Resolution V4.5 July/August 2005

JULY/AUGUST 2005 V4.5

THE NEXT GENERATION AUDIO PRODUCTION MAGAZINE

Simon Jones Post-Icon

Gary Langan — multichannel War of Worlds and a lot more Are there too many multichannel monitoring standards?

Meet your maker: Tino Fibaek — Fairlight Multichannel drum timing correction in Nuendo 3 Getting a handle on the European TV channel count rise Ten things that really should go

REVIEWS • Tascam DV-RA1000 • DK-Technologies MSD100C • Logic Pro 7.1 • Anthony DeMaria • Merging Sphynx 2 Labs ADL 1500 • Drawmer DSL424 • Apogee Rosetta 200 • Marek Design RS1

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July/August 2005 V4.5

ISSN 1477-4216 THE NEXT GENERATION AUDIO PRODUCTION MAGAZINE

News & Analysis 4

Leader

4

News Sales, contracts, appointments and the bigger picture.

Craft 14

38

42

44

16

Products

New introductions and announcements plus Digidesign and Steinberg platform news.

66

Headroom

46

Sweet Spot

The French main player in the gaming world gears up for the multichannel experience in a console near you soon.

48

Your PC video display

Gary Langan

54

Ubisoft

Controversial and busy and still embracing new technologies, he talks about his multichannel War of Worlds and a lot more.

Simon Jones

Postproduction entrepreneur and early Icon power user discusses efficiency and the upgrade cycle.

56

58

Bob Kraushaar

A mixer by preference, he takes us through the single day mix and the benefits of having your own place.

Weddings, births and praise.

We have to ask, are there too many surround standards?

A look at the different ways of getting pictures out of the PC and into the display.

Steinberg Top Tips

Multichannel drum timing correction in Nuendo 3 — we show you how.

Meet your maker

Tino Fibaek — The man behind the technology of Fairlight on workflow and the worksurface.

Katz’s column

Bob’s quest to resolve Becky’s ‘flat and uninteresting’ mixes draws to a climax.

59

Ten

64

Your business

Things that should go.

Business 50

European TV channel count rises

Europe’s TV channels have multiplied from 241 in 1995 to 1,132 today. Now a massive upgrade cycle is set to begin with the introduction of DTT and HDTV.

Daley’s on the couch but he’s adamant that the music production process doesn’t lend itself to scrutiny by outsiders.

Technology 60

Audio Processing Accelerators

Waves has released hardware units that can run loads of plugs and can be combined for extra power and to share resources.

62

Slaying Dragons

Almost all aspects of audio production rely on some aspect of magnetism and a wider appreciation of the principles can only lead to better products and better sound.

Reviews 22

Logic Pro 7.1

30

Marek Design RS1

24

Tascam DV-RA1000

32

DK-Technologies MSD100C

26

Merging Technologies Sphynx 2

34

Anthony DeMaria Labs ADL 1500

28

Drawmer DSL424

36

Apogee Rosetta 200

EDITORIAL Editorial Director: Zenon Schoepe Tel: +44 1444 410675 Email: zen@resolutionmag.com Editorial office: PO Box 531, Haywards Heath RH16 4WD, UK Contributors: Rob James, George Shilling, Keith Spencer-Allen, Terry Nelson, Jon Thornton, Neil Hillman, Nigel Jopson, Andy Day, Jim Evans, Kevin Hilton, Dan Daley, John Watkinson

ADVERTISEMENT SALES European Sales Clare Sturzaker Tel: +44 1342 717459 Email: clare@resolutionmag.com US Sales Jeff Turner Tel: +1 415 455 8301 Email: jeff@resolutionmag.com

PRODUCTION AND LAYOUT Dean Cook Dean Cook Productions Tel: +44 1273 236681 Email: dean@resolutionmag.com

news APPOINTMENTS MARTIN KLOIBER has been appointed chairman of the board of directors and chief technology officer for Euphonix. As EVP of technology, Kloiber has been the driving force in the System 5-MC and the MC products, and alliances with Steinberg and Merging Technologies.

FOLLOWING THE completion of its management buyout from former owners Solid State Logic, APT’s management team now comprises MD Noel McKenna, commercial director Jon McCintock and has also appointed Gavin Bourke, of Trinity Venture Capital, and Hal Wilson, of Crescent Capital, to its board of directors.

HHB HAS appointed Matcast as distributor of its products in France.

Matcast is a newly-formed division of the Canford Group, established to distribute a selected range of specialist professional audio products.

LONDON-BASED KMR has been appointed UK distributor for American company, Josephson Engineering’s range of hand-made microphones.

GRAHAM PADDON has for med his own sales company under the name Amber Sound.

He previously guided Autograph Sales through nearly two decades of trading after 18 years at Micron’s Audio Engineering.

Jamie Gosney has joined Graham at Amber Sound for technical sales, Mike Charman will focus on communication systems and the broadcast market, while Claire Paddon has joined for sales, PR and marketing.

Amber Sound has been appointed UK distributor for Aviom.

©2005 S2 Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publishers. Great care is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication, but neither

4

Leader Panelette Head

It is interesting how we are able to date recordings. Given a previously unheard piece of popular music, most of us I think would be able to take a good stab at the originating decade and probably narrow it down still further from Berliner Synchron has ordered a second DFC console experience and a knowledge of how things were done. for installation in analyse to its Atelier 10. The While we might a recording onBerlin-based a technical facilityI will use the DFC feature films, particularly level, believe most ofto usmix would probably stop short forcondemning the German market, as well as dubbing a variety of of something as sounding old-fashioned. projects and versions. of sound, we are much This is one oforiginal the peculiarities ‘Having a accept secondaudio DFCatwill make for more likely to face valuelife andeasier in context scheduling and mixwe’re engineers can alsomight exchange because it’sprojects the information after.and Anywe limitations evenautomation add to the between theWe rooms,’ saiditBerliner Synchron’s ‘Positivemanner. experiences enjoyment. can date but it doesn’t dateMichael — not inHans. an obtrusive That with for handling set-ups and because desk configurations make the DFC is notflexibility something I can say about picture I am constantly surprised atideal how for what we even are doing old footage, from here.’ the 1980s, now looks. It’s not just the cars and the clothes AMSthe Neve, UK:quality +44 1282 but picture and 457011 how it has been captured that reminds you that while it might not seem like so long ago, it actually is.

This was thrown into sharp relief for me during the BBC’s superb coverage (on a number of technical, artistic and interactive levels) of the Wimbledon Tennis tournament. The inevitable rain-disrupts-play moments brought up the predictable retrospectives and showed earlier footage that could not be compared on pretty much any count — apart from on the sound. The sound coverage was adequate and while today’s offering is undoubtedly better it still did the job.

It got me thinking. If picture remains so tied to its technology that it can offend the eye even after a relatively few number of years and audio has been doing a perfectly acceptable job alongside these changes and beyond, how come we still have such disproportion in the power base between the two disciplines? I can hear the broadcast controllers nodding sagely and telling me that it’s all about the disparity in investment, but I believe it comes down to a matter of marketing and perception. The audio industry is notoriously bad at fighting its corner. What gives on a DVD when the pictures run long? It’s about time audio stopped being the doormat of the production process.

Zenon Schoepe

Misner buys AMS Neve Tom Misner, president and founder of the SAE Group has bought AMS Neve.

‘We are very happy to now be part of such a strong global organisation,’ said AMS Neve Ltd MD Mark Crabtree. ‘With the full support of the SAE Group it will enable us to increase our market share and above all accelerate the introduction of our new product range.’

The move was a surprise one and largely rumour-free prior to the announcement.

‘I was initially looking to buy SSL but the deal got to be too complicated,’ said Misner (pictured). ‘I saw the opportunity to acquire Neve and my timing was perfect. AMS Neve, as indeed SSL, where both in financial trouble due to various reasons. The main point I would like to emphasise now is that AMS Neve is a new company now with a solid order book, no debt and no liability, the best situation to be in.’

S2 Publications Ltd or the editor can be held responsible for its contents.

The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the Publishers.

Misner is clear of the strengths of the AMS Neve brand and its technology. ‘The main aspect of Neve is the tradition and sound of Neve,’ he said. ‘Because of their financial restraints in the past they could not promote their products and tell the market what they really have.’

The SAE Institute will now be providing, through its network in over 45 colleges in 20 countries, AMS Neve broadcast, music, film and post seminars for past and new clients. This will be a first of a kind service that only AMS Neve is able to offer, according to the company.

‘Priority is to finish the restructure, which is almost already completed — build our mic pres, EQ, etc. which have been ordered and customers are waiting on it and we have already employed more engineers to develop the new Neve range,’ he said.

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Company number: 4375084.

Registered office: Equity House, 128-136 High Street, Edgware, Middlesex HA8 7TT.

resolution

Sonic Studio takes over SACD solutions Sonic Studio is to take over the ownership of the portfolio of products and services from the ProTECH subsidiary of Philips, a pro audio business activity within Philips Intellectual Property & Standards based in Eindhoven.

ProTECH delivers solutions for the production of SACD to the professional market and Sonic Studio will become responsible for Philips ProTECH’s products in terms of marketing, sales and distribution, services, support and new product innovations.

This planned acquisition will not invalidate standing sublicensing arrangements with other DSD and SACD manufacturers.

Existing Philips license contracts will remain in place, with Sonic Studio servicing and supporting those customers. The intellectual property used in the ProTECH products remains Philips property.

‘This purchase strengthens our already trail blazing efforts in the DSD production space. We were the first group outside of the Sony/Philips family to bring a DSD DAW to the marketplace and now we’ve added Europe’s finest SACD knowledge to our product mix,’ said Jon Reichbach, president of Sonic Studio. ‘Since we have been given the task of implementing version 2 of the Cutting Master Format, we will be reaching out to all professional audio manufacturers to collectively build consensus and raise consumer awareness.’

Terminal expansion

Terminal Studios, one of the UK’s largest and best known rehearsal studio facilities, is marking its 25th year by expanding into new premises next door to its existing 15000 square foot building. The expansion significantly increases the amount of space available to bands wanting to store equipment and allows Terminal to extend its production offices and hire department.

‘We’ve been desperate for more space for some time, so were delighted when we were able to secure the building behind our existing facility,’ said Charlie Barrett, Terminal Studio’s MD. ‘Demand for storage space has increased dramatically in recent years as the technology involved in playing live music has become more sophisticated.’

Recent clients have included Brian Wilson, David Bowie, Ronnie Wood, Jeff Beck, Jamelia, Bassment Jaxx, Bloc Party and The Black Eyed Peas.

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July/August 2005

news Barcelona AES stats

APPOINTMENTS

ORF control room spins

MICROPHONE MANUFACTURER CharterOak Acoustic Devices has appointed Soundware Sweden and Mastering Mansion Madrid as its distributors in Sweden and Spain respectively.

ORF/Leitner

The AES Convention in Barcelona attracted 6,200 visitors to the exhibition floor and 1,250 attendees participated in the technical programme, according to the organisers.

‘The numbers of exhibitors and visitors are comparable to last year’s Convention in Berlin,’ said Roger Furness, executive director of the AES. ‘They show that Barcelona as a location for the European AES Convention has a high acceptance.’

Next year, the European AES Pro Audio Expo and Convention will be held in Paris at the Porte de Versailles on 20-23 May. The US AES Convention will be held in New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center on 7-10 October 2005. Themed as Where Audio Comes Alive, the AES has named Martin Porter Associates as business development consultant in charge of attendee marketing and exhibit sales.

DK-TECHNOLOGIES (UK) is distributing Spanish company Avialec’s Albiral LCD monitors in the UK and Ireland.

ORF’s Lawo mc282-equipped SK1 radio and TV dubbing studio control room employs a motorised rotating platform that allows the desk and its engineer to face the studio window or a cinema screen set at an angle of 75 degrees to it.

The arrangement allows the monitoring demands of stereo and 5.1 to be met while also permitting the installation of a large video screen.

SSL bought by Gabriel and Engelke

APRS membership categories The UK’s APRS has introduced a number of new membership categories that are designed to address the needs of new professional and non-professional members, as well as the Association’s existing established membership.

Musicians and engineers who have an interest in creating music but don’t make a living from it are being encouraged to join the Music Maker Category D. Musicians and engineers who do earn their living from making music can join the Professional Music Maker Category C, which is aimed at people who own their own studios and recording equipment but don’t rent it out commercially. Professional Music Maker/ Studio Owner Category B is aimed at people who own their own studios and also hire them out to third parties.

Commercial Recording Facility Category A is aimed at facilities offering a professional recording environment that is only hired out to third parties. These facilities, which may already be members of Studio Accord, are inspected on application to ensure they qualify for membership.

Pricing and membership benefits can be found at www.aprs.co.uk

Gabriel and Engelke

You enjoy and value your copy of Resolution.

July/August 2005

David and Plaskitt

The assets of Solid State Logic have been acquired by a joint venture established by musician Peter Gabriel and broadcast industry entrepreneur David Engelke. The company, which will trade as Solid State Logic, will continue to design and manufacture mixing consoles and related audio technology at its Begbroke, Oxford headquarters.

Antony David, SSL sales director in the 1980s and early 1990s, has been appointed MD and Piers Plaskitt, once president of SSL Inc, has been appointed group commercial director.

Chris Smith joins as group finance director. In the US, Phil Wagner has been promoted to president of SSL, Inc. Gabriel’s business background includes Syco Systems, which he co-founded, and which developed the Tablet digital audio editor, and more recently OD2 (On Demand Distribution) — a European platform provider for the distribution of on-line music. American David Engelke, who currently heads up Broadcast Devices LLC, has been involved with production and broadcast companies

through Pinnacle Systems, Montage Group, and Digital Editing Services and invented several widely adopted technologies in the broadcast industry.

Technologies developed Wagner by him and his engineering teams have earned them three EMMY Awards and an OSCAR from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

‘The Solid State Logic brand stands for excellence like no other pro audio company in the world,’ said Engelke. ‘We are investing to strengthen the company and bring these brand values to a broader market through continued innovative product development.’

‘I have been a long time fan of SSL,’ added Gabriel. ‘We’re very excited about the opportunity of working with the company and to have a chance to participate in its future and its product development. Real World has enjoyed a close relationship with the company for many years.’

TA S C A M H A S a p p o i n t e d R i c k McClendon (left) as division manager replacing Jim Mack who held the position for the last two years. Mack has resigned to pursue other opportunities within the industry. In addition, John Larabee (right) has been promoted to a newly created position as director of product development and marketing.

BROMSGROVE, UK-BASED Total Audio Solutions has moved to new premises just half a mile from its old building. The newly built HQ is much larger at around 8000sqft and also houses three acoustic studios for training and demonstrations. Total Audio Solutions Ltd, Smiths Way, Saxon Business Park, Hanbury Road, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, B60 4AD UK TAS has been appointed UK distributor for Digital Audio Denmark’s range of A-D/D-A convertors.

JOSH THOMAS has been appointed VP of sales and strategic alliances for Rupert Neve Designs. He joins from Sonic Circus Nashville where he was director of sales and industry relations for the Boston-based outlet and prior to this he was North American sales manager for Amek.

JAN LEERSCHOOL has joined Duran Audio as international sales & marketing manager. He was most recently international sales and marketing manager for D&R Electronica.

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5

news APPOINTMENTS SMART AV has appointed UK audio system specialist Media Tools as its UK distributor and broadcast specialist Noretron Oy as its Finland distributor.

Neutrik celebrates 30 years

Soho Group is tapeless with Pyxis

AUDIENT HAS appointed ASC as distributor for the Audient and LA Audio ranges in Belgium.

LONDON DVD design and authoring facility Richmond Studios has appointed interactive graphics specialist Jonny Harris as its head of design.

He had been working as a freelance designer for Richmond Studios prior to his appointment.

NICO LEWIS has taken over the position of intercom sales manager at EVI Audio with responsibility for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He joins from Dutch Telex distributor Axon Digital Design.

THAT CORPORATION has appointed Profusion Spain as its official Spanish distributor. Profusion plc, headquartered in the UK, has anchored THAT’s UK and European distribution network.

ASPEN MEDIA is now UK distributor for Grace Design’s surround and stereo monitoring controllers and microphone preamps.

SYMETRIX HAS appointed M-PRO Benelux as distributor of Symetrix and SymNet products in Belgium and Luxembourg.

THE STANTON GROUP has appointed Timothy Dorwart as VP of sales and marketing for Cerwin-Vega and KRK. Dorwart has worked for the Bose Corporation and DMX.

MARQUEE AUDIO and Orbital Sound have been appointed UK distributors for Digidesign’s Venue Live mixer.

6

Connector manufacturer Neutrik is celebrating 30 years — having started with two employees it now employs 650 in eight countries on three continents.

Originally a test and measurement and connector manufacturer, the test side of the business was spun off in 2003, CEO Werner Bachmann (pictured) is determined to continue the success story. ‘We want to ensure a steady flow of innovations which will give our customers extra benefit,’ he said. ‘Innovation at Neutrik is an active process rather than letting it happen accidentally.’

The operation remains headquartered in the Principality of Liechtenstein and moved into a self-designed new building at the beginning of this year. It boasts a highly skilled and motivated workforce and a high level of automation in its manufacturing, which Bachmann says allows them to remain price competitive as well as setting quality and consistency standards for the industry.

By adapting to the requirements of digital interconnects and maintaining its traditional copper connections market share, Neutrik has shown consistent growth — the only blip being the counterfeiting of some of its products in China, which the company continues to pursue aggressively. Bachmann remains bullish, underlying his belief that quality and innovation are the mainstays of his business.

‘The innovative features and the lasting quality of Neutrik products made us the preferred choice in the past and will keep Neutrik ahead in the future,’ he said.

Breaking rules in Foley Foley supervisor and film sound recordist Alex Joseph is a recent c o n v e r t t o D PA’s miniature mics, having acquired a 4060 and 4061 for use on Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven.

‘With many of the other mics I’ve tried recording with, the resulting sound is too thin and won’t come through in the mix.

For big Hollywood-style productions the sound has to be big, and that’s where the DPAs come in,’ said Alex. ‘We found that we were able to record things at incredibly high levels without it distorting. The beauty of the DPA miniatures is that you can attach them onto objects, whereas generally you have to hold the mic up to a metre away from the sound source. Once we’d acquired these contact mics we realised that we could tear up the microphone rule book and start breaking the rules.’

He built up a library of battle sounds by strapping the mics directly to swords before combat, attaching them to chain mail then

London’s Soho Group Studios has bought 16 Fairlight Pyxis Non-Linear Video systems to outfit its studio network, which consists of 10 studios in three locations — Zoo Studios, Jungle Studios and Marmalade Studios.

‘Our goal from the outset was an environment where engineers could flow from studio to studio, project to project without missing a beat,’ said Graham Ebbs, MD of the Soho Studios Group. ‘Pyxis fills that crucial void by supplying a solution for fast video playback and record, and the easiest video file output I’ve ever seen.’ Ebbs underscored the file management design as one of the main benefits of Pyxis NLV. ‘The platform lets us easily take one clip, copy it over into the timeline and we’ve got five versions of the show to work from without cannibalising storage space,’ he continued. ‘This is invaluable to us because we produce multiple versions of the same commercial spot where little changes but the audio. Before, we would have to output each version and if we cut to tape we’d have five tapes with five different versions.

Now, we can simply drop the copy into the timeline, dump the necessary files, and rest assured that the system simply pulls the files it needs. We’re going tapeless and Pyxis is the necessary tool to remove that time-consuming part of the chain.’

TVNZ upgrade with Sigma

rubbing the links together, and mounting them onto a wire and scraping a brick across it to recreate the sound of a harpoon being fired. A mic was even put inside a railway sleeper and dropped onto the ground to capture a heavy wooden sound.

‘In the UK, Foley is done in a filmic rather than a musical way and as such it can sound very flat and monotonous,’ he said. ‘We try to get away from that by recording things at different pitches and frequencies so that each sound has its own characteristic and can actually poke through the mix. It makes it more interesting, and audiences subconsciously take in these things.’

resolution

TVNZ in Wellington, New Zealand, has completed a digital upgrade of its Avalon Facilities Studio 8 with the purchase of a 64-fader Calrec Sigma 100 desk. TVNZ is the biggest provider of local drama, documentary, comedy and entertainment in New Zealand and Suite 8 is the country’s premier production facility and is regularly used for format shows such as Cash Battle and Dancing with the Stars.

‘The Sigma is capable of storing the entire desk set up into a number of memories, which will enable Suite 8 to be switched quickly to control other studio floors,’ said Avalon Studios’ sound team leader Don Paulin (pictured). ‘Complex programme set ups can be recalled, which saves on manual rigging time and ensures consistency of sound quality. The desk can also mix into surround sound formats compatible with developing TV standards. Redundancy is also vitally important, and was a major factor in the decision to purchase the console.’

July/August 2005

news

news APPOINTMENTS TELOS HAS signed an agreement to distribute NeoWinners Contest Tracking Software, a software suite that helps broadcasters handle every aspect of callin contesting, from inventory tracking to guest lists to automatic winner notification emails. Telos will be the exclusive American representative and will also distribute NeoWinners through Telos dealers internationally.

FLYLINE MUSIC has taken on Swiss distribution for AMS Neve rackmount products, Chandler Limited, and Great River Electronics.

DAVE KELLER has been named executive vice president of sales and marketing at Furman Sound. He joined the company in 2004 as vice president of the consumer electronics division, business development, and international sales.

ARGOSY COMPONENTS Ltd has been appointed master distributor for ISIS and Graham-Patten products throughout Europe.

PROFESSIONAL AUDIO Design (PAD) has appointed Brandon McHale as its technical director with responsibility for overseeing all technical operations at PAD, such as console refurbishment and installations and outboard equipment repair and restoration.

AVS Global’s Osman Celik with DV2’s (Adamson Europe) Guy Vignet and Brock Adamson.

ADAMSON SYSTEMS Engineering has appointed AVS Global as its distributor and technical support arm for Adamson professional loudspeaker products in Turkey.

Adamson Systems Engineering has appointed Joe Desmond & Associates in the US as its sales representative for Nevada and California.

ORBITAL HAS been appointed UK distributor for HME Professional Audio’s DX200 wireless digital intercom system.

SONIC SOLUTIONS has promoted Dave Habiger to president and CEO. He was previously senior VP and general manager of Sonic’s Roxio Division.

8

Sanctuary records Cream Cream’s four appearances at the Royal Albert Hall were recorded by Sanctuary Mobiles with engineer Alan Douglas in Sanctuary Manor One truck at the helm of the 48-channel E Series SSL. The concerts were recorded to 48-track, 24bit, 96kHz Pro Tools HD with a back up to two 48 track DASH machines. Sanctuary technical manager Mike Silverston (left) looked after the machines while engineer Ollie Nesham (right) took the role of sound unit manager to oversee the live recording.

Sanctuary took passive splits from the onstage monitor console that went into custom API remote mic amps, enabling Douglas to control the gain and pad from the truck and drive the 40 feeds at line level down the 100m multicore.

The band recording was supplemented by 10 audience mics. ‘We rigged a special sling fitted with a Schoeps CMTS 501 stereo mic above the front of house position, which works really well and gives a sense of the room’s dimensions, with a few spot mics around the space, so when it comes to mixing it will allow several options such as close up audience sound, crowd ambience and dimensions of the Albert Hall,’ said Nesham.

Concert Sound employed a JBL VerTec line array system for the gigs which saw Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce reunite on stage for the first time in 36 years. They were filmed by Done and Dusted for future DVD release.

RAI records La Scala on Vista

Italy’s national broadcaster, RAI, has opened an all-digital recording facility inside the Teatro alla Scala opera house in Milan. RAI is recording and broadcasting key opera and orchestral performances from this new location, using a Studer Vista 8 production console.

La Scala closed its doors for more than two years to restore its classic interior and completely overhaul the technical layout of the theatre, more than doubling the size of the stage and backstage production areas, and RAI took the opportunity to construct a recording studio at the site. RAI has been broadcasting performances live from La Scala for more than 20 years, and the new studio features a 60-fader Vista 8 and has been designed by Lucio Visintini. As well as recording six opera productions and some 16 orchestral concerts for broadcast

each year, the studio will record selected productions for commercial DVD release.

‘From the beginning, one of the goals of this project was multichannel capability, particularly as the studio is used for both recording and broadcast,’ said RAI technical project manager Dario Barale. ‘Our engineers and technicians praised the easy approach of the Vista operating system, and have accepted it immediately. It is an extremely compact desk, allowing us to get 60 faders into a room that isn’t so big. And it has given us great flexibility in terms of connections; the I-O interfaces allow us to reach the further parts of the theatre.’

Also in Italy, Radio 1O1, part of the Mondadori Group based in Milan, has ordered seven OnAir 3000Net consoles for what will be the largest single installation of the console in the country.

resolution

news THE BIG PICTURE

• THE EUROVISION Song Contest in the Ukraine was mixed in Dolby Digital 5.1 for the first time. The Contest was produced by a consortium of broadcasters under the guidance of the EBU and the Eurovision network chose Dolby E to distribute the surround sound feed.

The Dolby E stream was then decoded and Dolby Digital 5.1 content delivered to viewers. The Ukrainian broadcaster NTU provided the network for the EBU switch and feeds, with Prisma (outside broadcast specialists) and SVT providing the OB and final mix, and SR the primary mix. The surround sound feed was used by several European channels, including SVT in Sweden, FR3 in France, and Polish channels TVP and TVPolonia.

P ro S i e b e n S a t . 1 b ro a d c a s t t h e Champions League football final live in HDTV with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. This follows on from the various HD tests carried out on ProSieben and Sat.1, which were all accompanied with Dolby Digital 5.1.

Shanghai Media Entertainment Group has selected Dolby Digital for the first channel in China’s television broadcasting history to offer 5.1 programming. French broadcaster M6 has begun broadcasting in Dolby Digital 5.1 and surround sound programming will be available on the new Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) network and the TPS network satellite service.

• YOUNG PEOPLE across Europe are spending less time watching TV and listening to the radio as a result of using the Internet, according to research by the European Interactive Advertising Association. They found that young people are spending almost a quarter of their media time (24%) on-line, more than reading newspapers (10%) or magazines (8%). In comparison, the average European devotes 20% of their media activity to the Internet. Among 15-24 year olds, TV continues to represent the largest share of media time at 31% with radio just ahead of the Internet on 27%.

The study revealed that music dominates on-line activity for this age group and a quarter of 15-24 year olds are now buying music on-line having previously purchased it in the shops. A quarter (25%) said they would be prepared to pay for on-line gaming services, 40% had visited a games website within the last 7 days, while 17% had purchased a computer game on-line.

10

Biz bites

For the first time, a legal download service has been proved a formidable competitor against illegal peer-to-peer services, writes Nigel Jopson.

NPD MusicWatch collects data from the PCs of 40,000 on-line panellists, and in March showed iTunes was the equal to the illegal LimeWire service, both used by 1.7 million households, in second place to WinMX with 2.1 million. ‘One of the music industry’s questions has been when will paid download stores compete head-tohead with free P2P download services,’ said Russ Crupnick, president of NPD’s Music division. ‘That question has now been answered. iTunes is more popular than nearly any P2P service, and two other paid digital music offerings have also gained a level of critical mass. These digital download stores appear to have created a compelling and economically viable alternative to illegal file sharing.’ Instead of trumpeting this useful piece of research from the rooftops and promoting legal services, the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industries) instead chose to promote the news that: ‘One in three music discs is illegal.’ No research data was provided to support the assertion that 1.2 billion pirate discs were sold in 2004. Apart from the statistical lack of rigour, there is a dangerous fallacy inherent in such unsupported assertions: that every disc copied is a legal sale lost, and that ownership of a free copy precludes, or discourages the purchase of music.

Despite the success of iTunes, Sony BMG and EMI are rapidly increasing the number of copy-protected CDs they release in the US, with computeravailable tracks provided only in Microsoft’s WMA/DRM encoded format, which is incompatible with iPods. And news that iTunes European sales have reached 50 million tracks was not quite as good as it seemed: the monthly average growth in downloads of 45% compared poorly with the global rate of 250%. It was not much of an incentive for the EU consumer when label execs insisted on pricing downloads so closely to the physical product: perhaps those of us who said punters would realise transposing $ to £ prices was a rip-off were right, after all? In a June meeting with the IFPI, representatives from GERA (Global Entertainment Retail Association) including the CEOs of Virgin Megastores and HMV, suggested that, as they still account for 97% of all music sales, perhaps CDs should be made available at the same time as downloads within two weeks of airplay. The words shoot, foot and kick, teeth somehow spring to mind.

Rumours of an EMI-Warners merger have been dusted off by city pundits.

‘EMI and Warner should undoubtedly combine,’ said Paul Richards, media analyst at Numis Securities. ‘Both companies have done a good job of taking out costs. Putting them together would create further synergies in traditional and digital sales channels.’ Nobody can fault the business logic, but would Edgar Bronfman ever consider allowing Alain Levy (CEO of EMI Music) to run the combined company?

Is there no limit to the powers of Saint Bob? Whilst U2’s Bono is content to gladhand politicos, Geldof is intent on shaming the leaders of the richest nations on earth by deploying people power. There’s more — he’s now managed to end one of the longest and bitterest internecine feuds in rock history. Roger Waters announced he would rejoin his erstwhile Pink Floyd band mates to play at Live 8. ‘Any squabbles Roger and the band have had in the past are so petty in this context,’ opined Dave Gilmour, ‘and if reforming for this concert will help focus attention then it’s got to be worthwhile.’

