Headliner Magazine Issue 41

ISSUE 41 / MARCH 2022 SUPPORTING THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET UK £3.95 / USA $6.95 / CANADA $7.95

MAGAZINE / 41

EVERYTHING I DIDN’T SAY

ELLA HENDERSON CARL BARÂT

THE LIBERTINES TEASE NEW MUSIC

SEA POWER

INSIDE NEW ALBUM EVERYTHING WAS FOREVER

ARIELLE FREE

RADIO 1 DJ ON DEBUT SINGLE

“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.

qsc.com

SUP P

IV E C EAT O CR

ING THE T R O

NITY MU M HEADLINER MAGAZINE

41 We may only be in March, but 2022 is already shaping up to be a stellar year for resurgent UK artists. At a time when the music headlines are dominated (quite understandably) by stories about the ever-increasing challenges facing artists in today’s market, it’s refreshing to hear some positive noises emanating from the sector.

First of all, we have this month’s cover star Ella Henderson, who is returning to music after an eight-year hiatus to release her long-awaited second album Everything I Didn’t Say. Speaking to Headliner, she opens up on the experiences that have shaped her and her music during that time and what her fans can expect, given the personal and professional changes she has undergone since making her appearance on The X Factor as a 16-year-old.

who emerged at around the same time as Barat and The Libertines, recently scored their highest charting album to date with the band’s ninth album Everything Was Forever reaching No.4 on the UK Official Albums Chart. In this issue, Sea Power frontman and songwriter Yan Scott Wilkinson discusses the work that went into making the record, and how they have hit one of the richest veins of form they’ve ever struck some two decades into their career.

We also had the good fortune to sit down for an in-depth chat with The Libertines co-founder Carl Barat.

Currently caught between touring and writing new material for both The Libertines and his solo project, his schedule is busier than ever.

And what’s more, he tells us that the band, whose decadent brand of hedonistic rock’n’roll in many ways defined British music at the turn of the millennium, are closer than ever before to releasing new music.

There has also been the much-celebrated return of legendary UK duo Tears For Fears, who released their first new album in 17 years in the form of The Tipping Point.

Widely celebrated as one of the defining albums of their career, it’s heartening and inspiring to see a band enter their fourth decade and still releasing material that ranks among their finest works.

Meanwhile, UK six-piece Sea Power,

To see such stories playing out less than a quarter of the way through 2022 is truly something to celebrate.

Here’s hoping things follow a similar path for the rest of the year.

Daniel Gumble Head of Music, Headliner HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

14/ AL GROVES 08 / ETTA MARCUS

26 / ADAM HAWKINS

18/ ELLA HENDERSON 30 / CARL BARÂT

40/ RECORDING 44 / LIVE SOUND

36 / IMMERSIVE AUDIO 56 / SEA POWER

52 / TECHNOLOGY

48 / WIRELESS TECH

64 / JEN MILLER 60 / MARK RALPH 68 / MIXMASTER

80 / EVENT EVOLUTION

72 / AUDIO PRODUCTION 76 / ARIELLE FREE

94 / SPOTLIGHT REVIEWS

84 / SUPER BOWL LVI

90 / MIXING

102 / AIDAN MARTIN

106 / JAMIE LAWSON

8

ETTA MARCUS

Bridging The Gap

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

ASPIRING HEADLINER

9

iew by rv te

NGUMBL E DA

BRIDGING THE GAP

ETTA MARCUS In January 2022, Etta Marcus released her debut EP, View From The Bridge, a five-track set of intimate vignettes that blend personal introspection with warm melodies and a storytelling prowess beyond her years. Here, she tells Headliner about her journey from secretly writing songs in her bedroom, to becoming one of the UK’s most exciting new talents…

For a time, Brixton’s Etta Marcus wasn’t sure she’d ever make the progression from music fanatic to music creator. Which is remarkable, given the cool assuredness that flows through View From The Bridge, her inaugural EP release. At just 20 years old, her songs are filled with a sense of experience and a troubadour spirit that one might (understandably) expect from someone with another decade’s worth of living under their

belt. From her controlled, melancholy vocal lines, to her knack for seamlessly intertwining personal tales with the stories of others in her lyrics, it’s a record that’s as revealing as it is mysterious. Echoes of Sharon Van Etten and Lana Del Rey circa Norman F**king Rockwell can be heard on occasion.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

in

10

ETTA MARCUS

Bridging The Gap

important to me. Then at primary school I joined the choir and started thinking, ‘I like singing and I might be good at it’. So, my parents really encouraged me and my brother to take up piano and guitar. That was the start of the journey, but songwriting didn’t come into play until I was about 14. Secretly I would write songs and not show anyone. I would make up stories, but never about me, as I found it a bit cringe to write anything about myself [she laughs]. Then at the end of secondary school I knew this is what I wanted to do.”

After writing and discarding numerous songs that will likely never see the light of day, Marcus made a breakthrough with a song called Envy, which gave her the confidence to consider releasing her music from the confines of her bedroom out into the world.

“Songwriting came later than my infatuation with music,” she says as we join her over Zoom from the bedroom of her family home. “I’d always been curious with music and understanding what I was listening to from a very young age. Even in nursery school I was singing the nursery rhymes way more seriously than anyone else! I didn’t know why but I knew it was HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“I don’t know what it was, but something just clicked, and I realised that if I was going to do this then others needed to hear it,” she explains. “But until then I was so insecure about it. My parents would ask my music teacher how I was because they never heard anything from me. It must have been a moment where I had written a song and didn’t feel terrible about it.”

Since taking that step, Marcus’s

songwriting skills have – and continue – to evolve rapidly. The storytelling chops she acquired when writing about anyone but herself now reveal themselves when weaving far more personal narratives into her music.

“I definitely held onto that element of my songwriting a bit,” she says. “But there isn’t quite the same separation now. It’s not like I’m going to completely make up a story that means nothing to me. It has to mean something for me to be able to perform it meaningfully. I’d feel like a fraud if I was not writing stuff that was personal to me– that’s just my view on my own songwriting. One of the bands I listened to a lot when I was younger was Fountains of Wayne. They had one hit song, Stacy’s Mom but that whole album is masterful, and the songwriting is incredible. Their whole thing is these storylines they create, and I don’t know if they are based on their own personal experiences, but I was really affected by them. I’ve always latched on to that. Sometimes writing isn’t so black and white.”

On View From The Bridge, the opening track of the same name sees Marcus lead with possibly the most personal and direct moment on the EP, with the five-song tracklist flowing in chronological order of when they

ASPIRING HEADLINER

11

“I’D FEEL LIKE A FRAUD IF I WAS NOT WRITING STUFF THAT WAS PERSONAL TO ME.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

12

ETTA MARCUS

Bridging The Gap

were written. Recorded in a small, bare bones London studio, the setting helped capture the sonic intimacy Marcus was seeking. It also saw her pair up with fellow singer songwriter Matt Maltese for a duet on the track Salt Lake City.

“The first song I wrote for the EP was View From The Bridge,” she continues.

“I wrote that one at home and it was the first time I was writing it for a body of work, and I knew straight away it was going on the EP. It was also the first time I’d been super honest and vulnerable in my writing. All five songs happened over the course of a couple of months in 2021. They were written in my studio without any intentions, which for me is the best way of writing.

“The studio I work in is this tiny room with no windows and you feel kind of shitty when you leave,” she laughs.

“It’s sweaty, it’s gross but there is something super intimate about it and HEADLINER MAGAZINE

it’s such an escape. You’re writing just to write, and those songs came out of that. And the duet with Matt Maltese happened there. That came through [producer] Josh Scarbrow who set us up and said we’d work really well together. And he was right. We’re now close friends, which is a really lovely thing to experience so early on in the music industry.

“The last song, Confessional, was the longest and the last one I wrote. I had the first line for ages but I didn’t finish it for a long time because I was almost a little afraid of it. Then I ended up writing it and it was the production that took ages. I wanted to make sure it came across as sincere as possible.”

Awaiting Marcus over the coming weeks is a support slot with Tom Odell on his current tour, which will no doubt provide an emotional moment or two when it takes place in her hometown venue, Brixton Academy.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” she beams. “Support gigs are very weird as no one is there to see you. I’ve only performed the EP a few times live, and it’s just me and my guitar which is a bit scary. Somewhere like Brixton Academy, which is where I saw my first gig, playing there as a support with just one EP is going to be crazy.

It’ll be weird to be onstage and not in the audience!”

At this rate, a headline spot of her own likely awaits in the not too distant future.

SPONSORED BY

QSC.COM INSTA: @ETTAMARCUS

Unleash your creativity Introducing GLM 4.1 loudspeaker manager software For 15 years, GLM software has worked with our Smart Active Monitors to minimise the unwanted acoustic influences of your room and help your mixes sound great, everywhere. Now, GLM 4.1 includes the next generation AutoCal 2 calibration algorithm and a host of new features – delivering a much faster calibration time and an even more precise frequency response.

So, wherever you choose to work, GLM 4.1 will unleash your creativity, and help you produce mixes that translate consistently to other rooms and playback systems. And with GLM 4.1, both your monitoring system and your listening skills have room to develop and grow naturally too.

Find out more at www.genelec.com/glm

AL GROVES

Less is More

s by COLB rd

UK-based producer and mixer Al Groves, who has over a decade’s worth of studio experience, reveals his top music production tips and tricks, the ways in which he uses HEADLINER MAGAZINE

oeksound plugins, and reflects on how he took ownership of one of Liverpool’s most iconic recording studios and mix rooms, The Motor Museum.

RAMSEY

AL GROVES

Y

LESS IS MORE

Wo

14

PRODUCER

15

Groves has established himself as one of the go-to producers for guitar sounds in the Northwest of England, but his humble beginnings paint a bigger picture. A young Groves initially moved to Liverpool to study computing, soon finding himself drawn to the production side of music creation.

He befriended a final year student at LIPA – arguably the most prestigious music recording and engineering school in the country – who he would spend time in the studio with. This spurred the hyper-motivated Groves to teach himself; he would stay up all night reading and absorbing every piece of knowledge that he possibly could. The pair went on to build a “postage stamp-sized version of AIR Lyndhurst or Abbey Road” in the basement of a building in an industrial estate. It became Sandhills Studio, and Groves cut his teeth in music production there for six years until 2012.

The jewel in Groves’ crown however is The Motor Museum, one of Liverpool’s most iconic studios that has over the years welcomed the likes of The Arctic Monkeys, Oasis and The 1975 through its doors.

“When I was at Sandhills I met a really well known producer called Mike Crossey, who was the leaseholder of The Motor Museum from around 2008 to 2012,” recalls Groves. “He was looking for a Liverpool-based engineer and we built a good friendship; he was somebody that really influenced me and was very supportive of me back then.

“For a while things were quiet, but then out of the blue I got a message from Mike saying that he’s arranged for me to take over the lease of The Motor Museum, which as daunting as it was at the time, fortunately worked out really, really well.”

“I’M SIMPLY DRAWN TO REMARKABLE MUSIC AND REMARKABLE ARTISTS. PEOPLE WHO HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, AND CAN SAY IT IN AN IMPASSIONED, PROVOCATIVE, RELATABLE, OR EXCITING WAY.”

For Groves, everything started falling into place career-wise after that, and he eventually ended up buying The Motor Museum in July 2021.

In his time as a producer and mixer, Groves has worked with the likes of Bring Me The Horizon, Cast (a successful Liverpool indie rock band), as well as helping to develop a whole host of new musical talent. He admits to Headliner that it’s guitar-based acts that have always drawn him in most.

“Guitar is just in my DNA, really, and is a vocabulary that I speak very fluently,” he says. “What I like about guitar music is its originality, and the fact that there’s a unique live element to it every night. Although I would say

that I’m simply drawn to remarkable music and remarkable artists. People who have something to say, and can say it in an impassioned, provocative, relatable, or exciting way.

“The very first thing I always do is I try to ask the band to tell me what they’re trying to achieve in their career at that particular point, and get them to really immerse me in their headspace and their world. It’s probably one of the most important things I’ve learned to do over the years, to become an ally of the band and part of their inner circle.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

16

AL GROVES

Less is More

When quizzed about his top tips and tricks for creating music, Groves’ response is that he simply tries to do things effectively with the tools available at his disposal.

“A lot of people are surprised by how minimal my process is,” he adds. “It’s very much a ‘90s era thing, with a big console like an SSL with automation and the bus compressor and reverbs and delays and not really much else. It’s about really good balances and really well executed EQ moves, so one of my biggest tips is just to listen to everything really closely, and to make sure what you’re doing is actually better than before.”

One particular tool that helps Groves streamline his workflow is soothe2 from oeksound: “I

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

remember being absolutely knocked out by the original version,” he tells Headliner. “You don’t change the frequency balance of a mix, you change the density of those frequencies, which I think is incredible. You can make a sound thin, but still with bottom end, or still have presence and clarity in the mix, but without the weightiness.

Or vice versa – you can make something quite bright and vivid at the top end, but not with a particularly sharper sound.

The updated version, soothe2, is a plugin that Groves finds himself using “across everything”, from vocals to cymbals and overheads and electric guitars.

“It’s a more elegant, transparent way of doing things,” he continues.

“Lots of little surgical moves across a few weeks’ worth of mixing really show that this is a profound musical tool, that sometimes does things that can’t be achieved with EQ.” 2022 has seen Groves begin working on an EP for an emerging Lincolnshire band called Vigilantes, a project that he’s particularly excited to be involved with – “It’s very ambitious, very authentic guitar music” – so make sure to keep an eye out for anything indie rock related coming out of the North of England soon. It’s sure to bear Groves’ gold stamp of approval.

THEMOTORMUSEUM.COM OEKSOUND.COM

U N LO C K T H E A R T I N A U D I O W I T H L- I S A S T U D I O Put the power of mixing and creating immersive sound anywhere - at your fingertips - with L-ISA Studio software suite. Made for speakers or headphones with binaural monitoring, L-ISA Studio can process 96 inputs and 12 outputs. Developed to improve the workflow and unleash the creative potential of concert-proven L-ISA technology, it seamlessly interfaces with leading digital audio workstations and show control software. Download and start creating.

More information on www.l-isa-immersive.com

www.l-acoustics.com

Everything I Didn’t Say

ELLA

H

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

ON

ELLA HENDERSON

RS

18

E N DE

COVER STORY

19

ds by or A W

N SO

GUSTA CE F LI

EVERYTHING I DIDN’T SAY Ella Henderson hasn’t released an album in eight years, and she’s nervous.

Her long-awaited second record, Everything I Didn’t Say is out soon, and she has a good reason for the gap in between studio albums: she’s relatable, and her life over the last 10 years has been anything but.

“Everything happened so young,” she says, cutting straight to it from her home in London. “I was 16 when I was on The X Factor and when I signed my first record deal, 18 when I released Ghost and my first album, and that catapulted and took me all over the globe. It was an incredible ride and experience, but after those four years I came back. I’d hit my early 20s and I felt like I had nothing to write about. I was like, ‘If I write about what I’ve done in the last three or four years, it’s the most unrelatable album ever’. So I needed to live life and figure out where I was gonna live. I didn’t know where home was anymore because I’m a northern lass living in London, and it was such a huge culture shock for me: buying my first sofa, my TV, learning how a mortgage works, and even learning

how rent works at the start. It was like I’d done this amazing part of my life, but I hadn’t had the groundwork.”

Now aged 26, Henderson says she has accumulated just the right amount of heartbreak, self reflection and personal stories to put into an album that her fans can relate to.

Talking a mile a minute, – “James Arthur says I’m so loud and gobby” – one of the most endearing things about her is that she has no filter. She also swears like a trooper.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

20

ELLA HENDERSON

Everything I Didn’t Say

“There’s definitely no filter and no bullshit,” she laughs, nodding. “The album is me over the last seven years, so it’s pretty much word vomit. Just naturally, the way I write is very open, and that’s because writing is my therapy. Whenever I go to write a song or sit at the piano, it’s always from a strong emotion I’m feeling. So everything is very transparent.”

