Headliner Magazine Issue 54 by Headliner Magazine

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

Paul Watson CEO

Keith Watson Chairman

Rian Zoll-Kahn COO

Amit Patel

Managing Director

Dan Gumble Head of Content

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

Difficult as it may be to believe, this is the final issue of Headliner of 2024. And in a year that has served up some truly stellar editions, this is a particularly special one. Gracing our cover is none other than legendary musician, composer, and record producer, Nils Frahm. His distinct blend of electronic and classical styles has earned him a reputation as one of the industry’s sharpest and most unique talents. His unconventional approach to composition and production is just one of the subjects placed under the microscope in this far-reaching feature, in which he also offers us the inside track on his new live album Paris

In keeping with the classical theme, world renowned cellist Andrew Lloyd Webber also joins us for an in-depth chat about his illustrious life in music. From his background as a musician through to his continued campaign to make music education accessible to all, he describes the lifechanging impact music has made on his own life, and the invaluable effect it can have on others. What’s more, Lloyd Webber exclusively reveals to Headliner that he is currently in the process of penning his autobiography. Watch this space for more on that.

Elsewhere, we have a bona fide Oscar-winner gracing our pages this month, as Morgan Neville, the director behind such iconic films as 20 Feet From Stardom and Best Of Enemies, speaks with us at length about his new film Piece By Piece - a LEGO animated biopic of global star Pharrell Williams. It’s a music movie quite unlike anything else, and one which Neville describes as one of the most ambitious music-related works he’s ever worked on.

There’s also a comprehensive line-up of interviews, features, and opinions spanning the worlds of music, studio tech, live sound and pro AV to enjoy throughout this issue.

So for now, enjoy what’s left of 2024, and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2025!

Dan Gumble Head of Content

By Adam Protz

Dan Gumble

By Alice Gustafson

By Dan Gumble

60 MERGING TECHNOLOGIES EXEC TALKS PYRAMIX 15

66 INSIDE THE CHURCH STUDIO WITH ENGINEER LUKE PICKERING

70 HOW L-ACOUSTICS RAISED THE BAR AT O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON

74 ICONIC CLUB CITTA UPGRADES WITH DIGICO

78 CODA AUDIO ON TOUR WITH ROMESH RANGANATHAN

82 CELESTION’S ARTIST IMPULSE RESPONSES The Tony Iommi IR collection

86 COMPOSER KURT OLDMAN ON SCORING HORROR FILMS USING STEINBERG

90 GLP ILLUMINATES FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL ANNIVERSARY

94 REVIEW Genelec 8361A

98 PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER CHRIS BELL ON WHY SOUND IS HALF THE PICTURE

102 MIKE DIAS Brand building in pro audio

The content of this publication belongs to HEADLINER GROUP and to the authors & collaborators. Do not reproduce.

ADAM PR O ZT

JULIA-SOPHIE FORGIVE TOO SLOW WORDS by

Anglo-French electronica artist Julia-Sophie at one point wanted nothing more to do with music — the demise of her band Little Fish, who supported the likes of Courtney Love and Juliette Lewis, left her needing therapy and traumatised by a relentless industry and scathing NME reviews. Many years later, she started making minimal electronic songs with her soft-spoken vocals, and we now find her playlisted by the likes of Lauren Laverne and her vinyl stocks completely sold out with the release of her debut album, forgive too slow.

Not only did Julia-Sophie walk away from being signed to an international major label deal with Universal while in Little Fish, but the accompanying lifestyle even saw her travelling in limousines and helicopters. Lavishness aside, the band secured some huge support slots in their 20062012 runtime, including Eagles of Death Metal, Juliette Lewis, Alice in Chains, and Courtney Love’s band, Hole.

Some reading this may be dumbfounded at the notion of wanting to give all this up, but Julia-Sophie has said of the experience, “I didn’t care enough about being famous to survive all the shit that was being thrown at me.” There were juxtaposing situations where she was left to work in environments where she didn’t feel safe, and the highs

and lows of the experience left her feeling isolated from the thing she was in it for, to begin with — the music.

Julia-Sophie found herself at a crossroads: move to Los Angeles and live a glitzy but inauthentic life, or move back to Oxford. Choosing the latter, her innate creativity began to gradually come up as she immersed herself in her local scene: writing poetry for magazines, starting a cassette label, and synth-pop band Candy Says who, despite no lofty ambitions for the group, ended up contributing music to a Netflix film, Close. It was 2020 when the first solo JuliaSophie music came, with the debut single xOx.

Photo credit: Siobhan Cox

Julia-Sophie, who has lived in Oxford almost her entire life except for short periods in Lyon with the French part of her family, begins by talking about her musical lineage: “My French granddad was a prisoner of war, and wrote songs in prison. He wrote a songbook and his cellmate illustrated the songs. The book is in a library somewhere in France. He was also a very good whistler and would whistle on the radio! When my mother was in school in France, she would write songs in class — she actually got in trouble for it. She wrote songs for other people. But when she came to England, she kind of left all that behind and became a teacher.”

Julia-Sophie delves a little deeper into why her time in Little Fish became completely unsustainable for her, and why she had to leave before it became too late. “It was very oldschool, old-fashioned. We worked really hard, played gigs, got signed to Universal, went to America, and got a lot of money. It was the dream. We toured the world, played with famous bands, and had limousines and helicopters. It was crazy, but there was a dark side to it. It didn’t end well, and it destroyed me.

“I left the industry for a while because I was so broken. There’s a lot of dark stuff in the entertainment industry. People are starting to talk about it more, and there are more secrets coming out. I think it’s good that people are talking about it. Back then, you couldn’t talk to anyone about it. Things are changing, and people are listening. It was really tough and horrible behind the glitz and glamour. I couldn’t talk about it, but now I’ve done therapy and worked on myself, so it’s really helped.”

With all this said, it’s perhaps easier to understand why Julia-Sophie went from a big, indie rock sound with a huge accompanying lifestyle, to now

“WE TOURED THE WORLD, PLAYED WITH FAMOUS BANDS, AND HAD LIMOUSINES AND HELICOPTERS. IT WAS CRAZY, BUT THERE WAS A DARK SIDE TO IT. IT DIDN’T END WELL, AND IT DESTROYED ME.”

making the very DIY, lo-fi minimalist sounds with just-audible vocals we know now. With such a stark change in lifestyle, it might almost be strange if she had tried to keep making the music from that time.

One of the things that make JuliaSophie such a fascinating character is that, with each music release, she insists it will be her last and that she’s done with the music industry, and often strongly considers not releasing her EPs or albums after making them. There does seem to be some creative force willing her forwards despite her reluctance from the years of bad experiences she had.

“It took being nudged by a very close friend of mine who said, ‘This music’s really good. You should release it,’” she explains. “They truly believed in me and wanted me to release it. If not for them, I don’t think I would have released my first EP. And then, with the album, having released three EPs, I hesitated to release the album because I thought, ‘If I haven’t got any record label at this point, or anybody who wants to fund a release, should I be self-releasing? Why am I doing this?’

“Funnily enough, Ba Da Bing Records had bought my first EP on Bandcamp. I recognised the name because I was a big fan of Lady Lamb and other albums he’d released. Ben (Goldberg, the label’s owner) said to me, ‘Send

me your EPs, and maybe we can release them.’ And then I didn’t send him my EPs because of my lack of confidence. I thought, ‘He’s not going to like it. I’m just going to get rejected. I can’t deal with it.’ And then I did end up sending him the album. The album spent probably about seven months in my Dropbox, and I thought, ‘I’m never going to release this.’ And then he emailed me and said, “Hey, let’s release your record. Let’s put it on vinyl.’”

Thank goodness Julia-Sophie did release her first EPs, which showcase some of her strongest material. 2021’s heartbroken </3, for example, put her on many people’s radars, particularly thanks to the captivating cctv, and the six-minute evolving masterpiece i wish, which builds to a stunning climax as she repeats ‘I wish I felt better’.

These four-track releases laid the ground both practically and sonically for her debut album, forgive too slow. Perhaps unsurprising given how she’s spoken of her experience of the industry and her much lowerstakes approach to her solo output, her original intention for the LP was to release it and then walk away from music completely. But that was before all copies of the vinyl sold out and the general fantastic reaction to it. Thank goodness she is now reconsidering, as it’s a record that has the feel of an artist just getting started and still having so much more to offer.

Photo credit: Siobhan Cox

One of its singles, telephone, is yet another fascinating example of JuliaSophie’s music having a propulsive will of its own. It’s a song that, like the album itself, she was unsure about releasing for years. And yet it secured some brilliant national radio spots, not least of which being on Lauren Laverne’s BBC 6 Music breakfast show.

“That song had an interesting journey,” she says. “I always knew telephone was probably going to be one of my most commercial, more traditional, and not as intense as I Wish or as experimental. It’s one of the first solo songs I recorded, and I kept holding it back for two or three years. I wanted to establish myself as an electronic artist because it was a new world for me. I worried that if I released telephone first, I wouldn’t be taken seriously.”

Perhaps Julia-Sophie’s counterintuitive approach is an act of genius, seeing as telephone is also now her most-streamed song and a big part of the album’s success. She’s correct to identify this as overthinking — while the song is perhaps her catchiest, it’s hard to imagine its dreamy bed of wobbly analogue synths and beats blaring out at Radio 1’s Big Weekend or somewhere similar.

forgive too slow yielded two other singles — first up was numb, a track Julia-Sophie was much more comfortable releasing with almost inaudible vocal delivery, and sparsely minimal electronica. The payoff as the song slowly builds is stunning, and its lyrics are deeply confessional. The most recent was wishful thinking, a conversely euphoric track with a blissful arpeggiator and singalong backing vocals playing off against the usual whispered vocals.

Regarding the album’s release, she says “I’m over the moon. I was ready

to quit. I hadn’t done any shows for two years and hadn’t released anything for over a year. I wasn’t expecting it. I don’t know what I was expecting. I was just happy it was out! I got a two-page spread in Electronic Sound magazine and The Quietus, I did some sold-out gigs. I couldn’t have hoped for anything better. I wasn’t out there gigging, touring, posting about my breakfast on Instagram and TikTok, and explaining how I made all the music. I sometimes question what we really have to do as musicians to make people listen. Maybe I was lucky. I didn’t want to be sat at home with a pile of vinyl that I couldn’t give away. So I feel really, really lucky.”

When asked what the saying ‘play out loud’ means for her, Julia-Sophie says, “The thing that came up for me was, we’re only as strong as our weakest link. We can play out loud, but there’s also a softness in there . It’s not just about being loud.

“There’s the polarity or the opposite for one to exist. Loud is not always the biggest strength. Being silent or grounded can also give you support and anchor you to be loud in your strengths.”

And thus, the Julia-Sophie musical story continues moving forward — there is new music on the way, and a recent London headline show at Next Door Records Two. It’s a fascinating story of music finding a way against the odds, and you can listen to that story now in forgive too slow

TRIPPING IN PARIS

Regularly touted as one of the most important artists in a generation, composer, piano prodigy, producer, analogue gear fanatic and musical polymath Nils Frahm has established himself as a deeply influential musician while keeping his career as uncommercial and uncompromising as you can imagine. After his last full album saw him make a left turn into a three-hour analogue ambient record, Frahm is back and chats with Headliner to discuss Paris, his new live album of symphonic proportions, recorded in one night at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Frahm is one of the earliest pioneers of what has been dubbed the ‘neoclassical’ music scene and genre, while others have called it ‘modern classical’ and ‘indie classical’. Growing up near the German city of Hamburg, he began playing piano at an early age, which should be relatively obvious from his outrageous ability on the instrument.

He maintained his interest in classical music while later being drawn into Hamburg’s clubbing scene, before eventually relocating to Berlin, where he still lives and makes his music today. Among his first releases, which came in his midtwenties, was the beautiful threetrack EP Wintermusick, a record that he has said was originally recorded to gift to friends and families. An early example of Frahm combining different keyboard instruments: the piano, celeste, and harmonium.

His expectations for the EP turned out to be very humble — lead track Ambre is his most streamed track on Spotify with over 111 million streams on that platform alone, and would be the perfect explainer track if someone asked you what is meant by the modern neoclassical music scene. Close-miked piano with a strip of felt dampening the sound of the piano hammers hitting the keys, played so delicately that it sounds like Frahm was trying not to disturb his neighbours (which he was).

His breakthrough came in the shape of 2011’s Felt, his first release with Erased Tapes records, and his non-commercial stardom was further consolidated with his first live album Spaces, which includes his eight-minute piano and synthesizer masterwork Says. By this point in 2013, the scene was completely thriving with the likes of Ólafur Arnalds and Peter Broderick also releasing modern piano music infused with electronics. A peak moment saw Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen performing at a BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015.

Frahm joins Headliner on Zoom from his flat in Berlin. When asked if he

is still in the same living and studio space which is seen in his Trance Frendz music film and album with Ólafur Arnalds, he says, “No, I moved out. That was my first flat when I came to Berlin, and I moved out in 2017 to the Funkhaus studio. I’m not using the home studio anymore because it was time to get a proper setup, and I was getting a lot of complaints from my neighbours — I was abusing the living flat as a working place.”

Considering a portion of Frahm’s earlier and most delicate work was recorded in that apartment, including Felt and Screws (the latter recorded after an incident of falling out of bed and breaking a bone in one of his fingers), it’s hard to imagine complaining about such peaceful piano. That said, in the Trance Frendz film, he and Arnalds do carry on recording until three in the morning, so it may have been the late sessions that prompted the resentment.

Frahm’s aforementioned move to the iconic Funkhaus first yielded All Melody in 2018, his first studio album following the live Spaces record.

The studio is steeped in East-Berlin history – it was used as a radio

broadcast centre by the GDR (German Democratic Republic) during the Cold War, and that album saw Frahm lean more into the juddering sounds of Berlin electronica and techno.

It was also the filming location for his live concert film Tripping With Nils Frahm, in collaboration with the arthouse streaming platform MUBI.

Also, bizarrely, the film is produced by Brad Pitt — the A-list actor had asked Frahm if he would score the space flick Ad Astra in which Pitt stars, but the composer had to turn the opportunity down due to his touring schedule.

The pair stayed in touch and you can unexpectedly see his Hollywood name in the credits. Funkhaus is also where he recorded Music For Animals, a sprawling, three-hour ambient work.

Regarding his return to recording a live album, Frahm says, “It feels like I’m obliged to present my studio works live. And I really enjoy the studio process. Usually, I lock myself into the studio and write new material. And that material is often a starting point for live arrangements. We’re just finishing a tour of almost three years — in that period of time, the songs developed, and my performances changed. About two-thirds into the tour is the best moment to make a recording of the program, because then you really see a development from the studio material, and playing live definitely shapes the music to a certain extent.

