTION BEYOND L-ACOUSTICS.”

“Bruno and I had a conversation as to what the vibe should be,” Sullivan tells Headliner, explaining the origins of the project. “We chatted and he gave me the information as to what he wanted in the venue, which was effectively this upscale venue that was at the same time intimate and sounded fantastic. That was the idea we went with, and we translated that to the integrators. And when it came to sound, there was never any other option beyond L-Acoustics.”

For Sullivan, the L-Acoustics Soundvision software proved invaluable in achieving a setup that could deliver premium sound without compromising the visual signature of the space.

“The L-acoustics software and the whole ecosystem itself from top to bottom is something I was very familiar with,” he continues. “And it was a favourite of the crew already. We knew L-Acoustics would get the job

done. The integration of Soundvision was seamless. I was able to give Bruno a 3D flythrough representation of what the venue would look like using Soundvision. That was key in getting him to understand what the system would look and feel like. And we could of course map it acoustically very easily.

“All in all, it’s a very stable ecosystem and a very high-quality box. A very neutral box. Because of the size of the venue, I decided that the A series was the way to go. We spent quite a lot of time looking at the acoustic signature of the space - we weren’t just turning up and punching energy into the room. We had two acousticians specifically to review the site to make sure there wouldn’t be anything strange coming back at the stage or reverberating around the space unnecessarily. And Bruno was fantastically happy with the outcome.”

Sullivan also points out that the system is purposefully over-delayed to the front of the room to foster visual fusion, as per Mars’s request.

“Everything is over-delayed but filled in so that the image is perceived as coming directly from the stage,” he elaborates. “For example, the under-

banquette speakers are dialled down almost 10 dB; they’re primarily used to pull the image, rather than to be impactful. It’s a subtle effect and the only way to realise that they’re doing something is to shut everything off back there, at which point it sounds really flat and empty. But when you turn them on, the sound suddenly feels nice and round and like it’s coming straight off the stage.”

For freelance engineer Brandon Andreasen, who has mixed The Hooligans at the intimate, 200-capacity space, The Pinky Ring has proved to be an overwhelming success, delighting everyone from performers and audiences, to the engineers and technicians operating behind the scenes.

“Music is undoubtedly at the heart of The Pinky Ring experience,” he concludes. “When Bruno gets

onstage, as he’s still known to do from time to time, the screaming crowd can clock in at over 100 dBA, so we needed a speaker system that could compete with that while still preserving the fidelity and nuance of the performance. I’m so impressed by the amount of power that such a small L-Acoustics A15i array can produce; I feel like we get an arena-sized sound out of the discrete two-box arrays that we have here at The Pinky Ring.”

Words by COLBY R A YESM

SMALL BUT MIGHTY

DIGICO QUANTUM326

“WE’VE HAD OUR R&D TEAM GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.”

DiGiCo launched the Compact Quantum326 Console at PLASA 2024, as Headliner recently discovered…

When the DiGiCo Quantum338 made its official 3:38pm launch at the 2020 NAMM Show, hundreds of curious onlookers gathered around the company’s booth. Since then, that product has gone on to be a global success, both out on tours and in myriad fixed instals.

But with console-footprint ‘real estate’ frequently being in short supply,

DiGiCo has fielded many customer requests for a more compact, twoscreen model, setting the stage for the new Quantum326 launching at PLASA.

“A considerable number of audio professionals have asked us for a smaller version of the Quantum338 – and specifically one with zero compromises to its feature set – so we’ve had our R&D team give the people what they want,” says DiGiCo managing director Austin Freshwater.

“Aside from sporting one less screen and a dozen fewer faders, the Quantum326 is every bit the same remarkably powerful, versatile and robust desk as its larger sibling, perfectly extending our full Quantum experience to a host of smaller performance spaces and touring productions with tighter logistics constraints.”

Just like the Quantum338, the Quantum326 represents a leap forward in power and connectivity. Based on the latest seventh-generation FPGAs, DiGiCo’s newest mixing console offers 128 input channels with 64 busses and a 24x24 matrix, all with full channel processing.

26 100mm touch-sensitive faders are laid out in two blocks of 12 fader banks, plus two dedicated user-assignable faders, each complete with high resolution metering.

The desk also features a pair of 17-inch, 1000-nit highbrightness multi-touch screens, plus 58 individual TFT channel displays. Other amenities include ‘Ultimate Stadius’ 32-bit ADC and DAC conversion, six single MADI connections, dual DMI slots and much more.

The Quantum326 may also be upgraded with DiGiCo’s optional Pulse software update, increasing the console’s number of standard input channels to 156

(from 128), busses to 72 (from 64), Mustard Processors to 48 (from 36), and Nodal Processors to 72 (from 64). Another perk of the recent Pulse upgrade is the addition of Mix Minus functionality.

For theatre applications, a Quantum326T version, equipped with the manufacturer’s theatre-specific software package, will additionally be available.

This model comes with the Pulse upgrade already installed as standard, further supplying the user with a generous 36x36 Matrix.