Speaking of being a straight-talker, she admits that she’s never been interested in a constructed celebrity image and is just like the rest of us, even when it comes down to her lockdown Zoom attire.

“Literally, it was all top half work, bottom half was literally…sometimes I did things in my underwear and slippers. It just got to the point where it was like, ‘There’s no point; no one ever sees that bottom half! I think people don’t want to see filtered things as much now anyway; we don’t want to see loads of contoured makeup. Everyone wants to see the real thing now.

For me, I think that’s more beautiful than anything. That should be the new norm, because if you don’t learn how to love yourself, then nobody else can love you,” she says, paraphrasing one of her TV favourites, RuPaul.

“It’s something that I really struggle with,” she admits. “I don’t wake up and look in the mirror and go, ‘Oh my God, such a bad bitch’. I look in the mirror some days and I’m like, ‘Fuck this!” or, ‘What are you doing?’

– and it is hard. Everybody can relate to that.”

At the time of interview she’s just started to do in-person interviews again, which after lockdown and then the Christmas break, has been a bit of a shock to the system.

“Absolutely, I was chowing down on the pigs in blankets just like everyone else so I feel like coming straight back in the new year is amazing for some reasons, but not great for the styling fittings, but it’s all good,” she adds, as she is anything but ungrateful for the life she leads. “I like to keep busy, and I like to be doing different things every day. That’s what I’ve missed, and being around people.”

You can’t blame her for wanting to take some time to regroup. Entering The X Factor in 2012 aged 16 with an original audition song, Henderson came sixth place in the competition and released the UK number one hit, Ghost (co-written with Ryan Tedder) two years later, followed by her debut album. Simon Cowell

quickly signed her to Syco, which she amicably parted ways with five years later, and (save a cruel tabloid story or two), since then she has mostly kept to herself as she struggled to come to terms with the pressures of fame, all the while living a very different life to that of her closest friends.

“I can count my best friends on one hand,” she says. “With the majority of people in my life, my circles never change. They’re the same people that I grew up with and that knew me from before any of this. “I’m the youngest of four in my family too, so I always grew up around craziness,” she says of her upbringing in Lincolnshire. “I have two big, boisterous brothers and my sister is 10 years older than me, and there’s just no way that my feet would ever be able to come off the ground with them in my life,” she laughs at the thought of it.

Everything I Didn’t Say will include Henderson’s duet with Tom Grennan, Let’s Go Home Together, and vulnerable new single Brave, which is about shaking the stigma of needing help – the latter of which was written a few years ago.

“THE ALBUM IS ME OVER THE LAST SEVEN YEARS, SO IT’S PRETTY MUCH WORD VOMIT!”

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

COVER STORY

21

“IT’SOKTO NOTBEOK” “I’ve never really resonated with the lyrics as much as I do now,” she shares. “I just felt like I wanted to come back into it. I knew I was releasing in January as well, which is a funny time of year. I feel like if you come into the new year too happy, everyone’s like, ‘Oh fuck off!’ Nobody feels like that in January. It’s new year’s resolutions, Blue Monday, waiting for the next paycheck, trying to get back on a diet, or everybody wants to try and get a new job. It’s a very strange time of year. Sometimes we just put too much pressure on ourselves. I think it’s important to surrender to the fact that it’s okay to not be okay; we’re not these gladiators or these warriors walking through life. Sometimes we do need a helping hand. I love that it wraps up the whole album; it’s quite anthemicsounding and it’s very wholesome. It’s quite soulful, but it also has this element

of there being light at the end of the tunnel, so it’s quite hopeful.”

On her forthcoming album’s title, Everything I Didn’t Say, Henderson points out that this doesn’t mean she was holding back in her past work, or that she has any scandalous secrets she’s planning to unveil, but rather that she is embracing a newly found sense of self acceptance.

“When I was younger I didn’t have as much self confidence or self belief to open up and own it and just be like, ‘I’m not the perfect dolly pocket popstar’ – and I never signed up to be. My dream was always to be a songwriter. Right now I’d say for the first time in my life ever, I’m in a healthy relationship, my friends have got my back and I’ve got theirs, my family and I are super close, and I’ve figured out my home situation.

I feel more settled in my life and I’ve gained a lot more control over the last four or five years. God, I’ve made mistakes along the way and I’m bound to make more,” she stresses. “It took a while to get here and I’ve dated a lot of knob heads along the way that literally destroyed me for a while. I thought I didn’t want to do music anymore or maybe this isn’t for me – I’ve nearly quit. I’ve had some really dark times, so I don’t want people to now be like, ‘Oh she’s got all her shit together,’ because I really didn’t, and I still really haven’t!

I want my fans to feel like they’re my mates and I want them to relate to the lyrics and the songs. I’ve been super conversational in this album, and more so than my first one. Everything is very upfront and very matter of fact. Like I said before, there’s no filter,” she shrugs.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

22

ELLA HENDERSON

Everything I Didn’t Say

She can’t reveal too much about Everything I Didn’t Say just yet, but shares that it’s a diaristic, 16-track record that was whittled down from over 400 songs that she’s written over the last seven years – the ones that made the cut are the ones that resonate with her today.

One of the biggest differences fans can expect to hear when comparing with 2014’s Chapter One is the theme of self growth, rather than more of a reliance on observing situations that involved her or her friends at the time.

Everything I Didn’t Say represents where Henderson is at today, and she’s ready to share the good, the bad and the ugly.

“There’s quite a lot of self growth songs in there and songs that are about me and my mistakes, and it’s not about anyone else. It’s just about owning up to the fact that I don’t get it right all the time.”

“EVERYONE IS LIKE, ‘WHAT’S THE STORY THEN? WHY DID YOU TAKE YOUR TIME? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? YOU’VE BEEN HIDING IN A HOLE’. BUT I HAVE BEEN CREATING.”

A track called Ugly sees her trying to take the pressure off herself by celebrating her flaws, calling out the unattainable image of beauty anyone wielding a smartphone is brainwashed to now believe as normal.

“Some of the lyrics are ‘Too thin, too smart, Monday, I don’t fit in my jeans, stretch marks,’ and the whole thing is me saying how I feel from Monday to Sunday and how every day is different – and maybe that’s okay, maybe that is normal. That’s probably the biggest difference between album one and album two. There’s more self love and healthy conversations that probably back then were a bit more taboo.”

One of the songs she’s keen for fans to hear is Thank You For The Hell, which takes aim at an ex-boyfriend.

“It’s almost like a middle finger up to my ex, but I’ve done it in a really respectful way,” she assures Headliner.

“It’s about when you go through a breakup or somebody has fucked you over. You go through the hurt, the pain, HEADLINER MAGAZINE

then you go through this huge part of anger, and then you eventually get to this place where you’ve reached the tip of a mountain and the sun rises up and you feel a weight lifted off your shoulders. You reflect back on it like, ‘God, I was trudging all the way through the mud, and now it feels like this, so actually, thank you for that’.”

Henderson will be performing as the special guest on The Script’s UK Greatest Hits Tour through May and June 2022, and she can’t wait to share her new material.

Photographer: Matt Pearson (Firmative)

COVER STORY 23

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

24

ELLA HENDERSON

Everything I Didn’t Say

“There’s probably going to be some laughing, some vulnerable moments and crying. I want to get right on the edge of the stage, sit and dangle my legs off and talk to my fans and explain to them where the songs came from. My fans have been so bloody patient with me. I think everyone is like, ‘What’s the story then? Why did you take your time? Where have you been? You’ve HEADLINER MAGAZINE

been hiding in a hole’. But I have been creating.”

Everything I Didn’t Say is released on March 11, and Henderson doesn’t mince her words about how she’s feeling: “I’m excited. I’m nervous. I’m probably going to poo myself the night before. I feel a mixture of

everything! But I think that’s good because it’s been such a long time coming, I’m bound to feel that way.

Ultimately, I can’t wait to share it with everyone.”

ELLAHENDERSON.CO.UK

The hybrid SSL studio Add the perfect balance of Fusion’s six analogue processors on 2-bus or stems, command your creative session with UF8 Advanced DAW Controller, or apply SSL Native processing like you’re piloting an SSL console with UC1 Plug-in Controller.

Solid State Logic has taken its renowned legacy in studio workflow and ergonomics and combined it with the latest forward-thinking production tools to create the hybrid SSL studio.

Fusion

|

Bus Compressor

#WhatWillYouCreate www.solidstatelogic.com

|

UF8

|

UC1

|

SSL Native Plug-ins

|

500 Series

ADAM HAWKINS

Bringing Avril Lavigne Into Atmos

s

ALICE by G

BRINGING AVRIL LAVIGNE INTO ATMOS

ADAM HAWKINS HEADLINER MAGAZINE

TAFWSON US

Wor d

26

MIXER

Multiple Grammy award-winning mix and recording engineer Adam Hawkins has been engineering and mixing since 1997, racking up credits with artists as diverse as Limp Bizkit, Nelly Furtado, 50 Cent, Rod Stewart, P!nk, Alanis Morissette, Maroon 5, Eminem, Twenty One Pilots, Muse, Yungblud and Britney Spears along the way. Most recently he’s been working with L.A’s punk rock cool clique, Travis Barker, Mod Sun, Avril Lavigne and Machine Gun Kelly.

The self confessed “dorky guy in the basement” explains how he tackled the stereo and Dolby Atmos mixes of Lavigne’s recent single, Bite Me. “My life is basically sitting in my basement studio for 12 hours a day,” Hawkins admits with a grin, speaking to Headliner over Zoom from his home studio, located just south of Nashville in the small town of Franklin, where he’s busy working on a new album for Machine Gun Kelly and various Atmos mixes for the Sk8er Boi singer.

Despite his experience and success with producing high profile artists and bands, it transpires that Hawkins no longer works on production, favouring mixing – even if it was a decision mainly driven by seeking a healthier work-life-balance.

“I made that decision because I wanted to get a little bit more control of my life. I failed at that,” he laughs, noting that the uptake of Dolby Atmos music mixes means he now has more work than ever.

“I thought that if I was mixing-only, I would be able to set my schedule more and have more time to spend with the family, but in all honesty, I’m still working every waking hour, basically. Every mix I do now, I have to do twice [because of Atmos]. So it just doubled my workload!”

One of the most recent Atmos mixes Hawkins has been kept busy with is Lavigne’s single, Bite Me, taken from her seventh studio album, Love Sux. The immersive project landed in his lap after working with Blink 182 drummer, Barker for a few years, who tends to send Hawkins any projects he thinks would be a good fit.

“He’s sending so much to me; it’s great, and I’m really thankful for that.

When they sent that song to me, they had already had a couple of other people mix it and they said, ‘Just make it as exciting as possible’. So I did my best attempt at that while still keeping the vocals the focus and out front, with a more pop treatment than

27

the rock side of it. Knowing that it’s already been through other mixers and then I’m competing makes it very stressful,” he shares. “Especially when somebody tells me, ‘So-and-so mixed this already,’ and I know that they are amazing, like – there’s no way I’m going to win this job!”

But win it he did, impressing the team with his stereo and Atmos mixes of the track.

“What I do is I print stems after I’ve done the stereo mix,” he explains on his approach to the immersive take on Bite Me. “I’ll print the drums and sometimes some additional elements of the drums that I envision being placed in different spaces, and then bass, guitar, keyboards, vocals and background vocals. So far my approach on Atmos is I’m just doing what I think is fun and what feels right.

I’m typically just making it surround you. Some guitars are behind you or beside you, or keyboards or a synth pad could be above and behind you.

It’s kind of all over the place.

“MY APPROACH ON ATMOS IS I’M JUST DOING WHAT I THINK IS FUN AND WHAT FEELS RIGHT.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

28

ADAM HAWKINS

Bringing Avril Lavigne Into Atmos

“Initially, I thought, ‘Okay, I just have to make it sound more like a live performance, and some of the ambience is behind you’. But that got boring pretty quickly. I thought about how I love the old Beatles stuff – when The Beatles got stereo, it went crazy. Like, why are the drums and the bass on the left? They probably were because they were bounced down to a single track, and that’s just what happened when they did a stereo mix – they were together, but I love that about those old records.

So I said, ‘Well, why not have the background vocals suddenly show up behind you?’ Or, if there are multiple guitar parts, why not have

them surrounding you instead of just being in front of you? So, forget what it would be like live, and make it a whole new thing. So that’s kind of what I’ve been doing – wrong or right. It’s been fun.”

Hawkins shares that these days, Atmos is no longer an afterthought or a task that mixers need to go back and upmix later – it’s now planned into each release in the early production stages.

“For most projects, now we just negotiate at the beginning,” he nods.

“We’ll do the stereo mix and then do the Atmos mix once that’s approved.”

In order to do these Atmos mixes justice, Hawkins invested in a full Genelec system for his studio room, which is now home to 8351Bs for left and right, a 8341A for the centre channel, 8330As positioned at the rear, sides and on the ceiling, and a pair of 7360A subs.

“Everything I’ve done for the past two and a half years, I’ve done on these Genelecs solely; I don’t even check other sources anymore,” he says.

Photographer: Ryan McFadden

“EVERYTHING I’VE DONE FOR THE PAST TWO AND A HALF YEARS, I’VE DONE ON THESE GENELECS SOLELY; I DON’T EVEN CHECK OTHER SOURCES ANYMORE.”

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

MIXER

“I’m treating it as if someone is sitting in the sweet spot when they listen so that they can hear all of the stuff I’ve got flying around them. I can’t imagine doing it with any other system because of how simple it is to calibrate Genelecs and set it up with their GLM software. I set a mic down, hit calibrate and it does its thing. I don’t have to think about levels or timing or any of that – it does it all for me. I did get to hear Atmos mixes at Blackbird Studio here in Nashville, and I think my room sounds better. The Genelec system just does a better job – it just sounds more right to me.”

We wrap up the interview, as Hawkins needs to get back to working on some material for Machine Gun Kelly’s upcoming sixth studio album, Mainstream Sellout – due out in March 2022.

29

“I’m not certain that I’m doing the entire album, but I’ve been working on several songs and I’m nearing the end of that phase. I should be finishing it up pretty shortly. It’s a very cool project and its approach is very different from the last one. They finished the production and I cleaned it up a little bit and made it sound a little bit more polished. In some cases I made it sound a little bit more – not messed up – but a little bit more wild and out of control at times, and sent it back to them. We just go back and forth with phone calls, FaceTime or text until it’s done. It’s pretty cool. If only they knew how not cool I was! I’m just the dorky guy in the basement,” he laughs.

GENELEC.COM ADAMHAWKINS.COM

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

30

CARL BARÂT

The Eye of the Storm

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

31

N GUMB DA L E

rds b Wo y

ARTIST

THE EYE OF THE STORM

CARL BARÂT Carl Barât isn’t entirely sure where he is. He’s currently caught up in a flurry of touring activity – at the time of our chat he is on a mini solo tour of grassroots venues across the UK, which is sandwiched between a Libertines tour that closed out 2021 and an upcoming summer 2022 tour to mark the band’s breakthrough debut album Up The Bracket.

And in a hark back to simpler times, he is speaking to Headliner over the phone and not via Zoom, being quite literally on the road at the time of our conversation. We may not be able to see his face, but the charm and wit that made him one of the most enduring figures in British music over the past two decades exudes in abundance.

“It’s like living in a washing machine spin cycle,” he says with just a hint of disorientation in his tone. “I came off The Libertines tour, then it was Christmas, now we’ve done three dates on the grassroots tour,” he trails off.