And, proving that even the most uncompromising of artistic personalities mellow with age, Roger said: ‘The cynics will scoff, screw ’em!’

Metrop’s Prism HDs London studio Metropolis has purchased 10 Pro Tools HD Cards to upgrade its collection of Prism Sound ADA-8s.

‘When Metropolis invests in a product we not only need to be sure that it is one step ahead of the game in terms of performance, but also that it’s going to provide us with the flexibility we need,’ said Metropolis technical director John Goldstraw. ‘Prism has always delivered

when it comes to these requirements and the ability to upgrade their products is of substantial benefit to us, their ADA-8 is a case in point. We originally purchased the ADA-8 to go with our Pro Tools Mix systems. When we upgraded to HD we didn’t need to purchase a whole new unit, we just replaced the interface card. It’s a perfect partnership and a perfect solution.’

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Venezuela Hall opens with Pyramix DSD

The Venezuelan National Orchestra, which includes the prestigious Symphonic Orquestra Simón Bolívar, is to have a brand new home at the new Venezuelan Symphony Hall and Performing Arts Centre in Caracas.

The heart of the hall’s recording system will be a 16-channel Merging Pyramix DAW with DSD/SACD capabilities.

‘We clearly believe in the potential of DSD, so the “moment” captured by the mics will be preamplified with Millennia Media HV3s,’ said Sergio Prado, director of audio engineering for the hall. ‘This signal will be converted to DSD stream and at the same time, we will manage a 48kHz PCM signal as an audio reference for the video machines and the reference copies for the students.

The DSD recording postproduction will use Merging’s Pyramix DAW, thanks to the compatibility at file level, for the final SACD and CD master. Needless to say, we are planning to open our facility to anyone wishing to use our resources.’

GL4000 for Internet recording studio

UK Internet recording and production studio, Tracks By Email.com, has installed a 40-channel Allen & Heath GL4000 console in its Lincolnshire facility. The company provides remote recording resources for musicians and songwriters who do not have the access or budget to hire studios or sessions musicians. Clients submit partial tracks on-line with composition instructions, and Tracks By Email.com adds the missing elements — such as a live strings arrangement, drum track, or backing vocals — providing the results over the web. The GL4000 runs with Nuendo and RME ADI-8 audio convertors.

‘We selected the GL4000 for the studio because we had previously used a GL2200 for a live event and were totally sold on Allen & Heath’s sound and build quality,’ said studio director John Clark. ‘We rely on our equipment in order to service our clients from around the world, and every morning when we come into the studio to start the day’s work, we know the desk will not give us a problem. Our favourite feature is probably the switchable 10th aux that can be used as a rotary for the direct out level.’

July/August 2005

news THE BIG PICTURE

RTBF’s Aurus triple

• A C C O R D I N G T O research by Accenture, some 10% of US TV ads could be fast-forwarded by 2009 because of DVR technology as it estimates that around 40% of US homes will have DVRs by 2009.

• MARKET RESEARCH carried out by Scribe Technical Public Relations and commissioned by the Super Audio CD Project Team, questioned more than 2600 key opinion formers within the music industry.

Of the respondents, over 71% believe that CD is not obsolete and still offers the main business platform for the provision of recorded music. However, the majority of respondents could see a time, within the next five years or so, when alternative music carriers will supersede CD. Looking at current market drivers, electronic music distribution systems are seen as growing strongly and are attractive particularly to younger music consumers, who are motivated by factors such as low cost, ease of access and portability.

In this environment, the majority of respondents believe that surround sound will play a very important role in the future development of the ‘high-end’ recorded music market. Over 79% of respondents believe that surround sound for music is an important evolutionary development in home entertainment systems.

While surround sound is seen as being key in the future development of the music industry, it is believed by most respondents that there is a low level of general consumer understanding regarding surround sound (particularly for music).

With respect to electronic music distribution systems, over 73% of respondents believe that these systems should not be regarded as a competitor to surround sound music. Many believe that, in several ways, they are complimentary to each other.

• DTS HAS opened two digital sound encoding facilities for film in China and Argentina in cooperation with Media Business Services and FX Design. The two facilities are based in Hong Kong and Buenos Aires respectively, and will enable encoding, mastering and replication of DTS soundtracks for locally produced film content. DTS currently maintains 15 film encoding facilities across 12 countries, including the US, UK, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico and Thailand.

12

Belgian National Broadcaster RTBF will equip its Brussels-based TV news studio and two new High Definition TV OB trucks with Stagetec Aurus consoles in the second half of the year.

A 40-fader, 96 audio channel Aurus will be installed in Studio 18 at the broadcasting house for live TV news production while a 48-fader Aurus with up to 128 audio channels will go into RTBF’s Magellan 18-camera HD-TV OB truck for live sports and music production. The third desk will be installed in the One Shot 8-camera OB truck with satellite uplink.

‘RTBF, who already owns five Cantus desks, is continuing its long term commitment to Stagetec. This is a sign of confidence we are very proud of,’ said Stagetec MD Klaus-Peter Sholz.

Stagetec says it has sold more than 50 desks since the Aurus’ introduction in 2003.

Crystal Clear’s Masterpiece Producer/engineer Bryan Mitchell and producer/engineer/musician Brian Moritz have teamed up to form BNB Productions, a company dedicated to artist development, jingle and soundtrack creation, and audio/video recording services. The two are converting a 4,200-square-foot building near Chicago into a three-studio facility that will include a 60channel Audient ASP8024, Pro Tools|HD, Sony APR24 and Ampex ATR-102 tape machines and a Legendary Audio Masterpiece.

Crystal Clear Sound in Texas has upgraded its Studio B Mastering Suite with Digidesign Pro Tools|HD, B&W 805S monitors and a Masterpiece from Legendary Audio.

‘The Masterpiece is, in many respects, a magic box,’ said Crystal Clear Sound senior engineer Keith Rust. ‘The classic circuitry and tape texture sections are amazing additions to any project, but features like image control, which lets you alter the ambience in a recording, are absolutely mind-boggling. I don’t have a clue how this product can pull that off in the analogue domain.’

The Masterpiece was conceived by mastering engineer Billy Stull with all circuitry designed by Rupert Neve and is a 2-channel analogue mixing/mastering system with four pairs of vertically-oriented filter modules aesthetically reminiscent of vintage Neve designs.

Baker keeps it digital with iDP

Chris Baker, formerly part of Mint Royale, which gained success with three albums and several singles and numerous film, TV and advertising credits, is pursuing diverse projects on his own and has been working on three sound installations at the new Winston Churchill museum in London.

He’s currently working on a collaboration album at his studio in a West London complex on Logic Pro 7 and Tannoy Ellipse 8 iDP monitors. Chris has monitored on Tannoy for the last 12 years and even uses Tannoys on his hi-fi system at home.

‘I find that the imaging and preciseness of placement of instruments, voices and effects, working with the Dual Concentric driver, is exceptional,’ he said. ‘As the whole album features digital mixing, the ability to retain the signal in the digital domain when fed to the monitors, and the added flexibility of the DSP control within the Ellipse iDP’s, ensures absolute accuracy in the mix.’

• Digidesign’s Icon training room at its European HQ in Pinewood UK has been equipped with a Tannoy Ellipse 5.1 iDP system.

Radio London is back

The Cheeky Girls recorded a cover version of the 1960’s song We Love the Pirate Stations to celebrate the station’s comeback.

‘There are so many things that can be done with this box; you can really get lost in it,’ said Mitchell. ‘Aside from mastering with it, I’ve tracked and mixed through it and found that whatever I use it on — even simply running signals through its transformers with barely any tweaking — sounds incredible. It can completely heal the harshness of digital sources. By making a few knob adjustments, you can give new character to the sound. The sonic landscape of anything going through this product just explodes!’

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Radio London is back on the airwaves 38 years after the UK Government bypassed Parliament and forced the Marine Offences Act into Law and prohibited offshore radio broadcast and killed off ‘Wonderful’ Radio London.

Radio London is broadcasting from Holland and will reach most of the East of England on MW frequency 1395kHz, the rest of the UK on Sky channel 940, and the world on-line on www.bigl.co.uk.

The Radio London team intends to resurrect the spirit of 1960s radio. DJ Mike Read heads a team of presenters that includes Michele Stephens, Mike Ahern, Randall Lee Rose, Ray Anderson and others.

July/August 2005

mix outside the box...

news

D-Command D-Command is the new ergonomic mixing surface for Digidesign Pro Tools. Using ICON technology, this is the ideal centrepiece for your Pro Tools|HD studio.

D-Command includes 8 high quality touch-sensitive motorized faders, a comprehensive monitor section, metering and transport controls. Expandable to 24 faders.

Touch-sensitive rotary encoders incorporate 15-segment LED rings for immediate visual feedback. Dedicated EQ and Dynamics sections provide intuitive “one knob per function” control. Encoders and faders immediately display parameter values when touched.

Includes XMON™ remote, rack-mounted analogue I/O audio monitor system capable of monitoring up to 5.1 surround.

High-speed Ethernet connectivity provides 200x more bandwidth compared with MIDI controllers, enabling higher resolution and rock solid reliabilty.

D-Command truly puts you in the driving seat of the industry’s leading audio platform.

Please contact us for further information or to arrange a demo.

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EQ PANEL — twelve rotary controls provide Freq, Q and Gain over four bands. 5.1 wide streaming selection, and output metering. Alphanumeric LCD. Save, Save As, and Master Bypass switches.

DYNAMICS PANEL — six rotary controls for dedicated compressor/limiter functions, alphanumeric display, 5.1 wide streaming selection, output and gain reduction metering.

MONITOR PANEL — allows operators to control two 5.1 surround inputs, three stereo inputs and two cue sends. Also includes talkback, mono and dim functions.

protools@digitalvillage.co.uk « « www.dvproaudio.com a division of

Ubisoft The games industry may be looked down on by more traditional markets but the sector’s enormous and growing hold on the consumer plus imminent changes in the next generation of games consoles means it has now geared up and is working to high standards. ZENON SCHOEPE visits Paris’ finest.

U

BISOFT OCCUPIES THE NUMBER 7 slot in the world’s games publishers’ chart and the French company now employs some 2500 worldwide with operational centres in Montreal, which deals with the American market, and at its headquarters in Paris, which deals with European and Chinese projects. These centres house the company’s audio facilities with an SSL Axiom in Montreal and a newly installed SSL C200 with a big Pro Tools rig in Paris.

The company started working in Dolby ProLogic with the launch of its successful Rayman series and was using outside studios for its audio requirements.

But changes in work load and ambition gave rise to a desire to build its own multichannel room with an accompanying voice-over booth. Martin Dutasta, head sound engineer for Ubisoft France, describes the control room as his office and is quick 14

to stress the maturity of games sound at Ubisoft and how their skillsets equate to part film mixer, editor, sound designer, recordist and music mixer as well as combining traditional techniques with games specific methods.

‘All the music, for example, is mixed in the traditional way in the same way you would for music to picture,’ says Martin. ‘For ambience we’re trying to create a sound field just as normal but for sound effects, well, they’re controlled by what the player is doing and they’ll be triggered by his actions so it becomes far more complicated.’

Interactivity is what makes a game a game yet it’s also what makes the sound man’s life demanding and there are also technical constraints, linked to the host console, that dictate how much audio ends up on the finished project. He says the job involves prioritising the importance, and therefore the resolution, of each resolution

sound component part to maximise memory usage.

It’s a process that is not helped by the fact that with certain platforms they only get an absolute idea of their memory allocation until near the end of the project.

By contrast, the choice of the 16-fader, 64-channel C200 was an easy one according to Martin. ‘I considered two options,’ he says. ‘One was software based with a Pro Tools and an Icon and the other was this sort of hardware. The thing here is that we are not a commercial studio, we only work for Ubisoft, so in terms of investment I had to look to the long term — I couldn’t say I wanted to buy something and then in three year’s say that I needed to change everything. I know that in five years the C200 will still be working, when you take a software based thing you have to change things on a regular basis to keep it current.’

The room was designed and built a few years ago

by Souch San Souci of AiA and houses Quested VS 2108 5.1 monitoring and, at the time of the design, had an Amek Big console. Martin says that five years ago they didn’t have much idea about the direction to take with monitoring for games and that there weren’t many 5.1 mixing rooms in Paris. He adds that people were simply including surrounds and a centre in stereo rooms, which Souch and Martin didn’t believe was any sort of solution. As such the control room was built with multichannel in mind from the onset and also handles the company TV ads, game trailers, and internal AV stuff.

July/August 2005

facility It’s a comfortable room but then it needs to be because the hours can be long. Martin says they work on the assumption that if a player goes through a game without stopping then they could finish it in 15 to 20 hours. ‘If we’re composing music for that, we don’t want it to be repeated so we do submixes,’ he says. ‘It’s something that is quite specific to video games; the music has to evolve with the action. When we’re looping it, say because a fight lasts ten minutes, we won’t keep the same minute of music repeating, we do maybe ten versions of each track and each of these tracks can loop with one of the others and during the game that will happen and move from one piece of music to the other.

‘In addition to that, if the player gets to a point where there is an element of tension, for example, we try and plan the music to compliment this in a musical way. Put simply, there is music for danger and there is music for when the player does the right thing and that is planned by the composer and by us at the mix and there will be a lot of transitions from, for example, danger to safety. It means that from one title I have to produce ten and I’m editing, remixing, keeping only certain parts of the track, doing some sound design.’

He says that games sound is becoming more complex and that it’s something that if done well is largely taken for granted and accepted by the player.

This audio complexity has stepped up with increased sophistication of the graphics. ‘If I’m putting in a sound effect that was recorded in Foley — like footsteps, for example — and I’m hearing it at 1m or in a cave at 50m you have to give it a real-time treatment.’ This, he says, can be part of the initial processing or something that is added during the game play from within the console.

‘I’m talking about the highest level console, which is the X-Box, and the next generation of PlayStation and X-Box, which will be out at the end of the year, will be much more sophisticated,’ he says. ‘At the moment it’s quite limited but that’s the future and it’s why we’re already working on this.’

He adds that the current situation is strange because they are working towards platforms that they don’t yet know. He puts this in perspective: ‘Every three years we have a new platform and a game is created within a year to a year and a half.’

Many still regard games sound as a lot of audio ambition and a lot of skill from the creators but they might still consider a nice big control room set up for 5.1 and a C200 and a big Pro Tools rig as possibly a bit of overkill. ‘The ambition of all the major video games publishers is to reach the home theatre level — how people at home get the best reproduction from their movies,’ replies Martin. ‘That’s where we’re aiming. We know that in the US, for example, most people who are buying an X-Box are buying a home theatre system at the same time or already have one at home. What we’re aiming for is a DVD quality soundtrack that is not film theatre quality but is more adapted to home consumption and that includes Dolby Digital. When I arrived at Ubisoft we were doing music with MIDI files. That’s finished now and we’re doing surround ambience so when the player turns his head the ambience turns with him and that is calculated in real-time. The time of Pacman sound has long finished! For action games it’s now almost like a movie. Some of the games we’re doing now have sound effects that were recorded in Soundelux and other companies in LA from weeks of Foley and the music is orchestral. It’s great to have a room like this and I’m really pleased with it but it’s realistic in terms of what we are aiming for.’ ■ July/August 2005

Res_Smart AV_07.05

29/6/05

10:40 am

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”The most exciting new product in years.”

In an industry where new product launches come thicker and faster each year, reactions like the one above are extremely hard to come by, yet this is the most frequent comment we’ve heard from seasoned professionals and hardened critics alike on first seeing the revolutionary new Smart AV Console.

Designed for use with today's most popular DAWs including Apple Logic, Digidesign Pro Tools and Merging Technologies Pyramix, the Smart Console represents a quantum leap forward in ergonomics and is radically different from any other console on the market today. Operation via patented ARC technology is so intuitive that the learning curve is measured in minutes rather than days, and project completion times are slashed. A bold claim, but when you find out more about the design, it’s easy to see why: THE ARC

EQ FAN DISPLAY

The Console’s patented touch-sensitive ARC allows instant one-touch selection of any channel or group of channels from those currently in use on the DAW - custom sets of channels can be called up onto the faders in a second or two. What’s more, the ARC also allows instant muting, soloing (or any other custom function) of any channel, even if it’s not currently active on the console.

DISPLAYS

CHANNEL DISPLAY

In addition to the stunning metering on the ARC itself, channels marked on the ARC in your own handwriting appear in the super high-visibility electro-fluorescent display above each fader bank - this can also optionally display your DAW track names, or both. Meanwhile in the EQ department, dualconcentric touch-sensitive EQ pots show the current gain and frequency information on hi-res LED fan displays, whilst detailed plug-in control is available on the central LCD touchscreen with its own dual-concentric touch-sensitive pots.

The touch-sensitive aux send knobs are also motorized, as are the pan knobs with their handy LED surround pan displays and a central motorized touch-sensitive surround panner is available to all channels.

MODULARITY The entire Console is highly modular, and in additon to the components already described, also comes as standard with support for 3rd party surround monitoring controllers and remote mic pre-amps, a 48, 72 or 96 channel ARC, one or two optional ‘floating’ subsidiary ARCs, and an optional Edit Panel with high quality jog wheel, 40 custom function buttons and built-in 12" hi-definition LCD screen.

SOUND INVESTMENT

MOTORIZATION

Most of all though, the Smart Console makes good commercial sense - other than the undeniable client ‘wow’ factor, tests have shown that productivity is massively increased versus any other existing console design, and operator stress levels significantly reduced - how much could this be worth to your business?

The Console can be specified with either industry standard ALPS touch-sensitive motorized faders, or optionally deluxe ultra-fast Penny & Giles models when only the best will do.

Call today to find out more about the Console and flexible finance arrangements, or to book your personal demonstration.

+44 (0) 20 7692 6611 www.smartav.net smartav@mediatools.co.uk

EDIT PANEL

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15

gear review

Products Equipment introductions and announcements plus news on Digidesign and Steinberg.

MERGING PYRAMIX CONTROL

The Isis R e m o t e Controller and Isis Fader Expansion units for the Pyramix DAW consist of a comprehensive edit controller and a fader expander.

The main controller has large dedicated machine control keys, high-resolution jog/shuttle/scrub functionality, advanced jog-wheel editing capabilities and a range of user-assignable keys positioned around a large LCD. The main unit has a master fader section and 24 additional user-definable keys across two layers that can be used as 48 direct access solo/mute/track arming keys, locators, cue triggers or any other chosen function. There is a separate and optional 8-fader expansion unit with 8 rotary encoders and both units use 100mm touch-sensitive moving faders with dedicated Solo, Mute, Read, Write automation keys.

Isis can be used with Merging’s VCube and VCube HD-2K video player/recorders and can be configured to operate the specific functionality of VCube.

The software only version of the Pyramix DAW — Pyramix Native — has undergone an increase in specification and functionality. The Standard Native system grows from 2 to 4 inputs and outputs and the more advanced Native Media Bundle grows to 8 inputs and outputs. Both versions have increased from 8 to 24-track editing, mixing and processing.

In addition, Native and Media Bundle now contains all the increased functionality of the Pyramix Virtual Studio V5.0 software with the option of 96kHz sample rate. www.merging.com

WAVES ACCELERATION

Waves’ APA32 and APA44-M audio processing accelerators let users run multiples of Waves’ most CPU-intensive plugins. The APA32 can run 6 IR-1 reverbs, or 9 Phase Linear parametric equalisers, or 12 C4 multiband parametric processors at 44.1kHz. The APA32 is a 1U rackmount unit while the APA44-M is a half-rack unit that features up to 30% more processing power and nearly silent operation.

There’s no PCI card to install, no need for a FireWire or USB connection. You plug an APA unit into a computer’s Ethernet port and install Waves’ new NetShell software.

The power of APA units can also be distributed among several workstations. www.waves.com

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Platform news: Digidesign The Icon exchange programme offers registered owners of ProControl or Control|24 surfaces the opportunity to exchange up to an Icon DControl or D-Command. The programme includes a variety of exchange options and a saving up to UK£3,480.

Digidesign has introduced six Icon configurations that include essential Icon components in several different configurations that are optimised for different applications and budgets. These include: DControl|32 Music; D-Control|32 Post; D-Control|16 Music; D-Control|16 Post; D-Command|Music; and D-Command|Post.

Each configuration includes a D-Control or D-Command, a Pro Tools|HD 3 Accel system, modular Pro Tools|HD I-O interfaces and peripherals, a DigiDelivery Serv|LT file exchange server, and the HDpack 3 (V6) effects plugin bundle.

Music configurations add a PRE preamp, 192 I-O interface or 192 AD expansion card, and Synchronic beat and audio manipulation tool. Post configurations instead include Digidesign MachineControl software, the DigiTranslator 2.0 option, and the Avid Mojo video interface with the Avid Media Station|PT companion application.

Pro Tools LE 6.9.2 software delivers support for Mac OS X 10.4.1 (Tiger) to Digi 002, Digi 002 Rack, and Mbox systems. It is available as a free download for qualified users. Pro Tools LE 6.9.2 is for Pro Tools LE systems only. The previously released Pro Tools TDM 6.9.2 software supports Pro Tools|HD systems on Mac OS X 10.4.1. A future software release will support Pro Tools M-Powered systems on Mac OS X 10.4.1. www.digidesign.com

SADIE H64 REMOTE AND LOCATION RECORDER The H64 Remote is a dedicated multichannel remote controller for the SADiE PCM-H64 DAW for post and music applications.

Functional blocks, which concentrate on track arming and monitoring, group functions, transport controls, locating and full editing controls, are complemented by external machine control. Together with twin timecode displays, a full colour screen can be configured to show metering or editing information and will normally supplement full-sized screens from the H64 base unit.

The track area controls and displays the status of each individual track — record enable, input switching, edit control, mute and solo of each individual track or stem, together with status displays.

The edit control area features a weighted jog-wheel together with function buttons that include multiple preview modes, rapid location devices, region and trim editing models.

The software behind the host PCM H64 can be the normal SADiE V5.4 interface or, when being used as a multichannel dubber or recorder, a radically simplified user interface is available.

The LRX is a laptop-based location recorder that combines SADiE’s audio input and output modules with a tactile hardware control surface.

The LRX control surface comprises a small assignable mixer with 8 motorised faders, including prefade listen and dedicated record enable buttons; a complete editorial interface with fully weighted jog wheel and ergonomic editing buttons; locator memories; transport controls and a headphone monitor output.

It is supplied with a simplified version of the SADiE on-screen graphical user interface. www.sadie.com

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V3.9 FOR UAD-1 V3.9 software for the UAD-1 DSP card and powered plugin system includes a 14-day fully functional demo of the first of three announced emulations of vintage Roland effects units; the Boss CE-1 Chorus. Full authorisations of the CE-1 plug-in may be purchased for US$99 from my.uaudio.com V3.9 also includes updated drivers for Apple’s OSX 10.4 Tiger and a number of enhancements for improved functionality with Logic Pro and G5 computers but will be the last UAD-1 release for legacy OS9. www.uaudio.com

QUESTED S10 AND SUB The S10 is the largest full range monitor in Quested’s S Range and is a 3-way active reflex port design. It employs a 10inch bass d r i v e r, 3-inch mid and 1-inch high frequency soft dome driven with 500W of linear Class A-B amplification.

The SB10 subwoofer works with the complete S Range and has a separate 1U controller that processes the left and right signals feeding the full range monitors. The Quested range also includes the S6, S7 and S8 monitors. www.quested.com

July/August 2005

gear review RTW MONITOR CONTROLLER

RTW now offers its SurroundControl 30960 in a halfwidth 3U housing format. The basis for the system is the combination of an 8-channel monitoring controller with the measuring functions of the RTW surround display units.

The peakmeter, analyser and loudspeaker management systems have been adjusted to optimally complement each other. Monitoring controller functions include an 8channel volume control with pushbuttons for the rear-tofront, mono, phase inversion and side switching, solo, mute and dim functions.

The volume control can be calibrated using a reference sound level and can be reset to the preset monitoring volume at the touch of a button. The SoundControl system can be used to calibrate a monitoring system as it includes a surround test signal generator, an SPL meter, and an input for a measuring microphone.

It also has a built-in downmix matrix, a 2-channel downmix meter and additional monitoring inputs for external stereo signals. www.rtw.de

RUPERT NEVE’S PORTICO SERIES Rupert Neve has returned to manufacturing with a series of all-analogue products under the Rupert Neve Designs brand. Custom designed transformers, very short signal paths, minimal negative feedback plus single-sided transformer-coupled amplifier designs are said to form the building blocks for the new Portico range.

The first Portico unit is the 5012 duo mic pre, a dualchannel microphone preamp that incorporates a ‘Silk’ switch to add warmth and presence to both outputs. A To Bus switch allows the 5012 to access busing in a customconfigured, multimodule setup or to assign a signal to a solo or cue bus in other Portico modules.

Gain control offers 0dB to 66dB plus an associated Trim and a continuously variable high pass filter at 12dB per octave covers 20Hz to 250Hz. The 5012 will be joined by equalisation, filtering, dynamics control, assignment, mixing and monitoring modules, and even a tape emulation channel. www.rupertneve.com

TC UPDATES With the 2.0 update, TC’s Restoration Suite for PowerCore includes five real-time plug-ins: DeScratch, DeNoise, DeClick, DeCrackle, and now DeThump, which can be used with any VST, AU or RTAS compatible system.

DeThump resolves impulsive errors up to 12000 samples in length without audible artefacts and is designed to eliminate low frequency pulses that typically occur with strong impulse disturbances in LP recordings.

Also for PowerCore, DVR2 is a Digital Vintage R e v e r b that adds spaciousness and degrees of modulation to a mix and can produce a sound very close to a well preserved EMT250.

A series of System 6000 stereo plug-ins — MD3, VSS3, DVR2 and NonLin2 — are now available for Pro Tools HD. www.tcelectronic.com

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gear review CHARTEROAK MICS US CharterOak Acoustic Devices has made its range of mics available in Europe.

The SA538 is a dual diaphragm condenser using a centre-terminated S-1 capsule and the SA538B is a side-address dual diaphragm valve condenser microphone that employs a side-terminated S-2 capsule type that provides extended bass response and smooth treble.

The S600 front-address valve condenser is sold in pairs and employs S-3 capsules and is said to be excellent when used as a stereo overhead pair. The extended bass response of the S600 is said to make it an excellent choice for recording bass guitar and its smooth treble response makes it a good choice for recording bright electric guitars. www.charteroakacoustics.com

AEQ PORTABLE AEQ’s DR 100 professional digital recorder is the size of a mobile phone and is said to be ideal for journalists and other broadcast applications. Its portability allows the user to operate it with a single hand and view the information on its large screen. Recordings can be made using the built-in microphone or via an external mic. Its built-in FM receiver allows the recording of any station on the FM band and audio files can be transferred via external modem or through a USB port. www.aeq.es

V2.2 FOR AURUS

Platform news: Steinberg Nuendo 3.1 provides new features and capabilities aimed specifically at those working in postproduction for film and television. New Audio Pull Up/Down functions make Nuendo a useful tool for audio post whenever a Telecine process was used to transfer film to NTSC or PAL/SECAM. The added support for HDTV Frame Rates allows Nuendo users access to this fastgrowing format within their DAW. Nuendo Network Collaboration features have been extended by adding support for Marker Tracks, while the Online Merge function facilitates quick and easy merging of networked projects with local ones.

Also announced with this update is the ability of Nuendo to interface with Euphonix hardware, such as the MC and System 5-MC, using the EuCon protocol.

‘While we’ve added important new features, we’ve also implemented improvements to existing functionality requested by pros from around the world working in audio post,’ said senior Nuendo product manager Lars Baumann. ‘And the ongoing partnership of Steinberg and Euphonix will provide the customer with exciting new possibilities and tremendous workflow improvements in recording, editing or mixing audio.’

The 3.1 update is available for download to current registered users.

Steinberg and Yamaha showed their range of audio software and hardware for Mac at MacExpo in Cologne. ‘Our presence here together with Yamaha clearly underlines the ongoing commitment of both companies to the Mac platform,’ said Steinberg’s marketing director Frank Simmerlein. ‘Tiger is turning out to be a fantastic operating system for audio professionals, with new features which we’re already supporting in our products.’

Running on Mac OS 10.4 Tiger, Cubase SX3 has new features currently exclusive to the Mac platform, including support for the new Aggregate Device and support for MIDI networking, which allows MIDI data to be transferred to other computers in real-time using TCP/IP. www.steinberg.net

MULTICHANNEL AUDIO SPLITTERS

The V2.2 configuration software update for Stagetec’s Aurus console adds extended and improved management and configuration facilities with associated improvements in speed of use, reliability and operator efficiency. The console boot process is now even faster with reconfigured data storage within the console. The current statuses of the console and the signal processors are stored in the console’s controller board instead of to the memory server as with previous versions.

Stagetec has updated the snapshot automation of its Aurus console with a SnapMix function. Similar to dynamic automation, this function allows storage of complex mixes or effects as SnapMixes. These SnapMixes can be recalled, regardless of the presence of external timecode, with the internal high-precision clock of the Aurus used as a sync reference.

It can be used to achieve asymmetric fades between two stored snapshots or to reproduce complex panning effects. www.stagetec.com

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The alphaton MPV-43P offers four channels with one input split into three outputs. The inputs and outputs are provided as XLR connectors on the front panel. In contrast to its little brother the MPV-43, the P version offers individually switchable 48V phantom power for each of the four channels.