The new Quantum326 and Quantum326T will begin shipping on October 24 of this year.

Words by COLBY R A

KOKO STUDIO UPGRADES WITH PRISM SOUND

MAXIMUM POINTS

KoKo Sound Studios, one of the most sought-after mixing facilities in South Korea, has invested in a Prism Sound Dream ADA-128 multichannel converter as part of a major upgrade to accommodate Dolby Atmos music mixing.

Located at Haengju Fortress, this state-of-the-art facility is owned by Mr. Ko Hyun-Jung who is widely acclaimed for his music mixes across diverse genres including K-Pop, hiphop, rock and R&B.

The decision to upgrade the facility to Dolby Atmos reflects KoKo Sound Studio’s desire to attract international artists that want to tap into the energy and vibrancy of Korean K-Pop, a genre that has become increasingly popular beyond the country’s borders.

In order to achieve a first-rate mixing environment, the studio required additional Dante outputs for 7.1.4

Atmos and high-quality analogue converters for its existing console and outboard gear.

“We wanted all these systems to be managed by a single integrated device, and the Prism Sound Dream ADA-128 was the only product that met all these requirements,” says Hyun-Jung, who is also the studio’s chief engineer. “The converter handles both our existing analogue setup and Dolby Atmos setup in one device. The mix room is designed to handle both stereo and immersive audio work, and switching between them is incredibly simple.”

Launched in 2023, Prism Sound’s Dream ADA-128 modular audio conversion system is designed as both a conversion system and a highperformance, networkable audio distribution and processing system. Aimed at audio professionals across many different disciplines, including music recording, post-production, broadcast, installation, Dolby Atmos and archiving, Dream ADA-128 is designed to deliver exceptional levels of flexibility, functionality, and cost effectiveness without any compromise in sound quality.

Although the upgrade to Dolby Atmos was the primary reason why KoKo Sound Studios purchased a Dream ADA-128, Hyun-Jung says sound quality was also a major factor in his decision-making process.

“I had already experienced Prism Sound’s audio quality with other products, but the ADA-128 stands at the pinnacle,” he explains. “Using analogue consoles and outboard gear in the digital era inevitably requires conversion. Each conversion process tends to degrade the source quality, making it lose clarity and power, but the ADA-128’s conversion significantly alleviates these issues. Even when using hardware inserts from Pro Tools, the signal remains clear and returns to digital without losing its original quality. Since installing the ADA-128 earlier this year, we have noticed a significant improvement in sound quality

compared to our previous converter. Additionally, the large front LCD and the web-controlled driver offer unparalleled convenience.”

KoKo Sound Studio’s Dream ADA-128 was supplied and installed by Prism Sound’s Korean distributor ANK Pro, headed by Tom Kim.

“Tom provided an optimised setup for our studio and easy-to-understand explanations, making it immediately usable for our work,” Hyun-Jung says. “We were really happy with the service he provided – the installation by ANK was quick and precise.”

Although KoKo Sound Studio is dedicated to mixing, it also cooperates with Dreamfactory Studio, a one-stop content creation hub that has music recording facilities. Recent projects have included Lee Young-ji’s Small Girl and Kiss Of Life’s Sticky,

while other artists who have brought their mix projects to KoKo Sound Studios include Lee Seung-Hwan, Yoon Jong-Shin, Toy, Nell, Dynamic Duo, Beenzino, Primary, Crush, Urban-zakapa and Daybreak.

Since arriving in the studio, the Prism Sound Dream ADA-128 has been used for all projects, including Dolby Atmos and stereo mixes.

“It is the only converter that scores 100 points in performance, stability, convenience, and compatibility,” Hyun Jung says. “We are very grateful to Prism Sound for making a device that seems like a dream come true, just as its name suggests.”

PRISMSOUND.COM

KOKOSOUNDSTUDIO.COM

Words by COLBY RAM S

CODA AUDIO POWERS POLISH LIVE EVENTS

I AM MUSIC

I AM MUSIC, a supplier of audio, lighting and AV technology to the Polish events sector, has added a comprehensive CODA Audio system to its inventory, as Headliner recently discovered…

Founded more than 15 years ago, I AM MUSIC’s experienced and dedicated team offer full service design and technical production for all types and sizes of outdoor events, festivals, conferences, corporate events and exhibitions. The company is able to independently meet the technical demands of large scale tours, and has worked with most major stars in the Polish music scene.

To support its commitment to providing its clients with the highest

quality, cutting edge technologies, the company recently took the decision to make a significant investment in adding to its audio inventory and chose a CODA Audio system supplied by CODA’s Polish distributor Tommex.

I AM MUSIC purchased a system based on CODA Audio’s flagship AiRAY line array (16 units) supplemented by ViRAY (12 units) and SCP-F subs (12 units), complemented by two LINUS T-RACK (12-channel touring rack with three LINUS 14D

amplifiers) and a LINUS M-RACK (compact four-channel touring rack with a single LINUS14D amplifier).

