Reviewed: Fender Player II Modified Series, Denon DJ PRIME 4+, Shure MoveMic 88+, beyerdynamic
EDITOR Lewis Noke Edwards
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR
Patrick Carr
ADVERTISING AND PARTNERSHIPS EXECUTIVE
Liam Brazil
DESIGNER
Kelly Lim
CONTRIBUTORS
Rob Gee, Paul Blomfield, Will Brewster, Christopher Hockey, Jamie Colic, Greg Long, Christopher Brownbill
FOR ADVERTISING OR CONTENT PARTNERSHIPS advertise@mixdownmag.com.au
DISTRIBUTION distribution@furstmedia.com.au
ACCOUNTS accounts@furstmedia.com.au
PUBLISHER Furst Media Pty Ltd
FOUNDER
Rob Furst
editor's Note
Inspiration is fleeting, I’ll give it that, but it’s easier to find if you exercise it like a muscle. Practice starting something, and you'll find ideas start pouring out more easily, albeit sometimes at inopportune times. If you get into the habit of just starting something, you’ll start to see the wood for the trees pretty quick. If you start work at 9am, you’ll inevitably end up with something at the end of the day.
Sometimes, that ‘something’ is simply a load of ideas you’ve binned; but you’re still a few steps closer to having something great.
This can apply to anyone creative, in the music world it applies to people like songwriters especially, but the same goes for all musicians, producers and engineers. Waiting to write your
next hit? Loop some simple drums and just start strummin’. Can’t decide between practicing guitar or working on your media kit? Flip a coin and just start one of them. Procrastinating re-wiring that patchbay? You know the drill. What I’m really trying to say here is, if I can offer any advice, it’s this: get to work.
Lewis Editor
GIVEAWAY
Looking to dive into DJing or want to upgrade your current rig? Mixdown is partnering with our friends at Jands and AlphaTheta to give one lucky reader a chance to win an AlphaTheta OMNIS-DUO Portable All-in-one DJ system valued at $3299! Simply head to https://mixdownmag.com.au/ giveaways/ to enter!
The OMNIS-DUO is a lightweight and supremely portable solution to DJing where you choose to do it; from parties and social events to professional gigs, the OMNIS-DUO goes with you.
Competition open to Australian residents only. Winner will be contacted via email and have three (3) days to respond or the competition will be re-drawn. Please note: all giveaways are only available to our Australian readers. By entering, you agree to receive marketing collateral from Mixdown and competition partners. For more info, check out our privacy policy.
Entries close midnight Wednesday 28 May, 2025. Winner randomly drawn on Thursday 29 May, 2025.
Product News
Ernie Ball announce the rechargeable, lithium-ion battery powered Power Peg Pro USB-C
CMC MUSIC AUSTRALIA | CMCMUSIC.COM.AU
The Ernie Ball Power Peg Pro USB-C features a universal head for all acoustic, bass, and electric guitar tuning machines. It offers superior torque and is compatible with all tension requirements, from mandolins to ukuleles to vintage basses. The Power Peg Pro restrings your instrument up to 80% quicker than manual peg winders, plus the rechargeable lithium-ion battery and fast-charging USB-C power cable (included) make purchasing batteries a thing of the past.
From the essentials like guitar picks and instrument care products to fun additions like volume pedals, Ernie Ball has you covered for all electric guitar accessories and bass guitar accessories.
magnet mid/bass driver is now shipping. This new driver excels as a drop-in replacement and upgrade solution for a wide range of 8-inch mid/ bass applications.
The Truvox 0820 is equally adept as the principal woofer in two-way cabinets or as the mid-bass/midrange element in larger, three-way systems, restoring clarity and punch to existing setups. The Truvox 0820 is also an ideal choice for door placement in cars as it shares common mounting specifications. Its industry-standard fixing dimensions ensure simple dropin replacement, and it is supplied with front and rear mounting gaskets for added positioning flexibility.
Ableton add MIDI Editor capabilities to Ableton
Note app
ABLETON | ABLETON.COM/EN/
The latest update to Note, the iOS app from Ableton for forming musical ideas, is here. Note’s new MIDI Editor lets you build or rework a track by sequencing notes and beats directly onto the grid view of your chosen track. Program melodies, drums and chords with just a few taps, listen to the results as the track loops, and try out different patterns and variations in real time.
Note allows you to use a 16-pad grid to build drum beats, and quantise it all if you need to. Sift through synth and piano sounds with a 25-pad grid or piano roll, while also having the ability to sample your surroundings with your phone’s microphone before cutting, filtering and re-pitching the sound. Captured something you like? Quickly loop it and keep building! From here you can duplicate separate loops, double them, add layers to different sections of the arrangement, allowing you to build a complete song if you see fit, or use Note as a way to sketch ideas on the go using either your own sounds or Note’s library. Onboard effects allow you to shape them to your preferences.
Sebatron and their new SWITCHBLADE stereo interactive equaliser and diode compressor
SEBATRON AUDIO | SEBATRONAUDIO.COM
The Sebatron SWITCHBLADE is a high quality Stereo solid-state four broad band interactive equaliser and diode compressor housed in a 2U rack chassis designed for tracking, mixing or mastering purposes. Joining the ranks of Sebatron gear that fills racks around the world including the Axis and VMP series preamps, the SMAC, Spider and Thorax, the SWITCHBLADE is in good company.
The SWITCHBLADE audio signal path uses discrete gain blocks and optimised op amps with high voltage transistors for all buffering and processing stages. The unit features a relay driven global bypass with each section being able to be bypassed independently as well. When in full bypass the processing circuitry is completely switched out of the audio path.
PRS Guitars get exotic with new, limited edition SE guitars!
ELECTRIC FACTORY | ELFA.COM.AU
PRS Guitars today announce four SE Exotic Veneer Limited Editions: SE Custom 24-08 Poplar Burl, SE Custom 24 Burled Ash, SE DGT Laurel Burl, and SE McCarty 594 Laurel Burl. Only 5,000 guitars will be available globally across all four models. In addition, the PRS SE Swamp Ash Special now features a five-way blade control switch instead of the previous three-way toggle version.
Outside of the limited-edition models, another SE guitar is getting an update. The 22fret, bolt-on neck PRS SE Swamp Ash Special now features a five-way pickup switch. Other key features of the SE Swamp Ash Special remain, including its 85/15 “S” and PRS-Designed AS-01 Single Coil pickups, push-pull tone control, and maple neck and fretboard.
Jackson Guitars announce new 7-string Pro Series
Signature Dave Davidson Warrior WR7
JACKSON GUITARS | JACKSONGUITARS.COM/EN-AU
Combining elements of thrash and metal, today, Jackson Guitars is unveiling the all-new Pro Series Signature Dave Davidson Warrior WR7. Crafted in collaboration with Dave Davidson, lead singer and guitarist of Revocation, the Pro Series Signature Dave Davidson Warrior WR7 is made for metal enthusiasts looking for a modern guitar to elevate their playing. Revocation’s death metal style is embodied in the Pro Series Signature Dave Davidson Warrior WR7, allowing fans to dig deeper and unleash their heaviest riffs and tones yet.
A guitar meticulously crafted for rapid-fire playing, the Pro Series Signature Dave Davidson is available in two models: the WR7 MPL and E. The MPL roars to life in Ferrari Yellow and is made from a maple fingerboard and has a Black Piranha Tooth (Small Sharkfin) position inlay. The E ignites fiery blaze in Ferrari Red and is made from an Ebony fingerboard and has a Pearloid Piranha Tooth (Small Sharkfin) position inlay.
Sennheiser announces MKH 8018: a compact mic for film and broadcast
SENNHEISER | SENNHEISER.COM/EN-AU
Sennheiser has launched a new, compact stereo shotgun microphone, the MKH 8018 for broadcasting and filming applications. The highclass short gun mic completes the company’s MKH 8000 range of RF condenser microphones, which excel in the field due to their climateproof ruggedness and natural sound capture with virtually no off-axis colouration. Providing flexibility to the audio engineer, the compact and
lightweight MKH 8018 features three switchable stereo modes: MS stereo, wide XY stereo and narrow XY stereo. The MS mode allows the engineer to adjust the spatial imaging steplessly on the mixing desk, while the XY modes are premixed in the MKH 8018, with settings finetuned in many tests.
Focusrite announce a huge firmware update for Scarlett 16i16, 18i16 and 18i20 interfaces
FOCUSRITE | FOCUSRITE.COM
This enhancement gives users greater control over their monitoring workflow, making it easier than ever to switch between different speaker sets.
Focusrite has today released a powerful firmware update for Scarlett 4th Gen, bringing 16 channels of ADAT I/O, monitor grouping, and remote Multichannel Auto Gain — all available with a quick and easy update via the Focusrite Control 2 app. Focusrite believes in enriching people’s lives through music and are proud to play a small part in that massive endeavour. Focusrite make audio interfaces, and that’s all they do. It’s the job of an audio interface to sit between you and your sound being shared with the world, and Focusrite are the best in the world at making that happen.
A quick look at the new Audient iD48 audio interface
STUDIO CONNECTIONS | STUDIOCONNECTIONS.COM.AU
Packing in eight Audient Console Mic Preamps, advanced 32-bit ESS converter technology and the all new Switchable Analogue Insert technology, the iD48 audio interface seamlessly combines astonishing
audio performance with ease of use. Add to that professional must-have features like ADAT expandability and customisable monitor control, iD48 is ready to transform your studio.
Audient’s experience in the console and preamplifier industry allows them to create some of the most practical, intuitive and stylish audio interfaces in the market. Beyond world-class conversion, the interfaces feature high quality microphone preamps that toe the line between supremely transparent and adding analogue depth, clarity and weight to sources. The iD48 leads the iD series of interfaces, alongside the supremely portable iD4, iD14 and iD24, the larger iD44 audio interface bridging the gap between accessible and portable and racked, studio conversion.
Sterling by Music Man ships the John Petrucci Signature 6 and 7 String Majesty DiMarzio in Tiger Eye Finish
CMC MUSIC AUSTRALIA | CMCMUSIC.COM.AU
Designed in close collaboration with John Petrucci, the 6 and 7-string Majesty DiMarzio guitars are a celebration of innovation and imagination. Fully equipped with an ebony fretboard, stainless steel frets, and DiMarzio LiquiFire & Crunch Lab pickups, the Majesty is a perfectly built modern instrument. The BFR-inspired shieldless body features John Petrucci DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab humbucking pickups to deliver the guitarist's iconic tonal range.
Engineered to perform, this Majesty features an ebony fingerboard with stainless steel frets for maximum playability.
Charvel’s So-Cal models pay homage to its birthplace in San Dimas, California. Created for the pioneering guitarists of Southern California who demanded high-performance instruments, these guitars have played a key role in shaping the legacy of the world’s greatest players.
The tortoiseshell pickguard provides an elegant backdrop for the double crème DiMarzio® Super Distortion® (bridge), DiMarzio Dark Matter 2® (middle) and DiMarzio PAF Pro (neck) pickups, cranking out rich, warm vintage tone with plenty of growl when you dig in.
With the Charvel Super-Stock So-Cal, comfort is key and built-in, thanks to its rolled fingerboard edges, allowing guitarists to start playing effortlessly. Best yet, players do not have to fret as this model is assured to have a long journey of excellent performance ahead, despite its antique look.
Leah Martin-Brown illuminates the studio with AUDIX OMX series
LINK AUDIO | LINKAUDIO.COM.AU
It’s apt praise to call Australian-born singersongwriter Leah Martin-Brown a breakout artist. Just after hosting the video premiere of her third single “Shush,” she spoke with AUDIX
about her musical roots and her new favourite microphones.
After touring clubs and festivals steadily since high school, the Covid pandemic imposed a studio-only hiatus, which she took in Stockholm, Sweden, where she would connect with super-producers Mutt Lange and Tony Nilsson, and mix engineer Tommy Denander. Now a solo artist signed to Frontiers Records, Ms. Martin-Brown explores pop territory without sacrificing the hard-rock energy of her formative work. Her voice melts faces off, and the torches that channel its heat are AUDIX microphones: the OMX series (especially the OMX-E) onstage and the A231 for studio recording.
The QSC KC12 has arrived and is now shipping!
TECHNICAL AUDIO
GROUP | TAG.COM.AU
Building on the legacy of the World of K® portfolio, the KC12 is a 3-way, 3000watt loudspeaker system encompassing the visual aesthetic of a column loudspeaker, while surpassing the acoustic performance of conventional designs. Simple and rapid to deploy, the elegant KC12 is ideal for solo entertainers, musicians and bands, mobile entertainers and DJs, AV productions and static installations.
The highly portable KC12 system consists of a ported subwoofer, housing a 12-inch driver extending down to 40 Hz. The groundbreaking design of the mid/high enclosure features a 1-inch compression driver combined with the innovative QSC LEAF™ (Length-Equalized Acoustic Flare) waveguide, as well as two high-excursion 4-inch midrange drivers. Thanks to this 3-way design, the system provides an outstanding full-range horizontal coverage of 145 degree, and 35 degrees of audience-directed vertical coverage, with clean and natural sound at all output levels.
AirPods Max to receive Spatial Audio and ultra-low latency update!
APPLE | APPLE.COM
Next month, AirPods Max are now the only headphones that enable musicians to both create and mix in Personalised Spatial Audio with head tracking.
Lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio enable music creators to fully utilise AirPods Max throughout their entire professional workflow on Logic Pro and other music creation apps. Using the USB-C cable, AirPods Max will become the only headphones that enable musicians to both create and mix in Personalised Spatial Audio with head tracking. By delivering lossless, highresolution digital audio with low latency, artists can seamlessly record and mix with AirPods Max without compromising fidelity.
The miniKORG 700Sm is now shipping!
CMI MUSIC | CMI.COM.AU
The miniKORG 700Sm is the perfect choice for musicians in search of thick bass, powerful leads, and rich analog sounds that Korg are known for. Offering the same features as the miniKORG 700FS, the miniKORG 700Sm boasts a slimmer keyboard and a reduced size of the original yet still maintains a lightweight design at just 5.8 kg/12.8 lbs, allowing for easy transportation.
CHARVEL | CHARVEL.COM
Lady Gaga announces first Australian shows in 11 years
LIVENATION.COM.AU
After much anticipation, 14-time Grammy Award-winner Lady Gaga has officially announced the Australian leg of ‘The MAYHEM Ball’ tour, adding 3 stadium dates to her global tour. These shows mark Lady Gaga’s longawaited return to the region, and her first dates in Australia since 2014’s ArtRave: The ARTPOP Ball. Australian fans can experience ‘The MAYHEM Ball’ tour commencing December 5 at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium, followed by December 9 at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium and on December 12 at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.
A Live Nation pre-sale will commence Wednesday 16 April at 11am local in Melbourne, 12pm local in Sydney and 1pm local in Brisbane. Visit livenation.com.au for details.
The Plot In You announce 2026 Australian headline tour
DESTROYALLLINES.COM
In 2026, prepare for the return of THE PLOT IN YOU to Australian shores, with the band today announcing a national headline run next January, joined by special guests FIT FOR A KING (USA), BOUNDARIES (USA) and BANKS ARCADE.
Kicking off on Wednesday 21 January in Fremantle, THE PLOT IN YOU will visit Adelaide, Chelsea Heights, Melbourne and Sydney, before closing out this mammoth visit on Friday 30 January in Brisbane.
A band relentlessly poised on the cutting edge of heavy music, THE PLOT IN YOU have cultivated ongoing critical acclaim and fan adoration since first forming 15 years ago. Hailing from Ohio, the group announced themselves to the scene via their 2011 debut album, First Born, paving the way for their soon-to-be-signature balanced and innovative take on metalcore tropes. Whether weaving elements of alternative, electronica, pop, R&B and beyond into their raw yet thunderous sound, one thing is always certain when it comes to THE PLOT IN YOU: expect the unexpected and hang on for an exhilarating ride.
PENTAGRAM Announce Debut
Australian and New Zealand August 2025 Tour
HARDLINEMEDIA.NET
HARDLINE MEDIA are proud to announce for their FIRST time in Australia and New Zealand, the legends of doom, the almighty PENTAGRAM, to tour in August 2025.
Pentagram is an American doom metal band from Alexandria, Virginia. They are noted as one of the pioneers of Heavy Metal, particularly of the aforementioned sub-genre Doom Metal. As such, they are considered one of the "big four of Doom Metal" alongside Candlemass, Saint Vitus and Trouble.
Lead vocalist Bobby Liebling has been referred to as "very much the US version of Ozzy Osbourne", with the singer now being a viral sensation due to the Ghoul Stare, opening up the ears and eyes of the general public to what all the Metal Heads already knew about, that Pentagram are one of the longest enduring, influential, Gods Of Doom!
THE CHURCH announce
‘’The Singles Tour: A Career Retrospective’’
Australian dates
METROPOLISTOURING.COM
Formed many lifetimes ago (well, 1980) THE CHURCH has earned a rightfully revered place in Australian rock music history along with a thoroughly deserved place in the ARIA Hall Of Fame. The Church continue to create timeless music that deeply resonates with audiences worldwide. From their early days in Sydney’s underground scene to their global overground success, The Church remain one of the most innovative and enduring bands of their... or any... era.
The Church will perform an epic setlist in Australia throughout November 2025, with tickets on sale now.
letlive. return to the stage and announce Australian tour
THEPHOENIX.AU
Renowned for their genre-defying sound and electrifying high-energy live performances, letlive. is set to triumphantly return to stages one more time, reuniting with fans and reigniting the fire that defined a generation of alternative music. The trailblazing progressive soul punk band from Los Angeles will bring their chaotic yet cathartic stage presence to Europe, Australia, and the United States.
letlive. will play Australia throughout September, hitting Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
TOBIAS FORGE OF GHOST REMINISCES ON THE MEAT AND POTATOES OF SKELETÁ
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
Tobias Forge is the frontman of Ghost, who’ve evolved from doomy, alternative rock into all-out anthemic stadium rock superstars.
Known worldwide for their stage production, album concepts and the revolving door of frontmen; characters devised by Tobias who he takes the shape of for the tour and promotion of each record.
The forthcoming album Skeletá sees the arrival of newly anointed Papa V Perpetua, Skeletá being Ghost’s sixth full length studio album and one that comprehensively captures the expansive list of influences that Tobias has; but what comes first? Does the concept inform the music or is it the other way around?
“When it comes to making a record, I’ve never gone into the first song with a clean slate,” explains Tobias. “There’s always a— I don’t want to call it leftovers, but there’s definitely a starting point.” he says, referring to unfinished songs that didn’t make the cut of the previous record.
“Something in the material that hasn’t been used for a previous work, this sets a standard first— you have to start somewhere and in this case making Skeletá, the song that became “Satanized...” if you heard the demo from 2020 you would instantly recognise the song.”
Tobias explains that the shuffle feel of “Satanized” felt right, but it ticked a box in terms of making a comprehensive and cohesive body of work, explaining that he’s filled the role of a shuffle song, and a picture begins to form with gaps to fill, i.e. a heavier song, a ballad etc.
“Every new song feeds info about the rest of the content, and sometimes you’ll come up with a new song, for example ‘Song #7’ that pushes out ‘Song #3’, and all of a sudden you need to come up with a new ‘Song #7’ because it’s down to #6 [songs] again.”
Tobias compares writing a record to a Rubik’s Cube, sometimes having to jumble up your progress in order to move ahead, all in the interest of finishing the puzzle or project.
“Then conceptually, having written IMPERA that was shining a light onto outward factors like societal structures, I knew when I made IMPERA that I want to make another record that is completely— not devoid of criticism if you will, but the challenge was to make a whole record where there’s a certain degree of introspection going on.”
“It felt like a natural step after IMPERA,
because I didn’t want to write an IMPERA II.”
