Headliner USA Issue 22

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

Paul Watson CEO

Keith Watson Chairman

Rian Zoll-Kahn COO

Amit Patel Managing Director

Alice Gustafson Editor-in-Chief

Adam Protz Senior Writer

Liz Wilkinson Content and Communications Manager

Rick Dickerson Reviews Editor

Marc Henshall Head of Digital

Grace Mcguigan Artist Relations Manager

Rae Gray Head of Design

In pictures: Headliner’s Pre-NAMM JAMM event. Photos by Michelle Shiers.

Congratulations! If you’re reading this that must mean we’ve made it to day 75 of January. The month that refuses to end has brought a lot so far, certainly, but we’ll stick to music and audio here.

NAMM, one of the biggest music and audio shows on the calendar, faced an unfathomable predicament this year due to the L.A. wildfires, but the show must go on, as they say. And it did – attendees and exhibitors still made the journey to the Anaheim Convention Center in droves (yes, including Stevie Wonder). Official stats point to a successful show against the odds: over 63,000 attendees (up on last year’s 62,282) and 1,850+ exhibitors representing over 4,400 brands, also higher than last year’s 1,600+ exhibitors.

And it wasn’t just the show vibes that were good. This year, Headliner – partnering with LD Systems and sponsored by DiGiCo, Sontronics and Sonical – hosted a Pre-NAMM JAMM party, bringing together some special live performances and crucial industry networking.

But there’s no rest for the wicked –at the time of writing, ISE is literally days away and those forced to choose between California and Barcelona (and any that did both shows; bravo!) will be frantically seeking out a printer that works and heading off for the Fira de Barcelona Gran Via – badge in hand – to weave themselves between the 1,600 exhibitors across a 92,000m² show floor. ISE 2024 was the most successful edition in its 20-year history. Will 2025 top that?

Also in January, let’s not forget TikTok going dark for a few hours in the U.S. before the ban was miraculously reversed, leading so-called ‘TikTok refugees’ to flock to the – ironically – Chinese-owned RedNote for their social media fix.

Back over to L.A., and The GRAMMYS are almost upon us, with Beyoncé leading the nominations with 11. Will 2025 see the most GRAMMY Award-winning artist of all time finally secure Album of the Year, or could it go to Billie Eilish, Charli xcx or Chappell Roan?

Back to the present, and we hope you enjoy the latest issue of Headliner, which sees us catch up with NAMM president and CEO John Mlynczak about this year’s show; fresh off the back of its two Golden Globe Awards, Baby Reindeer’s sound supervisor Catherine Grieves delves into the show’s music choices; veteran composer Mark Mancina reveals how he scored Juror #2 and Moana 2; and Catherine Anne Davies opens up about the art of creation, plus much more.

Enjoy!

Alice Gustafson Editor-in-Chief

By Alice Gustafson

Dan Gumble

By Alice Gustafson

Mancina:

By Adam Protz

GENEVIEVE STOKES WITH A LIGHTNING STRIKE

Since teasing her single, Mean Guy, online, Genevieve Stokes’ fans let the alt-pop singer-songwriter and pianist know that they were more than ready to get hurt by her music again. The teaser swiftly racked up over 6.3 million views, and the comments from fans eager to hear the track in its entirety ranged from, “Ready to be utterly destroyed by this song,” to, “I’m staying alive just for this to drop,”. Stokes reads them all.

“They’re really funny,” she says from her home in Maine, a few weeks before her debut album, With A Lightning Strike, releases. “I mean, some of them are kind of concerning, but I think it’s intended to be a joke,” she smiles. “They’re passionate! It’s really sweet and it’s so funny. It’s always random; that song wasn’t even finished and I put up a verse that was literally recorded on my phone, and that’s the thing that does well? But I love that,

and I love that song. It’s my most recent song I’ve written and so I’m happy people are liking it.”

Stokes first taught herself piano at the age of eight. Spending her teen years developing her own unique sound, she was inspired by iconic female musicians like Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor and, encouraged by her father, would perform at open mic nights aged just nine years old.

“My dad was my biggest fan growing up,” she beams. “He would bring me to any open mic and post my songs on YouTube. They weren’t good, but he saw something in me and I was so excited to share what I had to say at that age. Regina Spektor was my first big inspiration. In those early recordings and open mics, I’m pretending to have a Russian accent, because I was so obsessed that I mimicked everything that she did.”

Stokes initially attracted attention for her intimate yet lush approach to alternative pop, amassing over 7M streams all before releasing her angsty, nostalgic 2021 EP, Swimming Lessons, bolstered by standout tracks, Surface Tension, Parking Lot, and Running Away. Recorded in a cabin just a stone’s throw from the 23-yearold artist’s childhood home, the critically acclaimed project went on to earn over 38M streams worldwide, which was followed by EP, Catching Rabbits, whose lead single, Habits,

went viral on TikTok.

“I was actually really anxious about it,” she admits of the moment she realised the song was going viral online. “I was really excited, and I had been wanting a moment like that, but I was also mentally in a really weird space,” she considers. “There was a lot of stuff in my personal life that wasn’t great, so it was a weird juxtaposition of extreme excitement and feeling really sad and confused. I kind of wish I dealt with it better, because I just wanted to disappear, but I love that song. I’m really happy that so many people got to hear it and still listen to it.”

Stokes’ eagerly awaited debut album, With A Lightning Strike, is available now via Atlantic Records. Stokes shares that she spent over a year writing songs in her parents garage and recording out of airbnbs with her close friends. “With a Lightning Strike represents so many experiences and

phases of my life, and it’s almost painfully personal at times,” she discloses. “For the first time in my career, my sound and vision is entirely clear and true to me. I wanted it to feel really cinematic and extreme. I love when songs are really intense and vibrant in their own ways. Each song was an experiment to see how far I could go in each direction and to really lean into whatever the meaning or the feeling of the song was.”

Stokes shares that she also took inspiration for the album from her favorite Tarot card: The Tower, which is associated with disruptive revelation and destructive change.

“It’s all about upheaval. It’s a very scary card because it usually represents a traumatic event that changes your perspective on reality,” she nods, “but it’s also a super transformative card. It’s visually beautiful and I’m very drawn to it, so I wanted to create my own version of the Tower card, but to convey Maine. So the tower is a lighthouse, and there’s lightning in the distance. I wanted to capture that moody, dark, cinematic world, while still grounding it in Maine.”

Co-produced by longtime collaborator Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Paul McCartney), With A Lightning Strike is a darker take on Stokes’ search for childhood whimsy than her previous releases, with the Portland, Maine native returning to her hometown to capture the vibrancy she had been seeking. When she wasn’t in L.A. with Berg, Stokes worked on much of the album with her friends on the East Coast, like drummer Fiona Stocks-Lyons and her music director Pete Cafarella, who played synth and bass on the album. The first single from the album was euphoric earworm, Dreamer, which Stokes shares captures the feeling of summer ending.

“I was reflecting on how August kind of feels like a Sunday afternoon,” she says. “There’s a sadness to it, but it’s also such a beautiful time of year. I wanted to write something kind of upbeat, but also a little sad. It’s actually one of the most upbeat songs I’ve ever written,” she insists. “It’s a very fun song, but the lyrics are still kind of depressing,” she shrugs.

In fact, Stokes is fully aware that her wheelhouse is more confined to sad girl bangers, although she insists she’s not a melancholy person. “I write a lot of dark music and things that are very heavy,” she agrees, “so in my free time, I listen to a lot of lighter rap music and things that feel very different and refreshing. When I’m writing on piano, I gravitate towards more emotional chords; I don’t really gravitate towards making happier, upbeat music. I do enjoy it, but it doesn’t feel as authentic to me. Music has always been a way of expressing emotions for me, or dealing with things that I’m struggling with, so it’s more natural to write sad music or to write things that strike a nerve, you know? But I love listening to music that’s happy and upbeat. I just can’t write it,” she laughs.

Dreamer was followed by the hauntingly spare single, God, which Stokes describes as the “hangover of emotions when you accept the meaninglessness of life,”. She acknowledges that it sounds fairly melodramatic.

“It sounds so much more intense than in my mind!” she laughs. “This song was written when a lot of horrible things were happening in my personal life and I was feeling really lost and wondering if life had any meaning…. but at the same time, there’s a hopefulness to the chords. I created this piano melody that feels very positive to me and there’s this whimsy to the song that, even though I’m saying negative things, I’m still addressing God as if it’s a real thing. Even though I’m denying the feeling of purpose, I’m still acknowledging that there is some inherent awareness and purpose to life because we’re experiencing it. I wrote it to comfort myself through feeling alone and in that process, I realized that I created my own purpose, and that the meaninglessness of my life was kind of beautiful in a way. It’s a sad song, but it also is very positive, to me. I also wanted it to feel childlike in the approach, because at the core of it, we’ve been asking those questions since childhood, and it never really changes. I wanted the song to feel very simplistic and straight to the point, because that’s just how it is. That’s how life feels, and those childlike questions never really leave us.”

The album’s lead track is Desert Eagle, a track name shared with a song from Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, although, with an entirely different meaning, she points out. “I did know that we shared a song name,” she nods. “It’s very cool. I feel honored! They’re very different songs. I just kept singing [desert eagle] when I was writing the song. I just liked the way that it sounded, honestly. I was thinking of a bird circling and a desolate field or a desert, and the desert being empty and alone…God, I sound so morbid!” she laughs again. “This is the one outlet that I use to be very sad! I liked the image of a desert eagle. And it’s not about the gun,” she clarifies.

On her favorite track from With A Lightning Strike, she takes a moment to consider: “I cycle through a few different ones, but right now, Lost Forever Now is one of my favorites. And Amusing, which comes out pretty soon.”

With a few viral songs already under her belt, Stokes shares that she avoids thinking about the numbers in terms of what is viewed as a success or a hit song. “I never let myself think about that with the numbers,” she admits. “I probably should care, because I’m signed to a label, but that doesn’t really affect me. Also, it doesn’t mean anything here,” she adds. “I live in Maine and I live at my parents house and I literally hang out with my siblings and my three friends. I’m really grateful for it, but it doesn’t affect my daily life in any way. I mean, that’s not true entirely,” she corrects herself, “because I get to go on tour and I get to make music for a living and I feel very grateful, but I just don’t think about it really. It’s so abstract right now, but I’m sure it’ll feel more real in the future when I’m on tour…” she trails off. “I remember my monthly listeners went from 300,000 to 3 million, and I was like, ‘Oh my God’. It brought in a lot of new listeners and it broadened who’s listening to my music a lot. It created a solid fan base of people for me. This past year has been such a strange time. I don’t want it to get in the way of creating a really stable body of work.”

In terms of performing live and expressing herself through music, Stokes explains what the phrase Play out Loud means to her: “Playing live is such an important part of writing music, because it’s the connection, and I make music to connect with people. When I’m playing live, I get to see people’s faces. I get to connect with them in ways that I would never really imagine.”

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‘THIS IS THE TRUE

RETURN OF NAMM’

From January 21-25 2025, the annual NAMM Show returned to the Anaheim Convention Centre for an extended extravaganza of MI and pro audio exhibits, networking opportunities, educational sessions, and a lorryload more to boot. Headliner caught up with president and CEO, John Mlynczak ahead of the show to delve into his second NAMM at the helm, and the trends set to shape the industry in 2025.

“This is the true return of NAMM,” an exuberant John Mlynczak asserts at one stage during what proves to be a far-reaching conversation with Headliner just over two months out from opening day. It feels like an accurate assertion. Since 2020, the NAMM Show, like much of the industry, has been in a state of flux, with brands, businesses, musicians, and indeed, trade shows desperately trying to regain a sense of prepandemic normality.

In the case of NAMM, it’s taken four years to return fully to familiar territory. A digitally driven remote iteration of the show was the order of the day in 2021, while in-person versions in 2022 and 2023 were held in the discombobulating months of June and April respectively, as the event took a staggered path back towards its natural home on the industry calendar. And while 2024’s outing did indeed take place in January, plans for it were taking place 12-18 months in advance.

NAMM 2025, therefore, is in many ways the closest to a pre-pandemic NAMM that the industry has

seen. Organisers, attendees, and exhibitors have been able to prepare in a more stable environment, despite the challenges presented by the L.A. fires.

“After four years of disruption we have all the brands back and they’re all back in a new and innovative way,” Mlynczak beams via Zoom from his office in Carlsbad, California, as he fills us in on what can be expected from this year’s show. “Two years ago, we were talking to the brands that might not have exhibited in ‘24, but we were still having conversations about what the future of trade shows looked like. What is the value of setting up shop for three days on an exhibit floor in a world where products are 360 camera angle-designed and put out on YouTube?”

“What we’ll see, and what we’re excited about, is a show that is representative of the industry today and in the future. We have three days of exhibits – Thursday, Friday, Saturday – and we’re opening earlier than usual on Tuesday, because we know a lot of people

show up on Tuesday anyway. And we’re offering more education - more brand education for the first time - several sessions where exhibitors that might just be setting up and going to grab dinner can learn about branding, marketing, AI, and all those hot topics.”

“We also have global media Wednesday, which will see a full day of education sessions and bands, and lots of other content. So, we’re trying to thoughtfully plan out a sequence: show up Tuesday morning, leave Sunday morning, and it’ll be nonstop. Both Tuesday and Wednesday will have networking opportunities so people can come in and find who they want to connect with and build those relationships early. Then by Thursday, Friday, and Saturday on the floor, you’re hitting it running. That’s going to be really exciting.”

EVOLUTION AND EXPANSION

In 2025, despite the fires, Mlynczak brought his vision for the NAMM Show to fruition without diverting too far from the template that has made it such a hit for over a century. Last year marked his first outing as president and CEO since the departure of his predecessor Joe Lamond, who had served in the role for two decades. Now, with his first two shows under his belt, Mlynczak is working to evolve and expand the show without compromising its essence.

“How do you evolve something that has worked because it’s been so traditional?” he ponders aloud. “I think the first thing is don’t break the core. One thing we’re doing is evolving around the edges. I worked in software before this and there’s an agile mentality that I work with when I think about this.

“Do a small test - a calculated experiment - and fail fast. Then test a little bit more. It’s easier to scale success than try to build success at scale. So, we’re taking that approach with the show. First, we strengthen the core. When you see the big brands back, a lot of them may have a small display for people to hang around and see instruments and their brand story. But they have another area where they want to do core business - those backroom meetings with their dealers, distributors, international suppliers. That is the core of NAMM being a trade show; a non-public trade show where business happens. We protect that first and foremost. That’s the nucleus.

“Then all of a sudden, you might get atoms or electrons

flying around,” he continues. “That’s where the buzz happens. And we must be careful. We want to create buzz and evolution with influencers and brand experiences, but they’re calculated, controlled experiments. If they work, we’ll scale them in the future. If they don’t, the damage is contained. That’s how you evolve something so traditional.”

This strategy has also been implemented on an internal level across the NAMM organization.

“We’ve made internal structure changes,” says Mlynczak. “As a team, we have to be more nimble. We’re inviting our brands to challenge us. And we don’t want to tell them we can’t do something because we don’t have the internal team to make it happen, or we can’t leverage our partners at the convention center or the hotels to create a certain space. We have to say yes.

“At the time of this conversation we are nine weeks from the 2025 show and we are still talking to brands: ‘You want to try this? Let’s try that.’ We have to be able to move faster so we can test, try, succeed early, or fail fast. That shapes how we approach the future of the show. We always come back true to trade, but on the outside, we have to be creative, quick, and able to take risks.”

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

On the subject of maintaining the trade core of the NAMM Show, Mlynczak is quick to highlight and contextualize projected attendance figures for NAMM 2025. Prior to the pandemic, the show was notching up attendance figures in excess of 100,000. In the wake of Covid, those numbers have inevitably taken a hit, and Mlynczak is in no rush to drive those figures back up purely for the sake of it. As he puts it, the onus is very much on bringing in the right visitors, as opposed to simply making up the numbers.

“I could get 100,000 people to the show, no problem,” he states. “I can get 150,000. Anaheim can’t take that many of course, but we could in theory. A lot of people may say, ‘Oh, 2020 brought in 115,000 people’. This year our goal is 75,000. We could sit around with our board and our members and make a strategy to say, ‘I want all these people at the show’. But we’re not doing that. And not because we don’t love musicians.

“The show is designed to strengthen these companies who pay to exhibit because they want stronger businesses. And the business strength comes from a perfect balance of all

their dealers, all their international distributors, all their key partners. Of course, there are high-level influencers, artists, the future generation, and entrepreneurs. But you need the right mix of all that. So, we’re not flooding it with a bunch of consumers. Nothing wrong with consumers, but our job is not to be a consumer show and sell instruments. Our job is to create brand demand so that for the other 360 days of the year, our companies can sell products to consumers.”

Likewise, NAMM is not defined by a few days in Anaheim at the start of each year. As an association, it is working year-long to service its members and the industry as a whole. So what kind of trends has Mlynczak seen over the past 12 months? And what impact are they likely to have on the year ahead?

