Resolution V8.8 November/Dec 2009 by Resolution

AUDIO FOR BROADCAST, POST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION

V8.8 November/December 2009

The Keith Grant interview The John Leckie interview How going digital impacts on your acoustics Digital system essentials: interconnection 5-year entertainment and media forecast Ten rock ‘n’ roll animals

£5

Reviews RSS M-380 SE 4400a & T2 Mytek Digital 8X192 Marantz PMD661 Cartec EQP-1A Fostex FM-3 Tascam DR-100 Focal CMS65 Propellerheads Record

Some Questions are Easy to Answer “Where do these lumps in the lower midrange come from? Should I move my furniture or get a smaller display?”

“How can I add more bass trapping in my small room to avoid this boominess?”

“All this with a 5.1 system! How am I supposed to find the time to calibrate my system accurately?”

“I should just get a Genelec DSP system!”

When you are building or fine-tuning your audio monitoring environment there are many aspects to consider: the design and geometry of the room, loudspeaker placement, acoustical treatments, the type of equipment to use and making sure everything works well together. When it comes to optimized audio reproduction and proper adjustments of your response curves, the decision is easy. Genelec DSP systems with AutoCal™ automatic calibration can attack common problems in your room response with just a few mouse clicks. Get familiar with our DSP systems at www.genelecDSP.com

Genelec DSP Series

AUDIO FOR BROADCAST, POST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION

V8.8 Nov/Dec 2009 ISSN 1477-4216

News & Analysis

Leader

News

65 Broadcast aside

Headroom

La Chapelle & Gam Recording Studios

Digital system essentials

Ten

55 Sweet spot

Sales, contracts, appointments and biz bites.

Products

New introductions and announcements.

Deconstruction and reconstruction with Baxter.

DAB and switching off.

Craft

Keith Grant

John Leckie

We discover Belgium’s leading residential recording studio in the heart of the Ardennes. A seminal figure in audio history talks studios, orchestral miking and classic gear for sale. He’s still one of the most influential and prolific producers yet he has a catalogue that spans four decades.

Confronting the problems of how to interconnect the elements of a digital system.

Rock ‘n’ roll animals.

How swapping out analogue gear for digital can impact on your control room’s acoustics.

Business

50 The family entertainment spend

We break out the digital binoculars and scan entertainment and media financial forecasts for the next five years.

Your business

The return of the live album underscores the concert’s enhanced role as music’s money-maker.

Technology

58 Synchronous networks for delivery

Optocore explains why its SANE Cat5-based networking system has broad market appeal.

62 Slaying Dragons

The High Definition term has succeeded; the actual definition has been eliminated for economic reasons.

Reviews

20 RSS M-380 22 SE 4400a & T2 24 Mytek Digital 8X192 26 Marantz PMD661 28 Cartec EQP-1A

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, Sue McDonald, Neil Hillman, Nigel Jopson, Andy Day, Philip Newell, Jim Evans, Dan Daley, Dennis Baxter, John Watkinson

30 32 34 36

Fostex FM-3 Tascam DR-100 Propellerheads Record Focal CMS65

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

Home of the Resolution Awards and Line Up

NEWS

Appointments Universal Audio has appointed Jed Allen as director of international sales. Most recently, he was European sales director for Digidesign. David Charles has been appointed d i re c t o r o f s a l e s Americas. Most recently, he was sales manager for the Northeast, New York Metropolitan and Middle Atlantic at Digidesign. Shure Distribution UK has named former commercial installation sales manager, Peter James, as its new MD. Following the sudden death of former MD Dennis Harburn in February, Shure Distribution UK has been functioning without a UK-based MD. Peter brings more than 20 year’s experience to the role, 12 of which have been with Shure Distribution UK. Unit y Audio has appointed MI retailer S w e e t w a t e r a s its exclusive US dealer for its line of studio monitors that has started with The Rock monitor. Johan Wadsten has been appointed international product manager for Merging Technologies’ Ovation audio cue sequencing system following the return to further education of former Ovation manager Stephane Monhart. Based in London, Johan will be the primar y point of contac t for the worldwide distribution network.

Leader

There’s a phrase that has entered popular parlance that smacks of the sort of veiled and indirect mediaspeak that we all catch ourselves using. The phrase is ‘difficult times’ – we are living in…these are… tightening our belts in these challenging and…It’s an irony that it should take discomfort close to home for those who comment on such situations to feel stirred enough to coin a cliché that they can use to imply a knowledge of such matters. Life is all about coping with difficulty and most of us know that there are many millions who are enduring truly ‘difficult times’ compared to our society’s economic indigestion. If this last year has taught us anything then it’s that we could all do with a quick sharpener of getting real to take away the taste of some of the ugliness. Contrast that to the sort of relief and optimism that we were reminded that we felt when we watch the 20th anniversary documentaries about the fall of The Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime. Many of us grew up under that shadow yet the times were undoubtedly more difficult for those on the Eastern side. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that we are now encouraged to concentrate on our own plight rather than look out at others and keep a sense of perspective. Despite our levels of comfort we become protectionist; it’s the condition referred to as lacking in ‘consumer confidence’. Meanwhile, there are still bands trying to get ‘signed’, there are young engineers looking for their first gig, there are graduates who really want to get into TV, there are some brilliant code writers who are sick of IT and want to get into audio (there may be), manufacturers pinched by cashflow, and there’s even an inventor or two with some really clever processing ideas that can’t get the backing. The downturn won’t stop these people doing what they want to do and we’ll be enthused by the energy, skill and ambition of them. However, there are real losers like our local children’s hospice that has seen donations fall away dramatically as a consequence of these ‘difficult times’. We do need to keep our industry’s problems in perspective. Zenon Schoepe

Resolution buys Line Up

Resolution has bought the name and distribution lists of Line Up magazine. Resolution magazine will now be distributed to the membership of the Institute of Broadcast Sound (IBS), just as Line Up magazine was previously, and Line Up will become a monthly on-line audio for broadcast TV and radio supplement to Resolution magazine starting in January. ‘The broadcast audio sector has always been a mainstay of Resolution’s coverage and circulation,’ said S2 Publications editorial director Zenon Schoepe, ‘and Line Up magazine has for many years been a (l-r) Nikolaj Rudyk, DPA; Stephan strong voice in broadcast sound and the Berlenbach, Mega Audio; Morten Stove, rallying point for the IBS. This development DPA; Burkhard Elsner, Mega Audio. allows us to combine the two into a very DPA Microphones’ Distributor of the strong package while broadening the Year Award went to German distributor reach and the appeal internationally. We Mega Audio. The Danish manufacturer look forward to working together with also presented Martin Goosen, from the IBS in any way we can in the future. I Dutch distributor Amptec, with a would like to thank Chris Woolf (chairman AdFirstImpres.(Resolution two files Strip).qxd:Mise enIBS page 1 co-operation 22/09/09 Lifetime Achievement Award. of LUPL) and the for their

first

impressions

— the professionalism, realism and commitment to the IBS membership has been impressive.’ ‘The IBS EC, and the board of Line Up Publications Ltd, are delighted to announce that Resolution magazine has bought the Line Up title, and that the name will continue to be associated with the top level of journalism in the broadcast audio field,’ said IBS co-chairman Simon Bishop. ‘It was recognised that a paper magazine with a limited circulation would inevitably struggle to survive and that to ally it to one of the strongest and most revered titles within the industry would ensure the continuation of both Line Up’s name and purpose. ‘Resolution, the paper magazine, will be distributed free to all IBS members, and with Line Up as its on-line broadcast supplement, will allow members and the wider public to stay in touch with new ideas and developments within the industry,’ 12:36 he said. Page 3

APRS Sound Fellowship lunch

Credit: www.recordproduction.com

APRS chairman Malcolm Atkin and Trevor Horn.

The annual APRS Sound Fellowship Lunch held at the Roof Gardens, Kensington in November saw the inauguration of a keynote address by way of proposing a special Harewood Toast. Designed to provide an opportunity for a prominent member of the music, film and TV businesses to speak about the relationship they have with the studios and service providers, the inaugural proposer of the Harewood Toast was Jeremy Lascelles, CEO of Chrysalis Music who is the son of the Earl of Harewood, the founding president of the APRS and its current Patron. The APRS’s annual celebration was hosted by Sir George and Lady Martin and saw the recognition of six new recipients of APRS Sound Fellowships: Bob Clearmountain, Phil Dudderidge; Peter Gabriel; Trevor Horn; Steve Lillywhite; and Robin Millar.

Broadcast India deemed a success

Broadcast India 2009 was held in Mumbai in October and had a much more professional feel to it than the previous year. According to the organisers, this year there were more than 500 brands from 31 countries represented across 60,000sqft of exhibition space. The exhibition was accompanied by an on-site conference. ‘The quality turnout of the visitors and the international look of the show impressed all the exhibitors,’ said Kavita Meer, Saicom Show Organiser. Next year’s event, the 20th, will be held again at the Bombay Exhibition Centre, Goregaon (E), Mumbai from 21-23 October.

First Impressions from Audio-Technica, is the latest way to find your perfect Audio-Technica microphone.

NEWS

Resolution Awards 2010

The run up to the Resolution Awards 2010 (reWards) will start in January with a new schedule and new qualification dates. The Nominations will be announced in the May/June issue, followed by online Voting exclusively by registered Resolution readers culminating with the announcement of the winners in the October issue. To qualify for Nomination in the eleven reWards categories products will have to have shipped for the first time at some point between the start of 2009 until the 31 March 2010. Nominations will again be submitted by a Nominations Panel made up of a select group of international end-users that represent the full breadth of the Resolution readership coming from broadcast, postproduction, music, multimedia and mastering disciplines. The Resolution Awards were started in response to requests from readers and manufacturers to ‘rubber stamp’ equipment for ‘the right reasons’ and to credit excellence where it is due. We set out to recognise Quality and Innovation in professional audio equipment and the 2009 winners represented precisely these values among the many other assets that they offer.

MPG supports RNID

South American RND first

Appointments FDW-Worldwide is now exclusive distributor for Milab Microphones in North America. Bosch Security Systems has a p p o i n t e d St e v e Johnson to the position of business line manager, pro sound. The former VP of global marketing for Shure, director of product marketing at Motorola’s Mobile Devices business, and most recently VP of marketing at Harman Music Group, Johnson will manage the newly established Pro Sound Business Line, which includes the Dynacord and Electro-Voice brands.

Premier Brazilian recording facility Tenda da Raposa in Rio de Janeiro recently installed South America’s first Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console. The 32-channel system features four Portico 5032 mic pre/EQs, four 5015 mic pre/compressors, eight 5033 5-band EQs, a 5043 stereo compressor, and 16 channels of Shadowmix Automation. ‘Being a fan of Rupert Neve’s gear for so long, it was an easy decision to go with the 5088. Even without listening to the desk — none were available in Brazil — it was a no-risk operation, and results have gone beyond our expectations,’ said owner Carlos Fuchs. Although it started as a personal project studio, Tenda da Raposa attracted independent musicians, producers and singers due to its atmosphere, gear and design. After 10 years of non-stop operation with the biggest names in the independent music scene in Brazil and more than 300 CDs, it was time for a major upgrade according to Carlos. ‘It has been a real joy to work with the 5088,’ he said. ‘I feel I can achieve great results much quicker than with my previous system. Incredible headroom, pristine sound, solid feel. Clients love it, I love it. We are proud to be the first 5088 studio in Brazil.’

P r i s m So und’s range of test and measurement equipment is now being represented in Sweden by MixRommet headed by Gunnar Silins (pictured), a subsidiary of Oslo-based distributor LydRommet, which already handles Prism Sound’s range in Norway.

SeeSound CEO Nacho Alberdi.

The Music Producers Guild (UK) has chosen The Royal National Institute for Deaf Sennheiser Electronic will integrate its People (RNID) as its official charity and will subsidiary Klein + Hummel, manufacturer of be supporting its Don’t Lose The Music monitors and installed sound products, into Campaign by holding a fundraising raffle at the Sennheiser and Neumann companies. its 2010 Awards on 11 February in London. ‘We would like to benefit from the strength There are four million young people in of the Sennheiser and Neumann brands in the UK who are at risk of hearing damage this business area, too,’ said Volker Bartels, because they regularly listen to music at spokesman for the Sennheiser executive unsafe sound pressure levels, according team. ‘Neumann and Sennheiser are firmly to the RNID. Many of these young people established in the studio and installed sound don’t realise that the music they love could areas, respectively, and promise a much better be harming them, so they are not taking market penetration than is at present possible preventative measures such as wearing under the brand name of Klein + Hummel.’ earplugs in clubs and at gigs or turning down Georg Neumann in Berlin will become the volume on their personal music players. responsible for the studio monitor business, ‘We are delighted to be associated with the while an ‘optimised’ installed sound portfolio Music Producers Guild,’ said Emma Harrison, will be continued by Sennheiser. RNID director of external affairs. ‘It’s great AdFirstImpres.(Resolution files Strip).qxd:Mise 1 22/09/09 ‘Neumann —en as page the studio brand — to have backing from musictwo industry heavyweights.’

K + H integrated Sennheiser and Neumann will expand its portfolio, and Sennheiser will further strengthen its installed sound business, which is the company’s third “pillar” so to speak, besides the consumer and professional business,’ he said. ‘In its long company history, Neumann has set many milestones in studio technology worldwide,’ added Wolfgang Fraissinet, president of marketing and sales at Neumann. ‘We will now also use this expertise for studio monitors and offer optimum solutions to our customers, to international artists in the areas of TV and radio broadcasting, recording and audio productions.’ Bartels estimates that the integration of K + H will be completed by the new year. Most employees of K + H will now be employed by 12:36 and Page 4 Sennheiser Neumann.

Optocore has appointed Barcelonabased SeeSound as its exclusive Spanish distributor.

(l-r) Amin Hagroo, Mig Cardamone, Ryan Burr.

Sennheiser has expanded its operations in the Middle East by opening a branch office in Dubai Airport Free Zone, headed by Mig Cardamone, business area manager for the Middle East.

In the studio, on stage or on the road, sign up and you’ll have your very own 2 Week Soundcheck, where we send you up to two Audio-Technica microphones to test out on your own terms for up to two weeks. For more information, log onto: www.eu.audio-technica.com/support/firstimpressions

NEWS

Appointments RTW has appointed Jörg Striegel as head of research and development. He joins from from Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies where he served for more than six years as research and development project manager. Wieland Heiser has been appointed sales manager for the company’s products in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and for its Audio Precision line in Germany and Austria. He previously worked for Sony, Studer and Solid State Logic.

Valeriya/SVIP’s S5 Fusion

(l-r) Bone, West Highland Terrier; Oleg Ivanov, technical director; Valeriya; Tatiana Vinnitskaya, producer; Joseph Prigozhin, president NOX Music.

ASL’s Susan McLohon with Setron MD Naresh Dhawan.

Setron India Private Ltd has been appointed distributor in India for ASL intercoms.

McLohon with Dae-Hyun Han.

Dai Kyung Vascom Co. Ltd has been appointed full ASL distributor for Korea.

Russian music superstar Valeriya has installed a Euphonix S5 Fusion in her Valeriya/ SVIP Studio for music, TV and film postproduction in Moscow. ‘After working at the best western studios and learning all the latest tricks and techniques, I wanted to set up a state-of-the-art studio in my country to give the artist the opportunity to work in a highly professional environment, as well as to be able to invite western producers to create top quality albums in Russia,’ said Valeriya. The facility has installed a 184-channel S5 Fusion with EuCon control of Pyramix and Pro Tools in its 5.1 mixing control room, which was designed by Acoustic Design Group’s John Flynn and Sam Toyoshima. ‘We chose the S5 Fusion because it is an industry standard,’ said Oleg Ivanov, technical director at Valeriya/SVIP Studio. ‘We know it will attract not only new customers but also reputed sound engineers who want to work on a Euphonix.’ • French media group CMC-Digimage has installed four System 5 consoles in a newly opened TV-film postproduction facility in the south of Paris. Digimage-Cinema will offer hi-end HD as well as the biggest colour grading room in Europe. The new facility has two large stages equipped with 56-fader System 5 Hybrids dedicated to feature film mixing and two smaller stages equipped with 32-fader System 5 Hybrids for TV projects and to start film projects.

Doremi Labs has appointed Ronald Williams as VP of sales, broadcast products division. He has many years of sales management experience from Philips, Sony, and Panasonic.

Showtime NAMM, Anaheim.14-17 January 2010 ISE, Amsterdam............... 2-4 February BVE, London................16-18 February Cabsat, Dubai ..................... 2-4 March ABU DBS 2010, Kuala Lumpur .................... 9-11 March ProLight + Sound, Frankfurt .......................... 24-27 March NAB, Las Vegas..................12-15 April AES, London....................... 21-23 May IBC, Amsterdam......10-14 September Plasa, London..........12-15 September AES, San Francisco.......5-7 November

Subscribe www.resolutionmag.com Annual Subscriptions: UK £37.00, Europe £46.00, Rest of the World £53.00 6

Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club in London, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, has purchased an Earthworks PM40 PianoMic for its in-house grand. Engineer Danny Kissane auditioned the PM40 over several gigs with better results than their existing microphones. ’The PM40 on grand piano delivers the most honest sound I’ve ever experienced,’ he said. ‘The unique mounting system allows for a quick and consistent set up. It’s brilliant.’

©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

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.

resolution

Mark Ray Cadac Holdings Ltd has announced the sudden death, at the age of 49, of Mark Ray. Mark died of a heart attack on 9 November while visiting New York. He is survived by his daughters Nicola and Louise. Mark fronted Cadac’s sales and marketing activity around the world for 9 years. ‘We are all devastated, losing a good friend as well as a colleague,’ said Cadac’s Bob Thomas. ‘Mark gave every element of his life 100% — as a passionate advocate for Cadac, as a gifted musician and as an active contributor to the pro audio industry. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Mark’s family and friends. All of us at Cadac will miss him enormously.’ After serving in the Army, Mark’s career included spells at FCN, Gibson USA, Adam Hall and 3G, prior to joining Cadac in 2000.

DPA climate awareness release DPA Microphones has released The Human Kind recording, to raise money for Greening Your Future, a reforestation project in Durban, South Africa. The song is only available as a download from all the usual portals. More information about downloading the track, and the project itself, can be found at www. thehumankind.dk. The corporate endeavour aims to support environmental causes by creating local jobs and improving the climate globally and DPA has worked closely with Danish energy company SEAS-NVE and the song has also been sponsored by Danish music distributor Gateway. The idea was inspired by this year’s COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will take place in Copenhagen in December. The song was written by Bjarne Beltoft, who works in DPA’s shipping department, while DPA’s resident tonmeister Mikkel Nymand mixed some of the vocal tracks. A selection of Danish singers joined forces with lead vocalist, Scotland’s Maggie Reilly, to create the song, which was part-recorded and mastered at DPA’s in-house studio using a selection of the company’s microphones, including 4015 wide cardioids on all vocals. The song was produced by Stig Kreutzfeldt. ‘Sponsoring this project was obvious,’ said DPA founder and CEO Morten Stove. ‘It makes sense to us, and we really hope that people will help us spread the word and support The Human Kind, including those who are not used to buying songs over the internet.’

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

November/December 2009

NEWS

Biz Bites

Duality shines at College

Vivendi, Europe’s largest entertainment group and owner of Universal Music, the world’s biggest record company, delivered a better-than-expected 5.1% rise in third-quarter underlying profits and said it would stick to its 2009 forecasts, writes Nigel Jopson. Strength at its SFR telecoms division and pay-TV Canal Plus offset weak music earnings. The owner of Activision Blizzard, the world’s biggest video-game publisher, said third-quarter earnings rose to 1.35bn Euros. Live Nation and Ticketmaster both reported better than expected Q3 ear nings and blamed slimmer profits on a combined $12m in merger-related costs. Live Nation earned US$69.2m, down 50% from last year’s Q3 earnings of $138 million, representing earnings of $1.66 a share, better than the predicted loss of -$0.24. Quarterly revenues were $1.81bn, up 14% from $1.59bn last year. Ticketmaster saw an increase in Q3 earnings of $13.1m, up from $9.6m a year ago. The two have attempted to paint a bleak picture to justify their merger: ‘The recording industry is a shell of its former self ... working together we will be able to help achieve needed change that will strengthen a flagging music industry’. US regulators continue to examine the possible merger, shareholders will vote on the deal in January. The UK Competition Commission’s provisional findings, published in October, said the deal would make it harder for new entrants to break into the marketplace. The Commission warned that combining the two largest players could mean rising prices, poorer service, and ‘lower levels of innovation’. Inter net visitor traffic jumped dramatically at music streaming service Lala following Google’s 28 October US partnership, with click-to-play buttons next to search results (see business section p50.) However, it’s possible the era of ubiquitous free music streaming may soon be over. MySpace music is rumoured to spend over $20m per month on streaming royalties, and sources suggest the service will either move to a paid model or severely restrict free music plays. MySpace’s guaranteed $300m per-year deal with Google advertising

SSL US has announced the purchase of a 72-fader Duality SE by Full Sail University, Florida. This joins Duality placements at NYU, New York; University of Lethbridge, Alberta; Cuyahoga Community College, Ohio ; Mediatech Institute, Oceanside Campus, California and Citrus College, Louisiana. ‘Studio A is a large performance and teaching space and the SSL Duality is the perfect console for our mission now and into the future,’ said Tommy Wiggins, program manager for the Recording Arts and Technology degree program at Cuyahoga Community College (pictured). ‘Duality combines great analogue sound and extensive DAW control. The console lets us teach the art of acoustic recording to young engineers and musicians who are used to creating music with sampledriven computer programs.’ AWS 900+ SE placements include Kennesaw State University, Georgia; Mississippi Valley State University; Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma and Miami Dade College, Florida.

Media College opts for Genelec Set up three years ago by former Pro Tools instructor Chris Mayo, Manchester’s Futureworks Media School follows a philosophy of providing training resources that students will encounter in real jobs after graduation. The school is equipped with six music and postproduction studios designed by Harris Grant with a variety of Genelec systems for monitoring. Genelec 1037Cs are in the SSL Studio, while the Toft Studio includes Genelec 8030s. More recently the school has kitted out four smaller edit suites and installed 8020Bs for each room. ‘I use Genelecs professionally and have always

found them to be a good-quality, reliable source of monitoring, with something that leads you to a mainstream sound,’ said head of audio, Rob Magoologan. ‘They steer you towards a more vocal-orientated sound, presenting areas of the spectrum that you need to pay attention to. ‘To have a range of Genelec monitors is important to us because they reflect what’s being used in the industry. Many of the facilities I’ve used or visited have Genelec main, midfield or nearfield monitors, so we have to make sure we represent that setup,’ he said.

BBC Radio OBs upgrade with Stagetec

Stagetec is to supply BBC Radio Outside Broadcast with five Aurus consoles, Nexus routing and infrastructure for all six vehicles in its new fleet of general purpose and music sound trucks. The four General Purpose trucks are fitted with a 40-fader Aurus and the first of these, Sound 6, made its debut at the University of Derby as part of Radio 4’s University Tour across England and Wales. Parked on campus for two days, Sound 6 recorded programmes as diverse as The Bottom Line with Evan Davis, Just a Minute with Nicholas Parsons, The Music Group with Phil Hammond and delivered a live broadcast of Woman’s Hour with singer Alison Moyet. The General Purpose vehicles are fixed chassis 30ft trucks and are additionally equipped with a 40962 central router and four remote stage boxes, each box connected by fibre to the truck. The Music trucks are 40ft trailers with a 48-fader control surface and two stage boxes with 64 channels of Stagetec’s 158dB mic inputs apiece. The new fleet is due to be fully operational by next Spring and will eventually replace the oldest vehicles in the existing fleet that were built more than 20 years ago.

School studio by KMR

UK supplier KMR Audio has supplied a recording studio for The Ravensbourne School in Bromley, Kent — a mixed comprehensive with more than 1450 pupils. ‘I spoke to a number of sources regarding the equipment to buy and we spoke to a number of companies before settling on using KMR Audio,’ said head of music technology at the school Steve Muzio. KMR installed a Midas Venice console, a range of microphones, Auralex acoustic treatment and a Mac Pro system running Reason and Cubase. • KMR Audio supplied an Obsidian compressor by Dramastic Audio to producers Flood and Moulder at their studio Assault and Battery 2 in London. ‘Since trying the Obsidian it has become my mix compressor of choice,’ said Moulder. ‘It’s punchy on the drums while still allowing the guitars to breathe. It is versatile and the stereo imaging is fantastic.’

Subscribe now online at www.resolutionmag.com UK £37 • Europe £46 • Rest of the World £53

resolution

November/December 2009

“I was gobsmacked when I saw the Euphonix. I was blown away by the quality and the functionality. The Euphonix sounds fantastic and has the ability to behave precisely how you want; it can be tailored to exactly fit our needs.” Johnnie Burn, co-owner Wave Amsterdam who controls Nuendo via his two System 5-MC’s

Wave Amsterdam

The System 5-MC is a DAW Controller with a difference - a big difference. Thanks to its EuCon control protocol, the System 5-MC tightly integrates with DAWs such as Pro Tools, Nuendo, Logic Pro, Digital Performer and Pyramix. Editing is made easier, workflow is enhanced and control is seamless. In a world of networked equipment, only Euphonix can provide true hands-on control over your favorite applications.

euphonix.com

NEWS

Biz Bites runs out in June 2010. Meanwhile, the European success story for Spotify seems unlikely to be repeated in the US: Spotify is unwilling to launch with a paid-only model, but big labels are signalling they won’t have it. So far, the cost of streaming has been hidden as internet start-ups squandered venture capital money in hopes of ad revenue; with declining CD sales, labels are unlikely to countenance licensing price cuts to prolong this game. With 51% of respondents to a survey from research firm The Leading Question saying they’d be happy with a music service from their ISP, perhaps there’s life in subscription models after all. The Billboard 200 chart will shift in 2010 from a current releasesbased ranking to an all-inclusive list of top selling albums, regardless of release date. ‘The ability of consumers to impulsively purchase new or catalogue titles electronically has changed music sales behaviour,’ said Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard’s director of charts. ‘The events of 2009 and the continuing creativity in the repackaging of catalogue titles have led us to conclude that the Billboard 200 would be best served presenting the true best-sellers in the country.’ Does this mean a re-entry for Dark Side Of The Moon? The Pink Floyd album had a tenure of 741 weeks, from 1973-1988, until Billboard changed the rules to favour current releases. A group of the UK’s hippest indie labels — Moshi Moshi, Wichita, Because Music and Bella Union — have launched IMU as a collective to market their artists and content to brands and agencies for use in ad campaigns. Fashion brand Oasis has already licensed music to accompany its new season’s collections. ‘Independent labels have a unique asset that has been sorely under-utilised,’ said Michael McClatchey of Moshi Moshi. ‘This is partly due to an historic distrust of brand endorsements and partly due to a lack of time and resources to exploit this area of the market. The great thing about the IMU set-up is it addresses both of these issues.’ DAB promised much, but never achieved mass acceptance, mainly as a result of a failure to achieve significant traction in the car industry. Now a US-style subscription radio, led by Ondas Media, plans to launch across Europe. Ondas is to supply satellite radio receivers in cars made by BMW, Nissan and Renault. It is also poised to launch a deal with Jazz FM.

World first DiGiCo SD8 truck

Finnish band Eppu Normaali enjoyed a successful Klubiotteella tour at the end of last year with a pair of DiGiCo SD8 consoles supplied by Akun Tehdas — the audio production company owned by the band and directed by drummer Aku Syrjä. TomFloor Production, an associate company run by producer and engineer Tomi Pietilä, has now bought its own console for Location Factory — the world’s first SD8-equipped mobile truck. ‘When it came to choosing a console, there were a few options which I considered, but very soon it became obvious that the SD8 had more preamps, more power, more… everything… compared with other brands,’ said Tomi. ‘Having used the SD8 to make live recordings of the Eppu Normaali tour, I already knew that the preamps sound so good that it feels like having an old British analogue desk, not a brand new one. And from a digital one as well.’ Featuring a 96 I-O Pro Tools HD3 the truck uses SSL Delta Link and Lynx Aurora interfaces, with system clocking by a Rosendahl NanosyncHD. The system is configured to provide 5.1 and stereo masters simultaneously. ‘The routings and all the features are very transparent, I like the fact that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to learn how to set up the system,’ added Tomi. ‘It is a really flexible and easy to use console.’

