Headliner Magazine Issue 36

ISSUE 36 / FEBRUARY 2021 HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET UK £3.95 / USA $6.95 / CANADA $7.95

SUPPORTING THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY

MAGAZINE / 36

YOUNG HEART

BIRDY DISCLOSURE

KEEPING THE ENERGY WITH OEKSOUND

ALFIE TEMPLEMAN

THE PRINCE OF BEDROOM PRODUCTION

DAVID GRAY

ON CREATING HIS LATEST RECORD SKELLIG

soothe harshness so your EQ doesn’t have to

read more at oeksound.com

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

— Mick Jagger

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SUP P

IVE C EAT O CR

ING THE T R O

NITY MU M HEADLINER MAGAZINE

36 Many of us are still processing March 2020, but here we are already staring March 2021 in the face. That’s right, it’s officially been a year since the world was turned upside down and we retreated to a life indoors, making banana bread, hoarding toilet paper and bingewatching Tiger King. Live events may have been called off for now, but one thing that will never be cancelled, is music.

That’s why we’re excited to bring you this latest issue of Headliner, which five years after her last album release, sees us welcome cover star Birdy back into the fold with her most personal record yet.

Meanwhile, Guy Lawrence (one half of British electronic duo, Disclosure) shares his production secrets, and fresh from being included on the longlist for BBC Music Sound of 2021, Alfie Templeman proves why he’s one to watch. David Gray delves into his 12th studio album, Skellig; and Wellerman of the moment, Nathan Evans, recounts his rise to viral sea shanty fame.

On the production side: two-time Grammy award-winning producer, mixer and engineer, Cameron Craig reflects on working with Adele and Amy Winehouse; French Original digs into his debut single; and producer and mix engineer, Romesh Dodangoda, looks back at working on Bring Me The Horizon’s Grammynominated album, Amo. Alice Gustafson Deputy Editor, Headliner

Over in live sound, FOH engineer Kevin Madigan shares stories about Santana and DiGiCo, and super talented musician and artist, Charles Wilson III (aka BLK BOK), reveals how he wrote his new classical piano album in 120 days.

We also get to know iZotope RX8 by speaking to the company’s principal DSP engineer, Alexey Lukin, take a virtual tour around Martin Garrix’ STMPD Studios, and find out how Jack Wall scored Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. In this month’s Spotlight section, we check out big new launches from JH Audio, SSL, Sennheiser, Softube, and Leapwing; and we put Antelope Audio’s impressive Zen Go Synergy Core under the magnifying glass.

We hope to see you again in person very soon. Until then, stay safe, keep listening to music, and enjoy the issue!

Cover photo: Lotta Boman

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20 / ALFIE TEMPLEMAN 14 / DISCLOSURE 08 / LU WRIGHT

24/ PHORIA

28/ BIRDY

36 / STMPD STUDIOS 42 / LUCAS PINZON

46 / FRENCH ORIGINAL 50 / DAVID GRAY

58 / KEVIN MADIGAN

62 / ALEXEY LUKIN

54 / CAMERON CRAIG

70 / NATHAN EVANS 66 / HEAVYTRACKERZ

88 / SOUND CO-OP

84 / BLK BOK

74 / ROMESH DODANGODA

80 / CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS COLD WAR

100 / SPOTLIGHT REVIEWS 124 / CC CLARKE

94 / AZIZ IBRAHIM

134 / ANNA PHOEBE 138 / I AM GRETA 130 / PAMUNGKAS

8

LU WRIGHT

British Daisy

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ASPIRING HEADLINER

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G ICE USTA AL

BRITISH DAISY

LU WRIGHT Newcomer Lu Wright is used to putting on a brave face, however with her debut single release, British Daisy and upcoming EP, she’s letting her guard down. It might just be the soundtrack to your summer.

Lu Wright and I begin our conversation the British way: talking about the weather.

“We’ve got some clouds, and we had some sun earlier which was nice, but it’s not raining, so I can’t complain,” she laughs.

Well spoken and immediately friendly and relatable on the phone (she’s just finished binge watching It’s A Sin and is about to start Call My Agent! on Netflix), Wright is here to talk about her dreamy debut, British Daisy – the first track taken from her upcoming debut EP release, Notes To Self.

An irresistible mix of Jessie Ware, Lily Allen and with a pinch of early Amy Winehouse thrown in for good measure, the song is all breezy vocals, jazzy muted trumpets and slinky electric guitars, and it might have arrived at just the right moment.

With the hopeful promise of warm spring and summer evenings spent with friends and family ahead (perhaps a G&T in hand?), what better music to ease the UK out of its lockdown slump?

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LU WRIGHT

British Daisy

“It’s funny you should say about immediately talking about the weather, because British Daisy stems from the typically British trait of putting on a brave face, instead of saying what we mean and acknowledging the fact that we are all fragile,” Wright points out.

After being in an unhealthy relationship in which she found her self-worth slowly eroding, this song talks through the fight to break out of an unhappy relationship, and the bad habits they can leave people with.

“British Daisy speaks of a time where I found myself daydreaming of a life where I was happier, but didn’t have the strength to make it happen,” she shares. “I was unsatisfied with most things that were going on and was feeling pretty insecure, and not feeling like I could talk to that person about how I felt. I was putting on a brave face, which Brits are very good at doing.

“I think once you’ve had a few shocker relationships, they do affect you after a while – from my experience.

They can leave bad habits and bad memories, which can affect your future relationships. That’s why I sing, ‘you’re ruining my summer, you’re ruining my future lovers’, because it did affect how I felt towards other people coming into my life. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to be content in a relationship, and I just wasn’t getting that.”

Fundamentally, the song is saying, ‘we’ve all had these really bad times in relationships, and you don’t need to put on a brave face’. We all do suffer, and you should talk about how you feel – it does get better.”

Let The Wright One In Finding a producer she connected with was key.

Produced by West London-based producer Jacob Page, British Daisy sees Wright’s irresistibly warm vocals sit alongside luscious electronic R&B-infused instrumentals.

“I said to Jacob that I really wanted to create an EP with tracks which are all interlinked and with similar themes throughout. British Daisy was one that we started on in 2019, and then we came back to it in the summer of 2020, which is when we finished most of the EP. It’s quite summery, bright, colourful and upbeat; I definitely am a summer kind of girl.”

Wright’s soul and R&B influences stem from her growing up in a home filled with music, listening to everything from the classic soul and jazz maestros of the ‘50s and ‘60s like Nina Simone and Sam Cooke, through to noughties R&B and hip hop outfits like Outkast, Eminem, Rihanna and Amy Winehouse.

Since then, her contemporary influences have aligned with the times, citing Little Simz, Anderson Paak, Maverick Sabre and the Blue Note Re:imagined album as huge sources of inspiration. She adds that Jazmine Sullivan’s new Heaux Tales is “a work of art”, and that she’s watched her Tiny Desk performance more times than she can count...

So that’s the stiff upper lip covered; what about the daisies?

“Nina Simone influenced me loads when I was younger; I had her CD in my car – well, I was in the car – it wasn’t my car,” she laughs. “I listened to it on repeat, and Sam Cooke influenced me massively.

People who are activists themselves and have these incredible jazzy, soulful voices – I was really drawn to them.”

“We were finishing this up in the summer 2020, and my parents’ house has loads of daisies in the garden,” she answers. “I remember writing the lyrics and just looking at these daisies, and just thinking, ‘they’re quite lovely’.

This is where her love for songwriting and melody truly began. Wright began writing her own songs at the age of 11, joining the school choir and taking up singing lessons before progressing into musical theatre, but at 19 realised that it wasn’t quite the right fit and subsequently made the switch to creating

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ASPIRING HEADLINER

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“BRITISH DAISY SPEAKS OF A TIME WHERE I FOUND MYSELF DAYDREAMING OF A LIFE WHERE I WAS HAPPIER, BUT DIDN’T HAVE THE STRENGTH TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.”

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LU WRIGHT

British Daisy

and performing contemporary music. She went on to graduate from the London branch of the BIMM Institute (British and Irish Modern Music Institute), and then set to work on her debut EP. The 2020 pandemic hit just before it was completed and live dates were cancelled, but Wright used that time productively to complete the finishing touches remotely and concentrate on her songwriting. The result promises to be a collection of musically detailed, immaculately produced treats.

“It’s a weird world,” she says of her songwriting. “I am inspired a lot by the people around me, what they go through, what happens in the world, my own relationships, memories and feelings. I’m a very visual person, so a lot of the time my music and my songwriting process has started with a visual idea, a colour, or a thought of something.

British Daisy is very colourful and is very visual – I talk about space a lot, and about flying and being free as a bird.”

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Although it’s not always this poetic: “Sometimes an idea will start with weird voice notes when I’m walking to the Post Office, and all you can hear is buses in the background,” she laughs. “It is different every single time. People ask me how they can get better at songwriting, and I’m like, ‘I actually have no idea, I’m still trying to figure it out!’ You have to just do it. It could be rubbish, but just go for it and see what happens.”

Like everyone in the UK, she’s looking forward to the ‘rule of six’ being introduced again in May, which coincidentally is the month her EP is being released. Notes To Self’s second single, What I Like, is out in March, which she says is more edgy than British Daisy.

“What I Like is about finding the strength to break free from an unhappy relationship. I came to

the sudden realisation that it was purely down to me to change my situation. Often, it’s only after breaking out of a toxic relationship that we look back and realise how we moulded ourselves into tiny comfortable spaces just to fit in and cope. What I Like takes us through the daunting yet exciting prospect of starting again and building a better, stronger and more genuine you.”

Here’s to hopefully hearing Wright’s new music in a beer garden from 12 April onwards...

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DISCLOSURE

Keeping The Energy

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

ARTIST

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LBY RAMS O C

KEEPING THE ENERGY

DISCLOSURE Guy Lawrence is someone who really needs little introduction. As one half of British electronic duo Disclosure — along with his brother Howard — he has achieved two consecutive UK number one albums and a handful of Grammy nods, not to mention helping revolutionise the house genre over the last decade. Here he tells Headliner how he’s been sharing his production secrets with Twitch’s burgeoning music production community, why it’s changed his creative process, and why oeksound plugins have been a complete game changer.

Photos: Hollie Fernando

Lawrence finds himself a “Covid refugee” as he likes to refer to it, after I ask him where he’s joining our Zoom call from on a snowy February day in London.

Turns out he’s in sunny Miami, where he’s resided for most of the past year after fleeing L.A. - right before the pandemic took a proper hold.

A household name amongst millennials (and some of you strange Gen Z folk), Disclosure nailed a world tour of 40 cities and every music

festival imaginable following the success of their debut studio album Settle in 2013.

Holding hope that venues would fully reopen before the music dropped, and beset by shifting release dates, the dynamic duo eventually released their third studio album Energy in August 2020. In any normal situation, they would’ve been hitting the festival circuit hard, and it’s that part of being a musician that Lawrence has been desperately missing.

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DISCLOSURE

Keeping The Energy

“It’s been a transition of creativity that I wasn’t expecting last year, and it’s also looking that way for 2021,” he begins. “I spend half the time in the studio making music for myself and Howard and other artists, so that side is alive and well. It’s the part that I’ve been doing since I was a little boy – playing drums on stage and performing - it’s just gone.”

Certainly not one to rest on his laurels, getting creative and thinking of new ways to use his new found time has been a priority for Lawrence. He came across Twitch, which he noticed a few producers were jumping on during lockdown - live streaming their music production workflows and studio setups: “I’ve been doing this for 10 years now, and I thought it might just be the right year to start giving something back, so to speak. Teaching tricks or just showing people how I make my songs; it’s nice to feel like a little bit more of an honest artist and to show people the whole process.

And so I decided Twitch would actually be the best place for us to do that, mostly because it’s full of nerds like us!”

Lawrence’s Twitch subscribers are super engaged, and he’ll regularly have up to 5,000 people tuning in to talk about anything from plugins and mixing, to lyric writing and chord progressions. More than anything, it’s become a nice place for him to spend a few hours each week either making music or hosting mini competitions, which admittedly sound like a lot of fun.

“I’ll make a little beat on a Thursday or Friday, and put up the stems for my subscribers, who then get the weekend to make something out of what I started,” he explains. “I then give away prizes on the Monday for my favourite ones, which is how I got in touch with oeksound, because most of the prizes that I’ve given away have been plugins,

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and Soothe and Spiff have been absolute hits.

“Sometimes on the stream I’ll do a fresh mix of an old song - like recently we did a fresh mix of an old Jessie Ware remix from eight years ago and ended up putting it out on Spotify. People get to watch the old me and the new me, and what I’ve learned along the way, and I think they’ve been responding really positively towards that.”

When the brothers first started producing, dubstep was thriving in the clubs of the UK, the underground scene on fire with creativity in a really new-sounding way.

His musical direction and love for drums influenced by the likes of Burial and J Dilla, Lawrence admits that he didn’t know his music would end up being so accessible to the masses: “I was aiming at doing something really cool and underground, and I think because I did it with Howard, it would always transcend into something more that you could sing along to. Howard has said it before in interviews, that I make club music and he ruins it with pop, and that’s pretty much right,” he laughs.

“With Howard you get nice chord and melody-driven singer songwriter vibes, and with me you might get a chopped up ‘40s acapella with slamming Dilla drums. We play to our strengths, and we need both of us to get that balance of the Disclosure sound.”

Lawrence says that having just come out of a record deal, there are decisions to be made about how the pair will release music going forward. Whatever form it takes, it will likely be through their management label, Method Music, which also looks after artists such as Sam Smith, Slowthai and Dave.

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“SOOTHE JUST DOES THINGS IN A REALLY TRANSPARENT, ERGONOMIC WAY AND I LIKE THAT ABOUT IT - IT’S A MASSIVE TIME SAVER.”

ON THE SPOT I ask Lawrence how much Disclosure’s sound has evolved over the last decade, and if there’s anything he’s now doing differently when it comes to his creative process: “Working live on the stream in front of people 100% changes the way I do things,” he admits. “One way that it’s made me improve is it stops me getting bogged down in one area of the song or a sound for too long. I’ve got a habit of sitting there EQing a hi-hat for 45 minutes; it stops me doing that and just pushes me towards staying in that deeper flow state for longer.

“I treat it a little bit like a sketchbook. I’m not trying to make a finished song, I’m not even trying to make a structured song - I’m just trying to make a really vibey loop, which is usually what people want to see.”

While the sound of the next Disclosure project is yet to be decided, Lawrence is grateful for the year they’ve just had; he’s got a better relationship with his gear, and his workflow has improved significantly.

(he records straight into his Apollo through a Neve or Tube-Tech), the conversation moves onto plugins.

Lawrence has been seriously impressed lately with two particularly nifty tools from oeksound: Soothe and Spiff.

“When I was mastering my third album with Stuart Hawkes at Metropolis in London, he was using Soothe to master stuff with, and it was from then I realised it could be used in so many different ways,” he recalls. “So then I started putting it on my mix bus and it just worked wonders... it’s not going to make the song for you, but it allows you to get on with the important stuff while remaining in that flow state, instead of having to notch out stupid little resonances - the unpleasant part of making music!

“Soothe just does things in a really transparent, ergonomic way and I like that about it - it’s a massive time saver.”

After talking me through his mobile studio setup, which includes a pair of ADAM Audio A7Xs and an SSL SiX mixer

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DISCLOSURE

Keeping The Energy

“THE GOVERNMENT VIEWING MUSIC AND SOCIAL EVENTS AS NON-ESSENTIAL IS UNACCEPTABLE...”

Oeksound’s transient control plugin Spiff on the other hand has been “the best noise gate ever”, Lawrence reveals: “Say you’re dragging a sample, and it’s a shaker, but you’ve got all the ambient room noise in there — or a tambourine or snare or handclaps — it’s so good at pulling out all the reverb and making things really short and snappy. It’s like a transient designer, compressor, exciter, and expander all in one nice, really neat window, and works across whatever frequencies you want to target.”

While he wasn’t as familiar with Spiff when he finished mixing and mastering Energy, Lawrence tells me that Soothe was used on every song that appears on the record, mostly on vocals - but also a little on mastering.

The track My High features the raw, unforgiving vocals of rapper and all-round bad boy of UK hip-hop, Slowthai:

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“The vocals on this track are super distorted; I wanted them to sound almost as if they’re coming out of a broken speaker, like he’s at a riot or some kind of protest talking through a megaphone,” Lawrence explains.

“So I used Soothe — post distortion — to just tame some of those high frequencies and maintain a bit of control.”

While there’s been a lot of experimentation going on in the studio, not being able to play gigs has been a very unnatural experience for Lawrence: “It’s much more of a spiritual disappointment than anything for me,” he says. “I just focus all my energy on the people I feel most sorry for, like my crew. It’s such a shame to see these really skilled, specialised talents not being used, and it’s heartbreaking. The government viewing music and cultural events as non-essential is unacceptable and, quite frankly, rubbish, because as far as I’m aware, the number one most talked about thing that people miss because of these lockdowns is going out and listening to music.

“We can’t expect the government to understand though, right? I can’t imagine any of them have ever had their minds blown at a big venue, watching a set that just takes people on a musical journey.”

Don’t forget to tune into twitch. tv/disclosure, where Lawrence is currently putting all his efforts into answering questions on everything music production. There’s definitely some fun to be had, and maybe even one or two things to be learnt...

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ALFIE TEMPLEMAN

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Forever Isn’t Long Enough

EMERGING HEADLINER

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FOREVER ISN’T LONG ENOUGH

Current king of bedroom production – or should I say prince? – (he’s only just turned 18), Alfie Templeman Zooms me from his bedroom in Bedfordshire, which is fitting given that this is the very room that he wrote, performed, and produced new single, Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody in at the age of 14.

2020 was quite the year for the rising star, who was included on the coveted longlist for BBC Music Sound of 2021, had his face plastered on YouTube’s 90 foot billboards in Times Square in New York and central L.A., plus he’s just surpassed the 50,000,000 cumulative streams mark across his releases and has racked up over 1,000,000 monthly listeners.

Despite this, he insists that he’s “just a normal bloke” making tunes from

home, and is sporting thick blackrimmed glasses and slightly mad hair.

“I decided to cut my hair for no reason just because I’m that bored,” he laughs, ruffling his new do. “It was kind of down to my shoulders before, so I thought, ‘I need to change things up a little bit’. I’m so bored of just doing the same thing, and even just cutting my hair at this point is like a major step!”

Templeman reminds me a little of Daniel Radcliffe; barely pausing to draw a breath, he speaks quickly and is brimming with good-natured energy and enthusiasm, pausing occasionally to poke fun at himself. Having very recently reached official adulthood, you can’t blame him for his recent successes not having sunk in yet.

“I’m just doing it in my room; I’m a normal bloke just making a bit of a tune. People have come along with me on my journey; everyone’s part of it; everyone’s invited to the party. Just bring drinks! I can say that now I’m 18,” he laughs.

When the longlist for BBC Music Sound of 2021 was announced, he was at home, naturally:

ON FS

Putting the ‘bed’ in bedroom production, Alfie Templeman is a man on the rise. Recently included on the longlist for BBC Music Sound of 2021 and with new single, Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody becoming Annie Mac’s fourth consecutive Hottest Record In The World on BBC Radio 1, it’s still only the beginning for the 18-year old, who wrote and recorded his latest single in his room when he was only 14.

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good possibility it can happen, but it’s probably not gonna happen...but it might happen’. Then he rang me up a week after and said, ‘dude, you’re on it’. I was put on a tiny list of 10 people that they wanted to see break through that they were really into. It means a lot considering that I’m just making music from my bedroom!”

Templeman grew up around his father’s collection of guitars, teaching himself to play his dad’s left-handed guitars upside down. By age 10, he had begun recording at home and making CDs with his friends, and at 13 had got to grips with basic music production software and began working on creating full-length tracks.

“I’m completely self taught on everything apart from drums,” he says.

“I’ve got millions of CDs of records that I’ve made ever since I was a kid.

I would listen to a lot of records and I used to wonder, ‘how do they get that sound?’ I downloaded Audacity, which is that free DAW that you can get for Windows, and I found out how to multitrack record and layer myself up, and from that moment, I realised I could do it all by myself.”

“My manager rang me up and he was like, ‘it might happen, there’s a HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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ALFIE TEMPLEMAN

Forever Isn’t Long Enough

“EVERY TIME I PUT OUT AN EP, IT’S A LITTLE CHUNK OF MY LIFE CONDENSED INTO A FEW SONGS.”

He then progressed to GarageBand after saving up for a Mac, and now uses Logic.

“It’s literally just been me messing around, really; I’m not a professional at it at all. I just know how to piece it together enough to make it not sound like a bunch of noise! I’m getting better though; I listened back to some of the earliest stuff that I made, and I’m like, ‘Jesus, it’s really messy and it could have been way better’. But that’s what makes it fun. Every time I put out an EP, it’s a little chunk of my life condensed into a few songs.”

Templeman wrote, performed and recorded his debut EP in his bedroom after school, and his new single follows suit, taking inspiration from classic groove-laden ‘80s pop, with sultry sax lines weaving their way between guitar rhythms.

“It just shows that you don’t need fancy studios, really,” he remarks HEADLINER MAGAZINE

when I ask him about the possibilities for bedroom producers these days.

“Sure, you get preamps and good equipment, but it doesn’t really make that much of a difference to your sound really – not to the average listener. When you’ve got a bedroom, you work with what you’ve got. If you’re working in a studio, it’s going to naturally be good because you’re excited and everything already sounds good. But if you work in your bedroom, you’re just working with what you’re surrounded with. It might look a bit rubbish, but you care more about the art that you’re making, and I find that you put your focus into that and you can make something much better.”

As he’s got older he’s got to grips with more production technology that’s available to him, favouring Soundtoys and Waves when it comes to plugins.

“I use Soundtoys quite a lot; you get so much good sound from them.

Decapitator is brilliant for fuzzy, loud sounds – I put it on a song called Shady with Tom McFarland from Jungle, who produced it with me and showed me all of that kind of stuff, and I just fell in love with it. I use the Waves Abbey Road presets quite a lot too, and the Tape saturation plugin – they’re great for that Nick Drake or Beatles ‘70s feel. I try and do everything through Logic because if I actually want to send it to another producer, I’m just praying to God that they’ve either got the plugins that I use, or they just go straight from Logic!”

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Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody Self-taught on 10 different instruments (although not including the saxophone on Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody for asthma reasons), Templeman made his own pedal board for the new single.

“It’s literally just a bit of chorus and some cool reverb sounds that I’ve been messing around with,” he explains. “I’m quite proud of the guitar sound because it doesn’t sound like a bog standard guitar; it’s got an almost synth feel to it. I was stacking up those guitar layers and then I nicked a royalty free saxophone, because I can’t play sax – at all. I tried to blow a note out of one once and it was like, [he launches into an uncanny impression of a saxophone], not gonna happen!”

Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody is his first single since radio-favourite Forever Isn’t Long Enough arrived in September 2020. Templeman has since been included in an impressive run of 2021 tips lists; in fact, his songs rarely seem to be off the radio. I remark that when I was arranging this interview, Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody was playing on Radio 1 – (it’s also playing again as I finish writing this).