“What we’re seeing right now is 2025 being the year of stability,” he observes. “During Covid, pro audio and live music all stopped. School music skyrocketed. And then guitars and home pianos skyrocketed when people were at home and wanted something to do. They bought Pelotons and ukuleles, right? But in

’22 and ‘23 we had over-inventory. And all of live touring is skyrocketing. Everything else is stabilizing.

“It almost looks like a stock market graph. Sometimes it’s smooth and sometimes up and down. But after you get through five years of up, down, up, down, you can draw a trend line and say, OK, we ended up here. That’s where we are. Everything we’re seeing says 2025 is the year of stability. The ups and downs have stopped. A lot of retailers were overinventoried on certain categories, and then interest rates went up. So, you’re sitting on a lot of inventory with high interest rates. All of that has settled down. We’re seeing retailers reporting they’re sitting on seven months’ inventory, not 18.

“We’re looking at Q4 sales across the US and other continents and looking at where consumer behaviors are going to go. A lot of people are still being conservative with their dollars - we’re not going to see categories jumping or declining.”

I was like, ‘Oh God, good luck following Joe Lamond! Some schmuck’s going to have a hard time here [laughs]’. And then people started saying, ‘John, you should apply’. My first reaction was no way! Imposter syndrome; I’m not good enough; I’m not old enough. But then more people said, go for it. So, I thought, fine, I’ll go for it.

“I told the committee, ‘I love this, but NAMM, in a lot of ways, could be more forward thinking’. An industry association needs to propel an industry forward. And if you look at any industry, sometimes associations react to their industry. It’s easy to be reactive to or representative of an industry, but you look at Gary Shapiro [CEO, Consumer Technology Association], that’s when you push an industry forward. That’s what we want to do. We’re here to push the industry forward. That’s what jazzes me. And I think I’m the right person at the right time.”

With a heaving schedule to return to, we have just enough time to ask Mlynczak if he has any words of advice for those attending NAMM for the first time.

Mlynczak’s deep knowledge of the market and his meticulous approach to developing NAMM as a show and an organization is underpinned by a lifelong love of music. And it is this combination of business acumen and an understanding of the passion that drives the industry that fuels his approach to the role of president and CEO.

“It’s so funny, even hearing that title still, it’s just a dream come true,” he smiles. “Music changed my life. I’ve been playing music since as long as I can remember. As a kid there was always something - a guitar, a piano at home, and just banging on my mom’s Tupperware when I was four years old. I did a career summit last night and was talking about my path, and I’m like, ‘I just played music’. I wanted to

be a music teacher; I wanted to be a musician. By 23 years old I had a music education degree, I had a master’s in music, I’m gigging, playing trumpet all over Louisiana. I’m living and teaching during the day, gigging at night. And then it was like, where do I go from here?

“That’s when I did a second master’s in educational administration. I got involved in some education advocacy work at the State Department and started thinking about how we take music technology and broader music curricula and create more music makers through teaching programs about non-traditional music paths. That propelled me into a job at PreSonus and later with Hal Leonard Publishing and their tech divisions. “When the NAMM job came up,

“Make a plan and know when to throw it out,” he says with a laugh. “You come to NAMM knowing the opportunities that exist, and you leave with opportunities you never knew existed before. Make a plan but don’t stick so closely to it that you don’t go through a new door that opens. There are so many opportunities. Go down every path a few steps. You will find things you didn’t know existed.”

NAMM.ORG

THE SONIC ARCHITECT BEHIND MUSIC’S GREATEST HITS

GEORGE MASSENBURG

Famed audio engineer George Massenburg is one of the most decorated names in the world of audio, whether it’s the Grammy awards he has scooped, or the names such as Earth Wind and Fire, Toto, Herbie Hancock, Philip Glass, or the four hundred plus records he has worked on over the decades. Massenburg chats to Headliner about his fascinating and storied career, some of the highlights of his time as an audio engineer, and about his interlinked relationship with Genelec studio monitors.

To give an idea of the enormous breadth of artists Massenburg has worked with, his clients have included Linda Ronstadt, Little Feat, Lyle Lovett, Aaron Neville, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Natasha Bedingfield, Arlo Guthrie, Billy Joel, the Dixie Chicks, and many, many more. He has four Grammy awards to his name, including his Grammy for Technical Achievement in 1998, which made him only the 17th person to scoop the coveted distinction.

“I was brought up immersed in music,” Massenburg says. “My earliest

memories growing up in both the north and the south of the US were musical experiences. I was brought up in part in Macon, Georgia, where Otis Redding came from, and my earliest memories of music were classical music from my mother taking us to the symphony orchestra in Baltimore, Maryland, and in Macon, turning on the radio and just hearing the most amazing sounds coming out of early 1950s R&B. I was drawn to the clarity and detail of the music, trying to deconstruct what I was listening to. Were those timpani or trombones?”

Before studying audio engineering more formally, Massenburg was already gaining experience working in music studios and electronics labs at 15 years of age. He remembers: “I was a tinkerer, and just loved sticking my finger in electric sockets. I was never very good at formal education, dropping out of Johns Hopkins after a year and a half. I correctly figured at the time that I knew more than the professor, and went to work in a recording studio at 16.”

With Massenburg growing up loving classical music and early R&B, and the fact he is known to work with huge (in size as well as success) groups like Earth Wind And Fire and Toto, it seems a fair assumption that Massenburg is particularly drawn to working with larger ensembles.

“I’m drawn to musicians playing together – good musicians who listen and have an ensemble sound,” he nods. “When overdubbing came surging into our lives after the ‘60s, and fixing things in more of a technical way rather than leaving it to natural, musical expression, it

got away from what I really loved — which was musicians in a room bouncing ideas off of each other.”

This would also explain why the likes of contemporary composer Philip Glass and legendary jazz icon Herbie Hancock have become such frequent collaborators for Massenburg. He explains: “What’s really important to me is investigating what music is and putting it into words. Philip Glass and Herbie Hancock are both incredibly idiosyncratic musicians. I worked on one of the worst records of my life with Herbie, but he was patient and kind, even as we experimented with his vocals. He was trying to emulate the great pop singers of the time when we worked together.

“I’ve learned a lot from working with great lyricists and understanding the poetry of music. Linda Ronstadt, who I worked with for 35 years, taught me how to judge a great song and bring it to life in many different forms. She excelled in various genres, from Mariachi to foreign languages, and always knew how to get to the heart of the music.”

Massenburg has a uniquely reciprocal relationship with Genelec studio monitors, and switching to the company’s speakers has been very impactful in his own work, and in turn, he has also become a big part of the Genelec story. He was offered to test a pair of 1031As in the early ‘90s, which he mixed a few records on. He was sufficiently pleased to appear on a Genelec poster with the quote, “This is the first time I changed my monitors in 10 years,” which gave the monitors a solid boost in sales.

“Mick Guzauski and I had discovered the Tannoy SRM 10B 10-inch coaxial speakers,” he says. “I made many records on Tannoys, but the midrange was often mystical at best, vague and indecipherable. I started hearing a broader range with the first Genelec 1031As, followed by the 1032s. I made a fuck tonne of records on Genelecs and realized they accurately defined the boundaries of the sound I was going for.

“I’ve been friends with the Genelec team for over 40 years, even doing favors for Ilpo Martikainen [founder of Genelec]. I learned a lot about running a company from Ilpo. He measured Genelec’s success by the success of his community in his hometown. Every place you went, you’d see a Genelec speaker. He was a serious man and experimenter. I learned a lot from him and love the whole team.”

As you can imagine, trends and technology shifted a lot in this timeframe, but Massenburg continued to opt for Genelec as his main pair of studio monitors.

“I MADE A F**K TONNE OF RECORDS ON GENELECS AND REALISED THEY ACCURATELY DEFINED THE BOUNDARIES OF THE SOUND I WAS GOING FOR.”

“As the industry shifted away from high-resolution listening, a certain segment of people continued to require the Genelec level of quality in their products. And so over the years, things that were once considered arcane, like the design of filters and the idea that analog crossovers were necessary for good loudspeakers, have evolved. Genelec embraced digital filters, recognizing their advantages over analog in terms of design and stability. Their products have significantly improved over time.”

Massenburg has used Genelec’s 8361s when working at the legendary Blackbird Studio in Nashville, a hallowed space that has had Stevie Nicks, Taylor Swift, Jack White, Bon Jovi,

and countless other famous names using its recording facilities.

“At Blackbird Studio in Nashville, we have the 8361s, and I think some others. When we started there with this idea of diffusion, my first choice was Genelec.

‘I love Billy and the guys at ATC, and it’s still a fine loudspeaker, but you would really hear the strength of the Genelec proposition in Blackbird Studio C with a 16-channel system. It’s otherworldly.”

Finally, no one will be surprised to hear Massenburg is adding yet another varied string to his bow, as his credits grow ever stronger. “I’m

working with a video game company to mix their orchestral version of all their video game tracks. It’s a great orchestral tour, with fantastic arrangements, originally recorded in Tokyo with talented Japanese musicians,” he smiles.

GENELEC.COM

MASSENBURG.COM

LIFE AFTER THE VOICE

GINA ZO

In this Emerging Headliner interview powered by JBL, rising LGBT+ rock sensation and The Voice contestant Gina Zo shares she is ready for a new beginning with her band Velvet Rouge, who recently released their debut EP. Her reason for signing up for The Voice? Sticking it to the man.

“It actually is kind of a silly story,” laughs a high-spirited and animated Zo from her home in L.A. “I grew up when American Idol was at its peak and my mom always said that I should audition. But to this day, I still feel that I want my career to come about because of something I did. For some reason, I felt like if I go on a show and they get me famous, or they get me a career, I didn’t do anything – which is not true. But when I was 17 when my mom was encouraging me, that’s what it felt like.”

Zo recalls that her mindset changed in an instant when she was on a school trip: “When I was in high school, I was in the choir and I was going on a field trip. I forgot my permission slip and my choir teacher – she was terrifying – to say the least, she let me go on the trip, but she was pissed! I remember being like, ‘I’m gonna show her that I can do it and that I can be big’. So right there on the bus, I’m on my phone and I sign up for auditioning for The Voice. Honestly, that’s really

what it was,” she laughs, shaking her head at the memory. “Yes, my mother encouraged me over and over, so it was also that, but it was my choir teacher being a jerk that did it, and rightfully so, because I didn’t sign a permission slip. She could have got sued if I died, right? But at 17, you don’t really care about that! I just wanted to say F-you to the man, which was my choir teacher.”

Zo did just that, easily securing a spot on Team Blake Shelton aged 17, although her time on the show proved to be short lived, with no clips available online to prove she was there. “They montaged me!” she says in mock outrage. “That was probably the only thing that really ruined me, because you’re there for so long and you’re working so hard, but they can only fit so much in the show that airs, so I totally get it, but I was 17. I thought, ‘Oh, great. So that was all worth absolutely nothing’. That was my perspective back then. Now it literally does not matter, but I wish I had the tapes...”

Beginning her music career as a teenager on a national stage,

Zo’s journey to rock stardom has been anything but easy. After The Voice, the young singer-songwriter was pressured to conform and compromise her artistic integrity, and made the difficult decision to quit the industry and opted to pursue other passions such as photography and fashion. It would be a while before she found her way back to music with Velvet Rouge.

“I learned so much about myself on The Voice,” she reflects. “I still didn’t know if I wanted to be a singer. I didn’t really know what it took. I didn’t grow up around people in the music industry. So that, off the bat, was weird to me. But what I will say is it completely changed my

outlook of wanting to be a singer,” she furthers. “I realised I’m good enough to be a star, frankly. I really felt that way based on how the producers were talking to me, how Blake Shelton was talking to me and how my vocal coach on the show was talking to me. They were, like, ‘You’ve got it; you can absolutely do this’. So my confidence in who I was going to become, or am still becoming, completely changed. It was like, ‘I’m good enough. There is something special here, and I should use the power that I’m only 17. I have so much to offer, and I have so much time to do it’. I finally felt like I knew what my calling was in life, and it was to be a performer.”

“I’M PAVING THE LANDSCAPE OVER. I’M DOING IT ALL OVER. IF I’M GOING IN, I’M GOING ALL IN.”

After some time away, Zo found herself being called back to making music with a new outlook and sense of self. She formed her band Velvet Rouge and set out to make a name for them in Philadelphia’s vibrant music scene. “It is so different from what I was doing on The Voice,” she says of the band’s musical direction.

After her time on The Voice, Zo signed a small record deal in Philadelphia, but was still making music that she did not like. “I was not happy with what I was doing, and for two years I was in that contract,” she shares. “At the time, I slightly enjoyed the music, but I knew it wasn’t right. I knew there was something missing about it. The Voice was fantastic, but after it, men in the music industry made me feel like, as an 18 and 19 year old, that I had no power. I had no choice in who I wanted to be – nothing,” she stresses. “I was just a person that signed a

contract. I can’t even relate to that music anymore. It was never really what I was trying to say, so I stopped doing music for a while.”

After taking some time to reflect, Zo knew that the only way that music could work for her was if she did it her own way. “When I came back to music, I was like, ‘I am doing this exactly how I always wanted it to be,” she nods. “I’m paving the landscape over. I’m doing it all over. If I’m going in, I’m going all in. I am balls to the wall going all in. This music is nothing like what I have been doing before. It’s a lot more of what I’ve always wanted to say.”

Velvet Rouge’s debut EP was released last year. Recorded with Brian McTear and Amy Morrissey (War On Drugs, Sharon Van Etten, Kurt Vile, Dr. Dog), the band’s raw and unrestrained fivesong EP is a throwback to early 2000s

pop and ‘90s rock music, and its selftitled nature is a statement all of its own. “I wanted it to just stand alone,” she clarifies. “I wanted it to be the intro to the band, so that everything that follows this release, people can come back to this record and they can say, ‘This is who they are, foundationally’. Everything else is a development of that foundation.”

Each track takes on one of the essential life elements: Lonely Since The Day We Met (Earth); Trial (Space); I Don’t Know Why (Air/Wind); Shattered (Fire); and When Did I Become (Water).

“When I’m making concepts while writing, for all the songs I think about, ‘How am I going to tell everyone about this record? How am I going to show it visually in all of the music videos?’. I was trying to figure out what really stands with all of this,” she considers. “I’m such a visual person in terms of colors and photos, so the elements felt so true to what it is. Every song felt like either a fiery moment or very liquidy or very wind blown and what you would listen to when you’re driving in a car just free and flying. They all stood in their own element and it made sense to me.”

In terms of her favorite track on the EP, Zo doesn’t hesitate: “It’s called I Don’t Know Why,” she asserts. “I wrote it about a meeting I had with a major label; they cancelled the meeting on me and then they ghosted me. I was destroyed, but I wrote this song out of it, and it’s easily the best song I’ve ever written. It’s one of those earworm songs. You’re gonna hear it and then you’ll know,” she grins. “It’s that powerful. My mom never cries about my music and the moment she heard the first line, she broke down in tears –it really is that good!

“I don’t usually act that way about my own music, in terms of being that positive at how great something is, but this song is so good.”

Inside her home, Zo shares that she gets ideas down in her studio space, where she’s been using an AKG P220 microphone, K240 MKII headphones and a pair of JBL 305P MKII powered studio monitors, the latter which she remarks are a substantial upgrade to her usual method of working on tracks. “In general, I’m recording into my phone and hearing it back through the phone, so it’s never that great, as you can guess,” she admits. “Being able to actually engulf yourself in the sound is really important to me, because I blast music in my car, so if I can sit in my home studio space and feel like the producer and feel like I’m in the song and I’m in that moment, that’s really important.

“When I’m doing demos and when I’m trying to create something, these studio monitors completely change it. I’m actually able to hear what a mix sounds like. You feel like you’re in a studio at your home. It’s a game changer for feeling comfortable writing the song, and that ultimately is what ends up making a good song: that you wrote it in a space that you felt good in.”

On the AKG P220, Zo has finally found a microphone that suits the dynamics of her voice: “Growing up, I didn’t really understand what made a good microphone,” she says. “I would just think that every microphone is good enough – I had no idea! It is special being able to use a mic that actually can pick up the loudness of my voice, which is a key problem. I have a very loud voice, which I can control, but you want to belt a song out, and I don’t want the mic clipping. If I can be at home, I want to have the best, and if I can have the best while I’m writing a demo, the song is going to turn out pretty damn good. If I can hear how I’m really going to sound in all the levels of who I am as a singer, it’s going to be a game changer. This absolutely has changed the way I record demos at home.”

The AKG professional over-ear, semiopen headphones deliver a wide dynamic range, increased sensitivity and high sound levels, which have also made an impression on Zo: “I’m a serial in-ear person when I’m in the studio, so what I mean by that is

that I don’t have custom ear moulds, but I have ones that go over my ears and stick in because often I find the big headphones to be so annoying, and these AKGs have been so much better!

“I don’t need to use my little in-ear monitors for the rest of my life. It’s about that feeling of being engulfed in the sound, and that’s really what they do – they set me into my space and into the mindset and the vision where I’m able to create. I need to have a perfect sonic space, so to wear these headphones and be able to close my eyes and create is really important. I replay the song over and over and I develop these little moments throughout the songs, so it is important that I can do that with quality headphones,” she smiles.

