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Current From the Editor
Can Generative AI Make a ‘Twister’
I’ve written about morphic fields before in these pages. It’s a concept involving energy and information exchange on an atomic and cellular level. When applied to human behavior, it helps explain why we might hear about a particular, unusual topic three times in three days from three different people. Or why it might not merely be coincidence that we run into an old friend in a restaurant in New York who we haven’t seen in 20 years but were just thinking about the other day.
While preparing this issue and putting together the lineup for the upcoming Mix Sound for Film and Television event, I experienced two simultaneous morphic fields, and they each provided insight into how we view and relate to technology. The first involved the movie Twister; the second, artificial intelligence.
A couple of weeks ago, late on a Friday afternoon, I got a call from Doug Mountain, a longtime sound editor/mixer who has spent the last few years developing a technique for upmixing classic films to Dolby Atmos. He’s become something of a specialist and has done everything from North by Northwest to A Nightmare on Elm Street. Recently, he found a home at Warner Bros. with a nice mid-sized 7.1.4 room, and he called to tell me he had just spent a week with director Jan de Bont on the Atmos mix for Twister
The next day was my daughter Jesse’s birthday. I called early evening to wish her well and found that they were in the middle of an extended heatwave in Edmonton, so she and John had decided to go to the movies and find some AC. “What did you see?” I asked. “We went to Twisters,” she replied. “It was good.” This is the daughter who, when growing up, would go with me to see Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings or the director’s cut of Blade Runner. Now I wanted to go see Twisters! And it was still showing in my local Dolby Cinema! Of course I went.
On the way home, I started thinking about how much had changed since 1996, when Twister came out. I still needed a closing panel for the September event at Sony. What about “From Twister to Twisters: A Generation of Sound Art and Technology”? On Monday, I called Doug, and he was in. I called Stephen Flick, the film’s supervising sound editor and now a professor of film sound at USC, and he signed on. Next, I called Chris Boyes, re-recording mixer on Twisters, and he was all for it, but that I absolutely had to include Al Nelson, the film’s supervising sound editor. So I called Al, and he said he’d love to do it. By Friday, I had my closing panel, and it’s going to be a good one.
Technology changes so rapidly that it’s easy to forget just how quick that
really is. Often we employ markers, or touchstones, to remind us. Twister is one of my markers. In 1996, I spent three days in Hollywood doing a story on the film. It was a big deal. Jan de Bont’s previous film, Speed, had been a huge hit, with Flick winning his third Oscar for Sound Editing. The sound edit took place at his new facility, Creative Cafe; the mix was at Universal, with Greg Landakker, Steve Maslow and Kevin O’Connell at the Harrison console. Film dubbers still lined the machine room, now accompanied by the “new” Pro Tools DAWs.
It was still the early stages of hybrid digital-analog post-production. Dolby Digital 5.1 discrete surround was only five years old. The Neve Digital Film Console had just made its debut. Avid had not yet bought Digidesign. To put things in perspective, Twister became one of the first DVDs released by WB; Netflix, which would make a fortune by mailing those DVDs overnight, was still a year from launch.
Fast-forward to the summer of 2024, and post-production sound is a very different industry. Which brings me to artificial intelligence.
While talking with my 88-year-old mother the other day, out of the blue, she asked, “Did you read David Brooks’ column in the New York Times? It’s the best thing I’ve read on AI.” WTF? My mother was talking about artificial intelligence? Just a week earlier, I had edited a review that touted the product’s AI capabilities. The previous weekend, at a dinner with my godson, who had just graduated in astrophysics from Cornell, we talked about how AI is used in pattern recognition and large data sets. We talked about the differences between machine learning and true AI.
When we talk about how rapidly technology advances, we often lose the forest for the trees. AI is still in its very, very early stages. There’s a lot of hype, a dose of reality, and a promise of limitless possibilities. It’s what we used to call a “sea change,” like the appearance of digital technology, the birth of the internet or the rise of mobile. AI will play an enormous role in every aspect of our lives, but as of now, it still can’t write, film and post-produce a Twister
Tom Kenny Co-Editor
Current // news & notes
Renowned Record Plant Studio Shutters
By Steve Harvey
Hollywood, Calif.—Record Plant has closed its multi-room complex in Los Angeles, shuttering the last facility to bear the name of the venerable recording studio brand, which was established in New York City in 1968.
In a Facebook post on July 5, 2024, singersongwriter Tamara Champlin, wife of singer, songwriter and musician Bill Champlin, wrote: “Can you believe it? THE last day and last session of the Record Plant!? It’s closing its doors today and we were recording with Nigel Olsen, Tom Cridland, Enrique Chris, Bill Champlin & Tamara.” Los Angeles magazine broke the news to the public about a week later.
Businessman Chris Stone and engineer/ producer Gary Kellgren built the first Record Plant just west of Times Square in New York City in 1968, initially to record Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland album. The facility offered a groundbreaking new approach to recording studio design, leaning in to a “living room” vibe—a departure from the more workmanlike corporate studios of the time.
Having set up the sale of the New York facility to a cable TV company and leaving studio operations in the hands of engineer Ray Cicala, Stone and Kellgren decamped to the west coast and opened Record Plant LA in a former film studio on W. Third Street near La Cienega Blvd. The opening night party was December 4, 1969.
Stone and Kellgren subsequently opened Record Plant Sausalito in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1972. Record Plant LA’s Third Street complex closed, moving to its present building on Sycamore Street in Hollywood in 1986. Stone sold the Sycamore facility to Beatles producer George Martin and Chrysalis Records in 1989. There have been several owners since, including producer and label executive Rick Stevens and artist-producer Bruno Mars.
Record Plant NY remained open for business until 1987. Record Plant Sausalito closed in 2008 but has recently been reopened under a new name.
The opening of Record Plant LA spawned a proliferation of recording studios in the city.
Within a year, there were 15 major recording facilities in Los Angeles, and within 10 years, there were 50, co-authors Marty Porter and David “Mr. Bonzai” Goggin report in their upcoming book, The Record Plant Diaries. The previously untold history of Stone and Kellgren’s three studio complexes, where classic albums by John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles were produced, will be available from publisher Thames & Hudson in 2025.
In more recent times, the sole remaining Record Plant facility had hosted sessions by a veritable who’s-who of hip-hop, R&B and pop royalty, including Beyoncé, Kanye West, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Jay-Z. In a followup to its July 11 article, Los Angeles magazine published some reminiscences from Grammynominated producer Ron Fair about his 10 years with Interscope Geffen A&M, where he worked under the wing of Jimmy Iovine—himself an alumnus of Record Plant NY—beginning in 2001, spending much of his time at Record Plant.
“Things got slim for the Record Plant for a while,” Fair writes. “I was their only paying client. Jimmy covered the bill. His bet was on Ron Fair.” Fair’s projects included multi-million-selling albums from Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, Mary J. Blige, Vanessa Carlton, Pussycat Dolls and Keyshia Cole.
When news of Record Plant’s closing broke, some commentators were quick to predict the imminent demise of large studios in Los Angeles, pointing to the relatively recent shuttering of United Recording (formerly Ocean Way) Studios and the still-closed Capitol Records studios, which are said to be undergoing improvements. Yet historic studios such as EastWest and Sunset Sound continue to attract business, and the building that once housed Producers Workshop recently reopened as Boulevard Recording. Just like New York City, where Hit Factory, Sony Music and several other studios closed their doors for the last time many years ago, it’s more likely that the recording business will continue to evolve and thrive as new facilities open to take their place. n
Chris Stone breaks ground in 1985 on the site of the new Record Plant studios building on Sycamore Street, Hollywood, which recently closed.
Photo: Scott Lockwood with David Goggin.
Current // news & notes
Electric Lady Studios Documentary Released
New York, N.Y.—Jimi Hendrix was a wildly influential guitarist, but he arguably might have influenced ensuing generations of musicians just as much with his groundbreaking New York City recording facility, Electric Lady Studios. Still in demand today, the 8th Street studio has been used by everyone from Led Zeppelin to The Clash to Taylor Swift. Charting the studio’s 50-plus-year voyage through popular music is a new documentary, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision, which kicked off its theatrical release in mid-August
Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision follows the unlikely inspiration for building a studio—the mob—and the troubled construction of a facility that would finally open less than a month before Hendrix’ death in 1970.
Legendary producer/engineer Eddie Kramer shares in the trailer, “The construction of Electric Lady was a nightmare. We were always running out of money. Poor Jimi had to go back out on the road, make some money, come back, then we could pay the crew . . . Late in ’69, we just hit a wall financially and the place just shut down. He borrows against the future royalties and we’re off to the races . . . [Jimi] would say to me, ‘Hey, man, I want some of that purple on the wall, and green over there!’ We would start laughing about it. It was fun. We could make an atmosphere that he felt comfortable in and that he was able to direct and say, ‘This is what I want.’”
Directed by John McDermott and produced by Janie Hendrix, George Scott and McDermott, the film interviews the facility’s architect, renowned studio designer John Storyk of WSDG; Steve Winwood, who joined Hendrix on the first night of recording at the new studio; Experience
and
Produced by Experience Hendrix, L.L.C. and distributed globally by Abramorama, the film premiered August 9 at New York City’s Quad Cinema, less than a half mile from the actual studios. n
bassist Billy Cox;
original Electric Lady staff members.
Music
From ‘Allentown’ to Atmos
Bradshaw Leigh helped record half of Billy Joel’s discography; now he’s bringing it into Dolby Atmos.
By Clive Young
Billy Joel has always come across as a regular guy who just happened to sell 160 million records, but the dozen studio albums he released between 1971 and 1993 tell a different story. Sure, they’re packed with Top 40 hits—33 of them—and well-known album tracks like “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” but even a casual listen reveals he was a craftsman working at the peak of his powers. Engineer Bradshaw Leigh can attest to that, having spent much of the last two years
analyzing and remixing seven of the Piano Man’s albums into Dolby Atmos.
While he’s spent his career working with everyone from Tracy Chapman to Joe Jackson to Five for Fighting, the immersive mixes are an unusually personal project for Leigh, as he was there when many of the albums were first recorded, having worked on nearly every Billy Joel record from 1980’s Glass Houses through 1993’s River of Dreams . Leigh got his first real break when he started working as a night tech
in 1978 for legendary producer Phil Ramone’s A&R Recording. Within a year, he became an assistant engineer for Ramone and head engineer Jim Boyer, and graduated to associate engineer by the time Joel began working on 1982’s The Nylon Curtain. A full 40 years later, Leigh returned to Joel’s moody statement album to remix it for Atmos—his first spatial audio mix ever.
“In hindsight, I started with Mount Everest!” he says with a laugh, sitting in the Atmos mix
PHOTO: Frank Linkoff.
Bradshaw Leigh inside Digital Arts NY, where he tackled his first Dolby Atmos mix, Billy Joel’s The Nylon Curtain
room of Manhattan’s 2nd Story Sound. “It was Billy’s most experimental record, so a lot of stuff was thrown on tape that wasn’t used, and that had to be sorted through. Also, he was going through a whole Beatles-esque thing, so there’s a lot of crazy effects that had to be re-created. I asked Sony to dig through the archives for the mix notes and only got a couple of pages for one song, so it was a real forensics project.”
The sparse notes confirmed a few things that Leigh remembered, including some of the outboard units used, such as an Ursa Major Space Station, a Lexicon Prime Time Digital Delay and a 224 Reverb. Modern-day plug-ins easily replicated those items, and sometimes he found that getting close enough worked just fine: “The album was mixed on a Neve 8068 console, so I got the Lindell Audio 80 plugin, which is like a 1084—very similar to the equalizer that was used when we were mixing.”
Sometimes, however, similar wasn’t enough:
“When I did the first mix of ‘Goodnight Saigon,’ I sent it to Billy’s team—John Jackson, Steve Cohen and Brian Ruggles. John came back and said, ‘It’s brilliant, perfect—except Billy’s vocal isn’t quite icy-sounding enough.’ There was one note on the track sheet for that song, and it said ‘25 ms, Eventide Harmonizer,’ so I pulled up a delay plug-in, put 25 ms on it and I was real close—but it wasn’t right. The Eventide bundle
had just been released, so I bought it. Back when we recorded the album, we only had the 949 in the studio, so I called up ‘Harmonizer 949,’ set it on 25 ms, and there it was! I was really shocked how going from one plug to another would have that effect, but it’s just the algorithm of that original device.”