“No way! That’s just incredible. The fact that it’s coming from my room and it’s going out to the whole of the country is surreal to me, and I’m really thankful for it. I can never take these things in really. I looked on Spotify and it says I’m on 900k playlist adds or something; people have actually put me on their playlists, and that’s in the space of two years. The more I think about it, the weirder I feel. It’s like an existential crisis, but

with Alfie Templeman songs,” he laughs.

He wrote and recorded Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody in 2017, and it niggled at him for years afterwards.

He tried to go back and re-record it a few times, but could never quite get it right. A Tears For Fears binge soon sorted that, and he realised that the song needed an Everybody Wants To Rule The World style of production. He got back in the studio, changed a few lyrics and cut it in a couple of hours.

He says it’s probably his favourite song on the new record.

Templeman’s new mini album, Forever Isn’t Long Enough, is out on May 7, which serves as his most substantial body of work before his debut album arrives. He shares that the mini album is also ‘80s themed: “There’s one song which is almost like Bruce Springsteen in a way, so I’m going with different ‘80s influences and tying it together. I spent nearly two years on it; I just wanted to make sure each song was as perfect as I could make it. It just feels a bit more commercialised – in a cool way rather than a bedroom, poppy kind of vibe. It’s a bit more big-sounding.

I wanted to make a refined and focused pop record, something more widescreen than an EP but more concise than a full-length album with a feel somewhere between Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Tame Impala’s Currents. I realised that I needed to slow down a little and work on things carefully.”

He can’t say too much about his full album just yet, other than he hopes that it will come out next year and

that it was also made in his room.

“It sounds very cinematic; it’s completely different from the mini album. I’m trying to go with a movie soundtrack kind of sound, with luscious strings and all kinds of different sounds going on. The whole idea I have for the record is to make each song sound completely different to the next. I’ve bought a Moog synth for it, so I’m experimenting with weird sounds. I’m just trying to go full out and be a bit more experimental.

I’ve added bits of saxophone – real saxophone this time though – and I’ve been working with other really good musicians to make it sound really cool.”

With Forever Isn’t Long Enough still on heavy radio rotation, Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody is sure to follow. Templeman has nothing but gratitude for the radio stations and fans supporting him, which he’s especially relieved about given that he left school at 16 to pursue music full time: “Thank God this worked; bloody hell!

If this didn’t work, I don’t know where I’d be. I honestly couldn’t tell you. I’m very, very lucky that this worked out because I never really considered a plan B. I just thought, ‘you know what? Music is all I want to do and if it doesn’t work out’, then”... he pauses mid sentence for the first time during the interview, “life isn’t legit,” he lands on, immediately laughing at himself for his Gen Z slang. “Or whatever, fam,” he grins.

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PHORIA

Keep Connected, Keep Creating

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PHORIA Creating music that reflects the impermanence of the physical human experience, weighed against the incomprehensible infinity of the universe; it’s this mission statement of Brighton’s Phoria that sets this four-piece apart from those who just set out to write a few decent tunes. After the success of their debut, art-rock LP Volition, four years later Phoria have decided to unleash upon us a new album of soaring neoclassical compositions. Headliner spoke to the band about the journey to this new record, Caught A Black Rabbit.

Despite being only their second full-length album, Phoria were given the opportunity to record at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, with a 12-piece orchestral ensemble to play with. The band’s (unofficial, it appears) leader, Trewin Howard, tells me it wasn’t an opportunity to be passed on lightly.

“I think this latest record was a product of finally giving in to a manager who’d spent the last few years just ranting about how good some of the instrumental and classical compositions were,” he says.

“And when you’ve got a 12 piece ensemble to play with, and an established recording studio like Abbey Road — plus you’ve got your computer and all your epic reverbs to play with – I can’t see why you shouldn’t shoot for the most transcendent thing you can achieve.”

There are certainly parallels between albums one and two, but I ask Howard about the different approaches.

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“Volition was our attempt at the best fusion of pop, and massive, transcendent, euphoric music. And there was this slightly more formal concept of what a band and an artist was in our heads back then because we were relatively new. And we’ve wanted to tick all the boxes of something that could be accessible and popular, whilst not sacrificing the big scale of things. This album is very different. It’s far more neoclassical and less vocally driven. But it’s essentially just an exploration of something else. We’re always working on all the different disciplines.”

Caught A Black Rabbit is a stunning listening experience, and that’s in no small part down to what you could describe as its centrepiece track, Current. Howard often speaks of music with such descriptions as “transcendence” and “euphoria” (as the group’s name alludes to), and this piece, in particular, achieves both and more in its five minutes and 51 seconds run time.

that can put me nowhere. Back to a kind of embryonic recognition of what it is to be alive. It’s why I’ve always loved it. I think Current is the figurehead of the record and caused much debate about where it should come in the tracklisting. Jeb (Hardwick) always wants to put the bangers right up the front to grab everyone. Whereas I say ‘no, no, let’s be patient, let’s get people invested.’

But does anyone listen to albums anymore? Maybe they do.”

Phoria makes sure they never force their music — even if that means coming back to a demo or idea months or even years later. Such was the case with Current.

It’s an otherworldly blend of strings, wordless vocals, piano, and synthesizers, with two statements of a melodic theme that is truly lifeaffirming. The ‘live at Abbey Road’ video version of the composition on YouTube is very highly recommended also.

Howard explains that his “toughest challenge at the moment is how rapidly I fall out of love with something that I’ve just created. And I don’t really know why or how that happens, or if I’ve just lost some of the pure excited arrogance that I used to have. Sometimes it’s best to have an idea and not spend too long getting disheartened with it and let it melt around in the background. And then once you’ve got a fresh pair of ears and a new objective, look at it, maybe even just three months or a year later, and you can remember whether it’s good or not. And that gives you more enthusiasm and momentum.

On the track, Howard describes how “music is still one of the few things

“Current came from a guitar line in a scratchy little demo I did maybe

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

eight years ago, to send to a friend with cello. Then we revisited it again at Abbey Road; we just recorded the string parts with no idea how the rest of it was going to piece together.

That resulted in a new wave of excitement about it, and then all our new techniques and ideas flooded in.

It all happened in a matter of days.

Most of our ideas either come out in one finished, exciting thing, which always results in celebrations when that happens! Or they knock around for a long period of time. Most of them die out and the survivors get the moment.”

Howard is keeping positive, and ponders the future of the music industry, despite a gig at their “dream venue” having to be cancelled.

“We were incredibly excited about that,” he says. “And obviously it’s going to be put back, if not evaporate because of the current state of things. I think we’re using the fact that everything has gone topsy turvy recently to just think of ourselves as creatively free. The model of the music industry right now is kind of up for debate. So the most important thing you can do is just keep inspired and connected, and keep creating.”

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BIRDY

Young Heart

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YOUNG HEART Photos: Lotta Boman

It’s been five years since the release of her last album, so Birdy wasn’t going to let a touch of writer’s block stop her from creating her most personal record yet. With her fourth studio album, Young Heart, Birdy has crafted her most personal body of work to date. She reveals why creating a heartbreak record has been her most difficult but rewarding project yet, and how she has made loneliness her ally.

A five year gap between albums may sound like a long interval, but for Birdy, taking time to stop, experience the world and find out who she really is was a necessary circuit break.

Home to the greatest heartache songs ever written, visiting Nashville had a profound effect on the Lymington-born singer, and drawing from artists like Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, she became consumed with the idea of the tussle between the vastness of space and the interior of home, and the conflict between wanting to hide away and feeling compelled to leave. Soon the world will be able to hear the results in her upcoming album, Young Heart.

Reflecting on Birdy’s many achievements, (discovered at the age of just 12 years old, she has amassed

over 1.6 billion streams worldwide, 1 billion YouTube views, 7.1 million monthly Spotify listeners and boasts 4.7 million album sales to date, not to mention she has written songs for The Hunger Games, Disney Pixar’s Brave, The Fault in Our Stars and The Edge of Seventeen), it’s easy to forget that she is only 24 years old.

Somehow, she is exactly how I expected her to sound on the phone: well spoken (she’s got the kind of British accent that makes Americans swoon), polite and introspective – Birdy is a deep thinker through and through. Catching her in between studio sessions in West London, she admits that the last year has been a strange one, but that she managed to finish off the new album just before the pandemic hit.

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“We had finished everything, but then [the pandemic] gave us time to reflect and listen to it all. I ended up redoing a few bits in a little makeshift studio in a cupboard at my grandpa’s cottage where I was staying, so it was quite interesting,” she says brightly.

Bursting onto the scene in 2011, her debut single – a cover version of Bon Iver’s Skinny Love – charted across Europe and earned platinum certification six times in Australia.

Her self-titled debut album, Birdy, followed that year to similar success, peaking at number one in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands. Two further hugely successful albums followed before she was 20, which she admits feels quite strange to reflect on.

“It feels like another life almost, because so much stuff was all packed into six or seven years,” she recalls. “And then I was away for five years. It’s just so weird thinking of all the things I did because at the time I was so young; I kind of didn’t really know what was happening a lot of the time! It was just really exciting. I’d be touring and I would hear the songs on the radio for the first time. It was hard to believe it was happening. I think it’s only now that I can really take it in properly.”

One thing that Birdy became known for in the early days were

her ethereal covers, (listen back to her versions of The A Team by Ed Sheeran, the xx’s Shelter, The Naked and Famous’ Young Blood and People Help the People by Cherry Ghost). While she says that she still enjoys doing covers (her personal favourites are Fleet Foxes’ White Winter Hymnal and James Taylor’s Fire and Rain), over time she was able to explore her own songwriting more and more.

“I was still at school when Skinny Love came out, and suddenly I got all this attention so we were trying to follow up with the album quite soon after. It was quite a lot for me – being that age – to come up with a whole album of songs that were my own! I still like doing covers, but it’s been so important to me since then to prove myself, in a way, and to put my own stuff out there.”

Admitting that Young Heart hasn’t been an easy album to make, after five years away she’s nothing but excited for it to be unleashed on the world in April, saying it’s the most true to who she is: “I can’t wait; it’s been so long now.

I’m kind of desperate for it to come out!” she laughs. “It’s definitely my favourite album, but emotionally it was quite hard because it is a heartbreak album.

At the beginning of writing it I was in a relationship that ended, so

the whole album is about being at that crossroad and still loving this person, but feeling compelled to leave and to be on my own. I needed to learn who I was a bit, and so a lot of it is about that conflict. It was a harder album to write, but it’s definitely more personal and it means a lot more to me than anything I’ve done before.

By the time I finished the songs, it was quite hard to then record them and let them go; I had been holding on to them for so long.”

Framing her more recent writing process against her prolific releases during her teen years, Birdy was stumped when she developed a case of writer’s block: “This is why it ended up taking so long, because I just wasn’t ready to write about it for a long time,” she admits. “I find it very hard to write when in the moment of that feeling; I need a bit of time for it to settle and for my head to be clear. It’s hard to write about these things, but it makes it more important, I think.

Those are always the songs that I love the most, you know? When I’m listening to an artist, the ones that you can really feel are when they’re being honest or when you know that they really mean it.”

“IT WAS A HARDER ALBUM TO WRITE, BUT IT’S DEFINITELY MORE PERSONAL AND IT MEANS A LOT MORE TO ME THAN ANYTHING I’VE DONE BEFORE.”

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ACROSS THE POND Early on in the record’s development, Birdy found herself inspired by Etta James and Nina Simone, and later felt drawn to Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake.

“It made sense to go to L.A. first because it’s got this Laurel Canyon feel to it, so I did a bit of writing there, and then I ended up going to Nashville because I really wanted to have proper stories on this record. This is probably from listening to Joni Mitchell and how conversational her lyrics are. I’d always heard her music growing up, but I didn’t really appreciate it until about

six years ago when I first really listened to Blue. Maybe it was because I was a bit heartbroken – it really hit me then.

I was really inspired by that, which changed the way I wrote lyrically a lot.”

I’m given a preview of Young Heart before the interview, and it’s quite the departure from Birdy’s previous album.

If Beautiful Lies was a fairytale, Young Heart is a gritty, realist portrait of a woman in pain, searching for the light.

“The last record was so dramatic and quite theatrical and ethereal, which is

the complete opposite of this record,” she agrees. “After touring Beautiful Lies for a while, I started to feel like it was a performance, and I didn’t want to feel that on this record. I just wanted it to be really real, so that’s why it feels quite different. It’s very gentle in comparison because it is how I would play if no one was listening when I’m writing a song. It is very inwards and it’s very quiet; I’m playing right up against the keys, and I just wanted to capture that.

I didn’t want it to feel I’m doing a big performance for the microphones.”

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Her previous album feels a lot more theatrical; there is a lot more going on in it – it’s big production, whereas what I’ve heard of Young Heart is quite stripped back. Birdy confirms that anything that didn’t need to be there, isn’t: “I’ve definitely had to be a lot stronger with this record,” she acknowledges.

“It’s quite different from anything I’ve done before. Before we heard what it was going to sound like at the end, it was quite hard to tell where it was going to go, so I did have to be quite strong in believing in that vision and having an end in sight and knowing what that was going to be like. It has taught me to stay true to that and to listen to my gut.”

“THIS RECORD IS VERY RAW; IT’S DEFINITELY ME BARING MY SOUL A BIT TO EVERYONE.”

Birdy has clearly grown up a lot over the past five years and has experienced new things that have shaped her understanding of the world, but also of who she is as an artist. She says that it took quite the leap of faith to reveal this side of herself and to embrace this new sense of certainty: “This record is very raw; it’s definitely me baring my soul a bit to everyone, so that is quite scary, although it’s quite nice to feel like I’ve been very true to myself,” she realises. “I’m not really hiding behind anything, so if people judge it, I’ll feel like it’s me that’s being judged. But at the same time, I feel more comfortable than ever because I’m really happy with what I made, and I’ve never really had that before. I’ve always thought in the past, ‘I’m not sure if we should have done that song’, or, ‘I should have done it in this way,’ or whatever.

But with this one I just feel at peace with it.”

ONLY THE LONELY The album opener is the charming and light track, Voyager, which conjures up images of lazy summer evenings, tinged with an underlying sense of sadness and an acceptance HEADLINER MAGAZINE

of change. Birdy shares that the song is about the knowledge and pain that was needed to end a relationship during the no-mans land where her partner was blissfully unaware: “Voyager is one of the ones we wrote in Nashville, and similar to Young Heart, it’s about growing, changing and knowing that you have to leave someone and be alone. Voyager is about that time when you know it’s going to happen and you can’t tell the person yet. It does feel quite light because it’s one of the more guitarled ones on this record.”

The first single to come from the album was Surrender, followed by Loneliness, which when studying the personal lyrics, feels like it must be close to reading Birdy’s diary. With two songs on the album’s tracklist being about loneliness, is it fair to

say that Birdy finds a certain level of comfort and familiarity in being alone?

“Yeah, I think that’s probably accurate,” she acknowledges, “there is some kind of comfort in it sometimes. I have spent a lot of time travelling over the years and I have ended up in strange cities by myself.

I’ve got used to being quite solitary; I almost quite enjoy it now. Sometimes I feel almost compelled to leave and to put myself in those situations, and Loneliness is about that feeling of being a bit lost in a big city. Also, when I wrote the song there were two characters in my head: a mischievous one and another who’s being led astray. It’s not so much about leaving someone, but more of a love song to loneliness.”

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With its big chorus and nostalgic vibes, Second Hand News feels like a future fan-favourite; you can almost picture the mass singalong and lighters/smartphones being held aloft when Birdy can make her return to the stage: “Oh, my God, I hope I’m going to get to perform it!” she sighs. “This is one of my favourites, and I had the piano part for it for ages. I brought it to a few different people because I just couldn’t finish it. It had always been quite soft when I was singing it, so it didn’t quite come across. And then I took it to my friend Johnny and we ended up finishing it together. It was just really emotional, and we HEADLINER MAGAZINE

actually ended up using the tape from the demo, so it’s quite a raw performance.”

lighter feeling Birdy is talking about, despite what the song’s title might suggest:

Birdy agrees that her songwriting has changed over the years, which of late she puts down to writing songs on the guitar instead of the piano:

“It’s sort of a sister song to Loneliness.

I like to stay up a lot; I’m quite a night owl. I’ll often be up until four in the morning, and I quite like that time when everyone’s asleep and it’s just quiet. It feels like there’s a bit of magic about during that witching hour,” she smiles.

“It’s quite hard to write anything that’s not sad on the piano,” she laughs.

“Although this record is still sad.

It’s not as heavy as what I’ve done before though; it’s a much lighter feeling. And lyrically it’s a lot more conversational.”

The first few seconds of Deepest Lonely are a good example of the

Young Heart will be released April 30, 2021.

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STMPD STUDIOS

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STMPD STUDIOS Designed as the ultimate playground for music and audio post production, STMPD Studios proudly holds the title of Amsterdam’s largest recording studio facility. After record producer Martin Garrix acquired the famous FC Walvisch complex a number of years ago, the studio witnessed a complete overhaul, giving it renewed energy while maintaining the same majestic, creative vibe. Headliner recently spoke to resident audio engineer Eelco Bakker to find out how their new mastering grade Merging Horus converters have helped transform STMPD into a true hybrid facility.

When the STMPD team started renovation in June 2016, their primary aim was a simple one: raise the bar and make the rooms as multifunctional as possible.

As a studio veteran since 2005, Grammy nominated sound designer, engineer and composer Eelco Bakker knew exactly what was required: “A lot of artists just come here with their laptops, so we were looking to create a place that would accommodate today’s workflow in the most elegant way while also reflecting a traditional studio environment,” he tells Headliner.

install Neve Genesys Black consoles in Studios 2 and 4, combined with some smart KVM and audio switching.

In fact, there’s a lot of smart thinking that’s gone into the entire infrastructure: “With the flick of a switch, we can go between our Pro Tools HDX rig and any external computer that’s been hooked up, so essentially we could record an entire band without much hassle at all,” Bakker points out. “A lot of thought has gone into the layout of the patch bays and the cabling and the overall workflow. The moment you want something out of the ordinary, it’s all possible.”

One of the first things they did was HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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Box Clever

STMPD now comprises four spacious main studios, two writing/production rooms, a 7.1.2 mix room, and a large Dolby Atmos mix stage. Its business is split into two core areas, the first being post production audio for films, TV and advertising. Then on the music side, where things have been a little quieter than usual of late, the studio has been working with some local underground hip-hop artists as well as recording vocals with Darius Rucker - the former lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish.

Battle,” Bakker reveals. “It’s an Atmos production and is one of the most expensive Dutch films ever made.”

Historically, the studio has welcomed international artists and producers through its doors, including the likes of Pharrell, Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg, David Guetta, Akon, and of course Martin Garrix himself.

“In practice we’ve had to take some precautions, of course,” Bakker adds.

“For this film, we needed to record some loop groups, something we would normally do by just putting six to eight people in a room with a couple of mics. Instead we had to use the big mixing stage with some gobo acoustic barriers, with every voice talent in an isolated space using their own mic and headphones.

While Studio 1 is currently permanently booked out by Sony Music for their artists, it’s the post production work that has kept coming thick and fast, with the increased demand for streaming content during lockdown.

“We’ve been working hard on a movie which is set to be released on Netflix soon, called The Forgotten

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So even while things have been slightly slower than the norm, the STMPD team have thankfully still had enough to keep them busy something Bakker admits he didn’t quite expect. Luckily enough, the design and build aspect of the studio upgrade was finished just before the pandemic struck.

“It took a lot of organisation because when people switched places, we had to disinfect the headphones every time, so those were pretty intense days. Also, with our groups of

international actors affected by the ever changing flight restrictions and quarantine regulations, it became quite a hassle to get everything done when it came to planning and logistics.”

So how involved was Martin Garrix in the studio upgrade himself?

Bakker tells me how the team’s draft ideas would always go to Garrix for approval, and they would implement whatever remarks he had on the design aspect.

“That process went really smoothly,” reveals Bakker. “It was more on the aesthetic of the place - the ambience and the overall feel in there that Martin would steer us on. He had some specific comments on the equipment that he wanted in each room, but he mostly trusted us with all the tech. Either way, he was always involved in the final decisions.”

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Future-Proofed When it came to gear, it was important for the STMPD team to honour the studio’s rich history, and make it a place to which people would keep wanting to come back.

“People might just think, ‘Martin Garrix has bought a studio and thrown a lot of money into it,’ but there’s actually a lot of efficiency behind the company, the studio, and everything we do,” Bakker highlights. “It’s important to know that this is a business that runs on its own in a very healthy way.”

Studio 1 is focused around a Sony MXP-3036 mixing console, while Studio 3 utilises an Avid S6 as its centrepiece. Most of the monitoring throughout the facility is provided by PMC MB3-XBD and IB1 monitors, however Studios 1 and 3 still have the huge custom Van Medevoort point source speaker system from the old studio. Nearfield monitoring is handled by Focal SM9s and Genelec 8351s.

Meanwhile, the speaker system in the Dolby Atmos mix stage consists of no less than 51 Alcons Audio speakers. Bakker understands that they were the first studio in Europe to have this speaker system equipped with the same Pro-Ribbon HF driver technology throughout, for incredible detail and a uniform soundstage - critical for immersive mixing.

Merging Technologies’ Horus AD/DA converters and preamps were already being used in Studio 3, so these were then implemented in Studios 2 and 4 as part of the upgrade. And it’s this part of the conversation that piques my curiosity.

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Box Clever

“IT’S COOL TO HAVE MASTERING GRADE CONVERTERS ON ALL YOUR I/O, AND THE PREAMPS ARE JUST AMAZING”

With so many different options on the market for various AD/DA converters, I ask Bakker why the Merging boxes were picked from the bunch, and to what extent they bolster the studio’s overall infrastructure:

from the ground up around the Neve consoles and Merging boxes, which have undoubtedly improved the facility’s production and mix capabilities overall, as Bakker explains:

“When our old SSL Axiom Digital boards reached the end of their life, there was a huge gap left in their place, and because we were mainly doing post production before the acquisition, we weren’t replacing the console with an analogue desk,” he replies. “So when we started using the Avid S6 as a controller, we needed new preamps and new AD/DA boxes, because we still had a lot of outboard that we wanted to incorporate.

“It’s cool to have mastering grade converters on all your I/O, and the preamps are just amazing,” he says.

“It feels very luxurious for us to be in a position where we can switch between coloured and uncoloured, offering either super clean, super musical mic preamps with Horus, or the Neve preamps that have that typical, nice flavour to them.

“The Merging box was a very interesting option, especially because we were working with a high number of I/O. It’s a modular box, so you can expand that with all the cards you want, and it seemed perfect for what we needed it for. Right around that time, Merging released the PT64 card for Pro Tools HD connectivity, making it very easy to connect straight to a digilink card.” [Bakker believes they were also the first studio in Europe to have that card].

The improvement to the sound quality was a major one, and was immediately noticeable. Studios 2 and 4 were in fact stripped bare as part of the upgrade and redesigned HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“For example, we’ve had to do some little tricks with Ravenna due to Covid; setting up a director in another location and using a Merging Anubis on him as his talkback.”

What’s interesting is, Bakker and the team did a listening test where they compared a very high end, consumer DA converter with the standard eightchannel AD/DA card of the Horus.

