Memphis rocks! May 2015
Award-winning sound in the West End P40
www.psneurope.com
P16
P50
P58
FRANKFURT REVIEW
DRIVERS AND DIVERSE
RODRIGO A-GO-GO!
ALL THE NEWS FROM THE ANNUAL SAUSAGEFEST!
WHAT’S NEW IN WOOFERS AND TWEETERS
FROM A LIFE ON THE SEAS TO A LIKING OF LEEDS
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Welcome
PSNEUROPE Editor Dave Robinson drobinson@nbmedia.com
Commercial director Darrell Carter dcarter@nbmedia.com
Deputy editor Jon Chapple jchapple@nbmedia.com
Account manager Rian Zoll-Khan rzoll-khan@nbmedia.com
Managing editor Jo Ruddock jruddock@nbmedia.com
Head of design Jat Garcha jgarcha@nbmedia.com
Advertising manager Ryan O’Donnell rodonnell@nbmedia.com
Production executive Jason Dowie jdowie@nbmedia.com
Contributors: Marc Maes, Phil Ward, Kevin Hilton, Erica Basnicki, David Wiggins, Aston Fearon, Mel Lambert
PSNEurope NewBay Media, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18–26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN Editorial: +44 20 7354 6002 Sales: +44 20 7354 6000 Press releases to: ukpressreleases@nbmedia.com Circulation and subscription: Refunds on cancelled subscriptions will only be provided at the publisher’s discretion, unless specifically guaranteed within the terms of the subscription offer. NewBay Media may pass suitable reader addresses to other relevant suppliers. If you do not wish to receive sales information from other companies, please write to Circulations and Subscriptions, NewBay Media, Curwood CMS Ltd, The Barn, Abbey Mews, Robertsbridge TN32 5AD Subscribe by email to: psne.subscriptions@c-cms.com Subscriptions tel: +44 1580 883 848
PSNEurope is published 12 times a year by NewBay Media, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18–26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, United Kingdom ISSN: 0269-4735 (print) 2052-238X (digital)
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Cover image from Memphis: Johan Persson (www.perssonphotography.com)
P03 MAY 2015
DAVE ROBINSON Editor
@PSNEurope
M
ein Gott! What a Frankfurt that was! 108,000 in attendance, so the final figures say. It certainly kept the PSNEurope team busy, as you will see from our show report beginning on page 16. Let me just say this, though (and it’s never good practice to start your editorial with an apology, but that’s what this is): we probably didn’t cover everything we saw at the show in this issue. So much kit, so little time after the show to process all the info. If we missed you out, drop me a line at the usual email address and we’ll see to it for June and/or online. PL+S threw out a few obvious lines to pursue in future, particularly regarding the current trend in PA world to try to achieve optimum, and consistent, sound coverage and control. The Martin Audio MLA was, in my experience, the first system in recent times to emphasise the ‘same sound in every seat’ ethic; now we are seeing other manufacturers take measures to achieve similar ends, but by different methods. d&b’s new ArrayCalc upgrade seeks this path, for instance (p38), as does EAW’s Adaptive Performance system (p46). There are others, too... more on that next time. One place where audio coverage certainly was not consistent was at the PSNEurope–Medialease Pop Quiz. My oh my, did I spawn a monster-load of trouble this year (the hecklers – you know who you were. GRRR!). There must be a certain satisfaction, I would imagine, seeing the editor of a professional audio magazine having to shout out the questions because the chosen venue’s sound system is, well, not just inadequate, but actually installed in another room. You live and learn, eh, when you hire a place sight unseen. A huge thanks to all those who dragged themselves from dinners and other parties to join in the quizzing fun on the Wednesday, and a massive ‘thumbs up’ to Medialease’s Paul Robson and Stuart Fenwick for helping settle up!
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Contents
P4 MAY 2015
In this issue...
P26 OH! DARLINGS
P46 MIGHT AND MAIN
ABBEY ROAD WELCOMES THE WORLD
ADAPTIVE PERFORMANCE BY EAW AT FRANKFURT’S FESTHALLE
P54 10-YEAR-OLD AMBER THE UK DISTRIBUTOR CELEBRATES A DECADE
P34 DOUBLE DEUTSCH PUSHING BOUNDARIES AND PLAYING IT SAFE IN GERMAN BROADCAST
Broadcast 28 29 30
Business 6 7 8 10 12 14 16 24 32 48
Adobe takes on Avid in the cloud Meyer Sound recruits first LEOPARD-tamers Nominate now for the Pro Sound Awards 2015 Vocal channel: Erica Basnicki and David Wiggins Movers and shakers PSNTraining Show review: Prolight + Sound The strategic position: Andres Mayo, AES Feature: German broadcast business Feature: Drivers
Studio 26
Inside Abbey Road: Is Live Here Now no more?
DAB+ key to new UK multiplex Going underground with Radio 2 Refurbing Sterren.nl on a budget
Live 34 40 44 46
‘Consistent sound in every seat’ with ArrayProcessing Walking (and sound designing) in Memphis A Wales of a time with SSS EAW Redlines the LEAs
Installation 54
Graham Paddon’s Amber Sound turns 10
Back pages 57 58
Hither & dither Backtalk: Rodrigo Thomaz, Audio-Technica
www.psneurope.com
P6
Business
MAY 2015
United States
Adobe and Aframe up the editing ante Full audio and video editing in the cloud is the next step from the media developer and partner, writes Kevin Hilton
T
wo of the leading non-linear audio and video editing manufacturers in the broadcast and music markets have been proclaiming their ubiquity over the last two years: Avid has its ‘Everywhere’ concept while Adobe claims to be ‘Anywhere’. The power of networking and interoperability has helped Avid rediscover its direction, as shown at both NAB and Prolight + Sound, but this approach has also given its keen rival, Adobe, a boost. The Las Vegas broadcast show was awash with manufacturers showing
interfaces and other technologies for Adobe systems. Key among this was the collaboration with platform developer Aframe to offer “full editing” in the cloud. This is based on Adobe Anywhere, with sound capability through the audio component of the Premiere Pro CC edit workstation. Aimed at projects needing a fast turnaround, ‘Adobe Anywhere in the Cloud delivered by Aframe’ is a combination of the Premiere or Prelude CC editing systems running streamed media with remote storage and media asset
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management (MAM). It is described as a “one-to-many” system that enables multiple users to log into and work on a project from wherever they happen to be. “With Adobe Anywhere, editors and other video professionals can use local or remote networks to simultaneously access, stream, and work with remotely stored media,” says Simon Williams, senior director of business development at Adobe. “Aframe’s integration with Adobe Anywhere significantly reduces the investment for customers in infrastructure - a big plus for many organisations.” David Peto, founder and chief executive of Aframe, saw an early version of Adobe Anywhere before it was launched officially at NAB 2013. At that point it ran over a conventional internet connection and had to be supported by local servers, storage and MAM, but Peto says he saw the potential for bringing Aframe and Anywhere together to have “collaboration and editing in the cloud, with no download”. Aframe started work on achieving this around six months ago, enabling users of Premiere and Prelude systems to search for video, audio or graphics footage held in the cloud using keyword metadata descriptions. Selected material is previewed and then a real-time adaptive bitrate stream of the high-resolution version streamed to the editing system. Other people involved in a project can view work as it progresses through Aframe’s share link feature. When an edit is completed it is rendered, automatically transcoded and can be found on cloud storage by connecting to Anywhere. Right now, Adobe’s dedicated audio editing and mixing system, Audition, does not run in Anywhere, but soundonly files can be handled on Premiere Pro CC, which has specific tools for the job. “Whatever you put into the edit will go to the cloud,” comments Peto.
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David Peto of Aframe: “Whatever you put into the edit will go to the cloud”
“That can be standalone audio files or anything else Premier can handle.” Part of the intention behind Adobe Anywhere in the Cloud delivered by Aframe is to make producers and editors less tied to a facility. “It means people do not have to be on a premises, with all the associated hardware and overheads,” Peto says. He adds, however, that he is not trying to do away with facilities: “We want to make running them more efficient and bring in a more modern way of working. It can give editors and producers freedom but there will always be a place for highend video, grading and audio suites.” The Aframe–Adobe cloud concept is aimed at promos, reversioning and other work that needs a quick turnaround. Peto says Aframe currently has “a close relationship with Adobe” but as its platform is open other manufacturer’s systems could be supported. The company hopes to bring in early adopters by the autumn with a full launch of the technology planned for early 2016. www.aframe.com www.adobe.com
P7 MAY 2015
United Kingdom & Norway
Bright Norway and Sonalyst UK tame first Meyer LEOPARDs The first sales of the new self-powered systems were confirmed in Frankfurt BY DAVE ROBINSON
B
right Norway and the UK’s Sonalyst have officially become the first companies to purchase the new LEOPARD linear sound reinforcement system from Meyer Sound. Having made their debut at Prolight + Sound, the LEOPARD line array loudspeaker and its accompanying 900-LFC low-frequency control element are the smallest and most versatile members of Meyer Sound’s flagship LEO family, launched in 2012. Following the success with LEO and the smaller LYON in high-profile projects such as the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, Bright Norway says the new LEOPARD and 900-LFC will help simplify its rental operations. “In a perfect world, audio companies would love to rely on one single model to bring consistency to all its projects, but that’s not possible,” says Asle Nilsen, head of audio at Bright. “Now with LEOPARD adding to our arsenal of LYON and LEO systems, we have a much more streamlined inventory to bring highly accurate audio reproduction to every project that comes our way.” For Sonalyst, a leading British production supplier for comedy and theatre shows (the Monty Python run at the O2 being a recent example), it was all about LEOPARD’s power-to-size ratio and the PA company’s experience with LEO. “Just when we thought that quality in audio production had reached its peak, Meyer Sound released a product representing a giant step forward for the industry,” says Rory Madden, the owner of Sonalyst. “We
were astonished when we first heard LEO and LYON and we couldn’t be happier to become the first company to bring LEOPARD to the UK.” Based in Port Talbot, Wales, Sonalyst have supplied PA equipment for countless comedy tours, including those by Noel Fielding, John Bishop and Mark Thomas, as well as any number of rock and pop shows. The company purchased 48 LEOPARD loudspeakers, 24 900LFC elements, 12 MJF-210 stage monitors, two Galileo Callisto 616 processors, and two RMServers. The Bright Norway group now includes leading Swedish audio supplier Starlight in its number. Bright’s order is nearly twice the size of Sonalyst’s: 96 LEOPARD boxes, 24 900-LFC elements, and four Callisto 616 processors, plus 12 LYON linear line loudspeakers and 18 1100-LFC elements. The systems are expected to ship in June 2015. www.meyersound.com
Roger Harpum, Meyer Sound UK sales manager (left), with Sonalyst’s Rory Madden
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LEOPARD spotted in Frankfurt!
P8 MAY 2015
Business
Pro Sound Awards 2015 Get your entries in! Time to tell us about all the fabulous things you’ve witnessed in the world of studio, broadcast, installation or live sound
W
hat have you and your business done this year that’s been particularly impressive? Have you worked on the slickest, most polished tour yet? Installed the biggest sound system in all creation? Mixed the audio for a broadcast event that blew everyone’s socks off? Or maybe you run a studio that, by all accounts, is simply a bloody brilliant place to record? Has your team overcome the most challenging of conditions to produce something simply splendid? Has your facility worked on a project that wiped the floor with everything else out there? Or has your marketing campaign been so effective that you broke the internet with Facebook likes? Whatever special deeds you and your colleagues (or your clients, or maybe just your friends in the pro-audio business) have done in the last 12 months, it’s time to let the world know about it! It’s time, in fact, to enter for the Pro Sound Awards… The hottest event on the pro-audio calendar, PSNEurope’s Pro Sound Awards returns to the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London for the third time on Thursday 24 September. And the lobbying period is open NOW! Submitting an entry for consideration is open to anyone and is totally free. Simply 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. You’ll find the qualifying criteria for each category online at www.prosoundawards.com. Then send a short pitch (up to a maximum of 300 words) for each award under consideration to prosoundawards@nbmedia.com or complete the online form at www.prosoundawards. com/lobby. 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. And you can send in up to three pictures, too; full instructions are there on the online form. Based on the email nominations, the Pro Sound Awards team will create a list of finalists for each category. This process involves looking at the performance of those nominated companies over
AWARDS CATEGORIES Live/touring sound • Engineer of the year • Best tour/production sound • Best theatre sound Studio sound (sponsored by Focusrite) • Engineer of the year • Best studio • Best sound in post-production Installed sound • Best temporary installation project • Best permanent installation project • Team of the year Broadcast sound • Best facility • Broadcast event of the year • Team of the yar Achievement • Marketing initiative of the year • Rising star (chosen by Audio Media International) • Lifetime achievement (chosen by the Pro Sound Awards team) • Grand prix (chosen by the Pro Sound Awards team)
the past year, plus the information provided by the lobbying emails, but we don’t base finalist positions on the number of emails we receive about a particular company. A shortlist of finalists for each category will be presented to a 50-strong panel of judges from across the spectrum of the pro-audio industry, who 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 trophy, the last of which will be chosen by sister title Audio Media International). “There have been a ton of notable pro-audio productions and projects since 30 May 2014, but you need to tell us what they were and who was involved,” says PSNEurope editor Dave Robinson. “You have to be in it to win it, I can’t emphasise that enough. And anyway, this year’s party is going to be better than ever, you need to be there – so buy that £49 ticket now!” Leading studio equipment manufacturer Focusrite, which sponsored last month’s PSNPresents event at the Ham Yard Hotel in Soho, is already confirmed as the first event partner, lending its support to the studio category.
