Headliner USA Issue 10

ISSUE 10 / JUNE 2022 HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET UK £3.95 / USA $6.95 / CANADA $7.95

SUPPORTING THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY

MAGAZINE / 10

KING OF COUNTRY

ERIC PASLAY THE IVORS

NEWTON BROTHERS

ANN MINCIELI

ALL THE WINNERS FROM THIS YEAR’S AWARDS

COMPOSING THE SCORE FOR MIDNIGHT MASS

ALICIA KEYS’ ENGINEER ON IMMERSIVE GRAMMY WIN

“Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind.”

— Mick Jagger

©2020 QSC, LLC. All rights reserved. QSC and the QSC logo are registered trademarks of QSC, LLC in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other countries. Play Out Loud is a trademark of QSC, LLC. Artist: Printz Board. Photo by Mikel Darling.

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SUP P

IV E C EAT O CR

ING THE T R O

NITY MU M HEADLINER USA

10 After two years away, this month saw the long-awaited return of the NAMM Show in Anaheim, California. And while the attendance figures – as predicted by the show organizers – didn’t quite reach their prepandemic heights, it provided a much-needed sense of familiarity for those who did make the trip out to the west coast.

For an industry that has felt the impact of Covid to the fullest since NAMM’s last in-person outing in January 2020, this year’s edition served as a welcome shot in the arm. Yes, the timing of the show felt a little unusual (and no doubt contributed significantly to the drop in attendance), but the cacophony of music belting out across the halls and the palm tree-lined thoroughfares, and the sight of familiar faces propping up the Marriott Hotel bar were as strong an indicator we have seen yet that the music and pro audio markets are very much on the road to recovery.

Also heartening was the quality of new product launches and innovations on show. Of course, this has very much been the case since the start of the pandemic, with so many across the industry using the opportunity to ramp up their R&D efforts and bring pioneering new solutions to the fore, but to see the fruit of these efforts up close and

in-person was both heartening and encouraging.

Similarly exciting was the return of the Ivor Novello Awards last month.

After returning somewhat tentatively for its first physical edition since the pandemic back in September 2021, this year’s ceremony felt very much like business as usual. Free from any Covid restrictions, the bash had a distinctly pre-Covid feel, as some of the finest songwriters in the business were celebrated before a sold out Grosvenor House in London. And as you’ll see in this issue, we managed to speak to some of the most revered talent in the room, including the likes of The Cure’s Robert Smith and Simon Gallup, The Beautiful South’s Paul Heaton, Sam Fender and Laura Mvula.

With so much cause for optimism seen throughout the first half of the year, there’s no doubt plenty more to look forward to in the remainder of 2022.

Daniel Gumble Head of Music, Headliner HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

14 / MIKE CAVE 08 / MYCHELLE

28 / KOSTAS KALIMERIS

20/ ERIC PASLAY

32 / IVOR NOVELLO AWARDS 38 / PRO AUDIO

42 / HALEY GOLD

50/ VENUE FOCUS

46 / INSTALLATION

54 / ANN MINCIELI

64 / MPG AWARDS 60 / MARIA ELISA AYERBE 68 / ISABELLE BANOS

78 / SCORING MIDNIGHT MASS 74 / CHRIS ALLEN

84 / AUDIO PRODUCTION

88 / BUSINESS

92 / STUDIO

96 / LIGHTING

100 / SPOTLIGHT REVIEWS

116 / VIOLETTA ZIRONI

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MYCHELLE

HEADLINER USA

Hackney Hitmaker

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ASPIRING HEADLINER

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HACKNEY HITMAKER

MYCHELLE Mychelle, born and based in the vibrant community of Hackney, East London, is a singer-songwriter on a meteoric rise. After several years busking around her home city, Mychelle was discovered during a busk by an employee at Idris Elba’s record label, leading her to be plucked from performing on the capital’s streets and stations to featuring on a track with Elba on his Yardie Mixtape. She’s just released the dazzling Forbidden Fruit, a gorgeous and soulful song that features label-mate and emcee Enny. She’s also just competed in her first charity boxing match, so the hits keep coming in more ways than one.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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MYCHELLE

HEADLINER USA

Hackney Hitmaker

ASPIRING HEADLINER

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“I DIDN’T JUST WANT TO RUSH THINGS OUT. I WANTED A PROJECT.”

With a cursory glance at Mychelle’s discography, you could be forgiven for thinking she’s been making music for just over a year, and her success so far has just fallen at her feet. Indeed, the first song she ever released was the gorgeous, jazzy and soulful number The Way last year. Her brilliant voice, acoustic guitar paired with deft instrumentation call to mind Corrinne Bailey Rae and fellow Londoner Lianne La Havas.

But the dates on Mychelle’s releases don’t tell the full story — after singing and playing guitar for most of her life, she took the very courageous step of busking around her capital city, sometimes as part of Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London’s initiative, Busk In London.

To build on The Big Smoke’s great reputation as a busking city, Khan and the team behind the initiative sought to help street performers by granting extra opportunities at places like Westminster Abbey and the metropolis of London Bridge Station, as well as assisting musicians in buying contactless payment devices.

“I was busking for many years, and I did think about releasing my music,” she says. “But I didn’t just want to rush things out. I wanted there to

be a project. The first place I did was under the bridge in Shoreditch.

And then through a competition I got a license and I was doing the Underground in stations like Kings Cross, London Bridge and Piccadilly.

They’re all my favorite spots. It’s great that the Mayor’s busking scheme keeps expanding and getting Network Rail involved, and each act gets two hours.”

Mychelle also wisely used these experiences to develop not only her singing, guitar playing and performance, but also her songs as well. Knowing that passersby wouldn’t have prior knowledge of her canon, she would perform songs she had only begun writing and improvise new parts and verses.

“I think I wanted to just get better at singing and performing. It would be a place where if I had a new song and it was maybe half finished, I would start improvising, because no one’s there especially to see me.

So they have no idea what the song is. And sometimes I used to sing the same verse three times just to see how it would sound in different ways. I just wanted to get better and better at singing and get used to my songs as well.”

You often hear romanticized stories of how a humble busker gets noticed by a passerby who happens to have the right connections.

This was very much the case for Mychelle, who was busking away at one of her regular train stations in London, unknowingly near the office for actor, DJ emcee and all round superstar Idris Elba. And on that day, the stars aligned and an employee at the label was passing by and took Mychelle’s details.

This led to her featuring on a track with the eminent Elba himself, on the Idris Elba Presents: The Yardie Mixtape.

“That was before I released,” Mychelle recalls. “Someone from his label saw me busking, because I was at a station really near his label’s office. She took my Instagram and then reached out to me via Instagram. I remember thinking ‘no way!’ She invited me down. And literally the first day I went down to the office, he happened to be arriving at the building that day. I was thinking of all the places this man could be in the world filming or performing, he happens to be in the office that day.

So I met him and it was really nice.

And they really liked my music.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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MYCHELLE

Hackney Hitmaker

Hazy, soulful, sultry instrumentation and an unbeatable London-centric sound, Forbidden Fruit is the latest single of absolute heavyweight pedigree from Mychelle. Jazz drums, wilting guitars, plucky keys and hip-hop style sampling provides the beds for an incredible vocal performance from Mychelle. This is before mentioning an excellent feature from label-mate and London emcee ENNY, who helps take the track to the next level. The music and production adapt stunningly for the spoken word section, before Mychelle closes with arguably the best moment of the track as her singing really lets rip.

And while Forbidden Fruit sounds completely fresh, it is in fact a song Mychelle wrote several years ago while she was working away behind the scenes. “I actually wrote it a year or two before all the lockdowns,” she says. “That’s one I used to sing lots in the Underground stations and at shows.

And with ENNY, I just messaged her asking if she’d be on the track, and she agreed and was really up for it straight away.”

Considering all the layers mentioned above, it’s a song that’s been on quite a journey since purely being Mychelle and her guitar, being played to the general public. “It was interesting because I was so used to the way I used to play it before,” Mychelle says. “We went back and forth on it a few times, the right idea didn’t come straight away. But when we found the right idea, I loved the way it evolved. Having ENNY on it really helped too. We had to test out a few things but I’m so happy with it now.”

The song’s video matches the undeniable quality of the music. We see Mychelle making her way through a forest tentatively, lots of arty shots of fruit bowls, rolls of the dice, and we even see her playing herself at chess — read into all the meanings within the video as you please. Mychelle was keen to have as creative a role in its production as possible.

HEADLINER USA

“We could have had a love interest in the video because of the lyrics in the song, but I was keen from the start to not go down that route. I wanted us to approach it differently, where it’s me playing a game with myself. The part that I play in it, almost me toying with myself to keep thinking it’s okay for me to keep going back. I just didn’t want the video to be too obvious in that way.”

Building on the success of this single, this summer is going to be a big one for Mychelle. She’ll be doing her biggest headline show yet at The Lexington, North London, and this is shortly before supporting George Ezra, Holly Humberstone and Blossoms in the nearby Finsbury Park, rounded off with a few festival appearances around the UK and The Netherlands.

Dare you sample the forbidden fruit of Mychelle’s music?

There’s a very strong sense that she’s about to blow up in a big way, so perhaps you are reading this and then listening at that critical point before all the biggest opportunities start arriving for her. You’ve certainly missed the chance to see her playing as you rush to catch the tube. One to watch, without a shadow of a doubt.

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MIKE CAVE

HEADLINER USA

Sounds From The Loft

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PRODUCER

SOUNDS FROMTHELOFT

MIKE CAVE Musician, record producer and multi-platinum award winning mix engineer Mike Cave gets candid about his musical origins at Liverpool’s legendary Parr Street Studios, the various projects that have been keeping him busy, and his use of oeksound plugins across his mixes.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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MIKE CAVE

Sounds From The Loft

How did you first get your start working in studios?

I was lucky enough to come up through the traditional roots of working in studios – making lots of cups of tea at the start and watching other producers working, then tape op, then Pro Tools operator sometimes, and then eventually in-house engineer. It took between seven and 10 years of building that before I could go freelance, but the beauty of the process was just being able to watch great producers make records, and look at not just the technical side of things, but how they deal with artists, how they get great performances out of people, and how they deal with things when they’re not going very smoothly.

HEADLINER USA

It was intense but well worth it. We were doing 18-hour days, seven days a week for years, with few days off. We had a little boutique hotel in the building, so usually I’d just see if there was a room free every night, which meant sometimes I didn’t leave the building for weeks on end.

Even before lockdown I was the master of quarantine!

You’ve worked with the likes of Lewis Capaldi, Camelphat, JP Cooper, Foals, Elvis Costello, Noisettes and Tinchy Stryder. Quite an eclectic mix of artists there, but who was your first big gig?

It was a band called The Charlatans; they’d come into Parr Street to do some work on one of their albums, and I did some engineering on that

session. The next record they did, they asked me to go and work with them at their studio. That was something that as an in-house engineer, you can’t really just disappear for a couple of months and then come back and expect your job to still be there. So that was the turning point for me. It was either, take this leap of faith now and go freelance or just stay static in Parr Street. It felt like the right moment to do it. And thankfully, The Charlatans’ manager Steve Harrison had a few other great bands as well, so once The Charlatans record was finished, he put me on to a few other jobs and it just went from there really.

PRODUCER

Tell us about your company, Loft Mastering.

I created the company around 15 years ago. Primarily I wear two hats; I work as a mixer and I run the mastering business. Between the two, I think it’s probably a 50-50 split, although it of course varies from time to time. 99% of the records that I mix, I also master. I don’t actually produce a lot of records anymore, but sometimes I’ll just stumble on an artist that maybe a label hasn’t jumped on yet, and want to get involved in their project from the ground up. Otherwise, I’ve become a finisher of records, really.

With a lot of projects, particularly that come in from the majors, for some reason I’ve become that person that fixes things that have lost their way a bit. That might involve a lot of additional production or recording some vocals; sometimes artists will come in and just finish off something that didn’t quite go to plan somewhere else. The beauty of being able to finish stuff to the mastering stage is that I can do all-in deals with labels, making everyone’s lives easier.

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room and bringing in another mastering engineer, because at the moment there’s almost too much mastering work, and it’s dragging me away a little bit from mix projects. We’re also going to go fully Dolby Atmos as well this year, so it’s going to be a bit of a challenge.

Potentially planned for this year is that I might be building another

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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MIKE CAVE

Sounds From The Loft

“I THINK THE KEY TO EVERYTHING IS COMMUNICATION. WHAT I TEND TO FIND IS THAT THE ONLY TIME WHEN THINGS GO WRONG IS WHEN PEOPLE STOP TALKING.”

Could you talk us through your creative process and use of oeksound plugins?

I think the key to everything is communication. What I tend to find is that the only time when things go wrong is when people stop talking, and so I always try and approach things to get an open conversation moving – tapping into artists and what they’re after, what their vision is, what their reference points are, just so that when I actually boot the session up and start mixing, we’re on the same page and I know what we’re trying to achieve. Most of my favorite records that I’ve been involved with have been team efforts; everyone talking and sharing thoughts about what they want, and it always goes smoothly when that happens.

Once I know what we’re doing and I’m getting involved in the mix, it’s really just a case of feeling it out in terms of the key elements of the song. If you listen to any hit record on Radio 1, the chances are that they’re driven by two or three things: the vocal, probably the rhythm section, and a hook. The rest of it’s more just like fairy dust to me really, HEADLINER USA

to embellish and support what’s there.

So my first approach is ‘Okay, where are those three things? Where’s the hook etc?’ And once that’s working the rest can just sit around it.

Most of the records that I’m working on are all vocal-led, so that’s usually where I tend to start – drag as much emotion out of the vocal as possible, fit it in sonically, and then build everything around that. It’s still very much a hybrid setup here, so we’ve got a big Pro Tools rig with lots of tools inside the computer, but still a fair bit of outboard, mostly for adding some extra character.

Digital audio is just so unforgiving.

Once you start layering multitrack with content (a lot of these cheap condenser mics are to blame for this), say like a bunch of backing vocals, suddenly it becomes very harsh. If you were recording to tape, this probably wouldn’t be such an issue, but with digital, it just builds up and builds up and builds up.

People have tried over the years to write plugins that de-harsh and those

sorts of things, but when soothe came out, it was like they’d completely nailed it, and found exactly what we need to counter this problem. You don’t even really need to set it up. It’s very flexible with what you can do with it, but usually you can just throw it on, make a couple of tweaks to the depth and the bandwidth, and you’re good to go. It just tames all of this horrible digital harshness that most multitrack sessions suffer from now.

When I’m using it for mastering, I have to use it in its full resolution, and it still sounds amazing. With a lot of these plugins before soothe, you couldn’t really use them in a mastering context because they’d just be too intrusive.

If you were to look at one of my mix sessions, you’ll find soothe on a lot of the multitrack files and the mix buss as well. It’s definitely the best plugin that I’ve seen come out!

