MIX 532 - April 2021

Composer Nainita Desai and ‘The Reason I Jump’ ★ Wireless Audio Systems ★ Valerie June’s ‘The Moon and Stars’ April 2021 \\ mixonline.com \\ $6.99

The Music & Voice of MUSIC PRODUCTION • LIVE SOUND • SOUND FOR PICTURE

‘Genius: Aretha’

MeyerSound, Sony&Netflix Cinema Meets the Home in New Reference-Quality Studio

>REVIEWED LEAPWING AUDIO AL SCHMITT PLUGIN CRANBORNE AUDIO EC1 PREAMP AUDEZE LCD-X HEADPHONES

04.20 Contents

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Volume 45, Number 4

FEATURES

MUSIC

TECHNOLOGY

10 Valerie June Goes

30 Tech Spotlight: New Wireless

to ‘The Moon and Stars’

BY BARBARA SCHULTZ

14 Book Review:

16 Meyer Sound, Sony & Netflix Cinema Meets the Home in New Reference-Quality Studio

BY TOM KENNY

20 ‘The Reason I Jump’: Composer Nainita Desai Gives Voice to the Autistic Nonverbal

BY JENNIFER WALDEN

24 ‘Genius: Aretha’: Raphael Saadiq, Cynthia Erivo and Authentic Respect for the Queen of Soul

BY MATT HURWITZ

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Bill Schnee’s ‘Chairman of the Board: Recording the Soundtrack of a Generation’

BY TOM KENNY

15 Word of Mouth: Louis DeFelice’s

Custom Racks and Studio Furniture

BY TOM KENNY

DEPARTMENTS 8 From the Editor:

No Need to Go It Alone

9 Current: Blue West Adds API 2448;

Mr. Bonzai’s ‘Faces of Music’; Francesco Benvenuto Cleans Up His Power

Audio Systems and Products

BY THE MIX EDITORS

32 New Products: Studio and Live Sound

BY THE MIX EDITORS

36 Review: Leapwing Audio Al Schmitt Signature Plugin

BY BARRY RUDOLPH

38 Review: Cranborne Audio EC1 Preamp

BY MIKE LEVINE

40 Review: Audeze LCD-X Headphones Creator Package

BY BARRY RUDOLPH

42 Back Page Blog: Digging

Console Emulation; Don’t Be Fooled By 10-Percent

BY MIKE LEVINE AND STEVE LA CERRA

On the Cover: The new reference-quality re-recording stage at Netflix on Serrano includes Sony’s new and advanced Crystal LED direct view display and the new Ultra Reflex monitoring system from Meyer Sound, with overall system design

by Ron Lagerlof of Visioneering Design.

Photo: Adrian Tiemens Mix, Volume 45, Number 4 (ISSN 0164-9957) is published monthly by Future US, Inc., 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036. Periodical Postage Paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Mix, PO Box 8518, Lowell, MA 01853. One-year (12 issues) subscription is $35. Canada is $40. All other international is $50. Printed in the USA. Canadian Post Publications Mail agreement No. 40612608. Canada return address: BleuChip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.

Vol. 45 Number 4

April 2021

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Current From the Editor

No Need to Go It Alone I’m sure that there are many, many legal precedents that determine what constitutes a partnership, alliance, collaboration, joint venture, letter of agreement, verbal commitment, or any other situation where two or more people, or two or more companies, decide that they would like to try working together toward a common goal.

Movie and television studios, and their production/distribution arms, bet millions of dollars on such deals with every project. Record companies negotiate with artists on each new contract, sometimes adding partners to a deal, or to a one-off performance. Manufacturers and distributors in our own industry deal with the subtleties all the time in getting product to the public at a certain price. Just last week, iZotope and Native Instruments announced an alliance by forming a new Audio and Music Creator Group, while each retaining their brands and identity.

These are business arrangements, each unique and each implemented for its own reason. They are necessary, of course. Typically, there are lots of dollars at stake for everyone when entering a partnership. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about other types of partnerships, other means of collaboration, the kind where a few industry professionals sit down to dinner and find out by dessert that they have a common desire to push a particular area of the market. Not just their own product, but the market.

Mix has featured two such stories on the cover in the past 11 months. Last May, it was PMC, Dolby and Universal Music Group, along with TIDAL and Amazon, coming together to kickstart the emerging Dolby Atmos Music market. I’m not naïve enough to think that there weren’t formal deals behind the scenes involving promotion, marketing, expenses and whatnot. But the foundation of the arrangement came from of a small group of colleagues and friends who made it happen, from the ground up and not from a surprise executive board decision, with press release to follow.

This month on the cover, we feature a new high-end, reference-quality studio/lab for sound and picture, the end result of an informal, ground-up effort by Meyer Sound, Sony and Netflix. It features Sony’s relatively new Crystal LED direct view display technology and a new Meyer Sound Ultra Reflex monitoring system, and it sits in Netflix’s showcase Dolby Atmos facility, straddling the line of quality control and research between cinema and home. And it all started because Kevin called Miles, while at the same time talking to Jimmy, and they all needed speakers, displays and a facility to make it come together so that they could show film and television and streaming professionals what’s possible.

The aura surrounding Netflix is remarkable. It’s a story that will be taught

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in business schools, modeled by other industries, and studied by entrepreneurs and technologists for decades to come. Here is a company that launched in 1997, in the heart of Silicon Valley, with the simple idea of entering the massive, Blockbuster-dominated video rental market by introducing subscription pricing and mailing out DVDs. The aura surrounding Sony and Meyer Sound is equally remarkable, each in its own way. It would be hard to name a company that has done more, across decades and on a global scale, to advance both the home and cinema entertainment experience—from cameras to televisions to microphones, from the 3324 to the Discman. The company owns Sony Pictures Studios, for goodness sakes.

Meyer Sound’s aura, meanwhile, goes back to the birth of quality live sound, back to Steve Miller, then the Grateful Dead, later to find its way into premier venues around the world, from Montreux to Carnegie Hall. The first powered studio monitor, the HD-1. Top-of-the line on Broadway and in Hollywood, as the company branched into new markets, all based on science and measurement, all designed to enhance the entertainment experience.

Then there was Ron Lagerlof of Visioneering Design, one of the top systems and design specialists in the country, who brought all these new technologies together at Netflix. It’s a good story.

There was a time when big companies did nearly everything on their own, holding on to their proprietary systems. If a facility was to be built, then the inhouse team might hire a designer or a consultant, demo products and accept bids, then build it themselves and open the doors with a big splash. None of that happened here.

To truly push the state of the art, in whatever field, it helps to bounce off of others. These three companies found that they all had an interest in the future of production and exhibition, from cinema to home. Sony had its new Crystal LED direct view display, Meyer Sound developed a companion Ultra Reflex audio solution, and Netflix brought the will and the space.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past year of isolation, there’s no need to go it alone.

Tom Kenny Editor

Current // news & notes Blue West Adds API 2448 Analog Punch The hitmaking Los Angeles studio Blue West, run by producer/musician Bill Jabr and head engineer James Kang, has installed an API 2448 recording console to better meet the needs of clients who include Andre 3000, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Kiko Cibrian, Wale, Ne-Yo, Pi’erre Bourne and tracks for the late Juice Wrld’s posthumous album.

“Our API gives us a solidly built, quality analog body that stands on its own,” says Jabr, noting the front-end tracking, monitor section and ease of use as standout features. “Together with the convenient direct outs and small fader inserts for more tracks at mixdown, this all gives us the capability to track and mix larger projects in a smaller footprint. There is no better sound on guitars and drums than the API sound and the API punch.”

Jabr started his first facility, the Blue South production room in Atlanta in 2009, with Kang joining as the studio’s first intern. In 2014, the duo branched out to Los Angeles.

“We approached breaking into the Los Angeles scene the same way we did with Atlanta, from the ground up,” Jabr says. “We put our small setup in the best room we could afford at the time and got to work. Six years later, our Atlanta facility has turned into one of the premier locations of the Southeast, while in Los Angeles we’ve been fortunate to be a part of countless number one records.” ■

The Power of “Mixing From Home” When Covid-19 hit, engineer/producer/educator Francesco Benvenuto had to leave his usual space at Luminous Sound Studio, Dallas, where he engineers and teaches. The Latin Grammy timeline was approaching, and he had to keep working. So… “During Covid, we had to take all the equipment home and try to make it work,” he says. “We have all this analog equipment that truly needs the right electric power to run decently. When I set up the system at home initially, the result wasn’t what I was looking for. It was sounding very noisy, and I was frustrated.”

Benvenuto reached out to engineer friend Luca Pretolesi, an avid Torus Power fan, and found himself talking with Ross Whitney at the company. “Ross told me to put in a kilowatt meter and see what kind of electricity I was getting. Right off the bat, I liked that he gave me advice before I even purchased anything,” he adds.

Benvenuto ended up purchasing an AVR 20 unit from Torus Power, which he employed immediately. in order to help meet a tight deadline for the Latin Grammys.

“I am not easily impressed,” Benvenuto says.

“I’ve had years of experience listening to very high-quality stuff, and this is a whole nother level. When I plugged in my studio monitors, all of a sudden they reacted differently. I heard none of that noise. And the soundstage, depth, everything became bigger. There is a saying in the recording industry that ‘you can’t mix what you can’t here’. And now, I was hearing every single detail.” ■

“Faces of Music” Re-Released Digitally Mr. Bonzai’s “Faces of Music: 25 Years of Lunching with Legends” is now available in a new digital Apple Book edition.

The original coffee table hardback edition, published in 2006 and long out of print, has been converted to a digital edition by BookBaby and is now available at the Apple Book Store.

On September 29, 1967, David Goggin, aka Mr. Bonzai, attended his first recording session at the invitation of John Lennon.

The location was London’s EMI Studios, now Abbey Road, and the song was “I Am The Walrus.” In attendance were John, George, Paul, Ringo, George Martin and engineer Ken Scott. This set the stage for a life exploring the world of music and recording.

In 1980, Mr. Bonzai settled in Hollywood to begin this collection of photography and writing.

Mr. Bonzai, who launched his column “Lunching With Bonzai” in Mix back in the mid-1980s, is an award-winning photographer, music journalist and author. ■

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Music To the Moon and Back Photo Credit: Renata Raksha

Valerie June Grows Beyond Roots and Soul

By Barbara Schultz

V

alerie June’s co-producer, Jack Splash, wanted to make sure that he fully understood June’s songs. So, along with demo recordings of her new music, he asked her to send him all of the lyrics—not a weird request, but not a very common one, either. June complied, and she took it one step further, sending along the poems she’d been reading: important works that had inspired her lyrical ideas.

“Being the magical angel that she is, at the end of each lyric, she would also give me an excerpt of an Emily Dickinson poem, and another one from the Sufi teaching of Hazrat Kahn, for example,” he explains. “She told me, ‘This song was inspired by the poet Hafiz who wrote ‘The Gift.’”

Responding in kind, Splash sent June a volume of Sun Ra poems. Musician and producer developed a complex connection, and The Moon and Stars is the musical, mystical fruit of that friendship.

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“Before I met Valerie, I’d been very intrigued by the unique mixture that she seemed to have under the surface of her music,” says Splash, whose stellar credits include Alicia Keys, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige and many others. “People usually put her in the folk and singer/songwriter genre. But I always heard tons of different elements in her music. I was excited to work with her because, when I’m a fan of someone’s music, as a producer, I always imagine what kind of music I’d make with them, and I thought working with Valerie could be really exciting.”

Their production builds on June’s soul/blues/ country roots, adding lush, but often subtle, ethereal touches that set each song in its own ambient world. The gospel soul of “Stay” (Track 1) includes synths, flute and strings supporting the dominant piano and drum rhythms; it’s followed by “Stay Meditation,” a short, reflective improv on the sounds of the first track. Artistically and

spiritually, June is reaching for even more than her own wonderful songs convey.

STARTING FRESH Splash and June began the project with some inventive but meticulous work in Splash’s personal studio, Fresh Young Minds (Sherwood Forest, Calif.). For about six months, it was just the two of them, developing and fine-tuning songs and arrangements.

“We knew that in the end we would have some pretty wild, lush arrangements,” Splash says. “But I wanted to make sure that in the beginning we were really nailing down the core of each song, so that nothing would get lost in the production. I figured if we kept it super intimate at the beginning, with just her and her acoustic guitar and a banjo, and me with all my toys—synths, keyboards and drums—through experimenting we would create a map of where

we wanted the music to go.”

Splash did his own engineering in Fresh Young Minds, operating with the idea that everything must be recorded well enough to keep if they wished, but knowing that eventually they would employ further studios and musicians to realize the songs fully. He set up stations for June’s vocals, guitars and banjos, as well as the “toys” he played, and captured everything to his Pro Tools rig.

June’s vocals were recorded through a Neumann U47, as well as a Manley Reference Cardioid tube mic that she brought to the session; both mics were run through a BAE 1073 Preamp/EQ. Royer 121 ribbon mics were set up for her acoustic guitar and banjo.

“Those ran through my True Systems Precision 8 mic preamp, so I could get the full tone of the acoustic guitar and banjo, as well as a bit of the room,” Splash says. He played his Yamaha U3 upright piano on the sessions, capturing that through two AKG C414s, also through the True Precision 8 preamps.

“Sometimes we would just put down all the organic elements—acoustic guitar, keys, vocals— and after Valerie left for that day, I would come up with a crazy rhythm that might work with it. I’d play those things for her when she came back and we’d decide whether it worked or we should try again—just planting the seeds of the nuanced, weird kind of psychedelic stuff that we knew we wanted to add.”