“This is what I realised back in 2013 when I recorded Spaces, which became a popular work of mine. There’s something in the room and something you can feel in a live record that is not achievable in the studio. So I feel like recording live and recording in the studio will always remain incomparable.”

There is a significant difference between the application of Spaces and Paris Spaces, Frahm’s first live album, was pieced together from

different concerts spanning the course of two tours, whereas the recording of Paris all hinged on the one concert in the French capital earlier this year.

“Back in 2013, there was no proper production from our end, so we could almost never rely on our recording equipment or my live performance,” Frahm says, his German accent often as calming as his music.

“It made sense for me to record multiple concerts and pick the best moments. I took a lot of freedom, even overdubbing certain things afterwards and mixing things in a completely different way. Spaces was mostly recorded on an old tape deck, which was unreliable. In Paris, it was the opposite situation. ARTE was presenting the concert, and they were recording and filming with us at the Philharmonie, which was a very clean setup. So I felt like it was time to just record everything in one night. I felt good about the concert, so we decided to release it.”

A fascinating aspect of Paris is that, while Frahm has quite clearly never cared about track lengths, and has

long been outspoken against Spotify’s generic, algorithmic playlists like Peaceful Piano and Sleepy Piano (Ólafur Arnalds has even confirmed that these playlists use made up composers). In early 2019, Frahm announced he was leaving social media entirely, and that his mailing list would be the only way to hear from him online. His latest album confirms his distaste for algorithms and trends more than ever, with the song, Briefly clocking up 18 minutes.

“I am lucky enough to not worry about paying rent because I’m an established artist,” he says. “And as an established artist, I feel obligated to follow my heart and intuition. If we always chase fame, clicks, and attention, we risk losing everything in the long run. You might be successful now, but will people remember anything the year after you’ve died?

“Not that I’m obsessed with the idea of a legacy, but I think we all want to leave something meaningful behind. I do hope to inspire other musicians to release music that meets their artistic vision, rather than compromising for industry standards.

“If we follow the logic of money and industry standards, we might miss the chance to create real art. AI can spit out a million songs which are under three minutes. In the next two years, probably half or more of the music people listen to in everyday situations won’t be made by people, and that’s only the beginning. So I suggest that we just focus on music which stands out and beats whatever AI is generating. We need to prepare ourselves for that.”

Nothing exemplifies Frahm’s words more than lead single Spells, an 11-minute epic that showcases the mad yet wonderful orchestra of sounds and instruments he has constructed for his live setup — watch any recent live performance from the German and you’ll see him darting around the instruments that literally surround him: different pianos, a Rhodes keyboard, an array of modular and polyphonic synthesizers, and his electronically controlled pipe organ that is treated more like a synth arpeggiator than an acoustic instrument.

Over its run time, Spells is like a symphony in that it uses many of these elements in a psychedelic cacophony of

sound, taking the scale of previous tracks like All Melody even further.

Years ago, a Frahm performance would just be himself, a piano or other keyboard, and perhaps his Roland Juno synthesizer. It’s fascinating, then, to hear him speaking about how his eye-wateringly ambitious, travelling array of instruments, which he describes singularly as his “instrument,” has grown organically over time.

“I see it as almost like an instrument which adds registers,” he says. “Like a big church organ which is growing, and it started with one register, one set of pipes, and now you add another set of pipes and another. And you can basically drive the thing into different colours and timbers and speeds and dynamics. I always was looking for drastic dynamics in concerts, because most of the shows I witnessed were all just very quiet, or all very loud. One of my guidelines for my set is to achieve the most insane range of dynamics possible. So we need to be able to hear the quietest of notes in the evening and also be able to transport the high energy of the bass. I’m trying to achieve dynamics which were maybe never possible before.”

Photographer: Markus Werner

“ONE OF MY GUIDELINES FOR MY SET IS TO ACHIEVE THE MOST INSANE RANGE OF DYNAMICS POSSIBLE.”

Headliner mentions one of his much earlier London concerts, at his then record label Erased Tapes’ fifth birthday concert alongside Ólafur Arnalds and A Winged Victory For The Sullen. He says of his more modest setup then, “That was probably all carried along in the plane, onboard luggage or check-in luggage. It was a bit stressful to just fly with that stuff because everything would break all the time, and now we have a much better way to transport everything.” Watch the music video for Hammers, and you’ll get a sense of the army of people required to get the stage set up before Frahm performs.

Elsewhere on the album are some of his trademark solo piano pieces, a reworked version of the virtuosic crowd-pleaser Hammers, one of the themes from his music for the oneshot German movie Victoria, Our Own Roof, and the ultra-restrained Re from Screws

Key to Frahm’s live and studio work are three Germany-based brands: Moog, Steinberg, and Neumann. Starting with the former, he says, “My Moog is on the album. For example, in the middle part, there’s a lot going on. It’s Minimoog, and it sounds incredible. I feel like every Minimoog sounds a little different. This one has

some crazy things going on. I think you can hear that it’s a Moog, but some people say it doesn’t sound like one. That’s probably why it’s still so popular. It’s a great synth that can always create unexpected sounds.”

Considering this is a composer who spends as little of his music-making time in front of a screen as possible, instead using analogue mixers, tape machines, and old instruments, the fact that Frahm uses Cubase is a big compliment to Steinberg, the team behind the DAW.

“I love Cubase and I love Steinberg and the crew. They’re just great people. It’s easy to talk to them. They’re based in Hamburg, where I grew up. It’s cool to have a Hamburgbased company that made the first computer sequencer on Atari. It’s quite an invention. I really like Cubase. It’s a good program and it’s way cheaper than other programmes — not saying any names!”

Finally, regarding his Neumann microphones, Frahm says, “Neumann isn’t cheaper than other microphones, but they make a great product. The studio is in Berlin, and when I have a problem with a microphone, I can just go to the Berlin Neumann repair shop and headquarters. We also use

other brands, and most companies have made a few good products. However, I don’t know any music gear company that has made amazing things throughout all the years. It’s like your favourite band; there are very few bands that only make albums you enjoy, maybe with other bands you just go for the best songs. That’s what makes Neumann so interesting to me.”

This is as good a signing off point as any, considering this is a music artist who consistently releases brilliant and more groundbreaking albums each time, even life-changing for many of his fans. Paris is another occasion in which Frahm completely and utterly transcends the usual standard affair of a live album with its symphonic and psychedelic scale; it almost feels as if it has no discernible beginning or end. Seeing this oncein-a-generation artist live is a transformative experience, but if that simply isn’t possible for you, at least you can touch and savour it with this new album.

NILSFRAHM.COM

Photographer: Pierre Le Bruchec

THE BOUTIQUE STUDIO WITH A LIST CLIENTS

MR.BRONX

David Wolfe, sound designer, mixer and owner of Bronx Audio Post – an audio post-production facility located in New York City which has been known as Mr. Bronx since its inception in 2011 – reveals how this boutique studio boasts big star-powered clients (including all of Beyoncé’s musical films since Lemonade, The Bear, Deadpool & Wolverine, Welcome to Wrexham, as well as numerous ad campaigns for Adidas, Coca-Cola, American Express and LG), how it all started with a Ragu viral ad, and why Genelec studio monitors were a no brainer for the facility.

What first sparked your interest in music production?

I wish I had a cool, interesting story! Basically, I was a musician growing up. I have played drums since I was eight years old. My next door neighbour was better than me at drums, so they gave me a bass guitar, and I learned that. I went all the way through university studying upright bass after school. You either gig as a musician here in New York City and make no money, or you sit in an orchestra and make a little more money, but not so much. I made a little bit of money by sitting in as a

studio musician for very mediocre rock bands as a bass player. They would hire me for the day and pay me a couple 100 bucks. I would play for an hour, and then I would sit watching the engineer for the next seven. I started to learn Pro Tools and audio production and I realised that it wasn’t the music that was the exciting bit to me. It turned out to be the audio component. Once I learned that this was even a job (kind of late, actually, at around 25!), I was off to the races.

What was your first big break in the world of engineering or mixing?

Before I worked as an engineer, I worked for Sony BMG, the record label. I bopped around there for a little bit. I worked in ANR, I worked in business affairs. I never worked in the studios, because I wasn’t honestly all that interested in it at the time. I started there when I was probably 19. I started working my way through the music industry, and I got kind of disillusioned. I wanted to make my own art, I didn’t necessarily want to promote other people’s art. One day I went to a Jets game with a whole bunch of random people, and I met this woman who asked me about my job, and I was

telling her how much I disliked it. She told me she knew somebody was hiring an audio assistant, and I told her I had no experience. She said, ‘It doesn’t matter, go meet with them’. I met with them and they gave me a small test. Turns out I knew a bunch of stuff that I didn’t even know I knew, and in two weeks, I had a job as an assistant working in a commercial studio. It was amazing. I always say, luck is just opportunity and preparation coming together, and it was absolutely lucky, but I do very much try to give people those same opportunities, because I was not in a position to actually take that job. I was really, truly lucky that they saw something in me.

How did you come to own Bronx Audio Post?

I don’t know if it’s a character flaw or not, but I have a hard time taking direction from bosses [laughs]. When you’re a young commercial mixer, you either need to find the absolute best editorial assistant, agency assistants and somebody on the younger side to give you high end work so you can force it into the studio, or you need to develop your own path. The overheads in New York City for these large commercial studios are so high. New York rent in general is high. But then also, studios that focus on commercial work, they… how do I put this… they’re tending to a certain clientele, and they

need to be a certain level of polish, and that’s expensive. So basically, in order to cover the overhead, you have to work on the most expensive stuff possible. Bronx came to be because we had a bunch of really talented friends that wanted to work on all kinds of stuff – everything from documentary films to high end commercial work. We want to be able to work on anything we want to work on. That’s how we stay entertained and creative. Bronx started as a product of that.

What was the first engineering project you worked on at the studio?

We have a sister company called Butter Music. They’re a brilliant custom music company. They score gorgeous stuff, and they let me in on a couple really big projects early on. It sounds ridiculous that these commercial projects would be so high on my list of things that I’ve worked on, [laughs], but I will remember forever that we worked on a commercial for Ragu, which is a very mediocre pasta sauce brand here in the States. It was a custom song that was written with Butter Music, and it was about a day in the life of a child and how childhood is hard, and at the end of the day you need to have some Ragu and feel good about your day. The spot that we did was: you get home from school, you call for your parents. You can’t find them anywhere. You go upstairs, you walk into their bedroom, and they are in an embrace. It was a very cute song that kind of took off, and we ended up starting with that one and then probably producing – I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic when I say – 250 other versions for either other Ragu commercials, for radio spots, but also we wrote them for every late night host. 50 Cent wanted a version where he was making fun of one of his friends and we got asked by all these celebrities to write their own specific version of it. It was fun to sit down and record take after take after take. It was just us friends sitting in a studio recording script after script.

What makes the studio special and keeps artists and advertisers of the calibre you work with coming back?

The studio was started to allow us to flex our creative muscles. A lot of the bigger shops, they’re not as flexible. When people come here, they know that they’re getting a wonderfully comfortable experience. When we’re working on films, the directors come in and they’re shocked, because we do look like a commercial studio, even though we’re working on films; that’s always a fun surprise for them. We want to make wonderful things happen. Our overheads are a bit lower than some of the bigger shops, so it allows us to invest in super high end gear. It allows us to take the time to really craft something, and not just rush it through the door. We’re kind of smack in the middle of Manhattan, and we do have a boutique studio, but it is gorgeous, and we worked really hard at building it, and it’s exactly what we set out to build. We’ve only had this space for about a year and a half now, but we took about a year and a half to design, build and test it and do everything, and we have it up and running.

Spanning an impressive 12,500 square feet, the facility boasts state-of-the-art 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos rooms with Genelec Active Monitors, a striking 160-inch projection screen and a spacious 145-square-foot ADR stage, all connected via Dante. Why did you invest in Genelec monitors for the facility’s three rooms?

I went from working in music studios that did not use Genelecs, to a commercial and film production place with seven or eight rooms, and each one had its own set of speakers for each engineer, because it was an old school way of thinking. They built a room for them, and that person lived there for however long, until they fired them, basically, or they left. And that meant that they got to pick out their own keyboards, their own speakers, their own monitors, their everything. So no room was alike, and I ended up gravitating towards this one very specific room that had the Genelecs in it. When I was first starting out, I didn’t know how to mix properly, so everybody just kept saying, ‘Check your mixes against other monitors. Check your mixes. Check your mixes’. It was the old trick of going out to your car to listen to a record after you’ve mixed it in the studio. So I would go from room to room to room after hours. So 10 o’clock at night, no lights are on in the entire building, and 22 year old me is walking from room to room, loading up my mixes on every single rig and pressing play and walking between all of them. In the end, the only one that I could hear clearly in was the room that had the Genelecs, and they became a part of my workflow. I bought a pair for home. I thought they were the coolest things. They were just expensive enough to make me feel like I was making a real serious investment into my career, which made me feel like I was doubling down and really getting involved in the industry. It all was a big confluence. Genelec has become a really important part of my career.

Did you immediately notice how well Genelecs are suited to ADR and dialogue work?

That’s the real crux of it: everybody has their preferences. Genelecs are bright, clean and clear. I cut dialogue better on them. I’ve tried a lot of other speakers, and I always come back to the Genelecs. When we were building the space, it was a no-brainer that we wanted to accomplish two things. One is to have the best monitors possible so we can do the best work possible, and the other was to have parity in the rooms so we’re able to go back and forth and slide seamlessly between our rigs.

WELCOME TO THE NU-METAL RENAISSANCE

AMIRA ELFEKY

For any fans of Deftones, Evanescence, Linkin Park or My Bloody Valentine, rising heavy rock songstress, Amira Elfeky is certainly one to watch. Heavily inspired by the nu-metal sounds of the 2000s, Elfeky stands at the forefront of a heavy rock renaissance, channelling all things emo into evocative soundscapes. In this Emerging Headliner interview powered by JBL, the L.A-based artist explains why she’s in the business of misery.

“For me, personally, I have tried to write something that was upbeat, but I just couldn’t listen to it,” Elfeky laughs from her home in L.A – her bubbly and quick-fire, enthusiastic conversational style completely at odds with her serious goth girl aesthetic.

“I’ve written a couple songs where I’ve thought, ‘This is too happy,’ and I felt so uncomfortable in it even though the lyrics were not that upbeat! It was just the essence and the vibe of it. In this genre, people resonate with loaded topics and dramatic, deep, dark sounds. With the newer generation discovering

artists like Deftones and Linkin Park, it’s validating to be able to find that type of music. Growing up in those emo phases, you felt seen by those lyrics. People will be like, ‘This band saved my life,’ and music truly does save lives. Those bands encompass that subculture, the drama of it and the emotional aspect of it. It allows you to be yourself and to fully express yourself. Even stylistically, everyone’s in this incredible clothing. It’s a subculture. I think people can come out with happy or upbeat songs, but it resonates better when it’s emotional. If you go to a huge metal core show, you want to be there to get your anger out and go crazy in the crowd.”