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ERIC PASLAY

King of Country

ERIC

HEADLINER USA

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COVER STORY

KING OF COUNTRY When one thinks about country music, the mind quickly conjures up images of a heavily bearded fellow with a guitar over knee, cowboy hat tipped, boot heel stomping away, and an unmistakable Southern drawl. And while the Texas-born Eric Paslay does possess some of these qualities, it’s his prowess as a singer and songwriter that makes him such a well-known, respected figure in the industry. Having just released his latest record Even If It Breaks Your Barefoot Friday Night – for which he recorded new versions of some of his biggest hits – Paslay is arguably just hitting his musical prime. One thing’s for sure; he’s a modern day country artist bringing the genre to the fore, particularly back in Headliner’s home of the UK…

In fact, at the time of interview, Paslay is part-way through an extensive tour of the country in support of UK country duo The Shires. He’s been bringing his sound across the pond for six years now, building a strong fanbase in an industry nowhere nearly as saturated with country artists as back home: “everyone keeps asking me if I’m on holiday,” he starts with a grin. “The answer is yes and no; I love coming over here and it’s so cool to see people getting to hang out together again.”

As well as achieving a number one and a bunch of top ten singles, Paslay has written an impressive four number ones outside of his artist career, and while it’s his Nashvilleingrained artistry and exhaustive songwriting collaboration with likeminded musicians in the community that have helped him make his name, Headliner is curious to know where it all began.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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ERIC PASLAY

King of Country

“I was 15 when I started playing guitar, and I just assumed that if you played music, you wrote your own songs,” he recalls. “I soon learned that it isn’t always the case; I just love writing songs and singing them. At 18 I decided I was going to go to school for the music business around Nashville, and people just kept encouraging me to figure out a reason to stay there.

“I grew up near Austin which has such an incredible live scene and so many different influences,” Paslay continues.

“I listened to everything growing up.

It’s funny actually; the first song I ever figured out in front of my CD player was Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton – here was a British guy singing blues!

I feel like we’re always reminding each other of what the other side of the pond did – it’s like Adele has this Aretha Franklin thing going on, and we’re always chasing the U2, Coldplay vibes. Maybe one of these days I’ll do some Imogen Heap vocoder magic; hopefully she listens to this interview and wants to work with a giant leprechaun someday!”

HEADLINER USA

Upon his arrival in Nashville, Paslay was lucky enough to land himself a publishing deal with Capitol EMI. Two months later, he co-wrote country star Jake Owen’s hit Barefoot Blue Jean Night which went straight to number one.

“I think that’s now one of the most played songs of the decade in the States, which is insanity,” reflects Paslay. “I always joke that I didn’t know ‘Whoa-oh’ could do that, but it’s true and it can. Children and drunk people can sing it, so it works fabulous. A lot of people just want to say you’re a songwriter or a singer, as if the mind can’t handle you doing both things.

We’re all singers and songwriters. If you have a great method of distribution, then record them all, but the honest truth is even Taylor Swift doesn’t record them all!”

Having worked with a range of heavyweight artists including Amy Grant, Dierks Bentley, Charles Kelley and many more, Paslay continues to champion the open-arms nature of

the Nashville music scene, and not just solely to serve the purposes of country: “We all grew up in a zip code with the language of whatever instruments were available,” he remarks. “We all have a heart and soul, and music is just trying to say what’s in our hearts, or maybe our dreams or our discontent.

Whatever it is, there’s a genre that just kind of fits the world you grew up in.

All of it is special, and it’s good to hear everybody’s voice.

“There’s paint and there’s a canvas; you just need to figure out what you want to paint and what you want the world to see. In country, we’re definitely not as abstract. It’s just like a truck on a piece of paper, although I tend to put more things down than just a truck, even though I drive a truck and I like trucks very much!”

COVER STORY

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“THERE’S A GENRE THAT JUST KIND OF FITS THE WORLD YOU GREW UP IN. ALL OF IT IS SPECIAL, AND IT’S GOOD TO HEAR EVERYBODY’S VOICE.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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ERIC PASLAY

King of Country

The release of Paslay’s eponymous debut album on EMI Nashville – which includes hit singles Friday Night, Song About A Girl, and She Don’t Love You – was undoubtedly a significant moment in his career, paving the way for some of the A-list songwriting collaborations that have earned him his stripes.

Released on April 15, Even If It Breaks Your Barefoot Friday Night (a clever and amusing amalgamation of some of his hit song titles) is the follow up to 2020’s Nice Guy, although its replay value makes it fundamentally different.

Paslay wrote and recorded it with Mitch Furr, who he describes as, “an incredible producer,” – Furr also produced Wild Hearts, a song that Paslay wrote with Keith Urban, which is currently sitting pretty high up the country music charts. With this album, Paslay had the opportunity to re-record some of his hits, like Friday Night and She Don’t Love You. “I play these number one songs that I’ve written every night and I’ve never done an actual studio version of them, so we thought ‘why not, let’s see how it goes’, he remarks. “It was like it was meant to be; we put it out and had a lot of fun making it. I love the versions of each song we’ve done – I kind of just let Mitch step in, and he is incredible.

“Usually I’m a co-producer on a record.

Every minute that something’s being recorded, I’m right there in the studio, just throwing out ideas and seeing what musicians have up their sleeves and what we can find together. But with this record, I was afraid I’d make it sound too similar, because I play them the same way every night. I love Mitch’s creativity. It’s like he goes where I want to go as a producer and then sometimes goes somewhere where I would never go, and it’s fabulous. That definitely showed up a lot on this record; for this one I just stepped back a little bit and let him do his thing, and it turned out great.”

When it comes to his creative process, Paslay admits that different projects HEADLINER USA

COVER STORY

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I LOVE HOW Y’ALL LISTEN OVER HERE start in different ways, often viewing a song as a title or scene that requires a soundtrack, or a movie soundtrack that needs a scene written to it.

A fan of flipping a melody on its head to keep listeners on their toes, Paslay also describes himself as a “good mumble writer – I just start playing and mumbling and see if something falls out that we think is worth singing

about. A lot of songs end up that way,” he reveals. “And then with a lot of them we’ll get the idea and show up in the studio and hopefully capture the lightning in the bottle. I’m good either way.

“I’m always on tour in the States and we’ve got a bunch of things lined up this summer. It’s interesting, because I’ve been talking to the crew in the

UK and it sounds like with a lot of tours here, you’d go out for five or six weeks at a time because you’re going through Europe, whereas in Nashville we’ve been spoiled – it’s usually that weekend warrior touring vibe. I just love playing shows in the UK; we’re all taught how to listen, and I love how y’all listen over here.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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ERIC PASLAY

King of Country

At the time of interview, Paslay was soon heading to Portsmouth with The Shires, with 21 shows left on the tour: “It’s 25 shows in 35 days, and I’m thrilled that Ben and Crissie have invited me out. We’ve been stuck for two years and now we’re finally doing it and it feels good. I love touring over here; I keep telling everybody to go buy merch and spin my record so next time I can afford to bring my little girl and wife over – maybe we’ll have a few more days off in between where it makes sense for them to be here,” he says with a smile.

“I’ll definitely be putting out some new music again soon. I’m constantly HEADLINER USA

making music, touring, renovating houses…” he trails off. “We always keep joking, it’s like, ‘where’s the camera crew?’ We just need somebody following us around – it’d be entertaining! Me and my wife just renovated our first condo that we’re actually about to sell, which is kind of sad and amazing, because Nashville is ridiculous with regards to what people are buying places for. All the neighbors are like ‘you just made the neighborhood go up in value!’ It’s like, yeah, probably didn’t – Natalie’s a great designer and I find good things for really cheap. Don’t throw it away; give it to me. I’ll put it in the house and shine it up and make it look

great. Anyway, that’s a whole other world of the Paslay family; I’ll install your toilet and sing you a hit song, just ‘cause.”

ERICPASLAY.COM

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BLACK ROCKIN’ BEATS

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KOSTAS KALIMERIS HEADLINER USA

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KOSTAS KALIMERIS Black Rockin’ Beats

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ENGINEER

Thirteen years ago, music producer and engineer Kostas Kalimeris opened a recording studio in Santorini. He recalls how One Republic helped put Black Rock Studios on the map.

Kalimeris will never forget Black Rock’s first ever client. Before the Santorini-based luxury villa and recording studio had even been built, Kevin Shirley – a South African music producer, engineer and mixer for bands including Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden – booked it out for a month.

“I found him on Facebook and sent him a message,” Kalimeris reflects,

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smiling. “I told him I was building a studio in Santorini. He asked me to send some photos, and I told him I didn’t have any yet – just drawings and plans. He said, ‘Okay, just send me the plans’. I sent him the plans and he said, ‘Okay, book me in for one month for next July; I’m gonna come over with guitar player and artist, Joe Bonamassa’. It was the first booking ever, and we were literally doing the last finishes at the time they arrived at the studio.

That’s the reason Joe Bonamassa named the album Black Rock, because it was the first album ever recorded in the studio.”

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KOSTAS KALIMERIS Black Rockin’ Beats

“COUNTING STARS WAS THE FIRST BIG HIT RECORDED AT THE STUDIO.”

Black Rock is part recording studio, part luxury villa, and its combination of world class recording technology nestled within idyllic surroundings and Instagram-worthy scenery have made it a favorite studio for artists as diverse as Justin Bieber, Björk, Bring Me The Horizon, Skrillex and One Republic – the latter which used the studio to record tracks for the band’s third studio album, Native. This included one of the band’s most successful singles, Counting Stars, which lead singer Ryan Tedder originally started writing for Beyoncé – later deciding that it didn’t sound like a song she would record. He finished the song in Santorini. Tedder said the band’s time at Black Rock was “by far the best studio experience of our lives”.

“Counting Stars was the first big hit recorded at the studio,” nods Kalimeris.

“They were trying to come here for two years, but their plans kept changing.

So finally, they came in 2013 and they recorded one of their best hits, Counting Stars and three or four more songs for Native. Counting Stars was HEADLINER USA

a huge success and they did the whole production in the studio. Since then, we’ve stayed connected and they’re trying to find time to come back again for another session. Ryan Tedder is phenomenal; he is such a good producer, plus he’s a great guy.

He spread the word about Black Rock everywhere. He’s said great things about the studio. Of course the sound and tech spec is very important for pop artists, but I think the vibe and the energy of the place is the most important,” he considers.

“Especially if you come to write songs, because we have a lot of clients coming for songwriting sessions as well. Sometimes, we’ll have bands or artists coming with not even one song in their pocket, and they’ll spend two weeks before the recording just songwriting, and then when they finish the songwriting, then they start the recording process.”

Kalimeris splits his time between his studio in Athens and Black Rock, and said that there’s one key difference

when working with Greek and international artists that he’s noticed: “In pop music, the writing process is totally different here. In Greece, there is no co-writing, the only co-writers are the lyricist and the composer. In pop music with international artists, you can sometimes have up to 10 or 11 co-writers – this process is almost unknown in the Greek market. The problem in Greece – and maybe this is a problem for all Mediterranean countries – is that they pay more attention to the vocal performance of the lyrics rather than the production,” he explains. “Labels are always keen to spend less and less, but sometimes the bigger artists do have the power to ask for a bigger budget or for a great producer, but there are only a few that are at this level.”

It had been a long time dream of Kalimeris’ to open a studio in Greece, and he spent years looking for the right island. When he visited Santorini, he knew he’d found the place.

ENGINEER

“The idea was to find a really nice location, because for me that’s the most important thing for somebody if they’re going to travel all the way from London, Paris or L.A. We were really lucky to find this amazing place, as it’s a studio and a villa with five bedrooms, which is good for bands.

We built the studio to international standards, with an SSL desk, Genelec monitoring, and we had an acoustic designer come in. These days producers and mixers have their own studios or room at home, so they’re really used to their room sound and speakers, but when they come here, they love the sound of the studio,” he smiles.

A big part of helping visiting producers and engineers feel at home are the studio’s main Genelec 1035, 8040 and 8050 monitors. Kalimeris visited various studios to listen to their

systems before making his decision, and when visiting a studio in Paris, was impressed with the 1035s they had.

“I had a really good memory from that room; I chose the 1035s because they were the best speakers, in my opinion. We built the studio acoustics around these speakers – that’s why the room sounds so good. We do a lot of songwriting camps, and sometimes we’ll have 25 people split into eight songwriting teams, so we need a lot of a lot of nearfield speakers set up in different rooms for the songwriters.

We chose the 8040s and 8050s for that because of their low end, because all the pop producers love the low end. Plus, we found the speakers with the best low end according to their size, because we couldn’t install big speakers in the small writing rooms.

Everyone’s really happy, and we have

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worked with these Genelecs for 13 years now.

“To me, they sound very realistic to my ears. When talking about the big speakers, the most important thing is not to sound chaotic, because there are some speakers where the sound is not realistic. The big Genelec 1035s sound very balanced and very realistic – even if you’re mixing at a low level, it sounds great.”

BLACKROCK-STUDIOS.COM GENELEC.COM

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THE IVORS 2022

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Meet the Winners

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THEIVORS 2022 The Cure frontman Robert Smith, Sam Fender, The Beautiful South’s Paul Heaton, Laura Mvula and more have been speaking to Headliner about last month’s 2022 Ivor Novello Awards, which saw each of them scoop top honors at the glitzy London ceremony.

On Thursday, May 19, many of the world’s most talented and successful artists descended upon London’s Grosvenor House for the UK’s most prestigious songwriting awards bash. The 67th edition of The Ivors saw 21 songwriters and composers recognised across 14 categories, in recognition of outstanding achievements in songwriting and composing for screen.

Among the biggest winners on the night were The Cure icon Smith and his bandmate and bassist Simon Gallup, who were honored their songwriting achievements over the past 40 years.

“It’s a strange one,” Smith told Headliner. “It felt weird leaving the other three at the table. For me it’s

really important that Simon is up there with me. He’s so overlooked it’s criminal. He’s been there pretty much the whole time.

“The thing that strikes me about a lot of the songwriting awards today is that there are teams of songwriters - that never existed when we were young. You used to write songs because you felt you wanted to say something, whereas now I have this horrible nagging feeling sometimes that there are people sitting in a room putting things together that tick boxes... and that, I suppose, is why I have disengaged a bit. There is so much great music that’s been made over the years, and will be made over the years, but even saying that I turn into a critic.”

As for how his and Gallup’s approach to songwriting has changed over the years, Smith explained: “Simon still does it all on cassette! Between us we have demos and we go back and forth, but ultimately, because I write the words, I decide which songs are going to progress and which ones aren’t. But usually with hindsight I pick the wrong songs. I just finished the The Wish remasters and that’s coming out in a couple of months, and I was going through all the old demos for it and there were so many of his demos that never got past that stage and just remained instrumental purely because I couldn’t think of any words for them.

And it’s really sad because some of them are great, so they are all coming out as instrumentals. That’s HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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THE IVORS 2022

Meet the Winners

“TODAY THERE ARE TEAMS OF SONGWRITERS THAT NEVER EXISTED WHEN WE WERE YOUNG.” ~ ROBERT SMITH

That’s the same every time we do anything, there’s always loads and loads of music and a lot of it is Simon’s, but I run out of words.”

Also celebrated for his contribution to the industry over four decades was The Beautiful South and The Housemartins singer and songwriter, Paul Heaton, who picked up the award for Outstanding Song Collection.

