AudioTechnology App Issue 11

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REGULARS

ED SPACE The makings of a modern classic.

Text: Mark Davie

Editor Mark Davie mark@audiotechnology.com.au Publisher Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Editorial Director Christopher Holder chris@audiotechnology.com.au Graphic Designer Daniel Howard daniel@alchemedia.com.au Art Director Dominic Carey dominic@alchemedia.com.au Advertising Philip Spencer philip@alchemedia.com.au Accounts Jaedd Asthana jaedd@alchemedia.com.au Subscriptions Miriam Mulcahy mim@alchemedia.com.au Proofreading Andrew Bencina

What should the evaluation criteria be for adjudicating a Modern Classic? When you’re talking about audio gear, you can’t really play the collector’s game. Because it’s not about putting a dollar value on an investment. We’re trying just as hard to find the next Pultec EQP-1A or Fairchild 670 as the Shure SM58. Some will be rare, for sure. But others will hold sway by sheer volume.

We’ve identified a couple of candidates for Modern Classic status this issue, ELI’s Distressor and Royer’s R-121, keeping the cast of our net fairly shallow by limiting ourselves to the last 15 years. Our criteria was a mix of longevity, innovation and what it brought to our ears. Gear that now seems timely but 15 years ago stood every chance of dragging another boutique audio company into bankruptcy.

Of course, it’s hard to pick ’em in the moment. It’s like looking at the latest plastic pocket rocket and trying to picture it developing the notoriety and status of a ’60s British bike with a bit of time. Some seem like contenders in the moment — UA’s 2108 two-channel preamp, anyone? But even one awry piece of the puzzle can see them miss their potential mark by a mile.

Then there are the Game Changers. Pieces of gear that irrevocably alter the landscape but don’t always stick around. Some even dramatically flame out, leaving a burn mark on the industry that can be hidden under layers but still felt every time you open a DAW or fire up a digital console. Take the Line6 Pod, for instance.

It packed a multitude of amplifier tones into a kidneyshaped portable package you could take anywhere. And its usefulness outweighed any misgivings over its tones.

Now amp simulation isn’t even considered an added extra. It ships with every DAW, and there’s an app for every smart phone.

Or how about Aviom handing over the keys to the monitor mix to musicians? You’ve got to wonder AT 2

whether every digital mixer would have an iPad app and let musicians access their aux if it wasn’t for Aviom’s groundbreaking system?

So what else is there? Other than the Distressor and the 121, what gets Modern Classic status? What else has changed the game like the Pod and Aviom? If you could wind back the clock to ’94, perhaps the Manley Vari-Mu, or if we’re parsing for the modern taste of saturation, then it’d be hard to go past the Thermionic Culture Vulture. Maybe something more behind-thescenes like a converter, though it’s hard to find any that truly last. The Waves L2, perhaps? Though the whole digital world ebbs and flows so dramatically over time, if you were badging something as classic, you’d want to be doing it in pencil.

Let us know if you pinpoint any more worthy contenders to add to the Modern Classic pantheon, and we’ll do more digging into their history. Send your suggestions to mark@audiotechnology.com.au.

Also, don’t forget to enter the AudioTechnology Remix Competition. The prize pool is ridiculously good, we specifically worked with our sponsors Avid, Rode and Event to put together a prize pack worthy of any studio. But more importantly, we want you to take the opportunity to finesse your skills. Maybe a remix isn’t something you’ve ever done. Well, those skills could go a long way in your next production. So if you haven’t downloaded the stems to The Occupants’ Wonderland, go and do it. And be sure to upload your entry before the 12th of May. It’s when the competition ends, and you may miss out on $18,000 of prizes.

Head along to www.audiotechnology.com.au/remix to enter, or check out page 105 for more info.

Regular Contributors Martin Walker Michael Stavrou Paul Tingen Graeme Hague Guy Harrison Greg Walker James Roche Greg Simmons Tom Flint Robin Gist Blair Joscelyne Mark Woods Andrew Bencina Jason Fernandez Brent Heber Gareth Stuckey

Distribution by: Network Distribution Company.

AudioTechnology magazine (ISSN 1440-2432) is published by Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd (ABN 34 074 431 628).

Contact (Advertising, Subscriptions) T: +61 2 9986 1188 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086, Australia.

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E: info@alchemedia.com.au W: www.audiotechnology.com.au

All material in this magazine is copyright © 2014 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process with out written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974.

The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication.

The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 17/04/2014.

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COVER STORY

Inside Stories of the Distressor and Royer R-121

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Remixing Wonderland, Inside AudioTechnology’s Competition Track

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Universal Audio Apollo Twin 34

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Audio-Technica Mx Headphones

Win $18k of prizes in AudioTechnology’s Remix Competition

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Worth Getting Out Of The Box For API’s New Console?

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Arturia Microbrute Synth

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The hottest new professional digital mixing console release of 2014 is NOW SHIPPING

with Rupert Neve Portico and Dan Dugan Sound Design technology The multi-award winning CL-series raised live digital mixing console performance to an unprecedented level of refinement while maintaining traditional values that have made Yamaha digital mixers industry standards.

With core features and performance inherited directly from the CL-series, the new QL-series consoles offer all-in-one mixing, processing and routing capabilities for live sound, corporate events, installations and much more.

QL-series launch video

Discover why the QL-series is set to become an industry standard console for live sound, corporate speech, installation and broadcast applications.

Rupert Neve interview video

Both QL- and CL-series consoles are loaded with Rupert Neve premium effects racks. Learn more about the collaboration between Yamaha and the legendary Rupert Neve.

Dan Dugan talks about QL

The Dan Dugan Sound Design automatic mixing algorithm makes mixing multiple open microphones a breeze.

Watch Dan Dugan talking about the implementation of his technology into QL-series mixing consoles.

To arrange a demonstration of the new QL-series digital mixing console at your facility, please contact Yamaha Music Australia’s commercial audio team by emailing mick_hughes@gmx.yamaha.com Alternatively, Yamaha Music Australia will be conducting regular QL- and CL-series training sessions thoughout ENTECH CONNECT, 23rd-24th July at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne. Please email mick_hughes@gmx.yamaha.com to register your interest.

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Avid ProTools 11 Rode NT1 Condenser Microphone

ENTRIES CLOSE MAY 12 It is with considerable pride and a little bit of queasy excitement that AudioTechnology in partnership with Avid, Rode Microphones and Event Electronics brings you The Biggest Remix Comp in the World Ever.

Here’s the deal: Alt Rockers, The Occupants, have been hunkered down in the studio with Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Dead Letter Circus, The Butterfly Effect) recording their new album, and have very generously made the stems of one of these new songs, Wonderland, available for

AudioTechnology readers to remix.

The rules? Well, there aren’t too many really. Head to the AT site to download the stems. Import them into your DAW and make the song your own. Once you’ve finished your remix and sent us the Soundcloud link, then our illustrious judging panel will pick its Top 3 favourites – based on all the good stuff: production values, originality… just generally how good it is.

Head along to the AT website for more details and the stems.

Good luck!

www.audiotechnology.com.au/remix MEET THE JUDGING PANEL

Forrester Savell is one of Australia’s most in-demand producers and mix engineers. He’s based out of Melbourne’s Sing Sing Studios where some of his best work has garnered two ARIA award nominations for Karnivool’s Sound Awake and Dead Letter Circus’s debut This is The Warning.

Tom Larkin, originally from New Zealand, is a producer, drummer and songwriter.

He is the founding member of NZ band Shihad. He also currently owns and runs Melbourne recording studio The Studios in The City, and runs music management and artist development company Homesurgery. Tom has produced and recorded bands such as Shihad, Bodyjar, The Butterfly Effect, and Calling All Cars.

Francois Tetaz has many studio and performance strings to his bow. His movie scores include the soundtrack for Wolf Creek and the Julian Assange biopic, Underground; with his Moose Mastering head on, Francois has polished dozens of Australian and international albums; while more recently his production skills gained worldwide attention with his work on Gotye’s blockbusting Making Mirrors album.

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GENERAL NEWS

AKAI’S BARK IS BETTER THAN ITS BYTES Just prior to NAMM lots of people got excited

by Roland’s impending AIRA release as a new generation TR-808, but got a bit squinty-eyed when AIRA was revealed as a digital device. Akai Pro won’t risk disappointing hard core drum machine enthusiasts with its new Rhythm Wolf, a fully analogue drum and bass synthesizer module with a built-in sequencer. Rhythm Wolf promises to be an authentic analogue instrument that combines the “coveted sounds of early electronic and hip-hop music with genuine Akai Professional workflow”.

You get six genuine MPC pads and a built-in 32-step

sequencer, and drum patterns can be fine-tuned using the Swing function, Pattern Select, and Tempo Control knob — which isn’t a lot to get excited about, but in keeping with the retro analogue design. A custom distortion signal path, activated by the ‘Howl’ knob (what else?), adds grit and character.

Connections include USB-MIDI, MIDI In/Out, a gate trigger, and two audio outputs for mixing percussion sounds and bass independently. Proper analogue for any pack!

Electric Factory: (03) 9480 5988 or www.elfa.com.au

AUDIENT ASP880 Audient has used Musikmesse to launch its first product since the company changed hands late last year. The ASP880 is an eight-channel microphone preamp and ADC with a selection of digital outputs; ADAT, AES and S/PDIF. But note that while Audient are marketing the ASP880 as the “perfect” front end for your DAW, there’s no USB or Firewire port for using the ASP880 as a more straightforward audio interface — you’re going to have to tap into those digital outs. An A-D button allows the ASP880 to function as an eight-channel mic pre

while you use the converters separately in standalone mode. Audient has catered for those who prefer outboard processing by providing insert points on all eight preamps, and two of the channels have DI instrument inputs including pad switches.

Variable high pass filters and input impedance switching (for ribbon mics) are also squeezed into the 1RU chassis.

Innovative Music: (03) 9540 0658 or info@innovativemusic.com.au

STEAMPUNK STUDIO GEAR Is there such a thing as a Steampunk microphone?

Looks like it now… Ear Trumpet Labs is a specialist, hand-made microphone manufacturer in Portland Oregon and its founder, Philip Graham, a “software engineer with a habit of building audio gear” set about making microphones with a difference (yes, that is a bicycle sprocket). There’s no compromise on quality and some of the models you’ll find on Ear Trumpet’s website are quickly sold out — including the Doreen.

Prior to the new Mabel type, all of ETL’s microphones offered dual-purpose live and studio applications, but the Mabel is designed specifically for studio work. Mabel is a multi-pattern condenser microphone utilising two cardioid, medium-large diaphragm capsules, designed for acoustic instruments, drum overheads, and vocals. Mabel features a copperringed head basket with brass grill work, held in a pivoting mount within a stainless-steel yoke, and a copper-and-brass body. All of ETL’s designs have a similar, we have to say — very cool look.

VIOLETLY COOL MICS Microphones hand-made in Latvia… your studio can probably have bragging rights just for being able to claim some of your mics hail from that part of the world where they wear those huge, furry bear-skin hats in winter. To confuse the facts, Violet Designs is based in Tallinn, which is actually on the coast of Latvia’s northern neighbour Estonia — yep, break out Google maps. Violet Designs creates some very coollooking hand-made mics and has just added two new models, the Maestro and the Atomic. The Maestro is designed as an all-round studio mic combining a dual-membrane VD27 capsule and a discrete Class-A preamplifier with transformerless output.

The Atomic uses a single-membrane VD21 capsule for a warm-sounding condenser microphone good for vocal recording. You can order a matched pair of the Atomic, if you like. In the Violet Design scheme of things both these mics are nearer the bottom end of the price range although the Euro exchange rate will have something to say about that. Violet Designs offers world shipping.

SOFTWARE NEWS

SSL NATIVE SHIFTS TO ILOK Solid State Logic recently announced a trio of new plug-ins for its Duende Native range. The three new plug-ins complement the existing range with two plug-ins (X-Saturator and X-ValveComp) designed to bring some analogue saturation and distortion emulation to your digital DAW and the third (X-Phase) delivering high precision frequency specific phase correction. To coincide with the new plug-in release SSL has announced migration of the entire Duende Native plug-in collection to the iLok copy protection system — which might annoy a few folks. So there is no confusion (from us) how this will happen here’s the low-down from the horse’s mouth — SSL’s website.

MORE INFO Existing Duende Native and Legacy DSP hardware owners (who have not already cross-graded to Duende Native) will be offered a free cross grade to iLok. Owners of Codemeter hardware dongles will be offered a 50% discount on iLok purchase from SSL’s online store and a free X-Saturator or X-ValveComp plug-in. SSL’s Codemeter-based online license centre will cease to function in January 2015 so all users are strongly encouraged to migrate to iLok by December 2014.