“This guy writing for a hi-fi magazine was convinced that his consumer box, which I think probably costs as much as an empty Horus frame, would be the better one, but there were a lot of times where he simply couldn’t tell the difference, or he was picking the Merging box when he thought he was hearing the other one,” he

reveals. “He was really impressed by the way the entire room sounds and how the PMCs handled everything, so it was pretty impressive that Horus could compete so spectacularly.”

It’s obvious to me that there really is no other studio like this in the Netherlands, and perhaps even in Europe or the rest of the world. Like many of the most well-renowned recording facilities, it’s uniqueness stems from its powerful heritage, something that’s clearly been dutifully honoured with this significant upgrade. Whatever your opinion, STMPD Studios’ Dolby Atmos mix stage is already booked for the next six months, which in the current climate, clearly speaks volumes.

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THE TURNING POINT FOR YOUR RECORDINGS.

Mixing Maluma

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LUCAS PINZON Lucas Pinzon - front of house engineer for hugely successful Colombian singer-songwriter Maluma recently spoke to Headliner about adapting to life at home during lockdown, his artistic approach to mixing, and his passion for immersive audio. Here he offers some tips when it comes to treating and tuning PA systems, and reveals his plans to create some big arena shows with d&b’s Soundscape as the centrepiece.

Incredibly, but not surprisingly, Lucas Pinzon’s last show out on the road with Maluma — one of South America’s biggest pop artists — was almost a whole year ago now.

In fact, he found himself in Stuttgart in the middle of the tour’s European leg when the crew were advised to fly back to Colombia before the first lockdown - a close shave indeed.

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Since then, Pinzon has been fortunate enough to be involved with mixing some pre-recorded shows like the Latin American Music Awards and the Latin Grammys, but having been on the road non-stop with various artists for the last 16 years, has he been missing his usual routine?

“I’d say it’s been 50/50 really, because I have a child and when I’m on tour I do of course miss him, but I also miss my team,” he replies. “But I can’t complain this time round - it’s been wonderful being at home with the family, and I’ve also had the chance to get involved in some other projects.

“We’re just being patient. It’s going to be a strong comeback for everyone, and energy levels are going to be through the roof.”

ENGINEER

Maluma, for whom Pinzon has been mixing front of house for the last five years, has remained super active throughout the pandemic.

He surprise-released his fifth studio album Papi Juancho in August 2020 via Sony Music Latin, and it’s been a massive success.

I ask Pinzon what approach he takes when mixing Maluma’s vocals during a live show, and he proceeds to tell me that it’s always the most important channel in his mix.

“It’s basically a huge, vibey pop show, with everything focused on him,” he explains. “I try to clean up his voice a lot so that the audience can understand every single lyric, no matter what kind of venue we’re in.

“My mix is set up in layers, and so his vocal is my main layer which I like to bring right to the front, while at the same time trying to make it sound warm and comfortable for the audience. I don’t want him to sound exactly like he does on his records.”

Maluma is a very passionate live artist who often makes sudden changes throughout the show, which

Pinzon has to keep up with: “My fingers are always on the buttons or faders and I sometimes feel like I’m playing with a band,” he says. “I do lots of small EQs and compressions in a chain, and as a Waves user, I have found those tools very helpful for what I need. I do a lot of parallel compressions and mix everything into subgroups, cleaning them up as I go along and being very careful with every single thing. I like to present a picture to the audience that’s easy to digest.”

Pinzon has worked with a number of different PA systems during his 16 years mixing front of house, and he has a few techniques that he uses when treating and tuning rigs in unfamiliar venues: “I usually like to get accustomed with the natural acoustics of the place first,” he reveals. I used to make the mistake of trying to fight with tricky frequencies, but now I try to actually use that to my advantage in the mix.

I always try to get the venue specs in advance, and with my system tech, I’ll design the correct system for the night. I don’t like to be flat in the frequency response because that doesn’t suit my mix, especially with Maluma. So in advance I know that I’m looking for that punch, for clear lyrics, and a nice warm ground for my drum and bass.”

For Pinzon’s last arena shows with Maluma, a d&b audiotechnik GSL and KSL system was used, and he was stunned with how clean and precise the sound was from the front row all the way to the back.

Again, Pinzon likes to clean things up with cue timings and the positioning of his boxes; calculating in advance how things are going to work,

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modulating it with d&b’s ArrayCalc and ArrayProcessing software, and then taking it to the venue to try it in action.

SOUNDSCAPE During the pandemic, Pinzon has also been involved in planning some events with Soundscape, d&b’s immersive audio sound design toolkit.

“We wanted to try something new to save ourselves from getting bored, so my production manager suggested that we start doing some drive-in shows, because we already had the screen, the lights, the venue and permits from the government. The only

“Once you start positioning your objects and playing around with them in the space, it’s completely mind-blowing.”

thing we didn’t have was an audio system, so we thought, why don’t we try Soundscape?

“I believe we were the first to bring a Soundscape system to South America, but the funny thing is the drive-in shows never happened of course!”

Pinzon has also been experimenting with Soundscape on some small shows in a famous venue in Cali, Colombia called Arena Cañaveralejo.

“We don’t have a big PA system here, but I was doing some tests with the d&b V-Series and was shocked at how amazing they worked with Soundscape in terms of coverage, the sound pressure, and just how beautiful it sounded. Once you start positioning HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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LUCAS PINZON

Mixing Maluma

your objects and playing around with them in the space, it’s completely mindblowing. Everyone who goes to the venue can’t believe how good the audio experience is, so now the arena wants to permanently install the system!

“As soon as we can have big shows again, I think every single artist will be wanting to try this magical system. Everybody will want to come back bigger, trying new things, and I can’t wait to play some Maluma shows — especially some of the tracks from the new album — with Soundscape. I believe it’s going to be a real revolutionary thing, and I feel so happy and proud to be a part of it.

With Soundscape, Pinzon truly believes the sky’s the limit: “You just have to visualise where you want to go with it, and then you can start positioning things in your mix. The DS100 Signal Engine does all the hard work for you; you just have to be careful sometimes with how you use it with the R1 Remote Control software, which also does a very good job.

Pinzon is not ashamed to admit that he likes to dance. So every night that he does a show, he knows he’s reached the sweet spot when he feels like he wants to get up and move, even if he’s listened to that song for five years in a row.

“As I mentioned, Maluma is very passionate; he never repeats the same show and always brings a lot of great energy. Things are always quite dynamic so it’s difficult to get bored,” he says. “When I look behind me and I see the lighting engineer and the video guy all dancing, enjoying the show, I know we’ve done a good job. And honestly, I can’t wait to do some of these shows with Soundscape so that people can really see what’s possible; you’re only ever limited by your imagination!”

DBAUDIO.COM INSTA: @LUCAS_MATEO

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

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Softube believes that with truly excellent music technology, it’s not sufficient to just approximate the sound and function in software form. You have to go deeper. This dogged pursuit of high-quality sonic innovation is what bonds Softube and Empirical Labs, and what makes this partnership such a thrill.

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FRENCH ORIGINAL

Making History

MAKING HISTORY

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French Original is an artist, producer and remixer originally from Cannes in France and now based in the UK. 2020 was his biggest year yet, creatively, despite its obvious challenges, and he has built himself a great rep on both sides of the Atlantic. Headliner discusses his musical journey so far, how he got into producing EDM music, his debut single, History, and his creative workflow.

“When you feel that everything you’ve done before is starting to pay off, you can see some kind of light, you know,” opens French Original, admitting he is still far from his musical goal – but he’s on the move, at least.

French Original initially worked behind the scenes in the world of remixing, but is now an artist and producer in his own right with successes in the US, UK and, of course, France. He got into music as a teenager in Cannes, playing in bands at various bars and restaurants, and it was there that he fell in love with performance. But his journey in music production was more accidental.

“My dad suggested I learned English, so I moved to London, went to music college, and met my manager there – in my first meeting with her I said I just wanted to be famous... that has changed along the way! [laughs] I played and sang badly at the time, I think; and when we started working together, I came to the realisation that maybe I wanted to be involved in the song and production process,” French reveals. “So she said ‘okay, here is a little room, here are some speakers, a bass, and a MIDI keyboard – off you go’. And that’s when I started making beats. It was great, as I was away from my family, she took me under her wing, and gave me a room – she was like a mentor.”

The creative process has always interested French Original – and

although his sound is certainly more dance and deep house than pop, some of the pop giants such as Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones were serious influences.

“I started with pop music, but it’s a difficult genre, and it’s vast as well as vague,” he says. “If you’re not some kind of personality, you need to grow your fanbase step by step - and it’s very hard. My real love is Prince, MJ, Justin Timberlake; and then I started to see the movement of dance music changing - songs over beats rather than having an instrumental with a chorus line for three minutes. As soon as it was song-based over house tracks, I thought maybe I should incorporate what I had learned into this new wave of dance music. And so I started to listen to more house music – not so underground – more ‘pop house’, I suppose.”

French’s signature is more of a deep house sound - warm and vibey, layered with soulful vocals. He’s also been involved in some cool co-writes, including Italian production trio, Meduza; some big EDM remixes; and some talk box collabs with The Vamps and Plan B. It’s an eclectic mix.

“Yeah, The Vamps happened through Joe Killington; he phoned me saying a producer was looking for a talk box – and I do a bit of talk boxing – so I met with the producer, met with The Vamps’ lead singer, and that’s how this came about,” French explains. “And Plan B was the same thing – word of mouth and good contacts, really!”

And of course there’s his debut single, History – a warm and vibey summer track which we’re sure would have been playing in the clubs if it weren’t for the pandemic. I ask French to tell me a little about the creative process behind this track, which truly represents his signature sound.

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“Yeah, so I had a session with a guy called Dirty Brown who came to do a few sessions in London; we met for the first time that day, had breakfast in Clerkenwell, and then we literally went back to my home studio and I got my guitar and did a three-note groove thing,” he recalls. “Then he came out with this vocal hook, and from that point, I do not remember what happened... [laughs] When you’re in the zone, you work fast! Originally, the track was more of a pop tune, but then I remixed the track in that genre, and that became the original. When I remixed it, I started pitching the vocals down, and then bassline, and then went to beats – and then the rest is decoration, like you would decorate a Christmas tree!”

When it comes to remixing, French starts with a cappella and builds around it, whereas his original songs come from a more organic place.

“I build around the vocals rather than the vocals building around the track when I’m remixing – always trying to make the vocal shine rather than just bury it,” French says. “Finding some chords, trying to get some nice synth in there would be one approach – it’s basically chords and beats or bass and beats. And I guess in house music it tends to be more bass and beats, and then the rest.

“With my songs, I like writing the song first, whereas before I didn’t – that’s probably a confidence thing! But I like doing that now – I get involved in plenty of writing sessions – writing using piano and vocals, see if it works; and if it sounds good, I’ll take it to the next step, then it’ll evolve from there, really. There isn’t one thing I do every time.”

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FRENCH ORIGINAL

Making History

French is a big advocate of Waves plugins – and as well as using them to give all elements within his productions that edge or colour that is required, the brand has also acted as a great educational tool for him as, particularly in the last two years, he has taken the technical side of music production more seriously.

when I started out, turning to this brand was a very good learning curve.”

“Waves is definitely the audio brand I use the most, because there is something for everything,” he declares.

“There are so many useful tools to make your voice sound a little closer to the finished article rather than putting thousands of plugins on the chain. CLA Vocals is the reference for me – it’s just the automatic great sound, right away. You put it on – you’re all ‘whoa, that sounds good!’ I had no idea what I was doing when I discovered CLA but it changed the game for me. The same with CLA Bass. I still use them a lot, but now with more thought behind it – and more stuff before and after within the chain.

Despite the challenges of life in 2020, it actually turned out to be the most successful musical year of French’s life – and he hints that things perhaps happen this way for a reason.

“I also use the Waves Studio Rack – the guy that got me into it, Reid Stefan, is a mix engineer and producer, and his online tutorials taught me a lot. He did a tutorial on the Studio Rack and I thought ‘wow, this will save a lot of time and CPU’, so I have used a lot of that. Other Waves go-tos are R-Vox and H-Delay, and you know why with R-Vox – it’s great on vocals, but it also works great on bass and guitar; it’s a very powerful plugin. And it’s nice to experiment with these tools as well – there are so many options, sometimes it’s hard to use them all!

Waves plugins ultimately enhance my workflow. They’re so simple and effective, and for someone who didn’t have a clue about compressors and EQs or transients HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Waves also cropped up a lot on French’s debut single, History – Studio Rack, Abbey Road TG Master, R-Vox, CLA Vocals (of course!), CLA-76, H-Delay, and Waves Sibilance.

“It’s funny, at the end of 2019 I was working for a great charity called Key Changes; I was a mentor producer there, and we were doing sessions with people suffering from mental health issues, coming to the studio from hospital or sometimes prison,” he explains. “It was to achieve some form of focus, and then a musical project at the end, which was really satisfying – and amazing to be involved with. And I just had a feeling that my work there was done, that I would leave and save up some money for four or five months, and see if I could pursue more musical endeavours. I stopped the charity work, and then I started writing with Meduza, which was amazing - and things started to align from there. It’s really strange how these things happen, but everything has worked out well so far.”

WAVES.COM INSTA: @THEFRENCHORIGINAL

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DAVID GRAY

Climbing The White Ladder

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DAVID GRAY

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Award-winning British singer-songwriter, David Gray, recently completed work on his 12th album – Skellig – a stunning piece of work that you’ll get the most out of if you listen to it as he intended you to: from start to finish, in one sitting. We dive into Gray’s creative process, and find out why he made this record in such a unique, secluded setting.

We also reflect on the crazy year that was 2020, and look forward to Gray’s much anticipated White Ladder: the 20th Anniversary tour which, all being well, kicks off at the end of June.

Photo: Derrick Santini

“I am very well I think, all things considered,” opens Gray with a smile. We’re on a Zoom, each in our respective recording studio. “I can see positives as well as many negatives in the year that’s just passed by.

It’s a distorted sense of scale when you’re trapped in this interminable present, isn’t it? It’s a domestic world that brings its own strains over time.

Having this record to finish off and bring out has brought a sense of relief, really, so by and large I’m doing okay.”

He’s talking about Skellig, of course – the new album, recorded on the island of Skellig off of Ireland’s stunning west coast. It’s an incredibly unique setting, and the record was made in an equally unique way. I ask Gray to take us through the concept and the process.

“The whole album is about opening up the space in the music and having six people singing together – it was always going to be a slow-tempo, contemplative record that needed

to tie together like Pink Moon by Nick Drake; it needed to be an enchantment, that was the idea,” Gray explains. “We got everyone in the room around me and the piano or me and a guitar, and we occasionally overdubbed other bits, but it was basically done as an acoustic performance with everyone – no headphones, so no spill. This was live, so we committed to what was happening. And when you’re that close together - like singing in the pub - you can dovetail and turn in a way that isn’t possible in a more traditional recording process. It’s very much about stripping back to the bare essentials – but with lots of texture, as I wanted it to have ambiguous qualities in there as well, so we needed to record it at a place that was remote and removed. It was a really communal thing.”

BUILDING SKELLIG It was the title track, Skellig, that lit up Gray’s mind – he considers it a true gateway song:

“Not only was it working, it seemed to tell me there should be much more [of that], and I needed an album of another seven or eight of these. With Skellig, you feel like you’re pushing off the shore in a rowing boat into the mist. And I wanted that,” Gray says. “Skellig is an Island – the last rocks before America, in the teeth of Atlantic scales. And preposterously, a friend of mine went to the monastery there (Skellig Michael) which is at the peak of the big rock – and was so blown away by it, he told me the incredible story. Basically, you climb these vertiginous steps – it dates back to somewhere around 600AD. These were carved out by the monks, and they hand-cut the steps, created a rudimentary soil 300-metres up... like stuff of legends. And why? To be close to God. “So I found the idea of living there for one winter or one year way too much... even one night! [smiles] So what was propelling human souls to go to such extremes to be close to God was magnetic to me, and lit up HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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DAVID GRAY

Climbing The White Ladder

“I OFTEN WONDER ABOUT THE VOICE AS A VUNERABLE PIECE OF MY MUSICAL ARMOURY.”

my imagination. I felt ‘that is what music is for me, music is this rock’.

I am trying to live away from the pollutants and distractions and I want to listen to the starlight as it falls. And the record was born of this yearning.

Writing in 6/8 [time signature] is such an important thing, and there is a wave-like motion to the title track that lulls you in, whereas the next track, Dun Laoghaire, is a forced escape, where the world turning its back on people; that was written a long time ago during the first financial crash of 2008/2009, so the ideology of austerity and the ‘fuck you-ness’ of everything that happened at that time where the bankers basically had half their sandwiches taken away while the rest of us were kicked in the bollocks, you know? And mental health care and all these things got destroyed and money pulled out from society... [pauses] Anyway, the Celtic Tiger (the Irish economy) collapsing and international monetary funds screwing them over as a country, and all that. But the Irish kind of just get on with things, and I think politics is a slightly different beast in this country.

“So that’s two songs about escape: one is a forced exit from the east, one is a disappearing into the beckoning horizons of the west. And those poles – those two opening songs – define the record. They’re the two islands that begin, so you go from there. It’s a bit like a concept album, hopefully HEADLINER MAGAZINE

without the naff twists and turns!”

There is certainly nothing naff about this album – it’s recorded beautifully, and the layers of vocals (now with an even more spine-tingling quality to them in the knowledge that they are all live performances) are stunning.

Particular favourites of mine are those two tracks Gray went into such detail about, along with House With No Walls, All That We Ask For, and Laughing Gas, the latter of which Gray had been sitting on for almost two decades.

“Yep, it’s the oldest record on there – it was written in 2002/3 and it just sat there. Then, once I wrote Gulls for Mutineers (2014) and then Skellig, I returned to Laughing Gas and did a version where I layered all the vocals myself, and then it got filed with Dun Laoghaire and Skellig as part of a family of these new songs.”

I suggest to Gray that his voice has actually got better over time – does he agree?

“I often wonder about the voice as a vulnerable piece of my musical armoury, but it still has the power, and it’s got deeper, so it’s definitely changed. I look after it by treating it with contempt, and I use it an awful lot! The dangers are it gets rusty, because it’s a muscle and needs to be kept fit, so the more you use it,

the better it becomes, I think. I’ll sit at the piano and keep singing until it roughs the voice up a bit - but after you get over those speed bumps, it becomes a much more controllable and attainable thing, and I like to have total control of the quiet bits as well as the loud, and that takes a lot of practice. Not a day goes by that I am not grateful for that fact. It’s deepened with time and I’ve learned how to use the microphone better, too.”

Gray’s music has stood the test of time, yet it’s also evolved and in my mind has stayed relevant. It doesn’t make the process any easier though, he assures me: “It’s a long game for me, always – it’s having the intensity to return and question everything all over again, and work from the ground up. There is no easy record to make; it’s singersongwriting, so it has to be emotional content. It’s a daunting thing. Going into a phase of writing, I am always anxious; and I pass a certain point and stop questioning the relevance and validity of my own existence, and start getting on with it - and I’ll worry if it’s any good later. That’s my process. You have great days when everything is on point, but most of the time you have to work for that.”

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WHITE LADDER One thing that has evolved in Gray’s writing is that he is now much better at ‘letting people in’. It was the now iconic White Ladder album where this first happened.

“Revoicing with someone else’s take on it... It’s a good thing,” Gray reflects. “White Ladder was the first profound time it happened. We created a hybrid sound: [drummer and longtime collaborator Craig McClune and myself, and Lestin [Polson] who produced it; we all threw all ideas into the music and I allowed it to change, so [hit single] Babylon had all these accoutrements, and it was more exciting singing over something that still felt personal but was one million miles from what I could have done myself. It often unlocks writing I couldn’t have done in a premeditated style.”

Gray also reveals that his songwriting is more objective now than it used to be: “It comes to a point where there are only so many things that can go on all the time, so inspiration comes more from an act of imagination and memories you’ve stored when walking through streets or riding a bus; things in your friends’ lives, family members, stuff you get from watching films... and you use it all as source material. So now I don’t worry so much about the subjective part – occasionally the songs will be highly personal, but I won’t seek that. You never hear the melody until you’re needing the song... that’s a line in a Tom Waits song, and I totally agree! A good example is Snow In Vegas (from Mutineers) – it was a song in the pipeline for me for years and suddenly was born. Sapling (from Gold In A Brass Age) was another one. I could feel these disparate things trying to pull themselves into some kind of form, and then they come like lightning. But I don’t go pounding on the door of my own feelings, I just try and allow it to happen.

Gray has found this last lockdown really tough. We can all relate, I’m sure. We chat a little about the way that’s impacted him in and out of the studio, and at home.

“Well, I have started to write, and it only takes a chink of light and I’m in, so I can feel I’m set to make a new wave of material, so that is beginning. I wish I could get people in! I’d love to get my producer in to work with me, and hopefully that becomes more realistic soon. This last lockdown has been awful – and it’s the cumulative effect of winter, and the nonsense of the politics that gets played with, but I think we have learned to live with this in our own ways.

“And when this White Ladder tour does happen, it’s going to feel extra celebrational. It’s going to be great, and will mean so much for us. It was going to mean a lot anyway, as the record still means such a lot to us, but I really look forward to that moment. When it is, I don’t know, but we’ll have to deal with that when we get there [smiles].”

“I am busy trying to glue myself together in a way that seems positive on a day-to-day basis. I have my bad days, but by and large I’ve been glad to have the time to connect with the family, and it’s been lovely to spend time with the kids. Once the [White Ladder] tour was cancelled, I put it to Skellig is out now, and I highly recommend giving it a listen. one side, and it’s strange being on tenterhooks: would it be six months? A year? We didn’t know what was happening. So We’ve all got a little extra time on our hands (until the pub gardens open, at least) so remember to play it from start I threw myself into writing, and after a while I turned it into a to finish so you get an insight into Gray’s extraordinary major responsibility and a chore and suddenly I had to be experience making it. For me, it’s Gray’s best work to date. making an EP every two months - all these ludicrous goals.

And kudos to that.

It wasn’t helping my ability to find an emotional equilibrium with the family, and I thought ‘fuck it, I’ll do the thing I never DAVIDGRAY.COM do - stay away from the studio’.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

Rack ‘Em Up

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CAMERON CRAIG

GUSTA CE F LI

RACK ‘EM UP

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It’s safe to say that a lot has changed since Headliner last caught up with Cameron Craig, although one thing that can be relied upon as a constant is that wherever he goes to record – his rack of Neve 33135s usually go with him. The two-time Grammy award-winning producer, mixer and engineer reflects on a last minute project for Adele’s 25 album, working with a young Amy Winehouse, and on discovering his 33135s by chance in a secondhand shop.

Craig moved into his own personal studio in Battersea just prior to Christmas, and practically hasn’t stopped working there since.

“Ironically, last year was pretty much all mixing,” he says when asked what kind of projects he’s been working on. “And since December, I’ve been producing a fair bit for three different artists – working remotely.”

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

PRODUCER

I hate to use the phrase “new normal”, but has Craig adapted to this new online way of working?

