Audio Pro March 2010 - Issue 27

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Issue 27 • March 2010

LIVE • COMMERCIAL • RECORDING • BROADCAST

www.audioprointernational.com

10,000 STRONG dB Technologies passes a sales milestone and explains how production, price and flexibility make for a winning combination

PL+S PREVIEW • POWER AMPS • RYAN GREENE • LAKE OF STARS FESTIVAL

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ISSUE 27 March 2010

CONTENTS > IN THIS ISSSUE NEWS DEEB LEAVES BEHRINGER • 4 Right hand man steps down

ABBEY ROAD GETS LISTED • 4 The Beatles’ studio is saved

TCGI • 5 TC Group restructures

MINISTRY OF SOUND • 6 London club in jeapardy

EVENTS ISE REVIEW • 11 A full report from RAI

PLASA FOCUS • 14 The North of England’s own event

PL+S • 16 What to expect in Frankfurt this year

LIVE SOUND/INSTALLATION POWER AMPS • 21 The most innovative amps on the market

COVER FEATURE DB TECHNOLOGIES • 28 An insight into the sucess of the Loudspeaker manfacturer

MEYER SOUND CAL • 30 A feature on Meyer’s latest technologies

STUDIO/BROADCAST RYAN GREENE • 32 An exclusive interview with Area 52’s prolific engineer

GREG HAVER • 34 Tetbury’s most renowned producer gives his opinon on modern gear and recording

BUCKS NEW UNI • 36 Proper training for future engineers

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> Regulars: In Session 40 People 42 Products 44 Marketplace 46 Mixdown 49 Behind the Board 50

EDITORIAL

A

bbey Road in jeopardy, Ministry of Sound in trouble, BBC 6 Radio closing down – what is going on in the UK? I was even told that a friend’s recent birthday party at a local hall was given a maximum decibel level. Does the Queen hate music? The blatant disregard for the cultural significance of live and recorded music is a true representation of the iPod generation of music listeners, who accept silent discos over communal music experiences and favour bedroom recordings over high-end studio albums. The CEO of Oakmayne, the property developer which applied for a permit across the street from Ministry of Sound that may deprive the club of its licence, summed up the idea by stating that ‘nightclubs come and go’. This is a prime example of the indifferent attitude people have towards the quality of music. Without high-spec clubs and properly made recordings, listeners are deprived of the depth these experiences can offer. But the mainstream doesn’t care. They buy the music and pay the cover charge, so I should just shut up. Well, I have been lucky enough to attend a recording session at Abbey Road and enjoyed a night of Pete Tong DJing at MoS. Both experiences were unique and incomparable. I felt the energy of both places and will never forget either. I suppose the only thing the average person can do is add our names to the Facebook petitions, which arguably won’t do much, if anything at all. All we can really do is believe in the cause and support those who are continuing their pursuit to provide rich audio to the masses. Speaking of such people, check out the interview with Greg Haver (pages 34-35). Haver has been making high-quality recordings for years with the likes of The Manic Street Preachers and Super Furry Animals. The vLOS event (pages 1819) is another example of a high standard of audio kit shipped half way around the world for a festival in Malawi, Africa.

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

mobile.audioprointernational.com Contacts for Audio Pro International Editorial: +44 (0)1992 535646 Ads: +44 (0)1992 535647 Fax: +44 (0) 1992 535648 Editor: Andrew Low andrew.low@intentmedia.co.uk Deputy Editor: Rob Hughes rob.hughes@intentmedia.co.uk Advertising Manager: Darrell Carter darrell.carter@intentmedia.co.uk Editorial Production: Helen French helen.french@intentmedia.co.uk Ad Production: Rosie McKeown rosie.mckeown@intentmedia.co.uk

Subscriptions Manager: Hannah Short hannah.short@intentmedia.co.uk Designer: Claire Brocklesby claire.brocklesby@intentmedia.co.uk Managing Editor: Andy Barrett mipro@intentmedia.co.uk Publisher: Dave Roberts dave.roberts@intentmedia.co.uk

> NEWS

Deeb parts company with Music Group Right hand man walks as company starts installation group, with speaker brand purchase some way off

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he Music Group has announced the departure of Michael Deeb from the roles of group CEO and director. Uli Behringer and Arie van den Broek will lead the group on an interim basis as it searches for a permanent CEO replacement. Arie van den Broek has previously served Behringer as CEO for several years. The Music Group founder and chairman Uli Behringer commented: “Changes are always challenging but also present great opportunities. We have just celebrated our 20th anniversary and as we enter our third decade, we are once again reinventing our company.” The privately held Music Group recently acquired renowned pro audio brands Midas and Klark Teknik and embarked on a major repositioning of its highly successful Behringer brand of ‘prosumer’ gear, upon which the group is founded. “Despite the change internally,” Uli Behringer continued, “this will not impact the high level of service our dealers and customers have grown to

to be what it isn’t,” he said. “Midas is very high end and will continue to be, so next for us is to find a line of loudspeakers. We’re looking now – that’s what we want next.” At the recent Behringer Partner Event in Zhngshang, however, the word was that it would be some time before such a purchase would happen. In related news, Behringer has also signalled its intention to establish a ‘centre of excellence’ for R&D in the UK, possibly in Kidderminster, the home of Midas Consoles, where it will employ British engineers. “This is part of our investment in Midas,” said Behringer. “This will give them the chance to develop.” Behringer also announced the launch of a new range of installed sound products, namely “mics to speakers and everything in between,” as well as the creation of new department named the Behringer Install Group (BIG). The idea behind this venture is to create an industry specific group that deals solely with the install market

expect. I am confident that we have the very best team in the industry and the possibilities are truly unlimited.” Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with Audio Pro International,

“

Midas is very high end and will continue to be, so next for us is to find a line of loudspeakers. We’re looking now – that’s what we want next. Uli Behringer

Behringer disclosed the company’s intention to acquire a high-end professional loudspeaker brand under The Music Group. “Behringer is a market leader in the low end and there’s no point pushing

Government grants Abbey Road Grade II listed status Public fury leads to fast-tracked application

> behringer.com

Mix publisher files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Penton undergoes ‘strategic’ restructuing agreement

ABBEY ROAD has been granted Grade II listed status in the latest of a series of events surrounding the iconic London studio. Prior to this it was reported that EMI had offered Abbey Road for sale – which the group then refuted – but following public outcry over the supposed sale, the Government fast tracked the building’s application for listed status. A statement made by the Government explained that the studio’s listed status was granted

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“overwhelmingly on the historic merit of the studios,” thus securing the future of the building as a recording studio. The building’s listed status allows changes to be made to the interior, however Grade II listing means “care must be taken to ensure that any alterations with respect to its character and interest are fully considered”. Any attempt to turn the building into residential spaces would be rejected, but it would still be permissible as a museum.

PENTON MEDIA, US publishers of leading audio titles Mix and Electronic Musican as well as Live Design and Sound & Video Contractor, has filed for a ‘strategic’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Penton also filed with the Court a ‘pre-packaged’ plan of reorganisation, which incorporates the terms of a previously announced restructuring agreement between Penton and its lenders. Penton, which also organises the LDI show, is a a major US trade publisher in areas as diverse as aviation and agriculture with 113 magazines, 96 trade shows and over 140 websites. It claims to have reached an agreement with its lenders on the terms of a restructuring through a prepackaged Chapter 11 plan of reorganisation. If approved, the plan is expected to eliminate $270 million of the company’s debt.

“This capital restructuring is a positive, strategic step for Penton that is in the best interests of the company and our employees, customers, and suppliers,” said Sharon Rowlands, CEO of Penton. “This restructuring will allow us to achieve a debt level that is more sustainable in the current economic environment. With a strengthened capital structure, we will be better positioned to fully leverage our operations, which have been and continue to be profitable. We have many opportunities to grow our business and increase our profitability which we are excited to execute on.” Penton has also said that there will not be any layoffs made, nor will there be any changes in management, title closures or any other changes to the current operations planned. Penton has also stated that it expects to emerge from Chapter 11 within 30 to 45 days. www.audioprointernational.com

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Lake of Stars festival

Power amps

Greg Haver

NEWS <

DiGiCo partners with Waves for live sound Technology agreement singed in Anaheim for integration of SoundGrid into FPGA Stealth processing UK digital console manufacturer DiGiCo and hardware and software developer Waves Audio announced a strategic partnership at the 2010 NAMM show. The joint announcement was made in Anaheim, California, by Mick Olesh, Waves executive vice president, sales and marketing, DiGiCo managing director James Gordon and DiGiCo marketing director David Webster. The release stated that Waves and DiGiCo have agreed to work together to integrate Waves new SoundGrid technology into DiGiCo’s single FPGA Stealth Digital Processing products for the live sound industry. Further details about this strategic alliance are to be unveiled during 2010. Commenting on the agreement, Olesh stated: “DiGiCo has always been at the forefront of digital mixing technology. Its consoles have been acknowledged as industry leaders, and everyone at Waves is extremely excited to be able to work

DiGiCo’s John Gordon and Dave Webster flank Waves’ Mick Olesh

with its R&D team. We look forward to a very close and sucessful working relationship.” “The arrival of Waves SoundGrid is a big step in the plugin world. Its impressive lack of latency and access to existing plugins made it the only

Korg UK launches pro audio divison Former Shure UK sales manager to take the reins KORG UK has announced the setting up of a pro audio division. Former Shure UK sales manager, Mike Gibson (pictured) has been apppointed to head up the division. Korg MD Rob Castle commented: “We are into our second year of distribution of Samson and expansion of this business together with the expansion of Korg recorders and other forthcoming products now justifies the specialist focus of a Pro Audio division. “We are very pleased to welcome Mike to the Korg UK team and we know with his background he will help us continue to grow this area of our business.” Korg UK has also announced its appointment as the UK and Ireland distribution partner for Behringer from May 1st. The news follows a pattern seen over the past few months for Behringer of the audio giant appointing third party distributors throughout Europe. “This is an opportunity to expand our business, improve our systems and service to our customers, while increasing our product offering and strengthening the company for the www.audioprointernational.com

future,” commented Castle. “Behringer has recently appointed selective distributor partners across Europe and we have studied how this has worked successfully in other countries, including France, where Korg and Vox distributor Algam took on Behringer earlier in 2009.” Behringer’s VP of European sales, Michael Jago, added: “We have been impressed with Korg UK and look forward to working together. Clive Burns will be retained by us to ensure continuity and to provide support.”

choice for DiGiCo,” added Gordon. “When you think of plugins, you think of Waves. In the future, we hope that DiGiCo control will be the next name that comes to mind. Waves is a leading provider of audio DSP solutions for

professional, broadcast, and consumer electronics audio markets. The company has over 15 years of expertise in the development of psycho-acoustic signal processing algorithms that leverage knowledge on the human perception of hearing to radically improve perceived sound quality. Its award-winning processors are utilised to improve sound quality in the creation of hit records, major motion pictures, and popular video games worldwide. The firm also offers computer software solutions, as well as hardware plus software solutions for the professional sector through to the broadcast markets. Under its Maxx brand, it offers semiconductor and licensable algorithms for consumer electronics applications. The Maxx technologies are said to dramatically enhance audio performance and are used by industry leaders such as Sony, Sanyo, JVC, Toshiba, and many others. > waves.com > digico.org

TC Group establishes TCGI Tannoy and Lab.gruppen owner adds ‘International’ post-fix and restructures sales THE TC Group has created TC Group International (TCGI), following a restructuring of sales activity that will see account management centralised and handled at group level out of the offices in Aarhus, Denmark and Coatbridge, Scotland. The new sales and support structure will be based on vertical markets across all TCGI-owned brands, namely Tannoy, TC Electronic, TC Helicon, Lab.gruppen and Lake, as well as the distributed brands Dynaudio Acoustics and Blue Microphones. All sales force and sales support activity will be organised by market segment, of which there are five in total: installed sound, touring, residential, MI and HD (high definition – covering broadcast, recording and post production).

The business model has already been adopted with great success in North America, following the creation of TC Group Americas in 2009. Elsewhere, the new structure came into effect on February 1st, with current VP of sales and marketing Peter Bager becoming CEO of the new organisation. According to TC Group’s CEO Anders Fauerskov, the resulting benefit of implementing this strategy in America has been the inspiration for change for the rest of the world. “Clearly, our main aim in initiating such a change is to increase sales and profitability through an increase in service level to our customers, and we wouldn’t have done it without clear and irrefutable proof that the strategy works,” he commented. > tcelectonics.com

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> NEWS

Fate of Ministry of Sound uncertain Online petition started to save popular London club’s entertainment license THE FUTURE of London’s Ministry of Sound club has been put in doubt following a planning application by property developer Oakmayne. The company has submitted plans for a residential building on the site of the old Eileen House, which, if built, would sit opposite the Ministry of Sound building and could pose a significant threat to the club’s entertainment licence.

Oakmayne’s attitude towards preserving the longevity of MoS can be summed up by a comment from its chairman, Christopher Allen, who gave his opinion that “nightclubs come and go”. In response, MoS has started an online protest against the permit. The company has stated that it attracts 300,000 annually, bringing trade to Elephant & Castle and the surrounding area.

MPG Award winners announced SIB 2010 cancelled

Paul Epworth takes home BRIT Award for Best Producer

Italian show will resume next year

MPG Award Winners: Producer of the Year: Paul Epworth Recording Engineer of the Year: Mick Glossop Best Mix Engineer: Cenzo Townshend Best Mastering Engineer: Tony Cousins Best Live Album: Mick Glossip for Van Morrison Astral Weeks – Live at the Hollywood Bowl UK Album of the Year: Dizzee Rascal – Toungue N’Cheek UK Single of the Year: Muse – Uprising Best Re-mixer: Simian Mobile Disco Photo credit: Tom Bunning

The Joe Meek Award: Les Paul A STAR studded cast of celebrities and the UK’s recording elite descended on London’s Café de Paris this month for the second annual MPG Awards. Florence Welch (pictured above with Paul Epworth), Dizzee Rascal, Muse, Jaime T, Franz Ferdinand front man Alex Kapranos and Fergal Sharkey were all on hand to present awards and support their respective producers and engineers. BBC 6’s Nemone Metaxas returned for a second year 6

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to present the awards. Big winners of the evening were Paul Epworth who won The Brit Awards Producer of the Year, Kore Studios for Best Studio and Dizzee Rascal for UK Album of the Year. Mick Glossip took home two awards for Recording Engineer of the Year and Best Live Album. The awards are held annually to celebrate the talent of the UK’s music producers, engineers, mixers and re-mixers.

Best Breakthrough Producer: Paul Savage Outstanding Contribution to UK Music: Chris Blackwell Unsung Hero: Chris Jenkins, SSL Best Breakthrough Engineer: Mark Rankin Best Studio: Kore Studio Best International Producer of the Year: Rick Rubin

SIB INTERNATIONAL, the show business, installation and broadcast exhibition, traditionally held each April at the Rimini Fiera, Italy, has been cancelled for 2010. According to the organisers, the show will once again take place in 2011, although the exact dates of the show have not yet been revealed. A company statement read: “Considering the current lengthy phase of worldwide economic depression, as well as the evolution of the professional entertainment sector and audio-video, lighting and system integration technologies, the organisers of SIB International have decided to postpone the expo to a 2011 date and, at the same time, verify possible roads to development and directions shared by all members and players of the domestic market in question.”