Amber Technology: www.ambertech.com.au

SESSION KEYS PIANO, BYO FINGERS It’s hard to fault the quality of virtual, acoustic instruments nowadays. They’re all sampled with great care using the best studios, the best microphones and, of course, the best instruments. So the onus falls on the developers to provide something more than just an authentic sound. Hamburg-based e-instruments have released Session Keys in two different versions, which is a choice of two grand pianos sampled to the nth degree and playable inside NI’s Kontakt. Tempting to two-fingered piano players, Session Keys offers a means to generate chords and melodies at the press of a single key through an interface called Animator for the latter, AT 14

MORE INFO

or you can use a Smart Chord function to create full chords based on a root note. There is also a function called Pentamorph which offers manipulation of the piano’s acoustics right into the twilight zone — think atmospherics here — with on-the-fly effects available, too. In the past these kind of U-Play-It piano GUIs haven’t really impressed anyone, but it looks like e-instruments has put a lot of thought into Session Keys and just may have created that elusive authenticity with its automated playing. Otherwise, you’re still getting a very nice-sounding virtual piano with plenty of control to make some unique sounds.

JAM WITH BREAD & BUTTER In the virtual instrument world it’s easy to suffer a bit of synthesizer fatigue. So take a closer look at Native Instrument’s new Molekular, because at first glance it’s not what you’ll probably think it is — another synth. Molekular is a modular effects processor, 35 in all and not your bog-standard collection of reverbs and delays either — though these are included under a “Bread and Butter” category. You get a large stack of different

MORE INFO effects such as resonators, pitch modulators, step sequencers — but the trick is in manipulating the Morphing Field (kind of like an integrated Kaoss pad) and 16 modulation sources. This unique effects ‘instrument’ was built by Zynaptiq, who are known for some ‘can’t believe it can do that’ plug-ins.

CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or sales@cmi.com.au

SUPPLEMENT YOUR MIXDOWNS Waves has come up with a new plug-in that claims to be “comparable to what you would get from a parallel chain of EQ, compression and saturation processors, but without the hassle.” The Vitamin plug-in is a multi-band harmonic enhancer designed primarily as a mastering effect, but of course like any plug-in don’t be scared to insert over anything and see what happens. Vitamin has a lot in common with most multi-band plug-ins such as varying the crossover points and standard controls on adjusting the gain level of each band, however it adds a stereo

MORE INFO width parameter for each band when the plug-in is in stereo mode. The operative word is “parallel” with Waves making the point that Vitamin requires judicious mixing with the original signal. You also get a Punch control to add… ah, punch — that rather mysterious quality we all know and can never fully explain over just the one beer. Vitamin comes in all flavours Native and Multirack Soundgrid.

Sound & Music: www.sound-music.com

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South By South West Festival, Austin, Texas Report: Jonathan Burnside

It’s loud and sunny in this annual parallel universe, one where a massive chunk of the music industry parties at hundreds of live performances happening simultaneously in taco stands, record stores, BBQ joints, parking lots, bars, clubs and arenas all over the city. A mishmash of the world’s musical styles blasts into street after street, all crammed with hip-hop posses, hairy rockers, cowboys, college kids, punks and techies.

This democratised noise is not part of the official SXSW Festivals. Over 72,000 people attend SXSW Film, Interactive and Music conferences, but 130,000 musicians, fans and industry types come for the ‘unofficial’ free shows and events.

Springing a thousand dollars for a SXSW badge allows you to attend over-branded corporate shows and industry panels, and there are a lot of them. 2014 panel topics included Local Approaches in the International Music Market, Advice From Music Festival Experts, The 7 Hottest Topics in Web Music Tech and craft-specific topics such as Exploring Mystique in the Art of Music Mastering and The Art of the Crossfade. There are so many of these panels every day during SXSW that getting onto sxsw.com in advance to make a daily schedule of events to attend is important.

Sitting in the catbird seat and taking in wisdom from the industry’s vanguard could well be worth the badge investment.

But many people come only to be part of the mass of True Believers and Aspirants, all treading different paths to the same goal. The power of

staying Cheap and Unofficial is that you have the time each day to meet like-minded people and exchange roadmaps. It’s definitely possible to make and share connections, and then take them home and get busy with them.

Three years ago, I didn’t buy an SXSW badge.

Floating between random free shows, I heard the singer of a band from Prague play at a pizza joint. We hung out a bit and then kept in contact. The next year, I produced and played lead guitar on an album for his band, Please the Trees, which won the 2012 Andel Music Award (Czech equivalent of an ARIA or Grammy) for best Alternative Album. I tracked the overdubs, and mixed and mastered the album at my place while the band was across the world from me. So the common thread I heard at SXSW this year made sense to me: Attending music conferences and festivals can help create national and international relationships and from this personal contact can come collaborations, projects and promotion possibilities.

It’s all about connectivity. High speed data transfer has made it possible to collaborate completely remotely. Musicians, producers, mixers, filmmakers and content creators can cross-pollinate ideas easily once the connections are made. But you need face time to create these connections. If you want to work with more people than just the ones in your location, you have to leave it yourself. Many of us work out of our own production spaces which may or may not be in urban centres or musical hotspots. In

a sense, attending an event like SXSW takes us to as many different places as the other people attending are from. And by meeting them, we can create business in these places which would not exist if we had not taken the ride.

This year, I again attended SXSW without buying a badge. I met some great bands from around the world who I could envision working with in the future. And I heard some great promotion ideas. The Mighty Wheelhouse, an alt-country band from Madison, Wisconsin, explained to me their cross-marketing approach of teaming up with a boutique whiskey distillery to create the Wheelhouse Whiskey brand, now sold in venues around their area. The band promotes the whiskey, the whiskey promotes the band and Wheelhouse Whisky branded events promote the local music scene. I ended the week by jamming on a country version of Waiting For My Man at Kid Congo Powers’ (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Cramps, Gun Club) 54th birthday party. One seldom gets an opportunity like that by staying home.

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LIVE NEWS

NEW YAMAHA CONSOLE LEARNS FROM CL Apparently a case of a chip off the ol’ CL block, Yamaha’s new QL series digital mixing consoles “inherit” the performance of its CL series — meaning, they have a lot in common. All of the effect and EQ processing capability in the CL series consoles is also in the QL consoles — i.e. Rupert Neve and VCM plugs. Built-in automatic mixing functionality from Dan Dugan Sound Design supports a wide range of speech and broadcast applications. Otherwise, the compact QL series consoles are aimed at small to

medium scale live sound applications. Two models will be available, the QL5 with 64 mono + 8 stereo mix channels, and the rack-mountable QL1 with 32 mono + 8 stereo mix channels. Both flavours feature 16 mix and 8 matrix output buses. Ample local I/O is also provided: 32 in/16 out on the QL5, and 16 in/8 out on the QL1.

Yamaha Music Australia: (03) 9693 5111 or www.yamahamusic.com.au

RCF MIXES IT UP RCF historically hasn’t had a lot to offer for the other end of the multicore, but has now announced its new ‘Mixer Division’ starting with no less than seven forthcoming models of compact mixers — yep, more small format, analogue consoles.

Actually, in the official blurbs RCF acknowledges the market is “crowded” and its L-Pad series of consoles will have to offer something extra to make a mark. The way RCF plans to address this is with its L-Pad slot. The hook? You can stick additional modules into the slot to augment the functionality

depending on your mood. So far, they’ve got playback, playback/record and bluetooth modules.

Not exactly mindblowing, but Bluetooth is handy for small installations, and there’s surely more L-Pad devices to come… wireless speaker integration perhaps? The seven models range from six to 12 channels, with varying amounts of compression, and effects.

Group Technologies: (03) 9354 9133 or www.grouptechnologies.com.au

YOU MIX WITH UMIX SM Pro Audio’s new uMiX family of Wi-Fi remote controllable digital mixers work over a browser without requiring any apps or software downloads.

The uMiX family includes the uMiX mini (8ch), a free-standing device, and the uMiX 12 (12ch), uMiX 16 (16ch) and uMiX 24 (24ch) which are all rackmountable. A 56-bit double precision audio signal path provides parametric EQ, dynamics, and digital effects on all channels. All uMiX models include an on-board secure Wi-Fi and Ethernet router and remote microphone preamps. Built for both desktop and touch devices, uMiX has a GUI with the look and feel of a hardware mixer without requiring any apps

or software downloads. Pointing out the obvious, SM Pro Audio tells us uMiX stands for ‘You Mix’, however it also means everyone in the band can control their own monitor mix. A ‘copy main mix to aux’ button gives everybody a head-start on setting up a personal mix. Users can capture every gig with built-in ‘One Touch’ stereo recording to any USB stick/drive (excludes uMiX mini) or simultaneously play back digital media using the integrated digital media player. The uMiX16 and uMiX24 offer additional processing on the master outputs from Waves Audio.

Sound & Music: www.sound-music.com

LATEST OUTLINE PA Outline used Musikmesse to launch a whole bunch of new products. The EIDOS X123W is a multi-purpose cabinet design using co-axial driver technology with a 12-inch/3-inch LF/HF design. The EIDOS 6.5 is a compact 6.5-inch/1-inch module designed for installation purposes — available in virtually any colour to match surroundings (Outline may come to regret that offer). The EIDOS 12 SP contains a 12-inch LF transducer and 1.75-inch compression driver powered by internal Class D amplifiers.

Outline’s Movie Series adds the FX 101, designed as a surround-sound module for deployment in cinema applications. The DBS 18-2i subwoofer is the latest Outline product to feature its ‘Decoupled

Baffle Subwoofer’ design. Designed for permanent installations, dual 18-inch long-excursion transducers produce up to 141dB SPL peak at 1m. A new iP24 iMode digital processor is a multi-role 2-input/4output DSP loudspeaker controller in a single rackspace design. Finally the new FRM-GTO-LW lightweight (50kg) flybar complements both the new GTO C-12 and the existing GTO line-array systems as it allows up to 12 and 9 elements respectively to be flown from a single 1-tonne motor. Its design also allows it to be used as a ground-stack base on occasions when flying is not possible.

Ambient Technology: www.ambienttechnology.com.au

AT 19

MODERN CLASSICS: Royer R-121 Ribbon Microphone

In 1998, building your business around ribbon mics was definitely a left-of-centre choice. But 15 years on, Royer Labs’ off-centre ribbon is a modern classic.

Story: Mark Davie Mic Images: Corey Sleap

It’s an audience you never expect to end up fronting. You can hope, dream, even. But giving an acceptance speech to your peers at The Grammys would have been unthinkable for David Royer and John Jennings in 1997. Back then, they were owners of a one-year-old boutique audio company, DVA, that was barely showing signs of life, and their great hope for the future was a piece of technology everyone considered old hat — a ribbon mic.

It was dire straits for the pair, and naturally, doubt had crept in for Jennings.

Royer was the genius, slightly autistic, inventor of the two, Jennings played more of an advocate role. And while Royer had become convinced ribbons were the perfect foil for the harsher realities of digital recording, Jennings wasn’t so sure it was a safe bet.

Royer kept complaining that nobody ever liked or wanted to know anything about ribbons mics. His pitch to Jennings remained constant, “Look, ribbons have a really great signature, and they’re the most natural of all the microphone types. Everybody’s talking natural, but nobody is really making a natural-sounding mic.” But he was right, no one wanted to hear it. The overriding sentiment was that ribbons went out eons ago. Old technology for a bygone era.

UP CONVERTING

Eventually, it took a ‘road to Damascus’-type epiphany to turn Jennings onto the benefits of ribbon mics. One day, Jennings was reading a magazine article about Eddie Kramer’s technique for recording Jimi Hendrix’s guitar. “He said he always had a ribbon on Hendrix’s cabinet in the studio,” recalled Jennings.

“He had combinations of mics but they were always ribbons. That same day, on the way home, a Hendrix song came on the radio, Third Stone From The Sun, which has a beautiful melody and thick sounding guitars and it hit me. I had a religious conversion right there.”

From that point, the pair started talking about ribbons in earnest. And the very first ribbon mic Dave developed, the R-121, has since become a modern classic. In 2014, Royer Labs not only celebrated its 15th anniversary, but was awarded a 2013 Technical Grammy for its contribution to the recording industry, for designing a piece of gear that perfectly complemented the AT 20

“

T he first thing this no-name mic ever heard was this band’s guitars. The mic became the Royer R-121, and the band became Queens of the Stone Age.

”

modern digital method. Some 15 years after the R-121’s invention, Royer’s instinct has held true.

“At the time [in 1998],” said Jennings, “digital recording was really taking off and crispy microphones used to sound somewhat tamed by tape machines. Take tape out and put converters into the chain, and suddenly the distortion artefacts and crispy highs, typically dulled a little by the recording medium, were sat right in front of your face. You were hearing a harshness from microphones that was uncomfortable, whereas ribbons recorded to digital systems beautifully.