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THE ART OF CREATION Words bY

B EL

CATHERINE ANNE DAVIES

Multi-talented songwriter, producer, and musician Catherine Anne Davies, aka The Anchoress, speaks to Headliner about her illustrious career as a collaborator and an artist in the studio and on the stage with the likes of Simple Minds and the Manic Street Preachers, as well as her campaigning work to make the music industry a more inclusive ecosystem.

How are you and where are you joining us from?

I am joining you today from my little studio which is in my house. I’m trying not to put the heating on, waiting for the equipment to warm up the room. One of the joys of having lots of analog gear is that you don’t need to put the radiators on!

In previous interviews we’ve focused largely on your artist work as The Anchoress but today we wanted to look at all the things you do outside of that project. One of those being your songwriting and production work with other artists. When did you first start writing with others?

It very much came before The Anchoress project. I always thought of myself as someone who wanted to make records rather than somebody who wanted to be on stage performing. My own artist project was an accidental result of it being one of the very few avenues that was acceptable for women at the time - to

“I THINK WHAT’S INHERENT TO THE ANCHORESS PROJECT IS ITS ECLECTICISM.”

be in that world, to be in a recording studio, you had to have your own project to record, whereas I was always very interested in the mechanics of recording itself.

I still don’t drive because I was given the option of driving lessons for my 18th birthday or a multi-track recorder, and this was before I was songwriting. I opted for the multi-track recorder because I was really interested in the idea of how records were made. I started to teach myself the rudiments very quietly while I was at university and my first foray into being a producer was recording other people’s projects, ranging from indie bands to a project called East End Cabaret which was a friend of mine who was doing this really off the wall cabaret show. They wanted some recordings so they could sell some CDs of their shows. It’s been a series of accidents that have led to all of the things that have happened in my career.

The first professional co-writing job that I had was with a producer and writer called Paul Statham (Kylie, Dido) etc. and he asked me to come on board what he described as a dark country project called The Dark Flowers. He asked me to write a couple of songs with him, which appeared on

the first Dark Flowers album. That was how I got approached by Jim Kerr from Simple Minds to join Simple Minds, so it’s been this domino effect where I’ve never really planned anything.

Around that time I was also cowriting with other artists that I’d met at the Southbank Centre. I was part of the Emerging Artist in Residence programme, and I met British rapper Riz MC who went on to become quite a well-known actor. I co-wrote some stuff with him for one of his EPs and I also worked with Ayana Whitty-Johnson who’s a really acclaimed composer and cellist. I think I established myself quite early on as someone who’s quite versatile – I was co-writing with a rapper and someone with this classically trained background. That’s sort of my calling card. People know they can bring me into the room and I can do what’s needed. I don’t come in as The Anchoress.

What impact did working with such a variety of artists have on your songwriting as The Anchoress?

I think what’s inherent to The Anchoress project is its eclecticism. The first album Confessions is very

much what I call a jukebox album. I didn’t want to be pinned down to one particular style. I had a funk soul track, slow ballads, gospel rock, gothy numbers and indie guitar. I think that’s true to who I am, so I don’t think there was any impact from working with artists in very different genres. It means that I’m quite chameleonic and that’s who I am as The Anchoress. I really enjoy not just doing one thing. That’s what keeps your creative juices flowing.

Is there a process you adopt when you start work with an artist?

I do have a workflow when I’m coming to a project, and it’s partly why I don’t like to have too many things on the go simultaneously. I always like to establish a sense of the artist’s vision. Everyone’s definition of producer is different, but I feel it’s about bringing the artist’s vision to life, not to stamp my own sonic identity on it. I’ll always try to get them to put together some playlists of things that they want the record to sound like and I’m quite specific around that - what drums do you like, etc. It’s good to get people thinking about breaking down the elements of the song a little bit more. That’s usually a bit of a learning curve if

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someone hasn’t worked in that way before. It’s a lot about talking and communication, and that’s something I learned very early on. Talking isn’t wasting time, it’s establishing connection, establishing familiarity. And when I talk about intimacy in the studio I mean that in a professional sense; trust is really important when you’re making a record with somebody. They need to trust that you’re going to serve their vision. It’s a very psychological skill set that you have to employ.

I do a lot of groundwork with somebody before I work with them to establish that it’s somebody I want to work with, and as a woman in the industry, it’s really important that I feel safe and in a trusted situation with somebody. Very often I have women coming to me because they haven’t had that experience; unfortunately, they’ve had really difficult or horrific experiences, but sometimes they come to me not necessarily because they’ve had something awful happen to them, but they haven’t felt satisfied by the experience. A common theme I see emerging is this idea that they will feel as if they’re pushed into working in a certain way because ‘that’s how it’s always been done’. Even down to basic things like the hours that are kept in the studio.

Recently I was invited to be part of a writing camp, and the studios didn’t open until midday, so the sessions were scheduled from midday til 9pm, even though they were aimed at women and mothers in particular. I pointed out this was ridiculous. Why does the industry decide the studios open at 12 and close at night time? It’s automatically pushing certain people out of a career, so I always try to be really flexible with that. The way I’m working with an artist at the moment who has caring responsibilities is we start at 9am and we finish at 3pm. There are a lot of patriarchal structures that work in production workflows that we don’t acknowledge, me included. I hadn’t acknowledged that I used to be a really big believer in long hours and late nights. I’ve had to radically rethink that. And we can do things better this way because none of us is going to be tired; we’re doing it in a condensed and focused way.

Do you find you get more done working this way?

Yes. Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of dicking around that happens in the studio. Sometimes you’ve got a 12-hour session but you’re not working those 12 hours consistently. I get so much more done now. That’s something that people have been surprised at. I had my daughter at the beginning of the pandemic and I didn’t tell anybody about her for two years, so there’s this wonderful thought experiment in what happens to my productivity and my work if I have caring responsibilities and yet nobody knows about it. People are not coming to me with an opportunity because they think, ‘Oh, she’s had a baby so she’s too busy to do it’. But I don’t think I’ve ever completed as much work as I did in those first

two years. Interestingly, as soon as I did go public with her existence I did notice quite a drop off in work and a change in people’s attitudes.

I’ve had someone at a label say to me, ‘Obviously Europe’s out of the question now you’ve got a child’, or ‘Touring must be really difficult now’. These things haven’t hampered my ability to take my daughter on tour with the Manics this summer for six weeks. She came to almost every show with me. I don’t think anything prepared me for the enormous assumptions that are made about what happens to a woman in the industry once they have children, including some suggestions that I would be retiring.

Have you been able to gauge any sense of the industry becoming more receptive to the idea of making things more flexible and accommodating for parents?

There is an openness up to a point. We all saw that moment in the Paloma Faith documentary where the manager was questioning the fact that the nanny had been put down as a tour expense as it cuts into the profit. There are lots of difficult conversations to be had. One of the things I’m working on at the moment is trying to encourage promoters to think about early curfew shows and matinee shows, and that benefits the entire industry. We’re not just talking about participation in terms of performers, we’re talking about audience participation. If you have matinee shows where you can potentially bring your children, you are going to sell more tickets. If you have curfew shows you are going to increase participation across the board. We need to challenge this idea that shows have to be done a certain way.

We also need to look about building childcare into touring budgets. I had to challenge a funding body on this who told me when I was applying for funding that childcare was something they couldn’t cover. But after I challenged them, the rules were changed. Just because things have always been done a certain way doesn’t mean they have to continue being done that way.

WILKINSON

PRESERVING TRADITION

CANTONESE OPERA

The Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Theatre has unveiled two new performance spaces - Hung Sin-nui Theatre and Red Bean Hall - complete with DiGiCo consoles. These venues aim to revitalize the traditional art form of Cantonese Opera by blending modern technology with cultural heritage, as Headliner discovers…

Established in 1953, the Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Theatre’s (GOH) extensive facility, located in Guangzhou’s Yuexiu district, has a total floor area of approximately 40,000 square meters and includes a 1,200-seat Grand Theatre, a 500-seat theater, and three 60-seat cinemas.

Cantonese Opera, one of the traditional Chinese opera genres, has a rich history spanning more than 300 years in Guangdong and the Cantonese-speaking regions of Guangxi and, in 2009, was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of

Humanity. Last year, GOH hosted the inaugural Chinese Culture Festival from June to October and aims to continue to represent Chinese culture among the world’s leading theaters.

The Hung Sin-nui Theatre and Red Bean Hall serve as a cultural center for Cantonese Opera and ensures a solid base for its revitalization.

DiGiCo’s Chinese distribution partner, RACPRO, installed a DiGiCo SD5 console in the Hung Sin-nui Theatre. This space honors the famous Cantonese opera artist Hung Sin-Nui, who received the first Chinese Opera Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. The SD5 is equipped with 37 physical faders and three 15-inch LCD highresolution touch screens, displaying key information for 253 channels. Located in the control booth at the rear of the stalls, the console’s low profile ensures good sight lines, and its larger mix surface allows easy access to every channel.

In the region, red beans have long been a symbol of romantic longing, a yearning for enduring love. The Red Bean Hall is named to remind people of Premier Zhou Enlai’s praise, who once said

that Cantonese Opera was the “Southern Red Bean”.

The audio team installed the DiGiCo Quantum 338 as its main mixing console, situated in a booth at the back of the stalls. The Quantum 338 has 128 input channels and 64 output busses and provides additional channel processing for the main output and matrix, which brings more powerful processing capabilities and extremely flexible workflows. GOH believes that the choice of the Quantum 338 for the Red Bean Hall will promote the development of performing arts in a more refined and systematic way.

GOH’s investment in performers includes the development of art training courses, the first theateraffiliated children’s choir, the first children’s ballet troupe, the first

youth marching band and the first youth string orchestra, all with highly professional standards. It also created the unique art training mode of ‘Classroom × Stage’ to cultivate artistic talents, training over 19,000 young artists and building the ‘Arts Boost’, an art management professional exchange and learning platform to ensure a strong pool of future talent.

GOH has a long history but is constantly looking to the future. With its investment in groundbreaking technology and in the next generation of performers, the Opera House promises to remain a vibrant part of Chinese culture.

DIGICO.BIZ

CATHERINE GRIEVES THE MUSIC OF BABY REINDEER

Before April 2024, anyone hearing the words ‘baby reindeer’ would likely only conjure up vague notions of cutesy, festive deer. That all changed once Netflix’s miniseries hit the small screen, where Richard Gadd explored his real-life experiences of dealing with a female stalker whilst grappling with a dark, buried trauma.

Words bY ALICEGUST A F NOS

A self-confessed “sticking plaster for all life’s weirdos”, Baby Reindeer sees Gadd play Donny, a struggling comedian who shows an act of kindness to a vulnerable woman (played by Jessica Gunning), sparking a suffocating obsession which threatens to wreck both their lives. An immediate hit with critics and viewers alike, Baby Reindeer went on to win six Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Outstanding Writing for Gadd, Outstanding Lead Actor for Gadd, and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Gunning. Fresh off the back of its two Golden Globe Awards in January 2025 for Best Limited or Anthology Series and Best Supporting Actress for Gunning, award-winning and EMMY-nominated music supervisor, Catherine Grieves – best known for her work on Killing Eve and Slow Horses – delves into her song choices for the multiple award winning Netflix show.

A Netflix budget implies it was high. What kind of budget did you have to play with for Baby Reindeer?

It was quite interesting with Baby Reindeer. It started off as a pretty low music budget. It was generally a low-budget TV production, and the music budget reflected that. So at first, it didn’t allow for much commercial music. It progressed when we realized that, actually, commercial music was a real help with the show. The show is so dark, but also a dark comedy, and there’s a lot of trauma that it deals with. The commercial music that we used helps push it on and give it that lift. We’re using songs that are quite melancholic in themselves and in their lyrics, or a lot of the songs that we used have an energy to them, and that really helped set the tone for the show as a whole. Netflix were great because they realized that the budget that we had wasn’t going to allow us to do what we wanted creatively.

Further on into the process, they did increase our budget for music, which was brilliant because that allowed us to consider those bigger artists and those more heritage artists, rather than me having to try and find artists we could strike cheaper deals with.

It allowed us to pick out the Bee Gees and go, ‘We can do that’. That very rarely happens; normally music is the last thing to go on a film or TV show, and often the music budget has been cut from the beginning because it’s had to go on something else during the shoot. We were really lucky that we got that support to allow us to create the soundtrack that we wanted.

“THERE WERE SONGS THAT WERE VERY PERSONAL AND IMPORTANT FOR RICHARD TO HAVE IN THE SHOW, OR CERTAINLY ONES THAT HE REALLY WANTED US TO FIGHT FOR.”

Baby Reindeer is a deeply personal story for Gadd, being adapted from his one-man show and based on his real experiences. With this being so close to him, did he have any song requests or suggestions?

Richard Gadd had written a couple of songs in the script as ideas. One of those was Dusty Springfield, and another one was Angel Of The Morning. That was a really good jumping-off point in terms of the overall aesthetic of what he was envisaging with more ‘60s and ‘70s music. Once we had that to start, I started to pull very specific ideas together. Richard was heavily involved throughout the whole process. He absolutely was across every decision as we went through the show. He was in every music meeting. He was an executive producer. It was very much his story. There were songs that were very personal and important for Richard to have in the show, or certainly ones that he really wanted us to fight for. He helped us out and wrote some letters to some artists. He was such a collaborator. I think we managed to get the majority of the artists that he really wanted.

There were a few situations where we couldn’t get them over the line for various reasons. Sometimes there would be situations where Richard really liked a particular track and the director would like something else and we’d be making those decisions about which one right up until the final mix of that episode. He was very much an integral part of the whole process.

The very first song used in the show is Love Is The Drug by Roxy Music, which you hear playing in the background of the bar when they first meet. It kicks in a lot louder after Martha’s first manic laugh, and Donny’s fate is sealed. How did you come to choose this song and how did it set the tone for the series?

It’s an amazing track – what a bassline! Interestingly, that is the first song, yet it was one of the last songs that we made a decision on. Episode one’s title sequence was really difficult. We went through God knows how many ideas for that. We had a brilliant music editor on the show called Jack Sugden and he was just laying out different option after option. We tried Roxy Music really early on when our

budget was small, and we were like, ‘We can’t afford Roxy Music’. Then everything changed and also they were much more into the project once we’d got rolling a little bit, and it suddenly clicked. It was one of those ones where we originally had a different song in the scene after the titles, and that was our sticking point where we were going, ‘How is this going to work? This isn’t working over the titles, because then we’re going into The Kinks afterwards’, – we had this back and forth. There was a breakthrough where we decided to use Love Is The Drug for the whole sequence and then it all suddenly came together.

We did have to do quite a crafty edit on that song that I had to get Roxy Music to sign off on because it was definitely chopping and changing and moving things around.

What was the easiest song choice for Baby Reindeer?

There are a couple of standout songs. The song that changed the direction and opened up the conversation with Netflix was I Started A Joke by the Bee Gees, which plays at the end of episode five. The Bee Gees are not an easy artist to clear. When we license music and clear music, we have to be really explicit in terms of what the show is about and what’s happening in each scene, so it wasn’t necessarily the easiest sell. A lot of heritage artists in particular want their music used on very positive, nice, easygoing shows and films. Whenever there’s anything that is more difficult in terms of the content, there’s no guarantee that we’ll get that approval. But I Started A Joke was such a perfect song. Lyrically, Donny is a comedian who is having a very difficult time, so the lyrics were so relevant and it fitted so brilliantly. We just knew that we needed to get that song.

Also, at the end of episode one, Happy Together by The Turtles is a really brilliant sync. It’s quite a complicated scene in terms of using music, because we have a Donny

voiceover, and he’s also reading emails from Martha on his laptop. So we’ve got a voiceover to pay attention to, we’ve got to read the emails, and we’ve got a song playing in the background, so there’s a lot of information going on in that scene, but I think it works really well.

That song is really brilliant because it has a darker verse, there’s a minor key in the verse, and then it has this absolute euphoric explosion with the chorus, and Jack, our music editor, did a brilliant edit. Donny shuts his laptop and the music cuts out for a second; we hear a bit of dialogue, then he opens the laptop, and as he opens it, the chorus kicks in. The edit is brilliant, dramatic and really touches on the impact of what’s about to happen with Martha’s behavior. It’s when we really establish that she is stalking him, and it sets the rest of the series up.

What was the hardest scene to get the right approach for? Given the sensitive and dark subject matter, could you ever have predicted that Baby Reindeer would go on to achieve the success and praise that it has?

In episode four, which is one of the most hard-hitting episodes of television ever made, Donny meets this writer who starts helping him with his slightly fledgling career. He gives him advice and opportunities, but at the same time, is completely grooming him. He gets him into drugs, and there’s a lot of drug taking, and then he sexually assaults him over a long period of time. There’s so much to unpack with that episode, and it’s done in such an incredible way. Richard’s such a brave person to tell that story. There was one particular scene where he is being groomed into taking a concoction of drugs. We see Donny taking drugs, then losing it and checking out. That was a really difficult scene to get the tone right for. We tried to clear a number of songs over that scene, and we did get quite a few rejections because of the content. It was quite tricky; we were trying quite dark, psychedelic tracks for a while over that, and I don’t think we’d landed on the perfect song, but we were also getting nos. It ended up being Wilco’s How To Fight Loneliness, which is such a beautiful song. It’s incredibly simple. There’s a guitar and vocal, and it’s a very simple sound, but there’s a relative positivity or ‘getting on with it’ vibe, musically, and the lyrics are really powerful. They’re so relevant to that scene. One of the lyrics in it is, ‘How to fight loneliness. You laugh at every joke,’ which has so many links to Donny. That was a real find, and really helped that sequence where the music tells Donny’s inner monologue. That helps with such a dark and heavy episode.

