Resolution V8.3 April 2009 by Resolution

AUDIO FOR BROADCAST, POST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION

V8.3 APRIL 2009

The AR Rahman interview Genelec’s new coaxial 8260A DSP three-way Crossover classical tips with producer Nick Patrick DPA 5100: developing a mobile surround mic Sean Genockey on guitars and drums Meet your maker: Tony Larking —TL Audio

£5

Reviews SPL Analog Code Plug-Ins Euphonix Artist Series MC Magix Sequoia V10 Summit Audio ECS-410 Everest Violet Global Pre RNDigital D4 Marantz PMD620 Fostex UR-2 Focal Twin6 Be

AUDIO FOR BROADCAST, POST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION

V8.3 April 2009 ISSN 1477-4216

News & Analysis

Leader

Products

News

Broadcast aside

Headroom

Nick Patrick

Sales, contracts, appointments and biz bites.

New introductions and announcements. Dennis Baxter asks: who decided video is more important than audio?

Craft

A new high-value big-room studio in Central Europe is the perfect residential for your band project.

RecPublica

AR Rahman

50 Sweet spot

42 Sean Genockey

Genelec has a new monitor with a coaxial driver. We look at the development of the Minimum Diffraction Coaxial technology in the 8260A DSP three-way.

Meet your maker

60 Ten

He’s crossed over from Bollywood to Hollywood and beyond; we talk to the Oscar-winning Mozart of Madras. Cutting interesting acts in interesting spaces, the producer and engineer talks guitars and drums.

From rock to World music and now firmly into crossover classical Nick Patrick has perfected his art, craft and hit rate.

Tony Larking — 20 years of TL Audio. European destination studios.

Business

52 The counterfeit business

Counterfeiting undermines confidence in brand qualities and confuses buyers and it is at work in our tiny little world of pro audio.

Your business

Hollywood’s box office is up yet the film studios are laying off workers, releasing fewer films and cutting budgets.

Technology 53 Developing a mobile surround mic

The thinking and processes behind the development of DPA’s 5100 ‘plug and play’ solution for 5.1 capture.

62 Slaying Dragons

Turning off the cash is as serious as turning off the water or electricity. Watkinson asks what we will learn from the experience.

Reviews

22 Euphonix Artist Series MC 24 Magix Sequoia V10 26 Summit Audio ECS-410 Everest 28 Violet Global Pre 30 RNDigital D4

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, Jim Betteridge, Nigel Jopson, Andy Day, Philip Newell, Jim Evans, Dan Daley, John Watkinson, Dennis Baxter

32 Marantz PMD620 34 SPL Analog Code Plug-Ins 35 Fostex UR-2 36 Focal Twin6 Be

Advertisement Sales EUROPE: Clare Sturzaker, tel: +44 1342 717459 Email: clare@resolutionmag.com EUROPE: Lynn Neil, tel: +44 208 123 5040 Email: lynn@resolutionmag.com US: Jeff Turner, tel: +1 415 455 8301 Email: jeff@resolutionmag.com

PRODUCTION AND LAYOUT Dean Cook, The Magazine Production Company Tel: +44 1273 467579 Email: dean@resolutionmag.com

NEWS

Appointments LOUD Technologies has appointed Paul Yue as direc tor of procurement and Ke v i n M a h o ny a s director of operations, Asia. Yue joins LOUD from Philips Healthcare where he most recently developed and managed a Chinese-based manufacturing joint venture relationship for the company’s medical imaging business. Mahony previously worked as vice general manager for Eminence and managed the company’s Dongguan manufacturing facility. LOUD says it restored production in March for a number of significant EAW and Mackie product lines that were impacted when one of the Company’s contract manufacturers ceased operations in late 2008. The Company has resumed mass production on all SKUs of the EAW AX, JF and NTL series. Production also began on a portion of the Mackie VLZ3 series in March, with the balance of the series entering full production in April. In January, it restored production for the EAW KF and SB loudspeakers at a company-owned facility, as well as resumed production on Mackie HRmk2 and MR studio monitors at another of the company’s contract manufacturing partners.

Leader

It’s invigorating to watch children getting stuck into a game of Top Trumps. For those who have forgotten it or are unaware of it, it’s a game involving sets of picture cards that cover a broad single subject, such as fighter aircraft, with each card containing an aircraft’s impressive vital statistics. You play the game by dividing the pack, drawing a card each, and taking it in turns to call out a category — the card with the biggest payload, top speed, number of guns, you get the idea, claims the other player’s card and on it goes. Simple and particularly effective during rainy camping holidays while the batteries still last. And you can get Top Trump sets for tanks, sports cars, Marvel comic superheroes and even animal kingdom predators. The emphasis is clearly on brawn and while I am still waiting for the set on English Poets or Flowers of the Meadow I’m likely to see one on Foul-mouthed TV Chefs first. What the Top Trump attraction panders to is the notion that a higher figure naturally has to be better. Thus more BHP, a higher top speed, and faster acceleration are rated and deemed relevant even though they are largely irrelevant to anyone who drives on a daily basis. Along similar lines there should be a Computers and Software Top Trumps as these are similarly overspeced for the majority of users. Progress is marvellous but I am writing to you on a machine that I have trouble keeping awake with the trivial tasks I ask of it. Its occasional exercise is the copying of large picture files; the rest of the time it stands in neutral and idles. I’ve gone on about this before but how many of us really use that DAW package that we ‘couldn’t live without’ any where near its full potential? You’ll run the I-O, processing and the hard disk pretty ruthlessly (and when they start to smack the buffers the hardware salesman will kick your tyres, suck his teeth and reluctantly recommend it’s time to upgrade your computer) but how much of the software do you use? The different editing modes, infinitely customisable display options, the MIDI bit, score software, your picture options? One of the reasons why the multi-effects hardware processor never really clung on and made the metamorphosis into the realm of the plug-in is that people actually quite prefer to have the separate processes available. Once you mush it all together you can no longer play Reverb or Compressor Top Trumps. If audio DAW software is to evolve then I believe it must become modular so we can buy only the bits we need and add the other bits on later if we choose. Why not; why is that radical? An implement for a given task rather than a garage full of tools just in case. We’re being sold 180mph cars when what we need is a good bike. Zenon Schoepe

APT hardware business sold to Audemat LOUD has appointed Tokyo-based Onkyo Tokki as Japanese distributor for its Mackie and Tapco brands. Onkyo Tokki already distributes the EAW brand in Japan. Presonus has appointed Eric Boyer as director of marketing. He previously worked at Blue Microphones in a variety of roles. Steve Oppenheimer has been appointed marketing-communications manager. He was previously staff editor at Electronic Musician magazine for 21 years. Brad Zell has been appointed direc tor of produc t management after being director of marketing for five years.

©2009 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

The broadcast hardware hardware and related division of APT has been software, and presently sold to the Audemat employs 38. It will become broadcast equipment part of an amalgamation group. APT Ltd was sold of Audemat companies by APT Licensing Ltd after providing broadcast a reorganisation in the APT technologies to TV, radio, group in January 2009. telecoms operators and APT Licensing remains regulatory bodies. focused on licensing the ‘In a few months, thanks to company’s core intellectual McKenna and Rost. this acquisition, Audemat property and audio coding algorithms (apt-X). group will offer unique integrated and easy As a result of the deal, APT Licensing says it to use solutions to its customers,’ said Bruno will step up its efforts to license apt-X into Rost, president of the Audemat group. consumer electronics and professional audio ‘We wish our hardware subsidiary and its markets. new management team every success in its APT hardware will continue to be responsible new future within the Audemat group,’ added for the design and manufacture of electronic Noel McKenna, CEO of APT Licensing Ltd.

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.

S2 Publications Ltd. Registered in England and Wales. Company number: 4375084. Registered office: Equity House, 128-136 High Street, Edgware, Middlesex HA8 7TT.

resolution

Three Sigmas for TVE Calrec Audio has secured an order for three 48-fader Sigma with Bluefin consoles from Spanish state broadcaster TVE (Televisión Española). The desks are bound for three newsrooms that are being rebuilt and re-equipped at TVE’s broadcast facility in Torrespaña, Madrid. All three newsrooms and desks will be linked by a Calrec Hydra audio network. ‘Calrec’s Sigma consoles were the best fit, technically speaking and from a budgetary point of view, for TVE’s requirements,’ said Guillermo Alberdi, technical sales manager at Spanish distributor COEL. ‘After we had shown them the consoles, they also felt that we had the right solution for them.’ • Calrec will unveil its next-generation console at NAB taking its Bluefin high density signal processing to ‘the next level’, according to the company. The new console has a new control interface, more than twice the processing power and a channel count that is claimed to set a new industry benchmark.

McDSP partners Audiokinetic for games sound Audiokinetic Inc. and McDSP have entered a technical partnership in which McDSP will develop plug-ins for Wwise, Audiokinetic’s audio pipeline solution, which will be accessible directly in Wwise’s user interface. Audiokinetic is a leading audio solution provider for the video game industry and its flagship product, Wwise, ‘revolutionises’ the traditional game audio development process by allowing users to audit, profile, and modify sounds in real-time within the game itself. ‘The growth of the Wwise customer base is impressive, and we’re pleased to be a part of this new generation of audio capabilities for games,’ said Colin McDowell, McDSP’s founder and CTO. ‘McDSP is delighted to deliver high quality real-time audio effects to the gaming market via the Wwise platform.’

KMR Audio Ltd has supplied Michael ‘Curly’ Jobson, tour director for Amy Winehouse among others, with an API Lunchbox with four 512c mic preamp modules and two 550A EQ modules. The equipment is for his project studio in Gloucestershire where the Amy Winehouse band recently recorded a number of tracks.

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April 2009

NEWS

Cabsat numbers up S h e i k h Hasher bin Maktoum Al Maktoum, director general of the Dubai Department of Information, opened the 15th Cabsat MENA Exhibition and the inauguration of Satellite MENA Exhibition at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre in March. Organised by the Dubai World Trade Centre, the region’s premiere events for digital media and satellite communications welcomed more than 650 exhibitors; visitor numbers were also said to be up. Cabsat MENA 2010 will be held at the same venue on 2-4 March next year.

Ferrari caught on Portadrive Award-winning sound designers Radium Audio used the HHB Portadrive location sound recorder to capture the sound of the new Ferrari California for the car’s prelaunch ‘teaser’ website. Travelling at speeds in excess of 200mph on a test track in northern Italy, Radium founder and creative director Andrew Diey recorded the car throughout its rev range using microphone placements developed over many years of experience in sound design for car-based Playstation and Xbox games. ‘The project demanded eight channels of high definition recording in a portable package, so the Portadrive was the obvious choice,’ said Andrew. ‘The Portadrive was recommended to us by colleagues in the film and gaming industries and I have to say it did a brilliant job. It was very straightforward to use, and made it very easy for us to audition the recordings as we went.’

Dolby 3D digital cinema in China

Vote now and win an SE RNR1 Resolution readers who vote online for the Resolution Awards 2009 will automatically be entered into a draw to win a superb SE Electronics RNR1 ribbon microphone, kindly donated by SE Electronics. Read the review in the last issue (V8.2) and find out more about this intriguing microphone at www.seelectronics.com Only registered readers of Resolution magazine are eligible to vote. The Voting page can be accessed after logging in with your unique reader code and postcode (as displayed on your magazine wrapper) in the My Subscription section at www.resolutionmag.com Readers have seven votes to cast in the eleven product categories and can vote only once. Votes from manufacturers will be identified and discarded. Voting has been extended to close at the end of May. The Resolution Awards 2009 celebrate ‘Quality and Innovation’ in professional equipment shipped in 2008. Nominations for the eleven product categories have been drawn from a panel of experts that have an enormous wealth of combined experience across different disciplines: Cameron Craig, Peter Schmidt, Tony Faulkner, Ben Hillier, Jerry Boys, Massimo Scarparo, Phil Horne, Taylan Oguz, Steven Ghouti, Ben Muscat, Darcy Proper, David Mollerstedt, Edwin Pfanzagl, Ken Nelson, Paul Borg, Mick Glossop, Steve Lipson, Iain Roberton, Florian Camerer, Francois Lamoureux, Bob Kraushaar, Dean Humphreys, Steve Williams, Chris Porter, Paul Epworth, Wes Maebe, Hudson Fair, Bob Katz, Chris Tsangarides, Steve Rhodes, Roger Beardsley, Donal Hodgson, Jon Thornton, Philip Newell, Rob James, Andy Day, Nigel Jopson, Dan Daley, Zenon Schoepe

DAW

Microphone

Ableton Live 7.0.12 Digidesign Pro Tools 8 Merging Pyramix 6 MassCore Samplitude/Sequoia 10.2

Crowley and Tripp El Diablo Josephson C720 Neumann TLM 67 Schoeps CCM 22, MK22 Røde NTG-3

Desk-Controller

Monitoring

API 1608 Euphonix Artist MC Fairlight Xynergi RND 5088

Dynamic

The China Film Group Corporation and Lianzhong Circuit, in conjunction with Dolby’s Chinese distributor ACE, have selected Dolby Digital Cinema and Dolby 3D solutions for multiple theatre locations throughout China. ‘Dolby Digital Cinema and Dolby 3D are welcome additions to the Lianzhong Circuit and will wow our audiences with pristine picture and a premium-quality 3D experience,’ said Chen Dunliang, president of Wuhan Lianzhong Circuit.

Analogue Tube AT-101 Elysia Mpressor Tonelux TXC Tube-Tech RM8/CM 1A

EQ Arsenal Audio V14 Gyraf Gyratec GXIV Thermionic Culture The Rooster Tonelux Equalux Tube-Tech RM8/PM 1A

Beyerdynamic Headzone Pro XT Dangerous Music D-Box Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizer SPL The Phonitor

Recorder HHB CDR882 DualBurn Marantz PMD661 Sony PCM-D50 Sound Devices 788T

Plug-in Abbey Road Brilliance Pack Audio Ease Speakerphone Dolby Media Meter Sonnox Suppressor UAD/SPL Transient Designer

Preamp AEA RPQ Focusrite Liquid 4PRE RME DMC-842 Thermionic Culture The Rooster Tonelux MP1a

Processor AnaMod ATS-1 Bricasti M7 Cedar DNS 3000 Universal Audio UAD-2

Interface iZ ADA Prism Sound Orpheus RME HDSPe MADIface Universal Audio UAD-2

Appointments

Chris Hawkins, Chas Levin, Ian Jones, Moog president Mike Adams, Howard Jones, Steve Fisher and Richard Powell.

Source Distribution celebrated its appointment as UK distributor for the Moog brand with one of its splendid lunches at the Ivy Restaurant in London.

Peter Rolston, MD AV Group; Carl Dempsey, president and CEO Wohler; Elio Deluca, Europa Australia.

Wo h l e r Tec hnologies s ay s it is strengthening its presence in the Australian broadcast market by bringing the products formerly sold under the Europa Australia brand under the control of The AV Group. In serving as Australian distributor AV Group will provide resellers with localised logistics, sales and marketing. HHB Communications has been appointed UK distributor for Wohler products. JZ Microphones and Violet Design have received a Certificate of Origin (A097465) that proves their production is completely in Latvia (EU). They are the only mic brands in the world to have such certification. JZ Microphones last month received a German National Economy Award in Latvia 2008. The prize, presented by German ambassador in Latvia Detlef Weigel, was awarded to JZ Microphones for its Black Hole studio microphone. ‘It is very nice that our mics are recognised also in countries which are very rich in music and microphone manufacturing traditions like Germany. It proves that our production is very competitive in the world audio market today — both in quality and price,’ said Juris Zarins (pictured), JZ microphone’s lead designer.

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April 2009

resolution

NEWS

Appointments DPA Microphones has appointed Quanta Brazil as it s new Brazilian distributor. ‘As a big fan of DPA mics myself, I know they will match perfectly with our high end lines of mic preamps and recording systems,’ said sales and marketing director Adinaldo Neves (pictured). Fairlight has appointed Lukas Bower as sales director for the Asia Pacific region. He previously worked as general manager, Strategic Partnerships at Fairlight and prior to that was chief technology officer at Hollywood media agency World Wide Wadio. CharterOak Acoustic Devices has appointed Ansata Computer Systems as its distributor in India. Avid has appointed Simon Brett as senior sales manager for UK and Ireland. He will be responsible for all UK and Ireland professional video and audio produc t sales. His management experience includes roles at Discreet Logic, MD of UK Avid reseller Tyrell, and founder and co-owner of UK reseller XTFX. Al Hosani Computer has taken over distribution for Magix software in United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Creative Sound standardises

Jünger Audio multichannel digital dynamics processors have been adopted as standard by Paris-based postproduction facility Creative Sound, which has installed them in all of its studios. Originally built as a cinema, the facility has seven studios including a Dolby Digital dubbing theatre and the dynamics units were supplied by Paul Henri Wagner of distributor 44.1. ‘In France, both stereo and 5.1 audio for television must meet a level of 8dB Full Scale,’ explained Creative Sound’s sound mixer Cristinel Sirli. ‘The Jünger Audio equipment looks after dynamics and loudness processing, making it much easier for us to meet these requirements. During mixing we can simply forget about the stress of achieving specified levels and instead get on with the job of being creative and artistic.’ Kuwait-based satellite channel Al-Watan TV has bought a Level Magic automated audio loudness control system to balance the audio levels from diverse incoming programme material. ‘We are able to smoothly maintain the audio level during play out of various programmes from different sources and feeds,’ explained Al-Watan’s audio and studio supervisor Issam Abaza. ‘We have been fortunate in acquiring a wealth of black and white video archives. With the help of Level Magic, we have been able to capture these into our servers and eliminate severe fluctuations in their audio levels so that they maintain consistency with our newer, high quality programme material. The Level Magic system provided the perfect solution because I didn’t want to distort the historical warmth and nostalgic feeling of this old material by applying severe dynamic processing to the sound.’

Karekare builds NZ room with a view

Klotz Audio Interface Systems has opened a sales office in the UK and regional sales manager Grant Roomes will coordinate all sales and marketing activities in the UK and Ireland. Roomes has worked for Harman Pro Distributor GSL in Dubai and as sales manager for Soundcraft with responsibility for the Latin American market. DAVID Systems has announced a new channel sales partnership with Analog & Digital Technology Srl which expands DAVID Systems’ presence in Italy. The Monza-based company is a member of the Pro Audio Group and operates in the broadcast, studio recording, home theatre and industry market segments. Audio Agent LLC has been appointed Western US representative for Euphonix Artist Series media controllers.

Karekare Recording in New Zealand, a studio made famous by bands such as Crowded House, Pearl Jam, Radiohead and Killing Joke, has upgraded its facilities by installing a Fairlight Constellation XCS, powered by the CC-1 processor. Studio director Nigel Horrocks said Fairlight’s ability to offer a speedy workflow and great sound were key reasons for the purchase. Karekare Studios, which was opened in 1992 to record New Zealand band Crowded

House’s first album, is situated in a stunning location overlooking Karekare beach — made famous by the film The Piano. Two years ago Horrocks redesigned the studio. ‘Live recording in the controlled Fairlight environment results in track laying, mixing and mastering achieved at a significantly faster rate, without any reduction in quality, and cheaper for the client,’ said Horrocks. ‘It’s an analogue approach using a digital costefficient system.’

resolution

First DNS1500 in Lithuania Arturas Pugaciauskas of AP Sounddesign in Lithuania has installed the country’s first CEDAR DNS1500 and is using it on dialogue noise suppression, Foley, and FX creation in his surround studio where he works as a recording, mixing and mastering engineer. ‘I originally bought my DNS1500 for dialogue cleaning,’ he said. ‘I had tried and used various software plug-ins and other hardware noise reduction, but I can say that nothing performs noise suppression as effectively, as quickly, and without artefacts as my DNS1500. It helps in situations where other tools are too weak, and I’m impressed that it’s possible to remove even film camera noise if it not too sharp and not too clearly focused. ‘Now I am discovering more and more purposes for the DNS. In my role as a music mixer I can also remove unwanted hiss from poorly recorded samples and tracks, and sometimes I use it to shorten reverb tails. And in sound design, it’s possible to use the DNS1500 as a creative tool for filter-like FX, such as “closed ears” and the “underwater” effect, where the DNS1500 sounds strange and original and quite different from EQ,’ he added. ‘Having started my own business and having invested in specialised equipment such as the DNS1500, I can now perform all the necessary jobs to prepare a movie soundtrack for final mixing at UP Records, the only Dolby certified cinema soundstage in Lithuania.’ • CEDAR’s DNS3000 has won a US Cinema Audio Society Award as the outstanding product in postproduction in 2009.

Munro to design new MG Sound build Munro Acoustics has been appointed to design and build the new home for MG Sound, Austria’s largest recording studio complex based in Vienna. The company, whose old studio in Vienna was originally designed by Munro, is relocating into a larger, nearby three-story building. MG Sound’s new headquarters used to be a bank and is about double the size at 1200sqm and has high ceilings. The new facility will include three music studios — one of which will be a Dolby-ready film mixing and editing suite — plus three postproduction rooms, including mastering and a transfer suite. The company hopes to have it all completed by the end of the year. ‘We have needed to expand for some time because of our growing label work and the increased amount of advertising music,’ explained owner Martin Böehm. ‘We are continually in need of a large live room for recording orchestras as, although we also record on location, the budgets often to do not stretch to include hiring a concert hall.’

April 2009

Pinewood Studios Group Dual - Operator System 5

2nd Sense – S5 Fusion

Wave Studios – System 5-MC

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50 : 50 Studios – Artist Series MC Control & MC Mix

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NEWS

Appointments Neil Maycock has been appointed chief marketing officer for Pro-Bel. He takes over the role from Adrian Scott. Neil, who will be based at the ProBel Reading headquarters, has recently returned from the US where he was president of Pro-Bel operations for the Americas.

CUK Audio has been appointed distributor for Sabine in the UK and Ireland.

Clockaudio has appointed MOCOM C o m m u n i c a t i o n Sy s t e m s a s i t s distributor in Austria. Time+Space Distribution Limited has taken on UK distribution of microphone brand Sontronics.

No sweat studio build

Sweatshop Studios were recently completed in a 1060sqft space in Katonah, New York with acoustics and aesthetics handled by the Walters-Storyk Design Group. ‘As the owner of a small business I learned the value of performing due diligence early on,’ said Sweatshop owner Shaul Dover. ‘When my son Edan and I considered the ramifications of building a recording studio our two priorities were an architect/ acoustician who could develop a studio that would meet the requirements of a sophisticated client base, and a business plan that would lead us towards a return on our investment. Our initial sessions have convinced us that the studio has excellent prospects for fulfilling its mission. ‘The key for me was to create an environment where artists could focus on their creativity. The vibe is as important as our collection of analogue and digital gear. We spoke with a number of architects, and were impressed with John Storyk. His work on the Jazz At Lincoln Center Complex was particularly meaningful, as we plan to focus on a jazz-oriented client base,’ he said. The studio is outfitted with Dynaudio BM15A 5.1 monitoring with BM12S Sub, Dangerous Monitor Control with ST and SR Expender, Studer A800 24-track, Euphonix 5MC, Nuendo, Pro Tools HD, Logic Pro 8 and Lynx Aurora convertors.

Showtime NAB, Las Vegas..................17-23 April AES Europe, Munich.............7-10 May

IBC, Amsterdam......11-15 September Plasa, London..........13-16 September AES US, New York..........9-12 October SIEL/SATIS, Paris...........19-22 October Broadcast India, Mumbai........................27–31 October SBES, Birmingham........... 3 November InterBee, Tokyo.........18-20 November

A new all-purpose compact Outside Broadcast vehicle equipped with an RSS M-400 console and Digital Snake multicores has been delivered to BBC Radio Resources by Total Audio Projects. The van has sound insulation, making it suitable for concerts, talkshows, light entertainment and music festivals, and with 48 channels available on the M-400 console, the truck carries a 40-channel S-4000 Digital Snake multicore as well as a S-0816 stage box. The stage box can be used for sound feeds to and from another area on a stage or to a second OBV and an additional S-1608 front-of-house unit is fitted on-board to provide extra inputs and outputs to the desk within the truck environment.

Riedel comms is in the park

Odds On opens in Vegas

Digigram has appointed Her vé Odini as international sales director. Hervé will be responsible for all three of Digigram’s international sales of fices: Grenoble for the EME A; Singapore for Asia and the Pacific; and Arlington, VA for the Americas. He joins from Sun Microsystems and has also worked for HP, IBM and Ericsson.

LLB, Stockholm................... 13-15 May

RSS V-Mix in compact BBC OBV

Odds On Records and Studios has opened its $2 million facility just a few miles from the Las Vegas strip in Henderson, NV with the largest SSL Duality console in North America at 96-inputs. ‘Here at Odds On, we’re all about putting customer service back into the record making process,’ said Bobby Ferrari, head of audio production. ‘We have great lounges and private areas, lots of vintage outboard gear and classic microphones combined with stateof-the-art large format analogue consoles and the latest in Pro Tools technology. We also have numerous acoustic environments

and a highly skilled staff.’ In addition to the newly built main tracking room, the 12,000-square-foot building also has a mixing studio with an 80-input SSL 9000 K console and a writing, editing and production suite with a Matrix. Each of the rooms, built by acoustician Carl Yanchar of Yanchar Design & Consulting Group, also has its own client lounge. The studio has Allen Sides Ocean Way monitors and 40 x 80 Pro Tools inputs and outputs in each room. The final phase of construction will see a mastering suite opened in the summer.

resolution

The Major League Baseball (MLB) Network has ordered a large Artist digital matrix intercom system from Riedel consisting of four Artist 128 frames linked via fibre at the MLB Network facility in Secaucus, NJ plus 32 additional Artist mainframes that will be installed at all 30 Major League ballparks and other locations. These remote systems, each equipped with VoIP cards, will be intelligently trunked back to the MLB Network over an IP network. The Secaucus system alone includes over 160 intercom control panels plus interface equipment for VoIP, analogue telephone lines and digital partylines. ‘Our ability to trunk the ballparks via IP has given us unparalleled connectivity to all Major League Baseball teams,’ said Mark Haden, VP of engineering and IT at the MLB Network. ‘That allows us to operate more efficiently and effectively. Riedel’s intelligent trunking allows operators to simply use the system without having to ask someone else to open up a communication path for them.’ • Riedel has also installed a digital intercom matrix at Greek TV station ANT-1 TV Cyprus. The intercom backbone is a Performer 32 intercom matrix and Artist 2000 and Artist 2100 control panels complete the installation.

April 2009

AIM HIGH By utilising building materials created for the Aerospace industry in our console design, some people think we go overboard with our attention to detail. But how else can we ensure you save valuable weight in OB applications? Ergonomics and failsafe architecture are other key factors that are constantly being addressed by our R&D team in Berlin and help us keep at the forefront of console design. Our goal is to meet your highest expectations!

STAGETEC delivers

AURUS The Direct Access Console

LIGHTWEIGHT using materials designed for aircraft a typical surface weighs just 88 kilos! SECURITY high level fail safe built-in redundancy. RUN-UP TIME to roll and networked in 30 seconds using NEXUS. HEAR THE increased dynamic range provided by TrueMatch >150dB converters. MADE IN GERMANY German Precision in Audio Engineering.

PROVEN RELIABILITY

Industriegebiet See 96155 Buttenheim Germany Tel.: +49 (0) 95 45 440-300 Fax: +49 (0) 95 45 440-333 sales@stagetec.com www.stagetec.com

International ALVA Distributors NEWS

North America

USA, CANADA: Synthax Inc. . www.synthax.com

Biz Bites The UK live music industry generated £904m of revenue in 2008, compared with £896m yielded by recorded music, writes Nigel Jopson. The numbers were revealed at the International Live Music Conference by Will Page, economist for collection society the PRS. ‘We have all the data on live music at the PRS because we license all the live performances that go around the country, so we’re actually able to put a number on how much live music is worth,’ explained Page, who termed the landmark a ‘changing of the guard.’ Page noted that advance ticket sales from big acts hinted that 2010 numbers for the UK might top 2009’s score. But Phil Bowdery, president of touring at Live Nation International Music, warned: ‘The bigger acts seem to be getting stronger and are selling tickets. But the acts that used to be mid-level are the ones suffering now.’ In the US, research firm NPD group showed the number of internet users paying for digital music increased by just over 8m in 2008 to 36m. Purchases of digital music downloads have increased by 29% since last year; they now account for 33% of all US music purchased. NPD also revealed there were nearly 17m fewer CD buyers in 2008. But there is evidence that music listening is increasing. Awareness and use of online music recommendation engine/ radio Pandora (Resolution V6.2) doubled year-on-year to 18% of internet users; one-third of those who knew of Pandora report using the service. The percentage of consumers claiming to listen to music on social networks climbed from 15% in Q4 of 2007 to 19% in Q4 2008. Nearly half of US teens are engaging with music on social networks, which is an increase from 37% a year ago. Google-owned YouTube has removed UK users’ access to premium music videos after failing to reach a deal with PRS for Music over online royalties. It’s a bargaining ploy, blocking major-label content and blaming it on the PRS, who’ve just finished a painful tribunal process with labels. Google knows this process created animosity, and they’re playing it to the hilt. ‘YouTube’s row with the PRS is the most recent example of just how fast the music industry is changing,’ says board member (and Blur drummer) Dave Rowntree. ‘There has never been a greater need for the collective voice of featured artists, whose music generates 95% of revenue in the industry, to be properly heard.’