Elfeky has been called one of the fastest-rising artists in the ongoing numetal resurgence, drawing inspiration from the fervour of nu-metal and the raw, epic soundscapes of the 2000s. “The comparisons are very flattering because those are some of my favourite bands ever,” she beams, explaining that growing up, she was influenced by her older brother’s music taste:

“I was on the cusp of 2000s music, especially with nu-metal, so I was listening to Slipknot and Linkin Park. I was playing Rock Band in 2007 and Chop Suey! by System of a Down was on it,” she remembers. “I always liked the vocals. I remember it scared the crap out of me when I was younger because it was so intense with the screaming and stuff. But as I got a little bit older, I was like, ‘This is so sick’. I remember watching Evanescence’s Bring Me To Life video and loving the theatrics and the orchestral rock parts. I became enamoured with Amy Lee. It unravelled this entire world of soft, beautiful, melodic vocals over these nasty riffs. I was obsessed.”

Elfeky’s emo phase came later, followed by a period where she delved deeper into the past, discovering Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Deftones, although she also cites artists like Lana Del Rey and Lady Gaga as singer-songwriters she admires. “I’m a huge Lana Del Rey fan,” she nods. “She does have some of that dark pop to her. I love Lady Gaga and how out there she is. Her music is so ear-candy catchy. I definitely am a love child of 2000s numetal and 2000s pop.”

Elfeky honed in on her sound with relentless effort, finally unveiling Tonight (Demo) in 2023. Rich with indelible intensity and raw authenticity, the youji2k-produced track – which demonstrates Elfeky’s burgeoning prowess as she navigates the complex terrain of mental health struggles and codependency within relationships – proved an immediate sensation,

earning more than 3M streams to date.

“The thing that I found most rewarding about it is the fact that people relate to the lyrics,” she shares. “I’d say all my songs are about my struggle with mental health, and because it’s something that I really struggle with, it’s very natural for me to talk about it. When I need to talk about something, I have to talk about it, or I’ll just explode. Lyrics are another form of therapy for me. If I think of a catchy line, even if I’m super upset, I’ll write it down. I build a song off a feeling instead of a concept. For example with Tonight, I wanted the listener to feel like they were longing for something. The pain is in my voice; I really emphasised the inflections of my voice more than the lyricism.”

Earlier in 2024, Elfeky paid tribute to System Of A Down with a cover of one of their tracks. Nope, it’s not Chop Suey! or Toxicity, but 2006’s Lonely Day. “If I picked Chop Suey! or Aerials, I feel like it would have been like, ‘Okay, yeah she’s gonna do that,’ but Lonely Day had this dark, deep vibe,” she explains. “They focus on these runs – and I am really into runs – and it was kind of left field to choose it. I really wanted to be able to layer my vocals with harmonies, and I felt like it was the perfect way to do that. I like to do Middle Eastern type of runs and System Of A Down does those dope runs over these hard tracks, so it was an honour to be able to do that.”

Does Elfeky know if the band has heard her version? “Serj [System Of A Down’s lead vocalist] posted a link to it on Facebook and he was like, ‘I dig it,’ and I literally fell out of my bed,” she laughs. “It was definitely a very insane, surreal experience. Even him possibly knowing who I am is crazy.”

Elfeky’s debut EP, Skin to Skin was released in 2024, and she shares that every lyric that she wrote is a treasured gem of her soul and the manifestation of a cherished dream. “I was definitely very excited and

very antsy to release it because it had been a long time coming,” she admits, adding that Save Yourself, which appears on the EP, is one of her favourite songs she’s ever written.

“Save Yourself, vocally, was very challenging for me to get into that range. I shocked myself with being able to get there and it was probably the heaviest track I’ve ever been on. I wrote it with Josh Gilbert who’s in Spiritbox and I’m a huge fan of his, so just to be able to even collaborate with him was so sick. It’s probably one of my most fun to play live.”

Coming Down, meanwhile, is her most challenging vocal to nail live. The song takes the listener on a sonic journey through the depths of passion and intensity, exploring the complexities of mental health in a relationship. “In that chorus I was wailing in the studio, so I had to figure out how to do it without vocally killing myself on stage!” she admits. “My vocals were shot after my first show.”

With Skin To Skin, Elfeky invites the listener to share in the most intimate aspects of her being and embrace the essence of human connection.

“Thematically, we wrote the song Skin To Skin (it’s the one acoustic song on the EP), and as it was playing, I was thinking, ‘What’s the most intimate thing that you could be?’ When you’re pressed against someone, raw and in your being. Lyrically, the songs are all so intimate. I wanted to give it a title that did it justice. I don’t do too much thinking about these things because I used to overthink a lot of artistic things that would just feel forced. Now, if something pops into my head, I’m like, ‘I like that’. I already have what I want to call my second EP or what I want to name my first album written down. I wanted to create an intimate body of work because vocally, I feel like I’m right up in your face, and that’s how I like my vocals to be tracked. So I felt like it did its due diligence.”

“MY JBL MONITORS ARE SUPER RICH AND HAVE AN INCREDIBLE TONE TO THEM. THEY PICK UP THE RANGES SO WELL IN MY SONGS.”

Inside her home, Elfeky 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. “I always have headphones on, so I’m gonna go deaf eventually because I have my music up so loud,” she jokes, “but I tried them out and they’re just freaking phenomenal,” she says of her JBL monitors. “I like to listen to my music loudly, so I’m very grateful to have them. They’re super rich and have an incredible tone to them. They pick up the ranges so well in my songs, and when I’m in the recording and mixing process, being able to put music down low, mid range, and then all the way up really allowed me to hear the little inflections in my voice and say, ‘Okay, let’s add more here, let’s add more there, let’s take away here’. A lot of my vocals are stacked in threes and I do a lot of harmonies, so being able to hear the little nuances in the speakers and in my voice was really cool, and really helpful with my last song that I just wrote,” she notes.

Due to Elfeky’s preference for stacked, front and centre vocals, she shares that her AKG mic is perfect for

capturing her range for even the most challenging of nu-metal recordings, from soft singing, all the way to belting. “I have a very soft voice, so being able to have a pickup on that was phenomenal,” she enthuses. “The last three songs that I wrote, I did all of my scratch vocals using the mic. I’m very much someone that likes to have the grogginess or the long, enunciated little ‘uhhs’ in my voice, and this mic definitely did a really good job on picking those up. I was able to hear it back and say, ‘Okay, I want this in the final recording.’ It picked up all the little things that I was hoping it would.”

Not forgetting Elfeky’s AKG professional over-ear, semi-open headphones, which she has nothing but praise for. “They are phenomenal; I would label myself the headphone queen,” she asserts. “I have been wearing headphones since I probably couldn’t even walk. I love a good pair of headphones. I’ve gone through so many pairs of headphones, and the bass on these is phenomenal. I listen to everything all the way up on high volume, so the quality of sound is super important to me. As an artist I like to be able to hear every single high and low and mid range

of every single part of my song, and these do such an incredible job of encompassing and capturing all of that and make my music sound so rich. I’m also very particular about what I’m wearing when I’m recording. Even fit-wise, if it’s too tight on my head, I will not use them. Everything is perfectly well done with these headphones. I even find myself using them in my leisure time too, just because they’re such a great pair.”

Even though Elfeky has the name of her next EP picked out already, she’s keeping her cards close to her chest for now on her next release. “I am working on my second EP,” she concedes, “which I’m very excited about. I’m gonna gather as many songs as I can and pick my strongest soldiers to put on it.”

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MUSIC, MENTORSHIP,

AND THE ROAD TO AUTOBIOGRAPHY

JULIAN LLOYD WEBBER

Julian Lloyd Webber has always been more than just a worldrenowned cellist. As an educator, advocate, and passionate mentor, he’s spent much of his career fighting for music education and creating opportunities for young musicians to thrive. Headliner can also exclusively reveal that he is currently in the midst of penning his autobiography (as if he doesn’t have enough going on). We sit down for a chat to find out more…

Our conversation starts out in education - and it’s certainly as good a place as any to begin. Lloyd Webber’s work in this key area began in 2003 when he co-founded the Music Education Consortium with Evelyn Glennie, James Galway, and Michael Kamen, pushing for more investment in music in schools.

“We wanted to make sure there was more focus on music education, especially in areas of social deprivation,” he recalls. While the push was successful in many ways, it wasn’t without its challenges. Despite the government’s promises, funding was often limited, leaving much to be desired in terms of policy.

But Lloyd Webber didn’t stop there. He saw the impact that music could have on communities, especially when it was introduced at a young age.

“One of the greatest projects I was involved with was In Harmony, which places music at the centre of the curriculum in deprived areas of the UK,” he says. “It changed lives. It made a difference to schools and communities across the country, and for me, that’s what makes it all worthwhile.”

Lloyd Webber had to stop playing the cello in 2014 due to health issues, and although that was a challenging time, this shift allowed him to focus on music education and mentoring

young musicians, leading to initiatives like ‘Rising Stars’ on Classic FM and his role as principal at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. “I remember rooting for my students like they were my own children,” he reflects. “One of our junior students, Lauren Chang, went on to win BBC Young Musician in 2018, and I was so proud of her.”

Lloyd Webber clearly sees his role as more than just an educator. It’s about fostering an environment where students can grow, discover themselves, and realise their potential.

THE TRANSITION TO WRITING

Beyond his role as a mentor and educator, Headliner can exclusively reveal that Lloyd Webber is now turning the pages of his own life story - literally.

After years of contemplating the idea, he’s finally working on his autobiography. “I’ve started in earnest,” he shares, with a smile. “And it’s one of those things you’ve got to do properly. I’m beginning from the very start - my earliest memories of growing up in a small flat in London, to living with remarkable figures like concert pianist John Lill and lyricist Tim Rice. It was a fascinating time.”

Lloyd Webber is determined to tell his story, not just as a musician, but as someone shaped by the people and experiences around him. The early chapters of the book focus on his family’s influence, his exposure to great musicians, and his determination to pursue the cello after hearing Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich perform: “That was the moment I knew that I wanted to do this for myself. I had to. It became my mission.”

Lloyd Webber reflects on the structure of the book’s narrative; while he began with a chronological approach, he is aware that as he writes, the story might take on a more organic shape. “I’d been working with many top conductors in my twenties and thirties, and that could lead to an entire chapter about conductors,” he explains. “It may not stay in date order, but I’m structuring it that way for now. Ultimately, this autobiography will be about my experiences, my discoveries, and the incredible journey of a lifetime.”

In addition to his career as a cellist and educator, Lloyd Webber has a deeply personal connection to music through his daughter, Jasmine.

“I wrote a piece for her which, naturally, I called Jasmine. It’s just been released by the violinist Esther Abrami,” he shares. “Jasmine had a real love of

music when she was young; I wanted to create something special for her.”

His desire to compose something meaningful for his daughter speaks to the way music has always been a central part of his life - both professionally and personally. Jasmine as a composition is as beautiful in its simplicity as it is melody and reflects the love and care Lloyd Webber clearly has for his family.

“It wasn’t just a piece of music,” he confirms. ”It was my way of expressing something deeply personal for someone I love dearly.

“Music has that power - it can capture emotions and experiences that words alone often can’t.”

“Just because I’m not performing, doesn’t mean I’m not involved with music,” Lloyd Webber says.

“My wife, who’s a brilliant cellist, is always playing at home. It’s inspiring

just to hear her practice. Music is never far from my life.”

Whether it’s mentoring budding musicians or reflecting on his own legacy, music is still at the heart of everything Lloyd Webber does. Even as he writes his autobiography, he’s actively engaged in teaching, sharing wisdom, and nurturing talent.

“It’s about creating an environment where students feel supported and encouraged,” he adds. “If you can help shape someone’s future, that’s an incredible privilege.”

The question arises: Does he still find time to listen to music himself?

“Yes, I do,” he says, “but often I’m so involved with teaching and the work I’m doing, I’m less likely to just sit and listen for enjoyment. But my life is full of music, whether it’s my wife playing or students practicing. Music surrounds me every day.”

Photographer: Simon Fowler

EARLY DAYS AND FAMILY INFLUENCE

Lloyd Webber’s journey as a musician is inextricably tied to his family, and the bond between him and his brother, Andrew, is something that’s remained constant throughout their lives. When asked if he ever knew that he and Andrew would go on to achieve such extraordinary success, he responds thoughtfully.

“I don’t think you ever really know that,” he admits. “But when Andrew’s success started in the early ‘70s, it didn’t surprise me. He was always destined to be something great. It wasn’t the same with me. It was never a given that I would succeed, but I worked relentlessly for it. I stopped doing my schoolwork and focused all my energy on becoming a solo cellist. I was fully committed, but even then, it wasn’t clear if I’d make it.”

He recalls the time in his late twenties when his career truly began to take off. “I was doing 80 to 100 concerts a year at one point,” he says. “I look back on it now and I can’t believe how hard I was working.

“Every concert was a new challenge, and the grind was real. But it was through that determination that I achieved what I did.”

Being a soloist in the classical world, he reveals, is far from easy.

“The pressure is intense,” he notes, “and it’s not just about performing well. It’s about maintaining your craft over the years, always striving to improve, and keeping your passion for it alive.”

Lloyd Webber admits that day to day life is becoming something of a balancing act between the demands of writing and ongoing commitments to teaching and mentoring - but it sounds to me like he’s pretty good at spinning plates:

“EVERY CONCERT WAS A NEW CHALLENGE - THE GRIND WAS REAL.”

“It’s hard to dedicate total time to the book, especially with everything else going on. But I’m making progress, and I hope to finish it as soon as I can… [pauses] Who knows? Maybe the writing will spark new inspiration or new chapters that weren’t part of the plan.”

As for what lies ahead in his career, Lloyd Webber is still deeply focused on music and education.

He’s driven by the idea that his work will continue to shape the next generation of musicians, whether through his mentoring or his eventual published autobiography.

“I don’t know how long this book will take, or if I’ll ever truly finish it,” he says with a chuckle. “But it’s a work in progress, just like music.”

MAYA LANE

LDSYSTEMS LIVESESSIONS

Words by ALICEGUS

Photographer: Olivia Brytz Media

“I WAS FEELING LIKE A REALLY UNLUCKY PERSON. I FELT LIKE EVERYTHING WAS GOING WRONG.”

In this LD Systems Live Session, powered by Headliner, Londonbased artist Maya Lane performs original song Four Leaf Clover at Darkwood Studios in Hertfordshire. Lane performed through an LD Systems MAUI G3 rig, and Headliner caught up with the singersongwriter after the performance to find out what makes her tick.

What have you been up to lately?