Though the mayhem and the hedonism that defined The Libertines and the indie rock movement of the early ‘00s may have settled in recent years, there is still a sense of chaos that surrounds him. In addition to the previously mentioned shows, he is also preparing for a commemorative gig

to mark the 15th anniversary of Dirty Pretty Things’ debut album Waterloo To Anywhere. And it’s not just the demands of performance keeping him occupied. He’s currently back in the studio with Pete Doherty and co working on new material, as well as a new album of solo material. And then there’s the matter of running The Libertines’ decadent Margate-based residential studio and creative hub The Albion Rooms. For now, we turn to matters at hand.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

32

CARL BARÂT

The Eye of the Storm

The grassroots circuit Barât is presently gracing is part of the Revive Live Tour, which sees the National Lottery partner with the Music Venue Trust in an initiative to help revive small, independent venues. As part of the initiative, The National Lottery is contributing £1 million to directly underwrite the touring and production costs of over 300 live performances this summer. Other artists taking part include Olivia Dean, Twin Atlantic, The Magic Gang and The Futureheads.

“There’s a lot to it,” says Barât of his involvement. “Firstly, I got in touch with the Music Venue Trust, as I’ve opened a couple of live venues myself

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

in Margate. There is the Albion Rooms and an old one I’m resurrecting called Justine’s, which was always the go-to place in Margate but it closed in the ‘90s. The grassroots scene has been decimated by Covid – as has the whole hospitality sector – so this Revive Live Tour is not just to highlight the importance of grassroots venues but to try and get people back out and give venues a chance to not fold.”

While the devastation wrought by the pandemic across the hospitality industry has been widely reported, Barât believes the plight of the indie sector has not been given the coverage it deserves. In his words,

not only does this decimation of the circuit ruin the prospects of the next generation of artists, it will leave a cultural void which may be all but impossible to recover. “[Grassroots venues] have definitely been overlooked and they are such an important thing, culturally,” he says.

“The mainstream is just a small part of the spectrum. The grassroots scene is much more everyman’s forum, and losing that means you have to jump to the drum of corporate events. It’s the only way anyone can really cut their teeth.

ARTIST

33

“THE MAINSTREAM IS JUST A SMALL PART OF THE SPECTRUM. THE GRASSROOTS SCENE IS MUCH MORE EVERYMAN’S FORUM, AND LOSING THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO JUMP TO THE DRUM OF CORPORATE EVENTS.”

“That’s where we honed our craft, and that’s true for so many people. We used to affectionately refer to it as the toilet tour, we still do actually,” he laughs, “but places like that aren’t there anymore, like The Princess Charlotte in Leicester and the 12 Bar Club in London, there are so many. There was that smell of beer, the sticky floors, sweat dripping down the walls and the crowd virtually onstage with you. That experience is so magical and you can’t really get it anywhere but those venues.”

At the backend of 2021, The Libertines played a series of highly-anticipated shows across the UK, and are now preparing for a number of huge outdoor gigs to mark the 20th anniversary of Up The Bracket.

The significance of the occasion is not lost on Barât, who readily admits that at the peak of Libertines hysteria, they’d “more likely be six feet under” than reconvening for a celebratory tour 20 years later.

While much of the media focus at the time, and during the intervening years, was fixed on Doherty’s spiralling heroin addiction, none of the band emerged unscathed in their pursuit of rock ‘n’ roll’s darkest recesses. The very public disintegration of the band just two years after the album’s release surprised few.

“I can’t wait for those shows,” he says. “It’s going to be a massive celebration of that record, but also the fact that after everything we’ve been through we can actually make this happen and be there together on stage. That’s quite something.”

Perhaps even more exciting for Libertines fans is the prospect of new music, with Barât cagily revealing “we’re closer than we’ve been to new stuff happening”.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

CARL BARÂT

The Eye of the Storm

Photographer: Roger Sergant

34

He elaborates: “I shouldn’t say that cause it’ll probably stifle the process [laughs]. It’s more likely to be next year when that emerges, but there are new songs, which is an amazing thing for all of us really. There’s always been at least one of us dragging our heels, but the last time we got together it was so natural. I’m trying not to give you any promises otherwise it’ll come back and bite me on the arse!”

So what has lead to this creative breakthrough for the band?

“Because we’ve stopped pressuring ourselves,” he states. “And we’ve been spending a lot of time together – it’s been about our friendship again, not just the pressures of careers, which has never inspired any of us. We’re so lucky to have a band of such eccentric characters, and even when we go off and do other things with other people, when we come back together there is still that amazing chemistry. When you strip away all the pressure, what’s underneath still has some life and some legs in it.”

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

If there wasn’t enough here to keep him busy, Barât is also in the process of writing a new solo album at The Libertines’ Margate hub The Albion Rooms. He doesn’t yet know when a new solo record will see the light of day, but he has been trialling new music at his solo shows.

“I’ve been trying to snatch as much time as possible at The Albion Rooms when I can,” he says. “The thing about lockdown is it’s such a weird time and it’s usually the job of the artist to step between the cracks of society and think about all this existentialist stuff, but suddenly the whole world was doing it! It was no longer the preserve of the overthinker. But that’s been really interesting. I’ve not particularly been trying to write things related to that but these things tend to come out on their own and you don’t realise what a song is about until afterwards.

“It’s so good down there, I go whenever I can,” he continues. “I can get some space and that’s where I’ve been doing 99% of my work. It’s great

to have that retreat by the sea where you can get into the right headspace.

The town is going through a renaissance and it has so much history and so much beauty; you have this dilapidated, faded glamour and it’s right on a cliff edge. And it’s got a bar and beds and food. We designed it to meet all of the needs of a residential studio.

“One day I went into the office there and on the camera, I saw someone playing one of my guitars on the floor with a spoon. I was a bit confused, but it was under the watchful eye of the engineer, so it made sense!”

Twenty years may have passed since The Libertines scorched the UK’s musical landscape with their knifeedge brand of rock ‘n’ roll, but the intrigue, and indeed the uncertainty that surrounds them, remains intense and beguiling as ever.

THEALBIONROOMS.LIVE

36

BON IVER

Sincerely Grateful

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

37

N GUMBL DA

E

ords by W

ARTIST

SINCERELY GRATEFUL

BON IVER Last month, Bon Iver marked the 10th anniversary of the band’s breakthrough second album Bon Iver, Bon Iver, with two immersive live shows under the moniker Sincerely Grateful at the YouTube Theatre at Hollywood Park. Headliner takes a look at how L-Acoustics’ L-ISA technology helped deliver a “visceral, communal explosion of emotion”.

Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon and his band performed the double Grammy-winning album in full, plus additional material - the first concerts they had performed in more than a year and a half. The shows also represented the first official worldwide deployment of the new L-Acoustics L-ISA Processor II. “My goal with this band is always to enhance the music and connect with the audience, not distract them with the sound,” says Xandy Whitesel, FOH engineer for both shows. “When it comes to immersive audio, there’s a fine line between glitz and gold, but the intimacy that L-ISA can bring to even a big venue like the YouTube Theater is amazing. I equate it to what it must have been like going from listening to mono recordings in the ’50s to first hearing stereo in the ’60s.

Suddenly there’s a whole new world out there, and it’s much more sonically interesting and engaging.”

He adds that the L-Acoustics immersive audio platform enables him to “more easily make my mix sound huge and beautiful, and I can use spatial panning in ways that I’d previously feel guilty for. That can radically change how one mixes because normally we make so many choices and compromises based on building a clean and big-sounding ‘mono-ish’ left-right mix. With L-ISA, the mix from my FOH position translates consistently to almost the entire venue — not just to a narrow strip of audience standing in the middle of the room. I heard someone describe these YouTube Theater shows as a ‘visceral, communal explosion of emotion,’ which perfectly sums up the ideal Bon Iver concert experience that L-ISA helps create.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

38

BON IVER

Sincerely Grateful

Whitesel also used L-ISA technology for the second leg of the band’s i,i tour in early 2020, but his first experience with it came at the Santa Barbara Bowl two years prior. The recent availability of L-ISA Processor II, he comments, provides an additional improvement on a system he was already incredibly fond of.

“The new spatial front-fill is an ubercool improvement,” he says. “Before now, front-fill was mono, and so this new ability finally brings a full spatially immersive experience to the very front rows. L-Acoustics has also developed a new reverb that’s remarkable. The ones that I normally use are stereo, whereas the onboard L-ISA reverb spreads out the ‘verb tail amongst the whole L-ISA configuration, and it sounds fantastic.

“The new Controller software adds several new features that greatly enhance usability as well. There is a feature for tying solo on the desk — in my case, a DiGiCo Quantum7 feeding out to all of L-ISA’s 96 available objects — to focus on the correct object in the L-ISA Controller software. And they added compatibility with stereo channels and groups, which also helped me easily translate my left-right session and left-right brain to the L-ISA Scene/Extension setup. Even though it does take some training and practice to optimally use object-based audio, I don’t think it’s possible to have a bad mix with L-ISA.” While one might assume that transforming a 6,000-seat venue’s fixed stereo loudspeaker system into a 7.1 L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal spatial audio design would require major investment in additional gear and time, both shows disproved that theory. The venue’s stage PA primarily features 57 L-Acoustics K2 and 30 Kara II enclosures that make up the LCR main arrays and out-fill hangs.

For Bon Iver’s shows, local certified provider 3G Productions brought in 11 HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“ALTHOUGH MOST FANS WALKING INTO THESE SHOWS DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT, WHAT THEY HEARD WAS MUCH MORE CLEAR, DETAILED, AND NUANCED THAN THEY HAD EVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE.”

more K2, plus 24 extra Kara II for the panoramic system’s extension arrays.

Meanwhile, the switchover time to lower, reconfigure, and re-fly the entire loudspeaker system to match the L-ISA design took only five hours from start to finish.

and enveloped each patron with sound, giving the shows the intimacy of listening to the band on headphones.

But it also very much had the dynamic raw power of a live performance and the ability to connect the fans with the artists on stage.

L-Acoustics head of product and technology marketing, Scott Sugden, describes the end result: “Although most fans walking into these shows didn’t know what to expect, what they heard was much more clear, detailed, and nuanced than they had ever experienced before,” he states. “Even if they were seated all the way at the back of the venue, it felt like Justin was ten feet in front of them. The effects of his voice engulfed the entire theatre

“L-Acoustics has spent the last 30 years developing technologies to ensure that everyone in the audience has an amazing experience, and L-ISA is the absolute culmination of those efforts. It will be hard for those fans who were at one of these shows to go back to a ‘regular’ concert again after experiencing this.”

L-ACOUSTICS.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.

40

PLATOON 7

The Year Of Sound

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

41

s bY DA N rd o

THE YEAR OF SOUND

MBLE GU

W

STUDIO FOCUS

PLATOON 7 Platoon CEO Denzyl Feigelson and designer of its Platoon 7 studio, Sam Danieli, have spoken to Headliner about the company’s new high-end, multi-purpose facility and how innovations in audio will set new standards for recording in 2022.

Located at London’s Tileyard music hub, Platoon 7 – an extension of Platoon’s global services operation - opened its doors for business in November 2021 and includes three recording studios, two Dolby Atmos rooms, a content capture studio, podcast booth, writing rooms, an artist lounge and an education lab to provide in-person and virtual workshops. Each of the 10 rooms are interconnected, providing flexibility and simultaneous use of the space, from writing camps and multi-artist recordings.

The Dolby Atmos rooms, built and installed by Studio Creations, provides remote recording capabilities, while the facility’s flagship recording room, Studio 1, is centred around a Neve 88RS mixing console and complemented by a raft of high end audio gear and live instruments, from synths and percussion, to keyboards, guitars, bass and drums.

Among those to have utilised the space already is multi-awardwinning producer, songwriter and

musician Fraser T Smith, who has worked with the likes of Adele, Stormzy, Kano and Dave.

Platoon will also be working alongside local organisations and community groups to offer the space free of charge to aspiring talent.

Headliner paid Feigelson and Danieli a visit for a tour of the studio and to find out more about what it has to offer the global creative community…

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

42

PLATOON 7

The Year Of Sound

Why did you decide to base Platoon 7 at Tileyard London?

DF: We arrived at Tileyard in 2016 thanks to Mark Ronson. He called me up one day and said, ‘can you come over, I have a little song I want to play you’? I came over and he played me an early demo of Uptown Funk and I got curious about the space. He organised a tour for me, and I needed a little office space at the time, so I took a space in Unit 23 and Platoon grew from strength to strength. This particular space used to be a meat packing building and once Tileyard took over the spec they started building out an idea of it being a studio teaching space. That didn’t quite work out, so I inherited a very early build of this spot and then we decided to put in what you see now, which is 10 rooms of creative spaces.

“SO MANY CLASSIC RECORDS HAVE BEEN MADE ON NEVE DESKS; IT SOUNDS WARM AND REPRESENTS MUSIC IN A WAY THAT IS TRUE.”

What was the philosophy you wanted to bring to this space?

SD: The idea for this space is that an artist should be able to come in, even with just the start of a song, and maybe begin forming the idea. Then they can move into a room that is slightly bigger and build up a demo.

Then it can be mixed in another room.

From there, they could go to Studio 2 to mix in Atmos, they can playback in our Atmos conference room, they can shoot a video in our content creation space. It’s a place for artists to be able to come and create – whatever idea they have in their head, they can make happen here.

Tell us about the room we are in now (Studio 1).

SD: With this space we knew we wanted a classic recording studio that would just wow people. We knew we had to make certain decisions.

You can see we have lots of outboard gear and we have a live room full of instruments, so it’s great for people to be able to come in and say, ‘hey, I’d like to try that out’ and we already HEADLINER MAGAZINE

have it patched in. Even though this is a fully functional studio, perhaps more traditional studio, the way it is set-up is very much designed to maximise creativity. People can come in with an idea and we can offer them the quickest way to get it out.

That’s how the studio was designed.

The room is built around a Neve 88RS desk. What made you opt for that particular console?

SD: For both me and Denzyl it was such an easy choice, because it’s a

brand that gets used in every studio on the planet – Abbey Road has one, AIR has one. So many classic records have been made on Neve desks; it sounds warm and represents music in a way that is true. And it is so versatile. You can record classical music on it, pop music… there are just so many things you can do with it.

One of the best things about the desk is the preamplifier. It’s what makes it sound the way it does. Whatever you put through the board, it just gets a

STUDIO FOCUS

certain sound, it develops a certain type of harmonics. And it’s just so flexible. This is a 48-channel desk, but when you mix on it you can go up to 96, so as it expands its capability expands. And we also have a centre section that people put their laptops on. It’s a custom feature we requested to Neve, because record making today is about being flexible and being able to accommodate whatever the artist wants.

DF: I’ve lived in recording studios most of my life. From being an artist, a manager, a producer… I remember Neve when I was working with Paul Simon on Graceland at the Hit Factory in New York. I have a history with Neve. And from when we started here, the whole process of working with Neve was fantastic. We’ve had producers come in here saying this room just hums. Sam has designed it so that everything just works. My experience with studios has often been hurry up and wait – there are

so many things that happen that can slow the process. But to work in here is an exquisite experience.

How big a factor is the Neve desk in attracting clients to the studio?

DF: To us it’s incredibly important. It’s a calling card. My hope is that when Dave Grohl comes to town he’s going to go, ‘those guys have that Neve we love, let’s go do something at their studio’. And we just happen to know that Neve is his favourite brand!

So offering the best possible sonic quality is just as important as the versatility and flexibility on offer.

43

What are the biggest opportunities for Platoon 7?

DF: I’m excited to do more live recording. We have all these channels, live instruments and that’s really exciting. We want to do a series of live sessions, we have this big content capture space that could be filled with a small orchestra, string sections. It all comes back to our love of sound and natural instruments. Great studios have a vibe, and this has a vibe. It may be a brand new studio, but it feels like it’s always been here.