All of the electronic keys (MiniMoog Voyager, Jupiter 6, Juno 106, Mellotron, Mark II Fender Rhodes, Dave Smith Prophet 08) went direct to Pro Tools. “We used a lot of virtual instruments, as well,” Splash says. “We had UVI Vintage Vault, Arturia V Collection, Output Instruments for

Photo Credit: Ian Mercel

Photo Credit: Ian Mercel

Dwayne Bennett played Criteria’s Yamaha grand piano, captured by engineer Ian Mercel via a pair of Neumann KM84s above the hammers and a spaced pair of AKG C-414s outside the open instrument.

Co-producer Jack Splash, left, with June and engineer Ian Mercel in Criteria Studio A.

synths and pads. To lay out demos of some of our original string ideas, we used EastWest Symphonic Orchestra.

“For the live drums at my studio, I used my vintage Rogers Cleveland mid-’60’s kit with the Rogers Powertone Snare, and I swapped out the snare with my vintage Ludwig ’60s Supraphonic and my Ludwig Black Beauty for a few tunes,” Splash continues. “I ran the kick through an Electro-Voice RE20 mic, the snares through a Neumann KM84, the hats through a Shure SM81, and the overhead was an AEA R84 ribbon.

I ran all of those through my True Systems mic pre and then also the kick and the snare through two API 550b EQs for a little tightening up.”

Splash also did some drum programming via a 1967 Ace Tone Rhythm Ace FR1 Drum Machine, and for further drum programming and overlays, he used his Emu SP1200 and Akai MPCX. “This first phase was just Valerie and I almost all the time, but at one point, I also had my friend Ryan Spraker do some overdubs of bass and electric guitar, which we took direct through my Avalon U5 into Pro Tools,” Splash says. “Then I used various plug-ins inside Pro Tools for some fun amp effects.

“During this phase we were realizing and expanding on things Valerie had recorded in the original demos that she made in Logic before she came to L.A. And in a few cases, we did actually keep parts of those original demos. For example, there was a track where she had a [Roland] 808 drum program. It was weird and looped kind of incorrectly, but it was so cool. It gave me the vibe of something Bjork would do. She wanted me to redo it, but I said, ‘This is the vibe. Let’s not fix it. Let’s build from it.’”

BUILDING TRACKS IN MIAMI AND L.A. Splash created rough mixes of the songs that he and June worked on in Fresh Young Minds before the project moved to one of his favorite commercial facilities, Criteria, in his former home of Miami.

“When I’m producing a session with a band, I don’t engineer,” Splash says. “So I brought in Ian Mercel—a great engineer who I love to work with in Miami—as well as some great musicians from there. We did a bunch of new organ parts, piano, Rhodes and horns. We also redid a lot of my drums and some of Valerie’s vocals, added more electric guitar, electric bass, Latin percussion, too, which was so awesome because you have the whole diaspora of Latin America in Miami.”

“We worked in Studio A, which is the largest at Criteria,” adds engineer Mercel. “We would set up individual stations and break them down as we went, because most of the musicians were only recording for a few hours.”

Musicians who rotated in and out of Criteria’s SSL 9000-equipped Studio A included Dwayne Bennett (Hammond Organ, piano, Rhodes, synths), drummer David Chiverton, electric guitarist Eric Escanes, bass player Carlos Guzman, percussionist Humberto Ibarra, and horn players Wayne Perry (trombone), Ted Zimmerman (trumpet), and Scott Klarman (tenor and baritone sax, and flute).

“The first sound lock before entering Criteria’s massive live room was where we set up Valerie,” Mercel explains. “Her setup always included her acoustic guitar, as well as vocals. Finding a balance between her voice and guitar along with a decent amount of isolation was critical. We did

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being the bass and vocals through that Neve 1073. The SSL has a great sound, and the EQ is fantastically simple and silky.”

Before long, however, Splash was due back in L.A., so phase two of The Moon and Stars continued at Eldorado Studios in Burbank, Calif., with engineer Phil English at the Pro Tools HDX and an SSL Duality console. Splash assembled yet another outstanding group of musicians: Spraker on bass and electric guitar, keyboard player Alfred Rutherford Jr., electric and upright bass player Kaveh Rastegar, drummer Carlin White, banjo and electric guitar player Justin Lucas, percussionist Davey Chegwidden, and horn players Phillip Lassiter (trumpet), Alex Wasil (trombone), and Leon Silva (tenor and baritone sax).

“Eldorado is a really cool space, Co-producer Jack Splash was glad to get percussionist Humberto and I’ve been fortunate enough to be Ibarra involved in June’s Miami sessions. “You have the whole able to call the ‘B’ room home for the diaspora of Latin America in Miami,” he says. Mercel baffled off an iso “booth” within the live room for Ibarra. last few years,” English says. “The two control rooms are either side of the “A poem that Valerie gave me with ‘Call Me a shared live room, so for this session we rented the A room and turned my control Fool’ wasn’t a poem at all,” Splash recalls. “It was room into an additional recording space. I set that African proverb; the author is unknown. I both the drums and the horns up in there—on said, ‘You need to say that proverb before the song, separate days—which is how we got a really and I’ll create a mystical musical bed underneath controlled and focused sound. The actual live it. So she did several different versions of it room was set up with stations for keys, guitars, herself, but in her mind, she wanted an elder to read it, and almost at the last minute she was able bass, et cetera. so we could move easily.

“Jack is very artist-focused and always wants to to get Carla Thomas to do that [with Boo Mitchell be ready to capture anything that is happening,” and assistant engineer Brad McCullough] at Royal English continues. “If a sound is too specific Studios in Memphis.”

“Then, right before we got to mixing, Valerie as it’s dialed in, that can hamper that process.

That’s why I am careful to keep the chains simple wanted one final little meditation piece to close out the album. She wanted to use a Tibetan and clean for him.” singing bowl and play something almost atonal.

She was in Tennessee at the time, visiting her FINISHING TOUCHES Among the last puzzle pieces to be added to The mom. She went out in the woods and recorded Moon and Stars were the strings, arranged by what sounds like bells, but it’s her playing the Lester Snell, which Splash postponed until near singing bowls, and there were actual birds the end, sensing that arrangements and even tweeting. She sent it to me and I arranged some very simple piano underneath it. Then I brought songs might keep changing.

Another late addition was vocals by legendary the track in where I was working with Tank and soul singer Carla Thomas, who provides the Bangas, and their flute player, Allenback, backgrounds on the single “Call Me a Fool” and added a flute part. That’s the last thing we recites the short “African Proverb” in Track 6: did before the whole album went with Kennie “Only a fool tests the depth of the water with Takahashi to mix. It’s just a short piece at the end, but it meant the world to her and me.” ■ both feet.”

Photo Cred it: Ian Merce l

something somewhat unorthodox, and it came out pretty interesting.

“Valerie brought her Manley Reference mic for her vocal, which we ran into a Neve 1073 and a Tube-Tech CL-1b compressor. We usually use a Neve preamp for vocals, but we don’t typically use a compressor. However, Valerie’s voice is very dynamic, and having a nice tube compressor really smoothed things out. I used two AKG C414s in a quasi-ORTF stereo configuration. I placed all three microphones very close together and pointed the vocal mic up toward Valerie’s mouth, which rejected some of the guitar, and pointed the mics for the guitar down, away from her mouth, which helped reject her vocal. I was a little concerned that things might get a bit hairy, but it ended up sounding great.

“There is another, smaller sound lock that we crammed the drummer, David Chiverton, into,” Mercel continues. “He’s used to us putting him in small, dry rooms with just four microphones.

We love the sound of a mono ribbon mic for the overhead. We close-mike the snare drum on top and mike the kick drum, and typically use a nice condenser on the hi-hats to add some crispness; there we ended up using another one of Valerie’s mics, an AEA R44C.” Mercel set up the three-piece horn section against a wall in the live room and used gobos to help contain the reverb of that large space. He captured the horns with a pair of Coles 4038s for the brass instruments, and a beyerdynamic M160 for woodwinds.

“I also built an isolation booth of sorts in the main live room for the percussionist, Humberto,” Mercel says. “We used a single Neumann U47 FET as an overhead for a vintage sound. We also put up Valerie’s R44 as a spot mic for tambourine.

“With the guitarist, Eric Escantes, we almost always record directly out of his pedalboard into a nice preamp. He has a lot of standard pedals, along with some tasty boutique pieces that he likes to get wild with! We do the same with the bass, direct into a Neve 1073.”

On the grand piano in Criteria’s live room, Mercel set up a stereo pair of Neumann KM84s above the hammers and a spaced pair of AKG C414s outside of the piano with the lid open.

Bennett also played B3 with a Leslie cabinet and created some electronic parts with a MIDI controller hooked to his laptop.

“I used the SSL’s channels for almost everything,” Mercel continues, “the exception

Music // book review Chairman at the Board: Recording the Soundtrack of a Generation (By Bill Schnee, Backbeat Books)

F

rom the outset, engineer/producer Bill Schnee makes no bones about the fact that he considers the late-1960s to mid1980s as the Golden Age of Recording, and he makes a good argument for it. The birth of the modern recording studio was in full swing, custom consoles and monitoring systems were growing out of thier custom, in-house roots to becoming actual products, and the techniques for tracking and mixing were just being discovered as engineers bounced around studios from Los Angeles to Nashville, New York to London, with a bit of the Bay Area thrown in.

Bill Schnee, an engineer not typically mentioned in the same breath as the Al Achmitts and Glyn Johns’ of the industry, was in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s, the eye of the storm. After reading his memoir, “Chairman at the Board,” any reader would walk away thinking, “This guy belongs. Why don’t I know more about him?”

“Chairman at the Board” walks through his magnificent career in remarkable detail, with Schnee’s memory for names and places lending a credence and clarity to every anecdote. While the book advances largely in chronological time, from his debut as a musician in the L.A. Teens on through his work with Huey Lewis & the News, then Mark Knopfler, then early Whitney Houston, with a little soundtrack work thrown in.

It’s a rich legacy of talent at the microphone. And yet, Schnee offers up equal respect and insights for the session musicians he worked with over the years, going so far as to list them, with personal comments, in an Appendix at the back.

The book is set up in chapters that focus on a particular artist and particular moment that marked a point in Schnee’s career. There is Three Dog Night early on, then Barbra Streisand, Harry Nilsson, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr (joined by

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the other three Beatles), Gladys Knight, Marvin Gaye… We don’t even get to his work on Steely Dan’s Aja until Chapter 11! Interspersed throughout each chapter are relevant asides and noted projects he was working at the time, as well.

There is certainly a lot of star power in the room, but it’s the early chapters regarding Schnee’s entry into recording, while his father was pushing for him to get a real career and he was going to college while working on his music, that resonate with anyone who has spent time in the recording industry.

There was Toby Foster, the guy who built a rudimentary console to replace the two-channel knobs that he was using at his first job, Mark Studio, and later pushed his name throughout Los Angeles. To this day Schnee cites Richie Polodor, who owned American Recording, the hottest independent facility in town at the time, as “the single most talented musician/engineer/ producer I ever met.” Polodor took a chance on him behind the board for Three Dog Night’s second record, and he provided Schnee with his first “aha moment,” setting a standard for what a record could “sound” like. He was his first mentor.

Schnee also gives a lot of credit to his relationship with producer Richard Perry, and to his friend Doug Sax, who taught him how to listen, as well as how monitors behaved. Sax was just getting his own studio, The Mastering Lab, going at the time.

He would prove instrumental in getting Schnee into Producers Workshop and help him realize that quality recording mattered, that there was space and depth and emotion to be had.

The many in-studio stories are told in a matter-of-fact manner, to the point that at

times you just go, “Are you kidding me? Then John Lennon walked into the room? Brian Wilson? Mick Jagger can be heard on ‘You’re So Vain?’” The dry manner almost doesn’t do a scene justice, but by the end, it’s clear that the straightforward approach lends even more magnitude to Schnee’s accomplishments.

The book includes a photo section, as it’s always a treat to look inside history. It also includes rich passages illuminating Schnee’s thoughts on technologies and techniques along the way, from that first 2-channel console (You’ll thank me later in your career, the studio owner told him, for working on “less than” equipment right now), to the entrance of the Wendel jr. electronic drum machine.

Throughout the book, Schnee casually mentions his working and personal relationships with the greatest engineering talent of the time.

It’s clear that he belongs at the table.

One final note. Schnee is a thinker, and he has a set of personal philosophies. Many of those pop up throughout the book, while others are gathered in a closing Appendix. It’s these insights that help bring out a human touch, a reminder that these are people in the studio, making music, recording the soundtrack of a generation.

—Tom Kenny

Music // first person Too Much Down Time?

Get Out the Saw!

Louis DeFelice, in the Queens woodshop/ warehouse of Carpenter Studio Gear.

Engineer Louis DeFelice Creates Custom Racks and Studio Furniture

By Tom Kenny

W

hen the Covid-19 shutdown kicked in last March, Louis DeFelice was living in Brooklyn and at the very early stages of his audio career. Having graduated from Yale in 2016 with a B.A. in English, he had already interned and assisted at Electric Lady Studios and had just started a job at Gramercy Post, doing sound design, editing and mixing to picture.

One year later, he’s still at Gramercy, albeit without as many hours. Meanwhile, he has added custom woodworking to his skill set and launched a boutique studio furniture company, first out of his parents’ garage, and six months later from a warehouse in Queens, where he owns and operates Carpenter Studio Gear. His is an excellent story of taking the opportunity provided by down time to indulge another passion. And making it a success.

Can you describe where you were in your career when the pandemic hit?

I was six months into my job at Gramercy Post.

Moving to entirely remote work last March was particularly hard because I lost the opportunity to sit in and actually watch the other engineers work. As the youngest person on staff, I had a good deal less experience, so learning the ins and outs of the other engineers’ approaches became a bit harder. I was also working on maybe four or five albums in different capacities, and those

2U Desktop Rack

projects were all initially put on pause as everyone spread out and began quarantining. And of course performing at live shows was and is a no-go.

You say that you ‘had some time on your hands,’ but it had to be more than that. Where did you get the passion for woodwork?