Vista scores at Toronto TV

The Score Television Network in Toronto recently purchased a Vista 5 console to handle 5.1 sources and output 5.1 to The Score’s HD sports channel. The Score is a Canadian English-language cable television sports network, broadcasting live sports coverage, as well as sports news, highlights and analysis. ‘Some of our shows would require bringing in live NBA, NCAA basketball and football feeds,’ said Michel Blondin, supervisor, for The Score. ‘For example, our show, Court Surfing would bring the viewer up to 10 different

NBA games at any given time. We basically changed the channel for the viewers, bringing them the best action of any game. ‘The layout of the desk with the Vistonics interface was nicely spread out and extremely user-friendly, which made the transition from analogue to a digital console easier for the audio operators,’ explained Blondin. ‘Additionally, the new studio is in use live from 7am to midnight with up to eight different shows on a daily basis. Having the ability to save and recall different board setups for each show was a must.’

resolution

FT adds a studio

Munro Acoustics was contracted to construct a new radio studio for UK newspaper The Financial Times, which is involved in podcasting, web based video and audio. ‘Munro Acoustics was brought in to handle the acoustic design and, in spite of heavy nearby traffic noise, managed to achieve a really excellent result in an old building which was never designed with acoustics in mind,’ said ft.com’s Richard Edgar. ‘It’s always a challenge to work for a world leading company as their expectations are that everyone is as good at delivering as they are,’ explained Andy Munro. ‘I am pleased to say the studio lives up to those demands, especially providing broadcast standard acoustics in an office building with height and weight restrictions.’

Remixers choose Orpheus

Producer/remixer Glen Nicholls has acquired a Prism Sound Orpheus interface, which he put through its paces during the recording, mixing and mastering of his latest Future Funk Squad album, Disorders Of Skill. Nicholls does most of his production work from his own studio, The Funk Vault. This was originally housed in a freight shipping container but is now permanently located in an old warehouse in London, which also doubles as his home. ‘I gave up using a desk about eight years ago when I got used to the dual screen mixing functions in Logic and Pro Tools,’ he explained. ‘I had seen Prism Sound convertors in virtually every recording and mastering studio I’d work in and decided it was time to add that kind of quality to my own studio,’ he said. ‘The Orpheus was ideal for my requirements and I was really surprised at how easy it was to install and use.’ In LA, producer, remixer and DJ Morgan Page has also invested in an Orpheus, which he is using in conjunction with a Pro Tools LE rig for analogue summing of in-the-box mixes. ‘At the moment my Orpheus unit feeds a Dangerous Music D-Box for summing. I use it in ADAT standalone mode, so I have eight channels of inputs and summing. I also clock all my mixes to the Orpheus, which has been a major difference to the stability of my set-up.’

November/December 2009

DOUBLE REDUNDANCY With over 5500 NEXUS Devices running daily in critical broadcast, performance and event centers, NEXUS has become the favorite choice for secure facility wide audio routing. The Stagetec NEXUS system provides centralized or de-centralized routing with a wide range of modular I/O formats and high density fiber optical links with dual path redundancy. The NEXUS system can be easily interfaced with all major management software packages for main control rooms in radio as well as TV facilities. Stagetec mixing desk solutions interface directly to the NEXUS network and, as the Nexus system, are highly scalable.

STAGETEC delivers

NEXUS STAR Digital Central Router

SCALABLE NETWORKING Largest system install to date has 18.000 crosspoints MULTICHANNEL I/O AES3, SPDIF, MADI, TDIF, SD/HD & 3GHD EXCELLENT QUALITY 32-bit TrueMatch converters offering up to158 dB dynamic range SYNCHRONIZING Blackburst, Wordclock, AES, Tri-Level sync, DARS OUTSTANDING FEATURES Certified for Dolby E with integrated encoding/decoding PROVEN RELIABILITY Continious development since more than 15 years REDUNDANCY On fibre optic lines, power supplies, backplane and CPU GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE Matrix & DSP configuration, multichannel metering

THE REAL SECURE SYSTEM

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

facility

Photos: Yannick Albert

La Chapelle & Gam Recording Studios JIM EVANS travels to the heart of the Ardennes to discover Belgium’s leading residential recording studio.

he Ardennes, with its acres of forest, rolling hills, nature reserves and ancient stone buildings has a certain charm to it. The natural beauty and possibilities for outdoor pursuits — including Belgium’s only ski resort — make it a popular tourist attraction. It also happens to be home to a thriving residential recording studio. As the name suggests, La Chapelle & Gam Recording Studios, located in the picturesque village of Waimes, consists of two studios — La Chapelle (Studio 1) and Gam (Studio2) situated a couple of hundred metres from one another and just a short hop from the converted farm buildings that house the top notch residential facilities that come as part of the complete recording package. The recording facilities date back to 1995 and were previously the relocated Katy Studios where Marvin Gaye recorded his final album Midnight Love. For the past year, the studios have been under the ownership of recording engineer and musician Stijn Verdonckt and he is more than pleased with his first 12 months at the helm and has plans for further developments, notably at the La Chapelle site. ‘I think it’s fair to say that we are now the only true residential recording studio in Belgium, as we offer the accommodation for no extra charge at all,’ says Verdonckt who first came to La Chapelle when they needed a Flemish-speaking assistant. ‘And I’m happy to report that there still appears to be a role for facilities such as ours in the international recording market.’ The main studio is housed in a former hat factory that dates back to the 19th century and was once a leading employer in the region. The building was originally acoustically treated by Harris Grant & Associates and Tom Hidley and the recording area is one of the biggest in Europe and can easily accommodate a symphony orchestra. Acoustic panels and curtains allow the recording space to be altered acoustically and physically. At the heart of the control room is a digitally controlled analogue Euphonix CS2000 console backed up with a range of vintage and modern outboard gear.

‘Being an engineer myself I really appreciate the large control room and the Euphonix desk in particular. It’s a very versatile desk, you can do a lot of different things with it. If we have classical music in, you can have really neutral sounds — true to the real thing. But if it’s rock, it’s a real analogue board so you can also drive the preamps and get some nice analogue distortion if you want. That together with the routing is a winning combination. ‘If we have sessions to tape we can easily route everything to the Pro Tools and the tape machine at the same time and AB reference it. There are 20 auxes which gives you eight for the monitoring for the musicians and 12 additional auxes for effects and stuff like that, which is quite rare on a console. Importantly, it is really low maintenance and is ultra-reliable. We have had few problems with it. From my studio manager point of view, it is vital that the desk — and the studio — are up and running 100 per cent of the time. We don’t want downtime! ‘One slight downside is that some producers are a bit reluctant as they do not know the console,’ he adds. ‘It’s not as well known as an SSL 4000 or a Neve, so you have to work a little harder to get them here for the first time. But once they’ve done a session on it, they’re usually hooked.’ And the monitoring? ‘The big Genelecs [1039As] came with the original acoustic design of the control room and studio done by Harris Grant. For me they are too big to mix on, but good to check what’s going on in the lower frequencies, and to have an image of that. But personally I need nearfields to have a good idea of what’s happening in a mix. And for that I really like the Questeds,’ explains Stijn. ‘I got to know the Questeds through Mike Butcher on some of the first sessions I did as an assistant with him. I learned a lot from him and he always takes his

resolution

November/December 2009

FACILITY

Questeds to every session. Generally, most engineers who come here are more than happy with the monitoring arrangements. A lot of engineers have their favourites. And of course, we still have the NS10s.’ The studios attract work from across Europe. ‘We get a lot of work from France and that’s because the studio has established a bit of tradition with French clientele,’ says Verdonckt. ‘The previous owner was French. Once people have been here once, they tend to come back – repeat business that is most welcome. We also get a lot of work from the Netherlands and, of course, from Belgium. And we have a regular run of UK and German producers coming here. ‘One thing we’ve noticed — and I’m sure other facilities are finding it the same — is that we tend to get more short bookings. Clients will come in for part of the production process, put down the drums or rhythm parts, move to a smaller studios to record guitars and vocals and then return here for the mix. That’s the general scenario these days, but we do still get longer bookings — we have a band booked in for three weeks this month, for example. ‘Another growing market for us is film music recording. Because of the large recording hall, we get more and more film music recording sessions in. We recently finished the recordings for the French movie Us Three featuring Emmanuelle Béart.’ Film projects come for the large room but Stijn says the attraction of the facility to artists and producers is down to a number of factors. ‘One of the key reasons that the studios here work is that we operate on an international basis. Flights are cheap and we’re a short distance from three international airports [Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt-Hahn]. ‘The size of the recording hall is a major asset/ attraction. The hall allows a band to play in a real live setting, but we still manage to separate all the sources. We work with the acoustic panels and the curtains. The actual hall is 25m by 12m and 8m high and gives a volume of 3000 cubic metres. A lot of people think it will sound like a church and there will be too much reverb but that is far from the case. ‘We have a drum booth in the back, a vocal booth. And then there is the residential factor. It wouldn’t be viable to operate in this area if didn’t have the residential facilities. That makes it comfortable for the whole production. People don’t have to worry about food, accommodation, everything is here. We also think it’s very important that musicians feel at home during their production. We think a good vibe in the studio is at least as important as the technical facilities. It also makes a huge difference when the band really lives together during production. At night November/December 2009

no one has to get home, and everybody lives the same vibe.’ A serious manifest of instruments and microphones is another attraction. A Hammond RT3, two Leslies, vintage Telecasters, guitar amps and Rickenbacker bass have most recently been joined by a vintage Wurlitzer that Verdonckt found in Germany and is now restoring. He continues: ‘As well as our own considerable backline available here we also work closely with the biggest backline company in Belgium. We can get virtually any instrument a client might require at very short notice. If someone suddenly decides he wants a particular snare drum or drum set or whatever, we can get it.’ While business in the studios is rolling along nicely, there are plans in the pipeline to further develop the operation; some major changes in fact. ‘We are talking in terms of making it a broader based complex, adding more creative facilities. We have several bands that come here just for songwriting and composing and they just book two or three times a year for a week at a time, because they really like the nature and the vibe that exists here. And rehearsing is an area of business that we can expand into. We are also seriously considering the large basement space as a multipurpose facility for rehearsal, preproduction, song-writing, or whatever. It has great potential. Also, the lines between creating, composing and recording are getting closer together. It would be good to have some more creative spaces, to be more than just a studio.’ The associated Gam Studio, meanwhile, is housed in a splendid old cottage just up the lane from La Chapelle and caters for a different market. The self-contained studio and accommodation has been adapted for those on lower recording budgets and is also used regularly for preproduction and rehearsal. Gam’s control room is built around a Sony DMX R100 desk. Around a large central recording room with a high wooden ceiling, there are four acoustically treated booths. ‘The smaller studio works well within its designated sector and we have no plans to change it. We will keep it the way it is,’ says Stijn. ‘We prefer to keep two separated studios addressing different markets. If we upgraded Studio 2 we would have to charge higher rates which would frighten off the existing clientele. Overall, we are confident for the future of our business and are certainly in it for the long term.’ n

Contact la chappelle & gam recording studios, waimes, belgium: Website: www.lachapellesstudios, www. gamstudios.com

resolution

GEAR

Products Equipment introductions and announcements.

CEDAR Cambridge V6 Based on the latest CEDAR Cambridge Series III hardware, Version 6 is described as another step forward in offering four new processes and an addition to the system’s batch processing capabilities. Unlike most of CEDAR’s processes, the modules added in Version 6 are not aimed specifically at audio restoration in the traditional sense but at audio preparation for all manner of uses. To illustrate this, imagine a dozen disparate recordings, such as a mixture of live and studio recordings, and trying to make them suitable for distribution as a coherent body of work. These may exhibit different levels, different peak/power ratios, and different tonalities. CEDAR is offering a suite of processes that allow you to match these characteristics in a single, automated procedure. Select a track that exhibits the desired characteristics — you would like every track to be this loud and have this dynamic, tone, and stereo soundstage — and CEDAR Cambridge will process your audio to create a set of files with these qualities, ready for compiling into their final form. Reshape identifies the tonal and spatial characteristics of the template track and is able to impose these upon the audio that you are processing. The Adaptive Limiter employs an algorithm that calculates a continually varying EQ profile and constrains the amplitude of the output while retaining the integrity of the input signal. The result is a signal that can simultaneously sound louder yet still be more natural than audio processed using conventional limiters and maximisers. The final elements are provided by new Peak and Power Normalisers. Offering five standards of power calculation (power normaliser) and over-sampling (peak normaliser) these allow you to determine the output level with accuracy. You can use the new processes in the conventional manner — streaming or rendering — but CEDAR has also introduced an upgraded batch processing mechanism that allows you to combine multiple render streams with the new track-based processes. An Action List allows you to cascade the actions of streaming processes, such as the Adaptive Limiter, with track-based processes, such as Reshape and the Normalisers.

Spotlight: ATP ATP is a new brand of acoustic treatment panel kits from the Jocavi Group. The ATP range provides a variety of kits to suit different sized rooms for studios, home cinemas, and rehearsal spaces. ATP has its own plant, which is totally independent from that of Jocavi Acoustic Panels, with modern machines working in acoustic foam and polyurethane in compliance with European safety legislation for public places. ATP has created five acoustic panel packs that correspond to five room sizes. At the development stage these ‘rooms’ were acoustically simulated by the manufacturer and in each case they were also verified with acoustic analysis in the real spaces. ATP packs 01 to 05 cover rooms from 9-13sqm to 30-40sqm and are available in Standard and Excellence versions; the latter offering improved performance through additional panels and a greater choice of colour finish. The ATP packs are easy to assemble and come with glues and instructions. The packs draw from a pool of diffuser and absorber panels some of which can be mated to each other allowing a diffuser rich space, for example, to be converted into a drier acoustic by sliding similarly shaped absorber panels into place on the diffuser panels. Of particular note are the varieties of finish being offered and the inclusion of large tuned bass absorbers in corner and wall-mount configurations. The ATP packs amount to highly configurable, effective and affordable acoustic solutions for audio working spaces. www.atp.jocavi.net

Waves plugs The CEDAR HDA is a 1u rackmount designed to receive an AES-EBU or SPDIF input and convert it to six individually buffered, ¼-inch stereo headphone outputs, each with its own volume control. CEDAR has launched two products for live audio surveillance and for speech enhancement of existing audio. The CCS1500 is a portable solution for covert surveillance. Based on the DNS1500 dialogue noise suppressor, it also contains a CEDAR ADA convertor, a CEDAR HDA 6-channel digital headphone amplifier, and two pairs of closed-back headphones. The CCS-3000 is identical except that a CEDAR DNS3000 lies at its heart. With scene memories and timecode facilities, this allows users to create preconfigured setups for specific listening environments and, for audio/video installations, its operation can be synchronised with video surveillance. www.cedaraudio.com

Charteroak EQ The PEQ-1 EQ from Charteroak is a switchable 16-band programme equaliser that is intended for use as a finishing tool on the mix bus or in mastering. The design is intuitive as the switchable centre frequency points and overlapping bands are optimised for music production. The equaliser is said to be ‘extremely clean and free of distortion, which allows for large amounts of boost in the upper frequencies without any harshness’. www.charteroakacoustics.com

resolution

New plug-ins from Waves include the WNS Noise Suppressor and LoAir, the first two entries in the new Waves line of postproduction tools; the WavesLive MultiRack software processing host for live sound; and the Vocal Rider mixing tool. LoAir is a subharmonic generator that creates LFE content. It consists of four separate components: Mono, for creating and enhancing subharmonic frequencies on existing LFE tracks; Stereo: for generating LFE content from Stereo signals (Outputs LFE or Stereo + LFE); 5.0 to 5.1, for generating LFE content f ro m a 5 . 0 signal; and 5.1 to 5.1, for increasing subharmonic frequencies on existing LFE tracks. With WavesLive MultiRack, armed with a laptop, an I-O, and an iLok, FOH and monitor engineers can replace racks of hardware with Waves plugs. Vocal Rider automatically ‘rides’ the levels of vocal tracks. The user sets the target range of the vocal level in relation to the rest of the mix and Vocal Rider then compensates for all deviations from the target, intelligently raising or lowering the vocal volume without compression. www.waves.com

November/December 2009

GEAR

Vintage King additions

The Acme Opticon XLA-3 compressor is described as the ‘guitar amp of compressors’ because of its ability to produce a wide range of ‘dirty’ opto-compression sounds. The audio limiter combines the use of high-speed cadmium-selenide photocells together with all-tube circuitry. A link jack allows two XLA-3s to be connected in stereo. Following in the footsteps of the MicroMain27, the Barefoot Sound MicroMain35 brings Barefoot three-way technology into a more compact enclosure with dual force-cancelling 7-inch subwoofers, a 5-inch mid bass driver and 1-inch dome tweeter. The Electrodyne 501 is a two-stage discrete transistor, transformer coupled preamp with active DI. The active DI circuit presents an ‘almost immeasurable’ load to musical instruments and the output of the DI circuit is designed to directly connect and interact with the mic input transformer to allow maximum tone options. The Electrodyne 511 is a twoband discrete transistor reciprocal active inductor equaliser. The custom inductors and output transformer are produced by Electrodyne’s original manufacturer.

Sonnox restoration suite

Sonnox Restore is a collection of three plug-ins — Oxford DeBuzzer, Oxford DeClicker and Oxford DeNoiser — designed to restore impaired audio recordings. Advanced algorithms allow fast and effective removal of pops, clicks, crackles, scratches, hum, buzzes and extraneous background noise. The three plug-ins provide detailed graphical feedback and include novel features, such as a specialised dialogue mode in the DeClicker. The Sonnox Restore Suite is compatible with Pro Tools (RTAS), Audio Units and VST platforms. www.sonnoxplugins.com

Tube-Tech RM 2 Tube-Tech’s RM 2 is a two-slot rack that vertically accommodates any two Tube-Tech M Series valve-based modules. The RM-2 power supply and internal voltage rails are specifically built for tube-based electronics, offering much higher supply voltages than modular 500 racks can offer. This new twoslot RM2 rack, along with the existing eight-vertical slot RM8 rack, expands the flexibility of the product range while lowering the per channel cost. www.tube-tech.com

microphone preamp

VSR 5 U www.schoeps.de/ vsr5u.pdf

The Evol Fucifier is a distortion synthesiser and sound shaper. The signal chain includes a discrete mic pre, vintage germanium preamp, analogue filter, inductors in the EQ and output transformer, which are all designed to be overdriven, saturated, overloaded or distorted in a pleasing way. Joining the Inward Connections 500 series products (including the VC500 compressor and MPD500 mic pre) is the OPT1A 500, a fully transformer balanced limiter with an alldiscrete design. Using SPA690 discrete amp blocks, it has the exact same Optocell gain reduction circuitry as the TSL-3 Vac-Rac tube limiter in a solid state 500 series format. Duplicating Pultec EQ curves, the Retro Instruments 2A3 EQ also brings additional high boost frequency selections. With a switchable subsonic filter, the Retro 2A3 allows greater low

frequency boosts without the excessive subsonic boost of an original design. Using the interstage transformer, the filter also provides new punch, clarity and warmth. It packs two channels into 2u. The Shadow Hills Dual Vandergraph’s inner workings are developed from the discrete gain cells of the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor combined with the Optograph’s side-chain filter matrix. It is fully discrete with a Class A audio path and Shadow Hills’ custom iron transformers. www.vintageking.com

November/December 2009

rack ‘n’ roll

SCHOEPS GmbH Spitalstr. 20 D-76227 Karlsruhe resolution

www.schoeps.de mailbox@schoeps.de Tel. +49 721 943 200 15

GEAR

Neumann TLM 102

Mutec ships MC-7

With the TLM 102, Neumann says Mutec is shipping it is defining a new generation of the MC-7 Word clock studio microphone in terms of distribution amplifier design and price. The compact and audio clock and decidedly cute TLM 102 is convertor. It converts and distributes Word clock, AES3/11 available in black and nickel with a and SPDIF. The outputs can be individually multiplied by x1, stand mount for around Euros 600. x2, and x4 to adapt low clock rate signals to modern and Inside is a newly developed largehigher-clocked equipment. An incoming reference signal diaphragm capsule (cardioid) with passes ‘audiophile-optimised’ PLL circuits to be distributed a maximum sound pressure level and output regardless of the condition of the reference signal. of 144dB for drums and percussion. Thus, connected audio devices will benefit from the MC-7’s However, the most important signal regeneration abilities, which improve the sound quality. applications are vocals and speech For live or broadcast use a ‘Hold’ function can be activated that and a slight boost above 6kHz provides guarantees interruption-free output signal supply in cases where Resolution Modul Ad_Document 1 05/11/09 15.56 Side 1the external reference is of insufficient quality or is lost completely. presence. www.neumann.com www.mutec-net.de

sound engineering

MODULAR QUALITY - Hear the difference

RM2 TUBEBOX New portable Tubebox, holding two modules. Delivering all the voltages needed for the high quality Tube-Tech modules

MODULE CHOICE

PM1A Mic Pre.

LYDKRAFT 16

EM1A

Equalizer

CM1A

Compressor

High quality tube modules delivering upgraded Tube-Tech sound quality, praised by top engineers around the world. MORE HIGH QUALITY: WWW.TUBE-TECH.COM

resolution

API 527 compressor The 527 compressor is a single channel module based on API’s 225L discrete channel compressor. It features variable attack, release, ratio, and output gain controls and also includes API’s patented ‘Thrust’ circuit, first offered on the 2500 stereo bus compressor. A ten-segment LED meter is switchable between gain reduction and output level. www.apiaudio.com

Grace channel strip

Grace Design’s m103 channel strip is a 1u rackmount with a mic preamp, EQ and compressor. The signal path starts out with the m101 transformerless mic amp circuitry and has a 12-position rotary gain and a gold contact relay for Hi-Z input switching. A rotary trim/gain pot allows for fine tuning of gain settings together with a ribbon mic mode that raises the mic impedance, bypasses the input decoupling capacitors and deactivates 48V phantom power. The 3-band EQ is built around a single stage parallel tuning architecture, which minimises circuitry. Controls include a fully parametric mid with shelving and peak modes available on the high and low bands. The compressor is based on an optical attenuator and provides gentle limiting to fairly aggressive compression. The preamp, EQ and compressor sections can be independently accessed, and the EQ and compressor can be flipped in the signal path. Two m103s can be linked for stereo applications and dual, 10-segment LED meters are provided to display gain reduction and output levels. The m501 is a 500 series rack preamp module that has the feature set of the company’s m101 preamp. The fully balanced, transformerless m501 signal path incorporates 0.5% precision metal resistors, high performance output line driver and HPF amplifiers, and ‘exemplary’ RFI suppression. The first series of Spacebar components were designed for customers who required highly accurate, repeatable mic placement for stereo applications. The new series of Spacebars i n c l u d e configurations for surround, Decca Tree, Blumlein and AB stereo setups as well as accommodating those who need hanging systems for fixed installations. www.gracedesign.com

Kush Clarity Control

KuSh Audio’s Clarity Control aims to ‘lift your sounds out of the mud and bring your elements, buses, and mixes into extreme focus with the simple twist of a knob’. A second knob tightens up the low end while opening up ‘air and shimmer’ up top. The dual-channel tone shaper has 12 switches and four knobs while inside four ‘frequency-bending engines’ work in parallel with the two full-range signals and all six paths are blended inside an onboard mix bus. www.unityaudio.co.uk

November/December 2009

GEAR

Wohler 3G monitors with OLED

The AMP1-16-3G and the Dolby E-capable and Dolby Digital Plus ready AMP1-E16-3G from Wohler are 16-channel multirate audio monitors with a straightforward control interface. With superior screen performance and 3G support, AMP1-16-3G and AMP1-E16-3G are said to be smart, forwardlooking additions to any fixed or mobile broadcast facility. Equipped with dual selectable 3G/HD/SD inputs, the AMP116-3G and AMP1-E16-3G provide monitoring for 16 channels of embedded audio within a single multirate SDI signal. Central to the performance of the 1u rack mount monitors are three OLED screens, two of which can display 16 channels of audio simultaneously (8 per screen) as well as one line of Dolby metadata (E option only) with speeds up to and including 3G. The third screen can display video or 8 lines of user selectable Dolby metadata (E option only). Also new is the RMT-170-HD, a 17-inch high-definition desktop/rackmount LCD monitor with dual HD-SD/SDI inputs with loop through, and the RM-2443W-2HD, a quad 4.3inch HD/SD-SDI tilting video monitor with dual inputs and embedded audio metering and monitoring. www.hhb.co.uk

AEA A840 ribbon

D2424MK2 recorder

AEA’s A840 active studio ribbon has a wellcontrolled fig-8 pattern and a high output that yields compatibility with any preamp and input impedance. Response is said to run from below 20Hz to beyond 20kHz, with self noise of 17.5dB(A) and a SPL capability of 141dB. The A840 uses the same big ribbon as the A440, is 5lbs lighter and is less bulky. Due to its active JFET impedance buffer circuitry the new A840 is insensitive to lower preamp input impedances. The high output sensitivity reduces noise and allows long cable runs. This allows you to use your favourite tube preamp without compromising your classic ribbon sound. Designed for accent and solo work, its bass proximity effect is less pronounced and the upper 10 to 20kHz octave is stronger than the A440. www.ribbonmics.com

The new version of the Fostex D 2 4 2 4 hard disk recorder — t h e D2424LVmk2 — has a CF card slot in the second drive bay for the backup of recorded files from HD to FAT-formatted CF card in WAV format. It has all the other features of its predecessor, such as 24 balanced jacks for analogue I-O, 24/96 recording and recording to 24 tracks simultaneously. www.fostexinternational.com

www.delec.de

Redbox and Monitor additions The Sonifex RB-DMX4 is a digital mixer capable of mixing or routing four mono input channels into four mono outputs, or two stereo inputs into two stereo outputs. The inputs are sample rate converted to allow sources of different sample rates to be mixed with the output sample rate being defined independently. Each pair of inputs is selectable via front panel buttons. Two stereo outputs are available as simultaneous AESEBU balanced XLRs, SPDIF unbalanced phonos or Toslink unbalanced optical outputs. The RB-DD4 4-channel audio delay allows you to delay four channels independently or together. Each channel delay is user-selectable from multiples of common video frame rates, or a user defined value set via the serial interface. The Redbox Video Embedders and De-Embedders offer embedding and de-embedding for analogue and digital audio signals into and out of 3G, HD and SD-SDI video signals. They have simple front panel controls, standard BNC connectivity and remote operation. The new Reference Monitor Meters are a range of three freestanding and five 1u rackmount precision meters that handle between one and four stereo audio sources. Each stereo source auto-switches between analogue and digital. The Reference Monitor Controllers are four 1u rackmount control units that provide source selection, volume, Dim and Cut controls for external analogue monitors, together with light controls for the Sonifex SignalLED range of studio signs or similar. OpenGear is an open-architecture rack system developed by Ross Video to provide a standard rack-based platform with control via TCP/IP connectivity using a free application called Dashboard. Sonifex OpenGear cards include four versions of an eight output digital audio distribution amplifier, for unbalanced and balanced audio, with and without sample rate conversion. www.sonifex.co.uk

November/December 2009

Raise your expectations oratis commentary Live broadcasting is demanding, why then should you accept poor quality sound? The new oratis commentary system offers unparalleled audio quality with 24-bit/48-kHz (32-bit internal) studio quality signal processing and reference standard microphone preamps with 154- dBA dynamics.  Excellent audio quality

 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity

 Highest reliability

 Remote control and conﬁguration

 Integration of third-party systems

 Supports MADI, AES-EBU, and analogue audio

oratis commentary is an oratis application by DELEC manufacturer of the foremost technical platform for the integration of intercom, commentary, and broadcast audio into a single system.

made by experts

resolution

DELEC Audio- und Videotechnik GmbH / Ruhweg 17-21 67307 Göllheim (Germany) / Tel.: +49 6351 1317-0 www.delec.de / E-Mail: info@delec.de

GEAR

Powerful new Quested

MXL drum mics

Q u e s t e d ’s V 3 1 1 0 t h re e - w a y i s t h e company’s highestrated self-powered monitor with more than twice the amplifier power of the VS3208 it supersedes. It employs a long-throw 10-inch driver instead of the two 8-inch units in the 3208s, and a high-efficiency ‘Ultra Cool’ 700W Class D amp. Quested’s established approach of using Class A/B amplification for the HF and mid remains for the soft-dome HF and mid-range units. The V3110 comes with independent EQ/Trim for the HF, Mid and LF and optimised 24dB crossover slopes. www.quested.com

Focal sub

The MXL Cube and A-55 Kicker are said to be a response to requests for mics for recording drums and percussion. The unconventional looking Cube condenser has a gold sputtered, 6-micron diaphragm. For kick drums, bass cabinets, congas or any other low-frequency instruments, the MXL A-55 dynamic has a clean and clear pick up. Both have durable metal construction and come with a mic clip, carrying pouch and cleaning cloth. www.mxlmics.com

The CMS SUB is an active subwoofer designed to extend the frequency response of Focal’s CMS studio monitors. The 11-inch Polyglass cone woofer used is light and rigid and is created by applying a thin layer of hollow glass spheres on top of a cellulosebased cone. BASH technology is used for the output stage of the amplifier (300W RMS) and stereo inputs and outputs facilitate the connection of a pair of CMS monitors. A dedicated LFE input allows the use of the CMS SUB in a multichannel system. The subwoofer’s Low Pass settings have been optimised for the CMS 50 and 65. Phase inversion, phase adjustment and a mute switch can be remotely controlled by a standard foot pedal. The sub is housed in a front-ported 7/8-inch thick MDF cabinet and can generate an SPL of 113dB, according to the company. www.focalprofessional.com

DiGiCo expands SD7 with EX-007

CAPTURE EVERY THRILLING MOMENT From the roar of the stadium to the hush of the putting green, the DPA 5100 and 4017-R get you closer to the action, with clear, dynamic capture of any sporting event.

