PSNEUROPE NOVEMBER 2014
www.psneurope.com
THE BUSINESS OF PROFESSIONAL AUDIO
Fast and curious Investigating the technology that keeps motorsport’s wheels turning p30 AES news
p6
PLASA news The real polar audio p7
Roland M5000 EXCLUSIVE! p4 p50
Dave Clarke: Tool up!
p40
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welcome Photo: Jake Young
EDITOR’S COMMENT
“The new M-5000 seriously raises the game for Roland”
Front cover pitlane image: Dani Reinhard/ Auto, Motor und Sport
RECRUITERS AND CAREERS advisors always tell job applicants to take care as to what they include on their CV. Especially if it’s a little, how shall we say, ‘flexible’ with the truth. So it was, I stumbled across deputy editor Jon Chapple’s CV some weeks ago, and noticed that under ‘Hobbies and Interests’ he’d listed ‘motorsport’. What an ideal opportunity, then, to see if this really was the case... Well, of course, slap my wrists for being so cynical. Turn to page 30 and you’ll find Jon’s excellent cover story on the sort of thinking that goes into putting together a season of motor racing events. What’s more, you’ll find a boxout on Formula E, an ‘environmentally aware’ approach to what is, arguably, one of the most wasteful sports on the planet. (It’s all done with batteries, don’t ya know.) There’s another finely tuned machine set for the starting grid elsewhere in this issue: the Roland M-5000. I’ve been to a behind-closed-doors demo and I freely admit, I was impressed. While desks such as the M-400 and 480 V-Mixers have been popular in many installations and with one major broadcaster in particular, the new M-5000 seriously raises the game for the company. If there’s any justice in this world, it should grab the attention of engineers and users whom wouldn’t normally give the brand a second look. I can see elements of several extant desks out there – I won’t name names here – but those threads have been woven into something different. And at a (suggested) price that surprised me. Make sure you see it soon –and let me know what you think. Dave Robinson
IN THIS ISSUE... BUSINESS 4 EXCLUSIVE: Roland M-5000 launch 5 Lab.gruppen launches PLM+ 6 Show review: AES 137 7 Show review: PLASA 10 Industry appointments 12 Events and expos 14 PSNTraining 16 New products STUDIO 18 Church Studios reborn with Paul Epworth 19 The Kaotica Eyeball, one year on 20 Inside Martijn Schimmer’s SMP Amsterdam 22 Paul Leonard-Morgan soundtracks Battlefield Hardline 24 Feature: A golden age for headphones BROADCAST 26 Immersed in sound at IBC 28 Axia’s Solidarity in Sight 29 Small-scale DAB tests in 2015 30 Broadcasting the sound of F1 LIVE 34 36 38 40 42
The hills are alive with the sound of Nexo Soundcraft’s summer of festivals L&L Stage Service looks to the future with L-Acoustics The Defiled, Studiomaster and Secret Compass on ice Feature: Small- and mid-scale touring kit
INSTALL 46 48
The return of Turbosound’s Flashlight Ashley, Community power Diggerland USA
BACK PAGES 53 54
Hither & dither Industry talk: Dave Clarke
4 l November 2014
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business EXCLUSIVE
M-5000 is “huge step forward” for Roland Systems Group
The latest salvo from RSG marks a “ground-up” approach to live desk design, learns Dave Robinson ROLAND WILL UNLEASH a renewed plan for winning a bigger slice of the pro-audio console/control market with the 4 November launch of the M-5000 live mixing system. M-5000 is based around Roland’s proprietary ‘OHRCA’ (Open High Resolution Control Architecture) and features 128 freely definable audio paths, a “flexible user interface and workflow”, expandable protocols and multiformat I/O choices. All processing can be undertaken at 24-bit/96kHz resolution. “The launch of the M-5000 represents a huge step forward for Roland,” head of RSG (Roland Systems Group) Europe Peter Heath told PSNEurope. The M-5000 has 128 audio paths which can be assignable as channels, auxes, groups, matrices and so on, meaning the desk is suitable in a variety of roles, including live monitor, broadcast, installation or FOH. “These days, the boundaries between these three are getting blurry,” noted Nico Suárez, Roland audio and video
product specialist. M-5000 is reported to provide “unrestricted patching for up to 300/460 inputs and 296/456 outputs @ 96kHz/48kHz”, and supports a wide range of protocols and formats including Roland’s own REAC, MADI, Waves SoundGrid and – critically – Dante. In fact, the November launch will formally recognise Roland becoming a licensee of Audinate’s Dante networking technology. The system offers full compatibility with the family of Roland Professional Audio snakes; as the launch images show, Roland’s M-48 personal mixing is a “natural fit” with the control surface’s ergonomics. There’s a 12” touch screen with “touch and turn” operation and 28 freely scrollable, isolatable, or assignable faders and, says Roland, “numerous knobs and buttons, both contextual and assignable, to support rapid response”. “The scale, design and technology in the console clearly demonstrates our commitment to the professional live audio
community,” said Peter Heath. “Providing digital connectivity to various accepted protocols was a key factor whilst still supporting our large family of REAC based consoles and digital snake users. “The development process has been long, but intentionally so, to allow a complete ground-up approach: making sure that the product delivered on features, form, usability every step of the way. “The result is a product that makes no assumptions, but uses some astounding technology to give users ultimate flexibility due to open configurability whether through DSP resources, expandable connectivity or workflow.” A shipping date of early Q2 2015 is planned for the system; Nico Suárez reports that a remote- control iPad app is planned for February. Although exact pricing was not available at press time, it is believed that the basic M-5000 console will cost between £10-15k. RSG’s muscular new initiative
“The development process has been long, but intentionally so, to allow a complete ground-up approach: making sure that the product delivered on features, form, usability every step of the way” Peter Heath comes six months after a behindthe-scenes MBO of Roland Corporation by Taiyo Pacific Partners LP, an investor in
Japanese industry, and Roland CEO Junichi Miki, for 42.6 billion yen (€311m). Q www.rolandsystemsgroup.com
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business
For the latest news www.psneurope.com WORLD
New amp (and new ownership?) for Lab.gruppen
Andersson with the PLM+ platform
Lab.gruppen launches PLM+ less than a week after TC Group CEO Anders Fauerskov tells PSNEurope the company is up for sale. Dave Robinson reports LAB.GRUPPEN’S MARTIN ANDERSSON invited clients, friends and press to The Crystal building at the Royal Victoria Dock to launch the PLM+ series of amplifiers at the beginning of last month. PLM+ is the new touring platform from Lab.gruppen, one that offers “the unique performance characteristics, flexibility, and raw power of the 20000Q, but with twice the processing power, twice the throughput and a whole host of additional features and improvements designed to deliver real-world benefits and make the lifecycle of any production easier, smoother and more efficient – from the system design stage, operating, through to the final load out”. The PLM+ range offers two models – PLM20k44 and the PLM12k44 – each combining a four-in/four-out configuration for audio I/O, as well as four modules of Lake Processing. In more detail: four analogue inputs, four AES inputs, four power outputs, four Lake Contour modules, 8 x 8 Dante I/O, a two-port 1GB network
switch, dual redundancy “and more”, says the Swedish company. PLM 12K44 – targeted as a successor to the PLM 10000Q – offers a universal power supply, PFC, 8 x Dante Break in/out, and other “hugely significant benefits never before available in tour sound”. The 12k44 model features Lab.gruppen’s Rational Power Management (RPM) technology, first debuted in the company’s D Series install platform, launched earlier in 2014. RPM enables flexible power allocation across all channels to ensure a more efficient and rational use of total available power output from multiple amplifiers, therefore minimising inventory as well as optimising workflow. RPM technology serves to enhance Lab.gruppen’s position as a leader in ‘real’ green amplifier technology. Martin Andersson, product manager for Lab.gruppen and son of company founder Kenneth Andersson, said: “PLM+ is a new platform built on the core of the iconic design of the PLM 20000Q.
We knew we could take the typical hallmarks of reliability and performance, but also offer the end user a whole host of additional, real-world benefits. Benefits that could amount to saving a lot of time, energy, money, rack and truck space when scaled up into a large-scale touring production.” “Compared to other devices out there, PLM+ is truly exceptional. PLM+ allows you to accurately specify, design, control and monitor all connections and interactions to and from the PLM+ device. No other amplifier platform can do this in such a managed way, and with the trusted and proven reliability and sonic integrity of PLM.” Andersson said he saw the PLM+ becoming a new industry standard, and as a device that is very rider-friendly. An obvious draw would be mid- to largescale touring events, as well as a use in the installation market. (“This is money in the bank, my friends!” he quipped.) He said that mass production will begin this month. The PLM 20000Q will be discontinued
after March 2015, he confirmed. In other TC Group news, the collection of sound and audio technology brands, which includes Lab.gruppen, Lake, TC Electronic, White Acoustics and Tannoy, has quietly gone up for sale. Speaking in response to various reports surfacing around the internet, CEO Anders Fauerskov confirmed to PSNEurope last month: “It is correct that we have put all of the shares of TC Group up for sale.” Danish financial newspaper Børsen estimates TC Group, headquartered in Risskov, Denmark, could command a price as high as one
billion krone (roughly £150m or €134m). Fauerskov says that much of the impetus for the sale came from a desire to expand the company’s reach, referring to “… a recent analysis we did, showing that we can grow the company even faster and to an even stronger position, with a different, and financially stronger, ownership”. Those findings dovetailed with some financial intents as well, as he noted that “some shareholders have declared their interest in selling”. Q www.labgruppen.com www.tcgroup.tc
6 l November 2014
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AESreview AES 67-supporting Media Networking Alliance launches By Clive Young THE NEWLY FORMED Media Networking Alliance (MNA) launched on the second day of AES. The alliance, comprising industry proponents, developers and suppliers of networking technologies, on 10 October presented a panel session during the Networked Audio Track Event N7 at 4pm, and followed it with its inaugural membership meeting at five. The MNA was formed to promote adoption and support adopters of the newly ratified AES67 standard. 20 pro-audio and broadcast technology companies are already committed to membership, and the alliance’s activities during AES are intended to promote awareness and knowledge of the new audio-over-IP interoperability standard and widen membership of the MNA throughout the professional audio and broadcast media industries. AES67 is a new Ethernet
based networked audio-over-IP interoperability standard. It is a layer-3 protocol suite based on existing standards, designed to enable interoperability between various IP-based audio networking standards, such as RAVENNA, Livewire, Q-LAN and Dante. The standard was created to address the interoperable operation of different high-performance networked audio transport systems, compatible with live-sound reinforcement, broadcast and fixed installations. AES67 provides interoperability recommendations in the areas of synchronisation, media-clock identification, network transport, encoding and streaming, session description and connection management. The network performance to meet these requirements is available on local-area networks (LANs) and achievable on enterprise-scale networks. Q www.medianetworkingalliance.com
“Second-to-none” reception for Genelec By Jon Chapple FINNISH SPEAKER manufacturer Genelec revealed another addition to its line of Smart Active Monitors at AES, the three-way 8351 system, in response to the need for “increasing audio perfection in acoustically challenging production environments”. “We had a brilliant first day, which
was very busy, the second day a little less busy but still very good, and the third day was – well, you know last days…” Genelec’s Lars-Olof Janflod (pictured) tells PSNEurope . “Also, a lot of traffic by various industry celebs: Some were so pleased that the show was back in LA, they came all three days just to hang! The reception of the 8351 was second to none. We are happy campers, I must say.” The centre of the 17.75” x 11.25” x 11” 8351 is home to the Minimum Diffraction Co-axial midrange/tweeter driver, evolved from the 8260, designed to provide accurate imaging and improved sound quality with clear accuracy – both on and off-axis – horizontally and vertically. The woofers of the 8351 are concealed beneath the Maximised Directivity Controlled Waveguide (MaxDCW), and the lips on the perimeter of the waveguide act as the acoustic openings for the Acoustically Concealed Woofers (ACW). Genelec says it is this arrangement
– the co-axial midrange/tweeter in combination with the dual woofer design – which, together, form a threeway acoustically coaxial system with a large waveguide (MaxDCW) across the entire front. The 8351 is equally effective in either vertical or horizontal orientation, with similar directivity characteristics as users move off-axis. The 8351 is capable of delivering 110dB at 1m through a combination of efficient Class D amplifiers for the woofer bass (150W) and midrange (120W) drivers, while a discretecomponents (90W) Class A/B amplifier applies power to the tweeter. The 8351 has a system frequency response Q www.lawo.com
PMC leads British invasion with QB1-A By Jon Chapple UK REFERENCE LOUDSPEAKER manufacturer PMC unveiled the QB1 Active (QB1-A), a largescale, ultra-high-resolution main studio monitor with analogue and digital (up to 192kHz) inputs at AES 137. Ideal for either soffit-mounted or free-standing use, each QB1-A incorporates the latest generation of PMC’s driver designs, Class-D amplification, ‘Advanced Transmission Line’ (ATL) bass-loading technology, DSP control and a quartet of 10” carbon fibre/Nomex piston bass drivers to create what PMC calls a ”single reference monitor that has the transparency, resolution, dynamic range, frequency response, forensic sense of detail and wide, consistent imaging demanded by the international audio élite”. The QB1-A has its roots in an observation by
PMC’s design team that there are “no largescale active studio monitors on the market taking advantage of the latest developments in loudspeaker driver analysis and design and DSPaided control”. This starting point, coupled with PMC’s own research into driver performance using opto-acoustic laser inferometry at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL), honed the design of the QB1-A. “We saw that there was a gap at the high end of the market,” explains Oliver Thomas, R&D project manager at PMC. “In the main, the current products on the market don’t offer the flexibility of analogue and digital inputs, and suffer from giving listeners an insufficient sense of resolution compared to what can now be attained with good Class-D amp design and DSP-aided crossover management.” Q www.pmc-speakers.com
SSL Live series bolstered with L300 By Jon Chapple OXFORDSHIRE, UK-BASED Solid State Logic (SSL) announced a major expansion to its SSL Live console range with the release of the compact SSL Live.L300 console and v2.5 software. Released one year after the introduction of SSL’s first live console, the larger L500, the company says the new console and major new software update “signals [its] dedication to remaining at the leading edge of the live sound industry for many years to come”. Both the L300 and its bigger brother are designed for applications in touring, installation, houses of worship and theatre. “At SSL, we believe that offering a more compact console should