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A range of other sponsorsip opportunities – from headline sponsor to category, photobooth, red-carpet and afterparty sponsorship – are also available; contact PSNEurope ad manager Ryan O’Donnell (rodonnell@nbmedia.com) or account manager Rian Zoll-Khan (rzoll-khan@nbmedia.com) for more details! For ticket information, email Jess Farnan at jfarnan@nbmedia.com. www.prosoundawards.com Tickets are available now for £49, which includes drinks reception, food, the awards and the afterparty. And a splendid social occasion! More information at www.prosoundawards.com
X-LINE ADVANCE Forward-thinking line-array design starts here. The result of rigorous R&D, the introduction of the new X-Line Advance family sees Electro-Voice push the parameters of line-array performance to the next level. X-Line Advance utilizes state-of-the-art EVengineered components and incorporates a range of innovative new features, all of which work together to surpass the capabilities of other line arrays, and all in a significantly more compact, flexible, and quickerto-set-up package.
KEY FEATURES: An unprecedented performance-to-size ratio for installed and concert sound applications. Advanced audio quality and control via a host of new and exclusive EVengineered technologies, including next-generation Hydra wave-shaping devices, high-output transducers, and proprietary FIR-Drive optimization. New-look EV industrial design and new Integrated Rigging System combine streamlined appearance with simplified setup.
The first wave of X-Line Advance products includes two full-range elements (X1-212/90 & X2-212/90) and the X12-128 — the most powerful subwoofer EV has ever developed.
Designed, engineered, and tested for ultimate reliability by Electro-Voice in the USA. Learn more at: www.electrovoice.com/X-LineAdvance
P10 MAY 2015
Vocal channel
Welcome back, Avid
M ERICA BASNICKI is a writer and sound designer
oaning about Avid/Pro Tools has become to pro-audio users what moaning about the weather has become to the British. As the industry standard audio software, irritation takes on an added edge when things don’t work as smoothly as they should, or when basic features that are now standard on other DAWs (input monitoring for non-HD users springs to mind) continue to fall by the wayside. It’s also, much like moaning about the weather, a default position we might want to reconsider taking. Since the beginning of 2015, Avid has rolled out quote a few new products, including the latest incarnation of its flagship software, Pro Tools 12. The software includes new online collaboration tools, the new Avid Plug-in Marketplace, and a subscription option that has confused users as, well, it is (still) a bit confusing. Of course, that’s what happens when things change: It’s confusing at first and doesn’t always go according to plan, but
in the end it tends to work out. If Pro Tools users could hang on just a bit longer, better days are ahead. In October 2013, I had the opportunity to sit in on the exclusive interview between Avid CEO Louis Hernandez Jnr and PSNEurope editor Dave Robinson (see ‘Hungry for success: Interview with Avid’s Louis Hernandez Jr’ at www.psneurope. com/hungry-for-success). During that interview, Hernandez spoke of resolving a technical accounting issue that saw the company’s shares pulled from NASDAQ, connecting with customers and creating an open platform that meets the needs of the community. A year and a half later and the accounting issue has been resolved and shares are back on the market (and apparently still undervalued, if you’re the investing type). The Avid Customer Association has sold out all of its Avid Connect events to largely positive reviews. In addition to Pro Tools 12, the company has rolled out the free entry-level Pro
Tools First, a free iPad controller app, and launched the new VENUE S6L console with Dante connectivity through its new partnership with Audinate. These announcements don’t strike out every item on the collective Pro Tools users’ wish list. In fact, it’s fair to say that an iPad app isn’t nearly as useful as [insert common Pro Tools gripe here]. But iPad apps are the way forward, AVB connectivity is becoming essential and the fact that Avid ‘gets it’ says a lot about where the company is, and where it’s heading. Expecting perfection from any piece of software/product is completely ludicrous but we have every right to demand as close to it as possible when it’s essential to the industry. We also have to accept that change is inevitable and frequently awkward. In the case of Avid, the company is changing for the better and for once I am genuinely (dare I say it) excited about things to come. Finally! That and the sun is shining... what could be better?
Live sound: The end of the beginning?
I
DAVE WIGGINS is a freelance marketeer and pro-audio pundit
t’s a sad fact that the first generation of pioneers are being depleted, with such luminaries as Bob See, Jack Calmes, Charlie Watkins, Albert Lecesse, Gene Clair, ML Procise and Derrick Zieba all having left us quite recently. In view of their achievements and those of many other brilliant and determined individuals – literally, the founding of an entire industry – it’s only natural to view their passing as the end of an era. Live sound is a very young business. Even Clair Global, one of the biggest names in touring sound, have yet to celebrate their 50th birthday and many of the key figures still active in sound reinforcement today can trace their histories back to the mid-’70s or further. These people carry a priceless repository of knowledge, experience and contacts, but sooner or later they will not be part of the scene. The good news is that the business remains in excellent hands at ground level, as the sheer professionalism and technical capabilities of contemporary touring crew,
plus some remarkable equipment, now bring unprecedented levels of safety, performance and predictability to touring. As The Wall Street Journal recently commented, “Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll are out; efficiency, tech skills and professionalism are in.” Additionally, we are at last starting to see some external investment in the industry, including examples of venture capital partners taking stakes in several major manufacturers. So, what might the touring sound business look like in, say, 2025?
• This would be the result of an ongoing process of consolidation. This arguably began with Clair Brothers (as they then were) acquiring Showco in 2000, later followed by dB Sound, MD Systems, Audio Rent and latterly Concert Sound. Here in the UK, the SSE Audio Group has acquired Melpomen, Canegreen and most recently Wigwam, There are numerous examples elsewhere, and this global trend will surely continue as smaller PA company owners execute their retirement plans.
• In all probability there will probably be far fewer companies in it. Assuming that live performance remains the primary revenue source for many artists, it is reasonable to assume that the overall amount of work will be roughly constant: this means that the number of hands necessary to do it will be stable, and thus about the same number of people will be working but for a much smaller group of employers.
• Consequently international concert touring may in future be handled by a small group of providers, with the vast majority of it covered by four or five large operations, located at globally strategic points, working very closely with each other and geared up to deliver technical solutions from major stadia down to (perhaps) Academy-sized venues. This changes almost everything for almost everyone - I’ll explore this more fully in future episodes...
www.psneurope.com/business
P12 MAY 2015
Movers and shakers
Giaroli gets a Luca-in at Outline A new business development manager for the Flero speaker specialist
I
talian loudspeaker manufacturer Outline has named Luca Giaroli as its new business development manager. Outline describes Giaroli as “an accomplished and skilled marketing manager”, noting that he “also possesses the engineering, technical expertise and practical experience that will focus his energy on expanding the company’s global presence on all levels”. In the new position, Giaroli will take responsibility for
building sales, imaging and branding and Outline’s field training and educational initiatives, reporting directly to the company’s board of directors. Tom Bensen, senior VP and managing director, Outline North America, says Giaroli’s “talents and insights are going to bring a fresh and broader perspective to both the marketing and engineering sides of Outline”. Giaroli joins Outline from Italian distributor Audiosales. www.outlinearray.com
DEALER NETWORK
Han Dohmen has been named L-Acoustics’ Benelux sales manager. Dohmen is pictured (right) with director of business development Jochen Frohn. www.l-acoustics.com
Medialease has expanded its sales staff with the appointment of Stuart Fenwick. Fenwick says he is looking forward to helping the media finance firm “grow and prosper”. www.medialease.com
Pascal, the Norwegian manufacturer of OEM amplifier modules, has appointed Aage Hejgaard as key account manager. www.pascal.no
Jim Bakker, founder and president of The Bakery Consultants, has been named Listen Technologies’ regional sales manager for the EMEA region, including Russia. www.listentech.com
Meyer Sound has promoted Michael Creason to the newly created position of product manager – system applications and training. www.meyersound.com
AV technology manufacturer/ distributor Peerless-AV has appointed Stuart Robson-Frisby as EMEA director of business development. www.peerless-av.com
www.psneurope.com/business
Nordic Audio Distribution (NAD) is to distribute ADAM Audio in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. “NAD has a team of highly qualified specialists with many years of experience in the pro-audio industry,” says Alexander Sacken, sales manager at the monitor manufacturer, “and, very importantly, [a] strong focus on [our] customers’ needs and requirements. They have the right strategies and we look forward to a long and profitable partnership.” www.adam-audio.com www.nordicaudio.eu Nexo announced in Frankfurt that Orbital Sound is to become its full-service main dealer and approved rental partner in the UK. Nexo calls the appointment of Orbital “a key stage in [its] ongoing process of restructuring and refining its sales channels in the UK to reflect the changing landscape of this influential market”. www.nexo-sa.com www.orbitalsound.com Also at PL+S, Renkus-Heinz announced the appointment of Audio Link as its new distribution partner in Italy. Founded in 1984, Audio Link has been one of the country’s leading pro-audio and lighting providers for over 30 years. www.renkus-heinz.com www.audiolink.it
P14 MAY 2015
Have Summa Calrec’s new video series
BY JON CHAPPLE
Calrec Audio has unveiled a series of online training videos on its newest audio console, the Summa. The course is divided into six modules, which are further broken down into chapters. The chapters – which include lessons on channel strip controls, EQ, fader controls, mix minus, creating channels, moving
and cloning paths, memory management and on-air protection – comprise short animated videos that can be viewed in or out of sequence. Henry Goodman, the broadcast specialist’s head of sales and marketing, explains: “For Calrec, customer support is a top priority that requires unwavering commitment, and a big part of and that commitment involves customer education. Face-to-face training isn’t always possible due to budget, availability and geographical reach; that’s why we felt strongly about giving people free, easily accessible tools that teach them how to set up and use Summa.” The new Summa training course is part of Calrec’s increased focus on training over the past few years. Its audio and network primers are available as free downloads for individual operators and freelance mixers, while it also operates an ongoing Apollo/ Artemis training programme in the UK and US. www.calrec.com
iZotope, Berklee partner for webinars
BY JON CHAPPLE
iZotope has joined with Berklee Online to deliver a series of webinars for students preparing for a career in audio production. Touching on topics such as commercial composition and audio repair for post-production, the US audio technology/software company and Berklee Online – the online arm of Berklee College of Music – have joined forces to “educate audio production students around the world”. “iZotope is thrilled to partner with a leader in music education and excited to help develop the next generation of audio professionals,” says iZotope business development manager Scott Simon. “Together with Berklee, we aim to share inspiring solutions for common music production activities.” Mike King, CMO at Berklee Online, adds: ”There’s a natural cohesion between Berklee Online and iZotope that is founded in a passion for education. This shared focus extends to educating both aspiring and experienced music producers on the most forwardthinking approaches to production. We couldn’t be
happier with our relationship with iZotope.” Two free Berklee Online/iZotope webinars, presented by Berklee assistant professor and online instructor Loudon Stearns and iZotope product specialist Brandon Carroll, are available to view now. Register for Introduction to iZotope’s RX4 Audio Repair and Enhancement Software and Commercial Composition, Mixing and Production with iZotope at the Berklee Online website. online.berklee.edu
Tectonic explains Distributed Mode Loudspeakers BY JON CHAPPLE
Flat-panel loudspeaker manufacturer Tectonic Audio Labs has produced a 21-part technical video series explaining the function, performance and application of its Distributed Mode Loudspeaker (DML) technology.
Unlike traditional loudspeaker systems which utilise pistonic cone and compression drivers to produce audio, Tectonic speakers employ largeformat, flat-panel DML resonant-mode devices, “[producing] audio in a fundamentally different way to a typical loudspeaker”, says Tectonic’s Tim Whitwell. “This technology can seem quite counterintuitive to those not familiar with resonant-mode devices.” The Tectonic Technical Video Series condenses over three hours of conversations between Whitwell and transducer/ loudspeaker systems engineer Marcelo Vercelli (pictured, L–R), who explore and explain DML technology in a series of five-minute video tutorials. www.tectonicaudiolabs.com/technical-video-library
www.psneurope.com/training
1 May Adlib: L-Acoustics K2 public demo day Glasgow, United Kingdom www.adlib.co.uk
4 May Meyer Sound: The Mixing Workshop Mannheim, Germany www.meyersound.com
5–7 May Martin Audio: MLA M-Tech training Bedford, UK www.martinaudio-mla.com
11–12 May Meyer Sound: The Mixing Workshop Copenhagen, Denmark www.meyersound.com
THE ESSENTIALS:
FOH/SYSTEMS AND MONITORS: TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
FOH and monitor engineers have a similar skillset but ultimately different responsibilities, navigating a different set of nuances which can be developed over time, writes Aston Fearon The main misconception I tend to hear about the front of house (FOH) position when people compare FOH and monitors is that the former is easier because it’s more self-centred. I’ve often heard it said that if you mix FOH you only have one mix to provide, which is only for one pair of ears – your own. While this could be a temptation, I think that this shouldn’t be the case. Read the full article at www.psneurope.com/foh-vs-monitors
NEW
Even more digital.