“It’s lovely to win this award at this age,” Heaton told Headliner. “I think If I’d won it right at the height of my fame it would have been seen as just what you get at that age with success, but this is recognised over a series of albums and a history, so it’s really nice.”

HEADLINER USA

Commenting on his path into songwriting and The Ivors’ TheWRD initiative launched at the ceremony, he continued: “I left school without any qualifications and went straight into an office as a teaboy, where I worked for three years. But for those three years I was writing, things like Happy Hour and songs about office politics and stuff like that. For the last three or four months there, I was trying to hand my notice in, but I just didn’t have the financial security to do it, and I knew I was starting to develop as a songwriter. I’m my own worst critic, but I wrote a couple where I knew they were proper songs. So, someone in that situation, if they are given the right support… I nearly made the mistake of staying there, and if I had I’d probably still

be there now. My director at the company said to me when I handed in my notice, ‘I think you’re stupid’.

I said, ‘Well, I think I should go into music, when I’m making music, it makes me happy’. But he said, ‘You’re stupid, you’ve got a good life being a teaboy in the accounts’.

He wasn’t being nasty; he was just being realistic. But I ignored him and organisations like TheWRD that The Ivors is setting up could just split the difference for somebody.”

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THE IVORS 2022

Meet the Winners

TheWRD initiative was announced at the ceremony by producer Paul Epworth and songwriter Jamie Hartman and is designed to help break down music industry barriers for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“It’s such an amazing project to be involved in,” Epworth told Headliner.

“Neither of us had conventional routes to where we are in the industry, most people don’t. It’s not like you do well in your exams and then you’re guaranteed a job in a record company or as a record producer, it’s all about merit and experience. What this does allow us to do is pass the knowledge onto these kids, especially at a time when arts education is being cut so severely after a period of austerity, and there is no youth outreach, no youth clubs, which are all the things that got me started. This fills all the gaps in that situation, and it means kids might have the opportunity to go to university or to get jobs, so it opens the door if you have hopes and aspirations.”

Previous nominee Sam Fender took home his first Ivor Novello Award after winning Best Song Musically and Lyrically, for his hit Seventeen HEADLINER USA

Going Under. The song chronicles Fender’s life at the age of 17 and the challenges he and his mother faced.

Speaking to Headliner, he offered the following advice to new artists.

“Write furiously. Regardless of where you’re from, if a song is really good, people will hear it. If people can relate to it then that’s what comes through. Just write relentlessly and never stop.”

He also explained why the Ivors is the most coveted award he has won to date, having recently scooped accolades at The BRITS and the NME Awards, whilst also paying tribute to his manager: “This is a really special award with it being creatives who decide it. It really means a lot. I know how snobby creatives can be!

“I’m very lucky because there aren’t many of them [points to his manager] in the world. We’re friends as much as a business relationship, and that really helps. We look after each other, and he looks after me emotionally as well as professionally. You have to find someone who not just loves your stuff but likes and respects you as a person as well.”

Laura Mvula collected the coveted Best Album Award for her record Pink Noise. Speaking to Headliner about why the Best Album gong is of particular significance for songwriters, she commented: “It’s a pretty bold statement in this here land! For me, it’s the recognition of that body of work; of your spirit; of your commitment to your craft.

There is no higher praise than that. Especially in a singles market.

And that’s fine. A lot of my friends are single market punters and I’m learning all the time. People digest music at a really fast rate. That’s a challenge I thrive on. When I put out an album now, it needs to be something people can hear and connect with immediately.”

Other big winners on the night included Dave (Songwriter of the Year), Shakira (Special International Award), Ed Sheeran, Fred again.. and Johnny McDaid (PRS for Music Most Performed Work for Bad Habits), Naomi Kimpenu (Rising Star Award with Apple Music), Peter Gabriel (Fellowship of The ivors Academy).

IVORSACADEMY.COM

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TAKING CONTROL

A New Breed of Technology

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TAKING CONTROL

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PRO AUDIO

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French pro audio giant L-Acoustics recently lifted the lid on its new LA7.16i amplified controller, which promises to deliver ‘a new breed of technology’. Jason Kelly, the company’s product and technology marketing engineer, tells Headliner what the new multi-channel controller says about L-Acoustics’ push into the installation market and why it is a product like no other…

What was the philosophy behind the launch of the LA7.16i?

For decades there has been a disconnect between the way amplifiers are designed and how they are used in the real world.

Until now, the philosophy has been that every amplifier channel must deliver full power, continuously and simultaneously to all outputs, but this is rarely experienced in actual system deployments. This disconnect has meant that amplifier design has not evolved with the way modern loudspeaker systems are conceived and operated.

Additionally, an increasing number of applications require extended discrete processing capabilities and output counts, and classic four-channel products are not the most efficient approach in these scenarios. We needed to think differently, developing a higher density, multichannel approach, which complements how loudspeaker systems are being designed today. The LA7.16i is a new breed of intelligent amplified controller that delivers high power and channel discretization, but with a lower costper-channel than could be achieved with a traditional four or eight channel solution.

What makes the product unique?

Several features combine to make LA7.16i a unique product. Its 16 x 16 architecture, 2RU form factor, and

capacity to deliver 1300 W at eight ohms per channel make it the most compact, powerful, and high-density amplifier available. Combined with L-SMART, our unique power management technology, LA7.16i is an amplified controller designed for real-world applications.

What does the LA7.16i bring to the installation market?

Together with the technical feature set, LA7.16i also delivers direct benefits at the integration level. Its high-density design means fewer physical amplifiers are needed to drive the same sized loudspeaker HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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TAKING CONTROL

A New Breed of Technology

“THE FEATURE SET OF LA7.16I ENABLES US TO OFFER AN UNPARALLELED SOLUTION TO THE INSTALLATION MARKET, WITH A PERFECT BALANCE OF COMMERCIAL AND TECHNICAL BENEFITS, WITHOUT COMPROMISING QUALITY.”

system. This means less rack space, network hardware, and mains power distribution are needed… and less weight too. All these factors have a positive impact on the costs and the time it takes to install a system, but without compromising performance.

And the efficiency of the LA7.16i also contributes to lower overall mains power consumption and thermal dissipation figures over the lifetime of the system, making it the greenest amplifier L-Acoustics has ever made.

applications like cruise ships and stadiums, where rack space and weight limitations are a concern.

Immersive audio applications, such as L-ISA installations, requiring large quantities of discrete processing and amplification will benefit from the lower cost per channel. LA7.16i makes these types of high channel count applications more easily accessible and cost-effective to deploy.

How significantly does this launch increase L-Acoustics’ reach into the installation market?

Power efficiency is a multi-faceted subject and is a combination of many aspects of an amplifier design.

For LA7.16i we designed highly efficient, Class D output modules and an advanced, DSP controlled, SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supply) with PFC (Power Factor Correction).

But it’s our new L-SMART power management technology that really sets the LA7.16i apart. L-SMART uses predictive modelling and intelligent management of resources to deliver power efficiently to the connected loudspeaker system. This combination of efficiency and power allows the LA7.16i to drive everything from K2 to X4i, and any combination in between, without the user needing to think about how the system is deployed or managed.

The feature set of LA7.16i enables us to offer an unparalleled solution to the installation market, with a perfect balance of commercial and technical benefits, without compromising quality. Additionally, the adaptability and flexibility of LA7.16i will make L-Acoustics system solutions more accessible to a wider range of applications than ever before, broadening our reach through multiple verticals.

What business opportunities does the product open up for the company?

LA7.16i will create many new opportunities for customers to access our products. The highefficiency design of LA7.16i benefits HEADLINER USA

Tell us about the power efficiency of the product?

Are there any particular applications it is best suited to?

Any medium to large-scale application can benefit from the flexibility that LA7.16i offers. If there is a need to have fewer racks and less weight, more efficiency, or increased numbers of discrete, high-power channels, LA7.16i delivers. Installation applications such as performing arts centers, theaters, immersive experiences, theme parks, cruise ships, and sports venues can all benefit from LA7.16i’s unique feature set.

When will it be available?

LA7.16i will ship in Q3 2022.

L-ACOUSTICS.COM

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HEADLINER USA

Wide Awake

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HALEY GOLD US singer-songwriter, Haley Gold, who spent her late teenage years and early twenties writing and recording original music after the split of allstar girl group DAME, talks to Headliner about her time in the group, her biggest musical influences, her recently released single Laughing In My Sleep, and her upcoming tour in NYC.

Tell us about your start in the music industry with DAME. I was in that girl group from the ages of about 17 to 21. Those were my growing up years; it was a lot about finding out not only who I was as an artist, but how I can contribute to a girl group in that kind of setting. It taught me literally everything, especially with Shawn Stockman [Boyz II Men], from harmonies and making connections to character building and teamwork, and more importantly, how to get myself out into the world when it came to what I wanted to sing about.

It certainly helped with my growth coming out of that group. Having recently entered my twenties, I was just in a state of, ‘Okay, I knew who I was in a girl group, but how can I define who I am not just as an artist, but as a person.’ So there was definitely a lot of soul searching going on during that time, and it helped me get into the creative process of writing music – not just about breakups and friendships and stuff like that – but about daily life; things don’t have to be sugar-coated and great all the time when it comes to writing songs.

There was a lot of vulnerability and expression that came out of my songwriting during that period and it led me to who I am now.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

I think one of the things that made me start singing was certainly being a Justin Bieber fan. Seeing how he started on YouTube was definitely relatable to me because that’s how the group was discovered, so I definitely found a big connection with how Justin grew up and how he HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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created his name and his brand, not just in the US and Canada, but all over the world. I grew up watching his tour videos and just wanted to learn as much as I could.

I was into R&B growing up so our music aligned quite a bit, but now being a songwriter and a pop artist, I’m listening to Julia Michaels, JP Saxe, a lot of Olivia Rodrigo, Tate McRae, Dua Lipa – artists that really put not just their own experience into it, but their grief and their problems, their issues and their challenges. It made me a little bit more vulnerable in the process and made me really want to get myself out there.

How did your recent single, Laughing In My Sleep, come together?

That song was definitely an outlier. I did not expect in my wildest dreams

to actually create a song as disco-ey and poppy as that was, but it turned out for the best!

Laughing In My Sleep was a bit of a power move when it came to feeling confident and wanting to truly embrace who I was, because at the time the song was written, I needed that extra push to get myself out there.

It was the start of 2021, so everyone was still in that headspace of loneliness, and I really wanted it to be something that gave people the motivation to get out there for themselves.

When I received the final master I cried tears of joy, because I never expected the song to sound as good as it did. I just hope that everybody else feels not only how dancey and poppy it is, but the pain that also went into creating that song. It really helped me get out of a sticky situation, and hopefully people not only listen to the production, but to the lyrics as well, and it lifts them up just like it did for me. I think the best thing you can do as a songwriter is get out into the world and see things, and just let your creativity flow.

I wrote it with my two best friends Jesse Blumenfeld and Mark Sanderlin.

It came out of one session and we stepped back from it a day later and just thought, ‘Did we just do something that sounds like a big pop song?’

“I THINK THE BEST THING YOU CAN DO AS A SONGWRITER IS GET OUT INTO THE WORLD AND SEE THINGS, AND JUST LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW.”

HEADLINER USA

EMERGING HEADLINER

And you have a new EP on its way..?

It’s in the works; I can finally say all the songs are done. So it’s just a case of pressing a button at this point, and just making sure all the stars are aligned, but I am very, very happy with it. It’s a great piece of work that embraces who I am not just as a person, but as an artist.

Can you share any info about your upcoming tour in NYC? Absolutely! It’s called the Made You Cry New York City Tour, where once

a month I’m going to different places in the city to perform my entire EP for people to hear, hopefully growing a bigger fan base and just making people more aware of my music and who I am. I’ve been nothing but grateful for my band, my team and how it’s been working so far. And the summer is coming, so a lot more of this kind of thing will be planned!

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THE ‘YES’ AMP

HEADLINER USA

New Horizons

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THE ‘YES’ AMP German pro audio giant d&b audiotechnik recently launched its new 5D amplifier, a new solution designed to open up the capabilities of its sound systems to a wider range of installations. Product manager Wolfgang Schulz speaks to Headliner about what the new system means for the business and the possibilities it presents in bringing immersive sound to the masses…

Tell us about the origins of the 5D amplifier and the philosophy behind its creation.

Faithful reproduction is integral to the d&b brand, a value that runs throughout the business, from R&D to marketing. From a system architecture perspective, d&b loudspeakers and amplifiers have always been built for what we consider to be the fundamentals: performance, quality and reliability. There was a clear need for economical and decentralized amplification which led us to develop the 5D, with the goal of making d&b high-quality sound available to an even broader range of installations.

How much potential is there for new business with this amp?

The 5D improves the affordability of a d&b system, opening up d&b technology to more projects around the world. It is an ideal product for introducing d&b systems to new installation segments as well as expanding the scope of opportunity in established segments. It is the ‘yes’ amp and it creates an opportunity for those who may have thought d&b was out of their reach, to say ‘yes’ to a d&b system.

What kind of markets does it open up for you?

5D will empower our installation strategy supporting applications that use multiple smaller loudspeaker setups. The 5D ensures that these smaller systems, as well as large installations with lots of areas around the main performance area, can be delivered in a cost effective way without compromising d&b quality. Delivering full d&b Workflow integration, with 16 amplifier channels in just 2RU of amp rack

space. The flexibility of the 5D means it addresses a range of installation projects, from conference facilities and meeting rooms, to restaurants and wedding halls as well as mass notification systems in train stations and airports, etc.

The 5D is unique for d&b, it is our most compact amp and our first amp with integrated Audio networking using Dante.

Using decentralization amplification, it is the perfect size to drive smaller loudspeakers and can be mounted under tables, behind screens or above ceilings as well as in a rack. We went to great lengths to make sure the 5D offered all the interoperability that integrators need and expect, such as Q-Sys, Crestron and some others.

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New Horizons

Does it mean that Soundscape and other d&b solutions will now become more accessible for businesses on a budget?

Yes! Its compact four-channel design means the 5D is particularly convenient for the set-up and deployment of small Soundscape systems. For example, it will significantly bring down the cost in pre-production rehearsal Soundscape environments. 5D is great for En-Space room emulation applications with lots of surround speakers and for near-field loudspeakers.

manufacturer to an event technology company for integrated audio, video, light and media solutions. We took the important step in formalizing this with the establishment of d&b solutions last year. Future plans will see this evolution broaden into global markets, all the while continuing to work side by side with our partners to ensure we are offering pioneering technologies, methodologies and services.

Will this move into more affordable, smaller scale applications be something we can expect to see more from with d&b this year and beyond?

For those curious about the future of pro audio, d&b Soundscape alongside the 5D can provide them with the possibilities and efficiency to implement immersive experiences in a straightforward and scalable way.

Yes! Never compromising on the quality of d&b products of any scale, we always try to figure out the best budget/performance ratio. With the 5D in our amp portfolio, d&b quality is even more achievable.

How important is it for the company to broaden its reach into new areas of the market?

Are there any other new products in the pipeline you can discuss at this point?