When we started Royer Labs a lot of engineers said they felt like they were working in an analogue world again.”

BUILDING UP ROYER

Developing a microphone that wasn’t just an evergreen idea, but would also have a long lifespan, didn’t come easy. DVA was a lesson in what not to do, with production problems grinding the business to a standstill. Jennings and Royer were both converted, but they knew they needed to secure a bit of help to rectify past issues. In stepped Rick Perrotta. He not only had a long history in the recording business (he owned Golden Sound Studios), but co-founded Matchless guitar amplifiers, renowned for kicking off the boutique amplifier boom with its peerless attention to detail. Perrotta was not only the co-founder, but also the production chief of Matchless. He was the perfect person to help Jennings and Royer develop Royer Labs’ production process and quash any reliability niggles. Perrotta was duly named President and the team moved from Royer’s garage in Fullerton, California, to a large building behind Perrotta’s garage, which became the Royer Labs base for the next six years.

Rounding out the founding four is Rafael Villafane, a chart-topping musician and producer, and partner with Perrotta in Baby’O Recorders (a hit studio in the ’80s). But more than that, Villafane also founded a number of live venues, where he performs regularly, along with the likes of Slash, Radiohead, and plenty more. He’s Royer Lab’s live guru.

LEFT OF CENTRE

The R-121’s most distinguishing characteristic, and how it became not just a vintage reissue but a modern workhorse, is its patented offset ribbon (Patent #6,434,252) — that is, it’s not dead-centre between the magnets. It’s the main reason the R-121 can handle high SPLs, unlike a lot of previous ribbon designs. It also had an unanticipated, yet welcome, side effect. The R-121 now had two sonic signatures at close range.

Jennings explains the principle behind it: “If you drive a ribbon fairly hard you can literally start to move it a little outside the prime magnetic field, which is where the greater concentration of magnetic energy is. So by having the ribbon towards the front of the transducer, you can drive it with high SPLs like electric guitars and get

some pretty major excursions without pushing it outside of that prime magnetic field. And it also gives it a little bit more room to move inside the transducer.

“The other thing that really helps the mics is the way we corrugate the ribbons. Typically, when you corrugate ribbons to give them flexibility, you generally run them between a pair of gears with glassing paper on each side. The glassing paper protects the ribbon from the gears and keeps it from getting shredded because it’s so thin. Because of that extra padding they take on a sort of wavy appearance.

“Except in our case we run them through very expensive, hyper-precise corrugators — about six-grand apiece, with each gear costing a couple of grand. They’re so precise you can put the ribbons through the gears without glassing paper.

That way they take the shape of the gears and a really hard corrugation. The gears are kept under lights to maintain a precise temperature when the ribbons go through so you can run a hundred ribbons through and they’ll all turn out perfect.

We have a patent on the direct corrugation too, and the method of corrugating actually toughens up the ribbon a little bit more.”

DOUBLE-SIDED HAPPINESS

Mark Davie: Was the offset ribbon a happy accident, or carefully designed?

John Jennings: It was a bit of both. It was a nice way to produce but also a design idea. The happy accident part was not the offset ribbon so much, but the effect it ended up having on the backside of the mic.

We put the 121 in the anechoic chamber and got the specs for the microphone. But all those specs were based on the microphone’s front side.

About a year after we opened the company, a friend of mine called me and said, ‘Hey, I just did some recording with this thing and the backside is brighter than the front. It’s actually better on vocals and acoustic guitars!’ I thought he was nuts.

So I went down to his studio to listen to some recordings and the back side was definitely

SPEIDEN’S FOLLY In his acceptance speech, Royer credited Bill Hayes from Altec, Charlie Gant from RCA and Bob Speiden for helping shape his development. But credit for stoking the Royer ribbon fire must go to Speiden. It was Speiden’s stereo ribbon recordings using his own mics that really got Royer hooked on their sound from the get-go. And the two soon struck up a friendship.

Like Royer, Speiden was the best kind of inventor.

A guy who made things for the love of it. His inventions never hit the mainstream, but they were well loved. His CD-to-vinyl lathe was a hit with the local hip hop community, and his SF12 stereo ribbon mics were similarly prized, though he only made 110 over eight years prior to handing the design over to Royer.

An insight into Speiden’s mind is the SF12’s model name – a seemingly innocuous product label that would appear to be derived from vanilla engineering characteristics. ‘SF’ could easily stand for stereo field, and ‘12’, the two ribbon transducers stacked one on top of the other. But Speiden wasn’t that dull. He called his inventions ‘Speiden’s Follies’, hence the ‘SF’. The ribbon just happened to be his twelfth invention. It was just fortuitous it seemed to line up so well.

Speiden passed away six years ago, but he’s remembered fondly by the Royer crew. “I spent some time with Bob at his place,” recounted Jennings. “The guy made the strongest martinis on earth. He’d give them to you in a water glass and you’d just go blind on the one drink. During those binges, he would tell me all about Speiden’s Follies.

I loved the way the guy approached life. He had a real sense of humour, but very gentlemanly, a very smart guy and one of the nicest people I think I’ve ever met. We still have a tribute to him on our website, I think it will always stay there.

“Bob wasn’t involved with the R-121, but they talked for a couple of years before Dave actually jumped onto designing his own ribbon and those conversations helped Dave solidify some of his design ideas.

“When Dave sent him one of our R-121s to look at, Bob basically said, ‘Hey, what you’re doing here is really good. If you want my design, you can have it.’ So we paid him a royalty for his design. On the outside they looked fairly similar, but on the inside they were built very differently.

“Bob’s were wonderful sounding microphones but if you took them apart after a few years to reribbon them, the ribbon transducers would usually all collapse on each other, so you’d have to rebuild.

Royers are not built like that, they have a lifetime warranty for a good reason.”

AT 21

THE ORIGINAL 121 The very first 121 Dave made in his garage wasn’t a Royer at all. It was built in 1997, a year before Royer Labs became official. Dave had a little modification company called Mojave Audio, and the first microphone had a Mojave Audio sticker on it. They’ve since rebirthed Mojave as a sister company to Royer, dealing in condenser microphones.

John Jennings recalls the original 121’s first proper outing: “This mic’s first trip out was with the great rock engineer Joe Barresi. He put this weird mic with no name on the guitars of a new band he was working with that didn’t have a name either. The first thing this no-name mic ever heard was this band’s guitars. Those R-121 recorded tracks made it on to the record. The mic became the Royer R-121, and the band became Queens of the Stone Age.”

brighter. Not so much if you got more than three feet away from the mic, but if the sound source was closer it was brighter.

but they still sound exactly the same. And the magnets are the same shape which gives the mic the same look.

Because the ribbon sat off-centre inside the microphone, it changed the way it would hear things. It’s a better sounding side for acoustic instruments and vocals. You can’t hit that side very hard because it’s already at the edge of the prime magnetic field and it’s going to be driven into a stamping screen it’s fairly close to. But for vocals, acoustic instruments, drum overheads, it’s really nice with it facing backwards.

“We’re using the same transformer in that mic that we’ve used pretty much since the start. The first 200 mics had 200Ω transformers and after that we switched to 300Ω transformers. That’s many, many thousands of microphones now.

The more recent mics are more sensitive because of the magnets, but otherwise it’s such a wellcooked cake we’re just not messing with it.

That part of it was a happy accident. We had no clue until a year in, we had to rewrite all the materials!

STICKING TO IT

MD: “Does Dave ever mess with the R-121 design, or is it as good as you can get?”

JJ: “We mess with it a little. The magnets in those microphones are neodymium. They’re very small, and very, very powerful. As the technology gets better we put stronger magnets in the microphones, which gives them more sensitivity,

“We have made a couple of special edition models this year. Our 15th anniversary model had the black logo we used on the first couple of hundred mics, and it comes with a certificate signed by Dave Royer. We also won a Technical Grammy in February, which was platinum plated. So we released a platinum-plated Grammy edition with a signed certificate by Dave too. But those are just cosmetic changes to the microphone. Otherwise I don’t see any reason to change anything else.”

Digidesign Digi 001 Released: 1999 Price: $1995 Digidesign (now Avid) released its 24-bit, hostbased Digi 001 system at just the right time.

The DAW market was about to go ballistic, host computers were becoming capable of handling the DSP dirty work and ProTools the aspirational software of choice. It wasn’t the first prosumer interface but it did have connections in high places. A network of professionals were already hooked on the ProTools drug, and their bona fides rubbed off on the 001, and home studios.

The Digi 001 gave access to the same kind of toys as the big boys and girls of the recording world.

Priced at sub $2000, the system consisted of a PCI card capable of eight channels of digital I/O, an eight-channel breakout box with six analogue line inputs, plus two mic inputs and stereo S/PDIF. To encourage familiarity with the software, Digidesign gave away an early version of ProTools (v3.4) and the 001 itself came with a ‘lite’ version of the software entitled ProTools LE — it handled MIDI decently and shipped with a bunch of RTAS plug-ins to get you going.

AT 22

Game

Changing

Gear

There were some limitations: the LE software had a non-expandable maximum of 24 audio tracks (plus MIDI) and was limited to 48k sampling. The 001 I/O was intentionally hobbled, including a lack of wordclock.

None of this would have mattered to the home/ project studio owners but if a project did expand beyond the capabilities of the 001 it could be transferred to a TDM system, plug-in settings intact, and continued. What’s more LE gave home studios a tantalising glimpse at what life might be like with a full-blown TDM system.

HOW IT CHANGED THE GAME: PROTOOLS FOR ALL It’s hard to imagine a world without ProTools being utterly ubiquitous. But prior to the Digi 001, ’Tools was the preserve of the pro studio,

much like an SSL or a U87. That all changed with the 001 and ProTools became a byword for digital recording. Remarkably the LE starting point was closer to the ‘real thing’ than most could have hoped for at the time — home studios were now using the same user interface as the pros. Unthinkable prior to the 001. And LE was remarkably powerful for the price.

What’s more, the 001 gave us a glimpse of a native studio future. DSP cards would persist — and, of course, they still do — but the 001 demonstrated that the PC would soon be the nerve centre of the studio rather than proprietary racks of processing.

As predicted by Daryl McKenzie in our original Issue 8 review, Digidesign created a new standard, describing it as a “must-try system”.

B&O? Not So

STRING OF HITS

While Royer has stopped short of messing with a good thing, the R-121 has spawned a number of spinoffs. Which, along with the Speiden-inspired SF range, round out Royer’s ribbon offerings. You can now get the phantom-powered R-122, which is 15dB hotter and “a little brighter because it has a faster transient response due to the active electronics,” said Jennings. The cut-price R-101 has the same transducer, ribbon element, and transformer in a different, less expensive body.

Then there’s the valve version, and 121s and 122s tailored for live use.

They’re all designs based on the 121, but like the classic mics before it, Jennings doesn’t see the R-121 changing for another 15-20 years at least.

It is what it is: a modern classic. A well-designed ribbon mic that balances with digital recording perfectly. And I doubt we’re going to see either of those going away any time soon.

Early on, Royer endured a bit of criticism for looking similar to an early B&O ribbon design. But calling it a copy is to judge how something sounds by the way it looks. Something we do far too often.

Jennings: “As far as referencing the B&O design, Dave calls it a very elegant design. He really liked it, but it had some real issues. It wasn’t all that great sounding a mic, but he loved the mid range.

He did quite a bit of studying as to why that mic had the mid range it had, the dimensions it had, and made considerable improvements with a lot of his own design work. That ribbon transducer, with the motor being the size it is, we had to cut flaps in the side of the microphone to fit it in there with the body cavity we needed. It gave it those distinctive rings, and that’s very much like the B&O design.

“That mid range has a lot to do with the dimensions of the mic and the way the internal parts are arranged, because the acoustical reflections inside the microphone have a lot to do with how the microphone picks up sounds. And you’ll notice, at the business end of the microphone — the pick-up end — all Royer microphones, except one, have similarly-sized bodies. And that interior dimension is really nice for mid range. You’ve got true low end and high end too, but a lot of music lives in the mids so it’s nice to treat it well.”

(Top) Onstage at the Grammys when Royer Labs received the 2013 Technical Grammy. Left to right: Rafael Villafane, Rick Perrotta, David Royer, John Jennings, James McKinney (host) and Mike Clink (producer).

(Above) An R-121 ribbon going through the corrugator. See dad, no glassing paper.

Apple iPod Released: 2001 Price: $895

Game

Changing

Gear

The Apple iPod was a game-changer that disrupted several industries at once. As a portable media player it replaced the much larger, Walkman-style analogue devices with its modern 5GB Toshiba hard-drive, sleek looks and innovative interface. As a piece of technology it helped establish Apple’s ongoing ability to show the way rather than following the pack.

