Spotlight Journal Issue 1

ISSUE 01 / DECEMBER 2020 HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET UK £3.95 / USA $6.95 / CANADA $7.95

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issue 01

enter KAPUCHON

AFROJACK APPLE MAC M1 MINI

LEAPWING ROOTONE

SENNHEISER MD445 & 435

IS APPLE SILICON THE REAL DEAL?

A SIMPLE WAY OF CONTROLLING SUB

BRAND NEW DYNAMIC MIC RANGE ON TEST

Destino, Ibiza with the d&b GSL System

N E X T X N O W

At home in the most demanding club applications, a d&b system brings market-leading software and hardware to every performance. Night after night, this easy-to-use audio toolkit helps bring dancefloors to life. And, as d&b works hand in hand with the industry on innovative, patented technologies, the boundaries of what’s possible evolve. So, in shaping what’s coming next, the now becomes even more exciting. More than a sound system.

See what’s possible at dbaudio.com/club

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

— Mick Jagger

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

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SUP P

ATIVE CO RE

ING THE T R C O

NITY MU M SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

01 Welcome to our pilot edition of Spotlight Journal, a brand new sister title powered by Headliner, dedicated to ‘spotlighting’ standout instruments and cool kit which we believe will help get those creative juices flowing in the studio, on stage, on the move, or even from your living room, whether you’re an aspiring artist, or a seasoned pro. Spotlight Journal provides a fresh and relevant approach to product reviews: using the talent to tap into the technology; and supporting the creative community.

On our cover is Afrojack, who needs no real introduction. An incredibly established artist, DJ and producer with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the world of music production. He dives deep into his creative process, offers tips from the studio and for generating the ultimate live show; and chats excitedly about relaunching his excellent Kapuchon alias which promises to keep him busy into 2021 and beyond.

The rest of our Spotlight Journal content is broken down into three sections to make your browsing experience more efficient: Reveal, Review, and In The Mix. Reveal is our way of previewing product - spotlighting some of the coolest upcoming products which we hope to get our hands on soon: in this case they are ROLI’s LUMI Keys; Avid’s Pro Tools | Carbon music production centre; and Scopelabs’ extraordinary new Periscope microphone.

Our Spotlight Reviews come with a Headliner twist. Rather than geek out completely (plenty of titles already do this very well), we cut to the chase: what does the product do?; how does it sound?; is it suited to aspiring creatives or seasoned pros (or both?)

These reviews include Apple’s new Mac Mini M1; plugins from Oeksound, Leapwing Audio, Sonnox, and Waves; new microphones from Sennheiser (wired) and Shure (wireless); and Cranborne Audio’s 500ADAT. In The Mix provides another creative twist: along with Afrojack’s deep production dive, we record ‘A Song In A Day’ with aspiring artist Cam Bloomfield as he gives us his take on some of the kit we used: Arturia’s DrumBrute, D’Angelico guitars, and Korg’s SoundLink mixer. Finally, we install Softube’s Console 1 & Fader 1 in our studio to see if the combo sounds as ‘analogue’ as it’s rumoured to.

We hope you enjoy the issue - and that some of the kit on show inspires you to get creative!

Paul Watson Founder, The Headliner Group HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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ISSUE 01

Welcome to Spotlight Journal

REVEAL 10-12

SCOPE LABS

Periscope

14-16

AVID

Pro Tools | Carbon

18-20

ROLI

LUMI Keys Studio Edition

IN THE MIX 24-29

AFROJACK

Cover Story | Enter Kapuchon

30-33

A SONG IN A DAY

In session with Cameron Bloomfield

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MIXDOWN

Softube’s Console 1 and Fader 1 on test

40-42

SCARY GOOD

Inside Spitfire’s Darkstar Haunted House

ISSU SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

CONTENTS

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REVIEWS 46-49

APPLE

Mac Mini M1

50-53

SENNHEISER

MD 445 & 435

54-58

LEAPWING AUDIO

RootOne

60-63

SHURE

SLX-D

64-66

WAVES

OVox

68-73

OEKSOUND

Soothe 2 & Spiff

76-80

CRANBORNE AUDIO

500 ADAT

82-84

SONNOX

Inflator

UE 01 HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

REVEAL

SCOPE LABS

Periscope

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SPOTLIGHT REVEAL

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Scope Labs, a new manufacturer of innovative recording tools, has launched a microphone that it claims ‘records sounds in a way you haven’t heard before’.

The Periscope is said to be the world’s first ever microphone with a built-in compressor. Hand-crafted in Finland and now available to buy, it has already been used and endorsed by a number of big names in music.

The Periscope is an omnidirectional condenser microphone with a big character aimed towards creative recording. Its full frequency response capsule is designed to capture sounds in every possible detail, passing the signal to a built-in compressor that gives the mic its unique fingerprint.

The Periscope’s impressive list of users already includes awardwinning music professionals such as electronic music pioneers The Chemical Brothers and legendary producer Butch Vig (Nirvana, Garbage, Foo Fighters), as well as new generation Emmy and Grammy-winning engineers like Ricky Damian (Mark Ronson, Lady Gaga) and Francesco Donadello (Chernobyl OST, Johann Johannsson).

Other Periscope users include the king of big sounds ‘Evil’ Joe Barresi (Queens of the Stone Age, Slipknot, Kyuss, Melvins) and drummer extraordinaire Alex Reeves (Elbow, Bat for Lashes, Dizzie Rascal).

The Chemical Brothers have described the Periscope as “inspiring,” and believe “it adds instant excitement to live drums and percussion and anything else you want to throw at it.”

“When I’m looking for character and

colour, the Periscope is my new goto microphone,” adds Butch Vig. “It’s an omnidirectional condenser with built in compression, and it sounds killer on just about everything. If you’re looking for instant vibe, the Periscope rocks.”

Meanwhile, Ricky Damian says the Periscope is one of his favourite tools to keep things exciting, “and give great character to any type of source.”

Developed during the last three years by renowned pro audio

tech Mattia Sartori and Finnish master craftsman Paavo Kurkela, in cooperation with Grammy-winning producer Tommaso Colliva, the Periscope aims to provide a hyperrealistic sound, capture the room perfectly, and emphasise the context where the music happens.

It is based around an omni capsule followed by a compression circuit tailored to highlight all the textural nuances the mic captures, while its magnifying lens is designed to create “larger than life results” capable of “instantly drawing the HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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SCOPE LABS

Periscope

To achieve its mission, the Periscope’s electronic and mechanical design requires highly skilled craftsmanship and the mic is therefore entirely manufactured in-house at Scope Labs Ltd., the newly born Finnish company founded by Sartori and Kurkela to bring the mic to life, and which focuses on highly original products with unique functional features and aesthetics.

“For years, microphone manufacturers have been looking for the most pristine sound; we have our mic lockers full of supposed-to-be-perfect pieces,” comments Mattia Sartori, Scope Labs co-founder. “They can tell us exactly how an instrument sounds but often they cannot capture the vibe, they cannot tell us the story behind it. That’s why we need new unique tools with character, and that’s exactly what the Periscope delivers.”

SCOPELABS.EU

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

“Our mic is not a clone. It’s a brand new design developed from the ground up, taking inspiration from tools and techniques that have been used for decades but that are only now available in a sleek and simple plug-n-play form,” adds Paavo Kurkela, Scope Labs co-founder and craftsman. “Just hook up the mic in front of the source, switch phantom power on and you’re all set to enter the Periscope’s world of sound.

“The obvious question for many is ‘why would you compress or distort a microphone?’ Because we can, it’s unconventional, and it sounds super cool. You should try it out and hear it for yourself!”

The Periscope microphone is now available worldwide through the Scope Labs webshop.

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AVID

Pro Tools | Carbon

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CAPTURING BRILLIANCE

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

SPOTLIGHT REVEAL

Avid has unveiled a new generation hybrid audio production system specifically for music creators - bringing powerful HDX DSP technology to individual artists, bands and producers. Avid boldly states that this will provide the fastest, smoothest and most inspiring recording experience.

Building on Avid’s heritage of making high end studio technology more accessible to all music creators, Pro Tools | Carbon brings the power of its HDX technology to anyone who records and produces music, and is designed to empower users to record every detail of every performance with the utmost clarity and precision.

The hybrid audio production system features superior sound quality and intelligent Pro Tools integration that combines the power of the user’s native CPU with the high performance of HDX DSP

acceleration. Avid says the result is the smoothest, most inspiring tracking experience it has ever designed.

The all-new Pro Tools hybrid engine has been designed to allow users to “push their CPUs to the limit when working with virtual instruments and mixing, simultaneously allowing them to access on-demand, low latency channels to record through AAX DSP plugins in real time” - with sub-1ms latency monitoring performance.

With the ability to easily toggle a single DSP Mode button per track in Pro Tools, users also have the flexibility to simplify their workflow for recording and mixing - the idea being that they can focus on the music they’re making - not what they’re making it with.

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true hybrid capabilities, delivering the same sound quality in both native and HDX DSP acceleration domains, enabling users to toggle in and out of DSP Mode while maintaining sound quality.

This also enables music creators to easily disconnect Pro Tools | Carbon and take their mix on the road or collaborate with others who don’t have the interface.

Featuring high end converters, double resolution clocking, and what Avid believes is its most transparent mic preamp design yet, Pro Tools | Carbon has certainly been designed with quality in mind - and to capture every nuance of every performance with the push of a button.

AAX DSP is at the core of the Hybrid Engine which Avid suggests is the only plugin architecture that offers HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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AVID

Pro Tools | Carbon

“A NEW GENERATION HYBRID AUDIO PRODUCTION SYSTEM SPECIFICALLY FOR MUSIC CREATORS...”

With four headphone outputs to send individual monitor mixes, eight preamps combined with 16 channels of ADAT inputs and an onboard talkback mic, the interface has been designed with multi-applications in mind: from solo artists to bands, or whatever sonics you choose to throw at it.

Pro Tools | Carbon also delivers a super-fast, high-bandwidth Ethernet connection to the host computer, in a bid to preserve the highest possible sound quality from input to output, as well as supporting future workflow enhancements.

Meanwhile, Pro Tools 2020 introduces a new dramatic dark themed UI designed to be sleek, inspiring, and easier on the eyes - especially in lower light conditions. It also provides

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

new ways to create and advance ideas with the ability to analyse audio and render it as MIDI notes.

For audio post professionals, Pro Tools 2020 includes native integration to export ADM files for Dolby Atmos - a new space clips function that lets you arrange a multitude of clips in a fraction of the time - and it reintroduces the ability to bounce sessions to QuickTime formats in macOS Catalina.

“With onboard HDX DSP, Pro Tools | Carbon puts low latency power at your fingertips. I can have AAX DSP plugins on my tracking channels at the ready and access them whenever I want,” says Darrell Thorp, nine-time Grammy Award-winning engineer for artists such as Foo Fighters, Radiohead, and Beck. “I work

extremely fast, so the fewer steps that I need to think about, the better.

Pro Tools | Carbon really speeds up the recording process. Plus, its transparent converter and preamp design sounds amazing.”

Pro Tools | Carbon is available now at local resellers, starting at £3,799/$3,999 USD, which includes a one-year Pro Tools subscription and partner plugins from Arturia, McDSP, Plugin Alliance, UVI, Native Instruments and Embody at no additional cost.

AVID.COM

Genelec RAW

Easy on the eye.

Easy on the environment.

Introducing RAW, an eco-friendly reimagining of our most iconic studio, AV and home audio models. Featuring a distinctive, recycled-aluminium MDE enclosure design, RAW loudspeakers require no painting and less intensive finishing than standard models. The result is a unique design aesthetic that allows the raw beauty of the aluminium to shine through. And because it’s Genelec, you know it will sound as good as it looks – in any setting.

We will be donating a percentage of every RAW speaker sold to the Audio Engineering Society’s fundraising initiative – helping this much-loved organisation continue its valuable work throughout the current COVID-19 crisis.

For more information visit genelec.com/raw

ROLI

LUMI Keys Studio Edition

REVEAL

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ROLI LUMI KEYS London-based music technology company ROLI is known for its high tech musical instruments, particularly the Seaboard MIDI controller. Now they have launched another intriguing piece of hardware in the form of LUMI Keys Studio Edition, a revolutionary MPE-enabled controller that offers polyphonic pitch-bend and aftertouch per key, as well as new ways to compose with light on illuminated keys.

LUMI Keys Studio edition bolsters the offering of ROLI’s LUMI MIDI keyboard to no end, offering users a taste of MPE control from standard key action.

The company says that for the first time, music makers can bend pitch through vibrato-like movements on a keyboard controller with traditional key action, adding expression in a natural and intuitive way.

The latest offering arrives just as many other music-making tools become optimised for MIDI Polyphonic Expression and make MPE into a fully integrated, mainstream part of digital music production.

LUMI Keys Studio Edition bundles in ROLI Studio, a powerful desktop software suite that includes presets from ROLI’s Equator2, Cypher2, and

Strobe2 synths, along with an array of cutting-edge production features customised for LUMI Keys and designed to help with your songwriting and playing.

The company believes LUMI is the first “4D” keyboard offering four dimensions of touch control. Glide, or polyphonic pitch-bend per key, represents just one of these dimensions for controlling sound through finger movements, along with Press, or per-key polyphonic aftertouch; Lift, or release velocity; and Strike, or attack velocity.

ROLI is also calling LUMI the brightest RGB-illuminated keyboard ever made, while LUMI Keys introduces lightassisted composition to the music creation process. Users can light up scales, chords, and arpeggios in

any key, through Smart Chords and features in ROLI Studio.

The keyboard can also be expanded through magnetic DNA connectors: connect two, three, or four keyboards to create a 48-, 72-, or even 96-key playing surface. Edge-to-edge design, plus integration across hardware, software, and firmware, make multiple LUMIs play as one.

Meanwhile, four different modes let users select the expressive response from LUMI Keys: Piano Mode makes LUMI Keys play like a classic keyboard; Aftertouch Mode adds aftertouch; and Pitch-bend Mode allows per-key pitch-bend, while 4D Mode enables pitch-bend and aftertouch together.

These modes will be available to all LUMI users after a firmware update in January.

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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ROLI

LUMI Keys Studio Edition

LUMI Keys is also compatible with LUMI Music, an award-winning platform that originated as a Kickstarter project in 2019, designed to teach learners how to play the piano by taking in-app lessons and practicing songs they love.

“LUMI Keys Studio Edition brings a touch of Seaboard magic to a traditional keyboard format,” says Roland Lamb, founder and CEO of ROLI. “Beyond its form factor, however, LUMI Keys is anything but traditional. Its unique combination of illumination - which enables a range of compositional shortcuts - and its HEADLINER MAGAZINE

unprecedented MPE capabilities make it the most innovative and feature-rich keyboard action on any controller available today.

“The Seaboard is still the premier MPE instrument for playing in the deep end of musical expression, but now LUMI Keys provides an opportunity for everyone to get started with MPE and see how it can enhance their production workflow and create new possibilities for performance.”