A further four HOPS8T (high output point source) and LINUS 12C amplifier provide system expansion, completing a comprehensive solution which can cater for events of every scale.

“WE KNOW THAT THE CODA AUDIO SYSTEM WILL ALLOW US TO

PROVIDE UNFORGETTABLE SOUND EXPERIENCES FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS.”

“From the inception of the company, we have always focused on providing a comprehensive service, which is why we have invested extensively in audio, lighting, multimedia and event-construction services,” says Marcin Makarski, owner of I AM MUSIC. “Our remit includes both large concerts with audiences of tens of thousands, as well as smaller conference and corporate occasions. We know that the CODA Audio system will bring I AM MUSIC a lot of satisfaction and flexibility, allowing us to provide unforgettable sound experiences for all participants in the events we support.”

With around 20,000 fans in attendance, I AM MUSIC’s CODA Audio system made its debut at the Days of Student Culture ‘Juwenalia’ Festival at Lublin University of Technology in May, performing flawlessly in support of performances by a variety of artists including Lydka Grubasa, Kwiat Jabloni, Szpaku, Lady Pank and White 2115.

“It’s rewarding to see another leading events specialist in Poland investing in CODA,” adds David Webster, global director of sales and marketing for CODA Audio. “It demonstrates I AM MUSIC’s ambition to deliver

excellence to their clients as well as reflecting the great work carried out by Tommex in delivering the CODA Audio message across the country.”

CODAAUDIO.COM

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100 YEARS OFACOUSTIC INNOVATION

CELESTION

With a rich legacy spanning 10 decades, Celestion has made countless breakthroughs in loudspeaker technology and is synonymous with innovating the modern guitar speaker, capturing the hearts of generations of players with products that strike an ideal balance between power and tonal richness. Throughout the years, the company has set benchmarks in hi-fi, sound reinforcement and instrument amplification speakers, never losing sight of its focus on innovation and acoustic excellence. That’s why many of today’s most iconic amplifier and PA system manufacturers feature Celestion speakers at their core. Headliner takes a look back at 100 years of acoustic innovation…

Celestion’s story begins in 1924, when former gramophone maker Cyril French, along with his three brothers, founded the Electrical Manufacturing and Plating Company in Hampton Wick on the outskirts of London. French was approached by Eric Mackintosh for help improving his invention, one of the earliest cone loudspeakers. The pair applied for a patent in 1924 for their revolutionary bamboo-reinforced, moving-armature “free-vibrating edge” speaker, which gave birth to a product named The Celestion. The following year they earned a second patent for an improved “clampededge” design, ultimately enabling the company to develop a whole range of even better-performing radiogram loudspeakers of differing sizes. Radio was in its early days; the

BBC was coming to life and everyone, everywhere wanted to experience the “modern marvel” of wireless. The Celestion loudspeaker, an ornate cabinet that doubled as furniture, sold for six pounds ten shillings and came in a choice of wood finishes. Marketed as “The Loud Speaker of Distinction,” it met the exploding demand, and business boomed. Throughout the late 1920s Celestion saw considerable global expansion, and in 1928 the newly incorporated Celestion Ltd. debuted with the motto “The Very Soul of Music,” and now producing several models of loudspeaker and radiogram cabinets, moved to expanded facilities in Kingston-upon-Thames.

The 1930s brought opportunity and challenges to Celestion. As the Great Depression rippled across the globe, British industry suffered. In 1935 the worldwide recession hit Celestion hard, and the first boom came to a close. French and Mackintosh both left Celestion in the early 1930s, with French returning to the Hampton Wick factory to oversee UK distribution. At the same time, the market for speakers shifted from large standalone units to small speakers fitted inside the radios themselves. By the early 1930s the company presented its first permanent-magnet moving-coil speaker, the PPM. Other innovations that decade included a “recording gramophone,” which came complete with a blank disk and cutting needles. In the 1930s the British Rola Company, the English offshoot of the Rola Company of Cleveland, Ohio, was producing loudspeaker products in London. Celestion and Rola competed for both home and export business throughout the 1930s; Celestion would be purchased by Rola a decade later.

During World War 2, both Celestion and British Rola were restricted to manufacturing one loudspeaker, the utility “W” type. Celestion was also chosen by the Government Research Establishment (GRE) to bring its Proximity Fuse into production. Essentially a miniature radar transmitter and receiver operated by a chemical battery, the fuse was capable of detonating an antiaircraft shell when it came within lethal distance of its target. After the war Celestion continued producing speakers for hi-fi, radio and TV systems, in addition to cinema systems and acoustic instruments for the British military. In 1946 the

company was purchased by British Rola, and the two entities combined, becoming known as Rola Celestion. After the merger, production moved to the “Ferry Works” factory In Thames Ditton.

In 1949, Rola Celestion was bought by Truvox, a company based in North London specialising in Public Address loudspeakers and systems.

The 1950s were an era of audio innovation, a time that saw the advent of the stereophonic longplaying record and broadcast television. Half of the radios in the UK had a Rola Celestion branded speaker inside; Celestion now had 400 employees and was producing 30,000 speakers a week.