Combined with iTunes it shifted the emphasis from albums to songs and enabled listeners to conveniently build their own playlists. For artists it broke the mould of being slaves to the record companies…who became slaves to Apple.

Released in late 2001 with a 5GB drive and a sales pitch of “1000 songs in your pocket” it was initially Mac-only and quite expensive at A$895 for the original model. But the timing was right; the internet was awash with free/illegal MP3 versions of new and old songs and the record industry was just beginning to respond with legal action to protect its copyrighted products.

The second-generation of iPods saw a Windows version of iTunes and sales took off. Consumers weren’t so much shamed into abandoning their illegal stashes of downloads as bewitched by the beauty and convenience of the iPod ecosphere.

Unfortunately, everything about the iPod was superior except the sound, which maintained the presiding heavily-compressed file format of the time.

Naysayers will point the bone at the iPod digging the grave of the album and reinforcing recorded music’s paltry worth. Meanwhile, fans of the iPod will point to Steve Jobs’ love of music and how the iPod at least put some value on music and filled a void that the hand-wringing record companies simply couldn’t fill at the time.

HOW IT CHANGED THE GAME: WHAT HASN’T IT CHANGED? If the iPod was simply a technical marvel that put 1000 songs in your pocket, that would be enough to earn it entry into the pantheon of sound.

But it was so much more. A whole generation has now been raised on the iPod — this is how music is consumed. And as those involved in the recording and distribution of music, it behoves us to understand the habits of those consuming the songs: iTunes wields enormous influence.

Albums mean little to the current generation, where singles reign supreme. Record companies’ clout has been decimated. Independent artists no longer court the ‘majors’ and their subsidiaries. Big studios have all-but disappeared.

Live music and big-time concert touring enjoy a renaissance. Project studios, with high quality in-the-box recording and mixing, produce much of the released music. The shape of the music, recording, and live sound industry can be seen through the prism of one device: the iPod.

AT 23

Modern Classics Empirical Labs Distressor

It’s a miracle that one small box could house so much vintage colour. Dave Derr explains exactly how he developed so much character.

Story: Mark Davie

Dave Derr knows he’s one lucky son of a gun. Spoilt even, he reckons.

He’s gone from a bandanna-wearing guitarist, to moving his business, Empirical Labs, to a bigger part of the building because its ‘packed to the gills’ with stock.

His talisman… his rabbit’s foot, is the Distressor. A compressor that manages to capture the essence of multiple classics in a single-rack space without feeling like any specific one. Rather than getting bogged down by a component-for-component remake, or pulling a 90-year old out of bed so the original hands can wind some extinct transformer as only they know how, it’s Derr’s interpretation of these classics that really gives the box its own unmistakable character. And in so doing, he’s built a classic of his own.

FLOWING WITH THE TIDE

Like most designers, Derr’s engineering career took off as his music career was taking a dive. Derr’s first ‘real’ job was at Eventide, right at its height of popularity. In fact, the second unit he ever worked on was the H3000 AT 24

UltraHarmonizer, a classic in its own right. “It was 1984, and my band broke up,” begins Derr. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I could tune pianos, so I tuned pianos. I ended up running into a guy at a Radio Shack and that led to a job at a medical electronics company where I learned to use scopes.

Then I saw an opening at Eventide. We didn’t have email then, so I sent a letter out. Anyway, they asked me in for an interview and I got the job.

“It was very lucky, because they gave a written test and I’m a terrible test taker — never did good in school. But it was like someone made the test for me. I happened to know just about everything on it even though I didn’t have a degree.

“The first project I worked on was a delay for broadcast so they could bleep out the curse words, then the H3000 and the DSP4000. I designed the analogue section and a lot of presets, not the algorithms. It really opened my eyes. I worked with great engineers like Bob Belcher and Ken B (Bogdanowicz, both now at SoundToys) and they really schooled me. I was really blessed to even get that job.”

It was this combination of training in modern production, and a love for vintage character that made the Distressor what it is. The basic idea was to divide the design up into the important non-linear characteristics that gave the original units their sound, and surround it with modern, reliable, linear components and designs.

The approach made a few decisions for him. Pots and switches, which undoubtedly get flaky, were replaced with military-grade, gas-sealed relays that have never failed, and glowing VU meters switched out for LED bar graphs. “Even though VU meters are warm and fuzzy,” said Derr.

“Testing them, especially the LA2A, revealed how slow they really are. It would be registering 6dB of compression on the meter but I knew it was a lot more. And when I measured it with analysers, it would be 20 or 30dB!” He did take some inspiration from period aesthetics though: “The old boxes had big knobs, which allowed you to take chalk pencils or little pieces of tape to mark your settings. And a two-inch knob lets you get pretty darn precise.

So that was on my list too… big knobs. I like big writing too because in the studio it’s often dark. Older gear had larger writing because they couldn’t silk screen back then. But I didn’t really consciously try to make it look retro. The thing is pretty ugly actually.”

While Derr was working at Eventide, he was also running his own studio. Eventually the studio started paying the bills, and the roundabout swung full circle… he was back making music full-time again. He was able to leave Eventide, which was bittersweet, but working in the studio only drew him closer to compressors and back to designing gear. “I got two or three pieces of gear that really changed the sound,” said Derr.

“Usually you say it’s not the paintbrush, it’s the painter. But if you just have a leaf to paint with, you’re not going to get very good.”

The pieces that really affected him were his UREI 1176, Teletronix LA2A and Valley People Gain Brain. “Especially the 1176,” said Derr. “I had a very small space, and the 1176 took me from really, really bad drum sounds to useable ones. I was lucky because an engineer came down from Chicago to work at the studio (who ended up being Phil Ramone’s engineer) and he taught me how to use the 1176 and the parametric EQs.” DEVELOPING CHARACTER Dave Derr: (Top) “Chaz was our first employee, building some of the first Distressors in my rented house. This is also where my studio was, taking up two floors.

(Middle) “Our distributor Gil Griffith, Ken Bogdanowicz and myself. This was just after we all went off on our own, having worked together for years at Eventide. Gil formed Wave Distribution, and Ken is the owner and engineer at SoundToys.

(Bottom) “Putting on a demo at an early AES show, possibly 2001.”

It was 1992 when Derr left Eventide, and at the time Universal Audio wasn’t producing anything; so you couldn’t get new 1176s or LA2As, and you also couldn’t just grab a schematic off the internet. Derr had to reverse engineer the classics to build something new. “I liked the sound of these older boxes and all the new compressors I had, not one even came close,” said Derr. “They had no character at all.”

FEEDBACK FROM THE MASTERS

When Derr was researching compressors to see how they operated and their effect on music program, he naturally went after the classics.

The 1176 was first on the chopping block, then he managed to get stuck into a Fairchild 670, which he later found out was pretty far out of calibration. The Distressor 10:1 setting is inspired by opto compressor circuits like the LA2A, which presented another problem in itself. “I had two LA2As, and they were pretty different from one another,” recalled Derr. “I picked the one I thought was probably most typical, but the fact is, there’s not a typical LA2A. I’ve since bought two more, and they are really different again. Though, interestingly, it’s mostly only evident looking at the test equipment, it’s amazing what your ear doesn’t hear.

“For instance one of the LA2As is very programdependent, like, overnight dependent. If you had it on a lead vocal, played the song through, then rewound and start it right over, you would get one sound. If you sat for five minutes and then started over, you’d get a different sound, because it has this incredibly long time decay. One of my newer LA2As doesn’t have that, the programdependent time element is almost non-existent.

“The one I modelled, it would differ even if you left it overnight. If you do a tone burst 20 seconds apart, and then do a tone burst the next day, it’s not even close. But I only made it 30 or 40 seconds in mine, not the overnight setting.”

AT 25

While not direct copies of the circuits by a long shot, he did base the design on one important characteristic common to all his favourite compressors. “I knew the sound I wanted, and it was always from a feedback compression design,” said Derr. “Feedback compression is where you take the output of the control element, the VCA, and control the gain. Whereas feedforward compression takes the input. Before UREI quit making gear, it put out this box called the 7110 [when JBL owned the name].

It was a compressor, single height, meant to be the latest generation 1176. I bought one and it was horrible! Honestly, I couldn’t find anything it sounded good on. It was a feed-forward compressor, not a feedback.”

FETTLING WITH CIRCUITS

But with an approach in mind, it still didn’t account for how Derr would achieve it. Even in his straw poll of favourite compressors, there were at least four or five ways of implementing the feedback principle. “It’s probably not a secret any more,” said Derr. “I use FETs to get most of

Aviom A-16 Personal Mixer Released: 2002 Price: $1295 Providing individual monitor mixes for performers, especially in the recording studio, had long been a problem looking for an elegant solution. In the old analogue world it could only be achieved by having lots of aux sends, cabling and headphone amps… and a patient engineer to drive all those mixes.

It worked if you were in a decent studio that had the equipment and the time to set it up, otherwise it was a case of “everyone hears the same thing”. Then along came the Aviom A-16 Personal Monitor Mixing System. A product of the digital age it allows multi-channel audio to be converted to 24-bit digital, and sent via Cat5 to individual 16-channel mixing stations.

Once the system is connected, the engineer can concentrate on the recording channels and hopefully won’t hear the words “I can’t hear myself”. The performers love it. In the original AT review Trevor Cronin gave it credit for “empowering the performer” and I can only agree. Controlling what they hear increases the performer’s engagement in the session, provides comfort to nervous musicians, and leads to more assertive performances.

In a live context the A-16 has tracked the popularity of in-ear monitoring. Aviom hasn’t taken over the rock ’n’ roll stage but has transformed pit orchestra/show band foldback along with church stages and the like.

AT 26

the colouration. FETs act like tubes in the triode range. If you work within a certain range of level and current, it’s almost identical to how tubes clip. The Gain Brain, 1176 and LA2A all had that colour in them. While the LA2A actually had tubes, the Gain Brain and 1176 had FETs. Knowing I loved that sound, that’s what I started with: FET-based control.

“The cool thing was, once I started looking at the rest of the circuitry, it could be done a million different ways. That little non-linear sonic element in the middle is what I adjust and fiddle with to get the sounds and distortion modes.

Everything else on either side of it is linear, and it’s easy to add a high-pass filter or band-pass emphasis in the detector using modern ICs, which you couldn’t do in the old days.

“Then I was able to look at what else I could do, and one of the easiest things was distortion and saturation. All I had to do was manipulate operating levels. The harder I hit the non-linear circuit, the more crunchy it got. It’s not really a distortion box, but you can hear distortion sometimes, depending on the setting.

Game

Changing

Gear

Australia’s most popular monitor engineer Rod Matheson has an Aviom system and I asked him what changes it had made to his job, he smiled and replied: “well it means they can do it themselves”. Rod saw no threat to his own gig and always found the Aviom to be reliable and easy to use. A downside? Rod noticed that while the Aviom’s A-Net latency was perfectly acceptable in isolation, when combined with certain digital consoles (with their own latency) the total delay was sometimes enough to be noticeable by vocalists using IEMs. The Aviom A-16 looks at home on a stage and gives performers the ability to not only set their own mix and volume, but to be able to change it through the show. Again, it’s about control and confidence leading to a better performance.

HOW IT CHANGED THE GAME: DIGITAL TRANSPORT If a measure of a product’s innovation is how long it takes for the competition to catch up and indeed how many copy-cats there eventually

are, then Aviom’s A-16 is legendary. Ultimately, despite the neat user interface, the real smarts lay in the multi-channel digital signal transport, which proved to be the biggest barrier to entry.

A-Net was years ahead — low latency and high quality.

Around 12 years after the release of the original, the Aviom A360 personal mixer has been released. That said, the original form factor of the A-16II remains.

These days, of course, pretty much every digital mixer lets performers control their aux send from a smartphone or tablet app. Which is not as refined as laying out a separate system like Aviom. But if you were to trace back to a moment we figured ceding control of monitor mixes to musicians was a good idea, you’d be staring at a small blue device. — Mark Woods

“I probably could have rolled off some more higher frequencies. The 1176 really starts to roll off before 20kHz, with the Distressor, it’s 200kHz, which is like lifting the veil. Sweep it, and it’s within a fraction of a dB between 20Hz and 20kHz — stable, super linear and clear. It goes way up because we don’t have any transformers in it. Once you put in a transformer, especially in the old days, getting more than 20kHz and down to 20Hz is tough. When you roll off at 20kHz you start to get some phase issues in the hearing range. It’s not much, but by going up to 200kHz, there’s no phase weirdness at all. One day we may add transformers back in, like we have on some other products, because they do things you can’t achieve any other way.”

DOWN IN JERSEY

These days, Empirical Labs employs 10 people.