LUMI Keys Studio Edition is now available for pre-order in

a limited-time launch bundle priced at £269/$269, just over 10% discount from the standard price of £299/$299. The launch bundle includes ROLI Studio, a LUMI Snapcase, three additional ROLI soundpacks, and a £50/$50 voucher which can be used for any ROLI software, including the newly released Equator2.

LUMI Keys Studio Edition will start shipping in January 2021.

ROLI.COM

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

The most powerful version of our dynamic high-end microphone series enhances vocals with an unprecedented intimacy and range of detail.

At the same time, the high-rejection, super-cardioid pattern offers an extremely high level of feedback resistance.

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

IN THE MIX

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AFROJACK

Enter Kapuchon

AFROJACK SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

COVER STORY

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ENTER KAPUCHON

RVIEW by TE

LBY RAM CO

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Dutch DJ, record producer and remixer Nick van de Wall’s tremendous reputation precedes him no end. Best known as Afrojack, he came in at number seven in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJ poll this year, and has been using the lockdown period to focus on and revive his once-dormant house and techno alias Kapuchon. Here, the superstar DJ tells us why he’s getting back to his musical roots, why human relationships are so important, and reveals the production techniques through which he has made such a name for himself.

Joining us on a Zoom call recently from his house in Dubai, Nick van de Wall was buzzing to spill the beans on his latest project, into which he has no doubt poured his heart and soul.

When the first European lockdown began, he admits that it took some time to adjust to not being on tour, and to not have the pressure of writing. It provided him a real opportunity to reflect on his entire career and his musical identity, and so the decision to bring back Kapuchon was made.

“Of course it’s a terrible thing that’s happening, but I feel really lucky to

have had this chance to change the situation,” says van de Wall. “It’s really pointed me in the direction of being more involved with the team and trying to do bigger, newer, and more innovative things in the future.”

It’s quite clear that van de Wall is no longer concerned with recycling the same formula of success that he’s been so lucky to have, and is keen to take on this new and exciting challenge: “Getting a Kapuchon set and opening up a stage somewhere - that’s what I’m aiming for now.”

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AFROJACK

Enter Kapuchon

KEEPING IT REAL While he has still been enjoying releasing music pressure-free as Afrojack this year, the Kapuchon name has been bubbling under the surface, and van de Wall has been keen to shift the focus onto the deep house side of his musical repertoire.

It has even caused him to change his entire vision about his Afrojack career, and he’s having genuine thoughts about making and releasing music independently again in a bid to get back to the realness and human interaction that he craves.

“Kapuchon is new for all of us, so we’re looking forward to starting new relationships and getting back to a more organic and more human situation,” he explains. “As Afrojack, I’m represented by labels, distribution companies, agents - the list goes on. There’s so many layers between me and the people, but with Kapuchon I’m really noticing that it’s like going back to the roots, back to human relationships and growing together, and I think that makes it really exciting.”

“I don’t want to be part of a deal anymore,” he reveals. “I think now is a great time for everyone to reassess who they are, how they represent themselves, and just go for it.

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

“I honestly think this break, even though it’s hurting a lot of people financially, especially the up and coming DJs, is a really healthy reassessment for the industry. When parties start up again, maybe we’re not gonna make as much money as we used to, but I think the passion is

going to be at an all-time high.”

Speaking of passion, in September van de Wall tied the knot at Lake Como, and what was meant to be a formal sit-down dinner quickly turned into an entire night of dancing from his guests who, like most, are missing being able to party - certainly something that must have been fun to see.

Riding this emotional high, Kapuchon has now been fully reactivated with 10 Years Later, a brand new single that van de Wall released in November via the newly launched Kapuchon Records. The inspiration for the track’s name is simple - it is the first song that he has released under the Kapuchon name for around 10 years.

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that have shaped his musical vision.

“The idea with Kapuchon Records is to release anything I think is cool, so we’re not going to be dependent on Spotify playlists or on Beatport success. That is not the definition of success. The definition of success is being able to enjoy music together.

Kapuchon is purely about the music and the relationships. It’s not about the promotion of my deep house side - it’s about the promotion of the incredible feeling we get from attending house events.”

“When I started DJing before, and even when I started Afrojack back in 2007, I was always in the warm-up slot,” he explains. “I was playing in the genres of techno and deep house from the get-go, so I was always warming up at 123/124 BPM playing alongside techno DJs because it was fun, and it was nice to be able to play my own music even when warming up.”

It was not long after Afrojack was playing his first sets that the dance music scene exploded on a commercial level, and in 2010 he went to Las Vegas, “where there was champagne everywhere and celebrities - and the next thing I was on a golf cart with Lil Jon,” he remembers, humourously.

The following year, van de Wall shared a Grammy win with fellow dance music icon David Guetta for their percolating remix of Madonna’s Revolver, and was nominated for two more in 2012.

“I’d never been able to really pay attention to it until about two or three years ago when I started actually making the music again,” he says.

“The music’s been coming, but I never really had the time to properly release it or set up the label. I’ve

been so distracted with touring, and you constantly get pressured to pay attention to what is important in terms of what’s going to make people money - having this time has been really great for me to pay attention to the important things which get forgotten sometimes.”

While his production has come on leaps and bounds in the last decade, it’s interesting to see van de Wall putting this into practice with a new moniker, and moving in a different musical direction.

“I see other DJs also making deep aliases, but for me when I’m doing house and techno I’m thinking DJ D, Eats Everything, Daft Punk’s essential mix - the aggressive stuff. All the music I make always needs to have that ghetto feel; it’s never got to have a plastic perfect sidechain or EQ, I want that shit to feel raw and I want to make people do the ‘oohh’ face when they hear one of my tracks in the club and the bassline comes in [he says as he pulls his best bass face for us]. With Kapuchon, everything needs to be like that.”

“With house, all the communication is in the music,” he continues. “The language of music is the only language which completely abolishes the need for words, which I think makes it so beautiful, and that’s why I think such special emotions and relationships come out of enjoying house or techno music together.

When you do an EDM set, and there’s an MC, you’re playing pop records in between - it’s more about trying to create a very entertaining show, but you’re not gonna get the spiritual connection that you get from one hour of straight music with no vocals.”

While van de Wall’s connection with house and techno remains deep rooted, Kapuchon clearly lies at the very heart of that. Listening to tracks like Syndicate of Law‘s Right On Time and Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction is what got him into house music in the first place, “and seeing that music being enjoyed by people that would never normally have fun together, like different social layers, different races, different ages, all being brought together just through music.”

Van de Wall makes it clear that he doesn’t want Kapuchon to be just another alias, and instead wants it to serve as a reminder to stick to his roots and the important relationships HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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AFROJACK

Enter Kapuchon

IN THE MIX Before the days of YouTube tutorials, Van de Wall learned how to produce records and perfect the technical aspect of his craft by reading online forums. The more he grew into performing, and saw people’s reactions to what he was playing, the more he learned that “it’s not about what equaliser you use, or what reverb you use, or what compressor - it’s that it sounds good. And that you make sure that your low end is tight. You have to sidechain your low end or make sure that the bassline is a certain level and the kick is at a certain level. It’s just all about the frequencies.

“Now when I open my projects, there’s nothing on the master - just the limiter.

Everything else is just lots of EQing.

I’m using the FabFilter Pro-Q 3 at the moment because it’s very simple, with a handy external sidechain capability.”

Staying true to his ethos of keeping it simple, van de Wall is a big user of FL Studio: “99 out of the 100 times when I start a track, and I start importing stuff just to get creative, I use Fruity Loops EQs, FL reverbs and the FL compressor,” he SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

explains. “It doesn’t matter what brand the equaliser is - it’s about how you use it, and it makes my workflow very quick.

I find it hard to produce on anything else. It’s like if you’re used to driving an Audi and you’re used to all the buttons, and then you switch to a BMW and you have no idea what’s going on.

“My music isn’t super technical. There’s many, many people that are way better than me at that, and I appreciate them, and it’s fun, but I have more fun making stuff that gets a reaction out of people.”

When mixing 10 Years Later, van de Wall says that despite trying to keep it simple, he made 10 different mixes and couldn’t get the bass right. He went back to the first version where the bass was slightly resonant around 120Hz, managed to smooth out this resonance, and that became the master.

“I was DJing and thinking what would be good to fit in this set, and what could I do that no one’s really doing right now,” he recalls. “The bass is always in the back - it’s not the theme, and so when I made the bass for this

track I just had to throw it to the front. A big inspiration for this record was Bon Garcon - Freek U (Full Intention Club Mix), which also has a bassline that makes you go ‘what the fuck?!’”

For his production setup, van de Wall runs FL Studio on his MacBook Pro with Boot Camp and a Lynx Hilo two-channel A-D/D-A converter.

His Yamaha MOTIF XF keyboard meanwhile provides “lots of inspiring sounds, which I use to help me come up with some melodies.”

He uses PMC’s MB2S XBD for his speaker system in Dubai and the BB6 XBD-A in his main Belgiumbased studio, “and I always have a set of Yamaha NS10s for mixing and referencing.

“I’m gonna sound like an asshole to any audiophile, but Nexus [by reFX] is the best thing in the world. It’s all samplebased and there’s just such a variety of sounds and instruments on there, so for me, that’s always the best way to lay the foundations of a song. I also really like Sylenth 1 from LennarDigital because it’s very versatile and it looks very simple.

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“On 99% of my projects i use Fruity loops Eq, reverbs, and compressor.

I find it hard to produce on anything else.”

“I actually always try to limit my sounds and not make them too dynamic, because I need to be able to create a lot of dynamic in the rest of the song,” he explains. “The more dynamically relaxed the song is, the more aggressive you can go with melodies, difficult percussion, and so on. So I always try to take out the little peaks that you see. It makes mixing more relaxed, and a more soothing, dynamic experience versus making it dynamically aggressive.”

To celebrate the launch of Kapuchon records and the release of 10 Years Later, van de Wall recently hosted a pre-recorded set for fans, which was broadcast live on Facebook and YouTube. He admits that while it was the first time he’d played a set without any expectation and the usual pressure, this encouraged him to push things even further creatively.

the best quality experience - keep it fresh and you will be rewarded accordingly. Also, work smart and pay attention to the industry. I always look at what other DJs are doing. I watch almost every Ultra, EDC and Tomorrowland set online, and I’m constantly looking at what’s going on in dance music, and how I fit into it.”

As of now, van de Wall is fully booked for summer 2021 playing Afrojack gigs that were postponed from this year.

Still wary of the uncertain situation, he maintains that he’s not going to prepare his epic Kapuchon live set until the events industry completely returns to normality.

“I always strive to make the sets legendary experiences,” he says. “If someone tells me a set was okay, I’m going to be frustrated for a week trying to figure out what we did wrong. What did I anticipate wrong?

Which songs shouldn’t I have played?

“I do have this Afrojack record which we’ve been sitting on for about a year, but we haven’t been able to figure out the right way to release it,” he teases. “There’s a gigantic amount of ridiculously high profile writers involved and it’s a great song featuring a great artist, so I think we’re just gonna try to do this one ourselves. I’m very excited about the song - it’s going to bring the vibes and more of what I would call the loving atmosphere of dance music.”

“To stay relevant as a live DJ, the only thing you can do is try to create

As one of the world’s most successful DJs, van de Wall was able to share

some sound advice for those looking to break into the industry.

“The first thing I can tell you is, absolutely never be who you’re not, because people smell it and they see through it,” he says. “It’s important to learn the language of whatever genre you’re working in and apply yourself accordingly.

“People always try to be very original and are afraid of being seen as unoriginal, but I think it’s very important to remember that 99% of all dance music is recycled, and it’s not original. The bassline has been done. The 909 open hi-hat is legendary, but it’s not innovative, so don’t be afraid of it because it’s been used a kajillion times - use it to tell your story!”

AFROJACK.COM IMAGE-LINE.COM

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Headliner challenges aspiring London-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cameron Bloomfield to write, record, produce and mix a song from scratch in just one day (or in this case, six hours)...

“I love the vibe in here,” smiles Cameron Bloomfield as he enters the Headliner studio for the first time. He scans the guitar collection and immediately arms himself with a D’Angelico Excel Bowery acoustic, before taking a seat. Nice choice.

Cam’s lockdown period in North London has been a bit of a rollercoaster, emotionally, he tells me – he’s gone from heavily productive to lost at sea and back again (many artists can relate, I’m sure), but he is currently in a good headspace, and with a dozen or more tracks “constantly on the go” creatively he is on fire. I’ve seen pictures of his home studio setup which is a blend of decent analogue and digital equipment, and when we start talking production and I introduce him to the array of kit in my control room, his eyes light up.

This is a guy dedicated to his art, and immersed in song structure and the production process. He even tells me he is currently on a quest for sonic excellence. And why not?

Cam AirDrops me two songs he’s been working on recently – one of which he finalised only hours ago - and seconds later, we’re listening intently over a coffee to what I consider to be some really well put together material. I ask him where he’d like to start, creatively, for our ‘Song In A Day’ project and he says: “What about a beat?”

Over to the Arturia DrumBrute we head, and I start demoing the unit (as well as I can after only owning it for a couple of days myself). I

pull up a pretty simple chilled kind of loop that I started working on a few days ago – it’s 78bpm, and has a nice enough groove. As I go to create a fresh sequence, Cam stops me, jumps on the unit himself and starts tweaking my sequence, adding some new elements himself.

He quickly notices that the open and closed hi-hats are actually identical circuits, and decides that the open works better as a closed, and vice versa. I actually watched a tutorial recently when debating whether to invest in the DrumBrute and heard exactly that from a YouTube vlogger.

He then moves on to the decay on the snare – tightening the sound up as much as he can.

I was hoping Cam would gravitate towards the DrumBrute for a couple of reasons: one, it sounds immense; and two, it gives me a chance to test out the Korg SoundLink analogue hybrid mixer that I’ve recently installed in my room. What’s great about the DrumBrute is its individual outs, eight of which I’ve connected to the first eight inputs on the Korg to enable us to mix the kit before sending it to the DAW (Reaper) via my Merging Anubis

interface. Cam immediately gets hands-on with the Korg, applies a hi-pass to most of the kit, and starts fattening everything up - the kick, in particular. The SoundLink EQ is nice and responsive, and he punches the compressor in on the kick and snare, as I do some panning with the shaker and hats. I’ve also got SoundLink’s inbuilt limiter running on the master bus which is very decent; and have added a slight bump on the master bus EQ at 250Hz and 8kHz for a bit of flavour.

About 20 minutes later, we’ve got five minutes worth of loops, with Cam having played various overdubs in ‘live’ - essentially freestyling over my original sequence. That’s another great thing about the DrumBrute: it is designed to be played live as well as a straight-up sequencer.

“I think the last four bars were good,” Cam declares, as we play back the recording. “That DrumBrute is so intuitive, man - you can really play it; and it sounds great.” I notice on playback that the Korg SoundLink is surprisingly quiet; nothing gets past the Anubis, and there’s no noise on it at all. Really impressive mic pres.