C-Live has wheels

South America

CHILE: Videomedia LTDA. . www.mediaycom.cl Europe

A 36-channel Audient ASP8024 console has completed the mobile sound recording unit for new company C-Live based in Neville, France. Designed by owner/manager Thierry Ozouf, the compact studio-on-wheels is for hire for festivals and concerts with its Pyramix workstation and Sydec convertors. ‘Deciding on the console wasn’t difficult,’ explains Ozouf. ‘I had read a few articles in the press and the engineers at Audient have a great reputation. I know of two excellent studios in France that had recently bought the 24-channel models as well. On top of that, the audio console market doesn’t offer anything else of the same quality in this price bracket. ‘It took eight months of construction; the only thing I didn’t do myself was paint the outside of the truck,’ said Ozouf. ‘The company’s next investment will be in 5.1 equipment for DVD recording and I’d like to offer our services to neighbouring countries soon, too.’

Tinopolis Group turns to Max Air

BULGARIA: Almar Co. Ltd. . www.almar.bg CROATIA: Neuron . www.neuron-d.com CZECH REPUBLIC: Disk Multimedia s.r.o. . www.disk.cz DENMARK: Soundworks . www.soundworks.dk ESTONIA: IS Music Trading Ltd. . music@online.ee FINLAND: Studiotec Oy . www.studiotec.fi FRANCE: SCV Audio . www.scv.fr GEORGIA: AES Georgia . www.aes-georgia.com GERMANY, AUSTRIA: Synthax GmbH . www.synthax.de GREECE: Logothetis Music . www.logothetismusic.gr HUNGARY: Midisoft Studio Kft. . www.midisoft.hu ICELAND: Tonabudin Ltd. . www.tonabudin.is IRELAND: Future Sounds . www.futuresounds.ie ITALY: MidiWare Srl . www.midiware.com LITHUANIA: Midiaudio Ltd. . www.midiaudio.com NETHERLANDS, BENELUX: AudioAG . www.synthax.nl NORWAY: ProLyd . www.prolyd.no POLAND: Audiostacja s.c. . www.audiostacja.pl PORTUGAL: Audiolog, Lda . www.audiolog-lda.com ROMANIA: A.V. Audio Sys s.r.l. . www.avaudiosys.ro RUSSIA: 4Sonic. . www.4sonic.ru SERBIA, MONTENEGRO: Artist d.o.o. . www.artistsystems.co.yu SLOVAK REPUBLIC: Sound Service . www.soundservice.sk SLOVENIA: MTD . www.mtd-el.si SPAIN: Microfusa . www.microfusa.com SWEDEN: Fitzpatrick Import Group S.A. . www.fitzpatrick.se SWITZERLAND: Music Network GmbH . www.musicnetwork.ch TURKEY: BL Muzik Co. Ltd. . www.blmuzik.com UKRAINE: Real Music Ltd. . www.realmusic.ua UNITED KINGDOM: Synthax Audio UK Ltd. . www.synthax.co.uk Asia and Pacific Rim

The Tinopolis Group, the independent media producer for television, animation and new media, has installed a 106-channel Euphonix Max Air at its facility in Llanelli, UK. The Tinopolis Group is comprised of several independent television production companies including Mentorn Media and John Cleese’s Video Arts as well as sports programmers Sunset + Vine. Tinopolis produces 230 hourly and 230 half-hourly live daily magazine style programmes, a wide range of sports programmes as well as various children’s TV and serial TV dramas. ‘We needed to take a step forward as our output has increased considerably and our old analogue console became limiting as it didn’t have the flexibility to adapt easily between different shows,’ explained Richard Vaughan, head of sound for The Tinopolis Group. ‘We

were looking for longevity in the new console. We had the old analogue console for 10 years, and it might well be another 10 years before we get a new one again. ‘The Max Air went into a new control room and was very easy to install,’ he said. ‘We went straight into using the Max Air even though we had a week overlap with the old desk in the old control room as belt and braces, but we didn’t need it. There hasn’t been a steep learning curve at all. In fact, the engineers are confident in using features like layouts and PatchNet and are happy moving between different titles for different projects.’ The Tinopolis Group is the first UK broadcast installation for Euphonix and joins MediaPro in Spain, TVM Mobile in Ireland, and multiple broadcast consoles at Canal+ and Eurosport in France.

AZERBAIJAN: Promix . www.promix.az AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND: Innovative Music Australia Pty Ltd. . www.innovativemusic. com.au CHINA: Central Music Co. . www.centrmus.com HONG KONG: Central Music (HK) Ltd. . www.centrmus.com.hk INDIA: Modi Digital Audio Pvt Ltd. . www.modidigital.com JAPAN: Synthax Japan . www.synthax.jp KOREA: Soundcat . www.soundcat.com INDONESIA: M-Station . www.m-station.biz THAILAND, KAMBODIA, MALAYSIA: KDM Trading Co Ltd . www.kdm.co.th TAIWAN: MidiMall Inc. . www.midimall.com.tw Middle East

ISRAEL: Music-Shop LTD . www.music-shop.co.il UAE, EMIRATES: Thomsun Trading Est . www.thomsun.ae IRAN: Raajmaan System Ltd. . www.raajmaan.com Africa

SOUTH AFRICA: Tuerk Music Technologie . www.tuerkmusic.co.sa All other countries: Please check www. rme-audio.com Worldwide Distribution

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Analog

D-Sub25 to 8 x TRS Stereo Plug

D-Sub25 to 8 x XLR-3 male

D-Sub25 to 8 x XLR-3 female

FireWire

FireWire 400 6 pin to 6 pin

FireWire 400/800 4 pin to 9 pin

FireWire 800 9 pin to 9 pin

Digital

AES/EBU XLR to D-Sub25

www.alva-audio.com

MADI Optical - available as Cable Drum

ADAT/SPDIF Optical

UK distribution

Pro Audio Cableware

Synthax Audio UK Ltd. www.synthax.co.uk

NEWS

Biz Bites N o k i a will remove restrictions on music downloads in the coming months. The manufacturer does not currently allow tracks bought from its music store to be transferred between phones, a stumbling block for users upgrading handsets. The removal of Digital Rights Management has been secured after negotiations with labels. Adam Mirabella, director of global digital music retail for Nokia, said: ‘We have dialogues going with all of our partners and DRM-free is also on the roadmap for the future integration of Comes With Music.’ Spiral Frog has croaked its last. The ‘innovative’ ad-funded site, launched in 2006 with much media attention, was supposed to make money from adverts displayed while visitors listened to music, browsed album art and read artist bios. It struck deals with major labels, downloaded songs only continued to play as long as customers visited the site at least once every 60 days. Ruckus, another ad-supported music provider aimed at college students, has also closed. Expect more online music sites to sink to the bottom of the pool as hopeful techies with threadbare business plans run out of start-up funding. A one-off edition of the BBC’s show Top Of The Pops (cancelled in 2006) featuring Oasis, U2 and Flo Rida achieved average ratings of 6.7m viewers. ‘Comic Relief Does Top Of The Pops’ had a 32% audience between 10pm and 10.35pm on 13 March, designated as Red Nose Day. Indie band The Ting Tings want to see the show back in a regular slot on the BBC, Metro and Sun readers want it back, Simon Cowell has said he would like to buy the rights to TOTP from the BBC and broadcast it on ITV ... even the UK government’s Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has called for the return of TOTP. He said broadcasters must: ‘promote and champion new music in this country, rather than having just very safe options on prime-time TV.’ Apple has introduced a new iPod Shuffle, which overcomes the entry-level device’s lack of a screen with a new feature: it talks! It becomes the first Shuffle to support playlists, announcing them, and the song titles and artist names, in any of 14 different languages. To help me with the business column this month (p56), I’ve set mine to Mandarin Chinese.

AWS for Aguilera’s studio

Engineer Oscar Ramirez, who has worked with Kanye West, P. Diddy and Aftermath Records, suggested an SSL AWS 900+ to drive the Pro Tools system for Christina Aguilera’s private studio. Aguilera’s design team additionally purchased eight channels of XLogic mic amps and dynamics modules to augment the 24-channels on the console. ‘We’re doing the whole writing and recording process at the studio with Christina and we are working right now on some projects. The beauty of the AWS is that if we have to go to a bigger studio, the tracks we create with the AWS are finished tracks because the quality is there. We can also get amazing mixes out of the console,’ said Ramirez. Leading UK-based writer and producer Tommy D has installed an SSL Matrix in his studio. ‘I was looking for a desk that had a pro sound but didn’t have hundreds of channels — I don’t need that,’ he said. ‘I was also looking for something that was really flexible, something that was easy and quick to move around different projects. I work with really diverse sounds and styles of music from dance through to rock and even classical, and often all in the same day. The Matrix moves as fast as I do.’ In recent years Tommy has co-written and produced hit songs for Kylie (More More More), Janet Jackson (Slo Love) and Sophie Ellis Bextor (I Believe). Tommy was instrumental in finding and developing the careers of KT Tunstall and Corrine Bailey Rae. He co-wrote and produced the singles Under The Weather and Stoppin’ The Love for KT and I’d Like Too for Corinne.

Schick and McNair remain Dangerous

US mastering engineer Glenn Schick’s allanalogue surround mastering room features three Dangerous Master mastering consoles (to cover 6-channel work), paired with the Dangerous Monitor ST/SR stereo and surround monitor controller. ‘We do almost all of our work in the analogue domain,’ said Schick. ‘We’ve honestly tried so many times over the last few years to go the all-digital route, but really nothing out there gives us the kind of results that a good analogue chain does. We’re just pleased as Punch, we’re killing the work we did years ago. We are getting more out of the Dangerous setup than anything we could have imagined. The system lets us get a great musical, lively sound. It’s doing wonders for really “dead” DAW tracks that we’ve been getting as source material.’

Mastering engineer Dave McNair has a new suite at Masterdisk Studios in New York. Previously at Scott Hull’s studio, McNair made the jump when Hull purchased Masterdisk and expanded his business and in his new mastering suite McNair has paired his Dangerous Master Transfer Console with the Dangerous Monitor. ‘I’m extremely picky, and I know a lot of folks that do mastering are extremely picky, and a transfer console is a critical part of the sound of mastering because your signal is routed through it, and it has to do several jobs along the way,’ he said. For me the Dangerous Master is really, really transparent, but the sound that it does have is a musical sound.’

Mayah in Philharmonia

Quested VS3208 and S6R monitors have been chosen for the Voice Studio installation at Suzuka Media Park in Japan. The Suzuka Media Park development has shops and restaurants as well as a Community FM station, a multipurpose venue, an outdoor stage and a suite of studios for band practice and recording. ‘This area is not a big city like Tokyo or Osaka, so this facility will be open not only to professionals but also to semi-professional engineers and amateurs too,’ said Kiyoshi Yamaki of Quested distributor MTC. ‘Although the original plan required a small spec console, as the project was rolled out the specification changed to the SSL Duality. The Quested sound is natural, clean and solid and I have complete confidence in the ability of the VS3208s and S6Rs to perform well in this situation alongside the SSL and the Digidesign Pro Tools 192 interface.’

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Mayah has shipped its newest IP Audio Codec from the C11 product family to the recording studio of the St Petersburg Philharmonia in Russia. The studio has been constructed by Russian audio and video system integrator ISPA-Engineering with a C1130 with the apt-X/ Eapt-X option taking take care of internet-based live transmissions from or via the studio. The studio consists of a control room, recording area and a server room for the audio and video archive. The C1130 audio codec will provide the audio to the world outside for live broadcasting or monitoring purposes. The studio includes an SSL AWS900+, Pyramix DAW, B&W 802D monitors and microphones from Neumann, Schoeps, DPA, and Sennheiser.

April 2009

facility

RecPublica Take some musicians disgruntled by their studio experiences and put them in an old mill with a plan and a dream. What you get is the biggest new independent commercial music recording studio in Poland. ZENON SCHOEPE

he stories behind facilities have always fascinated me. Each build has a story as unique as its patchbay, mic box and power distribution arrangement as it combines elements of architecture, design, technology and high-finance. However, at the very heart of every endeavour there are the people that have the vision, that have the business plan and take the risk. Nobody ever said opening a studio was easy although there certainly were times when it was perhaps simpler; today’s generation of studio entrepreneurs are generally a much sharper and savvier bunch. RecPublica is a new residential studio located in the middle of West Poland, which also happily coincides with a good central European position. The biggest place that you might have heard of that the tiny hamlet of Lubrza is closest to is Poznan, but as engineer Patryk Zukowski and studio owner Maciej Hladki point out, that perspective changes when you look at the geography of the region. ‘Our location, so near the German border, is a good place to be. The price of land here is lower,’ says Patryk. ‘We’re looking for international clients because it’s easier for someone to come here from Germany than it is for someone to come from Warsaw, for example. You can fly in from London quicker than someone can drive from Warsaw — we’re 90-minutes from Berlin by car.’ And what you’ll find in the middle of the quiet rural landscape that surrounds Lubrza is a John Flynn-designed studio with a total of five independent live recording areas, the biggest of which is the 1000cum main hall, a 48-channel SSL Duality, ADAM S6A monitoring, Pro Tools HD2 with Apogee convertors, and a healthy selection of outboard. All this, plus the residential, office and shared areas on the very

top floor, is housed in a 700-year-old former mill that is amazing for its 15m height — the live hall has a 9m ceiling. Patryk and Maciej are both musicians with their own bands but had shared negative experiences of Polish studios, which served as the impetus for RecPublica’s creation. ‘We’d both used studios in Poland as a band in Warsaw and near Krakow, and there’s always the problem with bigger cities where you have to travel for hours each day from the hotel to the studio, then it’s a 6-hour session, if you’re lucky, and then you go back,’ says Patryk. ‘It’s a lot of hanging around in hotel rooms and it’s hard to focus when you’re in a band. It feels like you only just get into the control room and then you have to leave.’ He adds that while cities offer opportunities for nightlife for a band, he points out that the band is there primarily to work – that’s what they’re really paying for. ‘Another downside of city studios is that there’s always someone coming in and asking for a bounce from the project they did there a couple of days ago… so you’re getting interrupted all the time. It never made us feel that special as customers and that’s a common experience in studios in Poland. We’ve created excellent conditions here at RecPublica for musicians to come and work; we’ve created a creative environment for our customers.’ Both men are local to the region, with owner Maciej running a number of his own businesses in the area, and both are still active musicians who believe they are able to see a studio from the perspective of the client. The old mill was derelict and while it was not their first choice for their studio location, bit by bit it drew the pair in. You can see the thought process at work here, but you can also see the drawbacks — fantastic building, masses of space, so much potential, needs a lot of work though but it’s a very good price. You can spend a fortune on a ‘fantastic’ project building even before you start on the studio inside it but these chaps had thought of that. ‘We could do whatever we wanted with this space but we quickly realised that there were lots of special considerations and it wasn’t easy — a wooden internal construction, very high ceilings, chimneys, and so on,’ says Patryk. ‘But we created a business plan and accounted for absolutely everything. Even so, everyday there were surprises!’ They’ve resisted one of the greatest temptations of the ‘fantastic’ project build – the desire to do the job as cheaply as possible as opposed to doing the job properly. You only have to walk around the studio to feel and hear that RecPublica has spent

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April 2009

facility

its money on the important stuff and has got this very difficult balance right. A testament to this is the fact that John Flynn was involved with the acoustic design. ‘From the beginning we wanted to build something that was truly uncommon in Poland — a place for creative people in a calm environment,’ explains Patryk. ‘Then we wanted to have the best equipment and the best acoustics. I graduated in acoustics from university but I’d never done a project like this so we were looking for someone with experience. On one of our many visits to KMR in London, who supplied us with most of the equipment, we were talking to Niki [Melville-Rogers] and he mentioned John Flynn. It went from there.’ The planning started three years ago and while they originally only really had the walls to start with, they turned out to be very good walls at around a meter thick so latent isolation was good. They asked Flynn for a great live space — a big one with

April 2009

a high ceiling — and a solid and dependable control room. The other spaces were about experimentation and have resulted in some interesting acoustic rooms with windows that look down on to the main hall. Building started two years ago with Patryk and Maciej supervising the local building workers throughout. Similar care and attention was paid to the equipment choices as demonstrated by the beautiful Fazioli piano that is dwarfed in the massive live area. This involved numerous trips to London and the one they eventually bought is an ex-rental, one-careful-owner model that apparently spent most of its time in Buckingham Palace. They were similarly thorough with their gear, the majority of which came unusually from North London supplier KMR Audio because Patryk had history with the firm. Some years ago he worked in the US for a year with a live sound company. ‘One of the things I got to do was see a lot of studios and it was something I had never seen in Poland,’ he explains. ‘When I returned to Poland, all the money I’d earned I used to buy equipment. I was looking for Oktava microphones and they were hard to find in Poland but I found KMR, they had them, and they sold two to me. I remembered that. When it came to the studio and finding a supplier I said we should give them a go.’ The negotiations started and Patryk and Maciej were pleased with the experience. Most significantly, although KMR’s SSL desk interest stops with the AWS, they supplied the Duality to RecPublica. ‘We wanted a proper desk and the AWS was too small and not extendable. We were going to be a “big” studio with live recording so we needed a big desk. The Duality was, and is, the most flexible, modern desk around,’ states Patryk. ‘We wanted an analogue desk — not just a controller for Pro Tools — because we love the analogue sound. We’d like the idea of being able to save a complete session and call it back a week later, and we still have to use bits of paper, but what we do get is great headroom and, most importantly, I don’t watch the sound on a screen — I listen to it. It’s very useful to be able to press a button and just switch to DAW control because when you’re working on a long project you can use it in a different ways.’ RecPublica is an interesting and very workable facility with the stunning main room big enough to accommodate 60 musicians comfortably. I like the additional smaller live spaces and there’s even a small programming room available. There are plans, longer term, to possibly add an additional control room at the side of the building at ground level. As it stands, it is the biggest independent commercial music recording studio in Poland now. While it’s only recently opened it’s already done some jazz recording sessions and some mixes for Polish pop acts. The engineering team of Patryk and Maciej have been enjoying themselves. ‘We are a very good team because we really understand each other and how we work,’ says Patryk. ‘That’s very important when you’re setting up a session and getting things ready — it’s a long walk from the control room to the live room otherwise!’ Prices with accommodation start from around Euro 500 a day with an engineer or assistant. That’s good value by any measure. ‘Most of the musicians from the mainstream work in a home recording environment,’ says Patryk. ‘So we are more focussed on live music — jazz, acoustic music, bands that want to get that live playing together sound, and those people who want to track parts of a project in a proper studio and then finish it at home. There are still many artists who appreciate the difference of working in a real studio.’ n

Contact recpublica, lubrza, poland Tel: +48 683 813 285 Website: www.recpublica.com

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GEAR

Products Equipment introductions and announcements.

Zen analogue with DAW control

The Zen from Audient is described as a compact, classic recording and mixing console that combines analogue mixing technology with DAW integration. Dual inputs provide the mic/line input stage and the DAW return path, offering a flexible system for connecting to a DAW or standalone recorder. It has individual DAW record outputs, mono and stereo buses, auxes, a sophisticated monitor section and an optional digital output interface. Features of the mixing console include 16 or 32 inputs, two inputs per channel, DAW record output on each channel, two stereo buses, two mono buses, four auxiliaries/two cue sends, insert on each channel, a stereo bus compressor, stereo digital output option, moving fader automation and DAW transport control. www.audient.com

MADI and ADAT convertor series

RME’s MADI line is now extended with multichannel convertors for 16 and 32 channels in the M-series. Packed into 2u the M-32 AD offers a 32 channel A-D conversion to MADI and ADAT at ‘reference’ quality. The fully symmetrical analogue circuit design boasts ‘excellent’ SN and THD specs across a wide analogue level range. The device works up to 192kHz and achieves a real-world SN ratio of 116dBA on all channels. Further features are analogue limiters, three hardware reference levels up to +24dBu, MADI and ADAT I-O, analogue inputs via 6.3mm TRS and D-sub connectors, remote control via MIDI and MIDI over MADI, and operation across a wide range of mains voltages.

Nearly identical features are found in the M-32 DA, which offers 32-channel D-A conversion. The unit combines ‘excellent’ analogue circuit design with RME’s SteadyClock for SN specs up to 118dBA. Both convertors are also available as 16-channel versions and are identical aside from the reduced channel count. www.rme-audio.de

Spotlight: ADAM Audio ADAM has released a new top-line of studio monitors to coincide with its tenth anniversary. The SX-Series is based on the S-Series but is described as a ‘fundamental transformation’ with all transducers, drivers and electronics redesigned. All six models — S1X, S2X, S3X-H, S3X-V, S4X-H, and S4X-V — feature the new X-ART (eXtended frequency response) tweeter. Its principle of ‘accelerating air’ is the same as the proprietary Accelerating Ribbon Technology but with 4dB higher efficiency, a 3dB higher maximum sound pressure level, and an increase in frequency response up to 50kHz. ADAM has also designed a new broadband amplifier to match the X-ART tweeter with low distortion figures and an ‘excellent’ damping factor. An internal bandwidth of more than 1MHz is externally limited so the unit delivers a response up to 300kHz. The HexaCone woofers used exclusively in ADAM monitors have also been redesigned with larger and longer voice coils that deliver more linear excursion for higher maximum SPL values. A stronger magnetic structure has also been added and there’s a new front panel housing for the speaker controls. www.adam-audio.com

Trinnov goes stereo

Trinnov Audio’s Optimizer ST is a stereo loudspeaker processor featuring the company’s digital room correction technology. This correction processor can be used to optimise monitor behaviour in any room to achieve accurate sound reproduction and consistent mixes from one room to another. Optimizer ST uses the same ‘digital acoustics engine’ that established Trinnov’s reputation for helping sound engineers achieve translatable mixes in 5.1 control rooms and postproduction theatres. It combines automatic or manual room equalisation with acoustic measurement of impulse responses and time/frequency analysis. The Optimizer ST offers room EQ features, such as target curves and automatic phase optimisation, but also includes the functionality that you expect from a loudspeaker processor, such as delays, gains, crossovers and manual EQs (graphic and parametric). For 2-way and 3-way systems the Optimizer’s automatic crossover alignment dramatically reduces the effort required to set up gains and delays. The integrated Bass Management adjusts delays on each satellite automatically to ensure optimal overlapping with the subwoofer. A monitor controller can be built by connecting third-party level controls and/ or touchscreens to the Optimizer ST. www.trinnov.com

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New Blue Skys Blue Sky has added two new components — the Sub 212 400W push-pull active sub and the Sat 8 300W compact midfield monitor. The Sub 212 is designed to be an integral part of the monitoring system, enabling a studio monitor, such as the Sat 8, to be positioned for the best imaging, and the Sub to be positioned for the best bass response. When combined with bass management electronics, the two provide a full-range monitoring system. The Sub 212 is a sealed box, dual 12-inch subwoofer. It features a claimed anechoic frequency response of 25Hz to 200Hz, +/-3dB. It has built-in 2.1 bass management electronics with a 4th-order 80Hz Linkwitz-Riley low-pass filter and a 2ndorder 80Hz high-pass filter that is matched to the response of the Sat 8 (the Sub 212 is also compatible with the Sat 12, Sat 6.5 and Sat 5). The Sat 8 is a three-way, tri-amplified, 300W monitor with an 8-inch high excursion hemispherical woofer, a 4-inch hemispherical midrange driver, and a 1-inch dual ring radiator tweeter with integral waveguide. To reduce cabinet diffraction reflections, Blue Sky has incorporated its proprietary MultiAperture Acoustic Diffraction Absorber into the baffle. It is powered by separate 100W amps for three drivers. The rear panel has controls for full space (placement in a room) or half space (mounted in a baffle wall) operation, along with individual HF, MF and LF level trims, and controls for variable gain settings. www.abluesky.com

April 2009

GEAR

AEQ releases

The Titan BC 2000 D Router/Concentrator is a high-speed, high-capacity (5120 x 5120 audio channels) digital audio router and concentrator. It is designed to serve as the audio switching core in critical systems and is equipped with five, bi-directional optical fibre ports with non-blocking architecture. Each port is capable of connecting up to 1024 channels. As with the rest of the BC 2000 D, the control system is based upon TCP/IP. The AM-04 audio monitor accepts four analogue audio signals, has two pairs of AES outputs with a n additional analogue audio signal, and an SDI video embedded audio signal. It acts as an ‘un-embedder’, obtaining a composite video output, four analogue outputs, and two AESEBU pairs. The AM-04 works with individual left and right high frequency, with common low frequencies, has a headphone output, and sports two pairs of tri-colour peak VU meters with 26 LEDs, and a phase control between each pair of VU meter bars. Phoenix Studio is an IP audio codec with stereo analogue and digital I-Os. It has two slots for inserting optional communication modules allowing future modules to be developed. In addition to the main programme and return, it can simultaneously provide a backup (or coordination) channel using optional communication modules. www.aeq.eu

Sonifex bright ideas Designed for studio installers and systems integrators, the SignalLED range of illuminated studio signs contains their own control electronics so they can be configured for colour and operation on site. The signs are flush-mounted as standard but an optional kit can be used to end-mount them to a wall. There is also a double-sided end-mounted version that can be used, for example, in corridors, so that different wording is displayed on each side of the sign. Each sign is 40cm or 20cm long and there is a wide range of different lettering and colours available. Signs can be on constantly, flash, pulse, or switched off using two control pull-low inputs. Each sign is supplied with a 6V DC power supply and a 5m cable. www.sonifex.co.uk

McDSP Live Pack McDSP’s Live Pack is a collection of plug-ins for mixing live performances and boasts ultra low latency, sonic flexibility and seamless integration with the Digidesign Venue system. It includes Channel G Compact, Chrome Tone, DE555, FutzBox, MC2000, ML4000 and NF575. It also supports TDM, RTAS and Audiosuite formats on Pro Tools HD, LE and M-Powered systems. www.mcdsp.com

www.schoeps.de/showroom/

Crane Song Egret

Egret from Crane Song is a workstation back end. It has eight channels of D-AC and a stereo line mixer for summing. Each channel in the mixer has a level control, cue send, colour control, pan control, analogue/digital source button, and solo/mute buttons. By using the balanced direct outputs and the balanced analogue inputs you can insert analogue processing into individual channels. The built-in cue bus with its master level control can be used as an effects send and a balanced stereo effects return is built into the system. The master bus level control has a stepped attenuator with 1dB steps for most of its range. The headphone system allows a monitor mix to be created when Egret is being used in multichannel location recording while the D-A convertors support sample rates up to 192kHz and have sample rate convertors on each channel for input jitter reduction. There is a front panel switch to disable the SRC in cases where lower latency is required. The system is built so the convertors and the interface can be upgraded as technology changes. Egret stereo and cue buses can be chained together to create a bigger system and, with a special cable, Egret’s bus can also be tied to a Crane Song Spider as a way of summing additional analogue inputs. www.kmraudio.com

April 2009

Unrivalled innovation Excerpt from a contribution to an Internet forum:

“Wow, one of the best online presentations I've ever seen.”