It’s a fairly lean operation aided by the modernmeets-vintage philosophy of the Distressor.

You need less hands if you eschew mid-century production methods in favour of robotic PCB board assembly. And keeping things local is easy in New Jersey. There are 10 circuit board assemblers within 15 miles of ELI’s door.

customer service we actually price it a little above where we could if we were trying to be cutthroat.

We build in the cost of us supporting that piece of gear, so we try to make it as reliable as possible.

That’s why we eliminated transformers, there’s no connectors inside the unit, all those things are a liability. Some of the early pots we used were carbon-film, which started to get crackly after several years, so we went to conductive plastic.”

But it hasn’t become any easier. Stricter manufacturing standards which banned the use of lead solder, really hurt the quality across the industry. “RoHS [Restriction of Hazardous Substances] laws killed us,” said Derr. “They’re still killing us. Our office people didn’t want to lie and say we were RoHS compliant when we weren’t (which some people do), so we started using lead-free parts, which are not as reliable.

They’re getting there, but we even had transistors fail! Because I take reliability so seriously, those first couple of years of RoHS really hurt me and cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Derr takes reliability extremely seriously, so seriously, in fact, the tech support email goes directly to Dave. He can afford to do that, because reliability is designed into Empirical Labs products. “People think our equipment is great value anyway,” said Derr. “But to give great

“It’s getting harder to source parts, because they’re phasing out all these components. We started using microprocessors to get rid of discrete logic because even discrete logic chips which have been around for 50 years are going away. We’ve been so lucky to have cash flow because our first products made money, so when we buy transistors, we’ll buy them by the tens of thousands.”

“

Usually you say it’s not the paintbrush, it’s the painter. But if you just have a leaf to paint with, you’re not going to get very good

”

Game

Changing

Gear

adding effects was intuitive and rewarding. The switchable speaker-sound simulator made it more realistic for recording.

Line 6 POD Released: 1998 Price: $999 The Line 6 POD guitar amp modeller changed the way musicians and engineers looked at pulling guitar sounds. The idea of being able to re-create the sounds of all the classic amps was enormously appealing and was immediately embraced as the answer to many a guitarist’s dreams — right from the start guitarists liked the sounds and feel of playing through the POD. Bright red and kidney shaped with an LED screen in the middle surrounded by 10 control knobs, compared to the stomp boxes and guitar multi-FX units of the time, the POD looked like something from the future. Selecting sounds by choosing an amp model, tweaking it and

For live shows, convenience goes a long way and lugging an esoteric guitar amp around has always been inconvenient and risky. The POD could be plugged directly into the PA and heard through the monitor system so the amp could stay at home. If an amp was used on stage it didn’t have to be cranked to get the right tone and the POD’s 32 user memories ensured consistent sounds that saved time at soundchecks.

The Line 6 POD was a natural in the studio — minimising the time it took to pull a sound and opening up a world of tone many studios simply didn’t have in their sonic arsenal. In its initial Issue 6 review AT’s Trevor Cronin suggested every studio should have one so they would always have good guitar sounds at hand. If bands brought their own POD to the studio the getting-a-guitar-sound problem went away and everyone could focus on their

performance. The POD spawned the re-amping phenomenon, where you record clean and play the take back into the POD for infinite tweaking.

At home with a pair of headphones the POD allowed you to rehearse as if you had an amp screaming — roaring guitars in a suburban bedroom.

HOW IT CHANGED THE GAME: INSTANT GRATIFICATION The POD gave the world its first practical glimpse at how physical modelling can change the world. Prior to the POD, modelling was mostly the preserve of keyboards, with Nord, Yamaha and the like more accurately recreating arcane synths you couldn’t afford, or wind instruments that didn’t ever genuinely replace anything.

Did the POD precisely emulate some of the most coveted guitar amps of history? Who cares. It was close enough. Even close enough for many of the pros who owned the amps to opt for the convenience, the flexibility and the reproducibility of the Line6 POD. — Mark Woods

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DISTRESSED SALES

Getting to that point is rare for an audio manufacturer, especially when building a business around a product that had ‘boutique’ written all over it. But even though it took a few years to get the Distressor, and Empirical Labs, off the ground, Derr still considers himself lucky it happened at all. It’s a miracle getting working audio engineers to take a new compressor out of its box, let alone believe in it enough to add it to their workaday routine. Especially when they’re already loaded up with classics like the 1176, LA2A, and even Fairchilds. “It’s very hard,” recalls Derr. “You send out the first few units without expecting to get paid for it. I had been in the business at Eventide so we had a few people, most notably George Massenburg, who I’d met in the mid-’70s, grab onto the Distressor. We sold almost nothing in New York until Michael Brauer came by three or four years after making it. Some units even came back unopened! I sent a unit to Bob Clearmountain and he never even opened it.

Now he has six of them!

“The other person was Fletcher from Mercenary Audio. He only sold old gear because he didn’t like a lot of new stuff. I’d met him at Eventide and sent him a Distressor. I didn’t tell him anything about it, except that it was new and to have a play with it. He ended up dragging me to my first AES, which was instrumental.

“

I sent a unit to Bob Clearmountain and he never even opened it.

Now he has six of them!

”

“In the early days, I thought it would be right up the alley of engineers in the UK, because it’s coloured and you can do crazy stuff with it. I sent it to the biggest distributor over there, and it just sat on a guy’s desk. Finally we signed with Unity Audio, and Kevin Walker went and got it, slung it on his motorcycle and started spruiking at studios around the UK. Within weeks we had sales going.

“In the first year we probably got paid for three or four. The next year we sold 100, and it was exponential after that. We’re going on 26,000 now.

“A lot of people, they design two or three products and maybe the fourth one will take off. We were very lucky our first product caught on because it made it so easy for me to develop more.” Lucky, indeed.

Derr: “Tiger was the Studio dog, but also got the mail and QC’d the early Distressors for a pleasant scent. This was our first big order, piled up in the stairway with our new Operations Manager Judy standing nearby around 1996.”

EMULATING SUCCESS The Distressor is still the most famous of Empirical Labs’ analogue designs.

But by now, the Fatso could be trumping it in overall use. It was the first design Dave helped develop into a plug-in for Universal Audio’s UAD platform. “It was a test,” explained Derr. “Because the Fatso is a nightmare. There’s so much analogue processing and non-linearity inside. If they could do a decent job of it, they could probably do just about anything that can be done in DSP.” Being so intimately acquainted with the analogue design of the Fatso, the question becomes, exactly how good is the digital emulation?

“I could safely say it is a little different,” evaluated Derr. “The only thing that’s not 99% there is the transformer emulation. And that’s a hard thing, I don’t know of anybody that’s done it right in the digital world yet. But UA does revisions so who knows, maybe that will be improved?

“But boy, they got the clipping, the compression, and the warmth. It was impressively uncanny. The guy I was working with, Dave Berners [longtime UAD developer] was brilliant, he was such a sweetheart. I just get picky in the same way I do with analogue.

“One key thing that made the Distressor possible was Ken Bogdanowicz, who wrote me a program to do specific compressor measurements. Your ear can detect some things equipment doesn’t see, but for the most part equipment will detect stuff your ear can’t. It works both ways, but I’d say equipment will help you more than your ear will. For the Fatso, I had a familiar way to see the differences, because you can take the same tests over to the digital domain.

“Even if I thought it was really close, but needed to get that final change. Dave was never pissed off, he always understood what I was saying, and could fix it. I could say anything to him and that made it very easy.”

That was four years ago, and now Derr is working on more emulations. What exactly, he cannot say. NDAs are prohibiting him dishing the dirt. Here’s what he could say: “We have two software endeavours going on right now. But I kill a AT 28

lot of products, and there’s a chance I might kill one of these. With software, it’s all about the sound, because you can always change the interface. I’m getting ready to block diagram a third, because the development can last years. There’s definitely analogue modelling, and the sound of some of our products, in both the things we’re working on. One is based very closely on a schematic. The other is more of a block diagram with little parts, and I have to communicate what each block does.”

Whether it’s a UAD collaboration again, or if he’s relinking old ties with the SoundToys crew, Derr wouldn’t be drawn on. But fingers crossed there’s a Distressor in the works.

Derr does see the modelling eventually overtaking his analogue business in the future. He sees the future, and even the present, as just nice analogue front ends to a digital backbone. Though two factors that work in favour of incorporating analogue gear are delay compensation, and the affordability of AD/DA conversion. Effectively, you can simply normal in all your outboard now.

“If I was a young kid, I would just get a few pieces of key analogue gear and go from there,” reckons Derr. “So yeah, we probably won’t do a whole lot more analogue products. We’ve got a few in the works right now actually, but we won’t be doing 10 more… I guarantee it.

“It’s starting to shift towards major records being mixed all in-the-box. But most of my favourite recent records were still mixed on a big console. I think when people like Clearmountain, and the Lord-Alges, and Brauer slowly retire, the next generation is not going to use consoles. It’s going to be in-the-box because you can do little tweaks here and there and instant recall.

“At the moment, I don’t think you can beat how fast that older generation of mixers can work on a big console by doing it in-the-box. It’s like breathing to them. But the generation after them will be able to.”

TUTORIAL

Jotheo drops some hot tips in his spin on AudioTechnology’s Remix Competition track.

Story: Stephane Elmosnino & Mark Davie

JOIN THE COMPETITION If you haven’t downloaded the remix competition stems for The Occupants’ Wonderland, you can grab them at audiotechnology.com.au/remix.

Remember, you’ve got till the 12th of May, 2014 to submit your entry.

Listen to Stephane’s remix of Wonderland: Extended Cut — soundcloud.com/jotheo/theoccupants-wonderland Radio Edit — soundcloud.com/jotheo/theoccupants-wonderland-radio

USING OUTBOARD Because most dance music is done in-the-box, and even though all the synths have come a long way, I tend to run all my synths through outboard gear — mostly through the Thermionic Culture Vulture tube distortion. Personally, I don’t think it’s necessary, and there’s a plethora of producers who can create No. 1 hits using in-the-box synths and plug-ins. I’ve just found you get the results quicker with analogue gear. I put outboard compression on the master, just because I can and makes it easier to glue everything. On the stereo bus I run an API 2500 compressor, a UBK Clariphonic EQ, and add a bit of tape emulation on the Cranesong HEDD converter. The rest of it is plug-ins. I’m also running a very gentle low-pass filter at 19-20kHz for the Wonderland remix, which I’ve found helps break the whole digital harshness of some dance music.

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Dance remixes can often sound like a hyperactive younger sibling — aping a few traits but generally playing around with the fun bits and turfing the laboured, grown-up stuff.

Even if it’s not your normal cup of tea, remixing is great practise for your arrangement and production techniques, because embarking on a remix is a lesson in getting to the point: find The Drop, and build your cubby around it.

Here to give you a leg up if you haven’t already submitted your entry into AudioTechnology’s Remix Competition is Stephane Elmosnino, who goes by the name Jotheo. He’s also the head of Audio and Sound Production at JMC, a percussionist, and mixes and masters EDM. In the last few years, it seems more samplecentric DAWs like Ableton’s Live have become the go-to workstations for remixing. But Stephane works primarily in ProTools. We thought it would be interesting to see how he goes about it. Here’s Stephane: When you start any remix, it always begins with the same question: What’s its purpose?

Depending on whether you’re remixing for the club or just to open up the song to a different audience, dictates whether you have to follow a more club bpm, or if it can be a bit more free-flowing. It can also determine structures, song lengths and other decisions. I figured the Wonderland remix wasn’t necessarily going to be played in a club, it’s potentially more suited to a festival environment, or for people to listen to at home.

ON THE BEAT

At 166bpm, this was a little out of my depth, because I usually work at way different bpms hovering around the 130bpm range. So I experimented with changing the tempo up and down from the original, but whether it was going from 83 to 130bpm, or 166 down to 130, it wasn’t working. Seeing as I’d already decided the purpose of the remix wasn’t to be played at a club, I just stuck with the original bpm.

Determining the bpm is as simple as whipping out a quick tap tempo app on your iPhone, or using the ProTools tap tempo feature. The original song was definitely recorded to a click, so that made everything a lot easier. If it hadn’t been recorded to a click, I usually use Elastic Audio to conform the song to a particular tempo.

HOOKING UP

Once I’ve got the bpm set, I’ll listen to the original track a few times to figure out the hook, which parts stand out and set the original song apart. Considering this track was so long, and had a million different parts, I figured using the chorus vocals would be the way to go.

Next, I play along to the original with a synth and try a few chord progressions to see if anything sticks. I ended up transcribing the

vocal melody to MIDI, to see if it could be used as a lead line down the track. Then it’s a matter of trial and error. So if I found a chord progression I like, I mute the original and work from that.