For the last few years d&b has been evolving from an audio

As always, our focus is on establishing a complete end-to-end

HEADLINER USA

offering to provide everything for creatives to deliver extraordinary experiences for their audiences.

We have focused on the continuous improvement of Soundscape from new software updates to gamechanging additions such as the Soundscape En-Scene simulation tool, third party technology integrations and the technology will continue to adapt in the future.

Watch this space.

DBAUDIO.COM

Case Study

FOCUSRITE PRO IN WAYSTATION STUDIOS GRAMMY®-winning producer/engineer Dave Way's resume runs across all genres, spanning pop, rock, R&B and more, and his credits include such acclaimed artists as Christina Aguilera, Fiona Apple, Ziggy Marley, Macy Gray, Michael Jackson, “Weird Al" Yankovic, Phoebe Bridgers, Ringo Starr and dozens of others, in addition to the acclaimed soundtrack to Echo in the Canyon.

His most recent GRAMMY nomination was for “Best Immersive Audio Album," for his work as immersive audio co-producer on the 2019 album The Savior by A Bad Think.

Learn more at pro.focusrite.com or scan the QR code below

Like many working in the world of immersive audio, Way's attention has turned to the Dolby Atmos® format, and in 2020 he took the leap and upgraded his personal facility, Waystation Studio, to be able to mix in Atmos.

Since last year, he has been settling in with the new setup, mixing several projects and even recording an entire album specifically to be mixed in Atmos – helped in no small part by his arsenal of interfaces and a RedNet R1 controller from Focusrite Pro.

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Make It Sound Fabulous

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MAKE IT SOUND FABULOUS

CODA ATOASIS A CODA Audio system recently impressed during a production of The Rocky Horror Show to earn itself a permanent home at an iconic San Francisco venue.

From a bath-house complete with swimming pool and retractable roof, to its current incarnation as a nightclub offering superstar drag shows and cabaret performances, the Oasis club has been a staple of the city’s LGBTQ nightlife scene since the late ‘70s.

In 2014, the venue was taken over by actor, writer, musician, director and producer, D’Arcy Drollinger and three partners, including drag legend, Heklina, and began a new

era of entertainment that continues to go from strength-to-strength. The club operates in two different modes: a variety of cabaret entertainment including music, theater, comedy, storytelling and burlesque take place during the evening, before the venue transforms into a full nightclub setup, hosting night-long parties which often feature additional live performances.

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When Oasis was forced to close during the pandemic, it took the opportunity to refurbish the Champagne Lounge, one of the club’s ancillary spaces, before planning to return with an ambitious production of The Rocky Horror Show. In order to support what would be an immersive event staged in multiple spaces across the venue, Drollinger took the decision to bring a high-quality audio system into the Lounge for the show’s run, with a view to a permanent install in the future. He consulted with CODA Audio USA’s Sarah Phykitt, a long time associate and former production manager at Oasis. Sarah and CODA Technical Director Michael Creason were given a simple brief by the club owner - “Make it sound fabulous!”

The CODA team set about designing a system that could meet the specific requirements of The Rocky Horror Show Production, as well as the wider demands of the club. Spoken word events and high energy music reinforcement both play an important part at Oasis, so the solution needed to combine exceptional clarity with substantial power.

The team chose the versatile two-way G512-Pro for the mains, complemented by two compact G15-Sub extensions positioned under the stage. Two HOPS8 were deployed as stage foldback. Consistent coverage was achieved across the room, while energy was kept away from the bar to enable drinks orders to be made effectively. Given that performers are in front of mains or monitors at all times, the system needed to be very feedback resistant as well as having powerful sub-bass for the ‘club’ elements of the venue.

Sarah comments: “Nightclubs are always a little tricky. Being sure that the loudspeakers are positioned for optimal coverage while keeping them out of reach of enthusiastic patrons is a must. In this case being able to tuck the subs under the stage worked well for providing some protection the compact nature of the G15 subs enabled us to achieve this in a very limited space. We also chose to hang the stage fills on off-stage columns rather than at the lip of the stage, keeping them safely away from spilled drinks, while still being really present for vocalists. Those HOPS8 sometimes have some very hot microphones only

inches away without any danger of feedback!”

Audience reaction to The Rocky Horror Show was universally positive, with the immersive nature of the show proving to be a great hit with customers. Every show was a sellout, with extra performances added as a result of overwhelming demand. Once completed, Drollinger and his team had a decision to take about whether to purchase the system as a permanent install for the Champagne Lounge, or revert to the space’s old system. Having heard the system in action during the shows, ultimately, there was no going back, and following positive discussions with CODA’s local supplier Some More Sound, Oasis bought the system.

Drollinger reflects on a very positive step forward: “Our CODA sound system has completely transformed our ancillary space at the club for the better in ways that I had not anticipated. The impressive quality of the sound has made a huge difference, not only for our performers and DJs, but for our audience as well. It has revolutionized what had essentially been a passthrough into a performance space in its own right.”

CODA’s Sarah Phykitt is pleased with the performance of the system, citing even coverage and great clarity from front to back: “The nature of the Rocky Horror performances was always going to be an excellent test for the system and its feedback-resistance qualities. It definitely passed with flying colors, and I’ve no doubt that the success of those shows was instrumental in convincing the Oasis decision-makers that it would prove to be a real asset for future productions, as well as the day to day staples at the club. The G512s provide great clarity for vocals while the G15s have enough power to get the party going when it’s time to dance!”

CODAAUDIO.COM

HEADLINER USA

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UNITING YOUR AUDIENCE FOR 50 YEARS

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HEADLINER USA

The Future Is Retro

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THE FUTURE IS RETRO

ANN MINCIELI As Alicia Keys’ personal recording engineer, head of music, business partner and close friend, Ann Mincieli is proudly affiliated with one of the most successful R&B acts of all time. After recently taking home her third Grammy Award for “Best Immersive Audio Album” for her work on ALICIA – currently available for streaming in Sony’s 360 Reality Audio – she caught up with Headliner to reveal what it’s truly like working with the girl on fire…

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It was at the 47th Grammy Awards when Mincieli earned her first Grammy for The Diary Of Alicia Keys (Best R&B Album), and subsequently her second for Keys’ fifth studio album, the now iconic Girl On Fire, but does this third win feel particularly special?

“It does, because there’s not many females that have won a Grammy for engineering and producing,” she rightly points out. “So my goal is to win my next award for songwriting.”

It is in fact through songwriting how Mincieli first got her start in music, playing guitar and bass and writing songs in a band. However after being introduced to the studio world at the age of 16, she immediately discovered her calling: “I realized that the studio is the hidden hub where everyone meets, making it a great place to learn every aspect of the industry.”

Since then, Mincieli has worked with a whole range of A-list artists including Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Usher, Drake, Jennifer Hudson and Whitney Houston, yet it was relatively early on in her career – around 1998 – when she first met Alicia Keys at Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan.

“Most people don’t know that she signed a publishing deal at the age of 13,” Mincieli reveals. “Back in the ‘90s, artists like Alicia and Beyonce were on

the back burner being developed by these labels, because at the time the industry was a little older, and you had these two very young artists coming up.”

Reflecting further on her three decades in the industry, Mincieli says she is proud to have gone through the twists and turns of music technology, referring to hers and Alicia’s approach as “retrofuturistic”.

“It’s live drums over programmed drums,” she continues. “Alicia has a huge keyboard satellite rig. We run two Pro Tools units; she has her own with her Native Instruments piano plugin and all her virtual synths, and at the same time we have our Moogs and Dave Smith keyboards and Mellotrons all in a big circle, all coming up through the desk. I constantly route them into Pro Tools because I never know what’s going to inspire her – so I have to be recording everything all the time.”

For Mincieli, who has built up a neat collection of outboard gear over the course of her career, a song idea always starts with a blank piece of paper: “I own 50 guitars, 12 vintage drum kits, about 50 snare drums, 100 cymbals, every mic pre you can think of from V76s to Focusrite Reds, and they all are designed differently, right? They’re crayons in a crayon box. We paint the picture going into our DAW (which is Pro Tools); we have Neve 2254

compressors and 1176 distressors all used on Alicia’s vocals, depending on what type of song and the type of microphone we’re using. She loves sonics, and the sonic character differs from song to song and album to album.”

As fans will know, Keys’ songs are often linchpinned by an abundance of organic instrumentation, careful arrangement, and musicality that evolves as each song progresses: “I love to break out my guitars when we’re recording,” Mincieli adds. “A lot of times she’ll challenge the players that come in; she’s not copying and pasting the chorus – you’re gonna play that chorus, even if it’s the same part over and over, because it’s that human element that we love. We study sounds from the ‘60s and ‘70s, from The Pointer Sisters to Aretha Franklin to Fleetwood Mac. In a way, we’re stuck in that sonic, and we try to recreate those concepts and bring them to life in the music we make today.”

When they first started working together, the type of engineer Mincieli wanted to be reflected the type of producer Keys sought to be, and vice versa. Keys was keen to get hold of the latest gear, and always had some iteration or variation of a studio to retreat to, whether that be in her Harlem apartment, her house in Queens, or elsewhere.

“ALICIA LOVES THE STUDIO PROCESS, AND SHE REALLY ALLOWS ME TO BE A PART OF THE SONIC AND THE DECISIONS.”

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“We went from basements to baseball fields together,” says Mincieli with a smile. “We’ve sought out all the big studios around the world, whether we’re working in Bath, England, or in Jamaica, Alicia loves the studio process and truly understands it. It’s a great collaboration, and she really allows me to be a part of the sonic and the decisions.

“Obviously I cut my teeth in the studio world, but the fact that I can work these broadcast events and do tour, I feel like I’m hitting almost every aspect of the music and live show component now.”

So with Keys’ artistry perfected to a tee, why did it make sense to go down the immersive route with her latest record? For five years now, Mincieli has been actively involved on several committees for immersive audio technologies, helping to develop the latest innovations and push them out to consumers: “We wanted to experiment with it,” she says. “We mixed the Dolby Atmos version, and signed a deal with Sony to adopt their 360 Reality Audio technology, so it lined up really well with the album. We actually went back and remixed our entire catalog, but this new record was exciting because the technology was new and we wanted to make it a hybrid, experimenting with HEADLINER USA

depth, space, imaging, panning and the ability to have objects.

“The aim was to make the immersive mix sound completely different. We wanted to pan the guitars on Show Me Love, use some delay throws and really get things moving around. We didn’t use stems, so we dug into our raw files and remixed everything as a separate mix, which was really exciting.

We love technology, so it was right up Alicia’s alley to really dive in, and she embraced it. We need more artists to be on deck, because it’s their art at the end of the day. The more they can feel good with the product, the more it’s going to succeed. I believe we beat 600 other albums to get this one.”

What’s also intriguing is that Mincieli was instrumental in the building of Jungle City Studios in Manhattan, where ALICIA was primarily recorded and where Keys has her private studio.

Mincieli says she wanted to design an inspirational place that was a destination-type studio, and that’s exactly what she did – Jungle City has welcomed some huge names through its doors over the years, including Depeche Mode, who recorded their last two albums within its walls.

“I did it at a time when streaming was taking over, the industry wasn’t making money, and people really thought that

I was taking a crazy risk,” she reflects.

“I did the research, and I realized that artists needed a playground and a community. I feel like Jungle has led the way into this second wave of new, updated studios that have come about.

Some of the labels are building studios now, and we seem to be going back to how it all started back in the day.”

To this end, Mincieli has also been heavily involved in a new initiative started by Sony Music’s Rob Stringer to build professional recording studios in a number of different territories, five of which she helped build during the pandemic. If that isn’t testament to the studio world being alive and well, then Headliner doesn’t know what is.

“I’m also working on events for She Is The Music – an organization that Alicia and myself fund to help the next generation of women in music,” Mincieli concludes. “On the engineering side, I’m mixing Alicia’s new double album called KEYS, which will also be in immersive, and we’ll have even more new music out soon. Between now and December you’ll see a lot of music from us, so stay tuned. She’s kind of like Prince – she just works 24/7!”

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MARIA ELISA AYERBE

HEADLINER USA

A Tiny Audience

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ENGINEER

A TINY AUDIENCE

MARIA ELISA AYERBE Maria Elisa Ayerbe could not only boast of being a Latin Grammy-winning engineer and producer, and arguably being the go-to producer in the world of Latin American musicians, but she is now the star of HBO’s A Tiny Audience. Headliner chats with the Miami-based studio extraordinaire about her incredible career that has seen her work with the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, and why she has loved using Waves plugins since the early 2000s.

A fascinating aspect of Ayerbe’s career is that, although she had to leave her native Colombia to further her music career in the mid-2000s, she nonetheless is undoubtedly one of the biggest engineers and producers in Latin American music, despite being based in Miami, where she works with Latin American artists in-person and remotely.

“I first moved to Tennessee to further my studies and expand my work in the US, but I kept mixing

for Colombian and Latin American artists,” she says. “I moved to Miami and I met a multi-Grammy and Latin Grammy winning producer by the name of Julio Reyes Capello, who’s also Colombian, and he invited me to be part of his studio. I worked for him for about two years or so. Then I was able to open my own studio and become independent. I also started my own independent label, which is Miami-based, but it’s for Latin American alternative music.”

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“IF EVERYTHING ELSE FAILS, WAVES IS THERE AND YOU’LL GET IT RIGHT.”

A wonderful new feather in Ayerbe’s cap is her featuring on HBO’s A Tiny Audience, in which chart-topping Latin musicians reveal personal secrets to audiences in intimate settings. “I’m one of the hosts,” she explains. “It’s based on very informal interviews, where, for example, if I’m hosting the show – with me being a musician and audio producer myself – I’ll sit down with a renowned Latin artist, and we will have a pretty open and formal conversation, but solely revolving around their music.”

“They have to choose four songs,” she furthers, “and those songs will be performed live for a tiny audience. So we have an audience of fewer than 25 people sitting right in front of us, and the artists will be performing with the house band in a 100% acoustic format.

In between each song we talk a little bit about their lives and how they got to write or perform those songs.”

Ayerbe is a big proponent of Waves plugins, having used them throughout most of her career.

“I remember using L One back in 2003,” she recalls. “I remember using R Verb, R Compression and R EQ. I was using that line back in 2004 for sure. Waves have been a big part of my audio engineering career. I don’t conceive any mix without Waves, because I know how it sounds and how reliable it is.

“I remember when the LL3 Multiband stuff came out and how it changed mixing and mastering forever because it opened up a new world of

possibilities. You could limit per bands, you could actually control threshold, ratio and attack and everything per band. If everything else fails, Waves is there and you’ll get it right. It’s just so reliable.”

In terms of her most-used plugins in her arsenal, Ayerbe says that “there’s not a single project that I won’t have L1 [Ultramaximiser] on. I adore L1.

I’ll use it to clip very subtle kicks and snares. I’ll use it for vocals as well, because I know how that automatic attack and release function works on the L1. I’ve been using it for so long, so I know how to use it on a vocal. The CLA package overall: the 76, the CLA Vocals, Effects, Unplugged, Guitars. It’s just an added thing that will always brighten the music up.