The EX-007 from Digico is designed to increase the number of available faders and the number of channels controllable at any one time on an SD7 and from a distance of up to 100m via Cat5 connection. It is possible to augment an SD7 with two EX-007s, each acting as control panel to provide 24 faders and two additional touch screens, as well as metering and other standard functions, transforming the SD7 into a 100-fader mixing console. The EX-007 networks to the SD7, has its own power supply and its own PC. For fixed installations, the EX-007 can be used as a remote surface allowing you to have the SD7 in the control room at the back of the theatre and the EX-007 in the auditorium. www.digico.org

CLASP ships

DPA 5100 Mobile Surround Microphone

DPA4017-r-5100 Resolution JP.indd 1

CLASP (Closed Loop Analogue Signal Processor) from Endless Audio integrates an analogue tape machine with a DAW for seamless analogue recording in the digital domain. CLASP is a hardware and software system that integrates analogue tape recorders with DAWs using a proprietary method called sample synchronisation technology. It delivers an analogue front end with the sonic character of your tape machine. www.endlessanalog.com

DPA 4017-R Shotgun Microphone with Rycote Windshield

resolution

Mackie Onyx-i

m 13/11/09 13.39

Mackie Onyx-i Series FireWire recording mixers have built-in 24-bit/96kHz FireWire I-O. The mixers have Onyx mic preamps and switchable Perkins EQ. You can record auxes, groups (1640i) and the master LR signal. The flagship 1640i incorporates a 16x16 FireWire interface. The series has 820i, 1220i, 1620i and 1640i models. www.Mackie.com

November/December 2009

GEAR

Duality SE SSL has released Duality SE. At the centre of improvements to the way Duality controls and communicates with DAW applications is the introduction of Ethernet connection between the console and DAW host computer. The existing MIDI ports on the console are retained and can be used for connection of other MIDI equipment. There is new dual-layer DAW control, enabling Duality to control two DAWs simultaneously with seamless switching of hardware surface controls between the two. The Duality Logictivity Browser has been refreshed with new features and a streamlined user interface. The Solo/Cut tiles across the console’s channel strips have been replaced with a new set of LCD screens. The analogue side of Duality receives 25 feature additions. The Talkback system sees the addition of an Autocue system that provides options to set how the Talkback and Listen switches and Red Light Mode physically operate or respond to Play or Record transport commands. The SSL Automation system has been enhanced with the addition of an Offline Trim facility, selection of Automation Update Status at the head of the mix and the addition of automation for all Cue, FX and EQ insert switches. The Monitor Volume control is also updated with a new Calibration facility, a new ‘fine’ mode that increments in 0.4dB steps and the ability to display in three different modes. The TotalRecall system receives an upgrade with the addition of an Autoscan feature that speeds up recall by conducting a sequential scan of the channels only stopping at those that require attention. Duality SE software is available as an upgrade option to existing Duality customers for US$1750. www.solidstatelogic.com

ATC three-way active The SCM25A Pro is ATC’s first compact, active three-way studio monitor. Designed for positioning on a meterbridge or rack-mountable for broadcast applications, the SCM25A Pro incorporates ATC’s proprietary short coil 7-inch carbon paper woofer, a three-inch soft dome midrange driver and a one-inch silk dome tweeter in a ported enclosure. The integrated tri-amplifier generates 150W for the woofer, 50W for the midrange and 25W for the tweeter. The passively cooled amp also has FET limiting and the crossovers are all 4th order. The SCM11 two-way passive monitor incorporates the company’s ‘Constrained Layer Damping’ (CLD) technology, which claims to reduce third-harmonic distortion between 100Hz and 3kHz. The new technology is incorporated in the 150mm mid/low driver with 45mm integral soft dome. The driver features an undercut bass pole, an in-house hand-wound precision flat wire coil, and a ‘massive’ optimised motor assembly. The driver is paired with a new soft dome 25mm neodymium high-frequency unit with an alloy ATC waveguide. www.atc.gb.net

Its no secret that Focusrite had a good start in life. Our first mic pre (the original ISA 110) was commissioned by Sir George Martin for Air Studios. The brief was simple, a no-compromise mic-preamplifier and EQ circuit. He liked it so much, he asked us to build one or two more. It turned out that Sir George was not the only one who wanted clean, whisper quiet pre’s. 25 years on, the iconic ISA design continues to capture details, not create them. Focusrite have been working with select retailers to establish a network of UK pro-dealers. These stores will be the only outlets in the UK where the ISA and Red ranges, the Liquid Channel and Liquid 4PRE will be available. Participating stores will be able to demonstrate units, loan items to prospective customers, and will always have units in stock available for purchase. Start your signal path with Focusrite clarity.

Phoenix Audio 8-channel preamp Phoenix Audio’s DRS8 is an 8-channel solid state Class A discrete mic preamp. Each channel has its own dedicated level control, -30db pad, phantom power, phase reverse, high pass filter and mute buttons. The unit has an 8-channel monitoring output facility so all channels can be sent directly to a monitor controller or a patchbay as well as having individual channel outputs. The design is based on the current family of DRS mic preamps like the DRS1 and DRS2, that all feature the DSOP2 output stage. www.phoenixaudio.net

-I

2 SA

I 8,

-R

R 1,

-T

UA Trident A Universal Audio has released the Trident A-Range Classic Console EQ Powered Plug-In for its UAD-1 and UAD-2 DSP accelerator cards. Included are a 4-band active EQ modelled from one of only 13 original Trident A-Range desks, an inductor-based EQ design yields band interaction between bell and shelving filters and the ability to combine cut filters for unusual filtering responses. Cosmetics match the original module’s ‘aubergine’ finish. Universal Audio has ‘refreshed’ its UAD-2 Neve Powered Plug-Ins line. The new UAD-2 Solo, Duo or Quad Neve packages, formerly known as the Nevana packages, include the only plugins officially licensed and developed in partnership with Neve UK. www.uaudio.com

November/December 2009

resolution

Participating stores will be: Birmingham - Digital Village, Bristol - Digital Village, Edinburgh - Red Dog Music, Herts - Studioxchange, Leeds - AudioCooker Music, Liverpool - Dolphin Music, Liverpool - Studiocare Professional Audio, London - Eastwood Sound and Vision , London: Clapham - Digital Village, London: Romford - Digital Village, London: Soho - HHB Communications, Manchester - PMT, Newcastle Upon Tyne - Sounds Live, Poole - Absolute Music Solutions

REVIEW

RSS M-380 The front end accompaniment to the Digital Snake has been enhanced with the introduction of a more compact desk. JON THORNTON gets a good look and likes what he sees.

ne of the advantages of being a relative latecomer to a particular sector is being able to learn from the mistakes of others. On the flip-side, if your competitors end up making very few mistakes then making inroads into market share and user acceptance can be something of an uphill struggle. Roland’s RSS group’s entry into the digital mixing market has been to some extent the logical progression of its Digital Snake product range. This has been around for a couple of years now, offering point-to-point connectivity in analogue and digital forms over Cat5 cables using the proprietary REAC format. The Digital Snake is a simple, rugged and well-engineered solution, but really only replaced an analogue multicore and stagebox. Back at FOH or monitor world, you still had to connect from a breakout box to the console using individual analogue or AES3 connectors. It was a no-brainer to remove this step, and build a digital console with REAC connectivity embedded in it.

The M-400 was the first offering, giving a total of 48 channels controlled by a bank of 24 faders. At first glance, it seems that the M-380 is a cut down version of the M-400. Physically it is — the M-380 is dimensioned to allow it to be rack-mountable for installation purposes, and this form factor also means that you lose the rear up-stand section of the M-400 that tilts the screen and many of the controls up at a nice angle. But in terms of total channel count, I-O capability, routing and busing options, and overall processing clout it’s actually near identical to its larger sibling. Obviously, the reduced width means that only 16 faders (plus a master fader) are available on the control surface, but that’s really the only major difference. The rear panel of the M-380 is extremely uncluttered for such a capable mixer –- largely because there are only eight balanced analogue inputs provided here. These appear on XLRs and feed a preamplifier before going through an onboard A-D stage. A pad allows them to operate with line resolution

and microphone level signals, and they can all carry phantom power (individually selectable). Another eight XLRs give balanced line level outputs, and there is also a stereo digital out (SPDIF) available on coaxial or lightpipe, an unbalanced stereo input on phonos, and a dedicated talkback microphone input on XLR. This relative sparseness of I-O is explained by the inclusion of three REAC ports. Using Cat5, these allow the connection of various peripherals (of which more later) that vastly expand the I-O options available. The main user interface of the M-380 is very straightforward, and helped no end by the use of a large, clear and bright colour display. The main fader bank includes illuminated Cut, Solo and Select switches, together with a small, but useful LED signal meter. A dedicated row of buttons by the master fader toggles these faders between banks. Operation follows the usual ‘select a channel and then adjust parameter’ method — and there are dedicated controls for the most common functions. At first I was a little thrown by the absence of a dedicated rotary encoder on each channel that could be toggled between pan, aux send level, etc. — instead there are dedicated pan and auxiliary send encoders, both of which alter these parameters on the selected channel. In the case of the aux send encoder, it controls the level of whichever auxiliary is selected by dedicated keys to the left of the fader block. It takes a little getting used to if you’re familiar with Yamaha consoles, for example, but after a while becomes very quick in practice. The top left of the console features dedicated encoders and switches for functions such as channel gain, EQ and some dedicated keys to access broad functional areas of the console. I particularly like the dedicated key that enables or disables the touch sensor select function on the faders — no more diving through layers of menus to find this. In terms of general architecture, the M-380 has 48 input channels, 16 auxiliary buses, a main output bus that can be configured as LR or LCR, and eight matrix outputs that can be sourced from different balances of the auxiliary and main buses. Mapping specific inputs to channels and signals to outputs is accomplished by some intuitive patchbay grids on the screen –- with these parameters being set by using a combination of cursor keys, data wheel and data entry keys on the right hand side of the screen. Options here include all of the inputs and outputs available on the rear channel, but can be added to by plugging in and configuring a REAC peripheral. The faders toggle between banks to control the 48 input channels, aux masters and matrix outputs. They can also be set to act as DCA group masters for up to eight freely assignable DCA groups. The M-380 also features onboard dynamics and effects. A gate and/or compressor can be assigned to any of the 48 input channels, and a limiter assigned to the main output and auxiliary buses. There is one catch here, in that only 24 compressors and 24 gates can be assigned at any one time. While this might not be problematic in most applications, it does seem a little mean in this day and age. Accessing the parameters for these is quite smart — dedicated ‘popup’ keys for the compressor and gate are provided, which bring up the parameters for these on-screen for the selected channel. The rotary encoders normally used for EQ can be used to set the parameters. This works much better than you might expect due to the on-screen parameters being arranged in the same configuration as the physical encoders, together with some clever changing of the LED colours for switches and encoders, which clearly shows what mode you are in. It’s little things like that this that make operation that much speedier. November/December 2009

REVIEW Onboard effects are also provided, with four stereo effects units available. Each of these can also be switched to act as a 31-band graphic EQ instead and, if desired, the graphic bands can be controlled by the main fader bank. The effects on offer are all of good quality and as well as the standard fare of reverb, delays and modulation effects they also include emulations of some classic Roland outboard, such as the RE201 Space Echo and Dimension D chorus. For review purposes, the M-380 was supplied with a S-1608 stage unit. This is a compact, powered box that provides 16 channels of remotely controllable preamp and eight analogue outputs. A single Cat5 crossover cable (Roland can supply a suitable 100m cable on a drum, terminated with Neutrik EtherCon connectors) gets these signals to and from the console in digital form with minimal (320 microseconds) latency. All of those A-D and D-A convertors are kept cool by a small fan that is thankfully much, much quieter than the fan on the larger S4000-S digital snake. What impresses here are two things. The first is the quality of the preamplifiers on offer in the digital snake and the eight available on the desk itself. It’s refreshing to realise that they aren’t an afterthought bolted on to the digital gubbins, but instead are quiet, open and don’t have the lack of depth and thin sounding quality that some other digital consoles in this price range seem to have. The second thing is just how tightly the digital snake integrates with the desk’s user interface. Once configured and assigned to input channels, you really aren’t aware that the remote preamps are not an integral part of the desk. The differing permutations of the REAC system does take a bit of understanding to fully appreciate the flexibility being offered. A single REAC port can support up to 40 channels of digital audio, and the M-380 has two main ports (A and B). Each REAC device is set to one of three modes — master, slave or split. The master/slave settings are easiest to grasp; with a digital snake connected to a REAC port the desk is set as the master and the snake set as a slave.

November/December 2009

Because REAC works over Cat5, the signal can be easily split by simply using an Ethernet switch. In this case, devices picking up the split signal are set to ‘split’ mode, and listen to the available signals. The M-380 is equipped with its own REAC split output, which is associated with the first REAC port (A). This can work as a redundant backup link for the device connected to REAC A or provide a REAC signal for a device in split mode. The clever bit is that this output can fill up the available 40 channels from signals generated from devices connected to both of the console’s REAC ports. So with a 1608 snake unit connected to ports A and B, the split output will mirror the eight channels of output sent from the desk to the first snake, the 16 channels of input from the first snake, and the 16 channels of input from the second snake. There are obvious uses for this if using another REAC-enabled desk to provide a broadcast feed, or for FOH and monitor desk applications. But with the appropriate driver installed on a PC, these signals can also be recorded using the Sonar DAW via a single Cat5 connection. As if these permutations of REAC consoles, digital snakes and PCs weren’t enough, RSS has introduced another REAC peripheral in the form of the M-48 live personal mixer. This allows up to 40 audio channels to be delivered to multiple M-48 units, which have their own onboard mixer. The neat bit is that the onboard mixer for each unit is set up remotely from the main mixer, in terms of balance of sources and assigning sources to up to 16 groups. The musician

resolution

then has control of the level, EQ and reverb send of each of these groups from stage. I didn’t have access to a unit to try it, but suffice to say that this function also seems very neatly tied together with the M-380’s user interface. It’s hard to know where to place the M-380 in the grand scheme of things. It’s not a full-on digital FOH/Monitor board in the same vein as the Yamaha MC7L or Soundcraft Si series, but neither is it a hardcore general purpose digital console like the Yamaha DM series. The extensive MIDI/RS232 remote control capabilities together with scene and setup recalls, configurable levels of user access and small foot print make it appealing for installations, but the lack of features like individual input and output delay settings might limit its application here slightly. There’s no doubting the capability and power of the REAC system though and it’s no surprise that the system has already found favour with the BBC, for example. But therein lies the rub; to get the most out of it you have to fully commit to the whole REAC infrastructure and peripherals — there are no other interfacing options such as those provided by Yamaha for its consoles. If you’re happy to make that leap of faith, though, it’s a tremendously powerful, flexible and easy to use system. n

PROS

Intuitive, flexible user interface; compact size; great sounding preamplifiers; immense flexibility with REAC signal distribution and peripherals; impressive feature set.

CONS

No option to use any other I-O expansion other than REAC peripherals; 16 faders makes running large live gigs tricky at times; more output processing options would be nice; REAC signal distribution and topology has a fairly steep learning curve.

Contact rss by roland, japan: Website: www.rolandsg.co.uk

REVIEW

SE 4400a & T2 There’s a lot of versatility and value to be had from a good dual-diaphragm multipattern mic. JON THORNTON investigates SE’s two takes on a general-purpose, high quality, large diaphragm capacitor.

hether up close and personal or squinting from a distance, the initial visual similarity between the SE4400a and a well known multipattern large diaphragm microphone of Austrian origin must be obvious to even the most uncritical of eyes. Closer inspection of the 4400a shows that in reality it’s a little larger and flatter and the construction marks a departure from SE’s typical tube shaped designs, which although fairly utilitarian looking, did make access to the innards extremely easy for servicing or just plain nosiness. The 4400a is much more compact than those designs and inspecting the innards would now require the use of a screwdriver; so I restrained myself. The main body of the microphone is of metal coated with a non-reflective material that seems soft, almost rubbery to the touch. This means that reflections from lighting, whether on stage or in a TV studio, is never going to be an issue aided by the fact that SE has not employed a ‘shiny-side/black-side’ approach to the head grille.

The 4400a has mechanical slide switches and these feel reassuringly positive in use and look like they have been engineered to last. They are also all located on the same side of the microphone, so all settings can be seen at a glance without having to bob around to the back. Two three-position switches give access to a pad (0, -10 or -20dB) and a high pass filter (flat, 60Hz or 120Hz). A further three-position switch selects polar pattern (omni, fig-8, cardioid), while a final two-position switch determines whether the cardioid pattern is normal or hypercardioid. The unit supplied for review was part of a matched stereo pair kit, which includes two microphones, a stereo bar and two shockmounts in a compact hard case. The company and its distributor are particularly proud of the shockmount, which doesn’t completely enclose the microphone but is open at the front. The advantages of this are threefold. First, it means that there’s good access to the switches on the mic body. resolution

Second, it allows the microphone to be swivelled forward to any angle while still in the mount. And finally, if necessary, the collar that holds the neck of the microphone can be swivelled through 180 degrees, allowing the mic to stand proud of the actual shock mount assembly so it can positioned very close to sound sources (guitar cabs, snare drums, etc.) without the mount getting in the way. It’s pretty neat and it works well. There’s still a slight utilitarian look to it, in common with other SE mounts but it’s a step in the right direction and complements the visual appearance of the microphone itself. Internally there’s a 1-inch, centre-terminated dual diaphragm capsule that is derived from the single diaphragm design used in the SE2200a. Sensitivity is good (quoted at 14.1mV/Pa) and equivalent noise a respectable, if not massively quiet 17dB(A). I have to admit that I had some preconceptions about how the 4400a would sound before I put it up in the studio, based entirely on my experience of other SE designs. While the rest of the range never has the strained, splashy character of some Chinese manufactured microphones, they still tend to sound a little bit bright in comparison to European counterparts. So I was pleasantly surprised that, with the cardioid setting on vocals, acoustic guitar and percussion all brittleness seems to have been completely dialled out. In comparison to the latest 414, the 4400a is a tiny bit brighter and perhaps doesn’t have quite the low November/December 2009

REVIEW frequency reach — but these characteristics are not necessarily a bad thing, as they tend to make the 4400a slightly more flattering on many sources. Switching to omni and fig-8 patterns does change this tonality a surprising amount — the sound hardens up a little, and the omni pattern in particular seems to be a little uneven as you move around the axis of the microphone. The 4400a isn’t unusual in this regard, as this is common with many dual diaphragm designs but it does seem quite noticeable here. However, in general, the microphone does a very respectable job in a number of applications and does it in a very natural, open and unhyped fashion. Of course, for some applications these tonal characteristics can be just that little bit too restrained and SE has an answer for that in the T2. This microphone has the same form factor of the 4400a but is finished in silver rather than that very matte

PROS

CONS EXTRAS

Compact size; flexible suspension mount makes positioning very easy; smooth and unflustered sound; T2 works extremely well on percussion and voice; 4400a is a good all-rounder.

black. The key differences are more than cosmetic though, as while it shares the same electronics and chassis as the 4400a, the capsule is completely different. It’s actually the capsule from the Titan, which featured diaphragms coated in titanium rather than gold. The idea here is that titanium is lighter and stiffer than gold, which should translate to a superior transient response. The T2 does sound very different to the 4400a and these differences are most obvious on percussion and vocals, where it adds a sense of definition and edge to the sound that makes it sound almost hyper-real. It’s a very different effect to simply tuning the diaphragm differently or fiddling with the electronics, as the differences are very dependent on the source being recorded, rather than an overall brighter tonality. Enhanced crispiness is probably the best description I can come up with but again with no sense of ever

sounding brittle or strained. I went into this review almost not wanting to like these microphones — I’ve always been and remain a big fan of AKG’s workhorse — but these microphones aren’t trying to copy the 414, instead they’ve been inspired by it. They are both a little less brutally honest, but achieve what they set out to do, which is to be a genuinely useful, versatile all-round studio tool. I’d go so far as to say that, all things considered, these are probably the best microphones SE has yet produced, and should be seen as the company coming of age. I’d certainly not hesitate to give them mic cupboard space. n

Contact se electronics, china: Website: www.seelectronics.com UK: +44 845 500 2500

All-in-One 16:4:2 Digital Mixing and 16-Track Multitrack Recording

Response gets a little lumpy in fig-8 and omni modes; not quite as neutral as a 414. SE is shipping new MI products leading up to 2010 and its 10th anniversary. The X1 large diaphragm condenser is hand-built in SE’s own facility and boasts a 10dB pad and bass cut. The SE Project Studio Reflexion Filter uses the same basic design as the Pro version but omits the multiple layers and acoustic boundaries of that version and replaces them with the same, patented, polyester acoustic board. It is then lined with a high grade, high density crystal foam with a unique curved ridge cut.

LR16

Live Recording Mixer T-5L CADIGLITTACORE MU

The company is also bundling the X1 with the Project Studio RF and its established sE2200a with the Reflexion Filter.

The new Fostex LR16 is a clever all-in-one solution integrating a flexible, feature-rich live digital mixer with a full-specification 16-track Multitrack Hard Disc Recorder and CAT-5 Digital Multicore. A totally new concept, this easy-to-use audio tool can serve as a FOH or on-stage mixer and is ideal for schools, houses of worship, clubs, coffee houses, project studios, mobile recording and rental sound/recording, etc. - In fact any application where flexibility of use is important. Also Available: LM16 - Live Mixer Model - see online for more information

November/December 2009

resolution

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

REVIEW

Mytek Digital 8X192 Eight channels of bidirectional conversion bundled together with some useful tricks and additions. JON THORNTON says this is a box from a brand that is not as well known as it deserves to be.

n the world of high end A-D and D-A convertors, Mytek may not be as well known as brands such as Prism or Apogee, but it has been in this game for some time now, and gained quite a following. About as boutique as you can get in pro audio (how does ‘Designed in the USA, manufactured in Poland’ grab you as a tag-line?) the 8X192 is the most recent offering from a company whose aim is to make this most critical component as ‘straight-wire’ and uncoloured as possible. Housed in a 1u rackmount, the 8X192 (Euro 3120) offers eight channels of A-D and eight channels of D-A conversion, at (as the model number suggests) sample frequencies up to 192kHz. Look a little closer though, and you find that some neatly thought out options and features makes this box more than just a basic convertor. As standard, the Mytek box ships with AESEBU I-O. This appears on the rear panel on a single DB25 connector following the pin-out conventions established by Digidesign. Also on the rear panel are eight channels of balanced analogue I-O again on a DB25 connector. Operating level for input and output comes off the assembly line set to +4dBu = -15dBFS, although this can be adjusted if required by lifting the top cover and getting busy with a tweaker. In addition to the standard AES-EBU fare, users can install option cards to allow different flavours of I-O. Currently available choices are the fairly generic ADAT and TDIF standards, and also some DAW specific options allowing direct interfacing to Pro Tools HD and Sonic Solutions systems. The most recent addition is a FireWire card that allows the transfer of eight channels of audio to and from a Mac or PC, but also allows multiple 8X192s to be cascaded together to increase this channel count (although this does require each unit to have its own FireWire card). A DSD I-O card is also available. Up to two DIO option cards can be fitted to each unit, and the review model came with the Pro Tools HD and FireWire option installed. Initial testing was carried out using the Pro Tools HD option, with the 8X192 as the only connected interface to an HD3 system. The Mytek unit appears in the Pro Tools software as a Digidesign 192 interface in common with other units that allow direct connection to HD systems. Turning for a moment to the front panel this has a number of pushbuttons with a vast array of status LEDs allowing a number of different configurations. First up is clock selection and sample rate for the internal clock. Mytek recommends that where possible the unit runs from its own clock, which has a quoted 24

jitter of <10pico-seconds — Mytek is fairly serious about this, witnessed by no less than six buffered Word clock outputs on BNCs on the rear panel. A DIP switch on the rear panel also allows these to be set to output Super-clock if desired — handy if using the unit simultaneously with Digidesign peripherals. Sample rates for the internal clock range from 44.1kHz to 192kHz, but if an external clock source is desired, this can be selected from an external BNC input on the rear panel, from the AES inputs or from the inputs on either of the two interface cards. Sample rate has to be manually set, even if an external clock source is selected, and another switch allows the Word clock (output and input) to be a division (half or quarter) of the sampling rate. In short, there are enough options here to allow the 8X192 to be successfully integrated with the most complex of scenarios. Normally the output of the A-DC feeds all available digital outputs, but any of the digital input options can also be selected as an alternate source, allowing a degree of digital format (but not sample rate) conversion to be accomplished. In a similar vein, the D-AC stage can be fed from any of the digital input sources, or directly from the output of the A-DC if minimum signal path/latency is important in monitoring. A bank of LEDs gives some crude but useful metering of the eight channels at the A-DC or D-AC stage. Finally, the 8X192 features a simple stereo mixer. This feeds the outputs of the D-AC to a pair of balanced analogue outputs on the rear panel and to a high quality headphone monitor on the front panel. The headphone output routes via a stepped attenuator and the rear output can also be selected to route via this attenuator if required — the knob for this looks a little out of proportion with the rest of the unit and sticks out quite a way, which would give me some concern for its longevity in some environments. Sources for the mixer are either individual logical pairs of D-AC outputs or all eight of them summed logically to stereo (i.e. odd numbered outputs all feed the left bus, even numbered outputs feed the right bus). Once you spend a little time with this box it’s very straightforward to use. There are a lot of options to consider though so a thorough read of the manual is recommended. Aside from the usual issues when using a non-Digidesign peripheral with Pro Tools HD (you have to double check that the sync and sample rate settings are set correctly on hardware and software), set up was pretty painless. First impressions of the unit are that it sounds quiet and solid when tasked with some basic tracking duties for drums and bass guitar. To get a slightly better resolution

comparative feel, a Digidesign 192 I-O was added to the system to record sources simultaneously using the two units; there are a number of options in terms of clocking here but eventually I settled on keeping the Mytek as the master clock for the system. After compensating for level differences (my 192s are set to work at a slightly hotter reference level), A/Bing individual sources showed some subtle differences. The 8X192 is best described as sounding a little bit harder than the 192, not in unpleasant way, but in the sense that there seems to be a little more definition to the attack of sounds. This was even more obvious when a stereo mix was played into both convertors and the results compared. The Mytek box has a clear edge in terms of absolute imaging, and percussive sounds that are competing in a fairly dense mix seem to have much more definition. Having said that, 24 channels of the Mytek solution is going to be an expensive proposition for a tracking facility but where the 8X192 scores is in the flexibility it offers in terms of clocking and signal path options. As a result, I can see it proving extremely popular as an alternative A-D/D-A solution that will play very happily alongside other devices, with the added bonus of working as something of a digital audio problem solver. n

PROS

Great sounding A-D and D-A; good choice of additional interfacing options; extremely flexible options for Word clock selection and distribution; builtin mixer useful in minimalist tracking environments.

CONS

Not cheap; clock source and distribution options take a little thinking about; protruding knob on stepped attenuator looks like a rackmount accident waiting to happen…

EXTRAS

Mytek’s stereo 192 D-AC with 192kHz PCM and DSD features USB and FireWire in addition to AES, SPDIF and Toslink inputs. The box will be available early next year in industrial and 1/3-rack formats.