This is the most critical part, working out the core sounds and something that will become the hook of the remix.

Again, the choice comes back to the purpose of the remix. And in the end, the chorus vocal maintained its place as the main hook.

MAP IT OUT

Once I’ve figured out the chord progression, I put that same progression on a bass instrument and see whether I can move it around, away from the main progression. Or if I can have a bit more movement in the bass line while the main progression remains static, which helps break it up.

Tuned Riser Effects Using D-Verb 1. Print the very first note of your synth line to audio and copy it to the start of the preceding bar.

With the selector tool, make a one-bar selection starting with the audio you have just copied and finishing just before the start of your synth line.

2. Open D-Verb as an Audiosuite plug-in and increase the decay to around 10 seconds. You will also need to increase the gain slider of the plug-in to 0dB. 3. Click ‘Render’ and trim the start of the resulting audio clip to the same length as the original audio you processed.

4. Open ‘Reverse’ as an Audiosuite plug-in and with your reverberated audio clip still selected, click ‘Render’. This technique works equally well on vocals or guitars, the key is to only use the first note for the reverb to create a riser effect that is tuned to the same note as the part it is announcing.

I’ll map out the structure of the song with markers, so I’ve got a clear goal when I’m working. Otherwise it can feel daunting not knowing when the song’s going to end. And usually, once I’ve got the markers, I’ll already have found the main drop (the chorus, for example) of the song and can put those parts where they’re needed, and work from there — add drums, and work out what I can use from the original song in the breakdown parts.

SWEEP UP

Sweeps are the very last things I do. They’re like icing on the top of a cake. It can turn a dodgy old lump into a deliciously presented gateau. If you start with sweeps, it’s almost like cheating because you’re hiding a structure that may not be there in the first place. So compose the whole song without them, and add them where there’s a need to tell the listener something’s about to happen, or to smooth transitions over. (Think of your sweeps like reverb — you wouldn’t generally start by putting reverb on vocals.)

In the session I’ve really got two types of sweeps; sub drops for impact, ranging from white noise to tuned sweeps, and sweeps to help with the transitions. For the second type I’ll grab the first note of the lead synth or first syllable of word happening on the down beat of the next bar and process it in D-Verb. It helps with transitions because it announces the pitch of what’s coming next.

You can easily create white noise sweeps with any old synth. There’s also an Avicii-style effect I’ve made in Boom with 16-note tom hits and automating the tuning upwards. It’s not really a sweep, but it’s very much the sound of 2013, it was in a lot of songs.

Sweeps are funny, because you hear a lot of producers doing the same sweeps, and not necessarily because they’re from particular sample packs, but because there’s a sweep sound of the moment.

“

Sweeps can turn a dodgy old lump into a deliciously presented gateau

”

AT 31

“

I’ll map out the structure of the song with markers…

Otherwise it can feel daunting not knowing when the song’s going to end

WHICH TOOLS?

I’ve used ProTools for the last 11 years. I’ve used and taught other DAWs — Cubase, Live, etc — at JMC. Even though some of the other DAWs can do the work really well, I find ProTools’ audio editing tools to be hugely powerful. As far as workflow, it’s my preferred way of working, especially when you’re using the Smart Tool and shortcuts — editing vocal syllables together, sequencing drums out of audio samples — I find I can work a lot quicker in ProTools.

There are some tools that aren’t natively there, though you can still get them in ProTools. For instance, in Live you have Slice to MIDI which isn’t a native feature of ProTools, so for the remix I loaded the vocals into Kontakt, which has that feature. For the Audio to MIDI feature, you can use Melodyne, same with Drums to MIDI, there are plenty of third-party plug-ins for that.

”

Slice To MIDI Using Kontakt 1. Load Kontakt on a new instrument track. From within Kontakt, create a new empty instrument by going to ‘File’ and selecting ‘New Instrument’.

2. Click on the wrench icon to get under the bonnet of this newly created instrument.

3. Click on ‘Mapping Editor’, then from the browser window of Kontakt, locate your audio file and drag it to the mapping editor. Make sure to map this audio file to the note that is furthest to the right.

4. Next, you need to open the wave editor and enable the grid.

5. You can then set the size of each slice you will want to map to a key using either fixed note values under the ‘Fix’ tab or allowing Kontakt to analyse the transients of the audio using the ‘Auto’ mode.

In ‘Auto’ mode, you can use the slider to change the sensitivity of the transient markers being added, which adds more or less slices.

6. Under the ‘Sync/Slice’ tab, click on ‘Drag MIDI to Host’ to map the selected slices to your keyboard. Now that you have mapped all of the audio slices to your keyboard, you can use the ‘Zone Envelopes’ tab to change the start and end points of each slice.

Avicii Style Riser Effect Using Boom Load Boom on a new instrument track. Press any key on your MIDI controller from C3 to D#4 to select a rhythmic pattern within Boom. Delete every note of this pattern in the built-in editor except for the ‘Hi Tom’ line, which you will want to fill with hits. Load the ‘Retro’ kit and enable automation for the tuning knob of the ‘Hi Tom’. You can now play a steady note (the first note you pressed to select this pattern) and automate the tuning to create an Avicii style riser FX. For creating interest within this pattern, try giving each note a different velocity and adding some swing.

AT 32

PLUG-INS 1. Since vocals are mainly present between 1-3kHz, I thought there’s not much point in sidechain compressing the synths from the entire range. So I sent the vocals to the sidechain input of a multiband compressor set to compress the midrange of the synths. The multi-band comp is set to work in Mid-Side, so only the middle channel is affected. It helps the vocal cut through when the synths are playing.

2. Vari-Fi is one of the greatest ProTools effects for dance music. Sometimes I use it just on the lead line at the end of a bar, just to add a bit of interest so the lead doesn’t get stale.

3. I used Avid’s DB-33 organ to create the bass, with a little tape saturation and outboard compression. I also used the ReFX Nexus and NI FM8 synths on the remix.

4. I sequenced most of the drums in NI Battery, then sent out individual parts to separate aux tracks in ProTools to EQ the kick, snare, and cymbals on their own.

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AT 33

REVIEW

TWIN BUILD

DOWN FRONT

The Twin is exceptionally well-built.

One-piece metal top, metal casing, solidly mounted sockets, and plenty of ventilation for the DSP.

The single DI input is great for extremely low latency guitar tracking when paired with UAD’s amp sim selections. And the single headphone output is particularly high quality with a discrete DAC and plenty of gain — way more than you’ll ever need if you care about your hearing.

UNIVERSAL AUDIO

APOLLO TWIN INTERFACE The Twin’s Unison preamp modelling puts API and vintage UA on your desktop.

NEED TO KNOW

Review: Mark Davie

PRICE Twin DUO: expect to pay $1249 Twin SOLO: expect to pay $999 CONTACT CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or sales@cmi.com.au

AT 34

PROS High-quality build & great interface Deep integration of Unison preamp modelling On-board DSP plenty for small interface Sounds great, with plenty of output power

CONS No Thunderbolt cable Limited expansion options at the moment

SUMMARY This is probably the most fully-featured, best-built, two-channel desktop interface on the market, and its price reflects that. But don’t ignore what you get under the skin, because there’s plenty of professional value.

It’s one of those ‘how long is a piece of string’ questions, when someone asks you which interface they should buy. I’ve been getting asked that a lot lately. And often the prerequisite features are somewhat simple: a couple of mic preamps, headphone and monitor outputs, and a DI input. Everything else is icing on the cake, or wishful thinking. I mean, it would be nice to have eight preamps onboard, but how often do you realistically record live drums in your bedroom?

Or have the mics to do it?

Two-channel interfaces have been around for a while, but a few years ago, the idea of the desktop interface really came to the fore. It made little sense to keep the rack-style form factor, even half-rack, when most users were going to be sitting at a desk with little more than the interface, a laptop and couple of monitors. Why not make it ergonomic and put the knobs on the top? Voila, a whole market sector was born.

The Apollo Twin is the next generation of those units. It’s a similar idea, but with plenty of updates. Firstly, it’s a Thunderbolt device. Why? Because it also has onboard UAD Solo or Duo DSP. And, because it launched in conjunction with the debut of UAD’s Unison preamp modelling technology, you also get a model of the Universal Audio 610 tube preamp thrown in too — that’s good value.

BOLT OUT OF THE BOX

The single most annoying thing about the Twin, and possibly my only gripe, is it doesn’t ship with a Thunderbolt cable. I get that it’s not the cheapest cord going. But you’re also not likely to

have one simply lying around. A trip to the store, $50 later, and we’re in business.

The lack of cables can sometimes be a good thing though. Unlike other high-quality desktop interfaces from the likes of Apogee (Duet, not Quartet) and RME, the Twin doesn’t use a breakout cable for all its interconnects — it’s all jacks on the back. I like this, it’s less load on a single point of failure, and it just feels better to snap things in and out of a back plate than the end of a snake.

Despite the missing Thunderbolt cable, the Twin is the first time UA has made full use of the Thunderbolt PCIe spec in an Apollo device. The rest have been operating on Firewire drivers, even despite the availability of optional Thunderbolt cards. This will be rectified in the coming months with a firmware update. But for now, you can only enjoy the full bandwidth of Thunderbolt with the Twin. And for those thinking about cascading multiple units or integrating the Twin with other Apollo units (perhaps as a matching Big Knob) well, that falls under the ‘not yet’ category too, though it doesn’t seem to be an issue with UAD Firewire Satellite units.

It is a bit disappointing, that UA put in an ADAT in expansion option, but not the full complement of digital I/O. Having had ADAT sync flake on me before, I’ve always preferred a Wordclock option. And not having S/PDIF really limits external DAC options. Also, not having a second Thunderbolt port is a little annoying if you’ve got other Thunderbolt devices and no hub. Hopefully UA will rectify the Apollo link-up issue soon,

INS & OUTS, OUT BACK

Apart from the two combo inputs, there’s a single optical ADAT port for eight additional inputs at 48k, or less at higher rates. And alongside the main monitor outputs, there’s also two additional line outs.

INCLUDED PLUG-INS With the Twin, you get the Realtime Analog Classics Bundle, which includes: • 610-B Tube Preamp & EQ • Softube Amp Room Essentials • 1176LN Legacy Classic Limiting Amplifier • Teletronix LA-2A Legacy Classic Leveler • Pultec EQP-1A Legacy • Pultec Pro Legacy • Realverb Pro Custom Room Modeler • CS-1 Channel Strip

because that would solve any future expansion problems, especially considering how flexible the Console application can be.

CENTRAL CONTROL

While simple, the Twin’s control section is extremely well thought out. On the left, while it simultaneously displays a five-segment graph meter for each input, a button lets you toggle between the gain settings of each — which is displayed on the LEDs ringing the central dial.

Toggling between the two also highlights which channel you’re currently manipulating and which input it’s using — mic/line/Hi-Z. The unit also automatically senses if you’ve stuck a jack into the DI socket, and switches to that input type.

On the far right, the meters are selectable between your headphone and monitor outputs (this time in stereo) with the gain again rimming the main dial.

The bottom display is nifty. It has input select, a high-pass filter, 48V phantom, a pad, phase select, and the option to link both channels in stereo. But the cool part is it only lights up (in a dim state) the options relevant to the input type.

For instance, if you’ve got a mic plugged in, it dimly displays all the options. And when you select an option, it lights up in full. But if you have ‘line’ as your input source, it completely drops the pad and phantom power options.

Likewise, the DI input only keeps the high-pass and phase visible. Really well thought through.

PULL IT UP ON THE CONSOLE

LOCKED IN POWER

Although it uses a wall wart power supply, the connector has a twist-lock mechanism so it won’t pop out if you accidentally rock your guitar too hard.

Of course, all these options are controllable via UA’s Console application. Flick a switch in either the hardware or software, and it mirrors in the other domain. Neat. It’s also where the Unison preamp modelling really makes sense. Inserting the bundled UAD 610-B emulation into the preamp slot immediately gives it access to the Twin’s settings and vice versa. It really acts like the preamp. The gain meter is now divided into four orange segments, the end points of each corresponding to the -10, -5, 0, 5 and 10dB main gain settings on the 610. The level is then set in the plug-in, as is the output level. It really makes the whole system seamless. You set the preamp level, record, and never have to think about that plug-in again. It works essentially like hardware, even so far as altering the impedance of the Twin’s circuitry to match.

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You can, of course, insert the 610-B in your DAW as a flavour device, though it misses out on those key adjustments that are crucial to the model’s success.

The Apollo preamps themselves have 55dB of nice, clean gain. UA’s promise of transparency — a foundation for adding all kinds of Unisondeveloped colour — seems pretty spot on. It’s not to say you have to always use an emulation, far from it, these are solid all-rounder preamps — as any flat, clean preamp should be with a good source and mic. And gaining up the unit to handle the low sensitivity of a Shure SM7 introduced barely a skerrick of noise.