Tobias is focused on an album’s ebb and flow, taking listeners on a journey, allowing Ghost’s albums work as a whole cohesive project. Their sound has evolved over a few records, but Tobias comes back to the foundation of a song.
“You can write a song really quickly, and then of course you’re working on the minutiae of a track in detail up until the last second of mixing and mastering, basically.” he explains. “So there are things that can change, even though the basic recipe is the same. It’s like meat and potatoes and sauce, that’s as simple as that. But you know how big a difference there can be in meat and potatoes and sauce, depending on who’s cooking it.”
“I know some artists that are almost helpless in their orchestration,” says Tobias. He refers to Bob Dylan here, whose music is so bare bones, a sonic signature, that it’s difficult to add too much on top of without drawing criticism. Tobias also refers to Ulf Lundell, an artist that he likens to the Swedish version of Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen.
“[Lundell] would come into the studio with a bare bones, strummed version of the song, and then the band comes in and makes it a big rock song.”
All of this is to say that Tobias absolutely does not work this way, his ideas spawning from the core idea, though he begins to imagine and write the rest of the ensemble immediately.
“I’m much of a producer that way, but if I were producing another band I would implement the same methods. Not only how to write songs, but I would think conceptually of a record the same way.”
“The album starts at 0:00 and ends at 43:00, right?” he muses, and continues to discuss that the task at hand is filling the 43 minutes between start and finish with a journey for the listener.
A bare bones arrangement, however, is easy to produce live. Ghost’s anthemic, expansive productions are no mean feat, though Tobias has this in mind while writing and producing albums.
“There’s awareness,” he says. “I’ve always intended to practically arrange the songs so you can play it, but I think more so now when I know more practical solutions to orchestrating the song— how will this translate into an arena? And I don’t think that I’m unique in that, I think it happens to most band that play from clubs to theatres to arenas. Had Metallica gone to arena status at Kill ‘Em All, they might not have written “Master of Puppets”, they might not have written “Battery”.”
“There’s a natural ambience [in an arena] that music over a certain tempo has a tendency to sound like a wreck in a bigger environment. I think that’s the same reason why even Iron Maiden does not play every song that they have— you play the songs that work, and flow with the crowd and it’s a give and take.”
Tobias discusses further his relationship with the crowd, their enjoyment feeding his own happiness, and if he insisted on playing songs that don’t translate in an arena setting, the crowd wouldn't enjoy it as much and vice versa.
“It’s much more fun to cook for someone that enjoys it, right? Rather than like ‘Oh, hm, this is an acquired taste!’” he says with a chuckle. “What kind of chef is that?”
“I think that the idea that anyone reading this, scoffing at the idea of writing for someone else, has kinda lost the point.”
Tobias continues, diving deeper into the details of writing and recording Skeletá, explaining that some tracks on the record remained through demo stages and were recorded on the day he wrote the song.
“But then there are other things recorded a year later on the day we were mixing.” he says. “There is a song on the record, “Cenotaph”, that was in the demo phase— that was written and done with lyrics and everything, the top line was all there, it had a really complicated arrangement.”
“It was really orchestral, like Queen, and it had already moved from demos to the real studios. I had one of those chills down my spine, where something had been troubling me for weeks and weeks and weeks, ever since we finished the demo.”
Tobias goes on to explain that after this chill he had approached Max Grahn, a collaborator, songwriter and producer involved in recording the album, telling Max that he felt very strongly that “Cenotaph” needed to be re-recorded. It was too complicated, the lyrics were too profound.
“It was like killing a darling,” Tobias states. “I was the one who wanted it to be complicated that way, that was my idea.”
Tobias’ stroke of genius was this: he did a cover of “Cenotaph” with the intention of reworking the song into something more cohesive
for the record. Excitedly, Tobias tells me they recorded this at Atlantis Studios, the same studio that ABBA performed "Dancing Queen," and he recommends I check out the YouTube video of that performance. “That’s the room that were were in. Same console, same microphones, same room.”
“I said ‘Let’s make it really simple, same melody, same chord progression, but let’s make it Meatloaf, boogie woogie, Status Quo, ZZ Top— and let’s see if it holds, if it carries its weight that way.’ And half an hour later, we re-recorded everything in an oversimplified way. And that song, every time we played it in the studio, everyone started smiling.”
To wrap up, Tobias explains a bit about the mixing, though admits that he’s always focused on getting things right at the source.
“If I were more of an engineer, which I am not, I might’ve been better at it.” he says, referring to his ability to navigate the software and digital world of recording. “There’s a discrepancy between what I know that the program can do, and knowing how to do it.”
Tobias explains how frustrated he gets having ideas that he can’t bring to fruition without navigating a menu or installing an update.
“I’ve been blessed with so many engineers,” he explains. “And therefore I know I cannot become that great of an engineer, but if I were an engineer, my mixing process would start second one, because I hate working not knowing what we’re doing.”
SKELETÁ IS OUT APRIL 25 VIA LOMA VISTA RECORDINGS
“I think that the idea that anyone reading this, scoffing at the idea of writing for someone else, has kinda lost the point.”
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
Calculating the legacy of Dillinger Escape Plan and Ben Weinman
The Dillinger Escape Plan are known as one of the most ferocious live bands on the planet, having built a reputation for their shows having people, including bandmembers, literally swinging from the rafters, the frantic energy of their music matched so perfectly with this visual element.
Their 1999 album Calculating Infinity was a turning point for the band, the band currently touring to celebrate 25 years of the iconic record. August sees them arriving in Australia, with shows across Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane— a far cry from the tiny clubs and venues that the band was playing in the 90s. Times have changed and so has the gear they’re using, technology having almost come full circle for guitarist Ben Weinman.
“It’s interesting because Calculating Infinity was recorded all to tape.” begins Ben. “And it was done fairly quickly, we ended up doing a couple extra tracks using ADAT,” he explains, harkening us back to the beginning of digital recording.
“And now we’re live on stage, we’re actually using (Neural DSP) Quad Cortex, and I hadn’t really been a fan of digital modelling.”
“The fact that it has so many outputs makes it much more flexible. That’s really useful in the live context; our shows are very visceral, we’re often knocking over microphones miking up speakers and to avoid any possibility of those kind of things and affecting front of house is always a benefit.”
“Calculating Infinity, we used a lot of different amps and a lot of different sounds, we even used completely direct sounds as main
tones, without any amplifiers.”
The routing of the Quad Cortex allows Ben and Dillinger to dial in tones closer to the record than they’ve ever achieved, including direct sounds. They can focus on the performance and not the mix or the stage.
“The way we recorded Calculating Infinity really lends itself to the live show. So gear wise the Quad Cortex is, while very digital, having all the options so that we can just perform lends itself well to doing this kind of music as well.”
Dillinger have had quite the career since the 1999 record, Ben himself having performed as part of Suicidal Tendencies, so surely it must be odd going back to perform something in its entirety from such an early stage of his career?
“In preparing for these shows,” Ben begins. “For one, it made me enjoy playing guitar again, like when I practice I was like ‘Man, my hands don’t do this anymore! I don’t really understand this anymore—I gotta learn it again.’ and in being forced to have to get in shape, I started to see progression.”
“Like when you’re young and you start playing guitar and it’s like a video game, like ‘I just wanna get home and play!’”
Ben continues, explaining that he felt himself leveling up and hitting new heights, but he
also acknowledges that a few of the songs have been performed extensively throughout the career of the band.
“So they were pretty immersed in the band, not all of them but some of them.” he explains. “It is interesting to limit ourselves to old stuff and not play any newer stuff. The older stuff isn’t odd to play, but it’s odd to play only the older stuff, and bringing ourselves back to that time period.”
Ben explores this further, discussing the memories of jumping into vans, playing small halls and clubs, as well as generally being outsiders within a music scene; Dillinger Escape Plan have carved a niche for themselves and others now, but it wasn't always that way.
We shift here to the recording of Calculating Infinity itself. Performing as a band with a diverse and unique sound is hard enough, and this can sometimes be exacerbated by an engineer who doesn’t understand a band’s intention and instead tries to fit them into a box.
“We were very lucky to find a producer, we worked with Steve Evetts, who really thought like us, a very musical guy.” explains Ben. “The bands we thought sounded the best in the underground hardcore scene— and it was very clear ‘cause there was these bands that sounded like they recorded on a four-track recorder, and then there was the band that to us, sound ‘real’, and it sounds like a polished real recording, but it’s an underground band.”
The person making these records was Steve Evetts who, in addition to Dillinger, has worked with the likes of Poison the Well,
Sepultura, Saves the Day, Lifetime, Hightower, Story of the Year, Every Time I Die, Earth Crisis and more.
“We went to him ‘cause he was doing the albums that we loved the sound of. The benefit of that was not that he didn’t understand what we were doing, it was that he could easily tell when we needed to be pushed farther, because we were sounding like the other stuff he did.”
“He was like ‘I hear where you got this from, I did the band.’” says Ben with a grin. “‘C’mon, let’s push this!’”
Steve Evetts pushed the band to find their own sonic identity, pulling influence from their own world as well as Steve’s impressive discography.
“He got us out of that obvious influence.”
As main songwriter, Ben’s influences were on show, but Steve Evetts helped to shape and refine their sonic footprint into something that would change the trajectory of their careers and the lives of themselves as well as the audience who found a home in their fanbase; and that’s worth celebrating.
The Dillinger Escape Plan land in Australia in August to celebrate 25 years of Calculating Infinity.
Aug 10 - PERTH METROPOLIS FREMANTLE
Aug 12 - ADELAIDE THE GOV
Aug 13 - MELBOURNE NORTHCOTE THEATRE
Aug 16 - SYDNEY THE ENMORE Aug 17 - BRISBANE THE TIVOLI
For more info, ticketing and dates, keep reading at https:// thephoenix.au/
Ruby Gill on capturing the sound of community on Some Kind of Control
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
The new album from Ruby Gill, Some Kind of Control, is out today, with singles like “Touch me There” telling the tale of Ruby quietly coming out to herself, and in Ruby’s own words this album is “cheekier, looser, gayer and even more raw” than ever before.
This album, and the Australian Music Prize & Music Victoria-award nominated I’m gonna die with this frown on my face, feature Ruby’s unique wit, one liners that cut to the core of an emotion or a feeling, however fleeting.
“Usually the songs are completely complete in their form and structure and lyrics,” explains Ruby, speaking to the timeline of bringing a producer into the songwriting process. “I guess the record is co-produced, but I really don’t enjoy the process of figuring out technically how to record it.”
Ruby explains there’ll often be layers and layers of instruments, vocals and more in demo versions of songs, these demos becoming special and sometimes difficult to let go of, or re-record.
“I bring a producer in at that point where I’m like ‘How do we make this better? And how do we make it happen? Make it clean and beautiful.’”
“I don’t feel particularly inspired by the technological side of songwriting. My job is definitely to make the words and the music and then someone can figure out how to record it.”
Ruby explains that “The Flood”, the lead single for the record, where they’d only written half of it before sharing it with producer Tim Harvey, who encouraged Ruby to finish it. Tim clearly saw something in the ideas presented to him, pushing Ruby through a few variations.
“When I make my demos I make them on my phone on Garageband, and I love that process.” Ruby explains.
“I love layering and I love sitting for hours with my headphones in and making it work, but I can’t be bothered to learn that next step up of a full studio setup. If I did it myself it would be so DIY and that’s totally fine, everyone has a role, and I know I’m capable, but I’m just bored by the
problems that can happen.” they conclude.
So with such an insular creative process— what made Tim Harvey the right producer to allow in?
“He is just an angel. Maybe firstly he’s a friend, which is helpful, because I feel we’re having fun and working together. He also has such a gentle energy, he leaves so much space for things to happen and his ideas are amazing, but he’s not ever forcing them onto anyone.”
Ruby continues, explaining that Tim is there to help artists realise their vision, not there to bring his own ideas to the table.
“I have such weird requests, like where I want to leave all the bird noises in from outside the studio and I don’t want it to sound clean or polished.” Ruby explains. “And he’s so on board with it being whatever I want it to be.”
We riff for a moment about engineering and producing being such a people-based job, producers and artists spending hours and days together in (sometimes small) tight, soundproofed spaces, so getting along is of utmost importance.
“To be honest, it’s been a beautiful process for me,” Ruby begins. “Like I am a perfectionist in my life, like I rarely struggle to not think I’ve done something wrong... just on a therapy level.” Ruby laughs.
“Tim’s been a really healing thing in my life, because he’s so open to thinking something’s amazing even though it’s not polished, it’s allowed me to think ‘I fucked that take up and still it made you cry.’ so let’s just leave it.”
“Let’s make real music and not concocted music.”
Leading on from allowing imperfections onto the album, Ruby discusses recording a choir of close friends in Old Stone Hall in Beechworth — an imperfect acoustic space.
“It was to make it feel more real.” they explain. “When I recorded the demo, it was just me, I was the choir. Very close mic’d, and doubled over a hundred times. It didn’t have the imperfection or grittiness or space of a room.”
Ruby had played a show there before, and
it had a nice feeling and sense, and beautiful acoustic quality.
“There was eight of us in the choir, and we just sat all day and just sang. I asked Tim to not mic it close, and just mic up the hall, and he had mics all over the hall capturing all different levels and layers.”
“Sometimes we would step up to the mic, instead of trying to mic us up in a clever way, we moved our bodies to create different levels of distance. It felt real, instead of humming into a mic that doesn’t have context.”
There’s a layer of magic to these recordings that can’t really be added in mixing or with an effect. There’s a sense of community and fun, obviously the dynamic of friends standing and singing together in a great sounding old hall, that comes through in the recordings. It’s as if you can hear the grins on the faces of the singers, including Annie-Rose Maloney, Hannah McKittrick, Angie McMahon, Hannah Cameron, Jess Ellwood and Olivia Hally, as well as Ruby.
“Luckily everyone was my friend, so it was just fun, but I’m sure if they hadn’t been friends, the songs are kind of silly. They’re very heavy and there’s some vulnerable stuff in there, but they’re also from this place in my life where I was starting to have fun in my life for the first time, probably ever.”
Ruby explains the previous record, I’m gonna die with this frown on my face, was about being angry, and so full of difficult feelings all the time, but the last few years this has all turned around. Ruby has let go of some anger, and wanted to capture that on the record.
“I like that you can hear each person. There’s some songs you can hear Hannah McKittrick, or hear Annie-Rose Maloney’s voice. They’re in the choir but you can hear them peaking out over the top—like ‘That’s the Angie McMahon song, or that’s the Hannah Cameron song. It’s really special.”
Some Kind Of Control is out now. Catch Ruby live April 17 at Northcote Social Club, Naarm
Just as the legendary K Series quickly became the New Standard for powered loudspeakers, the K Column is destined to forever elevate your expectations from a column loudspeaker. It’s the perfect combination of sleek and stylish design, coupled with the acoustic performance of a high output, high fidelity loudspeaker system.
Imma Give You What You Need... IJALE
WORDS BY GREG LONG
Tough Love...
Producer, engineer, radio presenter, IJALE started the year with the release of a slamming call to arms, “321”. Together with artist and collaborator, Voldy, massive 808 basslines underpin “321” but IJALE rejects the beaten path of boom-bap, kick, snare monotony. Instead, he leans into complex Afro-Beat inspired polyrhythms that manage to hold two truths simultaneously: laid back, yet frenetic. Choose your own groove. Far from scripted or predictable the downtempo verse bleeds into a hypnotic chorus, ending with a rallying cry of “3-2-1 We shoot to the moon!”. IJALE’s output is as prolific as it is frenetic. Accolades include a best “Solo Artist” nomination for the 2022 Music Victoria Award, showcases at SXSW Sydney, sold-out headline shows in Melbourne, along with support slots for Winston Surfshirt and Kojey Radical. Further exposure through placements in A24’s critically acclaimed horror film Talk to Me, campaigns for sportswear giants Reebok and Champion, and a collaboration with Sydney’s BOY SODA, titled “LVL30.”, have seduced listeners with a unique blend of storytelling and complex, yet accessible, production. Radio presenter gigs at Triple J, across several shows, have furthered IJALE’s reach. As a producer, recent projects with Maina Doe and Mali Jo$e, have expanded his horizons, and his journey as an artist: to bridge the gap between music and culture. One the eve of his next release, an E.P. titled minutiae, I sat down with IJALE to discuss his music, creative process and his uncommon path from architecture to producer. Melbourne born. Sydney raised. Nigerian soul. IJALE channels his rich
life into complex, heartfelt tracks, both infectious and affective. His path to producer warrants exploration and explanation, “I started music a long time ago in a band when I was 18. We would play our favourite covers, Bloc Party, Fallout Boy, things like that. When it got to a little bit later in life, I started producing and I realised I could do it outside of being in a band.” IJALE continues, “After high school I studied architecture in Sydney, around 2010. I was introduced to a whole bunch of music from the people I was studying with. Different genres, like math rock and different types of electronica. And I really got into the... wild nature of the music. My world of influences was really blown apart by all of the people I was meeting. But, after finishing the degree I fell out of love with architecture and fell deeply in love with music. I could express myself in as many ways as I wanted and create from end to end. That's when I really started putting a lot of myself into music.” After study, IJALE started work but the shoe just didn’t fit.
“Yeah, nothing really sparked interest for the longevity of architecture.”
In 2015 he returned to Melbourne and commenced studying Music Production at Collarts in Collingwood. IJALE reminisces, “I think when I first started studying there, we were one of the first intakes of audio production. The next year it changed to music production, which was more geared around having a holistic approach to DJing, live sound and production as well. I kinda felt like we were guinea pigs at that point, but all in all, I fell in love; being in the studio, acoustics, live recording ” For IJALE the studio became not just a place to create but a place to be. A home.
Talk of studio life leads us to talk about tools of the trade. “I started on Cubase, but as soon as I found Ableton Live, I was like, yeah, this just feels like the one. I've been using it for maybe 12 years now. I think it was Ableton Live 8 that I started with.” The conversation continues, “Live has changed a
“It’s like, you've got a vision and then you just keep searching until you find “the” sound.”
lot in that time. Ableton has listened a lot to what people want, comments in the forums etc. I think it was version 11 when they added audio take lanes and I was like “Okay! There's literally no reason for me to do things in Pro Tools”.
Far from an exploration of relationship dynamics, familial or romantic, his new single “Tough Love” is a biting indictment of the music industry and the art vs. content dilemma artists face today. A criticism of the machine that sees an artist’s labour funneled into the Spotify (et al) algorithm for next to no return, save for the Sheerans and Swifts of the world. The track opens with the line, “I ain’t here to give you what you’re used to. Imma give what you need. Sermon with a beat. This ain’t no content. F@ck your feed.” Shots fired!
The harmony and chords in “Tough Love” are evocative and complex, so I enquire further about IJALE’s musical palette, “I always find myself moving towards suspended chords. Very jazzy stuff. Using modes and things like that. I find it to be way more expressive than simple chords.”
“It’s like, you've got a vision and then you just keep searching until you find “the” sound.”
There’s a noticeable absence of snares and trap style hi-hat patterns in “Tough Love”, yet it has an undeniably rhythmic pulse. I ask IJALE how he approaches programming beats, “I like the complexity of Afrobeat rhythms. There’s a long lineage going back to tribal ceremony, Highlife music in the 50’s and artists like Fela Kuti and Tony Allen who really pioneered Afrobeat in the late 60s. Afrobeat always has a polyrhythm background, with percussion layered on top. The kick and the snare are really pared back though, so you get these two tempos, where, if you're into it, you can express yourself in a more lively way, or just vibe. Like a head nod. Be casual with it.”