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CAMERON BLOOMFIELD

A Song in a Day

GET THE GUITAR(S) Cam has been humming a half-melody for a little while, and he instinctively picks up the D’Angelico acoustic again to start playing it. Soon he has a great groove going, but it’s pretty intricate, and it’s starting to frustrate him just slightly.

“Ahhhh... I can’t quite get my head around this, man,” he smiles. “Maybe this part’s for an electric [guitar].”

And with that, we move to another D’Angelico guitar – and this is an absolute beauty: a ruby red Excel Mini DC which I’ve been living with for about three weeks now. I’ve found these D’Angelico guitars genuinely inspiring instruments: excellent intonation, wonderfully playable, and the fretboard on the Mini DC seems to go on forever.

“Whoa, this is beautiful,” says Cam, immediately expanding upon and then totally nailing his guitar lick, as I add a little warmth and body to the sound via my Vox Nutube MVX150H amp head. As Cam plays along to the beat, his groove seems to be bringing out the dynamics in the guitar. “This has got fuckin’ ripper! The tone of it – you kind of play into it, you know?”

I do. Fuckin’ ripper, indeed! When a guitar of this quality is put into the hands of someone who can really play it, the

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

outcome is often special – and this is no exception. We get a part laid down, he doubles it in one take, then moves to a more crunchy tone – achieved purely by changing the pickup position, no changes needed on the amp. Once that’s nailed, he’s after a cleaner, airy tone – again, he moves pickup position, I turn down the gain a little, and run the Excel Mini DC through a Strymon Big Sky to get that ambience. Twenty minutes later, we have three stereo guitar tracks. There’s no noise whatsoever from the Mini DC again, testament to its build quality and engineering.

I begin to get my mix together on my Softube Console 1 and Fader 1 combo – another recent and wholly joyous addition to my studio - and Cam’s already jamming on a five-string Fender Squier bass. My neighbour – who used to play sax for Lily Allen, strangely enough – gave me this bass, and I’ve always been incredibly impressed by its tone considering it’s an entry-level instrument. We go direct into the Merging Anubis, which has an incredible preamp – and we’ve soon got a loop together. I’m not sure if we intended to make this track in sections, but it’s the groove we’ve nailed fast, so I encourage Cam to just run with it. Suddenly we have a great sounding track, and we’re about three hours in. Impressive!

IN THE MIX

the preamp and compress it a little on its way to the Anubis via my Strymon Big Sky reverb pedal. After about 10 minutes of tweaking, Cam and I have found a sound, and a method of tracking it live. He’s going to hammer out a fast-paced melodic piece which will sit underneath a big vocal section, and my job is to ‘play’ the Big Sky’s filters as an instrument as we print it into the DAW. Such is the scope of this reverb pedal, it’s not too tricky a task; randomly dialing in pre-delay and decay generates some great effects and we get all sorts of delays and quirky atmospheric noises.

INSPIRED I go and get two coffees from next door, and when I return, Cam’s penning lyrics on his MacBook, singing quietly as he listens back to the track.

Minutes later, he has a melody for the verse and a great hooky chorus. We track it using an Austrian Audio OC818 mic direct into the Anubis – a simple and beautiful vocal chain. I add a little compression and saturation via the Console 1 with a boost around 11kHz for that ‘air’, 3.5kHz in the high mid, and a little boost at around 250Hz just for some additional body. I then pull up the Valhalla Supermassive which is a mindbogglingly good plugin – and free (get downloading, people!) for a nice reverb-delay combo. I keep it fairly subtle; a vocal this strong does not require much processing.

Not only is Cam a natural vocalist, he’s also nigh on pitch perfect, so it doesn’t take long to get a lead take with two

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very well thought out harmonies, which I double track and pan at around 60 and 80%respectively. I hope this method is acceptable, I tell him, to which he replies: “Mate, I’ve been known to track over 150 vocals on one project, so we’re all good.”

As I try to compute that statement, Cam dives back into his MacBook for some more lyrical ideas as I send myself out for two more coffees (borderline addiction, I know), and once again me leaving the the room seems to have proved incredibly fruitful – on my return, he’s nailed not only a middle eight, but has two harmonies prepared also. We track them in no time at all, and suddenly we have a full song.

Cam is still hungry - and I notice him eyeing up the Nord H3P, so I quickly rig it up through the Korg SoundLink, drive

We record two takes and pan them hard left and right – I then get surgical, reversing one of the takes and slowing it down by about 50% which adds a really interesting dynamic.

“Yes!” says Cam, as we play it back. Did I just contribute to the track?! Excellent!

As I run off a mix, it’s just approaching 6pm – so we’ve only been at this for five hours - and we both agree that it’s absolutely flown by, and has been such an organic experience.

We’re amazed to find we have 26 tracks in our project already, and I can tell you, there is some really great performance in this session. That’s all Cam, of course, barring my ingenius random filtering performance on the Big Sky(!) And it shows what can be achieved when you’re in comfortable surroundings, doing what you do best – in Cam’s case, that’s making music, and great music at that.

KIT BREAKDOWN ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++

Arturia DrumBrute D’Angelico Excel Mini DC Korg SoundLink MW-1608 Vox Nutube MVX150H Softube Console 1 & Fader 1 Valhalla Supermassive Strymon Big Sky Nord Electro 3HP

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SOFTUBE

Console 1 & Fader 1

MIXDOWN

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

WATSON UL

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SOFTUBE CONSOLE 1 & FADER 1

B IEW Y PA EV

IN THE MIX

Could the Softube Console 1 and Fader 1 combo be the perfect solution for an in the box studio setup that craves analogue flavour and hands-on workflow?

I started out working on entry-level analogue consoles when I was in my mid-20s. My first board was a Soundcraft Spirit 24:4:2, which taught me some basics; and after upgrading to the manufacturer’s Ghost console some 18 months later, I started to really study gain structure and the workings of a parametric EQ. I built up a knowledge of each part of the channel strip and, hooked up to an AKAI DR16 and DR8 with a SCSI drive (to achieve 24 digital tracks) and a couple of Drawmer gates, an Alesis Midiverb 4, a Lexicon MPX100 and a Focusrite Voicemaster Pro preamp, I started to learn how to mix.

Fast forward about 15 years, and my studio no longer looks like that: I now have a fully-calibrated Genelec room with Merging Technologies A-D conversion, some nice keyboards and VIs, and an abundance of plugins. It’s chalk and cheese, really. The superior kit, and accruing thousands of studio hours, changed the game. No doubt.

But there is one thing that I constantly miss: hands-on mixing. Faders and knobs. ‘Feeling’ how you’re driving a channel, compressing a snare or kick, or finding a rogue frequency. It’s that tactile element that I have always craved. And I’ve not been able to scratch that itch since my analogue days – but that might be about to change.

Softube launched Console 1 in 2014: a hardware controller that conrols the Console 1 plugin, an official emulation of the SSL 4000E console, with some additional Softube saturation controls thrown in for good measure.

There are other console emulations

available: SSL K Series and ‘British Class A’ are two examples, but we’re sticking to the 4000E for this review.

Console Fader 1 reared its head much more recently – in January 2020. It’s a control surface for the Console 1 plugin, and adds further mixing flexibility when used in tandem with the Console 1 hardware. Both are powered by USB, though Console Fader 1 also requires its own PSU, as there are 10 fader motors to power.

But the big question is, how easy is it to implement this setup into an in the box studio environment like mine?

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of which look super sleek, and are apparently extremely responsive and pinpoint accurate. Fingers crossed.

The two main displays are graphicand rotary-based respectively, and show all five sections of the Console 1 channel strip, as follows: Input section, complete with input gain, low cut, and high cut; Shape section, comprising a gate, as well as Softube’s own Sustain and Punch controls; Equalizer; Compressor; and Output section, incorporating some

IN SITU First of all, these two pieces of hardware are built like tanks. They are weighty, the knobs and faders are beautifully made, and everything ‘feels’ authentic – and expensive.

The way I want to approach this review, considering I’ve never used either unit, is one at a time, starting with Console 1 - I’ve not read any manual, I’m just heading straight in.

The reason for this is that my studio workflow is already really quick and for me to even consider making a change, this has to blow my mind quickly, and get me excited.

After downloading Softube Central, I quickly authorise the product and open up Reaper, my preferred DAW. Softube recommends inserting an instance of Console 1 on each channel in your project to get the full benefit – in the same way you might insert your favourite EQ plugin across your entire mix project - so that’s what I do. Suddenly, the Console 1 comes to life. LEDs sparkle, and it’s talking to Reaper right away. Great.

saturation controls, giving you the ability to send Drive and Character to the signal chain.

Talking of chains, there is also an ‘Order’ button which allows you to move the chain: Shape (S) > EQ > Compressor (C) is standard; but you can also go EQ > S > C, or S > C > EQ at the push of a button, which is a pretty neat feature. Next to ‘Order’ is an external side-chain which can be applied to Shape or Compressor.

If you don’t want to see the full GUI, you can move to one of two meter bridge displays which work very effectively, and allow you to rely solely on your ears. How novel in today’s modern studio workflow!

I scroll through the display options via the mode button at the top left of the unit. There are several modes – all

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SOFTUBE

Console 1 & Fader 1

HOW DOES IT SOUND? I haven’t pressed play yet, but I’ve got my head around most of the controls, and I’m about to find out if this thing is as intuitive as I have a feeling it might be. First, I decide to remove all other plugin instances from the project, and resave it as a Console 1 version, resetting all faders to zero.

The song I am going to be working on is How Slow I Let You Go which I engineered and produced for Michael Fox - an emerging London-based singer-songwriter – at Headliner’s studio. It’s an easy on the ear, acoustic guitarled waltzy number with some liquid Telecaster overdubs which we tracked through a Vox Nutube MVX150H into a Strymon Big Sky. An Austrian Audio OC818 was used on vocals – and there are plenty of them – with a few Spitfire Audio strings toward the end, and a tremolo-laiden Rhodes provides a kind of underbelly to the whole track.

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

I begin by selecting track one from the ‘Select Track’ strip that runs horizontal on the centre of the Console 1 unit. The whole project is only 16 tracks in size, and Console 1 works in banks of 20, so we won’t have to do much navigating at all. However, it can accommodate as many tracks and banks as your computer’s CPU will allow. I then notice the solo and mute buttons by the volume rotary in the bottom right of the unit, and toggle both. Sure enough, it solos and mutes as directed. I’m impressed already that the comms between unit and DAW are so seamless.

Starting at the Input section, I plan working left to right on all of the instruments, to get a feel for the Console 1 hardware. The acoustic guitar in isolation – also recorded with an Austrian Audio OC818 – sounds pretty good as is, but being a classical guitar, there are a few too many mid tones, and it’s a touch wooly at the bottom. I reach for

IN THE MIX

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“turning the drive pot genuinely feels like you’re driving a channel and you can drive the hell out of it...”

the Input Gain pot, increase the gain a little, just to see how it reacts (it’s very responsive) and then make a low cut at around 60Hz – sorted. My word, did it feel good doing that with a rotary fader rather than a mouse!

I don’t need to gate the guitar, of course, but as I move to the Shape section, I’m keen to see what Sustain and Punch do. Sustain offers just what it says on the tin, and I find myself settling on a +1dB boost which, with +1dB of Punch, seems to make the instrument way more present sounding. Nice. Now onto the EQ. Now, because I am used to the SSL 4000E channel strip in plugin form, this (I hope) will be the real litmus test for me. I decide to try and operate this without the main GUI display, then I’ll go back to it and see what I actually added and cut afterwards.

So, using only my ears as reference (and a very occasional check as to where the LED indicators that circle the rotaries are sitting – by my estimation, they go up or down in roughly 2dB increments) I spend a minute or two playing with the EQ, and I have to say, I find it insanely responsive as well as immensely satisfying.

The levels that Softube (no doubt in cahoots with SSL’s team of engineers) has gone to in delivering not only something sonically outstanding but that is as responsive to the touch as an anlogue board is nothing short of staggering.

When I’m happy with the guitar, I move onto vocals, and this is where I feel Console 1 comes into its own. I’ve not been fortunate enough to mix on an SSL 4000E, but I have worked on some similar large-format boards, and I do know roughly what a +3dB should ‘feel’ like on a rotary, and likewise where 10kHz should be when adding air to an instrument. And I have to say it feels wholly authentic.

I find it not only remarkably accurate and natural, but somehow it feels like I’ve always been using this hardware.

That sounds mad, as I’m less than half an hour in - perhaps it’s just satisfying that craving for analogue workflow? But, as I push a few more dB in, I realise that there could be more to it than that: I swear I notice a ‘sound’ – Console 1 sounds like an actual console, not a controller.

I move onto the compressor, and it underlines what I just said about the EQ – perhaps moreso. I love

compression, and physically dialling it in is my first eureka moment. As I take the vocal out of isolation, and bring back the guitar, I already feel that I am getting better results using only Console 1 than my regular plugin chain. But I’m keen not to get too carried away at this stage!

What I should also point out is that set into the hardware on both the Compressor and Shape sections, there is an LED strip indicating how much gain reduction is happening – another fantastically ‘real’ feature, which I think encourages you to be bolder with your decision making. Or at least that’s what it’s doing for me.

Finally – the output section, with Softube’s very own saturation in the way of Drive and Character.

Turning the Drive pot genuinely feels like you’re driving a channel – and you can drive the hell out of it. And Character brings out this kind of ‘air’: the further clockwise you go, the more air you get; and go anticlockwise for a warmer tone. Both are great tools, and further indicate that Console 1 does indeed have its own ‘sound’. This is madness.

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SOFTUBE

Console 1 & Fader 1

Flying The [Console] Fader I decide it’s about time I bring in Console Fader 1 – I’m hoping that once in the chain, everything will talk seamlessly together. I plug in Fader 1 (USB and power supply for this unit, remember), and instantly the LEDs come on, and the faders begin to fly. Eureka moment number two!

The faders immediately correspond with the DAW faders, and the two hardware units are working together in tandem. Zero setup required.

With a bank of 10 motorised faders, Fader 1 certainly seems like the perfect partner to Console 1. Considering there are so many vocals on this project, that seems the perfect place to put it to the test.

Before I do, I notice the ‘Assignable’ section on the far right of the Fader 1 unit – rewind / play and pause / fast forward. I press play, and immediately I’ve got control of Reaper from Fader 1.

Just like that.

Next to that section (moving right to left) is your fader mode, of which there are three: Volume, Drive, and Character; there is also an input gain and low and high cut – though I’d much rather use the Console 1 section for that as I have the luxury of both SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

units. Again, there’s a solo and mute button, located above the Fader 1’s only rotary – which in this case is a pan/width control, and doubles up as a select button when moving through menus, and you can also use this to adjust stereo image of individual tracks of a master bus. Very cool.

Each fader has a solo and mute button, and you can group faders together in the same way you can group tracks in Console 1. The displays are the same, too – though having both these units connected, I am favouring a simple meter bridge view to maximise the visuals on the DAW. There is also a Layer mode whereby you can assign tracks to layers, but for now let’s keep it simple, and work in two banks of 10 – or in my case, one bank of 10 and one bank of six.