Comparing the 610B with the standard Apollo preamp, it’s not a night and day difference all the time, though it does blow out with plenty of character. There’s a thicker, rounder tone to the 610-B, which felt sometimes a little too thick, and sometimes just right. But the way the two behave with different sources shows this isn’t merely window dressing. The preamp emulation reacted with its own feel for the material. It makes the option of having multiple preamp models onboard an exciting prospect — go the 610A for even more vintage harmonics, the API channel strip for drums, or the standard Apollo preamp for a clean rendition — and the included 610-B model is a chunk of extra value for nix.

Not to mention the other plug-ins that come with the Twin.

PERFECT MIX

I’ve got to say, I’d not had the opportunity to play with an Apollo unit before. And unlike any other digital workflow, it actually promotes some good habits. That is, making a decision. While you can insert effects into your DAW, inserting compression and EQ onto your source in the Console application when tracking means you have to make a decision there and then. There’s no changing settings once it’s laid down. It was refreshing to have a digital system promote that kind of thinking.

The great thing about the Twin is, it can be more than just the one thing. It’s not just for the bedroom musician. In fact, it would fit quite comfortably as the monitor controller/extra DSP for mixers frequently relying on UAD plugs. The digitally-controlled analogue monitoring is a nice touch, and makes for consistent listening. It could be all you really need in a mix room. A couple of inputs to ram home some quick overdubs without having to buy external preamps, quality headphone and monitor outputs, extra processing grunt, and a bloody big knob to control your levels with. I’d definitely recommend it, with the caveat that you’re entering the UAD ecosystem of plug-ins, which while often classleading and great value, might be a bit more than the average musician is willing to shell out.

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And The API? Greg Walker was reviewing API’s new small-format analogue console The Box at the same time as this review. He also has an Apollo — perfect timing to compare the API Vision Channel Strip emulation.

Greg Walker: “The 212L preamp modelling enacted in the API Vision Channel Strip is pretty impressive. I A/B’d it against the preamps in The Box which have a very similar circuit to the modelled one, and had a good long listen to some steel string acoustic, classical guitar and drum recordings I made. For good measure I also tracked the same sources through a clean Apollo preamp to get a sense of what sound the API emulation was working with. I was able to gain match all the pres pretty well and had the -20dB pad switched in for the drum settings. It’s cool to hear the relays ticking in the Apollo hardware box when you click on a digital pad button.

“I found the API emulation added some thickness to the low mids and a little harmonic saturation overall compared to the plain Apollo pre sound. I didn’t jump up and down and go ‘yes that sounds just like the real API!’ but it sounded good and noticeably different to the straight Apollo pre.

After careful listening it became clear that the real API had a bit less low-mid thickness and better articulation in the upper mids and higher frequencies. If push came to shove I’d choose the real API preamp eight times out of 10 as it has that extra little something, but having said that I don’t own four API preamps and there’d certainly be plenty of times where I’d go with the slightly thicker, darker API emulation. As usual its always about context and getting to know the strengths and weaknesses of every tool you’ve got.

“One thing I quickly discovered was that the emulation enjoys being pushed at the input (you can back it off at the output stage to keep things from peaking digitally). The sound doesn’t totally blow out like the 610B, but just gets a little more hairy and things start fusing together in a pleasing and musical way. And then of course you’ve got all that lovely and great-sounding emulated API EQ and compression in the Vision Channel Strip that you can throw at the source too. Using these tools its easy to get big bold, saturated sounds without everything turning into tinny hiss. It’s great to have more preamp flavours suddenly appear in a piece of hardware you already own, and what’s better is that there’s four of them!

Wonder what else UA have got stashed away under the bonnet of this thing…?”

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REVIEW

SQUEEZE ON THE BUS

Above all this busyness is the real icing on the cake — a lovely big pair of VU meters and a very flexible API stereo compressor. The compressor is a modified version of API’s 527 model and gives you all the API compression flavours such as old and new type response, hard and soft knee as well as ‘thrust’ circuit.

The comp has fully variable ratio, attack and release settings, can be stereo linked on the main stereo bus chain or split and assigned to any two of the four mono channel circuits.

CHANNEL SURFING

Channels 1 and 2 have built-in API 550A three band EQs while channels 3 and 4 have blank 500 series slots waiting for the addition of your own special sauce. Like the four mic pre channels, the other 16 summing inputs offer a fair feature set with panning, insert enable, cue mix, and aux send controls for two mono and one stereo auxiliary send. All channels also have program in and solo safe switches in addition to orange solo and red mute buttons and 0dB buttons for instant recall of pre-fader settings. All the controls feel resilient and pro-level with the backlit buttons being easy to status-check at a glance.

AND THEN SUM THE BOX PREAMP

The four mic preamps in the 548B channel modules are the same 212L, 2520 op ampdriven ones you’ll find in API’s 1608 console and have instrument and line input functionality, a hi-pass filter, phase reverse, pad and phantom as well as controls for inserts, VU metering, pre fader direct outs and the ability to switch the bus compressor into the channel circuit either at the preamp stage or after the insert and EQ.

FADE IN

The four mic pres also have channel faders, bringing the total to 20 dedicated input faders on mixdown. There is the option of shoehorning at least one of the stereo inputs into program bus duties but you have no dedicated controls for these.

The master section of The Box also has its share of bells and whistles and really does offer a fair degree of what you might expect from its elder siblings in the API console family.

A large control room level knob takes centre stage flanked by dim and cut switches and controls for dim and alt levels. There’s a very handy mono button, program bus insert and ‘program sum in’ buttons as well as a small matrix to handle a variety of two-track and cue source assignments. Solo level trim and solo clear buttons complement the headphone enable and gain controls, a built in talkback mic and aux solo level.

API THE BOX CONSOLE Is this small format API worth getting out of the box for?

NEED TO KNOW

Review: Greg Walker

PRICE $22,250 CONTACT Studio Connections: (03) 9416 8097 or info@studioconnections.com.au

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PROS Great sounding Quality EQ and compression take analogue summing to the next level Lots of inserts Long throw faders encourage proper mixing

CONS Channel count maxes out at 22 No auxiliary returns or EQ on most channels ‘Paired’ faders a bit tight Makes you want more of everything!

SUMMARY API’s The Box packs an excellent sonic punch and is easy and intuitive to work with. While the maximum 20 fully spec’d channels are somewhat limiting, the quality of the summing and master bus compression delivers great API characteristics and a ‘big console’ analogue sound. Four preamps, extensive control room functionality and insert topology make it a capable HQ for all your studio functions.

INSERT A CHARM

Inserts are dealt with via TRS 1/4-inch jack plugs on the back of The Box, and importantly, one for every input.

API is making a bold move with its new offering, The Box. Less than a full featured mixing console, more than a standard summing device, The Box defies easy categorisation especially when you consider that its pricing places it somewhere in the netherworld between cashed-up home enthusiast and full-time pro user. Even the name throws up some conundrums — “I wanted to mix it in The Box but ended up mixing it in the box.” Or “I pre-mixed it in the box and finished it off in The Box. Then I stayed home and watched the boxing on the box.” Hmmm…confusing. So what exactly is The Box? What can and can’t it do and, most importantly, what does it sound like?

OUT OF THE BOX

First up, let’s get one thing straight. This is no toy despite the slightly questionable name and square logo on the front panel. The Box is a serious piece of gear that has lots of knobs, buttons and full throw 100mm faders on it. It takes up a fair chunk of desktop real estate and is surprisingly heavy for its size (over 36kg). Getting The Box out of the box is no easy task and you’ll need a sturdy desk to place it on.

My review model of The Box came without any documentation whatsoever so I decided to take the plunge and see if I could set it up and get a mix going without downloading the manual (something I would not recommend with a large format console!). As it turned out The Box was pretty simple to get going — I plugged the 16 outputs from my DAW into the summing

ABLY CABLED

You’ll need some cables, actually a lot of cables.

Most of the I/O is on 25-pin DB-25 sockets: You’ll need two of these for Inputs 1-16, which come out on the pairs of faders in the main summing section; one DB-25 for four stereo inputs; another for aux and cue outputs; and a fifth connector for direct and post fader outputs from the four mic preamp channels. You’ll really only get the best out of this I/O with a dedicated patchbay, this is, after all a real console.

section, took the main XLR outputs back into Channels 1 and 2 of my interface and hit the power button on the back of the unit. A few minutes of speculative button pushing later and I had my mix coming through the faders loud and clear. Then it was time to single out a few mono sources for further special mono channel treatment. On the first song I ran through The Box I singled out vocals, kick, snare and bass for a bit of extra massaging and I started pushing faders around, exploring the onboard EQ and of course the mix bus compressor. Two things were immediately clear to me; one: the Box was sounding pretty damn good; and two: it would sound even better if I could involve some more outboard!

Basically my gripe with the whole summing idea is that if you’re going to pay for something that blends things together in the analogue domain it really should give you some basic EQ options.

Fortunately I found the antidote to this in The Box’s generous insert topology and began roping in my various bits of outboard. Before long my Box mix setup developed to the point where I had an extra API EQ and compressor in the empty 500 series slots, an additional pair of JLM EQs on the mix bus insert and another couple of pairs of passive EQs and an Al Smart compressor inserted on various channels of the summing pairs. Indeed if I was to shell out for a Box I’d probably pair it with a small, clean sidecar mixer equipped with good EQ to pre-process certain stereo tracks before hitting the API circuits and enhance the analogue experience even more.

NICE TO MEET YOU

After the initial ‘getting to know you’ period tooling around on different mixes I got serious and stemmed out some mixes that needed finishing off for a client — in this case the sensational Newcastle-based North Arm. The North Arm mixes required a special approach as most mix elements were heavily multi-tracked and effected and nearly everything was delivered to me as stereo tracks. The brief was to bring more punch and definition to the vocals and rhythm parts, all the while keeping the swirling play of the sonics in full display. As it turned out these mixes were a perfect test for The Box and I was able to drive the stereo parts into the analogue sweet spot while highlighting snare and vocals in particular through the mono channels.

Once I got the first mix to a good point I fired off a progress mix and the client was blown away, not only by the sound but by the effortless level I was achieving with the mix bus compressor. Even though I was only hitting this one compressor (without any digital limiting or additional gain enhancement) I was getting a volume level and RMS power equivalent to many mastered CDs. I did a couple of different fader-ride passes of the mix and it was pretty quickly given the big tick!

TICKING THE BOX

So that got me off to a flyer and I mixed more North Arm tracks and then some more straightforward Beasts Of The Field material ‘in The Box’ to the great satisfaction of my clients and myself. I think that there are multiple reasons these mixes sounded so good — one is, of course, AT 39

that the analogue architecture of The Box is rock solid and this little console is made by people who specialise in building great sounding big consoles. Another is that having all those inserts just sitting there encourages you to expand the console’s limited toolset by plugging in all your analogue outboard and this really is a hidden blessing of The Box. Another is that the mix bus compressor sounds extremely bloody good. It’s not super quick which will annoy some people, but if you tinker with it you will find avenues to great, punchy-sounding dynamics in your mixes and it has a nice softness to it that allows you to push mix elements right up into it. Perhaps the most striking aspect of using The Box for me was the impact that using real faders in a high headroom analogue circuit has on a mix.

The headroom as well as the elastic ‘give’ of the bus compressor enables you to really drive key elements of a mix and highlight the important moments and elements in a song without masking the whole. Not to say you can’t or don’t do this in all-digital mixing, but there is a certain tactile performance element that comes into play when using real faders, and this encourages the mixer to actually ‘play’ the song; feature the snare here, the lead guitar there, lift the vocals subtly for a few key lines, pull the rhythm guitars down where they aren’t so necessary. I found myself regularly pushing faders up and down by 5-8dB and the effect was never less than utterly musical in the context of the mix. So yep, I’m happy to concede that mixing in The Box is both more fun and better sounding than working solely inside a DAW. I did one comparison mix where I got a song to a satisfactory point using only digital tools in my DAW and then mixed it again through the API. The most noticeable differences were in the thicker more powerful ‘guts’ of the midrange and the way the vocal sat so effortlessly in The Box mix. The snare also had a whole layer of extra goodness that I couldn’t match in the digital domain. It wasn’t that the DAW-only mix sounded bad, but The Box mix clearly had a more convincing, polished, big and ‘juicy’ sound to it. I should also mention that this analogue mixing process isn’t necessarily particularly time consuming. I would spend an average of several hours on The Box per song once I had a good digital pre-mix happening. What took up more time was keeping the mix on the board until my client was happy with the results — particularly when they were interstate and files were being sent and feedback received via email.