The organisers noted that, in line with the market, SIB underwent a profound evolution ten years ago (from a small trade fair for night entertainment venues, to a large showcase of lighting and audio technology for numerous industries) and is currently preparing for a further transformation. Future targets are said to be the fashion world, large-scale projects and trade with new foreign markets. General manager Piero Venturelli concluded: “Rimini Fiera has stressed several times that it intends facing the very critical international economic situation by investing in innovation: both by actually implementing client companies’ requirements and by monitoring and following through in a very proactive manner on new directions for its exhibitions. www.audioprointernational.com

Live depends on it

Doug Hall, FOH Iron Maiden

Shan Hira, FOH Lily Allen

Will Doyle, Monitors Arctic Monkeys

Gert Sanner, FOH Deep Purple

Bryony October, FOH Noisettes

Randy Meullier, FOH Alice Cooper

Dave Lawler, FOH Diana Krall

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> THIS MONTH IN BROADCAST

Wrapped around the track The Indanapolis 500 race souped up its audio coverage and provide a 5.1 surround sound broadcast for the first year WITHOUT THE vociferous sounds of the car engines, the roar of the crowds, and animated commentators, the Indianapolis 500 race would be nothing more than a bunch of cars driving around in circles to viewers watching at home. As such, ABC Sports made a concerted effort to keep the broadcasted audio as high quality as possible by consolidating track coverage into its own HD mobile units, instead of using a world feed, as used in previous years. This also allowed the broadcast to be transmitted in 5.1 surround sound for the first time, which was processed by DTS Neural Surround encoding that reformats and transmits the 5.1 mix in stereo. “In the past, ABC/ESPN would take the Indy 500 world feed and cut in and out as it needed to,” explained lead mixer Denis Ryan. “This year, we’ve brought in the NEP SS21 fleet. The entire race was done with our own EFX mix, which lets the audio more closely match the stories they’re following on the field and allow greater audio continuity.” The sound feed for the race was taken from the IMS feed, which included camera microphones, supplemented by ABC/ESPN’s own camera mics, robotic

microphones and fence microphones that were added to the mix. Additional audio coverage was taken from the pits, and four stereo pairs of Audio-Technica AT835 condenser microphones were aimed at the 400,000-plus spectators in the grandstand. Ryan also mixes for NASCAR races and explained that the 835 mics placed along the outside fence and facing the oncoming and passing cars are a technique used for

stock-car races. For the 500’s higher speeds (210220 vs. 170-180 mph) Sennheiser 416 and 816 shotgun mics were spaced farther apart, about double the 15-foot spacing used for NASCAR. Sony VP-88 mics were used to capture the engine’s sounds. All the IMS inputs are put into distribution amps from which ABC/ESPN

gets its own isolated feed. The iso feed is submixed with ESPN’s own mic inputs and other audio, including team and in-car RF feeds from Broadcast Sports International (BSI). The latter feeds from drivers are submixed and separately monitored for possible live insertion and recorded for edited sound bites for replays or in post. The surround mix follows the camera narratives, and quick cuts mean a generally conservative surround mix except when the shots are tight: the relative balance of channels stays the same, but the intensity varies. “We have mostly the microphones from the robotics and trackside in the surrounds, and, when the shot is high and wide, we put a little of that in there; when it moves to in-car, then we add more to the surrounds,” Ryan said. “Some of that audio is coming from the stereo feed from the car, and the DTS Neural Surround comes into play here because, if you put too much of the same elements into all of the channels, surround and stereo, you can get a comb-[filter]-like effect. The DTS encoding avoids that.”

British broadcast at its best in London This year’s Broadcast Video Expo was packed to the walls with the UK’s top broadcasting professionals THE BROADCAST Video Expo (BVE), held from February 16th to 18th at Earls Court, London, represented the strength of the UK’s broadcast industry. Unanimously declared as England’s IBC, the show hosted nearly 15,000 visitors over the three days. Pro audio was represented from leading companies like Avid, Sennheiser, HHB, Soundfield, RTS Telex, Cedar Audio and Pink Noise. Leading UK distributor HHB led the pack, as it was the equipment sponsor for the Audio Room in which seminars were presented by the likes of Genelec, Dolby and Soundfield, among others. It also established a strong presence on the show floor by exhibiting its latest broadcast audio innovations. Among these was Wholer’s new rack mountable AMP1-E16-3G A/V monitor, which monitors 16 channels of audio plus video within a 3G/HD/SD-SDI stream, with the ability to decode Dolby and measure loudness. It also featured a full audio production toolkit including the Dolby DP600 program optimiser, LM100 loudness meter and Media Meter loudness monitoring Software, along with Digidesign www.audioprointernational.com

Pro Tools and Minnetonka and Neyrinck software. HHB’s sister company, Source Distribution, exhibited the entire range of Røde shotgun and voiceover microphones, complemented by the growing series of Røde microphone accessories. It also featured a full line of Genelec active studio monitors, alongside HHB audio products and the Rosendahl family of synchronisers. RTS Telex used the show to display its wide range of wired and wireless intercommunications products. Its ADAM (Advanced Digital Audio Matrix) and fully integrated VOIP systems have become a world standard for applications as diverse as the Olympics, Broadway shows, nuclear power stations and at NASA for mission critical communications. Soundfield used BVE to debut its UPM1 stereo-to-5.1 upmix processor, designed for HD broadcasters who use archive stereo material and wish to generate 5.1 broadcast mixes from stereo soundtracks. Cedar Audio introduced its DNS series softwarebased dialogue noise suppressor, now availiable as a Pro Tools plugin. > broadcastvideoexpo.co.uk

HHB’s Martin O’Donnell flanked by Genelec monitors, which could be found in many areas throughout BVE

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ISE EVENT REVIEW < Feb 2nd - 4th RAI

FACT FILE Venue: RAI, Amsterdam Date: Feb 2nd - 4th Visitors: 28,489 Verdict: ISE continues to grow and maintain its position as Europe’s most prominent tradeshow for the AV sector. More pro audio manufacturers and visitors have been switched on to an industry that was worth over €48.4 billion a year in 2009.

28,000 people can’t be wrong ISE 2010 attracted big crowds to the Amsterdam’s RAI Centre this year. Amongst the many halls and tens of thousands of visitors were some of pro audio’s most creative technologies. Andrew Low reports… he popularity of AV systems integration has been a major force driving the innovation of the technologies in pro audio. Long gone are the days of installing a few speakers in a hotel lobby or conference centre. Today’s installation specs call for the integration of video, lighting and audio tied in with security and energy saving functions. It has become such a complex art that a traditional rock n roll engineer will fail to fathom how to interconnect the audio systems effectively with the other pieces of the complex puzzle. ISE addresses all these issues by offering instructional courses on the latest topics in system integration in conjunction with hundreds of products shown by exhibitors.

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www.audioprointernational.com

The 2010 show beat all previous attendance records and attracted 28,489 attendees, a 14.4 per cent increase from last year’s figures. Mike Blackman, managing director, Integrated Systems Events commented: “To have posted a substantial increase in attendance is a reflection of the long-term strength of our industry, and a vindication of our marketing programme, which was more extensive than ever this year. “Just as enterprises, public facilities and house builders all over the world realise that they need to harness the power of AV, so ISE has become the focal point for a market that continues to expand and shows no sign of reducing in potential.” The crowded show was a far cry from more rock n roll events like PLASA, which host after-show parties and

bands. However, during the day many new and European product debuts were made. Alcons Audio showed the micro LR7 line-array and introduced the CRMS system – a three-way reference system designed for AV projects, screening rooms, and high-end home theatre installations. A unique design feature is that its MHF section also acts as a full-range surround system,

“

Enterprises, public facilities and house builders all realise that they need to harness the power of AV. Mike Blackman, ISE MD

resulting, the company says, in a very uniform sound stage throughout the entire listening area. Tom Back, Alcon’s MD, had a very successful show. “Again, the ISE show was able to attract potentials that we would not have met at other shows,” he said. “It speaks for itself that the CRMS system attracted a lot of

attention, with many home-theatre and sound-for-picture integrators visiting the stand to have a look and listen to this new reference system. “Also, the micro LR7 line-array received the warm interest of the ISE public, following superb critiques from German and French test magazines. Stand visitors were very impressed with our pro-ribbon sound quality from the VR8 monitors. We’ll be back at ISE in 2011 for sure.” Meyer Sound used the show to introduce the CAL series of selfpowered steerable column array loudspeakers (see page 30). Genelec revealed the 4020A and 4030A two-way active loudspeakers, designed for indoor commercial and professional installations. “We’ve looked long and hard at the systems integration market to see where improvements in audio solutions could be made and with this series of products, we think we’ve really raised the bar in this market,” commented Genelec’s Lars Olof-Janflod. “In performance terms alone, our already extremely successful 8000 series stood

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> EVENT REVIEW ISE Feb 2nd - 4th RAI

Riding high: Alcons Audio’s Tom Back and Steve Badham, and Digico’s Dave Webster and James Gordon all used ISE to show their latest AV innovations

apart. But now, with our latest, additional installer-friendly features I think we can look forward to a significant increase in demand with the 4000 series.” Audio Technica introduced a new three-channel boundary microphone. The U843R condenser mic is part of the Unipoint sound reinforcement series and designed for surface-mount applications, including audio and video conferencing. Three cardioid condenser elements are mounted in the U843R’s housing, by default set with an angle of 120-degrees between them to give complete 360-degree coverage. For added flexibility, two of the three elements may be reoriented to give angles of 90/90/180-degrees between elements – suited to positioning at the end of long conference tables. Elements can also be powered and used individually, or in any combination. UK console manufacturer Digico showcased its SD8-24 and EX-007 for the first time to the systems integrators in attendance. “ISE is an excellent platform from which Digico can show industry professionals how far we advance, year on year,” explained the company’s managing director, James Gordon. “2009 was certainly no exception for us in terms of innovation.” The EX-007 was designed to increase the number of available 12

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faders and number of channels substantially, controllable at any one time on a Digico SD7 mixing console. “For fixed installations, the EX-007 can be used as a remote surface in the auditorium, with the SD7 in the control room at the back of the theatre,” Gordon explained. “Also, the EX-007 is substantially smaller than the SD7, which has the added advantage of freeing up addtional seats in a venue.” The firm also focused on the SD8-24. The new console has all the features of its bigger brother, the SD8, but with a footprint less than a metre wide. “The SD8-24, EX-007, SD7T, Overdrive software and Mach2 software suites demonstrate that we continue to be at the very forefront of the digital audio industry with our use of FPGA designs and user driven software,” Gordon said. RCF showed the new expander DEC 6104 expander board for the Forum 6000 digital congress system, as well as the new ES 3323 MP3 receiver amplifier. According to the company, the new DEC 6104 Expander Board represents a major implementation of the Forum 6000 digital congress system, which allows the connection of the system to a PC in order to manage it through the Forum 6000 control software. This board also adds the possibility to connect up to 180 DMS 6410 microphone consoles; it is equipped

with an RS 485 port (alternative to the USB port) and a digital antifeedback processor. The new ES 3323 is a 320 W CD/USB MP3 receiver amplifier that offers the capacity to manage paging and program sources into three separate audio zones. The activation of announcements and music as well as the regulation of the sound levels can be made independently for each of the three constant voltage speaker lines. The ES3323 has a built-in CD/USB-MP3 player and an RDS FM tuner, plus an additional switchable aux input for the connection of a line level source and has the ability to manage up to four universal inputs with configurable priorities and chime. Crest Audio made the European debut of the E-Lite series power amplifiers with the E-Lite 1800 and E-Lite 1800 DSP. The range was designed to be lightweight and efficient while maintaining high power and stable performance down to twoOhm loads. (See the power amplifier feature on pages 21 - 25 for additional information.) Tannoy displayed its QFlex range of selfpowered digital beam-steering array loudspeakers, which are designed to overcome intelligibility problems associated with highly reverberant surroundings. The firm has had many recent success stories with the QFlex range. Namely

Scotland’s Federal Postal Museum, where QFlex was used to provide a solution to its acoustically challenging architecture. Just four QFlex 16s were all that was required to cover the majority of the affected areas. It also displayed its CVS4 Micro and problem-solving CMS 401DCe ‘eyeball’, along with a selection of surface-mount products, including Designer Install and the i9VP Vandal Proof and Definition Install range for the residential market. The VQ series was also on show, which reflected the increased focus towards high SPL, large-scale loudspeaker systems at this year’s event. QSC Audio announced an extension to its Acoustic Design ceiling speaker range, with the release of two new high-output models – the AD-C1200 and AD-C820/C821 – at the ISE show. Among other release were TOA’s D2000 series all-in-one digital mixing system and Type C line array, Yamaha’s new version of the popular M7CL console – the M7CL-48ES – and a software upgrade for all existing M7CLs, and the new addition to the BSS Audio signal processor to the Soundweb London family of digital signal processors. Further details of these new products can be found on the new products pages (pages 44 and 45). > iseurope.org www.audioprointernational.com

> EVENT PREVIEW PLASA FOCUS

PLASA Focus: Leeds 2010 April 27th - 28th

Hanging out up North PLASA Focus is coming on strong for a second year straight. With a sold out floor and expanded show, Andrew Low looks into why the North of England regional entertainment event is so successful…

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hile reginoal shows can be a bit of a gamble and many have come and gone, PLASA Focus: Leeds has been an undeniable success. Last year’s inaugural event was sold out and well attended and this year’s floor space was filled before January, with 15 new exhibitors added to the list. Considering the nature of the show, getting 115 total exhibitors on board in trying times proves that PLASA has got it right up North. The two-day 2010 show will be held at Leeds Royal Armories, Leeds, UK on April 27th and 28th. While PLASA’s London show is a barrage of new product announcements, busy aisles and crowded classes, Focus is designed to be a relaxed networking event that lets manufacturers and visitors casually network. The benefits are two-fold: exhibitors get an inside route into a new market (71 per cent of last year’s visitors came from the North of England) and visitors are given an informal and personal view of the best gear to use for a project or application. Best of all, everyone gets a free lunch. John Midgley, MD of Polar Audio, is convinced. “We visited the show last year and listened to what people had to say about it afterwards, and 14

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decided to exhibit this year because it offers an excellent opportunity to get closer to customers in the region and to meet new customers,” he says. Adam Blaxill, head of marketing at Stage Electrics, exhibited last year and confirmed its success at the show.

“

The show itself was well organised and had a good cross section of the industry represented which made it interesting for visitors. Adam Blaxill Stage Electrics

“PLASA had done the marketing right and it was an extremely well attended event,” he comments. “We talked to a large number of both new and existing customers. The show itself was well organised and had a very good cross section of the industry represented among the exhibitors, which made it all the more interesting for visitors.”

