MIX 581 - May 2025

LIVE SOUND

Current

From the Editor

A Voyage to the Vinyl Frontier

Pro audio and music are forever intertwined, and not just because audio gear helps spread music around the world. Talk to any sound pro, regardless of whether they’re behind the desk at Abbey Road or a beer-soaked 16-channel mixer at your local bar, and they always have a musical background that led them to the audio biz. They may have been a wailin’ guitarist in a revered metal band, like Disturbed’s FOH engineer Brad Divens (see the story on page 18), or the world’s worst high school trombonist (that would be me), but somewhere along the line, they connected with music and that bond was never broken, regardless of where life eventually took them.

Of course, that’s not unique to audio pros; everybody loves music. It’s just that some people love it a little bit more—and you know who you are. I’m definitely one, which is how I wound up with thousands (and thousands) of vinyl records. I like to joke that the “wall of sound” in my home office is an occupational hazard, but it might be better described as organized hoarding. On the shelves are albums I can listen to endlessly and still find something new every time, or that I picked up for research on a Mix story, or...well, there’s any of a million other reasons why I brought them into my home—to have and to hold, since they’re physical media.

However, there’s also records I heard in a record shop that didn’t have the same magic once I got them home. There are ones like “Hotel California” or “Take On Me” that have become so omnipresent, such a part of the firmament of existence, that you only go a few days before you hear them again in a supermarket or from a passing car, so there’s no need to own a copy. And there’s ones that I have no idea what the heck I was thinking when I bought them (that means you, Temple City Kazoo Orchestra). So recently, the unthinkable happened: I weeded out about a third of my albums and went to sell ’em at a local record fair.

If you’ve never been to one, picture a flea market for music nerds, held in a VFW hall. Rent a table, drop your stuff on it and see what happens. I brought 10 milkcrates divided into rock, pop, hip-hop, jazz and the selfexplanatory “WTF” section (again, Temple City Kazoo Orchestra), so I had something for everyone. Still, I was nervous; would I be slammed with regret every time I sold an album?

As it turned out, I loved finding new homes for old vinyl. The best was the guy who bought a U.K. 12” single of The Waterboys’ “The Whole of the Moon”—a gorgeous, shambling, epic song that falls somewhere between vintage Springsteen and Van Morrison while still being its own thing. When the guy found it in my crates, he audibly gasped; he’d been searching

for it for 20 years and was on the verge of weeping with joy. That’s what music that moves us can do. Anyone who collects something knows the emotional adrenaline rush you get when you finally find a grail piece, and I was glad to see it go to someone who loved it so much.

The day was eye-opening. At Mix, we get to see the start of music’s journey, talking with recording engineers who capture moments of creative alchemy, or live sound pros who bring stellar performances to the assembled masses, but the record fair was a much later part of music’s voyage. The songs had been recorded, marketed, sold, played live and enjoyed long ago, and their relationship to the music business and what we cover in Mix was over. Now the albums were embarking on new journeys as physical objects; it wasn’t lost on me that the most discussed aspect of every record in the room was the condition of the cover and the vinyl itself.

In fact, the most unusual buyer of day was the young guy who bought a ton of Howard Jones records, but not to listen to—he worked in the graphics department of a company that handles the synth whiz’s merch. Apparently back in the day, Jones’ team didn’t archive the visual IP generated around him like tour books, album covers and so on, so the guy was at the show to buy clean covers to scan for future use. This required lots of photos texted to his boss, seeking permission to spend a whopping $19, but I look forward to seeing those records on a t-shirt someday.

Toward the end, my wife and daughter came to hold down the fort while I took 20 seconds to look around the other tables. Luckily, I didn’t find anything I wanted, but I did leave the show with a renewed appreciation for the sheer amount of great music that audio pros have recorded and perfected over the years. Mix readers are aware of it, and know who captured that music, too, but increasingly the public is learning to pay attention to that info as well—I wish I had a dollar for every vinyl hound who asked, “You got any Robert Ludwig-mastered Led Zeppelin IIs?”

The day ended with no regrets, other than that I didn’t sit down for eight hours and I kinda felt it the next day. Having more room in my home office has been nice, too. However, I will admit I’ve had “The Whole of the Moon” stuck in my head ever since I sold it. Maybe I should try to find it on vinyl….

Clive Young, Co-Editor

Current // news & notes

FBI: Engineer Stole, Sold Unreleased Eminem Tracks

By Clive Young

Ferndale, Mich.—Recording engineer Joseph Strange, 46, of Holly, Mich., faces federal charges for allegedly stealing more than 25 unreleased Eminem tracks and selling them to fans who later leaked the songs online in January.

In a criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in March, the engineer is charged with two criminal infringements of copyright, as well as the interstate transportation of stolen goods—unreleased recordings created by Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem.

Strange worked at Mathers Music Studio, the rapper’s private facility, from 2007 until 2021 when he was let go. While employed there, Strange helped set up and operate the facility’s DAW system and was one of only four people who had access to a safe where passwordprotected recording hard drives were kept. The other three people with access were Mathers’ manager and two engineers, one of whom is Strange’s uncle, Mike Strange, who still works at the studio.

When the stolen recordings—largely demos and rough drafts created between 1999 and 2018—began appearing online in midJanuary, the studio’s employees alerted the FBI. Meanwhile, Mathers contacted business associate Fred Nasser for help stemming the tracks’ release. Nasser posted an online warning to fans, imploring them not to distribute leaked music, and it wasn’t long before he was contacted by a U.K. fan with a lead: The tipster claimed the songs had come from a Canadian fan using the screen name “Doja Rat.” Both fans were soon interviewed by the FBI, and according to the filed complaint, Doja Rat said Strange, under the online alias “Dope Edit,” claimed to have more than 300 songs as well as handwritten lyric sheets created by Mathers.

Doja Rat provided the FBI with a screenshot that purportedly came from Strange, showing a hard drive directory of unreleased tracks that he

said Strange claimed to have access to. Current studio employees took inventory of the facility’s drives and found that the file structure shown matched that of a secured drive kept in the facility’s safe. The drive had not been accessed in years, but according to the FBI complaint,

by the screen names “Kali Kush” and “ATL” also purchased three unreleased recordings from Strange for $1,000. The FBI interviewed both Kali Kush and ATL and obtained records confirming financial transactions with Strange from Venmo and other sources. During the investigation,

“a review of the log on this hard drive shows files being removed after the attachment of an external drive on October 16, 2019, and on January 16, 2020, during the time that Joseph Strange was employed at the studio.”

Doja Rat claimed he communicated with Dope Edit online over the course of a few months, during which time Dope Edit allegedly admitted he was Strange. The complaint says the two eventually negotiated for Doja Rat to purchase four songs for $8,500, to be paid in Bitcoin. In the months that followed, Doja Rat worked with other fans raising money to purchase more songs, and estimated he ultimately paid $50,000 for roughly 25 tracks from Strange.

Separate to these purchases, Doja Rat said, another online group led by individuals going

the FBI acquired various screenshots reportedly sent to the interviewed individuals by Strange, showing music files for more than 100 songs created by Mathers.

Armed with a search warrant, the FBI entered Strange’s home on January 28, 2025, where agents found handwritten lyric sheets said to have been removed from the studio following cleanup from a flood years earlier; a VHS tape with an unreleased Eminem music video; and hard drives with an estimated 12,000 audio files—mostly stems— created by Mathers and others working with him.

When Strange was let go from the studio in 2021, he signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of a severance package, forbidding him from distributing photos, video, audio or any

Continued on page 11

Eminem performs on stage during the 37th Annual Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction in 2022.

Mix Best of Show Award Winner for NAB Named

Las Vegas, Nev.—Mix is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2025 Best of Show Award for the NAB Show: Shure’s Axient Digital PSM Advanced Digital In-Ear Monitor System.

The Best of Show 2025 award is for those exhibiting at the NAB Show, acknowledging the very best on display at this year’s convention.

Launched in October 2024 following extensive in-the-field testing and an industry sneak peek at the AES Show, Shure’s Axient Digital PSM digital wireless in-ear monitoring solution is the company’s first Wireless Multichannel Audio System-enabled product, bringing to the table WMAS capabilities, remote management for engineers and more.

Meanwhile, Sound & Video Contractor, also a Future publication, recognized the Sound Devices A20-HH wireless handheld microphone with its own NAB Best of Show award. A20-HH is the newest addition to Sound Devices’ Astral ecosystem of wireless devices and is already in high-demand with some of the top performers and RF teams in the world.

The winners of Future’s Best of Show Awards were selected by panels of professional users and magazine and website editors. ■

Continued from page 10

confidential information related to Eminem, the facility and associated artists.

While Strange is charged in the criminal complaint, that alone is not enough to warrant a trial and is not considered to be evidence of guilt. The FBI Oakland County Resident Agency continues to investigate the case, and upon completion, prosecutors will determine whether to seek a felony indictment. If Strange is convicted on both charges of criminal infringement of a copyright, he faces a statutory maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each, while a conviction on the charge of interstate transportation of stolen goods carries a statutory maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison. ■

Accepting the award for Shure were (l-r) Brian Crowley, Director of Sales, and Nelson Arreguin, Event Manager.

Music

The Songs of Coleman Mellett

A Posthumous Love Letter to His Wife—and Vice Versa

By Robyn Flans

For nearly 10 years, Jeanie Bryson had been listening to her husband, Coleman Mellett, work on a collection of songs in his bedroom studio over the garage. The guitarist, whom she met at a Sunday jam session and ended up hiring to play in her band in 1999, was accustomed to recording his vocals in the soundproofed walk-in closet.

“He’d say, ‘Turn off everything!’ We’d shut the air conditioning off, and he’d go in there and sing his vocals and come out dripping in sweat,” recalls Byron, the daughter of Dizzy

Gillespie and an accomplished jazz-pop vocalist in her own right. “He would come down with the acoustic guitar and play a song for me and my mother, who would be there, and we’d go, ‘Oh, my God, Coley! It’s another hit!’”

On February 14, 2009, on the way to a Chuck Mangione gig in Buffalo, Mellett tragically perished in an air crash, along with bandmember Jerry Niewood and 47 others.

At the time of his death, there had been no plan in place to turn those songs into anything. They were good songs, songs he had written for Bryson. Then, at the memorial service just a few days later, Bryson broached the idea of making a

posthumous album with two of Mellett’s trusted musical cohorts, Barry Miles and Ron DiCesare. All three thought the world needed to hear their beloved “Coley’s” music.

A full 16 years later, this collection of songs, mostly love letters written from Mellett to his wife, has been released as Sing You a Brand New Song, produced by Bryson as her own love letter back to her husband. It debuted on Valentine’s Day 2025.

Keyboardist/producer Miles had known Mellett through a longtime association with Bryson, having recorded her first demo in the 1980s. He had been privy to this new music of Mellett’s since late 2008 when the guitarist asked

Courtesy of Jeanie Bryson

if he would put some keyboard parts on a few of the songs. Mellett had met DiCesare in 2006 when the engineer was recommended to mix his first solo outing, Natural High. They had an instant musical connection.

Soon after the memorial service, Bryson invited the two to the New Jersey home she and Mellett had shared to take a look at the audio files in his studio above the garage. What they found were songs in various stages of development; they had no idea what an immense challenge the project would turn into. “It was a labor of love, for sure,” Miles says.

THE STATE OF THE SONG

There were vocals, guitar parts, drum machine references, and synth bass done by Mellett, except for one or two where a friend played bass and a few others with Miles’ piano parts. Some songs were incomplete sketches, others nearly ready to record. “Rainy Days,” Miles recalls, was the most complete, featuring Mellett on nearly everything, with Miles’ brother, Terry Silverlight, on drums.

“I remember Coley said, ‘I want you to replace all of the keyboard stuff,’” Miles recalls, “and I said, ‘Ya know what? All the Rhodes parts you did are very basic, but they’re right for this. Not only that, but you’re already playing guitar on it and you’re playing lines with the singing, and to have any more than that wouldn’t be right.’ On that song, it’s pretty much what it was, except for the drums.”