On a roll, IJALE continues, “That's why I like Afrobeat a lot. I'm always interested in percussion. Adding rhythm to the in-between spaces but in “Tough Love”, it was a conscious decision to get away from standard beats. It was a reaction to working with labels and PR. For example, I’ll have a pronounced, maybe singular vision about structure, and they'll try and enforce this, “You got to make sure the vocal comes in at least five seconds after the start, type thing”. I was like, “Actually, f@ck all of that!” So, suspending beats and the most catchy moments in the production was by design.” Reflecting further he adds, “I've always been trying to push that
Afrocentric sound, and I realized that the “Afrocentric-ness” is just a part of my perspective. I don’t want to lean on it all the time, otherwise it just becomes something “generic”, so I use it as a backdrop.” Looking back, he continues, “I started out in production listening to Flying Lotus. There’s just so much swirling energy in everything he does. For a while, I’d throw everything at the wall and try and keep it all in there. Now, I try to picture how people would dance to my stuff, or other Afrocentric sounds, to make music that directs reactions. A lot of the moves that people do to those sounds can be embellished, but they can also be paired right back in a really cool manner.”
I ask about the incredible vocals that feature so prominently in his tracks and the production techniques involved, “I’ve got a 1073 preamp, 1176 and LA-3A clones (classic, hardware pieces) in my studio right now. That's pretty much my set-and-forget vocal chain. Working with Voldy, and his love for vocal stacks, I came to understand the weight and excitement these give to the music. To get that sound, I'll record Voldy, or my own vocals, then put these layers into a group track, pan the vocal tracks hard left and right and add some light EQ on each take. Low cuts. Nothing hectic. Then on the group bus, I’ll do the main sculpting to make these sit in the track.” When massaging basslines to fit a track, IJALE reaches for the Fuser plugin, by Mastering the Mix. He explains, “Fuser is like a type of spectral ducking, but with a sidechain so it ducks the frequencies, not just volume.” Solid.
The conversation concludes as we talk inspiration and intent, “Lyrically, I always come back to themes of belonging, and legacy is also a big one. I’m second-generation Nigerian, and my dad would always speak about wanting to build something when he came here. I think that passed along to me. This want to build something that I could leave behind and in that, explore different iterations of identity. With each song, I find myself thinking about a different part of myself or expressing something that I see in other people, then putting myself in their shoes.”
IJALE’s “Tough Love” was released by Hy-Lo Creative Studios on February 28th and can be streamed on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer and Youtube. Keep up with him on Instagram at @ijaleofficial
The Horrors discuss their new album Night Life and the DIY element running through it
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
A refreshed lineup, coupled with recordings from beautiful studios with a stellar producer and an album is born.
20 years as a band is no mean feat, yet here are The Horrors celebrating the milestone with their sixth studio album Night Life, out today. Following a handful of singles including “More Than Life”, the album is a stoic, moody and gothy journey through The Horrors’ vast list of influences. It shifts seamlessly through industrial, post punk and electronic, melding analogue grit and digital rigidity into one incredible, contemporary sound. We caught up with frontman Faris Badwan about the recording making process.
Faris, thanks for taking the time and congrats on Night Life. How has The Horrors’ songwriting process changed over the twenty years you’ve been a band?
The Horrors began doing everything together as a group of five, and we learned to write songs through playing as much as anything else. We recorded our debut album (Strange House, 2007) in between intense runs of touring, and our second album (Primary Colours, 2009) was the first chance we’d had to actually spend an extended period of time experimenting and going deeper into sound design.
For Skying, we built our own studio, which we also used for Luminous. Around this time we began writing in different groups within the band, trying out writing in twos and threes as the process of doing everything as five people had started to become too inefficient. V continued in this manner, and then COVID happened, leading us to work remotely for most of the 2021 EPs.
Is there a clear delineation between end of songwriting and the start of recording?
I think it’s often a fairly blurred line just as a result of the way we work. Looking back at our past records, we feel like the best ones and the ones that feel the most natural all have a strong DIY element running through them. We’ve often incorporated sounds and parts from the original demos into the final recordings, as often spontaneous and instinctive stuff seems to have a character that we really like. We’re happy to leave in little incidental sounds, background noise, small
mistakes – to us it just keeps a human element that gives those records life.
On one of the songs on Skying – “Wild Eyed” – we used a demo vocal recorded at my house and you can hear my phone ringing in the background of one of the verses. Night Life definitely keeps a lot of the DIY feeling, while being more refined in other places.
“I think that it takes a while to learn the value of space, and that taking elements away can often make certain parts have more impact.”
Can you speak a bit to the recording process for “More Than Life”?
We originally put the drums down in LA with a guy called Victor Indrizzo, who has a background in the industrial scene, but he was almost too good, and too precise. So on returning to London we redid the drums with a friend of ours, Jordan Cook, who has now joined the band full-time. He has a slightly different feeling that maybe is more natural to us, a bit more punk but still with great tone and character. We felt as if “More Than Life” could quite easily slip into being more ‘rock’ than we wanted, and it suited us to keep it a bit more understated.
Where did you record Night Life?
We recorded most of the demos at Rhys’ flat in North London, which is sort of Horrors HQ. There were a couple of exceptions— “More than Life” being one as I said, and “When the Rhythm Breaks” being another – demoed at Brendan Lynch’s studio in Willesden. The songs were mainly put down in Ableton, using synths and programmed drums and some guitar. As has often been the case, we used a few analogue synths for the writing process – a Korg Ms10 and Ms20, a Roland Juno 106, a Korg minilogue, a Roland SH-09.
We began studio recording with Yves Rothman in London, at Holy Mountain Studios in Hackney. It was mainly Rhys (Webb, bass), me and Josh (Hayward, guitar and piano) at this point. Joe (Spurgeon, drums until 2024) came in
for about two weeks at the beginning but realised that he wasn’t going to be able to commit to the entire process and took a step back.
Pretty much all the drums were programmed initially, and the focus was mostly on electronic sounds. Josh added guitar and I’m not even going to try and explain his setup because a lot of it is custom built, courtesy of his physics background.
Rhys and I flew to LA to work at Yves’ studio, the Bungalow at Sunset Sound, where we stayed for six weeks. We focussed on building solid arrangements for each track, with the view to refining more subtle details later. Yves had access to a lot of our favourite synths – like the Roland SH-09 which has appeared on most of our albums. We also began to add real drums and other live elements. We’ll often set up different work stations around the studio and move between them – I’d be refining lyrics and vocal parts while Rhys was looking at the sound design with Yves. Amelia (Kidd, keys) had appeared at this point, contributing additional production from her studio in Glasgow.
We then came back to the UK, and with very little remaining budget Rhys, Amelia, Yves and I set up a DIY recording space at an Air BnB in Tottenham, bringing all our gear in one last push to finish the recording. It was a slightly weird environment as the house belonged to a Christian Scientist with an extremely esoteric book collection. On the final day the entire row of kitchen cupboards detached itself from the wall, falling to the floor and completely destroying the place. There was no music playing and there’s no real explanation for why this happened. I was a few inches from being crushed.
We mixed the record with Craig Silvey, who has worked with us across our career. We tried to keep the rhythm parts fairly loose and avoided having everything locked to the grid, which meant redoing some of the drums. It was kind of the final piece of the puzzle really.
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WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
CLAMM are a Naarm based punk band, blending together post punk, pub rock and a smattering of punky, noisy influence. Today they’ve released a new single, “And I Try” from the forthcoming album Serious Acts.
Introducing some darker, brooding elements into the fold, “And I Try” brings in some pulsing synths, further defining CLAMM as more than just another punk band. CLAMM’s frontman Jack Summer speaks to their songwriting process, how they usually write and what has evolved for this new single.
“How it normally works is that we’ll either write together in a rehearsal room, it’s very much something that has often been the case— that we’re often working out of small rehearsal rooms.”
“I guess our songs come from a very live setting. Not so much playing to other people, but I think we will just be doing stuff in the room and something happens that we’re attached to, or that we want to repeat.”
Jack continues, explaining sometimes he’ll go through periods of time where he’s inspired and will have ideas on his own to bring to the group. He’s always careful not to overcook these, as he wants to leave room for the identity of CLAMM’s other members to make their mark on the song. He’s weary of boxing them into his ideas.
“Sometimes I’ll do some really awful sounding demos into a shitty little interface.” he says with a grin. “I’ll do a riff, or some vocals, or a combination of those, and I’ll go ‘Oh, this is something I want to bring to the others’, but for now it can stay a shitty little demo.”
Jack explains further that while the moment
Jack Summers of CLAMM discusses allowing musical identity to breathe
CLAMM initially recorded the album at Head Gap in late 2023, and Jack takes a moment to reflect on the studio that was. CLAMM, along with others, have very fond memories of the studio. From here, they did three or four days at Rolling Stock Recording Rooms in Collingwood, all engineered by Nao Anzai at both studios.
“He’s incredible and has an incredible ear, and he was able to try and record it with the energy that we were playing it with.”
of inception for a song will often happen for him, he’ll record the idea but not explore it further. He doesn’t want to take away the moment of magic from his band members. He wants to experience it with Stella and Miles, bass and drums respectively.
“It would feel kind of selfish to me to go down that path on my own.” he says. “Sometimes I have to follow the song on my own, but I’ll never really consider a drum part, nor will I say to Miles ‘What if you did this?’ because it’s his speciality. Same with Stella, I might write a bass line that I’m kind of attached to, but most of the time I try not to do that, because I want it to be a collaboration. I want all of us to add what we have to give, which is a lot, y’know?”
From here, CLAMM jam ideas, though for “And I Try”, there was the aforementioned synthesizer, Jack having made sequences on an Arturia MicroBrute.
“It’s the angriest little synthesizer.” Jack says with a chuckle.
CLAMM used this sound for a few new songs, explaining there’s a few different suns to their last record, while staying pretty true to their attachment to being a live band. CLAMM had tested out some news songs live, making sure they worked. Some of them were still being written and jammed before they booked a few days getting the primary rhythm tracks down for the songs, before an additional few more days of overdubs.
“We’re attached to trying to keep the energy of the song.” says Jack, referring to the band’s decision to record the foundation live. “There’s so much being done with clicks and amp simulators, which is cool, it’s amazing. But there’s nothing overly complicated going on for us, and when you’re just a loud band, who’s making intense music, it’s hard to do anything but record it in the room y’know?”
“We sent it off to a guy called Seth Manchester, who is in Rhode Island in the US, and has done some mixing for some albums that we really love. Some great bands. We were lucky enough to work with him [and] do remote mixing over three days.”
CLAMM were focused on making sure the finished mixes sounded as intense as it felt to play the songs, a unique approach to mixing. We discuss for a moment the intensity of recording with a meagre set up, Jack referencing records with a single microphone to capture the intensity of a band.
CLAMM went the other end of the spectrum, sending a lot of DIs and additional files to Seth for mixing, allowing him to push and pull the recordings as much as he wanted to.
Jack speak further to the mish-mash of influences within the band, combining new influences, new pedals and new sounds. While they might be new to CLAMM, these are influences that’ve bounced around for a while.
The advent of new sounds and influences is exciting, and while this may serve as a challenge for new bands to pull off live, Jack reminds us that they’ve been playing these new songs live for a while.
CLAMM are excited to breathe some new life into the brashness of their live show with some softer songs, giving the audience a reprieve from the punk energy before diving back into intensity.
To finish up, Jack shares one last piece of wisdom; he explains how he’s been performing live with the MicroBrute.
“It was a sequencer that I’d set up, so all I had to do was hold down one key. But I had to play guitar!” he explains. “It’s an old trick that all the organ players, where you get a wedge under the key to hold it down, so I’d just do that live.”
“It was pretty ridiculous,” he recalls. “Because I’d be setting up this whole thing just to wedge a single key down for two songs.”
Serious Acts is available worldwide on 30th May, 2025 via Meat Machine Records.
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EVERLAND STUDIOS
Ben, thanks for taking the time! The lines between producer, engineer, studio owner and mixer are all pretty blurred. How do you define what you do?
Can you give us a quick rundown of your main studio staples?
Sure— the DAW is the latest version of Pro Tools running on a custombuilt Mac.
Monitoring is through a pair of Neumann KH310’s and I have a Digidesign C24 controller, which is great to be able to grab faders quickly while tracking without having to reach for the mouse.
Pre-amps include Neve 1073LBs, API 3124+, Millennia Media, Rupert Neve 511 and Trident 80Bs.
I have mics from Beyerdynamic (M88s, M69), AKG (414s, C451), Peluso (2247) amongst others, as well as some ‘fun’ mics like a Telefunken MD21 and a Shure Green Bullet.
There are a couple of drum kits available for use too— a Pearl Masters 22/10/12/16 and a Gretsch 24/12/13/16. There’s also a choice of snares and cymbals.
What makes Everland Studios such a special place to make music?
Yeah, the lines are definitely blurred these days, and honestly, that’s part of what I love about the work. I’m a producer and mixer at heart, but I also engineer almost all of the sessions at Everland.
I think of my role as being whatever the music needs—sometimes that’s capturing a great performance cleanly and efficiently, other times it’s about helping artists shape a vision from the ground up. Owning the studio just gives me the freedom to do that without compromise.
You’ve been in your current space for about a decade and employ a hybrid workflow. How are you integrating your collection of analogue gear into production, recording and mixing?
Yep, I’ve had Everland for 12 years now. The hybrid setup really is the best of both worlds. I like using analogue gear during the recording process where it adds character or flavour—I do a lot of compression and EQ on the way in, particularly when recording drums—but I rely on the flexibility and precision of the DAW for arrangement, editing and automation.
These days I mix almost entirely in the box although occasionally I’ll send a certain element out to an analogue EQ or compressor and record it back into the session. I also like using the C24 control surface for automation rides etc. as it keeps things feeling tactile.
Is there a piece you find yourself reaching for every session?
Definitely. For tracking vocals, I almost always end up using my Daking FETIII compressor— it’s super clear and if the vocalist is very dynamic, I can compress quite hard without it sounding squashed. In terms of mics, my sE Electronics RN17’s are a go-to for drum overheads— they really capture every detail of the kit and have a great off-axis sound.
For mixing, you’d be hard pushed to find a mix where I haven’t used Sound Toys Decapitator or oeksound Soothe 2. Soothe is such a useful tool for cleaning up the low-mids or getting rid of a little harshness in whatever source.
I’ve tried to make the space feel as relaxed and welcoming as possible. I’ve been in other studios that feel very clinical, with lighting that makes it feel like you’re recording in a supermarket, so I didn’t want that for Everland. I wanted it to feel a bit like you’re recording in a living room, albeit a beautiful-sounding living room. To that end I’ve decorated it as I would my home and there’s a big bookcase with lots of knick-knacks, books and magazines, as well as a tonne of weird little percussion instruments.
As a producer/engineer, clients often comment on how laid-back I am, which is great. Recording can be stressful enough without the engineer adding to that. I’m sometimes stressed on the inside but I guess I have a good poker face!
Can you describe the studio layout a bit?
Everland has a comfortable control room with a flat frequency response for mixing. I use Sonarworks to take care of a couple of dips and bumps in the low end but it’s not doing more than 3dB changes, so yeah, pretty flat!
The live room is about 6m x 4m and can comfortably accommodate a 4-5 piece band. It has floating floors and great isolation. I love the way drums sound in that room and many drummers have said the same thing. Gobos can be moved around to create a more ‘dead’ space for tracking vocals. I’ve also recorded string quartets a number of times and that has sounded amazing. The room just seems to work for most sources.
In addition, there are two small amp booths, which allow a full band to record together ‘live’ whilst maintaining complete sonic isolation. Or, you can put all the amps in the live room and go use the bleed as I’ve done on a couple of occasions.
Are there any standout moments in Everland Studios’ history?
A little while back, I recorded drums with Ben Gilles from Silverchair. He brought in this beaten-up old Pearl kit - I think it might have been a Pearl Vision(!) - which apparently was the one he used on their first single ‘Tomorrow’. It was pretty cool to have that piece of Australian rock history in the live room although I don’t think the heads had been changed in about 20 years! On a different session I also recorded vocals with Daniel Johns so I just need Chris Joannou to come through on bass to complete the set.
Nick Oliveri, who was the original bass player in Queens of the Stone Age, also dropped by when he was on tour in Australia in 2019 to lay down some bass for a project he was working on called The Black Armada.
Honestly though, the best thing is hearing a great song from a new, independent band or artists and helping them to bring their music to life.
TRACKDOWN STUDIOS
Thanks for taking the time! Trackdown is a studio focused on a lot of film and TV post production— can you speak a little to the work that comes in?
All of the above—and something else, really. Trackdown has been part of Sydney’s creative fabric for nearly 50 years. We began life as a rehearsal studio on Oxford St in the late 70’s before opening our first demo recording and rehearsal space “The Studio” on Kent Street in the early '80s—a go-to space for some of Australia’s biggest music acts. It was a different era, full of energy and experimentation, and the space quickly became something of an institution for Aussie rock. Acts like INXS, Mental As Anything, and Icehouse adorned the halls in those early days—Icehouse even earned our late co-founder Simon Leadley his first ARIA Award.
As the industry evolved, so did we. Over time, we also grew into one of the country’s most respected film and post production facilities. Today, we’re a full-service audio house working across everything from major studio films to prestige television, gaming and streaming projects. Our scoring stage hosts full orchestras for films like “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” and “Furiosa”,
Trackdown’s Scoring Stage equipment deviates a bit from more traditional ‘band’ and ‘music’ recording equipment, can you speak a bit about the workflow of Trackdown?
Trackdown Studios has long been a key player in Sydney’s film, music, and post-production landscape, and one of the ways we’ve maintained that distinction is through our Simon Leadley Scoring Stage—a facility specifically designed to handle the complex needs of film scoring but also suitable for scaled down projects too.
At the core of our workflow is the Euphonix S5 console, which offers a staggering 344 channels. This is far beyond the requirements for typical band recording, and the large number of channels makes it ideal for managing the complexity of orchestral scores, post production work, and multitrack film scores.
We also use Pro Tools HDX systems to drive our digital setup, with Pro Tools A (HDX3) supporting up to 192 inputs/outputs and Pro Tools B (HDX) running at 64 inputs/outputs.
Tools systems and Neumann 7.1 monitoring.
The Studio: Our main recording studio is where a lot of the action happens between big scoring projects. Whether it’s ADR, foley, or music production, this space is all about versatility. With Neve 1073, Grace 501 and Raindirk preamps, it’s equipped to handle everything from voiceover work to music recording.
Theatre One (Mixing Suite: This is our mixing hub, designed with precision in mind. It’s all about getting the perfect sound balance, whether you’re working on a film soundtrack or an album. We have Avid S1 consoles and 9.1.4 JBL and Krix monitoring to ensure every detail is heard.
Production Suites: These are our more private, smaller spaces where clients can work on editing, scoring, or any other productionrelated tasks. They're great for composers or producers who need quiet, focused environments.
What makes Trackdown so special?
and we’ve handled Music editing on award winning titles like “Boy Swallows Universe” and the Golden Reel nominated “Better Man”.
What can someone expect from a session at Trackdown?
It starts well before the client walks through our doors working with the admin and engineering team to ensure everything is in place for your session. We always say there’s no such thing as a “normal” day at Trackdown—but there are definitely a few familiar rhythms.
If you're heading into a scoring session, the scoring stage will already be prepped. Our engineers will have prepped the day before and then arrived early on the record day to again check the up mics, running line checks, and liaising with the composer or music team to make sure the Pro Tools sessions are locked and ready.
For composers or producers working in the mix suites, it’s all about ease and flow. We’ve built the rooms to feel creative and inspiring, but also technically precise—so once you're in, it’s just about doing the work.
Trackdown’s microphone collection is a prime example of our versatile gear selection. For orchestral recordings, we often use Neumann U47 FETs, Schoeps CMC6s, and AEA R44Cs, which allow us to capture the full breadth of the orchestra, from delicate string sections to booming brass.
On the monitoring side, our 7.1 Neumann KH420 monitors, complemented by KH120s and KH805 subwoofers, ensure that what we’re hearing in the control room is a true representation of the sound on the stage—critical when mixing for film or scoring for projects with intricate sound design.