When the pandemic hit, I went down to South Carolina to be with my family. Audio people are lucky in that we can work wherever we have a computer and headphones. I obviously couldn’t go anywhere on evenings or weekends, so I’d try to stay busy at the house. My dad has a shed in the backyard with some materials, so we spent time fixing the porch, building a lean-to, that kind of thing. I grew up on a farm, so a working knowledge of a lot of tools was just a given.

In the meantime, I wanted a better rack for my home rig back in the city, and so did a friend. I found an old dresser on the side of the road, took it apart, cut it up with a handsaw in the kitchen and sanded it down. I called it my Redneck Rack.

I did a much nicer one for my friend a few months later, and that cemented some of the techniques that I use now, as well as clued me in to the fact that other engineers might want these. After posting a couple photos online with an offer to custom-build other ones, things took off.

From your parents’ garage to a big space in Queens, it has happened pretty fast.

My first proper sale was June 1, 2020. At that

A four-space angled rack.

point each order would require a trip to Lowes to buy just enough materials for a single rack. By a month or two later, when I was driving back to New York from South Carolina, I actually had to pull over twice to stop at Home Depots because orders kept coming in while I was driving. By mid-August I hired a buddy to help me, and we’d work together on the weekends out of the little garage outside my apartment. At that point it was still a fun and manageable weekend gig. Once the winter hit, though, working in and out of the tiny, unheated garage became unsustainable.

As of January 2021 we share an enormous, wellappointed woodworking facility in Ridgewood (Queens). They’ve got every machine you could really want, and we have the space now to store big shipments of lumber, rack rails, boxes, finishes, etc.

Anything else we should know?

I feel lucky. Starting a small business is intensely stressful, but I’ve gotten a lot of good breaks along the way from forgiving customers, helpful friends, etc. The customers are amazing. It’s also meant a lot to me to put tens of thousands of dollars in the drawers at local businesses, and rent money in the pockets of the people I’ve employed, at a time when work is pretty hard to come by. While my first love is music and sound, this has been a phenomenally rewarding experience so far, and I’m very curious to see where it goes. ■

Custom mix desk for workstation, controller and six single-space units.

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MeyerSound, Sony&Netflix

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Cinema Meets the Home in New Reference-Quality Studio

treaming services for film and television were already competing with exhibition and cable as the primary means of media distribution when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Then, once it became clear that the shutdowns would last a bit longer than originally expected, the floodgates opened.

Consumers started upgrading their home offices and their entertainment systems, ordering bigger, newer, more advanced monitors and displays. Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Discovery+ and others launched to much fanfare over the next 12 months, joining juggernauts Prime Video, Hulu, Apple TV+ and, of course, Netflix, the company that first changed video rental, then on-demand viewing, and then streaming. Quite simply, Netflix changed the way consumers consume content.

At the same time, in just a few short years, the company has earned a seat at the Hollywood table, alongside Disney, Universal, Sony, Warner Bros., Marvel and the rest. In hindsight, it almost seems that the rise was to be expected. Few could have foreseen how fast it happened.

Netflix made a key decision nearly a decade ago when it started adding real estate and easing its way into Hollywood: It would not take work away from the established facilities by building dozens of edit suites and re-recording stages.

Instead, the company would focus on improving the audio and video streaming experience through research, innovation, quality control, and creative and technological partnerships.

The “Crystal LED Lab” on the Netflix campus

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By Tom Kenny in Los Angeles, which quietly debuted six months ago this month and is featured on this month’s cover, is a perfect example of what can be accomplished when smart people at leading technology companies—Netflix, Sony and Meyer Sound, with Visioneering Design bringing it all together—unite for a common purpose: to deliver the best possible, referencequality experience in picture and sound; and to show creatives what’s possible.

PICTURE MEETS SOUND While the Hollywood stage was completed in 2020 after about 12 months of planning and construction, initial concepts and discussions between Netflix and Sony began taking place as far back as 2017. The following year, Sony showed its Crystal LED direct-view display technology at Cinema Con, and Kevin O’Connor, Sony Director of B2B Sales, called Miles Rogers, head of the Cinema Department at Meyer Sound, to ask if he could provide speakers for their booth.

“We told Miles that we have this new technology, and it’s direct view, so we all knew there were going to be some sound considerations,” O’Connor says.

“That’s where Miles got a big grin, and he came back saying, ‘We are already in motion with this, and I cannot think of a better pairing than Sony and Meyer Sound.’

“Around the same time, we were meeting with Jimmy Fusil at Netflix and had shown him the display a few times,” he continues. “We felt that we had the picture where we wanted it. But we all knew that the big question was going to

be, ‘Can we get it to actually sound the right way?’”

Put simply, the challenge in providing audio playback for direct-view, or “emissive,” displays is that the screen Left-Center-Right speakers can’t be placed behind the screen. For the past 90 years, projection and perforated screens have anchored the B-Chain, and cinema speakers, playback standards and mixing techniques have been based around that sense of headroom, imaging and clarity.

Competitors have offered different solutions over the past couple of years, most of them some variation of left and right just outside the edges of the “screen,” with the center channel above it and aimed down. The placement is even part of the Dolby Atmos recommended spec for direct view displays. For obvious reasons, this can present problems such as effects localization, dialog clarity, music imaging, and overall and relative levels—especially when taking into account translation from theatrical to home environments, and vice versa.

“We started working on possible solutions in 2017 when it became clear that these emissive displays were coming,” Rogers recalls. “We went through all of the different versions of, ‘What does a phantom center sound like if you put loudspeakers above and below the screen? What does imaging and phantom center sound like if you put loudspeakers left and right of the screen?’ We found that each of these approaches had compromises in that they worked for one seat, or maybe three or six seats, but not for the

PHOTO: Adrian Tiemens

In the completed Hollywood stage, from left: Ron Lagerlof, principal of Visioneering Design, Miles Rogers, head of the Meyer Sound Cinema department and co-inventor of the Ultra Reflex Solution, and Ryan Hufford, partner at Visioneering Design.

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BUT WILL IT WORK? Crystal LED technology is not new. Sony introduced it publicly as early as 2012, but nine years ago the market for high-end direct view displays was tiny.

In the following years, a market began to emerge on the corporate side, and Sony began installing a handful of large displays around the world, including a 65x8-foot wall in the lobby of Japanese company Shiseido, as well as slightly smaller versions for Honda, Fox Sports and many others. At its root, Crystal LED is based on microLED, HDRcapable, fully scalable displays with proprietary control and signal processing systems.

“We had initial success on the corporate side, but we quickly figured out that there was a potential market in creative suites and high-end screening rooms with the studios,” O’Connor says. “That primarily came through our early work with Sony Pictures, and then with Netflix.

“The Netflix display includes 78 cabinets, each of them roughly 14x16 inches. It’s 17 feet wide by just over 9 feet high, and 99 percent of the surface area is black,” he adds. “That gives us a contrast ratio of more than 1,000,000:1. Contrast has always been the bugaboo in a theater environment, and to

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PHOTO: Adrian Tiemens

Sol Levante, the first 4K HDR hand-drawn anime short in Dolby Atmos, onscreen in Netflix’s lab at its Hollywood campus.

PHOTO: Adrian Tiemens

majority of seats in the room.

“Then we decided to focus on embracing the nature of these displays, which are acoustically reflective, and find a way to use that to not only reflect and put sound into the room, but also to create a sound image where the listener localizes to the left-center-right positions on screen.”

Reflected sound has mostly been thought of as something to fear by studio designers and mix engineers alike, something to be “dealt with.”

Early reflections, console reflections, secondorder reflections, frequency cancellations, frequency amplification and so on. John Meyer didn’t invent the concept of making reflections an ally, though his company now has a patent pending for “optimum reproduction of discrete screen-channel audio on large-scale direct view (“emissive”) video displays.”

“What makes Ultra Reflex different is that it’s full bandwidth, meaning that it’s not just about the frequencies that can be controlled and reflected off of the wall,” Rogers says. “It’s about the combination of the reflected sound with the low-frequency, direct-radiating sound that couples together in the audience area to give you a full-bandwidth, full dynamic range, powerful cinematic experience.”

At left, a straight-on view of the Meyer Sound Ultra Reflex ceiling-mounted LCR “monitor wall” in the Crystal LED Lab; at right, detail of the Ultra-X42 speakers covering left-center-right by aiming down at the display and reflecting to the mix position

get to a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio was unheard of.

We can do that with direct view. It also has viewing angles of nearly 180 degrees, so left, right, top and bottom, there’s no change in picture, no change in color.”

Meanwhile, the Meyer Ultra Reflex Solution is precisely that, a solution. The Netflix installation incorporates three Ultra-X42 loudspeakers mounted in the ceiling and aimed at the Crystal LED display to handle LCR, with 28 HMS Series powered monitors for the walls and ceiling, to go with four USW-210P subwoofers for surround bass management, five X-400C cinema subwoofers for LFE and two VLFC very low-frequency control elements for room-shattering bass. The room is Dolby Atmos-certified and has quickly recallable snapshots in Galaxy for theatrical Atmos or 9.1.6 home entertainment playback modes, in addition to recalling the Dolby recommendation of loudspeakers at the sides and top of the screen for A/B comparison.

Theoretically, other Meyer Sound loudspeakers

would work, too as the system is scaled up or down in size and room volume. For an upcoming project, the company will be implementing linearray components across the front. The secret sauce is in the proprietary DSP optimization, supplied by a Galaxy 816 Network Platform.

“We have maintained the cinematic targets of headroom,” Rogers explains. “It’s not just about hitting a reference level of 85 dB, C-weighted in these rooms, it’s about maintaining 21.5 dB of headroom above that. That plays linearly, lowdistortion and clean so that you can have that full power experience. I’m spoiled at Meyer Sound in that all our loudspeakers are built on a design platform of linearity through their entire operating range. That gives us the ability to scale up to big rooms and down to smaller rooms and maintain that same performance, right now.”

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER While Sony’s Crystal LED technology provided the impetus for creating a new, leading-edge, future-

Plus, the off-axis imaging is amazing. You can sit at the end of the console and still clearly hear the whole sound stage. It has a really nice, broad sweet spot.”

Lagerlof often works hand in hand with Ryan Hufford, his partner at Visioneering. The console is an Avid S6, and by the time they started room tuning and calibration, they had worked out some unique settings within the Avid MTRX to accommodate the flexibility of the space for theatrical or home playback.

The speaker tuning and speaker mapping was all done in Galaxy, with the left, center, right speakers around the screen and the Ultra Reflex and the subwoofers all done in one processor, and all the surround speakers and overhead speakers through other Galaxy processors, allowing them to address each speaker individually, or, for home playback, to address them as preset pairs when 32 channels of playback came down to 9.1.6.

“Those pairs were set up in Galaxy, and we can recall all of those presets from Crestron,” Lagerlof explains. “Jesse Coyne, here in our office, did some very elaborate Crestron programing—a nice GUI so you can select just the front speakers or, you know, this pair and not that pair, things like that. And then upstream of that, we are using the MTRX for switching between the outputs to bring up consumer playback. The Dolby CP-850 outputs are converted to Dante so that we could switch between the cinema processor and the Trinnov Altitude 32 AV processor.”

RAISING THE BAR FOR STREAMING Netflix has put a lot of effort into improving the streaming experience over the last decade, with a commitment of upfront costs that translate to customer trust and loyalty. The company has demonstrated its commitment by developing adaptive streaming technologies to improve bandwidth allocation for both picture and

PHOTO: Adrian Tiemens

Meyer Sound HMS Series monitors along the side walls at the Netflix Hollywood campus; a total of 28 HMS monitors and four USW-210P fill the walls and ceilings.

PHOTO: Adrian Tiemens

proof, reference-quality stage, it was Meyer Sound’s solution to the LCR challenge that sealed the deal.

After two-plus years of concepts, drawings, visits, updates and demos, it was time to build. The space, a former Deluxe screening room with significant acoustic design, was ready, and Ron Lagerlof of Visioneering Design was brought in to tie all the components together.

Lagerlof has arguably designed and integrated more immersive studios than anyone in the country, from the major film studios to private facilities. His surround sound credits predate the advent of 5.1, and many of his clients he is not allowed to divulge. He is one of those unique audio characters who combines a deep understanding of technologies with the heart of a mix engineer. He is also proficient in underwater photography, and his long hair was there long before the pandemic. He’s worked with Meyer Sound on many, many projects over the years. The Crystal LED Lab was his first for Netflix; more rooms are already in the works.

“It was really a well-designed room,” Lagerlof says. “We didn’t have to go into the walls, but of course there was additional acoustical treatment done by Studio 440. They did an amazing job in preserving the shape and the fabric of the room.

And they created some custom ceiling panels to allow sound to just develop and not bounce around or be reflected back.

“You’re basically in the same kind of environment that you are in a traditional mixing room,” he continues. “So, you’re going to have some early reflections. You’re going to have to have absorption where you normally would have absorption. You don’t want slap echoes. That’s all having to be controlled pretty much the same. But what’s coming off of the Ultra Reflex speakers? You want to make sure that you’re not putting yourself in a position where you’re going to hear direct sound coming from the ceiling itself. You want to make sure you’re just hearing what’s being reflected in.”

“Quite frankly, when I heard what Meyer Sound was planning, my first thought was, ‘Are you kidding me? We’re going to get this off the screen?’” Lagerlof adds with a laugh. “But when I actually heard it, I noticed right off the bat that the clarity, the detail, was so much better, and the image was astounding. And I’m hearing reverbs and room tones and detail that you normally don’t hear coming from speakers behind a screen; it’s just there. Basically, my ears are telling me that what I’m hearing is accurate.

The Meyer Sound Galaxy control and processing rack for the Ultra Reflex monitoring system at the Netflix Hollywood campus.

sound across the service, with 5.1 audio sounding identical to uncompressed masters in the home, not to mention the early adoption of 4K picture.