It turns out, like most producers, engineers and mixers, he’s been training for it for years: “There was one funny meme going around when this all started and it was just like, ‘come on guys, this is what we trained for!’ It’s kind of idiotic, but it was funny because it’s true. I was doing a lot of mixing anyway, which by its nature is quite remote, so it just seems like a bit of a logical extension. But having said that, after a year of it, it will be good to get back in the studio with people.”

Having started out in his native Australia, he achieved great success, racking up many multi-platinum albums and a nomination for ARIA Engineer of the year in 1995. Craig then decided to move to the UK to further his career, although he would have preferred to go to L.A. at the time.

“It was down to visas,” he admits with a chuckle. “I knew a lot of people in L.A. at the time, and that was my first choice. And other than not being born in the UK, I am actually very English! For me, it was always about music, really – the technical side of it was secondary. Then I started reading articles about English producers, and that combined with the fact that the Britpop stuff was just starting to kick off just made it seem like it was the right place to be.”

He got a job at a few UK studios and met UNKLE’s James Lavelle at Chiswick Reach Studios, although Craig says that he doesn’t think Lavelle wanted to work with him that day: “I think he’d been double booked somewhere else and had to go to this studio instead. He didn’t know the engineer, and Chiswick Reach

was a very unique studio and not everyone could work it. But we got on really well, and I’ve been working for him ever since.”

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was recorded. Sam Dixon wrote and produced it, and he got the call saying that Adele wants to put the

Scanning Craig’s credit list, (Adele, Annie Lennox, Bjork, Baxter Dury, Brett Anderson, Grace Jones, Joe Strummer, Duffy, Paulo Nutini, Amy Winehouse, to name a few), it’s hard to know where to start in terms of discussing notable projects – there are that many of them. For Craig, he says the magnitude of many of them does not sink in until much later: “They just sneak up on you, and you look back on them and go, ‘oh my God, that was actually quite major!’ But that doesn’t happen until a couple of years after. Amy Winehouse was one of them [Craig mixed Help Yourself from her debut album, Frank). That was a Jimmy Hogarth production. I was just in the room next door and he said, ‘do you want to mix it?’ I think I met her in the hallway – she was unknown at the time. So we mixed it, Jimmy came in to do some little tweaks, and that was it. I didn’t really think much of it, and then it obviously kicked off a few years later and she went onto greatness.”

Craig also engineered the strings on Adele’s Love In The Dark from her third studio album, 25. It won a Grammy award for Album of the Year, debuted at number one in 32 countries and broke first-week sales records in multiple countries.

The album later went on to become the world’s best-selling album in 2015, making it the fourth-best selling album of the 21st century, the second-best selling album of the 2010s (behind her previous album, 21), and one of the best-selling albums of all time.

“Well, that’s another one where obviously a lot came from that,” he says modestly. “But for me, it was a couple of days’ work. The song was already written and the basis of it

track on the record, and that we just needed to replace the orchestra because they had guide orchestra parts on it. He rang me and said, ‘can we get on this? It’s being mixed on Thursday’. This was a Sunday night, so on Monday I was straight on the phone trying to find a studio, but we couldn’t find one anywhere that was capable of doing what we wanted to do.”

With UK options non-existent, they struck on the idea of going to Prague because Craig had used the orchestra out there before.

“We rang them and they said, ‘yep, we can do it tomorrow, literally between sessions’. We got on a plane on Wednesday morning, flew there, did the orchestra session, came back, went to my other studio in West Brompton, edited it all up and got it ready, and uploaded it overnight to Tom, who mixed it on the Thursday. It was mastered on the Friday and was out soon after that. So there wasn’t really any time to think about what we were actually doing. I find that interesting though; it keeps me on my toes!”

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CAMERON CRAIG

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Rack ‘Em Up

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“WE COULDN’T DO WHAT WE DO WITHOUT NEVE. WELL, I COULDN’T ANYWAY!”

IN THE STUDIO One of the things Craig is never without is his trusty rack of Neves; he takes his 33135 modules with him to every studio he works in if they are not equipped.

He first came across them in the early 2000s when his girlfriend (now his wife) did the accounts for a secondhand shop.

“They knew I was into gear, and they rang me and said, ‘we’ve got these Neves that have come in; do you know anything about them?’ He said they were a bit of a mess and were racked badly in these dodgy little racks and that they didn’t sound very good. I just said, ‘put them under the counter. I’m coming up’.”

Craig recalls that he had to spend “a bit of money” getting them racked correctly due to their external transformers, which were in some other racks at the time.

“They sound great. If you see any pictures of me in the studio, they’re there lurking in the background somewhere.”

Craig has always favoured quirky studios with weird and wonderful gear: “Collecting all the weird stuff came out of working in major studios; they would be very nicely set up, very well

maintained and clean, but never have much in the way of weird or interesting-sounding things. That’s where my collecting microphones came from, so I had to start carrying around the preamps to drive these microphones.”

Being a mic pre with 3-band EQ and high pass filter, the 33135 is perfect for vocal channels: “It’s got a nice forward midrange, so I do quite like it on vocals and guitars,” he says. “On guitars it has a little bit of grit as well, so that helps in certain areas. I use them more for colour really.

I mainly use all the outboard Neve preamps for orchestral stuff. I have an Antelope Audio Orion 32-channel AD/DA converter, so they sit on the hardware inserts and just plug in like a plugin for me,” he notes.

a Neve 8058 console and a Neve 2254 mono limiter compressor).

“I go to places like Hoxa or Lynchmob studio for recording, so there are a few places that I go to that have the desk that I want. The Pool was another one,” he remembers. “I used to cart all my gear down there. They’ve put in a set of eight Neves and some more Telefunkens. Having said that, I haven’t been there since they’ve done it, which is a bit annoying, but there are certain studios that have got that stuff that I used to cart around. We couldn’t do what we do without Neve. Well, I couldn’t anyway,” he smiles.

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“If I’m working on a project, I might only ever use one or two channels of it for a song. But for the next song, I’ll use the next two channels along; it just means I don’t have to recall all the time. Over the course of a project, I’ll definitely use all eight channels, but they’ll all be on different songs, so I don’t have to keep switching backwards and forwards.”

When choosing studios to work in, Craig tends to go for Neve-equipped rooms, which is one of the reasons he favours Hoxa HQ in London (they have HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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KEVIN MADIGAN During his lengthy career as a live sound engineer, Kevin Madigan has worked with a truly diverse range of artists, from The Smashing Pumpkins and Crosby, Stills and Nash to Eels, Lana Del Rey and Santana. Despite being fortunate enough to play a handful of shows at the start of 2020, his packed agenda was ground to a halt, so Headliner seized the chance to catch up with Madigan about how he’s been keeping busy, and why it’s always got to be DiGiCo at front of house...

Madigan was meant to be out on the road with Carlos Santana and his band again throughout last year, with a full US tour and European leg planned, along with his residency in Las Vegas.

While the pandemic of course brought the world to a standstill in the spring, Madigan is suitably optimistic that he’ll be able to play those shows

this year, yet it hasn’t stopped him from missing his usual routine: “It’s not just caused unemployment, it’s actually been a massive change of lifestyle and something to really get used to,” he begins. “I’m not going anywhere today, or this month, and that in itself has been a big change to get used to.”

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The hiatus has however given him the chance to work on some studio projects, which have thankfully been keeping him productive. He was asked to remix and retouch some of Santana’s live shows which went ahead pre-pandemic — as well as some of his favourite performances — in gearing up for an online release.

He also counts himself lucky to have been approached to do some TV work in L.A., where he currently resides.

“When I first started mixing live sound, I’d do whatever was available,” he recalls. “Don’t exclude yourself when you’re just starting out; put your hand into anything and everything, get whatever experience you can, and you’ll land where you’re meant to be after a while, I think!”

Quite early on in his career, Madigan migrated to front of house, and has stayed there since. Conversely, and mainly due to the proliferated use of in-ear monitors, he believes that the job of a monitor engineer is tougher than what it used to be: “There’s a lot of things to juggle, and I think there’s a balance to be struck between a sterile stage and just too much coming off it when you’re battling with side-fills and wedges,” he shares. “I don’t mind a little bit of sound spilling off the stage though;

sometimes it adds to the overall vibe.”

After getting his hands on an early cassette Walkman as a child, and a Beatles tape given to him by his uncle, Madigan says he was blown away from that moment, and proceeded to devour a diverse range of music - especially from all the great bands of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Raised in a small, rural town in West Ireland, he grew up listening to broadcaster and DJ Dave Fanning on the radio, who was playing some “cutting edge” music at the time: “I can remember hearing Jimi Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower, and thinking, ‘what the hell is this?’

It was fantastic and I just had to go out and get it,” he remembers with a smile.

“Meanwhile my gran actually bought me a kid’s classical album at some stage, and that I guess was my first introduction to classical music - it really resonated with me. I just loved all sorts of music, and anything I could get hold of.”

Having such an eclectic music taste growing up has arguably served as a catalyst for Madigan working with an incredibly diverse range of talent in his adult life. The classical affiliation came through; he assisted

FOH engineer John Pellowe on a Pavarotti show in Dublin a number of years ago, which he also remembers fondly.

“That was when DiGiCo was quite new,” he recalls. “John was using D5s and D1s at the time and they needed someone to go and be his front of house tech. I was able to help out with the digital stuff as I’d already been working with the D5s and D1s for a little while at that point.

“I actually remember going over to the factory in Chessington when they launched the D5, and being quite excited about it. I had a friend at the time, Jon Lemon, who had been mixing at front of house at a high level for a while; he was mixing Beck and I went along to see one of his shows. He had a very early D5 - I immediately thought it was so cool, and to me it just seemed like the right way to go.”

NO GOING BACK Since getting his hands dirty on some of the early DiGiCo models, Madigan has been using their desks ever since.

“The sort of criteria I’m looking for is that it makes my day easier, but of course also sounds good! The DiGiCo consoles have been quite revolutionary in their change from the big old XL4 to the little surfaces that we see now, while still retaining that sound quality and ease of use,” he says. “They started off with a good workflow and it’s just got better and better. All the people at DiGiCo are like family to me now and have been for a long time - I couldn’t possibly use anything else, it wouldn’t feel right!”

When he’s at the sharp end of things with a deadline or a big show, Madigan needs to know that his console is going to faithfully do the job. The last few times he was out on the road with Santana, he

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“THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING THAT HAS THE CAPACITY TO DO ALL THE CHANNELS WE NEED, OR TO FIT UNDER THE BUS FOR A LITTLE SOLO TOUR.”

was using his trusty SD5, though he’s not unfamiliar with some of the other DiGiCo models: “For Crosby, Stills and Nash shows I’ve mostly used the SD7, but while doing some of their solo tours in between, we’ve had everything out including the SD9, SD11 and SD12,” he reveals. “It’s whatever fits the bill really; there’s always something that has the capacity to do all the channels we need, or to fit under the bus for a little solo tour.

“The workflow of the console’s operating system and their sound doesn’t change so long as you’re using the SD racks. You can depend on that consistency from the small desks right up to the flagship SD7.”

Madigan has also become more than accustomed with the layout of the consoles, and now finds them very easy to mix music on.

“The EQs are great and do exactly what you expect from them,” he adds. “Everything sums up nicely and you can get to work really quickly, even though I’m usually lucky enough to have production rehearsals before most of the shows I do.

“I’ve worked with people that have come from the analogue world who were reluctant to change, and I’ve been able to show them how to

get up and running on a DiGiCo in just 10 or 15 minutes. And while they might not be getting into the more advanced functions, I think it just shows how user friendly the desks are.”

Depending on the kind of act he’s working with, Madigan will dive into these features a little deeper, assessing how extensively to use snapshots per song. When mixing Santana, he explains that there’s usually some starting points for songs, but because the shows are so dynamic and changeable from night to night, they’re often not very snapshot friendly. Despite this fact, he can still get on with things very easily.

He says the most important thing to consider is what the artist wants from the show as well as what the audience wants, which can sometimes be two vastly different things. It’s this factor that often dictates how he approaches the overall mix.

He’s also impressed with how a lot of other useful audio tools have been integrated into the DiGiCo ecosystem:

some of those vintage hardware emulations, which just sound great,” he points out. “DiGiCo have also started doing some of the older emulations natively within the Quantum engine as well, which I think is a cool direction to be headed in.”

Madigan asserts that being a proficient system tech, monitor engineer or front of house engineer who really knows their gear significantly expands your work possibilities and your value to a touring company: “The work days can of course be long, and you’re going to be away from home a lot,” he concludes. “A good attitude and a smile while you work goes a long way with your colleagues because you’re not just working with them, but actually living with them day-to-day while on tour. When you’re doing that for months on end, it’s much better to have a nice pleasant person along with you rather than someone who just grumps along to work, no matter how good a job they do!”

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“When I started off doing Crosby, Stills and Nash, I had some nice outboard racks and valve compressors, and Waves of course started to do a really good job of HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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Having been used to repair audio on hundreds of blockbuster films over the years, iZotope’s acclaimed RX restoration and post production dialogue editing suite has firmly established itself as the industry standard in the modern movie-making business. Headliner recently caught up with the company’s principal DSP engineer, Alexey Lukin, to find out how RX really works, what makes it so popular, and what to expect next...

RX has long been the go-to audio repair and polishing suite for film, television, music, podcasts, video games, sample libraries, and more.

In a quest to find out how a complex set of algorithms could be turned into one of the most widely used, versatile tools in the business, I spoke to iZotope’s principal DSP HEADLINER MAGAZINE

engineer and one of the original brains behind RX, Alexey Lukin.

I start by congratulating him on the recent news that iZotope had been awarded with a scientific and engineering award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

A rather incredible achievement to say the least, and although RX7

was previously recognised with an engineering Emmy a few years back, this latest achievement almost feels like the icing on the cake. Lukin describes it as “a great honour.”

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It’s fair to say that Lukin has witnessed the full evolution of RX and seen it develop into a truly game changing industry tool, as well as seeing iZotope grow significantly as a company: “RX has a long history indeed, and when we first began working on it in 2003, we were pretty much just a five person company,” he reveals. “Then in 2007 when we released it, we were probably a couple dozen people, but now we’re more like 200.”

Lukin started working at iZotope from Moscow around 2002, initially on a part time basis while he was still doing his PhD studies. Once he got his degree, he moved to Boston in 2006 to work for the company full time.

“Since my youth I’d been very interested in music, and then I became interested in music gear and audio quality. I was just trying to get my noise levels down, you know?” he chuckles. “Later at university when I started studying digital signal processing, I began to contemplate DSP that could help me with noise reduction.

“It was probably around 2003 when I had those first ideas, and I developed

some of the algorithms that eventually went into RX in my PhD thesis. It was all about how signal processing is related to how we perceive sound, so essentially using psychoacoustic models to improve the quality of audio processing algorithms. These first ideas that later became RX were bubbling even before I joined iZotope, and of course RX has definitely been in good hands since then!”

Before he joined the company — which back then was known mainly for plugins like Vinyl and Ozone — Lukin was prototyping some early noise reduction algorithms and coding in C++ mostly for standalone applications. His implementation of these algorithms was soon poured into some of iZotope’s early plugins, that unfortunately never saw the light of day: “After that we understood that in noise reduction, the real time workflow of a plugin isn’t always the best choice; you may want to look at your sound more thoroughly offline, find the events such as chair squeaks or dog barking or footsteps, and be able to select and edit them precisely. Plugins do not really allow for this kind of workflow, so it was around 2005 when we

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realised that we want to work with the spectrogram.”

Despite it not being the first time a spectrogram had appeared in an audio editor, Lukin believes iZotope RX was the first application that actually combined waveform and spectrogram on top of one another, so that sound engineers were able to see the familiar representation, the waveform, but also the more deep representation at the same time, the spectrogram.

Introducing this in RX enhanced the versatility of its sound editing capabilities indefinitely, with the adaptive spectrogram enabling users to see more detail in their sounds than ever before.

The first version of RX, despite having all the fancy spectrogram displays, only had “very primitive” selection tools, and only allowed a rectangular time frequency selection. It also only had five modules: Hum Removal, Denoise, De-click, De-clip and Spectral Repair, “but even that was a good breakthrough because of the adaptive spectrogram and also being able to apply the tools to arbitrary time frequency selections,” Lukin points out.

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“Interestingly, the first version of RX was not as heavily steered towards audio post production, and we actually didn’t understand the market very well back then. We hoped that people would be using it in home studios, such as for podcasting, or for the restoration of old records, or even for things like forensics.

“Over the years we received a tremendous amount of feedback, and we formed some amazing relationships with post production professionals. We’d always taken that feedback very seriously, and we realised that there was so much we could do to speed up workflows and do some new, previously impossible kinds of audio processing for these people. That’s why, a few years later, we began really targeting dialogue editors.”

More recently, iZotope has sought to make RX a more interesting proposition for music production professionals, with modules like Guitar Repair and Music Rebalance being of particular appeal to producers, DJs, remixers, and any audio engineers working with instrumental vocal recordings.

RX8 The latest version of RX has three sub-modules within the Guitar Repair module. One of which is designed to eliminate fret squeaks or string noises, another to eliminate excessive picking or plucking of guitar strings, and the third to attenuate buzzing or humming of an amplifier.

Another feature aimed at music professionals is Wow & Flutter, designed to attenuate speed variations and pitch fluctuations in old analogue media such as tape or vinyl. Then there is Spectral Recovery, which allows users to recreate missing high frequencies of sounds that have been low pass filtered, such as those going through a lossy HEADLINER MAGAZINE

encoder like Zoom or Skype. iZotope also added a few improvements to existing modules like Music Rebalance, as well as overhauling RX’s batch processing capabilities.

“Both the Guitar Repair and Music Rebalance modules have received considerable attention,” Lukin shares.

“Wow & Flutter is more specialised but it’s appealing to a narrow group of professionals who are restoring old recordings, and we’ve been seeing some good traction and feedback on that.”

However, RX is not just for restoring old records. Modern recordings pose just as many problems for audio repair professionals as older ones. Lukin proceeds to give me an example: “When filming The Hobbit, the crew wanted to film at high frame rates, so they used cameras with 70-100 FPS. They had to use different lighting so that the lights did not flicker, and this lighting required power supplies that were producing a humming or buzzing sound. So you can see how everything is related – certain

advances in visuals sometimes cause problems on the audio side. They used RX to attenuate that extra hum that the lighting equipment brought, because of the higher frame rate of the video shooting.”

In an entirely different vein, RX is widely used on dialogue recordings from lavalier microphones, the sound of which can often be inconsistent due to them rustling against clothing: “In pretty much every movie, sound engineers try to make the sound of lavaliers closer to the sound of the boom microphone, and RX is a great help here alongside another product from iZotope’s post production suite called Dialogue Match,” adds Lukin.

“It allows you to match the type of reverberation in the room, the type of ambience or background noise, as well as the EQ profile at the same time in one step.

“When you are filming in certain countries, the buzzing of cicadas or crickets can be a big problem, and so RX modules like Deconstruct or Dialogue Isolate are very specific for this particular type of disturbance.”

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“THERE ARE NOW AROUND 40 OR SO MODULES IN RX8, SO FOR EACH PARTICULAR PROBLEM WE TRY TO OFFER SEVERAL POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS.”

Having worked on RX since its inception, Lukin admits that each version of RX feels like his new baby, despite it of course being the combined effort of a large team these days. From his perspective, there’s a combination of factors that really make it a one-of-a-kind tool: “We’re trying to provide the cutting edge, state-of-the-art DSP in terms of quality audio processing, whether it’s reduction of stationary noise, or reduction of various specialised kinds of noise such as crickets, or non stationary noises like a lavalier microphone rustle,” he highlights.

“We’re trying to make RX really accessible and visual, allowing users to flexibly make selections, see the disturbances, learn from what they see, and discover the most efficient ways to use RX [It’s quite clear to me that education is at the heart of everything iZotope does].

“Another thing is the completeness of the bundle. There are now around

40 or so modules in RX8, so for each particular problem we try to offer several possible solutions. Using them in combination or in series often produces better results than just having a single tool at your disposal.”

RX in fact represents the first time that iZotope actually used machine learning and neural nets for sound processing where traditional DSP approaches were not successful or practical, something that’s becoming an increasingly important part of the company’s arsenal of DSP methods.

team working tirelessly on that, Lukin understandably plays his cards close to his chest: “We are developing new and exciting algorithms that are hopefully going to be in the next versions of RX, so stay tuned for that,” he teases.

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“On one hand, we’re always trying to improve what we have in stock,” says Lukin. “We would like to improve Spectral Recovery, to be able to expand the class of signals that it works successfully on, and we’re very much looking forward to using more neural nets in RX going forward.”

While RX users will undoubtedly be looking forward to seeing what’s in the next update, with the iZotope HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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The noughties was undoubtedly the breakout decade for grime music, but the beginning of the following decade saw a quiet period, that is until 2014’s German Whip was released by Meridian Dan and featured artists Big H and JME. It’s credited with bringing a great resurgence to the sound, as the likes of Skepta and Stormzy followed with successful singles.

“It was our breakout moment, even though we hate to admit it,” Teedot says, despite the fact the song charted at No.13 in the UK. “Because we didn’t think much of the track, nor did we even think much of the instrumental because it wasn’t one of our best.

It says a huge amount about the meteoric rise of London’s grime genre that many of its artists who championed it are tagged with the word ‘legend.’ And it’s also positive that not only the mic-wielding emcees get the plaudits, such as Skepta and Dizzee Rascal, but also the producers behind the scenes. One name that is really emerging from the dark corners of the studio are the masked and acclaimed duo, The HeavyTrackerz.

After the UK Top 20 success of their beat for Meridian Dan on German Whip, The HeavyTrackerz’s credits became a who’s who of the genre with the likes of Skepta, Dizzee Rascal, Stormzy and many more. As they further pursued their own artistic path with the release of their new album, Trkrz Fm, Headliner grabbed a chat with Teedot about their journey from making music on an old Playstation, to the place they sit today.

The roots of grime are mostly traced to such London locations as Newham, Tower Hamlets and Tottenham, but The HeavyTrackerz and a certain Lethal Bizzle’s upbringing in Walthamstow mean this north-eastern area of the capital is certainly worth its salt also.

“These places like Bow, Hackney,

Stratford, they’re all within 10 to 15 minutes of each other,” Teedot tells me.

“And it was the youth centres where everyone would end up going. So as a kid, you could catch a glimpse of Dizzee Rascal or Wiley.”

With their names appearing on their tracks and their incredibly distinctive masks made from lego, I ask Teedot if the plan was always to go from behind the scenes producers to artists at the forefront.

“It was always part of the plan,” he says. “I think with our background [Teedot and his musical partner G Tank moved to the UK from Congo at a young age], we were always fond of people like Daft Punk, Deadmau5, that sort of thing. We didn’t want to be people just behind the keyboard. I can only think of a few acts that have done it – Rudimental, Calvin Harris.

One of our major influences were people like Basement Jaxx, but we didn’t know who was in the group!

So the idea was to make sure that eventually, our name would be at the forefront. The Americans do it all the time, so we wanted to bring that over here as well.”

“But we’ve come to learn that the one song that you’re not very keen on is the one that will open doors for you.

