Audio Pro September 2009 - Issue 22

Issue 22 • September 2009

LIVE • COMMERCIAL • RECORDING • BROADCAST

www.audioprointernational.com

FIVE S ALIVE Romania's big noise in tour sound squeezes the best juice out of Synco PLASA • THE BEATLES REMASTERED • LARGE FORMAT PA • THE GLADE

ISSUE 22 September 2009

CONTENTS > IN THIS ISSSUE NEWS LES PAUL • 4 A legend passes away

BEIRG • 4 Urgent action against Ofcom ruling

STAGE COLLAPSE • 5 One dead, 75 injured

MPG AWARDS • 6 Nominations open

EVENTS IBC • 8 RAI fills up for Broadcast’s main event

PLASA09 • 11 Details from London’s big show revealed

API AWARDS • 18 Nominations announced

LIVE SOUND/INSTALLATION THE GLADE • 21 The UKs latest and loudest outdoor event

COVER FEATURE FIVE’S ALIVE • 27 Romania’s live sound gurus talk shop

LARGE FORMAT PA • 30 A review of the big boxes with a bang

STUDIO/BROADCAST BRUCE SWEDIEN • 38 With a new book out about his days with Michael Jackson, Swedien talks about his extensive mic collection and working and writing with the infamous artist

THE BEATLES REMASTERS • 41 The Abbey Road team tells all about the four years spent remastering the stereo and mono versions of the entire Beatles catalogue

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> Regulars: Behind the Board 45 In Session 46 People 48 Products 50 Marketplace 53 Mixdown 56

EDITORIAL

W

e always know the summer is coming to an end when PLASA comes around. The festival stages are all being torn down as Europe’s pro audio community gears up for four days of business and evenings spent in bars and clubs in the capital city.

We have tried our best to get as much information on the show as possible, but many companies are keeping their cards close to their chests until the day of the show. See pages 11 to 16 for a full report.

Now that the festival season is coming to a close I do regret not going to more events. With Bestival selling out and Green Man all the way over in Wales, it seems my fun in the fields is over until next summer.

I did make it to the Field Day festival in Victoria Park, London. After being stopped by Milo the drug dog and given everything shy of a full cavity search, I was released into the rainy day to hear a good mix of DJs and alternative artists. Holding a live music festival in the middle of a busy city seems a sure-fire prescription for problems. On top of the Fort Knox style security that met each punter at the gate, the lack of adequate facilities made the rainy day a bit soggier.

And while I hate to use this column to, once again, complain about noise levels, I did feel completely ripped off and cheated by the inaudible sound levels in some of the tents. Four Tet’s potentially amazing set was so low that I couldn’t hear the music over the audience’s conversations.

The once great UK festival scene is beginning to show cracks in its armour as trigger happy councils pull the plug on loud fun. All the same, the eternal optimist in me says: “maybe next year”.

However, after interviewing the organisers of the Glade Festival (see page 21), it seems that picking the proper location for an outdoor event is perhaps the only way to keep the noise police and neighbours’ complaints at bay.

Andrew Low – Editor andrew.low@intentmedia.co.uk A bookmark us in your phone

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> NEWS

Les Paul - 1915 to 2009 LES PAUL, the guitarist and musical inventor, has died in NY aged 94.

One of America’s most influential and accomplished electric guitarists, Paul was an early innovator in the development of the solid body guitar.

His groundbreaking design would become the template for Gibson’s best-selling electric, introduced in 1952, but among his most enduring contributions are those in the technological realm, including ingenious developments in multi-track recording, guitar effects and the mechanics of sound in general.

Tinkering with electronics and amplification since his youth, Paul’s experiments proved to be dangerous and in 1940 he electrocuted himself during a session in the cellar of his apartment. During the next two years of rehabilitation, he earned his living producing radio music. Forced to put his career on hold, Paul moved to Hollywood and during World War II he was drafted into the Army, but was permitted to stay in California as a regular player for Armed Forces Radio Service. By 1943 he had assembled a trio that regularly performed live on the radio and on V-Discs.

As small combos eclipsed big bands toward the end of World War II, the Les Paul Trio’s popularity grew. They cut records for Decca both alone and behind the likes of Dick Hayes and, notably, Bing Crosby.

”

Among Paul’s most enduring contributions are those in the technological realm.

Yamaha announces board reshuffle Corporation in Japan sees withdrawal of chairman and director and induction of several US and European representatives YAMAHA CORPORATION in Japan has announced a number of changes to its central board of directors.

Most notably, chairman and director Shuji Ito has stood down from his post, having completed his term at the head of the board of directors.

While no longer on the board, Ito will continue his work with the audio giant in the role of ‘corporate special adviser’ and will retain his post as president of the Yamaha

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Music Foundation.

The Yamaha central board has seen no fewer than nine new directorial appointments, including Hirofumi Osawa, the president of the Yamaha Corporation of America and Masato Oike, the president of Yamaha Music Europe.

Along with Ito, Hirokazu Kato and Tsuneo Kuroe also completed their terms on the board and were appointed as advisers. > yamahaproaudio.com

Meanwhile, Paul began to experiment with dubbing live tracks over recorded tracks, also altering the playback speed. This resulted in Lover (When You’re Near Me), his 1947 predecessor to multi-track recording.

The hit instrumental featured Les Paul on eight different electric guitar parts, all playing together. He designed his own eight-track which

was later modified by one Rein Narma, who went on to design what would become the Fairchild 660/670 limiter. The very first model was built at Les Paul’s request (see Mixdown, page 57, for more on this).

He acquired a first generation Ampex tape recorder from Crosby in 1949 and began his most important multi-tracking adventure, adding a fourth head to the recorder to create sound-on-sound recordings. While tinkering with the machine and its many possibilities, he also came up with tape delay. These tricks, along with another recent Les Paul innovation – close miking vocals – were integrated for the first time on a single recording, the 1950 number one hit How High the Moon.

This historic track was performed during a duo with future wife Mary Ford. The couple’s prolific string of hits for Capitol Records included some of the most popular US recordings of the early 1950s and also wrote the book on contemporary studio production. The dense but clear layering of guitars and vocals, along with Ford’s closely miked voice and Paul’s guitar effects, produced unprecedented sonic qualities.

Paul is the only person to share membership of the Grammy, Rock and Roll, National Inventors and National Broadcasters Halls of Fame. > lespaulonline.com

BEIRG issues rallying cry Steering Group urges action against Ofcom ruling THE BEIRG STEERING Group is soliciting the action of all PMSE owners in response to the Government’s decision to clear the entire 800 MHz band.

The ruling will make all radio mics and IEMs operating in channels 61-69 obsolete by 2012/2013, thereby resulting in a major cost for all who own the equipment.

Ofcom and the Government have agreed to establish a funding mechanism to cover the costs of migration by paying to replace the affected equipment. Last week, Ofcom published a consultation – Clearing the 800MHz Band: Funding for programme making and special events – setting out their proposals by which PMSE equipment owners will be eligible for funding, and under what criteria. According to BEIRG, these criteria fall a long way short of what is required to fairly compensate them.

The committee is urging immediate action by PMSE users to this consultation document in order to combat Ofcom’s decision and its eligibility criteria, which it is calling “limited and narrow”.

BEIRG commented: “We are effectively being ‘evicted’ from channel 69, along with the rest of the 800MHz band, on very sharp terms.

“It is imperative that all equipment owners who will be affected respond to this consultation. This is the part of the process that we need your help with if we are to stand any chance of getting you what you deserve.” > beirg.org.uk

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Audio Pro Awards

Large format PA

The Beatles remastered

NEWS <

Soundcraft in the cockpit of Eno’s Apollo Roxy Music star celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing with live IMAX performances ROXY MUSIC’S Brian Eno celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing by introducing the first of two live performances from his 1983 composition, Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, at the IMAX cinema, Science Museum, London.

Mark Hornsby’s company, Headtec, was appointed by the Science Museum to provide the sound and Icebreaker’s FOH sound engineer Alexander Bossew requisitioned a Soundcraft Vi6 digital console.

“I specified this because it is so easy to produce a warm sound without having to eq like mad,” he said. “Also, the few compressors that I used were working very discreetly.”

Bossew admits that, with just enough time for a quick run-through ahead of the performance — rather than a full rehearsal — there had been little opportunity to pre-configure the desk, which was plugged straight into the cinema PA.

However, this hardly concerned him, as the musicians were so experienced: “They were all aware of their own dynamics and so there was very little left for me to correct at the desk end.”

Nevertheless, the composition, adapted by Jun Lee, required the use of a lot of reverb. “The IMAX is completely dry and I had to use six different internal Lexicon reverbs, which sounded excellent,” he said.

That task alone consumed most of the one-hour desk programming time that was allocated.

Bossew felt particularly privileged to have mixed the sound for this landmark event: “Usually my colleague Ernst Zettl mixes their sound and for the performance at the IMAX, I was only substituting for him. But I hope it won’t have been the last opportunity I get to collaborate with this astounding collective of excellent musicians.” > soundcraft.com

Tascam launches dedicated pro AV sales and support for UK

Canada stage collapse kills one and injures 75

Initiative to promote the advantages of the firm’s new solidstate recorder

Second tragedy of its kind within three weeks

TASCAM HAS ESTABLISHED a dedicated sales and support service for the professional AV sector in the UK. The initiative is intended to promote the advantages of the company’s new solid-state recorder series, which offers next generation digital media storage, playout and network management capabilities aimed at audio/visual installer and integrator applications.

Tascam AV UK, headed up by sales and support manager Gary Maguire (pictured), is focussing resources on the installer and integrator sectors to promote the technological and operational advances offered by the new solidstate products, in applications currently fulfilled by various disc media, cassette tape and commodity PCs. The new products offer the advantages of compact flash (CF) card and USB media, with no moving components, file based media management, removable storage devices, and network capabilities.

The Tascam solid-state series comprises three 1U rackmount models, all employing CF card media: the HDR1, SSCDR1 and www.audioprointernational.com

Gary Maguire will head up the UK pro AV department

SSR1. The networkable HDR1 additionally provides USB, Ethernet and Euroblock connectivity, and microphone inputs with discrete level controls. The SSCDR1 combines CF and CD recording and playback. All units feature RS232 and parallel control.

The new Tascam AV UK operation will provide dedicated sales and support for AV installers and

integrators, responding to the sector’s particular requirements.

Service features include a dedicated AV sales and service number, 24hour turnaround on product delivery or replacement, FOC loan stock in the event of products requiring repair, and personal on-site training and technical support for Tascam appointed installers. > tascam.co.uk

A VIOLENT THUNDERSTORM during a country music festival in central Alberta, Canada, caused an outdoor stage to collapse last month, killing one person and injuring many others, some seriously.

Thousands of fans were camped out at the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, 60 miles southeast of Edmonton – billed as Canada's largest country music festival with attendance estimated at 15,000 – when the stage buckled under fierce winds and heavy rain, sending people running for cover.

Police and festival organisers told a news conference that one person was killed and about 75 others were injured, most of whom were treated at the site.

Camrose police chief Darrell Kambeitz said about 21 of the injured were taken to hospitals, two of whom were in critical condition.

This was the second time in the space of a month that a stage collapse proved fatal – in July, the stage for a Madonna concert in Marseille, France, fell down, killing two technical staff.

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> NEWS

MPG Awards nominations now open Music Producers Guild activates its online system to gather names of worthy recording professionals NOMINATIONS FOR THE 2010 Music Producers Guild Awards are now officially open.

As in 2009, next year’s ceremony will be held at Cafe de Paris in London on February 11th. The MPG will again collaborate with the Brits to present the winner of its Producer of the Year category with a Brit Award for Best Producer.

Last year’s inaugural Awards attracted the likes of Brian Eno, Duffy, Calvin Harris and more than 300 music industry luminaries, who turned up to celebrate the huge contribution that recording professionals make to the success of the UK’s music industry.

Award categories for 2010 include Breakthrough Producer and Breakthrough Engineer, which replace last year’s Newcomer Award.

This change not only increases the Awards tally but also allows the Guild to recognise the achievements of recording professionals who have been working in the industry for a while but have only recently had commercial success.

Music Producers Guild chairman Steve Levine stated: “The aim of these awards is to bring about greater awareness, both within the music industry and among the wider public, of the skills and talent involved in making great records.

Therefore we want to ensure that

THE CATEGORIES ARE:

The aim of these awards is to bring about greater awareness of the skills and talent involved in making great records.

Steve Levine

everyone worthy of an award is included for consideration. Audio professionals are positioned at the very heart of the music industry and it is vital that they are given the accolades they deserve.”

Nominating a worthwhile recording professional involves filling in a very simple online form.

Everyone can be part of this process as the nominations are open to anyone who wants to put a name forward. There is also no bar on nominating yourself and the Music Producers Guild is actively encouraging producers and engineers to do this.

• Producer of the Year – sponsored by BPI, BRITS 2010 • Recording Engineer of the Year – sponsored by Prism Sound (also Headline Sponsor) • Best Mix Engineer • Best Mastering Engineer – sponsored by SADiE (also Headline Sponsor) • Best Live Album of The Year (09) – sponsored by Shure • UK Album of The Year (09) • UK Single of The Year (09) • Best Re-mixer • The Joe Meek Award for Innovation in Production • Breakthrough Producer – sponsored by Deep Recording Studios • Breakthrough Engineer • Best Studio – sponsored by Robertson Taylor • Best International Producer of the Year • Unsung Hero – sponsored by Alchemea College in association with Pro Sound News • Outstanding Contribution to UK Music – sponsored by PPL (also Headline Sponsor)

> mpg.org.uk

U2 to give away tour stages £15m structures to become new gig venues around the world

UK music industry revenues hit £3.6bn New research shows 4.7 per cent rise

THE BBC HAS reported that U2 are hoping to turn the stages from their current world tour into permanent concert venues in parks around the world when the tour ends.

The band’s current 360 tour uses three different stage structures, each in the shape of a giant claw, somewhat resembling a crab.

“My vision, which I've been discussing with the band, is to turn them into concert pavilions,” said tour architect Mark Fisher.

The band played their first UK date at Wembley Stadium in London, before heading 6

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to Glasgow, Sheffield and Cardiff.

Bono, The Edge and friends have already played in Europe and will hit the US next month. The three steel structures, which cost between £15m and £20m each, were used on different legs of the world tour.

"Part of the tour will finish in Australia and another part of the tour will finish in South America, where people could use a nice concert pavilion in a park, which has an ability to take 200 tonnes of kit hanging under it,” Fisher added. “It’s a useful thing.”

PRS FOR MUSIC has published new research showing that UK music industry revenues totalled £3.63bn in 2008, up 4.7 per cent from 2007’s £3.46bn.

The report, entitled Adding up the Music Industry for 2008 by PRS for Music’s chief economist Will Page, showed that the industry’s diverse mix of revenues is resilient to the recession.

Combined business to consumer revenues (live industry and recorded music retail) grew three per cent, making up 75 per cent of total industry value.

More complex business to business revenues (from

collective and direct licensing, advertising, sponsorship) grew by ten per cent, reaching £925m and contributing 25 per cent of total industry value.

Page said: “Reading beneath the top line, recorded is down and live is up – reflecting the success of so-called ‘heritage’ acts like the Police and Neil Young on the road. Historically, record companies have been the primary investor in new acts so the question the industry should ask is this: who will invest in developing the ‘heritage’ acts of tomorrow?” > prsformusic.com www.audioprointernational.com

> EVENT PREVIEW IBC

September 10th-15th RAI, Amsterdam

Top gear… …will be in abundance at this year’s IBC show, but there won’t be a vehicle in sight (except maybe the odd OB van). Rob Hughes takes a look at what the event holds for the broadcasters among us…

T

hese days it seems every time I switch on my TV there are more ‘new and exciting’ channels to watch. Sure, most of these are targeted at credit card-wielding housewives or lonely (credit card-wielding) men, but the BBC’s channel-count is fast approaching that of Sky. The same is true of ITV and Channel 4 and you only have to look at the quality of this new programming to realise the potential in terms of advertising revenue.

Taking into account radio and the internet, it’s obvious that there is now an unprecedented demand for broadcast content and an equivalent pool of marketing budgets ready to finance it.