GO WITH THE WORKFLOW
Since handing over the completed Nylon Curtain Atmos mix, Leigh has been invited back to remix Piano Man (1973), Streetlife Serenade (1974),
Turnstiles (1976), 52nd Street (1978), Glass Houses (1980), and An Innocent Man (1983); in the process, he’s developed a workflow that leaves room for both creative and detective work.
“Some engineers work entirely on speakers and others mix it all on headphones; I think there’s a price you pay for that,” he says, adding that he uses a mixture of both. Typically spending three days per song working in his home studio, Leigh starts by using the original multitracks to replicate the existing stereo mix, listening through tri-amp speakers he custom built.
“I do everything I can to duplicate the stereo but get it more detailed, more hi-fi, more open,” he says. “For me, trying to compare stereo to Atmos from the get-go would drive me nuts, because you can’t get the subtle placements and relationships. When you match the stereo, the closer you get, the more it reveals what you’re not doing right—‘Wait a minute! On the record, the chorus is different; where’s that guitar that thickened it up?’”
Replicating the stereo mix is also where the detective work begins, he explains: “If there’s five passes of David Brown playing the same guitar part, which one is right? I’ll kill the center of the mix and listen to the sides to see what I can hear with it panned up. I look for details like ‘Oh, on this track, he anticipates that beat,’ and then go back to the stereo and compare.”
When the replicated stereo mix is in good shape, Leigh moves to headphones and starts building out his new stereo mix in Atmos. “I’ll start with a stereo reverb on the voice and a stereo ambience, and then with LiquidSonics, I duplicate that as a quad reverb in the back of
Since 2022, Bradshaw Leigh has mixed seven Billy Joel albums in Dolby Atmos.
A Blast from the Past: A&R Recording’s head engineer, Jim Boyer (left) and assistant engineer Bradshaw Leigh (right) take the boss, legendary producer Phil Ramone out to celebrate the completion of Glass Houses
Photo: Courtesy of Bradshaw Leigh.
Photo: Courtesy of Bradshaw Leigh.
the room,” he says. “I have a balance control between the front and back stereo reverb on the voice, so I can move the effects forward and back, and I’ll take the ambience on the voice and move it to the ceiling so it’s not coming out of the front.
“Once I get a lot of that structure, I come to 2nd Story Sound and work on speakers. Things can change when you do that—maybe some pannings don’t work quite as well or certain things aren’t as prominent. Also, when you’re mixing on headphones in Atmos, if you take an instrument and pan it to the ceiling, it gets brighter, or move it to the back wall and it gets darker—but that doesn’t happen when you hear it on speakers. So I get the mix where I want it on speakers, then I go back home to my headphones and listen to it. If I’ve done something on the speakers that has diminished the headphone mix, I’ll try to compromise or dial it back, because I think most people are listening on headphones.”
DECONSTRUCTED PIZZA
In the process of replicating the original stereo mixes, Leigh discovered many of them were surprisingly tight and condensed, which sometimes led to conservative panning in his Atmos translations.
“I know 5.1 guys love everything panned to different speakers, and I do too, but I won’t do it if it’s gonna mess up the song,” he says. “A lot of times, I felt the mix wanted to be clustered. You pan stuff out and suddenly you’ve got four equal partners; you don’t have a song. It’s like getting a deconstructed pizza at a high-end restaurant where there’s a piece of cheese here and a tomato there and then there’s a piece of bread—and that’s not a pizza!”
Of course, with pizza, a tasty tomato sauce can cover up some questionable ingredients, and the same goes with a mix, where pulling things apart occasionally reveals aspects best left hidden. “A lot of Phil’s arrangements are in the mix,” Leigh notes. “I’ll be listening to a mix, hear strings in it, then I’ll hit another section, everything’s blasting and I can’t tell if the strings are there. I’ve caught Phil turning off the first and second violins and leaving the celli, so it’s like, ‘Did he take them out or are they just really low in the mix?’ Let’s say I take the strings and pan them to the rear, which I like to do a lot. Suddenly you might hear in the chorus that
Leigh oversaw the project’s multitrack transfers at Sony, which were captured at 24-bit/192k for preservation purposes, and then resampled down to 96k for his Pro Tools session.
the strings have a melody that you haven’t heard before—and it ain’t that great.”
Other times, an instrument is practically begging to be prominently featured in the mix but making that happen is still the wrong move. Remixing the early single “The Ballad of Billy the Kid,” Leigh wanted to highlight the dramatic guitar line that powers the intro and repeats later on. “That song had a mono piano, so I pulled it over to the right to give it a little spread,” he says. “The guitar in the stereo had been on the right, and now I thought, ‘I’ve got all this space on the left and that guitar line is a big line—I’ll move it there!’ I moved it and discovered that as soon as it goes into the verse, he’s chugging, playing chords on a chorus pedal that you never really heard—so I had to put it back behind the piano, because it’s doing its job; it’s gotta be there.”
Bringing each album into Atmos was its own challenge. Replicating the stereo mix of 52nd Street , Leigh found the original had an overly forceful midrange even though the multitracks weren’t as aggressive. While not to his own taste, matching it meant replicating that forcefulness. Something similar happened
when he began mixing the hit “Allentown” from The Nylon Curtain : “It starts with the sound of a pile driver, and I was, ‘Great! I’m gonna fix that out-of-time pile driver that’s been driving me nuts for decades!’ I get the track—and the pile driver’s in time! There’s a delay added that gives it that ‘G-G-Gh!’ Jim Boyer did that on purpose when he mixed it… so I had to duplicate that frickin’ delay on the pile driver.”
That dedication to faithfully reproducing an album’s original sound is part of what makes Leigh’s Atmos mixes feel both familiar and newly energized at the same time. While he made the occasional creative change (“On ‘Piano Man,’ the accordion’s too loud, but man, it sounds good!”), the resulting mixes sound as if they were always meant to be heard in Atmos.
“If I can have fun things happen and make it sound better, and you think you’re still listening to the same record, I’ll do it,” says Leigh. “My big thing is that it has to honor the artist’s and the producer’s original intention. Phil Ramone’s not with us anymore, but he’s still standing over my shoulder.” n
Music // news & notes
Recording Johnny Cash’s Songwriter
Released in late June, Johnny Cash’s posthumous Songwriter album (Mercury Nashville/UME) takes listeners back in time to early 1993, just months before the country legend’s incredible career rejuvenation when he teamed up with producer Rick Rubin. Prior to that fortuitous team-up, Cash entered Nashville’s LSI Studio and recorded nearly a dozen demos, but the songs were soon forgotten—and then languished on a shelf for more than 30 years until they became the basis of the new 11-track album.
Inside the Music Row studio, Cash and his band tore through the various tunes, written over course of his 40-year career. Capturing the sessions was a Harrison 4032C analog inline mixing console installed at the facility in 1979.
“What I really loved about that console was the warmth,” recalls producer, engineer and musician Pat Holt, co-owner of the studio. Holt worked on the sessions at LSI in 1992 alongside fellow engineers Ken Little, Denny Knight, Chad Daniel and Mike Daniel, who was married to Cash’s daughter, Rosey.
For the Songwriter album, Cash’s son, producer John Carter Cash, and David “Fergie” Ferguson, Johnny Cash’s longtime engineer and a co-producer on the new release, reworked those original LSI tracks, stripping them back to vocal and acoustic guitar and overdubbing new instrumentation. Featured musicians include guitarist Marty Stuart and the late bassist Dave Roe, who both previously played in Cash’s band,
alongside drummer Pete Abbott and special guests Vince Gill and Dan Auerbach.
Cash passed on in 2003, after a late-in-career rally of multiple hit albums created with Rubin. Meanwhile, Ken Little acquired the studio’s 17th Street South building in 1983 and still owns LSI, along with his wife, Julie, and Holt, his business partner. The business is in the process of moving back in and adding a Dolby Atmos mix room there.
And Harrison has continued to build on the legacy of its desk with the 32Classic, a new analog console that integrates the 32 Series parametric EQ and transformer-balanced mic preamps with onboard Dante conversion and 7.1.4 immersive music monitoring. ■
LSI Studio’s Harrison 4032C analog mixing console, used to record Johnny Cash and countless others.
Courtesy of Harrison.
Classic Tracks
by
“This Love,” Maroon 5
The band’s breakout hit nearly had a very different sound.
By Robyn Flans
When Matt Wallace’s manager presented him with demos from a new band called Maroon 5 and then asked about his interest in coming on board, the producer immediately saw the makings of great songs and the potential to do something “really stunning.” With a little production help, he felt, these five musicians—Adam Levine (vocals, guitar), Jesse Carmichael (keyboards), Ryan Dusick (drums), Mickey Madden (bass) and James Valentine (guitar)—could make a “classic record.”
Songs About Jane, their debut album released in the summer of 2002, became just that. While it was packed with soon-to-be hits, one of its biggest successes, “This Love,” wasn’t in that original demo collection; it was written months
later, after the record company asked for some additional music.
Wallace was sold nonetheless, describing his “production help” as some basic songwriting direction to help flesh out the material, often suggesting they add some bridges, as they did on “This Love.”
“It was one of the first songs where I said it needed a bridge,” Wallace recalls. “Imagine listening to the song and only hearing verse one, chorus one, verse two, chorus two, and then that’s the end of the song except for some noodly solos at the outro. The biggest transformation was that beautifully written and sung bridge that really brought some depth and resonance to the song.”
Engineer Mike Landolt, who had been
working with Wallace for a long time by 2002, remembers hearing the demos and remarking on how specular the songs were. Wallace agreed, but added that they were going to make them better. To Landolt, that meant they would be identifying a sound, and the first word that came to mind when thinking about that track was “scrappy.”
“We were trying to keep it as organic as possible and trying to blend the combination of what would be scrappy and polished; it really isn’t a polished record,” Landolt notes, adding that in engineering terms, that translated to “making the drums a little more aggressive, the bass with a little more punch, the guitar with just the right amount of distortion, and the vocal with a bit of edge on it.”
Released in January, 2004 as the band’s second single, Maroon 5’s “This Love” became a top-10 smash.
Photo
Matthew Simmons/Getty Images
ROCKING AT RUMBO
The basic tracks for Songs About Jane were recorded live over the course of “about seven to ten days” in Rumbo Recorders Studio B. Seeking to capture the energy of the band’s live performance, monitor wedges were brought for tracking rather than headphones.
“We hardly did heavy editing,” Landolt explains, noting that drummer Ryan Dusick was excellent at playing to a click, and the objective was to always keep the best eight or 16 bars, without nipping and tucking. “Sometimes Mickey [Madden] would punch in a bass note or two, but we really tried capturing the feel of the band in those chunks.”
For Adam Levine’s vocals, Landolt brought out one of the first Bock Audio 195 microphones, given to him from the mic’s designer, David Bock. “It was awesome,” Landolt recalls. “It’s a FET mic. We also used a FET 47. The vocal chain was an original Chandler Limited LTD-1 with actual Neve boards in it, and that went into a Distressor at a real quick 2:1 ratio, and then into an LA-2A. We’d jump between those two microphones, and on any background harmony stuff, we’d use a 414 or 87.”
After laying down basics in Studio B, the team moved down the hall to Studio C for guitar, piano and vocal overdubs, though Landolt says they most likely kept pieces of Levine’s scratch vocals, too. “Nothing was ever thrown in the garbage can with us,” he says with a laugh. “That was the beautiful thing about early Pro Tools. We had the ability to go to tape and we didn’t do it. We just stayed with Pro Tools.
“When we moved to the C room for overdubs, that was a Trident 80C compact console and we set it up to use stems out of Pro Tools,” he continues. “So we had faders up all the time, and these pieces of ‘tape,’ like an old 2-inch machine, so every time we opened up a session, we’d change the ‘tape.’ ‘Here’s an overdub thing, here are the settings for these guitars, this acoustic. Here’s a vocal chain.’ Those never changed, they always sat there, but our playback was 16 faders—kick, snare, drums, stereo keys—and we always did blending, so we had flexibility of console monitoring.”
MIXING AND RE-RECORDING
On the third day of mixing in Can-Am Recorders in ne who was also the mix engineer on the project, received a phone call from Octone Records label
head James Diener, who felt that the direction of the record had strayed too far from the original sound that had gotten the band signed. He wanted them to re-create that vibe.
So, Wallace says, they re-cut drums, bass and some of the guitars (and rescued/unmuted what guitars they hadn’t erased) on nine of the tracks. Landolt set up in Can-Am Studio B, which housed a SSL G+ console and was booked primarily for mixing. It had hardwood floors and curved plaster walls, so getting a drum sound was tricky.