SCHOEPS GmbH Spitalstr. 20 D-76227 Karlsruhe resolution

a practical comparison of recording techniques

www.schoeps.de mailbox@schoeps.de Tel. +49 721 943 200 17

GEAR

CharterOak broadcast mic CharterOak’s S700 broadcast microphone, which has an internal plosive filter, is said to have a robust midrange and smooth and detailed top end. Based on CharterOak’s S600, the S700 employs CharterOak’s series 700 type head amplifier with the S-3 type capsule used in the S600. It is said to be a response to broadcasters who liked the sound of the E700 but found it too bulky and preferred a front-address microphone. www.charteroakacoustics.com

PT integration on Liquid 4PRE The Liquid 4PRE’s Pro Tools TDM/RTAS control plug-in can operate alongside Liquid 4PRE’s standalone control application Liquid4Control, and provides integrated remote control via Pro To o l s s o f t w a r e a n d hardware, including Icon and Venue systems. As a Pro Tools TDM/RTAS plug-in, it brings automation and session integration. This enables automated gain control of all four preamps and full recall of all preamp settings (including emulation choice) as part of a Pro Tools session. It is available to download for free. www.focusrite.com

A&H launches radio desk Allen & Heath’s XB-14 console is designed for small radio or internet broadcast studios and is equipped with Telco inputs for telephone callers, mic fader start sensing for external connection and internal automatic muting of the speaker outputs, s t e re o c h a n n e l start/cue outputs for CD deck transport control, multiple headphone outputs, and an additional stereo bus (Mix B). The XB-14 has four mic/line channels, four stereo channels and two Telco channels, with 3-band EQ on the mono channels and 2-band EQ on the Telco and stereo channels. The mono mic/line channels have fader start logic switching. Individual channels can also be remotely muted via the 15-way D connector. Stereo channels have ‘start and cue’ logic outputs to connect to external equipment, such as CD players. The Telco channels have a clean feed comms facility for communication between the presenter and the caller. There’s a single aux bus and a separate Mix B stereo bus for recording an independent mix to the main programme mix, or creating a clean feed source with selected channels. The XB-14 also has USB connectivity to access files and content management systems, while simultaneously outputting programme, aux or Mix B feeds in digital. Evolved from its flagship iLive digital range, the iLive-T Series has all the performance and power of the iLive in a lightweight, affordable package.

The T Series has the fixed I-O iDR-32 and iDR-48 MixRacks and iLive-T80 and iLive-T112 Surface options with remote Cat5 connection. Each rack can be used with either control surface and all models are compatible with the existing iLive units. Using iLive’s 64x32 RackExtra DSP engine, both T Series racks provide processing for 64 channels, 32 mixes, plus 8 stereo FX processors. The iDR-32 MixRack provides 32 mic/line inputs and 16 outputs in a 4u, while the 6u iDR48 provides 48 mic/line inputs and 24 outputs. The iLiveT80 and iLive-T112 surfaces add a further 8 I-O and 16 I-O respectively. www.allen-heath.com

BT-201 cardioid Following the release of its modular BT-201 microphone, JZ Microphones has introduced a more affordable version that will be sold only with a cardioid capsule. The BT-201 has an all-metal body and can also be used with other magnetically clipped-on capsules in open cardioid, omni, and open cardioid with pad patterns. www.jzmic.com

resolution

April 2009

GEAR

Apple new Mac Pro Apple’s new Mac Pro uses the Intel Nehalem Xeon processors and a ‘next-generation’ system architecture to deliver up to twice the performance of the previous generation system. The new Mac Pro starts at £1,899 (inc. VAT) and has the latest graphics technology and an updated interior that makes expansion easier. The Xeon processors are running at speeds up to 2.93GHz, each with an integrated memory controller with three channels of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory that delivers up to 2.4 times the memory bandwidth while cutting memory latency up to 40%. Every Mac Pro comes standard with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512Mb of GDDR3 memory, a high-performance graphics card with nearly three times greater performance when compared to the previous generation system. An optional ATI Radeon HD 4870 is available for higher performance. With a Mini DisplayPort and DVI port, the new Mac Pro provides support for the 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display, the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display, or other DVIbased displays. The Mac Pro includes four direct-attach cable-free hard drive carriers for installing up to 4TB of internal storage when using 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA drives. An optional cable-free Mac Pro RAID card delivers performance up to 550Mb/s and allows the four internal drive bays to be set up in RAID 0, 1, 5, or 0+1 configurations. www.apple.com/uk

Zaxcom stereo adaptor

Software-based intercom

The STA150 allows ENG operators to transform an existing single-channel Zaxcom TRX900 or TRX900AA wireless transmitter into a two-channel transmitter for an instant sound bag-to-camera link. All connections are mounted on the side of the unit and it provides a balanced stereo audio input. With a dedicated timecode input, the new adaptor enables an exact match of audio recorded on the TRX and audio/video recorded on-camera by synchronizing the timecode generator inside the TRX unit and supporting automated loading of audio onto the TRX’s CompactFlash memory card. The new STA150 interface also features an output that can be used either as an audio monitor for playback from the memory card or as a timecode output to jam other devices. The STA150 includes an external power input for connection to a 12-volt external power source. www.zaxcom.com

Via its ‘soft-panel’ mode, Clear-Com’s Concert V2.0 provides access to a customisable user interface that emulates a traditional intercom station. When combined with the Eclipse digital matrix system, Concert V2.0 forms a hybrid Time-Divisional Multiplexed (TDM)/IP server network, blending the reliability of traditional TDM-based architecture with the flexibility of IP. Concert V2.0 directly connects over Ethernet to the Eclipse matrix system (Version 5.1) with Clear-Com’s IVC-32 highdensity IP card. Each IVC-32 provides 32 IP connections and up to four IVC-32 cards can be slotted into a single Eclipse frame, allowing up to 128 new Concert soft-panel users to be added onto the intercom network without the need for additional infrastructure and hardware investments. www.clearcom.com

Sanken CU-44X MkII Sanken’s CU-44X MkII phantom-powered dual capsule microphone is the successor to the CU-44X. The CU-44X MkII has a 2-way capsule — one for the bass and one for the high frequencies — with dual titanium diaphragms. It also features a unique capsule mounting method to ensure phase coherency between the two capsules. The titanium membranes are said to be immune to the effects of humidity and temperature change and result in a consistent response. The original CU-41 was introduced in 1982 and provided a flat frequency response and distortion-free performance from 20Hz to 20kHz. The CU-44X, introduced in 1988, was an outputtransformerless version of the original CU-41 and the high speed transient characteristics of a transformerless design afforded more accurate spatial reproduction but required a special power supply. The CU-44X MkII houses the 48V phantom power supply within the body of the microphone. The CU-44X MkII’s frequency response is said to be flat not only on-axis but also at 90 degrees, and even at 135 degrees from its cardioid polar pattern. The new microphone has a maximum input level of 140dB (1% THD). www.sanken-mic.com/en/

April 2009

Colourless. Clean. Transparent. Smooth. CMS Active Nearfield Monitors from Focal Professional Based upon Focal proprietary driver technology, the new CMS 65 and CMS 50 simply offer outstanding performance and exceptional versatility. We could bore you with the superbly finished aluminium die-cast cabinets which offer unconditional rigidity, the internal damping and bracing which banishes unwanted colorations, or the unique Al/Mg (aluminium/magnesium) inverted dome tweeter which easily extends up to 28kHz at -3dB, with a close to perfection pulse response. But you probably just want to know how they perform. And how much they cost. Brilliantly. And less than you think.

Focal Professional Users

Distributed by SCV London: Call 020 8418 1470 for your nearest dealer

www.scvlondon.co.uk

Focal CMS Resol Jnr 30-10-08.indd 1 resolution

Del Palmer

Chris Tsangarides

Sean Genockey

Kate Bush

Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Tom Jones

Manic Street Preachers, Kula Shaker, Tom McRae

- uses the Twin 6BE

-uses the Solo 6BE

- uses the Solo 6BE

30/10/08 09:57:48 19

GEAR

UA Time Cube and 4Ks

Universal Audio has released the Cooper Time Cube Mk II plug-in. The original Cooper Time Cube was a Duane Cooper and Bill Putnam collaborative design that brought a garden hosebased mechanical delay to the world in 1971. It is famous for its short delay and doubling effects. While the plug-in retains the mechanical delay

sound of the original hardware it goes further by offering delay, decay, pan and volume controls plus Tempo Sync and Automation for each of the two independent delay lines. UA has also released the 4K Channel Strip and UAD 4K Buss Compressor plugins. The 4K Channel Strip is an emulation of the SSL 4000 G+ complete with the Type E black knob four-band EQ. www.uaudio.com

Elysia EQ

Elysia’s museq EQ is its third product. The idea behind this analogue EQ is to combine sound shaping capabilities with optimally matched parameters that enable the user to find the desired results quickly and precisely. Each of the two channels offers three parametric bands with a switchable Q. The additional outer bands are low/high shelf designs that can be separately switched into a low/high cut mode with an extra resonance peak. Each gain controller of the two five-bands can be altered from boost to cut mode, which results in twice the number of available settings. Both channels have a switchable option for a stronger colouration of the signal. The circuit design is completely discrete. The signal processing is realised with single transistors in permanent Class A mode, and even the power supply is composed of fully discrete circuits. An oversized transformer, selected capsuled conductive plastic potentiometers, as well as special current feedback amplifiers are part of the technical refinement. www.elysia.com

Neyrinck SoundCode For Dolby E Neyrinck has introduced SoundCode For Dolby E, a standalone software package and Pro Tools plug-in set for managing Dolby metadata and Dolby E encoding and decoding functions for multichannel broadcast wave files (MBWF). The software includes two modules, the Broadcast Encoder and the Broadcast Monitor. At the heart of the Broadcast Encoder is the ability to encode a Dolby E stream file, or combine audio and Dolby metadata into a MBWF file for use by other systems. The Broadcast Monitor enables decoding of Dolby E streams, play back of Dolby E and MBWF files, and displaying Dolby E metadata from files or Dolby E streams. These functions are fully certified, professional implementations of Dolby E.

Also available from Neyrinck is SoundCode for Broadcast, available for OS X and Windows platforms, which includes all the Metadata and MBWF features of SoundCode for Dolby E but without the Dolby E Encode and Decode functions. SoundCode for Broadcast is also suitable for sending files from Pro Tools to the Dolby DP600. SoundCode for Dolby E is available directly from Neyrinck and can also be purchased as an upgrade to SoundCode for Broadcast users. Windows support for SoundCode For Dolby E is coming soon. www.neyrinck.com

resolution

April 2009

GEAR

Audio optimised PC Rain Recording’s Element Core i7 audio workstations comes in an aluminium tower and is powered by the new Intel Nehalem architecture overclocked to 3.6GHz with Rain’s Overclock Stability Control (OSC). It has been thoroughly tested and certified with audio software like Pro Tools, Cubase and Sonar. The Element line offers expansion via seven PCI and PCI Express slots, FireWire on the TI Chipset, USB 2.0 and eSATA ports for multiple high-speed connections to audio interfaces and external storage. It features Rain’s Quiet CoolT System Design that finetunes each workstation to prevent audio engine failure, data bottlenecks and heat build-up. Options include up to 12Gb of 1333MHz DDR3 Triple Channel memory, 6Tb of conventional and Solid State Drives, and a choice high definition graphics processors able to power multiple digital displays. The Element workstation ships standard with Windows XP Pro or Vista Ultimate 64-bit tuned by Rain for audio production. All Rain computers include a custom tuned operating system and BIOS, RainCare RestoreT Recovery Solution powered by Acronis, and RainZoneT Internet Safe Zone that allows the user to surf the internet and download files without fear of viruses and spyware. www.rainrecording.com

TC D-AC and bundles TC Electronic’s BMC-2 is a dedicated D-A convertor and monitor control that’s suited for digital and analogue speakers. It is a self-contained desktop unit that can switch between three digital input sources — SPDIF, AES3, TOS and ADAT — and confirm if inputs are synchronous or not. BMC-2 drives one set of analogue speakers, one set of digital speakers and a set of headphones. Calibrated listening is available with both sets of speakers and the headphone output. It also permits user-definable reference levels to be set and accessed by hitting the Ref button. It re-clocks all inputs and claims high performance jitter rejection based on TC’s JET technology. TC has three new Pro Tools TDM plug-in collections — Mastering, Production and Studio Complete. Mastering includes the MD3 Stereo Mastering package, Brickwall Limiter, Unwrap for stereo to 5.1 upmixing and Master X3, the virtual Finalizer. The Production bundle include NonLin2 for vocal, percussive and effected reverb; DVR2 for modulation and spectral effects; VSS3 for spatial reverbs;

Why pay for just one modelled plug-in, when you can can have 60 high quality dynamic convolution plug-ins for less? Liquid Mix HD gives you the sound of 40 different vintage compressors and 20 individual classic EQ’s, all running on a Pro Tools HD® system. Run over 100 mono instances simultaneously on an HD|3 system. Every instance operates with an unbelievably low latency of just 12 samples – ideal for mix-down, tracking or even live sound use.

MD3 for stereo mastering; Tube-Tech CL1B compressor/limiter; and Harmony4. The Studio Complete bundle contains all the plug-ins in the Mastering and Production bundles. www.tcelectronic.com

Presonus goes soft with Studio One Presonus has announced Studio One, a music creation and production application on Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista for audio recording, MIDI sequencing, and audio mastering. It features drag-and-drop MIDI mapping and plug-in management, auto-configuration with Presonus hardware, unlimited tracks and plug-ins per track, and a powerful, inventive Start page. Studio One is based on an audio engine that automatically switches between 32-bit and 64-bit floating-point processing on the fly (even with a 32-bit OS). It is compatible with any ASIO-, Windows Audio-, or CoreAudio-compliant audio interface. Studio One recognises a Presonus interface and preprogrammed templates automatically create software inputs and assign them to the appropriate hardware inputs on the Presonus interface. Studio One stores I-O configurations with each song, for each computer, and for each device driver. A drag-and-drop function allows you to drag an audio clip, effect, or a virtual instrument from the Browser directly onto a track in the Arrange or Console view. Time stretching enables Studio One to automatically match tempo encoded audio clips with Song tempo. Studio One supports ReWire and VST and AU plug-in formats, including VST 3, and also uses automatic delay compensation. It includes Presonus’s Native Effects Suite plug-ins and three Presonus virtual instruments are also bundled with Studio One. The entry-level Studio One Artist version will be bundled with every Presonus interface. www.presonus.com

April 2009

More variety, better quality and greater flexibility than any other plug-in on the market; Liquid Mix HD is the biggest no-brainer in plug-in history. As a Pro Tools HD® user, why consider anything else?

www.focusrite.com/freetrial

40 VINTAGE COMPRESSORS AND 20 CLASSIC EQ’S IN A SINGLE TDM PLUG-IN IMPORTANT INFORMATION: FOCUSRITE, the FF logo, LIQUID TECHNOLOGY, LIQUID MIX CONTROL and the LIQUID MIX logo are trademarks of Focusrite Audio Engineering Ltd. DYNAMIC CONVOLUTION is a trademark of Sintefex Ltd. The Liquid Mix product is an independently engineered technology which utilises the patented process of Dynamic Convolution to actually measure examples of the sonic impact of original analogue products upon an audio stream, so as to electronically emulate the performance of the original product studied. The result of this process is subjective and may not be perceived by a user as producing the same effects as the original products studied. Digidesign, Pro Tools, and Pro Tools|HD are registered trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

REVIEW

Euphonix Artist Series MC Extremely well-received when they first appeared for presenting a good mix of control in a well-presented package, the MC Control and MC Mix offer Eucon and other control to the masses. ROB JAMES finds that his high expectations are largely met.

ardware controllers for software applications have been with us for a number of years and, in the DAW arena, Mackie’s HUI can lay a reasonable claim to having been the first successful design. Its control protocol and the later Mackie Control protocol are the nearest the industry has come to establishing universal standards in this area. Meanwhile, Euphonix has garnered a reputation at the high end with its Series 5 console and also laid the foundations for another control protocol standard, EuCon. The highend controller product is the impressive System 5 MC but now Euphonix has released two much more affordable controllers as the Artist series. First to arrive was the (UK £747 + VAT) MC Mix, an eight fader mix controller. More recently this has been joined by the (UK £1078 + VAT) MC Control, which combines a ‘centre section’ with transport controls and four faders. Up to five units can be used together — four MC Mix and an MC Control. Units can be left free-standing or physically joined after removing the side cheeks. A variety of operating heights and angles can be achieved by using four flip out feet, similar to those found on PC keyboards, or by adding rather insubstantial plastic risers. Ethernet is used to connect the Artist series to the DAW(s). Each unit needs a separate port so an Ethernet switch or router will be required for a multi-unit system. Ethernet confers many advantages when compared with the more common MIDI connection, principally cheap and easy connection, speed and resolution. Physically, the units are svelte and very handsome. They feel solid thanks to the heavy sheet steel base. 22

Power supplies are external in-line bricks. Before MC Control or MC Mix can be used the EuControl software application must be installed. This locates, links and communicates with all the Artist/Eucon control devices on the network. Once installed, the application(s) you wish to use must be dragged into a section of the EuControl window and the applications themselves must be set up to accept EuCon control. The procedure varies between apps and is well detailed in the on-line manuals. Only one instance of EuControl can run per Mac, but multiple workstations attached to a single network can each run EuControl. Each instance of EuControl can connect to an MC Control and up to four MC Mixes on the network. The devices then act together as a single control surface. Once connected to a workstation, devices are not available to any other instances of EuControl until they are released. An Artist device can also control applications running on a second computer. Any workstation running EuCon software can be in this list, including those controlled by the System 5-MC, MC Pro, and MC Control although the Artist Series is only supported currently for Mac-based applications. MC Control — MC Control can use several control protocols, so-called EuCon-aware applications (e.g. Nuendo, Cubase, Digital Performer, Logic Pro) support the EuCon protocol directly with specially written software. This can provide the most comprehensive integration plus high-resolution controls and high-speed connectivity. Applications that are not EuCon-aware applications but which support the Mackie Control or HUI protocols (e.g. Pro resolution

Tools, Final Cut Pro) can also benefit from control of many functions. MC Control can also transmit key commands over EuCon providing a degree of control over many other applications and adding to the functionality in EuCon and Mackie Control/HUI aware software. Centrepiece of the MC Control is a large LCD wide touchscreen — the viewing angle encourages you to tilt the unit towards you a little. Four touch-sensitive ‘Soft Knobs’ with top switches range on either side and two rows of six Soft Keys are underneath along with Soft Key paging buttons. The Soft Knobs give access to a hierarchical menu system. The top-level ‘knobset’ offers the choice of eight functions to be controlled by the Soft Knobs. At the bottom of the Touchscreen two rows of six Soft Key labels correspond to the physical Soft Keys. At first I kept pressing the labels on screen but I’m obviously not the only one since a helpful message appears telling you to use the buttons… Most of the other keys have Shifted functions. Labels on the surface are not very clear but you soon learn where everything is. The Shift keys are at bottom left and bottom right and pressing both together latches into Shift mode. In the fader section four identical strips contain Solo and On buttons, a motorised touch fader and Record and Select buttons — Automation and Assign respectively when shifted. Holding down the Shift key and touching a fader sets it to unity gain. To the right of the Touchscreen the Control Room (monitor) volume knob and Power button sit above the Navigation section. The knob controls either the included Studio Monitor Express software or an application that supports a EuCon monitor section. Pressing the knob toggles mute. The top two of the eight navigation keys are Back (Top) and Application (Workspace). Back steps back up the tree of knob sets and closes the plug-in. Application toggles between the two most recently used open apps and Top goes directly to the top level while Workstation switches between controlled Macs when more than one is April 2009

REVIEW

set up to be controlled. Page keys move between parameter pages in plug-ins. Like most controllers, the four faders are a window looking at a much bigger console. This window can be moved one strip at a time with Nudge keys or four strips at a time with the Bank keys. Shifted, the Bank keys move the window to the far left (home) or right (end) of the mixer. Nudge Left Shifted toggles the Mixer window and Nudge Right closes any open window or dialog. In the most logical place bottom-right, at least for right-handers, the Transport controls are arranged in an arc around the Jog/Shuttle wheel. Record is sensibly offset on the right. The leftmost two are jog/ shuttle and Zoom Horizontal (Vertical). In operation the MC Control is much more intuitive than most other controllers and also manages to be a lot more comprehensive. The Touchscreen is a big help in this. For example in Tracks View you can see 32 tracks at a time for rapid muting, soloing, record arming and selecting tracks that are not assigned to faders. You simply select the desired operation on one of the round circular buttons on the left and then touch one or more square track buttons to execute the operation on the selected tracks. MC Mix — Although similar in appearance and

complementary in function to the MC Control, MC Mix differs in some significant ways. The eight fader strips gain extra On and Select buttons at the top and a touch-sensitive knob with switch. Navigation is pretty much the same but with the addition of a Channel (Flip) key. Chan enters Channel mode where all displays and controls now relate to the ‘attentioned’ strip -– for example, pressing Inserts spreads all the plug-ins in the selected strip across the 128 x 74 pixel OLED displays. Pressing one of the knobs then brings up all parameters of that plug-in across all the strips. If there are more parameters than strips then you can page through them. The Flip key swaps parameters between the faders and knobs. Knobs sometimes have dual functions, for example, frequency and Q, using the top switch to toggle. The OLED displays do a good job of keeping you informed throughout operation. Transport control can be had by using Shift with the last four strips’ Solo and On buttons. Not ideal but useful. MC-Mix is much more ‘conventional’ than the MC Control. I used the Artist series units with Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro. Pages of properly labelled keyboard shortcuts are a real productivity aid and transformed the way I previously felt about FCP. (I can

never remember any but the most obvious keyboard shortcuts due to the number of applications I use.) Just as impressive is switching between applications. Literally at the touch of a button you can jump from one to the other and the control surface updates instantly to reflect this. The software and firmware is still developing so it is important to check for updates. Installing these is trivial. After updating you should also check if the firmware needs updating from within the EuControl software. If an update is required the process is virtually automatic. I’m surprised the Artist series can only control Mac applications. There are an awful lot of us using PCs for very serious work and Euphonix is missing out (MC Pro is the PC-oriented controller according to Euphonix. Ed). MC Control is a flawed masterpiece. The software, design and functional concepts are excellent. Despite the splendid Touchscreen, the tactile user interface is marred by rubbery and imprecise buttons. This is of little consequence for most functions but it is important for the transport controls. The jog/shuttle wheel is just horrible. The user manual talks gaily about ‘spinning the jog wheel’. Well, I don’t know what unit they were using but on the one I had and the previous one I played with at a trade show the jog wheel was lightweight, flimsy, stiff and graunchy and spinning it just isn’t an option. I would happily pay a few pounds more for a better jog wheel and transport buttons. Touchscreen refresh rate seems a little low. On the other hand, MC Mix can be recommended pretty much unequivocally. The price is right and it does rather more than you would expect at first glance. I had very high expectations of these units and, in terms of feature sets and well thought out user interface layouts, they do not disappoint. n

PROS

Excellent concept and interface layout; seamless control over multiple applications; intuitive as controllers go.

CONS

MC Control jogwheel is dire; transport buttons a bit rubbery; touchscreen flicker.

Contact euphonix, US: Website: www.euphonix.com

M-48 Breakthrough

Personal Mixing and Monitoring The M-48 offers performers flexible control over exactly what they want to listen to, providing the highest level of sound quality for headphones or IEMS (In-ear monitors), wedge and powered monitors. A unique Ambient Microphone puts you in control of the mix while individual 16-channel and global EQ, limiter, local aux input and reverb make it ideal for tour, stage, broadcast and studio. Fully compatible with REAC Digital Snakes or M-400 V-Mixing solutions. www.rolandsg.co.uk or call 01792 702701

M-400 V-Mixer

Record with Sonar

S-0816 / Cat5E / S-1608

S-4000 Digital Snake

REAC : Capture, Distribute, Mix and Record pristine 24-bit Multi-channel Audio over Cat5e and Fibre

April 2009

resolution

REVIEW

Magix Sequoia V10 It has origins that go back at least as far as most of its rivals, yet it is not nearly as well known as it should be. ROB JAMES says this digital audio workstation covers all the bases yet manages to add a flavour and additional feature set all of its own.

hose of you with an arboreal bent will know that the Sequoia is the name given to an ancient genus of trees. The best known is the giant Sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum to give it its proper name. A very large and long-living tree, it can survive for more than 3,000 years and grow to a size only matched by the giant redwood. In the digital audio world any DAW that makes it to major version 10 has more in common with such a tree than you might imagine. For a DAW to survive and thrive it must grow abilities and features to serve a wide range of applications, from music production and mixing to sound for picture and the digital radio production chain. All the diverse requirements of these segments and more must be addressed competently and effectively. The net result is that although the majority of current DAWs are superficially similar there is the possibility of a major learning curve if you intend to switch. For professional use the devil really is in the details. With PCs more powerful than ever before and storage prices at an all-time low it is no great trick to record lots of tracks and mix them. Integrating the workstation into existing infrastructures and work-flows is quite another matter. The evolution of Sequoia goes all the way back to the beginning of the PC audio workstation era. The original developers were two graduate engineers, Tilman Herberger and Titus Tost, who began experimenting with digital audio processing in 1983. They released their first audio application, a sample editor for the Amiga, in 1988. Unusually for the time, this was capable of processing in 24-bit resolution. Soon after, the first multitrack version of Samplitude for the Amiga was released and the successful Red Roaster CD mastering package shared the same heritage. In 1993, Samplitude was ported to Windows in an 8-track multitrack version and has been continuously improved since and developed into the high-end version, Sequoia. Marketed under the Magix banner, Sequoia Version 10.2 has arrived and at Euro 2974 (inc VAT) has all the standard DAW ingredients. It can record, mix, edit and master, in fact everything up to and including Red Book standard CD burning and even DVD-A mastering and burning. There is support for VSTis and MIDI sequencing so it is perfectly possible to record and produce a music project all the way to final output in the one box. Sequoia is also adept in the fields of sound to picture and radio production. ASIO and MME/WDM drivers are supported, but ASIO is vastly preferable if the soundcard can cope. As you would expect of a DAW at this level of maturity and price point there are numerous features applicable to highly specialised activities that are likely to be of little interest to the casual user but will be highly prized by those using the software to perform specific tasks on a daily basis. For example, a built-in

FTP client is included. Although it is really no great hassle to use an external client, the tight integration means vital seconds can be saved when uploading a news item. It also means one less bit of software to learn and maintain. For sound to picture exponents, video support has improved dramatically. The video codecs have been upgraded and there is much tighter integration with the Magix Video Pro X NLE, including surround speaker settings FL, FR, etc., direct from the EDL. Video player options are limited, and this is a good thing. If a video player can play your files the fewer settings you have to make, the better. Aspect ratio, size and sync offset are the most significant adjustments and pretty much all you want to deal with on a day-to-day basis. You do not want or need to go through endless pages of settings if all you wish to do is produce an audio track to picture. With the Sequoia approach it either works or it doesn’t and the variety of files it can deal with is impressive. I attempted to load a VOB file (the multiplexed audio and video file found on DVDs) with little expectation of success. Not only did it load and play faultlessly but, for an inter-frame compression format, the quality of scrub and fluidity of working are impressive. I was delighted to discover the option of replacing the audio in AVI files. A Video recording function enables simultaneous recording of audio and a video track. Any capture device installed on the system and available to Windows can be used. This can be useful when resolution

recording a live stage performance so you have a reference video of the event to mix against. You can also extract and replace audio in AVIs and a variety of other formats. On the other hand, there are no direct 9-pin RS-422 remote capabilities and SMPTE support is ultimately a translation into MTC. It is arguable that these are legacy technologies but there are still plenty of workflows that require them for laybacks to tape etc. There are ways of working around this but they may be less convenient than a fully supported built-in solution. Also, there is no in-built support for project interchange formats such as AES 31, XML or OMF. Transport reverse play is a little curious. Most DAWs that support this use a keyboard shortcut such as Ctrl + Space. Sequoia can play backwards but it does this by using a change playback direction command. This is buried in a sub-menu although it is easy enough to assign a keyboard short cut to it. Up to 12 Channel Surround is possible, which is impressive. However, there is a snag. Sequoia can only operate in surround or in stereo i.e. you cannot produce simultaneous masters in stereo and surround. Magix has attempted to ameliorate this by making it relatively simple to switch between stereo and surround modes while retaining settings but, if concurrent surround and stereo versions are a regular feature in your workflow, this needs looking at carefully before deciding to take the plunge. A new cleaning and restoration suite has been added. Available in real-time and off-line (i.e. rendered) the processes included are: a deClicker/ deCrackler, a deClipper and a deNoiser with ‘Noise Print Wizard’. The DeNoiser is especially good and much better than its predecessor. A huge amount of control is available but it works well on the default settings. Adding an instance of the ‘Brilliance Enhancer’ helps avoid the rather lifeless effect denoising often produces. A Spectral cleaner is also on offer and this, like the alternatives, works as a destructive effect, off-line, although there is of course a built-in option in the dialog to create a copy. You can preview the results before committing. The interface is tidier than most and good results are relatively easy to achieve. An overview area shows all the objects in the entire project and assists navigation especially in large projects and all the tracks inputs and outputs are shown as a matrix in the new routing manager. A VIP (Virtual Project) project can now be up to 168 hours long and RIFF64 is used when recording to NTSF format drives, which removes the 2Gb maximum restriction. On FAT32 format drives files over 2Gb are split automatically. There are lots of Sequoia/Samplitude specific shortcuts and productivity aids for power users. Cuts can be transferred from one track to many. This is of considerable benefit when you edit a stereo guide track on a low power laptop and later need to conform the multitrack master to this. Apart from the familiar track-based editing model Sequoia also has Object-based editing and automation. April 2009