THE SHOW THAT GROWS It’s of little surprise then, that the leading international forum for those involved with content creation, management and delivery has grown year-on-year since its inception in 2002. This year the show is due to break the 50k mark, having added an average 6.5 per cent more visitors with each successive event. In 2009, 1,000-plus exhibitors will attract industry types from more than 130 different countries; between 15 and 20 per cent of these are expected to represent the broadcast trade. The importance of audio will be represented by a host of familiar, leading brands such as Audio Technica, Sadie, Sennheiser, Soundcraft and Teac, which will be grouped together in Hall 8.

New broadcast audio technologies are likely to address the increasing use of surround sound and all the mixing and

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“

It’s obvious that there is now an unprecedented demand for broadcast content and an equivalent pool of budgets to finance it.

metering challenges that this brings, such as the implications for the sound field when the pictures are in three dimensions. Examples include Dolby, which will have key executives on hand to discuss how the company’s portfolio of technologies helps simplify the delivery of quality audio across traditional and emergent media and the long-term benefits to the European broadcast community.

Junger Audio will show a complete workflow solution for Dolby-coded 5.1 audio. It will also be showing new ESDI cards for its popular Level Magic loudness control system and introducing the new ANA series of input and processing cards, which are designed to help terrestrial rebroadcasters tackle loudness and synchronisation issues.

Meanwhile, Linear Acoustic promises to ‘turn the world of audio processing for digital television on its head’, but gives little else away, other than the assurance of several industry firsts.

In Hall 7, the free post-production training zones will give visitors handson time with the latest desktop tools.

One of the sessions takes a comprehensive approach to Apple’s Final Cut Studio suite, including its integrated audio sweetening tool Soundtrack Pro. There will also be the new Production Village in Hall 9, which features a range of displays and free

training opportunities around television production. There are special training workshops on getting the best out of a performer and setting up interviews – sound recordists will also be interested in sessions on tapeless workflows in the field.

This year, IBC has been reorganised to focus on three key strands: technology advances, creative innovation and the business of broadcasting. Each will have huge implications for audio, including the sessions on audio coding and best practice in multimedia broadcasting.

An afternoon in the technology papers section of the conference is given over to audio matters. A tutorial will summarise trends in audio formats for next generation services, including HDTV, and the key considerations in the selection of an audio format to accompany Mpeg-4 and other nextgeneration video or music file delivery.

Audio technology: Coding and Concatenation, Loudness and Lip Sync takes place on September 13th, from 13:30 in the Forum.

Another audio conference session will explore techniques such as textto-speech processing and voice transformation and new microphone technology to ease the production of surround sound. From Audio to 3D – The Latest Ideas Straight from the Lab is on Thursday, September 10th, from 14:15 in Room L. www.ibc.org www.audioprointernational.com

PLASA EVENT PREVIEW<

September 13th-16th London

London is Pro Audio Earls Court is set to host the annual PLASA trade show for pro lighting and sound professionals from September 13th to 16th. Now in its third decade, PLASA remains one of the key European events for its respective audiences. Andrew Low gives a glimpse of what will be on show... he UK is the arguably the leading market for innovation in the professional audio business. With everyone from boutique manufacturers to big-name brands living between John O’Groats and Lands End, the UK sets the pace for many areas of the business.

While some companies have dropped out and others opt not to exhibit and hold cheeky after-hours events, there is no denying that PLASA is a major show for the UK and Europe’s pro lighting and sound professionals, one which said companies wouldn’t dare miss. In their place at this year’s show are 40 newcomers taking their place. Further evidence of its continued relevance was last year’s digital console frenzy as half a dozen manufacturers debuted their latest mixing technology.

There is a great sense of pride associated with PLASA as the UK community shows up every year in full force to put their new ideas forward to the scrutinising eyes of the show’s visitors and exhibitors. Coupled with seminars, special events, an awards ceremony and swanky after-hours parties at exclusive London venues, PLASA serves as a springboard for opinions, ideas, innovations and networking opprotunities that few other shows can provide.

ALCONS AUDIO - J18 Alcons Audio’s main focus will be on the LR7 and LR7B, the latest additions to the L-series pro-ribbon line arrays.

The LR7 is a micro pro-ribbon linearray system designed for use in stacked or flown configuration, for both portable and permanent installations.

The new LR7B is the low frequency extension of the LR7 system. Sized at a width and height of three CDs, a single 12-inch in a dual-tuned, concentric bandpass configuration caters for clean low-mid and broad-band bass response from a micro-sized and weight efficient package.

As an annual Alcons feature, it will exhibit a new design study, called “MSRA, Modular Stacked Ribbon Array”- a concept for a scalable highpower line-source monitor system, based on vertically stacked modules.

T

> plasashow.com www.audioprointernational.com

> alconsaudio.com

VMB’s Rainbow is new for the show

VMB ESPAÑOLA, S.A - F7 VMB will show Rainbow, its electroacoustical prediction software for the company’s speaker systems, boasting horizontal and vertical modelling.

Windows-based, Rainbow allows simulation of complete systems, such as a main large format array complemented by a smaller delayed array and front-fills. Thus, its library of loudspeaker systems includes not only

the company’s self-powered line array modules with built-in inclinometer (LX-V8 and LX-F6 with accordionfolded ribbon HF driver), but also models from its Phase or ADP lines.

High resolution (24 point per octave) speaker polar data provided by Rainbow with magnitude and phase information allows accurate modelling down to 30Hz, enabling user-designed subwoofer arrays. > vmb.es

OHM UK LTD - J10 PLASA will mark Ohm’s third decade of producing sound equipment in the UK. To honour this anniversary the company has brought back, with newly designed OHM drivers, the SS-3 Smack Stack bass bins, a dance stack delivering optimised bass. Coupling this to the new Ersa Major line array will provide adequate coverage for venues ranging from larger dance clubs to concert audiences.

The Ersa Major comprises two teninch horn loaded Ohm drivers with a coaxial two-inch and one-inch compression driver mounted on a proprietary waveguide. This system runs in three way active mode.

Also featured on Ohm’s stand will be the Ersa Minor compact line array with the lightweight DSP-A3 amplifiers. > ohm.co.uk

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PLASA EVENT PREVIEW<

FUNKTION-ONE - F36 Funktion-One will be launching three new products, including the F101 loudspeaker enclosure comprising one ten-inch bass/mid driver and a oneinch high frequency device, which makes it a larger version of the F81.

Also new for the show is the Resolution 3, an all-in-one three-way enclosure comprising a special hornloaded, 18-inch bass loudspeaker with five-inch voice coil, a new Axhead loaded ten-inch loudspeaker for midrange and a one-inch compression driver for high frequencies.

The ASPC1 audio system polarity checker will also be launched as an invaluable tool for live sound and installation engineers to ensure the optimisation of high performance audio systems. It is light, compact and supplied with a belt pouch. > funktion-one.com

INNOVASON - L39 The French console manufacturer will exhibit its Eclipse digital console with the unique onboard multi-track recording via Innovason’s MARS Multitrack Audio Recording System.

A high power console with a small footprint, Eclipse’s DSP engine enables users to mix up to 104 inputs simultaneously into 48 mix busses, with the capacity to manage up to 320 inputs on the console using up to five

remote audio racks. The control surface is furnished with SmartPanel, which provides 48 faders and 48 fully configurable rotary knobs (spread over four layers) providing 96 ‘faders’.

Available in a variety of formats, the standard Eclipse package offers 80 inputs and 40 outputs, of which 24 are fully processed including 31-band graphic eq. It also comes with two Innovason FM-8VB eight-in/eight-out plugin effects cards and a stage box, all fully flight-cased and complete with the brand new NOVA software. > innovason.com

YAMAHA - G31 Yamaha Commercial Audio will promote the theme of connectivity with a stand split into five areas connected together using a variety of audio formats and network protocols, including Dante, CobraNet, EtherSound, MADI and AES/EBU. The stand’s design will demonstrate different audio and control networks in real time, with Yamaha’s European staff

on hand throughout the show to provide hands-on demonstrations.

The company will also make the UK debut of Audinate Dante-MY16AUD interface card (distributed exclusively by Yamaha); the IMX644 digital rack-mount mixer; IPA 8200 power amplifier; DME Version 3.5 and the recently announced updated M7CL V2 mixing console. The SB168ES scaleable digital stage box solution will also be on show.

Complementing these will be all of Yamaha Commercial Audio’s current ranges, including the PM5D, DSP5D and LS9 mixing consoles, a full range of touring and installation amplifiers, Installation Series loudspeakers and its range of interface solutions. > yamahacommercialaudio.com

RCF AUDIO - D24 RCF, dB Technologies and SGM Technology for Lighting will be exhibiting for the first time together as the RCF Group this year. This follows the Group’s announcement in April of the acquisition of the leading Italian lighting company, SGM. With the addition of SGM Technology for Lighting, the RCF Group strengthens its presence at this year’s PLASA, showing the products in audio and lighting fields.

RCF Group now covers all aspects of the sound and lighting industry and, whilst RCF and dB continue to develop new products in a wide range of audio fields, with the addition of SGM, various synergies across the

audio and lighting sides of the Group are being developed. > rcf.it

RED SQUARE AUDIO - L39 Red Square Audio will have a large booth representing its renowned brands, including Lab.gruppen, Tannoy, RSG, Feonic, Innovason, and newly added Apex.

The stand will feature Innovason’s new Eclipse digital recording console, Tannoy’s VQ series of loudspeakers, including the VQ Live series and six new additions to the VQ Series line.

Lab.gruppen’s latest amplifiers, with recently acquired Lake Controller software and firmware technology, will be on show as will RSG’s M-400 digital mixing system.

The company will also debut two new namesake products. The Red Square M1 nearfield monitors will be demonstrated with the Eclipse console.

It will also show a multitracking PC created for capturing live recordings.

Available in tower or rack models, the PC recorder is compatible with programs such as Sonar, Cakewalk and Pro Tools. > redsquareaudio.co.uk

JHS - E51 JHS will present the new horn-loaded active system Icon LTS from HK Audio. Icon LTS (Long-Throw System) is a digitally controlled, horn-loaded, active PA. The primary design brief of the Icon LTS was aimed at use in ground-

M-380

Stand H40

48-Channels of Rackmountable REAC Power The powerful new M-380 V-Mixer packs all the flexibility of widely-accepted REAC based V-Mixing systems into a 19” rack. It also offers a total 24-bit audio solution, including, 48 channels of mixing with classic onboard FX, GEQ, Matrix, DCA, LCR plus a choice of Digital Snakes as well as personal mixing and multi-channel recording via Cakewalk Sonar. Better still, the M-380 delivers this market-leading power and flexibility at a price that will surprise you.www.rolandsg.co.uk or call 01792 702701

M-400 V-Mixer

M-48 Personal Monitor

S-0816 / Cat5E / S-1608

S-4000 Digital Snake

REAC : Capture, Distribute, Mix and Record pristine 24-bit Multi-channel Audio over Cat5e and Fibre

www.audioprointernational.com

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> EVENT PREVIEW PLASA

stacked configurations at events where conditions or budget constraints prevent flying a PA. The new product is a self-contained active system featuring horn-driven 12inch/1.4-inch IC 112 LA mid-/high unit with 60-degree x 40-degree CD horn design and optimised directivity and onboard digital controller that serves as the stack’s control center.

Two 18-inch band-pass subwoofers provide the low-end kick for the full stack. State-of-the-art Class-D power amp technology delivers the reach and range to throw these signals across great distances at remarkable sound pressure levels. > jhs.co.uk

TRANTEC SYSTEMS - J34 The spotlight of Trantec’s booth will be on the S-D7000, which features 24-bit audio resolution, network monitoring for over 60 channels and over 20 user channels in an 8MHz TV band.

Trantec will also be previewing its brand new S6 wireless system, which builds on the S6000 range by taking the 19-inch, eight-way concept a step further. Trantec has now incorporated a comprehensive user interface on the front panel, allowing the user to configure and monitor all channels, with or without an external PC. The internal circuitry of the S6 beltpack and handheld transmitter has been redesigned and upgraded, extending the frequency capability to 72MHz. The company will also exhibit the 16-channel S5.3 system, the 24channel S5.5 system and the 16channel S4. It will also show the S4.4, which features the unique option of four licence-free channels. > trantec.co.uk

POLAR AUDIO - F4 Polar Audio will exhibit a number of new products, including a range from the latest addition to the Polar family, Australian Monitor.

Visitors can participate in live demonstrations of the latest in digital networked audio from across its product portfolio, with highlights from Aviom, MC2, XTA, Biamp and many other manufacturers. New products being showcased include, from beyerdynamic, the Opus 600 system and additions to the Revoluto conference system range, from Biamp, the RED-1 Remote Ethernet Device, Dynacord’s Promax 8000 system, ASL’s Digital Intercom system and a host of new products from XTA and MC2 Audio, including XTA’s DC1048 and Network Audio gear. > polaraudio.co.uk

ALLEN & HEATH- E9 PLASA marks Allen & Heath’s 40th year designing and manufacturing innovative pro audio products for the live, recording and DJ spheres. The British mixer manufacturer will commemorate this by displaying a cross section of its current digital, analogue and DJ mixers on the stand. These include the flagship iLive digital systems, award-winning ZED analog range and Xone DJ series.

The iLive digital family will be central to its booth. Following the recent launch of RAB2, iLive’s latest

remote audio card, it is now possible to mix n’ match the flagship modular iLive hardware with the iLive-T fixed I/O MixRacks and Control Surfaces, increasing hire inventory flexibility and system integration. > allen-heath.com

SENNHEISER UK LTD - F10 Sennheiser UK will focus on several new products that were recently added to its product portfolio. The new G3 Evolution wireless microphones will be on show to display its variety of sets and accessories for secure wireless sound transmission.

The G3 line includes the new 100, 300 and 500 G3 series, as well as the 300 IEM G3 wireless monitoring system and ENG sets designed for reporters and filmmakers.

Alongside G3 will be the new standalone Wicos Wireless Conference System and the 2000 Series wireless microphone system designed for broadcast audio.

It will also have products from its distributed lines of pro audio brands, including DAS, K Array, Klein and Hummel and Rane, among others. > sennheiser.co.uk

XTA - F4 XTA Electronics will debut two new products at the show, including its first installation product, the DC1048

integrated audio management system.

Featuring full matrix mixing and eq functions typical of XTA, the DC1048 can be completely configured under the new iCore software package.

Twenty-four bit high-end converters coupled with a 96k sample rate ensure a bandwidth in excess of 30kHz and a dynamic range of over 112dB. The company will also launch its first generation of Network Audio products, the NXBoB8 and NXBoB16, which respectively provide eight and 16 channels of analog audio from Dante networks. Careful attention to output drivers and 24-bit DACs ensure professional performance with a dynamic range of 111dB un-weighted and 96kHz sample rate compatibility (network dependent). > xta.co.uk

SADIE/PRISM SOUND - D10 Prism Sound will debut a series of renowned Sadie products now available as software-only versions.

With the new Sadie packages, users can access its gear on any computer running Microsoft Windows with ASIO compatible audio hardware, as well as with the existing Sadie5 hardware platforms.

The new products are application based and focused on the core Sadie expertise of radio production, TV/film post, mastering, archiving and restoration and high-level Sound Design. With no dedicated hardware requirements, the product range was designed to be cost effective, thereby taking Sadie into new markets. The move to software aims to extend Sadie’s compatibility and reinforce its global appeal in these markets. > sadie.com

> EVENT PREVIEW PLASA

Several new digital consoles were released last year, while 09’s focus is green technology

ADAMSON - G36 The Canadian loudspeaker manufacturer will focus on its new Point Series loudspeaker range, created for the installation market and designed to provide a complete solution where point source loudspeakers are preferable over line source arrays.

To ensure the Point Series low frequency drivers can maintain a high level of low frequency energy when used as a single source (or a small two or three box array), Adamson uses Advanced Cone Architecture with Kevlar cone geometry and Neodymium driver technologies integrated to provide maximum SPL with zero cone fatigue, while providing minimal axial modes in the passband.

It will also exhibit The Adamson M Series of high-powered stage monitors.

The M12 is the most compact and newest addition to the family, while the M15 has already seen use as a lightweight, high horsepower monitor. > adamsonproaudio.com

ADAM HALL - K20 Newcomer to the show Adam Hall will focus on the new LD Systems Premium series of line array PA speakers and pieces from its pro audio hardware line.

