MIX 523 - July 2020

Sound of ‘Snowpiercer’ ★ The Jayhawks: XOXO ★ Music & Unity: ‘I’m Standing With You’ July 2020 \\ mixonline.com \\ $6.99

>REVIEWED UA LUNA 1.05 RECORDING SYSTEM MXL REVELATION II MIC

MUSIC PRODUCTION • LIVE SOUND • SOUND FOR PICTURE

Rethinking Audio Education

Challenges Ahead, Solutions Taking Shape

Mixing Lady Gaga Ben Rice, Tom Norris, One Incredible Voice and a Heart Full of Songs

07 .20 Contents Volume 44, Number 7

DEPARTMENTS

TECHNOLOGY

6 From the Editor: Reopening Phase

36 New Products: Studio and Live Sound 38 Review:

3.05: Trying to Figure It All Out

MUSIC 8 The Jayhawks’ XOXO:

Longtime Roots Rockers Deliver New Music for Your “Life in a Bubble”

BY BARBARA SCHULTZ

10 Paul Burch’s Light Sensitive

BY BARBARA SCHULTZ

12 The Musician’s Mix: Joe Bear and Reaction Vessel Studios

14 Classic Tracks: ”I Go

Crazy,” Paul Davis’ Unexpected, RecordSetting Hit

Universal Audio Luna 1.05 Recording System

BY MIKE LEVINE

46 Review: MXL

Revelation II Microphone

BY STEVE LA CERRA

50 Back Page Blog:

Visualizing Proper Balance, and The New Drive-In Concert

BY MIKE LEVINE AND STEVE LA CERRA

BY ROBYN FLANS On the Cover: On the cover: Across the country and around the world, how best to provide ongoing education during the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed a few challenges, difficulties and yes, innovations. Especially in professional audio. Photo: Getty Images. Cover design: Will Shum.

Mix, Volume 44, Number 7 (ISSN 0164-9957) is published monthly by Future US, Inc., 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036. Periodical Postage Paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Mix, PO Box 8518, Lowell, MA 01853. One-year (12 issues) subscription is $35. Canada is $40. All other international is $50. Printed in the USA. Canadian Post Publications Mail agreement No. 40612608. Canada return address: BleuChip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.

FEATURES 16 Mixing Gaga: Spoiler Alert, It All Starts With the Song and the Vocal

BY LILY MOAYERI

20 Audio

Education in a Pandemic World: Hybrid Models of Remote Production, Instruction

BY STEVE LA CERRA

25 What to Do When Your Calling

Card Is Hands-On Instruction?

BY ROBERT BROCK, CRAS

26 Lessons Learned in a Decade of Online Audio Education

BY BRIAN SMITHERS, FULL SAIL UNIVERSITY

28 Sound Aboard Snowpiercer: A Track in Perpetual Motion

BY JENNIFER WALDEN

32 “I’m Standing With You”:

Music Fosters Unity in Remote, Worldwide Production

BY ROBYN FLANS

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

3

Vol. 44 No. 7

July 2020

mixonline.com FOLLOW US twitter.com/Mix_Magazine facebook/MixMagazine

Keyboard Presents: the best of the ’80s

The ArTisTs, insTrumenTs, And Techniques of An erA

edited by Ernie Rideout, Stephen Fortner, and Michael Gallant BackBEat BookS No single decade revitalized the keyboard as a focal point as much as the 1980s. Now, the editors of keyboard magazine have culled that era’s most significant articles and combined them with a wealth of insight to create this landmark book. Features 20 interviews with noted players and producers like Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes, Depeche Mode’s Vince Clarke, Peter Gabriel, and The Human League, as well as such visionary pioneers as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Frank Zappa.

00331932......................................... $19.95

ORDER TODAY!

ADVERTISING SALES VP/Market Expert, AV/Consumer Electronics & Pro Audio Adam Goldstein, adam.goldstein@futurenet.com, 212-378-0465 Janis Crowley, janis.crowley@futurenet.com Debbie Rosenthal, debbie.rosenthal@futurenet.com Zahra Majma, zahra.majma@futurenet.com SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE To subscribe, change your address, or check on your current account status, go to mixonline.com and click on About Us, email futureplc@computerfulfillment.com, call 888-266-5828, or write P.O. Box 8518, Lowell, MA 01853.

