July 2016
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Jungle style How Audio-Technica brought the Amazon to the streets of New York P32 P20
P26
P44
C’EST LA TECH
ALL HANDS ON DESK
LIVE SAX SHOW
THE AES CONVENTION GOES BACK TO PARIS
THIS STUDIO LITERALLY HAS A ‘FLOATING FLOOR’
DAVID SANBORN ROCKS JAZZ SOUS LES POMMIERS FESTIVAL
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Welcome
PSNEUROPE Editor Dave Robinson drobinson@nbmedia.com
Advertising manager Ryan O’Donnell rodonnell@nbmedia.com
Deputy editor Sarah Sharples ssharples@nbmedia.com
Account manager Rian Zoll-Khan rzoll-khan@nbmedia.com
Group managing editor Jo Ruddock jruddock@nbmedia.com
Head of design Jat Garcha jgarcha@nbmedia.com
Content director James McKeown jmckeown@nbmedia.com
Production executive Jason Dowie jdowie@nbmedia.com
Contributors: Kevin Hilton, Marc Maes, Dave Wiggins, Mike Clark, Phil Ward, Erica Basnicki, David Davies, Guillaume Schouker
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P3 JULY 2016
DAVE ROBINSON Editor
@PSNEurope
S
omething very magical happened to me a couple of months ago. I suddenly found myself on the banks of a large river, the fast-flowing water soothing me, bathing me, washing over me. I drifted along the bank for a while, before heading inland and into a forest of rare and tropical birds. Further along my path, I sensed the onset of rain; soon enough, the drops became heavier and thunder filled my ears. Had to push through the storm... hang on, what’s this, monkeys? Monkeys, loads of the noisy blighters too... Not really, of course. I was in the middle of midtown Manhattan, Times Square in fact; but, then again, maybe I wasn’t. To borrow from my favourite composer Steve Reich, “You are wherever your thoughts are”; that afternoon, through the combination of headphones and a smartphone app, I was in a rainforest in Peru. Such was the power of Soundwalk Collective’s Jungle-Ized audio tapestry, and the depth of fidelity of the playback through the Audio-Technica ATH-M70x cans. After half an hour listening to the ever-shifting soundtrack, I didn’t want to hear the chaos of cars, cabs and commuters, I was far happier with the virtual frogs and forest-dwellers. You can read all about this fascinating and totally unique ‘installation’ on P32. After five months of being a one-man editorial band here at PSNEurope, I’m delighted to say that we have a new person on the team. Originally from Darwin, Australia, Sarah Sharples joins us from a background in newspapers and technical PR. I’m very pleased to have her onboard after nearly half a year of flying solo! ....and flying solo is what the UK has decided to do. As I write this, the EU Referendum vote has just reached its conclusion. I stayed up till the early hours, convinced we were staying in Europe, only to awake to the – in my opinion – awful news. I don’t have the energy or the will to say much more about it; read David Davies’ piece on distributors, page 38, to see what various UK business figureheads were feeling ahead of the vote. It will be interesting to revisit those thoughts in a couple of years when Brexit really kicks in. Me, I think I’ll just head back to the jungle.
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Contents
P4 JULY 2016
In this issue... P48 TOURING CONSOLES HOW THE EQUIPMENT IS FARING ON THE ROAD
P18 UNDER THE RADAR HYPEX ELECTRONICS INFLUENCE ON AMPLIFIERS
P58 LURED BACK INTO THE GAME QSC’S GENE JOLY ON HIS ATTEMPT TO RETIRE
Studio 22 26 28 30
Foundry Studio installs Audient Cruise down to recording facility Grand Cru barge Audio Vitamin’s foray into plug-ins Brighton’s Brown Bear Audio production house
Broadcast 32 36
P22 THE MEGA AUDIENT CONSOLE FOUNDRY’S SHEFFIELD STUDIO GETS A REFURB
Business 6 7 8 10 12 14
How Metropolis has survived the tough times Audio Architect Apparel – new techie t-shirts line Pro Sound Awards – get your entries in Vocal channel: Erica Basnicki and Dave Wiggins Movers and shakers: industry appointments PSNTraining: what’s on
Technology 16 18 20
New products New players in town: Hypex Electronics What went down at the AES Convention
COVER STORY: Audio-Technica in New York City University of Westminister’s new studio
Live 38 42 44 47 48
Distributors investing despite Brexit Martin Traut retires from Dynacord Sax legend David Sanborn at French jazz festival TiMax’s whole new world with Aladdin Life on the road with new digital consoles
Installation 52 54
Show Review: InfoComm 2016 Peter Peck’s Wharfedale way of life
Back pages 57 58
Hither and dither Q&A: Gene Joly
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© Ralph Larmann
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P6
Business
JULY 2016
UNITED KINGDOM/FRANCE
Metropolis still the masters Ninety per cent of the commercially trading studios in London have disappeared in the last 10 years. Sarah Sharples finds out how Metropolis has managed to survive and thrive
M
etropolis Studios has been through a torrid time in the last decade and CEO Ian Brenchley is not afraid to admit it. Many famous albums have been recorded, mixed or mastered at Metropolis, including the The Verve’s Urban Hymns, Grammy Award winners Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black and Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as well the Live Aid and Live 8 DVDs. But Brenchley says the studio had not been profitable for a decade, until last year. “Studios as a model: it doesn’t work, it’s dead, not dying, and it died a while ago,” he asserts. “But we, through hard work, through I’d like to think some innovation, certainly trying lots of different things, kissing lots of frogs and diversifying our business we are still here and we are doing pretty well.” “We are very profitable this year, in fact we are having the best year in over a decade, so that’s great news.” Last month, Metropolis hosted an event called The Sounds of the Future, inviting clients and friends along to the Chiswick facility to watch the Euro 2016 England vs Wales match, and to highlight a £250,000 refurbishment of their studios with equipment from Genelec and PMC, who are celebrating 25 years of operation. Studio A, home to seminal recordings from Winehouse to Queen has upgraded with PMC QB1-A monitoring system. Studio B, recently host to iconic artists such as Will.i.am and Adele, now enjoys Genelec 1236 and 8351 monitoring systems. The investment is testament to Metropolis’ ability to pull through the tough times. Back in 2008, when Brenchley started at Metropolis, there were 96 commercially trading studios that could be compared like for like, with either multi-rooms, mastering facilities, recording studios or a combination. “It’s very sad to say that there are less than 10 now in London that you would compare like for like, with what we can do now, and actually of this size. We have 19 rooms here (and) by my calculations that certainly makes us the biggest in Europe and possibly one of the biggest in the world - there are not many of those left,” he says. This year, Metropolis’ record label will make more money then their studio business, says the CEO. “So that’s not a bad thing, that’s a very good thing, because the label (and) the publisher, it feeds the
Ian Brenchley – post England football victory, of course
studios and the mastering, so everything we’re doing is very true to our core ethos and our core values which is sonic excellence,” he says. But Metropolis has diversified, with new business including the label, an academy that launched last year offering courses in contemporary songwriting and artist development and music production as well as artist management. In particular Brenchely has focused on bringing in international business and partnerships, which he believes offers the biggest growth. Earlier this year, French music recording studio Studio Grand Armée announced a partnership with Metropolis. Brenchley says the deal is key to increasing Metropolis’ footprint in Europe: Grand Armée’s French clients can record and mix and then send the tracks to the London studios for mastering.
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But there are bigger plans for the partnership, such as a content play, including a French version of a TV show called Vinyl Metropolis. Originally called On Track and shown on Channel 4, the programmes sees contemporary artists record four tracks live to vinyl in front of an intimate audience, with the fourth track including a performance by one of the artist’s heroes. “So we had the Temperance Movement on episode one of series three and they had Ian Paice playing on the fourth track from Deep Purple… we have got [the rights to] the next series and that’s something we want to do with Studio Grand Armée, [where] we partner up and get a French TV channel like TF1 on board but with a series of six French artists here at Metropolis.” www.thisismetropolis.com
Business
P7 JULY 2016
Audio Architect Apparel: arrivals! Dave Swallow introduces his new line in techie t-shirts
I
magine a world without the guitar. Exactly! Not worth living. Who on earth wants to live in a world without Townsend or Hendrix, and frankly if you find one, ask them to leave. Via the back door. Saves embarrassment. Conception of this whole scheme came just after I noticed the vacant look on the glassy-eyed, nodding head of the man standing in front of me. As it is with these trade show motifs, I seem to be targeted by gangs of like-minded loonies who want to talk shop. So there I was, midway through an answer about internal distortion of a speaker cone when I noticed something quite peculiar in the ordinary; a throng of agreeing heads and barely a clue between them. That’s when the noggin started throbbing… Most of my musical memories have been made from many years spent travelling the globe contributing to concerts, getting lost, waiting around, reading a great book… recently I’ve spent a lot of time teaching. There are certain things about guiding a student’s mind that swells the old ticker in the emotion department and one of them is when they come back after you’ve left them a lingering question from the session before. A lingering question is posed usually at the end of the class which is designed to keep students thinking, but between breaths that’s usually difficult. The internal monologue piped up, ‘This would make a great t-shirt!’ I’m not sure if it was a question or a statement but I kind of liked the idea that we could talk about some insanely geeky stuff without uttering a word
and instead just using great design. Since that point the idea has grown and taken a different slant but the original premise is still the same; create interesting designs that will ask questions, but are designed to hide geekiness in plain view. Have you ever watched that film Carry On Sound Engineering? No, neither have I but if I had to, I’d place a wager that the protagonist had a t-shirt with words alluding to knob touching or having some sort of firm bottom-end. Rest assured dear reader, my aim is not to dress the audio world in side-splitting humour, but to craft our collective geekiness and love of technology into something subtle and cool. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you you: Audio Architect Apparel. A tribute to the technology behind the music. It’s the ideas that sparked cultural change and the people that made it happen. It is a celebration of our music and our journeys to get there. It revels in ideas, people and the generation changing sounds that are the foundation to our way of life. Audio Architect Apparel is about the soundtrack to our lives. It’s about sharing a beer, or a 1945 Marques de Riscal Gran Reserva, waiting for the plane. It’s about selecting the right track at the right time. It’s about injokes that only you and your closest mates get. It’s about spontaneity and experiencing something new, to you at least. It’s an experience that’s covered in mud, sweat and cheers. It is the elegance in hard work and the calm under pressure. It’s the beauty in design and belongs to the
Dave Swallow modelling is new line of tech couture
ideas hidden in plain view. It’s the dreams and the journeys, the late night laughs and the bloodshot, earlymorning ones too that switch life into vibrant stereo. It’s a way of life that appreciates the class in science and technology. Music is the cultural glue that binds our world together. It’s a melting pot of ideas, a cultural exchange and a broadening of horizons. It’s a connection, a shared experience that we are all part of - the listener, the creator and the producer. There are lots of theories about why we like music but there is one inescapable truth; we are human and we like our music loud and proud. Sound design that will amplify your image… See what I did there… www.audioarchitect.co
Master Station serves up to 24 remote stations
Connection of User Stations via LAN with PoE switches or via powered daisy chain lines Full color high-resolution displays 48 kHz / 16 bit uncompressed audio 4 Master Stations may be linked Remote Speaker Station
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Channels for Cue Light Control, GPO Trigger or Listen Only Full duplex intercom channels Program audio feeds over network
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FLEXUS is designed & manufactured by: ASL Intercom BV, Utrecht, The Netherlands www.asl-inter.com
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08 JULY 2016
Business
United Kingdom
Deadline extended! T Get the entries in for a chance to win!
here’s just a few days left to enter PSNEurope’s Pro Sound Awards, with the deadline extended to midnight on July 7. Anyone can enter (think about those bragging rights if you win) and it’s totally free. The Awards night is being held at the world-famous Ministry of Sound nightclub in London on Thursday 22 September. To enter, read through the categories and see which one(s) you feel you want to make a pitch for, nominating yourself, your team, an associate or a project or person with which you have been impressed and want to give wider recognition. (Full eligibility criteria is available online at prosoundawards.com) Then send a short pitch (up to a maximum of 300 words) for each award under consideration to prosoundawards@nbmedia.com. Provide as much factual information as possible; data and evidence of notable successes are invaluable. Up to three hotlinks to relevant material online can also be provided – and, by all means, ask your colleagues or industry friends to make their feelings known. Tickets for the awards, which celebrate excellence in live, studio, installed and broadcast audio, are on sale now for a bargain £55. For the second year running, Canadian stand up comedian Sean Collins will be hosting the Awards. Since moving to the UK, Collins has quickly established himself as a respected comedian. His appearance on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow on BBC 1 proved a bombastic gig, affording him the opportunity to perform at The Real Variety Showcase for Jeremy Lee Associates, the UK’s biggest specialist agency for after dinner speakers, awards hosts, corporate cabaret and public sector events. Before the party kicks off and once the email entries are in, the Pro Sound Awards team will create a list of finalists for each category. This process involves looking at the performance of those nominations over the past year (between end of May 2015 and end of June 2016), plus the information provided by the lobbying emails, but we don’t base finalist positions on the number of
Want to get involved? A range of partnership opportunities – from headline sponsor to category, red-carpet and afterparty sponsorship – are available. Contact PSNEurope’s Ryan O’Donnell (rodonnell@nbmedia.com) or Rian Zoll-Khan (rzoll-khan@nbmedia.com) for more details! Ticket enquiries? Drop Georgia a line, gblake@nbmedia.com
THE CATEGORIES Live/touring sound • Engineer of the year • Bes tour sound production • Best theatre sound Studio sound • Engineer of the year • Best studio • Best sound in post-production Installed sound • Team of the year • Best permanent installation project • Best temporary installation project Broadcast sound • Team of the year • Broadcast event of the year • Best facility Achievement • Marketing initiative of the year • Rising star (in association with Audio Media International) • Lifetime achievement • Grand prix
Host, comedian Sean Collins
Matt Wiggins won Engineer of the Year in 2015
emails we receive about a particular company – just solid evidence for their inclusion. A shortlist of finalists for each category will be presented to a large panel of judges from across the pro-audio spectrum; this panel will ultimately choose the winners of each Pro Sound Award (with the exception of the Grand Prix and Lifetime Achievement gongs, and the Rising Star award, chosen by our friends at Audio Media International). You’ll find judging criteria and more info online. Good luck!
www.prosoundawards.com prosoundawards@nbmedia.com
Send your nominations to prosoundawards@nbmedia.com before Friday 7 July
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P10 JULY 2016
Vocal channel
Two Big Ears, one big thrill
I ERICA BASNICKI is a writer and sound designer
am delighted to personally know at least one person involved with audio technology company Two Big Ears. This outfit is responsible for audio technology enhancing virtual reality/ augmented reality applications and was recently acquired by Facebook, which is kind of a big deal. A little bit of background: Two Big ears was started by my colleague Varun Nair, and Abesh Thakur. Their main product is 3DCeption for Cinematic VR; a workstation for spatial audio that works with most major DAWs and can be rendered on the majority of computing devices, including mobile. In essence, 3DCeption makes it incredibly easy for users to experience spatialised audio. Two Big Ears was purchased for an undisclosed sum this year as Facebook continues to invest in virtual reality technology (Facebook bought Oculus $2bn in 2014 and UK-based mapping company Surreal Vision in 2015). The software is being rebranded as “Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation”,
though Two Big Ears says it will continue to develop tools for non-Facebook/non-Oculus platforms. Nevertheless, when Facebook calls your technology “revolutionary”, then you know you’ve done something right. Virtual reality/augmented reality is going to do all of us a lot of good. It’s going to demand quality audio. It has to in order to fulfill the “reality” side of things. There are a lot of other companies out there doing amazing things in audio. In fact, we’ve got a whole feature on Audio Vitamins (see page 28), one of the latest start-ups. But virtual reality has very unique demands; you can’t get by with the sound just being “OK”. Not only does everything have to sound good, it has to be placed properly or else the illusion is shattered. I would go so far as to wager this is one of the first times audio is given equal footing to video, which makes me exceedingly happy. In fact, I am willing to place bets that virtual reality is going to change how we listen. Or at least change how the next
generation listens. Those of us old enough to remember life before the Internet may not embrace virtual reality technology as quickly as those born in the new millennium. We are also old enough to remember the experience of listening an album all the way through, whether on vinyl (when that was the only way by which you could listen to music, and not a hipster option) cassette or CD. But kids these days, they don’t have that kind of listening experience. Music has become background noise for daily activities and the act of purposeful listening has been mostly lost. Virtual reality will make that virtually impossible. If the sound is crap, it’s going to be immediately obvious. So as much as I am thrilled for my friend and the success of Two Big Ears, what I’m mostly excited about is that there is now a medium that demands nothing short of spot-on sound. May today’s kids embrace it, and learn to love to listen.