I play the song from the top using Fader 1 and I instinctively find myself riding faders, soloing and panning instruments, while tweaking the EQ [on Console 1] and beginning to glue a mix. It’s remarkable how quickly this is happening; and how analogue everything suddenly seems to feel, and more astonishingly, sound. I haven’t reached for the mouse at all - and more to the point, I find

that I’m commiting to decisions so much quicker than I normally would - presumalbly as there are no other plugins on the project to tweak!

When working with multiple vocals, I tend to group them and apply parallel compression; what’s incredible on the Console 1 – and this is a stroke of genius from Softube, for me – is that in the Compressor section, there is a Parallel wet/dry knob, which allows you to choose how much of the signal is getting to the compressor. In other words, you can parallel compress on individual tracks! Is this eureka moment number three? In a word, yes.

It’s at this point that I feel like I’m in some kind of sonic heaven. What a remarkable workflow this is. I normally add some kind of tone shaper to my vocal groups to add additional air, harmonics, and even a little distortion if need by – but because I have the Drive and Character modes at my fingertips (literally), I am able to achieve the same results using just the hardware. Driving the BVs adds colour and grit, and increasing the Character provides the desired air. And another bonus: there’s no noise. That’s one thing with some tone shaper plugins - when you add all your elements, especially

IN THE MIX

when it’s driven hard, it can get noisy.

Not here; it’s as quiet as a mouse.

I could go deep into menus, and talk more about side-chain compression options, how to assign tracks, and being able to rearrange the order of your signal chain, and much more – but my experiment is already over; and the beauty of this adapted workflow is that it’s happened so organically. I haven’t had to learn anything brand new as I go, and most remarkable of all, I’ve had the main display off for 90% of this review. I’ve used my ears more than I ever would in a session, somewhat subliminally!

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve found myself deliberately losing any additional processing during this

session, but just to see, I decide to apply my go-to Waves chain of CLA76 and CLA-2A compression to the lead vocal, along with a nice Valhalla reverb and a subtle dollop of Waves H-Delay. It’s another wow moment, as I find myself backing off massively in terms of my usual input gain and amount of compression applied.

Of course these are excellent, accurate plugins with their own character, and they will always be go-tos for me – but amazingly, I find myself in at least as good a place without them, and my eyes have barely glanced at my widescreen.

And that alone is why I believe Softube’s Console 1 and Fader 1 is an outrageous game-changer of a combo – not only to me, which

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is mindbogglingly evident – but I think it can be for any creative; be it someone who wants to get tactile like I did and ‘feel’ their way; or even for those not so advanced with production or mixing techniques, or with frequencies and compressors, and the like - this can still be a fabulous learning tool. It’s also reminded me just how important listening really is.

After closing down Reaper, I can’t feasibly imagine opening it up again without these two pieces of hardware in tandem at the ready. I can’t wait to start a project from scratch with this killer combination. Watch this space..!

HIGHLIGHTS ++ ++ ++ ++

Integration with Reaper is Sublime Incredibly Intuitive and Accurate Sounds Like an Analogue Console Reduces Screen Time Drastically

SOFTUBE.COM

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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SPITFIRE AUDIO

Darkstar Haunted House

SCARY GOOD

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

TSON WA

I’ve used a number of Spitfire Libraries – many of them strings-based where I’ve either orchestrated a piece of music for screen, or used them to add texture or colour to a project that I’m producing in the studio with an artist. What I’ve never done, until now, is attempted to compose an original piece of music from scratch in half an hour using one library that I’ve never used before. But reviews need to be fun, so let’s dig in to Spitfire’s brand new Darkstar Haunted House, and see what it’s all about.

BYPA EW U VI

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DARKSTAR HAUNTED HOUSE

IN THE MIX

First off, Dark Star Haunted House looks mean – and it has a cool story behind it. This sample library is centred around well respected electronic music duo, Darkstar, whose label, Warp Records, is a revered British indie responsible for a roster of IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) talent. The collaboration expands upon Darkstar’s latest album, Civic Jams, and according to Spitfire, it’s a culmination of tense, atmospheric contemporary electronic music using the magic of analogue synths, subbass, manipulated drums, and icy vocals. And at £29, what’s not to love?

You won’t have to do too much if anything at all to these sounds once you’ve laid them down. Which suits me just fine for this experiment!

It’s great not having to head in to Kontakt anymore when installing this kind of stuff; Spitfire’s bespoke plugin – first seen on its excellent LABS series of free VIs, which continue to evolve monthly – is fantastic, and I’ve got the library up and running as an AUi instrument very quickly indeed.

It’s key that I commit quickly here or nothing will get done, so I only briefly go back to the kick once it’s tracked and fatten it using the controls within the plugin. Now onto voices. I love ‘Lost Dubs 1’ – beautifully recorded, but creepy as hell! I play out a melody in what I believe to be D minor, though such is the wobble on this icy vocal, it makes me question my playing.

Thankfully, it’s the processing effect and nature of the beast, so to speak.

The dropdown menu lists plenty of synths as well as a rhythm section of lo-fi drum sounds, a ton of voices, some ‘Found Sounds’ which were captured across London, plenty of ghostly bits and pieces, and much more. Within each section, there are of course a multitude of options, all of which can be manipulated within the Spitfire plugin: Attack, Release, Reverb, Delay, and a Flanger.

It’s obvious you can go very deep with this mean machine, but such is the nature of a Spotlight review, I will cut to the chase and see what we can get out of it quickly. After hitting a few notes on the keyboard and walking myself very quickly through the menus, I get an immediate sense that it’s not just the sounds themselves that have been captured here, it’s the quality of processing that is so standout: immense care, as well as an abundance of time and energy has gone into putting this library together.

I begin on RVVM – the rhythm section.

Before I load up the full drum kit, I notice there are some cool ‘ready to go’ loops which I will no doubt come back to shortly. The lo-fi drum sounds are quite simply fantastic – and after playing around with the decay on my kick and snare, and discovering the delay (which I instantly love), I’m quickly putting down a very simple 16bar sequence.

I track a two-part, 10-note vocal pattern which sits under my kick and snare, and I begin searching for a pad sound to sit underneath that. But as is so often the way, I stumble across something nothing like a pad, yet feel I have to use it. It’s one of Darkstar’s Found Sounds, ‘Haze Boo’, which probably explains why it’s so unique – an anxiety-inducing industrial noise with an ethereal effect, like a ramping up of energy... And in it goes.

As I continue to seek out pad/chordtype options, I discover Lost Dubs 2 (which gets more aggressive the longer you hold it down), and XTC Mantra which I really like. I then discover something utterly stunning: Ghost Glue 3, which is outstandingly processed and provides a huge stereo image. It isn’t quite fitting into

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my pattern but I make a note about returning to this library for this sound alone, such is its quality and potential.

As I open up the ‘Warpd’ sounds, I soon find the perfect sonic element for what I need: Esso AM 2. A human voice with a chilling twist, which will provide the answering phrase to my melody line, while adding that extra colour I was after.

As predicted, I end up going back to the RVVM section to play with the preset drum loops. There are three options as such: one very lo-fi which is kind of a break beat; the second has more groove; and the third is a straight-up driven beat - but again, with a twist. I settle on the latter; and after a quick tweak of the Spitfire plugin’s dynamic controls, I overdub the new loop across my track. I also pan the original kick and snare at about 30% respectively, so they sit either side of the soundscape; that’s somewhat unusual, particularly for me, but this track is certainly unusual sounding, so I just go with it!

I also find myself drawn back to one of my other recent discoveries: XTC Mantra, as I need a delicate texture.

Playing around with the Attack and Release settings works a treat, and adds air to the sound quickly and effectively. I then track it.

I also start playing with the WARPD Acid Boo sound which is frankly terrifying the more I attempt to manipulate it. It’s as though the spirit world is warning me off using this, so I leave it out (just in case...)

The one thing missing from my loop is bass – and I know we have many options in this library in that department. I quickly settle on Mass Bass 1 which is great as it is, and I find myself dropping in a simple bassline on the off beat moving from D to C. HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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SPITFIRE AUDIO

Darkstar Haunted House

It brings a little order to the ghostly chaos I seem to be creating, and actually works great with the harder hitting drum loop I dropped in. It’s also given the track a kind of trippy house vibe. That’s an area of music I’m not au fait with, and would never attempt to create. But there it is – and I kind of like it. With a library like this, sounds can take you elsewhere - and in this case, they lean on you to make decisions quickly. I quantise the bass in Reaper, and move on.

I need to reiterate once again the quality of the processing within this library – because when I’m putting stuff together creatively, I normally have my channel strip dialled in on every channel, and I’m adding compression, FX, and all sorts as I go.

Here, not only am I not doing that (for the purpose of this review), but I’m

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Standout Processing ++ Genuinely Unique ++ Insane Value at just £29

SPITFIREAUDIO.COM

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

also not missing it. Eveyrthing is sitting together very nicely – and I’m still able to mix as I go without any of my go-to tools. Of course this will mean when I do add them at perhaps a later date, the sounds will be even more mindblowing. Ultimately, the audio capture and processing is flawless.

One thing I can’t resist trying to wrap up is a little reverb... but only on the drum loop. I should add by the way that the reverbs within this library are great, as is the delay engine and flange – I just wanted to stick on one of my favourite (and free) reverb/ delays, the Valhalla Supermassive.

Anyone who doesn’t have this – get it, ASAP. It’s great fun, easy to use, and sounds incredible.

After dropping this onto the main drum loop, 30 seconds later it’s

complementing it beautifully – as is always the case when the recording of an instrument or sample is so good, the dynamics you choose to flavour them are so much more effective, and take no real time to achieve the desired effect.

So I’m about 40-minutes in – slightly over my allocated half-hour challenge - but I’ve got something out of this library which I’m really quite happy with. Quirky, odd... but satisfying!

Darkstar Haunted House is very aptly named, and as a result, I’ve created something a little on the scary side, but that hopefully won’t give you (or me) too many nightmares on playback.

This is a great value, sonically excellent sample library which I already want to delve way deeper into than I have in this short session.

REVIEWS

APPLE

Mac Mini M1

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MAC MINI M1

by RIC K CKERSON DI

IS IT STUDIO-READY?

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What does Apple Silicon’s new M1 chip offer, how does it perform against the entry models it replaces, and more importantly, is it suitable for music production?

We’ve been hearing the debate rage on for some months now: should we wait, or should we buy the new 2020 iMac? Which is, unusually for Apple, a very good spec for the money, and you can upgrade the memory yourself to 64Gb for under £300; likewise, external SSDs for a fraction of the cost of an Apple upgrade.

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

And let’s be honest here, unless you’re professionally writing and recording film scores with a full orchestra, a Mac Pro is simply a world away. Over time, software has moved forward: it’s now sophisticated, comprehensive, and fully featured; and it often feels like the Mac computer has struggled to keep pace. It has also been a long

held belief that while Mac software represents great value for money, the hardware does not! This has spurred on many a site, and many individuals building Hackintosh machines for specific applications which offer a greater level of performance at a fraction of the cost of a comparable Mac.

REVIEW

New Mac, new look? Not exactly.

It’s pretty much identical to the Intel Mac Mini, however it is lighter. Apple has changed its appearance back to traditional silver which, from a personal preference point of view, doesn’t look quite as cool tucked to the side of my monitor - but a very minor issue, admittedly. The Apple Silicon range so far is limited to just two memory configuration options: 8Gb or 16Gb. One would have thought in this day and age that Apple would have dropped the almost pointless 8Gb option altogether and just gone with a 16Gb machine as standard. Bearing in mind the memory is now part of their System on a Chip architecture (SoC), this might have at least temporarily masked Apple’s persistence in continuing its policy of relentless overcharging for larger memory configurations.

One potentially major issue when it comes to music production is the removal of two Thunderbolt ports.

This is a serious blow for me, as I now need to go and purchase a hub of some description to accommodate my additional I/O. Sadly, my external GPU is no longer supported from Thunderbolt, so another reason for the hub, as without it, I lose two of my three monitors. As it stands I will lose one anyway because the new Mac Mini M1 only supports two monitors in total: one from its HDMI port, one from one of its two Thunderbolt ports.

So while it is £100 less than the entry level Intel i3, it will likely cost you more than that to add the connectivity Apple has seen fit to remove. Sadly this is something the brand has also done on the Apple Silicon version of the MacBook Pro. If the move to Apple Silicon was

in the interests of vastly improved performance and providing a real value for money experience for its users, then I didn’t quite get that. It wasn’t that long ago that Apple gave the impression that if you wanted upgradable graphics capability and futureproof multiple monitor setup, then eGPU was the way to go, so with vastly reduced memory configuration options, missing TB3 ports, and no eGPU support, it’s not the ideal first impression to make on budding bedroom producers.

Thankfully, that’s not the whole story.

Gripes aside, what’s really on review here is Apple’s new ARM based M1 SoC. This is the integration of eight cores: four performance, four efficiency; an eight-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine which I believe is a software-based algorithmic solution to make more efficient use of available processing cores as opposed to additional hardware cores. An all-in-one chip, you get either 8Gb or 16Gb of high performance unified memory, a Thunderbolt/USB 4 controller, and a Gen 4 PCIe controller along with advanced power management security features first developed for Apple’s T2 chip and NVMe storage.

So that explains why it’s lighter than its predecessor, and why it uses significantly less power.

In the Apple Silicon MacBook Pro and Air, this has translated into a vastly improved battery life with figures almost double the previous entry level models. Similar SSD options are as before with 256Gb entry level up to 2TB on offer. All of the available options are fixed, so your configuration can’t be upgraded later. If you already run SSD arrays

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then your options are simple: memory, memory and more… oh hold on, it’s maxed at 16Gb… but it is possible that, being unified memory on the same chip, you’ll get far more efficient use of available RAM. One other thing I noticed configuration-wise is the lack of a 10Gb Ethernet port option which, while not a hindrance to many, may well slow down those who backup to high-speed network storage.

Firstly, I must state that the Mac Mini M1 is a direct replacement for the entry level 2018 i3 Mac Mini - and let’s be honest, only a fool would have bought one of these with making music in mind. So to be fair we had to track one down so that we could make a direct comparison rather than use the i7 Mac Mini. Luckily, we managed to find one that also came with 16Gb of RAM like our M1.

We also have a 2020 iMac which originally came from Amazon a few months back, saving us just over £100. It was upgraded with a 64Gb memory kit - 2 x 32Gb of Mac compatible memory from Crucial for £260, saving £740 on Apple’s memory upgrade price. This is also something you can no longer do on the Intel Mac Minis or any of Apple’s current laptop range.

Ironically, the iMac also has only two Thunderbolt 3 ports, so we had to buy a hub for this which allowed us to run three monitors as well as a UAD Apollo x8p and some external disk libraries etc. I also have my old 2015 MacBook Pro, so between us, there are a number of machines to compare the M1 to!

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APPLE

Mac Mini M1

GEEKBENCH 5 & CINEBENCH R23 With lockdown still in action, three of these machines were at different locations, so to get some benchmarks there were a lot of Zoom, Messenger, and WhatsApp calls going on to make sure we were all running comparable tests to find out accurate CPU and GPU efficiency using the standard Geekbench and Cinebench protocols.