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DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA
P16
Show review
MAY 2015
Germany
Frankfurt bursts! So much to see this year, we couldn’t fit everything in. Here’s our first serving of sizzlers
F
rankfurt’s Prolight + Sound seldom disappoints, and this year was no exception – with three consoles launched within the first two hours. Yamaha kicked things off with the new TF series of compact digital mixing consoles – aimed fair and squarely at the market cornered by Behringer’s X32. The TF range comprises the TF5, TF3 and TF1, which feature 33, 25, or 17 motor faders, respectively, along with 32, 24, or 16 rear-panel analogue inputs and recallable D-PRE preamps. ‘TF’ stands for ‘TouchFlow Operation’, which combines elements of Yamaha’s traditional user interfaces with a touchpanel system (“the best feature of the desk,” Yamaha’s Karl Christmas told PSNEurope). Other new features include one-knob compressor and one-knob EQ, which use a single rotary control on inputs for adjusting individual sources and on outputs for overall sound control. Input and output channel presets were created in cooperation with Shure, Sennheiser and Audio-Technica. Next up was DiGiCo, and, in addition to upgrades to existing desks, the company revealed the S21 digital console, targeting a new section of the market with a compact desk at an entry-level price point (though still around £5k). However, according to managing director James Gordon, the S21 is “built like a high-end touring console”. The D21 is based on the larger SD7, using the same algorithms as an SD7 and its Stealth Digital Processing technology and core FPGA. The control surface features not one but two multi-touch touchscreens, 20 touch-sensitive faders and touch-sensitive encoders which change colour according to assigned functions, ensuring operators are aware of what they are controlling at all times. Gordon also revealed that the corporate entity formed
DiGiCo’s James Gordon and Dave ‘Webby’ Webster
in August by investment firm Electra Partners and comprising DiGiCo, Allen & Heath and Calrec, has been given the name ‘Audiotonix’. “Though,” related Gordon afterwards, “the customer choice was ‘Consoles R Us’, and it took two board meetings to get past that!” Sammy Freh, head of Belgian production outfit GSF Event, became the first to purchase a DiGiCo S21 mixing console at the show – sight unseen, no less. Then a little later in the morning, Avid completed the triumvirate with the arrival of the big brother to the compact S3L-X, the S6L. This is a fully modular, scalable mixing system suitable for a range of applications, including front of house, monitors, broadcast and theatre. Featuring the VENUE E6L engine, the S6L offers “unprecedented power to handle huge channel and plug-in counts at the lowest possible latency”. All processing is at 96Hz, although support is offered for higher sample rates. After the early mixer madness came many other new releases and arrivals. Here’s a slew of them, in alphabetical order. If we missed you this time around, let us know! French manufacturer Amadeus unveiled a first concept version of its new Philharmonia loudspeaker at Prolight + Sound. The speaker, intended for both studio and home hi-fi use, was designed by worldrenowned architect Jean Nouvel for the 5.1 surround recording/mixing studios housed in the newly opened Philharmonie de Paris concert hall. Bernard Byk, co-founder and CEO of Amadeus, said: “Jean Nouvel’s imagination, exuberance and creative genius brought a brilliant solution, beyond the original specifications.” The Philharmonia is equipped with a 28mm soft-dome tweeter loaded behind a custom circular waveguide sculpted from a block of birch and a
The S21 close up
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Avid’s Sheldon Radford with the VENUE S6L
handmade 8” woofer with cone diaphragm made of two thin carbon-reinforced paper cones. Its amplitude linearity (±2dB) ranges from 43Hz to 22kHz, with a two-way monitoring system driven by a proprietary two-amped power amplifier section which uses a highefficiency switched-mode power supply. The amplifier includes a built-in DSP module with digital filtering functions such as system EQ, time alignment between HF and LF sections, limiter parameters and thermal protection of the transducers. Amadeus expects to complete the studio version of the speaker in Q3 2015, with pricing to be announced soon. Atelier Vision Corporation (ATV), founded on 1 July 2014 by then-84-year-old Ikutaro Kakehashi, the man behind the Roland Corporation, held its first press conference at Frankfurt. Paulo Caius, also ex-Roland, introduced the company, while Kakehashi, currently unable to travel, sent a greeting from Japan. ATV’s multifaceted corporation’s audio and video product lines will focus on applications in the broadcast,
Completing the triumvirate: The Yamaha TF3
P18 MAY 2015
Show review Gibson’s Craig Hockenberry and Nils Karsten with the full Les Paul range
Audio Precision’s Eric Hodges
entertainment, networking, corporate AV, events, installation and digital signage markets internationally, while an MI arm will deliver “electronic products in the most important segments: drums, percussion, keyboards and guitar”. Test and measurement specialist Audio Precision announced support for audio testing of Audinate Danteenabled devices with its APx500 Series analysers and software. “The rapid growth of audio networking is a direct reflection of the great value it provides to a variety of professional audio applications,” comments Dave Schmoldt, Audio Precision’s CEO. “We’re excited to help design engineers as they strive to develop and introduce Dante-enabled, high-quality audio products.” beyerdynamic introduced two new products at Musikmesse in the form of the Custom Studio headphones and TG D35d drum microphone. Designed, as the name suggests, for studio applications, the 80Ω Custon Studio headphones feature a closed design with dynamic 45mm transducers and a frequency range of 5Hz–35kHz. Using the variable bass reflex vents (‘sound sliders’) on the Custom Studio’s ear casings, users can adjust the sound properties to their personal preferences in four stages, from “the analytic
Cadac’s CDC six digital live console
DPA CEO Christian Poulsen at its Thursday morning press conference
precision of linear playback to consciously emphasised bass reproduction, without electronic manipulation”. The moving-coil TG D35d, designed for stage use, completes beyerdynamic’s Tour Gear microphone series. Intended for mounting on snare and tom-toms but also suitable for other instruments with high SPLs, the unrestricted mic “delivers an impressive performance on drums such as conga, djembe and cajon, and also in front of a guitar amp speaker,” according to the Heilbronn-based manufacturer. Also on display in Frankfurt was the MCE 85 shotgun mic for cameras/camcorders, introduced in October 2014. Bose introduced the F1 Model 812 Flexible Array loudspeaker and F1 subwoofer. Designed to serve a broader set of applications than its L1 systems, F1 Model 812 is the first powered
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portable loudspeaker that lets users optimise sound by creating up to four different vertical coverage patterns. With the F1, sound can be optimised for playing at floor level, on stage or facing tiered or raked seating. To control the vertical coverage pattern, users push or pull the array into position to create ‘straight’ (tightest vertical control, for floor-level audience coverage), ‘J’ (adjust vertical splay down, when the rig is placed on stage), ‘C’ (adjust vertical splay up and down, to cover extreme raked seating), or ‘reverse J’ (adjust vertical splay up, e.g. for tiered seating coverage) dispersion patterns. Once set, the system automatically adjusts the EQ to maintain optimum tonal balance for each coverage pattern. American rock band Farrenheit, featuring Charlie Farren, were engaged to demo the system during the show, while Bose’s Craig Jackson and team adjusted the
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P20 MAY 2015
Show review
array as they were playing. Cadac held the worldwide launch of the CDC six digital live sound production console on the opening day of PL+S. Speaking immediately after the launch, Cadac brand development manager, Richard ‘Fez’ Ferriday, commented: “We have been overwhelmed by the response of the visitors we have had on the opening day of the show. CDC six has been very well received by the pro-audio community, and, on day one of the show, we have already sold the first production run of this innovative live sound console.” Based around the “further development of Cadac’s advanced, highly acclaimed gesture-operation user interface and the same superlative audio performance and incredible low latency of the CDC eight”, the CDC six represents “a major ergonomic advance in user operation”, says the Luton-based company. Lacking traditional physical controls, the CDC six features a ‘high agility’ user interface accessed via a widescreen 23.5” touch screen, resulting in “a fast, logical workflow without the compromises dictated by hardware-centric designs”. On show for the first time for DPA Microphones was the d:fine in-ear broadcast headset mic. Targeted at television hosts and guests who use in-ear monitors to communicate with producers backstage, the new addition to the d:fine range combines the sound quality of a DPA microphone with a “state-of-the-art” in-ear monitoring solution. Available in several in-ear combinations and colour options, the unit comes with ear pads in two different sizes and an adjustable headset mount. It is also possible to choose between left- and right-ear orientation, giving the broadcast host a ‘camera blind’ side. Also new for the show was the handheld d:facto interview microphone, which features the omnidirectional 2006V capsule. This is based on DPA’s original 2006 capsule, but has sensitivity adjusted down 12dB to accommodate typical interview mic and
Powersoft R&D director Claudio Lastrucci
wireless handle sensitivities. In a refreshing take on the press conference process, CEO Christian Poulsen talked about present and future expectations in the spheres of digital networking and wireless technology, before DPA’s Mikkel Nymand presented an illuminating and entertaining video short demonstrating the effects of wind noise on various mics from DPA and the competition. (We eagerly await the promised ‘wig in the wind’ retake…) Electro-Voice launched the X-Line Advance Series, marking a major refreshing of the company’s high-end touring and installation offering. See next month’s issue for an in-depth interview with EV’s Guillermo Wabi concerning the system! Gibson’s Les Paul reference monitors made their European debut at Musikmesse. Intended to “honour the legacy of Les Paul, the genius who pioneered the solid-body electric guitar and multitrack recording”, the monitors – available in 4”, 6” and 8” sizes and cherry, cherry burst and tobacco burst colouring – are styled after the classic Les Paul guitar and feature flame maple tops, diamond-like carboncoated titanium tweeters (Gibson director of market development Nils Karsten told PSNEurope he tried to destroy the tweeters of a early prototype version, to no avail), non-woven carbon fibre woofers and custom-
The new L-Acoustics X Series
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designed amplification “to ensure ultra-clean transient impulse response and ample headroom”. Also exhibiting was Gibson brand KRK, which presented its entire Rokit G3 monitor range. L-Acoustics launched its X Series of coaxial speakers for the installation and rental markets. The X Series range comprises the X8 live monitor, the larger 90° x 60° X12 and the powerful, low-profile X15 with integrated risers. “The challenge in creating the X Series was to bring all of the experience we gained in designing the K2 to bear on a new series of reference coaxials,” explains Christophe Combet, head of acoustic and instrumentation. “We used new carpentry techniques to optimise internal volumes, maximise bass and eliminate vibrations, designing a new, aerodynamic form with a slender low profile that gives a profound feeling of power.” Nexo unveiled the ID series of super-compact loudspeaker cabinets for installation, touring and AV applications. ID (Inspace Definition) speakers are super-compact and low profile to enable their use in awkward and acoustically challenging spaces. Using a variety of mounting options, the ID24 compact cabinet can fit in a number of environments and has the ability to offer high SPL output with variable directivity, enabling the beaming of sound into difficult spaces. Grip and grin! Nexo’s Gareth Collyer and Orbital Sound’s Andy Simmons
The ID series comprises the ID24 full-range compact speaker and two low-profile subwoofers, the ID S110 and ID S210. Nexo also announced the appointment of Orbital Sound as its principal dealer and rental partner in the UK (see p14). Nexo’s Gareth Collyer and Orbital’s Andy Simmons sealed the deal at the show NST Audio made its debut as an exhibitor at Prolight + Sound 2015. The company, which revealed itself at last year’s Frankfurt show, demonstrated the NST D48 fourin/eight-out DSP. NST was created by former MC2 Audio boss Ian McCarthy, returning to the industry after an absence of three years, working alongside audio software and design engineer Dan Cartman and XTA founder Andrew Grayland. The company plans to develop OEM and licensed DSP-based software and hardware. Renkus-Heinz revealed generation five of its Iconyx digitally steerable loudspeakers on Wednesday morning in Frankfurt. New company president Roscoe Anthony made his first visit to the show in his new role. According to the Californian manufacturer, Iconyx Gen5 delivers faster, more accurate steering; more robust networking; TCP/IP control from third-party devices; and new master and slave amplifier modules – “just a few of the features that make Iconyx Gen5 the new world standard in digitally steered array technology”. Renkus-Heinz also unveiled a new version of its RHAON II system-management software and three new distributors: Audio Link in Italy, MediasPro in Germany and SchallerTech in Colombia. Riedel Communications announced at Prolight + Sound the launch of the MicroN, an 80G media distribution network device for its MediorNet line of media transport Renkus-Heinz president Roscoe Anthony
Renkus-Heinz’s Rick Kirby introduces the Iconyx Gen5
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P22 MAY 2015
Show review
Riedel’s Stefan Klinge (aka Steve Blade) with the MicroN interface
or an in-house marketing specialist making a product video, AVX gives you the room to concentrate on your creative work,” says Sven Boetcher, portfolio manager for broadcast and media at Sennheiser. “No licensing is required: the system automatically selects a suitable transmission frequency and also makes all necessary settings. That’s true ease of use.” Soundcraft and Shure announced a new collaboration enabling native monitoring and control of Shure wireless systems on Soundcraft Vi-series digital consoles. The initial implementation was showcased at Prolight + Sound, where the new Soundcraft Vi5000 and Vi7000 digital mixing consoles supported Shure’s ULX-D and JBL’s Northridge team (L–R) Phil Scobee, Paul Bauman, Brian Pickowitz, Lin Buck, Raul Gonzalez, George Georgallis and Eric Friedlander – and behind them, the VTX line array featuring the V25-II waveguide ‘upgrade’, shown at PL+S
and management solutions. The MicroN is a high-density signal interface with an array of audio, video and data inputs and outputs, including 24 SD/HD/3G-SDI I/Os, two MADI optical digital audio ports, gigabit ethernet port, two sync reference I/Os and eight 10G SFP+ high-speed ports. The MicroN is available as both a fully networked MediorNet device and a point-to-point edition (at what Riedel calls “a very competitive price point”). “In just a single rack unit, the MicroN offers a highly versatile signal interface that can be used in productions of every size and complexity,” says Lars Höhmann, Skype and MediorNet product manager at Riedel. “For the largest media networks built on our MediorNet transport devices, MicroN can serve as a breakout box for a MetroN router and extend connectivity beyond the fibre I/Os to any type of video and audio I/O required. Or MicroN can simply work with a MetroN router, with other MicroN units or in a standalone point-to-point configuration to provide an economical solution for small- to medium-sized productions. And, like the other members of the MediorNet family, MicroN has powerful built-in signal processing features that eliminate the need for many
external devices.” Show for the first time at NAB in Las Vegas on Monday 13 April but also in Frankfurt, Sennheiser introduced to Europe its AVX wireless microphone systems for video cameras. Plugging directly into the XLR input of the camera, the compact AVX receiver automatically pairs with the microphone and switches on when the camera does, automatically adjusting for correct audio levels and transmitting using a specially protected link in the licence-free 1.9GHz range. “Whether you’re a journalist compiling a show report, a professional videographer filming a documentary
QLX-D digital wireless systems. “We are very pleased to be collaborating with Soundcraft to enable remote monitoring and control of networked Shure wireless systems,” says Shure president and CEO Sandy LaMantia. “Providing the essential wireless functions within the console inspires user confidence and adds value to both systems by providing a more seamless, integrated experience.” For next year’s PL+S, we are promised a change of format, a change of halls, and who knows what else. More news on that to come! pls.messefrankfurt.com
Sennheiser debuted the AVX wireless mic receiver
NOT HERE…? Didn’t see your product in our round-up? Don’t panic – there was so much to see at this show, it’s been almost impossible to include everyone first time around. Drop us a line at drobinson@psneurope.com or jchapple@psneurope.com, and we’ll sort you out next month!