And the ones you spend X amount of money on the mix and master with a £10,000 video sometimes doesn’t do much! Our phone hasn’t stopped ringing since then.”

The HeavyTrackerz didn’t start out on FruityLoops or GarageBand, but rather on their Playstation.

“We started using Music 2000 on the Playstation,” Teedot recalls. “That’s how we started. We were making these Playstation beats and then we were burning those on to CDs. And then we were shopping around really, with little stickers on them with our phone number. And I remember one time we had heard that Lethal Bizzle was going to be in a particular restaurant in Walthamstow and we waited outside to give the CDs to him and his friends.

I don’t know if he even remembers the story!”

Trkrz Fm, released at the end of 2020, is an album with a royal selection of features, including the likes of Ghetts, Asher D, Big Narstie, and Kojey Radical to name only a few. The title is a nostalgic nod to the UK pirate radio station scene over a decade ago, and it takes the listener on a gripping journey of UK sounds.

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“WE’VE COME TO LEARN THAT THE ONE SONG THAT YOU’RE NOT VERY KEEN ON IS THE ONE THAT WILL OPEN DOORS FOR YOU.”

But rather than treating it as an album, the duo saw it as “curating our own version of a playlist, a playlist of different styles and genres of music. And I think people might be a little bit surprised that, although some of the singles we’ve dropped are predominantly rap and grime, there’s other genres on there too. We have Afro on it, we have a kind of bebop song, some kuduro, which is an Angolan sound, which sounds very tribal.

And then we have the track with Big Narstie, Sweet Like, which is a nod to garage.”

I let Teedot know I’m keen to know how he and Tank create their brilliantly British sound.

“We love the synths from Nexus,’ he says. “And Omnisphere! Their synths are very, very good. We use HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Loopmasters a lot as well for royalty-free samples. In fact, we have a sound pack that we’ve been using ever since German Whip. And we use it ‘til this day, since 2008, I believe.

“We’ve realised that a lot of the time it’s not about your kicks, it’s not about your snare. It’s about how everything is mixed together. I think we’ve tried everything, and now we’re going back to stripping it down and making our production a lot more simplistic.

Might be complicated to some people’s ears, but to us, it’s very simplistic,” he grins.

INSTA: @THEHEAVYTRACKERZ

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NATHAN EVANS Remember a time when Wellerman wasn’t stuck in your head? Me neither. And it’s all down to former postman, Nathan Evans...

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Anyone with ears and a phone knows about the sea shanty phenomenon that has swept the globe in recent weeks. It all began when Nathan Evans from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire in Scotland, started uploading songs to TikTok after completing his morning duties as a postman. It turns out that just like us, there once was a time when Evans also didn’t know what a sea shanty was: “I knew about the Drunken Sailor and I knew that was a thing, but it wasn’t until July of last year when somebody left a comment on my TikTok saying they think I’d be good at covering Leave Her Johnny that I’d properly heard of sea shanties,” admits a gracious Evans on a Zoom call (I can only imagine the amount of times he’s had to retell his slingshot entrance into the public eye over the last few weeks).

The internet works in mysterious ways, and the rest is (very recent) history.

Confirming that he is no longer a postman (which he’s relieved about given the UK’s recent freezing weather; “I’ve got about a foot of snow outside!”), Evans says that his former colleagues have been nothing but supportive of his recent internet stardom.

“It was funny, because I left my job on the Friday, and they didn’t know that anything was happening until the Thursday,” he laughs. “When I told them, they were shocked. They were like, ‘what do you mean, you’re leaving?’ But they think it’s amazing and they’re very supportive.”

As it turns out, Leave Her Johnny walked so Wellerman could run, and his first sea shanty video racked up eye watering numbers – and fast. Evans knew that he needed to give the people what they wanted: sea shanties. And when did they want them? Late December 2020, specifically.

By the time Evans uploaded a rendition of the New Zealand whaling ballad, Wellerman a few months later, he soon found himself at the centre of a new cultural movement whirling around sea shanties, inspiring many others to record their own sea shanties and to imitate and remix Evans’ version. To date, he has amassed over 500,000 TikTok followers and Wellerman has racked up over eight million views – not to mention 1.6 billion videos use the hashtag #seashanty on TikTok. Evans can remember the exact day he uploaded the song: “I uploaded the video on December 27, and about three or four days later it passed a million views,” he recalls. “The comments were still rolling in and the duets were coming in at around one every two seconds. It was crazy! You laugh about things that are viral, but I was like, ‘this is pretty much viral now!’

It’s everywhere – everybody’s singing it.”

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“IT WENT FROM A TIKTOK TO AN ACTUAL SONG THAT WAS GETTING PLAYED ON THE RADIO IN THE SPACE OF FOUR DAYS.”

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And it wasn’t just singers with impressive baritones that were getting in on the TikTok action: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jimmy Fallon, Brian May and Elon Musk have all taken a stab at their own ShantyTok, as it’s come to be known. Crossover viral stars, ‘Four Lads in Jeans’ (you’ve seen the meme) even did a version. It’s been overwhelming, to say the least: “No words can describe how it all feels, it’s absolutely insane,” he says in a way that you can tell that the extent of what has happened hasn’t truly hit him yet. “I just feel like I’ve been stuck in a tornado for four weeks now. But it’s all good. I’ve had a song hit number one, and it’s still sitting at number two in the singles charts and in the official charts.”

Evans jokes that the fame hasn’t gone to his head yet, (he’s even been on Blue Peter – “I’ve got my badge that I’ve put on my guitar bag, so that’s it, I’ve made it,”) although he has been recognised a few times in the supermarket – even with a mask and hat on. Perhaps his voice is a giveaway – his thick, Scottish accent being one of the things that audiences seem to really like about his TikTok videos.

“Aye definitely, I’ve seen in the comments that people are saying ‘that accent is amazing; it fits so well with the song’ – so I think the accent has a lot to do with it.”

tHE REMIX Evans quickly released Wellerman and Wellerman (220 KID x Billen Ted Remix) – the latter is still holding the number #2 position at the time of writing, which became a viral sensation of its own, exploding out of Instagram and receiving radio plays from Radio 1’s Scott Mills, Nick Grimshaw and Capital Dance’s Mistajam.

The remix idea started when 220 Kid remixed a 40 second clip of Wellerman for a laugh: “He put it on his social media, and Scott Mills got in touch and said he needed it for the radio, and asked if we had a longer version. I was like, ‘eerr, I do not’. Mistajam was the same – he jumped on it and whacked it on the radio as well, and asked for a longer version. So because of that, 220 Kid came to me and said, ‘right, what do you think about doing this properly? Let’s get the vocals down and we’ll remix it and do it right’. Then I arranged a manager, a record deal, and I got everything sorted and we got it recorded properly. It went from a TikTok to an actual song that was getting played on the radio in the space of four days. It was crazy!”

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Off the back of the success of Wellerman, Evans has announced a UK and Ireland tour for 2021, kicking off in December in Dublin. He also shares that he’s just signed a multi release deal, and that he hopes to release a few more singles over the coming months.

“They might be sea shanty-esque, or they might be my own music, because I write my own music and sing my own songs. Then hopefully there will be an album by the end of the year as well. It’s been insane; it’s like being stuck in a tornado with all this stuff flying around you, and I’m just like, ‘alright, this is my life!’” he shrugs, grinning.

He’s going to need a bigger boat.

INSTA: @NATHANEVANSS

On the history of sea shanties, (which were once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labour on board large merchant sailing vessels), Evans says that the feeling of bringing people together resonates strongly today for obvious reasons: “Back in the day when the shanties were sung, it was to bring everybody together, to keep them all in time and to keep the morale high. I think it’s not the actual meaning of the words of the song, [although anyone can feel free to bring me rum anytime], but it’s the effect the song has on people,” Evans considers, framing the song amidst the global pandemic.

“It puts a smile on people’s faces.

Everybody can clap along and sing along, and that is exactly what people are needing right now; they’re needing a smile, they’re needing that togetherness of having everybody around and singing along. People are looking to have something in common with people, and I think that song is exactly that.”

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Record producer and mixer Romesh Dodangoda has always had a soft spot for rock music, and has worked with an array of guitar-wielding bands including Funeral For A Friend, Bullet For My Valentine and Motorhead. He reflects on working on Bring Me The Horizon’s Grammy nominated album, Amo, and why his Genelecs have made themselves right at home at his Cardiff recording studio.

Dodangoda’s love of all things guitar music started when he heard Oasis as a boy. Picking up a guitar, he learnt as many of their songs as he could, and he’s never looked back: “I had this obsession with getting the guitar sound I wanted to come out

of the speakers, and once you go down that path of getting a bit nerdy with guitars, I think I just naturally fell into the studio side of things,” recalls Dodangoda, who joins Headliner on a Zoom call from his studio in a very drizzly Cardiff.

“I joined a band when I was younger and I always used to love going into the studio, and recording that stuff always fascinated me. The whole being in a band thing – I wasn’t really bothered about.”

Determined to get into the studio side of things, Dodangoda set up his own studio on the side of his house and slowly built up his inventory of equipment.

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“Whilst I was working out of that studio, there were some bands that came in and we did a few records together. The bands that I was working with started to do really well, and then people started calling me because they wanted me to work on their records. I think it was from there that I thought, ‘right, I’m gonna do something with this’. I would lock myself in the studio all day, so it was something that I loved anyway! It was around that time that I was starting to see the records that we were making actually connecting with people. I think that was probably what made me realise that it was going to be more than just playing around in the studio.”

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Things really shifted up a gear when he worked on Kids in Glass Houses’ debut album, Smart Casual, which really resonated with fans and performed well in the charts.

“A lot of people loved it,” he says with a grin. “It was quite an exciting time in general because I’d be making a record with a band and there was another band just starting to blow up at the same time, so lots of things were happening at once. I think I probably tried to look like I was not intimidated by it,” he chuckles.

are times when I’m working on a project and it brings in an element of a genre that I don’t work in, but that’s also exciting for me because it allows me to be out of my comfort zone a bit.”

Dodangoda found himself in just such a situation when he was asked last minute to mix Busted’s Pigs Can Fly Tour 2016 Live From Wembley DVD, which led to him mixing the Bring Me The Horizon - Live At The Royal Albert Hall DVD.

“I’ve always been about guitarbased bands,” he acknowledges after I reel off just some of his past guitar-wieding projects.

“I was in New Zealand doing a masterclass when I got the phone call to mix the Busted DVD, and they needed it back in 15 days,” he remembers. “That was a hard one to organise, but I really love how that one turned out. The Bring Me The Horizon DVD was a massive challenge because it all depends on what they’ve got going on in the show. Sometimes a live show can be quite a simple thing, but Bring Me The Horizon was the band playing with a full orchestra and a choir, and I had to make all that sound big.”

“I’m a guitarist, so that’s always been something that’s excited me. I love hearing big guitars on records, and I’ve always tried to do the two things that I love, because I can put a lot of myself into it then. Equally, there

Bring Me The Horizon’s 2019 album, Amo features the singles Mantra and Wonderful Life. It was met with critical acclaim and was later nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

His CV only went from strength to strength, and his enviable back catalogue includes recording the Grammy nominated #1 album, Amo from Bring Me The Horizon, and he’s also worked with Funeral For A Friend, Bullet For My Valentine, Motorhead, Twin Atlantic, Monuments and Busted.

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“That was a really cool experience,” Dodangoda smiles. “We went to Los Angeles for two months at Sphere Studios L.A. and it was great to have a lot of time to spend working on it – we didn’t work on the whole record – we broke it down and did a batch of three or four songs of drums and then we’d move into another studio. I thought it’d be cool to switch studios every so often so you’re not staring at the same walls for two months.

We did all the drums on a Neve console and then did all the guitars and overdubs on an SSL. It was a fun time working with the band; they’re all really nice. And it was nice to be in the sunshine for two months!”

On the Grammy nomination, Dodangoda is nothing but humble – in fact, he’s still pinching himself: “It was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe it! It’s one of those life tick boxes, isn’t it? To have anything that you’ve been involved with recognised at that level...it was amazing. I went out to the Grammys as well, which was a wicked experience, so it was a huge, huge deal for me.”

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He invested in Genelec’s 8351Bs and 7360A fairly recently, after being blown away by them at The Ones launch:

Long Wave Recording Studio Long Wave Recording Studio is Dodangoda’s production studio in Cardiff, which boasts a large collection of vintage and modern high end equipment, which wouldn’t be complete without his Genelec 8351B monitors and 7360A sub.

“The studio is a continuation from when I had it in my house,” he says. “I’ve been there for over 10 years now so it’s my private studio, and that kind of setup is exactly how I like it. I do travel around other studios as well, which is great, and I love doing that when I can.

But it’s also great having a place that you own that you can walk into and you haven’t got to start rewiring the interfaces or anything; everything just works how you want it to.”

“I’ve always used NS10s,” he admits, “and using Genelec started off because I needed a reliable sub for the studio. We put a 7360A into my B room, which is my mix room. I was so blown away by The Ones – just the level of detail! So after that we put a set of 8351Bs and a 7360A sub in there as well.”

For Dodangoda, it’s key that he has a monitor that he’s not fighting against: “It needs to be enjoyable to listen to, but it’s also not lying or giving me false information,” he explains. “One thing I’ve found about the 8351Bs is that they’re just so revealing – they show me a far bigger picture of what’s going on as soon as I switch to them. All this high frequency detail pops out that I just wasn’t hearing before. I still use the NS10s, but they only tell you so much. After hearing the 8351Bs, it was a no brainer for me really!”

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“THE 7360A HAS PLENTY OF HEADROOM FOR ME – IT DOESN’T CHOKE OR ANYTHING, AND WHEN YOU CONNECT THAT THROUGH THE 8351BS, IT’S SEAMLESS.”

Dodangoda says that the 7360A sub integrates very well with the 8351Bs:

Zoom, which he says has made a huge difference:

“This is the sub I fell in love with a long time ago,” he shares. “I’ve been in a lot of studios where I see the same problem: I need the subs to have a lot of headroom because, say if I’m hearing a kick drum and the sub is struggling and I’m searching for frequency or something, then that’s just not an enjoyable experience. The 7360A has plenty of headroom for me – it doesn’t choke or anything, and when you connect that through the 8351Bs, it’s seamless.”

“It tightened up the low end and the mid range quite a lot; it is definitely a lot easier to hear. I think there were a couple of dips in my frequency response before and I can totally hear the difference when turning on and off. The sub links together much nicer now – there just doesn’t seem to be anything uneven about it.”

During the lockdown period, Genelec remotely calibrated Dodangoda’s latest investment over HEADLINER MAGAZINE

With a UK Covid-19 roadmap recently being unveiled, Dodangoda is quietly optimistic about the future of the music industry and recording: “I’ve got some records scheduled, so we’re just seeing now how

restrictions are going. But hopefully those will go ahead. I’m doing a lot of mixing remotely, so I’m just gonna keep doing that. And Control Room (a collaborative space for the production and mixing community founded by Dodangoda) keeps me very busy. So yeah, I’m just going to keep going!”

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Inside The Score

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From the deep jungles of Vietnam to the snow-covered streets of Moscow, the latest installment in the omnipresent Call of Duty franchise — released at the end of last year — could be the best we’ve seen, played and heard for a while. Its campaign is an incredibly well crafted story set during a period of political hostility and suspicion, so a dark, gritty music score was required to bring this tale of modern world history to life. Enter BAFTA-nominated composer and producer Jack Wall, who was tasked with doing exactly that for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War...

Jack Wall is already known for creating the soundtrack to the super popular sci-fi game series Mass Effect, but it was his latest opus, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, that was the main topic of conversation when he recently joined Headliner on a call from sunny Vila Nova de Gaia in Portugal.

It was almost exactly one year ago that Wall began working on the soundtrack for the game. Having already teamed up with game developer Treyarch on the four previous Call of Duty: Black Ops titles, working directly with the company’s audio director Brian Tuey, it’s fair to say that he was just waiting for the phone to ring.

I ask him about his initial thoughts on what was required for a Cold War era game.

“It’s 1981 with Reagan and Brezhnev when everything starts,” Wall begins.

“The first obvious thought was to mix some early synths into that; a Yamaha CS-80, Minimoog, a Moog Modular, and try to modernise it somewhat. So that’s what we did. If we just did the ‘80s thing, it would’ve started to sound like Stranger Things or Halt and Catch Fire, scores that are very recent in everyone’s memory.”

Wall used Arturia soft synths for their recallability factor, as well as having some fun with the dials on his Moog

Sub 37. His go-tos, u-He Diva and Zebra HZ, also made it into the mix, along with Omnisphere, which is “still the most relevant synth I own for just about anything,” he says.

“From there, we were layering in the orchestra and the choir; things that I can do with samples and then replace later with the real thing.”

It’s the use of these dark synths mixed in with the choir that really reflect the secret, shadowy nature of the game’s setting, and it was during this part of the process that Wall looked to inject some emotion into the score.

Before he was even approached to create the Cold War theme song,

Wall had already written Bell’s Theme [Bell is you, the main protagonist] and 1981 - two songs on the game’s soundtrack which are both pivotal to the narrative, and which ended up being recorded first.

To get around the logistical nightmare of recording a whole choir for these songs during the pandemic, 32 singers were required to professionally record themselves at home. The music editor then assembled the tracks into mix sessions alongside Wall’s orchestral and synth pieces, which — with the songs actually being written in Russian — also proved to be a tricky process.

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However it was the main theme, the first thing that players hear when they boot up the game, that provided Wall the opportunity to find its signature sound:

Call of Duty, despite admittedly not having played these games for a few years now. This one however has just finished downloading on my Xbox, ready to go.

“I was asked for a 40 second piece of music that was going to be at the front end of the game, like on the opening menus, and I eventually wrote a longer version made up of bits and pieces from all the other music I’d already written,” he recalls.

“There’s a piece I wrote for the KGB level, where the player starts off being stealthy, but when they get to the end there’s this big firefight and the theme plays; I rewrote that for the main theme, because it just felt so Russian to me, and has this real Soviet era sound to it. That was a really enjoyable one to make.”

During the writing process, Wall also enlisted the help of Cindy Shapiro, an L.A. lyricist who has written lyrics for more than a few songs in the Call of Duty series, and who also just happens to be his wife.

to write things from that standpoint,” Wall adds. “I wanted the Russian lyrics to sound as a Russian person heard them, and to read as they would understand them. We went to the trouble of trying to learn and understand that, and it was really fun to put those lyrics together. A lot of caution went into the production as a whole of course, but thankfully we were able to do it and all the musicians were happy to be working.”

He tells me how they paid a visit to the RAND Corporation — a think tank in Santa Monica — to do heavy amounts of research into classified government documents and intelligence from the early ‘80s, detailing what was really going on between the two nations at the time.

It’s usually these little details that make video game soundtracks so popular with audiences, and to someone such as Wall — who has worked on multiple award-winning franchises and is celebrated among a Hollywood elite of composers — they are everything.

After listening to the Cold War theme, it sounds to me like quintessential HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“We were able to research what the actual Russian perspective was of the Cold War, so I just thought it’d be fun

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QUICK ON THE DRAW Becoming a composer meant that Wall could economise his setup down for a streamlined, entirely in the box workflow.

“The challenge with video games is that there’s a lot of music to write and produce yourself,” he admits.

“Whereas with television you’re just writing it as quickly and efficiently as possible while telling the story.

“I used to have a system where I would use Cubase and mix into Pro Tools, but I stopped doing that a couple of years ago because the latency was driving me mad.

Everything is in Cubase now, which just sounds better to me and works really well. I’ve got some pretty complex routing going on with bussing, and lots of stems that I’m recording as I go; all of that is in my template, and it’s just ready to rock.”

For Wall, it’s all about having more time to be creative, and spending less time worrying about the gear: “Technology is great if it’s useful and saves time, but the minute it gets in your way, it’s a problem. I keep economising so that I can work more creatively,” he adds.

“I grew up in the Cold War era, so I know what that feels like and means.

I knew straight away how I would go about creating a signature sound for that. It can be epic, but it can also be small and intimate. There were a lot of great opportunities to scale back the music, because there’s a number of stealthy gameplay sections where the player is gathering information and intel. There’s two and half hours of music in there, so writing the score was almost like writing for a movie, which was really fun, I have to say.”

One of Wall’s favourite songs on the soundtrack is Rising Tide, an adrenaline-inducing synthwave

romp that he created for the game’s multiplayer sections in collaboration with fellow composer Jimmy Hinson, aka Big Giant Circles.

“There’s all these mini movies in the soundtrack that represent the really important moments in the story,” Wall shares. “There’s one track called No Higher Duty which plays during the opening cinematic when Ronald Reagan comes in and gives his blessing to the mission - doing stuff like that was fun.”

During the last mission, as the player enters the final siege set piece, a truly epic sounding track called This Ends Now is played, on which Wall asked his daughter, Gracie Wall, to sing.

Meanwhile in the game’s prison level, the player is thrust inside the mind of Bell, forced to share the character’s personal trauma as the level transforms into a progressively more bizarre landscape, with a positively

psychedelic backing track to match.

Now he’s taken the time to absorb some of the nice feedback he’s received on the Cold War score, Wall (who can usually be found residing in L.A.) reveals that he’s actually thinking of buying some property in Europe and setting up his own studio there.

And he’s quietly optimistic about what 2021 has in store: “I think everyone’s just kind of hoping that we can return to some sort of normality soon. At least we’ve got video games, and I’m delighted to be able to contribute to them!”

Be right back - I’m just off to prevent a nuclear apocalypse.

JACKWALL.NET

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BLK BOK

The Big Listen

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BLK BOK Super talented musician and artist Charles Wilson III, aka BLK BOK, has certainly done his rounds on the live circuit over the years, supporting some hugely successful artists as a musical director and keyboardist.

Headliner finds out why 2020 was such an incredible year for him creatively, how he wrote his new classical piano album in just 120 days, and why his JH Audio in-ear monitors are his everything.

Wilson joins me on a Zoom call from Las Vegas where he moved to in 2019 following a 14-year stint in L.A. Referring to his new home as sin city, for which it is of course famously known, I ask Wilson if he’s been up to anything sinful lately?

“No, no, no,” he retorts with a chuckle, “I have been in the house.” Why am I not surprised...

While 2020 was a year of losses, I quickly learn that it was a pretty hectic year for Wilson, who says that things have been “absolutely marvellous. The past eight or nine months have been some of the best creative flow that I’ve experienced in my entire life.”

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for Wilson, asking him why it had such a lasting impact on his artistry: “There is something to be said about the Michael Jackson legacy,” he replies in a somewhat solemn tone.

“The energy and the music and the vibe continues and always will. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with some guys who actually toured with Michael, like Jonathan ‘Sugarfoot’ Moffett, Don Boyette and Jon Myron Clark – rest in peace.

After being locked down the first time round, Wilson used it as his opportunity to start writing like never before, enrolling himself into a programme called The Creative’s Workshop, hosted by marketing guru Seth Godin.

“It’s a 100 day commitment to writing every day, non stop,” he explains. “I wrote my new classical piano album in 121 days to be precise, so it was perfect in terms of the timing, which couldn’t have been better.”