In addition, product experts for LD Systems, Defender, Eminence and its hardware line will also be on hand to provide information and support for each brand.

LD Premium comprises eight-inch, ten-inch, 12-inch and 15-inch multipurpose loudspeakers, as well VA4 and VA8 line-array systems. Subwoofers including a single 15-inch, dual 15inch and dual 18-inch complement the loudspeaker line up, while a dedicated digital management processor is also available for the series.

The whole range features specially manufactured high quality components exclusive to LD Premium and was codeveloped by experienced audioresearchers and FOH engineers. > adamhall.com/uk

CROWN - E21 Crown will introduce the PIP-USP4 Processor for CTs series amplifiers, the 16

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fourth generation DSP-based PIP (programmable input processor) module for its CTs Series two-channel amplifiers at the show. The USP4 is a Harman HiQnet series component and connects to the audio control/monitor network using 100MB Ethernet hardware. The single plug solution contains audio distribution, control and monitoring.

The USP4’s OmnidriveHD processor provides processing featuring 24-bit, 192 kHz Cirrus Logic SHARC A/D and D/A converters and true 96kHz processing.

LevelMax peak, RMS and transducer thermal voltage limiters combine for accurate response, better sound and higher usable SPL. Also available are proprietary FIR and IIR filters for added clarity and detail. The USP4 is capable of connecting to an Ethernet network, allowing it to be remotely controlled and configured via HiQnet System Architect. Additionally, the USP4 allows the transport of real-time digital audio via CobraNet or Ethernet AVB. > crownaudio.com

VOID ACOUSTICS - C12 UK boutique loudspeaker manufacturer Void will be present in its space age igloo booth with new loudspeaker products, including the Stasys Prime wide-band arrayable point-source system, designed to offer optimised efficiency, the Stasys 5 Mk2 low-frequency system, with pressure plate to enhance transient response and the Arcline 12 medium-format line-array enclosure. Also on its stand will be two new models in Void’s UKbuilt Infinite X amplifier range, the Infinite X7 and Infinite X8 twochannel power amplifiers.

The head of Void’s new US Division, Ken DeLoria, will also be on the show

floor. Deloria is a well-respected industry veteran who was the founder and former CEO of Apogee Sound. > voidaudio.com

AVID - G33 The newly rebranded Avid will show its diverse line of digital mixing consoles and associated products, including plugins, expansion cards, headphones and microphones.

A major highlight for the company will be its new medium format SC48 console. Venue SC48 provides I/O, digital signal processing and tactile control, with the same sound quality and clarity of the Venue line in a compact footprint.

The new console’s spec includes: 48 analog mic/line XLR inputs, 16 analog line outputs (expandable to 32), 16 Aux Sends, eight Groups, plus eight mono matrixes (linkable as up to four stereo matrixes), 26 touchsensitive, motorized faders: 16 input, eight output master, one Flex Channel, and one Mains and extra I/O, including talkback, analog and digital two-track, GPI, MIDI and Word Clock.

D-Show, D-Show Profile and Mix Rack systems will also be on site for eager knob twiddlers to get their kicks. > avid.com

NEUTRIK - H18 Neutrik will display several new products at the show, including the Tiny XLR, the XL2 Analyzer and HDMI connectors and cables.

The Tiny XLR is billed as an easy-toassemble three and four pole-shielded system that provides high noise immunity. The XL2 Analyzer was designed for acoustic measurement applications. It generates 48 VDC phantom power and offers automated microphone identification.

It will also show HDMI connectors and cables for digital connections of audio and video devices with HDMI

interfaces. Cables in the line are preassembled with two HDMI connectors (male) with gold contacts, foil and braided shield, nylon sheath, black, outer diameter 7.2mm, including protective cap. > neutrik.com

KV2 AUDIO - G35 KV2 Audio will unveil two new product lines at the show and provide one of its flagship VHD systems for use in the show’s central bar area.

Along with the EX, ES and VHD lines, KV2 Audio will debut the new ESD Series, which allows utilisation of third party amplification for the first time with KV2 products. Featuring proprietary delay line technology in place of a conventional crossover, the series features two-way, six-inch ESD6 and two-way 12-inch ESD12. The new ESP4000, a rack mountable fourchannel 4X1000 watt amplifier will also be on show.

It will also display The LD Series, a selection of four DI-style boxes, featuring KV2 Audio’s VHD line drivers on each output. The LD Series comprises of the LDP Passive Line Driver, The LDD Direct Line Driver, The LDA Acoustic Instrument Line Driver and the LDM Mix Line Driver. > kv2audio.com ROLAND SYSTEMS GROUP- H40 Roland Systems Group (RSG) will unveil its new M-380 V-Mixer at PLASA. The company is boasting that the M-380 packs all the flexibility of the REAC based V-Mixing systems into a 19-inch rack. It is a 24-bit audio mixing system featuring 48 channels with onboard FX, GEQ, Matrix, DCA, LCR. The new console includes the option of cordination with RSG Digital Snakes and multi-channel recording via Cakewalk Sonar.

RSG will also have its V-Mixing System and new M-48 personal mixer.

The V-Mixing systems includes the M400 V-Mixer live digital console (48 channels, 16 AUX buses plus Main L/R outputs and eight matrices) and digital snakes with high quality preamps featuring its REAC technology. > rolandsystemsgroup.com www.audioprointernational.com

> EVENT PREVIEW AUDIO PRO AWARDS

The nominations are in The nominees for the first annual Audio Pro Industry Excellence Awards have been chosen... he Audio Pro Industry Excellence Awards is a virtual awards ceremony, acknowledging the best products, companies and people in all sectors of the business. Our readers have sent in their nominations for the award categories and a wide judging panel, drawn from all sectors of the business, will now choose the winners. The final results will be announced in Audio Pro’s October issue. Good luck to all of the nominees.

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CATEGORIES LIVE & INSTALLED SOUND BEST LIVE SOUND EVENT Download Festival 09 Main Stage – SSE Audio The Glade Main Stage – Audio Plus Take That, Circus Tour – Capital Sound Roskilde Orange Stage – Seelite U2 360° Tour – Clair Global MOST INNOVATIVE INSTALLATION ECCO Ultra Lounge, Hollywood – Joe Lodi Rock City Nottingham – SSE Audio Group Matter Club 02 London – Void Acoustics The Atrium, Westfield London shopping complex – Delta Sound Tripod, Dublin – Acoustic Audio BEST NEW LIVE SOUND PRODUCT L-Acoustics – K1/SB2B PA Digico – SD8 MC2 – E90 Midas – Pro6 Tannoy – VQ Live

Clem Bennett – (FOH) The Script, Just Jack, Bullet for my Valentine, Arch Enemy, Funeral for a Firend, The Horrors, Fightstar Andy ‘Baggy’ Robinson – George Michael's personal monitor engineer, Live8, The Big Chill BEST AFTER-SALES SUPPORT SSE Audio Group Digico Adamson Audio-Technica Midas Consoles

BEST NEW INSTALLATION PRODUCT Lab.gruppen – C 88:4 Powersoft – Duecanali5204 Adamson – Point Series Furman – Pl-Pro Dmc E Power Conditioner d&b audiotechnik – Q-Series

BEST NEW COMPANY Ward Steedsy Associates EM Acoustics Seesound SL HD Pro Audio Red Square Audio

BEST LIVE SOUND ENGINEER Gary Bradshaw – (FOH) That, George Michael, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd and Brian Ferry Robbie McGrath – (FOH) Kasabian, Rolling Stones, The Pet Shop Boys Kenneth ‘Pooch’ Van Druten – (FOH) Linkin Park, Kiss

BEST NEW STUDIO PRODUCT Analogue Tube – AT-101 Avid – Pro Tools 8 Universal Audio – UAD-2 card SE Electronics – RNR1 Neve Ribbon Microphone Bricasti Design – M7 Reverb

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STUDIO & BROADCAST SOUND

BEST STUDIO ENGINEER John Agnello – Sonic Youth, Dinosaur JR. Dan Carey – Franz Ferdinand, Lily Allen, Hot Chip Hayden Bendall – Paul McCartney Rush, Fleetwood Mac Mick Glossop – Frank Zappa, Van Morrison Tony Platt – AC/DC, Led Zeppelin

Marketing scheme All Studios website – Discounted recording time opprotunities APRS – Studio revenue streams Metropolis Studio – Multi-media DVD authoring/mastering and imastering, Studio and live venue combination GHQ Sonic Cuisine – Referral scheme set up and loyalty programes

BEST BROADCAST SOUND The Brits – ITV Eurovision Song Contest– Channel One, Moscow X Factor – ITV Wimbledon – BBC Guinness Premiership Ruby – Sky Sports

BEST AFTER-SALES SUPPORT Studiospares Yellow Technology Audio-Technica Sonic Distribution KMR Audio

BEST NEW STUDIO Motor Museum – Liverpool, UK Odds On Records and Studios – Henderson, NV, USA The Doghouse – Henley, UK Kore Studios – West London, UK Black Rock Studio – Santorini Island, Greece MOST ORIGINAL STUDIO INITIATIVE The Way Studio – Music, Media and

BEST NEW COMPANY T2 Dangerous Music JDK Audio Rupert Neve Portico Bricasti Design LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Fred Heuves – Ampco Flashlight Steve Levine – MPG Chairmen Peter Gabriel – Real World Studios Charlie Watkins – WEM Mike Low – Britannia Row www.audioprointernational.com

THE GLADE LIVE SOUND < Funktion-One speakers provided high quality sound for the crowds at The Glade

A phat dance party with a heart Born from Glastonbury Festival, The Glade has been producing sold-out crowds since its inception six years ago. This year the 10,000-plus punters who attended the event heard their favourite artists and DJs through Funktion-One’s purple stacks. Andrew Low talks to the people behind the festival... n December of last year the organisers of the Glade Festival made the somewhat alarming public announcement that they were seeking new grounds for the four-day event. The organisers were forced to make the late move from their home at The Woodland at Wasing Estate in Berkshire, UK, due to inflexible noise restrictions enforced by the Berkshire County Council. The search resulted in a move to a new location at Matterley Bowl in Hampshire, which reportedly elevated the show to the next level and secured it as one of the UK’s loudest outdoor dance festivals.

Held from July 16th to 19th, the festival featured ten venues with main stage performances from big names like Booka Shade, Squarepusher, Underworld, Rennie Pilgrim, Carl Craig, Krafty Kuts, The Filthy Dukes, Tayo, Benga, Freestylers, Adam Freeland and Plump DJs. Considering off-site sound levels forced the move from Berkshire, the new venue had to be as insulated as possible so that any sceptical neighbours would be immediately placated.

“The advantage of the Matterley Bowl is that it’s surrounded by hills that create, essentially, a huge kidney-shaped bowl, which has amazing sound-insulating properties, “ explained organiser Nick Ladd. It’s a remote area, so we just had to make sure the sound was pointed away from the neighbours.”

Last year’s floods and the site move caused something of a strain on the organisers, but this year’s Glade was a sold-out success, with thousands of happy punters posting their praises on sites such as ravetalk.com.

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“Moving the festival affected the amount of work we had to do threefold. All the pre-production, planning and layout had to be done from scratch, but once we settled it all went very well,” Ladd explains. “Music of any sort needs to be heard loudly and you have to hear the full range of sound that the artist is producing, especially with dance music. The punters want to be able to hear the bass and get the full spectrum of sound hitting their body; you want to be able to feel it and hear it. We feel really strongly about it and that is why we moved.”

PUMP UP THE VOLUME UK councils strictly enforce the WHO guidelines for noise, which dictate that off-site levels cannot exceed 55dB on the inside of a bedroom window before midnight and 45dB afterwards.

“45dB is about as loud as a low conversation, so it is really difficult to adhere to that,” says Ladd. “The South of England is very densely populated, so it is hard to get away from neighbours. The problem is that 55,000 people are having the time of their lives, but if one person is being disturbed it has to be turned down. That is why UK festivals are really struggling with their volume levels.

“We’ve worked very hard to recreate the ‘freestyle’ rave and the open environment that was established at Glastonbury. There is no corporate sponsorship and I think that is one of the reasons Funktion-One really likes it. It is a true festival run by lots of different dance communities and we are not trying to rinse money out of it. Rather, we are just trying to make a living and put on a good, art-heavy show.

“

If one person is disturbed, music has to be turned down, which is why UK festivals are suffering with volume levels.

Nick Ladd Glade organiser

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> LIVE SOUND THE GLADE

DJ Pena (left) and Finley Quaye (right) soak up the atmosphere at the festival while they perform to the masses

“We are trying to keep it true to the spirit of the early 90s rave scene and create a phat dance party with a heart.”

Funktion-One’s Tony Andrews concurs: “As festivals go The Glade is actually a really nice event. We’ve been there since the beginning and never even seen anyone shouting, much less fighting or getting rowdy. It is similar to how Glastonbury used to be and that’s why we were attracted to it.”

Audio Plus provided its Funktion-One gear for the Main stage and the Vapour stage. The venues featured FunktionOne’s F-221 double 21-inch bass enclosures topped by Res 5 loudspeakers for mid and highs. A Midas XL4 and Series 5 and Global Acoustics monitors were supplied for the Main stage. They also employed Midas’ analog H1000 for FOH mixing and Digico’s SD8 for monitors on the Vapour stage.

MC2 amps complemented by XTA processing were used throughout the areas.

Audio Funktion was also on site with six stacks of Funktion-One’s F-218s and Res 5s and 4s arranged in a hexagonal configuration to produce an ambersonic sound field for the Arcadia Stage. Ladd explains: “Arcadia was the only stage we were able to run until late in the morning because of the excellent sound cancellation that you get from Audio Funktion’s system. It is all absolutely beautiful crystal clear, humping sound. There is no arguing that we can get the loudest late night sound levels of any gig in the UK. And that is due in part to the quality of the Funktion-One rigs and

the cancellation of the ambersonic sound field.” Like Glastonbury, the area also featured a giant, flame-spewing, UFO-like metal structure with a DJ booth positioned high above the crowd.

The added benefit for engineers and punters alike was the presence of Funktion-One founders Tony Andrews and John Newsham, who were on site to help with system tuning. The company also provided its own personal system for the Origin stage, which consisted of F-221s and Res 5s.

“The smaller companies like Audio Funktion are very good.

They bought into our systems because they value the audio quality and they want to learn,” Andrews comments. “I’m really into passing on the knowledge and the best way to do it is by tuning the system together.”

Glade’s director, Luke Piper, feels this year was the best yet because the audio systems were able to work at their optimum levels. “When the engineers are under pressure to reduce the levels at the desk it becomes very detrimental to the sound and you loose the vibe and energy of the show.

“In addition, having Andrews and Newsham on site was essential because, although there weren’t any off-site issues, there were clashes within the site because there are a number of venues that are quite close together. When you get a DJ or artist who is using the system differently it can cause problems. The Funktion-One team was able to move from venue to venue to reconfigure and tweak the sound on the back of the cabs, change the eq-ing and bring it back to the sweet point so they were all sounding really good. It was hard work for them and a constant process to make sure that all the systems were working at their optimum levels, but it was all worth it because the crowds loved it.”

“

We can get the loudest late night sound levels of any gig in the UK. Nick Ladd Glade Organiser

> funktion-one.com

Great speakers and excellent sound cancellation meant festival-goers could really let their hair down www.audioprointernational.com

> LIVE SOUND YAMAHA INSTALLATION

Wine, women, and tobacco

can ruin a man… ...but those in the Italian nightclub scene wouldn’t have it any other way. Yamaha’s new Installation series has been chosen for a wide variety of Italian venues. Audio Pro travels to the continent to find out more… amaha Commercial Audio’s recently launched Installation series is getting major play in Italy’s busy nightclub market. Slick interiors and state-of-the-art AV systems are combined in Italy’s clubs and the punters have grown to expect the latest technology.

The Installation series of loudspeakers was designed for live music, theatre and nightclubs and comprises 27 different models to suit a wide range of applications, from dual 18inch subwoofers to dual 5-inch models.

Several Italian venues have been equipped with products such as the XP and Tn ranges of amplifiers, DME digital mix engines and compact digital mixing consoles. Here is a brief run-through:

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BLANCO CAFÉ Located in Corsico, a western suburb of Milan, Blanco Café is a multi-purpose live music and DJ venue, which caters for an extensive range of music styles, delivered by a stateof-the-art Yamaha installation.