Death of a salesperson
I DAVE WIGGINS is a freelance marketeer and pro-audio pundit
n the early ’90s I was working for a finance company as an account executive (that’s ‘salesman’ in bank speak). I hated it, it hated me and I was terrible at it. Most of the staff were bank people and we had absolutely nothing in common – in particular the concept of having a musician working there was deeply weird to them. Fortunately for all concerned, in 1993 the company had the good sense to pay me to go away and thus it was, via happy chance, that I went to LMC Audio. I had owned and operated the PA in my bands for years and so had a basic understanding of what went where, but still the learning curve was very steep. I had to simultaneously get to grips with the components, operation and core principles of professional audio systems, while finding my feet in a completely new industry and trying not to demonstrate my ignorance. However, the dealership environment was friendly and supportive plus the majority
of customers were patient, so in due course I gained both an appreciation of what went where and more importantly, an understanding of how the business worked. While you are no doubt fascinated by my early career in pro audio, the point of this reverie is that I understand from various sources that many manufacturers, distributors and dealers are finding it hard to recruit sales people. Given my experiences and everything that our business has to offer to people with the right background, I find this hard to comprehend. As long as there are companies who supply the production industry, there will be a need for skilled people to develop and maintain those essential B2B links. (Actually, I realised long ago that there aren’t really any sales people in this business, because most end users are experts. Throughout my sales career I supplied equipment to people who knew far more about the kit than I did, so the job
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was really about relationship management, common sense and a willingness to put oneself out.) Perhaps the sales side of the industry doesn’t make itself accessible enough to younger people with a background in music. Perhaps potential employers needing sales people have neither the time nor the resources to train people up to the necessary standard – that might be a valid commercial viewpoint but it’s also short-sighted if true. Numerous leading hire operations (notably Brit Row, Adlib and others) have taken a lead in training the next generation of technicians and the supply side of the business arguably has a similar responsibility. I know that many of my contemporaries wandered into the business via routes similar to mine, and also that many of them, like me, have moved fairly freely and frequently between sales roles. I’d hate to think that us oldies are clogging up opportunities for the next generation…
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P12 JULY 2016
Movers and shakers
VUE move for Frank Loyko Industry veteran reunited with former EAW/Loud colleague Ken Berger
V
UE Audiotechnik has announced the appointment of Frank Loyko to the position of VP global sales. Based in Seattle, Loyko brings 36 years of executive experience building sales networks at professional audio companies including EAW, RCF, Avid and TC Group. VUE CEO Ken Berger said: “There is no one I know with more knowledge and the ability to build a world class sales organisation. Additionally, Frank will be working closely with the management team, up to board level, to ensure that we build the best customer focused team in the industry.” Berger worked with Loyko at EAW/Loud Technologies in the early Noughties. Before this VUE appointment, Loyko spent 12 months back in the EAW/Loud fold as VP of north American sales. “My belief is that the industry is coming full cycle, where agile manufacturing, cutting edge technology and design need to be paired with the philosophy and mindset of being a team that is ‘easy to do business with’,” said Loyko. www.vueaudio.com
Adam Brown has been named Polar Audio’s new bus iness development manager. Brown is taking direct responsibility for key accounts in London and the South East. www.polaraudio.co.uk
Joe Kurta has joined Peavey Commercial Audio’s senior management team as chief technical officer. Kurta will lead product development and design, including heading up a new MediaMatrix engineering and technical support team. www.peaveycommercialaudio.com
DEALER NETWORK Community Professional Loudspeakers has appointed AVC as its distributor for Russia, which will operate in parallel with its long-time distributor Arsenal Music. Anton Motuzny from AVC’s Moscow office said the company supplies the retail, hospitality, leisure, sport and stadium sectors with products such as digital audio-over-IP kit from Terracom, connectors from Neutrik and cables from Belden and Tasker. Community’s EMEA sales manager Jamie Ward commented: “(AVC’s) strong infrastructure and excellent technical support ensures that dealers and integrators have full backup and, most importantly, the value added service required from commercial sound through to large engineered projects and specialist outdoor system design.” www.communitypro.com www.avc.ru Alcons Audio has appointed InSynergy, a Lancashirebased distribution and installation business set up by Steve Badham, as its UK distributor. Alcons co-founder Tom Back said: “The timing couldn’t be better for us to appoint a new UK distributor, with the fast growth we are experiencing worldwide.” Badham added: “Alcons systems have recently been installed in prestigious venues including Hamburg’s State Opera House, the Swedish National Theatre, the Finnish National theatre and on Broadway with Hamilton, which has been described as ‘the hottest ticket in decades.” www.alconsaudio.com www.insynergydistribution.com
Polar Audio has promoted from within to fill the role of integrated solutions director. Head of installation Stuart Leader will relinquish his direct day to day management of accounts, taking on a wider responsibility across the whole installation sector. www.polaraudio.co.uk
B&C Speakers has recruited Gianluca Dalessandro as regional sales manager for APAC/EMEA. “Gianluca ... is an ambitious and active personality that will surely offer positive and creative ways to improve sales…,” said B&C’s Ron Tizzard. www.bcspeakers.com
Polar Audio has also appointed Tim Riley to a newly created brand development director position. Riley joins the company from Audio-Technica, where he managed UK professional markets. www.polaraudio.co.uk
Harman has hired Mohit Parasher as executive VP and president for the Professional Solutions division. Parasher is ex-VP and general manager of Harman’s Consumer Audio and Professional Solutions businesses in Asia Pacific. www.harman.com
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MUTEC has appointed Sound Mania to distribute its consumer audio products in Hungary. Sound Mania has several showrooms across Hungary and will be supplied with products such as the MC-1.2 USB interface and the MC-3+ Smart Clock USB. “Sound Mania is spearheading the beginning of a revolution in computer audio in Hungary and we are excited that MUTEC products will now play an important role in this movement”, said Christian Peters, chief executive officer at MUTEC. Bálint Ferenc, owner of Sound Mania, said: “As a distributor of several high-end brands with proaudio roots such as Trinnov, Merging, and Antelope, we understand the importance of correct clocking.” www.mutec-net.com Community Professional Loudspeakers has appointed HUST as its distributor for Croatia. HUST was founded in 1994 and distributes other brands including Biamp, TOA, Apart, Univox and Screenline. Tomislav Stubican of HUST said: “Our projects comprise many applications, including stadiums, hotels and retail, hospitality and tourist venues, hospitals and public buildings.” Community’s EMEA sales manager Jamie Ward said: “(HUST) operate true stocking distribution and are technically very strong, offering total system design which places them in a very unique position in this region of Europe.” www.communitypro.com www.hust.hr
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P14 JULY 2016
Industry calls for review into newly built educational facilities
BY SARAH SHARPLES
July 4 MMF Management Training Grant Thornton House, London themmf.net
September 12-13 Making Wireless Work SynAudCon, Newark NJ prosoundtraining.com
September 19-21 AFMG: Level 1 + Level 2 EASE Training Berlin, Germany www.afmg.eu
November 8-9 NEXO ETC1 France nexo-sa.com/en/training/
Sound Academy roadshows in Iran and Jordan BY SARAH SHARPLES
David Bell, director of design house White Mark, and other high-profile signatories from the recording sector have written an open letter voicing their concerns surrounding the standards of newly-built educational facilities in the UK. Bell says they have been called in to consult on new buildings where students and teaching staff were worried about the space’s performance and found problems ranging from limited acoustic isolation, crosstalk problems, unacceptable reverberations in live and control rooms and poor space planning and layout, which impacted on
equipment installation and teaching. He adds he was extremely troubled by reportedly excessive costs of constructing these facilities, especially when compared to significantly better complexes built in the private sector, considering public money is being used. An urgent review of the design and procurement process used to create the educational facilities is needed, Bell says, as well as improving building specifications to give more detailed guidance on what constitutes a recording studio. www.whitemark.com
Making waves for sound engineers BY SARAH SHARPLES The ISCE is presenting a course, called Making Waves, for sound engineers to gain a better understanding of how sound behaves after it leaves the loudspeakers. People will learn what sound is, how it travels, the relationship between the speed of sound, wavelength and frequency, amplitude, how the decibel works, equal loudness contours and the implications of frequency weighting, air absorption, reverberation, diffraction, interference, temperate and the speed of sound, refraction and The Doppler effect, says the ISCE. The course is taught by Tony Stacey MInstSCE. It will be held on 15 September at Production Park, Leeds. www.isce.org.uk
www.psneurope.com/training
As a part of ‘Sound Academy’, an ongoing set of roadshows across the Middle East, Sennheiser held two events in Iran and Jordan, in collaboration with its partners ERTEBAT Co and Advanced Solutions. The roadshow in Iran was tailored to end-users and focused on Sennheiser’s audio for video and business communications product ranges. The event in Jordan had a split focus on microphone technologies and RF management for rental companies and installers and business communications solutions for end users and consultants. Mostafa Ghamari, Brand Development Manager at ERTEBAT Co says: “I believe that at this moment, the presence of well-known companies like Sennheiser beside their distributors in Iran can positively impact the market more than ever.” www.sennheiser.com
Desired directivity and better impulse response
Measures 10db less noise pollution on stage Digital acoustic steering Hyper-cardioid dispersion Self powered
www.k-array.com
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New products
PEAVEY P2
What is it? A portable PA is designed for the ‘weekend warrior’, whether it’s being used by a performing artist or DJ. Details: Eight 4” custom high-frequency drivers as well as a 12” subwoofer, with a fan-cooled power supply and 20Hz to 20kHz amplifier fidelity. And another thing… A three channel input ideal for singer/songwriters, with variable mic/line input as well as vocal boost selector in line 1, dual 3/4” inputs in line 2 and RCA inputs in line 3. www.peavey.com
ALLEN & HEATH
SOFTTUBE
RADIAL ENGINEERING
What is it? Software to enable offline editing and live mixing on a PC, allowing the engineer to prepare the show offline and then mix the performance from their laptop or Windows tablet.
What is it? A plug-in to capture the muscular, fat warm sounds of classic ‘British’ mixing.
What is it? A transmitter allowing stage techs to use it for return snakes or for transporting balanced audio across a large stage. System contractors can use it with pre-wired networks to connect audio between rooms.
DLIVE DIRECTOR
Details: Director can be used either as a supplement to a dLive Surface or with a MixRack. And another thing… The touch-friendly interface mirrors the physical surface layout and has resizable fader banks to suit different resolutions on various devices. V1.2 available to download free of charge. www.allen-heath.com
BRITISH CLASS A FOR CONSOLE 1
Details: Channel emulation for Console 1 with EQ, compressor, limiter, gate, high/low cut filters and input stage drive. And another thing… Based on vintage British hardware units inspired from the 1960 and 70s to add a rich, dense tone to recordings. There is also a double midband equaliser, dual mid bands and additional compressor attack/release times. www.softtube.com
www.psneurope.com/technology
CATAPULT
Details: Six configurations are offered with a choice of three input and three output modules. Each input module features four XLR inputs, four XLR thruputs along with two Neutrik Ethercon outputs. And another thing… Constructed with solid 14-gauge steel. www.radialeng.com
M-5000 & M-5000C LIVE MIXING CONSOLES
A NEW ERA IN LIVE MIXING CONSOLES MAD I In a rapidly changing world, the ability to adapt is needed to excel. OHRCA brings the power of adaptability to the world of live audio mixing. It conforms to the needs of both the application and the operator by delivering 128 freely definable audio paths, flexible user interface and workflow, expandable protocols, and multi-format I/O choices -all delivered at a pristine 24-bit / 96kHz sound quality.
roland.proav.com
P18 JULY 2016
The strategic position: Hypex Electronics Niels Burema (left) and Jan-Peter Van Amerongen, sporting amp modules based on Ncore Class D technology
Low profile, high output Phil Ward unearths a well-grounded power house called Hypex
I
f you’ve never heard of Hypex, you are forgiven. Something in hi-tech syringes? No. A PR company? Maybe, but not here. Hypex Electronics BV is in fact one of the most influential suppliers of power amplifier sub-assemblies in pro-audio, and ‘subassemblies’ gives the game away about why the company has hitherto flown below your radar. It makes amplifier modules and, while other operators in this field have begun to badge their work on the open market (Pascal and Linea Research particularly), Hypex remains confidently quiet in the twilight world of OEM, somewhere among the daffodils between Vlissingen and Kiekaaste. “We specialise in amplifier modules, not off-the-shelf rackmount products,” confirms Thomas Vaneman, Hypex account manager, “but they are 100% built by ourselves. Recently we made a switch from separate power supplies and amplifiers to integrated, multi-channel options, but still only as modules.” Jan-Peter Van Amerongen, who owns the company, started out at home in 1996 as a small business making Class A-B amplifier modules and was soon swamped by orders – adding first Jorrit Mozes as R&D manager, and then Niels Burema as operations manager. Consistent growth was followed by a sea-change when Van Amerongen met a Philips engineer called Bruno Putzeys who was developing a technology called UcD, or Universal Class D. “At first Jan-Peter assumed that Class D could never match Class A-B for quality,” explains Vaneman, “but Bruno invited him over and proved that it could. So Jan-Peter hired Bruno as chief R&D engineer as soon as he could. UcD makes such a light, small yet efficient amplifier that it was
The full range of Hypex modules, relaxing in the warehouse
easy to sell. On the back of this success Bruno began to develop Ncore technology.” By 2008, Ncore was emerging as the next generation after UcD, claiming even greater performance characteristics and propelling Hypex into several professional and consumer audio markets. Larger premises have been established in Groningen and Eindhoven, with warehouse locations in Groningen and Hong Kong and factories in Nanjing, China and Penang, Malaysia – the latter wholly owned by Hypex since last year. It now covers 2,000m² and has doubled its SMT production capacity eight times since the initial manufacturing partnership was begun in 2012.
www.psneurope.com/business
Hypex caught the shift to Class D in pro audio early, helping to transform it from a low-end corner of the amplifier business to the high-end application of today’s perceptions. “UcD was the first Class D amplifier to compete seriously with Class A-B,” Vaneman claims, adding that it’s important to remember that these are purely analogue amplifiers and the designation ‘D’ in no way means digital. But what makes them ‘Universal’, as the nomenclature has it? “Bruno was trying to develop a new standard,” explains Vaneman, “something everyone could reference and acknowledge. Plus, of course, it can be applied to almost any audio application in every market from bars to
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mastering studios. We’re aiming to leave no sonic footprint at all – they add nothing, they remove nothing; they just amplify. Some of our customers are using them in scientiďŹ c measurements under laboratory conditions.â€? Having already added DSP modules and speaker management to the product portfolio, the long-term evolution of a business like Hypex would suggest a move eventually into badged, rackmount ampliďŹ ers and other units featuring full connectivity. Vaneman agrees with this assessment, but adds: “the secret of running a good business is taking things gradually and going at your own tempo.â€? There are now several Hypex customers in the rental sector, adding the technology to their own systems just as Jan-Peter Van Amerongen’s very ďŹ rst customers did back in the ’90s – a two-man Dutch PA supplier called JMP. The studio and consumer sectors continue to beat a path to the Hypex door, and the reach is now global with a busy ‘WebShop’ supplying much of the output in kit form. With no distributor network, all sales are direct. “Most of our ‘promotion’, if you can call it that, is word of mouth,â€? says Van Amerongen, “walking around a lot of trade shows and exhibiting ourselves at ISE and Prolight + Sound. Most customers come to us, and so far we haven’t needed distributors!