What was so interesting with Baby Reindeer was how big it was, so quickly. It was one of those shows that from the very beginning was so special, unique and brave. To be on that journey and be part of that is a real honor. The success of it is completely deserved. Richard is such a brilliant talent and the takeaway from it is, that by him telling that story, the number of people, and in particular men, that have reached out about their own experiences of sexual assault has risen. Richard talked about how people have been helped by it. To work on something that is so great on a creative level, but to have that extra element too is really incredible. Even to be a part of that in a tiny way is amazing.

45RPM.FILM

Image credit: Ed Miller / Netflix

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40 YEARS OF

AUDIX

To mark its 40th anniversary in the microphone industry, AUDIX has announced a limited edition model of its D6 kick drum mic in the form of the D6X.

The limited edition D6X microphone has all the sonic attributes of the D6, plus additional filtering options for maximum flexibility. Only 100 units of the bead blasted D6X Limited Edition will be produced and will be available through selected giveaways throughout the next months.

In 1986, the AUDIX OM1 handheld dynamic mic was born. The OM1 began to amass a word-of-mouth reputation for excellent sound and offered interchangeable grilles — ball-shaped for vocals and capshaped for instruments — so one model could then take the place of the rest of the competition’s two.

In 1991, AUDIX relocated from the San Francisco Bay area to Wilsonville, Oregon, where R&D and manufacturing still takes place. The 78,000-square-foot facility includes a recording studio and live soundstage for testing mics under real-world conditions, as well as bespoke tooling that allows AUDIX to adhere to tight engineering tolerances and deliver premium quality.

“IT CRUSHES EVERY OTHER KICK DRUM MIC.”

One of the best-selling products in AUDIX history is the D6. Monitor engineer Nathan Bauld (Tower of Power) hailed its performance, stating, “It crushes every other kick drum mic”.

Meanwhile, FOH mixer Charlie Martinez (Little Feat, Steely Dan) noted its flexibility on other lowend sources. “I thought I’d try it on baritone sax. I fell in love with it immediately,” he enthuses.

For its anniversary, AUDIX is producing a premium edition of the D6 in a bead blasted finish. This special edition offers enhanced functionality and is limited to a run of 100 units. It features three selectable frequency responses: the original kick-drum curve plus two flatter options for even greater versatility.

Watch AUDIX’s website and social media for details on how to win this collectible piece of microphone

history, available from November.

Descendants of the brand-launching OM1 now comprise a full range of models with different pickup patterns for various instrument and handheld vocal applications.

“Changing to the OM7 was a nightand-day difference in terms of the clarity of vocals in our in-ear mixes,” notes Soul Asylum bassist, Jeremy Tappero.

“I could crank up a vocal without bringing up the roar of the stage.”

“AUDIX makes so many different microphones geared to specific purposes and they all sound fantastic,” explains Riley Brinser, engineer for multicultural L.A. superband Ozomatli. “I find that I’m needing very little EQ or compression after the fact.”

Award-winning, UK-based producer

Tayte Nickols agrees: “It’s next to impossible to botch recording any source with AUDIX in general.”

“We are overjoyed to celebrate 40 years of excellence at AUDIX,” comments Bjørn RennemoHenriksen, senior director at AUDIX. “AUDIX always passionately challenges norms and works tirelessly to exceed expectations. Product launches coming soon in 2025 are a phenomenal testament to this commitment; we look forward to introducing the amazing results of our team’s hard work and innovations to the community. We express our sincerest thanks to the musicians, engineers , and audio enthusiasts who made AUDIX who we are today.”

JOE ELLIOTT

DEF LEPPARD | LEAD SINGER | 8424 CONSOLE

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

TRAINING THE AUDIO ENGINEERS OF TOMORROW

FUTURE ART LAB

With a history spanning more than 200 years, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw) is one of the most renowned music universities worldwide and a leader in audiovisual education. At its Institute of Composition, Sound, and Music Production, mdw equips audio engineering students with the expertise needed to thrive in an increasingly digital and networked audio world, as Headliner discovers…

The recent upgrade of Studio B, used for teaching classical music production, marks a major step forward in this mission, with the installation of a Lawo mc²36 MkII allin-one mixing console. Following the installation of a Lawo mc²56 MkIII in Studio Control Room 1 (Tonregie 1) in August 2023, this is the second Lawo console now utilized at mdw for both training and production.

Classical music recording and post-production demand a mixing console that can be flexibly and precisely configured to meet specific requirements. This capability allows

engineers to manage a vast number of channels simultaneously, capturing the intricate sonic textures of orchestras and vocals with precision.

“The introduction of the mc²36 MkII enables us to train students at the highest technical level while preparing them for the unique challenges of classical music production,” explains Hans Döllinger, studio dDirector at the Future Art Lab.

“The console’s powerful DSP capabilities and flexible configuration options offer the precision and adaptability required for our projects.

Additionally, the widespread use of Lawo’s mc² consoles in public broadcasting, opera houses, and theaters significantly eases the transition for our graduates into professional careers.”

The high-performance mc²36 MkII provides 256 processing channels at 48 and 96 kHz, alongside an I/O capacity of 864 channels, delivering exceptional flexibility for concert and opera mixing. Its versatility makes it an ideal solution for students learning both music recording and postproduction across diverse scenarios.

“THE

MC²36 MKII ENABLES US TO TRAIN STUDENTS AT THE HIGHEST TECHNICAL LEVEL WHILE PREPARING THEM FOR THE UNIQUE CHALLENGES OF CLASSICAL

MUSIC PRODUCTION.”

With its IP-based architecture and native support for IP Easy/HOME plug-and-play management, the mc²36 MkII integrates seamlessly into mdw’s existing network infrastructure.

The console enables straightforward Audio-over-IP workflows, including point-to-point stagebox connections, without requiring additional network hardware.

Studio B supplements the console’s robust local I/O with a DirectOut Prodigy for expanded connectivity.

“This combination ensures superior sound quality,” enthuses Professor Pauline Heister, who oversees the classical audio engineering program.

The mc²36 MkII not only delivers highquality audio processing for classical music but also offers innovative features vital for education. Its intuitive interface, featuring color-coded TFT fader strips and touch-sensitive rotary controls, makes it easy for students to navigate. Full-HD touchscreens provide precise visual feedback, offering a clear overview of audio channels and levels. Additionally, all DAWs can be seamlessly integrated via a secondary monitor.

for the demands of modern theater, music, and broadcast environments,” adds Döllinger.

headlinerhub.com

“With the mc²36 MkII, we provide students with hands-on experience on a state-of-the-art console that equips them for professional audio production while preparing them

“We observe that our students quickly adapt to operating the mc²36 MkII while also developing critical problem-solving skills as they configure complex routings or network connections in applying logical thinking. This provides ideal preparation for future challenges in their careers,” furthers Heister.

The adoption of the mc²36 MkII underscores mdw’s commitment to

cutting-edge audio education.

The console’s rapid installation and seamless integration into the university’s infrastructure demonstrate Lawo’s role as a trusted technology partner, delivering innovative solutions tailored to the educational sector.

Configured at Lawo’s facility in Rastatt, the mc²36 MkII was delivered in June 2024, installed in July, and fully integrated into mdw’s infrastructure by August through a collaborative effort.

Lawo’s mc²36 MkII combines the capabilities of a fully-fledged mixing console with the versatility of an all-in-one system. With its softwaredefined A_UHD Core technology – featuring 256 DSP channels, SMPTE2022-7 I/O redundancy, and Waves integration – Lawo sets new

standards in audio and broadcast.

The Lawo mc²36 console completes the Institute of Composition, Sound, and Music Production’s comprehensive educational offerings. While Studio C features an analog console and Studio A employs a

controller-based setup, Studio B now fulfills the goal of training students on a high-end digital console, thanks to this cutting-edge addition from Lawo.

Image credit: Larry Mah

Words bY ADAM PR O ZT

THE MUSIC OF MOANA 2

MARK MANCINA

Few Hollywood composers deserve the ‘veteran’ title as much as the three-time GRAMMY-winning Mark Mancina; an early collaborator with Hans Zimmer when the German only had a makeshift room for a studio, Mancina has scored beloved films including Twister, Bad Boys, Con Air and many more. He speaks to Headliner about simultaneously returning to the world of Moana to score its sequel, while also working on Juror #2, rumoured to be Clint Eastwood’s final film.

While Mancina has scored over 60 films and television series, he is a songwriter at heart, initially dreaming of being a rockstar — his love of writing, arranging and producing songs has stayed with him throughout his career, one of the reasons he can go from scoring a gritty film like Training Day to the multiple Disney films he has worked on, including Tarzan and Brother Bear

He is such an experienced head that he is seeing films he has previously worked on being rebooted: he scored the original Twister in 1996 which saw the new Twisters released last year, and he is currently working on the live-action remake of Moana and is intent on not repeating himself musically, having been the composer for the original Moana film, not to mention this is coming straight from working on Moana 2.

He is speaking from his home in north California, where the Los Angeles fires thankfully haven’t reached. “I have been through several fires, and I used to live in Southern California where it was common. I really feel for those folks. And, a lot of people I worked with on Moana have been affected by this tragedy, so it’s really terrible.”

Mancina steadfastly believes that his ability to wear lots of musical hats has been something that has firmly seen him through his decades-long career.

“I realized in my early 20s that the rockstar thing wasn’t going to happen,” he says. “I played in several bands, and I was extremely versatile, which gave me opportunities. I played in Trevor Rabin’s band, then I played with Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and also Seal. I worked with an engineer who asked me if I had any instrumental music, and I had been doing these horrible documentaries. My instrumental stuff was really pretty strong, considering that back then we didn’t have the equipment that we could get our hands on now.

“He happened to be Hans Zimmer’s engineer. I didn’t know who Hans Zimmer was or anything about Hans, but I got a phone call from him saying we needed to get together. So I went to his studio, and pretty soon I was working on Days of Thunder, and Hans realised that my talent was that I could score a scene, but I could also write lyrics, or I could sing, or I could write a song, or I could help with an arrangement, or I could play the guitar.”

Being such a consistent face in Hollywood and the film industry has many benefits, one of which being that Mancina has struck up a friendship with one Clint Eastwood, who also lives close by in California. Besides the obvious fact that there are few cooler brags than being able to say you’re friends with one of cinema’s greatest icons, it has led to them working together.

Initially, Mancina wrote a few songs for some of Eastwood’s films, and then the actor and director visited Mancina’s home to show him early footage of Juror #2 and asking if he had any musical themes that might be suitable. This naturally led to him being the composer for the film.

Starring Nicholas Hoult, the film tells the story of a man on jury duty, who has a sudden and horrifying realisation that he may

be connected to the case itself.

Besides the incredible run of films Hoult is currently enjoying (Nosferatu, The Menu, The Order), the cast is bolstered with star power including Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, and one Kiefer Sutherland.

“I went to dinner one night with Clint,” Mancina says. “We met with a guy, I had a whole dinner with him — a real nice guy! A few days later, Clint called me to watch an edit of the movie and I realized it was Nicholas Holt that I had dinner with! He is a wonderful actor. The great thing about scoring a movie with that level of acting from the whole cast, you don’t have to push the music too hard and help convince anyone that they’re watching great performances.”

It’s interesting that Juror #2 and Moana 2 hit Mancina’s schedule at the same time — not only are they polar opposite films, but they of course also required very different musical approaches. For the former movie, it quickly became clear that a piano-lead, minimalist score would suit this comparatively understated film, set against the big, bright colors of Moana. Besides piano, the score is characterized by tasteful dashes of strings, guitar, harp, and very subtle electronics.

“He [Eastwood] loves the piano,” Mancina says. “I have this Bosendorfer in my studio that he absolutely loves. Every time he comes over, he sits down and plays. So I knew he would want piano in the score. But the cool thing was that I worked with Clint’s engineer, Bobby Fernandez, who’s done all of his movies. He said to me, ‘We ought to set the orchestra up and put all the cellos in the middle of the orchestra, instead of on the side as usual’. The cellos have a pretty big voice in this. And if they’re always coming out of one side, it’s going to be a little uneven. But if we put them in the centre and put the violins around them, that would be a really cool effect.”

Mancina becoming involved with Moana 2 is a more straightforward story — having written the music for the first film as well as all the other skills he brings to the table, he was always going to be the obvious candidate for the sequel’s composer and co-songwriter.

With the voice talents of Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Temuera Morrison, and Nicole Scherzinger. Cravalho voices the titular Moana , with the film following her adventures as she assembles a wayfinding group to seek out the lost island of Motufetu, break its curse, and reconnect her people facing an existential threat if they fail.

“One of the things that I really wanted to do, which was my goal, and I think I achieved it, was that I did not want it to sound like a sequel where it’s the same story, same music, same themes,” Mancina says. “I wasn’t convinced about the story, so I felt that if the music is a rehash of themes and the style of the first movie then I’d be cheating. Also, Moana was 16 in the first movie, and she’s 22 or 21 in this movie, so the score needed to be more sophisticated and a little more

grown-up. And I think it is, and I think that gave the movie its depth.”

In an ideal world, most film composers like to work on one project at a time, but there are times where two films will set deadlines at the same time. For Mancina, he found himself working on Eastwood’s dark legal thriller while trying to keep up with the huge project that was a Disney animated sequel.

“It was kind of a mess,” he admits. “ Moana 2 was moved up — it was going to be a TV series, and so the first year we started on it we were aiming towards that, and I was working on songs. Then all of a sudden, they moved the schedule up, and they made it a feature film. They got rid of some of the songs, and we find ourselves with six months to do what took us three years before. That was really intense. Also, Mufasa (the recent Lion King prequel film) was going on too. We were mixing the songs for that movie. In that regard, it was not fun, but I was really happy with the result.”

That said, besides the fantastic music results, this crunch period also produced a great anecdote. He says of a day working on Mufasa : “Some of the Disney people asked how we should approach it. I said, ‘We get Lin [Manuel Miranda, In The Heights, Hamilton ] and Lebo M [the songwriter known for singing the iconic opening refrain of The Lion King ] in my studio. I line up my studio with percussion. We push record. Me and Lebo start playing, Lin starts writing, and we’re going to have something.

“I was a little worried because I had pushed for this and we had to get something. But it turned out great. And at the end of the day, this pickup truck arrives in my driveway and Clint gets out because sometimes he just drops

by. He seems like he knows when something is going on. So of course, Lin and Lebo’s jaws dropped to the ground when Clint Eastwood walked in. We played him what we had been doing. Animated musicals aren’t really his world, but he really enjoyed it. And he enjoyed meeting Lin and Levo. I’ve got a picture of it that I will keep forever.”

The Juror #2 and Moana 2 soundtracks and score albums are available to listen to now, and if that isn’t enough of the Hawaiian adventures for you, Mancina reveals he is working on the series yet again, this time on the live-action remake being spearheaded by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Due out in a couple of years or so, Mancina concludes by saying, “I don’t personally like the Disney live-action remakes, but I do think Moana lends itself to it, and The Rock will bring such a presence to it.”

MARK-MANCINA.COM

THE ART OF CLASSICAL RECORDING

THOMAS WOLDEN

Acclaimed sound engineer, classical recording specialist and teacher, Thomas Wolden, discusses his career in music and audio, the guiding principles that have been pivotal to his success, and the role Merging Technologies solutions continue to play in his work...

When did your career in audio begin and what sparked your interest in recording?

I moved from Trondheim to Oslo to study Audio and Music Production. Gradually, I built up my own small portable rig and started making acoustic recordings of jazz and classical music. I think I owned a pair of B&K (DPA) 4006 and Neumann KM184 mics, a Millenia Media 8-channel mic preamp, and a Tascam DA78 8-track recorder.

I was more interested in recording acoustic music in churches and concert halls than working in a studio. Through some mutual friends, I got in touch with a musician who was a freelance saxophone player in many orchestras and also conducted a brass band. He was interested in sound production, and we did some work together where he was the music producer and I was the technician. We collaborated and

made several recordings.

Later, I came into contact with Arne Akselberg, a former classical engineer at Abbey Road who had moved to Norway and was working with mobile recording. Arne was one of the founders of SIMAX Classics. I visited him during a recording session in Oslo. Arne was very generous with his knowledge, and it was helpful to see how he worked and the equipment choices he made. We have kept in touch and are good friends.

During a recording session Arne did in Oslo, I met his colleague Jørn Pedersen, who worked as a producer and editor at Abbey Road. Jørn mentioned that they had started looking at Pyramix at Abbey Road, which piqued my curiosity. I wanted to understand why it was more suitable for classical music production

than Cubase and Pro Tools. I kept in touch with Jørn, and we made several recordings together after he moved back to Norway from England. I also worked as a temporary on-call member at NRK (Norwegian Radio) for some periods.