not mean compromising and reducing quality or features,” says a statement from the company. “Both consoles offer the same immaculate, huge SSL sound and the same superb operator experience. There are no compromises in build quality and both consoles use and can share the same remote I/O. “The L300 is physically smaller than the L500, so it is a more compact, lower-cost option, with no hidden performance compromises – it’s that simple. Compact it may be, but the L300 delivers the power and connectivity to handle large-scale productions, with up to 568 input/outputs, 128 processing paths (96 full, 32 dry), a 32 x 36 matrix, 36 VCAs and 48 FX slots.” Q www.solid-state-logic.com
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PLASAreview Thumbs up for Shure’s Fingertrap By David Robinson SHURE DISTRIBUTION UK (SDUK) once again made a big splash at PLASA with a raft of announcements for the 2014 expo. The winners of SDUK’s recent talent-grabbing Call for Legends campaign, Welsh foursome Fingertrap, were on-hand to lend a slab of live performance colour to MD Peter James’s list of updates. First up was the addition of the PSM 300 Stereo Personal Monitor Systems to the existing Shure line of In-Ear Monitoring (IEM) technology. PSM 300 brings 24-bit digital audio processing to the PSM line, while still offering users Shure’s customised mix control. “It takes us to a new point in the IEM market for pro, and it’s the only proper
stereo offering in the pro space at that price-point,” said James. Shure’s QLX-D Digital Wireless system made its UK trade show debut at PLASA. “QLX-D is most definitely the new standard in affordable pro wireless. There are a couple of features missing from ULX-D: it doesn’t have the HD mode, doesn’t have the same range of power settings for the transmitters, doesn’t have Dante; but it still has control and a lot of the features of ULXD. And it’s computable with Wireless Workbench, which has become the standard in managing RF in professional environments. This outperforms everything at that price-point and redefines expectations of performance at that sub-£1000 tier for pro users. In its distribution role, Shure
Distribution UK (SDUK) has taken on the WORK Pro Audio line, manufactured by Spanish audio company Equipson, founded in 1995 and based in Valencia. Effective immediately, SDUK will be responsible for all sales and technical support for WORK Pro Audio products in the UK and Republic of Ireland, replacing all previous UK distributors of the brand. “For our systems group it gives us a dimension we’ve not had before. While we can complete budgets with [distributed brand] QSC, we can’t hit everything with it. [With Work] we can provide an affordable, on-budget solution from the ground up,” said James. But definite stars on the Shure booth were Fingertrap: Frankie (drums), Nick
Officially certified legends Fingertrap rock the Shure stand
(bass), Sion (keyboards and vocals) and Jimmy (guitar). Shure’s Kirsty Lamport said the foursome were chosen from over 100 entrants across Europe. “They went down a storm at Montreux Jazz Festival on the Outside Stage. It was pouring down with rain but they got the crowd jumping. And to get the audience jumping there is quite
something – if you’ve been to Montreux, you’ll know what I mean!” Shure’s Call for Legends was the winner of the Marketing Initiative of the Year Award at the Pro Sound Awards on 25 September. “We’re really proud of winning the award,” said SDUK MD Peter James. Q www.shure.co.uk
WorxAudio makes European debut as PreSonus brand By Jon Chapple PRESONUS CHOSE the second day of PLASA London to officially welcome its latest acquisition, American loudspeaker manufacturer WorxAudio, to the European market. WorxAudio has been at the forefront of loudspeaker development for the US pro touring and contractor markets for over 30 years. The WorxAudio range features a line-up of more than 20 loudspeaker models with integrated rigging hardware for streamlined installation and pack-out. PreSonus – distributed in the UK and Republic of Ireland by Source Distribution – originally announced the deal at InfoComm in Las Vegas in June. The acquisition gives WorxAudio a larger global presence and bigger distribution network
(PreSonus has a worldwide sales channel), while PreSonus gains a range of boxes suitable for larger venues and environments – previously lacking from its product offering – and considerable expertise from WorxAudio, The launch was hosted by Source, a division of HHB Communications. Source director Howard Jones, WorxAudio founder, CEO and director of engineering Hugh Sarvis and PreSonus vice-president of sales Rick Naqvi showcased for the first time in Europe a selection of WorxAudio’s compact line array and subwoofer products, including the V5, X2, X115 and TL118 models. Commenting on WorxAudio’s long-planned-for entry in Europe, Sarvis told PSNEurope: “It’s hard to set up distributors – that’s one
Howard Jones, director of Source; Hugh Sarvis, founder, CEO and director of engineering at WorxAudio; and Rick Naqvi, PreSonus vice-president of sales (L–R) at PLASA London of the reasons why we searched out PreSonus and talked to them, and they were ready to get into speakers quite heavily. They already had the
distribution setup, and that makes a big, big difference. “With PreSonus on board, things have really taken off and we’re doing
well. They did a great thing with Dave Gunness, but they found they really needed someone in-house to oversee the design of loudspeakers. And what I see is good speakers with great amplifiers and digital processing really taking it from the mixing console all the way through. And I think we’ll be able to do that real well.” WorxAudio also announced that its new TrueLine X2i-P/D, X3i-P/D and X5i-P/D line array systems and X115i-P/D and X118i-P/D subwoofers will incorporate PreSonus’s Active Integration technology and SL-DanteSPK card. The TrueLine X2i-P/D, X3i-P/D and X5i-P/D will be the first line arrays to offer Audinate’s Dante technology with PreSonus Active Integration. Q www.worxaudio.com www.sourcedistribution.co.uk
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businesstalk
A man, a plan: NAMM
“I’m personally very excited about where the technology is leading us,” says Lamond
NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond chats with Erica Basnicki about pro-audio content at NAMM, technology’s influence on the industry, and where the Sesame Street characters have gone… THERE IS NOTHING quite like NAMM: Every January, rock stars and recording legends, tech giants and industry leaders, students, educators and everyone in between gather in balmy Anaheim for the biggest trade show in pro audio. At the helm of this industry fête is NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond. His passion for music education is obvious, as is his enthusiasm for new technology. Both have served NAMM extremely well. There was no way PSNEurope could pass up an opportunity to pick his brain about the audio industry. But first, there was one contentious issue to discuss… Joe, where have the Sesame Street characters gone? [Laughs] You know how all that started? Before I was in this job, I was in the market development position, where we were funding music-brain research. My daughter at the time was probably three or four, and totally into Sesame Street. I was talking with my wife about that issue, and my daughter said “Dad, why don’t you go to Sesame Street?” That’s how the Sesame Street connection came to be. We also did government lobbying with them… I am the only one to ever testify on Capitol Hill with a non-human: I advocated with Elmo for more funding for music programmes in schools. Bottom line is that I always have to change things around or I get really bored. There’s so much business we do with marching bands, so the opening for the last two years – and we’ll probably do it again this year – is a Marine Corps band from Camp Pendleton. But we’re still working with Sesame Street to this day. This is good news! But on a serious note, what is NAMM
doing to encourage and maintain pro-audio content at its shows? I think attracting and retaining pro-audio companies and buyers on the show relies on three things: First, a robust show floor: the right companies, innovative products, the things that get people very excited… we’ve got to keep that going. Second, education: making sure we’ve got a great education track – in this case the HOT (Hands-On Training) Zone and various speakers like Steve Wozniak. That alone might convince someone to jump on an aeroplane and come to California. The third thing is the networking events like the TEC Awards. The fun stuff. The music. The parties and games that make it the one show you want to go to. Technology is changing, the players and the companies are all changing… but to keep that group strong we need to provide those three things and that’s what we’ve been focused on. You’ve had Steve Jobs speak at NAMM, you’re having Steve Wozniak speak this year… how do you see app-based technology (or any other technology) influencing the pro-audio sector? In many ways what Steve Wozniak did with the Apple I and Apple II was make computing easy for everybody. The same thing is going on with music today. I see a real parallel to what today’s technology is doing to music and what Wozniak did for computing. That’s an area we’re going to talk about and that’s one of the key changes occurring today. Technology is making playing, recording and distributing music available to a much broader range of participants. Personally, I think that’s a good thing. That means more people can be creative, more people can
be involved in our industry and the industry will grow that way. The market will decide whether that music is good or not good, as it always had. Though many people lament the “good old days” when music was (supposedly) better… I think humans are nostalgic by nature. I can tell you that in the early ‘40s, as music recording technology was just coming into play, our industry lobbied congress in Washington to outlaw recording because it was going to put musicians out of work. That was the foresight of our industry at the time. While I’m as nostalgic as the next guy, I think we need ‘to boldly go’ into the future. Yeah, there will be scrapes and bumps along the way, some stuff will be good, some not so good: that’s called progress. I’m personally very excited about where the technology is leading us from a creativity and innovation standpoint. So where do you see pro audio heading? I think the big story there is quality, and I think Neil Young’s got it right. The reality is that most of what we hear today is a mere seven per cent of what the artist originally intended for the listener to hear. One of the most exciting opportunities for the industry
is to restore the experience of hearing music the way it was intended to be heard. I think smart companies [will] figure out how to get that 93 per cent back. Think about it: prior to Starbucks, the world was very happy with 50¢ coffee. Somewhere along the line, Howard Schultz came along and said “No, you’re not really happy, try this $4 cup of coffee.” All of a sudden the world’s tastes changed, and I think there’s a great opportunity to do that with audio. What else should we know about NAMM? The importance of the NAMM Show for our industry is that whichever part of the industry you’ve found yourself in, gathering of all those people in one place for four days creates
a kind of explosive conveyance of ideas. The reason I think it works is that you take all those people back to their teenage years; they all wanted to be in The Beatles [laughs]. At the heart of it, it was music that started every person on this path. That’s the secret sauce of NAMM: it’s about the music. Whether you see Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Wonder and Carlos Santana, or you see Ed Cherney, Craig Anderton or Harvey Peavey or whether you see Steve Gadd or Nathan East; these people are just like you and me. They’re there to learn, to see the latest gear for their own trade. They’re not rock stars. They’re not recording engineer stars. They’re simply part of the family, and that’s what makes NAMM special. Q www.namm.org
Joe Lamond testified with Elmo on Capitol Hill
10 l November 2014
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industrymovers
McNeil to add broadcast biz to recruitment house Thelma McNeil is a 20-year veteran of the industry THELMA MCNEIL has joined media search and recruitment company Interfacio in the newly created role of business development manager for its broadcast business sector. McNeil is joining Interfacio with over 20 years’ experience in senior marketing, management and HR roles with established broadcast technology manufacturers, including Sony Broadcast, Snell, Wilcox and, most recently, AmberFin. Her role will be focused on developing client relationships and delivering the company’s search and recruitment services to clients within the territories of Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia. Interfacio managing director
Richard Wear comments: “We are very happy to be welcoming Thelma to the team. One of the principals of our service offering is to ensure that our consultants have real first-hand experience and understanding of the market sectors and roles on which they are working. “Thelma is well known and liked within the broadcast industry, and has a great deal of experience in marketing, management and recruitment, which will enable her to get up to speed quickly. I know that her values and professionalism will mean she is naturally able to deliver to our clients the quality of service we are known for.” www.interfacio.com
David Conway has been appointed managing director of BBC Studios and Post Production (S&PP). Conway was previously chief operating officer of BBC S&PP, having previously (until June 2012) served on the board as a non-executive director while working as the BBC’s head of investment and major projects in BBC corporate finance. “I’m looking forward to working with the BBC S&PP team to continue to provide excellent services to our many customers and further stabilise the business after several years of exceptional transformation and change,” Conway comments. www.bbcstudiosandpost production.com
Clear-Com has announced the immediate appointment of Damien Egan to the position of regional sales manager for the UK, Republic of Ireland and Israel.
Reporting to Nicki Fisher, director of EMEA sales, Egan will be responsible for working closely with Clear-Com’s reseller partners to define and support the company’s sales strategy across these regions. Damien joins Clear-Com from Solid State Logic, where he held the role of international distribution manager for seven years. www.clearcom.com
DK-Technologies has announced the appointment of Anders Kjempff as sales and marketing director. Kjempff will be based at DK-Technologies’ head office in Herlev, Denmark, and will be responsible for promoting the company’s range of audio and video metering products. Having worked as sales and strategy director of ProTeleVision and run his own IT sales company, DK-Technologies says Kjempff will bring “a wealth of management experience” to the role. www.dk-technologies.com LipSync Post has appointed William Chetwynd to the role of senior online editor. Chetwynd brings over 15 years
of experience to the position, having worked on high-profile British productions including Sherlock, Hustle, Spooks and Midsomer Murders. www.lipsyncpost.co.uk
Wohler Technologies has announced the appointment of Dayan Sivalingam as its director of engineering for the RadiantGrid business line. In this new role, Sivalingam will be responsible for managing and growing Wohler’s file-based solutions engineering team; working with product management and sales to “further refine and execute the company’s file-based strategy”; and helping to guide the company’s expansion into new markets. “Dayan’s experience in the domain of media processing will bring further speed and agility to our RadiantGrid business in shaping our next generation of products,” says Steve Farmer, director of engineering at Wohler. www.wohler.com
12 l November 2014
www.psneurope.com
expos&events
For the latest events www.psneurope.com/events
EDITORIAL PLANNER
SPOTLIGHT 28TH TONMEISTERTAGUNG 20–23 November Cologne, Germany www.tonmeister.de
DECEMBER Software and plug-ins 2014 review
Tonmeistertagung, the biannual pro-audio convention and exhibition, will take place this month at the CongressCentrum Nord, Koelnmesse.
JANUARY Wireless mics Studio monitors NAMM preview ISE preview
“This time, our programme is particularly comprehensive, and we have gained an extraordinary number of international speakers,” explains Günther Theile, head of programme planning for the event, which is organised by Verband Deutscher Tonmeister (VDT, or the Association of German Sound Engineers). The focus for the 28th Tonmeistertagung on current trends such as networked audio, object-based recording and live event recording, with “lectures, workshops and tutorials [examining] all aspects of the specific subject”.