“I’ve become highly attached to Torque, especially for hip-hop productions where you have a constant hammering hi-hat. I use Torque to change the pitch a little bit in different sections of the song and I love that. And a plugin that totally changed my life is the H EQ which was one of the first MS plugins that I knew.”

Ayerbe has a wonderful playlist of her most notable work you can check out, which also reads like a who’swho of Latin American music, and is a testament to her brilliant career so far.

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MPG AWARDS

HEADLINER USA

Back with a Bang

Images: Blake Ezra

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BACK WITH A BANG

MPG AWARDS The Music Producers Guild’s MPG Awards – celebrating the industry’s very best music production and engineering talent – made a triumphant return to an in-person awards evening on June 9 at London’s The Tower Hotel, and media partner Headliner was there to capture all the reactions from the big winners on the night.

Now in its 14th year, the annual MPG Awards has become a benchmark for recognizing early talent in the industry, who later go on to lead it.

The top accolade of UK Producer Of The Year was won by Marta Salogni, who was first recognized back in 2018 when she won Breakthrough Engineer of The Year, and again in 2020 when she won Breakthrough Producer of The Year.

“This one does feel very significant,” Salogni told Headliner shortly following her win, “and it just makes me feel driven to do more and more.

There’s never an end to what we do, and I’ll never get tired of it, because I’m constantly encouraged and inspired by the artists that I work with and by the art that we’re making.”

Manon Grandjean (pictured left) was awarded Mix Engineer of the Year by multi-award-winning songwriter, Kamille, for an astonishing year of work with artists including Noa, AJ Tracy & Lxandra. Manon was first recognized at the 2017 MPG Awards, when she won Breakthrough Engineer of The Year and then Engineer of the Year in 2018.

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“I’M CONSTANTLY ENCOURAGED AND INSPIRED BY THE ARTISTS THAT I WORK WITH AND BY THE ART THAT WE’RE MAKING.” - MARTA SALOGNI

“It’s such an honor to be nominated – let alone win – and to be the first woman to ever win in this category is just a win in itself for me,” Grandjean told Headliner post-win. “So many amazing women have been recognized tonight and it’s so great to see. I’m really, really proud of that.”

Olga FitzRoy MPG executive director added, “It’s wonderful to see the career-progression of some of our winners this year – it shows that progress and longevity are possible in this industry, and that the MPG Awards, voted on by working professionals, really are among the most meaningful of music awards.”

Inflo was once again awarded for his work, taking home Writer-Producer Of The Year for a second year running.

He also produced the Album Of The Year – Little Simz’ Sometimes I Might Be Introvert.

Fiona Cruickshank also took home two awards – Breakthrough Producer Of The Year and Recording Engineer Of The Year.

Another notable recipient was the singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer, Joan Armatrading who received the PPL present The MPG Outstanding Contribution To UK Music award.

This year also saw the return of the Unsung Hero Award – the only category open to anyone in the industry – which was won by #BrokenRecord campaigner Tom Gray.

New categories included Vocal Producer of the Year, which was presented by Ellie Goulding to Lorna Blackwood for her work with Dua Lipa (pictured above).

HEADLINER USA

“I’m just absolutely stoked,” Blackwood told Headliner following her win. “I do a lot of coaching all the way through to vocal production, which is of course about creating a sound for the artist, and I’m hoping that people are starting to notice that this doesn’t have to be done just via sitting at a desk with someone. It can be less of a technical process, and more of a holistic one – finding out more about who the artist is.”

The second new category was the Rising Star Award, replacing the previous Breakthrough Engineer category to include early-career recording, mix and mastering engineers.

This award was presented to Matt Taylor, who said, “This month marks exactly 10 years since I left the care system, so to be recognized in this way by my industry is surreal, and an honor. This is a brutal industry for a careleaver, where having no family or financial support makes it nearly impossible. I hope that my success will now begin to shift the tides so more people like me can survive and thrive in recording. I may be the first care leaver to win an MPG Award, but I’m gonna make sure I’m not the last!”

The event was hosted by tastemaker and broadcaster Abbie McCarthy, with Max Hardcastle, Coco Cole and Matt Puffett (from FBA, UNKLE) providing the afterparty music.

View the full list of this year’s MPG Award winners at headlinermagazine.net MPG.ORG.UK

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ISABELLE BANOS Five years ago, Isabelle Banos found her true calling. Already a member of the badass alternative pop band, Caveboy, the Montreal-based songwriter knew she wanted to produce. She reflects on her production journey and explains what led her to open a studio for women and gender minorities.

Banos was happily binge-watching Netflix miniseries, Maid last year, and on being blown away by the show’s music and soundtrack, was a little sad that none of her band’s (Caveboy) music had been included after getting a sync request six months earlier.

“Maid was right up my alley. It instantly hooked me,” says an instantly friendly Banos from her home in Montreal, Canada, where she’s joined by her sometimes vocal rescue dog, Bruce. “I was really enjoying it and I was really drawn to the music that they used, to the point where I was a little jealous!

I was super bummed that none of Caveboy’s music was able to make

it into the show. I was like, ‘Man, this would have been such a great sync placement!’ I kid you not – the next episode that I watched, sure enough, our song Something Like Summer pops up. I nearly had a heart attack!

I had completely forgotten about the sync request; I don’t know if I was busy or if because of the pandemic my brain was half working, but for some reason I didn’t clock that this was the show. The scene popped up and I listened to the background music. I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. I know this song. I made this song’. It was like an out of body experience. It was so bizarre. It’s certainly our happiest, most joyful song. We definitely write in a minor key more often,” she grins.

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exciting to see that I can truly live off of music, which is super rare for so many people. So I don’t take it lightly. It’s been a journey!”

“I’M THE TYPE THAT IF I’VE GOT SOMETHING ON MY MIND, I’M GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.”

Making up the rest of Caveboy are Mint Bensimon on lead vocals, guitar and synths and Lana Cooney on drums, percussion and backing vocals, while Banos is on synths, bass and backing vocals. They met at CEGEP, a publicly funded college in Canada, and never looked back.

“I met Lana there. I saw this girl with drumsticks poking out of her backpack, and I was like, ‘Okay, I see you. Please be my friend’. We started making music and jamming in her garage. Our first gig was her sister’s bar mitzvah – very rock and roll! We got a taste for performing, we got the bug. Eventually Mint joined the band and the three of us just clicked.”

When it comes to songwriting duties, the band all pitch in: “We all write equally,” she nods. “It’s such an amazing opportunity to get different tastes and different flavors into the songwriting process. I’ve tried to write songs on my own for years, and I think they’re good, but they’re never as great as when the three of us get together.”

Five years ago Banos participated in her very first songcamp as a topliner, which, although she loved the experience, made her realize that her true passion lay in producing. Fast forward to 2020, and Music Publishers Canada named her among the top eight emerging female producers HEADLINER USA

in Canada to be welcomed into its Women in the Studio accelerator program.

“I was always the member of the band who was most interested in that side of things,” she reflects. “I was always really intrigued and passionate about taking that control into my own hands.

I’m the type that if I’ve got something on my mind, I’m going to make it happen. I would bring up Logic on my laptop and get our demos going.

But where we’re at now, I’ve got a studio space where I’m equipped for everything other than for drums, so we’re able to get a lot done together, to the point where with our record, we’re going to try to take it as far as possible on our own to potentially be credited as self produced, and then get some outside ears on it from a mixer and a mastering engineer.”

Being a part of the year-long Women in the Studio accelerator program really opened doors for Banos, which is is eternally grateful for: “That gave me a newfound drive to take production and engineering to the next level,” she enthuses. “It allowed me to skyrocket over the past couple of years, to the point where it’s no longer necessarily a side hustle – it’s really a balance between being an artist and being a producer/ engineer, and I’m really proud of it. I put a lot of work and time into it. It’s really

In April 2021, Banos opened her own commercial studio named Chez Ballsy, which is a space created by and for women and gender minorities.

“Being a woman in the studio, being part of Caveboy and my experiences as a woman in the music industry for over 10 years were a huge factor creating this,” she says on her reasons for starting the studio. “Of course, I’ve had so many positive experiences, but I’ve had a tonne of negative experiences. I’m sure that, unfortunately, a lot of women can relate to that. I’ve always been passionate about doing whatever I can to help people, and I’ve always been really interested in teaching, educating and sharing knowledge.

I studied to become a high school teacher and I didn’t end up pursuing it. The traditional classroom wasn’t necessarily where I saw myself, but I have continued to do all that I can in educating and sharing knowledge in music, especially for women and gender minorities.

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“I’ve had so much fun along my journey with recording and producing music,” she continues. “Seeing firsthand how male dominated it is and how few women there are, I wanted to do my part to try to help change that.

This space was always going to be a place that was welcoming, inviting and as safe as I could possibly make it for anybody to be creative in, to be vulnerable in, to be silly and weird in – just anyone who needs to have a space to create without having to worry about how someone’s going to talk to them, or hit on them, or dumb them down. I feel so proud and so grateful to be able to do this every day.”

Banos tells Headliner she loves “nerding out”, and happily delves into her new favorite Focusrite kit at Chez Ballsy, where she’s using an ISA One and a Clarett+ 8Pre interface.

“I’ve been using Focusrite gear forever,” she beams. “The Scarlett was my first interface and I used it for years.

It’s so solid, does everything you need it to and it was always such a positive experience. Caveboy also used it on stage for years. Most recently, I got the ISA One and the Clarett+ 8Pre pre, which was super fun. I felt very fancy! Over the past few months, I’ve been able to properly integrate them into my workflow. I’m running everything through that ISA One, and it’s so great. I wish it had 20 inputs! It’s so fantastic and it’s so easy and seamless to use. It’s very much: you plug it in and it sounds great. I love being able to switch impedances, and I will never claim to fully understand how electricity works, but those switches for the impedance on the ISA One are just so easy to use! It’s from low to high, and you just can hear that signal and get a little bit more sexy heat. It brightens up those higher frequencies a little bit, brings out a little bit more sauce, a little bit more clarity, and it’s just a little subtlety that’s so exciting – even on a dry recording.”

HEADLINER USA

Banos is happy to report that the Clarett+ 8Pre’s 18 inputs and 20 outputs are more than enough for her requirements: “Definitely!” she laughs. “I’m not able to accommodate drums here at this point, but even if I was, I feel like I could make it work with this. For the mics that I have for the things that I’m working on, it’s absolutely perfect. And what’s super fun about it is the All-analogue Air function, which is fantastic. Just with that button, it’s recreating the ISA One sound, so I really have the best of both worlds. I can have that extra heat and extra clarity on every one of those channels, which is such a luxury. To be able to plug my synths into it and to get a little extra something out of it is really amazing. It’s hard for me to not turn on the Air function!

“This is such an amazing, fun job that I get to do, I want to enjoy every second of it,” she considers, smiling suddenly.

“And it’s reinvigorating that love for the gig. So I’m really, really enjoying that.”

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HEADLINER USA

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CHRIS ALLEN Mix engineer and composer Chris Allen has applied his signature touch to some of the most iconic and instantly recognizable pieces of music over the past two decades.

Here, he discusses his ability to weave seamlessly between dance, rock and pop, to creating hugely successful pieces for the likes of Sky Sports and more…

When did you first know you wanted to work in audio?

When I was about 10 or 11, I knew this is what I wanted to do. I was always into records with an unusual electronic production, whether that was Mike Oldfield or Nick Kershaw. It was about the way stuff was mixed. That sparked my interest in the business of electronic-influenced music. I was still predominantly into a lot of rock as a teenager but then acid house came along and changed everything for a whole generation. That, combined with some home computers being able to do some basic sampling. The Commodore Amiga had a sound

chip that enabled someone like me to sample things and start making my own music with basic sequencers, and I didn’t need any hardware. From then on I knew I wasn’t going to be interested in doing anything else. I got into clubland and the culture and really enjoyed that side of it, and then my parents got sick of it and sent me off to Kingston to do the Gateway music course. That was a real turning point and I met people there who defined my whole career.

What was your big break?

A friend of mine got a job at Serious Artist Management, who looked after Judge Jules and Sonique and others from the London house scene at the time. I was brought in to help build a studio for them in London and got to work. I spent the first six months figuring it out and then we made a record with Sonique. Then we made another one a few months later called Feels So Good and four or five years later that became a huge global No.1.

That was the moment I transitioned

from a jobbing engineer in a small studio to being able to spread my wings a bit. And I wanted my own place – I didn’t want to be working in someone else’s studio. So me and a partner of mine built a studio in his house and Sonique exploded and that brought some money in, which allowed me to gradually build a working set up.

But it happened in two stages. When I was working at that studio, the record was released in the UK and did pretty well – about 23 in the charts, which wasn’t bad for a little independent label. Then three or four years later it went mad in America. At the time, around the turn of the millennium, radio was still king, and her record got picked up in Florida by a request show.

So, it got played and then exploded, and within a month she had eight or nine majors wanting to sign her. She signed a big deal with Universal in the US and they said, ‘We need an album now’. So, we beavered away and knocked up an album that did really HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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well. The song went out and didn’t make the No.1 in the US but it did in the UK - it sold well into the millions and was a hit globally.

What have been some of the other defining projects you have worked on?

Working with UNKLE (James Lavelle) changed everything for me. At the time, I’d left my previous job and built a studio at my friend’s house and started making a bit of a name for myself mixing for other people and making my own records. My perspective on it all was that I’d had this success with Sonique but I felt like I hadn’t earned it, that I’d lucked out and that didn’t sit right with me. So, I started over and was doing my own techno stuff and James came knocking and said he thought it would be interesting to bring a dance engineer in to mix a rock record. I then spent about 18 months trying to wrap my brain around live drums and strings, and this was a big record with people like Josh Homme on it and loads of big artists. And it was produced by Chris Goss in the US who’s a big rock producer. All these people knew their shit, and then there was this upstart dance guy who appeared right at the end to bind it all together.

It was an amazing experience, and it was a big turning point for me in the early part of my career and it led to a number of other things.

How collaborative was James Lavelle during the making of the record?

The mixing went on for over a year and a lot of tracks were constantly being worked on and developed. He was very hands on. He’s an old school producer in that he isn’t as concerned with the minutiae, but he has great ears and a great perspective on it all and he views it from that level. It’s a great perspective to have in music. The whole thing was a great experience, and it still stands up really well today.

Both that and the Sonique projects were major turning points for me.

HEADLINER USA

“I ENJOY MAKING DEEP AND COMPLEX MUSIC BUT THERE IS A REAL SKILL IN FUNCTIONAL MUSIC, WHICH HAS TO CREATE A CERTAIN FEELING IN A REALLY SHORT SPACE OF TIME.”

What came next?

I realized I needed to generate some income that wasn’t just jobbing engineer work. If you can get some royalties going, then life gets a bit easier. So, I started doing production music. A friend of mine got a job at Sky in the music department and they were setting up their own music library ostensibly to save themselves some money. Then they suddenly needed loads of music, so my friend rang me and asked if I wanted to do some. So, I did and made a whole bunch of stuff for their catalog, and another stroke of luck came along in that one of the tracks we made became the theme for the Sky Sports News channel, which was like the musical goose that laid the golden egg. That music was on everywhere – I’ve never made a piece of music with reach like it!