See your favorite retailer or call Music Dispatch at

1-800-637-2852 www.musicdispatch.com

1018679-ThirdPgSQUAREISHAd.indd 1

CONTENT VP/Content Creation Anthony Savona Content Director Tom Kenny, thomas.kenny@futurenet.com Content Manager Anthony Savona, anthony.savona@futurenet.com Technology Editor, Studio Mike Levine, techeditormike@gmail.com Technology Editor, Live Steve La Cerra, stevelacerra@verizon.net Sound Reinforcement Editor Steve La Cerra Contributors: Strother Bullins, Eddie Ciletti, Michael Cooper, Gary Eskow, Matt Hurwitz, Steve Jennings (photography), Sarah Jones, Barry Rudolph Production Manager Nicole Schilling Managing Design Director Nicole Cobban Senior Design Directors Lisa McIntosh and Will Shum

10/17/11 2:24 PM

LICENSING/REPRINTS/PERMISSIONS Mix is available for licensing.

Contact the Licensing team to discuss partnership opportunities.

Head of Print Licensing: Rachel Shaw, licensing@futurenet.com MANAGEMENT Chief Revenue Officer Mike Peralta Chief Content Officer Aaron Asadi Group Publisher Carmel King Head of Production US & UK Mark Constance Head of Design Rodney Dive FUTURE US, INC. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036

All contents ©2020 Future US, Inc. or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein.

If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions.

Please Recycle. We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. The manufacturing paper mill and printer hold full FSC and PEFC certification and accreditation.

Current From the Editor

Reopening Phase 3.05: Trying to Figure It All Out The story lineup in this month’s issue changed a number of times over remote production of her Academy Award-nominated song as a beacon for the past two weeks. The Gaga story is in! Let’s run it now. It’s supposed global unity, through music, much in the spirit of “We Are the World” or to be the Live Sound issue, but there’s no real “live, in-person” events. Band-Aid’s “(Feed the World) Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Mix engineer Let’s do that feature next month and bring in a piece on Audio Education. Mike Stern called Mix. It’s a spectacular music and video production, shot Everybody wants to know what’s going to happen come fall. And, wait, on cell phones, with 170 artists from six continents. Nobody in the same Michael Stern just called about this amazing video he mixed for “I’m room. I still can’t figure out how Stern made it sound so cohesive. So good.

And then there’s Joe Bear. You don’t know his name, but he is certainly Standing With You,” the Diane Warren song reimagined spectacularly as a worldwide unifying anthem. Remotely produced. Robyn Flans? Can you representative of the passionate Mix reader, and he’d just opened his Carl get the story in a week? Excellent. Thanks, Mike. Snowpiercer? Well, that’s Tatz-designed Reaction Vessel Studio, his decades-long dream facility, in his still running fresh every Sunday night on TNT. We’re good with new TV. Colorado home just weeks before the shelter-in-place orders came down.

Now Bear has an advantage, in that he has time on his hands and has Anything else?

Well, we made it through another month, a month where on the side no intention of hanging out a shingle. He just wants to learn to mix. But he plays in bands a couple times a week (prewe’re also building out a transition from coronavirus), as he has for 40 years. He retired our September in-person Sound for Film How do you offer remote instruction from his day job in data storage about a year ago, & TV event on the Sony lot to a two-day in areas that almost by their nature early for his age, but he’s made it work. And he virtual event online. Nothing seems regular require a common tracking and listening interacts with music on a daily basis. His goal for anymore, and it just keeps on going. But environment, with students and 2020 is to become a better mixer, and with the we all do our best. Looking through the instructors in the room? How can you get down time, he’s taking advantage of every online editorial lineup and proofreading the final students inside a broadcast booth? tutorial, Webinar, how-to video and whatnot. pages, I realized: We’re all just trying to At FOH for a festival?

There are plenty available right now, and Bear is figure it out.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in education, in our case Audio hardly the only one taking advantage of educating himself during these Education, which brings its own peculiarities as Steve La Cerra details in odd times.