The last few months have been really busy. The main thing I’ve been doing is lots of gigs and I’ve been on tour with my friend and fellow artist, Edie Bens. We put out an application online to have people who wanted to host us play in their living room or in their garden, or wherever they wanted. We got loads of applications and did a run of nine shows across Wales and the South of England, and we’re opening up the applications again. For the Living Room Tour, we wanted to find a way to make touring really accessible for us and also for the people watching. We had a lot of people who maybe don’t have venues near them, especially in some parts of Wales. Being able to go to people’s homes and reach them, their friends and their family was really cool. It was a lovely, intimate way to play songs, and we did it all unplugged as well. I’ve also been releasing music. I’ve had three singles out this year, and then my album, Diary Of An Overthinker

How did you first get into music?

I first got into music through my dad. Neither of my parents are musicians, but I grew up listening to a lot of

different types of music, and a lot of music would be played around the house. Whenever we got in the car, we’d be forced to listen to all types of genres. So I grew up listening to a really wide range of stuff, but the music that I always loved was folk, country, and ‘70s music like Joni Mitchell and Fleetwood Mac. I grew up loving them and being mesmerised by the vocals, the songwriting and the guitar playing. When I was four, I was given a tennis racket; I flipped it around and started playing it like a guitar. I think that was the moment my parents realised I liked this and wanted to do it. I started guitar and vocal lessons shortly after that, and haven’t stopped since. I started gigging when I was 12. I would apply to festivals and local gigs – basically anywhere that would let me play. I would apply to hundreds of festivals at a time and hear back from maybe two or three, but it gave me a chance to play, and it started my love for live performing and has continued on ever since.

What inspired your most recent single, Four Leaf Clover?

I wrote Four Leaf Clover with a guy called Dwight Baker, who’s in a band called Far from Saints. I was feeling like a really unlucky person. I felt like everything was going wrong, and I was trying to do all the right things, but nothing was going the way I planned. Six months to the day of writing the song, I was on a theatre and arena tour with Dwight and his band, supporting them, which then made me feel like the complete opposite of that,

and like a very lucky person. A year to the day, I released the song. It feels like a really nice full circle song and full circle moment. The song is about feeling unlucky and looking for all these signs, but thinking that even if I did find the signs, or even if everything was going my way, would I still be feeling content? Which I feel like is often not the case. We always want more and beat ourselves up for what we don’t have. It’s just a little sign to trust the process and hope that things will work out when they’re meant to.

What was your impression of the LD Systems MAUI G3 rig you performed though?

I found the LD Systems rig really good to use. I was able to hear such a clear, lovely mix between the guitar and vocals, which is something you often don’t get when you’re listening back through a PA speaker; often it can sound murky or muddy. Having such a clear difference between what’s the guitar, what’s the vocal, and being able to hear every word I’m saying and every sound I’m playing was really helpful when recording and singing live. I’d definitely recommend using the LD Systems MAUI G3 rig to my fellow musicians if they want to get a super clear and beautiful sound.

MORGAN NEVILLE MAKING ‘PIECE BY PIECE’

Morgan Neville, the Academy Award winning director behind such films as 20 Feet From Stardom, Best of Enemies and numerous music related works detailing the lives of, among others, Johnny Cash, Brian Wilson and Keith Richards, joins Headliner to discuss the making of his new film Piece By Piece , which tells the life story of pop icon Pharrell Williams through the medium of Lego animation.

Made over the course of five years, Piece By Piece is a genre-defying project the brings together elements of biopic and traditional documentary filmmaking and merges them with a bold and vivid aesthetic to create a music film unlike any other. Through interviews with Williams himself, as well as stars such as Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake and more, it tells the story of Williams’ life and career to date.

For Neville, whose vast and varied career has involved numerous acclaimed music-themed projects, Piece By Piece provided a novel opportunity to take a format with

which he is supremely well-versed and approach it from an entirely new angle.

Joining Headliner via Zoom fresh from a gala screening of the film at the London Film Festival he is in buoyant mood and ready for an insightful discussion on how the project came together, the technical challenges it posed, and how he worked with Williams to bring the artist’s distinct vision to life. And given the unconventional nature of Piece By Piece, Neville has been delighted by the response to the film so far.

“It’s been great, as it’s not really a music documentary,” he beams. “The biggest revelation is that people are bringing their 10-year-olds who have no idea who Pharrell Williams is. They might know Happy but it connects with them in a way that I didn’t realise it would. I think the film is about how you hang on to your uniqueness and how that becomes a source of strength. It asks a lot of questions, and a lot of people come out saying they’re inspired, and that makes me very happy.”

With an illustrious array of music related works to his name, Neville says he can’t remember a time when he wasn’t fascinated by music.

“My dad was a big music nut, and we had a jukebox in our house, and I played in bands for forever,” he recalls. “I just love music. I read tons of music books, and I’ll watch every music documentary, so I’ve always loved what music can do. I love the connection between music and film. Music is such a great way of conveying emotion in a way that you can’t articulate, and film speaks the same kind of emotional language. It creates an empathetic bond that is kind of mysterious.”

Among the music films that left a lasting impression on Neville during his formative years are The Beatles’ Hard Day’s Night and the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense However, it would take a sojourn into the world of journalism before he realised that he had a future in the realm of filmmaking.

“Back then the idea of being a musical documentarian was like being an alien,” he notes. “I didn’t even know that was a thing you could be. I worked as a journalist for a few years, but I was always obsessed with film and documentary. I had an idea to make my first film, which was kind

of a crazy L.A. history documentary called Shotgun Freeway and I thought it would take me three months, and it took me two years. Then very quickly I decided I wanted to start doing music films.

“So, I called up one of my favourite music writers, Peter Guralnick, and I said, ‘Are there any documentaries you want to make?’. And he said, ‘There are two - one is about songwriter Doc Pomus and the other is about Sam Phillips who started Sun Records’. I said I could maybe find money to make a Sam Phillips documentary, and next thing I knew, I moved to Memphis for a while and Peter and I did a documentary about Sam (Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock’n’Roll). That was a transformative experience for me, and I actually brought that film here to London in 2000 with Sam who had never been outside of the United States before, amazingly enough. He came over and had an incredible time.”

The making of Piece By Piece, it seems, has also been a transformative experience for Neville, marking his first foray into animation. So, how did events transpire that he would wind up making a Lego animated film about the life of Williams?

“Five-and-a-half years ago, I got a call from his agent saying Pharrell wants to meet with you about something, but I’m not going to tell you what it is,” Neville reveals. “Turns out the agent knew what it was, but Pharrell wanted to tell me himself, so I met with him in a studio and he said, ‘I have been reluctant to tell my story, but I have an idea and I want you to tell it’. He said he wanted me to make a documentary, but when I’m finished, throw out the visuals and do it again in Lego. When he said that I got very excited because it was a crazy idea, and crazy ideas are the best ideas. It was literally a 15-minute conversation.

“Then it was about how we were going to do it. We talked about what it could be. Pharrell really had no idea what the story was going to be exactly, he just told me to figure it out. He gave me complete license to pick all the music, work out the story, do it as I wanted to do it. I realised that what I should do is something that’s part documentary but also part musical. Animation can teleport you through time and space in a way that documentary can’t, so I wanted to take advantage of that. I could live more in Pharrell’s imagination than I ever could otherwise, so it became incredibly exciting.

“IT WAS A CRAZY IDEA, AND CRAZY IDEAS ARE THE BEST IDEAS.”

“Pharrell has synaesthesia, which means he sees colour when he hears sound, and the idea that we could visualize that became really exciting and fun. It just gave us so much opportunity to invent things and we came up with a film that I don’t think has a genre! But it makes sense when you see it.”

According to Neville, Williams’ decision to tell his story in this medium was born out of a desire to create a universal sense of appeal.

“There are many reasons, but the first reason he articulated in that meeting was that he was approaching 50 and he wanted to communicate what he’d learned in a way that his children will understand. And this felt like a way of sharing his experiences in a way that was translatable. There’s a universality to the storytelling of Lego where I feel like people project themselves into the medium a little bit. There’s something immediately charming about it. I feel like even if you were not remotely interested in the music of Pharrell Williams, the whole idea of a film like this comes with a nostalgia and relatability that draws you in.”

As for how the film came together from a technical perspective, Neville claims it was a matter of learning on the job.

“We kind of made it up as we went along,” he laughs. “I’ll do interviews with people, and I’ll talk to Pharrell, I’ll get all the archive footage like you would in a documentary, and I started to put that together. I also hired a kid who had just graduated from art school to just draw for us, so we created this Frankenstein edit of the film. Then we went to the animation studio and started working with them - we went back to the beginning, started storyboarding, and then did a couple of years of animation on it. So, we made the film twice in a way.

“The first version took about as long as it would have taken a normal documentary to make. It was tw-o years of work to get there, and then we had to start again. I knew animation was hard, but I didn’t realise how hard animation is. Because, on the one hand, there’s tremendous freedom but there’s such complexity, as the process solidifies in a way where it gets very hard to

move backwards. You have to start thinking multiple steps ahead to make sure it all works. I learned so much about animation, and I also learned that the way animators work is the opposite of how documentarians work. With animation you have such control and such freedom, and with a documentary you have so little control, and I wanted to get those two things to work together: to keep the grammar of non-fiction in animation.”

Five years after work began on Piece By Piece, Neville couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

“When you’re working on a film for five years and you’re lost in the jungle of making it, nights like last night make it feel worth it,” he smiles. “You’re like, ‘Oh, this is why we did it’. To get all those people together and to have that shared experience of cinema on a big screen. The emotion that came out of the crowd was everything I was hoping for.”

MYTH OR TRUTH?

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COUNTRY ROADS

TENNESSEE JET

In today’s pop-friendly country music, it can be hard to tell one squeakyclean artist from the next. That’s exactly why Tennessee Jet is such a breath of fresh air. His music achieves a paradoxical aesthetic: Carrying the outlaw-country torch of such artists as Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and even Hank Williams Sr., while tastefully infusing elements of modern rock and grunge without pandering to tropes. His lyrical narratives are never contrived, sometimes political, and always riveting to the final line. As much of an audio perfectionist as he is a country iconoclast, Tennessee Jet provides an insight into his musical roots, creative influences, and recording process…

Long before Tennessee Jet began crisscrossing America as a oneman band, playing nightly shows full of fuzz guitar, primal percussion, and songs that split the difference between country and raw rock & roll, he travelled the interstates of Oklahoma with his bronc-riding father and barrel-racing mother. Sitting on the bench seat of an old Ford pickup truck pulling a horse trailer while heading to the next rodeo, he’d watch the grasslands of his home state fly past the windshield at highway speed. Country music was always on the radio back then, and those songs — honest, heartfelt classics by icons like Willie Nelson and Dwight Yoakam, both of whom

he’d eventually join on tour — left a permanent mark.

A longtime user of AUDIX microphones, while on the road these days he sings into an OM5 for full-band performances or a VX5 handheld condenser for more intimate shows. In the studio, an A231 large-diaphragm condenser is his vocal choice, alongside the versatile PDX720 in vocal and instrumental applications, and the i5 and D6 playing supporting roles.

“I’ve always used an OM5 live as my vocal mic,” Tennessee Jet explains. “There’s a lot to like about it and AUDIX in general. The build quality

is excellent, and they look good onstage, but most importantly, they sound amazing! With the OM5, I can turn my monitors up on stage and be less worried about feedback. Also, the OM5 brings my vocal forward in a loud band mix better than a typical dynamic mic.”

For more intimate and acoustic shows, he swaps in the VX5, a condenser mic in a handheld, performance-orientated form factor. “With a dynamic mic like the OM5, you’re going to capture the source best six inches or less in front of the mic, and then it starts to give way by design,” he explains.

“IF YOU HOLD A LOUD NOTE ON A REALLY ROCKIN’ SONG, IT KEEPS IT TIGHT.”

“With the VX5 it picks up more of the space, so if I’m playing solo acoustic or with an ‘unplugged’ band and using in-ear monitors, I can get a little more of the room sound, which makes my mix sound more spacious and natural, and that’s more enjoyable to sing to. I can get more of a studio sound on stage. On a couple of songs on the new album, I also used the VX5 as a distant room mic.”

For upcoming releases, Tennessee Jet has recently discovered the A231 large-diaphragm condenser mic and been quite pleased. “The A231 has a very flat frequency response without sounding dull,

but it’s not overly bright either. It’s a well-balanced natural sounding condenser,” he observes.

“I’ve used it on vocals and acoustic guitars, but also as overheads for a sort of Glyn Johns drum miking approach. The cymbals have presence but sound nice and warm, as opposed to that zingy sizzle you can get with a lot of other modern condenser mics. [The A231] also keeps the midrange nice and strong. It doesn’t give out when the snare is really cracking. Same with the vocal. If you hold a loud note on a really rockin’ song, it keeps it tight.”

He shares that the key to Tennessee Jet’s bass drum sound is a one-two punch of PDX720 and D6. “I found that when you don’t use either of the filters, [the PDX720 is] a really big sounding mic with a lot of low end,” he enthuses.

“I’ve used it in that capacity outside the kick drum, in conjunction with a D6. I like to take the front head off of the bass drum and dampen the inside quite a bit with a pillow touching the batter head. I point the D6 right at the beater from the inside, a few inches from the head, to capture the attack, which the D6 does famously, and then I augment that with the PDX for the ‘kick out’, placed about where the front head would’ve been or a bit more out. With those mics together I can get a nice tight pillowy sound with plenty of attack.”

Tennessee Jet’s star is certainly rising, and any aspiring musician would do well to take the advice he says he’d give to his younger self: “Always put yourself in a position where you have to do something you haven’t done before, where it makes you uncomfortable. That’s the best way to grow,” he smiles.

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TENNESSEEJET.COM

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.

AUDIO FIT FOR ROYALTY

KEEPING IT TEATRO REAL

Teatro Real, situated in the heart of Madrid at the Plaza de Oriente – a beacon of excellence in the performing and musical arts – has elevated its audio production with the recent integration of immersive audio technology from Lawo, as Headliner discovers…

The origins of the current Teatro Real (known in English as the Royal Theatre) site can be dated to 1738, during the reigxn of Philip V, when the Real Teatro de losCaños del Peral opened with a production of the opera Demetrio, composed by Johann Adolph Hasse and with a libretto by Pietro Metastasio.

In 1818, during the reign of Ferdinand VII, building work began on the Teatro Real. The first stone was laid on April

23 1818, after a Royal Order to remodel the Plaza de Oriente and build an opera house on the plot where the Real Teatro de losCaños del Peral had stood just one year before. The King set in motion the construction of an opera house which could compete with the best in Europe.

Today, Teatro Real is one of the main international opera centres and is a benchmark for Spanish cultural institutions. Its artistic programme

exudes excellence, with an interest in both traditional repertory and contemporary forms, including 20th-century music and the newest avant-garde, with a firm commitment to providing the public with a place where they can discover the best artists and creators of today. It also pays special attention to new audiences, and to popularising opera among children and young people.