“Honey Kiss” was an actual demo. “Morning Line” and “What You Are To Me” were incomplete. Each track brought its own challenges. Ironically, “Digibob,” a song about technology, had the most complicated technological issues, according to DiCesare, due to the fact that it was recorded in 1991 to Nuendo. DiCesare didn’t have the Steinberg software, and the original engineer could not recover it. “We were forced to kind of forensically re-create the audio files,” he says. Over the following months, Miles and DiCesare sent files back and forth. DiCesare knew the material they had unearthed was raw, with scratch vocals, the intent being to re-record all of them. Instead, in places, he was forced to use pitch correction software. Back then, it was Waves Tune, and in one treasured song, it came in particularly handy.

Bryson wanted to include “You Got Me Too,” a duet she recorded with Mellett in 1999, the first time Mellett actually sang on a recording.

Even though she had deferred to a key better suited to Mellett, she very much wanted the song on the album. Miles’ concern was that the sound was noticeably different from the rest of the material.

So he went to work in Logic, separating their voices and Mellett’s guitar from the rest of the recording, slowing the tempo but keeping it in the same key so as not to distort the sound. “I had to take little snippets of their vocal lines and slow it down proportionately to the tempo I wanted it to be at. If I did the whole thing, I’d hear all kinds of formant sounds and it would be grainy. The idea was to keep the quality and take out the reverb and keep it dry. The same thing with the guitar.”

AN ALL-STAR BAND

By late summer, they began calling musicians, all of them happy to donate their time and talent. “The challenge was to strip away everything else and just have his voice and the guitar, then just like he wanted to do, add musicians,” Miles explains.

Bassist Will Lee was the first to lay down his parts at Ultra-Sound, the now-defunct Manhattan studio where DiCesare worked. Chuck Mangione was next, replacing a synth trumpet line Mellett had played on “Everymornin’.” Miles says Bryson mentioned that Mellett expressed that he could envision Steve Gadd on drums. Gadd, who coincidentally had played with Mangione early in his career, generously contributed his parts at Tempest Recording in Tempe, Ariz., near his home.

James Scholfield recorded guitar in Berlin, Germany, with Larry Goldings (organ) and Terry Silverlight (drums) tracking at their home studios. Miles recorded his keyboards and some of the background vocals at his studio in Cape May, N.J.

When Miles first heard the song “Come On

Home,” he says, he thought to himself, “If Carole King and James Taylor had a kid and he wrote a song, that’s what it would sound like.” Both Gadd and Golding were touring with Taylor, so Bryson asked Gadd if he would forward a note, explaining Mellett’s vision for the song. In early winter 2009, Taylor’s engineer sent Bryson not only a rhythm guitar part, but also background vocals that Taylor had laid down as a bonus.

SIXTEEN YEARS LATER

DiCesare says that the mix turned out to be the easiest part of the project, as most of the complexities had been resolved during production. By March 2010, the final mixes were sent to be mastered by Zack Kornhauser. Everything was finished, and in just 13 months.

Thirteen months…and 16 years! Why did it take that long?

Bryson explains: At the time, she wanted the release of the record to coincide with the release of the documentary (with Michael McDonald, narrating) they had been filming on the making of the album. However, the filmmaker, she says, delivered a version that was not what she envisioned, setting the entire timetable askew. It had to be re-done but, through a connection,

Coleman Mellett in an undated photo.

Courtesy of Jeanie Bryson

Music // news & notes

Montreux Jazz Festival

Miami Returns With Meyer

Miami, Fla.—The Montreux Jazz Festival isn’t just for the Swiss anymore. Following last year’s successful branching out to the warmer climes of Miami, Florida, the Montreux Jazz Festival Miami returned in early March for a second three-day run at The Hanger at Regatta Harbour. The event sported an enviable lineup featuring Jon Batiste, Janelle Monáe, Chaka Khan, WILLOW, Cimafunk, and an all-star Afro-Cuban jam session, and also had the help of the Montreux Jazz Festival’s longtime Global Official Sound Partner, Meyer Sound.

As a result, this year’s festival marked the Miami debut of Panther, which delivered sound throughout the 20,000-square-foot venue. Pete Diaz Productions collaborated closely with Meyer’s technical team to design and install a sound system that would overcome reflections, manage bass and optimize coverage throughout the venue.

“We tend to use Panther for larger or outdoor venues, but in this case, it really let us push the system harder with fewer boxes while maintaining full clarity,” said Diaz, owner of Pete Diaz Productions.

The main system was anchored by a half-dozen Panther loudspeakers per side, with a pair of cardioid arrays of three 2100-LFC low-frequency control elements providing bass. A total of nine Ultra-X40 loudspeakers were used for down fills and delays to ensure full-room coverage, including VIP areas. Meyer Sound’s new Ultra-X80 point source loudspeakers also made their MJF Miami debut, serving as side fills, supported by 900-LFC low-frequency control elements used as side fills and drum fills.

The festival’s outdoor patio area showcased vinyl-only DJ sets hosted by local vinyl listening bar Dante’s Hi-Fi; the stage was supported by twin stacks of four Leopard compact linear line array loudspeakers and two 900-LFC low-frequency control elements. Both indoor and outdoor stages used MJF-210 and MJF-212A high-power stage monitors, and systems were managed by Galileo Galaxy 816 Network Platforms. ■

Sweetwater, Sweet Relief Team on Hearing Health

Los Angeles—Pro audio/MI retailer Sweetwater in Fort Wayne, Ind., has partnered with Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to address noise-induced hearing loss among industry professionals and musicians. Together, they’ve launched the Hearing Health Fund at Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to provide support for industry professionals who face hearing-related challenges.

Hearing loss, tinnitus and other auditory issues are often seen as occupational hazards in the music industry, particularly in live

entertainment venues, where research shows that seven in 10 music venue staff are exposed to noise levels above the daily recommended limit. Only an estimated 15 percent use hearing protection regularly.

As Dr. Todd Page, M.D., Sweetwater’s in-house physician who provides medical care for employees, noted, “Screening is essential to protecting musicians from hearing loss because once the damage is done, there’s no going back to ‘normal.’”

The Hearing Health Fund is offering applicants a free, three-part hearing screening with a certified audiologist and free Etymotic Research ER-20XS High Fidelity Earplugs. The consultation includes reviewing the hearing screening results and making recommendations; general education about hearing health as it relates to music industry professionals; individualized education regarding personal sound exposure; and basic care for those struggling with hearing disorders or hearing loss.

Aric Steinberg, executive director, Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, noted, “Music-induced hearing loss and disorders are 100 percent preventable. Our free hearing health screenings are another way for Sweet Relief to care for musicians and to help ensure that people of all income levels have access to quality medical resources.”

To apply for the Hearing Health Fund, complete the online form at sweetrelief.org. ■

The Montreux Jazz Festival Miami returned in March with a lineup featuring Jon Batiste, Janelle Monáe, Chaka Khan and many others.

Sweetwater has partnered with Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to found the Hearing Health Fund.

Music // news & notes

Full Compass Climbs Aboard Lennon Tour Bus

New York, N.Y.—For more than a quartercentury, the non-profit John Lennon Educational Tour Bus has circled the U.S. and Canada, making stops at high schools and colleges to help students create music inside the mobile recording/video facility. Numerous companies have partnered with the bus over the years to keep its tech on the cutting edge, and now Full Compass Systems has become the official online retailer of the Bus for 2025. Accordingly, it has added the Lennon Bus Store to its online retail website, presenting many of the products and solutions found onboard.

Lennon Bus programs provide hands-on production sessions and workforce development opportunities made possible by using gear from Apple, Dolby, Genelec, Blackmagic Design, Audio-Technica, Taylor Guitars, Waves and Avid, among many others. Most of the gear on the Bus can be purchased through Full Compass.

“We are absolutely thrilled to announce Full Compass Systems as the official and exclusive retail partner of the John Lennon Educational Tour

Finessing The Funeral Portrait’s Sound

Atlanta, GA—Live sound engineer Jesse Stojanovski has toured with Atlanta rockers The Funeral Portrait for the last seven years, and for the past two, he’s carried his own mixing console to ensure consistency regardless of the venue. Currently on the road to promote its latest long-player, Greetings From Suffocate City, The Funeral Portrait tends to leave it all on the stage, so Stojanovski aims to create a house mix that matches that manic energy, and monitor mixes that give the band everything it needs.

The mix is handled on an Allen & Heath CTi1500 control surface tied into a DM32 MixRack equipped with a RackUltra FX card and a DX168 Expander; the CTi1500 sports a Waves V3 SoundGrid network card for virtual soundcheck and multitrack recording.

Stojanovski’s gear is set up as a fully self-contained FOH and monitor system, handling 53 inputs between the MixRack, expander and control surface. Each input is double-patched, ensuring that both FOH and monitors receive the same signal.

“Being able to insert the Dyn8 multiband compressor and dynamic EQ on any input, group, aux, bus, output—literally anywhere—has been a game-

Bus for 2025,” said Dave Chaimson, president, Full Compass Systems. “As a company that has always been deeply committed to supporting musicians, music educators and music technology enthusiasts, this partnership is a natural extension of our mission”

Founded in 1998 by Yoko Ono Lennon and Brian Rothschild, the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus and the crew of onboard producer/engineers have provided students of all ages and backgrounds with opportunities to express their creativity through music and video production. According to Yoko Ono Lennon, “This is precisely the kind of project that John would have loved.” ■

changer in my workflow,” Stojanovski says. “All of this without requiring any outboard servers or computers to bulk up and complicate my rig.”

That said, he hits the existing system pretty hard, making use of the onboard DEEP processing, which emulates hardware compressors, EQ, preamps and source expanders. Stojanovski noted that he also makes the most of the new RackUltra FX card, which added 10 new algorithms—vocal tools, reverberation designers, harmonizers, a saturator and distortion—that he says “took adding flavor to a mix to a whole new level.” ■

Live sound engineer Jesse Stojanovski tackles both FOH and monitor mixes for

The Funeral Portrait on his Allen & Heath dLive CTi1500.

Inside the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.

Disturbed Spreads The Sickness Once Again

By Clive Young

Disturbed exploded onto the scene in 2000 with The Sickness, an out-ofthe-box smash that went five-times Platinum and instantly earmarked the band as one to watch. In the quarter-century since, the group has made good on that label, changing with the times but never afraid to inject melody into metal, whether in its own songs or while pulling off left-field covers of Tears For Fears, Sting, Genesis and Simon & Garfunkel. It’s also readily evident on the band’s current arena tour, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of The Sickness with a complete album playthrough, followed by a separate “Greatest Hits” set.

Overseeing the FOH position for the journey, much as he did for the previous tour cycle behind 2022’s Divisive, is veteran engineer Brad Divens, whose history with the band stretches all the way back to the original Sickness era: “I met these guys on an Ozzfest tour in 2001 because I was doing Linkin Park; I was friends with some of their crew guys, so we all ended up hanging out.”

A veteran musician himself, having played in Kix and Wrathchild America in the 1980s, Divens shifted into live mixing in the 1990s and has since manned the board for acts as disparate as Cyndi Lauper, Jane’s Addiction and Enrique Iglesias. “In the summer of 2022, I sent out

three emails,” he recalled. “Enrique wasn’t doing anything and I figured I should see if anyone needed somebody to cover them on one-offs. Within five minutes, Greg Price emailed me back, saying, ‘Hey, I’m busy with Metallica. You want to cover Disturbed?’ I did some one-offs, and February of 2023, they said, ‘Do you want to do a tour now?’ Enrique wasn’t busy, so it worked out.”

The engineer transition was a good one, with Divens’ mix style fitting the band’s aesthetic well. “My approach is, obviously, I want to hear everything,” he said. “I listen to the record, listen to how it’s all put together, and then implement

Scott Legato/Getty Images

Disturbed are playing two sets nightly on The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour— one of the namesake album and the other packed with greatest hits.

the mix in the same way, getting as close to the record as I can while maintaining a live element. There are elements in each song that the people are going to know from the record, and those are the things you want to make sure you get across. It also depends on the sounds that you’re given, because a record is one thing and live is another. It’s bass, drums, guitar and lead vocal, but everybody’s a real player in this band and David [Draiman] is a great singer.”