Hypex HQ in the Netherlands
“Seven years ago we did about â‚Ź1 million turnover; last year we did â‚Ź7 million – that really is double-digit growth, without any layers of representation in different countries or any complicated dealer relationships. The market knows what we are doing, and every new customer has the potential to generate new business by using our product and showing their competitors something advantageous. They see Hypex in competing products, and they drop us an email!â€? As the touring market accepts Class D, Hypex is in a good position to drive innovation as this technology
dovetails into environments populated by networking and DSP. “But UcD and Ncore won’t, by themselves, inuence how people in pro-audio use the IT infrastructure,â€? Van Amerongen points out. “It’s just ampliďŹ er technology. We do have a two-in, four-out DSP platform that will be connected to our new digital networking system that’s in development now. It’s still OEM; what we do is sub-assembly, but who knows how people will adapt our modules to suit the market requirements as they happen‌â€? „ www.hypex.nl
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P20 JULY 2016
Show report: AES Paris
City of lights and sounds T Mel Lambert profiles the recent AES Convention, which was held at Le Palais des Congrès in Paris he Audio Engineering Society came to the City of Lights in early June and, once again, proved that the European academic and research community will turn out in significant numbers for a focused convention. The technical programme organised by Michael and Sue Williams, which attracted a reported 2,600 preregistrants – including some 700 full-pass attendees – is testament to the fact the AES can provide an appropriate environment at which to examine the latest and greatest in sound ideas and production technologies. As AES executive director Bob Moses told PSNEurope: “The Paris International Convention surpassed all of our expectations. The research community continues to thrive, while the business community once again embraced the show. In particular, there is great interest in spatial sound and networked audio. Our preregistration was up significantly on last year’s European convention [held in Warsaw], with a 30 per cent increase in exhibitors, resulting in 64 booths showing products from several hundred companies.” Moses also confirmed that next year’s convention will be held in Berlin, “probably in May,” he stated. “We are also considering selecting maybe two magnet cities for future European conventions, and alternating these with other locations” in response to the needs of local AES sections.” During the convention’s opening ceremonies, AES president John Krivit – who was profiled in the June issue of PSNEurope – paid tribute to the Parisian printer and librarian Édouard-Leon Scott de Martinville who, in 1857, created a device to record sound vibrations as a series of wavy lines on paper coated with a thin layer of lamp black. “Martinville’s Phoautograph represented the first known recordings of the human voice,” Krivit said, “but were never actually heard until 2007, when scans were converted into sound by two scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Lab [University of California]. If he were alive today, I like to think that Édouard-Leon Scott de Martinville would be here with us at the 140th AES Convention, to perhaps present a paper or a poster session.” Taking as his theme “Chance, Intuition, Courage and Rebellion,” AES president-elect Alex Case dedicated his well-researched keynote address to historical examples of landmark signal processing, either accidental or purposeful. Starting with Marty Robbins’ landmark 1961 single, Don’t Worry, whose distorted six-string tic-tac bass sound resulted from a faulty input transformer on the
General view of AES Paris exhibition areas
console and which led, he recalled, to the development of the world’s first commercially available distortion pedal, the Maestro Fuzz-Tone, Case. He then considered Jackie Brenson and his Delta Cats’ Rocket 88 single from 1951, with its dramatically damaged guitar amp, and Link Wray and his Ray Men’s Rumble from 1958, which featured an overdriven Sears & Roebuck guitar amp. The Kink’s 1964 single You Really Got Me used a guitar amp speaker which, reportedly, had been sliced with a razor blade, while The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction from 1965 was the first commercial release to feature a Maestro Fuzz-Tone effect, courtesy of producer Andrew Loog Oldham. Other examples of breakthrough effects included The Wallflowers’ 1996 single One Headlight, with its aggressively compressed and effected snare drum, and Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight from 1981, with engineer Hugh Padgham’s innovative gated-snare sound. He keynote culminated with David Bowie’s 1974 recording of Sound and Vision, with its unique pitchshifted and distorted snare sound, courtesy of engineer/ producer Tony Visconti’s creative application of an Eventide H910 effects processor. “Why do mistakes have value?” asked Case, who serves as associate professor of recording technology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. “Because they result in a novel sounds, not a novelty. And
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distortion radically reshapes timbre; it does not obscure musicality.” In terms of innovative product offerings, there was plenty to dazzle the imagination at the Paris confab. Merging Technologies showcased immersivesound applications for the new V10 release of its 64-bit Pyramix DAW software, with up to 30.2-channel routing and panning for 3D soundscapes, including full compatibly with Dolby Atmos, Barco Auro and other encoding formats, without any additional plug-ins or apps. Also to be seen: IP connectivity to the firm’s Horus and Hapi Series network-capable audio interfaces, and compatibility with the Ovation 6 media server/system controller that now includes a new range of new VS3/ VST plug-ins plus EuCon and Oasis compatibility. Von Brönner was showing a range of modular Sessiondesk studio furniture, including the Solo, Duo, Trio and expandable Trapez models, whose acoustically optimized and ergonomic design are targeted at the recording, production and songwriting markets. According to product manager and company founder Lars von Brönner, “Originally, we designed Sessiondesk because of our own needs for a modular solution; materials quality and a stable structure were just as important for us as a thoughtful design.” Surfaces are covered in a high-pressure laminate, to provide a scratch-free work space.
P21 JULY 2016
consistent branding around the word for its popular range of tape formulations, including the SM and LPR Series available in quarter-, half-, one- and two-inch widths. “Our tape accurately matches the performance and technical specifications of the original Pyral, BASF and MTEC formulations from which they are derived,” confirmed Don Morris from RMG, the brand’s US distributor. The company now sells more than 80,000 reels of tape per year in the US, its largest market, Morris said. Without a doubt, the standout product unveiled at the Paris Convention was a new multichannel/multielement signal-processing system being demonstrated to invited customers and distributors by Eventide, and which that will be formally introduced during the AES
Convention attendees during AES Paris papers session
Amadeus demonstrated the new Philharmona twoway, midfield powered studio monitors, which initially were developed for the Philharmonie de Paris’ studios by Michel Deluc, the firm’s R&D director, and architect Jean Nouvel, who also designed the venue’s concert hall. A curved structure consists of 547 wood veneers with a hybrid laminar port that uses progressive termination. “The distinctive construction helps neutralize standing waves that affect sonic clarity and low-frequency definition,” Deluc states. A complex internal structure using a combination of interlocking panels arranged in two perpendicular planes houses several tuned-notch resonators. Also to be seen: the firm’s new Dante-enabled PMX12D active loudspeakers, which feature 24/96kHz DSP, Class D biamplification plus analog, AES3 and Dante I/O. As well as new additions to its Avid Everywhere platform, Avid Technology showcased new collaborative functions for Pro Tools V12.x DAW software and new additions to the popular S6 Assignable Digital Console, comprising a Joystick Module and a new Master Film Module with PEC/DIR switching. “The modular S6 offers improved ergonomics,” explained Rich Nevens, director of worldwide pro-audio strategy, “including enhanced visibility across the control surface, and full Ethernet connectivity between eightfader channel modules and the Pro Tools DSP engines.” EuCon enables full connectivity to other digital audio workstations. As well as Avid’s XMON system, the S6 accommodates the DADman Control Monitor Controller. Reportedly, more than 1,000 S6 systems have been sold worldwide since its introduction in December 2013. 3D Sound Labs provided real-time demos of its remarkable immersive sound playback via binaural headphones, using a motion sensor whose output steers the sound field according to the user’s orientation, for virtual and augmented reality applications. “By externalizing the sound you perceive,” said senior research advisor Renaud Séguier, “our 3D Sound One headphones - or the 3D Sound One Module and a user’s headphones – reproduce the experience that consumers would get from a loudspeaker setup in their
Company founder Lars von Brönner with his modular Sessiondesk studio furniture
living room. They are totally immersed in their activity, with spatialised sound sources adapting to every movement.” The system also has application for 5.1/7.1-channel home-cinema playback. Audio Precision introduced the new APx 1701 Transducer Test Interface, which integrates instrumentgrade amplifiers and microphone power supplies for designers and production test engineers that need to measure the performance of electro-acoustic devices. “The new APx1701 raises the performance bar for electro-acoustic tests, introduces low-noise, lowdistortion and flat-response accessory for loudspeaker, headphone and microphone measurements,” stated Kris Jackson, international sales director. The new unit integrates instrument-grade amplifiers and microphone power supplies for testing loudspeakers and headphones, including functions that are said to be fully integrated with AP’s APx500 measurement software and the APx analyser, to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 standards. Mulann Industries announced that it will be changing its brand name within Europe to Recording the Masters, in keeping with its US distribution channel, to offer
www.psneurope.com/business
Convention in Los Angeles next October. “Initially, effects will be draw from our current H8000 and H9 processors – with other EQ, dynamics plus reverb effects in development - and can be run in parallel or series, to effectively create a fullyprogrammable, four-element channel strip per processing engine,” explained software engineer Joe Bamberg. Summing up his reactions to the Paris Convention, AES president Krivit told PSNEurope that it involved a collective effort. “Our technical programme proved once again that the AES is leading the discussion on new audio technology and its discovery. This was an impressive collection of academics, students, industry leaders, practitioners and end users; with the speed that new technologies are being implemented, anyone who wasn’t there will be left behind. The number of technical recruiters at AES140 indicates there is growth in our industry. If something kept you away from Paris this year, you might have missed a life-changing opportunity!” www.aes.org (C) Mel Lambert. All rights reserved
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Studio
JULY 2016
The ASP8024 is the largest desk of its kind
United Kingdom
Foundry makes cast-iron commitment to Audient
Tim Frost finds the 72-track studio revamp means the largest Audient ASP8024 analogue console ever built
A
full refurbishment of the Foundry Sheffield’s Studio has seen the installation of the largest Audient ASP8024 mixing console ever built. The customised 72-channel desk forms the heart of an up-rated 1,000sqft (92sqm) studio facility (perhaps the largest outside London) which reopened on June 10. Co-owner and engineer Chris Palmer believes that the scale of the studio and the mixing facilities will attract the large-scale work that most other studios can’t accommodate. “We’re aiming to create a space where musicians and artists can find a really great performance in themselves, that can be captured in the highest quality,” he says. “We’ve already noticed certain artists and musicians seem to have really upped their performances during sessions, because they know every single detail will be exposed. This effect has led to some fantastic [recordings] so far.” The Sheffield facility started as a live room in the 1980s, designed by Kevin Bacon of post-punk pop outfit Comsat Angels. It eventually became Axis Studios and after a (very) short spell as a rehearsal room for Pulp, the Foundry established itself there three years ago, under the ownership of production group SoundBytes Media. The Foundry control room was originally Euphonix powered, but Palmer always felt that the sheer scale of the studio deserved something much bigger. “When we moved in we said that the room was crying out for a big desk,” Palmer tells PSNEurope.
“Our vision, to quote the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, is to go back to the 24-track mentality, or in our case, 72-track mentality. It is the concept of putting great players in a great, large room and letting the magic happen and capturing it as it happens. That needs a big console; you can’t do it ‘in the box’.” Palmer originally looked at the ‘previously owned’ market to get the size of desk that he wanted, but for one reason or another, the desks on offer were never quite right. “We looked at secondhand because we thought buying new was out of our price range, but that wasn’t the case with the Audient.” So what was attractive about the ASP8024? “It had amazing reviews, but it was the incredible support we got from Audient from the very beginning. They got behind our vision for the studio and were happy to take a product they had, that was already very good, and develop it further to make this a unique desk.” The studio and control room refurbishment and desk installation were relatively quick, reports Palmer: with a background in broadcast engineering, he saw the necessity for proper project management ahead of time. “Taking the old console out and refurbishing the studio, modifying the cable ducts and putting in the new looms took about two weeks. These tasks are always bigger than you anticipate, but a lot of time went into the planning before-hand and that paid off.” The work included a complete rewire to ensure that they can work with a very wide range of set-ups.
www.psneurope.com/studio
“Every job is different, so it is cabled up for every eventuality. We could put a mic on the kettle if we wanted to.” While the work was going on, their smaller programming Studio 2 continued operating. This studio will also be refurbished sometime in the future and will be the home for the Euphonix that the Audient is replacing.
Chris Palmer: “Put players in a large room and let the magic happen”
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It is cabled up for every eventuality. We could put a mic on the kettle if we wanted to
Chris Palmer With such a big mixing console and expecting some dramatically different recording situations from bands to orchestras, doesn’t Palmer feel the lack of full recall a limitation? “To be honest, the recall side would be more beneficial on post-production for those clients who come back after a few weeks and ‘just want to do a few tweaks’. Taking that out of the equation, those big jobs that fill the console from end to end are all so uniquely different that you would never recall the whole session. Also, my broadcast background means that I like to start with a blank canvas and start from there.” Whilst the Foundry Sheffield has developed its core roots with developing singer/songwriters (via its LaunchPad programme, in particular), the revamp means that their vision has been extended to attract
The live room is one of the largest outside of London, reckon the Foundry team
the sort of projects that the other studios around them can’t touch. “They don’t have the space to get the band all in the room together, or for the bigger ensembles: the brass band, orchestral, military bands and so on,” says Palmer. The room and desk are delivering for Palmer, it seems.
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“My biggest impression was on the first time we mixed through the console. You know how when you’ve spent so much time mixing ‘in the box’ suddenly there’s so much breadth and depth. There was this huge spatial sound which I had simply forgotten about, having mixed in the computer for so long – it took my breath away.” www.foundrystudios.co.uk
Digital Mixing Consoles for Live Sound, Theatre and Broadcast
SD7
SD5
SD10 DiGiCo’s digital evolution really began with the release of the D5 Live – a breakthrough console that turned the pro-audio world on its head, and raised eyebrows across the industry. A super-powerful and slick piece of kit, with a massive feature set, which would set the standard for years to come. Fast-forward 5 years, and the first of the SD Series was born – another real trend setter, combining a quick and intuitive user interface, and sonic capabilities that are still yet to be beaten. Each console in the range retains that classic analogue feel, with the ultimate in digital processing. The SD Series raised the bar in many ways: not only in terms of power and flexibility, but creativity; never before had engineers
S21
SD8
SD9
experienced Super FPGA technology, which allowed for massive I/O capabilities, and the ultimate dynamic toolbox, easily accessible at the press of a button or via the touch screen.
in between, there is an SD console suited to every possible audio application - and they all pack a similar punch. Be it a bar or club gig, a stadium world tour, or a massive broadcast event such as The Grammys or The Oscars, the SD Series is so often the go-to.