And they’ve demonstrated that to professionals by being the first to adopt Dolby Atmos mixes on delivery lists, and most recently with the opening of the Crystal LED Lab for content creators. The collaboration between Sony and Meyer Sound is an agreement to work together to push the state of the art, including in the Crystal LED Lab. This particular marriage of high-end sound and picture provides a roadmap for the future, as costs come down and directview displays become available to all. Since the completion of the Netflix room, Sony has already introduced two new models of Crystal LED panels, with, you can bet, more to come.

“That’s what’s really exciting to me,” says Rogers. “We have these high-brightness, high dynamic range displays, and when you combine that with Meyer Sound speakers in Dolby Atmos, it’s that combination of technologies and just that creative cinematic experience that becomes so immersive in every single way. It gives me the feeling that this is the future.

“It’s kind of a gift that Netflix has put this room together,” he adds. “Basically, they said, ‘Listen, we’ll build this room that supports the infrastructure, not only for Crystal LED, but for whatever loudspeaker layout we need to be able to support theatrical and home entertainment. And that’s exactly what they did.” ■

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‘The

Reason I

Composer Nainita Desai Takes Found Sounds, Improv

C

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Orchestra and Gives Voice to the Nonverbal

transforms a typical rainstorm into something akin to Higashida’s experience of it.

The sound design—created by sound designer Nick Ryan—acts as an abstract representation of Higashida’s writings, while the music represents the emotional state. “Jerry [Rothwell] wanted to blur the lines between music and sound design, so they interwove hand-in-hand, illustrating and amplifying what the characters are feeling,” says award-winning composer Nainita Desai, who was named one of the Top 5 composers of 2020

by Britain’s Film4.

PHOTO: Phil Watkins

ommunication is an intrinsic part of being human. Sharing ideas, feelings, opinions—that’s vital for the well-being of social creatures. Imagine having a terrible day and not being able to vent, all of that frustration bottled up inside. It’s said that “misery loves company,” but what if a person had no way of communicating with anyone else?

Director Jerry Rothwell’s documentary film The Reason I Jump delves into the lives of six nonverbal autistic individuals, one of them Naoki Higashida, who wrote the book that inspired and informed Rothwell’s film. In his book, Higashida sheds light on his mental process—what it’s like to be neurodivergent, and more specifically, what it’s like to be nonverbal.

Because Higashida’s experience of reality differs from that of a neurotypical individual, Rothwell had license to play in a subjective reality as he interpreted the experience for the audience. Higashida wrote that in order to make sense of what’s happening at a particular moment, he scans his memory to find a similar experience. Rothwell represents this in the film using a rainstorm. The subjective sound of rain falling—played with processed chimes, glass tinkling and deep, reverberant droplets—is what

Jump’

Composer Nainita Desai

By Jennifer Walden

Rothwell asked Desai to work with found sounds in her score, and with her background in sound design and musique concrete, it proved a natural fit. “Sound design is very much a part of my foundation and what I love,” she attests, offering examples from the film that use closeup shots of fan blades spinning, a pottery wheel turning, and truck tires traveling down the road. “I took the location recordings they gave me, chopped them up and created rhythmical patterns out of them. Out of these found sound elements, I would grow and evolve pieces of music so that you didn’t know whether what you were hearing on-screen was music or whether it was tonal or whether it was sound design.”

In another scene, Higashida’s book lay open on a table. Desai used the subtle sounds of human breathing and water droplets hitting paper to create a rhythm track that precedes the visuals.

“The effects and the music are blurred and jelling together,” she says. “It’s quite subconscious.”

In her score, Desai explored concepts that Higashida discussed as part of his perception of reality, such as repetitive and circular motion (time having no clear direction but just going around), and noticing small details first, which gradually coalesce into a complete image.

Joss, an autistic child who hears music in the hum of electrical boxes

"Just as autistic people perceive the detail in objects before they perceive the whole picture, I start with little fragments of tiny elements that come together like a jigsaw puzzle as the piece of music evolves."

—Nainita Desai Neumann U87 and Neumann TLM193. I also changed my mic position to vary the perception.

Sometimes I used my voice like a resonant cavity to change the character depending on the shape of my mouth. I recorded very long, single takes so that as the scene with the transmission towers opens out, the voices open out at the same time.”

Desai wanted the “Green Boxes” track to have full dynamic range, from low bass tenor to soprano, despite the limited range of her vocal performances.

She says, “I used Logic and Melodyne’s pitch-shift processing for some of the layers to create a wider frequency range, and I’d change the formants as well with Soundtoys Little Alterboy. I enhanced

For Desai, the opening cue “encapsulates all the concepts of autism that we were trying to make people aware of in the film,” she says.

“The first piece starts off with a lighthouse going round and round so you’ve got these oscillations, this circular motion. Just as autistic people perceive the detail in objects before they perceive the whole picture, I start with little fragments of tiny elements that come together like a jigsaw puzzle as the piece of music evolves, with string elements and saxophone and finally vocal elements over the title card. The elements appear in a very subtle way, introducing these characters to the world in a gentle way.”

Composer Nainita Desai conducting the nine-piece improvisational orchestra.

PHOTO: Benjamin Ealovega

VOCE PIENA The film follows one autistic individual named Joss, who hears the hum of electrical boxes (or Green Boxes as they’re called in the film) from miles away. He’s drawn to these boxes, and loves the “music” he hears in the buzzing.

“To him, it sounds like a choir of angels,” Desai says. “We didn’t have the budget to record a choir, so our challenge was, ‘How can we do this? How can we go from the rumble of these generators and build it up to this massive abstract choral piece?’”

The solution was to record her own voice, one take after another, until she had nearly 50 tracks, as she explains: “I recorded in different spaces, with various mics, including the UAD Townsend Labs Sphere L22 to model various mics, the

the tracks with delays and reverbs like Exponential Audio reverbs, and Eventide Blackhole. 2CAudio’s plug-ins came in really handy, too.”

Music is used to convey a film’s emotion, but Desai also “wanted to represent the character’s internal voices with the human voice because they’re non-speaking,” she says. “But I wanted to do this in a more abstract, unusual way because of how they perceive the environment and the world around them.”

Desai’s vocals are a defining element that can be heard throughout the score. Through cutting, layering and processing she created complex, rhythmic, ethereal and evocative sounds. They’re sounds, notintelligible words. But the sounds weren’t arbitrary. She took key phrases from Higashida’s book (in their original Japanese) and broke them down into their smaller consonants, vowels and syllables.

“I deconstructed those broken-up phrases and then reconstructed them with various treatments and layering so I could create a rhythm using the voice,” she explains. “There was one phrase, for example, ‘we are outside the flow of time,’ which is a poignant phrase in the book. I wanted to get those aspects of autism across because the passing of time is very different from the way neurotypical people experience time.”

Desai experimented with granular synthesis using Output Portal, as well as GRM Tools, to add an “element of random chaos. I used unusual delays and reverbs to create a randomness to the takes and recordings where it would be slightly out of control.

You didn’t know quite what to expect,” she says.

But Desai didn’t want the vocals to sound machine-like or robotic. Her treatments weren’t

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Jestina, one of the six autistic individuals featured in The Reason I Jump.

Ben, one of the six autistic individuals featured in The Reason I Jump.

MAKING THE BAND The found sounds and vocals are supported by cello, violin, prepared woodwind, and saxophone—sometimes treated until the source sound is unidentifiable. Instead of roughing out complete cues using virtual instruments and then transcribing those parts for the musicians, Desai chose to construct the score from a series of experimental sessions with cellists Elisabeth Wiklander (who is autistic), Marion Long and Matt Hawken, violinists Daniel Pioro and Sarah Harrison, bassist Malcom Laws, saxophonist Ben Vince, clarinetist Heather Roche, and guitarist Arthur Dick.

Her first rounds with the musicians were more aleatoric. Working with one musician at a time, Desai would prepare ideas and sketches for that musician as a creative kickoff for their improvisation. But she would set strict parameters for the improvisation initially, and then guide their performances using hand signals during the recording sessions.

For instance, while working with the cellist, Desai says, “I would direct the player to only use five notes and then conduct them by pointing my finger upwards when I wanted them to go up a tone. If I pointed my finger downwards, I wanted them to go down a tone at specific moments in time. I’d record that as a take. And then we’d do another layer on top and another layer and another layer. We’d end up with this interweaving sea of cello parts that created a really thick, rich piece of music that was based on pure inspiration. It was really quite exciting

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PHOTO: Stella Lungu

so extreme that the vocals ceased to sound human and organic. At the same time, the vocals couldn’t sound too intelligible, and she didn’t want them to be too pure or clean. “I wanted it to be slightly rough around the edges. I wanted to keep the rawness of the recordings and not clean it up too much.”

Composer Nainita Desai in her personal studio.

because there was this element of the unknown coming into the recording session.”

Desai worked with clarinetist Roche to create a prepared clarinet. They covered the bell of the instrument with aluminum foil and put some water into it. “It created this amazing sound, almost like a didgeridoo,” says Desai.

“We thought, ‘How far can we push this?’ I was just trying to be more experimental and find ways of creating a library of sounds and phrases that I could play with and integrate into new compositions while I was writing.”

Desai wasn’t scoring to picture in these early sessions, so her imagination provided inspiration for how the score might sound. She would compose tracks and then bring the musicians back in to play on top of those. “Bringing in the musicians at various stages would take me off onto different creative tangents. It was like having a branch of a tree and then going off into lots of different branches as the months evolved,” she says.

This improvisational aspect continued through editing, as well. Desai would compose

five or six different ideas and give those to the director and editor, who would edit the tracks into different sequences in the film, sometimes “totally out of context in places,” says Desai.

“They would send me the rough-cut scenes, and I’d see a piece of music used in a place I didn’t originally write it for. But it was really interesting and it worked. So then I would develop those pieces and write more to picture at that point.”

This exchange allowed the music to help inform the narrative as it evolved in the edit, and that helped to inform the music and the sound design, too. Desai says, “The sound designer would give me elements that I’d integrate into the music, and I’d give him my stems and elements and he would then integrate that into the soundscape. It was very much an organic process.”

RE-MIX The score continued to transform throughout the film’s final mix. One of the most challenging cues for Desai was during a sequence in which the fictional representation of Young Higashida is

wandering through a forest. The narration at this point discusses the experiments that the Nazi’s performed on people with disabilities during World War II. There are gritty archival recordings with the voices of Nazi “scientists” proclaiming their opinion on neurodiverse individuals.

“It’s a very dark moment in the film, a very emotional scene,” says Desai. “I wrote quite a dramatic piece of music using layered cellos, and it was quite abrasive and hard with driving energy.

The piece worked on its own, but when we played it against the archival recordings, it was too much— too overwhelming and very emotive.”

Since she brought numerous dry stereo stems of her tracks to the Dolby Atmos mix with rerecording mixer Ben Baird (who began pre-dubbing at Aquarium in London before finishing the mix at Point1Post in Elstree, UK), they had the flexibility to deconstruct the cues, place musical elements in the surround field, and re-process the stems to blend with the sound design. “For that particular forest cue, we really went to town in the mix. We rewrote the piece with the stems in the moment in the mix,” says Desai.

While filming The Reason I Jump, the production sound team captured impulse responses of the

different locations. They were used during the mix to treat the sound design and the score. Desai says, “We put the cues into the space of the environment on-screen. So the cello was put inside the sound of the forest. There, it’s much more dreamlike, stripped-down and reverberant. It’s echoey, and it’s weaving and drifting in and out. Another example is the piano cue in the art gallery sequence. You hear the sound of the piano and it changes from

buzzing gradually blends with Desai’s choir, building in intensity as Young Higashida in the film runs toward a tract of transmission towers.

Desai explains: “We really opened it out, with height and width, and frequency range.

Sometimes we had elements swirling around at just the odd moment. I created various stems and grouped the vocals together and placed them around the space. The sound gets bigger

"We put the cues into the space of the environment on-screen. So the cello was put inside the sound of the forest. There, it’s much more dreamlike, strippeddown and reverberant."

—Nainita Desai one space to another. It all goes toward having this subliminal, subconscious effect on the audience.

When you’re watching the film, you don’t quite realize it, but it’s all having an effect on you. It was that much more immersive.”

The Dolby Atmos surround field was also very effective at enhancing the audiences’ experience of the green boxes sequence with Joss. The electrical

and bigger, wider and wider until you’re totally enveloped in this choir of angels. When the film showed in Dolby Atmos at Sundance last year, it was just so powerful and quite overwhelming and slightly disturbing, as well—it was quite abrasive to a point where you almost wanted to cover your ears, like Joss does in the film when sounds become overwhelming.” ■

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Aretha Genius:

From pre-production with Raphael Saadiq to live vocals by Cynthia Erivo, the Queen of Soul gets authentic respect and a modern feel

By Matt Hurwitz

Actress Cynthia Erivo singing live for camera on the FAME Studios set.

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PHOTO: National Geographic/Richard DuCree

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O ne day in early December 2019

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Pre-records were created at Raphael Saadiq’s Blakeslee Recording by the core team of, from left, engineer Hotae Alexander Jang, music executive producer Raphael Saadiq, music producer/arranger Jamelle Adisa.

PHOTO: National Geographic/Richard DuCree

Jamelle Adisa, who works with artist/producer Raphael Saadiq, stood in an Atlanta studio and watched as actress Cynthia Erivo belted out “I Never Loved a Man” in her full Aretha.

Sitting at a piano and singing a cappella, Erivo was delivering live vocals to camera, to playback in her earpiece of the reproduced backing track Adisa had created a month earlier in Los Angeles.

Actors portraying original Muscle Shoals session musicians quietly played along on a set that reproduced the legendary FAME Studios. “We’re in good hands on this,” Adisa smiled.

Saadiq, executive music producer on the film, and Adisa had been tasked with re-creating the sound of some of Franklin’s most cherished recordings for the late-March premiere of National Geographic Channel’s Genius: Aretha, the third season of the network’s popular Genius series.