Those four musicians account for 96 inputs coming from the stage to the Avid S6L front-ofhouse desk that Divens inherited from Price’s time with the band. A substantial number of those inputs come from mics on the two drum kits, as drummer Mike Wengren has opted to use both the kit he played on the original Sickness tour on the album set, and a current-day kit on the hits set.

Adjacent to the Avid desk is a considerable amount of outboard gear, much of it from Rupert Neve Designs and Stam Audio. “It’s the go-to rack of analog goodness,” said Divens. “Plug-ins are good, but there’s something about running your signal through transformers and wire and tubes and everything else. When I took this gig, I thought, ‘What if I put a Rupert Neve Shelford Channel on David’s vocal, and the Rupert Neve [Portico II] Master Buss Processor on left and right, and see what happens?’ I put them on there, and I couldn’t unhear what it did! I did a few shows like that, and then when I had the opportunity to build the rig for the tour, I said, ‘Okay, I want to go with some more group processing.’ I’m really happy with the way everything has come together.”

Adding to the outboard accumulation at FOH is a 500 Series rack stuffed with Rupert Neve 542 Tape Emulators used on the guitar group; a pair of 535 Diode Bridge Compressors applied to the bass group; an SPL Big on leftright for a touch of stereo imaging; Empirical Labs Pump compressors, which aren’t being used (yet); and Maag EQ4s on Draiman’s vocal group.

“I have the summation of David, which is a stereo group and then the parallel, compressed stereo group which is getting a pair of Distressors,” said Divens, “so it’s the blend of that coming out of the output of the summing mixer that I’m applying a little bit EQ to, both of those groups together.”

Up at stageside, monitorworld is looked after by engineer Blair Bondy and crew chief/monitor

tech Liam Tucker. Like Divens, Bondy oversees an S6L that was inherited from his predecessor, Ashton Parsons, and uses it to create mixes for the band’s JH Audio in-ear monitors; no wedges or sidefills are in play.

“They’re all on Roxannes except for David, who is on JH16 V1s,” said Bondy. “I wear JH13 V1s. I like the mid-range and the top end in the 13s and the 16s, so me and David are hearing a really similar sound. I have a pair of Roxannes if I need to dive into that world, and also I know what it’s supposed to sound like with my 13s.”

Miking onstage is straightforward with Draiman belting into a DPA d:facto 4018VL vocal mic, while the identically miked drum kits sport a combination of Shure Beta 91As on the kick; Earthworks DM20s on the toms; DPA 2012 cardioid mics on the snare; Neumann KM 184s on both high hats and ride cymbals; and AKG 414s used as overheads.

The show’s microphones are also an example of the synergy between the front-of-house and monitor mix positions, as Bondy shared: “We had problems with some microphones at one point, and I said selfishly, ‘What if we use these’—which were mics that I wanted. Brad was like, ‘Sure! I like those, too!’ It’s not every day where you’re working with somebody who’s open to anything and a really good hang, but also

is one of the best engineers. He’s got one of the best mixes I’ve ever heard.”

The audience gets to hear those mixes via a sizable Cohesion P.A. system fielded by Clair Global for the tour. A typical hang consists of 16 CO12s for each main hang, flanked by 14 CO10s per side for outfills. Bolstering their impact are a half-dozen flown CP218 subs on each side, along with a trio of CP218 ground subs on the right and left sides each as well. Adorning the stage lip are 10 CF28s used as frontfills.

The show tends to hover around 98 dBA, which is just where Divens likes to keep it— unless he’s taking it even lower. After an evening of perceived loudness, he pointedly pumps the brakes, three songs before the end, for the band’s cover of “The Sound of Silence.” The shrewd move turns the thunderous show’s quietest moment into one of its biggest highlights.

“I take the whole mix down 5 dB at least,” he chuckled. “I pull everything back and make it very intimate, because David sings it really well and it’s a great song. My assistant, Scott [Jarecki, system tech], mentioned it the other night—‘It’s like the crowd’s leaning in to listen.’ You can almost hear a pin drop, because everybody’s just hushed. Then all of a sudden, way in the background, you’ll hear people start to sing the lyrics. It’s pretty cool!” ■

Helping fill every sold-out arena with The Sickness are (l-r): Scott Jarecki, system tech; Brad Divens, FOH engineer; Kevin “Milhouse” Leas, RF/comms tech; Blair Bondy, monitor engineer; Sevrin Huette, P.A. tech; and Liam Tucker, crew chief/monitor tech.

Clive Young

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Tyler, The Creator Creates a Pop-Up to Remember

Brooklyn, N.Y.—Tyler, The Creator’s Chromakopia album was one of the biggest hits of last fall, and the artist highlighted its instantaneous success by playing a series of pop-up shows in L.A., Atlanta and Boston. While the shows gave fans a taste of what to expect on his world tour, which began in February, it was the final pop-up in Brooklyn, N.Y., that set the internet aflame. Held on a Brooklyn Army Terminal pier late on a breezy November afternoon, Tyler arrived by boat and leapt on to a barge carrying four double-stacked shipping containers, all painted green to match the album’s graphic design. The containers became the artist’s stage, and inside them? That was mission control.

FOH engineer Paul Wichmann and monitor man Landon Storey tackled audio for the unusual pop-up show, fitting control, monitor world, playback and front of house inside one of the containers in order to send audio to a small line array system set up on the barge, as well as Tyler’s in-ears.

On the current tour, Storey and Wichmann have been using, respectively, a Yamaha Rivage PM5 desk and an old-school Gamble analog console with a Yamaha DM7 for backup, but for the pop-up show, given the tight quarters of a shipping container, they opted to go with a Yamaha DM7C for FOH and a DM7 for monitors

so that they had the benefit of a mid-sized footprint while maintaining familiar feature sets. “The DM7’s workflow is so similar to the Rivage PM Series, which made the transition seamless,” said Storey. “We were able to quickly get up to speed and deliver the same high-quality audio experience. It was pretty impressive that you could fit Paul’s DM7 compact, my full-size DM7 and then the playback guy in the middle with a couple of Dante switches and an analog whip feeding an analog split.”

Ensuring the audience on the pier heard the best show possible, Wichmann mixed remotely in front of the P.A. “I literally had the DM7 in a shipping container on the barge, and then I ran a router outside of it and just mixed it with an iPad,” he explained. “I connected my iPad, and then I mixed the show using Yamaha’s StageMix app, which was really slick.”

Also slick—or at least hard to attach to—were the containers themselves, which had little usable space to set up antennas and crowd mics; that wrinkle did not escape Wichmann’s attention:

“It was just storage containers with handrails, leaving very little to mount the antennas to; there’s nothing to mount crowd mics to, and if there’s a problem, how do you get up there?”

Inside the container, Storey wore the same in-ears as the artist and made use of the DM7’s 1176 compressor and dynamic EQ plug-ins to manage Tyler’s vocal

range effectively, explaining, “He’s very dynamic. To go from talking as loud as you and I are to literally almost distorting a mic capsule, it was interesting to try to dial that in.”

Following the opener of “Rah Tah Tah,” Tyler sprinted through often shortened versions of tracks for the 30-minute, 10-song show before closing out with the appropriate “I Hope You Find Your Way Home” and hopping back on the boat that first brought him to the barge. The end result was a starstruck crowd, making all the prep for the unusual show worth it for everyone involved. “The fans were on the pier, and they were just going wild,” said Wichmann. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for them. Tyler’s fans are incredibly dedicated, and they loved the unique setup.” ■

The final show of Tyler, The Creator’s whirlwind pop-up tour was held at a Brooklyn Army Terminal pier, using shipping containers for a stage and Manhattan as a backdrop.

The mix positions inside the shipping container (l-r): Yamaha DM7C for FOH; playback rig; and DM7 for monitors.

Seen here tackling sound on Tyler, The Creator’s current arena world tour are FOH engineer Paul Wichmann (left) and monitor engineer Landon Storey.

& notes //

Pro Audio Counterfeiters Get Busted, Prison, Fines

By Clive Young

China—A Chinese criminal network that manufactured and distributed counterfeit proaudio microphones, headphones and amplifiers throughout Southeast Asia has paid the price, with multiple individuals sentenced to prison time and fines totaling $1.1 million USD.

In a statement, Shure announced that it took part in an operation with two other, unnamed, audio manufacturers that led to multiple simultaneous raids in the Guangdong Province by Chinese authorities, followed by the eventual convictions of members of the criminal organization.

Shure first became aware of the counterfeiting two years ago, in May 2023, and discovered that the group was manufacturing and then

distributing fake audio equipment to customers in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The fraudulent gear was sold on more than 80 online stores that the group maintained.

Shure and the other audio manufacturers worked with IP services business Rouse and its strategic partner firm, Lusheng, to launch coordinated actions against the counterfeit operation. As a result, that August, the Guangdong Province Public Security Bureau launched simultaneous raids against the organization, seizing a variety of counterfeit products at several locations.

In the months that followed, the PSB discovered that a specific trading company was at the heart of the network; through forensic accounting,

authorities determined the group had sold more than $1.7 million USD in counterfeit goods from various brands, including nearly $900,000 USD of pseudo-Shure products.

However, it’s only recently that the case came to a close; in December 2024, seven suspects were sentenced to prison, with some sentenced to as much as four-and-a-half years behind bars. They also face fines totaling $1.1 million USD. Shure reports that it and another brand additionally reached settlement agreements with the suspects for “considerable compensation.”

Fraudulent equipment can be a safety hazard, as it is often made quickly from shoddy parts that don’t need to meet safety standards—or even work—placing crews crews, the public and even other equipment at risk. ■

Radial Engineering provides world-class audio equipment to help you create music and mixes that are truly inspiring, support your success as recording technology evolves, and enable you to capture the subtleties of every take whenever and wherever you record.

Counterfeit

“Shure” wireless microphones discovered during the police raids.

By Robyn Flans

Kicking Back With Taj and Keb’

Eight years after the Grammy-winning TajMo , two blues masters reunite to let the world know that there is always Room on the Porch .

There’s a porch somewhere in Franklin, Tennessee, where I wish I could have sat down and shared a glass of lemonade as a witness, up close, to the abundant camaraderie between the two blues icons Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ while they were shooting the cover of their

new album, Room on the Porch. Still, I was lucky enough to speak with the two of them them on an hourlong Zoom, where they made it clear that I would have been most welcome, sitting on the steps or in my own rocking chair.

Prevalent in Southern life, the porch is a metaphor for the world—a perfect world with

the kind of smiles like those between the two of them on that cover, which are genuine. Both claim there was nothing contrived about that backdrop; it may have been a photo shoot, but they could have easily sat down in the rocking chairs with an ice-cold drink and conversation. What would they have talked about?

“Depends on how close the women were,” Taj teases, and they both laugh uproariously.

“Men talk,” Keb’ interjects. (More laughter.)

“’Where you been?’” Taj continues. “‘Where you gonna go? How’s your mama? How’s your daddy? How’s your kids?’ All of it, everything. We’re gonna be right here on the porch when you get here,” he says, an open invitation to all.

“It’s all about being inclusive,” Keb’ adds. “The porch is everywhere. It’s the world.”

“I will not have a house without a porch,” Taj says.

POP AND THE TWEEZERS

There is plenty of laughter amid the thoughtfulness during our discussion. Underneath it all is an undeniable respect and admiration for one another. Taj refers to Keb’ as “Son,” and Keb’ calls Taj “Pop,” which is certainly familial; Keb’ says it’s musical, too.

“My musical mom and dad are Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal,” he explains. “I look at what they did and how they did it and why they did it. I look at the breadth of the work they did, and that gave me the permission to go wider with my own music, to open up and not be afraid to mix things up.”

Asked to describe Taj in one word, Keb’ ponders as he stares at his musical partner and friend. Taj taunts him with, “Good luck!” and, finally, Keb’ says: “Badass!”

As they explore the ways in which they are alike and different, the word “tweezers” seems to be a non sequitur every time it pops out of Taj’s mouth. It soon becomes clear that he’s using it as an analogy for Keb’s attention to detail, a trait Taj seems to lack. “He’s got a long pair of tweezers,” Taj offers with a laugh. It’s a word that will reemerge many times through our conversation, like this interchange:

“I saw the Knoxville Symphony three nights ago and they played some stuff…talk about some tweezers, Taj!” Keb’ comments.