Can you describe each of your dedicated spaces in a bit more detail?
The Simon Leadley Scoring Stage : This is our largest and most versatile space. Named after our late co-founder, It’s a purpose-built stage for recording everything from full orchestras, a space for major artists to rehearse between shows, and we've hosted the odd yoga event there. The acoustics are tuned to perfection, and we’ve got all the gear you’d need to record in stunning detail, from Neumann microphones, Neve 1081R,Grace M802, Millenia and Raindirk preamps to top-of-the-line Pro
Trackdown is a place that’s steeped in history, but it’s also about the future of music and sound for film. For nearly 50 years, we've been a part of some of the most iconic projects in the industry. From the incredible music we’ve recorded for artists like INXS, Icehouse, Paul Kelly and Mental As Anything back in the 70s and 80s, to Ryan Tedder, Lime Cordiale and Will-I-AM in more recent years. Then we have our long list of film, tv and game scores and edits from Moulin Rouge & The Great Gatsby right through to What If...? and World of Warcraft. Trackdown has always been at the forefront of Australian music and film production. On top of recordings and mixes we’ve also hosted performances by the likes of Coldplay, Tim Minchin and Justin Bieber.
Trackdown is not just a studio; it’s a place where history is made, and where we continue to create work that has a lasting impact. Whether it’s recording Australian music legends or cutting-edge film scores, we’re always pushing to elevate the work we do and support the incredible talent that calls Trackdown home.
FIVE UTILITY PLUGINS FOR SOLVING AUDIO PROBLEMS
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
Often built to look like the gear of our dreams, there’s a myriad of compressors, saturators, delays and preamps that add grit, heft, weight and depth to our sound sources. However, all of these exciting plugins with beautiful, vintage-inspired and weathered graphic user interfaces are in vain if your audio isn’t in tip top shape!
While it’s also best practice to check things like phase, gain and more while recording, sometimes the project calls for some more in-depth and clinical audio cleanup. For this, saturation doesn’t help, and instead the transparent nature of digital audio can be great for fix up jobs, servicing equipment and installing new bits of kit! You might just find yourself relying on these more than you realise!
Signal generator
Most DAWs will have some kind of signal generator plugin, and it does just what it says on the box. Pro Tools has the aptly named Signal Generator, Logic Pro has Test Oscillator and Cubase has TestGenerator. These plugins can create single frequency sine waves, as well as options for white and pink noise and more!
This comes in really handy for checking and making connections with hardware, outboard and auxiliary sources like headphones. These plugins send out a simple tone, allowing you to send and receive the consistent tone to make sure it’s arriving wherever you choose to route it. Hardware acting up? Send a tone through it and see what the VUs do, and listen to how the tone sounds on the other end!
Installing a patchbay? Patch a tone around to some gear and make sure it’s arriving where it’s meant to.
Phase alignment/corrector
Before we dive into some handy tools for checking and correct phase, let’s demystify some terms that are often (wrongly) used interchangeably: phase and polarity.
In audio, phase refers to the relationship between two signals. In recording and producing, soundwaves push and pull microphone diagrams above a zero point which, at the other end, either pushes (above the zero point) the speaker cone out, or pulls (when the waveform is below the zero point) the speaker cone back to create sound. If two sounds are instructing the microphone and/or speaker to be pushed and pulled at slightly different times, the resulting sound will be a less powerful version of the source, as the speaker microphone (and therefore speaker cone) are being pulled back as it’s being pushed out.
If something is 180° out of phase with something else, the microphone and/or speaker is being instructed to push and pull from the zero point with the same amount of energy. Two identical signals 180° out of phase will result in no sound, as the speaker is being pushed and pulled in exactly opposite direction with equal energy, so the speaker cone won’t move.
Polarity refers to something being set to either 0° or 180° in our out of phase. Phase, however, can be anything between 0° and 180°, and more often than not, this is where you’ll have issues. Most preamps and plugins will have
a polarity switch, but if something is less than 180°, you’ll need something to correct phase.
Delay plugins (not like an echo or reverb) can be used to slightly delay a sound so that two sources arrive at the speaker at exactly the same time. Little Labs also make hardware called the IBP, faithfully recreated in a plugin by UAD. Auto-Algin by Sound Radix is an entirely automatic plugin that allows you to phase align a whole heap of sources all at once, live within your DAW. Really well aligned tracks will give a better sense of depth, as well as helping sources to feel more crystallised and real within a stereo field.
Trim
Every DAW will have some kind of Trim plugin, really handy for keeping your gain consistent and healthy across your whole mix. These can be used to ensure proper levels are hitting plugins, or for the analogue lovers amongst us, allow you to set and forget your hardware, using Trim plugins to control how much signal hits the hardware for easier recall.
Trimming signals obviously allows you to pare it back, but you can also push things harder into plugins or hardware, for more saturation, grit and heft that comes with those more exciting, often tube-driven, sounds.
Metering
Metering is incredibly important, and the bouncing green meters of your tracks aren’t always enough to know what’s going on. A handful of metering plugins can keep you confident things are sounding good, and while it’s generally not advisable to mix with your eyes, a little extra help never hurt anyone!
Metering can be for the frequency response of your whole mix, or overall volume levels, different metering plugins showing LUFS, Peak RMS, short term and momentary loudness and more. Use it to reference your favourite mixes and see how they look, as well as sound. iZotope make a great plugin in Insight, and companies like TC Electronic make hardware for dedicated monitoring with their Clarity range. HOFA also produce the 4U Meter, Fader & MS-Pan that has just about every meter you could need!
Room and chamber reverbs
While reverbs can be more exciting than a lot of the plugin we’re talking about here, a few great sound utility reverbs can be really handy to have around, especially in the isolated nature of recording that we often find ourselves in!
Things like plates, spring reverbs and more are fun, but some great room and chamber reverbs can be relied on mix after mix for more subtle effect, i.e. to place a whole band into the same space.
Historically, studios would have a reverb chamber to access reverbs, and one physical space meant anything that needed reverb was sent to the single chamber and returned to the console. While we’ve advanced lightyears from here, there’s a certain sense of cohesion that minimal use of reverbs can give.
‘Studio’ sounding reverbs can be great for this, and while not long, modulated and exciting per se, they can give a whole drum kit or entire mix the feeling that it’s been performed in the same space.
ISLAND RECORDING STUDIOS
Joseph, thanks for taking the time! Island really seems to focus on end to end production for artists of all levels, what do you enjoy about this kind of work?
Thanks so much for having me - great to be here! Yes, indeed we do. We specialise in full production projects where we help artists take their basic demos all the way through to radio-ready singles. This is predominantly in anything under the broad pop umbrella. These projects are super collaborative - working closely with the artist from start to finish to develop and realise their vision.
When it’s an artist's first time working on a full production project with us, it’s always fun to see how the process blows their mind a little as they realise what’s possible! For example, they may think it’s just not feasible to have a string section on their track,
Town Hall) leant me a little 4-track cassette recorder. This blew my mind as a young musician who was starting to write songs - having the ability to actually hear back what the 2 guitars I’d written sounded like together. That’s probably what started the fascination with recording for me.
When I was 16 I bought a little Tascam interface so that I could start multitrack recording onto the computer. For a few years I recorded my own music, and recorded bits and pieces with friends for fun.
I think it was in 2009 or 2010 when a band asked me to record them. I thought ‘Why not? I’ll give it a crack!” and this is really what started it all. Over the next couple of years I did a few projects here and there as I really started to learn the craft and pour hours into reading how famous records were produced, as well as testing stuff out for myself.
Over the years since starting Island Recording Studios, I think I’ve naturally developed from just the engineer that sets mics up and presses the record button, into the more traditional producer roleplaying a hands-on creative part in the majority of projects.
You work and mix in a hybrid workflow that involves both analogue and digital, can you tell us a bit about the studio’s gear?
147 rotary speaker. The sound that comes out of that organ is phenomenal.
How did The Island Production Academy come about? What can someone expect from The Island Production Academy?
The Island Production Academy has been something I’ve had in my head for quite a while now, and over the past couple of years we’ve run a course called The Art of Music Production a few times for those that are looking to increase their knowledge and skills in all aspects of the production process.
Firstly, our 10-Week Home Recording Bootcamp. The bootcamp is aimed at people who are in the early phases of their music production journey, with the goal being that after 10 weeks they feel comfortable and confident recording and mixing their own music.
We’ve actually just finished our very first bootcamp as of last night! The bootcamp comprises a weekly 2-hour in-person workshop, as well as access to the online portal, which has complete lesson videos for everything that’s covered in the workshops, as well as a bunch of extension videos, downloads and demonstration videos. All students receive lifetime access to those videos so that they can always revisit them when needed.
however, with the likes of Spitfire Audio and some arranging from me, before they know it they’ve got an epic string section bolstering their song.
Overall, it’s such an enjoyable process working from end to end with the artist to bring their visions and dreams to life!
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an engineer?
Sure! I’ve been involved in music basically my whole lifestarting piano lessons at age 5, and starting to play professionally for functions and events at age 16. I also started playing guitar around age 12 and have picked up a bunch of other instruments since.
A little while after I started playing guitar, my older brother (who is also a sound engineer though predominantly has worked in live venues, such as Sydney
Yes, we’ve got the best of both worlds in the studio! A bunch of really great outboard gear at our disposal, from the likes of Neve, API, Universal Audio, Phoenix and much more. Plus some very handy integrated digital gear like the Slate Raven mixing touchscreen and Universal Audio’s Apollos and Console application - seriously couldn’t live without that - it makes recording sessions so smooth and monitoring for the artists so so great. Many artists who have previously recorded elsewhere remark that for the first time they feel super comfortable singing with headphones on as their voice is coming through so clearly.
We’ve also got a great collection of instruments at our fingertips too - guitars, drums, percussion, an amazing Kawai piano (without being too biased it’s probably the best upright I’ve ever played), and my favourite instrument of all - a 1939 Hammond BC organ, complete with a Leslie
In the next month or two we plan on launching our Island Production Academy memberships - this will be an online membership with access to a variety of mini courses - each on a specific topic. We are also looking at holding monthly mixing competitions with gear for prizes. The more people we have, the bigger and fancier the prizes can be! All members will also have access to regular Zoom calls where we answer questions and help everyone to keep moving forward in their musical journeys.
Finally, in August, we are looking to launch our one-on-one production coaching, for those that are looking for that high-level support as they dive into the more advanced (and complicated) topics that go beyond the Home Recording Bootcamp.
The Production Academy has been something I’ve been pouring every “spare” minute of my time into over the last 6 months or so. Essentially working another full time job on top of the full time job of normal studio work!
WAYNE JONES AUDIO
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
Wayne Jones Audio have established themselves as an unmatched option for studio monitoring, with a list of artists, producers and engineers that sing their praises to prove it.
At the core of the company is Wayne Jones himself, a lifelong musician and innovator, whose quest for the perfect bass cabinet for himself led him to a world-class design that now houses a superbly flat, balanced and focused monitoring system used by the likes of Warren Huart (Aerosmith, Produce Like A Pro), EastWest Studios, Victor Wooten, Record Plant LA and Krish Sharma (Rolling Stones) to name a few.
“I couldn’t afford an extra bass cabinet when I was seventeen,” begins Wayne, speaking to us from his home in Victoria. “My dad was a woodworker.”
Wayne explains that with the generous help of Nova Sound for cabinet parts, he and his father had assembled an Identical cabinet themselves. Whilst doing clinics & endorsing Trace Elliot amplification for Music Link, Wayne had the idea of splitting a 4 x 10 cab (as they were too heavy) & creating a modular system. He observed Trace Elliot making smaller extension bass cabinets for a more modular design, though still unsatisfied, he designed his own cabinet from the ground up, using Lorantz Audio speakers.
“Sound Solution built these for me using ‘Just off the shelf speakers.’” he explains. Wayne used this first model for a while, before diving deeper into the design of the driver itself.
“I went to see Michail at Lorantz, and we decided we’d design drivers for the bass cabs. So, we did, and in 2001 Bass Player magazine gave me a review saying ‘This is for every other speaker manufacturer to aspire to.’”
“There's a trade off. There’s either restricted low end to get good mids & highs or restricted mids & highs to get good low end etc. Michail designed this driver for me to do it all with accurate reproduction of all areas in the bass, mids & highs even before we get to a tweeter.”
Wayne Jones Audio cabinets push a more balanced sound, using premium components and treated cabinets to push consistent and balanced sound out of the speakers.
This also carries through to the Studio monitor drivers where the reproduction, clarity dimension, transients & recovery are just amazing for producing, mixing and mastering applications.
Wayne recalls recording an album in QLD. Not happy with the Genelec monitors that were there he used his bass cabinets as monitors, before passing the record off to Steve Scanlon to mix (still on Wayne’s cabinets). Steve then took the record back to his studio in Melbourne where, at the time, he used Quested monitors and found he only needed to tweak some top end.
“That was how the bass cabs led to the Studio Monitors — I called Michail at Lorantz and said ‘If the bottom end and midrange is that good in my bass cabinets, they’re gonna make amazing studio monitors!’”
From there, research was also needed for the power amps & DSP. Wayne contacted companies in Europe & USA for the “D” class power amps & DSP. For three months, Wayne tweaked the internal design and acoustics of the speaker, using material and absorption to treat cabinet reflections instead of relying entirely on DSP like some other companies.
“By ear & with Michail’s guidance I got the cabinet as close to flat [as I could], to eliminate Eiger modes. Then I could fine tune it with the DSP.”
With other monitors, engineers and producers are not getting the true picture of what they are trying to achieve. Many a time after hearing their mix on Wayne’s monitors, they comment “I didn’t realise I had that much compression on the kick”, “I can now here the reverb tails & need to change the reverb!” or “I can hear things I never knew were there.”
Wayne Jones Audio's entire range of monitors shares this sound and philosophy. “EastWest are now raving about them,” Wayne beams. “They’re their favourite speakers.”
Wayne has an Atmos system in his lounge, also where he tests monitors. His 7.1.4 system is assembled from a combination of carbon fiber & original wood monitors as well as a 15” sub that is all routed through a Dante network and an Avid MTRX studio interface for playback.
Acutely aware of immersive sound’s arrival, his range of speakers are produced with consistent parts to ensure the high number of speakers all react and translate sound the same way. Working with Joseph Mothiba (who is a well known artist & producer) in South Africa led him to Universal Music & more. Joseph also has his own video production company with OB vans which led Wayne to design a 6.5” speaker for mobile recording, his range extending from there through a 10” model 2-way model, right up to a 2 x 10” 3-way mains monitor and 15” studio subwoofer.
The range of speakers are designed to give the same translation across the range, the only difference being the power handling of bigger or smaller speakers; a very important element in Atmos is the translation.
“It’s essential you have the same translation all around,” explains Wayne. “When a producer or engineer is mixing, they’ll want to put certain things in certain places, and you want to make sure you’re getting the accuracy— that’s it’s the same as out the front.” he says, referring to the ‘standard’ left and right stereo monitors versus the additional 10 speakers in a 7.1.4 Atmos setup.
Wayne Jones Audio has additionally partnered with Sonarworks, allowing for SoundID Reference profiles to be loaded into the monitors directly. So no need for using SoundID as a plug in any more
“Initially it was used in a DAW as a plugin,” he says. “I was the very first worldwide to do this. So now you can upload your calibration profiles to each individual speaker.”
Wayne Jones Audio have a foot firmly in the present while they look to the future of Atmos and immersive sound. They have a range of speakers for any and every situation, studio and workflow, as well as future-proofing themselves with the advent of Dante, Digital audio connection, Atmos and other DSP-based technology that might be on the horizon.
With a masterfully designed speaker cabinet at their core, Wayne Jones Audio speakers are second to none, translating accurately and musically, from the mind of a man who’s in constant pursuit of the best possible sound.
EMPIRE MUSIC STUDIOS
Paul, thanks for taking the time! Empire Music Studios is an incredible space, could you describe it in a few words?
Empire Music Studios is the kind of place you build when you have a blank canvas of 1250sqm of factory space and 35 years of experience in running studios to draw from - that was my starting point so I ran with it, building a dream classic large format recording facility and creative hub. Empire is one of the last proper, large acoustic spaces to record in, with 4 separate studios providing a range of sizes and a fantastic variety of great sounding rooms for bands of all sizes. It’s kind of a temple to real music and real musicians who rely on the sound and space to inspire them and the ability to play together as a group. Most studios now are so small it is hard to even set up a drum kit properly let alone a whole band. In Studio A we can even accommodate a 60-piece orchestra. Consequently, we get the work and jobs where space and acoustics really matter.
Empire Music Studios’ Control Room A has an expansive console with racks of great preamps, what is the advantage of having so many sonic flavours?
All of our control rooms feature a good range of preamps to record through rather than a traditional console. Studio 1 & 2 have 32 channels while Studio A has 64 channels (half Solid State and half are Valve based). Our main brands of choice are Focusrite ISA series, Sebatron Quad Valve and Thorax, Neve Shelford, SPL Crescendo, Universal Audio LA610’s, some Classic older TL Audio PA-1 and VP-1 tube models, and Warm Audio WA273EQ. Each brand and channel have different characters that suit different instruments and different microphone combinations.
What kind of music do you find Empire Music Studios working with primarily?
We have always enjoyed the opportunity to work with all genres. Melbourne is not big enough for a studio to work in just one niche or knock back work. Particularly when you have 4 studios you need to be able to work with a wide variety of musicians and clients from all walks of life. Having said that, it is clear that having large acoustic spaces draws in real players so we do a lot of Jazz, Rock, ambient jazz, orchestral and other large ensemble type projects. Two such jobs were the vocal cast of & Juliet and an album by Sunrae Bee Sharp which was a 16 piece strings project. Our main producer Trevor Carter has so much musical experience he can go from doing Black Sabbath to Ariana Grande without taking a breath. Musicians and singers love working with someone who can understand their music and really help them in the studio. Our other engineers also have plenty of experience and can work with a range of different clients. We even do a lot of Hip Hop, Pop and RnB vocal projects.
Can you give us a quick rundown of your main studio gear? We prefer Logic Pro as our main DAW but we also cater for Pro Tools users. We absolutely love ADAM AUDIO monitoring and use that in all of our studios alongside some JBL, EAW and EMES options. Our use of ADAM has led to us becoming an official ADAM dealer and Listening Centre. We use mainly S-Series monitors including the massive S5 12” 3 way model. We also have some of the latest A Series models. We use Apple M2 Macs in each studio and DM2000 digital mixers just for monitoring and headphone mixes. All recording is done as pure path direct through each of our separate preamps. We particularly love Focusrise ISA series solid state preamps and local brand Sebatron for our Valve channels. We own about 175+ microphones and about 80 headphones, we have a lot of top range 40 and 50 series Audio-Technica, Rupert Neve and SE Electronics, Sennheiser, Warm Audio and Peluso mics along with a small amount of Neumann. Some of our most favourite mics include the Sound Deluxe U47 Tube, the AT5047 top of the range from Audio Technica and the Rupert Neve Tube Ribbons.
What makes Empire Music Studios such a special place?
I think from our perspective it is our dedication to the real musician and to providing inspirational acoustic recording spaces throughout. I think from our client’s perspective it would be the welcoming nature and knowledge from everyone who works here, we all come from a musical background, even the staff in the kitchen and behind the bar are musicians so we are all on the same page.
Can you describe the sound and layout of the space a bit?
Studio 1: Smaller and more intimate, great for vocal work and small bands up to 5 piece (drum booth included)
Studio 2: Arguably the best studio in Melbourne for Jazz, Rock and Blues bands. Great for live recordings with 2 separation booths and Perspex surround around the Grand Piano. Piano players love the Yamaha C7.