The organisers are also boasting that its free education programme has been successful, bringing the most current and relevant professional knowledge to the event. Seminars scheduled this year will be held by The Theatres Trust, which will hold a debate on the principles of school theatre design, the Stage Managers Association, with a Production Managers Forum and the National Skills Academy, with a seminar on accreditation. InfoComm will also host a seminar on realising the value of project management, while Julies Bicycle will discuss integrating a low carbon infrastructure into cultural experiences and events. Two seminars that will be of specific interest to pro audio visitors will be David Stuttard’s presentation on Ireland’s Wexford Opera House and Ear to the Ground’s discussion on Europe’s largest pop-up club, The Warehouse Project. Stuttard is the technical director of Wexford Opera House and saw the rebuilding of the new spercialist venue from inception to completion. His seminar will begin with the history of the Opera Festival and chart all the major decisions involved in this major rebuilding project. The €33 million (£27 million), 7,500sqm

opera house houses a 780-seat auditorium and a 175-seat multiconfigurable performance and rehearsal space. The new building marks a European first for auditorium sound. System integrator Northern Light installed a Renkus-Heinz Iconyx, digitally steerable auditorium loudspeaker system, with Biamp and Crestron control, as part of a complete entertainment technology and supporting infrastructure project. The company also provided all loose lighting, sound, comms and AV equipment, in addition to its technical infrastructure. Live events and communications agency Ear to the Ground will host a seminar about about Manchester’s Warehouse Project, Europe’s largest and most successful temporary clubbing and live music event. The Warehouse Project is an annual clubbing event that attracts 55,800 punters and 270 plus pereformers and DJs over a three-month period, which harks back to the glory days of the early 90s dance music scene. From accreditation and green planning to club and theatre sound, PLASA Focus is a contender to be the best – and this year, is the only way to tap into the vein of the North of England’s entertainment industry. > plasafocus.com www.audioprointernational.com

24th-27th March 2010 Visit us at Hall 8, stand E80 Musikmesse, Frankfurt

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> EVENT PREVIEW PL+S

MESSE FRANKFURT MARCH 24TH TO 27TH

Intergalactic gear Prolight+Sound has gone kind of astral with its branding this year, but it remains to be seen if the show’s product launch factor is equally as cosmic. Rob Hughes keeps his tentacles crossed… t strikes me that, if the hardworking folks in charge of logistics at Prolight+Sound are anywhere near as bright and inventive as the whiz kids in the marketing department, this year’s show is going to be a slick operation. If you don’t know what I mean then just take a look at the 2010 show logo (above) – a satellite built from a collection of sound and light kit. Alarmingly, it seems to be firing several laser beams at Earth, but I can only assume that they are of the type that don’t cause the loss of fingers during hands-in-the-air moments. Either way, the thing clearly means business, which is good, because that’s precisely what we need. In-keeping with the galactic theme, the accompanying slogan is: ‘discovering new dimensions’. I guess this is open to interpretation, but to me it seems to be a rather smart way of drawing parallels between our plucky satellite and what many of us consider to be the big pull of the show – innovative, groundbreaking, dare I say it, revolutionary and, hopefully, great-sounding new products. As metaphors go, it’s a big one. In fact, it’s about as grand a metaphor as you could think up, really. If I’m right, confidence must be high in the Messe Frankfurt camp, because that’s a bold statement, but wouldn’t it be just

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brilliant if it there were a lick of truth to it? The first genuinely pioneering swathe of new gear to come out of a trade show since the world started having cash-flow problems. I’ve been reading pre-show press releases from various manufacturers and there really are few that I

“

In-keeping with the galactic theme, PL+S’ slogan is: ‘discovering new dimensions’. This could be the first genuinely pioneering swathe of new gear to come out of a trade show since the world started having cashflow problems.

wouldn’t class as newsworthy. I can’t help thinking that, if this is the kind of stuff they’re happy to shout about now, what calibre of debuts are awaiting us in Frankfurt? As always, we can only speculate, but until the air-locks open, here are a few nuggets to put you on…

ALCONS (HALL 8.0, G50) Alcons has hinted that it might have something rather special to reveal at PL+S. MD Tom Back said: “We don’t want to reveal too much at this stage, before the show. But, the 2010 Frankfurt show will be our most important one to date, with a range of new products that will also mark our entry in a new market segment.” The company will also be focussing on its new CRMS three-way reference cinema sound system, that will be shown for the first time in Frankfurt after its launch at ISE. See new product pages for further details (pages 44 and 45). ALLEN & HEATH (HALL 8.0, C22) Allen & Heath will also be launching a new club installation product, the Xone:PB. The Xone patchbay is a 1U rack size, passive interface box, designed to simplify the task of connecting encoded vinyl replay systems to installed mixers, without the need to re-patch. But the highlight on the stand will be the brand new iDR-16 3U MixRack and iLive-R72 rackmountable Control Surface, which together provide a space saving, lightweight digital live mixing system, with the same power, sonic performance and flexibility of the

larger touring iLive systems, at a significantly lower price point. The company will also be demonstrating new features in the latest version of its iLive software v1.6. ATEIS (HALL 8.0, C18) Ateis International will address a problem that has long plagued teleconferencing with its latest product, the ECS-Teleconference unit – an echo cancellation system (ESC) that is designed to produce clear audio for teleconferences, with no delays or doubletalk. EV HALL 6.1 B70 (HALL 6.1, B70) EV will launch its ZXA1 compact powered loudspeaker at PL+S. The firm insists that its engineers have raised the bar for portable sound, adding to the award-winning ZX loudspeaker family with the new ZXA1 – the self-powered version of the successful ZX1 compact two-way loudspeaker. The ZXA1 is powered by an 800 Watt amplifier module derived from EV’s Tour Grade series – amplifiers with audio quality and reliability proven at the highest levels. In terms of mechanics, the speaker boasts an EV professional-grade eight-inch woofer and one-inch titanium compression driver. www.audioprointernational.com

PL+S EVENT PREVIEW < FUNKTION-ONE (HALL 8.0, G94) Funktion-One will be showcasing the F101 loudspeaker, a larger version of the successful F81, offering clarity and imaging with a sensitivity of 101dB for one Watt at one metre, which is unprecedented for this class of loudspeaker. The Resolution 3, a new all-in-one three-way enclosure comprising a special horn loaded 18-inch bass loudspeaker with five-inch voice coil and a new Axhead loaded ten-inch loudspeaker for midrange and oneinch compression driver for HF, will be on show. It is designed to produce exceptional SPLs for its size with very convincing bass, rendering additional sub bass unnecessary. F-1 call it a Resolution 2 on steroids. The mid high section can be rotated to facilitate horizontal installation. The ASPC1 audio system polarity checker will also be on the company’s booth. This is said to be an invaluable tool for live sound and installation engineers to ensure the optimisation of high performance audio systems. LAB.GRUPPEN (HALL 8.0, E80) Lab.gruppen has promised to unveil the PLM 20000Q at PL+S. This will become the new flagship of the Lakeequipped PLM range and, if the other two are anything to go by, this looks set to be the most powerful amp on the market in 2010, with or without loudspeaker management. At the moment, LG is touting it as “the world’s most powerful four-channel powered loudspeaker management system ever�, which is very specific. It shouldn’t be long until it can confirm that it’s the big daddy of amps. NEUTRIK (HALL 9.0, C20) Neutrik has informed us that, “in accordance with this year’s Prolight+Sound motto ‘discovering

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new dimensions’, it will present DIWA, a new groundbreaking technology with which the company ventures a glimpse into the future. The secret will be disclosed at the press conference.� This release surely will not disappoint. Neutrik is a company that makes some of the humblest of audio products, yet still manages to make some of the very brightest. OHM (HALL 8.0, G91) Ohm will be showing off the latest addition to its Planet Suite, Ersa Major, an integrated line array system intended for large scale concerts, festivals and sports events. The system is run in four-way active mode with the amplifiers flown in the array. The matching dual 18-inch PUKK sub-bass units can be flown or ground stacked. The mid/high cabinet has dual Ohm ten-inch midrange woofers with a two-inch, plus one-inch coaxial compression driver mounted on a proprietary horn flare. The mid range drivers are mounted at the rear, which creates a fully horn-loaded cabinet with a compact size of 700mm wide, 600mm deep and 300mm high. The cabinet is three-way active with an impedance of sixteen Ohms and has a flat

frequency response from 100Hz to 20kHz with a maximum SPL in excess of 140dB. CREST AUDIO (HALL 8.0, F60) Crest Audio will make the European debut of the E-Lite Series power amplifiers with the E-Lite 1800 and E-Lite 1800 DSP. The range is characterised by a lightweight, efficient design with high power and stable performance down to 2-Ohm loads. See the power amps feature on pages 21 to 25 for more information. POWERSOFT (HALL 8.0, E46) Powersoft will present a new line of amplifiers – the M series in Frankfurt. The new range will include five models, both two and fourchannel, with power output specs ranging from two x 700W into four Ohms, to four x 1,250W into four-Ohms. The M Series features Powersoft’s bridgeable, switchmode, fixedfrequency Class D outputs, noted for their excellent sound quality, high damping factor and cool circuits, providing stable performances over long periods of time. The standard models include a full suite of protection circuits along with Powersoft’s output filter and ripple cancellation network, but for a more comprehensive array of functions, plugin DSP is optional.

RCF/DB TECHNOLOGIES (HALL 8.0, G70) RCF is giving nothing away in advance of the show, however, it has noted that there will be “an array of product launches�. The companies have upped the size of their booth quite considerably this year to a whopping 780 square metres, so it should be worth a visit. RIEDEL (HALL 9.0, B22) Fibre and network specialist Riedel Communications will present its RockNet 100, RockNet RN.334.MD MADI interface and RockWorks 1.62 for pro audio and tour sound. RockNet 100 is a flexible, digital snake solution, which provides up to 80 digital audio channels over a single counter rotating CAT-5 ring. RockNet can be set up within minutes without a computer. Its technology and user interface is designed for real-world live sound applications. The system is autoaddressing and can be easily configured via the front-panel or via the RockWorks software available for Windows and Mac OS X. TRANTEC (HALL 8.0, F46) Trantec’s focus for this year’s show will be on the Channel 38 ready, S6 wireless system which builds on the success of the S6000 range and the 19-inch, eightway concept. 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 a rather large 80MHz. The firm will also be exhibiting the S-D7000 – the world’s first professional fully digital wireless microphone system that is already in use at GMTV for their presenters and guests.

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> LIVE SOUND LAKE OF STARS

Lakeside sounds The vinspired Lake of Stars festival was set up by Liverpool UK club promoter Will Jameson to encourage tourism and aid local charities in Malawi, Africa. Now with top pro audio brands and bands on board, the event has nearly quadrupled in size since its inception. Andrew Low talks to Jameson about expanding the concept into neighbouring areas and training a new generation of African sound engineers.. ill Jameson came up with the idea for the vinspired Lake of Stars (vLOS) festival after spending his gap year volunteering with the Malawian wildlife society. He eventually gained the support of industry and media contacts to bring the festival to life when his Liverpool club night, Chibuku Shake Shake, won best UK club in 2004. Despite the relentless African sun and a 24-hour journey to the remote region, Jameson has managed to gather a crew of UK entertainment and pro audio professionals and a truck load of high-end gear for the festival each year. “It is a concept that people can’t seem to fault. People will happily spend time promoting the festival and take time off work to travel to the festival to help out,” he states. The vLOS volunteers started as people Jameson met through the club and the group has grown bigger and more diverse every year. “As the festival has grown it has gathered more support and we have received a lot more help from companies like FunktionOne, Audile, dB Technologies and Studio Care.” In previous years the audio system for the event was a homebuilt African PA and a stage constructed from uneven pieces of wood built by local carpenters. While the stage remains the same rudimentary structure, leading pro audio manufacturers and UK rental company Audile have donated high-end equipment for the festival. Malawian crowds at the 2009 show heard a mix of local and UK acts broadcast through ten of Funktion-One’s Resolution

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5 loudspeakers and four F-221 bass enclosures. The company’s XO-4 crossovers were used, in addition to a rack of MC2 E45 and E90 amps. Monitoring was provided in the form of eight dB Technologies DVX DM15s. Audile supplied a Midas Venice 320 mixing desk, power distribution, outboard, graphics and mics and cables. Liverpool-based Studio Care also sent down seven Pioneer CDJ 1000mk3s, six decks and three mixers, a Pioneer DJM 800, Allen & Heath’s Xone 62s and 92s and a Pioneer EFX 1000. The gear for the festival was arranged by Stev of Audile. “Whatever we took had to be cost and weight effective,” he comments. “Line arrays work better flown, and we did not have the ability to fly any boxes on the beach. It is an outdoor festival that can get very windy, and personally I feel that a point source system works better in that situation, and out of all the point source boxes I prefer Funktion-One. “Tony Andrews of Funktion-One came to Malawi with us and he was amazing. We were working in temperatures hotter than I have ever experienced, and Andrews really got stuck in. We had to build our own PA risers and he was there in the heat of the day banging nails into wood with rocks because there weren’t any hammers left. I can’t think of any other MD of a loudspeaker company who would do that. “Everyone who volunteers gets fully involved because the whole vibe is so different to Europe and America because it is not about the money. When you do something like that it www.audioprointernational.com

LAKE OF STARS LIVE SOUND< reminds you why you got involved in the business in the first place.” Only lightweight and durable gear would be able to make the trip to the festival due to the arduous journey and weight restrictions. As such, Stev felt that the dB Technologies wedges would fit the bill. “dB’s UK rep, David Kelland, was happy to donate the wedges for the festival. I had limited freight that I could take, and the dB stuff is extremely light and very good. It was a massive improvement on home-built African wedges,” he comments. Jameson feels that having a Western name on the bill is essential to encourage tourism to the area. “We have made sure that we have a mixed bag of artists every year. We have had DJs like Felix B from Basement Jaxx, Andy Cato from Groove Armada and Radio One’s Annie Mac in the past. We never had a full band at the show because the backline we had was never up to scratch, but Audile provided a great backline this year, which allowed us to have The Maccabees headline the festival. It is a real mixture of artists, which is another thing that encourages travel to Africa. “We are also looking to expand the festival with satellite events in surrounding areas and possibly start another urban festival in Rwanda. Having people like Tony Andrews and Stev come along and train the locals in sound engineering is essential, because we are hoping that they will eventually handle some elements of the events themselves to make it a bit more self-sufficient. “The vLOS event was supported by The National Young Volunteers Service. We are also hoping to team up with Voluntary Service Overseas charity this year to develop an exchange program where UK sound engineers work alongside their African counterparts and share skills with one another.” Stev furthers: “It is nice bringing that level of gear to a country with nothing. The Funktion-One PA we had is the biggest sound system that anyone has ever seen in Malawi, and for all the African acts that play the show it’s like playing main stage at Glastonbury.” Stev explains that the band’s were not the only ones who were impressed with the sound at the festival. “We recieved a lot of positive feedback from the crowd. Between the bands we put on reggae classics and some of the people had never properly heard the bass in a Bob Marley track. There were a group of rastas hanging out at FOH and every time you put a reggae tune on they went nuts because they had never heard the songs at that volume and depth before.” Great sound and premium kit aside, the vLOS has made a significant impact on the Malawian economy, which has grown to a GDP of 12 per cent. “We have generated about two million pounds worth of press for the festival and each year around £100,000 pounds is pumped into the local economy by people attending the shows, in addition to money we have generated for charities like Unicef and the Microloan Foundation. Some one said that we are up there with Madonna for putting Malawi on the map,” Jameson laughs.

www.audioprointernational.com

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POWER AMPS LIVE SOUND/INSTALLATION <

Watt are my options? With the number of power amp manufacturers alone nearly in the hundreds, the mind boggles as to how many different models are on the market. Rob Hughes guides you through the maze… uying a power amp these days is not the straightforward process it was ten years ago. This is either a gift or a curse. Whether you like it or not, you can’t just phone your friendly PA dealer and ask for a basic power amp any more. He’ll want to know what kind of music you intend to put through it, how green it has to be, if you need onboard crossovers, DSP, networking and other jiggery pokery – all before class and wattage come into question. “I just want to B@*%$!y play music loud. Very loud,” I can hear you all thinking, most probably followed by the afterthought: “I also want it to sound superb.” I doubt many of you hanker after a different amp for every conceivable situation. This would be a hugely impractical – and invariably unprofitable – way to do business, particularly in this modern industry of reckless discounting and ruthless undercutting. So don’t look at the current huge range of amps as an indication that this is in any way necessary. Just because a particular model purports to be especially good at driving subs, doesn’t mean it’s any less adaptable than the amps of old. Choice is, after all, power to the consumer – or, in this case, professional (even ‘prosumer’, perhaps?) – so I guess it’s best to roll with the changes and embrace what is, ultimately, a better selection.