FEBRUARY Cinema sound Online marketing NAMM review ISE review
MARCH Amplifiers Radio accessories Prolight + Sound preview
To view the programme, which comprises nearly 100 lectures, 30 poster presentations, 35 workshops, 10 round tables, a ‘TMT Academy’ aimed at young talent and several tutorials, or sign up for the event, visit the Tonmeistertagung website. www.tonmeister.de
complete calendar of expos and EVENTS Your conferences for the months ahead
Photo: Getty Images for NAMM
PLASA Focus Brussels 3–4 November Brussels, Belgium www.plasafocus.com/brussels Iceland Airwaves 5–9 November Reykjavik, Iceland www.icelandairwaves.is 28th Tonmeistertagung 20–23 November Cologne, Germany www.tonmeister.de PLASA Focus Glasgow 2–3 December Glasgow, UK www.plasafocus.com/glasgow
NAMM Show 22–25 January Anaheim, US www.namm.org
2015 International CES 6–9 January Las Vegas, US www.cesweb.org
Music Producers Guild Awards 12 February London, UK www.mpgawards.com
NAMM Show 22–25 January Anaheim, US www.namm.org
BVE 24–26 February London, UK www.bvexpo.com
Integrated Systems Europe 10–12 February Amsterdam, Netherlands www.iseurope.org
Brit Awards 25 February London, UK www.brits.co.uk
Grammy Awards 5 February Los Angeles, US www.grammy.com
ISCE 3–4 March Binley, UK www.isce.org.uk
14 l November 2014
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PSNTraining InfoComm’s Networking for the AV Industry comes to London
Yamaha announces new Live Sound Surgery dates for 2014/15
DIARY 30 October–29 January Yamaha Live Sound Surgery
By Jon Chapple
Where: Various (UK and Eire) INFOCOMM INTERNATIONAL, the trade association representing the global AV industry, has confirmed a further Networking for the AV Industry event in London between 9–11 December 2014. The programme is sponsored by Harman brand AMX. “Since the demand for these type of events have been hugely popular, we’ve added an additional London class in December to meet the current demand from audiovisual professionals,” says Chris Lavelle, regional director, UK and Ireland, at InfoComm International (pictured). Key topics tackled on the threeday course are remote monitoring and management, security and maximising quality and bandwidth. Lavelle adds: As more audiovisual applications operate within enterprisebased networks, the course aims to address all networking challenges and to keep skills sets of audiovisual professionals up to date,” added Lavelle. More course dates for the UK and Europe will be announced later this year. Q www.infocomm.org
New SMPTE president Seidel to increase educational offerings By Jon Chapple THE SOCIETY OF Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the US-based professional body which specialises in the development of media standards and “moving-imagery education and engineering across the communications, technology, media and entertainment industries”, has announced its new officers and governors for 2015–16. Robert Seidel, vice-president of engineering and advanced technology at CBS, will take office as the society’s new president on 1 January. Seidel (pictured), who previously held SMPTE board roles including executive vice-president and finance vice-president, will serve a two-year term as SMPTE president, succeeding Wendy Aylsworth, senior vicepresident of technology at Warner Bros Technical Operations, who will now become the society’s past president. “Going forward in this new role with the society […] I will work to drive ongoing efforts to expand the number of student chapters, infuse the society with young members and help to ensure the long-term growth of the society,” he says. “Increasing the society’s online educational course offerings to include basic audio/video technologies for young engineers is a high priority, as is offering advanced courses in new file-based and IP technologies to the
www.yamahacommercialaudio.com
6–7, 12–13, 13–14, 18–19 November d&b Sound System Optimisation seminars Where: Sindelfingen, Germany, and Nailsworth, UK
By Jon Chapple
www.dbaudio.com/en/education/ YAMAHA MUSIC UK has announced details of its forthcoming Live Sound Surgery tour, which sees sixteen venues across the UK and Republic of Ireland offering free sessions aimed at helping people understand and learn how to operate a full PA system. The Sound Surgery follows on from success of Yamaha’s 2012–13 nationwide PA Essentials tour, which identified a high demand from people who are often asked to operate a modest PA system in local schools, churches, music venues and other public spaces. The evening sessions will be hosted by Yamaha’s pro audio manager, Chris Irvine, who is joined by Mike Crofts, a successful freelance sound engineer contributor to Sound on Sound magazine. We’ve found there’s a big demand for this type of practical information,” Irvine comments, “so our entertaining and educational session will provide those attending with the skills and confidence to proficiently operate a PA system in a variety of situations. It’s perfect for people who run events involving live music, whether it’s in a bar, hotel, community centre or any space where the audience expects professional sound quality.” Yamaha expects demand to be high, so advises early booking. Contact your local Live Sound Surgery centre (listed in full at www.psneurope.com/livesound-surgery-14) to book your place. Q uk.yamaha.com
seminars/sound-systemoptimisation-seminar
9–10 December MIDAS Certified Training Where: Manchester, UK www.midasconsoles.com/training
9–11 December AMX: Networking for the AV Industry Where: London, UK www.infocomm.org
The Essentials: Tree Tordoff and the importance of independent mentors seasoned professional engineer.” Other incoming SMPTE officers elected for the two-year 2015–2016 term include Matthew S. Goldman, senior vice-president of TV compression technology at Ericsson, who will serve as executive vicepresident; Patrick Griffis, executive director of the technology strategy in the office of the CTO at Dolby Laboratories, who will continue his service as education vice-president; and Peter Wharton, vice-president of technology and business development at BroadStream Solutions, who will continue to serve as secretary/ treasurer. In January 2015, the board will elect an officer to fill the post vacated by Goldman. Angelo D’Alessio, general manager at the Center for Accessible Media (CAM), will again serve as governor for the EMEA region and Central and South America. Q www.smpte.org
By Jon Burton IT WAS WITH sad news that I discovered recently that a very old and dear friend of mine had passed away. David ‘Tree’ Tordoff had been a colleague of mine for many years, firstly in his role as an enthusiastic student at Oxford Polytechnic, running the union PA system, and then working together at a local rental company, Tiger Hire. In later years, it was as a teacher that I came across Tree more frequently. When I parted company from Radiohead, it was Tree (pictured taking a class) who took over my role as monitor engineer, a job he did for many years. However, at some point the pressures of touring must have taken their toll, as he returned to education – a fact I only became aware of when I was giving a guest lecture with ‘Big’ Mick Hughes. We had been asked a particularly challenging question, to which I believe Mick had replied: “You would need to be a physics teacher to explain that!” “Which, luckily,”
Tree announced, “I am!” He then proceeded to give a very thorough explanation of the relevant laws and theory, leaving Mick and I silent on the sidelines. Q Read the full article at www.psneurope.com/training
A range of commercial packages are available Contact advertising manager Ryan O’Donnell on +44 (0) 20 7354 6000 or rodonnell@nbmedia.com
16 l November 2014
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technologynew products Jon Chapple compiles this month’s list of hot new products AVID
PRO TOOLS S3 What is it? A desktop control surface designed for smaller-sized or mobile studios.
create the highest-quality mixes and expand mixing capabilities and job opportunities”.
Details: Avid describes the S3 as “a streamlined, versatile mixing solution that gives sound engineers the powerful, intelligent control they need to work more ergonomically and efficiently,
And another thing: The S3 follows the VENUE S3L-X live desk as the latest product to be released under ‘Avid Everywhere’, the initiative announced at NAB in April 2014. www.avid.com
FOCUSRITE
MP8R, D16R, HD32R AND D64R
JBL PROFESSIONAL
708i AND 705i What is it? The first two models in JBL’s new 7 Series Master Reference Monitors. Details: The 8” and 5”, respectively, two-way installed monitors were developed for broadcast and postproduction facilities producing content in surround and immersive audio formats.
What is it? Four new products in Focusrite’s RedNet line of Dante-based interfaces. Details: MP8R is an eight-channel, remote-controlled mic pre; D16R is an AES/EBU interface; HD32R is a Pro Tools bridge; and D64R is a MADI bridge. And another thing: All four products, which feature dual Ethernet ports and two separate power supplies with fault-detection capability, will be available in Q2 2015. www.focusrite.com MASTER AUDIO
JK46A What is it? The Barcelona PA company’s first self-powered column array loudspeaker. Details: The JK46A is a 4 x 6” active column array loudspeaker system featuring carbon fibre-coned neodymium drivers, “audiophile-specified” Class-D power amplification and 48-bit programmable DSP control. And another thing: The speaker introduces “a revolutionary concept to small-to-medium fixed installation and mobile reinforcement,” according to Master Audio, “with its amazing LF response – down to 50Hz – enabling a compact column array to be deployed in a far wider range of applications and environments than would normally be the case”. www.master-audio.com
And another thing: “These models are the product of extensive R&D and collaboration with post and broadcast customers,” says Peter Chaikin, senior manager of recording and broadcast at JBL. “At AES, amazed responses to the performance of the 708i and 705i indicate we achieved our objective.” www.jblpro.com
RTW
MASTERING TOOLS What is it? The second plug-in in RTW’s Masterclass PlugIns line of software-based audio metering solutions. Details: Mastering Tools brings extensive analysis and display functions for mastering, metering and loudness measurement for single- and up to eight-channel applications as a plug-in for Windows and Mac OS platforms. And another thing: The Masterclass PlugIns range provides users with software versions of some of RTW’s most popular metering and measurement solutions. www.rtw.com
18 l November 2014
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SOUNDBITES xxx Oscar-winning production sound mixer Simon Hayes chose lavalier mics from DPA Microphones to record the Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy. Hayes, who first used DPA microphones as production sound mixer for the film adaptation of Mamma Mia! in 2008, has used DPA d:screet 4061 and 4071 miniature mics on every film he has worked on since, including Les Misérables (for which Hayes picked up Oscar and BAFTA awards for best sound mixing) and upcoming releases Tarzan, directed by David Yates. www.dpamicrophones.com www.simon-hayes.com
For the latest studio news www.psneurope.com/studio
UNITED KINGDOM
Epworth’s resurrected Church Studios complete The north London studio complex is open and fully functional. Dave Robinson joined the congregation Paul Epworth in Studio 2
The soundtrack to the video game Titanfall, the hit first-person shooter by Call of Duty developers Jason West and Vince Zampella’s Respawn Entertainment, was composed, mixed and mastered using a range of ATC reference monitors. The OST was a collaboration between Stephen Barton, an award-winning film and game composer responsible for the Shrek films and the Metal Gear Solid franchise; scoring engineer and mixer Alan Meyerson, most famous for his work on Hans Zimmer’s film music; and Gavin Lurssen, chief mastering engineer at Lurssen Mastering in Hollywood, California. www.atcloudspeakers.co.uk Nova Distribution has been appointed UK and Republic of Ireland distributor for boutique signal processor, mixer and amplifier specialist Chandler Limited. “This is a huge opportunity for Nova, and we intend to put every ounce of effort into moving forwards and upwards together,” says Nova’s Phil Skins. “We are keen to announce a special event at Abbey Road Studios early next year to showcase the next phase of development.” www.chandlerlimited.com www.nova-distribution.co.uk xxx Isle of Wight-based producer Andy Gray recently upgraded his Unity Audio Boulder MkI studio monitors to the new MkII specification. Unity says the MkII Boulder has “the same fast, tight transients […] now delivered with detailed sub frequencies, too, as the eight-inch woofers move a lot more air”. Gray comments: “The best just got better – no sub required!” www.unityaudio.co.uk
ONE OF THE most celebrated record producers of recent times, Paul Epworth, has completed the rejuvenation of The Church Studios in north London. The facility was officially launched to the wider industry at a party in late September. During 2014 this famous studio, whose previous owners include Dave Stewart and David Gray, has been transformed into a world-class facility. Epworth worked with the Walters-Storyk Design Group and Miloco Builds (the recently established studio design and implementation service) to present three brand-new, top-end studios built for the modern-day recording industry. The Church 1 is a large
tracking room with a suitably prestige spec. It is built around a 72-channel vintage EMI Neve console, which is a hybrid of two desks: one from Abbey Road, the other from the famous Pathé-Marconi studios in Paris. The main room resides in the old church hall and boasts a towering ceiling, original church windows, wooden beams and other furnishings, while one of the anterooms has been converted into a large recording space which can accommodate drums. Numerous nooks and crannies around the building can also be used in the recording process: for example, the old church spire, which can be used as an echo chamber. The Church 2 is a state-ofthe-art WSDG-designed SSL
studio with a newly re-capped SSL 4000G console and custombuilt Augspurger monitors with horn compression drivers and four 18” subs. The Church 3 is another room designed by John
Storyk of WSDG and built by Miloco Builds. This is Epworth’s new writing room, and comes equipped with topend kit including a Shadow Hills Industries The Equinox summing mixer and 20-channel Neve Sidecar, Yamaha Electric Piano and Avid HDX 2 running Pro Tools 10 HD (loaded with “an arsenal” of plug-ins). Church 3 is also tie-lined to the rest of the building. Del Rey, Lorde, Glass Animals, Rosie Lowe, FKA Twigs and U2 – whose Songs of Innocence album was partly produced by Epworth in The Church 1 – are just a few of the names to have worked in the facility since Epworth announced his plans to save the studio almost exactly a year ago. The Church opened to the industry on the evening of 26 September, with a party attended by clients, friends and staff from Miloco and WSDG, including John Storyk and his wife Beth. Q www.thechurchstudios.com www.miloco.co.uk www.wsdg.com
The official opening of the studios in September
Pictures credit: Dirk Noy
Studio
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Schimmer at his S6
studio
NETHERLANDS
The live room
Martijn audio A quartet of Avid S6s are just the tip of the iceberg in Amsterdam’s newest recording studio, as Jon Chapple discovers AS PSNEUROPE WALKS into the lobby of SMP Amsterdam, the new home of ASCAP Award-winning composer Martijn Schimmer’s SMP (Schimmer Music Productions), it’s hard not to be impressed. With a decor that’s part luxury apartment, part high-end antique showroom (a coffee bar made from CDs-in-formaldehyde is a particularly nice touch); a spacious live room kitted out with custom, movable Mutrox acoustic panels; and no less than four of Avid’s newest Pro Tools S6 modular mixing control surfaces in its newly refurbished, state-of-the-art studio spaces, it’s clear SMP is in Amsterdam for the long haul. Most famous outside of his native Netherlands for the theme music to TV singing competition The Voice – one of a number of Schimmer-scored Dutch television formats to have been exported worldwide (Deal or No Deal, Splash! and The Winner Is are others) – Schimmer has risen to become one of country’s the most sought-after composers and producers. Sixty per cent of SMP’s work is in television – “themes, series, idents, the news, channel branding,” says Schimmer – with another 30 coming from music for advertisements and 10 from “all sorts of [other] stuff”.
Schimmer says SMP is “starting to do more and more” advertising jingles – one of the reasons he moved the company to the capital from its former premises in Rotterdam. “If you want to do commercials in the Netherlands, you have to be Amsterdam,” he says. “Rotterdam is also nice, but it’s not where the creatives are. “You have two places: you have Hilversum, which is where the traditional broadcasters are, and you have more companies moving to Amsterdam because it’s a real city. More and more is happening here. A lot of the music talent is located around Amsterdam, too, so the drummers, the singers, etc., we work with, they’re all close.” As for the “all sorts of other stuff”, a major part is the five or so film scores Schimmer composes a year. However, he admits that “it’s not the best business”. “In Holland, it’s very difficult to get funds,” he says, “The budgets for movies are very, very tight and the budgets for the music are even tighter, so it can be difficult to produce something good. “Most of the time we want to record real strings, real stuff, but it’s hard to do it without a budget. So then you have to compromise – sometimes we do a combination of samples and real recordings, and if there’s too little budget we just
don’t do it, because it sounds like an unfinished product. It’s like painting a painting but the paint is already dry… you don’t have the flexibility to really fill it in the way it sounds in your head.” At this point, Schimmer plays PSNEurope through Focal studio monitors some of his recent compositions, including a section from the (surprisingly listenable) score to the Disneydistributed children’s film Fuchsia the Mini-Witch (Foeksia de miniheks) – recorded in Sofia but mixed in the Netherlands – along with the dance-influenced theme used by RTL Nieuws (RTL News). Referring to Foeksia, Schimmer explains: “We did the recording over there, then did the rest of the production in our own studio. Sometimes we have to pre-mix there, as there’s sometimes a deal for the recording and the mix, but [even then] we always take the Pro Tools session with us, and then most of the time do the mix again [in the Netherlands].” Schimmer hasn’t always been an Avid customer. When he started SMP, he was using a 16-track Akai disc recorder, and upgraded – rather unsuccessfully – to a Mackie recorder with analogue cards not long after. “It was during a movie I was doing – I think this was in 2000 or 2001 – and there
CDs… remember them?