Around 2005, I started working for Prolyd, the Norwegian distributor for many brands, including Merging Technologies. I was technically inclined and had good computer knowledge. Prolyd imports the most high-end brands in the studio industry. It was nice to have a more stable income while continuing to invest in more equipment.

In 2008, Vegard and I decided to start our own label, LAWO Classics. We made a lot of recordings, but it was difficult to get them released on other labels. The name LAWO Classics comes from our surnames, Landaas and Wolden.

Today, we have made over 500 recordings together. We have also worked with labels like Chandos, SIMAX, AVI, and ECM.

What were some breakthrough moments in your career?

It’s hard to pinpoint a single breakthrough moment. However, a significant highlight was when Vegard and I started LAWO Classics.

It’s difficult to favor specific projects, but working with the Oslo Philharmonic and Vasiliy Petrenko was a major highlight.

We are constantly learning and experiencing new things. It’s always exciting to visit new churches and concert halls, finding good solutions for microphone placement and acoustics. I have been fortunate to find a great partner in Vegard. We complement each other well.

Tell us about your current role.

In a small company like LAWO, I wear many hats. Our team consists of me as the technician and Vegard Landaas as the producer. Vegard handles post-production editing, while I focus on mixing, Dolby Atmos, and mastering. In 2024, LAWO plans to release around 50 productions, a significant increase from our usual 25-30.

We are one of Norway’s largest and leading production companies for classical music. Our extensive microphone collection includes Neumann, Schoeps, and DPA microphones, allowing us to make orchestral recordings with up to 64 channels in DXD.

Our equipment includes three Pyramix Masscore systems, two Horus units, a HAPI, and six Anubis units. We frequently work in Bergen, equipped with a full orchestra rig that includes cables and stands, enabling us to travel with just microphones, preamps, and a computer.

Additionally, I hold a part-time position at Christiania College, where I teach classical music production. I enjoy sharing my experience with students and being part of an academic environment, which provides fresh perspectives and engaging discussions about Dolby Atmos and binaural audio.

“MERGING STANDS OUT FOR ITS COMPACTNESS, QUALITY, AND SOUND QUALITY”

What are some of the biggest trends you are seeing in the industry at the moment?

Dolby Atmos is a significant trend. In terms of technology, Merging Anubis and Ravenna are noteworthy. Steinberg Spectral Layers and AI are very interesting developments too.

Tell us about your Merging Technologies setup.

Our mobile rig is based on two Pyramix Masscore Premium systems, with a Mac laptop running Nuendo for backup when traveling. We use two Horus units with AD premium cards and one HAPI MK2. For the control room, we use two Anubis units. If we need more headphones for monitoring musicians, we add a small headphone preamp.

For orchestral recordings, we use an Anubis for talkback and spy mic. We are very impressed with the audio quality, mic preamps, converters, and headphone preamps on Anubis and other Merging hardware. Claude Cellier [Merging CEO] prioritized quality at all levels.

In the studio, we also have Pyramix Masscore systems and Anubis Premium units. Our Horus unit is from the first batch, and we have

updated the mic preamp card to a newer generation. Merging offers the best compact preamp and solution for remote recording. No other manufacturer provides a 2U unit with 48 inputs, direct out, and DXD/ DSD capabilities. It is robust and can withstand transportation.

What separates Merging from other products?

Merging stands out for its compactness, quality, and sound quality. Anubis is the most thoughtful solution for mastering, Atmos, and control room tasks (talkback, speakers, headphone preamp). Pyramix excels in file handling, making it easier to copy files to a backup disk on location. Its powerful source-destination editing and excellent sample rate conversion during album export are unmatched.

I have known many people at Merging since I started with Pyramix 4.1. They have been great at adapting to user requests. While Pyramix is not the easiest program to learn, it is essential to get a feel for it. Testing other programs only reinforces how good Pyramix is for location recording, mixing, and mastering.

How much demand are you seeing for immersive/Atmos services?

I have mixed several albums in Atmos, which is a very interesting format. However, it requires a different approach, and we are concerned that it must also work in stereo. We plan to set up our own Dolby Atmos room this year and will evaluate different speaker brands. Choosing speakers for music that is not close-miked is challenging.

What are you working on next?

In January, I will engineer TV sound with the Oslo Philharmonic and Klaus Mäkelä. Additionally, we have other recordings lined up. We record around 30 albums a year, including orchestral, chamber orchestra, choir, and solo performances, along with some live recordings and TV/streaming projects. This year promises many interesting projects, including Amalie Stalheim’s Haydn Cello Concerto with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic with Vasily Petrenko, Bergen Philharmonic with Marc Elder, Tine Thing Helseth, and many more.

After NRK closed its studios in Oslo Concert Hall, we will also do some live recording of the concert for radio.

MERGING.COM

Words bY ALICE GUS T NOSFA

RECORDING COLDPLAY’S

MOON MUSIC

GIANLUCA MASSIMO

Italian-based AIR Studios engineer Gianluca Massimo delves into his role on Coldplay’s recent single, All My Love, the band’s 10th studio album, Moon Music, and how none of it would have been possible without AIR Studios’ iconic Neve consoles.

“IN THE ROOM THERE WAS THIS SENSE OF:IT’S A CLASSIC.”

You were the strings engineer and recordist for Coldplay’s recent single, All My Love. How did you approach recording the strings for this track at AIR Studios?

That track specifically was very interesting, because the track was pretty much ready from the get-go. Songs tend to change a lot during the recording process, but that one never really changed, because it is basically a classic. We originally recorded strings months before, with a normal layout and a normal-sized orchestra, and then when we got to finalize the song, they were looking to make it more intimate, and we ended up re-recording the strings because we had a relatively big ensemble before. So we replaced what we recorded months before with much smaller sections. It’s about 11 players, but it was all a bit last minute, so we had the whole room set up for the band. We had to mic the drum kit, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, piano and the vocal booth. The room was pretty much all taken but we managed to carve out a little space and approach it as a very simple way of recording it, even micwise. So we were not going bananas with a gazillion mics, but we were using the right things in the right spot, and the result is stellar. I love remembering what happened in

that moment when we approached that song with that little ensemble: they started playing, we got the levels right, and in the room, there was this sense of, ‘it’s a classic’. It has become a classic and the song has taken off. It was beautiful.

Strings are often the emotional backbone of a track. How did you ensure that they carried the emotional weight in this song?

My background is being a rock and roller, but I’ve done classical studies as well. There is something about an ensemble and an orchestra –there is a life to it that is really hard to get from any other instrument or any other band. There’s so much you can tweak within the ensemble to get the sound right – and what you want is incredible. You have such a great palette of colors and techniques that you can really dig into even when you’re recording, because it’s all well and good to have the part written and done, and usually the arrangers do a stellar job, but there might be some finessing here and there that actually makes a huge difference. Well, in my opinion, it is a huge difference. Other people might say it is not that big, but in my opinion,

there is a big difference when you feel that everything is sitting in the right place, in the right spot.

Coldplay’s Moon Music album marks the band’s 10th studio release. What was your role in this project?

On this record, I worked as a recordist, as an engineer for all the strings, and as an additional engineer for all the rest of the band stuff. Studio 1 at AIR is an amazing drum room.

Michael Ilbert, who’s a stellar engineer who works a lot for Max Martin and who has been in the game for a very long time – we tackled loads of things together. Of course, he had a vision, and then it’s all about, ‘Let’s make it work with what the studio’s got’. We kind of divided the work.

“THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF A NEVE QUALITY IN THE SOUND WHEN YOU’RE TRACKING WHICH IS IRREPLACEABLE.”

Can you walk us through a typical recording session for a high-profile project like Coldplay’s? How do you prepare, and what’s your mindset during the session?

There’s a huge difference between a band session and an orchestral session because bands don’t really have specific times. They could show up at any time! They could stay in the studio up until 4am if they’re inspired. When you work with an orchestra, it is very different. They’re unionized, so times are very strict. They’re very precise, so there are two different approaches. I would say what’s common is that you need to have the time to set up and properly check everything. When it comes to bands, that becomes a little bit more articulate, because you tend to have loads of outboard in the way, which is all stuff that needs checking. Something could be a little faulty or a little noisy so the chain becomes a little bit more complicated, so there’s more to check.

Whilst for an orchestra, depending on many things, you might have a decent amount of mics and not much use of outboard, even though it depends from engineer to engineer. I would say getting absolutely ready, knowing that your lines are working. Everything is working. Your outboard is fine. The console is fine. The mic is fine. The ProTools session is well built and you’re all set to go. So when it comes to it, we’re ready. We just need to make a couple of level changes, press record, and off we go.

Being at AIR Studios, naturally you have worked across both The Hall and Studio 1 using the Neve 88R and Custom A7971 (Montserrat) for many years. Do you favor one over the other?

They are two very, very different consoles. The 88R is way more complex, especially as it’s an inline console, so it’s easier to get into convoluted setups without much faff, which is great. Then the Montserrat console in Studio 1 is way more simple. It’s not an inline console. It’s got 24 busses, but then, because of its simplicity, there’s so much you can achieve just by getting your head around it.

Whilst the 88R, it’s got a workflow that is – I’m not saying it’s pretty much set – but it basically is.

You can still go around things, but the simplicity of the Studio 1 Montserrat console gives me that feeling of having even more flexibility because you need to think about how to maximize what you’ve got.

Both consoles have a reputation for their unique sonic characteristics. How do they differ in their tonal qualities, and how do you decide which one to use for a particular session?

The 88R is equipped with 48 channels of the AIR Montserrat preamps, which have been modelled on the AIR preamps that were built in ‘78, which is the one that we’ve got in Studio 1. We tend to use those as much as possible because they’re cleaner, and you can push the gain a little more than the 88R preamps. It’s mainly about what the room is going to give more than what the console is going to give. Then, of course, there are some projects where you have a 90-piece orchestra, so you need the floor space as well as the channel count.

The 88R is a 96-channel, while the Neve Montserrat is a 56 that gets up to 72 with a few Focusrite channels. So, I would say more than the sonic characteristic of the console, it’s more about the room the console is in, because we can tie stuff through. It would be great to do something in The Hall and use the studio in the control room, but that means that someone will have to pay for most of the studios for one day, which is basically never done because it becomes financially difficult!

Are there specific genres, instruments or projects where you find these consoles excel the most?

It’s hard to tell because it’s pretty much everything! The vocals sound great, and the acoustic guitar, drums and percussion sound great. Strings sound awesome. I was brought up on and I studied on SSL, but there is an element of a Neve quality in the sound when you’re tracking, especially the preamp, which is just irreplaceable. I can’t think nowadays of recording a drum kit without a Neve console, to be honest. Of course, if I have to do it, I can, but it makes a tremendous difference.

Coldplay’s music often has an expansive and cinematic quality. Which Neve console did you use for this project and how did it contribute to capturing this essence?

That album was basically all done in Studio 1 on the Montserrat, except

strings for WE PRAY, which were done in The Hall on the 88R. Everything else was done in Studio 1 and that console played a huge part because it’s an incredibly clean console that sounds amazing. The EQ sounds amazing. The preamps are so precise. There is a quality on the signal you’re receiving. It’s worth mentioning that, for instance, the preamps are in the room, which is the same for The Hall really, but it derived from the technology that was brought in 1978 with the AIR Montserrat console.

The preamps are in the room, so there’s never more than 10 or 20 meters in length between the microphone and the preamp, so there’s no loss of information.

That means very precise transients. So the drum sound is really punchy and precise – it really cuts through.

You can tell that it is all very alive and sparkling and not just sitting back, which with other preamps, sometimes you might feel. So that was a huge help. The fact that it is simple means that we could go from the drum setup to putting in a string setup and just distribute it to the console. Also if we’ve gone over some channels that we changed, it’s much easier to recall what would have been done before for the other things.

Image credit: Steve Sroka –Adlib

WILKINSON

POWERED BY L-ACOUSTICS

IL DIVO TOUR

Multinational classical crossover quartet Il Divo recently embarked on their 20th-anniversary tour, bringing powerful vocal performances of their expansive catalogue of classical and pop music to fans across the UK and Europe. The tour saw the foursome delighting audiences across a diverse range of venues, from intimate theaters to concert halls and major arenas. As Headliner learns, the tour team’s challenge was to ensure precision and power, and to maintain impeccable sound, no matter the stage…

Event technology specialist, Adlib, provided full-service audio, lighting, and video solutions for the Il Divo Tour. Central to its approach was an innovative L-Acoustics L Series system, which proved to be the backbone of the tour’s sound design.

The team selected the L Series for its sound quality and capabilities in handling Il Divo’s diverse musical repertoire, but it also offered a practical solution for navigating the complexities of the tour.

“The reduced weight and size compared to traditional arrays meant more efficient truck packing,” explains Richy Nicholson, senior account manager at Adlib. “While maintaining our truck count, the space efficiency

gave us greater flexibility in loadin and load-out procedures. The system’s quick deployment capabilities also meant reduced setup times and lower energy consumption during preparation.”

With an adaptable design, the L Series core configuration featured main hangs of up to three L2 and one L2D enclosures per side, supported by 12 KS28 subwoofers, eight X8, and four X12 fill speakers.

For larger venues such as major arenas, the system was expanded to include Kara II side hangs with up to 12 enclosures per side and additional KS28 subwoofers.

“SCALING UP TO K1 WAS LIKE MEETING AN OLD FRIEND.”

For optimal sound coverage, the team relied on L-Acoustics Soundvision software which allowed for precise placement and configuration, tailoring the system to suit each venue’s unique architectural demands. In large spaces such as Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome, the system scaled up further to include K1 arrays for main hangs, while repurposing the L2 for side hangs.

“We ultimately selected L2 for its superior adaptability across varying venue sizes and types. The decision proved transformative for the tour’s audio quality. The L Series adapted really well,” Nicholson explains, highlighting how this approach leveraged L2’s coverage capabilities to ensure consistent, high-quality sound throughout the tour.

Adlib system engineer, Billy Bryson, echoed Nicholson’s sentiments on how adaptable the system was. “L2 provided the best possible consistency when scaling between venues of varying sizes,” he shares. “Many venues which would have previously required a ‘split system’ approach, could be covered by a single hang of L2 per side, improving low-frequency control in these rooms.

“The cardioid dispersion pattern was key to keeping the stage sounding clean, and not interfering with the flown Kara II side-fill, which L Series manages to do without compromising transient response.”

As the tour moved its way across Europe, the L2 continued to deliver. “The tour was quite varied in venue sizes and the L2 was able to fit the bill for the FOH engineer across the smaller-sized shows, all the way up to the Cardiff and Birmingham locations that Il Divo played,” Bryson adds.

Even for those unfamiliar with the L2’s capabilities, the system left a lasting impression. “I hadn’t heard L2 before this tour, but it provided great coverage and the smooth high-end detail you expect from L-Acoustics. Scaling up to K1 was like meeting an old friend,” shares Chris Beddall, Il Divo’s FOH engineer.

“Thanks to our involvement in a wide variety of projects, we are constantly seeking to provide our clients with the latest audio, lighting, and video technology,” says Tom Edwards, director of Adlib.

“This commitment is evident in our continuous investment in sustainable products and solutions added to our rental stock, with the L Series being one of our newest additions.”

For Beddall, it was the collaboration between Adlib’s team and the cutting-edge technology that made the difference on the Il Divo tour.

“It was a pleasure working with Adlib,” he enthuses. “Their friendly, experienced team ensured even the most challenging days ran smoothly. This was especially true in the hands of Billy Bryson, who consistently delivered a fantastic-sounding system. Combining Adlib’s expertise with an L-Acoustics PA made this tour seamless and enjoyable.”

BEHIND THE MARKETING OF ADAM HALL

KATI EISMANN

Kati Eismann, global marketing director at Adam Hall shares her candid insights as to why the brand doesn’t have a competitor, how the company has grown by 10 times in 10 years, why trade shows are like “throwing money out of the window”, why immersive is the future – but why Adam Hall will not be a part of that – and teases a groundbreaking new product that “doesn’t exist on Earth yet”.

Adam Hall has a diverse product portfolio. How do you ensure the company stands out in such a competitive and dynamic market?

Every day is a challenge because the market after COVID has changed. We managed to survive through the COVID phase quite well because we discovered very early that the secret of surviving this catastrophe, economic-wise, is to keep a good, high stock of the products people need at home. This brought us through this crisis until today, and we managed to have a big rebound. Nevertheless, the company has become so huge. We grew within the last 10 years by almost 10 times. Ten years ago, we had 80 employees. Now we have 400 and we have six brands under the umbrella of the Adam Hall Group

– all for live event technology, so the challenge is there every day.

On the other hand, we don’t have a real competitor, because we have sound, light, industry gear, cable protection systems and flight cases, all under one umbrella. There is no comparable company on earth that is like that. That’s a big advantage.

On the other hand, promoting 11,000 SKUs on your yearly schedule is a bit insane! So there are always some angels sitting on your shoulders.

It’s a question of knowing your data, knowing your groups, knowing what they need right now and within the next shorter period, and being able to deliver what they need – and do that with the best manner and sense for quality.

How has the digital transformation affected your approach to marketing, especially in a technology-driven industry like event solutions?