SD11 But it doesn’t end there. DiGiCo has made quite a statement with its latest console, the S21. It’s a baby core engine, the same dynamic processing, and even multiple touch screens. S21 packs all the power of its big brothers into a super-compact shell, and and keeps DiGiCo right on the cutting edge of the pro-audio industry. Also, the release of Stealth Core 2™ processing takes the SD series to yet another unsurpassed level of channels, busses and processing power.
DiGiCo UK Ltd. Unit 10 Silverglade Business Park, Leatherhead Road, Chessington, Surrey K T9 2QL. Tel: +44 (0) 1372 845600
www.digico.biz
P26 JULY 2016
Studio
All a-board for outboard After years out of commission, the Grand Cru barge is providing world-class recording and mixing facilities once again from its new berth in London’s St. Katharine Docks. David Davies went along to speak to its ‘captain’, producer/engineer Myles Clarke
T
he tradition of boat-bound recording studios hasn’t been the subject of too much coverage over the years, but in fact it is far from being marginal. Among more recent examples one need only think of Lightship 95 – the recording and mastering facility situated aboard a 550 tonne ship permanently moored at Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London – or The Nutmeg, producer and musician Thomas Dolby’s converted lifeboat studio in Suffolk. But it is arguably the Grand Cru that boasts the most distinguished and varied history of any ship-based recording facility. Occupying a vintage 30m-long Dutch barge, the studio was instigated in the late 1970s by Who guitarist and creative force Pete Townshend, with design and build courtesy of Eddie Veale. Moored alongside another of Townshend’s many studio facilities, The Boathouse in Twickenham – which became the home of Eel Pie Sound and Oceanic Studios – Grand Cru was used primarily for his own projects, although producer and Lightning Seeds leader Ian Broudie was among other regular visitors. By the mid-Noughties the studio had largely fallen into disuse, but having sold the Boathouse in 2008 Townshend and his long-term collaborator, producer/ engineer Myles Clarke, began to contemplate a refurbishment of the Grand Cru. One of the primary aims of the project was to provide a permanent space for Clarke, whose previous facility in East London had become “uncertain”. After five years of work (including the addition of a striking coat of bright blue paint), the studio is open for business once more in its vibrant new surroundings of St. Katharine Docks near Tower Bridge. “It’s a very nice area in which to record,” says Clarke, gesturing towards the marina’s many bars and restaurants, “and we are offering it at a rate that I feel is highly competitive. It just goes to show that you don’t have to go to some place with a corrugated iron roof in Acton or Tottenham…”
Bird’s eye view: Myles Clarke at St Katharine Docks
It just goes to show that you don’t have to go to some place with a corrugated iron roof in Acton
Myles Clarke
Let’s see action A CV that includes an extended stint at Strongroom and work with acts including Slow Club, Divine Comedy, Sparkadia, Lou Reed and St Etienne attests to Clarke’s expertise and versatility. But it is Townshend with whom he is most closely associated, having been involved in numerous new and archival projects during the 14 years since he went freelance, including The Who’s first studio album in 24 years, Endless Wire (2006), and the deluxe ‘Director’s Cut’ edition of the band’s 1974 classic, Quadrophenia (2011).
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P27 JULY 2016
Below decks, it’s a proper studio!
Plenty of outboard onboard
Most recently, Clarke mixed a new orchestral version of the last-named album, entitled Classic Quadrophenia, which was overseen by Townshend and his partner, orchestrator/composer Rachel Fuller. Grand Cru is still owned by Townshend, and Clarke confirms that the working relationship is ongoing: “I am always ready for involvement with his projects as and when they happen.” For now, however, the focus is firmly on attracting external acts to work on the boat. “We’ve just had Matt Edwards’ blues trio in here, recording live except for the vocal, and we’ve also been working with a Brighton-based act called Honey’s Dream Tapes, who are a bit reminiscent of Beach House and Fleetwood Mac,” says Clarke. “There will obviously be short bookings, but we also hope that this is the kind of place that people will want to go to for 2-4 weeks at a time. My experience suggests that this is a studio that can be used as the basis for an album – we have really good equipment and a great sounding room, and we can do everything from recording to mastering in one place.”
Best of old and new Reinforcing Clarke’s assertion is an impressive permanent spec that combines new and vintage gear in a studio that feels surprisingly spacious. Positioned centrally in the studio is a recently-acquired SSL AWS948 console, which Clarke feels to be significantly superior to the AWS900 that previously occupied the space.
Pro Tools 10 is used for the vast majority of recording – although a Thunderbolt-enabled laptop with Pro Tools 12 is available – whilst there is the ability to record to tape thanks to vintage Ampex ATR102 1/2” 2-track and Studer A827 8-track machines. Principal monitoring is courtesy of a pair of Focal SM9s, about which Clarke has nothing but positive comments to make: “We have had those for four years and we’re still very happy with them; they sound fantastic.” Genelec 8030A studio monitors and a sub are also available for those wishing to work in 5.1. As might be expected given Townshend’s decadeslong interest in recording technology – “I don’t think he will mind me saying that he loves to build studios!” – Grand Cru is also home to an enviable collection of outboard. Substantially derived from the former Oceanic Studios, but with a number of additions made over the last few years, the list includes Amek Pure Path and Focusrite ISA430 channel strips, Neve 1066 and 1073 mic pres, Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor compressors, a Lexicon 224 plate reverb and an AKG BX15 spring reverb. The microphone collection is also extensive and is heavy on models from the AKG, Neumann and Shure families. A Fender Deluxe Reverb and Vox T-25 are among the featured amplifiers, while Gibson SG Classic and Les Paul Deluxe guitars, a Yamaha Avant Grand piano, and Ludwig Super Classic drum-kit are included on the permanent instrument spec. Further additions
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Pro Tools and a Studer A827
are likely to be made in the near-future: “I am going to be adding a bass or two, plus Pete has been talking about a nice electric 12-string…”
A competitive edge “We have a really fine inventory of equipment, and we are able to get a great sound in here,” says Clarke, who also highlights the contribution of assistant Jonathan Hucks to a host of current projects. But equally, he is “under no illusions” about the challenging nature of the British studio scene – or indeed the fortunate position in which he now finds himself. “We have pretty low overheads – much less than you might think – and of course we have a great history to draw on in terms of the boat’s heritage and Pete’s involvement,” he concludes. “We won’t get U2 in here due to the space restrictions… but we might get The Edge! [Laughs] It is a nice area in which to work, and I am glad to say that we have plenty of bookings lined up. I am aware that conditions are tough out there, but I have a feeling that it will work out.” grandcru.studio
P28 JULY 2016
Studio
The red and white pill: Audio Vitamins plugs you in Rob Speight finds out whether Audio Vitamins has the right prescription for plug-in fever
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eople take supplements convinced that ingesting a wide range of vitamins and minerals will benefit their body by making it work better. So why not apply the same principle to plug-ins? Self-professed audio ‘jack-of-all-trades’ David Clissold is the man asking that question. He has worked in areas including live sound, film and studio work, but immediately prior to setting up his new company, Audio Vitamins, he was an audio engineer on a cruise ship. Clissold’s voyage has taken him to many ports and his time at sea obviously got him thinking. While working on a project in August 2015, Clissold realised he could really use a plug-in that would allow him to listen to the effect of various compressors on a track in a way that didn’t distract from him actually listening to the audio: “I had a hunt around thinking, we have been using computers for music for ten to twenty years now there must be something out there that will do what I want,” he says. Finally, Clissold stumbled on Slate Media Technology’s Batch Commander, which allows users to execute up to 1000 commands in Pro Tools by just using one button. Clissold continues: “I tried using Batch Commander and I was all over it at one point. I loved it and I still use it quite a bit. But it didn’t give me the functions that I wanted. So, I went into the scripting side and developed a bunch of Apple scripts that did what I wanted. But then I thought, lets develop a plug-in and make it available for everyone.” After a meeting with a developer, Audio Vitamins presented its first offering of plug-in goodness in mid-May in the form of Contra. The software allows the user to compare up to eight different plug-ins across a one to 32-bar looped selection of a session. The plug-ins are then cycled through one after the other on each repetition of the loop without needing any further interaction from the engineer. Shortly after the initial release of Contra, Audio Vitamins also released a cut down free version, which allows for four comparisons across a one to two bar selection. “I didn’t really want to release a time limited demo. I’m quite fortunate that being a professional in the industry I do get to give time limited demos a good test. However, if I am a home user I might get to use it once or twice in a 14-day demo period and I decided
Owner of Audio Vitamins, David Clissold
that if I really wanted to get the product out there 14 days isn’t long enough,” Clissold says. Following the successful launch of Contra the company added MSg to its line up which, unlike eating monosodium glutamate does not give you heart palpitations and nausea, but instead allows you to run any existing plug-in in Mid/Side mode. The software
Msg allows you to run any existing plug-in in Mid/Side mode
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allows for full control of level and wet dry mix on both channels across the input and output. The combined settings of the existing plug-ins can then be saved as presets for use and recalled in mixes. Although the Mid/Side technique is well known, and was initially employed during recording, more software companies such as Izotope and Brainworx, are incorporating the technique in their processing products, although some are aimed more squarely at mastering rather than mixing. Clissold is not standing still; Audio Vitamins will be employing new members of staff and has plans for another eight plug-ins over the next year to 18 months. “Winter NAMM next year will hopefully be a big one for us and we can launch around four products there,” he enthuses. One of the products the company is hoping to launch at the event will be a plug-in that allows the engineer to use multi-band compression, but each of those bands can be assigned to an existing compressor in the users arsenal. In addition, the user will have control of the frequency ranges, crossovers and blending between the three, all within the Audio Vitamins product. “What I am trying to do is not reinvent the wheel in any way,” Clissold says. “There are hundreds of compressors out there, so the question I am asking is how can we put together a series of plug-ins that will help the user cut their time?” Ultimately, this makes Audio Vitamins a “facilitator of processes”, perhaps, a label Clissold agrees with. “I think this is going to be the core of the business, at least initially, but ultimately it will probably make up around 50 per cent of what we do. I really see this as our niche a little bit. There are so many compressors out there, why am I going to go and compete with Waves and the like when I can give users different ways of using what already exists. We’re basically helping people get better mixes in a shorter amount of time,” Clissold says. Will Audio Vitamins be the magic little pill to stop engineers getting lost in the sea of similar seeming processing? Only time, a glass of water and swallowing the red and white one will tell. Now where’s that rabbit hole? www.audiovitamins.com www.brainworx-music.de www.waves.com
P30 JULY 2016
Studio
Thomas Dalton in the Brown Bear Studio
It does Bear thinking about Rob Speight discovers how Brighton-based Brown Bear Audio are competing with London’s post-production houses
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utside of London, audio post houses come and go. It has always been a challenge for anyone involved in this area of the production process in the provinces. Even with new technologies, which allow remote working and approvals, there appears to be an invisible barrier to success – especially when it comes to sound. Having previously run my own audio post house on the south coast for almost ten years, I can personally attest to the challenges anyone trying to compete with the ‘big boys’ will encounter. Yet, Thomas Dalton and his company Brown Bear Audio are doing just that. Located in the heart of Brighton, the youthful post house is finding its niche, and slowly starting to break down some of the misconceptions of trying to work on audio remotely: “Brown Bear has been running for around three years and we launched the remote side of it in August 2015 mostly due to the fact that a lot of our work was already being done [that way],” explains Dalton. Based around Pro Tools 12 and Source Element’s ‘Source-Live’ plug-in, Dalton and his team developed a specific workflow process hoping to demystify the process to potential clients. “Before I launched the service I did a lot of work to develop a workflow that was easy for clients and was flexible,” he says. Although Brown Bear’s workflow may not, on the surface at least, look much different to what you may expect, it is the introduction of the real-time, in-sync, direct from
Atlantic Heart feature film where Brown Bear undertook full post audio duties
the timeline, streaming to multiple clients in various locations that the Source Element’s software allows, that made all the difference. Dalton continues: “SourceLive, with the in-sync HD video was only launched around the middle of last year and when I saw and tested it I thought, this is a real game-changer. You couldn’t do that before. And better than that, it worked!” The introduction of the plug-in, although revolutionary in Dalton’s mind, was not the complete reason for pushing the remote workflow: “Clients now feel like they’re in a session, not necessarily attending a session but watching it live, interacting with me in real-time
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and making changes as we go,” Dalton enthuses. This interactivity goes a long way to making remote working feel like a collaborative process once more, rather than a lone dubbing mixer making changes for a fourth time from a collection of faceless notes. “The way that we do it, and this is dependent on budget of course, is that we complete the majority of the work in our dubbing suite down here in Brighton and then we may hire a studio closer to where the client is based for final sign off. Of course if the budget isn’t there we can always fall back to the FTP and QuickTime file approach,” he says.
P31 JULY 2016
Project for National Holocaust Centre, online promo with full post-production sound done by Brown Bear
Dalton is philosophical when it comes to the question of whether Brown Bear’s life would be easier if it was based in London: “It’s a longer process trying to persuade clients of our workow rather than us not being in London. It’s a fairly new concept and it takes time to convince clients that it will work. You know the
mentality, if it ain’t broken‌â€? These elements coupled with long established relationships between production companies and post houses are a challenge even when one is not trying to promote a somewhat revolutionary way of working. “It’s a slow process and it can take a lot of meetings and several
months of explanations and demonstrations, but you end up getting them on board,â€? Dalton says conďŹ dently. Of course clients are not just drawn by the new way of working, Brown Bear acknowledges and actively promotes the savings that production companies can make by embracing the new possibilities. Remote working is one thing but being able to demonstrate real bottom-line savings to a client (due in part to the lower cost of doing business outside of London) can often help to sway the deal. With Brown Bear’s clientele being split evenly between the capital and Brighton it would seem that they are making signiďŹ cant headway. “My aim is for us, over the next three to ďŹ ve years, is to be the number one online provider of audio post services. I want people to know that they can get top quality, professional services from us and I’m aiming the company towards more commercials and television,â€? Dalton concludes. With Dalton’s drive and the collection of high proďŹ le clients, including the BBC and EMI, already in its cave it may not be long before the Brown Bear rises up on its haunches and takes a swipe at the big boys. „ www.brownbearaudio.co.uk www.avid.com www.source-elements.com
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P32 JULY 2016
Broadcast
It’s like a jungle sometimes Dave Robinson was in New York City – or was it the Amazon? – for a major interactive audio experience, courtesy of Audio-Technica
T
his is me talking into my voice recorder: “There is a moment where the howler monkeys got louder, just as the police sirens are getting louder. A real sense of unease…. “The rainforest fades into a some kind of hippy-style narration talking about the state of reality and nonreality... but it fits perfectly.. and then the Amazon [River] kicks in. All very… all very weird. The hippy voice, he’s talking about superimposed realities... “As you turn around…I’m standing by the Amazon… You hear the river… As I turn around.. I am – literally – in the river… “And now I’m walking down 44th, and the sun, which is just peeping over the buildings, in New York, in the oppression of Times Square, the rainbirds are started to sing, you get the sense of heat… I feel like I want to go back to the river and cool down.” This actually happened. I’m a participant in the Jungle-Ized audio experience, which was held in central Manhattan during the month of April. I’m wandering in and around an eight-square grid of streets, my Audio-Technica ATH-M70x headphones plugged into my smartphone, listening to a jungle soundtrack being created and mixed by a mobile app (downloaded earlier). I’m watching yellow cabs and hearing the buzz of bees. I’m staring at skyscrapers and hearing the rumble of thunder. I am floating. I am transported. Jungle-Ized is principally the work of the Soundwalk Collective – Stephan Crasneanscki, Simone Merli and Kamran Sadeghi. This trio of composers work between Berlin and New York and specialise in sound compositions for installations, exhibits and audio guides. “We are always working around landscape and memory, with sounds that we collect from places we visit,” suggests Crasneanscki. The Collective was approached to create an installation in New York by the Times Square Arts (TSA), an organisation that provides a platform for artists’ work in the heart of the city. TSA does this by working with the Times Square Advertising Coalition, owners of 68 of the 180 or so huge LED screens that characterise the famous landmark. For three minutes leading up to midnight during a particular ‘installation’, these 68 screens display the work of the commissioned artist. “Last year it was Yoko Ono,” says Crasneanscki. “This time they wanted to do something from a sound point of view.” Crasneanscki describes how his team agreed on a theme of how New York’s ‘concrete jungle’ had eliminated any real nature (jungle or otherwise) that
Reverse out the smartphone to see the jungle images
had originally existed on the site eons ago. They also discovered that, by following the 73 degrees west longitude, from New York heading south across the equator, the meridian passed through the Peruvian rainforest. “It was obvious to us that we should invite nature back: have a jungle-to-jungle conversation, in fact. Soundwise, it should allow some kind of reflection, where the listener could experience the concept of time. Times Square is all about people running after time, running short of time; the Amazon has no time, it existed before us and it will exist after us.” The plan, then, was to pitch the two sonic realities against each other: the Amazon jungle in the concrete jungle. How to implement this idea? Soundwalk Collective (SC) worked with Audio-Technica to procure a small number of microphones for location recording of source material; more importantly, to establish a means of delivering the experience to the public. That required several dozen sets of headphones. (The AT team were already familiar with SC, having met 18 months previously at a soundtracked poetry reading event in London.) Next, enter sound artist Francisco Lopez, a Spanish composer working with soundscapes collected from nature and urban environments. SC have worked with Lopez several times before, and were aware of his extensive archive of sounds collected from the Amazon over the last 25 years.