REVIEW You can edit in the usual fashion — in the VIP, audio media source files can be nondestructively split, copied and pasted as many times as you like into as many objects as you might wish. Each of the resultant objects can be edited with individual fades and also have effects applied, such as equalisation, timestretching, pitchshifting and DirectX or VST plug-ins. The Object Editor window gives realtime access to every object setting, including stereo panning and surround panning to the surround master or bus. In the Take Manager/Take Composer you can create, organise and edit several takes at once. The Take Composer enables cutting out of the best bits and patching them together to form a new take. Source Destination editing is a highly developed feature. Not one I ever use, but for the people who need it, four-point, three-point and two-point editing is indispensable, for example, for creating a new project from one or several existing ones. To this end source and destination areas can co-exist on screen and enable viewing and play of source and destination tracks simultaneously and independently. Another specialist feature is the Crossfade Editor. Rather than simply grabbing and pulling handles in the timeline the Crossfade Editor controls every parameter of a crossfade. Used in conjunction with Source/Destination editing, the Crossfade Editor enables precision editing of symmetric and asymmetric crossfades and various modes for independent or grouped moves of fades and audio material. Step size for all moves and nudge operations is customisable. For music origination, ReWire enables other applications to be integrated and an eight–voice drum computer, Robota, is included with a step sequencer. Other extras include a variety of good quality plug-ins, such as The Analogue Modelling Suite with am-pulse, am-track and am-phibia for dynamic editing and simulation of analogue circuits. The Vintage Effects Suite adds VST plug-in effects (Corvex, Ecox, Filtox) for audio editing. VariVerb Pro is a synthetic reverb used to create ‘classic’ and modern calculationbased reverb effects and the Realtime Room Simulator is a convolution reverb with a library of impulse responses and the ability to create your own from within the software. Sequoia uses a technology Magix dubs the ‘Hybrid Audio Engine’. Naturally, this supports multiple cores/

Optimizer ST

CPUs. The idea is to combine a new low-latency engine with the higher latency original Sequoia playback engine in such a way that the user can use the combination most appropriate to the job in hand. The low latency engine reduces response times when there are a lot of track effects and enables live monitoring. On the other hand, the VIP engine increases DSP capacity at the expense of latency for complex object effects, auxes, and surround functions. The Hybrid Audio Engine is predicated on the ASIO driver model and is claimed to produce lower latencies when working with software instruments and other plug-ins. Selecting the Smart Dithering option means that dithering is only applied if the bit depth exceeds 16-bits or when the bit depth is changed. Dithering is not applied during silence. The well-thought-of POW-r dithering algorithm is also included. Latency is automatically compensated for throughout the signal flow including submix buses in addition to aux send buses. Sequoia is claimed to be able to integrate with radio content workflow management systems such as DigaSystem. Audio files, including metadata, can be edited simultaneously while the audio file is being transmitted for immediate use. Sequoia projects can be created and managed directly from the Content Management System. An unusual and desirable Samplitude/Sequoia feature is the Comparisonics waveform display. This mode uses an algorithm patented by Comparisonics to depict the audio object’s waveform in different

colours. Dependent on the pitch (and additional parameters), a specific colour (hue) is calculated and displayed for each time segment of audio. Low frequencies show up in shades of blue while higher frequencies go through green and yellow to red. Tonal sounds are shaded in colour, while noise and atonal sounds are grey. With some experience you can consistently recognise characteristics of the audio that would be undetectable using a normal waveform display. Audio analysis segment size is user-definable with a recommended minimum of 50ms to ensure accurate colour calculation. Despite the fact that the colour to frequency relationship seems completely back to front when compared with the colour spectrum to frequency relationship and all my previous experience, the extra information Comparisonics imparts is very useful. There is also an audio search technique based on the Comparisonics colours where you can search for audio similar or identical to a selected object and markers are placed automatically to enable rapid location of the points identified. After the search dialog is closed you can jump to the markers indicating identical or similar sounds with a mouse click, even when playback is in progress. In contrast to the Technicolor Comparisonics waveform display, the rest of the user interface graphics are clean and quiet and all the better for it. A variety of hardware controllers are catered for via the Mackie HUI and Mackie Control protocols. Sequoia is expensive when compared to other software-only solutions. But, If you want a professional solution with at least some of the ‘gotchas’ covered, some unique and desirable features and good support, then it makes a lot of sense. Most important, like its sibling Samplitude, Sequoia sounds good, very good in fact. n

PROS

12-channel surround; simple video support; comprehensive bundle; Comparisonics.

CONS

Concurrent stereo and surround not possible; a few eccentricities; expensive.

Contact magix, germany: Website: www.magix.com

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April 2009

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26/03/09 17:50:51

REVIEW

Summit Audio ECS-410 Everest Summit Audio’s Everest scales new heights of flexibility and function for a recording channel. GEORGE SHILLING comes over all sort of poetic…

his new flagship model from Summit Audio boasts four discrete processor sections and a host of features that make it supremely adaptable to recording and processing tasks. Weighing in at 26lbs, the beautiful yet sturdy 2u monolith-like construction oozes quality (UK£3,103 inc. VAT). The front panel is something of a departure from Summit’s previously rather staid presentations, and comes across like a souped-up Bentley. Jaunty, angular carved-out sections on the exceptionally thick aluminium front panel distinguish the different processors that comprise Microphone Preamp, Passive Three-Band EQ, Dual Mode Compressor and Drive Bus Master Output and Overdrive. Finally, there is also the matrix of routing buttons in the TouchPatch section. The rear is also busy, with separate inputs and +4dB outputs for each of the four sections, a TRS insert point in the preamp, and sidechain and Stereo Link jacks in the Dynamics section. There are also additional -10dB outputs on the preamp and Drive Bus sections. Switching on, there is a one-second pause before a relay clicks and the meter and power lamp illuminate, along with any LEDs that were lit when the unit was powered off. The Mic Preamp section features a gain knob with a light, undamped feel, and a fast acting 10-segment meter with green, amber and red segments that seem to cover the final 20dB up to overload level. The knob is simply calibrated from 1 to 10, mic gain is quoted as +20 to +60dB, and toggle switches select a 20dB pad, Polarity, 48V phantom, HPF at 60Hz and Tube or Solid State output. I’d have preferred an LED or locking toggle for the phantom switch to help avert accidents. In use, it is immediately obvious (without need for comparison) that the mic preamp has an incredibly detailed, open and unforced quality, even in Tube output mode. On voice, I can only describe the character as crystal clear: it’s the audio equivalent of cool flowing mountain spring water, especially when paired with a large condenser (We should bottle your descriptions. Ed). The Tube and Solid State output modes sound remarkably open, the very subtle differences including perhaps a small increase in lower frequency ‘cuddliness’ and a very slight removal of midrange hardness in tube mode, but we are talking tiny differences here. The Tube mode is ever so slightly friendlier, but both are detailed and involving, yet in no way tiresome or wearing. I spent hours recording and editing some spoken

word material using the Everest, and didn’t tire of listening to the person speaking, enjoying it rather more than a previous session with a different preamp (even though the subject matter was again ‘Getting Pregnant Naturally’). The front panel 10Mohms Hi-Z input also has plenty of gain and with single coil guitar pickups and even bass guitar it displayed a hint more of that cool openness and detail displayed by the mic preamp in a comparison to a couple of other high-end Instrument preamps I use. The 3-band Fe1 inductor-based EQ section is straightforward, with six switched frequencies per band and a cut/boost range of 12dB. Top and bottom bands feature shelf/peak toggles. Peaking bandwidth is two octaves, and cut and boost are up to 12dB, so it’s not for surgery. Subtle tonal changes and moderate shaping can be achieved using a set of well chosen frequencies that cover most needs. This kind of beautifully effective sound shaping can only enhance a good signal. For opening out the top-end slightly on a male backing vocal recording I added a touch of 10k shelf and a little 2.5k to add a little bite — simple but effective. The low band can be extremely warming at 60 or 100Hz, or conversely by cutting 390 or 270Hz in peak mode, you can de-clutter. The excellent phase coherence lends this section grace and elegance, and you really cannot ruin the sound with this EQ. The Compressor section features two distinct modes that govern ratio. Classic provides soft-knee operation with a maximum ratio of 3:1, while Tight mode is generally a faster acting, aggressive and more modernsounding squash with a ratio of up to 10:1. For most vocal and instrument recording Classic is the way to go, with a beautifully smooth character evident. Attack and Release are continuously variable, allowing for a range of signals and uses although the Release won’t go super-fast for crunchy drum compression in either mode. A useful 9-segment LED gain reduction meter shows what is happening, and deflecting up to four or five LEDs, vocals are pleasantly kept in check. Threshold has plenty of range to enable heavier compression and a Gain knob permits level juggling with a range of -6 to +13.5dB. The Drive Bus Output section includes a traditional VU meter, a nice large output gain knob and a smaller resolution

Drive knob. Neither is labelled, and oddly, both knobs’ position markers are oriented sideways. A threeposition toggle selects between Solid State, Tube and Bypass. Cranking the smaller Drive knob increases gain to the circuit and an amber LED lights to indicate distortion. A red overload light tells you when you’ve gone too far. In Bypass the amber light still glows, and the small Drive gain knob is still in circuit -– distortion, it seems, although subtle, is still possible. But in all settings, the circuit is rather subtle (unless completely overloaded). Finding the sweet spot where you are driving hard but not overloading, the Tube drive can slightly warm and pleasantly fuzz up the sound. However, I found it rather unremarkable and uninvolving. On some signals, no difference at all could be discerned between Tube and Bypass, even when driving just below overload — this is no Thermionic Culture Vulture — and in most cases driving the signal simply succeeds in making the mic preamp sound like a slightly inferior unit, which of course it isn’t. The TouchPatch system comprises a series of routing buttons covering all possible signal flow routings. The first column of buttons includes the Mic Preamp with every possible following order combination, the second column omits the pre, and finally there is a ‘No Route’ button. All switching is relay-based, and activating a routing defeats the employed section’s rear input (apart from the pre) while leaving its output still available. LEDs on each processor indicate when they are in a routing. You might wonder why all the extra rear connections are necessary when you have such comprehensive routing, and individual section bypass toggles, but wiring all the connections does allow the Everest to be used for three or even four signals simultaneously, even though many users will rarely need to change routing once their preferred situation is established. The front panel is inevitably a little cluttered, and the black dials can be hard to read but this is a very minor criticism of an unquestionably topclass sounding unit. Although I’d ditch the Drive Bus circuitry, the Mic Preamp, Compressor and EQ sections all shine gorgeously with detailed sound and classy characteristics. The Everest is perhaps especially suited to audiophile jazz and classical recordings, but I suspect it will be highly desirable to all recordists. n

PROS

Supremely detailed and open mic preamp; excellent compressor and EQ sections; clever routing; comprehensive I-O flexibility.

CONS

Disappointing DriveBus section.

EXTRAS

The entry level for Summit Audio

ownership is the TD-100 Tube Direct Box and Instrument Preamplifier. Its input section is driven by a 12AX7A/ECC83 valve with the output section driven by a discrete transistor circuit using 24V rails.

Contact summit audio, us: Website: www.summitaudio.com UK, SCV London: +44 208 418 1470

April 2009

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REVIEW

Violet Global Pre The interchangeable capsule on a large capacitor body is among the oldest of microphone images yet it is still carried through today. JON THORNTON reports on a Latvian contender and swaps some cardioid heads.

he concept of large diaphragm capacitor microphones with interchangeable capsules is certainly not a new one — the more assiduous microphone history buff, will doubtless recall that the first mass-produced capacitor design is generally acknowledged to be Neumann’s CMV-3, introduced in 1928. Better known as the ‘Neumann Bottle’, a later variant, the CMV3-A, introduced interchangeable capsule assemblies featuring different polar patterns. The ‘Bottle’ form factor has also remained a feature of some modern takes on the concept. For some reason though, modern and vintage variants seem to be mostly based around valve electronics (out of necessity in the case of older designs, but a design choice for the modern ones), and also tend to be fairly substantial in terms of heft (the original CMV 3 weighed in at nearly 3kg). Given the variety of compact, small diaphragm capacitor microphones with interchangeable capsules available, this seems a strange state of affairs — albeit with some rare exceptions such as Korby’s Convertible. Violet Designs obviously drew the same conclusions, which accounts for its Global Pre and VIN series capsules. What you get here is a compact powering and amplifier module featuring discrete Class-A electronics and a transformerless output stage. Imagine a conventional bottle design that’s been concertinaed to about a tenth of its normal height and you’re pretty close to how it looks (Or just look at the photos. Ed). Everything is finished in black, and for a company usually associated with striking physical designs, it’s all quite conservative. Even the included mount is restrained in this respect, limiting itself to some violet (naturally) coloured squashy bushes, which afford some degree of elastic suspension. The base of the Global Pre fits snugly into this, and is held securely by tightening a small thumbscrew — slackening this off also allows the Global Pre to be rotated within the mount if desired. The conservative looks of the Global Pre are mitigated somewhat when a capsule is mounted. The mounting system itself is a push and turn bayonet arrangement, and is compatible not only with the VIN series capsules, but also with the vintage Neumann M series capsules originally designed for the CMV3A, whose post-war manufacture continued in one way or another by Gefell. Eight different VIN series capsules are available — six of these are cardioids, one omni and one fig-8. Of these

eight, only four were supplied for the review, all cardioids. The model numbers for three of them immediately suggest their inspirations, carrying the designations VIN12, VIN67 and VIN89 — the accompanying literature suggests that they sound similar to a C12, U67 and U89 respectively. The fourth, designated VIN27 offers no direct comparison, but instead is simply described as ‘natural sounding’. All of the capsules ship in their own protective wooden case, and while in transit or storage the diaphragm suspension is locked in place with three thumb-screws that need removing before use. Visually, there’s very little to distinguish the different capsules as all of them have a two-part grille with a shiny side and a matte side — shiny side indicates the on-axis direction. The only thing to distinguish each of the capsules is an engraved model number on the base of the bayonet fitting, which is slightly annoyingly obscured when the capsule is mated with the Global Pre. There’s no indication in the literature as to whether the capsules can be ‘hot-swapped’ or not so erring on the safe side I elected to power down the Global Pre each time I swapped a capsule around. This worked fine most of the time, although there was an issue with one of the capsules (VIN12) that would refuse to power up correctly and give anything but the tiniest output. This was corrected by going through a procedure of powering down, removing and replacing the capsule and powering up again — a few cycles of this and it sprung to life. In comparing the different capsules on offer, it’s obvious with this sort of exchangeable design that any tonal differences are going to be entirely attributable to the capsule design and tuning. This might lead you to think that any differences are extremely subtle but this is definitely not the case here. Starting with the VIN12 capsule, and the sound is a combination of a significant bump in the LF response coupled with a slightly bright HF response. This sounds initially flattering on vocals but after a while begins to sound just a touch too ‘scooped’, as the mid range is lacking something in terms of detail. For a cardioid capsule, the VIN12 also seems to have pretty poor off-axis attenuation levels. Moving on to the VIN27, and there’s far less in the way of a LF bump, and a slightly softer, less ‘hyped’ response in the high frequencies, coupled with what sounds like a very slight but wide mid presence boost around the 2k–6k region. Off-axis attenuation is much improved here, and of all the capsules in the review this is the most open and natural sounding. Less impressive is the VIN89, which sounds incredibly dark — all LF and low mid, with an HF response that seems to start falling resolution

away above about 7k or so. It’s noticeably noisier than the other capsules too and when you add in the not inconsiderable proximity effect I’d say that it’s bordering on being so dark as to be of limited use in some applications. The VIN67 gets things back on track with a tonality that majors on pulling out the high-mid band with a gentle HF roll-off. A nice smooth off-axis response and good rear rejection also means that of all of the capsules, this is the one that seems most comfortable working at a distance from source. Working with all the capsules with male and female vocals, acoustic guitar and congas as source material proved that the ability to swap capsules around quickly makes for some improvements in workflow — and positively encourages experimentation and change when you might otherwise settle for something that was simply OK. It also drew out some clear favourites from the capsules on offer. The winner here, to my ears, is the VIN27 as it sounds great on guitar and works well with all but the thinnest of voices. The VIN12 can sound immediately satisfying on most sources too — at first listen there is a great similarity to the C12 that it’s attempting to emulate, but is ultimately lacking in the mid-range smoothness of that classic microphone. Nevertheless, it has a definite character which, particularly on some female vocals, gives a very useable sound in a modern mix. The VIN67 proved strongest when applied to percussion as it works well with a little space between it and the source and seems to pull out transient detail a little better than the others. But I was never really convinced by the VIN89. So, what you get here is a system that offers a quite astonishing range of different tonal characteristics with the capsules on offer, plus the ability to interface with vintage capsules that share the same mount. For the money, though, you need to weigh up whether the price of the Global Pre plus at least one capsule justifies the advantage of being able to swap things around quickly. If it does, you really need to listen carefully to each of the capsules to decide what best fits your needs. n

PROS

Quick and easy change of mic characteristics; range of tonalities on offer; VIN27 in particular is a very useful sounding capsule; ability to use ‘M’ series capsules.

CONS

Build quality is more functional than elegant; some problems with powering up correctly.

EXTRAS

Prices without VAT are: GLP Euro 495; VIN12, VIN26, VIN27, VIN44, and VIN55 Euro 650 each; VIN47 and VIN67 Euro 695 each.

Contact violet design, latvia: Website: www.violet-design.com

April 2009

REVIEW

RNDigital D4 An unusual plug-in provides an innovative approach to sculpting the dynamics of digital audio, but NIGEL JOPSON finds he has to read the manual.

etting software programmers to code an audio compressor for DAWs was always going to present a problem, just because of the limitations of the device name. The descriptive terms of threshold and ratio translated all too easily into the digital domain; the magic of groovy make-up gain less so. The RNDigital D4 is perhaps the only compressor plugin to offer the ability to dynamically lift instruments in a busy song in the ‘make-up gain’ manner of the hardware classics –albeit with more than two knobs to twiddle! Think about lifting the initial scrape of plectrum on string of a power chord without squashing the sound of a Marshall, or bringing out the secondfinger plucking from a classical harpist. It’s the sort of plug-in that’s perfect for lifting a vocalist’s lower-pitched verse without slamming the full-on performance of the chorus. The

D4 accomplishes such tasks with a unique design and an interface based around a dynamic input/output map. At first glance the D4 resembles a multiband compressor — it’s not — and the manufacturer is careful to flag this up straight away. Yes, you need to read the manual. Even though I’ve used this compressor since its early incarnation as the Neodynium (from developers Elemental Audio), and even though I own the Dynamizer which it was re-badged as, I still found I had to have a quick peek. The Dynamizer interface has completely changed: the new design takes up less screen space, does away with the daft and tiny ‘advanced’ button that delivered full access to controls, and adds some useful extra metering and tweaking functions. The new look of the interface more clearly implies the spirit of operation, which is as an instrumentation-type device.

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The four possible bands of the input/output map (blue, orange, yellow, green) represent gain sectors of the audio dynamic range. It’s like a bargraph meter for a channel, with four compressors for each gain range. The compressors have Attack/Ratio/Release sliders at the bottom of the plug-in interface, the kicker feature is that the ratio range can be set as less than 1:1 — a particular segment of the gain range can be expanded upwards or downwards, to occupy more dynamic space. The left and right ‘handle’ sliders for the four sections of the I-O map allow these adjustments. It’s very easy to make an ordinary drum track sound extremely ambient — sucking up all the small reflections from the room in a similar manner to the SSL listen mic compressor — but without all the distortion and peak limiting. This involves pulling the lower gain ranges up on the ‘out’ side of the map. Skewing the gain map in the opposite direction, I’ve found the D4 handy for removing parts of a kit from a drum loop sample. Hihats are easy to almost completely mute, as they’re generally mixed much lower than kick and snare. The D4 is often able to take a snare out — or right down — in a much more musical way than a noise gate would, and much faster than a lot of slicing and dicing with an editor.

April 2009

REVIEW The D4 is able to take an over-limited/compressed recording and expand the top ‘in’ section (say 0 to -6dB) downwards to occupy a greater range at the ‘out’ section (say 0 to -12dB). Working on a well overcooked mix, I found I had to be quite ambitious to restore some life to the dynamics. Modern digital compression/limiting crushes so much information into the top 3dB of a mix ... but this is hardly news to Resolution readers. D4 release times need careful adjustment with downward expansion or the result will be stuttering audio. I found dialling in super-long releases delivered a more natural sound than relying on the auto release button. The outcome was a more open sounding track — the big surprise to me was how much the D4 restoration process boosted a vocal in the mix. When expanding audio dynamic zones downwards, a problem arises: what to do with low-level audio that already exists in the area we are expanding into? Reducing the gain of low level audio below the expanding zone proportionately (the default behaviour of D4) will result in a loss of ambience. The D4 coders have come up with some new buttons labelled ZGC (Zone Gain Control) to fix this conundrum. Clicking the up/down arrows to turn the ZGC colour from blue to grey will result in audio above/below expanded

April 2009

zones being merged with audio that has been stretched into the output space it formerly had all to itself. So a tambourine mixed at -24dB will still be output at -24dB, even if louder audio has been expanded down into this area. In a similar manner, it’s possible to achieve the reverse and pull up lower audio levels to deliver a fuller sound: with this approach I was able to give a live Weather Report song a more modern and dense sound, but without compressing the peaks of the 1970s recording (merged with the ‘up’ ZGC button). The D4 has its own useful peak limiter with three attack times, but in a mastering situation it’s probably better to follow the D4 with a dedicated limiter plug-in, such as the RNDigital Finis. When I found the Weather Report high frequency percussion elements were lifted too much, I was able to use the D4 key input filter to trim the HF effect of this ‘bootstrap compression’. Clicking the Key button of the interface replaces the Zone I-O map display with the key input filter controls. There’s a wide-ranging 3-band equaliser, and the soloed results of key EQ or dynamics processing can be monitored. I like the provision of an overall +/-20dB key gain trim, which

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makes it easy to vary the influence of the sidechain after adjusting EQ. The midrange peak control of the key filter can be set with a narrow Q, enabling the D4 to be used as a very capable de-esser. The D4 (download US$249) stands out because it approaches audio in a refreshingly new manner. It would not be my tool of choice for crushing or saturating peaks, but the D4 tackles the tricky task of serious dynamic digital audio surgery in a transparent and intelligent manner, and is possibly the only plug-in able to restore dynamics for over-compressed audio. The D4 is at its best when automatically adjusting an instrumental performance, de-essing a vocal, twisting the vibe of a prerecorded loop, or used as a bootstrap compressor or dynamics restorer. n

PROS CONS

Unique approach to dynamics control; multipurpose plug-in for quick performance fixing-up. There’s no getting round it -– RTFM!

Contact RNDigital labs, us: Website: www.rndigital.org

REVIEW

Marantz PMD620 The age of affordable, professional hand-held flash recorders is upon us. As surely as the Pro-Walkman recorder followed personal cassette players, so the prevalence of affordable MP3 players was always likely to translate into recording devices. ROB JAMES explores.

hen any new machine comes my way I follow the old dictum: ‘When all else fails, read the manual’, to get a decent insight into just how good a job the designers have made of producing an intuitive user interface. In the case of the PMD620 (UK£379 + VAT) the answer is, ‘remarkably good.’ It is set up for recording in MP3 from the internal mics, which means you can be recording ten seconds after opening the box. Bung in a couple of alkaline AA batteries, flip and hold the power switch to turn it on and press Record. It really is that simple. The machine arrives with a dinky little in-line mains power supply, wrist strap and a mic stand cradle/belt clip. I would like to have seen a means of securing the PMD in this. There are two mounting point options for the wrist strap, top and bottom. Only a little larger and heavier than a packet of cigarettes, the recorder will fit into most hands comfortably. Unusually, it seems best suited to left-handed use for interviews and news gathering. The Record button falls naturally under your thumb and Pause and Stop are in easy reach. Although the display is a little small and monochrome it is an OLED and bright and pin-sharp. All controls are either recessed or semirecessed giving a smooth feel in the hand which also minimises inadvertent button presses. Construction is mostly plastic with radiused sides and a champagne grey brushed metallic front panel. One minor problem arises from this. At some angles to the current light source the white printed legends merge totally into the background, especially on the curved edges. However, the controls are so simple and

All sides

On the front panel, two small LEDs above the OLED display, Level and Over, indicate signal presence and clipping. Signal presence trigger level can be set at -54dB, -38dB, -20dB, -12dB or -6dB. Immediately below the screen are round Stop/cancel, Record Pause and the Record button. This has an annular ring that lights up softly in red when recording. Somehow this is much more satisfactory than a simple LED, more positive yet discreet. For ultimate discretion, all the LEDs can be turned off in the Presets Menu. The large round cluster on the left is the control centre. Left/ |<<, right/ |>>, up/Vol+ and down/Vol- areas are where you would expect on the outer ring with a Play/Pause/Enter button in the middle. Display Menu/Store and Skip Back buttons complete the picture. The rest of the layout is much as you would expect. A pair of mics at the top with Headphone and Mic sockets in between. Further jacks for Line In and Line Out, a remote jack and external power In (behind a rubber flap), are on the lefthand side. On the base another flap covers the mini USB port and next to this is a rather flimsy drop-down cover for the SD card slot. If this is open, recording stops and a message appears in the display. Power, Key Lock and Record level increment/ decrement buttons are to be found on the right. Power is a spring biased slider that needs holding for a second or so to switch on but gives instant off. Key lock is a programmable slide switch with the options of locking everything or a partial lock which allows access to Record, Record Pause and Stop/Cancel. On the back the batteries can be accessed via a plastic cover. Pressing the Display

intuitive that anyone using the PMD620 regularly will have no problems. Some very subtle little rubber inserts on the back afford a bit of acoustic isolation when the machine is placed on a surface, however, these bumpers are so shallow it will need to be a very flat surface. I tried using the PMD620 with just the internal mics for recording voice and attempted some exterior sound effects. While handling noise is really not too bad, the same cannot be said for susceptibility to moving air. Small capsule mics always have problems with this but the ones fitted to the PMD620 seem especially sensitive. Even minor air disturbance, from breathing for example, has the diaphragms hitting the end stops. Marantz strongly recommends using an external condenser mic and I can see why. If you do use the external mic input, 5V power is available via a Preset menu switch. To aid mic level matching, an attenuator can be switched on at -12dB or -24dB. Rudimentary non-destructive editing is present in the shape of Copy Segment. With an In and Out marker set by pressing the Record button while playing back, the section in between can be copied to a new file. This is more than sufficient for this type of device. This machine has the best ergonomics of any I’ve tried so far in this size. The mic amps are subjectively quiet but this is offset by the internal mics sensitivity to air movement. If you intend to use an external mic this obviously won’t be a problem. Otherwise this is one of the nicest of the breed. n

PROS

Good ergonomics; subjectively quiet; standard AA batteries, alkaline or NiMH.

CONS

Internal mics over-susceptible to air movement; SD card cover a bit flimsy as are the USB and Ext Power covers.