It was touring non-stop from 2003 to around 2013 when Wilson first cut his teeth on the live circuit as a musician, and later as a musical director: “My first tour was with Justin Timberlake on his Justified tour. From there I went to the Backstreet Boys Never Gone tour and then back with Justin for FutureSex/LoveSounds.

I did a short stint with Rihanna for Good Girl Gone Bad, John Mayer for Battle Studies, and then back with Rihanna for the Loud tour. I was the musical director for Demi Lovato and did some touring with her in 2013, and then in 2014 I was involved with Michael Jackson Immortal with Cirque du Soleil, which was life changing.”

I’m curious to find out why this last mention was such a defining moment HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“They’re some really, really amazing people, and playing to Michael’s masters every day was the real kicker for me. To have everything that he did in the studio in your ears and playing music along with it was an absolute honour. I learned so much stuff from being around that legacy.”

After studying classical music in high school and music composition at college — followed by a year and half doing engineering at Full Sail University in Florida — Wilson got his first big break, meeting the musical director for NSYNC, Kevin Antunes, who he immediately got on with. It was from here that he jumped on board for Timberlake’s first solo tour.

Wilson has also worked with some big names on the production side; he’s spent time in the studio making beats with Timbaland, as well as having releases with Haley Reinhart and the UK’s very own Estelle.

However it was Seth Godin’s Creative’s Workshop that really provided him the opportunity to take everything he’s learned over the years, brush up on his craft, and apply all that to a fresh, personal project in a truly meaningful way.

“I learned about the creative process, accountability, and discovered this new creative practice for myself, which took some figuring out,” he reveals. “But by the 100th day, once

you’ve built that much momentum and you stay committed for that long, the answers come to you. I’ve learned that being creative is a generous act of service.”

Wilson admits that he didn’t even know he could write classical music until he actually sat down and started doing it.

“One of the most amazing things that you can observe is the actual sessions where the songs have been written,” he continues. “If you zoom in to the song itself, it’s about three minutes and 30 seconds or four minutes, but then if you zoom out to the whole session, you’ll see 300 minutes of material that just went into this little three minute package. To write 11 songs in this way was like climbing a mountain.”

Luckily, he did have some help with transcription and getting everything down on paper, “but then there was the learning process, the memorisation process, and actually studying BLK BOK — my own music — for the first time, which was a strange feeling.”

After attempting a series of recording sessions, he found himself at Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica: “It’s a beautiful facility with a beautiful Yamaha piano,” he says. “The flow was there, and it all just came out. For two days it was just me, a piano and an engineer, so it ended up being pretty simple.”

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“WHEN I’M DOING ANYTHING MUSICALLY ON MY LAPTOP, LIKE PRACTISING OR WRITING, I ALWAYS USE MY JH IN-EARS.”

JH AUDIO While Wilson also keeps his setup super simple — doing most things in the box — his in-ear monitors are perhaps the most essential tool in his musical arsenal.

“I’ve been using JH Audio since maybe 2007 or 2008, and shout out to Kevin Glendenning for bringing me into the fold,” he remarks. “He was the monitor engineer for the FutureSex/LoveSounds tour, so we’ve been very good friends since then. After I started using JH, I’ve never turned back. My in-ears are my everything; there’s nothing better to have on an aeroplane full of crying babies!”

At the moment, Wilson is obsessed with his JH16s: “One of the advantages I see is that, especially as a musical director, you can keep the stage volume lower,” he

points out. “It’s so essential to make sure that we’re all communicating with each other on stage, so it’s better to have in-ears where everybody can fit in their own space and there’s a lot more clarity, especially in large arena or stadium situations where there’s a lot of noise going on.

“Even for me now, using them with just a solo piano or keyboard, it gives me an intimacy that I just don’t get from using a wedge. When I’m doing anything musically on my laptop, like practising or writing, I always use my JH in-ears.

I can’t use big cans or anything like that; for me making music or beats is somewhat personal, so it’s easy for me to just throw in my IEMs. There’s less noise around meaning more focus on what I’m doing.”

Going forward, Wilson will be releasing music with Warner following a recently signed record deal, and he can barely contain his excitement for what’s to come: “This has been the wildest, most unpredictable experience, and the more I feel that I give, the more I feel like I’m receiving. My solo piano album is made for people who want to step away from the noise of everything that’s going on right now, and I hope it serves its purpose. Aside from that, right now I’m working on ideas and concepts for live shows, and just trying to figure out what a BLK BOK show might look like!”

JHAUDIO.COM INSTA: @BLKBOK

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THE SOUND CO-OP

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Setting The Standard

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THE SOUND CO-OP The Sound Co-op explains how they are reimagining production mixing in the Covid-19 era with Lectrosonics, and why the kit comes through for them every time.

New York’s The Sound Co-op started in 2015 as the brainchild of a postwork discussion between members Phil Shipman and Jon Moore. Their vision was a sound mixing company that, through cooperation, could be a win for both production companies and for sound mixers themselves.

At its core then and now is the belief that together they can be stronger and better, and that co-operation, not competition, could create both a company that would support better quality work for its clients from call, to booking, to shoot, to billing, and also camaraderie, mutual support, learning, growth and change for themselves as a team.

“Our Co-op is a legal structure,” begins chief financial officer, Shipman. “It’s just like how some apartment buildings and food stores are co-ops. We’re not only workerowned, but democratically controlled.

In a for-profit company, owners take profit based on the share of the company they own. Here, each sound mixer takes revenue based on how much they work.”

“We realised that we didn’t have to ask anyone else to create that economy, we could do it ourselves,” adds Austin Plocher, CMO at The Sound Co-op. “So, starting an alternative to solo freelancing, as well as an alternative to something like

New York’s union for sound mixers which, when we formed, was actually frozen shut to new members, was important to us.”

What sets the company apart from others is that first and foremost, they have formed a company in an industry of freelancers.

“It’s a company owned by its workers and wholly democratically governed; we all make the decisions together,” Plocher points out. “All of us were used to being our own boss, and we still are, but now we share that bossness with each other, and we help each other grow as individuals and as a company.”

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“Ease of use and troubleshooting is a must because a part of our system is bringing in new mixers and training people who have little-to-no experience. If our equipment is a puzzle, that won’t work for them.”

LECTROSONICS Agreeing it was crucial to standardise wireless and other equipment across their team, the Sound Co-op chose Lectrosonics’ Digital Hybrid Wireless gear, including the SMV and SMQV transmitters and SRc receivers, supported by pairings of the T4 and R1A for IFB applications.

Even prior to the pandemic, standardisation was a must: “From a technical perspective, we HEADLINER MAGAZINE

needed wireless products that were wideband, durable, user-friendly, and easy to troubleshoot,” says Moore.

“I’d worked in the rental department of Professional Sound Services for two years. I was people’s go-to guy for problems like, ‘My receiver is not picking up’ or ‘How do I get more range?’ Just coming in with that experience made me know we wanted Lectrosonics.”

“Lectrosonics’ reputation, reliability and usability were all key components to our choice,” adds Plocher. “We had to have gear that could be teachable to newcomers, uniformly used by those who were already members, and stand up to the toughest of jobs.

We weighed our options between different wireless manufacturers and Lectrosonics won out.”

AUDIO PRODUCTION

The company does most of its work in New York City, a very competitive area for open frequencies, so naturally wideband products were a must when they made their choice.

“Durability is key because we work on such a variety of jobs, from comfortable studio shoots to risky documentary gigs,” says Plocher. “Ease of use and troubleshooting is a must because a part of our system is bringing in new mixers and training people who have little-to-no experience. If our equipment is a puzzle, that won’t work for them.”

Early 2020 changed life as we know it: Covid-19 took hold of the world, changing the way we live and work. The situation gave The Sound Co-op a further and unforeseen reason to have a single wireless umbrella.

“That makes it even more important to have reliable gear that’s an industry standard and that we already know how to train newcomers on,” Moore confirms. “People tend to be familiar with Lectrosonics when they come in the

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door because they’ve encountered it in the field. If biosafety considerations validated their equipment choice, performance in the field cemented it.”

With crosstalk and dropouts being common audio gremlins in such conditions, Moore adds that he can’t remember the last time he had “any such issue that wasn’t solved with a quick frequency scan and repairing of the transmitter and receiver”.

“I can speak to range as well,” notes Shipman. “We do a lot with Major League Baseball. Even though a ballpark is a big, open area, it’s filled with RF. You go to the frequency coordinator in the morning and they put their hands on their head and go, ‘Man, I have hardly anything left I can give you!’ You don’t get to pick and choose, yet the production depends on you getting in-game sound. Relative to a player mic’d up deep in center field, your position is on the edge of range. Other wireless products we’ve tried wouldn’t have got us anything out there!”

on set Contact sports have no script, even when the team is shooting a sports documentary. This makes IFB all the more crucial.

“On the basketball doc Benedict Men, we had three camera crews courtside, where it’s very loud,” Shipman explains.

“We’d already programmed three channels using the Lectro T4-R1A combo so producers could move around and select which crew to monitor. Then, we gave R1As to the camera operators as well. They could just reach down to their belts and turn them up way louder than the audio being sent to the camera. This helped them know where to aim to capture all the action.”

In such a noisy environment it was important for multiple producers to follow different character storylines.

“We had lots of transmitters on players, coaches or families, so we were able to use multiple Lectro T4-R1A transmitters to send differing outputs to a bunch of R1A receivers so producers could switch between these multiple storylines that they wouldn’t hear otherwise amidst such noise,” Plocher elaborates.

“Importantly, the camera operators were getting audio from the R1As that they could boost to higher volumes than if they were listening to their camera’s audio output.”

The company caters to a range of projects, including broadcast, commercial, documentary and playback on music video shoots, with Plocher citing Lectrosonics’ reliability in range, as well as durability.

“Using Lectrosonics wireless and IFB technology was crucial to something like HBO’s The Vow documentary series, where at any given time we had to put wireless microphones on talent who might wander out of our sights,” he recalls.

“Being able to hear them as much as we could and not worry about the gear breaking from situations out of our control was key. And then being able to feed that audio back to multiple producers who needed to hear crucial story points was necessary.”

The team deployed Lectrosonics’ technology in unexpected ways for Eminem’s Rap God and Madonna’s Living For Love music videos: “We were able to use Lectrosonics’ IFB technology to feed both master timecode from Pro Tools – using a computer interface – to a slate to ensure synchronisation between what was being shot and the music track, as well as feed audio from Pro Tools to the cameras,” shares Plocher. “We used multiple IFB transmitters for different purposes, and a wealth of IFB receivers.

“We hand countless R1A receivers to producers and directors,” he continues. “So many people treat them like little utility boxes that can just be thrown around. That should give us anxiety, but because it’s Lectrosonics, it doesn’t. I can’t remember the last time an R1A stopped working!”

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Setting The Standard

Lectrosonics’ wireless offerings enable the company to have a uniquely modular gear sharing and tracking system within The Sound Co-op, effectively and efficiently covering the whole range of their jobs. Through the use of Lectrosonics gear, The Sound Co-op is able to make sure that between six to seven individual sound mixers have the right equipment for each job.

“We’ve been able to analyse our busiest days and make sure we have the right amount of Lectro wireless for each mixer for each job,” confirms Plocher. “Being able to outfit each of HEADLINER MAGAZINE

our kits with swappable technology like unislot receivers and R1A receivers means we’re able to more efficiently cover what we need to do without unnecessary overheads.”

Beyond practical considerations, the Sound Co-op team sees some of their own values reflected in their gear.

“Like Lectrosonics, we’re out to build a brand by building relationships,” Shipman concludes. “When the Covid lockdown began, for example, we organised virtual town halls about the state of the industry. That led to us taking Covid safety workshops,

becoming trainers ourselves, and eventually developing a curriculum for minimising the risk. That spun off into its own co-op called Community Works Project. As a co-op, we are always very supportive of each other.

Relying on each other in a deeper way means we rely on our equipment in a deeper way.”

LECTROSONICS.COM SOUNDCOOP.TV

MD 445 and MM 445 Closer. More direct. More intense.

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Learn more about the MD 445 top-of-therange microphone and the MM 445 capsule. www.sennheiser.com

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AZIZ IBRAHIM

The Asian Blues

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AZIZ IBRAHIM Although best known for his work with Simply Red and The Stone Roses, for guitarist and composer Aziz Ibrahim, some of his proudest work has been using his solo projects to detail his family’s journey from Pakistan to Manchester and supporting various music education initiatives. He delves into what ‘the Asian blues’ means to him, being recognised by The Queen for his contributions to Great Britain’s economy, culture and the music industry, and why Celestion speakers have always been a part of his sound.

Born in Manchester to Pakistani parents, Ibrahim is known for his role and work as lead guitarist for Simply Red, The Stone Roses, Ian Brown, Paul Weller, Steven Wilson, Asia, Rebel MC and Hot Chocolate’s Errol Brown.

Joining me on a Zoom call in early 2021, he suddenly remembers that he can use the title ‘Doctor’ these days.

needn’t be addressed as such, and that simply, “fool” will do. You’ve got to love the Manc sense of humour; although he suddenly turns serious when reflecting on the car crash that was last year:

“I’ve just remembered! I’ve got an honorary degree here from Salford University,” he clarifies, adding that he HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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“It was pretty horrendous, but I’m an improviser of life in general. When I perform, I perform in that Frank Zappa-esque way where I never want a show to be the same; I never want a guitar solo to be the same, and I react to situations. There’s two sides of me: there’s a South Asian side of me, and there’s the musician side of me – the improviser. South Asians are improvisers because their history comes from colonialism, and settling in this country comes from growing up and reacting to situations, whether it be racism or quick thinking on your feet just to survive or to fit in. Last year that intuition told me that I needed to make changes immediately.”

Ibrahim immediately set himself the task of brushing up on certain things, particularly when it came to embracing the digital world.

“I embraced it in the sense that I started to study gamers, YouTubers, influencers, digital influences, podcasters, anybody who was utilising that digital skill set, and I was learning those tricks of the trade,” he explains.

‘I also looked at the music industry to see how that’s changed in terms of a business model – record labels are still applying the old model, even though they are selling digitally and applying their rules and laws digitally, but they can’t compete with the

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gamers and the content they put out every single day.”

Ibrahim has only had eyes for the guitar since he was seven, inspired by his teacher that would play while he and his classmates drank their free milk. He begged his parents for a guitar of his own for his birthday – no small feat on what his parents were earning at the time (“I grew up poor but happy”) – and when he finally got his hands on one, it was “the beginning of the end” as he puts it.

As an adult, away from Simply Red and The Stone Roses, Ibrahim’s solo works include his acclaimed album Middle Road, telling the story of his family’s journey from Lahore to Longsight, and album Rusholme Rock with Tabla master Dalbir Singh Rattan – showcasing his unique blend of progressive rock and what he calls ‘Asian blues’.

“In reverse engineering myself, I realised that in my playing, I had to find my own identity and style that so many great players have.”

Ibrahim recently completed his third successful Arts Council England project, contributing to the UK’s understanding of the musical instruments of South Asia and the influence they have on the second, third and fourth generation British South Asian creatives. When it comes to the ‘Asian blues’, he says it’s all about identity: “I found that I didn’t know my own history, because the history I’ve learned in school was so biassed and so one-sided,” he states. “You have to see both perspectives before you get the full picture. I needed to do that research, and it was horrifying, to say the least. It was a reality check – I realised that identity for me was a false identity, that it was an identity given to me. I realised that you have to almost reverse engineer yourself to know who you are and what you are. In reverse engineering myself, I realised that in my playing, I had to find my own identity and style that so many great players have. But even those players – the ‘great’ ones – have a culturally appropriated style.”

He hates the word ‘fusion’, but cannot deny that he has been heavily influenced by black culture due to growing up in a predominantly black community.

“I found that I was looking for my own identity; and my ear doesn’t hear black and white notes, for a start. I can hear quarter tones and eighth tones straightaway, as I was brought up in that culture with the Bollywood films that my mother and father used to like.

But at the same time, I was a rocker, and I wanted freedom of expression.

The guitar is a symbol of rebellion, and I want it to be loud, because I’ve been quiet all my life and have this idea of the suppression I should feel inhibited by when it comes to cultural, religious, peer and community pressures.

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“So many things prevent me from being the person I want to be, so the ‘Asian blues’ is me creating my own genre. I felt that the blues was my music. It’s about tragedy and sadness, and when I look at my own culture, we have our own tragedy – our own story of 400 years of colonial rule.”

All of these factors and influences play a role in his guitar playing, and Ibrahim is proud that he’s managed to craft his own musical identity within a world of mainstream music.

“I can’t cut out what is me already – I’m not a session player. I used to be in the early days, but I changed because I realised that I didn’t want to be playing what people were paying me money for – I want to play the way that I naturally play, because that’s what I’ve learned from the greatest bands in Britain. To play the way you naturally play is the best way, and is the most influential in terms of how you inspire other people.

“So the playing is always me, even when I was playing with The Stone Roses,” he points out. “I could have ironed out every nuance of me and played it as John Squire, but I’ll never be John Squire, and John Squire will never be me.”

When it comes to drawing from British and American music culture, Ibrahim says it’s all about the attitude and the freedom that comes from sex, drugs and rock and roll.

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“And I’m sober as a judge! I’m a good Muslim boy, and that inhibition prevents me from being disrespectful to my parents or to my peers, and yet, in the rock and roll industry, you throw all those things away, and that’s free.

I just love that beauty within that freedom of expression, and that’s all I’m trying to achieve. I can’t do that if I’m being confined by people.”

His efforts haven’t gone unnoticed: Queen Elizabeth II recognised Ibrahim’s contributions to Great Britain’s economy, culture and the music industry in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in 2005 along with Brian May, Jeff Beck and the Bee Gees.

“And the late, great Jim Marshall of Marshall amplification, who supported me for decades and decades,” he points out.

“I suppose they wanted to show a relationship between the Muslims of the United Kingdom and how we fit into the country and what our point of view is, and sharing that perspective with people abroad who have a picture of bowler hats and brollies. A British, Pakistani Muslim rock star is breaking that perception, I suppose!”

He adds that he of course was honoured to be there lined up with Brian May, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and the likes of Eric Clapton.

“They were all looking at me like, ‘who’s he?’ It was really funny because they didn’t know who I was, but I knew plenty about them! But the fact I was there says something – that it’s not all just about white rock and roll.”

The British Council selected Ibrahim to tour and lecture in Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Jerusalem, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh for HEADLINER MAGAZINE

several years, performing live and delivering lectures to young people and students from universities and colleges. Having avoided Pakistan since he was a child out of fear of an arranged marriage, visiting the country had a profound effect on him: “You’ve dishonoured the family if you turn somebody down, but I was only young at that time,” he reflects.

“Fast forward to 2003 and here I am touring Pakistan, and all these relatives were coming to see me – it was mind blowing. I’m rocking out and talking to people and sharing, but then I’ve got this affinity...I was in tears. It chokes me up now thinking of how close I felt,” he says, pausing for a few moments. “I discovered a part of me I never even knew about, and brought that home with me.”

CELESTION Ibrahim says he’s used Celestion since “the beginning of time”, and his go-tos over the years have included Celestion Blues, Golds, Greenbacks, Creambacks, Neodymiums, Anniversary 65s and 75s and Vintage 30s, which are the first ones he ever used back in the days when all he could afford was a cheap amp.

“It was around the ‘90s that I started to understand that certain cabinets or combos will give me a certain sound.

I had a Blackstar Artisan 30 amp and it had Celestion Blues in it. I realised the difference between Ceramics and Alnico magnets, and that’s really when it set me off. I found that I was drawn to either one for a specific sound. When I first heard those Alnico Blues, I thought, ‘Wow! Listen to the way that changes!’”

When he discovered Greenbacks, he found they suited him when he needed a bit more power but still

wanted that Alnico magnet response, although by then he’d also discovered Celestion Golds, which quickly became another favourite: “I found that the Gold was the one I was drawn to, and now the new Creams as well,” he adds. “It comes down to the instrument for me. I haven’t strayed much from the Alnico Gold and the Creambacks, although in all honesty, I use them all! They all have a varying roll off at certain points within the frequency spectrum.

I do seem to come back to the Alnico Gold though…

“I’m still exploring them, I’ve got too many choices,” he laughs. “I used to work in the old days with a fourtrack cassette tape player; it was the energy of the moment and moving on, and now I’m finding myself with too many choices. So that’s why I say I have my go-tos when it comes to Celestion, because I haven’t got that much time; I don’t want to lose the energy.”

With the future of the music and recording industry still uncertain, Ibrahim is remaining positive: “I’m a ‘60s child, so I’m very old school when it comes to self motivation. I was supported by my parents: I had a roof over my head, schooling, love in the house – those kinds of things. So I do understand the message and the importance of it, and music is the core element for me. It’s been my common bond. It’s a medium which requires no passports, and that’s just coming from a working class kid who can have a very sarcastic streak in him,” he grins.

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Zen Go Synergy Core

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Antelope Audio has long been associated with the more professional end of the market when it comes to audio interfaces and clocking: superb sound quality, multiple I/O options, FPGA processing, and sophisticated mic modelling are some of the features which have set the brand apart from the competition. The company has introduced a new compact interface that at £449 or less is half the price of its previous entry level interface, the Discrete 4 Synergy Core. So what has been sacrificed (if anything) to accommodate that kind of cost-effectiveness?

The Zen Go Synergy Core (ZGSC for ease of ID) is a bit like a baby Zen Tour Synergy Core, a desktop interface which has been available for around three years now but with a smaller desktop footprint and reduced I/O. The front panel features a large rotary control which in isolation controls the amount of monitor level to your speakers, and when you press it, mutes the output signals. If you press and hold it for a second or so it will also dim and then undim the signal.

When you press the small gain control once, it selects the first mic preamp; and twice, the second. Pressing the rotary with either mic pre moves between mic/line and instrument HiZ, and turning the rotary adjusts the input gain level. The middle of the three switches assigns either of the two headphone outputs, and main monitor output to the rotary. And pressing the little Antelope button exits you from the gain and monitor function but leaves whichever monitor output that you last selected assigned to the rotary.

The rear panel features two combination XLR/TRS jack inputs, two pairs of parallel outputs for monitoring - one on phonos, the other on balanced TRS jacks. There are stereo S/PDIF in and out and two USB-C connections - one to link to your computer, and one for additional bus power should you be using a laptop.

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On the front there are two large ¼-inch independent stereo headphone sockets; the front panel also mentions the 64-bit AFC (Acoustically Focused Clocking) jitter management technology, supporting sample rates up to 24-bit/192 kHz. This is the same technology which is shared throughout the Antelope range in everything from their Goliath HD and Orion 32HD, and now the ZGSC.

What this ultimately means is, before you even load Antelope Audio’s accompanying Synergy Core software suite - and providing you have a Mac - you have a functioning USB interface straight out of the box. And not just any USB interface; this one sounds stunning, every bit the pedigree of Antelope’s high-end studio interfaces. I spent a good hour listening to some of my ‘off the shelf’ favourite pieces of music and acquired hi-res files before I even

thought about registering the ZGSC and downloading the accompanying software - or even opening up my DAW for that matter - such is the musicality of the ZGSC. I even started noticing things in pre-recorded songs that I hadn’t noticed before. The euphoria of a new device? Well, this is not the first new interface I’ve plugged in this year, put it that way..! So it’s clear that absolutely nothing has been sacrificed in terms of sound quality.

processing power of onboard FPGA chips with the suite of plugins in your DAW.

instruments and channels on existing projects in your DAW. As many other providers of products with onboard DSP and FPGA processing provide the means to use their plugins directly in the DAW, perhaps this is something Antelope will look at for future updates of the Synergy Core software? However, the good news is that the ZGSC is now fully supported with the new M1 Macs.