“TEATRO REAL’S INVESTMENT IN STATE-OFTHE-ART SYSTEMS SETS A NEW STANDARD FOR INNOVATION AND QUALITY.”

All of this, as well as the stellar reputation of its titular chorus and orchestra, the use of the most innovative technologies and its across-the-board production of shows of the highest artistic quality, have brought great prestige to Teatro Real. Indeed, the Teatro Real Foundation is chaired by the King and Queen of Spain.

History and state-of-the-art technology combine to make this one of the best theaters in the world. In fact, in 2021 it was declared to be the best opera company in the world. In no small part, this is due to Teatro Real’s recent technical upgrade, which meets the demands of modern productions, while preserving its rich heritage.

Since its official inauguration in 1850, Teatro Real has continuously evolved, with the latest renovation completed in 1997.

With the installation of Lawo’s audio infrastructure, the institution is equipped to master the audio demands of varied performances, from opera productions, to concerts and dance recitals.

Teatro Real chose Lawo’s IP audio solutions by acquiring Lawo mc² consoles, stageboxes, HOME platform and routing units to enhance its audio capabilities.

The integration was executed by Telefónica, a leading systems integrator and technology partner renowned for its expertise in audiovisual engineering, also providing the network infrastructure with a Cisco solution.

Key components of the upgrade include two 32-fader mc²56 MkIII consoles and one 16-fader mc²56

MkIII, powered by six A__UHD Core audio processing engines in redundant design, each boasting 1024 DSP channel processing.

Seamlessly integrated with Waves’ SoundGrid server, these consoles provide operators access to Waves’ extensive plugin library for real-time signal processing, allowing them to conveniently control reverbs, multitap delays, graphic equalisers and multiband compressors directly via the console’s keyboard and touchscreen. All plugin settings can be stored and recalled with the console’s snapshots.

The consoles are integrated into and supported by the existing audio infrastructure via audio stageboxes with Lawo A__stage64/80. This combination and the integration via Lawo’s HOME management platform for IP-based media infrastructures ensures seamless communication and efficient distribution of audio signals

throughout the theatre’s infrastructure.

The installation features desk mirroring and signal ownership which results in a user-friendly and efficient workflow when optimising console settings for different purposes and the flexible use of resources.

“The Lawo mc²56 MkIII consoles were the natural choice for Teatro Real’s audio infrastructure upgrade,” remarks Fernando Valiente Uceda, head of audiovisual resources.

“Their unrivaled performance and modular design not only meet the demands of our current productions but also offer flexibility for future endeavors.

“All desks can now access the same central infrastructure, which we see as a big step forward for our workflow.”

“This technical revamp not only underscores Teatro Real’s unwavering pursuit of artistic excellence but also exemplifies its embrace of cuttingedge technology to enrich audience experiences. At a time when immersive audio is increasingly integral to the theatrical landscape, Teatro Real’s investment in state-of-the-art systems sets a new standard for innovation and quality,” he concludes.

THE MAKING OF ‘HOWL’

SHE DREW THE GUN

On November 15, Louisa Roach, aka She Drew The Gun, released her fourth album to date in the form of Howl, a record that pushes her sound into new sonic territory and bares her soul like never before. Here she joins Headliner for a revealing chat about embracing vulnerability, creativity, and the ‘surreal personal journey’ that led her to where she is today…

“The whole of history is where my story begins,” sings Louisa Roach at the close of Howl, the opening track of She Drew The Gun’s new album of the same name. It’s a striking statement that directly describes the perspective she brings to what is undoubtedly her most ambitious and exposing record so far.

Over the course of her three previous records, Memories of Another Future (2016), Revolution Of Mind (2018), and Behave Myself (2021), Roach demonstrated a beguiling knack for threading different musical styles together with her incisive political and social commentary. From race and gender discrimination to capitalism, corruption and poverty, each record took aim at big subjects with a formidable degree of lyrical dexterity.

This time out, however, Roach’s stance has shifted, even if her targets remain the same. “I still talk about capitalist pigs and patriarchal power but it’s a little bit more in the realm of the ancient and the awakening of a person,” she asserts at one stage during our conversation. Where those earlier works served as a document and critique of the times, her latest offering approaches its subject from a more conceptual angle.

This, however, is only half the story of Howl. What begins with a fresh take on the more pulsating, electronicdriven moments of Behave Myself, gives way around the halfway mark

to a seldom glimpsed side to Roach’s songwriting. As we discover over the course of a quietly candid Zoom conversation, Roach explains how a tumultuous period of heartbreak and turmoil prompted, as she describes it, a “surreal personal journey” that would prove transformative in countless ways, both in and outside of music.

Lyrically and musically, the latter half of Howl sees Roach make her biggest creative leap yet, detailing the devastation of a breakup to a backdrop of shimmering pop and emotive balladry. Evoking shades of Bruce Springsteen, Kate Bush, and Billy Nomates, it marks a major artistic divergence without losing a drop of the potency that has come to define Roach’s sound.

Joining us over Zoom from her home in the Wirral on an Autumnal Monday morning, she is gently spoken and warm in her demeanour. Almost disarmingly so. The sharp edge of her fearless, confrontational style in song is softened slightly in conversation; the vulnerability she will go on to describe on account of making this album evident her voice.

“A lot has changed for me, personally,” she says, explaining the origins of Howl. “I went through a lot of stuff in my personal life, some heartbreak… a

bit of a dark night of the soul. That all came into the writing. One side is the heartbreak and the love songs, which is the most personal stuff that I’ve ever put on an album. And the other side is the more socially conscious stuff. I feel like it’s captured this chapter of my life. A lot of different things went into making it.”

After an intense period of touring straight off the back of Behave Myself in 2021 and 2022, Roach found herself in the midst of personal crises. The breakdown of a relationship and the subsequent emotional fallout came to a head in a way that Roach couldn’t have anticipated.

“Behave Myself came out in September of 2021 and in the August after that I had loads of stuff going on my head,” she elaborates, speaking slowly and thoughtfully as she recalls the chain of events. “I was all over the place. Anyway, I went to a festival in Scotland and met someone in a bar. I walked over and this person just went, ‘Louisa’. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. I was like, ‘what’? And then she said, ‘I manifested you this morning’. She told me she was building a retreat in Portugal and I just burst out crying. She was asking what the matter was and did I need somewhere to go. I was like, ‘Yeah, I need somewhere to go’.

“I had been carrying on doing gigs and stuff, but I wasn’t in a good place,” she continues. “So I ended up going to Portugal that August, and at that point I didn’t really have many songs. I did a lot of meditation and started doing this course called Working With Thoughts, which I thought would be good for stress and anxiety. Then some weeks into it I was told, ‘Now you’re going to meet your inner critic’. It was like having an actual conversation with this inner critic that I put a form to. It was the start of this surreal journey that I’m still on. And I’ve ended up connecting with loads of past versions of me; I’m spending time with them and doing healing in that way. So yeah, a lot of surreal stuff.”

While the experiences Roach has undergone may have influenced Howl’s most intimate moments, she insists it was never a deliberate decision to make a more personal record.

“It’s like the song just wants to be written,” she says. “It’s almost like the song already exists; something has sparked a feeling in you that just needs to be written about. I didn’t set out thinking, ‘I’m gonna do a more personal record’. I just went on this journey and the songs came out at the time that they needed to come out. Behave Myself was definitely more of an outward looking album. And I still love to write direct political songs, but this was just a different phase of life for me. I don’t know what the next one will be like either.”

As for how she is feeling today, Roach assures us she is in a much better place than she was at the outset of writing and recording Howl

“I am definitely in a better place now,” she smiles. “A much better place. I’m focused on what I’m doing with the album and what’s coming next. I suppose it is quite a vulnerable feeling to put yourself out like this. When you’re putting a song out that’s pointed at someone else, like calling out the government or the psychos in control,

it’s a bit easier to do that. But I’m really happy with the songs, even if I do feel a little bit vulnerable putting out this many love songs. That said, it’s not like those songs are all the same - they’re all coming from different angles and exploring different parts of it.”

The recording process of Howl was also possessed of a more personal nature than previous She Drew The Gun records, with Roach working at home on the demos for the album with her son for the first time.

“He’s got into music production, and we ended up working on the demos together, which previously I’d done on my own or with bandmates,” she notes. “It was just me and him, which was really nice. But I didn’t have a set idea of what I wanted the album to sound like and I think that’s why it sounds so eclectic. I was just giving each song what it needed at the demo stage, and then we went down to Margate to work with [producer, engineer] Ash Workman (Christine and the Queens, Metronomy) on the actual album.

“Once I had the demos it was clear it was sounding more poppy than the previous albums, so I thought I should probably work with someone who does pop. Obviously, it’s not like pure pop or anything like that, it’s very left of field pop.”

A decade into her career, Roach has now created four distinct bodies of work that have come to represent four very different sides to She Drew The Gun. From playing open mic nights as a solo act, Roach has taken the concept of She Drew The Gun and transformed it into a shape shifting entity, incorporating new influences, new sounds, and new members with every evolutionary step.

“It’s been 10 years since I started going out to open mics and just seeing how this thing would go,” she reflects. “Seeing if anyone would like any of the tunes I went and played. I suppose it’s just all grown from there, slowly

and gradually. And I’m proud of each album. Each one’s got really good memories attached to it.

“With Memories Of The Future I remember I was absolutely buzzing to be working with James Skelly [The Coral]. I was pinching myself. I was working in the studio, getting little sneaky recordings on my phone of what I was hearing and then listening to it as I was going to pick my son up on the school run [laughs]. It was just a dream come true.

“With Revolution Of Mind everything went really well and there was such a good response to it. And then there was Behave Myself – I just loved how that album turned out. Each one has got loads of nice things connected to it.”

And what about Howl? Has there been sufficient time since its inception to take stock of what it means to her?

“It feels like I’m really baring my soul,” she considers. “I’ve put everything that I’ve been through in the last couple of years into it. It feels like it has this magic in it; I’ve gone on this surreal journey, and I’ve come out with this album, which documents that. But it’s still got the political commentary, it’s still got the political heart. I just hope that people can connect to it.”

Though each record so far has felt like a departure from that which came before, Howl truly feels, if not like the end of an era, then the beginning of a new one. It’s a sentiment Roach concurs with, although quite what the future holds remains to be seen.

“It does feel like the end of an era, but it’s not necessarily setting the marker for where it’s gonna go, because god knows what it’ll mutate into next,” she shrugs. “It’s like Frida Kahlo, isn’t it – I am my own muse. I’m the subject that I know best, so I’m gonna write about me. Everything’s wide open.”

N GUMBLE

A STATEMENT OF INTENT

PYRAMIX 15

Back in October, Merging Technologies unveiled its highly anticipated Pyramix 15 system, packed with a raft of new features and updates. Headliner caught up with product manager, Maurice Engler, to find out more about this latest iteration, as well as the company’s R&D culture and approach to innovation…

Unveiled at this year’s AES show in New York (although not available until the end of Q1 2025), Pyramix 15 comes with a modern redesign and an enhanced user experience, bolstering its claim as the DAW of choice for high quality audio production. It offers track counts and I/O capabilities up to 384 low-latency I/O at 44.1/48 kHz, and 64 I/O in DSD/DXD.

What’s more, it boasts an advanced real-time editor, versatile fade editor, complete mixing and mastering functionalities, and immersive workflows, including support for the

Dolby Atmos ADM format.

Pyramix 15 remains a Native (ASIO/ Windows-based) DAW that works with all sound cards. It is available in three software packages – Element, Pro, and Premium – with the option to add the Masscore real-time engine.

The brand states that this enables up to 384 low-latency I/O with Merging converters or direct integration with RAVENNA/AES67/ST2110.

It is without question a hugely significant moment in the evolution of Pyramix, and one that product manager Engler considers to be a statement of intent to the market.

“There were two very crucial points at the heart of Pyramix 15,” Engler tells Headliner. “One being that, as we have been integrated into the Sennheiser Group under the Neumann umbrella, there were some people who were thinking that as Sennheiser is a hardware company they will only focus on hardware. And, therefore, Pyramix innovation will be dropped. And as some users have been using the technology for many years, they

may have questioned whether or not to keep investing in it. So, for me, it was important early on to bring something out that is a big milestone; something that says the Sennheiser Group is embracing what we are doing and, of course, embracing software. This is fundamental for Merging Technologies and for our users – there is a long-term investment in Pyramix. Our users want to know that Pyramix will still be here in two, five, 10 years’ time, and beyond.

“Also, it’s taken a little bit longer to release a new Pyramix than usual, so it was crucial that Pyramix 15 had a ton of new features, user experience,

and a new user interface. We wanted to make sure we had addressed our users’ long term questions and requests for features. Of course, there will always be one person who says, ‘I don’t like these new features’! But we know that the vast majority of our users are pleased with what’s coming. We unveiled it at AES in October and the feedback from everyone in attendance was very positive.”

Two of the most notable updates with Pyramix 15, Engler elaborates, are centred around the user experience and the user interface.

“WE REMODELLED EVERYTHING SO THAT THE EMOTIONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SOFTWARE IS REFRESHED.”

“The user experience is very important for existing users, and also for new users who are using it for the first time - they will suddenly have simplified access to what Pyramix is about. Because Pyramix is so flexible and professional, it has had the image that it comes with a steep learning curve. We can’t remove that learning curve, but we can smooth it.

“Secondly, there is the user interface,” he continues. “We completely remodelled everything so that the emotional relationship with your software is refreshed - it has a new element to it. It’s important that with the main tool you use every day you can discover something new. You can create something new and be surprised by it. And you still have all of the classic Pyramix functionalities.”

As Engler alluded to earlier in our conversation, the acquisition of Merging Technologies by the Sennheiser Group in 2022 marked a hugely significant moment in the history of the company. With such acquisitions, changes and tweaks to operations are inevitable, and in this case, it seems, they have only served to benefit the R&D process.

“Like with every integration or acquisition, there are changes,” Engler tells us. “But I would say two things. The first is that previously at Merging we would sometimes make decisions with a wet finger, and we were sometimes lucky because we had a good sense of what was happening in the market. But it was risky at the same time.

“With Sennheiser, we have to put a process into place and argue our case for what we want to develop,” he continues. “They aren’t saying no, they just want to understand the case for it. And that then requires a clear plan for how and when it is going to be completed.

“Of course, being a bigger company, and if you have a bigger project that requires more resources, if they believe in it, they will fund it. So, we have increased our R&D, and we have more engineers. And there are things that we simply wouldn’t be able to do as just Merging Technologies. But the core principles of R&D and innovation are the same. We always want to listen to our users and then assess what is possible for us to develop, what is not possible to develop, what will take a long time to develop, and what is the most complex or simple thing to develop. We then aggregate all of that information and prioritise accordingly. It’s vital to understand what the market demands and how long it will take to deliver on those requests.”

