Resolution V7.3 April 2008 by Resolution

AUDIO FOR POST, BROADCAST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION

v7.3 aPril 2008

Combining technology and operators at WDR Siegen Craig Silvey on keeping an open mind The reality of storage area networks Live webcasting to a PC near you tonight The relationship between picture size and sound level Ten big record label bungles rEviEWS: Fostex PD606 • Tube-Tech RM8 • RND 5032 • ART TubeFire 8 KT Square One Splitter • DPA 4017 • URS Strip Pro • JZ Black Hole • KRK E8B

Kubitza | Lieck | Renner

A definitive display of competitive edge

An investment in the heart of your sound control room should pay for itself in the long term. A mixing desk that will not become history by tomorrow is the goal. Better still, it should always be ahead of the pack. That’s why we recommend AURATUS for broadcasters. Not just impeccable sound but every aspect of the broadcast audio production process is within your grasp. Extensive logic and control functions enable you to control everything for on-air production – from cueing to communications. And to keep you in the picture, AURATUS displays your every move with precision. High res TFT screens, user modifiable display fields and OLED displays – capable of imparting information in all the world’s major languages. This is why we think AURATUS defines the competitive edge. Digital audio technology with passion and competence – for broadcast, stage and studio.

SALZBRENNER STAGETEC MEDIAGROUP Industriegebiet See 96155 Buttenheim Germany Tel.: +49 (0) 95 45 440-0 Fax: +49 (0) 95 45 440-333 sales@stagetec.com www.stagetec.com

AUDIO FOR POST, BROADCAST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION

v7.3 aPril 2008

iSSN 1477-4216

News & Analysis 6

leader

Products

News

Headroom

Wdr Siegen

Craig Silvey

Jerry Boys

ten

Your business

Sales, contracts, appointments and biz bites.

New introductions and announcements. More omni observations and guitar hero jibes.

Craft 14

Regional German broadcaster maximises performance and changes its workflows in TV, radio and internet. Portishead, The Coral, ingenuity and why manual mixes are still important. How remaining current and still building a CV adds a perspective on what matters and what doesn’t.

Sweet Spot

Newell searches for the relationship between picture size and its appropriate accompanying sound level.

meet your maker

Making a connection with Neutrik’s Norbert Nachbauer. Big record label bungles.

Business 50

live on your PC tonight

Prolonging the ‘one-take’ with live music webcasting adds income to the resourceful.

Using the mixtape as a producer’s calling card.

Technology 54

Storage area networks

Now applicable to anyone with more than a couple of workstations and a workflow idea.

Slaying dragons

Knowing when something’s out of tune and what to do about it — Watkinson’s notes.

Reviews 22 24 26 28 30

tube-tech rm8 Fostex Pd606 Klark teknik Square one Splitter art tubeFire 8 dPa 4017

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, Jon thornton, Keith Holland, Keith Spencer-allen, Neil Hillman, Nigel Jopson, andy day, Philip Newell, Bob Katz, dan daley, John Watkinson

32 34 35 36

UrS Strip Pro JZ microphones Black Hole rNd Portico 5032 KrK Exposé E8B

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, magazine Production tel: +44 1273 467579 Email: dean@resolutionmag.com

news news appointments

CRAIG ‘HUTCH’ Hutchison has left Manley Labs and joined Rupert Neve Designs where he’ll work with Rupert on the next range of products as senior design engineer. Hutch’s association with Manley Labs began in the 1990s first as a customer, a dealer and then he was hired to rebuild a 1969 Neve console. He has worked at Manley fulltime since 1996 as chief designer. ‘Hutch has always had one hero in this business, and that’s Rupert Neve,’ said EveAnna Manley. ‘When Hutch was given the offer to mentor directly under Rupert at Rupert Neve Designs, I agreed with him that it was a wonderful opportunity for him that he could not pass up. We are truly happy for Hutch.’ ‘For over the last 20 years I’ve seen Hutch become one of the world’s foremost audio circuit designers, and it is both a privilege and an honour to have him join our team of engineers. We share a design philosophy, and I’m excited to be working with him on the next ranges of gear from RND,’ said Rupert. FOLLOWING THE launch of Acoustic Energy’s AE22 professional nearfield monitor, the company has created a new division, AE Pro, to design, manufacture a n d m a r k e t p ro f e s s i o n a l a u d i o loudspeaker products. Marketing and sales responsibility for the AE22 and the recently reintroduced AE1 Classic compact studio monitor will be transferred to AE Pro. Acoustic Energy’s previous head of R&D, Steve Phillips, is to lead the new division. SALZBRENNER STAGETEC Mediagroup has appointed Dubai-based technology consulting firm German Technology Center (GTC) as its sales and marketing partner in the region.

©2008 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

leader

the reason i remember when i saw my first on-screen EQ curve depiction is because i immediately misunderstood what i was looking at. these were the early steamdriven days of digital desks, remember, and analogue sensibilities and an awareness of its shortcomings ran strong in me. apart from saying ‘my, that’s pretty’ i presumed what i was looking at was some strange, magical and yet to be grasped by me depiction of how the desk’s equalisation was inﬂuencing the signal response. i felt deﬂated when i was told i was only looking at the ‘shape’ of the EQ, so i asked why i would need to do that. the demonstrator didn’t convince me then and that’s the way i have remained, but many people i respect tell me that they like the idea of visualising the EQ they are applying. However, i’ve also seen people ‘tidy up’ an EQ curve absentmindedly on screen for something to do. it’s an example of something that kind of looked like a good starter idea and got accepted in lieu of something better coming along — a meaningful depiction of response — that, of course, never did. in the meantime, boundless energy has been spent justifying it and along the way we have had to endure some positively ridiculous visuals — anyone for bouncing ball dynamics? adjusting EQ and dynamic range is absolutely all about listening but it is becoming almost impossible to do now without looking at a screen. i believe that one of the reasons the daW-boomer generation loves its analogue gear so much is that it has bugger all to look at. remove the screen, displays and jumping lights and of course it sounds better if you tune by ear and not by the dominant sense of your sight. i also believe that a contributing factor in why people claim their daWs don’t sound so good is because they track and mix while listening with their eyes. When you hear it out of context you are going to blame the shortcomings on the daW just like everyone else does; course you are. Where this leads ultimately is to the famous producer’s EQ preset for drums, for example. the manufacturers must be laughing all the way to the bank on the strength of anyone who believes that a preset is going to work with their room, their mics and, most importantly, their drummer. You have mr Big’s EQ preset so there must be some other reason why it sounds crap. they should supplement this with some canny merchandising in lightly used producer underwear. it is inevitable that people who have forgotten how to listen will look for any number of ways to get guidance. it’s ironic that at a time when we have the most sophisticated and powerful tools ever at our command, the one free constant -- the ability to listen well and critically — is the one that is perhaps most in danger. maybe we need a listening plug-in… Zenon Schoepe

Beijing Performing Arts Centre opens

The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing has opened with RTS communications throughout. The ultramodern facility uses a combination of wired digital matrix and synthesised dual-channel wireless components. At the heart of the system is an array of Zeus II matrices. The Zeus II is suited for theatres

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. Printed by the Grange Press, Butts rd, Southwick, West Sussex, BN42 4EJ.

and other performance venues because it combines the redundancy and programmability of the top-of-the-line ADAM frame in a more compact and cost-effective package. The RTS Zeus II matrix intercom system provides 24 channels of audio and supports any of the RTS Digital Matrix Intercom line of keypanels, or four-wire inputs and outputs.

S2 Publications ltd. registered in England and Wales. Company number: 4375084. registered office: Equity House, 128-136 High Street, Edgware, middlesex Ha8 7tt.

resolution

Preliminary aES programme on the web The AES has uploaded its programme for the 124th Convention in Amsterdam, 17–20 May, to its website at www.aes.org. ‘The AES is the only European convention which acts as a platform for all fields of pro audio,’ claimed Roger Furness, executive director of the AES. ‘We focus on broadcast, live sound, recording and all other sectors of the pro audio industry. The topics range from papers about acoustics to a workshop dealing with Yesterdays FXs today. Or, from a tutorial on archiving to a live sound seminar addressing the different types of mixing consoles. Audio networking, file-based production and, of course, surround sound recordings are other important subjects in our Convention programme.’

Croatia base for audient Studio Jura, a small, Zagreb-based studio specialising in recording and production, has bought a 36-channel Audient ASP8024 to use alongside a Tascam MX2424. Owner Jura Havidic was striving for sound quality and was impressed by the desk, which he first heard at Frankfurt Pro Light & Sound last year. ‘The Audient is so much more transparent than other consoles that I have tried,’ said Havidic. ‘I am amazed that such a great design was available in this price range. It gives such an open and clean sound. The EQ in particular is fantastic: very musical and transparent.’

US White House press refit All press members attending press conferences broadcast from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the US White House require a clean audio feed from the Presidential Podium to interface with their recording or broadcast equipment. To fulfil this task and handle the complex audio routing, Klotz Digital’s Varizone digital audio distribution solution has been installed as part of a major refit. It accommodates all audio sources including the audio feed from the presidential podium, ceiling microphones for journalist questions and also facilitates an outdoor press location outside the West Wing of the White House, an event feed from an off-site presidential event and the central control at the rear of the press briefing room receiving external audio feeds from all over the world. Pick-up microphones and new loudspeakers over the press seats balance the sound and eliminate the need for boom microphones.

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April 2008

news roland founder honoured Ikutaro Kakehashi, founder of the Roland Corporation, is to be honoured in recognition of his contribution to the music industry and music education with an Honorary Professorship f r o m t h e University of Glamorgan, UK. Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1930, Kakehashi was orphaned at the age of two and nearly lost his own life to tuberculosis at 20. Kakehashi began his working life repairing watches and building radios before discovering his love of music and his true vocation in 1958. ‘It was 1958. I was 28 years old, and I decided I would find a way to make electronic musical instruments my life’s work,’ he said. This led to the development of products for the music industry, including organs, which Kakehashi sold through his own company before linking up with Hammond to form Hammond Japan. In 1972 Kakehashi founded the Roland Corporation and his impact on the music industry was already significant but his most important contribution came in 1982 as he initiated discussions between electronic musical instrument manufacturers with a view to creating a standard method of communication. This resulted in the MIDI specification. The last 10 years have seen further business expansion with the addition of video and visual performance products to the Roland Corporation portfolio. At the same time, Roland’s international profile developed with the establishment of its joint venture companies worldwide and its additional investment in companies such as Boss, Rodgers, Edirol, Cakewalk, RSS and Roland DG, who are all part of the Roland family.

The Return of the Spice Girls tour saw the girls use rhinestone-studded Sennheiser SKM 935 microphones and evolution wireless monitor receivers.

munro on Pd606 for 007

appointments

TL AUDIO has expanded and appointed two new company directors. Sarah Crone, who joined the company in 1998, is promoted to finance director for the TL Audio Group and Sarah Yule, who joined in 2005, is promoted to sales director for TL Audio Ltd. The move comes after a number of years growth for the pro audio brand and TL Audio has also enjoyed rapid growth of sister brand Fatman. Fostex has supplied award winning sound mixer, Chris munro, with a Pd606, for use on the new James Bond film, currently shooting at Pinewood Studios. Quantum of Solace will be Chris’s fifth Bond movie. ‘the Bond movies often use innovative techniques and new equipment,’ said munro. ‘it’s fitting that the Fostex recorders have been used on all my Bond movies so far and each new film has seen the release of a new product. on tomorrow Never dies the dv40 was used, the World is Not Enough the Pd6, Casino royale used the dv824/Pd6 and now Quantum Solace will be the first to use the Pd606 along with the dv824. ‘Starting in the next few weeks i will be travelling to Panama, Peru, Chile, austria and also italy,’ he said. ‘i am confident in the Pd606 and know the Fostex design quality won’t let me down. it’s so important to have a machine i can rely on when recording on location away from home.’

TeleMadrid turns to PM1D

Running two television channels, a network of radio stations and having a major internet presence, Spanish regional broadcaster TeleMadrid has installed its third Yamaha PM1D mixing system at its studios near Madrid. Previous PM1Ds had been installed in the first of TeleMadrid’s control rooms and its

outside broadcast van, this time it was Control Room 2 that was brought up to date. The PM1DV2 system comprises a CS1DV2 control surface and DSP1D-EX mix and processing engine, fitted with six AI8-ML8AB 16-channel switchable analogue input boxes and two AO8 line output D-A units.

W O H L E R TECHNOLOGIES has appointed Kim Templeman-Holmes as vice president of sales and marketing. Prior to joining Wohler he served as vice president and general manager of Harman Pro North America. Before moving to the US he was sales director for DAR and prior to that he was MD of Studer UK and previously served as international sales director for Trident Audio Developments. Y A M A H A COMMERCIAL Audio has appointed Nick Cook to a PanEuropean director level position with a brief to devise and implement co-ordinated Commercial Audio marketing activities throughout the European region. He will be based at the European Commercial Audio Support Centre in London and will be joined by other CA marketing staff previously working at Yamaha Music Holdings Europe in Hamburg. Yamaha has also announced that pro music sales and marketing director Richard Hodgson will now adopt a more hands-on role in UK Commercial Audio operational affairs and that regional manager Gianni Abruzzese has been promoted to UK CA sales manager with immediate effect. ARX SYSTEMS has appointed Exact GmbH as its distributor for Austria.

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April 2008

resolution

news appointments THE ASSOCIATION of Professional Recording Services (APRS) has appointed Malcolm Atkin as chairman, replacing the outgoing chairman David Hamilton-Smith who is retiring after three year’s of service.

HHB GERMAN distributor Innoton is to distribute the company’s products in Austria as well. Innoton has in turn appointed Vienna-based Vision In Concept as its key Austrian dealer for HHB products. AUDIO-TECHNICA HAS taken on distribution of speaker systems manufactured by AD-Systems in Germany. AD-Systems is located on the outskirts of the Ruhr area in Wesel. S O U N D TECHNOLOGY has been appointed distributor for Propellerhead Software in the UK and Ireland. Propellerhead Software has also appointed SCV Audio as its distributor in France, Guadeloupe, Guyane Française, La Réunion and La Martinique. DK-TECHNOLOGIES HAS appointed Calavitis as its main distributor in Greece and Cyprus for all its products. Athensbased Calavitis has been handling DK’s video products for some time. DK-Technologies has also appointed ALLYN as its main distributor in Italy, again with responsibility for its entire range of audio and video products. ANGEL STUDIOS has appointed Danny Armstrong as a new assistant technical engineer. He has a BSc in Creative Music and Sound Technology from Leeds Metropolitan University. M A Y A H COMMUNICATIONS has opened a North American office which is headed by Daniel Loeffler.

digico supplies oxygene project

Courieux and Jarre.

in November Jean michel Jarre released a special anniversary live version of his classic album, oxygene. the celebration continues this year as Jarre has planned some special concerts in which he’ll be performing oxygene in its entirety. the French composer, performer and producer has only ever played excerpts in concert, never the whole piece. ‘i decided to do this because when i first recorded oxygene, i more or less did it in my kitchen,’ said Jarre. ‘i was recording on a very, very old 8-track tape recorder at the time. Each time i looked at the machine, i would say to myself that one day i should record this piece of music properly. ‘then, with the evolution of technology and the explosion of high definition for television and audio five years ago, i decided that it was time. i got out the old vintage synthesisers, and was absolutely amazed by the sound and the quality of those instruments that we almost all forgot about somewhere in the 80s,’ he said. Jarre will perform oxygene as a futuristic classical concert and will employ digiCo d5 live consoles driven by engineer alain Courieux. ‘i think that the timeless warmth and the texture of the old analogue instruments teamed with the up to date digital sound technology is great,’ said Jarre. ‘Not only for the Pa systems, but also to eventually record the whole piece for film and for live projects.’

Global TV’s upgraded all-ﬁbre facility goes Riedel R i e d e l Communications’ Artist Digital Matrix Intercom System is the focal point of Global T V ’s re c e n t l y updated studio c o m p l e x i n To r o n t o , Canada. The system includes six Artist mainframes (nodes) connected via fibre, over 80 control panels, Performer Digital Partyline and Connect Solo telephone interfaces. Global TV, a division of CanWest Global Communications Corp, broadcasts via ten television stations and reaches 96% of English-speaking Canada. The network is the Canadian home to many popular shows such as Survivor, 24 and Entertainment Tonight, as well as producing Canada’s most-watched news programme. Recently, the company upgraded its

Toronto facility a n d p ro d u c t s that used fibre cost-effectively were considered especially attractive because of the plant’s physical layout. The resulting design produced a high-tech studio said to be unparalleled in North America. Gary Hodder, the Broadcast System Designer on the project, explained that Riedel was in a unique position to meet Global TV’s needs. The decentralised architecture of the Artist intercom system, with its integrated fibre solution, was one of the key reasons for choosing the product. In addition, the system’s ability to route broadcast quality AES audio and incorporate IP-based solutions for remote locations were important factors contributing to Global TV’s decision.

resolution

millennia’s Hv3-rs on tokyo String Quartet

Grammy award-winning recording engineer, Brad Michel relied on the Millennia Media HV3-R remote preamp for the Harmonia Mundi complete Beethoven String Quartets recordings with the Tokyo String Quartet at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City. ‘It’s been a long time since I was this excited about an audio product,’ said Michel. ‘If it isn’t already, the HV3-R will be on everyone’s wish list soon. The features are comprehensive, offering many more options than we’ve had on previous outboard microphone pres, and as I mentioned to Joel Silverman [Millennia’s MD] the interface is extremely intuitive. And, of course, the realistic sound is what we have learned to expect from Millennia.’ The Tokyo String Quartet performs on The Paganini Quartet, a group of renowned Stradivarius instruments named for legendary virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, who acquired and played them during the 19th century. On loan since 1995, the Tokyo String Quartet has had the pleasure of recording with these special instruments and their new Beethoven cycle on Harmonia Mundi is one of the few recordings where all four instruments have been featured together.

Film composers opt for System 5

Three high-profile Hollywood film composers have selected Euphonix for their studios. Award-winning composers Chris Beck and James Newton Howard have recently installed System 5s, while Hans Zimmer has expanded and upgraded both of his System 5 studios. Beck, who has won an Emmy award for scoring television and is known for scoring popular films, has installed a 136-channel System 5 in his Santa Monica, California studio (pictured). James Newton Howard recently upgraded his Santa Monica studio to a four-core, 310-channel System 5.

April 2008

www.solid-state-logic.com

Give your studio a new heart

Control your DAW

Integrate your outboard

• 16 +1 Fader Controller • Plug-in control • Ethernet DAW connection • Control up to 4 DAWs simultaneously • Programmable Soft-Keys • DAW automation control of Matrix

• Advanced 32 x 16 x 16 routing matrix • SuperAnalogue™ router to manage the sends and returns of sixteen outboard processor units • Save FX chains and set-ups • Full control via PC application

An SSL console at the heart of your studio. Focusing your creativity and streamlining workflow. Seamlessly integrating your outboard analogue equipment within a powerful routing matrix. Elegant control of up to four DAWs simultaneously. And a first-class SSL mix surface. The future of the project studio is Matrix. Find out more at www.solid-state-logic.com/matrix

Matrix. This is SSL. Oxford +44 (0)1865 842300 New York +1 (1)212 315 1111 Los Angeles +1 (1)323 549 9090 Paris +33 (0)1 48 67 84 85 Milan +39 039 2328 094 Tokyo +81 (0)3 5474 1144

news appointments APOGEE HAS announced a new group of distributors to handle its products in designated territories throughout Europe: Luthman Scandinavia for Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway; MWorks for The Netherlands, B e l g i u m a n d L u x e m b o u rg ; a n d Soundwave Distribution for Italy. Previous Italian distributor, A&G Soluzioni Digitali, will stay on as a specialised Apogee Dealer. BELDEN HAS appointed Wolfgang B a b e l a s V P, operations, and president of Belden Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He joined Belden in October 2007 as MD of Belden Automation, comprising Hirschmann and Lumberg Automation. He has served as MD of Endress + Hauser Conducta Gesellschaft für Messund Regeltechnik mbH & Co., KG, in Gerlingen, Germany. THE MANAGEMENT of RTW has appointed Michael Kahsnitz as chief technical officer. Kahsnitz has been working for RTW since 1989, and in addition to his work in technical support, which he will continue to perform, he will assume responsibilities for the company’s technology strategy and will coordinate RTW’s R&D, production, support, and sales departments.

loft mastering opens in liverpool

red tX goes mobile

Dyckhoff, Summerhayes and Fletcher.

Producer mike Cave has expanded his private studio operation with the launch of loft mastering. Housed in the same building as Cave’s established recording facility, the loft Studios, loft mastering offers Cd, vinyl and dvd mastering, custom PQ and iSrC encoding, sound restoration, digital editing, secure FtP facilities and Cd, vinyl and dvd duplication and manufacture. ‘With loft Studios now well-established and in its eighth year of operation, launching loft mastering was an obvious next step, especially as this type of facility is in short supply in the North of England,’ said Cave. ‘our aim is to offer artists, producers and record labels a first-rate service that allows them to get the best from their music. loft mastering’s philosophy is to create great sounding, optimised, balanced and coded Cd masters ready for manufacture.’ loft mastering is equipped with Pro tools Hd 3 accel for 192kHz in 5.1 with analogue outboard by Neve, SSl, Focusrite, avalon, tlaudio and dav, and monitoring by Genelec and Yamaha. ‘We aim to turn all mastering projects around within a week and we can accept projects from anywhere in the world via our secure FtP server,’ added Cave. ‘Clients receive free listening reference copies for evaluation and can also preview their mastered tracks on line for approval.’

Fishfactory takes ﬁrst UK Legacy Plus

Red TX is the new company set up in the UK by Ian Dyckhoff, formerly a director of Fleetwood Mobiles, and sound designer Conrad Fletcher, with the aim of capturing audio from major live music events for subsequent television broadcast and/or release on DVD. Renowned broadcast sound engineer Tim Summerhayes, who is currently working on a freelance basis after resigning his directorship of Fleetwood Mobiles, is also working with the outfit. For the last year Dyckhoff and Fletcher have been trading under the name of Mobile One, handling a variety of events including the Vodafone TBA series, T4 On The Beach and Keane’s concert from the O2 Arena. However, the Shockwaves NME Awards 2008 — the largest in the history of this particular awards ceremony — was the first time they had operated under the Red TX banner. The recording truck, which is now being re-fitted and given new Red TX livery, is equipped with a Studer Vista 8. There are also plans to launch a second truck that is currently under construction and will be operational by the summer.

Journey records with telefunken USa mics

GIAN PIERO Staffa has been named Behringer VP of sales, Europe. He joins from Alto, the audio company that he founded and for which he served as VP of marketing and R&D. CLOCKAUDIO HAS restructured its distribution channels in the UK and is sharing distribution of Clock’s portfolio between two agents. Tukans, the business-tobusiness AV specialist based in the north of England, will act on behalf of Clockaudio alongside CIE-Group, one of the UK’s largest suppliers of commercial audio equipment to the installation sector. C O M M U N I T Y PROFESSIONAL Loudspeakers has appointed Ron Neely as development m a n a g e r. H e h a s previously held technology development positions at IPC Command Systems, Iridian Technologies and QSC Audio.

Neal Schon, Arnel Pineda, Jonathan Cain, and Deen Castronovo.

Fishfactory Studios in north London has installed a 32-channel API Legacy Plus. ‘I needed something that was reliable with a great analogue sound,’ said Antonio Feola, chief engineer and owner. ‘API is at the top of a very short list of manufacturers who still build their equipment with discrete analogue circuitry. API’s reputation is unrivalled, and the Legacy Plus is quite affordable.’ A drummer and recordist, Feola records live jazz and rock in his spacious live room. ‘The API sounds lovely with my Studer 2-

inch tape machine. The sound is beautiful,’ he said. The desk was supplied by KMR Audio and is the first of its kind in the UK. • Kevin Paul, producer/engineer/mixer at Mute Records has taken delivery of an API 8200A, a rackmount 8-channel summing unit derived from the Legacy. ‘Having tried many units the API was the stand out choice and offered me exactly what I wanted,’ he said. ‘The classic sound of API is instantly recognisable and perfect for what I do. Nothing came close to this quality.’

resolution

Rock band Journey has recorded a Greatest Hits album plus an album of new material with engineer John Neff and producer Kevin Shirley. Sessions took place with new lead singer Arnel Pineda at Sausalito’s The Plant recording Studio B and employed the new Telefunken USA U47 recreation of the vintage tube large diaphragm condenser microphone. The sessions were set to go when the studio’s classic U47 started to play up. ‘I’ve known Telefunken USA’s founder Toni Fishman since he started the company and called him straight-away,’ said Neff. ‘We had a hand-picked U47 the next morning. Everyone was amazed, because it sounded better than how we remembered the vintage mic. No two old Telefunkens sound the same, and some of the vintage ones just don’t cut it as well as they did years ago. When I heard this new one, I realised that is the way the mic should sound.’