Contact marantz, japan: Website: www.dmpro-eu.com

button steps through the operational screens: Time and Date, Current Record Setup and Total Time Remaining. When in Record Pause or Record a further screen shows Record level and whether Automatic Level Control is engaged. The meters are absolutely excellent with clear legends and good ballistics. Record formats are 16-bit or 24-bit linear PCM at 44.1 or 48 and three flavours of MP3. The PMD can be set to skip silence when recording with threshold settings of -60dB, -54dB, -38dB or -20dB. Useful, I dare say, for surveillance purposes. Low cut is either on or off. All significant settings are stored in Preset memories of which there are three in the machine. By default the first two are set up for MP3-M and MP3-H 44.1kHz and the third for PCM-24 bit 48kHz. All three can be user modified and there is a global restore to default. Presets can also be stored on SD cards and this will be of great benefit to organisations with a lot of machines to set up. You can change the font size for such things as the list screens from within the Preset menus. This doesn’t affect the Preset lists, which really are a bit on the small side (had me reaching for stronger glasses), until you exit the menus and re-enter them again. Manual Track starts a new file for the current recording when the Record button is pressed during recording; Auto Track starts a new audio file at specified intervals. Interval can be set to 1, 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes or 1, 2, 6, 8, 12 or 24 hours. Auto track can be helpful for finding a specific point in the recording quickly. Recorded files may be sorted by date and time or alphabetically for display and the maximum number of files per card is 999.

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REVIEW

SPL Analog Code Plug-Ins As analogue intelligentsia manufacturers go, SPL has held out longer than most from submitting to the call of the plug-in. GEORGE SHILLING says they have now finally succumbed and he’s quite pleased they did.

PL first came to my attention 20 years ago with its relatively cheap Vitalizer boxes, a rival audio enhancer to the popular audio exciters of the day. A few years later I became a fan of the (still cheap) much loved and unique Transient Designer, and bought one. The German company has latterly developed more seriously ‘pro’ hardware designs, introducing products like the extraordinary and rather more expensive 120V Mastering series. For rather a long time now SPL has resisted the temptation to venture into software products. However, it has now developed a partnership with Dirk Ulrich, the boss of Brainworx, to develop these plug-ins. The Analog Code moniker comes from the desire to emphasise how accurately these plug-ins have been modelled on the SPL hardware. Based on the company’s RackPack modules, component modelling was employed, but there was also collaboration with the designers of the hardware for complete accuracy. The first three SPL plug-ins are emulations of the Ranger EQs, Transient Designer, and TwinTube, available for TDM, or Native, in RTAS, VST and AU flavours. TDM purchasers also receive the native formats. Each SPL plug-in window comprises two sections — the main plug-in controls in the left part and a four-memory instant recall section on the right. Labelled simply A, B, C and D, these are useful for quickly comparing settings without having to name and save them in the host, and they can be automated in the DAW for altering settings during the course of a mix. All plug-ins include yellow Signal present ‘LED’s, and red Overload indication. There is also an On button on the left panel and a Power button on the right, clicking either of these bypasses the process. Trans i en t D es i gner — Although it is not long since Universal Audio licensed and developed a version of this very same unit for its UAD cards, SPL has started from scratch and developed its own code for this. This new version is subtly different from the UAD version; it does seem to pack more low-end punch on a bass drum, for example, and sounds absolutely terrific. Although rival designers have offered similar processors, few come close to the fantastic flexibility and ease of operation of the Transient Designer. With just two knobs (and latterly a level compensation knob) things couldn’t be simpler. Often a life-saver on poor drum recordings, or an invaluable enhancer 34

on good ones, its uses are not limited to percussion. Anything that seems a bit spiky can be smoothed over with a little reduction of Attack and an increase in Sustain. The latter can also often have the effect of bringing up any room elements on a recording, adding some tone and depth to a sound. Cranking up the Attack can often bring lacklustre signals back to life. The process cleverly works independently of input signal level, and this plug-in retains all the hardware’s characteristics and sonics. EQ Rangers — Three eight-band mini graphic EQs comprise the Rangers plug-ins. The hardware is reminiscent of the API 560 and works on a similar ‘proportional Q’ principle. The Rangers are passive designs, lending them naturally pleasant sonics. Although the Rangers each have only eight bands,

this is made up for with the provision of three distinct models featuring different frequency selections. The Full Ranger covers bands from 40Hz to 16kHz, the Vox Ranger covers bands from 220Hz to 4kHz, and the Bass Ranger goes from 30Hz to 2kHz. Maximum cut or boost of each band is just over 12dB, but higher frequencies have broader bandwidth than lower bands. The sliders have rather vague calibration marks — you can employ host automation if you must know the exact boost or cut. The first thing that is apparent when using these plugs is that small and even moderate boosts are rather subtle. You often find that plug-in EQs require more cranking than their analogue equivalents, but such is the natural character of this EQ with its excellent phase coherence and lack of distortion, that you can struggle to hear any effect at all initially. But increasing boost really sounds very sweet indeed. Some crazy looking curves are sometimes necessary for sculpting some character, but there is no doubting the quality of this processing. Large EQ changes can be compensated for with the bottom Output level slider. I thought I would have less use for the Bass Ranger, as you rarely want to fiddle intricately with bass frequencies unless it’s a rescue job. However, for rescue jobs this is impressive, and I soon found that experimenting with each band led me to some fantastic sounding bass drums, sometimes courtesy of wild looking curves. The Vox Ranger covers the crucial midrange area comprehensively, although despite a wide bandwidth I sometimes resolution

found the highest band (centred on 4kHz) a little low. However, you can always add a Full Ranger. I would have liked the possibility of click-dragging curves with the mouse, perhaps by holding a modifier, just to give more of the feel of pushing shapes with your fingers on a hardware unit. Tw i nT u be — This module comprises two effects — tube Saturation and Harmonics processing — and the two sections are completely independent, with a separate knob and On button for each. The Saturation control drives the virtual tube circuit gradually into rich and/or horrid distortion. It noticeably rounds off transients of drums, acoustic guitars and similar signals, simultaneously introducing some roughness into the sound. I frequently found that as soon as I could hear it doing anything significant, I often disliked the ‘broken’ sounding characteristics. But small amounts of distortion enabled instruments to be perceivably louder in a complex mix without them poking out or getting in the way. I duplicated and balanced tracks in order to compare processed and unprocessed signal, as there is the glaring omission of any kind of level trim to counter the boost that happens (up to 6dB) from turning up the Saturation. The Harmonics control enriches the high frequencies at one of four selectable frequencies from 2kHz to 10kHz. In the hardware version a combined coil/condenser system works in conjunction with the valve to process overtones and affect phase structure. It is claimed that this is different from the principle of exciters which add distortion, and the process is indeed cleaner than most exciters, but it has a similar effect, adding rich top end or upper mid harmonics to a signal. It sounds not unlike a fairly powerful EQ boost, but reacts dynamically with the material. In 10k mode it does a great job of lifting the blankets from the tweeters! I encountered a bug on the TDM version which frighteningly sent the level up about 12dBs when both processes were bypassed. SPL quickly remedied the situation with an update. A nice innovation is that all SPL plug-ins’ rotary controls and even the Ranger sliders can be adjusted using a mouse wheel when the pointer is hovering above. Holding a modifier increases resolution. This is an excellent idea that all plug-in designers should incorporate henceforth! n

PROS

Uniquely useful and flexible Transient Designer; gorgeous ‘Passive’ EQs; sparkling Harmonic enhancement.

CONS

No Output gain trim on TwinTube; saturation not always to my taste.

Contact SPL, Germany: Website: www.soundperformancelab.com UK, The Audio Professionals: +44 1923 693770

April 2009

REVIEW

Fostex UR-2 Whether you need a stereo machine for location recording or a sophisticated play out unit with voice-over facilities, ROB JAMES says this stereo rack memory recorder is up to the job.

espite all the ballyhoo about surround sound there is still a real need for simple stereo record/playback machines but with added bells and whistles for those who need them. The trick is to design a machine that appeals to the widest possible audience while remaining simple enough to operate on a day-today basis. As a technology matures, we usually see a rash of products designed to take advantage of it and Flash memory is no exception. The price has fallen dramatically and reliability and capacity have both increased by leaps and bounds in recent years. Provided you take reasonable precautions and buy qualified, high quality memory cards, the Flash audio recorder has arrived in the mainstream. Fostex has a long and honourable history of producing excellent professional audio recorders at a sensible price, not least the first timecode DAT recorder. The UK£918 (inc. VAT) UR-2 stereo rack memory recorder is cast in the same mould. The first evidence of this is the power supply. This is an in-line ‘brick’ with the usual IEC socket but the output terminates in a latching 4-pin XLR and 12V or 24V battery supply is thus also possible. Quoted power consumption is a miniscule 5W making battery use on location a serious option. Supported formats range from 44.1kHz 16-bit PCM to 96kHz 24-bit PCM and now also a range of 44.1kHz MP3s. With Flash recorders the filing system is often a difficult area. On the UR-2 although it is possible to create top-level user folders, wherever possible it is better to keep the folder structure as simple as possible

— stick to a single BWFF folder per storage device containing all the audio files. If there is more than one folder present, certain functions, Power On Play and Relay Play Mode (plays all files sequentially) will not be available. The play modes are many and varied. The default is Single, which simply plays the selected file then stops; All plays back every file on the current storage device in the order they were recorded; Relay does the same as All but for all storage devices set currently; and Chain-single plays a single file from a Chain Playlist on the current storage device. Several Chain Playlists can be stored on the same device and selected via the Chain Play Set menu entry. Chain-All plays back all files in a Chain Playlist on the current storage device and Chain Playlists can reference up to 250 files. In and out points can be set per entry and Cue points are set using scrub audio to locate the exact position. Digital scrub is of the ‘endlessly repeat a very short section’ variety which I’m not that keen on but it works well enough. Memory mode enables you to map files to the number keys on a connected USB keyboard, this is useful for cueing sound effects and stings. You can use the Timed Play mode to make file playback start or end at a certain point along the lines of, ‘….At the third beep the race starts — Beep. Beep. BEEP.’ Time is referenced to the internal clock so you need to set this accurately for some applications. For all modes apart from Memory, by engaging the Repeat function the selected playback is continued ad nauseum until stopped manually. Chain and Timer Playlists are saved in the common

Up front: On the front panel, the power switch is a positive mechanically latching item with a surround to prevent accidental operation. Phone jack and volume control are followed by a USB keyboard port. A substantial steel panel secured with a thumbscrew conceals the two SD card slots and the USB-Host and USB-PC ports. Tricolour indicator LEDs for the two SD cards shine through translucent inserts in the panel -- red means that data is being written, orange equals reading and green means SD is present but inactive. The AutoPlay indicator LED and the Shift key and indicator lie just above the removable panel. For the rest of the buttons, Shifted functions are in brackets. Play Mode (Edit), Time (Repeat), File select (Storage select) and Display (Display Brightness) keys lie to the left of the small but bright and easily legible organic electroluminescent display (this can be set to white on black or black on white). On its right are five larger, positive transport control keys and above the Record key lies the Record Ready button. Recording is one-touch once the UR-2 is in Record Ready mode. To the right of the Record Ready button is Exit (Margin Reset) followed by a turn and press Menu/Enter rotary, and |<< and >>| cursor keys that double as jump to next cue point buttons when shifted. Cue/Locate (Time Edit) and Mic In on/off (Mic In Setup) have the analogue Input Level and Mic Input Gain pots below them. Finally, an XLR is provided for mic input with menu switchable phantom powering.

Around the back: Analogue Line inputs and outputs are pairs of XLR-3s with phonos as an unbalanced alternative. A blanking panel hides the receptacle for the optional MIDI interface board. AES-EBU stereo I-O is on XLR, footswitch is ¼-inch jack and the parallel remote, also providing tallies, is a 25-pin D-sub. The UR-2 can also be controlled by a computer via the RS232 9-pin D-Sub.

April 2009

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CSV format (Comma Separated Value) and can thus be edited easily using a text editor or spreadsheet on a computer. On the record side, recordings can span SD cards and be up to 4Gb in size. Loop Record begins to overwrite at the beginning when the maximum capacity is reached. If a microphone is connected this can be used not only for recording but also to voice-over what ever is being played back and an attenuate function makes this more useful for announcements and such like. Playback volume is lowered by 6dB, 12dB or can be muted when the Mic button is pressed and the action of this key can be momentary or latching. The menu system is largely intuitive and anybody familiar with turn and push plus cursor key navigation will have no trouble. Although it is perfectly possible to use this machine for music recording and post applications the UR-2 is probably most at home with AV applications such as shows, stations, supermarkets, and bars. Connecting to a PC for file upload/download is simple; the unit is seen as a USB mass storage device. Alternatively, remove the storage card and plug it into a PC. The UR-2 has a number of compelling features. Two SD slots increase versatility considerably over its rivals and the comprehensive parallel, serial and keyboard remote facilities extend its reach. Overall functionality is increasing with each software upgrade. A small but important point is the generous level available from the headphone socket. Build quality inspires confidence and everything feels robust and positive. Whether you need a stereo machine for location recording or a sophisticated play out unit with voiceover facilities, the UR-2 is up to the job. To achieve this level of versatility the machine is necessarily more complex than a simple tape recorder. However, once set up, operation is pleasantly simple. If you are in the market for a stereo Flash recorder the UR-2 must be on the shortlist. n

PROS

Robust professional recorder; wide variety of applications; easy to operate.

CONS

Scrub is ‘endless loop’; no adjustment for ducking slope; not much else.

EXTRAS

The Fostex LR16 is 16:4:2 mixer with a built-in 16-track recorder. A separate Connector Box contains the recorder and the I-O and this can be connected to the Controller/mixer via Cat5 cable to a distance of 50m. The digital desk has analogue-style operation with 16 input faders, four bus faders and a master fader. It has a built-in 80Gb drive for 16 hours of 16-track at 16-bit/44.1kHz or 9 hours at 24-bit/48kHz. There’s one-button record and a choice of MTR standalone or integrated operation. All channels have 3-band EQ, digitally controlled trim and a limiter and there are built-in effects.

Contact fostex, japan: Website: www.fostexinternational.com UK, SCV London: +44 208 418 1470

monitor benchtest

Focal Twin6 BE KEITH HOLLAND

he Focal Twin6 Be is a threeway active speaker consisting of two 6.5-inch woofers and an inverted dome tweeter. The woofers are described by Focal as ‘W cone sandwich composite drivers’ and, although they share the low frequencies, the mid frequencies are reproduced by only one driver; a rear-mounted switch selects which one handles the mid frequencies so that similar speakers can be configured for left or right orientation. There is no dedicated option for centrechannel use. The inverted dome tweeter has become something of a Focal hallmark, and this technology has been extended to produce what Focal claims is a ‘world first’ pure-beryllium tweeter dome, in contrast to other manufacturers’ Beryllium alloy or composite products. Use of this material extends the frequency response of the tweeter to a claimed 40kHz (the measurements in this review are limited to 20kHz so this claim has not been verified here). The cabinet is a ported design with slot-shaped ports at the ends of the front panel and built-in crossover, equalisation and power amplifier electronics. Focal specifies 2 x 150W amplifiers for the woofers and 100W for the tweeter endowing each speaker with a claimed maximum SPL of 115dB peak at 1m. The rear panel contains an IEC mains socket and switch, mid-

range driver selection switch, rotary equalisation controls for high frequency (+/-3dB) and low-frequency (+/-6dB) and an input sensitivity switch (+4dBu/-10dBV). This review was conducted with both equalisation controls set to 0dB. The speaker has external dimensions of 250mm high by 500mm wide by 340mm deep and weighs 14kg. Focal recommends that the Twin6 Be is used in the horizontal, landscape orientation but does state that vertical, portrait orientation is an option (see below). The On-axis frequency response of the Focal Twin6 Be (Figure 1) is commendably smooth and flat lying between +/-2dB limits from 48Hz to 17kHz. Lowfrequency response is seen to be 10dB down at 37Hz with a 6th-order roll-off, indicating the use of an electronic high-pass protection filter. Also shown in Figure 1 is the harmonic distortion produced when the speaker is reproducing tones at a level of 90dB SPL at 1m distance. The distortion performance is very good with the second harmonic below -40dB (1%) at all frequencies above 50Hz and the third harmonic below -46dB (0.5%) above 40Hz. Figures 2 and 3 show the off-axis frequency responses for this speaker. A comparison between these two plots leads you rapidly to the conclusion that the vertical directivity

Fig. 1. On-axis frequency response and harmonic distortion.

is far better than the horizontal directivity. The frequency response in the vertical plane is excellent and maintained within 3dB of the on-axis response throughout almost the entire bandwidth for all angles within +/-30 degrees, whereas the horizontal response shows interference dips at 800Hz and 2.2kHz which are clearly evident at all angles. These notches are typical for a speaker with horizontally-spaced drivers due to destructive interference between the sound radiated by more than one driver, and do indicate that the ‘crossover’ to a single driver for the mid-range has not eliminated this directivity problem entirely. These off-axis results suggest that for many users, the vertical, portrait orientation option may well prove the most acceptable, particularly if some listening is carried out off-axis. The step response for the Twin6 Be is shown in Figure 4 and demonstrates a rapid rise, with a delay of around 500 microseconds between the high- and mid-frequency parts. This response is as good as many

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monitor benchtest

Fig. 2. Horizontal off-axis response.

Fig. 4. Step response.

Fig. 6. Waterfall plot.

Fig. 3. Vertical off-axis response.

Fig. 5. Acoustic source position.

Fig. 7. Power cepstrum.

two-way systems and considerably better than most three-way systems which are often compromised in this aspect of performance. Figure 5 shows that the acoustic source position is around 3m behind the speaker at low frequencies. This is typical for speakers having high-order low-frequency roll-offs, brought about by the adoption of bass reflex cabinet design and an electronic protection filter. Another aspect of the low-frequency transient response is shown in the waterfall plot of Figure 6. Here it is seen that the low frequencies decay very rapidly considering the steep

low-frequency roll-off. Most loudspeakers of this size, with the bass extension and low distortion of this design, suffer from considerably slower decay at low frequencies. Also shown in the waterfall plot is some evidence of low-level resonances at around 500Hz. The power cepstrum (Figure 7) shows very little echo or diffraction activity which is borne out by the smooth frequency response. The Focal Twin6 Be is an impressive performer. The frequency response and distortion performance is first class, and this has been achieved without too much

compromise in transient response. The issue raised about landscape versus portrait orientation may be important as some users may be put off trying the latter, which may prove the better choice. Overall, the Twin6 Be is a very well thought out speaker that deserves to feature on many peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s short list for audition. n

Contact focal, france: Website: www.focalprofessional.com UK, SCVLondon: +44 208 418 1470

www.audient.com

CRAFT

AR Rahman As a composer, AR Rahman has crossed over from the Bollywood scene to Hollywood and beyond and has been instrumental in bringing the continent’s music to the world. NIGEL JOPSON talks to the Oscar-winning Mozart of Madras.

hen AR Rahman won Oscars for best original soundtrack and best original song, both from the movie Slumdog Millionaire, he equalled the number of Oscars Indians have taken home during the first 80 years of Academy Awards. The world loves the movie, and Rahman’s infectiously catchy themes have populated the iPods of many listeners for whom ‘World Music’ was previously a closed book. The soundtrack became top album on iTunes and jumped 26 spots to No. 22 on the Billboard chart just days after the Oscar ceremony. But five months ago, after the movie nearly went straight to video in the US for lack of a distributor, the idea that a film set in the slums of Mumbai — spoken partly in Hindi and featuring exclusively Indian characters and music — could win eight Oscars, would have been considered an outside chance. Accepting the offer from Danny Boyle to do the soundtrack was something of a bold career

decision for Rahman, who is the only film score composer to rank in the top 25 of the 200m+ selling recording artists globally. In India he is a huge star, his name on the credits practically guarantees success for a Tamil film, and in a 17-year movie scoring career he’s sold over 100m albums and more than 200m cassettes. His belief that music transcends boundaries of nations, race and religion has inspired Rahman to continue pushing the envelope of an already-successful career. Rahman started his musical career at age 11, after the early death of his father, becoming the keyboard player for film composer Ilaiyaraaja. He went on to play with Ramesh Naidu and accompanied Zakir Hussain, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan and L. Shankar on world tours. He built a studio called the Panchathan Record Inn, where he composed TV music and jingles. In 1992, director Mani Ratnam asked him to score the Tamil film Roja, which became a huge hit and launched Rahman’s career in the Chennai film industry. Rangeela, in 1995, became Rahman’s first Hindi-language film and he acquired a Japanese fanbase after the release of Chennai blockbuster Muthu in Japan. His many successful Tamil and Hindi soundtracks have won him 33 Filmfare Awards and four National Film Awards. In 2002, Andrew Lloyd Webber asked him to compose the music for West-End musical Bombay Dreams, Rahman also wrote music for the stage production of The Lord Of The Rings, in 2004 he composed a piece for classical violinist Vanessa-Mae, and in 2007 he scored Universal’s historic epic Elizabeth: The Golden Age. He owns a commercial recording studio and film mix stage, AM Studios, in Chennai.

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CRAFT Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog Millionaire, said that Western film productions hide music behind cinematography, and that in order to get you to do the soundtrack he promised to mix your music right upfront in the movie. He did say that! That’s the way we work here, the music plays a big part. And in that film it works very nicely. On the title song Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, there’s a special effect on the chorus vocals, is it Autotune combined with another plug-in? It’s actually just the standard pitch correction plug-in which comes with Logic. The sound is quite smooth compared to the normal tuning effects we’ve come to expect, like a sort of portamento between syllables. What I did is I chopped up the vocal, and then put it on four different tracks. All four tracks had slightly different settings for the pitch correction. When I was mixing the song, if I felt I needed very rigid settings, then I’d push that track up, then when I felt the pitch correction should be a little softer I’d fade another track up. So it’s not a single vocal track, but a blend of four different pitch correction settings on four different tracks. There are some cues in Slum Dog Millionaire — such as the death of Jamal’s mother — where the on-screen action is incredibly tight with the soundtrack. Did you write to their cuts or did the editor work to your composition? Both, really. I was given an edit which showed the pace and I did some music recording to that. Then they took my music and re-cut the picture to that. Do you import the picture cue as a QuickTime movie to Logic or do you run in lock to an external projector? Mostly I just watch the cue first and then play. The initial takes are always just having a memory of the movie in my head and composing. When it’s completed, we put the movie on, and lock to it for any changes and the mixing. Do you have an operator when you’re composing or do you run Logic yourself? With Logic I run it myself, for Pro Tools I have an operator. I do all my music in Logic, then we take the stems and transfer them to Pro Tools for mixing. I have a

April 2009

Neve 88R in the control room for recording and a Euphonix System 5 on the mix stage at the studio.

Do you work with an assistant at your home, do you have a team of engineers working for you at AM? I only have a girl called Vivienne who helps me, I also work with Siva Kumar and Laxmi at AM Studios. Sadly, the recording engineer who I had worked with for more than ten years, Sridhar Hariharan, passed away just the day before I left for Los Angeles for all the nominations. Your AM Studios in Chennai has a unique design, with the control room overlooking the mix stage, which doubles as a recording room. Did you have a lot of personal input into the studio specification and design? It was designed by a guy called George Newburn, who has a company in Los Angeles called Studio 440. That’s my commercial studio, all the big sessions happen there, that’s where I record strings and so on, but I can’t afford to work there all the time! My current home studio set-up is based around Logic with a Euphonix desk and Genelec monitoring. As a composer, you were an early adopter of sampling and sequencing technology. What was the first recording studio you built? That was my home studio, which had a little Tascam 244 4-track Portastudio, actually. Then I had a Fostex B16 16 track ½-inch, after which I progressed to a Roland DM-80 hard disk recorder. Then I had some of the Alesis digital ADAT recorders, with the terrible cartridges which always popped out just when you really needed them to play! I particularly liked the sound of the Roland SW550 sampler, I recorded my own samples as well as using discs that were commercially available. When you are writing for Indian instruments, do you use a conventional piano-style keyboard, do you have MIDI tuning maps, or do you use prerecorded samples? Some of them are samples. I record musicians, patch the audio into a sampler instrument and then play it on the keyboard. I also have this new input device from Haken Audio called the Continuum Fingerboard. It’s a pressure sensitive continuous controller which can do big pitch sweeps. I use that now quite a lot for doing this sort of stuff — it’s great actually.

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CRAFT In 2008 you founded your own KM Music Conservatory in Chennai, what was your motivation for that? I wanted to start the conservatory here to encourage kids to learn traditional instruments, but at the same time not miss out on technology. A combination of the classic stuff, and technology, together as part of their training ... a wholesome musicality. So as they grow they can choose any path, they could be conductors or musicians or technicians. Because Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve gone through this multimedia thing, I wanted to give something back. I funded the basics and the building and so on. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been recruiting staff from Europe and America, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s definitely gathering momentum, so thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good news. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been working on KM Conservatory for a year now, and there are so many opportunities coming, there are so many concerts ... itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really a pleasure. Around five years ago, you took an extended break from movies to work on the stage musical adaptation of Lord Of The Rings. What persuaded you to do that project? I had worked with the producer and musical director, Kevin Wallace and Christopher Nightingale, on Bombay Dreams [the Bollywood themed musical which opened in London in 2002]. So when they started on the stage production of Lord Of The Rings, they wanted to get me involved to write some stuff. I spent about three years writing it, along with VĂ¤rttinĂ¤.

You were a working musician from the age of 11, but somehow managed to attend Trinity College of Music and graduated with a degree in classical music. How did you manage it? I studied the syllabus here in India, the Trinity College London external examinations board examiners came here to assess students.

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CRAFT You’ve chosen to do some very interesting movie projects. When you did Elizabeth: The Golden Age, co-writing with Craig Armstrong, I thought that was an unusual and inspired choice. How did that come about? I’ve known Shekhar Kapur [the director] for ten or fifteen years, it was his idea for me to work with Craig. Craig is a fine writer, I’ve admired his work too. It was almost like a typical Hollywood movie in the making, it answered the question for me: could I do a whole orchestral movie score? It was a very good experience. When you worked with Craig, how did you collaborate on the orchestral cues? Did you print the score out from Logic ... or did you have several copyists writing all your parts out? Some of my themes were interpreted by Craig, and some of Craig’s stuff I interpreted. Some of the pieces we worked on independently — the beheading of Mary, for example — that was completely my cue. The Storm sequence was my cue ... it was a difficult film to write, because there were just so many people giving different input, so it was not a very satisfying experience. But working with Craig was great, working with Shekhar was great, and the learning experience for me was great. I heard you are going to work on Disney’s first Tamil movie, called The 19th Step, is that correct? That’s a very interesting film, three kinds of productions colliding: Japanese, Hollywood and Tamil. It’s a trilingual production. I’m working with a colleague of mine called Bharat Bala [the film director], we did an album together about ten years ago, it’s now almost like a cult album in India. So, coming back together is really good.

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What are you working on at the moment? I’m actually working on a couple of films here back in India. There are also a couple of Hollywood projects I might do. Were you inundated with calls from LA after the awards? A lot of people have shown interest, which is very kind of them. I’m looking for the right kind of script ... You are a huge superstar in India, but when I watched some of your Indian TV interviews I was surprised to see the interviewers often complain that you’re too famous now ... you spend too much time in Hollywood ... you should do more Tamil cinema — or maybe less Tamil — more Hindi-language films! It seemed a bit like the Australian ‘tall poppy syndrome’ — how do you deal with that? It’s a difficult thing, actually ... when you achieve something they are proud of it really, really they are. It’s just their way of expressing it: ‘Oh, don’t go away, do more of our stuff!’ Is there a particular artist you would like to work with in future, or have you got a personal musical dream you have yet to achieve? What I would really love to do is an album ... not restricted just to love songs, dance songs or traditional songs ... just to do music that I want to do. I hope I get time to do that in future, with all these good platforms happening. When you say music that you ‘want to do’, do you mean a large orchestral work? The CBSO [City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra] has commissioned me to write something, I’m still in the process of working on the melodies, it’s called Conference of the Birds. The work is quite deep, it’s about spirituality and stuff, so I have to get myself ready for it. I think in the near future, that may be the start of my orchestra work. I really am looking forward to it. n

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Sean Genockey Cutting some seriously cred acts in some interesting spaces, producer and engineer Sean Genockey talks to GEORGE SHILLING about guitars and drums.