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P24 MAY 2015
The strategic position
A Latin spin Mel Lambert catches up with current AES president Andres Mayo to discuss his focus on Europe as the society prepares for its Warsaw Convention in early May
A
ndres Mayo is a true renaissance man. In addition to being a Grammy-winning engineer/producer, with almost 25 years’ experience and over 2,000 mastering credits, he has also served as AES vice-president for Latin America and co-helmed its Technical Committee for Recording Technology and Practices. Although he co-chaired the 2007 AES Conference in his home city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he’s a European by blood and still carries a Belgian passport, but says he’s deeply honoured to be the first Latin American to serve as the society’s chief executive and president.
Since I became part of the board of governors in 2005, as a regional VP, I have been hearing requests to our treasurer or the executive director for more detailed financial information. Some requests were fulfilled, some weren’t, but I take it as management failure that this feeling has lasted so long. So, in the first place, I want to try and change [that accountability] as soon as possible. We are having very productive conversations among voting members of the board to determine if our current procedure needs to be changed – and how. I am pleased to note that our current treasurer is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of having this discussion.
I am also very interested in creating long-lasting relationships with larger organisations, such as the South by Southwest music conference, NAMM, etc., because I think we will both benefit from that synergy. But my main concern is always on education. I have attended over 100 AES events worldwide as a speaker or panelist and know what people are expecting to get from a technical programme; attendees want to secure real information that truly helps them to understand key aspects of their jobs. As the leading organisation in audio education, we need to provide the best of the best in each event. That is the key to our ‘golden brand’.
PSNEurope: What has been your primary focus during the past six months since you assumed the office of AES president last October?
What do you hope to achieve as president in the coming six months?
What specific vision do you bring to the role of AES president?
I am watching more closely the development of new AES standards, which has always been one of our priorities. For example, there is an ongoing discussion about a new standard for loudness of streaming media.
I’ve always considered myself as an outsider, and over the years I’ve been able to understand the benefits of such a position. I tend to prefer new ideas; those that haven’t yet been implemented. I’m not afraid to try out new things, and that’s probably [in my genes] as a Latin American. The crisis we experienced at AES a few years ago was a direct consequence of the technology revolution: companies no longer needed large floor space in our exhibitions, which was a large part of our yearly revenue. Starting in 2005, within Latin America I began to promote the AES as the main resource for education and peer networking, and membership grew 400 per cent in a very short time. I’m convinced that we are taking all the necessary steps to move our society into the 21st century.
AM: Among other “hot topics” that need permanent attention, my primary focus will be to reinforce the society’s confidence in its current financial procedures.
The European AES community has witnessed a number of changes during recent years, including a scaling back of its conventions. What can be done to help the European AES membership? I will be in a better position to answer this after the Warsaw Convention. We are determined to find the means to revitalise European conventions, a subject that the board of governors’ meeting in Poland will address in depth.
What new events are planned for the Warsaw AES Convention? For Warsaw, I haven’t been as personally involved as I was for the recent Los Angeles convention last October. That’s partly because I’ve been extremely busy with other AES activities, and also because our two co-chairs for Warsaw – Umberto Zanghieri and Bozena Kostek – have been putting together an amazing technical
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P25 MAY 2015
programme. The keynote will be given by Florian Camerer and, as usual, we will have a great number of experts, so the convention will be a great place to network. [At press time, the AES confirmed that Genelec founder Ilpo Martikainen would deliver the annual Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture.]
Can the reduction in exhibitors for European conventions be reversed, or are we now looking at a new paradigm? There are two ways of looking at it: quantity and quality. Everything can be reversed but that’s not necessarily where we need to put our efforts. We cater to a somewhat different community than, for example, Musikmesse, so I don’t think we need to change our target to increase attendance. Instead, we need to know more about our targeted audience and move efficiently to grab their attention. One clear example is the formulation of standards.
The number and scope of AES conferences has increased during recent years. Is that a development you favour? Absolutely, especially in new places, like the one on
spatial audio we plan to hold in Brazil sometime in 2017. It’s a big challenge to open new markets; this will be the first AES International Conference to be held in Latin America.
You have identified the AES’s two primary strengths as education and networking. How can we take advantage of these within Europe? One of the things I’d like to have at AES is a powerful tool to network with our peers, customers or providers prior, during and after each event; we have to be able to provide everything for attendees to interconnect. When it comes to education, one of our most valued assets is the AES Journal, which just keeps getting better and better. We also need to be really picky with the papers, posters, workshops and tutorials we offer because that’s where we need to stand out; we can’t offer any less than excellence.
Having been raised in Argentina – far away from the “centre of the technology world” – you acknowledge to being proactive enough to create your own networks. How did being an AES member help your professional career?
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The first audio publication I saw was an AES Journal, when I had no idea what the AES was. When I became part of the board some 20 years later, I realised how much the AES helped me to pursue my goals. I would have never known so many talented people, nor been able to develop my business globally – or teach at some of the finest universities in the world – without the help of the AES.
Finally, what three achievements would you like to be remembered for at the conclusion of your term as AES president? One, increasing transparency in our internal matters, especially those related to finances. Two, openness of dialogue in just about any subject; no taboo topics. And three, inclusion of new regions of the world in the AES map, Latin America being a clear example. www.aes.org The 138th International Audio Engineering Society Convention will be held at the Sofitel Victoria Hotel in Warsaw from 7–10 May 2015 © Mel Lambert. All rights reserved.
P26
Studio
MAY 2015
United Kingdom
Open road As ‘Inside Abbey Road’ offers the general public a look inside the world’s most recognisable recording studio, Live Here Now is soon to be cut loose, reveals Jon Chapple
W
hile London’s Abbey Road is home to one of the most famous recording studios (and zebra crossings) in the world, precious few have ever set foot inside its storied walls – something Abbey Road Studios is hoping to remedy with the launch of Inside Abbey Road, a new virtual tour of the studio complex developed in partnership with Google. Described as “an interactive experience that lets fans around the world explore the legendary studios, hear its stories and play with some of its famous equipment right from their computer, tablet or phone”, Inside Abbey Road uses Google Maps technology to allow ‘visitors’ to explore studios one, two and three; sample their equipment (for example, the phaser and flanger in studio two and the four-track Studer J37 used to record Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) and watch YouTube videos of Abbey Road sessions by artists including Oasis, Amy Winehouse and – yes – The Beatles and footage from opening of the studios by Elgar and the London Symphony Orchestra in 1931. “Abbey Road Studios has been a hive of creativity and source of world-class recordings for more than 80 years,” says Abbey Road producer Giles Martin, the son of Beatles collaborator Sir George. “The artists using the studios have sold countless millions of records and helped create popular culture as we know it today. It’s an inspirational place and an honour for me to work there today. “This collaboration with Google gives the outside world a great insight into the everyday workings of the studio and allows anyone to glimpse the magic that goes on inside the world’s most famous recording studio.” The launch of Inside Abbey Road comes amid confirmation by the studio that it is pulling out of instant music service Live Here Now. Launched as part of the Abbey Road Live initiative in 2009 by head of operations David Rowntree, head of production Marcus Salisbury, veteran engineer and producer Will Shapland and EMI Music’s senior vice-president of new product development and live, Simon Miller, Live Here Now will continue to operate independently of Abbey Road Studios with Rowntree and Salisbury at the helm. Live Here Now, described as a “cross-industry, instant
‘Entering’ Abbey Road’s Studio Two
Play at being George Martin with the virtual J37 four-track recorder
live recording and distribution service for artists and their fans”, professionally captures live performances and delivers the audio to customers on CDs, USB sticks or as digital downloads, either on the night or via mail order from the artist’s website. Clients include Blur,
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Robbie Williams, Depeche Mode, The Specials, New Order, Pixies, Slash, Deadmau5, Richard Hawley, Tinie Tempah and Underworld. insideabbeyroad.withgoogle.com liveherenow.com
P28 MAY 2015
Broadcast
United Kingdom
DAB+ to play key role in new UK digital multiplex Sound Digital will run the UK’s second national commercial digital radio network from 2016. Kevin Hilton looks at the technical aspects involved and the potential for DAB+
T
he UK’s radio listening audience will get a new selection of digital radio stations next year when the country’s second national commercial DAB multiplex goes on air. The licence has been awarded to Sound Digital, a consortium of Bauer Media, UTV Media and transmission network provider Arqiva, which promises DAB+ capability for at least one station. Since the 1990s national digital radio in Britain has been split between the BBC and the Digital One network, which went live in 1999. The multiplex is now wholly owned by Arqiva, reaches over 90 per cent of the UK’s population and carries 14 radio services, with another due to be added this year. Digital radio in Britain has expanded steadily, with a wide range of consumer digital radios coming on to the market, despite a very slow start that did not keep up with the number of stations being launched, and vociferous arguments that DAB is outdated technology. The growth in demand for digital capacity led broadcast regulator Ofcom to advertise a second commercial mutiplex, known provisionally as Digital Two, in 2007. The 4 Digital Group won the licence but the lead partner, Channel 4 Television, later pulled out and the service never happened. But with Digital One approaching full capacity, the second multiplex was advertised again last year. Two applicants submitted bids: Sound Digital and Listen2Digital, a partnership between commercial radio group Orion Media and communications distribution network provider Babcock..
On 27 March Ofcom announced Sound Digital as the winner, with the new service set to go into operation next year. The consortium breaks down into Arqiva holding a 40 per cent share, with Bauer and UTV 30 per cent each. So far Sound Digital will house 14 services including talkRadio (owned by UTV), with two new sister stations (talkSport 2 and talkBusiness), Virgin Radio (also UTV), Absolute 80s, Premier, Heart and Planet Rock. There will also be a slot for an as yet unnamed fifteenth station broadcasting in DAB+. Planet Rock, Absolute 80s and Premier are currently on Digital One but Glyn Jones, operations director for digital radio at Arqiva, says their operators have taken “commercial decisions” to move them to Sound Digital, which will “open up some capacity” on the existing multiplex. The selling point of the new platform, as Arqiva sees it, is that it is, in Jones’ description, “a DAB+ network with DAB capability”. The World DAB Forum, which promotes the DAB family of technologies for digital radio internationally, has been pushing heavily the enhanced ‘plus’ version of the original format since it was announced in 2006. Since then Australia has launched digital radio services based on DAB+, and a number of European countries, notably Germany, are making the switch to it. UK broadcasters did not initially see DAB+ as viable because of the number of DAB radios already in use, but after a consultation process Ofcom proposed the new national multiplex would accommodate both formats. “DAB+ is a cheaper way to connect with the national
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audience because it is more efficient in the same amount of spectrum capacity [as DAB],” comments Jones. “Fewer transmitters are needed as well, with approximately 45 being installed for Sound Digital compared to in the region of 140 used by Digital One. The savings can be passed on to our customers and listeners benefit because there is more choice, with about twice the number of stations.” The aim is for Sound Digital to cover around 75 per cent of the UK, mainly in cities, large towns and suburban areas. Jones says building of the transmitter network is now underway, with the launch due by the end of March 2016. He adds that a high power transmitter such as that at Crystal Palace in south London (pictured), which currently handles DAB, FM and digital TV signals, can reach in the region of 10m people. Anyone wanting to hear the so-far lone DAB+ station will have to buy a new radio, although Jones points out that out of the 20 million receivers currently in use approximately two to three million are able to pick up the necessary signals. The in-car sector, which was the slowest to adopt DAB, is apparently embracing DAB+ as its standard for new models. The promise of more choice and the move to a more up-to-date technology might give digital radio in the UK a boost. Equally the appearance of another form of DAB with only a small base of potential listeners could play into the hands of the naysayers. www.arqiva.com www.sounddigital.co.uk
P29 MAY 2015
Belgium
The light rail programme To celebrate 40 years of pre-metro in Antwerp and highlight the introduction of free wi-fi, Radio 2 broadcast live from a tram, reports Marc Maes
O
n 25 March, the VRT’s Radio 2 Antwerpen celebrated 40 years of Antwerp’s pre-metro network with a live broadcast on an early tram travelling from the left bank of the Scheldt river to Sportpaleis station. The event also served as an introduction by public transport company De Lijn to free wi-fi on its trams and buses. Radio 2 Antwerpen engineer Ward Weis, an aficionado of audio over IP (AoIP) and Luci technology, developed the idea to broadcast from a moving tram. “We talked to De Lijn’s corporate and events division to see how the technical facilities were on the tram, as we needed an absolutely clean line for our UDP and RTP streaming protocols,” explains Weis. “The big difference to HTTP or audio streaming is that, in this case, the signal is routed to the studio but there’s no handshaking between transmitter and receiver. Codecs have correction and buffering features but not ad lib, so a 100 per cent clean line was crucial.” After testing the tram’s 3G/4G modem, Weis found the connection quite stable in the tunnels thanks to De Lijn’s wi-fi network ring. “In the open air, where the connection switched over multiple transmitters, the quality was less stable, so we opted to do all live presentation and interviews in the tunnels,” he says. To secure the 220V mains supply on the
Front view of the Radio 2 tram before departure
(600V/24V) tram, Weis took a APC UPS power supply along, offering three hours of autonomy. The first part of the broadcast was effected in the left-bank tram station, with interviews and mini-concerts. The VRT’s new satellite Mini Cooper van was right alongside the tram for
Weatherman Marc Van den Broeck and presenter Els Broekmans broadcasting from the tram