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Kamran Sadeghi (left) and Stephan Crasneanscki
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the specific point of view of the river, as i was moving along the waters, allowing the jungle sound spectrum to continuously shift [around me]. “We had absolutely no difficulties with moisture and heat, the mic handled the hard conditions extremely well,” he adds.
Audio-Technica established a booth for distributing the ‘phones
Putting it all together The Sounds – howler monkeys, oriole birds, thunderstorms, native tribespeople, (Lopez: “hundreds of recordings”) – were compiled, edited down, tweaked and looped and then transferred to the Jungle-Ized app. This was developed in collaboration with a Vancouverbased game design house, who, says Crasneanscki, “were very happy to join us because they were allowed to do something for real life.” And this is where the magic begins: the app is designed to produce a mix of the jungle sounds, depending on your GPS position. Atmospherics and animals (and a few voices) crossfade in and out of the headphone mix as the listener wanders around Times Square, with the boundaries of its Lopez’s approach to collecting material has been completely equipment agnostic – he’s used many different types of recorders and microphones over the years. As he puts it: “Things in nature you have no control over, so you need to be patient. Not only to collect the sounds, but to have a sense of the pace and complexity in an environment. If you get to know the environment you can do amazing things with simple kit.” For Crasneanscki, it was straight to the AudioTechnica kit to add to Lopez’s content. “We used the BP4029 and BP4027 shotgun mics and the AT4050ST (large diaphragm stereo condenser), all specifically used for ambient recordings from the river shore, as I was drifting on the Amazon river on a boat.” The BP4027 worked “extremely well” for the long shot recordings, and was able to capture a very defined area through its directional recording angle, notes Crasneanscki. “I mounted it on a fix stand on the boat to perceive a set section of the jungle from
Francisco Lopez, confronting an unseen issue in Brazil
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P34 JULY 2016
Broadcast
You can see how this couple were enraptured by the experience...
application being marked by a ‘river’ at 8th Avenue (to the west) and 6th Avenue (to the east) and 43rd and 47th streets south and north respectively. Each Jungleized participant creates a unique mix, depending on their GPS coordinate. What Crasneanscki and Lopez both agreed on was the “crucial” role the ATH-M70x headphones played, in mastering the sound for playback from a smartphone. Lopez: “For the average listener, the issue is not the encoding/decoding: there are very good algorithms that will do magic with sound files. But there’s no magic with the speaker other than having a good speaker. So for playback, the ‘listening’ part is absolutely crucial: crucial enough to engineer, master or design the sound for specific systems.” Hence, Lopez wanted to work with the headphones chosen for playback in Times Square: the M70x model. All Lopez’s source material was remastered on his own DAW, using those headphones exclusively: the “shape” of the Jungle-Ized soundtrack is particular to those headphones. “They are closed circum-aural headphones which have pretty good isolation. Times Square is probably one of the noisiest places in Manhattan – between 90 and 100dB constantly, lots of trucks and the crowds and so on. No headphones will give you complete isolation from that, but the M70xs give you an excellent trade-off between a high degree of isolation and very good sound in an almost impossible environment.” AT set up a booth in Times Square, enabling the public to borrow a pair of headphones, download the app, and head off into the virtual undergrowth. The audio is complemented each night, for three minutes before midnight, by a film of jungle images, shot by Crasneanscki while he was collecting the audio. In order to make the 68 jungle screens stand out among
the 120 still playing adverts, SC made the film ‘negative’. So, by switching the smartphone to negative mode too, the real or ‘positive’ colours of the film appear as originally intended. Crasneanscki says they had to use the “right headphone to deal with the beast that is Times Square.
Jungle-Ized would not have existed without the M70x headphones.” Audio-Technica’s Robert Males comments that working with Soundwalk Collective is not like the usual endorsement. “For a number of manufacturers, there’s the bog-standard artist relations deal and all that. What we are talking about here, through the Collective, is exposing our brand to people who would never even consider even looking at a headphone or a microphone.” Crasneanscki says they had never approached an equipment maker before, but they were very happy with the AT arrangement: “For us, anything we can do beyond the brand that has a human relationship, in a creative way without being limited, we like that.” The headphones “allow the richness of the jungle to come in, it really allows people to drift around in nature... maybe for an hour. “To have a New Yorker to drift for an hour in Time Square, it’s a miracle, a pure miracle!” he says. “If we achieved one thing, it is to allow people to step out of this almost fascist time imposed on people.” That evening we return to Times Square and observe a young couple trying out the experience. We see the looks of wonder on their faces as they hear the frogs, the birds, the rain. They, too, are transported. www.audiotechnica.com www.soundwalkcollective.com www.franciscolopez.com Your correspondent, lost in the concrete/Amazonian jungle
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Broadcast
JULY 2016
UNITED KINGDOM
Lounge life in Harrow The University of Westminster has added a new studio to its training capabilities, offering facilities for live band recording and drama production. Kevin Hilton pays attention at the back
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roadcast training colleges have always tried to reflect trends in the media, teaching the techniques and providing the equipment being used in the real world at the time. As new styles of production develop, institutions have to adapt existing facilities or build new ones, which is why one college recently opened a studio to accommodate ‘live lounge’-style music performances and audio over IP networking. The University of Westminster runs courses in Radio Production taught in studios modelled on design and operational principles used by both the BBC and commercial broadcasters. During May, the University unveiled the newest studio at its Harrow campus to the northwest of London. Studio 4 brings its number of broadcast studios up to four, with two other digital suites for training and teaching purposes, plus a smaller analogue facility for student-run internet station Radio Smoke. “Any of the studios can be switched to provide the output of the radio station,” comments Tim Carter, technical team leader at the Westminster School of Media Art and Design on the Harrow site. “Our studios are designed to copy equipment and practice as much as possible, with elements of both BBC and commercial radio.” Consequently, the existing studio have large control rooms featuring three microphones, as is usual in many commercial self-op set-ups, but with a live booth housing an acoustic table and four further mics in the style of BBC talks production. Carter explains that while this configuration supported training for many aspects of radio broadcasting it did not offer a large enough area for either drama production or live performance, particularly music. The ‘live lounge’ has become a popular part of radio programming on BBC and commercial stations alike. Carter says being able to offer facilities for this and drama recordings was the impetus and brief behind the building of Studio 4; the control room measures 5 x 2.5m, with an adjacent 7 x 4m live area. Carter says a lot”of the pre-installation preparation was carried out by the technical team at the Harrow site, prior to systems integration and equipment supply company Preco coming in for the main fit-out. Preco installed two studios and a voice booth for the University in 2010. The company’s managing director, James Thomas, says that the old acoustic of the film studio was re-used for the new live area, with a few specific additions: “We took out a curtain that ran round the room and put in acoustic boxes to create a deader sound.” Carter explains that 20 mics were wired from this new space into the mixing desk, together with some DI
Fit-out at the Uni studio was undertaken by Preco
inputs to give as much flexibility as possible. “We’ve also kept the floor clear – there is no acoustic table – so it’s just a large space with mic inputs all round the room.” The control room houses a Logitek ROC digital console, which sits in studio furniture designed by Preco. “We went for Logitek to tie in with our existing studios,” comments Carter. “We copied Global [the UK commercial radio group that owns stations such as Capital, Heart and Classic FM] originally when choosing these as the BBC often has custom equipment.” Preco supplied other studio equipment, including Yellowtec Mika microphone arms, which support AudioTechnica AT2020s in the control room, and monitor arrays. Thomas and his team also wired multi-effects units on to
the auxiliary sends of the desk, which made Carter consider the best way to provide return feeds to the studio. “Although the bands will almost always work on headphones, I wanted a way of giving a separate fold back mix, something that the console is not designed to do. James came up with a custom select software system accessing the dual capability of the engine. He devised a touch screen mixer set-up in the live room so the vocalist or whoever can access their own mix direct from the engine.” “What we’ve achieved is a great new studio space with enormous flexibility that is up there with most commercial studios,” Tim Carter concludes. www.westminster.ac.uk www.preco.co.uk
Uni of Westminster team (L-R): Edmond Prakash (head of creative technologies); Tim Carter (technical team leader); Craig Harvey (maintenance engineer); Melvyn Williams (head of technicians)
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P38 JULY 2016
Businesss feature: Distributors
Distributors investing in the future despite Brexit uncertainty David Davies takes the temperature in the UK on the eve of change, while Marc Maes and Mike Clark report on the wider business in Benelux and Italy respectively
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SNEurope’s interviews with UK distributors, taking place during early June, were characterised by repeated references to new staff recruitment and expansion of facilities. But there was no mistaking an underlying sense of concern about the then-imminent EU Referendum, whose outcome looked increasingly hard to call as the June 23 voting day approached. This feature was submitted on the very day the country went to the polls, and no doubt the result will have been analysed to the nth degree by the time its parent issue reaches you. The consensus view among the distributors who contributed to this piece was that a vote for Brexit would, at best, be hugely disruptive to the UK business – and potentially seriously harmful in the long-term. Founder/director of Leighton Buzzard-based Leisuretec Distribution, Mike Henden, says that “the company is 26 years old and we have endured three recessions, so I don’t particularly relish the idea of challenging financial times [that could follow a vote in favour of Brexit], be they for six months, a year, or five years. Already the uncertainty is affecting things – May as a trading month was not as buoyant as we had hoped.” HHB Communications’ managing director, Ian Jones, was also “more than a little nervous” as the big day
approached. “I think the immediate outcome [of an exit vote] would be that the pound would descend like a stone,” he says. “As a distributor we are buying in US dollars, Euros, Japanese Yen, etc, so there would be significant implications there. We would have to immediately review all of our prices, and probably increase them dramatically. Interest rates and the ability (or not) of customers to borrow money in an uncertain period would also have an effect, I think.” Martin Warr, managing director of Synthax Audio, suggests that the immediate impact might not be “unlike the situation in 2008 when the currency dropped and we had an economic ‘nuclear winter’ for about 4 or 5 months. My concern is that when any voice of authority speaks, the ‘Midsomer Murder village people’ are inclined to do the opposite… We shall see.”