The multichannel audio splitters distribute microphone and line levels of up to +6dBu with low distortion and very low loss. www.lawo.de

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HHB PRO CD PLAYER

HHB’s CDP-88 is a 1U rackmounting CD player with 24-bit Delta Sigma D-A convertors that plays CD and MP3-CD from CD, CD-R and CD-RW discs, with the facility to play unfinalised CD-R/RW discs and indicate error rates on the front panel display.

Analogue outputs are balanced XLR and phono plus digital AES-EBU and optical/coaxial SPDIF. It has the facility to sync to Word clock at any frequency from 32 to 96kHz (even in varispeed). RS232 and parallel remote connections are provided and the supplied infra-red remote can be converted to wired.

The CDP-88 has a RAM buffer for instant start, a playback shock buffer and a digital output attenuator. There’s also a fader start interface, track intro and outro display modes, frame accurate cueing with jog sound, +/– 12.5% varispeed and displays for elapsed time, track time remaining and disc time remaining. www.hhb.co.uk

July/August 2005

gear review FIREWIRE CONNECTOR Switchcraft has launched a FireW ire connector that is mounted within a universal style XLR panel receptacle housing.

The product has feed-through connections and can be supplied in nickel or black XLR housings.

Other options in this range have BNC, RCA Phono and SVHS connectors and future additions will include USB and Cat6 versions. www.switchcraft.com

NEVE 5.1 COMPRESSOR

MORE I-OS AND BUSES FOR INNOVASON Innovason’s Sensoft V10 console control software increases the source and mix capability of its digital live mixing consoles. The compact 48-fader Sy48 is now able to mix 72 channels into 40 buses; the 80-fader Sy80 has been increased to 104 mix channels into 48 buses — all with full digital processing.

Both consoles are now able to access these inputs from up to 144 local and remote sources using a combination of existing Innovason analogue and digital input cards and the new Dio multichannel audio interfaces.

Dio-ES is capable of delivering 64 bi-directional channels of 24-bit, 48kHz synchronous audio with control data down a single Cat5 cable. This can be used to connect the audio

of two Innovason consoles together for accessing up to 64 channels of audio from external devices or to connect a second 64-input channel Innovason Stage Box that will be available soon. www.innovason.com

The Neve 8051 surround compressor provides six fully transformer balanced audio paths complemented by two side chains and a key input. Flexible side chain routing, trimming and filtering lend it to surround mixing and mastering. It employs fully discrete audio paths and negative feedback circuit design.

The unit is based on a circuit design first used in the classic 2254 limiter/compressor from 1969. There is control of side chain routing and filtering across the six channels.

It is available in two versions: Standard with continuously variable rotary controls and Mastering with clicked rotary controls. www.ams-neve.com

ELEMENT SURFACE Axia Audio’s Element modular studio control surface is available in configurations of 4 to 32 faders and has four Program buses, four Aux send buses, dedicated talk a n d preview functions on each channel, onetouch record and monitor sections, and up to 32 mix-minus outputs.

Element works in conjunction with the Axia Studio Mix Engine, an Intel-based mixing platform running real-time Linux. A standard sVGA LCD monitor displays all metering, clock timer, status and options info.

It can be configured to run stereo or discrete 5.1 surround programming.

Optional 5 or 10-button programmable Switch Modules are useful for user-programmable functions, such as instant routing changes, remote control of external equipment or other non-standard features.

SmartSurface V2.5 software adds dynamic voice processing — compression, de-essing and noise gating designed by Omnia Audio — to supplement the SmartSurface 3-band parametric equalisation. www.axiaaudio.com

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gear review EDIROL PORTABLE Edirol’s R-4 uses a 40Gb hard disk drive and records four channels at once and can edit waveforms on the recorder itself. Recording at 24-bit, 96kHz linear, the four XLR/jack connectors have switchable phantom power and digital I-O is also provided. The analogue stage also has a limiter and stereo omnidirectional mics are built in.

The R4 has a prerecord function and 3-band parametric EQ, Graphic EQ, Noise Gate, Enhancer, and a compressor and DeEsser, although only one effect can be used at a time and none are available at 96kHz operation. An L terminal permits the connection of a similarly equipped digital video camera to synchronise the camera start/stop while the R-4 is recording.

The USB 2.0 high-speed mode transfers data and a CompactFlash slot is provided. The R-4 runs on eight AA batteries or with an AC adaptor.

BEL DELAYS

LIVE 5

The Bel 7150 Audio Synchronisation delay is the successor to the 7120 and 7130. Incorporating analogue and AESEBU I-O it provides 10.4 seconds of audio delay, selectable in samples, fields, frames or milliseconds. All field and frame values change to reflect PAL or NTSC operation.

The 7330 Auto-Tracking Audio Synchronisation Delay has analogue, AES-EBU and LTC interfaces. In addition to manual operation, it can provide automatic glitch-free delay adjustments in response to external control signals to a maximum of 5.2 seconds.

For those situations where video editing processes cause a known and fixed delay, the 8-channel 8120 Audio Synchronisation Delay provides a cost-effective solution for synchronising audio to video. Configured as four stereo analogue pairs, each stereo pair of delay lines can be controlled in steps of 0-15 fields. www.beldigital.com

OCTO-BUS NETWORK The FA-66 is a 6-channel version of Edirol’s FA-101 FireWire audio interface. It allows simultaneous recording of 6 channels at 24-bit, 96kHz or 4 channels at 24-bit, 192kHz. Two XLR/TRS combo jacks can be used to record mic or line level signals. www.edirol.com

FEARN VT7

Octo-Bus is a digital audio network that carries audio in real-time, control data and power over Cat5 cables. The synchronous bus protocol allows transmission of up to 8 simultaneous channels of bidirectional digital audio including control data and system monitoring without any audible latency. It can be configured as a star or as a daisy-chained audio network without the need for routers or hubs. Using Octo-Bus, the Vadis platform can be expanded by a range of products that help to make the installation of studios faster, easier and more cost-efficient. www.klotzdigital.com

ROLLERMOUSEPRO

DW Fearn’s VT7 valve compressor has an all Class-A vacuum tube audio path. The gain reduction elements use circuitry that duplicates the sound and characteristics of ‘classic’ vacuum tube compressors, without depending on tubes that are no longer manufactured. The control circuitry is modern solid-state analogue. The two channels of the VT7 may be used independently or linked together for stereo. www.dwfearn.com

DVB CONVERTOR

You/Com’s MXTS multichannel, multiprogramme audio to DVB convertor is able to handle Dolby 5.1, DTS and apt-x multichannel programme. It also supports ancillary data (RDS data) per programme and is able to transmit 10 radio programmes in ASI/DVB format over an E1 leased line. www.youcom.nl

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Contour Design’s RollerMousePRO features a lengthened rollerbar, two new function buttons located just below the left-hand side of the extended r o l l e r b a r, a repositioned scroll wheel, reshaped original three buttons, and selectable, hard-coded function options. www.contourdesign.com

JOSEPHSON MICS

Josephson Engineering’s range of hand-made microphones includes the e22s condenser, which was designed in conjunction with Steve Albini specifically for use on snare drums, guitar cabs and plucked instruments.

The C42 small diaphragm condenser is a ‘firm favourite’ for drum overheads, acoustic guitar and general studio duties; the stereo set is factory matched.

The C617 is described as an ‘audiophile’ omni. www.kmraudio.com

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Ableton Live 5 adds Clip Freeze, which frees up CPU power, and Plug-In Delay Compensation, which automatically delays tracks to compensate for latencies caused by effects and plug-ins.

Launchable Arrangement Locators offer arrangement/ song-position markers with MIDI mapping and quantised recall while there’s now also Mackie Control Support.

Other features include MP3 support, automatic tempomatching, Complex Warp Mode for frequency-domain warping, and Clip Transport permits performanceenhancing looping, editing and shuffling on the fly. www.ableton.com

NEUTRIK EMC XLR The EMC-XLR is available as 3-pole male and/or female cable connectors with an integrated LC-filter so that RF-interferences and LF-noise can be avoided reliably. With its 360 degree shield contact on the female connector, it is designed to guarantee the best possible shielding and chassis contact.

A variety of audio problems like ground loops, RF-interference, and Pin-1-problems can be solved and the EMC-XLR is able to reduce audio noise caused by RF-interference significantly.

The OpticalCon system consists of a ruggedised all-metal and dirt-protected chassis and cable connector to increase the reliability and maximise the uptime of fibre optic connection systems. The system is based on a standard optical LCDuplex connection but the OpticalCon improves this original design to ensure a safe and rugged connection. Due to the compatibility with conventional LC connectors, it offers the choice of using a cost effective LC connector as a permanent connection, or Neutrik’s rugged OpticalCon cable connector for mobile applications. It enables up to four copper wires to run power or data signals through.

Neutrik has extended its D-chassis line with USB and FireWire receptacles.

The NAUSB and NA1394-6 comply with the relevant standards and are available in nickel or black nickel housings. The NAUSB 2.0 comes with an A/B feedthrough receptacle while the NA1394-6 is equipped with a 6-pole FireWire feedthrough receptacle at both ends. www.neutrik.com

July/August 2005

gear review DIGIGRAM CARDS Digigram has resized its VX222-Mic stereo sound card with builtin mic-preamp in the compact short-length PCI format. It extends the feature set of the VX222 stereo sound card (balanced analogue I-Os with 24-bit convertors, AES-EBU I-O, 2 GPIOs) with a phantom-powered mic preamp linked to an analogue compressor-limiter-expander for direct recording and includes a 3-band parametric EQ and a ‘maximizer’ to increase average signal level.

The BOB range of breakout boxes connect audio sources and destinations to Digigram’s multichannel sound cards.

All analogue and digital signals are available simultaneously on the front panel via Neutrik XLRs in addition to AES sync,

PHASE PRO

TRANTEC HTX HANDHELD

Te r r a Te c P r o d u c e r ’s Phase X24 FW is the professional version of Phase 24 FW. It has two analogue inputs (line, hi-Z or mic with 48V phantom power), four outputs, digital I-O, MIDI I-O, insert jacks and gain knobs.

Equipped with status and clip LEDs, inputs levels are individually adjustable.

The Phase 24 FW now offers data exchange capability via the mLAN open protocol for the transport of audio, MIDI and sync data.

Same Colour Resolution 22|06|2005 13:04 www.terratec.com

Trantec’s S6000HTX handheld transmitter is designed for use with its S6000 wireless radio microphone system and its sister products — the S6001 and S6002.

The HTX is a frequencyagile handheld transmitter that boasts a brand new ergonomic design and will offer a variety of inter-changeable capsules (dynamic, condenser, omni or cardioid).

It offers operating times in excess of 10 hour’s constant use with a single AA alkaline cell, a 70MHz frequency window, and infra-red frequency and operating options set up.

Side 1 www.trantec.co.uk

sound engineering

Word I-O, Video In and LTC In connectors.

BOB8 features four analogue and digital stereo input connectors plus four analogue and digital stereo output connectors. BOB12 features connectors for one analogue and digital stereo input as well as six analogue digital stereo outputs.

XIP882 is the first Digigram product to employ its eXaudi technology, an IP audio streaming, processing, and routing

[MMC-1A] system. XIP882 combines IP streaming client/servers, audio processors, routers, and codecs in one device. eXaudi enables the integration of radio automation applications and audio transport over IP networks within a single scalable, manageable, and integrated system, which makes the entire broadcast chain easier to manage and significantly reduces engineering and operating costs, according to the company. www.digigram.com

RAL COLOR 5001

SONIC BLU-RAY CREATOR Sonic Blu-ray Creator is the first commercial authoring system to enable high-end production facilities and major motion picture studios to create titles for the Blu-ray Disc format.

Sonic Blu-ray Creator is a collaboration with Panasonic and is based on a workflow that is familiar to professional title developers.

Blu-ray Creator gives title authors the ability to combine high definition video and audio with interactive menus and Internet connectivity, proof their title as they work, and output fully formatted BD premasters for replication.

Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc format for high-definition video and high-capacity data applications. A single-layer Blu-ray Disc holds up to 25Gb of data and a double-layer Blu-ray Disc holds up to 50Gb of data. www.sonic.com

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20 YEARS. SAME COLOR [WHY CHANGE A GOOD THING?]

LYDKRAFT

www.tube-tech.com resolution

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review

Logic Pro 7.1 Following the Apple takeover and subsequent re-branding of Logic Pro when version 7 launched, the first major update has arrived in the shape of 7.1, which is a paid-for upgrade albeit at an almost token price. This adds more new features and fixes some irritating bugs that appeared in version 7. Resolution has not examined Logic Pro since version 7 appeared, so GEORGE SHILLING considers all the improvements since 6.4.3, the last version provided with Emagic branding.

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Y V6, LOGIC had become very complex from the many new features strapped on over the years. Version 7 included hundreds of small improvements, and thankfully, Apple marshalled a tidy-up of many aspects of the program, with the Preferences menu greatly rationalised, for example.

Regrettably, the overall appearance is now even darker and greyer, and sometimes looks more Vintage Neve than OSX Aqua. Dialogue boxes that were clear with a white background are now grey-blue and use a smaller font. But with such complex software, any graphic improvements are highly valued, and to that end there are plenty of small tweaks, such as adding indicators for parameter adjustments where previously there was nothing. Simpler plug-ins remain blue and graphically clear, while new, more complex, additions continue the elegant but slightly fiddly look of the relatively new instruments such as EXS24 and ES2.

Apple’s headline feature is Distributed Audio Processing. This enables G5 Macs to do some of the CPU processing on behalf of the main computer via a Giga Ethernet connection. Perhaps Apple’s motivation here is to increase sales of G5 hardware, but it is a clever idea that enables far more processing power to be unleashed if you happen to have a spare G5 Mac or two to act as Nodes. The process of connection is fairly painless. And if you start to run out of power, for example, on a G4 laptop, hooking up a mate’s G5 will get you motoring along without having to transfer all the files onto the more powerful machine. It is certainly more convenient than installing PCI processing cards 22

— this is Apple’s rather neater answer to TDM. However, there are limits; tracks are assigned to Nodes on an individual basis and while Audio tracks and Instruments can be assigned, auxes, buses and outputs cannot, understandably. Furthermore, the EXS24 sampler is unable to use Nodes because of potential problems accessing samples.

Some elegant features have been included that first appeared in Apple’s GarageBand software, a freebie that ships with new Macs and comes as part of the resolution

iLife package. GarageBand songs can now be imported and the software’s Apple Loops feature is available in Logic 7 and further improved with 7.1. Such is the power of this feature that one long-standing Logic power-user colleague of mine says it has changed his entire working method. Apple Loops is indeed a clever concept that seems to combine aspects of Ableton Live and Propellerheads’ ReCycle. Audio loops are previewed at the Song tempo and desired pitch, then dragged from the Loop Browser into the arrangement — as in Live, tempo change requires no action on the part of the user, the loops adapt to fit. The algorithms used work well, even at extreme tempo and key changes there are few audible artefacts in most cases. Logic ships with a selection of loops of many different styles and instruments and additional Jam Packs are already on sale. It’s a fabulous system, with loops easily searchable by genre, instrument or mood and auditioned at the correct tempo and in any key. Creating your own loops is straightforward using the Apple Loops Utility — simply select a piece of audio, add a few bits of meta information to the file (such as key, time signature and ‘mood’), and on another page (which looks like ReCycle), check that transients have been correctly identified. It is simple to use, and this is a great new feature for inspiration, or for quickly knocking tracks together using library material. The technology has benefited Logic further in that any audio recorded into 7.1 can now be locked to tempo for instant stretching in the Arrange window to fit new tempi.

Among the numerous small improvements are some ideas pinched from Pro Tools, which can only be a good thing. Two new parameters appear on the Arrange window. A choice of Snap modes can now be instantly selected from a drop-down menu with values such as Beat, Bar, Frames, Ticks and Smart (relating to the zoom scale). Alongside this is a Drag drop-down menu that selects how regions behave when dragged across each other — whether they overlap, crossfade or shuffle, but you’ll still need to go into the familiar Sample Edit window for sampleaccurate editing.

Automatic crossfading is another neat Pro Toolsinspired trick. The cursor now changes when hovered appropriately to indicate these and other hidden functions like changing the length of notes or Regions — Arrange page Objects are now called Regions (sound familiar?) to distinguish them from Environment Objects. Double-clicking an Audio Object in the Arrange page no longer takes you to the Audio Environment, but rather to the Track Mixer — a more logical way to work.

Individual channel strips can be imported and exported, complete with all their plug-ins and settings, and a huge number of preset instruments and effects are included, much like Reason and its Combinator settings. Another feature that greatly rationalises and simplifies operation is Global Tracks, not dissimilar to Pro Tools rulers. These run along the top of the arrangement or edit window to allow viewing and editing of functions such as Transposition, Markers, Time Signature and Tempo, plus a new Beat Mapping function that replaces the Reclock function. A new Video track replaces the older Video Thumbnail track.

And thankfully the toolbox can now be accessed with a right mouse-click — a feature from Atari Cubase!

Caps Lock Keyboard is a brilliant feature for the mobile musician: simply turn Caps Lock on and your computer keyboard becomes a MIDI keyboard. A graphic representation appears onscreen, with keys arranged in conventional keyboard layout across the July/August 2005

review middle, with octave selection using number keys, and velocity setting using the lower row. It’s great fun, and you can even play chords.

There is simply not the space to detail all the new effects plug-ins, but worthy of note are the excellent Guitar Amp Pro simulator (although the new Bass Amp is, by comparison, disappointing), Apple’s Pitch Corrector version of Auto-Tune, and the wacky RingShifter, which combines a ring modulator with a frequency shifter for some wonderful effects from subtle phasing to crazy alien noises. Also useful is the clever GrooveShifter that analyses and manipulates audio in real-time using mini timestretches to change the groove. Match EQ is in a similar vein to Waves Q-Clone, although this matches the tone of existing audio passages — it is very effective and simple to use. Other additions include excellent utilities including several metering options. Plug-in Delay Compensation is now available for all signal paths, but enabling it on everything and making a recording results in that audio playing back out of time with existing tracks, so this feature appears to need further improvement.

EFM1 is a simple FM synthesiser, the provided presets are lively and clear, and although the structure is rather different and far simpler than your old DX7, a good range of rich FM sounds can be achieved.

Sculpture is the most advanced and unusual new instrument. This combines different types of synthesis and bases sound creation on the principle of a modelled vibrating string or bar. The timbre is created by adjusting parameters such as the string or bar’s material, thickness, tension and playing method.

Unlike most synthesis, re-striking the string will cause the existing vibrations to harmonically interact with the new note. It is an extraordinarily complex instrument to fully understand, so if programming sounds is your thing, this is something to spend time exploring, working with the reference manual for hours rather than minutes.

Of course, there is nothing to stop you loading some of the provided presets, but I suspect these barely scratch the surface of Sculpture’s possibilities.

Ultrabeat is another hugely complex beast, a drum machine that uses various synthesis methods and incorporates its own step sequencer, perhaps inspired by certain Reason devices.

You have at your disposal 24 discrete sound engines, plus a 25th chromatic voice. FM, Phase Oscillator, physical modelling and sample playback are all available for sound creation. A narrow piano-keyboard runs down the side

for clicking to easily audition sounds. Loading and Saving drums sets is straightforward, and problems importing individual voices seem to have been fixed in 7.1. The supplied library is of variable quality, but

with time and inclination the possibilities are huge, and it is great fun tweaking and envelope filtering, say, the noise component of a snare sound to get it really crunching.

All 22 GarageBand instruments are also present, they generally seem to be EXS24-derived, including the new Hybrid Morph synth. On a related note, the EXS24’s editor is slightly improved, and EXS24 now helpfully shows a progress bar when loading samples.

To improve stability, Logic now automatically scans the Audio Units plug-ins on the computer on initial launch, and only loads those that it is happy with — most manufacturers have now updated any incompatible versions. Although much more stable than version 6, I still experienced one or two crashes.

Startup of the program is much faster, as after the initial AU scan, this stage is skipped. However, there is no way of escaping the EXS24 library scan.

You could argue that rather than adding more and more tempting plug-ins and instruments, there is much that the developers could do to Logic to make existing functions work in a more straightforward manner. But there have been large steps in the right direction — I particularly like the improved audio editing features. The layout and graphic appearance is generally much better, albeit with a rather drab colour scheme. As a Pro Tools user, there are many additions that make a lot of sense but there are many functions that are still counter-intuitive, especially to any newcomer. Surely further rationalisation is possible — the new Apple Loops browser is evidence of superb ergonomic design.

Thankfully, the reference manual has had a major update and rewrite — the V6 manual was riddled with errors and outdated information. I had no problems loading and running older Songs (unlike working up through the various 6.x upgrades, which sometimes produced a few odd bugs).

Logic has long been a top MIDI sequencer, but it is now arguably the best writing and production tool and the ultimate aim of a self-contained computer-based studio is now just about reality, with sound sources and effects covering most aspects of production, integrated into an increasingly useable DAW. I’ll still record and mix rock bands with Pro Tools, but for machine-led composition and production this is surely the best system. ■

PROS

Apple Loops; great new plug-ins; huge number of detail improvements; audio editing starting to catch up with Pro Tools; Node processing.

CONS

Dark graphics; environment and audio assignment still not particularly fathomable or logical to newcomers; no off-line Logic or AU plug-in processing; lacks a great acoustic piano.

WaveBurner

WaveBurner CD mastering software is also bundled with Logic Pro. This is a separate application that includes Red Book authoring, a number of Logic plug-ins (although oddly not Match EQ), and access to your Audio Units plug-ins. It is a very useful and well thought out program, with two stereo audio tracks to enable crossfading of CD tracks, and a clean, straightforward user interface.

While grey is the predominant colour, the overall appearance is more iTunes than Logic. The version initially bundled with Logic 7 had its critics, but the new version included with 7.1 seems fine, although there are still some niggles — for example, the counter will only display total elapsed time rather than track time.

July/August 2005

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Contact APPLE, US Website: www.apple.com

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review

Tascam DV-RA1000 Take a box that looks like a CD-R and add DVD write, wide and fast formats, DSD and computer control and you have a high definition audio master recorder with a difference. ROB JAMES looks carefully at the sum of all these parts.

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ROM REEL-TO-REEL through DAT to CD-R, Tascam has always been in the short-list for 2-track masters. So, a new mastering machine from this company should be something of an event.

Although eagerly awaited, due to one thing and another I hadn’t even checked out the specs when the courier arrived. Upon opening the box, the first thing to catch my eye was the DSD logo prominently displayed on the front of the manual. Great! At last a way to burn listening copies of stereo SACDs (Yeah, right. Ed).

But, hold on a minute, I thought SACD copy protection effectively prevents this? Er, well yes, I think it does. So what is the DV-RA1000 actually for?

Digging deeper into the manual reveals at least some of the story. At UK£824.68 (+ VAT), first it offers a somewhat expensive method of producing Red Book CD-R and CD-RW discs. However, there is a lot more to this device than simple CD burning. Recording to DVD+RW discs at sampling rates up to 192kHz and DSD-raw at 2.8225MHz is the real offer.

The DV-RA1000 can also be connected to a PC or Mac via USB, ideally USB2, although USB 1.1 also works but performance is inferior. Once USB mode is selected all the onboard controls are disabled with the exception of a Cancel button. The unit then appears just like any other external mass storage device on the computer. Files created on the DV-RA1000 can be transferred by this means for further editing and mastering. Files can also be extracted directly from the disc in a PC DVD drive if DVD+RW is supported.

If the manual is to be believed, the DV-RA1000 is a fussy eater, especially when used standalone. CD-R media up to 48x is supported, as is CD-RW media up to 10x. All pretty standard stuff but it is a different story when it comes to DVD media. Only DVD+RW media of up to 4x is supported using UDF. Universal Disk Format (UDF) is a newish file system for CD and DVD and the successor to the ISO 9660 standard. UDF apparently overcomes some limitations of ISO 9660.

When the unit is used via USB2, in effect as an external drive, then CD-R, CD-RW, single and dual layer DVD+R and DVD+RW can be written and CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD-RW can also be read. However, audio files written to the disc by an external computer cannot be used by the DV-RA1000.

Maximum file size is 2Gb when written by the DV-RA1000. Maximum total capacity is 4.7Gb 24

unformatted, which translates to a maximum of 290 minutes at 44.1kHz down to 66 minutes at 192kHz or 107 minutes DSD. The more critical limitation is the 2Gb limit, which reduces these figures to a less useful maximum track length of 30 minutes at 192kHz and there is no Time Remaining display.

Tascam recommends a list of 4.7Gb DVD+RW discs from five manufacturers. The machine identifies these disc types when inserted and you are presented with the option of formatting the disc. If a non-recommended disc is inserted a pop-up message appears to the effect that the disc type is not supported.

Front panel controls are simple enough with familiar transport keys, a jog/data wheel, a backlit LCD with five softkeys, ten further keys, disc drawer Open/Close, a timer switch, headphone socket and Volume control plus a PS2 keyboard socket. As you might expect a lot of functions are accessed via menus. Here, the structure is not immediately intuitive but easy once you understand it. Menu enters the system menu, Enter confirms settings or goes down a level, depending on context, and Cancel goes up a level.

The screen and softkeys are also used for what Tascam calls the VFP or Virtual Front Panel. VFP is launched from the Home screen by pressing the Enter key and gives access to many more functions. A wired remote is supplied with the unit and offers a lot more specific function buttons than the front panel.

Serial control via RS232 is also possible, although no details of pin-outs or protocols are provided.

A-D and D-A convertors are accessed via balanced XLRs or phonos. To cater for digital input at dual and quad sample rates, two sets of AES-EBU XLRs are provided supporting either single or dual wire connections. Coaxial SPDIF goes up to 96kHz and DSD is taken care of by four BNC connectors for single channel SDIF3 format signals. Word clock In, Out and resolution

Through are BNC, the wired remote connects via a three pole 3.5mm jack and the USB 2 socket links to a computer.

When you insert a new DVD+RW disc and the machine invites you to format it, the new project screen then appears. You can name your new project and select the project format. The PS2 keyboard makes titling considerably less of a chore. Formatting only commences once you have created the first project for the disc and it takes less than a couple of minutes.

The first time you invoke record there is a small delay but subsequent record starts are near instantaneous.

When you are finished recording and hit Pause or Stop there is an interregnum while the header is written before recording can be recommenced. Time taken for this depends on the format.

When the disc is ejected, UDM Management Information must be written. This takes a moment or two and can also be manually invoked. A single DVR+RW disc can contain up to 99 projects. Each project can only contain audio files (up to 99) of one sampling rate (or DSD) but each project can have up to 99 audio files. Threshold recording is called Synchronised Recording and allows recording to commence when the input signal exceeds a given threshold or when any audio is detected in a digital input stream. Threshold can also be used to automatically divide a recording into separate tracks.

Marks to aid location can be added while in stop, record or play. Marks are stored with DVD projects but are lost when a CD-R or CD-RW is ejected. With DVD projects notes of up to 1000 Ascii characters and spaces can be added to the project and will stay with it.

It is possible to create linear fades of up to 24 seconds in and/or out when recording or playing back and Rehearsal mode lets you preview the effect.

Speaking of effects, the DV-RA1000 has a couple of DSP processes on offer for sample rates up to 192kHz. July/August 2005

review Three-band EQ and a dynamics processor can be inserted before the record process or on playback, pre D-A. Apparently, the idea is to give you some idea of what might happen on eventual premastering or indeed, actually do the premastering.

Limited editing is available in the form of dividing and combining files, although not for DSD recordings.

For example to remove unwanted heads or tails you simply divide the file at the In or Out point and join it to the preceding or following wanted audio file. DSD files cannot be divided. A single level of Undo/Redo helps avoid those ‘Oh bugger’ moments, unless you’ve recorded something before realising the edit was a bad idea. Programmed playback allows tracks to be played in any order and repeated as desired and the playlist is not stored when the disc is ejected. DVD-RW projects also have a playlist function, which is similar except that tracks cannot be repeated.

The DV-RA1000 is a curious beast. It is a thoroughly competent CD-R recorder with all the usual I-O and features. It is also probably the cheapest way of recording raw DSD and, although the convertors are not spectacular, at present you’d have to pay a multiple of the price of this machine to get better ones for DSD. Whether you’d wish to entrust an irreplaceable location recording to DVD+RW is more debatable.

Perhaps I’m being over cautious but, while I use recordable DVD as a distribution medium, I’ve had more than enough unexplained failures with DVD write once and re-writable discs of various flavours recorded on computers and standalone recorders to make me reluctant to trust this technology too far. If reasonable care is taken and environmental

July/August 2005

conditions are not extreme then, following Tascam’s advice and I quote ‘For best results, and to maintain data integrity, Tascam strongly recommends the use of new DVD+RW discs for important recordings’ should confer a reasonable level of security.

Obviously, if you do trust it, then a range of recording and archiving applications are opened up.

But, if the machine could make two-channel DVD-As on DVD-R and DVD+R media then it would be a lot more attractive. The same would apply if Tascam had included a hard disk, with the DVD+R as backup. I appreciate that because of DV-RA1000 features like

the playlist, editing, and writing fluid data to a UDF formatted disc, the system must have the ability to re-write. However, I don’t see why it couldn’t have been given a further mode without these features to produce write-once copies and it would be nice if it could play two channel SACDs and DVD-As. ■

Contact TASCAM, JAPAN Website: www.tascam.com

PROS

Cheapest method of recording DSD raw from analogue or digital sources currently available; easy to learn; versatile I-O.