It may also be relevant that the iMac was also running Big Sur. But in a nutshell, here’s what we found: the M1 smoked everything except the new 2020 10th generation i7 27-inch iMac.

on top at just over 10,000; the M1 Mac Mini at 7,620; the 2018 i3 Mac Mini at 3,340; and the 2015 MacBook Pro at 1,626.

Actually, in our single core test, the M1 was better than the iMac, scoring just over 1,700 while the iMac was just under 1,400. The 2018 i3 Mac Mini clocked in at 945 while the 2015 MacBook Pro achieved just 761.

Multi-processor figures were equally impressive with the iMac coming out

Graphics performance followed a very similar pattern, with the 2020 iMac returning a single core score of 1,295 and a multi-core score of 12,159.

The M1 Mac Mini scored 1,518 and 7,828 in comparison; the 2018 Intel i3 Mac Mini recorded 942 and 3,670 respectively; and the 2016 MacBook

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

It suddenly becomes very clear that Apple has made an astonishing move with this new chip, and that if future Apple Silicon incarnations improve their high end machines by similar percentages, then the hardware as well as the software suddenly and finally starts to look like real value for money.

Pro offered a single core score of 761, and multi-core of 1,840.

While the iMac and the M1 Mac Mini stayed silent during these tests, the Intel Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro did not - the later being so noisy and chucking out so much heat I thought it might die under the strain! The iMac produced some heat while the M1 Mac Mini seemed cool to the touch; I noticed its fan did come on during the Cinebench tests, but it was more noticeable for its vibrations than any noise - another major bonus for music makers. In reality, the new M1 Mac never broke a sweat, and it didn’t get anything like warm, unlike all of the Intel machines. All while using less power, of course and that’s also going to be important as we all strive to reduce our carbon footprint.

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RUNNING SOFTWARE So far, Logic and GarageBand have been optimised for Apple Silicon, but we immediately had issues loading projects with existing plugins assigned, as it seems you can’t run a DAW that runs natively in Apple Silicon and plugins that require Rosetta 2 at the same time. GarageBand worked fine, and we successfully loaded old projects as well as new.

If you do decide to take the plunge and you’ve been using Logic Pro for a while, keep your previous projects on your current machine - and in Catalina - as there are a number of instruments and plugins that are still not happy in Big Sur, which would suggest they’ll be even more uncomfortable with Rosetta 2 and the Apple Silicon version of Logic.

In the real world, we have already

heard a number of horror stories from people who have attempted to upgrade to Big Sur and been left with a blank screen. Too soon people, far too soon! But if you’re adamant this is the way to go, back everything up and say a little prayer.

Rosetta 2 is the emulation software that translates Intel x86-64 instructions so that the software will run arm64 instruction on Apple Silicon. This seems to work on a number of applications but is by no means without exceptions.

Apple also made a rather bold claim that your new M1 Mac would be able to run your iPhone and iPad apps.

While it’s quite happy to load them, a lot more work needs to be done to make the experience coherent. The transition from a touchscreen control

ecosystem to a mouse/trackpad and keyboard requires more thought and willpower on the part of the developers before much of what we tried out becomes anywhere near enjoyable.

Again, we’ve avoided naming names and picking out any vendor or specific application because there were a number of faults - and that’s bound to happen when moving from one platform to another. Give it a year, and it’ll be a completely different story. At this moment in time I would just use M1 for new projects and add your instruments and plugins as and when Apple Silicon-optimised versions become available.

CONCLUSION In 2020, while all the news has been negative and many have suffered economic hardship as a result, especially in the entertainment industry, Apple has had its best year yet. That’s partly to do with increases in laptop sales and the Western hemisphere’s lack of freedom to do much more than Zoom and Skype. The introduction of a new M1 MacBook Pro and MacBook - both of which have similar performance to our M1 Mac Mini - proves Apple is heading in the right direction, as all of these M1 machines make a bold statement of intent. Our Mac Mini easily put to shame the model

it replaced, especially on graphics performance; and although it was with only one screen, the performance far outstripped Intel’s UHD graphics.

I was able to run a Logic project and record it with Quicktime without a single stutter or dropped frame; I can’t do that on my 2015 MacBook Pro without a system overload and it grinding to a halt.

It’s also great that Apple’s own Mac software has been optimised for Apple Silicon, but while Logic was flawless, we had some real issues with thirdparty instruments and plugins. Rosetta 2 is very useful and stable in most

cases for software that is standalone - but again, it’s just those odd crashes that were so rare previously that get you thinking.

While this is a vast improvement on the models it replaces, there are still some issues to be ironed out. I’d say this is a viable option for home studios and for aspiring and emerging artists that want an affordable, high-spec machine that allows for a deeper dive into music production. And once those software anomalies are resolved, this machine will represent a really positive leap forward for Apple Macs. For the pro user, I’d suggest sticking to Intel.

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Affordable ++ M1 Chip is a Revelation ++ Will Suit Aspiring Creatives

APPLE.COM

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

SENNHEISER

MD 445 & MD 435

W IE

BY RIC K

SENNHEISER MD 445 & MD 435 After previewing Sennheiser’s new MD 445 & 435 in last month’s Headliner USA, how will they stack up in a real listening test against an array of fellow dynamic mics and a few classic condensers?

Giant strides have been made in dynamic microphone technology in the past few years to the point where we now have a host of new technologies in diaphragm design to capsule mounting systems.

Sennheiser has had a long and illustrious history in dynamic SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

microphone design from the hugely popular multipurpose MD 451 (which still graces drum kits on stages and studios around the world) to the unusually-shaped MD 441 vocal mic - a lesser known, but highly respected mic of its time.

And it’s quite uplifting to be reviewing new, high-end dynamic microphones aimed predominantly at the live music sector in these unprecedented times. So let’s get stuck in. First, we have the MD 435 - a wired derivative of Sennheiser’s excellent large

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diaphragm cardioid MD 9235 radio capsule, which has been favoured by the likes of P!nk, Ed Sheeran, Adele, and Kendrick Lamar amongst others.

Until now, this capsule was only available on a radio body in Sennheiser’s 6000 or 9000 Series products, so it’s good that Sennheiser has responded to calls from engineers and artists alike to give them the capsule they love in a wired handheld.

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HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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SENNHEISER

MD 445 & MD 435

Next up is the MD 445 - a large diaphragm, super-cardioid dynamic microphone which Sennheiser claims affords superior feedback rejection on the most demanding stages.

THE BACKGROUND I find it hard to judge the quality of my own voice at the same time as I’m speaking. Luckily for all concerned, I can’t sing, and have long since given up on the outside chance that practice will ever make perfect. So, as I have a bit of a mic collection, including a selection of dynamics and condensers from a number of manufacturers, I thought I might do a spot of speech recording and then compare just how the MD 435 and 445 stack up.

So to complement this test and make it a viable comparison, I introduced a rather loud background noise: Nickelback on repeat play, to a level where talking would get lost if you were a couple of feet away and you’d probably be asking, “Turn that down please, I can’t hear what you’re saying” (or words to that effect).

Setting up the recording, I also put a 1 kHz tone at a fixed level, into a monitor. I stuck the mics one inch in front, one at a time, so I could match the gains as closely as possible.

As expected, all the condensers are significantly hotter than the dynamics, so using the input channel’s meter to gain-match them as closely as possible is the only way to make a justifiable comparison of such a different range of microphones.

However, despite their differences, it’s worth remembering they are all designed for exactly the same job: picking up a vocal on a stage.

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To be objective, we must consider the overall sound quality in a very subjective way. I have, over the last few years, used condensers from the likes of Audio-Technica, Shure, and DPA, because they sound good and are far more forgiving than dynamics when it comes to mic technique. Of course those microphones have issues when it comes to the amount of offaxis or ambient sound they will pick up, but I always felt the trade off was worth it.

It’s not surprising then that while condensers try to be a little more like dynamics, we find dynamics trying to

achieve the detail and transparency of condensers.

So, I listened to all of the vocals I’d recorded, and using the meters again I tried to level off as best I could the loudest sections containing vocal passages until they were all as equal as I could get them.

Then having recorded 30 seconds of extra with just the ambient ‘Nickelback-ground’, I graded them from quietest to loudest and checked to see where our test subjects faired.

Or to put it another way, best off-axis rejection to worst.

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AND THE WINNER IS...

The MD 445 had noticeably the quietest background level on the recording due in part to there being no transients sitting up and no real background bass information to speak of. What was even more noticeable was how good and in your face the vocal passages were - almost like they had been recorded in a studio environment on a large diaphragm condenser.

The proximity effect is evident, but it’s really very good at keeping plosives to a minimum. The MD 445 also has a surprisingly deep sweet spot, but it’s controlled - and although it maintains clarity and detail from all angles around the capsule when you’re close to it, it quickly dies if you move off to the side by a few inches. The MD 435 was next - but with an even larger sweet spot and less proximity effect. Depending on how rich and up front you like your vocal, this could be either a positive or a negative. I really liked these mics and can’t wait to use them on real singers.

First impressions of both microphones are of impressive build quality and very sturdy solid construction, which is something that Sennheiser is noted for. The MD

445 has a shorter pop shield than the MD 435; this is presumably to complement the tighter super-cardioid polar pattern, and could also be what gives it that incredible ‘in your face’ sound; and I’m really impressed with the extra pop shields which are included as part of your purchase package. It’s a real encouragement to look after and regularly clean your pop shield and housing.

The rejection of exterior noise is quite astounding on these mics. I mean, the music in the background is evident on all recordings on these tests tracks, but in comparison to the other dynamics and most definitely the condensers - it really was night and day.

The level of background sound is noticeably lower with the MD 435, and possibly even lower with the MD 445. It’s a real revelation to hear a dynamic with increased benefits in off-axis and feedback rejection but with detail and quality approaching that of a large diaphragm condenser. There was another dynamic which came close to the 435 in terms of sound quality, but without the off-axis rejection.

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Astounding Rejection of Exterior Noise ++ Surprisingly Deep Sweet Spots ++ Extra Pop Shields Included

SENNHEISER.COM

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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LEAPWING

RootOne

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by P AU ew i v

L

how low can you go?

WATSON

re

REVIEW

LEAPWING ROOTONE Leapwing Audio is a young and innovative brand that started out in 2015 with an ethos of putting innovation in the hands of musicians. I’m a musician first and publisher second, so that’s a tick in the box right away. DynOne was Leapwing’s first release – a multiband compressor with simplicity at the core (and great sonics, I should add – I had a play with it before embarking on this review). Just browsing the Leapwing site gives you a real flavour of not only the brand, but the people behind it: in 60 seconds, I have discovered that Jeroen, Robin, and Emiliano all met in Belgium, all like very different music, have evolved into an award winning trio of plugin developers, and all love pizza – particularly from Bleecker Street Pizza in New York City, apparently. Marvellous.

So, the plugin I’m diving into today is RootOne – it was launched at the end of August to critical acclaim and, according to Leapwing, it’s “the new way to get the perfect low-end tonal

balance” - which immediately sounds intriguing. Furthermore, I can expect it to be “effective across a far wider range of sources” than I might initially think. Excellent news.

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LEAPWING

RootOne

First off, let’s look at the GUI – it’s simple, slick and intuitive, just as you’d expect from Leapwing. There is a subharmonics section, a harmonics section, and an input and output section. Subharmonics is set across three faders: Sub, Thump, and Punch, each of which has with its own Drive, Dynamics, and Attack / Decay parameters; and Harmonics has one fader to Drive, Colour or Low Pass the Saturation.

Furthermore, each fader represents a frequency range: Sub spans from 8Hz to 30Hz; Thump from 32Hz to 56Hz; Punch from 62Hz to 104Hz, and Saturation from 114Hz to 196Hz. Each of the faders can be soloed or muted (either individually or together in any desired configuration), and there are a number of presets available – but I’m not going there... yet.

Although this plugin isn’t just for kick drums and basslines, I decide to start there, and bring up a multitrack with one of my favourite groove-making duos: James Trood (MD and drummer, Dua Lipa, Zara Larsson) and Andrew Misuraca on bass.

I drop in an instance of RootOne on the Kick (in), play the drum multitrack, and begin to raise the first plugin fader as SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

“HAVING NEVER DIVED QUITE THIS INTRICATELY INTO THE WORLD OF SUBHARMONICS, I’M ASTOUNDED HOW I’VE IMPROVED THE SOUND OF THE KICK IN A MATTER OF MINUTES, BEING WAY BOLDER THAN NORMAL...”

I go: Sub. I get to about 70%, and the impact is quite striking. I drop it down a little and punch it in and out, moving from 8Hz to 12Hz, driving it around 40%, and leaving Dynamics at 100, with a pretty low attack and decay. My Genelec sub is working harder than it has in some time – and when I isolate the frequency, which you can do with each of the frequency ranges (I don’t recommend this at high volume!) it’s a pretty terrifying experience. But I’ll give RootOne this – that is definitely sub and I’m pleasantly surprised at how much audible control I seem to have this far down in the frequency range.

Rather than go back to the full kit sound and mix the kick signal in as I go, I’m intrigued to see what the other frequencies sound like in isolation, and blended together. As I bring them into

play one by one, the simple Leapwing ethos is evident once more: they each do what they say on the tin. Thump generates a thumping sound (which I really like at around 70% drive and 50% decay for a kick); and Punch is ‘punchy’ (I find dialling this in at about 30% drive and 30% decay does the trick).

Bear in mind, by the way – this is a real kick drum I’m working on. If I was using my Arturia DrumBrute then these parameters could actually help me tune a drum - even create a note rather than focusing on sub balance and presence, like I’m trying to do here. So the possibilities in electronic instruments are no doubt even broader. I move onto Harmonics, and the Saturation effect – and this ups the game further (we’re still in solo mode within the plugin here, by the way - we haven’t heard it in situ just yet). I move up from 110Hz to 120Hz, and drive it at about 50% - as long as there is enough Sub frequencies in there, you can create real bite using Saturation while retaining the hugeness of the entire sonic image.

Still in solo mode, I decide to experiment with decay and drive on each of the elements, and with a few little tweaks, I think there is a subharmonic energy here that should really complement the kick.

REVIEW

Sure enough, as I unsolo all the plugin elements and solo the kick first without, then with the plugin dialled in, it’s a real treat. Having never dived quite this intricately into the world of subharmonics, working solely in frequency bands which are pretty notorious, and that I’m not 100% au fait with, I’m pretty astounded how much I’ve improved the sound of this kick in a matter of 10 or so minutes, being way bolder than normal. I unsolo the kick, play the multitrack, and there is suddenly a real vibe.

I wonder if these settings are also efficient on the kick (out) channel, so I drop the same settings into channel two. The result: too much sub, as the first kick is so much tighter – but as soon as I dial back the sub, I up the punch, add some Saturation, and I’ve got a solid, fat sounding kick (out) drum.