The network... which used to provide me with the majority of my business isn’t there anymore
Martin Warr
Celebrations and expansion initiatives Jones describes possible Brexit as “the only blot on the vista right now” – and indeed, a general sense of buoyancy is widely discernible in the sector thanks to a judicious blend of refinement and expansion. For HHB – which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary with a party in London that attracted friends and associates from nearly 10 different countries – 2015 was a “record year for the group”. In part, this can be attributed to a sizeable and evolving distribution
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portfolio, with microphone maker Røde (“they continue to bring out great new products that are relevant to a variety of our market sectors”) and monitoring specialist Genelec among those brands singled out for specific
P39 JULY 2016
A tale of three outfits Meanwhile, in the Benelux… Marc Maes asks three major distributors to describe their strengths
AED Distribution
Amptec
Face
“The key issue of our target for AED Distribution in 2021 is no different from AED Group’ s mission,” says Hans Vanderheijden, managing director of AED Distribution (bottom). “To develop and maintain our position as leading pan-European distribution company, serving the AV professional.” This clearly summarises the challenges Vanderheijden and his 25-strong team are facing in the next five years. “The key message is to work more efficiently, do more at less expense – efficiency is to become our second nature,” he says. “The plan defines both targets and no-go zones.” Focusing on rental, installation and retail, AED Distribution carries a select range of quality brands. “The adage is ‘small scope, large geography’,” Vanderheijden continues. “We offer three brands (High End Systems, QSC Professional and Prolyte) on a pan-European level and some 17 brands in the Benelux. This allows us to maintain a big stock and ship quickly. Our central warehouse and repair centre in Willebroek is staffed with specialists in each domain.” Alongside the lines distributed, Vanderheijden is convinced that a good product is just the start: “It’s the total solution toolbox we offer, sales, rental, financial leasing and secondhand trade, that makes AED different: client-based options that go beyond the product.” “We’re always prepared to go that extra mile,” concludes Vanderheijden. www.aeddistribution.com
Amptec was launched by current CEO Bart Willems in 1990. Today, the company employs 40 full-time workers, including a sales force of 16; over 25 years, it has grown from underdog to major player in the pro-audio market. “Each of the four domains (broadcast, studio, live and MI distribution) is equally important in terms of business and turnover,” explains Willems. “Our big strength is that we also take on installation, including the equipment, as well as design and support of the systems. That’s where we make the difference.” Willems (below) cites the examples of the VRT(Belgian public broadcaster) where Amptec plays a crucial role in the installation of radio and production studio’s, but also deals with the integration of mobile on-air units and ENG-vans, and of all the major theatres in Belgium, where Amptec designs and installs the sound system, including all cabling and installation. The operation represents d&b and DiGiCo for the live segment; DHD and Calrec for broadcast; AVID Pro Tools, DAD, Merging, DDP and Adam in the studio/post sectors. “Furthermore, we have DPA, RME and Sony Wireless as crossover brands for all markets,” continues Willems. Amptec’s ‘Fibre Lab’, takes on the assembly and welding of fibre connections and fibre installation, either in house, for standard cabling, or on location. Willems is confident about the future, forecasting a growth of Amptec’s business in Belgium and even more in the Netherlands: “The biggest asset remains the knowhow of our team, all of them contributing substantially to the joint expertise of the company. That’s what we bring to our clients and that’s why all major theatres, postproduction studios and professional broadcasters are working with us, in one way or another,” he concludes. www.amptec.be
Face is a Benelux distributor, specialising in pro-audio lines including Martin Audio, Powersoft, Media Matrix, Shure and Primacoustic. The company serves clients in the live and installed sound sectors, rental and A/V, and theatre, broadcast and leisure markets. “Thanks to our wide range of products, we can provide an A to Z solution,” explains Karel De Piere, CEO of Face. “We offer an extensive inventory of sound reinforcement gear, DSP controls, networks, microphones, cables and accessories. We also deliver what we call ‘the software’, as we experience a growing need to build and share knowledge about how to choose and use audio equipment in a specific environmenta or situation. De Piere is well aware that Face is part of a niche industry, with the “joy and pain” that comes along with it. “The challenge is to find a healthy balance between this emotion-driven passion and the rational business elements.” “The confrontation with an increasing demand in versatile markets – due to the growing impact of AV technology – requires an evolution from distributors who must reply to those markets,” notes De Piere. “And, together with the manufacturers, we’re on the look out for new ways of distribution to these ‘new markets’; how sales channels have to be reshaped in order to [grab] market share.” The challenge today, says De Piere (below), is that manufacturers should come up with innovative solutions in a market which is already ruled by other players. “If you want to join the ride you must provide both people and workflow to make the difference. This shouldn’t be at the expense of our ‘traditional’ markets and customers: [instead it’s] by carefully selecting our manufacturing partners, investing in skilled staff and setting up a solid marketing plan backing the sales.” face.be
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P40 JULY 2016
Business feature: Distributors
attention. HHB has also added one or two additional brands, including NTP Technology’s Digital Audio Denmark, which he says is “doing very well for us”. The months ahead, meanwhile, will see on-site expansion across the group. HHB division Source Distribution is moving into new facilities in Park Royal, North London, with operational effect from 1 August, whilst another division – post-production specialist Scrub – is “about to move into some very tasty new premises in Wells Street [in Central London]. The site
will include a new demo training facility that I think is going to impress a lot of people…” Concerns about Brexit aside, Henden is also firmly focused on the future. Leisuretec has just appointed a new marketing representative and is currently recruiting to the sales and logistics teams. “We have been looking carefully at resources in terms of what we need now and what we are likely to require in the future,” he explains. There haven’t been any significant additions to the
distribution roster so far this year, although Leisuretec’s long-term association with Pioneer DJ was further cemented when it became the sole UK distribution partner with effect from 1 May. “We are seeing great results across the portfolio,” says Henden, although he cites particularly strong uptake at present for QSC and Yamaha’s CL and QL series consoles. Synthax Audio, notes Warr, has been continuing to “acknowledge broader shifts in the market” by focusing its efforts on becoming “a more flexible service and
A little Italian insight Over in Italy, Mike Clark asked how business is going for two leading distributors An insight on the Italian market comes from Stefano Rocchi, MD with Audiosales and Marco Porro, GM with Leading Technologies. Located in Sorbolo in the province of Parma, Audiosales is Italian distributor for Audac, AVID, Cloud, DAS, DirectOut, Martin Audio, Powersoft, XTA and one of the most recent addition to its portfolio of brands, Adamson. Rocchi comments, “Even in a company such as ours, which has always had close ties with the live event market, I must say that the installation sector, which we’ve been involved in for several years now, is currently gaining ground and around 40% of our sales are for installation applications, with excellent growth prospects. “Generally speaking, I’d say rental firms are concentrating current investments on lighting, an area we’re only marginally involved in but, as far as audio is concerned, they’re investing considerably in digital consoles. In the installation field on the other hand, the majority of outlay is on integrated technical solutions. “Products such as digital matrices, amplifiers, and speaker enclosures are among the top ‘individual’ sellers.” The run-up to the summer season means a large increase in venues, (1,500 authorised and 10,000 unauthorised, according to the SILB Italian dance & entertainment enterprise association) which in, the heyday of discos, was almost always synonymous with equipment upgrades, but, although Audiosales has been involved in projects for the supply of equipment for the reopening of seasonal venues, in terms of numbers, they’re more or less within the average for the rest of the year. A relatively recent trend that has helped to boost trade, is the increase in high-profile TV shows such as talent contests, with large in-studio audiences, as Rocchi concludes, “In recent years, the broadcast market has definitely had a positive effect on our business, thanks to sales to contractors and rental firms working on top shows, many of which feature full-blown PAs to keep spectators’ adrenaline high.” Monza-based Leading Technologies distributes AKG,
Porro: “The market is quite positive, as broadcasters and producers can’t afford to let their set-ups become obsolete”
Rocchi: “The installation sector is currently gaining ground”
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BSS Audio, Crown, dbx, Drawmer, JBL, Lexicon, Neutrik, Rane and Soundcraft. General manager Marco Porro continues, “Percentagewise, I’d say our sales breakdown is music 30%, installation 30%, live events 17%, broadcast 15%, and the rest miscellaneous. There’s not much happening as far as sales for live applications are concerned - mainly additions to existing systems.” Porro agrees that some additional sales have come from the increase in TV shows with in-studio audiences, adding, “As far as the broadcast world is concerned, in spite of problems such as falling advertising revenue, the market is quite positive, as broadcasters and producers can’t afford to let their set-ups become obsolete.” In the installation field, the majority of LT’s movement is in the video sector and, with the exception of those involving EVAC or security systems, projects in which audio plays a key role are few and far between. However, Porro adds, “Even if revenue generated by audio sales is lower than video, generally speaking, the price per unit is usually lower than video, so products are going out the door nevertheless, particularly for conference and cruise liner installs.” Current top sellers are mixers and mid-range digital wireless mics, and analogue processors are picking up again. As far as installers go, top selling products are mainly in the audio distro/DSP/matrix sector. Confirming that the seasonal venue market brightens up prior to the summer season, but a lot less than in previous years, and audio rigs are re-thought to avoid disturbing the neighbours, on a positive note, Porro concludes, “Although figure-wise the market varies from steady to small increases, according to the specific sector, there is a lot of positive interest on market, which in itself is a step forward, compared with the overall situation a couple of years ago.” www.audiosales.it www.leadingtech.it
P41 JULY 2016
Tuomo Tolonen of Shure Distribution UK: “The past year has been a great success on many levels”
Ian Jones of HHB: “More than a little nervous” about Brexit
systems provider”. “The network of large dealers which used to provide me with the majority of my business isn’t there anymore, so there is definitely a greater emphasis on building direct relationships with larger organisations. This includes both enhancing existing connections as well as developing new ones,” he says, alluding to a long-term association with the BBC that has seen it supply equipment for use at the Olympics and Wimbledon. Shure Distribution UK is also continuing to benefit from strategic thought about its future, having
seeing the benefits of the strategy we set out on several years back.” In terms of the portfolio, the company has recently established an agreement with antenna and distribution equipment specialist RF Venue to serve as its sole distributor across Europe. There have also been some notable additions on an individual product level, with the Shure KSM8 Dualdyne microphone “building on the original Unidyne concept by using two diaphragms in a single element design: “The demand and interest in the KSM8 has been huge and it’s already found a home with a large number of touring artists.” Returning to our opening theme of uncertainty about the UK’s future with regard to the EU, Tolonen says that “the pro-audio industry operates on a very international basis and any changes – whatever the result – will certainly bring new challenges forward. Our focus will remain on delivering the highest possible standard throughout all aspects of our business regardless of what happens.” It’s a robustness that is echoed throughout the UK market at present, where level-headed thinking about the business of the present and probable future will hopefully stand it in good stead whatever transpired on 23 June.
implemented the restructuring of its distribution network into three core vertical markets – Retail, Pro and Systems – in late 2013 (for a detailed overview of the changes, see PSNEurope’s article from June 2015: www.psneurope.com/shure-strength-distribution-2-0/). Tuomo Tolonen, manager – Pro Audio Group at Shure Distribution, says that “by strategically tailoring our approach within each of these markets, we have been able to better serve the unique requirements of each customer. Subsequently, the past year has been a great success on many levels and I am in no doubt we are
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P42 JULY 2016
Live
Exit stage left, stuntman Traut! Famed for his deliciously daft product demos, Martin Traut talks to Dave Robinson as he leaves Dynacord after nearly 35 years
M
artin Traut, a familiar face at EVI Audio in Straubing and at Prolight + Sound shows in Frankfurt, has just taken retirement after 34 years. He joined Dynacord as a sales representative in March 1982, and has since occupied the roles of export director, marketing director, business line director and senior product manager, while Dynacord ownership shifted several times. Traut has always been a showman of sorts, and is legendary for his (dangerous!) power amplifier stunts featuring heavy duty tools. On the cusp of his departure from his beloved Dynacord, we asked him twelve final questions…
What have been the biggest changes you’ve seen over the years? During my career I experienced (and survived) four major changes. The first was from the German private company Dynacord to MARK IV Audio, which was private but US-based and somewhat structured like a stock-exchange-company. The next change was to EVI Audio and becoming a bond-financed enterprise, which lead to the merger with Telex, still remaining bond-financed. And finally back to a private German owner, Bosch. This was finally the biggest change as all of us had to learn structuring ourselves according to the processes of a huge, excellently organised industrial company.
You worked for many years as export manager: what experiences can you recall from those times? I always had multiple responsibilities in marketing and sales. Export was one of the biggest challenges and most likely also the most interesting one, as you have to deal with many cultures and very different habits and expectations. However, one of the most difficult periods was the time, when Electro-Voice and Altec European distribution was consolidated with Dynacord in Straubing – all under my responsibility.
What has impressed you most about the industry? I do not know any other industry that really is [so] rock’n’roll. The harder you work, the more fun and pleasure you have. Professional audio simply grooves! It’s amazing!
With Sandra Wagensohn (left) and Nadia Frankl at the EVI Agora Party at PL+S 2005
people. I have the feeling, they will miss me as I know I already miss them, too.
What are the top three pieces of equipment Dynacord has produced? Many of the Dynacord products are jewels. Linear Precision and PowerH amplifiers, the PowerMate and the Cobra System might stand as perfect examples for a very high level of innovation, performance and reliability.
What is your proudest moment?
Of which product can you most say, “That was mine, I designed/created/made that”?
The moment right now. At my farewell party, I felt how well I was integrated and accepted by a great team of
Dynacord products are always the result of great teamwork. None of them is a single-person creation.
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But to answer your question: With the ADDone we had the first product that was designed with a different procedure: once the hardware was defined, I wrote the operating manual in every detail and the engineers designed the software according to this structure.
What do you think the pro-audio industry needs to do to improve? Today’s products tend to be feature packed like never before. This also happens in pro audio. The industry intensively needs to care about usability and really work to identify the customer’s requirements and needs in order to provide problem solutions. Make sure that audio remains fun and does not turn into pain.
P43 JULY 2016
First come the serious demos…
...then comes the bonkers angle-grinder demo!
Do you have any anecdotes from Musikmesse/Prolight + Sound? There are too many to just mention one. It’s always the people....!
Tell us about the legendary ‘Hausmesse’ demos: who had the idea of powering a jackhammer with a powermate/PowerH power amplifier?
opticalCON fibre optic connection system
The jackhammer was needed to have something bigger and more challenging as the PowerH amplifiers deliver an impressive lot of both voltage and current. So I looked for a real “bastard” and I found it in the Bosch power tools portfolio..!
And the angle-grinder? It all started with an angle grinder to demo the stability of power amplifiers. At the first glance it just looks funny or crazy but it technically makes a lot of sense to test your amplifier driving a power tool: it represents the most ugly load for an audio amplifier with its high in-rush current and being an inductive and capacitive load at the same time. The good thing about it: Dynacord amplifiers always survive such raw tests and people remember it forever. I did it a couple of hundred times in presentations and academies...
Any other personal highlights you would like to share? Yes, my wife suffered most from the timeconsuming requirements of my job and she never stopped supporting me. You should know this as well and join me thanking her!
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What will you do in your retirement? Well, I want to keep on enjoying life... dynacord.com
sales@directcablesystems.com www.directcablesystems.com Unit 12 Capital Business Park, Manor Way, Borehamwood, Herts WD6 1QJ
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P44
Live
JULY 2016
Sanborn and his Electric Band, 5 May 2016 Photo credit: Electric Band photos: Tomy Darras
France
Nothing like the Sanborn Guillaume Schouker reports from the 35th edition of the Jazz Sous Les Pommiers festival, this year featuring a certain sax legend
T
he appearance of American alto saxophonist David Sanborn, whether in France or elsewhere in Europe, is such a rarity that there was no way PSNEurope would miss an evening in his presence. Sanborn – winner of six Grammys and an output of 24 albums in a 35-year career – starred with his Electric Band at the 35th edition of Jazz Sous Les Pommiers Festival (‘Jazz Under the Apple Trees’) in the Norman city of Coutances in May. This well-established French festival has gained an international reputation, making this 2016 edition a real success: an audience of 80,000 gathered during the eight days of music (30 April to 7 May). On the evening of the David Sanborn Electric Band show at Salle Marcel Hélie (a gymnasium converted into a 1,350seat concert hall), the public was not only thrilled by the sublime saxophonist, but also by his four musicians : Andre Berry on bass guitar, Billy Kilson on drums, Nicky Moroch on electric guitar, and Ricky Peterson on keyboards and Hammond organ. At the front-of-house position was engineer Steve Guest, an American who has worked on global tours for the likes of Bette Midler, Janet Jackson, Ricky Martin, The Backstreet Boys and David Bowie, as well as top Japanese artists such as Tomoyasu Hotei and Miki Imai. Guest has run Zenkai Audio Inc, a live sound reinforcement services, consulting, and education company since January 2006. “Dave [Sanborn] was doing a show at the Sands Casino at Atlantic City in 1991 and his regular engineer couldn’t make it,” recalls Guest. “I was working at Maryland Sound
This particular venue was a converted gymnasium
and happened to be in the building when his tour manager called and asked for an engineer. I jumped at the chance because I knew his music and I was into mixing that style of music. I drove up there and covered the gig. I became his regular engineer shortly afterward.” Sanborn has been using a Shure SM-98 mounted in an SD Systems clip since Guest met him, says the engineer. The musician’s request is “primarily, that he doesn’t have to worry about what it sounds like out front so he can concentrate on playing”. Guest adds: “The way he plays – he’d still sound like David Sanborn if he played through a [Shure] SM58.
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“Actually, he sounds pretty good through a 58!” As with last year’s JSLP, Jean-Marie Roussel, high tech at ATECH rental company was officiating as sound and technical manager. He was not only keeping an eye on the front-of-house position, next to the Soundcraft Vi6 console, but also keeping an ear out if necessary too… Guest mentions: “I love the sound of the Vi6 but I’m not as comfortable with its user interface as some other consoles.” He adds, “Typically, I’d use an AVID Profile for [Sanborn’s] shows. But I also have good experiences with DiGiCo SD Series and Yamaha CL5 desks as they both have on-board
P45 JULY 2016
Nexo GEO D system in the Salle Marcel HĂŠlie
Regarding microphones, Guest reveals, “I carry an E-V 868 for bass drum, a pair of KSM137s for snare, an AT4051 for high hat, and two Beta98s for rack toms.� Other mics came the festival’s inventory. “We only had a certain amount of time to get set up and soundchecked in between the festival’s shows. There was not much room for error. Fortunately it was a good sound crew, a good system, and a good venue. It was great to get all three.� Sanborn’s long-standing instruction to Guest is to mix him within the context of the band, as opposed to more ‘out front’ as one would for a lead vocalist. “He trusts me to see to that,� affirms Guest. “Since he uses in-ear monitors, his experience of the show is mostly of that. However, he did say after the show that it was one of the best sounds on the stage he’s had
in a long time. So congratulations are also in order for our monitor engineer, Ferran Huijsmans [on a Yamaha PM5D RH].� “Offering state-of-the art equipment where and when it’s needed is imperative,� mentions Denis Le Bas, managing director of Coutances city municipal theatre and director of the JSLP festival for over 30 years. “Work on the sound and the technical environment in general is a huge component of the success of a festival.� After their appearance in France, Sanborn and his band went on to play a few shows at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London, before taking his magic back to the US. „ www.jazzsouslespommiers.com www.atech-atl.com/actualites
Shown Actual Weight. Steve Guest mixed the show from a Soundcraft Vi6
dynamic EQ. I carry working showďŹ les for most of the major live digital consoles.â€? At Sanborn’s show, the sound reinforcement system comprised 14 Nexo GEO D10s and six GEO D SUBs with Nexo NXAMP4x4 amps, plus six Nexo PS10-R2 for frontďŹ lls and sideďŹ lls and four Nexo ID24 as nearďŹ elds. “That sound system and all its distributed zones was very well set up and balanced. Congratulations (and thanks) to the festival’s audio crew! I didn’t need to make very many adjustments,â€? states Guest. “I can get most of the major systems to sound good if they’re set up well. The room has a lot to do with it, of course, in both choice of systems and acoustics. [But] the whole global live audio equipment industry has consolidated to the point where the gear here is pretty much the same as in the US.â€? Guests says he doesn’t need anything “beyond what a good digital console providesâ€?. Plus, carrying an external equipment rack has become cost prohibitive. “I carry some mics that I like, a laptop, and a digital interface to run [system set-up package] SMAART.â€?