I enjoy making deep and complex music but there is a real skill in functional music, which has to create a certain feeling in a really short space of time. It’s hard to be concise and I learnt a lot from doing that, especially the little three second bumpers for ad breaks. Making a piece of music that short, that resonates, is really hard!

And just because the piece is really short doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot going on in it. You end up with a tiny sting that’ll have 100 tracks – it’s really unwieldy in a sequencer! That was a great experience and allowed me to earn some good money and enabled

me to change things and look at other work. I did quite a lot of library music for a while and then eventually I moved back to mixing and built a new studio in Brighton.

You’ve spoken about the Merging Technologies kit that features in your studio. What role does it play in your setup?

I have the Merging Technologies Anubis and Hapi and they are fundamental. Sonically they are invisible, which is the best compliment I can give them. I’m not wondering what they are doing. With a lot of converters, you don’t realize how much damage they can do to the sound, which you subconsciously compensate for. The Merging kit just does what it does really well and I don’t have to think about it, it just sends sound to the other boxes – sound comes out, goes to my Thermionic Culture Phoenix and comes back again and sounds exactly as I would expect. My previous system was having a massive effect on the sound of my studio and I didn’t really realize until I took it out of the room. For me the single most important thing in the studio is your converter, and whether you like it or not, it defines everything about how your music sounds.

CHRISALLEN.AUDIO MERGING.COM

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HEADLINER USA

Scoring Midnight Mass

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THE NEWTON BROTHERS In Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass, the arrival of a charismatic priest brings miracles, mysteries and renewed religious fervor to a dying island town – a synopsis perhaps not enough to get this miniseries to vie for scroll-happy Netflix viewers’ attention. Those that took a leap of faith and hit play were rewarded with a thoughtful, perfectly executed show that suffocated them with themes of faith, conformity, guilt and grief – that would stay with them long after the credits rolled. Halfway through, however, Midnight Mass takes another turn entirely; whatever you think it’s going to be about, it’s not. In on the secret from the start were long-time Flanagan score collaborators, The Newton Brothers, aka – Andy Grush and Taylor Newton Stewart – who explain how they tackled the music for the most ‘WTF did I just watch?’ show of last year.

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Scoring Midnight Mass

Let’s get this out of the way; you are, in fact, not brothers. Where did you meet?

AG: We didn’t even know each other until we were in our 20s actually! We needed to come up with a name years ago because we both had day jobs and we didn’t want them to know that we were composing for films and TV shows. So we came up with a name and strangely, we never changed it.

TS: We’re like brothers. The Newton Brothers comes from Isaac Newton, so that was the inspiration around it, and we ended up sticking with it.

You’ve got a finely tuned working relationship with horror director Mike Flanagan, working with him on every single one of his projects since 2013’s Oculus (including Gerald’s Game, The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass); have you developed a shorthand way of working together?

AG: Sometimes we will reference any number of past projects we’ve worked on to Mike, like, ‘For this scene, we’re thinking about a similar emotion that we had in the scene from this [other] show’. And that’ll happen all in a five second mention of it, but it will contain about five minutes of information, which is really helpful in composing, because to me, it’s a communication thing. Each film or TV show is like a new relationship, so it’s nice to have relationships where you know the other people and you can understand each other in a way that you don’t feel like you’re on a first date!

What were your immediate thoughts when you heard the concept for Midnight Mass?

TS: When I read it, I had to take a moment and think about what I had just read, because it was so intense.

The way it came across to me was a story of good-hearted people on this island who go through life and all of a sudden, it starts to swing into HEADLINER USA

something. I was like, ‘Wait, what just happened?’

AG: Mike had the idea for quite a while and he talked to us about it when it was in full fruition. We were pretty excited about it because there’s just so much that goes along with it. I was raised Catholic, I was an altar boy – so I have a very similar background to Mike’s. So when he was talking to us about the hymns and that aspect of it, I felt good because I already knew the hymns from being smacked in the back of the head to remember them at a young age [laughs]. Mike invited me up to be in the show, which was a lot of fun to get to play a version of the person I was when I was young.

I grew up playing and singing at church, so it was fun to be a member of the cast and to be part of a project that goes so deep. It’s a story about faith, feelings and emotions.

Did Flanagan have a specific vision of how he wanted the score to sound?

AG: At first, we were talking a lot about the involvement of the hymns in the show and that it might be more impactful to just have hymns and not a lot of score. Then at a certain point, Mike called us late at night and said, ‘I think we should explore putting some score in here’, and gave us what his ideas were for what he wanted, and what he didn’t want. He

didn’t want a big, blown out, robust score, which made sense, because that doesn’t fit the town or the island.

He wanted something that was very minimal, but very specific. He didn’t want noises happening – everything had to be very specific. That was kind of a tall order. When you’re writing music with chords, at least there’s a structure and you know where you’re going and what the themes are, and with this (although the music is very thematic), we balanced it with a score that was specific to the island, the oddities that were occurring and that the people of the island were feeling before they knew what was going on.

That’s always tricky because you want to think outside the box. But being specific and outside the box is a weird place to be, so we just ran with it.

Taylor and I started scoring a bunch of ideas for different scenes, and then we were off to the races. We wrote almost all of the themes for the show in a handful of days.

TS: Mike had given us direction and what he was thinking from a musical standpoint, and he gave us a lot of room to try things. It really helped having Andy up there because by that time, rather than a character, we were scoring a sense or a feeling that was developing and approaching due to what was happening on the island.

And whether it was due to the

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COMPOSERS

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Scoring Midnight Mass

“THERE’S A WEIRDNESS GOING ON WITH THE TOWN, WHICH WAS A LOT OF FUN TO EXPLORE IN THE SCORE.”

nervousness or this tension building, it really helped. There could have been so many different directions to go with this, so it allowed us to narrow it down really quickly.

AG: Being up there was very informative as to what it should not be because it was very obvious that all of the characters are very humble. It’s very simple people who are on this island, and we knew that the score had to reflect that – even the hymns had to reflect that. When we were recording the hymns, we were working with excellent singers, and they sounded excellent. We’d get back the takes and we’d have to go back to them and say, ‘This sounds incredible and beautiful, but we need you to sing more humbly.

We know you have a beautiful voice, but that’s not necessarily what we’re going for’. We were going for more of an earnest approach, over a, ‘How good can you sound?’ approach. That was a tricky part of the process. We wanted to make sure that the score sounded very truthful and sincere.

HEADLINER USA

Which were your personal favorite scenes to score?

AG: Episode two, where they’re singing Holy, Holy, Holy in the church, which transitions into the score. This was Mike’s idea from the get go; I think this was cooked into the script. It worked really well to transition from the source material, to on-camera singing, to a scored montage, and it all being tied together. It was fun to work on that.

TS: I have several favorite scenes.

Obviously the end with the last hymn is incredible, and Kate [Siegel’s] monologue; that sequence for me was like, ‘Whoa!’ Mike told us he wanted a really simple piece on a piano, and then we just added a full orchestra [laughs].

AG: We had done some really simple piano for the scene, but sometimes you just feel something and you go for it, and we know if Mike will go for something. He might be like, ‘No, you guys are crazy; this is terrible’, but he’ll let us try it. In fact, he encourages us to do so. In this situation, we added

brass and strings and it got bigger than what was initially intended. I think the subject of the email to us said, ‘Fuck you’ [laughs]. The email said, ‘I’m sitting here bawling my eyes out.

I hate you guys. This score is beautiful.

I didn’t think that this was going to be right’.

Another favorite scene of mine was the beginning of episode two – the beach scene with all the (spoiler alert!) dead cats. That was the first scene that I scored loosely to picture and I really love how it turned out due to the way it’s shot with the camera angles, and the actors all do an incredible job.

There’s a weirdness going on with the town, which was a lot of fun to explore in the score.

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IN THE MIX

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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

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IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA Production mixer Joe Foglia cut his teeth on music recording at Miami’s renowned Criteria Studios, where he engineered and assisted on recordings by Black Sabbath, Crosby, Stills and Nash. Meanwhile his film and TV credits include Miami Vice, for which he earned an Emmy nomination for best sound, while his own remote mobile production company, Southeast Audio ADR, has worked on projects including Marley and Me, Scrubs, and recently, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He explains how his Lectrosonics rig didn’t let him down when filming the latest season of It’s Always Sunny.

When It’s Always Sunny was renewed for its 15th season, it became the show with more seasons than any other American live-action comedy series. Primarily centered around ‘the gang’ going to Ireland, the latest season of the hit series had to use Bodega Bay in California as a stand-in for Ireland due to the restrictions caused by the covid pandemic.

A lifetime Lectrosonics user, Foglia has recently adopted the all-digital D Squared line, including five

DSQD four-channel receivers, two DCR822 compact dual-channel receivers, M2T transmitters for IFB, and an arsenal of all-digital and Digital Hybrid packs — the latter being receivable by the D Squared systems. All of this kit proved essential when filming the latest season of It’s Always Sunny – in particular the DSQD receivers and DBSM digital transmitters.

“We traveled from Los Angeles to Bodega Bay, (from The Birds movie) California and didn’t know how the RF would be, but I knew we needed the wideband,” Foglia explains.

“We also used an 822 for our bag rig because of the flexibility and compact size for recording on a cliff in Bodega Bay. The wideband transmitters made our jobs easier when wiring the actors because I knew we would have good line of sight transmission.”

In the season’s eighth episode, ‘The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain’, Charlie’s father has died, and in order to honor a family tradition, he asks for the gang’s help in carrying his body to the top of a mountain to then throw him into the sea.

“There were times where capturing audio could have been difficult, specifically the cliff location,” reflects Foglia, “however, the lightweight and exceptional tuning from the kit made my job easier. The kit allowed for easy transportation when traveling up the mountain side and the wide bandwidth made it easier to find usable channels in northern California.

“The equipment is extremely durable,” he points out. “Being in an extreme climate with salty, cold air did not have any effect on any of the equipment. The actors never complained about having to keep the transmitters on their body for long durations of time in the rough weather.”

The cast is known to use improv and scenes often descend into chaos, complete with multiple people screaming and shouting, which Foglia says a combination of Lectrosonics equipment and DPA mics can handle without issue.

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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

“The cast was always wired with DPA 6060s,” he confirms. “Considering that the actors would be yelling a lot, the transmitters gave nondistorted audio from each character.

These scenarios could have been a problem, but the DPA 6060 and the Lectrosonics wideband transmitters presented flawless audio.

Foglia first switched to Lectrosonics equipment after wrapping his work on Miami Vice. “I had been using Sony through Miami Vice because it was state-of-the-art at the time. I had four channels and that was it,” he reminisces, adding that he then switched to the Lectrosonics 185s.

“Fast-forward to going to L.A. to do Scrubs, it was Glen Trew [of HEADLINER USA

Nashville’s Trew Audio] who first got me to move to the original Venue system. We took over an actual hospital building for Scrubs, and the Venue worked flawlessly in that environment throughout the entire series. After we wrapped, I upgraded to the Venue2. At one time or another, I’ve had almost everything Lectrosonics makes.”

These days, the Dante compatibility of his DSQD receivers is just one Lectrosonics feature he finds indispensable.

“Let’s say a scene is on top of a building and for some reason I can’t be up there,” he explains. “My receiver rack is set up so that I can pull it from my main cart, send it

up, and have them throw me one Ethernet cable to feed my Cantar Mini recorder and the laptop I run Wireless Designer on. I depend on that every day. Some of Lectro’s competitors brag about frequencyhopping. I find that Wireless Designer makes it pretty much unnecessary.

Every time you hit it, it makes sure there are no conflicts.”

LECTROSONICS.COM SOUTHEASTAUDIOADR.COM

TWO OF A KIND

In Focus

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Just weeks before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Focusrite announced its acquisition of Martin Audio as part of a major expansion into the world of rental and installed sound. Together, the two brands have navigated the most challenging period in the industry’s history with not only a great deal of success, but with an assortment of new products, a new brand and all manner of market opportunities to capitalise on. Headliner hears from Focusrite CEO Tim Carroll and Martin Audio MD Dom Harter about the unique circumstances that framed the acquisition and everything that has transpired since…

What was the thinking behind Focusrite’s decision to push into live and installed sound? And why Martin Audio?

Tim Carroll: There are a number of factors. The first is that Focusrite, although our general business had been on the content creation side, with our professional products we were already dabbling in live sound and broadcast, so we had a familiarity with that market. We were looking at how we could keep growing our content creation side while also diversifying. Very close to the apple tree on the content side is live sound reproduction. Live and installed sound have been among the most consistent growth areas in the business, so there was a lot that was really appealing about it. Then there is the proximity. The companies are literally a mile apart, and there was a long-standing friendship with our non-executive chair Phil Dudderidge and the founder of Martin. So, Martin was just a natural fit. It’s a great brand, great portfolio, well-run company, and where Dom was taking the company was very intriguing.

Once the severity of Covid became clear, what measures were taken to deal with the situation?

TC: We all took a deep breath as nobody had any idea what was going to happen. As the fog lifted, we realised we were dealing with two completely difference scenarios. Live events just halted, but conversely, we saw an even

larger demand for a lot of our home recording products. Musicians needed a way to make money, so they started investing in gear to create social media streams, podcasts. All of that skyrocketed. We were experiencing both sides of the equation. Dom was looking at the business under a different lens.

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In Focus

Dom Harter: On the live and install side, manufacturers had a tough time, but quite quickly we were able to see that different parts of the world were in very different stages.

We took some long hard looks at our various development plans and decided to re-gear that to markets that were going to come back.

We launched a lot of installation products and made sure we had good availability of weatherised stuff, which sounds like common HEADLINER USA

sense but a lot of people weren’t doing this. On the people side, we did what we could to support the live sound community because we knew many of our customers were facing around 98% loss of revenue. We tried to focus our efforts on people, we geared our business very carefully to protect our staff and our channel partners and it worked very well.

TC: A good example of the relationship between the Focusrite

Group and Martin Audio is that as Focusrite saw a boom in home recording, quite a lot of Martin Audio staff donned Focusrite hats and helped support where they could.

It was fantastic for the team to be able to do that and address those markets together. Since then, the business has just been going from strength to strength.

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“WITH OPTIMAL THERE WERE PLACES WE DIDN’T THINK THAT THE MARTIN BRAND COULD GO.”

We’ve heard from Martin Audio staff and established live sound engineers about the role Martin Audio has played in supporting them during Covid. How much of a focus is there on protecting the wellbeing of staff and industry partners?

DH: While there are some big businesses in our industry, it is ultimately a people-based industry.

We have very long relationships.

We’re always building new ones and that’s fantastic, but seeing the number of customers who came to our 50th anniversary party last year – who have been customers for 50 years – tells you everything you need to know. We focus a lot on maintaining our relationships, particularly on the rental side.

You have small to medium-sized companies spending a huge amount of money on a sound system, and we feel strongly that when we start on that journey with a company, we are on it for 10 years.

TC: One of the things about Martin that really appealed for us was how much they had vested in the installed sound part of the market.