CONS

Can only play DVD disks recorded on a DV-RA1000; do you trust the DVD+RW format for masters?; no ‘time remaining’ display.

EXTRAS

Tascam’s X-48 is a 48-track hybrid hard disk workstation with the ease-of-use of a standalone recorder and the GUI, editing features and plug-in compatibility of computer-based workstation. The X-48 boasts 96kHz/24-bit recording across all tracks and 192kHz recording across 24 tracks. Its file interoperability and synchronisation surpasses the MX-2424 and it has a VGA display output, powerful editing functions and DVD+RW backup. There’s also a built-in dynamically automated 48-channel digital mixer with 6 stereo returns, 24 buses, 6 aux sends, stereo bus, dynamics and 4band EQ per channel and 4 VST plug-in inserts on each channel, group and aux return. It is controllable using the Tascam US-2400 24-fader Universal Controller.

It has built-in 48-channel TDIF I-O, SPDIF I-O, two 24-channel option slots for analogue, ADAT or AES-EBU expansion cards, advanced integrated sync and machine control including HDTV tri-level sync, time-stamped Broadcast WAVE file format, front-panel transport, track arming, project management and meter functions, built-in 80Gb drive, two FireWire and four USB 2.0 ports, +/-12.5% varispeed, and Gigabit Ethernet. Price is expected to be US$4,999.

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review

Merging Technologies Sphynx 2 If you’re in the market for a standalone convertor box then you’re going to appreciate the widest possible choice of format options. ROB JAMES decides that it’s versatility and performance that rings his bell.

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OU MIGHT BE forgiven for thinking there is a lot of choice when it comes to convertors.

To some extent this is true, if all you want or need is ‘conventional’ sampling rates and formats up to 96kHz. However, once there is a requirement for the DSD conversion necessary for SACD production options become limited.

Sony has acknowledged a new recording and editing format developed by Philips and Merging Technologies called Digital eXtreme Definition (DXD).

DXD is designed to enable multitrack recording and editing for SACD at high quality. If DSD and DXD are on the agenda, the choice of convertors available is vanishingly small.

Sphynx 2 is a joint development between Merging Technologies and Digital Audio Denmark combining the two company’s MADI, DSD/DXD and convertor skills. A DAD version of this unit is known as the Axion. A unique, to my knowledge, technology lies at the heart of the Sphynx 2. Analogue audio is initially sampled at an amazing 5-bit 128 FS (5-bit at 5.6832MHz) resolution, provided by the A-D chip used, and is subsequently decimated to any of the standard PCM, DXD and DSD rates.

Leaving the more esoteric aspects aside for a moment, Sphynx 2 has a number of features that will benefit many recording and production applications. In its most basic form, Sphynx 2 offers 8 channels of A-D conversion. Seven option slots can be populated with one or two four-channel D-A modules and a variety of digital I-O modules. These are available in AES-EBU, TDIF, Pro Tools Mixplus, SDIF3 and MADI formats. This modular design helps keep the cost down. Rather than fitting every interface format known to man you can specify exactly what is required.

The basic unit is UK£4000. Digital modules are UK£546, MADI is UK£800 and four-channel D-A modules are UK£940 each (all plus VAT). MADI is a powerful bi-directional interface that can handle all PCM sample rates up to 192kHz as well as DSD 64fs and 128fs and DXD (352.8kHz). Further units may be attached in a daisy chain for more channels. Each MADI interface and convertor unit can be set to access any block of 8 consecutive MADI channels. A single MADI link can connect 8 channels of DXD I-O or up to 24 channels of DSD I-O A smart sculpted alloy panel resplendent in the new Merging house style, matching turnkey Pyramix workstation systems, fronts the 2U rackmounting enclosure. The front panel is devoid of obvious

controls. In fact there is just one. The left-hand segment of the internally illuminated Merging pyramid logo is also the soft power switch. For security, this must be pressed and held for at least three seconds before the unit enters standby. Stacked sets of indicator LEDs for each analogue channel show input overload, signal presence and carrier and signal presence for the digital inputs to the D-A convertors. A vertical stack of 8 LEDs indicate the current sampling rate, three more the sync source, and a further two signify Sync Alarm and D-A Unlocked. Sync Alarm shows when an external sync source is unavailable or out of range and D-A Unlocked lights when the selected digital input sampling rate differs from the sync source. Finally, a two character alpha display shows the Unit ID with a LED below confirming serial communication.

The unit is controlled over RS422 by the DAD DADman Windows application. A single iteration can control several Sphynx 2s and/or any of the other DAD convertors. DADman enables you to set Unit IDs where multiple convertors are present and to set the coarse analogue input gain between two ranges.

Fine adjustment is carried out with multiturn trim pots on the rear of the unit and D-A modules. DADman also controls parameters such as sync source, sample rate and type, etc. Analogue inputs can be muted and phase reversed.

It is no function of a convertor to impart any

SACD, DSD & DXD

On a SACD disc, the audio is represented by a one-bit signal sampled at 64 times the CD rate of 44.1kHz. This is known as DSD 64 and produces a data rate of 2.8224Mbit/s. However, this is just the delivery format. Although original recordings can be made in this format there are snags when it comes to multitrack use due to build up of out-of-band noise. Also, any mixing or processing necessarily results in more bits, which must be reduced back to one bit for delivery. The alternative of using double the sample rate (DSD 128) still suffers this drawback.

DXD recording uses a 24-bit signal sampled at 352.8kHz. The data rate is 8467.2Mb/s — i.e. three times that of a DSD64 signal. The DXD signal can be directly edited, mixed and processed directly. One benefit is significantly lower out-of-band noise levels. Since the DXD sample rate is 8 times 44.1kHz, the signal can easily be up-sampled to DSD and/or decimated to any existing PCM rate for consumer format release with minimal degradation.

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character of its own to the sound. However, in absolute terms every convertor changes the sound in some way, just as every other recording and reproduction process does. Once you get above a certain level, arguments about which convertor is ‘best’ take on an almost theological slant.

The conditions necessary to perform objective convertor evaluation and comparison are difficult and expensive to arrange and well beyond the scope of this review. But even on first hearing it was obvious that this is a very special device. Switching back to my console’s convertors was revealing. In comparisons at conventional sampling rates there is a natural, relaxed quality to the Sphynx 2 sound, reminiscent of the most satisfying analogue systems I’ve ever heard. The same comments are equally applicable to DXD and DSD conversion. If you need this technology now then Sphynx 2 is a no-brainer.

Even if you don’t, isn’t it comforting to know you won’t need to replace your convertors to get into the SACD game? Without double blind testing I consider this to be as transparent in both directions as any convertor I’ve heard. Suffice to say that in my notso-humble opinion the Sphynx 2 is a worthy entrant into the rarefied atmosphere of high-end conversion at a far from stratospheric price.

On PCM performance alone Sphynx 2 jumps straight into the ‘must audition’ list for anyone in the market for an 8-channel convertor solution. ■

PROS

The sound; versatility; cost effective bi-directional DSD.

CONS

Control software a bit clunky; needs RS422 so a convertor may be required.

Contact MERGING TECHNOLOGIES, SWITZERLAND: Website: www.merging.com

July/August 2005

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review

Drawmer DSL424 Dynamics boxes have traditionally combined gain reduction with gating but few boxes offer independent sections and stereo operation for both processing types. ZENON SCHOEPE looks at a box that is made of two halves.

A

S THE YEARS HAVE passed I have become, on the whole, largely less tolerant of the whims of equipment types with the single exception of dynamics. While I expect a fairly high minimum from an EQ and am very clear about what I want from an outboard effects, dynamics can delight me in all forms. Part of this down to an appreciation that you can never have enough and that individual character adds to the pool. So providing they’re quiet, have decent connectivity and do what they say they can, then I am fairly easy to please. That’s not to say I don’t have favourites, because I do, but I can reel off a fairly long list of boxes that I also really like and that occupy well deserved space in my racks.

Drawmer has a superb reputation and track record in dynamics and the DSL424 combines the functionality of two pretty fine boxes — the DS404 and the DL441. As a reminder, the DS404 is a quad noise gate that is itself genetically descended from the venerable DS201 dual noise gate but with programme adaptivity. The DL441 is a quad auto compressor/limiter that is derived from the DL241 auto compressor. The DSL424 is therefore a further distillation of respected and good solid Drawmer gear — half a DS404 plus half a DL441.

Best of all you can look at it as two stereo linked compressors plus two stereo linked gates, a stereo linked compressor-limiter and gate, or you can access each processor individually via the back panel and treat it as two gates and two compressor-limiters.

Personally that really appeals to me.

Each gate and compressor channel has its own balanced XLR I-O, which means you can patch between them if you wish, with the gates additionally getting a jack key input.

The two gates are arranged as the first two control blocks from the left and are followed by the two compressors. Both pairs can be switched for stereo on a button and this hands control to the left channel in the pair.

Operation is simple, control layout is clear and the results are good. The compressor has a Threshold pot (-40-+20dB) and you can switch between Hard and Soft knee character with LED illumination. Ratio sweeps from 1.2:1 to hard limiting and there’s a +/-20dB Gain makeup. Metering is surprisingly good given the size of the control block with eight gain reduction LEDs and five LEDs in three colours for output level. It becomes a very colourful box when in full flight. Finally there’s a separate Level for the 28

peak limiter section, which has a LED to show you its working.

The observant would have clocked this description as that of a flexible and easy to set compressor with the super protection of one of Drawmer’s exemplary limiters sitting on the end for broadcast applications, for example. Even the most explosive sudden excesses are pulled up beautifully by the limiter and you just can’t fool it because it sees you coming. However, the devil’s in the misuse and the limiter can be driven hard in isolation with very pleasing results. The compressor’s good too and I’ll answer any complaints now about its relative lack of individual parameter control by pointing out that most ‘classic’ compressors probably offer less. It’s all in the choice of constants and it is hard to reconcile the big sound you get out of such a small little section. The bases are covered with the two knee characteristics, which really amount to giving you two completely different processing approaches that cover mix or individual sources.

I think I’ve said this before about other Drawmer ‘compact’ dynamics, but if you were to spread out this circuit as a mono channel in a big 2U rackmount box with some retro knobs and switches and a couple of bricks inside to add weight, I’m sure quite a few people would be none the wiser.

The gate gets Drawmer’s usual sweepable low and high frequency filters for tuning the side chain plus a Threshold (-70-+20dB) and Release (10mS5S). Flexibility is aided by the inclusion of a button that switches between Hard and Soft gating — the former for a more traditional fast gate response, the latter transforming it into a programme adaptive

downwards expander. I found that if the Hard setting wasn’t ideal then Soft was better, presumably as intended.

Three LEDs tell you that the gate is closed, or open, with a middle LED giving an indication of the ‘hold’ value. This will be instantly familiar to Drawmer users. Unlike the compressor’s Bypass button the gate’s bypass is on the three position toggle that also selects key listen and the gated output.

I was sure I was going to object to the two-position (-90 and -20dB) Range switch but in practice it didn’t bother me although it’s the fully variable Range and Hold pots that contribute enormously to making the DS201 the wonderful gate that it is.

I would have liked to have seen the inclusion of the ‘Peak Punch’ feature found on the MX40 to spice up what is a perfectly capable but not extraordinary gate.

But then the majority of gating applications are fairly simple and this processor does what it should.

It’s undoubtedly a very strong package and the ability to patch or break out the box’s individual sections does add value and a level of flexibility that you don’t often encounter now. The compressor is the exceptional part of the combo. It sounds much fatter and smoother than it looks and I believe would add its character to any dynamics armamentarium. Two halves do add up to a very wholesome whole. ■

Contact DRAWMER, UK: Website: www.drawmer.com

PROS

Excellent flexibility through rear panel connections; superb performance; the compressor’s really great.

CONS

The gate’s not a power gate in the true sense, just a good allrounder.

EXTRAS

Drawmer’s S3 3-band stereo valve opto-compressor forms the basis of a new ‘Signature Series’ and offers ‘previously unattainable control and tonality’ over each of the three frequency bands. The signal path has I-O transformers, passive components and ten valves in a fully balanced Class A design. The Light Dependent Resistors in the optocompressors are temperature sensitive and the S3 houses an ‘electronic oven’ that sustains the optimum LDR operating temperature.

Large scale VU meters can be switched to Peak mode and two further VU meter rescale modes are available to display the unit’s ability to output levels up to +30dBm.

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July/August 2005

review

review

Marek Design RS1 Here’s a new brand microphone from a new German manufacturer that has taken a different approach to the multipattern valve mic challenge. JON THORNTON says he likes it a lot and enjoyed exploring its possibilities.

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AREK DESIGN’S RS1 is what I would term a ‘boutique’ microphone. I use the term loosely to describe microphones that are produced in small numbers, often to exacting standards, and which more often that not have some slightly unusual features or characteristics that make them stand out from the crowd. The moniker also usually implies that you tend to pay handsomely for the privilege, and the RS1 certainly satisfies all of these conditions (Euro5125 + VAT).

Supplied in a rather nice solid briefcase, the RS1 is a variable-pattern tube condenser microphone and you get the microphone, control unit, shockmount and associated cables packed neatly inside it. It’s not a behemoth, but compact and rather weighty — no doubt in part due to the casing being machined out of a solid section of stainless steel. First impressions are of supremely high build quality, and this extends to the supplied spider type shockmount, whose locking nut seems to be engineered to Rolls Royce levels of smoothness and precision.

Squinting through the steel mesh surrounding the diaphragm assembly gives the first clue that this is a somewhat unusual design. You see, although a multipattern microphone, the RS1 is a single diaphragm design featuring a 1-inch diameter diaphragm. Rather than achieving different polar patterns by electrically combining the outputs of two diaphragms, the RS1 achieves this by mechanical manipulation of the diaphragm’s chamber and back plate. This is accomplished by a rotating ring at the base of the microphone, which has click stops numbered from 1 to 6. Position 1 is an omnidirectional pattern, while position 6 is a fig-8 pattern, with a series of gradually tightening cardioid patterns in between. It’s impossible to see the mechanical system that performs this task, but it’s certainly easier and less stressful than poking a screwdriver through the mesh and turning a screw!

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The second slightly unusual feature of the RS1 becomes apparent when you unpack the control unit.

Given that the pattern selection is performed at the microphone itself, this unit should simply provide power to the mysteriously named ‘M tube’ that forms the heart of the microphone’s electronics and provides a mic level balanced output. This it does, along with a useful 3-stage earth-lift switch. But the additional provision of a level control coupled with a 15dB attenuator switch on the control unit means that further investigation is necessary.

Internally, the RS1 is an all-tube design, with a transformerless output that doesn’t rely on any solidstate electronics. Interestingly, the designers have opted to allow the amplifier stage of the microphone to do more than simply generate a mic level output, instead making it capable of generating signal levels of up to +33dBu. This means that for applications dealing with medium to high SPLs, the microphone is capable of driving directly into a line level input.

Because the amplification is all achieved within the microphone itself (the control unit is simply an attenuator), this has potential benefits with regard to signal to noise. Of course, if you want to, you can attenuate the output and use your favourite preamplifier — this just gives you more options.

The RS1 was set up and powered up in preparation for testing on a range of sources — and a couple of things are worth pointing out before commenting on its sound. The first is that it seems to warm up very quickly compared with some other tube mics, both vintage and new designs. The second is that the design of the shockmount, although incredibly well engineered, does make placement difficult in some situations when odd angles are the order of the day.

First impressions on listening to the microphone are that the differing patterns have a very significant effect on the overall tonality of the microphone, no resolution

doubt because of the way in which it is achieved.

This is confirmed by the accompanying manual, which although a fairly tortured English translation, does include the frequency response plots for each of the settings. These show significant (up to 10dB) peaks and troughs on some of the patterns. The omni pattern, for example, has the fairly unusual characteristic of a wide 10dB lift centred around 7kHz, with a gentle dip between 100Hz and 300Hz. Position 2 (wide cardioid), exhibits the same broad HF lift, but with a flatter mid-range response. Setting 3 provides the flattest response of all in the cardioid settings, and as the cardioid setting is tightened up, low frequency response gradually shelves off, coupled with a pronounced dip around 3kHz. By the time the fig-8 setting is reached, the response is pretty bumpy with a pronounced peak around 1kHz. Although on paper these measurements look almost disconcerting, in practice it makes the microphone incredibly versatile. The omni pattern, for example, worked fantastically as a single overhead on a kit, getting just the right balance of room and direct sound while sharpening up the HF very naturally. Similarly, the fig-8 pattern produced some really gutsy sounds when used to mic up a bass cab, with plenty of definition and attack.

But it’s on vocals where the flexibility of the microphone becomes apparent. Moving between the cardioid patterns enables the mic to be quickly and easily matched to the vocalist, dialling out shrillness on female vocals with the tighter patterns, or adding depth and clarity to male vocals in the wider settings.

Whichever setting is used, the microphone takes EQ very well — you can dial in almost stupid amounts of HF shelving boost without it starting to sound brittle or harsh. Yet another variable is how you use the gain structure of the microphone. Using all the available range of the microphone’s own preamp and running straight into a line input generally resulted in a sound that was somewhat sharper, almost clinical in some regards. Attenuating the microphone’s output and using a Drawmer 1961 preamp took some of the harder edges off the sound, but seemed to lose some of the attack.

In summary, I really liked this microphone — but given the flexibility and variables available to the user, never really felt that I’d fully got to grips with the true extent of its abilities. It’s a microphone that demands a lot of time to learn. For example, I was less than impressed with the results obtained with it on an electric guitar cab — certainly in comparison with a SE Gemini it sounded a little lacklustre. But given its performance on other sources, I’m happy to put this down to not knowing it well enough. It’s not cheap, but given the flexibility in tonality it’s definitely worth considering as an alternative to the interchangeable capsule approach from the likes of Korby and Blue. ■

PROS

Superb build quality; tremendous flexibility in response and application; eliminates the need for a mic pre in some applications.

CONS

Shockmount a little awkward to position sometimes; takes a lot of time to learn; frequency response on some of the pickup patterns (omni/fig-8) might not be terrifically suitable in some applications.

Contact MAREK DESIGNS, GERMANY: Website: www.md-mics.com HE Studio Technik, Germany: +49 89 84061777

July/August 2005

review

DK-Technologies MSD100C Often overlooked, underplayed or unappreciated, good metering nevertheless has a vital role to play in any system configuration as the window on your sound. ROB JAMES settles down and inspects his goniometer.

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HE NEED FOR ACCURATE and easy on the eye metering should not be underestimated.

Although ears should always be the ultimate decision making tools, we all have to operate within technical constraints best judged with the help of a trustworthy meter. The need for this has never been greater. Production methods are rapidly changing with the recognition that the conventional console is redundant in many DAW — centric applications.

External metering is set to become the next big thing along with the new breed of controllers combining monitoring with source and destination routing. This is not to say that DAW metering is inadequate, simply that it is not in the right place. Metering must be instantly visible and instinctive at all times and should be able to look at sources and destination returns in addition to levels inside the DAW. Danish company, DK-Technologies is well positioned to take advantage of the new age. MSD stands for Master Stereo Display and DK’s first model, the MSD 550, made its debut as recently as 1994.

Somehow it feels as if these meters have been around for ages, always a sign of an appropriate and elegant technology. Today, the DK range of standalone meters runs from simple monochromatic stereo displays, in the MSD100-series, all the way up to the flagship (and costly) MSD600M++ modular multichannel (up to 32) meter unit with surround sound analyser.

Apart from conventional metering this offers JellyFish surround sound monitoring, Leq(m) loudness, spectrum analysis and many other options including SDI break-out.

Until now the entry-level MSD100 series has only offered relatively low-resolution (320 x 240) monochrome screens. The originals sold in their thousands and are to be found everywhere from education institutions to major broadcast facilities. The new MSD100C brings higher resolution (640 x 480) and a colour display down to a more affordable price 32

point, along with the main metering tools, bargraph PPMs with programmable scales, phasemeter, audio vector oscilloscope and level meter. Although the asking price may still seem a little steep at UK£1200 (+ VAT), it is worth remembering that a standalone single mechanical stereo PPM was over UK£900, the last time I checked.

I was brought up on BBC standard PPMs and I could probably still line up a valve one if ever the need arose.

However, times change and the mechanical PPM, no matter how sophisticated the electronics, is no longer adequate for many current applications. The general principles still hold good though. An ideal level meter will have an extremely fast rise time and a much slower fall time, will be simple to interpret, and will be designed not to cause fatigue when used for many hours at a stretch. The MSD100C ticks all the boxes and adds several extras.

A maximum of four PPM bargraphs are grouped in pairs. One pair is sourced from the analogue inputs, one from the digital. Strangely, there is no Sum and Difference option, with one pair looking at A+B and one at S&D. For anyone not familiar with this, it is a common UK broadcast option where one meter measures the sum of the left and right signals (A+B) while the other measures the difference between them (A-B). Providing the difference is lagging the sum by at least 3dB the signal is reasonably mono compatible and the left-right signals are ‘in-phase’.

If the difference consistently leads the sum, then the mono compatibility is compromised and the Left and Right signals are likely to be out of phase. Although the phasemeter does substantially the same job, and the goniometer also conveys the same information in a different form, there is a considerable body of opinion that prefers the Sum and Difference alternative.

Metering is a very personal thing and ‘standards’ vary wildly from country to country. DK recognises this and provides a wide range of scales along with a PC application, MSD-Config, to upload these to the MSD100C. This application also allows for limited customisation of other parameters. Colours can be chosen from a palette of red, blue, green, yellow, fuchsia, aqua and white and various screen parameters can be varied.

Scales can be user defined within the DK-Scale section of the MSD-Load application, also included. With this, even LEQ(m) scales can be defined. The applications are not the most user-friendly I’ve ever encountered, but you won’t be using them very often. resolution

Although supplied with a U-shaped mounting yoke and base-plate for free-standing operation, the MSD100C can easily be built into a mixing console meter bridge or other custom furniture. The case is thin (36mm) with a modest border around the screen, making best use of scarce real estate. Three keys on the front are the only operational controls and have a very positive click action. Soft labelled Pre A, B and C, pressing a key selects one of the three preset set-ups.

On power up this defaults to Pre A. Double-clicking a key takes you to a list of the 11 presets currently installed in the unit. The list is scrolled with the righthand pair of keys and your selection is assigned with the left-hand key to whichever key was originally double-clicked.

A single 25-pin D-sub connector deals with the left and right analogue, stereo AES-EBU and power connections. The supplied break-out cable terminates in XLR connectors. Power uses a 4-pole version to avoid any unpleasantness. This is a much more positive solution than the coaxial power connector fitted to the earlier MSD100 series units. The UK power supply included is an in-line type. Two more D-sub connectors’ deal with VGA for connecting a standard PC-monitor and a utility connection for RS232 to a PC and power.

DK continues its unbroken run of desirable products with the MSD100C. The price premium over the monochrome units is modest and the benefits of colour tangible. Accurate metering is not an indulgent purchase but an often overlooked essential. It is also a good investment. In the same vein as a highclass monitoring system and long after this year’s whizz-bang workstation is being used as a doorstop, the MSD100C will still be a relevant and desirable professional audio tool. ■

PROS

Precision metering; excellent operational ergonomics; very pretty.

CONS

Configuration applications would benefit from an update; no Sum and Difference PPM metering; price invites competition.

EXTRAS

New software for DK’s flagship audio meter, the MSD600M++, is aimed at engineers working with surround sound trailers and commercials for movie theatres. The Graphical Leq(m) software package allows users to mix to the highest score on the Leq(m) loudness standard. SMPTE timecode input brings automated Start/Stop points and gives a direct readout of where the sound material can be optimised for louder trailers/commercials.

Contact DK-TECHNOLOGIES, DENMARK: Website: www.dk-technologies.com

July/August 2005

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review

Anthony DeMaria Labs ADL 1500 We’ve said it before; you can’t have too many compressors and variety is the spice of gain reduction. ADL is enjoying reinvigorated exposure in Europe and GEORGE SHILLING says this box is a tasty, characterful bundle.

A

NTHONY DEMARIA LABS has been handbuilding compressors for more than 17 years and has built something of a reputation as a boutique supplier to those ‘in the know’ who are happy to pay a little more for something special.

DeMaria’s compressors are frequently namechecked by a number of great and good producers, engineers, mixers and artists, particularly Stateside, including Michael Brauer, Joe Chiccarelli and David Frangioni.

Now distributed in the UK by KMR, their prices have come down to a more realistic level.

Anthony is Italian and he compares his art to that of the chef, creating something with his hands is, he says, ‘like cooking a great meal for your family and friends’. He built his reputation hand-building tube gear, copying classic circuits, and soon started getting calls from big producers like Flood, Neil Dorfsman and Tchad Blake. His most extraordinary product is an expensive recreation of the classic Fairchild 670 model.

The ADL C/L 1500 (UK£1660 +VAT) is a stereo version of the mono ADL C/L 1000, the circuitry of which resembles that of the classic LA-2A. It is not claimed anywhere that this is designed as an exact clone of the LA-2A, but it uses the same principles, and many details are similar, such as the optical cell and the lack of power supply regulation. The front panel is simple and straightforward, painted plain light grey with retro bakelite-style knobs. The VU meters are large and clear, they look modern and are gently lit with a torch bulb behind each one — this illumination is the only indication of power. The tiny toggles seem slightly flimsy but work reliably. Most of the circuitry is encased, but like the LA-2A, the tubes sit outside on the back.

With eight valves present, there is quite some heat generated, so careful consideration will be needed for placement of the unit. DeMaria says he likes to gently remind clients to keep things cool so as to improve the life of the components. These tubes operate at very high voltage — up to 350V. It seems running at a suitably high voltage always helps the sound quality and character of valve gear. With the valves exposed on the back, they are somewhat vulnerable to damage, especially as the XLR audio connections for input and output are located in among them — you wouldn’t want to be poking around the back of a rackmounted unit with an XLR connector in hand.

Each channel is equipped with two Russian 34

Sovtek 12AX7LPS (same as 12AX7A) valves, with a 12BH7A and a 6AQ5A labelled as Penta Laboratories USA. Overall build quality is excellent, the hand wiring is neat and internal layout is uncluttered — it all seems to fit easily into the 2U case. Inputs and outputs are 600ohm connections, so consideration is needed in matching your source.

Operation could not be simpler. With only two knobs, you simply set the amount of compression using the Peak Reduction knob (clockwise is more) and then correct the output level with the Gain knob.

Each meter can switch independently between Gain Reduction and Output +4 level; these large clear meters are an excellent indicator of gain reduction.

The other toggles select stereo linking, which joins the two channels’ gain reduction circuits for a stable image, and a Power On/Off switch. The lack of a hard-wire bypass — or indeed any bypass switch — is mildly frustrating when you want to compare compressed and uncompressed programme.

There is a gradual onset of compression ratio over a 10dB knee, beyond which the signal is limited fairly hard. With a fairly fast (but not inaudible) attack, an enormous amount of gain reduction can be achieved with fairly low distortion, a trick the original LA-2A excels at. However, there is noticeably more graininess to the sound of the ADL 1500, especially under heavy compression. The LA-2A’s famous two-stage release isn’t really evident in the ADL, and overall the release seems much faster. I gather that the 1500 has a faster release character than the mono 1000 model for it to be more suitable for stereo bus compression.

It is certainly faster than I expect from an optical compressor, and this does indeed work extremely well on most programme, even if it sounds quite unlike an LA-2A. The sound is big and harmonically rich — it definitely sounds like a proper big boy’s toy.

On dynamic pop (An oxymoron? Ed), in most cases it has the effect of making the track sound like a record — it is sweet and comfortable sounding, naturally taming harshness and tightening up the bass end. The slightly grainy quality even adds a hint of analogue tape or vinyl record to the proceedings.

You have to be careful with overly-dynamic tracks, as more than 4 or 5dB peak gain reduction can introduce audible pumping or make things sound slightly ‘pinched’, depending on the tempo of the track. But the ADL is good at adding excitement to a track without squashing its dimensions, the sound remains resolution

big, and a great mix will sound exceptional.

Used on pop or rock lead vocals, the ADL adds punch, indeed the attack characteristic sometimes has a tendency to make the vocal sound too aggressive when compressed hard. This punchiness works well on real drums, taming the kit in a very appealing manner — with medium-fast attack and release, this is not over-dramatic, but just controlling and enhancing. And on bass guitar it sounds punchy yet smooth, grounding the track perfectly.

Interestingly, DeMaria is helping develop a product range for Presonus, and judging by the ADL C/L 1500 this could be very interesting. ■

PROS

Big, warm, punchy compression; simplest possible operation.

CONS

Vulnerable rear-mounted valves; crunchier and faster than an LA-2A; fixed Attack and Release; no bypass.

EXTRAS

ADL’s 670 Limited Edition Stereo Valve Compressor follows years of testing and research and has matched, part for part, the specifications and control of the original Fairchild 670. Featuring 14 transformers and 20 valves it’s housed in a 6U with a separate 3U valve PSU. Price is UK£10,000 (+ VAT).

Contact ADL, US: Website: www.anthonydemarialabs.com UK, KMR Audio: +44 208 445 2446

July/August 2005

review

COOL - THE NEW M4

M4 24 channel model

The awesome new M4 Tube Console is squarely aimed at DAW users seeking the more traditional, expansive big console sound.

A sound simply not attainable using an ‘all-digital’ set-up.

Available with 16, 24 or 32 input channels, all M4’s feature a genuine TL Audio valve pre-amp stage, classic equaliser, 4 aux sends and a Track Direct output. Ideal for high quality track laying and stereo mixdown, the M4 also provides a tactile and ergonomic control surface.