I tend to favour Kick (in) within my mixes, and that’s also the case here - but after using RootOne, the two signals have both improved vastly, and my gain isn’t so far

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different between the two, and that is a first. What this plugin has managed to do is not add the same ‘sound’ to each kick (despite some fairly similar energies being dialled in across the frequency range), it’s somehow managed to enhance the best bits in each. Impressive.

I move onto the snare (top) – and drop in a new instance of RootOne. I leave the Sub dialled in, but way down, so it’s just there – but I do dial in about 50% extra drive, 50% attack and 25% decay on the Thump at 40Hz which really gives it some balls. Then I hit the Punch a little harder at 75Hz, with similar drive, attack and decay, and get a little of the snare crack brought out with some pretty harddriven Saturation at around 120Hz. When I unsolo everything and play the kit back, it’s actually amazing to listen to the enhancements this plugin has allowed me to make in such a short period of time, and with such accuracy.

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LEAPWING

RootOne

I give my ears a little break, as standard, and return about 15 minutes later to play the track. Thankfully, barely any further tweaking is needed at all. Admittedly, I do pull back the Sub on the kick a litlle, but let’s be honest, if I’m going to overdo anything on a plugin that focuses on Sub, it’s probably going to be the Sub, isn’t it?

I then mix down a stereo drum track from the multitrack, duplicate it, and on v2.0 I take out RootOne – allowing me a simple A/B test – and this is where I really notice it. With RootOne in, the whole kit feels warmer, more pronounced and, dare I say it, more profound. This whole process – earbreak included – has taken about 90 minutes. And what I’ve also noticed is, I want to exaggerate some of the EQ boosts I had on the kit prior to the RootOne to accentuate some of the dynamics and saturation that it has given the track. And that in itself is great fun.

Next – bass guitar. If ever I’m going to overdo it, it’s now!

I listen to Andrew’s bass in isolation, duplicate it, and drop in an instance of RootOne – for a similar A/B test.

The original sounds nice, if a little over compressed (must have been a loud mix session, my bad!) So I dial everything back a touch and begin building the subharmonics subtly, then a little more aggressively. “Don’t be afraid of a subwoofer – it is your friend!” I tell myself, as I drive it harder.

And I do it purely by ear and feel this time, bringing the bass in with the full band mix, A/Bing both bass tracks.

What RootOne does here is pretty amazing - it fills out the sound, yet it rounds it off at the same time; it takes away the harshness of the instrument, yet each note somehow cuts through so much better. And it is simply ‘bigger sounding’ - I’m not sure how else to put it.

Only when I’m happy with my bass sound do I take a proper look at the settings I’ve settled on. I must admit, I have hammered the Saturation which perhaps explains the presence that the bass now has within the track, and why it sits so well with the way fuller kick sound. Yet the Subharmonics section is providing all the fuel: the solidity, the guts and the depth that you want (most of the time) from a bass guitar. And let’s be honest, although there are some rules you should try to follow in audio, sometimes it’s the ones you break and the mistakes you make that end up being your favourites. Kudos to that.

While I was in the zone with RootOne, I also tried some of its presets out on other instrumentation to see if, like Leapwing suggested, RootOne could be “effective across a far wider range of sources”. And I’m glad I did.

Guitars Thick is a real favourite - it made an unbelievable difference to a pair of Telecasters, instantly. And dropping in Synth Beef on a Moog

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Extremely Accurate Control of Sub Frequencies ++ Exciting Harmonics Section ++ Very Simple to Use

LEAPWINGAUDIO.COM

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

Subharmonicon was a real treat. Then Vocal Chest - which I did admittedly tweak for a couple of minutes certainly added a dynamic presence on a lead vocal (of course from the Harmonics, not the Subharmonics).

I could go on, but the answer is yes, these presets are fantastic on way more than drums and bass guitar – tried and tested!

So in conclusion, who would benefit from this plugin? Short answer: everyone. But most definitely those aspiring and emerging creatives that struggle to get that all important low-end fine tuned in their mixes. It’s pretty damned surgical, this plugin – but at the same time, because you’re working in frequency ranges that are deliberately limited, it’s pretty much impossible to lose your way with RootOne. And if and when you do come unstuck, try to look at it as a learning curve: for example, you’ll know not to boost 8Hz once your first bedroom window caves in from the pressure(!) But jokes aside, if you try to use your ears as much as possible, RootOne can be a great educational tool. As I hinted at earlier, people (even some professionals) tend to be afraid of sub – and subwoofers but this plugin allows us as creatives to embrace those fears and dive in head first, safe in the knowledge that you shouldn’t go too far wrong.

SLX-D DIGITAL WIRELESS

THIS IS THE WIRELESS SYSTEM YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR. SLX-D Digital Wireless continues the legacy of exceptional wireless technology from Shure. Flawless 24-bit digital audio for your presenters and performers. Rock solid RF that’s easy to set up for your staff. A complete selection of system configurations and microphone options. Docking rechargeability options that provide to-the minute details.

Easy to scale for small assemblies all the way to prominent live events, SLX-D Digital Wireless is the state of the art, high-value choice that simply makes sense. Learn more at Shure.com/SLX-D

WIRELESS EXCELLENCE, WHEREVER REQUIRED.

SUPERIOR AUDIO

CLEAR UHF SIGNAL

EASY TO SET UP

32 CHANNELS PER 44MHz

8 HOURS OF POWER

INSTALLERFRIENDLY

© 2020 Shure Incorporated

shure.com

SLX-D Wireless

by R EW ic VI

We put Shure’s new SLX-D wireless system to the test. Unlike its predecessor, it comes in two flavours: dual and single receiver; this makes it easier to build and rack up systems with larger channel counts with fewer aeriels, twice as many channels per distribution unit, and smaller switches. Another eyebrow raiser is the price; these new units, while a little more than the range they now replace, are actually about the same price as the SLX range was when it was launched. So let’s dive in...

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SHURE SLX-D WIRELESS

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REVIEW

First off, let’s break down this impressive system: I’ve got two SLX-D2 handheld mics (one with an SM58 capsule, one with a Beta 58 capsule), an SLX-D1 body pack, and two single SLX-D4 receiver units.

After unpacking and attaching the aerials and power supplies, I linked them together with short Ethernet cables to the back of my Cisco switch which forms part of my home and studio network. I could have just connected them to each other via the single Ethernet port on each unit, but I was interested to see if they would find each other through a switch without having to configure any IP addresses.

The switch is a level three with a couple of virtual networks, but I

have left a section which allows automatic connection between devices in similar ranges and the same subnet. Bearing in mind you can have up to 32 channels of SLX-D in one local system, a network switch is a must if you’re going to be setting these up in different locations.

After powering up, both units displayed the same thing: G:1 CH:1, so I picked the first unit and pressed the button that said ‘push’ on it. I was prompted to turn off any transmitters and set the unit up, including a full scan, just by holding down said button when prompted.

Shortly after, both units flickered for a couple of seconds and new frequencies were allocated to each receiver.

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The first receiver was then prompting me to sync a transmitter to the first channel, so I picked up a handheld, turned it on, and held the IR window up to the receiver.

Almost immediately the message ‘sync complete’ flashed up on the screen. Well that was easy! After switching on the second handheld and moving its IR window in front of the next receiver, I pressed the sync button on the second receiver – and job done. The whole process took less than three minutes, which is amazing, actually... I have more complicated DI boxes!

FEELS LIKE THE REAL THING Shure’s new SLX-D range sounds like an updated replacement for the SLX range which has been around now for 15 years - probably the most popular budget analogue radio mic ever - and with the move from analogue to digital, that’s exactly what this is. However, holding the handheld microphone tells you this is not just a simple upgrade. For starters, this unit looks and feels like it could belong to one of Shure’s top end ranges: the body is of a solid metal construction while the old plastic battery cover is now a machined piece of aluminium; the recessed controls are not likely to be accidentality turned off during the performance; and I had to use my fingernail ends to get into the menus, which is also good, as it affords a little ‘over-exuberant musician’ proofing.

One of the things I’ve always liked about Shure’s wireless systems is the interchangeable mic capsules, meaning you can pretty much put anyone’s favourite mic capsule on before you go out to a job. You’re also not restricted to the capsule options that this system ships with. I have a number of different high-end condenser mic capsules from DPA and Audio-Technica as well as Shure’s excellent KSM9, and all worked superbly on the SLX-D. I know you’re gonna say that all of the big radio mic manufacturers do this – true, but it was Shure who did it first.

Another feature that improves on the SLX-D’s

predecessor is channel count. Shure claims up to 32 simultaneous channels can be used within the available UHF bandwidth, and that is also the reason this system has stayed with UHF as opposed to utilising the licencefree WiFi frequencies like so many other manufacturers’ budget systems which struggle to achieve drop-out free operation with channel counts anywhere near this capacity. At this point you should know that the SLX-D is not configurable from within Shure’s ‘wireless workbench software’, but I’d be shocked if potential users of the SLX-D could actually find a benefit in using [Shure’s] Wireless Workbench over the unit’s lightning fast onboard setup procedure. Really impressive.

This system is, of course, digital - and with all digital systems there is a certain amount of latency introduced by the ADA processing of the audio from the capsule through the transmitter and from the receiver back to the analogue outputs. Here, Shure claims a figure of 3.2ms, and while that represents listening to the resulting audio from a speaker less than 1.2m away from you, you also have to consider the additional latency of any other equipment in the signal path, such as a digital desk, for example. In this case, I was using an Allen & Heath SQ, which only has 0.7ms latency. I popped a set of my JH Audio JH16 IEMs in, and had a listen to my voice. Unpleasant though my voice is, it still wasn’t audibly possible to detect the resulting total sub 4ms latency within the system.

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SHURE

SLX-D Wireless

DIGITAL WIRELESS “Great value for money from a professional quality digital radio system...“

24-bit audio “Crystal clear 24-bit audio with amazing headroom and lowest noise floor in its class...“

multiple channels

“Very easy setup and interface to achieve multiple channels of digital audio...”

BIG THINGS FROM A SMALL PACK The SLX-D1 is an impressive little pack, and nice and light. I managed to double its weight just by putting in the batteries!

Immediately, I could see a few guitarists who’d appreciate the benefits of a light oval-shaped plastic pack; for starters, this little device can clip onto your guitar strap and you wouldn’t even notice it was there. Now some might say that a plastic pack would be history the first time you drop it, and that it would’ve been far better to have made the pack out of metal and the mic casing out of plastic, but the interesting thing is, because it’s so light there is far less chance of it jumping off your belt or strap; and when I was clumsy enough to drop it, it simply bounced on my tiled floor, no damage whatsoever.

The other ergonomic feature which I think is a lovely touch is the elliptical shape. This is going to sit comfortably concealed behind clothing and in pockets or pouches without displaying any sharp angles and lines. Artists will forget they’re wearing this little pack, which is fantastic. Connection is via Shure’s SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

standard TA4F 4-pin mini XLR with the added protection of a screw thread locking ring, something which is a must for maintaining a good connection between devices in an environment which is inherently prone to mishap – this is also a welcome upgrade from the SLX range.

Now the nights are really starting to draw in, but today is a good day and the sun is out, so I’m going to sit in the back yard with the SLX-D1 plugged into my [Fender] Strat and my bedroom studio taking a feed from the SLX-D4, which is less than 10m away from me, but is the other side of two brick and Yorkshire sandstone walls. Not exactly a distance test, but it still tells me that the carrier is strong enough to cope with immovable solid objects like stage sets and dressing room walls. However, when paired with a PSM1000 channel and my JH16 IEMs, I happily kick back with the sun in my face and strum away until my heart’s content. Even allowing for the

REVIEW

additional latency of my Mac running UAD’s Console via my Apollo x8p interface with various plugins on the input chain, by my calculation, I was still looking at less than 5ms of latency. Less than the distance a stage wedge is when you’re standing over it - or about the same as standing 1.6m in front of your 4x12 [cabinet]!

I’ve been used to setting up many wireless systems for guitar and other instruments over the years and most have been a compromise of convenience over quality, so it’s a relief to find a system that actually sounds good and doesn’t break the bank. With more and more budget digital systems utilising WiFi networks to transmit what is claimed to be better quality audio, musicians are fooled into believing these suitable for mission-critical signals. Big mistake, I find; they seem to work in soundcheck, but fill a venue full of mobile phones and things quickly go downhill! The SLX-D, while requiring a licence and sharing a small proportion of its bandwidth with digital television, is a very nice-sounding system and, dare I say, not that dissimilar to plugging my guitar directly into the interface or my little combo amp, certainly more impressive

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than similar priced offerings from Shure’s competitors and, ironically, better than Shure’s own U4D and U1D combination I still have, which seems to noticeably squash the dynamics out of your playing in comparison.

Shure also sent me a TwinPlex omni lav microphone so I could further put the SLX-D1 pack to the test. This is a miniature mic aimed at competing with the likes of Sanken, DPA and the Countryman. It’s a mic I’ve no experience of but I also found the correct micro dot for my 4060s and I was again very impressed with the sound from the SLX-D and also the TwinPlex 47 mic which has a warmer low mid and a very transparent and natural response. Although slightly larger than the DPA, it is a dual-diaphragm design and is also waterproof. Switching between mic and line level was again very simple – via the large push button, scroll down to option four mic/line level and press twice then turn either way to select between mic and line level. When highlighted, press again and the option will save and return you to the main screen.

MORE CHANNELS, FEWER BATTERIES It’s been the way of all things digital that as technology has advanced, quality has improved, and options have increased. Within the 44 MHz tuning bandwidth of the SLX-D you can now (local TV stations permitting) fit up to 32 channels of SLX-D into your radio system which is a massive increase on the old SLX system and a warning shot over the bow of the competition. What’s more, Shure has for the first time allowed you to equip this range with its own rechargeable battery system which - if you’re

using such a large channel count - further helps you manage and keep all your transmitters ready for use.

The caddie charging system also provides a useful place to store your mic or pack when you have finished your presentation, speech, or performance; and I can see this system really taking off in schools, colleges, pubs and clubs up and down the land, Covid restrictions permitting!

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Plenty of Headroom ++ Very Low Noise Floor ++ Crystal Clear 24-bit Audio

SHURE.COM

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

WAVES

OVox

Y W B PAU IE

We’ve all heard of a vocoder and a voice doubler - and although Waves OVox performs both those tasks very well, it’s way more of a powerhouse plugin than that. It’s all about Vocal ReSynthesis.

Let’s dive in...

First off, Waves OVox looks great – its slick neon pink and purple aesthetic makes you want to play with it right away, and in

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my experience, when a plugin manufacturer puts such effort into the look, it normally means it’s pretty special, and therefore the sonics follow suit.

As with all Waves plugins, OVox comes with a ton of presets – and incredible presets in this case, it must be stated: dedicated, intricate algorithms are programmed in for everything from vocal comping,

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vocoding, doubling, voice FX, and sounds dedicated to additional instrumentation. Some presets are even designed with specific genres in mind: hip hop and soul, to name just a couple. So a lot of thought has gone into this plugin, which is always great to see.

The GUI is very friendly, and can be viewed simply or in more detail. I stick to the former to kick things off.