April 2008

Conference 11 - 15 September Exhibition 12 - 16 September RAI Amsterdam

IBC2008 the world of content creation management delivery

• • • • • • • • •

46,000+ visitors 130 countries 1,300+ exhibiting companies Business critical content Leading edge conference sessions Experiential Big Screen demonstrations Vendor seminar briefings Digital media business model updates 40+ years of thought leadership

With an additional 3,000m2 gross packed with product/service suppliers and added value features, IBC2008 will be the biggest to date!

Keep up-to-date with the exhibitor list, conference programme and all of the new and exciting features at :

www.ibc.org IBC Fifth Floor International Press Centre 76 Shoe Lane London EC4A 3JB UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7832 4100 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7832 4130 Email: show@ibc.org

news Biz Bites

Total sales of the Guitar Hero series of games have reached 14m units since release 3 years ago, writes Nigel Jopson, with US sales topping a cool $1bn over the last 2 years. Guitar Hero 3 was the number 1 game title in 2007, in 10 weeks gamers downloaded more than 5m songs for this release. Triggering samples on the buttons of a guitar-shaped plastic controller is not only good fun, but has also been a licensing bonanza for songwriters of tracks included in the game, many from legacy acts who couldn’t have dreamt of album sales or airplay on this level. While the game Rock Band still has ground to cover to catch GH, an update to the Harmonix title allows gamers to buy new tracks, released weekly, without having to use the Xbox Live front end: 6m songs have been downloaded to date. The Strokes’ Reptilia track sold 127% more digital copies the week GH 3 was released than it had the week before, with the following week delivering a 96% sales jump. Warner Music, the world’s third largest label group, grew revenue 7% to $989m for its first quarter, but reported a loss of $16m after taking a goodwill impairment charge of $18m. Warner music download sales surged 41% to $141m. WMG and Sony-BMG are in negotiation with social networking giant MySpace (owned by News Corp) to launch a digital music joint venture. The new MySpace Music is expected to be a mix of pay-perdownload and ad-supported video and audio. MySpace Records recently scored 500,000 downloads of the upcoming Pennywise album, part of an ad-supported concept. Pennywise is a minor US punk outfit from the late 80s, but has gathered 150,000 loyal ‘friends’ on MySpace. Meanwhile, Apple is reportedly planning to sell an iPod and iPhone that would give customers unlimited access to all 6m songs from the iTunes store. Market research has found consumers would be keen to pay a premium upfront for a player plus all the songs, the deal would be similar to Nokia’s Comes With Music contract as described in Resolution V7.1. Sony-BMG CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holz suggested, in an interview with a Frankfurt newspaper, that his label group was also planning an all-you-can-eat music service: ‘The simplest option would be a flat rate under which a monthly payment would provide access to our entire music catalogue for all digital players, including Apple’s iPod,’ he said.

theatre oB broadcasts awards

live broadcasting of the laureus World Sports awards 2008 in St Petersburg was realised using the mariinsky theatre’s own Hdtv vehicle, which had just been delivered. this vehicle is probably the only oB truck worldwide that is owned by a theatre. the truck has the largest audio control room ever installed in a vehicle by system integrator Sony Professional Services UK. the workplace occupies about a third of the overall space inside the vehicle and is packed with Stagetec technology. the size of the control room and the aurus desk’s compact dimensions allowed a 48fader console to be installed in an accurate 5.1 monitoring environment. the desk has dSP for 300 audio channels and a big Nexus Star audio router connects the console to the audio network, which consists of five stationary Nexus Base devices plus two mobile ones used as stage boxes.

Microphone choices for Cream

Portugal’s tvi transitions to vista 8s Portugal’s most-watched television network TVI has ordered a Studer Vista 8 for installation in a new general production studio in Lisbon. TVI’s prime-time programming is reserved for its own productions, mainly soap operas, phone-in quizzes and reality shows. There have been Studer analogue consoles at TVI for several years, but the upgrade path to digital facilities has led TVI to its first 42-fader Vista 8. The console specification includes a redundant control system, and the addition of two extra cards in the SCore DSP system enables autoswitching between MADI interfaces and a remote I-O interface. Carlos Gomes from TVI expects the new console to be in use by the end of April. ‘We’re making the transition from analogue to digital facilities, so the whole concept of Studer’s Vistonics user interface, which has a very analogue feel, plays an important role,’ he said. ‘The redundancy of the Vista 8 was another key factor in our decision: there is full 100% redundancy for all parts of the desk, including the control system, which gives us peace of mind.’ In Spain, public-service broadcaster TVE has ordered three Vista 8s for new studios in Barcelona and Madrid. The delivery of the desks is being supervised by Studer’s recentlyappointed distributor Agave Broadcast. All three consoles are being installed in new-build control rooms, as TVE (Televisión Española) develops its production facilities. In Madrid, a new studio has been prepared for Channel 24h, the international news channel that broadcasts round the clock. The first of TVE’s Vista 8 consoles is to be installed here, a 52-fader model with custom meter bridges for TV use, and more than 20 SDI interfaces built into the desk. In Barcelona, two new control rooms have been added in TVE’s Programme Production Centre. These will be equipped with 62-fader Vista 8s for general production duties.

SaE london moves to new East End facility

February saw the launch of Cream Recording Studios in Park Royal as the first major recording studio to open in London for a number of years. Its audio arsenal includes a range of Sennheiser and Neumann microphones. It has taken delivery of eight Neumann KM 184s, two TLM 170s, two M147 Tube mics, three M150 tube mics (including a stereo matched pair), six U 87Ais and a pair of U87 40th Anniversary Editions. Sennheisers include three MKH 800s, four MD 421s, two MKH 40s and two e906s. ‘We were specifying equipment for Cream

for about 14 months prior to its opening,’ said the studio’s chief engineer Chris Dibble. ‘I was at Lansdowne Recording Studios for 32 years before that and I’ve used Neumann mics forever. ‘The U87s and KM 184s are kind of expected at a high-end studio. But the Sennheiser mics were my personal choice, because they’re the ones I love using most,’ he said. With a live room able to accommodate 20 musicians, Cream is already hosting work on film scores with small orchestras.

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2008 is shaping up to see the biggest shake up of SAE Institute’s UK operation with SAE London moving from its current location in Caledonian Road to a more modern 7-storey campus in East London. In doing so SAE Institute will be expanding the campus to accommodate more students and more resources. Planners at the SAE Institute are still finalising details, but early indications suggest the Kingsland Road site will house 11 audio studios, a film mixing theatre (with a Neve DFC PS/1), four video editing studios and ‘green screen’ capabilities. ‘SAE Institute has consistently raised the bar when setting benchmarks for learning, but with this new facility we’re taking things to a whole new level.’ said SAE Institute founder Tom Misner.

April 2008

news Biz Bites The US Justice Department has finally approved Sirius Satellite Radio’s $5bn buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio, saying the deal was unlikely to hurt competition or consumers. The deal was approved despite strong opposition from consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign by the land-based radio industry. Sirius says the merger will save hundreds of millions of dollars in operating costs, which could ultimately benefit customers. Time Warner Inc’s AOL division announced it will buy social network site Bebo for $850m in cash, bolstering its consumer internet offerings. The purchase comes amid a transformation of AOL from a dial-up internet provider to an online advertising powerhouse, the media conglomerate is apparently considering splitting off the business. Bebo, which claims a global membership of about 40m users, is the top social network in Britain, Ireland and New Zealand. It ranks third in the United States behind MySpace and Facebook. BBC Worldwide is in talks with a number of labels over a new licensing system to use the Beeb music archive. A reported deal for £1m has already been signed with Universal, which has made a number of releases using BBC sessions. Music Manager’s Forum chief John Webster voiced concern that money may not make its way back to the artists concerned: ‘There is a moral element that these recordings were done as radio or TV sessions and the artist should be asked how and if it should be released,’ he complained. The EcoDisc is a flexible, 50% thinner DVD, 100% recyclable with no polycarbonate bonder, manufactured with 54% less carbon emissions than regular DVDs by German firm ODS. It has 98% playability ... just don’t put it in your Mac PowerBook because it won’t come out again.

ainlay adds Stabilizers

Nashville engineer/producer Chuck Ainlay has added Recoil Stabilizers to his monitor setup at Sound Stage Surround studios. ‘Your mixes are only as good as your monitors and mix environment. When I began using the Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizers, I immediately noticed improvements in the low-end clarity of my nearfield monitors, to the point that I no longer needed to use a separate subwoofer. Incredibly, the detail of high frequencies and image localisation were also improved,’ he said. Recoil Stabilizers are nearfield monitor platforms that isolate the loudspeaker from the shelf while adding a platform that stabilises the motion of the loudspeaker. Ainlay is known for his work with Mark Knopfler, Vince Gill, Wynonna, Trisha Yearwood, George Strait, Peter Frampton and Lyle Lovett.

LA-2As on Tori tour and record

late show takes largest C200 The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS will soon be the owner of an SSL C296 console as the largest C200 Series in the world. It will handle all of the music production requirements for the show and will be installed in the Ed Sullivan Theater this summer, replacing an SSL SL 4000 G that has served the show for 15 years. ‘With our new format of shooting in HD and mixing in 5.1 surround, the clear choice for a new console was the SSL C296,’ said Harvey Goldberg, who has been music mixer for the Late Show for the last eight years. ‘Another reason why we purchased the console was that it delivers the resources necessary for us to mix different music acts during the show, or if not multiple acts, the different songs performed by one act. Working on an analogue console isn’t the fastest way to switch between different kinds of set-ups. When we start working with the C296, switching between set-ups will be a push of a button. ‘I will use 40 of the input channels right off the top for Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra,’ he added. ‘The average guest band comes in using between 30 and 40 inputs. Perhaps a rock band will only take up 24. Sometimes we are talking about shooting two or three shows in a day and that represents a lot of setup.’ • D Ramirez (also known as Dean Marriott) has been DJing, making records, and remixing for more than 15 years with a discography that includes dance hits The Lisa Marie Experience’s Keep on Jumpin, Fingerfest Inc’s Auto Porno, and 2007’s Yeah Yeah remix for Bodyrox, which was nominated for an Ivor Novello award. Dean has added an SSL Duende to his studio alongside his Logic 8/G5 to take care of most of his processing needs. ‘I’ve got that SSL sound right there in front of me,’ he said. ‘I recently got hold of the Drumstrip plug-in and it’s transformed my beats. It’s just the tool I need along with that amazing Bus Compressor which is just about the most transparent, beautiful sounding compressor I’ve used.’

Showtime NAB, Las Vegas ..............12-17 April AES Europe, Amsterdam . 17-20 May BroadcastAsia, Singapore ......................17-20 June Plasa, London .........7-10 September IBC, Amsterdam ...12-16 September AES US, San Francisco .. 3-5 October Broadcast India, Mumbai ................... 17-19 October SBES, Birmingham ... 5-6 November Tonmeistertagung, Leipzig ................... 3-16 November InterBEE, Tokyo ... 19-21 November

Shortly before starting work on last year’s Tori Amos album American Doll Posse, recording engineer and husband Mark Hawley tried Universal Audio’s LA-2A compressor on his wife’s vocal. ‘I had been using various “quality” compressors on Tori’s voice over the past 12 years with varying degrees of satisfaction,’ said Mark. ‘I got hold of a unit and gave it a try, and immediately liked what it was doing. As a result, I bought one for the studio and used it throughout the recording process where it made a significant contribution to the vocal

sound on the record.’ Hawley is also Amos’ FOH engineer and as the recording of the album neared completion, Mark added the LA-2A sound to the upcoming live shows. To ensure they could handle the rigors of international touring, sound company SSE rackmounted the units with custom rear supports in their own custom shockmounted racks. ‘Eight months and 150 shows later, the LA-2As have been around the world and back, performing faultlessly without a hitch,’ he said.

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London’s Royal College of Music has transformed its two control rooms with the help of studio furniture specialist AKA Design. ‘One of our engineers used to work at Wave Studios, and was adamant that the work AKA had done in their control rooms was very impressive indeed,’ said RCM studio manager Avgoustos Psillas. ‘The previous experience, good ﬁrst impressions and a nice brochure made it impossible for us to even bother looking elsewhere.’

April 2008

facility

Salomo and ruessmann

WDR Siegen Regional studios have a long tradition in German broadcasting but as times change so the stations look for ways to maximise their performance and justify their existence. ZENON SCHOEPE visits the ﬁrst regional WDR station to modernise as part of a much bigger plan.

s national broadcasters go, the structure employed in Germany is about as complex and intriguing as you’ll find in Europe. While it is so often overlooked by outsiders, much of this complexity and diversity relates back to the nation’s States all of which have strong identities and administrative centres and also have their own broadcaster. Most States are still further split into sub regions and no German broadcaster demonstrates this better than WDR, which serves the biggest chunk of the population and also has the distinction of being the biggest broadcaster in Continental Europe. WDR is the public station of NRW (North Rhein-Westphalia) and is headquartered in Cologne and has eleven regional centres — nine of which broadcast TV and radio, the remaining two only produce TV. The demands placed on these regional centres are quite specific and while there is a strong local broadcasting requirement, each is also integrated into its State’s broadcasting structure and from there into the national network of the ARD. There is regional content contribution between 14

7.30 to 8.00 each evening on TV in addition to news bulletins in radio and TV. WDR Siegen is an interesting case study because while it is typical of a regional broadcaster’s scale, its recent rebuild and relocation also represents the first stage in WDR’s modernisation of its regional studios. Serving a population of some 112,000, WDR Siegen produces TV, radio and internet content and the opportunity to rethink its workflows as part of this upgrade has not been wasted in these budget-sensitive times. Underlying it all is a desire to increase efficiency and flexibility and, as we will see, the adoption of Stagetec Auratus desks has been key to the changes. The biggest leap of progress has been the successful combination of radio and TV operations and, most significantly, the technicians. Working on the premise that radio technicians tend to be busiest in the morning and the TV crew are busiest in the evening, a programme of training courses to enable engineers to learn each other’s jobs was instigated. While one of the purposes behind resolution

this, inevitably, has been to reduce the staff count throughout the regional studios, the result has been the creation of operators who can flit between radio and TV production, and the back-end that is the internet, with ease. ‘They were two different worlds,’ says IT coordinator Peter Salomo of the differences between TV and radio, ‘and it’s still unbelievable for some people in WDR — they can’t believe that we work so closely together now.’ Siegen was used as WDR’s regional testbed due to a combination of practical circumstances. While its radio operation had been using digital desks for years, its TV operation was lagging behind in studios that were old and with technology that had long since been written off. ‘It was a special situation because the studios were in an old house 500m away from where we are now so we were able to construct a new studio while the old one continued to run,’ explained Salomo. ‘The switch over process was over a weekend but they ran the systems in parallel for three weeks. The problem with the other regional studios is they have to stay in the buildings and get OB trucks in. For half a year they transmit from the truck while they renew the old control room. Then, when they’re finished, they switch over and the old OB truck goes on to the next studio.’ Salomo adds that they were ready to buy equipment and start the modernisation in 2004 but they couldn’t find what they wanted. It took three years to collect the system parts to create a logical running system, which was started in 2007. And, April 2008

facility given that they had decided to combine radio and TV operators, they also had to choose technology that could be shared across their production needs. BFE as general contractor installed the three Auratus consoles in February last year with the regional studios at Bonn and Duisburg following. Similar Auratus installations are going ahead at the remaining eight regional WDR locations. The Siegen consoles were supplied originally as Auratus XL versions equipped with Aurus processing, but they have subsequently been replaced with standard Auratus processing. Siegen has a TV studio and a radio studio, both including a control room but the assignment of studios to control rooms is not fixed. The radio studio, which is actually a large talk studio, can also be used in combination with a third â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bi-mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; BIM control room. The studio table, including all the installed gear can be revolved, permitting eye contact through the BIM control-room window as well. A small additional voice cubicle, which is normally allocated to the BIM control room, is available for dubbing or news reading tasks and can be assigned to any of the three control rooms and also to four other video editing rooms. The audio network also reflects this flexibility. Each of the three Auratus desks accesses a common Nexus network of five Base Devices. Each control room is assigned one Base Device of its own, which also accommodates the Auratus processor board. The remaining Base Devices are used as network nodes and are linked to all other Base Devices. They also provide interfaces to station signals, such as external lines and codecs. During normal operation, the studio microphones are connected to the XMIC boards in the Nexus in the radio control room and are routed to the corresponding Auratus. When the radio studio is assigned to the BIM control room, those sources as well as a number of return paths are automatically delegated to the Auratus in the BIM control room. Red-light and yellow signalling control is also reassigned. This reconfiguration is triggered by a custom controller panel from BFE. Michael Ruessmann, technical head for radio, was involved in laying out the specs for the audio desks for all the regional studios and says that Stagetec was open to dialogue on the form of the new Auratus and incorporated their input and wishlists. He adds that it helped that the studio operators consistently liked Stagetec products and that the Auratus plays a major role in the stationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more integrated approach because it enables engineers originating from either discipline to operate them easily and to get the best from them.

Ruessmann says that the initial impression of the desk being complicated, due to its number of knobs and controls, is misleading because it is actually very straightforward. He quotes the simplicity of the monitoring section as a case in point and says that the n-1 ability is an enormous improvement over the previous implementations and he is grateful for it daily. The deskâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 5.1 capability is, however, surplus to Siegenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s requirements as it works predominantly in stereo but it will be useful when the desk is employed elsewhere in the network. The studio complex is compact and has an obvious everyone-knows-everyone-else type of atmosphere. The open plan news room is very low key with TV and radio journalists working together. VCS and dira! are the tools for the job with

Highlander serving as the means for the editorial staff to access the functions of the dira! installation. Inside the news room thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a small acoustic booth used for the reading of Siegen radio news bulletins. At the allotted time, the reader walks into the room and waits, script in hand. The switchover for the regional window is triggered remotely from Cologne and closed down again at the end of the reading. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The pity is that most people who drive a car around the region and listen to WDR 2 on the radio donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hearing is coming from Siegen; they believe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coming from Cologne,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says Salomo. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;There is no identity from the station, you only hear the name of the producer and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d have to know him to know where he lives and where he comes from to identify the production as coming from Siegen.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Elsewhere there is shared centralised storage for the video editing of the stationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Avids and they use Sequoia as their audio workstation. Genelec monitoring is in abundance along with Riedel intercoms. It is easy to forget the amount of upheaval that must have preceded the move to the new shiny building with its fresh take on technology until you are reminded that the same will have to happen in all of WDRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regional stations. Ultimately, one of the goals of the process of renewal and refitting is to arrive at a point where each station operates at the same technical level and will permit advanced networkability across all regional stations. That point is some years away and it is certainly achievable but we are only talking about WDR â&#x20AC;&#x201C;the other German broadcasters are doing their own different thing. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Each of the broadcasters has its own technical philosophy and WDRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s implementation is a specific one that fits our philosophy,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says Salomo. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;It also depends on what you had before and what we had before was different from what they had at NDR or BR, for example.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Ruessmann agrees and doubts whether it would be a good idea to rely on the same technology nationwide. You can see why heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d think that. What we have here is the same desk in three different applications, each of which can also be used in other applications if required. Add to that the fact that each can be operated by engineers from TV or radio backgrounds and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lesson in flexibility and a practical solution to the sort of problem that must gnaw at ageing small stations looking for a change. The viewing and listening figures also show that regional broadcasting when supported well and run economically does make sense and is appreciated. â&#x2013;

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gear

Products Equipment introductions and announcements.

Cadac Classic outboard The Cadac Classic range of outboard marks Cadac’s 40th anniversary as an independent British designer. First in the series is the ME2 2-channel mic preamp mixer, which provides two independent audio paths, each with dedicated mic preamp and 4-band fully parametric EQ. Each audio path has balanced inserts, switchable pre- or post-EQ, in addition to balanced auto-compensating analogue outputs. An AES-3 output is also provided, and multiple ME2 units can be bus-linked together to create a small format multichannel console, with each audio path equipped with dedicated level/pan controls as well as mute and PFL control in combination with the Cadac Classic MA2 mix amp that will be available later this year. www.cadac-sound.com

Platform news: Steinberg Steinberg’s CC121 controller provides full Cubase 4 integration and control and will support Windows and mac and be available in Q3. ‘CC121 provides totally integrated tactile control of Steinberg’s Cubase range of production systems, with a unique design architecture that keeps producers and musicians 100% focused on their Cubase project and the creative process,’ said Helge vogt, Steinberg’s product marketing manager for Cubase. the CC121 has an ‘ultraprecision’ advanced integration controller knob with ‘point and control’ support that controls any visual Cubase 4 parameter, internal FX setting or vSti parameter using mouse pointer selection. it has one motorised 100mm touch-sensitive fader and dedicated control of Cubase channel settings that include solo/mute, record arm, ‘e’ settings button, automation read/write, pan and vSti editor.

Genelec ‘smallest’ loudspeaker system G e n e l e c ’s 6 0 1 0 is the smallest speaker system in the Genelec family. The compact twoway active system has been designed for computer sound systems, workstations and other close proximity listening applications and can be plugged directly into personal music players. The all-aluminium Minimum Diffraction Enclosure and advanced Directivity Control Waveguide technologies are matched with amplifier and electronics circuitry. Bass response extends down to 73Hz (-3dB) while distortion is claimed to be low due to a new rear reflex port design. The bass and treble amplifiers each produce 12W and are capable of driving to SPLs in excess of 102dB at 1m. Five 6010As and the matching Genelec 5040A subwoofer can create ‘a dynamic and detailed sound-stage’ for multichannel use. The 5040A extends the system’s bass response from 73Hz down to 35Hz and the playback level for a whole system is controlled by the remote volume control provided with the subwoofer. The 5040A features a magnetically shielded downward firing 6.5-inch bass driver attached to a die-cast aluminium base plate with a 40W amp. www.genelec.com

designed by Steinberg and Yamaha, the mr816 CSX and mr816 X FireWire i-o dSP ‘studios’ feature integration into Cubase, and offer a range of audio i-o options and onboard dSP with the rEv-X reverb. mr816 CSX also offers the Sweet Spot morphing Channel Strip plug-in, with dSP effects available as a vSt3 plug-in in Cubase. the units will support mac and Windows and ship in Q3 2008. launching Cubase 4 with mr816 CSX or mr816 X attached to the computer offers ‘true integrated monitoring’ for no latency, dSP-powered FX and full Cubase Control room support, direct access from Cubase with no additional software mixing or external windows required, eight discrete Class a analogue ‘d-Pre’ mic preamps with combination Xlr and trS analogue inputs with switchable phantom power per channel, as well as adat and SPdiF i-o. www.steinberg.net

lunchbox Black Series Following on from the Black Series, Audient has released the BR4 as a smaller, portable version of the units. The BR4 has an integrated power supply and space for four modules from the range, including the analogue Pre, Comp and EQ modules and the A-DC and Time Machine modules. Features like HMX harmonic control, Glo, Overtone and Overcomp are therefore now available in a much smaller package.

tC PowerCore X8 Sonnox edition TC Electronic has introduced a limited edition PowerCore X8, which comes bundled with Sonnox plug-ins, the Oxford EQ and Oxford Dynamics, in addition to 14 plug-ins from TC. The PowerCore X8 features eight DSP engines, which offers twice the processing power of PowerCore FireWire, and allows even more plug-ins to be used simultaneously with native DAWs. www.sonnoxplugins.com/products

LA Audio’s X-Range series of analogue and digital interface products can be used individually or as part of a rack using an optional rack system that can also power the units. The first three modules in the range are a balanced, line level DI, an AES splitter/format convertor and a passive, transformer based DI. Other products will follow. www.audient.co.uk

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Fat Bustard now 12-channel

The final production model of the Thermionic Culture FAT Bustard valve mixer has 12 inputs instead of the 8 that were on the version previewed last year. The inputs are arranged as 4 stereo pairs, 4 mono with pan controls, and all the channels have toggle mute switches. The simple bass and treble EQ now has 0.5dB stepped Lift controls while there are 6-way stepped bass and treble cut controls. Designer Vic Keary has also come up with a sweet and effective stereo width control, a little reminiscent of some vinyl lathe cutting EQs. Four valves are used on the master bus, a pair of 5965 double triodes, the first half of which is preamp/EQ, the second half is gain makeup in conjunction with the dedicated ‘Attitude’ feedback control that determines the amount of THD. The Attitude control can yield a clean signal or add gain and some ‘valvey’ 2nd harmonic distortion. The other pair of valves are connected in parallel to give massive headroom cleanly (approaching +30dBm). An additional pair of aux inputs is provided for channel expansion by adding the optional Little Bustard 16-channel expander, which is due later this year. www.thermionicculture.com

April 2008

gear HHB shows dvd and Cd machines

HHB’s UDP-89 universal DVD/CD player combines broadcast-quality audio and video replay and a full complement of video and audio outputs. The UDP-89 is the only DVD player on the market with balanced stereo and surround sound outputs with a built-in preamp for direct connection to an active 5.1 or stereo speaker system. Digital video comes courtesy of an HDCP-compliant HDMI output and analogue picture quality is via six 14-bit 165MHz video D-ACs. Both 480p/576p Standard Definition and 720p and 1080i upscaled High Definition are available from the HDMI and component outputs. Features include professional cueing functions, DVD-Audio and SACD compatibility, while RS232 and touchscreen X-Y co-ordinate control equip the UDP-89 for use in a wide range of applications.