The Synergy Core Setting up the ZGSC is very easy.

Just log into or set up an Antelope Audio account, download the Mac or Windows installer, and follow the prompts. At the core of the ZGSC is its DSP and FPGA chips which provide real time FX processing of the Synergy Core software plugins used in the ZGSC control panel. It so happens that this is the same software available for the whole range of Antelope products which incorporates thunderbolt 3, 4 and USB drivers so you can use the

Sadly the ZGSC doesn’t allow straightforward access to the individual plugins directly from your DAW; there is a slightly more involved procedure of routing audio to the Synergy Core, so you can add the FX from within the interface. This is a minor point, but if like me you find a great sounding plugin, there’s a tendency to want to try it on other

CORE STRENGTH As we have all found out at some point or another, recording directly into our DAW using a bunch of plugins to control vocal dynamics and give a particular characteristic to the sound without increasing latency is not easy. The aim of the ZGSC is to allow you to assign a mic pre, a compressor, an EQ, and possibly even a gate if need be, all with next to zero latency and monitor in real time. I was very impressed with how quiet the preamps on the ZGSC were and how much dynamic range there was.

It was difficult at times to see this as a desktop bus-powered USB interface.

It has a depth and warmth of sound you associate with more powerful rack units.

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Recording acoustic guitar through a couple of different mic combinations was a good starting point. I used a 414 with the BA31 and the Stay Levin which is a very warm and in-yourface compressor, but at the same time gentle. For the second, I used a stereo pair of DPA 451s which I still swear by, but with the same plugins.

It was a real revelation hearing exactly how the sound changed as I made small adjustments in relation to the microphone’s position. It was also lovely to be using really open analogue sounding devices that had such a rich, warm tone. There are a wealth of additional plugins that you can add as you go should you wish, from the likes of SSL and other manufacturers, but you are provided

with some really good preamps, compressors and EQs straight out of the box.

I’m looking forward to the time when I can meet up with some of my musician friends so I get the opportunity to try some really good vocal recordings with this interface. I can really see the appeal of carrying, for example, the Antelope Edge mic with which you can emulate a range of vocal mics to use what suits. Hell, even if you’re just experimenting to see which mic suits a particular vocal style best, that combination’s going to save you a lot of time and money.

And if you’re new to music creating, then you’re going to learn a lot.

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“IT HAS A DEPTH AND WARMTH OF SOUND THAT YOU ASSOCIATE WITH MORE POWERFUL RACK UNITS”

Guitar Shop Heaven This brings me to the section which features the fully unlocked amp and cab models, no additional outlay required. You get 11 amps and 11 cabs, and there are also some additional chorus effects. And of course there’s absolutely nothing stopping you using your trusty FX pedals before you plug into the ZGSC. While all the usual suspects are available, there’s a certain quality about them; the sound is accurate, but more important is the way the instrument responds and behaves, almost like sitting in front of the amp and having the sound affect the vibration of the strings. A particular combination that demonstrated this to me was the Rock 22.10 with

the Green 4 x 12. It was uncanny the way the strings reacted to the gentlest of touches, just like a real amp behaves when you’re not in total control of those strings. And the level of sustain which sounded like it wanted to feedback if I just turned to face the speaker cab (which sadly wasn’t really there at all), takes me back to a time before children when I was forced to sell my last remaining Marshall 2204! The Top 30 Bright was another that had the feel of an AC30 as well as the sound; you know it’s an emulation, but it just has the sound and feel of an amped up Vox on a studio floor somewhere. There’s a Plexi59, a couple of Fenders, the Darkface, the Tweed Deluxe, two Mesa Boogies, an Orange 120, a

Burnsphere (which sounds like an ENGL), and several others including a bass amp, and Bass Supertube, which surely has to be the Ampeg SVT. The great thing about all of these amps and cab models is that they’re all unique in tone and incredibly simple to set up and use, which is exactly what you want from a songwriting suite of tools. They’re excellent, and of course once you have that inspirational moment and capture a great performance, there’s absolutely nothing to stop you from re-amping that guitar ‘til your heart’s content.

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Zen Go Synergy Core

BEAUTIFUL REVERB Another really useful tool available from the Synergy Core interface is the AuraVerb application. This is a beautiful sounding reverb which you can use independently of the recording chain for vocal monitoring and headphone sends should you wish to. You could include it on the DAW’s return channels with guitar and anything else you need to add that touch of ambience to a session, but there is also comprehensive routing so that it can be included as part of your recorded sound, should you wish.

There are a wealth of reverbs out there, and I have spent hours selecting just a small number of presets and creating a few of my own in various reverb plugins that work for me. Strangely, I spent just a minute or so playing with the settings on the AuraVerb and couldn’t find a setting I didn’t like! Even easier, it also comes with a number of factory presets that serve as great starting points.

CONCLUSION It’s interesting how some pieces of equipment, however simplistic, can just inspire you to go on and create. I think this is very much one of those occasions. It’s super easy to use whether you’re plugging in a mic of your own or utilising one of Antelope’s modelling mics, and this is the perfect interface to throw in a rucksack and go capture a great performance. However, it’s equally at home on your desktop, free from complicated routing and clearly focused on the task of creating music. The exceptional guitar amp modelling plugins at zero latency are not only a joy to work with but are, dare I say, some of the best amp and cab emulations I have ever played with, and are themselves a source of great inspiration.

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If you’re looking for a compact, uncluttered, easy to use USB interface that sounds like a big studio interface, which provides you with a collection of truly great sounding vintage analogue front end equipment to enhance your recordings, together with a studio full of authentic sounding guitar amps and cabs, then you need the Zen Go Synergy Core.

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106 LEAPWING AUDIO AI Schmitt Signature

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REVIEW

We put Leapwing’s Al Schmitt Signature plugin through its paces on a variety of different instruments in our Headliner HQ studio...

20 Grammy Awards and collaborations with Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Madonna and Michael Jackson — this is what comes with the name attached to Leapwing Audio’s first signature plugin. Al Schmitt is a recording legend in every sense of the word - and Leapwing Audio, who entered the plugin game in 2015, have done extremely well to work with the recording engineer to recreate his brilliant sound in this new plugin — ‘echo’, not reverb, to use Schmitt’s terminology.

close to replicating his sound that has been so abundantly successful in nearly seven decades at the top of the music industry. A tidbit that must be mentioned: at the very start of his career and 19 years old, Schmitt found himself alone at Apex Studios with Duke Ellington and his orchestra.

Unable to reach the studio owner or head engineer, he said “Mr Ellington, I’m not qualified to do this.” Ellington patted his leg, looked him in the eye and said “It’s okay sonny, we’re going to get through this.” They then cut three songs in four hours.

Leapwing spent time with Schmitt with a view to getting to the essence of his work and to try and come

With deep attention to detail, Leapwing looked very closely at Schmitt’s studio gear, workflow,

and the characteristics of his sound; the subtle harmonics, the echos, compression and EQ. They describe the process as an “incredible journey” — meticulously going through his mixes and analysing many multitracks. The team quickly realised Schmitt had a few distinctive traits that defined his legendary sound.

And the main thing they honed in on perhaps comes as a surprise: a unique simplicity. Al Schmitt doesn’t use lots of processing, and has a restrained approach to adding just the right amount of texture to the music he works on.

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108 LEAPWING AUDIO AI Schmitt Signature

“IF YOU WANT YOUR PIANO TO SOUND LIKE A RECITAL IN AN OPULENT ROOM IN A STATELY HOME, LOOK NO FURTHER...”

So with that being said, when you open up this plugin in your chosen DAW, you might be struck by a particularly sleek and minimal design.

In honour of Schmitt’s less is more approach, this plugin makes a point of not bogging users down with loads of presets or unnecessary options.

The main variations you’ll see upon opening up the plugin are the ‘source’ options: Piano, Vocals, Bass, Strings, Mix, Brass. The options within each source vary depending on the needs of the instrument. For example, the piano has compression that you can adjust, whereas the strings do not.

This is to reflect the piano being a much larger instrument with more harmonic characteristics to play around with. If you select Mix, you will see the most options, including Sub Boost, Mid Level, Air Boost and several more.

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So how does it sound? In a word, stunning. I have no doubt that Schmitt will be very proud of what Leapwing Audio have achieved here in a digital plugin. I first tested it on one of my absolute favourite VIs, the Soft Piano from Spitfire Audio’s LABS range. This particular piano plugin sounds pretty good without reverb, however, I always do add some reverb to enhance and experiment with the sound. And as I toggled the Al Schmitt on and off while playing, you really do notice a difference with the richness and depth being offered here. Especially when you sustain the notes, it sounds wonderful. If you want your piano to sound like a recital in an opulent room in a stately home, look no further.

Sticking with Spitfire LABS instruments, I wanted to hear how it sounds on something totally different, so went for the Dulcimer this time (emulating the stringed instrument from the 1900s). This time I even tried using the Leapwing reverb versus one of Logic Pro X’s stock reverbs, Enverb. And sorry to all the bedroom producers out there who love making music with a zero pounds budget, but you really do notice a significant difference. With Leapwing, the music feels much more organic and authentic, and switching to the Enverb it does suddenly feel a bit more synthetic. Very impressive results on a free virtual instrument.

SPOTLIGHT

Sticking with the theme of stock sounds from Logic, I opened up a square bass synth sound. I’m sure you’ll agree the stock instruments often do need an extra bit of love and attention to get them to sound how you want, so I was very interested to see what results I could achieve with the Al Schmitt Signature. And I was instantly impressed — with virtually no tweaking at all, I’d gone from a laptop sound to a Moog in seconds! This time I set the source to Bass and enjoyed toying with the compression, body, and air level.

Again, you really get to experience the varying harmonic characteristics in this process.

On vocals, unsurprisingly, this plugin shines particularly bright. On an intimate performance with an aspiring folk artist, a touch of Al Schmitt on the acoustic guitar added flavour,

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while a wide and airy reverb on the voice added a truly ethereal quality to proceedings; and on a more compressed and in-your-face ‘belting’ vocal, a shorter plate kept everything tight and up, close and personal.

If you’re looking for a very high-quality plugin that will take little to no time at all to add to your workflow, Al Schmitt Signature deserves a close look at the very least; it’s fully refined down to a beautiful simplicity in both design and accessibility. Goodness knows there are a lot of reverbs out there, but this plugin fully justifies entering the market, and it could just be the missing piece to your sonic arsenal.

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IE 100 PRO

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I was recently fortunate enough to get my hands on Sennheiser’s new IE 100 PRO IEMs. In the box are a set of ears and a single cable to connect the two together, which features a Bluetooth unit as well as a small controller with on/off, connect, volume controls and a microphone, so you can use this with another Bluetooth device should you wish.

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During all my years mixing live sound, it’s inevitable that I should acquire a couple of sets of custom IEMs along the way. I am often asked by bands and artists that are thinking about IEMs but don’t want to shell out the best part of a grand for something they may not like or can’t get used to.

The simple answer has always been, ‘you get what you pay for’, but that might be about to change.

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You also get a separate cable so an engineer or musician can use the earpieces in the more traditional manor, say for instance from a mixer or an IEM body pack. There is also a handy little packet with a cleaning tool and a bunch of alternative buds to accommodate different ear sizes.

Now bearing in mind these units are the IE 100s, the entry level in a

SPOTLIGHT

series which already features the IE 400 and IE 500, I can’t say I was expecting too much, especially when they arrived already attached to the Bluetooth adapter. But all preconceptions aside, I thought I’d start as they arrived, so I paired them up to my iPhone and stuck a bit of Pink Floyd on. To my surprise, they didn’t sound half bad. I had to search around for the adapter you now need to plug up any audio output from a modern iPhone.

Just to make sure it was the iPhone’s internals that were at fault here, I refitted the earpieces onto the cable and plugged them straight into the iPhone’s little adapter, and low and behold there was a significant drop in quality from that experienced with the Bluetooth adapter. So far from being a sales gimmick or a bonus toy to sway your buying decision, it actually works, and works well.

I will apologise in advance for this, as it’s something I rarely do on account of the rather poor quality of the conversion and amp stage in modern phones, and unsurprisingly my near £1,000 of custom-built IEMs sounded uncomfortable. One nil to Mr. Sennheiser.

So to see if this could possibly be the device to accustom potential users to long periods of IEM wearing, I fitted the earpieces back up to the Bluetooth adapter and stuck it on charge. After home schooling was over, I took the opportunity to take a long walk down by the canal and

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regain my sanity, along with some of that contracted data allowance that never gets used. I could also take the opportunity to revise a couple of my playlists and reconnect with some past memories, as well as checking out some of the new artists the Headliner team have been interviewing and writing about.

After a good couple of hours, the IE 100 Pro was still going strong, and even with the phone in and out of my pocket, a random marketing call and a poor network area, there wasn’t a single Bluetooth dropout. Sennheiser claims a battery life of up to 10 hours and up to 20 in standby. Personally I try not to spend more than a couple of hours at a time with ears in, but I can’t see this being something that is likely to die on you unexpectedly.

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Also useful is the fact that the Bluetooth module, amps, batteries and controls are split between two evenly weighted and evenly spaced little modules, so when you take the ears out, they hang evenly around your neck like a necklace without slipping one way or the other.

Very neat! With the useful range of earbuds available to fit every size and shape of ear, these IEMs create a comfortable full seal, and give you the kind of depth and bass that’s impossible from devices like Apple AirPods, and others of that ilk.

BANG FOR YOUR BUCK Around 18 months ago, I also had the good fortune of acquiring a set of Sennheiser IE 500s to try out. Equally small enough to comfortably fit in any ear and perfect for introducing IEM newbies to a better onstage sound. Sadly, in my eagerness to do just that, I lent them to somebody who promptly left them in a dressing room, never to be recovered!

It’s evident that there are many similarities to be drawn between the 500s and the new 100s. For a start, they look and feel - if memory serves me correct - identical in size, shape and weight. The fitting to attach the cables looks identical; and on further investigation, I discover that the Bluetooth device is interchangeable between the IE 100, IE 500, and the third member of this series, IE 400. The housing on my pair of IE 100s is black, whereas my 500s were clear, so I could see the driver inside, but I’m absolutely sure this houses the same type of driver.

The similarities in terms of phase and detail are uncanny.

The overall sound, however, is similar, but not the same.

It could be because I’ve had no reason to wear IEMs of

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late, but I remember the IE500s being loud and having a slight dip in the upper-mids, so you could easily cope with higher voice levels and a more dynamic response in those frequencies. Suffice to say for the then price tag of £500 I thought they were one of the best sounding and most comfortable sets of ‘off-the-shelf’ IEMs you could buy.

The IE 100s still have all that rich bass and tight low-mids, but are brighter and a little more sibilant when you try to turn them up loud. If anything, I’d describe them as a little more Hi-Fi; perhaps a conscious decision to make them more universally appealing to a broader market.

I’m certain I’ll be carrying them around from now on for quick referencing and general Apple Music duties. I might even leave the customs in the FOH rack just for system checking. But more importantly, I’ll have some spare generics that’ll be perfectly capable of providing anyone who wants to try out in-ear monitoring with a really great sounding mix.

Now comes the rather surprising news on how much the Sennheiser IE 100 Pro Wireless will cost you. £129! Yep, you read that right. Should you already own either the IE 400s or 500s, you can pick up the Bluetooth adapter which replaces the cable for £87, and you can also purchase the IE 100s on their own without the Bluetooth adapter for £87. No more stressing about expensive generics getting crushed or forgotten; this is a stress-free price. Have Sennheiser got it right? Yes, I for one think they definitely have. With the IE 100 Pro, trying out the concept of in-ear monitoring just got a whole lot easier.

EN-DE.SENNHEISER.COM

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Introducing Jolene

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JH Audio today (March 5th) launches what it believes to be its best sounding analogue IEM to date - and that’s quite a statement when you look at the company’s impressive track record. Without further ado, Meet Jolene.

JH Audio’s Jolene is a four-way, 12 element hybrid in-ear monitor.

The driver configuration combines HEADLINER MAGAZINE

balanced armature and dynamic components. The LF band (20Hz 400Hz) uses a pair of 9.2mm dynamic drivers; these diaphragms provide for a serious sub-bass punch.

The mid-range (400Hz – 4kHz) is powered by a pair of 4.9mm dynamic drivers that are said to produce a very natural low-end bass with highquality tonality and rich texture.

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The high-mids (4kHz – 10kHz) and HF bands (10kHz – 23kHz) are both powered by quad balanced armatures, similar to the JH Audio Roxanne. The tonality of the dynamics blended with the balanced armatures is said to create an extremely balanced IEM. According to Jerry Harvey himself, Jolene is the most natural, analogue-sounding IEM he has ever designed.

SPOTLIGHT SPOTLIGHT 1154

Jolene has been crafted using JH Audio’s new construction process, which is genuinely unique: utlising premium materials and some stateof-the-art kit, the IEMs go through what JH describes as “an initial marching process” and are then later finished at the hands of their engineers and technicians in the JH Audio HQ in Florida. JH also claims that the shell construction is the most durable on the market.

Jolene is available in two standard options: Jupiter shells with engraved copper faceplates; or Hyper Black shells with engraved aluminium faceplates. The street price is $1,795 (£1290).

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SOLID STATE LOGIC Brand new from SSL is the UF8 expandable DAW controller, designed to stimulate accelerated creativity using intelligent production ergonomics and 360° control software. There are many reasons you’ll love the UF8, and the price is just one of them.

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SPOTLIGHT

Designed for today’s DAW-based production workflows and ultrafast turnaround times, the expandable eight-channel advanced DAW controller has arrived to connect engineers, producers and artists directly to the creative process, promising absolute command of their workflow while significantly accelerating the speed of audio production and content creation.

The culmination of 40 years of mastering studio ergonomics experience, the UF8 controller is designed to deliver a new level of user focused design, combining insightful displays, intelligent fader and control access and function, multiple stand angles for user defined placement, and a production workflow enhancing control layout.

With UF8 at the heart of a studio setup, users can navigate through large sessions and focus on the

music, instead of the mouse.

Whether music-makers need to solo tracks quickly or access their mostused editing functions from the touch of a button, UF8 is optimised to help create more engaging content for audiences – not to mention doing it faster and more efficiently.

Perfect for finessing dialogue automation rides and assigning all essential session shortcuts to the user-keys for enhanced productivity, UF8 is tailored to suit anyone’s post workflow.

Want to put some feel back into mixing? Look no further than UF8’s 100 mm high-quality motorised faders – perfect for balancing multiple tracks at once, or riding those reverb sends. Still want more?

Scale your system up to 32 faders (four UF8s! More on this below) for the full SSL mix experience.

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Expandable to a 32 channel control surface with integration for all major DAW platforms, the UF8 is ideally suited to music creation, production and mixing, post production and webcasting.

“UF8 is an obvious next step in SSL’s development in ergonomically designed studio tools for todays’ mixers, producers and creators,” says Andy Jackson, SSL studio product manager.

“The layout and build quality are all about our fixation with ‘human engineering’; creating products that keep you in the creative zone with high-speed access to every fader or control, without operator fatigue or discomfort.”

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ADVANCED WORKFLOW UF8 offers intuitive features that are developed from a true understanding of production workflow, offering simultaneous control of multiple DAWs, multi-purpose Master Encoder for DAW timeline navigation, track banking and mouse wheel emulation for precision, plus that all important hands-on control.

Not to mention that the dedicated automation section and dual-purpose Selection Keys permit rapid access to select functions – solo and mute

clearing in Pro Tools and Logic Pro X. Meanwhile, new Channel and Plugin control modes provide enhanced workflows for those using UF8 with Pro Tools, allowing users to easily access their sends and plugins without slowing down their creativity.

And if you don’t love it yet, how about chaining multiple UF8s together to create a unique mixing system? Users can build their perfect 16-24 channel music creation hub, or connect four

UF8s within a single system to create a 32-channel controller – ideal for large post production or mixing sessions.

The brains behind the whole thing is the SSL 360°. Installing the cross-platform application for Mac and Windows is quick and easy. Once installed, SSL 360° allows users to configure their UF8(s) for their DAW, customise the user keys and save/load profiles. Plus, SSL 360° manages software and firmware updates for you.

Open DAW Policy UF8 is uniquely flexible and promotes SSL’s Open DAW Policy: users can control three different DAWs simultaneously and keep the production and mixdown process agile. As such, UF8 integrates with all major DAWs and includes workflow ready templates for Ableton Live, Cubase / Nuendo, Pro Tools, Logic Pro X and Studio One. Key features include high quality 100 mm touch sensitive faders, high resolution colour displays, eight endless rotary encoders, custom workflows, HEADLINER MAGAZINE

an intelligent multi-purpose channel encoder and mouse scroll emulation.

Up close and personal, the rear panel features a USB ‘C’ type port for easy connection to the host computer (‘C’ to ‘C’ and ‘C’ to ‘A’ cables included with UF8), two jack sockets offering standard foot-switch connections and a socket for UF8’s auto ranging external PSU. The USB ‘A’ port on UF8 can be used to daisy-chain USB communication between UF8s, or, it can be used to plug in any USB dongles you have.

At the end of the day, the high-spec touch sensitive faders, encoders and high-resolution colour displays compliment the premium build quality that belie this new price point for an SSL controller, which is available now and is priced at £833 + VAT / $1,299 + Tax / €999 + Tax. SOLIDSTATELOGIC.COM

OWN THE ROOM www.digico.biz DiGiCo UK Ltd. Unit 10 Silverglade Business Park, Leatherhead Road Chessington, Surrey KT9 2QL. Tel: +44 (0) 1372 845600

Empirical Labs Series

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SOFTUBE Softube is continuing its 15 year relationship with Empirical Labs Inc. (ELI) in the form of four impressive new products...

The new launches comprise Mike-E Comp, Lil FrEQ, Trak Pak for Console 1, and the Empirical Labs Complete Collection.

Mike-E is a compressor and saturator based on the famous ELI Distressor with a punchy preamp riding shotgun.

Precisely modelled in collaboration with ELI’s Dave Derr himself, the native software version tethers unabashed analogue warmth to an uncomplicated, modern interface.

Individually as a native plugin or as a module in Amp Room, Mike-E is designed to make it fun for musicmakers to push things to the extreme without brittleness or harshness. The

well known NUKE mode lets users do anything from giving credibility to vocals in a mix with soft-knee compression and warm saturation, to smashing drum room mics.

Meanwhile, Empirical Labs Lil FrEQ is an analogue equalizer/de-esser that rocks a warm yet extremely punchy retro sound in a modern parameter set. Its unique and varied combination of features includes classic EQ sound in a modern parameter set, eight processing sections with independent bypass, and de-essing with a soft knee high-frequency limiter.