Contact mytek digital, us: Website: www.mytekdigital.com

November/December 2009

REVIEW

Marantz PMD661 It is not uncommon now to encounter features on a portable solid state recorder that you wouldn’t want to use even on your DAW. ZENON SCHOEPE discovers a recorder that actually does less than most.

e are steered by our likes, dislikes and plain old prejudices far more that we ever like to let on yet acknowledging this human condition is a step on the road to contentment. I have a deep dislike of small shiny electrical devices. I love a small mic and I’ll marvel at the skill and engineering involved in creating a multipin fastening connector but anything that purports to be a ‘machine’ better be bigger than my hand. There is something undignified in overly miniaturised electronics; something toy-like and temporary, trivial and disposable. To my sensibilities there is nothing cool, swish or ‘advanced technology’ about shouting into a telephone the size of a fun size chocolate bar. Miniaturisation was useful to get men on the moon but now it aims only to impress consumers; we benefit from the circuits and the components but professional applications don’t benefit from a miniaturised interface. To me there is a minimum size for a ‘machine’ and that is dictated by a practical and repeatable ability to hit a particular button or switch accurately in a variety of circumstances. This minimum size diktat is also driven by the requirement to give at least adequate visual feedback to the user. Many of the solid state recorders currently on the market are simply too small for me. Unless you adopt some contorted ten-pin bowler-style handshake grip on the thing then your fingers will obscure the controls and the screen. And the sensitivity of these small devices to hand noise remains a problem when you place them on a surface as they still respond to every knock and creak. That really is the rub — these are meant to be portable recorders and while they are capable of high quality results using external input sources they are going to be used primarily with their in-built mics. I have been using Marantz portables for all my recording of such things as interviews for more than a decade now. My first ‘serious’ cassette portable was a Marantz and when that became uneconomical to fix I moved very reluctantly to a PMD670. As it happened this was a perfect transition to digital for me as it was a large, chunky and dependable feeling machine with lots of switches and I-O. I’ve been using the PMD661 (UK£529 + VAT) since it came out; it is the best portable recorder I have ever used. Let’s start by telling you what it doesn’t have. It doesn’t have effects or EQ, the ability to dub a karaoke vocal over previously recorded programme, or some infuriatingly impossible yet comprehensive

means of editing. No, there are none of those daft things — this is a recorder that, err, records. If you want to edit then you can pull the stuff of the SD or SDHC card via USB 2.0 into your DAW of choice or you can use the supplied PMD Mark Editor software on CD to do the same. What you do get is a chunky handheld solid state recorder that will run at 44.1, 48, and 96kHz and 16 or 24-bit to Broadcast WAV (or MP3) from two XLR inputs (mic/line switchable) with phantom power or from the two builtin condensers. There’s also a SPDIF digital input, an additional 1/8-inch stereo line input and phono line outputs. Of special note is an excellent headphone circuit on ¼-inch with a thumbwheel volume control and this is placed at the head-end of the PMD with the individual but gangable record level pots and a whole width’s worth of LED input/output metering. Activity centres on a wonderfully clear OLED that shows you timing info or the menu functions. The PMD661 operates in Preset modes with a preset being a user configurable combination of all the variables you have a choice in. Thus you would set up a preset for using external mics at 24/96 PCM or a no-brainer MP3 configuration with Automatic Level control. Fortunately, and it’s something I was extremely grateful for when I first encountered that PMD670, Marantz ships its units in configurations that work straight out of the box and so it is with the PMD661. This powers up using the internal mics in stereo (you can run in mono) with manual record level control and a good speech friendly recording rate. You power up on the flick switch on the right hand side of the unit and you can be in record with the Record button lit solid red in just over 5 seconds. There’s a Record Pause and Stop while the track forward/back, Play scrub forward/back keys live west and east on a ring that surrounds the Play/Pause button. North and south raise and lower the varispeed for playback and there’s also user-definable skipback; this is a machine that understands it will be used for transcription (hoo-blinking-ray). The Menu button allows you to access and to resolution

configure the presets, the display format, time/date, access utilities (like setting timer record, save settings and format the card), set the language and check the firmware version. A nice touch is ready access to your track list on a dedicated button beneath the screen, which among other things allows you to delete, copy and move files. Within Play you can copy a segment, divide a file or add Marks after the event but it’s simple useful stuff that you could need when you’re miles away from a computer. Power comes from four AAs and Marantz claims 5 hour’s operation. I used rechargeables and there’s a DC input for a supplied PSU too. Things I like about this PMD apart from the size, which is just so right in my hand, is the lack of handling noise and how immediate everything is. Your thumb operates the Record and Record Pause buttons, the metering is slanted for clarity and the record level pots are easy to get at. I could find no sign of a limiter although there must be one as when you do hit the end stops it rarely sounds catastrophic. I like the logic of this device; it’s clear to follow and immediate to ‘get’ and you’re reassured that you’re unlikely to press a button and do something that you will later regret. The mic pres are quiet and lively and while this is a very unlikely looking candidate for 24/96 recording it is perfectly within its abilities to deliver stunning results. Of course, I used the built-in mics and they’re great and up to all the speech applications that I needed it for. It is a great package. But there’s got to be some downsides. Well, 2 seconds’ prerecord is not quite enough for my reaction times. Maybe the SD door cover is a little flimsy but my machine has had a hard life so far and nothing has fallen off it so the design is probably sound. I don’t like where the carrying strap fixes to the front because it clutters the head end panel but I can’t think of any better place to put it. And that’s the best I can do… What Marantz has done is distilled its ideas down and obviously also listened to users because the PMD661 is one of those rare examples of a device that does less than other machines in its broad price range but is so much better as a result. That’s the true qualification for the professional moniker as we’ve discussed so many times in these pages before. It’s not just about having XLRs; it’s more about approach and sensibilities. This is a fabulous machine that I would recommend unreservedly. n

PROS

Fantastic package of features and performance; rugged; easy to use; the right size, weight and scale; professional.

CONS

Only 2s of prerecord; some might want all those ‘other’ features.

Contact marantz, japan Website: www.d-mpro.com

November/December 2009

www.solid-state-logic.com

On-air audio mixing. Simplified. The smart way.

C10 HD. Compact, affordable, powerful and easy to use. The C10 HD brings an unprecedented combination of size, price and performance to the mid-scale broadcast console market. It delivers the quality, features, power and robust reliability of the world's finest broadcast audio console range... in a compact, affordable system. C10 HD solves many broadcast and production challenges with innovative operational features that simplify and/or automate key processes. It helps users of all skill levels deliver professional results with a simple, logical interface that is easy to operate. C10 HD is straightforward and cost-effective to install with DSP processing built into the control surface, offers a choice of fader configurations and a range of I/O options to suit a wide spectrum of applications and budgets. C10 HD is production automation ready. For full features and specifications, visit the new C10 HD at www.solid-state-logic.com/broadcastsound

C10 HD. This is SSL. Oxford +44 (0)1865 842300 New York +1 (1)212 315 1111 Los Angeles +1 (1)323 549 9090 Paris +33 (0)1 48 67 84 85 Milan +39 039 2328 094 Tokyo +81 (0)3 5474 1144

REVIEW

Cartec EQP-1A Surely the audio industry’s most imitated product, in hardware and in software, is the Pultec EQP-1A Program Equalizer. GEORGE SHILLING encounters an impressive new imitation.

he original EQP-1A was developed at the beginning of the 1950s in New Jersey, the Pultec company’s formal name was Pulse Technologies, the operation was run entirely by Ollie Summerland and Eugene Shank until the company folded in the late 1970s. The original EQ design remained largely unchanged during that entire period and the units were all handbuilt by the pair. Pultec’s passive EQ was combined with a valve gain make up circuit to bring the level back up by the 16dB or so caused by insertion loss. The amplifier circuitry was originally licensed from Western Electric (the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 until 1995). Following the demise of Pultec, original units became highly prized. Tube-Tech has marketed its fairly authentic looking full size (3u) version of the EQP-1A since the mid 1980s and other designs inspired by the original include Summit’s EQP200B (stereo) and EAR’s excellent 822Q in 2u rack cases, and Manley/Langevin EQP-1As squashed into 1u but there are also others. In software there are numerous emulations from the likes of Bomb Factory, Universal Audio and Waves. The original hardware Pultecs are still incredibly desirable. Cartec has come out with a careful clone of the original that improves on the noise floor. Everything inside is of the highest quality and wired point-to-point and as a bonus Cartec can easily provide matched pairs. Liam Carter is the man behind the company and has resisted any temptation to add extra features to the original design but claims better accuracy of emulation than rivals mainly by virtue of a valve rectifier in the power supply. This lends the unit the pronounced compression effect brought about by power supply sag. Many clone-tecs use a solid state power supply. Carter is an inveterate tinkerer, having spent childhood years fiddling with electric guitars and building pickups, repairing guitar amplifiers, and playing with passive filter designs, which is what led him to build himself a Pultec clone. The prototype was lent to Cenzo Townshend for an extended period, and he later stated that it was ‘the best replica of the Pultec I have heard.’ Resolution was lucky enough to obtain a preproduction unit from KMR Audio. The front panel is remarkably similar to an original, with all the knobs, switches and etching closely resembling a Pultec, even down to the lovely bright red jewel lens and

lamp. The pots used are PEC KK Series, the company formerly known as Allen and Bradley and original suppliers to Pultec, and switches are sealed Grayhill units. Internally there are transformers mounted on the case bottom and the rear panel supplied by Sowter — audio input, output and interstage, an enormous mains transformer and the inductor, and three boards with an array of 1% tolerance resistors and high quality capacitors. The three valves (JJ branded ECC83, ECC82 and 6X4 rectifier) are mounted on a separate board but just about everything is mounted so it connects directly. At the end of the review period Carter himself kindly delivered a production unit and this featured one single neat main circuit board inside — no longer are there components mounted on the rear panel, nor extra small boards for frequency selection, with the mains transformer being the only component mounted directly to the case. I heard no difference, but shorter cable connections should improve audio performance if anything. The dark green front panel looks smarter with yellowfilled engraving and amber lamp, and the case was far shallower at 155mm front to back in aluminium rather than steel; lighter yet more robust. Although this one had a solid top panel, final versions will be vented. Cartecs should certainly travel better than Pultecs and with all components soldered to turrets any required servicing should prove straightforward. Carter presently hand-builds units himself, and makes an excellent job of finishing them. The low band is shelving and provides continuous Boost and Attenuate knobs scaled from zero to 10, along with a four-position frequency selector with 20, 30, 60 and 100Hz. The original Pultec manual clearly states ‘Do not attempt to boost and attenuate simultaneously on the low frequencies’. Of course, this is nonsense, and generally that is what engineers do when presented with a Pultec, as it provides a highly desirable effect. The frequencies and characteristics of boost and attenuation do not mirror each other exactly, and essentially there is something of a dip in the frequency just above the boost, slightly reducing low-mid muddiness while adding deep warmth. The Cartec does this beautifully, smoothly and very satisfyingly. You might imagine that the 20 and 30Hz bands have little use but they are extremely effective on kick drums and bass parts, adding a warmth and depth like no other EQ. At 60 or 100Hz the combination of Boost and Attenuate lends vocal resolution

performances a very appealing warmth. There is some magical compression evident when tweaking the push and pull of the low end simultaneously, and the Cartec is supremely satisfying in this area, no doubt due to the aforementioned power supply sag effect. The mid/high band is boost-only, with switched frequencies at 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12 and 16kHz. The Boost and Bandwidth knobs are both scaled zero to 10 and at higher frequencies with a broad setting you experience a beautifully sweet sheen. Apparently Townshend set his to a 16kHz boost and left it there for six months! The only harshness possible is by narrowing the bandwidth to minimum and selecting one of the lower frequencies — there is a surprising amount of ‘needle’ available at full tilt but that’s not why you generally employ a Pultec. However, this technique (perhaps not quite at full tilt or narrowest setting) can certainly lend a biting character to such things as guitar sounds. The high band is an attenuate-only shelf with three frequency settings of 5, 10 and 20kHz and this can provide relief from harsh signals, sometimes enhancing warmth when applied with the low band to bass sounds. The Cartec seems to have all the warmth of low end and subtle sweetness of high frequency boost as the original Pultec while indeed remaining true to its promise of low noise, which always remains well out of the way of any audio signal. Even with the filters switched out, the EQP-1A subtly enhances a signal. And there is plenty of headroom, even working with fairly potent digital audio signals. The prospect of a matched pair across the mix is mouth-watering, and at a price of UK£1,700 (+ VAT) per unit, this compares well with (perhaps less authentic) rivals. Furthermore, Carter has his hands on a Pultec MB-1 microphone preamp and intends to build a dualchannel unit and possibly an eight channel mic amp or 8 x 2 mixer (with 21 valves!). Can’t wait. n

PROS

Very authentic Pultec clone; low noise; great build.

CONS

No ‘hard-wire’ bypass of all circuitry.

Contact cartec, uk: Website: www.cartecaudio.com UK, KMR Audio: +44 208 445 2446

November/December 2009

Exhibit at IBC2010 Raise your profile, move into new markets, develop distribution channels and generate sales leads • • • • •

45,000+ attendees from over 130 countries 1300+ of the industry’s leading companies 76% of visitors at senior decision making level Specialist Mobile, Digital Signage and IPTV zones Leading event for professionals involved in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment and electronic media content

• •

World renowned conference with over 300 global leaders presenting their views on the future direction of this industry sector To exhibit at IBC2010 contact the Exhibition Team at:

exhibition2010@ibc.org

the content

Conference 9 - 13 September Exhibition 10 - 14 September RAI Amsterdam

experience

be sure to be part of IBC2010, keep tabs at...

creation management delivery

www.ibc.org IBC Fifth Floor International Press Centre 76 Shoe Lane London EC4A 3JB UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7832 4100 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7832 4130 Email: exhibition2010@ibc.org

REVIEW

Fostex FM-3 Small and nicely appointed this field mixer marks a natural new product direction for Fostex. NEIL HILLMAN takes one to Portugal in search of a miracle.

he Fostex FM-3 3-channel field mixer has entered a fairly crowded arena that already contains some pretty stiff competition such as the Sonosax SX-M32, the Sound Devices 302, the AETA Mixy and Shure’s FP33; and all of these challenge the Fostex on features or cost and in some cases, both. But the FM-3 (UK£1399 + VAT) does offer the essential credentials of what has now become de-rigeur for this small-mixer sector: three balanced inputs and two balanced outputs on high-quality transformers, comprehensive monitoring options including MS decoding, with microphone powering selectable between 48V phantom, 12V Tonader and Dynamic, and adjustable limiting; and with a similar footprint to the Fostex FR2-LE card recorder, it’s a logical marriage for a self-contained, over-the-shoulder solution... Which is how I equipped myself for a sound-only effects recording trip to Portugal to the Marian shrine of Fatima, for the most significant day of its calendar — 13 October. Each year nearly 800,000 pilgrims descend on the town to remember and celebrate one of the Catholic Church’s most documented and photographed miracles: the appearance of The Virgin Mary to more than 70,000 people on 13 October 1917. On that day, it is said that She spoke to three chosen children directly — Lucia Santos, and her young cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, who became known as ‘the little seers’ — about the rise and fall of Communism, the advent and time of the second world war and the assassination of the Pope, and put in place a heavenly spectacle that journalists at the time described as ‘the day the sun danced’. Certainly the sun shone brightly on this 13 October and it created the first problem I encountered with the FM-3. While described by the manufacturer as being highly visible, I found the organic EL meters very difficult to see in sunlight, a task made impossible by wearing sunglasses. To compound this shortcoming, the meters also sit in a far too small window on the front face of the device, directly above the knurled, push-locked, rotary output faders. The left side of this front face is dominated by the three rotary input faders, similarly knurled and pleasantly tactile; with a channel input peak LED, the Left/Centre/Right routing to the stereo bus toggle selector switch and the channel PFL pushbutton neatly arranged in a row above each fader. The peak LEDs show green at 12dB below the internal maximum level and red at 3dB below

maximum level. (These internal thresholds for the tiny bargraph peak meters are adjustable, but more about this later.) Below the input faders sit two further, smaller, push-locked rotary controls: channel gain (between -30dB and -70dB for microphone level inputs and between +4dB and +20dB for Line level inputs) and alongside that, a switchable High Pass Filter; selectable continuously between 40Hz and 300Hz at 12dB/octave. The right hand quarter of the front face is busy, given over to a ¼-inch headphone socket, with its

associated selector switch directly above, offering Left, Right, Stereo, Left+Right, Left-Right, MS, Return and Aux Out options, with a headphone level control alongside; again a small, knurled, push-locked pot. Completing this bottom row of controls is the Limiter selector toggle switch, enabling the Limiter to be on, linked or off. A similarly vertically-mounted toggle switch is used for the selectable Slate Mic/1kHz oscillator, as well as for the top right hand corner Power switch, selectable between internal batteries or 10V–24V external battery/mains adapter. A LED flashes alongside the power switch when battery level falls below 8.7V, with audio muting occurring when the level falls below 7V. And so, back to the unfortunate metering. There are five levels of brightness available, determined by direct pushing of the + and – buttons next to the meter window: hold the ‘–‘ button for 3 seconds from rest and the lighting scale shows; simply push the plus or minus buttons for more or less illumination. Let go for 8 seconds and the meter is set. holding the ‘+’ button for 3 seconds from rest opens the meter resolution

to display a larger left only or right only VU scale, or the default, smaller, twin VU scales with tiny bargraph peak scales at the two outside edges of the window. It’s this above all else that irritates about the FM-3 — the metering is inadequate. The peak scales are visually too small, the moveable, assignable metering ranges and thresholds unnecessarily fiddly and VUs are inappropriate, in my opinion, for a location recording device primarily aimed at speech. Just tell us when we’re close to a peak of 0dbfs; then make it large enough so we can see it, and bright enough that we might read it in sunlight. This meter display panel also serves as the central status indicator and, by means of the status edit pushbutton, allows such things as the microphone ‘T power’ to be deselected to conserve battery power, the limiter threshold to be set between +6db or +12db and the limiter ratio to be selected between 3:1 or 5:1. Shown across three pages is the input signal path (displaying the mic power selected, mic or line level input selected, HPF status, aux in status), the output signal path (displaying limiter in/out, Threshold and Ratio, main output preset level, sub mix preset output level and prefade feed and preset level), and a page showing the internal battery type selector (alkaline/ ni-mh), the adjustable peak level offset with respect to 0VU, and the adjustable threshold for the peak overload LED. Given the complexity of this front face with its status module, the two side panels are reassuringly straightforward. The left side houses the three inputs on Neutrik XLRs with the Aux in connector to the stereo bus being an XLR-5 socket. Each of the channel inputs has two toggle switches beneath it: one, a 2-way, selecting mic or line level, the other a 3-way, selecting between 12V T-power, dynamic or 48V phantom. Beneath the Aux in socket is a slider, switching the input on or off. A male 4-pin connector is available to take DC power between 10V and 24V, with a miniature 4-pin socket providing a 0.5A feed between 7.2V and 24V. The right hand side of the FM-3 houses the main stereo outputs on XLRs with the parallel sub mix output feed on a male XLR-5 — a 4-way slider underneath each socket selects output levels of +4dB, 0dB, -20dB or -60dB. A row of four 3.5mm sockets for additional headphones, Tape Return, Tape Out and Aux out run along the bottom edge, with the Aux out rotary switching between: off, channels 1/2, 2/3, 1/3, left/right and left + right. A final slider switches the Aux output level between -10dB and -60dB. The battery cartridge houses eight AA cells and is ejected or locked by a catch. For my miracle gig, the FM-3 performed very well, sonically at least. The mic amps were pleasingly quiet, the limiter limited, but the metering left me feeling I was working on blind faith; a pretty tall order for such a sceptic as me. Yet the recordings with my trusty Pearl MS-8CL were all clear, crisp and clean; so maybe, just maybe, I should have had more faith in the 13th day. n

PROS

The rugged aluminium construction is beautifully assembled; light power consumption.

CONS

Poor meters; MS decoding on the main outputs would be useful.

Contact fostex, japan: Website: www.fostexinternational.com UK, SCV London: +44 208 418 0778

November/December 2009

“ Man! This thing really DOES sound like ass! ” (Joe Barresi - Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age)

Cabinets for guitar re-amping Megaphones for windy protest marches Phones and radios for hip hop and post pro Trent Reznor in the trunk of a Volvo on a moonlit parking lot It’s a plug-in but not as we know it.

speakerphone 2

see and hear it all UK Distribution: www.unityaudio.co.uk Tel: 01440 785843 • Fax: 01440 785845 • sales@unityaudio.co.uk

audioease.com/tour see and hear it all

“Indispensable for anyone working in sound for picture”

Rob James, Resolution magazine

“Paradise for the creative sound designer” Professional audio magazine

“Genius”

Professional audio musik & equipment

“Instantly un-Steely Dan any recording” Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails

“I can’t praise it highly enough, it’s quirky, original, easy to use, and deeply inspirational, perhaps most important of all, it’s a whole Mig cockpit full of fun” Sound on Sound Magazine

“I use multiples on every mix”

Chad Blake (Peter Gabriel, Sheryl Crow)

“I love it !”

George Shilling, Resolution Magazine

REVIEW

Tascam DR-100 Affordable portable recorders are appearing like mushrooms in autumn. ROB JAMES is careful in what he picks.

he UK£346 (+ VAT) DR-100 is the second Tascam model to come my way recently and first impressions are promising. The unit feels robust and cool to the touch since, although mainly plastic, it is skinned with metal. My only visual reservation is the rather garish silver ‘mic capsules’ and wire protectors. The real capsules are mounted at an angle inside. Between the ‘capsules’ sits the SD card slot, well protected with a captive cover and above the screen are apertures for the two omni directional capsules and the internal speaker. The controls are all recessed, and operation by touch alone is perfectly possible. Input level is set with concentric wheels for left and right channels that fall naturally under the thumb when the unit is held in your right hand. A slide switch on the rear sets mic gain range with a choice of Low, Medium or High settings. As ever, a bit more gain would have been welcome; the maximum setting corresponds to -58dBu. Also on the rear are slide switches for +48V phantom, analogue auto/limiter on/ off and internal speaker on/off. The Auto gain control or Limiter choice is made in the Input settings menu along with bass cut, if desired, at 40Hz, 80Hz or 120Hz. The same menu also enables a single external mic to be recorded to both left and right channels of a stereo file. The limiter is in circuit permanently when the line input is chosen. On the left-hand side you find the mini USB socket, 5V external power, press and hold Power Switch and Hold slider, headphone/speaker output volume pot and headphone 3.5mm jack socket and the -10dBv line in and out 3.5mm jack sockets. A further 3.5mm 4-pole jack socket for the wired remote sits between the XLR sockets on the base. A welcome mic stand bush is fitted in the middle of the rear panel almost, but not quite, on the balance point. While operation is sufficiently intuitive to allow me to make my first recording less than a minute after taking the DR-100 out of the box the set-up functions may require a little delving into the user manual. Pressing the Menu button brings up the top level menu and the smooth data wheel scrolls up and down the headings. Pressing the Enter/Mark button in the middle of the data wheel opens the selected sub-menu. Parameters are altered with the data wheel and accepted with the Enter/Mark button. The |<< and >>| buttons tab between fields and the Menu button takes you up one level in the hierarchy. From the top level, Menu exits the settings pages. The orange back-lit display is clear and not too cluttered. At the bottom of the front panel the Stop, Play/Pause and Record buttons are accompanied by a small Auto button that is used to invoke the automatic recording feature. Recording starts when a user defined level threshold is exceeded and stops, creates a new file or adds a mark when the level drops below a second threshold. A momentary press of the |<< and >>| keys skips to the previous or next file during playback or rewinds/fast forwards when held down. I-O loop sets the in and out points for looped playback and Quick

accesses a menu for tagging or deleting files during playback. Home takes you back to the Home screen and PB control opens the Playback control screen. The Input slide switch determines which input will be recorded from a choice of Line, Unidirectional internal mics, omni directional internal mics or the XLR inputs in the base. Power is provided by a Li-On battery pack (included) fitted via a hatch on the right-hand side and/or a pair of AA cells, alkaline or NiMH, under a flap on the rear. The Li-On battery cover is captive, although a bit flimsy, but the AA compartment cover isn’t and is just waiting to be lost. If both power sources are installed the DR-100 can be set to switch automatically from one to the other when the first is exhausted. The external power supply is an optional extra but you can charge the Li-On battery via USB so the PSU won’t be essential for everyone. Also in the box are a foam windgag, an infrared remote control and a cradle to convert this into a wired remote along with the necessary cable and a USB cable for up/downloading audio files. The DR-100 uses SD form-factor storage cards and a 2Gb card is included. It is worth mentioning that there is a list of tested cards on the Tascam website and that the unit is compatible with SDHC cards. In standard mode recording is in WAV at 44.1kHz or 48kHz, 16 bit or 24 bit or a range of MP3 rates from 32kbps to 320kbps. In HS mode, accessed on start up by holding down the Enter/Mark button, 96kHz is also possible but you lose the MP3 options. The raft of record and playback resolution

options include such thoughtful features as Delay, where recording commences 0.3 seconds after the button is pressed to avoid recording the noise of the button press and pre-rec which records the preceding two seconds before recording is initiated. Along with these there is a variety of auto record features; auto pause, auto start new file and auto mark functions. Basic overdubbing is also available. File names can include a user defined word or the date. Playback is similarly well endowed with Playlist, Repeat, Loop, Varipitch and Varispeed to name but a few. The noise floor using the built-in directional mics is commendably low, subjectively, and the recordings are pleasing. The same cannot be said for the builtin omni mics. Since these are really only intended for recording meetings this is unlikely to be a problem. The one disappointment with every device in this class I’ve experienced thus far is the level of handling noise when using the built-in mics. I just don’t believe that this cannot be improved upon. A combination of very ‘floppy’ connecting cables and viscous capsule mounting could work wonders. The first manufacturer to do this and reduce handling noise to an acceptable level successfully will certainly get my vote. Meanwhile, using the supplied remote control with the unit placed on a ‘quiet’ surface avoids the problem. This is not a pocket recorder and it is better for it. The controls are logical and positive in ways they couldn’t be on a smaller box. Make no mistake; the Tascam DR-100 is an excellent example of the breed. With just a couple of tweaks it would be as good as it gets at the price point. It’s already on my shortlist. n

PROS

Proper dual concentric rotary analogue input level control; dual battery power; low noise floor on directional mics.

CONS

Mains supply not included; handling noise; AA battery cover not captive.

EXTRAS

The HS-P82 is an 8-track location sound recorder employing Compact Flash. The unit features an internal stereo mix down capability in addition to the eight discrete tracks. Audio quality is 24-bit, 96kHz (8-track) or 24-bit, 192kHz (4-track) with timecode and support for BWF files and iXML metadata.

Operation employs an upward angled TFT colour touchscreen. Eight mic preamps are fed from balanced XLRs with phantom power and limiters. There is also eight channel digital I-O on a DB-25 connector and two balanced analogue outs on XLR.

Contact TASCAM, japan: Website: www.tascam.co.uk

November/December 2009

The single source supplier for everything

PRO-AUDIO

Tel: 0844 375 5000

REVIEW

Propellerheads Record It is described not as a DAW but rather as recording software for musicians. GEORGE SHILLING kind of agrees but it causes him to wonder…

ropellerheads Record is the Swedish company’s first completely new piece of software since the launch of Reason in 2001; before that there were ReCycle, ReBirth, and of course the extremely useful ReWire technology. However, throughout the history of Reason (which is now at version 4.01) there have been calls for Propellerheads to include audio recording capabilities. It steadfastly refused to do this while also ignoring the many requests for the inclusion of thirdparty plug-in capability. Record effectively answers the first of those requests, although the door is still firmly shut on the second, for good, err, reason. Record is described not as a DAW, but rather as recording software for musicians. It seems that Propellerheads has particularly targeted two types of

user: Reason users who want to record audio, and guitarists who want to record their own material. To those ends, Record incorporates some similar concepts to Reason, while adding licensed Line 6 guitar and bass processing, and a workflow that should appeal to less technical types. However, as well as a sequencer or arrange window that is similar to Reason’s, and a rack system for processors that is also rather similar in concept to Reason’s rack, there is an additional window representing a mixer. But not just any mixer, a mixer that looks just like an SSL XL9000K. This has been copied not only in terms of layout but also modelled for the sonic characteristics, including EQ, dynamics and even the main bus compressor. There are some doubts about the accuracy of the modelling but the processing sounds pretty good, and having instant EQ and dynamics without having to instantiate plug-ins certainly hastens workflow. But if Record provides the

simplest route to recording for musicians, it does seem somewhat ironic that they chose to mimic one of the most advanced analogue consoles in history. Imagine having Ozzy Osbourne engineer the session… Record comes in a slickly designed package that includes an installation manual, a snazzy copy protection USB dongle in a silicon sleeve, some stickers (Alright! Ed) and a DVD with the software; the whole thing looks colourful and modern. And that goes for the software too. An Intel processor is required to run Record on a Mac but Record makes efficient use of multicore processing, always spreading the load. The software also seems exceptionally happy working with very low latency settings, and track counts don’t seem to be as much of an issue as with other DAWs. There also appears to be some automatic delay compensation going on behind the scenes, but this isn’t of any concern to the end user — it just works. Without the dongle it is possible to run Record by logging into your Propellerheads online account; without any authorisation there is still demo mode, which unlike most other software will let you create and save your work, but won’t let you open previously saved files, which is a nice twist on the conventions of authorisation. If you own Reason and have the latest

Disney Hall L.A.