Phanthera v

UrS Saturation

B r a u n e r ’s P h a n t h e r a V adds switchable omni and fig-8 patterns to the original Phanthera’s cardioid pattern. There’s also a 10dB pad and phantom powering. Completing the portfolio, Brauner has also released base models as the Phantom Classic basic and Phanthera basic mics that include more basic accessory equipment. www.brauner-microphones.com

U R S ’s S a t u r a t i o n Plug-in digitally recreates four different and distinct preamplifiers each featuring a different type of input stage saturation, even and odd ordered harmonics and soft clipping. The initial four mic preamplifier models include Class A tube mic preamp Motorcity, Class A tube mic preamp German, Class A discrete preamp British, and Class A discrete JFet mic preamp Modern. Saturation initially supports Audio Units and VST for Mac OSX. RTAS is currently only supported with FXpansion’s VST to RTAS adapter and an RTAS version is in development. TDM support is planned. www.ursplugins.com

The new CDR-882 DualBurn dual-drive CD recorder breaks new ground with a DiscSpan mode that overcomes the 80-minute limit of CD recording by extending the recording across multiple discs. DiscSpan allows the user to set overlap and fade in/out durations when switching between discs with Track IDs automatically written to each disc to mark the transition. On playback the CDR-882 uses these Track IDs to provide uninterrupted programme audio. In addition the Track IDs provide precise reference markers when reconstructing the recording in a DAW. The feature set includes DualBurn simultaneous recording to two drives, high speed disc duplication, a heavy-duty 2u rackmounting chassis, quartz crystal derived internal clock, on-board SRC, balanced and unbalanced analogue and digital I-Os and parallel and RS232 remote control. www.hhb.co.uk

Neumann tlm 103 d for digital The Neumann TLM 103 D is the digital version of the TLM 103 and has an integrated, ‘extremely fast’ peak limiter and a Neumann A-D convertor built into the microphone. The TLM 103 D is available in nickel or black, with a standmount. Starter kits are also available, consisting of the microphone, an elastic suspension and a connection kit for direct connection to AES-EBU or SPDIF. neumann.com

April 2008

Karlsruhe · Germany +49 721 943 200 www.schoeps.de

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gear melodyne polyphonic dNa

Presonus digital mixer

The Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2 digital mixer has 16 high headroom XMAX microphone preamps, a built-in 22x18 FireWire recording and playback engine, ‘Fat Channel’ access to 4-band EQs, compressors, limiters and gates, DSP effects, six aux buses, four sub-groups, LED metering, and talkback. All 16 channels include line input, balanced inserts and balanced direct output. There are two sets of balanced

main outputs and control room outputs. The desk ships with Capture multitrack recording software for Mac and Windows which gives editing and export to Wav formats. The FireStudio Tube is described as ‘a complete 24bit/96k 16-input, 10-output FireWire recording system’ for Windows and Mac. It has 16 analogue inputs — two valvebased super channels on the front, eight XMAX preamps on the rear, and six balanced TRS inputs. It also sports MIDI I-O and LED input metering, headphone output, and a zero-latency matrix mixer.

The DigiMAX D8 has eight Class A XMAX mic preamps, eight direct analogue outputs, and ADAT optical light pipe connectivity. www.presonus.com

Celemony’s V2 of the Melodyne plug-in is due for release in the autumn and features Direct Note Access, which can detect and edit individual notes within polyphonic audio material. Customers purchasing Melodyne plugin will receive the update free of charge. With Direct Note Access, polyphonic audio material is ‘exploded’ in the Melodyne Editor’s display so the user can see the individual notes of a chord displayed at their actual pitches and edit them individually using the familiar Melodyne tools. As parameters, you have access to the pitch, position in time and duration of each note as well as its vibrato, pitch drift, formant spectrum and volume. A Melodyne user can, for example, correct a wrong note within a piano recording, tidy up the timing of the individual notes of a chord and even retune an out-of-tune guitar after the recording has already taken place. www.celemony.com

‘madiXtreme’ PCie interfaces

New PD Series Location Recorders

Audio acquisition that’s as versatile as you are. Designed from the ground up to excel in ‘real-world’ applications, wherever you happen

www.fostex.jp Fostex Company, 3-2-35 Musashino, Akishima, Tokyo, Japan 196-0021 Email: info_sales@fostex.jp

to be in the world. The new PD606 (8-track) and PD204 (2-track) location recorders both offer spectacular audio quality, flexible recording to 12cm DVD-RAM, hard disc or a combination of both, rock solid timecode implementation, extended battery life, loads of ‘instant access’ knobs, buttons and switches plus a whole battery of interface options. But impressive features are only part of the script. Fostex’s unrivalled pedigree in designing and manufacturing world class location recorders for over 16 years and our unique understanding of the broadcast, film, tv and audio acquisition environments means that these new recorders aren’t just the best PD recorders ever, they’re simply the best professional location recorders available today.

SSL’s MadiXtreme is a family of multichannel P C I e a u d i o c a rd s f o r M a c a n d P C . Two versions are available; the single head MadiXtreme and the dualhead MadiXtreme 128. With one optical MADI connector for 64 simultaneous I-Os, the MadiXtreme 64 is an ideal interface for the SSL Alpha-Link MADI AX, Alpha-Link MADI SX, and MADI equipped consoles. With two optical MADI connectors for 128 simultaneous I-Os, the MADI Xtreme 128 can be connected to two AlphaLink MADI AX or Alpha-Link MADI SX at the same time. Hot on the heels of the portable Duende Mini unit, Duende PCIe is a high bandwidth, half length, full height slot-in PCIe card that works in PCs and Macs. This card is intended for those who work with lots of external FireWire equipment, or those who want to integrate their SSL processing and workstation into a single case unit. Duende PCIe matches the processing power of its 19-inch Classic Duende sister with DSP processing power available to drive 32 channels of plug-in processing (at sample rates up to 96kHz) within your host application. Two Duende PCIe units can be run on a single computer for 64 channels of processing and can also partner with FireWire-connected Duende Mini or Classic. www.solid-state-logic.com

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Focal CmS monitors Focal’s CMS (Compact Monitoring System) series includes the CMS 50 and CMS 65 speakers. A subwoofer will complete the series later in the year. Both are equipped with a Focal aluminium/magnesium inverted dome tweeter. The CMS 50 integrates a 5-inch woofer, whereas the CMS 65 has a 6.5-inch woofer. Both are supplied with a decoupling rubber sole, four rubber spikes, two height-adjustable spikes to be installed in the front or at the rear of the base, and two removable grilles. www.focalprofessional.com

April 2008

gear New rackPack modules

Last year SPL launched its RackPack modular system and started with two different preamps and the Transient Designer as the first modules. This has been extended with six new modules including the Full Ranger passive EQ with coil filters for the whole frequency spectrum, the Bass Ranger passive EQ with coil filters for the bass range and the Vox Ranger passive EQ with coil filters for the vocal range. Also available are the TwinTube for combined saturation and presence tube effects, the DeEsser, which works with phase cancellation instead of traditional compression, and the DynaMaxx set and forget compressor, which has been updated for the RackPack. The Phonitor 120V headphone monitoring amplifier aims to serve as an alternative to monitoring speakers and offers parameters such as crossfeed, speaker angle and centre Level.

large diaphragm evolution

The evolution e 965 is the Sennheiser range’s first largediaphragm true condenser microphone. It benefits from a dual-diaphragm transducer, allowing it to be switched between cardioid and super-cardioid pick-up patterns. A -10dB attenuator can be switched in and there’s a low-cut filter. Handling noise is reduced by the shockmount design, and there’s an integrated pop shield.

IEM users now have up to 100mW of power for transmitting monitoring signals with the evolution wireless SR 350 IEM G2. The twin transmitter with HDX compander can be used with the EK 300 IEM G2 and EK 3253 monitor receivers. In total there are 1440 UHF frequencies available for interference-free transmission. For a direct choice of channel, every transmitter has eight channel banks, each of which has 12 presets, as well as a bank with up to 12 user-selectable channels. There is an option for the high-performance twin transmitter to be controlled and programmed via the NET 1 network system; both transmitters can be listened to through separate headphone sockets. www.sennheiser.com

The Frontliner channel strip combines preamp, deesser, compressor, EQ and a valve output with dedicated I-Os to the individual sections. Each stage can be used separately and can be routed via a patchbay to insert the whole toolbox into a studio. The Frontliner features a hybrid, Class A preamp design with discrete solid state stage and a tube section with switchable drive settings. www.soundperformancelab.com

Focusrite’s liquid mix 16

Focusrite’s Liquid Mix 16 combines a pool of classic EQ and compressor emulations with a new control surface. Each of the 16 mono channels (or eight stereo channels) provides compressor and EQ emulations with 40 compressors and 20 EQs available out of the box, with additional emulations available for free online. As with Liquid Mix, a hybrid 7-band ‘super EQ’ is available in every instance. Each channel appears as a separate VST/AU/RTAS effect within the sequencer. It comes with Liquid Mix v2.2 software and the same optional expansion card will be available for both Liquid Mix and Liquid Mix 16. With Liquid Mix 16, the card allows users to increase the number of available channels at 48kHz from 16 to 24. Installed in the original Liquid Mix, the card enables additional channels at higher frequencies up to 192kHz. The card fits into the underside of both units. www.focusrite.com

April 2008

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gear a&H extends ilive family

Allen & Heath has added iDR0, a new processing unit, to its iLive digital mixing system, and has announced the release of V1.2 iLive system software. The iDR0 is a 2u rack unit that provides all the processing features of the iLive system for networked audio systems. Instead of slots for I-O modules, the iDR0 offers two EtherSound ports, which provide all the audio inputs and outputs system.  It provides a cost effective   of the    and compact solution to users who want to mix common

sources for different applications, or need an additional mix for broadcast or recording that allows full processing and mix capability with the source material. The iDR0 unit is modular and uses the same processing PCBs as the iDR10, the ‘mix rack’ which provides I-O and all processing and mixing functions with the current iLive system. Processing for 64 inputs, with full dynamics and EQ, into 32 mixes with dynamics, EQ and graphic EQ is provided, and can be controlled by any of the iLive surfaces over Ethernet. Provision is also made for the back-up power supply unit, iPS10, if required. iDR0 includes the ‘iDR-64 Mix Engine Rack Extra’ PCB, which provides the digital signal processing capability for the rack, offering eight effects engines, which can run system effects or can be inserted into input or mix channels. The iDR-64 Mix Engine Rack Extra module is also available as an upgrade to existing iLive systems.    www.allen-heath.com

The Art of Analogue

mXl Genesis ﬂagship The Genesis tube condenser mic is MXL’s new flagship model and the first in a forthcoming series of higher e n d o ff e r i n g s f ro m t h e company. Designed primarily as a vocal mic, Genesis is a large diaphragm cardioid condenser with a 1.2-inch capsule and 6-micron, gold sputtered diaphragm. It incorporates a Mullard 12AT7 valve plus roll off and pad switches. The USB.009-24 cardioid condenser has 24-bit A-D and D-A convertors with up to 96kHz recording capability. It features a 32mm pressure gradient condenser capsule with a gold sputtered diaphragm. With its 1/8th-inch stereo headphone jack and adjustable level control, it provides zero latency recording and has a mix control for adjusting the balance between playback and the source signal. There’s also an analogue gain control. www.mxlmics.com

Custom earplugs

UA founder

Sensorcom has launched ProGuard: an out-of-the-box custom attenuating earplug system. Crafted from nonallergenic, translucent soft silicon to provide long-term comfort and fitted with calibrated acoustic filters, the earplugs will reduce the sound entering the ear to a safe level without degrading the listening experience. The ProGuard system simplifies the process of getting custom earplugs and includes prepaid vouchers to cover audiologist fees for examination, impressions and a postage envelope for returning the impressions back to the ProGuard laboratory. Included in the ProGuard kit are useful ancillary products, such as a storage pouch, cleaning tool, earmould gel, user instructions and a unique registration number. Priced at about UK£100 fully inclusive, the Customised Earplugs take about two weeks from the time that the impressions arrive at the laboratory to being delivered back to the customer. A choice of two attenuation levels can be selected. www.proguarduk.co.uk

tnam

M.T. ‘Bill’ Pu

Universal Audio has been making music sound better since 1957. Today, UA continues the legacy of founder M.T. ‘Bill’ Putnam with world-class audio hardware and software – designed, manufactured and qualitycontrolled with passion and pride in Santa Cruz, California, USA. The new DCS Remote Preamp combines two console-grade mic-preamps, specialised monitoring capabilities for artist and engineer, and easy remote control/DAW integration making it an ideal upgrade to the basic features and sound quality found in most audio interfaces. And who better than UA to evolve the classic LA-2A into the stereo 2-LA-2, combining the unique sonic signature of the original with two channels of silky, tube-amplified, stereo matched optical gain reduction in one unit.

NEW!

DCS Remote Preamp

optimod for surround

Find out more about the art of analogue at:

www.uaudio.com

NEW! 2-LA-2

Twin T4 Levelling Amplifier

UK distribution by Source • Find a dealer at www.sourcedistribution.co.uk/ua • T: 020 8962 5080

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The Optimod 8585 Digital Surround Audio Processor takes Orban’s Optimod 6300 2-channel processor for digital transmission media and makes it multichannel. It has Optimod-quality 2-band and 5-band processing for surround sound broadcasting, netcasting and mastering, and compression ratio controls and a mastering-quality look-ahead peak limiter. It features a GUI displayed on a quarter-VGA active matrix colour LCD allowing setup and adjustment from the front panel. A ‘third-generation’ CBS Loudness Controller limits subjectively perceived loudness to a broadcaster-set threshold and measures subjective loudness (as perceived by an average listener) and then closes a feedback loop to limit loudness to a preset level. The 8585 can be two processors in one, offering surround processing for 7.1 channels or 5.1 channels plus an independent 2.0 channel processor (equivalent to Optimod 6300 processing) that can operate standalone with its own CBS Loudness Controller. www.orban-europe.com

April 2008

gear ati distribution and clock

ATI has a new line of digital audio distribution amplifiers. There are four DDA models, all featuring up to 192kHz sample rates and 24-bit resolution. All units have switchable reclocking, giving users the option to correct for high jitter input signals, or to pass coded Surround signals without interference. All units have front panel selectable dual inputs and input loop-through with switchable termination. All units display input sample rate, Word length, digital errors and Pro/Consumer mode to enable rapid confidence checks and troubleshooting. All units provide automatic equalisation for long input lines and have a front panel control lock to protect user configuration settings.

AE22 Timing is everything

The Model MCDA-112 ultra low jitter studio master clock can generate a ‘perfect’ sync reference of 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 or 192kHz, or can accept and regenerate an external reference to feed its 12 individually buffered BNC outputs. The MCDA-112 accepts AES, Word clock or super-Word clock as external inputs and provides Word clock or super-Word clock at its outputs. Front panel controls and indicators include external clock format select, sample rate select, output clock format select, input termination, clock source and front panel lock. www.ATIaudio.com

aeon upgrade Klotz Digital has upgraded its Aeon OnAir mixing console and now offers MADI interface cards that can be configured to 56 or 64 channel mode. Audio networking of Aeons via Octo-Bus allows the linking of several Aeons or the connection of the console to the Main Control Room (MCR) via Cat5 cabling and providing eight bidirectional channels per bus. Each Octo-Bus card features four bus lines and free buses can be used for break-in and break-out boxes. www.klotzdigital.com

Accurately reproducing music

motU dP6

is as much about time as it is

MOTU Digital Performer 6 features include: a complete user interface redesign; XML file interchange with Final Cut Pro; film scoring enhancements; track comping; support for interleaved broadcast WAVE audio files; enhanced support for operation as a software front-end for Pro Tools HD systems; prerendering of virtual instruments; better support for third-party Audio Unit (AU) plug-ins; and the ability to ‘bounce and burn’ directly to an audio CD. MOTU’s 828mk3 is a cross-platform FireWire audio interface with on-board effects and mixing. New features include a 32-bit floating point DSP for digital mixing and effects processing, more I-O, 192kHz operation, true hi-Z guitar inputs, signal overload protection, digitally controlled analogue input trims on all inputs, two banks of ADAT/TOSLink optical, and MIDI I-O. www.motu.com

Benchmark d-aC

a frequency balance specifically tailored for the studio environment, the AE22 from Acoustic Energy Pro is uniquely designed to reduce time smearing distortions to an absolute minimum. So what you hear is what you recorded - nothing missing and everything in its place. Visit www.acousticenergypro.com or call +44 (0)1285 654432 for the whole story.

The DAC1 PRE stereo playback preamplifier from Benchmark is designed to interface directly with digital and traditional analogue sources. As the central hub in a high-performance stereo playback system it has four digital inputs, a USB input, a stereo analogue input, two stereo analogue outputs, two headphone outputs, and a true analogue master volume control. Proprietary features include Benchmark’s jitterimmune UltraLock clock system, HPA2 0-ohm headphone amplifier, AdvancedUSB 24-bit native USB computer audio interface, and DAC1 conversion system. Other features include selectable headphone gain ranges, power/standby button, high-current analogue output drivers, and premium connectors. www.benchmarkmedia.com

April 2008

about frequency. So along with

resolution

UK distribution by Sound Network T: 020 7665 6463 E: sales@soundnetwork.co.uk W: www. soundnetwork.co.uk

n e t w o r k

review

Tube-Tech RM8 Modularity in the vertical outboard sense has been making a comeback but you’ll have to look long and hard to ﬁnd any other modules that are all-valve ...or blue. GEORGE SHILLING is lucky enough to get to review this exciting little package.

anish audio expert John Petersen started building Tube-Tech valve equipment in the mid-1980s when Pultec EQs were becoming sought after by producers, engineers and studios; his first creation was an almost exact replica of the EQP-1A, and he still offers a similar model in the catalogue. Other models ensued which were original designs, but with the same philosophy of using only tubes in the audio path, transformers for input and output, simple controls and circuitry, and bulletproof build. The range has expanded to a number of superbly crafted EQs, compressors and preamplifiers, with recent models embracing and setting trends with multiband compression and external summing for DAW users. The RM8 provides a customisable modular system featuring similar designs to the best known full size Tube-Tech units. There are three different modules available for the RM8: a mic/DI preamp, a compressor, and of course a Pultec-style EQ, all including the same valve circuitry of the larger Tube-Tech units. The RM8 itself is a power supply and host rack for the modules. This is described as a Table Top unit, which perhaps makes it sound like a vase of flowers. The RM8 comes with chunky rubber feet, but it will apparently rack-mount, with predrilled holes at the sides to add rack ears. I would imagine that rear bracing would be essential

in this case, as the review configuration was rather weighty. Generous venting is provided on the top and bottom so in a rack some extra space would probably be needed above and below. Like similar units from API and SSL, the case includes audio connections on the reverse, with the modules themselves sliding into multipin connections (DB25s are used) at the rear. Modules are then secured with screws. The RM8 provides +270V, +48V, +15V, -15V and +12V rails to satisfy the various requirements of the modules, and LEDs for each of these rails light on the front panel to ensure their health. With the high internal voltage required for the thermionics it is obviously rather essential to blank any unused slots. Eight slots are provided, and the review model included a pair of each module along with a pair of blanking panels. On the rear are logically arranged XLRs for audio input and output to each model. As a bonus, there are also a pair of (Tascam wired) DB25 connectors for analogue connections, which might be handy for quicker installation if the unit is likely to be moved around. Power comes in on an IEC with a voltage selector, and illuminating power rocker, although I’m not sure who will see the illumination at the back. Cramming the technology used in such enormous models as the EQ-1A(M) and CL-1B into small modular spaces seems

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remarkable. However, the RM8 is a deep box, which equates to roughly the width of a standard 19-inch 1u, while the module width is a few millimetres wider than the height of a 1u box. Even so, this is quite a feat, and some clever design techniques have been used to cram everything in. The circuit boards run vertically along the left side of each module, with the tubes’ sockets jutting out to enable conventional vertical mounting of the valves themselves. The modules feature sturdy metal toggle switches and mini bakelite-style knobs that are scaled down versions of those found on the larger Tube-Tech hardware. They are delightful and easy to use. The PM-1A mic preamp is based on the large-format MP-1A. This mic preamp sounds neutral but with a hint of valve warmth, and the higher impedance of one of the attenuators is said to make this unit more transparent than its larger sibling. It manages to sound rich, refined and remarkably detailed without seeming in any way coloured or hyped, processing microphone signals without fuss or bother. While the full size unit features gain stepped in 5dB increments, the module uses two knobs that step in 10dB and 2dB increments, enabling finer control. And the 20dB Pad is still provided. A maximum gain of 70dB is therefore indicated, and this is provided more cleanly than one might expect of a valve unit; depending on the mic and signal, you might hear a little hiss at full tilt. Furthermore, the module offers three different impedance settings whereas the MP-1A is fixed at 1200ohms. The alternatives can theoretically provide some different colours, but I often found little advantage in varying this, unless slight woolliness is what you need! Even with an old school ribbon mic, the differences were no great revelation. Although the gains are switched, these and the impedance settings can thankfully be changed with no audible clicks and pops. But the Phase reverse toggle makes a loud blatt, and the low cut clicks slightly when changed between Off, 20Hz and 40Hz. These extremely low corner frequencies are very handy for getting rid of stuff you certainly won’t want in most scenarios. On the front panel is a jack socket for DI input (input is switched automatically with a jack inserted), ever more important in these days of guitar amp plug-ins and re-amping. This sounds particularly rich and glowing with single coil guitars, and such is the quality of this circuit that a DI signal can be enjoyable without the need for any further processing. And it is rock solid on the low end with a bass guitar. The only front panel feedback is a LED for Overload — I’d have liked a warning of the presence of Phantom Power, and the other irritation common with many outboard mic preamps is the lack of a Mute switch. At least on some units you can flip to Line input, but here there is nothing. The Compressor module’s controls reflect the larger format CL-1B unit, and again something of a miracle has been performed to cram similar circuitry into a module and a LED meter, rather than the larger unit’s VU, shows Gain Reduction or Output Level. The opto-coupler is of a different type, but otherwise the circuitry is similar. A toggle enables linking using one of two Link Buses, so if the rack is fully loaded with eight of these modules, you could in theory run linked 5.1 surround compression alongside a stereo linked pair. The rear of the RM8 includes jack sockets for the link bus, so multiple units could link even more channels. In linked mode, Threshold and Ratio remain active on all linked channels, so to make one Master it is necessary to turn the Threshold fully up on the Slaves. Despite expectations of optical and valve compression, this compressor is fairly aggressive, with April 2008

review a minimum ratio setting of 2:1. Even with an indicated 1dB of gain reduction, the effect is usually quite audible, and things can get mushy with programme material, although the character is never grainy, as with a vari-mu type — it’s closer to a Neve 33609 than a Fairchild 670. In Manual mode this compressor is happier with individual instruments than across a mix, (although I did have some success with the latter in this mode with careful setting up), and it works a treat for aggressive pop or rock vocals. The ranges of the Attack and Release are quite remarkable, with 0.5 to 300mS and 0.05 to 10S respectively. Fixed mode sets Attack to a fast setting, and Release to a fairly fast setting. The Fixed/Man setting engages an autorelease function that is more suited to programme, and this reduces pumping. The explanation of the exact workings of this are quite complex, with a two-stage release, the Release knob controlling the second part of the decay. Attack is always set fast, and the Attack knob changes function to set the delay before the Release knob setting kicks in. The operation of this mode has often confused users, and takes some getting used to, but once the concepts are understood, a little experimentation soon makes sense of it all. The LED metering is something of a disadvantage, as reference markings aren’t easily read, the scaling is quite coarse, and all gain reduction is green, so all you see at a glance is fluttering green light, which can be rather more difficult to interpret than a VU. This is really the only downside to the modular format. The meter can also be flipped to show Output, when yellow and green segments come into play, and the red overload at the top will always come on in the event of excess level. The EQ follows the traditional Pultec layout, albeit crammed in a vertical arrangement. No corners have Resolution Half Page 17/3/08 16:50 Page been cut feature-wise; this is exactly the same circuit

as the PE-1C, the only difference being a different make of rotary switch. There is the familiar High Cut at 5, 10 or 20kHz; 10 frequencies are available for High Boost from 1kHz up to 16kHz, with a continuous Narrow/Broad knob. The Low frequency selector features 20, 30, 60 and 100Hz and works in tandem with the customary Boost and Cut knobs, turning both up is a favourite trick of many engineers wanting an overshoot/undershoot at the turnover frequency. And plenty of warmth is available here. The highs are extremely refined, a judicious boost can be like removing a blanket from the speakers! Pultecs have been a favourite type of EQ with engineers for many years, and this new version changes nothing except adding the convenience of the modular system. As with full size Tube-Tech units, all continuous

knobs are undamped, while switched selectors are quite stiff. The build is undoubtedly very good, although on arrival I needed to re-seat one of the modules. The thing that was most disconcerting was obtaining such glorious fidelity and big sound from such small knobs and front panels. But this is something you can quickly become accustomed to, and there’s very little not to love. The only other tube-based modular system I have encountered was the Inward Connections Vac-Rac, some 11 years ago. This was a slightly different concept, and it seems it is no longer manufactured, so TubeTech has something utterly unique and highly desirable. The design philosophy was to ‘keep it simple’, and to that should perhaps be added ‘but sonically refined’. ■

ProS

Superb quality modules in a convenient package; cheaper than the full size equivalents, but including virtually all of their benefits; ideal for the mobile producer.