AMS-NEVE.COM PLATOON.AI

DF: We love sound, it’s the most important thing on the planet. And I think 2022 will be the year of sound. If you think about what’s happened in the spatial and Dolby Atmos world… I love the fact I’ll have an artist call me and say ‘can you rent me one of those binaural microphones’? We love the science of sound.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

BJÖRK’S CORNUCOPIA

Total Immersion

Photographer: Santiago Felipe

44

TOTAL IMMERSION gumble

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

n

W

BJÖRK’S CORNUCOPIA

ds by d a or

45

Photographer: Santiago Felipe

IMMERSIVE AUDIO

Following 2019’s run of large-scale residencies in the US, Mexico and Europe, Björk recently brought her ground-breaking immersive Cornucopia tour to the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium and San Francisco’s Chase Center – her first shows outside of her native Iceland in over two years.

As with her 2019 performances, d&b audiotechnik partner Southby Productions specified a d&b Soundscape system, powered by the d&b En-Scene object-based mixing and En-Space room emulation software, to deliver the show’s immersive audio elements.

The Cornucopia tour is based on Björk’s 2017 album Utopia. Directed

by Lucrecia Martel and Björk with co-creative director James Merry, the show was designed to harness sound as a creative tool to enhance audience engagement and immersion. The overall production is

more in line with that of a theatrical performance than a regular music concert, with showstopping visuals and the immersive sound system providing ‘a full sensory experience for the audience’.

The show was originally designed

by Björk with system trials in a small studio situated in a lighthouse, on a remote Nordic Island. From that point, the scale of the show escalated to larger rehearsal spaces in order to utilise Soundscape’s capabilities to the fullest.

For the West Coast shows, a 180-degree Soundscape system was deployed to align with the size of the venues. The team also made use of a new tool called En-Snap, the result of a d&b partnership with Gareth Owen Sound. En-Snap is designed to allow straightforward cue-based control within the d&b Soundscape environment. The software tool connects directly to the d&b DS100

signal engine and, with a single click, stores the parameter values of all 64 sound objects and any En-Space room emulation setting as an EnSnap cue.

“Soundscape is key to giving the audience the experience they expect from a Björk show,” says Jack Blenkinsopp, system tech for the tour.

“Everything in these shows, from the visuals to the stage presence, to the audio experience, is quite special and Soundscape heightens the experience. There are a lot of moments in the show where we have positioned the sound objects to match their position on stage, for instance the reverb chamber.

It really draws the audience in towards the performance, and what is happening on stage whether that be Björk, the flutes or the choir. No other tool captures the audience so authentically like Soundscape.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

46

BJÖRK’S CORNUCOPIA

Total Immersion

“I PERSONALLY FEEL LIKE IT’S THE MOST GORGEOUS SOUND THAT I’VE EVER HEARD IN A ROOM.”

For John Gale, FOH engineer on the tour, the focus was very much on ensuring the smooth transfer of the system between shows.

“My biggest concern was ensuring we could scale the system, the L.A venue and San Francisco venue were totally opposite, we were coming from a theatre to an arena in a short period of time,” Gale explained.

“Yet the system performed exactly the same. I believe no matter where you are sitting there’s really good coverage with the Soundscape experience.” d&b has introduced significant new developments to Soundscape over the past two years, particularly within the DS100. “It’s great to come back to a system two years later and see they have been continuing to develop the product in the background,” Gale continues. “The remit from Björk was that this needed to be a theatrical show and less of a pop concert and Soundscape truly allowed us to achieve this. Björk has been extremely happy.”

The control system and stage package for the Cornucopia tour was so specific that Southby, opted to HEADLINER MAGAZINE

airfreight the elements that were used on the previous European Arena run, to California, while the main speaker system components were supplied by Eighth Day Sound.

“Soundscape is integral to the Cornucopia Tour, the system is complex in its capabilities, yet its flexibility and scalability means we can deploy it all across the world,” adds Chris Jones, director at Southby Productions.

“Everyone is blown away by the results of Soundscape and the popularity of the system has cemented Southby’s place as one of the global specialists for Soundscape solutions.”

Speaking about the system during the European tour in 2019, Björk commented: “We spent a lot of time making sure that there will be synchronicity between the live music and the live visuals, Cornucopia is a celebration of the execution of that. I personally feel like it’s the most gorgeous sound that I’ve ever heard in a room.”

DBAUDIO.COM

Using amp modellers or IRs? Then check out the revolutionary new Celestion F12-X200. It’s the first and only guitar speaker to combine the Full Range performance your modelling amp requires with the Live Response you need to feel connected to the music. Find out more at celestion.com

celestion.com

GEOFF BAYNARD

Wireless Wizardry

S by CO L RD RAMSEY

WIRELESS WIZARDRY

BY

W O

48

GEOFFBAYNARD HEADLINER MAGAZINE

LIVE SOUND

49

Product specialist at Wisycom USA, Geoff Baynard, recently sat down with Headliner for a chat about all things wireless audio technology, revealing details about the company’s relationship with respected IEM manufacturer JH Audio…

Baynard joins Headliner on a Zoom call from the offices of Wisycom USA in Alexandria, Virginia, although it’s in the small town of Tombolo in Northern Italy where the company has its main headquarters, having opened a new building there at the end of 2019. When the pandemic first hit, things naturally slowed on the production side for Wisycom due to the lack of gigs. Its R&D department stepped up a gear, however.

Product-wise, Wisycom offers a full line of wireless microphones, wireless IEM systems, and RF-overfibre distribution units – the latter to serve the needs of broadcast events for Moto GP and Formula One. “Most major news outlets around the world, especially here in the US, use Wisycom mics or wireless tech,” reveals Baynard. “We have products with really specific applications for RF distribution, like our MAT Diversity Combiner, which – if you need coverage on your A stage but also need coverage for your mics on a B stage and a green room and a bus out back – allows you to take your whole setup, make it a bit easier to use, and expand it without a lot of fuss.

“The thing that most people know us for is our wideband and multiband capabilities. Our main claim to

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

50

GEOFF BAYNARD

Wireless Wizardry

“IT’S NICE TO HAVE THOSE CONVERSATIONS TO SEE HOW WE CAN TAKE OUR WORK TOGETHER TO THE NEXT LEVEL.”

fame over the past few years is that we have one system with enough spectrum to cover everything you need, that system being our flagship IEM transmitter – the MTK952.”

Like many manufacturers, Wisycom’s main challenge during the pandemic has been sourcing components for its products.

Baynard says that with such high standards of RF and audio performance, the company rarely compromises on components of a lesser quality when it comes to production.

“And despite the challenges of the pandemic, Wisycom was still able to move from a modest 30 or 40,000 square foot building to our new building in Tombolo – which is about 100,000 square feet – to meet the demand that we know is coming.”

Baynard explains that Wisycom has been building and developing a relationship with fellow IEM technology company JH Audio for some time now, which “for me, comes down to a lot of mutual admiration,” he says. “I have a HEADLINER MAGAZINE

pair of Roxannes from JH and I absolutely love them – they are easily the most musical earphones I’ve ever worn.

“During the pandemic, we sent the JH team one of our full IEM systems because they were doing a test with some other manufacturers. A few weeks later I heard back from Kevin [Glendinning] at the company and he said, ‘My jaw’s on the floor with this system, I tested it against everything out there and it has the best phase coherence of any top tier system on the market.’”

Baynard says that Wisycom lives for a challenge, and is constantly looking at industry trends and how it can get involved. It’s clear that the company has established a strong chemistry with the JH Audio team, “so it’s nice to have those conversations to see how we can take our work together to the next level, and make something really cool that no-one else has thought could be done,” he says.

“The way we look at our workflow is that it’s all digital processing, but with an analogue carrier, which

gives us a lot of versatility and flexibility and a much more reliable signal. That being said, there’s a lot of new projects that we’re working on. We just released a brand new body pack transmitter, which is built on a next generation platform for our transmitters with Bluetooth 5.0 long range. We basically have a positioning system, where a transmitter could be on the stage at position X, and in real-time that transmitter moves, allowing the user to correlate RF power and gain and whatever else they want to do.

“On the production side, the teams have started coming back in to build up and prepare our stock.

So as shows start getting back into rehearsals, and when they’re ready to make the switch to Wisycom, we can fill that show with gear.”

WISYCOMUSA.COM JHAUDIO.COM

The XSL System.

Clean up your room.

The newest addition to the SL family. All the unparalleled features only SL-Series provides: Full broadband directivity control, extended low frequency response, innovative rigging. More SL, nothing less.

Let’s talk about X: sl-series.com

CODA

Paving the Way

s by CO L rd RAMSEY

PAVING THE WAY

BY

W o

52

CODA AUDIO HEADLINER MAGAZINE

TECHNOLOGY

German loudspeaker system manufacturer CODA Audio has had its finger held firmly on the pulse of audio innovation for a number of years now, continuing to put its stamp on the market with a revitalised global workforce and a haul of significant advancements in immersive sound technology. Marketing director David Webster and director of global sales Paul Ward recently spoke to Headliner about how the company has coped throughout the pandemic, its position in the market, and what we can expect from the dark horse of pro audio in the near future…

Could you describe CODA’s trajectory over the last couple of years?

PW: Previously, we had been putting a lot of emphasis on the live sound touring market, building the brand image and the acceptance of the brand around that, and seeing a lot

of traction and success. Then Covid stopped everything in its tracks. It’s meant that our clients have realigned their businesses and have been doing a lot more installation and projectbased work, so naturally, we’ve also flowed in that direction.

That being said, our levels of business have not dropped in any way – we have seen growth, and had it not been for Covid, we believe this growth would’ve been significant.

One of the big challenges for manufacturers coming out of Covid has been component and raw material shortages. Due to the fact that we produce our own unique technologies, and design and build the components inside the boxes, we’ve got a lot of control over that process. It means that we can react to demands from the market a lot

53

quicker, and be flexible when it comes to meeting requests.

What has been the main focus for CODA in terms of loudspeaker technology?

DW: We have been researching different ways of doing immersive audio for quite some time. We had already been involved in a number of immersive projects, but not with our own processor, so when we started going through the process of utilising existing platforms – and seeing what’s available in terms of software, algorithms, and licencing – we discovered that we could do things a lot more efficiently ourselves with enhanced engineering capabilities.

PW: Whether we’re talking about Space Hub [CODA’s new immersive audio ecosystem] or any of the other technologies, it’s more to do with HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

54

CODA

Paving the Way

“WE LIKE TO THINK OF CODA AS THE TESLA OF PRO AUDIO IN TERMS OF THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX, CREATING ECO-FRIENDLY PRODUCTS THAT HAVE MASSIVE ADVANTAGES TO THE USER.”

analysing the market, interpreting what it needs, and reacting to that accordingly. So for us it’s always been a question of: what can we do with our driver technology to be able to make a smaller, lighter box without compromising on sound quality? That has always been the CODA philosophy.

What sets CODA apart from the competition?

PW: It comes down to the inherent in-house design of our systems. If we build a loudspeaker, we look at the concept and the overall goal, and then create a new driver to fit into that box in order to achieve that goal.

Because our technology is patented, it means that we’re not compromised when it comes to components. Therefore we can build a product that’s relevant to the marketplace, and let our current user base see and hear all of the benefits of that. There’s a high level of honesty in what we do, and we’re trying to get a wider audience to understand and accept that as we grow as a brand.

For example, first-time users of our flagship AiRAY loudspeaker technology are often of the mindset that the system will not be competent enough for their needs due to its compact size. But then they hear the performance and coverage of the boxes and are blown away.

Where does the company see itself positioned in the market currently?

DW: Everybody is hungry to either go out and be entertained, or be the entertainer. Whether it be a football match or a concert, we’re missing that vibe of being together with like minded people enjoying the same event. There’s not enough venues to meet that kind of demand, so there are a lot more shows that are having to be more cost effective – utilising smaller, lighter, more eco-friendly systems.

We’re excited to facilitate that return of live shows with our technologies.

PW: We like to think of CODA as the Tesla of pro audio in terms of thinking outside the box, creating eco-friendly products that have massive advantages to the user. We have reinvented the way things are done and created a new industry standard, and many big players from across the market have acknowledged that.

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

DW: As a company, we’re not beholden to shareholders. Our financial independence and stability has been important for us, and Paul has developed a strong network of industry partners over the years. You’re only as good as the people that you’ve got involved, and despite Covid, we have developed and nurtured those relationships so that they’re now stronger than ever.

What are CODA’s plans for the near future?

PW: Over the next year, all manufacturers will be looking to get back on track and integrate back into the market correctly. We are currently talking to some major players in the touring world who are about to reinvest in CODA for big live events. These are users that are already familiar with CODA products, who want to further grow their inventory.

From a commercial point of view, it’s all positive activity, and means that we can react to meet the needs of the rejuvenated market. I’m optimistic about continuing our growth in the contracting field, continuing to develop our immersive technologies and making the most of every opportunity. I would anticipate that from summer onwards and into 2023, it’s going to be a really good time for CODA. CODAAUDIO.COM

GLP German Light Products GmbH

UNRIVALLED CREATIVE CONTROL NEW PIXEL ZOOM CONTROL Individually for each lens

Photo: Paul Gärtner | Lighting design: Timo Martens & Nik Evers

10 HOMOGENLY ILLUMINATED 100MM FRESNEL LENSES 60 Watt LEDs RGBW Color Mixing

OU T NOW!

GLP German Light Products | Germany | France | Hong Kong | United Kingdom | USA  info@glp.de

 /GLP.German.Light.Products

 /GLPimpression

 www.glp.de

SEA POWER

Now and Forever

ds by D or

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

GUMBLE

SEA POWER

AN

NOW AND FOREVER

W

56

ARTIST

Sea Power frontman Yan Scott Wilkinson speaks to Headliner about the band’s new album Everything Was Forever, the indie rock boom that exploded around them 20 years ago, and the innate ‘weirdness’ that has made them one of the UK’s most enduring outfits…

“I was thinking this is the most together album we’ve made in a while,” laughs Sea Power singer, songwriter and guitarist Yan Scott Wilkinson after Headliner puts it to him that the band’s new album Everything Was Forever ranks among the most eclectic records they have released yet. He’s right. The record is indeed among the most musically cohesive additions to the band’s canon, but it’s also one of their most sonically and artistically adventurous.

“There are slow atmospheric things on there, and then there is alternative - but still pop - songs with big choruses. But despite that I see it as quite together and it really flows.

Because we’ve got three songwriters and different ways of doing things it is quite hard to put things together, but we put quite a lot of effort into doing that this time [he laughs] despite those different sides.”

Everything Was Forever sees Sea

Power explore the extremities of the sound they have cultivated over the past two decades to the fullest.

Singles Two Fingers and Green Goddess demonstrate Sea Power at their thrilling, anthemic best and look certain to become live favourites, while the gentle lilt of Fire Escape In The Sea and Fear Eats The Soul are among the band’s most intimate and delicate moments to date.

When we join Wilkinson over Zoom, he’s in an affable, talkative mood, covering everything from the new record, to the indie boom of the early ‘00s and where the band sits in today’s indie rock landscape. On why they have never fully broken into the mainstream, he ponders before laughing: “Well, someone was saying the other day that we jammed with Faust and then did a split single with The Wurzels. And not long ago we did an evening at the Barbican playing live music to Polish animations…”

This innate eccentricity has likely hindered any potential crossover into the tier of Radio 1 stardom and major festival headline slots, but it is also intrinsic to the magic they create and the wonder they inspire from their fans. A sense of chaos also continues to follow them, even 20 years and

57

nine albums into their career.

“I guess I can safely say we didn’t have a plan,” Wilkinson says when asked how the new record came together. “We find it hard to agree on anything. It was pretty random.

There’s a song called Fire Escape In The Sea which was a demo originally for Machineries Of Joy and then reused on the soundtrack for a computer game called Disco Elysium (for which the band won a BAFTA in 2020 for Best Game Soundtrack).