The sound you can’t forget... Because you’ve always known it

Find great spaces to place your music

The M7 Sterero Reverb Processor www.bricasti.com

The M10 Remote Console

REVIEW version installed, Record makes available all the rack devices therein, vastly expanding the possibilities. For a relatively small outlay it’s worth having the extra processors, and to that end there is a generous upgrade path for Reason users (UK£115 from all versions), and a reduced price bundle (£437) of the two programs for those starting from scratch. Record alone is £230 (all prices include VAT). It’s worth noting that there are improvements over Reason’s functionality in the rack and sequencer. The rack is no longer restricted to a single unit’s width, and there are improvements in the way patching works. The sequencer makes chopping and moving bits of audio around very straightforward, and adopts a useful and intuitive comping system that is not a million miles from Logic’s Quick Swipe function. Possibly Record’s best feature is its ‘always on’ time stretching, with two fantastic algorithms. Simply change the BPM and all the audio follows in the most invisible manner. Even the most extreme variations of tempo (between 1bpm and 999bpm) seem to retain all the frequency response of the originally recorded audio with a remarkable ‘hi-fi’ quality. Handy for slowing down to record the difficult bits! The three aforementioned windows are accessed by pressing F5, F6 and F7; stickers are provided for your computer keyboard, although most of the sticker sheet comprises promotional logos. Any combination presses result in the screen splitting into two or three sections which can be resized, and in each window there are columns with mini graphics for easy navigation. You also get a floating Tool Window that includes a Devices section showing a small graphic for all available rackable items; these can be double-

clicked or dragged into the rack to create an instance. For ultimate navigation capability a three-monitor setup would presumably be optimum, but the navigation tools are good, and it is easy to jump between related channels and devices. The top of the Record rack is always inhabited by the Hardware Interface, much like that found in Reason. Just like Reason, you can flip the rack around to see and make virtual cable connections. Creating an audio track results in a track in the sequencer, a channel on the mixer, and an associated audio track device in the rack that allows for patching inserts and so on. One of the aims of the program’s designers was to avoid unnecessary dialogue boxes, so following setup you rarely see on-screen dialogues; the idea is that all the complex stuff goes on behind the scenes. For example, you can happily record mono and stereo ‘clips’ on the same sequencer track. However, the patching cable graphics on the rear of the rack can become rather complex for the novice to understand. The selection of Line 6 modelled amps and cabinets

is rather limited as standard but owners of any Line 6 hardware that sports a USB connection, or indeed owners of POD Farm software, can unlock the additional patches relating to their product, which magically appear on the menus in Record’s Line 6 Guitar Amp and Bass Amp modules. My iLok authorised version of POD Farm did the trick with no fuss. Also useful to guitarists is a built-in tuner, and there are dedicated buttons for click and count-in. In use Record is fun, and you could imagine musicians finding this rather easier than learning Logic’s foibles and intricacies, although I’d imagine most pro users would miss their favourite plug-ins and the flexibility of Logic or Pro Tools. There is, of course, the possibility to use ReWire to slave Record to either of those as host. There is no native video sync and it’s not really geared up for post work — that is not the intention here. Record saves just one file for each song, which contains all the audio and data, but it is fairly straightforward to export standard audio files from within the program. The ‘sealed’ system provides unparalleled stability and efficiency, the Reason devices have always provided fun and colour, and Record continues in that vein. And the time stretching algorithms are truly stunning. n

PROS

Attractive audio recording package for Reason users and musicians; supreme time expand/compress algorithm; stable; CPU-efficient.

CONS

No MIDI output possible; no pitch manipulation; no third-party plug-ins.

Contact propellerheads, sweden: Website: www.propellerheads.se

Why settle for just plain audio routing, when you could have I/O sharing, multiple processing on every signal, multiple audio formats, instant problem alerts, remote control, simple transmission path switching and more? The Studer Route 6000 is far more than just an audio router. Firstly, using the standard Studer D21m cards means a multitude of audio format choices are available, including analogue, AES/EBU, MADI, ADAT, SDI, and Dolby® E. Every one of these signal inputs or outputs has freely selectable signal processing with a choice from EQ, filters, compressors, limiters, gates, mixers, downmixers, and even 5.1 upmixers, so you can process the signal once, not at every location you might need it at. Even simple processors like Delays can be used to quickly delay audio or even sync Dolby® E streams to video footage. New surveillance processes detect silence and overload and can alert system engineers via GPIO or SNMP messaging. And when combined with the STUDER RELINK I/O Sharing system, the Route 6000 can form the central hub of a multiple console system using Studer Vista 5, 6, 7, 8 and OnAir 2500 and 3000 consoles, with I/O sharing, label transfer and seamless mic takeover. And, unlike some routing systems, you don’t lose precious I/O capacity when you use all your processing.

Route 6000 : Beyond Routing

www.studer.ch

MONITOR BENCHTEST

Focal CMS65 KEITH HOLLAND

he CMS65 from French manufacturer Focal is a two-way active speaker consisting of a 165mm (6.5 inch) woofer with a Polyglass cone, which is apparently a paper/glass composite, and an aluminium/ magnesium inverted dome tweeter that radiates through a shallow horn. Both drivers have magnetic shielding. The cabinet is constructed of die cast aluminium with chamfered edges and a slot-shaped port below the woofer. The power amplifiers, crossover and equalisation electronics are built-in behind an integral heatsink with vertical fins, suggesting that these speakers are designed to be used in the vertical, portrait, orientation. The rear panel has controls for switching sensitivity from +4dBu through 0 to -10dBV, a level control variable from -66dB to 0dB, and a high-pass filter with turnover frequencies of 45, 60 and 90Hz plus an Off position. There’s LF and HF shelving with 0, -4, -2 and +2dB options and a 160Hz ‘desktop’ notch filter switchable between

0, -2, -4 and -6dB that is designed to equalise a hump in response due to reflection from a desktop when the speakers are mounted on one. The measurements presented in this review were conducted with all equalisation controls set to 0dB and the high pass filter switched off. Focal specifies amplifier power outputs of 100W RMS for the woofer and 60W RMS for the tweeter endowing each speaker with a claimed maximum sound output of 108dB SPL peak at 1m distance. Signal input is via an XLR socket for balanced and phono for unbalanced connection. Each speaker weighs 10.5kg and has exterior dimensions of 360mm high by 240mm wide by 230mm deep. Figure 1 shows the on-axis frequency response and harmonic distortion measured at an output level of 90dB SPL at 1m distance. The frequency response is maintained within ±3dB from 45Hz to 17kHz with a slightly raised response from 200Hz to 4kHz which is considered by some to be a desirable response target for nearfield monitors, particularly when mounted on a meter bridge. The low-frequency

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

roll-off is 5th order with -10dB occurring at a very respectable 35Hz. The harmonic distortion produced by the CMS65 is somewhat unusual in that it is pretty much even over much of the low-frequency range, and that there are significant amounts of 4th and 5th harmonic distortion present. Most loudspeakers have harmonic distortion in this frequency range that rises as frequency is lowered and this distortion is usually only 2nd and 3rd harmonic. However, the level distortion is kept below -35dB from 40Hz upwards except for a ‘spike’ at 300Hz. The off-axis frequency response for the CMS65 is shown in Figure 2 for the horizontal plane and Figure 3 for the vertical plane. Apart from some slight mid-range narrowing between 1kHz and 4kHz, the directivity in the horizontal plane is excellent with near-constantdirectivity performance. The vertical directivity shows the interference notches at the crossover frequency at 30 degrees up and down which are characteristic of

m103 The Grace Design of Channel Strips.

This is our transparent, musical microphone preamplifier coupled to a silky smooth 3 band EQ and a sweet, open optical compressor. Channel strip by name, glorious sounding input tool by design. All the facts: www.gracedesign.com Sound-Link Marketing www.sound-link.co.uk +44 (0) 1223 26 47 65 36

resolution

November/December 2009

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.

most loudspeakers with non-concentric drivers, but otherwise all is well. The step response (Figure 4) shows that the drivers and crossover exhibit better time alignment than many speakers of this type with little evidence of a delay in the mid-range relative to the output of the tweeter. Figures 5 and 6 show the acoustic source position and waterfall plot respectively. The acoustic source position is seen to move to greater Calrec Resolution Ads 7/8/08 17:46 Page than 3m behind the speaker at low frequencies

which is a characteristic of speakers with high-order low-frequency roll-offs, but that the decay of the low frequencies in the waterfall is considerably faster than many other ported speakers, reaching -40dB in about 65 milliseconds. The Focal CMS65 is a very good small monitor loudspeaker. Of particular note is the excellent performance at low frequencies with commendable extension for the size of woofer and cabinet, without 1 too much compromise in low-frequency transient

response. Also good are the mid/top time alignment and the off-axis response. The harmonic distortion figures are unusual although the levels of distortion at low frequencies are about average for a speaker of this size. n

Contact focal, france: Website: www.focalprofessional.com UK, SCVLondon: -44 208 418 0778

WHEREVER THERE’S SPORT CALREC AUDIO IS THE BIG PLAYER

calrec.com

There’s no more demanding environment than outside broadcast, so it’s not surprising that demanding production companies consistently choose Calrec consoles, time after time. Whatever the competition, Calrec is the runaway leader in the field of sport. In EMEA countries and in the US, there are more Calrec consoles in HD trucks than any other make. And our reputation for reliability is second to none. From Premier League football to lawn tennis, athletics to motor racing, cricket, rugby and horse racing…we’ve got it covered. And thanks to our award-winning Bluefin HDSP, it’s all in glorious, fully controllable 5.1 surround sound. Putting Sound in the Picture

If you share our passion for sport, find out more at calrec.com

November/December 2009

resolution

CRAFT

Keith Grant He was there at the birth of the Golden Age of recording and earned and maintains an enviable reputation as a recordist. He tells NIGEL JOPSON how to mic an orchestra for film and reveals some rare and exquisite bits of gear that he has for sale.

eith Grant is a seminal figure in audio history; not only as a consequence of his own recordings, but as a result of the positive influence he has had, as chief engineer and manager of Olympic Studios, on other engineers and producers. In 1959 Grant joined Olympic Sound Studios, in Carton Street, after starting his career as a music engineer at Regent Sound two years previously. When the owner sold up, Grant found investors and moved Olympic to its more famous location in Barnes. From the first session in 1966, a succession of all-time musical greats visited the studio. The Beatles, Clapton, Blind Faith, Pink 38

Floyd, Dusty Springfield, Fairport Convention, Hendrix, Procul Harum, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Small Faces, Traffic, The Troggs, The Yardbirds and many, many others recorded there. The studio became a byword for innovation: mixing desks and other equipment were built in-house, and were way ahead of anything available in the UK at the time. Most tellingly, Grant is frequently name-checked by at least three generations of top producers and engineers: Eddie Kramer (Resolution V8.4) called Keith his mentor, a role that Vic Coppersmith-Heaven also credits him with; Glyn and Andy Johns both worked at Olympic, Chris Kimsey was given his first job by Grant, Alan O’Duffy says Olympic was a ‘centre of excellence in audio’, Dave Hamilton-Smith says he owes his entire career to ‘the peerless training I received there’. Despite having recorded The Beatles and the most-played song in British broadcasting (A Whiter Shade Of Pale), Keith’s own specialty is recording music for films. Movies like the Italian Job, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Yentl, Never Say Never Again, Cry Freedom, Dangerous Liaisons, Howards End, Shadowlands and The English Patient were all recorded by Grant. In 1973 he won a BAFTA Film Award for Jesus Christ Superstar and in 2009 he was the recipient of the UK Screen Fellowship Award. Keith gave his first ever interview to Resolution at his Thamesside private studio. (photos www.recordproduction.com)

resolution

November/December 2009

CRAFT In 1965 it was very unusual for a recording engineer to somehow it gets in the way of the signal path, it doesn’t sound as good.’ We were become a director or owner of a studio, wasn’t it? — and still are — a family, I’m still in touch today with people who were involved I never was a studio owner, I wish I had been! Olympic had made its with Olympic since 1961. way to the forefront of the independent studios and was the busiest and Chris Kimsey remembered his interview consisted of wiring a 13Amp plug ... most popular. It boasted the first 4-track ½-inch recorder and EMT plate. One of the reasons it worked so well was that, from the ten or more letters we got When the owner wanted to sell I found Cliff Adams and bought it from a week asking for a job, if we got a good one we would say: ‘Come and have an Angus, and I was made a minor director. After much searching we found interview, but there’s no job.’ I’d interview all these people, and if they were really a derelict film studio, Byfield Hall, in Barnes. Robertson Grant was the good they would go into a file. When a job was coming up I’d re-interview the pick appointed architect and an acoustician by the name of Russell Pettinger and call in the right people to be trainee engineers, people who were also nice to and I did the acoustics. Dick Swettenham was busying himself with be with. If you’re going to be with someone for 16 hours they’ve got to be nice, the brand new circuitry for the legendary desk that was built in-house especially if you’re going to see them tomorrow, and the next day, and the next ... for Studio 1. This desk was a world landmark in many ways, Dick’s design electronically is still rated as being among the finest auditory kit Was there an element of competition between Olympic and Abbey anywhere, and ergonomically was successful for its ease of use by its Road when Olympic first opened? wraparound design. When we opened, the recording room had a nasty I don’t think so, because all the studios in London were very different. That was honk and flutter, which appeared to be caused by the ceiling tiles. We before studios came out of a plastic mould, where it was just another SSL/Eastlake hadn’t got any money left to pay for changes, so this we remedied - CDR882AdV2Res:Layout 19/10/2009 11:20 room where you could put Page your 1disc into the computer and the desk could be reset by hanging thick hessian cloth all over the #26109 box section suspended in the roof. Fortunately [the Stones movie director] Jean Luc Goddard set light to it while filming the Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil. We thus discovered the ceiling tiles which were specified to be a 75-25% absorption/reflection coefficient, had been wrongly supplied as 25-75%. Fortunately the insurance paid for a replacement and the acoustic never looked back ... Does the original Olympic mixer still exist? This mixer we are sitting in front of houses the very same 32 EQ units that were in that original Studio 1 desk. When we built Olympic Studio 3, I had Cyril Jones of Raindirk construct this mixer daisychaining two EQs. You can use the lovely warm top and bottom end of the old Olympics, and sculpt with the parametrics. When the transistor microphone first came out, everyone thought it sounded fantastic, I listened and didn’t think it sounded that great at all. I steadfastly hung on to all my valve stuff, being called ‘mean’ and all sorts of other names at the time! When everyone said the new SSL desk sounded wonderful, I thought it sounded crap, and when digital audio was introduced it sounded to me as if the sound picture had been divided up into little squares, put into a box and then re-assembled like a jigsaw puzzle where you could still see all the joins. You need sound with warmth and richness. This ‘progress’ was depleting just that. As the technicians get onto making stuff sound ‘better’ they’re often doing it for themselves, a technical exercise in perfection, not for the people who listen. Now, in the last ten years, we’ve suddenly got some engineers with ears who’ve had the opportunity to listen to a U47 or U49 and marvel at its qualities. Did you train the young Olympic engineers in this ‘first principles’ style of audio excellence? The thing about Olympic was that it wasn’t a one-man show, it was a big team and we all pulled together. Everybody got involved, there were no secrets, nobody had a ‘better’ way of recording than someone else. When George Chkiantz discovered how to do phasing with a second-head machine for Itchycoo Park, we all knew about it the following morning. That was the way it worked, Dick would try and improve things over and over and everybody had a chance to voice their opinion, but sometimes the consensus was: ‘we like the first one, we don’t need all these additional knobs and switches, November/December 2009

The reference standard in CD recording

The latest-generation HHB CDR-882 DualBurn sets a new reference standard in CD recording. Compatible with CD-R and CD-RW media of all speed ratings, recordings made on HHB’s own audiophile-grade CDR74 Gold discs exhibit an average Block Error Rate as low as 0.09, resulting in a sonic performance even better than that of commercially-stamped CDs.

HHB Communications Ltd T: +44 (0)20 8962 5000 E: sales@hhb.co.uk In the USA: Sennheiser Electronic Corporation T: 860 434 9190 E: HHBSales@sennheiserusa.com In Canada: HHB Communications Canada Ltd T: 416 867 9000 E: sales@hhbcanada.com

resolution

CRAFT

to exactly the state it had been in another studio. That, to me, was all perfectly fine — because then you were part of an industry that I’m not in — I was in an industry where the objective was to make something totally individual, with it’s own character, and you can’t transport #26254 - Resolution PMD661 Ad:Layoutthat. 1 16/11/2009 12:28 Page 1

With the recent closure of most of the large ‘mould studios’, many producers now have their own highly individual recording spaces, has it come full circle? Yes! Needs must have dictated that, it is obviously so much more economical to be

Features • Rugged, handheld design with tripod mount • Over 5 hours of field recording with 4 AA batteries* • One-touch recording and transport controls • USB 2.0 port for easy file transfer • 16 or 24-bit digital recording at 44.1/48/96 kHz • Uses stable, reliable SD or SDHC memory cards • WAV (Broadcast WAV File) or MP3 recording format • Large, easy-to-read OLED display • 2 XLR mic/line inputs with +48V phantom power • S/PDIF digital input, plus a spare 1/8” stereo line in • RCA stereo line level outputs • ¼-inch headphone jack with volume control • Built-in stereo playback speakers • Pitch control and skipback functions for transcription playback

PMD661 Professional Field Recorder

Be ready.

*Battery life subject to conditions

PMD661 | Portable SD Recorder

Whatever the situation, you need to be ready for it. Rugged and robust, the PMD661 takes portable recording to new levels of professionalism. Capturing broadcast-quality audio, PMD661 is compact enough for handheld use, yet large enough to accommodate two XLR microphone inputs, making it ready for any recording situation. And with SD or SDHC media for digital reliability, one-touch controls and a battery life of over 5 hours*, you’ll never miss a moment.

Meeting Recording

Location Recording

Music Concerts

www.dm-pro.eu

Professionally distributed by D&M Pro Europe

resolution

November/December 2009

CRAFT

under your own roof as, relatively, gear costs pennies now. Our first 3M 16-track was the price of a largish house! There isn’t so much stuff being churned out now — I’m talking quantity — not quality. In those days every studio was working all the time, so you needed to be able to put it under your arm and take it somewhere else, which is where the SSL and all that lot came into their own. That’s fine, but that wasn’t what I did for a living. I resisted — probably to colossal financial disadvantage — the offer of making Olympic Studio 1 a plastic studio.

Olympic was sold to Virgin in 1987. With hindsight do you feel that — to use a share dealing phrase — you ‘got out at the top’? Cliff got out at the top, I got out at a very bad time, I ended up in a position I should not have been in. I was just told it was sold. Then it was being gutted, then turned into another one of those factories. Why did Virgin buy a place with parking problems and then gut it? I understand buying it and updating, because it was lagging behind a bit by 1986. But if you’re going to gut the building, particularly if your acoustic expert declares Studio 1 ‘an area not a suitable acoustic to record music in’, why not go to a trading estate in Ealing where you can park 100 cars and build a place that was ‘suitable to record music in’? Eddie Kramer said: ‘Keith was a monster at doing huge sessions.’ Perhaps he got the words in the wrong order….I feel colossal sadness that there’s no way in a commercial studio today that any engineer — budding or genius — will get the chance and the sheer thrill of recording a rhythm section, brass, strings, woodwind, choir and lead vocal in one go, in a three hour session, four titles. In your movie-score recording career, have you developed some special techniques for recording large orchestras? I didn’t like the popular Decca tree: when put into a Dolby Matrix, it gives you an awful lot of mono. You almost can’t go wrong with a Decca tree for conventional stereo if you’ve got nice equipment and a superb acoustic. Tell your assistant to stand a Decca tree over the conductor’s head and make sure the levels are right — it works — as we well know. When you’re mixing for movies, you really have to start at the ‘top left hand corner’ and tell yourself it’s going to be uncomfortable if you listen to it in stereo at home. You have to work on the basis that what you put into the Dolby Matrix isn’t necessarily what you would do for stereo listening. If you are forced into the situation where you can’t do a separate mix November/December 2009

resolution

CRAFT for the CD, then it’s possible to pull the sides in by a large chunk. It’s a very wide ambient stereo, it’s not like Phase 4 [a gimmick wide-stereo sub-label of London Records created in 1961], you just make sure there’s a lot less middle than you would in a normal mix.

What mic placement would you use? A Decca tree is 3 omnis arranged in roughly a 6-foot triangle. I would make my own tree consisting of three U49s, two would be in cardioid pointing out at 10 ‘o clock and 2 ‘o clock, about 12 feet apart. In the middle, and forward by about 6 feet, I’d have another U49, set on figure-ofeight, fed into the centre component. If you have the cardioids pointing out, somewhere between 10-and-2 or 9-and-3, what that misses is bang in the middle, and the dead nodes of the figure-of-eight in the middle miss out what you have on the cardioids. Do you monitor through a Dolby Matrix? Ideally, yes. If you are inexperienced or not confident with recognising phase related problems, listening through a matrix would be essential as you will hear phase errors immediately. If you were to monitor normally you can be fooled into thinking it sounds nice and spatial — it most certainly is when you put it through the matrix — most of it is behind you!

Would you employ many spot mics? Heavy spot-miking, even if I don’t end up using much of them. You need to because there’s rarely a chance to put a mic out in a hurry. I might easily put out 50 mics altogether. You start with your overall ambient sound and paint in, as quickly as you can, textures from the local mics. Do you use different microphone types for the various instrument sections? Oh, very much so, I have quite strong views about film recording. I find it’s not clever to use condenser microphones on orchestral percussion or woodwind, the reason being when you fade into the ambient mix, the high transient content you hear from hammers and sticks or key-clatter transients from flutes and woodwinds arrives first. If you have a good old heavy-duty moving coil or ribbon on the section, the microphone misses the initial high transient and you just hear the ‘meat’ of the sound. Which moving coil and ribbon microphones do you favour? I like the Sennheiser 421 on percussion and woodwind, also the AKG D series and Shure SMs. I’d use ribbon microphones on brass, the Coles preferably. Because the Coles is a figure-of-eight, you can set it in a classical setup in such a position where the trumpets are on the dead side of the trombone mic and vice versa. Similarly a figure-of-eight on violas can be positioned to exclude some of the brass sitting behind them. I’d use tube microphones on strings, if it’s from my own mic collection I’d use KM56s, if I was at Abbey Road I might use U67s as well. As the instruments get bigger and frequencies get lower, so should the mic diaphragm to match, as you go round to the cellos and basses you’ll have U49s and U47s. Do you use dynamics on the spot mics? Dynamic microphones certainly. Or did you mean those things some consoles have on the end of the channel that you can use to spoil the sound? Basically it’s no EQ and the right mic in the right place for me, the choice of microphone and positioning is very telling on the end result. Do you ever work with computer-based DAWs? No, my income was and is measured by the inch of real fader movement. n

Walking into Keith’s private The Creek Studio is quite an experience for a vintage audio aficionado. It’s not just the quality and historical significance of the collection (which is now for sale) that is remarkable, it’s the nonchalant affection with which Keith describes his kit: ‘Oh ... that’s the Barbra Streisand U49, she sang Yentl and Memories with it, the mic is one of the original Olympic two we owned, built in 1949 ...’ Immediately striking is the presence of the ex-Olympic Studio 3 L-shaped ‘double EQ’ console, custom built by Cyril Jones in 1974. ‘Part of running a studio in the 60s and 70s involved designing and building the equipment yourself. Dick Swettenham was the electronic brain and skill, I was the ears and the ergonomics. Dick did the technical stuff, he’d design an EQ or a mic amp and you’d get a couple of units to listen to, we’d comment on the sound qualities, love it or ask for modifications. Dick’s greatest problem was he couldn’t say no to an update! The difference between being a technician and a sound engineer is that, as a sound man if it sounds good, really, really good, you have achieved your goal and don’t need to go one stage further. What if Fairchild had never commercially produced the 660 and had gone on to the transistor 760 and 860? What happens is you get something that only looks better on paper, that’s what technicians often go for, sometimes they forget what it actually sounds like.’ When Keith removed one of the original Olympic Studio 1 EQ modules I saw it looked considerably different to later Helios boards of the Basing Street/Hansa era. The wiring looks more akin to the point-to-point of a Hiwatt amp than a PCB; looking at the germanium transistors, inductors and Lustraphone transformer, it’s not hard to imagine why the Stones, Traffic and Hendrix had a unique sound that has been so difficult to emulate. ‘There are many Helios-type modules flying about but these are the only ones that recorded in Studio 1 from 1966 until the new Olympic-designed 24-track desk went in. They are at the moment being restored and prepared for sale in racks with new faceplates, made from the original artwork, by Jim Dowler of ADT, ex-technical manager of Olympic. Many other people have tried to recreate the sound of these EQs, but it is not feasible. It’s no longer possible to source components like the capacitors, and the modern replicas have other transformers, the rebuilt [Sowter] version of the Lustraphone is quite different in audio quality and resonances. To me the difference in sound being between a London tram and Concorde!’ Keith has two Fairchild 660 limiters, one is the original Olympic

resolution

unit, bought in 1962, and used for artists like Hendrix, Beatles, Stones, Dusty, Cream, Floyd, Troggs, Yardbirds, Small Faces, The Who, Zeppelin, Eagles, Ella Fitzgerald. The second 660 came from Sound Techniques Studio when it was bought by Olympic, so would have been used by Pink Floyd (See Emily Play), Jethro Tull (This Was), John Cale and others. There are also two 1960s Pultec EQP-1As, I also spotted two Altec 436 compressors and four of the now muchsought-after PYE compressor limiters. If analogue tape gets your gear-lust going, Grant has two very famous machines: the original Ampex 4-track (Deck only) used to record Hendrix, Beatles, Stones, and every other band through the Olympic door up until 1968. There’s also two 3M M79 16/24 tracks ... including the Olympic Studio 1 machine with the ‘Ford’ joke logo badge. ‘They sounded better than anything else,’ maintains Keith. ‘It’s the old business: it’s not what it looks like on paper; it’s what it sounds like, in this case third harmonic distortion. The 3Ms have third harmonic distortion all over ‘em, I love it!’ As an orchestral recordist par-excellence, I suspect it’s the microphones, that Keith will be most sorry to part with. He has two Neumann U47s and two U49s, and (as a ‘47 owner) I was shocked to hear he has six original spare UF14 valves. He also has a PGS 4038, visible in the original Carton Street Olympic brochure, a brace of AKG C12s, two RCA ribbons, a C24, C60s, ELAM 251, several KM53/54/56.2 x RCA 1,001s ribbon mics. ‘I did a very interesting test when I was doing a large orchestral session at AIR Lyndhurst. On each of the overall booms I had set up a KM53, one of my U49s, and a new Neumann M150. I had them as three pairs marked A, B, C, and anyone who came in the control room during rehearsals I asked to give their opinion on which sounded best. Listeners consistently chose the KM53, followed by the U49, with the M150 nowhere. The newer mic sounded hard and papery compared to the warm and voluptuous sound of the others.’ Keith or Jim Dowler can be contacted through the website www.olympicsoundstudios.com

November/December 2009

GREAT CONTENT: it’s more than what you do, it’s who you are.

If you’re passionate about creating great audio content, the NAB Show™ is the ultimate place to find everything necessary to bring your vision to life. Experience a wealth of hands-on educational opportunities presented by the producers, PDs and web developers influencing today’s edgiest content. Visit the unparalleled exhibit floor to see, touch and test all of the technologies enabling HD and more. At the NAB Show you’ll find virtually every innovation driving production, editing, transmission and new media solutions.

Evolve, innovate and grow, smarter than ever before at the NAB Show. From live streaming to podcasting to highdefinition studio recording and beyond, professionals with creative passion leverage the NAB Show to exchange solutions and strategies for developing award-winning content for local, national and global audiences. To join this international community of content professionals, visit www.nabshow.com.