CoNS

Pm-1a lacks phantom power indicator light and mute switch, and i’d have liked more metering than the single overload indicator.

EXtraS

Prices (all + vat) rm8 table top Frame £1,385 Cm 1a compressor module £1,015 Em 1a equaliser module £1,015 Pm 1a mic preamp module £1,015

Contact tUBE-tECH, dENmarK: Website: www.tube-tech.com UK, Systems Workshop: +44 1691 658550

When you’re mixing sound for light entertainment, it’s best to expect the unexpected. You need to set up and handle multiple sources quickly and easily, access pre-sets, network your i/o and instinctively control the whole thing without missing a beat.

calrec.com

IF ELVIS LIVES, YOU’LL BE THE FIRST TO HEAR

At Calrec we’ve been dedicated to live production and on-air broadcast audio mixing since the first Elvis impersonator wiggled his pelvis. Today, as well as all the practical functions you could want, we also offer the most innovative and economical solution for surround sound. Bluefin technology provides twice the signal processing capacity in a fraction of the space of conventional systems, at no extra cost and with 100% redundancy. Sounds exciting? Find out more at calrec.com

Putting Sound in the Picture

April 2008

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review

Fostex PD606 A successful location recorder is one of the most highly evolved pieces of hardware in the audio pantheon. ROB JAMES enjoys his time with this multichannel machine.

playing back. Recording to hard disk and DVD-RAM simultaneously requires that the hard disk partition be formatted specially for ‘DDR’ mode. Worth mentioning at this point that the maximum sample rate depends on the track count. If you use all 8 tracks then you are restricted to 44.1kHz or 48kHz. You can have four tracks at up to 96kHz or two at 192kHz. It’s also worth pointing out that at least one of the PD606 competitors cannot record at 44.1kHz. The internal hard disk drive is an 80Gb 1.8-inch type mounted in a proprietary removable caddy, accessible by removing a panel at the back. By default this is divided into 16 partitions of around 4.7Gb each which corresponds to the size of the DVD media. Auto partition linking caters for lengthy recordings. When the target partition is nearly full a new file is written in the next partition giving a gapless recording when the two files are united in the editor. Audio is recorded

Short back and sides

n the sound for picture context at least, the contemporary demands placed on comparatively compact location recorders are truly extraordinary in terms of scope and precision. In a suitable carrying case they must be water and dust resistant, if not proof, rugged enough to be able to withstand airport baggage handlers, bouncing around on the back of a camel or 4 X 4 and tolerate arctic sub-zero to scalding tropical temperatures. At the same time, they must contain quiet mic pres, flexible interfacing, a sophisticated input and monitor mixer and a recorder with precision sync capability, while offering optimum ergonomics. For some years it has been obvious that two tracks are often insufficient to cover the demands of modern production. Recording surround ambiences and actualité is only part of the story. Offering better alternatives to the editing department in the shape of boom and radio mic splits along with a stereo mixdown is equally, if not more, important. By common consent, when two tracks just won’t do, then eight tracks is a reasonable compromise and this is where the new UK£4495 (+ VAT) Fostex PD606 fits in. The latest addition to a family with a lineage going back to the 1991 PD2 DAT recorder, the PD606 is 24

the second Fostex multitrack location recorder. Its predecessor, the six-track PD6, would have needed modification to comply with the RoHs regulations, so a replacement was always on the cards. However, Fostex has done a great deal more than simply warm over the PD6 design. Despite the fact that it can record 8 tracks from the AES digital input, the PD606 is perhaps best described as a ‘6+2’ track recorder. There are six analogue inputs, six channel strips and a 6-channel mixer. In analogue input mode, the other two tracks are used to record a stereo down mix. Direct recordings can only be made to the internal hard drive or caddyless DVDRAM discs. However, back-up copying can be on DVD-R or DVD-RW as an alternative to DVD-RAM. As an extra trick it is also possible to generate an AVID export ALE (Avid Log Exchange) EDL File. The DVD-RAM disks must be formatted before use, but I am a great fan of DVD-RAM. In my experience, they are much more robust and less error prone than the alternatives, even without a caddy. I suspect that the majority of users will record to the internal hard disk and back up to optical media. The PD606 even provides an option that allows this to happen in the background whenever you stop recording or resolution

on top of the machine, each input ‘strip’ has mic/line and 48v phantom/t12 (for elderly Sennheiser mics) switching and a high-pass filter continuously variable between 50Hz and 300Hz with switched -6dB or -12dB slope. most of the transport controls are on the top panel with a panel lock toggle switch and the dvd-multidrive under a sturdy cover. on the right-hand side lie six Xlr mic/line inputs. Below are mini diN parallel and 9-pin d-Sub remotes, aES digital i-o on a 25-pin d-Sub, Word/video in with terminator switch and Word out on BNCs and timecode i-o on Xlrs. the left-hand side partially mirrors the right with six Xlr analogue outs, 12vdC in on a 4-pin Xlr and 12v dC out on a 4-pin Hirose. the Stereo Bus appears on a 5-pin Xlr and the three USB sockets are under a small and easy to loose panel. two type ‘a’ sockets cater for external keyboard and ‘Host’, which is not currently supported but will probably be used to directly connect a USB hard disk. the type ‘B’ receptacle is for connecting to a PC. Big ﬂeas have little ﬂeas: power sources are all external. at the back of the machine dual v-mount battery receptacles accept the popular form-factor lithium batteries, which in turn, if you use the Powerlink type, can each accept a further battery piggybacked onto them. two catches on either side of the Pd606 allow battery protectors to be extended from the recorder body. a fold-down stand underneath positions the machine at a more convenient angle when used on a tabletop. Comprehensive userselectable power management facilities allow auto switching between the batteries and the external power input. With high-capacity batteries a full day’s recording should be possible. if required, the older NP-1 type batteries, used on the Pd6, can also be fitted using an adapter. Unsurprisingly, the front panel is quite busy. on the left, the power switch is a recessed toggle above the monitor section. this has a rotary source selector with eight options including four user custom settings and an m&S mode, a monitor mode select toggle between Solo, Stereo and mono and the phones volume knob and socket. above the lCd screen the first button is the all-important Shift key. this is of the ‘one finger

April 2008

review in ‘polyfiles’ i.e. a BWF-P file with up to eight tracks. Recorded files will contain as many tracks as were armed for recording. So, if for example you arm tracks 1, 2 and 5 the resulting file will be a 3-track polyfile. When the review machine arrived it lacked a manual. Despite the unquestionable depth and scope of the PD606 I was able to be up and running in record in less than ten minutes (Where were you running to? Ed). Is it perfect? No! But this has more to do with the fact that each recordist’s definition of perfection is necessarily different than any particular shortcoming in the PD606. Others have suggested that the mic preamps are a little hot i.e. too much gain or at any rate that the range of adjustment is insufficient. I do wonder why Fostex chose to use a 1.8-inch hard drive rather than the much more common 2.5inch laptop drives. On the other hand, USB 2 is a

much better choice of external interface than FireWire with its attendant risks and foibles. The DVD-RAM drive is a standard PC item (Panasonic UJ-85J), which means that unlike the 8cm caddy drive in the PD6 it should only be used with the PD606 horizontal and stable. However, the same applies to its rivals. Also, the drive is not exactly silent. I would like to be able to record while playing back for music video playback purposes and I would like to have seen more attention paid to water and dust proofing. In the context this recorder will operate in, most of this pales into insignificance when compared with the thought that has gone into providing facilities that the jobbing location recordist/floor mixer really needs. For example, it will continue to generate timecode when turned off, the display slowly pulsing as an indication, then there is the user selectable overload bleep in the

headphones. As might be expected from Fostex, timecode features are prodigious. I could nit-pick about things I would prefer presented in slightly different way but that would be churlish. At almost half the price of an Aaton Cantar the Fostex PD606 makes a very strong case for itself. ■

ProS

rich and refined feature set; modern power options; USB 2 connectivity.

CoNS

Not much attention paid to water and dust resistance; only 4 tracks at 96kHz; expensive 1.8-inch hard drive.

Contact FoStEX, JaPaN: Website: www.fostexinternational.com UK, SCv london: +44 208 418 0778

typist’ variety i.e. pressing a subsequent key cancels Shift mode. You’ll be using it a lot. Quick Set accesses Quick Setup mode, time/tC Set selects the time display mode and Shifted accesses the timecode menu. File Sel brings up the list of audio files on the current disk and when Shifted enables you to select the active drive for recording/playback. light switches the backlight on and when held for 3 seconds, latches. Shifted, you can adjust the contrast with the menu dial. Exit cancels an edit operation or execution and backs out of Setup and Utility modes. the menu/link master dial is also a switch. it selects menu items and also controls the master gain of linked channels. Below are separate access lEds for the hard disk and dvd and at the bottom the lCd screen with Stereo Bus lEd bargraphs that double as battery remaining. alphanumeric keys are in a block of 12 with the locate and Clear keys. Pressing any one of the alphanumerics when in the Home Screen accesses time data edit mode. Previous and Next keys navigate between audio files and when shifted between Cue Points. Cue adds a Cue Point during recording or brings up the cue list in any other mode. Circle take/False Start adds an ‘@’ to the beginning of the current filename or when shifted cancels the previous recording. (You can choose if the file is to be erased or kept in the System Setup menu). Pre rec switches the buffer that allows recording before you hit the rec key. Jam is used to invoke the currently selected Jam sync function. the centrebiased Slate switch adds tone in the up position and the internal mic in the down. Holding it up for three seconds latches. the large key and button at top right are the ones you use in anger. Sliding record to the right starts recording and pressing Pause pauses. Stop recording can only be invoked when the recorder is paused. the mixer section has a stereo bus section and six identical mono channel sections. Each section has bright lEd bargraph meters and a ready/limiter button and indicators. the Stereo Bus section also has a master send level control. the mono sections each have a pan key that toggles between off, left, Centre and right. When Shifted this key links the channel for control by the link master knob. an indicator ﬂashes green when the channel is linked and red to indicate overloads. PFl/Sel enables prefade monitoring of the channel and when shifted reverses the phase and lights an indicator. Gain controls the analogue channel input level while the Send level pot controls the gain sent to the Stereo bus and also the track send level when Post is selected in System Setup.

April 2008

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review

Klark Teknik Square One Splitter The signal splitter is the most innocuous of devices yet it is often at the very heart of live production broadcast feeds and recording signals. GEORGE SHILLING says when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve gotta split, you might as well split it good and proper.

henever out on a mobile recording job, it has always been reassuring to encounter Klark Teknik splitter units when interfacing with the house system. Klark Teknik has been in business for more than 30 years and has achieved an unrivalled reputation for the reliability and longevity of its equipment. At the same time, it has pushed boundaries and introduced revolutionary and unique units in diverse audio related fields that show a special understanding of customer requirements. Having marketed the first digital delay and digital reverb units, it became best known for graphic EQs, which found favour in the live arena, and splitter units logically followed on. Available for several years (and still in the catalogue), the Klark Teknik DN 1248 Plus is a

highly sophisticated unit, with a number of factory options for particular requirements. Even in this increasingly digital age, it is still often more sensible to split the signal in the analogue domain before going A-D where necessary. However, the DN 1248+ is undeniably a rather expensive solution, especially if you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make use of the extra outputs and

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factory options. The new Square One Splitter slots into the now familiar purple range, which includes a Graphic EQ and an 8-channel dynamics unit, both built to a high standard but at reasonable cost. All three of these British designed and engineered units come with a reassuring three-year warranty. Costs are undoubtedly reduced by virtue of the assembly

April 2008

review taking place in China, of course, but the build seems excellent. This new Splitter is an off-the-shelf solution at vastly reduced cost compared to the DN 1248+ (although that unit has four more channels), and the Square One aims to perform to high standards while shedding one or two bells and whistles. Like the more expensive unit, the Splitter offers parallel inputs on front and rear, but not quite so many output options. However, in some areas it even improves on the DN model, for example with finer adjustment of gain, and the provision of a 30Hz High Pass Filter. But letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take it from the topâ&#x20AC;Ś The SQ1 is an 8-channel 2u device, with a host of XLRs front and rear for inputs and multiple outputs. All sockets are top-notch Neutriks with proper latches, and the steel chassis makes this box suitable for the rigours of live and road use. However, I did feel that an extra millimetre of front panel thickness, especially at the rack ears, might have substantially improved ruggedness. Included are two sets of preamps that are â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;inspired byâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the highly regarded Midas XL8 design. The electronically balanced outputs boast an extraordinary >122dB dynamic range, along with a high commonmode rejection ratio, allowing input signals of up to +22dBu, while transformer balanced (fixed gain) outputs boast >140dB dynamic range. The audio performance is certainly way beyond adequate in any scenario imaginable, and a superbly clean and detailed signal is guaranteed, whatever you are interfacing with. The eight XLR input sockets on the front are usefully mirrored on the reverse, making setup easy in real-world environments. Channel numbering is especially clear, so even on a dark stage with a small torch (Usually in your teeth. Ed), any configuring or re-configuring should be straightforward.

Mains input is helpfully an auto voltage-sensing design with an all encompassing range of 100-240V, +/-10V. A LED indicates power present on the front panel, but there is no power switch â&#x20AC;&#x201D; probably a sensible omission, as you wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want any accidental power loss. Two sets of outputs are fed by the gain stage, and gain is set on each channel with a rotary 9-position knob, with a range from zero to +40dB in 5dB steps. These would normally feed FOH and monitors respectively. The third set of outputs is on the front, independent of gain; these are intended for recording or OB scenarios. These are transformer isolated outputs fixed at -6dB, and provide perfect clean audio from the inputs, whatever else is occurring, thanks to the complete galvanic isolation. Sonically they are not discernibly different from the main outs. Other input switches provide individual phantom power with accompanying LED and remote sensing, and a useful 30Hz filter (again with a LED). The circuitry cleverly senses the presence of phantom power on the electronic outputs, and phantom is supplied to the inputs on a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;logical-OR basisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; with the switches. The LED indicates phantom present in either scenario. Meanwhile, the filters switch with no clicks or pops and clean things up for all ensuing processes and signal paths, with no degradation of the signal. At the top of each of the eight strips is a useful foursegment three-colour LED meter (showing Output level post-gain) with green indicators showing signal present at -15dB and 0dB, with yellow warning of +12dB and red showing cause for concern at +21dB. There is also a latching Solo button with LED on each channel that feeds the headphone circuit. The headphone output appears as a standard stereo jack socket on the front with accompanying level knob,

The Revolution Continues.

In 2000, the model 101 helped fuel a revolution. When people took professional recording into their own hands, it was there with all of the quality and performance of a high-end mic preamplifier, but with a price that made it available to the masses. 8 years later, and the cause moves forward with the newly redesigned m101. With its impressive list of new features, the m101 is ready to give any mic preamplifier a run for its money. Consider the new audio signal path with 0.5% precision metal film resistors, 12 position gold plated rotary gain switch, a built-in universal AC input module, or our exclusive RIBBON mic mode - and the picture becomes clear: This is now a fully professional, state of the art precision mic preamp that roundly outperforms anything in its class. All this at the same affordable price of the original model 101.

with plenty of grunt to enable signal checking in noisy environments. Another sensible provision is that of the scribble strip underneath the XLRs and channel strips of the front panel, with large numbering and space to scrawl a clue as to the signal. On both front and rear inputs, channel 8â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s XLR is labelled also as Media Split. This is a clever feature, useful in broadcast situations for press feeds and other multiple distribution situations, which sends the signal in input 8 to all 16 outputs on the rear. This is enabled with a small recessed button adjacent to the rear input eight socket, accompanied by a LED, while a LED on the front also shows the status of this circuit. Also, alongside each row of outputs is a small recessed button (again with a LED) for Pin 1 ground lift. This could be a useful problem solver when a mystery hum or buzz occurs, and the design shows good understanding of real world situations by providing separate ground lift for each of the two sets of outputs. Klark Teknik has again come up with a solid design; the SQ1 Splitter is a highly useable solution for many potential users, at a sensible price (UKÂŁ750 + VAT). The manual is excellent; the design layout is straightforward and logical, all controls are accompanied by LEDs where possible, and the overall impression is of a superb unit designed to make life easier. â&#x2013;

ProS

Simple; reliable; clean sounding; good design; well-featured; good value.

CoNS

Could do with a thicker front panel and thicker rack ears.

Contact KlarK tEKNiK, UK: Website: www.ktsquareone.com

t t t t

t t t From podcast to concert hall, the m101 brings the build quality, refinement and performance to t revolutionize any recording facility. t

Audio signal path uses 0.5% precision metal film resistors 12 position gold plated rotary gain switch Higher performance output line driver amplifier and HPF amplifier RIBBON mic mode (also great for dynamic mics)- Relay bypass of phantom power decoupling capacitors, increased input impedance, and 48V lockout. Wide 10-75dB gain range Three output connectors: XLR balanced, TRS balanced and TS unbalanced Bold and bombproof laser-etched black anodized frontpanel Sealed gold contact relay for HI-Z input switching Built in power supply / no wall-wart!

JO UIF 6, "TQFO .FEJB -UE t XXX BTQFO NFEJB DPN t XXX HSBDFEFTJHO DPN

April 2008

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P o w e r â&#x20AC;˘ D e t a i l â&#x20AC;˘ G r a27 ce

review

ART TubeFire 8 If you are a manufacturer of outboard equipment at any level, it seems that you need to have some form of 8-channel mic preamp in your product range these days. JON THORNTON ﬁnds his way through the permutations available on this box.

n the interest of product differentiation we’ve seen any number of takes on the available permutations of the 8-channel mic pre-amp — with or without dynamics processing, with or without digital interfacing options, with or without some form of internal summing mixer, solid-state or valve based designs — you get the picture. Throwing its hat into the ring with the TubeFire 8 is ART. The short summary, based on the above, is: valve-based design, basic summing capability, no dynamics processing, and built-in A-D/D-A conversion using IEEE 1394 for interfacing with a computer. So far so good, but nothing that really reaches out and grabs you — until you see the price (UK£449 inc. VAT). With a street price a little below that, you’re looking at £50 per channel for mic preamplification, with an 8-channel FireWire interface thrown in. All of which leaves you looking for the catch… First impressions of are of solidly built unit, weighing in at just under 6kg and tightly packaged into a 1u. Front and rear rack mount points are provided and that’s sensible given its weight. The next thing that strikes you is, given the presence of all those tubes, a marked lack of any form of ventilation — which makes its name seem a little prophetic and slightly alarming. In reality, the unit doesn’t seem to run that hot and, yes, there are actually four socketed Chinese 12AX7s inside, each doing the duty for two input channels. Inputs on the rear panel are via eight XLR / ¼-inch TRS combo connectors, the two input options per channel only differentiated by the input impedance (6.4kohms for XLR and 20kohms for the TRS jack). Each input channel has an associated balanced output on TRS jack, with operating levels switchable between +4dBm and -10dBV. Two 6-pin FireWire 400 ports and external Word clock in and thru on BNC connectors (no switch for internal termination on the input though) complete the rear panel. On the front panel, each of the eight inputs has a gain control (ranged between +20dB and +60dB), a -20dB pad, a LPF (100Hz at 6dB/octave), and an output level control that incorporates up to 10dB of additional gain. Additionally, the first two channels have a high impedance input on the front for DI use. A four segment LED bargraph meters the signal — somewhat curiously the first three segments show signal post the output level control (and therefore just pre the A-D stage), while the final clip indicator shows signal clipping at both the preamp stage and the output stage. This sounds strange in theory, but works reasonably well in practice. The dual gain stage also means that you can determine whatever relationship you like between 0dBFS and input gain — particularly if you want to drive the tube stage a little harder in the search for some ‘crunch’. Phantom power is switchable, not per channel, but in blocks of four channels at a time — the first real sign of cost28

cutting/front panel real estate saving. At this point, it’s worth looking at the A-D/D-A facilities available, all of which are centred around that FireWire connection. Hooking the unit up to a computer is relatively painless and trouble-free (at least it was on a Mac, I didn’t have the opportunity to try it with a PC). PC users will have to install a supplied driver to see the interface, Mac users can just plug and play, with most functions available through the Audio MIDI Setup application in OS X. The TubeFire’s own internal sample clock is set by software only (in this case AMS) and selecting the desired sample rate from a pull down menu lights a corresponding front panel LED. One slightly curious thing about this is that it ‘stacks’ — in other words all of the LEDs light up if 96kHz (the highest supported rate from a choice of four) is selected. ART’s claim is that this makes it easier to read from a distance, something I’m not so sure about. The cynic in me also spots that the bargraph employed here is the same as the one used for signal metering… The unit can also be synced to an external Word clock source. Setting this up when using a Mac requires a dedicated piece of control panel software, whose only function is to select either internal or external Word clock for the connected unit. PC users find this function as part of a more wide-ranging control panel application. Setting the unit to external Word clock results in no indication on the front panel of the device though and the manual simply tells you to set the sample rate of the unit (using the software panel) to the rate expected via the external clock input, and this is what is displayed on the front panel. So, it’s perfectly possible to set the unit to expect 44.1 kHz externally, feed it 48kHz and get absolutely no visual indication of a mis-clock — not something I’m terrifically happy about. Assuming, though, that everything is happy clockwise, getting audio into and out of an application is very straightforward and I had no problems with the bundled copy of Cubase LE that ships with the unit. And it’s the fact that the connection between application and TubeFire is duplex that accounts for its final bit of functionality. At the far right of the front panel is a very primitive monitor mixer. Four latching pushbuttons determine what appears on the balanced outputs on the rear of the unit. In logical pairs, this can be either a pair of preamplifier signals or a pair of the eight outputs available from the computer. The selected permutation of inputs and returns is also internally mixed together, and available as a headphone mix on the front of the unit. A centreresolution

detented level control allows this mix to be either mono (turning left) or stereo (turning right). In stereo mode, odd channels or computer outputs are panned hard left, even channels hard right. This sound neat, but the control isn’t terrifically smooth in terms of level adjustment — you get a great deal of level increase in the first 20 degrees of turning, and then not much difference for the remainder of the control’s travel. Perhaps this has something to do with the manual’s advice that the headphone jack could also be used to provide an unbalanced line level signal for monitoring purposes. A dedicated, balanced mix output would have been far preferable. In use, the TubeFire performed more or less as I expected in most areas, but slightly better in others. The preamplifiers are perfectly adequate, although they get noisy very quickly when exploring the upper reaches of gain available — quiet recordings with low output ribbons are not really going to suit it. You can also choose to drive the tube stage gently or hard, with varying amounts of colour as a result although, again, there’s a very fine line between warmth and unpleasantness here. There’s nowhere near the degree of ‘driveability’ and control that something like the SPL Gainstation has in this respect. The surprise, though, was the A-D/D-A on offer. Considering that this feature is almost ‘thrown in’, the quality here is great particularly the lack of HF brittleness and the ability to capture LF detail and depth. That’s something that cheaper convertors often suffer from. I found myself in two minds about the TubeFire. At one level it’s very accomplished and works well. It also feels very solidly put together and is cheap as chips. But for some users there are those little niggles, like not knowing whether your clock is valid, or the lack of a balanced mix output. For some users these won’t be an issue, and if so on price alone the TubeFire 8 is worth checking out. As the saying goes: you pays your money… ■

ProS

Well priced; solid build quality; very nice sounding a-d conversion; useful monitor section.

CoNS

lack of balanced mix output; a little noisy when stretched; some uncertainty about clock status.

Contact art, US: Website: www.artproaudio.com UK, Sonic8: +44 8701 657 456

April 2008

review

DPA 4017 Representing something of a further departure in the ever widening product range of the Danish brand, DPAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s short shotgun shoots from the hip in terms of performance.