“They got the 20-footers!” Taj replies with a chuckle.

“I got tweezers on myself, Taj,” Keb’ admits and Taj laughs. “Last night, I was working on songs. I decided to go back before my show and look at things. I started pulling my vocals apart, thinking like, ‘Well, I’m doing something wrong.’ I started looking at the relationship between

The relationship between Keb’ Mo’ (right) and Taj Mahal was formed in the 1990s.

Courtesy of Keb’ Mo’

timing and pitch. I was adjusting my timing in some phrases because, I guess, sometimes I’m not as confident as a singer, so I was rushing, trying to get through things, and in so doing, I find out that not just the time got squirrelly, but the pitch got squirrelly too. I’m kind of like a scientist in a sense, so musically, when I’m into a BB King record, I go, ‘Why did they play it like that?’ So I ask myself, ‘Why am I going to do that?’ When I play, I have to have a reason to play something.

“I go in and look for the essence of whatever recording I’m working on,” Keb’ reveals. “With TajMo, I go through it and try to hone it down to the most common denominator.”

Taj says it’s usually Keb’ suggesting “let’s do one more take,” in the studio because Taj admits that he’s rough around the edges and he always prefers leaving it at two takes. That said, he allows Keb’ to guide the way, although both are listed as co-producers on the project.

Keb’ says they don’t work like traditional producers—it’s not “I like that, I don’t like that, do it again.

“We both do what we do,” Keb’ explains. “On this one, we went in the studio and ground it out and we got it, and when we had it, we had it. That’s what we do; we get it. One without the other doesn’t work.”

“When I’m working on my own project, it’s all on me,” Taj says. “When he’s working on his own project, it’s all on him. But when we’re working together, I’ll defer to him. With each record, my ears grow and my respect for what Keb’ does grows with it. I’m always learning how he sings in a certain kind of way, how he lifts up and approaches the beat—and he has an ear. I listen to the music he makes and there’s a balance. There’s room for everything; there’s a conversation.

Oftentimes, I got a conversation going on, but there can be some traffic there. [Laughs] I will definitely defer to him. I have no problem with that, senior or not!”

Still, even with all the musical and personal affinities, they never expected to record another album after they made the Grammy-

winning TajMo in 2017. However, Room on the Porch, to be released on May 23, was an opportunity they could not refuse.

INSTANT KARMA

Working on the first record cemented a relationship rooted in African American culture, the blues, jazz, gospel, life, music, being on the road and being friends. “It’s a deep relationship,” Keb’ reveals.

“When we go in to work, we just understand what each other does,” he continues. “The first record was a lot of work. Taj had 30 years on me on the road so I could work on the record a little longer. What he brings to the whole table is a mastery that was earned one note at a time. I am the beneficiary of that artistry and mastery, so I am able to do what I do and figure out how to be me. So, Taj is in the room and he opens his mouth to sing and play, that’s freakin’ Taj Mahal! If we’re Sam and Dave, I’m definitely Dave. It’s perfect when we work together.”

It took them more than 20 years to actually meet. Keb’ first saw Taj perform at a school assembly in 1969 as a student at Compton High School. As a 17-year-old, he recalls, “I knew I couldn’t unhear it.” While he says he met Taj during Taj’s recording of Dancing the Blues, he didn’t really meet him until they worked together on TajMo. He had studied three or four Taj Mahal records, predominately The Natch’l Blues (1968) and Giant Step (1969).

“These are iconic records that people took home,” Keb’ says. “We have have conversations about these records, like when a Sly Stone record would come out. One of my favorite records was Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees, the way it was put together—it was so brilliant, how it speaks. The Natch’l Blues? I played those songs in the clubs before I ever met Taj, so I had to take those songs apart and I did my best to translate those to the other bandmembers so they would play those parts right and have that Taj Mahal feel and they wouldn’t wank on them. So, later down the line, I could apply the concept and understand the method to the madness.”

Talk about madness. For Room on the Porch, it was Keb’s ambitious idea to write and record the songs in the studio—working between Addiction Sound Studios and his own Stu-Stu-Studio, both in Nashville—with the deadline of a few weeks. Taj says his initial reaction was, “Ready. Go. I come from the days where 16 tracks could have been recorded in a day and that was the album.”

Taj still believes the idea was wonderful, finding the process organic, but Keb’ now acknowledges that it was an insane proposal and ended up being grinding. Why did he do it? “I had watched Queen and David Bowie making great records like that,

Keb’ Mo’, left, and Taj Mahal during the making of TajMo, 2017.

Courtesy of Keb’ Mo’

WRITING ON THE PORCH

As they worked on the title track with Ruby Amanfu (Sam & Ruby, The Peacocks) at Addiction, they knew immediately it was the gem. “Taj had some music he was working on, and Ruby Amanfu came into the studio and co-wrote with us,” Keb’ says. “She took the piece of music and we all fell in with her. When we heard that thing, we knew that was the one,” Keb’ says. “The way we went about recording it from then on was just so right, so homey, so inclusive, even the verse where Taj speaks was a singing verse, but it seemed right. The violin—I said, ‘Play like the lady down the street.’ It’s like, ‘We’re all here.’”

Taj says he wakes up every morning to “Room on the Porch.” He’s so pleased a song that he’s been developing for the past two decades will finally see the light of day. “At night, when I finished playing music, we’d pack up at the end of the night, we were in the van going down the street sometime, somewhere to some hotel to a room. And I’d be making calls, checking in with my family, and I still hadn’t come down from the night and I’d pick up my guitar and put a new set of strings on and tune

and very quietly, so I wouldn’t disturb anybody, this song was being played for the last 20 years. I was working it out, but it had no lyrics. So I was thrilled when Ruby and Keb’ came up with the lyrics and what happened to it.”

He says “Junkyard Dog” is also among his favorites his favorites and every day he finds something else to love. “I continue to marvel at Kevin’s way of producing it,” Taj says. “And all his tweezers—he’s got a 60-foot set, a 12-foot set, 14-foot set and a 16-foot set of tweezers. He’ll get inside there and take something out, he’ll shift stuff around in there, and the recording is just amazing.”

Of course, Keb’ loves the entire album, but he

mentions a couple of his favorites, including the uptempo, Calypso-tinged, New Orleansflavored New Orleans flavored “Better Than Ever,” featuring soulful co-writer and vocalist Wendy Moten. “She’s a dream come true,” Keb’ says. “Both ‘Better Than Ever’ and ‘Room on the Porch’ are very unique. The way ‘Room on the Porch’ is written is brilliant and so timely—about friendship, neighborhood, food; it’s just so juicy. And ‘Better Than Ever’ is a love song that has got these blues verses and R&B bridge and Taj speaks French on the end. It’s so much fun, and my son plays the bass and drums on it. It’s so simple and straight to the point.”

While Keb’ admits that he wasn’t sure he wanted to do another TajMo album—how were they going to top the first?—truthfully, he likes it better than the initial collaboration, and he loved TajMo.

“Sometimes opportunity comes and you don’t really realize you’re getting another opportunity,” Keb’ says. “That’s why I always put my best foot forward. If I agree to it, I’m comin’ in! I hope the record spreads joy to people; a positive piece of work that can be an inspiration to people.” ■

Keb’ Mo’, left, and Taj Mahal, during the making of their first album, TajMo, in 2017.

Jay Blakesberg

‘The Sound’ of Music Row

Keith Urban revives, reconditions and renames the legendary Nashville studio formerly known as The Tracking Room

By Steve Harvey •

Photos by Brennon Williamson

Tucked away on a cul-de-sac at the edge of Music Row, The Tracking Room holds a special place in the hearts of musicians, engineers and producers everywhere. Opened in October 1995 by the late Glenn Meadows, owner of nearby Masterfonics, and boasting the largest live space—6,500 square feet—in Nashville, the facility operated continuously until March 2020, when it suspended operations.

The Tracking Room was designed by renowned studio architect Tom Hidley and outfitted with Shozo Kinoshita’s in-wall monitors, a standard feature in Hidley rooms worldwide. For 25 years, the studio attracted the crème de la crème of talent from Music City and beyond, from Chet

Atkins, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain and Taylor Swift to U2, Deep Purple, Megadeth and King Crimson.

Any expectations that the studio would reopen were scotched when a group of developers purchased the 9,300-square-foot building in March 2021. But when they discovered that the half-acre plot was unsuitable for their plans, they put it back on the market, and in June 2024 the facility was acquired by Keith Urban, who has renamed it The Sound.

“The land was all they wanted; they were just going to bulldoze it,” said the four-time Grammy-winning country music star, who jumped at the chance to rescue the studio where he had recorded several of his own projects.

The recording studio has long been Urban’s happy place, and he has more than a dozen chart-topping albums and awards—13 CMAs, 15 ACMs, three AMAs—to show for his endeavors. “I have always been passionate about recording,” he said. “I don’t have any hobbies. I don’t play any sport. I don’t play golf. I don’t hunt. I don’t fish. I just play music and write and create, and I’ve always felt at home in studios.”

MOVING INTO THE SOUND

Urban had worked on a vintage Neve 8068 console for the past 10 years at his home studio, but he had no tracking space. “Chris Lord-Alge said to me, maybe a year or two back, ‘I hope you’re recording full bands on it.’ I said, ‘I don’t have the space.’ He said, ‘That’s such a waste of

a great console; you should try and find a space to put that console in.’ I started looking around town for a small room that I could buy and happened upon The Tracking Room.”

Ironically, there was just one drawback—the studio came fully equipped, from microphones to console. “The absurdity was that there was an 80-channel SSL 9000 J Series console in here, and it was so big that I couldn’t fit my Neve,” said Urban, who then asked his team to come up with a solution. “The engineers worked tirelessly to figure it all out.”

“Nobody’s ever going to mix 80 inputs on a console; that’s just not going to happen in a Pro Tools world,” said veteran Nashville engineer and producer Pat McMakin, who acted as project manager during The Sound’s rehabilitation and reopening process. Working with local freelance SSL expert Vinny Fast and Art Kelm, formerly of Capitol Studios, who handled the Neve side of things, the 9000J was reconfigured with 48 inputs, fully re-capped and married to Urban’s 32-input 8068 to create a 15-foot-long desk. “I’ve named it The Beast,” McMakin said. At Urban’s request, the control room credenza was removed and the original outboard racks were restored.

The wiring between the two desks remains a work in progress. Currently, the Neve channels feed directly to Pro Tools, with various ins and outs also coming up on the room’s patchbay. “But if I’m tracking, I might decide I want to mix on the Neve side, so it’d be nice to have that option available,” McMakin explained.

The 6,500-square-foot, Hidley-designed live room, with control room glass to the left and five isolation booths lining the rear wall to the right

Considering that the facility was now 30 years old and had essentially been mothballed for the last five, the team expected to face at least some updates to the electrical infrastructure. They brought in Kelm, who also specializes in studio power and grounding schemes, but found that there wasn’t much to do during the renovations, thanks to the original tech work performed by Masterfonics chief engineer Frank Wells [coincidentally, editor at Pro Sound News for 15 years].

“When you look at Frank’s electrical work, the way he designed it and his guys installed it, everything is just right,” said McMakin, who noted that he had long conversations with Wells and studio builder Mike Cronin, who has built many, many facilities in Nashville— Masterfonics, Blackbird and Ocean Way, to name a few—to familiarize himself with every aspect of the complex.

The studio, which sits next to a busy interstate, is of a room-within-a-room construction and the control room floats on German-engineered springs. “The isolation between the outside and the inside is second to none,” McMakin confirmed. “It looks like everybody involved said, ‘This is going to be the best studio ever built.’”

The Levinson-powered Rey Audio RM-7 main monitors, designed and built by Kinoshita, codeveloper of Pioneer’s famed TAD drivers, still need to be reconditioned. “But, man, they sound pretty good,” McMakin reported. “Michael Moore, who was an assistant to Frank Wells when they built

the place, has also untangled some history for us. Michael has got a couple of new horn drivers for us to install, then we’re going to evaluate the woofers and get those back up and slamming.” A Rey Audio RM-5BC provides a center channel for LCR applications.