CRAFT

John Leckie He’s still one of the most influential and prolific producers yet he has a catalogue that spans four decades. GEORGE SHILLING talks to John Leckie about his trade and his industry.

ohn Leckie is one of the most highly revered record producers of our time, having been at the helm for numerous landmark albums across four decades, including XTC’s White Music, The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut, Radiohead’s The Bends, Muse’s Showbiz and Simple Minds’ Reel To Reel Cacophony. Leckie started at Abbey Road as a tape operator in 1970 and soon garnered engineering credits for Pink Floyd, several solo albums by members of The Beatles, Mott The Hoople, Wizzard and Roy Harper. He also produced and mixed several albums for Be Bop Deluxe. After leaving Abbey Road in 1978 he produced albums and singles for the likes of Simple Minds, Magazine, XTC and Public Image 44

Limited. During the 80s he worked with The Fall, The Lucy Show, Robyn Hitchcock and The Posies. During the Britpop years of the 90s he worked with Kula Shaker, The Verve, Elastica, Ride and Muse, and during the Real World recording weeks he worked with Papa Wemba, Shivkumar Sharma and Gopal Shankar. In 2000 he braved rural Senegal to record Baaba Maal in a location with no mains electricity, and during the 2000s he has worked with New Order, Razorlight, Tiny Dancers, My Morning Jacket and Portico Quartet, and he remastered The Stone Roses album for a 20th anniversary reissue. In 2004 your humble interviewer was lucky enough to engineer an album with John and New York band Longwave at the late lamented Allaire Studios in upstate New York. Leckie continues to keep busy, and at the time of the interview was hoping for a meet-up with Liverpool band The Coral with a view to producing new material; (‘They are a band that should be done on 16-track tape, it’s my kind of music!’) There was also a possible project in the offing with Dead Confederate. When we talked, Leckie had just completed a huge round of interviews regarding the Stone Roses reissue, so instead of retreading that ground, we found plenty else to talk about…(photos www.recordproduction.com)

resolution

November/December 2009

CRAFT Why have you never had your own studio? That’s usually the first thing that record companies say to me, Have you got your own studio? If I had a million quid I would! When you can go into AIR and Abbey Road and RAK and do the job properly, and if it breaks down it’s not your responsibility, you just make a sound and finish the record on time and on budget. I just always worked in studios that had all the gear. I never owned anything else other than my hi-fi at home. There was always this thing, people used to say the studio is like a spaceship or something. And I thought being in the control room and driving the desk was the closest I’d get to driving a space ship. And to have my own studio that would be up to my standard would be a million quid or more, I just never made that kind of money to look towards that, I always worked with weird groups that never recouped! I just really love going to other studios. I used to pride myself that I could walk into any studio in the world and within 10 to 15 minutes start work — a quick rundown on the desk, check out the monitors, off we go. In the old days all the desks would be different, how to route things, you might have an MCI tape machine which you’d never used before. And I was never a musician. I never met a musician until I worked at Abbey Road. I used to go to gigs and I saw Jimi Hendrix, The Nice, John Mayall, Eric Clapton, all the bands from the 60s, Stones in the Park, but none of my mates were musicians, and it wasn’t until I got the job at Abbey Road where I actually stood next to someone playing the guitar, or a drummer, so that is probably why I never got into gear, I never had any need to record myself.

www.neumann.com

Do you make any money from Spotify or iTunes? I don’t think so. You get royalties on digital downloads but I’ve never worked out how it’s broken down. But Spotify is kids’ stuff in terms of play, no one’s buying it and owning it, but the radio far excels it. You still won’t earn much, but if you get played on daytime radio, two or three million people hear it. Records were around for 30 years before radio came out, and when it did all the record companies went berserk, saying, You can’t play our records! But actually, radio sold the records. It’s an interesting time, no-one knows what’s going on. You went to Mexico to do Rodrigo y Gabriela, how was the studio? It wasn’t a studio, they are husband and wife and they live near Acapulco, but it’s a new Americanised area, and they live in a condominium built around a swimming pool. Their main problem was soundproofing, all the kids in the pool! I kept telling them to go to a studio, but they wanted to build their own studio, asking, What equipment do we need? It’s two acoustic guitars, they already had a couple of DPA mics, and I just suggested U87s, Focusrite eight mic preamps in a rack. They insisted on SSL, so I suggested the X-Rack, they got one with two mic pres and two EQs. The first thing I did was put the two 87s up and check what was best, and the Focusrite did win. It was harder; we’re just talking nylon string, heavy played, a lot of banging and dynamic stuff…

The new TLM 102

Did you use compression? No I didn’t, absolutely nothing. I put an 87 on each guitar about eight or 10 inches away, and the DPA just away from the sound-hole, both on the same plane, but the worst thing is they move around all the time. You’ve just got to capture that magic take. Did you try anything clipped on? Well I also used a DPA 4020, I think, which is one of these little omni theatre mics. I use them all the time. You can get them right behind the strings of the guitar, you have to roll off a lot of bass and boom, but it’s like a microscope once you mix it in. It’s omni so you don’t have too many phase problems, but you can hear the fingers on the strings, the skin scraping against the string — I was quite fascinated when I heard that. So it’s a mixture of the three things. November/December 2009

Smart. Sweet. Powerful. Georg Neumann GmbH • Ollenhauerstraße 98 • 13403 Berlin • Germany Neumann_TLM102_Cupcake_210x287_02.indd 1

resolution

13.11.2009 11:54:16

CRAFT Then you did the Portico Quartet… They were nominated for the Mercury Prize last year, and I actually bought the record, because I thought it was interesting. Then when I went to Real World, Amanda there at the record company said they’d just signed them. So we met up, and knowing what they do, it’s jazz really — string bass, drums, saxophone, and they play an instrument called the hang, like a Jamaican steel drum, it looks like an upturned wok or a flying saucer, and he plays three of them, rhythmic chords, and the sax player jams over the top. It’s not jamming really, because it’s all tightly arranged, but every take is different. The drummer never plays where you expect him to play, and it’s all instrumental. What’s your input into their musical arrangements? Well we spent about 10 days rehearsing. Most of the pieces were 20 minutes long, they didn’t know, so I timed them, and told them they’d got to cut twothirds of the track. They said, We can’t do that, so I said, Okay, then you’ve got an album with just two tracks on it! They wanted 10 tracks! So we spent 10 days choosing the best bits.

So it was like editing before you recorded? Yeah, it’s a lot cheaper that way! You just get into the music and relate to them, and tell them what’s good, what’s a lot of faffing around. A lot of their music would start with what in Indian classical music is called an Alaap, which is the start with no rhythm. So it might start with the hang, and a drone on the sax, before the drums come in, then when they’re established the rhythm would come in, which is how Indian music works. Very often this would go on for 10 minutes before the drums came in, so I’d say, woah, let’s have the drums in after eight bars. So that was my job -- and to keep them all enthusiastic, stop any fighting and fearsome battles between them. And then into Abbey Road… Yes, I think I got the job because I suggested four days in Abbey Road. They all sat up and said, Hey, that’s a good idea. Rather than go to a cheaper studio and spend four weeks, let’s rehearse, get it really happening, vibing, and do it in four days. And it worked really, because everyone was on the case. And judging by the photos you comprehensively miked everything; did you spend a long time mixing? Yeah, we spent about five days at Antonio’s in Neasden [Fish Factory], he’s got an API Legacy, it’s like a miniAbbey Road 2, and we spent about five days trying overdubs. They were talking about using voices, and I said why don’t we try using a choir, because they were a bit reluctant to have an individual voice. So then I suggested Mellotron choir, and… it never worked! Some overdubs worked and some didn’t. Then we went to the big room at Real World and mixed it. It wasn’t the easiest thing to mix there, it’s enormous. Once you get used to it you get quite a good result. The main thing is the monitoring — whether you’re listening to the left hand speaker or the right hand speaker! You’ve got to keep central, and you usually monitor quite loud in there, there’s a lot of air to move. You can get used to anything… I’ve always disagreed with acoustic treatment — all this scientific acoustic treatment very often doesn’t work, and what it’s really down to is the individual that’s running the desk that’s checking the monitors and knowing what records are like and how a quality recording responds on the monitors. Abbey Road 2 when they did Dark Side Of The Moon was a pair of JBLs, and there was no bass, you couldn’t hear any bass unless you were sat in the corner. And it was recorded and mixed in that room, and Alan Parsons knew the response and where to go with it. It comes from experience, obviously you make mistakes, but you just have to be sensible with it. How do you discover music? I poke around on the internet more than anything. Magazines — Mojo, Word, Q, Sunday Times, and if something attracts me I will buy it, and I probably buy ten or 12 CDs a month, have a splurt on Amazon. Do you keep them all? Usually I keep it because you can rediscover things, that’s an interesting thing about downloads, because when you’ve got vinyl or racks of CDs, you have a library of music and you can go back and rediscover the CD that you threw on the shelf and didn’t like. But with all the download stuff you’ll delete it and it’ll be gone. [In the sixties] you never heard music unless you went home and played it, and it was a little clique gang thing where you’d be into the blues or jazz, or African music. Now there’s so much music everywhere, you go shopping to buy a pair of shoes and you’re just bombarded with music. When MTV first came out, everyone was, Wow, look at that. But now on Sky there are 30 music channels which you never watch. Music has just totally saturated our life, which puts you off it. When you got your first cassette in the car with a graphic, it was fantastic, I used to play stuff in the car all the time. I never do now, I just listen to Radio 4. And I

resolution

November/December 2009

CRAFT Prism_ada8_TALL:Layout 1 17/11/2009 08:56 Page 1

Prism Sound Headline Sponsors

“We tried them and they were better” Mark Knopfler - Dire Straits

THE original 3rd party Pro Tools ™ interface The ADA-8XR has become THE converter of choice for leading facilities and artists around the world, and when Mark went looking for an interface to equip his British Grove facility he discovered there really was only one choice.

don’t think it’s entirely an age thing. And the other thing is that you’re bombarded with maximised music, where it’s always present, everything is loud, every little detail is pushed forwards. In the sixties, playing music in a boutique was really hip and groovy, but now you go in a garage and there’s stuff blaring. We didn’t ask for it, did we?

Why do you have such a fascination with early blues and rock and roll? I grew up with the blues (man!) When I was about 13 I got really into blues, I’d go to the record library and come out with Sleepy John Estes and Robert Johnson, and that’s really how I first discovered music. Then there was the Stones, and John Mayall and Eric Clapton which was the greatest thing. I find it fascinating, the history of rock and roll, the way it was a rebellious thing, and it was an electric thing, the electric guitar — Bo Diddley used to make his own guitar and make strange sounds. Link Wray and the tremolo arm, and it was all part of being in the spaceship, science fiction, hearing all these cosmic sounds and strange noises that would come out of the guitar. When I was at college I did a thesis on electronic music. It was all hand-written, and it was probably how I got the job at Abbey Road, I took this in and showed it to Ken Townsend, and he said, This is very good. I’ve still got it, I went through the technical side — oscillators and filters. There was no information around at the time, I used to go round record shops with a notebook, copying the back of Stockhausen records. And I included Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, guitar electronic music, which was a new thing, distortion, echo, phasing, which was this mysterious sound, at the time I had no idea what it was, it was an amazing cosmic sound of whooshing and turning everything inside out. It’s not used enough actually, proper extreme tape phasing, you never hear modern records doing it like Itchycoo Park. I’d always been into crazy sounds, it’s probably because I’m not a musician. It was a way I felt I could be a musician, by making all those sounds. Then I was interested in blues music because I was hearing the same sounds, like with Bo Diddley and distorted guitar, Howlin’ Wolf would have Hubert Sumlin playing some crazy echo reverb guitar. Even some of the old blues singers, some of the country blues recorded in like 1926, but these tracks sounded different, the ambiance behind the voice, or the guitar, some of it would be really thick, you couldn’t make out if it was two guitars playing. I was always trying to get in there and see the visual of the sound. n November/December 2009

resolution

ADA-8XR

Pro Tools ™ modular interface

The ADA-8XR has been designed without compromise, delivering unrivalled performance and flexibility. The modular construction offers users 16 A/D, 16 D/A or 8 A/D plus 8 D/A channels, so any system configuration can be accommodated. Interface options include Pro Tools™, AES, FireWire, S/PDIF and DSD modules, ensuring its ability to excel in any popular workstation. Its unrivalled performance up to 24 bit 192kHz ensures that for the discerning user, there really is only one choice. Why not CALL NOW to arrange your demo.

other modules available AES • FireWire • DSD

sales@prismsound.com www.prismsound.com UK +44 (0)1353 648888 USA +1 973 983 9577 Pro Tools™ is a trademark of Digidesign, a division of Avid Technology Inc.

digital system essentials

Digital interconnects Since the advent of digital audio, manufacturers and end-users have been faced with the problem of how to interconnect the elements of a digital system. While AES-EBU exists as the industry standard for stereo signals, a universal interface for multichannel audio remains illusive. So, if you don’t know your AES3 from your AES10, or think CobraNet might be an advanced snake charming system, then SUE MCDONALD says this article is for you.

ne of the greatest advantages of digital audio is that multiple channels can be carried over long distances via a single connection and arrive without any loss in audio quality. Before digital audio, the cable costs of connecting a mixing console to recorders, effects and recording areas could be huge. In live sound and outside broadcast, several man hours could be spent laying expensive multicore to breakout boxes around the venue. Today, digital mixers and DAWs are often portable and can be installed remotely from their I-O racks with nothing but a single fibre optic or lightweight copper cable to link them. The ability to offer remote I-O and to share resources has become a prerequisite of most large format systems. An interface transports data between two points. Some interfaces, such as AESEBU, transport digital audio only. However, others have developed through the desire to transfer audio and control. To set the input gain within a remote stagebox or to control routing changes within a matrix, control data must be transferred along with the audio data. Sometimes control is designed into the digital audio interface (e.g. CobraNet, EtherSound, Optocore) and sometimes it must be handled separately (e.g. AES-EBU). For a digital audio interface to work successfully, the sending and receiving device must use the same cable and connector and speak the same language (protocol). When looking at the different types of interface available, it’s important not to confuse terminology. We are surrounded with names and acronyms, some of which describe a complete interface and others which describe its components. For example, EtherSound is the name of a digital audio interface that uses an Ethernet network. The term Cat5 describes the international standard for the cable specification; and Cat5 is a type of UTP (untwisted pair) copper cable. RJ45 describes the type of connector used; and EtherCON is the product name of an RJ45 connector designed by Neutrik. The terminology can be confusing. To make things more complicated, many interfaces support more than one

physical carrier. MADI, for example, can be specified with either 75Ohm terminated coaxial cable (BNC) up to 100m, or multimode fibre optic (SC) up to 2km. The use of fibre can transform an audio installation. Fibre optic links transfer data using light. They can handle lots of data, run for several kilometres, and they are lightweight and insensitive to external interference. There are two types of fibre: single mode fibre that uses an expensive laser type and can run for distances up to 80km; and multimode fibre that uses a cheaper laser and runs up to 2km. Both types come in different physical configurations. So, for example, a duo core fibre optic cable carries two physical links. This is ideal for interfaces that are not bidirectional, such as MADI, and require a send and return connection. Today, you will find fibre optic everywhere, from the digital snakes at a live event, to fixed installations where a single fibre can replace multiple copper cable runs. The diversity of requirements coupled with developments in fibre and data networking technology, leaves us with a vast array of interface options. To unravel the maze of what is currently on offer it helps to categorise the different types of interface. First, we can divide interfaces by the way in which they are made available to a manufacturer. There are three categories: those that have been agreed as international standards; those that are licensed to manufacturers by the developer; and those that are designed and implemented by a single manufacturer. AES3 and AES10 are two examples of internationally published standards, which you may know better as AES-EBU and MADI. The AES is responsible for publishing many standards within our industry; it is worth remembering that standards are purely voluntary, and only become commonplace if manufacturers choose to implement them (see the Established Digital Audio Interfaces sidebar). Two examples of licensed interfaces are ADAT optical, developed by Alesis, and TDIF, developed by Tascam. Both have become ‘industry-standards’ through commercial success. In the early 1990s the success of the 8-track ADAT and Tascam DA88 led other manufacturers to implement direct interfaces on their own equipment. Although the ADATs and DA88s have long since been superseded, you will still find ADAT optical and TDIF interfaces across a range of I-O and effects units, input cards for DAWs and routers. Our third category, those confined to a single manufacturer, normally arises due to the lack of a suitable alternative. In the early 1990s, when most manufacturers were investing in lots of research and development, MADI was limited to 56 channels, 48kHz and offered limited control. While it was adopted by some, many others preferred to implement their own proprietary interconnection schemes. Stagetec’s Nexus system and Digidesign’s digital snake are just two examples in this category. Second, interfaces can be divided by the technology they use. There are two main categories: those that transport data from A to B known as point-to-point or P2P interfaces; and those that conform to the models and standards used in computer data networks. Confusion arises because many interfaces that have nothing to do with computer networking are often used to build audio ‘networks’.

Established digital audio interfaces First published in 1985, the success of AES-EBU (AES3) was due to its simplicity. Two channels of digital audio are transported from A to B using balanced copper cabling and XLR connectors; the interface needs no external clock as the clock signal can be extracted by the receiver. This allowed analogue installations to be easily adapted to handle the new digital interface, and universal implementation from pro audio manufacturers quickly followed. Initially, AES3 supported only 32, 44.1 or 48kHz sample rates, but in the late 1990s amendments were made to improve the specification. The result is that this 25-year-old interface can now transfer two channels of 24-bit at 44.1/48kHz, 88.2/96kHz or 176.4/192kHz. AES-EBU uses a shielded twisted pair copper cable with XLR or 25-pin D-Sub connectors. Several spin-offs from the AES3 standard have only served to reinforce the success of the interface. AES3-id allows AES-EBU to be carried by 75Ohm terminated coaxial cable with BNC connectors. This type of cable/connector is widespread in video, making it ideal for products aimed at broadcast. Another example is AES47, which defines how AES-EBU signals can be packaged into ATM, a fibre optic networking protocol commonplace in telephone networks. ATM networks can be

used to provide reliable, real-time transfer of digital audio across wider area networks. MADI (Multichannel Audio Digital Interface — AES10) was first published in 1991 and has had a slightly rockier ride than AES-EBU. It was originally developed jointly by Sony, Neve, Mitsubishi and Solid State Logic to transfer multiple channels between a digital multitrack (tape!) recorder and a mixing console. It uses a similar serial data structure to AES-EBU, making it easy to convert stereo AES-EBU signals into a MADI stream and vice versa. In 1991, the first revision of the interface supported 56 channels at sample rates up to 54kHz (from the varispeed option on tape machines). By the late 1990s, Sony DASH machines were providing useful coffee cup storage and MADI started to go into decline because it could not handle higher sample rates. In 2003, the AES10 standard was revised to increase the channel count to 64 at 48kHz, 32 channels at 96kHz, or 16 channels at 192kHz, by removing the old varispeed (54kHz) option. The result is that MADI has made a comeback and is fast becoming the industry standard for transferring multiple channels of digital audio. MADI connections use either a 75Ohm terminated coaxial cable (BNC) up to 100m, or multimode fibre optic (SC connector) up to 2km.

resolution

November/December 2009

digital system essentials Interfaces can be divided into those using point-topoint connections and those based on data networks.

Point-to-point Interfaces

PROS

Point-to-point interfaces are fast (low latency). They present analogue-style routing that is easy to understand. Standards exist (e.g. AES47) to transfer digital audio across wide area networks reliably.

CONS

A dedicated router is expensive. The router relies on fixed connections that can be inflexible.

AES-EBU, MADI, ADAT and TDIF are examples of point-to-point interfaces. To provide resource sharing using this type of interface, a central router is employed as demonstrated by SSL’s MORSE (Modular Resource Sharing Engine) shown in the Figure. A series of fixed point-to-point connections are made between the router, remote I-O and mixing consoles/ DAWs, with each one transmitting audio and control. The advantages of using a router for audio distribution are that point-to-point interfaces are fast (low latency), and provide analogue-style routing that is easy for the user to understand. The drawbacks are that a dedicated router can be expensive; the router introduces a single point of failure; and it offers a fixed number of connection points, thereby limiting system expansion. In practice, most audio routers offer protection against failure with redundant power supplies, connections and control. Today’s routers are also capable of dealing with thousands of connections, and therefore, the biggest single argument against this solution is usually cost. The second category of interface covers those that have been designed on the back of computer data networks. These are solutions based on computer interfaces or protocols such as Ethernet, IP (Internet Procotol), FireWire (IEEE1394) or USB. Examples

include CobraNet, EtherSound, AES50 and Dante which transfer audio over Ethernet and mLAN based on FireWire. The main advantage is that these interfaces can use the low cost components and existing infrastructure of data networks. In addition, they are easier to expand, can handle control data within the same connection, and the configuration of the network is not defined by the physical connections. This means that you can connect a device to any physical location, and configure how it ‘sees’ other resources using software. However, there are a number of issues that must be addressed when using data networks for audio. Data networks were designed for computing applications such as web browsing and email, not real-time audio transfer. Therefore, interfaces must deal with issues of latency, keeping audio in sync, retaining the high bandwidth required for digital audio, and delivering data reliably. Each of the current implementations has its own pros and cons, which is why the current market has so many different formats on offer. The challenge for the future is to see if one of these data networking interfaces can develop into a universal winner. Next issue I’ll look into this topic further in an attempt to simplify networked audio. n

The router introduces a single point of failure (most schemes offer redundancy but at a cost). Separate connections may be required to handle control data.

DATA NETWORK INTERFACES

PROS

Control data can be handled in the same connection. The network can be freely configured by the user and is not dependent on the number of physical connections.

CONS

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.

“Dirk’s microphones are open, natural and inspiring just like the man himself. “ Peter Gabriel “ 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, ... In the UK: The Home Service T: 020 8943 4949 E: sales@louisaustin.com

theartofmicrophones.com

Interfaces based on data networks use cheap, off-the-shelf components from the computing industry.

Data networks are designed for nonreal time applications and therefore can be slow (resulting in latency issues for digital audio). Delivering data reliably and in sync can be a challenge. High bandwidths are required for real-time delivery of professional digital audio.

business

The family entertainment spend In difficult economic times, being well informed about future trends takes on a sharper urgency for content producers. NIGEL JOPSON breaks out the digital binoculars, and scans the entertainment and media financial forecast for the next five years.

he message for recorded music that physical business models are fading has gone stale — the entertainment industry is still making money — it’s a question of researching where that money is, and where best to invest and license content. Sony recently announced its intention to spend a whopping £1.5m promoting Take That, with an extensive print, national radio, online advertising and TV campaign. The TV promotion is already underway, with key prime-time spots during family entertainment and music programming such as the X Factor. Sony? Aren’t TT signed to Polydor/ UMG? Of course they are, but the ad budget, which would have been flattering even back in the heyday of Boy Bands and physical CD sales, is to promote the Playstation game Singstar: Take That. Licensing revenues now represent nearly 20% of overall label income. Apart

from traditional physical products, there are four main sources of income for labels: Sync licensing from music in films, TV, games and advertising; digital licensing to services like Spotify, Deezer and We7; 360-degree-deal multiple rights income from merchandising, and touring; PPL and VPL income. These non-physical revenues actually grew by 7% in 2008, and now account for 18% of record companies’ income. Label sync deals for games only represent the tip of an iceberg for this lucrative market. Most high-ticket deals done for Rock Band, Guitar Hero and so on, have involved rerecording famous tracks. In most cases, songwriters are the main beneficiaries, and game publishers have

M-380 48-Channels of Rackmountable REAC Power

The powerful new M-380 V-Mixer packs all the flexibility of widely-accepted REAC based V-Mixing systems into a 19” rack. It also offers a total 24-bit audio solution, including, 48 channels of mixing with classic onboard FX, GEQ, Matrix, DCA, LCR plus a choice of Digital Snakes as well as personal mixing and multi-channel recording via Cakewalk Sonar. Better still, the M-380 delivers this market-leading power and flexibility at a price that will surprise you.www.rolandsg.co.uk or call 01792 702701

M-400 V-Mixer

M-48 Personal Monitor

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

resolution

November/December 2009

business gone direct to musicians to license the use of their images for animated figures in the games. These direct deals mean the overall worth has been very hard to quantify, but tracking music sales announcements after video game launches gives a guide. DragonForce guitarist Herman Li and his speed metal bandmates — and producer Karl Groom (Resolution consumers in April 2009 were more than twice as likely to cut out-of-home V8.1) — became stars after their song Through the Fire and Flames featured as entertainment spending than to reduce in-home entertainment outlay. More than the hardest challenge in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. ‘Our CD sales have gone half of the 10,000 people polled across the world trimmed April spending on outup, and we are high up the charts on digital downloads,’ Li says. ‘It’s great. We of-home entertainment, making it the category consumers were second-most likely don’t play commercial music. It took everyone by surprise.’ Sales of Metallica’s One to axe; after clothing. Perhaps the natural human inclination is to lump together increased from just 2,000 weekly before Guitar Hero III’s release to more than 6,000 in the weeks afterward, spiking at 27,605. Muse and the Chili Peppers saw similar but more moderate sales bumps for Knights of Cydonia and Suck My Kiss. ‘Those tracks didn’t have Neve Genesys any [other] activity surrounding them at the time,’ says Mark Reiter of Q Prime, who manage the three acts. ‘I really do believe we have only begun to scratch the We never compromise… surface of the impact [video games] can have on artists and we don’t see why and instrument sales. This is one of the bits of truly great you should. news we’ve seen in a long time.’ Another music revenue stream that’s been hard to nail actual figures on is advertising and sponsorship. The UK Performing Rights Society commissioned music marketing agency FRUKT to put numbers to six primary channels where brands invest in UK music. I’ve charted these revenues for 2008, which came in at £89m overall, 1% down on 2007 (mainly because of lower income from festival sponsorship). Digital markets grew by nearly 20% in 2008, boosted by social network partnerships and brands creating their own online destinations with music tie-ins. The PRS economists made the point that the £89m was not evenly spread: ‘the proceeds would have reached a select number of mainly established acts; definitely more than double figures but certainly not in the thousands.’ This phenomenon of money being drawn to larger acts was also raised as a concern of the live industry in the PRS’ survey of total revenue for the music industry. Business to Business (B2B) now makes up a quarter of the pie, and Business to Consumer (B2C) revenues were apparently skewed towards heritage acts. The PRS conclusion was that, at £3.2bn for 2008, the UK music industry had actually grown by 4.7% overall, despite the BPI’s UK retail value of recorded music falling 6% to £1,309m from £1,391 in 2007. As data from 2008 and Q1 2009 were scrutinised by Entertainment and Media companies, the worry for most was: how would the consumers of last resort, A chunk of Neve greatness… Diminutive but crammed with functionality… Extraordinary the North American marketplace, hold up? The early routing and configuration flexibility… ‘Big console’ feature specs… indicators in 2009 were not good, with 74% of US adults telling Harris pollsters they planned to reduce George Shilling, reviewing the Neve Genesys in Resolution, October 2009 spending on entertainment, up from 64% in November 2008; exactly the same number as said they planned to cut back on the most popular consumer money-saver for 2008 — eating out. When US Labor Department numbers arrived, 2008 consumer prices had risen Features include: DAW control for Pro Tools, Logic, Nuendo etc • all settings including dynamics & EQ storable/ recallable • 5.1 monitoring built in as standard • true in-line design • comprehensive control room functions • a 3.8% from 2007, but pretax income rose only 0.7%. modular approach (pick your frame size, starting from a 16 fader/32 input configuration, then upgrade as your Americans compensated by slashing spending on less business grows, up to the maximum 64 fader/128 fader configuration) • proven 88RS-based technology • choice essential items, with transportation falling 1.8% and of transformer-based classic or modern 88-style analogue preamps • optional Neve Total Recall™ • optional automation through our renowned Encore Plus™ automation package • prices from £28,300 + applicable taxes clothing spending sliding 4.3% — a $9.7bn hit to the apparel industry. As predicted, families spent more on eating at home, but the big surprise was the $16.5bn For full details go to www.ams-neve.com/Products/Music/Genesys/Genesys.aspx rise, a 5.1% increase, in entertainment spending. For a test drive, contact: KMR Audio • +44 20 8445 2446 • www.kmraudio.com Perhaps the key is in where the entertainment is being enjoyed. Researchers Nielsen found global

“

November/December 2009

”

KMR_NeveGenesys_NoCompromise_Resolution.indd 1

resolution

25/09/2009 11:39

business all the costs of leaving home for an entertainment event, making the potential saving seem larger. Nielsen concluded the US will nevertheless be among the global economies expected to recover quickest from the economic downturn, while nations like France, Italy and the UK will take longer. NPD estimates current per capita spending on entertainment in the US is $160 per month, the bulk taken up by subscription fees related to TV and internet access. Despite the poor economic situation in 2009, 75% of consumers intend to buy as many music downloads, 65% will spend the same or more on video games, and 60% intend to spend the same on CDs. When it came to purchases made during the preceding three months, 51% of those asked had bought a DVD or Blu-ray disc, 36% a video game, and 31% had bought a CD. ‘There is anxiety about the economy among entertainment buyers, increasing use of unpaid digital options for entertainment and competition for the entertainment dollar,’ says Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD Group, ‘but consumers have clearly shown compelling content will get them back into stores or theatres.’ A remarkable two out of every three Americans have played a video game in the last six months, and games account for one-third of the average monthly consumer spending in the US for ‘core entertainment content’. NPD’s teen music tracking surveys (sampling over 4,000 teenagers) noted sharp jumps in usage of online listening sources and satellite radio in 2008. 52% of teenagers listened online in 2008, compared to just 34% in 2007. Downloading from or listening to music on social networks also saw a large increase — from 26% in 2007 to 46% in 2008. Illegal downloading from P2P networks fell by 6% in 2008. ‘With popular music sites like Pandora, imeem, and MySpaceMusic complementing offerings by terrestrial and satellite radio, more teens may be getting their fill of music and feeling less compelled to buy music or share it with others,’ says Crupnick. In fact a recent MusicLab survey revealed that 54% of teens who heard a song they liked on MySpace Music were likely to simply

listen to that song again on the site, compared with only 1% who would click through and buy the song on AmazonMP3 (MySpace’s online partner for purchased music downloads). Meanwhile, a mythbusting study of American teens by Nielsen, released in June 2009, revealed US teenagers are not the multitasking, digital savvy Twitterers they are often depicted as. Teens like the internet, but spend 11 hours 32 minutes online per month, compared to the national average of 29 hours and 15 minutes. Only 23% of the media time among observed teens was concurrent media exposure, where two or more media were in simultaneous use, compared to 31% of adult media time which is concurrent. The trend towards access-based listening services, rather than music ownership, was confirmed by a study of UK youngsters by researchers The Leading Question, who found 43% used streaming services. The big question for content creators is not just ‘where are we now?’ It’s ‘what to do to stay profitable in future?’ For $995 the respected accountancy and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) will give you a form of road-map to the answer, a heavyduty economic forecast entitled ‘Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2009-2013.’ Having opened this omnibus-sized tome, and battled through more than a few pages of figures, the big-view conclusion is: do you have what it takes to wait until 2011? Global consumer spending in overall entertainment and media will fall a projected 3.9% in 2009, remain weak in 2010 with growth of 0.4%, and then see modest growth, regaining strength to 7.1% in 2013. The global E & M market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.7% over the next five years, to reach $1.6 trillion in 2013. Of course this covers a huge sector:

resolution

November/December 2009

business everything from internet access found it to be as robust and accurate as the normal Google indexing. Google has through TV, music, newspapers also partnered with Gracenote to provide full lyric search — if you type in the lyrics and book publishing. Responses from a portion of a song, they’ll identify the song. Song purchasing partners include to recession vary across territories. imeem, Rhapsody, and Pandora. Latin America and Asia Pacific are As I write, Google is rolling out the first step-up from music search: exclusive the fastest growing, with annual content. The bait includes new material compound growth of 5.1% and and free mp3s available for a limited time 4.5% through to 2013, reaching only, exclusive tracks will be available $73bn and $413bn respectively. from Snoop Dogg, Kings of Leon, Lady Four segments: recorded music, Gaga and Linkin Park. It’s not clear B2B publishing, newspapers, and whether this will be a regular feature or if consumer magazines will suffer it is just to promote the new music search. actual declines in total global revenues during 2009-2013, in stark contrast to a But if artists, labels and media producers CAGR in excess of 6% for internet access, internet advertising, video games, and really want to draw people in, they’ll TV subscriptions and license fees, and of 4% in filmed entertainment, which will embrace these sorts of ideas quickly, become an increasingly digitally-driven segment. because it makes ordinary people’s lives There are several bright-spots that PWC expects to considerably outpace the rest easier and offers a direct route to the - Resolution UA Junior:Layout 05/11/2009 10:47 Page 1 of the industry. Video game advertising is predicted to have#26216 a 13.8% growth rate. media customer. n 3D releases will drive significantly more revenue than 2D for filmed entertainment. The big buzzword of the report is ‘digital behaviours’. The accelerated migration to digital technologies has spawned new consumption habits (digital behaviours) as people seek more control over where, when and how they enjoy content: it has, apparently, never been a better moment to be a consumer. Marcel Fenez, Global Leader Entertainment & Media at PWC, said: ‘Inside every cloud is a silver lining and in this case, a digital one. Companies who grasp the opportunities which are appearing in this fast changing marketplace and are agile enough to adapt their business models will be able to take full advantage of the potential and new revenue models as they emerge.’ End-user spending through digital or mobile platforms accounted for 23.4% of the overall consumer access market in 2008 and is expected to account for 78% of total growth during the next five years. Tapping into the massive collective buying-power of online communities will become an increasingly important task. Mobile access — wireless upgrades, 3G rollouts and smartphones — will advance in the European region at a phenomenal 24.5% rate of growth; from $11bn in 2008 to $32.9bn in 2013. There is a reason when Google throws down $750m to purchase a company like AdMob that is focused on mobile advertising. Producing media for any of these growth areas will be a winning strategy for creatives from all disciplines. What might the digital future look like, where top online and traditional trusted-media brands will converge to give the customer a ‘one click’ experience? For music, imagine if you could just type an artist and/ Introducing the UAD-2 SOLO/Laptop or song name into the Google search-box and instantly Mixing on a laptop has always seemed EQP-1A emulations, and gives you — well, within 0.49 seconds — have a listing with a access to famous analogue classics like like a good idea. Until you try it and little ‘play’ button to immediately hear the song. Well, inevitably hit the wall — that ugly place the Teletronix LA-2A, Roland RE-201, since 28 October and only in the US you can! Much as where you run out of processing power. Neve 1073, and more. those of us who browsed through boxes of vinyl in our youth may regard music discovery as an activity to be With its simple ExpressCard format and Enter the UAD-2 SOLO/Laptop — the lingered over, that’s not generally what people want first and only plug-in processing card that VST, AU and RTAS support for both Mac and Windows, the UAD-2 SOLO/Laptop puts the big, beautiful analogue sound today. Google’s new Onebox will let users stream songs maximizes your mixes, without maxing and unrivalled power of the Universal directly from the search page, powered by either Lala or out your laptop. Audio UAD-2 inside your laptop. iLike (branded as MySpace Music.) It’s a massive win for Lala, which has latched onto the idea that listeners The UAD-2 SOLO/Laptop comes with our WWW.UAUDIO.COM are moving away from media ownership: Lala has cut widely heralded 1176SE and Pultec deals that enable it to sell a (streaming only) album for $0.80, or a song for $0.10; the kind of micro payments futurologists have long been enthusing about. © 2009 Universal Audio Inc. All trademarks are recognized as As you can see in the screen-shots, the iLike player property of their respective owners. also has a view-video and buy-mp3 button — there could just as easily be ‘buy tickets’, ‘find gig location’, ‘buy T-shirt’ or ‘buy producer a virtual pint’ buttons. Exclusively distributed in the UK & Ireland by Source • www.sourcedistribution.co.uk/ua • T: 020 8962 5080 I tested Onebox with some unusual and potentially confusing names (Boards Of Canada, Morgan Heritage) plus older keywords (Spooky Tooth, Quicksilver) and

THE SOUND OF UNIVERSAL AUDIO,

NOW IN YOUR LAPTOP.