The venue features four separate zones – the bar, exhibition area, a live music area inside the pub and a further performance space outside, which created the necessity for a flexible and easy-to-set-up sound system.

Stefano Papetti of installation company Audio Progetti chose a Yamaha Ethersound network, based around the NAI48ES network interface and four AD8HR AD converters. In the live music area an LS9-32 console is situated at FOH, together with an MY8AE AES/EBU board, MY16ES64 and MY16EX Ethersound interfaces. A stage rack houses the four AD8HR, a DA824 DA converter and the NAI48ES network interface.

Powered by XP7000, XP5000 and XP3500 power amps, the PA system comprises two Installation Series IF2115/64 mid/high speakers, two IS1118 subs and four CM12V wedge monitors. Speaker control is by an SP2060 processor.

In the bar, sound is delivered by four S15C speakers, powered by an XM4080 amp, while an MG124CX, 12-channel analog mixer can be patched into the system for small-scale performances.

Meanwhile, the outside performance area features two Installation series IF2115M/64 speakers, two IS1218 subs and four CM15V monitors, driven by two PC6501N power amps controlled by an SP2060 speaker processor.

“Another advantage of using the Ethersound-based sound system is that it will be very straightforward to expand the

Spazio Aurora: a cultural centre boosted by Yamaha

Max & Play is a live venue for local musicians (with control room and three recording rooms) that really suited the Yamaha Installation series 24

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YAMAHA INSTALLATION LIVE SOUND <

system in the future,” continues Papetti. “It is a great solution all round.”

SPAZIO AURORA Audio Progetti has also installed a Yamaha system at Spazio Aurora, a multi-function venue in Rozzano, which is also near Milan.

Spazio Aurora is a popular meeting place and cultural centre that offers courses, social projects, theatre shows, dance nights and live music. In addition to a school of music with a wide variety of lessons, there are also three rehearsal rooms and a recording studio, which meant it needed a flexible and reliable sound system.

“We did a product demo of the Installation series loudspeakers at Spazio Aurora and the venue’s technicians were very impressed by the rig’s sound pressure and reproduction quality, even though we only used a limited number of power amplifiers,” says Papetti.

The system features two Installation series IF2115/64 fullrange enclosures with a pair of IS1215 2x 15-inch subs, complemented by two IF2208 2x eight-inch for infills. Four Club series CM12V monitors are provided onstage.

Drive for the system comes from XP3500, XP5000 and XP7000 power amps, with signal processing and distribution handled by an SP2060 speaker processor, whose LSI technology promises optimised sound quality and dynamic range and a signal/noise ratio of over 110dB. “The system is set for three-way use, the processor being used as a crossover, limiter and compressor. It makes the setup extremely flexible,” says Stefano.

“The XP series has excellent units that run very quietly and the system was designed using Yamaha’s Y-S3 Sound System Simulator software, to study the sound and configure the appropriate presets.”

“For the various outputs, I created and stored a series of presets,” says Lorenzo Catinella, who runs the venue’s recording studio and is also in charge of the audio set-up throughout the building.

“We’ve got a preset for DJ sets, a ‘live’ preset with more punch on the bottom end, another that has a bit more compression and one with a compression threshold that reacts to low input signals, but ensures we have precise powerful sound even on nights when we don’t have a large crowd in the room.”

“

We did a demo of the Installation series and the technicians were very impressed.

Stefano Papetti Audio Progetti

Effect Rack, multiple equalisers and a built-in two track USB memory recorder.

“To link the live room to the studio facilities, Yamaha provided two Yamaha ACU16-C control units connected with the LS9, which send 32 channels of 24-bit audio at 48kHz from the FOH mixing position to the control room, for live multi-track recording,” says Fulvio.

“The Yamaha console has two MY16-CII Cobranet expansion cards, from which the signals are fed via Cat 5 cable to the ACU16-Cs, which convert them to analog and send them to the recording desk’s patch bay. This means that two track recordings can be made of the live mix on the LS9, plus a 32-track dedicated recording mix done in the control room.”

The ACU16-Cs are also configured to control the main system’s PC-N series amplifiers on stage. These units can provide control of up to 32 separate PC-N amplifiers.

With Yamaha’s NetworkAmp Manager software, it’s possible to control and monitor functions such as in and out levels, limiting, protection circuit, heat sink temperature, power on/standby, attenuation, phase and muting of the loudspeakers.

NATIONWIDE COVERAGE Yamaha installation gear can be found in various places throughout Italy, such as in the MD Music Jazz Club in Angri, Kasamatta in Bologna, the Tambien in Settimo Milanese, the Soleluna, Sol Levante and Gattopardo nightclubs in Albisolina, Cavi di Lavigna and Alba Adriatica respectively. That’s Italy covered, then. > yamahacomercialaudio.com

MAX & PLAY Max & Play in Carditio, near Napoli was created as a live room for emerging local musicians. The venue includes a control room and three recording rooms, one of which can also be used for rehearsals. There’s also an outdoor ‘relaxation’ zone, which is complete with fountains, pools and tables.

The Yamaha audio system in the live room comprises two flown IF2115/64 full-range cabinets with a ground-stacked IS1215 2x 15-inch sub per side, powered by PC9501N and PC3301N amplifiers while, on stage, two IF 2208 and four IF 2108 monitors are driven by XP3500 power amps.

“We’d heard the new Yamaha Installation series loudspeaker enclosures and were very favourably impressed,” says Fulvio Liuzzi of installation company Start Up Audio.

“Their very linear response, even at high frequencies, is an important feature. It ensures fatigue-free listening over long periods, making them very pleasant to listen to.”

This system is controlled by an SP2060 digital speaker processor programmed with two presets: a ‘live’ setting with a flat eq configuration and a ‘lounge’ setting, which has the subs excluded and a loudness curve set to avoid excessive volumes in a softer context.

Mixing the system is a compact LS9-32 digital console, that has 32 mic pre and line inputs, 16 mix outs, eight assignable matrix outs, two Mini-YGDAI cards slots, Virtual

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STAND 1-L39

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> COMPANY PROFILE FIVE’S

High Five’s One of Europe’s fastest growing sound and light companies, Five’s is looking to take its revolution across the Romanian borders with the help of Synco. Rob Hughes takes in the view with them from the Black Sea coast… nsurprisingly, Romania’s first live rock club, BackStage, was a huge hit in mid-90s Bucharest and, as the only venue of its kind in the city, attracted a throng of movers and shakers, among them, the general manager of British American Tobacco, Alex van Bremen.

After several evenings spent whiling away the hours in the company of proprietors Liviu Stanescu and Sorin Danescu, van Bremen offered them $100,000 to take their club on a ten-date tour of the country. Adding Le Maitre pyrotechnics (at their own expense), the pair created a tour that was an out-andout triumph. Van Bremen walked away a happy man.

From this, Danescu saw the potential of the event hire business, which at that time was cornered by just one company in Romania; one which had taken a big, wet bite out of the tour profits. He reasoned that, as a band member, he had more than one motive to buy his own sound system and proceeded to do so, investing his share in a pair of RCF 500s.

Initially, Stanescu was less than impressed, reminding his partner that they had a club to run. Two months later, when Danescu told him that he had already recouped his investment, he quickly relented and Romania’s second sound rental company, Five’s, was established.

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A decade later and, although Danescu has now stepped down from an active role in Five’s, replaced on an operational level by a third partner, Andrei Popea, the RCF cabinets are still going strong, cared for, as Stanescu explains, like members of the family, although they have recently been relieved of much of their duties by a W8LC line array that Five’s acquired when it became a member of the Synco Network.

“Fred Heuves [the founder of the Synco network] came to visit his partner in Romania, Paradigma,” recalls Stanescu. “At the time, Five’s had an event on and Heuves came along to have a look. I met him and we spoke not about business, but about football.

We talked about Romanian and Dutch players. Then I told him that I was looking to buy a line array system and that I was very close to making a deal with EAW. I liked him very much and apparently he liked me, because the next day he asked me if I wanted to buy a Synco by Martin Audio system instead. I asked him why. ‘Because this is more expensive,’ he said. ‘I don’t know, just for fun, but if you buy this then you can join the Synco Network.’ He told me the story of Synco and I found it very interesting. But I liked the guy very much and I liked the answer ‘just for fun’, so I said: ‘Okay, we’ll do it, just for fun’. I paid more, but I hoped that in the future I could www.audioprointernational.com

> COMPANY PROFILE FIVE’S get something really good from it. And this has happened – many times.”

“Being part of the Synco Network means we cannot be overbooked,” explains Popea. “It allows us to handle any event and this is crucial because Romania is a country where you can get a major job for the following week, or even the next day, so you do not have time to get sub rentals or to search the market for new equipment. You simply ask the other Synco members and you get the equipment from wherever it is available. As the system is the same everywhere, you can get speakers from one member, amps from another and monitors from a third – there’s no problem. They will match perfectly. We handle international tours in Romania on Synco equipment, satisfying bands like Faith No More, Iron Maiden and Metallica. We had production managers and sound engineers from those bands telling us that they didn’t know that the Synco system is so accurate.”

Its alliance with Synco, along with an arsenal of other gear, including Martin Professional and Pulsar lighting and a 20metre Eurotruss stage, has seen Five’s thrust to the core of some of the biggest events and tours in Romania.

In July, for the third year running, Five’s staged Radio 21’s annual Liberty Parade – and did so with breathtaking finesse. These are not words from a hyperboleridden press release (though we receive many), because Audio Pro International was lucky enough to be invited by Five’s to the Black Sea coast to see how it took care of this extravagant show, which began with a convoy of PA-laden trucks followed by a sea of weirdly and wonderfully dressed revellers, ending with a 50,000-strong party on a beach at the Venus resort.

Quite honestly, Liberty Parade 2009 put many equivalent British events to shame – partly because of the 125dB being clocked at FOH, but also because the whole gig had a ‘no expense spared’ vibe and, while the deep pockets of sponsors Pepsi, Red Bull and BAT no doubt helped, Fives’ grand imagination and child-like enthusiasm were tangible throughout the spectacle.

This is against protocol, I know, but I’m a big fan of lasers and this was the most extraordinary display I’d ever experienced – nowhere on home soil have I ever seen anything but washed-out green beams, but here were colours that even Dulux can’t offer.

Moving back within our remit, the sound system comprised the Synco by Martin Audio W8LC line source rig, flanked by two Electro-Voice XLC arrays for dual hangs of 12 and 16

elements, respectively, per side. These were complemented by a colossal 60 subs – 18 EV XSub and 42 Synco RH-STS subwoofers – and finished with 22 W8LM (micro array elements) for infills, distributed across the face of the stage.

The whole system was driven by Martin Audio amps and controlled by XTA DSPs. Five’s FOH engineer, Laurentiu Stanga, mixed the show on a Soundcraft MH3, making fine use of analog, rack-based effects, particularly on the vocals of one young songstress – I found it hard to believe was singing live. Onstage, a Yamaha LS9 provided the mix for eight Synco CW152 15-inch stage monitors – an exclusive part of the Synco package.

Popea, who handles all matters technical, comments: “Liberty Parade is one of the hardest tests of a sound system because it must operate at very high dBs for more than nine hours. Not only is the distance a challenge for the sound reproduction at high levels, but also the weather, which is very strange. You can have 35 degrees and no wind and the next second 25 degrees and 50km per hour wind and a sand storm.

The W8LC speakers, alongside the amps and the XTAs, with Synco’s settings, are very reliable in terms of sound reproduction at high levels. They make me very happy when we can push up the dBs. “Regarding audio, unlike other companies in Romania, we pay huge attention to the sound design. For us, every corner of a venue is the most important place, so we take care to ensure the best sound quality everywhere. We’ve invested a great deal of money and research into the best system engineers and equipment available. As a result, since 1997 when we started Five’s, we’ve handled a lot of events and all of them were a success. Liberty Parade is now in its ninth year and since 2006 Five’s has been the only supplier. With no modesty I would say that we have turned it into the biggest dance event in Romania.”

Ably skippered by production manager Catalin Davidescu, Liberty Parade involved 16 trucks of gear, set up over a fiveday period by more than 60 keen technicians, with not a single, disillusioned roadie in sight. Stanescu is confident about his team and rightly so, as Five’s has been set up since the very beginning to attract the best people. Most of the employees that occupy influential positions at the firm have a history at BackStage, with aspirations of being much more than a waiter or a barman. This is true of both Popea and Davidescu, who ran the rock club for some time and showed an early interest in the sound system.

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Synco’s settings make me happy when I can push up the dBs. Andrei Popea

FIVE’S COMPANY PROFILE <

A staggering (literally) 60 subs were used on the Liberty Parade stage

For Stanescu, this is elementary. “It was the only club in Bucharest with live music, so the people who worked there were bound to love everything about live music.”

While he is clearly indebted to his workforce, Stanescu has a surprising acknowledgment to make – a nod to a competitor which, oddly, has been paramount to the development of Five’s. “Paradigma is my competitor here in Romania, but it has been good to me. Any time I need support, it always opens the door for me. The structure of my company now and the way we work here is based on [Paradigma co-owner and Synco founder company] Ampco Flashlight. The knowledge that I got through Fred Heuves has been fundamental to our recent achievements and invaluable for handling gigs such as Liberty Parade.

That’s why I see it as my partner, not my competitor. It’s hard to understand, but the people there, they are my friends.”

It certainly seems that Five’s is well placed to move on to grander things – on top of the startling growth it has experienced in recent years. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the firm’s Bucharest offices, which are almost as impressive as the events that it co-ordinates.

Purpose-built two years ago, the building is a testament to Fives’ vision and potential, both inside and out.

“Everything here was built for the company as I pictured it being after five years,” explains Stanescu. “It’s bigger than we need, but, because I love my work so much, I have to think about the future. I’m still dreaming, you know. I never stop dreaming. I’m fighting with myself to become the leader of the market – to become the number one company in Romania. But I don’t want to stop there.”

Stanescu now has a hit list of things that he needs to achieve to take Five’s closer to its goal of traversing the Romanian borders. Top of that list is a new general manager, someone with a background in sound and light at a big European company, who can free up his time and allow him to focus on the task of business development.

Elsewhere on the list are more obvious desires: more equipment, knowledge and experience, but as he works towards ticking these boxes, he hopes to form successful joint ventures with strong European partners.

With obvious frustration, he tells the story of how he missed out on the contract for the Romanian leg of an international electronic music festival. Secured instead by another sound and light company, the event was a shambles and the client chose not to return to the country in 2009. Stanescu has no doubt that if the hammer had fallen on the other side, this would have been one of Fives’ biggest credits this year. Having seen the job it did of Liberty Parade, I’m inclined to agree. > fives.ro www.audioprointernational.com

> SECTOR SPOTLIGHT LARGE FORMAT PA

The big guns

For big festivals, you want big loudspeakers

Lord Nelson didn’t deal with Admiral Villeneuve’s mighty fleet using mere pistols, for there were much more appropriatelyproportioned tools for the job. With this in mind, Rob Hughes sizes up the cannons of the loudspeaker world… tanding under the canvas at a festival last month, I nodded as the system designer explained his belief that loudspeaker manufacturers developed the flagship big boxes partly as a marketing exercise to help promote their more popular small-format speakers. And listening to such a compact system deliver an easy 100dB with plenty of headroom and shimmering high-end, it was easy – or so I thought – to understand what he was getting at: budgets are tight and how many events truly warrant large-format PA these days?

As we walked on, however, and the somewhat larger arrays on the main outdoor stage began to deliver some solid sound waves to our ears, I began to realise, given that the system looming in the distance was conjured up by the same man, that I may have misunderstood what he was trying to say.

What we were starting to hear were the latest and greatest big-driver arrays from one of the most prominent manufacturers. My guide likened it to a huge hi-fi; I actually considered it to be the best-sounding PA I’ve ever heard.

True, the same concept might sound fantastic even if it were scaled down, but nevertheless, with my head bobbing and feet reluctant to carry me to the next arena, it was clear that those 15-inch transducers were the perfect size for the job. This was, after all, the main stage and with little limit on the potential size of the audience, it would be folly to push a smaller system to its limits when the big boxes could take care of proceedings much more comfortably and with better sound quality. This seems obvious, but unfortunately it doesn’t represent the current trend at events around the world.