was something wrong with the cards. So, I had an analogue bank in there and all kinds of sparks coming out of it! “I took it back to the store and they said: ‘Why are you messing around? You have to have Pro Tools.’ Back then, Avid only had the D Control, so I think I started using it with Pro Tools 6 or 7. I took one week’s holiday and they gave me the manual, because I didn’t know Pro Tools, so I was reading the manual on the beach and at night! Then I got back and I kind of knew the basic things – and that was my first [Avid] production. And I never left it.” In addition to having the first two S6s in the country, SMP was also the first to demo the
new desk at IBC2013 (“There was champagne involved,” Schimmer recalls). “S6 is different, but the learning curve hasn’t been too steep,” Schimmer says. “There’re more buttons in the space but it’s really nice. At first, it slows you down a little bit as you have to learn, but now it’s really speeding things up. “We really wanted S6 because we were in the process of moving here and we didn’t want to bring the old hardware and controllers in, so we kind of pushed Avid a little bit to get those first two consoles. And they haven’t been a disappointment.” Q www.smp-studio.nl www.avid.com
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Leonard-Morgan in his Glasgow studio
studio WORLD
Following the Hardline from film to game audio Michael Burns catches up with award-winning TV and film composer Paul Leonard-Morgan to discuss his soundtrack for EA’s upcoming first-person shooter Battlefield Hardline BAFTA AWARD-WINNING, Ivor Novello-nominated composer and musician Paul Leonard-Morgan (Dredd, Limitless, Walking with Dinosaurs) recently produced his first game soundtrack, scoring EA Games’ flagship $180 million (about £112m or €143m) release Battlefield Hardline. “I was approached by [publisher] EA early 2013 about the game,” LeonardMorgan tells PSNEurope from his Glasgow studio. “EA loved some of my previous soundtracks, and wanted to give the game a really urban score. They wanted to make it sound completely different from the previous Battlefield games.” Leonard-Morgan took advice from Paul Gorman, the game’s audio director, before starting out, and feels the process of writing music for games is completely different to a film soundtrack – not that this seemed to have posed a problem for the composer. “I’ve created a sound which we’re really excited about, [and] which I don’t think has been done in a game score before,” he explains. “It’s like
a band meets electronica meets vintage synths. It’s got a real edge to it.” STRATEGIC APPROACH The process started with a kind of audio mood board. “I would send over tracks on Spotify from my studios in Glasgow and LA to the audio guys in San Francisco and the music supervisor in Santa Monica, and they would do the same,” Leonard-Morgan reveals. “Gradually, we would have a huge playlist consisting of tracks which we felt were representative of the sound we were trying to create for the game.” Some of these tracks have gone on to be licensed from various bands for the game, but Leonard-Morgan said the process had been more about finding the right sonic identity for the project – and he reveals that the biggest help in approaching this new game direction was the score that he completed for Walt Disney Disney World’s Test Track ride last year. “It’s what we call non-linear,”
he explains. “Nothing will ever happen at the same time twice. If you’re scoring a film, the criminal’s always going to pull his gun out at the same time, and you score it like that. In a game, there are so many permutations. It works in layers. “Layer one tends to be what I call the ‘grabbing a beer’ layer. It bubbles along, and the player might leave his PS4 for five minutes and head to the kitchen. The music’s still going to be playing in the background. Then he’ll come back in and play. Suddenly, someone with a gun comes in, so we’ll ride up the faders for layer two. Layer three will be adding tension bigscale, and then layer four will be tons of drums and distortion, as there’s an epic shoot-out going on. But people play the game in their own time, so all these layers need to loop without people getting bored – they could be playing that one level for hours. “The other challenge is writing four pieces that all have to be able to loop and play at the same time, in case we raise the level of the fader at various
times. If the layers don’t work together, it’s going to sound like a total mess.” The Battlefield game project was created over a year, using a combination of Digital Performer and Pro Tools. “I sync three farm computers to my main Mac with Vienna Ensemble Pro,” explains Leonard-Morgan. “I use tons of plug-ins, in particular Delta Fuzz in Digital Performer, SoundToys and all the Waves plug-ins. The instruments are recorded into MOTU 2408s, a Hybrid 828 and an Avid Omni.” “The great thing about a score taking over a year to do is that I get to really experiment with sounds,” he continues. “I knew I needed an awesome drummer for the game, so I approached Josh Freese. We used a great-sounding studio in LA called The Fortress. It’s a huge room which, combined with Josh’s stupendous playing, sounds epic. We’ve done various sessions throughout the year. I would take his drums from one session,
chop them up and use them as guide for the next five or six tracks, then re-record him for these tracks at the next sessions. Josh is just a beast on the kit – so tight and inspirational.” Leonard-Morgan laid down guitar and bass tracks, but also turned to Ross Hamilton and Aaron Steinberg. “They’ve both done great stuff, “ says the composer. “Some really interesting sounds. I’ve worked with them for years – they did guitars and bass on Dredd and Limitless.” Deliverables for the game were 24-bit/48kHz BWAVs and stems. “I’ve also been delivering the ProTools session, so the guys at EA and my mixer all have to use the same plug-ins to make the session work smoothly,” says Leonard-Morgan. “I sometimes feel we’re keeping the plug-in industry in business between us – one of us will start using a new one, and then all of us will have to buy it!” Q www.paulleonardmorgan.com
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studio WORLD
The Kaotica Eyeball, one year on “It’s not a pop shield!” designer Konrad Zukowski tells Harry Powell, as he reveals future plans LAST MONTH MARKED the oneyear anniversary of the release of the Eyeball, a unique acoustic treatment device from independent studio accessories company Kaotica. The product, designed by Konrad Zukowski, isolates and channels sound directly to the microphone in order to accurately capture pure vocal tones while greatly reducing room reflections and ambient noise. Following a three-year development cycle, the Eyeball was launched in October 2013 at the 2013 CJM Music Marathon in New York City. In the short time the Eyeball has been on the market, it has been put to use by David Guetta, Ms Dynamite, South African dance group Goldfish and a number of established engineers and producers. The product has also proven popular with voiceover specialists, including one of the UK’s biggest, Peter Baker. Zukowski, who founded the Canadabased company in 2010, explains: “Rather than treating your surroundings, the
The Eyeball
Eyeball is designed to target the two most important variables in the recording process: your voice and the microphone. “By focussing your voice to an isolated microphone, the Eyeball is able to capture the complete spectrum of your voice and reduce much of the external environment, all the while giving you clear and concise vocals free of any colouration.” These qualities make the Eyeball perfect for artists that record either on the move or in difficult acoustic environments. Zukowski stresses that “the Eyeball is not a pop shield,” and is designed to capture professional-quality vocals. He recommends that a condenser microphone with a cardioid polar pattern be used in conjunction with the product. Although the Eyeball is currently the company’s only product on the market, Konrad revealed to PSNEurope that Kaotica is currently working on several new products, including a new design for front-address microphones like the Shure SM57. With those new products in the pipeline, Kaotica is in the process of relocating to Grand Rapids, Michigan, US, from its current headquarters in Toronto. Q www.kaoticaeyeball.com
Kaotica is a regular sponsor of the Western Canadian Music Awards in Winnipeg. Zukowski is on the right
24 l November 2014
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studio
Shure’s SRH940s in the studio
Canned goods The way we make and consume music has significantly changed over the last decade, but as Erica Basnicki finds out, there has never been a better time to be in the headphone business… IF YOU ATTENDED this year’s Pro Sound Awards, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is PSNEurope’s chance to poke fun at the marketing phenomenon that is Beats by Dre. It’s not. The distinct-looking (and sounding) headphones have been making headline news recently as American football players choose to stay loyal to the brand, even though Bose is “the official sound of the NFL”: their sponsorship deals are worth far more than the fines they must pay. The company’s success with consumers has also had a profound impact on the professional headphone market – and most would agree it’s been a positive one. Going back a few years, it was
the rise of mobile technology, beginning with the iPod, which created a space that allowed Beats by Dre to thrive. The explosion of portable devices has also changed not only how most music is consumed, but also how it’s being created. For some, this shift in the consumer world is having an impact on their pro products. Case in point: AKG’s K812 headphones, with an impedance of only 36 ohms “which is unusual for the high-end segment, but this makes the headphone also suitable for portable devices,” says Philipp Schuster, product manager for headphones. “It’s not intended for portable devices but you can use it. We found out from feedback from engineers and
musicians that many people nowadays start drafting their concepts of songs on their iPad. They have something like the Ableton Live app, where they can take quick notes about song ideas, if they do this they need headphones and they can use these.” This is not to say that the influence of the consumer market has fundamentally changed professional headphone technology in anyway. Every brand that participated in this feature unanimously upheld transparent, high-quality sound as being of primary importance when it came to the design of their product. If anything, sound quality is more important than ever: “One thing that seems to
Crowded house? AFTER OVER 20 YEARS experience in the microphone field, Blue Microphones has also recently taken the leap into the headphone sector, launching its Mo-Fi headphones late this summer. As CEO John Maier explains “we were only going to enter the category if we had something truly different to offer. As studio monitors
have by and large transitioned from passive to active, thereby providing a host of sonic and workflow benefits to recordists everywhere, we saw an opportunity to bring that innovation to headphones. “There is no question that some segments of the headphone market have been inundated with choices. However, we believe there are
have changed is that young producers have grown up with high quality headphones,” says Tom Harrold, EMEA marketing manager at Audio-Technica. The company launched a refined version of its M-Series range in Frankfurt earlier this year, with improved earpads and detachable cables… but there has been no change to its classic sound. “They’re used to excellent audio quality in general, and expect that when they’re tracking, mixing or DJing – so there’s no room for poor-performing headphones in today’s market.” Where the goal posts have really moved is how much companies can now charge for said sonic quality. “Fashion” headphones can cost upwards
of €200. That’s more than the beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro is currently retailing for online, and those headphones are well known to be used at the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge amongst other professional applications. For that, the pro industry owes a lot to the consumer world, says Thomas Walsh, business development manager at Polar Audio (distributor for beyerdynamic): “As much as people might want to dismiss it, Beats has done everyone a favour in regards to price point. It just makes one slightly jealous of the numbers they sold in their heydaym you know? [Laughs]” Simon Beesley, product manager at Sennheiser UK, agrees: “I think some of these
Blue’s Mo-Fi cans
definitely un-met needs in the headphone space, and we have sought to develop a product to meet those needs. Innovation is important catalyst of change and can disrupt any existing market. Our mission is to combine technology with Blue’s unique innovation to benefit our customers in truly compelling ways.”
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New market model? Peter James, managing director of Shure Distribution UK consumer headphones are unbelievably expensive when you consider what people are willing to pay for them. Then you look at the equivalent ‘pro’ headphone: OK, it may not be as fashionable, but from a sound quality point of view it’s as good if not better, and it’s a lower price. That’s the price of fashion.” Luckily, kids grow up. Like many in the pro market, Walsh is confident that “when they’re a little bit older, they’re going to be looking for a more grown-up style headphone.” What continues to be important is educating the next generation of audio professionals about what good audio actually sounds like. “We do trade shows and we’ll have students who are maybe on an audio course come and they plug in their phone or whatever and listen to our headphones in the pro range, and it’s almost an enlightening experience for them,” says Beesley. “They say, ‘Wow, that sounds so different!’ and we have to explain to them that that’s exactly what it should sound like.” Leaving the ripple effect of consumers behind, if there has
been a change in the professional headphone market, it is just how much engineers are relying on them to do their work. As Peter James, managing director of Shure Distribution UK, explains: “Now that people are listening to music far more on headphones, there are a number of producers and mixers who are considering the way music is consumed during production. It doesn’t affect all genres, but a lot of music is consumed in that style. “That’s a great opportunity for us: the more people who think using headphones is a great way to master can only want to improve their sound over time and come back to the pro brands.” But for some music makers, it’s a worrying trend. Awardwinning DJ and turntablist Killer Tom (aka Tom Clugston) notes that “people are now mixing down music and asking ‘does it sound good on your Mac speakers?’ People will EQ bass lines to have more high-end. Bass lines that are going up beyond middle C, which is clearly not bass.” Flare Audio’s founder Davies Roberts agrees: “Studio Philipp Schuster, AKG product manager for headphones, with the K812s
FLARE AUDIO’S R1 Reference headphones have broken the mold (pardon the pun) of traditional headphone manufacturing, putting the emphasis on a distortionfree driver, rather than the headphone set as a whole. According to Roberts, both closed and open backed headphones suffer from sound distortions in some way, caused by enclosed residual pressure interference. Flare’s “vortex silencing technology” removes this interference, leading to a distortion-free sound. Says Roberts: “It’s a highly simple technology that will only be cheaper to make. Because it’s all about the vortices, it means you only make one piece out of plastic, pop the driver in and away you go. Whereas traditional headphones you have a molded exterior piece and all kinds of bits inside to control the distortion. Because we’ve identified how to get rid of the distortion, you don’t need any of that and it’s just plain, simple material.” It’s a piece of technology that Roberts says has caught they eye of “several large companies” but that “when you’re bringing a new technology to the market, the problem is the technology, not the product. If it’s completely new technology, people are hesitant to buy into it until they
engineers have been compressing and adjusting their mix to suit substandard sound systems, and so I think the bigger challenge is to stop the use of substandard sound systems, and get rid of distortion.” This has been Roberts’ aim ever since founding Flare Audio. When the company first began developing loudspeakers, Roberts says he realised distortion didn’t just affect loudspeakers, it affects every speaker, right down to the ones in our mobile phones. His claim is that the company’s patented Space and Vortex technologies eliminate that distortion, and that “once we developed the pro product range, work started on taking the technology down into small devices, and the obvious one was to do next was headphones,” he
Flare Audio’s Davies Roberts understand the technology.” An initial run of 200 headphones are currently being manufactured, but Roberts hopes a Kickstarter campaign – designed to educate the wider public about the new technology, as well as fund smaller versions for earbuds,
says. Flare Audio’s Reference R1 headphones were launched at this year’s PLASA Show. In addition to taking his company in a business direction new to the headphone industry (see boxout), Roberts is also ready to challenge sound professionals’ sonic preferences. “What I’ve noticed is that sound is only personal when it comes to distortion,” he says. “If you play something that’s completely undistorted, generally, everybody likes it. I think if you study sound as your job, you can get into a bit of a blinkered focus on what you think you want.” Changing anyone’s idea of what they want to hear is an ongoing challenge for every pro-audio headphone manufacturer: it is a difficult task to pry an engineer away from
phones etc. – will attract enough attention to get other companies to apply for a license. “This is not over-complex voodoo. This is a very simple breakthrough in understanding that you just needs to be applied in the right way”
the consistency and reliability of a product they know well. But there is uniform optimism that as headphones continue to dominate people’s listening experience – professionals and consumers alike – sound quality will win out over, say, the colour purple. “Underneath it all we can understand good stuff,” says Peter James. “We do recognise distorted sound, and we can generally accept when something is better and will always want that.” Q www. akg.com www.audio-technica.com www.beyerdynamic.com www.djkillertom.com ZZZ ÁDUHDXGLR FRP ZZZ PRÀKHDGSKRQHV FRP ZZZ SRODUDXGLR FR XN ZZZ VHQQKHLVHU FRP ZZZ VKXUHGLVWULEXWLRQ FR XN
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For the latest broadcast news www.psneurope.com/broadcast
broadcast SOUNDBITES Dynamics Processing, a new white paper by Jünger Audio outlining in detail the different types of design associated with dynamics processing, has been added to NewBay Connect. The white paper also examines a dynamics processing paradigm. NewBay Connect, launched in August, is a digital resource library by PSNEurope publisher NewBay Media for the pro-audio, broadcast and pro-AV sectors. www.junger-audio.com www.newbayconnect.com Two days after the close of IBC2014, as residents of Scotland went to polling stations to answer the question “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, the BBC was relying heavily on talkback provided by Hampshirebased intercom supplier Trilogy Communications for its coverage of the independence referendum. Trilogy’s main system had been installed in Glasgow, Scotland, and linked to the company’s flagship Gemini intercom system at the BBC’s OB operation at Elstree Studios, Hertforshire, using Gemini’s IP and distributed matrix connectivity. Gemini was used at Elstree for internal comms, OB clean feeds and four-wire circuits. www.trilogycomms.com The International Association of Broadcasting Manufacturers (IABM) last month announced the results from its Global Market Valuation and Strategy Report, a joint venture with Devoncroft Partners. The report revealed that, following a compounded annual growth of 3.6 per cent over the previous four years, the global broadcast and media technology industry was worth $39 billion (£24.2bn or €30.5bn) in 2012, and is projected to grow to $44.3 billion (£27.4bn or €34.7bn) in 2017. www.iabmdc.com BBC Studios and Post Production (S&PP) is providing full studio facilities, post-production services and technical support from Elstree Studios for the 12th series of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. A bespoke editing complex features 10 Avid Symphony suites to meet the programme’s fast-turnaround post-production requirements. www.bbcstudiosandpost production.com