Erivo had apparently decided quite early on that she wanted to sing live—and be recorded—on set, not lip syncing to a pre-recorded vocal track.

“We naturally wanted to record everything in the studio,” says Saadiq. “But Aretha was a live player, whether it’s singing in a church or a venue.

And Cynthia wanted to get as much of a natural, live feel as she could.” The Saadiq-Adisa-Erivo tracks complement Terrence Blanchard’s beautiful score recordings, which were tracked after episodes were completed earlier this year.

The backing tracks Erivo sang to represent not only the well-known recorded masters released

by Franklin, but also live and filmed recordings, all well-known to fans. The songs were selected by showrunner Suzan-Lori Parks, representing specific, important moments in Franklin’s life, requiring subtle tonal changes that occurred over time. It was also key that they produced mixes that did not sound completely of their time.

“We really wanted to nail the arrangement

Actors Kimberly Hebert Gregory (as manager Ruth Bowen) and Cynthia Erivo as Aretha.

Courtesy Blakeslee Recording

and stay true to the styles more than anything,” adds Music Supervisor Jen Ross. “It’s not about recreating the recording, but really about honoring the tonal emotion behind it, about her genius.”

PRE-RECORDING THE BAND Tracking took place at Saadiq’s Blakeslee Recording Studios in North Hollywood, a space he acquired back in 2002. The facility has three large live rooms, a mix room and a large warehouse, which can serve as a soundstage when needed. The biggest of the live rooms, Studio A, is large enough to fit a 50-piece orchestra, its walls packed with cool and unusual pieces of gear Saadiq has collected over the years. “It’s a candy shop, man,” says his engineer, Hotae Alexander Jang.

The control room is similarly stocked with vintage gear, including Scully 280 and Neve 1073 mic preamps, Universal Audio LA-2As, which Jang found the perfect component to handle bass tracks for the sessions. “The Scully 280s really give us the sound we usually make here—flubby, woolly, warm analog tape—which was perfect for the drum sounds on this,” he describes. He also makes ample use of a vintage. “We’ll also put guitars or drum mics through [an Ampex tube 4-channel mic

and line-in mixer] to sum, to make a 2-mix.”

He describes the console like most of the gear in the studio, much of which has been altered to serve Saadiq’s needs. “It’s an SSL 4000E, but it’s a Frankensteined SSL!” he laughs. “There are some G Series channel strips in there. I fight with it every day. But I love it.”

While the songs were initially tracked to the studio’s Studer A827 24-track tape machine, production shifted to Pro Tools after a month’s recording. “We started isolating instruments a little better, and they wanted us to roll the dirt back some,” Jang explains. “But I made sure, before I sent out deliverables, that we still had the Blakeslee sound; we had to sneak in a little bit of dirt.”

Saadiq and Adisa assembled a core cadre of prime players for the sessions, who made certain to try to match both instruments and amps to the original recordings. Players included Erick Walls on guitar (playing through a Fender 68 Princeton Reverb, miked with a Shure Unidyne 545SD and RCA 77DX, passed through the Ampex mixer), bassist Dmitry Gorodetsky, drummer Carl Lemar Carter, and keyboardists Matt Jones and Ernest Turner, among others. Adisa, a respected trumpet player, led the horn section, which included Rickey Woodard doubling the legendary King Curtis.

In keeping with the goal of recording as close as possible to original Aretha masters, the initial process involved matching the original tempo. Jang would create a click track in Pro Tools, matching as best as possible the BPM of the original, though the process would evolve later in a big way.

In scenes that would depict studio sessions, Aretha is sometimes seen working with the musicians to flesh out a tune, as seen in the first episode, for example, in a montage of quick cuts of different passes. For those scenes, Adisa, who would develop his arrangements in Logic, had to come up with a variety of styles for the countless attempts seen onscreen. “We would start with just recording the full song, as it is on the released master,” he explains, “and then we would reverse engineer from there. How would we get into

the song if there’s a brand new idea? It was fun, actually. For arrangements, I just thought, ‘Well, what was popular at that time? Okay, shuffles, triplet feels, Fats Domino-type styles. Maybe a ballad, maybe this.’ So we just did a deep dive.”

In post, Music Editor Marvin Morris and ReRecording Mixer Dan Brennan made use of “B-roll” leftover session bits requested from Adisa, of musicians noodling around on their instruments between takes.

“Even though they’re not on camera, we might have a guy talking to Aretha,” Morris describes.

“She might be sitting at the piano, getting ready.

But you still have the drummer back there, maybe he’s tuning up his drums, or the bass player’s running through the chart, trying to get his licks right, until the singer says, ‘Okay, guys, let’s take one.’ If you’ve ever been in a session, you know how hard it is to get those guys to calm down for a second and focus!” he laughs.

When mixing, Brennan, working out of Soundtrack New York alongside dialog mixer Ken Hahn, would carefully wait until the pass in the scene that produces the final, known master, before applying a mix that closely mimics that song’s known mix. “There’s a moment in there, where the band’s working with her, and they’re trying to find it—they haven’t found the magic yet.

You have to save a little of the polish until it clicks, for that fun moment when the magic happens.

Then it’s ‘Let’s sparkle it it up a bit, give it more of that album feel, less ‘We’re in the studio with them.’

If you think of one of these songs in your head, you have an idea of what it sounds like. So you want it to feel the way you remember it.”

Brennan use tools such as Fab Filter plug-ins and tape emulation to bring in some of that feel, but introducing the kind of distortion on vocals, horns, etc., existent in original vinyl masters— and remembered by fans—would cross the line.

“If you try to match that against what’s onscreen, trying to be with these people and buy the dialog, it just doesn’t fit. We want it to hopefully feel like she’s in your living room, playing in studio

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PHOTO: Mike Sal

“Amazing Grace” miking setup, where some mics had historically accurate shells but modern guts: Shure 546 with Schoeps M4 capsule (center), EV 664s (sides, practical), Neumann U87s to cover the choir at rear.

PHOTO: Mike Sal

RECORDING VOCALS ON SET The on-set recording and playback systems were set up by veteran Production Sound Mixer Jay Meagher, who recorded to a Zaxcom Deva 24 with the Mix 16 moving fader platform, backed up with an Aaton Digital Cantar X3 24-track recorder.

Atlanta local John Maskew provided playback for Erivo, as well as recorded any instrumentation that might have been tracked.

But the most important elements of the system were microphones. While boom operator Brian Didsbury employed Sennheiser MKH50s to pick up dialog, the microphones Erivo is seen singing into had to serve two purposes: they had to represent history, and they had to provide a healthy vocal recording.

“I had one stipulation,” Meagher states. “I wanted everything to be historically true to the time. If she’s got a microphone in front of her face and she’s singing, it’s going to be practical.

And that set the bar pretty high, to find some of these microphones that, first of all, would work, and then, if not, that we could manipulate them to work for us.”

Didsbury, it turns out, is an aficionado of this specific era of soul music and performance, and was able to easily identify period microphones.

Meagher then worked with the prop department to source shells of those mics, some supplied by Vermont-based Sonic Circus.

“They have a lot of vintage equipment,” Meagher explains. “And whatever they had that didn’t work, we could use their shells and put contemporary guts from other microphones in them.” The Unidyne Shure that Erivo is seen singing to in earlier episodes was actually fitted with a Schoeps MK-41 capsule. The Electro-Voice

Production sound mixer Jay Meagher at his rig on set. Meagher tracked both dialog and Cynthia Erivo’s live vocals.

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PHOTO: National Geographic/Richard DuCree

for you.”

Actor David Cross portraying producer Jerry Wexler, with Erivo.

576 and 667s seen in the “Amazing Grace” episode also contain Schoeps elements.

For studio sequences, getting real Neumann U47s was, financially, out of the question, so Meagher acquired U47 replica mics made by FLEA. “U47s are iconic for those Muscle Shoals and Atlantic sessions,” he says. “So we bought those.” Powering them was a pair of racks he kept, featuring Universal 4-channel 710 preamps. “Those really wake up those vintage, big-diaphragm microphones.”

Maskew’s playback rig is centered around Pro Tools Ultimate, run on a Macbook Pro. He uses MOTU audio interfaces, the main one a 28-in, 30out 828x with Thunderbolt connection. He uses Electro-Voice ZLX-15P powered speakers, often to

provide 50Hz “thump tracks” on set. “They get our backgrounds moving in sync with the music when we’re trying to capture clean dialog,” he explains.

Maskew sends Erivo a mono playback mix (prepared by Adisa) from his Comtek transmitter to a tiny Phonak Invisity earwig in-ear receiver.

Music will begin playing out in the room via the EV 15Ps, switching to the earwigs when recording either her vocal or dialog.

Meagher, meanwhile, would back-feed Erivo’s vocal tracks he had recorded to Maskew, so that he could give Adisa work mixes that included multitracks of the instrumentation. Maskew, if recording instrumentation on set, would track to Pro Tools while providing a 2-track stereo mix to Meagher, who would track to his system live. That, with vocal, was provided to picture editorial.

BACK TO THE ORIGINALS While the intention was to have the Music Department create a backing track for Erivo to hear in her earpiece while singing, that only lasted for the show’s first episode. By the time Franklin is seen on The Steve Allen Show performing a version of “Skylark” in episode two, the actress had asked for a change.

The cool jazz arrangement heard on the original broadcast had been transcribed by Adisa, but, Maskew notes, “She really wanted to do it exactly like the live performance. So I quickly ripped it from YouTube and fed it to her earwig. And once

PHOTO: Mike Sal

she got a taste of this method, that’s when she started requesting to have the original Aretha tracks for each of her performance scenes.”

The problem was that once her vocal track was sent back to Blakeslee for Adisa to marry to their backing track, the two didn’t match. His was recorded to a click track that came close to the original master, and hers was sung specifically to the original master.

“We would find we had to adjust our instrumental in certain spots, doing some retrofitting and praying to the gods of Ableton!”

Adisa says, noting his use of the software for time compression and expansion of bits of music to match Erivo’s vocal. “It’s a lot more stable for that than Pro Tools.”

By the following episode, after wrestling in the same way with tracks for “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Morris notes, “That’s the one that really alerted everybody to what’s going on. It was just a bear to get it in sync when I got it back from set.

That’s when we put a pause on things to figure out what we could do to not make it such a big headache for everybody.”

The decision was made that from then on Saadiq’s musicians would track to a toned-down mix of the original Franklin master, with Jang adjusting EQ to reduce the full spectrum of frequencies. “Just dip some things out and let them fill in the gap,” he says. After recording, Adisa could then apply Aretha’s original vocal

Set re-creating the legendary Atlantic Studios in New York City.

separation, which he had earlier derived using iZotope RX, to the new backing track, as a check.

“That was a sure test, to see if we had it,” he says.

There was one exception. In the series’ sixth episode, the team re-created the recording of Franklin’s Amazing Grace, a live album recorded in January 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, with a live band and choir. It’s a big moment, and director Anthony Hemingway decided he wanted to have real musicians on the set and record them playing the music live. The crew had just come back from the Covid break.

“When we came back,” Maskew recalls, “he said, ‘For this episode, I want them to really play. I want to see the instruments move.’ He could tell, sometimes, when reviewing previous episodes that the actors weren’t touching their instruments, trying to keep them quiet for us for vocal recording. But for this he wanted them to really play, to be truly authentic.”

That September decision threw the Sound Department into a brief scramble, with shooting taking place only a few weeks later. Atlanta musicians were hired to perform to camera, and real instruments and additional period mics had to be brought in. The multiple takes used in picture editorial meant that the live-band performances varied in tempo and energy from pass to pass.

“Editorial would work with the two-track mixes of each take that Raphael and Jamelle had prepared, and each cut used a different performance,” music editor Morris explains.

“There were 15 or 20 takes for each of the three songs. So I had to go through each and find that phrase from that take’s performance for that cut, insert it into my timeline, and then move on to the next.” He would do any slight time compression required, sometimes to Erivo’s vocal, to produce spot-on lip matching

to the image, and then create smooth crossfades between each bit. A tedious task, but one which the veteran editor says, “It was fun!”

MIXING MUSIC FOR THE SPACE With the wide variety of venues seen throughout the series—everything from intimate recording studios to large halls—Brennan had to create specific environments for each. Using Exponential Audio Stratus 3D and Symphony 3D reverbs, he says, he would build the rooms with appropriate echo and space. “I really tried to bounce off that back, to get that back-of-the-concert-hall kind of slap, where you hear the kick drum and snare bounce off that back wall. ‘Cause that’s the thing that always drops me in the space.”

He would also grab Audio Ease Altiverb 7 and Exponential Audio PhoenixVerb to “build a little P.A. system, with maybe a little bit of distortion, like older P.A. systems had out on a tour. I would normally start with the mix from the album because that’s still what everyone’s referencing in their head, especially on better-known songs. And then it was a matter of, ‘Okay let’s put it in this venue. Let’s get it really feeling the space.’”

For the “Amazing Grace” music scenes, Brennan even went to the effort of hiring a loop group to add in shout-outs from the crowd, as he had seen in the documentary shot of the recording. “It really gets you this great call-and-response energy back and forth.”

The resultant recordings provide something that’s far more than basic re-creations of Aretha Franklin’s recordings. They help reveal her true genius, all from her own experience, as the Genius series has done for three seasons.

“There was a lot of care and attention that was put into totally honoring what her legacy is and what this work is,” says music supervisor Ross. “It’s far more about the heartbeat of Aretha’s music legacy. It’s the genius of Aretha.” n

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Tech Wireless Products:

Stage and Comms

SHURE SLX-D DIGITAL WIRELESS SYSTEM The SLX-D Digital Wireless System, the digital replacement of the company’s popular SLX system, features new mechanical designs, exceptional audio quality, more reliable RF performance, streamlined setup, and more.