KICKING THE BOX

OK so that’s all to the good, but there are also some things about The Box I’m not so thrilled by. Number one is the price — as great as this thing sounds, its going to be hard to get people to part with somewhere in the region of $20,000 for a ‘summing plus bonuses’ piece of kit. For that money you would hope for more inputs and features like proper auxiliary returns. 20 or 22 channels sounds like a lot but once you stem them out you are immediately wishing you had AT 40

more. Especially if you are dealing with complex modern mixes that are effects heavy and have many different sounds in them. I also don’t like how close together the 16 channels of summing are ‘paired’. When you ride a single channel it’s very finicky and easy to nudge the fader next to the one you’re trying to adjust. I also pined for some basic bass and treble EQ on more channels.

Once you hear what the top of the 550 EQs can do for your snare and vocals you really don’t want to reach back into your DAW to sweeten up the guitars. But then I guess if I got everything on my wish list for The Box the whole thing would unravel and I’d end up with a 1608 and a massive price tag all over again. Hmmm… alright these things are expensive to make and this is a genuine attempt by API to give the little guys a route to big guy audio heaven. Shame it couldn’t be done any cheaper.

CENTRAL STATION

On a more positive note The Box can capably act as the nerve centre of your studio with all talkback, headphone mix and multiple playback options well catered for. API has provided one headphone socket front and back of the unit as well as an extra set of XLR outs for a second set of monitors. The four preamps sound excellent too.

I tracked Melbourne band Canary with them on

kick, acoustic and electric guitar, and room mic.

We also overdubbed trumpet and percussion through them and the results were uniformly excellent. Recording Tash Parker and Melody Pool singing through these preamps was a joy and they do really shine on vocals, delivering very true and powerful tones.

SNUFF BOX

In terms of sonics and usability I couldn’t fault The Box. It has quickly become a key element of my studio setup and I will be gutted to see it whisked back whence it came. While the asking price will see its use restricted to the more wellheeled project studios and pro setups, there’s no doubt API has achieved what they set out to do; create a desirable, excellent sounding hybrid mixing/summing console that lives up to the company’s considerable reputation. There are definitely some limitations here but the analogue mojo is undeniable and everything has been well thought out and implemented. If you’ve been hankering for some API console magic but had ruled out their 40-grand plus consoles on the grounds of expense, now might be the time to reconsider. There’s no question The Box can make your mixes sound better and improve the nature of your working methods, and that’s nothing to sneeze at!

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REVIEW

AUDIO-TECHNICA MX HEADPHONES Audio-Technica adds some ‘x’ factor to its headphone line.

Review: Mark Davie

I’ll come out and say it. I’m a big fan of the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 headphone.

They’re comfortable, extremely capable, and have plenty of bottom to go round. I’ve had a couple of pairs over the last few years. My first set lasting about five years of abuse, in and out of a laptop bag every day, bounced around sessions, and dropped on plenty of floors. They finally gave in when one of the ear cups broke away, and I now have another set. Though I’d become so attached to my first pair, it took a violent clean-out by AT editorial director Chris Holder to finally get the remains off my desk.

NEED TO KNOW

I’ve talked to plenty of people that swear by them, but, equally, I also get why others don’t really dig them. They can be bass heavy. In the office, we have an assortment of cans, and

PRICE M50x: $249 M40x: $169 M30x: $129 M20x: $89

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CONTACT Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or info@tag.com.au

another favourite closed-back can is the Shure SRH-840. Indeed, when you compare the two, the Shure does seem more linear in response (and it would be unfair to compare it with the clarity of the open back SRH1440, for example).

I’ve noticed a level of snobbery coming from the Shure-fanciers’ camp because of the headphones’ even response. Saying that, the conceit didn’t preclude one such fancier ‘borrowing’ the Audio-Technica’s because listening back to their EDM mix on the Shure’s didn’t quite have the impact it had at home.

And this is exactly why I love the AudioTechnica’s. They’re not the flattest headphones in the world (they’re not ridiculously bass-heavy either), but they never disappoint when it comes to impact. Which is why I recommend them as

PROS Added swappable twistlock cable completes M50 M40x trappings make for great value Consistently good sound

CONS Midrange of M30x can be a bit harsh

a great all-rounder headphone, especially great for tracking. You’ll never be left feeling like the headphones are letting you down when trying to get into the groove of a track, even with the swathe of crappy headphone amps out there.

And I’m making it sound like they have a sloppy reproduction. Far from it, they can be clear, detailed, and handle level really well.

X MARKS THE SPOT

Okay, now you have seen my Audio-Technica colours nailed to the mast, you can understand why I was keen to hear what the ‘x’ update was bringing to the party.

The Mx range has four models: the revised ATH-M50x, the M40x, M30x and M20x. All are closed back designs, with the same-sized

SUMMARY Audio-Technica has built a great range of headphones with the Mx series. The big brother M50x just became an even better all-rounder headphone, and the M40x isn’t too far behind. On the lookout for cheap tracking headphones? Don’t go past the M20x.

generous ear cups. The M50x features a 45mm driver, while the rest of the range have slightly smaller 40mm drivers with neodymium magnets and copper-clad aluminium wire voicecoils.

And all come with a two-year warranty.

M50x: The M50x is exactly the same as its predecessor where it counts — the sound. It’s voiced the same. So the changes are, in a way, minor but worthwhile. The main tweak is the detachable, twist-lock cables. It comes with three: 1.2-3m coiled, 3m straight, and 1.2m straight. Personally, I love this addition. I’ve had both fixed types with the M50s, and would have loved the option to alternate. There are just some applications where coiled is better, and some straight. Having the choice is handy. The other changes are subtle updates to the ear cup and headband material. They’re noticeably softer than the previous version, for comfort and a better seal. Hopefully it will stand up to abuse as well. You can also grab it in black, white, or a trendy blue/tan colourway. Again, nice to have the option, especially if you’re DJing.

M40x: Of the bunch, the M40x probably represents the best value.

You get most of the functional trappings of the M50x — swappable locking cables (coiled and straight included), concealed wiring, easy stepped headband adjustment, rotatable ear cups (though not bi-directional like the M50x), and a bit of inlaid metallic bling — with a lot of the sound too. It has the lowest impedance of the lot, and at 35Ω, will match well with all current gear. The M50x sounds a little more subtly detailed, compared to the M40x, which gives it the edge for long listening sessions. The M40x doesn’t sound as big as the M50x either. But the M40x is also a little lighter in the low end, and is lighter in weight too, which might make it more attractive to some.

M30x: Initially the M30x sounded a bit boxier and harsher than the other two. After listening to them interchangeably for a while, it became apparent that this model has a pronounced upper mid range, which had some interesting effects. Sometimes hi-hats tended to poke out a lot, and in general it tended to feature the attack portion of drums and favoured the cutting elements of synths. They made for quite a good drum tracking headphone, especially for drummers that might struggle to follow a click and are always asking for it to be louder.

Moving down from the M40xs, you lose the detachable cables, the padding materials are a little harder, they’re not as efficient, and the wiring between the headband and earcups is exposed. The headband adjustment isn’t as nice, but the ear cups still fold up into the headband for a smaller package to stash into a bag. It’s all costcutting stuff you’d expect as you move into the cheaper models.

M20x: I actually liked the M20x a bit more than the M30x. Initially this model felt a little bit more comfortable, and while it didn’t have the upwards extension of the top dogs, it tamed down the upper mid-range harshness of the M30x. It’s really a light, competentsounding, tracking headphone, that is more reminiscent of the deeper M50x voicing than its slightly more expensive sibling.

They’re also streets ahead of the bulk of other ‘budget’ headphones I’ve heard.

OVERVIEW

All the headphones in the Mx range are comfortable, with big ear pads that seal really well. The two lower-end models both felt like they pressed into your head a little more, but with some adjustment will sit comfortably for long sessions. It’s a wellthought out range. The M50x just got better as an all-rounder, the M40x is great bang-for-your-buck, the M30x suits applications where you want a more pronounced mid-range, and the M20x is a great tracking option if you need a room full of headphones for not much. Perhaps the next move for the Mx series would be to make an open-back M60x model. I’d like to hear that.

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www.jands.com.au AT 43

REVIEW

ARTURIA MICROBRUTE

ANALOGUE SYNTHESISER The Microbrute is all bite.

Review: Brad Watts

Oh, I do say! A fabulous little analogue synth has crept into my man-cave, and I’m all the happier for it. It’s the courageously cute, the decidedly diminutive, and marvellously minuscule MicroBrute from Arturia. While some manufacturers are busily redesigning the analogue synth wheel, some are simply maintaining designs with one foot firmly planted in the past — this second category is where I believe the MicroBrute takes a seat.

The MicroBrute is a scaled down version of Arturia’s MiniBrute, and consequently loses a few features such as the separate filter and amplitude envelopes, full-size keys and dual LFOs, yet gains features such as a step-based pattern sequencer in lieu of the arpeggiator.

Like Arturia’s website suggests, the MicroBrute looks tiny, yet sounds massive (it really does).

It measures a mere 325 by 221mm and sports a mini, 25-key keyboard, so it’s quite backpackable. Yet, the little beast must be mains powered. Arturia confesses the analogue circuitry couldn’t possibly attain the sound it achieves from battery power.

Initial impressions are of a scaled down Roland SH-101 with the single envelope generator, yet this is primarily a cosmetic comparison as the synthesis smarts are far beyond what you’d glean from any SH synth from the 1970s or ’80s. Let’s investigate the more objective aspects of Mr MicroBrute.

NEED TO KNOW

For starters, the audio circuitry is completely analogue — from head to toe. It’s a strictly monophonic device with a single ADSR envelope generator and five mix variable VCO waveforms — that’s if you include the external audio input as the fifth waveform — yes it receives external audio as an oscillator. the synths waveforms include saw, square, sine, and ‘overtone’ — which is a sub oscillator. Each of these have their own level control so they are freely mixable, and ‘Signal Enhancers’ let you vary pulse width and add harmonics to the

PRICE Expect to pay $399 CONTACT CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or sales@cmi.com.au

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PROS Analogue synth with plenty of real analogue features.

Sounds ace!

Fab, brutal filter.

Love the patch overlays.

Audio input.

existing oscillators. An LFO offers sine, saw and square waveforms, and can be synced to an internal sequencer, sync to external MIDI clock, or set to run freely via a panel switch.

LFO retriggering via keys is switchable via a MicroBrute control application downloadable from Arturia (more on this shortly).

Filtration is also analogue, and follows a somewhat unique design first used (and designed) by the American synthesiser manufacturer Steiner Parker in the Synthacon monosynth marketed from 1975-79. I’ll admit to not having a clue about the instrument until investigating this filter, but apparently only “several hundred” were ever produced. It’s a pretty versatile filter, and includes low, high, and bandpass modes (the MiniBrute includes a notch filter as well). The filter itself can inflict some damaging force over a waveform — it is indeed, brutish, with the resonance going utterly mental at full mast. Plus, for extra sauce there’s a ‘Brute Factor’ knob which adds further harmonics and saturation. I could throw in the predictable reference to the notorious Aussie antiperspirant here, but I’ll spare you the groaning. Instead I’ll give you an idea of the sound of this filter; think OSCar — it rips.

Guttural and rough through to fat and smooth.

Quite unlike your traditional 12dB/octave LPF with resonance, you can ride from polished and plump through to super gritty and harsh in a single sweep.

CONS Some may bemoan no battery power.

Otherwise – none!

What’s also rather unique about the MicroBrute, and this is absent on the MiniBrute, is the delightful little modulation matrix patchbay.

This includes CV and pitch out (additional to the dedicated CV and Gate out on the rear of the unit), along with LFO out and inputs to the filter cutoff, pulse width, saw wave, sub and ‘Metal’ sections of the oscillators. Arturia supply a couple of dandy little 1/8-inch patch cables but you could always use these sources for modulating destinations on other analogue synths.

Getting back to the software control app, the application takes care of MIDI receive and send channels, pitchbend range, sequencer control, and the ability to load and save sequences into the eight sequence memories of the MicroBrute.

All software control parameters are pretty much only those you’d need access to when using the MicroBrute in conjunction with a computer based sequencer or DAW, so I don’t foresee this aspect ‘hobbling’ the unit in live use. As for control, the unit connects to your DAW via USB (bidirectional MIDI), or you can use the garden variety MIDI input.

Would I own one? Yes sir-ee. The MicroBrute punches well above its weight in terms of sonic performance — as I mentioned; think OSCar due to the multi-mode filter. I was also especially fond of the plastic patch overlays — so very retro. A brutal darling indeed.

SUMMARY The even smaller Microbrute isn’t just a cut down Minibrute, with its step sequencer and patch bay, it’s a beast unto itself. Also featuring the unique Steiner Parker filter, it’s a truly brutish microsynth.

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