For years, visitors would remark on the large bass trap in the floor in front of the console— except, that’s not what it was. The interior boards were oriented front-to-back to act as wave guides, a Hidley design to align the sound waves passing above and below the console before hitting the rear wall, McMakin explained. The pit, finished only with fabric, proved to be a safety hazard and has since been covered.

A BIG PLACE TO PLAY

Of course, the highlight of the studio has always been, well, the tracking room. Seventy feet long and anywhere between 25 and 45 feet wide, with 20- to 25-foot ceilings, the space can easily accommodate an 85-piece orchestra. The long rear wall is divided into five iso rooms, each with different acoustic responses and designed for a variety of applications.

The Stone Room, Iso 1, is often used as a reverb chamber, with the door open or closed.

From left: engineer/studio manager Mark Dobson, Keith Urban, and veteran engineer/producer Pat McMakin, who was project manager for the overall rehabilitation of The Tracking Room, now called The Sound.

Iso 3 sees a lot of guitar work and reveals the direct sightlines between booths and into the main studio.

The large Tom Hidley-designed control room, featuring the custom Neve/SSL console, Kinsohita monitors and the original outboard racks. The original producer’s desk was replaced by a pair of rolling racks that can be moved easily behind the mix engineer or, when not in use, tucked into the side walls.

“Tom Hidley designed the Stone Room with the perfect decay,” Urban observed, adding that he was recently working with a songwriter who had rolled a big joint. “He goes, ‘Where do I smoke this?’ And I go, ‘Where else do you get stoned but in the Stone Room?’”

Iso 2 includes an amp locker designed to produce natural compression. Iso 3 and Iso 4 are both acoustically dampened. In Iso 5, referred to as the Wood Room or Piano Room, every surface is hardwood, and it houses the studio’s beloved Yamaha C7 grand piano.

Studio manager and engineer Mark Dobson said that the iso rooms came in handy when Urban rehearsed his band for his recent Las

Vegas residency. “We had the full band and all the techs; we had front-of-house in one of the booths and monitorworld up against the wall. They came in with their own power and ran everything independently.”

The first outside sessions were recorded in late March. “We had a band in from Tallahassee called The Retrograde. David Huff produced that one, and it went well,” Dobson said. Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll, dueting, and Chris Tomlin came in for separate Spotify sessions. One of the studio’s longtime repeat clients has booked the space for their next album.

“Everyone that’s come in has been so grateful to have it back,” Dobson shared. “It’s a great space and it’s very private. It’s such a great feeling, as a client, to know that this whole place is yours.”

AT HOME IN THE STUDIO

Meanwhile, Urban recently did a string of global radio interviews from The Sound to promote his latest album, High, and conducted some

writing sessions, setting up a control room in the tracking space and using several iso rooms as vocal booths. The studio’s tech team has set up video and audio lines to enable Nicole Kidman, Urban’s Oscar-, Emmy-, BAFTA- and Golden Globe-winning actress wife, to record ADR at the facility.

Urban is not yet sure how many commercial sessions The Sound will accommodate.

“It was never my intention to get into owning a commercial studio,” he admitted, “and the most heartbreaking thing would be if I wanted to use it spontaneously one day and it was booked. But the idea is that this space can be used by people I know who want to rent it when I know for sure I’m going to be on tour.”

For now, though, Urban is enjoying having the studio all to himself. “I just like hanging out in here,” he said in summary. “I’ll wander over to the piano and write a little bit or go into the guitar room and play. I’m in heaven.” ■

The Lounge at The Sound is said to be the most comfortable on the Row.

Iso Booth 1, The Stone Room is often used as a reverb chamber.

Iso 5, The Wood Room, sometimes referred to as ‘The Piano Room..

Led Zeppelin perform in the movie Supershow , March 1969.

Director Bernard MacMahon’s goal in telling the story of how four guys became Led Zeppelin and created their first two albums was to bring the viewer as close as possible to the experience heard by the public in the 1950s and ’60s. He, along with producer/ music supervisor Allison McGourty, sound supervisor Nick Bergh and editor Dan Gitlin, commanded a unique use of original audio source materials, ranging from vinyl records to film, to create the soundtrack of Becoming Led Zeppelin

This was the team’s second time-travel collaboration, the first being American Epic, the multimedia—four documentary films, multiple CDs, vinyl LPs and a book—exploration of the effect that the introduction of electrical recording had on music and culture in the United States and around the world. It documents the beginnings of what would become known as American roots music, and also the recording industry itself.

Bergh, who runs Endpoint Audio Labs in Burbank, Calif., not only transferred the discs for American Epic but was also a “co-star” of the fourth film, which featured him recording a wide range of modern musicians (including Elton John, Willie Nelson, Steve Martin and Nas) produced by T Bone Burnett and Jack White and going direct to 78 rpm 10-inch discs using one microphone. The “recorder” was a weight-driven Scully lathe, along with 1925 Western Electric electronics, a recording head and microphone, that Bergh had been restoring over a 15-year period.

While all of the primary sources for American Epic were acetate discs or the occasional metal parts, Led Zeppelin’s first two albums, of course, originated on tape—one-inch, eight-track and ¼-inch stereo. Still, the team chose to use records for all of the commercial recordings in Becoming Led Zeppelin, even when tape masters or digital remasters were available.

As MacMahon explains: “We knew some of the audio in the film was going to need to come from records, and one of the first discs we started with was “Train Kept A-Rollin” performed by The Johnny Burnette Trio, which was a key part of the Led Zeppelin story. When Nick sent us his amazing transfer of the store-stock [unplayed] 45 rpm record, the room just exploded. Then the next day, we could not stop listening to it. It was that sound of lightning in a bottle, and you could understand what Jimmy [Page] felt hearing it

originally. It does not require some talking head to explain it—you can hear it first-hand. That was the point when everyone agreed we wanted that same power and fidelity for every track in the film, and we started pulling in records for Led Zeppelin as well.”

To that end, part of the brief involved searching the world for the best existing sources—not only vinyl, but also film and video—and then having them transferred by Bergh.

FINDING THE RIGHT DISC

For disc transfers, Bergh used his classic EMT 927 F turntable that he has retrofitted with an SME tonearm and a Shure V-15 Type V cartridge, which he considers to have the flattest frequency response. Those EMT turntables are not unlike Western Electric 35mm transports, he notes: “Sound reproduction likes huge flywheels for low wow and flutter, and when it’s running, you have the feeling that you are hanging onto a steam engine.”

As is common knowledge, radial tonearms have zero tracking error only at two “null” points; everywhere else is a compromise. With this in mind, Bergh adjusted the tonearm according to the location of each song. Another important micro-tweak Bergh took advantage of was the skinny center spindle on the 927 F, which allows one to precisely center the record using a microscope. “Doing this is so important

to reducing the wow,” he says. “Otherwise, the records are ‘wowing’ on their own.”

While the number of extant film and video elements for many songs were limited, when it came to the first two albums, they were limited only by time and money. The team purchased and borrowed many copies of each via eBay or collectors, with the Holy Grail being store-stock.

The initial pressings mastered by Bob Ludwig of Led Zeppelin II are the stuff of legend— and expensive eBay sales, with some selling for thousands of dollars. This was cut by Ludwig at Sterling Sound in New York, and said legend has it that the record (or was it just side 2?) couldn’t play on an inexpensive phonograph owned by the daughter (or was she the niece?) of Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun (or was it his brother, Neshui, or producer Jerry Wexler?).

Regardless of the real provenance of the decision to re-master the album, Bergh says that the reputation of the original is quite deserved, noting, “It has an excitement and energy that surpasses any other version of the album we had heard.” MacMahon adds that “like the dub of ‘Train Kept A-Rollin,’ you are letting the audience hear all the studio recordings on the format they were originally released on, so they can feel the sonic journey from 1956 to 1969.”

But this is the second album; what about the first? Research showed that there were four different pressing plants, each very different

Led Zeppelin, December 1968.

Dick Barnett/Getty Images

from the other. While the difference is not as dramatic as hearing the Ludwig version of Zep II, their favorite was mastered by George Piros, who is best-known in audio circles for his work on the Mercury Living Presence series. Bergh terms Piros’s work a “toss-up” compared to the recent digital remasters supervised by Jimmy Page. “On a technical level, some things may have been a little better in the digital, and some qualities were better in the record—but the goal of the soundscape of the film is to be hearing the music as it was then.”

Setting aside the normal creative mastering issues—level, EQ, compression—the Piros

version is noted by the fact that the azimuth was correct! Bergh believes that either the master mix tape or, more likely, a badly made production master tape resulted in its not being “un-adjusted” on some of the other discs that he transferred.

“On some [discs], it was extremely obvious,” Bergh recalls. “One of the worst was at RCA, which was so bad that the phase was all over the place, in addition to comb filtering. They then tried to boost the high frequencies to make up for the loss caused by the azimuth error. It sounds so different that some collectors even think it is a different mix.”

FILM TRANSFERS

For the clips sourced from 35mm and 16mm film optical negatives, Bergh went really old-school and had a positive track printed from them. The optical sound format is perhaps the only one where an earlier generation is not better than a later one, because there are distortions built into negatives that take into account how it will be printed. (You might be thinking of “RIAA” or other equalization curves, but let’s leave it at simply being “more complex.”)

In addition, Bergh notes that by making the print, “90 percent of the cracks and pops that you would hear by playing the negative would go away. It’s ‘artifact-free’ restoration. This is because a lot of the scratching that can happen is in the clear area, and they’re gone when it turns black on high-contrast print film. It’s like a wet gate scan of an image [that fills in scratches].”

As is frequently the case throughout his facility, Bergh’s optical transfer machines are a combination of the best of old and new—in this case, 1940s Western Electric optics and 1990s Sondor transports. Although there are indeed newfangled transfer machines that will scan both film negative picture and soundtrack—clearly the easier route, and as a result the most popular today—Bergh says that sonically they “don’t compare with the equipment made at the peak of the optical sound era. These new technologies are essentially digital approximations of the analog sound.”

Although one-third of the songs heard in the film come from the first two albums, and a good portion of the others were from various discs, there were also many scenes that featured

Nick Bergh, seated at the “S-1946” console/control surface, at his facility Endpoint Audio Labs, where the transfers, sound edit and final mix took place for Becoming Led Zeppelin

Allison McGourty

Nick Bergh’s EMT 927 F turntable transferring the rarest disc in the film—a 10-inch lacquer of Robert Plant and John Bonham’s 1968 recording of The Band of Joy’s “Memory Lane.”

Courtesy of Nick Bergh

a wide variety of film and video formats. The team made a conscious effort to keep the unique character of each of these formats. MacMahon says that “hearing the various eras of sound recordings in their correct context at Endpoint made me realize that a sense of time travel is possible just by staying pure to the source. You get a feeling of the era and context just by the sonic qualities.”

In a few instances, Bergh took what can only be described as a “hybrid” route to getting the optimum source, as was the case when we hear Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” from the 1956 movie Don’t Knock the Rock. Although he was able to obtain the 35mm three-track mono DME (dialog, music and effects) master and other miscellaneous mag music elements, because Little Richard was performing to playback, Bergh went back to vinyl, bypassing less-thanoptimum mag generations that had also started from disc. (They were also fortunate that the version of “Goldfinger,” sung by Shirley Bassey, was also filmed to playback. Both songs were taken from store-stock 45s.)

An extended live performance of “Communication Breakdown” featured in the movie was originally taped in France on the 2-inch quad video format, in their SECAM standard. Although Bergh brought a Pro Tools unit to the video transfer facility in Los Angeles and was able to pick off the sound directly from the back of the machine, he later took the tape back to Endpoint and transferred it again to take advantage of the superior sound quality of his Studer 2-inch A-827 deck. (This was possible because the location of the mono track on quad is the same as Track 1 of 16-track 2-inch!) Also, the tape handling on the Studer is especially solid and has less than half the wow and flutter as a quad video deck.

Says Bergh, “The fascinating thing about quad video is that the image is never better than standard definition, but the audio is effectively the same as one track of a ¼-inch stereo tape, 70 mils wide, at 15 ips, so it pays to regard it as a master tape to get the best sound.”