WORLD
Getting immersed in sound at IBC
The SpatialSound Control app, developed by Fraunhofer
Full spatial surround sound has been a ‘nearly’ technology for years. But, as Kevin Hilton reports, developments on show at September’s IBC exhibition may point to it finally entering the mainstream 3D WAS THE BIG THING at IBC2008. You couldn’t move for camera rigs and video displays specially designed for the deeper, immersive format. Stereoscopic imaging in TV has stalled since then and so had a much lower profile during this year’s show, but the 3D concept was kept alive as more audio developers presented different ways to recreate a true spatial sound experience. In cinema world, Dolby Labs is already there with Atmos, and the object-based format is now being made available on Bluray Discs through extensions to the Dolby Digital Plus 7.1/5.1 technology that is standard to the delivery format. The company’s development of discrete-channel, more realistic surround sound began in the mid-1990s with AC-3 coding, the basis of the original Dolby Digital 5.1 system. At IBC2014, Dolby demoed AC-4, which is not so much a successor to AC-3 as a way to deliver multichannel audio to provide additional features for both broadcasters and viewers. AC-4 is also object-based and designed to help create “engaging and personalised sports programming” and support multiple languages, as well as provide “adaptive 360-degree audio experiences anywhere, on any device”. The personalisation element,
explains Tarif Sayed, director of broadcast services for Dolby, is intended to go further than current channel-based ‘red button’ interactive services and use the many different streams offered by AC-4 to deliver alternative commentary and effects options. “If I’m watching a sport like international hockey, I can choose the language of the broadcast commentary, or have a biased fan commentating with the sound of his team’s supporters for background, or the comments of a coach, or just effects,” Sayed says. The technology was submitted to ETSI in May but no installs have yet been confirmed. Research into immersive audio was at one time driven by the growth in 3D imagery. Now that is less of a consideration in broadcast – if not completely a dead duck – 4K/Ultra High Definition is seen as the obvious visual partner for any spatial sound system in TV. Japanese public broadcaster NHK has been at the forefront of R&D for 4K and now 8K transmission, with 22.2 sound the audio accompaniment. What is not widely known is that 22.2 is based on Fairlight’s 3D Audio Workspace (3DAW). Fairlight’s chief technical officer, Tino Fibaek, explains that NHK defined what they wanted in terms of loudspeakers
and some tools but that the Australian company developed the rest. A key component of 3DAW is the AirPan user interface, which enables sound elements to be placed in the soundscape using a Virtual Reality positioning controller. Fibaek comments that soundtracks can be mixed in 3DAW or on audio workstations including Pro Tools and Nuendo. There is also the option to master finished projects in other immersive formats; as well as NHK 22.2, Atmos and DTS MDA are now part of the programme, while Auro-3D signed up at IBC. The target for the developer of any emerging technology is industry recognition through an international standard. The IBC Future Zone had demonstrations of EMCA-407, which is able to carry NHK 22.2 (demonstrated with 4K video on the broadcaster’s own stand nearby) at 256kb a second over satellite links and 4K HEVC (high efficiency video coding). The technology was shown by France Télévisions, satellite operator SES and low bitrate audio coding specialist Swissaudec, all of which have been working in conjunction with IBC, ECMA International, video compression developer ATEME, Mayah Communications, 3D audio producer Tom Ammermann’s
New Audio Technology, EPF Lausanne and the Virtual Acoustics Technology lab at McGill University in Montreal. Research institute Fraunhofer IDMT has been developing an immersive audio technology over the last few years and at IBC showed the latest additions to its work, an intuitive user interface. The SpatialSound system range comprises two systems for different applications: Stage, which allows the sound to follow the movement of individual actors in a live performance; and Wave for “compact and efficient spatial sound reproduction in mobile or fixed installations”. The new introduction is Control, an interface for both systems that allows PCs, tablets or smartphones to be used in the production and demonstration of immersive audio as well as live staging. Spatial sound is a cinematic reality and theatre and live events are following suit. Whether broadcast also embraces it is less certain, particularly as uptake depends on transmission practicalities and the willingness of consumers to fill their living rooms with loudspeakers. But the potential is there... Q www.dolby.com www.ecma-international.org www.fairlight.com.au www.idmt.fraunhofer.de
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BELGIUM
Licht en Liefde sees the light with Axia
The Laeken control room equipped with the DESQ console
The installation of a DESQ digital console in the book reading studio of the Flanders non-profit allows studio staff to double the recording volume, reports Marc Maes LICHT EN LIEFDE is a non-profit organisation formed to help the blind and visually impaired, one of whose
activities is recording books and manuscripts in audio formats. It operates six studios in Flanders, with one or two
voice booths each. In September, the Laeken, Brussels, studio was the first of Licht en Liefde’s facilities be equipped with a configuration. The Laeken studio produces some 120 audiobooks per year, and consists of a control room and two voice booths. The modal design of the voice booths allows for their relocation if necessary. “We opted for an Axia DESQ because of its remote-control option, which allows us to monitor the status of the console; control and programming of faders and presets; and the backup and restor[ing] of settings,” says Hannes Roygens, IT engineer at Licht en Liefde (the English name being ‘Solidarity in Sight’, although this is not a direct translation). “And then there’s the Livewire solution, establishing a fully digital audio signal between the console and the recording PC, resulting in less interference. Last but not least, the Axia serves two recording booths, allowing simultaneous
recording of two sessions and doubling the content output.” Roygens adds that the remote-control aspect of the Axia is crucial, not only for the central studio staff in Varsenare, but because in future the association plans to include blind or visually impaired people as studio staffers. “The Laeken studio is a pilot-project – the idea is to gradually replace the analogue consoles in our studios with the DESQ, allowing us to install presets and backups, making operation easy for everyone.” The Axia is connected, via Livewire, to a PC equipped with DAISY recording software (developed for the visually impaired). “The DAISY content is stored as WAV files on our server; two engineers in our main studio in Varsenare then edit the audio files and prepare them for playback on DAISY readers,” explains Dirk Declercq, coordinator of the Licht en Liefde studios. Edo Dijkstra of TVV Sound supplied and installed the configuration for the recording studio in Laeken. “Alongside the Axia DESQ, we also put in place two Neumann TLM 102 microphones, directly connected with the Axia core, a Monacor ECM-500 talkback microphone and two beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO headsets. Another asset of the Axia is that the remote control allows intervention from our offices, PCs or even smartphones, ensuring 100 per cent backup.” Following the Laeken installation, Declercq plans to bring the organisation’s Varsenare and Ghent studios to the Axia platform next year. Q www.axiaaudio.com www.tvvsound.be
A Neumann TLM 102 in one of the Laeken voice booths
Photos: Marc Maes
broadcast
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broadcast UNITED KINGDOM
Ofcom plans small-scale DAB tests for 2015 Broadcasting regulator Ofcom has published a consultation document on digital radio for smaller commercial and community stations, which, as Kevin Hilton reports, could extend the UK’s digital radio infrastructure THE RADIO ACADEMY Festival TechCon is intended to highlight emerging and maturing technologies that could make an impact on the industry. This year’s event, held in Salford during October, looked at Audio over IP, personalised radio and a whole host of apps but a more established format more than held its own. According to Peter Davies, Ofcom’s director of content policy, the existing DAB model for radio stations covering whole counties or large towns, with three to four or even more transmitters working to the “broadcast gold standard”, did not make sense for the 150 or
so small-scale broadcasters and 250-plus community services in the UK. Ofcom is now looking at how these smaller operations could go digital and, Davies said, “not be left behind”. The beginnings of this were in an experimental multiplex based on Raspberry Pi designed by Rashid Mustapha, senior associate with the regulator’s Spectrum Policy Group, and tested in Brighton from September 2012 to January 2013. “That excited us at Ofcom,” Davies commented, “and the government was so interested it gave Ofcom £500,000 to try to develop this as a solution for small-scale stations.”
One result of this investment is a, $85 device developed by Mustapha that is capable of taking “traditional audio”, an IP feed or signals from a satellite receiver and then performing audio coding and multiplexing. This would connect to an up-connector, costing around $150, which converts the feed into RF and drives the amplifier. “We think that with this system the total capital costs of producing an end-to-end system would be £5,000 to £6,000,” Davies stated. The Brighton test was also intended to show what frequencies would be available for small-scale DAB. Davies
acknowledged that there are not enough frequencies in Band 3 to give all smaller stations their own spectrum space, so “multiplexing is going to be required”. While existing spectrum is limited Davies said Ofcom hopes to be able to release up to another seven blocks of Band 3 to be used at low power. Further technology and viability test will take place in two phases. The first will be technical trials at Ofcom’s radio monitoring station in Baldock, Hertfordshire to see if the proposed system will work on a single frequency network and that the software works on commercial available equipment.
There will be a demonstration of this work at Baldock on 6 November. The second level will involve the industry with what Davies called “stakeholder trials”. This started with the consultation period, which will determine how the tests are carried out. Test services will operate under Wireless Telegraphy Act licences, with the closing date for applications possibly sometime in March 2015. “People will have to be ready to go on air 12 weeks later,” Davies said. The trials will last for nine-months, with final reports published round the end of 2016. Q www.ofcom.org.uk
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broadcast
The Sauber C32 during pre-season testing in Jerez, Spain, 2013 Photo: Dani Reinhard
WORLD
Fast masters Jon Chapple talks to the noise boys bringing the sound of Formula 1 to the small screen EVEN SINCE MAN could drive, man has raced. Motor racing in all its myriad forms has long held a mysterious allure to all but the most hardened motor-phobe, and nowhere is that pull stronger than at the undisputed ‘pinnacle of motorsport’, Formula 1. Even George Harrison, the ‘quiet one’ – he of Transcendental Meditation, Radha Krishna Temple and spending-the-last30-years-of-his-life-quietlygardening fame – was a longtime devotee of the sport, writing it a slightly bizarre paean dedicated to “Niki [Lauda], Jody [Scheckter], Emerson [Fittipaldi] and the gang”, Faster, in 1976 (sample lyric: “Faster than a bullet from a gun/ he is faster than everyone”). Times have changed since the late-seventies heydays of Harrison’s idols – the 1976 season, won by playboy extraordinaire James Hunt, comprised 16 races, with just six (the Brazilian, South African, Canadian, United States, United States West and Japanese grands prix) taking place outside of the sport’s traditional European heartland – meaning the sound engineers involved with broadcasting the worldwide, multimillion-pound modern Formula 1 behemoth face a rather more daunting task than their luxuriantly moustachioed forebears. “Reliability is absolutely key, and global support can be critical,” says Alan Bright, director of operations for
Presteigne Broadcast Hire, which is currently in its first year of a four-year F1 outside broadcast contract with BBC Sport. “We also need to be flexible throughout the technical process, from the frequencies we might be allocated to adapting our operation for additional guests or extended coverage.” Presteigne also supplies technical facilities for the BBC’s USP Content-produced F1 radio coverage and “some equipment and staff” to Tata Communications to support its broadcast operations. “As all our presenters have to be able to interact with each other, delay can be an issue,” Bright continues, “so low latency is important, too. We thoroughly tested several competing products before making our [equipment] choice.” As reported on PSNEurope.com in April, Presteigne has supplied the BBC with a Wisycom wireless audio and IEM solution (comprising MRK960 twochannel receivers, MTH400 handheld microphones, MTB40 plug-ins and MTP40 beltpack transmitters, with in-ear monitoring via MTK952 dual transmitters and MPR30 truediversity receivers) for pit lane walkabouts, pieces to camera and paddock interviews – but which other manufacturers does the company rely on on a dayto-day basis? “In addition to the Wisycom kit, we use a Lawo mc256 sound desk, Riedel Artist talkback system [and] a Riedel
“Our unique combination of being a manufacturer but also having a rental and service division makes our offering very interesting for the players in F1” Christian Bockskopf, Riedel MediorNet fibre distribution system, which we use for routing most of our signals between distribution points,” Bright says. “We use a combination of Hytera and Motorola radios with Hytera and Tait base stations. In the production and sound control rooms we have Genelec speakers, and there is Wohler monitoring in the edit suites.” Presteigne and the BBC are not alone when it comes to their use of Riedel equipment. Quite the opposite: Riedel Communications, which entered Formula 1 in 1993 as a humble local supplier of radios for German grands prix, is now the sport’s undisputed king of communications. Today, all 11 teams – from Mercedes at the sharp end of the grid to perpetual backmarkers Caterham – plus governing body the FIA, commercial rights-holder Formula One Management (FOM) and “most broadcasters” use its Artist intercom systems, and the company sends at least 15 engineers to every race on the 19-date Formula 1 calendar. “Riedel’s unique combination of being a manufacturer but also having a rental and service division makes our offering very interesting for the players in F1,” comments Riedel marketing manager Christian Bockskopf. “Many of them also use MediorNet for signal distribution [and] radio solutions, as well as RiLink, [our] premium data
line service, which broadcasters use to transmit their main TV programme feeds to their home stations and teams to connect their racetrack operations to their factories.” A major challenge for Presteigne on race day is achieving consistent coverage throughout the paddock, pitlane and grid using an increasingly congested RF spectrum. “There are around 20 other broadcasters from around the world, plus the host broadcaster, all wanting a slice of the available RF spectrum,” explains Bright, “and of course they all want to get to the teams and drivers.” He also highlights the necessity of choosing reliable kit that will withstand the pressures of the punishing F1 schedule: “The equipment has to function perfectly for what is often in excess of eight hours of live television over a race
weekend. “We have five presenters and a commentary operation, and everybody has to be able to hear and preferably see what is going on and contribute as required. Then it all has to be packed up and flown to the next destination, where it is all rigged ready for the next race.” The BBC is this season covering nine races live and 10 as extended highlights. Although Presteigne sends a larger technical team to ‘live’ races (13 people, as opposed to 11 for ‘highlights’ grands prix), Bright says the highlights programmes “are treated almost identically to the live transmissions”, as “we very rarely get a second chance at a driver interview, for example”. The same equipment is also flown to each grand prix, ‘live’ or otherwise. “F1 is the most challenging
BBC Sport interviews 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button using equipment supplied by Presteigne Broadcast Hire
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broadcast environment I have had the pleasure of working within,” comments Ryan Campbell, senior projects engineer at Gearhouse Broadcast, which was awarded the contract to build a series of interconnecting flyaway pods for Sky Sports F1 in October 2011. Campbell echoes Alan Bright’s comments on the difficulty of competing for a slice of the available radio spectrum – one that is continually shrinking as more and more broadcasters from around the world send teams to cover the historically Eurocentric sport. “With hundreds of broadcast crews from various regions, the need for working with each other is key to the success of the project,” he says. “For example, some races have upwards of 2,000 frequencies required to work together, which definitely keeps us busy!” Gearhouse’s Sky Sports F1 audio system bears many similarities to the BBC’s,
based as it is around a Lawo mc256 desk, Wisycom radio mic receivers, Riedel 128 frame, Dolby 5.1 hardware and Genelec 8030 monitoring. “Having longstanding relationships with the suppliers of the above equipment provides an ‘open-door’ policy when customising enhanced operator interfaces,” explains Campbell. “At this level of broadcasting. this is essential for Gearhouse to facilitate Sky Sports with an extremely flexible system.” Presentation microphones are primarily SM58 capsules bolted on to Wisycom MTH400 transmitters – chosen to “minimise the background noise associated with F1,” according to Campbell – and Sennheiser SK2000 IEM transmitters based in the audio pod feed from a Riedel matrix. Audio-Technica AT835 stereo microphones, fitted to all four RF cameras and rigged in both the pitlane and paddock, provide what Campbell describes as “the 5.1
‘glue’”, while a radio mic, IEM and Motorola radio talkback system is supplied by Wireless Works UK. “Key to the radio mic system are K&L handtuneable bandpass RF filters,” explains Campbell. “These help reject unwanted RF from our 12 backpack and high-powered kits. “In addition to the highpowered backpacks, we use custom-built – by Paul Murray of Audio Assist Ltd – highpower kits comprising a Saras one-watt RF amplifier, aluminium frame, Wisycom MTP40 transmitter and Anton Bauer battery and mount. These are belt-mounted and used, for example, for Martin Brundle’s famous gridwalk and for highquality floor manager replies.” Gearhouse sends a small team of about 10 engineers and riggers to every race (Sky Sports F1 has the rights to broadcast live in the UK all 19 grands prix), and Campbell himself has attended “all but two races
Riedel communications equipment on the Ferrari pitwall over the last three years”. Commenting on the effects of that much travelling on one’s personal life – the 2014 Formula 1 season runs from 16 March to 23 November, taking in races on five continents – he says: “I can only speak for myself when I say that travelling so much for work takes its toll on relationships. I think the key is to make very moment count when you are home.” “It’s a long time for the crew to be away from their families,” agrees Bright, but says Presteigne “[tries] to ensure we have enough staff so people