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ondoner Sean Genockey’s father Liam was a busy session drummer during the 70s (Gillan, Gerry Rafferty, and still working with Steeleye Span) and young Sean was therefore regularly dragged to recording sessions and gigs during his upbringing. He soon settled on guitar as his instrument. Initially his entry into the business was as a songwriter and guitarist in Moke, who were signed to an American label, but following the band’s split he approached producers Paul Stacey and Dave Eringa who had both worked with the band and convinced them to give him a shot at engineering. With them, and other producers, he refined his craft, with ambitions to a production career that is now in full flow. His CV includes Manic Street Preachers, Suede and Starsailor, and Genockey has more recently been working with ‘Buzz’ bands like Boy Kill Boy and Kubb. He once visited Ronnie Wood’s house to record the Rolling Stone playing lap steel, and worked in the studio with Bob Clearmountain who mixed a Genockey recording. He now collaborates with mix engineer Ed Woods in his own Black Dog Studio near Kingston-upon-Thames, which is where all his mixes have been completed during the last three years. There, he and Woods use a Tube-Tech summing amplifier and Thermionic Culture, SSL and API outboard. Genockey recently spent 10 days tracking at Real World with Exeter-based indie pop-rockers IKO before decamping to Black Dog for two months to overdub and mix. He also enjoys using Rockfield’s Courtyard studio, and that was where Resolution met him as he loaded in his equipment for a tracking session with Southend-based rock band Baddies. (photos www.recordproduction.com)

I notice you’ve brought some gear… I just tend to have a bunch of things. I don’t bring loads and loads, three or four guitar amps, six or seven guitars — each one will inspire them to do something. Some pedals, and three snare drums, a Ludwig 800 which is very toneful, a 6.5 inch Black Beauty which sounds like a tom, and a new DW that’s really snappy. Between those three snares, if we can’t get it, then something’s wrong — time to go to the pub! With IKO there was heavy involvement with the arrangements, and they embraced that. One of my favourite tracks, the middle eight was the chorus, and the bridge is now the chorus but extended with a new section. We routined that in the studio — I did preproduction, but didn’t spot it, but it was, Can we try this? Left them with it for four or five hours and then we put it down. The postproduction has been a lot of guitar suggestions, they were an acoustic band before, but they are big Smashing Pumpkins fans and wanted to bring the rock element to it, but keep the melody. A lot of like, these three parts together are going to make one sound that makes a super-chord. Baddies, it’s an energy and atmosphere thing. I have a fantastic room, I can make my drum sound pretty big, but it does not sound like that room in there [at Rockfield]. The best bands don’t always have the biggest

Do you have space at Black Dog to record a full band? I can do, but I don’t enjoy it. I’ve just done all the preproduction for this there, we set up as a band and two of the tracks have come out great, so it will be integrated. I do some co-writing and I have a guy who plays drums, bass and keys and I cover the guitars, and if it’s just two of you it’s perfect. But if it gets into a band thing, it’s like being in a sub. I did Tom McRae’s album there and he called it the time machine, there’s no clock, and we always do a flat fee for finishing the record. So you make it clear to the artist that if we spill over by a week, it’s not going to cost them any more, and it doesn’t matter. If you instil that in them at the beginning of the project, the whole thing pans out. What happens with someone finicky who wants to go on forever? You have to book the next project in. Most people get to that process of mixing and want to finish it, and more and more they don’t even want to be there for the mixing. Which is fantastic. But you’ll be recording nine tracks in seven days here with Baddies… That’ll be more than enough for the drummer. We’ll track all the stuff live, drums, bass, two guitars and guide vocal, then we’ll take it back to mine with two weeks of overdubs with the first weekend off, 12 days. We’ll do vocals probably after each one is finished, then we’ll do mixing for 10 days after that. But again with an option, if one song’s not working — it used to always be like that, you’d never make a record in two weeks. A nice thing that’s happened is that bands have to have their stuff together, because they don’t have three months at Rockfield, it’s all really productive, they have to be good live. Baddies are making a living out of their live show, they’ve got a three month tour when we finish this, all through Europe, and they’re getting paid well. Do you help with arrangements? With Baddies it’s just suggesting things, their identity is very strong, you don’t need to do that, they’re already 2 minutes 10, it’s little things like, shall we try making the bridge half the length, do you think it should be this tempo, let’s drop the key — your voice sounds on the edge. And sonic things, let’s try this snare drum, let’s try hitting it on the edge rather than the rim. April 2009

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budgets. Baddies raised the funds themselves, IKO and Adam did the same, a lot of bands are like, Why tie ourselves into something where someone’s telling us how to do it? It’s an exciting time for bands, and there seems to be a trend of a lot less Pro Tools tomfoolery going on.

Whereas SansAmp doesn’t do that. And a lot of the Pro Tools instruments they’ve just brought out are fantastic, because you can program it, and it’s got some sort of convolution thing going on where if you drive the unit it does something different. It’s not all linear.

Do you use Beat Detective or Elastic Audio? It totally depends on the band. I embrace all of the technologies. I’ll never do it a way because I have a method. If the song needs that, we’ll do it to a click. And if it needs the kick drum to be smack-on, then we’ll do it. This is the place where you iron out all the creases. If you get the record the other side of the mix, if you’ve ironed out every crease, you can have that lucid moment when you’re listening to it with friends, couple of glasses of wine, and it just sounds shit. Like a big smooth thing. Music fans don’t give a monkey’s arse whether the kick drum is smack-on zero, or whether everything is perfect. Sometimes it needs to be, and they may enjoy that, but what they pick up on is the spirit and the emotion of the song, that’s the thing that gives them the feeling whether they like it or not.

Do you Re-Amp? I used to always do my guitars like that, but I just found the guitar player was not responsive to the sound, there’s something to be said for it hoofing out the speakers when it’s actually the sound you’re playing. And I also found the two lots of conversion thing, I’ve had a bit of trouble with it, I’ve not enjoyed it. It’s really brilliant for goosing up the bass a bit, paralleling it with a guitar pedal, doing something great, hitting it at the right impedance, it works really well for that.

Do you use amp modelling plug-ins? Amp Farm is great on strings, or if the singer’s wanting to wail or scream this thing and you haven’t got time to plug in all the amplifiers. But I find if you’re trying to do guitars or bass, there’s something to do with the way the software is designed, I find 10:41:12 AM that if I’m SummitResAd2:27.pdf using it on more than 2/27/09 one instance, or if you’re trying to get variations, you just hear the same thing. The Marshall stack sort of sounds like the Fender.

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How do you cope with multiple roles? It’s just knowing the gear. I find if I sit with a guitar player for 10 minutes, I have a bag of pedals, I know what each does with that guitar and that amp, I’ve got a set of really good leads. The guy’s got to be a half decent guitar player, it all boils down to that. I’ve got three or four setups — the Les Paul Special, with that old Tube Screamer, with the Copicat, with that amp will sound good -- if you want that sort of thing. Tomorrow will be a setup day, I make this very clear to the band that day one is so boring. In a Utopian world I’d have their roadie come down with the gear, he’d know exactly how the drum kit’s set up, and they come that evening to do the headphones. I worked with Reuben last year, and Jamie is fiercely

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impatient. I used to get the drummer to come and set his kit up, then get the other two to come when everything was ready — you pick the headphones up and you can sing and play guitar, and he’d thrive on that. ‘Let’s go, let’s get out, I hate it here’! And with the arrangements, they were so clear what they wanted to do. Your role as a producer then is to create an environment that brings out the best in them. Something I learnt as an engineer working with other producers is you’re trying to present this thing and the producer’s saying, ‘I can’t tell’. What do you think of the snare sound? ‘Don’t know, let me hear it with the guitars.’ Steve Bush wouldn’t pass comment on anything until the whole thing was in. It was all about, let’s get the guitars in place, let’s get the drums in, now let’s hear the track and then let’s pick the snare, then let’s decide whether the overheads need to be a little bit over the snare or over the cymbals. What do we need out of each thing. And just keeping it simple. I’ve been using a stereo bar again which is so easy. I find with that, combined with changing the snare drum and the tuning, and the cymbals, you can do so much more than getting into too much fiddling.

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How do you get a punchy bass drum sound? It’s all about the drum. I’ve got two coming with the band. One’s a 22-inch Ludwig, it’s really tight, it’s got loads of dampening. The other one’s a DW that’s really powerful. I think that makes a lot more difference than whether it’s a vintage D30 or a brand new D12 or whatever mic amp it is. Most of your gear is musical rather than studio engineer… I suppose so, I don’t compress my drums. I’ll have one or two compressed mics, a mono in front of the kit somewhere, sometimes a bit on the bottom snare, sometimes the rack tom if it’s a bit doolalley. I’ve only recently been able to get the tom sound together and it was the drums. I had these old Ludwig toms, and they’re actually rubbish, it doesn’t matter what microphone, whether you’re doing top and bottoms, contact mics on the cymbal stand, it doesn’t matter. If you change the drum, and put a 57 on it into a good mic amp, it’s going to sound great tuned properly. I like to bring a couple of really good mic amps that I can lean on, always bring the [Thermionic] Culture Vulture, that’ll be the desert island box, nothing else does that. I use that for all my close guitar mics, vocals, it just stops you having to use compression, it just holds it in. Do you ever later regret the amount of distortion you recorded with? Sometimes [laughs]. Again, you just learn your tools, if you’re overbiasing on the way in, particularly if the singer’s saying, ‘Louder vocals! Louder, more’, what I’ll do is put a compressor on in the box. And I’ll record a verse and say, ‘Give me a minute’, just take everything off and just listen to it back to hear what’s going on, before you move on, to make sure it’s not frazzling.

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Who taught you most about engineering? Nick Terry, I was producing an album at Chiswick Reach and he engineered, and he showed me so many things that were eye-openers. I just loved his blend of science and art. It’s a really scientific thing that he’s doing, but there are no rules. He has a lot of technical knowledge with the Thermionic Culture involvement… He does, but when he’s engineering it’s very creative. The first day we worked with him we had this intro with a tremolo, and his idea was to tape a pair of 57s to his head and run towards the guitar amp, and before I’d turned round he’s making the thing! n April 2009

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Nick Patrick From rock to World music and now firmly into crossover classical Nick Patrick has perfected his art, craft and hit rate. He shares his experiences and thoughts on ‘real’ records with GEORGE SHILLING

hile dabbling with keyboards and drums in school bands, Nick Patrick was intrigued by the credits on Elton John records, and this led him towards a traditional studio apprenticeship at Lansdowne Studios. Patrick’s first engineering session was for Gerry Rafferty, although he claims he ‘was completely ill-equipped to deal with the situation. We sort of staggered through, but I made an appalling mess of it’. However, he took a job at Wayne Bickerton’s Odyssey Studios as engineer where projects included a Marvin Gaye album, and later started freelancing at Trident, where he worked with a lot of European clients. France was a real hotbed for emerging African artists, and Philippe Constantin at Barclay started regularly employing Nick to produce World music, making commercial records with people from Africa like Youssou Ndour, Salif Keita, and Mory Kanté. At the end of the 90s he started doing classical crossover, the first of which was the hugely successful Russell Watson. It was for Decca, who had been brought Russell by Cliff Richard. He’d had a false start with another producer, so Nick did three tracks and this turned into Watson’s breakthrough record and numerous further albums followed. The album was recorded in Patrick’s private studio in Battersea, but a few years later he set up home and studio in Wiltshire and bought an SSL desk. Nick has worked with most of the well-known classical crossover artists, including Amici, Katherine Jenkins, Blake, Teatro, Myleene Klass and Hayley Westenra, and he got a Grammy Nomination for West Side Story. The SSL was recently sold, but Nick plans to replace it. He was working on a project with renowned engineer Pete Schwier, using a Neve 8816 summing mixer and some choice outboard, when Resolution dropped in to his Shine Studio. (photos www.recordproduction.com)

How did you make the first Russell Watson album? There was quite a lot of programmed stuff, so on some of the songs we’d program first, then overdub the orchestra. But a lot of the more classical things we’d just do straight orchestra. Did he sing live? No, all separate. We did that record entirely in my studio in Battersea -– apart from the RPO -– which was a room much smaller than this. We recorded the whole record on one microphone, including all the overdubs, a Beyer M88, I had an old Soundtracs desk. And we set him up, he never wore headphones, the music would be blasting out the speakers, and he would sing. He was a brand new artist, so it was a brand new experience for him as well, we sort of made it up as we went along. Sort of the same thing as making world music records, because it was about taking a small niche type record and just nudging it towards the mainstream. The differences you have to make are really very slight, but the perception is absolutely vast. Even doing a classical piece, Nessun Dorma for example, in a contemporary way, i.e. like you would record a pop record multimiked, even the difference in sound and the reverb, the perception it gives makes it into a different record altogether, it suddenly sounds familiar sonically to people. Whereas a core classical record, unless you’re into that soundscape, it’s quite a hard listen, particularly the vocal things where there’s a barren vocal sound. So our concept was to record a classical record in a pop way. Presumably that’s mainly using closer miking? Exactly how you would record a pop record. And although that sounds so simplistic, the impact of that was far greater than the simplification of what it sounds like, it has a huge impact in terms of how the record is perceived. And the closeness of the vocal sound, a real pop vocal sound, and the reverb and soundscape around it are a very different listening experience. And that concept has gone through the whole ten years. What’s changed? Nothing. It’s a simple concept. But it’s not a concept that everyone has followed in crossover classical genre. But it’s the one that worked for us.

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CRAFT Was Russell present during the orchestral recording? He was always there. From the beginning, he was always very involved, he wasn’t a passive bystander, and he’s got an amazing ear, and he learnt very fast, and was always involved in the process, even to this day -– more so. Presumably a lot of these performers aren’t used to being in studios? Well, Russell never used headphones. It just became apparent very quickly that he was uncomfortable. It’s so much more important, the intensity of the performance, than the technicality. The technicalities are of interest to me, but not to the extent where, if one has to go, the perceived technical advantages of having a vocal completely isolated are of no importance to me. Once the vocals are in a track, as long as you didn’t have something coming out of the speakers that you’re not going to use, no-one would ever know. And it’s the only way he could do it at that time. But Katherine Jenkins has always used headphones, never had an issue. Russell is the only one who wanted to use speakers. As time goes on, on his last two records he sang live with the band –- they weren’t classical records -– and we used the majority of the live vocals. With standards and showtunes, how does the process start? With Russell’s last two we did them at Capitol in Los Angeles. We had a swing record, Sinatra standards, and we used an amazing American arranger Jorge Callendrelli who’s done eight albums with Tony Bennett, he’s right in that sort of genre. I went out there, met up with him, chose the songs… We did quite a big demoing process with Russell. We’d do piano and vocal demos, to set the tempo, because some of them were different from the originals, so the guy could hear how he was singing it. That was a template, so we’d send that over to him, he’d do the arrangements with strings, rhythm arrangement, the whole lot. With virtual instruments in a computer? No, traditional, he writes it down. Then we did two days’ rehearsals, two four or five hour sessions with the band -– not the orchestra, but the rhythm section, amazing players. Then we went straight into the studio and cut it and he sang live with the backing tracks, with the speakers. We had a little booth, right in the middle of the studio, with two Genelecs blasting out. And he had a little mixer. And the same with the last record, which was soul covers. We used a different arranger, but we did it at Capitol again, all the tracks live. We did some with a huge 20-piece gospel choir, live in the studio. And then, bang, the tracks are done.

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So you never use any sample libraries or sounds from computer? Well, this record we’re doing now, Tasha Bennett, it’s a jazz record in conjunction with the Daily Mail, on this we haven’t got the finance to get an orchestra, so we’re using small string pads… And who is playing those? Mike Moran, he played keyboards on the dates, we cut them all live at Real World, four-piece rhythm section, Tasha sang, and I would say 80% of the vocals we’re Calrec Resolution Ads 28/8/08 12:29 Page 2 using are the ones she did in one take, live.

Did Myleene Klass play to a click? All the tracks were programmed, then she did the piano on the programmed tracks. On that we used a MIDI piano, a Yamaha that’s MIDI but the keys actually move. She’d do her performances, we’d record it, make little adjustments sometimes, then just play the sequence and just record like she’s playing it. She’s a very talented musician and lovely to work with. Do you always work with an engineer? I don’t think I’ve engineered a record for quite some time. A lot of the overdubs take

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April 2009

CRAFT minimal engineering, but I haven’t mixed for ages. I stopped recording because of the kind of records and artists I work with… One thing I did learn about producing records is that if you’ve got a happy artist, you’ve got a happy record. If you can’t give your artist the time, you’ve had it. It doesn’t matter how good the record is, you’ve got a problem. With a lot of the artists I work with, with Russell for example we spend most of the time playing tennis and being out and about. But that made an invaluable contribution to the record, because he’s comfortable. It’s a bit like casting a film, as long as you get people you know are going to play in the right sort of style, then it’s just a question of gentle guidance and choice. Casting is absolutely imperative, and then allowing people to do their thing, without getting on their case too much.

So do you need to get to know an artist before recording vocals? Not necessarily prior, but once you’re in the process, it’s vertical in terms of its intensity of that relationship. It’s massive, but it’s very important, and that’s the primary relationship. People I aspire to are those incredible producers who had a traditional role, Arif Mardin, Tom Dowd, Jerry Wexler, those are my producer heroes. I have huge admiration for people like Trevor Horn, he’s a fantastic artist. But it’s a different style to how I work, no less valid, but different. Those people that would put the team together, cast the record, an amazing artist, great players, make sure the songs are right, make sure everything’s there. The record doesn’t totally take care of itself, but the main foundations of them, you’re always working ten rungs up the ladder, rather than worrying about the guy who’s playing in completely the wrong style because he’s not the right player for the job. Why do you have your own studio? I don’t like going to other studios. Not because this is particularly nice, but because you don’t have to put up with crap, and things not working. They run crap businesses, the places are rubbish to go in, the service is rubbish. When I started the studio in Battersea, it was the best thing I’d ever done. It gives you some creative freedom. It releases you to a certain extent from the time frames that record labels like to impose on projects, because if you want to, you can spend another week, and do much more than if you had to hire a place any time you wanted to do anything. It allows you to be flexible in terms of charging appropriately for the project. If someone hasn’t got much money, it doesn’t mean you can’t make the record. Not all the successful records have cost a lot of money.

What guides your production decisions? What I think is vitally important is that you understand who you are making the record for, and you don’t get into a situation where you develop your own agenda for the record, because then it goes pear-shaped. You really must understand who is going to buy your record. I probably do temper the production of the record to how it’s going to be perceived by its audience. You can’t make a record that’s going to alienate the people that are going to buy it, because of a perceived concept of making a contemporary classical record. People think that in order to do that, you get programmed drums all over it and put a dance beat to a piece of classical music, and we all know that’s been done on many occasions. But that’s a different concept to servicing your key audience, which is an older demographic. That’s the prime thing to identify, and have an understanding about who’s going to buy your record, and not make it in a creative vacuum. That’s crucial. I’ve been lucky enough with the things I’ve done that I’ve had some handle on the identity of that. And a lot of those records are made by Universal Classics and Jazz, and they have an understanding of that as well. What has guided your musicality? I think it’s developed over the kind of records I’ve made. Because they do rely on musicality. They are essentially live instrument records, so the relationship that the instruments have is very important. There’s a developed understanding of how those relationships work, and the kind of space those instruments need in order to hear them. And how you light the vocal properly, because at the end of the day the record’s about the singer, and you want everything to make them sound great. How do you make great records? I’m going to borrow a quote from Trevor Horn. There are two things you need to do when making a record, make sure you’ve got good taste, and make the artist sound great. I think he actually said, don’t do anything crap! That would be my tip. It’s hard work making great records… This is the simplest record you could make, but it’s still taking time. The idea of the live record, it’s not reality, unless it’s an in-concert experience, and even that’s not reality, what you get away with live when the focus is on so many different sensory things, when you come to hear it outside that environment, you suddenly think, Oh God, I’m a bit out of tune, I can just fix that can’t I? So it’s a balance. n

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SWEET SPOT

Genelec 8260A Genelec has a new monitor with a coaxial driver. Genelecâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s CHRISTOPHE ANET and ILPO MARTIKAINEN describe the development of the MDC (Minimum Diffraction Coaxial) technology and the essential elements behind the 8260A DSP three-way system.

n principle, a three-way monitor offers clear sonic benefits, especially at higher sound levels, due to a separate midrange channel. If these benefits are desired, the designer has to choose between a small enclosure and no directivity control, and hence strong dependence of the listening environment, or a larger one, where proper directivity control can be included. The technical dilemma lies in the physical dimensions available for proper MF and HF directivity control. Since the introduction of the 1022A in 1985, Genelec has approached this issue with waveguides, called DCW, having spaced mid and tweeter drivers. The DCW has proven to be a successful concept and it has been adapted by other manufacturers as well. With the aim of developing a smaller threeway product with limited physical dimensions, the traditional waveguide simply had insufficient space. The development started for a new coaxial driver that would combine MF/HF waveguide for directivity control. Coaxial drivers are by no means new but the novelty is in eliminating the inherent response problems associated with their structure. The basic solutions at Genelec were developed in the late 90s to prototype levels. Coincident-source loudspeakers provide advantages over spaced drivers, especially at the crossover region and improvements in imaging, response and directivity can be achieved. The basic principle of a coaxial driver is to place the high frequency driver at the apex of the low frequency diaphragm. Doing so, the apparent source location does not depend on frequency and the directivity of both drivers may be controlled in the crossover region. Furthermore, coaxial technology 50

uses less front panel space than comparable designs with spaced drivers. A very well known early coaxial design is the Altec Lansing 604 Duplex from 1941, which had two magnet circuits. The tweeter horn protrudes through the woofer magnet in front of the woofer cone. This product design has had a very long life span. Another very successful design was introduced in 1946, the Tannoy Dual Concentric. It has no visible separate tweeter horn, instead the curved woofer cone forms an essential part of the tweeter horn originating inside the woofer magnet pole piece. Originally this design also eliminated the tweeter magnet as the magnet circuit had two gaps, a larger one for the woofer cone and a smaller one in the rear for the tweeter. This design is still in production although modified in several details. After neodymium iron boron magnets became available, KEF, in 1988, was the first to place a really small dome tweeter at the top of the woofer magnet pole piece, starting a new era of cost-effective coaxial drivers. BMS has designed interesting 2- and 3-way coaxial compression drivers, Cabasse has generated several constructions extending from 2-way to 4-way direct radiators and Pioneer has refined the diaphragm materials; these are just a few companies who have been active in this specific driver technology area. Although conventional coaxial designs provide several key advantages, they also present drawbacks. The woofer cone movement causes intermodulation and Doppler distortion to the tweeter radiation. The larger the cone displacement the more intermodulation will be produced. The directivity, although improved at crossover, may not be uniform at higher frequencies. Also, most current common tweeter-midrange driver constructions have inherent acoustic discontinuities, which show up as an uneven on-axis HF response. Whether these are judged to be important depends totally on the application and the degree of desired perfection. As history shows, the benefits have exceeded the drawbacks. The common challenge in all coaxial designs is how to avoid the aforementioned acoustical discontinuities and their effects on the response. Diaphragms have to move, there have to be gaps, but sound is easily diffracted from such discontinuities and so on. The following picture shows the typical situation with a somewhat uneven response. resolution

Figure 1: Frequency response of a typical coaxial driver. Frequency response from 1kHz to 20kHz.

The Genelec MDC â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The first step was to minimise the cone displacement; in other words to limit the low frequency bandwidth of the driver. This is both trivial and simultaneously important for the accepted solutions. Avoiding the sources of diffraction was more complicated. The solution resulted in several ideas, some of which are now included in the MDC driver. The main structure of the MDC design consists of an integrated MF diaphragm-suspensiontweeter construction. The visible part of the coaxial driver is formed by the curved flexible skin with the dome tweeter assembly at its centre. The inner section joins the cone to the tweeter without any acoustical discontinuity, and the outer one does the same between the cone and the driver chassis. As there are no acoustically observable discontinuities between the tweeter and the cone, just a smooth surface, there is no diffraction either. The cone profile is very carefully optimised to form an integrated directivity control waveguide for the tweeter radiation. The driver outer edge is terminated to a normal Genelec DCW to control the dispersion of midrange radiation as well. The system looks surprisingly simple and tidy and this development in coaxial design improves imaging and overall sound quality. The response is very smooth both on and off-axis and free from any anomalies and directivity is well controlled. Besides providing more sound pressure than the 8000 series 2-ways, the 8260A combines, for the first time, a coaxial driver (MDC) within a modern waveguide (DCW), ensuring drivers couple coherently over their full operating bandwidth as well as being a single MF/HF coincident point source. April 2009

SWEET SPOT

Figure 2: On-axis frequency response of the Genelec MDC driver. Frequency response from 2kHz to 20kHz.

Following current Genelec practice the 8260A uses a die-cast aluminium enclosure that is beneficial in many aspects. First, for given external dimensions the internal effective volume can be increased, which improves low frequency efficiency and provides extended LF cut-off. In the case of the 8260A the cut-off is 26Hz (-3dB). The curved surfaces are inherently rigid and their structure resonances are at higher frequencies and thus easily damped. Any heat generated in the power amplifiers and the drivers is effectively conducted away, which improves system reliability. Resilient to handling and wear, die-cast aluminium allows easy integration of supports and mounting options in the enclosure. Finally, aluminium is recyclable. The Genelec IsoPod vibration isolation stand is a part of the 8260A as well. The IsoPod stops the propagation of whole enclosure vibration to the surrounding structures. It also allows vertical tilting of the system so it can be aimed at a listening position. DSP in 8260A â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The DSP hardware is a true three-way, in which the driver feed signals for the tweeter, midrange and woofer are all fed into their own D-A convertors, then to three power amplifiers, and then finally onto each drive unit. The DSP processor in the 8260A contains all basic loudspeaker functions, such as the crossover filters, driver equalisation, driver position alignment, as well as the room alignment related filters (room response equalisers and propagation delay correction). The mechano-acoustical design produces constant directivity characteristics and combined with digital signal processing this results in a loudspeaker that is capable of outstanding performance in very different and challenging acoustic conditions.