Because almost all of the source film and tape was at 25 frames per second, it was decided to shoot new material, such as the interviews, at that same rate and then continue with it through the final edit and mix. However, delivery requirements for the U.S. theatrical and home/ streaming release demanded that they create 24fps DCPs and video masters.

The “easiest” route would have been to make no change in the picture, but just slow it and the track down, then pitch-shift the track back up to counteract the 4 percent speed reduction, but Bergh felt that the audio would have been hurt, however carefully the pitch-shifting was done.

As a result, in a rare example in the movie industry of the picture falling on the grenade instead of the sound, MacMahon decided to keep the speed and pitch of the original, with Gitlin using a variety of techniques to keep the

movie in sync at the slower speed. MacMahon sums up this approach quite simply: “Never compromise the sound.”

PLUG-INS, OR LACK THEREOF

Having made the best possible transfers effectively gave Bergh and MacMahon the quality, and the confidence, from which they could continue to follow the Hippocratic oath of good sound restoration: First, Twist the Minimum Number of Knobs. (Editorial aside:

Bergh and MacMahon in the Endpoint mix room, arguably the only working film sound museum in the world.

Courtesy of Nick Bergh

Bergh’s optical transfer machine combines the best of old and new, with 1940s Western Electric optics and a 1990s Sondor transport.

Courtesy of Nick Bergh

Compare and contrast to today, when many think nothing of trying to create an Atmos mix from a mono movie.)

Bergh explains: “Early on in the postproduction process, we did some temp mixes for screenings, going the traditional way one

might expect with a music film. It sounded like a film and what you’d expect going into a theater, but because we knew the source material so intimately, the source quality was not getting through in the way we were wanting it to.”

For the music tracks coming from records,

which were essentially already mastered at the time they were made, not a single plug-in was used to process sound. No noise reduction, no EQ, and no compression or limiting. Minor EQ was used on the live performances, which had been mixed by who-knows-who and were not under the control of the band.

At the very least, using plug-ins to get snaps and crackles out of the disc transfers would seem to be a lock, given the percentage of time they take over in the movie. Continuing with the purist approach, MacMahon tasked engineer/ producer Peter Henderson with the laborious process of manual declicking. They had first worked this way on American Epic, though Bergh had been skeptical at the time that he could actually hear the difference between manual and careful software de-clicking.

“Peter has incredible ears, and on American Epic, I did an A/B test with him, and 10 out of 10 times, he could tell one apart from the other,” Bergh notes, estimating that Henderson would spend days on a particular song, instead of the minutes that it would take using software. The picture restoration by Gitlin was also done with manual hand cleanup rather than automated tools.

Clearly, the sum of all these parts—cherry pressings on Bergh’s turntable and his alignment for each disc and song, as well as Henderson’s declicking—are far better than what anyone heard in 1969, much less from this writer’s broken-down Garrard turntable. Still, the team never took the view that this was somehow “retro cool,” which these days might involve adding

Audio from 2-inch quad video being transferred on a Studer 2-inch A-827 deck. Right: The quad SECAM video that is the master for “Communication Breakdown” in the film.

Courtesy of Nick Bergh

Bernard MacMahon shooting an interview with Jimmy Page.

Paradise

Pictures

Ltd.

ticks and wow. Bergh terms the presentation as the “idealized” record sound.

GETTING THE MIX TO THEATERS

All of the source material was either mono or two-track stereo; of course, there were no surround mixes done for rock music in the late 1960s, and no original multichannel sources were used. Bergh did test the usual suspects in the field of upmixing, determining that none of them felt right.

In the end, he used only the basic multichannel panner in Pro Tools to spread the mix to the center (using divergence) and LFE. Very light surround information from a reverb was added “to fill in the space” in dead movie theaters. This was all removed, however, when it came to the two-channel stereo mix for home video.

Although the team had been mixing the movie in the standard theatrical 5.1 format, the U.S. deliverables called for an initial release on IMAX screens in select markets. As opposed to standard movie sound systems, where screen channels go down to 40 Hz and the LFE channel is individually assignable, IMAX uses a proprietary bass management format that has been essentially untouched since its early days in

Endpoint Audio Labs

the 1970s showing nature documentaries, which were projected double-system with 35mm sixtrack mag interlock.

The low end from all six channels (leftcenter-right, plus point-source left- and rightsurround speakers, and the screen-top speaker) are all summed and sent to the subwoofers. (The center top channel is optional.) That means IMAX printmasters are 5.0 (6.0 with the upper speaker), with no “direct” access to the subwoofer channel.

As Bergh explains, “The low end of the Zeppelin music is fast and demanding, and the phase relationship between the LFE and the main screen channels is absolutely critical, so much so that it is like a test signal for checking low-end in workflow and the theatrical B-chain. The real challenge and art of the IMAX conversion is in the low-end. The LFE material and main-channel low end need to be adjusted and folded together with extreme care and precision to avoid phase distortion and EQ errors. The folks at IMAX were very generous to accommodate this and support our unique approach. In the end, our IMAX version is more like a precision ‘transcoding’ to their system. This way, low-end phase accuracy could be maintained and the low end retains the

Since its founding in 2003, Nick Bergh’s Endpoint Audio Labs has been the first-call choice for anyone needing a meticulous transfer of anything-analog to digital files. The approbatory “anything” holds up to the widest survey of historical recording formats, beginning with his custom machine to play back Edison cylinders, which presents as the possible love child of Thomas Edison and NASA. An analog stylus is the preferred source; in case of damage or warping, a laser takes over, correcting for wow as needed.

Bergh has long had a reputation in the movie industry for salvaging worn masters that were previously thought unusable, favoring lesser-quality dubs simply because of ease. Thus Bergh does the heavy lifting, going back to original 35mm mag masters of hundreds of movies, including such treasured films such as My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma!, Patton and Hello, Dolly!

Where magnetic film represented the pinnacle of 20th century film sound, the first decades of film sound were on disc and optical formats, and Endpoint has the ability to transfer all variants. You want to play a Vitaphone disc or a 200-mil push-pull optical track?

Nick Bergh is your guy.

You might have heard of these formats, but chances are that Amertape is new to you. A recent project had Bergh building a playback machine to bring to life recordings made during World War II in that format, which used sprocketed film to etch sound on 120

musicality of the original records.”

SOUND QUALITY MATTERS

Bergh notes that “there was a constant effort at all stages and with every element to push the boundaries of quality as much as we could. Bernard has a great ear for music, and is unique in his interest to approve even small improvements in sound quality. Normally, if I say to someone, ‘I think I can get another 5 percent or 10 percent out of this element,’ they just say move on, it is not enough. Bernard will always approve, and he understands how even a 5 percent technical improvement can often yield, say, a 20 percent emotional connection to the track.”

In late March, seven weeks after the release in theaters and at the last moment before the home video master was being shipped, MacMahon came back to Endpoint for one final mix fix. A better-quality source for one cue had been found; this was not the first post-theatrical release tweak that they had made.

As MacMahon says, “If something appears to help the sound as the ship is sliding down the ramp into the ocean, if there’s breath in my body, I will not willingly present something to the public that’s not as good as it can be.” ■

grooves embossed across the width.

Although the movie was mixed entirely “in the box” within Pro Tools, Bergh is proud to note that his small control surface sat on top of a vintage, restored console from MGM in the early 1940s. Although no audio passed through it during the edit and mix of Becoming Led Zeppelin, he cherishes its proximity for “inspiration and humility,” and considers the movie to have been mixed on his bespoke “S-1946.” ■

The Endpoint Audio Labs machine room, featuring custom and highly modified analog sound decks for everything from Edison cylinders to 70mm prints.

Nick Bergh

Tech Reviews

Trinnov Audio Nova

Loudspeaker Correction, Optimization Monitoring System

By Barry Rudolph

N

ova is the latest in the Trinnov Audio line that also includes the ST2 Pro, the 64-channel MC Pro, and D-Mon, a multi-channel optimizer and monitor controller that, with its 16 outputs, is tailored for immersive mixing. Nova replaces the ST2 Pro and features an all-new design while incorporating the same optimization technology as its siblings. Its six outputs make Nova ideal for 5.1 mixing with bass management, or, as in my case, straight-up stereo.

Nova comes in a 1U chassis that has both analog and digital connections and will hook up to any DAW. It also comes with the Trinnov Application control software and an etherCON 3D measurement microphone. For basic monitor control, there is La Remote, a small desktop unit that connects via USB to the front panel of Nova or to your computer. It is sold separately or bundled with a complete system.

Trinnov Application operates as an ethernet bridge using one of two RJ45 connectors on the rear panel. Dante-compatible, this app provides control and interfacing, and acts like a switch for access to other Dante devices on your 1GB network, as well as the Internet. For control using your iPhone or iPad, there is a free app available with some basic functions, including volume, mute and preset selection.

Nova is a network device, but there is no need to know much about networking since it uses Bonjour autoconnect using the same subnet as your computer—it is as “plug n’ play” as possible. I took the suggestion from a Trinnov tech to avoid switches, subnets and other potential configuration conflicts by using an inexpensive 1GB USB C-to-Ethernet adapter, which will connect Nova to your USB hub or directly to your computer.

COMPACT, POWERFUL HARDWARE

Nova comes with six analog XLR balanced outputs, two XLR analog inputs and four additional TRS analog inputs. You can avoid an A/D conversion by using the ADAT/Lightpipe or S/PDIF digital input; I didn’t notice any difference between digital and analog in the monitor path.

The clean front panel has an etherCON Ethernet port for connecting the measurement microphone using the included Cat-6e cable. There is a headphone jack with its own specific DAC connected before optimization. The app has buttons for source select, as well as a new feature for auto-muting the main monitors while wearing the headphones.

There is a front-panel USB jack for the La Remote. It has eight programmable buttons that can be assigned to switch between stored presets, mute, optimization on/off, and a volume control for both your mains and headphones. It also has a large, easy-to-read level meter. I used the volume control on my Avocet and kept La Remote at 0 dB for maximum headroom. The back-panel EQs on my Focal Trio6 ST6 monitors were set to flat.

SOFTWARE AND CONTROL

The software, meanwhile, has an organized collection of pages starting with Home, which shows the Nova logo. If you get lost in a submenu, just click on the logo. The GUI’s top menu bar has five subpages: Setup, Optimizer, Graphs, Monitoring and System.

The Setup subpage is divided into Configuration and Calibration Wizard pages. Optimizer shows a threesided chart depicting the three types of optimizations/ corrections taking place. There is Acoustic Correction, including amplitude and phase, Delay, or time alignment for each speaker relative to the listening position, as well as Level matching of every speaker. The Optimizer subpage

The etherCON 3D measurement microphone is phantom-powered and has four omnidirectional, small-diaphragm condenser capsules arranged in a tetrahedral array.

has controls for channels, bass management (I set it to 50 Hz, 24 dB/octave) and spatialization; Bypass mode disables the Optimizer for uncorrected playback.

The Graphs menu shows “before and after” comparisons of the currently running 20 Hz-to-20 kHz measurement/correction for all outputs, including the subwoofer(s). The Monitoring subpage has settings for downmixes, headphones, direct outs, and the La Remote configuration and preferences. The System menu is a housekeeping page with startup preferences, a latency monitoring choice, a preset library and hardware (CPU) monitoring.

With this system, it is comforting for me to know that the software is constantly being improved with updates sent directly to the units worldwide. Because each unit has a unique IP address, a company expert in France can remotely access your Nova to inspect your measurements and suggest improvements. (Note: Nova was updated during this review to improve its connectivity, and I did notice an improvement.)

MEASUREMENTS AND OPTIMIZATION

The software’s Calibration Wizard takes you through the entire measurement and setup process. The Cat-6e cable carries four channels of audio from the etherCON 3D measurement microphone to Nova. The microphone is phantom-powered and has four omnidirectional, small-diaphragm condenser capsules. These are arranged in a tetrahedral array with a frequency response of 10 Hz to 24 kHz.

In Calibration mode, Nova outputs a Maximum Length Sequence—a pseudorandom binary sequence signal from each speaker individually, including the subwoofer. This sounds like pink noise, but I did hear short impulses within the noise, which I was told allows for computationalefficient processing. Your control room must be as quiet as possible while the mic picks up the sound bouncing around. This vast collection of data points is used by the algorithm to develop a profile of the listening space’s acoustics and the loudspeakers playing in it.