It then fell back into favour and a hybrid version came on to the album. Then there are songs Martin started like Doppelganger and Green Goddess that were brand new. Songs like Two Fingers we played live before the pandemic, and Neil’s songs… I don’t know how old they are because he never tells us anything!”

With over 30 songs to choose from, the band called upon regular Sea Power producer and collaborator Graham Sutton to make sense of the situation.

“He understands us best and does our best mixes,” he explains. “It’s a personality thing. He’s incredibly good technically, and he’s not really a mainstream kind of guy [pauses]… he’s probably even weirder than we are!”

While discussing producers, Wilkinson cites the work of Steve Albini as being among the first records to turn him on to the ‘sound’ of music.

“The first [production influence] that springs to mind is Pixies with Steve Albini,” he says, “but a lot of that was due to the Pixies being able to make the most of that live-in-a-room situation. On the other hand, I’ve always had a thing for Phil Spector and Brian Wilson.”

Could he ever see the band working with someone like Albini? Stripping the band back to its rawest elements and capturing them live in a room?

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

58

SEA POWER

Now and Forever

“I think it appeals but I don’t know if we’re capable of it,” he suggests. “At the moment we’re more the other way. It’s almost like collages at times, or layers of depth and sound, so it would be a big change. We have had the odd time where we’ve gone down that route and it is quite good and interesting, so you never know.”

Almost 20 years on from the release of their debut The Decline of British Sea Power, the band emerged at a time when the indie rock scene on both sides of the Atlantic was enjoying a renaissance of sorts. In the UK, bands such as The Libertines, Razorlight and Franz Ferdinand were NME cover regulars, as were the likes of New York’s Interpol, The Strokes

and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, all being widely heralded as saviours of rock ‘n’ roll while threatening the mainstream with ‘guitar music’ for the first time since the days of Britpop. Sea Power, however, never quite fit that mould.

throwing things around and falling over. We were 100% committed to what we were doing in that moment, discordant and odd as it was. It was like, maybe this will open up something new!”

“All those bands were cool weren’t they,” he continues. “We were too sketchy to fit in. We couldn’t get it together enough to be that professional. I saw a video the other day, we were supporting The Fall at The Concord in Brighton. It was a good gig, but the last 10 minutes was like Charlie Chaplin meets Sid Vicious! It’s all feedback and Woody doing a drum solo, but half the band are doing bad acrobatics and there’s a weird comedy element of

As a fan of The Fall, he is conflicted by the increasing number of bands emerging exhibiting a distinctly Falllike sound.

“WE WERE TOO SKETCHY TO FIT IN. WE COULDN’T GET IT TOGETHER ENOUGH TO BE THAT PROFESSIONAL. I SAW A VIDEO THE OTHER DAY, WE WERE SUPPORTING THE FALL AT THE CONCORD IN BRIGHTON. IT WAS A GOOD GIG, BUT THE LAST 10 MINUTES WAS LIKE CHARLIE CHAPLIN MEETS SID VICIOUS!”

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

ARTIST

“As soon as he died, it was cool to be like The Fall,” he says. “I can’t tell if that’s good or not. I think, ‘why not’?

They’re a good band so why not? But then it’s like, ‘you’re ripping them off’. And then I just have an argument in my head. It’s like Nirvana at the moment. They’ve never gone out of fashion but certainly they are pretty cool again. I was a big Nirvana fan, so you think ‘great’. But then you see some really mainstream American teenage pop person and they’re all in Nirvana t-shirts. It’s a bit weird.

During our conversation about the legacy of Nirvana, the 2015 documentary Cobain: Montage Of Heck comes up (he “wasn’t that impressed”) and the new ‘golden age’ of documentary films. Would he and the band be open to the prospect of a Sea Power documentary?

59

be funny. If there’s anyone out there… Who knows?

“I’d like to do more film soundtrack stuff, but no one asks us! We won a BAFTA and we still haven’t been approached by any other computer game people, let alone Netflix or Danny Boyle! But we’re so capable at the moment. We might be shit again in a year! But if nothing happens there’s plenty of other stuff to get on with.”

For now, Everything Was Forever and an upcoming tour is very much the central focus for Sea Power. But as ever, the prospect of the unexpected is never too far away. And for fans of the band, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

SEAPOWERBAND.COM

“There’s been one,” he says. “It was a local TV station in Brighton. It was hilarious. Although I wouldn’t really want people to see it! If someone could do it well, I’d love it. It could be… [exhales] It’s on a knife edge that one! It could go one way or the other. Maybe a bad one would even HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

60

MARK RALPH

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Putting In The Years & Years

61

s by ADA rd

PROTZ

PUTTING IN THE YEARS & YEARS

M

W o

PRODUCER

MARK RALPH One of the UK’s most in-demand producers, Mark Ralph has struck up long-term working relationships with the likes of Clean Bandit, Years & Years and Georgia. We talk about his start as a session guitarist, becoming a producer, and how he once ended up at Ronnie Wood’s house for a jam session. And speaking of sessions, we get the scoop on which Waves plugins Ralph goes to when it’s crunch time.

“I was born in Stoke on Trent and I did live for two years in Slough,” Ralph says. “My dad, funnily enough, worked at Eton College. So I ended up studying classical guitar there, even though I’m state school through and through! I started playing guitar when I was six — I’d already learned to copy Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and people like that. So obviously, when

you learn to play by ear, learning classical guitar is not a very enjoyable experience.”

This led to Ralph spending several years as a session guitarist, perhaps a high-pressure job that would be great preparation for having bigname artists in his studio years later.

Gradually, he went from this line of

work and being in a signed band, to “working at a music hire company – for example I installed a mixing desk on the set of Tomorrow Never Dies. It was just a carrying-gear-around sort of job. But I never had an education in this sort of thing, so I learned about desks and how to assemble gear while doing that.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

62

MARK RALPH

Putting In The Years & Years

“WAVES, FOR ME, HAVE ALWAYS COVERED SO MANY BASES. THEY’VE ALWAYS SOUNDED THE CLOSEST TO SOME OF THE OUTBOARD GEAR THAT I’VE USED.”

Ralph’s trial by fire saw him, over time, become one of the very top producers working in the UK. It’s always fascinating to ask such a figure what they see as their career highlights.

“I think you always remember the first time you have a number one single,” he shares. “King was a song that I wrote and produced with Years & Years. Very early in my career, I ended up in Ronnie Wood’s house in his basement recording Cilla Black with him on guitar. And I hadn’t long been doing the production side of music. And there I was with a couple of legends jamming around in a basement in one of their houses.

“And then the Georgia album record that I did called Seeking Thrills, which came out a couple of years ago, was a case of Georgia and I getting together over a period of time, and just having the biggest amount of fun in the studio, making guilty pleasure music. I didn’t have any kind of expectations for the record, but it was a smash hit, HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Mercury-nominated, A-listed on the radio and all the rest.”

alter the release of a waveform is excellent.

A significant weapon in Ralph’s arsenal are his extensive collection of Waves plugins. “The world of plugins is almost becoming infinite now,” he says. “It’s not like buying vintage analogue gear where there’s a finite number of bits of gear you can buy. Waves, for me, have always covered so many bases. They’ve always sounded the closest to some of the outboard gear that I’ve used.”

“I love R-Bass. I’ve always found that to be a very useful way of enhancing certain frequencies in the bass. OVox as well, that one’s a good go-to. And then the SSL series compressors, including the mix bus compressor; I mean, I’ve got an SSL E Series desk, so I do have those channels, but the Waves recreations of those are so similar to what I’ve got on the desk that it’s really quite seamless to use.”

Agreeing that the plugin world is, indeed, pretty infinite, Headliner asks which Waves plugins Ralph tends to naturally use the most in sessions. “The CLA 76 is my favourite of the compressors,” he says. “And that one tends to get a lot of use. I have various physical compressors and it gives me what those give me in the real world. I use Smack Attack — that’s a really, really good plugin for transients, it’s probably the best transient designer that there is. It’s really versatile. The way that you can alter the transient but also

Next up for Ralph is plenty more studio time working on new music with Jax Jones, Clean Bandit, Years & Years, while also working with some more up and coming artists, so keep a listen out to hear the fruits of his labour.

MARKRALPHMUSIC.COM WAVES.COM

AN QU

Quantum Technology

TUM

The Quantum range is more than just a family of advanced mixing consoles, it is DiGiCo fulfilling the promise to always look after the best interests of engineers.

7

QUANTUM 5

Quantum brings an unprecedented level of power and connectivity, by harnessing the latest developments in processor technology and system design.

Quantum Technology . More Power More Speed. More Flexibility.

DESIGNED TO

A QU

NTU

25 M2

QUANTUM

3 38

GROW WITH YOU

DiGiCo UK Ltd, Unit 10 Silverglade Business Park, Leatherhead Road, Chessington, Surrey KT9 2QL. Tel: +44 (0) 1372 845 600

www.digico.biz

64

JEN MILLER

Girl Gang Music

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

PRODUCER

65

ords by W

on fs

gus ta ice l a

GIRL GANG MUSIC

JEN MILLER Jen Miller has a very masculine energy. Not Headliner’s words, but her own, although you’d expect nothing less from a woman that has challenged misogyny and the music industry’s lack of diversity through every step of her career. The American music producer, songwriter, and recording artist explains why she founded Girl Gang Music, and gives an insight into her home studio.

Photographer: Gray Lee Brame

Girl Gang Music is an online community and network to support women and gender non-conforming people within the music industry.

What inspired you to launch this?

One of the things that stood out to me and why I founded Girl Gang Music was because I was regularly the only woman in the room, the tour bus or at the soundcheck. I was always like, ‘Where are my girls at? Why is this a boy’s club?’ I will say, I have very masculine energy and I started realising as I got older just how much I use that to protect myself and to get myself out of strange situations.

Because in the music industry, there is some amount of risk. It’s an industry where people get taken advantage of. The reason I wanted to become a producer is because I felt like I wasn’t being listened to in sessions, and that

got really old as an artist, like, ‘I’m paying you. This is my song’. And for some reason, the final product never aligned with what I thought I was communicating very clearly. I don’t know if that’s a sonic choice thing, or if that was deliberate and those guys were like, ‘I know better than this girl,’ but it just got old. Or when touring, I’d go to load-in and people would ask me who in the band I was with, and I’d be like, ‘I am the artist’. All that micro aggression stuff got really old.

I started Girl Gang Music in 2016 as I was pivoting into music more full time, because I wanted to raise the visibility of the 3% of the female engineers out there that do exist, and connect them to artists and to each other. It’s hard to find like-minded people that you feel safe and comfortable to work with, and that’s the goal of Girl Gang Music.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

66

JEN MILLER

Girl Gang Music

“I’M USING A FOCUSRITE ISA ONE PREAMP, WHICH I THINK SHOULD BE ANYONE’S FIRST PREAMP, BECAUSE IT’S SO VERSATILE AND SOUNDS VERY, VERY GOOD.”

In 2020, you were featured on Universal Music Group’s 100% Her album – the first album ever created, mixed and mastered entirely by women. Were you surprised that this had never been done before 2020?

That’s kind of mind blowing, right?

Universal said that it was the first time that a whole project was 100% made by women. I couldn’t believe it either, but that was a very cool project. The thing that really startled me were the numbers about women in the industry. I knew it was low, but the idea that literally less than 3% of all music producers and engineers are women… that is bad! That’s nowhere near gender parity.

What is some of your go-to kit in your home studio for music production?

I have a home studio and I’m actually about to be moving into a new place where I’ll have an A and a B room

for The Indigo Incubator [a music production company founded by Miller that’s helping indie artists, producers, and musicians grow], which is going to be amazing. So it’s about to be expanding into two home studios which is cool, because depending on where you are in Nashville, it’s legal to have a home studio as long as you operate within working hours. Some parts of the town have made it not legal, which really sucks for anybody who has home studios, but my home studio right now is sweet!

I’m using a Focusrite ISA One preamp, which I think should be anyone’s first preamp, because it’s so versatile and sounds very, very good. The price is super accessible, too. I use it a lot for my vocals and it sounds sick through my Jazzmaster Fender bass, and sometimes I run my Rhodes keyboard through it just to give her a little zhuzh.

As somebody who doesn’t have a classical music education and who doesn’t have an audio engineering degree that I spent four years learning, I could understand and get to know the ISA One in about a month’s time, whereas if you gave me a whole rack of very complicated routing, I would probably not know what to do with that. That’s why I say this is a great first preamp for anyone.

Are you working on new music at the moment?

Yeah, absolutely. I’m working on three albums for some artists that will be coming out probably next year. I can’t name who, but that’s happening, so stay tuned for that. I’m also going to be releasing some music of my own.

So starting in March, I’m going to be releasing two singles a month for the rest of the year. That’s intense, but what can I say? I’m an intense person, and I make a lot of music!

JENMILLERMUSIC.COM FOCUSRITE.COM

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

The FIRST Compact , dual 12”, dual DDP, high output line array system

‘Innovation not imitation’ Still the lightest* Still the smallest Still the most powerful Still the best return on your investment

*40kg

356 mm

674 mm

555 mm

https://www.codaaudio.com/speakers/airay/

What makes the difference?

Our patented DDP Technology

MASTER PLAN

Analogue Meets Digital

s by DA rd o

MBLE GU

ANALOGUE MEETS DIGITAL

N

W

68

MASTER PLAN HEADLINER MAGAZINE

RECORDING

69

Stefan Eichinger, founder of Germany’s Mixmastering Studios and Gerd Janson, head of neighbouring record label Running Back Records, open up on their work together down the years, the coming together of analogue and digital technology, and the invaluable role of Merging Technologies in their operations.

Throughout his career, Eichinger has consistently expanded his business’s offering to encompass composition, recording, mixing, mastering and Neuronavigation, and will soon include Dolby Atmos output.

Janson, meanwhile, who is also a revered DJ, asked Eichinger several years ago to set up a vinyl cutting and production studio south of Frankfurt. Eichinger’s current activities also include composing film soundtracks with his own publishing roster as well as an eclectic selection of other music, from folk to electronic via classical, jazz and pop. Janson has also remixed and edited songs for the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Gibson Brothers, Leon Vynehall, Christine and the Queens and more.

Their studios and the Running Back HQ are both situated in the Southwest of Germany between Frankfurt am Main and Heidelberg, an area known for cutting-edge scientific work, as well as its filmmaking community.

Having started in the late ‘80s composing and recording, Eichinger built a steady business making tape copies, recording bands, and cutting the first 12” vinyl in 1995.

In the early 2000s, his LOPAZZ club tracks like I need Ya on ND Baumecker’s label encouraged him to tour the world. As a result, Janson, being a journalist for Groove magazine, interviewed Eichinger along the way. The pair quickly realised they had common interests, not the least because Janson’s night job was as a DJ and record label owner. Janson was also doing

“THE ANUBIS HAS GOT TO BE ONE OF THE BEST PIECES OF GEAR TO BE INTRODUCED IN THE LAST 10 YEARS.”

projects with the Red Bull Music Academy that was very active at that time.

towards classic gear, Eichinger says he has always been quick to embrace new technology.

This coming together led to the pair teaming up in business with a partnership that continues to thrive to this day.

“The Anubis not only solves many issues, but it’s also so easy to operate,” said Eichinger. “The Music Mission is what I was looking for and the Anubis has got to be one of the best pieces of gear to be introduced in the last 10 years. The RAVENNA network is now handling 108 analogue channels, so I am really glad I discovered the ‘Expert Mode’ on the Anubis.”

The Mixmastering Studios houses an eclectic collection of microphones, guitars, amplifiers, drum machines, synthesizers and outboard gear from the 1960s, as well as the Merging+Abubis and Merging+Hapi from Merging Technologies. Despite his leanings

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

70

MASTER PLAN

Analogue Meets Digital

All the while, the technical facilities at the studio have expanded to keep up with the volume of work and now occupies three floors of the Running Back building. Eichinger has mastered and produced more than 60,000 songs for clients all over the world, while Janson’s Running Back walls are lined with albums, tapes, and other testimonials of the output over these years.