The 8260A has six configurable notch filters, and two high- and two low-frequency shelving filters for room alignment and calibration. The adjustment ranges of the notch filters are wide and flexible allowing broad response alignments as well as careful correction of room mode problems. The parametric notches and shelving filters can be set automatically using the AutoCal automatic room alignment process built in the GLM software. (See figure 3). The GLM software handles the 8260A like any other Genelec DSP loudspeaker in a system and it is possible to mix the 8260A and 8200 series twoway loudspeakers in the same system. AutoCal is the automated room calibration and sound system alignment method. It provides consistent and accurate frequency response for a multichannel audio system in widely varying room environments. Assuming typical application areas, the threeway 8260A has an extended set of room response controls and can thus be adjusted to acoustically more complex spaces. The system alignments provided by AutoCal include frequency response calibration for each loudspeaker, based on either a single microphone position (SinglePoint), or an average of up to four microphone positions (MultiPoint), delay and sound level calibration at the primary listening position, as well as subwoofer-main loudspeaker crossover optimisation. GLM also features AutoLink, an additional proprietary software allowing the user to automate GLM start-up and set certain functions into computer keyboard keys for easy access and operation, even without having the GLM software user interface visible. An example of this is to tie system setup files to certain keyboard keys. Pressing the key will automatically open and load the system setup. This can be used, for example, to optimise monitoring for several individual seats in the room, such as the primary monitoring position and the producerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s position, or to move quickly between the main monitoring system and the smaller nearfield monitoring system. The 8260A loudspeaker represents Genelecâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cutting-edge innovation in all technology domains. The cornerstone of the enclosure design draws on the advantages of the 8000 series. In addition, the electronic domain (hardware and software) of the system benefits from the 8200 Series design with the advanced AutoCal calibration system. The MDC coaxial MF/HF is a breakthrough and makes the loudspeaker unique in the market. Such breakthroughs are the results of long-term persistent and solution-oriented research and development work. n

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business

The business of counterfeit While breathtaking on one level for the brazen bare-faced cheek of it, counterfeiting is a subversive influence that undermines confidence in brand qualities and confuses buyers. It is now at work in our tiny little world of pro audio. NIGEL JOPSON goes undercover to get a feel for the size of the problem and suggests some solutions.

ounterfeit goods aren’t only the preserve of fashion designers like Louis Vuitton. Just because our branch of the audio industry has ‘Pro’ in front of it doesn’t make us immune to the pitfalls of the unhappy Rolex-owner who finds his shirt sleeve rubbing the gold off his watch. I found this out for myself recently when hunting for a second-hand wireless mic. A guy in Essex selling a brand new Sennheiser EW135 G2 on eBay for £149? Too good to be true when a typical pro-audio retailer has them on sale for £399, and his feedback shows he sold an identical item, with identical picture, two weeks ago ... next up is a new-in-box EW545 G2 dual mic and transmitter set from Shanghai for £360 ... does Sennheiser know about this? It does. ‘We have developed an excellent working relationship with HM Revenue and Customs,’ explains Debbie Tyler, Sennheiser UK’s director of HR. ‘Every time they seize a shipment of counterfeit products — which is on a regular basis now — they send us samples of the goods for us to examine. Some counterfeits are obvious to spot, as they’ll contain Chinese lettering or an incorrect logo. Although the more accurate counterfeits look near to perfect. The difference is the makers have used inferior plastics and components. In some cases it’s necessary for our engineering department to confirm that they are counterfeit products.’ When Sennheiser has confirmed the goods are fake, HM Customs destroys the shipment (at Sennheiser’s cost). Sennheiser is given the details of the person or company that sent the shipment, and its intended destination, and then takes legal action. Radio mics turn out to be just the tip of an iceberg. Statistics from the Department of Homeland Security’s US Customs and Border Protection agency show that China was the country of origin for 80% of all US counterfeit seizures. According to statistics from the European Commission, over 43,000 cases of counterfeit goods are seized annually at the Community’s borders, mainland China accounting for 60% of articles. The actual number of goods seized in Europe is much higher: around 79,000,000. There has been a ‘worrying increase’ in non-clothing sectors, including electrical appliances. The average

number of items seized per case was actually lower than in the past, due to increased internet sales and the fact that counterfeiters are sending smaller quantities per shipment, in particular via air courier and mail. Such transactions represent almost 70% of all customs interventions. Confronted with statistics like these, it’s hard to resist the opportunity for a bit of amateur sleuthing. My initial investigations reveal a network of counterfeiters sufficient to surprise the most sceptical. I sort of expected to find the dodgy Chinese websites in broken English, with offers of bulk shipment in return for Western Union payments. What I didn’t expect to encounter was the fully e-commerce GENUINE enabled membership sites, using Paypal, major credit card payments and bonafide escrow systems. Pay for your shipment, check it when it arrives, then GENUINE release the funds to your Chinese partner. There are even clickto-talk help lines and feedback rating systems for sellers and buyers. Some Chinese counterfeit suppliers even offer to drop-ship goods to your customers. I know a web designer who’s built himself a nice little earner of an online store, selling ‘last season’ designer clothes, so I asked him about drop shipping. He assumed I was considering branching out from dabbling in vintage audio sales on eBay. ‘Don’t drop ship complex electronics from China, mate’ he counselled, ‘too much hassle with the returns. Although I hear controllers for the Wii are doing well. If you must, get a sample first to check the quality. Check consistency with a multipack, but make sure you ask for a better price.’ Emboldened, I emailed a Chinese supplier on myeglobal: how could I turn a profit on his ten-pack of Shure SM58s at $209 when this mic was averaging around £35 on eBay? I could have the ten for $160 he replied ... and did I need wireless mic? He had hotselling Shure PGX24 for $176 (kit which retails for around £530 in the UK) — free shipping — warmly welcome to do drop ship. 90 Selectable frequencies across 18MHz bandwidth 1/4 wave antennas — Your satisfaction, Our pursuit!!! The stage-stalwart, the Shure SM58, is one of the most copied mics by Chinese counterfeiters. What’s more, the fakers have progressively adapted the packaging and amended various inconsistent details to make the mics look almost identical to the real thing. Early knockoffs had some anomalies with the packaging: a too-realistic mirror image under the picture on the box rather than a drop shadow, and resolution

some had non-existent Shure model numbers (SM58SK for example), and invariably came with a cable (only the Shure SM58-CN is supplied with one). However, the fakers have wised up, the new counterfeit boxes are now identical copies of Shure originals. The only visible give-away on most counterfeits seems to be a small hole in the body by the cable connector. Perhaps the feature is copied from old Unidynes which used to have this aperture, a grub screw could be secured onto the XLR latch to prevent over-enthusiastic Roger Daltreys from detaching the cable. The only foolproof method of identifying a counterfeit mic is often to plug the thing in — but by then it’s too late. ‘Counterfeiting is not just a problem for Shure,’ says Sandy LaMantia, Shure’s president and CEO. ‘This is a serious issue that impacts our entire industry. Every brand of professional audio and consumer electronics is at risk because of this criminal activity. Shure continues to cooperate with other brands in joint actions and criminal prosecutions in China to present a united front against this illegal FAKE activity.’ Sandy couldn’t be more right about the industry-wide problem, but while some manufacturers may only admit to the problem privately, Shure and Sennheiser have been tackling the issue directly, taking the fight to the counterfeiters and mounting raids on their factories. In January, Shure persuaded the Shenzhen Administration for Industry and Commerce (AIC) to mount a raid on the Zhongdian Electronics and Technology Building on Huaqiang Road, and another on an associated warehouse. FAKE Goods seized during the raids included 8,500 pairs of counterfeit earphones bearing the Shure name. Penalties imposed by the Shenzhen AIC against the wholesale outlet include the confiscation of all headphones, the requirement that the outlet cease its infringement activities, and the imposition of a fine of 30,000 RMB. Roger Daltrey would have drowned them in a bath of baked beans. Counterfeits of expensive IEM or sound isolating earbuds are popular items to hawk on auction sites (because of the small size/shipping costs.) Shure’s name is now noticeably absent from many of the Chinese wholesale-counterfeit suppliers’ catalogues, although pictures still show the Shure name on products, which generally go by their model number name e.g. ‘E4C’ — rip-offs of which can be had for around $25 when the retail price is around £220. And having seen how many multipack copies of the (quite decent sounding) Bose Triport in-ear are available, I’d be loathe to buy another pair anywhere but a shop with Bose written on the door! This is a key point for all pro-audio manufacturers: every counterfeit sold on eBay may not represent a lost sale of the real thing, but it destroys the value of the brand. ‘Some companies don’t want people to know about their counterfeiting problems,’ says Karl Young, director of business development at brand protection company Net Enforcers. ‘But they don’t realise that bad products can erode the brand. Counterfeiting will April 2009

business affect the AV market soon,’ Karl warns, ‘they’re just getting around to you.’ Net Enforcers Inc. are an online agency that works with companies like Chanel and Gucci. Third-party policing of the internet is just one element of the fight against counterfeiters, Sony also uses NEI’s services and has its own campaign with authorised retailer watermarks: this resulted in action being taken against 15,000 unauthorised websites. Loudspeaker manufacturer Klipsch recently used NEI in a campaign that resulted in more than 1000 unauthorised online sales being detected in three months. One solution to the counterfeit BNIB (Brand New In Box) problem would be for distributors to prevent dealers from selling on eBay. Both Sennheiser and Shure are members of the eBay VeRO (verified rights owner) programme, which allows the manufacturers to quickly request auctions be taken down. Sennheiser UK told me they: ‘do not knowingly sell direct to dealers who sell on eBay or similar auction sites.’ Unfortunately, the pull of all those eyeballs proves irresistible to many authorised retailers. I quickly found Sennheiser products on eBay from four authorised dealers. Manufacturers clearly have to manage retail channels in a sympathetic manner, and balance efforts expended against counterfeiters with resources available for their core business. Still, there is one area I believe could be improved without too much expense: information about counterfeits for customers. The majority of end-users really do not want to end up with a counterfeit, inferior product. If a consumer reads a positive review of the sound quality of branded audio equipment, then they hope to enjoy that quality, even when shopping for entrylevel products. I believe it would greatly help the market if every manufacturer set up dedicated web pages with clear photographic examples along the lines of: counterfeit item/packaging is on the right, authentic on the left. There’s so much misinformation circulating in audio chat rooms, auction sites and the like, definitive guides published on the manufacturers’ websites would do much to reinforce the quality of genuine products. For evidence of the success of this approach, look at software giant Microsoft. For years, Microsoft resisted publishing definitive public guides to the physical properties of its huge range of software, fearing it would aid counterfeiters, or that consumers would feel cheated to learn about OEM, volume license and

system-integrator products. The GENUINE result was large-scale piracy, not just of application software, but of their core operating systems. Now Microsoft has a special section on its website: ‘How to Tell.’ There are detailed photographs of the real products, including discs, cases, stickers and Certificates of Authenticity. Animated graphics demonstrate what GENUINE the disc holograms should look like. To contrast these, there’s a rogues’ gallery of counterfeits, with detailed explanations of their origins, pitfalls, and the best methods of identification. My pals in the software business tell me that rip-off Microsoft products have abated considerably and that, because of the information blitz, clients are more knowledgeable about the level of product they own. Loudspeakers, power amps, mixers, microphones and headphones are being counterfeited. More insidiously, key components are being copied as well. Neutrik has suffered from rip-offs of its branded connectors, and on 2 March 2009 took the fight to the pirates with a raid in the Guangzhou Component Distribution Centre, where more than 100,000 connector copies were seized and destroyed. Fakes use inferior metals or soft gold plating, leading to corrosion and oxide deposits and in loss of signal. Thinner castings and alloys mean the protective shells of copies are more likely to break when trodden on or dropped. ‘This isn’t only about the commercial damage to Neutrik through loss of legitimate trade,’ says Neutrik CEO, Werner Bachmann. ‘There is also damage to our reputation when users find inferior performance from what purports to be a premium product.’ In conjunction with U-NICA security systems, Neutrik has now developed a new patented hologram technology named Intragram that enables users to verify whether they are using an original product. The Intragram hologram process entails direct integration into the injection moulding die, the complexity of the tooling insert means that the counterfeit protection

is permanently secured. Neutrik’s original products can be verified by the characteristic colour change of the hologram. Products that are labelled with the Intragram technology are the XLR XX-series and convertCON, Speakon NL4MP and NL4FC series, Combo A-series, and PowerCon NAC3FC-Series. When researching this article, I asked several pro-audio dealers if they had recently come across counterfeit gear. ‘Do you mean things like the FAKE cheapo fake Shure SM58s,’ one responded ‘or do you count the charlatans who take other company’s designs and reproduce them for their own profit?’ This set me thinking ... after all, Rupert Neve is still very much alive and manufacturing equipment, even if James H Cannon is FAKE not. We happily exported the designs and technology when we outsourced manufacturing to China to save a few bucks and fire a few Western workers ... did we adequately deal with exporting the Western concept of brand integrity? Does Eugene Shenk have anything to do with the manufacturers who still use his ideas? Why can I use Eugene’s design, but why can’t I just stick any manufacturer’s name on the front? Seen through another prism, the colours might blend in a different way. As audio pros, we benefit from the cost-effective gear made possible by manufacturers also selling to a mass market which, 40 years ago, had no access to good audio equipment. Maybe we can play our part by helping to explain the importance of audio quality on behalf of manufacturers who’ve spent heavily on R&D to develop great products. ‘Why should pros care?’ asks Paul Applebaum, chief legal officer and head of HR for Shure. ‘Perception makes a problem. If there is perception that the market is crowded with fakes, or confusion in the market regarding performance and pricing, then it causes problems for everyone, from manufacturers to end-users.’ n

A Legend In His Own Time

irk Brauner has been perfecting the art of microphones for over a decade. Hand crafted in Germany with a passion, it’s no wonder Brauner mics are coveted by the world’s most famous studios and producers. For artists that deserve the best, Brauner is the only choice. Now Brauner offers a range of mics to suit a wide variety of budgets, all with the legendary sound that has made Brauner a name synonymous with quality.

“ Never before did I come across a microphone of this caliber. The VMA is the best microphone I have ever worked with. “ Elliot Scheiner : Steely Dan, Toto, Van Morrison, Fleetwood Mac, Sting, ... “ I got a call from a friend of mine who was working on a Janet Jackson mix that we had recorded vocals on and the producer, Rodney Jerkins, kept asking about the vocal sound, what mic we used, if it was a vintage mic. I had to smile when I told him it was not a vintage mic but a Brauner VMA! I LOVE my mic! “ John Horesco IV: Jermaine Dupri, Janet Jackson, Usher, Mariah Carey, ...

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TECHNOLOGY

Developing the 5100 mobile surround mic DPA describes its 5100 as a ‘plug and play’ solution for 5.1 capture that employs five miniature pressure transducers with interference tubes and acoustic baffles. DPA product specialist MIKKEL NYMAND explains the thinking and processes behind it.

aving used, designed and delivered quite a few different surround microphone arrays over time, DPA knows about the different needs and applications of recording acoustic surround sound. The most recent demand is the need for portability for what we could call ‘instant’ surround sound capture or ‘surround to-go’ — productions where you don’t have the set-up time and space that music recording producers normally have. Broadcasting, whether it’s news, documentary, entertainment, postproduction or sports, will very soon have to deliver 5.1 sound to their High Definition productions and they’ll need a precise, fast working and reliable tool for this. The demands for a mobile surround microphone are simple: portability; light-weight; robustness; ease-of-use; wind and water protection; quick set-up time without needing additional processing; and the impressive and enveloping sound quality listeners expect. Before going much further it is appropriate to point out some general thoughts regarding surround sound production. The goal for surround productions in general is to envelop the listener and to intensify the audio experience. There must be a significant difference to stereo productions otherwise it adds no new experience for the listener. It is also important to distinguish between produced surround and acoustic surround. Produced surround is where a sometimes high number of mono channels are surround panned in the sound field. Most modern mixers and workstations are able to deliver this functionality to create a virtual reality. Acoustic surround, on the other hand, aims to increase the feeling of presence in a specific acoustic sound environment by capturing the characteristics of the acoustics using surround microphone techniques. The major benefit of 5.1 surround compared to stereo is that the directions where ambience is picked up from is also where it will be played back from. The figures show an original, but simplified sound stage and its playback artefact in stereo and more authentic 5.1 surround playback.

Curious?

Well balanced surround will capture the entire sound field and have optimised imaging and localisation and will not only represent the direct signal in the front system and the ambience in the surrounds, but it will also have a smooth coherent sound all around the listener. Good acoustic surround requires good microphones that have a neutral character to create an authentic feeling of ‘being there’ and they should have wide dynamic and frequency ranges. Good acoustic surround requires identical microphones with excellent off-axis response and minimal phase deviations to be able to make a smooth blend in the surround stage between front and rear channels. Coincident arrays vs spaced arrays — Coincident techniques (localisation cues based only on level differences between signals) can create proper localisation accuracy but will lack envelopment and result in a small sweet spot. The advantage of a coincident array is that it is compact and portable. A spaced microphone surround array will create a three-dimensional enveloping sensation by providing adequate amounts of decorrelation between the signals (localisation cues are based on time-of-arrival differences). When adapting the microphone placement (distance and angle) to the sound field, spaced arrays still provide proper localisation accuracy. Spaced techniques generally give a nice and large sweet spot area and you sense the enlarged and enveloping sound stage in a larger listening field. The disadvantage is the size, visibility and set-up time. There are a number of different Coincident Spaced technologies available to make arrays arrays a surround microphone work. Envelopment – + Given the precise specification that Sweet – + it should be as compact as possible spot size — preferably within the dimensions + – of this magazine — then the use Compactness/ portability of widely spaced mics with + – decorrelated signals is, Localisation accuracy of course, not the way to go. The directionality has to be obtained mainly by level differences and some head-related spectral cues. However, the 5100 is not a head-related phase

See you at AES Munich, Stand 1705

PERFORMER DIGITAL PARTYLINE INTERCOM

The Solution for World Class Events.

Riedel Communications GmbH & Co. KG • Uellendahler Str. 353 • 42109 Wuppertal • Germany • www.riedel.net April 2009

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TECHNOLOGY

Frequency responses. 0 degrees.

30 degrees.

60 degrees.

90 degrees.

120 degrees.

150 degrees.

cue solution, with microphones flush-mounted on a dummy head since that technology works best when played back on headphones (eliminating crosstalk and room tone by playing direct-to-ear). Our initial working model was cut from a cardboard box and had five omnidirectional microphones. The performance was surprisingly good. Envelopment and localisation was rich but frequency response suffered from comb-filtering. We chose the well known method of separating the omni microphones with some absorbing material and the challenge then was to find a material close enough to not let sound through and yet open enough not to reflect it. A fibre-like material was developed to act as acoustic baffles (partition walls) between the microphones, like a Jäcklin Disc does for improving localisation in AB stereo arrays. True pressure omnidirectional microphones have some advantages over pressure gradient directional types — the distortion is typically lower resulting in a more natural sound colour, proximity effect is nonexistent resulting in a consistent low frequency response regardless of distance to sound source, and wind and handling noise is much lower, which is a major plus when it comes to the applications the 5100 is designed for. As seen on the graphs, the wind noise on a pressure microphone is typically a minimum of 20dB lower than on a pressure gradient below 200Hz (where wind noise is most prominent). Nearly a decade of research and development

Pressure microphone with foam.

at DPA Microphones in the use and design of interference tubes means we know how to design them and use them to control the behaviour of a microphone. Directionality and frequency response can be controlled and for the first time in our industry we’ve used interference tubes on pressure microphones — a technology normally found on pressure gradient capsules for shotgun microphones. We’ve introduced the DiPMic (Directional Pressure Microphone) principle on the three front microphones and this gives us the best of both worlds — the advantages already mentioned and the psychoacoustic directional cues obtained by level and spectral shifts with interference tubes and acoustic fibre baffles. An important issue in broadcast audio is compatibility to stereo and mono. Even the most beautiful surround mix has to be able to be played back in mono without dramatically changing the sound colour. For the 5100 we chose the front array of L, C and R microphones to be time coincident to keep the possibility to sum these to stereo or mono without causing phase cancellations. Angles between the microphones and partition walls create directionality for stereo or surround. In addition to the aforementioned level and spectral differences from the DiPMic and the acoustic fibre baffles, as much time difference as possible within such a compact unit is desirable to feel the size of the surround sound component. The front array is spaced from the rear microphones and

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April 2009

180 degrees.

Pressure gradient microphone with foam.

TECHNOLOGY the spacing between rear microphones is a head related distance of 185mm and contributes to the sensation being as spacious as possible. Even more spaciousness is wanted in many cases and adding delay to the rear channels is a powerful way of obtaining this. Making the rear microphones seem as if they are 3–5m (about 10–15ms) away from the front array makes you aware of a time gap and ‘improves’ threedimensionality but you have to use this technique with caution when recording percussive and dynamic content in the rears as delaying these components will create a psychoacoustic mismatch when the sources are perceived to be louder but later than the front. This is why a spaced array is always correct for any angle in terms of natural time delay between any channel. Human hearing has a high frequency roll off to sound sources coming from behind. Any component with this character will by nature be perceived as being ‘ambient’ or ‘behind’, so helping the rear channels with a 3dB shelving attenuation EQ can also be considered in some applications. When talking about low frequency content and LFE it is important to distinguish between the LFE channel content and the use of an active subwoofer. LFE means Low Frequency Effects and derives from the film industry and is a separate channel to improve dynamics in the bass region for film mixers. It is adapted to the 5.1 ITU norm as a frequency limited channel and should be reproduced at +10dB (which means that the channel itself is at -10dB).

Polar patterns. Typical directional characteristics of DPA 5100 (normalised)

For the 5100 we chose to deliver a separate LFE output to be 5.1 plug and play ready. All five full bandwidth channels also contain the low frequency part down to 20Hz, the LFE output is simply the extra energy that finalises the sound colour of the unit — you’re not obliged to include it but it’s recommended. If downmixing, it is advisable to include the LFE channel equally to LR. The 5100 LFE output is a sum of L&R, low-pass filtered at 120Hz and attenuated 10dB. It is in-phase with the low frequency content of LR. The 5100 LFE output can be considered to be part of the microphone’s spectral

Curious?

sound colour and as such is adjusted by ear. If you analyse the frequency response of the three front DiPMic microphones you find that they — as a result of the interference tubes — tend to have a rise in the higher frequencies. Therefore the LFE serves as a nice rich energy to the final tonal balance. The analogue 5.1 output of the 5100 runs through a multipin Lemo connector carrying all six channels electronically balanced, while a 5m six-pair Mogami cable breaks out to six Neutrik XLR-M connectors. We have tested the 5100 extensively on a diverse range of recording applications. We recorded moving objects like sports cars, horses, trains, planes, gun shots and even a rocket launch, captured atmospheres for football games and an auto garage but also used it for more conventional music recordings like string quartets and a church organ. We believe the end result with the 5100 is a surround atmosphere that is rich, smooth and fully enveloping, yet great in its coherence, channel separation and localisation accuracy. n

See you at AES Munich, Stand 1705

ACROBAT DIGITAL WIRELESS INTERCOM

NEW

The Solution for World Class Events.

Riedel Communications GmbH & Co. KG • Uellendahler Str. 353 • 42109 Wuppertal • Germany • www.riedel.net April 2009

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meet your maker

Tony Larking The MD and founder of the TL Audio talks to ZENON SCHOEPE about tubes and 20 years of designing and selling the brand.

eing the youngest of six children with an age span of 20 years Tony Larking says he was very lucky to be exposed to a wide range of music from an early age. There was always music playing in the house and some of his earliest memories are of sitting in on his brother’s skiffle group rehearsals at the age of three. Another major influence was Sunday family gatherings at home where the men would spend the morning working on their cars — two of his brothers were involved in road rallies and offroad rallies in Land Rovers. Thus music and cars were big influences in young Tony’s life. Yet his first job, at the age of 10, was selling fruit on St Albans market followed, at the age of 12, by working during school holidays at the local British Leyland garage in the days when the Morris 1000 and original

Mini were current models. Having spent the hot summer of 1975 being a beach bum in Cornwall, his brother Don asked if he would be interested in building a recording studio with him. This was to his entrance into the world of pro audio and they spent the second half of 1975 building Piper Sound Studios in Luton. The market for independent recording studios was developing and they quickly realised there was a shortage of companies supplying recording equipment so Don Larking Audio Sales was launched. They soon became exclusive UK agents for many equipment manufacturers, including Trident and then Soundtracs, and over the next 15 years they supplied 1000’s of studio installations in the UK. In 1989 Tony decided to set up his own company specialising in the refurbishment of used classic recording consoles and before long he was introduced to David Kempson who owns an electronics design specialist company (he had previously spent 10 years as design project leader at Neve) and TL Audio was born. Tony describes the 20 years as quite a journey from their first 2-channel, 4-band valve equaliser through to the current range of valve recording consoles and class A discrete Ebony Series. In 2006 he launched the award winning Fatman brand of iPod Docking Stations with valve amps followed in 2007 by the Roth Audio brand of consumer audio products. This year sees the launch of new models in all the company’s products ranges plus the introduction of Bassworx car audio to the UK.

What is special about TL Audio products? Designed and built in the UK. They have featured in the production of many outstanding recordings and are used by top engineers and producers. We offer a broad range of high quality products aimed at high-end recording facilities through to private project studios. Where did the idea for the TL Audio product range come from 20 years ago? At that time we were supplying a whole range of recording products and complete studio installations. When the Alesis ADAT was introduced, making multitrack digital recording affordable, our customers started to ask us for used valve equipment to warm up their sound. As the old valve units were in short supply and often noisy and unreliable it seemed a good idea to design and build our own units. What are the different ways that valves can be implemented in circuits and what are the differences in sonic result; how true to older designs is the modern use of valves? The skill in tube product design is in knowing where to place the tubes and how to combine them with state-of-the-art solid state circuitry to achieve maximum

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April 2009

meet your maker sonic benefit. Simply putting more tubes in the signal path will not necessarily guarantee a warmer or better sound. Our acclaimed microphone preamp design, for instance, offers superb performance: low noise, wide bandwidth, high slew rate and very low distortion and when combined with a secondary tube preamp stage produces outstanding audio. We use patented transistor circuitry between tube stages to ensure maximum power transfer. This, in combination with the high HT voltages used to supply the tubes (typically 250V DC in the Classic range) produces exceptional noise performance. The power supply design is important, too — we use a fully stabilised discrete PSU with balanced DC heater supplies where necessary to improve hum performance. The power supply to the tubes is critical, in contrast with those manufacturers using low voltage ‘wall wart’ supplies. The tubes themselves are high grade ECC83/12AX7A twin triode types, which offer high gain yet low noise, hum and microphony — making them the first choice for critical audio applications. Our products give the best of both worlds and are therefore better in performance than the older products. For confirmation you only have to take a look at our list of TL Audio users.

How real are the differences between valves or different origin; are all valves created equal? There can always be variations with valves. We use a special selection of Russian Sovtek tubes type ECC83 in all of our products (additionally the EF86 is used for VP-1 and PA-1). They are chosen for their consistency, performance, reliability and lifespan. What are the longevity issues with valves? Recently talking to Chris Tsangarides, who purchased his VTC to record the Back to the Blues album with Gary Moore back in 2001, he said he is still using the original valves and is very happy with the desk. What is easiest to design: a good preamp, a good EQ or a good compressor? Nothing is particularly easy to design; it is all hard work and dedication. The most important thing when designing is consistency. There is no point having a really good preamp on the desk with not so good EQ. We use the same preamps on all our consoles that we do in our outboard range, something that a lot of manufacturers do not spend the money and time to do, but we feel it is important. Explain the role of the valve in your desk products. In essence, the purpose of the valve in our circuits is to add warmth to the sound and give an analogue feel. In the consoles, the number of valve stages varies across the range; in the VTC desk there are valve stages at the preamp on every channel, each EQ band on every channel, group master buses, and mix bus outputs. On the M1-F console there are valve stages for the preamp on every channel and also on the master output.

20 years and counting 1989 New company formed, first products, range of studio furniture. 1990 Introduction of amplifiers and 2-channel rack to take Neve EQ modules. 1993 EQ-1 is launched. 1995 TL Audio C-1 is the compressor of choice for Chris Fogel when recording Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. 1996 TL Audio manufacturing moves to a new facility. 1997 Ivory 1 series launched. 1998 Van Morrison installs some Ivory Series in his Wiltshire studios. 1999 To r i A m o s u s e s T L A u d i o Classic Series C-1 and EQ-2 on the recording of her album To Venus and Back. 2000 MIPA Analogue Mixer Award for VTC. TL Audio wins four Studio Sound awards for: Outboard Preamp, Medium Size Console, Outboard EQ and Outboard Dynamics. Chris Tsangarides buys large VTC to record Gary Moore album Back to the Blues. 2001 Damon Albarn records first Gorillaz album on his VTC. M3 Tubetracker launched.

2002 TEC Award Nominee for M3 Tube Mixer. Ivory 2 series launched. 2003 Sting and Kipper purchase VTC to record the album Sacred Love. 2004 Dizzee Rascal buys his VTC. 2005 M4 Tube console launched. Sarah Yule joins company as international sales manager. Damon Albarn records second Gorillaz album Demon Days on his VTC. 2006 C o u r t n e y P i n e c h o o s e s M 3 8-channel valve mixer for his new purpose-built studio. M1 console launched. 2007 Fatman iTube 182 wins AV Review Award Best iPod Dock. Ebony Series and Fat Track Tube Production Suite launched. 2008 Walter Orange, lead singer of the Commodores buys the first Fat Track in the USA. Duffy uses Ivory 5051 for live vocals on UK tour. M1 F launched. Sarah Crone and Sarah Yule both appointed as directors. 2009 Remix Technology Award for Fat Track. Ebony A4 Summer starts shipping. DO-F card launched. Launch anniversary edition of 5051 to celebrate 20 years of TL Audio.

How green is a valve? Unfortunately, not too green (unless you paint it). This is due to the higher voltage used to drive the valve and this is common for all pro audio gear that uses valves or transformers. Our new Ebony range uses only one dual-triode tube per unit and uses discrete Class A electronics throughout so it is more efficient. How long will this current valve resurrection last? As far as we’re concerned the valve never really went away, some of the classic products that were manufactured in the 1960s are still in use today. As new technology advances and more and more people are mixing in the box, the demand for a good analogue companion for the digital world has also grown. I feel people will always want some essential pieces of hardware that still cannot be recreated digitally and also offer you inspiration and a hands-on approach to your work. We help to stay current by keeping up with the ways people work and offering unique solutions, like the Fat Track. Tube products are like a classic Aston Martin car; they will always be in demand for their quality. n

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April 2009

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TEN

European destination studios For Bowie it was Berlin, Pink Floyd and Kate Bush opted for the mountains of southern France, Led Zeppelin liked Stockholm and Paris while Queen recorded just about everywhere before settling on the tranquil shores of Lake Geneva. Recording away from your home territory has long been a part of music and destination studios — often in exotic locations — have come and some have gone. JIM EVANS digs out his dog-eared atlas of Europe, rolls back the years and holds back the tears... Chateau d’Hérouville — A French château of the eighteenth century located at Hérouville, in the Oise valley near Paris become something of a legend in recording studio history. One of Elton John’s LP titles gave the studio its nickname — Honky Château. David Bowie went there to make Pinups. The Grateful Dead also recorded there and the local villagers still recall the summer’s night when they played a free concert in the grounds of the Château. According to the Studio Sound archives, there are 16-track tapes and photos to prove that while the Dead played like never before, the local fireman swam fully clothed in the swimming pool and the schoolteacher danced a polka with a priest.