We all know the reasons for this – it comes down to bottom line. Sadly, for many of the smaller rental companies it just doesn’t make good business sense to hold large-format PA because they don’t handle enough big events to justify it. The problem is that some will readily take on large outdoor gigs, while others are capable and willing to undercut the firms that are better equipped to handle these events. The result is a depressing triumph of budget over sound quality.

On a happier note, for the touring giants lucky enough to need them, here are some of the biggest and best boxes going...

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DAS AUDIO AERO 50 Frequency response: 45Hz – 20kHz Dispersion (H): 90 degrees Power handling (Watts RMS): LF 2x700, MF 700, HF 300 On-axis sensitivity (dB SPL): LF 99, MF 104, HF 112 Max SPL (dB): LF 136, MF 139, HF 141 Dimensions (cm): 47.5 x 135 x 62.7 Weight (kg): 85 > dasaudio.com FUNKTION-ONE RESOLUTION 5 Frequency response: 114Hz – 18kHz Dispersion (H/V): 25 degrees/20 degrees Power handling (Watts RMS): LF 300, MF 200, HF 100 Dimensions (cm): 97.5 x 48.4 x 51 Weight (kg): 49 Funktion-One has resolutely refused to join the leagues of line array manufacturers and justifies its decision with the Resolution 5, which, hanging aloft the stage in iconic mushroom-shaped clusters, has capably handled some of the biggest gigs around.

Loaded with a single 12-inch LF driver, eight-inch MF driver and dual one-inch HF drivers – all of proprietary design with neodymium magnets – the Res 5, as it is more familiarly known, is a high efficiency, narrow dispersion, long throw, upper bass/mid/high enclosure. The high level of dispersion control afforded by the Res 5, in combination with F1’s unique flying system, enables precise tailoring of the overall coverage, which helps reduce unwanted room reflections and increase sound quality.

Among the latest applications of the Resolution 5 was the main stage at the Glade Festival, where the cabinets were ground-stacked for acts such as Underworld, who closed the festival. A flown Res 5 system was recently deployed at the Wickerman Festival, demonstrating the flexibility of the loudspeaker. > funktion-one.com www.audioprointernational.com

LARGE FORMAT PA SECTOR SPOTLIGHT < MARTIN AUDIO W8L LONGBOW Frequency response: 35Hz – 18kHz Dispersion (H / V): 90 degrees (350Hz) / 7.5 degrees (-6dB) Power handling (AES): LF 1,000W, MF 400W; HF 200W Max SPL (dB): LF 136, MH 135, HF 142 Dimensions (cm): 49 x 131.3 x 85.6 Weight (kg): 119.75 > martin-audio.com RENKUS-HEINZ VERSYS VLX3 Frequency response: 45Hz – 20kHz Dispersion: 60 – 120 degrees (adjustable) Power handling: LF 1,200W, MF 600W, HF 350W Max SPL (dB): 133 Dimensions: (cm): 39.37 x 96.52 x 58.42 Weight (kg): 90.72 The VerSys VL3 is a three-way powered line array module with Rhaon (Renkus-Heinz Audio Operations Network) Class D PM3R tri-amplifier, full digital dynamics, networked audio over CobraNet and loudspeaker monitoring and remote control via CAT-5. It sports proprietary dual 12inch neodymium woofers and dual custom CDT-1.5V CoEntrant MF/HF devices, with 6.5-inch carbon fibre coned mid drivers and 1.5-inch exit diaphragm HF units. The mid/high device is mounted on a compound phase plug attached to an isophasic plane wave generator for adjustable 60, 90 or 120-degree horizontal dispersion. > renkus-heinz.com D&B AUDIOTECHNIK J12 Frequency response: 48Hz – 17kHz (-5 dB) Dispersion (H): 120 degrees Power handling (Watts RMS/peak): LF 500/2,000, MF 200/800 Max SPL: (dB): 143 Dimensions (cm): 36.7 x 110 x 56.7 Weight (kg): 59.9 > dbaudio.com

MEYER SOUND MILO Frequency response: 60Hz – 18kHz Dispersion (H): 90 degrees Power handling (AES): L/LM 1,200W, MH 250W, VHF 100W Max SPL (dB): 140 Dimensions (cm): 36.75 x 137.2 x 56 Weight (kg): 106.6 > meyersound.com TANNOY VQ NET 60 LIVE Frequency response: 115Hz – 23kHz (-3dB) Dispersion (conical): 60 degrees Power handling: LM 800W, MF/HF 800W (limited to 400W) Max SPL (peak dB): LF 140, MF/HF 144 Dimensions: (cm): 92.5 x 62 x 50.2 Weight (kg): 86.5 The VQ live boxes followed the huge success of the installation range, which was launched at Frankfurt last year. The VQ products utilise a unique driver technology to radiate a coherent single point source for optimum dispersion control when coupled to Tannoy’s single horn. It aligns the acoustical centres of the transducers, providing a single coherent wavefront emanating from the throat.

The driver uses two concentric annular ring diaphragms. The larger of the two has a 3.5-inch voice coil and reproduces frequencies from 400Hz to 7kHz. There is no crossover anywhere near the vocal region ensuring natural and phase coherent reproduction, so users need only ensure they have a frontman who can sing in tune. > tannoy.com www.audioprointernational.com

JBL VERTEC 4889 Frequency Response: 40Hz – 16kHz Dispersion (H): 90 degrees (250Hz – 16kHz) Power handling (Watts continuous): LF 2,000, MF 1,400, HF 225 Max SPL (dB): 138 – 146 Dimensions (cm): 48.9 x 121.4 x 54.6 Weight (kg): 72.6 JBL’s VertTec 4889 is a three-way line array element loaded with dual 2255H 15-inch drivers with three-inch dual coils for LF, four 2250H eight-inch drivers with three-inch dual coils for MF and three three-inch diameter beryllium diaphragm (1.5inch throat) neodymium compression drivers for HF. Proprietary waveguides couple to create a precision HF vertical slot aperture. > jblpro.com EAW KF760 Frequency response: 80Hz – 16kHz Dispersion: 90 x 3 degrees Power handling: LF 1,600W, MF 800W, HF 300W Max SPL (dB): MF 136 dB Dimensions (cm): 36.8 x 114.3 x 78.7 Weight (kg): 102 > eaw.com ADAMSON Y-AXIS Y-18 Frequency response: 40Hz to 18kHz (full-range preset) Dispersion (H): 100 degrees (-6dB), 90 degrees (-3dB) Power handling (Watts RMS): LF 1,200W, MF 700W, HF 150W Max SPL (dB): continuous 138, peak 144 Dimensions (cm): 46.7 x 146.7 x 67.3 Weight: 122.47 kg The gargantuan Y-18 is a high power, three-way line array element loaded with dual proprietary 18-inch Kevlar LF drivers, dual YX 9-inch Kevlar MF drivers and dual JBL 2451 4-inch HF drivers. The Adamson MF/HF drive module has a co-axial entrance and a co-linear exit comprised of a high frequency sound chamber mounted within a mid frequency sound chamber. Together, the drive module and trapezoidal cabinet design create a smooth, slightly curved, seamless wave front with no gaps between cabinets. > adamsonproaudio.com

OHM ERSA MAJOR No concrete specs (or pics) are available on this one, since it’s still in the final stages of development, but the second addition to the Ersa line array series will feature two hornloaded LF/MF drivers with a coaxial two-inch plus one-inch compression driver, mounted on a proprietary waveguide. The system is designed to run in a three-way active mode.

The 73cm-wide cabinet is undergoing testing prior to launch at this year’s PLASA, but preliminary results suggest that maximum SPLs in the region of 145dB can be expected. For live sound applications, the new version of the Smakstak sub will be recommended. If you’re reading this at the show, head over to the Ohm booth to get a look at the new cabinet. > ohm.co.uk

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> SECTOR SPOTLIGHT LARGE FORMAT PA

KV2 AUDIO VHD 2.0 Frequency response: 60Hz to 22kHz (-3dB, full range) Dispersion (H/V): 80 degrees/40 degrees Power handling: LM 1,200W, MF 600W, HF 200W Max SPL (dB): continuous 139, peak 142 Dimensions (cm): 93.3 x 70 x 49.5 Weight: 70 kg > kv2audio.com RCF TTL55 Frequency response: 50Hz – 20kHz Dispersion (H/V): 90 degrees/7 degrees Power handling: LF 2,000W, MF 1,000W, HF 500W Max SPL (dB): 143 Dimensions (cm): 38 x 102 x 55 Weight (kg): 67 RCF says its TTL55-A delivers the maximum output for size ratio on the market. The system, with integrated 3,500Watt, four-channel digital amplification digital processing, comprises two woofers in a band-pass loading configuration, providing tight and powerful bass response. > rcf.it

ELECTRO-VOICE XVLS Frequency response: 40Hz – 16kHz Dispersion (H/V): 90 degrees/5 degrees Power handling (continuous): LF 1,200W, MF 600W, HF 225W Max SPL (dB): 142 Dimensions (cm): 49.4 x 124.5 x 74 Weight (kg): 117 The Xvls is designed for the upper section of a linear array and is complemented by the shorter-throwing Xvlt for the lower ‘J’ section of the array. This summer, the cabinet figured on the Jazz World Stage at Glastonbury, where APR Audio provided Xvlts in an XLine system, complete with EV’s new Hydra time-synchronised, high-frequency vertical plane wave generator. APR Audio’s system designer Matt Gunter commented: “The Hydras effectively eliminate any trace of oscillation or vibration, so we didn’t have to eq at all. With 12 X-Line modules flown each side (ten Xvls and two Xvlt), the system worked straight out of the box.” > electrovoice.com

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VOID ACOUSTICS STASYS PRIME Frequency response: 90Hz – 20kHz Power handling (Watts): LF 1,500, HF 150 Maximum SPL (dB continuous): 142 Dispersion (H/V): 25 degrees/35 degrees Dimensions (cm): 86 x 58.6 x 77.5 Weight (kg): 83 Void’s latest tour-class offering has a wide-band design, with two 15-inch LF drivers and a single 1.5-inch neodymium HF driver. It can deliver a continuous output of 142dB with unprecedented levels of efficiency and extended low-end performance down to 90Hz, which negates the need for separate upper-bass enclosures.

The loudspeaker has been designed to achieve lossless summation between adjacent enclosures, providing a seamless transition within the array, greatly improving intelligibility and phase coherence. > voidaudio.com SOUND PROJECTS LINEX Frequency response: 65Hz to 18kHz Dispersion: 90 degrees (H), vertical defined by the array length and shape Power handling: LF1 1,200W, LF2 1,200, MF 600W, HF 600W Dimensions (mm): 600 x 340 x 560 Weight (kg): 40 > soundprojects.com L-ACOUSTICS K1 / KUDO As the pioneer of line source PA, it’s not surprising that the French firm’s large-format offering, Kudo, is one of the preferred line arrays among rental companies. And the manufacturer is currently piloting a brand new big-box system that it hopes will be made available to the market as a whole in 2010. Though preliminary information on K1 is scant, we know that it’s been designed to integrate seamlessly with Kudo, and the big boys lucky enough to have their hands on it at this early stage, including Brit Row and SSE, have not been disappointed.

The K1 is packaged as a complete system for the touring market. It combines a three-way, quad-amplified enclosure featuring a new K transducer arrangement, with boosted resources on the HF section. The K1 enclosure is typically combined with a dedicated LF extension (K1-SB), which the firm says offers: “an unprecedented level of directivity control and throw at low/sub frequencies.” > l-acoustics.com

www.audioprointernational.com

> LIVE SOUND DAN BLACK

Little black box

Dan Black’s FOH engineer, Steve Pattison, has consolidated an entire FOH mixing system into an Allen & Heath’ s iDR-32 MixRack rack and a laptop. Audio Pro takes a look at what’s under the hood… an Black has been thrust forth as a leader of a new genre of UK musicians, dubbed by the music press as Wonky Pop. His track HYPNTZ, featuring a mix of lyrics from the Notorious Big song Hypnotize, combined with a sample of Rihanna’s Umbrella, has earned him notoriety, radio play and subsequent performances at Glastonbury and throughout the European festival circuit this summer.

To complement Black’s unconventional mixture of samples and beats, engineer Steve Pattison has chosen an innovative and modern FOH set up that is far from the norm. Whatever the gig, Pattison uses a compact touring system comprising an Allen & Heath iDR-32 MixRack and a laptop loaded with iLive Editor software, which he uses as a virtual control surface. The system not only mixes FOH audio, but also wedges and IEMs. “I’m running the iDR rack and that’s it... no desk, no surface, just the stagebox, which is mounted into our on-stage loopstation,” Pattison explains. He runs looms out of the loopstation to the band’s mics and DIs and a loom into the house system, so that all the mics and DIs run straight into the stagebox and from there outputs run to a master L&R mix and three wedge mixes, which are fed into the house multicore. For monitors, two lines are sent to the drummer’s mixer for his headphone mix, and Ferdi, the band technician, listens to his stereo in-ears mix by plugging into the iDR’s PFL output.

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It’s definitely the smallest FOH footprint. It blows people’s minds.

Steve Pattison FOH Engineer

“I can mix from wherever I like, too. I can eq wedges from the stage, or mix from the audience to get more of a feel for what they are hearing. I’ve also been surprised by the wireless range; it didn’t drop out at the John Peel stage at Glastonbury and I was a good 50m away.”

Pattison developed the iLive system used on Black’s tour during shows he did with Alphabeat last year. Finding some venues logistically challenging, he began to leave his FOH system in the trailer and use the channels and a control layer from the iLive monitor system, mixing remotely from a laptop.

“It’s definitely the smallest FOH footprint. It blows people’s minds when they see me rock up to FOH with a laptop and then just bring two faders up on their desk. Like any other engineer, I love knobs and faders, but once you’re comfortable with the Editor layout, mixing becomes second nature. It’s easy to drag and drop any fader to any layer mid gig, so you can decide exactly what you want on screen, just as you can on the actual surface.

“A colleague recently covered for me at Dan’s Koko show in London and the band asked if he’d use the iDR-32 because they know they only have to plug in and it’s all there – FOH, monitors, the lot. A couple of calls later and he ran the show from his laptop and had a great gig.” > ilive-digital.com

A GOOD THING IN A LITTLE PACKAGE Despite its size, Pattison feels the iLive system is well equipped for any venue. “With such varying levels of kit available at each gig, the A&H system gives us great consistency, because I only ever need five channels from the house system, two for FOH and three for monitors, and I can run up to 32 inputs.”

Pattison connects his laptop, loaded with iLive editor software with saved show settings, to a normal wireless router to operate the iDR-32. “The lack of physical surface means I can choose which surface size I want to use in the software, so I’m not limited to a certain number of channels or faders. For the Dan Black tour I’ve been using the iLive-T80 split into three desks – the top layer for FOH, second layer for wedge mixes and third layer for IEMs, so each discipline has its own channels, eq, gates, compressors and so on.

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www.audioprointernational.com

> LIVE SOUND GLOBAL GATHERING

Roll without the rock After 33 years in the business SSE knows that drink and drugs should remain the preserve of the punters.

Rob Hughes went along to the Global Gathering festival to see a sober crew at work… iving the mob of inebriated revellers a wide berth, Miles Hillyard is easy to spot in the distance as he strides purposefully over to our rendezvous point by the main stage. His decision to shun the day-glow uniform of the raver in favour of more practical apparel is something of a giveaway, but he’s also moving noticeably faster than everybody else and I can tell he’s got a lot on his plate.

As we walk on past the beer tent, despite the heaving pack of bare-chested lager louts trying desperately to get the attention of bar staff, I reason that he must by now have earned a drink and offer to brave the sweaty mass of tattooed drunkards in the name of refreshment.

“Thanks, but no way,” comes the reply.

Slightly parched but not offended, I politely enquire as to the reason.

“I don’t allow my staff to take drugs on the job and that includes booze. If they can’t do it, then I can’t either. They can do what they want in their spare time, but not here. I wouldn’t turn up to the office with a four-pack of Stella. If they’re drinking then they’re not working to their potential.”

I begin to realise that the finer points of staging a successful gig are not so obvious. The sound and light rental industry may have risen from rock n roll, but the companies such as SSE which have turned it into a realistic, profitable business have done so because they have taken a more disciplined approach.

Good food and hotel rooms have somewhat refined the roadie lifestyle, but drink and drugs are out.