“It was just one stereo pair of room mics, not by the kit,” Landolt says, noting that they were placed outside the drum booth. “The door was slightly ajar, and the sound popped out of the iso booth into the main room—this dead, tight sound, and then this explosive ambient sound.”
The same drum kit and bass setups from Rumbo were used, but Wallace and Landolt were now limited to Can-Am’s preamp selection: the SSL G+ console, a pair of Dan Alexander Audio Neves, and Landolt’s Siemens V272s and Chandler LTD-1. There were a handful of
external processors to choose from—LA-2A, UREI LA-4, dbx 160VUs, Orban Stereo EQ, and the SSL processing. The mic selection included 421s, 57s, a pair of AKG 451s and an AKG 414 ULS, supplemented by Landolt’s Soundelux U195, a pair of Royer R-121s, and Shure SM81s. The setup and re-recording took roughly one and a half days. With very little editing, the new tracks dropped into the sessions nicely, Wallace says, and then they restarted the mix.
Though he believes the band had initially created a very forward-thinking record, in retrospect, Wallace admits, the label made the right call. “At the end of the day, it would have been a very influential record, but not a record that would have sold the way it did.”
Once the entire project was recorded and mixed, the label brought in Mark Endert for some additional mixing on “This Love.”
The album went to Number 6 on the Billboard charts, “This Love” peaked at Number 5 on the Hot 100, Maroon 5 went on to win Best New Artist at the 2005 Grammy Awards, and “This Love” has been streamed more than 1 billion times.
Looking back, Wallace is pleased that he had the opportunity to make what he describes as an “excellent record with an amazing band. There was such a level of ability and talent for such young people. At the time, they were just in their 20s. To be able to put together this exceptional level of music with such depth and insight, to be able write songs that are simultaneously very personal and very singular, but very universal, they were very smart beyond their years, both in terms of their writing and their performing. When they started cutting their first album, they were all still in high school, so these were guys who were driven and wanted to be in music.
In Rumbo Recorders Studio B, during the recording of Songs About Jane, from left: Mike Landolt, Adam Levine, Jesse Carmichael, Matt Wallace and lava lamp.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Matt Wallace
Live
The Sounds of Sad Summer Festival
By Clive Young
For a quarter-century, the Warped tour was a cornerstone of the alternative music world, helping emerging bands cut their teeth, scene mainstays grow their audiences and punk elder statesmen show the kids how it’s done. When the venerable touring festival called it a day in 2019, a number of Warped organizers and acts banded together to fill the alt rock touring void with the smaller but similarly determined Sad Summer Festival. Careening through its fifth edition this year, the scrappy production crossed the U.S. in July and August, playing 17 shows in just under a month. Selling out 3,000 to 5,000-capacity venues
along the way, the jaunt was headlined by Mayday Parade and The Maine—both of which played the inaugural edition in 2019—and The Wonder Years. Along for the ride was a bevy of opening acts—We The Kings, Real Friends, Knuckle Puck, Daisy Grenade, Hot Milk and Diva Bleach—and while a nine-band bill makes for a long day, as front of house engineer/system tech Bryan Macdonald related, the presence of veteran groups and crew kept everything running smoothly throughout.
While the tour picked up local stacks and racks at each stop, it carried considerable control gear from Camarillo, Calif.-based Rat Sound
Systems. “That works very well for us,” said Macdonald, a graduate of Arizona’s Conservatory of Recording Arts. “They really understand the festival philosophy, and what works and doesn’t work with one. They’ve been great to deal with, supplying us with everything we need, and a little bit extra at times.”
Touring with Sad Summer Festival for the last four years, Macdonald once again spec’d the consoles and stage split, developed the festival patch book and so on, but this time around, he was also kept busy throughout the day mixing Like Roses, Daisy Grenade, Diva Bleach, Knuckle Puck and Real Friends. “I’d never worked with these
PHOTO: Clive Young
The Maine tore through its Sad Summer Festival set at New York City’s The Rooftop at Pier 17, heard through two-dozen EAW Anya modules and 24 Otto subs.
bands until July,” he said, “but I knew a lot of their material, so building their shows every day on the run has been a bit challenging, but fun as well.”
With headliners given the option to bring their own control gear, The Wonder Years and The Maine chose to bring along Allen & Heath CTI1500 surfaces for their FOH mixes, but everyone else made use of the control gear from Rat Sound. “We have Avid S6L-24C desks on both ends of the snake with a three-way split, and we feed out Whirlwind W4 fanouts for people carrying racks or things of that nature,” said Macdonald. Waves servers were also onhand, which he made judicious use of, noting, “I think Waves Primary Source Expander is always worth it, especially with quiet singers, but generally I try and lean on the $100,000 desk as much as possible.”
Manning the FOH desk for so many opening bands allowed Macdonald to not only build each act’s set, but also ensure that audiences’ ears weren’t burnt out by the time the headliners took the stage: “I always appreciate building a show, keeping things within reason for a rock show to save some room as we go up.”
Most of the tour dates were outdoors in sites ranging from Manhattan’s toney The Rooftop at Pier 17, located in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, to simpler parking lot gigs on temporary Stageline SL320 stages. “We pack in pretty quickly, get one soundcheck in and do a quick system tune before doors at 1 PM,” he recounted. “We’ve used a lot of L-Acoustics, but we’ve also had Adamson E Series, d&b, EAW Anyas, older JBL Vertecs and VTX. It’s a little bit of everything, but they’re great systems, so we just make sure it’s all there. We use Smaart and try to get it as cohesive as possible, because with nine bands
and one actually soundchecking, it’s just a fair advantage across the board to make sure no one has a terrible, terrible day.”
Like many tours this summer, Sad Summer Festival faced some extraordinarily hot days, including the July 11 tour opener at The Backyard in Sacramento, Calif., where it hit 110º midafternoon. “That was painful, but we made it through—nothing showstopping,” Macdonald said with a chuckle. With Sad Summer Festival now but a happy memory, pop-punk practitioners and emo aficionados alike can start counting down the days until next year’s edition. ■
PHOTO: Clive Young
The Wonder Years’ FOH engineer Andy Clarke manned an Allen & Heath CTI1500 surface for the band’s raucous sets.
FOH pro Bryan Macdonald mixed five bands daily on a Rat Sound-supplied Avid S6L-24C desk.
Live // news & notes
UFC Heads to Saudi Arabia With Clair Global
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia—MMA is a worldwide phenomenon, so it’s not surprising that the sport’s most visible organization, UFC, recently hosted its first bouts in Saudi Arabia. UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs. Aliskerov attracted fans from far and wide to the Kingdom Arena, and much as it has for many UFC events around the world, Clair Global was on-hand to tackle the event’s audio.
The event made use of Clair’s growing Middle East inventory, opting for a Yamaha Rivage PM7 console and a sizable in-the-round Cohesion P.A. Overseeing the audio effort was Phil Campbell, joined by FOH engineer Andy Banks; Clair Global regional manager, Stu Wright; and others.
When talking about live sound systems, it’s easy to get wrapped up in speakers and consoles, but what may well have made the effort stand out was the planning that went into the project’s cabling. Clair Global UAE COO Al Woods explained, “Clair has deployed similar-sized Cohesion systems in the region for both music and sporting events, but our UFC P.A. system differed due to the cable infrastructure. The Kingdom Arena has a height of 47 meters and an external dimension of 220 x 150 meters, so to keep the cables out of eyeline for the TV broadcast camera shots, the cable lengths and management system were both detailed and extensive…. Some of the runs were well over
100 meters in length. As with all Cohesion system deployments, Clair’s proprietary Hi-D cabling system was used. The Hi-D multicore’s nonconventional approach significantly increases damping factor and decreases frequency-dependent signal loss along long runs, which in this case was invaluable.”
Designed by Clair’s Leon Fink, the system comprised two main hangs of 16 Cohesion CO10 to cover the two end stands and “pitch” area. Meanwhile, at approximately 90 degrees to the mains, four flown out hangs consisting of a dozen CO8 boxes each provided coverage to the arena’s VIP and main stands. For low-end sub coverage, two hangs of Cohesion CP218 II+ with floor subs beneath the grandstands and a pair of CP118+ were deployed under the Octagon, enabling additional sub impact during the fight. For those in the front row, Clair deployed eight Cohesion CP6+ for down-fill. The system was controlled, tuned and aligned using Lake LM44s and Lab. gruppen PLM Series amplifiers.
Clair also provided RF, which was covered by 14 channels of Shure Axient with a Shure PSM 1000 IEM system. ■
The Atlantis Surfaces With Stellar Sound
Washington, D.C.—The 9:30 Club has been an integral part of the Washington, D.C., music scene for decades—the original took over a small club called The Atlantis in 1980 and soon became the region’s must-play venue. Now there’s a new Atlantis in town, created by concert promoter I.M.P. with the aim of recreating the intimate, tight-knit vibe of the original, while bringing some aspects up to date, such as the audio system.
Located at 2047 9th Street, N.W. next to the current-day 9:30 Club, the new $10 million, 450-capacity venue is a near replica of the original 9:30 Club. The venue was designed by CORE architecture + design and built by MCN Build, with architectural acoustic consulting and engineering services provided by Walters-Storyk Design Group. Foo Fighters—led by D.C. area native Dave Grohl—played the venue’s first show last year.
solution for the venue, as they rely on the brand for the sound reinforcement in all of their event spaces,” commented Owen Orzack of Eighth Day Sound, referring to other venues in the I.M.P. portfolio like the 9:30 Club, The Lincoln Theatre, The Anthem, and Merriweather Post Pavilion. “Because of the venue’s small size and I.M.P.’s strict adherence to the non-optimal layout of the original club, a corner stage in a rectangular room, neither a line array nor a point source system was suitable for the space. We opted for d&b’s freshly released A-Series, which is an augmented array, a hybrid of the two that has the best qualities of both.”
Eighth Day Sound outfitted the site with d&b audiotechnik A-Series boxes and SL-GSUB subs. “There was no question that I.M.P. wanted a d&b
“Initially, I was concerned about having only six small boxes in the air and four side fills for the whole room,” said I.M.P.’s Drew Kot. “Some bigname front-of-house engineers were also hesitant when they saw the P.A., but those eight boxes really surprised us. By soundcheck, everyone was confident in the A-Series.” ■
Hot Chip lets loose in The Atlantis.
UFC recently hosted its first event in Saudi Arabia—UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs. Aliskerov—with Clair Global tackling live audio for the evening.
PHOTO: Troy Gerhardt
Live
// news & notes
Amalie Arena Updates Audio System
Tampa Bay, Fla.—Florida’s Amalie Arena broke ground 30 years ago as the Ice Palace. Much as the facility’s name has changed over the years, so have its uses and needs. While best known as the home of the three-time Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning, the arena also hosts events and concerts, and has shows with Incubus, Childish Gambino, Don Omar and Missy Elliott coming up. Regardless of what the attraction is, the venue’s Meyer Sound Panther system, installed last year by Solotech, helps ensure visitors have a solid experience inside the 670,000-square-foot facility.
Arena operator Vinik Sports Group replaced the existing system, which had been in place for more than 15 years, with a setup based around 96 Panther loudspeakers in two horn variants, supported by 14 Leopard compact linear line array loudspeakers, 20 2100-LFC low-frequency control elements, and 19 Ultra-X40 compact loudspeakers. Systems are managed by Galileo Galaxy 816 and 408 Network Platforms and are configured in a hybrid Milan/Dante network
“Before the new system was put in place, you’d hear complaints of, ‘I can’t hear,’ or, ‘it’s way too loud,’” said Andrew McIntyre, SVP of Technology & Innovation at VSG. “It was a rough experience. Now, we’ve effectively eliminated
all of this. We were able to improve the clarity of all of our messaging.”
As part of that, the venue has been experimenting with immersive audio. “If you think about who we are as the Lightning, it’s about thunder and lightning,” said McIntyre, “so the audio system becomes the thunder, and we can use Spacemap Go and spatial audio design to present things like rolling thunder moving around the building.”
John Franzone, SVP of Game Presentation at VSG, added “What a new sound system did for us is, it allowed us to elevate the value proposition that your Lightning game ticket has—and by extension, all of the other events that we have here in Amalie Arena that make use of this sound system. Suddenly it becomes a very potent, nice little weapon to have when you’re in the event entertainment industry.” ■
The Amalie Arena has a new Meyer Sound Panther system.