November/December 2009

resolution

TEN

Rock ‘n’ Roll animals JIM EVANS indulges in a menagerie of rock and pop miscellany. Nipper(1884-1895) — Nipper was a terrier that served as the model for a painting entitled His Master’s Voice, which later became identified with a series of audio recording brands, including RCA. Nipper’s original owner, Mark Henry Barraud, died in 1887, leaving his brothers Philip and Francis to care for the dog. In 1898, three years after Nipper’s death, Francis painted a picture of Nipper listening intently to a wind-up Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph. Francis filed an application for copyright of his picture ‘Dog Looking At and Listening to a Phonograph’. Thinking the EdisonBell Company might find it useful, he presented it to James E Hough who promptly said, ‘Dogs don’t listen to phonographs.’ Later, Francis went to the Maiden Lane offices of The Gramophone Company with the intention of borrowing a brass horn to replace the original black horn on the painting. Manager, William Barry Owen suggested that if the artist replaced the entire machine with a Berliner disc gramophone, the company would buy the painting. A modified form of the painting became the successful trademark of Victor and HMV records, HMV music stores, and RCA. Samantha Fox — In 1989, former glamour model and pop singer Samantha Fox co-presented the BRIT Awards with Mick Fleetwood, which became notorious for turning into a shambles. Fox has asserted in interviews since that the autocue did not work properly that night, leading to utter chaos during the show’s live TV broadcast. She spent a year in New York presenting pop promo videos for MTV, and she made other attempts at TV presenting, including an interview with Rolf Harris, which was ill-fated even before it started as Fox referred to her interviewee as ‘Ralph’ on several occasions, although he got his own back by resting his beard against her neck and tickling her with it. Rat Scabies — Christopher Millar, better known by his showbiz name Rat Scabies, is a musician well-known for his tenure as the drummer for The Damned. Millar played drums with Tor and London SS before founding The Damned with Brian James. His solo work outside The Damned includes a cover version of Bob Dylan’s This Wheel’s On Fire, credited to Rat & The Whale. In recent times, Millar has played with Donovan, Neville Staple (formerly of The Specials), Dave Catching (Eagles Of Death Metal) and Chris Goss. He has also worked as a producer, most notably with Flipron and Arizona punk outfit Glass Heroes. Millar is the central character of the book Rat Scabies And The Holy Grail, written by former music journalist Christopher Dawes. 54

The Monkees — The Monkees were a pop rock quartet assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968. The members were Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Englishman Davy Jones, who were supervised and popularised by Don Kirshner. At the time of the band’s formation, its producers saw The Monkees as a Beatles-like band. At the start, the band members provided vocals, and were given some performing and production opportunities, but they eventually fought for and earned the right to collectively supervise all musical output under the band’s name. Although the TV show ended in 1968, the band continued releasing records until 1970. In the 1980s, the television show and music experienced a revival, which led to a series of reunion tours, and new records featuring various incarnations of the band’s lineup. Old Shep — Often referred to as the ultimate sad song, Old Shep was a song penned by Red Foley and Arthur Willis, about a dog Foley owned as a child (in reality, the dog, poisoned by a neighbour, was a German shepherd named Hoover). Foley and Willis wrote the song in 1933, but Foley released it as a single in 1941. The song, later recorded by many artists including Hank Snow and Elvis Presley, became a country classic. In 1945, Presley at age ten sang Old Shep for his first public performance, a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. Dressed as a cowboy, he stood on a chair to reach the microphone. He came fifth, winning $5 and a free ticket to the fair rides. Puff the Magic Dragon — Puff the Magic Dragon is a song written by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow and made popular by the group Peter, Paul and Mary in a 1963 recording. In 1961, Yarrow joined Paul Stookey and Mary Travers to form Peter, Paul and Mary. The group incorporated the song into their live performances before recording it in 1962. It reached No 2 On the Billboard chart. After the song’s initial success, speculation arose that the song contained veiled references to smoking marijuana. The authors of the song have repeatedly rejected this urban legend and have strongly and consistently denied that they intended any references to drug use. Animal — The crazed drummer of Dr Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, Animal was performed by Frank Oz from his first appearance in the pilot for The Muppet Show until his 1999 appearance in Muppets from Space, and has been performed regularly by Eric Jacobson since his 2002 resolution

appearance in It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. On The Muppet Show, his drumming is performed by Ronnie Verrell. Animal’s vocabulary is generally limited to guttural shouts and monosyllabic grunts, often repeating a few simple phrases. During performances, Animal is usually chained to the drum set, as his musical outbursts are extremely violent. Throughout his tenure on the show, bass player Floyd seems to be the only person who can, at least partially, control Animal with a few simple commands. It has been suggested that Animal’s character was partially inspired by The Who drummer Keith Moon. Eddie Rabbitt — An American country music singer-songwriter who enjoyed pop success in the 1970s and 80s, Rabbitt’s hits included Drivin’ My Life Away and I Love a Rainy Night, which topped the Billboard Hot 100. After growing up in New Jersey, Rabbitt moved to Nashville and began his vocation in the music industry. He started as a songwriter in the late 1960s, springboarding to a recording career after penning such hits as Kentucky Rain for Elvis Presley in 1970 and Pure Love for Ronnie Milsap in 1974. Rabbitt’s career was cut short when he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997. Although he continued to record, Rabbitt died from the disease the following year. Cat Stevens — Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou) is best known by his former stage name Cat Stevens. His albums Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat were both certified as Triple Platinum by the RIAA in the United States. He also earned two ASCAP songwriting awards in consecutive years, for The First Cut Is the Deepest, which has been a hit single for four different artists. Stevens converted to Islam at the height of his fame and adopted his Muslim name. In 1979 he auctioned all his guitars for charity and left his music career to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Muslim community. He has been given several awards for his work in promoting peace in the world. He now goes by the single name Yusuf.

Alice — A Burmese albino python, Alice was a slippery stage prop for rock showman Alice Cooper. Once in the US, just hours before Cooper was to take the stage, the 8-foot-long snake ate a live rat and then swallowed a 12-by-14 inch heating pad, wires and all, that had been left in its cage by mistake. After surgery Alice made a full recovery. n November/December 2009

SWEET SPOT

Repurposing for digital Swapping out analogue gear for digital can impact on your control room’s acoustics. BJORN VAN MUNSTER of Sensus Acoustics & Architecture looks at the problems and gives some solutions.

lot of things have changed since the early days of high-end listening environments, such as control rooms or even home theatres, but it is the change from analogue to digital that has had the most impact on workflows and the equipment in the rooms. But there are also architectural considerations that go hand in hand with the move to digital in highend listening environments. This article deals with some things you might want to think about when moving over to digital, particularly the change from an analogue to digital mixing console. The implications of employing digital technology manifest themselves on many different levels. In the first place there’s the sound of the equipment itself; the results of both are very good but digital sounds different from analogue, as many will testify. Going digital also affects the way equipment is used and the understanding of the engineers and technicians who use it. There are also some digital specific issues, like jitter and sample rate errors. An important issue that is often overlooked is the acoustics of the environment; generally it is presumed that if the acoustics were fine before any equipment changes then they will remain fine afterwards. This presumption is not completely correct. The mixing console, which is a very pronounced object in the room, plays a role in the room acoustics and also impacts on the noise and vibration control of the room. Old analogue desks are not only famous for their sound but also for their impressive dimensions. During the design stage of the control room the mixing desk has to be accounted for — the location of the console with respect to the sidewalls, the speakers and the engineer in the room are crucial for the determination of the direction and level of reflections. High levels of early reflections can be disastrous for the stereo image and the acoustic appreciation of a control room. The shape and sizes of digital mixing desks differ markedly from analogue consoles and, as you can appreciate, this can have a detrimental effect on the transfer function between the loudspeakers and the engineer. Getting the location of the new desk wrong can undo all the good acoustic work put into designing the room in the first place. There are two ways to overcome this potential problem with the acoustics. If you absolutely don’t want to have any changes to the interior acoustics of the room then one solution, and it’s an impractical one because you’ll probably be selling your old desk, is to build your new desk and controllers into the ‘furniture’ of the old desk. That way you maintain the location and geometry of the mixing console with respect to the speakers, walls and engineer. Otherwise you’ll have to understand the paths of the new reflections resulting

Fink Analog Audio

AccuSound Cable Company

Introducing the CS2-FA

Amazing cables - now available in Europe

Two Complete Channel strips, ready for Dual Mono or Stereo linked use. You can track two different mics through it, or record a stereo pair with it. Loop through it during mix down for that great real analog ‘plug-in’ (times two.) Link it in stereo as a Bus Processor for vocals, instruments, or percussion groups; or use it as an analog stereo Mastering Processor. You get 3 Classic Processors in 1 Great Channel Strip

Accusound Silver Studio Pro cables use hybrid, silver-plated copper conductors and silver compound solder to reproduce the purest sounds from every piece of gear. Every possible electro-magnetic imperfection has been hunted down and eliminated through clever design, carefully selected materials, a proprietary winding technique and fanatical attention to detail. As a result, Accusound cables boast phase shift and distortion that is unmeasurable between 0 and 200kHz. It may come as a surprise that even though they sound better, Accusound’s cables cost almost half as much as other silver cable, a happy consequence of Accusound’s reliance on word of mouth instead of wasted marketing dollars. View the complete range in our webshop.

Custom Shop

Preamp section: A three tube preamp in the vintage Putnam console style, with continuous Gain and Level controls. Equalizer Section: A passive parametric three-band EQ in the classic Pultec style, with all the familiar frequencies and curves. Limiter Section: A unique two tube implementation of the UREI 1176, preserving the FET attenuator character and controls of the original.

Vintagedesign CL1 Mk2 3 Sigma CHI-series

A fantastic sounding and very versatile classic-style compressor-limiter. Check out the recent review in Tape-Op magazine. View the complete range in our webshop.

November/December 2009

resolution

HAMBURG II AU

Berlin 47 AU Cremona 251 AU

European Distribution and Reselling We welcome dealers! www.goldenagemusic.eu

SWEET SPOT from the introduction of the new console. This can be a bit trial-and-error but you can also analyse them accurately by using ray-tracing techniques. Such an analysis will also allow you to ‘apply’ whatever console you’re interested in to the room you have and see how it will interact with the acoustics. A new desk can also strongly affect the sound insulation of a high-end listening environment and by that I mean sound coming into the room and sound going out of it. For room designers the front wall and the floor are complicated areas that need careful consideration. In a regular design, the speakers are mounted into the walls and these actively vibrating objects need to be controlled in a proper manner to avoid unwanted resonances. The floor design is influenced by the interior and the number of people expected to be inside the room. When a control room is changed over to a digital desk not only does the

new desk create a different acoustic profile from being smaller, but it is also likely to be much lighter than its analogue counterpart. Control rooms built for high levels of sound isolation often have floating floors based on a massspring-mass construction. The performance of such a floor is calculated by the designer, whereby the total acoustic load to be taken into account is the sum of the so-called dead load and live load. Isolation systems are designed for the Acoustic Design Load (ADL), which is the dead load + 1/3 live load. Isolators must still work effectively under full loading (dead load + 100% live load). The resonance frequency of such a floor depends on the stiffness of the elastic layer (k) and the total mass (m). When the load on a floor changes significantly, the resonance frequency of the total construction will shift as well. Especially for critically designed constructions this can result in poor

sound insulation and associated problems. Typical control room floors have an isolator inserted between two mass layers. The air space created between the mass layers by the isolator is typically sealed around the perimeter of the room where it meets the structural wall with a resilient connection (caulking, elastomer, etc.) If this airspace is small (say 12-35mm) the airspace will form a spring with a high stiffness. This stiffness causes the floor system resonance frequency to rise very high. Typically in the 20-30Hz range. Obviously, if you have a subwoofer that can deliver energy in the 30-40Hz range, very little isolation occurs and some amplification could even result. To reduce the system resonance you must reduce the airspace stiffness. This can be done by increasing the air void height or venting the floor

resolution

November/December 2009

SWEET SPOT

Introducing RNDigital’s

NEW

Dynamics Processing Plug-in

D4 Compress or Expand The Right Way

airspace. Increasing the air void height might not be feasible because of limitations of room ceiling heights, accessibility due to the raised floor, and budgets. A simple example will clarify this. Assuming an old large mixing console of about 1000kg, a typical dead load to calculate with can be about 500kg/ m2. The desired resonance frequency should be at a point where you are sure it will not be activated by subwoofers that are placed on the floor or in room modes — so this frequency should be chosen well below, say, 30Hz. For this example a desired resonance frequency of 15Hz is assumed. For safety the design frequency will be 2/3 of the resonance frequency, i.e. 10Hz. According to the formula this requires a stiffness of the elastic layer k of 2.0MN/ m2. Now we change the console to a much lighter one, with a total load of say 200kg/m2. If the floor construction is not changed, the stiffness k remains the same. Thus the resonance frequency will shift to about 16Hz. If you’re unlucky, this can ruin the sound insulation and introduce problems. As shown in the example, little things can greatly affect the eventual result. Another observation is that assumptions made with the best intentions at the original design stage might prove to be inappropriate for what will happen to the interior in the future. As a designer, you would want to be able to include November/December 2009

solutions that overcome such problems; to future-proof. One such solution is developed by a Belgium company called CDM that has been successfully installed in the new BBC Broadcasting House in the UK. This Jack-up Floating Floor System provides acoustic decoupling of floating floors with spring and/or elastomer isolator performances between 3-12Hz. The bearings in the middle can be changed, depending on the load. Before or after the installation, the design offers the opportunity to adapt the stiffness of the spring to the actual load on the floor. In this way you are always able to change and optimise the performance of the floor in accordance with the load on the floor. If there is one lesson to take away from current technological developments it is that you have to plan for future flexibility because ever increasing digitisation of workflows and processes will also result in a more flexible use of the environment. Therefore construction and also layout of the room and the logistics, with respect to cabling and equipment, should be prepared for flexible use. What seems to be wise and leading-edge today might be old fashioned tomorrow. It’s a bit like attitudes to the control room couch, which over the years has moved around the control room. Some claim it should be in front of the mixing console, others insist on a position against the rear wall. Thankfully current technology allows us to optimise the room for any specific location relatively easy. However, the serious modern challenge for an acoustic designer is to design not only for current use but also for future, and as yet unknown, use. n

How about an audio dynamics processor that sets you free from the rigid parameters set by traditional compressors and expanders? Think about it for a moment. Until now n you had to live with the very limited dynamic compression or expansion capabilities of either hardware or software devices available. With D4’s technology it is now possible to alter the dynamics of audio material in almost any way and form you wish. ...Ah, freedom! ...Ah

Acknowledgement: Thomas N. Ryan, Technological Design Studios (www.technolgicaldesign.com)

Contact sensus acoustics & architecture, the netherlands: Website: www.sensusdesigngroup.com

resolution

Learn more at:

www.rndigital.org 57

technology

Synchronous networks for real-time media delivery Optocore launched its SANE Cat5-based networking system earlier this year as a product that spreads its technological appeal more broadly across markets. MARTIN BARBOUR, Optocore systems support engineer, explains how.

here are already many networking protocols and proprietary point-to-point link technologies out there so with the launch of SANE we were expecting to have to justify the introduction of yet another one. However, after a short run through the system with customers along with an introduction to some of the associated hardware interfaces the question was not so much ‘Why?’ as ‘Why hasn’t someone already done this?’ Optocore’s initial growth was in the live sound market where it served as a resilient digital replacement for analogue multicores. Users appreciated the potential of true synchronous digital networks and Optocore became adopted as a core transport system allowing sources to be shared between multiple consoles, recorders and broadcast systems all interfaced through Open Standards protocols. Couple that with the distribution of video for preview monitoring, serial control as well as standard Ethernet all over the same fibre and you start to see how Optocore has cemented itself as a core infrastructure system rather than just a simple digital snake. Our primary goal is to create professional network systems for the delivery of high quality media and this goes beyond the quality of A-D/D-A conversions to cover aspects such as Word clock distribution and synchronisation, as well as providing an open platform network that can be interfaced with other professional audio products allowing users to build systems from multiple vendors. The issue of audio delivery is often approached with the principle of using as many standard networking components as possible to help reduce engineering time and costs as well as making the technology ‘approachable’ for the average user. This often leads to Ethernet technology being used as the transport medium with proprietary or standards-based encapsulation methods being employed to build an audio layer on top of an Ethernet transport system. Ethernet is great for many things — file transfers, accessing the internet and free phone calls across the world — but none of these uses are particularly time dependant. Even VOIP telecommunications accept the varying time delays experienced between participants when making just local calls across the internet.

Plugin processors for professional music and audio production How many audio plug-ins do we need in professional audio production today?

These factors are all by-products of the asynchronous nature of Ethernet delivery where packets are sent between nodes in bursts. If a packet of data is not transmitted successfully it is often assumed that it is acceptable to resend that packet a little later. This means that audio networks using Ethernet as a transport medium must buffer packets at the receiver so as to allow for the potential delays and errors involved with sending data over an Ethernet network. Buffering introduces delays that can be engineered around but can never be eliminated. In addition, the attempt to make the technology easy to use for the average user is only partially met. Configuring bandwidth allocation, Quality of Service as well as fault redundancy are all required for the majority of these systems to function correctly especially when making use of a shared Ethernet system for multiple disciplines. The configuration of these network parameters becomes a specialist task as the scale of the system and the

nyone who has been working in a computer based recording environment knows that when you want to achieve a certain result, you need just ‘the’ special tool for that task. And when it comes to your everyday session work, you need reliable tools that suit your workflow and quality standards.

Initially we bought this ad-space with the intention to tell you how great our products are, but in the end there’s not only one set of plug-ins or one sound quality concept that will make it all the way for all working situations, it’s all about having the right variety of tools in your toolbox.

How many plug-ins are you using in your session work today, including recording, editing, mixing, remixing and mastering?

Now if you actually feel that there’s a need for some more tools in your toolbox, go download our demos and try them too!

Most engineers would probably have a hard time answering this question straight up, even if there of course always are a couple of favourite plug-ins that always turn up in every project more or less, the so called ‘go-to’ tools.

Flux Ad 0909.indd 1

resolution

www.fluxhome.com www.twitter.com/FluxPlugins

07/08/2009 14:25

November/December 2009

technology

The X6R-FX bridging device has Optocore and SANE networking interfaces.

complexity of the routing increases meaning it’s not always for the feint hearted. The approach taken with Optocore and SANE is to build a dedicated media network through which audio, video and data, including Ethernet, can be tunnelled. Configuration of the network simply requires configuring the network devices with an individual device ID and a common sample rate. From that point onwards there is no further configuration need beyond the actual signal routing assignment, which is simple and dynamic and is something any user can do. The underlying protocols manage the bandwidth allocation of the different media tunnels making it impossible for one media stream to adversely affect another. This means that the audio will never be compromised by the loading on the Ethernet channel, for example, something that is a common concern on Ethernet-based media networks particularly in a shared network environment. SANE stands for Synchronous Audio Network plus Ethernet and is the first synchronous network for audio and control delivery over standard Cat5. SANE offers 64 channels of digital audio at 24bit, 48kHz and will operate at up to 192kHz. Using the same principle as the company’s fibre optic-based Optocore system, the channel allocation relates to the number of inputs allowed on the network. This means that it is possible to build a SANE network with 64 inputs and more than 1000 outputs if required. SANE is unique because in addition to the 64 digital audio channels it also offers a full 100Mbps standard Ethernet data over the same Cat5 cable making it possible to transport synchronous digital audio between devices and use the Ethernet tunnel on the same cable for remote control and monitoring of those devices or other TCP/IP compliant hardware. SANE uses a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) algorithm that enables a network and processing latency of just 41.6µs. This TDM process involves the progressive collection of single bits from all adjacent audio and control channels across the entire network per clock cycle. The resulting stream of data is therefore a snapshot of the whole system during each clock cycle. All nodes on the network are synchronised to a single Word clock source and receive the same data stream over their SANE Cat5 network interfaces. Because a snapshot of every input channel is present at each network node, every device has the ability to output any channel currently active on the system. This means that the SANE signal distribution is a broadcast rather than multiple point-to-point links, which is the practice employed by other media delivery systems. From the user’s perspective, this removes the potentially complex bandwidth and routing configuration of switched networks and replaces it with the simple principle of ‘once present on the network, a channel is available to November/December 2009

resolution

technology

all nodes all of the time’ — meaning the system could be considered to be more a matrix with distributed I-O than a typical network. SANE borrows many of its core technologies from our fibre optic-based system, Optocore. Where the transport medium differs and the base electronics have received a revamp to bring them up to the latest standards while making use of higher specification and more energy-efficient components, the basic principle of how Optocore works has essentially been transposed over to a new hardware platform. The benefit of using the same core technology is that it becomes very simple to switch between Optocore and SANE platforms in the same network and this is demonstrated by the company’s FX range of devices, that feature SANE and Optocore network interfaces. Optocore is now able to offer optimised solutions for high bandwidth fibre optic systems as well as lower cost, mid bandwidth Cat5based systems. Optocore and SANE are described as transport systems for Open Standards protocols so let’s just take a quick look at what that means. Optocore manufactures a number of different media interfaces with combinations of multiple I-O formats. AES-EBU is implemented in its full 64bit frame format meaning that all its data, including audio, preamble, status, parity and user data bit, is transported transparently. This makes it possible for systems using proprietary control data embedded in the AES-EBU stream to communicate across Optocore with no extra engineering effort. The same is true of MADI, which is available in coaxial BNC and fibre optic versions with all audio and user bits transported transparently. Many digital mixing console manufacturers use the user bits embedded in MADI streams for the transport of control protocols to their associated stage racks, so again with SummitResAd2:27.pdf 2/27/09 very little engineering effort those products10:41:12 that useAMopen standards protocols can

NEw!

be interfaced to an Optocore or SANE network with ease. The TDM principle used for the delivery of media between nodes means that the data on the network cables is encoded by the TDM engine but once the media stream has reached the output device it is converted back to the required format. In the case of audio, the output format does not need to match the input meaning that AES-EBU inputs could be transported digitally to a MADI recording device giving the network the added benefit of functioning as a large multiformat media convertor. The use of Cat5 for SANE delivery provides better initial cost efficiency when looking at system designs. Cat5 is used extensively in the communications industry so it is relatively inexpensive and most electrical contractors are proficient in its installation and termination. RJ45 Cat5 interfaces are very inexpensive as are the RJ45 connectors themselves. In addition to helping to provide a lower cost entry to Optocore systems, Cat5 offers just the right bandwidth and performance over distance properties to make SANE a viable solution for budget conscious system integrators and customers where medium channel counts and Ethernet connectivity are required. Due to the synchronous nature of SANE, all nodes need to receive a Word clock source. Every node has the ability to generate a high quality Word clock source internally but one device will nominate itself as the clock master for the network and will generate the clock source for the whole system and embed the clock into the TDM stream. All other nodes on the network then sync to the incoming clock. Where external Word clock is provided, clock master device receives this via its Ext input. A backup device can be configured that will take over distribution responsibilities for the clock should the master be removed from the network.