Hansa by the wall — During the Cold War, Hansa recording studios in Berlin were just that, at the wall, and at the junction of two different worlds. It was this potent combination of Cold War stand-off and hedonism that inspired David Bowie, Iggy Pop, U2 and Depeche Mode to tap into Hansa’s shabby glamour to record some of the greatest music of the last century. ‘We were in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. For many artists from Britain and America that was very exotic. Some of them thought they’d need flak jackets and helmets,’ said Tom Mueller, chief sound engineer at Hansa studios from 1972 in a recent interview. Hansa is still going strong with recent clients including Snow Patrol and Supergrass. The Meistersaal (Studio 2) is now hired out for events.

Supearbear — Situated in the delightful village of Berre-les-Alpes in the hills 23km north of Nice, Superbear was opened by musician Damon Metrebian in 1977 with facilities designed and built by Tom Hidley and David Hawkins in a large building that was formerly an upmarket restaurant catering to the local worthies from Nice and Cannes. It rapidly became the destination studio of choice for a number of leading acts, notably Paul McCartney, Elton John and Pink Floyd who recorded much of The Wall there. Sadly, it fell victim to forest fire in 1986 and issues with the French insurers forced its closure. ‘They were wonderful times,’ says Metrebian. ‘It was a great place to live and work. I remember for example, Jim Capaldi always used to record his vocals outside in the garden.’ Metrebian is planning to write a book based on the Superbear years — you have all been warned.

Mountain Studios — In 1971, the Montreux Casino on the shores of Lake Geneva caught fire and burnt down in the middle of a concert by Frank Zappa (Eer, eer, eeerr. Eer, eer, eer-eeerr. Ed). Four years later, a young sound engineer, David Richards, settled in Montreux and took control of the new recording studio that was built in the new casino. His first clients were the Rolling Stones who came to complete the album Black and Blue. They would be the first of a long list of megastars. Queen came in 1978 to record their album Jazz. The title was chosen as a tribute to the long-established Montreux Jazz Festival. They loved the place so much they bought the studio two years later. At the same time David Richards became Queen’s sound engineer. Today, Mountain Studios within the casino has gone — it is now a bar. Polar — Stockholm’s Polar Studios was founded by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA and manager Stig Anderson in 1978. Led Zeppelin recorded their 1979 album, In Through the Out Door, at Polar a few months after its opening. The studio centrepiece was a Harrison console that was modified by technician Leif Mases. ABBA’s 1981 album The Visitors marked a turning point for Polar, as it was recorded on the studio’s new 3M digital recorder, thus becoming one of the first digital mainstream pop records. Polar Studios closed its doors in 2004 to reopen at a new location in the city. The original site is now a gym. 60

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TEN

Capri Digital — In 1991 at the height of the last recession, Italian producer Carloquinto Talamona opened a state-of-the-art residential recording studio on the island of Capri, where he was born and raised. By anyone’s standards it was an ambitious project, having taken two years to complete at a cost of £5 million — most of which was funded by the magnanimous Italian Government in the form of grants and loans. Many thought the idea misguided given the economic climate at the time yet Talamona has since proved otherwise with an impressive visitors’ log ranging from Pavarotti to Pearl Jam. Studio Miraval — In the 1970s, jazz pianist Jacques Loussier created Studio Miraval — just down the road from Superbear — in a 17th century Provencal chateau surrounded by 300 hectares of hills, pine woods and vineyards. Those who have enjoyed the relaxed environment, idyllic surroundings and home-produced own-label wines include Sting, Sade and the Cranberries.

Black Rock — The latest addition to the exotic recording location sector is to be found on the majestic Greek island of Santorini in the South Aegean Sea. It is owned by Kostas Kalimeris and, like El Cortijo, it is represented by the UK-based Miloco group. Guests will be able to enjoy ‘the sole pleasure of a stunning three-storey six-bedroom Cycladic villa, boasting many tranquil living areas, a luscious pool and jacuzzi, several outdoor terraces’ and for good measure an SSL room with J-series console and Genelec monitoring.

Ibiza Sound — Music writer and producer Muff Murfin continues to run his Old Smithy studios in the grounds of his West Midlands, UK home as he has done for the last 30 years. Long-closed, though, is his Mediterranean outpost, Ibiza Sound, a popular studio in the last century that experienced financial difficulties following a major fire. ‘I was forced to sell up by the bank and ended up selling the studio to my own financial adviser,’ recalls Murfin. ‘A great shame, especially when you think how much six acres of prime Ibiza building land would be worth today.’ n

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El Cortijo — Owned by musician Trevor Morais, El Cortijo is a sumptuous villa and studio complex, a real estate agent’s dream. Located in the rural Ronda National Park, south Andalucia, it overlooks Marbella, the Mediterranean and the Moroccan Atlas Mountains in the distance. El Cortijo’s stunning garden includes an 11m swimming pool. The recording studio sits at the heart of the villa and is centred around a Trident console. Artists who have used El Cortijo include Manic Street Preachers, Rammstein, Kylie Minogue, Mariah Carey and Bjork. April 2009

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slaying dragons

Deride a dogmatist a day The present and serious situation affects us all and just because Resolution readers and contributors operate in a somewhat specialised area doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean we can pretend itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not happening. The number of Dragons that have recently reared their heads is considerable, but they appear to be slaying themselves. JOHN WATKINSON argues that we should hasten the process and then take time to consider how we replace them.

e have seen some extraordinary things emerge which are so far removed from reasonable diligent civil behaviour that it is actually quite hard to express how unacceptable they are. Greed beyond avarice, reward for failure, gambling beyond recklessness, logic-defying dogma, truth-defying spin, broken business models, toothless watchdogs and steelshuttered denial all appear to have become a part of our society. The distortion of the sensationalist media takes us even further from reality. Now that reality is a distant memory, we end up fixing symptoms and neglecting the underlying problems. The economic crisis should not deflect attention from the fact that we have an environmental crisis as well as problems with health, drink and drugs. I would argue that while the problems are widely disparate, the reasons the problems have reached crisis level are the same. So if there is any good news, it is that these crises will respond to similar approaches. Catastrophic though the present circumstances are, and notwithstanding the fact that they were completely avoidable by normal prudence, the economic crisis has meant that all of these behaviours, for which contempt seems an inadequate reaction, are now out in the open and we have an opportunity that may not come again, not merely to express our disgust, but more importantly to replace them with something more ethical, healthier and better for the environment. The events we have witnessed have destroyed any confidence or trust we may have had in the institutions

concerned. It would be the height of folly to allow them to continue along such inappropriate paths. On the other hand, it would be equally wrong for each one of us to carry on behaving in inappropriate ways. So if they have to change, we have to change too. If economic recovery means no more than returning to the old ways, then I would rather have indefinite recession. We have actually survived several years of recession now, and the only way in which it was not a recession was in the degree of denial of the circumstances adopted by Blair and Dubbya, a pair of individuals whose stature compares so poorly with leaders such as Churchill or Lincoln that we are forced to use a logarithmic scale. Those weapons of mass destruction never did show up, did they? The immediate financial mess is a direct consequence of the relaxation by our leaders of regulations governing financial institutions. The majority of said institutions then set about increasing lending, outside their areas of expertise, to make more profit. The normal precautions were thrown to the winds because they had insurance. But the insurance was worthless because the risk assessment was so utterly flawed that it is incomprehensible. Quite simply, when more than a critical mass of borrowers found they couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t keep up repayments, the insurers couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cover it. And because the economic system was fuelled by greed all prudence had evaporated and there were no redundancy or safety mechanisms to contain the damage. The cows all came home and they had dysentery. This is all as predictable as the results of letting hi-fi enthusiasts control nuclear power stations. Yet in their importance to society, there are strong parallels between banking and utilities such as power, drinking water and telecommunications. None of these should be the domain of gamblers. We take great pains to remove parasites from drinking water. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time we did it with banking as well.

If banking is to regain any respect, it has to divide itself into identifiable levels of risk so that people who put money in know what chance they have of getting it out again. Equally, before lending money, banks need to assess what risks they are taking. The encouragement of ridiculous amounts of borrowing should cease. I joined an ethical bank that spells out what it will and wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do. I recommend all readers to do the same. Fundamentally our environmental problems stem from two sources. One is that the only measure of worth we appear to respect is fiscal value. The other is the flawed dogma of indefinite growth. How indefinite growth can continue on a finite planet is beyond my comprehension. Indefinite growth requires more turnover, more profit year on year. The result is that products become commoditised and penny pinched and their lives are shortened either because they are poorly made or because powerful advertising hype persuades the consumer to believe that the next model is better. The unfortunate consumer and the unfortunate environment pay dearly. Short-life commoditised goods usually waste energy and have to be replaced more often so the consumer has to work harder to run them and pay for them. The less aware consumer will borrow the money, so he has to work harder still to pay the interest. Failed or artificially obsoleted consumer goods are thrown away. Unfortunately, in a finite world, away doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist any more. We all need to stop buying cheap short-life goods because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shortening our lives. In some cases, indefinite growth is self-arresting. The car industry is a good example. The television industry is another. My appreciation of the products of both is such that my youngest car dates from 1984 and I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a television. And if the TV licensing authorities are reading this, would you please stop sending people round to ask why I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a licence. Another aspect of modern society that is highly regrettable is the state of education. In the UK particularly, real standards have never been worse. This stems from governments preferring dogma to reality. Elementary Gaussian statistics predicts and life confirms that there will be a distribution of ability and an education system that recognised that would give each pupil the best chance. Instead education has been a political football for so long that it canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember a time when it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t being kicked. The direct result is that we now have a significant

2009 Year Anniversary

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SLAYING DRAGONS section of society whose skills are so disparate from the needs of employers that they have very few prospects. Those prospects dwindled further with recent events. Are we surprised the UK has an excess of drunkenness? It’s a symptom of an underlying problem and raising the cost of drink will be about as effective as taxing sticking plasters in the hope it will stop people cutting themselves. Nevertheless, it’s not as wholly stupid as opposing the use of condoms to combat AIDS. That is such a pure example of mindless dogma that it stands out as a symbol of our present malaise. A government that had an ounce of leadership would see where the big picture was heading. Instead they prosecute people for selling stuff by the ounce even though the road signs are all in miles. Inevitably industries decline and newer ones replace them. We would prefer polluting industries to decline sooner and renewable or sustainable industries to be encouraged. Leadership would ensure that R&D is done that is appropriate to progress and that appropriately trained people are available. This has not happened. The car industry is collapsing because a lot of its leaders failed to see the writing on the wall and carried on making the same inefficient commoditised crap when it could have spent some of the colossal profits on developing the next generation of more appropriate vehicles. Now it’s asking for government bailouts. While I can see government intervention being appropriate in the case where large numbers of individuals are affected by reckless financial activities, in the case of the car companies the argument is weak. Yet the government will give those handouts, even though it doesn’t have the money, because it has failed to nourish the next generation of industries and to train or retrain workers and now it hopes to stave off embarrassing job losses that it failed to anticipate. All I see is a worrying and indistinguishable lack of foresight and leadership in industry and in government. I have identified some trends in society that I would rather were reversed. I can’t see a way of reversing them other than by people in large numbers wanting it badly enough. The first trend that concerns me is the culture of selfishness. We see selfishness in politicians whose actions are only intended to get them re-elected rather than to do any long-term good. We see it in businesses that award staff huge bonuses when their performance has been lacklustre. We see employees whose thoughts are directed to their personal well being rather than to that of their employers. The second trend is the hidden agenda. The reasons put forward for doing something are so infrequently the real ones that they seem almost random. We need another runway at Heathrow like we need a hole in the head. We are told it will create jobs. It’s a fallacious argument. There are plenty of things we could do instead to create jobs that would actually benefit the environment. The third trend is the slow undermining of science. Good science works on reality. The laws of physics are not affected by religious or political dogma or by media sensationalism. Reality and truth are the enemies of dogma. So it’s hardly surprising that the media, governments and churches together have ensured that the image of engineers and scientists is so poor that few people want to enter these professions. We need to get back to reality and honesty. We need to act ethically and altruistically and above all effectively. When problems arise, we need to study them and understand them before proposing workable solutions. We live in a technological society and workable solutions require scientific knowledge. Have you derided a dogmatist today? n April 2009

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Moving target Hollywood’s box office is up, and the movies had their first billion-dollar January this year. Yet the film studios are laying off workers, releasing fewer films and have cut budgets. Audio postproduction is a moving target these days says DAN DALEY

t’s possible that filmdom’s recent success is the last of the momentum left over from a year or so ago, about as long as it takes to make a movie and get it in front of an audience. It didn’t hurt either that Slumdog Millionaire, the year’s monster hit, cost all of $15m to make and returned more than 10 times its budget. Post house managers are no different than recording studio managers in not readily reporting slipping business, but through an array of sources it’s becoming clear that a combination of the overall economy and the way new media is shaping the entertainment business is hitting audio post where it hurts. One signal is consolidation. Last year, Ascent Media spun off its post facilities holdings, which include big names like Todd-AO, Sound One, Soundelux, POP Sound and the Hollywood Edge. The group exists now as Creative Sound Services (CSS), a division of Discovery Communications, owner of the Discovery Channel and other cable media outlets. It’s an echo of the consolidations that took place in the early part of the decade, when companies like Liberty Media and Technicolour went on buying sprees, seeking to create vertical synergy. For instance, in 2003, Technicolour’s parent company acquired several of the biggest independent audio post names in Hollywood, including Echo Sound Services, Weddington Productions, Digital Sound Works, and Pacifica Sound Group. It was in many ways reminiscent of the era when record companies owned recording studios. In both cases, it was an effort to control costs that ultimately ended up costing them more. Audio postproduction, like the rest of the media infrastructure it serves, is facing storms on several fronts. The strike by stagehands and technical workers last year hurt the theatre business more than movies or television, but presaged a still-unresolved contract dispute between the film studios and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). That threat created a bump in business for post houses as film studios began

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stockpiling scripts, television shows, movies and other media projects as a hedge against a strike. But even as Depression 2.0 reduces the likelihood of a walkout by actors, it has also slowed the pace of production in Hollywood, making a falloff in business seem that much more abrupt. Hollywood remains the epicentre of filmmaking and thus of audio post for movies and TV, but American states and foreign countries have been nipping away at that hegemony for decades, and with some effect. In the 1990s, Vancouver, in the Canadian province of British Columbia, mounted a hugely successful campaign to pull film shooting and post to its area. The lower-valued Canadian dollar (fondly known as the Loonie) offered lower production costs, great audio facilities and a world-class philharmonic that were only a three-hour flight away. C’mon up — lots of free parking end everyone speaks English! It emboldened other locations to woo film production, from the Czech Republic, whose Rudolfinium, home to the national philharmonic, put in an SSL-equipped control room to make the symphony even more attractive than post-Soviet currency values did. In the States, North Carolina, Michigan, Louisiana and other states voted for big tax incentives to attract film production, and some of them built expanded post infrastructure to try to keep that part of the work there, as well. Last year, Seven Arts Pictures, an independent film producer and distributor, opened a vast production and postproduction facility in New Orleans. The overall facility’s approximately $9-million cost will be subject to the 40% refundable Louisiana Film Infrastructure Tax Credit, which means the real cost is more like $5.4 million. If it does go bust in a few years, the contents should be worth that, lowering the risk significantly. Other destinations are taking aim at Hollywood. As profiled in this magazine (Resolution V8.1) earlier this year, Krakow’s Alvernia Studios’s pod farm is large enough to hold any symphonic scoring project known to man, while also able to add ADR, FX and mix the whole thing down. The Shaw brothers have been building an even more massive film production complex in Hong Kong for nearly a decade, with Tom Hidley essentially camped out there, creating the acoustical roadmap as the project progresses. And this in a country that has a significant and ascendant film industry of its own. So why haven’t so many of these other attempts to unseat Hollywood as the centre of filmmaking

April 2009

broadcast aside technology succeeded? The simple answer is, people and proximity. Even in an age of high-definition dailies able to arrive on a film studio honcho’s iPhone within seconds of being sent, those whose money is at stake still want to be able to stop by and look and listen. Why fly to New Orleans when you can be at La Belle Creole on South La Brea in 20 minutes? The same goes for the directors, who while they’re more than willing to spend two months in Iceland shooting principal photography for war movies, they aren’t staying in Reykjavik to post at the facilities there. Finally, the technical talent isn’t — in the patois of Variety — ‘ankling’ Hollywood anytime soon. The Mike Minklers, Mark Manginis, Karen Baker Landers and Scott Millans are well-entrenched in the community’s infrastructure, and while we will see the occasional drama of team changes, such as the defection of Mangini, Richard Anderson, George Simpson and Howell Gibbons from Technicolour Sound Services to CSS Studios some months ago, no one’s leaving the league, so to speak. Mixers are the top of the heap in film sound. Post houses compete to hire the top talent, who will bring their clients with them. This hierarchy is one of the reasons that the consolidation efforts by big media companies didn’t have the desired effect: as one studio insider put it to me, this is a business of relationships, and that’s the currency that survives the shifts in ownership of facilities. You can buy assets but you can’t buy people. (William Morris and CAA, who traffic in flesh on a daily basis, are, of course, excluded.) But at this writing Hollywood is still facing the possibility of an actor’s strike, remote as it may be in this economy, as well as the sudden drain in capital for mid-level productions as the hedge funds that had been dabbling in film financing but now struggling to survive themselves, making an even less secure place than ever. One thing several of the major audio post facilities have done in recent months has been to bring mini versions of their mountains to Tinseltown’s Mohammeds, setting up satellite sound design and mixing studios in directors’ homes. It’s an expense largely borne by the facility, and its ultimate intent is to help lower the costs of audio post by making sure that there are no surprises when it comes time to go to the mix stage, which is the single largest facility cost in the post process. Like other industries, audio post has figured out that lower revenues derived from helping clients cut spending can potentially be made up to some extent by keeping these clients close. Less is still less, though it’s better than what you’d find in Vancouver today, where the film post facilities remain quiet and the Loonie’s lost its lustre thanks to virtual parity with the American dollar. Drops in DVD sales — for major-budget films sometimes their primary source of profit and for box-office dogs usually their only source of any revenue at all — augur for a continuation in production pullbacks. At the same time, audio post facilities are still expected to offer the battleship mixing solutions so margins will continue to feel pressure. But what Hollywood has going for it is the simple fact that it is Hollywood. Bollywood may have the buzz of the moment but you’re not going to serendipitously bump into George Lucas at brunch at the Bel Air hotel on Saturday in Mumbai. As long as the entertainment community there can maintain the kind of gravity that keeps all the right elements in its orbit, those who depend on Hollywood staying Hollywood have a good chance of staying solvent. Audio post, like everyone else, will have to learn to live on less. n April 2009

Revolution — one at a time DENNIS BAXTER decries the audio quality of football on TV and asks when it was decided that video was more important than sound.

ondon, 2009. A broadcast convention with 10,000 or so of my peers. Soggy weather. Soggy fish and chips. Soggy attitudes. I was shocked (once again) at the lack of interest in audio and the quality of sound of football on TV. I get to feeling like revolting. OK, I admit being from North America and that I have been told that I don’t know squat about football … and they’re not talking about the NFL (America’s National Football League.) But I do know this: a sport where the principle means of moving the ball has to do with kicking it — I mean, I want to hear it! Consider this: half of broadcast is audio. When was it decided that the video is more important? I began my investigations into the football kick sound and found that the Sports Federation and Stadium Owners will not allow microphone operators on the field. Why I asked? Because the Sports Federation and Stadium Operators do not want anything blocking the sponsor signage that lines the entire field. At the end of the day, the powers that be have decided that four microphone operators, one in each quarter of the field of play carrying pistol-grip microphones, will visually impair the effectiveness of sponsor advertising. But what about the quality of the viewer experience? If it sounds like a bad recording, most people will change the channel to get a better feed … no? The reality is that I have used microphone operators at the Olympics and, in reviewing the footage of football I could find my microphone operators, but the game camera was focused on the player. The microphone operators moved along the sideline and had little impact over the home viewers detecting and absorbing the signage. I was talking to a talented German mixer about microphone placement for boxing. I told him that I hung four microphones directly over the ring and tried to get them as low as four meters. He gasped and announced that his producer does not want to see the microphone in the picture and for him the microphones had to be so far away that they were ineffective. I cannot begin to tell you how many times you see camera operators in the frame and on-air, particularly in boxing. So the argument about microphone operators causing visual interference is weak at best. Camera people are in the line of vision of the field, so why not audio operators? Maybe it’s time to buck tradition. Look around at the next generation of broadcast consumers: the gamers and screamers. resolution

Our job as audio practitioners is to fulfil our audience’s expectation and, by the way, the next generation is listening these days. The ‘Gamers’ experience sound in a new dimension and have high expectations for their entertainment investment. In their digital world, the ‘visual’ is graphic animation. It’s not a photographicallyrecorded image. The ‘audio’ is supercharged realistic sound and music synchronised to the animation to produce a virtual reality. In fact, in this gamer example, the sound is equally as important as the visual in terms of the visceral experience for the gamer. ‘Screamers’ are everywhere on television. From Reality TV to financial news networks, commentators and guests interrupt and over-shout each other in rudely disguised arguments. In line with this thinking, perhaps we need more sports reality. Inject the gamer/screamer standards into the sports production philosophy. In a sense maybe our jobs depend on it … So how can we change an industry bias toward audio? First, broadcast production teams need to behave like the teams playing on the field. Each member has an opportunity — and responsibility — to deliver the goods and it requires a cohesive effort from the producers, engineers, and yes, the sports federations, owners, athletes and advertisers. Second, we need televisionfriendly sports that are audience-oriented, not advertiseroriented. Television is what got us to these unbelievable rights fees, salaries and hopefully profits. We all have to understand that the expectations of the viewer are higher and we, all of us, have to deliver. The coach and athlete are the drama in sports production and hearing their interaction involves the audience and challenges the sports enthusiast and arm chair coach. It takes work and cooperation from everybody involved in the production, but it also takes the initiative of the audio guy. The desire to create a more enhanced experience for the listening audience generates ideas, new methods and results — good or bad. Let me give you an example: I mixed the first London Monarchs American Football Game from the old Wembley Stadium and convinced the producer that it would be so cool to get a wireless microphone on the quarterback and coach. The audio delivered an exciting element to a new game and brought the viewer into a game that they (the English) had no real understanding for. There was only one problem. The London coach was so foul-mouthed that the audio had to be censored. Oops! Nonetheless, my microphone placement on the coach stimulated more ideas and innovation leading to enhanced audio for broadcast. But it all started with the audio guy’s desire to take the initiative and not just collect the cheque. The future of sports coverage will be different. It will require a new level of cooperation with federations, officials and advertisers to create television-friendly sports with progressive ideas. Television is fighting for entertainment eyeballs and advertising dollars and must present an entertaining, compelling product. Look at how audio has changed sports coverage and think about how audio can change things. Wireless microphones on athletes, miniature microphones on equipment and certainly microphone operators will give new excitement to sports sound. We gotta start a revolution to change the status quo. One audio guy at a time. n 65

HEADROOM Remix contest priority I read Nigel Jopson’s article about fan remix contests (V8.1, p47) and was surprised to find no mention of the UK band Marillion. They are internet pioneers of just about everything! Their 2001 Album Anoraknophobia was the subject of a fan remix contest in that year. If you’re interested in ‘business models’ for bands in the current era, just investigate what Marillion has been up to for a decade. Richard Factor, Eventide, US We like to think of ourselves as pioneers as well, which is why I devoted most of the business column in Resolution V2.4 to explaining Marillion’s innovative methods of funding their music. I explained how Mark Kelly’s concept of a fan database had been pivotal to their success, and I interviewed their marketing manager Lucy Jordache to discover how the warm personal bond Marillion enjoy with their fans had been monetised with Anoraknophobia. Marillion’s own engineer Roderick Brunton wrote an extended article for Resolution (in the same issue), describing how a threeday convention for fans in Somerset was recorded, filmed and made into a DVD in less than 48 hours. Since then, I’ve chronicled Marillion’s direct marketing efforts three times in the Biz Bites news section you will be familiar with at the front of the magazine. So, you see, we have been investigating Marillion’s diversions off the musical map for quite some time. An interesting twist to the story occurred this year as the veteran quintet announced to fans that their new album, Happiness Is The Road, would be released as a double-CD on EMI via retail shops in the UK, Holland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia on 2 February 2009. EMI, who dropped the defiantly unfashionable prog-rockers from their roster in 1995, are now ‘our long-standing allies’, to quote the band’s January newsletter. As usual, Resolution will be keeping a keen eye on proceedings, and updating readers with our views on the consequences for the music industry at large. Nigel Jopson

Compression Having enjoyed reading Resolution for several years, I particularly like to read the regular article penned by John Watkinson. Rightly so he is held in high esteem in pro audio and broadcast. As such, with much trepidation, I feel the need to put in writing some observations which

arise from Why is radio and TV sound so bad? which was published in March 2009 V8.2 edition. The specific point that I would like to comment upon is the section relating to compression. 1. There are two types of compression techniques, those based around Perceptual coding and those based around ADPCM principles. Codecs based on Perceptual techniques are notoriously problematic in terms of multiple passes. After a single pass, the content is fine, it’s after 2, 3 and more that audible damage occurs. Codecs based around ADPCM principles are much more forgiving and enjoy the ability to withstand damage up to 10 times encode/decode cycles. 2. In the reference to ‘quicker transfers’ then this may mean file transfer as opposed to real time applications. Again a Perceptual based codec with a greater bit rate efficiency will enable more data to be stored in a file thus reducing the transfer time. However, due to the mathematical complexity, the computational process will not readily allow for a real time application. ADPCM principles tend to be somewhat less mathematically complex than Perceptual codecs, and as such will service the needs of broadcasters who require low latency coding techniques for real time application. However, the trade off will be bit rate efficiency. My final point relates to the overall complexity of compression algorithms in general and John’s opinion that there is a general dumbing down in the industry. As such the burden of responsibility is upon the knowledgeable people to continue to train and impart correct and concise information to the industry. Certainly in the section relating to compression, I’m not convinced that John covered all bases. Jon McClintock, APTX, Belfast, UK I agree completely with Mr McClintock over the importance of imparting correct and concise information to the industry yet he fails to comply with his own requirements and his trepidation should have warned him of that. I do not accept Mr McClintock’s Point 1 at all, nor would anyone skilled in the art. Yes, there are two types of compression techniques, but they are lossy and lossless respectively and not some arbitrarily distinguished types that suit a marketing position. Lossless codecs, such as MLP, are not perceptually based because they replicate the original perfectly and there is nothing to perceive. All other types of codec are lossy, including ADPCM. The decoded waveform is not identical to the original and the audibility of the error is entirely dependent on the human hearing system,

which is why the terms lossy and perceptual are practically synonymous. All lossy codecs suffer generation loss. It is well understood that unsophisticated lossy codecs such as ADPCM trade off poor compression factors against short delay. The fact that they have to use high bit rates to prevent perceptual problems may ameliorate generation loss, but if we compare like with like, at the same bit rate ADPCM will sound inferior to MPEG-2 Layer 2 which will in turn sound inferior to AAC. Unsurprisingly, the sound quality follows the same trend as the mathematical complexity because the more accurately human perception is complied with, the lower the level of artefacts. In his Point 2, Mr McClintock is confusing latency and real time operation. High latency coders can operate in real time, because latency is a measure of the time between the signal going in to the encoder and when it emerges from the decoder. The relatively small delays of present perceptual coders are unlikely to be an issue with broadcasters. John Watkinson

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