Casey Brooke Lawson/Tampa Bay Lightning.
Inside the Clubhouse
Instruments, amps, mics, console, monitors, outboard racks, space and owner Paul Antonell— why we still love big studios.
By Richard Tozzoli
Sometimes you have to go big and bold. Why? Because sharks are big and bold. Even though I had recorded the Budapest Orchestra and had drummer extraordinaire Omar Hakim play on a Discovery Channel Shark Week track I was composing, it needed to be even bigger. I had to get my guitars on there, enhance some of the string lines and have Omar’s drums hit you like a Great White.
Working at my home studio with the assembled tracks allowed me to objectively listen and make decisions. The orchestra made it a hybrid approach, blending the live players with my libraries of samples. Adding in real Oberheims and Moogs, along with several soft synths, helped enhance the bottom. The layered guitar lines were crafted with my Mesa heads
and simulators to fit like a string section.
It wasn’t enough. The bottom string lines needed to be punched up with some additional cello, and in terms of getting Omar’s drums to hit hard, there were plug-ins that could do that adequately. I could punch them up with some old-school compression and/or add any of the great room simulation plug-ins available. As the track sat, however, it wasn’t good enough. Not yet.
Once I realized that I had taken it as far as my studio’s production could go, it was time to step it up, so I did what I’ve done for many years when tracks need to be next-level: I called Paul Antonell, owner-engineer of Clubhouse, in Rhinebeck, N.Y..
Clubhouse is one of those jewels of the industry,
a fully equipped private residential studio that features a classic Neve console, large live room, three iso booths, great mics and a collection of stellar amps and keys. For more than 20 years, in the midst of big commercial studios closing down across the country, Clubhouse has kept its vintage vibe while continuing to change with the times. Studios like Clubhouse don’t compete with the setups at home; they enhance them.
“I started this version of Clubhouse, which is a private residential studio, in 2001,” Antonell says. “The art of making records is my passion. I care about artists and the struggle to make great-sounding recordings, so I created what I feel is a wonderful space and sonic palette to help producers and engineers make easy choices as to what they need to get it done.
“My initial concept was to make it one of the first ground-up buildings that was green and purpose-built to be a residential recording studio outside Manhattan,” Antonell continues. “Green is radiant heat, no fiberglass, special windows and following the proper building codes. I worked with engineer/producer John Holbrook to do something that was lacking in all the other places that we had both worked in. That included sightlines for the musicians in the live room, isolation rooms, having the signal run directly from the microphone to the mic pre’s, having balanced power, and so on. The whole recording facility is built with floating floors, and the control room is a room within a room. Holbrook designed the complex, and we did it all by instinct, feel and sound quality.”
The diverse list of clients that have been drawn to its good vibes and stellar sound is extensive, from Linda Ronstadt and Natalie Merchant to Shawn Mendes, Living Colour, The B-52’s, The National, Harry Styles, Fountains Of Wayne, Post Malone and Bob Weir, along with producers/engineers such as Elliot Scheiner, George Massenburg, Neil Dorfsman and Mario McNulty.
SPACE TO CREATE
One of the most striking aspects of the studio, and one of the main reasons I go there, is the spacious live room. It features floated, centuryold pine floors and plaster walls, with isolation provided by six inches of wood-cellulose insulation, a 5/8-inch layer of sheetrock, then ¾-inch MDF board, ending in another layer of 5/8-inch sheetrock. All of it is fronted by a ¼-inch layer of sheetrock blueboard with plaster—Antonell wanted the feeling of rough-
The classic 28-channel Neve 8058 Mk II console in the Clubhouse control room, with rolling racks of outboard gear and custom Ted Rothstein main monitors, along with a set of PMC 6.2s and Yamaha NS-10s.
PHOTO: Mike Dwyer
cut plaster in the live room.
The space itself is 16 feet high, 29 feet long and 32 feet wide. It’s a live yet refined sound and makes for some exceptional recordings. There’s enough space for full bands to track live, or to capture mid-sized choirs, chamber string sections or ensembles. A large bank of windows lets in plenty of natural light. It’s a space where artists of any type will reap the benefits.
Off of the central live space are three iso rooms, including a library that Antonell and Holbrook modeled after an old English sitting room, complete with a large collection of books for warmth (and diffusion). The main room and the booths all have clean, purpose-built sight lines that allow for better communication when tracking.
But it’s not just for tracking. Bands like Modern English, Shawn Mendes and Living Colour have used it for writing sessions, and to rehearse for upcoming tours. I bring my Avid Carbon/Grace M108-equipped mobile rig, set up next to the grand piano, and use it to compose and create.
CLASSIC CONTROL ROOM
Analog consoles still exist for a reason: They simply sound great. Antonell’s console of choice is a classic Neve 8058 MK II, featuring 28 channels
of mic pre’s/EQs with the 4-band 31102 EQ. “The console is meticulously maintained by tech David Anderson,” notes Antonell. “The reality is, any analog desk can get noisy and need a tune-up, and Dave keeps it in great working condition, making it a fine instrument. It’s got a very distinct and classic sound that artists and engineers love, and equally as important, that I love.”
“When I first started working there, I opened the first fader, flat, on the Neve,” recalls engineer/ mixer Elliot Scheiner. “I was hearing this bass drum, asking myself, ‘Why does this sound so good?’ I only had to use EQ on about four out of 19 faders; everything else was flat. It sounded exactly like I wanted it to. I was taken aback by what I was hearing. It was amazing.”
The large, comfortable control room is fully floated, meaning a cement slab has a frame on shock absorbers and the wall is built on that frame, so it never actually touches the structure. Acoustic treatments include an absorptive overhead cloud, a bass trap with midrange diffusion, and large couches and chairs for more absorption. There’s plenty of space for everyone to listen to playbacks, or just hang out.
An arsenal of vintage outboard gear—along with some newer pieces—is housed in two
rolling racks with everything from a rack of six Empirical Labs Distressors to a UREI LA-3A, Neve 2254s, UA 177s, Purple Audio MC76s, dbx 160s and a few channels of Chandler Limited Germanium. “We also have a Bricasti M7, a few channels of Chip Verspyck’s custom Clear Compressor and are always open minded to trying new things,” Antonell adds. “We have an EMT 140 plate that is normaled to a return on the console and always patched in. There’s an AKG BX20 reverb also normaled, and we have the ‘famous Clubhouse echo chamber’ with two speakers and two mics originally designed by John Holbrook—it’s 30 feet long by 11 feet wide and can be easily patched as well.”
The main monitors are an 11,000-watt custom Ted Rothstein design and there’s a set of PMC 62s, along with a set of Yamaha NS-10s and many others. I have a nice set of Focal monitors in my production room, but the feeling of cranking a big set of studio monitors and really hearing what’s happening inside the mix is a huge plus, delivering a better, more refined, detailed end result. “Also, it’s fun!” Antonell laughs, “and that’s something that’s really missed in smaller rooms. Turn it up and let’s listen to what’s really going on in those tracks!”
The spacious live room, featuring a Steinway B grand piano.
The author’s Pro Tools-based mobile rig set up to the side of the Steinway B grand piano.
A typical drum kit setup at Clubhouse.
A “library” just off the studio is often used for tracking.drums.
PHOTO: Mike Dwyer
PHOTO: Mike Dwyer
PHOTO: Mike Dwyer
DRUMS AND DRUMMERS
What do Steve Gadd, Jack DeJohnette, Steve Jordan, Will Calhoun, Simon Phillips, Kenny Aronoff, Matt Starr, Nir Z, Daniel Glass, Gary Burke and Steve Smith have in common? They have all tracked at Clubhouse. With the old pine floors and lots of cubic volume to get that open sound, drums excel in this room.
Room mics and stairwell mics (down to the lounge) take on a new sonic power in a space like this, especially when compressed either to “tape” or afterward. There is nothing quite like adding in a pumping, edgy room mix with gobs of compression on it to lift the whole drum kit up. Alternately, you can keep it light and just add some height and width. From his experience, Antonell has found that the ribbon RCAs, Cole 4038s and AEA R-88s get the best room sounds in the live space.
While many drummers do bring their own kits, Clubhouse features a number of classics for use. They include a 1959 Gretsch Round Badge, 1965 Ludwig Black Galaxy and 1992 Yamaha Red Oak Custom, plus many more (and many snares).
It’s also a great room to get drum sounds that weren’t tracked there. For the Shark Week cue, Omar Hakim and I tracked at his studio, then took it to Clubhouse, sent it out into the live room through a set of PMC twotwo.8 speakers and re-recorded through the Neve. On the first pass, we used a set of Sony C100 mics in cardioid near the monitors, and the second pass required a set of Earthworks QTC 50s up in the back of the space. Each had their own sense of depth and helped not only the final stereo mix, but also a multichannel Atmos version.
MICS, AND MORE MICS
I typically bring a few of my go-to mics when I show up at Clubhouse, including several Sony C100s, a variety of Earthworks and a few Royers. I don’t have a tracking room, so I only need a few choice mics to suit my needs. One of the benefits of working at Clubhouse, however, is that I can ask Paul, “What do you have that might help me capture this 12-string guitar differently?” Antonell has collected a handful of goodies and classics over the years, like Telefunken ELA-M, U67 and M-221s to a forest of ribbons new and
Just a few selections from the deep mic locker at Clubhouse.
PHOTO: Mike Dwyer
old, including AEA A440s and a variety of RCAs. There’s nothing quite like looking in a stocked mic locker and saying, “Let’s try that.”
I’ve recorded cellist Anneke Schaul-Yoder there a number of times. She has an amazing Jacques Boquay cello made in Paris in 1714; to capture it, Antonell puts up a RCA KU-3A ribbon, along with a Neumann U47. Then he’ll use a pair of Sony C-100s or Coles 4038s in omni mode out in the room for depth, as they are extremely lownoise and capture detailed high end. It’s a sound I could never achieve at home.
I DO LOVE GUITAR
There is no other way to get certain guitar tones than to stand in front of a great tube amp and turn it up in a live space. We like to call it “moving air,” as the sound has room to breathe. Sure, you can use plug-ins or modelers (and I love them) to get some great sounds, but tracking at Clubhouse is how you take it to the next level.
I’m a guitar player, and I’ll always bring a few choice guitar amps when I visit, including vintage Gibson amps and a variety of nasty Mesa Boogie heads—but that only goes so far.
Ain’t It Grand
There are many great piano sample libraries out there and they certainly have their place. Having worked with virtually every one of them over the years, and then played the real thing, it’s hard to compare.
The main piano at Clubhouse is a 1922 pre-war Steinway B that, to my ears, is one of the finest pianos I’ve ever heard. The warmth and resonance are hard to believe, and it records amazingly with just about any mic or set of mics that you choose. Antonell has the Earthworks piano bar that can be taken in and out, but he also likes to use a variety of other mics as well. Whether you choose to keep the lid on or take it off, when combined with the natural warmth of the live room (and a great player), you can’t go wrong.
As engineer/mixer Elliot Scheiner (Steely Dan, Eagles, Van Morrison, Billy Joel) notes, “When I was recording the Steinway piano at Clubhouse, I simply used two AT4060 mics in cardioid mode’. The lid was open, and since I knew the player’s technique, I miked maybe six inches from the hammers into the body
Clubhouse has a choice of great guitar amps, and they all work! Some classic Gibsons, vintage Fenders, Vox, Magnatones and custom amps like the Mitch Colby Sundragon (Jimmy Page model). When you really want to move that air, there’s a choice of Marshall, Mesa and Orange 4x12 cabinets that can handle gobs of volume.
Guitarist Earl Slick (David Bowie, John Lennon) is also a fan of the room, and has recorded there for years. “It’s not just the big room, but as a musician/guitarist, especially when I’m doing my stuff, it’s really comfortable,” he notes. “There’s a lot of options between the iso booths, live room and any of the smaller rooms. Being that is residential, you get up in the morning, you walk 10 feet and you’re ready to record. It just feels like you’re recording at home, but you have all the top gear you could possibly need. Plus, you’ve got all that natural light, and
it just feels good.”
And let’s not forget the keyboard player, who has access to some classics, including a 1964 Hammond B3 with the Leslie 122 cabinet, 1971 Minimoog, 1960s Ace Tone Vox Super Continental and 1970s Mellotron.