Prices start at just £3995 plus VAT for the 16 channel version. More detailed information is available by visiting:

www.tlaudio.co.uk

Designed and manufactured in England

TELEPHONE +44 (0)1462 492090 // EMAIL info@tlaudio.co.uk //

PASSIONATE ABOUT TUBES

review

Apogee Rosetta 200 Sharing many of the innovations introduced in other models in Apogee’s range, the 200 adds twists and turns all of its own. ROB JAMES test drives a 2-channel, 24-bit/192kHz A-D/D-A convertor.

M

ENTION CONVERTORS IN POLITE company and the name Apogee is bound to crop up. The Santa Monica based firm has built an enviable reputation for designing above average conversion solutions at a price that, although it could never be described as low, is well below the more esoteric high-end stuff. A recent addition to the family is the Rosetta 200. A close relative of the Rosetta 800 (Resolution V3.3 — see this for Rob’s expository discourse on the Rosetta stone. Ed) and AD/DA 16X units (Resolution V3.6), not to mention the Big Ben master clock (Resolution V2.6), the Rosetta 200 has a new trick or two up its 1U sleeve. It is the first Apogee device to feature sample rate conversion and a suite of three ‘finishing’ processes dubbed ‘CODA’. Like the other X range products it also accepts a range of interface cards including the eagerly awaited FireWire interface that I had for this review.

Physically the Rosetta 200 follows Apogee ‘house style’ in looks, operation and sound and the unit also makes use of Apogee’s two stage ‘Intelliclock’ technology (as employed in the Big Ben clock unit) to minimise jitter. Intelliclock is really two clocks in one. A rapid response, but range tolerant, ‘read’ clock, loads a FIFO buffer, while an ultra-low-jitter ‘write’ clock schedules the clock ‘ticks’ out of the buffer to synchronise the convertors. Two LEDs, amusingly arranged as an exclamation mark indicate the presence and quality of lock. If the red dot is lit you’re safe, but if only the green stroke is lit it’s time to start investigating the cause.

Apogee house style means a pretty neutral sound but with an emphasis on maximising levels with the characteristic proprietary Soft Limit on the analogue inputs and UV22HR bit reduction before the outputs, if you want to invoke them.

The basic unit is a reasonable UK£1395 (+ VAT) and provides analogue, Toslink and coaxial SPDIF plus AES-EBU I-O as standard. There is also Word clock I-O with switchable termination and MIDI I-O for updating the firmware or, when used with the optional X-FireWire card (UK£295 + VAT), as a MIDI interface for the connected workstation. When I looked at the Rosetta 800 early last year, the X-FireWire interface was not available but I noted that it had the potential to significantly raise the game. Early versions of the card had FireWire 800 and 400 connections. The 36

current version just has two FireWire 400 sockets, which keeps things relatively simple.

Driver and software installation is not the simplest I’ve encountered but, meticulously following the instructions, it worked first time. Using the X-FireWire card gives the added bonus of MIDI I-O so just add a monitor controller and mic preamps and you have a complete solution for stereo recording with a PC or Mac. Apogee supplies a small applet, FireMix, which sits between the DAW application and the Rosetta.

For the 200, FireMix allows low latency mixing and monitoring in the native environment with accurate metering.

As with its sibling Rosetta 800 the front panel controls appear deceptively simple, however, I still found myself reaching for the manual sooner than I would have wished. Pressing and holding buttons gives access to another layer of settings and other keys then modify some parameters. Like the Big Ben and Rosetta 800 this unit has a programmable power switch (via an internal jumper) that can work as normal — when power is applied the unit must be switched on via the front panel switch — or set to wake up powered on but with the switch still operational.

Four 12-segment LED bargraph meters look at the digital level of the current digital and analogue source selections. They are calibrated from -50dB to OUCH — 0dBfs or higher. In calibration mode the scale is zoomed-in to a range of -20 to -10dBfs. Each single LED only lights when the level is within 0.1dB of the specified level enabling precise adjustment.

The CODA finishing module comprises three processes. UV22HR dither is already familiar and considered de rigeur by many, but SRC (Sample Rate Conversion) is new to Apogee with the Rosetta 200, as is the Aptomizer. The company claims this is the first time it has been happy enough with the quality of SRC to include it in a product. In the absence of a major objective trial I can report that the Apogee solution is as transparent as any other real-time convertor I’ve auditioned.

SRC is available on any one digital source to analogue and digital outputs. A future firmware upgrade will add an automatic SRC option where sample rate conversion will be applied to the selected digital input only when required. The Aptomizer resolution

process automatically sets calibration levels of the analogue inputs and outputs. A ‘learn’ mode analyses the input level, looking for the highest peak detected on the analogue inputs. This level is used to adjust the gain such that the highest peak results in a level of -5dBfs at the digital outputs. To maintain unity gain the analogue input and output levels are adjusted reciprocally. A trim mode allows the automatic calibration value to be adjusted in 0.1dB steps.

Apogee consolidates its range with the Rosetta 200. It introduces a couple of useful innovations to the solid, high quality conversion formula, SRC and the Aptomizer, which will no doubt find their way into future products if the user reaction is favourable.

Meanwhile, the user interface remains a little quirky but the sound makes up for it. Apogee deservedly belongs in the short list of names to consider when looking for convertor solutions and the Rosetta 200 dots another i and crosses another t. ■

PROS

For stereo it may be the only interface you will need; modularity adds to versatility; silent.

CONS

User interface somewhat impenetrable without resorting to the manual.

EXTRAS

Option cards — The X-Digi-Mix card interfaces directly with Pro Tools Mix Core or Farm cards and also provides a Superclock (FSx256) output.

The X-HD option card allows direct connectivity between Pro Tools|HD systems and the X series units. The X-FireWire Card enables direct connection to any FireWire-equipped computer. Two FireWire 400 sockets allow further X-Series units to be daisy-chained from a single PC or Mac connection.

Contact APOGEE ELECTRONICS, US: Website: www.apogeeelectronics.com UK, Sonic Distribution: +44 1525 840400

July/August 2005

Gary Langan As controversial and busy as ever, Gary Langan has combined business ventures with long hours behind the desk and embraced new technologies as a matter of course. GEORGE SHILLING catches up with him during his multichannel War of Worlds remix sessions and talks to him about the centre channel, assistants, compression and things moving on.

B

EFORE HITTING HIS TEENS, Gary Langan was taken to studio sessions at the BBC and IBC by his session musician father. He hated piano lessons but loved the studio environment.

Later, when his father bumped into the owners of SARM (Gary Lyons and Barry Ainsworth) at a Gary Glitter party, it just so happened they were looking for a new recruit. Gary tape-opped for Gary Lyons and Mike Stone, and worked on several legendary Queen albums. He stayed at SARM into the 1980s, frequently working with Trevor Horn and 38

engineering hit albums by Spandau Ballet, Buggles, Malcolm McLaren and Yes. Gary took some drum outtakes from Yes’s 90125 sessions and turned them into Cantata For VW Starter using the new Fairlight CMI. Although he professed to having no ambitions towards performance, he and his colleagues founded The Art Of Noise. The re-titled ‘Cantata’ became Close To The Edit, their first hit.

Following this he was involved in the founding of the remarkable Metropolis Studios complex in West London and he continued to produce and mix Paul resolution

McCartney, Michael Jackson, and more recently James, Lisa Stansfield, and the new Magic Roundabout film soundtrack. When Resolution tracked him down he was two days from completing a marathon six months’remixing Jeff Wayne’s epic 1970s project War Of The Worlds at the composer’s Pro Tools/Pro Control studio, which Gary commuted to, covering 11,000 miles and requiring a new gearbox for his Jaguar.

Following this, Gary is completing a Spandau Ballet DVD soundtrack mix.

(Photos by www.recordproduction.com)

What condition were the War Of The Worlds multitracks in?

It was one of the first 48-track albums. We took all 70 multitracks that were synced up with MagLink. We scoured the country for a MagLink and couldn’t find one that was working. None of the multitracks were labelled properly, so we never knew what were the true masters, what were copy masters (because tape was shedding and they needed to make copies), what were slaves, what were tapes that they made up to try things. So we ended up with 70 multitracks [reels of July/August 2005

craft 2-inch tape] that took three months to sort out. That was all put into Pro Tools at 96k, 24-bit; that took three months. It was the sort of project that I couldn’t have mixed on a steam-driven console, I couldn’t have gone back to a J Series, I needed something like Pro Tools because of the environment to deal with it.

They did want us to do it at 192, but there’s hardly any plug-ins at 192. We argued with Sony that for an SACD, I can’t tell the difference between 96 and 192 to be honest. And I was saying things like, well, how well do you want me to sample tape noise? Because that’s what you’re going to be hearing if you’re talking about that sort of analysis, plus the fact that at 96k I got good plug-in support, although there are still some great plug-ins that haven’t been rewritten for 96k, like the GRM stuff. Somebody needs to spank them, because it’s great stuff, all the Doppler stuff — it’s amazing, but I can’t use it at 96k. We did on a couple of them, and it’s given me so many problems.

So you mixed within Pro Tools?

Yes. I’ve noticed the Pro Control works less well with the latest PT software (since the Icon)…

It’s caught me out a few times. If you Undo while you’re moving then it undoes the last move, but if you stop it undoes the whole track, and you’ve got to stop yourself from hitting Undo! There are a few things that Digi haven’t got right about automation in terms of making music. And I always thought it was a real shame that SSL and Digidesign didn’t somehow get themselves into bed together. Because if you think about what you could have come out with, with the ergonomics that SSL understood.

and other core instruments that you’re going to take with you, because they’re in the phantom centre.

When you move to the left of a stereo mix, you still get bass, drums and everything, nothing really changes. You might get a bit more of the tambourine because it’s been panned over to that side. So it doesn’t bother me when people don’t have their room set up correctly. The other thing is, I don’t use the centre speaker.

Quadraphonic?

If I’m being honest, it’s 4.1 that I really enjoy.

You don’t put anything in the centre speaker?

Very little, in War Of The Worlds there’s a small amount

of Richard Burton’s narration and reverb returns are fed there so that you can’t lift off Richard’s voice and have it clean, there is always some other cloudiness going on around it, just to safeguard it. What I do find is if you go into somebody’s house, they don’t know how to set up 5.1, and the centre speaker is invariably out of balance. It’s usually far too loud because the narration on a movie is on the centre speaker, and they have control over that so they can crank it up. Now if I’m using the centre speaker and I’ve put vocals on it, then what’s the point in me spending two days on a track and getting everything delicately balanced when somebody can just have it out of whack and not realise it, and listen to a poor rendition of my work? So I rule out use of the centre speaker.

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Any problems with the sound of the mix bus?

No. What you miss from mixing entirely in that environment is crosstalk. That’s what I missed, the interaction from one channel and a whole busing matrix of something like an SSL or a Neve or a console designed in that manner. What you’ve got to remember in the DigiDesign world, everything is 100 percent discrete so nothing interacts with anything else.

Until it gets to the mix bus…

Well even then it sort of doesn’t.

So this was a surround mix?

I did it twice, stereo and 5.1; I did the whole album in stereo first.

Could you use the automation for the 5.1?

No, it didn’t work. I could use a lot of the EQ and a lot of the work on restoring the sounds. Some of the things sounded like they’d been recorded yesterday, like acoustic guitars, those haven’t changed over the years. Orchestra sounds, that hasn’t changed, a 40-piece string section recorded 30 years ago sounds like a 40-piece string section recorded yesterday.

But things like vocals, some of the electric guitar, percussion, drums, they needed quite a bit of help.

Do you worry about the consumer’s ability to position the speakers?

No, because I don’t mix with any bias front-to-back. I have this theory that when you mix stereo, you don’t mix with a left or right bias, it has what we know as a phantom centre. So all your core instruments or parts of the arrangement, I make them sit in the phantom centre of 5.1. So it doesn’t matter where you’re sitting, because I’m giving you bass, drums and core guitars July/August 2005

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resolution

39

craft Do you use analogue inserts?

Yes, as much as I extol all the plug-ins, I would say there’s a sort of top-end harmonic distortion that I’m used to as a mix engineer that I can’t get from the wonderful cleanliness of Pro Tools. So at Jeff’s studio I’ve been using a large rack of Amek EQs, dbx 160 compressors, Urei 1176s, Aengus graphic EQs. I’ll just run stuff through them and just put on some amount of top end, and I know it’s sort of distorting, but it’s a harmonic distortion that I know works within a record environment, but it’s something I can’t get out of the digital domain. So it hasn’t entirely been mixed within Pro Tools.

How do you think Pro Tools will develop?

I would think I’ll be using that sort of environment, but I hope it would go in a circle and come back to a control surface like the new Icon, because I’m a great believer that I’m capable of doing more than one thing at once. The way that I mix has been standing at the console and being able to move around and do lots of things at once, put a bit of EQ on here, a bit of echo over there, and nobody’s asking me any questions. But at the moment, I’m being interrogated by the software all the time; ‘Right, Gary, what do you want to do now?’ ‘Well, Computer, I’d like to do some EQing.’ ‘OK, let’s go and do some EQing.’I know I’m being childish about it, but that’s how it is, I can’t do three or four things at once.

So I’d like it to come back to a control facility that isn’t all stacked away and hidden in layers, it’s all there in front of me. The editing facilities that I get in Pro Tools are fantastic, being able to move things around, and all the plug-ins — some of those are truly astonishing.

Universal Audio Half Page

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Effects come down to a delay, reverberation, EQ, and that’s about it really. Everything else is just those put together in different ways, phasing is nothing more than mucking about with delay.

What about compression?

Hmm, this is having a pop at the younger fraternity, and it’s not really their fault, but I don’t think the younger fraternity of engineers are shown how to use a compressor and limiter correctly.

9:30 AM

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What are they doing wrong?

They don’t use them enough, and they don’t make them work hard enough, because they’re scared of them, and somebody’s going ‘That sounds over-compressed’. Boy, I can show you hundreds of things that are over-compressed that you’ll say sound fantastic. And I’ll say, the reason why it sounds like that is because it is over-compressed, or it’s somebody pushing something to the limit.

July/August 2005

craft

What’s your best trick?

My magic trick is being able to make a console sing.

If I have a sixth sense, it’s how this works, and how this works with music. And there’s something inside me that really connects with those two elements, and I can really bring them together. I also understand how a band works, and I really, really enjoy working with bands. And I don’t like being ‘The Producer’. I like being another member of the band, that’s what I really enjoy, and I think that’s one of my greatest skills.

In terms of recording, I think there are very few people that come close to me in terms of being able to record instruments, but again it goes back to me being taught one-to-one and it being really hands-on and being a craft. It’s about crafting a record, that’s what I was taught. It’s something that assistants don’t get today because they probably won’t get to see the project through from start to finish. And I think it’s a real shame, because I think you’re really missing out there. They don’t get the satisfaction of starting with nothing, when the band turns up, even with a bunch of demos in this world, we’ve still got to go into that world and start recording things, it can’t all be generated in computer world, it’s not possible. You’ve still got to have somebody perform the song for you, they’ve got to sing for you.

How to get the best out of people, how to recognise when there’s no point in continuing any further today, and it would be far more expedient just to stop, have dinner, go home, because we’re not in July/August 2005

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How do you cope with the myriad choices now available?

It’s because I’m old school, I know what I want, and I know what it’s going to do. And I know that there are only certain tasks that you can perform with a plugin, and I have my favourites, and so I tend to stick to those. Just as, before all this came along, I had my favourite consoles, and that would have been an SSL E Series. When that came along, that was innovation for me. Up until that point, I worked on a Trident Brange and then a TSM, in the background of all that being constructed, SSL were working in Oxford on this console where the ergonomics were just superior to what anyone else had come up with. And to have dynamics in the signal path, and great sounding dynamics, was fantastic. The amount of aux sends, and now I could have a button to switch them on and off, because up until then it was just a rotary pot, and sometimes they wouldn’t shut all the way off, and now I could switch echo on!

the right mood, we’re not performing right, like an athlete. You have peaks and troughs, and I think a skill of mine is knowing when that person is going to peak. I like to think, egotistically, that when we’re doing vocals, I know that this take, before they’ve even started, is going to be a great take. And I’ve said that to assistants, now, right, attention! You stuff up on this one, and I am going to kill you! Because this guy’s going to sing it brilliantly this time. And they look at me and go, well how do you know that? And I say, I just know. And all I can tell you is it’s years of experience. I have had a few assistants go through my fingers that have gone on to do fine things, which I think is a testimony to me! If the assistant’s great, we can only be great, but if the assistant’s not good, then we’re all going down! ■

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So you compress to tape?

Yes, but only because I’m confident in knowing what I’m doing, because I was given one-to-one tuition.

There are some great courses out there, but even so, they’re still lacking this hands-on ‘Look, this is how you do it, watch me, listen to this, let’s use our ears here.’ It’s too easy to go for a plug-in and sort things out. Where I was taught, when you record something you sort out the problem at the start of the recording chain. If we’re recording acoustic instruments, let’s look at where it is in the room, the microphones we’re going to use, and then look at how we’re going to deal with that sound when it comes into the console. But it’s far too easy sometimes just to go to a plug-in — Mic Mod, Amp Farm — it’s much more fun to get the real thing working from ground zero. And it will sound bigger. If anything, I think some records sound small these days, but I have to be careful not to be harping on about ‘that was then, and this is now, how great it was then’, I’m not, because I’m a great believer in things moving on.

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41

craft How do you tie it all together?

Five years ago we spent quite a bit of money on a Fibre-channel network for the Macs. Someone can finish tracklaying at lunchtime with maybe 15 to 20Gb of data. I can reassign the drive and be working on it five minutes later in Studio 1. At the same time we devised a ‘digitising station’ for video in the machine room. Now that we’ve gone over to DV video, an hour-long drama video file is like 13Gb and only takes about six minutes to transfer over Fibre-channel to the same local machine that’s running the Pro Tools.

We’ve been using 40 and 50-inch back projected LCD TVs and they’ve been very good. The problem is all the plasma and LCD screens have lag. I think this is an area of major concern in audio postproduction that we shouldn’t have to accept in this day and age.

People say, well that’s alright, just put a delay in your monitoring, but that’s something I really don’t want to do. When you’re laying back to Digi-Beta with a client in the room it just isn’t satisfactory.

Simon Jones He’s representative of the dashing and inspired breed of postproduction entrepreneurs and also one of the first power users of Digidesign’s Icon. ROB JAMES quizzes him on alternative approaches, efficiency and the upgrade cycle.

S

IMON JONES IS AN INNOVATOR with a strong respect for traditional craft values. After work experience in the dubbing theatres at HTV he left school aged 16 and joined the Cardiff facilities company Eco. After five years there he did a year’s stint in London and then freelanced.

Looking at the scene, the transition to Beta SP and single camera video, he identified a gaping hole in the Cardiff post market. In 1991, still only 24, he decided to open his own facility, Soundworks, on the promise of two hours guaranteed work a week. Soundworks began with a Soundcraft Delta, Fostex G16, Fostex D20 and Highband Umatic. He very quickly realised he needed a hard disk editor and made a big investment in a Doremi Dawn system. Dawn was ahead of its time with features like a vertically scrolling timeline, film dubbing chart style. The workload grew to the point where Simon was regularly doing 20-hour days, sleeping in the studio and his wife used to come in and wake him up with a bacon sandwich. Expansion was inevitable and rapid.

Today, now situated in the glitzy Cardiff Bay area, Soundworks is a thriving facility with three mix rooms, a bunch of preparation rooms, its own cool bar, the City Canteen, and big plans for the future. Studio 1 is a Dolby approved room with an 80-channel SSL Axiom. Studio 2 has a 16-fader Digidesign Icon and Studio 3 a 16-fader Digidesign ProControl, all with Pro Tools HD systems.

42

Why did you move away from Dawn?

It used VCAs for fading and you could hear them.

Coming from a film background I just thought ‘so what?’, the dubbing mixer’s supposed to do the fades anyway. But the music people didn’t like it so we started to look at Pro Tools. When we first saw it around 1992 Pro Tools was a very weird system. It did the job but SMPTE, as they call it, was very much an afterthought and it took about 20 seconds to lock up to Umatic, so we had to wait another couple of years. It was really when TDM came out that it captured our attention. Around the same time we were becoming really frustrated with another suite. It was good but, with a console from one manufacturer, synchronisers from another and recorder from another, I found I was using 60 percent of my brainpower worrying about what the equipment was doing rather than what I was mixing. I saw the SSL OmniMix and thought, ‘Hmmm that’s very interesting’.

Integrated video, incredibly tightly locked automation that you could scroll wheel backwards/forwards in slow motion, with VisionTrack following and four serial machine control ports with a brilliant offsets page. It was a total studio solution. ScreenSound came with it but we quickly realised that was a major step backwards compared with the Mac- based stuff so we just decided to pump a Pro Tools through it. Over the years, we’ve just watched Pro Tools develop and I have to say that things like the ability to zoom in and draw out a click still impresses the pants off a client. resolution

Where does the Icon fit in?

We’d had a ProControl running for six years and we’d seen what that was capable of and we’d been longing for something more professional and it finally came along. I felt almost obliged to buy an Icon — it’s such a logical step. The people who are sub-30 here, all they want to know is Pro Tools and mixing on Pro Tools. The concept of having a multichannel workstation, piping it out and mixing it on an actual desk is not something they relate to. We had ten years out of the OmniMix and the return on investment was just fantastic. In January we decided to pull it out even though it was still working perfectly and still earning its rate every day. We’d been in this building seven and a half years and needed to do something. It’s good for staff morale to have something new.

Soundworks must have spent probably UK£600,000 on mixing desks in its 14-year history so it was a no-brainer that we were going to have an Icon at 40-50 thousand.

You bought from Scrub, they’re a long way from Cardiff.

You can count audio suppliers who know what they are talking about on one hand. Why Scrub?

Well, a long-standing relationship with Ben (Nemes).

Stephen Paine sold me the Dawn systems and later designed our Fibre-channel network for us. He’s a very clever guy. Anyway, he brought Ben in to Tyrell and we followed him to Scrub. He really looks after his customers.

How do you prefer to mix these days?

Do you know, I cannot make up my mind, I cannot decide. A couple of weeks ago I did two long days on the Icon on a really intense load of drama inserts, a real ‘deep-end’ Icon training course for me. ‘Am I in the right automation mode here?’ and, ‘If I do that will I overwrite all the automation I’ve already written down the end?’ It’s definitely a case of sitting there staring at it and thinking, ‘what the hell am I looking at here?’ The beauty of it is that basically, underneath it’s just Pro Tools, just like with ProControl.

Does Icon change your working practices?

Not drastically, the key to successful, professional audio postproduction is applying traditional tried and tested techniques. You hear about all these companies trying to create the ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘think outside the box’. I don’t want to really, the tried and tested way is good. Young people, when they come here and start July/August 2005

craft tracklaying drama stuff, nothing’s changed — it’s still the same old crap they would have produced 25 years ago. You know, there’s a door open on FX2 at timecode two minutes for someone entering the room. So, you’re on that channel and you add a little bit of reverb and there’s nothing else on track two throughout the rest of the scene until at the end, the door closes and it’s on track four. I mean, why? We always have a highly structured track layout for dramas and they think, ‘Why do you need that with automation now?’ Well, because, unless you want to fry your brain?

If they want reverb on something, rather than thinking, well it’s OK because I’ve already got an aux set up for reverb with a D-Verb on it I can share, they just whack a D-Verb straight onto that track and automate it. You can do it that way and maybe I’m being long-in-the-tooth by saying do it the other way, but if you’re truly going to look slick in a dubbing theatre with the clients you won’t be working that way. You will have set it all up before hand and you’ll have a heavily honed template that allows you to do anything at the drop of a hat. But, of course, we’ve all got to learn.

mixing desk can you use to browse the web? I’m sure they are already thinking, ‘we should have done that differently or we should have done that better.’

Consoles are one of the few things the UK really does well. There are a few good American ones but nothing can touch the UK really. Digi has done a reasonably good job but I didn’t drop to my knees when I walked in the room and saw the Icon in the flesh for the first time like I did when I first saw the OmniMix. So which is quicker? Well, the Icon we have in Studio 2 now has 16 faders plus one in the centre section. I’m working on an eight-year-old Axiom here and I’m loving it. On the Axiom I’ve got 41 faders with 24 channels in front of me at any one time.

Given a slightly bigger spend on the Icon, like the other one we’re talking about having now with 32 faders, who knows?

If I’m mixing a drama, there’s no way I want to hard premix anything. I want everything to be run live with as many of the premixed original sources on dedicated faders as possible so I can just zoom down the desk and home in on that channel and change the EQ or whatever. There is no way I want to go back to paging through, banking channels and stuff. I think working on multilayer, 8-fader desks is missing the point. Plus I think big desks look cool as well!

Has Digidesign caught up with this yet?

They’ll come down and set the Icon up and commission it for you but, you load the software onto your machine and boot it up and there are no tracks there. Nothing, no auxes, no audio tracks, no inputs and outputs. Out of the box you’ve got to design your whole mixing desk. There aren’t even any templates.

I think maybe the one thing Digidesign are not capitalising on with this pretty fantastic new product they’ve got, is that they haven’t got people like you, Rob, and me, going around.

What do you think of the rapid Pro Tools upgrade cycle?

It’s absolutely the right way to do it. To put it all in perspective, the Digidesign stuff costs, in relative terms, not a lot. The fact that there is an upgrade path is the important bit. We’ve got systems here we’ve upgraded from Pro Tools 3. The worst thing psychologically is to have to de-commission something and throw it in a skip. We bought the Axiom eight years ago. 18 months into owning it we realised it was fixed at 16-bit. When we bought it, it wasn’t a problem, not an issue. We called SSL and asked, is this fixed at 16-bit? ‘Yes, yes it is.’ Is there an upgrade? ‘No, it’s called Axiom MT’. So, can we upgrade ours? ‘No, not really, the back-planes are all different, blah, blah, no.’ So you’re talking about part-ex with an MT being maybe £300k and they’ll give you maybe £80k for your 18-month old Axiom.

People have got all the wrong perspective on the Digidesign upgrade thing. You don’t have to upgrade.

What you’re being offered is the opportunity of

Some think a conventional console will always be quicker?

Well, I tend to agree, but Digidesign’s argument would be that the Icon is direct access. Look at all those knobs. Look at those dedicated EQs. I’m looking at the SSL and its pans, colour-coded EQ section and dedicated aux above that. When you look at the Icon you just have a grid of, I don’t know, 64 controllers.

You can make the Icon look like a traditional mixing desk if that’s what you want, but they’ve offering you a number of new ways of thinking really. What other

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keeping your original investment worth something over the years.

What are you planning for the future?

Cardiff has plenty of small, windowless dubbing suites and Pro Tools on an office desk is the current trend so we want to do the opposite. We have a large space on the floor below and I want it to be like a crossover studio. 5.1, excellent projection and picture facilities, but very music orientated as well with a large recording space, a beautiful recording space. I’d love to have a big grand piano permanently set up in there. This is a lovely building, a 1900’s bank with very high ceilings.

The mixing desk will be facing this big chimneybreast and we’re knocking the walls out either side through to what will be the recording space with floor to ceiling glass that disappears into the floor.

I had a call from the BBC a year ago, ‘Can you record a voice and grand piano?’ Er, no. ‘We can’t find anywhere in Cardiff to do it’. It’s ridiculous, so that’s what I set out to do, a space big enough for small orchestras, choirs, whatever.

We started talking to Guy Wilson at AKA and John Flynn of Acoustics Design Group last summer. I’ve just received the final plans and it’s about ready to go to tender now. For once I didn’t want to build a studio that had to be finished by a certain date, I just want to let it go at its own pace. ■

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July/August 2005

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43

craft Would you ever revert to working on tape?

Why? Sonic reasons, decision-making reasons…?

I don’t think so, no.

You have a good collection of analogue toys, how much are they employed?

It still gets used, it’s stuff that I’ve accumulated over many years and carried with me from studio to studio.

I like having it, my clients seem to like seeing and hearing a nice stack of analogue outboard, and I’m so familiar with it, it’s very fast for me to get the sound I want from it. Having 24 I-O it’s permanently available, I can just drop it in on the track as a hardware insert, I don’t even have to pick up a patchcord.

Do you have any issues with the sound of the internal Pro Tools mix bus?

I think it sounds great, I really do. Mixing the Mediaeval Baebes in particular, I couldn’t believe the clarity and space I was hearing. I think if we’d mixed that through an analogue board it would not sound so crystal clear, I really believe the voices would sound compromised.

Bob Kraushaar His credit list goes back to the heady days of ZTT and SARM and his contribution has topped charts and established artists. A mixer by preference, Bob Kraushaar takes GEORGE SHILLING through the single day mix, the benefits of having your own place and not faffing around.

B

OB KRAUSHAAR’S FIRST INDUSTRY appointment was as Trevor Horn’s runner.

He graduated to a proper tape-opping job at Marcus Studios but headed back to SARM when they expanded and equipped with SSLs — mixing was what he craved, and there were plenty of opportunities at SARM, especially when the associated ZTT label was outputting 12-inch singles requiring B-sides and alternative versions. His first chart success came with Johnny Hates Jazz and he was soon known as a mixing specialist having made his mark with ZTT artists such as Propaganda, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Art Of Noise. He went on to work with Paul McCartney, Erasure and perhaps his most regular client, the Pet Shop Boys. More recently he has set up his own Pro Tools HD equipped mixing studio in West London, housed in a building owned by the Goldust Productions team who have three studios, with pop act Liberty X also occupying a writing room there.