can take a break from the tour when needed”. He adds: “There is a strong spirit of camaraderie amongst all the staff who work long-term on F1, and we all try and help each other out when we can.” “[Our] pros travel from race to race [but] there are gaps in the schedule where they can make it home for a few days,” concludes Christian Bockskopf. “It is not always an easy life – but the benefits are usually worth it!” Q www.formula1.com www.gearhousebroadcast.com www.presteigne.tv www.riedel.net
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broadcast GREEN IS GO FOR FAL SYSTEMS THE FIRST RACE of the 2014 FIA Formula E Championship took place at the Beijing Olympic Green street circuit in China in September, launching a new era of eco-friendly racing in one of the world’s most polluted cities. The battery-powered racing series, which requires lighter, leaner broadcast facilities that use less power, posed a challenge for Leeds, UK-based systems integrator FAL Systems, which was commissioned to build the system by Hayfisher Productions, with Formula E as host broadcaster, in collaboration with Aurora Media. The entire system is built into seven intermodal pods, each measuring approximately 3m x 3m x 2m,” says FAL technical director Andy Unsworth. “Four are used for technical facilities – engineering/MCR, camera control, replay and sound – and the other three for storage of equipment, with FAL providing over 100 custom designed flightcases [in total]. The production area is supplied as a flightcased flyaway system, and is built up at each venue
into a dedicated cabin.” Explaining the company’s choice of equipment, Unsworth comments: “After looking at several options, it was decided that the central hub of the system would have to be a hybrid router. Once we’d decided on the Miranda NV8280 router, that paved the way for other equipment decisions [and] Miranda was able to offer an integrated solution with its Kaleido-Modular-X units – these are controlled by the router controller and effectively become part of the router. “Each of the main track cameras has a provision for up to four track mics per camera position. The final position and quantity of microphones for each camera will be decided by the sound team on site. The cameras only have two analogue mic inputs on each head, but it also has an AES input, so we got Chris Thorpe at CTP Systems to build us some custom mic amps – these have two high-quality mic amps with variable mic gain, pad, 48 volts and a high-pass filter and are powered from the local
12-volt DC output on the camera head with an AES output for connection to the camera.” FAL Systems also supplied Røde trackside mics; two Yamaha CL5 desks (“one handling the race effects and the other handling the in-vision reporters, music feeds and commentary”); Focusrite RedNet boxes; Sennheiser radio mics and Lectrosonics IEMs for the pitlane
reporters; Sonifex CM-CU21s, with a choice of beyerdynamic DT 290s or Coles lip mics, to handle commentary; Clear-Com Eclipse HX-PiCo matrices for talkback; Genelec 8040 monitors for main monitoring. The inaugural Formula E season concludes with its ninth race, the London ‘ePrix’, on 27 June 2015. www.falsystems.co.uk www.fiaformulae.com
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live SOUNDBITES Out Board, the company behind the TiMax2 SoundHub and TiMax Tracker audio processing, playback and show control automation products, has appointed FACE as its exclusive distributor for the Netherlands. “We are very happy to widen our Benelux distribution of TiMax products, which we have already represented in Belgium for some years,” Karel de Piere, FACE CEO, comments. “TiMax fits well with our other high-quality brands and suits perfectly our core activities in system solutions and integration.” www.face.be www.outboard.co.uk The Royal National Theatre in London has purchased six Optocore DD4MR-FX converters from dealer HD Pro Audio. The converters, acquired after the arts venue recognised a need for highercapacity MADI streams, have been deployed as MADI interfaces for its DiGiCo SD7T and SD10T consoles. The DD4MR-FX’s first outing was on the new David Byrne and Fatboy Slim musical Here Lies Love (with sound design by ML Dogg and Cody Spencer), which has transferred from New York’s Public Theater. www.optocore.com Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, celebrated its 60th birthday last month by releasing a video showing seven scientist musicians playing ‘data’ from Large Hadron Collider experiments. The music is based on the translation into melody (sonification) of scientific data collected by the four main Large Hadron Collider experiments. Watch the video at www.psneurope.com/ large-hadron The weekend of 14 September was the busiest of the year for Martin Audio’s MLA system, with no fewer than 170 enclosures fielded by Capital Sound at the Proms in the Park concert in Hyde Park, west London, and a starring role at the Invictus Games closing concert at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in the east of the city. The latter combined presentations to the wounded and injured British servicemen who competed with a full concert line-up featuring Foo Fighters, Ellie Goulding and Kaiser Chiefs. www.martin-audio.com
For the latest live news www.psneurope.com/live
UNITED KINGDOM
Sound of Music takes first Nexo M28 package The Derby PA hire company is the first UK customer for the new STM module, writes Dave Robinson DERBY-BASED PA hire company Sound of Music has become the first UK customer for Nexo’s new M28 module, the more recent addition to the French loudspeaker manufacturer’s multi-purpose STM sound reinforcement system launched in 2012. Sound of Music’s acquisition was revealed at a special ‘double launch day’ at a polo club in the UK Midlands last month, where Nexo presented both the M28 and the GEO M6 linesource cabinets to an invited audience of press and industry professionals. With a series of presentations and music demos – both in the club’s main hall and out in the open air – Nexo’s Stuart Kerrison, Gareth Collyer and Mathieu Pobeda established how the two new speakers bring added flexibility, compact power, ergonomic design and durability to Nexo’s catalogue. “We’re the first UK owner of the M28,” Sash Pochibko, Sound of Music’s founder, told PSNEurope during a break in the demo day’s proceedings. “The whole modular, scaleable thing was very attractive.” Pochibko had not subscribed to STM thinking – ‘Scale Through Modularity’ – until recently, he noted. In fact, he reckoned he hadn’t heard M28 or any of the other modules before making the order. “We just like the last two Nexo systems we’ve bought, so we went on the reputation of the brand. It’s always been a system that sounds great straight out of the crate. You set it up and turn
it on and it sounds excellent, which very few systems do. It’s a big hi-fi, Nexo. It doesn’t sound like a PA system.” Now in its 13th year, Sound of Music’s calendar highlights include a ‘classical spectacular’ show in Derby for 30,000, and the BBC Introducing stage at the Leeds/Reading Festival (which the outfit has supplied for nine years). A wily Pochibko bagged the URL www.pahire.com for his operation before anyone else woke up to the importance of a memorable website. “Our main brand has always been Nexo – though we have some smaller KV2 stuff,” he says. “A Nexo house: that’s what the customers know us as.” Sound of Music has carried 34 boxes of S12 since 2006. Pochibko’s recent purchase comprises four STM ‘groundstacks’, each comprising one S118 sub module, one B112 bass, and three M28 tops (20 cabs in total). He notes: “A lot of this [purchase] will be used as direct replacement for our GEO S12 rig we’ve been using for compact corporate stuff. At the Derby gig, for instance, we put six M28s and two B112 Bass modules per side for the main hangs which were covering an area 250m wide by 120m deep. It wasn’t rock’n’roll volume, but for classical and vocal intelligibility it’s a ridiculously small amount of PA for a ridiculously large number of people. Its capability astounded us! The client was concerned
Sound of Music founder Sash Pochibko with M28s flown (behind)
whilst we were setting up and asked where the rest of the PA was… Until he heard it!” Pochibko adds that the M28 makes business sense for his company: “The logistics of it: transporting it around, prepping it at the warehouse, the integration of STM as a package, rather than using bits of this and bits of that… it just works.” Some of Sound of Music’s kit was integrated into a demo rig, built to exhibit the throw of an STM system in a real-world example, during the launch day. Nexo’s team hung 24 M28 modules (24 per side) on portable towers, complemented by 12 S118 subs arranged in pairs, in one of the venue’s polo fields. A variety of playback material – notably Rage Against the Machine’s bruising Fistful of Steel – captured the power and fidelity of the new speaker. The morning of the
September demo day focussed on the GEO M6 line-source speaker. Mathieu Pobeda, electroacoustic engineer at Nexo SA, said this of the cabinet: “The design brief said that it should be elegant and powerful, with all the Nexo science ‘squeezed’ into a small package. And it should integrate nicely with all environments. “I took onboard a lot of the comments from people that will specify the room and the staging, rather than the sound guys – the staging people didn’t want the M6 to be too intrusive in their environment. That’s what we had to achieve and yet still give good performance soundwise.” “M6 is an important move for Nexo in the installation sector. We want to come to that market with a narrow but powerful unit that will integrate well.” Q www.nexo-sa.com www.pahire.com
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live UNITED KINGDOM
Soundcraft Vi range rocks summer festival circuit The Vi6 was deployed by Adlib at Creamfields, Kendall Calling and Wakestock, while Phonophobia and SSE made use of the Vi3000, writes Jon Chapple
UNITED KINGDOM THE BELIEVERS, which recently completed a successful run at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London, featured sound design by Carolyn Downing, who used a TiMax Soundhub audio showcontrol matrix to create a complex and sometimes awkward soundscape to complement the unsettling nature of the play. “The crescendo of the performance is marked by this montage
of sounds moving all around,” Downing explains. “The effect I wanted was confusion, and what TiMax enabled us to do really intensified that. The audience struggled to grasp where any of the sounds were actually coming from, and in darkness it was a very disorienting experience in every seat of the auditorium.” www.outboard.co.uk www.carolyndowning.co.uk
BOTH THE Vi6 and newly introduced Vi3000 FOH consoles by Soundcraft saw plenty of use during this summer’s festival season. The Vi6 was deployed by hire company Adlib at festivals including Creamfields, the Liverpool International Music Festival, Kendall Calling and Wakestock. Adlib director and project manager Dave Jones says: “We’ve had a very busy festival period this summer. Within the chaotic nature of festival slots and quick turnarounds, it’s important that we have a desk that we can trust to perform solidly and reliably in varying conditions. The Soundcraft Vi6 has been a flawless performer for us.”
Meanwhile, Kent-based Phonophobia has made extensive use of the 96-channel, Danteequipped Vi3000. Mark Chant, MD of Phonophobia, comments: “The Vi3000 was an exciting addition to our rental stocks. Already having a Soundcraft infrastructure helped it slot in perfectly to our rental, show and touring operations. The console was sent to work straight away, and we are all so pleased with its performance and the response we are receiving from clients and guest engineers. “For us, the screens are kind on the eye, even on a long gig. The local ins and outs are a godsend. And with the Dante and MADI, it’s literally the tool which fixes everything for us.”
Chris Courtney mixes on a Vi3000 at the Isle of Wight Festival
SSE Audio Group, a long-time Vi user, also wasted no time in securing one of the first Vi3000s, and sound engineer Chris Courtney (pictured) took it out almost immediately to the Isle of Wight Festival, where he mixed monitors for Travis. Soundcraft is distributed in the UK and Eire by Sound Technology. Q www.soundtech.co.uk
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live BELGIUM
An L of an inventory for Stage Service MDs Bart Weyts and Kris Laermans taking delivery of their new stock of KARAs
With a substantial investment in L-Acoustics K2, KARA and XT speakers, L&L Stage Service are determined to continue the company’s exploding growth, writes Marc Maes FOR SOUND AND light rental company L&L Stage Service, founded in 1992, the decision to invest in L-Acoustics gear, taken around a year ago, marked a substantial brand switch. “We have been a d&b user for many years,” explains Tom Somers, managing director of L&L Stage Service, “but the strategic choice for L-Acoustics was driven by the fact that we absolutely needed a bigger system, propelling us in another niche in the market. “Although we’re very happy with d&b, we thought our investment had to be futureproof. When L-Acoustics revealed their K2 and promising specs, we immediately opted for this new system rather than continuing with d&b and their existing J-series.” And with L&L Stage Service supplying audio and light to dance events where L-Acoustics is the leading brand, the choice was obvious. A long-term rental deal allowed L&L Stage Service to take the K2 inventory on tour last summer. “We ordered the K2 speakers in November last year from [L-Acoustics supplier] XLR, based on written specs, but we absolutely wanted to be the first to offer the new system,” says Bart Weyts, the other managing director at L&L Stage Service. “The country’s first 24 K2 speakers were available in June through AED Rent – our strategy was to hire them, which allowed us to use the system
until our own enclosures arrive in November.” With leading dance events such as Tomorrowland, Summerfestival, The Qontinent and Laundry Day, festivals such as Reggae Geel and productions like the Martelaarssteden First World War remembrance tour, L&L Stage Service took the opportunity to use and market their upcoming K2 investment, with a basic inventory consisting of 24 K2s, 24 SB28s and 12 KARA enclosures. “The challenge was to convince our system engineers of the qualities and strategic importance of switching to L-Acoustics – they were [d&bminded and] quite sceptical,” admits Kris Laermans, L&L’s third managing director. “I’m happy to say that, after a summer of festivals, our sound crew takes the audio rental division to a higher level. We had 12 engineers following training sessions, set up by XLR with L-Acoustics trainer Paul Van Baasbank. The system uses somewhat more complex software, and the skills of the system techs is crucial. Today they’re all unanimous: the K2 is a sound investment offering a true added value.” L&L’s marketing formula proved to be successful, adds Laermans. “We’ve had tremendous reactions from our clients, and we’re currently preparing indoor productions for the likes Ethias Arena [in
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live Hasselt].” At press time, two fulltime staffers are administering price quotations for the upcoming months. “A healthy mix of festivals, tours, corporate events and over 200 concert theatre shows results in optimal workload adding up to some 800 productions per annum, [which] allows us to employ a crew of excellent engineers. Most of them have grown along with us – human capital is crucial,” underlines Laermans, pointing to the company’s ethos: “the personal approach”. November will see L&L Stage Service taking delivery of 24 K2 speakers, 16 SB 28 high power subs,12 XT speakers, 12 KARA units and four LA RAKs, “right on time for the start of a busy indoor season”. Laermans confirms that the plan is to gradually replace the whole d&b inventory with L-Acoustics equipment. For XLR, appointed as certified provider of the L-Acoustics network in 2013, L&L’s commitment to the
The charmingly named Pussy Lounge at Tomorrowland 2014. Not pictured: shirts
brand strengthens its position as leading standard supplier for major projects; L-Acoustics has an estimated 65 per cent marketshare in Belgium. Jan
De Brucker, XLR managing director, comments: “XLR is a young company, aiming to be a major player in the proaudio industry. We’re extremely
happy with L&L Stage Service’s choice, and we are convinced that their commitment towards L-Acoustics will provide the right solution for the company’s
future growth.” For the last three years, L&L Stage Service has seen explosive growth, both in business and employment (from three to 11 full-time staffers on the payroll), but Laermans remains realistic about the future. “We want to continue investing in sound and light, but not ‘ad lib’,” he concludes. “We’re now eyeing new markets like Wallonia (Les Ardentes and Les Francofolies festivals), and, with ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event, on 15–19 October), we have our first assignment in Holland. The K2 speakers will further embark on Scala’s European tour this autumn, and we’re considering entering the Eastern European territories with an acquisition of an audio rental company in Romania. The K2 speakers are also part of our strategy there.” Q www.l-acoustics.com www.llstageservice.be www.xlrpro.be
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live GREENLAND
Secret Compass Defiles an iceberg with Studiomaster Jägermeister approached the British company to supply a PA tough enough to perform in Arctic conditions. Jon Chapple reports
BRITISH PRO-AUDIO company Studiomaster supplied a “‘berg-suitable” PA for the world’s first gig on an iceberg. London metal band The Defiled performed in subzero temperatures atop the floating platform for the latest instalment in Jägermeister’s Ice Cold Gig series, which previously saw former Busted and Fightstar Charlie Simpson travel to Siberia to break the Guinness World Record for the world’s coldest gig. Jägermeister approached Studiomaster to supply a PA tough enough to perform in Arctic conditions following Carlsbro/Studiomaster’s sponsorship of this year’s Bloodstock festival, during which the company supplied emergency kit to the Jägermeister Stage. “[The gig] presented a perfect opportunity to prove the near-military grade construction of the new Horizon powered mixer,” says Studiomaster assistant general manager Patrick Almond. “The look of the all-British design says how tough it is – and then there’s 1000 watts a side of Class-D power amplification; more than enough to provide sound coverage on an iceberg!” The Studiomaster 2012 powered mixer was partnered with a pair of XPX 12 moulded
cabinets on stands, providing the best possible power-toweight ratio (weight being a critical consideration in not tipping the band and all their equipment into the freezing sea), and Studiomaster KM92 dynamic mics were also used. Production manager and operations director for the event was Tom McShane, whose company, Secret Compass, was formed by ex-British Parachute Regiment officers to conduct exploratory expeditions to remote post-conflict areas and endangered ecosystems in places like Afghanistan, South Sudan, Madagascar and Panama. “Not a huge amount of prep work was done with the gear as it is all pretty rugged anyway, but obviously we didn’t want it falling into the water,” McShane tells PSNEurope. “The iceberg we chose gave us a good platform at the right height to be able to hand the gear from the boat to the ice. The air is very dry so the corrosive nature of salt was not an issue with the frets on the guitars or electrics, and when in transit in the boats we just covered the gear with tarps. When on the ice, we just made sure that the band were playing in the centre of the iceberg and away from the edges of the ice. “The [Studiomaster] PA
system was chosen for a number of factors, but primarily its weight. We had to get this shipped out and freighted to Greenland, which was a large expense, but, more importantly, the gear needed to fit inside the small boats. We [also] needed to ensure that they were light enough to be carried from the boat to the position on the ice and not cause a safety issue. “The Studiomaster gear was awesome for this. From the speakers to the stands to the mics and mixing desk, it was all about as getting as much powerto-weight ratio as possible and they performed excellently.