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I begin by dropping an instance of OVox onto a ‘hummed’ backing vocal. The song I’ve chosen is in the key of F Major, and the vocal melody starts on an F, and descends through E, D, and C, finishing on Bb. A nice gentle progression with clear notes. Why am I telling you this? Because of the OVox’s ingenius Note Mapper.

The Note Mapper sits in the centre of the GUI, and allows you to choose a key. I set it to F, and lock it in with the padlock icon. I also have both engines - OVox 1 and OVox 2 - at default factory settings, currently untouched: Tune and Formant Filter are at 12 O’Clock, and Gain is at 2 O’Clock. I work my way down to the bottom of the display which is where you should get started. There are an array of dials: (L/R) Mods, Effects, Sibilance, Correction, Voice, Synth, OVox, Tone, Output.

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The Correction tool is key here, and it can be set to work in several ways – Hard, Normal, Notes, and simply On/ Off. Think of it as a vocoder for now (but with a twist), and we’re going to be hitting it hard, like you would to achieve that Cher effect (‘do you belie-e-eve...’) because we want OVox to register the notes that my vocalist is singing in this descending melody.

I turn up OVox, and keep Voice and Synth controls to a minimum, so it’s mainly OVox I’m listening to - and the Correction tool is picking out the notes perfectly. Now it’s about finding that perfect balance of human voice and OVox. As I bring up Voice and turn down OVox simultaneously, I start to find my happy medium. I settle at about 3 O’Clock and a nice metallic tone which adds a really nice texture to the vocal. That was easy!

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WAVES

OVox

OPEN SESAME I now open up the plugin to reveal a more detailed dropdown menu, which allows me to explore the OVox’s vast engines and algorithms. There is massive flexibility here.

We have a Harmonics section, a dropdown menu with 12 different presets to get your teeth into, each of which you can low or hi-pass and add ‘Noise’ to for a really expansive sound.

Then there is a Tune option, with the ability to fine-tune or heavily detune should you wish, and widen the stereo image with ‘Spread’. It’s a real palette of sonic options. And the cherry on top is most definitely the Formant filter which allows you to manipulate the signal with deep lows, massive mids, and soaring highs – all at the turn of one dial, complemented by a ‘Speed’ option on its right hand side, which allows you to add resonance and play with the dynamics within the signals among other things. Below this is the ‘Voice Dyn’ rotary with Pan and Gain options. There is also an EQ section to get more surgical with your tones.

Each OVox engine has an equalisertype box from which you can pinpoint where you’d like your main vocal/ instrument tone to ‘sit’ – from there, you can add Noise to that tone, low or high pass that Noise, Tune it (or fine-tune it); and that’s before you come to the Unison section which

enables you to put up to four voices together (in unison, of course), play with the tunings further, and widen or narrow the image as desired. It’s phenomenally effective when putting multiple backing vocals through it or across a stereo group of vocals, particularly with ‘Spread’. You can create a seriously huge and detailed stereo image. But even on my one backing vocal, it’s a transformation.

A little more on the Formant filter, which is phenomenal – it has a Q and Focus dial which you can use to further hone your main sound – and as previously mentioned, the Speed dial for further manipulation. If you start ramping up the ‘Synth’ setting, drive the spread to around 70% and crank up the Noise, you start to get what I like to call ‘the Kanye effect’ try it and you’ll (hopefully) see what I mean! And the more harmonics you add, the more Imogen Heap-esque it becomes. Imogen and Kanye, what a collab that would be. Moving on...

If you dial in the Formant filter in realtime (in either direction), you get a really atmospheric sweeping effect – you can definitely get lost in this. I did for a good five minutes. And I can tell you from first hand experience of not managing to tune both OVox engines together for quite some time (though I got there in the end) that the tuning

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Note Mapper ++ Stereo Imaging Capabilities ++ Formant Filter

WAVES.COM

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algorithm is deep and very surgical.

After linking OVox 2 with OVox 1 on my now semi-synth like backing vocal, I bring in the acoustic guitar and lead vocal from the song, and the manipulated BV now feels like at least four voices. Unison works seamlessly - and I dial in ‘Synth’ to about 20% for extra fizz in the top end.

Panning the two OVox engines allows for the highs to further explore the soundfield. An A-Level Maths teacher once told me that some numbers stray from the number line; 25 years later, I can suddenly relate. I guess this is ReSynthesis in all its glory?

I drop the same settings across three more harmony BVs – the same key, but different notes, of course - and press play. Quite brilliantly, OVox has found each individual note and it sounds like a Kanye choir (imagine that, if you will!). I like to pan BVs pretty wide, and doing so here creates what I can only describe as a soundscape.

It’s a real wow moment, I have to say.

All in all, OVox is a phenomenal plugin – and what can be achieved with Note Mapper in itself (and very quickly) is arguably worth the price of the plugin in itself. It’s as surgical as it is fun, and that’s the beauty of plugins like this: get your head around it, start using it, and wait for the magic to happen.

DRUM RE-SYNTHESIZER

A revolutionary way to design your own drums – Backbone is your new, innovative drum designer for single kicks, snares, hi-hats, percussion, rises, hits and more.

Layer up to eight samples and shape them with classic subtractive synthesis, decompose samples into tonal and noise elements and re-synthesize samples to manipulate them in unheard ways.

steinberg.net/backbone All specifications are subject to change without notice. Copyright Š 2020 Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. All rights reserved.

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OEKSOUND

Soothe 2 & Spiff

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by RIC K

OEKSOUND SOOTHE 2 & SPIFF

CKERSON DI

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REVIEW

I’d heard of Oeksound’s Soothe plugin but had never actually got around to using it, so I’m heading into this review without any preconceptions about the company or its products. What I can tell you is Oeksound is a cool young brand which was launched in 2016 with their first and, until more recently, only product, Soothe.

Now there is Soothe 2 and Spiff. Isn’t it refreshing - if a little daunting - to see a plugin or in this case two plugins that are not based on or emulating an existing piece of analogue or digital equipment? In other words, I might have to refer to a manual to find out how to use these two.

So let’s dive in and see what they do and how they can help you.

FROM LITTLE ACORNS Oeksound’s Soothe has taken on somewhat of a legendary status with engineer friends of mine immediately commenting on my ‘luck’ at being given the opportunity to review this plugin: “Where have you been for the last two years, Rick? I use this all the time!” one friend said to me.

“You’ll love Soothe, it’ll save you a ton of time and head scratching,” another said! So armed with the

knowledge that the first incarnation of Soothe was a big hit in a subdued way, I downloaded both the latest version, Soothe 2, as well as a plugin I know nothing about called Spiff and entered the licence codes into my iLok account.

I have a couple of friends who I collaborate with who I share song ideas and demos, which are just

that - ideas which have been quickly committed to computer in the case of one vocalist, via GarageBand with a Shure SM58; and in another, something similar.

This gave me a great place to start and see if I could smooth out what are in some cases excellent performances, just not great recordings.

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OEKSOUND

Soothe 2 & Spiff

SMOOTHE OPERATOR First off, just a word about the interface, which in itself is very soothing. It’s like looking at the horizon where the sea meets the sky. I’m not joking, I felt immediately relaxed as if all my woes were about to dissipate into the ether.

Not relevant to the sound, I know, but a very effective and classy looking interface. And on second glance it looks like a cross between a parametric EQ and a compressor. But there is a twist... More on that shortly.

One of my tricks for hearing what plugins do before I actually apply them to any scenario is to pick a piece of music I know well and have a listen to what it does over a full frequency range. In this case I chose Steely Dan’s Jack of Speed and Marcus Miller’s La Villette. There’s a large dial on the left which says ‘Depth’ on it just below two check boxes that state ‘Soft’ or ‘Hard’ [algorithms] and give you the option of one or the other. Soft is very subtle - I think the depth was half way up

the first time I wound it in before I really noticed how it was affecting the audio. The hard setting on the other hand is less subtle and ranges from useful to crush the life out of!

spectrum, so having a graphical representation of the audio going through the plugin before you start to affect it can be very useful in guiding you where to look. In each of the four bands as well as the High and Low Cut options you have the ability to bypass them individually and collectively to give you a clearer visual picture of what’s going on; and a ‘listen’ icon allows you to hear what’s going on in each range.

extremely useful feature which allows you to hear what the processing is taking away. This is also great for highlighting and targeting those particular resonances that cause concern, discomfort, or both!

If you’re not familiar with Soothe like myself, a very good place to start playing is the user presets, giving you a bunch of options with which you can quickly get a feel for how Soothe works, sounds, and how it could come to your aid when particular issues become apparent.

FINE TUNING To really put this plugin to work you have to refer to the right side. This gives you four bands of control, not unlike a parametric EQ in reverse.

As you make adjustments to your band controls and move the curve upward, you increase the amount of processing or reduction of resonances within that frequency band, so it’s very easy to understand.

When you first play something through Soothe 2 there’s an instant graphical representation in the lower half of the screen - the sea, as I like to call it - which remains there even when you hit the bypass button at the bottom of the second column of controls, which provides latency-compensated and click-free operation in preference to the plugin on/off button at the top left.

Not all resonance is simple to find as it’s often made up of harmonics and overtones that could manifest themselves in various parts of the SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

Very useful as well is that the sea turns grey when in bypass mode; you might think I’m stating the obvious here but there are so many fine adjustments that can be made to solve whatever problem you are chasing which may be subtle and might not be constant, so it’s important to know at a glance whether Soothe 2 is processing or in bypass mode. You will find yourself regularly flipping bypass in and out to check your work! The delta button just above the bypass is also an

On the lower section of the left control panel is the sharpness, which controls how narrow or wide Soothe 2’s individual EQ cuts are; and selectivity, which reflects how rigidly it selects frequencies within the bands you have boosted for processing.

In the second column are controls for attack and release which are very useful for maintaining the attack of the original signal while then going to work on the resonance of, for example, a snare drum or a tom fill. I also found this useful on vocals for maintaining detail in articulation while using it on particular voices.

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FAR TOO USEFUL I found myself editing a podcast and immediately reaching for Soothe 2 to help solve a problem with a voice recorded over the telephone - and yes, it helped.

And so did Spiff, which we’ll get onto in a little while. Box ambience on an upright piano; room reflections on a home demo vocal; unusual injury-related resonance on an old classical guitar. Not all of these I’ve tried yet, but I keep remembering things I’ve done that I had trouble with at the time and wondering how much quicker my workflow might have been if I’d had Soothe 2 at my disposal. One very relevant fact to come out of this

review is how much processing I was taking off in favour of this plugin. On more than one occasion I turned off a standard compressor, a multiband compressor, a deesser and an EQ. Not all the time - but enough to make you think, certainly.

So Soothe 2 is a plugin you can almost load and leave with the minimal amount of faff, and it just works. Some problems take a little more solving, but I’d put Soothe 2 firmly at the top of my problem-solver category.

SPIFF Spiff on the other hand is described by Oeksound as a transient control tool: “Spiff analyses the incoming signal and applies processing only on the parts of the signal that contain the transient information. This keeps the rest of the signal intact and free from side effects.”

So you could look at Spiff as both a creative tool and possibly a problem solver. Now there are other transient control and manipulation tools out there: Sonnox Oxford Evolution and Waves Smack Attack spring to mind. So how does Spiff stack up against the competition?

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Soothe 2 & Spiff

control Spiff features a similar style of interface to Soothe 2, so it was pretty easy to start playing with the minute I opened it, and it was really good to see some familiar controls which make these Oeksound plugins so user friendly. The Delta button was the first thing I was drawn to and you can’t really get a better transient test than a straightforward drum track! I think possibly for the first time I was actually listening to just transient information. It has been my belief on occasion with some transient designers that I could just be listening to a very fast gate. Not in this case; the transients were clearly evident and audible, but in isolation.

In some cases it would be a little difficult to actually know what the source track was; it’s only when you switch out of Delta listening that you hear how it has faithfully captured just the transients.

Spiff also features a whole host of user presets. In many cases they just worked and saved me having to refer to the manual as the changes on the interface gave away exactly what the presets had set up. These are really well crafted and will save you a lot of time when you’re first familiarising yourself with what Spiff can do. In most cases these presets are a very good place to start, but as with all good tools, they are made to be used, so an overview is in order.

On the left hand side of the interface is a similarly laid out control panel to Soothe 2 which provides you with two buttons for the cut and boost modes. Below that is the

familiar depth control which allows you to decide how much of the processed signal you want to add or subtract.

Again, I really like the visual representation of which mode you’re in: blue for cut and pink for boost. Sensitivity controls whether Spiff processes just louder transients or if the sensitivity is increased - softer transients as well. Increasing the Decay extends the time a cut or boost is evident and can extend to even duplicating the original source signal, so I found it easier to use while the delta button was active.

Sharpness adjusts the bandwidth of the cuts and boosts applied to the signal, while Decay Lf/Hf at 12 o’clock gives both high and low transients the same decay time, but turned to the left, extends the low end decay and reduces the height end decay, and vice versa.

In the second column - similar to Soothe 2 - there’s the stereo mode mid/side as well as left right option, stereo link 0-100% and balance 0-100%/0-100% all very useful for placing instruments in a mix both in terms of distance and direction. And I think that is where Spiff really proves its worth as what would be my go-to transient design tool.

With this amount of control at your fingertips, it’s far easier to use a tool that quickly places an instrument on your soundstage in an immediate three dimensional fashion.

While EQing distance by reducing the brightness is one way, it sounds far more natural and transparent as the transients are the sounds that die first over distance.

Just Another Step Closer We all know how important transient information is to the perception of distance, so with my new found power to move the drum kit from behind the band to in front of them, I set about putting various instruments in different places - and this is where the fun really started.

By cutting the attack on a guitarist’s finger picking style I managed to banish him to the hallway (he was still in the band, just not in the room!)

Next I tried a little trick on a grand piano which with a little transient

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cut managed to upend it and make it sound like the upright against the wall. Then, courtesy of Spitfire Audio’s BBC Symphony Orchestra, I was able to take a front row seat just in front of the violins.

It’s the combination of well laid out and intuitive controls that make Spiff a great manipulator of transients, and a plugin you have to try. I spent a couple of hours on a mix I had always found to be a little too busy, and very quickly I was able to place particular instrumentation

in such a way that it came to life again. Nothing was lost and nothing was sacrificed, just a clear musical arrangement with everything occupying its rightful place and most of it without the aid of reverbs or delays.

I was even able to let the vocalist walk along the front of the stage while the tenor sax took another step closer for his solo. Thank you, Spiff.

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ANOTHER PROBLEM SOLVED I said earlier that while Soothe 2 was more of a problem-solver and Spiff the creative tool, it just so happens that I was editing a podcast the other day which had a particularly aggressive telephone conversation which had a kind of robotic transient on it which I’d initially tried Soothe 2 on. While that had helped a fair bit to make it less painful to sit through for the length of the podcast, it just suddenly struck me that a transient tool might be a better bet. So not only did Spiff work a treat, it took just a couple of minutes to set up and not only was it less aggressive, it was clearer and more legible. So I take back what I said earlier; Oeksound’s Soothe 2 and Spiff fall into both categories: problem-solvers and creative tools. These are beautifully crafted plugins that represent good value for money and are both exceptional tools for the tasks they are intended.