Celestion’s most significant innovation that decade came in response to a new demand for amplified guitar

music. The iconic Vox AC30, designed to meet the growing need for louder amplifiers, required rugged, reliable loudspeakers. The Celestion G12 speaker, with its alnico magnet, had been in production since it was developed by Rola in the 1930s. Its newest incarnation, the T530, had been modified for use in guitar amps and toughened to withstand the demands of modern instruments and playing techniques. T530 would come to be known as the Alnico Blue, named for the distinctive hue of its finish. When combined with Vox’s high-volume tube amps, the speaker offered a uniquely warm and distinctive tone. By 1962 the newly formed Marshall Amplification had adopted the silver version of the toughened G12 guitar speaker using it with its very first JTM45 amplifiers.

It was the creamy tone produced by the combination of the Celestion speaker and these iconic amplifiers that became one of the defining characteristics of the British Beat Invasion of the 1960s. In late 1964, Celestion began to manufacture ceramic-magnet speakers. Offering a more aggressive tone than their alnico counterparts, they would prove to be perfect for achieving the edgy, overdriven guitar sound that the emerging rock titans were demanding. The following year, Jim Marshall adopted Celestion ceramic speakers, using the T1221, more commonly known as “Greenback” due to its green magnet cover, deploying them in the newly introduced and soon-to-be-iconic 4x12 cabinets.

As rock grew louder and audiences grew larger, amplifiers had to become more powerful. Celestion, in turn, produced the G12 speaker in a range of magnet sizes to meet the demands of stadium and festival stages. New powerhouse amplifiers, outfitted with Celestion speakers, shaped the sounds of the most iconic artists of the time, including Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. The 1960s were arguably the decade when Celestion truly hit its stride. The Truvox brand began to take a back seat

as the company marketed a portfolio of industrial and public address products under the Celestion PA subbrand. Demand for hi-fi systems surged throughout the 1960s, and Celestion responded by launching the Ditton speaker family. In 1968 production began at a newly acquired factory on Foxhall Road, Ipswich and in 1970, parent company Truvox Engineering completed a reverse takeover of the publicly listed Weingarten Brothers clothing company to create Celestion Industries, as a way of injecting more capital into the business.

Celestion made inroads into sound reinforcement initially through its relationship with Watkins Electric Music (WEM) during the 1960s. WEM was famous for its “Wall of Sound” PA, which provided 1,000 watts of power for the 1967 Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival, upgraded to 2,500 watts for The Who at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival. A year later the Isle of Wight sound system featured a Celestion speaker in WEM’s groundbreaking parabolic dish system, which could send audio signals over a remarkably long distance.

As the Swinging Sixties gave way to the 1970s, developments in instrument amplification and a nascent sound reinforcement industry led Celestion to establish the Power Range, with various permutations of the G12 at the forefront, as the go-to “heavy duty cone loudspeaker” for high-power applications be that musical instrument or sound reinforcement. Thanks to their adoption by most British amp makers — and Celestion’s enduring relationship with Marshall in particular — G12M and G12H speakers became synonymous with the sound of rock and roll for anyone seeking the “British tone.” Legions of legendary players made Celestion part of their sound, including Brian May of Queen, Joe Perry and Brad Whitford of Aerosmith, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Angus Young and Malcolm Young of AC/DC and Edward Van Halen. The 1970s were a time of international expansion as Celestion formed subsidiaries in France, West Germany, and the United States. As production demands grew, the company expanded into a second assembly plant in Ipswich, dedicated to hi-fi. When manufacture of the iconic Ditton 44 and 66s was moved from Thames Ditton, the facility was refurbished in 1976, expanding production capability. That October it was officially re-opened by Her Royal Highness, Princess Margaret. The company changed its name to Celestion International in 1979 to reflect its global outlook.

In the 1980s Celestion’s investments in cutting-edge R&D technologies like laser doppler interferometry, led to significant breakthroughs in loudspeaker design, which saw the company emerge as a leader in hi-fi, music-making, and sound reinforcement speakers. The groundbreaking SL6 with its unique copper dome tweeter launched in the early 1980s as the first of an extended family of audiophile speakers introduced that decade. The company also underscored its credentials as a mass-market hi-fi brand for the changing audio landscape of the late 1980s when it set a new standard for budget hi-fi loudspeakers with the launch of the Celestion 3 in 1989. Introduced in 1986 to meet the demands of a new breed of hard rock player, the much-loved Vintage 30 speaker, capable of handling higher power and delivering overdrive, quickly became a favourite of artists and amp and cabinet manufacturers alike and remains an industry standard to this day. As disco peaked in the 1980s, nightclubs proliferated, demand for scalable PA systems grew, and in 1987 Celestion debuted the SR series, the company’s first serious inroads into portable sound-reinforcement systems.