As well as recently mixing an album for Mediaeval Baebes, Kraushaar has used his room to mix some Magic Roundabout soundtrack material, a new Liberty X single (featuring Run DMC) and a single and album tracks for the first solo album by Erasure’s Andy Bell. (photos by www.recordproduction.com)

When did you start using Pro Tools?

I resisted it for quite some time, but I was working at the Strongroom as a freelancer quite a lot, and they were very aggressive about getting involved in Pro Tools. They had their own rigs, and they were well-maintained, and they would work so there was no concern about wasting time waiting for a sub-standard rig to get set up. But what really got me involved with it was when I was working on an artist that the Strongroom had signed to a production deal called Alex Valentine. He had some great demos recorded on 16-track that had been done totally free, not to a click, and we wanted to overdub, add loops, tighten it up, and the only way I could see getting it to work was doing it in Pro Tools. So the Strongroom put us in one of their Pro Tools suites, we loaded Alex’s stuff in and I got stuck in. I learnt on the job, there was no client breathing down my neck, and I thought we were able to do quite amazing things to his demos — I was shocked. Although we mixed on the Neve, when we got into the Neve room I was very impressed by how it sounded. EQing I’d done in Pro Tools was really worthwhile having done. So I thought, there’s something to this!

Presumably SSLs were a big part of your learning and success?

Oh yeah, massive…

Presumably you have taught yourself new skills using Pro Tools?

Yes that’s what happens when you progress along a career path, there are less and less people to watch, so just messing around with it and wondering, I want to do this, so how can I do it? And nine times out of ten, you can, and it’s pretty easy. It’s just been a real eye-opener.

But here there’s not even a console in your room. What happened?

Well, Pro Tools finally came of age. It’s stable, it’s easy to use, and above all, it sounds good.

44

resolution

For monitoring you have Mackie HR824s and NS-10s, what are the others?

The ones in between I have had for many years, they are Dynaudio PPM2s, and as with all good sounding speakers, they are discontinued!

These are all relatively small speakers, do you not miss having an enormous pair of studio monitors?

Not at all. It got to the stage where I was going into traditional studios with large boards and the big monitors wouldn’t be on all day. They can be so variable, even when you think you know the room, maybe they slip, or someone adjusts them for someone else, or a unit gets replaced — they’re not constant. And I would find that I get more bottom end from the Dynaudios than many large monitors.

And they extend deeply enough?

The Mackies do, they are amazing. It took a little while, but I’m on them most of the time, I love listening to them.

You have a few gadgets, I notice your trackball has four buttons…

I use three out of the four! They are assigned so one is a single click, one is a double-click, and one is Option-click, which on Pro Tools will delete a node on the volume graph.

And you have a Big Knob and a Command|8, presumably that gets used for fader rides…

It does, not as much as I thought it might — only the faders get used on it, and the Record button, but it’s nice to have a fader — shut your eyes, listen, and move the fader.

How do you cope with the myriad options available in Pro Tools?

Well you’ve still got the same objective, to get the best out of the song, get the best out of the mix, but you’re not limited by only having a certain amount of outboard, or a certain number of channels, so it’s wonderful.

You’re not distracted by the details?

No. For years I’ve been mixing in studios, and quite often it’s a day as that’s all people are able to afford, July/August 2005

craft Do you value a second opinion?

I think it’s absolutely essential that someone turns up. It’s unlikely I can guess exactly what they want from a track. When people turn up we make a few small changes and they’re happy to do that. It saves coming back to recall it, and I think it’s important to get it signed off in the studio, that someone in a position of authority comes and says, ‘Yes, that’s good, it’s finished’.

Do you use mix bus processing?

Oh yeah. I’ve become very fond of the Waves C1 Compressor, which I think is a remarkable piece of software — it’s so versatile, it sounds great, I love it.

So a bit of gentle compression from that, and follow it up with a bit of Sony Oxford EQ, or the Massenburg, and then maybe a tiny touch of limiting from the Waves L1.

so you’ve got to be pretty objective, crack on, and be very disciplined about it. The last thing I want to do is faff around. I’m not saying I rule out experimentation, but I’ve seen people lose themselves in too many options, and I generally have a pretty clear objective about where I want the mix to go.

Do you A/B with other things you’ve done?

Constantly. I quite often have the rough mix running on a couple of tracks, to make sure I haven’t missed any of that rough mix magic, which exists in every rough mix. You get a lot of information from a rough mix, no matter how ropey it sounds. Or I listen to DATs or CDs. How do you cope with complex session multitracks?

So far, people have been pretty organised about it, I think people realise now they have to be. It’s more often the case that things are missing. Why can’t I hear this? I haven’t got it! Why not? Sure enough, it was never on the original CD. Do you mix back into Pro Tools?

I use Bounce To Disk, and put it simultaneously down to DAT — it’s a convenient, fairly reliable medium. There was a case on the Medieval Baebes where one track wanted to be vari-sped, and the mastering engineer preferred DAT over any other system for vari-speeding.

Do you ever vari-speed your multitracks?

I don’t, because I haven’t got a sync box. It was an issue once, but we just decided we’d do it later. We auditioned it — put a mix down and put it through Pitch ‘N’ Time, figured out it was going to be fine, so it wasn’t really much of an issue.

Do you chuck people out when you’re setting the mix up?

Generally people leave me alone, I don’t mind if they hang around but I think it must be very boring for them. I prefer to be on my own, I think if someone’s in the room you feel obliged to listen more than you should. You should take more breaks while you’re mixing — make a phone call, twiddle your thumbs, rest your ears and it’s obvious what the next move is.

July/August 2005

What do you use for reverb?

I’m glad you asked that, I’m using Digidesign’s ReVibe which I think is absolutely breathtaking, it sounds gorgeous. It’s a modelling reverb and it’s very malleable, shapeable, adjustable. Loads of depth. It’s all over the Baebes album, heaps of it. I still have my Ursa Major Space Station, which is unbeatable. The Roland Dimensional Space reverb is another great sounding unit.

Do you use its RSS 3D phasey programs?

Yeah I do sometimes, it’s nice. And from the same era a chorus box [SDX330 Dimensional Expander], it’s got a Dimension D emulation and some lovely choruses, it’s got the Boss CE-1 pedal emulations. I was very pleased to come across the MXR Flanger/Doubler, and the Marshall Time Modulator is a personal favourite, but these don’t come out very often because it’s so easy to get a weird effect with a plug-in. I’ve got Sound Toys PhaseMistress and that series. I love Mondo Mod, and SciFi and LoFi. How do you set up a mix?

I get a balance fairly quickly then turn it all off and work with the rhythm section and the vocal, and then add things in. I have the vocal in at an early stage as it helps me to learn the song. When you think about it, going into a commercial studio for a day to mix a track that you’ve never heard the components of before — you’ve probably heard a rough mix and you’ve got 60 outputs, but none of them have been assigned in the Pro Tools Session because they’ve been working on it with one stereo bus. So you have to figure out all the parts, assign them all, then start mixing. It’s already after lunch, and a very good part of the day is gone. And that is starting to be a real hindrance to the quality of the mixing. I feel it should be quite spontaneous — you hear something and go, alright, it needs to be like that, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch! [mimes moving knobs!] Being able to drop in my analogue effects — fumbling around a strange patchbay, ‘Where’s the assistant because I can’t find — Oh, it’s not labelled like that…!’ It’s very immediate for me here, and I love that about it. I’m not limited by a certain number of channels or outputs.

What is your biggest skill?

I think I’m best at getting the essence of the song out.

I’m not here to recreate my version with my favourite drum sounds of your song, I’m here to bring out the essence of what you’ve recorded. ■ resolution

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Too many standards The Figure shows an assortment of layouts for various surround-sound formats. These are all formats that have some claims to reasoned existence — they are not ‘crank’ ideas. A quick glance over the layouts will lead to the obvious conclusion that sonic compatibility between most of the systems is not to be expected. They variously have their origins in the worlds of music, cinema, television and video. Between these worlds there has been pitifully little co-operation, and finding domestic compromises has not been very successful either.

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PHILIP NEWELL

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HILE THE CINEMA world largely controls its own environments for mixing and public reproduction, the reality of what happens in people’s ‘home cinemas’ is largely out of their control. The cinema formats of surround sound are necessarily using diffuse surround sources, because there is no other way to avoid huge level differences between different seats in a public theatre if only single sources were used for each channel.

Clearly though, such systems are not appropriate for discrete, 5-channel music mixes because the timbral differences between the front and rear channels can be considerable. The option of the dipole loudspeakers for the surrounds (Figure g), although giving good diffusion in an appropriate room, would be entirely inappropriate in a room with an absorbent rear wall or in any relatively dead room. To be fair, this system was proposed by Tom Holman as far back as the 1970s for domestic use — not professional use — but it could never be expected to give workable results from a 5-channel discrete (symmetrical surround) mix: it is clearly intended for ambient surround only.

Nevertheless, many people do use their home cinema systems for music-only surround simply because they will not want to have 10 or 12 different loudspeakers in their lounges — which is what they would need if they wished to have optimum systems for the cinema and discrete music styles of surround.

Not only would it not be practical from a space point of view but it would also mean that some of the loudspeakers for each system would be required to occupy the same positions, which they clearly could not do. Furthermore, there may be level differences in the rear channel set ups required for home cinema and music-only surround. Almost certainly, in the majority of cases, people would not re-adjust these levels according to what they were listening to and experience has shown that most home systems are not correctly set up for any type of reproduction.

However, can the general public really be criticised for incorrectly setting up its systems when so much music is being mixed with a flagrant disregard for tightly following any accepted surround monitoring standards? Just what is the public to make of this free for all? And what are the manufacturers to make of this free for all? Unfortunately, the manufacturers seem to be able to make almost whatever they like and to sell to a general public that is lost in confusion. So we must ask ourselves the question ‘Is surround supposed to be a highfidelity concept, or is it not?’ From the evidence presented, and the situations that one encounters so frequently in recording studios, the answer would seem to be a resounding ‘No!’ This point was highlighted by a pair of articles in the January/February 2004 edition of Resolution (V3.1). Christophe Anet of Genelec argued the case for flush-mounted, full-range, low distortion loudspeakers. He also offered the alternative of following an ITU recommendation in the placement of the loudspeakers at 1.2 metres from the ground, at least 1.1 metres from any wall, and in a well damped room. In the same issue of the magazine, George Shilling had been interviewing Greg Penny, who had just been re-mixing some of Elton John’s work in surround. Penny said that he did not want to monitor on anything that was too ‘high-end’, because for him, the high-end was not reality. Were that statement true, then the question would beg to be asked ‘In that case, what is reality? Mid-fi?’ He was also monitoring in a small room, which did not meet July/August 2005

sweet spot the ITU/BS recommendations, and was then asked what his recommendations would be to a novice at 5.1 mixing. His reply was ‘I think you’ve just got to find your own way, everybody’s got their own way of doing it. There are no rules…’ and this was from a professionally respected producer!

Well, with luck, as Greg Penny is a very experienced music mixer, and the multitrack recordings of Elton John are usually excellent, it will probably largely be a question of balancing the levels of the instruments, but this is surely no way to approach surround sound mixing in general.

It would seem that the idea of music-only surround sound has been almost force-fed to a public that was not particularly asking for it, and the professional side of the industry often seems to be playing catch-up with the domestic equipment trends. In fact, the professional studios, almost as much as the consumers, are having to deal with the confusion resulting from the marketing wars that have themselves resulted from the surround concept being driven into a reluctant marketplace. Few people, either professionals or domestic users, are keen to commit themselves to big expenditure on systems that show no sign of having a significant life-span before the marketing people decide that the whole thing is redundant.

NARAS, the organisation that gives the Grammy awards, is discussing a modification to the ITU 775 recommendation to push the rear loudspeaker back to 135 degrees from the centre front, for music mixing. The fact that things are still being changed suggests that the entire concept of surround sound for music appears to have been badly conceived and badly implemented. In the previously referred to Greg Penny interview, he concedes that much rock music works better with a frontal sound stage, then explains how he put the bass guitar in the front, rear and sub channels. (And all of this was done on a non-standard monitor system in an untreated room.)

With so many sources of the same low frequency signal, the response could never be expected to be consistent from room to room. In fact the standing wave field differences of the direct signals would be dependent on the distances between the loudspeakers even in an anechoic chamber. As the number of

July/August 2005

common sources increases, the complexity of the interference fields increases rapidly, but so many music mixers seem neither to know nor care about this. Of course, once the real-world variables of different subwoofer, crossover frequencies and bassmanagement systems are added to the equation, any hope of fidelity of reproduction becomes a question of nothing more than luck. Spurred on by a music industry that looks for even more new sensations, the music mixers are also under pressure to produce the goods, whether they are accurately reproducible or not.

A further complication arises with the compatibility of the LFE concept. It originally came into being as a Low Frequency Extension, adding around an octave below the old ‘standard’ cinema loudspeaker systems in the all-analogue days. Supplying extra, low frequency capacity to the three front channels was cheaper than replacing them all in the days when low frequency horns were the norm. Modern mainchannel loudspeakers have better low frequency performance, but extreme low frequency signals need special processing when derived from optical soundtracks. The low frequency feeds are therefore derived from the processors as a common feed, but are not discretely recorded channels.

In the case of digital soundtracks, the so-called ‘.1’ channel is a separately recorded track. This is also the case for analogue magnetic 70mm soundtracks, but the digital low frequency levels are potentially much higher. This is often referred to as the Low Frequency Effects channel. These discrete, low frequency tracks do not all have the same bandwidth in the studios, where the LF channels have often had frequency responses limited only by the subwoofer responses.

However, in the digital television world there is the concept of Low Frequency Enhancement but with the strong recommendation not to record essential sound content in that channel because not all domestic systems will be able to reproduce it. So, with LFE standing for Low Frequency Extension, Effects, or Enhancement, what is the domestic decoder to make of it and what happens when reproducing music, especially when much music is not mixed with a separate mono subwoofer? A ‘one

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size fits all’ solution can hardly be expected to be high fidelity in its traditional sense, and probably fits nothing exactly.

There is a real chance of good compatibility between music surround using ambient rear channels, home videos, and home cinema reproduction. A system that was optimised for such use would also readily lend itself to high quality two-channel stereo reproduction. In this way, a good sensation of ambience can be achieved, along with a reliably reproducible frontal sound stage.

However, the record companies, in their endless search for the re-use of old material, have deemed that surround mixes with an ambient stereo format are not ‘sexy’ enough to stimulate a mass market into renewing much of its music collection. The record companies have, in isolation, opted to go for a discrete, 5-channel music mixing regime that makes not only its own impossible demands on an otherwise compatible world of surround, but also makes demands that are not even compatible with the concept of high fidelity reproduction; at least not in any way that could be realised in practical circumstances. The fact remains that the 5-channel, fully discrete surround concept, if optimised, will compromise the achievable quality of the left/right/ frontal stereo sound quality, because the best stereo room acoustics are not compatible with the best compromise discrete surround acoustics.

It appears that 5-channel, fully discrete, highfidelity, surround-sound music mixing is an unattainable goal, primarily because of the difficulty of interfacing it with real rooms, but also because of its incompatibility with other domestic surround requirements. In many ways, the concept of discrete 5-channel surround is blocking the development of the better implementation of professional and domestic systems. The problems involved in 5channel, discrete, symmetrical surround mixing are not realistically solvable, and the compromises that must be made to its reproduction lead to a reality that can hardly be considered to be highfidelity. A standardisation on 3-channel frontal stereo plus ambient surround would solve most of the problems. For classical music, it is already in widespread use. ■

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know how

Your PC video display Computers are increasingly being pressed into service as the main picture source in post and film work. This should be no surprise since the majority of picture and sound editing happens inside a PC or Mac. Whatever the display device — projector, LCD, plasma or good old CRT — there are a number of ways of getting pictures out of the PC and into the display. ROB JAMES says that if you think that audio ‘standards’ are a nightmare you ain’t seen nothing yet.

P

ICTURES MANIPULATED BY a PC or Mac are by definition digital. LCD, plasma and DLP displays, whether flat-screen or projector, are also digital — the display device has a native resolution defined by the number of picture elements or pixels used to reconstruct an image. Despite this, until recently, all connections between PC and display were analogue — the digital image was converted to analogue and converted back to digital for display.

Displays themselves can be divided approximately into two groups, those intended for use as computer monitors and those optimised for displaying moving images (hereafter referred to as monitors and video displays).

A monitor used for office and design tasks (or for a DAW) does not need a rapid response time. Similarly, wide contrast range and the number of colours it can resolve are generally less critical than in a video display. The presence of ‘video’ Res_horizontal_07.05 pm Page 1 interfaces, composite, S-Video,27/6/05 Component5:39 and RGB

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July/August 2005

know how are no guarantee that the display is particularly suited to displaying moving pictures. The good news with modern video displays and multi-head computer graphics cards is that there is no longer a pressing need for these interfaces. Most current video projectors, LCD and Plasma video screens have a ‘VGA’ socket in addition to the familiar video interfaces. They may well also have one or other of a couple of digital interface ‘standards’ that have floated to the surface of an otherwise murky brew, DVI and HDMI. DVI (Digital Video Interface) is a set of connection standards using a single form factor connector with six possible pin configurations. The most common variant found on computer graphics cards and display devices also incorporates support for so-called VGA analogue. Unlike analogue VGA, which is good for at least 25m without a repeater with suitable cables, DVI currently maxes out at around 10m.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) has the more consumer-orientated set of standards. It can incorporate DRM (Digital Rights Management) i.e. copy protection elements, most commonly HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) developed by Intel for use in conjunction with HDMI. A single HDMI interconnect can carry SD or HDTV at up to 1080p — 1920 x 1080 pixel progressive scan plus 8-channels of up to 192kHz, 24-bit audio not to mention the usual Dolby and DTS compressed streams. HDMI is compatible in at least a limited way with DVI but already offers longer cable runs without repeaters (currently 15m).

You might conclude that, without unnecessary conversions, digital interfacing is the ‘gold standard’ and you’d be correct. But these interfaces are very young and there are some exciting incompatibility problems. If you want to go this way, write your supplier contracts carefully. Whether you elect to use DVI, HDMI or VGA with the extra D-A/A-D conversion stages, the first critical things to watch out for are resolution and refresh rate. Does your chosen graphics card allow different resolutions and refresh rates on each output? Even assuming it does, does it support the native resolution of the display? If not there may be a solution. An excellent, although fiendishly complicated, piece of shareware, Powerstrip, from Taiwan based Entech can persuade graphics cards to support useful resolutions that the graphics card manufacturers may have omitted to include in their drivers.

Now that HD (High Definition) is becoming the technology of the moment it is worth looking for display devices with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 or more. Note the word ‘native’. Most displays incorporate image scalers capable of up or down scaling images input at other than their native resolution. But, just as with digital audio rate conversion, scaling down is generally preferable to scaling up. Internal scalers vary widely in quality and capability and you may well find that a display with a native resolution of, say, 1360 x 768 will not accept a VGA input at this resolution. Sounds crazy but that’s the way it currently is. Once again, Powerstrip to the rescue. The alternative is a hardware/software scaler, which will accept what the PC is outputting and scale it to suit whatever the display requires. These devices vary in cost from a few hundred pounds to several thousand. As ever, up to a point, you get what you pay for.

The grief involved with getting a decent video picture out of a PC can be painful but the results are more than worth the effort. Potentially, this July/August 2005

means an end to tedious transfers. The pain can be minimised by careful choice of graphics card and doing a little homework. You are looking for a card that can accommodate one or more PC monitors at the appropriate refresh rate and resolutions while at the same time outputting the signal you need to drive the main video display. Fortunately, once set up for all the resolutions and frame rates you need, that’s it. The system should work reliably from then on.

I’ve had success with graphics cards from several manufacturers including Matrox, ATI and N-Vidia but you do need to be very careful about the specifics. Powerstrip has extracted me from the mire on several occasions but it does need a great deal

of specialist knowledge (which I don’t possess), a degree of luck (which I don’t rely on), or a fair bit of forum browsing. AV Forums, although a consumer orientated site is a useful source of information and will lead you to others.

If all this seems too daunting to attempt on your own there are plenty of system integrators who will be only too delighted to solve your problems — at a price. It could be worth every penny. ■

RESOURCES Powerstrip: www.entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm AV Forums: www.avforums.com

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business

The European TV channel count rise Europe’s TV channels have multiplied from 241 in 1995 to 1,132 today. Now a massive upgrade cycle is set to begin with the introduction of DTT and HDTV. NIGEL JOPSON wades through the information and trends and asks if ‘There’s 1,132 channels and nothin’ on.’

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EU TV channels 1993.

HE TV LANDSCAPE has changed dramatically in Europe over the last decade — from a viewing space dominated by public broadcasting to a market worth over US$25 billion annually in satellite, cable and pay-per-view subscription revenue. It’s a money machine that’s expected to grow by nearly 45% over the next 5 years. Television commercials passed print advertising in 2003 to become Europe’s largest advertising medium. Research firm Datamonitor forecasts there will be 4.6 million European HDTV households by 2008, up from 50,000 at the end of 2003. ‘Momentum for HDTV is now building.

Broadcasters have announced definite deployment plans. The consumer electronics industry is a-buzz over this new — and profitable — market,’ says James Healey, senior media and broadcasting technologies analyst for Datamonitor.

Already broadcast in the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and South Korea, EU viewers will benefit from HDTV’s improved picture clarity and 5.1 surround sound. European TVs today display 625 lines, but HD video increases this line count, thus improving picture quality, to either 720 or 1080 (720p and 1080i). HD files are larger and require six times the bandwidth of today’s standard-definition (SD) content. To broadcast entire menus of HD content, operators will need to adopt a new compression technology — either MPEG-4 part 10 AVC/H.264 or Windows Media 9/10.

The analysts expect MPEG-4 to dominate, despite Microsoft’s considerable efforts to persuade content producers otherwise.

The first deployments of HDTV around the world have been with MPEG-2 and Datamonitor expects MPEG-4 to win 70% of the market. The CEO of

French satellite TV service TPS recently indicated MPEG-4 would be used for its HD channels, at least one of which is due to be live this summer. French terrestrial broadcaster (and TPS main shareholder) TF1 is also expected to use MPEG-4. Key early adopters will drive down the relative cost of MPEG-4 broadcast and consumer equipment and set valuable precedent for the ISO/IEC open-source format.

Tandberg Television announced in June that its high definition MPEG-4 AVC video encoding and distribution system had been chosen by DPC Digital Playout Centre for the launch of HDTV in Germany.

DPC, owned by SES Astra, is preparing to launch HD services in Europe’s largest potential TV marketplace.

DPC playout customer Premiere AG has already announced it will start broadcasting its first HD service in November 2005. The Munich-based payTV operator will transmit three dedicated channels for sport, film and documentaries via the Astra satellite.

Major broadcasters across France, Germany and the UK have recently unveiled, or are preparing to announce, HDTV plans. Euro1080, the Belgian-based satellite network that was first to transmit HDTV in Europe, recently added simultaneous MPEG-4 streams to its existing MPEG-2 channels HD1 and HD2. To receive Euro1080 broadcasts a dedicated 80cm dish, set-top-box (STB) and Conditional Access viewing card are required. HD1 has around 120 hours of fresh content per month, and offers both 1080i and 720p resolution, with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.

BSkyB will be first to transmit in the UK with an HDTV service primed for launch in early 2006, and aims to boost its current 7.8 million subscriber base to 10 million by 2010. Thompson will manufacture

EU TV channels 1993-2003.

EU TV channels 2003.

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EU DTV homes by nation. resolution

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business

EU DTV home subscription revenue.

Sky’s HD STBs, which will use MPEG-4 compression, support 720p and 1080i, and feature an HDCPcompliant HDMI output and a standard component video out. The provision of component video is so owners of older big-screen TVs (provided they support 720 lines) will be able to use the service. Its inclusion highlights a lesson learnt from HDTV deployment in the US, where one of the major stumbling blocks was customer uncertainty concerning the capabilities of their own sets. The US Federal Communications Commission has now mandated inclusion of digital tuners in all TVs larger than 13-inches by 2007.

Sky’s new HD service is expected to draw on content already available in the US: Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons and 24 are available in 720p quality, NX-6A Resol 9-5-05 5/9/05 PM while ER,3rd The Sopranos and CSI are shown in3:58 1080i.

Sony is constructing a new HDTV studio at BSkyB’s London HQ. Alec Shapiro, senior vice president of Sony Broadcast and Production Systems Division, described the opportunities presented: ‘The month of March, prior to NAB, was a record-setting month for Sony Broadcast. Our sales were up about 20% over the best March we’ve ever had previously...I attribute it to the HD transition.’

CE manufacturers are already selling significant quantities of HD sets — Sony has large displays in 180 retail stores across Europe promoting the superior picture quality and broadcasters are beginning to record content in HD. The BBC has already filmed programmes, such as The Blue Planet in HD, and plans to produce most of its content in Hi-Def by Page 2010. 1 UK cable operator NTL began trials of a video-

on-demand (VOD) service in HDTV this February, and hopes to have 1 million customers by early next year. Barry Elson, Telewest’s chief executive, told analysts: ‘This should give us a competitive edge vs Sky and Freeview and should improve both customer acquisition and loyalty.’

HDTV is not the only digital act in town. Digital terrestrial television (DTT), like Freeview, uses the existing analogue TV infrastructure to deliver more services, including some interactive (red button) elements, using less spectrum and with less atmospheric interference. Typically 4 to 6 channels, plus radio and text services, can be broadcast using MPEG-2 compression over a single frequency channel (a Digital Multiplex or MUX). Sweden launched a DTT service in 2002 and saw 88% growth in subscribers last year.

In March this year, France switched on its Télévision Numérique Terrestre (TNT), with plans to cover 85% of the country by 2007. British DTT services are currently broadcast on 6 national multiplexes. Despite the expensive and humiliating 2002 collapse of UK broadcaster ITV Digital’s UK£6.99 per month service, new DTT services such as Freeview and TNT will attract 16.5 million European households by 2008, up from 6.3 million now, according to researcher Informa Media Group. Freeview is a free-to-air service owned by the BBC, BSkyB and transmission company Crown Castle International. With the Freeview STBs as cheap as UK£35 from Wal-Mart owned British chain-store Asda, 35 TV channels and 24 Radios, it’s hardly surprising there are already nearly 4.5 million households watching Freeview.

Broadcasters and premium content providers can offer pay-per-view programming relatively inexpensively on DTT without having to piggyback on costly proprietary satellite systems. A million Italian viewers now get over-the-air digital TV. In January 2005, leading Italian media companies Mediaset and Telecom Italia Media, launched pay-per-view services that allow customers to watch a sporting event or reality show for a one-time fee, charged against their prepaid smart card. This simple model requires minimal billing and customer service, so shows can be supplied at a relatively low price to consumers.

Conventional broadcasters are particularly keen on DTT: although their channels are already carried on cable and satellite, they see DTT as a chance to

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business broaden their audience and sell more ads. ‘We want to diversify our channels, and, of course, make more money,’ says Philippe Holl, spokesman for French channel M6, which is launching a new music-andmovie station on TNT called W9.

DTT could steal viewers, or prevent viewers upgrading to subscription platforms. Britain’s BSkyB has quietly rolled out a free, bare-bones satellite TV service to fend off Freeview, hoping users will trade up to pay-TV. But there is a certain profile of viewer for whom subscription will never be an option, and for them DTT is a convenient replacement for analogue.

It seems likely the market will segment, but this may help to target advertising campaigns. Datamonitor reports that while high prices in the beginning will hinder HDTV sales, those who do buy will be in the top tier of the elusive ABC1 advertising supergroup, with large disposable incomes. Consumers watching Freeview will more likely shop at...Asda.

The breakneck increase in channel count and market segments has meant broadcasters have had to frequently review their content strategies. In the period 1996 to 2001, European networks significantly increased the number of reality/game shows in their schedules and these programmes have had major audience successes, especially in their first runs. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? is the most successful of the genre and has run in some 80 countries. There is a considerable amount of US drama on European screens, Europe’s deficit in the balance of audio-visual trade with North America was US$8.2 billion in 2000. The total amount of fiction and film programming imported and broadcast

by Western European television channels in 2001 reached 320,239 hours, a 3% increase on the 2000 level. Although the volume of imports has now diminished for the third year in succession, American initiated programming continues to dominate, due to growth in the number of US co-productions. In content distribution industries there are significant economies of scale, and the USA is in the fortunate position of having a large homogeneous home market.

Nevertheless, there is a substantial and growing European domestic component, especially in prime viewing hours. First-run domestic fiction programming recently reached its highest level since 1996. In countries such as the UK, France and Germany over 50% of prime time drama is now of domestic origin, and some estimates value this production output at more than US$2 billion. European countries differ with regard to the formats preferred: drama series were the most prevalent category in the UK and Spain, Italy relied heavily on mini-series, while in Germany and France made-for-TV movies dominated. Free TV is still the most valuable window for the sale of feature film rights in most European countries, and broadcasters are an important source of funding for European films in some countries. Canal Plus in France invests 9% of its annual sales in French-language films, while broadcasters in Spain must allocate 5% of prior year turnover in film production.