Everybody I know is doing what they can to improve themselves his excellent feature story. Having an online education platform, no matter the subject matter, is not the same as providing an online education, we personally and professionally, whenever and wherever they can. Some are find out. Of course, much can be done online, and educators across the chomping at the bit to return to normal, “just like it was.” Well, that’s not board are exploring those parts of the curriculum that translate to a virtual happening any time soon. Others, like my daughter Jesse, are building their platform and those that don’t. In some cases, it’s been eye-opening, but it collection of personalized masks and hunkering down for the long haul, hasn’t been easy. How do you offer remote instruction in areas that almost waiting on a potential return-to-work date from the SFO airport museum.

There are better days ahead, and there will undoubtedly be new by their nature require a common tracking and listening environment, with students and instructors in the room? How can you get students protocols, workflows and creative problem-solving incorporated into our inside a broadcast booth? At FOH for a festival? How does each perceive a lives. No matter who you are or where you’re sitting right now, you’re likely in the same boat as the rest of us: Just trying to figure it all out. fader move when listening on headphones in a small apartment?

Meanwhile, Hollywood and a large part of the production/postproduction community are busy implementing new work protocols as they try to determine what this summer and fall’s release schedules might look like. That doesn’t mean work has stopped. Soon after the shelter-inTom Kenny place orders started coming down, music director/arranger Sharon Farber Editor and video director Gev Miron called Diane Warren about creating a global

6

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Music The Jayhawks’ XOXO

Longtime Roots Rockers Deliver New Music for Your “Life in a Bubble”

By Barbara Schultz

X

OXO, the new album by The Jayhawks, sees members of this 35-year countryrock group collaborating more creatively than ever: trading vocals, harmonizing beautifully and building sounds from a deep well of roots music.

On “Forgotten Town,” frontman Gary Louris shares vocal duties with drummer/multiinstrumentalist Tim O’Reagan, while guitar parts weave between rock and twang, and Karen Grotberg’s piano rolls fluidly along. On the beautiful ballad “Ruby,” Grotberg plays and sings lead while Louris and O’Reagan harmonize in the background.

“During a typical Jayhawks concert, I sing about 95 percent of the lead vocals, and, to be honest, I get a little tired hearing myself whine about all my problems,” Louris says. “I love Karen and Tim’s voices. I know the audience also wants to hear them sing more.”

8

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Photo Tim Geaney

TRACKING AT PACHYDERM The band started building these songs with basic tracking at stalwart Minneapolis studio Pachyderm, where engineer Nick Tveitbakk set up stations that allowed the bandmembers to record live.

“We have a lot of isolation,” Tveitbakk explains. “Karen was in a room with a grand piano. Gary was in a room with acoustic and sometimes electric [guitar], sometimes vocals at the same time. [O’Reagan and bassist/multiinstrumentalist Marc Perlman] were in the main room together facing each other; everybody had sight lines.”

Tveitbakk tracked to his Studer A827 2-inch tape machine and Pro Tools HDX. “Because we have a very large and very nice [48-channel] API console, we can track to tape and run it into Pro

The Jayhawks, from left: Tim O’Reagan, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg and Gary Louris.

Tools simultaneously,” he says.

On O’Reagan’s drums, Tveitbakk kept things simple. “I don’t like to do a ton of drum tracks, so I’m busing kick and snares together. I use Beyer m88s on those. Overheads are a pair of [AKG] C12s, and I had a C24 for the room. The Pachyderm live room is one of my favorites for drums.”

Perlman’s bass went through an Ampeg B15 for harder-edged Americana songs and through an

Ampeg SVT amp for softer tunes. “That was compressed with an LA2A. All the drums and bass went through Neve mic pres,” he explains. “We have 1064, 1081 1073, 1084—a large variety of those.”

Photo Tim Geaney

Engineer Nick Tveitbakk in the control room at Pachyderm Studios.

Acoustic guitars were miked with an AKG C414EB and a Coles 4038 side by side, and vocals went into Neumann U47 and Shure SM7 mics, also side by side, to provide a range of textures.