In 1992 Celestion International, along with another British loudspeaker company, KEF, united under the banner of Kinergetics Holdings, Ltd. whose major shareholder was Hong Kong’s Gold

Peak. Ultimately the company evolved into GP Acoustics, with the companies both wholly owned by Gold Peak. Celestion continued to make inroads in pro audio, thanks in large part to an infusion of resources from Gold Peak, which invested heavily in R&D and other resources throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. This led to significant innovations in compression drivers as well as pioneering work with neodymium magnet technologies, ultimately becoming a catalyst for Celestion’s growth in the pro audio market. Eventually, the company began to tilt more toward transducers and away from finished cabinet systems. Initially the focus was on guitar speakers for both OEM customer and retailers, moving high-volume manufacturing to Asia while preserving a “Designed in the UK” focus, with Celestion building marquee products in England. More emphasis was also placed on sound-reinforcement transducers, with the development of low-frequency woofers and high-frequency compression drivers, again for both OEM customers and the retail market. The shift in strategy coincided with a move to a brand-new purpose-designed factory on the outskirts of Ipswich.

“CELESTION HAS LEFT AN INDELIBLE IMPRINT ON THE LANDSCAPE OF SOUND TECHNOLOGY AND SOLIDIFIED A LEGACY THAT RESONATES ACROSS GENERATIONS.”

As the MI side of the business grew, the 2000s saw the launch of Celestion’s Partners in Tone guitar speaker endorsement campaign; today the program boasts a lineup of more than 200 artists and producers, including legends Eric Clapton, Brian May, Robben Ford, Tony Iommi and Steve Vai. Celestion continued to expand its portfolio of American guitar and PA clients throughout the 2000s. It was a boom era for guitar gear; during this time Celestion debuted the Heritage Series, which paid homage to the 1960s sound. This was quickly followed by the Gold, a high-powered alnico speaker; the G12 EVH signature speaker for Edward van Halen; and later, the Creamback range of higherpowered range of vintage-sounding guitar speakers.

By 2006, under the leadership of Nigel Wood, the company finally exited its PA systems and consumer hi-fi businesses, turning its focus toward the design and manufacture of a broader and more comprehensive range of soundreinforcement transducers alongside the established and successful guitar and bass speakers. A streamlined focus on transducers brought major advances in compression

driver technology, including the introduction of the patented deepdrawn diaphragm and maximum modal-suppression phase plug for ultra-low distortion HF performance. Throughout the 2000s, the company collaborated with a growing roster of leading sound-reinforcement companies, developing innovative, often bespoke, pro audio transducers for a broad range of applications.

In 2016 Celestion debuted the Axi2050 “axiperiodic” compression driver, a revolutionary high-power, high-output transducer capable of reproducing an ultra-wide frequency range of 300 Hz to 20 kHz without the need for a mid-band crossover. Reacting to the needs of the MI marketplace, the 2010s saw Celestion diving deep into digital technologies. Digital modellers evolved from simple combo amps with builtin EQ and effects into sophisticated, standalone computing devices featuring sophisticated DSP, largely enabled by the impulse response (IR), a digitised “snapshot” of an acoustic space or a piece of equipment’s acoustic behaviour. In 2017, Celestion launched CelestionPlus.com, offering Celestion guitar speaker and bass speaker tones as downloadable impulse responses. Today, more than

two-thirds of the company’s business is in this market segment: manufacturing low-frequency, high-frequency. and full-range PA products.

In 2020 the company introduced the SpeakerMix Pro plugin, which represented a major leap forward in guitar speaker tone emulation when used together with a new generation of impulse responses, Dynamic Speaker Responses, developed inhouse. The company’s newest UKbuilt guitar speaker, being produced in time for the company’s 100th anniversary celebrations in 2024, is a tribute to the silver alnico speakers of the late ’50s and early ’60s. Named the 100, it is voiced to be as close as possible to the speakers that were the inspiration for the original G12 guitar speaker—but boasts a beefier power rating of 30 watts.

As Celestion continues to produce iconic speakers like the Alnico Blue, Greenback and Vintage 30 that have defined its heritage, it further expands into the PA market, focusing on new driver innovations. Most recently this has included the Ten2 (Ten Squared, or TSQ) prestige range of precision low-frequency speakers, designed and manufactured in the UK and the first range to be built using Celestion’s newly commissioned, robotically assisted production line. Much has changed within Celestion over the past 100 years. Ownership and leadership have transitioned, and markets have shifted. Yet, at its core, the company’s essence remains the same as it was when Eric Mackintosh and Cyril French pioneered one of the world’s initial cone loudspeakers. Through its unwavering pursuit of sonic perfection and relentless drive for innovation, Celestion has left an indelible imprint on the landscape of sound technology and solidified a legacy that resonates across generations of musicians and industry professionals alike.