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CREST Crest’s flagship range of power amps continues to be the Pro 200 series, which made a name for itself some years ago, based on a reputation for ample power and headroom. As such, models, including the 8001, 9001 and 10001 were considered particularly capable when it came to driving subs. Originally featuring conventional linear power supplies, the current Pro 200 amps have been upgraded and now sport switch mode power supplies, which have brought their weight down to 10kg, making them more ideal for the touring market, or any application where weight is an issue. The most recent power amp development to come out of the Crest stable, however, is the E-Lite series, which made its debut at the NAMM show in January. The E-Lite amps apparently take some design inspiration from parent firm Peavey’s IPR series, with Class D topology that squeezes a stable 900 Watts per channel at two Ohms from a unit that weighs less than 10lbs. The standard E-Lite model features channel-independent, fourth order 100Hz crossovers and proprietary ACL www.audioprointernational.com

(Automatic Clip Limiting) circuitry, while the DSP model boasts a suite of delays (0-120ms per channel), adjustable crossover, limiter, parametric eq, HF driver eq, four user preset storage locations, and stereo/mono operation with lockable security settings. It also features Waves MaxxBass technology. CROWN Crown made no small amount of noise about its I-Tech HD series when it was unveiled last year and not surprisingly so, given the extensive list of features that the futuristic amps pack in. Topping the bill is the I-T12000 HD, which, in stereo mode, puts out 4,500W per channel at four Ohms. Bridged, at eight Ohms, this rises to a formidable 9,000W. I-Tech HD is the result of a huge R&D drive, on top of the veteran company’s 60 years of experience and user input from tour sound leaders. The Class-I amplifier sports a brand new DSP engine, OmniDriveHD, codeveloped by Harman sister company BSS, with linear phase FIR filters that provide greatly improved mid range clarity and off-axis response. LevelMax limiter technology links the previously independent peak, thermal and RMS limiters, enabling more effective protection of speakers while maximising SPLs. As soon as they were released into the industry, Southern California-based Sound Image, which handles big-ticket acts such as Eric Clapton, placed an order for over 800 I-Tech HD amps, totalling ten million Watts. FULL FAT AUDIO FFA’s Class D PWM amplifiers are designed and manufactured in the UK, housed in a thick, ridged enclosure to ensure components are protected from vibration and are ideal for touring and temporary installs. The company’s flagship amplifier is the FFA-10000, rated at 5,000W into two-Ohm loads, 3,000W into four or 1,500W into eight. The amp’s design negates the need for power reductions to protect itself when driven to its full potential at two-Ohm loads. FFA uses a dual mono amp architecture,

”

Crest’s 200 series made a name for itself some years ago, based on a reputation for ample power and headroom.

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> LIVE SOUND/INSTALLATION POWER AMPS which, although more costly to manufacture, ensures the ability to deliver high power and superb bass performance. Dual redundancy comes within the design specification. FFA’s most recent development is a four-channel amp, the FFA-4004, which delivers four x 1,000W at four-Ohm loads. This is a versatile multimode amp suited to large-scale touring point source or line array systems, or less demanding bass applications. It is installation friendly and ideal for bi-amplified stage monitoring systems or multi-point theatre systems. LAB.GRUPPEN Lab.gruppen’s PLM series combines its widely acclaimed amplification with Lake DSP technology, including networked digital signal distribution, drive processing, power amplification, load verification and performance monitoring, in a single piece of hardware. LG’s established, road-proven models are the PLM 10000Q, offering 2,300W per channel into four Ohms, and the PLM 14,000, which is optimised for high-power requirements based on two-channel operation and delivers a thumping 7,000W per channel into two-Ohms or 4,350 into four. However… Although it is yet to be launched at Prolight+Sound this year, word has already reached Audio Pro International towers of the PLM 20000Q. It’s billed, very specifically, as “the world’s most powerful four-channel powered loudspeaker management system”, but where it stands among muscle amps, digital or otherwise, we’ll have to wait and see. LD PREMIUM The new range of high-end PA kit from LD Systems includes a line of three-stage, Class H, switch-mode powers amps to be reckoned with. In all, there are four two-channel models, each offering ample power levels at low distortion in the range 1.5 to 6kW, yet weighing in at around eight kilograms and measuring just 30cm deep. To take the beefiest model as an example, the SP6K will offer you a total of 5,900W bridged at four Ohms or 4,050W bridged at eight Ohms. In stereo mode, this equates as 2,950W per channel at two Ohms, 2,025 per channel at four Ohms or 1,250 per channel at eight. The SP amps lay claim to the kind of specs offered by units costing several times their price, including a signal to noise ratio of 118dB, total harmonic distortion of less than 0.05 per cent and damping factor of more than 500. Protection circuits comprise soft-start, turn-on/turn-off transients, muting at turn-on, over-heating, DC, RF, short-circuit, open or mismatched loads, overloaded power supply, ICL (intelligent clip limiting), PMS (power management system) and SSP (SOA sentry protection). MARTIN AUDIO Powering Martin Audio loudspeaker systems such as the W8L Longbow line array, is the company’s MA series of amps, which includes the MA12K and MA18K, with DSP versions of most models also available. The series utilises the Pulse Width Modulation principal in combination with a high efficiency twostage switching power supply for Class D operation at up to 95 per cent efficiency. Around 55 of the MA series amplifiers make up the bulk of the engine room’s racks at Matter, the three-floor, 2,600 capacity nightclub at the O2 arena complex.

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MC2 Highly praised by Funktion-One when it was launched last year, MC2’s two-channel, Class D amp delivers an enormous 8,000W RMS per channel into two Ohms or 4,500 into four. “I’ve never experienced so much power so clean,” notes Funktion-One’s Tony Andrews. “It marks a sort of departure for MC2 in that it’s different to the rest of the E series. The influence of a young chap [Duncan Hamilton] we pointed at XTA a few years ago has resulted in a more advanced design, which is actually simpler. “This has made it one of the most transparent-sounding amps I’ve ever heard. This, on top of all that power, makes it a bloody good product. We’ve had to beef up the 21s since it appeared in terms of the mechanics. It’s not about being able to turn your speaker into an electric fire – it’s more about its ability to follow a waveform.” Also worth mentioning from MC2 is the Ti series of installation amps launched at PLASA09 and set to begin shipping this month. The series is the first fruit of the collaboration between the MC2 and XTA R&D teams since the merger in 2008. It is aimed at audio integrators who want to combine remote monitoring and control with the audio quality MC2 is renowned for. The associated Ti network bridge allows control, monitoring and audio to be distributed by either Cobranet or Ethersound, via the Ti network break-out box.

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I’ve never experienced so much power so clean. Tony Andrews - on the MC2 E90

SAMSON Although probably better known for its MI-targeted audio gear, Samson nonetheless produces several lines of power amps, among which are one or two behemoths that could probably set your average performer’s PA on fire. Well not quite, but they’ve certainly enough to warrant a mention. The heftiest of these is the Class A/B PG3800, which offers up to 3,800W in bridged mono at four ohms and up to 1,800W per channel at two Ohms in stereo. The amp is equipped with three-stage protection circuitry and twin internal wind tunnels with forced-air cooling via two temperature-sensitive, variable-speed fans. Alternatively, the Class H, rail-switching SX3200 will deliver two x 800W at eight Ohms and two x 1100W at four Ohms. For mono applications, bridged mode allows for

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Inside and out, the new I-TECH HD is one of the most technologically advanced professional touring amplifiers on the market today. Building on the decades of innovation, invention, and insight Crown is known for, the I-TECH HD features five new patents – three on the power supply alone – giving you an amp that goes well beyond the expected. At the heart of the new I-TECH HD is the BSS OMNIDRIVEHD processing engine. Four times faster than its predecessor and featuring Linear Phase FIR filters and LevelMAX™ limiters, OMNIDRIVEHD provides unmatched clarity and sonically pure signal processing. All this, plus the versatility of System Architect software, combine to make the new I-TECH HD truly bad to the bone. Learn more at itechhd.com or call your local Crown representative.

> LIVE SOUND/INSTALLATION POWER AMPS

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By creating the illusion of adding bass frequencies without physically doing so, MaxxBass allows more low-end into a system without adding more power amps, processing and subwoofers. Fred Poole Peavey

2,200W into an eight-Ohm load. Like all serious power amplifiers, the SX3200’s internal electronics include an oversized toroidal transformer and large extruded heatsinks. Multi-stage protection for power-up, over-heating, overcurrent, short circuit, low output impedance and DC voltage ensures reliability under demanding situations. OHM The philosophy of a ‘well-mannered amp’ that Ohm applied to its solid analog CFU series of amps has now been carried over to its brand new digital model, the DSP-A3. With an output of 1,800W per channel at four Ohms, the DSP-A3 combines a Class H output with a switch mode power supply and a DSP Ethernet controller. As a result, it weighs only 13kgs and is suited for touring systems. It features a 48/96 DA converter and a DSP engine that affords system filtering, crossover, up to two seconds of delay, eq and limiting functions. Configuring, monitoring and controlling can be done locally or by use of full Ethernet communications. Performance can be monitored and settings changed via a Windows-based computer over a local area network or from the internet. The user interface shows the DSP functionality identically to an analog unit with one-toone portraits of every control. A two-unit patch panel is also available to configure mains, outputs and DSP LAN. Mains is supplied via a male C32 socket and distributed to four Powercon outlets via an autoswitching sequencer. PEAVEY Peavey Electronics recently announced its new IPR DSP series of power amplifiers – the first to use the acclaimed Waves MX5010 semiconductor, featuring the DSP specialist’s proprietary MaxxAudio algorithms. Of particular note is MaxxBass, which uses psychoacoustics to create precise harmonic overtones that give the perceived effect of adding low frequencies to the mix. “Integrating MaxxBass into the Peavey IPR Series gives

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sound companies and engineers significant advantages,” says Fred Poole, senior manager of product development at Peavey Electronics. “Because it creates the illusion of adding bass frequencies without physically doing so, MaxxBass allows sound engineers to dial more low-end into a system without adding more power amps, processing and subwoofers.” All IPR amps feature a resonant switch-mode power supply and a high-speed class D topology that yields high resolution and efficiency. In total, there are four DSP-equipped models with 32-bit, floating-point digital signal processing. The lightest model in the IPR range boasts net weight of just 7lbs, using a design that has allowed Peavey engineers to reduce weight while increasing reliability, thermal efficiency and output power. As you might expect, it delivers 1,600W, while the flagship model provides 6,000W into two Ohms. POWERSOFT If you’re reading this before Frankfurt then you’re lucky enough to be getting a sneak preview at the Italian amp authority’s latest and, at the time of writing, as yet unannounced M series. The new range will include five models: M14D, M20D, M28Q, M30D and M50Q. The D denotes two-channel and the Q four-channel, power output specs range from two x 700W into four Ohms, to four x 1,250W into four Ohms. As with all Powersoft amps, the M series amps are built in Italy and squeezed into a 1U 19-inch chassis, rather than the traditional 2U casing used by most manufacturers. The M Series features Powersoft’s bridgeable, switch-mode, fixed-frequency Class D outputs, noted for their excellent sound quality, high damping factor and cool circuits, providing stable performances over long periods of time. The standard models include a full suite of protection circuits along with Powersoft’s output filter and ripple cancellation network; plugin DSP is optional. For a closer look at the new series, pay a visit to the Powersoft booth at Prolight+Sound 2010, where the firm will be revealing the new models for the first time at stand 8.0 E46.

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POWER AMPS LIVE SOUND/INSTALLATION < QSC QSC’s Class D, 8,000-Watt PL380 doubles the output power and thermal capacity of its previous 2RU designs. The firm insists that it looks and sounds linear, whether on the bench or driving sound systems. STUDIOMASTER There are three models in Studiomaster’s AX series of amplifiers, but for the purposes of this roundup, it is the flagship AX3500 that interests, as this is the model that offers the kind of muscle required for basic pro applications. The AX3500 suits stereo or bridged mono applications and can provide 1,000W (per channel) or 2,900W, respectively, at four Ohms. It can also operate in paralleled input mode and features an onboard two-way crossover, which can be set at either 100Hz or 150Hz. Each channel can be assigned to either the high or low frequency signal and the output from each crossover is available on quarter-inch jack sockets, to enable the connection of additional amplifiers. Regardless of which mode the amp is in, it can be used either with or without the crossover. In terms of protection, the AX has

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twin, continuously variable speed fans to provide ample cooling with low-noise operation. Input connectors are balanced combination jack/XLR and to ease the connection of additional amps, a male XLR is also provided. VMB Leading the charge of VMB’s line of amps is the DSX series, delivering high power, a complete protection package and digital signal processing from lightweight units. The big daddy of the range is the DSX-1504, which can supply four x 1480W into four Ohms. For two-Ohm loads, the DSX-6002 provides four x 1440W and all the amps in the series are characterised by great specs, including total harmonic distortion of just 0.05 per cent, signal to noise ratio of 116dB and damping factor of more than 500 for 1kHz. VOID ACOUSTICS Void’s Infinite X range of two-channel power amplifiers feature high-efficiency switch-mode power supplies that deliver up to 8kVA and newly-developed Mosfet output stages to maximise audio fidelity and reliability.