And one of the interesting things that happened when the pandemic hit was that, while the live events business paused, the installation part came back quickly. And there was a lot already in the works, looking at the portfolio, but the culmination of that was when we

launched Optimal Audio in the second year of the pandemic. That was an amazing feat and really showed the investment we made in people. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that things would eventually come back, so a lot of the engineering teams stayed very heads-down on developing the products. Around the time that things were starting to open up, Martin had an entire portfolio of new products for a new market to help regenerate things.

DH: With Optimal there were places we didn’t think that the Martin brand could go. So to have this project, where we tried to take the system approach that we take to big, professional live sound, and then apply that to a much smaller ecosystem with Optimal has been a lot of fun. We made the decision early on that the grounds for which we were building this business and the plan we had in 2019 was absolutely a valid plan. One of the things I’m extremely grateful to Tim for is that early on we took the decision to keep the factory open and keep building stuff with a lot of speculation, but that was great for our suppliers, and we knew at some point there would be a lot of demand. So being able to build new brands and products has proved to be very successful.

What have been some of the biggest success stories for Martin Audio during this time?

DH: The launch of TORUS has been particularly significant. It’s a 15-30m throw solution product and fills a gap we had on the install and rental side. We knew five or six years ago we needed to fill this gap, but we wanted to do it in a manner that had some innovation in it. We brought that out in the middle of last year and we’ve seen unprecedented demand.

Where are the biggest opportunities for Focusrite and Martin Audio?

TC: The amount of people producing content continues to grow, from a hobbyist level all the way to professional. That’s great for the creation side of the business, but for pro audio there is a growing desire for immersive audio in everything from theatre to houses of worship and gyms. Some require technical expertise to run because they have complex shows, but there are a lot of places where they want that kind of audio quality, but it needs to be simple to run. Optimal solves that.

Then, if you look at the experiences people want with immersive audio, a lot of that has to do not only with the great speaker solutions Martin is making, but also the DSP and the amplifier technology, so that’s one of the main reasons we acquired Linea.

Having all of that in-house and for us to own that roadmap is a really big part of the equation.

MARTIN-AUDIO.COM FOCUSRITE.COM

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INSIDE SSL’S

HEADLINER USA

Digital Revolution

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DIGITAL REVOLUTION Enrique Perez, R&D chief at Solid State Logic (SSL) has spoken exclusively to Headliner about the company’s ongoing plugin rollout, market trends and why he believes subscription models for plugins are the future for manufacturers and customers alike.

Last year, SSL embarked on a product rollout that saw its plugin output expand at a rate of knots.

From the Fusion Vintage Drive and Fusion Stereo Image to the Native X-Echo and X-Delay, the company’s range of new plugins drew rave reviews, taking SSL’s innovative approach to hardware and applying it to the digital realm.

of identifying where value could be added and filling those gaps accordingly.

Now, with another array of plugins set to hit the market, Perez explains the philosophy behind the upcoming rollout and where he believes the home studio market is headed…

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Digital Revolution

“THE STRATEGY IS TO CREATE THE BEST OF THE BEST.”

Last year saw SSL release a wide range of new plugins. Talk us through the strategy behind that rollout.

We had been thinking of doing this for a long time, and we put together a team focused specifically on plugins.

We have a researcher who conducted a lot of market research on which plugins we should choose. The main idea was based on our heritage, what we understand about workflow, and then trying to come out with plugins that cover all the needs of the studio creative. We originally went for classic SSL products, but the latest ones, like the De-esser, is like a different toy. That’s part of our new range of modern DSP algorithms.

You’re now about to release another range of plugins. What can the market expect from that?

Apart from completing the whole virtual studio concept, we have also launched a subscription model, and we strongly believe in giving our subscribers continued added value.

Independently, we have people who purchase the plugins, and for them they might feel we are going too fast, but for the subscribers it’s great. Also, we want to grow. We are adding value to modern production - with so many people working from their home studio they need really good plugins.

The studio market understands the history of SSL, but they may not necessarily know all of the history and HEADLINER USA

heritage we have in creating digital products, so they might think that we only decided yesterday that we wanted to make plugins. But it’s all based on the technology we’ve been creating for years.

Is the plugin push designed specifically to attract new customers, or to provide additional tools for existing SSL customers?

It’s both. The rollout has certainly introduced SSL to new customers. SSL was previously a little niche, as there are only a few people who have those big consoles, but the fact that the plugins are available to pretty much anyone means we have had to up our game on making things that can work reliably with any system. We do so much testing – about two months of beta testing and one month of alpha testing - for every plugin.

How challenging is it to introduce new plugins to such a competitive market?

It is a challenge, but there are several sides to that. There are the plugins which are classic hardware-based ones, so we have a list of hardware we have been modeling, and those plugins are trying to reproduce something that existed at some point.

Then there are others, which feature DSP that cannot exist in hardware; they are too clever to be done with hardware. The strategy is to create the best of the best, but those products

need a bigger push because people may not understand exactly what’s inside. It’s not until they get their hands on it and use it that they realize what it’s capable of.

Why have you adopted a subscription model? What are the benefits to customers and SSL as a business?

It keeps us true to our values, which is that we want people to have high quality plugins and it makes sure we are always looking to provide more and better products. We want to add real value, not just add plugins for the sake of it. For the customer, it’s the future.

There will always be people who want to own plugins – for example if you buy our UC1 hardware, you need the plugin for it to work, so buying the plugin to go with the hardware makes complete sense. But for people who have a modern take on production, where one day they need a plugin for a particular production but not their next one, the subscription model adds greater value for them. And it gives us the ability to give people a full studio and workflow for a very modest price, and you use what you need. When you don’t need it, you have the other tools that you need.

You would need to spend thousands on plugins to buy that flexibility.

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SCORPIONS

Rock Believer

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Manfred Nikitser, who has been Scorpions’ lighting designer since 2015, dug deep into GLP’s box of tricks for the lighting of the band’s 2022 tour, deploying 180 fixtures from the German manufacturer to bring out different facets of the elaborately designed stage set.

With a career spanning more than 50 years, and with over 110 million records sold, Scorpions are one of the longestserving and most internationally successful bands in music history. The tour sees them bring their latest album Rock Believer to stages for the first time. As a curtain raiser, the German band performed a residency lasting several weeks at Zappos Theater in Las Vegas’s Planet Hollywood resort.

“The core idea of the new design was to bring the band back to the fore.”

A fresh look was required for the new album, as well as the Las Vegas Sin City Nights residency and the subsequent Rock Believer world tour.

Nikitser was responsible for creating the entire production design, including lighting, stage and video content. As creative director, he also ensured that special moments, such as the show opening and powerful drum solos, unfolded their full magic.

“The core idea of the new design was to bring the band back to the fore. The stage architecture and lighting design should support this,” says Nikitser.

“Everything should have a classic yet modern rock look.”

The central design element is the pyramid-shaped drum riser with angular surrounding stairs that are used by the band as performance areas. This is framed in the background by a metal structure in the form of a half ellipse, which in turn accommodates a wealth of lighting technology.

Nikitser chose a combination of 73 GLP JDC1 hybrid strobes, 54 JDC Line 500, 24 X4 L, 12 HIGHLANDER Wash,

16 X4 Bar 20 and two X4 Bar 10. All GLP fixtures for the Sin City Nights residency were supplied by Volt Lites of Burbank, California.

“We had Volt Lites in mind during the tendering phase because we knew that they had a very large GLP portfolio, and it was clear to us right from the planning stage that the special construction of the set would allow little flexibility in terms of lighting,” Nikitser says. “It was our first collaboration with Volt Lites; they have a great crew along with equipment in absolute top condition. They listen and really try to understand the design to achieve the best result for everyone.”

The JDC Line 500s, which are located behind the metal structure, are combined with the X4 Bars, which are set in front: “The enormously diverse application possibilities of the JDC Lines range from a clearly recognisable linear architecture to bright blinder accents and pixel effects which, in combination with the metal structure of the stage set, contribute enormously to the three-dimensional effect of the show,” he adds. “The JDC1 units which are placed on the floor can either enhance this effect or act as a counterpoint to it.”

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As for the 73 JDC1s,17 of the fixtures are on the floor with the remainder mounted on the stage roof. All the X4 Bars are also located on the floor directly in front of the half ellipse set piece, whilst the HIGHLANDERS are hung from ladders at the side of the stage. The X4 L units provide additional coverage to the left and right of the IMAG screens.

Whenever Nikitser sets about a new design, you can expect to see GLP on the rider: “GLP is one of the few manufacturers that build really creative lights with extremely good LED quality. They repeatedly put HEADLINER USA

themselves and their products to the test and integrate architectural aspects into product development,” he concludes. “This means GLP devices so often enable design methods that go far beyond the possibilities of a classic moving light.”

The Rock Believer world tour kicked off on 6 May with a special at New York’s Madison Square Garden before continuing its journey, initially heading to Europe.

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FOCUSRITE

Clarett+ OctoPre

REVEAL

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HEADLINER USA

SPOTLIGHT

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FOCUSRITE

CLARETT+ OCTOPRE Brand new from Focusrite is the Clarett+ OctoPre, a professionalquality eight-in/eight-out ADAT microphone preamp boasting eight dedicated channel inserts and eight professional quality, low distortion, low noise mic preamps.

Targeted towards adaptable engineers and featuring all-analog Air, the Clarett+ OctoPre emulates the classic Focusrite ISA 110 from the original Studio Console.

What is all-analog Air, you may ask?

Impedance switching and relaycontrolled analog circuitry emulates the ISA 110 mic preamp from the original Focusrite Studio Console and captures transients on drums, makes vocals shine, and ensures a precise, clear recording.

converters, and by offering pristine conversion and with connection to a 2Pre, 4Pre or 8Pre, it is easy to expand I/O via ADAT, allowing users to record a whole band together, should they wish.

The Clarett+ Mic Pre is optimized to help users achieve clear recordings in any session, facilitated by eight professional quality, low distortion, low noise mic preamps featuring fully balanced signal paths.

Engineers are sure to be impressed with its high-quality A-D and D-A HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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FOCUSRITE

Clarett+ OctoPre

“TARGETED TOWARDS ADAPTABLE ENGINEERS, THE CLARETT+ OCTOPRE EMULATES THE CLASSIC FOCUSRITE ISA 110 FROM THE ORIGINAL STUDIO CONSOLE.”

With 118dB of dynamic range and -129dBu EIN, the natural sound of source signals is preserved, while the fully balanced signal path ensures inbound signals are clean and crucially, with ultra-low noise.

while high quality D-A conversion retains audio quality and allows engineers to easily process audio in their signature style when sending audio to analog compressors, EQs and effects.

Eight dedicated channel inserts allow users easily add analog equipment to the signal path, while the Clarett+ OctoPre’s improved A-D conversion makes it suitable for any recording session.

Additional key features include being able to capture the true characteristics of guitars with Clarett+ OctoPre’s JFET guitar inputs (the wide input bandwidth retains high frequencies and feels like plugging straight into an amp), it features eight channels in and out over ADAT at 48kHz, eight line outputs, word clock in and out, and users can bring the classic Focusrite sound to tracks using

Ultra-low noise and ultra-low distortion combined with powerful preamps ensure professionalsounding tracks ready for mixing, HEADLINER USA

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Bumble Bee II & King Bee II

REVIEW

104 NEAT MICROPHONES

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BUMBLE BEE II & KING BEE II

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NEAT MICROPHONES HEADLINER USA

SPOTLIGHT

Headliner’s Spotlight reviews editor gets hands-on with this professional cardioid USB condenser and solid state XLR condenser from the same family as Turtle Beach.

II’ll be honest. When I was asked if I would review these two mics, I was

a little reticent. I was finding it hard to believe that a condenser for a mere £160 and a USB condenser for half that price could be anything other than a couple of budget mics.

I was also aware that the previous incarnations of Neat microphones had a color scheme that more closely resembled a wasp than a bee, and as such, had prompted some potential customers to avoid getting

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stung by giving them a wide berth!

However, when these two mics landed in my studio, I failed to detect any audible buzzing. So my question is, is there yet a sting in this tale or are these mics bringing home the necessary nectar to make honey?

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

106 NEAT MICROPHONES

Bumble Bee II & King Bee II

“I HAVE A REALLY HARD TIME ASSOCIATING THIS MIC WITH THE BUDGET END OF THE MARKET, AS ITS PERFORMANCE FAR OUTSTRIPS OTHER MICS IN THE SUB £200 PRICE BRACKET.”

Bumble Bee II Neat Microphones are a subsidiary of Turtle Beach, the gaming headset people. This may explain why much emphasis has been placed on the aesthetics of these products and may also explain why you get such a clever feature set in such a reasonably priced product.

Firstly, I decided to check out the Bumble Bee II (BB2) as my trusty old extended wired Apple keyboard has a couple of handy USB ports right there in front of me. After plugging the mic in via its supplied USB-C to USB-A cable, a reassuring yellow light appeared around the single rotary on the face of the microphone and simultaneously, there it was in both the input and output sound menus in system preferences. On the bottom of HEADLINER USA

the BB2 there’s a 3.5mm mini headphone jack, perfect for a set of my IEMs. After selecting the BB2 as both input and output device I could use the rotary in the yellow mode as a simple volume control looking after the level supplied to my IEMs. Press the rotary button again and it changes from yellow to blue and the rotary has become the microphone gain pot. The easiest way to set this if you’re a Mac user is to simply use the slider and meter for the BB2 mic input in system preferences, which of course you’ll be able to tweak in DAWs and other audio capturing software. You can turn the rotary to set a level, but in operation, handling the mic’s rotary actually introduced quite a bit of rumble, which made it a little more difficult to set an accurate level

when it makes more noise than a voice at six inches.

Press the rotary again and you’re now in green mode. This turns the rotary into a balance control between the mic and the computer source, allowing you to monitor your own voice at near zero latency.

Perfect for singing along, voice overs and interviews, commentary etc. Below the rotary is a quick mute button which acts on the microphone alone and has a handy red indicator for when mute is active.

Now we come to the good and the even better. Bearing in mind this is a headphone amp in the back of a microphone, it is surprisingly good – way better than simply plugging your headphones into your

SPOTLIGHT

MacBook Pro. While it isn’t as good as my Universal Audio interface, it’s surprisingly good across the frequency spectrum; probably a little bright in the 3-5kHz region and a little fatiguing at higher listening levels, but overall very usable.

Now to the real surprise; this is actually an incredibly smooth sounding mic with plenty of detail.

If you bear in mind this is a cardioid condenser mic and don’t try using it like a dynamic, you can pretty much say goodbye to plosives and other

artifacts associated with cardioid proximity by increasing the distance between source and mic. I have a really hard time associating this mic with the budget end of the market, as its performance far outstrips other mics in the sub £200 price bracket whether USB or XLR. I am also pleased to hear that the mic pre and resulting 96kHz digital signal could be routed within my system using Blackhole, which now allows me to route the output of one DAW to another and add in commentary without the need for two interfaces.

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I’m suitably impressed by this mic, especially as a simple USB condenser that represents incredible value for money at just shy of £80, not to mention the list of other benefits including its very sturdy construction.