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broadcast back-up; Weis also used the Cooper’s power supply. At 7.30am, Radio 2 presenter Els Broekmans steered the tram into the city’s subway network. On the tram, interviews were conducted with a Sennheiser MD21 Sennheiser wireless condenser mic with EM3031 and SR3054 receivers/ transmitters. “The core of the driving radio set-up was a RME UCX USB audio interface that included a no-latency console, two microphone inputs, line I/O and up to 32 channels,” continues Weis. “I used the RME’s DSP for high pass and slight compression for the voices. We hooked it up to the Luci Studio 3.5 software for AoIP transmission to the main studio.” A double Luci connectivity (HE-AAC 56kbps mono) consisted of Luci-1 – a microphone signal (with presentation and interviews) routed to the on-air studio, returning with programme feed, headphone and talkback – and Luci-2, which offered a clean feed with the actual broadcast and the ‘national audio sources’ like news and commercials for the audio system on the tram. The broadcast kicked off the festivities for the 40th anniversary of the introduction of underground trams in Antwerp. www.radio2.be
P30
Broadcast
MAY 2015
DJ Corné Klijn (right) and the new DHD 52/SX set-up in Sterren.nl’s on-air studio
Netherlands
Star quality In February, Dutch station Sterren.nl Radio began broadcast from a new on-air studio. Its key objective, as Marc Maes reports, was to build a future-proof radio studio at an affordable cost
S
terren.nl is a public broadcaster, part of the AVROTROS group, which focusses on a repertoire of Dutch-language programming. In February, Hilversum-based dB mediagroep was contracted to renovate Sterren.nl’s existing on-air room and prepare the station for visual radio. The assignment included the configuration, integration, automation, cabling and installation of a completely new broadcast studio. “The key issue here was [for the project to be] as budget-critical as possible while maintaining a high standard of quality,” explains Lex Strijker, coordinator of dB mediagroep’s projects department. “We have over 20 years’ experience in providing technical solutions for broadcasters, production companies and studios; rebuilding a radio studio, and the whole automation process, is our forté.” After the on-air room was completely stripped, the studio was redecorated and a new, spacious presenter’s desk and new furniture were put in place. A new lighting plan was designed, including locations for PTZ cameras for Sterren.nl’s visual radio project. “AVROTROS also wanted to concentrate the bulk of the technical equipment in the main server room, leaving as much open space on the working desk as possible,” continues Strijker. “To achieve this, we made use of ADDERLink Infinity KVM over IP extenders.” The heart of the new on-air studio is a DHD SX-series mixing console, replacing the more than 14-year-old DHD 4200, in combination with an XC core. (It was the
station’s presenters who preferred the SX-series desk, describing it as “a straight-forward console”.) For voice processing, dB opted for a Symetrix Solus 8 DSP, its open software allowing the station to program the voice processing with Symetrix sound quality but at a much cheaper cost than investing in six standalone microphone processors. Five Shure SM-7 microphones were reused, as well as Genelec 1030 monitors. “We use the Dante protocol for AoIP – the software allows direct connection between the studio PCs and the DHD, again cutting costs without loss of quality,” says Strijker. “In the next phase, we plan to get the Omniplayer playout software directly dialoguing with the DHD – no cables needed!” “The whole configuration is much more transparent,” he continues, “with less cables, no difficult breakouts and focussed on the maximal integration of DSP, AoIP and automated video streaming.” The new on-air studio has an audience capacity of 50 people; a stage, equipped with a separate audio set, is connected to the main console. A bar completes the studio landscape – during the Friday-evening Weekendborrel show, hosts Daniel Dekker and Corné Klijn welcome artists and the public during a two-hour live show. “Sterren.nl’s studio was built in little less than more month – broadcasts were effected from a fully fledged ‘temp’ studio – and became operational during the first week of March,” explains Frank Decker, process and project manager, radio, at AVROTROS. “dB mediagroep’s
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dB mediagroep’s Lex Strijker, Sterren.nl DJ Corné Klijn and Sterren.nl head of department Paul Siteur (L–R)
[…] sharp pricing and thorough expertise, our good working relationship and the company’s respect for deadlines were crucial in this project.” Paul Siteur, head of department at Sterren.nl (‘Stars. nl’), concludes: “All involved parties were aware of our absence of a big budget. I’m very pleased with the results of our efforts to build a low-cost professional studio, mainly because dB mediagroep came up with smart solutions. “We now broadcast from a studio ready for the future, [and will continue to] bring hours of joy and comfort with Dutch music to many listeners in the Netherlands and Belgium.” www.dbmediagroep.nl www.dhd-audio.de sterren.avrotros.nl
P32 MAY 2015
Feature: German broadcast
Berlin’s Alexanderplatz and the Sputnik-like Fernsehturm (aka Alex Tower)
State of the art Phil Ward surveys pro audio in German broadcast and finds a cutting edge in the middle of the road
I
t’s a good job the broadcast industry loves acronymic initials. Otherwise you might check into a Frankfurt hotel and find you need three adjacent suites just to check the weather and football scores on Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland – channel number one on your handy remote, sports fans. People with busy lives call it ARD, and that’ll do. This channel can afford to empty alphabets into the Rhine because it dominates German broadcast in a way that the BBC used to dominate in the UK. Its only real rival is the far more lexicon-lite Zweites Deutches Fernsehen (ZDF) – literally ‘Second German Television’ – the other powerful public service operation founded by a consortium of the country’s federal states. This was back when West Germany didn’t necessarily win the World Cup, Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider were in short lederhosen and the world was black and white.
requirements of their highly exacting customers. They simply wouldn’t achieve the reputations they do without matching and exceeding the qualities demanded at the highest level. So if you’re going to get market share from the native brands here, you’re going to have to be pretty darn good. Since the pioneering days of Heute news and Wetten, dass..?’s doughy diet of schlager pop music and oompah Bruce Forsyth, a long and healthy list of regional and commercial channels has broadened Germany’s TV output into a more colourful hinterland. There are now also 430-plus radio stations, while independent giants like ProSieben, RTL and SAT1 vie with the international attractions of Deutsche Welle, 3sat, Arte and, last but not least, Sky. Christian Diehl, head of product management at Riedel Communications, explains the broad outlines of distribution nationwide. “The state broadcasters have a network they own, called höpnet: ARD is the main stakeholder, and other stations can lease it,”
Brand X
he says. “The central hub is located in Frankfurt, but the independents tend to avoid it. It’s based on MPLS [multiprotocol label switching], which allows IP, audio and video connectivity.” In theory, this proliferation should be opening new doorways of market access to those brands that observe the establishment perquisites of Lawo, Stagetec or Sennheiser and sigh with envy. There are
There is an old chestnut that state broadcasting is the enemy of free speech and, in a common extrapolation of that in sales and marketing circles, that state broadcasting is, if not the enemy of, at least not sending Christmas cards to, free enterprise. This is impossible to prove. If certain brands find repeated favour, it’s because they are brilliantly attuned and responsive to the
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We’re now talking with Calrec about the German market’s needs, and working towards a strategy to gain marketshare
Wolfgang Garçon, united-B
P33 MAY 2015
certainly those who would like it to, and who work very hard at encouraging it, like Wolfgang Garçon, cofounder of new-style German distributor united-b and once MD of Atlantic Audio. For him, part of united-b’s very inspiration was to kick-start a fresh approach to pro-audio penetration in Germany, and he made an immediate statement by landing DiGiCo as the headline brand at the company’s November 2013 outset. “Since Calrec is in the [newly named Audiotonix] group with DiGiCo and Allen & Heath, this is a great opportunity for us,” he says. “It means we can offer highly flexible mixing solutions to the broadcast market; solutions that can easily be switched and adapted for any job that needs to be done. Normally broadcast consoles are highly specialised for one task, and if you need to change something it takes a lot of time and expense. With the FPGA concept you can very quickly respond to new set-ups, and this a very positive advantage in today’s world. “DiGiCo’s software is very readily upgradeable for broadcast, and we’ve already seen some successes in Germany and Holland such as the QVC studios in Düsseldorf and some NOB trucks. Calrec is more of a networked-based solution for large-scale productions
Lapel Epoch
Openness is important to our customers, both for audio transport and control
René Harder, Stagetec
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At the front end of all the networking technology now transforming German broadcast is, very often, a smiling presenter with news of Bundestag junketings. It falls to Burkhardt Eisner, MD of Mega Audio, to point out a market change that sees the head ruling the heart – or wherever else you can stick a lavalier mic. “German broadcasters are one of our major clients for DPA Microphones,” he says, “and it looks like they’re increasingly favouring headset mics over lavalier [for] better intelligibility and a more constant signal for the sound engineer, regardless of where the presenter’s head bows or turns. The new d:fine series is the one they’re adopting, with the classic 4066 and 4088 capsules – the one-ear and two-ear supports are very flexible, but very tough.” How apt: so much news goes in one ear and out of the other. with multiple consoles and multiple studios but, again, you can easily change settings in all of the locations within minutes. We’re now talking with Calrec about
P34 MAY 2015
Feature: German broadcast
We were involved in an AES67 plugfest in Munich: everyone plugged together to see if it all worked. Mostly, it did!
Tobias Kronenwett, Lawo the German market’s needs, and working towards a strategy to gain market share and to participate in the broadcast scene here as it changes.”
Generation X In general those changes should see an increasing amount of subscription television, as in the Sky model, as opposed to traditional ‘freeview’ habits. “I think it’s a question of generation,” says united-b’s marketing manager Birgit Fox. “Younger generations are much more focused on technology while older viewers are more passive and even intimidated by too much choice. If you want to buy some olive oil, and the supermarket presents you with around a hundred different choices of olive oil, the likely result is that you’ll leave without any.” “Germany is still very strongly attached to the ‘classic’ broadcasters,” adds Garçon, “the ones that are
government owned. But as the audiences get used to more choice, more choice will become available.” The same could be said of broadcast engineers, perhaps. Nothing says ‘network’ more than television, and the infrastructure of TV production is going through its own expansion from one monolithic, analogue multicore to gallons of different types of digital olive oil. Germany is a crucible of signal transport technology, with institutes galore pushing boundaries, but just to illustrate the many contradictions of the word ‘standard’ consider that the two mainstays of broadcast mixing topology here have already split the vote: Stagetec has ‘gone’ Dante; while Lawo has ‘gone’ RAVENNA. This won’t matter if AES67 succeeds in pulling all audio devices onto IT networks, but in the meantime there are subtly divergent schools of channel management. Lawo’s international sales and project manager, Tobias Kronenwett, puts Lawo’s mc2 platform into context. “The channel count is dependent on the broadcast format: if you broadcast in 5.1, everything ‘stereo’ triples because you have six channels instead of two,” he points out. “To help the user, we try to make the surface as ‘historical’ as possible and hide a lot of the power under the hood.” Nevertheless, an 8,000 x 8,000 matrix essentially has to become a local area network, and that means the creation of LAN managers who know what they’re doing. Kronenwett believes that RAVENNA offers an architectural simplicity that other protocols lack, and that the signal management of Ravenna is identical to a “classic” MADI I/O system. This should, he says, encourage wider adoption of IP among broadcast engineers. “We follow AES67, as do the Dante guys,” he says. “Only a few months ago, for the first time, we were involved in an AES67 ’PlugFest’ in Munich: everyone plugged together to see if it all worked. Mostly, it did!” To prove the point, at least for Ravenna, in Frankfurt last month Lawo demonstrated a working AoIP link between mc2 consoles and Neumann’s DMI-8 digital microphone interface, marking the beginning of exactly
Opctore’s M8 and M12 MADI interfaces
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To the user we say ‘what kind of networking do you want?’
Christian Diehl, Riedel the kind of post-MADI aggregations that IP promises: the DMI-8 does the conversion from AES42 to AES67, in this case RAVENNA.
Münchening no names It somehow seems appropriate that such a hi-tech push towards paradigm shift took place in Munich. Held under the ‘Chatham House rule’ – basically a means by which the AES guarantees technical anonymity – 10 manufacturers participated in the PlugFest including, from Germany, ALC NetworX, DirectOut, Neumann and Lawo – and not including, from Germany, Stagetec. Berlin-based Stagetec’s adoption of Dante does present a commercial distinction from Lawo but, according to Stagetec VP René Harder, the challenges of humanising the networks are common to all. “Everybody’s talking about flexibility,” he says, “and consoles that can be touched in some way. When we redesigned the Aurus console we looked at this closely
www.neumann.com
P36 MAY 2015
Feature: German broadcast
and came up with a touch-based human interface device. There is also a controller for Nexus monitoring, completely touch-based. It gives you an indication of what will happen in the next generation of our consoles. “Of course, audio over IP is a big topic but we still have customers who rely on Nexus, even if at some point they’ll want to interface to IP. There are things you can do with the ultra-low latency of Nexus that you just can’t do with any IP network. They do ask about AES67, and we’re happy to announce AES67 compliance in our Dante board. Openness is important to our customers, both for audio transport and control – and this is why we are one of the founding members of the Open Control Architecture Alliance. We haven’t yet released our OCA implementation, but we’re working on it – I’d say there’ll be something within the next year.” Naturally, as part of the Salzbrenner Stagetec Mediagroup, commentary and broadcast intercoms specialist Delec has also adopted Dante. “Our new launches at Frankfurt are all based on Dante technology,” confirms Delec MD Norbert Schömel. “We’re now producing format converters from both the analogue world and the digital world to the Dante world, with various channel I/O configurations, connectors and even microphone preamplifiers. They support fibre-optic networking, and Dante enables them to connect with full redundancy – you have access to any device via our web browser and there’s a mixer for every output, so it’s a really powerful monitoring tool.” Although in the same Group, Delec is not sold in package deals alongside Stagetec consoles as you might think. “Selling a comms system is much more difficult than selling a mixing desk,” admits Schömel, “because once a broadcast customer commits to a comms infrastructure they need to stay with the same brand. You can vary the consoles from one studio to another, but intercoms are part of the fabric of the building. They’re hard to shift! However, with the spread of Dante it should become easier to sell more Delec alongside Stagetec, for example.” And so it continues at Klotz Communications, the latest Klotz iteration formed just last year by Thomas Klotz and former Asia–Pacific acolyte for Klotz Digital, Andre Sauer. The renowned VADIS platform and control surfaces now have an upgrade path to IP, as well as IPX/SPX, while the G2 audio engine has some new interface cards: you guessed it, for Dante and fibre-optic connectivity. There is also a new MADI option, and that provides a thoroughly Teutonic twist in the tale.