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“Nowadays with the energy/CO2 crisis, we are aware of issues that come along with producing records, running studios, etc. Anubis is the mainframe for my modular setup”, Eichinger commented. “I don’t want to have a huge console that´s on 24/7, eating power all the time. In both studios we have modular setups, so we just switch on the machines

we need. With Anubis I could just use our Neumann U67 and do overdubs with the guitar or I could play the big ‘analogue gear orchestra’ with the Hapi peered up. It’s so versatile and it sounds amazing.”

MERGING.COM

#MartinAudioFamily

Wavefront Precision systems deliver signature sound with class leading consistency, coverage and control, while also proving excellent value.

2021

WPM has been amazing for us and this led us to invest in the bigger WPS system that also ticks the rider boxes.

Chris Bogg dBS Solutions, UK

Join the #MartinAudioFamily and experience the difference martin-audio.com

UNITING YOUR AUDIENCE FOR 50 YEARS

72

THE MENU

On Set With Todd Weaver

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

73

s bY ALIC rd

STAFSO GU

N

ON SET WITH TODD WEAVER

E

W o

AUDIO PRODUCTION

THEMENU When production sound mixer Todd Weaver first got the call to work on the upcoming Mark Mylod-directed film, The Menu featuring an ensemble cast including Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult, he knew it was going to be a challenge.

“The producer called me about doing The Menu, and he told me a synopsis and then expressed the director’s desire to capture all of the actors’ ad libs in every scene at all times,” Weaver recalls. “I knew it would be a challenge, and started devising a way to accomplish this goal.”

The black comedy stars Taylor-Joy and Hoult as a young couple who travel to a remote island to eat at an exclusive restaurant at the invitation of a revenge-bound chef (played by Fiennes), who has more in mind for his guests than just a gourmet meal…

“The biggest challenge we faced was that there could be as many 16

to 18 actors all speaking at once,” explains Weaver. “It’s an ensemble cast, with basically four groups of guests and then the chef who’s messing with everyone, so you see all their reactions in succession.

The cameras are just raking across everything, especially during the wide shots.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

74

THE MENU

On Set With Todd Weaver

“The pace and the manner in which we shot The Menu was vastly different from the way modern streaming episodic television is shot, and the cast count made it a different process from wiring just one to six actors at a time for films like I,Tonya,” he explains as a comparison.

“Every evening at wrap, my utility, Billy Lyons, would clean and place new batteries in the wiring rigs for each actor and place them in labeled ziplock bags. In the morning he would wrangle all of the talent somehow.

He would find them in their trailers, outside smoking, at the craft service, in their cast chairs, or wherever they might be, and get up to 20 of them wired with freshly coordinated frequencies while never having production wait for that part of the process. If there ever was a delay, it was not because of sound,” he grins.

“Lectrosonics’ Wireless Designer was essential to be able to get everything RF coordinated quickly before Billy had to place the transmitters on those many cast members.”

For this project, Weaver deployed a combination of Lectrosonics’ Digital Hybrid Wireless and all-digital line.

On the Hybrid side were original Venue receivers plus SSM micro beltpack, SMV, and SMWB wideband transmitters. Heading up the digital arsenal were DSQD receivers and DBSM transmitters. Thanks to Weaver’s Dante skills and Wireless Designer software, this diverse roster of gear functioned as a seamlessly integrated system.

“We used Wireless Designer to integrate everything and frankly could not have done the movie without it,” he states. “The way it worked was, the DSQDs have Dante built in. My old-school Venues were controlled over our LAN via an Extron RS232-to-Network IP link. We ran audio from the Venues into a Ferrofish analogue-to-Dante converter. This way, every single channel on the set was on Dante in the same bucket, HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“WHEN WE WOULD SEND OUR DELIVERABLES TO POSTPRODUCTION, THEY’D ASK ME ‘HOW IN THE HECK DID YOU MIX ALL THIS?’”

and from Wireless Designer I could find frequencies for all the channels. I used all my transmitters.”

In fact, all of Weaver’s transmitters were not enough, so he brought in a second sound mixer, Jason Sullivan, who was also equipped with Lectrosonics kit, including two racks full of SRc receivers.

“He mixed another four to six tracks on top of my 12 to 16, but thanks to Wireless Designer and Dante connectivity, everything was in the same bucket. Without Wireless Designer overseeing all this, it wouldn’t have been possible. When we would send our deliverables to post-production, they’d ask me ‘How in the heck did you mix all this?’ They couldn’t believe we did it.”

Several scenes filmed on the water presented a secondary but simultaneous need: range.

“We shot all the boat scenes on the water, boat-to-boat,” he explains.

“We had a follow boat and were told the talent boat was only going to get about 20 or 30 feet away. It was more like 200 to 300 feet! Still, I got a nice, clear signal on everything.”

Weaver also cites Lectrosonics’ ruggedness as a key reason it’s his go-to wireless.

“Lectrosonics holds up under abuse,” he nods. “I’ve seen them fall from trucks. I’ve seen actors swing them around by the microphone cable.

You can drop them, and they can withstand a reasonable amount of moisture. Once on Stranger Things, we were doing a Halloween trick or treating scene and one of the kid’s ankle straps came loose. He dragged that pack all the way down the street, which ate the finish off it, but it kept on transmitting and we kept on recording!”

LECTROSONICS.COM

76

ARIELLE FREE

Free Your Mind

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

77

s bY CO L rd o

RAMSEY

FREE YOUR MIND

BY

W

PRODUCER

ARIELLE FREE Esteemed BBC Radio 1 DJ, presenter and now producer Arielle Free chats to Headliner about her recently released debut single, Soul Full, featuring Joe Killington with Mortimer via Defected’s D4 DANCE label, and her excitement about returning to the stage for some big festival sets this summer…

Despite only just starting her music production journey during the first UK lockdown, Arielle Free’s trajectory from radio DJ to beatmaker is one that makes a whole lot of sense.

Released on Defected’s D4 DANCE label, Soul Full is a big, unapologetically fun, soulful house number that is sure to get feet tapping – a track that its creator likes to think all generations can enjoy.

But how does Free feel about kicking

off her career as a full-fledged producer?

“It’s a bit weird,” she responds.

“Because when I first started dabbling, I felt like I was hitting my head off a brick wall. I was using Ableton at the time, and then a friend recommended I try Logic, which I just got a lot better at and allowed me to learn more. I was working with my friend who works for Community Music, an organisation based in

Brady Arts Centre on Brick Lane, and I was really lucky because I used to do pirate radio in that building…

“I did a few lessons online, and I was put in touch with an amazing mixer in Bristol who I went to learn with in the studio. We soon started a little project, and by the end of day we had Soul Full but without the vocals.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

78

ARIELLE FREE

Free Your Mind

“IT FELT LIKE I REALLY NEEDED THE LISTENERS AS MUCH AS THE LISTENERS NEEDED US.”

When it came to finding someone to sing on the track, Free had just the person in mind.

“I love Joe Killington, and he’d just done vocals for the Disciples track Solid Gold, so I slid into his DMs and he was up for it!” she recalls excitedly. “Rather than getting a deep, gravelly vocal like on Solid Gold [she proceeds to give an excellent impression of this lyric], he actually sent me more of a falsetto vocal with a house/disco edge. It just took the track to another level.”

Soul Full has received a lot of love on the radio, and although you’re unlikely to find Free on any kind of underground lineup, “I’ve never been one of the cool kids”, she’s accepted that she works best sticking to what she knows and loves: big, uplifting vocal house and disco numbers.

“I’m learning so much and getting such lovely feedback from my peers and friends [including Calvin Harris!], so I feel really blessed,” she continues. “I think the track helps people, who’ve maybe never seen one of my DJ sets, to understand what they should expect from my gigs.

“I’m a big percussion fan, and I like to lean towards latin house and sometimes afro house vibes, but I also really enjoy vocals leading me HEADLINER MAGAZINE

down a path. It’s been great to get those muscles working again.”

Around five or six years ago, things were quite different for the palpably ambitious producer; she would host her own radio shows every week for no pay and with hardly any break in an attempt to build her online audience. Testament that natural talent and hard work quite often pays off, she eventually found herself working the early morning slot on BBC Radio 1.

“During covid I went down to just one live show, we got a prerecorded show for Saturday, and I lost my Sunday show completely, but I was really lucky that I worked within the BBC because we really became a public service during that time,” she laments. “It really

showed me how valuable it was to people’s lives. In the morning, our listeners used to be the straight through crews; delivery people, people on their way to the airport for their holidays, and those who had been out clubbing. We almost lost that audience entirely, and gained listeners who were up in the early morning who were anxious, or maybe were sitting on their own terrified of what this thing was, that none of us knew about at the time.

“Keeping everyone company and making things entertaining for people to provide a bit of a distraction, and then coming out of that feeling more united and hopeful was a real journey. It felt like I really needed the listeners as much as the listeners needed us.”

PRODUCER

time I’ve actually made it onto the artwork of a festival bill.

Already in-demand on the live circuit with her own label and club night, ‘Free Your Mind’, Free reveals that things are starting to move when it comes to festivals this summer. Her Parklife journey has been one of the particular highlights so far.

“I played one of the smaller tents a few years ago, and that’s where you learn resilience and gain an understanding of what you should play in a festival environment when it could be pouring with rain and there’s headliners you’re competing with,” she says. “This year is the first

“I’m also playing One Out which is one I’ve always wanted to be on, and that’s alongside my pal Chloé Robinson – we’ve never been at a festival together on the same bill so I’m buzzing for that. I’ve got all these ambitions for places that I want to play, so I’m really hoping that 2022 is just another year of going to cool places far and wide, including Ibiza…” she trails off with anticipation.

79

“And then hopefully I’m going to be doing some more Free Your Mind club nights. I really love putting on a party for people. Running your own event can be stressful, but I’ve always enjoyed it, and it’s all just an amazing learning curve. For me, I’ve always wanted Free Your Mind to become a big party for people to enjoy.”

ARIELLEFREE.COM

Free is currently working on getting a sample cleared in time for her next summer track, and is also working on the follow up to Soul Full, “which is a wicked sample of an old ‘60s track and is very me,” she says. “I’m also excited to put out more tracks on my label, because we put a bit of a pause on that, but now everything’s set up.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

EVOLUTION THEORY

A New Dawn

ds by D or

Cooper Cannady, owner and founder of North Carolina-based production house, RMB Audio, speaks to Headliner about the return of live events, how new blood is revitalising the industry, and his long-standing relationship with Martin Audio.

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

GUMBLE

EVOLUTION THEORY

AN

A NEW DAWN

W

80

LIVE SOUND

How has 2022 started for RMB Audio?

It’s been very interesting. I told everybody on my team in 2020 that when we start to return to production, forget everything you’ve known for 40 years. And I was pretty accurate about that. Coming back, many people in the industry were moved or furloughed to another position, or they were released. With that, in 2021, some people returned to their positions, and others went on to new occupations.

We’re meeting new people in management slots that may have only two or three years of experience, where you’d ideally like them to have 10-15 maybe. But it actually shuffled the deck. It’s great to see things opening up and seeing which acts are willing to tour and take those risks.

Has that shuffling of the deck brought about some new opportunities and perhaps a new way of thinking?

Because those people had not had the repetition of an older, experienced individual, they basically were a bit broader in how things would play out. They had ideas to move away from just music and go into things like ballet. In the past year we had ballet in an amphitheatre. It was really exciting, and we had a little opera as well. These are things you would not normally do. Opera generally takes place in an opera house, ballet

takes place in a performance space, not an amphitheatre. So, we were seeing these different things because the managers were either actively pursuing them or were open to new things. It’s very diverse and very interesting.

What kind of shows are showing the most resilience at the moment?

The ones that are most reliable are acts that are resident in the US. We do some Pakistani music and working with those individuals there is real concern over whether their visa will be cleared for them to fly and enter the country. They were the ones that were a bit risky, but we managed to support one of those.

Right now, we have Motown with a symphony, which we’re very excited about. We have a date for Nine Inch Nails coming up. But the variety has got pretty wide, because we have new individuals in these management slots, and they have a different perspective.

They may have not seen something before and are willing to try it, whereas a more experienced head might say ‘we tried that in 2008 once and it didn’t work so we’re not doing it again’.

81

My wife and I managed that and then I put together a PA. Through the process ran into Dave Martin (Martin Audio founder). I was a big fan of his designs.

As time went on I had conversations with him and he was a great gentleman to talk with. I learned a lot from him and one of the things I took away from him was to do with human articulation. Human hearing acuity.

One of the things he said was, ‘If you take a child and put them in a room with 20 women, it can easily identify its mother’s voice out of those 20 people’.

That is our acuity and articulation. It was all about working on that basis, and it’s one of the things I love about Martin Audio designs. My interest has always been about intelligibility and that’s why I have always stayed with Martin Audio. From the small systems to the largest, the voicing is consistent.

Their systems sound human.

Also, with Phil Dudderidge and Focusrite now owning Martin Audio, you couldn’t have written a better script. I don’t think it could be in better hands.

Tell us about how the company has grown into the business it is today and its relationship with Martin Audio.

It all started as a small outreach business in 1982. I started building an audio rig to service certain customers.

“MY INTEREST HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT INTELLIGIBILITY AND THAT’S WHY I HAVE ALWAYS STAYED WITH MARTIN AUDIO. FROM THE SMALL SYSTEMS TO THE LARGEST, THE VOICING IS CONSISTENT. THEIR SYSTEMS SOUND HUMAN.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

82

EVOLUTION THEORY

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

A New Dawn

LIVE SOUND

How important is it to have a consistent partner?

I go back to Dave Martin. I once had a project I needed to fulfil.

I had a conversation with him about what I needed and what the product would need to be able to

do, and he said he had some ideas and that he’d call me in a week.

So, a week later he calls me up and recommended a system. I said great, ship them and tell me when they’re coming. He worked out what was best for me without providing something that was so customised that it couldn’t be used anywhere

83

else. The key is that the articulating and acuity is so consistent across their entire range. And the whole team is great to work with.

RMBAUDIO.COM MARTIN-AUDIO.COM

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

The Sound of the Super Bowl

DS BY D A OR

GUMBLE

THE SOUND OF THE

N

W

84

SUPER BOWL The Super Bowl may well be the biggest sporting event of the year, but these days, it is about so much more than just the action taking place on the field. Yes, there is plenty at stake for the two competing teams and the 70,000 fans who converged upon Inglewood, LA’s SoFi Stadium this year to see the LA Rams defeat the Cincinnati Bengals, not to mention the 100 million-plus audience watching at home. But its appeal has smashed through the realm of sport to become a bona fide pop culture phenomenon.

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

85

Credit: Getty Images

LIVE SOUND

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

86

The Sound of the Super Bowl

It wasn’t too long ago that the fanfare around the game was matched closely by the anticipation of which new advertising campaigns would be launched to capitalise on the vast audiences attracted by the occasion.

Now, these ads are almost treated like mini blockbuster movies, complete with their very own teaser trailers.

And then there is the legendary halftime performance. This prodigious slot has now become a prime chance for the biggest musical artists on the planet to deliver a show-stopping performance before a combined audience that virtually no other opportunity could offer. Beyonce, Bruno Mars, The Rolling Stones, The Weeknd and Lady Gaga are just some of those to have delivered Super Bowl halftime shows.

This year’s show was perhaps one of the most iconic in Super Bowl history, as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar came together onstage, celebrating the location’s unique hip-hop and R&B legacy.