FOI (front of iceberg) for the Ice Cold Gig
“The other issue was the power. Again, due to weight restrictions, I only took a 8.5kg generator, which only provided 700W of power. The mixing desk ran at a max of 1,000W and the speakers were passive, but thankfully the generator coped with this and provided enough juice to put into the desk and run the internal PA and speakers. We were all hugely impressed just how loud and good it sounded.” McShane also made use of a Zoom H6 six-track portable recorder for capturing audio for the now-famous video of the performance (see it at www. psneurope.com/ice-cold-gig). “I used the top mic of [the H6] pointed towards the drums to get that track, as we didn’t use drum mics,” he explains, “and then used XLR leads going from the PA to pick up the stereo track to record the vocal mics, guitars and synth. “I then put a radio mic, using a jack lead, into the output of the Zoom mic, and this was picked up by a Zoom H4 device on the cameraman’s rig. This went into the top mic mounted above his camera to get the sound from in front of the camera, and then out of the
“We were constantly aware of the threat from polar bears, and had high-calibre rifles with us at all times” Tom McShane, Secret Compass
Zoom device into the camera, [which] I could monitor using headphones.” But keeping his gear protected from the freezing Arctic sea wasn’t the only challenge McShane faced. “We were constantly aware the threat from polar bears, and had high-calibre rifles with us at all times,” he says. “We saw lots of husky dogs, though, including some very cute puppies that some local kids brought to us to cuddle when we were in the [Greenlandic] town of Tasiilaq.” Awww. Q www.studiomaster.com www.secretcompass.com www.zoom.co.jp
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Small, mobile, intelligent From Nexo’s versatile M28 loudspeaker to Yamaha’s multi-faceted QL series mixers, 2014 has been abundant in new products suitable for smaller music and theatre tours. David Davies profiles some of the year’s most striking launches UPON THE FIRST dissolution of King Crimson in 1974, founder and guitarist Robert Fripp famously told the Melody Maker of his intention to henceforth serve as a “small, mobile, intelligent unit” able to adjust more swiftly to the changing times. Forty years later, the same kind of expectations might well be applied to much contemporary equipment oriented towards small- and medium-sized touring applications. ‘Small’ and ‘mobile’ should speak for themselves; the less space taken up in trucks and venues, the more that can be assigned to other items of equipment or seats for fee-paying customers. As for ‘intelligent’, most rental companies now handle a greater cross-section of projects than ever before – from conventional rock shows to theatrical events to corporate gigs – so flexibility of systems is very much the name of the game. Although this year’s PSNLive survey indicated that, after several years in abeyance, larger events are again increasing in terms of their overall importance
to hire companies and touring engineers, small/medium-sized events remain the bedrock of the live sound business. Combining bankable annual regulars with valuable one-offs, smaller applications keep the wheels turning for many companies in-between the bigger paydays afforded by larger festivals and arena tours. It’s no surprise to discover, then, that many manufacturers remain ardent in their desire to provide versatile, cost-efficient products for just such applications… LIGHT-IN-WEIGHT LOUDSPEAKERS The requirements of smaller tours were certainly at the top of the priority list for West Midlands-based HRA as it set about developing its XR Series Regional Touring PA. One of the newest additions to the UK loudspeaker manufacturing landscape, HRA’s Regional Touring PA comprises two models that can be used flexibly individually or in combination: the 15” + 1.4” XR1 Active system rated at 1350W rms and the 2 x 15” XR2 subwoofer rated at 2,100W rms.
“The objectives were to develop a system that is light in weight and very modular, allowing it to be stacked easily in small spaces” HRA sales manager Steve Williams on the Regional PA
“The objectives were to develop a system that is light in weight [the XR1 is only 33.9kg] and very modular, allowing it to be stacked easily in quite small spaces,” says HRA sales manager Steve Williams. “It is also very easy to link together systems to increase the size of the PA, so whether you are doing very small, close-knit gigs or medium-sized ones, it is possible to tailor the Regional PA to fit.” Williams adds that the “modularity and scalability reduces the need for hire companies to hold stocks of multiple styles of enclosures yet still be able to fulfil multiple events of varying sizes and forms”. The decision to go for self-powered designs (based around Class D technology provided by Powersoft) is also advantageous for rental outfits “working to reduce the amount of room occupied in the truck and at the venue,” he says. A similarly keen awareness of the realities of contemporary touring informed the development of the M28, the new omni-purpose module in the suite of STM (Scale Through Modularity) loudspeakers from French manufacturer Nexo (as featured on p34). Developed to deliver “a new level of versatility”, STM allows contractors to design a wide variety of systems from four core modules. The Nexo Universal Amp Rack – comprising NXAMP4x4 amplifiers, two digital input patches, two digital
output patches, and an optional ethernet or Dante network card – can feed 12 STM modules in any combination in groups of three. The M28 prioritises versatility; accordingly, the two-way cabinet – which offers 90°/120° of horizontal dispersion and 0° to 15° splaying angle between modules – can be arrayed in the same column with the M46 in a large-format STM system, arrayed in the same column as the B112 bass cabinet in a mid-format STM system, or used independently from the M46 and B112. Nexo also highlights the M28’s facility for easy rigging, with CompassRig technology enabling pre-setting of inter-cabinet angle values, and the REDLock handle locking front-rigging points from the rear of the cabinet.
Yamaha QL mixer at FOH for The Dunwells The result, says Stuart Kerrison from Nexo’s concert sound division, is “a truly flexible system where the same components can be used without compromise on every application regardless of audience size or configuration. STM is a system which can be out earning money for a rental company 365 days a year rather than sitting in the warehouse waiting for the next appropriatesized gig, and therefore actually costing that company money. This allows them to maximise the return on their investment, to amortise their system faster, and to be very competitive with their pricing.” South-east London-based Subfrantic Production Services is among the most recent PA companies to take an interest in the STM family. “One of
Steve Williams with the HRA kit, featuring the Regional PA line
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live VENUE S3X desk put to use on one of the Glastonbury stage
our big annual commitments is the Warren pop-up stage at the Great Escape,” says Subfrantic proprietor Steve Davies. “For the last two years, we have seen our Turbosound FlexArray go in there and work very successfully. However, we decided a while ago to look at buying a new PA system and we’re in ongoing discussions with a number of manufacturers about why we should buy their kit.
“After being initially sceptical, [Nexo technical system specialist] Val Gilbert persuaded me to go to Paris to check out the Nexo STM and I’m really glad I did. “It’s very wellthought-out and has some really mad science behind it in places, but the end-result is well worth investigating.” Plenty of other manufacturers are also juggling the need for ease of (re)configuration and
consistent performance. For KV2 Audio system users, notes sales representative Tom Weldon, “high quality performance and high output from compact designs” tend to be critical factors. To this end, the ESD 15 passive threeway enclosure can be run with KV2’s dedicated ESP range of amplifiers or hire companies’ existing third party amplification, and may be flown or stand-mounted for fast and simple rigging. Meanwhile, deploying a similar three-way approach but on a “larger and louder scale”, the ESR Series features two products – the ESR 2.12 and ESR 2.15 – both with dedicated stereo amplification units and wide dispersion patterns. “The ESR Series can cover auditoriums of up to 1,500 people with just one cabinet per side,” says Weldon. “This helps reduces the impact of speakers affecting sightlines and the requirement to use multiples or delay units which helps significantly reduce set-up
time. The amplification packs feature low-pass outputs if the requirement for extend bass response is required.” Further products set to satisfy these multiple requirements are currently in the pipeline, reveals Weldon: “We will be releasing an active version of the ESD 15, which will offer incredible power and performance from a self-contained unit. We will also be releasing our smallest product designed for delay and fill applications. This unit – currently un-named – will feature a coaxial five-inch and one-inch driver and will boast KV2’s renowned quality from an ultra-compact cabinet.” COMPACT CONSOLES With the recording industry in continued freefall, the impetus to derive more revenue from live work grows ever stronger. For many acts, making the numbers work is no longer just a matter of the ticket-price; it also extends to ‘instant’ CD releases and webstreaming of live gigs. In terms of consoles, this translates to an
Subfrantic’s Steve Davies is still in a summery mood increasingly lengthy list of feature requirements – all to be accommodated within a preferably compact form-factor that does not take up too much space in either van or venue. No wonder, then, that ‘compact consoles’ have frequently topped the list of investment priorities in our annual PSNLive rental companies’ survey. Avid, for one, believes it has a solution to meet these varying needs with its VENUE S3L-X system, which builds on the success of the S3L system and began shipping at the end of
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live September. Designed to mix and record live shows, as well as mix and master recorded sessions, the S3L-X utilises new VENUE 4.5 software, enabling engineers to share the same I/O across multiple S3L-X systems (via AVB), record directly to Pro Tools or another DAW through a laptop Ethernet connection, and mix Pro Tools and other DAW sessions with Avid VENUE S3 as a standalone mixing surface and 4 x 6 audio interface. First Aid Kit, Happy Mondays, Primal Scream, Bryan Adams and Massive Attack are among the acts to have made recent use of the VENUE S3L or S3L-X. In the case of Massive Attack, “they needed a compact desk that was lightweight as they wanted to take the production across the world and not rent locally,” says Al McKinna, principal product manager, live systems and consoles, at Avid Technology. High input channel counts, Pro Tools interoperability and “deep snapshot functionality” were among the other requirements that informed the production team’s decision in favour of the Avid system, Multi-application consoles certainly seem to be one of the flavours of the moment. For another example, see Midas’s M32, which was launched to no little fanfare at Winter NAMM. This digital console for live and studio work features 40 input channels, 32 Midas microphone preamplifiers, and 25 timealigned and phase-coherent mix buses. Designed to be light in weight and easy to transport – parts of the sub-frame consist of durable and lightweight carbon fibre and aluminium – the M32 also benefits from AES50 networking that allows up to 96 inputs and 96 outputs. Elsewhere, the varying in-house set-ups of smaller venues – and the consequent need to be able to offer a consistently high level of production across locations – helped to inform the design of Yamaha’s QL series. Built to suit small- and medium-sized applications including live sound, corporate speech events and fixed installations, the QL desks provide users with allin-one mixing, processing and Dante-based networking. Pop-rock band The Dunwells is one of the acts to have made use of a QL series desk (specifically a QL5) during 2014.