SLX-D provides end users with greater channel count than SLX, smart rechargeable options, and simplified ease-of-use. The system is offered in single and dual-channel options. Transmitters run on standard AA batteries or an optional lithium-ion rechargeable battery solution with a dual-docking charging station. Features include reliable RF, with outstanding signal quality and digital modulation, enabling operation of up to 32 channels per frequency band without

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spotlight desktop, or tablet—from anywhere: At Home, On-Prem, Site-to-Site, or in the Cloud. OnPrem: Telos Infinity VIP hardware or your own server for on-prem installations. Integrated: For both On-Prem or Cloud versions, Telos Infinity VIP system can be integrated with Telos Infinity beltpacks and hardware panels, or any thirdparty intercom or audio subsystem using AES67 or SMPTE 2110-30 connectivity. Cloud Server: A complete Communications infrastructure in the Cloud with connectivity options for integration with third-party, cloud-based and On-Prem audio subsystems. Software as a Service: Various Telos Alliance partners will offer a Telos Infinity VIP SaaS option, allowing users to lease it in a virtual environment.

worrying about dropouts or signal fades; excellent audio quality with a wide dynamic range, while preventing distortion, for a clean, natural instrument and vocal sound; and ease of use, equipped with Guided Frequency Setup and a Group Scan feature that lets users set up multiple channels more efficiently by assigning frequencies to all receivers automatically via Ethernet connections TELOS INFINITY VIP VIRTUAL INTERCOM PLATFORM As we went to press, Telos Alliance released Telos Infinity VIP Virtual Intercom Platform, which delivers sophisticated comms virtually, making Cloud-based media production workflows available on any device—smartphone, laptop,

LECTROSONICS DCR822 DUAL CHANNEL PORTABLE DIGITAL RECEIVER The Lectrosonics DCR822 is a high-performance, portable two-channel receiver compatible with Lectrosonics mono and stereo digital transmitters. It is also backward-compatible with Lectrsonics’ Digital Hybrid Wireless transmitters and can tune across six Lectrosonics blocks.

SmartTune and two-way IR sync simplifies the identification of clean channels and transmitter setup. A new RF front end design provides low-noise amplification, high sensitivity and extremely low intermodulation susceptibility.

Vector Diversity smoothly and continuously combines RF signals from two receiver front ends per channel for maximum signal integrity.

The DCR822 can record receiver audio directly onto a microSD card in WAV (BWF) file format at 24 bits/48 kHz.

CLEAR-COM FREESPEAK EDGE WIRELESS INTERCOM Clear-Com’s FreeSpeak Edge, its most advanced wireless intercom system, features more control and configuration options thanks to advanced frequency coordination capabilities and intuitive design features in the system’s transceivers and beltpacks. FreeSpeak Edge uses audio-over-IP AES67 connectivity, an advanced 5 GHz chipset with a proprietary radio stack development optimized for intercom, and exclusive RF technology based on OFDM. The band’s higher frequencies mean there is more bandwidth for data, which allows for finer control, additional audio channels, lower latency and better audio quality. FreeSpeak Edge can be combined seamlessly with FreeSpeak II 1.9 GHz and 2.4 GHz systems, supporting three wireless bands across a single unified communications system.

PLIANT TECHNOLOGIES CREWCOM CB2 The latest member of the CrewCom family, the new full-duplex, install-friendly and featurepacked CrewCom CB2 is designed for small to mid-level applications requiring a reliable, great sounding wireless intercom with excellent RF coverage and range. Available in both 900MHz and 2.4GHz frequency options, as well as 900MHz Oceania and 2.4GHz CE compliant models, the system includes the CrewCom CB2 base station and up to six CRP-12 two-channel radio packs. Two CB2 base stations can be connected and the audio synced to create one system with up to 12 full-duplex users. The new CrewCom CRP-12 radio packs feature the same batteries as CrewCom, making the batteries compatible with its 6+6 Drop-In radio pack and battery charger.

RØDE WIRELESS GO II Røde has updated its wireless mic system with the release of Wireless Go II. Retaining the form factor of the original Wireless Go (released in 2019), the new edition offers additional features such as dual-channel recording; expanded compatibility with devices and camera; improved transmission; and onboard recording. The Wireless Go II is now a dual-channel wireless microphone system, allowing users to record two sound sources simultaneously or use it as a single-channel wireless mic. It also now includes onboard recording, capable of more than 24 hours of audio direct to each transmitter. Go II also sports new Series IV 2.4 GHz digital transmission with 128-bit encryption, delivering an extended range of up to 200 meters (line of sight). The new units feature a 3.5 mm analog TRS output, USB-C and iOS digital audio output, with built-in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for up to 7 hours of battery life. All of these features and functions can be controlled remotely via the RØDE Central app.

PROFESSIONAL WIRELESS SYSTEMS TS SERIES HELICAL ANTENNA Professional Wireless Systems has launched its new, lower-profile Tour Series Helical Antenna for IEM, wireless mic and intercom use. The TS Helical differs from the company’s standard helical versions (available in both the 460900 and 900-1000 MHz frequency ranges) in that the helix is shorter by almost 7 inches.

According to PWS, the circular motion of the

RF field emitted by a helical antenna distributes the signal through all possible polarizations, reducing the risk of dropouts. The RF energy rotates through all 360 degrees of polarization, providing reception in the artist’s ears and in the wireless mic’s receiver. It can be used as either a transmitting antenna or a receiving antenna.

BOSS WL-30XLR WIRELESS SYSTEM While best known for guitar pedals, Boss has introduced its new WL-30XLR Wireless System for XLR dynamic microphones, an entry-level system intended to simplify the adoption of wireless mics for non-technical users, such as singers, speakers, DJs, MCs, video producers and others. The WL-30XLR system consists of a streamlined transmitter that connects to nearly any standard XLR dynamic mic, and a compact receiver that plugs into an XLR mic input on a mixer, stage amp or other audio destination.

The system’s processing reportedly provides ultra-low latency and line-of-sight transmission up to 230 feet. The WL-30XLR’s receiver and transmitter each use a single AA alkaline battery, for up to 11 hours runtime. ■

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Tech // new products PRESONUS STUDIO ONE 5 PROFESSIONAL V5.2 PreSonus has released Studio One 5 Professional V5.2, marking the second feature update to its long-running DAW and the addition of more than 30 new features and improvements. The new Sound Variations is intended for use corralling complex virtual instruments and orchestral libraries. Central to it is a mapping editor that provides tools for managing complex articulation maps. Sound Variations can be triggered by key switches, as well as from remote commands, including hardware controllers, keyboard shortcuts, custom macros and more. All Synchron-enabled Vienna Symphonic Instruments, as well as instruments from UJAM, fully support dynamic Sound Variations mapping, and a new API allows third-party developers to enable their VST2 and VST3 instruments’

articulations to be queried by Studio One so that Sound Variation maps are automatically generated.

Version 5.2 adds a number of other features, including the ability to create multiple clip versions, allowing the user to apply clip-based edits in Gain Envelopes or Melodyne independently to Events sharing the same audio; a new “Smart” tool for editing Note Events in the Piano Roll editor; and deeper integration with both ATOM SQ and FaderPort-series controllers. Studio One 5.2 is a free update to all registered Studio One 5 customers and is available free to PreSonus Sphere members.

TC ELECTRONIC SYSTEM 6000 NATIVE PLUG-INS TC Electronic has introduced an all-new line of System 6000 Native plug-ins for mixing and mastering, aiming to bring the sound of the company’s famous hardware processor, introduced in 1999, as a series of native plug-ins. The new plugs offer full support for standard DAW automation and project recall, along with new optimized user interface ergonomics. MD4 HD Native features a 6-band EQ, 5-band compressor, low-levels focused DXP mode and optimized true-peak limiter. VSS4 HD Native is a stereo reverb with adjustable early reflections and stereo diffused fields. MD3 Native is the core of its dynamics sound, offering Mono, Stereo,

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Mid/Side operation and includes 3-band transparent Expander/ Compressor, flexible EQ and modern Peak/True-Peak Limiting technologies. NONLIN 2 Native is a high-end effects reverb with envelope functionality for generating compact vocal ambience, reverse reverb, new effects and the traditional 1980s gated drum reverb. VSS3 Native is a reverb designed to deliver smooth reverb tails, add ambience to productions and more. System 6000 Native plug-ins are compatible with all major DAWs and deliver full support for standard DAW automation and project recall. The plugs are available individually or as a bundle.

CENTRANCE DACPORT PRO WITH USB CEntrance is now shipping DACport Pro, a compact D/A converter, headphone amplifier and monitor controller for audio professionals, built on the success of its hi-fi DACport HD. The professional version adds balanced XLR output jacks, a large monitor volume control knob and LED VU meters. It features a headphone output and balanced stereo outputs with options for line and mic-level. The balanced outputs may be fixed, or variable, with their level controlled by the level knob. This turns the product into a Studio Monitor Controller. The device also includes an LED VU meter for checking program levels, a pair of LEDs indicating power and audio streaming status, and a USB-C connector. DACport Pro works with MacOS and Windowsbased computers. It supports all standard sampling rates, including 24-bit/44.1kHz up to 32-bit/384kHz, as well as DSD. An ASIO driver is available for Windows 10.

MACKIE ONYX24 ANALOG MIXER Available in 8-, 12-, 16- and 24-channel versions, the new Onyx Series of analog mixers from Mackie is intended for use in a variety of applications, including live sound, recording and content creation.

All Onyx Series mixers incorporate high-quality mic preamps with 60 dB of gain (max), stereo line inputs, onboard DSP, and the ability to record audio at 24-bit/96 kHz resolution. The flagship of the Onyx Series is the 24-channel Onyx24. Balanced XLR mic and TRS line inputs are provided on channels 1 – 14, with the ability to switch

channels 1 and 2 for Hi-Z instrument input. Analog outputs include TRS and XLR main outs, TRS control room outs, two monitor sends and one FX send. Each input channel of the Onyx24 includes a highpass filter, 3-band EQ with midrange sweep and hard bypass switch, one FX and two monitor sends, pan, backlit mute and solo switches, and a 60mm fader. Masters for the monitor and FX sends have mute and L/R assign switches. A built-in SD card slot allows recording and playback of the main stereo bus, while an onboard USB interface permits the Onyx24 to function as a 24x4 USB interface for multitrack recording to Mac and PC—all at 24-bit/96 kHz resolution.

FOCAL CLEAR MG PROFESSIONAL HEADPHONES Focal is shipping the new Focal Clear Mg Professional headphones (Clear Magnesium Professional), differing from its namesake with the addition of a magnesium cone for even greater dynamics with a remarkable tonal balance across the full audio spectrum. The circumaural, openback design incorporates 1-5/8-inch (40mm) full-range speaker drivers with Magnesium M-shaped inverted domes, combined with the frameless 1-inch (25mm) diameter and ¼-inch (5.5mm) high copper voice coilThe open grille inside the earcup extends the high frequencies and follows the ‘M’ profile of the cone more closely to further reduce adverse effects. With a 24kHz breakup, the high frequencies are extremely linear and the transient signals are respected.

REFTONE LD-3B REF-CUBE POWERED MONITORS Reftone, the company created by engineers Dave Hampton and Lisa Chamblee, has released shipping the LD-3B Ref-Cube, a powered version of the company’s Ref-Cube single 4-inch monitors. Available singly or in pairs, the LD-3B is capable of putting out 25 Watts at 8 Ohms. It offers two connection options: Bluetooth 4.2 or analog via a 3.5mm input. The monitors are just 5 x 5 inches in size, weigh 5.5 pounds each, and are housed in magnetically sealed birch-plywood enclosures. They boast a frequency response of 70 Hz to 20 kHz, with exceptional clarity in the midrange.

When purchased as a pair, the left monitor functions as a satellite, connected to the right with an included speaker wire equipped with banana plugs.

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WAVES AUDIO V12.7 PLUG-IN UPDATE Waves Audio has announced V12.7, its latest version of plug-ins, featuring a new User Preset System that makes it easier to save, load and organize custom-created plug-in presets, then share them with other users or between different systems. Each preset is now a single file and can be found directly from each plug-in’s dropdown menu. In addition, the popular Waves SSL plug-ins and Waves Tune Real-Time now feature new ultra-sharp HiDPI GUIs. These updates join the features of the recent V12, including the new Waves Preset Browser and the ability to resize Waves plug-ins. Waves V12.7 ensures full ongoing compatibility with the latest DAWs and operating systems and is free to users with V12 plug-in licenses.

AUDIO-TECHNICA ES945O/XLR AND 947C/XLR MICS Audio-Technica has unveiled two new boundary condenser microphones designed for discreet surface-mount installation in tabletops, ceilings or panels. Both the ES945O/XLR (omnidirectional) and ES947C/XLR (cardioid) feature a low-profile metal case with two-layer perforated grilles and IPX4 water resistance, as well as UniGuard RFI-shielding technology.

The omnidirectional ES945O/XLR provides a pickup pattern of 360 degrees, while the cardioid ES947C/XLR provides a pattern of 120 degrees. Frequency response of the ES947C/XLR is stated as 70 to 8,500 Hz, and frequency response of the ES945O/XLR is spec’d as 60 to 15,000 Hz. Output impedance for both units is 100 Ohms. The two models employ a self-contained power module with an XLRM output connector, eliminating the need for an external power module. The microphones are available in black or white, and are furnished with rubber isolators for optional mechanical isolation from the mounting surface.

KLANG:KONTROLLER IMMERSIVE PERSONAL IEM MIXER KLANG:technologies has released the KLANG:kontroller, a standalone hardware controller that offers the same mixing functionality as the company’s KLANG:app, along with a Dante headphone amp. The unit provides tactile user control of channels, groups and immersive mixing via an intuitive interface that centers around color-coding and channel names.