Accuracy is key here, with the mic placement and setup being crucial for optimum results. The mic is placed at the measured head/ear height of the listener while sitting at the listening position in front of, and equidistant from, the left and right monitors. Trinnov optimizes at the mix position only. I used a Leica Dist D5 digital tape measure and a self-leveling laser

to accurately set the physical distances, height, L/R monitor angles and the exact height of my speakers sitting on Sound Anchor ADJ-2 stands. All measurements were within ±2 mm. What sets the Trinnov apart from other systems is that it measures and corrects frequency response, phase response, amplitude, group delay and impulse response. It measures and checks the physical location of each speaker in the room and its precise angle as aimed toward the listening position.

INTEGRATING NOVA

I’ve always had challenges getting mixes to translate and sound acceptable outside of my room, which I’ve come to realize has mostly to do with the acoustics. Over time, I have installed absorption and diffusor panels, and I put PSI Audio Active Velocity Acoustic Absorber C20 bass traps in the front corners of my room.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

COMPANY: Trinnov Audio

PRODUCT: Nova

WEBSITE: www.trinnov.com

PRICE: $5,080 USD (includes Nova processor, 3D Microphone and La Remote)

PROS: Accurate, comprehensive room optimization/correction

CONS: Configuration and measurement takes some time.

The space measures reasonably flat from the midrange up to through the high frequencies, but as is the case with small residential rooms with 8-foot ceilings, the problems show up in the bass and low-midrange.

For this review, I used the analog stereo outputs from my Cranesong Avocet II monitor controller plugged into the Nova analog inputs. Nova’s sample rate is 48 kHz for measurements; using higher system sample rates reduces latency but uses more CPU. I externally clocked Nova using the S/PDIF signal from one of my Avid interfaces, which are separately externally clocked from my Cranesong Interstellar master clock and A/D converter. Nova’s System page GUI indicated 30.9 milliseconds of latency.

For mastering or mixing work, this latency is not a problem, but for the lowest possible latency monitoring during tracking and/or overdubbing, you must bypass Nova’s optimization. It’s simply physics. The required FIR filtering, adaptive optimization and processing of this immense amount of data requires about 30 ms of latency. On the Optimizer page, you can bypass the software for uncorrected monitoring.

Listening using Trinnov’s optimization is a revelation. Immediately I hear more detail, with good balances and bad balances noticeably distinct at my listening position. My mixes are now smoother in the low-midrange and bass. Doing A/Bs of my curated reference tracks— some of my own mixes and some from others— was quite an enlightening experience!

The overall subsonic energy now lies within the mix rather than leaping out or disappearing on certain notes. Loose-sounding tubbiness in those frequencies is decreased; the midrange is tighter and more focused, with vocals and guitars clearly defined in their panned positions. Stereo reverbs, delays and room ambiences can be heard more accurately—not necessarily louder, just clearer. These effects, as mixed, are better framed around the center-panned instruments and vocals.

The improvement is not subtle. I’ve now heard how much it improves the sound and accuracy of my mix room. I must have one! ■

The Main Screen in the Nova software, where users access the main five submenus: Setup, Optimizer, Graphs, Monitoring and System.

Optimization of my mix room, showing before (top) and after Nova.

La Remote, sold separately or as part of a bundle, connects via USB to the front panel of Nova or to your computer.

Tech // reviews

Vertigo VSS-2 Plug-in

Channel Strip Featuring Emulations of Vertigo Sound’s Top Hardware

By Mike Levine

You can think of the Vertigo VSS-2 plug-in as “Vertigo Sound’s Greatest Hits.” Developed by Plugin Alliance in collaboration with Vertigo, this channel strip includes filter and EQ sections based on the VSE-2 Gyrator EQ hardware unit and the VSE-4 Big Discrete Gyrator EQ plug-in. The compressor section is from the VSC-3 Quad Discrete Compressor hardware, and the Tube Saturator comes from the VSM-2 Mix Satellite, an outboard processor based on a 1959 W. Frank custom tube desk.

Thanks to those ingredients, the VSS-2 has what it takes to stand out in the crowded channel-strip market. Plugin Alliance, which sells the plug-in singly or as part of selected subscription bundles, describes it as “the complete Vertigo mixing console in one plug-in.”

The plug-in’s modular signal path features an Input stage with a broad range of ±20 dB. Double-clicking it returns it to 0 dB. For visually monitoring the input signal, there’s an 11-stage LED-ladder-style meter that ranges from -60 dB to 0 dB and changes from green at the lower values to yellow at -18 dB and to red at 0 dB. It’s large and easy to see.

Unlike many plug-ins that change their GUI to reflect singlechannel status when instantiated in mono, the VSS-2 looks the same in all instances. That means in mono you still see the right and left channels of the meter, but the signal only shows on the left. This is also the case with the similarly designed Output meter at the end of the chain. (This arrangement was a bit jarring initially because my brain is accustomed to thinking there’s a problem when I see only one side of a stereo meter lighting up.)

The next module after the Input houses the Low- and High-Pass Filters. It includes a frequency knob and toggle switch for each; the latter sets the slope at either 6 dB or 12 dB. Like all the processing sections of the plugin, you can switch the Filter module out of the circuit. Both the HPF and LPF can be individually bypassed.

SQUEEZE PLEASE

The Discrete VCA Compressor module is based on the circuitry of the VSC-3 hardware and its VSC2 predecessor. Those units are equipped with custom-built “1979”

VCAs, which are renowned for their versatility and smoothness. The compressor in the VSS-2 offers a reduced feature set compared to the hardware but still gives you plenty to work with. It provides variable knobs for Threshold, Attack, Release and Make-Up gain, plus a Ratio control with four settings: Soft, 2:1, 4:1 and 10:1.

Soft mode, which the VSC-2 and VSC-3 also have, provides an input-dependent ratio. It starts at 1:1 and goes up to 8:1 depending on how hard you hit it. The result is less compression when the signal first hits the detector. For example, if you compress a snare in Soft mode, it sounds a bit brighter because its initial transient isn’t getting compressed as much.

I tried Soft mode on various sources, including electric bass, drum kit and electric guitar, and found that it allowed the tracks to breathe a little more and not feel as locked down as with the standard ratio settings. It’s a subtle but helpful feature.

The compressor also offers a switchable Auto-Release for program-dependent release settings. If you want to decrease how much bass information triggers the compression, you can turn on the sidechain filter, which has 90 Hz and 120 Hz settings. Unlike the hardware, there is no Brick Wall mode for limiting.

My overall experience with the compressor module has been positive. In addition to the advantages of Soft mode, it’s easy to control and leans toward the transparent side sonically. Considering that the plug-in also sports a Tube Saturator module, coloration from the compressor isn’t really necessary.

The Vertigo VSS-2 includes modular emulations of various Vertigo Sound processors.

GYRATING AROUND

The EQ is based on Vertigo’s Gyrator EQ circuitry used in the hardware VSE-2 and emulated in the VSE-4 plug-in. In the physical world, Gyrators feature active circuitry and emulate the behavior of inductors for modifying frequencies. They’re known for their smooth response, precision and compactness.

The VSS-2’s EQ features four bands centered at 100, 1,000, 1,000 and 5,000 Hz. The low and high bands feature shelving filters, and the Low Mid and High Mid are equipped with Bandpass filters.

Each band of the EQ section provides Frequency and Gain knobs and a center toggle switch. For the low- and high-shelving bands, the toggle offers two filter-slope choices. On the mid-bands, the switches affect the width of the Q. I would have preferred a Q knob for all bands, such as on the VSE-4 plug-in, but the switches give you at least some control. Pressing the Pre Comp button moves the EQ from its default position after the compressor to before it.

In conjunction with the LPF and HPF, the EQ section offers plenty of frequency control and is pretty transparent. I particularly like the way its low end sounds. On a stereo drum track, boosting at 130 Hz fattened up the kick in an organic way and noticeably improved the power of the drums in the mix.

SATURATION NATION

All the processors in the VSS-2 are handy, but for me, the highlight is the Tube Saturator. Based on the VSC-2 Mix Satellite hardware unit, it’s among the best software saturation processors I’ve ever used. Whether you’re just trying to warm up a signal or overdrive it, Tube Saturator adds pleasing analog characteristics to any source.

It also offers a significant amount of control, including the ability to target the saturation to particular frequency ranges of the source, which is accomplished with a six-position knob called the Input Filter Control. The filter knob allows you to choose whether to saturate the full signal or only a specific frequency zone. Choices include Low, Mid, HiMid, High, Full and Track.

Initially, I was perplexed trying to figure out the difference between the Full and Track modes because the manual—which could use more detail, in general—did not explain it. After some research, including going back to the VSC-2 manual, I found the answer. Full mode applies the saturation to the

entire signal with no filtering. It’s designed for full mixes and buses. Track mode is intended for individual sources and provides some low-end filtering to avoid muddiness.

Other controls include a Drive Control knob, which governs the amount of saturation or distortion. A Level knob lets you adjust the gain going to the output stage. The Shape knob controls a high-cut filter, allowing you to roll off excessive high-end or shape the tone to make it rounder. The Mix knob is a dry/wet control that is helpful when you want parallel saturation.

The two-way Style switch lets you toggle the emulation between Pentode and Triode tubes.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

COMPANY: Vertigo Sound/Plugin Alliance PRODUCT: Vertigo VSS-2

WEBSITE: www.plugin-alliance.com

PRICE: $129 ($89 thru June 25)

PROS: Sweet-sounding and highly adjustable Tube Saturator. Compressor provides transparent dynamics control and includes “Soft” mode. Modules and EQ bands can be switched on and off.

CONS: No polarity switch. Difference between Pentode and Triode settings is extremely subtle. User manual could use more detail.

In theory, Triode should be a little warmer and Pentode a little edgier. The difference is quite subtle on the VSS-2.

Another switch, labeled Type, toggles between two tube amplifier styles: Hard and Soft. The differences are also subtle but more apparent than those from the Style switch. The Hard setting emphasizes the transients a bit more, and it did indeed prove the better choice on drums and other percussive sources. A Post Filter button moves the Saturator, which by default is in the final slot before the output, to directly after the Filter section but before the compressor and EQ.

MORE, MORE AND MORE

Other useful features on the plug-in include a four-slot Comparison Panel, which lets users save and compare four different parameter settings. You can copy and paste from one slot to another and reset any of the slots.

Plugin Alliance also included a Preset Manager, with a moderate-sized selection of presets broken down into Channel and Mix bus categories. You can also create your own folders for saving custom settings. Under the gear icon is the Settings section, which offers some valuable customizations, including enlarging or reducing the size of the GUI and turning on 2x, 4x or 8x oversampling.

One feature missing on the VSS-2 that you find on most channel strips is a polarity switch. Although you probably wouldn’t need it most of the time, it can come in handy and would be a useful addition to an updated version of the plug-in.

The VSS-2 is an extremely capable channel strip. I could see using it on every track and bus in a mix. The ability to turn modules, EQ bands and features within modules on and off reduces the CPU load (if needed) when using multiple plug-in instances. The Compressor is highly adjustable and can control dynamics transparently. The Gyrator EQ sounds quite good, although I wish it had fully adjustable Q knobs like on the VSE-4 plug-in—if you need to get surgical, you might have to open a separate EQ plug-in.

Without question, the Tube Saturator is the star of the show. It sounds authentic and can add analog flavor and warmth to any track. On higher settings, it offers excellent-sounding overdrive.

If I had to choose one channel strip to use when mixing, the Vertigo VSS-2 would be among the leading contenders. ■

The dial at the top of the Tube Saturation section allows users to target the effect to specific frequency zones.

Tech

// reviews

SPL Machine Head

The Holy Grail of Tape Emulation Has Arrived

By Michael Cooper

MOST IMPRESSIVE FEATURE

Unparalleled tape emulation

Like many of you who are reading this, I’ve used numerous tape-emulation plugins over the past two decades. It’s been a mixed bag, with a couple sounding great and the others unconvincing. Now the SPL Machine Head plug-in has come along. My reaction on the very first listen: OMG, nothing sounds this good.