Mix engineer Sean Murphy (also operations manager at Subfrantic) highlighted the factors that made the console so suitable for a tour taking in a broad cross-section of venues and festivals. “Clubs tours are challenging at the best of times, especially when you’re faced with different house mixers, monitors and PA systems of varying quality,” he said. “Having the QL5 on the road
with us has made everything so much easier. Along with carrying our own IEMs, mics and stands, it has meant that we can be confident going into any venue, knowing we’re going to produce a show which is up to the same standard as those we’ve been playing in larger venues at major festivals. The other challenge, as with everything, is budget. Having something as small as a QL5 has kept our
transport costs right down.” A few months back, King Crimson swung into action for the first time in seven years with a seven-strong line-up featuring no fewer than three drummers – a development that suggests Robert Fripp hasn’t remained entirely faithful to his ‘small, mobile’ vision. But for many pro-audio manufacturers, compactness and versatility are now default
requirements for any new major R&D undertaking – and their importance is only bound to increase as economic and market trends become evermore difficult to predict. Q www.avid.com www.hra-loudspeakers.co.uk www.kv2audio.com www.midasconsoles.com www.nexo-sa.com www.subfrantic.com www.yamahaproaudio.com
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For the latest installation news www.psneurope.com/installation
Q
installation UNITED KINGDOM
SOUNDBITES A Bose RoomMatch audio system, designed using the company’s Modeler software, has been installed by Marquee AV in the Mermaid Conference & Events Centre in Blackfriars, central London. The Bose system consists of six Bose RoomMatch array modules to form an array to left and to right, with groundstacked bass modules to each side. The system is powered by three Bose PowerMatch amplifiers. www.bose.com UK cable specialist VDC Trading has announced the introduction of the Van Damme White Line range of LSZH installation cables. Developed on the back of customer demand for a ‘white’ option, the range consists of an AES/EBU 1PR (“one pair”, in cable-speak) and twin-axial speaker cables in 1.5mm and 2.5mm. Niall Holden, chairman of VDC, comments that there is “already a high demand [for the cable], especially from installers”. www.vdctrading.com The Ballei sports centre, in Neckarsulm, western Germany, has refitted its PA and sound reinforcement systems. The community leisure facility, used for handball and other spectator sports, has been fitted with a system based on TC Group equipment comprising Tannoy VQ speakers and Lab. gruppen PLM amplification. The system was specified by Joe Ritter and his company Ritter Medientechnik. www.labgruppen.com www.tannoy.com TivoliVredenburg, a new music venue in Utrecht, Netherlands, features an array of DiGiCo mixing consoles as part of its audio system. “The engineers at both the Vredenburg and Tivoli venues had worked with DiGiCo consoles for a while before [their] merger,” explains the venue’s sound engineer Allert Aalders. “The fact that most of our crew were already familiar with them played a big part in the decision.” The desks were supplied TM Audio Holland and Audiopro Nederland. www.digico.biz
Spring refurb Early 2015 should see the triumphant return of Turbosound Flashlight, discovers Phil Ward THERE MUST BE something in the air. Interest in ‘vintage’ equipment shows no signs of waning, while even vinyl is making a spirited comeback across the thin ice of record sales. Yes, the Baby Boomers are still going strong, constantly reinventing their back pages as the technology dictates, but the groundswell of knowledge of old stuff among sub-30 guns for hire is frequently astonishing. The mics, processors and speakers that made the rock and roll catalogue are as revered as the music itself by people who are young enough to know better. This is an important part – but only a part – of the audience that two-year old start-up Formidable Audio is hoping to attract with its unique offering. Founders Brandon Knights and James Barden once had a mobile disco, and so enamoured were they with Turbosound’s rock-solid output that they invested early in the Partridge Green pantheon. Knights went on to become a respected FOH guy for several acts, and the inclusion in that list of Soul II Soul, The Gladiators and Lee Scratch Perry is significant. Here’s a man who commits to the division of frequencies with a passion called dub. Barden became successful in the IT business, but never lost the faith. In fact, he’s now putting his money where the mouth of a Turbosound horn is. He and Knights have procured a very large inventory of Flashlight enclosures, collected from around the world, and have almost completed a wholesale modernisation of the entire collection: refurbishment, yes, but also an upgrading to match 21st Century standards. The business plan is to make them available for hire,
for real, for profit. It’s no museum, no novelty gimmick, no Flashlight in the pan. Having operated, and having subsequently sold, an inventory of TMS-2s, TMS-3s and Floodlights, Barden’s epiphany came not that long ago at a gig. He saw a favourite band again and, this time, they weren’t using a Turbosound rig. “I thought, oh dear, it’s just not the same,” he recounts. “If this is progress, who wants it? At that point I realized there was a genuine business proposition to amass enough Flashlight stock to do an arena and see if anyone would want to hire it. That’s where this journey started.” What sets this enterprise apart from the self-fulfilling world of the collector is the pair’s accurate and visionary enrolment of what they call the ‘heritage team’: a group of Turbosound and Britannia Row alumni who were only too pleased to reprise their involvement with these boxes. Brit Row legend and founder of Crystal Pro Audio Pete Brotzman was first among these equals, says Barden. “He sourced 12 Flashlight tops and 12 bottoms, and helped us to track down much more stock from a company called Oceania in New Zealand. Talking to people who used to use Flashlight, I think we now have enough to do most of Wembley Arena or the O2 – although you’d need a few in-fills.” Other Flashlight expertise has been provided by Danny Cooklin, a design engineer at Turbosound
Brandon Knights and a wall of Turbo!
for 17 years; David Cole, also at Turbosound in the 1990s; and George McKechnie, a BBS Audio engineer behind the crossover and amplification designs created for Flashlight under the pioneering umbrella of Edge Technologies. Another person who took the call from Barden and Knights has been just as positive. “Tony Andrews has helped enormously,” reveals Knights, “especially in the refurbishment of the 6.5-inch mid-range driver that, under his guidance, has been upgraded by Precision Devices. All the drivers went down to the Funktion One for his assessment. “When we sanded the boxes down, we found the old Brit Row logo on many of them,” Knights adds. “It was the same with the BSS amp racks, all from the same era. The last two years has seen intense refurbishment: every nut and bolt has been painstakingly replaced with stainless steel, for example.” The work has had to prepare
the system to compete in today’s market, without sacrificing the essence of the sound quality. “Clearly technology has moved on,” continues Barden, “but mainly to become more convenient. It hasn’t necessarily improved sonically. We couldn’t offer something that was unreconstructed from 20 years ago, so our renovation goes all way through from the cosmetics to the drivers. However, it’s still the same acoustic construction of the cabinets and the same waveguides, so the sound is quite recognisable. It has that unique musical quality that’s missing in so many later systems.” And they don’t even mind if you wheel out a digital console in front of it… “We have a great Midas Heritage 3000, and a Venice,” says Knights, “but, sure, if you use a digital desk you’ll hear that wonderful, open, clean and detailed sound of the Flashlight just as well. In fact, it’ll make the desk sound better…” Q www.formidableaudio.com
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installation UNITED STATES
Diggerland USA powered by Ashly and Community
The construction-themed theme park is the first of its kind outside Europe, reports Jon Chapple AN ASHLY AUDIO ne24.24M modular Protea matrix processor, outfitted with 12 inputs and 12 outputs, is providing the equalisation, delay, ducking and routing for
Diggerland USA, the country’s first construction-themed theme park, in West Berlin, New Jersey. Seven Ashly KLR3200 amplifiers power the park’s 70-plus Community
loudspeakers an installation designed and installed in six months by Hammonton, New Jersey-based Spellcaster Productions, and an Ashly neWR-5 wall-mount user control
BRAZIL
A MASSIVE LOUDSPEAKER installation by Italian manufacturer K-array is supplying the audio needs of the new Temple of Solomon, an exact replica in São Paulo of the 10th-century BC Jerusalem temple of the
same name. The concept behind the £190m megachurch is that visitors will “travel through time and feel as if they were in the original temple built by Solomon”, meaning installer Gobos do Brasil was tasked providing with an audio
system that could be heard but not seen. The core of the install is 42 KH4s and six KO70s, which are hidden by perforated plates 18m above the ceiling of the central hall. www.k-array.com
and Ashly’s iPad app give management complete control of its audio from anywhere via wi-fi. “While I was working on this project, our Ashly rep stopped by,” explains Mike Shafer, project manager at Spellcaster Productions. “I showed him what we were up to, and he suggested the ne24.24M processor and the KLR-3200 amplifier. I did my homework and realised that moving to Ashly would save the client some money and give us all the functionality and power we needed. “We also designed and installed the sound system at [neighbouring water park] Sahara Sam’s Oasis, and the client wanted to be assured Ashly would meet the same standard. I assured him that Ashly has been making quality equipment for over 30 years and that they are well known for their reliability. Ashly’s fiveyear warranty and my positive
experiences assured him.” He adds: “Looking at the vast areas I had to cover outdoors, I [also] immediately thought of Community’s R-Series.” The sound system permits Diggerland USA to play background music and advertisements, either of which will duck for pages made from a Shure wireless microphone or from the park’s phone system. All input sources feed the Ashly ne24.24M processor, which in turn feeds a rack of seven Ashly KLR-3200 two-channel amplifiers. Community D4LP loudspeakers cover indoor areas with low ceiling height and DP8 pendant loudspeakers a food pavilion and arcade, while Community R.15 and R.35 loudspeakers throw from light poles to cover the vast outdoor spaces. Diggerland USA, the first of its kind outside the UK, opened in June. Q www.ashly.com www.communitypro.com
CONTACTS
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Editor Dave Robinson drobinson@nbmedia.com
hither&dither
Deputy Editor Jon Chapple jchapple@nbmedia.com Managing Editor Jo Ruddock jruddock@nbmedia.com Advertising Manager Ryan O’Donnell rodonnell@nbmedia.com Commercial Manager Darrell Carter dcarter@nbmedia.com Sales Executive Rian Zoll-Khan rzoll-khan@nbmedia.com Graphic Designer Jat Garcha jgarcha@nbmedia.com
Hither & mudder Dark forces are at work. While, elsewhere, some people just want to get dirty on purpose
Production Executive Jason Dowie jdowie@nbmedia.com Digital Content Manager Tim Frost tfrost@nbmedia.com Office Manager Lianne Davey ldavey@nbmedia.com Correspondents: Mike Clark (Italy), Marc Maes (Belgium/ Holland), Phil Ward (UK) Contributors: David Davies, Kevin Hilton, Michael Burns, Harry Powell, Jon Burton, Clive Young
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
The Dark Lord dropped by the EV booth at BPM in September...
...while our own Dirty Lad, Rian Z-K, completed the Tough Mudder last month
Staying mud-free but somewhat sweaty, SSE’s Alex Penn and dad John finished their first Great North Run in 2hrs 46 mins, raising money for Alzheimer’s. Brilliant!
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PSNEurope is published 12 times a year by NewBay Media, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18–26 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, England. © NewBay Media, 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owners. The contents of PSNEurope are subject to reproduction in information storage and retrieval systems. NewBay Media is now the Data Controller under the Data Protection Act 1998 in respect of your personal data. NewBay Media will only use your data for the purposes originally notified and your rights under the Data Protection Act 1998 are not affected by this change. PSNEurope is published once a month. The publishers reserve the right to refuse subscription applications considered inappropriate and to restrict the number of free copies sent to a company or organisation. 2014 subscription rates for non-industry/non-European readers are: UK, £39/€62; Europe, £54/€86; other countries, US$106/170. CIRCULATION AND SUBSCRIPTION NewBay Media, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, LE16 7BR, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1858 438786 . Refunds on cancelled subscriptions will only be provided at the publisher’s discretion, unless specifically guaranteed within the terms of the subscription offer. Intent 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, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, LE16 7BR, UK. ISSN: 0269-4735 (print); 2052-238X (digital). Printing by Pensord Press, Tram Road, Pontlanfraith, Blackwood NP12 2YA
Enjoying the Church Studios launch, (L-R): Dirk Noy (WSDG), Paul Epworth, John Storyk (WSDG), Pete Hofmann (Miloco) and Beth Walters (WSDG)
Shure’s Kirsty Lamport tackles the Borg after a day at PLASA...
...as Shure’s Paul Crognale tackles a beer. We know which we prefer
Please send all contributions for possible publication to drobinson@nbmedia.com
50 l November 2014
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industrytalk
Clarke technical Once dubbed ‘The Baron of Techno’ by legendary UK DJ John Peel, Dave Clarke has been producing uncompromising techno and electro beats since the early ‘90s. Such is his influence, says Dave Robinson, Daft Punk name-checked him on album track Teachers ORIGINALLY FROM BRIGHTON, DJ Dave Clarke relocated to Amsterdam in 2008 and has been building his ideal studio ever since. Recently, he’s been collaborating on remixes with Jonas Uittenbosch (aka Mr Jones) under the moniker [unsubscribe], while still travelling extensively for his DJing appearances. Every week, Clarke’s taste in techno can be heard via his White Noise radio show and podcast. “It’s just been [syndicated] to the official radio station of the Portuguese Air Force in the Azores,” he says, “So if anyone’s angry over the mid-Atlantic, it’s my fault”. Earlier this year, Clarke put his name to the third Waves EMP Toolbox, a collection of effects designed to aid dance producers. His choice includes: API 560, Scheps 73, Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter, LoAir, MetaFlanger, Kramer Master Tape and Dorrough Stereo. How’s your studio on the Dutch barge? I’ve finished it to a point where I feel really happy with it. The last things to change, apart from the air conditioning, were the speakers. I’d been using Tannoy Ellipse monitors since the Devil’s Advocate [2003] and Archive One [1996] albums, and they just weren’t cutting it any more. I moved over to ATC finally, [with] a decent monitor controller, the Cranesong Avocet – although a separate volume control for the headphones would be kind of nice. I needed some smaller monitors as well, so I went for a little British company called Neat, who do a tiny monitor with a ribbon tweeter which sounds incredible. The final thing was to get the Towersonic stands – I was using the Argosy ones with the acoustic isolators, they just weren’t cutting it with the weight of the ATCs. The Towersonics are fantastic. So I feel, OK, I’m there. But, honestly, we are at the stage where we are mixing down and I don’t need to reference the mixes on other speakers any more, because everything is in place and the sound translates. It’s scary changing monitors but the ATCs became very quick to know. How long have you been building the studio? About five or six years. It’s the only place where I can fully allow my OCD to take control: I really enjoy embracing that geekiness. I’ve had these cables handmade made in Japan – with ridiculous medical grade silver and
carbon-fibre wrap, palladium bezelled connectors, for instance… Everything’s so smooth with the studio. I can even tell when there’s solar flare activity because the computer is a little bit weird. It’s true though, right? [PSNEurope laughs] I’m not going to build a Faraday cage around myself like Wendy Carlos did. Though, I did think about it. How did the Waves partnership come about? They were at ADE 2013, the Amsterdam Dance Event, and I was telling them I’d been using Mercury [Collection] since you had to wait three minutes to load in one plug-in on a G3 Mac … and we just clicked. So they invited me to a compilation of my favourites plug-ins. I [even] went to Tel Aviv to shoot a video… These are the plug-ins that I use the most, that were already within Mercury. If you are an upcoming producer that makes music across the board, but most specifically in the dance area – but not in EDM, please, I have nothing to do with that and never will! – if you have these plug-ins, you can do something across the whole of your process, from beginning to end. Almost like a mixing desk. So, you’ve got an EQ, the MetaFlange which I really like, some tape processing… There’s no compression though, because I use outboard for that. If I use this, am I going to sound instantly like Dave Clarke? No, of course not. But, why would someone invest their money in this? Because this is a sensible, rounded approach to the best Waves plug-ins that I would choose. What about your take on sound design? I’ve never worked with templates. Every time I worked one Archive One or Devil’s Advocate, it was always with an empty sampler, never with an array of drum weaponry, like, ‘this is the snare that makes me wet’. I made it from scratch, always. Before, I used to sample drum loops because I didn’t have access to the tools. Now, you can start with any bass drum, transient design the shit out of it, EQ the shit out of it, do everything you ever wanted; freeze it, bounce it, and, bang, there’s your bass drum. It sounds like a long process but it’s really quick.
If you could only one keep one plug-in out of the seven, what would it be? Probably the API EQ – it’s quick and makes it easy to tonally shape something. What reaction have you had to the Toolbox? Someone called me “pottymouth” because I swore a little too much on the Waves video. You have a bit of reputation for swearing though, I gather. I did come across some wonderful new phraseology, talking about deadmau5, where he someone called him a “cock womble”. I thought, I must add that to my armoury. I have, technically, what you might call artistic Tourette’s syndrome; I have a way of making new swear words off the cuff. I’m sure Shakespeare would be proud. What are you listening to currently? The new Interpol album, Ministry, Cowboy Junkies, Soft Moon, Chelsea Wolf… everything. I love music and I’m passionate about it. Reggae, roots, the occasional piece of classical. It gets sucked into me and it comes out somewhere, somehow. What do you do when your studio is complete? Just enjoy it. But also, next year is going to be about producing bands; bands that I like, but have nothing to do with dance music. I love producing. fitting sounds together, making everything make sense, conveying Q www.daveclarke.com www.waves.com