Hillyard confirms this: “We have to be a lot more businessoriented now and the crew being clean is just one part of it.

There’s no resting on your laurels, because competition is fierce these days. The law is so tight now that you have to be a very professional outfit, because everybody wants to shoot you down. A lot of the crew now are very anti drugs and if anybody comes into the fold with other ideas they get shunned because it’s a two-way thing – I expect them to be

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We’re businessorientated and the crew being clean is just one part of it.

Miles Hillyard SSE

clean but they expect me to give them separate hotel rooms and have decent catering and a good amount of money for their day’s work. It’s not just about an objection to drugs, it’s about the bigger picture. There are instances where I will turn down work because it’s not suitable for our team any more.

CLEAN CONDITIONS “A lot of the guys I use are also capable of getting a job in IT or flying a plane and other stuff that will earn them 50 grand a year. So you have to bear in mind the conditions that they’ll be working in when it comes to the tour buses and the catering. As for the drugs thing, being clean and professional is just another part of that. Some people don’t want to be involved in that scene and the ones who do are jeopardising their work, so why should I look after them to keep them at their best, when they’re ruining it themselves with drink or drugs?

“Only half of what I do is designing the sound systems and putting the gear together – the other half is picking the right people for the job, especially when I have to put 25 people together on site for a weekend. My man on the ground, my crew boss, is critical and he does a fantastic job. He’s done this gig for me four years in a row – moving the personnel around properly, making sure they get the right breaks, making sure everybody gets fed; it’s all very important. From our point of view, it’s not just about putting the PA up.

“The industry is changing; we’re not in the 70s and 80s anymore and our industry is now catching up with the rest of the workforce in the country. Health and safety and the hours that we have to work mean that we’ve had to take a very hard stand. It’s very difficult to talk about it because it sounds like I’m saying some companies aren’t like that and that’s absolutely not the case, but the bottom line is, yes, we expect our people to be responsible.” > sseaudiogroup.com www.audioprointernational.com

> INTERVIEW BRUCE SWEDIEN

Art doesn’t talk to money Bruce Swedien started his engineering career in 1950’s Chicago at Universal Audio, working with legends like Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. Swedien met super producer Quincy Jones at Universal and became a key figure in Michael Jackson’s solo career. With a new book on the way, Swedien talks to Andrew Low about his mics, studio and three decades of classic recordings… niversal Audio in Chicago in the 1950s was the hub of big band activity. Everyone from Dizzee Gillespie and Count Basie to Duke Ellington, Herbie Hancock and Frankie Valli used its big rooms to create timeless recordings.

Universal engineer Bruce Swedien (pictured, inset) met Quincy Jones while working at the studio and began what would become a 30-year working partnership.

Jones and Swedien worked with Michael Jackson on his solo career from 1979 to 2001, producing the bestselling albumof all time, Thriller. The trio worked on the composition, arrangements and production as a group.

“I was mainly involved in engineering, but through working with Jones and Jackson I got more and more involved in production. I am a composer and have written songs with Jackson. I don’t really know exactly where I fit in,” he says, laughing, “but I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

Money and accolades aside, the thing Swedien enjoyed most about his work with Quincy and Jackson was the faith they had in him. “I have been very lucky, because those guys knew that I had something different to offer and they would go away and let me do my thing,” he explains.

“The best part of a relationship like that is the trust they had in me.”

Much like his ghoulish alter ego in the Thriller video, from the studio to the stage Swedien saw a massive character transition when Jackson performed live. “My wife was heavily involved in my career and we went to see him in concert and realised that we never met the guy that he became on stage,” Swedien reflects.

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“He was really different than any other artist or vocalist.

When we recorded some of the early hits, like Billy Jean, I had the studio carpenter build an eight foot square drum platform to stop the kick drum from spreading across the floor into the other mics, but I found out that Michael really loved to record his vocals on the stage, because he always danced when he sang.”

Swedien feels that his mic collection is the signature part of his sound. His most coveted piece is a microphone designed by Finnish engineer Martin Kantola. He explains: “I met Kantola in Helsinki while doing a lecture at The Sibelius Academy and immediately recognised that he was a really unique musical and technical force. The mic he designed uses a similar capsule and tube as the Neumann U47 and it sounds absolutely incredible. There are several of them now, but when I first began using them there were only three in the world. I don’t think there are many of them in use today. Björk had one of them and she absolutely loves it.

“I also used one of the very first Shure SM7 dynamic mics. All the vocals on Billy Jean and Beat It are all done on that mic, which proves that it is not necessary to have a condenser mic to do fantastic recording.

“I am also lucky because Neumann came to my aid and sent me some wonderful stuff. I bought a pair of U47s in 1953, but one of them was stolen during the making of Thriller. I bought them for 390 bucks and I recently turned down 20 thousand dollars for the remaining one. It is just such a phenomenal microphone.

“I also have some AKG C12s in my collection, but they are not my favourite. I think that the U47 has more character. I

“

Through working with Jones and Jackson I got more and more involved in production.

Bruce Swedien

www.audioprointernational.com

BRUCE SWEDIEN INTERVIEW <

am not a purist and a lot of people look at me as grandpa hi-fi, but I am after the musical value of gear – and that’s all.

It has nothing to do with the technical parts.”

Along with his microphone collection, Swedien’s 1985 Harrison 32x32 series recording console is still used in his private studio. “Dave Harrison was a friend of mine and I gave him a lot of input when he was designing the desk. I Swedien’s home studio love it madly. It has the greatest high and low filters; they are extremely dramatic. It was the forerunner of the great filter on the SSL desks. I don’t know if it was copied, but they were very similar.

“Anyone who works in the box and thinks it sounds good should hear what they are doing compared to my Harrison desk and they will be able to tell an immediate difference.”

After 30 years and 13 Grammy nominations, Swedien has his own studio in central Florida that does not have a website or public contact details. He picks and chooses the projects he wants to work on and, fortunately for Swedien, artists like Jennifer Lopez still hunt him down.

The Harrison desk is the centre point of the studio that also features Bill Putnam’s original 1176 compressor/limiters and four of Universal Audio’s LA-2As, which he bought during his Universal days, in addition to Westlake Audio monitors. “I first started using the Westlake monitors when I was working on Jackson’s albums in California. They are absolutely fabulous and I still use them. I don’t think there is Swedien’s many Grammys anything else out there that compares.”

His studio is equipped with a Pro Tools rig, however Swedien misses the analog sound and is thinking of going back to it. “I was very fond of the 3M 24-track machines and the Studer is an excellent machine. There is something about the sound that is different now and I think using those analog tape machines had a character to them that is really great.”

After such a long and successful career in the recording business, one would assume that Swedien would be put off by recent trends in the modern music industry. Instead he states: “I think there are a lot of young people out there who care. I was always of a different style and I didn’t want to fit in the mould. When it comes down to it, it’s the passion behind that music that really matters. Art does not talk to money.”

Swedien’s new book, called In The Studio With Michael Jackson, will be available in Europe through jawbonepress.com

Recording the orchestra for The Wiz

Control rooms at Universal Audio

THE BEATLES STUDIO <

Remastering the masters

Audio Pro talks to the team of Abbey Road engineers who spent the past four years remastering the entire Beatles catalogue… oughly four years ago, Allan Rouse got the call from EMI that the entire Beatles catalogue needed to be remastered. Like Hannibal on the A-Team, Rouse needed only to make the call and his men sprang into action. The years between then and now have comprised long hours spent by a meticulous team that worked from the original masters and laboured over every detail at each step of the process.

The team consisted of Rouse as project co-ordinator, recording engineers Guy Massey, Paul Hicks and Sam Okell, mastering engineers Steve Rooke and Sean Magee, and Simon Gibson, Cedar Audio restoration engineer.

With the men assembled and plans in place, Guy Massey began the process for the stereo versions while Paul Hicks tackled the monos. Hicks explains: “We wanted to make the recordings sound the best they could, very respectfully. Our first process was spending a lot of time going through quarter-inch machines and a range of EMI test tapes from over the years.”

R

LOADING THE TAPES After trying out several machines, the team chose a Studer A80 tape machine with a 1972 test tape. Each song was then loaded from the original analog tapes through Prism Sound’s ADA-8XR multi-channel modular ADA converters into Pro Tools. Massey states: “Pro Tools was treated as a master machine and we didn’t use any plugins. The songs were formatted to 24 bit/192kHz and video referenced. The speed of the tape machine was always watched to make sure it was running at the right speed. www.audioprointernational.com

“The tapes are still in great condition – nevertheless we loaded everything track-bytrack, cleaning the tape machine heads and rollers between each song.

“The original transfers were done in 1986 when digital was in its infancy. I am not knocking the original transfers, but I think from the point where we re-transferred and archived the master tapes, we were already a step ahead because the technology has come on in leaps and bounds.

What some people may perceive as an added eq is actually the result of better transfers, especially in the low end and the high top. Upwards of twenty tracks were not eq’d at all because we didn’t think we could improve them in any way.”

The team at Abbey Road was very conscious of not affecting the spirit of the songs from their original versions. As such, they performed A/B listening tests with the existing CDs and vinyl at every step of the process. Hicks comments: “It’s not a project where we could forget the past. We had cutting notes from the originals so that we could see what they were actually doing.”

“Once we archived the masters we would get a print out of the lyrics and timings and listen to each track on a separate basis three or four times, make detailed notes of technical noises that we felt we would like to remove or reduce,” Massey explains. “We only addressed things that we considered to be extraneous to the performance, such as clicks from mics and faders, tape drop outs, bad edits, mic pops and sibilance.

“We then took the master 24-bit/192kHz file to Simon Gibson in the restoration suite and he used Cedar Retouch to

“

What some people may perceive as added eq is actually the result of better transfers.

Paul Hicks

audioPRO

September 2009 41

> STUDIO THE BEATLES

fix anything we wanted to change. We then chopped those fixed bits back into the master file so that we had a new, edited master file. The whole team deliberated every change and we were determined to keep the audio as pure as possible.”

Massey states that de-noising was a bit of a contentious issue, thus it was used for less than one per cent of the entire catalogue – five minutes of the 535 total minutes. “De-noising was used for things like intros or if hiss was enough that it was excessive, but we have only taken it down very subtly.”

MASTERING Once all the edits were made the files were taken to the mastering suites at Abbey Road where Steve Rooke and Sean Magee handled the stereo and mono recordings respectively.

“It was an analog process from that point on,” Rooke comments. “The tracks came out of Pro Tools through the Prism AD8s into the analog domain and were then injected into the studio’s 1972 EMI TG mastering console. We then eq’d and transferred them to a Sadie Series 5 PCM 8 DAW at 24-bit/441kHz. The main carrier was going to be CD so we kept it at 44:1 to avoid the extra process of sample rate conversion, therefore keeping the signal as pure as possible.

Once each album was compiled we did a digital capture through a Jünger DO1 digital limiter, the limiting was done afterwards to give us more flexibility. We didn’t want to limit as we eq’d because it would have been difficult to change at a later date. The team listened to them post limiter.

“When we were capturing the final mastered version, we played the songs out of Sadie in the digital domain through the DO 1 limiter into a Prism AD-124 AD converter for noise shaping. All the songs were noise shaped and dithered back into 16-bit and then captured back into the Sadie at 16-bit/441kHz, which is what we made the masters from.

“During the mastering process we listened to each track and decided where we wanted to go with it, if we wanted to add or remove eq to help instruments or vocals. We went through each track, made the adjustments and then recorded into Sadie.

“The next day we listened to the tracks in Studio 3, talked about it and made notes for changes. The changes were made and we started the entire process over again until we were all happy with the tracks.

“We mostly used the eq on the TG desk, but it is in dB steps so any additional eq’ing was done on a Prism ME2 to hone into something with finer steps or target certain frequencies.

Different parts of certain songs were treated in different ways.

If a chorus was a bit bright or brittle we would adjust that accordingly. This was especially apparent on a song like Yellow Submarine because the sound effects were so bright. I am the Walrus was another tricky one because it was so different from the rest of the catalogue.”

42

audioPRO

September 2009

The boys lay down tracks in Abbey’s Studio 2

Classic artwork for classic music – now lovingly restored

LIMITING “All modern day CDs are limited very heavily because everyone wants to be the loudest,” Massey states. “We spoke about this at the very beginning and it was unanimously established that the stereos would be limited slightly because they are aimed at the modern market. The monos are more for the collectors so they were not. The stereos are probably three to four dBs louder than the original, so a lot of the time the limiters are not working.”

Rooke adds: “It is just the very fast transients that would normally show over level on the digital metres that it took down.

There are still waveforms to be seen. We really wanted to keep the dynamics.”

“We liked a bit of limiting because we felt it made the recordings a little more exciting, but not to the point where we would be upsetting the original dynamics,” says Massey. “Some modern recordings really shout at you and we didn’t want to do that to these songs. This is a back catalogue that has never been remastered before and everybody knows The Beatles. We knew that fans were going to be inspecting the catalogue through a microscope and we wanted to get it right.

“The purist might ask why we didn’t just transfer the songs straight from the quarter-inch machine straight into Sadie, but we felt that we wanted to address anything that they would have wanted to remove. When I do a recording I don’t want to hear pops all over the vocal – it annoys me. If The Beatles were recorded today I’m sure they would have addressed those same issues.

“With all the changes that we made, if we felt it interfered musically we wouldn’t do it. For instance, the chair sound at the end of A Day in the Life or Ringo’s squeaky drum peddle – they are part of the history and vibe of the song so we didn’t want to remove those things.”

“It takes a lot of time to get the confidence to get your head down and go for it on a project like this,” Hicks states. “I have to be happy and then the team has to be happy and then Rouse and then Apple and The Beatles and then that is where it stops. It is just too big.

“If you went into the project thinking about all the people who are going to analyse the waveforms you would never get anything done. We did what we thought was right and hope that everyone likes it.” > abbeyroad.co.uk

www.audioprointernational.com

BEHIND THE BOARD WITH…

DAVID ‘MILKY’ MILLWARD Morrisey’s FOH man tells us about good brews and bad breaks…

Which band/project are you currently working on?

Currently I’m mixing FOH for Morrissey.

Where are you at the moment?

Vienna.

What audio console are you utilising? And how many channels?

Digidesign Profile using 46 inputs from stage, plus effects and so on.

What decision process was behind the choice of this audio console?

I wanted a very compact FOH area and I also wanted to go completely digital from and to the stage.

Do you utilise any outboard effects/eq?

In the past I have favoured both Avalon Pre Amp compressors and also Focusrite ISAs, used inline on main vocal channels. However, I am not using any outboard on this tour, just fairly basic plugins.

Favourite console?

If you’d asked me not so long ago, it would have been the Midas XL4 (as long as it had an easy tilt, of course). At the moment I’m enjoying learning to use all the digital desks there are now.

rig, too. I’ve been a fan of d&b speakers for many years, ever since using the F1 and C4 systems.

Recently I’ve got a taste for Meyer MICA and I’m using that system for the second time now here in the UK and Europe.

Favourite venue/festival/studio?

The Manchester Apollo, Royal Albert Hall, Östersund Festival and Benicassim.

Best toy you take on tour?

My kettle.

What’s been your worst professional experience to date?

Breaking my foot within minutes of entering a venue in Buenos Aires on the second show of a month-long South American tour and being plastered up to the knee for weeks on end before I could get home.

What’s been your career highlight?

My first ever show at the Royal Albert Hall in the late 80s with All About Eve, and subsequently playing Manchester MEN Arena on Morrissey’s Birthday.

What pisses you off when working?

When there is no kettle available.

What makes you happy at work?

Favourite PA system (or monitors)?

I’ve just finished a US tour using the d&b Q1 system, which is one of the most amazing boxes around. It never ceases to impress me with how good and how ‘large’ it sounds. It’s incredibly compact, light and easy to

When things work.

Finally, if you weren't working now, you'd be?

In a comfy café with a good book and a pot of tea, or driving along country roads in my motor.

“I’ve just finished a US tour using the d&b Q1 system, which is one of the most amazing boxes around.”

David Milward, FOH

www.audioprointernational.com

audioPRO September 2009

45

> IN SESSION

Studios:

People and equipment behind studios in the UK and around the world...