Relative DCA group mixing and full single-channel control via eight push rotary encoders is onboard as well, with eight rotaries that allow musicians to balance their in-ear mix. The onboard headphone amp has 3.5mm (1/8-inch) and 6.3mm (1/4-inch) stereo TRS connectors. Two XLR outputs can be connected to wireless in-ear transmitters.

Installation-friendly features like Power over Ethernet, remote setup via the KLANG:app, and automatic Dante routing are included. User Presets, plus USB import and export, are offered, allowing users to save personal presets. ■

Tech // reviews Leapwing Audio Al Schmitt Signature Plugin 6 Profiles of Unique Signal Chains

By Barry Rudolph

L

egendary producer/engineer Al Schmitt has garnered 20 Grammys, two Latin Grammys, and a Trustee Grammy for Lifetime Achievement Award, to go with a collection of 160 gold and platinum albums bearing his signature. In 2015, he received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the Capitol Records building, the only recording engineer to be so honored.

Over the years, Schmitt has received numerous offers to have his name on a plug-in; this is his first one. Why? He says, "I love the steps they took to meticulously understand everything I do, which helped to turn this into a versatile plug-in that captures the way I make records."

Central to the idea of this plug-in is that each of the six included Profiles is a preconfigured signal chain—unique choices of processors Schmitt would actually use in his workflow. The six Profiles are not just presets of the same processing chain; rather, they are very specific and different choices of processors and settings Schmitt would dial in for the task(s) at hand.

The six Profiles are based on the source audio and Schmitt’s unique sonic aesthetic: Vocal, Bass, Brass, Strings, Piano, and Mix. Each Profile comes up in the GUI with shadow-images of the particular source surrounded by vibrating waves corresponding to loudness.

Only the specific processors running within a suitable adjustable range of parameters are used in each Profile. Because of this, in its default state each Profile sounds unique and starts with just the necessary collection of controls, a complex mix of different reverbs, and a specific amount of additional harmonic distortion fitting that particular Profile.

The Al Schmitt plug-in is stereo-only and runs native in PCs and Macs. It is designed to be used as an insert for either mono or stereo audio tracks and not as a send/return effect. When put on a mono track in your DAW, it will convert it to stereo automatically to accommodate any stereo reverb (or Echo, as Schmitt calls it) and that are used in that particular Profile. Often, I would pull the (new) hard L/R pans inward on lead vocals to focus the sound more in the mix.

PROFILES ALL AT ONCE I decided to try out all six Profiles within a simple song called "Aristotle & Wine," written and sung by Samantha Preis. I had already

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mixed this very intimate demo home recording along with producer Andre Fischer. The song is all vocal—just with an upright bass (double bass), simple percussion, a transparentsounding stereo pad and acoustic guitar.

The Al Schmitt Signature Plugin was the perfect call here as I was looking for minimal dynamic control, a sweetening EQ for her voice and realistic reverb on the individual tracking instruments.

I started my evaluation with the Vocal Profile; it is the default profile that comes when you first launch the plug-in. The Vocal Profile has a set of six controls that vary from -100 to +100 numerical values. There are no technical specs for Hz, dB, ratios or threshold shown in this plug-in, which I found refreshing when working on music mixing. The Vocal Profile has controls called: Body, Air, Air Type, Compressor, Echo Level, and Echo Type.

There are two equalizers specific to vocals. The Body control EQ (-100 to +100) boosts/cuts below 1kHz ranging from +4.5dB to -3dB at 100 Hz. The Air Control EQ is a peaking EQ with up to +6dB at 5kHz, 8kHz, or 16kHz frequency choices. Interestingly, when the Air band is reduced toward negative numbers, it becomes a lowpass filter with up to -2.5d B at the 5kHz position or up to -3.4 dB at the 10kHz position. For this vocal, I had Body at only 16 and Air at 55, with Air Type set to 16 (kHz) as this vocal was not sibilant.

The recorded level for the lead vocal was low, and I ended up adding 6.8 dB gain using the stereo IN control. Each Profile has different Saturation characteristics. With Vocal, it ranges from 0.01% to over 10% with the input driven hard. Adding extra gain also allowed the single-knob Compression section to stay in constant gain reduction most of the time to control this singer's very wide dynamics and level shifts.

Even with the compressor set at 87, I never heard a big "squash" or annoying clamp-down on the vocal. That is because

the compression ratio varies from 1:1 to 3:1 with thresholds as low as -35 dB. Attack time is medium-fast while release is an easy-going 1 second. I liked that there is a (too) small yellow dot next to the compressor control that lights up brighter and brighter with more compression and then fades out indicating release time. She still sounded natural and required only a few automation fader rides.

The Vocal Profile has three choices for Echo especially tuned for the voice—Schmitt’a combination of real echo chambers and outboard reverbs that he employs.

Echo Types are switchable between A, B, C. For this singer and a very sparse track I ended up liking Echo Type A because it kept the feeling intimate with its shorter decay time and no predelay. I arrived at an Echo Level setting of 52. There is no wet/dry control, as the entire vocal track is running through the plug-in.

In the Vocal Profile, Echoes B and C are longer and have predelays.

MIX PROFILE The Mix Profile has eight processors/controls, plus link switches, and is designed for the stereo mix bus; it has a very low harmonic distortion. I separated all the music tracks of the song into a separate stereo music stem bus with the Mix Profile running on it.

There are two fixed-frequency EQ controls on this Profile: Sub Boost and Air Boost. Sub is a bell-shaped boost (only) of up to +5 dB at 25 Hz; I had it set to 35. I just love Sub boost, and I could see myself at times using the Al Schmitt Signature Plugin for this feature alone! Air is a smooth, shelving EQ that starts at 3 kHz and provides up to 3dB boost at 10 kHz. I had it set to around 35.

PRODUCT SUMMARY COMPANY: Leapwing Audio PRODUCT: Al Schmitt Signature Plugin WEBSITE: leapwingaudio.com/alschmitt PRICE: $159 MSRP PROS: A lovely sounding mixing tool CONS: Could use an acoustic guitar profile

High Comp works above 5 kHz. Compression ratios decrease with level increases.

The crossover filter design is similar to Leapwing's Dynone, with the Mix Profile having the highest latency of the six—the other profiles have low enough latency to be usable for recording. The actual crossover points and compressor behavior are based on the Tube-Tech SMC 2B Stereo Multi-Band Opto Compressor.

fader moves.

I liked the Body Level control that follows the compressor in the chain and gives you refined control in the 20Hz to 200Hz range. I ended up with only about 8 here. and Air, a fixed +5/-3dB EQ at 5kHz, was only at 17. More Air brought up too much fingerboard noise and squeaks.

I also ran the input level hot to garner more saturation and colorful harmonic distortion.

An awesome sound with up to 10% THD if you "crank" up the IN control! I was at +7.6 dB! This song didn't have a piano, strings or brass, so I used the Piano Profile on the main acoustic guitar track and the Strings Profile on the stereo pad—a double-tracked synth.

The Piano Profile has Compression, Echo Level and Echo Type controls. The compressor has variable ratios ranging from 2:1 to 4:1, with high settings increasing the ratio. This Profile's added harmonics enhances the midrange frequencies to add presence in the 1kHz to 5kHz area.

On the track's acoustic guitar, it worked well to articulate fills and clarify fingerpicking parts without sounding too bright and harsh.

I had the compression at 80— nearly maxed, and ran (again) a hotter IN control to get a little grunge, although it is minimal on this particular Profile.

Both the Strings and Brass Profiles have just Echo Level and Type. Echo Types are made using combinations of echo chambers and outboard reverbs that Schmitt likes to use. Strings have three longer reverb choices, while the Brass Profile uses shorter reverbs (RT60s). Other than that, they are the same with no EQ or compression. I could use an Air EQ on them but, between them, I have six Echo Types that were lovely for my stereo pad.

BASS, PIANO AND STRINGS I used the Bass Profile and its three associated controls on the bass track. There is a single-knob Compressor that increases the ratio with higher settings. Setting a proper compression can be tricky for very dynamic playing, as I found out, but I ended up with setting of 55 and only a few

PRETTY GREAT The Al Schmitt Signature Plugin is a viewport into the style and aesthetics of an iconic engineer/producer. I found it to be an awesome "finishing tool" and excellent homage to "the way Al would do it."

Highly recommended! ■

The main feature of the Mix Profile is the multiband compressor with linked controls.

Each EQ band has an individual ± gain control for adjustment, so with all the compressor controls on zero, you could use it as a three-band equalizer. When first instantiated, the default is linked band controls, but you may unlink them at anytime and, when relinked, you retain the relative band compressor settings.

Again, using relative numerical values ranging from 0 to 100, the controls affect both threshold level and compression ratio at the same time.

The Low Comp section is centered on 500 Hz, Mid Comp covers from 500 Hz to 5 kHz, and

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Tech // reviews Cranborne Audio EC1 A Versatile Preamp, Headphone Amp for Any Studio’s Front End

By Mike Levine

C

ranborne Audio entered the pro audio hardware market in Cream, the two saturation types that make up the Mojo circuit. You 2018 with a splash by releasing three 500 Series products, turn on the Mojo and adjust it with a knob that has a convenient including the 500R8 interface, the 500ADAT expansion detent for its off position.

The Gain knob features 12 detents, giving you plenty of module and the Camden preamp. Recently, the company added two new rackmount-style products that incorporate the Camden adjustability while still allowing for easy recall. You can visually monitor the preamp input level via an LED that’s green when a technology, along with high-quality headphone amps.

The EC1, reviewed here, features a single-channel, half-rack design. The EC2, a 1RU unit, is a two-channel version. Although this review focuses on the EC1, the preamp, routing, and headphone amp features described are the same on the EC2, just doubled in The EC1 packs a lot of functionality into a half-rack unit. number.

Both products support Cranborne Audio’s proprietary C.A.S.T. signal is present, orange when it’s close to overloading and red protocol, which allows you to transfer analog audio between when it overloads. If you’re recording a super-hot source, you can connected Cranborne hardware units through a standard Cat-5 flip on the -10dB Pad switch located on the back.

Considering that one of the intended uses of the EC1 is as a cable. C.A.S.T. makes it easy to expand your system with more tabletop unit, I was surprised to discover that if you put it at table Cranborne products, height, it’s next to impossible to read the names of the two bottom knobs in the headphone section without lowering your head STRAIGHT OUT OF CAMDEN The EC1 can be rack-mounted with an optional kit or used on a significantly.

Once you memorize the knobs it’s not problematic, but when tabletop. It comes with small rubber feet that attach to the bottom to keep it from sliding around. The unit has two main sections on you’re using the unit, I’d recommend putting it closer to eye level, the front panel—the preamp on the left and the headphone mixer if you can. You’ll see all the control labels much more clearly. on the right. The EC1 preamp is virtually the same as the 500 Series version, with the most significant difference being that the EC1 has CHOOSE YOUR MOJO an external power supply. The EC1’s adapter is of the line-lump Cranborne designed the Camden preamp to be versatile. With the variety, but, fortunately, the “lump” is pretty low-profile as they go. Mojo turned off, it’s clean and accurate for when you want to record Cranborne equipped the EC1 with a Hi-Z input on the front without adding color. It gives you plenty of clean gain for capturing and an XLR mic input on the back. The preamp is capable of a jazz, classical, bluegrass or any music where you want to record healthy 68.5 dB of gain, enough to drive dynamic and ribbon mics transparently with full transient reproduction.

According to Cranborne, Mojo is an analog emulation of at a decent level. Its frequency response spec is an impressive -1dB, transformer-based saturation, achieved with “an array of different <1Hz to >70kHz. The controls on the preamp are the same as those on the filters…and discrete second- and third-order harmonic generators.”

Camden 500. An Input Type switch lets you choose Hi-Z, line-level If you’re looking to add saturation to the incoming signal, one of or mic level. You also get switches for the highpass filter (-3dB @ the two types of Mojo can change the flavor, either subtly or not so subtly.

80Hz), polarity reverse and 48V phantom power.

The Thump setting works well for sources where you want to Another toggle switch lets you choose between Thump and

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add body. It can enhance any instrument but imbues a particular richness to sources with a lot of low- and low-mid frequency information, such as bass or kick. The Mojo control, when set low, mostly adds harmonic richness. Go above about 12 o’clock to create heavier saturation.

How heavy it is depends on the input level.

Like a compressor, the harder you hit the circuit, the more pronounced the effect. For example, I recorded DI bass guitar and turned the Mojo on Thump to a relatively low setting. I didn’t hear any distortion, just some enhanced richness, even when turning the Mojo knob up full. But when I cranked the input up, but not high enough to clip, along with the Mojo, the effect I got was like a heavy overdrive. Between the position of the Mojo knob and the input level, you have a lot of control.

Mojo behaves similarly when set to Cream, but the harmonics impact the upper-mids and highs more and the low frequencies less. On electric guitar, the effect added a little brightness and grit.

The added harmonics also induced some subtle brightening and softening to acoustic guitar, as long as I kept the Mojo knob in the lower half of its range.

AMPED UP The EC1’s headphone amp is both loud and clean. It combines the direct signal from the preamp input with audio coming back from the computer and, if you want, from an additional input called EXT Line In. You can easily mix all of these sources with the knobs on the front panel,

PRODUCT SUMMARY COMPANY: Cranborne Audio PRODUCT: EC1 WEBSITE: cranborne-audio.com PRICE: $599 PROS: Versatile preamp with lots of gain.

Adjustable Mojo saturation lets you add color. Link output lets you copy the input signal to send to an amp. C.A.S.T. protocol allows two-way audio connection with one cable. Powerful headphone amp. Easy to configure no- or low-latency mix. Stereo and mono auxiliary inputs. Phantom power indicator. Rackmount or tabletop operation.

Good value.

CONS: Can’t read two of the knob labels with unit on tabletop.

signal chain, the preamp signal is unaffected by the circuitry in your interface.