“The reality of owning a big residential studio is that it’s the challenge of survival,” Antonell notes. “You have to wear many different hats—from classical sessions to jazz to rock and everything in between. You learn to make budgets work, switch gears quickly and adjust to the specific needs of each client. It’s not all glory all the time, and sometimes it’s not easy. In the end, it comes down to having fun every day, making great music and having long-term relationships with amazing people. We deliver a high-quality product that I’m proud of, and that’s super important to me.” n
of the piano, but about nine inches high. I’ve always used those mics on vocals, but I was looking for the same thing from the piano. I didn’t have to do anything, I was so taken by what it sounded like.
“It’s by far one of the best rooms I’ve worked in; I love this place and everything
I’ve done there has been amazing,” he says. “I want to record bands live, and here I can see everybody and they can see each other. Give them a good headphone mix and they’re not thinking about the sound of their instrument anymore; all they are thinking about is playing together.”
The 1922 Steinway B grand piano at Clubhouse. Inset: Legendary engineer/producer Elliot Scheiner at the nearby keyboard station.
PHOTOS: Mike Dwyer
The residential portion of Clubhouse includes includes four bedrooms, an open kitchen and a private backyard with a spectacular view;
The New-Look Sony Stages
Consistency in sound, versatility in workflow, and updated client comforts
By Steve Harvey
Sony Pictures Entertainment in Culver City, Calif., has long promoted itself as the ultimate destination for postproduction services, offering an environment where creative talent can thrive. To that end, the in-house post-production services team has always had a strong technology game, complemented by an equally strong and detailoriented approach to client amenities.
When Kimberly Jimenez joined SPE in October 2018 as SVP, Post Production Services, there were two re-recording stages outfitted for Dolby Atmos work—the William Holden Theater, which added immersive playback in 2014, and the Kim Novak which did the same two years later. But, checking the schedule, she realized that there were three Atmos mixes coming up. “You know, I’m pretty good at math,” laughs Jimenez, who followed her father, a sound supervisor, into the business, working at NBC Universal, Soundelux and Todd-AO prior to Sony. She alerted Tom “Tommy” McCarthy, EVP, post production facilities (who retired in 2022 after 32 years at SPE), and the in-house team got to work upgrading the flagship Cary Grant
Theater for Atmos recording and playback.
“It was a very quick turnaround,” she recalls. “We were very fortunate to have good people in place to get that done—and the following year, utilization of that stage went up by close to 40 percent.” With that level of success, and the ever-growing demand for immersive mixes and deliverables, it was a relatively easy sell to get all the other stages put onto an upgrade schedule. The last mix stage to receive an Atmos upgrade, the Anthony Quinn, was completed in April of this year. [All of the theatrical stages also support IMAX mixing; two can additionally handle Auro3D projects.]
When Lane Burch, executive director of engineering, Post Production Services, returned to the lot in 2018 for his second stint in Sony’s sound department, the Holden and Novak had already been equipped for Atmos. He was tasked with upgrading the rest. Of course, technology is constantly evolving, so while some of the stages were awaiting Atmos upgrades, other stages were being outfitted with newer JBL 5742 fourway ScreenArray speakers.
“The Quinn was an Atmos upgrade and a
screen-channel-array upgrade; the Quinn and the Holden were the last to get that screen array,” Burch reports. “We’ve now converted all the theatrical stages to this JBL four-way system, because I want everything to translate well and be standardized across all our rooms.”
Further, Avid S6 mixing systems can now be found across all the stages. A couple of sections of the previous Harrison MPC consoles are still available, and Harrison technology remains at the core of all the rooms. “IKIS [control software] is still very much in play,” Burch notes, “and all signal routing is handled through the X-Router.”
FILM MEETS STREAMING
Since the advent of broadcast television, there has been a delineation between the processes for feature film and TV mixing, but with the rapid rise of premium cable and streaming content, Jimenez says, that line is now so blurred as to have essentially disappeared. “We just finished a very high-end series in what would have traditionally been a feature stage, the Quinn,” she says. “We’re going to be doing another high-
PHOTO: Eric Dye and Mark Fulinara
The recently renovated William Holden Theater.
end series in the Lancaster, which, again, would be traditionally considered a feature stage. Almost all our mix stages now have theatrical capability, so if we need to do a feature in what would traditionally be a broadcast stage, we have that flexibility as well.”
That’s very intentional. “We want to make it as seamless as possible and have that compatibility not just technically, but sonically,” she explains. “I’m biased, but I think our engineering team is one of the best in the industry. They’ve done a tremendous job making sure that there is consistency in the sound of the rooms.”
During major technical upgrades, Burch and his team will also collaborate with Gredel Berrios, executive director, Sound Facilities Ops and Client Services, to implement improvements to the client amenities and freshen up each room’s aesthetics. “We remove everything—the console, the theater seats—and make the room as bare as possible,” Burch explains. “Then they come
in with their scaffolding and have a nice clean palette to paint on.”
In the Quinn, he adds, “The client seating floor area was not ideal, and at the same time, the console was too far back in the room, so we moved the console forward six feet,” he says, to better replicate today’s trend for smaller movie theaters. “It gave us a better client seating area, with a new work surface credenza for them.”
The Quinn posed an acoustical challenge, reports Burch, who consulted with acoustician Peter Grueneisen of nonzero\architecture on the upgrade. The room, built about 20 years ago, has a Japanese garden theme with depictions of cherry tree blossoms on the walls and domed ceiling. The problem is, they are oil on canvas; meanwhile, sometime in the past, acoustic shades had been installed to reduce the reflections, and have essentially been left in place ever since. Burch wanted to restore the room to its original look.
The solution was to install Meyer Sound’s
patented Libra sound absorption panels, the manufacturer’s first passive acoustical system. “They came in and took high-resolution photos of the artwork and transferred those onto fabric,” he reports. “We left the original artwork on the walls and built the Libra panels out a few inches from those. Standing in the room, you can’t tell the difference.”
AN ALL-NEW B-CHAIN
For the Dolby Atmos upgrade, the tech team added “rings” of JBL 7212 wall and ceiling speakers throughout the Quinn, powered by QSC amplification. JBL 5628 main subs are complemented by JBL ASB 7118 surround subs.
“Of course, we had to add to the BSS BLU [speaker management system] because there are a lot more channels in the room now,” Burch comments. Every stage refresh is an opportunity to clear the troughs of old analog wiring, he also notes. “Now that it’s primarily Cat 6, it gets very clean and efficient when you get that older stuff out of there.”
With new flooring, carpet and wall treatments, plus a new screen, it was time to put the upgraded Quinn to the test. “After we got the room running and tuned, everything looked good from an analysis standpoint,” Burch says. “The first mix in there was Bad Boys: Ride or Die, and they were extremely happy with the sound. Mission accomplished.”
Meanwhile, it turned out that the Novak needed one small tweak. “Will Files was working on Ghostbusters: Afterlife, throwing in some pretty heavy sound effects,” Burch recalls, “and we found a limitation in our surround channels.” The QSC amps just didn’t have the headroom, he says, so after careful evaluation, the surround channels are now driven by Linea Research amps.
The screen arrays in the Holden, the first stage on the lot to be outfitted for Dolby Atmos, in late 2013, were upgraded shortly before the Quinn. Again, more channels of amplification and BSS BLU processing were added. Cosmetically, two new credenzas were installed, dated countertops were replaced with more timeless materials, new flooring and carpeting were laid and the producer’s booth was spruced up.
“It’s important to have these creature comforts and to make sure that the spaces feel creative,” Jimemez says. “I feel like we’ve done a great job of marrying both comfort and creativity in these rooms, while also upping our game on the technology side.” n
PHOTO: Eric Dye and Mark Fulinara
The recently revamped Anthony Quinn Theater, pictured front and rear, features a new JBL 5742 four-way ScreenArray speaker system and a remade client listening area behind the console, among other improvements.
Tech new products
Adamson FletcherMachine V2
Adamson Systems Engineering has released FletcherMachine Version 2, updating its spatial audio rendering system with new features, enhancements and more. The new edition is available for download as a free upgrade for existing FletcherMachine users, and includes both software and firmware updates. FletcherMachine V2’s expanded features include improved speaker management that allows for both 2D and 3D setups in the same session. There’s also the addition of new connectivity tools, including dedicated DiGiCo and Avid plug-ins, and onboard ADM-OSC to aid interoperability with other mixing desks and audio workstations. The FletcherMachine system is available in three versions: Virtual, a free, stand-alone application for designing immersive environments; Stage, a 3U rack-mountable hardware unit; and Traveler, a more portable, scaled-back version of Stage.
Universal Audio Apollo x16D
Audio Interface
Universal Audio’s new Apollo x16D Thunderbolt audio interface is designed to work with live and studio digital mixing consoles and networked audio systems over Audinate’s Dante networking
platform. The 18 x 20 interface can be used for real-time UAD plug in processing over networked audio, while offering immersive audio mixing support for Dolby Atmos, Auro 3D, and Sony 360 Reality Audio formats. Mixers can use PlugIn Scenes to recall settings instantly, even in the middle of a performance; in studio settings, the unit can be used to essentially turn any space with ethernet into a multi room Apollo recording studio. In either application—live or studio—
favorite UAD plug-ins can now be used, making the leap from studio to stage as needed.
SSL Sourcerer Plug-In
Solid State Logic has introduced a new plug-in for live sound, as well as post and recording use: Sourcerer, a dynamics processing tool for removing unwanted ambient sound, feedback, and stage bleed from sources. Sourcerer allows
users to target specific sounds and remove them while retaining the characteristics of the original source. The software can be used for isolating lead vocals, increasing headroom, removing mic bleed, and more. Offering users a selection of frequency-dependent expansion, filtering and sidechain controls, the plug-in’s controls include adjustable Threshold, Time and Depth settings. The new plug-in is available in VST, AU, AXX formats and as part of the SSL and Slate Digital Complete Access Bundle.
Radial Nuance Select Studio
Monitor Controller
Radial Engineering’s new Nuance Select Studio Monitor Controller sports a straightforward, ergonomic design that allows users to switch between two audio sources and two sets of powered speakers. Featuring a large master output controller, illuminated switches and two built-in headphone amplifiers, the Nuance Select allows silent switching and is built around a proprietary Clarity Circuit, said to provide users with low distortion and transparency. The Clarity Circuit combines Class A circuitry throughout
(including the headphone amplifiers), as well as a low-noise internal power supply, a true 21-position stepped attenuator with resistors, and DC Servos instead of capacitors in the signal path. According to Radial, the end result is a monitor controller with a Total Harmonic Distortion of -0.00001%.
Harrison LiveTrax Recording Software
Allen & Heath has introduced Harrison LiveTrax, a new multitrack recording and virtual soundcheck software solution for Allen & Heath mixers. The collaboratively designed software works with multiple families of mixers, with no limit on track counts. LiveTrax includes a resizable “big
clock” and a dedicated Meterbridge window with oversized meters and record-arm indicators, allowing users to verify active recording from any vantage point. Users can also track CPU usage, Disk I/O and Remaining Record Time, while the “System Lock” feature prevents unintended keypresses during recording. LiveTrax can also aid virtual soundchecks, capturing scene changes from consoles and inserting them as markers on the timeline, ready for virtual soundcheck and timecode automation.
Drawmer 1971 2-Channel, 4-Band Parametric EQ
New from Drawmer is the 1971, a vintage-style, two-channel, four-band parametric EQ. All four bands provide fully variable frequency control and 12 dB boost/cut. The Low Mid and High Mid bands are fully parametric, providing bandwidth control. The Low band features an adjustable slope (6, 9 or 12 dB) and a Peak setting that adds
a narrow bell shape to the 12 dB/octave low-band filter at the knee frequency just before it rolls off. Slope of the High band can be switched to 6 or 12 dB/octave. Precision stepped potentiometers are used for the EQ controls, providing recall for mastering purposes. Each channel offers individually switched, fully variable Low and High Cut filters (10 Hz to 225 Hz and 4 kHz to 32 kHz, respectively).
Shure Nexadyne Dynamic Vocal Microphone
Shure’s new Nexadyne Series of handheld dynamic vocal microphones employ the company’s patented Revonic Dual Transducer technology, aiming to improve clarity and detail, increase off-axis rejection, and provide consistency in the polar patterns. Revonic Dual Transducer Technology employs two precision-matched transducers in a single housing, with acoustic signal processing to improve audio quality and reduce or eliminate the need for corrective EQ.