Meet me at the Summit! Al Schmitt “ It’s been about 25 years now... My vocal chain has ALWAYS got the Summit in it” -Al Schmitt

CMY

30 Years

( Barbara Streisand, Steely dan, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones)

+001 sound@summitaudio.com 60

resolution

November/December 2009

TECHNOLOGY When interfacing with other equipment digitally the transfer of Word clock between components is essential as free-running clocks and sync problems cause pops, clicks and glitches in the media. It’s why SANE is used as the Word clock distribution method for the system and when this is implemented correctly it results in sample-accurate playback across all interconnected devices. Automatic clock master negotiation is one of a number of redundancy layers built into SANE. At the network level complete and automatic cable redundancy is also provided. Two SANE devices will work with a single piece of Cat5 cable between them giving bi-directional audio and control. By adding a second cable to create a loop between the devices, automatic cable redundancy is activated meaning any cable fault will be circumvented within a single audio sample. No configuration, no setup, just add an extra cable to complete the loop. At the hardware level, all SANE devices manufactured by Optocore have two independent power supplies with an automatic switch over process in case of a fault. Everyone in the digital networking business dreams of the day when we no longer have to concern ourselves with different digital formats, sample rates, firmware versions and network configuration. We’ve come from an analogue background where we plugged outputs in to inputs and they just worked. Optocore has been working towards addressing the issue of multiple protocols and interfacing standards on a number of levels. The Open Standards approach is the first step where manufacturers who use standard delivery formats, such as AES3 and AES10 (MADI), RS232 or RS485, Ethernet and DMX, are invited to work as development partners with Optocore thereby opening up interfacing possibilities with all other partner companies. Often, this level of integration is simple because Optocore or SANE already provide a solid platform for Open Standards delivery. Another move towards the standardisation of networked media systems comes in the shape of an offshoot product realised during the development of SANE called SAPPLE (Synchronous Audio Point to Point Link plus Ethernet). SAPPLE provides a synchronous method for transporting MADI and Ethernet between devices over Cat5. It is extremely ‘lightweight’ from an engineering perspective, which means it is easy and inexpensive to implement and as a result it is expected that SAPPLE will be submitted to the AES for standardisation in the coming months. SAPPLE will be royalty free so should provide an open and very cost effective way for companies to develop medium bandwidth point-to-point links in an Open Standards way. It is hoped that this will provide a significant step towards the standardisation of networked media systems, something that Optocore and its development team has been working towards for the last 15 years. n

At the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf, Germany a

Professorship for Artistic Music Production Salary Group W3

will become vacant in the Institute of Music and Media in the 2010 Summer Semester. The Professorship will place the emphasis of its teaching on the characteristics and laws of the sensory perception of hearing. Central elements of this process are the registration, processing, interpretation and verbalisation of this perception. This should be approached with a main focus on the production of music and word in a spatial context and with special reference to the conceptual preparation, recording and postproduction of orchestral, choral, operatic and chamber music of all periods and styles. Practical skills and familiarity with the relevant technologies provide the basis for creative achievement. Alongside the necessary theoretical and technical fundamentals, the field of communication and recording psychology will form an important part of the teaching. Sound design in audiovisual media and the possibilities of modern surround and wave field synthesis system are other aspects to which attention should be devoted. The Institute of Music and Media pursues an interdisciplinary approach in its research and teaching. The new professorship is also intended to foster the project-based and practically oriented character of the study courses Music and Media and Sound and Image. The artistic organisation and sound engineering accompaniment of concerts and events of Robert Schumann Hochschule is also expected in this context. Applicants will be expected to have graduated in an area of study closely related to the field of activity of the professorship, preferably with a degree as sound engineer or similar qualification. Broad teaching and project experience on a high artistic and educational level are desirable. Basically and in addition to the pedagogical suitability, the incumbent will be expected to have a strong penchant for interdisciplinary cooperation and a willingness to become involved in the system of academic self-government and the further expansion of the university. It will therefore be essential that he/she be in residence. The general preconditions for appointment to the professorship are set forth in Section 29 of the Law on Universities of the Arts (KunstHG). First appointments to the professorship will be subject to a probationary period of 3 years. The University is striving to increase the number of posts held by women. Applications will also be expressly welcomed from appropriately qualified handicapped persons. Applications with the usual documents should be sent by 21 December 2009 at the latest to: Institut für Musik und Medien (Institute of Music and Media) Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf Georg-Glock-Straße 15 – 40474 Düsseldorf www.musikundmedien.net www.rsh-duesseldorf.de Please submit copies, not originals, as documents cannot be returned due to cost reasons. Please note that materials which are submitted without solicitation (CDs, programs and such like) will only be returned if accompanied by an envelope bearing sufficient postage. Applications submitted by email will not be accepted.

November/December 2009

resolution

slaying dragons

The Empirical strikes back! The term High Definition finally made it to the mass market after decades of being just around the corner. JOHN WATKINSON suspects that it is only the term that has succeeded; the actual definition having been eliminated for economic reasons.

am out of step with the times for making the following arguments because they are based on reality. I prefer to say reality even though what I mean is science and even integrity. Science is a confounded nuisance to marketing departments, politicians, religious leaders and hi-fi journalists alike because, based on empirical evidence, it undermines the myths that they would have us believe. While it would be cool to have a pet unicorn and swim with mermaids, the evidence is that they don’t exist. What amuses me is that when another myth is exploded, science is attacked as if it were merely a different belief system, when that is the last thing science is. Ohm’s Law, for example, doesn’t care what I or anyone else believes because it can be re-established any time, any place with a simple experiment. I propose to have a scientific look at high definition. If the goal is to improve the viewing experience or increase reality, there’s a host of things that could be done, like increasing the frame rate to make motion rendering more fluid, increasing the size of the colour space and so on, whereas all that has been done is to increase the static resolution by putting more pixels on the screen. The most obvious deficiency, the juddering and loss of detail when anything moves hasn’t been addressed. The picture rate of television was simply made the same as the frequency of the local electricity supply, which was fine half a century ago. You might think that HD would have some 62

psycho-optic research input to the picture rate, but it doesn’t. Let’s look inside your shiny new HD camcorder. In a miracle of high technology, zillions of sensing elements have been packed into a tiny sensor that would fit inside a 1/3-inch circle. Each element is a square that almost touches its neighbour in order to gather as much light as possible. In sampling theory this is called an aperture ratio of unity and results in a sinx/x roll off of high frequencies. There goes some definition. In a single sensor camera, some of the elements sense red, some blue, some green, so that to fully describe in colour a point on the picture, or a pixel, needs several elements working together. While the effective pixel count determines resolution, typically the element count is quoted because you get a bigger number. It’s reminiscent of measuring TV screens diagonally. I intend to redefine the foot so I measure taller. I’m not going to suggest making exams easier so an educational system appears to be improving because that’s already been done. It’s not difficult to work out the size of a pixel. The size of the sensor is known and the number of pixels on the line is set in the standard. Nor is it difficult to work out the size of the intensity function of an ideal lens from the aperture and the wavelength of visible light, from which you will find that the circle of confusion is considerably bigger than the pixel. Your lens is unlikely to meet the Maréchal criterion for optical perfection, for economic reasons. So the only way you are going to get your new toy to display resolution is to point it at this magazine. Of course, the optics of small images and the necessary short focal length lenses suggests that the depth of focus will be enormous, so you won’t be able to use the established grammar of cinematography to have only your wanted subject in focus. HD as we all know has lots of lines, and more must be better. 1080 is better than 720, right? But is 1080I better than 720P? Interlace is an old trick that halves the bandwidth of a television signal by sending half the lines in one picture and the other half in the next. If you think of the information space in a progressive television system as a rectangle, with the portrayal of definition on one axis and the portrayal of motion on the other, then clearly any combination of definition and motion is possible. Interlace cuts that rectangle in half along a diagonal, so motion and definition are no longer independent. You can have good definition if nothing moves, and good motion portrayal with lousy definition. The static definition of interlaced systems is great. It just drops like a stone when anything moves. Quoting static definition in a moving picture portrayal system is analogous to testing the road holding of a parked car. Lovely powerful handbrake, guv’nor! Native Digital HD requires a colossal bit rate and is only viable for broadcast with the use of compression. Compression relies heavily on the use of prediction. Both encoder and decoder contain a predictor. The decoder attempts to predict as much as possible about the latest picture from whatever has been sent before. This is Moving Pictures by Educated Guesswork, or MPEG. The encoder knows what the decoder could predict, and therefore only needs to send what it couldn’t predict. If that was actually done, the resolution

compression would be perfect. However, to reduce the bit rate even further, the prediction error, or residual isn’t sent in totality. Instead the residual information is eroded in ways that the human visual system finds the hardest to detect so that whatever the bit rate, the impairments are minimised. MPEG transforms image data into the frequency domain so that it is represented as a spectrum. One reason (there are others) is that if a very low bit rate is required, the high frequency coefficients can be omitted from the transmission. The decoded picture gets softer, but that’s the least offensive of the possible outcomes. So it is possible to have an HD television signal that after delivery through a transmission system of inadequate bit rate isn’t actually HD because the detail has been removed. So there is a strong link between the bit rate and the quality of the picture. You might get away with a low bit rate on easy stuff like talking heads, but material with detail as well as movement is another matter. Recently the bit rate of BBC HD on satellite was cut from 16 to 9Mbits/sec. Not surprisingly a few people noticed and complained. In response, Danielle Nagler, the Head of BBC HD said, and I quote ‘But there’s no evidence that reducing the bit rate has an impact on picture quality, or that there’s an absolute relationship between bit rate and picture quality.’ The lay person might swallow that, but the topic is central to my field of expertise and I would be failing in my duty if I let it pass. Nagler’s statement is so obviously, glaringly, wrong that it seems almost superfluous to state that I would repeat this under oath. In my opinion if Nagler genuinely believes this she is not fit to discharge her duties and if she doesn’t believe it she has intentionally misled viewers who were making complaints that were entirely justified. Either way she should stand down. The systematic dismantling of BBC R&D and the dissipation of the magnificent body of knowledge it represented is now seen in context. Getting rid of experts is wonderful because then they can’t contradict you and you can say what you like. Anyone with access to an MPEG bitstream analyser can hook it up to an HD broadcast and look at any part of the data. It might be fun to look at the statistical distribution of the coefficients that are being sent in the macroblocks. There are eight possible coefficients for each axis, from the lowest spatial frequency to the highest. As HD has roughly twice the maximum definition of SD, then the top four coefficients are sending the detail that SD doesn’t have. If it was found that those higher frequency coefficients were practically absent because a compressor struggling to get the bit rate down has dumped them, then effectively you have standard definition in an HD wrapper. That expensive new HD set you just bought was a waste of money. This comes just as the expert community is standing up to the present UK government’s attempt to ignore the reality of drugs. The facts about drug abuse are that it does rather less damage to society than alcohol, smoking or road accidents. By demonizing drug takers, politicians create something to protect us from. But by making drug taking illegal they drive it underground and the profits then fund organised crime and terrorism. Petty crime increases as people steal to fund their habit. All countries that have understood this and acted accordingly have benefited. When experts in this country say as much, they are made to resign. Ignoring experts isn’t new, of course. Experts warned not to launch the space shuttle Challenger into high wind shear, but were ignored and disaster ensued. n November/December 2009

SHOWCASE Acoustic consultancy and studio build for broadcast, post, recording and multimedia facilities

far-audio.com Fundamental Acoustic Research

info@far-audio.com

FAR Audio 0409 (Classified).indd 1

28/3/09 13:35:58

AUDIO FOR BROADCAST, POST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION

V8.7 OCTOBER 2009

The Flood interview Black Rock Studios on the Greek island of Santorini Meet your maker: Chris Muth — Dangerous Music Mixing David Gray’s Draw The Line album The fully-digital home with IPTV Audio Video Bridging

£5

REVIEWS Calrec Apollo Fostex LR16 SSL X-Desk Neve Genesys Lexicon PCM96 Surround Audio-Technica 1800 series Studiospares Classic SN10 Shure KSM313 & KSM353 Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56

Resolution October 09 V8.7.indd 1

29/09/2009 10:10

Missed an issue? Need to build up your collection? You can buy Resolution back issues and complete volumes on CD-Rom. AWARDS NOMINATED

2009

Everything you need to know to keep ahead

www.resolutionmag.com Resolution-2009-09-rasterized.indd 1

November/December 2009

resolution

11/18/2009 5:41:33 PM

your business

Got live (work), if you want it The return of the live album underscores the concert’s enhanced role as music’s moneymaker; with qualification. DAN DALEY looks at some examples and draws some leads.

he live album, that stalwart of the 1970s and 80s, is coming back, part of the huge trend towards live music as the new revenue centre of the changing music business. Recent live album releases include Live — LA Forum 1983, a previously unreleased live Def Leppard album paired in a double CD set with a newly released deluxe edition of their debut record, Pyromania; a boxed reissue of the Rolling Stones’ 1970 Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out live disc, featuring five unreleased performances that didn’t make the album’s cut and live tracks from BB King and Ike and Tina Turner, who opened those 1969 Madison Square Garden shows. Morrissey’s new studio album Swords is accompanied by the bonus disc Live in Warsaw, which includes eight songs from his 2009 tour; country music duo Sugarland’s summer release Live on the Inside concert

LP is a rarity for modern country artists (who at least used to record shows in prisons); Stephen Stills put out a CD of his career-spanning 2008 gig at London’s Shepherd’s Bush, Live at Shepherd’s Bush; and even though the Black Crowes’ Before The Frost… Until The Freeze is billed as a studio album, it was actually recorded live in front of an audience in former The Band drummer Levon Helm’s entre-nous celebrity barn venue near Woodstock in upstate New York. Key live albums established the careers of certain artists, most notable Peter Frampton, whose Frampton Comes Alive in 1976 did more for his fame than a pack of Camels ever could, or the first disc of Pink Floyd’s double album Umma Gumma in 1969, with which the band intended to entomb some of its older songs for all time but whose success actually compelled them to play them every night for years to come. Then there was Jackson Brown’s seminal Running On Empty, his ‘concept album’ (a phrase I really hoped had been entombed for good years ago) that explored the life of a touring band on the road from the point of view of the musicians themselves, recorded live on stage, in hotel rooms and riding on the tour coach. This kind of musical navel gazing takes places also with REM’s new double album Live At The Olympia out later this year [2009]. The two-CD set, produced by Jacknife Lee, features 39 songs that capture moments from the band’s working rehearsals in 2007 at Dublin’s Olympia club during which singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, and bassist Mike Mills tested out new songs for REM’s 2008 studio album Accelerate (also produced by Lee). Playing a set of completely new songs live is generally a dodgy practice — the phrase ‘This next

song is a new one…’ usually elicits as many groans as cheers from an audience. REM countered that by filling the seats at the Olympia with fan-club members, friends, family, and fans who were privy to REM’s self-described ‘experiment in terror,’ as guitarist Peter Buck reportedly described it. It’s an experiment we’ll be seeing more of in the future, as live albums become extensions of the concert experience, a way to both showcase new material and to re-monetise stuff from the vault. Not surprisingly, this spurt of live recordings is revealing yet another area of the business of music production whose evolution has lagged behind that of reality. Aaron Wilhelm, a manager at Nettwerk Producer Management, which manages, among others, Bob Clearmountain, Howard Benson, Matt Serletic and both LordAlges, notes that ‘live’ can also mean ‘We don’t have money to go into the studio.’ Without naming names, he explains, ‘I did have a client produce a live album for a UK band in the spring. Situation was they didn’t have a lot of money so they spent about two months doing rehearsals and working out the songs, then recorded everything at a show with an engineer, sent [it] to our client and he added additional production and mixed it. It ended up being a lot of work for the client, and quite frustrating at times, though it was an intriguing way to make an album.’ However, he adds, ‘It was actually a pretty funky deal overall as the band was doing everything independently for a self-release, so his fee was adjusted, as was his royalty. It definitely gave me some perspective about making albums like this and I would have to approach future deals differently than a standard album production. One of the issues with it is there are a lot of “what ifs...”, like in this particular instance the vocals were not recorded properly at the show so there was a bunch of additional fixing and cleaning up he had to do that was not expected.

Breakthrough. THE NEW DAKING MIC-PRE ONE THE DAKING MIC PRE ONE will change everything you know about mic pre’s and DI’s with the best sound you’ve ever heard for well under $1000. Break through the mix with an American-made,’Class A’ unit from Geoff Daking.

• Unique variable high pass ﬁlter • Full metering • Enough gain for any mic (70dB) • Front Panel DI • Outboard power supply • US $850 A L S O AVA I L A B L E F R O M D A K I N G FET Compressor

Daking QPH 0909.indd 1

Mic Pre / EQ

Mic Pre IV

resolution

Worlwide distribution by TransAudioGroup.com 702-365-5155 31/07/2009 15:27

November/December 2009

BROADCAST ASIDE Since these are being recorded in an uncontrolled environment, it leaves the door open for so many things to go awry.’ Not surprisingly, as the conventional recording market shrinks as a result of the decline in CD sales, the notion of specialising in live recordings is growing. The dean of that corps, so to speak, is Brett Eliason, a Seattle-based engineer/producer who noticed the niche emerging a few years ago. Since then, he’s mixed live recordings for Pearl Jam, System of a Down, My Chemical Romance, REM, Dave Matthews Band and Audioslave, among others. Eliason says that live albums historically are ways that artists make connections with their fan base, making a taste of the live show’s excitement part of their discography. But he also acknowledges that live albums are also sometimes used as placeholders, something to keep the fans connected while the band goes though writer’s block. That means that what he’s presented with after the show can range from some direct desk feeds into a cheap hard drive up to a firstrate recording done by a first-class remote vehicle. ‘And everything in between,’ he adds. Eliason says he’s able to charge a bit of premium for his production/mixing services precisely because he’s become well known as the go-to person for live albums. He notes that as prerecorded disc sales continue to tank and more artists resort to putting out live CDs and DVD as a lower-cost alternative to studio albums, he’s getting more competition in this niche. One way he counters that, when the opportunity presents itself, is by bringing his expertise into play before the first downbeat is played on stage. ‘Typically, it’s someone else recording the shows, not me, and there are things they can do to assure a better outcome for the album,’ he says. For Taking Back Sunday’s album recorded at their show at the Astoria in London, Eliason spent time with the recording engineer and FOH, reviewing microphone choices and placements. ‘[The engineer] was going to place microphones out in the audience facing back into the stage,’ he recalls. ‘I understand the thinking but it backfires: in smaller rooms you get slaughtered by the volume of the PA system, and it’s nearly impossible to exactly line up the delays that that causes. Instead, I had him put a combination of one condenser and one shotgun on either side of the stage and use those as audience mics. It worked perfectly — time-aligned and not overpowered by the PA.’ It’s always satisfying to discover a producer who has noticed a niche and has effectively exploited it. As Eliason acknowledges, he’s not alone and the competition is growing. But that’s fine because so, apparently, is the amount of content that will need to be produced, as evidenced by the number of releases that are comprised of seemingly secondthought performances, like the BoDeans’ 2009 live album taken from some acoustic appearances in the Midwest in 2006. In fact, taken to a radical but logical conclusion, the proliferation of live albums could undermine our putative definition of what a record producer is. The band writes, arranges and performs; the recording engineer captures the performance in real time, with no stops for retakes or aesthetic suggestions; and the mixer mixes the final product, pristinely, one supposes, since any postproduction work is antithetical to the spirit of a ‘live’ album. Perhaps just that kind of post production will develop into its own niche – the application of Auto-Tune or CEDAR as needed has become an art in itself. As live records become more ubiquitous, so will the need to make them sound better and be more competitive in the market. Hey, just what you needed: another excuse to go hang around in a club. n November/December 2009

The Soundman’s Art A chat about the processes of painting art gets DENNIS BAXTER thinking in terms of audio deconstruction and reconstruction.

y wife Charlotte, who is a watercolour artist and my writing partner, and I were discussing the similarities between art and sound and the artistic process. She said the artist will deconstruct what is seen down to its essential forms and then reconstruct it in their own artistic interpretation. For example, take a portrait. When viewed, you notice how well the artist has ‘captured’ the person. The glow of the skin; the ghost of a smile, the spirit in the eyes, the details of clothing, hair, and jewellery. Now consider the deconstructive analysis the painter goes through to reconstruct their interpretive ‘likeness’. 1. Construction — the head is an ovoid shape; the ears are halfway between the back of the head and the front. The eyes, nose and mouth form a triangle allowing for very small brushstrokes to convey the unique characteristics of the likeness. 2. Composition — the relationship of the human form to its surroundings. Is it profile or three quarter or frontal? Is it a symmetrical or asymmetrical layout? And what does the setting say about the person in the portrait? 3. Colour — use of the colour palette gives impact and drama to the portrait. Purple suggests royalty, purpose and higher ambitions. Blue: honesty and altruism. Black: power and judgment. Crimson imbues its subject with passion and life. Pink with childishness and femininity. White with purity. Green with nature and fertility. 4. Light — the use of light adds dimension and drama. Think of Rembrandt’s self-portrait — his face partially hidden in darkness as he gazes out from under his hat. In fact, there is even a special word for the artist’s interplay of light and dark ‘Chiaroscuro’. 5. Technique — painting in water washes creates a soft, muted and transparent feel to the likeness. Colours change when overpainted with another, creating a new one. Oils are thick and heavy with pigment. They can be applied in brushstrokes or with a palette knife, creating a three-dimensional texture. What a beautiful description of an artist’s approach — and a soundman’s challenge. To create an aural landscape you have to deconstruct the real sound and then reconstruct it through microphones, mix, and mastery while trying resolution

to compensate for the limitations of technology, transmission, reception and viewer amplification capabilities. The soundman’s art requires a hefty understanding of sound, electronics and systems engineering but mixing the sound requires the same ‘deconstruction — reconstruction’ interpretive process that the painter goes through. Creating the aural architecture means putting the actual sound back together in a way that surrounds the viewer’s visual field. And there is no question that it takes creative talent and a trained ear to construct a better-than-reality-broadcast under complex and subjective conditions. Ear-trained reconstruction includes: 1. Soundfield — Learn how to analyse the natural soundfield. Deconstruct the soundfield into the core elements such as timbre, volume and space. Additionally, what interference from unwanted noise are you experiencing? Excessive PA and air conditioning racket have ruined many good programmes. 2. Content — Announce or vocal, sports effects and atmosphere. Consider the role and effect of the play-by-play. How important is it to the viewer experience? An undercurrent or the main event? Dominant or subdued? Remember, they whisper during golf action. Think of the importance of atmosphere — the audience noise and ambience created by the action. An important part of the viewer’s experience is hearing the onsite crowd reaction. 3. Microphones — Often, in sports production, you are trying to minimise the unwanted noise and construct an acceptable soundscape. Proper microphone selection and placement are critical for success. Creative microphone placements such as in the home plate in cricket, under the gymnastics balance beam, or on top of the buoy in sailing, create an intimacy and immediacy to the action and excitement. 4. Electronic processing — A wonderful tool when properly used to control the dynamics, equalisation and spatial orientation in the sound mix. I have often wondered why in a recording studio you have racks and racks of processing gear but when you go into a TV OB van there is a mixing console, monitor speakers, a playback device for music and maybe some compressors — if you are lucky. Why? 5. Consistency — With large sports events across many venues and disciplines (such as the Olympics) consistency becomes very important and a difficult challenge. Every venue sounds different, has different acoustics, different PAs and certainly different sound mixers that makes applying the soundfield characteristics across multiple venues complicated. At the end of the day, the soundman’s art is subjective. His interpretation, like that of a painter, is a blend of knowledge, training and talent. The viewer’s reaction is subjective too. Different cultures, diverse technologies, and personal preferences create a wide spectrum of reaction to the qualities of broadcast sound. But this subjectivity is precisely why training the brain as an audio tool is so critical in meeting the soundman’s challenge. You don’t need a meter or scope to tell you something doesn’t sound right. You only need a well-trained brain. Listen analytically. Think creatively. Apply intelligently. n 65

HEADROOM it’s indistinguishable from SD is also growing. I can’t sit back and let untruths pass and I won’t. Bob’s letter tells me I am doing the right thing. John Watkinson

DAB A Dear John email. I settled down with my October Resolution just as Rick Wakeman opened his show on Planet Rock. I read it from back-to-front so John Watkinson can give me a reality check before dealing with the high-end stuff further in. His piece on DAB had me cheering to the rafters I don’t have. I have been a DAB user (make it sound like drug abuse for attention-seeking purposes) since the launch of BBC7. Go back to a music channel and I feel the need to keep turning it down. A shame as Uncle Rick will play some classic track that calls for air-keyboarding. Take the stance, bang out those block chords in thin air and lean to whatever side the Fender Rhodes was mixed to. Sway with the pan pots. You would if there was stereo image to sway to. Let’s make up some jargon to impress the suits that market DAB now. I’ve come up with ‘low-resolution event-based mono’ where if something is loud enough on one side, DAB turns that side up a bit to lift it out of the mush that is ‘digital quality sound’. We were promised more choice but the accountants chose to close the stations down. What I’m left with is the national stations and my choice extension is BBC7 and Planet Rock. The Rock played loud is a dreary experience with its layer of ‘digital artefacts’ killing the music we loved so I tend to turn it down. Listening to BBC7, there is a part of me that knows the programmes first heard on FM in the 60s on Dad’s radiogram sounded better than they do now on DAB. Where is the progress? DAB can be saved with better codecs and more programme choice. What is annoying me is the industry telling me it’s great when it is not as this listener goes back to FM whenever he can to reduce the assault on my hearing. I’m used to technology failing to deliver; I just don’t like being lied to. Anyway, you can ignore the above. Cloud has just come in rendering DAB reception so bubbly its switch-off time. Sorry, Rick. Thank you, John… Bob Ellis, Darley Abbey, UK

Analogue radio shut-down The following is a letter sent by reader David Birt, along with a copy of JW’s dragons on DAB, to Jeremy Hunt, shadow spokesperson on broadcasting. Dear Mr Hunt, I am responding to your letter to my MP, Peter Ainsworth of the 22nd September relating to my correspondence on this subject. I am encouraged by the beginning of your letter where you write “We are definitely opposed to switching off analogue radio as the Government currently plans.”, however I am uneasy when you go on to say “I will press them to do far more on these issues.” What do you have in mind that they should do, if indeed they should do anything other than to back down and retain FM broadcasts of the national networks? I am uncomfortable with the situation where the Government assumes the role of a marketing agency wherein we find the common accoutrements of hype,

misinformation, and untruths. There are indications that the “salesmen”(/politicians) do not have adequate technical knowledge to understand the “product” they are trying to sell. I am enclosing an article on DAB by John Watkinson which has just appeared in the current edition of Resolution which is a magazine for the audio media industry. I think this gives a good and digestible overview of DAB, and I do hope that you will find time to read it, and that you will find it helpful. It exposes some of the hype and untruths to which I refer. Choice was until quite recently a prominent mantra of the Government, and indeed consumers do have choice now to listen to DAB transmissions if they wish. Closing down analogue radio removes choice utterly, and relegates the BBC to an enforced inferior medium. I fail to comprehend how switching off FM radio could ever be good for consumers. It would be difficult to do anything about poor DAB audio quality, other than changing our obsolete system to say DAB+; but that would disenfranchise those who have invested in DAB radios — then scrap. Quality is at its worst when there are layers of processing on top of processing, such as phone-in programmes where speech is sometimes unintelligible on DAB, whilst clear on FM. David Birt, Bletchingley, UK

Advertiser Index

There’s absolutely nothing I can add to Bob’s creativelyphrased letter except how pleased I am to read it. I think his term ‘low resolution event-based mono’ is wonderful. The signs are that the discontent over DAB is growing mpg_ad_ResolutionNov09_v1 4/11/09 10:15 and that the threat to cut FM was to make people buy DAB receivers. Discontent over HD with such low bit rates that

Aea........................Classified 63 Al.So Dynax............Classified 63 Api............................................ 7 Audio Technica...................... 4-5 Brauner................................... 49 Bricasti.................................... 34 Calrec..................................... 37 Cedar......... Outside Back Cover Daking.................................... 64 Delec...................................... 17 Dpa........................................ 18 Euphonix.................................. 9 Fairlight.................................. 25 Far.........................Classified 63 Flux......................................... 58 Page 1 Focusrite................................ 19 Fostex..................................... 23

Genelec........Inside Front Cover Georg Neumann.................... 45 Golden Age............................ 55 Grace...................................... 36 Gyraff.....................Classified 63 He Studio...............Classified 63 Hhb Cdr............................... 39 Ibc.......................................... 29 Josephson.............................. 61 Kmr / AMS Neve................... 51 Lydcraft.................................. 16 Marantz.................................. 40 Mpg....................................... 66 Mutec..................................... 21 Nab........................................ 43 Odds On Records.................. 59

Prism....................................... 47 Rnd........................................ 57 Robert Schumann................... 61 Rss Roland............................. 50 Schoeps.................................. 15 Sonic Distribution / Rnr........ 56 Sonic Distribution / Se........... 41 Sonifex................................... 52 Sonnox................................... 46 Source UAD2.......................... 53 Ssl.......................................... 27 Stagetech............................... 11 Studer..................................... 35 Studio Spares......................... 33 Summit Audio........................ 60 Tl Audio................................. 67 Unity Audio............................ 31 Vintage King........................... 13

buy now: tickets available for the music producers guild awards 2010 The MPG Awards ceremony will see the UK music industry coming together in one room to celebrate with the shortlisted candidates and sponsor companies. Starting with a champagne reception for all guests, the awards ceremony will be hosted by BBC 6’s Nemone Metaxes. After the awards presentation will be the after party till 1am, along with a charity raffle. The MPG is supporting the RNID’s Don’t Lose the Music campaign. Early Bird Discount and Full MPG Membership costs are: • Seated Downstairs - £125.00 • Balcony Standing - £60 • Balcony Seated - £85

headline sponsors

To buy tickets visit www.mpgawards.co.uk. To reserve a ticket please email mpg@bubblesqueak.co.uk

resolution

November/December 2009

EMI Music Publishing London with VTC 48 channel console

VTC at EMI “

“Ever since we’ve installed our TL Audio VTC consoles we have had many compliments regarding the tonal warmth of the recordings we make down here. In our opinion retaining this quality is the most important aspect when working with digital recording software systems.”

“Some of the artists we have recorded on the TL Audio and have been happy with the results include: Tinchy Stryder, Madness, The Rumble Strips, Noel Gallagher, Ricky Gervais, Chris Martin, Dizzee Rascal, Lady Gaga, Kele Okerele (Bloc Party), Roisin Murphy, Salaam Remi, VV Brown and Taio Cruz.”

Scott McCormick, EMI Studios - London

IVORY 2 SERIES

EBONY SERIES

CLASSIC SERIES

VALVE MIXERS

DESIGNED & MADE IN THE UK TL Audio Limited • Letchworth • Herts • SG6 1TN • United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1462 492090 • Fax: 44 (0)1462 492097 • Email: info@tlaudio.co.uk