My one earlier criticism with regard to handling noise can be improved by removing the mic from the supplied desktop stand and using it on either an isolated desktop arm or floor standing boom mic stand.

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108 NEAT MICROPHONES

Bumble Bee II & King Bee II

King Bee II Firstly, the styling is definitely unusual. It has a kind of retro look with a modern rugged construction. While the mic is obviously solid and heavy, I did notice a warning about attempting to remove the capsule and associated housing; I’ve never been in the business of mishandling microphones, even in all my years as a live sound engineer.

However after much firm manipulation I’ve come to the conclusion that if a studio mic is going to end up on the deck as a result of a pogoing singer, I’d say this mic would fair far better than a vintage Telefunken U47, ELA-M 251, or dare I say my trusty old 414 which has suffered at the hands of many overenthusiastic performances!

Another interesting feature I noticed was the secondary grill with open sides, which is a clever idea for keeping your pop shield integrated into the mic design. It very much seems like as the energy and air hits the first grill, it’s diffused sideways – reducing the air pressure at the second grill thus further reducing the likelihood of plosives.

Of course there’s nothing to stop you using an additional pop shield. The KB2 is also permanently attached to HEADLINER USA

its suspension system, and again this mount is extremely tough and capable of withstanding a fair amount of abuse.

I would also strongly advise you to marry this mic up with a good quality, robust boom mic stand as this mic is not light.

The KB2 is a cardioid condenser and requires phantom power via an XLR cable from either your audio interface or from your preamps or console.

I’m not aware of any modern audio interfaces that don’t supply phantom so this really shouldn’t be a problem.

I used my UA Apollo x8p so in a roundabout way I was able to test this mic on some of the world’s most iconic consoles and outboard. This was also where my potential prejudices and preconceptions of what a budget microphone should be all went out of the window. In the same way as 25 years ago when I first used an AudioTechnica 4033 and thought ‘wow, this is a good microphone’, here I am again, only I’m saving myself another £300.

Obviously it’s solid state and it has that clean solid state characteristic. There’s a little more push in the 5-10kHz octave as expected but it is really quiet. I have £1,500 solid state mics that make more

noise. What really surprised me and what sets it apart from its immediate competition is the fullness of sound; there are no holes, no muddiness, lots of accurate detail, and the smooth low mids aren’t asking you to reach for an EQ or begging you to back off the mic a little more. Clearly the team at Neat have been busy bees and have steadily been creating the right kind of buzz!

I think it’s a bit of a misconception that you always get what you pay for.

While the statement itself is true, the psychological conditioning that it won’t be nearly as good as something three or four times the price simply isn’t true for the BB2 and KB2 from Neat. I wasn’t originally looking forward to attempting this review. Usually if a product is not good, I simply don’t review it, as I prefer to focus on the good and positive.

These mics from Neat exceeded all my expectations and then some. My new perspective: never judge a book by its cover or in this case, never judge a microphone by its price point. And when those busy bees back in the hive are making honey this good, stick to it!

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UNIVERSAL AUDIO

UAD Spark

s BY RICK rd

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UAD SPARK HEADLINER USA

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REVIEW

SPOTLIGHT

UAD Spark is a new plugin subscription service that gives users access to Universal Audio quality plugins without the need for expensive and bulky hardware.

Does the new service live up to UA’s celebrated analog hardware emulations? Headliner delved in and put the new plugins through their paces.

I love my Apollo x8p, but if I’m on a train journey with four hours to spare or stuck in a hotel room and want to spend my time completing a mix on my laptop, I can’t use my library of favorite plugins without an attached

interface. Not only that, opening a project full of UAD and UAD2 plugins without an attached Apollo interface or UAD2 Accelerator causes untold heartache and frustration. It’s not something I’ve done a lot, but when I’ve made that mistake, I’ve simply closed my laptop, sat back and pondered the question: when will UA start making full use of the more powerful computer processing chips and give us some native plugins?

Well ponder no more my friends; UA have delivered with the Spark system.

Now this is a subscription based system but if, like me, you already have an Apollo interface and a strong library of UAD plugins, then you are free to download all of the spark equivalents without charge. The only obvious negative I can see at the moment is there’s currently no Spark

for Windows users, as I understand it represents around 10% of current music production platforms. The obvious benefit is I can now use my cloud iLok license to authorize both my Studio Mac and my laptop so I don’t have to worry about migrating a project from one machine to the other. What’s more, I’m now free to take that train journey or hotel stay armed only with the simplest of USB interfaces and my headphones – or if you trust the onboard audio, just your headphones!

Firstly I want to start with what’s new and exclusive to Spark – or was previously only available to Luna users – and that’s the four virtual instruments.

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UNIVERSAL AUDIO

UAD Spark

OPAL MORPHING SYNTHESIZER Now this is going to open a lot of eyes and ears. I don’t profess to be a keyboard player and my knowledge of synths and samplers is at best rudimentary, but even I can tell from the sound this synth makes that it’s going to be a winner. It’s described as Analogue meets Wavetable with continuously morphing oscillators, noise filters and LFOs. It also features a host of familiar onboard effects; reverb, delay, modulation and compression which you can assign in various combinations in the output stage.

I have literally scratched the surface of this synth’s capabilities and awesome sound, but I can envisage an online community springing up to discuss user ideas and exchange or offer new presets. What I can tell you is that straight out of the box it already comes with a massive library of presets grouped into genre, type and description. I have already noticed a number of comments regarding the Opal and how it has become their favorite synth already!

HEADLINER USA

Clicking on each section header expands your view into many hidden controls that increase your creative options exponentially. I have to admit that while I love exploring new things, it’s not everyday you come across something so good you can’t stop playing with it. This is one of those times and I can see this synth taking off in the cinematic world as well as all the current genres it caters for!

MINIMOOG MODEL D With UA’s vast experience of modeling it was interesting to see that the Minimoog D, a model which has many plugin versions available, was the first to be tackled. Not surprising was how big the sound is from this little UAD Instrument. The UAD Minimoog was previously only available as an additional purchase from within UAD’s recording system Luna, which is still free for all Apollo owners. While Luna is a very capable DAW in its own right, it doesn’t seem to have received the credit and take up it deserved, as a result of which, this and the following two instruments remained largely unnoticed.

RAVEL GRAND PIANO Again, this is an instrument that first appeared in Luna and was as impressive there as it is here. Every little detail has been accurately and faithfully reproduced, from the sound of the sustain pedal being used to the closeness of the microphones.

What I’m impressed with the most is the quality of sound. There’s a huge 9.8Gb of sampled audio but the interface is relatively simple with just simple dynamic and tone controls.

Close your eyes and add a little hall reverb and your Steinway could be in any major concert hall. Most of the decent piano sound libraries I know of have prices to reflect their pedigree, so it’s good to see an excellent piano included in UAD Spark.

SPOTLIGHT

WATERFALL B3 ORGAN The Waterfall B3 is again no exception to UA’s constant striving for great sounding audio. Back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s I remember seeing various players from John Lord to Mickey Simmonds playing these beasts and marveling at the great range of tones they could get, however, when it came to transporting them around my love affair was cruelly halted. So having an authentic sound right down to the noisy old Leslie cabinet is a trip down memory lane. There’s a B3 in Logic which I’ll never use again!

PLUGINS It goes without saying that anything UA is incomplete without the legendary 1176, a piece of hardware designed by UA’s founder and still to this day the

most sought after vintage compressor ever built, not to mention the most modeled device in all its many incantations and revisions over the last two decades. Similarly, there’s the Teletronix LA-2A collection, also based on a product acquired and improved

by UA. The originals have also been modeled by many of UA’s competitors and this is an area in which UA have potentially lost ground through keeping their wonderful plugins exclusive to their UAD2 ecosystem.

Luckily for all of us, UA are spreading their wings and are now offering nine of their most popular plugin titles in native form. In keeping with a love of all things analog, there are three variations of the iconic 1176 and three of the LA-2A; the API 2500 Bus Compressor and the Studer A800 Tape Recorder complete the lineup

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of dynamic processing. API Vision Channel Strip, together with the Neve 1073 preamp and EQ, provide some historical console emulation, and effects-wise there’s the legendary Lexicon 224 Digital Reverb, the Pure Plate Reverb and the Galaxy Tape Echo, which looks and sounds like a Roland Space Echo without the reliability issues!

So if I’m not mistaken, the key question you’re all asking is how do the new native UAD Spark plugins (UADx) compare to existing UAD equivalents?

Personally, I couldn’t tell the difference - if there are any. As far as I can tell, it’s the same plugin just using computer processing instead of UAD’s DSP.

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UNIVERSAL AUDIO

UAD Spark

“THE FOUR KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS ARE BEAUTIFUL – I FOUND THEM TO BE LATENCYFREE, PERFECTLY RESPONSIVE AND GREAT SOUNDING INSTRUMENTS.”

Conclusion The four keyboard instruments are beautiful – I found them to be latencyfree, perfectly responsive and great sounding instruments. The three classic emulations are absolutely in keeping with UA’s tradition of keeping the tones and flavor of classic, iconic analog equipment alive, and boy do they do it well. But as for the Opal Morphing Synth, well that’s something a little bit special.

With the advent of Apple silicon and ever-greater processing power in today’s computing, it seems like a very logical move on the part of UA to open up their rather excellent plugins HEADLINER USA

to a wider audience of hobbyists, as well as professionals just making their first strides. I think a few people might join just for a trial year to check out what all the fuss is about and then, depending on how quickly UA adds new plugins, stay or leave. I for one would love to see Luna included as part of Spark. I believe catching your potential customers while they’re still at the learning and experimental stage is vital for building loyalty and long term relationships. It’s going to be interesting to see which plugins UA adds to the native stable during the coming year.

With regard to the question I posed earlier, I was unable to detect any difference between my UAD and UADx

equivalents. More importantly, I didn’t find the new plugins to be in any way more processor intensive than anything else I currently have from other vendors. This is also good news, as on a few occasions I’ve run out of onboard DSP in my x8p and had to bounce tracks in place to continue to use the plugins of choice, saving a number of versions of the same project so as to free up processing to continue a mix!

Now I can utilize a combination of both if necessary – I’m chuffed to bits…

UAD Spark is available for OSX only in AAX, AU and VST3.

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VIOLETTA ZIRONI

HEADLINER USA

To The Moon

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ARTIST

TO THE MOON

VIOLETTA ZIRONI An X Factor Italia finalist, signed to a major record deal and even a Netflix actress — on paper, it would seem chanson-style singersongwriter Violetta Zironi was absolutely thriving in the traditional music industry. But after the traumatic experience of a reality music show followed by the heavy restrictions of being signed to Sony Music Italy took their toll, she faced the choice of quitting music or finding a new path. Now, Zironi is one of the leading voices selling her music as NFTs using blockchain technology, generating tens of thousands of dollars for her music that she couldn’t have dreamed of from streaming and record labels.

Italian-born Zironi is speaking from Berlin, her home after leaving London some years ago. When she describes the early part of her career, it sounds like a fairytale on the face of it. That is, until you hear the gritty details.

“I started in 2013 when I entered the Italian X Factor,” she says, her accent now a hotchpotch of different dialects after an international life.

“Before that I was playing shows at town fairs, small bars and small festivals. And then at 18, I entered the competition and it went really well. I got to the final and I was third in the end. I signed a major label deal with Sony Music Italy and I was with them for a couple of years. It was a really

terrible deal that I had no idea I had gotten myself into. But I learned a lot from that experience. After that, we managed to part peacefully with the label, thankfully.

“I became independent, and started playing shows all over Italy, up and down all the time. Then I met singer songwriter, Jack Savoretti – we shared the same Italian management. He asked me to go on tour with him around Italy, the UK and Germany.

That pushed me to move to London, and that’s when I really started developing my songwriting skills and being faced with the international music industry.”

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VIOLETTA ZIRONI

To The Moon

Unpleasant record label experience aside, the music industry seemed to open up for Zironi, particularly as she moved to Germany. Commercial opportunities came knocking, as well as a certain film and series streaming company.

“I started writing songs for other artists, for commercials, for movies – and movies that I was in! I was just tapping into every aspect of the entertainment industry. I was lucky enough to have the chance to act in a couple of movies.

One of them is called Rose Island, which is on Netflix. At the time it was the biggest European Netflix production ever made, which was really cool.”

However, the global pandemic and ensuing international lockdown exposed the great frailty of a musician’s career in the traditional industry, especially since the advent of streaming – particularly for an artist like Zironi, who fits the classic singer-songwriter mould (which her sound meets very elegantly), who was previously always travelling and relying on shows, guitar in hand.

“I was so broke over those two years,” she says. “Even though I had done all those things. I was independent and I’d used my own funds to reinvest in my career, and when you cannot play live, you can’t network. Movie productions slowed down as well; it was just a mess. I was at a point where I wanted to get signed to a label again.

I was aiming for labels like Decca, HEADLINER USA

Sony Classics, but there would always be something about my music or something blocking it from happening.

So it became, ‘I have no choice right now. I either quit and do something else, or I find something drastic that is going to change my career completely’.

And when I discovered NFTs, that was it and I decided to give it everything.”

If you’re reading this and wondering what on earth an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is, here it is in layman’s terms: An NFT is a digital asset that you sell online (in Zironi’s case, for example, songs, EPs, albums), using blockchain technology, aka the tech that powers cryptocurrencies like the notorious Bitcoin. Because said technology is so powerful, complex and very difficult to hack, it essentially knocks out the music industry middlemen, e.g. record labels and agents – allowing musicians to sell their music, music videos and more for very fair compensation. Very fair when compared to Spotify’s $0.0049 per stream. To give you an idea, one of Zironi’s songs, Oasis, is currently listed for resale for 7.77 Ethereum, which translates as $24,439.21. To earn that from Spotify, she would need millions of streams.

“I joined the NFT space at the beginning of January 2022,” she says. “I just started exploring, talking to people, going on Twitter and listening, doing a lot of research on my own. Then I met Nifty Sax, who is one of the OG music NFT artists. His first collection was out in March last year, and was really

successful. I got in touch with him on Twitter, introducing myself and asking if he had any advice for me. We started working together and strategizing together. I then released my first collection, Handmade Songs. I’d asked Nifty Sax what sort of music I should do for an NFT — because I was so used to people telling me you need to have ‘that kind’ of song for Spotify, you need to have ‘that kind’ of song for radio, etc.

He just said to make whatever makes you feel good. And that was the first time someone ever told me anything like that. I enjoy writing my songs on the guitar. I play my songs live on the guitar all the time. So that’s exactly what I did. I went to the studio and did one take for each song, no edits, just a little EQing. Off the back of this, my music career survived and I was able to reinvest.”

It’s quite an astonishing gamechanger, and that’s putting it mildly. And Zironi is one of the foremost artists pioneering this tectonic shift in the industry — as well as these releases, she’s very active in its community, hosting conversations and open mics via Twitter Spaces so that other musicians get a chance to be heard and ask questions about what could of course be an overwhelming topic. She’s just released her latest project, Moonshot, as she builds up to her first full album release as an NFT. To the moon, indeed, is where she’s headed.

VIOLETTAZIRONI.COM

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