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www.lectrosonics.com or 1-800-821-1121 In Canada, call 877-753-2876
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In Europe, call +33 (0) 78558-3735
P47 JULY 2016
GERMANY
Aladdin flies high with TiMax It’s a whole new world – of sound! – in Hamburg
D
isney’s first European rollout of Broadway smash hit Aladdin has won the prestigious LEA Show of the Year award for 2016 in Germany, with the show currently playing at Hamburg’s Neue Flora Theatre. Ken Travis is in charge of sound design for the Tony Award-winning show alongside associate Alex Hawthorn, with vocal localisation and effects spatialisation supported by the TiMax SoundHub with TiMax Tracker radar-based real time automation. The theatre owners, Stage Entertainment BV, purchased two TiMax2 SoundHub-S32 audio show control processors and a seven-Sensor/20Tag TiMax Tracker system, which was commissioned on-site by Out Board UK’s Dave Haydon late last year. The TiMax SoundHub receives AES inputs from a DiGiCo SD7T and sends AES feeds to d&b 30D and 10D amps for the Y-Series LCR proscenium system and a variety of E-Series speakers for delays and surrounds. Performers wear miniature TT Tags that are transmitting bursts of UWB noise in the 6-8GHz range, which are picked up by seven TT Sensors distributed around the stage and auditorium. A server computer analyses angle of arrival and time difference of arrival and maps this data onto spatial zone information sent to the TiMax SoundHub. This then morphs actors’ radio mics
between delay-matrix image definitions, using precedence to make the amplified voices appear to come from their exact stage location, and following them as they move around stage. The multiple TT Sensors provide layers of redundancy, so that the effect is consistent regardless of any body blocking or obstruction from the show’s frequently moving scenery. TiMax Tracker’s height tracking capability also helps maintain vocal realism for the show’s most impressive effect, when the young lovers fly up and around the stage on a magic carpet. TiMax SoundHub also receives audio clips from QLab. These include a sweeping Genie reveal and an immersive, floating spooky cave voice, along with MIDI triggers, which drive dynamic spatialisation cues rendered in the TiMax PanSpace, morphing between further image definitions programmed as pan objects based on the multiple side and rear surround speakers. Andreas Hammerich, Stage Entertainment’s theatrical sound coordinator says: “TiMax SoundHub and Tracker are working well and everybody is very happy with the way the show sounds.” Aladdin has now opened in London’s West End, also with TiMax dynamic delay-matrix and spatialisation systems. www.outboard.co.uk www.stage-entertainment.com
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P48 JULY 2016
Technology feature: Live consoles
One for the road How is the latest generation of digital consoles standing up to life on tour? Phil Ward straps himself in
L
azzaro Jesus, a monitor engineer in Brazil who’s toured with Brazilian singer Ivete Sangalo, happens to recommend Yamaha mixers for his territory with a singular criterion: namely, “if you want to start the show and finish it”. As items on a to-do list go, that’s pretty high up. “Yamaha’s robustness is a main feature in Brazil since our roads are very bumpy,” he explains. “If the equipment is not built well, everything inside it could fall apart.” Other than trusting that the rental rolling stock has good suspension, how do the manufacturers ensure the protection of digital circuits on the road? Assuming not everyone builds roads like the Brazilians, there are several details that receive the close attention of the mixer makers. “Our touring consoles spend a lot of time in their cases, so making sure they’re designed to travel and be tipped daily is critical,” says DiGiCo MD James Gordon. “We also design with the core electronics in the console frame: you only have to watch a load-out to see the way the 19-inch cases get treated compared to the perceived more expensive console case.” “Circuit boards themselves are inherently reliable in a touring environment, especially with modern surfacemount technology which uses very low mass components and so resists vibration very well,” adds Andy Brown, senior product manager at Soundcraft-Studer. “The critical things affecting reliability are always the connectors used to connect one internal system to another, or to external parts
Anish Purao on mixing in the Indian heat: “Some brands can start hanging after only a short time”
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P49 JULY 2016
Yamaha’s robustness is a main feature in Brazil since our roads are very bumpy
Lazzaro Jesus, Monitor engineer
of the system like stage racks. We rely on our experienced hardware engineers to make the right choice of connector for the job on internal boards, and along with that goes the right mechanical design to make sure that those connectors aren’t put under any stress. Most consoles involving racks use flightcases with built-in rubber shockmounts nowadays, which helps during transportation. We do vibration and environmental tests on every new console design.” “Fairlight’s approach is to minimise the risk: our FPGAbased design allows vast and complex electronic circuits to be built inside a single chip,” says Fairlight CTO Tino Fibaek. “This in turn means significantly reduced component count, therefore significantly fewer solder joints, with an overall increase in reliability.”
Burly chassis Clearly, components need to be safely housed and the right materials chosen for the chassis and other thickof-it accoutrements. “We tend to use aluminium in our consoles,” continues Gordon, “for both extrusions and surface panels as these are light, strong and hardwearing. Modern materials mean you achieve a very light and strong console.” “Standard steel or aluminium in the appropriate thickness,” reveals Brown, “it’s not really that important which – the more important thing is the mechanical design of the chassis and making it rigid enough so that internal parts stay where they should be, and any cooling requirements are taken care of. I’m sure we’d all love to make console chassis out of aircraft-grade titanium or carbon fibre, but this isn’t commercially viable in our industry.” Andy Cooper is manager, PA application engineering at Yamaha. “Yamaha touring products have a solid steel chassis, often including reinforcement braces, to increase stiffness,” he says. “Optional interface cards are housed
in steel cages with many retaining screws to ensure they don’t wobble out of place during turbulent transportation. The weakest point of any system is cables and connections, whether internal or external: reducing the number of internal cables increases reliability. “Yamaha digital mixers have fewer internal cables than analogue mixers, and this is a big reason why they’re more reliable. Many rental company staff have told me that Yamaha PM5D and PM1D are the most reliable consoles they’ve ever owned, analogue or digital. Yamaha doesn’t use hard-disk drives in its pro audio products, or any similarly fragile moving parts. All new Yamaha pro audio prototypes are subjected to vigorous drop, shake and temperature tests to ensure durability.” One Yamaha customer in India, Anish Purao, is the owner of rental company Chakor Sound in Mumbai. “Most parts of India have hot, humid and dusty weather: around 35°C to 45°C, yet we never experience any issues with Yamaha consoles getting hanged or heated up after continuous 24-7 use,” he claims. “However, other brands can start hanging – and processors overheating – after only a short time.” One option offered on Yamaha’s mid-range consoles – and it comes as standard on the new Rivage PM10 – is a redundant power supply. “This is not to cover for any unreliability of the components,” continues Cooper, “but to offer security against the electricity supply itself in some regions. If the electricity service is unstable, it’s a good idea to have a UPS connected to at least one of the power supplies! Of course the product needs to work with all possible voltage supplies between 110V and 240V. In countries like Brazil, each city might use a different standard to its neighbours…” Meanwhile, Allen & Heath product manager Nicola Beretta. says dLive consoles have been designed to deliver the optimal balance between strength and weight, employing higher grade metal on the sides and folded steel at key points for added rigidity. “In fact, our lead mechanical designer on the dLive project used to be a tank commander! Not only does every console, MixRack and expander have dual power supply slots for redundancy, but we’ve also employed the same rugged, hot-swappable PSU design across the range for maximum peace of mind and minimum inventory. Dual redundancy is also built into every audio connection throughout the system,” she says.
‘D’ moans are forever The received wisdom is that digital anything is more brittle than analogue, as well as harbouring the potential to destroy civilization in one binary swoop. But pro audio is ready… “The component count in an analogue console is directly proportional to its channel and buss count – a bigger console equals more solder joints,” says Fibaek. “In an FPGA-based assignable digital console the initial component count might start higher, but does not increase significantly as the channel and buss capacity grows. So, statistically, there is less to go wrong in a like-for-like large digital console.”
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Making waves Thank to the LV1 software mixer from Israeli plugin pioneer Waves Audio, the ‘roadworthiness’ of a mixer is now also the roadworthiness of a laptop. Does this matter? Udi Henis of Waves doesn’t think so. “There are currently a great number of computers that are functioning perfectly well on the road,” he says. From minor league to big names, there are no negative comments about their roadworthiness. On the contrary, people are impressed by the LV1’s smooth operation.” FOH engineer Glyn Woods (below), who’s mixed Sinead O’Connor, Suzanne Vega, Zappa Plays Zappa and Vanessa-Mae, is one of many who bear this out. “The LV1 is stupendous,” he says. “It takes no time to set up and no time to take apart, and it’s the best thing sonically I’ve ever come across – a total game changer!” Noam Raz, Waves’ live market manager, follows up these observations with a glimpse of one future in which you can take your mix chances anywhere – including the bumpiest backstreets of Rio… “To me there is almost no one aspect of the LV1 that can be compared to a traditional console – unless you count the very simple layout, hence the ability to see it as a traditional console appears. In parallel though, the deal with LV1 is that the users design their own working environments. It is not a fixed hardware environment.”
“I can only speak for DiGiCo,” says Gordon, “but our single FPGA-designed engine board is extremely reliable as you have very few interconnections and it’s all on a single PCB – so no base boards that can suffer vibrations and joint failure. Analogue consoles have connection and vibration problems where you would lose a channel strip after shipping, and multiple-DSP board consoles have the same interconnection that can be impacted by living life on the road. Fortunately we don’t have those issues with the SD and S series consoles…” Andy Brown suspects that digital circuitry may need a little more TLC. “I would say that’s true, particularly with the larger, more complex consoles. On the smaller desks, the in
P50 JULY 2016
Technology feature: live consoles Fairlight Quantum.LiveTT
If it ain’t Busted… Sound engineer Eds John (below) has noticed something odd at his FOH position. “It’s standard to see two lighting consoles, one as a backup – we did with Busted – but for sound it’s very rare,” he says. “I know Coldplay carry a couple of SD7s for FOH, and one is strictly a spare, but generally speaking it doesn’t happen. So you’ve got to be careful! I suppose you’re not carrying all the audio in the console; it’s a controller to a local rack and then your stage rack. By contrast a lighting controller is the beginning and the end of it.” John’s Avid S6L on the Busted didn’t fall over once, he reports. “I reported a couple of things back to Avid,” he says, “as you do, but they were minor patching issues. The Profile I used to have did go into ‘lockdown’ mode a few times, leaving you just faders and pan. But if you’re a couple of songs from the end, and your gig isn’t too snapshot-heavy, you can basically ride it out. They all have redundant power supplies, of course.”
majority of problems are mechanical, not software-based. They still need stripping down and the screws tightening to get a good earth, the cables checking and optical links regularly tested.” Rather fittingly, FOH man Eds John has just been out with punky pop 30-somethings Busted. Fortunately, his Avid S6L wasn’t. “It doesn’t matter what you’re using with some of the things that happen at gigs, like a pint of beer getting spilled into a desk,” he rues. “Other common problems include the confetti cannon they fire at the end – you really don’t want all that silvery glitter going down into your faders. But the old soldiers like the PM5D just seemed to keep going, and that’s probably why people keep on using them. It’s all in one box: no local rack, no stage rack, and they never seem to fall over.”
Fixed interest
a number of different internal sub-assemblies ,which need to be interconnected, and will be minimised for cost and size reasons, and this tends to help reliability as there are fewer connectors. On the more complex high-end consoles, it’s usually necessary to use some kind of card-frame type construction with backplanes in either DSP engines or I/O boxes, and special attention has to be paid during the design and testing to ensure that these parts are built to resist vibration and movement. “Analogue consoles are inherently more redundant, which means a failure on one channel strip will not usually affect the rest of the console. You can’t necessarily say that about digital, although we do take care to try to emulate that sort of compartmentalisation within card-based DSP engines. Certain cards will handle all the processing for certain channels, so it’s not all spread across one large lump of DSP. This makes the system better able to at least partially withstand a failure.” “Don’t forget, digital consoles still need preventative hardware maintenance,” points out Dave Kay, director of Liverpool-based full service provider Adlib Audio. “The
As touring and installation markets merge, the tough usage and challenging environments of legend increasingly apply to all the places these consoles may be permanently ensconced. The ‘road’ today can lead anywhere. “We have consoles all over the world,” confirms Gordon, “and one that springs to mind lives in a metal box on the side of the bay in Singapore. It’s installed there for the Esplanade and they do some amazing shows on the side of the bay. For a console, it doesn’t get much harder than living by the sea in a metal box at high humidity 365 days of the year…” “We try to design all the products to cope with rugged environments, including connectors and cables,” says Brown. “For example, all the mid-high-end consoles are shipped as standard with ruggedized breakout panels for durability where remote I/O boxes are part of the system. These panels could be added optionally to the lower-priced consoles but it’s often prohibitively expensive to do this, just because that type of connector isn’t cheap. “Yes, the consoles can mostly be installed anywhere, and the toughest environment is probably any location next to the seaside – salt water in the atmosphere really takes its toll on electronics over the long term, and it’s not common
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in the audio industry to use totally atmospherically sealed electronics like the military do – much as we would like that!” Tino Fibaek points to the modular nature of today’s systems as providing greater protection. “By embracing an IP-based audio distribution and processing architecture, customers would be able to deploy a system with many small elements rather than a single monolithic unit,’ he says. “This solution has many advantages, such as no single point of failure, allowance for active standby units and easy replacement should one element fail.” “Due to the massive feature set in dLive, the desk is perfect for all installation applications,” claims Scott Mason, Allen & Heath’s pro-digital sector specialist. “With the separate MixRack/Surface configuration, there are no heat issues when installing dLive into certain environments. The three sizes offer a wide range of choices, where size is an issue. The flexibility and ease of use make it ideal where more than one operator is involved, or different levels of expertise are apparent.” So, install or tour, it looks like thinking “everything inside it could fall apart” represents unnecessary pessimism. Even in Brazil…
DiGiCo’s James Gordon: “Modern materials mean you achieve a very light and strong console”
Open & Closed The new ï¬&#x201A;agship studio headphones
ATH-R70x PROFESSIONAL OPEN-BACK REFERENCE HEADPHONES ATH-M70x PROFESSIONAL MONITOR HEADPHONES Audio-Technica introduces the new leaders in studio headphones: ATH-M70x and ATH-R70x. Both models offer extremely accurate audio reproduction along with the comfort, durability and convenient features that are bound to make them studio mainstays. So whether you prefer the sound isolation of the M70x or the spacious sound of the R70x, deciding on your next pair of studio headphones is an open and closed case.
www.audio-technica.com
P52
Show review : InfoComm 2016
JULY 2016
The entrance to the exhibition hall
USA
Odds-on winner Drones, new products and technology helped to make InfoComm 2016 a success, writes Sarah Sharples
N
ew features at InfoComm 2016, such as drones, the Content Creation Pavillion and over 100 training sessions saw a record 1,000 exhibitors, including 211 new ones, fill the Las Vegas Convention Center last month. The event welcomed almost 40,000 visitors, including 35 per cent who were first time visitors. Attendees registered for more than 12,000 seats at InfoComm University sessions throughout the week, more than double the number engaged in training and education last year.