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TANNOY INSTALLATION<

Three is the magic number Glasgow’s Caledonian University Saltire Centre ditches its loudspeaker system in favour of Tannoy QFlex lasgow’s Caledonian University Saltire Centre is a £23m building designed to be the nucleus of campus life by offering students a variety of areas for lectures, studying and leisure, while housing the university’s full library collection, a learning café and the students’ support services. Despite being revered for its architecture and design, the audio system in the building’s main Atrium Area received many complaints regarding its poor quality and intelligibility and the intrusiveness of the speaker positions. As such, local AV integrator Mediascape introduced the university to Tannoy’s digitally steerable, multi-channel, array speaker systems, QFlex. After winning a shoot-out over several other loudspeaker systems, Mediscape needed to install just three of the QFlex 32s and software programming to cover the entire venue, as well as under the balcony areas. The new system was used for the first time at the Chancellor’s Dinner and it received praise for the exceptional intelligibility of the audio. Mediascape’s sales engineer, Grieg Ford, explains how the QFlex system was able to overcome the atrium’s challenging acoustics: “The interior of the Saltire Centre atrium is mainly concrete and glass,” Ford states. “Conventional loudspeakers

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struggled to achieve good intelligibility due to the reflected sound and it became a real problem for the venue. “Being aware of the capabilities of Tannoy’s QFlex system, I arranged a demonstration of a QFlex 32 within the space, and it was immediately obvious that this device would provide the clarity and intelligibility required, and then some.” QFlex uses multiple channels of advanced amplification and DSP to produce beams of acoustic energy, which are directed on userdefined target areas. QFlex is designed as a complete solution for applications with difficult acoustics. The discreet profile of each array means that aesthetic impact is also minimised, particularly compared to the far less effective alternative of installing a distributed system with a large number of loudspeakers around a given space. While QFlex is by no means the only loudspeaker system available that makes use of DSP beam-steering technology, it has many key advantages that led to it being specified for the university. The system delivers both effective beam control at lower frequencies as well as higher octaves, making it well suited for delivering music and speech. > mediascape.ltd.uk > tannoy.com

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Strength in numbers With 25 years in the business and almost 10,000 DVA line arrays sold, dB Technologies has established itself as a major player in the professional loudspeaker market. Although it is backed by RCF, the company’s Harald von Falkenstein explains how dB is making its own history… talian acoustic specialist dB Technologies’ 25-year history in professional audio began as an OEM supplier for wireless microphones manufacturers. The company then made the transition to small format PA and, eventually, line arrays. While the company has a vast range of speakers starting at plastic PA boxes, its DVA line array range has put the technology into the hands of touring musicians who are looking for a pro system powerful enough to tour with, but compact enough to accompany them on the road. Similarly, its stage boxes and point source speakers can be found everywhere from festival stages (see the Lake of Stars feature on page 18) to clubs and venues around the world. Though the parent company is based in Bologna, dB’s UK operation is controlled from Cologne, Germany, where it is managed by dB’s Harald von Falkenstein, who explains the company’s impressive technological background and its link with one of the other big names in Italian audio – RCF. Current president Arturo Vicari, who founded the parent company AEB back in the 1970s, bought RCF in 2004 from Mackie, which was something of a homecoming for the brand. Mackie had bought RCF in 1998 – a move the American company found problematic from the start – when Vicari was managing director, and eventually sold the company back to the Italians, this time with Vicari at the head of the purchasing consortium. While this might seem to place dB and RCF head to head in the market, in practice, von Falkenstein says they tend to focus on different areas and both benefit from the other’s

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technical expertise – AEB having a strong background in electronics and RCF in speaker design. “People often get the wrong idea, believing that RCF is the mother company, but that’s not the case,” explains von Falkenstein. “The way it has been set up is that the RCF Group is effectively the holding name, with RCF, AEB and dB within it. Obviously, it made sense to use the RCF name when it was floated as a public company in 2007, as it has been in business for 60 years, is well known round the world and is the better known brand. As a group, last year the total turnover was €63 million, but that will change because recently the RCF group acquired the lighting company SGM – so next year will see us having a larger turnover because of that. “As far as the UK is concerned, that is closely connected with the way the German operation developed. That was founded in 2000 and the managing director of the German company became sales and marketing director of AEB, and at that stage I became responsible as European sales manager for distributors in West Europe. Since then, the operation has grown to become a very important part of the structure of the organisation. From here we take care of markets where we go direct, with sales representatives employed by us – which is in the UK, France, Benelux and most recently in Spain, where we opened an office not long ago. Then there are another ten distributors in the other European markets.” While in the past dB was relatively easy to pigeonhole as a supplier mainly to the MI end of the market, with the company’s well-liked active, plastic, Opera range, it has

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While in the past dB was relatively easy to pigeonhole as a supplier to MI, it now serves traditional pro audio, too.

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DB TECHNOLOGIES LIVE SOUND <

broadened its range to such an extent that it serves a sector of the traditional pro audio field, too. This is particularly true of products like the DVA line array, which was introduced three and a half years ago. The DVA system has been a revelation for many and has become dB’s most successful ever product – not surprising, as it has brought the line array concept down to an affordable level for many who would otherwise have been confined to cumbersome point source systems. It does this by using plastic housings with 420 Watts of digital amplification on board, coupled to RCF neodymium speakers. The DVA system effectively opened the door for smaller rental companies to be able to offer a usable line array system at an affordable price. For example, a DVA T4 unit can retail for just £1,125. “We sold our 10,000th DVA T4 unit shortly after the turn of this year – and not a lot of manufacturers could say something like that,” von Falkenstein says with justifiable pride. “Again, our advantage is in the production, the price and the flexibility of the system, you can use it as a ground stack, you

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can use it flown – it is a tremendously versatile system.” With strong competition from the many PA manufacturers in the market, von Falkenstein feels that its strength lies in numbers. “In the nine years of dB Germany, we’ve reached the position of market leader and we intend to do that in the UK as well – particularly with our new approach of having two reps for the country. The dealer doesn’t merely need a good product for a good price, but also support and efficiency in delivery and with warranty issues. That is one of our most important goals – we want to make sure that even if there are problems, we are able to help the customer immediately. “We stand out in three areas: quality, reliability and flexibility. We don’t only do PA speakers; we offer flexibility where you can constantly update. You never need to get rid of something from us – you can constantly upgrade your speakers. All of our boxes are multifunctional – you can use them on speaker poles or as monitors. The more professional speakers, such as the DVX range, have rotatable horns. They can be mounted on the wall, or flown, which for rental companies is a very attractive feature. This means the market gets a good, reliable product with high flexibility for an affordable price.” One recent feature of dB’s operation in the UK is the way the marketing is now better directed at getting the word out to the street. Advertising appears in various trade magazines and online and reviews are helping spread the word. Assisting this, von Falkenstein says, are the activities of the UK reps, who are keen to arrange instore demos. He is also very aware of the role the internet is playing in promoting products via user forums and groups and points to the success of the DVA line array as being, at least in part, due to the enthusiastic reception and recommendation that system has received online. “It’s important that the customer is happy with what he has been sold and I think we offer the right tools for that. Because it’s flexible, customers can use it in different ways at different gigs and the only time they come back to the retailer is to say ‘thank you for selling me dB – now I would like to add a sub-woofer, or I would like to add something else’. We want to avoid stress for our dealers and our customers – that’s what we do.” And the future? Bear in mind that AEB started life as a manufacturer of affordable wireless mic systems for other manufacturers. On the way, von Falkenstein hints, is a return to that market, but this time with a groundbreaking product under the company’s own name. One more reason, you might think, that now could be a good time to take a closer look at this enterprising manufacturer.

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Our advantage is in the production, the price and the flexibility of the system. Harald von Falkenstein dB Technologies

> dbtechnologies.com

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> INSTALLATION MEYER CAL

Bridging the gap Meyer Sound’s new CAL loudspeakers are some of the first to integrate new technologies that will soon be found in all of its products. Andrew Low talks to Meyer’s John McMahon… he Integrated Systems Europe tradeshow is seemingly the fastest growing tradeshow in the history of man. The AV boom is showing no signs of slowing down as it grows bigger and more significant year on year. This is backed by a recent InfoComm study, which showed that the industry will be worth €64.7 billon worldwide by 2012. It’s not a surprise that Meyer Sound expanded its presence and booth at this year’s ISE and used it to introduce the new SelfPowered Steerable Column Array Loudspeakers (CAL) for the installation market. The company’s executive director of digital products, John McMahon, explained that the CAL speakers are a result of months of research to provide the same sonic quality that Meyer is known for in a unique form factor and controllable beam pattern. As such, CAL speakers feature optimised vertical coverage control and low-distortion sound, which was developed and refined as a result of Meyer’s exstensive research in steering sound technology. Its vertical beam can be angled up or down 30 degrees, and the width of the vertical beam can be configured from five to 60 degrees while maintaining full power output and the ability to control up to 120 degrees horizontally. The company assures us that, using a range of vertical control presets programmed for the steerable column array loudspeakers, system integrators can choose the angle and dispersion to accurately project sound where needed while avoiding surfaces that interfere with speech signal transmissions. They also incorporate digital signal processing as found in the Meyer Sound D-Mitri digital audio platform McMahon explains that the CAL speakers benefit from an algorithm developed to control phase coherence very high in the frequency spectrum. “We had to employ some extremely powerful processing chips to achieve this. It also features an entirely new RMS system based over the audio/video bridging (AVB) networking standards. “We also incorporated much of the sound directivity research that we did with the University of California Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) to develop the digital signal processing used by these speakers.”

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In addition to unique core technology, McMahon states that CAL speakers will easily integrate with a venue’s existing architecture, as they are offered in custom colours and a form factor designed to be aesthetically pleasing. “Systems integrators can control the coverage pattern digitally rather than hanging a large line array or point source boxes that will be, perhaps, visually more intrusive,” he explains. “We designed them in a format that is unobtrusive looking, so the beams can come out and achieve a coverage pattern, thus eliminating the need to hang individual boxes. This offers the ability to get precise coverage with minimal aesthetic impact. “These speakers are optimised for the vocal range, so they do not cover the full range frequency response (150Hz to 10kHz) and they are not meant to replace line arrays. It integrates our control because we have more drivers per lineal foot than our competitors. The CAL 32 has eight fourinch drivers and 24 one-inch drivers, which provide the precise ability to control the beams. We have tightly packed the CAL drivers and used a very precise algorithm in our signal processing.” The CAL speakers represent the second Meyer product to feature the AVB-enabled Ethernet inputs, in addition to AES/EBU digital and line level analog inputs. Their AVB compatibility is a result of Meyer’s involvement with the AVNU Alliance, an association dedicated to enhancing professional-quality audio/video by promoting emerging IEEE 802.1 audio/video bridging (AVB) networking standards. McMahon explains that the future focus of AVB will be directed towards installation products and then expand to its touring speakers. “D-Mitri will ship in June and be the first with AVB, and CAL will follow in December. Before we move it to a full product line we need the network infrastructure to become as robust as rigging. First we need network switches that can be toured with, but that will come in time. We certainly have long term plans for AVB and AVNU. “The silicon producers are getting great leverage out of AVB from the video industry, the consumer marketplace and automotive industry. There are many things driving AVNU that puts a great amount of power behind it. It is a global thing that expands well beyond pro audio.” > meyersound.com www.audioprointernational.com

> STUDIO RYAN GREENE

In the Area tonight No, he hasn’t been working with Phil Collins, but he has just started a new studio business in LA called Area 52 entertainment. Rob Hughes caught up with Ryan Greene to get his thoughts on record production in 2010… o this point, Ryan Greene’s 23-year, 250-record career in the recording business has been chock-a-block with the kind of gigs that any self-respecting tea boy would trade his own grandmother for and never look back. First engineer at MCA for four years, chief engineer at EMI Music for eight years, co-owner of Motor Studios in San Francisco, former owner of Crush Recording in Arizona and projects for just about every record label you care to mention. It goes without saying that Greene has worked with a throng of heavyweight artists – he counts NOFX, Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick and Gladys Knight among the leagues of artists that he has produced and engineered. Interestingly, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine considers his band’s classic 1992 album Countdown to Extinction, which Greene helped produce, to be their best work ever. The past year has been one of changes for Greene, as he has begun to work on music for video games, mixing eight songs for the blockbusting Guitar Hero 3, 40 songs for Rock Revolution, and yet more for Rock Band. 2009 was also the year that he abandoned his large-format console, an SSL 9000J and opted instead for a D-Command and a Dangerous 2-Bus. Happy with his new projects and his new setup, he joined forces with John Fielding to launch Area 52 Entertainment in LA. As you can imagine, he’s an incredibly busy man. Luckily for us, we managed to sneak in a quick chat between sessions…

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How are things taking off with Area 52? Area 52 is going quite well, John and I have produced three projects within the first four months of working together. Right 32

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now I’m finishing up production for the band Authority Zero and then I’ll be producing/engineering and mixing the metal band Benedictum. After that, I’ll be P/E/M the new Back From Ashes record and have various mixing gigs in between. You said that you got rid of your industry standard console after trying out the Dangerous Music 2-Bus. Have you ever looked back, or maybe even gone back to using a large format console? What do you miss about the big console? Let’s start with what I don’t miss about my big console. Firstly, the electric bill. Second would be the maintenance bill. I miss just being able to reach for an eq or compressor and twist a knob, but other than that, not a lot. I’m happy with the set-up and having the Dangerous 2-Bus has a lot to do with that. I do miss sitting in front of a 72-input console, it’s a nice ego stroke, but I’ve found sitting in front of my D-Command is just as – if not more – powerful. It’s my Lamborghini in a Volkswagen bug body. And the D-Command has more lights. You talk about how having the gear is nothing if you don’t have the technique and you put particular emphasis on knowing how to mic-up guitar cabs. You also mention how different cables and even picks can dramatically affect the sound. Do you think the most important part of making a record is the capturing of the sounds? Technique? You mean there is technique to miking up a guitar cab? I thought everyone just used plugins. I was just in the studio the other day and the guitar player thought I was nuts when I suggested we change guitar cable. He couldn’t believe

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My D-Command is powerful – it’s my Lamborghini in a Volkswagen bug body. Ryan Greene Area 52

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RYAN GREENE STUDIO < the difference. Honestly, I feel the most important part of making a record is having great songs and players that can play them. The feel, performance and the sound and whether or not it’s appropriate for the song, all come into play when making a record. You skipped assistant engineer and got promoted from being a tape duplicator straight to being first engineer at MCA, while the guy before you spent four years as a tape duplicator and never got that chance. Was it purely a lucky break because the engineer had to go on another session, or do you think there was something about your work or your attitude that got you the gig? I don’t believe in luck – everything happens for a reason. He went on to do some amazing projects. I started doing live sound when I was 15, so by the time I even went to recording school I already had a good understanding of sound and mic technique. While I was going to recording school I was working at the Troubadour in Hollywood running FOH – that was a great time. When I started at MCA Music I worked in the tape room from 10am to 6pm. After work I would walk down to the MCA studio and just watch the sessions from 6pm to 3am, seven days a week for a year. I learned so much over that year, from how to deal with different types of personalities, learning how to cope with situations out of your control and everything else in between. I do feel attitude helped and all I wanted to do was learn everything I could. Being a good recording engineer is just a part of what you need to know. Do you think the pressure on your first session helped with the positive outcome or would you have found it easier working without it? Do you work better under pressure? That first session I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy.