But if you want to use it for artist (or engineer) monitoring, you have a few different ways to bring a monitor mix into the Aux Bus, where it’s combined with the preamp signal. A pair of ¼-inch Aux Input jacks on the back let you connect a line output pair from your interface.

You can access the mono Ext Line In from a ¼-inch jack on the front panel. An example of an application would be to bring a keyboard or other line-level instrument into the monitor mix as a live reference during a session.

Among the back-panel connectors is the Link output, which lets you send the pre-processed signal to an external device.

which include Preamp Level, Aux In/C.A.S.T. Level, Ext In Level and Aux Headphone Level (overall headphone volume).

The more you turn up the Preamp, the louder the direct signal in the headphones. This allows you to dial in a no-latency monitor mix.

If you already have a headphone system that you’re happy with, you still might want to use the EC1’s headphone output for ultimate accuracy when auditioning sounds. At that point in the

If you have a Cranborne interface, you can send a signal from that unit into the Aux bus of the EC1 through the C.A.S.T. port on the back. I have a 500R8 interface that I connected to the EC1 via C.A.S.T. It sent the DAW mix from the 500R8’s Aux Bus to the EC1. Plus, it sent the output of the EC1 to an input channel on the 500R8. A single C.A.S.T. cable handled both the incoming and outgoing signal. Not only is C.A.S.T convenient, it sounds excellent.

UP THEIR SLEEVE There’s even more cool functionality in the EC1. On the back panel, in addition to the expected mic-level XLR output and line-level ¼-inch out is yet another ¼-inch output called Link. It’s the equivalent of a pass-through on a DI and gives you a buffered, unaffected signal that you can use to connect to Hi-Z or linelevel gear.

The Link output made it easy for me to record a guitar part where one track was DI coming from the preamp output, and one was an amp, which I fed with the Link output signal and miked through another preamp.

Another impressive feature is the way the EC1 handles phantom power. On many preamps, it can take quite a few seconds after you switch it off to power down completely, and you have to guess whether it’s fully off before unplugging a cable.

The EC1 offers a simple-but-effective solution: The indicator LED for the phantom power is color-coded. When it lights up red, it’s charged.

When it’s amber, the phantom power is in the process of charging or discharging. Once the amber light goes off, the phantom power is completely discharged and you can safely unplug cables.

THUMBS UP As with any review, I looked for weaknesses in the design or performance. I was only able to come up with one minor ding: the readability issue mentioned above for the lower knobs in the headphone amp section when the unit is on a tabletop.

But as a whole, the EC1 is one of those products that makes you smile when you’re using it. The sound quality is excellent, both in its clean setting and with various amounts of Mojo added. The powerful headphone amp and versatile Aux Bus make it a great choice as a recording front end.

The unit is well-built and chock full of useful features. That’s no surprise, considering that Cranborne Audio is a small company run by musicians and engineers. When they decide to include a feature in one of their products, you can bet it’s a practical one. And I haven’t yet mentioned the price, which is extremely competitive.

Whether you’re looking for your first external preamp or you just want to expand the number of mic inputs in your studio, there’s a lot to love about the EC1. ■

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Tech // reviews Audeze LCD-X Headphones Creator Package Planar Magnetic Drivers Deliver Sense of Space, Image

By Barry Rudolph

C

alifornia-based Audeze has reissued the original LCD-X model of headphones as the LCD-X Creator Package. They are specifically aimed at audio professionals and have an open-back, circumaural design that uses planar magnetic drivers.

I received the LCD-X headphones, a certificate of authenticity and warranty, a 1.9-meter stereo cable, and a hard-shell carrying case. I was already familiar with Audeze’s LCD-1 foldable, openback headphones.

Like loudspeakers, dynamic headphone drivers have a conicalshaped diaphragm made from paper, plastic or metal with a voicecoil attached at its center. When an electrical audio signal passes through the voice-coil, it moves “piston-like” back and forth within a magnetic field. To reproduce bass frequencies, it has to move large volumes of air, requiring both a large surface area and good flexibility. Dynamic diaphragms tend to be stiff and inflexible, resulting in distortion and a lower-frequency limit. Dynamic headphones begin to roll off starting at about 50 Hz. In contrast a flat planar driver diaphragm, as used in the LCD-X, is made from a polymer film 1.8-micron thick, 100 mm in diameter, with a 4-micron thick aluminum voice-coil printed directly on it.

The thin and flat diaphragm’s lighter mass and weight allow it to move more freely and accurately in response to the audio input signal. Planar magnetic drivers reproduce down to 20 Hz easily.

In addition, the thinner transducer allows for an overall slimmer design of the ear cups.

head to form a good acoustic seal after only a few minutes.

Being open-back, the feeling of occlusion is minimal; I can still hear sounds around me. I found that good for at home but not outside on busy city streets or in the recording studio with other louder sound sources playing around me. For extended critical listening sessions, I would play back mixes sitting on my studio couch with my feet up.

The LCD-X uses a gold-plated 1/4-inch TRS connector that splits out to a pair of mini-XLR connectors on the end of an elaborately braided cord. I liked the way the phones’ L/R connector jacks project forward from near the bottom of the ear cups instead of straight down as with most headphones.

Putting them on my head L/R-correct is a given! With them off my head and compressing the L/R ear cups together, I could hear the polymer diaphragms flexing—clicking. However, once they are OPEN-BACK LCD-X The new LCD-X has comfortable leather ear pads that seal on my head, that stops.

The recommended amplifier power for the LCD-X is from 1 to nicely on your head (synthetic leather is an option). Their overall 4 watts. The LCD-X will work connected size, metal construction and powerful to a cell phone, tablet or laptop, but, as N50 neodymium magnets cause these PRODUCT SUMMARY I found with my LCD-1s, they will not headphones to weigh 1.4 pounds (635 COMPANY: Audeze Headphones reproduce the bass accurately. To get the grams). They are a little heavy on my PRODUCT: LCD-X Creator Package best performance, you’ll need a proper head compared to other headphones such WEBSITE: audeze.com/products/lcd-x headphone amp like the Benchmark as my Audeze LCD-1s at 250 grams. But PRICE: $1,199 MSRP Media HPA 4 (reviewed recently in Mix). I they are comfortable. I got used to them PROS: Awesome-sounding used my musicians’ cue system that uses a quickly, and the extra weight does aid in CONS: A little heavy on the head Simon Systems CB-4 Cue Box powered by the way they “mold” to the sides of my

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a 100-watts/channel Hafler stereo power amp, and that proved excellent.

LISTENING ON AUDEZE I have been looking for an alternate way to check my mix work beyond my main monitors and Yamaha NS-10Ms. Headphone monitoring offers an “alternate sonic reality”—you’re listening more purely without the effect of the acoustics of the room and/or the proclivities of your particular monitoring loudspeakers.

I started by A/B listening on my mains at the same SPL as in the ‘phones. My small control room is acoustically treated with the listening position equidistant from the left and right monitors at 1.1 meters.

On both mastered music and in-progress mixes, the LCD-X sounded marvelous. I heard the bass similar in character and level as on my monitors. I heard deep into the stereo image and space I had created, and I heard reverb tails and subtle decays better than on my monitors.

Mixing on headphones (for me) usually means I’ll use lesser reverb and delay levels compared to mixing on loudspeakers. I tend to play down effect levels because I hear them so well with drivers right on my ears. In addition, the mix has no “foreground”—everything ends up mixed as “background”—a “shallow depth of field” to use a photography term.

With music mixed only on headphones and played back on speakers, I find vocals are not just too quiet but they are not presented as strong foreground elements. That is why I like mixing on speakers and checking on headphones.

It was the same using the LCD-Xs, though the differences were more apparent to me—a very good thing! I did hear a pleasant (not harsh) increase in brightness compared to my monitors.

During all these tests, I noticed certain cymbal crashes in the headphones were not as bright and didn’t sit in the mix as when listening on the monitors.

Tech // reviews Audeze Announces Euclid Planar Magnetic Earbuds High-End Audiophile Earbuds With a Price to Match

By What Hi-Fi

A

udeze has launched an in-ear version of its highend planar magnetic headphones. The Audeze Euclid feature a closed-back design, precision-milled aluminum casings and "the highest dynamic range" in their class, apparently.

You can expect Audeze signature's sound, with the company's patented technologies–Uniforce voice coils and Fazor waveguides–helping to squeeze the maximum performance out of the buds' 18mm planar magnetic drivers.

Indeed, Audeze claims the Euclid are, "engineered for an incredible 105 dB/mW efficiency and a max SPL well over 120 dB," which supposedly gives them "the highest dynamic range of any in-ear in their size category." We look forward to testing this claim in the near future.

Design-wise, each 7.5g bud boasts an aluminum body with a carbon fiber insert and a slinky matte black finish. And since the California-based company has amassed

decades of experience, making products for professional musicians, we'd expect a decent level of comfort from the supplied Spin-Fit Silicone and Comply Foam ear tips.

Currently, the Euclid are designed for wired use and feature gold plated MMCX connections (you get a 3.5mm tangle-free braided cable in the box). The company hopes to offer Bluetooth and 4.4mm balanced cables for wireless music streaming.

If you're familiar with Audeze you'll already know it offers premium headphones with matching price tags, so it won't come as a major shock to discover the Euclid are available now from Audeze dealers for $1300. ■

FINAL ARBITER I found the LCD-X headphones to be the perfect “final arbiter.” They were useful well after I had finished a mix to my satisfaction on monitor speakers, or when I would later hear the mastered version. I would take a day off, then come back and play it on the LCD-X headphones. If there was something bothering me in the mix or mastering, then I investigated. But usually it was good and the LCD-X headphones were all I ever needed. ■

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Tech // back page blog Digging Console Emulation; Don’t Be Fooled By 10-Percent Mike Levine: Mix Technology Editor, Studio

Steve La Cerra: Mix Technology Editor, Live

Console Yourself: With so many great plug-ins available, it’s natural to fall into an à la carte approach to dynamics processing and EQ when mixing. I might use one compressor on the kick drum and snare, another for bass, and a third for vocals. I might also end up using three or four different EQs, depending on the sources.

I’ve always used that method—not because of any master plan, just because that’s how my mixing workflow has evolved. But I’ve been thinking about experimenting with a different approach.

Console emulation plug-ins have become pretty sophisticated. The bx console plug-ins from Plugin Alliance even model the slight variations you get from channel to channel.

Another plug-in, Waves CLA Mix Hub, developed with Chris LordAlge, models his SSL 4000 Series console and then adds some features. It allows you to view the mixer channels individually and in groups of eight in “Buckets View.” Comparing processor settings on multiple channels visually is something you usually can’t do in most DAWs; it feels more console-like.

But it’s not just the workflow. Console emulations model the sonic signatures of the mixers from which they’re modeled. You can simulate the integrated sound of an analog mixer by using the same console plug-in across your whole mix. You could even make DAW templates for specific consoles. That way, you could easily choose the one with the sound that best fits the music you’re making.

For example, if you’re mixing an R&B song, you might want the cleaner response of an SSL 9000. Or if you’re doing a rock song, you could use a 4000 Series board or an API or Neve emulation.

I’m looking forward to trying out this more unified approach to mix processing. I have a couple of good emulations to choose from, and I’m hoping the results will be revelatory.

The Numbers Just Don’t Add Up: I can’t help but feel a little sick to my stomach as I hear reports of state authorities starting to lift Covid restrictions on entertainment venues.

It should be good news, right? Maybe in theory, but I feel like it’s lip service.

On March 1, New Jersey began allowing that state’s venues with indoor seating of 5,000 or more to host events at 10 percent capacity. This news was preceded by an earlier announcement from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stating that arenas, stadiums and music venues in New York that hold 10,000 or more would be allowed to reopen on February 23, also at 10 percent capacity.

The news is sure to make sports fans happy because they may be able to attend an event, ticket demand notwithstanding. But make no mistake: that event was happening anyway, patrons or not.

A basketball or hockey game requires the building to be open regardless of whether or not fans are in the seats, though truth be told there’s not much need for food, beverage or other concession workers at a game sans patrons. I’m sure that owners of sports teams are smarting from lack of ticket sales, but their events go on and they still have other revenue streams in TV and radio.

The concept of 10-percent capacity for a music event is a non-starter, and the idea that this is good news for the concert industry displays just how little people know about our industry. If you add up the artist guarantee, the cost of renting the building, insurance, wages for venue workers such as tech crew, loaders, stage hands, “front-of-house” venue staff, catering, sound, lighting, ticket fees, and advertising… Poof! There’s no point in running the show.

Bottom line: 10-percent capacity is useless to the entertainment industry, though it is a minuscule step in the right direction. The discussion doesn’t get serious until we can book venues to at least 50 or 60 percent capacity—unless you want to try selling a “premium exclusive” event where the price of admission is $500 to $1,000 per ticket. Good luck with that.

Product of the Month: Reftone LD-3B Ref-Cube Reftone, the company created by engineers Dave Hampton and Lisa Chamblee, is shipping the LD-3B Ref-Cube, a powered version of the model introduced nearly two years ago. Available singly or in pairs, the LD-3B includes a single 4-inch driver and is capable of putting out 25 Watts at 8 Ohms. It offers two connection options: Bluetooth 4.2 or analog via a 3.5mm input. The monitors, housed in magnetically sealed birch-plywood enclosures and boasting a frequency response of 70 Hz to 20 kHz, are just 5 x 5 x 5 inches and weigh 5.5 pounds each.

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M I X | A P R I L 2 0 2 1 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Product of the Month: Mackie Onyx24 Analog Mixer Available in 8-, 12-, 16- and 24-channel versions, the new Onyx Series of analog mixers from Mackie incorporates high-quality mic preamps with 60 dB of gain (max), stereo line inputs, onboard DSP, and the ability to record audio at 24-bit/96 kHz resolution. Each input includes a highpass filter, 3-band EQ with midrange sweep and hard bypass switch, one FX and two monitor sends, pan, backlit mute and solo switches, and a 60mm fader. ■

9000