“We’re always going for keeper vocals, so the option is there,” Tveitbakk says.

Grotberg played the studio’s Yamaha GH1 piano. “It’s not as bright like a C7 and has some very nice hardware on it,” says Tveitbakk. He put up a pair of Neumann KM54s through 1081 mic pres into a stereo Tube-Tech compressor.

ON TO FLOWERS STUDIO “Then, when we shifted to overdub mode we wanted to work at Flowers Studio in Minneapolis,” Louris says. “We had hoped to work with our friend and owner of Flowers, Ed Ackerson, but sadly he passed away before we could start.”

Flowers Studio is now owned by Ed Ackerson’s wife, and it is run by engineer Kris “KJ” Johnson.

“We were also friends of KJ from dealing with him at Twin Town Guitars [where he builds and repairs amps],” Louris says. “He stepped in and we all immediately fell in love with his easy demeanor. He is so talented and was patient with us, as there were more moving parts than usual because of the multiple songwriters. Each person who brought in the song took ownership of the production.”

For the Jayhawks sessions, KJ took a similar approach to Tveitbakk’s by setting up isolated instrument and vocal stations that allowed for sight lines.

“We cut 90 percent of the lead vocals through a Wunder CM7 mic, which I really love,” KJ says.

Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg and Gary Louris confer in the live room at Pachyderm.

“That went through a Neve 1066 preamp, and then a Revision H 1176. Also, in the big room we had a Neumann M149 tube mic, which we used for group vocals. Sometimes all three of them would be singing around one mic.”

On some tracks, Louris played what KJ says is “the most heaviest Telecaster; it’s like a boat, but it sounds great and Gary loves it. He used that most often through a ’65 reissue Twin Reverb from the late ’90s. We also had an early Vox AC30 and a really cool Selmer Zodiac Twin. He also did some fun stuff where we put a Super Reverb in the large room and played some loud feedback with every knob on 10.

“Each amp had its own recording chain,” KJ continues. “The AC30 might go to a Black AKG 414EB. We have an SSL AWS 900, which I used as a channel for that, and on the Twin we used a Sennheiser 409, and that would have gone through either a Neve 3104 channel or one of the Calrec 1061s that we have—they’re laser-beam focused.”

Bass—often the studio’s mid-’60s rosewood P-Bass—was direct into a Neve 3104 channel then through a dbx 165 into Pro Tools. Many of the studio’s keyboards were also used, including a Wurlitzer organ and Hammond M with a Leslie 222 and a Mellotron 4000 D, as well as a Yamaha grand piano.

CREATING A SEAMLESS MIX XOXO was mixed by Paul Q. Kolderie in his personal studio in upstate New York. “I grew up in Minnesota but didn’t meet Gary until he came to Boston to play on an Uncle Tupelo record I was producing in 1991,” recalls Kolderie, who

mixes on his Pro Tools HD24 rig and monitors mostly on Genelec 1030As. “I mix everything through analog equipment, though,” he interjects. “I do the automation stuff in Pro Tools and then run through gear like [Universal Audio] LA3As and the incomparable Pandora LM-402 limiter. The centerpiece is an unusual, all-discrete Neve console that was custom-made in the ’70s for a TV station. I bought it on eBay and it was a mess, but I had a great tech who turned it into a monster. It’s got a lot of horsepower! After the board, the mix runs through a Smart C2 stereo compressor to an Ampex ATR-102 half-inch tape deck, which is probably the most important thing of all.”

Kolderie says his biggest challenge was to ensure a seamless sound. “Each person’s material had a different vibe,” he observes. “We had to knit it all together cohesively. It wasn’t hard, but it took time to sort it out. What I loved from the beginning was, they really trust each other.”

In the end, XOXO expresses the joy that these bandmembers have playing together, while the songwriting runs deep. The song “Living in a Bubble,” for example, resonates on multiple levels. “‘Living in a Bubble’ was written and recorded pre-pandemic and was more about the ill effects of social media, the 24-hour news cycle, and our connection to devices than about any worldwide crisis,” Louris explains. “It is about the good and the bad effects of isolation. Who knew what was coming down the pike? I know that there have been times that what I have written has turned out to be prophetic...this is certainly one of those times.” n

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

9

Music // news & notes Paul Burch’s Light Sensitive New Album Grows from Old-School Inspiration and an Open Mind

By Barbara Schultz

10

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

what mics generally sound good on what instruments,” Burch explains. “I probably only own four or five mics, but they can sound good on anything.”