The original algorithm for Machine Head—an emulation of the Lyrec TR-533 24-track, 2-inch, open-reel tape machine—was developed by engineering firm SoundArt in the mid-1990s, the Stone Age for plug-ins. Today’s astronomically increased computing power begged for a major upgrade, which the developers have dubbed the Ultimate version.

The current Machine Head plug-in (a joint venture between SPL and SoundArt) lets you effortlessly switch between using the Original and Ultimate versions in the same UI. Believe me when I say that the Ultimate’s increase in clarity and spatiality is a game-changer.

MORE CREAM, PLEASE

The most important control in Machine Head’s stable is the Drive knob; crank it to saturate the plug-in’s virtual tape and increase perceived loudness. The Drive control is adjustable from -7 to +14 dB in 0.2 dB steps in Machine Head’s Original version and 0.1 dB steps in Ultimate.

The more you saturate real magnetic tape, the more high frequencies are damped (and they’re progressively lost the more you play back analog tape recordings). Machine Head lets you independently adjust Drive saturation and HF damping, or accentuate the highs. The damping range is adjustable from -6 to +6 dB, in 1 dB steps in the Original version and surgical 0.1 dB steps in Ultimate.

The Ultimate version (only) includes an additional Low Freq Adjust control that lets you boost or cut bass frequencies in a range from -6 to +6 dB in 0.1 dB steps. At the 0 dB setting, “head bump” (a boost in bass frequencies inherent in

analog tape machines) is neutralized.

Both the Original and Ultimate versions offer a High Tape Speed switch and associated status LED. Activate it to switch from a simulation of operating the Lyrec TR-533 at 15 inches per second or 30 ips. The higher-speed setting emulates real-world pre-emphasis, resulting in finer resolution and detail in upper-midrange and high frequencies and harmonics.

However, when operating Machine Head at 30 ips, the expected reduction in bass energy from 40 to 70 Hz is not reproduced. Purists: This is a good thing, as it precludes your having to fight changes in low-frequency balance when switching from one tape speed to another, and it puts reasoned control of the bottom end in your hands via the Low Freq Adjust knob.

Rounding out Machine Head’s feature set are input- and output-gain knobs (adjusting levels ±12 dB max, in 0.1 dB steps), L/R LED ladders displaying I/O and drive levels with peak hold, and four buttons (A, B, C, D) for recalling custom presets.

You can also store and recall presets using the plug-in’s menu bar, but there’s a benefit to using the alphabetized buttons instead: After activating one of them, you can switch between Original and Ultimate versions to hear the differences their respective algorithms lend. Note: The Low Freq Adjust effect, exclusive to the Ultimate version, will not be heard when switching to the Original version, and Ultimate’s higher-resolution settings will also be rounded to hew to the Original version’s capabilities.

Machine Head displays all of your current control settings in alphanumeric readouts on the left side of the resizable UI. The only important things missing in the UI are Undo and Redo buttons.

In my mix sessions, I almost always selected Machine Head’s Ultimate version, and not just for its finely engineered Low Freq Adjust control, which lends a huge but tight bottom end, never tubby-sounding. The Ultimate version is the best of both worlds, painting tracks and full mixes with gorgeously creamy texture and boosting midrange girth, while retaining excellent detail and a more open soundstage—especially when using the High Tape Speed setting. Time and again, I was floored by its sound.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

COMPANY: SPL

PRODUCT: Machine Head

WEBSITE: plugin-alliance.com (distributor)

PRICE: $125

PROS: Sounds amazing. Practical implementation of bass control. Simple, intuitive interface. Affordable.

CONS: No Undo and Redo.

When I’ve instantiated a different, widely acclaimed tape-emulation plug-in on selective tracks in years past, some clients with hearing like a bat have asked me to remove it, bemoaning the subtle loss of detail and clarity. You won’t hear those complaints using Machine Head in Ultimate mode, and that’s the main difference between this plug-in’s sound and that of its competitors. Affordably priced, SPL Machine Head takes tape emulation to previously unattained heights. ■

Tech // reviews

PSP Wobbler

PSP Audioware Collaborates With Alan Parsons

By Mike Levine

MOST IMPRESSIVE FEATURE

Easy to use, creatively inspiring, excellent-sounding

Software developer PSP Audioware has partnered with legendary producer, engineer and musician Alan Parsons to create PSP Wobbler, a unique modulation plug-in largely based on a hardware processor from Abbey Road Studios called the Frequency Translator, which was a frequency shifter. The unit was designed in the early 1970s by an engineer named Keith Adkins and was intended for feedback reduction.

During sessions for Pink Floyd’s classic album The Dark Side of the Moon, Parsons experimented with the device and discovered that it also had potential as a creative effect, and he ended up using it on vocal backing tracks on the album.

A frequency shifter works differently than a pitch shifter. Whereas the latter moves the entire signal up or down by a specific interval, a frequency shifter only shifts a specific frequency. Depending on how you set it, the results can sound similar to various modulation effects, including phaser, flanger and rotary speaker. It can also produce filter effects like sweeps and auto-wah.

But PSP Wobbler is more than just an emulation of the Frequency Translator. The Polish software company built in additional

features, including Drive, an analog modeled effect, and Spread, which adjusts the stereo image width.

SHIFTY BEHAVIOR

The user interface features several parameters that impact the frequency shifting (aka “the Wobble effect”). The two most prominent are the Rate and Feedback knobs, each of which has a numeric display above it.

The Rate knob sets the frequency to be shifted and ranges from -25 Hz to +25 Hz. As with a delay, the Feedback parameter causes the signal to modulate itself, which adds more resonance and complexity. A Wobble knob functions as a wet/dry control governing the amount of frequency shifting in the signal.

The Wobble effect has three modes governing the speed of the effect: Rate follows the setting of the Rate knob; Note follows the song tempo and can be set to rhythmic divisions. Sync is similar to Rate, except it starts the modulation on the downbeat and, therefore, sounds more rhythmically precise.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

Several other control knobs are available on the lower row. Drift lets you add frequency fluctuations. Glide impacts how quickly PSP Wobbler transitions when you manually adjust the Rate. Phase allows you to adjust the phase by plus or minus 180 degrees. The Lo and Hi Range controls set upper and lower frequency boundaries for the Wobble effect.

COMPANY: PSP Audioware

PRODUCT: PSP Wobbler

WEBSITE: pspaudioware.com

PRICE: $99

PROS: Frequency shifter produces a range of modulation effects, both unique and familiar. Plenty of parameter options. Easy to use. Drive circuit for analog-style saturation. 121 presets in well-organized categories. Reasonably priced

DRIVING AGE

PSP Wobbler’s Drive circuit adds pleasant, analoglike saturation. You can modify its amount with the Drive knob and change its character with the Age knob—higher Age settings are sharper and brighter.

The Wet and Full buttons let you choose whether to apply the Drive and Age to the entire signal or just the processed part. With the Full button on and the Wobble knob turned all the way down, you can even use PSP Wobbler as a standalone saturation processor.

In addition, you can adjust the width of the stereo image—plus or minus 180 degrees—using the Spread knob. Even with all that range, you don’t want to exceed 90 degrees in any direction or it might impact mono-compatibility. To alert you when your setting is too extreme, the label and numerical display of the Spread knob turn red. Overall, the GUI is well-designed and intuitive. PSP has also included a whopping 121 factory presets, organized into categories, to help demonstrate PSP Wobbler’s sonic possibilities.

On sources like drums, percussion, vocals, guitars and synths— anything I tried it on—I found PSP Wobbler to be easy to use, excellent-sounding and creatively inspiring. Whether I was going for subtle modulation or more extreme effects, it provided a unique and versatile palette. The collaboration between PSP and Parsons was clearly fruitful. Let’s hope they create more plug-ins together in the future. ■

PSP Wobbler combines frequency shifting, saturation and stereo-image manipulation.

Open Channel

The Dopamine-Laced World of Gear Lust

By Craig Anderton

Gear. And more gear. Music gear forums. Arguments about gear. Zillions of YouTube videos on gear. Sure, people get excited about new cars, new shoes and even new watches—but do everyday consumers connect the term “lust” with products as much as our industry does?

So I asked AI to find examples of people using the term “computer lust,” but it came up empty. It also couldn’t find references to “big-screen TV lust,” “wristwatch lust,” or lust associated with other products that nonetheless inspire passion or even obsession. It did find examples of the term “shoe lust,” but ChatGPT added that it “might not be as common as gear lust among musicians.” (It’s not.) The closest find was a blog post about “5 LustWorthy Kitchen Accessories.” Perhaps the ubiquitous use of “gear lust” is unique to our unique industry.

Why? Is it just a clever phrase that caught on…or is there more to the story?

The deeper you dig, the more it looks like the latter—and that’s because shiny new gear and shiny new music have a lot in common when they’re rattling around in your brain. This might explain why people can’t resist downloading just one more compressor plug-in even though they already have 47 different compressors. It might also explain why people spend hours on forums obsessing over new gear instead of, I dunno, perfecting a song’s mix or practicing an instrument. It almost seems that, for some people, gear can substitute for music. What’s surprising is that there’s a biological reason for why that may be the case.

or writing a song is because it brings pleasure and satisfaction. Hmmm…I guess I just love that dopamine.

Yet when it comes to dopamine, new gear and new music have much in common. Part of the reward process is anticipation. The excitement involved in thinking about creating music, or acquiring new gear to further your art, primes your dopamine pump and levels start to increase. When you actually acquire the gear or start the music-making process, the dopamine levels spike. This creates a high that, because we’re human tortillas wrapped around an animal burrito, we want to repeat.

There’s also a key difference compared to lust for other things: gear’s intimate involvement with making or recording music. There’s probably no big-screen TV lust because once you’ve bought the TV, you don’t do anything creative with it. (Although you can use it to solve challenging puzzles, like Prime Video’s streaming service hellscape of a user interface.) You might like showing off cool shoes, but, come on, their mission is simply to buffer your feet from the ground. They’re not involved in creating your day. Over time, the reward process trains our brains to associate music making and music gear—in which we use the latter as a vital partner in the former— with a related feeling of well-being.

What happens when you acquire new gear is not that different from what happens when you create new music. The brain’s reward system that drives motivation and behavior is hard-wired into us.

Of course, there are reasons other than biology for gear lust. With a capitalist economic model, growth is essential to the model’s success, so manufacturers need to entice us with new products, and then convince us that any new features are not just desirable, but necessary. Some marketing uses the time-tested strategy of inducing fear—“without this gear, you won’t be successful, everyone will laugh at you, and before long, you’ll end up scavenging for food in the dumpster behind McDonald’s.”

The biological factors are difficult to dismiss. What happens when you acquire new gear is not that different from what happens when you create new music. The brain’s reward system that drives motivation and behavior is hard-wired into us. Different areas of the brain form a network that processes rewards. It then reinforces actions that bring pleasure or satisfaction by releasing dopamine (aka, everyone’s favorite “feel good” chemical). The reason I enjoy working in the studio, playing an instrument

Ah, but all good things must come to an end, and eventually the dopamine rush dissipates—and like monkeys who’d rather push a button to get an orgasm than eat a banana to fend off starvation, we want our next musically related dopamine hit. Now

But what if the muse is having a spa day on Mount Olympus and you’re not inspired to do something musical at that moment? Problem solved! Gear lust! We get our dopamine hit that may not be music per se, but it revolves 100 percent around the music-making process. We like to experiment with new musical ideas and techniques, and the gear can inspire experimentation. Gear is not an independent element compared to music, but an integral part of giving you that dopamine hit. If you can’t get it by playing music, play with shiny new gear.

I think there’s a lesson to be drawn from this. When gear lust comes over you, pause and prioritize. The goal of being in the studio is not to play with gear; it’s to make music. Fortunately, the two get along very well, but you’re probably better off if you think of playing in the studio as your gear, and direct your lust to that instead. Okay, maybe you’re not inspired. But maybe you will be if you start playing an instrument, or call up a project that needs mixing.

If all else fails…you can always fall back on the dopamine-laced rush of jumping on a pro audio substack and sharing your own version of gear lust. ■