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JON THORNTON

April 2008

review

PA’s 4017 is the company’s first excursion into the short shotgun market. Targeted at a variety of applications, including cameramounted positions, fixed positions at sports facilities or strung on the end of a boom for TV, ENG or film sound duties, it’s up against some firmly established competition in this area from the likes of Sennheiser, and also from some relatively new entrants, such as Schoeps and Røde. You can already guess that, being DPA, it hasn’t chosen to compete on price, so what does it bring to the party to make it stand out from the crowd? As with much in life, it’s the little things that make the difference. In this case, though, it isn’t size that matters so much as weight — especially when the microphone in question is sitting on the end of a fish-pole at maximum extension. With a body engineered out of aluminium, the 4017 weighs in at a featherweight 71g. It’s quite diminutive too, when compared with the Sennheiser K6/ME66 combo and Røde NT2G used for comparison purposes, measuring only 210 mm in length. Internally, the 4017 features a capsule that employs a 19mm diaphragm and a permanently polarised back-plate. Pickup pattern is super-cardioid, achieved by using an interference tube design. Unlike both the Sennheiser and the Rode, phantom power is the only powering option for the transformerless output stage. The mic ships in a familiar DPA plastic case, and comes complete with a fixed clip and a foam windshield. Although given the microphone’s intended application, it seems a shame that you have to pay extra for a suspension mount — an absolute necessity when working it on a boom. An internal, third-order high pass filter with a 50Hz roll-off is always in circuit to remove the worst of any subsonic noise, but the 4017 also features two

April 2008

additional, switchable filters. The first of these is an additional high pass filter (300Hz at 6dB/octave) for dealing with wind or handling noise, or for taming the very marked proximity effect when booming in close. The second filter is a high frequency shelving boost (+4dB at 8kHz), which DPA claims can counter any HF attenuation caused by using third-party windshields/fluffies. Both of these filters are actuated by rotating rings on the body of the microphone itself, and these have a very firm, positive feel about them. There’s little danger that you would accidentally set or unset them, and they are massively more convenient than fiddling around with a screwdriver/ ballpoint pen/ random pointed implement. I compared the 4017 to the K6/ME66 and the NTG-2 in a closed acoustic (studio live room) and in an outdoor situation. First impressions are that the directionality and focus of the 4017 are at least as good as the other microphones — something I had wondered about given the comparatively shorter length of the interference tube. In the closed acoustic — not a shotgun microphones ideal environment, particularly if there’s a distinctive room tone -- the 4017 also worked very well. It seemed to sound far less ‘roomy’ than the other two, with less noticeable comb filtering artefacts. Walking around the microphone revealed the reason why, as the off-axis response of the 4017 is remarkably smooth

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sounding, and there also seemed to be much less noticeable rear lobe response. So much so, that DPA’s suggestion that the 4017 would be equally at home in a studio or live sound application seems very fair. The downside to this comes at the expense of a certain lack of fullness to the sound — particularly on voice work at more than about 3 feet away. While this might help in a small room, it hinders it a little when used outdoors, where both the Sennheiser and the Røde seem to pull more depth out of voices. In terms of other performance, there’s little to choose from — all three microphones have nice healthy outputs, although the 4017 seemed just a touch noisier than the others for subjectively equivalent record levels. And of course, there’s the price. In this respect the DPA weighs in heavier than both of the other two — although at a similar level to other high-end alternatives. But what you get for this is a microphone that acts like a short shotgun in terms of directionality, but doesn’t seem to sound like one in terms of offaxis problems. This alone makes it more flexible in application than its main competitors and its size and weight are sure to win it friends in the hearts and biceps of the location recording community. DPA’s first entry to this category is a real contender. ■

ProS

Compact size; light weight; very smooth off axis response; filter options and switches useful and easy to change.

CoNS

Expensive; no shockmount as standard; lacks a little lF weight with some voices at distance.

Contact dPa miCroPHoNES, dENmarK: Website: www.dpamicrophones.com

review

URS Strip Pro When replacing hardware with software it’s nice to be offered the option to install software emulations of hardware you could never have owned. URS offers a desk-full of exotic stuff; NEIL WILKES creates his own strip.

RS has developed into a strong but low-key plug-in brand after arriving with its Classic Console EQ plug-ins featuring emulations of various Neve, API and SSL parametric and graphic EQs, as well as its Classic Console Compressors package, again with Neve and SSL models recreated. This latest offering is the jewel in the crown though, as it is a channel strip par excellence combining everything you are ever likely to require from such a plug-in in the one interface. There’s also a cut-back version as a bonus for those less-than-critical situations, but it is the Pro version that is truly outstanding. What makes it special is the sound of it. URS is not saying how it is all done but it is not convolution in the way I understand it and neither does it sound like a simple case of overlaying an EQ curve created from the original equipment. The result is at the same time too subtle at one end of the scale and too fat and analogue sounding at the other end for it to be that simple. Installation is extremely straightforward in PC Native VST format. You will need an iLOK though, and even the demo licenses require this as well. Simply download your license; run the installer, reboot and you are ready. On my DAW, running Nuendo 4.1 on a Quad-Core 32

Intel Q6700 CPU, a single instance of this takes up a mere couple of percentage points — I can run 30 tracks of these with 24-bit audio at 40% CPU usage. To put this into some sort of perspective, let’s have a look at what you get for your money (TDM/ R TA S / A U / V S T US$1499; native R TA S / A U / V S T US$749). It’s a four-stage plug-in. There’s an input stage with 30 different options available ranging from ‘Digital’, which is effectively a bypass mode, going through various console inputs (the years correspond to the year each of the real-life counterparts were introduced at the AES, so the well versed can figure most of them out for themselves), tape types (1/2inch and 2-inch at various speeds), and British, US and German transformer stages with and without tape stages and Tube input. The control slider allows for 0 to 200% of saturation, with 100% representing the original. This gives the user a range of options from extremely subtle to heavy saturation and in many ways it is the real soul of this plug-in for me. The compressor is the first thing you will need to set up as whenever you select one of the 60+ starting points from the drop-down button, it will automatically select the optimal input stage for that particular compressor type. For me, this is the flaw in the plug-in and I would be much happier to be able to set the input stage first, and then the compressor afterwards. The current version doesn’t allow this but the good news is that an ‘unlock’ option will available in a forthcoming update. Again, as with the input stage, the compressor types include AES introduction years for the console compressors and various other outboard types that will be instantly recognisable to most users. For example, if you read ‘Opto2a’, it can really only mean one model and the same applies to ‘Stress 3’ and ‘Fet 4/8/12/20/ALL’ so you can easily decide on the type of compressor you want. This stage can naturally be set to pre or post EQ by means of a toggle switch and there are resolution

the traditional controls for Ratio, Attack, Release, Threshold and Gain Makeup. A very nice feature is the knee adjustment via a dial rather than the more common (and less flexible) toggle switch. Gain Reduction is displayed on its own meter (0 to 20dB) and the input/output metering is done by the plasma bars at the top of the plug-in. A red light will appear if the plug-in is clipped, although this is not theoretically possible in a floating point host. As with real analogue equipment, this plug-in also has its own ‘sweet spot’ that varies slightly from emulation to emulation but it is best to keep the output out of the danger area for a generally sweeter sound. If you do go over, then the red light can be cancelled with a mouse click. The EQ is superb because of its combination of flexibility, tonal quality and ease of use. There are five types on offer — 1951, 1967, 1970, 1972 and 1980 and there are no prizes for working out the original equipment (Pultec, API, Neve, Neve and SSL) and you can either lock all four bands to one type with a switch, or else use a different type on each band. If a Pultec Low End with a Neve sheen on the top shelf floats your particular boat then this is easily achieved. The top and bottom bands are switchable between shelving and bell type filters. Assigned optional slopes on the shelving types should be considered for a future revision, in my opinion. Finally we have the Hi and Lo pass filters and these can be pre or post compressor or set for sidechain (currently only in the TDM version). There are also signal flow icons to the left side of the interface with each section having an on/off button. Bringing up the rear are separate input and output level dials. I used this strip exclusively on an entire mix, and was blown away by the sheer flexibility of it — from bass drums to vocals. You have to be prepared to spend some time getting to learn the often subtle differences between the models though. There are some very useful starting presets for this in addition to the individual model presets, and there is also a user-based website for posting and acquiring presets at www.ursstrippro.com/ The Strip Pro has moved straight to the top of my ‘go to’ list and I suspect it will do so for you too once you have tried it. ■

ProS

all the classic sounds at your fingertips in one plug-in; very ﬂexible — subtle to sledgehammer; CPU efficient; separate lite version also included.

CoNS

None that i can think of.

EXtraS

the UrS m series motorCity Equaliser claims to recreate the 7-band passive equalisers used exclusively by motown

staff engineers during the motown era. the sliders on the early units were apparently unreliable so motown’s chief technical engineer mike mclean built ‘Brick House’ custom modified clones using stepped rotary switches on each band for added reliability and a variable gain booster amplifier for gain level matching.

Contact UrS, US: Website: www.ursplugins.com UK, Unity audio: +44 1440 785843

April 2008

Discover New Horizons In Audio Amsterdam RAI May 17-20, 2008 exhibits l e d u c at i o n a l events l technical pa per s l demo r ooms wo r k s h o p s l a pplication seminar s l br oadcast events ar chiving fo r u m l t e ch n i c a l tour s

live sound events

review

JZ Microphones Black Hole In a time of knock offs and copies it’s refreshing to see a mic design that nobody would dare to copy. JON THORNTON rises above his preconceived ideas and expectations and mounts a Black Hole…

‘P

olarised’ is perhaps the word best used to describe the variety of responses I’ve had from people the first time they set eyes on this microphone — and I’m not talking about back-plates here. It seems that people either love or hate its looks, with no middle ground. But before acknowledging that beauty is after all, only skin deep, a little background. JZ Microphones was established in September 2007 in Latvia and the initials reflect the chief designer behind the microphones, Juris Zarins. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because you would have heard about him with regard to Violet Designs — another company not renowned for conservatism when it comes to the external appearance of their products. In fact, sharp-eyed readers may have spotted the Black Hole’s distinctive shape featuring briefly in the Violet line-up some while ago. To cut a long story short, JZ Microphones was spun out of Scruples (the manufacturing base for Violet Design) as a separate brand, with its eye firmly on the high end of the market. The Black Hole is the company’s first product — tweaked and tuned from the original (and now discontinued) Violet Designs version. The reason for the name is obvious; it’s not often that you can see right through a microphone thanks to the oblong shaped cut-out in the middle of its flat rectangular body. Two metal nubs inside this cut-out act as the anchor points for an equally unusual looking clip — best described as a string of rubber beads that you squeeze together, position in the hole and then release. The ends then clamp onto these nubs to secure the clip to the microphone. It’s definitely a look, and the idea is to provide a degree of damping and shock isolation to the assembly. In practice though, this seems to be a case of form over function, as a 414 XLS in a more traditional suspension mount proved far more effective in suppressing thumps and mechanical vibrations. The top half of the microphone is a lot more traditional, at least externally, with a flat black head grille giving a surprisingly compact business end to the microphone. Inside this assembly lurk two completely 34

separate opposing capsules, rather than the shared back-plate design often seen in multipattern microphones. Each of these externally polarised capsules feature a 27mm diaphragm, coated with a specially mixed alloy using a patented variable sputtering system. Internally the electronics are discrete Class A. The whole assembly looks and feels extremely well engineered with one notable exception. The pattern select switch is a flimsy looking and feeling three-position slider located inside that rectangular cut-out. It somehow feels slightly at odds with the rest of the microphone, in terms of build quality and aesthetics. It also makes it quite hard to see which of the three available patterns (omni, cardioid and fig-8) are selected. Quoted equivalent noise for the Black Hole is 7.5dBA (although I thought that in space, nobody could hear you scream…) While subjectively this figure seems a touch on the ambitious side, it’s not a noisy microphone by any stretch. But, put up against a 414 XLS, and it becomes immediately apparent that the Black Hole could really do with a high-pass filter, as it seems really susceptible to air movement and air-con rumble. Still, low frequency extension isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and after bringing in the console’s filters to curb my monitors’ wilder excursions, I set about some tests with male vocals and spoken word. It’s immediately apparent that the microphones are poles apart. On the cardioid pattern the 414 exposes the voice mercilessly when used close up, while the Black Hole softens it up slightly in the mid range, and seems to add some high frequency presence while rounding off the hard edges. If anything, this tendency seems to get more pronounced as the distance to the microphone increases. While the 414 tells you everything about the direct and reflected sound (not always nice), the Black Hole seems to dip out some of the room’s more annoying modes, while still tracking the detail in the voice superbly. resolution

Switching to a 12-string acoustic, and the roles are reversed somewhat. Here, the openness of the 414 gives plenty of harmonic detail, and when switched to the omni pattern allows a nice blend of direct and reflected sound. This is harder to achieve with the Black Hole; there’s a slight tendency for the low mids to either sound overbearing or lacking in weight depending on placement. Finding an ideal spot is far trickier than with the 414, although I concede that this could simply come down to familiarity. Speaking of which, there is a familiarity to the Black Hole’s sound that suddenly strikes me — it sounds far more like a U87 than a 414, with the same softness in the mid range without the loss of clarity. Ditching the 414 in favour of a U87 Ai showed that my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me and they are quite similar sounding, although the U87 seems to have a slightly more elevated HF response than the Black Hole does. Which is, in my mind, praise indeed for JZ Microphones’ first product (about UK£999 inc. VAT). I have to admit that I’m still not a fan of the looks but it does look better in the flesh than in pictures though. And I’ve been won over by its sound, which goes to prove that you can’t judge a book by its cover (Or, more precisely, a mic by how it looks. Ed). I’m not about to flog my U87s and replace them with Black Holes but if, like me, you didn’t take to the look straight away, you need to give this mic a fair hearing before you judge it. ■

ProS

Unusual looks; very ﬂattering sound, particularly on male vocals; works well close in and at distance.

CoNS

Unusual looks; slightly ﬂakey pattern select switch; funky clip arrangement not as effective as traditional shockmount; could really use a HPF.

EXtraS

JZ microphones’ Black Hole SE (BH-2) is a fixed cardioid pattern mic with a lower price than the original Black Hole. the Black Hole SE has one large, true electrostatic capsule inside the compact head made by ‘golden drops’ technology.

Contact JZ miCroPHoNES Website: www.jzmic.com UK, Funky Junk: +44 207 281 4478

April 2008

review

RND Portico 5032 Representing something of a medley of two existing Portico units, the 5032 brings together a pre with a slimmed down EQ. JON THORNTON says that on balance it’s actually a pretty tidy performer and package.

here’s only so much that you can fit into the available real estate of a 1u high, half rackmount width box. You could opt for a couple of channels of well-featured mic preamps. Alternatively, you could fit a rather nice five band EQ into the space. But for those of us sitting on the fence, as it were, Rupert Neve Designs offers a compromise in the form of the 5032. Based on the same design employed in the 5012 dual mic pre from the same range, the 5032 gives an identically specified single channel of preamplification coupled with a 3-band equaliser. The rear panel offers separate mic and line level inputs on XLR, with a line level output also on XLR. TRS jacks provide the proprietary Portico bus outputs that enable particular summing configurations to be built using a variety of Portico modules, and power is via an external PSU. All inputs and outputs are balanced using custom wound transformers, although like its sibling the 5032’s microphone input is actually electronically balanced, which then feeds a physical transformer (post coarse-gain), and then feeds the remainder of the signal path. Front panel controls for the mic pre are virtually identical to the 5012. Coarse gain is provided by a stepped rotary control, giving up to 66dB of gain in 6dB increments. A trim control then gives +/-6dB of fine-tuning. A continuously variable high-pass filter (20Hz to 250Hz at 12dB/octave) is provided, along with phantom power and phase reverse switches. Signal metering is via a small eight-segment LED bargraph that shows output level (post EQ) only. The main output can be muted by a front panel button, although this doesn’t affect either the meter or the Portico bus output. Physical inputs (mic or line-level) are selected by another illuminated pushbutton. If the line-level input is selected, it’s useful to note that it can access all of the signal chain except for the coarse gain control (trim, HPF, phase, etc.), as well as the rather enigmatically named ‘Silk’ control. This reduces the amount of negative feedback employed in the output April 2008

stage of the amplifier, resulting in a sound that has a greater harmonic distortion component at lower frequencies, but also gives rise to a more ‘vintage’ tonal balance. Moving on, the EQ section is a logically laid out, fairly conventional 3-band design, with shelving high and low bands, and single peaking mid band. The low shelf has a fixed turnover frequency of 160Hz with 15dB of cut and boost available, while the high shelf can switch its turnover frequency between 8kHz and 16kHz. The mid band offers a range of 80Hz to 800Hz, with a 10x multiplier switch effectively extending its overall range between 80Hz and 8kHz. Q is variable and ranges from 0.6 to 3.0. A single pushbutton switches all three bands in or out of circuit. As a mic preamplifier, the 5032 performs identically to a 5012. You have to remember that this is a modern Rupert Neve design, so anybody expecting it to sound like a 1073 is going to be disappointed. In ‘default’ mode (i.e. ‘Silk’ switch turned off), the sound is detailed and smooth, with just the smallest hint of ‘bloom’ around the low frequencies to remind you that those transformers are there. What isn’t there is the mid-range crunch you’d associate with something like a 1073, and a much sweeter, more open top end that captures transient detail well, but flatters sources rather than brutally exposing them. Engaging the ‘Silk’ mode seems to add a little more colouration to the low mids, with perhaps a little less HF extension — more ‘vintage’ in sound, but still not quite as obvious as a 1073 or the like. The EQ section, despite its relative simplicity, is a delight to use. The low and high shelves are actually quite surgical in their action, with slopes around the 6dB/octave mark. Used in moderation they work well to slightly thicken or thin out a vocal line, or to add just a touch more ‘air’ to a drum overhead. Used more aggressively and they can shape the sound in quite an extreme fashion, but still sound reasonably musical. Range choices for the single mid-band are also well thought out. The default range of 80–800Hz is pretty much where you need it to deal with resolution

obnoxious room modes or cardboard box drum resonances. Flipping the 10x button then puts you right in the frame for some careful de-essing or a gentle presence lift on vocals. In fact, having started out the review assuming I was going to find only three bands of EQ quite restrictive at times, this was never the case. OK, when hugely corrective EQ is needed to dig yourself out of a hole of somebody else’s making (Naturally, never one’s own. Ed), you might just start wishing for another parametric band. But for tracking purposes it’s probably all you are ever going to need. Even in mixdown the 5032 is a useful addition to the outboard arsenal. Remember that the line input is also transformer balanced and has access to the ‘Silk’ function? It proved just the job for very gently smoothing and calming down a female vocal track that was beginning to sound just that little bit too ‘digital’ when mixed in the box. If a single channel of preamplification is all you are ever going to need, the 5032 should be high on your auditioning list. The EQ is much, much more useful than it might appear at first glance, and the preamp, while not the most transparent around, flatters most sources you throw at it. In fact, given the range of rackmount options available for the Portico range, I’d go as far as to say that a pair of 5032s racked together would be more than worth the additional cost when compared with a two channel 5012. ■

ProS

Flattering, open, musical sounding pre; ‘Silk’ option gives some tonal ﬂexibility; EQ well thought out and highly effective.

CoNS

only one channel per unit; very occasionally you might find three EQ bands a little limiting.

Contact rNd, US: Website: www.rupertneve.com UK, Sonic distribution: +44 845 500 2500

monitor benchtest

KRK Exposé E8B KEITH HOLLAND

he KRK Exposé E8B is a medium-sized, twoway active loudspeaker consisting of an 8-inch (200mm) woofer having a woven Kevlar/Rohacell (hard foam) sandwich construction and a 1-inch (25mm) tweeter with a beryllium/aluminium composite inverted dome. The drivers are mounted in vertical orientation on a very heavilyconstructed ported cabinet with non-flat walls. The power amplifiers, electronic crossover and equalisation circuits are all contained within the cabinet with the heatsinks forming part of the sides of the cabinet which, along with the non-flat cabinet walls and yellow woofer cone, gives the E8B a very distinctive look. The rear panel contains the usual IEC mains socket and switch along with an XLR-type balanced-line input socket and a number of clearly laid out, easy to use controls. These are HF Shelf, with seven positions from -1dB to +2dB at 10kHz, HF Level Adjust, with seven positions from -2dB to +1dB at 1.9kHz, LF Adjust with three settings for ‘whole space’, ‘half space’ and ‘quarter space’ (-3dB at 40Hz, 48Hz and 62Hz respectively) and System Level Adjust with a

range of -30dB to +6dB. This review was conducted with the HF controls set to 0dB and the LF control set to ‘whole space’. The two power amplifiers are both rated at 120W and are claimed to endow a single loudspeaker with a maximum SPL of 112dB on music programme. The cabinet has external dimensions of 490mm high by 370mm wide by 355mm deep, and weighs a substantial 30.4kg. Figure 1 shows the on-axis frequency response of the KRK E8B. The response is seen to lie within ±4dB from 48Hz to 20kHz with a 6th order lowfrequency roll-off that reaches -10dB at around 35Hz. The response is generally smooth except for the frequency range between 400Hz and 1.2kHz which has a raised response with a sharp dip at 600Hz. Also shown on Figure 1 is the harmonic distortion produced by the loudspeaker with a reproduce level equivalent to 90dB SPL at 1m distance. The distortion is remarkably low with a peak to -40dB (1%) second harmonic and -46dB (0.5%) third harmonic at 60Hz falling rapidly to better than 56dB (0.18%) between 100Hz and 5kHz. The offaxis responses are shown in Figures 2 (horizontal)

Fig. 1. on-axis Frequency response and Harmonic distortion.

and 3 (vertical). There is a dip at 2kHz in the vertical off-axis responses that is due to interference between the outputs of the woofer and the tweeter at the crossover frequency; this is characteristic of most designs using spatially-separated drivers. Otherwise the off-axis response is fairly well controlled with only slight narrowing in the upper frequency range of the woofer. The step response of the E8B is shown in Figure 4. This plot demonstrates reasonable time alignment between the drivers with the mid frequency components rising some 600 microseconds behind the high frequencies. Also evident is some midfrequency ringing that is probably due to the sharp dip in response at 600Hz noted above. The acoustic source position plot (Figure 5) shows the low frequency components of transient signals to be effectively radiating from a position 3.5m behind the mid and high frequencies. This is a consequence of the phase shifts due to the 6th order roll-off. Figure

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monitor benchtest

Fig. 2. Horizontal off-axis response.

Fig. 4. Step response.

Fig. 6. Power Cepstrum.

Fig. 3. vertical off-axis response.

Fig. 5. acoustic Source Position.

Fig. 7. Waterfall Plot.

6 shows the power cepstrum response. This plot shows little activity except for a slight echo after about 550 microseconds. Figure 7 is the waterfall plot for the KRK. The most notable feature of this plot is slow decay at around 600 to 700Hz that corresponds to the sharp dip in frequency response and time-domain ringing noted above. The decay at low frequencies is, however, very fast for a loudspeaker with a 6th order roll-off. Overall the KRK E8B is a good performer. The harmonic distortion levels are excellent and the time

domain responses show evidence of a fairly good transient response. However, these attributes are let down somewhat by the uneven mid-frequency response that is equally evident as ringing in the time domain. It is interesting to compare these results with those published for an earlier model, the KRK V8 (Studio Sound, May 2000). The low-frequency alignment and cabinet design is quite different, with the E8B having a more rapid decay at low frequencies, and the tweeter is also different. However, the woofer appears to be common to both loudspeakers and the

same mid-range response problem is clearly evident in both designs. As noted in the earlier review, considering the frequency range within which these aberrations lie, and the general smoothness of the response elsewhere, it is probable that these response irregularities would be audible on many types of programme material. â&#x2013;

Contact KrK, US: Website: www.krksys.com

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craft

Craig Silvey Portishead and The Coral are just two of Craig Silvey’s recent projects and they illustrate the ﬂexibility and ingenuity of the man. He tells GEORGE SHILLING why manual mixes are important.

raig Silvey grew up in San Francisco, he played keyboards in bands and learned trumpet, but deciding that he needed to earn some money, he found a trainee job at Patrick Gleeson’s Different Fur Studios where his tasks included sanding the sauna! He also worked at Russian Hill where he struck up a relationship with George Massenburg when working on an Aaron Neville record. Massenburg was instrumental in getting Silvey a job at Skywalker Sound on the Scoring Stage, when they went there to record a Linda Ronstadt album. He worked on a variety of projects there, including film scores, and even a number of classical recordings for the Harmonia Mundi label, which was a regular client. He also began freelancing on sessions, in particular with Walter Afanasieff — he worked as engineer on three Mariah Carey albums. In the early 1990s he ran his own studio in San Francisco 38

called Toast, which featured a Neve 8026 (which he currently has in storage as he is a big fan of 80 series Neves). A long-time Anglophile, eleven years ago he moved to London, after meeting his wife who worked for the label of an album he was working on. Silvey gained particular respect in the UK for the sound of the co-produced The Magic Numbers (eponymous) album, and he worked with Ben And Jason, causing something of a buzz in the industry. He recently produced The Coral’s acclaimed latest album, and has just mixed the new and eagerly awaited Portishead album. He has also been working with Baxter Dury (son of Ian), and completed an album with French artist Alister. Craig is currently planning a permanent move to Barcelona, where he intends to live and build his own studio. Resolution caught up with him in his regular haunt, the Neve 8048 room at Konk Studios in London. (photos www.recordproduction.com) resolution

Who was your biggest inﬂuence? George Massenburg was instrumental in how I still do things today, in the way of bands. Certainly that’s the reason why I like these desks, because traditionally he’s very much a ‘Class A’ kind of guy. But doing the Harmonia Mundi sessions really gave me more knowledge of that side. Was that small ensembles? A little bit of everything, we did some chamber stuff, and some Gregorian chant with five vocalists doing weird harmonic stuff. Isn’t classical recording a fairly standardised procedure? How did you learn that? I was lucky enough to watch Brad Michel who was the engineer when [Harmonia Mundi’s] Robina Young was the producer, and there were a few other engineers that they used, so I got to soak it all in. It’s a completely different concept from how you do rock and roll; you’ve got a couple of mics, and if you want something louder you move them closer to the mics or tell them to play louder. Were you following the score? Well luckily being a trumpet player I was ‘classically trained’, and today when I produce records and we do string sessions, all that stuff really comes in handy. I usually get somebody else to come in [and April 2008

craft write string arrangements] but on the day I’m good at making changes, and I’m a good translator for the band.