Far from the MADI crowd So, yes, it’s true: the migration to IP is already reenacting the civil wars of going digital all those years ago. But this is Germany, and for every protocol – including the old ones – there is an army of new devices. Headquartered between Leipzig and Dresden, DirectOut Technologies specialises in MADI solutions for every application.
Delec managing director Norbert Schömel
“DirectOut is all about helping users to keep up with the changing demands of audio transport by using MADI,” says DirectOut MD Jan Ehrlich. “There are still so many gaps that we can fill. Although it’s an old standard, it’s a long way from having everything implemented and developed. That’s our aim: to create much wider and more flexible MADI architecture. Unlike analogue, it’s still a viable option.” Max Holtmann has been a key figure in the development of RME products for several years, and divides his time between the brand’s influential locations in Hong Kong, Japan and Germany. He acknowledges that there is strong demand from customers to make MADI available on a wider range of cables, making it a direct competitor with the new generation of AoIP solutions. “We’re looking very deeply into AoIP,” he says, “but RME is known for its thorough FPGA core for both MADI and USB products. We don’t use third-party chip sets at all, so my aim to develop a network core within the FPGA itself – which wouldn’t work for a closed system like Dante. In any case, MADI solutions today do pretty much the same – at a lower cost and much less complexity. Our MADI router has already introduced MADI over twisted pair, for example.” Even far-seeing fibre pioneer Optocore is keeping the MADI faith, as evidenced by two more new launches at Frankfurt last month: M8 and M12 are MADI switchers with both fibre and cat 5 ports. As company founder Marc Brunke has said publicly: “Throughout the years
Diehl, “but at Riedel we also have our audio/video network MediorNet. It does offer local and wide area connectivity, so we see broadcasters installing it within stadiums, for example, and linking it to similar venues. We extended the MediorNet family at NAB with MicroN [see p16]: 80G in 1U, a small unit to complement the portfolio at the compact end, especially in OB vans. It’s a complete network on the fly. In fixed installations, broadcasters can use MediorNet devices as router replacements, for signal distribution and collection inhouse… various applications. It’s mainly for local areas, but we can ‘trunk’ several of these together.” Up to 40 square kilometres can be connected by fibre, but beyond this Riedel has solutions to ‘jump’ to IP hyperspace and, ultimately, anywhere on the planet. “Fibre is the most efficient medium, I would say,” Diehl says, “as you can multiplex a lot of frequencies, a lot of signals, onto one fibre. The distance fibre can run is another huge advantage: standard copper cabling ends at 90–100m before you need another switch. You’ll see more and more fibre installations.” Protocol-wise, Riedel is very close to being truly agnostic: switching from an AES3-type circuit-switched network to a packet-switched one, more like IP, Riedel’s intercom panels can now interface directly with audio routers, for example. “It’s not literally an IP signal transport: to be precise, we’re offering two different flavours of protocol,” Diehl explains. “One is AVB, which you can use as a core transport technology,
there have been many voices that believed MADI would not survive the increased number of network protocols. However, we have observed the complete opposite – MADI is the easiest and most popular multi-channel protocol, and is built into almost any professional equipment.” Proprietary is here to stay, nevertheless. “Audio is where all the discussion is,” adds Riedel’s Christian
and the other is AES67. Strictly speaking, AVB is not an IP solution but an ethernet solution: the two are not the same. Ethernet is on a layer below IP. We’re trying to be agnostic regarding the discussions about protocols: as long as a standard has been issued by a valid organization, like AES or IEEE, we’ll regard it as useful in our devices. To the user we say: ‘What kind of networking do you want?”
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NETWORK. AUDIO. VIDEO. smart IP live production infrastructure.
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P38
Live
MAY 2015
Clients and friends were invited to the SAP Arena in Mannheim to hear the software in action
Germany
Good vibrations d&b gives system engineers excitations with ArrayProcessing – a new, free, update to the company’s ArrayCalc software that promises consistent sound in every seat, writes Erica Basnicki
I
n the days just prior to Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt, d&b audiotechnik hosted partners, distributors, and select media at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany. The event was a sneak preview of a major update to its ArrayCalc V8 simulation software; the introduction of ArrayProcessing. Touted as “the next level of democracy for listeners”, ArrayProcessing optmises both the tonal balance and SPL levels of d&b line array systems over the entire listening area using extremely complex mathematical calculations neatly built into the existing ArrayCalc workflow. “There’s a downside to current line array technology,” explains Werner ‘Vier’ Bayer, product manager at d&b audiotechnik. “You can influence the SPL level at the back [of the audience] but the balance of the sound between low, mids and highs changes over distance and there’s nothing you can do about it. Until now.” With ArrayProcessing each box in a line array is processed individually. Target frequency responses are calculated over 240 different frequency bands, every 20cm of the listening area, and a specific combination of FIR and IIR filters are then applied to each loudspeaker to achieve a consistent sound throughout the venue. Additionally, system designers can programme multiple slots for different performance characteristics
the downside to current line array technology is that the balance of the sound […] changes over distance and there’s nothing you can do about it. Until now
werner bayer, d&B
What you see when you run ArrayCalc V8 with ArrayProcessing
of the same array without the need to make any mechanical adjustments. The constant additional latency of just 5.9ms remains unchanged, while the entire system can be altered during an event as required. “The outcome of all of this is that the future is just a download away,” says Bayer. “We’re not talking about a major investment, we’re talking about using our current top three line array systems with new generation amplifiers and
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being able to do things like that. It’s just software.” ArrayProcessing is compatible with d&b’s large format J-series and V- and Y-series line array systems. To illustrate the power of ArrayProcessing, guests are invited to walk up and down the steps of the SAP Arena, listening for tonal changes in both speech and recorded music. Then, to really drive the point home (and your correspondent’s knees to despair) we do it all again with ArrayProcessing both engaged and in bypass mode. The sonic differences are remarkable. “The whole message to our customers is that nothing changes for you,” explains Amnon Harman, CEO of d&b audiotechnik. “You have a choice. You have additional functionality that puts you ahead of the competition, and we are securing the investment you have already made with us. Not only for the future but also retroactively. You can use the same technology and we are guaranteeing that in the future, whatever comes into the market, will run using the same workflow.” In addition to the new ArrayProcessing functionality, d&b also made public that company is in a position to offer even greater financing solutions in order to facilitate investment in new systems. “For us innovation is also thinking about processes,” explains Harman. “If a customer wants to make an investment in a system, then that has to do with money. Not all of our customers can make a half a million- or million-euro investment, so we have to help them a little bit. We treat [financing] like a product.” Rather than subject a potential customer to the lengthy administration process of securing its own financing, d&b will take on the financing on their behalf. “We come up with the position ourselves, and give an early indication of whether or not it’s possible and then we do the financing on ourselves and transfer it to a bank later on, which speeds up the process tremendously. We were talking about weeks before – now we’re talking about days,” explains Harman. The company has financed system purchases over the last three to four years “with tremendous success” but is now in a position to double the amount of money available. “It sounds risky, but we’ve simply turned the process around. We have enough experience with it that we can say, ‘This is a risk a bank would take on’, or not. We work out a model with [the customer] that they can pay off, so that they can get the equipment. We finance it for them and they are paying the equipment off over three years, to a maximum of five years.” Two days after the SAP Arena visit, d&b audiotechnik introduced the D20, its new four-channel, two rack unit (2RU) amplifier. The D20 amplifier has four independent 1600W channels, each with two 16-band EQs which feature parametric, notch, shelving and asymmetric filters and up to 10 seconds of delay. The digital signal processing (DSP) power of the D20 means that external system processors are not required, reducing the equipment in the signal chain. www.dbaudio.com
Fos us, Innovation is also thinking about [investment] processes
amnon harman, D&B The new D20 4-channel amp, launched at PL+S
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P40
Live
MAY 2015
Beverley Knight (Felicia) with Killian Donnelly (Huey) and that Elvis mic… (Photos: Johan Persson)
United Kingdom
Tearing down the house Gareth Owen reveals the challenges of designing award-winning sound for West End hit Memphis. Dave Robinson rocks up to listen
T
he first thing likely to strike the average West End-loving techie audiophile about the Olivieraward winning show Memphis is undoubtedly the number of ‘Elvis’ mics that pop up during the proceedings. Ironic, then, that none of the Shure 55s are actually used as ‘practicals’ – that is, as functioning microphones. “The initial idea,” says sound designer Gareth Owen, “was to build Shure UR3 wireless plug-in transmitters into the bases of the mic stands so that all the mics you see on stage would be ‘real’ or ‘live’. But, as it turns out, if you get the sound just right on a normal cast microphone – in our case, a DPA 4066 – then you can ‘effect’ it and make it sound like anything you want.” Memphis tells of the birth, and spread, of rock ’n’ roll in 1950s America. With a score written by Bon Jovi keyboard player Dave Bryan and writer Joe DiPietro, it follows the rise of DJ Huey Calhoun who brings underground black music to the ears of the mainstream white population. It contains all those winning musical themes: forbidden love (here between white boy Huey and black girl Felicia, currently played by the outstanding Beverley Knight); an outsider, rejected but then accepted; a pivotal decision that will change lives forever; big characters and even bigger songs. You know the routine. And win Memphis certainly has: the original 2010
Broadway production bagged a glut of Tony Awards, while the current Shaftesbury Theatre version saw Owen walk away with the Olivier Award for best theatre sound design last month. (The choreographer skipped off with an Oliver too.) Part of that sound design, then, is in the authenticity of the presentation. When Owen talks about ‘getting the sound right’, he’s referring to the correct positioning of the 4066s on the heads of the actors, using the tiny ‘booms’, which direct the capsule to the side of the
A radio station rises up out of the stage
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actor’s mouth. (Owen jokes that when he mentions the word ‘boom’ in the presence of a director, he always carries one on him to make it quite clear he’s talking about tiny invisible support rods – and not the long boom poles seen swinging above an audience’s heads in TV recordings…) “So, when we get it right,” continues Owen, “we can give Huey a ‘radio’ effect when he’s in the DJ booth, or that loudspeaker ‘Tannoy’ effect in the department store, and it sounds natural and correct. So we ended up not
P42 MAY 2015
Live
using any of the 55s as practicals.” Dave Palmer and Andy Yianakki, number one and two operators on Memphis, respectively, say that the show is the closest to an all-out rock ’n’ roll gig they’ve ever worked on. “There’s a mild-mannered approach to musicals, all quite traditional. But it’s nice to mix a show where it’s almost rock,” says Palmer. The musical which won Owen and his team the Olivier last year, Merrily We Roll Along, was mild-mannered indeed: all “strings and reverbs”, says Owen. “I struggled with Memphis at first,” he admits. “In the first half there’s very little in the way of ballads, so it’s relentlessly loud at the beginning. I was initially a bit uncomfortable with that, and I was searching for light and shade. But Dave Bryan and the director,
Well, of course, there’s plenty of dancing… note the band on the stage, the drum screen and the fake upright piano which actually contains an electronic keyboard, CCTV screens and more
Chris Ashley, said, ‘Just rock it out.’ I thought, ‘Are you sure?’ Every now and then you try to give the audience a rest. But Memphis is loud song after loud song – and quite a lot of shouting by Huey in a Robin Williams, Good Morning, Vietnam kind of way. I was desperately trying to find the light and shade in that… Which, it turns out,
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hasn’t been a problem!” The PA, supplied by Orbital Sound, is all d&b: “A full V-Series around the proscenium, T-Series centre cluster, and J-INFRA subs – which don’t often make it into musical theatre because they are so bloody big and difficult to locate in the theatre!” Older d&b E- and Q-Series boxes are used for fills and foldback. “What is it about d&b? I guess I’ve grown up using it, I understand what it’s going to do, but not only that: d&b have a voicing policy where every speaker sounds basically the same. What that means is, when you put a vocal into a big proscenium box, and then into a small delay speaker, you get the same sound between the two. “What I’ve found is, time and time again, the voicing on different speakers in a range have a different sound. So I’ve had to re-EQ the boxes not to match the room, but to match other speakers. It seems to me, some speaker manufacturers set out to make [their boxes] sound the best they can, but not necessarily the same as each other. And that’s very important in the theatre.” If Owen is a d&b man, then he’s equally an Avid man too. “I was pretty much the first person to use the Avid in theatre, and I struck up a good relationship with Sheldon Radford there; I was able to [advise on] creating a mixing desk that did exaclty what I wanted for theatre. So now, in the VENUE desk, I have the perfect desk for theatre. And I’ve been working on the S6L too – I’ve been sitting on my hands waitng for it to come out! I’ve used other desks, but now it’s Avid all the way.” What was Owen’s biggest challenge about putting this show together? “Stage foldback,” he says immediately. “Because with a full band on stage, and what are effectively omnidirectional vocal mics on stage, then getting a clear vocal sound out of the DPAs, and eliminating and reducing bleed from the upstage band when they roll downstage for the second act… it’s tough!” It’s a nine-piece band: four “blowers”, as Palmer calls them, guitar and bass, two keyboards, and a drummer. A drum screen helps to tame the kit… “You’ve got horns blowing on to the stage, you’ve got the kit too. And you can’t tell them to play more quietly!” says Owen. “Getting a vocal sound to cut through that for the monitor mix... Imagine putting Bon Jovi on stage but getting them omni mics to sing down. That would be pretty tricky!” Tricky, but not impossible. And that, ladies and gentlemen of theatreland, is why Owen wins awards. www.orbitalsound www.garethowensound.com
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Live
MAY 2015
United Kingdom
A Wales of a time
Jon Chapple talks spectrum, Shure and Saturday Night Fever with Wales’s biggest sound company, Stage Sound Services
W
ales. Cymru. Cambria. A green and pleasant land of rugby-playing Methodists where men are tenors, placenames are vowel-free and the biggest name in sound and video hire is Cardiff’s Stage Sound Services (SSS). “We’ve tried to set ourselves up as a one-stop shop for corporate events and theatre shows,” explains SSS RF and communications engineer Ian Barnard (who, it should be pointed out, is, as far as we know, neither a tenor nor a rugby player), “with a really vast range of gear and people who can design, manage and operate all the [equipment] at every level.” SSS is currently supplying sound for UK tours by Oklahoma, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Blood Brothers and Saturday Night Fever, as well as West End shows
Women on the Verge, The Railway Children and The Nether. Although theatre sound and video is, according to Barnard, SSS’s “bread and butter” (comprising about 60 per cent of its business), the company also has a significant sideline in corporate AV (about 15 per cent) and has supplied the UEFA Champions League and events by Vodafone, Peugeot and Unite the Union. (The remaining 25 per cent is “made up with sales and general hire”, says Barnard.) Time, then, to discuss the problem of stagnant wages, the future of the 700MHz band and the aftermath of working in a collapsing theatre…
PSNEurope: How is the health of theatre sound? IB: There’s certainly no shortage of work; however, shows seem to have increasing expectations but falling budgets –
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certainly at the level we are. That squeezes both us and the people working on the shows. Someone told me recently that sound no2s on National Theatre tours are being paid the same as they were 15 years ago!