Speaking to Headliner earlier this year about the coming together of Merging Technologies and Neumann under the Sennhesier Group umbrella, Merging CEO Claude Cellier and Neumann CEO Ralf Oehl, elaborated on how the two organisations would combine strategies to their mutual benefit. “With the roadmap we set together, it was not immediately obvious that it was something we’d be able to collaborate that well on,” Cellier explained. “Ralf and I had great hopes that we’d be able to make it work but it’s not always a given. Some companies don’t merge well at all. But the first 18 months have been an

intense and fruitful collaboration. We have mutual respect for our respective territories, fields of knowledge, and expertise. There is tremendous expertise at all levels at Neumann, and we share a lot of information. It’s been a great experience so far and I’m amazed at the talents that we can now draw upon in terms of ramping up the product range. We already released a successful product (MT 48 interface) in the first year that we are already ramping up production of that to cope with demand.

“We knew it would be an interesting ride,” Oehl added. “I’ve seen these things succeed and I’ve seen them fail. I knew up front that keeping the entrepreneurial spirit and the brain of Claude as the centrepiece was going to be crucial to its success. It’s not just two anonymous brands moving together.

“Neumann has a lot of tradition and self-confidence in what we do and on the other side we have a unique owner-driven company. For two companies like this to free resources and grow together and find common ground on basic technicalities takes a lot of time and effort.

“The first moment Claude and I felt this could be a great alliance was when we looked at our competencies and saw how amazingly complementary

they are without anyone standing on anybody’s toes,” he continues. “It’s a match made in heaven, because they have exactly what we don’t have and vice versa. On the other hand, it means creating ties, because when you bring complementary elements together you have to build trust, you have to decide where to hand over and how to fit together. That is going very well but it’s a sensitive issue because both companies are operating at the top level of our technologies, and no one wants to lose anything by combining those forces.”

As for what the future holds for Engler and Merging Technologies as we approach the end of 2024 and prepare to enter 2025, there is little that can be revealed at present. Suffice to say, there will be plenty of new products and solutions hitting the market in the not-too-distant future.

“Obviously I cannot say what the roadmap is but I can give a few hints,” Engler smiles. “We announced Pyramix 15 in October but it will not be available until the end of Q1 2025. We’ve also just launched a new Hapi Mk III, and of course we are working on more new products that I can’t talk about at the moment. But 2025 will be the year of Pyramix!”

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LUKE PICKERING TAKE ME TO CHURCH WORDSBY ALICEGUSTA F NOS

Recording studios hold a special, almost sacred significance for musicians. The Church, a stunning former place of worship in north London, embodies this sentiment quite literally. For 170 years, its stone walls and stained glass windows have carried the echoes of prayers and extraordinary music alike. In its current form as a world-class recording venue, it boasts three cutting-edge studios equipped with everything a musician could ever dream of. From the Eurythmics’ iconic Sweet Dreams to Adele’s record-breaking album 25, the sound of The Church has left an indelible mark on the world. Luke Pickering, the studio’s head engineer, explains what entices A list artists to record there, and why the beating heart of the historic building is Studio 1 – home to one of the rarest recording and mixing desks in the world.

“It all happened for me when I was around 13,” recalls Pickering of the first band that made a lasting impact on him. The record that was responsible for shaping his formative music tastes? Nirvana’s greatest hits album.

“It totally blew my mind,” he recalls, speaking to Headliner from his home studio, although he can usually be found at Church Studios.

“I was a grunge kid, basically. You could say Nirvana were my Beatles, in many ways.”

With a love of grunge came an

interest in playing guitar and writing music, and Pickering began playing in bands, eventually becoming the band member tasked with handling the recording side of things.

“Being able to record my own music and document it was such a revelation,” he recalls, admitting that his first attempts were, however, rudimentary. “There’s something really satisfying and magical about taking a song, which at one moment, exists in someone’s head and nowhere else, and then you can make it into something that can be experienced by everyone. Something about that

sparked something. It’s that idea of documentation, I suppose.”

Fast forward to present day, and Pickering is recording on something substantially more professional at Church Studios: a 72 channel vintage EMI Neve console. He’s been at the studio since 2015, where he first worked as Grammy and Academy Award-winning music producer, musician and songwriter Paul Epworth’s assistant. Today, he’s the head engineer – the longest serving one the studio has ever had.

“THERE’S THIS RIDICULOUS NEVE SAT THERE –IT’S AN ICEBREAKER IN ITSELF.”

“I’m a dinosaur,” he jokes, after this is pointed out. “Over the years, certainly the profile of the studio has grown. It’s Paul’s studio first and foremost, but we’ve worked pretty hard to accommodate things in a commercial sense. We’ve got to the stage where the biggest artists you can think of have worked here, and also, there’s been as many types of sessions as possible – despite being a relatively small team. We’re ready for basically any artist in the world to come through the door. We’re a pretty well oiled machine now.”

To record in The Church today is to play a part in music history that has included Adele, U2, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Annie Lennox, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, Lana Del Rey, Tom Jones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Florence + The Machine, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Mumford and Sons, Seal, Spiritualized, The Stones Roses and The xx. There are three good reasons why these artists come to The Church: history, technology, and location.

“I’d like to think part of it is the people in the team and the experience that artists have,” Pickering considers. “We’re quite a small team, but I think the artists quite like that. It’s also quite a comfortable place. It’s modern enough without being too sterile, and people come in knowing that we’ll try and make things happen no matter what. Paul always had the saying,

‘You can rock up without bringing anything at all’. We have so much gear here which we try to make available to people no matter what – it’s a uniquely eclectic selection of toys and vintage gear. We’ve probably got about 1,000 bits of equipment and two large vintage consoles. That makes a difference to people’s experience; it fills people with confidence and definitely makes a difference as to whether people come back or not. It says a lot about your reputation. It’s not the sexy stuff, but it’s the stuff that makes a difference.”

Indeed, the beating heart of this historic and spectacular building is

Studio 1, an epic tracking room with expansive floorspace, a triple height ceiling, and a vast equipment spec. Taking centre stage in the studio is one of the rarest recording and mixing desks in the world, a 72 channel vintage EMI Neve console. It’s the only one of its kind in London. Comprised of two halves – one which lived at Abbey Road, where it recorded hits such as Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, and the other at the famous Pathé Marconi studios in Paris. The size of it alone is a sight to behold; however the vintage quality and warmth it creates is what leaves a lasting impression.

“In the early to mid ‘70s, EMI commissioned Neve to make consoles to be based in their studios, and there were five of them made,” Pickering nods, taking up the story. “They were 36 channel consoles installed with 1091 modules – for the geeks reading, they’re basically the same as 1081s, but the ones put with the EMI consoles were called 1091s. A guy called Blake Devitt – who’s kind of Mr. Neve; he’s maybe the most in demand guy I can think of, certainly in this sort of studio tech world – he basically made it his project to take two out of the five original EMI desks, redesign them and join them together, so to speak. It was a pretty massive engineering feat that he managed to pull off. Then Paul bought it. I remember the first time I walked into that room, you just see this massive Neve. It’s a pretty impressive thing.”

Epworth designed Studio 1 to be a completely ‘no-bars’ recording experience. The sound of the room alone is indeed stupendous, however by implementing a number of panels, screens and amp cupboards, it presents a plethora of acoustic options.

One of the old church booths has been converted into a large recording booth which can accommodate drums, and there are countless nooks and crannies around the building that can be exploited, for example the church spire, which makes a brilliant echo chamber.

In terms of what sets the Neve desk apart from other vintage consoles, Pickering has an easy answer: “Just the size of it, to be honest! Having 72 1091 modules just sat there is pretty ridiculous. Most people would give an arm and a leg just to have one of them, and probably 12 grand as well,” he jokes. “Working there day in, day out, it’s so easy to forget how mad that is. But that’s the most impressive thing about it. You get clients who come into the studio for the first time and it’s a pretty nice way to start a session or a working relationship.

“They walk in and there’s that wow factor; there’s this ridiculous Neve sat there – it’s an icebreaker in itself.”

The sheer size of the desk also explains its unusual placement in the studio’s

live room: “Traditionally, you’d have a control room where the desk is totally isolated from the recording space –you only really want to hear what’s being recorded when a performance is happening,” Pickering explains.

“The Neve desk is in the live room, mainly because Paul bought the desk before the studio and it wouldn’t fit,” he reiterates. “It means that you have to work on headphones and really understand the room. Some engineers aren’t a fan, because they aren’t totally sure what they’re hearing when they’re recording. But once you get used to working that way, there’s so many advantages, like you can just speak across the room to people, so communication’s really quick. Any boring things like problem solving, you can just run across the room quite quickly. Also, there’s no walls between anyone in the room, so the ego is left at the door.”

O2BRIXTON ACADEMY

Photographer: Anna Azarov

London’s O2 Academy Brixton, one of the world’s most iconic music venues, has installed a permanent L-Acoustics K Series professional sound system.

The Grade II listed building, featuring a unique 140-foot domed ceiling, Art Deco interior, and a signature stage, has hosted countless legendary performances since opening in 1929.

The Academy Music Group has now sought to upgrade its production values by investing in a state-ofthe-art permanent audio system. After extensive consultations with touring sound engineers and meticulous room modelling, Academy Music Group once again partnered with Adlib to install an L-Acoustics K1 concert sound system.

“A flagship audio and lighting system allows visiting productions to use an in-house system in what is often the only theatre venue on an arena tour,” says Rob Crossland, installation project manager at Adlib, of the benefits of an installed system. “The new systems are designed to make life easier for touring crews, offering what they are accustomed to using, and

“L-Acoustics was the ideal choice for its rider-friendly reputation, superior sound quality, and reliability,” he continues. “L-Acoustics Soundvision modelling software was instrumental, allowing us to create an optimal design that overcomes the room’s unique challenges.

“The major question in the system design was to keep acoustic energy off the deep, flat front of the raked balcony. We overcame this by creating an array with L-Acoustics K1-SB halfway down, allowing us to maintain pattern control of the LF while avoiding mid/high frequency reflections on stage, resulting in a very clean sound.”

The L-Acoustics setup includes dual hangs of four K1-SB, eight K1 and three K2 per side. A total of 16 KS28 subwoofers are ground-stacked on the stage – eight per side – in four stacks of four. Four A10 Focus are placed across the stage lip to provide front fill. An additional two A15 Focus per side increase imaging for those stood towards the front. Under balcony fill is catered to by two X8 coaxial loudspeakers and 10 A10i Wide. LA12X and LA4X amplified

controllers, driven by P1 processors, provide ample power and seamless system management.

“Many design approaches were considered, drawing from past implementations of our own touring systems, as well as extensive simulation in Soundvision (L-Acoustics’ proprietary simulation software),” Crossland explains. “The venue’s unique features presented an acoustic challenge, requiring specific considerations during the design process to address the space’s highly reverberant nature. Objectives centred around avoiding the large and reflective balcony front (in order to avoid reflections back toward stage), and, maintaining ‘impact’ in what is an extremely reverberant space. Utilising 4 K1-SBs within the middle of the array retains the pattern control and transient response of a single source in the low frequency whilst providing the benefits of a ‘split system’ design in the mid and high frequencies to avoid the balcony front. The addition of the A10 and X8 delays further increases coherency in the hard-to-reach corners of the venue.”

typically taking out on the road.

“WE HAVE CREATED A WORLD-CLASS EXPERIENCE THAT RIVALS ANY VENUE GLOBALLY.”

For Steve Hoyland, chief operating officer at Academy User Group, the installation of the new system marks a significant step in setting new standards for the venue’s production values.

“O2 Academy Brixton is one of the world’s most prestigious venues and the new L-Acoustics system elevates our audio capabilities to meet the highest standards expected in touring,” he says. “Our objective was to have a system that is respected amongst industry professionals to deliver the best-in-class audio, and the K1 does exactly that.”

According to Crossland, the new L-Acoustics system further establishes the historic venue as a world class destination for artists, engineers, and music fans.

“We have created a world-class sound experience that rivals any venue globally,” he beams. “The combination of the L-Acoustics loudspeaker system and the DiGiCo Quantum consoles equips visiting engineers with the tools to deliver exceptional sound for any performance.”

QUANTUM MECHANICS

Japan’s legendary Club CITTA venue has overhauled its audio offering with a new DiGiCo Quantum 338 console, having been highly recommended by multiple esteemed engineers.

Club CITTA is a much-loved venue in Kawasaki, Japan. Opened in 1988, the club has seen historic performances from Nirvana, Oasis, Radiohead and many more, it is a popular stop for many Japanese and international touring bands. The input from touring engineers was enough to convince Toru Yamamuro, General Manager of Stage Production at Club CITTA, that their planned console upgrade

should be to a DiGiCo Quantum 338.

“We introduced our SD8 back in 2012, updating the SD with a 32bit card in 2019, so when the time came to upgrade our system, we asked various people about the Quantum and the feedback was very good,” Yamamuro explains.

“We also received enquiries from overseas artists who wanted to use the Quantum 338, so we had a strong desire to install it ourselves, and we were able to make it happen.”

Quantum 338 operability is improved from the SD8 with the addition of Mustard Processing and the Spice

Rack. The mix surface boasts three, 17inch, 1,000 nit, high-brightness, touch screens, with both the meter bridge and soft quick-select buttons displayed on each screen, with physical controls to the right of each screen, for quick, intuitive operation of features like EQ and dynamics.

In addition, 70 individual TFT channel displays join the chassis with 38 100mm touch sensitive faders laid out in three blocks of 12 fader banks, as well as two dedicated user-assignable, faders, each with high resolution metering.

“With the addition of Mustard Processing and Spice Rack, plus the increase in EQ parameters, there are many more points at which you can process the sound, so it’s fun,” he says. “I like the Mustard Processing, especially the vintage VCA Compressor, which feels like a dbx, it has a similar effect to the 1176 and the response of the console is fast! With the Quantum 338, I can apply EQ and compression while I’m mixing.”

The installation was completed in June 2024 and, thanks to their familiarity with the SD8, Yamamuro and his team are already completely at ease with the console.

“I LIKE THE MUSTARD PROCESSING, ESPECIALLY THE VINTAGE VCA COMPRESSOR”

“I even heard that an older operator, who likes analogue equipment, said that the Quantum 338 was easy to operate,” Yamamuro beams. “About 80% of the operators are touring or freelance, and they’re all raving about it! They’re particularly impressed with the sound, saying that it’s a very honest sound. I’ve used it myself, and I have the impression that it is completely neutral. I think the separation and resolution of the sound is amazing.”

Club CITTA has a reputation for fullpower rock bands that make the most of the sound system, so the audio team wanted a mixing console that could keep up with the wildest bands that play there.

“Sometimes, when bands play with tracks, the sound of tracks could get buried, so we would have to think about how to process them while operating the system. With the Quantum 338, however, just by turning up the fader, the sound comes through clearly,” Yamamuro adds.