The 2022 half-time show marked the third year of collaboration between the NFL and Roc Nation, the entertainment company founded by Jay-Z, and provided an ideal platform to showcase some of hip-hop and R&B’s most influential figures, as well as being the first time hip-hop artists were the main performers for the prestigious halftime show. The ensemble performance also featured a surprise guest appearance by 50 Cent (representing the rival East Coast rap scene), who appeared upside down – recreating his music video for his 2003 hit, In Da Club.

Of course, while these aspects of the Super Bowl spectacle are naturally the central focus for much of the world’s gaze, none of it would be possible without the highly sophisticated comms and networking system that knits each of these elements together – from performing artists to NFL officials, and HEADLINER MAGAZINE

the various entities supporting the venue, the networks, or the halftime show.

This year saw networking and comms specialist Riedel deploy its Artist intercom system with Bolero Wireless, which was used by SoFi Stadium, Van Wagner, NFL Network, the halftime show, and the officials on the field. In total, some 140 Riedel Bolero belt packs were in use.

“The NFL has 14 units, seven for officials and seven live backups,” he continued.

“And the halftime show must keep the balance of their units off until the two-minute warning when they can fire up Bolero Packs for key positions.

Then they can fire up the rest when the officials leave the field, and during halftime approximately 70 belt packs will be in use.”

According to Rick Seegull, Riedel, VP, system consulting, historically the Super Bowl has always required a massive lift to manage wireless frequencies, including intercoms, wireless cameras, security systems, and much more.

Licence-free digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT) allow for up to 50 Bolero Packs to be used in a single overlapping space due to time slot allocation. And Riedel uses DECT differently by employing its Advanced DECT Receiver (ADR) algorithm. This groundbreaking technology is key to Riedel’s success at big events like the Super Bowl and the Olympics.

Riedel’s Radio Scanner Application, available for Bolero, is used by Dan Bakies, a Riedel representative onsite for the Super Bowl. It helps keep track of what belt packs are on a given frequency and how many slots are open for beltpacks.

“The hardest thing when you’re operating in the gigahertz range with RF is multipath reflections, and the ADR can distinguish the proper path back to the antenna as opposed to destructive reflections,” explained Seegull. “The ADR assures the strongest connection between the belt pack and antenna and with antenna diversity in the belt pack, this guarantees the connection will remain.”

“Bolero enables crystal clear communications in one of the noisiest environments, which is crucial for officialto-official communications, halftime show and in-house stadium production crews to operate efficiently,” Seegull added. “Bolero overcomes the challenge of RF interference by providing secure reliable transmission with its Advanced DECT Receiver which uses licence-free spectrum and keeps track of usable DECT space, managing multiple systems in a single space all while nullifying deconstructive interference.”

To ensure proper intercom operation, separate antenna systems inside the bowl will be deployed so the officials, the halftime show, in-venue needs, and stadium operations can all operate interference free.”

Furthermore, Seegull says the “dance” at the Super Bowl is meeting the NFL mandate that guarantees that no more than 48 units are operating in the bowl at one time.

“It can scan all the time slots and show what Bolero Packs are occupying them as well as non-Riedel devices, clearly showing how many are free in a given space. This will be in use to monitor all Riedel Packs and other DECT devices that might be in use during the Super Bowl,” Bakies noted.

Also playing a crucial role in the wireless element of the Super Bowl was Shure, with RF coordinators, referees and performers relying on Shure gear.

The line-up featured the Axient Digital Wireless System, which captured audio from the pre-game show, key parts of the halftime performance

LIVE SOUND

87

“SHURE AXIENT DIGITAL MICROPHONES HAVE BEEN A KEY PART OF OUR SUPER BOWL WIRELESS SYSTEM FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS.”

and crucial fourth-quarter referee decisions. Off the field, Shure also helped bring many other key moments to life, including Budweiser’s Super Bowl Music Fest and NFL Honors broadcast.

“Shure Axient Digital microphones have been a key part of our Super Bowl wireless system for the last five years,” said Gary Trenda, lead RF technician for Professional Wireless

Systems (PWS), which was hired by ATK Audiotek to handle wireless microphones and IEM systems for the pre-game, halftime entertainment and referees. “The PWS team deploys a Quadversity antenna system that gives us great coverage.

Seeing five bars on the quality metre anywhere on the field gives us confidence in the Axient Digital system.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

88

The Sound of the Super Bowl

Trenda and the ATK Audiotek team utilised 10 AD4Q four-channel wireless receivers and a Shure spectrum manager with Wireless Workbench to evaluate the RF spectrum efficiently and continuously at the venue in real time.

ATK used Axient Digital with Quadversity, a patented Shure technology, leveraging four simultaneous RF inputs to feed a single RF channel. Quadversity has been designed to extend the coverage area of a microphone channel or enable multiple coverage areas with additional antenna inputs, making it a suitable solution for challenging RF environments.

Pre-game audio was made possible by skilled RF coordinators relying on Axient Digital’s Frequency Diversity Mode and Frequency Diversity enabled transmitters. This technology is built to ensure audio is uninterrupted in the extreme RF environment of SoFi Stadium by simultaneously transmitting two independent frequencies. The RF coordinators also made strong use of Axient Digital with ShowLink, which enabled realtime, instantaneous remote control of transmitters throughout the stadium.

Meanwhile, singing into a custom chrome Axient Digital ADX2FD transmitter with a KSM9 microphone capsule, country music artist Mickey Guyton kicked off the Super Bowl with a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

R&B artist Jhené Aiko’s performance of America the Beautiful was delivered via an ADX2FD transmitter with a KSM9 microphone capsule. Plus, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s showstopping Super Bowl introduction came via an ADX2 transmitter with a KSM9 mic capsule.

The halftime show also saw the legendary Snoop Dogg take to the stage with a custom gold-plated ADX2 transmitter with a KSM9 microphone capsule and wearing Shure SE215 sound-isolating in-ear monitors. All artists in the halftime show used four of Shure’s PSM 1000 in-ear personal monitoring systems and 41 Shure P10R diversity wireless bodypack receivers HEADLINER MAGAZINE

to deliver total audio conviction throughout the entire performance.

Furthermore, referees were issued Axient Digital ADX1 bodypack transmitters paired with Shure’s subminiature TL47 model TwinPlex omnidirectional lavalier microphones.

“Given its reliability and extremely consistent sound, TwinPlex was an excellent choice for our referees,” said Jack Bowling, Super Bowl LVI stadium FOH audio engineer. “Our team depended on TwinPlex and Axient Digital to deliver high-quality audio from our refs for both broadcast and PA.” ATK Versacom, a wireless intercom services provider, equipped production staff with 30 Shure BRH441M single-sided production headsets for set-up week, pre-game, halftime, and post-game shows.

All crews from staging, to audio, to lighting and video experienced seamless two-way communication via the comfort and audio clarity of the BRH441M during every minute of set up and execution for Super Bowl LVI. Elsewhere, Shure made its presence felt at Budweiser’s Super Bowl Music Fest concert series at Crypto.com Arena, featuring performances from artists who depend on Axient Digital, such as Machine Gun Kelly, Halsey, Gwen Stefani, Green Day and Mickey Guyton. Miley Cyrus was on a wired Shure 565SD and her horn section relied on Shure KSM313 ribbon mics. Shure’s PSM 1000 in-ear personal monitoring system was used

by Machine Gun Kelly, Halsey, Gwen Stefani, Green Day and Mickey Guyton.

Stefani and Green Day’s crew leveraged the wide-band UHF spectrum scanning, analysis and frequency coordination of Shure’s AXT600 spectrum manager for their sets.

Returning to the theme of the halftime performance, five of out six artists - 50 Cent, Eminem, Dr Dre, Mary J Blige and Kendrick Lamar - relied on Sennheiser 6000 systems, using SKM 6000 transmitters paired with MD 9235 capsules.

“Of all the things our team is involved in, the half-time show is by far the most complex, and this is where the Sennheiser Digital 6000 series was used,” said Trenda.

With the technical and RF planning for the Super Bowl beginning months ahead of the big day, and being dependent on available frequency bands, Trenda explained that he and PWS do their best to accommodate the performers’ preferences.

“As the artists request the different microphone systems, we say, ‘OK, if you bring in a Sennheiser Digital 6000 microphone, we have a specific frequency range available for it,’ this year we had Sennheiser allocated in the 600 MHz range,” he continued. “Very often you will see a fluctuation in the RF level, and with various systems turning on and off throughout the stadium you see a change in background noise level.

In these cases, we find the Digital 6000 gives us excellent reliability in such a congested environment.”

Trenda also elaborated on why Sennheiser systems have become a regular fixture at the event: “At this point, we’ve used the Sennheiser wireless systems for several years on the Super Bowl and we’ve had the best reliability with the Digital 6000 out of any of the Sennheiser systems we’ve deployed. In a crowded RF environment, it has a generous tuning bandwidth.”

With so much to digest from what proved to be a classic Super Bowl, Dre concluded: “The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career.”

RIEDEL.NET SHURE.COM EN-UK.SENNHEISER.COM

INTRODUCING THE NEWEST MEMBERS

D Squared Digital Wireless Family • excellent flexibility • ultra-fast setup • studio quality audio • ultra-low latency • superior RF performance

DPR (digital plug-on transmitter with recording)

DSQD/AES-3 (digital receiver)

®

www.lectrosonics.com

90

THE ART OF MIXING

Rok Gulič

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

300 Stems in One Song

Kevin McCombs

91

s by D A rd o

B GUM LE

300 STEMS IN ONE SONG

N

W

ENGINEERS

THE ART OF MIXING OLLO Audio founder Rok Gulič asks audio engineers Kevin McCombs and William Robertson about how they approach mixing over 300 stems in a single song, from organizing DAW sessions to setting up busses and tips and tricks.

RG: What are the two things that anyone trying to tackle 300+ stems sessions should consider first?

KM: Anytime we are mixing such a high count of stems it’s from our session, not really receiving them from anyone else. We’re responsible for that and that means they are all already in the session, already marked and we know what is what and why there are so many stems to begin with. First thing is to make sure everything is labeled and coloured.

It’s actually the same thing as any mix, it’s just more stems. You can approach it in the same way as any mix. We start with the drums and move on to the low end and then to mid range and vocals. Largely it’s the same approach.

WR: It’s true that this is sometimes our own craft of piling up 300 tracks, but that count is what we usually get in from other productions. I agree

with Kevin, it’s very similar to mixing a normal size mix. When you manage to mix down all the tracks to bus channels, it’s a very normal mixing situation. The only thing is, it gets complicated to have all these layers working together. It’s easy to bus things together, but to bus together things that work well together, that’s the trick. You need to get the buses to work nicely, so you don’t have to fight them.

RG: Is it important to design a project session before you even start clicking away?

WR: It’s mandatory! You need a colour coding system that is easy to understand. This goes for labeling as well: the same labels every time, so you save time knowing what is what.

KM: The thing we end up doing to make it digestible from the start is finding multiple sources that

constitute the same sound. For example, guitars that have three microphones/stems can easily be bussed. If possible I commit to things early and hide the stems that are not needed. Once I settle on the balance between two mics I don’t want to think about it again, so it’s ok to bounce it down and hide what’s done. Commit to the decisions that you’ve made! It’s the only way to stay above water when you’re dealing with so many stems. My personal record at this time is 440 tracks.

RG: Can you run this from a laptop?

KM: Committing to decisions and printing to stereo files helps with organising but it also releases your computing resources. As long as you trust the decisions you’re making you can commit to things and reduce the load on the CPU. We use UA plugins and that’s essentially another CPU just for that, but that is fully employed HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

92

THE ART OF MIXING

300 Stems in One Song

“COMMIT TO THE DECISIONS YOU’VE MADE! IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO STAY ABOVE WATER WHEN YOU’RE DEALING WITH SO MANY STEMS.”

only when we have a high count of vocal tracks that require complex plugin chains on every track.

RG: Do you mix on your own or do you work with producers or artists when you make these decisions?

RG: What about a hybrid mix? How do you make decisions about what to send to analogue and what to keep in the box?

KM: I work with a producer and we are intimately involved in every project. We’ll go back and forth. For the most part, we trust each other but there is this system of double checking with each other.

WR: It’s the same mindset as committing tracks with buses and processing in the box. You just take it out to analogue and back in. I like my sessions to be easy for the CPU so I really work hard on committing and printing a lot of tracks down, even analogue.

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

RG: What if you’re mixing 300 stems for Dolby? Is there a different approach?

KM: My philosophy would be the same. Dolby in its core is panning processing. I think the approach

should be the same. Mixing in Dolby should still sound like music. It depends if music is made with Atmos in mind, and that is very different from taking a stereo mix and taking it into Dolby Atmos.

OLLOAUDIO.COM

Real-Time Media Network

MEDIORNET

FOR ANY

Digital Matrix Intercom

ARTIST

NETWORKS

INTELLIGENT

Wireless Intercom

BOLERO

FORMAT

www.riedel.net

DARKWOOD STUDIOS

Recording a Live Band

S BY JAM RD

DARKWOOD STUDIOS

PATRICK

RECORDING A LIVE BAND

ES

W O

REVIEW

94

James Patrick is house engineer at Darkwood Studios - a beautiful multi-room recording space set in the rural Hertfordshire countryside. During a couple of recent recording sessions - one with rock band, Fuzz Skyler; one with a string quintet; and one with a rapper - we asked him to put Earthworks ICON Pros to the test on guitar cabs, and Austrian Audio’s OC818s on drum overheads, acoustic guitars, vocals, and strings. He gives us the lowdown on his findings...

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

SPOTLIGHT

The aim of the Fuzz Skyler session was for the band to play live with good separation, so that they could work on new material and record the backbone to a future EP. To allow for the easiest possible communication and to get the creative juices flowing, we had the band set up in the live room with their amps, and singer, Fuzz, in the vocal booth.

Seeing as the [Earthworks] ICON Pros are gaining a reputation as a live guitar cab mic, it seemed natural to use them here, and they didn’t

disappoint. The ICON Pro has a beautifully modern, high fidelity, full-range sound. Super crisp, detailed, and very clear - not too bright, with no harshness – while still capturing the weight from the low mids without being in any way wooly.

Previously, my preferred method of recording guitar cabs in the studio has been blending a Shure SM57 and a Sennheiser MD421. Yet by itself, the ICON Pro gave a similar top to bottom sound. I also tried it

95

on a few different sources on other sessions. It sounded really good on snare - it gave a bit of hi-hat bleed which could probably be fixed with some kind of mic shield - but I actually left it on there regardless because I liked how expansive it sounded. Because it has been designed as a voice microphone, I suspect an EQ curve has been builtin to reduce the proximity effect; this may also be why it sounds fab on guitar cabs: the wooliness in the low mids and any harshness at 3k found on a voice (and often problematic on HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

96

DARKWOOD STUDIOS

Recording a Live Band

guitars) has already been reduced by design..

acoustic guitar, a rap vocal, and a string quintet.

I also ran the drums through a Focusrite ISA 828, which I found to be an extremely clean and quiet preamp. It’s very simple to use; all the drums went through the 828 on the way into my [Cadac] console, and it helped me to generate a sonic consistency, with extreme clarity in the high end.

Recording a string ensemble is one of the most exciting challenges, and my recent session with composer and musical director, Glenn Hogue, involved layering many takes of the ensemble to give the impression of a much larger group, meaning any shortcomings in the microphones would be magnified.

I also had the pleasure of trying out a pair of Austrian Audio OC818s and a single OC18 on drums, a 12-string

The most important microphones when recording an ensemble are the stereo pair capturing the whole

OC818 was notable, with no harsh scratchiness - the body making it perfect for recording a rhythm guitar part. For some recordings you may prefer something a bit more edgy and ‘cheap’ sounding, but this mic gives a great sound that works well where the guitar doesn’t need to be the centre of attention.

For the Fuzz Skyler drum overheads I used the OC818s as a spaced pair, mainly focused on capturing the cymbals.