PowerProX18

18-inch / 2400W

For demanding bass applications

Featuring an advanced cooling system and components with superior thermal stability, PowerProX18 operates with its voice coil consistently at 20°C lower than competing products. The result is ultimate control over power compression, extreme reliability and a relentless high quality performance, even after 100s of hours of use. For more information, contact: engineering@celestion.com

ELAINE MALTEZOS ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES

With a passion for capturing music in its purest form, Elaine Maltezos’s career has taken her from various states across North America all the way to Norway where she now plies her trade, applying her considerable skill set over a variety of pro audio disciplines. Headliner caught up with her to discuss her journey so far and the tech that is so intrinsic to her work.

As a freelance recording engineer and producer at Nobel Lyd in Grieghallen, Maltezos specialises in orchestral recording. Her approach is centred around combining contemporary technology with traditional techniques. Throughout her career she has gained invaluable experience from a range of different areas – she’s been a singer songwriter, a viola player in an orchestra, and has served in all manner of engineering capacities in live, studio, and broadcast settings.

She has also recorded and worked with several acoustic ensembles, artists and festivals, including Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Bergen National Opera, Bit20 Ensemble and Festspillene i Bergen.

“I grew up just outside of Chicago playing viola in the orchestra from the age of eight through to 18,” she informs Headliner via Zoom from her studio. “I went to school at the University of Miami and focused on music engineering but then I switched to a music composition and recording degree instead. When I was 19 in my summer break from school I was supposed to be an intern at the National Repertory Orchestra in Colorado.

“On the second day I got called into the office where I was told the engineer had left and that I was now the new engineer, as I had studied engineering! It was a bit intense, but I said OK and got thrown into it. And it felt amazing. I grew up playing in an orchestra, so I knew that world. I was moving between Colorado and Los Angeles around that time period while working at the orchestra during seasons. I was also doing some film scoring in New Orleans. And then I moved to Norway about 10 years ago.”

So, what prompted the move away from the US to Norway?

I left the orchestra position because I wanted to try being a studio engineer in LA, but I realised I wasn’t cut out for LA,” she recalls. “I didn’t thrive there. I like being close to nature and I also don’t like having to hustle in the way you sometimes have to in LA. I’m a citizen here now, I speak Norwegian. There is a thriving music scene here. Everybody is really down to earth and they give you a chance and an open mind. I felt a culture shock in the first 18 months, but I love it now. It took me a while to find work though.

“I was knocking on doors looking for work and I ended up going back to school to do a postgraduate degree in Bergen doing recording. And I was able to go to the concert hall, which is gorgeous. The acoustics are amazing, and I was able to record there for one year focusing on 9.1 immersive orchestra recording. At the time it was pretty new; the tech was in its baby stages. This was around 2013.”

For a number of years now, the term ‘immersive audio’ has become ubiquitous in industry circles, as specialists in the field endeavour to bring its far-reaching capabilities to the masses. Having been working in such formats for more than a decade, Maltezos says that the rise in demand for immersive sound in Norway has grown rapidly of late, with many an artist previously forced to travel overseas in order to access such services.

“It feels like there has been a sudden surge, but I’m in a sheltered place,” she states. “When I was starting my studio, I was calling mentors and colleagues and asking what they would like to see being offered here that weren’t available at the time. And people told me they wanted places to work in Dolby Atmos. People would often go to London or Copenhagen, so I had that in mind. And I think people are still learning.”

The studio Maltezos is referring to is located in the control room of an abandoned NRK facility (Norway’s national broadcasting corporation). It’s where she is currently joining us from, and she kindly gives us a remote tour of the space.

“In 2023 the public radio announced that they were not going to be doing orchestral recordings anymore, which is shocking,” she says with traces of genuine disbelief still detectable in her tone. “My whole career has been based on the ruins of NRK, which are abandoned spaces. This is an abandoned NRK control room. I started here in the pandemic. I was a live sound tech and was freelancing as the NRK recording engineer and I needed a space for when I was working on other projects. And I was able to take this room. We have this beautiful view of the concert hall [she turns her laptop to share a view of a resplendent live space].”

Our glimpse of the studio brings us to some of the most vital pieces of kit with which it is furnished. For Maltezos, her Merging Technologies setup is invaluable to her working methods.

“Back when I became an assistant for the public radio, they were using Merging kit,” she says of how she was first introduced to the company’s products. “I knew that I wanted to have gear that was interoperable. And the University of Bergen has the same gear, and they are really close colleagues of mine. It’s thanks to the University in Bergen that I have a career at all. I was able to borrow units and build and then borrow less and less as I built my own system. I’ve been using Merging since 2019.

“I LOVE PYRAMIX. IT COMES WITH A BIG LEARNING CURVE, BUT ONCE YOU GET OVER THAT IT’S SO POWERFUL.”

“I’m using Pyramix heavily,” she continues. “I use the Anubis, I have the Hapi Mk I and II. I have a Horus, and I need another one!”

According to Maltezos, the scope of applications Merging solutions can be applied to, combined with its audio performance, are what not only sets the brand apart in the market, but also makes it an essential asset to those working at the highest level across such an eclectic array of projects.

“The audio quality is amazing,” she asserts. “I love Pyramix. It comes with

a big learning curve, but once you get over that it is just so powerful. When you work out how to make the workflow your own, I think it’s amazing.”