Available wired models include the Nexadyne 8/C (cardioid) and Nexadyne 8/S (supercardioid). The mics are shipped with a clip and zippered, soft-shell case. Nexadyne capsules will also be available bundled with Shure Axient Digital, ULX-D, QLX-D and SLX-D digital wireless systems. Wired models are available in a black finish, and the wireless capsules are available in black or nickel finishes.
PK Sound Tx Series Point-Source Modules
PK Sound has announced the imminent arrival of its new Tx Series—point-source modules intended to complement PK’s line of robotic line arrays. Expected to ship in late Q4, 2024, the Milan-ready Tx Series point-source modules introduce a complete system offering control and optimization via PK .dynamics software. The new offering includes the Tx26, which features controlled 100-degree conical
directivity with a reported frequency response of 55 Hz-18 kHz and 133 dB peak SPL. Its pair of vented 6-inch Tetracoil transducers with custom phase plugs manage low-frequency response while a 1-inch HT polymer diaphragm compression driver handles high frequencies. PK Sound’s two-channel VE15 1,400 W Class D amplifier handles power for each Tx module. Onboard DSP and audio-video bridging (AVB) network end points are routed through Neutrik DR Series connectors.
64 Audio Aspire 4 Universal IEMs
64 Audio’s Aspire 4 Universal In-Ear Monitors provide users with four drivers in an ergonomic package, with Apex Core technology integrated into the body of the earphone. The pressurerelieving channel provides controlled leak via acoustic filters, so Aspire 4 users can reportedly reduce ear fatigue while maintaining roughly -20 dB of noise isolation. Aspire 4 also includes
Waveguide, a custom-designed acoustic structure integrated onto the high-frequency balanced armature driver. Waveguide reportedly increases the driver’s efficiency by directing and focusing its energy. The IEMs themselves consist of a molded ABS shell and stainless-steel nozzle, encasing a dynamic transducer configuration based around a low DD, a pair of mid BAs, and one high BA.
Sound Particles inDelay Plug-In
Sound Particles has introduced inDelay, providing users with a “particle-ized” approach to delay plug-ins. Constructed around the 3D audio engine used in other Sound Particles products, the new plug-in is intended to create a variety of delays quickly. Users can create delays with a click, add Air simulation to create more realism or customize independent channel sources for each of the 16 taps available. inDelay supports more than 30 major output formats, including mono,
stereo, 5.1, High Order Ambisonics, Sony 360RA, Dolby Atmos and more. For those undaunted by re-creating complex environments, the software can create up to 100 delays simultaneously, and also add movement to delays as well.
Tascam Model 2400
Live Recorder/Console
Tascam’s Model 2400 live recorder and mixing console is built around an integrated 24-track digital recorder, a 22-channel mixer, and a 24-In/22-Out USB audio interface, and is intended for use in live sound, rehearsal and recording applications. The digital recorder can capture the recording and mixdown of live performances to an SD, SDHC or SDXC card without the need for a DAW, making it a self-contained workstation. The mixer also offers 16 Tascam XLR mic preamplifiers, a dozen channel inserts, five Aux sends, and four stereo sub mixes. The workstation’s MIDI In/Out ports include support for MIDI Time Code (MTC) and MIDI Clock/Song Position Pointer (SPP) Out, and there is also a Click Out jack with a TAP Tempo function.
Yorkville Sound NX8P and NX12P Loudspeakers
Yorkville Sound’s long-running NX Loudspeaker Series has added new models—the NX8P and NX12P— offering advanced DSP, onboard limiting, extended connectivity and more. The NX8P features an 8-inch woofer and 2,600 watts of peak power. For those who need to get louder, the new NX12P offers a 12-inch driver and 4,850 peak watts. Both models are intended for multifaceted use and are able to be deployed as frontof-house speakers, monitor wedges or side-fill cabinets as needed. Both models feature an onboard three-channel mixer, so they can be used without an external console in small P.A. applications. Unique among the NX Series, they also support Bluetooth audio, including wireless stereo playback between two cabinets. n
Tech // reviews
Bettermaker BM60
Vintage Lexicon PCM60 digital reverb reborn
By Michael Cooper
My classic Lexicon PCM60 Digital Reverberator’s LEDs are flashing like the timer on a ticking time bomb. It’s a question of when, not if, the 1984-issue EPROMs go kaput and its fabulous reverbs go silent forever. I’ve always wished someone would produce a plug-in re-creating the PCM60’s algorithmic room and plate reverbs, but nobody answered the call. Until now.
The Bettermaker BM60 plug-in ($99, distributed by Plugin Alliance) offers a near exact model of the PCM60’s vintage ’verbs, with modern functions added to bring them into the 2020s. In its most basic operation, you select different pushbutton combinations to recall 16 room and 16 plate reverbs in turn: First, click on the Plate or Room button to select the type of reverb program you want. Next, choose the size of the room or plate (ranging from “Small” to “Large”) by clicking on one of the four Size pushbuttons. Select the reverb time desired (from “Short” to “Long”) by clicking one of the four Reverb Time pushbuttons. Depressing a Treble and/or Bass Contour button alters reverb times in low- and high-frequency bands.
SAME AS THE HARDWARE?
MOST IMPRESSIVE FEATURE
Superior small-room reverbs
reference; again, the BM60’s manual includes none of these specs. The BM60 imparts a fixed 12 ms pre-delay for all pushbutton combinations, but an additional Predelay control lets you delay the onset of reverberation up to an additional 200 ms. In contrast, the Lexicon PCM60’s pre-delay varies from 1 to 46 ms for Plates and 6 to 37 ms for Rooms. You can readily see the tradeoff here: The BM60 can’t reproduce the very short pre-delay times (under 12 ms) that more than half of the PCM60’s reverbs produce—making, most critically, the BM60’s four smallest Rooms around five feet larger in their smallest virtual dimension compared to in the PCM60. Still, the plug-in allows you way more control over longer pre-delays.
According to Bettermaker’s developers, the BM60 hews precisely to most of the PCM60’s specs. I’ll cite these from the PCM60’s Owner’s Manual (yes, I still have it after 40 years!), as the BM60’s manual unfortunately doesn’t document these. The reverberant signal’s band-limited frequency response (20-10,000 Hz, ±1 dB) tells you this is a vintage digital reverb. Reverb times range from 0.3 to 3.8 seconds for Rooms and 0.2 to 4.5 seconds for Plates.
Here’s where things get a bit complicated: Depressing the Bass Contour button alone (Bass button “in” and Treble “out”) increases reverb time approximately 50 percent below 800 Hz for both Rooms and Plates. With both buttons “out,” frequency response remains flat over time for Room programs, but Plate reverb times are decreased by roughly 50 percent below 800 Hz. Bass “out” and Treble “in” yields a flat response for Plates, but the same pushbutton combo results in a 25 percent decrease in reverb time above 800 Hz and a gentle roll-off above 2 kHz for Rooms. With Bass and Treble buttons both “in,” Room reverbs have a 50 percent increase in reverb times below 800 Hz and a 25 percent decrease in times above 800 Hz, along with a 2 kHz roll-off; the same pushbutton combo yields a similar result with Plates, except reverb times below 800 Hz are unaffected. If you devour operation manuals for breakfast like me, save this review for later
In other ways, additional controls for the BM60 take it far beyond the PCM60’s capabilities. Turn the software’s Width knob to adjust the reverb’s stereo image from mono to “very wide,” and rotate the Monofier control to change the corner frequency—adjustable from 20 Hz to 20 kHz—below which the reverb’s image will be mono.
An included Ducker reduces the reverb’s level in the presence of dry signal, producing a more dynamic and clearer sound: Turn the Amount control to adjust how much the reverb’s level will be reduced (if at all), and rotate the Recovery knob to set the time (from 0 to 2 seconds) it will take for the reverb to rebound after the dry input signal ceases. A/B/C/D workspaces, 32 steps of Undo/Redo and a preset-management system complete the lineup.
SPACE CASE
The BM60’s greatest value lies in its near perfect reproduction of the PCM60’s small rooms, which due to their utter lack of audible comb filtering are some of the most euphonic available; in most music applications, it wasn’t an issue that the plug-in’s default pre-delays were a few milliseconds longer than those for the PCM60’s short rooms. And all the larger plate and room programs have a uniquely musical vintage character worth having in your quiver.
Most important, the BM60 rescues a classic reverb from the funeral pyres of the 21st century. Thank you, Bettermaker! n
Tech // reviews
Radial Nuance Select
Studio monitor controller with stellar sonics
By Rob Tavaglione
MOST IMPRESSIVE FEATURE
Sonics of the Clarity Circuit are transparent, distortion-free and flat.
Leave it to good old Radial (and veteran designer Hutch Hutchinson) to build the new Nuance Select monitor controller like a tank and help streamline workflow (both as “per the usual” for Radial). However, with this device, the company incorporates a new concept, the Clarity Circuit, to achieve incredible sonics.
Nuance Select is a desktop monitor controller providing straightforward input switching, monitor selection, volume control and headphone facilities. Two balanced pairs of stereo inputs are provided on ¼-inch TRS, while two pairs of balanced monitor outputs (and a mono subwoofer out) are also on TRS.
Two discrete headphone amps are provided (on front-panel ¼-inch jacks) with muting, independent input sourcing and level. Mono, Mute and Dim switches aid fast workflow, as well as an Auxiliary output on unbalanced stereo TRS that allows either input to conveniently feed an external device (likely a headphone amp or foldback monitors).
This is all controlled with a proper 21-position stepped attenuator (volume control) that provides accurate left-to-right balance within 0.1 dB at any volume, via resistors and DC servos, not capacitors (caps don’t always age well, drift in value over time and can introduce noise).
The Clarity Circuit is Class-A and exceptionally clean, with barely measurable THD of -0.00001%, crosstalk of -125 dB, A-weighted signal-to-noise of 127 dB, and frequency response from 7 Hz to 20 kHz.
This is all contained in a steel enclosure, with a polished aluminum 10 x 5-inch faceplate, backlit silent switches, and chrome control knobs (especially attractive is the huge, 2-inch attenuator), powered by an external supply connected with a locking 4-pin XLR at the end of a sturdy 12-foot cable. Thanks for getting the details right, Radial!
An initial listening test of recent mixes with my assistant was immediately conclusive and it held up after weeks of daily work: The Nuance Select is exceptionally clean and absent of distortion to a degree you’ve likely not heard before. The difference is more clarifying than shocking, more transparent than unique, more
revealing than introductory. There is no warmth generated by the unit, there is no added cohesion or gelling, dynamics are untouched, there is no emphasis of frequency, there is no (de)emphasis of placement, panning or soundstage. There is simply stark truth, linearity and confidence.
My assistant noticed the NS difference, but only some of my clients did, as the differences are major to my ears but apparently subtle to those of lay-persons. Nonetheless, I quickly got dependent on such pristine sound quality and was therefore disappointed to find that I could not employ Nuance Select in my studio!
I track bands and use analog summing (no console). My setup requires a feature-rich controller with numerous inputs, multiple-input-blending for my headphone/cue mixes, and a talkback mic, too. For what it’s worth, I would prefer XLR connections and multi-color(ed) switches for even more ease of use.
PRODUCT SUMMARY
COMPANY: Radial Engineering
PRODUCT: Nuance Select monitor controller
WEBSITE: www.radialeng.com
PRICE: $840 MSRP; $699 retail
PROS: Solidly built, flawless operation, pristine sound quality
CONS: Only two inputs, no talkback mic
Nonetheless, for those of you with nice, normal, modern, all-digital workflows, the Nuance Select comes highly recommended. A three-year warranty backs up typical Radial reliability, a retail price of $699 makes for only a moderate investment, and I can promise you’ll appreciate the sound quality at whatever level you dial-up on that big and delightfully clicky stepped attenuator. n
Telefunken Elektroakustik TF17
Large-Diaphragm Condenser Mic Sounds Great on Any Source
By Barry Rudolph
The Telefunken name goes back to the early 20th century, and through all the years since, the company has consistently made highly coveted microphones. Now, the Telefunken Elektroakustik TF17 continues the lineage as the latest in the Alchemy Series of large-diaphragm microphones.
The series includes six models, starting with the cardioidonly TF11 and TF17. Both use FET amplifiers and are +48-volt phantom powered. Tubes are employed in the cardioid-only TF29 Copperhead and the multi-patterned TF39 Copperhead Deluxe mics. The TF47 and TF51, both multi-pattern tube mics, are said to be reminiscent of the U47 and ELA M251E classics. All six mics in the Alchemy Series and their power supplies are assembled in the United States.