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Not that the session was bad – it was the pressure. I was told I had one shot at it and if it didn’t work then it was doubtful I would get another chance to engineer there. I was almost 20 years old and had to see whether I was going to sink or swim. The engineers before me all worked at the highest level, with no mistakes and I was expected to do the same. I went to sleep at night telling myself I had to work at 100 per cent accuracy. Looking back, I feel the pressure was the best thing that could have happened. It’s given me a work ethic that I may not have had otherwise. Obviously you recognise the importance of ‘real’ recording studios in the days of home studios and so on. What things in a professional facility do you think contribute to making a great record? I moved my big studio to my house and run a TDM Pro Tools rig, Dangerous 2-buss, D-Command, Neve, API, Universal Audio, Grace mic pres, Pultec, API, Millennia and Neve eqs, Manley, DBX, UA and Empirical Labs compressors and a good selection of mics, guitar amps, bass amps and cabinets, so I pretty much have everything a large studio would have as far as equipment. What I don’t have is nice big tracking room like the Record Plant or Ocean Way or one of my favourite rooms in North Hollywood, Clear Lake Audio. There is nothing like walking into a million dollar control room; it has a certain feel that most home studios don’t have. On top of that, just knowing the projects that have come before you gives off a certain feel of professionalism and vibe that I can’t explain – you would have to feel it. It’s very sad that some up-and-coming engineers may never work in studios like that and they will be missing something that would change their lives forever. I do feel you can create great records from home with today’s technology and if record budgets don’t increase a bit more people are going to stay at home. It’s sad but true. > ryangreene.com

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> STUDIO GREG HAVER

Living in the

Modern World

Clint Murphy and Greg Haver are one of the UK’s most prolific production teams, best known for their excellent work on guitar-driven rock and indie bands. Andrew Low talks to the pair about how using the latest technology doesn’t mean sacrificing the quality… ast month’s visit to the quiet town of Tetbury, UK produced two great opportunities for Audio Pro. The first was a guided tour of Nick Cowen’s recording studio, Modern World (see API February), and the second being the chance to have a chat with producer Greg Haver and engineer Clint Murphy. The music-shaping duo have taken residence at the studio after years of splitting their time between New Zealand, Latvia, the UK and various other studios around the globe. Haver has a long and impressive history of recording, production, programming, engineering and drumming that has found him on tour and in the studio with the Manic Street Preachers. He has also fulfilled several roles on albums by exSpice Girls Mel C, Super Furry Animals, Bullet for My Valentine, Catatonia and Lost Prophets. Engineer Clint Murphy is no stranger to acclaim either – he has worked alongside producers such as Gil Norton and Danton Supple, and engineered albums by the Manic Street Preachers, 50 Cent, G-Unit The Feelers, Goldenhorse and Opshop. A few days behind on a recording schedule, Haver and Murphy were a bit stressed the day of the interview. However, they were more than happy to talk about engineering in today’s economy, the record industry and hype and marketing surrounding modern recording technology.

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API: What is the bulk of the work you have been doing since you have been based in the UK? Haver: We do a lot of band-based, guitar-driven work. Even 34

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the pop records we do are a result of the artist moving into guitarist-based music. One of first big records Murphy and I did was the Melanie C album. She wanted to have a live band on the record and get a more organic sound. They liked the stuff I did with The Manic Street Preachers. You have a combination of outboard and plugins at Modern World. Is there any value in plugins when you can have the real thing? Murphy: I was brought up on tape and consoles. I use Pro Tools a lot for some internal stuff. For compression and eq I always use outboard. At Modern World we make great use of the Distressors, Chandler TG limiters for drums and vocals, UA 1176s and a Bricasti M7 Reverb. We are slowly getting more and more gear and more money is being put into the outboard than anything else. Haver: I would always rather use outboard over plugins, but we would be pretty stuck without the EchoBoy plugin. I used to use Space Echos and Chorus Echos, but they were always breaking down, and it is just so nice to have an EchoBoy simulator. It has become a big part of the records we do. We did a test once where we set the Amp Farm AC30 plugin to the exact same setting on the real amp and it didn’t sound anything like it. There is definitely some psychoacoustics to it. I have friends that mix in the box constantly and make some great sounding records. It doesn’t work for me, but it does for them.

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I would always rather use outboard over plugins, but we’d be pretty stuck without the EchoBoy plugin. Greg Haver Producer

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GREG HAVER STUDIO < I think it is good not to have rules. The reason that Murphy and I work a lot together is that we like a lot of the same things. It is cool to find some new bits of recording gear, but things that tend to excite me are things like a new guitar pedal. I bought one of those Electro-Harmonix POG pedals and it has become one of my most used bits of kit, not just for harmonics, but you can do so many creative things with the sonics. I always take a collection of guitar pedals with me where ever I go, which is from my tape head days, so that I can manipulate sounds without moving a mouse around. How about the old tape vs digital debate? Haver: We’ve had the tape discussion for a while. The last record I did on tape was back in 2002. I did a panel with a bunch of other producers and Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor). I went to his beautiful studio, Hotel2Tango, and there is not a computer in sight. It is just his thing and what works for him, but aligning tape machines every morning and not having that flexibility of Pro Tools is not worth it to me right now. I guess it gives you more time to work on other things. Haver: The perception is that you are in some way slack because you are using Pro Tools, but it’s a lot more work. I always feel like the poor relation on producer panels when everyone is talking about their old Studer machines and I am saying that I haven’t used tape for years. It makes you feel like the guy with the pornographic magazine. I should be more adamant and say that I use Pro Tools for a certain reason, and that it is a good medium and opens up a lot of opportunities. We spend a lot of time crafting things with Pro Tools. Murphy: Ultimately, when you record to tape you are limited to 24 tracks, and you can’t have as many mics on the drums. All the things that you can do with Pro Tools, like recording multiple tracks with loads of effects, are really hard to do with tape. Tape works on indie stuff where it is just drums, bass,

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guitars and vocals, but as soon as you want to start adding 16 backing vocals, tape has limitations. Do you ever run into problems with bands and budgets? Haver: We usually work with new bands and labels that don’t have much budget. Sometimes labels have tighter budgets than independent clients. I’ve even had major labels calling up asking if they can get an entire record done for ten grand including my fee, and I won’t touch it. Some label executives try to get producers to work on spec, so they get five producers to do two songs each that way and end up with a whole album for hardly any money, which doesn’t show any respect to the producers. I love the idea of bands self-funding and owning their records. Bands tend to be more realistic about their budgets because they don’t fuck around with endless remixes. One label wanted us to track a record and then they wanted to pay another producer to mix it. I don’t know why don’t they listen to the mixes that I do first before they make that decision. You can save yourselves 20 grand on an album without making any decisions beforehand. Some of these producers’ mix budgets are as much as our budget for an entire album. The myth that a producer’s role is to sit behind a mixing desk doing everything is false. While it is good to have those skills, why would I want to engineer when Murphy can do a better job than me? Why would I try to arrange strings when my string arranger can do it much better? I can’t pay him as much as I could in the old days, but I can give him 50 songs to arrange and record in a year. That is a great deal for him because he can make a decent amount of money over the course of a year, and I can say the same thing to the studio – that I can’t give them full rate, but I can give them six or seven months of work for the year and then negotiate a deal as one model. The other model is a producer with their own studios doing everything, which I used to do, but I’m way too old to do that now. If I was a 20-year-old producer I would get a nice room somewhere and get a ton of gear in.

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Bands tend to be more realistic about their budgets because they don’t fuck around with endless remixes. Greg Haver Producer

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> STUDIO BUCKS NEW UNI

University challenge As it embarked on a £1.8m project to revamp audio and visual production courses, Bucks New Uni enlisted the help of Sennheiser UK. Rob Hughes finds out that, 18 months down the line, both parties have realised that they have an extraordinary relationship on their hands… ucks New University’s Music & Entertainment Management and Production prospectus reveals a highcalibre list of industry luminaries – among them, Steve Levine and Tony Platt – who have recently contributed to the education of its students as esteemed guest speakers. One name that might not be so familiar to audio types is Aubrey Nunn, a regular visitor who comes to talk about his experiences of being a musician in the business – something he is well qualified to do, having worked with Faithless, Dido and Corinne Bailey Rae. From the outset, Nunn was extremely impressed by what he saw and notes: “Here is an example of how a music business degree should be – students constructively using their time and supporting new talent.” Nunn, who had worked closely with local audio manufacturer and distributor Sennheiser for several years, spotted a synergy between the objectives of the firm – which, at that time, was embarking on a broad expansion of products and services – and those of the university. Nunn pointed this out to Frazer Mackenzie, the head of production and new media courses, who was overseeing the construction of some new studios. “We realised that Sennhesier, which just happened to be local, was involved in the industry on an international scale,” recalls Mackenzie. “So I called and said it would be great to get the firm involved with the new studios and then see how we could both benefit from a continued relationship. And it’s grown organically from there. We’ve looked at opportunities, educational partnerships and projects that would benefit Sennheiser in terms of promoting its products and services and our students in terms of getting access to great gear, expertise and knowledge.” Originally spread across a number of campuses, Bucks New University eventually made the decision to sell off all but two sites in High Wycombe and extensively redevelop the remaining buildings using funds resulting from the sale. This involved a restructuring of the courses, and Mackenzie, who was initially responsible for music management and audio production modules, was required to take on film and TV production too. Subsequently, he worked closely with architects, acousticians

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and builders to ensure that the redevelopment process adequately provided two floors worth of music and film production facilities. After little more than a year, these were completed in September 2009 and boast £1.8m of comprehensively equipped studios and teaching spaces. This is a solid foundation for the university, but as Mackenzie points out, it needs the support and help of the industry to remain relevant. “The capital investment is fairly substantial, but, inevitably, to keep it all current, we have to bring in the equipment that’s being used out there, because it can go out of date very quickly. To this end industry partnerships are absolutely key. “They’re essential in maintaining that currency. Even if stuff comes in just for a day or the students get to go onsite during rehearsals with artists and get the backstage experience – that sort of thing is crucial and it’s something we’re keen to develop with Sennhesier. “It’s equally as important to get the expertise coming through. We’ve got great members of staff who have all different kinds of industry backgrounds, but it’s invaluable to have people coming in who are actually working out in the field. They can come in and talk about what they’re currently doing, bring in the latest kit and this gives the students chance to get their hands on it and get a sense of what’s actually happening out there.” The benefits to the students, some of whom are currently liaising with professionals from Sennhesier on dissertation research projects, are obviously tangible, but what does the famed mic manufacturer gain from all this? Well it’s quite simple really – when these students complete their courses having used Sennheiser equipment throughout, there’s a very strong chance that they will www.audioprointernational.com

BUCKS NEW UNI STUDIO < then enter their chosen industries with a preference for the brand. “To be able to place the kit in the hands of the next generation is brilliant, because some of these guys might be the ones mixing Coldplay or AC/DC or whoever is filling stadiums in ten years’ time,” Sennhesier’s artist relations manager, Mark Saunders, explains. “We pride ourselves on our relationships with sound engineers and artists, but we’ve always maintained relationships with people on every level and we’ve always worked closely with up-and-coming professionals. “The ability to come to Frazer and say: ‘we’ve got this new product, would you like to test it in your facilities?’ is just fantastic, because they are great facilities. The initial relationship was all about Neumann and Sennhesier products – the mics and the headphones – then as our product range expanded, the courses also branched out a bit, so the number of relevant products has increased as we’ve taken on things like K-Array, which, alongside some live sound students, we trialled in the union venue recently. “It works on another level as well, for example Derrick Zieba is going to come in and hold the RF masterclass next week and that means someone of that calibre, who is the sound designer for the Brits and MTV, will come here, see the quality of the facilities and know that a manufacturer he respects is heavily involved with them. Then when the students go out into the real world at the end of the course and a CV gets passed to Derrick or Bryan at Brit Row or someone else who he is really tight with, it won’t just be a piece of paper that says: ‘I’ve got this degree’. They will be able to put two and two together.” A good illustration of the partnership was a recent education day at the British Music Experience, of which Sennheiser is a co-sponsor. The day comprised a combination of master classes and workshops, giving 260 students from a variety of courses on music management, live events and audio production, a firsthand view of the role of an artist relations manager courtesy of

Sennhesier’s Phil Cummings, an insight into the importance of the implications surrounding the RF spectrum issue, delivered by Sennheiser business development specialist Alan March and chief engineer Andy Lillywhite, as well as a Q&A with Graham Ball Management and a promoter from Sony BMG. BNU hopes to take this industry involvement even further, as Mackenzie explains: “The typical way you’d interface with the industry if you were a university would be to have guest speakers and do field trips and so on. Yes, we do all that, but we also want to get the professionals involved in course design as well. We’re experts in terms of education – pulling curriculum together and so on – but when it comes to actual content, what we deliver, that’s where we think that industry people should be much more involved, because it’s not up to us to tell them what’s happening in their industry, quite the opposite. “It’s about equipping the students with the skills they really do need, so that they know the difference between being in a classroom or a workshop and on location in the pouring rain with a major catastrophe developing with the sound system and having to think quickly on your feet and use your initiative. These are the kinds of experiences that the guys from Sennhesier and its colleagues in the industry have had, so what we need is for these people to outline these real world skills and get them involved in the actual assessment process, so it’s not just academics that are grading the students. Hopefully this can restore some of the industry’s faith in education.” And this is already beginning to take effect, with exciting consequences, as Partridge concludes: “Steve Jenkins, the managing director of Visions, which does a lot of OB stuff for Sky Sports and Sky News, was in here just before Christmas, being as blunt as: ‘I want to help you develop your curriculum and I want first pick of your student’. So for us, it would be great to have a bunch of massive OB companies squabbling over our best students. That’s really the zenith of what we can function as, a real centre of excellence.”

Aubrey Nunn

PLASA Focus is the established industry show for lighting and sound communities in the North. Taking place across two halls at the Royal Armouries, Leeds, on Tuesday 27 & Wednesday 28 April, PLASA Focus is a highly informative annual industry forum where you can meet face-to-face with over 100 leading manufacturers and suppliers for the entertainment and installation technology industries.

www.plasafocus.com/leeds

Maximise your business opportunities - join key industry players for two days of regional networking and learning.

Enquiries: +44 (0)20 7370 8666

”

Bucks is an example of how a music business degree should be – students constructively using their time and supporting new talent.