Studio A: Melbourne’s largest recording space, big enough for an orchestra or choir or very comfy rock band setup like used by The Black Sorrows. Sensational new Yamaha C7X Grand Piano. Big sound and 5m height.
Production Suite: 36sqm acoustically treated space for electronic music, pop production, vocals and guitar tracks.
Lounge/bar and function area: Perfect for music themed parties, Music industry launches or major birthdays.
Can you share a standout moment in Empire Music Studios’ history?
Obviously doing local albums for big acts like The Black Sorrows is already exciting enough but it is truly surprising when we get a variety of international guests like Calum Scott, Yebba, Yoyo Honey Sing, Rema and industry heads of companies like K-Array, Peluso Microphones and most recently the opportunity to work with legendary mix engineer Bob Clearmountain.
We were extremely lucky to host the ATMOS mixing seminars here in Melbourne last month for Link Audio and Apogee Electronics. We had around 200 people attend the seminars over 2 days and it was so great to hang out with Bob and his wife Betty who is also the CEO of Apogee.
Empire Studios has become a staple of the community for more than just recording, can you tell us a bit about some other offerings the studio has?
One of the special points of difference with Empire is the ability to do high quality live recordings with a full audience. We have also been hired for recordings with an audience surrounding the band all wearing headphones. A ticketed event can pay for a whole album so it is fantastic to be able to do a whole recording project just by doing a show and selling the tickets!
Final note our Kool Skools Project is still going, now in its 27th year, a great original youth music initiative through secondary schools that has in the past provided the musical starting point for artists including Missy Higgins, Anthony Callea, Delta Goodrem, The Cat Empire, Marc Collis, Natasha Duarte, Jordie Lane, Time Wheatley, Casey Donovan and so many more. Schools can still register now for 2025!
BRAND NEW AGAIN
HOW TO RECORD A GUITAR CABINET TECHNICA:
dust cap brings out some of the life that the AT4081 offers in the high mids, while shifting it more towards the speaker’s body offer a darker and moodier low mid bump.
Another single-mic technique is to position a microphone a few feet away, equal distance from all speakers on your cabinet, and capture the entire amp as it roars into the room. This might yield a bigger sound, but the proximity of the guitars as you listen will be set back in the mix, the fraction of a second it takes for the signal to hit the mic from further back being audible. The AT4081 again, is a great option for this kind of recording as it has a wide frequency response, as well as the figure of eight pattern picking up some additional room ambience. This offers a much more natural and balanced sound than a mic right up on the speaker!
Multi-miking
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
Recording guitars can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be, the beauty of it being that many rooms will yield a great and entirely usable guitar tone, regardless of acoustics and soundproofing. Volume permitting, a mic placed on the speaker cone of a cabinet will generally sound the same regardless of your environment. Ambient and room mics however, are a whole other story, obviously being more susceptible to acoustic environments.
Recording a guitar cabinet with a single microphone can lead to reasonably good results quite quickly; and there’s a handful of generally accepted dynamic and ribbon options that serve as a great option for the frequencies (and SPL!) that guitar cabinets are pushing out. A good middle ground is something like the Audio-Technica AT4081, an active ribbon microphone that captures all the warmth and heft of a ribbon, while preserving some high end and treble clarity that is often lost on other ribbon microphones.
Single miking techniques
To start, we’ll explore two techniques to capture a guitar cab with a single mic. A good rule of thumb when starting out is to have one mic serve as your main sound, while any additional mics can serve to support that main mic. For in your face tones, it’s a good idea to mic up a single speaker, regardless of how many speakers the cabinet has, usually two or four.
The middle of the speaker, the dust cap, will yield the brightest and most aggressive results with EQ erring on the brighter (sometimes harsher) side. The body of the speaker cone adds, as expected, more body and low end, so you can start by placing your mic between on the edge of the dust cap where it meets the speaker cone for the best of both worlds.
The AT4081 itself is an active ribbon, so it’s more prepared to take the high SPL that guitar cabinets pump out. Its frequency response extends from 30Hz all the way up to 18kHz, and the figure of eight polar pattern has it focused on the guitar cabinet while capturing a little of the ambient air and space around it for a natural sounding tone. Shifting the mic closer to the
Having discussed single miking techniques, let’s explore the world of multi-miking. Continuing with our example of an Audio-Technica AT4081 right up on the edge of our speaker’s dust cap, something like a condenser microphone can be a great option for additional clarity or additional ambience; depending where you put it!
If your single, main mic is lacking bottom end heft, maybe an additional mic on the speaker cone’s body can be used to blend back in some low end. As this isn’t your main sound, it doesn’t need to sound full and refined, instead it serves to fill any gaps in the sound of the main mic. An AudioTechnica AT4040 condenser can be a great option, its focused frequency response helping to add low end definition to guitars without adding too much mud. You can really push the AT4040 to the edge of the speaker, capturing almost inaudibly dark tones, as the clarity and definition is already captured by the main mic, in our case the Audio-Technica AT4081.
For some really bonkers low end, trying miking up the back of a cabinet, and while this works best for open-backed speaker cabs, there’s no harm in experimenting with whatever you’ve got! The low end build of the cabinet itself can harness some really great, tight and defined punch and ‘womp’, great for metal, hardcore and hard rock guitars. This technique particularly is a great one to capture, and only automate in and out of the mix when that extra weight is needed.
Having used the AT4081 as our main mic for most of these scenarios, let’s switch it up: ribbon mics can be a great way to capture big, blooming room sound, especially of a loud guitar cab. Their darker response (the AT4081 beginning to roll off around 15kHz) prevents it from getting too noisy and distracting, but the subtle colour of the mic allows it to capture the energy of the room. A condenser on the speaker itself can yield very in-yourface results, and the full-frequencied sound allows you to capture everything and EQ later if you choose!
Multiple mics on a speaker might produce some phasey results, and this is a whole other conversation, but phase can be used to your advantage as well, allowing you to shape and refine the EQ response of the sound to control low end or exacerbate it. As makers of noise, you’ll find yourself miking up more speaker cabinets than you know what to do with—so get good at it!
Miking a guitar cabinet can be a lot of fun, and you’ll be surprised how vastly a sound can change as you move the mic from dust cap to speaker body and vice versa. Mastering recording with a single mic can open up a world of options with multi mics, either to blend in tandem with your main sound, to augment, or to offer some natural room sound in addition to it.
INTERPRETING MIX NOTES: PLUGINS TO GIVE CLIENTS WHAT THEY WANT
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
The more experience we gain, the more we realise what a service industry audio really is.
While we still get to use plugins, microphones, compressors, preamps and patchbays, all of this in service of a few things: the song, the mix and, most important of all, the client and their experience. The line between producer and engineer has blurred, we’re often both the recording engineer and mixer, as well as the one in charge of making sure the artist is happy with sounds overall, often interpreting vague and seemingly simple words used to describe sound. How do you revise a mix when the notes say things like “magical”, “sparkly” or “expensive”? Well, let’s start with expensive.
“Expensive” = delay and reverb
Expensive is often associated with lead instruments, like “the vocal needs to sound more expensive”. It’s a term that seems to have originated in the 80s and 90s, where recording budgets were at an all time high, particularly for hard rock, rock and metal records. 80s sounds are characterised by a lot of reverb and delay, and that’s the key to achieving an “expensive” sound.
For a delay sound, a drastic high-pass filter can help here (before or after your delay—you decide!) to retain brightness without muddying up the main source. A little pitch shift can help to detach the delay a bit from your source, often a vocal or soaring guitar solo, as well as some EQ after the delay to tuck it in. High feedback settings can help the delay feel more expansive and wide, as can a reverb to help blend the delay trail/s together. “Expensive” can also refer to sparkly sounds, like a diamond, so scatter your delay across the stereo field.
“Warm” = saturation, tape effects and EQ
For a mix where the band is requesting a “warmer” sound, you’ll want to add some of the subtle saturation characteristics that analogue equipment adds. Conversely, if a band thinks something sounds too “warm” or “analogue”, you can do this in reverse!
Tape machines have a low end bump, caused by the relationship between magnetic tape and the machine’s pole pieces. Depending on the length of the tape and the machine, the bump will move around, but as a general rule you’re looking between 60Hz-150Hz where you’ll cop enough of a bump to notice it. EQ can be good here, though tape saturation plugins will add this. If using EQ, be subtle and use a wide Q, and if using saturation you also don’t want it to be explicitly saturated or overdriven, just enough to fill in some gaps.
Warmth can also be more explicitly overdriven and distorted, like tubes, and this can include attenuation, again like tubes. For this, you can blend in re-amp’d (even using plugin amps) sources in parallel, usually focused on the mids and low mids to fill in those gaps and add harmonic warmth. Harmonics are the name of the game when discussing warmth, and you’ll just need to understand exactly what kind of heat the band is after!
Finally, tape saturation plugins on a mix bus can be a quick way to warm up a mix.
“Punchy” – parallel compression
This one is often added to the list by a drummer who doesn’t hit very hard, yet here we are trying to make their performances bombastic, exciting and dynamic; dynamic being the key here.
Parallel compression works best for adding punch to a source like drums as it’ll do two things. Firstly, it’ll help retain the dynamic of the original performance and secondly, it’ll allow us to decide what sources are being compressed in parallel. For example, you could send just the shells of a kit (kick, snare, toms) to a parallel bus to be compressed. This way we’re not bringing up any noise, ambience and ring from the room and/or overhead tracks— we’re just adding impact to those sources that are already pretty punchy.
Bandpassing (a high and low pass simultaneously) this parallel bus can help you to focus in on punchy frequencies (usually the mids) and an expander can help to bring back some of that dynamic for even more punch. Heavily band passing something like a bass guitar (in parallel), EQing out everything except the “oomph” (that’s a technical term in the biz!) and parallel compressing that can add punch as well.
Finally, slower attack times on mix bus compressor plugins can be helpful to add dynamic and punch to an entire mix. Dial your threshold and ratio quite hard (like unusably hard, we want to exaggerate the effect here) and move your ‘Attack’ time around. Listen to how the snare drum and vocal fold into the mix (faster attack) and emerge back from it (slower attack), before adjusting your threshold and ratio to more usable levels.
“Louder” – limiting
It’s a generally good idea, sometimes at the behest of the dynamic you’ve worked to retain, to send bands a mix that’s closer to the level you’d expect from a master. For this reason, it’s a good idea to get a little experience doing a faux master, because at reasonable levels, you can bet your bottom dollar that the first thing an artist or band will say is the mix isn’t loud enough. Arguably, they’ll be referencing their favourite albums (mixed and mastered), so get used to this! Simple limiter plugins (Waves, Fabfilter, Slate Digital etc.) is a great tool for transparent loudness.
Bands will also ask you to turn things up, and sometimes they mean they want something more present, bigger, to occupy more space or to feel more forward. It’ll be up to you to decide if the balance of the mix is right or wrong, and what path to take. Limiting can squashes sounds together and can make something perceivably louder, so this can help to focus a source and make it bigger and louder sounding, without ruining your mix.
Forward sounding sources are also usually brighter than sounds around them, so you can brighten them up while darkening sources around them. A great example is darkening room mics on a drum kit while brightening up the snare, it’ll help the snare to pop.
Things sounding bigger and more present can also be achieved by aforementioned saturation, as well as parallel compression, these helping to add heft and weight to sources.
GETTING IT RIGHT AT THE SOURCE WITH WARM AUDIO
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
It’s a concept that we’re so constantly reminded of that it can feel like a tired old phrase, but: get the sound right at the source.
In a world where our digital audio workstations can really handle a lot of heavy lifting after recording is done, it’s important to remember that you can only process what you’ve captured and, within reason, you can’t really synthesise too much additional information if you’ve missed it in capture. EQ doesn’t add low end per se, it just shifts the low end that exists within a source to be more exaggerated.
Sonics aside, it can serve an artist well to be hearing a great sound in their monitors or headphones, allowing them to focus on their performance and not the anxiety of how the end product will sound. In my own freelance work, I have a few of mantras that I use for myself and bands, a relevant one being “Record as if you’re not going to mix.”
A handful of extra tools on capture can get a sound really close to ‘finished’, as well as managing the expectations of a band or yourself on the resulting mix. A great mic is a given, but while there’s a whole slew of good and great mics available, maybe more so the focus should be the ‘correct’ microphone for the application. A ‘great’ ribbon microphone won’t serve a pop lead vocal, same as a high-end, bright condenser may not flatter an overly dry and washy cymbal. The choice of microphone can serve to either compliment or augment your choice of preamp, some preamps allowing for a little EQ, some impedance settings (again to match with your mic
and interface/tape machine), and a compressor at the recording stage can help to level out any peaks, bring up any quiet moments and produce an overall more polished sounding result than directly into an interface or convertor.
Any audio interface with a preamp on board will work, we’ll give them that, but an audio interface’s design doesn’t offer as much as a dedicated external preamp, let alone compression not usually being available on interfaces.
Mic
Your choice of mic should be dependent on a few things: the sound you want or the sound you have. An overtly bright source that needs to be darkened could benefit from a darker, more vintage mic, while a dull source can benefit from a present studio condenser to help it fit into a contemporary mix. A good studio condenser is a great option as they’re so full-frequencied that they allow you to shape the sound however you like.
The Warm Audio WA-47jr is a great solution as it features a little of the character and weight of a bigger studio condenser, but the absence of a tube or transformer means it responds well to faster transients. Use a mic like this to capture a true to source recording of just about anything you point it at in cardioid, or switch to Omni or figure-of-eight to capture more ambience of the space around the source.
Preamp
Your mic choice can be null without a great preamp after it, serving to both amplify the mic’s signal to line level for recording, as well as offering some tonal shaping options. The WA73EQ is a great solution, Warm Audio offering some classic “British” sounding tone with a three-band
EQ and high-pass filter to treat your source on the way in.
The WA73-EQ offers enough gain for both line and mic sources, and for you to really push signal into harmonic saturation if you wish— thanks to the output trim at the other end of the unit it can still hit your converters or interface at a healthy level. This way you can begin to shape the sound sonically so you won’t have to do so much work in the mix! The filter can easily get rid of unwanted low end, for example if you’re recording a guitar, vocal or piano that doesn’t always need that sub low end, allowing you to easily filter 50Hz up to 300Hz with a few steps in between. The three band parametric EQ offers the option to boost or cut lows, mids or highs, for a little extra sparkle in the top end or some extra thump in the lows. Augment the mids on a source or scoop ‘em— I’m looking at you metal producers! Additionally, the WA73-EQ has a ‘Tone’ switch that offers more impact from the colourful transformer within the unit. You’re also able to toggle an insert on and off, patched directly into the WA73-EQ, for example a compressor?
Compressor
A little compression can be a great way to tame a signal while recording, and while I should remind you to be careful, you can also go as hard or soft as you like! Compression can help your mix to feel more finished while recording, but it can also help you singer to perform at their very best—hearing themselves clearly and consistently.
The WA76-A is Warm Audio’s answer to one of the most popular and widely used compressors in history. Building on the original FET design, known for being supremely fast and clear, the WA76-A adds a high-pass filter as a sidechain circuit, as well as a Mix knob to blend some harder compression back in parallel. At slow attack settings, a compressor will allow transients through before the compressor clamps the rest of the source down, a great and very transparent way to record. This particular compressor allows various ratio settings, as well as the option to double down and go harder if you depress multiple ratio buttons.
Getting the sound right at the source doesn’t have to be as scary as it may seem; if you’re happy with what’s coming out of the speakers then who cares!? Having a well treated source with a little EQ and compression can have clients impressed, as well as saving time in the mix as the sound is already on its way to being ‘finished’. Compressors on every source can help to set everything in place, and a handful of EQs while recording can help things to poke out from the mix with a little brightness, as well as adding saturation carefully to different sources.
While your audio interface might have a handful of features for recording, some dedicated units that are designed for treating your sound will pay dividends. Getting it right at the source sets a standard for the recording, and it can be a simple process to zhuzh (or wrangle!) your sounds into place.
HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE DOES AN AUDIO INTERFACE MAKE?
WORDS BY CHRISTOPHER BROWNBILL
The range of audio interfaces available is growing every day.
Best of all, the quality is sky rocketing with the range, meaning whatever audio interface you choose will likely cover a lot of bases, the advancing technology making high quality audio cheaper and more affordable than ever.
Multiple interfaces will now, well, interface with each other better than ever, allowing us to dedicate a different audio interface and different conversion type, or sound, for different jobs. The Dangerous AD+ can serve as a great way to print your analogue mixes back into the digital realm, serving as an audio interface and A – D converter, i.e. purely converting analogue audio to digital. Companies like Burl, Antelope, Lynx, Prism and more also serve to produce very high end conversion options, either to send audio out to the world (D – A, Digital to Analogue), or back into the computer (Analogue to Digital, A – D).
Mixdown contributor Chris Brownbill had the chance to re-explore his audio interface and converter choices.
Earlier this month I got my hands on a Dangerous AD+ converter to try out. I’ve always been relatively happy with printing mixes back thru my current converters, but every few years I try to stick my head out of the sand back into the conversion world to see what the new circumstances are. Not dissimilar to how I think most engineers feel, there is a low end of conversion which is significantly better than it used to be. There is a middle group that actually doesn’t do any perceivable harm. Then the third and top group – which are really special sounding. In brief circumstances where I have been able to do blind tests I’ve always had my preferences on converters but not enough to warrant spending huge money when, if I had to put a percentage on it, at a certain level of chip processing a converter really only pulls roughly 2% of the weight of a mix. I don’t think the wine tasting snobbery is routinely worth the labour when records are made in such haphazard circumstances.
The price point of the Dangerous Music AD+ suggests that it is a mid tier box, but what I found initially intriguing is the unique features: Clip Guard and the Transformer which I will explore further downstream. Firstly, its worth noting this unit has essentially every feature imperative from a small project studio to a larger commercial facility: Adjustable sample rate, selectable calibration, multiple switchable stereo inputs, zoom view for finer (top10dB) viewing of signal, three word clock modes (internal, external and master), dual AES outputs, SPDIF outputs and all connect via USB.
The CONVERT-AD+ offers two unique features activated by dedicated buttons. The first is the Clip Guard function, which prevents digital “over” indications on the receiving device. While it doesn’t alter the audio— clipped sounds will still be clipped—it ensures that meter readings don’t trigger alarms or lead to rejection by certain facilities. It’s nice to look like a professional by keeping things out of the red. The second feature directly impacts the audio, which is ultimately why we choose our gear. Designed by Chris Muth, Dangerous has incorporated an all-analog circuit to enhance the captured sound. The X-Former Insert button engages a pair of customselected Hammond transformers, chosen for their distinctive sonic character.
Additionally, the Emphasis knob applies a refined Baxandall-style high-shelf EQ at 300Hz, with its output subtly compressed and blended in parallel with the dry signal before reaching the transformer.
I began by setting up the CONVERT-AD+ and my interfaces as word clock slaves to my master interface, which is my standard workflow. I then printed various mixes back into my DAW and compared them all via my usual method which is by using HOFA 4U+ Blind Test. Right away, compared to my routine A – D’s, the CONVERT-AD+ delivered a noticeably tighter and more defined low end below 100Hz, along with smoother, more open high frequencies. The result was improved clarity and stereo imaging. Switching the CONVERT-AD+ to function as the master clock for my system preserved the clarity in the lows and highs, but the midrange opened up, feeling less congested and more natural. In comparison, the Antelope gave the mix a slightly more aggressive edge in the upper mids whereas the Dangerous clock had a more effortless, organic quality.
I engaged the CONVERT-AD+’s Hammond transformers, and the difference was immediate. The mix took on a richer character, it introduced a satisfying density. The low end remained clear while gaining some additional harmonic weight in the upper bass, and even the highs seemed subtly lifted. On percussion-heavy material, I noticed the transformer gently rounded out transients, giving the mix a polished, cohesive feel. Since the transformer insert is simply on or off, the amount of saturation increases with the input level, allowing for a dynamic, responsive coloration.