“Our management company invites overseas guests, and the promoter told me that the Italian operator had said that the sound was really good, even just after rehearsals.”

Dante networking is also very important to Yamamuro and his team, and adding the DMI-DANTE64 @96 card has changed their signal path for the better. This card provides 64 input and 64 output channels at 48KHz or 96KHz and is provided with Primary and Secondary Gigabit Ethercon ports for connection to the Dante network, simplifying their

workflow, as Yamamuro concludes: “We have a Dante card installed. In the SD8 days, we sometimes recorded live performances using MADI and then recorded them again using Dante on the monitor desk. But now that the Quantum 338 has a Dante card installed, we can record live performances using just this. It’s a straightforward system and I’m looking forward to using it more.”

DIGICO.BIZ

HUSTLE

ROMESH RANGANATHAN

Leading comedian, actor and presenter Romesh Ranganathan recently completed a series of seven stand-up shows in UK arenas as part of his Hustle world tour, with event production specialist Adlib supplying a CODA Audio VCA system for the run of shows.

Ranganathan’s set, which has drawn much critical and commercial acclaim, led Birmingham Live critic Richard Gutteridge to declare that, “I laughed so much my face hurt…”

For Ranganathan’s Hustle tour, Adlib made the decision to supply a

CODA Audio system based around the company’s flagship AiRAY line array. Adlib has previously deployed CODA systems for tours by many of the leading lights of British comedy, including the likes of Russell Howard, Joe Lycett and Jack Whitehall. And according to system tech and audio crew chief, Jethro Hall, the system was an obvious choice.

“The CODA system is tried and tested for this kind of show and has proved itself time and again,” Hall explains, describing the system’s suitability for standup tours of this nature .

“It’s got lots of output, is very flexible and scalable and is easy to work with. The enclosures are ultracompact which makes them ideal for minimising the impact on sight-lines, and when you add excellent highfrequency throw and clarity, it’s just perfect for the job.”

For the larger venues on the tour, including London’s O2 Arena, the system was made up of a main hang (per side) of 12 AiRAY at 90° and four CiRAY downfill, side hang of four AiRAY at 120° and 14 CiRAY, and four SCP sensor-controlled subwoofers (per side) in endfire.

“WE’RE DELIGHTED CODA AUDIO HAS ONCE AGAIN BEEN THE GO-TO CHOICE FOR A MAJOR ARENA COMEDY TOUR.”

A combination of APS, HOPS8 and G712 was specified to provide in-fill, front-fill and out-fill, with three hangs of ViRAY at 120° deployed as delays. The system was powered by 27 CODA Audio LINUS14 DSP amplifiers. For the smaller arenas on the tour, the system was easily scaled for optimal performance.

Hall continues: “The system sounded great - very clear and powerful - and was easy to handle and tune, all of which made for a very enjoyable series of dates.”

FOH engineer Dennis Fernandez agrees, hailing the power and precision of the CODA system deployed for Ranganathan’s latest outing: “Intelligibility is absolutely essential in comedy, as is the ability to deliver clarity to

every corner of an arena - the CODA system delivered effortlessly on both of these counts,” he enthuses.

Global sales and marketing director for CODA Audio, David Webster, also adds: “We’re delighted that CODA Audio has once again been selected as the go-to choice for a major arena comedy tour in the UK - it’s also great to see all the elements of our VCA family (ViRAY, CiRAY and AiRAY) working together to allow maximum flexibility when configuring the system for different arenas.”

CODAAUDIO.COM

ROCK OUT WITH CELESTION

TONY IOMMI IMPULSE RESPONSES

Celestion has introduced the first in its collection of Artist Series Impulse Responses, the Tony Iommi Impulse Responses. Headliner takes a closer look at the collection of carefully curated digital downloads designed to bring the iconic heavy metal tones of Tony Iommi and Black Sabbath to DAWs and modelling amplifiers…

This digital collection of IRs has been carefully designed to faithfully capture the tones of two iconic cabinets that have been used extensively by Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi on records and on stage through different eras of the heavy metal band’s history, for use on any digital music production platform.

Whether in a DAW for recording or a modelling amplifier for performance, the Tony Iommi IR series places the guitarist’s iconic tones within reach of any musician, recordist, or producer.

“... WHETHER IN A DAW FOR RECORDING OR A MODELLING AMPLIFIER FOR PERFORMANCE, THE TONY IOMMI IR SERIES PLACES THE GUITARIST’S ICONIC TONES WITHIN REACH OF ANY MUSICIAN, RECORDIST OR PRODUCER”

Widely considered the father of heavy metal, Iommi has seared the sound of his legendary Laney amps and cabs into the history of rock ‘n’ roll. From the late ‘60’s grind of a cranked LA100 BL 100W head (boosted with a modified Arbiter Dallas Rangemaster because it just wasn’t heavy enough) through a LA412 HLC cab, to the ‘90’s smack of a signature model GH 100 TI head through a TI412S cabinet, he has written, recorded and toured some of most iconic music in the history of classic metal.

That iconic Iommi guitar tone is a sound that countless guitarists have aimed for, and it’s now possible to get a bit closer by playing through authentic digital versions of two of the Laney cabinets used by Tony.

The new Tony Iommi IR Series includes Tony Iommi Laney LA412 HLC closed back 4×12” Green label Goodmans speakers– a late ‘60s cab recorded by Iommi from 1969 through the early 1980s – widely regarded to be THE sound of early Black Sabbath records.

Also included is the Tony Iommi Laney TI412S closed back 4×12 Celestion G12H speakers. This cab was owned by Iommi and used extensively in the studio and on tour through the ‘90s –the sound of latter era Black Sabbath.

Both cabinets are available either singly or as a collection.

Celestion employs a meticulous recording process to digitise the sonic characteristics of its acclaimed Impulse Responses, beginning with studio-quality, go-to professional guitar cabinet microphones.

Each IR thus offers a variety of mic type and placement options and can be loaded into any IR host within a DAW or into stand-alone amp modelling hardware. The result is an authentic speaker emulation that sounds every bit as outstanding as its hardware counterpart, claims Celestion.

Paired with a DAW and IR loader plugin, modelling amp hardware, or amp-top load box, Celestion Impulse Responses are optimised to

provide authentic tone alongside lively and dynamic response, all without introducing latency.

These benefits create a playing experience that is as credibly vintage as any speaker can achieve, but with real-world performance that is predictable and reliable in today’s most demanding recording and performance applications.

Combining Celestion’s all-areas access, together with considerable speaker response know-how, Celestion reveals it will introduce future Series of Artist IR collections captured using guitar speaker cabinets made famous by legendary and influential artists.

The Celestion Tony Iommi Responses are available for download as individual IRs and as a complete collection at celestionplus.com.

FEAR STREET

KURT OLDMAN

Wordsby

Kurt Oldman is an award winning composer and music producer known for his bold, innovative, commercial voice and approach to his film and television work. He has written the music for numerous successful horror films, the New York-based racial drama Harlem’s Beauty, reality show phenomenon Say Yes to the Dress, Marvel’s Guardians of The Galaxy films, and he’s also had countless placements in TV shows including Game of Thrones, Dateline and The Daily Show. The self confessed “horror super freak” explains what attracts him to score music that scares.

“It all started with the kind of stuff my parents were watching on TV,” says Oldman on how his upbringing in the picturesque town of Solothurn in Switzerland influenced his early interest in music. “They watched a lot of ‘60s and ‘70s European films, and they treated the music relatively boldly. That was my first introduction to see how music really works on an emotional level with film.”

Oldman had another lightbulb moment when he heard Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo, and then again when he heard Jerry Goldsmith’s music for 1968’s Planet of the Apes. “Those were

big influences on my career in general,” he nods. “I was always interested in music. I didn’t really know I was going to end up in film and TV scoring. That is something that came about in the mid ‘90s. Originally, I was very much drawn to rock – I studied a lot of melodic stuff. That’s what fascinated me. It trickled over into my film scoring career as well, turning me into a very melodic guy. For me, it was always about the melody. That stuck with me for a long time.”

In 1997 Oldman moved to L.A. (he’s been there ever since) to study film scoring at UCLA. It was there that he trained with legendary thriller composer Christopher Young (Sinister, The Gift, The Grudge, Drag Me To Hell, Netflix’s Cabinet Of Curiosities), who influenced Oldman’s own thriller and horror work. Oldman went on to write the music for numerous horror films including American Crime, Out of Mind, the award winning Babysitter Wanted, Neighbor and Killer Holiday

“Chris has been a super generous person and a great mentor, for sure,” he smiles. “He’s the guy who taught me horror and thriller scoring. I studied the hell out of what he was doing, and he’s not a very subtle guy, musically. He was very heavy handed, and that’s something I took away from him – to not be afraid to make musical statements, especially in that genre. He

also taught me to write very beautiful stuff,” he points out, as a contrast. “He’s such a master at doing that. He strikes this balance between beauty and absolute terror.

“I didn’t grow up in a time where you could do an ambient score,” he elaborates on adapting to writing horror music that makes an impact. “I started when you were much more specific. Fear is something very interesting. It always has been for me. I was always a horror super freak because of fear – because it’s such an interesting emotion. You can be bold with it. The music has to work much harder in horror than anywhere else.

“You have to know when to musically let go and have a break until there is this big jump scare. You have to be normal before you can be abnormal and scare the audience again.”

Having set up his own home studio in L.A., Oldman shares that none of these illustrious and varied projects could have been possible without his go-to music production technology: Steinberg’s Cubase, WaveLab, and Dorico programs. He shares that he has been using Cubase for 20 years.

“Cubase has become my main sequencer,” he nods. “One of my UCLA friends demoed Cubase for me when we were just about to start on a TV show. I knew it existed, but I wasn’t shopping around for a new sequencer at the time. Immediately it looked like this could really improve my workflow, and I didn’t even realise at the time how deep this program was. Over the last 20 years, it evolved from a very basic setup to the most refined workflow that I could possibly have – and it keeps evolving. Now I can’t imagine using anything else. The amount of music I’m able to accomplish in Cubase is pretty stunning. The workflow is so refined. A couple of years ago, there was a project where we had to do 13 minutes of music a day. I can’t imagine doing that in anything else.”

Oldman explains how he relies on Cubase’s MIDI editing capabilities

for orchestral mockups: “The MIDI editing is such a huge part, because everything stays in MIDI until the very last moment,” he clarifies. “I must have around 700 macros and logical functions in front of me. I have two iPad controllers with the most used functions and the most used macros that take care of assigning channel numbers to nodes, selecting a certain note in an ostinato, for example, and thanks to Cubase, that can be so quick. I would say I’m saving two hours a day just on logical functions – I don’t think that’s an overestimate,” he stresses, sincerely – “and that’s to do with the media logical editors and project logic editors in Cubase.”

WaveLab comes into the picture when Oldman is mastering and performing audio restoration. He explains how he uses the software for mastering film scores and preparing stems for delivery: “I got much more

into WaveLab when I started my noise box production music catalogue – all my passion projects are on there,” he explains. “It’s all the stuff I want to try out that libraries go, ‘It’s too risky for us,’ but I want to do it anyway.

“So I threw it into this catalogue, and that’s how I first started mastering it. WaveLab was the way to go because I could colour the track in the same colours that they are in Cubase. The alternate mixes and creating these presets for the mastering chains is a huge time saver for me. Then you can output an entire album with one keystroke. You can walk away, have a cappuccino, come back and all your masters are sitting there. That’s pretty incredible,” he grins.

“THE AMOUNT OF MUSIC I’M ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH IN CUBASE IS PRETTY STUNNING. THE WORKFLOW IS SO REFINED.”

When it comes to his music notation software of choice, it’s always been Dorico for Oldman, which he explains is important for him from two aspects: “One of them is I still like to take physical notes of themes and musical material that I actually have in front of me while I work on the sequencer, but I still go in and write it down,” he shares. “The other one is that I have a pretty large orchestral template in Dorico and being able to do that quickly is the way to go. As soon as Dorico came out, I checked it out. The whole writing versus engraving thing was completely fresh. It was really interesting that it was broken apart.”

Dorico is known for its intuitive and flexible design. Oldman explains

how it improves his ability to create detailed and professional sheet music for live musicians. “On Dorico, I spend a lot less time on the details because it’s so much better to get a clean look from the very beginning –there’s very little time actually spent on the engraving aspects,” he points out. “It’s so good-looking, actually! You spend a lot more time on the writing and a lot less on the actual look of your music. There’s something very specific about how we have to make things look in film scoring. Setting that up as a template is very quick, and you do not have to do a lot of cleanup.”

Oldman’s success can be attributed to delivering a wide range of music, from high-octane orchestral,

razor sharp electronic, heartpounding industrial, provocative dark and intimate emotional scores, combined with his lifelong passion for this genre. With such a broad range of projects under his belt already, he shares what kind of work in particular attracts him after all these years: “I am drawn to good storytelling and interesting characters,” he answers. “I’m drawn to action, thrillers, sci fi – anything that has a complicated and dark aspect to it. That’s what I like exploring. It’s most rewarding when you’re not pigeon-holed and you don’t just have to do cookie cutter kinds of music.”

Words by dAN GUM ELB

THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

GLP LIGHTS UP HISTORIC ANNIVERSARY

On November 9, the city of Berlin –representing the whole of Germany – celebrated the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead of a central celebration at the Brandenburg Gate, this time it decided on a decentralised concept with five stages. In addition, 5,000 posters, designed by Berliners, lined up in a row to trace the course of the former wall.

The artistic collective phase7 performing.arts, led by Sven Sören Beyer, was responsible for the creative concept of the celebrations on behalf of Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH. Flo Erdmann was entrusted with the

lighting design of the large main stage at the Brandenburg Gate (design by Sven Sören Beyer and Janik Albrecht), as well as the four side stages at the Futurium, Checkpoint Charlie, PaulLöbe-Haus and Potsdamer Platz.

The stage production stretched over 4km through the city. Coordinated by the Italian music project Rockin’1000, 700 Berlin musicians performed the evening’s musical programme on all stages simultaneously, and in absolute synchrony, enveloping the capital in a ‘cloud’ of sound.

Flo Erdmann specified over 130 GLP fixtures for the main stage. He used 24

GLP impression X5 IP Maxx to create the audience backlight and the lighting for the stage forecourt. Ninety-two GLP impression X5 IP Bars were artfully integrated into the entire stage design, which was characterised by numerous spatially offset LED surfaces. The Bars were used as effects lighting, but also provided pixel mapping with which the content of the LED walls could be transported into the sky.

The special arrangement of the LED walls, devised by phase7, also resulted in platforms for the musicians, which were illuminated by 16 FUSION X-PAR 12Z LED pars with zoom.

“I specifically wanted the X5 IP Maxx for this production because of the higher output and colour consistency within the X5 Series,” says Erdmann. “I expect GLP’s X5 IP Maxx to become the standard outdoor washlight.