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The native software version — again precision-modelled in close collaboration with Dave Derr — is designed to give users all that dynamism along with superior sound quality. There’s no need for a chain of plugins when using an EQ as proficient as Lil FrEQ. Softube has also made a meet-cute for its Console 1 ecosystem featuring both Mike-E and Lil FrEQ. The resulting Trak Pak channel strip offers the well-regarded Console 1 workflow and the ELI sound in one place.

With Lil FrEQ’s de-ess/HF limiter in the Shape Section and Mike-E on the CompSat, Trak Pak is packed with power, punch, character, and warmth. Trak Pak puts to bed the question of how an Empirical Labs console would sound.

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“Trak Pak for Console 1 features a combination of the toasty, fat-sounding Mike-E saturator/ compressor and the punchy Lil FrEQ analogue equalizer/deesser,” say the manufacturers. “It’s an unprecedented product for the Console 1 ecosystem, and the pro audio world in large.”

Finally, the Empirical Labs Complete Collection offers all the new Empirical Labs and Softube products in one bundle, bringing ELI’s analogue sound into the modern, DAW-based studio.

Modelled and fine tuned for mixing professionals and recording engineers, the ELI Complete Collection offers the bold compression and saturation stylings of Mike-E, the complex-power of the

Lil FrEQ equalizer and de-esser, and the punchy Trak Pak channel strip for Console 1.

“We’re really excited about this collaboration because Softube captured the sound, the ease-of-use, and just the general funness of our products,” says Dave Derr, founder of Empirical Labs.

The Softube Empirical Labs Series is available now.

SOFTUBE.COM EMPIRICALLABS.COM

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CCCLARKE In the first few seconds of speaking to CC Clarke (real name Chelsea Clarke), my assumptions of what a beauty influencer might be like to talk to are swiftly corrected. Many may roll their eyes at the thought of someone making a living by happily whacking #ad or #spon under a photo of an indiscriminate product – complete with a tenuous caption explaining why they’re definitely genuine about promoting it (Khloe Kardashian and Febreze, anyone?) – but when top beauty influencers like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner can command a reported $1 million pay check per sponsored Instagram post, suddenly the idea of earning a living this way doesn’t seem quite so funny.

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In this digital world, one can’t deny that influencers are changing the way that companies communicate with scroll-happy customers, and CC is the perfect example of a modern-day star. She was recently named the most influential online beauty influencer by The Sunday Times and has organically grown her Instagram following to over two million with her content. Not to mention she’s a business owner and beauty entrepreneur amassing a huge loyal online following through her YouTube beauty tutorials, and is the CEO of Castaway Beauty and Hot Ombre Cosmetics – both of which are experiencing a meteoric rise and huge growth worldwide.

her daughter is everything to her.

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“Oh, my goodness, I definitely want to continue what I love doing,” she gushes. “I got so many questions like, ‘Oh, you won’t have time to put makeup on when you have a baby’, or ‘I guess you won’t be songwriting anymore once you’re a full time mum’.

At one point, I have to admit I got sucked into this mentality of thinking

A blog CC started in 2015 as a “side hustle” saw her online following grow rapidly, which led her to creating celebrity-inspired looks, make up tutorials on YouTube, and blogging about what she was wearing.

Things really picked up when she was promoting a lip plumper which unexpectedly went viral – she only had 50 left but received almost 20,000 orders in under a week.

Shaking her head at the memory of not capping the order amount, CC shares that every time she tried out a new beauty craze, her following seemed to grow.

Immediately bubbly and endearing on a Zoom call, despite her intimidating online following, CC is completely down to earth and admits that she’s nervous to do her very first podcast interview.

“It was just a side hobby, really,” she remarks, sounding genuinely in awe about how things have taken off. “I didn’t even know that it could be a job, but it ended up turning into a job that I still love to this day and it’s given me the means to be able to be flexible in the studio. It just goes to show how crazy social media is and how much of an opportunity it can give artists these days.”

Welcoming her first child into the world at the end of 2020 (you can follow her whole pregnancy journey – birth and all – online), she is bursting with love for her daughter and is currently getting to grips with juggling motherhood and her online businesses, insisting she’s far from perfect: “I do sometimes think, ‘Oh, don’t look at me, because I don’t have my shiz together today,’” she laughs. “But then telling people that also makes them feel like it’s normal as well, because if I just painted it like it was sunshine and rainbows and daisies every day, it’s unrealistic. I’ll tell you what, each day is a challenge with everything going on as well as having a baby, and if I pretended that it was easy, I think people would get fed up with me pretty quickly. Painting the reality as well as being a voice for positivity and trying to inspire others is definitely important to me.”

Since becoming a mother, CC has been determined to show that she can be a dedicated parent whilst continuing to run her various business empires. Setting a good example for

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CC is very open about the fact that music has always been her true passion. Her musical influences growing up were Prince, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Micheal Jackson, and she began writing poems when she was seven. These turned into songs, and she later attended theatre college, although admits she didn’t exactly stick to the rules:

it’s all gonna be over – all of my passions that I’ve worked so hard for.

“Of course, I’d sacrifice the world for my little girl, but you still want to fulfil your dreams for yourself as well. I snapped out of that as soon as she was born, really. It gave me even more of a motivation to show her that I can still fulfil what I feel like my purpose is when it comes to music, makeup and artistry.”

“I was always the one that was going off script and doing all the ad libs to the songs,” she remembers, chuckling. “It’s just always been music for me; even in the beauty realm I am pairing music with beauty.”

CC has actually been working on her music behind the scenes for years; her debut track, A Little More reached Top 40 in the UK iTunes chart, as well as Top 15 in the iTunes UK Pop Chart, followed

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by Not Playing, which provided an insight into balancing being a strong business woman with being someone that millions of her social media followers can relate to. The track’s main message speaks of female empowerment, something that is at the core of everything CC does.

She says that her followers were surprised when she started to reveal more of her music side, but insists that they are loyal and have been nothing but supportive.

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“People that had just been paying attention to the beauty side of things suddenly had their ears pricked up by the music. I guess you gain followers daily from different places that don’t necessarily know your story,” she considers.

“It’s nice to see the tables turn because now I’m seeing people come from Spotify that have found me as a new artist, and they didn’t realise that I do beauty. And that’s even more amazing to me. That is what I’m

aiming for now: for people to find me through my music as well as knowing my story behind the scenes.”

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BOYS DO CRY CC’s new single is Boys Do Cry – the meaning behind it being fairly self explanatory – although she says it also very much applies to herself, as prior to 2020 she didn’t consider herself to be much of a crier.

“There is a stigma – especially with men and boys – around not talking about their mental health, but the song also applies to anyone with pride, or anyone that doesn’t necessarily talk about their emotions.

I have to admit, I’ve held my pride a lot before in the past, and it’s not been healthy. We have to talk and feel our emotions to actually heal. I just felt compelled to really get this message out, and in a way that felt vulnerable. But also – I don’t want to say it’s light hearted – but it is a song that feels positive at the same time, because it is reassuring: boys do cry – I cry, everyone can cry. Let it all out!

Especially after the year that we’ve had, I feel like it’s more important than ever to really talk to each other and talk about our feelings.”

CC admits that it has been hard making the transition to music from beauty influencer, but her fanbase has been with her every step of the way, fully embracing her new direction: “I feel like if you love beauty, you do love music anyway,” she says. “A few years ago I was advised not to start a blog or start putting out tutorials online if I wanted to be taken seriously in the music realm. I did think, ‘Should I? Shouldn’t I? Will I never get signed?

Will management never take me seriously? Will producers not want to work with me if I’m putting out makeup tutorials?’ However, now I feel like the tables have turned where music artists are actually partnering with these influencers online to give their music exposure, because they know our followers are really interested in music.

“It’s definitely become more acceptable. I think it also depends on how much of a real artist you are as HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“MUSIC WAS ALWAYS MY FIRST PASSION. I AM A SONGWRITER; I WRITE MY SONGS, AND IT’S ALWAYS BEEN MY GOAL.”

well, because music was always my first passion. I am a songwriter; I write my songs, and it’s always been my goal. Whereas I do feel like some influencers just try it out. I’m cheering on anyone that tries it though,” she adds. “I’m just so glad that we’re breaking the boundaries of just doing one thing.”

CC’s diehard beauty fans needn’t worry – she will continue with her online beauty content which will run alongside her music content; hell, she’ll even combine them to give the best of both worlds.

“My dream is to connect the dots, which is definitely quite unique because I don’t know too many beauty influencers, bloggers or artists that have turned their beauty into a joint music and beauty venture [the less said about Kim Kardashian’s single, Jam (Turn It Up), the better].

For me, that is something I would love to do. I look up to artists such as Rihanna or Rita Ora who are doing both. I’ll never stop doing beauty.

If anything, it’s a privilege and an honour to work with beauty brands to incorporate music, or vice versa.”

CC says she’ll never stop writing, and has a few tracks ready that she’s desperate to release this year. In the meantime, she’s thrilled to hear that her music is getting her fans through some tough times.

“I’m sure every music artist wants their music to make people feel absolutely brilliant. When I receive messages saying ‘your music saved me this year; it got me out of a dark place’, I just can’t even describe that feeling when I receive those messages. It’s like I’ve succeeded. That is the main aim: to touch people and to make them feel good,” she concludes before nipping off to care for her baby and create more content – she’s got a business to run, after all.

Consider me influenced.

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PAMUNGKAS Could Pamungkas become the first Indonesian music artist to hit an international breakthrough? That’s certainly what this singer-songwriter and producer is gunning for (he does virtually every single thing himself).

10 years ago, this may have sounded faintly mad, but as the internet advances evermore, it’s not such a crazy ambition that Pamungkas has. Having recently released his third album Solipsism, followed by this year’s Solipsism 0.2, we grabbed a chat about his bid for stardom beyond Southeast Asia.

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Having extensively toured his native continent and with 2 million streams to his name, Pamungkas’ indiepop music reflects his influences that include The Beach Boys, John Mayer, Arctic Monkeys, all the way to Disclosure and Jacob Collier. I ask why Solipsism became the title of his latest albums.

talking about the self, so it’s coming from a very vulnerable place. And for the people who listen to my music, it’s a lot to understand. Not everyone could just casually listen to it. But it does seem to be the right time.”

“I had the idea a long time ago,” Pamungkas says. “I just never knew when the right time was. It takes a lot of bravery as a songwriter to do something so personal. Solipsism is

“Well I like the word,” Pamungkas says. “I think I read it on Twitter or something, and I Googled it to really understand what it means. It sort of explained how I feel towards myself

I ask if he can remember the original hit of inspiration for this esoteric title.

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and my ideas. I was home-schooled and I was half-deaf for 18 years – I didn’t even know, so it was like my family was protecting me from reality.

So it’s about having this idea of what the world is.”

In case you’re scratching your head at this point, the definition of solipsism is: the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. Knowing that Pamungkas is also exploring the thoughts and feelings people keep to themselves, I get him to elaborate on this notion a little (especially when everyone has been spending extra time indoors, meaning far less distractions from those pesky inner-dialogues and emotions we all experience).

“A lot of people assumed these songs were about the lockdown,” he says. “But I started writing this music way before the virus. I’ve been asking these kinds of questions since childhood. ‘Who am I? Where do I go?’ Also the idea that as human beings we can only take care of things that we can control, that has always been in my head too.”

Fittingly, Solipsism’s lead single, Deeper, sees Pamungkas surrounded by mirrors. With this being his most personal musical output yet, I ask if he feels he was holding back on the previous two.

“Solipsism is talking about the self, so it’s coming from a very vulnerable place.”

“The first album was kind of an accident,” he says. “I was a design student at the time and felt like I wasn’t doing what I love. So I decided to give music a try, as I had a set of songs. I didn’t expect

anything, especially a career. I was just doing it out of love and to feel excitement again. So that might be why I didn’t put as much thought into what I wanted to put out back then. It’s always me just riding the wave.”

I mention that the explosion of J-Pop and K-Pop into the US and UK markets have possibly opened some more doors for Indonesian artists looking to expand their horizons.

“For plugins, I’m using a lot of Waves,” he says. “Because I have a limited knowledge of mixing and mastering, what I did was pay a lot of attention to the recording and the micing, adjusting the sound so it’s all in the right places. So when it came to mixing it was only panning and spreading. Center from Waves is one of my favourite plugins. If you know the plugin and listen to my album, you’ll probably be able to see what I mean!

“It’s very exciting for me because I listen to a lot of UK artists,” Pamungkas says. “The UK is almost like the place where I learned music.

I love The Beatles, The Smiths, The Arctic Monkeys. So it means a lot for me to release my music there, and it’s possible now with the internet.

Even just getting to talk to you guys, it’s so nice!”

I enquire about Pamungkas’ studio that he kept himself busy in throughout the lockdown period.

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“In my two previous albums, I didn’t really know how to use a spreader.

So for Solipsism, using Center, I really placed the sounds. So with the bass, for example, I spread it to the left and right and it became the foundation of the song. And then I’d place the guitar on the right, backing vocals on the sides, lead vocal in the middle.”

Speaking to Pamungkas across our separate continents, I’m left greatly hoping he does achieve his dreams of crossing all the ponds he can with HEADLINER MAGAZINE

his music. Solipsism and Solipsism 0.2 are out everywhere now – have a listen, and you’re likely to agree that these are albums that could easily climb the charts of any nation.

PAMUNGKASMUSIC.COM

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ANNA PHOEBE After a substantial violin-playing career for the likes of Roxy Music, supporting Bob Dylan and being heard on programmes such as Peaky Blinders, plus collaborations with such organisations as the WWF and the European Space Agency, you’d perhaps think Anna Phoebe would surely be done adding to her CV at this point. Not quite, as this British violinist has been increasingly unveiling her composing ability with a string of new singles that are haunting, stunning, and hugely progressive. Locked down at her home in Kent, Phoebe chats with Headliner about her sparkly playing career, new music and the interjection between her compositions and science.

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We do begin on a more sombre note, as Phoebe tells me how grateful she is to have been able to continue doing music during this time, whereas so many self-employed musicians have found this period next to impossible.

“It’s been an incredibly tough year for all creators,” she says. “The general public has depended more than ever on music and TV to get through. And yet the arts are so severely underfunded. A lot of musicians I know just fell through the cracks. They’re self-employed, they don’t get furlough. So many shows are cancelled, and there’s no cancellation fee. Most people I know weren’t eligible for any kind of government funding. So I’ve been incredibly lucky to have other projects.”

I mention to Phoebe that I’d wanted to interview her after hearing her string of new singles last year on Mary Anne Hobbs’ show on BBC Radio 6.

“She’s the one who actually sort of encouraged me to release the first single, I didn’t set out to write a solo album this year!” she says. “I had to do something for BBC Kent. Basically, I was putting together a 10-minute package of what life is like in lockdown, and realised the best way I could communicate this would be through music.

“So I went and sat down by the sea and just had a little think. I was feeling really anxious; it was a scary time when no one knew anything. I went back to my studio and sat down and played some chords and I improvised this violin line. And then I bounced it down, sent it off to BBC Kent with me talking.

But then I sent it to Mary Anne Hobbs; she said ‘oh, I want to play this on my show!’ So I named it By The Sea, and then it got a really good reaction from her listeners who are just so amazing and supportive. Mary Anne is so warm and giving too, so I’ve felt so fortunate.”

With the sounds of crashing waves, ambient, spacious chords and Phoebe’s brilliant violin soaring over the top, it truly is music that serves as a healing tonic in the midst of uncertainty and anxiety. And there’s many more singles that have been released since, which she says she hopes will become an album in the near future.

It all coincides with a dizzying array of cultural and scientific institutions requesting pieces from Phoebe – no wonder she needed that gentle push from Mary Anne Hobbs to add more work to her plate. “I was collaborating with the European Space Agency,” she explains.

“And I’ve been commissioned to do music for York Minster for the opening night of York Festival of Ideas. So I’d written all this music as a response to the climate crisis and the observation data that the European Space Agency does.

I’d flown out to where they do the satellite testing. It was a 10-minute piece of music that was performed with the astronaut Tim Peake, and we won an Arthur Clarke award for education outreach.”

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ANNA PHOEBE

Strings Of The Sea

“It’s been an incredibly tough year for all creators; the general public has depended more than ever on music and TV to get through.”

If that sounds like more than enough to keep Phoebe busy, that’s only scratching the surface.

“And also for Cancer Research UK, I wrote a 40-minute ensemble work for choir, strings, piano and violin.

And that was responding to research undertaken at the University of Kent, which goes towards helping cancer and Alzheimer’s research. The research generates these incredible images. It’s like you’re flying through your body on the molecular level, and it looks very galactic. I commissioned artist Skylar Bridges to put together a 40-minute film to accompany, and we premiered it. Sadly a lot of these things had to be cancelled, but they’re definitely in my mind for when we can perform again.”

Phoebe is also on the precipice of releasing her Icons EP, a collection of cinematic covers of songs she grew up with, including David Bowie, Faithless and Tracy Chapman. As you HEADLINER MAGAZINE

can imagine, her instrumental takes on these songs are most special and unique indeed. She’s also very excited that the tracks have “been mastered

by Guy Davie on an original EMI British-made 1970s desk – it spent much of its life in Lagos, Nigeria, and is now in Westbourne Studios at Electric Mastering. The music sounds so warm!”

While Phoebe has quite the array of instruments (violas, mandolins, recorders, and analogue synthesizers to name a few) at her disposal in her studio, I’m keen to ask about what she uses in the box to achieve her wonderful, spacious sound.

“I love Spitfire, and all the SoundToys stuff, plus FabFilter. They’re really fun. I actually just recorded for Spitfire Audio – I don’t think I’m allowed to say which library it is but it’s coming out soon! I do use a lot of their stuff. The Phobos is amazing. So is the British Drama Toolkit. I love the Hans Zimmer Strings

actually; I love the low end on the cello and double bass pizzicatos. It’s all a lot of fun to work with in the beginning stages.”

If your head is spinning at the thought of simultaneously doing the amount of projects that Phoebe is undertaking, don’t worry, you’re not alone. But the perfect remedy for that is to go ahead and listen to the slew of singles she’s been releasing, and then let the music wash over you like the sea in Kent that inspired it.

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138 REBEKKA KARIJORD & JON EKSTRAND

CLIMATE COMPOSERS AM PRO AD

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REBEKKA KARIJORD & JON EKSTRAND rview by te

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It’s often said that teen-activist Greta Thunberg, who has sparked an enormous amount of extra action towards climate change despite her young age, is a living force of nature. How on Earth would one depict her story and achievements musically? This is what Headliner asked of composer duo Rebekka Karijord and Jon Ekstrand, who were tasked with writing the music for the Thunberg documentary, I Am Greta.

Both based in Stockholm, Sweden and having worked together on films before, it seems that the differing backgrounds of Karijord and Ekstrand complement each other fantastically. The Norwegian Karijord is also a singer-songwriter and composer for theatre and dance. The very popular 2009 album The Noble Art of Letting Go saw song placements for BBC and ABC, and she shares here that her next release sees her collaborating with The National’s Dessner brothers.

Swedish Ekstrand, on the other hand, comes from a sound design background and brings his modular synth specialisms to his music. He has scored many films, including 2017’s Life which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson. His big upcoming project is the Jared Leto-starring Morbius, the new Marvel vampire flick.

I mention to these composers that having a scoring partnership is becoming increasingly common.

For example, the highly successful pairings of Dustin O’ Halloran and Volker Bertelmann, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

“I feel that film scoring is made to be teamwork,” Karijord says. “The biggest film composers always have a team; I think you have to have it that way. For example, we’ve divided up some of the cues between us; some things come

easier to me and some things come easier to John and it becomes a synergy. It makes me less selfcritical and everything is more efficient!”

About the opportunity to score I Am Greta (they arrived late in the process as the previous composer was removed from the project), Karijord says that “it felt very important. It definitely didn’t feel like a job. It felt more like a mission of some sort. She (Thunberg) had made an agreement with the production company that they can’t fly to do promo for the film. I try to live pretty climate neutral. But there are definitely parts that are hard when you’re a musician and you have to travel.

“I feel like the big change needs to happen on a government level where there are sanctions and rewards for being climate neutral in a way that’s not in place yet.

Greta’s doing an amazing job, especially waking up the younger people.”

I ask Ekstrand if he feels the film is mostly about Greta Thunberg and her indomitable spirit, or if it’s also largely about the climate crisis, and how he and Karijord sought to capture these things musically.

“I think it’s both,” Ekstrand says.

“I think it’s also drawing on the inspiration we got from each other of being together in the studio and really achieving some nice sounds.

Coming up with stuff on the fly to picture and getting this directness in the sound.”

Karijord was particularly excited to lend her musical skills to this most vital of causes: “I think it’s hard to be political as a musician without being stigmatised or stamped as being something specific, and you’re kind of narrowed into a corner. Of course,

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on a small level, we can bring hope or we can bring comfort, but this felt like a chance to do something bigger than that. Because music is a really powerful tool, and there is amazing imagery of all these children demonstrating and walking in the streets and the music really helps lift that.”

Perhaps on a lighter note, I ask Ekstrand about working on the upcoming Morbius.

“I just came back from L.A. a week ago,” he says. “And we were the first project to record since the lockdown of Sony’s Barbra Streisand stage. Everything was Covid-safe and the whole orchestra was recorded in stages, so for example strings were first. All the players were socially distanced, of course!”

And on whether he fully took the opportunity to be bombastic and over the top with the music, Ekstrand says “you have to be! I mean, it’s a superhero movie. But I really tried to take the approach of ‘what did I appreciate when I was a 13 year old?’ ‘What kind of music did I like for these movies?’ I tried to take the ballsiness of those movies that inspired me as a kid and tried to make something that doesn’t sound like everything else in all the other superhero scores.

I think I managed to do that, in a way. It’s been a great experience, and just to let people know that Matt Smith really steals the show in this one!”

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140 REBEKKA KARIJORD & JON EKSTRAND

Climate Composers

I ask Karijord what’s next for her solo output and she reveals: “I actually have a climate-related record coming out next year with poems by Jessica Dessner. And Bryce and Aaron Dessner (members of acclaimed band The National) contributed to the music so they’re basically the musicians on the album. I’m also keen to release a lot of my instrumental music – I’ve worked a lot on avant-garde projects and political films, queer films, and there’s never been a budget to release the soundtrack. So I’m excited to start releasing that side of my music soon.”

Ekstrand has an enormous collection of vintage analogue and modular synthesizers, but working in film, he often has to balance these sounds out with digital sounds when the old gear doesn’t behave itself.

“They don’t always do what you want,” he says. “But I kind of prefer that because it’s direct and you do everything. You HEADLINER MAGAZINE

stand in front of the synthesizers and you actually turn the knobs live. I love the lucky accidents that come out of them too. But for anything digital, we did rerecord everything with amps to get it a little more lo-fi.

“We use Echoboy and the Decapitator a lot in the film also.

Personally, I use a UAD sound card and all their plugins, and I work in Pro Tools,” adds Karijord.

“We both love the Soundtoys plugins too,” points out Ekstrand. “Filterfreak is on almost every track because, from my electronic music days, just having a high pass or low pass filter on everything means that you can just cut things in the bottom or in the top,” he smiles.

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