I always wonder how Universities teach that because they cannot update their curriculum every six months. No segment in all industries develops so fast and is as dynamic as marketing. How I manage it is that it’s not me alone. I make sure that the team is diverse and even very young in order to be using the state-of-the-art marketing techniques, technologies and strategies needed. We have a very strong digital marketing team of nine colleagues, and they are very smart and know exactly what to do and when. I stopped, for instance, almost every print advertisement because we shifted it all towards digital. That doesn’t mean that we don’t collaborate any longer with print, but we doubt that print itself will survive. It is simply not read by the next generation any longer, so we need people who know exactly how to read the data and how to play with the opportunities we have in the Meta, Google and performance marketing world.

In an industry as niche as event technology, how do you engage and retain a loyal customer base?

We have 16,000 customers in our database, located across 120 countries. If I really dive deep into our data, I can tell you the secret that we make 80% of our turnover with 900 out of these 16,000 from our customer database, so we focus on the ones that are relevant to our core business and that give us valuable feedback. We just recently started implementing a CRM system which makes it possible to learn more about the value of our customers

and communicate in a much more efficient way with our customers globally. Secondly, we have invested a lot into relationship communication managers, so each brand has its own communication manager who is dedicated to working with influencers, musicians and producers all over the world who are relevant to our industry to give us valuable feedback and test reviews, and this is how we engage and push customer loyalty.

As you mentioned, the pandemic disrupted the event industry significantly. How did Adam Hall adapt, and what role did marketing play in ensuring resilience during this time?

I heard many stories about companies shutting down their marketing departments during the pandemic, and here, it was the other way around. Of course, we also had some decreasing time in the departments, but we got asked, ‘Marketing: what’s your opinion? What should we do in this crisis?’. Early in the pandemic stage, we saw that many people shifted their working areas and their content-

producing areas.

So we decided to immediately shift focus back from the pro audio and pro light products, more into the MI area, so music instruments and home recording gear.

With the help of data, listening to social media and social listening, we knew that if we focus on that and stop all the other activities when it comes to pro audio and pro lightning communication, we might survive this.

Marketing played a big role because we generated the communication and we secured the target groups and they grew like hell during that time. It made us a survivor. This is thanks to the mindset of our company owners, as they understood that we all needed to work together. It changed the whole mindset.

What innovations or advancements do you see as critical for the future success of Adam Hall in the event technology space?

What we see when we look around all the big trade shows when it comes to our kind of event technology and the AV industry, is that it’s all immersive. Take the Sphere – the second one is now ready to be built in Abu Dhabi. This kind of technology is the future. So anything that you can make immersive and put it together on one network is the future. On the other hand, I strongly believe that the real experience of seeing and hearing an artist – as pure as they can sound – is coming back. It’s like the vinyl

trend that also is coming back. It’s stronger than ever. In the past 20 years, people have been buying vinyl again because they have re-explored the quality of the sound and are taking the time to really listen actively to music. I believe that smaller venues are coming back stronger than ever and therefore need good gear for the stages. The sound and light in these venues are very important, so there is a counterpart to this immersive world too.

What can we expect from Adam Hall at the upcoming ISE show?

For ISE we have two really huge booths: one for our lighting brand Cameo where we will present groundbreaking highlights when it comes to laser technologies. On the audio side, we have our Adam Hall integrated system booth, where we will have a groundbreaking new product that doesn’t exist on Earth yet. It is software where you really can manage light and sound together with one tool. We will present this for the first time at ISE…

How important are shows like NAMM and ISE for brands in this digital age where all information is instantly accessible online?

The board of NAMM and ISE probably won’t like what I’m about to say! But I have a big question mark about this because we have four showrooms in the world for our brands which are very attractive and very unique in comparison to others. We have our own theater here in our headquarters. We have a showroom in Barcelona and also in New Jersey. If you are an exhibitor with a big booth at ISE or NAMM, you are one out of 7,000 that is trying to get the attention of 70,000 visitors. So just mathematically, my chance to win is low. I really need to invest a lot of time, power, communication and money to get the right attention of potential customers and existing customers to survive in that jungle. So I always question the concept of trade shows.

To attend a trade show, you need to have a really unique and outstanding concept that stands out from the masses, and that secures you the biggest attraction you can get. It’s a seven-digit number we invest in trade shows per year in euros. Imagine what I can do with that money somewhere else with marketing. So I always question our company owners and say, ‘Are you still convinced that this is the right way to get the customer’s

attention?’. Also, when it comes to sustainability, five years ago, we threw the whole booth construction away after a show. Now we at least use that for three or four years. That minimizes the flexibility of bringing something new every year, plus think of all the travel costs and pollution we produce. For ISE, 60 people of our crew travel to Barcelona, so it’s insane, and it probably is not the concept for the future to invest so much money into an outcome you cannot measure. No one can measure the real outcome or the real ROI of a trade show, really. Looking back at the past 10 years, it was kind of throwing money out of the window.

For the organizers of the big trade shows, it’s still a good question for them: what do they do? What innovations do they come up with to make it more attractive in the future? I haven’t heard an answer that satisfies me yet, but I will keep on challenging them. Nevertheless, face-to-face conversation is the best and the most efficient way to communicate and convince customers of your products. It isn’t comparable to doing things digitally. So yes, it is still necessary, and it will forever be. It’s just, is a trade show the right way, or is it an event where the attention and the concentration is 100% gained towards my brands and not shared with 7,000 others?

Where do you see the live events industry heading in the next 10 years, and what role will Adam Hall play in shaping that future?

I believe that the demand for live events and experiences will grow. People want to get distracted from their everyday stresses with live music. The technology used will be more and more immersive, and the manufacturers of technologies need to keep it in balance for the audience. I believe that Adam Hall will play a key role in maintaining the live experience, quality-wise, to make it as good as possible. We won’t be the immersive player in the field. That’s not what our heritage is and will never be. There are many others on the market that are much better at that than we are.

NICK SYLVESTER

In the ever-evolving world of music production, few professionals exemplify the spirit of exploration and innovation as distinctly as Nick Sylvester. A producer, composer, artist, and founder of music company SmartDumb, Sylvester’s creative philosophy is as much about breaking boundaries as it is about finding emotional resonance.

In a conversation with Headliner, Sylvester delves into his unique approach to music, the ethos of SmartDumb, and the moments that have shaped his career.

“SmartDumb isn’t just a company,” Sylvester begins, speaking from his Los Angeles studio. “It’s a mantra. It’s about music that makes you say, ‘What the f*** is this?’ followed quickly by, ‘Oh wow.’” Sylvester tells us that his musical inspirations range from the ‘frustrating simplicity’ of Nelly’s Hot in Herre to the raw experimentation of Bowie and the Pixies, favoring music that fuses bewilderment with clarity and leaves the listener both intrigued and emotionally moved.

Like many others, Sylvester’s journey into music began during his childhood, shaped by his father, who was a drummer, and his grandfather a trumpeter, in the U.S. Army Band.

“When I was nine or 10, my grandfather would take me to classical trumpet lessons,” he remembers. “At night, we’d go into his basement and play these dusty old records - strip club music from the ‘30s and ‘40s - trading solos. It was this surreal, but formative experience.” However, his dreams of becoming a classical trumpeter were dashed by a botched wisdom tooth removal, and during his college years, he started writing music reviews for Pitchfork to get free CDs and concert tickets. This gig didn’t last long.

SMARTDUMB ISN’T JUST A COMPANY. IT’S ABOUT MUSIC THAT MAKES YOU SAY, ‘WHAT THE F*** IS THIS?’ FOLLOWED QUICKLY BY, ‘OH WOW.’

“Over time, I found myself growing disenchanted with recorded music. I was listening for what I didn’t like, rather than what I did,” he recalls, as he talks about his return to musicmaking. “So I started a band with friends - very Nirvana, Pixies, Jay Reatard vibes - and reconnected with what I loved about music in the first place: its ability to move people.”

The trajectory of Sylvester’s career took a decisive turn when he crossed paths with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, as the band were just starting out.

“IT’S NOT ABOUT BEING POLISHED; IT’S ABOUT FEELING.”

“James was one of my first friends in New York,” Sylvester shares. Flying out to L.A. during the recording of LCD Soundsystem’s third album at the legendary Rick Rubin ‘haunted mansion’ in Laurel Canyon, Sylvester immersed himself in the recording process. Under the guidance of Murphy, and mixing engineer Matt LeMay, Sylvester quickly learned the technical fundamentals of recording. He credits Murphy’s friendship, and influence, as transformative.

“What stood out most wasn’t his technical knowledge, though that was immense, but his ethos. He approached everything from a place of love and joy. His recordings have this raw, homespun quality that’s incredibly particular. It’s not about being polished; it’s about feeling”.

And this ethos is something Sylvester now places at the center of his own creative process. For him, the primary question is always about the feeling a piece of music should evoke, and this guides every decision, from the choice of chords to the production techniques he uses.

Speaking on his recent collaboration with Danish artist MØ on her fourth

album, Sylvester recounts, “We recorded in Copenhagen, in this incredible studio steeped in history, using mics caked in cigarette smoke, which added this layer of authenticity. It was about stripping away the noise and getting back to the core of why she makes music.”

Key to Sylvester’s process is his studio gear, particularly studio monitors.

“When I first heard my music on Augspurger speakers, I was blown away,” he reveals. “They forced me to prioritize and make decisions about what’s truly important in a mix. They’re characters in the room,” he grins.

“There’s something playful about their design, and they’ve become essential to my workflow. They help me focus on what matters most: the emotion.”

His current projects include working with Latin Grammy-nominated artist Bruses on music that he says blends gothic and pop elements. He’s also collaborating with Channel Tres, an artist Sylvester describes as ‘Barry White meets Ol’ Dirty Bastard.’ Their creative process involves resampling and reimagining old records, resulting in what Sylvester calls “music that feels both timeless and utterly unique”.

Sylvester’s capabilities extend far beyond traditional music production. He’s also ventured into the world of audio for video games, a discipline he describes as “a totally different kind of composition.” For a recent project, the city council simulator Tide Breakers, he created soundscapes designed to heighten the tension of in-game deliberations. “It’s about serving the narrative and making the player feel immersed,” he explains. “The music becomes part of the experience, not just a backdrop.”

Clarity of purpose has been, and continues to be, a guiding principle in Sylvester’s production work, whether he’s crafting pop hits or exploring new techniques. “When I work with an artist or client, the first question I ask is, ‘What emotion do we want to evoke?’ Everything else - the chords, the melody, the production - is in service of that feeling. And that’s where the magic happens.”

SMARTDUMB.INFO/ AUGSPURGER.COM

Photographer: Michał Hordowicz

by LIZWILKINSON

REBUILDING FABRYKA LLOYDA

PHOENIX RISES

In January 2024, disaster struck the Fabryka Lloyda venue when a fire destroyed this unique cultural space. The historic venue, located in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, had originally been a shipyard hall, part of a larger complex of the Bydgoszcz Towing Association shipyard facilities, which was the largest inland navigation company in the region, and from 1920, one of the largest in Poland. After its major renovation to transform the building into a multifunctional event space, it became a notable venue, attracting large audiences and top Polish artists.

Headliner discovers how, after the devastating fire, Fabryka Lloyda owner Łukasz Gliński retained the venue’s employed staff, and with the help of friends and partner companies, made the bold move to stage the venue’s previously booked events as outdoor concerts, whilst plans for the rebuilding of the club went ahead.

Back in 2019, audio specialist SKENE installed a CODA Audio system based around its powerful and compact ViRAY line array, contributing to the venue’s strong reputation in the area.

“WE WERE DETERMINED NOT ONLY TO REBUILD THE CLUB, BUT ALSO TO INSTALL A NEW SYSTEM THERE THAT WOULD CAPTURE THE ATMOSPHERE AND UNIQUE FEEL OF FABRYKA LLOYDA.”

SKENE, with its 30-year heritage, has extensive knowledge of and experience in sound system design, configuration and commissioning, and has collaborated with CODA Audio distributor TOMMEX, as a partner for more than seven years, completing numerous projects which utilize innovative solutions from the CODA Audio brand.

During the planning stages of the rebuild, Gliński turned to SKENE for support and CODA Audio once again featured in the plans.

“When choosing a new sound system, we considered various options for both indoor and outdoor events. The system simply had to offer the highest quality sound for every event,” he comments. “We were determined not only to rebuild the club, but also to install a new system there that would capture the atmosphere and unique feel of Fabryka Lloyda that we all valued so highly.”

Under SKENE’s guidance, Gliński opted again for CODA’s ViRAY, as well as the very latest CiRAY system which had been launched at ISE in Barcelona just after the fire. These robust systems combine the power of large systems with the flexibility of compact solutions, which makes them the ideal solution for both touring and

permanent installations, including outdoor settings and music venues.

The new CODA Audio system comprises 12 CiRAY and four ViRAY line array units, supported by SCP subwoofers and APS (arrayable point source) sets. CUE TWO stage monitors complete the set-up, with the system powered and controlled by CODA Audio LINUS amplification.

As part of a modular line array system, CiRAY provides exceptional efficiency and flexibility, allowing for precise adaptation to the specific needs of a given space. Premium sound in any application is guaranteed thanks to easy integration with other members of CODA’s VCA family of loudspeakers (ViRAY, CiRAY, and AiRAY).

CODA’s double 18” sensor-controlled SCP subwoofers provide the perfect low-end complement, whilst the APS units can be used as front fill for the larger system, or deployed as an independent system for smaller events at the venue.

Thanks to Gliński’s comprehensive approach, the CODA Audio system enables the staging of high-level events which can meet the highest expectations of both audiences and performers alike. Last year, the

system’s debut took place in front of a 1,800-strong audience at a concert featuring leading Polish singer, Agnieska Chylińska.

A successful, busy and varied programme of outdoor events then continued through the summer until September, with appearances from a host of popular Polish artists. More than 25,000 people attended the shows in total, with audiences, artists and technical staff all giving a positive reaction to the system.

“It’s fantastic to see a CODA system at the heart of Fabryka Lloyda’s ambitious rebuilding plans, and we’re very proud to be part of their story,” says CODA Audio global sales and marketing director, David Webster.

“The summer concerts have proved to be a huge success and the flexible nature of the system means that when the club is rebuilt it can be adapted for permanent installation. We wish them well for what we are sure will be a bright future.”

PowerProX18

18-inch / 2400W

For demanding bass applications

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

PORTABLE POWERHOUSE FOR LIVE SOUND

JBL IRX ONE

JBL’s IRX One is a compact, all-in-one live sound solution which is said to deliver professional-grade performance in a user-friendly package. But does it live up to the JBL reputation? Headliner puts it to the test.

I used to carry a pair of JBL EONs for all the open mic nights I ran during the 2010s and always loved the tone - the only issue I had, in fact, was rust forming on the grills, but in fairness, leaving them out in the rain tends to do that to a speaker (my bad). And when you consider how illtreated they actually were, the fact they never once let me down says a lot. So although I won’t throw this demo unit into the rainstorm that’s currently happening outside just yet, I am confident that anything made by JBL will be reliable. And let’s hope it sounds good, too.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

So, out of the box, the IRX One is clearly a compact, lightweight, and

undeniably sleek-looking piece of kit. It’s also portable enough for one person to carry and set up without assistance as it weighs a little under 30lbs. It’s built for life on the road, and its modern, understated design means it won’t look out of place on any stage or event setup. It also took me under 60 seconds to get it up and running.

The speaker’s integrated features also catch my eye: an intuitive control panel, very useful Bluetooth connectivity, and JBL’s proprietary DSP (Digital Signal Processing) functions will definitely simplify the user experience, so that’s a tick in the box for performers and presenters alike.

“THE IRX ONE OFFERS A GREAT BALANCE OF PERFORMANCE, PORTABILITY, AND EASE OF USE”

PERFORMANCE

Featuring a 6.5-inch woofer and a high-frequency compression driver, the system produces a robust and balanced sound. I plug in a couple of different vocal mics, a semi-acoustic guitar, and play back some music, and the clarity and depth of the audio is really solid.

Thanks to the IRX One’s integrated DSP, the system automatically optimizes EQ settings and actually suppresses feedback [through dbx Automatic Feedback Suppression] which is very handy. In my tests, these features performed flawlessly, delivering a smooth, natural sound without the need for constant manual adjustments. Again, that ease of use is priceless - particularly if you’re under time constraints which is so often the way when running your own gig.

I found the bass response to be great, too, and very warm for a system of this size. Although it’s not going to blow the roof off in terms of SPL, it comfortably fills a 100-person venue without really

cranking it at all. But for me, it’s in the upper mids and the high frequencies where the system really shines: a clean and detailed sound that cuts through without any harshness whatsoever.

USER-FRIENDLY FEATURES

The control panel is also refreshingly straightforward. There is nothing worse than having to navigate multiple menus to get to where you need to be, so the less room for error, the better. And with IRX One’s clearly labeled knobs for volume and EQ adjustment, and straightforward XLR and 1/4inch jack inputs, there is simplicity and flexibility alike for microphones, instruments, or any line-level devices. There is also a neat ducking featureparticularly useful for DJs and emcees - and phantom power, should you require it.