As well as two halls packed with manufacturers and distributers of the latest technology, there is a comprehensive Education and Learning Programme (see website for details). Added to which entry to the show is FREE, lunch on the day(s) you attend is FREE and attendance to the Education & Learning Programme is FREE – simply pre-register NOW at www.plasafocus.com/leeds

Email: info@plasafocus.com Owned and organised by PLASA Events Ltd

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March 2010 37

SARAH YULE STUDIO <

Vocal Placement Sarah Yule explains that properly capturing the emotion and nuances of a vocal track is all down to mic choice and technique…

badly mixed or balanced vocal can ruin the entire feel of a song and sacrifice its power and charm. Often the vocal contains important lyrics to define the song’s meaning, but even if not, the tone and placement of the vocal is in essence a primary colour within the song’s sound canvas. Choosing the correct microphone for your vocalist is not always as easy as you think. There is not one magic microphone that is perfect for every vocalist. Each has a a slightly different frequency response and ‘sweet spot’, in the same way your vocalists have a different tonal make up. Don’t be put off from using a mic aimed at recording acoustic guitar or other instruments for use on vocals, as it may just work out as the best option. Try and get to know your mic collection and get accustomed to the tonal qualities of each one to make this process easier. Once you have finished all your recording and are starting to mix, you need to have a general playback listen to account for obvious problems. Listen out for if the vocal gets lost on quiet passages or becomes overpowering on more energetic phrases; do you lose the vocal when the piano is playing or the guitar? Getting the vocal mix right isn’t just to do with the level. It’s how it balances against the other components of the track. Compression can help get a more consistent level on your vocal but sometimes people are guilty of over-compressing. When compressing a vocal the ideal settings will vary dependant on the vocalist, but the compressor shouldn’t be making the track louder, just more even, preventing large peaks and troughs in the dynamics. Try to avoid using presets on plugins, play around with settings or use a dedicated outboard unit to really get to know how your compressor works and sounds.

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If you find that you are losing the vocal on the verse because of the guitar, you can try two different solutions. The first technique is ducking. For the case of our vocal struggling with the guitar to be heard, you can insert a gate over the guitar track and set to ‘ducking’ mode. We would then insert the vocal track into the sidechain input of the gate. This enables the vocal to trigger the ducking gate and force the guitar down in level when the vocal sounds, thus creating manipulative automation. Another method is one of my most used ‘mix tricks’. Using a simple eq inserted on the vocal track, sweep up and down the spectrum to find the most prominent and favourable frequency. Have this frequency boosted by at least 3dB with a narrow Q of at least seven. Then on the opposing track, set up the same eq, but this time cut the same frequency by the same amount. This method of mixing is sometimes referred to as spectral mixing, or what I call a sound amnesty, which allows each frequency and instrument to be heard fairly and coexist in harmony within the frequency spectrum. Once you have a well-balanced vocal, it’s important to add the correct dimension to it; this can be done using reverb to help place it in the mix. As a general rule, always use more reverb on backing vocals and keep the main vocal a little drier. Pay attention to the tone of the reverb you add and check it with just the vocal soloed and against the whole track; don’t be scared to layer reverbs either – sometimes layering reverbs can help the trail sound lusher and more natural. Prioritise your vocal and use your ears and the tools of your trade to make sure it has the attention it deserves, help your mixes to stand out and be remembered through your commanding and enchanting, well balanced and mixed vocal.

AUTHOR BIO: Sarah Yule is an experienced audio engineer and Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) graduate. After graduation, Yule became one of the first sales staff for Dolphin Music. She currently works for TL Audio where she was recently promoted to the position of sales director, which is partially due to the success of her conceptual design of the Fat Track Tube Production Suite.

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> IN SESSION

Studios:

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

Rooms: Five, including main studio with iso booth and production rooms Consoles: SSL Duality, AWS 900, Amek Angela Mics: Neumann, Josephson, AKG, Coles, Royer, Geffell, Rode, Sontronics Outboard: Neve, Shadow Hills, EMI, Crane Song, UA, Urei, Wunder Audio Monitoring: Westlake, Adam, Yamaha, ATC

Rooms: Single room mastering facility Consoles: Sterling Modular Monitoring: Bowers & Wilkins, Hypex, Velodyne Converters: Weiss, RME, Z-Systems Outboard: API, Crane Song, Thermionic Culture

Dean St Studios, London

Amsterdam Mastering

THERE IS an amount of uncertainty as to how Dean St Studios started life, but, as far as the current owners know, the building was adopted as a creative space in the 1950s when it became a film studio, presumably serving the post-war boom in British cinema. It is known for sure, however, that in 1976, a young Tony Visconti bought the lease for 59 Dean Street and, having already established himself as a respected producer with artists such as Bowie and T Rex, turned the facility into his own Good Earth Studios. He continued to record these artists at the studio, in addition to work with numerous other big names such as Thin Lizzy, U2 and the Moody Blues. Visconti sold the lease to a production house known as Joe & Co in 1989, which transformed the building into recording suites, but left the original studio as it was. This studio was supposed to be the location for Dusty Springfield’s last ever recording sessions, However, it was sold on to the current owners, Jasmine Lee (daughter of TYA’s Alvin Lee) and her mother, Suzanne Lee Barnes, who re-opened the facility in London as Dean St Studios in August 2007.

JUST OVER two years ago, Darius van Helfteren decided to move his mastering studio from the renowned Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum, Netherlands, to a new, purpose-built facility in Amsterdam. The design brief, duly handed to a team of specialist craftsmen along with an unlimited budget, was simple: build a mastering studio with absolutely no compromises to rival the very best in the world. Completed in 2009, Helfteren’s new facility, the appropriately titled Amsterdam Mastering, is a testament to the engineer’s vision. A quick look at the images and specs reveals the no expense-spared nature of the studio and demonstrates that this is, as he envisioned, a truly world-class mastering room. Northward Acoustics in Brussels provided the designs for a 42 square metre, totally floating room, isolated down to 10Hz, and featuring a wealth of innovations in acoustic design and construction. The floating concrete floor actually covers 72 square metres, which demonstrates the degree of isolation and absorption involved. The studio was built using a staggering 30 tons of material, with highlights including a 1.8-metre deep

Dean St’s Studio 1 features separate control room, live room and isolation booth, all connected via large glass windows. The live room itself was designed by respected studio design consultant Eddie Veale and his daughter Eloise, and its acoustics are said to be stunning. The addition of the booth, which is a substantial 250 square-feet area, facilitates many interesting combinations of live recording and tracking. The studio recently became the first commercial recording facility in London to invest in a SSL Duality SE console. The bespoke control room setup now offers 48 channels of SSL and eight channels of Neve that can be summed in a number of different ways. Jasmine Lee, Dean Street Studios’ director and manager, says: “The Duality replaces an SSL AWS900 console, which was only 24-track and not suitable for the large scale mixing projects that this room is increasingly attracting. We realised we had to upgrade and, after researching various options, my business partner Ben Roulston chose the Duality because it is a great sounding console and has all the flexibility our clients want.”

Telephone: +44 20 7734 8009 Web: www.deanst.com

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bass trap to the rear, totally silent airco and stainless steel front wall and outer coating for the studio. It even features a climbing wall. Every single element of the studio was carefully considered and selected by Helfteren, from what most would deem to be the more crucial components such as soundcards, to the workstation console that would house his processors, something not always given the attention it deserves. “For the new studio we decided to put together several new Sequoia workstations. Although we had a choice of various components for our new PC systems, there was one area where there was simply no room for discussion: soundcards had to be RME,” he explains. “When deciding on a new console for my mastering room, I didn't need to look far – in terms of high-end mastering desks, all roads seemed to lead to Sterling Modular. My console was designed in conjunction with some of the biggest names in the mastering business, and it shows.” Helfteren has put the finishing touches to records by a multitude of top artist such as Scorpions, Akon and Judas Priest.

Every single element of Amsterdam Mastering was carefully considered and selected by Helfteren

Telephone: +31 6 474 063 07 Web: www.amsterdammastering.com

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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 Chris Allen explains cost vs quality

Why pay more?

Rooms: Control room, cutting studio, mastering room Consoles: Studere Vista 5 Software: emerging Pyramix, Sadie, Cedar Audio Outboard: Avalon, Drawmer, Bricasti, Eventide, Focusrite Monitoring: Bowers & Wilkins, Strauss Elektroakustik

Stockfisch, Germany PAULER ACOUSTICS, the recording studio of Günter Pauler’s Stockfisch Records, is constructed within a 1,000year-old monastery cellar. It features three separate departments – a tunnelshaped 5.1 control room, cutting studio with Neumann VMS-82 DMM vinylcutting machine and a fully equipped SACD mastering suite. For over 30 years, Pauler’s Stockfisch Record label has been aimed at audiophile fans of guitar-oriented singer-songwriters and revivalists dating back to the 1970s. Many of the artists include European musicians as well as American expats, and the roster boasts established names alongside new discoveries. All of the label’s releases are recorded in the Pauler Acoustics studio so that it can maintain quality control over all the productions it releases. The facility has been keen to embrace the SACD (super audio CD) format which, although not accepted by the mainstream market, is highly regarded by audiophiles. It therefore offers DSD recording and SACD mastering, which allows for sampling rates 64 times higher than regular CDs. For capturing, editing and mastering

SACDs, the studio employs a Sadie DSD8 system. Analog microphone signals are converted to DSD (direct stream digital) and are maintained throughout processing in the DSDWide format at 2.8224MHz. The end result is the DSD8 ‘cutting master’ (AIT tape), which is transmitted directly to a stamping plant as a SACD glass master. Since acoustic guitarists are well known to be conscious of dynamics and transparency in their recorded work, the studio maintains a policy of conscientious selection of its studio equipment, sometimes making unorthodox but carefully considered choices. It recently opted to purchase a Studer Vista 5 mixing console from the company’s German distributors, Audio Pro Heilbronn, which will be used for all in-house productions. "The aural characteristics of this desk are outstanding,” notes Pauler. “The Vista 5 delivers soft transparency, with a spatial resolution that I have never experienced before on a digital desk. What particularly inspires me is that on every channel there is a parallel compressor, which in its control mode compares with the best-known American analog compressors.”

Pauler Acoustics, the recording studio of Günter Pauler’s Stockfisch Records, is constructed within a 1,000-yearold monastery cellar. Telephone: +49 (0) 5551 61313 Web: www.stockfisch-records.de

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THERE IS A VAST catalogue of audio gear available and priced appropriately for the beginner, enthusiast and professional audio producer or engineer. More and more products are introduced to the market every week and, as consumers, we really are spoilt for choice. But why is there such a large price difference between some gear when there is, arguably, sonically not much difference? There was a time (in the short history of audio product design) when the primary objective for a manufacturer was to produce the best, or at least most suitable, tool for the job – and building a great hand-made device to address this seemed to outweigh budget constraints. Of course back then the only facilities investing in this equipment were well-funded, largescale recording studios. Today we live and breathe digital, which has reduced the cost of audio recording and production equipment significantly: not only can we achieve the same functionality as analog equipment, but we also benefit from smaller designs, lower power consumption, recall-ability, non-linear editing and the list goes on. Nonetheless, highly-priced gear is still readily available and still being developed while the more cost-effective solutions dominate. Digital audio technology has improved over the years – in both the analog and digital domains, which means that one does not necessarily have to invest a lot of money to get ‘good’ gear. So why should you part with several thousand pounds for a mic preamp or a converter when you can get the same channel count and approximate functionality from one that costs a fraction of the price? It is normal to expect a more expensive box to produce better sound quality than a significantly cheaper product (whether or not that is actually the case) and this is the first subjective decision we make when auditioning gear – it has

to sound great. Beyond perceived sound quality, let us consider the more overlooked features. There are many readily available converters, for example, which are more susceptible to jitter than others. This can be proved by simply switching the clock source from internal to external and hearing a difference, whether it sounds better or worse. An absolutely great sounding box which changes audio characteristics when clocked externally as opposed to internally indicates that its clock has poor jitter rejection, and from there it does not take much for any of this potential jitter to introduce distortion into your audio signal. On a more fundamental level we should consider consistency; some

Why part with several thousand pounds for gear when you can get the same functionality from a product that costs a fraction of the price? recording projects may require you to move from studio to studio, and it’s good to have the peace of mind that clocking your digital device from one reference or another is not going to change the sound and stereo imaging of that device resulting in a completely different perspective to your mix. Clock consistency and quality is nearly always overlooked in cheaper kit. There is no need to dismiss cheaper products. It is a great thing that advancements in technology have made audio production financially available to the masses. The golden rule is: ‘If it sounds good, do it’ when considering your next purchase. There is a reason behind product pricing, which may go far beyond the published specs and initial sound quality.

Chris Allen holds the position of recording products sales executive and support engineer for Prism Sound Group. He has worked for the company for two past two years and is a graduate of De Montfort University. Allen also studied at the Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies.

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

> PEOPLE

IN BRIEF

Avid appoints new VP for EMEA Paul Hennessy to handle European direct enterprise and sales operations

SHURE DISTRIBUTION UK has promoted Anthony Short to the position of field sales manager. In this new role Short will lead the external sales team covering all pro audio sales channels and take direct responsibility for key B2B wholesale and subdistribution accounts. > shure.co.uk PLASA has announced that Linda Moore will take on the role of director of sales and marketing. Moore joins PLASA from Stage Electrics where she held the position of head of sales and marketing for over a decade. Moore has served on PLASA’s executive committee for the past five years. > plasa.org

AVID has announced that Paul Hennessy has been named the new vice president of sales for EMEA. Located out of the company’s European office in Pinewood Studios, Hennessy will take responsibility for direct enterprise sales operations, in addition to Avid’s retail and channel partner sales functions. “I am delighted to be joining Avid, a company which has long inspired me through its innovation and excellence – across so many customers from the home to professional editor and the musician to recording artist. Avid is a pioneer in the entertainment industry and I am proud to be leading the EMEA sales group,” stated Hennessy. Hennessy joins from Sony, where he was a member of the European leadership team and responsible for Sony’s B2B businesses, including broadcast, audio visual, retail, security and digital imaging. He also served on the UK leadership team for Sony’s consumer business, which included

Hennesy is inspired by Avid’s excellence across a various sectors

many well-known brands, such as Bravia TV, Vaio Computers and Walkman Audio. Further to this he led various initiatives in the transformation of the business including Sony’s own online business, Sonystyle. Prior to Sony, Hennessy spent nearly eight years with Dell Computers, leading sales and marketing operations for the

corporate and public sector market segments. He also worked across Europe establishing corporate call centres, which were focused on balancing the customer experience with improved cost management. Hennessy has also worked with the American SBC Bell Telephone Company as well as Toshiba Information Systems. > avid.com

General Manager

Linton Smeeton returns for sales role at RCF

Romania

Founding director joins British sales team

Five’s is one of Romania’s leading facilities companies in the pro audio, lighting, video and staging rental market. The company is also the sales distributor for Romania for several European brands. Five’s is seeking to appoint a General Manager to take responsibility for the company’s day to day administration, as well as working with the Board of Directors to develop and implement strategies for growth. The successful candidate will possess relevant experience in the entertainment technology industry, HSVUN ^P[O WYV]LU ÄUHUJPHS HUK THUHNLTLU[ ZRPSSZ ( ZHSHY` HUK ILULÄ[Z WHJRHNL JVTTLUZ\YH[L ^P[O `V\Y experience will be on offer to accompany this exceptional opportunity for personal and professional development in this fast growing territory. Please send your CV to Liviu Stanescu on: SP]P\ Z[HULZJ\'Ä]LZ YV

magic technically improved

SOUND LIGHT VIDEO PYRO SFX

173 BLVD, TIMISOARA, 061327, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

42 audioPRO March 2010

Smeeton was one of the founding directors of RCF from 1990 to 2000

RCF has recently announced the appointment of Linton Smeeton to a sales position in its UK division. Smeeton was a founding director of the RCF from 1990 and 2000. In his new positon he will concentrate mainly on the company’s commercial audio division. Smeeton commented on his return to the company: “It’s great to returning to RCF, the brand has grown so strong over the past decade and I’m really looking forward to being part of it again.”