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Incredibly Surgical Tools ++ Genuine Problem Solvers ++ Sooth(e)ing GUI

OEKSOUND.COM

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

Created in collaboration with legendary designers Greg Mackie and Peter Watts.

Featuring pristine, studio-grade DSP audio processing and instant analogue control, the KORG MW mixers will satisfy any audio mixing application.

The convenience of analogue.

The power of digital.

korg.com

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CRANBORNE AUDIO

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500ADAT

CRANBORNE AUDIO 500ADAT

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Y W B RICK IE CKERSON DI

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REVIEW

I’ve spent the last couple of months with my Cranborne Audio 500ADAT, and I have to say, it’s proved its worth on more than one occasion. It’s been very helpful in providing a digital link via ADAT from my UAD Apollo interface to seamlessly pick up my 500 series analogue modules so I could keep my little studio space cable-free. It’ll work with any ADAT-equipped interface and sports high quality A/D-D/A conversion along with a whole host of other features. When I first came across this device, I’m pretty sure there was nothing out there that offered this functionality and flexibility. So let’s have a look at some of the things you can do with it.

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CRANBORNE AUDIO

500ADAT

THE DIGITAL BIT This unit is essentially Cranborne’s wonderful 500R8 audio interface minus the USB computer connection, for £300 less. Of course, many individuals and studios have already committed themselves to one manufacturer’s interface or another; it’s pretty much the second product you buy, after your computer. But the great thing about the 500ADAT is that it integrates all your analogue 500 series modules and makes them permanently available via simple configurable and saveable parameters from within your DAW. Connection to your interface is via a pair of inexpensive, off the shelf TOSlink cables in the case of 44.1kHz and 48kHz - or four cables if you’re working with higher sample rates.

The 500ADAT is an ADAT expander featuring high-performance, low latency A/D and D/A conversion with a dynamic range of 121dB. It’s a high-current 500 series rack providing up to eight slots for 500 series modules which connects to your existing recording interface and gives you either eight channels of send and return to those modules, eight additional inputs from mic/

pre modules to your DAW, or eight channels of output from your DAW for analogue summing. All via the ADAT ports.

There are, of course, other ways to use this unit, but if you’re going to be using it as an ADAT expander, I strongly recommend that you set the dip switch settings on the rear panel to ADAT and the sample rate that you’re most likely to be working in. If you’re likely to be working from various sources with multiple sample rates, don’t bolt the unit in a rack as you’ll need to get to the back and adjust the dip switch settings.

With the ADAT dip switch setting, your DAW selects the clock rate, and your interface acts as the clock master.

Cranborne Audio makes a fair bit of noise about how good the 500ADAT’s clock is, so provided your studio works to a fixed clock rate you could set it to internal, select a fixed clock speed, and daisy-chain off the BNC Word Clock out. Your DAW picks up the clock rate from the 500ADAT’s master clock via your interface. If I could find any fault at all with this device, I would point to the rear dip switch for

sample rates which has stopped me making use of the flexible mountable rack ears. And that’s at a push.

There’s a handy input select switch on the front panel just below each populated slot to switch between ADAT, local analogue XLR, and Cranborne’s own CAST (cat5 Audio Snake Transport) system. The really great news is that most DAWs - including Logic and Pro Tools have a hardware insert option as well as an option from within their software plugins menu. For me, using Logic’s menu, it is simply a case of picking I/O from the Utility menu and entering the channel numbers that my UAD’s Console plugin has assigned to the relevant ADAT channels. Then simply ping the channels with the ‘Ping’ button and it will automatically set the latency compensation sample count for that 500 series module’s round trip. You can then save this as a user preset to recall this module whenever you need it. Always remember to re-ping your module, and always remember to put the module into bypass, especially if it’s a reverb or delay.

THE ANALOGUE OPTION The 500ADAT can also function purely as a 500 series analogue rack simply by using the XLR ins and outs behind the corresponding channel. The XLR input for the channel can accept mic, line or HiZ input types depending on the type of unit inserted into the slot. Many modules that support HiZ inputs will often feature this input on the front of the module.

The rear panel XLR can also supply SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

phantom power where supported by the module. Below each input XLR is a TRS insert jack for connecting additional studio equipment to help you build your perfect processing chain; the insert follows the 500 series module prior to the A/D converter. Should you have two 500 series modules that you want to use together, if they follow each other in the correct order, simply click the

chain switch to the right. If they don’t, just use an XLR to connect the rear analogue output to the rear input of your next 500 module to build your desired signal chain. Simple. If you do build a chain of several modules that you are returning to your DAW via ADAT, again, just use the Plugins, Utility, I/O option in your DAW to select your ADAT send and return channel numbers.

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SUMMING & MONITORING The 500ADAT also features a high quality eight-into-two analogue summing mixer. You can send eight signals from your DAW via ADAT to the eight mixer volume and pan controls below each slot. The slots can be populated with EQs or compressors, or whatever you like - but if not, there is a handy bypass switch just above each slot inside the housing to route audio directly to the mixer volume and pan section.

There are two dedicated 1/4-inch jacks on the rear to provide routing from the summing mixer directly to the line-in jacks on your interface or alternatively, another mixer. The mix controls along the bottom also have a second function and are used to provide zero latency

monitoring during recording. The rear panel features L/R input jacks to feed two stereo aux sends from your interface which can be blended together with signals from the 500 series modules.

The front right panel features the Aux 1 and 2 blend pots together with level pots which feed two stereo headphone jacks to the artists. The headphone amp is noticeably impressive and again lives up to (and then some) Cranborne’s claim of reference quality.

So if your audio interface supports Talkback to Aux, like my UAD does, then it makes sense that this would continue via the mix blend through the 500ADAT to its headphone outs.

There are also a number of options on the rear panel to send these signals out to additional headphone amps in: for example, a studio space or the next door bedroom/vocal booth(!), all of which can be controlled via the front panel pots.

The back panel I/O [mentioned above] is duplicated on a single RJ45 CAST port on the back of the 500ADAT for connection directly to Cranborne’s own 500R8 interface should you have one. These two monitoring outputs and stereo headphone sends are also duplicated remotely via Cranborne’s CAST system.

CAST AWAY At the moment, CAST is unique to Cranborne Audio equipment, but it’s a very interesting concept clearly designed to help your studio environment grow without the need for costly multicores or install panels. In a nutshell, CAST allows you to transport four channels of balanced analogue audio over a single Cat5 cable. This equates to two XLR mic channels from remote box to 500ADAT and two stereo headphone feeds in the other direction.

This is a really good idea and comes into its own if you have a control room

space with a couple of small attached areas that can be utilised as a vocal booth or other acoustic instruments. It also helps to keep things neat and tidy.

There are four CAST ports on the rear panel. Each corresponds to a pair of 500ADAT inputs in a logical order: CAST A: inputs one and two; CAST B: inputs three and four, and so on. So you could easily have various 500 modules set up on specific slots and connect the box up accordingly for whatever recording task you have at hand. There are a

couple of break-out boxes available from Cranborne for this purpose: the N22 and the N22H; the N22 being a passive box, and the N22H featuring a headphone amp sporting a 9v battery.

This isn’t something that is going to be needed by those single environment studios, but it’s a very interesting option for those thinking of adding additional space on a budget. While I have neither the break-out hardware to try or the space in which to try it, it’s still a very clever idea!

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CRANBORNE AUDIO

500ADAT

RACK ‘EM OUT When we were looking for a unit to use for demos of 500 series modules, there was nothing out there that came anywhere close to the functionality of the Cranborne 500ADAT. I could have gone with a straight analogue unit, but I really liked the idea of keeping everything as tightly integrated as I could with my DAW and leaving my interface free for the purposes of recording.

That’s not to say that as budgets permit I wouldn’t be shy about adding additional mic pres to the 500ADAT - but at the moment, it’s used solely for inserting FX.

It’s proved invaluable in a number of ways, too. Firstly, it’s assisted in a number of reviews, including the Dangerous Music Compressor for which it provided the I/O and conversion; the AMS Neve RMX16500, which is now permanently housed in it; and it also helped as an additional analogue breakout when we did a recent summing demo with Korg’s new SoundLink MW1608 mixer.

Critically, this device is noiseless and transparent. It lets the true quality of the analogue 500 module shine through, even at low sample rates.

I’m really looking forward to trying out more 500 modules - and I really like the idea of putting together the best bits on vintage consoles and iconic processors without the huge price tags. This unit is around £1,400 and you get a substantial product for your money. There’s the studio grade clock with performance to rival a standalone unit, as well as the high quality A/D-D/A converters - along with an over-specced power supply, comprehensive summing and routing capabilities... I can’t actually find any element that’s not top of the class.

CONCLUSION If you’re like me, have limited space, love 500 series analogue toys, and have spare or unused ADAT ports on your interface, then this is the 500 series rack for you. Firstly there’s the unbelievably clean and quiet A/D-D/A converters: not only can you quickly and easily employ your favourite analogue toys directly onto your DAW’s channel auxes, but

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Noiseless & Transparent ++ Phenomenal Build Quality ++ CAST

CRANBORNE-AUDIO.COM

SPOTLIGHT JOURNAL

you can also utilise the 500ADAT’s eight outputs for analogue summing duties, or you can populate your 500 slots with your preferred EQs and compressors and use the onboard mixer for analogue summing. You could also populate your 500ADAT with Cranborne’s own Camden mic pres - a really excellent mic pre, I might add – or a Neve, or an API, or

whatever vintage console component that gives your studio all the flexibility of a major recording facility.

And talking of flexibility, this has got to be the most flexible, user-friendly 500 series rack on the market. And what’s more, it’s unbelievably good value for money.

SOME DREAMS DO COME TRUE AUDIO INTERFACE > Windows, macOS and Linux drivers > 4 in 6 out with GPIO/MIDI > Zero latency mixer > PSU and PoE -Redundant power > Expand and Control of up to 256 I/O

MONITOR CONTROLLER > A/B Speaker switching > Stereo and multichannel > Dual headphone outputs > Source input selection > Talkback > Bass Management

MERGING QUALITY AUDIO > Dual gain 32bit Mic Preamps

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137 dB dynamic range Mastering quality A/D and D/A Sample rates up to DSD256 Exceptional headphone amp for all impedances All this at an affordable price

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

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SONNOX

Oxford Inflator

LEGACY STATUS

BYri EW c I V

Sonnox is well respected for its sonically superior plugins. There are a few I use regularly - mainly the Oxford Limiter and SuprEsser DS - both of which I use for podcast editing as well as music production. But there is another great Sonnox plugin which has been around for as long as I remember which I’ve seriously underestimated - the Oxford Inflator. And it’s far from a one trick pony.

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ckerson di k

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SONNOX OXFORD INFLATOR

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In today’s climate of ‘everything louder than everything else’ there’s a limit to how far you can go with this quest before science literally stops you in your tracks. There’s much debate about whether the quest for ‘loudness’ is damaging the production of real dynamic music, but like everything that is consumed, we have little choice but to pander to market forces or be left on the sidelines. In these times of short attention spans and beat-oriented hooks, your work needs every edge it can possibly gain to reach an audience. Loudness is, therefore, a combination of perception and level. While the objective is to grab the listener’s attention, I think it’s the combination of volume and dynamics which is important, not to mention the quality of the music itself. I remember a decade ago buying a Skrillex CD and marvelling at how big and dynamic it sounded, but noticing how the meters sat at the same position pretty much throughout every song. Perception?

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SONNOX

Oxford Inflator

THREE IN ONE

SIMPLE TO USE

CURVE AND EFFECT

I’ve used Inflator for ages on the mix bus, but I only recently put it on an individual channel - and that was kind of by accident. Inflator is one of those plugins that does multiple things and represents amazing value for money: The obvious is that of a saturation loudness enhancer, but it’s also extremely good at creating depth within a mix, and by that I don’t just mean more low end EQ; I’m talking about the perception of distance that a particular instrument or voice is away from you. The third thing it does extremely well is increase the harmonic density of a sound or instrument, making it seem larger or more aggressive.

The following description of the Inflator’s control interface refers to the legacy version, and gives you an overview of what everything does, and the type and nature of the resulting sound.

The Effect fader is where you add harmonic distortion to your source signal, and the Curve fader alters the nature of the harmonic content added. As you increase the Curve, it sounds very much like the scope and range of the added distortion is increased.

All of this is achieved through the clever introduction of harmonic distortion and, if you drive the input, that leads to saturation. The Inflator is neither a compressor nor a limiter, so you won’t get any of the pumping effects associated with compression.

And although there are many tape saturation and harmonic distortion FX plugins, none does such a smooth and refined job across the board for such a small investment as the Oxford Inflator. In fact, having rediscovered it, I find myself making the difficult decision of what not to put it on.

Traditionally, I just used it on the master bus when the mix just needed that something extra to bring it forward and help it gel together. But I have since used it on vocals to bring them to the forefront; across a drum buss; on a bass; and on acoustic and electric guitars. I even used it to enhance harmonica and saxophone, with quite dazzling results.

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The interface comprises four sliders and three buttons. The first button is the clip which, when engaged, clips the signal at the digital maximum.

With the clip button left out, the plugin is able to process information above the digital maximum, giving you a different flavour of saturation, more reminiscent of analogue tape than that of the digitally clipped signal which is more like the clipping of a high end analogue to digital converter.

Both these effects seem to suit percussive instruments like drums and guitars, but in reality, there wasn’t very much that didn’t sound more alive and transparent especially when it came to samples and virtual instrumentation.

You may find that driving the input and reducing the output actually gives you the clear perception of a louder signal, but the meter for that channel will clearly show you that the signal is lower than it was before processing through Inflator.

Some have described it as being brighter as you increase the curve from zero, and darker as you decrease from zero, but to me it sounds like the curve is controlling the range of the harmonic content as it seems to increase the density of just as many low end frequencies as it does high. You’re really looking at how much harmonic content you want to introduce (Effect) and the density of the harmonic content (Curve).

The Band Split button allows for three-band processing; it improves the separation between instruments, and reduces intermodulation. This was particularly noticeable across mixes when dealing with EDM, bass drops, and hip hop, but was also noticeable on individual instrument sounds such as synth pads. In every case, sonics are pleasing - and it can be very easy to get carried away, so make sure you use your ears.

SONNOX .COM

Featuring eight legendary 1073® remote-controlled preamps with Marinair® transformers, digital/analogue monitor signal path and optional USB and Dante digital connectivity for the modern studio environment.

Neve

8424

The modern analogue console for today’s connected workflows Legendary 80-series Neve® sound, 4 Groups, 24 Channel faders

Connect. Compose. Create.

DESIGNED & CRAFTED IN ENGLAND BY NEVE ENGINEERS

Neve

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Further product information available by scanning the QR code (left) or visiting ams-neve.com. Neve® & the Neve logo are registered trademarks of AMS Neve Limited. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.