CONCLUSION

What JBL has achieved with IRX One is a great balance of performance, portability, and ease of use. It is the cleanest small-format JBL portable PA I have heard in recent years; and if you add the intuitive features that you don’t always find on these types of system: automatic DSP, Bluetooth connectivitythen you’ve got a winning formula.

IRX One is not going to replace your larger, more feature-rich systems for bigger gigs - but that’s not what it’s designed for. It shines bright in its intended role: a reliable, compact PA solution that delivers quality sound without the complexity.

WORDS BY ALICEGUS T A NOSF

ALL ABOUT THAT BASS

CELESTION TRUVOX 1525

Celestion has introduced the Truvox 1525, a new 15-inch bass and midbass driver offering exceptional performance at a highly competitive price point. Headliner discovers why the manufacturer is calling it the best performing transducer in its class…

Ideal for two-way sound reinforcement systems, the driver will be available as standard to manufacturers, direct from Celestion, in OEM quantities. Truvox 1525 is also available through retailers, making it an ideal option for DIY builders or as a drop-in replacement/upgrade where it can rejuvenate overworked PA setups, restoring the energy and emotional impact of the lowfrequency domain.

With continuous power handling of 800 watts and a rated efficiency of 96dB, the Truvox 1525 is optimized to provide years of unflinching service in high-powered full-range systems in small or medium-sized venues.

Several aspects of the Truvox 1525’s construction contribute to its longevity and low-distortion punch. The cone is reinforced with fiberglass to increase its durability. A triple-roll surround keeps the cone moving stably under heavy use, and the pressed

steel basket features front and rear mounting gaskets for maximum flexibility of installation.

The ferrite magnet assembly was designed using Celestion’s sophisticated in-house finite element analysis (FEA) software, enabling engineers to create a computational model of the speaker’s behavior in order to optimize design.

Meanwhile, an eight-ohm impedance ensures the broadest possible compatibility with power amplifiers, whether outboard or built into an active cabinet design.

Frequency response measures 40 to 4,000Hz, making the Truvox 1525 as capable of midrange clarity as it is of low-end ‘thump’.

In 1949, Celestion joined forces with Truvox, a brand known for its public address speakers throughout the early to mid-20th century.

By revitalizing the Truvox brand for the modern era, Celestion is celebrating a long legacy of developing and producing high-quality, generalpurpose speakers for a wide variety of sound reinforcement applications.

Celestion will continue to expand the Truvox line to include eight-, 10-, and 12-inch diameter drivers. True to the company’s ethos, each model will combine experience in loudspeaker design with the best materials, science, manufacturing processes and quality assurance metrics.

“The 1525 joins the Truvox 0615 as the bass-focused ‘big brother’ of the family,” comments Celestion head of marketing Ken Weller. “We believe the Truvox 1525 to be the best performing transducer in its class, with greater power handling, efficiency, and most importantly, an outstanding sonic performance.”

CELESTION.COM

Words bY alicegus t nosfa

NIGHT TALES 3THE DREAMS OF EVE

DANNY J LEWIS

What happens when an advanced prototype AI awakens to life through the sounds of her own musical dreams? A groundbreaking album that takes listeners on a genre-defying journey through house, hip hop, broken beat, classical, and beyond from British producer and DJ Danny J Lewis, that’s what. Here, he reveals why this album was a call and response with Cubase 14.

“CUBASE, IN A WAY, BECAME MY WRITING PARTNER IN THE PROCESS.”

Lewis’ new AI-centric album, Night Tales 3 - The Dreams Of Eve follows the story of an AI discovering her own emotional capability whilst being secretly evaluated by her human creators. As one of the data scientists falls deeply in love with her, the narrative crescendos into a tragic, cinematic finale – with a twist that leaves audiences reflecting on the boundaries between human and machine, art and science.

No, he wasn’t watching Blade Runner when this unique concept came to him – he was cycling.

“What tends to happen for me is that when I do physical exercise, my mind goes off on journeys,” says Lewis from his home in South West London. “It’s a catalyst for that. I started thinking about this whole world that we live in – AI is everywhere and it has been for a while, but it’s becoming much more obvious now. We’re heading towards a point where these artificial intelligences are going to get to almost a sentient consciousness level. Probably within the next decade, we will see something that, in essence, thinks it’s alive. Obviously there’s a lot of discussion around the dangers of that sort of thing happening. But also, I know that there are lots of companies like OpenAI and various others who are trying to push this area and come out with something useful. I was thinking, in a way, they’re trying to create a consciousness.

A reflection on the intersection of AI and creativity in the modern world,

the album weaves dramatic and emotional storytelling with cuttingedge production, creating an immersive experience that blends musical innovation with a thoughtprovoking narrative. Each track represents a dream of the AI, expressed in a unique musical style.

“It really helps me if I have a theme or a story, because it motivates me to keep going,” he shares. “I thought, ‘What’s a quick and easy way to explore different styles of music?’. The AI could be dreaming. I thought each dream could be a different style, so it created a template. Then I started trying to think of some dramatic moments. When you watch a film, you’ll have an introduction to a character, quite often something goes wrong in the middle, and then they have to resolve it, and then you get an ending. I wanted to get that narrative in there – and that was another thing that started coming to me on the bike,” he grins. “I was cycling along and putting voice notes into the phone because when I get those spontaneous moments, I have to capture them, otherwise they may disappear. I was putting this verbal barrage of thoughts into the phone, and things started taking shape.”

Lewis has created Night Tales albums at this time of year for the last two years, however had no plans to do so this time. In a poetic twist of technology affecting and influencing human behaviour, it was learning about Steinberg’s Cubase 14 that led him to feel inspired to create new material.

“I started thinking about the new features in the software that I wanted to explore,” he nods, “so in some respects, the motivation for the album was to explore Cubase and the new features through the concept of the album. It always amazes me how you can start with nothing. It’s weird – it was almost like a call and response between myself and Cubase.”

Lewis felt particularly inspired by Steinberg’s Shimmer plugin, allowing him to create a shimmer effect by using a reverb and pitch shifter in a delay loop and create ethereal ambiences and dreamlike, reverberant spaces for the album. “There’s a track called Part Of The Deep, and in one of the dreams, she becomes a free diver,” Lewis uses as an example. “She goes down to the bottom of the ocean, just existing with no air, but is actually enjoying that space down there. So I thought, what can I do for that? Steinberg’s Shimmer tool is one of the new audio plugins in Cubase 14, and it added this mystic, ethereal space and texture that really suited that. I also like that there’s an element of pitch change as well, which created an interesting metaphor for depth. That whole thing got born out of playing around with the effect and the idea of free diving. That’s what I’m talking about in terms of the call and response – the ideas could come from a plugin, and then the story gets fleshed out as it goes back and forth between my brain and then the software. Cubase, in a way, became my writing partner in the process.”

Steinberg’s Pitch Shift functionality allowed Lewis to change the pitch of the audio and create harmonies by specifying several pitches or applying pitch shift based on an envelope curve, which he made use of in conjunction with – fittingly, for this project – an AI Voice Generator from ElevenLabs.

“What happens with that is, you tell it what you want it to say, and then you choose a voice, or you can create a voice, and it will say it back,” he explains. “A lot of the time it comes back in really fantastic quality, but sometimes there are problems with the audio itself, as you can never expect it to be 100% perfect. What I needed was some means of blurring the issues between the syllables or the other elements of these AI-generated voices, because they were my actors, my performers.”

Here, Steinberg’s Shimmer came to the rescue again. “It’s a futuristic reverb, but also, rhythmically, I wanted something to fill in the gaps,” he elaborates. “There was also something that was really immediate about the StudioDelay. What I love about it is the fact that it has the pitch change in the delay signal path. That became something really immediate for me due to the very quick nature of switching between the different patterns with delays. I love the sound of it, and I needed stuff to work at speed, because when I’m really motivated I need stuff that can get things down quickly. StudioDelay was a great plugin for adding an echo repeat to the sound, but it was very immediate and allowed me to flexibly play around with ideas and concepts very quickly. These new effects have got a great balance of audio complexity, but also simplicity of use and action,” he notes.

Lewis cites another key piece of inspiration for the album as being Steinberg’s new modulation tools. “If you’ve got a library of plugins – and I’ve got 100 or so – it’s impossible for anybody to know how to work every single parameter on every single one of those plugins. What’s great about these new modulators on Cubase 14 is the fact that you don’t have to know about the internal

routing. To change the way that a parameter behaves on a plugin, I can use Cubase’s modulator, plug it into that parameter, and automate from Cubase.

“You can use the same generic modulation sources on hundreds of different plugin devices.”

He elaborates on how Steinberg’s modulation effects proved to be instrumental in shaping a wah-wah guitar effect on the album’s second track, The First Dream . Instead of using a pedal to modulate the guitar, he mapped a tempo-synced LFO from the new modulator tools and plugged it into the wah-wah.

“I considered modulating it by hand, but I thought, ‘No, I’m going to do the LFO on there’,” he shares. “I got it working, and it didn’t sound perfect at first, but then I shifted the phase of LFO that was being used to modulate it, and all of a sudden it started sounding like someone who’s playing wah-wah guitar. I used it elsewhere as well, because, as I said, I was working at speed. These new modulation components in Cubase were fantastic because it allows you to change the behavior of any of the plugins without having to relearn and know where all of the modulation routing options are internally on their instrument. Cubase is now getting the accessibility and quick, speedy stuff like StudioDelay and Shimmer, but equally now also you’re getting this DIY construction kit stuff, which is what I think these modulation options are potentially the early stages of. This is the freshest Cubase I’ve seen in a long time.”

On Night Tales 3 - The Dreams Of Eve , Lewis prompts deep reflection on the intersections of art and science, pushing audiences to reconsider what it means to be human in a world increasingly shaped by technology. Given that the album reflects on the intersection of AI and creativity, was influenced by technology itself, and makes use of AI vocals, what are Lewis’ thoughts on how AI is influencing the music industry today?

“From my perspective, I do not want to use any form of AI composition, because I feel that it’s not me anymore,” he states. “I create all of my music myself. For me, it’s the enjoyment of the experience of creation. I don’t want that to be changed.

“Self sufficiency is an interesting thing,” he considers, following a pause. “I think I would be probably the kind of person that would use a solo AI generator, should it exist, but I certainly wouldn’t try to get myself replaced, because for me, it’s the enjoyment of creating all of the elements, like programming the drums, playing the bass lines, doing the chords and working out the orchestration. I wouldn’t want that replaced. But on this album, I have literally used AI voices, and one of them I created from scratch, and she became Eve. AI voices are great, certainly for spoken words. I have explored some of these singing ones, and to be honest, that is opening up Pandora’s box…”

WALKERWORLD 2.0

Words by ALICEGUS T A NOSF

ALAN WALKER

Headliner discovers how an exclusive partnership with TikTok and SoundOn is bringing millions of fans closer to DJ and producer Alan Walker’s music than ever before…

TikTok has announced the launch of a major new artist partnership with DJ and producer Alan Walker to celebrate the launch of his fifth studio album, Walkerworld 2.0, which is being distributed by SoundOn – a revolutionary platform powered by TikTok that empowers artists and labels to reach global audiences, retain complete master ownership of their music, and leverage an array of promotional tools.

The Walkerworld 2.0 campaign includes a wide range of exclusive experiences, competitions, content, tickets and merchandise and featured a first-of-its-kind live stream featuring many of Walker’s featured artists on Walkerworld 2.0

Renowned for his relentlessly thumping beats and hypnotic records, the 26-year-old Norwegian artist is truly a force to be reckoned with. With over 125 million followers across his social platforms, (including 12.8m on TikTok), 1 billion YouTube streams every month, and a staggering 80 billion streams, the young artist from Norway is nowhere near kicking his feet up anytime soon. He arrived on the music scene in late 2015 with his debut hit single Faded, which quickly racked up over 1.3 billion Spotify streams and 2.9 billion YouTube views.

Being the 19th most-watched music video on YouTube, the single also secured him a BRIT Awards nomination for Song of the Year, as well as a Norwegian Grammy win in the same category. After building a colossal social following and releasing a string of successful singles like Alone and Darkside,

“THE WALKERWORLD 2.0 CAMPAIGN FROM TIKTOK AND SOUNDON WILL BRING HIS MILLIONS OF FANS CLOSER THAN EVER TO ALAN AND HIS MUSIC.”

collaborating with artists like Ava Max, Noah Cyrus, Sia, Bruno Mars and Coldplay, the chart-topping debut album Different World arrived in late 2018, amassing over 3.2 billion streams on Spotify.

Wanting to build upon his snowballing popularity and up the ante for his new album, the DJ and producer decided to leverage the opportunities available to him from TikTok and SoundOn for his latest release. The TikTok #AlanWalker campaign features an Alan Walker in-app experience, featuring exclusive content and an exclusive profile frame which fans can unlock by completing challenges; exclusive access to Alan Walker’s Walkerworld North American and European tours – including exclusive discounts for TikTok users – various video creation challenges; and fans have the opportunity to win prizes – including a DM from Walker himself.

Also included are exclusive videos; fans have the chance to be featured in Alan Walker’s official Fan Spotlight carousel on his TikTok page, and exclusive TikTok x Alan Walker merchandise is available via the TikTok Shop.

An exclusive Walkerworld 2.0 live stream took place in January which featured performances and

conversations with Anne Gudrun, Joe Jonas, Daya, Peder Elias, Putri Ariani, Julia Michaels and Vikkstar.

“We are incredibly excited to launch this groundbreaking campaign with Alan, an artist who truly understands the power of TikTok to build his career and engage with the global community,” comments Nichal Sethi, head of SoundOn, EMEA. “The Walkerworld 2.0 campaign from TikTok and SoundOn includes new and exclusive content, prizes and live experiences, which will bring his millions of fans closer than ever to Alan and his music.”

“It’s my pleasure to partner with TikTok in this extensive campaign,” enthuses Walker. “TikTok is where creations meet and this resonates with the space that I have been creating with Walkerworld –creativity is a way of self-expression and it should be borderless. This also exemplifies the main message I want to convey through Walkerworld 2.0, which is, Create for Change. I started making music for fun in my bedroom and posting on social media 10 years ago with Faded and that changed my life. I hope to encourage everyone to keep creating as the opportunities that come with it are unlimited.”

WHY SOUNDON?

If you’re an artist, the better question might be, why not SoundOn? Any artist wanting their music to resonate in today’s industry will certainly want to tap into TikTok’s ecosystem to monetize their music. With over a billion users worldwide, TikTok is undoubtedly one of the best platforms to get an artist’s sound out

there and connect with fans across the globe. But SoundOn takes it up a notch, helping artists like Walker not only reach more fans but also maximize their earnings on TikTok.

And here’s the kicker: their music doesn’t have to stay on TikTok alone. SoundOn lets artists distribute tracks

to 90+ digital streaming platforms –think Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and more. In other words, they can grow their fanbase worldwide without juggling a bunch of complicated distribution systems.

Not stopping there, SoundOn gives artists direct access to TikTok’s creator community. This means artists can team up with influencers and viral content creators to promote their music.

That kind of exposure can help music gain traction, go viral and reach entirely new audiences.

And SoundOn doesn’t just distribute music – it helps promote it too. The platform is packed with artist-centric tools to make sure tracks get noticed, including helping artists appear on curated playlists and providing advice on giving tracks the best chance of going viral. If an artist wants to hype up a new song before it officially drops, (not to mention collect TikTok royalties ahead of the official release date) SoundOn lets them release clips on TikTok before launch day.

And for any artists scratching their heads when it comes to measuring impact, SoundOn’s advanced analytics give them the tools to understand their music’s impact, including an insight into what’s resonating with listeners, where tracks are performing best, while creator demographics provide a clear picture of who’s listening to their music.

SoundOn is more than just a distribution platform –it’s designed to act as a one-stop shop for growing an artist’s music career. From TikTok monetization to advanced promotion tools and data-driven insights, SoundOn is designed to help artists like Walker succeed.

The #AlanWalker campaign is live on TikTok globally now. To find the Walkerworld 2.0 campaign, fans simply need to search ‘alanwalker’ in TikTok.

Words by LIZWILKIN S NO

PRO7ECT SONGWRITING RETREAT

ROCKFIELD STUDIOS

Pro7ect Residential Songwriting Retreat marks its 10th anniversary this year with a milestone event taking place from May 20-24 at the iconic Rockfield Studios in Wales, UK, in partnership with Headliner Group. Designed to bring together established and aspiring songwriters, Pro7ect provides a unique opportunity to create and collaborate in an inspiring, professional environment.

Artists taking part in the retreat will be treated to a tour of Rockfield Studios and be guided through immersive songwriting sessions led by experienced producers, over the

course of three intensive writing days. By the end of the retreat, participants will leave with three professionally recorded songs, invaluable industry connections, and the inspiration to continue their creative journey.

Since its inception, Pro7ect has established itself as a global network of music professionals dedicated to creating opportunities for songwriters, producers, and musicians.

Over the past decade, Pro7ect residential writing retreats have hosted more than 200 international artists, resulting in the creation of almost as many songs - many of

which have been produced, released, or secured sync placements.