While we’re largely discussing the clarity and depth that good quality digital conversation adds, there’s an analogue element to the conversation as well, the analogue signal coming back into digital via analogue connections like the transformer in the COVERT AD+.
The Emphasis knob, positioned next to the transformer, offers a subtle yet effective boost, ranging up to 2dB. This boost operates as a parallel EQ with compression and a hint of second-order harmonic distortion. In practice, turning up the Emphasis control feels like a “make it better” knob—too much can be excessive, but the right amount adds a touch of magic to a mix. Unlike digital processors, it enhances the high end without introducing midrange smearing or harsh artifacts. When combined with the X-Former, the overall mix gains level and impact without unwanted pumping or clipping. I can easily see the CONVERT-AD+ becoming an essential tool for both mixing and mastering, purely for these features alone.
The versatility of the Dangerous Music CONVERT-AD+ extends beyond what a single review can capture. Whether used as an audio interface and A/D converter, mix bus processor, or master clock, its high-quality components make it a valuable addition to any studio. The seamless integration of these functions results in a truly powerful and flexible piece of gear
Where modern meets modular:
Justin Norvell on the Fender Player II Modified Series
WORDS BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS
Fender is a company built on the back of a long and storied history of innovation.
Innovation by artists like The Ventures and Jimi Hendrix, right through to modern guitar heroes like Mk.gee and IDLES. Innovation on the guitar doesn’t necessarily mean virtuosic soloing and music theory, but to push the instrument forward. Fender’s innovation also extends to Leo Fender’s designs that launched in the 50s, Leo himself being a repairer primarily—who designed the early Telecasters and Stratocaster to be easy to service; he was sick of sourcing spare parts, or simple repairs being overly complicated because of inaccessible routing, electronics and switches.
The Player II Modified Series follows a long lasting legacy and culture of modification, customisation and serviceability into a comprehensive range that has something on offer for everyone.
“[The Series] is aimed at players who are looking for a little bit more than a base model,” begins Justin Norvell, EVP of Product at Fender. “Like if you were looking for a car, it’s got the deluxe package on it.” he adds with a grin.
“I think in the past we’ve had series’ that were maybe further afield, and we thought ‘Let’s pull it back to its essence. What do people want? What do people look for?’”
Justin continues, explaining that Fender sits in a unique space. Most instruments are modifiable, arguably they’re all modifiable with the right tools, but as we now understand, Fender are built to be modular.
“What would we do as players?” he muses. “Well— Noiseless pickups, different humbuckers,
locking tuners and all of that, as well as visual modifications. But really important mods, tonally... the new bass preamp, for example, is something that we’ve wanted to do for quite some time, and we’ve put a lot of time into it.”
Justin explains that for all the modifications that the Player II Modified Series features, you can also use it to kickstart further modifications.
“[Leo] created the platform this way as an easy service concept.” he explains. “This design concept was considered crude back in those days,” he says. “Y’know screws and plastic! But what Leo decided was good for servicing was the ability to repair necks and swap necks and stuff like that, and it led to that culture of modification. Fender was not the first to put a humbucker in the bridge of a Strat.” clarifies Justin.
“It was players, it was people.”
Fender noticed people modifying their guitars, Justin citing Dave Murray (Iron Maiden)’s HSH Strat, as well as Jazzmasters and Jaguars with humbuckers in the bridge position.
“We had some Lead IIs and some things with odd pickups in ‘em for a while, but our first humbucker in a Strat wasn’t until the mid 90s.”
“You just think it’s so ubiquitous, so we just got a little less precious about the platform, and understanding that [a Fender] is what people say it is, this is what people are doing with our instruments. So we flipped at some point a couple of decades ago to just listening to people, and what they do and what they wanna do.”
“That’s led to instruments like these, but also the concept of our accessory business, and we say ‘Nothing’s more than a dozen screws away’.”
Fender understands people want to personalise their stuff, especially in the modern day where people are blending genres and pushing new boundaries on the guitar.
“Y’know, Mk.gee tuning a Jaguar to baritone
tuning with flatwounds and playing through a four track.” says Justin. “This is all part of that, and everyone’s finding their way to get a sound and have their own thing. Whether you want to do it yourself or you want it straight from the factory that way, that’s what we embrace.”
The Player II Modified Series features additions like Noiseless pickups and upgraded electronics and wiring, as well as reasonably simple upgrades like modern string trees and locking tuners. Visually there’s some unique colours and pickguard finish options available, building on Fender’s classic designs and aesthetic. Justin is especially excited about the addition of an 18V preamp in the bass models, allowing for more versatility across a famously versatile bass guitar design.
Justin speaks further to the happy accidents that’ve happened over history because of people having the chance to experiment, distortion on a guitar being an accident, tremolo being intended to be a subtle ‘Spanish guitar’ style effect, not the hard volume modulation that it’s now famous for. The Floyd Rose as well was meant to be a supremely stable tremolo, but it was never intended to be for divebombs—ironically now what it’s most famous for.
“Musicians always find a couple new gears on the transmission and that’s the dream, really.” says Justin excitedly. “People can take it to the next place.”
Fender has partnered with IDLES to help launch the new series, the British band being a perfect match for such a forward-thinking range of guitars.
“I think they’re so iconoclastic,” Justin says. “They’re not a blues band, or someone that’s going over previously paved road. They are sonically adventurous, they are not precious about gear and tools, and if they wanted to hack something out to put something else in, they will!” he says, smiling.
“I think the combination of the sonically adventurous, not all the riffs sound like typical electric guitar riffs. The same thing with Mk.gee— who’s sort of virtuosic, slow, but it’s tapping into that vein of inspiration, whether it’s high energy, low energy, anything is possible, and it’s outside the box.”
“IDLES, they’re a band that we’ve been following, and working with for a very long time, so we thought it was a perfect marriage.”
The modifications available from the factory in the Player II Modified Series are the result of Fender having their ear to the ground, as well as their eyes to the future, but also bringing their own experience and anecdotes as players and musicians into the fold for consideration.
“We talk to artists, we see what they like and what they don’t like, and then we have our opinions as well.”
“And things can get spirited, there’s definitely some radical ideas that get thrown into the pot.” concedes Justin with a grin. “We end up choosing something that’s a little more down the middle and not as radical, so these are upgrades that everyone would see as upgrades and it’s a good centre place.”
The new Player II Modified series from Fender takes a classic template and tweaks it out with all the bells and whistles that the contemporary player needs. Built for speed, efficiency and dynamic articulation, the Player II Modified HSS Stratocaster pushes the boundaries of an off-the-shelf purchase.
Miles Davis once said “Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.”
Guitar playing is the perfect example. The way you hold your pick, the amount of slack in your strap, the angle of your wrist when you strum, all the little micro-rituals you go through before plugging in—they’re all part of your signature style. These idiosyncrasies facilitate the hunt for that mythical place we like to call ‘the zone’ or ‘the pocket’, where everything snaps into place and every note feels intentional and profound. You might occasionally try out that new hybrid-picking technique that guarantees a 40% increase in right hand efficiency, but generally speaking, your zone is what dictates how you play, and you’ll follow the path of least resistance to achieve that feeling.
Of course, that philosophy has an impact on the way manufacturers make gear. It’s the foundation of innovation; it necessitates variety. It drives the compulsion to own as many guitars as possible.
One guitar for blues, another for grunge, a certain pickup for reggae, and another for jazz. Why? Because specific instruments fitted with specific specs are built to achieve
Brand: Fender
Product:
Distributed by: F ender Music Australia
RRP: Enquire for pricing
Reviewed by: Paul Blomfield
those specific sounds out of the box, meaning you can just plug and play with zero set-up effort.
But what happens when you want to break new ground? What happens when the core-range off-the-shelf guitars just are just too stock? Too normal?
Or, on the flipside, what happens when you find a guitar that’s almost perfect, but it’s missing that one spec you can’t live without?
You improvise. You think outside the box. You tweak and adjust.
You modify.
In July 2024, Fender announced the sequel to its best-selling range, the Player Series. The Player II saw the return of rosewood fretboards, the introduction of rolled fingerboard edges, and a plethora of new ‘vintage’ colour finishes. Artists like Julien Baker of boygenius, DIIV, Wallows and April Kae signed on to demo the Player II range as part of the 2024 launch campaign. The series includes Player II Telecasters, Mustangs, Jaguars and most relevant to this article, Stratocasters.
The Player II Stratocasters come with a fairly classic, contemporary array of specs, including a 9.5” radius Modern “C” neck, rosewood fretboard, Player Series Alnico pickups, 5-position tone switch and Fender Classic Gear tuning machines. There’s nothing wrong with those specs. They are what we’ve come to know, love and expect from core-range Fender guitars. But let’s say you’re a fiend for locking tuners or noiseless pickups, or one of those MacGyveresque
coil-splitting switches hidden in the bridge tone-pot. You love the aesthetic of the Player II series, but you absolutely cannot live without that one thing that is so crucial to getting you into the zone.
Before you start looking through pre-owned partscasters and custom shop guitars, pay attention, because the Fender Player II Modified series has just landed.
Looking at a brand new Player II HSS Stratocaster in one of those sick new colourways, but can’t live without Noiseless pickups? No problem. Want locking tuners? You got it. Want the ability to split the bridge humbucker? Done. With the release of the Player II Modified series, Fender has taken all of the guess-work and effort out of modifying a core-range guitar.
The Modern “C” neck is varnished with urethane, giving it a super sleek and speedy feel under the fretting hand. There are rosewood slab (yes you read that right!) and maple fretboard options, both with a 9.5” radius, rolled edges and 22 medium jumbo frets. I was super impressed by the resonance from the alder body in the model I test-drove. Tuning stability isn’t an issue with the TUSQ nut, modern string tree, and short post locking tuners—a modern feature which is quickly becoming a must-have on every guitar I own. The tremolo block means you’ve got more room to waggle that whammy to your heart’s content, and the 2-point synchronised tremolo guarantees you stay on pitch when you’re done
with your waggling.
The upgrades don’t end at the hardware, either. There’s magic in the electronics too. The neck and middle pickups are Noiseless, meaning you don’t have to worry about that dreaded 60-cycle hum when you’re belting out those warmer, throatier tones. The bridge pickup in the HSS model is also fitted with a coil-splitting function, which you can engage and disengage by pulling out and pushing in the bridge tone pot. So really, this HSS model also secretly moonlights as a SSS model! Just don’t tell that to the Player II Modified SSS Stratocaster...
The Player II Modified HSS Stratocaster isn’t just a hot-rodded version of a fan favourite. It’s Fender’s way of meeting modern players where they are. It delivers pro-tier flexibility straight out of the box, skipping the mod bench and letting you slot into your zone with as little friction as possible. It’s your dream mod-job, sans solder burns and YouTube rabbit-holes.
Finally, a Strat that mods itself so you don’t have to.
Brand: Fender
Product: Player II Modified SH Telcaster
Distributed by: Fender
Music Australia
RRP: Enquire for pricing
Reviewed by: Will Brewster
Since arriving on the scene in 2018, the Player Series has been one of Fender’s most successful product families in recent years. Combining impressive specs, classic looks and sophisticated electronics and paired with a relatively affordable price-tag, the Player Series is a no-brainer for budding musicians and touring artists looking for a guitar to suit any gig.
With the brand new Player II Modified Telecaster SH, Fender take this affordable gig-ready ethos and elevate it to a new level altogether. This is a seriously impressive instrument that packs incredible sonic versatility and smooth playability into a sleek, single-cut package.
While the no-frills nature of the original design has typically resulted in the Tele being considered as Fender’s least snazzy electric, this couldn’t be any further from the truth in the case of the Player II Modified Telecaster SH. This is evident straight out of the case, with rolled fretboard edges and an ultra-sleek modern C neck profile and 9.5” radius fingerboard with 22 jumbo frets really letting you glide up and down the furthest reaches of the neck.
The Player II Modified Telecaster SH ships with either a one-piece maple or slab rosewood fretboard and comes in a range of finishes. Our review unit boasted a classic three-tone sunburst finish with a rosewood fretboard, which felt truly delightful under the fingers and offered a dash more sonic
nuance than the pau ferro fretboards of the original Player range.
These bespoke appointments continue to reveal themselves when you inspect the Modified Telecaster SH’s hardware. A modernised Telecaster bridge allows for superior tuning stability and easy restringing, while the six-block brass saddles help add a touch of extra sustain to any single note flourishes. This is only further improved by Fender’s short post locking tuners and a bone-like TUSQ nut, making it super easy to shred away without any fear of falling out of tune.
Upgraded electronics and new and improved pickups are part of the allure of this fresh Fender Player II range, and it’s here where the Modified Telecaster SH really steps into a league of its own. It’s loaded with a chunky Player II modified humbucker in the neck position and a classic noiseless Telecaster singlecoil in the bridge position, effectively recreating the iconic pickup configuration favoured by Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards. However, unlike Chief Keith’s famous Micawber Telecaster, the Modified Telecaster SH makes clever use of a push-pull tone knob to split the coils of the neck humbucker and let you tap into traditional single-coil tones. This is a very nifty addition to the guitar that unlocks a whole gamut of tonal possibilities – from quacky funk and twangy country leads through to roaring rock rhythms and beyond, this beast has got it all.
The litmus test for any great
guitar is how it plays unplugged, and the Modified Telecaster SH certainly gets a pass mark here. It’s resonant and rings true, with no clunky frets or design flaws on the neck and body. Plugged into an amplifier, this guitar absolutely sings, with the noiseless pickups ensuring there’s no screeching feedback or unfriendly sounds even when your amp’s cranked up to 11.
Telecasters are best known for their crystalline clean tones, and while playing through a Fender Princeton tube amp, this guitar really came to life. The character of the bridge pickup lends itself perfectly to fingerpicking and pedal steel-inspired bends, while the middle position is a choice pick for any guitarist dabbling in funk, neosoul or RnB styles.
The neck humbucker, on the other hand, is articulate and packs plenty of output, letting you go to town with your picking hand to control the dynamics of your tone. In humbucker mode, it sounds thick and juicy without being pressed, and simply screams when you do engage a drive or distortion pedal.
Searing alternative rock and blues leads come naturally when paired with an overdrive and wahwah, and with a bit of amp tweaking, you can even encroach on filthy numetal territory – if you should please. Conversely, press the tone knob, roll back the gain, and you’ll be treated to a warm single-coil neck tone that invokes the more genteel moments of Jonny Greenwood’s lead work with Radiohead. Is there anything
this guitar can’t do?!?
Whether you’re taking your first ever trip to Tele town or you’re a seasoned pro chasing an axe that can keep up with the demands of all your different gigs, it’d be difficult to overlook the sheer value of the Fender Player II Modified Telecaster SH. This guitar looks and feels great, plays even better and sounds incredible for its price-point, and with all the bells and whistles it packs, there’s a fair chance you might never need another guitar in your rack after this one.
Fender has seen massive success since revamping standard US production for Jackson and introducing the formidable American Series a few years back.
Worldwide, players welcomed a new US standard line with open arms. The guitars have subsequently landed in the hands of many, including industry starlets like Misha Mansour, Marty Friedman, Debbie Gough and Dave Davidson.
As the steam train that is the American Series rolls on 2025 has bestowed upon Jackson fanatics the new American Series Soloist SL2 DX.
With many enamoured with last year's active-equipped SL2MG, the SL2DX provides a passive-equipped option, showing that Fender is keeping their ear to the ground when it comes to listening to what players want.
Upon removing the Soloist from its included Jackson Foam Core case, I was greeted with a delectable Snow White finish.
This time, Jackson has opted to provide this specific model in a sleek gloss finish. However, there are also Satin options, much like the Jackson Virtuoso we reviewed when the American Series first launched.
The finish feels good to the touch and has been applied exceptionally well. Rest assured that your own SL2 DX will look as great in 25 years as it did upon unboxing it in 2025.
The Alder body is both light and resonant acoustically, promising a fantastic tone when plugged in. I feel
Brand: Fender
Product: Jackson American Series Soloist SL2 DX
Distributed by: F ender Music Australia
RRP: $4299
Reviewed by: Jamie Colic
that anybody would be comfortable wearing this model on a strap for extended periods of time whether for practice or performance. The Soloist shape itself has always been a favourite amongst Jackson afficionados.
Upon its introduction all the way back in 1984, guitarists worldwide were enthralled by the model's excellent upper fret access, earning its name and setting the standard for high-performance metal guitars for decades to come.
Speaking of high-performance metal, the neck on the SL2 DX is to die for. Consisting of a 3-piece maple neck-thru construction, stability is the name of the game when it comes to the Soloist's slick speed neck.
The neck itself boasts a nice slim carve that will feel familiar to anyone who has played a Jackson guitar before. Not too thick yet not too thin, this carve will please even the most discerning of shredders with its comfortable 25.5” scale length. Additionally, the signature 12”-16” compound radius is a standout feature on these guitars, providing a seamless playing experience both down by the nut and higher up the fretboard.
Truss rod adjustment is accessed from the heel which is extremely convenient. No more scurrying for tools to access the truss rod cavity, making for quick and easy adjustment on the fly.
Jackson have opted for a nice dark piece of ebony for the Soloist's fretboard, with sharp inverse Shark
Fin inlays, the fretboard both looks and feels absolutely fantastic in the hand. 24 jumbo stainless steel frets round out the neck construction on this guitar. With no sharp ends or high spots to be found. Stainless guarantees many years of high-octane playing before you will be off to visit the tech for a fret level, lasting much longer than the industry standard nickel fret material.
The hardware package on the SL2 DX boasts quality with a Floyd Rose 1500 series locking trem holding things down for the Jackson.
The 1500 series features everything us headbangers know and love about the classic Floyd Rose with a few subtle upgrades including stainless steel intonation and string lock screws and a pushin arm.
Up at the headstock, a set of Japanese-made Gotoh MG-T locking machine heads ensures that string changes are both fast and efficient.
These tuners, combined with the aforementioned Floyd Rose and locking nut, ensure that tuning on the Jackson remains rock solid regardless of how much abuse is dished out on the tremolo bar.
If all of this wasn't enough, Jackson has also been kind enough to include a set of Dunlop strap locks in the package, ensuring that your new investment won't be colliding with the stage floor any time soon.
The electronics package rounds out the SL2 DX package, and oh, what a treat it is!
Boasting an electronics package courtesy of industry behemoth Seymour Duncan, this particular guitar employs the classic combo of a JB TB-4 Trembucker in the bridge position and a '59’ SH-1N humbucker in the neck.
The JB packs plenty of punch in the SL2 DX’s Alder body. Providing a nice upper mid spike that will ensure that your leads cut through even the densest of live mixes. However, this never translates to the JB sounding shrill or icepicky in even the most bright of guitar rigs.
Conversely, the ‘59 in the neck provides a classic “blooming” neck tone. Not dissimilar to a classic PAF humbucker, it serves as a perfect companion to the JB, providing eons of versatility when utilising the instrument's 5 way blade switch.
Once again, Jackson has knocked it out of the park when it comes to this year's American Series offerings. Managing yet again to combine form and function into a sleek package catered to the modern working musician.
If you are in the market for a high-end Super Strat, I highly suggest that you take the time to visit your local dealer to try out the new SL2 DX.
Brand: Dreamtonics
Product: Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro
Distributed by: Dreamtonics
RRP: $99 USD
Reviewed by: Paul Blomfield
Understatement of the year: artificial intelligence is a hot topic right now. Searingly hot, even. In the last few years, software developers and engineers like Dreamtonics have achieved massive gains in productivity and capability by utilising A.I. in their workflow. It’s embedded in the software and technology we use every day: banking apps, self-service checkouts at the supermarket, our phones, our computers, even the program I’m using to write this review.
Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought with regard to the seemingly limitless potential and the blistering speed at which A.I. learns and grows: you are either terrified of the worst-case scenario; or you’re eager to explore the ways in which we can harness the potential to supplement human productivity, and controversially— creativity.
In June 2020, Tokyo-based start up Dreamtonics released its flagship product Synthesizer V Studio, a groundbreaking vocal synthesis software which, with the help of A.I. technology, was capable of reproducing the qualities and tonality of realistic human voices. In an exclusive promotional video on the company’s YouTube channel, Software Engineer and Dreamtonics founder Kanru Hua reveals that the “V” in the product name stands not only for Vocals; but also for the roman numeral for 5, as the initial product was in its 5th iteration before it was released to market—a testament to Dreamtonics’ tenacity as developers.
At NAMM 2025, almost five years after the release of Synthesizer V Studio, Dreamtonics announced its “bigger, better, faster and stronger” follow-up: Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro. Combining years of development and the cutting edge of A.I. technology, Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro has the potential to shake up the entire music industry as we know it by revolutionising the possibilities of vocal synthesis.
Dreamtonics has packed this latest iteration with enhancements that refine vocal realism, streamlined workflow, giving users an unprecedented level of control over synthesized performances. Speaking from the Audio Developer Conference in London in 2023 (ADC23), Hua explains that the “Holy Grail” of vocal synthesis software is to achieve a sound that is as “natural”—as indistinguishable from the human voice—as possible. During testing, a group of listeners with musical backgrounds were shown samples of vocal lines produced by humans alongside vocal lines synthesized by Synthesizer V software in development. The test concluded that the
synthesized vocals achieved near-human naturalness. The natural sound is partly in thanks to, along with the incredible design and work from Dreamtonics, the use of recordings license from real singers to build the catalogue of sounds available. A.I. technology is what is used to customise expression from the recorded samples and sounds, Dreamtonics using A.I. technology in an ethical way that still uses real musicians, licensing sounds and recordings from them.
Running the standalone version of Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro for the first time, I couldn’t help but liken it to learning a new DAW. Thankfully, I very quickly found ways to customise keyboard shortcuts and rearrange my workspace, streamlining my workflow and getting comfortable with navigating a new interface. The options and amount of control available speaks to how deep Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro goes!
I decided that my method of stress-testing the program’s ease-of-use would be to program an infamous vocal line by an infamous diva who has infamous control over her voice. I recreated the opening verse to the song “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion. The piano roll functionality could not have been simpler. You double-click, you type a word, you get a note sung by a synth that is almost indistinguishable from a human voice. Do this a few dozen times, and you’ve got an entire song. Even the bare-bones out-of-thebox takes were superb, but when I started delving into the pitch controls, phenome timing and A.I. retakes, things got surreal. I was able to faithfully replicate trills, warbles, vibrato, tonality, breathiness, soulfulness, intensity, tightness, all at the smallest possible scale: per phenome. Phonemes are “perceptually distinct units of sound”, e.g. the sound your mouth makes when you enunciate a consonant, or the various sounds that vowels produce.
Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro is accompanied by nine updated voice models, which deliver richer dynamics and a heightened sense of presence. Thanks to significant algorithmic refinements and enhanced multithreading, Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro renders up to three times faster than its predecessor. It achieves this without requiring a dedicated GPU or specialized acceleration hardware, meaning users can take advantage of its efficiency on a wide range of systems, even in offline environments. Human vocalists shape words through precise control of phonemes—the distinct sounds that form speech. With the new ability to adjust phenome timing, users can fine-tune the intensity and duration of phonemes directly within each note. This level of control allows detailed shaping of consonants like plosives for an extra degree of articulation and realism. You can even ask your singer to lay down another take, letting A.I. randomize the nuances of timbre, pitch, and—new to Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro—phenome timing. You can also combine the results of multiple A.I. takes like you would a vocal comp!
The Smart Pitch Controls make it easier than ever to shape pitch with a surgical level of precision. Instead of painstaking manual adjustments, users can define key points where they want pitch changes, and the system intelligently generates smooth, natural-sounding curves in real time without sacrificing realism. The Mouth Opening Parameter is a game-changer for shaping vowel pronunciation. This control allows users to emphasize certain words or subtly alter the way phrases start and end, adding even more depth and realism to the final vocal output.
Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro takes a major step toward capturing the subtle nuances and dynamics that define the human voice. Dreamtonics has created a tool that blurs the line between human and machine, giving musicians, producers, and sound designers unprecedented control over the human voice, and pushing the frontier of music production further than we ever imagined was possible.
beyerdynamic and their history of innovation are unmatched, having built a legacy on the back of products that not only solve problems, but provide solutions to hurdles before they arise. Known for their expanding range of headphones and monitoring, it’s no wonder their new range of in-ear monitors are a revelation.
We say revelation because of the simplicity of their design; in-ear monitors (IEMs) designed for different use cases depending on your sonic needs. While IEMs are becoming increasingly accessible, getting them sounding ideal isn’t always so simple. IEMs require separate mixes, treatment and adjustment depending on ambient sound, the frequency range your instrument occupies, as well as your own preferences. Here is where the revelation lies: beyerdynamic’s new range of four IEMs are custom designed for optimal sound depending on the frequency range your instrument sits in.
The DT 70 IE is first up and designed for mixing and critical listening, whereas the DT 71 IE is perfect for drummers and bass players. The DT 72 IE is more mid-focused and articulate for guitarists and singers, and the DT 73 IE is tuned for orchestral musicians, pianists and keys.
Before hearing a single note from the range, opening the box offers a glimpse into the design and customisation available from beyerdynamic. The protective case contains a 1.4m removable cable that connects to the headphones, and is robust, offering enough length to connect comfortably to wherever you’re connecting it to, as well as a ¼” adapter.
The monitors include a (literal) handful of silicon and Comply eartips for your preference of fit, as well as levels of isolation. I found myself reaching for the Comply eartips immediately, their isolation serving as a great way to isolate sound around me and focus in on what I was hearing. The design of the IEM itself, as well as the inclusion of eartips is thanks to beyer’s commitment to ensuring the perfect fit, the DT IEM range’s fit being the result of hundreds of MRI ear scans to ensure they’ll fit anyone and everyone.
Testing out the DT 70 IE, I was immediately struck by how well they worked simply as earplugs; it should be no shock but it was still pleasant to feel the ambient sound around me immediately feel muted. My immediate thought was how well these would serve for critical listening while recording; those of us who have worked in studios will know how difficult it is to soundproof a space entirely. The thump of the kick pumps and the cymbals wash through the walls, blending with what we’re hearing through the monitors, muddying up our decision making.
The supreme isolation of the DT 70 IE helps filter out the room and the bleed through walls, allowing you to focus purely on the signal coming off the mics, ensuring you’re confident in the sound you’re recording and will eventually be mixing! The DT 70 IE, designed for critical listening and mixing, offered a really balanced sound, the low end being impressively accurate. I found myself feeling confident in what I was hearing very quickly, my work translating outside the studio without the DT 70 IE, sounding as I expected in my car, everyday headphones and more!
Though as a model for mixing & critical listening, the DT 70 IE would serve well someone who wants a flat, balanced and most of all true representation of what they’re hearing.
The DT 71 IE, designed for drummers and bass players feature a big smiley-faced curve, scooping out the mids where other instruments sit and exaggerating the low thump and high end articulation of kick drums and bass guitar, without the need for an external monitor engineer or mixer to give you more of you in your ears! The DT 72 IE offer a similar experience, albeit tuned for guitar and voice, filtering out the low thump and mud, instead offering a more focused and articulate sound—designed to give
Brand: beyerdynamic
Product: DT IEM range
Distributed by: Syntech
RRP: $849
Reviewed by: Lewis Noke Edwards
vocalists a clear image of their pitch and technique. Guitars, that naturally sit in a similar region to the voice, benefit greatly from this frequency response as well.
Finally, the DT 73 IE are a reasonably flat and balanced design, being perfect for strings and orchestral players that, in fairness, cover a wide swathe of frequencies. The DT 73 IE offer moderate low end and mids, with a little hype in the top end to accentuate string articulation, plucking and focus. I found the DT 73 IE served me well for critical listening because of their balanced response, though the low end is not quite as pronounced and focused as in the DT 70 IE.
All four models feature beyerdynamic’s TESLA.11 driver system, and supremely clean and clear with just 0.02% THD. Something to note is that the DT IE series are loud, with max of SPL 137 dB; the -39dB of sound insulation assisting to further focus the volume. The IEMs connect to the cable via a gold-plated MMCX connector, serving to both preserve audio quality as well as withstand the rigours of the stage and the road (or the studio!)
These IEMs respond from 5 - 40kHz, the dynamic transducer and TESLA.11 driver working in conjunction to provide balanced, dynamic sound across a massive frequency range.
Best of all, the DT IEM range makes an increasingly accessible piece of technology even more accessible. In-ear monitors are increasingly affordable, though the additional gear to make it work for you isn’t always so simple; yet here are beyerdynamic producing a range of monitors tuned perfectly for you, whatever you do. Designed with hundreds of MRI ear moulds in mind, the DT IEMs provide a perfect fit for comfort as well as total isolation to both protect your hearing as well as help to provide perfect sound.
This range is a huge step forward, so much so you won’t know how you lived without them. Customised sound to help you perform, mix or record at your best; further customisable via eight sets of eartips depending on your preference. The DT IEM are some of the latest innovations from a company at the top of their game, ear to the ground and providing tools to help musicians to help them do what they do best.
Brand: Shure
Product: MV7i smart microphone and interface
Distributed by: Jands
RRP: $649
Reviewed by:
Lewis Noke Edwards
Recording is an increasingly mobile affair, and for good reason. Inspiration often strikes at inopportune times, and is most noticeably absent when we sit down to create something. The Shure MV7i, a smart microphone and interface, comes to market to solve this issue, providing world-class recording quality in a startlingly affordable and mobile package.
Let’s get right into it and detail some of the, uh... details, before we chat about how practical the MV7i really is. The MV7i borrows aesthetically from Shure’s famous SM7 and SM7B microphones, the larger chassis containing both microphone components as well as the AD/DA converter.
The MV7i serves as a microphone and audio interface, connected via USB, also featuring an onboard headphone output. The MV7i is capable of 24-bit/48kHz digital audio, and you’ll notice an additional mic input on the bottom of the mic, allowing for the MV7i’s onboard mic to be used in conjunction with an additional mic or line input, the MV7i having phantom power onboard, making it an equally great solution for musicians recording an instrument and vocal, as well as podcasters with a guest. Content creators can get creative with the mic for your voice and the additional input for stream audio and more!
The recording can be exported in three modes: Mixdown Mode, to merge audio into one mono track, Multi-track Mode for two separate mono tracks, and Stereo Mode offers a stereo export of both inputs; either to be preserved as a stereo file OR to be split up later.
What’s more, the Shure MV7i features onboard DSP to treat sound and provide pristine recordings at the source. Voice Isolation Technology, RealTime Denoiser and the Digital Popper Stopper are used to treat sound, all reasonably self explanatory, with Adjustable Reverb available as well.
All of this is to say that the Shure MV7i is a great solution for music, content creation, broadcast and more, modern music creation often involving a little of all of those!
Straight out of the box, the MV7i is up and running in moments. Auto Level Mode helped me set healthy gain without having to fiddle around with too much, and I had great sounding, crystal clear audio on moments. Sonically, the MV7i is pretty transparent, exactly what you want for such a versatile setup. The onboard DSP isn’t too heavy handed either, instead
simply providing a true to source sound, albeit with a little bit of polish.
MOTIV Mix, the included desktop software for this and other Shure mics, is intuitive and powerful enough to handle most jobs. MOTIV Mix allows you to use multiple audio sources, interfaces and converters.
From here you can adjust Gain and levels for DSP processing, as well as monitoring your input and output and choosing options for export and recording. MOTIV Mix also allows virtual soundcards to be used, for example during a podcast where you’re playing back video audio, for audio educators who need playback from their DAW, or streamers who need game audio as well as speech.
The MV7i features everything that made the MV series of microphones great, augmented further with the MV7i serving as a standalone interface for great sound on the go, the mic itself being bus powered. The advantage of using the MV7i alone, amongst other things, is for latency free monitoring. Digital recording and DAW software creates latency as the signal makes a round trip from the microphone, through conversion stages and out of our headphones or monitors. Even the tiniest delay can make a recording feel disjointed, yet the handy headphone output on the chassis allows you to monitor directly from the source without the round trip.
Metering that input is simple via the MV7i’s LED meter strip and the MOTIV Mix app. Choose between different metering options, i.e. metering the MV7i itself OR using Split mode to monitor the two inputs at once. This LED strip also works as a handy mute button for one or both channels. The LED will switch to red, by default, when muted. This tech does away with the risk of a click, pop or noise sometimes associated with mute buttons, perfect for streaming and needing to mute for a moment without affecting audio quality. Thus mute can be locked as well, to prevent you from accidentally muting yourself when adjusting the mic.
Shure’s Soundcheck feature can help you to set gain correctly, the Soundcheck software monitoring your surrounding and environmental noise and more, the Shure MV7i is also capable of Auto Gain settings that allow the software to optimise your sound so you can focus on the creation! There’s also tone controls within the MOTIV Mix app.
All in all, the MV7i takes everything great about the growing MV range of products, and packages it up into an equally tidy design, all with an in-built audio interface. This reduces clutter, but also makes recording on the go easier than ever, without the need to cart around an additional audio interface. As well as serving as a mic and converter in a single unit, the MV7i allows for an additional input, either a mic or line input, perfect for a direct instrument or an additional microphone. Monitor this latency free via the MV7i’s chassis itself, and control the most important stuff on the mic’s LED itself, or dive deeper into more advanced and helpful settings on the desktop app.
A legacy of great sound behind them, and a forward thinking approach to tech, music making and more, Shure have nailed the MV7i smart microphone and interface.
Many of you will know the LD Systems brand, and you’ll have used their products before, to great success. There are a lot of you who may not have such an intimate understanding of the products they create, but there’s a good chance you’ve heard and enjoyed them at an event already. LD Systems have made a name for themselves in loudspeaker design, and have taken that further to fully integrated systems for big touring acts right down to solo artists with limited space. Products like their compact line array systems have redefined audio manufacturing, as they continue to push the boundaries of innovation and design. It’s that innovation, with the needs of musicians in mind, which brings us right down to the other end of LD Systems’ product line, with their most compact, and most portable speaker system: the ANNY 8.
So, the first glance at this speaker comes with favourable results. I’ve used and tested hundreds of different PA speakers over the past four decades, and whilst some are designed just for sound, it’s nice to have one that looks good too. After all, there’s a good chance that this speaker is going to be featured right alongside the user, so its looks are actually rather important. A bold framework in the outer shell houses a grille that isn’t covering the entire front face. The result is a box that appears even smaller than what it actually is, especially with the smooth contour on the top edge, and subtle angles around the box. With the ability to kick back on angle too, it works just as well on the floor like a monitor, as it does on a speaker mount or stand. For mobile DJs, solo acts, wedding celebrants and corporate presentations, looks are still a key
factor. A key factor that wasn’t overlooked by LD Systems, as they have thought of the user in every aspect of this design.
Of course, the most important element in a loudspeaker is the sound. With an 8-inch woofer and 1-inch tweeter, the ANNY8 is on the smaller side, at least on paper. In action, it is a different story. This speaker has some real guts to it. A full range bottom end delivers a good punch, and plenty of low frequency growl, which is curtailed from distortion thanks to the internal DSP processing that ensures crystal clear sound even at full volume. One sounds great, two of these speakers really bring added depth to the sound quality. With the True Wireless Stereo (TWS) system, you can link a pair of these speakers via Bluetooth and have the stereo spread balanced between the two. No cables are required!
Being battery powered is the big key to success here. Especially for users like wedding celebrants and buskers, who often need amplification where power is not always an option. At full music volume, the ANNY 8 can operate for 3 & 1/2 hours, with battery life extending up to 11 hours in ECO mode. A four section LED strip shows battery life to give you an idea of how you’re travelling at a glance. The battery can be charged back to 80% in just three hours, so you can be ready to go in very little time, with a full charge complete in five hours. Plus, the battery is easily replaced, with additional batteries available as an optional extra, you can keep the party going indefinitely.
There are a host of added features in this unit that have it stand out from a typical loudspeaker. The in-built 5-channel mixer offers EQ and effects from a DSP driven
Brand: LD Systems
Product: ANNY 8 Portable Battery Powered PA Speaker
Distributed by: L ink Audio
RRP: $899
Reviewed by: Rob Gee
platform to allow you to have everything set up and ready to go. I really like the layout and simplicity of the mixer on the rear of the unit. The controls feel solid and smooth to operate too, which gives me confidence in its prolonged use. A series of connections are available, with XLR, TRS, RCA and USB connectivity supplied in the mixer panel. But of course, wireless connection is available via Bluetooth as well, so the ANNY 8 can operate as a completely isolated unit with no cables attached at all, should you wish. A neat little cradle for a smartphone or tablet is also built into the top of the unit, behind the offset handle, so you can have your streaming device right there if need be.
As part of the ANNY range, there are options with a wireless receiver and either handheld or belt pack microphone. For both wireless and wired microphone use, a ducking option for vocals can be engaged when using the system for announcements. They really have thought of everything.
LD Systems pride themselves in their product development to ensure
that the needs of end users are met. With the ANNY 8, it is easy to see that they have continued to do just that. For the mobile DJ, wedding celebrant, busker, expo presenter, or even for friends just wanting an impromptu party in the park, the LD Systems ANNY 8 delivers what is needed. And does it well. This portable speaker system is a testament to just how far battery powered amplification has come in the past 10 or 15 years. The features and sound quality offered by the ANNY 8 really do set a new benchmark, and the price point is exceptional, considering what is on offer.
So, don’t just take my word for it. Get into your local LD Systems dealers and pick one up, you’ll marvel in the weight and the balance of the unit. Then have a listen to a demo model and you’ll hear what I was talking about. It will be easy to understand how this could improve your mobile setup for a range of options. Compact, sleek, and feature-packed, the LD Systems ANNY8 has brought big system thinking into a very portable space.
Brand: Denon DJ
Product: Prime 4+ DJ System
Distributed by: Electric Factory
RRP: $3499
Reviewed by:
Rob Gee
The name Denon is synonymous with audio tech, and has been since long before I cobbled together my first clandestine DJ setup in the early 90s. In fact, you could barely find a DJ booth that didn’t have some Denon gear installed in it back in those days. Their rack mounted CD DJ systems are legendary, and built to withstand anything that a club DJ could throw at them. It’s a legacy that has carried the Denon name through the decades and a quality of product that has kept them relevant to this day. But, we are still a long way from the end of this story, as Denon DJ continue to deliver cutting edge products, like the Prime 4+, a fully featured, standalone DJ system that brings one word to mind: “Wow!”
Alright, so we have seen the ‘all-in-one’ DJ system time and time again, it is nothing new. There’s always a wide range on the market, from the compact home use to the bulkier professional units. However, Denon DJ have taken this concept to a whole new level of innovation with a host of features and a rugged build quality that is set to see the Prime 4+ become a sought-after unit amongst DJs the world over. We’re not just spinning a couple of beat-matched CDs anymore, this thing is off the charts. It’s blurring the line between DJ, producer and live performer, with an ease of workflow that allows you to excite, inspire and create on the fly.
The multi-touch and multi-
gesture touch screen is the heart of the Prime 4+, with the addition of the push-button jog wheel just below it. You’re able to scroll through your track libraries and easily assign them to one of the four channels, as well as browsing effects and other features. The waveforms for the current tracks are shown here along with a load of additional information. This waveform display can be shown in a number of layouts with both vertical and horizontal scrolling of waveforms, along with larger and smaller waveform views to allow for other options like library and effects to be shown too. You can jump through these different screen options by holding the Shift button and then tapping the View button to scroll through and find the layout that works best for you.