I really feel these microphones excel as a pair; there is something very solid and organic about the stereo image they produce.

The sound was smooth but not at all dull, bright enough to convey the excitement of the playing without getting overly harsh. The drums were recorded in a room with HEADLINER MAGAZINE

group - and for that, we used two OC818s in an ORTF configuration.

They were perfectly suited to the task: so smooth at the top end, which lends itself nicely to strings; and the multiple takes blended together perfectly with no build ups in the upper mids, whilst the low end was true, giving a balanced representation of the full frequency range right down to the lowest notes of the double bass. The stereo image was superb, providing a very solid, life-like reproduction.

Similarly, on the 12-string acoustic, the smoothness of the top end of the

the rest of the band playing live and the hypercardioid pattern of the OC818 did a brilliant job at rejecting the sound of the guitars and bass. That was outstanding.

I also got to try out the OC818 on a rap vocal. I prefer something bright, aggressive and in your face, which the OC818 is not - but the artist I was working with loved the old school flavour of the mic, so I won’t argue with that!

DARKWOODRECORDINGSTUDIOS.COM AUSTRIAN.AUDIO EARTHWORKSAUDIO.COM

JOSHUA FAULKNER ON USING THE MUSIC MISSION “One day you could be recording a string section, the next you could be recording a Skepta vocal or a soprano. So having something as solid and easily portable as the Anubis interface, which sounds amazing every time, is priceless.”

merging.com/anubis

Merging Technologies SA, Le Verney 4, CH-1070, Puidoux, Switzerland

T +41 21 946 0444

E anubis@merging.com

W merging.com

SOLID STATE LOGIC

X-Delay

REVIEW

98

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

99

y s b RICK d r

X-DELAY

CKERSON DI

Wo

SPOTLIGHT REVIEW

SOLID STATE LOGIC It doesn’t seem too long ago I was writing a review of SSL’s rather good Native X-Echo plug-in. Now they’re updating the plugin range with a take on those original digital studio delays of the ‘80s with the X-Delay, a versatile multi-tap digital delay. Will we be able to revisit the time of the AMS DMX 1580s, hear the distant chimes from the Deltalab DL-4 and DL-2, hear the golden decades sound of the Lexicon PCM41 and PCM51 or the Roland SDE200 thrown back at us?

Only time will tell.

Starting with the UI, it is well laid out and allows you to get started right away. The top centre box contains the master delay time in BPM. You can sync this to your song or project by lighting the HOST button green.

If not, the BPM will turn red and you can either adjust with the up down arrows or tap in something random using the TAP TEMPO button. Using the MULTI button is a quick way to double or halve your tempo.

There are up to four configurable taps for each preset. How many of them you use is up to you but four gives you immense scope for creating some unbelievably lush soundscapes. Each tap can be switched in or out. In green it is a synced tap and un-synced, it displays red and the tap is considered to be in FREE mode.

When green, the delay time is set as a musical note. In FREE mode (red) the TAP TIME is set as a simple millisecond value. The next three parameters are common to both red and green, (FREE/SYNC) modes. TAP LEVEL controls the volume of the tap as a percentage value. PING PONG moves the tap around the stereo field within the range you specify. So, if for example you have started with a hard pan to either left or right, the tap will move around the centre with random values up to the hard pan.

In the lower section of the GUI are the global controls, which affect all of the taps in equal measure. Firstly,

to the left there’s the input gain pot providing ±24 dB, above which is the input level meter in dBFS. Next to this is the MODULATION pot, which by means of an LFO speeds up and slows down the delay time by varying the amplitude. Next is the SATURATION pot, adding a varying amount of smooth analogue clipping and harmonic dirt to the delays.

Next is the DIFFUSION pot, which sounds the same as the version on the Native X-Echo. This adds an increasing, room type reverb which helps to blend your delays without having to add aux busses and build plugin chains.

Lastly but by no means least in this first global control section is a DEESSER, which reduces sibilant and aggressive high frequencies. Lower middle is the FEEDBACK control, which as always feeds a varying amount of the delays back to the input signal on a scale of 0-50%. Any value over 100% is feeding more HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

100 SOLID STATE LOGIC

X-Delay

“I FIND MYSELF WITH A BIG GRIN ON MY FACE WHEN I THINK BACK TO THE THOUSANDS OF POUNDS WORTH OF VINTAGE DIGITAL RACK UNITS THIS ONE PLUGIN SURPASSES.”

delay level back to the input and is leaving the output, so this can create a swell of sound and level very quickly.

With the FREEZE button you can build rises, hit the KILL button and create the drop - all in real-time. The combination of controls in the feedback section are very musical and lend themselves to creativity and experimentation.

To the right are some controls designed to help your delay effects sit better in your mix. This section starts with high and low pass filters for shaping the HEADINER MAGAZINE

sound and filtering out low end rumble or overly aggressive highs, followed by the WIDTH, which is a mid/side control pot with a percentage value from 0-200%. 100% sounds like straight stereo, while 200% is wide and can sound a little phasey, depending on the source signal being fed.

I find myself with a big grin on my face when I think back to the thousands of pounds worth of vintage digital rack units this one plugin surpasses, not only in terms of flexibility but in sheer

processing power and delay lengths alone. So, if you want a plugin that gives a huge nod to the past but has plenty to brighten up your future, go and check this out. What the X-Echo does for tape Echoes, this does in bucket loads for digital delays.

SOLIDSTATELOGIC.COM

THE Fibre Network for the Pro Audio Industry

The NEW M-Series

Advanced MADI switches with bridging and routing options · Single channel and stream routing · Standalone or network performance · Built-in LAN switch and RS485 router

· Dual PSU, no fan · The most cost-efficient and powerful audio switches on the market

M8

M12

4 BNC or fiber MADI ports 2 SANE ports (MADI over Cat5) 2 Optocore hi-speed fiber uplinks

8 BNC or fiber MADI ports 2 SANE ports (MADI over Cat5) 2 Optocore hi-speed fiber uplinks

.com

inquiry@optocore.com

102 AIDAN MARTIN

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Go Easy On Me

103

bY ALICE s d

GO EASY ON ME

STAFSON GU

Wo r

ARTIST

AIDAN MARTIN X Factor star Aidan Martin has never shied away from addressing the mistakes he made after moving to London aged 17, so it makes sense that he’s made a living out of channelling deep, dark feelings into his songs.

He explains how he overcame struggles with addiction and turned his life around using music, and hints at happier themes to come…

Aidan Martin has a problem. He can’t stop rescuing abandoned pianos.

“I have three in my house at the moment. I try to save them and salvage them,” the singer-songwriter admits. “I’ll see one out on the street and I’m like, ‘I just can’t leave you out here in the cold!’ So yeah, I’ve definitely got a bit of a problem. But I absolutely love, love, love piano; it’s totally my thing. I started playing when I was probably 10, and it became such a huge love for me that it almost overtook singing at one point. I used to get lost in my own little world. In lockdown, it was gonna be my new

thing to restore pianos, and obviously I never quite got to it. But it’s the thought that counts?” he suggests with a shrug.

Growing up in a small town outside of Newcastle (although you wouldn’t immediately guess from his accent), Martin felt like an outsider, and found solace in music. He’s been living in London since he was 17, and the now 31 year old tells Headliner he’s an “East London boy now” – whose accent northerns up again at the slightest encouragement.

“After one drink and being around any Geordie friends, that comes

right back out and it’s thicker than ever,” he laughs. He’s just got home after a fleeting visit to L.A. where he filmed the music video for his new single, Tears, which tackles topics he’s struggled with throughout his life.

“It sounds so fancy,” he says of the reason for his trip, “but trust me I was just little old Aidan from Newcastle who took a little quick fly over there, shot a video, and came back. I remember listening to the song about 100 times with about 100 bottles of wine. Okay, I was at home with just one big glass of wine,” he grins, “but I was trying to think about where HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

104 AIDAN MARTIN

Go Easy On Me

“MY LIFE DID START TO SPIRAL. I REALLY LOST MY WAY WITH MUSIC.”

this song is really stemming from.

The lyrics are: ‘I’m crying rivers and oceans trying to keep myself flowing, but this feeling never disappears. I’m drowning, wishing you were here, but all you left me was tears’.

“Growing up in Newcastle, we’ve had those statements so much of ‘man up’ and ‘stop crying’ – all of those phrases that really leave an imprint in your mind as a young boy, and especially being gay. I was trying to fight those emotions while growing up in this masculine world in Newcastle, and trying to deny that softer, more emotional, sensitive side of myself. This song was giving myself permission to feel those feelings. One of the predominant reasons men just don’t open up is because society has made us feel like we can’t, so I just wanted to hit that head on and talk about it honestly and openly.”

Martin has always been open about his struggles with addiction. Upon moving to London as a teenager, he found himself indulging in a life of drugs and excess.

“In London I felt like I could be free and like I could breathe,” he recalls of his early days in the capital. “As much as I had an incredibly supportive family – I did come out when I was 17 – in Newcastle, there was no one around like me. At the earliest opportunity, I just had to get out of there so that I could carve out my own life and be HEADLINER MAGAZINE

who I truly am. I don’t think I was quite ready for what was coming. Music wasn’t at the forefront for me because I was going through such an internal battle over who I was. There were obviously the bright lights of London and things took over and my life did start to spiral. I really lost my way with music, although I knew it was always something that I had in my heart.”

After not writing a single song for nine years, something suddenly switched, and over the next few years he found himself penning hundreds of tracks (many which he stresses will never see the light of day). While he was at home one day, he had a knock at the

door – opening it to be confronted by a neighbour flanked by two burly builders.

“It was quite scary! He was like, ‘Are you the one singing?’ I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m gonna get in trouble for the noise’. He asked if they were my songs, and said he had a studio down the road. He said, ‘We’d love you to come down to the studio tomorrow to have a chat and play us your songs,’ so in the height of this crazy life that was destroying me, here was a real glimmer of hope.”

ARTIST

Martin signed a publishing deal the very next day, which kickstarted his professional songwriting journey, which eventually led to him appearing on The X Factor in 2017, where he got all the way to the judge’s houses stage of the competition. Following his appearance on the show, songs such as Good Things Take Time, Sin in Your Skin and Punchline soon racked up over 30 million streams on Spotify and over 7 million views on YouTube – and all as an independent artist. He’s signed to Warner Music Germany now, which is something that is still sinking in.

“It was a mind blowing moment after waiting my whole life to see an email with that in the subject line. It’s definitely been a journey and a half for sure!”

He always taps into real experiences in his songwriting – “the deeper, the darker, the better!” – his new song, Easy, being no exception.

“I’ve made some wrong decisions in love. The song is about me wondering why I always choose somebody who’s gonna make a mess out of me, and reflecting on why I wasn’t making the right choices. I think we’ve all looked in the mirror and thought, ‘What am I doing?’ I decided a while ago not to let my own ego come between me and connecting with other people. That’s the driving force behind it all now, and if I didn’t have that real honesty, then I wouldn’t be able to do that.

“People say, ‘Your songs are so sad all the time,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, yeah because that’s my way of connecting; that’s my lane! If you want to dance and have a good time, don’t come to me. If you want to cry with a box of tissues, come on in,” he laughs.

105

“Well don’t get too optimistic,” he grins. “My next single, Tears, is about toxic masculinity and growing up in Newcastle with all of that around me and how I contended with that to become the person that I am now.

So it’s obviously still got the vein of heartbreak. I’m still writing about a few years ago though, so I’m trying to catch up with my life. There are definitely happier songs coming! I wrote my first love song in L.A. on my last day there and I can’t wait to share that. They will get happier – a little bit – I promise.”

AIDANMARTINOFFICIAL.COM

Martin is in a happy, healthy relationship now; should fans expect some more upbeat tunes next?

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

106 JAMIE LAWSON

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

An Acoustic Round

rd Wo s by

107

AM PRO AD

TZ

Photographer: Andy Lawson (@ugotthelove)

ARTIST

AN ACOUSTIC ROUND

JAMIE LAWSON Jamie Lawson is a singer-songwriter in the truest troubadour fashion.

He spent decades travelling around with his guitar always strapped to his back, playing every open mic, gig and tour he could get his name on. And, as he tells Headliner, there were tough moments, but eventually signing with Ed Sheeran’s record label, touring stadiums with the global superstar, and winning an Ivor Novello award validated his dedication to his craft. Headliner chats to Lawson about his long journey and the fascinatingly unique An Acoustic Round tour he has coming up with Gemma Hayes, Richard Walters and Laura Zocca.

In our culture that is currently quite strongly shaped by social media, people’s patience with achieving a goal is often not at the required level, when we see people quickly going viral on TikTok. Lawson is perhaps the strongest evidence of just how steadfast you must be — he’s been releasing music since 1995, sharing his first demos to the mp3.com platform, to give you an idea of just how long this was before Spotify was even in embryonic form. He spent the mid-2000s independently releasing his first and second albums.

It was the 2011 single Wasn’t Expecting That, which took on an enormous life of its own. It reached No.3 in the Irish Singles Chart and

garnered lots of Irish radioplay.

Such success helped convince one Ed Sheeran of signing Lawson to be the first artist on his record label, Gingerbread Man Records, and to re-release the song to even greater success. This was helped by the fact that in years previous, Lawson and Sheeran met each other playing at an open mic night, with Lawson telling Sheeran to “keep doing what he was doing” (which he quite clearly and famously did).

Lawson agrees that it’s a virtue he and Sheeran share, their willingness to play lots and lots of gigs over a long time period, when many would have quickly given up. “Coming from Plymouth, it wasn’t really the sort of HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

An Acoustic Round

Photographer: Andy Lawson (@ugotthelove)

108 JAMIE LAWSON

thing you would do for a living,” he says. “But I followed some friends who were in a band and moving to London, and started playing places like the 12 Bar Club. I didn’t have any success for a long time, but there was always something that kept me going, that carrot on a stick.”

On whether he feels the life of a gigging solo musician, playing every possible gig with guitar always in hand is overly romanticised, he says “there a few times where I had nowhere to stay and I was just crashing on people’s floors all the time. But you do get to meet a lot of like-minded people. I knew Damien Rice and Turin Brakes quite early on before they took off, Lucy Rose was another. I’d see these people doing the same thing as me suddenly break through, and think ‘it’s only a matter of time’.”

And, thanks to his refusal to stop playing small shows, the rest was of HEADLINER MAGAZINE

course history and now Lawson is one of the most established acoustic singersongwriter acts in the UK. But, with that being said, he has a UK tour coming up which harks back to those earlier days in a beautiful way — he joins Gemma Hayes, Richard Walters (who also plays in the band LYR) and Laura Zocca on An Acoustic Round tour this coming May. Headliner asks Lawson what makes this particular set of shows so special.

“There are four singer-songwriters on stage at the same time,” he explains.

“We basically take a song in turn, as you go around. And we share stories behind the songs, how they came about, and then you pass it to the next person. You’ll get a bit of crossover and us playing on each other’s songs adding bits of harmony. I’m really looking forward to it. They’re really gentle, intimate evenings, and they can be very beautiful.

“I’m such a big fan of Gemma, Richard and Laura, so I can’t wait to hear their songs every night. And touring can be quite a lonely thing sometimes, so it will be so nice to share the experience with them.”

Commencing on the 16th of May in Manchester, An Acoustic Round sees these artists spend the month visiting London, Birmingham, Suffolk and more. It sounds like guaranteed nights of camaraderie, intimate songs and a special bond between both artists and audience — an unmissable experience for fans of the singer-songwriter scene.

JAMIELAWSONMUSIC.COM

HYBRID IN-EAR MONITOR

JERRY HARVEY AUDIO TM and © 2021 Jerry Harvey Audio LLC. All Rights Reserved | 111 W Jefferson Street, Suite 300. Orlando, FL 32801 | www.jhaudio.com | 407–814-0002