Pro7ect works with an impressive roster of top producers, including Youth, Greg Haver, Roni Size, and Mercury Prize winner Talvin Singh OBE, as well as collaborating with industry veterans like Stew Jackson (Massive Attack) and Iain Archer (Snow Patrol, James Bay) to become a trusted platform for fostering creativity and building connections within the music industry.

With its rich history of hosting musical legends from Queen to Oasis, Rockfield Studios provides the perfect location for Pro7ect’s events. Nestled in the beautiful Wye Valley, this

legendary space combines worldclass facilities with an unparalleled musical legacy, making it the ultimate destination for music creators.

As part of this anniversary event, Pro7ect has partnered with Headliner Group as the major sponsor for 2025.

Image Credit: Ian Wallman

Reflecting on the milestone, Pro7ect creative director, Lisa Fitzgibbon comments, “I can’t believe it’s been 10 years. Our partnership with the team at Headliner gives us access to their vast experience, knowledge, and music industry connections to enable us to take our events to the next level.”

“I’ve followed Pro7ect from the beginning and have always felt the connection between our brands,” furthers Paul Watson, Headliner Group founder and CEO. “This 10th anniversary event feels like the perfect time to officially join forces.”

Applications are now open, and spaces are limited. All applications should be made via pro7ect.com.

The Residential Songwriting Retreat runs from May 2024, 2025 - £1,895. Use the discount code Headliner to receive an exclusive 10% discount. Masterclass (day only) Saturday, May 24 - £225, which includes lunch.

PRO7ECT.COM

Image Credit: Ian Wallman

DRUM RE-SYNTHESIZER

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CAPTURING MAGIC

“I’VE NEVER MET A LECTROSONICS PIECE THAT WASN’T A BEAST IN THE FIELD.”

High Five Sound has delivered exceptional location mixing and post-production services for documentary, reality, auto racing, and news programs across a wide range of platforms, including A&E, Bravo, CMT, ESPN, Freeform, MTV, and Vice, for almost 20 years. Company founder, Edson Alvarez shares highlights of how High Five Sound handles complex assignments and how it has come to rely on Lectrosonics products to capture the best possible audio in often challenging circumstances…

Alvarez’s passion for mixing began early. “My dad played guitar in a band, but oddly, that gave me an interest in mixing rather than playing,” he recalls. “I graduated from Full Sail University in 2001 with a degree in Recording Arts. I did the music production thing for a while, then wanted to get into TV.”

A young Alvarez secured an internship at a reality production company called Pink Sneakers, mentored by a mixer named Jimmy Van Winkle. “He taught

me everything I know, and he always used Lectrosonics. He’d order several pieces for an upcoming show, and I’d put together the kits, which caused me to appreciate how solid Lectrosonics is. Through rain, snow, sand, heat, or cold, it will never give up on you.”

One particularly memorable challenge came while working on a reality-survival competition in Fiji. “We had a total of 20 SMDB and SMDWB transmitters on cast members, and though we wrapped them up pretty tightly, some would inevitably come back having taken on salt water.”

With no time to replace damaged gear, Alvarez and his team relied on ingenuity to revive the equipment.

“My supervisor had read that you could disassemble a pack, remove the batteries, expose the motherboard, and clean it with distilled water. Then, you dry it out in the sun. I’m not saying to try this at home, but we had no choice, and it worked. If we had this kind of accident, we could get packs back up and running in three hours.”

Closer to home, promotional and documentary shoots inside Disney theme parks brought different challenges. “Walt Disney World is, as you’d imagine, a very active RF environment because of all the things which are under some kind of radio or remote control,” Alvarez explains. “I usually have to stay in the A1 block, but I can always find six or seven channels I can use, thanks to Lectro receivers’ ability to find and hang onto frequencies. I was there for four days, working across three different parks. I was able to use mostly the same frequencies all the time, which was surprising given that I had four or five people miked at all times.”

Sometimes, this work takes the High Five crew deep into the ‘belly of the beast’ to show viewers how Disney works its animatronic and multimedia magic. “Sometimes we need IFB inside a ride,” says Alvarez. “For this, one of my bags is always equipped with a T4 transmitter, as if necessary, it can go up to 250 milliwatts of output power, which is more than enough to cut through all the metal in the structure and the RF in the air. Next to my SRCs, I also still use the UCR411 even, and honestly, I think it has a certain magic about signal acquisition.”

Another Florida staple, the Daytona 500 NASCAR race, is where Alvarez’s team achieved exceptional range despite the RF-heavy environment. “The Daytona International Speedway is also an RF-heavy environment during an event with all the two-way radios and TV crews on site,” he says. “I was once shooting a pre-race test drive and had to set up in the stands with fin antennas. We could receive the driver’s voice around the entire run of the track, which I didn’t think would happen.”

Edson’s most recent gig, for the Rafa Racing Club at Florida’s Sebring Raceway, was a frequency coordination challenge. “I have eight channels in my bag for mics,” he explains. “We use two scanners to hone in on the

conversations going on between drivers and crews. Then there’s the IFB for the producers, which I have on T4 [transmitters]. At one point, we couldn’t find the coaches but we had their signal. The producer was impressed, and he was probably 70 yards from our position. That gives me a lot of confidence in Lectrosonics.”

For future projects, Alvarez is excited to audition the DSR4 digital four-channel receiver into his workflow.

“My SRcs and 411s have always had great sound quality, so I’m looking forward to comparing them,” he notes.

“Four channels in a single slot mount, plus backward compatibility with all my transmitters, sounds interesting. But I already know this - I’ve never met a Lectrosonics piece that wasn’t a beast in the field,” he smiles.

2025BRAND AMBASSADORS

YAMAHA MUSIC LONDON

Words by ALICE G U

Yamaha Music London, in partnership with Headliner, is offering an incredible opportunity for emerging solo artists and duos in the UK, whereby three winners will become the brand ambassadors for Yamaha Music London in 2025…

On February 6 2025, 10 finalists will be selected to perform original music in a showcase final in front of music industry professionals at Yamaha Music London, Wardour Street, London. Finalists will be selected out of the hundreds of solo musicians, duos and bands that applied.

Winners will benefit from a stellar prize package which includes being made a Yamaha Music London ambassador for one year; winners get an instrument of their choice to

play; they will receive mentorship, recording studio time, and marketing and PR support.

Last year’s winners, Stone Jets and Deuxes, have attracted lots of attention in the UK and across Europe, enjoying performing everywhere from Glastonbury to the Czech Republic.

Both ambassadors have successfully released new music throughout the year, whilst also both shooting professional music videos with the help of Yamaha Music London.

“We were lucky enough to be winners last year, and boy, what a year it has been! We have had a blast,” said Stone Jets. “Being ambassadors has

certainly got us noticed and the last few months have been super-busy and packed full of unforgettable experiences. We have launched new music, which has been so well received, and playing at Glastonbury in front of incredible audiences was almost an out of body experience!”

Stone Jets is a musical partnership between bassist and vocalist Given Nkanyane, guitarist Manfred Klose and drummer Adrien Latgé. The fusion of the three, together with their infectious, melodic songwriting style and strong live performances, makes them popular crowd-pleasers from Africa to Europe and beyond, and has already seen them support James Morrison and Sugagabes.

After feeling they’d hit a bit of a wall in terms of what they could achieve in South Africa, Stone Jets decided to move to the UK to pursue their musical dreams and take advantage of the opportunities that lie in London and beyond.

“We moved because we found that we can unobstructedly continue writing music from the simple place of joy and connectivity,” said Nkanyane. “When you look at the music industry, you want to be in a place where you are closer to the melting pot, where there’s movement

and rejuvenation. We found more opportunities over here in the United Kingdom when we came for our first tour in 2018, so we took the leap.”

A standout performance of the 2024 Yamaha Music London finals was Stone Jet’s spellbinding rendition of original song, I Can’t Live Without You

“It’s classic Stone Jets,” Nkanyane told Headliner of the song that helped win them a spot as an ambassador.

“We do things off the cuff. We wrote the song when we were off to a gig. We said, ‘Let’s quickly write two riffs and see what we get,’. We went to

the gig and when we came back, we were like, ‘That riff that we wrote… there’s something to it’. The fact that it had sat with us for so long, even after the gig, was special. Then we then started writing the song and talking about, ‘I can’t remember how I met you late in December; time was frozen’. We were describing this moment where you’re meeting the love of your life for the first time but then only realizing close to death that this person was the love of your life.

“We realized this song was actually a song and not just the riff,” he continued. “We wrote it and then we let it sit. Three months later, Sofar Sounds in Cape Town needed artists to perform for the channel for the first time. They asked if we would do it, and long story short, we got there and we thought, ‘We’re gonna record I Can’t Live Without You because it will be quite nice to see it in its raw version’. And lo and behold, it’s one of the most viewed videos of ours. Every time we perform it, it seems that we found gold.”

On being named a 2024 ambassador for Yamaha Music London’s flagship store, he explains how it felt to be selected out of so many talented entrants: ‘Being an adult, the innocence that you lose is knowing that you don’t always get what you want. But you actually do if you work hard for it,” he said. “We love music and it’s our passion, and it’s the only thing that we do. It felt like, even if we don’t get it, we had a lot of fun meeting new people, meeting our peers and seeing that we’re all fighting the same good fight. When they announced we had won, I was like, ‘Are you kidding? Get out of here!’ It was one of those things where you realize, if you put your heart and soul into it, you can get what you want.”

“By the time we got to the Yamaha finals, all the artists were so good,” added Klose. “When they called out our name,

we were like, ‘Oh – that’s us!’ It was quite a surprise to experience that.”

Also named 2024 ambassadors were Deuxes, a talented soul/indie duo made up of sisters Francesca and Martine from North West London, who mesmerized the audience and judges alike with their mixture of bold bass lines and soulful harmonies.

Deuxes said of their success last year: “We were so grateful and blown away to win last year’s competition along with the Stone Jets. We felt that at last we had been recognized by the music industry, along with the fantastic Yamaha instruments we won. The mentoring and support from everyone has inspired us to keep following our passion for music. In fact, we have recently released our new single! Winning this contest is incredible and profoundly humbling. We are truly honored to be recognized among such talented artists. We appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with Yamaha, an industry legend!”

Words bYMIKE

MIKE DIAS THE WILLINGNESS BONUS

In his latest Headliner column, pro audio executive Mike Dias discusses the art of adding value and maximizing impact whenever and wherever you can…

I was recently driving down to Clair Global for their conference on touring production. And with the wide open road, I was thinking about why I love this industry so much. For me, I’m attracted to the teamwork, to the camaraderie, and to the ridiculous amount of focused dedication that this job demands. What fascinates me is that these aren’t just work skills. These are LIFE SKILLS that make me better at everything that I endeavor.

And as I was thinking about all of this, I got a call from an old friend with plenty of stories from the road. These two winners are absolutely worth repeating here.

can-do attitude. He was working for the local lighting and sound company and he didn’t drink or smoke and they treated him as if he were a nark who had infiltrated their rank.

But after a week or so of intense hazing, all of a sudden they started to be nice. Really nice. Too nice… It was such a profound and noticeable shift that he was like, “Umm. What’s up? What are you guys trying to pull?” To which they replied, “Well…. Look… We all talked. And we don’t want you to go home. This is the first time that we all don’t get shocked by everything that we touch on stage. Plus we now all have clean laundry and food to eat at every gig”.

He did whatever it took to be helpful and to be of service — to add value. And he did it willingly, enthusiastically, and with joy. And when that tour was over and when they passed through again on the following run, they asked for him specifically and would not accept anyone else. Which brings me to the next story. WILLINGLY.

ENTHUSIASTICALLY. AND WITH JOY

The first story was about his time on the road with The Blues Brothers — and how they were just awful to him. Now mind you, my friend was just a wholesome good natured farm boy who loved audio and who had that

Sorting laundry and food were clearly not part of my friend’s stated responsibilities. But the tour was such a mess and no one else was coordinating those basic details. So he did whatever he could to bring a level of organization and structure to the chaos. He saw problems and he fixed them.

EXCUSES AND DELAYS

I had mentioned earlier that these are life skills and that they are equally important at home as on the road. So as we were talking about our kids and the lessons that we as parents were passing on, he told me about how he bonused-out his daughter one time for chores.

Rather than applying a straight allowance, he had a commissionedbased structure for all the tasks at hand. Both kids could participate and earn the maximum payout per week depending on what they did and accomplished. One week, the younger daughter fell behind and

did not get as many things done as the other daughter. And the older daughter — who had done more and earned more — was really rubbing it in and being a pill about it all.

So the dad added a ‘willingness bonus’ to the younger daughter’s payday to teach both kids a lesson.

Of course the older daughter protested and complained and said, “What is this? That’s not fair! Why does she get a willingness bonus?”.

To which my friend replied, “When I ask you to take out the trash, your first answer is always, ‘Yeah.. I’ll get to that later’. The second time that I ask you, you always say, ‘It’s only half full. I’ll do it tomorrow’. The third time that I ask you, you ALWAYS have another excuse ready. It’s not until I threaten to kill you that you begrudgingly do it. Whenever I ask your sister anything, she does it with a smile and simply gets it done. She gets it done without hassle, without fuss, and without me having to expend any additional energy or thought.”

THAT’S THE LESSON

And why these two stories may seem unrelated, they are literally the exact same thing. And they are also the same story as to why Clair just dominates. And why road crews can pull off show after show after show in impossible conditions and situations.

This is the essence that’s at the heart of all of my talks on “What Entertainers Can Teach Executives” and why you should hire a Roadie whenever possible for ANYTHING!

It’s not about the job description. It’s never about the roles and responsibilities. It’s about getting it done and making it work and adding value. So as you start this New Year off with a bang and really think about upping your game and making more impact, the only thing that matters is

making things better and better and better at every touch point.

Imagine if your company, band or organization ran like this…

Mike Dias writes and speaks about Why Nobody Likes Networking and What Entertainers Can Teach Executives. He is one of the few global leaders in Trade Show Networking and he helps companies maximize their trade show spend by ensuring that their teams are prepared, ready, and

able to create and close opportunities. This column will be an ongoing monthly feature because Mike loves talking shop and is honored to give back to the community. If this article was helpful and useful in any way, please reach out anytime at Mike Dias Speaks and let Mike know about what you want to hear more about next time.

WILKINSON

GLP CREOS LIGHTS DSDS FINALE

GLOWUP

The 2024 finale of the long-running German talent show Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar (DSDS) marked a milestone not only for its winning vocalist, Christian Jährig but also for the debut of GLP’s innovative Creos fixtures on a major television stage. The production showcased the versatility and adaptability of these innovative LED wash lights, discovers Headliner…

The production design was developed by DK Design, with Sebastian Huwig creating the lighting design and planning for the finale on behalf of David Kreileman. The technical service provider for the production was Cologne-based MLS magic light+sound. A total of 24 Creos units were integrated into the production alongside 140 other GLP devices, forming a sophisticated lighting arrangement tailored to the needs of live TV.

The new LED wash lights, with fast, motorized tilt, were used together with other spotlights as a second light level on rolling risers to create new lighting atmospheres for each act.

The modifications took place during the filming.

“THE CREOS IS A REAL ASSET TO EVERY SHOW. IT STANDS OUT, WHETHER USED IN SINGLE-PIX CONTROL OR AS A POWERFUL WALL-WASH.

This time, the team chose not to seamlessly combine several Creos into huge LED bars using the integrated connector system. “We only have short conversion times between performances,” explains Sebastian Huwig. “We decided on maximum flexibility and speed and instead grouped individual devices in varying numbers, always adding new ones.”

The Creos is a powerful, IP65-certified LED wash light with 18 40W RGBL LEDs, a motorized zoom, and a 190° swivel head. Thanks to the wide zoom range (4.3°–52°), large wall-wash applications can be implemented, while the particularly narrow beam enables unique light curtains with impressive light intensity.

The DSDS finale also featured additional GLP fixtures, including 136 impression X5 and five impression X4 units. These additional devices further enhanced the show’s visual impact and provided an adaptable and efficient setup, delivering the high production standards audiences have come to expect from DSDS over the past 21 years.

Regarding the latest addition to the GLP portfolio, David Kreileman says, “The Creos is a real asset to every show. It stands out, whether used in single-pix control or as a powerful wall-wash. The motorized tilt provides an additional dynamic layer that served us well on DSDS.

When Oliver Schwendke and Toto Bröcking from GLP showed me the device for the first time, I wanted to earmark it straight away for DSDS, which, fortunately, worked out.”

Huwig echoes these sentiments. “The Creos has the fantastic GLP color mix, which sets it apart from other wash lights available on the market. But my highlight is the powerful zoom,” he states. “While the Creos has sufficient punch, it can also be used effectively at low brightness, which is always helpful on TV – because this is the real differentiator. The Creos remains accurate and brilliant in color, even at low brightness.”

CRAFTED FOR CREATORS

FOR 75 YEARS , AKG microphones have captured the essence of the world’s most iconic artists, from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson. The legendary C414 condenser microphone, born in 1971, is a staple in studios around the world, prized for its versatility and clear, natural sound. Today, our C Series family evokes the classic C414’s sought-after sonic character while offering flexible recording choices for any studio, at any budget. Use one on your next session and capture something amazing.