From the professional media-hardware point of view, all this hi-def activity is great news — entire studios are being re-equipped! From an audio production viewpoint, the pipeline will slowly start to flow as HDTV productions seek to add sparkle with 5.1 sound. As we found when visiting Australia’s ABC TV in Resolution V3.3, this will not be an immediate gush, but more of a trickle-down process as producers come to grips with the new technology, and seek to add value. Those premium ad-target consumers bought their Home Theatre systems with 52

Global TV production by national origin.

the cool subwoofers and they will damn well want TV sound to use it, eventually!

From an artistic point of view, there is a huge learning curve ahead for HDTV production teams. The 2000 US MTV Video awards were shot in ‘groundbreaking’ HD — the usual cinematic techniques were used — dolly shots, steadycams, close-ups. The high-def detail revealed shaking thigh muscles, smudged makeup, perspiration beads thrown off dancers. The critical reaction was caustic: too real, not theatrical enough!

Film is detailed, but movie budgets for artistic lighting, makeup and careful editing and re-shoots are infinitely larger. Film’s image is softened by the cinema projection process. Producers have become aware of this visceral

aspect to HD, but it takes time to understand the human impact of a new technology sufficiently to be able to skilfully manipulate it within budget.

‘Well now home entertainment was my baby’s wish So I hopped into town for a satellite dish I tied it to the top of my Japanese car I came home and I pointed it out into the stars A message came back from the great beyond There’s fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on ...’

As far as high culture goes, Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics from 1992 may still be spot on, but the 23-year gap has rendered some technical production techniques — as well as Bruce’s 23-year-old channel count — positively antediluvian! ■

US-EU TV export deficit. resolution

July/August 2005

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steinberg top tips

Multichannel drum timing correction in Nuendo 3 Drum timing correction has always been a pretty arduous affair, whatever platform you’re on. The massive time savings seen with other editing tasks in recent years have not been seen when it comes to timing corrections on multitracked drums.

Steinberg’s ANGUS BAIGNET lets you in on a smart and fast way to do it.

A

LTHOUGH THERE ARE ALREADY very accurate procedures for drum timing correction in Nuendo (see forum.nuendo.com for a thorough description), there is now another, much faster alternative to the traditional method of cutting and crossfading. This method uses the new Audio Warp real-time timestretching functionality that was introduced in Nuendo 3.

The big helper here is the Nuendo surround implementation. Because all channels are up to 12 channels wide (to allow full 10.2 productions), Nuendo also supports files with 12 channels. Most people will be multitracking drums to mono files, and Nuendo will allow up to 12 mono drum mics to be combined into one 12-channel file. This file can then be opened in the Nuendo Sample Editor where the Audio Warp timestretching functions can be used on all channels (and therefore drum instruments) at once.

DRUMS: FILE UNDER MULTICHANNEL — First off, we need to consolidate the mono drum tracks into one multichannel file. I’m using the example of 20/4/04 pm aRes_MTvertical_06-04 small kit here with seven tracks, but up1:37 to twelve can be used in exactly the same way. In Nuendo 3,

we do this by bouncing the individual tracks into one 7-channel audio file which is then reimported into the project ready for some timing correction. All the drum tracks should be in one folder for ease of use.

Before exporting the tracks, each one has to be routed to one channel of an output bus with the appropriate number of channels. In the VST Connections window, create an output bus with the required number of channels (see Screen 1). Here, I’ve created a 7.0 surround output bus because the drum kit in this example used seven mono channels.

Then route each of the single drum tracks to one each of the output channels in the surround bus you’ve just created. It’s important to route to the individual channel and not to the whole bus as this bypasses the channel panner settings (see Screen 2).

The bus also has to be routed to individual outputs, so in the VST Connections Window give each output of the bus its own physical output from your audio card. Now solo the drums folder, position the locators to include all the drum tracks you’re including in the file and you’re ready for export.

Go to File, then Export and then Audio Mixdown Page 1 the export dialog box. After entering the to open desired file name, select the N. Chann. Interleaved

Screen 2. Don’t forget to route each track to a different channel inside the surround bus you’ve created, rather than to the bus as a whole.

option in the Channels drop down box (see Screen 3). Outputs should be set to the surround output bus you’ve created for this purpose. The Import to Audio Track box should be checked. Click on OK, and a new, multichannel file will be bounced to a new track with each recorded drum track on an individual channel within the same file.

In Nuendo 3, the playback-timestretching

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Screen 1. Create a multichannel output bus in the VST Connections window which is opened by pressing F4.

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July/August 2005

steinberg top tips at the drum transients. The Warp Tabs are the stretching markers that divide the individual areas of the drum file into the portions we want to correct.

The most time effective way to achieve this is to use the built-in Hitpoints feature to mark transients and to convert them to Warp Tabs, adding individual Warp Tabs as needed.

Open the multichannel drum file in the Sample Editor by double clicking it. Now click on the Hitpoint Edit button in the Sample Editor’s button bar to open the Hitpoint detection dialog. I’ve used settings here that put a Hitpoint marker at almost all important transients for the kick and snare, namely a Sensitivity setting of 90, and a Threshold setting of 8. It can pay off here to experiment with the settings to get the density of Hitpoints (by the way, the upcoming Nuendo 3.1 update will include improved Hitpoint detection functionality — you heard it here first). The Sensitivity slider in the top right-hand side corner of the Sample Editor can be used to change the sensitivity after the Hitpoints have been calculated.

Screen 3. The Export dialog setup with the options set for merging your soloed drum tracks to one multichannel file.

is calculated in real-time using a highly CPUefficient algorithm. While heavy use can cause some audible alterations of the source material, the actual stretching can be done as an off-line process using a much higher quality. Because the whole audio file is processed at the same time, the amount of timestretching has no effect on the CPU load.

Now we need to create so-called Warp Tabs

HIT THE HOME STRETCH — When you’re happy with the Hitpoints and have got them covering most of the important transients, convert the Hitpoints to Warp Tabs by right-clicking or Ctrl-Click (on the Mac) the drum file. Then select Realtime Processing, and then the option Create Warp Tabs from Hitpoints.

Switch the Sample Editor to Warp Samples mode by selecting the Warp Samples option in the right click (or Ctrl-Click on Mac) menu or selecting it in the top left hand side of the Window; the Warp Samples button has a small clock symbol in it.

Now all the Warp Tabs will show up in the time strip as orange triangles, and you’re almost ready to go. In the Warp Settings dropdown box in the top right hand side of the Sample Editor, select the Drums option; this optimises the real-time timestretching algorithm for drum material.

Now it’s time to get those drum hits where they’re supposed to be (see Screen 4). You can get

Screen 4. Warp Tabs are set, ready for stretching. The transient is marked and is clearly late, being some way behind the first beat in bar 60 where the drummer meant to place it. Just grab the Warp Tab and slide it to the left to where it should be. Note that Drums mode is selected for the real-time Warp processing in the drop down box at the top right.

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Nuendo to do this automatically by right clicking on the file (Ctrl-Click on the Mac) and selecting Realtime Processing and then Audio Quantize in the resulting menu; this will use the settings in the Quantize Settings dialog in the main MIDI menu.

Alternatively, you do it yourself if you really want to get into the details.

The amount of correction you’ll want to do will depend on how ‘tight’ the drummer really has to be (or how sloppy his timing was). Listening to the whole track with a metronome activated first is a good idea to get a rough idea of the areas that require the most attention. The elegance of this way of correcting drum timing is that all you have to do is click on each Warp Tab and move it to its ‘right’ place. In the screenshot you can clearly see that at the 60th bar the drummer is a fraction too late on the first beat, as I’ve set the dark Project Position Pointer to the 60th bar, i.e. where the beat should have been. All I have to do is click and drag the Warp Tab on that transient slightly to the left until it’s lined up with the first beat of the 60th bar. Repeat for any other beats that come too late or early. It really is that simple. If you want the drummer to really sound robot-like in his ‘perfection’, you can use the Quantize settings box to snap the Warp Tab to the beat value of your choice. It really couldn’t be simpler.

Er, that’s it. You might notice an artefact here or there, but don’t worry: this will not end up in the drum audio after off-line processing. Another thing you might be worrying about is that stretching drum material is going to introduce phase problems. Don’t.

Because you’re stretching all the drum tracks at once and by exactly the same amount with sample accuracy, all the material will stay in phase.

Before exporting the corrected drum tracks, ensure first of all that the top quality MPEX algorithm is selected as your timestretch tool by going to File, then Preferences and clicking on the Audio entry in the list on the left hand side. Then on the right hand side select MPEX 2 as your Timestretch tool, and select quality level 4 for polyphonic material. This will work for drum files with up to 8 channels/tracks.

If you have between 8 and 12, use the Realtime algorithm with Drums mode selected.

FINISHING UP — All you have to do now is process the file with your corrections and reimport this file into the project. Right click or (on the Mac) Ctrl-click on the file and select Realtime Processing and then the Freeze Timestretching option. The file will now be ‘frozen’ with all timing corrections processed into a new file using the algorithm you’ve set in the Nuendo preferences. All that’s required now is to export this multichannel file back into your project as individual tracks ready for mixing.

Solo the multichannel drum track and set the locators to cover the entire length of the track.

Then open the Export dialog and this time select as Channels the N. Chann. Split option. The Import to Audio Track option should be checked. After the file has been processed, you should select the Split Multichannel Files box in the Import Options dialog.

The drums are then reimported as single tracks, ready for mixing. Now you just have to explain to the rest of the band that their drummer can play a lot tighter than they always thought...

Next time we’ll be applying this technology to FX editing for post with the unique Nuendo Warp Audio to Picture functions and how Audio Warp can be indispensable in ADR work. ■ 55

meet your maker

Tino Fibaek The man behind the technology of Fairlight has done time at Steinberg and, most significantly, Amek. He discusses workflow, asset management, server based media and how to design a worksurface.

ZENON SCHOEPE

B

ORN IN DENMARK and introduced to travelling by his parents who were volunteer teachers in various parts of the world, Tino Fibaek spent his teenage years in the company of ZX81 and ZX Spectrum computers. He studied computer science and electronics during the day in Aarhus and worked as a club-DJ at nights, then went to work for Steinberg in Germany. In the late 1980s he started working for Amek in Manchester originally as a software engineer, then chief software engineer, R&D manager, and finally on the company’s management team. During the ten years there he helped develop Supertrue automation, Virtual Dynamics, Showtime automation, the DMS digital console, and, in collaboration with Fairlight, the Fame and Prodigy Mixer/Editor systems.

He moved to Australia and to Fairlight in 1999 as team leader, Dream mixer/editor products and is now chief technical officer with recent contributions including the Pyxis NLV system, version 19.1 software for the Fairlight editing platform, and version 4.0 software for the mixing platform. He describes it as ‘working with a great bunch of people, doing a job that I absolutely love’.

Out of hours, he spends time with his wife, listens to a wide range of music on his homemade KEF-based active speakers, sails, cooks and repairs/ restores/extends their cottage in northern Sydney.

What is special about Fairlight products?

They’re fast — the editing-model is probably the fastest and most intuitive in the industry, and our mixing and automation compliments it well with a really solid set of sensible and useful tools. They just sound good — superb convertors coupled to 40-bit floating-point DSP algorithms. They are solid and reliable. They are a safe investment, with a historically proven hardware and software upgrade path. They are innovative yet very functional, giving the operators tools to allow them to concentrate on and expand their creative function. They represent an unmatched price/performance ratio.

What is different in your all-in-one production system approach compared to other designs?

A Fairlight production system is not a closed product; yes, it does a lot out of the box, but so much more power can be leveraged from the high degree of customisation that can be done on-site. It is this customisation that allows the system to truly fit into the customer’s workflow, and be the tool that they need, rather than just the tool that we thought they wanted.

This customisation comes at a variety of levels.

At the most basic level, for instance, we accommodate many user-defined monitor sources and destinations, each of any format up to 7.1, either digital or analogue formats, and preprogrammed resolution

levels. We allow the operator to define the bus formats to the session at hand (e.g. stereo mixdown or multiformat mixdown or maybe ADR), and then save these setups as templates for future sessions.

At the other end of the scale, we have a complete programming language built in, with a comprehensive triggering and mapping system. Typically done during installation and commissioning, this system allows functions on the surface to be remapped or duplicated, according to the operator’s preferences. Furthermore, completely new functionality can be created, triggered directly from the control surface, and integrated completely with the mixer.

Examples of this include one facility where a very comprehensive talkback system was designed, complete with remote talkback trigger via GPIs, visual feedback via LEDs driven from GPOs, and programmable talkback groups. Another facility features very tight integration of a Dolby encoder/ decoder system, with single-key configuration from the control surface for a variety of operational modes, including external machine setups, busing structure and formats, and monitor formats and modes.

How have attitudes towards controller/ desk surfaces changed in the time you have been working on them and to what do you attribute this change?

Initially, there was a very strong demand for digital technology to be controlled in a familiar ‘knob-perfunction’ way with one control channel per audio channel. This early model left the user feeling at ease through the transition into digital audio, with the digital desk largely looking and behaving like its analogue counterpart. However, most manufacturers offered new assignable style control surfaces and were asking operators to leap outside their comfort zone.

As time went by, operators became familiar with the new digital technology and wanted a control paradigm that allowed them to exploit more of the power offered by digital processing with less of the costs associated with large format knob-per-function designs. Control surfaces then started to get ‘softer’, and the first designs employing a mixture of tactile controls and touchenabled displays began appearing.

Similarly, two levels of assignability (assignable channel strips, with assignable controls) began gaining acceptance, allowing a more compact surface to control a larger number of channels, each with a larger number of parameters.

However, this higher degree of assignability did not suit all user types, and a number of current designs offer the best of both worlds, i.e. a number of assignable knobs per channel strip, and a full, dedicated channel control panel. This is the approach we favour at Fairlight and you can see how this is implemented when you look at Constellation-XT. Most recently, I think that operators are beginning to really appreciate the value that touch-sensitive controls can add to a good automation system. Many operations that previously required complex key-press sequences now flow naturally. This development is still ongoing. Processing systems are becoming even more and more configurable, with a corresponding increase in flexibility and variety in their control.

What is different in the approach you adopt when designing a mixing console surface and a DAW control surface?

Good question — I think it is a combination of many things. The key to it all is to listen to the operators — these are the people who actually know what tools they July/August 2005

meet your maker need and who will ultimately end up using the designs.

It’s so important to listen to them and understand as thoroughly as possible what they do, why they do it, and the processes they carry out to achieve these aims.

Once we have gathered as much of this information as we possibly can, we then start looking for ways to make their jobs easier for them. We achieve this by carefully analysing what they’ve told us to find out what the key operations are and which ones are most frequently used — these then become the operations that we optimise the design to accomplish.

Based on this research, we generally end up with a very long list of what we think we would like to do. We then rework and refine this list, trying to bring it back into line with technical, ergonomic and commercial realities.

Once we feel that we have captured the basics, the fun really starts. We happily spend hours evaluating cardboard models, complete with photo-realistic faceplate printouts. Where possible, we create early working mock-ups for key concepts or technologies. And again, we include operator feedback wherever possible.

Generally, this process goes through a number of iterations, before the real hardware design finally starts.

Is the design approach we take vastly different between a mixing console and a DAW control surface?

No, I don’t think so. Most of our designs implement support for both disciplines anyway; some are biased more towards editing, while others are biased more towards mixing. One of the strengths of Fairlight is that we offer an integrated DAW and mixing surface design and so by default we are considerate of the way these two parts work together. Our designs have evolved to optimise all aspects of what you can now see as a ‘system’ surface rather than a discrete mixing or DAW surface. From the one surface you can now accomplish most aspects of the production process including recording, editing, mixing and video control as well as controlling the movement of digital content around audio and video networks.

Are you restricted by the availability of different controls in your designs and are users ready for more radical methods of control?

Fairlight has often pioneered unique or non-standard approaches to tactile user interfaces; just think about the light-pen used on the early samplers! This trend is still upheld today, with the Dream product range featuring custom-designed switches and motorised knobs, as we could not source off-the-shelf technology that satisfied our requirements.

Although all systems use controls in different ways, fundamentally they are all built around some combination of the same key components: linear faders, rotary controls, pushbutton switches, touchscreens and LED indicators. There has certainly been evolution in the controller technology, but not really much revolution.

I think that the changes that have taken place in the audio production world, and the wide acceptance of the DAW in general, clearly show that the operators will happily adapt to new ideas. The important thing is that the change must be a real improvement, rather than a gimmick backed by clever marketing.

This would isolate the operators from the tedious issues of moving files from A to B, would ensure that backups are done, that the correct final is sent to the correct client for approval (in the right format), and that the relevant entries are logged in the accounting system. Included in here should be a version-control system (similar to what has been used in the software development process for many years), which would allow an operator to tag a production at any stage, and which would allow them at a later day to completely revert back to that state — complete with all plug-ins, the current automation pass, all patching information.

Asset management? Yes please, but maybe more than just media. Virtually all facilities today have a large amount of often under-used or redundant equipment, such as I-O, voice booths, video recorders, and DSP power, to name a few. I would like to think that, based on some of the emerging technology, we can in the future find a way to share these resources effectively. To be really beneficial to the end-user, this should be a vendor-independent system, and should cover physical and virtual assets. For example, I would be able to buy one hundred hours of plug-in X, and then use them on-demand in studios around the facility as and when needed.

Server-based media. We’re not quite there yet, but with the pricing and performance direction that disk drive, Raid controller, and networking technology have taken, I don’t think we’re that far away from being able move even large and complex productions from the local drives back onto server-based storage instead. This in turn speeds up the workflow, and makes asset management simpler. The challenge here is to deliver the functionality at a commercially acceptable price point.

Working methods dictate the shape of tools, what change in operational methods can take advantage of available technology?

Workflow. I think we need more than just asset management. With the IT technology that is available now, it ought to easily be possible to implement a customised facility-wide workflow.

Given that processing power and performance in general terms is similar across the leading DAW brands, what differentiates them?

I think performance is very subjective when you talk about DAWs and this is reflected in how manufacturers differentiate their products. For example, some systems focus more on the hardcore daily tasks, i.e.

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editing and mixing, and are therefore more suited to production environments where throughput and efficiency are more important. Other systems place more emphasis on flexibility and variety, offering the user more choice, which is a real plus in situations where there is less commercial pressure.

In addition, some systems entice the operator to put everything into the one box, whereas other systems invite collaboration and integration with other equipment.

What defines the word ‘professional’ when used in the context of DAWs? Any DAW that earns its operator an income. We all know that it’s possible to produce a hit record in a bedroom with shareware and a CD burner so even that basic use of DAWs could be classed as professional. However, that’s the exception. For most people the path to commercial success in employing DAWs is a combination of many things not least the ability to extract the maximum benefits from the technology that is available.

Where are the current technological bottlenecks in DAWs? There are a number of very capable systems available, but once you start configuring them for serious multiformat work, the cost can be prohibitive, especially for smaller facilities. It’s not that the technology is a bottleneck, it’s just expensive to build.

Audio processing has evolved at an amazing pace.

We have more channels than ever before; each with more parameters than ever before. There are fantastic plug-ins available for any task you can think of, yet again with large numbers of controls. However, control surfaces have not developed at the same pace, with most controllers today employing technology similar to that of many years ago.

There is only very limited support for collaborative productions. The application here would be large format, hierarchical productions for film and the larger TV projects. There are some early attempts being made at this, however, I think this is an area where much more can be achieved. ■ 57

review katz’s column

The Fear of All Sums (Part II) Starring BOB KATZ as Bob Spade, Private Ear and audio investigator. In the last issue, Becky had approached Bob with her mixes sounding flat and uninteresting and she believed things had got worse since she got rid of her analogue desk — now she suspected the culprit was digital summing. Bob instructed his assistant Slim (AKA Fred) to bring her console back up to spec and run out some test mix files. File #1 was an all digital mix inside the DAW at 24-bit; File #2 was the same digital mix fed out of the stereo into two channels of her D-ACs and back into two channels of her A-DCs; File #3 was the same but adding two channels of the analogue console in between; File #4 used all 24 D-ACs for a full blown analogue mix at identical matched gain and panning to the digital mix. On listening, File #1 sounded flat and lacked depth and stereo space and File #2 sounded worse…

‘B

UT I KNOW THE sound through the analogue console is better than my alldigital mix!” exclaimed Becky.

‘Is it?’ I replied. We were in my sanctum sanctorum, the Mastering Room, where the acoustics are perfect and the loudspeakers are audio microscopes. ‘Let’s listen to test file #3.’ I knew the third file would be the Rosetta stone, the proof of the pudding, to mix metaphors. The only difference between this file and the all-digital mix was that the sound passed through a pair of convertors and two modules of her analogue console. No analogue mix was being done, but this way we could prove what her console sounded like without bringing in the issue of analogue summing.

When we played test file #3 Becky’s heart obviously skipped a beat. Slim’s heart was also skipping beats, but I could tell that from the stars in his eyes as he looked at Becky, but I digress.

‘The sound is better, it’s more open, it’s wider!’ she exclaimed.

‘Interesting, eh?’ I said, ‘and no analogue mix is being done.’

‘How can that be? I heard the sound go objectively downhill in file #2, which was convertor to convertor.

How can it get better when you add something to a degraded chain?’

‘What we’re dealing with, guys, is a true case of compromise. Objective degradation versus subjective improvement. The sound is still going downhill due to the use of low-class convertors, but your newlyrestored analogue console is adding something mysteriously attractive to the sound. Objectively, stereo separation can never get better when you add analogue stages, it always gets objectively worse, especially when you add convertors in between. But I feel that’s the particular kind of distortion added by the transformers and class-A op amps of the mixer. That’s the subjective improvement, and it’s even large enough to overcome the losses of the convertors. Not all consoles have this “magic”, by the way.’

‘You mean, it’s not the summing that’s doing it, but the colouration of my console itself?’

‘That’s right, Becky, you’re not improving on the digital mixer, but adding euphonic colouration to it. But we’ve only discovered the tip of the iceberg. Let’s listen to the fourth file, where you perform the entire analogue mix using all your convertors going through the analogue console, then capture back into stereo from the console’s analogue summing bus. And this time I can’t predict what’s going to happen.’

The sonic result of the fourth file was decidedly ambiguous. Compared to file #3, we weren’t sure if 58

the full-blown analogue console sounded better or worse than using just two of its modules.

‘I surmise,’ I pontificated, ‘that what we’re dealing with here is diminishing returns. Objectively, the noise floor of all these noisy analogue modules added together is 15dB hotter than just using two modules alone. That doesn’t happen in an alldigital mix; the noise floor of an all-digital mix will be 70dB quieter than your analogue mix.

Furthermore, there’s objective crosstalk and loss of stereo separation in the analogue summing modules of your console. It’s hard to predict if this crosstalk is going to be euphonic or take the subjective sound quality downhill. There’s crosstalk and there’s crosstalk. In the digital domain, crosstalk is absolutely perfect, it’s also a perfect summer with infinite separation between channels so there’s nothing to fear there. Or is there? But in the analogue console, crosstalk can be in phase or out of phase, it can be restricted to high frequencies; it’s hard to predict.

And sometimes that very imperfection, the nonlinearities in the analogue console, help to create the “magic” you hear. Perhaps in the analogue domain some high frequency crosstalk as well as a hair of harmonic distortion objectively reduces separation, but subjectively brightens up the sound in opposite channels to tickle the ear.

‘My diagnosis from what we see here, is that you need to get a set of better convertors with better stereo separation and less colouration. Sell your console and buy a pair of modules for their colouration. Perhaps you will only feed a portion of the mix through those modules, because their colouration may not lend something to every instrument or voice. resolution

‘Use this knowledge to your advantage,’ I continued. ‘I have seen situations where the analogue console, or the dedicated summing box, makes things sound worse than the all-digital mix.

When you perform the objective tests at matched gain and panning like you have done, it all becomes clear what’s really making the sound better and what’s taking it downhill. And there’s one more thing, Becky and Slim, your digital mix really does sound flat. The reason, it should now be clear, is because the digital mixer is technically perfect; it does not add any distortion, crosstalk, and its noise floor is insignificant. But I’ve heard — and made — all-digital mixes that are fantastic, with depth, space, all the virtues you can imagine, and that beat the sound you got with any of the tools you’ve used so far. Wouldn’t you like to learn some techniques to improve flat mixes, working entirely in the digital domain?’

Six months after that day, Slim moved in with Becky and started working with her. I had mixed feelings, but I soon realised that I wasn’t losing an assistant, I was gaining a client. The only thing I couldn’t get used to was calling Slim Fred, as Becky insisted. Go figure. Some things just don’t add up. ■

Information Resolution recommends Bob Katz’s book Mastering Audio — The Art and the Science as an essential source of information for every pro audio enthusiast who cares about sound. You can buy it on line at www.digido.com

July/August 2005

ten your business

Things that really should go As professionals we know what works and what doesn’t and surely this means we have to complain when something is creating problems. However, most of us just focus on the big issues believing that the smaller annoyances will just go away. KEITH SPENCER-ALLEN (AKA Victor Meldrew) selects ten things that should have, but haven’t, become history.

THE PHONO PLUG — No component should appear on professional equipment whose sole advantage is that it’s very cheap if in every other way it’s a problem.

Originally used for high impedance unbalanced consumer applications, such as connecting vinyl record pickup arms to preamplifiers (hence the name, which in the US is usually prefixed with RCA as the apparent first user). However, it has a limited life, it’s difficult to wire reliably (Although doing so will reliably burn your fingers. Ed), and intermittent or noisy after a few months. Superior ‘pro’ versions are available with improved performance and even gold contacts but they still mate to the same dubious quality panel sockets with uncertain high level signal contact. And don’t even think about using the too-short leads supplied in the box... be gone!

TV AD SOUND LEVELS — You know the situation — you’re involved in a thoughtprovoking programme on commercial TV when it goes to the ad break. Suddenly a dynamically restricted voice bursts into the room, sending you scurrying for the remote to turn the volume down. We sit through the ads at an acceptable level and then raise the volume for the restart of the programme. I know the arguments about the techniques used to create the punchy dynamically restricted soundtrack give a perceived loudness that doesn’t equate to traditional audio measurement.

I’ve read the tech papers and seen the new tools that might solve this but have they? Surely this is a simple question of balancing, like mixers do everyday, subjectively matching different audio signals to create a harmonious structure. As ads are loaded to the server the audio track should be adjusted to a more uniform perceived level. Or has deskilling at the broadcasters removed anyone with ears capable of doing this?

SUPER SHRINK-WRAPPED MEDIA — I’m calling it ‘shrink-wrapped’ because I don’t know any better but you recognise the situation; you’re trying to open a DAT, CD-R, MD... in fact any media that comes in a case. The manufacturer has spent years perfecting the ability to tightly wrap its smooth surfaces and angular edges in fine plastic of immense strength and no discernible end. While they place an arrow on the wrapping meant to indicate the means of opening, that is just a diversion because you’re soon reaching for a razor blade to slit it open, scoring the plastic casing and often drawing blood in the process. The vilified tobacco industry can at least get its pack wrapping openable by fingers.

MYSTERIES OF THE POINT ONE — I’d thought that by now we would have understood what to do with the .1 in surround music but I sense there is still confusion.

Excusable perhaps when you take a brace of surround formats developed for the movie world, with strict guidelines for audio content and replay, and unexpectedly let them lose on the anarchic music industry without an understanding of how they might transfer. I still run into confusion about the centre channel but the .1 is easy to deal with. Unless your music has need of low frequency headroom extension that the response of five or more full range channels cannot handle, ignore it!

NOISY FANS — The digital revolution ushered in imperceptible noise floors and the means to mask it so in practice you never know what you have! If you squeeze impossibly large amounts of digital electronics in a confined space it creates a lot of heat and the simple solution is a fan, and most commonly, a cheap and noisy one. The issue isn’t so much the big console power supplies or the digital processor racks, which have to be somewhere else, but the smaller units, the computers, the hired processors that gradually appear. As a user, solving this is expensive, so we need more help from the makers. Apple has shown some initiative with the G5, nine fans and an airflow management system, but more (or is it less?) of this please.

July/August 2005

THIS YEAR’S M O D E L (HARDWARE) — You go to the trade show and there is a new version of a product you bought six months ago. What’s the difference? A new front panel, a very slight improvement in spec, and a drop in price. By just being seen to be active, the manufacturer has obsoleted its customers. resolution

THIS YEAR’S MODEL (SOFTWARE) — You go to the trade show and there is a new version of a product you bought six months ago. What’s the difference? It does a dozen new things you don’t need and costs more. While you’d like to feel smug and walk on you hear that all future upgrades will built on this new version...

THE BUG FIX — You patiently wait for a fix for the software you bought into so that it doesn’t misbehave, only to find that it still doesn’t enable you to do what you originally purchased it to do.

The problem is the phrase ‘It will’ that has entered the English language from multiple origins, all with slightly different emphasis including the conveniently interchangeable meanings ‘It does (now)’ and ‘It has the potentiality to do so’!

HOT CD/DVD — The argument for recording your media hot really disappeared with the vinyl disc so why are so many CDs now having the level laid on so thick? With multiband compression across almost all broadcast outputs, all you are doing is leaving Mr Optimod to remix your track for you. In contrast, I’m experiencing a lot of under modulation on DVDs. Perhaps there could be an exchange of life goals here.