RCF’s UK director of sales, Phil Price, commented: “We are all looking forward to having Linton back on board with us. With his experience in the audio market, he’ll be a great addition to the team. During 2010 RCF will be introducing some major new products and systems to the commercial audio catalogue, which will allow us to grow our UK network of solution providers. Linton will be concentrating particularly in these specific markets” > rcfaudio.com www.audioprointernational.com

DISTRIBUTION <

Prism Sound and Loudsoft join forces to simplify loudspeaker design and measurement tools New partnership combines loudspeaker design, acoustic testing tools and the dScope Series III PRISM SOUND has signed a deal with Loudsoft in order to serve as its global sales and support agent. Prism Sound’s partnership with the Danish manufacturer will combine loudspeaker design and acoustic testing tools with its own dScope Series III audio analyser platform, providing customers with a complete package of loudspeaker system design and measurement tools, resulting in everything from product design right through to production line testing. Headed by independent consultant and ex-Vifa chief engineer, Peter Larsen, Loudsoft offers a number of Windows-based programs including FineMotor, for designing magnet systems and voice coils; FineBox, for designing loudspeaker enclosures; FineCone, for designing soft parts such as cones, domes, surrounds and dustcaps; Fine X-over, for designing crossovers quickly and with as few

components as possible; and FineLab QC for acoustic testing of assembled drive units and loudspeakers. Loudspeaker design engineers have traditionally had to work with a number of different software simulation packages and test and measurement solutions, most of which were unable to easily exchange data or work together. Loudsoft’s simulation and analysis tools are built on a universal platform whereby all applications are capable of sharing data and importing analysis results for comparison with simulations, simplifying and streamlining the process of system design. “Both companies are responding to this need to simplify design and analysis systems by providing greater levels of integration of the tools needed to accomplish the task,” Prism’s Simon Wollard said. > prismsound.com

TM Audio takes on Powersoft and Optocore in Holland Dutch distributor to represent new product lines

TM AUDIO has announced that it will now handle both Powersoft amplifiers and Optocore’s optical digital fibre network systems in the Netherlands. With a portfolio including brands such as Allen & Heath, Digico, Martin Audio, Renkus-Heinz and Shure, TM Audio is a key player in the Dutch pro audio market. A part of the Ampco Flashlight Group, the company focuses on distribution as well as on turnkey projects. “Powersoft is a valuable addition to our portfolio and will be integrated into our projects as well as sold utilising our customer network consisting of rental and staging companies, pro audio dealers and music stores,” said Rudolf Nagtzaam, www.audioprointernational.com

sales and marketing manager with TM Audio. “Powersoft amplifiers are what our clients need: requiring less space, consuming less power, sounding great at high output levels and they last, the perfect combination and outstanding value. We look forward to co-operating with the highly professional and experienced TM Audio team,” confirmed Luca Giorgi Powersoft sales manager. “They are the right partners to grow our presence in this demanding market.” Nagtzaam commented: “TM Audio took on Optocore as a valuable addon to our portfolio, which will enable us to offer complete audio systems and packages.” > tmaudio.nl

Peter Larson endeavors to provide powerful and time-saving software

Fancy a Sixpac? Luckily Proel’s already got one Jörg Pelzer appointed to lead new brand push

Sixpac has set out to establish Proel as a leader in the German market

SIXPAC has revealed that it will serve as Proel’s exclusive German distribution partner. Based in Schwäbisch-Hall, the company was founded in 1998 by a group of people from the former German manufacture Zeck Audio. In 2000 they started Amptec. “Proel will be an important partner for us. We will be working with many new and old partners, and our aim is to establish Proel as leaders in Germany,” said MD Peter Bott. Sixpac has recruited Jörg Pelzer to take the position of national sales manager and lead the group that will work with the Proel brands. Pelzer

comes from Behringer International, where he worked as national sales manager. He started his career in the industry in 1987. “Being introduced to the Proel Group, the people and the products, has been a very positive surprise for me. The investment in the R&D is impressive as is the high quality of the finished product. The product segments are very well targeted and provides huge business opportunities. I look forward to working with Proel and to introduce all these great products to my dealer network,” said Jörg Pelzer. > proelgroup.com

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> PRODUCT

NEW GEAR >> Recent releases in audio technology 1

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GreenHalse BBOX

Meyer Sound CAL series loudspeakers

TOA Type C line array

Audio-Technica U843R condenser mic

THEY SAY: BBOX eliminates ground loop problems. SPECIFICATIONS: BBOX is a twochannel, line level balanced/unbalanced audio converter for long cable runs and consumer-toprofessional equipment interfacing. It is a compact unit with a simple transformer based design that can also be used in reverse to convert from balanced to unbalanced. It also provides combined jack/XLR sockets and can be used as an isolation unit with an earth lift facility BBOX features an 82 x 63 x 38mm aluminium enclosure. Two female XLR quarter-inch jack combi sockets provide the input connections, and two XLR male connectors from the output connections. The signal path is bidirectional, so the unit can also be used in reverse.

THEY SAY: Intelligible voice reproduction and audio coverage can be achieved with the CAL series with fewer, strategically placed loudspeakers. SPECIFICATIONS: CAL is a new line of self-powered steerable column array loudspeakers. Its vertical beam can be angled up or down 30 degrees and can be configured with vertical beam widths from five to 60 degrees while maintaining full power output. Multiple or split beams can be used as needed. Using a range of vertical control presets, system integrators can choose the angle and dispersion to accurately project sound while avoiding surfaces that interfere with speech signal transmissions. The speakers incorporate the same digital signal processing as its D-Mitri digital audio platform.

> greenhalse.co.uk

THEY SAY: Type C line array is based on the firm’s phase wavefront control technology for audio clarity and uniform sound dispersion. SPECIFICATIONS: The Type C line array offers a choice of 15-degree and fivedegree vertical dispersion angle modules, together with a 15-inch subwoofer enclosure for low-end reinforcement. All three boxes are also available as IPX4-rated splash-proof enclosures. Both mid-high modules use TOA’s proprietary Sync-Drive waveguide design, and can be run in a choice of single or bi-amplified modes, depending on the application. It also provides the ability to connect a number of speakers and combining with a different dispersion angle.

> toa-corp.co.uk

THEY SAY: Designed for surface-mount applications and ideal for audio and video conferencing. SPECIFICATIONS: Audio-Technica’s U843R condenser mic is a threechannel boundary microphone and part of the Unipoint sound reinforcement series and designed mainly for surfacemount applications. Three cardioid condenser elements are mounted in the U843R’s housing, by default set with an angle of 120 degrees between them to achieve 360 degree coverage. Two of the three elements may be reoriented to give angles of 90/90/180 degrees between elements – suited to positioning at the end of long conference tables, for example. Elements can also be powered and used individually, or in any combination.

> audio-technica.com

> meyersound.com

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Yamaha M7CL-48ES

Shure PSM 900 IEM

BSS Audio Soundweb BLU-100

Alcons Audio CRMS system

THEY SAY: M7CL-48ES incorporates EtherSound while maintaining the intuitive operational platform that many engineers know instinctively. SPECIFICATIONS: TM7CL-48ES replaces the 48 internal mic preamps found on the SB168-ES EtherSound stage box with two EtherSound ports. This keeps the three MY card slots free for other uses, such as the connection of multitrack recording equipment. Also included is a third port, which allows permanent connection of the console to a computer while using EtherSound in ‘ring’ mode. The M7CL-48ES auto-configures its connection to the SB168-ES stage box, using the ES Monitor software to establish the link. The upgraded software, Version 3, provides a range of features, including sends on fader for M7CL V3 Editor.

THEY SAY: PSM 900 provides a wide stereo field with exceptional L/R separation for enhanced detail and clarity usually lost in an in-ear monitoring system. SPECIFICATIONS: PSM 900 features the patented Shure Audio Reference Companding, also used in the premium wireless microphone system UHF-R. Its transmitter has been optimised to reduce frequency intermodulation, allowing for up to 20 compatible channels to operate simultaneously on one (36 MHz) frequency band. Advanced filtering has also been integrated to reduce RF interference, while an Automatic RF Gain Control detects any spikes in RF signal and reduces RF sensitivity in order to protect against overload.

THEY SAY: BLU-100 represents a premium, open-architecture solution in the form of a highly flexible, costeffective and scalable package. SPECIFICATIONS: Soundweb BLU-100 offers a fixed configuration of 12 inputs and eight outputs, configurable signal processing, logic processing and a fault tolerant digital audio bus. The configurable signal processing capability offered by the BLU-100 is roughly twice that of the Soundweb London BLU-80 and BLU-16 devices. The analog inputs of the BLU-100 provide software configurable gain in 6dB steps up to +48dB per channel and a software selectable Phantom Power option per channel. The BLU-100 features a low latency, fault tolerant digital audio bus of 48 channels, which uses standard Category 5e cabling.

THEY SAY: Developed in response to an increasing interest in Alcons systems for sound with picture. SPECIFICATIONS: The CRMS system is a three-way reference system designed for A/V projects, screening rooms, and highend home theatre installations. The new system’s unique design feature is that the MHF section also acts as a full-range surround system. This was integrated to provide a very uniform sound stage throughout the entire listening area.

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> yamahacommercialaudio.com 44

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March 2010

> shure.co.uk

> alconsaudio.com

> bssaudio.com www.audioprointernational.com

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MARKETPLACE < DISTRIBUTION

MARKETPLACE ADVERTISERS INDEX Adam Hall

01702 613922

DBT

0800 239 2848

www.dbtechnologies.com

Full Fat Audio

www.fullfataudio.com

Gasoline

www.gasoline.co.uk

GHQ

0207 8749 5654

Graphic Nature

01992 558800

HME

+1858 535 6060

Leisuretec

+44 (0) 1525 850085

sales@leisuretec.co.uk

Neutrik

+44 (0) 1983 811 441

www.neutrik.com

Sound Marketing

01296 621 052

www.wesonator.co.uk www.graphicnature.co.uk

www.soundmarketing.co.uk

AUDIO MARKETPLACE CLASSIFIED RATES: Minimum 12 Months One Annual Charge Quarter Page £1,495

To advertise call

Darrell Carter on 01992 535647

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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 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

STUDIO

API MARKETPLACE GREAT ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES

CONTACT DARRELL CARTER +44 (0)1992 535647

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

BURNING AMBITION Thomas Riedel, founder and managing director of Riedel Communications, carried the Olympic Torch during the ceremonial Olympic Torch Relay at this year’s Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. “This was probably the most emotional moment I've ever had in event productions," said Riedel shortly after the run. Riedel Communications has provided communications solutions to the Olympic Games since 1994. For the Vancouver Games, Riedel was officially honored with the ‘Friends of the Games’ title.

4, 3, 2, 1! Powersoft amplifiers were used to deliver sound from the two performance stages for the Times Square, NYC NYE celebration

DIZZEE DOES IT

Dizzee Rascal’s lastest release, Tongue N’ Cheek, won UK Album of The Year (09) a the recent MPG UK awards. The album was controversially turned down by XL Records because the label felt Rascal was taking a new direction.

www.audioprointernational.com

Goldcrest Post Production re-recording mixers Jamie Roden and Mark Paterson have been nominated for the Cinema Audio Society Special Achievement Award in Los Angeles for their work on the film Endgame. The feature-length drama is about the end of apartheid. It was inspired by the extraordinary secret talks that took place in England at a time when civil war in South Africa seemed inevitable.

AUDIO FISH OF THE MONTH

AVT Communication System’s technical director, John Machin, caught this Redfish in Mosquito Lagoon, Florida during a trip after the CES tradeshow. The fish was caught on fly fishing tackle and was the only one of the day after there was a large fish kill due to the ten days of cold weather. Send pictures of your big catches to: andrew.low@intentmedia.co.uk

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March 2010 49

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BEHIND THE BOARD WITH… JENS ELSBORG Nordic Rentals director Jens Elsbo has worked with REM, The Rolling Stones, Roger Waters and Rammstein

Which band/project are you currently working on?

ABBA The Show. Where are you at the moment?

Back in the office planning for summer festivals. What audio console are you utilising? And how many channels?

Soundcraft Vi6 with 68 stage signals plus FXs. What decision process was behind the choice of this audio console?

DAVE BRACEY ON THE DIGICO SD7 As a live concert sound engineer my needs in a mixing console boil down to two things: superior audio quality and extraordinary functionality. If I was writing this ten years ago I would be talking only of the former, but for what is expected of me today relies as much on the latter. I need extreme flexibility to mould the surface in front of me into a tool and a friend for two hours a night. The flow of mixing the show has to become an organic, reactive process and all housekeeping requirements should be taken care of by the desk during that time. There is not enough head space or down time for it to be any other way in my particular world. There is only one console that will provide me with this comfort zone and I am very happy that it also turns out to have a sound that I have not yet heard equaled. Nothing feels better at a festival than an audio edge courtesy of console choice (sorry, I mean almost nothing). My Desert Island Desk can only be the DiGiCo SD7.

The sound quality and its compact and lightweight design. Do you utilise any outboard effects/eq, and if so, what are they used on and why?

I use Avalon Tubes for vocals because they have a nice, sweet sound and provide instant access. We also use the TC M5000 for vocals, Yamaha SPX for drums and the TC DBMAX for mastering.

What are the best festivals and venues that you have encountered during your career?

Skanderborg Festival, Rock Under the Bridge, The Jelling Music Festival the Forum Horsens and the SAP Arena in Mannheim. What’s been your worst professional experience to date?

A freezing cold gig at the Plez Arena. The loading dock was -16º C and the venue was -6º C. It was an ice hockey stadium in a greenhouse and the plexi screens were still in place. What has been your career highlight?

Eurovision Song Contest 2001. What really pisses you off?

People talking loudly when they should be listening, or, even worse, beers flying at you from the crowd. What makes you happy when working?

My colleagues doing their job to perfection.

Favourite PA or monitoring system?

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

So far, I would say the Adamson Y18 and M15.

Riding my Ducati in summer and down-hilling in the winter.

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

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

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© Intent Media 2010. 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

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50 audioPRO March 2010

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Audio Pro International is published 11 times a year by Intent Media ~ Saxon House, 6A St. Andrew Street, Hertford SG14 1JA, England

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The Leisuretec Listings Plus 2010 • Call us to Order Your Copy • Experience • Choice • Value • Service Sound • Lighting • Special Effects • Distribution Power Squared • Tel: +44 (0) 1525 850085 • www.leisuretec.co.uk

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