“We track very close together, without head­ phones,” he continues.

“I’m usually standing right over the drums with my amp beside me. Dennis is facing me with a gobo between us. When we rehearse a new song, I sing full volume into the room so the band can hear the lyrics and the cadence of my phrasing. When we’re ready to cut, with the exception of the drums, which have an overhead mic, everything is miked pretty close. At loud volume or with too many people, the room is lively, but if you’re careful, the results can be lovely. ‘You Must Love Someone’ was a hot track: live bass, drums, electric guitar, piano and steel guitar.”

As for those four or five microphones, Burch captures Crouch’s bass with a Neumann U87 through a Pendulum MDP-1 preamp, into the MCI. “If I had more tracks, perhaps I’d use an RCA 44 and a Neumann,” he says. “But since he plays gut strings and his tone is so great, I prefer a condenser.” The same mic is used for Burch’s vocals.

Drum duties were shared by Burch and Justin Amaral. Burch says he captured all of the drums with the same setup: “I used a Coles 4038 over the kit and an RCA Varicoustic ribbon on the bass drum. The mic is placed at about 1 o’clock on the bass drum, pointed up slightly toward the Photo by Catie Baumer Schwalb

On Light Sensitive, Paul Burch and his band, the WPA Ballclub, knit together an eclectic series of songs with retro rhythms and a gentle twist that brings classic sounds into the modern day. For example, Burch explains elements of the sound of the single “Love Came Back”: “Some of these songs started as a sketch using a cassette [player],” says Burch, who played drums and guitars, and engineered and coproduced the record in his Pan American Sound studio in Nashville. “‘Love Came Back’ is the first song that I sketched out and the first song on the record. The idea was to create concentric loops, to have organic playing but have all of the instruments not change their patterns, which is how the song’s quazi-‘Susie Q’ drum idea came about.

“One thing I loved about the original Dale Hawkins version of ‘Susie Q’ was that the drum track is very square-sounding, almost mechanical,” Burch adds. “On ‘Love Came Back,’ we tried to re-create that mechanical feeling, but the grooves are very deep.”

Bassist Dennis Crouch is the other half of Burch’s rhythm section and his longtime coproducer. “The challenge for both bass player and drummer is, how do you come up with a hypnotic heart that’s fun to play where you’re not doing too much? Dennis and I are very in sync on these things. He’s a very original guy, but he’s also like me—kind of sentimental,” Burch observes.

Burch and Crouch tracked those sketches to an MCI 8-track, 1-inch machine and then brought their ideas to the full band to record live.

“Since I record with my back to the tape machine and use the remote to stop and start, I’ve learned over the years—after a lot of listening—

snare and rack tom.

“I mostly played a Harmony Hollywood electric archtop guitar from the late ’50s or early ’60s through a $100 15-watt Vox Pathfinder that’s now 15 years old,” he says. “It was miked with a Royer R-10, which also especially shines on complicated instruments like nylon guitar. All the guitar, including the distortion on ‘On My Flight to Spain,’ was through that amp. I used the RCA and a Royer R-10 interchangeably, though I think the RCA—being very much like an RCA 77—is more flexible.”

The album also features piano parts by Heather Moulder and Jen Gunderman (sE Electronics sE8 pencil mic with an omni capsule), Chloe Feoranzo on horns and woodwinds (an RCA 44 that belonged to Eddy Arnold, borrowed from Burch’s label, Plowboy Records), and Fats Kaplin on fiddle (sE pencil mic in cardioid) and pedal steel guitar (RCA 44).