THE REMOTES — I’m running out of space around the console for all the remote controls — wired and infrared — that need to be kept within reach. The wired remotes have overrun the allotted space on the console and get in the way of the channels. The infrareds sit is a large bowl with colour coded ends to aid recognition among their uniform grey plasticness, and even then it is almost quicker to approach the machine rather than find the remote. Short of a voice-activated touchscreen master remote control, I don’t know the answer but I’d like it to go away, please. ■ 59

technology

Audio Processing Accelerators At the Frankfurt Musik Messe, Waves gave Resolution an advance look at its new Audio Processing Accelerator hardware units, designed to allow users to run multiple instantiations of Waves’ most CPU-hungry plug-ins. Released at the Barcelona AES, the Accelerators offer the ability to combine units for extra power and to share resources among multiple units in a manner that has interesting implications for the future of DAW work. Waves’ GARRETT SODEN gives an insight into how the products were developed and outlines the benefits to end users.

A

MONG MANUFACTURERS OF audio plug-ins, Waves have long been known as a developer of several industry-standard tools, and was the first developer of third-party plug-ins for Digidesign products back in 1992. So the company is no stranger to the effort required to produce powerful audio software that fits within the confines of a specific DSP chip or CPU. However, advanced plug-ins, such as Waves IR-1 Parametric Convolution Reverb and L3 Multimaximizer, have begun driving hardware right to the edge of its capability. The situation is frustrating not only for users, but also for Waves engineers, who yearn to build radical plugins (think multiband tools covering dozens of bands instead of just five) if they can only access system resources that are up to the demand.

More than two years ago the company foresaw the looming system crunch and began research to address the problem. The obvious approach was to build an outboard box similar to those already marketed by other plug-in manufacturers containing a dedicated DSP chip programmed to handle the extra load. But given the exponential growth of software power, Waves engineers doubted that this solution could keep up with future developments. ‘Over the last few years DSP chips haven’t advanced very quickly compared to CPU power,’ notes Meir Shaashua, cofounder and chief technology officer of Waves. ‘The power of a typical DSP chip has gone from 20MHz to 200MHz, while over that same time CPUs have gone from 12MHz to 4GHz.’ Harnessing the power of a second CPU, then, 60

seemed like an obvious choice (and one recently developed by Apple), but that approach brought its own challenges. The first was that dedicating another computer entirely to audio duties is an expensive and inelegant solution. This could be overcome easily enough by creating a product that contained a CPU and just the hardware necessary to handle the job.

The second problem was more daunting: how to get the signal to and from the box efficiently.

Again, the Waves team looked at the available solutions: a PCI-card inside the host computer, a FireWire connection, or a USB connection. The PCIcard approach was rejected as the least desirable as it takes up valuable real estate inside the computer and is trickier for users to install. But the newer FireWire and USB methods also didn’t thrill the engineers at Waves; once again, these standards had not kept up. ‘We finally realised that there was already a standard out there which had surpassed FireWire and USB in terms of speed, efficiency, costeffectiveness and flexibility,’ Shaashua comments, ‘and that was Ethernet.’

The advantage of using stock CPUs and Ethernet components meant that the envisioned Waves hardware box could easily keep pace with DAW evolution because it would be based on industry standards that are constantly being upgraded. Waves could therefore upgrade its box anytime by employing more powerful CPU and Ethernet components whenever they became available. Moreover, using Ethernet meant that standard Ethernet switches could be used to combine the power of multiple boxes, resolution

share the resources among several users, and use long cable runs if needed. At that point the conceptual components of the Audio Processing Accelerator, or APA, were in place.

This was all very well in theory, but the devil is always in the details. The challenge facing Waves was to develop software that could ship audio to and from the APA without undue latency and that would work with the myriad requirements of the host DAWs that Waves has traditionally supported. And that raised questions.

Should the software be a driver installed separately from the plug-ins on the host computer? Should it require separate authorisation? Should the software employ the ‘giant dongle’ approach that requires the hardware to be present before the software will work?

‘We rejected all of these options because they would negate the flexibility of Ethernet connectivity,’ states Shaashua. Without going into the details, Waves engineers found a clever way to turn Ethernet to their own ends, sending the audio over the wire using a proprietary method.

The resulting software was dubbed Netshell, in keeping with the Waveshell tag familiar to Waves users. Like the Waveshell, Netshell is a utility that is all but invisible to the user; it is installed along with the plug-ins themselves and takes care of the details required to make an APA unit work with the various DAW platforms on Mac or PC. Because neither Netshell nor the APA units require authorisation, a user is free to connect an APA to any computer that contains authorised Waves plug-ins.

The last hurdle was to rewrite the code of the July/August 2005

technology Waves plug-ins to be compatible with Netshell. To bring APA to market as soon as possible, the team decided to focus on the most CPU-intensive plug-ins for the initial release and to bring others in later. For the less CPU-hungry plug-ins, Waves is planning to release a plug-in ‘chainer’ that will allow several plug-ins to share the audio shipping overhead, so that running them on the APA will be more efficient than running them on the host.

There are two flavours of APA: the APA32 (MSP US$1600) and the APA44-M (MSP US$2400). The APA32 is a 1U rackmount designed for use away from a recording environment, such as in a machine room.

As an example of its power, the APA32 can run six IR-1 Convolution Reverbs, or six L3 Multimaximizers, or 11 Linear Phase Equalisers, or 14 C4 Multiband Processors at 44.1kHz. The APA44-M is a half-rack unit that that features up to 30% more processing power and nearly silent operation; it is ideal for mobile use. A kit enables two APA44-M units to be mounted in a 1U space.

APA units are connected to the host computer via a standard Ethernet port. To increase power, up to eight units can be used together with an Ethernet switch.

The units can also be shared among several DAW workstations via a suitable V-LAN configuration, with each workstation accessing up to eight APA units.

While it is physically possible to connect an APA on the same network as an Internet connection, this defeats the effort that has gone into the software to make the APA work as fast as it does; therefore, Waves strongly recommends that an Ethernet card be dedicated solely to the APA. It is also possible to use a 100mps Ethernet card, but again, a 1000mps Ethernet card is recommended for full functionality, and is required for multiple APAs or multiple users sharing APAs. With the advent of the APA units, Waves’ engineers now have the processing muscle needed to realise some of the more elaborate audio tools that have danced in their heads over the years. The first is the upcoming Waves L4, which builds on technology introduced in the company’s L3 Multimaximizer, released in August last year.

The L3 is a 5-band linear phase equaliser and limiter combination with a new twist: the processor intelligently and automatically determines how much attenuation to apply to each band, allowing it to use all the headroom available to dramatically increase loudness without artefacts or overshoot. Release behaviour can be customised for different tonal characteristics, while the ‘priority’ and ‘separation’ controls allow for very fine adjustment of the limiting applied to each band. The magic behind the L3 is Waves’ patented Peak Limiter Mixer, or PLM. While the L3 used the PLM to intelligently control bands, the L4 will do the same for audio tracks. This new plug-in concept allows for mixing 64 tracks of audio based on level, priority and global limiting. The L4 will decide, depending on user defined priority, when and which tracks to limit, based on the overall output level desired. This plug-in will perform such complex calculations that it will almost certainly need the Netshell technology to handle a large mix.

As for networking, while today’s APA is designed to increase processing capacity, subsequent Netshell releases will build on the technology’s capabilities to dynamically share and allocate resources. ‘Networking is the next big thing,’ states Gilad Keren, co-founder and CEO of Waves. ‘Networking both in an intranet sense and in a wide area sense, such as citywide, countrywide and worldwide. Both backbone products July/August 2005

and services will be opportunities for growth.’

Keren sees the company’s Netshell products as a strategic move in that direction and he envisions that there will be a need for much more. ‘I think we’ll see servers dedicated to audio and that can serve multiple clients simultaneously, providing services such as mixing, project management, format conversion, data compression, backup and archiving, and much more.

It will be a paradigm shift for the way we think and work with audio.’

For Waves, then, the years of work put into the APA and Netshell was not just toward the development of a single product or even a line of products, but rather a large wager that the future of audio will be in powerful, flexible, and shared resources. Only time will tell if the wager will pay off, but in the meantime Waves has taken the familiar DSP box and refashioned it into a new kind of beast soon to be on the prowl along network paths near you. ■ resolution

slaying dragons

What’s arractive about magnetism?

Almost all aspects of audio production rely on some aspect of magnetism, yet it’s a Cinderella subject. JOHN WATKINSON believes a wider appreciation of the principles can only lead to better products and, ultimately, better sound and he’s drawing you in to understand.

john watkinson

‘Without hysteresis there would be no magnetic recording as the tape would go back to zero magnetisation as soon as it left the record head.’

‘Ferrite is a miserable material for permanent magnets. If it were food, it would be a fish finger.’

M

AGNETISM IS SO UTTERLY central to audio technology that it’s almost impossible to list the places where it is used. Instead we can try to break down the uses into categories.

We might start with power. Magnetism is employed in power generation, in transformers, motors and solenoids. A moving coil loudspeaker contains a kind of electric motor, based on a magnet. In lowerpowered applications, the magnetic fields may carry information instead of delivering power. In the audio transformer and the analogue tape head, the strength of the magnetic field is an analogue of the audio waveform and so we need a high degree of accuracy for good sound quality. Magnetism can also be used to store information. Analogue and digital tapes, hard and floppy disks, credit cards and metro tickets.

Magnetism is thought to be due to orbiting electrons.

In most materials, there is an even number of electrons and they always orbit in opposite directions thereby cancelling out any magnetic effect. However, in a small number of materials, there are an odd number of electrons, and the odd one out produces a net magnetic field. One of the things to appreciate about magnetic materials is that at molecular level they are always fully magnetised. The only way we can apparently demagnetise such a material is to arrange for the electron spins of a large number of particles 62

to be randomly oriented so the net result is zero. In a similar way, a variable degree of magnetisation can only be obtained with a large number of particles where the randomness has been replaced by a degree of order. When the randomness has been eliminated and all the particles are aligned, clearly no greater field strength can be obtained and the material is said to be saturated.

Particles of identical spin orientation clump together in volumes called domains. Spin orientation changes at domain walls. Changing the magnetisation of a material must result in some domains getting larger and some getting smaller. Moving a domain wall requires energy that is lost as heat, which is why analogue erase heads get hot. If insufficient energy is available, the wall doesn’t move. Thus what appears on a macroscopic scale to be a gradual increase in magnetic field strength is actually the result of a large number of discrete steps in domain wall positions. These jumps produce what is known as Barkhausen noise. It’s the magnetic equivalent of quantising noise.

Materials vary in their resistance to domain wall movement. For items such as audio transformers and tape heads, we want materials where the movement is easy, so the magnetism follows the waveform. Such a material is called magnetically soft. For recording resolution

or storage purposes and for permanent magnets, we prefer materials that are magnetically hard. In these the domain walls take a lot of shifting so the material tends to stay in the state in which we put it. This is the phenomenon of hysteresis. Without hysteresis there would be no magnetic recording as the tape would go back to zero magnetisation as soon as it left the record head.

Herein lies the great paradox of analogue tape recording. Without hysteresis we can’t record, but hysteresis makes the transfer function non-linear and that results in distortion. The solution was the invention of high frequency bias: a signal added to the record waveform. As the tape moves away from the trailing pole of the record head, the strength of the bias field decays rapidly while the audio signal is undiminished. Thus the tape sees the applied field oscillate around the average value set by the audio waveform. Effectively the tape particles are taken round a series of diminishing hysteresis loops and end up at the magnetism set by the audio level.

Fundamentally, analogue magnetic recording is not infinitely variable. The signal can only exist at one of a series of discrete positions where the domain walls are stable. In professional analogue recorders having high tape speed and wide tracks, the amount of magnetic material is extremely large and so the signal resolution is high. However, in the Compact Cassette the combination of narrow tracks and slow tape speed means that the resolution simply isn’t good enough.

For similar reasons, audio transformer design is quite difficult. To minimise distortion due to hysteresis, the levels in the transformer must be kept very low and the magnetic volume must be kept high to maintain resolution. It all adds to the cost. Transformers traditionally provided the solution to noise induced in microphone cables and give true isolation between primary and secondary. Today we can put an A-DC at the microphone and run the signal in an optical fibre.

On the widespread introduction of digital audio tape formats in the 1980s, there was a great hue and cry from the Luddites because of quantisation in digital audio. This couldn’t be any good, because the real world is linear and so analogue must be better.

It struck me then as hilarious that such remarks displayed a total ignorance of how analogue tape actually works. Such views continue to emerge from time to time to provide entertainment that stops short of enlightenment, but then that is part of what the audio industry is about.

Once it is appreciated that all magnetic recording is discrete, it becomes clear that it must be more efficient to record discrete data on magnetic media.

The two states of binary sit together naturally with the two directions N-S and S-N in which it is easy to magnetise a medium with a head. Given that digital media can have multiplexing, error correction and timebase correction, it seems odd that anyone would want to use analogue media suffering from wow and flutter, dropout, modulation noise and crosstalk between channels and needing regular maintenance.

I suppose if you can’t afford a limiter then tape July/August 2005

slaying dragons

showcase

saturation sounds better than digital clipping.

Loudspeakers depend heavily on permanent magnets. What we want is a magnetic field in the gap where the coil operates. Unfortunately while we can use soft magnetic materials, such as steel, to guide the field from the magnet proper, there are no magnetic insulators (apart from superconductors) so we cannot prevent flux going where we don’t want it. Thus the best magnetic circuit design follows where the flux would naturally want to go. As lines of force mutually repel, the logical place to put the magnet is inside the coil so the diverging field naturally heads for the coil.

This used to be how loudspeakers were made using cobalt-based magnets such as Alnico. However, third-world politics made the price of cobalt soar, and manufacturers turned to ferrite. Ferrite is a miserable material for permanent magnets. If it were food, it would be a fish finger. Its magnetic strength is so poor that huge quantities of the stuff are needed; too much to put inside the coil. Thus the ferrite magnet goes outside the coil and the magnetic circuit is unnatural so the result is a huge amount of leakage, solved by making the magnet bigger still, with equally massive pole pieces to collect weak flux from a large area and focus it on the gap.

Today’s woofers with ferrite magnets are massively and unnecessarily heavy. However, there has been rapid progress in new hard magnetic materials based on Neodymium. The energy density of these is such that the same loudspeaker can use one tenth the magnet volume, typically weigh half as much and have negligible leakage. As more people become aware of the advantages of Neodymium magnets, the cost is falling dramatically.

In a loudspeaker motor, the coil moving through the magnetic field produces a back EMF that subtracts from the drive voltage. With a conventional zerooutput-impedance amplifier, the back EMF generates into a circuit whose only resistance is that of the coil. We would like to use a stronger magnet to make the drive unit more efficient, but if we do, the damping becomes too great and the woofer frequency response rolls off prematurely. This is only a problem in passive loudspeakers. In active designs it is possible to equalise electronically. In this case a magnet that would be oversized in a passive speaker can be used to raise efficiency. In a powerful loudspeaker, a large amplifier and power supply are needed. If the efficiency of the drive unit can be doubled, the power supply and amplifier become half as big for the same SPL. That saving more than pays for the bigger magnet.

Perhaps one day we will have room temperature superconductors. A loudspeaker with a zeroresistance coil would be incredibly efficient but would not respond in the same way as a conventional unit. However, in an active system that wouldn’t be a problem. ■ •

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showcase Resolution classified section To advertise here call: +44 (0)1273 236681

Magnetism is hysteretic and fundamentally nonlinear. Thus analogue tape is not automatically better than digital; it’s the other way round.

New high-energy magnetic materials will reduce the weight and power consumption of future audio equipment.

Good audio transformers are expensive and alternative approaches such as optical fibres may be considered.

W i t h o u t m a g n e t i s m i t ’s b a c k t o t h e phonograph.

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your business

dan daley

Professor Kenilworth dissects the producer The music production process may have its own peculiar and changing dynamic but it doesn’t lend itself particularly well to scrutiny and analysis by outsiders, particularly not by academia. DAN DALEY lies down on the couch and, unsurprisingly, tells us everything.

‘I tend to be sceptical when fellows with pointy beards ask rock ‘n’ roll to lie down on the couch.’

‘Record production is about conflict and the bringing of immature egos into close contact with each other for prolonged periods.’

T

WENTY SOME-ODD YEARS AGO there was a magazine in the States called the National Lampoon. It was a sarcastic humour publication — a direct descendant of the even snootier Harvard Lampoon — that combined the assumption of a certain level of education and affluence (high) and certain level of maturity (low), almost solely on the part of men,

since the magazine was completely rude to women (but in a nice sort of way that helped avoid litigation).

There was one feature every month that I got a perverse kick out of ‘Professor Kenilworth Dissects the Joke’, in which some imaginary amalgam of classic professorial academic twits — Colonel Blimp with mortarboard and tassel — attempts to apply contextual meaning and dialectic deconstructionism to theorems that generally start off with the phrase, ‘Two blokes walk into a pub…’

Professor Kenilworth was funny at times, but it ultimately dug its own grave because it had to constantly apply existential gravitas to something that simply didn’t warrant it. It all too often seems as though comedy and academia don’t mix in other scenarios; those times that a UCLA film course would bring in, say, Jerry Seinfeld, people were coming as much for the one-liners as for any analysis of them; the famed ‘Inside The Actors Studio’ can teach its student audience a thing or two, but a couple of million people tune in mainly to see Robin Williams bounce off the walls.

There are plenty of music culture courses at colleges and universities that can provide useful overviews of pop music, and personally I did enjoy the Rolling Stones a bit more fully once I’d been exposed to what the music of the Mississippi Delta was like during the Great Depression. But I tend to be sceptical when fellows with pointy beards ask rock ‘n’ roll to lie down on the couch.

These sorts of academic movements over the years have produced their own unintendedly humorous results, as if a state-owned broadcaster showed Spinal Tap as an actual documentary. Pop music in general, and rock music in particular, suffers under the weight of too much analysis. It’s one thing to get the skinny of so-and-so’s

substance abuse from VH-1’s Behind the Music, another thing altogether when Professor Kenilworth posits it as Neo-Freudian angst.

All this came to mind when I received notice of a conclave entitled ‘The Art of Record Production Conference’ which is scheduled to be held 17-18 September in London, and which will be co-hosted

by West Focus, CHARM (the AHRB Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music), the University of Westminster, the London College of Music & Media, and Thames Valley University. The gathering’s purpose is to analyse the role of the record producer. It will do so by addressing several key points, including (please note wording): • How do gestalt-grouping theories of music perception relate to audio processing techniques that alter the perceived clarity of a recording?

• How might theories of music as a metaphor for the embodied expression of emotions be borne out by the way certain audio treatments can emphasise or even alter the emotional content of a performance?

• How do the aesthetics of mixing relate to commercial pressures and the perception of authenticity?

• Do issues of authenticity cloud the judgement [sic] of the sonic qualities of vintage recording equipment?

• (And my personal favourite) How has scarcity of equipment been implemental in the development of particular generic ‘sounds’? (e.g. Jamaican reggae, South African kwaito, garage rock, etc.)

Scarcity of garage rock band equipment? Stop in at Guitar Centre. Or Sears. Or Sainsbury’s, which now has Pro Tools section just next to Dairy (He’s jesting readers, but you know what he’s getting at. Ed). And to my knowledge reggae bands have yet to suffer a

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July/August 2005

your business lack of export-grade guitar amps from Eastern Europe and Kent electric guitars — and just ask David Lindley how unique and great a cheap guitar can sound.

To its credit, the conference also intends to address issues that seem a bit more grounded in everyday reality: • What have been the milestone changes in production techniques and technology? (You could get a fat book or a multipart BBC series on that one.)

• How much have recording technology and professional practice determined the sound of particular genres or geographical music cultures? (In other words, how did AutoTune go from being applied in secret and subject to a nondisclosure agreement to becoming just another effect along with reverb?) and…

• How do creative and financial interests interact in the stimulation of product development? (Not well at all, usually, especially when the financial interests keep trying to convince the creative interests that what they’re actually making is a ‘product’ as opposed to ‘music’.)

It’s the purposely obtuse language of academia that obscures the truth and brings the inadvertent Prof.

Kenilworth laughs. But in a way, academia simply has a patter all its own, just as music recording does. If someone uninitiated were plopped down in the middle of a recording session, they might be intimidated by the sheer volume of technology around them as well as the animated, often menacing way in which we go about creating music. Tantrums are standard issue.

Record production, like anything creative, is about conflict and the bringing of immature egos into close contact with each other for prolonged periods. But as anyone who has tried to intervene in a bar fight has learned, attempts to impose order on what is by nature a chaotic and disorderly process generally produce dismal results. (Then again, ever seen two professors fight it out over a tenure slot? It looks like a Peruvian soccer match.)

It’s understandable why academics would want to probe deeply into the creative process that is the producer’s domain. Making records is not quite like working in a bank or a convenience store (though thanks to Garageband, give it time). Nonetheless, the base behaviour of the music industry is not necessarily well served by the language used by, say, anthropologists to describe primitive societies. A good example crossed my desk a few months ago in the form of a treatise, written by N. Anand, a very nice fellow and assistant professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School, where his research focuses on the structuring of organisational fields in the culture industries (that means you), who had read my last book and had very kind words for it. He sent me his most recent thesis.

‘Tournament rituals in the evolution of fields: the case of the GRAMMY awards: We show how award ceremony rituals influence organisational field evolution through four critical processes: distributing prestige in ‘situated’ performances; enacting a highly charged ceremonial form designed to attract the collective attention of a field; serving as a medium for surfacing and resolving conflicts about the legitimacy of field participants; and tightening horizontal linkages within the field. Using the GRAMMY Awards as a case study, we present a mixed-method, longitudinal analysis of these processes operating in tandem.’

While my own frontal lobes found much worth considering in his dissertation, that part of me that knows how the whole thing actually works on a visceral level suspects that this is what would have happened had Margaret Mead encountered Keith July/August 2005

Moon in a booksellers that served alcohol.

Record producers, of all the job rubrics in the production of music, have the most reason to be introspective and have the most to gain from such navel-gazing. And just as Robert DeNiro’s mobster character found it useful to get some objective advice from Billy Crystal’s psychiatrist in the movie Analyse This!, producers could benefit from the detached and dispassionate scrutiny that the academic eye could bring to bear on the topic.

But mostly, as I hope three years or so of this column have helped induce, producers need to understand that their place in the grand scheme of things has changed considerably and will continue to change and evolve. I have heard many of the same

sort of bitter observations about the new order of the music business from veteran producers as I have from recording studio owners, both annoyed at what has become accessibility and democratisation (read: dumbing down) of music production. I too wish the producer’s role, in what is now a full century of actual record production, were recognised and rewarded as much as it should be.

However, what I would rather see producers, and engineers, and studio owners do, is accept the inevitable and reinvent themselves as best they can. There’s a lot of opportunity out there right now. And if you really want to be analysed by academia, you can always leave what’s left of your mind to science. ■

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headroom PRAISE INDEED AND TONY V I had to write to tell you how much I enjoyed the last issue (V4.4) and what a great mixture of features it had. I work most in sound postproduction now but I’ve worked for broadcast and started in a recording studio and I read this issue from front to back. I like how you talk to the people and how you get inside their jobs and how they see their work. The reviews are important to me (I’m happy that you are now including prices at last!) but it’s the people that makes Resolution so different for me. I’m not in their ‘league’ and I don’t get to do the sort of gigs they do but I still learn from them and it’s encouraging that they see things like I do.

Audio is a craft that’s done by people that use equipment and work in studios for a business. The four things are connected for me, you can’t look at one without looking at the others. That’s important to me and I think that if more people made that connection we would all be more professional.

I agree with you that we should demand excellence too. That’s not too much to ask. I find in my work that people that supply me with material don’t present it in the manner I need either because they are charging too little and don’t think it’s part of their job, or that they don’t know any better, or that they don’t care. When I was trained we were taught that you completed the job to the best of your abilities and you wrote your name and phone number on the box because your work was a reflection on you. Too much of my time now is cleaning up after other people.

B West, Bristol, UK

What a great interview with one of my heroes Tony Visconti (V4.4). He talks a lot of sense to me and how he uses the old ways to work in new ways. I laughed when he said ‘Nowadays a session is five people watching one guy on a computer’ because he is so right! Surely other readers must see his humour. This ‘Oh, just sing a bunch and I’ll comp it’ I know so well and I get tired of it. I try and tell these engineers if they have ever added up the time this takes with the modern fast equipment against what it takes if the singer just sings it correct. I realise they can never know because they never work like that because they have never worked with a real singer or they think their equipment can always improve them. They make the singer believe that he can’t sing too and they never find out! When everyone thinks this way they are thinking about correcting things before they start.

How can this method be broken? Only when they see how great producers work and how they don’t let their equipment control them.

I think this was a great magazine. I have read Resolution for years now. I hope to read more of this.

Thank you.

Damian Rujan, Spain

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What an issue! March was one of best audio magazines I have ever read. I thought October 2004 (V3.7), April 2004 (V3.3) and March 2005 (V4.2) were good but this was exceptional even by your high standards! I want to see how you keep this up.

Dave Doyle, Eire Kind words indeed but complacency is not part of our package! I’ll attempt to answer some of the points as well as I can. We’ve been running prices in our reviews for a couple of years now. With regard to excellence, I think accountability has largely been removed from a variety of sound production chains essentially because many of those chains have been reinvented and the personal contact and responsibility has been eroded. Also, many projects pass through more hands than they did of old and in some disciplines it is now increasingly rare to see a project through from start to finish. Gary Langan makes some good points on this for music recording in this issue.

However, accountability does still exist in certain scales of film production where everyone knows where a buck has stopped, so it can still be done. I have a suspicion that your gripe may be with picture related ‘suppliers’.

Perhaps a boozy lunch and a heart to heart might go some way to resolve the issues if you work with them regularly but you might have to have a lot of these.

Regarding Mr Rujan’s comments, one of the byproducts of the DAW method of working is that is has created a generation that has known nothing else and has refined and ‘perfected’ the process. To them, ‘analogue’ could almost be regarded as a new format that they may have opinions on but have very limited experience of.

Now I’m not about to advocate a return to all-analogue working, but I think the points of reference it supplies are invaluable. It’s a bit like waking up in bright sunlight at the end of long journey and having no knowledge of the snow and thunderstorms of the previous 200 miles and why it took so long. I think analogue working should be mandatory in all training, if only to appreciate the benefits of the new stuff and to see why things are the way they are. It’s also very humbling and draws on a completely different skillset.

ZS

Congratulations go out to Resolution head of US sales Jeff Turner and his wife Kelley who tied the knot in May.

resolution

Latest addition to the Turner clan is young Rylan who is apparently a devoted Resolution reader. Jeff is keen to discuss potential endorsement and sponsorship deals for the young lad.

Advertisers Index Audio Technica .................................. 49 Brauner .............................................. 33 Calrec ............................................... 43 Dean Cook Productions ....Classified 63 Digidesign ......................................... 41 Digital Village .................................... 13 DPA Microphones ............................. 11 Enhanced Audio ................Classified 63 ESE .................................................... 64 Euphonix ........................................... 27 Fairlight ....................Inside Back Cover Genelec ...................Inside Front Cover HE Studio ..........................Classified 63 IBC ..................................................... 53 Jünger Audio .................................... 47 LOUD / Mackie ................................... 7 Lydkraft ............................................. 21 Media Tools ....................................... 48 Merging Technologies ...................... 37 PMI Audio ......................................... 25 Schoeps ............................................. 17 SCV London / Fostex ........................ 51 SCV London / Hear ........................... 39 Smart AV / Media Tools .................... 15 Sonic Distribution / Apogee ............. 61 Sonic Distribution / SE Mics ............. 45 Sonic Distribution / Waves ................. 9 Soundtracs / Digico .......................... 31 Studer ..................................Back Cover Studio Spares .................................... 29 Subscriptions ..................................... 65 TC Electronics ................................... 19 TL Audio ............................................ 35 TL Commerce ....................Classified 63 Turnkey .............................................. 54 Universal Audio ................................. 40

July/August 2005

headroom

Defining the essence of large format mixing • Up to 240 Channels into the mix • Up to 72 User definable busses Mono to 7.1 • “Constellation” Channel configurations from Mono to 7.1 • 8 Multi format Sub Busses • 16 Multitrack Busses • Buss to Buss mixing • Buss reduction system for simultaneous mixing of multiple surround formats • 12 Auxiliary sends, user definable, Mono to 7.1 • Comprehensive Solo system with AFL, PFL and SIP • High end Automation featuring comprehensive matrix enables • Intuitive, touch aware, automation modes • Automation of all Console parameters including filters • 2 Stage Dynamics Processing • 6 Bands EQ Full range • 4 Bands Clip based EQ full range • Integrated 96 Track Disk recorder • Binnacle powered editing • Automation follows editing of audio, for Clip, Track and Range based edits • Powerful Undo Redo structure including Automation • Touch sensitive motorized faders and rotary controls • Comprehensive multi-format surround panning • Illuminated Status of Automation parameters • Comprehensive monitoring options • User programmable Macro Language for custom configurations, including Buss/Tape monitoring system • Integrated third party plug-ins with 80 plug-in library • Networkable, either peer to peer or server based • Comprehensive server based SFX library management • Integrated Non-Linear video system with Video editing • OMF1+2, AIFF, WAV, MP3, BCast WAV file conversion utility

Introducing OLED display technology

“The bang-for-your-bucks, price versus performance ratio of the Constellation is simply staggering” Neil Hillman, Resolution Magazine May 2005

Impact Studio, Japan

More features, more channels and more integration, at a lower cost than any other manufacturer’s component system.

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JAPAN: FAIRLIGHT JAPAN +81 3 5432 4151

UK: TEKCARE +44 1 582 760 004

www.fairlightau.com

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