“Fortunately, GLP thinks in terms of long product life cycles, which makes the lamps a sustainable and safe investment for rental companies.”

The designer had already been convinced by the qualities of the

impression X5 IP Bar at the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics last year:

“The impression X5 IP Bars have fantastic output. But I also appreciate them for their clear, functional design, which doesn’t take centre stage.”

On this occasion, Erdmann came into contact with the FUSION X-PAR 12Z for the first time. “We needed small lamps with high output and ideally with zoom,” he explains. “The

weatherproof X-PARs did their job really well and also convinced us in terms of output and colour mixing.”

The technical service provider for the event was Production Resource Group AG under the direction of the Bärlin team.

GLP.DE

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

Words by PAUL WAT

THE ONES SPEAKER TO RULE THEM ALL?

When Genelec’s 8361A monitors - and a pair of substantially sturdy stands - arrived at Headliner’s Dolby Atmos Studio, the initial challenge was getting them out of their hard cases - because these speakers are heavy. But as with every model in Genelec’s ‘The Ones’ series of coaxial three-way monitors, the bigger they come, the better they seem to sound. We put them to the test standalone, and as part of our Dolby Atmos setup.

Headliner is no stranger to The Ones. Darkwood Studios, our tracking room, boasts a pair of 8331As and 8341As; and the Dolby Atmos room from which we are conducting this review has a full complement of 8351Bs, 8341As, 8331As, and W371As with a 7380A sub. So we can integrate the 8361As into this setup, as well as look at them as standalone speakers.

Once they’re out of their hard cases and mounted onto their stands, the true size of the 8361As becomes evident. It’s a much more significant upscale than, for example, moving from 8331As to 8341As, or 8341As to 8351Bs. And as soon as we passed audio through them, it was clear that they possessed greater power, and that quite a bit more was going on inside. But more on that shortly.

Aesthetically, the 8361A is on par with its smaller siblings, just bigger: the front of the die-cast aluminium Minimum Diffraction Enclosure (MDE) forms what Genelec calls its Directivity Control Waveguide (DCW). This is what produces the wider listening area, accurate stereo imaging, controlled directivity, and flat frequency response.

In terms of tech spec: housed in the middle of the waveguide is the Minimum Diffraction Coaxial (MDC) driver which comprises a 130mm midrange diaphragm and a 25mm domed tweeter. Behind the MDE - and above and below the coaxial driver - are two acoustically concealed 263mm x 137mm racetrack-shaped bass drivers; these are reflex loaded with a shared duct to the rear. The 8361A is a tri-amped, Class D system that delivers 700w for bass and 150w each for midrange and tweeter; and the crossover points are at 320Hz and 2.8kHz.

The front of the speaker has the familiar LED which is green when on, amber when muted, and flashes red when clipping. This indication can be disabled via a rear panel dip switch. The back panel has XLR inputs for both analogue and AES, an XLR digital out/thru connector, as well as in/out RJ45s for Genelec’s GLM network control and the mains IEC.

The back panel also houses two banks of dip switches which provide some basic room EQ and control of input selection and sensitivity when using the 8361As in standalone mode. However, to unlock the full power of these speakers, and save yourself a whole host of experimentation and trial and error, Genelec recently released its updated and rather excellent GLM 5 loudspeaker manager software, which integrates closely with the DSP within the 8361A.

We’ve come to rely pretty heavily on the GLM system, to the point where we simply fire up the Mac Studio first thing and it turns on and configures all the speakers in our Atmos setup. Of course we also configured a new stereo preset for the 8361As as well as further presets to integrate the 8361As into the Atmos system, and again as a stereo pair with the W371A woofer system; and a further preset incorporating the 7380A subwoofer and bass management. None of this

preset configuration took more than a few minutes, but more importantly it gave us a better picture of just how easy integrating different Genelec models and building or upgrading your monitoring system can be.

And this is something that should be considered in the current climate: repurposing your smaller speakers into a future Atmos setup, for example, could seriously improve your future planning and stretch your budget further. While there’s an obvious benefit to keeping a great monitoring system in situ, GLM allows you to alter and provide different monitoring configurations within the same room and move systems around to accommodate clients’ needs and preferences.

BACK IN THE ROOM

When we first mounted the 8361As on their supplied stands - and before we did any calibration - they were possibly too far apart and sounded slightly bass/low mid heavy. This could have been because of the 50-inch LCD screens wall mounted behind them, or their proximity to the side walls, or simply because they are a louder more substantial flagship.

On moving them closer and replacing our existing 8351Bs on top of the W371As, this really brought everything into focus, and while we still felt the need to slide the chair back just a little or simply turn them down a touch more, it didn’t take long to realise that really they are a warmer, weightier, almost supercharged version of the 8351B. There is a fabulous depth and openness to the sound, with the 8361A delivering extra SPL and LF extension when compared to the 8351B (the 8361A has max short term SPL of 118 dB and LF extension (-6dB) of 30 Hz –

compared to the 8351B’s 113 dB and 32 Hz).

Having all The Ones’ acoustical axes dead centre means you can orientate the speaker both vertically and horizontally, which was important with the 8361A as its very size was obscuring our ability to see all the screens clearly, and we felt we were still a little close to them to get the best listening experience. However, the minute this configuration was calibrated using Genelec’s GLM 5 software (and it only takes a minute), everything became clear, and the level of detail - particularly the focus and accuracy of the stereo imagewas really quite something. And not just the bass and low mid detail, but clarity across the entire range of the speaker’s performance.

The same ‘brain’ is present within all The Ones which means there is a natural sonic consistency between all models, but now it’s evident that the

bigger The Ones are, the better they sound; there’s that little more magic sauce every time.

Historically, we’ve not been huge fans of over-processing - or processing for the sake of it - but these days the studio industry is definitely leaning the other way: it’s as good as impossible to produce a top class monitor that works in every environment without calibration software; and the 8361A and GLM combination is certainly further proof in that pudding.

In summary, the 8361As standalone provided a beautifully balanced, powerful sound with excellent stereo image; and paired with the W371As, they offered even more depth and control. If you have enough space in your studio and are looking to up the ante somewhat, these monitors could help you achieve it.

Words by aLICEGUS T A NOSF

SOUND IS HALF THE PICTURE

CHRIS BELL

The website of production sound mixer Chris Bell begins with the caption, “Sound is half the picture”. Indeed, when the signal drops on a TV, one can struggle on if the picture is bad, but it becomes impossible to follow if the sound is interrupted. In the same way, viewers forgive a moment of blurry focus or misexposure and move on, but muffled dialogue or audio glitches can disrupt the narrative and lose the audience irretrievably. That’s why Bell, who mixes TV films, commercials, documentaries, corporate videos, and sports events in and around Pittsburgh is a lifelong Lectrosonics wireless user, as Headliner discovers…

He recently added a DSR digital receiver to his well-loved SRc and SRb slot-mount receivers; and his stable of transmitters includes the DBSMD, SMV, SMQV, and SMWB. “Like a lot of people in production sound, I started off wanting to make records,” recalls Bell. “Pittsburgh is a wonderful, tight-

knit community for film and video production. We may not have the big tax credits of, say, Los Angeles or Atlanta, but there is a lot of work here in documentaries, advertising, and sports.

“I work a lot with the Steelers, interviewing guys like Cam Hayward and T. J. Watt. It’s a great town in which to make a living doing this.”

Like in larger production-hub locales, making that living begins with finding solid wireless frequencies in a highdensity RF environment. “If you’re in the city, it’s challenging with all the buildings and other RF,” explains Bell.

“I’ve found that with the wideband capability of the DSR and a transmitter like the DBSMD, it’s always doable — quick, even — to carve out something. I can’t think of an instance since I acquired those pieces that I haven’t been able to find all the clean channels I need.

“I have had as many as 10 channels going at a time, with my newest digital sets and my Hybrid Wireless combined, and never had a problem.”

Bell finds the audio quality of the DSR matches its RF tenacity. “The DSR has been working flawlessly, and sounds wonderful,” he enthuses.

“The biggest thing I noticed right away about Lectro’s all-digital wireless was the super low noise floor, even sideby-side with my Digital Hybrid Wireless stuff — which was already good.

“If you have somebody projecting and speaking up, it’s just perfect, but even if they’re quiet or a timid speaker and you have to turn up their gain at the transmitter, any noise you may be adding is just so negligible.”

Between the rigors of sports, and many types of productions where the talent may not necessarily be professional actors, Bell believes Lectrosonics’ reputation for durability is well earned.

“I’ve had lots of drops from cast members who feel the need to take their mics off and don’t quite know how to do it,” he points out. “There was this one college athlete, a quarterback, who was doing sprints. Production made a last-minute decision to shoot this and there was no time to put water protection on the transmitter. When he was done, it was just drenched. But it was fine! Nothing got inside it.

“The only time I ever sent a transmitter back to Lectrosonics on L&D [loss and damage] was when a cast member on a show dropped it in a toilet. That was once in 12 years — a pretty good track record, I think.”

Bell’s advice to new and aspiring location mixers is to get great gear at the outset, even if that means going pre-owned. “So many people start out using prosumer-level gear, which is fine for student films and all the other things I did,” he explains.

“But eventually, you start having problems. You do productions with more and more people involved, which means more frequency

coordination. You start shooting in different kinds of environments. You need real, robust gear.

“The thing is, for a little more the price of a new set of the prosumer stuff, you can get a used Lectrosonics pair with years of service to come — something like the 200- or 400-series.

“I was prompted by advice from people who had already been using Lectrosonics for decades. They weren’t wrong,” he smiles.

BYMIKE DIAS

HOW TO BUILD YOUR BRAND

MIKE DIAS

Pro audio executive Mike Dias explores the best ways that pro audio companies can build their brand…

What’s the best way to build your brand? In this day of constant noise and overexposure, this is the central question facing all sales and marketing teams. It turns out, the answer is as relevant for artists and engineers as it is for gear manufacturers.

We live in a time beyond overabundance — in the age of überabundance — where everything we could ever want is less than one click away; where the algorithm serves up our anticipations ahead of our needs. There are more goods and services available to us than ever before from an endless supply of artists and manufacturers. Amazon is a flawless distribution centre for goods bought in bulk on Alibaba and for music made for and curated by robots.

So a more meaningful way to ask the same question is: How on earth are you ever supposed to stand out from the crowd? Or more importantly: How do you telegraph that you are worth someone’s time and attention?

HOW CAN YOU CONVINCE ANYONE TO CARE?

It turns out there are a lot of ways. While the knee-jerk reaction is always about quality – assuming that people are bound to care if you make and offer a great product — that’s not always true. There are plenty of great products that don’t sell and plenty of great companies that fold because they couldn’t find a viable market.

Don’t get me wrong, quality is important but it is not the main driver. I started off in this business by selling $1,000 headphones to pop stars and audiophiles, and while I wholeheartedly believe that the value those products delivered was 100% worth the sticker price, the market got flattened and decimated when a Chinese knock-off brand became available on Amazon for $20. Look, there is no way that a $20 in-ear monitor compares to a $1,000 dollar in-ear monitor in terms of quality

or performance. But is the $1,000 in-ear really 50 times better? No. Not even close. And that would be a ridiculous argument to even try to make. Price trumps quality almost every time. This explains why YouTube is the largest music streamer in the world; it is very hard to compete against free.

But even giving things away for free doesn’t ensure that you capture attention. Because there are a whole lot of people and companies willing to give you everything for free. They’re hoping that you stick around long enough for them to figure out how to monetise you later on.

And sometimes that works brilliantly. Most times, it doesn’t. Because you are still competing for attention against everyone and everything else.

How can you ever possibly compete for attention? Well… this is where it gets funny and ironic. Because with all of the advances in technology and with all the marketing tools available to us now — the things that will actually help you stand out are the things that you can not automate, the things that you can not fake, and the things that simply just don’t scale. This is where authenticity and personality and service come into play.

Word of mouth is still the number one driver for sales and marketing. Which means that how you treat people is how you stand out. How you treat people is how you grow. And it’s not just you. It matters how everyone in your entire organisation treats people — not just your customers — but your partners, your suppliers, your vendors, your contractors and your employees.

People talk. There are no secrets. Everything that you and your team do is dissected and picked apart on some forum somewhere. And no one wants to do business with someone that they do not like. There are simply too many other choices available and your customers’ loyalty is not a given.

Loyalty has to be earned at every touchpoint; again and again and again. You must be flawless in your approach as an organisation and if you do not put service first as a leading cultural value, you will lose your customers and fans to someone who will happily take them from you. Loyalty is as fleeting as your customers’ attention span and it can only be earned on a one to one human level.

So a better way to talk about ‘brand’ is to talk about relationships. Rather than talking about building your ‘brand’, you would be much better served to ask your teams how they are growing their relationships. And the way to judge this relationship building is by thinking about and understanding how many new fans or customers each existing customer is bringing you each year. How do you judge and gauge the power of your word of mouth marketing efforts through your service excellence?

Since I sell fairly expensive pro audio gear, I use a conservative benchmark. I expect each customer to bring me two new opportunities every year. And my numbers track to this. If you offer more economical goods or services, those numbers should be higher. (If you offer free services, those numbers should be MUCH higher.) And if you are selling more expensive items, you should expect that ratio to be lower.

FOCUSING ON WORD OF MOUTH

When you and your team focus on measuring word of mouth, you will be forced to think about your levels of service and how you treat everyone in a different light. And when you ask your customers and partners the right questions in the right ways, you will hear and learn how poor service choices have cost you many accounts — accounts that no longer bear exponential fruit.

How you respond to those honest answers will in turn impact how long-lasting this service-first mentality will last within your organisation. If you think that you know more than your customers or if you challenge what they are telling you, then you do not have the right internal team in place for a service-first led organisation. But that’s a larger discussion for a different article.

For now, I’ll share one last timely tip since the holidays are just around the corner. If you want to critically judge just how well you treat your partners, vendors, suppliers, and contractors — look around your office this next month. How many holiday cards did you get? How many fruit baskets got delivered? How many cakes and sweets got sent? What’s it look like in your breakroom?

Because if it’s not overflowing with holiday cheer and gifts from your team members, then take that as a sign that you have a lot more work ahead of you and ask yourself this basic question: “If you can’t stand out as someone worthy of your team’s time and attention and if you can’t convince even your own partners to care, then why would you expect your fans to bother?”

Mike Dias writes and speaks about Why Nobody Likes Networking and What Entertainers Can Teach Executives. He is one of the few global leaders in Trade Show Networking and he helps companies maximise their trade show spend by ensuring that their teams are prepared, ready, and able to create and close opportunities. This column will be an ongoing monthly feature because Mike loves talking shop and is honoured to give back to the community. If this article was helpful and useful in any way, please reach out anytime at Mike Dias Speaks and let Mike know about what you want to hear more about next time.

MAKE EVERY MOMENT THE ONE

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