What tricks did you learn from George Massenburg? Well, there’s a snare drum microphone technique that I’ve only ever seen him do, and that I use consistently now. It’s a classic one where I’ll position the mic and the assistant will come and change it because it looks so weird. The snare drum mic is set parallel across the skin, just outside the rim, it’s not even over the snare. You can bring it in if you want a little more ring. It’s pointing across the surface. I use a 57 but I think he used a Sennheiser, a handheld mic, maybe a 431? I think it’s more of a philosophy as well, he taught me about the concept of trying to be as purist as possible, and that all things are cumulative. Every single step of the way, be certain that you’re doing the right thing and your record will come out sounding a lot better. Listening to one thing isn’t enough, if you put something through, say, a Mackie, you might go, that’s alright, but if you do it all through a Mackie it’s probably not going to sound as good as if you did it all through something like this [Neve]. And I found that when I came over here, that sonic purity hadn’t really hit, unlike now when everybody’s into their Class A and mic pres. When I started, SSLs were king, over there as well as here, and you found that George was one of the few people who weren’t using mic pres on consoles, whether they were new Neves or whatever. You always had a bank of mic pres that you brought

April 2008

in. At Skywalker we had a Neve VR, and you made sure that you took all the things out of the path, you switched all the stuff to the monitor path, and don’t use the routing matrix because that’s going through an extra bit, use the direct outs because it’s a much cleaner path. His theory is that all those little things make a difference. At times I think that by doing that method your life is much easier, you don’t need to put seven corrective things to get to the final place, a lot of times it just comes up and it sounds right.

Do you EQ much on the way in when recording? No, not too much. Sometimes just a bit of top end, 12k or something like that. Especially if I’m on this desk, because it’s quite sweet. Other than room mics, I don’t really compress. Again, I think that’s probably Massenburg influenced.

resolution

You compress later? In the mix, yes, and I think these days it’s a different world. If you wanted to make a classic 1970s record you just can’t do it. The Coral record, we decided to mix it on this desk, which is unusual, even I don’t generally mix on this, because of the culture of the way records are meant to sound now. And we mixed it to sound classic and the record company freaked out. For all the singles, (not for the album versions), I had to go into an SSL room and remix them, start putting lots of compression on everything, a bit of L2. What do you do differently from Massenburg? At the time that I met George I was really into Public Enemy, and I remember having a conversation with George and him thinking it was the worst music he’d ever heard, it was actually bad for the industry. And I remember thinking, I don’t know if that’s actually

craft a good philosophy, because everything has its place, and the concept of doing the purity thing is only worthwhile if that’s what’s appropriate. At the same time as trying to be as pure as possible, I’m willing to do anything. It’s like classic painters, you can learn to paint classically, then you can throw all those rules out if you want to, and be as abstract as you want. And a lot of times you get people today who only know the abstract.

The Coral had already recorded some acclaimed albums, what did you do differently? I’d been brought in to mix their previous album, but I thought in general they’d done their early 60s skiffle stuff and they were branching into trying to be a bit 69, and the recordings weren’t coming up to it, having a little more atmosphere and a bit more psychedelia. And they didn’t necessarily have that concept. Musically, you can’t really mess with them, because all of them are multi-instrumentalists and they’re all extremely talented. So, I thought really what they needed was a bit more soundscaping. They’re all big Doors fans, and as a band live it’s so big and huge, and on their records previously that stuff to me sounded quite small. That’s part of their charm. But I knew that they wanted to branch out, and [have] a little bit more depth, and that was where the match came. And they’re great lads. You recorded at Wheeler End, what was the process? There’s a small studio next to the control room, but across the grass is a 16th century barn, and the sound is absolutely gorgeous. One of my concepts, because they’re such good players — and this is probably the classical element coming through — I thought, let’s record them live, actually start with a pair of room mics, use those amp soaks and try and get a balance that was first the room mics, then feed that stuff in. And then even overdubs, you’d do whatever it was plus the room mics again. So you’d end up with a lot of tracks, but I had a concept of it sounding like it did onstage. And we did half the record like that, and half in the smaller room for the more rocking tunes. Half the record’s more ambient and drifty. It was a perfect place to do it — other than that we did it during the winter, so if you had to go and change anything in the barn you had to run across this field getting soaked. We recorded an album’s worth of stuff, mixed it, and then looked at what we had, and we had the freedom to go back to Wheeler End until we had enough songs, so then we had the B sides as well. If you mixed on the desk here, did you write down settings and recall? No, basically we stemmed everything, and that was it. If the mix wasn’t close, then we just re-did the mix completely. And if it was close and just needed a few changes, the stems could deal with it. For the most part, with The Coral there are only six or seven elements, it’s not too difficult. We tried to be purist, the reverb came from the plate, although I am a huge fan of Altiverb now, and using the echo chambers from Cello studios. Back when I started, a few studios still had [echo chambers], and I thought they were the most gorgeous sounding things, and that’s the best replication I’ve found. How did the Portishead project compare with The Coral? That is the exact opposite really. Again, working with a band who really knows what they want. 40

resolution

April 2008

craft I assume they can do the computer stuff themselves? Yes, the main stuff is done at Geoff’s studio in Bristol, and he’s got a scratchy old DDA desk. The philosophy is the complete opposite, there are no rules. How easy was it to slot into that mindset? It was difficult coming off The Coral, being in charge of it and to switch gears like that. But you quickly get into it. What’s a typical day in the studio with Portishead? It’s a lot of beats being moved around, a lot of stopping and contemplating stuff, doing a few internet searches, talking about how shit one band is, and how shit another band is…! A leisurely pace then? It is, as things change, everyone’s got kids, so we were finishing at seven or eight o’clock at night, which made for some boozy nights in a hotel by myself getting a bit bored. It’s very cerebral, not only discussing the way something sounds, or the emotion that it gives you, but also how it wants to be perceived. They’re not thinking, ooh, we’ll make sure people will like this. It’s more, we want people to have this emotion, and in that way very cerebral. With The Coral, you listen and feel it, it’s more a classic rock thing. And this [Portishead] record is so different from their previous records. It was really important to give it a distinctive sound that was unlike anything they’d done before, or in some ways different from anything anyone else has done before. It’s really tough. For them, they have a real issue, because they were so important to a whole genre, they didn’t want to sound like a parody of themselves, which would be so easy to do. What did you bring to the session? In a lot of ways, they are a threesome with their own ideas, and they’d worked on it for a long time, they needed someone to be there to be their advisor. So it was to come in and sometimes solve arguments, or saying, do you really want to do that? And sometimes getting, ‘oh, maybe not’, and sometimes, ‘yes, definitely’. And also because they’d done all the stuff themselves it was a little haphazard, even just technically they needed someone to focus it in. Was there a point where you stopped recording and started mixing, or did it just become the mix? It sort of just became the mix. We’d get it up to sound half decent, then go, what’s missing? Then there would be some added things, or you try and modify, because a lot of their things had got elements that weren’t being used, that had been cast off, and then they’d say, well maybe we can bring that element back into it now, because it’s not your standard arrangements or production. Some of these songs had completely changed, I’d heard them in demo form a couple of years ago, and they sounded nothing like they did, but some of those elements still existed. And if there were songs that needed something, and there were other songs they didn’t like any more, they’d take a bit and stick it into that.

But you didn’t have an assistant to run off stems…? No, it was stems and I had to do it myself, which was fine, otherwise I’d just be in a hotel. And again, if it wasn’t right, we’d remix it completely, which I don’t mind. In that SSL world of mixes, everything is so precise, and because of Total Recall it makes it feel that you’ve got to spend two days on a mix. Whereas when you know you’re not going to be able to recall you’re a little bit more throwaway, and only spend six hours, knowing you can come back to it, whereas back in the day when studios were so expensive, you really had to feel you were getting it right. Doing it that way, you’re more relaxed, which sometimes means you do more wild and crazy things. I did a French artist Alister and we mixed it at The Way on the Neve, and they’ve got Uptown automation, which I couldn’t fully get my head around, so I found it was best to do it the same way. ■

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resolution

Jerry Boys Combining a career that spans right back to the glory days of the London music scene, Jerry Boys is still at it and current and still adding to his CV with high proﬁle successes. GEORGE SHILLING asks him what matters to him and what doesn’t.

erry Boys decided at 16 that he wanted to become a Television Lighting Technician, but due to the lack of A Levels and his age, the BBC wouldn’t employ him in that capacity. However, the bar was lower for trainee sound technicians, so hoping for a sideways transfer he went off to get the relevant experience before turning 18, and remarkably in 1965 landed a job at Abbey Road, despite having a disagreement regarding technical terms with the interviewer (Jerry claims he was right!) When offered a position, Jerry even made Abbey Road wait a week while he went on holiday. But he soon discovered that is was fun being paid to sit in on sessions with The Beatles and The Shadows, and listening to pop music. Jerry had no musical education or instrumental skills, but he was sharp enough to learn the ability to read a lead-sheet at Abbey Road. He subsequently took a job at Olympic, where Vic Coppersmith-Heaven took him under his wing. He was later offered a job by John Wood at Sound Techniques, where he worked on a number of acoustic and folk records. In the early 80s he became studio manager of the up and coming Livingston Studios (and employed your humble interviewer as tape op). He has maintained 42

relationships with the studio in different capacities. Livingston is now owned by his main client, World Circuit Records, and despite living in the West Country, Jerry returns regularly to work there. Career highlights reflect Boys’ special ability with acoustic recording, and these include multiple albums with Steeleye Span, Everything But The Girl and Billy Bragg. He found a new niche with the Buena Vista Social Club album, which he recorded and mixed, and following that he worked with Ry Cooder on a number of sessions, and much of his time is now taken with recording and mixing world music artists from Africa and Cuba. But he has also produced an Australian number one album with Cat Empire, recently worked with Shakira, and his manager (Lise Regan www.innocentmanagement. com) was recently approached for him to work with Anthony And The Johnsons. When Resolution caught up with Jerry he was finishing off mixing Buena Vista Social Club live recordings made in the late 1990s from Carnegie Hall and Carré Theatre Amsterdam, and had just mixed an album by Malian singer Oumou Sangare, recorded in Mali, Paris and at Livingston. (photos www.recordproduction.com) resolution

Do you think that specializing in engineering rather than knowing more about music makes you a better engineer? Sometimes, because you don’t try and do other people’s jobs for them. When I first started I was just an engineer, but as I’ve got more experienced I tend to engineer-produce a lot, which means I’m a junior producer with the producer, and there are odd times when I wish I could talk in terms of music, because you can express things. All I can say is ‘I don’t like that, it’s a bit sour’ or something. Being able to say ‘if you change that note to this note,’ that would be useful, but mostly I don’t miss it. And I understand rhythm, which is perhaps more important. And if I’m producing a record that needs musical input, I’ll get an arranger. Knowing when to delegate is also a skill… Oh, I know when I’m beaten! I’ve always thought that the way you make good records is that you surround yourself with good people. It’s like musicians, if you’ve got a great band out there then you’re half way there, the sound’s easy, you know the playing’s going to be good, they’re going to have ideas — that makes your job easy. I observed various producers early in my career who were very good at this. It’s trusting people; I don’t trust that many people, it usually comes with time and experience. Who inﬂuenced you the most? The first was Vic Coppersmith-Heaven who was an engineer at Olympic who took me under his wing and let me engineer for him so he could produce, and he taught me a few basic skills. He was into April 2008

craft close-miked sounds, which was the way of doing things then. Then I met John Wood who ran Sound Techniques and came to Olympic sometimes, his studio needed an engineer and he offered me the job. He made open, spacious records with a room element in them. His best bit of advice was, before doing anything else, go down into the studio and listen to what’s going on. I’d always seen people place the mic, go up into the control room and start twiddling. And he said, always go and have a listen, and try and get it sounding how you think it should sound down there first, and then turn the microphone on. And that, to me, was the best bit of advice I ever had, and I still do it today. I do quite a lot of recordings with instruments whose name I can’t pronounce and which I’ve never seen before. Well, you go in the studio and ask the guy to play a bit, and have a walk around and see what sort of sound it is and where it comes from, and then mic it.

it, and then wondering why you had to put lots of top in everything, and learnt the opposite way, to listen first. I do EQ a fair bit, but I tend to be fairly careful in my EQ. I did a seminar where Robin Millar was one of the panellists, and he said, I don’t think you should change anything unless you move it 3dB, and I said I often make enormous changes with about 0.3dB of the right thing. But if that works for him … For me, I often get into a mix and think it’s not quite sitting properly, and I just go around and on about half a dozen things do tiny little tweaks, and suddenly it will all fit together.

Everyone thinks of you as a fun guy and quite a jovial character… Well, don’t you think as an engineer that’s one of the things you have to bring to a session, to try and keep the thing joyful, light, and everyone friendly? And

How important is it to have the right gear? For me it’s vital. Microphones and mic amps are the two main things. It’s not as if I don’t use cheap microphones, I do, but it’s because they sound the way they do and I want that sound. Mainly I use expensive condensers, and they give you a space and a fidelity that you don’t get otherwise. But I make records that need space and fidelity, not all records want that. Doing rock records with electric guitars is a different skill, and I probably would struggle. And mic amps, here we’ve got an old E Series SSL and people have always moaned about the mic amps, but we’ve got a big rack and personally I own a big collection, and we’ve got APIs, Massenburgs, and I still, for some things, use the SSL by choice because I like the fact it’s a bit crunchy and airless, I like it on bass for instance, because that’s the sound I want. Do you think that because of the increased choice of mic preamps that records sound better than 15 years ago? I think mine do, but the general move is the other way, to cheap and cheerful digital technology. But people do make spacious and open records, and they’ve obviously thought about whether they’re using expensive microphones or not — who can tell? People do amazing things with what is perceived as very cheap stuff sometimes. You must have struggled in some dodgy studios around the world? Yes, but it’s funny, you normally find a few Neumanns knocking around. It’s the one thing I always check out, what microphones they’ve got. And then always assume that half of them aren’t there or working. And microphones are relatively small, I always take them, I own quite a lot — mainly TLM170s, I’m a big fan of them, and 414s, 87s, 84s. Different microphones sound completely different. On the last album I did with Everything But The Girl, Ben Watt said, we’re going back to our acoustic roots, I want no EQ, just as it is. Fortunately we had really good musicians, Danny Thompson on bass, Dave Mattacks on drums, who has a huge collection that would fill the studio twice over. So if you say you want a brighter snare drum, out he goes and gets another snare drum. But I tried to stick to this and did it by changing microphones, and discovered a few things I didn’t know. My memory of assisting you was that you were the master of the minimalist approach… Well I’d gone through my maximalist period early on of turning every EQ to maximum before I’d listened to April 2008

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craft I think particularly with young — or old — people who’ve not been in the studio much, it’s a pretty unnerving, daunting place. If you can make them feel relaxed by being chatty and friendly...

Who did you learn that from, or did it come naturally? If I have a fault, I think I’ve always been a person who thinks about other people’s view of a situation more than I should, that can be a negative thing sometimes, but generally it’s a good thing, and I always look for compromises. I like to think it makes sessions go well, and when I’m working with people in Africa and Cuba they view us as some sort of powerful force. Nick [Gold, producer and boss of World Circuit Records] is very amiable as well, and I think it helps people a lot. They soon relax, you become friends.

But you’ve got to know when to be serious… Oh yeah, and occasionally you have to stand your ground. I’ve had an argument with a bass player about a particular mic he wanted on his bass, and I said, if I put the wrong microphone up I can easily make it sound bad to prove my point, so why don’t you let me put my microphone up and I’ll do my very best to make it sound good because I want to win the argument, and see what everyone thinks. So I did what I normally do, and everyone came in and said, bass sounds good. But I have worked with musicians — with Dave Mattacks I’ll let him place the microphones, I’ll move them if I think they need a bit of adjustment, but he knows his own sound, he’s done lots of sessions. I’m all for an easy life!

You live miles away but you tend to still work at Livingston… It was set up to be the sort of studio I like working in, and it’s owned by my biggest client. I find particularly mixing in strange places is hard work. I’ll record anywhere, but mixing is another thing, I’ve got to be somewhere I know and trust. You are mixing in Studio 2 on the Amek Rembrandt at the moment, do you prefer that? It depends, more open, acoustic records we tend to mix there, if we want something to sound a little more hard-edged then we mix in here [SSL]. The SSL does things the Amek doesn’t, the channel compressors still do something that nothing else in this world does in my opinion. And you are known as a Radar fan… Not any more, it’s Pro Tools now. For me, from a sound point of view, analogue is the best, but one has to live in the modern world, things move along. And the things you can do with Pro Tools — at least, my assistant can do with Pro Tools…! I’m learning slowly, but I don’t really want to. It’s a distraction from what you’re really good at… Yes. We mainly use Pro Tools. From a sound point of view, it doesn’t sound that great. There was a period we went through using Radar, and I still think the convertors are one of the best sounding. But really, Radar is only a tape machine with a few extra bells and whistles. And Pro Tools saves you days, particularly when we record in funny places,

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April 2008

craft we come back and find all sorts of odd problems, and before, we would probably have to go back and do some extra recording. But now we can usually save the day somehow in Pro Tools. We try and use it to make things be how they were supposed to be, not how you might want them to be in an idealised world. So we don’t slavishly line things up, we try to keep it analogue-ish, but it is very powerful. Radar has brought out a box of convertors that talk to Pro Tools, but the trouble is, we’ve all got Pro Tools with lots of convertors, and money is tight. If I can I’ll work at 96k, because that definitely makes a difference to me, and gives some analogue air, but in an ideal world I’d record on analogue and then copy it into Pro Tools. But it’s a terribly cumbersome system, all this naming things all the time…

I assumed you always work at 96k? Not always, sometimes we get things that have been started in Mali or Cuba, and most people work at 48k. We’ve just been working on a record that was done like that, but it sort of suits that spiky, low-fiish sound.

And I nearly always mix with the Massenburg [GML 8200 EQ] across the mix, I just put a bit of high end in before I even start.

Do you set the compressor too? No I usually get somewhere and then set it up when I think I’ve got a working balance. I find that leads me into trouble if you have it on from the word go, you don’t get your gain structures right — for me. Is there an ambition you have? I’d like to go back to 1968 and be in Detroit at Motown, that’s one thing I missed out on! But in the end I like working with people. And it doesn’t matter how successful they are, if I don’t like working with them or don’t think I’m learning anything, it’s not really a very enjoyable experience. ■

Do you use mix bus processing? I still mix in the traditional way, I have everything up a fader. There are certain bits of automation that are easier to do within Pro Tools than on a fader, if you want to make sudden changes. But generally I do most of the automation on the board, the changes feel a bit more human. I nearly always mix with a stereo mix compressor, either the SSL one or sometimes the Neve 33609, and occasionally I use both, if I want it compressed but I don’t want it to sound compressed.

April 2008

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sweet spot

Picture size and sound levels A relationship between picture size and its appropriate accompanying sound level has long been suspected. PHILIP NEWELL sits some people down to watch and listen to see if a pattern emerges.

further dimension is added to the question of room size vis-à-vis the perception of dialogue levels and appropriate equalization curves (Resolution V7.2, p60) when we consider the effects of picture size. Let us imagine the two extremes shown in Figure 1. Here we have a screen 12 metres wide sited 20 metres from the listening position, along with a screen 50 centimetres wide sited 85 centimetres from the listening position. From that position, the screens subtend the same angle of vision, and so occupy the same visual field. Let us now imagine that on the screens there is a large tank, in a battle scene, firing its gun while the

Fig. 1.

motor is running at full speed. On the large, distant screen, an overall level of 105dBC would seem to be a natural sound pressure level (SPL). However, on the small screen, viewed from a distance of 85cm and with loudspeakers alongside the screen, 105dBC would be absurdly overpowering. The perception would be of far too much level; and even the full frequency range, which sounded appropriate when heard from the distant-screen monitors, may also seem to be excessive when heard with the picture on the small screen. In each case the apparent size of the picture would be the same; with the same aspect ratio subtending the same angle, but the absolute size of the picture, which equates to its distance from the viewer/listener, would be greatly different. It would seem to be obvious that if the two extremes which have been described are so different, then there must be a straight line or a curve that connects them. That is to say, the absolute level of a soundtrack must vary with the size of the picture if a natural relationship between picture size and ‘natural’ SPL is to be maintained. The shape of the curve would be very useful to know, and Figure 2 shows how different shapes may be relevant to the level settings in mixing theatres when they are certified. That is to say, if the higher levels only become overpoweringly excessive at very short distances, then this would suggest a logarithmic curve, and it may well be that mixing theatres of 60 or 300m2 can be set to the same SPLs. On the other hand, if the curve is rather straight, this may suggest that a mix that was deemed to be at a natural level in a 60m2 room with a screen at 6 metres distance may need to be done at a higher recorded level (that is, with the monitor gain set lower) if the mix was to be played in a larger room with a similarly appropriate soundtrack level. The problem may be more significant at lower frequencies, where contouring of the frequency response may also be necessary. The curves of equal loudness tend to close up at low frequencies, as shown in Figure 3, and absolute SPL changes may

Fig. 2. if a curve such as a applies, then all screen distances from 6 metres to 25 meters would be within +/-1dB of the 85dB standard level settings. By contrast, if a curve like B applied it would suggest that monitoring levels would need to be adjusted significantly between the nearer and farther screens if room to room mixing compatibility were to be expected. resolution

give rise to greater perceived loudness changes. At high frequencies it is already acknowledged that adjustments need to be made according to the room’s size and decay time. The fact that Dolby has set a minimum screen distance of 6 metres for Dolby Digital mixing theatres, and that all theatres are aligned in a largely standard way, suggests that there may be a tendency towards Curve A in Figure 2. It would be very useful to carry out experiments to try to define the screen distance to SPL relationship in controlled tests, over a wide range of listening/viewing distances and screen sizes. Ioan Allen alluded to the problem of absolute picture size in his paper on the X-curve (1). Indeed, if there is an effect such as shown in Curve A of Figure 2, it may have a significant bearing in the shorter distance part of the curve on home theatre and television compatibility. Despite the fact that in domestic circumstances viewers will choose their own listening levels, it still may be useful to know more about frequency balance versus picture size. To go to an extreme, we could watch a test programme on a 5-inch video monitor (12.5 cm) and assess an appropriate frequency balance by using close-field, wideband loudspeakers and an equaliser. While it could be that we have become accustomed to associating the reduced-bass sound of small loudspeakers with small screens, it could also be that we are absolutely not accustomed to hearing high levels of low frequencies from any small object, but common sense and intuition would lead you to believe that a Curve A type of expectation exists. The SPL changes with distance would tend to be logarithmic rather than the more linear Curve B. With regard to domestic compatibility, despite the fact that viewers can choose their own level and equalisation, it would still seem to be useful if more guidance could be given to domestic viewers so they could listen in a way that the film director intended the work to be perceived. That is to say, how the director would choose to hear the soundtrack if he were to be watching the film on any given distance to and size of screen. To test the viability of some of the ideas, several informal, but nonetheless reasonably controlled tests have been carried out.