Rooms: Eight mastering suites and six production rooms Consoles: Custom proprietary consoles designed by Chris Muth Mics: Test mics by DPA and Earthworks Outboard: Sontech, Focusrite Blue, Chandler, Tube-Tech, Prism Sound Monitoring: B&W, Energy Veritas, Pro Ac, Dynaudio, Classe, Hafler

Rooms: Studios 1, 2, 3, penthouse, mastering rooms Consoles: Neve 88 RS, Neve DFC Gemini, SSL 9000 J, Neve VRP Legend Mics: AEA, Neumann , Gefel, RCA, Royer, Schoeps, STC/Coles, B&K Outboard: EMI, Prism, Chiswick Reach, Manley, Fairchild, Pultec, Massenberg Monitoring: B&W 800D, Quested, Yamaha, Meyer, Classe

Sterling Sound, New York Abbey Road, London ONE OF THE most respected mastering facilities in the industry, Sterling Sound has mastered an abundance of celebrated albums since the introduction of the compact disc in the early 1980s.

One of Sterling Sound’s more famous assets is its collection of proprietary signal processing and techniques, developed both internally and in collaboration with leading manufacturers. In 1988, the firm developed a DSP device that allowed its engineers to make louder CDs without use of a compressor or limiter. A decade later it created a new generation of custom analog mastering consoles with performance specifications so exacting they approached those of 24-bit digital.

Sterling’s in-house technical team has created high performance mastering systems personalised for each engineer. For monitoring, beginning with a six-deck, handsoldered stepped attenuator, the team designed and built a series of six channel preamplifiers and digital input selectors. The result is a precision monitoring environment where each channel tracks to within .01dB and

engineers can select between stereo/surround, pre/post-eq and pre/post-encoding, with outputs routed to reference DA converters. For clients who require video lockup during the mastering session, Sony Beta SP machines can be provided with advance notice.

Senior engineers Ted Jensen, George Marino and Leon Zervos’ surround mastering studios provide true uncompromised 5.1 reference environments. Designed by Francis Manzella of FM Design, the studios conform to the ITU music surround specification, which calls for five identical full range free standing loudspeakers placed at specific equidistant locations.

Jensen is one of the world’s most indemand mastering engineers, working on projects across virtually every genre of music. In 2002, he won the first-ever Grammy for mastering for his work on Norah Jones’ multi-platinum album Come Away With Me. Recently he mastered Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown and Muse’s The Resistance.

Other notable engineers at Sterling include Greg Calbi, Ray Janos, Tom Coyne, Chris Athens, Chirs Gehringer and Ryan Smith

Sterling Sound’s in-house technical team has created high performance mastering systems personalised for each engineer.

Telephone: +1 212 604 9433 Web: www.sterling-sound.com

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September 2009

UNDOUBTEDLY THE MOST documented studio in the world, Abbey Road was opened in 1931 by Sir Edward Elgar, who conducted the London Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Land Of Hope and Glory in studio one – the largest purpose-built recording studio in the world, able to accommodate a 110-piece orchestra and 100-piece choir, simultaneously.

The building started life as a grand residence at No. 3, Abbey Road, St John’s Wood, but became the first ever custom-built recording studio. Three differently sized studios were built on the garden and neighbouring spaces in order to accommodate the different types of acts being recorded there.

The facility quickly attracted stars such as Noel Coward on his triumphant return from Broadway and, later, Fats Waller and Fred Astaire.

Abbey Road’s legendary status was established immediately and it remained in service during WW2, involved in propaganda recordings for the British government and radio broadcasts for the BBC. Even as London was gripped by the Blitz, the studio took delivery of the most advanced mixing desk of its day, worth an eye-watering £1,000.

Abbey Road’s most famous employee, George Martin, arrived in 1950 when he joined the Parlophone department and began to take advantage of some major technological advances being made by EMI, including the world’s first limiter.

The ensuing years would see Martin record weird and wonderful material with the likes of Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov. His later work at the studio needs little introduction, but the four young men who turned his life upside down in 1962 also changed the recording schedule of Abbey Road completely. This was soon justified in 1963, when 15 out of the 19 number ones of the year were recorded at the studios.

After their disbandment, The Beatles were replaced by a new ‘house band’, Pink Floyd and, from that time until the present day, the calibre of acts that have recorded at Abbey Road has never waned. Now a complex offering a multitude of professional audio services, Abbey Road remains at the cuttingedge of the industry and has an enviable reputation as the film community’s first choice for film scoring outside the US. Current in-house engineers include Peter Cobbin and Simon Rhodes.

The facility quickly attracted stars such as Noel Coward on his triumphant return from Broadway and, later, Fats Waller and Fred Astaire.

Telephone: +44 20 7266 7000 Web: www.abbeyroad.co.uk

www.audioprointernational.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// To have your studio featured in this section, please send all details to: andrew.low@intentmedia.co.uk or call +44 1992 535646

Prism Sound’s Simon Woollard on the importance of technical maintenance...

Ditch the glitch

Rooms: Two recording studios, four mixing rooms, six mastering suites Consoles: SSL 9072 J, SSL 4064 G, Neve VR Mics: Neumann, Royer, Coles, Schoeps, Sanken, EV, Shure, SPC

Outboard: Manley, GML, TubeTech, Chandler, Maselec Prism, Neve, Drawmer Monitoring: Yamaha, PMC, Auratone, M&K

Metropolis, London ESTABLISHED IN THE spring of 1989 by Karin Clayton, Gary Langan, Carey Taylor and Alexander Skeaping, Metropolis is celebrating two illustrious decades as an indemand recording studio and mastering house.

Metropolis offers a one-stopshop of creative services for the entertainment industry. Its four recording studios, including two large tracking rooms, six mastering suites and 11 mastering engineers, make it Europe’s largest independent music recording complex and independent mastering house. In addition, four production and programming rooms house a variety of successful producers.

The facility can be used to record full band sessions, string sections (up to 28-piece) and overdubs. It features both Pro Tools and Logic DAWs and

has a wide range of analog and digital tape machines available. Mixing can be done on one of its four high-end analog mixing consoles. The studio can also mix to picture and offers both stereo and 5.1 mixing for PCM, SACD and DVD audio and Blu-ray.

The team at Metropolis has recorded and mixed numerous albums including The Verve’s Urban Hymns, The Stone Roses’ The Second Coming, Queen’s Made In Heaven and Innuendo, The Libertines’ The Libertines, and Grammy Award winners Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black and Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, as well as the Live Aid and Live 8 DVDs. Metropolis’ engineers include Neil Tucker, who, since joining the studio in 1996, has worked with artists and producers across a wide range of genres, coping with many demanding and high pressure sessions.

Metropolis offers a one-stop-shop of creative services for the entertainment industry. It’s Europe’s largest independent music recording complex.

Telephone: +44 20 8742 1111 Web: www.metropolis-group.co.uk

www.audioprointernational.com

IN RECENT YEARS we have all witnessed the changes in the way music is made; many of the world’s largest studios have closed down and we have seen a shift towards more compact facilities.

Even the smallest studios can now afford to buy scaled-down versions of the high end equipment in use at full-size studios as manufacturers of reference quality equipment now cater for this market.

So what is it that has enabled some of our oldest and largest institutions to maintain a successful studio business?

Certainly there are a number of factors, including brand value, a catalogue of seminal recordings and the sheer commitment to succeed. One very important factor, however, is the dedication to technical excellence. The majority of today’s leading studios employ full-time, highly skilled engineers to commission, service and maintain their facilities, in order to uphold the highest levels of quality throughout the recording process.

When you step inside a worldclass studio facility, not only will there be a selection of the best equipment from the world’s leading manufacturers, but everything will work flawlessly together, free from troublesome pops, glitches and intermittent faults, allowing the artists to focus solely on what they do best. And of course this is no accident…

There is often an assumption, especially in digital audio, that the presence of an audible signal at the end of a signal path is enough to verify that everything is OK. But even the most experienced engineers will tell you that you can’t always rely on your ears as test instruments. Do you know for sure that your digital installation has been correctly synchronised throughout? Have you verified that dither is being used at the correct

word length at digital interfaces to avoid unintentional truncation distortion? Are you sure that the correct digital cable impedance has been used throughout to prevent excessive jitter?

Or is your system so close to the limits that interference from something as routine as flicking a light switch in the control room is likely to take your system down in the middle of that otherwise perfect take?

These are the kind of problems that engineers face on a daily basis as systems evolve, equipment is repaired or replaced, or even just re-routed in different configurations.

We appreciate how important it is for audio businesses to be confident about their systems.

At Prism Sound we take test and measurement very seriously and appreciate how important it is for any audio business to be confident about the performance and safety margin of their systems; in fact, we have been supplying audio test and measurement instruments for longer than we have been making recording and production equipment.

The more astute studio owners know only too well that there is a danger in compromising on technical excellence: The cost can range from inconvenient re-work or downtime at best, to ruined work and lost business at worst. These same studio owners also know that there is real commercial value in taking technical proficiency seriously; invest in the right equipment and the right people and the value will be in the quality of the final piece of work. This translates to happier customers and, in turn, to more business.

Simon Woollard is an experienced design engineer and Salford University graduate. He works for Prism Sound as their sales and applications engineer for test and measurement products. He has been with the company for the past two years, prior to which he was with Mission and Saitek.

To contact Prism Sound Tel: +44 1353 648888 Email: sales@prismsound.com www.prismsound.com

> PEOPLE

IN BRIEF

Vince Borrelli takes on tour sound

MIDAS AND KT have appointed Quad Professional as their new distributor for Singapore and Malaysia. The move is part of a bid to offer dedicated sales and support across the region. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is vital that our distribution channel has the right people in place to service and support our customers there,â&#x20AC;? said David Cooper. > midasconsoles.com

SOUND TECHNOLOGY has hired Vince Borrelli as its new tour sound sales manager.

Borrelli will work with the Harman brands, such as JBL, Soundcraft, AKG, Crown, dbx, BSS and Lexicon, particularly within the UK hire community.

His experience includes work for Audio Technica, Headstock and Mackie. During his seven years at Mackie, Borrelli was responsible for sales and training across all product

Former Mackie man joins Sound Technology to represent Harman brands areas, including the TT24 digital live desk, DXB digital recording console and EAW products. He then joined Harman Pro and, after 20 months, went on to Headstock Pro. Borrelli explained: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The people at Sound Tech are spot on. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m now looking forward to channelling my knowledge of the pro audio industry into developing the presence of the Harman brands across the UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hire community. > soundtech.co.uk

Ahlborn appointed as financial officer

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;We tried them and they were betterâ&#x20AC;?

Mark Knopfler - Dire Straits

THE original 3rd party Pro Tools â&#x201E;˘ interface

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48 audioPRO September 2009

SHURE HAS announced the appointment of James Ahlborn as its new vice president of finance and chief financial officer (CFO).

In this position he will lead the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finance division and have full responsibility for all of its functions, including internal auditing, financial planning and analysis, treasury, payroll, financial reporting, cost accounting, customs, accounts payable and receivable, tax analysis and credit. He will also provide strategic counsel as a member of the executive staff. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Jim brings a broad financial management background to Shure,â&#x20AC;? commented Sandy LaMantia, Shureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s president and CEO. â&#x20AC;&#x153;His experience with global manufacturing operations, mergers and acquisitions and strategic planning will be especially important in helping the company to continue our long history of growth and profitability.â&#x20AC;?

Before joining Shure, Ahlborn served as vice president of finance and CFO at the Tuthill Corporation. Prior to that, he worked at Deloitte & Touche, where he held various positions in both finance and auditing. > shure.com www.audioprointernational.com

APPLICATIONS <

Revamped 02 Academy sports twin Vi6s AMG once again plumps for Soundcraft’s digital flagship in £5m development

TWO SOUNDCRAFT Vi6s have been specified by Academy Music Group to take care of mixing duties at the new £5m O2 Academy Birmingham, which opens this month with a sell-out performance

by Editors.

The Vi6s have the capacity to service FOH and monitor requirements as necessary on the 3,000-capacity main stage, 600capacity O2 Academy Two and a third live room which holds 250 people.

Adlib Audio was once again appointed by AMG for this latest development, having installed multiples of Soundcraft’s premier digital desks in the firm’s most recent venue renovations: O2 Academy Leeds and O2 Academy Sheffield.

The brace of Vi6s in Birmingham will move easily and quickly around the expansive 45,000 square-foot venue, as part of the standard flight-cased touring package.

Commenting on the purchase, AMG’s group technical manager, Ed Jackson (pictured inset, above), said: “The new version 3.0 software upgrade has taken the desk to a new level and this is largely the reason we are specifying these at our new venue. www.audioprointernational.com

The new snapshot saving function is very important and there are other exceptional features.”

Jackson also noted that the channel extensions offered in the new software were a further bonus, giving the Vi6 96-input capacity potential.

Other new features in version 3.0 include finer adjustment of input and output delay trims, enhanced metering on the master bay which includes gain reduction, import and export of channel labels from and to spreadsheet files using USB, ganging of graphic eqs on output busses and selective loading of show configurations.

“Everyone is talking about how good the sound is and a lot of engineers are now touring with it,” continued Jackson. “It makes life easier because it’s one less piece of kit [touring productions] have to bring in.”

The first of regular, monthly, free dedicated Vi training days will be hosted by Sound Technology at Soundcraft’s Potters Bar HQ on 17th June. All professional sound engineers and designers are welcome to go along to the training days.

100’S OF NEW PRODUCTS OVER 300 EXHIBITORS PLASA BAR - OPEN TILL 8PM NEW DEALER LOUNGE NEW INTERNATIONAL PAVILIONS INNOVATION GALLERY INTENSIVE TRAINING SESSIONS SPECIAL INTEREST SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS PLASA09 AWARDS FOR INNOVATION WEST END 15 MINUTES HEATHROW AIRPORT 20 MINUTES UNDERGROUND AND OVERGROUND RAIL ACCESS 250 HOTELS, 983 RESTAURANTS, PUBS AND BARS WITHIN EASY ACCESS

> soundcraft.co.uk

audioPRO

September 2009 49

> PRODUCT

NEW GEAR >> Recent releases in audio technology 1

2

3

4

Beyerdynamic Opus 600 wireless mic system

JBL ScreenArray cinema speakers

M-Audio Studiophile CX active monitors

Avid Massive Pack 8

THEY SAY: Opus 600 is the latest in a long line of innovative wireless microphone systems from Beyerdynamic, which began with the invention of the early wireless systems Transistophone in 1962.

SPECIFICATIONS: Beyerdynamic’s new Opus 600 offers a comprehensive feature set for its price point. Key features include interchangeable capsules, more than 20 hours’ battery life, true diversity reception, up to 16 compatible channels and switching power-supply. The system is available in five pre-configured sets, Lavaliere, Neckworn, Dynamic vocal, Dynamic vocal & speech and Condenser vocal & speech versions.

THEY SAY: The new ScreenArray loudspeakers feature new highfrequency drivers and improved, patented crossover design.

SPECIFICATIONS: Large-format threeinch neodymium, titanium diaphragm, HF compression driver for ultra high performance. HF driver is coupled with the new patented HF horn with Screen Spreading Compensation to correct HF dispersion through perforated screens.

LF sections with the patented Differential Drive, Direct Cooled, 15inch woofers. All with optimised aperture waveguides for low distortion and uniform frequency response.

Patented, crossover design.

ScreenArray speakers consist of 4732, 3732 and 3731 three-way systems (triamplified or biamplified versions) and the 4722 and 3722 2-way speakers (biamplified or passive systems).

THEY SAY: Best-in-class monitors provide an expansive soundstage as well as customisable controls for greater flexibility in any environment.

SPECIFICATIONS: Available in eightinch (CX8) and five-inch (CX5) configurations. Both with custom waveguide.

CX8 with 120W of dispersed power, a 1.25-inch, silk-domed, HF driver, eightinch, Kevlar, LF driver and internally braced cabinet.

The CX5 with five-inch, Kevlar,LF driver, 1.25-inch, silk-domed, HF driver, 90-Watts dispersed power.

Biamplified design, 80 Watts for lows, 40 Watts for highs for CX8 (50W & 40W for CX5). Acoustic Space settings of both monitors include -4dB, -2dB and flat, monitor with LF Cutoff, MF boost and HF trim switches for additional customisation.

> polaraudio.co.uk

> jbl.com

THEY SAY: Massive Pack 8 features a set of plugins used by leading studios and professionals to create mixes for albums, TV and film.