The Anubis interface, she notes, is particularly key on account of its almost endless capabilities.

“I haven’t even got halfway through all of the functions of it, but it’s so cool as a control room monitor,” she beams. “When I’m doing a livestream, for example, I have my recording happening and I have queued up

Spotify, references, and different computers on my network, and I can just switch between sources. It’s so nice to have different sources readily available. And with Dolby it’s been fantastic.

“I do so many different kinds of jobs,” she concludes. “So, I can have these pre-programme setups and then I just change my sources. It’s a great workflow. And I haven’t even gone into the mixer side of it!”

Words by COLBY R A

GLP POWERS ELECTRIC LOVE FESTIVAL

ANEWERA

The Electric Love electronic music festival promised music, spirit, adventure and community. A top lineup with over 200 artists (including Scooter, Armin van Buuren and Timmy Trumpet) on a total of six stages and 180,000 visitors from 70 nations made the Salzburgring shake again at the beginning of July. GLP contributed to the power of the spectacle with 180 impression X5 IP Bars and 60 JDC2 IP on the main stage, having been used extensively for the elaborately staged 16-minute opening ceremony…

Gigantic stage constructions, embracing a lot of technology and attention to detail, shaped the look of the festival. Equipped with 1,200 fixtures and weighing a massive 200 tons, the design of the main stage remains true to tradition on the one hand and yet reinterprets it in keeping with the festival’s 2024 motto, #NewEra. The cubic design characteristic of the Electric Love festival creates both continuity and a new beginning in that the typical cubes are used in an inverted form for the first time, so the view is directed into the interior of the structures. Elaborately equipped with around 800 wooden panels, the organic-looking construction, without visible steel construction elements, fits wonderfully into the natural surroundings of the Salzburgring.

This year, the main stage was characterised by honeycomb-like constructions made from inverted cubes, which were extended axially upwards by vertically installed impression X5 IP Bars. Arranged both vertically and in depth, this created a kind of matrix that was wonderful to play with: “With the zoom and tilt function of the X5 IP Bars, breathtaking fan effects could be achieved across the entire width of the stage, and the individual pixel control of the lamps enabled a variety of dimmer and colour effects,” says Matthias Hochwimmer of Full Scope GmbH, who assisted the festival organiser throughout the technical planning process. “Thanks to the high light output of the Bars, an impressive blinder or strobe effect with a high impact could also be achieved.”

In contrast, GLP’s new JDC2 IP weatherproof hybrid strobes were preferred to classic strobes on the so-called crowns at the upper edge of the stage construction. Here they functioned as an extension of the LED walls, which were also located on the crowns, and “harmonised perfectly with the video content generated specifically for this purpose,” adds Hochwimmer.

All 60 of the video-capable hybrid devices were integrated into the video system via NDI. However, guest LDs

worked in DigiFX mode to ensure compatibility with their show files. The dual-cortex CPU with graphics processing integrated into the JDC2 IP allows video-like digital effects, known as GLP DigiFX, to be created on the devices. The JDC2 IP offers over 100 of these elaborately designed DigiFX, which can also be manipulated in real time via special DigiFX channels.

Hochwimmer is entirely satisfied with the performance of the GLP fixtures: “The GLP impression X5 IP Bar 1000 was hugely impressive with its very fast tilt, as well as the large zoom range and high light intensity. Thanks to the outdoor capability of the fixtures, we can manage without the visually disturbing rain covers, which also significantly reduces installation time. The effect achieved, especially when you use the vertically mounted Bars as compartments, was impressive with this number of fixtures.”

“THE JDC2 IP IS CERTAINLY A FIRST-CLASS TOOL FOR OUTDOOR EVENTS AND FESTIVALS.”

In addition to the very good colour mixing with a significantly expanded colour spectrum, Hochwimmer highlights a small mechanical gimmick: “When installing the various Bars, we noticed the arrangement of the connections and the spring-loaded powerCON TRUE1 top lids.

“Especially in installations with such a high number of devices and difficult accessibility for service purposes, it has happened that improperly closed powerCON TRUE1 covers have disabled a whole series of fixtures. GLP obviously came up with something here that was particularly helpful to us when it came to vertically mounting the lamps and shows how much the manufacturer cares in detail about the products and their intended uses.”

The show producer is also very pleased with the JDC2 IP: “The device’s redesigned pixel engine brought a

completely new design dimension and was particularly impressive in its interaction with the content on the LED surfaces. Thanks to DigiFX, guest lighting designers can also quickly integrate the product into their existing tour show file, which is particularly crucial given the short pre-programming times for fly-in acts. The brightness of the white light engine was also completely effective, even in brighter lighting conditions. The devices are of high quality and robustly manufactured, which is something we as technical producers pay particular attention to. The JDC2 IP is certainly a first-class tool for outdoor events and festivals thanks to its high reliability, impressive light output and flexible integration.”