The TF11 and TF17 do not have switches for polar pattern, HPF or capsule attenuator. Switches placed on a microphone itself are often considered a potential “point of failure” in a well-used studio condenser. With a maximum SPL greater than 135 dB, it would have to be an extreme case where I might need one.
THE TF17
The TF17 is designed to be an all-around, workhorse microphone usable on any source. Its compact form and low weight (545 grams, or 1.2 pounds) comes to about two-thirds the overall size of my other FET condensers, which allows it to be positioned closer to sources. It easily fits into tight places within drum kits or under the closed lid of a piano right over the hammers—right where I want it.
It is badged “Telefunken” and has a flat-black finish with black nickel trim around the mesh screen/grille. The mic comes with a stand mount with integrated XLR connector, a shock mount, carrying case, and a soft sleeve/dust cover, and each mic has a serial number plainly visible on its back.
Inside is a 34mm, center-terminated K47-style (called TK47S) single-membrane capsule with a FET amplifier driving a nickel-iron core output transformer made by OEP Carnhill Transformers in Cambridgeshire, England. (The TF11 is edge-terminated.)
The circuit board inside has all discrete parts soldered onto a board—a very clean assembly with no surface-mount (machinemade) assembly used. You can see the simplicity of the circuit, the FET and the transformer.
Frequency response is specified as ±3 dB (20 Hz to 20 kHz) with a S/N ratio of 91 dBA. The included graph indicates a slight high-pass
filter starting at 200 Hz and down 5 dB by 20 Hz. You can also see a broad, 5 dB “presence” boost centered at about 4 kHz for a midforward “German” voicing.
I wanted to try the TF17 on a lot of different sources: loud guitar amps, drum kit overhead, close to kicks and snares, male singers, and pianos.
VOCALS
Large-diaphragm condenser microphones are typically used on vocals, and I wanted to record a male singer who sings loud, close to the mic, with occasional peaks that can momentarily distort a condenser microphone.
For this vocal, I used a Retro Instruments PowerStrip, a single-channel, all-tube signal chain with a mic pre, a Pultec-style passive EQ (not used) followed by a variable-Mu compressor. I also had two other large-diaphragm FET mics that I know well, each costing between one and two grand.
The TF17 could definitely handle the loud peaks. It has a sensitivity of 12 mV/Pa ±1 dB, and I found the presence peak didn’t accentuate any sibilance. The other mics required a little more mic gain, and I noticed the TF17’s cardioid pickup pattern was very broad. This would be great for recording two or three backing singers at the same time, although I didn’t have an opportunity to test it that way.
GUITARS
My guitar session went well, and I liked the TF17 placed close, near the surrounding suspension and pointed at the center of my 12-inch Hellatone 30-watt speaker. I sometimes changed the precise aiming for the double-tracked guitar. There was no problem using a Sunset S1P mic preamp with no EQ.
For comparison, I A/B’d it to my SM7B dynamic with the expected difference—the Shure mic had a much drier, fatter sound. The TF17 held its own with a crisp sound and easily captured all the transients clearly. The Shure is not as transparent as the TF17.
I tried acoustic guitar next. I had the TF17 out front about a foot away, aimed at where the neck joins the body. With the proximity effect reduced, it was spot-on for both strumming and finger-picking. The Yamaha guitar had a bright sound in the room, which was faithfully reproduced back in my control room.
DRUMS
I tried the TF17 as a mono overhead positioned about 1 meter above the kit, right over the bass drum pedal’s beater. I was working at a Trident 80 Series console, and the mic gain was at minimum. This is one of the best one-mic drum sounds I’ve ever recorded! With no EQ, the low end was tight, with good, fast transient reproduction. I could easily move the mic to get better coverage or feature a particular part of the
kit. The high frequencies were balanced—not too bright or distant. What the kit sounded like out in the live room is what I heard in the control room with just the one mic.
Next, I wanted to see how it sounded close in on the snare drum. I placed the TF17 about 11 cm from the center of the snare, with the back of the mic facing the hi-hat to check for rejection. It sounded great, and it rejected the hi-hat. The leakage tonality was not funny sounding! For hard hitters, I’d likely
PRODUCT SUMMARY
COMPANY: Telefunken Elektroakustik USA
PRODUCT: XTF17 Large Diaphragm Condenser
Microphone
WEBSITE: www.telefunken-elektroakustik.com
PRICE: $895 MSRP
PROS: A great addition to any studio for a good sound on just about any source CONS: Occasionally clipped when capturing hard-hit drums.
end up going with a dynamic, as occasionally the TF17 clipped—even with a 15 dB inline pad. The level coming from the mic into the console was lower, but the clips were still there. For lighter brush playing or smooth jazz music, this would be the perfect mic. Ditto for recording bass drums.
In all these tests, I found an incredibly “tight” low-frequency sound, with good and fast attacks and balanced subharmonic energy.
PIANO
The studio has a nice sounding Yamaha upright piano, so I couldn’t resist trying the TF17 out in front of the hammers, knowing that I would have to get two of these mics to do a proper job of coverage. (There are frequency and gain matched pairs available) Again, the sound using just one TF17 was lovely, with good pickup of the harmonic detail and clarity of the bass strings.
The TF17 is an all-around utility condenser mic. It is perfect for most sources and is priced to see action in any studio. Highly recommended! n
The Telefunken TF17 circuit board as seen from the front (at left) of the mic and the rear, has all discrete parts soldered onto a board, with no surface-mount (machine-made) assembly used.
Softube Flow Mastering Suite
A complete mastering studio for your DAW
By Mike Levine
Two product trends that have picked up over the last couple of years are DIY mastering plug-ins and software subscription plans. Softube’s new Flow Mastering Suite combines them both.
Available exclusively through a “subscribe-to-own” model, Flow Mastering Suite features 16 Softube plug-ins that open inside a proprietary mastering plug-in. Many are emulations of hardware mastering processors, and AU/AAX/VST/VST3 versions are included, so you can also use them in any DAW or audio editor.
The Flow Mastering Suite is meant to be opened on the master bus or when mastering a stereo mix, though you could also use it on a subbus in a mix. In addition, the plug-in features a low-latency mode that allows you to use it while tracking without any sync issues.
Many DIY mastering software products use AI to create settings or starting points based on an analysis of the audio. Softube takes a different approach by tapping into the expertise of a group of professional mastering engineers to create 13 signal chains called Flows, which were created for specific genres and mastering situations.
Each Flow contains a signal chain made up of a subset of the included processors and presents a set of macros referred to as Flow Control knobs, which govern critical parameters or combinations of them. The control capabilities are different for each Flow.
Available Flows include Organic Rock, Pop Production, Big Rock, Pop Dance, Starting Point, Beatmaker, Rock Production, Vocal Driven, Low-End Control, Modern Master, Clean and Wide, Fast Forward and Weiss Master.
THE PROCESSORS
Many of the processors in Flow Mastering Suite are modeled versions of professional mastering hardware. The collection includes three from Chandler Limited: Curve Bender Mastering EQ, Germanium Compressor and Zener Limiter. All of these let you shape the audio with authentic-sounding analog character. My favorite is the Germanium Compressor, a dynamics processor that’s great for adding vibe to your track, whether you’re using it in a mastering situation or on an individual track or bus.
A half-dozen Weiss plug-ins are included. Because Weiss makes digital processors, Softube was able to port the code used in
the original hardware into its plug-ins. EQ-1 is a versatile, dual 7-band compressor/limiter/de-esser that functions as a MinimumPhase, Linear-Phase or Dynamic EQ. The others are the DS1-MK3 compressor limiter, Deess, EQ-MP, a low-latency, high-precision digital EQ and the MM-1 Maximizer.
A pair of Tube Tech emulations are included: The Tube-Tech Equalizer Mk II features Pultec-style EQ, and the SMC2B is a threeband opto-compressor.
Rounding out the superb collection are several original plugins from Softube. Bus Processor provides compression and saturation. Although it’s not a strict emulation of an SSL console bus compressor, it’s clearly inspired by one.
The Widener processor offers tools for adjusting the stereo image—including five selectable widening algorithms—and lets you create a stereo image from a mono source. Clipper is a peak clipper for adding loudness. Opto Compressor closely emulates an LA-2A-style unit. Tape offers analog tape simulation.
THE DISPLAYS
The Flow Mastering Suite GUI is large because it displays quite a bit of information. However, you can freely scale it down if it’s taking up too much space. Like all Softube plug-ins, it features an Input Panel on the left and an Output Panel on th on the left side. right.
Each contains meters that show Peak or True Peak, and momentary, short-term, and integrated LUFS or RMS. These meters are critical parts of the workflow and include crucial level-setting features. There’s also an option to turn on True Peak Limiting, which is particularly helpful if you’re trying to comply with streaming service targets, which require True Peak readings no higher than -1 dBTP.
The Input Panel has a button called Set Target. After pressing it and playing at least four seconds of your track, it will automatically adjust the input to -16 LUFS, which is the sweet spot for the settings of the 13 Flows.
The Output Panel has a critical feature called Gain Match. Pressing the Gain Match Input button adjusts the output so that the processed and unprocessed audio are at the same volume, making it easy to A/B using the built-in Bypass switch. The Gain Match Target button sets the output to a user-specified LUFS level
(measured in Short-Term LUFS), with -14 LUFS being the default.
The center of the GUI offers various types of real-time visual feedback. At the click of a button, it shows frequency, stereo image or gain reduction. If Auto Mode is selected, the display automatically switches between the three display types based on which Flow Control knob you’re adjusting.
The A/B/C/D buttons on the right side of the main display allow you to load up to four different Flows at a time and compare their results. This is a compelling feature.
THE FLOW
Getting started with a Flow Mastering Suite project is easy. After opening the plug-in and setting the input level and output target, you click on the Open Flows button, which brings up a screen where you choose the most appropriate Flow for your project.
After selecting one, its signal chain shows up in the form of thumbnails of each processor. They’re configured from left to right near the bottom of the GUI and correspond to their order in the chain. Clicking on a thumbnail opens a large version of that processor, with its controls accessible.
In the upper part of the GUI are the Flow Control knobs, which were given descriptive names such as Focus EQ, Limiter, Tape Compression, and so on. To get the most from them, the plug-in features a helpful operational model called Flow Guides. When active, hovering your mouse over a Flow Control knob opens a dialog explaining what parameters on which processor (or processors) it’s controlling and how that affects the sound.
For example, in the Pop Dance Flow, one of
The Deal
It’s worth discussing Softube’s “subscribe to own” plan because it’s unusual. Each month your subscription is active, you receive 30 credits, roughly two credits per U.S. Dollar or Euro spent, based on the $14.99/month subscription price. Once you accrue enough credits, you can visit Softube’s Credit Store and use them to purchase any of the included processors, which cost 79 to 549 credits. Because of the 2:1 credits-to-dollars ratio, you’re getting a 50 percent discount on the list price of the processors. Based on the average price, you’ll get enough credits to purchase about 1.5 processors per year. To buy them all would take almost 11 years of subscribing.
the Flow Control knobs is labeled Top Air. The Flow Guide tells you that it’s controlling the Air parameter in Bus Processor and the left and right Treble controls in the Chandler Curve Bender. You’ll also see a link icon next to each parameter that the knob controls. In any Flow, you can unlink a parameter from its macro by clicking on the corresponding link icon.
Those who are new to mastering will find the Flow Control knobs extremely helpful, not only for improving the final result but also for learning mastering strategies.
Surprisingly, there’s no way to add processors to a Flow (although you can disable individual ones in an existing Flow and save an edited Flow as a preset), and you can’t add parameters to a macro or create your own. Considering that Flow relies more on a user’s engineering abilities than its AI-based competitors, I assumed you’d be able to create Flows with custom combinations of the processors.
Hopefully, that’s something Softube will add in an upcoming version. Right now, the only way to add one of the processors is to open it in a channel insert in your DAW’s mixer before or after the Flow plug-in.
THE MASTERING, THE FLOWDOWN
I tried Flow Mastering Suite on mixes in various styles. After picking an appropriate Flow and setting the input and output levels, it brought my songs to my desired loudness target and improved their overall EQ, dynamics and stereo width before any additional adjustments. Because every song has unique frequency and
dynamic characteristics, you’ll always need to make some additional adjustments. For that, I found the Flow Control knobs extremely helpful for zeroing in on critical parameters.
There’s a lot to like about Flow Mastering Suite. You get a collection of terrific Softube-modeled processors that you can use inside the Flow Mastering environment or as conventional plug-ins.