Fig. 3. the change in perceived loudness between any adjacent curves on the plot represents an approximate doubling or halving. it can be seen that at mid frequencies a change of about 10dB is necessary to either double or halve the loudness, but at low frequencies, where the curves close up, a change of only 4 or 5dB is sufficient to achieve the same effect. Consequently, when changes in picture/screen size lead mixing personnel to work at different overall SPls, their choices of appropriate relative low frequency balances may also change. April 2008

sweet spot The first experiment, which took place in the large hemi-anechoic chamber at Vigo University, Spain, involved listeners watching a 14-inch video monitor while listening to two different soundtracks; one was dialogue-only, the other was dialogue and effects. The participants were asked to adjust the sound level to a loudness that seemed appropriate and natural in each case. The first tests were carried out at a distance of 1m, then the tests were repeated at a distance of 5m. The general finding was that in the cases of both soundtracks the listeners/viewers asked for about 4dB less level at 5m compared to what they found to be a natural level at 1m. The anechoic conditions ensured that the room had no critical distance where the reverberant field would dominate the direct field, and which could perhaps influence the results. The change in the perceived natural level could therefore have only been due to the difference in the image size or the difference in the distance to the source. The participants were all students between 20 and 30 years of age, and none had been told the purpose of the tests prior to the experiment. The consistency of the results in terms of level difference with distance was striking. Even though their individual choices of what level was natural and comfortable varied by up to 8dB, their choice of level at the greater distance was consistently about 4dB lower than whatever they chose at the shorter distance. A second, similar experiment was undertaken in domestic environments in Portugal, where participants were asked to set a comfortable loudness level while watching a DVD at 1m, and then at greater distances from the video screen. The results were very variable, but the mean change from 1m to 3m was nil. It is worth noting that a difference of 20dB was measured between different listeners in terms of what they considered to be a normal loudness for watching the same DVD. The reason for these seemingly anomalous results in domestic conditions is not known, but it could be an effect of the more reverberant rooms, or even that people have become very accustomed to a typical general level for watching their own televisions in their own homes. However, this is only conjecture. Why there was no measured change in preferred sound level at different distances is still not known, and so more tests in domestic environments are currently being undertaken. A third experiment was a variation on the first two. However, in this case, the listening/viewing distance was maintained, but the screen size was varied between a 5-inch screen and a 32-inch screen. One by one, the participants were asked to enter the room, set the loudness to that which they each considered to be comfortable while watching the larger screen, and then leave the room. After each person had completed the test, the whole procedure was then repeated on the smaller screen. The tests were carried out at Sodinor, a dialogue replacement and voice-over studio in Vigo. The studio staff were divided into two groups; mixing/recording staff and non-specialised listeners. Once again, the participants were not told the purpose of the tests in advance. The results of the two groups were analysed separately, but no significant difference was found between them. However, between the larger and smaller screens, an average of 5dB more was considered to be the normal level for the larger screen. Another significant finding was that, on average, at the fixed listening distance of 1.5m, the ‘normal’ listening level chosen by the participants when watching the 32-inch screen was in the order of 75dBC (and 70dBC for the smaller screen). April 2008

A fourth experiment involved one screen at a fixed distance. Participants were asked to adjust the loudness to a comfortable level. An operator then adjusted the loudness upwards until each person considered it to be excessive. The volume was then lowered until each person considered the sound to be too quiet for comfortable enjoyment of the programme. The experiment was then repeated with a different sized screen. The mean level increase from normal to uncomfortably loud was around 10dB, for both screen sizes, but the level difference from normal to too low was 16dB for the larger screen and 10dB for the smaller screen. The larger screen appeared to support a greater dynamic listening range. It is also interesting to note that a younger group of participants, between 18 and 25 years of age, while supporting the same general differences between too loud and too quiet as the whole group, tended to set their ‘normal’ level somewhat lower, and in general, women chose lower absolute levels than men. A fifth experiment, carried out at Cinemar Films in Milladoiro, Spain, repeated the first experiment, except that in this case, when the distance was changed, so was the screen size and the position of the loudspeakers, which were always at the same distance as the screen. In this experiment therefore, the same angle of vision was maintained throughout, the concept being as shown in Figure 1. The two screens were of 7m and 3.5m width, and the viewing distances were 7m and 3.5m respectively. The mean result was that, rather unexpectedly, a slightly higher level was considered to be normal in the smaller room. Only a small group of participants took part in this test, it was noticeable how the people who were not working in the cinema studios tended to set their comfortable levels lower than the soundtrack mixing people. The average level considered natural by all the participants was around 81dBC. The 1dB or so of extra level that the participants asked for in the smaller room, as compared to the larger room (when, if anything, the opposite had been expected), may be due to the fact that the same model of video projector was used in each case. The image in the small room was reported to have been noticeably brighter than that on the larger screen in the larger room. Could this imply that image brightness also has an influence on the perceived natural level of a soundtrack? An indication from all the above mentioned experiments is that a curve as shown in Figure 2 may indeed be reasonably realistic. However, not only does the natural/comfortable listening level increase with screen size (or apparent screen size if it changes with distance), but so does the tolerable dynamic range. Obviously, this is borne out by the dynamic range used in the cinema being much greater than that used in television productions, but it was nonetheless interesting to measure it directly. The above experiments could appear to call into question whether the calibration of all mixing environments to a single reference sound pressure level is a valid concept, or whether the screen size and distance, and even picture brightness, should be taken into account, as these factors do seem to affect the perception of what is correct. ■ 1. allEN, ioan; the X-Curve: its origins and History, SmPtE Journal, vol. 115, Nos 7&8, pp 264-275 (2006). thanks to marisol torres, Eliana valdigêm and diego Suarez for carrying out the experiments on more than 40 participants, and to Branko Neskov and Sergio Castro for the figures.

resolution

meet your maker

Norbert Nachbauer Neutrik’s Norbert Nachbauer makes a connection with ZENON SCHOEPE.

hat is special about Neutrik products? Neutrik goods represent the most innovative and the highest quality products of their type on the market. What distinguishes a Neutrik product is that it always has a unique selling point over comparable products — they are never me-too products.

How real is the sonic contribution of a connector? Connectors are of great importance in two main respects. First, the technical attributes of the connector need to be of the highest order to fulfil sonic contribution. These are contact resistance, voltage proof and current capacity as well as the durability or cable clamping. Second, no matter how sophisticated the electronic circuitry or how clever the software in a piece of audio gear is, it can only work if you can input signals into it and get an output from it. In that respect connectors play the most decisive role.

ROOSTER TAPE OP AD 216X125

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What are the main differences in approach in designing connectors for audio, video, lighting, power and data? Actually Neutrik does not distinguish between these applications. Of course, there are specific characteristics and properties that need to be considered as well as related safety standards, but in terms of quality, handling and durability there are no differences in 14:44 Page 1 how we make them.

What are the different demands that digital puts on a connector compared to analogue? The significant difference is the bandwidth and frequency range respectively. While bandwidth is practically negligible in analogue applications it is of great importance in digital techniques. If bandwidth reaches GigaHertz then the design and configuration are different and demanding. Neutrik has always been associated with quality and longevity, how long-term are designs like the crimp XLR compared to the traditional type? Neutrik does not compromise in terms of quality. Crimp termination is a proven long-lasting technology; just consider that all connections in the telecommunication and automotive industry are crimped. Strain relief and cable clamping seem overengineered when many connectors are plugged in and left; wouldn’t a stripped down version for ﬁxed installations make sense? It does not matter whether the connector is plugged in several times or only once. If someone trips over or pulls on the cable the strain relief has to hold regardless if the connector has been plugged in once. With something like your Ethercon connector you have improved on what is a ﬂimsy and lightweight connector that was designed for a completely different original purpose to what it is used for now. Isn’t there an enormous need for better connector standards? I agree entirely. The RJ45 connector became famous by accident. It was never designed for the purposes that it is used for today. However, the engineers could

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meet your maker

not foresee this great development as they could not have predicted the steep development of data transmission. Now that it is used in its many millions it would be very difficult to create a better standard.

What are your thoughts on pirating and product copying and what can you do about it? The audio industry has been facing counterfeiting problems since the 1980s. Product copies have been getting better and better and it is more and more

April 2008

difficult to differentiate between illegal knock-offs and the originals. We never stop looking at it at Neutrik and we respond in a number of ways. When Neutrik discovers a forgery we take legal action by sending a letter to cease and desist marketing or selling of the counterfeit. From a technical point of view, we works hard to be always a step ahead, to be innovative and to come out with new solutions for our customers at regular intervals. You also have to be able to identify an original from a copy and Neutrik has developed

resolution

new hologram technology. All new products in the XX and NL series now have a hologram in form of the company logo.

Will rear connector panels on equipment look very different in ten yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time? Assuming the fast movement to more and more digital audio the panels will still be equipped with connectors. However, they will look different from how they tend to look today. â&#x2013;

business

Live on your PC tonight The signiﬁcance of the ‘one-take’ uniqueness of a live performance has not been lost on those looking to prolong and monetise the moment. There are now ways to extend the reach of the event beyond the walls of the theatre. NIGEL JOPSON says it’s coming to a PC near you as live music webcasting re-buffers.

ive music had a great year in 2007. Arena sales soared by 29% with 2.4m extra music fans attending shows in the UK, while US primarymarket ticket sales climbed to $3.9bn, up 8% from the previous record-year of 2006. Madonna, the world’s most successful female artist, signed a new distribution deal with concert promoters Live Nation rather than a record company, and labels tried to cut a slice of the live action with 360 degree deals. As DRM was dropped and chart rules altered to include digital sales, the music download market motored, so why hasn’t live concert webcasting — which coincides

with these two blossoming trends in a suitably synergistic manner — taken off? Entrepreneurs of the dotcom boom were hot on webcasting with several start-ups hoping to provide the technology: riffage. com purchased San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall in 2000, and venue owners Knitting Factory and HOB tried to make money from webcasting, but there were stumbling blocks concerning technology, potential audience, record labels and pricing models. When the Madonna Brixton Academy show was webcast in 2000, there was a yawning gap between what was promised — ‘This is the stuff of dreams’

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said a Microsoft PR person — and the reality of watching a 2x2 inch jerky image of Madge dancing. Webcasting tools were positively stone age and global broadband subscribers numbered 30m, compared to nearly 350m at the end of 2007, predicted to reach 567m by 2011. The intervening years have seen an outburst in online media, which has fuelled the rapid growth of content distribution networks (CDNs) such as Akamai, Limelight, Level 3, and others. When you audition a clip from an online music store, one of these networks will serve up the audio. CDNs boost the end-to-end transport system of the internet by distributing intelligent applications, which use web caching, server-load balancing, request routing, and other techniques to optimise delivery. Server farms with rack upon rack of computers, in different geographical locations, connect to multiple telecomprovider arterial nodes. CDN nodes co-operate to fulfil requests for media by users, transparently moving content behind the scenes to optimise the delivery process. Recently it’s become possible to integrate streaming from multiple CDNs at the client end. Swarmcast has a free-to-end-user application called Autobahn, which switches between CDNs in real time to improve performance. Swarmcast and iClips.net were responsible for streaming the Nelson Mandela 46664 AIDS Day concert from Johannesburg in December, viewers were able to watch at 1200kbps, with average connection time being 1 hour. iClips.net is a two-year-old company that hosts PPV webcasts, and has a small online archive of free-to-view footage from events like D-Fest, Langerado and the Montreux Jazz Festival. Hardware companies such as Kulabyte Technologies supply solutions for on-the-fly encoding at concerts. Their encoders use an ordinary highspeed internet line as an RTMP connection to Akamai or Limelight CDNs, which then distribute content to the public. On 10 March, Kulabyte used Akamai’s network to broadcast live 1.5mbps HD video from ‘Operation MySpace’, a live concert for US troops and the MySpace community, webcast from Kuwait. Other groundbreaking internet broadcast technologies are under development. P2P-Next, a European group of 22 partners including the BBC, Delft University, the EBU, Lancaster University, Markenfilm, Pioneer and the VTT Research Centre of Finland, has just received funding of €19m. They intend to use core technology from Tribler, a content search and sharing application developed by Delft University, to build a cross-platform next generation ipTV and video distribution system. Tribbler makes use of bit-torrent type technology to speed downloads and enable play-while-download operation. The twist is that only friends within your social-network group co-operate to lend processing power with torrent streaming. So the technology has made huge advances since the dotcom bomb — but what about record labels? Until recently, concert webcasts have either been large one-off charity events such as Live 8, shows from artists like Prince or Genesis who control their own licensing, or unsigned acts playing venues such as The Gig, a club on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, where bands get a webcast from livefromthegig.com. This is because most record deals give the label exclusive rights to any recordings made by an artist under contract, including live performances. Kevin Wall, founder and CEO of Control Room, says bands should make it easy for casual fans to discover them. ‘Give them a taste of what you’re doing,’ he recommends, ‘they’ll then come and buy tickets.’ However, even a mover and shaker like Wall (who produced mega concerts like Live 8, Prince’s Trust and Live Earth) April 2008

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acknowledges the maze of copyright issues involved with promoting webcasts has been a challenge. ‘It’s tough doing shows one at a time,’ Wall revealed, ‘each act has their own team of advisers who may differ on how to handle webcasts.’ Lack of deal-flow was rumoured to be behind the 2006 parting of ways between Mr. Wall and his partners AOL, XM Satellite and concert promoters AEG in a former live concert webcast venture called Network Live. Control Room now produces webcasts that are distributed through Microsoft’s MSN service, MyNetworkTV and National CineMedia (the largest digital in-theatre network in the US). But on this, the very stickiest issue for webcasting,

April 2008

there appears to be some movement from major labels this year. Fabchannel webcast shows from two of the best rock venues in Amsterdam, Paradiso and Melkweg, with well-cut camera angles and excellent sound. The palpable crowd atmosphere from these famous halls more than makes up for the sometimes moody lighting, and streaming integrity from fabchannel.com is among the best. In February, Fabchannel announced it had done a deal with Universal Music that will allow it to offer free, adsupported webcasts of UMG artists’ shows from both venues. Acts set to appear over the next months include Ian Brown, Chamillionaire, DJ Shadow, Feist, Amy McDonald, Method Man, Kate Nash, Roni Size,

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Sigur Rós and Willie Nelson — so this is no deal for B-list repertoire. ‘Fabchannel has pioneered a way to bring fans, bands and brands together in a way that’s good for everyone. Our agreement with Universal Music Netherlands will make Fabchannel’s mediacentric experience even more compelling,’ said Justin Kniest, CEO of Fabchannel, who went on to make the crucial point that the deal covers viewers from around the globe, not just those from Holland. This previously presented a near-impossible task, as each territory had to be separately cleared via the artist’s local label office. In return, Universal gets a share of revenue from the 10-second video ads which run before the show, plus access to recordings of its artists, which UMG will be able to stream or sell as downloads from its own websites. Universal has been particularly go-ahead with digital distribution initiatives recently, whether licensing music to Nokia for the ‘Comes With Music’ package, selling non-DRM MP3 tracks, or extracting a per-device royalty from Microsoft for the Zune player. Getting a fair slice of the proceeds for artists and producers is a thorny future issue for lawyers, but where the dominant global label group leads, others will be forced to follow, and the Fabchannel deal can only be good news for concert webcasting. Making money is another issue: in the age of ‘free’ no service is going to pile on viewers by asking for money up front with pay-per-view. It’s a catch22 situation, because ad-supported or sell-through requires critical mass. But the recent explosion in social networking sites provides a ready-made audience. ‘Last year, we realised we’re never going to get the whole world to come to Fabchannel.com to watch the shows there,’ admitted Kniest. ‘We have to go to all these communities where the fans already are — MySpace, Bebo, Facebook or fan sites — and

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let them promote the artist. It’s working very well for us.’ After signing up and creating a playlist, you can grab the html code to put those performances into a widget like the one on Fabchannel’s MySpace or Bebo page. Each widget has a ‘Buy Track’ button under the video window, a ‘Share’ button to send to friends and a link to Fabchannel. As a teenager’s parent, I can testify that this is surely the key to monetising music content. At least 80% of my teen’s friends have Bebo (or similar) pages, and they are all stuffed to the hilt with music content. The viral content-building process is not to be underestimated. The young men and women

nab themes, typefaces, and music links as soon as they appear on their pal’s pages ... and these pages are crazily evolving, glutinous masses of txt-2-urm8s-heavy media. As production pros, we may look down our noses at the designs, but the pages are morphing daily and news spreads like wildfire. What’s more, there is a clear music-sales opportunity in this viral power. As the provider of a modest monthly iTunes spending allowance, I witness this at first hand as the email sales receipts arrive in my inbox. Right now I’m looking at one with F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X., Black Magic Woman, Ziggy Stardust, Through The Fire & Flames,

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Cherub Rock and a samba track. The first three were bought because of the Guitar Hero PlayStation game, but the Dragonforce and Smashing Pumpkins tracks are there ‘because they’re on Nikki’s Bebo page’. This social-networking/video-game sell-through stuff really works for music ... as long as it’s easy to do! In February, Google announced a new video version of Adsense which offers a big opportunity for concert webcasting. ‘Adsense for video’ will allow any site that streams over a million videos per month to apply transparent text overlay ads, giving producers an easy way to earn money, even if the videos are embedded on other websites. The Adsense system uses Google’s search technology to serve ads based on site content plus the viewer’s geographical location, the nonvideo version has become particularly important in delivering revenue to small, special-interest websites that don’t have the resources to develop ad sales programmes. Content rich and informative sites have been the most successful in building viable incomes with the system. So a whole package of recent technical, licensing and revenue-generating developments have combined to give live music webcasting a bright future. But what about production values? Watching webcasting as an early-adopter has been interesting for any professional with experience of producing traditional TV concert broadcasts. State of the art video gear is not obligatory, because of the low-res target, but the one-camera-in-front-of-the-stage approach just does not work. A look at some of the content available from synclive.com is enough to demonstrate this. Synchronicity live have the laudable goal of opening concert-casting to anyone with a camera, mic, DSL line and computer with Adobe’s free Flash Media Encoder installed, but the results are less than compelling. At least four cameras and a video mixer are needed to make an exciting performance webcast, April 2008

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48-channels, pristine sound, fast set-up, great show.

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M-400 V-Mixer 48-channel / 16 Aux Onboard FX / GEQ USB record / play

and very tight shots of musicians make for more absorbing viewing. The sweeping long shots, Steadicam work and wide stage-pans familiar from big budget TV broadcasts do not translate as well to a 14-inch laptop screen viewed close-up, and are not necessary. What is needed is lighting far brighter than normally found in a typical groovy rock club or small venue. It’s also vital that the sound translates well to small loudspeakers — no mean task for the mix engineer in a challenging environment. FOH mixer feeds just do not cut it, the invariably too-dry vocal is horribly revealing and live engineers almost always have the drums way too loud for broadcast. At the very least, audio from a couple of good quality, well-positioned room mics should be blended in, and some bullet-proof dynamics processing deployed on the stereo output. The webcast from a popular venue like the Melkweg starts with an advantage atmosphere-wise when compared, for example, to the well produced but audience-free webcasts from deeprockdrive. com. DeepRockDrive, which produces shows from a soundstage in Las Vegas, is a start-up funded by luminaries like Bill Curbishley (manager of The Who and Robert Plant) and former Yahoo Music GM David Goldberg. The $6.99 tickets to webcasts are split with performers, who must first get 1000 fans to vote for their show, the online audience interacts with messages to performers via large April 2008

screens facing the stage. It’s early days for the concept, but the production paradigm is similar to a TV show. When there’s no venue audience, perhaps a more compelling setting for computer viewers is something like Radiohead used for their live webcast in November. Fans had an intimate view of the band in their rehearsal room, with a camera tight on each musician, and were treated to some unexpected covers, impromptu arrangements and between-song banter. This is an interesting way for an arena-level band, or a band with a widely-distributed audience (like Crowded House, who also webcast from their rehearsal room last March) to keep in touch with their global fans. An Entertainment Media Research survey of 1,700 music consumers last June found that 64% thought music was more enjoyable when performed live, 31% were ‘very interested’ in live webcasts, but only 10% would pay for live webcasts as they happen. Controversially, the results of the survey suggested consumers might be more likely to watch a live webcast than purchase individual songs with their mobile phones. For any organisation that already has a strong live franchise, the cost of entry for webcasting is not prohibitive. Five extra production staff, four cameras and a vision mixer, an extra sound mixer and some room mics, a video encoder and a CDN contract is all it takes. It’s an idea worth jumping on while the playing field remains un-crowded. ■ resolution

Take a test drive Call Martin Thomas 07876 345 164

www.rolandsg.co.uk 53

technology

london’s Unit studios runs apple’s XSaN. a Scrub recently supplied Pro tools Hd3 with d-Command to the all-apple, all-Hd facility.

Storage area networks now No longer the exclusive preserve of huge multiroomed facilities or broadcast companies, SANs are now applicable to anyone with more than a couple of workstations and an idea of a workﬂow. ANDY DAY sheds light on the future that we all face and that some are already experiencing.

or many years now we have been using hard drives for video and audio editing, starting with internal drives and progressing to FireWire 400/800 drives. But what comes next? One of the key aspects of our new digital postproduction workflow is the ability to share content between all the collaborators on a project — video editors, graphic designers, directors, audio post, music composers, etc. Gone are the days of shipping tapes, reloading the same material, and reconforming. Most productions now have some form of ‘data transport’ system in place, whether that’s as simple as burning a data DVD or using a portable FireWire drive, the technology has allowed us to collaborate in a much more cost- and time-effective way. The question really is: why change anything? Well, there are still many improvements to be made to this basic digital workflow, mainly in the time taken to copy data from system to drive or disc back to another system. It may sound like splitting hairs, but on large projects or HD video projects, with Tbs of information, copying to FireWire drives becomes a chore. Especially when you have to copy on to the drive, connect it to the new system and then copy off the drive again. Another downside to external FireWire drives is their reliability. I’m sure many people reading this have experienced the clicking sound of a FireWire drive destroying itself, while all you can do is stand by and watch. For a few years now many large facilities and broadcasters have been using centralised storage systems to allow multidepartmental collaboration 54

either by networking workstations, or in some cases by using a SAN (storage area network). Initially, SANs were horrendously expensive and were based on proprietary protocols, which put them out of the

reach of normal postproduction facilities. But with the democratisation of IT the options for SAN-based workflows have opened up significantly and the costs have dropped to more affordable levels. The clever thing about a SAN is that everyone can share files — so there’s no need for copying — when they collaborate on projects and at the end of the project everything can be archived, without fear of having missing files on different workstations. Another bonus is that because their core storage is based on RAID technology, there is a certain amount of redundancy or safety margin built in. For the curious, the difference between a SAN and a NAS (network attached storage) is that a NAS works using networking protocols, so the storage is seen by everyone on the network but not as direct attached. Most applications need to see media files as directly attached, the biggest culprit for this is Pro Tools. Although SANs give you the ability to all share a common ‘drive’, which appears as directly attached, Pro Tools often still has problems with all but a couple of systems that I cover in this article. The basic idea of a SAN is simple but the practical implementation is not so obvious except in one of the examples I mention later. The main objective is to share one large ‘drive’ or storage area, which may be subdivided into any folder structure, and that everyone has to be able to access the same drive at whatever bandwidth requirement they have. The two major stumbling blocks here are therefore the network connection speed and the file management, which has to be done in the background. Most SANs use fibre channel to connect workstations to the storage. Originally, fibre channel was prohibitively expensive and too complex for most studios but with heavyweights like Apple and IBM entering the fibre channel-based networking market, prices have dropped significantly. Fibre channel can run at speeds of 4Gb/sec, so streaming uncompressed HD from a RAID is easily possible and by adding a fibre channel switch (a fast version of an Ethernet switch) several workstations or users can connect. Another benefit of fibre channel is its ability to use fibre optic cable to connect, so long distances can be achieved between the workstations and the SAN. The issue of file and disc management is handled

Basic SaN structure. resolution

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technology by the actual SAN software. This acts like a network administrator, controlling how the large amounts of data are distributed across the RAID arrays while also monitoring system performance to head off problems before they arise. With the rise of the enterprise IT market, SAN components are made by several manufacturers. I’m going to concentrate on the main players in the postproduction industry and I’ve chosen these because apart from having first hand experience of all of them, I think they each have a slightly different approach (and cost). Generally they charge on a per client basis for the SAN software, with the exception of Facilis (which is also the cheapest solution). APPLE — Apple entered the Enterprise IT market with Xserve, closely followed by XRAID, a fibre channel-based storage solution. As Final Cut Studio evolved, more people started to outgrow FireWirebased storage and turned to XRAID for the added bandwidth capability, allowing uncompressed HD video editing. Apple saw the need for an open format, fibre channel-based SAN and released XSAN. This is basically a piece of software that, in-conjunction with the necessary hardware, makes a collection of RAIDS available to all users. It takes care of all the metadata management at a software level and gives the system administrator control of all the storage configuration and user privileges. The software is reasonably straightforward to anyone familiar with IT administration and reasonably user friendly for the rest of us. The basic XSAN hardware architecture is shown in the diagram. Obviously there are many options, but the main thing about XSAN (or XSAN2 as it is now), is that it’s expandable. If that’s what you need then it’s a good option, but it’s not cheap. It works out at about £22,000 for four clients and 12Tb of storage. AVID — Avid has had its SAN for a while. Called Unity, it’s tailored directly to Avid products and has some nice features. A newer variation of Unity is Isis, which uses Gbit Ethernet instead of fibre channel. This also has some clever hardware that takes care of all the throughput and metadata issues, but I’ll not cover those here. FACILIS — Facilis makes the Terrablock SAN, which has the novel approach of doing away with separate metadata hardware controllers and allowing workstations to be connected directly (up to 8) or via a fibre channel switch for more clients. It’s also

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XSaN2 implementation.