Some highlights of this year’s show are listed below: Alcons Audio unveiled the LR18 pro-ribbon line-array, its three-way, compact-mid-size format line-source sound system, for the first time to the US market. With its multiple-patented pro-ribbon technology for mid and high frequencies, a superfast impulse response means up to 90 per cent less distortion is achieved. The LR18 offers a fully intuitive linear response, with very high intelligibility and noncompressed identical tonal balance at any SPL. Bose Professional introduced the PowerShare range of power amplifiers and ControlCenter zone controllers. The new amplifier line consists of three models, the PS602 and PS604, which are two and four channel fixed-install models and the PS602P two channel portable amplifier. The ControlCenter series of zone controllers is a set of remote controls for use with Bose FreeSpace amplifiers, PowerShare amplifiers, and ControlSpace processors. The three models are ControlCenter CC-1, providing volume control; ControlCenter CC-2, offering volume plus A/B source selection; and ControlCenter CC-3, offering volume plus
The SPA Series amplifiers
A/B/C/D source selection. d&b audiotechnik showed off its s new software plug-in for QSC’s Q-SYS platform. The plug-in enables the comprehensive control and monitoring of d&b amplifiers and loudspeakers from any Q-SYS Core.
The detailed control interoperability enabled by the dedicated software module means d&b amplifiers can now be integrated easily as part of a Q-SYS DSP network system. Electro-Voice used the event for its global launch
The Galileo GALAXY network platform
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P53 JULY 2016 Peavey/Crest Audio’s PZS-8250 Powered Zone Matrix Mixer
JBL by Harman’s HP-DS170 column array
of X1-212/120 and X2-212/120, The modular line source, the Kiva II, which are 120-degree versions from L-Acoustics of the original 90-degree models, significantly expanding the flexibility of the new X-Line Advance family. Both are two-way vertical line-array loudspeaker elements for use in a wide variety of applications where wide bandwidth, vertical/horizontal directivity control and high efficiency are required. JBL by HARMAN revealed it was expanding the Intellivox beam shaping loudspeaker series with the new HP-DS170 column array, with built-in amplification, onboard Digital Signal Processing and Digital Directivity Synthesis technology and smaller then the HP-DS370. A single Intellivox DS170 can maintain an even sound pressure level of 106dB across an audience area of up to 30m (100ft) in length. Lab.gruppen unveiled three new 60W LUCIA amplifiers – the smallest models in the range. The LUCIA 60/2M comes with a 4-in, 4-out matrix-mixer; the LUCIA 60/2 offers a 2-in, 2-out option; and the 70V LUCIA 60/1-70 is 2-in, 1-out. All have configurable DSP features. L-Acoustics announced its new ultra-compact modular line source, the Kiva II, which adds 6dB of max SPL versus its predecessor, maximized amplifier density with 16ohm impedance and a new rugged enclosure material. It featured the L-Acoustics Wavefront Sculpture Technology, giving it a long throw capability and allowing even SPL from the front to the back of the audience. Its coplanar transducer arrangement and new K-shaped coplanar transducer configuration generates a symmetric horizontal coverage of 100° without secondary lobes over the entire frequency range. Meyer Sound revealed the Galileo GALAXY network platform, its first loudspeaker processor to be fully networkable, with multiple units sharing 24-bit/96kHz multi-channel audio via an AVB network. The maximum
input count has been increased from six to eight for easier implementation of 7.1 systems, and a new generation of FPGAbased processing with 96kHz floating point resolution delivers increased dynamic range, a lower noise floor, and super-low latency of 0.6ms analogue in to analogue out. Peavey Commercial Audio launched a new series of voltage line amplifiers from its Crest Audio portfolio, including the PZS-8250 Powered Zone Matrix Mixer, which combined an eight input by eight output mixing matrix with digital signal processing, four channels of powerful and efficient class D power and a convenient wireless web interface for configuring and controlling zoned audio systems, all in a sleek 2U chassis. The new range also consisted of the
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IPA 2300, a two input 300W mono industrial power amplifier, featuring low impedance and 25V, 50V and 100V constant voltage outputs and the IPA 4250, a 4x250W industrial amplifier, with 25V, 70V and 100V outputs for each channel. QSC debuted two new models to the SPA Series amplifiers. The SPA2-200 and SPA4100 offer 2x200W or 4x100W per channel into 8 and 4 outputs, with the ability to bridge channels for 70V and 100V capability. The amplifiers are energy star compliant, with fast and quiet power-up circuitry. The halfrack size amplifiers offer a unique mounting system for flexible options, such as under the table, wall-mounted behind a display or sideby-side in a credenza rack. Sennheiser presented the new TeamConnect Ceiling, its recently-launched ceiling mounted variant of its fixed-installation conferencing system. It featured a SpeechLine Ceiling microphone that is virtually invisible, offering a high performing, discrete alternative to classic table mounted systems for installation in medium to large conference rooms. Using beamforming technology, the ceiling mounted microphone focuses automatically on a speaker’s voice during a conference. Shure introduced the IH6500 interpreter headset, which is designed for professional interpreters who prefer an integrated headset. The dual-sided headset has removable ear pads, allowing for convenient cleaning, and also features a flexible gooseneck microphone boom that pivots 270 degrees. The IH6500 is compatible with Shure DCS 6000-series Interpreter Sets, including the IS 6132 P. Organisers of the event also debuted The Content Creation and Streaming Pavilion, which allowed attendees to go behind the scenes of a live event studio to see what it takes to produce a live stream, from content creation to execution and distribution. InfoComm 2017 will be held June 10-16 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Infocomm.org
P54
Installation
JULY 2016
EUROPE
Peck picks up pro project He was at Yamaha for over 20 years, but now Peter’s morphed to a Wharfedale way of life. Phil Ward fills in the facts
F
ormer Yamaha acolyte Peter Peck Peter Peck pictured at the opening of the new Wharfedale Pro showroom in Lagos, Nigeria has stepped into a new role at Wharfedale Pro, the professional audio arm of China-based full system manufacturer International Audio group (IAG). Although his title is formally presented as head of marketing, Peck admits that there’s much more to it than that. Based in the UK, he has a remit that already stretches beyond Europe: witness the recent grand opening of the new Wharfedale Pro Distributor showroom in Lagos, Nigeria. “At the grand opening we demonstrated the new WLA-28 line array system and managed to stop most of the traffic on the main road to the airport,” Peck reports. “Around 250 local engineers and installers came to the opening too. There is no other pro-audio showroom like this in Nigeria.” Seven years ago Peck moved within the Yamaha cartel to Steinberg in Hamburg, then returned to be with family and to consider his next move. “I’d done sales, product management and marketing,” he reflects, “which is a mixed portfolio to say the least. It seemed to confuse the recruitment agencies – which is another story – but then the IAG position came along. Best of all, it does demand a bit of everything: supporting sales with all of those skills and probably a few more besides! It’s a fantastic opportunity. “People know the Wharfedale brand and its history, and it’s now riding a whole new wave for the 21st century. From a European perspective, the ‘pro’ brand became well established over ten years ago in the new installation markets but the focus has latterly been on elsewhere around the world, with some amazing success. Up to recently we’ve lacked the instant solutions that others have developed in Europe, and that’s what we’re addressing now.” At Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt this spring, Wharfedale Pro displayed that compact WLA-28 line array system, designed from the ground up by veteran loudspeaker teams from the UK and US. The company also launched 29 new products including a range of tidylooking passive installation speakers called the Sigma series, refreshes for the well-established Titan series and a complete upgrade of the workhorse Impact series – now including user-friendly DSP controls and active WLA line array
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models. All these new products are scheduled to ship during the summer. “We have a portfolio that can do the entire signal path,” expands Peck, “so it’s time to communicate its advantages and re-build the perception of that line-up in Europe. We now have a European warehouse in Germany, which makes a huge difference. All the independent distributors across Europe can dip in and out of it. The priority now is not to start any revolutions – the warehouse is expertly functional – but to talk to all those distributors about what, where, when and how we can supply to them. It’s kind of back to basics, but IAG invented the basics of Sino-European operation so they’re in good hands!” In the 36 years since the establishment of Deng Xiaoping’s Special Economic Zone among the paddy fields of South-East China, the country has changed beyond recognition. IAG was one of the first outside interests to exploit the conditions, spearheaded by Taiwan-based pro-audio brothers-in-distribution Bernard and Michael Chang. Gradually, an entirely new business has been grown between the rice and the skyscrapers, pulling in British and Japanese consumer audio brands as well as neat sidelines in pro-audio, pro-lighting and luxury yachts. The factories in Shenzhen and Jiang Xi provinces are among the most important facilities for pro-audio in China today, designed and managed by senior European and Japanese specialists and wholly owned by the IAG. “We can’t send an 18” subwoofer by 3D printer Wharfedale CPD3600 amplifier
yet,” smiles Peck, “it has to come on a boat! But the distributors can purchase direct from China or they can pull from the central resource of the European warehouse. It works.” www.wharfedalepro.com
Conference 8 – 12 September : Exhibition 9 – 13 September RAI, Amsterdam
IBC2016 Conference Speakers Announced Transformation in the Digital Era Keynotes:
Sir Martin Sorrell CEO, WPP
Erik Huggers President and CEO, Vevo
Shahrzad Rafati Founder and CEO, BroadbandTV
Featured Speakers:
Dominique Delport Global Managing Director, Havas Media Group
Alex Mahon The Foundry Content and Production
Alex Green Amazon IBC Leaders’ Summit
Kevin Baillie Atomic Fiction IBC Big Screen Experience
Spencer Stephens Sony Pictures Entertainment Business Transformations
Hendrick McDermott NBC Universal International Platform Futures
Sara Johnson Keshet UK Content and Production
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Register now to save on Early Bird prices before 15 July!
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Please send all contributions for possible publication to drobinson@nbmedia.com
P57 JULY 2016
Hither & hammer This month, it’s about love-ins, power tools and Disney AVID’s Ben Nemes (left) and recording specialist James Ivey look on at Paragon’s Gareth Wilding love-in with the editor (both HHB pix: Chris Taylor)
Ian Jones celebrates 40 years of his HHB business with Jon Lemon: the FOH engineer came all the way from Australia for the shindig under Tate Britain
...Everyone, including Elvis with a rucksack. “You are always on my back, you are always on my… back…”
Everyone comes to Times Square, you know: Minnie, Mickey, The Hulk. Not quite so angry as normal, though, obviously
Yes! We found a shot of Martin Traut doing THAT power amp demo with the jackhammer! Nutter
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P58 JULY 2016
Backtalk
Gene Joly I
t is now over a little more than 40 years since Gene Joly began his MI and pro-audio career in earnest as an employee of legendary Boston music store E.U. Wurlitzer. The dual passions for music and technology forged during this time have remained constant throughout his ensuing career, which has included roles as general manager, US sales & marketing at TASCAM, and EVP of stores at Guitar Center, among others. A few months ago, he took up a new role as VP of Professional Business Unit at QSC – although as he tells PSNEurope, it wasn’t before making a brief attempt at retirement…
How did you come to join QSC, and was it a company that had always been on your radar career-wise? Towards the end of 2014 I decided that I was going to take a sabbatical of a year or so as I had never stopped working since I was a young man. I did want to keep doing bits and pieces of work, but as the year progressed I found that I was really getting used to waking up and reading for a few hours, or going hiking! I had left Guitar Center at the end of 2014 and was beginning to think about retiring permanently when I was approached by [QSC president and CEO] Joe Pham about a role heading up the Professional Business Unit at QSC. The company had long been on my radar and I was aware of how many new product categories it had entered with success, particularly since Joe came onboard. So here I am back at work again!
Did you feel that there was something specific you could bring to QSC from your extensive experience in both pro-audio and MI? Well, it was certainly not a situation where one was required to come in and achieve a turnaround. QSC had been – and continues to be – successful in both MI and pro-audio sectors. But I think Joe did feel that I
Newly ensconced as VP of Professional Business Unit at QSC, the audio industry stalwart talks to David Davies about the “boom years” of MI, the latent potential of the European market – and the inspirational impact of the mid ’60s ‘British Invasion’
could assist with determining new opportunities for the company over the next few years - in particular, growth in non-US territories. If you look at the history of QSC, it has been primarily focused on the US for most of its history. That’s not to say that the company hasn’t had global aspirations that have been taken very seriously, and on a number of fronts, but I do think there is now an opportunity to really maximise this potential. Some important groundwork has been in put in place in recent years – for example, we have updated our distribution partners, with AED adding the UK and Germany to its existing territory of Benelux in 2014. As of May 2016, AED and Algam have taken on distribution duties in France. So there has been a lot of effort made to understand the European market more deeply.
In which sectors do you expect the greatest growth for QSC in the future? Through our strong relationships with AED and other distributors, I think we will see a lot of movement in the rental and production markets. There is also plenty of opportunity for growth in the systems business and fixed installation. In terms of specific product categories, I would highlight what is now a very strong loudspeaker offer. Of course, the growth of interest in active speakers has been very pronounced in recent years, but we still observe a significant demand for passive speakers – something that we addressed with the launch of the E Series products in January. So I think we are well-placed to maximise our sales there.
What is QSC’s philosophy with regard to IP-based networked audio, and will a format/protocol agnostic philosophy be part of its approach? QSC envisages the future of AV media networking to be a blend of standards [with some being] open and some
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that are proprietary. Both methods are fine with us and we understand that there will always be a balance to be struck between just being on an open industry standard for its own sake, or some that are purpose-built and necessarily proprietary to serve the best interests of a particular customer segment. [That said] we believe the most pressing question now is actually ‘does it meet the needs of our customer?’ And that customer is evermore the IT manager and network engineer. This means that a networked AV media protocol, whether open or proprietary, should work on a standard network (like Cisco, HP, Netgear, etc) without undue compromise, or [the need for] new or specialised switch hardware requirements.
The first half of your career was spent solidly in the MI world, so how do you view the challenging trajectory of that sector over the last decade or so? I was fortunate to start working in the ‘boom years’ of the MI industry, having been one of the many millions who started to play music when The Beatles came to America and brought the rest of the British Invasion to our shores – effectively ‘saving’ rock’n’roll. During the ’70s and ’80s, demand for instruments was frequently such that manufacturers had to run three shifts a day to keep up. Since the ’90s, this momentum has gradually slowed and today it is clear that the MI market remains fairly flat. There are a number of possible reasons for the change and they probably include the scarcity of the kind of ‘star’ instrumentalists who used to inspire so many people to begin playing, as well as the reduction in spending on music education. Young people also have so many other things competing for their attention. But I definitely don’t think there has been a fall-off in affinity for music, so you never know – there could be a resurgence in the future. www.qsc.com
Big thinking For smaller boxes
Game-changing innovations in coaxial speaker design At Celestion, we’re always looking to find innovative solutions to the challenges faced by PA manufacturers. That’s why more and more forward-thinking brands are choosing to work with us. Take our coaxial drivers for example: unlike conventional designs, our FTX range uses a cutting-edge common magnet motor design to deliver big improvements in signal coherence and time alignment for a more natural sound from a very compact and lightweight speaker. Visit our website or contact us now to find out more about our innovative PA driver solutions.
Find out more
celestion.com