SPECIFICATIONS: Massive Pack 8 was designed exclusively for Pro Tools|HD and features 11 plugins from Pro Tools’ top development partners, plus a choice of 12 more Digidesign plugins.

Massive Pack 8 Pro offers a PCIe HD Accel card and the same set of plugins.

The plugin pack is comprised of an Abbey Road/Chandler TG Mastering pack, Brainworx bx, Brainworx bx hybrid, McDSP FutzBox, Softube FET compressor, Sonnox inflator, SPL EQ Rangers Vol. 1, SPL Transient Designer, TC Electronic VSS3 stereo source reverb and URS N4 Series

> avid.com

> m-audio.com

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Neumann digital mic interface

Crown DSi 6000 amplifier

Electro-Voice N80001500 speaker controller

Apogee One USB interface

THEY SAY: A clear cost advantage to the DMI-8 since no additional converters or preamps are required.

SPECIFICATIONS: The Neumann DMI-8 is an eight-channel digital microphone interface, which provides AES 42 to EBU conversion, synchronisation of the mics without a sample rate converter, automatic word clock or AES 11 synchronisation, sample rates from 44.1kHz to 192kHz and control and storage of settings via Mac or PC. Cascading up to 128 channels, level meter and gain setting on front panel, D-sub 25 outputs with Tascam and Yamaha pin assignments, Optical ADAT interface, open architecture for later connection to other multi-channel interfaces and audio networks.

Compatible with mics from any manufacturer that complies with the jointly established AES 42 standard.

THEY SAY: The DSi 6000 is designed to provide further support for the JBL line of cinema loudspeakers.

SPECIFICATIONS: The newest addition to the DSi series. Features automatic presets for JBL cinema speaker systems and user-friendly front LCD panel for speaker signal processing presets and other system parameters. All DSi amps can be configured through the Harman HiQnet System Architect platform.

DSi 6000 cinema amp provides 2,100 Watts at four Ohms and was designed to be lightweight and efficient at just 24 pounds. Onboard digital signal processing includes crossovers, eq filters, delay, and output limiting. Rearpanel HD-15 connector provides easy input/ output connectivity between DSi amplifiers and new DSi-8M monitor.

THEY SAY: The most powerful speaker controller currently on the market SPECIFICATIONS: New DSP-2 engine composed of three dual-core processors, capable of processing over 1,500 MIPS. EV Netmax and FIR-Drive (Finite Impulse Response Filters), drive devices controlled via IRIS-Net and a PCbased line-array controller GUI. Audio converters deliver a dynamic range of 114dB from analog input to analog output, including all signal processing, autocompiling DSP engine provides fixed latency of 2.19ms from analog input to analog outputs.

N8000-1500 provides 24-bit linear ADA conversion, 48 bit processing and runs on Ethernet-10/100 MBit/s, RJ-45 network interface. Its power consumption is 90W max with a signalto-noise ratio (A–weighted) of < 115 dB at a weight of 7.37 kg (16.25 lbs).

THEY SAY: Features an internal reference condenser microphone, ideal for capturing inspired musical moments.

SPECIFICATIONS: Pocket-sized, portable USB music interface and microphone for Mac computers. Single input, stereo output USB music interface designed to work with Apple’s iTunes, GarageBand, Logic, Final Cut or any Core Audio compliant application on a Mac. It also features an internal reference condenser microphone and mic preamp, instrument input for guitar, bass and keyboards, studio-quality stereo output for headphones or powered monitors.

Single channel input using one of the following three options: internal condenser microphone, balanced XLR microphone preamp input with +10 to 63dB of gain, unbalanced 1/4” high impedance instrument input with 0 to 45dB of gain.

> neumann.com 50

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> crownaudio.com

> electrovoice.com

> apogeedigital.com/one www.audioprointernational.com

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MARKETPLACE < FLIGHTCASES

SUPPLIER SPOTLIGHT

EMINENCE IN 1966, Bob Gault founded what was to become the world's largest loudspeaker manufacturing company after working as an engineer for Magnavox and CTS (Chicago Telephone Supply). Under the leadership of Gault and most recently his son Rob, Eminence's capacity has grown to over 10,000 speakers per day, employing nearly 200 people.

The first Eminence facility was less than 6,000 sq. ft., and production was less in one week than it is in one hour at the Kentucky facility. In 1972 Eminence moved across town to Mulberry Pike where the company headquarters remains today. The facility has since grown to occupy nearly 100,000 sq. ft.

In 2004 Eminence expanded its worldwide operations with the Eminence Dongguan Enterprise Ltd. The 200,000 sq. ft. Dongguan, China facility was part of the international Eminence effort to provide loudspeaker manufacturing in areas strategically located near manufacturers of musical instrument and professional audio products. The manufacturing processes and equipment there mirror those proven at Eminence USA. Sales and engineering functions are administrated from the Eminence USA facility to provide the same level of personal

DISTRIBUTION

42”/50" plasma case

attention Eminence has become known for over the last 40-years.

In 2009 Eminence further expanded its Dongguan operations by opening the Eminence Cabinet Shop. As one of the world’s number one custom loudspeaker manufacturer, Eminence has spent the last four decades collaborating with designers and premier brands in developing one of the music industry’s most well respected product lines.

Eminence engineers understand its complete product development process is combined to represent a wealth of knowledge in sound reproduction and guitar tone, with name brand subcontracting the design and manufacturing of its products.

Many OEM and ODM suppliers cause problems with communication, intellectual property, quality, delivery, and after sales sevice. Eminence meets these concerns head on through the Eminence Cabinet Shop. It takes ideas and concepts through the design and documentation process, production, certification, and on to market. > eminence.com

These cases are always available ex stock.

We foam them to suit with partitions for speakers etc.

From £279.00 inc VAT and UK Mainland delivery •Full touring spec Choice of finishes: 9mm Black Laminate/hexaboard •9mm Black Laminate •Heavy Duty Butterfly catches •6 x Recess Sprung handle •High density foam padded interior •4" Rubber Castors `(2 braked)

Unit 2 Meltex House, Mariner, Lichfield Road Industrial Estate, Tamworth, Staffs, B79 7XE Tel: 01827 60009 Fax: 01827 313877 Email: sales@flightcasewarehouse.co.uk Web: www.flightcasewarehouse.co.uk

LOUDSPEAKER

Your Box

Ready to Snatch 01525 850085

www.leisuretec.co.uk

Sound • Lighting • Special Effects - Established 1990 - Distribution Power Squared

>

MARKETPLACE MANUFACTURER

MANUFACTURER

On the largest stages

All-in-One Headset or Beltpac Options

NEW

Complete Sound System Solutions

by Electro-Voice

WS200 Wireless Speaker Station

Kenny Chesney on tour with EV System Design by Phillip Scobee, Morris Leasing

+1-858-535-6060 www.HMEDX.com MANUFACTURER

MANUFACTURER

“One great sounding amplifier”

actual size: 141x110x35mm

Introducing the Highlights Flat, fully load-independent response Very low output impedance Low, frequency-independent THD Very low noise Industry best EMC Conservative thermal design

now g shippin

Performance meets power! The famed UcDTM sound quality is now available at over 2kW. If you must know more precisely: the UcD2kTM module delivers up to 120Vrms and up to 35Arms to the load, depending on the capabilities of the power supply. Conservative thermal design insures all parts remain well within their ratings even with the most unfavourable programme. Contact Hypex or have a look at www.hypex.nl for more information.

Kattegat 8 | 9723 JP Groningen The Netherlands | +31 50 52 64 993 sales@hypex.nl

MARKETPLACE < PR

PR

STUDIO

STUDIO

“ It’s great to know that your mastering job is in a really safe pair of hands.”

When you hand your precious music project over to Wes at the GHQ Sonic Cuisine you can relax, knowing you have chosen an experienced and passionate sound engineer who will care about getting it right for you.

With a tried and tested combination of classic production values and contemporary technology, Wes will deliver a finished master you can be proud of. You won’t have to pay double the price to attend the session either, nor will you be charged exorbitant prices for reference copies.

If you can’t attend the session, everything can be done on-line via Wes’s website. If you do attend, you can expect a warm welcome, excellent coffee and lashings of Belgian chocolate - well, he is Belgian after all.

Which means he speaks Dutch, German, French and English fluently.

Book your first mastering session quoting SAFEHANDS09 and get a 10% discount on the total cost of your job.

E-mail your name and address to info@wesonator.co.uk and enter Wes’s monthly draw to win a box of the best chocolates in Belgium!

Wes Maebe

2 studios powered by Pro tools Large live room with three iso booths Logic Pro Digital Performer All styles welcome Residential accommodation available In-house orchestral composition Scores/Film / TV music composition Access to several Philharmonic orchestras for live purposes Mastering / re-mastering 3 Preproduction / rehearsal rooms Fully Licensed Bar with games facilities

The GHQ Sonic Cuisine, West London Freelance recording, mixing, mastering and live engineer.

T: 020 8749 5654 M: 07875 401114 E: wes@wesonator.co.uk

www.wesonator.co.uk Photo by Stefan Lubo. www.stefanlubo.com

Recent clients include: BBC | Warner Bros | EMI | Euro Sport | PGA Graphic Nature Ltd 18 Mimram Road Hertford Hertfordshire SG14 1NN

Tel: +44 (0) 1992 558800 Fax: +44 (0) 1992 584823 Skype ID: graphicnature www.graphicnature.co.uk Info@graphicnature.co.uk

The Audio Pro paparazzi is infiltrating all audio events, snapping away for our monthly Mixdown, which features friendly faces of people in the business and shots from industry events. If you have any pictures from an event that you would like us to include, please send them to andrew.low@intentmedia.co.uk.

The last word in Audio Pro PIC OF THE MONTH

IN HOUSE MUSIC

Intent Media’s group advertising manager Lesley Blumson is best known for reminding Audio Pro’s Darrell Carter of his targets. But, as you can see here, she started her engineering career early at the tender age of 12. Her father, John McDiarmid, was hired by Euphonix to open its first UK office and Blumson was eager to twiddle the knobs in their demo room. McDiarmid is an experienced audio engineer who has also held positions at Neve and Focusrite.

PULP FICTION

Here we see Adam Hall’s general manager, Andrew Richardson, in full-on superhero mode, taking part in the Christian Aid London to Paris bike ride.

The gruelling, four-day marathon, which had cyclists covering an average of 75 miles per day from July 22nd to 26th, is a big fund-raiser for the Christian charity, earning the organisation upwards of £230,000. Richardson added a good £2,000 to the amount. Those interested in this or other Chirstian Aid charity events should visit christianaid.org.uk.

Richard Hawley, best known as the guitarist for Britpop band Pulp, fills up while recording vocals for his new solo album, Truelove's Gutter.

Hawley is using Telefunken’s Elektroakustick U47 valve microphone to capture his folorn vocals. We regret calling Pulp a Britpop band because, as frontman Jarvis cocker once said: “Pop is a fizzy drink, rock is monumental.”

E HOW IT’S DON Built to Spill’s critically acclaimed album Keep it Like a Secret is a dense and melodic album featuring lead guitarist Doug Martsch’s massive guitar sounds and Neil Young-esque vocal sytlings.

Producer Phil Eck recorded the album ar Bear Creek studios in Woodinville, Washington with overdubs done at Avast! Recording in Seattle, Washington (see Desert Island Desks, page 58).

Recorded on Bear Creek’s Trident TSM console to two-inch tape, Keep it like a Secret also benefitted from the classic collection of outboard gear at Bear Creek and Avast’s API console.

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POSERS

LATITUDE

SATURDAY NIGHT’S ALRIGHT

The ladies of The Saturdays strike a pose with Sennheiser microphones. The UK pop stars chose the company’s microphones and monitors for their summer tour dates.

The concerts, which included slots supporting Take That in addition to their own The Work Tour, featured all five members of the band singing into SKM 935 mics with ew 300 IEM G2s providing the in-ear audio.

This family’s father gets a stern warning from mum as he bemoans his tuna sandwich at the Latitude festival. Held in Henham Park in Southwold, UK, even headliners The Pet Shop Boys, Grace Jones and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds could not appease her. To the beer tent...

AUDIO FISH OF THE MONTH AUDIO ARCHETYPES Digico and Soundtracs’ technical director, John Stadius, takes this month’s title for Audio Fish of the Month with this 20 pound pike that he pulled out of the freshwaters of Cobham, Surrey, UK. Send pictures of your big catch to andrew.low@intentmedia.co.uk

LOFTY SOUND: Nexo’s Irish distributor, Rea Sound, recently supplied North Ireland’s Loft Sound with a 24 box Geo S12 system. A young company, Loft has expanded from its place in the corporate market to become a forerunner in the north of Ireland for concert and festival gigs. Loft Sounds has enjoyed a long and relationship with Rea Sound and its in-house back-up service. www.audioprointernational.com

Fairchild 660 & 670 Ordinarily, we wouldn’t pull out the second Audio Archetypes ‘big gun’ just one month after the Pultec equaliser, but with the sad passing of the eminent Les Paul it seemed only right that we pay homage to his pro audio legacy – the greatest compressor of all time: the Fairchild 660/670.

Paul himself didn’t design the device, but he set the ball rolling by commissioning Estonian-born Rein Narma to build him a limiter. A refugee from Soviet Russia, living in New York and working as an engineer at Gotham Recording, Narma had cut his teeth as a broadcast/recording tech for the US Army during the Nuremberg trials.

He had initially impressed Paul by modifying his first eight-track.

Narma’s design was so remarkable that word soon reached serial entrepreneur and owner of 30 patents Sherman Fairchild. Fairchild licensed the design from Narma but retained him as chief designer at his new firm, Fairchild Recording Equipment Corp. Its two products, the stereo 670 and mono 660, graced almost every pro recording of the 60s.

Until recently, the 670s changed hands for up to US$30,000, but their average price has now slipped a little due to Analgue Tube’s brilliant recreation (nominated for an Audio Pro Award, see page 18). I can’t help but imagine that somewhere amid one of the worlds most prized collections of musical equipment, left behind by the venerable Les Paul, sits the first model ever made. Lord only knows what that one’s worth…

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GLAD AT GLADE???

THE’RE BEHIND ME AREN’T THEY? Karen Partridge is less than impressed as she is attacked by over zealous crab people at this year’s Glade Festival.

Glade was moved to Matterly Bowl in Hampshire, UK from Wasing Estate due to the strict noise regulations enforced by the Berkshire council.

Partridge has only one thing to say about the festival: “This would never have happened at The Big Chill.”

AVAST! RECORDING’S STUART HALLERMAN ON THE TRIDENT A-RANGE AND API LEGACY

Bastille Day: July 14th is the most important national holiday in France. For over 200 years people have celebrated the storming of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution. Part of the celebration includes a military parade on the Champs-Elysées with brass marching bands from the French military. More than 100,000 spectators joined this year’s festivities.

The French integrator BS Technology used a Riedel RockNet digital audio network at the Bastille Day celebration in Paris. Apex delivered the RockNet equipment for the event.

Avast! Recording fields two lovely large-frame analog audio desks. Since I’ve been assigned to desert island music recording duty, I’m choosing whether to bring Avast’s classic Trident A-Range console or our ’90s era API Legacy desk. I’ve elected to take the API Legacy along to this beachfront. The sliders on the Trident would be too exposed to sand!

The API fulfils many requirements of a studio mixer – it sounds great, with an all-discrete audio path. Its controls seem minimalist and are labelled in clear nomenclature, so it’s easy to teach a guest engineer how to operate it, yet it is capable of inventive routing and patching and has many more inputs and auxes than would appear. The uptown/API automation on it is also easy to learn and use. In half a song, any engineer knows his way around the desk and its automation.

So, in addition to sounding fantastic and being easy to operate, another function of a console for a studio operation is to attract producers and bands. The API has been wonderful for doing that here at Avast! Studios and I hope to see your projects on my tropical desert island soon. > avastrecording.com

To discuss advertising contact Darrell Carter on 01992 535647 darrell.carter@intentmedia.co.uk For editorial enquiries email Andrew Low andrew.low@intentmedia.co.uk or call 01992 535646 Audio Pro International is published 11 times a year by Intent Media ~ Saxon House, 6A St. Andrew Street, Hertford SG14 1JA, England

Intent Media is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation and the Periodical Publishers Association

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© Intent Media 2009. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright owners. Printed by Manson Group, AL3 6PZ

ISSN: 1755-4918

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