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a typical terrablock configuration.

brauner.familysnapshot

theartofmicrophones.com

56 RESOLUTION MAG.indd 1

VM1: The Archetype

the only option (apart from the Avid Unity) that can allow Pro Tools users to collaborate directly from the SAN. A typical Terrablock configuration is shown in the diagram. It is an easy to install and easy to maintain version of a SAN and the price is around £14,000 for four clients and 12Tb of storage. TIGER TECHNOLOGIES — Tiger technologies has a software only SAN product called Meta SAN. This software does all the Metadata management, similar to Apple’s XSAN, but still requires hardware controllers. There are add-on modules for AVID workgroups, but no compatibility with Pro Tools yet. So who is using what? There are numerous facilities worldwide using Apple’s XSAN and a notable one is London’s Unit facility. Founded in 2006 as the first all-Apple facility in Soho, it now has 18 Final Cut suites all capable of compressed (offline) or uncompressed (online) editing. It uses XSAN as its centralised storage for all the suites, but also in a novel way to ingest footage. Their MCR (master control room) contains the usual array of decks, but because of the XSAN they can be digitising rushes while the edit is already underway on existing digitised material. Also, because any suite has the ability to work in formats up to 4:4:4 uncompressed HD, there is no need to reconform, which saves time and money. This particular workflow is quite unique in London, but is commonplace in the US where Final Cut is more widely accepted. Another innovative approach they have is Unit2U. This is a complete FCP edit workstation delivered to your door, including pre-digitised rushes, allowing productions on a tight budget to do all their editing off-site and just go to the edit suite for finishing or grading. The Sanctuary in London has been a big Avid user from the beginning. So, as it expanded into its new Soho offices in Great Pulteney Street, it was obvious that Unity was the way to go. It now has 16 offline suites, five DS online suites, a couple of Film masters and five Pro Tools dubbing suites all connected to a common storage element. Alphadogs in LA is a one-stop facility that uses Terrablock for centralised storage for all its video and Pro Tools based audio suites. It had several key requirements when it began researching storage options. The ideal solution had to work seamlessly across platforms, attach compatibly to the Avid and Apple workstations, and have low administrative upkeep. They also wanted an affordable system. As it’s one of the few SANS that supports Pro Tools they use it as direct storage, speeding up production turnaround significantly. Also in the US is Deluxe Digital Studios, which is one of the largest DVD authoring facilities in the world with five locations across the globe. Deluxe Digital Studios is called on by major studios to resolution

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manage the replication and distribution of home entertainment DVDs. In any given month, several hundred DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray titles can pass through Deluxe’s worldwide operation. This means the production teams are responsible for integrating many moving parts and they look for technology components that can do the same. As the company’s services evolved from tape-based to video-on-demand/ download-to-own and eventually to an entirely tapeless environment, Deluxe knew their storage backbone would need to be scalable, flexible and administered by many professionals in different disciplines. They now have a total of eight Terrablock SANs in their LA facility, which is used to store all the DVD assets and projects. With all this data flying around it’s important to backup the important stuff. For video footage that is still available on rushes then only the project information needs to be backed up. However, with new solid state acquisition formats, such as Panasonic’s P2 and Sony’s SXS (XDCAM), the chances are the media will be re-used and in such cases Gbs of information will need to be backed up regularly. Blu-ray promises to be an interesting option, but with no real history it remains to be seen how it will cope with long-term archiving. For the moment the best option is tape (see the irony here?). Quantum has many tape-based backup systems that are based on LTO-3 technology. This allows a staggering 400Gb to be stored on a tape at Gigabit Ethernet speeds, and, when combined with an autoloader, Tbs of data can be stored and archived automatically using Atempo software. So why should you be interested in all this? Well, the purpose of this article is to shed some light on the future that we all face and that some are already experiencing. As technology marches on and the prices of hard drives and solid state storage drop, and the delivery requirements of programmes change from tape to file-based methods, we are faced with the prospect of how to best integrate all this data in the most efficient and cost effective way. It’s something, incidentally, that the IT industry does every day. It is no longer the luxury of huge multiroomed facilities or broadcast companies, it’s now a reality for anyone with more than two workstations. However, implementing SAN technology is not for the faint hearted, and I would strongly recommend you speak to a specialist reseller or experienced consultant rather than try to do it yourself. ■

Contact www.apple.com/xsan www.avid.com www.facilis.com www.tiger-technology.com

April 2008

ten

Big record label bungles The whacky shenanigans of the music industry are enough to leave hardbitten businessmen open-mouthed and make music-lovers cry with rage. NIGEL JOPSON doesn’t know where to start… BIGGEST MISSED CHANCE — The 1999 Napster phenomenon offered a unique opportunity that labels failed to capitalise on. Napster became the fastest growing software application ever measured by research firm Comscore, with users peaking in February 2001 at 26.4m, spending over 6 billion minutes searching for music that month. When Google acquired Youtube for $1.65bn in 2006, they paid around $23 for each of Youtube’s 72m unique visitors. Valuing Napster in a similar manner would give a hefty price tag of $607m. While individual Napster users shouldered the bandwidth payload for downloads, Napster held a huge database of users and songs on central servers, which would have been very easy to monetise for marketing, advertising and music sales. The P2P applications that succeeded Napster used a more inefficient, but less vulnerable to closure, decentralised system of queries to index downloadable songs locally for each file sharing PC. ‘They left billions of dollars on the table by suing Napster -– that was the moment that the labels killed themselves,’ said Jeff Kwatinetz, CEO of management company the Firm. Despite holding secret talks with Napster, the four majors could not bring themselves to cannibalise their core CD business in favour of innovation. The failure to bite the bullet at that secret meeting on 15 July 2000 put music sales on the road to where we find them today. DECCA TURNS DOWN THE BEATLES — On 1 January 1962, The Beatles auditioned for Decca, performing 15 songs in less than an hour. A&R man Dick Rowe rejected them with the comment: ‘Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr Epstein,’ according to The Beatles manager. Most artistic creations involve a deal of drudgery, and most people can only see the beauty in the finished product after it’s been assembled. There have never been enough resources, training or structure deployed by labels to make these difficult choices. It always seems to come down to some guy’s off-the-cuff opinion, and the put-down as reported by Epstein has a sad ring of truth to it. Rowe later signed the Rolling Stones, on very favourable terms for the group. ‘I knew he would sign them because he had turned down The Beatles,’ explained former Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. EMI SIGNS MARIAH CAREY FOR $80M, THEN PAYS HER $28M TO LEAVE — The most successful female artist of the 1990s sold 110m records in that decade, was signed for a four album deal by EMI in 2001, but dropped after her first album (the Glitter soundtrack) delivered lacklustre sales. She April 2008

then signed to Island/Def Jam, recorded another lukewarm record, but went on to make good with The Emancipation Of Mimi in 2005. The first single from Mimi spent 14 weeks at the top of the US chart. MILLIONS OF $ SPENT ON UNRELEASED ALBUM — Ten years ago, 32-times platinum selling rockers Guns N’ Roses looked hot enough for Geffen to pony-up $1m for Axl Rose to record a fifth album, even if his unpredictable behaviour had driven off GNR’s other original members. The label is now in the red to the tune of $13m, making the album Chinese Democracy the biggest white elephant recording project ever. Producers Mike Clink, Youth, Roy Thomas Baker, Bob Ezrin, Sean Beavan and Andy Wallace have all worked on the amaranthine project. Ten guitarists -– from Buckethead to Brian May -– have lent their chops to the album, Paul Buckmaster and Marco Beltrami have done orchestral arrangements, Patti Hood has played harp and Sebastian Bach plus Shaquille O’Neal have lent their vocal talents. ‘I think there’s a lot of business shit that goes on with him [Rose] ... It’s a little more complicated than people think,’ muses Bach. There’s still no release date. BMG FIRE CLIVE DAVIS, THEN GIVE HIM $200M AND HIRE HIM BACK — The legendary hit maker was fired from Arista, the company he’d founded 25 years earlier, when parent group BMG deemed him too old. After pressure from artists, BMG gave Clive $150m to start J Records (home to Monica, Luther Vandross and Alicia Keys). In 2003, BMG bought J for $50m from Davis, then named him head of RCA. In 2004 they made him CEO of BMG N. America. Clive is planning a comeback album for troubled diva Whitney Houston for 2008. You really couldn’t make it up. THE RIAA SUE DEAD GRANNIES AND CHILDREN — In a masterstroke of negative publicity gathering, the Recording Industry Association of America decided that, rather than awarding gold records, closing illegal pressing resolution

plants in China or researching consumer buying preferences, it would instead prosecute the weakest, most defenceless music lovers it could find. These included a 66-year-old sculptor accused of sharing gangsta rap, 83-year-old deceased grannie Gertrude Walton accused of sharing 700 songs over peer-topeer networks, 12-year-old Brianna Lahara and 13year-old Britanny Chan. GEFFEN SUES NEIL YOUNG FOR RECORDING WRONG MUSIC — Geffen sued Neil Young in 1984 for making ‘uncharacteristic, uncommercial records.’ The records were the synth-heavy rock album Trans of 1982, and the 25 minutes-short 1983 rockabilly album Everybody’s Rockin’. At the time, Geffen was renowned for its sales success and somewhat heavy-handed A&R process. Young later claimed the lawsuit persuaded R.E.M. to sign with Warner Brothers rather than Geffen. ROCK ’N ROLL ACCOUNTING — Just one year ago, EMI finally agreed to settle The Beatles’ long battle for £30m in unpaid royalties. Neil Aspinall, head of The Beatles’ company Apple Corps, said EMI was ‘ignoring their obligations and duty to account fairly and with transparency’. Music industry lawyer Don Engel, who estimates labels misreport and underpay artist royalties by 10% to 40%, says industry accounting practices are ‘intentionally fraudulent.’ The Stones, James Blunt, The Allman Brothers and The Dixie Chicks are just a few of the artists who’ve ended up suing their labels. STAX RECORDS A C C I D E N T A L LY GIVEN AWAY — Jim Stewart, owner of the legendary Stax label (home to Booker T. & the MGs, Sam & Dave, Albert King, Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, and more) unintentionally signed away the rights to the original master recordings for Stax’s Atlantic distributed recordings ... which were all of the valuable ones. RECORD LABEL BUILT ON FUNNY MONEY — Rocshire Records’ slogan was ‘Home of the Artists.’ Rocky Davis had a cool recording studio, an office full of exWarner staffers, a distribution deal with MCA ... and money to burn! Acts like Adrenalin, Alcatrazz (with Yngwie Malmsteen), Tower of Power singer Lenny Williams and (incongruously) 60s duo Chad & Jeremy were signed. The flashy LA label eventually turned out to be entirely funded by $15m which Rocky’s wife Shirley had embezzled from Hughes Aircraft, where she worked as an accountant. Rocky went to jail and the artists were left homeless ..■ 57

slaying dragons

Having the right temperament Musical instruments are like cars — everyone knows when they are out of tune but fewer people know what to do about it. JOHN WATKINSON looks at the theory and has made a few notes.

here was a time when I used to get annoyed if, after carefully explaining some phenomenon, the reply would come back as ‘That’s all very well in theory…’ Now, I just suppress a yawn. The whole basis of science is that theories come in different flavours. Cosmic physics, for example, abounds with theories that are little more than speculation, where reality is derived from the equations instead of the other way round. An infinite 58

number of parallel universes, of which we can only see one, sounds too much like monkeys and typewriters. You can say what you like about something that is light years away. In contrast, other aspects of human endeavour, such a designing aircraft, demonstrate that theory and practice can come remarkably close, with the possible exception of the software. If your theory is wrong, you get a hole in the ground that rapidly leads to a better theory. resolution

Musical theory is in the latter category; it explains what is going on quite satisfactorily. There is a viewpoint that suggests real musicality, whatever that is, can do without the theory because it gets in the way of the emotion. I believe that is a myth. Doing things purely by ear, or by trial and error or by copying someone else takes forever. With a sufficient grasp of the theory any skill can be picked up sooner. The Human Auditory System (HAS) is a two dimensional pleasure centre. It gets kicks in the horizontal axis, or time domain, by detecting rhythms, which are patterns in time, and in the vertical axis by detecting chords, which are patterns in the frequency domain. Here we are concerned with the frequency domain. Pitch and frequency are related, but not simply and not definitively. In a linear electronic circuit, if two nearby frequencies are present, that’s all you get. In the HAS, if two nearby frequencies are present, they appear to beat at the difference frequency. This tells us that the ear is non-linear, which isn’t a surprise considering it is not a product of Intelligent Design. The best sounding chords are those in which one harmonic of the first note is very close to another harmonic of the second note. In other words we place the distortion products of our lo-fi ears at frequencies that are already in use. Clearly if the musical interval is one octave, the second harmonic of the lower note is consonant with the higher note. The pitch sensing of the HAS is octave based. Doubling the frequency gives us the impression of the same note. One of the few definitive remarks we can make about tuning is that an interval of an octave represents a doubling of frequency. The sense of pitch is logarithmic. Getting back to chords, the frequency ratio of 3/2 produces a perfect fifth. The third harmonic of the lower frequency coincides with the second harmonic of the higher. Thus any musical scale we can invent must contain a perfect fifth or something approaching it. Incidentally I prefer the tone of a six-cylinder in-line engine because it has a nice harmonic structure. V8s always sound dissonant to me, in addition to their well-known technical drawbacks. The logarithm to the base 2 of the interval across an octave goes from zero to one. If we pick a number of notes, we can uniformly divide up logarithmic space and work out what frequency the notes would have on a linear scale. It turns out that only scales having 12 or 17 notes allow one of the notes to be a fifth. Simplicity decided on twelve semitones to the octave. As a result, the precise musical way of measuring the interval has been defined as the cent, where one octave is 1200 cents, meaning that semitones are approximately 100 cents apart. The use of the word approximately is a hint of difficulties in store. A musical interval in cents is 1200 times the log base 2 of the frequency ratio. There’s just the faint aroma of deciBel in there somewhere, which isn’t surprising given our logarithmic nature. Just like deciBels, because cents are logarithmic, you can add them instead of multiplying. For example it is possible to go up an octave by following a perfect 4th (4/3) with a perfect 5th (3/2), since 4/3 x 3/2 = 2. However, a perfect 4th is 498 cents and a perfect 5th is 702 cents and 498 + 702 = 1200. While playing with cents, you should also have spotted that these intervals that give yummy harmonics do not divide the octave uniformly. 498 is not 500 and 702 is not 700. These perfect intervals only occur on the Natural tuning scale. The problem is that they are only found in the tuning key. If you try to change key, the unequal numbers of cents per April 2008

showcase semitone make significant numbers of notes go way out of tune. Thus for organs and pianos where retuning is a big deal, Natural tuning is unsuitable as the instrument can only be played in the key for which it was tuned. Instead, keyboard instruments and fretted string instruments today use Equal temperament, in which the semitones are all exactly 100 cents apart. This means they can’t do perfect chords, but in compensation they can be played in any key. In principle an electronic keyboard could use natural tuning provided it had a knob on it that could be set to the key it was going to be played in. Equal temperament has not always been used. It was preceded by the Well temperaments. There are a large number of them and they all attempt to walk a tight rope between harmonic structure and key changing ability. They generally allow key changing without the dissonance of Natural tuning, but with the penalty that the intervals are slightly different in different keys. Thus a chord played in one key would be slightly coloured in another key. I used to wonder why classical music is written in so many different keys. It might be that with Well temperament, the chosen key gave the composer the chord colours he wanted. When played with Even temperament, we don’t hear what was intended as all keys sound the same. To recreate historic music properly, it is important to discover for what temperament it was composed. Fretless instruments are another matter. What matters in music is the precision of intervals, not exact frequencies. Thus a fretless instrument such as a cello can be played by spacing successive notes not by equal semitones but by the intervals of the natural scale. In practice the exact tuning used may have to be whatever is consonant with the other instruments present. The incompatibility between the ideal chords of Natural tuning and the need to change key seems intractable, but there are ways around it. Stringed instruments played with a steel, such as Weissenborns, Dobros, lap and pedal steel guitars, change key by moving the steel. In a correctly set up instrument, this has the effect of changing the frequency of every string by the same interval. Thus the open strings can be set to Natural tuning rather than Equal temperament, giving perfect chords as well as key changing ability. The infinitely variable key changing ability of steel guitars makes them ideal for accompanying vocalists. The cello and the Dobro must be neck and neck when it comes to expressive ability. Whatever you propose to tune, having the right equipment is a good start. A good chromatic tuner is essential for doing anything beyond the run of the mill. Look for a tuner that can move its calibration away from the regular 440Hz. Most tuners can do Equal temperament, but it can be useful to have a tuner that displays the tuning error in cents. This allows other tunings than Equal temperament to be used. Even better is a tuner that allows each note to be re-calibrated by the chosen number of cents. In order to set the tuner up for a given temperament you will have to find out how many cents away from equal temper each note is. The easiest way of doing this is to look at some music theory websites. Most tuners can work in a number of ways. They can listen to what you play with a microphone, or they can generate tones that you copy. This works well enough in quiet surroundings, but with high ambient noise levels it’s not practicable. In this case electric instruments can be plugged in to the tuner. Non-electric instruments can still be plugged in using a contact microphone which is basically an accelerometer that senses the vibrations in the body of the instrument. ■ April 2008

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your business

Mixtape your promotion The mixtape functions like a ‘Best of…’ compilation and has been shown to help generate interest among the music buying public. They’re mostly illegal. DAN DALEY says the principle can be applied to create a calling card for record producers.

n the amorphous realm of the music producer there is a subcategory worth looking into. If the club DJ is an artist whose instrument is the music itself, the mixtape maker is surely the rubric’s producer. Mixtapes have been around as long as modern Urban music genres and analogue cassette tapes, but the digital era allowed them to truly take off, with some becoming brands in their own rights and selling into seven figures. (Mixtapes are, of course, on CD-R discs, but the term has a romantic ring to it and it endures.) Mixtapes are samplers (in the candy box sense, not the digital one) that function like ‘Best Of…’ collections; how skillfully their mixers concoct them determines their success on the street, and word of mouth can build significant careers. And not just the career of the producer -- mixtapes have been known to make the careers of artists and their producers, as well. Because mixtapes often include previews of unreleased songs, alternative mixes and casual freestyle rhymes, they have been documented as being instrumental in the rise of stars such as 50 Cent and Lil Wayne. In fact, record label executives have been known to acknowledge -- off the record, of 60

course — that they have enlisted some of the better mixtape DJs to create compilations that feature their artists — copyright law notwithstanding -- as a way to build anticipation before the release of an artist’s actual album. This kind of bogus samizdat puts the music business’s wails over the loss of revenue to piracy in a strange light, indeed. The bottom line is, mixtape producers serve an important function in the larger music business. They essentially create the musical equivalent of the film trailer: a tease for forthcoming larger productions and a work of art in and of itself. Think of them as a greatest hits collection from Nostradamus. Mixtapes have a definite street cred — their authenticity is not easily compromised. Major labels have tried in the past to create and release their own mixtapes, and the effort can be analogised to when narcotics police try to infiltrate the drug gangs by wearing sandals with their socks still on. Those who comprise the core market for mixtapes can smell a fake a mile away. According to one report, when the Universal Music Group, now the industry’s biggest collection of record labels, tried to tap the trend, it left fans cold. Universal released three mixtaperesolution

style compilations under the brand Lethal Squad. But despite an inexpensive price tag of about US$6, which was intended to help them compete alongside the ‘authentic’ unlicensed compilations, the albums, featuring sanctioned remixes by less prominent DJs, have together sold only about 20,000 copies so far, according to Nielsen SoundScan data. (It’s worth noting that there was at least one purpose-made mixtape from a sizable record label that did work: Miami-based DJ Khaled had one of 2007’s surprise hits with a legal mix-style album entitled We the Best, which has sold over a quarter of a million copies since its release last June. And, unlike most mixtapes, We the Best also spawned a few radio hits. However, that album came through Koch Records, an independent label that has developed a specialty in marketing hard-core rap.) Yet even as they fail to create their own believable mixtapes, major record labels continue to prosecute the producers of the unsanctioned ones. DJ Drama, a well-regarded Atlanta mixtape maker who made his name spotlighting new rap talents on his own line of compilation CDs, was recently indicted on racketeering charges brought as a result of an RIAA investigation into his mixtapes. Ironically, this took place even as Drama was also promoting his Gangsta Grillz: The Album CD, which was made at the behest of Atlantic Records and which featured the label’s rap stars including Young Jeezy, OutKast and P Diddy. Predictably, like other label-sponsored mixtapes, it sold poorly. But the irony? Priceless. Mixtapes by their very nature have to be outlaw ventures — the paperwork alone would kill you, especially since so much of the individual songs have April 2008

showcase multiple layers of intellectual property encumbrances attached to them. Payments to publishers would render ‘legal’ mixtapes unprofitable. On the other hand, high-profile take-downs of producers like DJ Drama are reportedly taking their toll on the sales of street-made mixtapes. Rap lifestyle website mixunit. com has refocused its site away from mixtapes and towards merchandise, including T-shirts, sneakers and posters, as well as legitimate albums. Some suggest that this fear of reprisal by the music industry is part of what is causing the decline in overall CD sales: without the ‘trailers’ to create interest and anticipation in a forthcoming LP release, music fans are getting and spending elsewhere. The RIAA reports that raids on websites and indie record stores that sell mixtapes have resulted in over 3 million tapes seized last year, but that for every outlet they crack down on, another turns up. Sound familiar? It’s the exact same outcome as the RIAA/IFPI’s attacks on file sharing — they close down one portal and another one (or two or three) open up. Without going into a drawn-out analysis of IP and copyright, what the mixtape situation makes clear is that they serve a distinct and very reasonable purpose: they get new music into the hands of people who may very well want more of what they hear, and who hopefully will want to purchase it legitimately. It’s further reasonable to suggest that mixtapes could actually add to the lifespan of physical media for music. (People complain about the sound of CDs but life without some graphics can be rather drab.) The record producer who specialises in mixtapes sits at the crux of this equation. What we know so far is that people want mixtapes, that there are people out there that are very adroit at knowing what to put on them, that record labels comprehend the promotional value of mixtapes, and that the efforts of those labels to duplicate the effectiveness of ‘street’ mixtapes have been for the most part dismal failures. How does the record producer save the day here? Mixtapes are a calling card for record producers, an instant audition and discography on demand. Try putting them on inexpensive flash drives for an added measure of cool. The idea of the mixtape as a promotional tool for producers seems to be getting some traction. HipHopReaction.com, an entrepreneurial fansite, is touring a ‘mixtape project’ in which an assortment of producers’ work is showcased, in a kind of talk-show environment, hosted by Vince Brevard, the CEO of Middle Man Management. Each mixtape gets a run of between 5,000 and 7,000 units and they are distributed at concerts, parties and other networking opportunities. ‘This is an original idea to get new… producers into the mix of the industry and to be heard by the streets worldwide,’ Brevard says on his website. ‘There is nobody in the industry right now making an idea like this happen. If this project works out the way it should, it will give producers hope… to actually be heard without going through the hassles of management scams or bad business.’ HipHopReaction.com isn’t going to win any awards for editorial content anytime soon, but the idea of showcasing the producer via a concept that has proven credibility is another layer of marketing for producers. You could also go the ‘mixvideo’ route: lay some footage on top of the mixtape audio and author to a DVD. Some mixtape producers blog, others podcast. And after what happened to DJ Drama and more than a few others, they’re all looking over their shoulders a little more often. But if you can keep it legal, the producer’s mixtape can be a cool tool. ■ April 2008

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headroom omNiPotENCE In connection with the dialogue between John Watkinson and Andrew Harpenden (Headroom, V7.2) I think it’s worth adding that the majority of orchestral recordings made in the UK today make use of a spaced omni system as the main pick up; either a Decca Tree arrangement or a simple spaced pair. The reason for this is simple: we like the sound it produces. Omnis are favoured not just, as John stated, for the ‘ambience and reverberation’ factor, but just as importantly for their lovely extended bass response compared with cardioid and ﬁgure of 8 pick up. Also, a steady stereo image is deﬁnitely possible albeit not as clear as that achieved with coincident systems, but as good as you might get from the 15th row of most concert halls, and of course this will be on account, not just of the time of arrival difference between the two mics but also the fact that omnidirectional microphones in reality, become pretty directional at higher frequencies. Ken Blair, BMP Recording, UK

rEFrESHiNG Thank you for a magazine that always has something on its mind! At least it always brings something to my mind when I receive it. Being at work as a studioowner/musician/composer often means being alone. Not necessarily in the sense of being sad and bluesy, but you/I/we often do a lot of work and make decisions on our own. Discussions sometimes tend to be a bit one way ... And along comes Resolution with its strange/funny/ relevant views on sound, the environment, job proﬁles etc. and I ﬁnd it very refreshing that this magazine is not that close to manufacturers’ PR budgets, as other mags in this part of the world tend to be. Please give my regards to Mr Watkinson, without

whom this business would appear a whole lot more dull and stupid! Jan Irhøj, Haslev, Denmark

GUitar GamES You’re leader (Resolution V7.2) while entertaining showed a little lack of tolerance towards the young and the games they will play! You were enjoying it… but you can’t seriously believe that playing Guitar Hero has no musical value, it has to be better than playing no instrument at all? Still enjoying the read. Graeme Holland, USA Yes, I did enjoy writing that. To me, playing a game that represents a virtual re-enactment of something you could fairly easily do for real if you could be bothered is fantasy. It makes people happy, I don’t doubt, just as other types of fantasy do but where do you go with it? Piloting a 747 to Tokyo is something few of us would ever get to do so a real-time simulator allows us to try it in all its mind-numbing glory. Playing a game in which you pretend to play a guitar legitimises the idea that you don’t have to invest time and energy into doing something for real; that it’s OK to just pretend. What’s wrong with doing something properly, learning something well, becoming proficient, mastering something that’s worthwhile? I suppose what offends me most is that I see these games as yet another symptom of the general dumbing down, the deskilling, the trivialisation, the glorification of the mediocre, and the encouragement to be content with less. But I’m being facetious, of course, it’s not without value. Gamers can work out if they’re left of right handed and fine tune their guitar strap length. I’m really looking forward to Trombone Hero. ZS

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Song lines that make you places

• Godalming knows where I’d be without you • Can’t stop Danzig • Warsaw you standing there • Wigan work it out • I beg your Baden (I never promised you a Rose Garden) • Uppsala outside your head, I said Uppsala outside your head • I’m gonna sit right down and write myself Valetta • Bridgened over troubled water • My, my, my Devizes • When they Berlin the Beijing • Solent night

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April 2008

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