The Flow Mastering plug-in is exceptionally well-designed and provides a great deal of valuable visual feedback. The 13 Flows cover many styles and mastering strategies and instantly improve your music. The Flow Control macros offer adjustments critical to improving your track’s sound and provide insight into how pro engineers approach mastering.
If you’re a mastering novice, I wouldn’t count on immediately getting results on par with those on an AI-based plug-in. This product will be best for those with at least some mastering chops. n
PRODUCT SUMMARY
COMPANY: Softube
PRODUCT: Flow Mastering Suite
WEBSITE: www.softube.com
PRICE: $14.99/month subscription
PROS: 16 excellent processors that can be used inside or outside the main plug-in. Flows created by pro mastering engineers. Flow Control macros. Flow Guides. .
CONS: You can’t substitute processors in Flows or create Flows with custom lineups. With the subscribe-to-own plan, it takes 11 years to own all the processors.
A Flow Guides explanation is open.
Tech // reviews
Steven Slate Audio VSX
Accurate emulations of pro studios, clubs, cars and more—in headphones
By Mike Levine
Do you trust that what you hear through your studio monitors is accurate and will translate well to other systems? Do you mix a lot using only headphones, even though you know the results will sound different when people listen on speakers?
If you answered yes to either (or both) of those questions, VSX is worth looking into. It’s a system that includes specially designed headphones and accompanying software, employing a technology that Steven Slate Audio calls Binaural Perception Modeling, which creates emulations of the 3D sound of the monitors in a variety of professional studio control rooms, club sound systems, headphones, and even car audio systems.
Before getting access to a VSX system, I’d heard a lot about it and was intrigued but skeptical. Now that I’ve had a chance to test it out, my skepticism is gone. The virtual monitoring environments
The VSX system combines headphones and software to create emulated monitoring environments.
that VSX provides have allowed me to mix and master with more confidence and better results.
VSX—WHAT IT IS
The headphones feature an over-the-ear design and a detachable straight cable with a 1/8-inch TRS jack on both ends (includes a 1/4-inch adapter). The headphones are lightweight by design and outfitted with plush leather earcups, making them quite comfortable. The earcups rotate 90 degrees, which allows them to fit nicely into the included low-profile, semi-hardshell, zippered case.
The VSX headphones are classified as “closed back,” though the company explains that they were designed with a proprietary technology called Acoustic Ported Subsonics, which features semiopen sub-bass frequencies and delivers extreme transient detail and sub-low frequency response. Because most frequencies other than the sub-bass are contained inside the ear cups, the VSX headphones have minimal leakage and are quiet enough to use when tracking. However, they are closed-back, which can feel more fatiguing when worn for long periods.
The VSX headphones have excellent sound quality when used alone. What makes the system unique, however, is what happens in combination with the software, which is iLok-protected and can be authorized to your computer.
VSX comes in two different versions, Platinum and Essentials. The physical headphones are the same for both versions. The main difference is the number of emulated mixing spaces (aka, rooms) provided. Essentials comes with two studios, one nightclub, one car, and four types of headphones or earbuds. Platinum costs $200 more and includes eight studios, three cars, a boombox, two nightclubs and seven headphone options.
VIRTUALLY THERE
The VSX software can function as an insert or a “system-wide” utility. For the former, the plug-in goes on the last insert slot of your master bus in your DAW, audio editor or other audio plug-in host. The system-wide option lets you use VSX to listen to streaming music apps, browser audio and other applications that don’t host plug-ins. Both versions have the same interface, but the systemwide app adds a master volume slider and a drop-down menu for selecting the output device.
The plug-in GUI is easy to navigate and use. A large image represents the selected room (Steven’s Mixing Room is the default),
and many of the studio-based rooms have nearfield, mid-field and far-field monitor options (or two of the three). Click the Browse Rooms button to see thumbnails of the various choices. Click on one to make it active.
Controls include a Depth knob, which increases or decreases the distance between your virtual listening position and the monitors in a given room. You can also turn on a five-band EQ to alter the frequency balance you’re hearing. Because the idea of the system is that it provides accurate emulations of mix environments, I had no desire to make adjustments that could skew the frequency response.
A series of buttons on the left side, the Fave 5, allows you to set five favorite rooms for easy recall. You can also turn on a feature called 2SPC (Two-Second Palate Cleanser), which gives a two-second countdown before you hear any audio after switching rooms or monitor types. It was more distracting than helpful for me, but others might like it.
When you want to compare the VSX sound to that with the plug-in bypassed, SSA encourages you to use the Level Match Bypass button on the lower left of the GUI. Because the VSX processing lowers the overall output, using your DAW’s bypass will result in a significant jump in volume. The Level Match Bypass feature keeps that from happening and, when activated, automatically switches the headphones to the HD Linear Headphone model, designed for flat response.
Also notable is a preference setting called Auto Bypass on Export, which bypasses the processing when you bounce to disk. Like with other plugins that alter how you monitor your audio
(for example, Sonarworks SoundID Reference), the effects are strictly for listening and would degrade the audio of the bounced track.
At first, I wasn’t sure if the Auto Bypass on Export feature was working because no dialog came up to indicate it when I bounced. A suggestion for SSA is to add a “Bypassed on Export” message to pop up during a bounce, letting users know that the VSX processing is off.
GO TO YOUR ROOMS
I monitored through VSX both in mixing and mastering situations, and the clarity, detail and sonic consistency impressed me. I could mix with confidence, knowing that I was getting an accurate representation of the audio. I have no way to A/B the VSX room emulations to the actual sound in the modeled spaces, but I can say that they sound clear and detailed the way high-
PRODUCT SUMMARY
COMPANY: Steven Slate Audio
PRODUCT: VSX
WEBSITE: www.stevenslateaudio.com
PRICE: Platinum Edition $499, Essentials Edition $299
PROS: Accurate-sounding emulations. Lightweight and comfortable. Level Match
Bypass keeps volume even when A/Bing. Plug-in includes optional features like, Fave 5, 2SPC, EQ and Auto Bypass on Export.
CONS: Only one person at a time can listen. Auto-Bypass on Export feature could use dialog to show when it’s active. A global mono switch would be helpful.
end monitors in a treated room should. The proof was that my mixes using VSX translated well to other systems.
My studio’s acoustics reduce the bass in my monitors, making it difficult to be sure of the bass and kick drum levels when mixing. With VSX, I could nail those levels without doing my usual car check. Why go to the car when I could use VSX’s car emulations?
My workflow with VSX included a fair bit of switching between different rooms to compare how the mix sounded in different environments.
One of the rooms available in the Essentials and Platinum editions is LA Club, based on a large club with a sound system featuring speakers and subs. Though I wasn’t working on dance music, I found it helpful to occasionally switch to LA Club to hear what was happening in the subsonic range. In a couple of songs, I noticed some subsonic weirdness that I could then filter out. I wouldn’t have heard it using my normal studio monitors or headphones.
I also found it helpful to switch between each studio’s monitors (near-field, mid-field, etc.). In Steven’s Mix Room, for example, you get three monitor types: far-field, mid-field and near-field. The latter appears to be an Auratone, which plays back in mono, providing the only way to check mono-compatibility from within VSX. A mono button in the GUI that would work on all the monitors would be a handy addition.
Choosing which edition to buy might prove a tough decision. That said, I appreciated the extra rooms in Platinum, a couple of which, Archon Studios and NRG Studios, are my favorites, sound-wise. Slate allows you to upgrade from Essentials to Platinum for $200, so you’re not penalized financially.
VSX is a game-changer that has helped me create better mixes. Since I’ve had it in my studio, I find myself using my actual monitors less because I prefer the consistency and accuracy of the VSX emulations.
A downside of so much headphone listening is that I must be more cognizant than usual about the volume to avoid prolonged loud exposure and the premature onset of ear fatigue. One limitation of VSX versus speakers is that you can’t listen simultaneously with a client or bandmate unless you have more than one set of VSX headphones.
Overall, VSX has been a revelation. It helps me hear my music more accurately in various environments, including top-notch studios and headphones. With VSX, I can trust that my mixes will translate, and that’s a huge benefit. n
The GUI is easy to use and allows for fast switching between environments or monitor types
Open Channel
Turning the Industry Around
By Craig Anderton
Last issue’s Open Channel dealt with the challenges of making serious money from recorded music. But put that fatalism on hold, because history has a habit of repeating itself...
To provide some context, humans started making music about 35,000 years ago. Recordings became a commercial reality slightly over 130 years ago. So, for 99.996% of human history, no one made any money from recorded music. If you’re not making money from recorded music, you’re part of a grand tradition stretching back to the dawn of human history.
Perhaps making money from recordings is a blip—or even an aberration, because music was always about live performance. It was of the time, and evanescent. If you missed the debut of “Beethoven’s First,” sorry. Live music offered “you had to be there” moments, never to be repeated. (When musicians diss what DJ stars get paid, remember that they’re reading their audience, working in real time without a safety net, and rarely do the same set twice.)
Perhaps modern music has forgotten what made music magical. When I started in this industry as a musician, recording’s goal was to at least try and capture the magic of live performance. Recording benefited from songs honed on the road, beta-tested with audiences who hopefully wouldn’t throw things if they didn’t like you.
Then recording changed. Songs were written in the studio and tweaked to perfection. Live performance became about reproducing those perfect recordings live, so many acts relied on pre-recorded backing tracks, and even lead vocals. Meanwhile, music became big business, with acts filling stadiums—and audiences could connect with performers only by watching giant video screens.
Sure, there’s good music being made, yet many people feel something is missing, and they can’t put their finger on it. Maybe the answer is hiding in plain sight: live performance—but maybe not in the way we’ve thought of it recently.
IT’S THE SONG, NOT THE SINGER
Some say, “It’s the singer, not the song.” While singers like Mick Jagger or Billie Eilish bring a unique charisma to their performances, they need the songs to back them up…which brings up an interesting trend.
Tribute and cover bands are becoming a major component of live entertainment. Granted, they’re playing local venues, not stadiums, but they bring in the people, get the gigs, and make money. Tribute bands exist for the Eagles, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Abba, Beatles, Queen, you name it—they’re out there. And growing. Why?
Part of what legitimized tribute bands is that the original bands have become, in effect, tribute bands. Journey isn’t Journey without Steve Perry,
but people come to the shows for the songs. Same with Foreigner. Lou Gramm hasn’t played with Foreigner for years, and Mick Jones is mostly a no-show—but the band with the Foreigner name sells tickets.
Perhaps the term “classic rock” is more revealing than we think. Consider classical music: Bach hasn’t written anything new in centuries. Programming computers to try and generate new Bach pieces doesn’t work. People hear the difference.
Rock music has been around for more than 70 years. Over nearly four generations, it has developed a catalog of classic songs with legs. Buddy Holly remains relevant. Dark Side of the Moon still sells. Blues artists lived on through Led Zeppelin, who live on through their own catalog. Go to concerts with music from half a century ago, and it’s not just a boomer demographic. Why? Because the songs themselves have become more important and powerful than the artists who recorded them. It’s the new classical music.
Furthermore, many cover/tribute bands bring an energy that the original groups may not still have, assuming they even play anymore. One friend liked an Eagles tribute band more than the Eagles because the tribute band made the songs sound fresh again. Also, these bands play in more intimate venues, so there’s a greater connection with the audience. Isn’t that what live performance is about? Bands can even slip in their own material. It’s no longer true that audiences want to hear only the hits. They want a concert experience.
LIVE AND ROCKIN’
What this means to the music industry matters. The pandemic instigated a big boost—which is now receding—to recording-related gear; as these tribute/cover bands attract new people, and venues find they can bring in the bucks, it’s not unreasonable to think that a live performance boom of a different kind is brewing.
People love concerts, and the combination of a small club, hot band, easy parking, no ridiculous fees, and an emotional connection with the performers—at a price that allows going to a concert more often than once a year—is compelling. The bands need FOH mixers, too, so the engineers at local studios who lost their studio and gigs during Covid-19 have a place to apply their expertise. Live acts need instruments, amplification, in-ear monitors, mics, lighting and more— not just laptops and software.
If the music industry wants a turnaround, maybe all that’s needed is to promote what made music magical for 99.996% of humanity’s existence: live performances, musicians willing to play without a safety net as they combine recognizable songs with new music, and venues that allow building a relationship with an audience.
It worked for 35,000 years. Maybe it will work for the rest of the 21st century. ■