Of course, you don’t want to have to go to university to be able to drive one of these. Denon have ensured that any DJ who is competent with other systems will feel right at home on the Prime 4+. All the standard features are there, laid out in the standard configuration. The top deck has the look and feel of two desktop CDJs with a four-channel mixer in the centre. Both decks have a collection of multi-function pads, a large 6-inch jog wheel with central LCD screen for additional information, pitch controls and of course the typical navigation controls including Play, Cue, Sync and Loop features. The central mixer
offers a 3-band EQ on each channel, a host of assignment options and a super responsive crossfader.
There’s even a dedicated “Zone Output”, which allows you to send a separate track, mix or playlist to another room, meaning you can control the main room and a chillout space, all from the one engine. How wild is that!
Being built around the Engine DJ operating system, the Prime 4+ still has more to offer, even with the impressive feature list on offer. Continual updates to Engine DJ mean that new features can be added to the unit in the future as the need arises, and control options are prepared for this with the touch screen able to be adapted to new features that cannot be simply assigned to existing hardware controls. This means your DJ console is going to grow over time, offering even more features and improvements to workflow and audio quality.
And it’s in the Engine DJ software that the Prime 4+ becomes such a powerful tool. With a desktop app available for both Windows or Mac, you can easily manage your music libraries, including those working with Serato, Traktor, Rekordbox and Apple Music. Tracks, playlist, hot cues and loops can all be arranged and loaded onto an SD card from the desktop. Once inserted into the Prime 4+, these appear right on the screen, ready to perform, without the need of any further connectivity. You also have several USB ports for connection to external drives, as well as the option of adding a SATA drive in a cavity underneath the unit. However, all this may not even be necessary, as the Prime 4+ seamlessly integrates with your entire computer’s music library via Denon’s Engine Remote Library. Wireless access to the computer via Wi-Fi connection allows it to be
used as a source without the need for cables, USB sticks or SD cards. This also allows you to update your library as you perform, with changes made to tracks, loops and hot cues transferred back to your laptop and stored for future performances.
Of course, if that isn’t enough, the Prime 4+ has the capability to connect to Amazon Music with a few simple steps to get the connection aligned. Once registered and aligned with your Amazon account, your Prime 4+ unit will have access to over 100 million audio tracks. That’s more than 8 million hours of music, or close to half a million days, plus your existing library on your hard drive. To think that I used to struggle to decide which hundred records I was going to cram into the box before heading out each night. Now, you can take just about every bit of music that is available with you. So, there are no excuses for not having a track that someone requests— for better or worse!
The huge array of effects can be added to each channel with four simple Sweep Effects, or with the two Main Effects section that can be assigned individually to any channel. Here, you have a big range of effects with multiple parameter options that can be adjusted by the knobs in each effect’s section. You can also go to the touch screen and use it as an X/Y controller for even greater control over a larger array of parameters. With Engine DJ updates, there’s no telling what this may hold in the future.
All this combines into an incredibly powerful workspace for any DJ with the drive to create. I have barely scratched the surface of what the Denon DJ Prime 4+ is capable of. And let’s be honest, you need to see and hear it to fully understand. So, why don’t you get into your local Denon DJ dealer and give one a test drive. I think you too will be left saying “Wow!”
Content creation, streaming, documenting, recording and making music is becoming a global affair, makers travelling and having the need for a mobile solution to great sounding audio. Stalwarts of the recording industry, Shure, are ahead of the curve, as always, unveiling the MoveMic 88+ Receiver Kit this year.
The MoveMic 88+ is a wireless stereo condenser microphone, with selectable polar patterns depending on the sound you’re chasing and the environment you’re in. Expand from traditional mono polar patterns to mid-side, bi-directional and an adjustable stereo setting, allowing you to record a sound as focused or filled with ambient environmental sound as you like.
The main component of the microphone is comprised of three capsules, allowing you to split or combine the capsules for different areas of capture, as well as shifting where areas of rejection.
The box includes the MoveMic 88+ itself, this Receiver Kit including a MoveMic Receiver as well, used to connect via Bluetooth to a phone, allowing for totally wireless connection. This allows you to pair with your phone and position the mic wherever sounds the best before moving your camera to a more optimal position and retain the clarity of the sonics while getting the shot.
The addition of the Receiver into the Receiver Kit allows users to record without a phone as well, for an even more mobile solution, the Receiver communicating things like gain, input and recording status and modes.
Specifications at a glance; the four polar patterns are adjustable from 60° to 135. On-board DSP allows for compression, EQ and a handy high-pass filter (you’d be surprised how much low rumble there is in a city!), the MoveMic 88+ now including brand new noise
Brand: Shure
Product: Movemic 88+ Receiver Kit
Distributed by: Jands
RRP: $1039
Reviewed by:
Lewis Noke Edwards
reduction options for treat your audio while it’s being recording; designed to get rid of environmental noise as well as helping to give your voice more clarity. Adjustable settings aside, there’s five presets for quick set-up in the speech, singing, flat, acoustic and loud presets.
The MoveMic 88+ responds from 40Hz - 18kHz, allowing for a maximum sound pressure level of 122.4dB SPL. With just the MoveMic 88+ connected to your phone, you can record up to 16-bit and 44.1kHz or 48kHz sample rate, the addition of the Receiver into the signal chain bumping the bit depth up to 24-bit.
You can monitor the input signal/s directly from the mic itself or the receiver, a handy addition when making the most of the 30m (100 foot) wireless range. Best of all the MoveMic 88+ microphone and the Receiver packaged here with it are supremely portable and lightweight, meaning they can be stowed away until they’re needed. Combined, the mic and Receiver clock in just under 200g.
While you’d be forgiven for assuming the MoveMic 88+ is made for solely content creation, the MoveMic 88+ is built for so much more, taking world-class and professional sound capture on the go with you. The 88+ represents a step up in quality from the MoveMic that came before it, and while still very easy to use, it provides the cutting edge of audio in a portable
unit, with options for capture and audio treatment that place it into the upper echelon of audio recording technology. Designed for field recording, professional content creation and more, the MoveMIc 88+ delivers in the most demanding recording situations.
The aforementioned polar patterns make for great recording options, the mono bi-directional setting being great for pointing at a source and capturing a natural ambience as well, while adjustable stereo or Raw Mid-Side can be great for capturing a whole room.
Setting up a recording in the MOTIV Video or MOTIV Audio app is a breeze, the MoveMic 88+ quickly connecting and allowing me to record in moments. The app also displays connection status as well as battery status; the MoveMic 88+ Wireless Video Microphone having up to 8 hours of battery life.
It’s important to note that the MoveMic 88+ can connect directly to your phone through Bluetooth, via either the MOTIV Video or Audio app, though the addition of a Receiver to your rig allows for connection to the MoveMic 88+ as well as much of Shure’s expanding range of mobile mic solutions. The Receiver includes a cold-shoe mount adapter for connection to a stand or camera if available, the Receiver also having some onboard controls and displays for recording, muting and routing options.
As mentioned earlier, the Receiver also allows for higher bit-depth recording.
The MoveMic 88+ is a stellar move forward in the consistently expanding world of content creation, the world-class sound quality from making it an equally formidable option for recording music. Demo songs are a given, but the sound quality of the MoveMic 88+ rivals other products more dedicated to music making, as well as being a great solution to podcasts, vox pops and more with two speakers or sound sourced. The addition of the Receiver in this kit bundles it all together (literally, in a branded Shure satchel with space for every accessory and then some!), offering a really unique way to make worldclass videos very easily.
The MoveMic 88+ alone is a worthy tool for every music maker and content creator, the Receiver Kit augmenting the product further with more routing and recording options, as well as additional metering, display and higher quality audio.
For a company so innovative, it should serve as no surprise that Shure is pushing the entire industry forward, yet here we are shocked and impressed at the level of thought and detail into making products for capturing, amplifying and recording sound.
Brand: Markbass
Product: Little Marcus 58R Head
Distributed by: CMC Music
RRP: $1795
Reviewed by: Christopher Hockey
A few years ago, Markbass released a series of signature bass heads in collaboration with revered professional bassist Marcus Miller. Like Miller himself, the amps received worldwide acclaim and the whole affair was a raging success. Now, Markbass are ready to go another round with the Little Marcus 58R, a smaller, more lightweight addition to this series of collaborations that may be the finest of them all.
For those uninitiated, Marcus Miller is a multi-instrumentalist and record producer that has worked with the likes of Miles Davis, David Sanborn, Luther Vandross and Grover Washington Jr. He is most widely known for his superb bass playing, having been inspired by legends such as Larry Graham and James Jamerson. A seasoned session player, Miller is deeply respected for his musical prowess, talent as a composer and his expertise in the field of Jazz.
A player like Marcus Miller does not rise to the top of the studio session world without packing some seriously good tone, it's a field in which getting a good sound is right up there with playing ability. So it stands to reason that any amplifier Miller is willing to slap his name on has to be of the highest quality, and the Little Marcus 58R Head proves that to be the case.
Firstly, the visual design of the 58R is seriously cool. Featuring chunky, tactile controls and striking yellow and red graphics, this amp is crying out to be tweaked. Weighing just 2kg, it's also incredibly light which will be music to the ears of road dogs everywhere. At first glance, the master volume and gain dials are noticeably large, a feature I can imagine being very handy in a live setting when quick adjustments need to be made on the fly, often in fairly dark settings.
The 58R packs a huge wallop for an amp of its size and weight, coming in at 500 watts. Specifically tuned by Miller to be capable of cutting through a mix in bass-forward musical settings, the 58R benefits from a fairly elaborate set of controls that allows for some serious tone shaping. The front panel is incredibly intuitive, with two exciting EQ sections to choose from.
EQ1 is a straight forward five band EQ with five discrete controls consisting of ultra-low (65Hz), low (100Hz), mid (500Hz), high mid (1.4kHz) and high (6kHz). Each band can be cut or boosted up to 16dB. The EQ2 section, a brand new addition for this amplifier, consists of two filters, the ‘Old School’ filter and the ‘Millerizer’ filter. The Old School Filter is designed for warmer, more vintage tones and the Millerizer is tuned for more aggressive slap-bass sounds. Both the EQ1 and EQ2 sections can be turned on/off with a footswitch, allowing for quick tone changes.
Overall, the 58R has a warm and natural sound with plenty of definition, punch and dynamics. Markbass have always prioritised quality of tone over all else and that is very evident with this head. The 58R also features a very well designed bi-band limiter, which responds incredibly quickly and dynamically as compared to more traditional limiters, allowing the high end frequencies to
breathe for a very natural sound. For those unsure, a bi-band limiter is simply a limiting compressor that affects two frequency bands independently, allowing players to compress low and high frequencies separately to their taste. In the case of the 58R, this allows for a truly quick and punchy attack even at very high volumes, a crucial feature for slap players in particular.
The front panel of the 58R also features a ‘line out’ dial, which fine tunes the amount of DI signal sent out the the mixer/PA as compared to the raw output from the amp, allowing for proper gain to be sent and received. Also featured on the front panel is a convenient mute switch, once again exemplifying the ease of use that was clearly a priority in the design of this amp.
Miller designed this amp, as one would expect from a session player with a diverse body of work, to be capable of attaining any tone that a bass player could possibly need. The five band EQ, paired with the two tone filters, results in an incredibly powerful tone shaping section that can produce a vast array of sounds. The new tactile ridges that Markbass developed for the controls on this amp ensure that any changes can be made very quickly and accurately, an incredibly handy feature for both live and studio scenarios.
Small details such as a clip LED that works in conjunction with the gain control demonstrate the dedication that both Miller and Markbass clearly had when designing this amp, but that fact is most evident in its wonderful sound. Other than being very loud at 500w, the 58R really does sound incredibly rich and balanced, aided by its very musical EQ section. Finally, this monster comes with a high quality gig bag and a very handy footswitch, rounding off the package in style.
Whilst there are now many compact, lightweight bass heads on the market, the Little Marcus 58R stands out as a real winner. Between its powerful, highly tweakable sound and its super intuitive, ergonomic control layout, this amp is a professional bass player’s dream. Whether you’re familiar with Miller’s work or not, this amp is a great choice for any serious players looking to downsize their rig to something that is easier to travel with, without compromising on tone or output.
Every true musician knows that whether in the studio or playing live, a good bass sound is absolutely crucial to a good mix. What the 58R allows for is genuine fine tuning of your bass sound to ensure you can cut through any mix, no matter what the situation calls for. Ultimately, it's a bass amp designed with the blessing of one of the greatest and most experienced bassists in the world and let me tell you now, it shows.
In the world of electronic drumkits, Alesis is a name that reigns supreme.
Brand: Alesis
Product: Crimson III
Distributed by: Electric Factory
RRP: $1799
Reviewed by: Lewis Noke Edwards
From the StrataPrime and StrataCore kits that we’ve had some very kind words to say about, Alesis also offer the Crimson III, an expansive nine-piece kit with mesh heads. The Crimson III includes Alesis’ advanced Crimson Drum Module with an expansive amount of kits, sounds and samples available, coming to you from the world-class BFD drum library.
While the Crimson III can support up to a nine-piece configuration, it can also be used in a smaller format if you prefer instead. Choose to opt for a more traditional four or five piece kit with 8” kick pad, a 12” dual-zone snare, two 8” dual-zone rack toms (with different sounds and virtual “sizes” available) and a 10” dual zone floor tom. The dual zone technology allows you to trigger different sounds from the head or the rim, allowing for more realistic playback and feel that is closer to that of an acoustic kit. This dual zone technology expands into triple-zone technology on the 14” triple-zone ride, allowing the ride to be used to crash on or ping away at that bell.
The entire kit is supported on a steel rack and a separate snare stand to keep it sturdy. Alesis’ mesh heads providing realistic feel and bounce, much like an acoustic drum skin, allowing you to keep that muscle memory sharp if you’re used to an acoustic kit. The inner workings of the Alesis Crimson III though, are where things get really interesting.
The update to the Crimson III’s Drum Module includes 80 kits (40 factory/40 user) from the world-renowned BFD collection of kits and sounds. You can also connect your kit to your computer to access an expanded library of sounds and kits. Connect via USB Type B for either USB connection or via MIDI for recording, writing and more.
Connection to your computer enables integration with the included BFD Player plugin, a standalone app or plugin for your favourite DAW for a world of drum sounds. Get started with professional and mixed presets or tweak, adjust and effect your sounds to your heart’s content, allowing you to get professional sounding drums in minutes. The Alesis Crimson III kit integrates seamlessly, allowing you to write and record drums via MIDI, for (mostly) silent drumming when inspiration strikes!
In use, the Crimson III kit is a breeze. As a standalone electronic kit, setup is easy and you’ll be up and playing in minutes. Robustness is the name of the game on an instrument designed to be battered away at, the steel frame and well-built pads and cymbals being ready for a beating. The recoil from the drum pads feels very like a real drum skin, allowing for a little push-pull and dynamic playing, the sounds and samples responding to your hits as well as the location on the pad that you hit.
Best of all, and what really elevates the Crimson above is all is how malleable and adjustable the pads and cymbals are along the frame, allowing
you to position the whole kit perfectly around you for comfort. The addition of a double-braced snare stand allows for a more realistic feel overall, unlike other kits that have the snare pad awkwardly hanging from the frame.
The sounds are really the make or break for an e-kit, as bad sounds can be the undoing of any and all great technology, as no matter how realistic the kit feels, it’s all in vain if there’s not responsive sounds to match it.
The sounds of the Crimson III are a world away from its price point. More premium, top of the line products are expected to sound the best, yet here is the Crimson III, sat towards the middle of the Alesis range, yet retains world-class and high quality sounds and samples. These great sounds help things like the hi-hat to feel real, an area that many e-kit fall apart in. Hitting different areas of the hi-hat, both open and closed producing different sounds, allowing you to push and pull the feel and dynamic of your playing.
This goes for the ride cymbal as well, as we’ve mentioned earlier it is a three-zone ride, another uncommon addition to something in this price point; yet here we are. The cymbals are all chokeable, allowing you to grab the cymbal to silence the sample from playing.
All of your choice of sounds and samples comes from one place: the Alesis Crimson Drum Module. With two banks of six faders available to quickly mix the volume of your kit, you can have a customised mix of your sounds happening instantly and very intuitively.
The Alesis Crimson III elevates Alesis’ overall range above and beyond, pulling together advancing technology and tying it up neatly in a surprisingly affordable and accessible package. The Alesis pulls from both Alesis’ past and present, offering the best of their huge range of technology and sonics into one great sounding and, and more importantly, feeling kit.
With a customisable layout, extensive cymbal and pad layout options, as well a handy mixer and module for loading, using and adjusting your sounds for recording, mixing, jamming or songwriting!
Great sounds from masters of the craft, BFD, as well as innovative designs from the Alesis, the Crimon III Nine-Piece Electronic Drum Kit is one of the best options on the market for drummers on any level.
MY RIG: KATE FROM VOIID & SOURPUSS
Kate, thanks for taking the time! Can you tell us a bit about what gear you’re currently using?
No, thank you! Currently I play a Greco SG with VOIID and a Greco Les Paul for my solo band Sourpuss. Both of these guitars are vintage but Greco just gifted me a new BGW22-SH with the endorsement which has an epic Telecaster vibe going on. I swap to my Fender Jazzmaster here and there when I want that specific tone, but Greco is where it's at, I swear by those guitars. In terms of amps— Marshall JCM800 is my ride or die. They stay clean while being extremely loud and they dont fuck with the tone that your pedals are creating. There's nothing worse than when an amp does that, like Vox. Sorry to any Vox fans out there but I cannot stand them!
On the pedal front I have been slowly minimising my board for years now but my other ride or die is the Tym guitars Big Mud' fuzz pedal. If you're one of the lucky ones to have tracked one down you'll know where I'm coming from. It gives the Big Muff a run for its money.
How does your gear live compare to what you’ve used in the studio? Does one inform the other?
I try to keep my live gear exactly the same as how I record. I want what people hear live to
be as close as possible to what you hear when you're listening to our music through headphones. I don't really understand the point in changing everything in the studio and then going to play a show and it couldn't be further from what you hear. It makes me feel inauthentic to what I’m trying to achieve. Not everyone works that way, some people enjoy separating the live and recorded experiences so that something new is created and that can also be cool.
Is there one piece you simply can’t live without?
Unfortunately it's three things I can't live without. My Greco SG, my JCM800 and my Big Mud fuzz pedal. I said they're my ride or die haha! If I don't have these it's pretty grim for anyone involved.
Can you tell us a bit about your first guitar or first instrument?
My first guitar was an Ashton kids guitar. I still have it at home. My parents got it for me when I turned 5 or 6. I would eventually just play my dad’s guitar even though my hands were still too tiny (still are, I have small hands). It's funny, the
day I got my first guitar was the day that music teachers went around the classes to see if anyone wanted to play drums for the school band. I tried out and they said I followed tempos really well and I should play drums but I didn't, because I wanted to play guitar instead (I ended up playing saxophone in the school band lmao). I often wonder if I would be a crazy drummer right now if I decided to sign up that day.
Have you got a guitar hero?
Billie Joe Armstrong has been my guitar hero since I was a little kid. I used to air guitar to Green Day songs shirtless in my front yard when I was a kid. I love how relentlessly he plays guitar, the power stance, the power chords. He has informed me as a guitarist pretty much my whole life.
MOVEMIC 88+
ONE MIC. FOR WAYS TO CAPTURE. ZERO WIRES.
The MoveMic 88+ gives creators complete freedom to capture professional-quality audio wirelessly: From filmmaking to field recording, mobile journalism to videography, this wireless video microphone comes equipped with four selectable polar patterns and powerful onboard DSP for great sound in any situation.
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