You were in the Apollo Theatre for the Curious Incident incident in 2013 [part of the theatre’s roof caved in during a performance of The Curious Dog in the Night-Time]. Any other theatre horror stories? We were only providing video gear for the show so we weren’t allowed in during the health and safety investigation, but when we eventually got the gear back it
P45 MAY 2015
The Socialist Workers Party’s Pete Gillard on stage at an SSS-supported Unite conference
Stage Sound Services also provides video for the 2014 revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats – pictured is the show’s iconic junkyard set
took us about a month to clean it! I think we’ve been lucky with shows and haven’t really had any real horror stories. Just small ones – like when I was working at a corporate party and during the band the power distro – not ours! – went bang. It was a mad 15-minute scramble to get some lights and the DJ plugged into lots of 13A plugs throughout the venue, but we did it.
their raising awareness of RF spectrum loss? We are members of BEIRG, and I think the training that SDUK are doing is a big part of the solution – but,
Do you have a favourite tour? Bizarrely enough, the show that sticks in my mind is a Welsh-language version of [Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater rock musical] Spring Awakening that I mixed and toured twice. I don’t speak a word of Welsh! It was quite a learning curve. We toured a truss structure and built a small 150seat theatre inside. Hard work, but the people were great. The stage crew were some farmers ‘in real life’ and were the best crew I’ve ever worked with! They didn’t seem to get tired – ever. One guy’s catchphrase was, “If I can get my arms round it, I can lift it.” I believed him 100 per cent!
What kit are you fielding for your current tours? We like to try and meet the requests of the system designers, mainly because we understand that the designer and engineers will have decided on that kit for a reason, be it if it does the job very well or is just what they’re used to. Our hire stock now is mainly a list of gear that will be acceptable to most designers. A typical show would have a DiGiCo SD Series or Yamaha CL5 desk, d&b or EM Acoustics PA and Shure radios.
You’re up to 236 (!) channels of Shure now... Shure was chosen a while ago – they could offer a smaller hire company a great product for a decent price. As we’ve got bigger, they’ve continued to provide us with great products at prices we can translate into competitive hire prices. They’re a really approachable and supportive company, so we really like working with them! We’ve also got analogue party line systems from both Clear-Com and RTS; single- and dual-channel wireless comms from HME; and and a large stock of Motorola DP3600s, some new DP1400s and a Motorola repeater so we can cover pretty big sites. The Railway Children has 40 DP3600 handsets to cover the entire workforce.
You’re involved with Shure UK and their Wireless Mastered training sessions. Are you supportive of
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unfortunately, it does rest with Ofcom. We have to trust that they will make decisions with PMSE in their minds. www.stagesoundservices.co.uk
P46
Live
MAY 2015
The PRG LEA event was held just ahead of the PL+S show
Germany
Anya’s and Otto’s big night out EAW’s latest touring high-end rig, the Adaptive Performance system, receives a showcase at a major German awards event, finds Dave Robinson
G
ermany’s Live Entertainment Awards (PRG LEA) celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Festhalle in Frankfurt am Main. This is the sixth year the event has been held at the Festhalle on the eve of the Musikmesse and Prolight + Sound trade fairs. Belgium-based PRG/EML provided production and infrastructure services for the event. What EAW has designated its ‘Adaptive Performance system’ – that’s Anya and Otto elements in combination – was in place to handle all sound reinforcement requirements for the event. The Live Entertainment Award (LEA) is given in 14 categories and goes to promoters, concert agencies, artists’ managers and venue operators, in some cases with the artists involved, for successful tours, shows, festivals and everything in between. The show is a big deal for EAW: while the Adaptive Performance system (flying Anya hangs boxes and Otto subs) has been making inroads in the USA, it is now making a move into Europe. With its doors opening in 1909, Festhalle Frankfurt is the oldest building on the trade fair grounds. The multi-purpose venue features a selfsupporting dome structure made of steel and glass. The room provides the main level and two tiers of seatingthat can accommodate more than 9,800 people. EAW’s Applications Support Group (ASG) worked closely with PRG/EML to design a system that would
I have mixed in that room with various acts and different systems and the ability of Anya to send sound to only where listeners were, and not reflective areas, really helped
Paul David Hager, FOH for Miley Cyrus
The roof of the Festhalle, bathed in EAW red, after the LEA
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exceed production expectations. Using EAW Resolution software, the ASG team constructed a complete acoustical model of the venue and sound system. Once complete, the software determines the optimum system design to achieve the much-desired paradigm of “the same sound in every seat”. The Adaptive Performance system consisted of left–right arrays, each made up of twelve Anya modules.
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P48 MAY 2015
Live
Hang of 12 Anya modules. Just don’t call it a banana or a J-hang!
EAW’s Jeff Rocha, Kenton Forsythe, Ken Dewar, Rusty Waite, Matt Moniz, Nathan Butler, Steve Badham and Adam Shulman (L–R)
Low end was provided by a total of 16 Otto subs, ground stacked 2 x 4 under the Anya columns. Two arrays of two Anya modules provided stage fill. Outfill and frontfill was covered by EAW KF364 and JF8 loudspeakers, respectively. Each Anya module includes 22 highly customised transducers, each powered and processed independently to provide high resolution and control. Otto subwoofers use two Offset Aperture-loaded woofers paired with independent on-board amplification, processing and networking to extend Adaptive Performance to the lowest octaves. “As an added bonus, the Anya arrays just looked great hanging there – not obtrusive at all,” says Klaus Rahe, director of creative services for PRG. “It’s a very small footprint which makes keeping sight lines open easy.” The coverage pattern of both Anya and Otto can adapt in real-time to changing conditions – a feature which is becoming increasingly common in PA system design. “The Festhalle is the type of space that the Adaptive
Performance system thrives in,” adds Jeff Rocha, EAW president. “The sound was placed exactly where they needed it – right on the audience on the main floor and kept off of walls and ceiling.” The live acts performing during the awards show included ’80s superstars Spandau Ballet, Johannes Oerding, Austrian pop band Wanda and Jan-Josef Liefers with his Radio Doria project. Among the top speakers were cabaret artists Florian Schröder and Timo Wopp, Lars Redlich, John Giddings, Sonya Kraus and Elaiza. FOH engineer Robbie McGrath manned a Yamaha CL5 digital console during the event. Another CL5 was also available as well as an Avid VENUE Profile digital console for Spandau Ballet. After the award show, both PRG/EML and EAW used Festhalle as a demonstration site for their products and services during the Prolight + Sound show. In order to better showcase the Adaptive system, EAW invited FOH engineers Paul David Hager (Miley Cyrus, Devo) and Sean
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“Sully” Sullivan (Beck, Norah Jones) to mix live tracks the first night of the show, allowing listeners to experience the system first-hand. “I thought the system handled Festhalle really well,” adds Paul David Hager. “I have mixed in that room with various acts and different systems, and the ability of Anya to send sound to only where listeners were and not reflective areas really helped. I almost forgot I was mixing in such an acoustically challenged space.” In addition to the Adaptive system, EAW debuted their new Redline series of powered loudspeakers designed to deliver sonic quality and touring reliability with a feature set tailored to rental/staging and installation customers. The Redline family consists of two powered, two-way loudspeakers – the 12-inch RL12 and 15-inch RL15 – along with the 18-inch RL18S powered subwoofer. It will ship in June. www.eaw.com
P50
Feature: Drivers
MAY 2015
Europe
Behind the wheel Growth and product development are keys to success in the ultra-competitive world of driver manufacturing, writes Erica Basnicki
I
t’s a funny thing trying to talk about the future of loudspeaker transducers and compression drivers with the people responsible for making them. For starters, it is a small, and fiercely competitive sector of pro-audio. Depending on who you ask, there are roughly half a dozen companies out there able to compete in the big league – certainly no more than 10 – and they are all jousting for the same customers. There’s also a lot of money involved... but no one wants to talk figures. The majority of manufacturers supply drivers under non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), so talk about sales and partnerships – with very few exceptions (see box out) – is nigh impossible. In a similar vein, press releases are few and far between. The PA manufacturers are the ones taking all the glory for the components inside their boxes. Driver manufacturers are the wallflowers at that party. Getting a glimpse into what the future may hold for driver technology is a closely guarded secret. Talking about what’s important right now is only slightly less so, but several themes did emerge from chats with several companies at the recent Prolight + Sound event in Frankfurt.
FaitalPRO drivers and components, PL+S 2015
The more you know, the more you grow In the last few years, Eighteen Sound has made several moves towards growth on a global level. In October 2014, Pierpaolo Marziali was appointed as the new CEO, bringing with him extensive experience in business development. The company added to its global sales force through the appointment of Davwinder Sheena as director of sales for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific Rim, and Jeffrey Cox as director of sales for North America. “Growth is important in this global business, and expanding our client base has two vectors: geographic and market,” explains Cox. “Eighteen Sound has been available through distributors and relationships in a great portion of the world, but there are new clients and customers becoming available every day throughout the globe. Our recent expansion throughout Asia and our new growth initiatives in North America are opening doors and pathways that we had not explored in the past. Secondly, we are expanding into market shares of the audio industry that welcome the high level of quality and performance that Eighteen Sound provides as their product designs and customer expectations elevate.”
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P51 MAY 2015
Beyma’s Jorge Serrano aims to “develop more efficient and powerful neodymium magnet drivers”
Elsewhere in Italy, FaitalPRO is equally keen to expand its operations: “We’re still experiencing strong growth, but we see an evolution that is teaching us that growth needs to come from different places from when we started,” says Flavio Naggi, pro-audio division manager of FaitalPRO. Faital has been in the business of making transducers for over 50 years, and in 2004, with experience on its side, expanded its operations into the pro-audio sector, creating a new division, FaitalPRO. Ten years on, and Naggi is ready to take that division to a new level. “When we started, no one knew us, but everyone needed compression drivers and woofers and pro-audio drivers in general, and any opportunity was good. Now that we have developed a very extensive line-up and have good distribution partners all over the world for commercial products, we have shifted our focus heavily onto more OEM approaches and opportunities.” For FaitalPRO, that means fewer developments each year, but ones that are “very focussed and very advanced. We pay a lot more attention to materials, geometries and mechanical assemblies to try and refine our technologies [rather than] learning how to apply them, like we did in the beginning,” says Naggi.
FaitalPRO’s Flavio Naggi (left) with Area/OEM sales manager Andrew Richardson
Model four times, build once
capability and knowledge, but it needs to be translated into something that computers can actually work with, so there was a lot of interaction between a lot of different sciences. It was great fun, especially for the R&D guys,” laughs Naggi. The compact design of drivers and their multiple parts working together over very small ranges of motion have seen many companies look to modelling for rapid prototypes and more consistency in the final product. At Celestion, marketing manager John Paice believes the company has “a jump on most of the other speaker builders because we model electrically, acoustically, mechanically and vibrationally. I think we’re the only company that does all four, and that just gives us a little bit of extra accuracy, so we need fewer iterations to get to the point where we want to be.” As Paice explains, Celestion has applied that technology to standard conventional magnet assemblies and reduced them in size and weight, with a specific focus on taking coaxial driver technology further: “Rather than just having a low frequency driver with a high frequency driver stuck on the back of it, we’ve integrated the two motors. What you get is one magnet structure driving both low and high frequency at the same time. We gain in terms of weight, size and cost.”
Paying attention to those details prompted a cooperative investment between FaitalPRO and the University of Ancona in Italy. Together, they are working on a piece of software that uses specific features of COMSOL’s Multiphysics finite element analysis tool to “help in the design of the vital components of compression drivers – diaphragm and faceplug – and in their coupling. This tool is a novelty because it requires a lot of engineering
Size. Weight. Cost. A trifecta of reduction that system manufacturers are demanding more than ever. The result, explains Jorge Serrano, director of R&D at Beyma, is to use these modelling techniques and other research in an effort “to develop more efficient and powerful neodymium magnet drivers, which are lighter, smaller and delivering higher SPL output. Line array application is a clear explanation to many of
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the products in a transducer manufacturer portfolio. Also the compact boxes and columns have caused the development of smaller woofers, full range drivers and compact point-source coaxial drivers, which some years ago were not so common.” Ron Tizzard, director of sales at B&C Speakers, puts it more bluntly: “In the high-frequency driver side, [size] to me is the most important thing. Not materials.”