GLP.DE

GUSTAFSON

THE EYE OF THE STORM

TWISTERS

For sound mixer Devendra Cleary, CAS, Lectrosonics Digital Wireless is the calm in the eye of Twisters. He explains how the technology stood up to mother nature.

The forecast this summer blockbuster season: tornados. Now storming its way across screens, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures and Amblin

Entertainment’s Twisters is a currentday chapter of the 1996 summer hit film, centred on the story of rival storm-chasers who come together to try and predict, and possibly tame, one of nature’s most wondrous – and destructive – forces.

Shooting on location in Oklahoma, the production, directed by Oscar nominee Lee Isaac Chung, involved outdoor and car-to-car work in the most intense wind and rain that movie magic could simulate – and sometimes the real thing.

Photo credit: Universal/NBC

Production sound mixer Devendra Cleary, CAS was entrusted with ensuring clear dialogue under these conditions. In turn, he entrusted Lectrosonics’ latest generation of D2 fully digital wireless: DSQD, DSR4, and DCR822 receivers; and DBSM, DBu, and DPR-A transmitters. All of it is coordinated using Wireless Designer software.

On his approach to RF coordination on Twisters, Cleary explains: “We used Wireless Designer software. Being out in Oklahoma, the RF spectrum is far less crowded than in, say, L.A. or other big cities, but I kept a strict workflow to minimise any chance of RF hits from anything that might be in the area. I’ll generate the first Wireless Designer session on my studio cart with the DSQDs. I try to find 26 frequencies total: up to 22 for lavs, plants and booms, plus two custom IFB feeds, plus two speaker feeds for ‘voice of God’ for the first AD and the director. Even if I need to tweak some things manually if we go 30 miles in a given direction, I start out knowing all my units are happy with each other.

“The next step is, I’ll set up my small cart, the one with the DCR822 receivers, manually based on the same results,” he furthers. “That’s 10 channels. I keep a video display of Wireless Designer nearby, so if something happens and I need to pull a new frequency, I can look and drop something right in. It always works.

You would imagine a production about tornados would be a noisy affair, even before any wind effects are introduced in post, and you would be right.

“Throughout the movie, there’s a lot of shouting above wind noise: ‘Go, go, go!’ and things like that,” says Cleary. “There’s a scene we affectionately call

‘Datenado.’ Two of the leads, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell, are chasing a tornado and it’s essentially their first date. Our crew is blasting them with gigantic Ritter fans from all sides, there’s debris flying around everywhere. Our sound editors, Bjørn Ole Schroeder and Al Nelson, did remove some of the wind noise from the iso tracks using software, but basically, it was nice, loud actors, DPA lav mics, and Lectrosonics digital on one side versus huge fans and FX debris on the other. The scene did not require any ADR so, Lectro one, wind zero.”

In fact, surprisingly minimal ADR was involved in the post process, which is almost unheard of in an action film of this sort. “For post, I flew up to Skywalker Sound,” recalls Cleary.

“I was able to sit next to the director and a couple of the producers as well as all the sound re-recording mixers, sound editors, and composer at the dub stages there. That team showed me which portions of the dialogue were all production sound and which were ADR. Some ADR is inevitable in an action movie like this, but they remarked that it wasn’t a lot, which was a surprise given we had a lot of wind and screaming.”

“I STAY WITH LECTRO. WHEN YOU SEE THE MOVIE, YOU’LL KNOW WHY”

Twisters features many car scenes involving in-car dialogue. Cleary found that the D2 system’s end-toend digital transmission provided all the range he needed and then some. “We would work one of two ways,” he explains. “Either tow the picture car and have a crane on it, or you have a pod on top of the picture car mechanically coupled so a stunt driver can operate the vehicle from there.

“Either method had me in a follow van with my setup, and I had to feed the audio program to a video assist operator who’s recording clips — we were shooting on film so that was the only way to review footage quickly. I got impeccable range. I’ll go so far as to say I don’t think I would have been able to do this project at this time with any other wireless gear that’s out there.”

Cleary also appreciated that when it came to mishaps and real Oklahoma

storms, Lectrosonics proved to be as tough as the film’s characters. “There was not a single week during production when we didn’t have a weather challenge,” he recalls. “Rain, wind, lightning, something would always be delaying us a half hour, then another half hour, and so on. There was one scene where our heroes take refuge in an empty swimming pool. Glen Powell liked to keep things simple and always wore boots, so we always had a place to clip his transmitter. But for this one scene, his DBSM took a dive out of his boot from the pool top and smack — right on the bottom of the deep end! There was some scuffing on the case, but we wound up not even being able to put it on the L&D [loss and damage] report because it still worked absolutely fine.

“That’s another reason I’m happy to be on Lectrosonics,” Cleary continues. “As much as some other brands

might have their own attractive features, whenever I get curious about something else, I come back to, ‘Oh, but it’s plastic. Oh, but it’s made overseas. Oh, but I don’t know how long the company will take to respond if something goes down.’ And I stay with Lectro. When you see the movie, you’ll know why.”

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