Living in a material world Does Tizzard deny there is a focus on materials? Absolutely not. “There’s two buzz phrases being used nowadays: one is ‘treated diaphragms’, or they’re made out of different materials like beryllium which is a harder material, very light, so diaphragms can be made thin and hard, adding to efficiency,” he explains. “The reality is it depends on the process you’ve used to form your diaphragm. B&C has been using some unique methods since the 1990s to make diaphragms that are lighter and harder just by the way that we form them. When we look at these alternatives of treated diaphragms or special materials, there’s just not as much benefit for us.” Other manufacturers such as Eighteen Sound have more enthusiasm for advances in driver material. Although coy about where their research is taking them, the company is certainly pleased with the success they’ve had so far: “High-frequency compression driver diaphragm materials such as beryllium and coating techniques are yielding fantastic results in HF resolution and extension,” explains Jeffrey Cox. “We are experimenting with new materials that can deliver performance beyond expectations and deliver greater acoustic output throughout the product
P52 MAY 2015
Feature: Drivers
Ron Tizzard (left) and Alessandro Pancani of B+C Speakers
Celestion’s John Paice: “We model electrically, acoustically, mechanically and vibrationally”
ranges: deeper low frequency output in our LF woofers, extended HF range in our compression drivers, with unparalleled accuracy. Refinements in cone pulp, surround design and composition are explored constantly. With the ‘neodymium crisis’ still in mind (whereby the magnetic material rocketed in price from mid-2009 to mid-2011, before dropping back and levelling off), Beyma has taken a different approach, developing two temperature-regulating technologies – Helicex and Maltcross – that increase power handling while simultaneously decreasing the losses in SPL due to power compression, for an overall power increase in the system. “In fact Maltcross has been also applied to some products in order to offer solutions to system manufacturers at a critical moment when rare earth prices rose above 200 per cent,” explains Serrano. “During that time, applications where neodymium drivers were the perfect choice, because of the weight benefit, became completely uncompetitive. Our answer to this was to develop lighter ferrite magnet speakers, the MC500 family, with the performance and characteristics of the neodymium drivers.”
Quiet confidence Despite the shroud of secrecy surrounding the future of driver technology, there is comfort to be had in the optimism exuded by manufacturers. New materials, whatever they may be, hold promise. New markets, whatever they are, encourage growth and expansion. Tiny increments of improvement are creating huge advances in sound quality. If there’s a big breakthrough on the horizon we won’t know until it arrives. But hey, why spoil the surprise? www.bcspeakers.com www.beyma.com www.celestion.com www.eighteensound.it www.faitalpro.com
An open relationship Not all loudspeaker manufacturers are shy about what goes into their boxes. UK-based Flipside is more than happy to share how it benefits from an ongoing relationship with fellow British company Precision Devices (PD), one that began in early 2014. “At that point we had been using some extremely competent designs from large European driver manufacturers but kept hitting brick walls with product development,” explains James Cooper, managing director of Flipside.. “There’s not always a good off-the-shelf model around for whatever frequency or enclosure application we’re working on. I guess this is due to the level of compromises that have to be made to deliver a crowd-pleaser of a driver as far as the market is concerned. We see every stage of design work, no matter how technical, as a creative process at its heart. It’s easy enough to work by numbers and look to achieve technically great products but if they don’t sound good we don’t want to put our name to them. Working with Precision Devices has enabled us to extend this somewhat artistic approach right down to the component level.”
James Cooper (left) and Michael Layton of Flipside
The PD relationship has also enabled Flipside to overcome the significant hurdle of minimum order quantities in the thousands, “which just makes this sort of organic development impossible,” adds Cooper. “Precision Devices were the only people who had everything we were looking for: great drivers, uncompromising build quality, a good sonic aesthetic and the ability to work together on low-quantity OEM. On top of that they enjoy doing it and it shows. I look forward to getting a call or a visit from the guys saying, ‘Have a play with this driver we’ve been working on.’”
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To date, the whole of Flipside’s FS-xx range, as well as the majority of the larger format FS-xxx range. is loaded with Precision Devices drivers. “To me the crowning achievement of our partnership is our FS-8.1 fibre glass mid/high loudspeaker. It’s a 1” CD above an 8” mid driver. It’s the 8” mid that I love the most, and it took us a while to get there with the design. I seriously doubt if we could ever have got to this point with anyone other than Precision Devices.” www.flipside-soundsystem.co.uk www.precision-devices.com
P54
Installation
MAY 2015
Amber supplied Countryman mics for the Monty Python Live (mostly) concerts last summer
United Kingdom
Amber gambler As Graham Paddon’s pro-audio people turn the ripe old age of 10, Jon Chapple finds out what’s encased in Amber Sound’s resin
J
ust three days before the UK goes to the polls to elect its 56th parliament, another British institution – Amber Sound managing director Graham Paddon – is celebrating a milestone of his own: the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Potters Bar-based dealer and distributor. Paddon, a 40-plus-year veteran of the industry, previously held senior roles at Micron and Autograph Sales, the latter of which he departed to found Amber Sound in 2005. “I wanted to maintain the sales side of the company and not go down the install route, which was the direction Autograph was going,” he explains. “I’ve always been very conscious that we don’t want to be seen to be competing with our customers, many of whom are installers.” In an intensely competitive market, Paddon believes the success of Amber – which now has six staff, with room for “a couple more people to make the team complete” – can be attributed to its attention to detail. “We make sure everyone gets exactly what they need – not always what they asked for! – and get it at the right time,” he says. “We let our customers know if a delivery will be delayed before they are aware; we aim for complete transparency, as we know that a customer won’t come back to us if they don’t trust us; and we hold good stocks of the prime-selling products and have a good knowledge of every brand […] so are able to advise customers accordingly.” So, what’s changed since those heady days of the mid-2000s? (The demise of boot-cut jeans and the American Pie franchise notwithstanding.) “The single biggest challenge has probably been competition from internet-based companies, although we’ve learnt not to go head to head with them. Some of the products we sell are sometimes online for less, but we’ve found customers choose to come to us for the personal service and high level of customer service we provide.” Paddon also points to the recent trend of
manufacturers selling direct to customers, bypassing the traditional distributor/dealer model, as a further challenge faced by companies like Amber, meaning Paddon has “learnt to be a bit more selective about the brands we promote”. When quizzed on whether pro audio is still very much the ‘face-to-face’ industry it was 10 years ago, Paddon replies: “Absolutely. We’ve forged really good relations with customers and suppliers alike, and the majority of our sales are repeat business.” Flexibility is also key: “We don’t stick rigidly to a 9–5 day. If a customer has an emergency we can usually be on the end of a phone and will always try and help if we can. I’ve even been known to drive to Wales one evening to loan a speaker to a customer when they’d had a unit go down during a show – thought that’s not something I’d want to make a habit of!” (At Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt, office manager Claire Paddon also shared with PSNEurope fond memories of an emergency delivery of Fischer Amps IEM beltpacks to drum and bass act Rudimental ahead of a show in Poland – although Amber only had to drive as far as the always-glamorous Beaconsfield services in Buckinghamshire.) In addition its bread-and-butter distribution business, Amber also offers some training – although Paddon concedes it has “been a bit late getting involved”. “We had a very successful intercom training day in March this year,” he explains, “and hope to do more of the same. We’ve found that customers really appreciate [also] being offered education […] rather than just the hard sell.” Amber Sound officially turns 10 on 4 May with what Claire Paddon calls “a bit of a party” at its Hertfordshire headquarters. Did Amber plan it so that its 10th birthday bash fell on the May bank holiday? “Only by cunningly starting the company on the May bank holiday!” laughs the younger Paddon. We thought as much… www.ambersound.co.uk
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HIGH FIVE
Amber Sound’s top sales highlights of the past decade, as chosen by Graham Paddon… 1. Royal Shakespeare Company Amber provided the Stratford-upon-Avon theatre company with replacement radio mic and IEM systems
2. Barbican Centre The Barbican uses Amber-supplied integrated wireless and wired comms systems
3. RNSS Paddon spotlights Amber’s relationship with rental/events company RNSS, which has supplied the Royal Festival Hall complex and Saracens FC’s Allianz Park stadium
4. Kent County Cricket Club The Canterbury club’s sound system was supplied and project-managed by Amber
5. Royal Opera House Muscat Oman’s home of arts and culture features a “huge amount” of Amber-supplied equipment
P57 MAY 2015
Hither & kisser
Please send all contributions for possible publication to drobinson@nbmedia.com
We were all over Frankfurt. And some people were all over each other...
The PSNEurope–Medialease quiz returned after a six-year break. It was the usual boisterous nonsense but a good time was had by all… Here’s winning team ‘travenous’ – long story – with the stunningly generous Paul Robson of Medialease (left) plus Stuart Archibald of Tannoy clutching one of the boxes of signature single malt whisky so kindly donated as a prize (thanks to Xavier Pion for the pic!)
Spotted on the Bose booth: it seems Dave Robinson’s guitar-playing doppelgänger has been appearing on Bose’s marketing materials…
Who’s behind these masks, DoYaThink? These revellers got totally ‘brick-faced’ following the Lego-based entertainment at the Powersoft anniversary party… DidYaGo?
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Powersoft by name, Powersoft drinks by nature on the Italian manufacturer’s booth, as communication director Francesco Fanicchi raises a can to the company’s 20th anniversary celebration
Photo of the show? Allen & Heath’s Glenn Rogers confirms his affection for the ‘Audiotonix’ tag (the new name for Electra’s triumvirate of A&H, DiGiCo and Calrec) with a kiss on MD James Gordon’s cheek
P58 MAY 2015
Backtalk
Rodrigo Thomaz All aboard! Dave Robinson talks to the Audio-Technica training specialist about a decade of working on some of the world’s finest cruise ships
R
odrigo Thomaz is a carioca, which means he is from Rio de Janiero. “It’s a pretty cool thing in Brazil,” he smiles. “Everyone wants to be a carioca; no one wants to be from Sao Paulo!” The 43-year-old has travelled far from local rivalries and is now based at Audio-Technica UK in Leeds, where he is developing forthcoming training initiatives. But if you thought he took a direct route to get here, you’d be very much mistaken…
How did you start in sound? I was playing guitar, bass or drums in church, but I hated the sound. Then, one night, a friend, took me to see Ed Motta [very much a Brazilian Barry White]. When I watched his show, I saw the lights blinking on the desk, and I knew I wanted to be a sound technician. I built my own studio, started researching secondhand gear… that’s how it started.
What was your first real break in live sound? A massive hire company came to do a festival in my town and I volunteered to help and work for free, which I did for six months just to learn the trade. I ended up doing monitors for some of my biggest idols. Then an accident happened: [the mixing guy] was stoned, or drunk, I don’t know, but he fell from the stage, from a height of 2m – bang, straight to hospital! We had a big rock ’n’ roll band on that night, and no one else was available to mix them… so I said, “I’ll do it!” They gave me a chance. From then on, I became their main engineer.
One man’s misfortune is another’s opportunity… Yes, but we worked together afterwards and became friends. This was 1993. I did that till 1998, when I met an old drummer friend who said, “I’m going to work on a cruise ship.” I had no idea these ships had so much going on. I said, “I’ll give it a shot,” and the next day I was in Miami!
I worked for 10 years on 14 different ships. The first was the Rembrandt on Premier Cruise Lines. It sailed from Cape Canaveral to Nassau in the Bahamas, a four-day cruise. It was the most bizarre thing: we’d have kids on board, with actors playing ‘legends in concert’ – actors who looked like Madonna and Elvis – and they would spend 24 hours a day pretending to be the legends. But then in the evenings, local radio stations would charter the ship for toga parties with bouncers and topless DJs! Then we’d get the Cape Canaveral technicians who would launch rockets off the boat… The evening shows could be anything: one night a juggler, the next a production company with 20 singers doing a musical, then an Elton John impersonator. All sorts of crazy stuff.
What’s the biggest act in terms of size? Probably when the New York Philharmonic came on board – about 80 musicians. We did this thing called Theatre at Sea, a classical cruise, from New York to Norway: three weeks of classical music.
You did this for 10 years. At the top of your game, would you be specifying gear for the ship? Oh, yes. After a while [the management] would trust you. When the boats are in drydock and upgrading they would come to me, and I would specify certain things like microphones and desks. I was the senior guy so I wanted to be comfortable with the gear I was using.
What was the most highly specified set-up you worked with? On the MS Island Princess. You would see Midas desks, all sorts of brands for microphones, Apogee and Martin Audio speakers, as well as Electro-Voice and Meyer Sound. The theatres might be 1,200 to 1,500 seats, and there would be three theatres on some boats.
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What did that experience teach you? Technically, it allowed me to have access to all sorts of equipment and to understand different types of music. You open your mind to everything. And it teaches you about the industry ‘from behind’: the logisitics of loading and unloading shows; talking to stage management; even things like clearing security with Scotland Yard when the Queen comes onboard! I did exactly 10 years on the cruise ships – I was on the QE2 when it sailed to Dubai to be sold, and that’s when I stopped.
How did you end up at Audio-Technica UK? I was working at Gear4Music in Leeds, because my wife – a dancer who I met on an Alaskan cruise (!) – is from [nearby] York. Audio-Technica is the Allen & Heath distributor, and I am very familiar with their desks. And my fetish on the cruises was microphones – I had about 50 when I left, including AT of course.
What is your role at AT? I’m product and training specialist. We’re putting together training programmes for digital desks, all the A&H ranges, to explain about the advantages of digital over analogue. But it’s not just about selling product: it’s talking about the future, like Dante. We want to reinforce the message about other brands using Dante, and share that information. I will also help with the marketing, and video and photography. I’m a bit of a jack of all trades. I never say no – I like to help! And my background on the ships means I have the ability to talk to anyone.
Back on land, do you sway when you stand up? [Laughs] Not now. But a few years ago, if I saw a bottle or book on the shelf I used to panic… eu.audio-technica.com
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