Burch turns time and again to this wonderful group of players, and it remains as fresh as when they started, he says. “The crazy thing is, you can record in the same place, with the same people, and it’s always different. Different songs just bring out different things.” n

Music // news & notes Joe Bear’s Reaction Vessel Studio Gigging Musician Retires to His Own Mix Room

By Tom Kenny

12

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

sound isolation as much as precision monitoring and a systems approach. After talking with Carl Tatz, Bear accepted an invitation to come listen to one of the designer’s Phantom Focus rooms out of Nashville.

“When I went to The Upper Deck and sat down to listen in Nashville, it’s like, ‘Oh, my, this is really, you know, jaw dropping,’” Bear recalls.

“I like his philosophy on what it takes to have an accurate listening environment. Granted, there’s many ways that you can come at this from, right?

But the whole concept of having time delay to the subwoofers so they hit your ear at the same time as the mains… Carl does full studios, but his focus is really on monitoring. For what I wanted to do, it all starts with the monitoring.”

Bear’s Reaction Vessel Studio was completed in late January 2020 and includes Tatz’s Phantom Focus PFM UHD-1000 monitors bi-amped with four OA 2200 Mono Block amplifiers and two PFM ICE Cube-12 subwoofers. Bear also has an SSL SiX console as well as Tatz’s custom-designed furniture and monitor stands.

Acoustical treatments include Tatz’s signature Auralex modules. He also has an Avalon 737, Grace Design monitor control and a number of high-end mics. He works in Pro Tools mostly.

Lately, he’s been working on his own material and getting comfortable in the room.

“My real work material right now is multitrack recordings I’ve done for the past 20 to 30 years of my various bands’ live performances,” he says.

“Typically anywhere between 16 to 24 tracks. So I’ve got this big library of old tracks that I’ve done cheap, fast ‘do-it-and-go’ mixes on before. Now I’m working through that. Bit by bit, I’m building my ear and building my chops.”

One final note from Bear: “Here’s something your readers might find fun. You pretty much can’t listen to Classic Rock radio for more than a couple hours without hearing Reaction Vessel’s Hammond. We now curate the B3, Leslie 122RV

The Jayhawks, from left: Tim O’Reagan, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg and Gary Louris.

The rear wall of Reaction Vessel, lined with a bit of Beher’s guitar and instrument collection.

and Leslie 145 that were the house organ rig and modulation reamp rig at Jim Guercio’s Caribou Ranch studios. The Hammond was onsite when Bill Szymczyk convinced Guercio to let him use the studio before its completion to record Barnstorm in 1972, and served as the house rig right up through the time that a control room fire essentially shut down production in 1985 with Amy Grant in residence. While not categorically sonically ‘better’ than other Hammonds and Leslies, it puts a smile on my face every time I hear them on tunes by Elton John, Supertramp, Earth Wind & Fire, Rick Derringer, Chicago...” n

All Photos Lou Johnson

Joe Bear’s goal for 2020, which began taking shape in early 2019, a full year before the pandemic and its subsequent shelter-in-place orders, was to become a better mixer. He’d already lived a full life in audio as a musician in bands, then a decade-plus as owner of a small, regional live sound production company.

He’d worked on Portastudios back in the day, he had some Mackie monitors and a small board with I/O, and he’d always had a spot carved away at home to work on his mostly live performance tracks. But he’d always felt that he was lacking the environment to properly distinguish clarity, detail and nuance to really be a “mixer.”

Plus, he had never had the opportunity to live a life fully enmeshed in audio, as he had led another full-time life as a researcher/developer in the data storage industry out of its epicenter, Longmont, Colo. But now, he figured, with early retirement, a new house and a bit of disposable income, it was time to go all-in on music. It was time to mix.

“I’ve been working towards this for decades,” Bear says. “Despite the fact I had to do a straight job in order to raise a family, I’ve been a weekend warrior all my life. Except for the coronavirus time, I still gig every week. And I’ve been doing online gigs for the past ten years or more. But when I got to the point where I was able to retire with enough money to do something like this, it’s like, yeah, now I can be a musician again.”

In many ways, Bear is representative of a large swath of the professional audio industry—not necessarily a day gig, but a daily passion still a part of daily life. He followed his band from Michigan to Colorado, armed with an electrical engineering degree, and stayed. Got a job. Kept the fire. He’s not out to open a facility and hang out a shingle. He just wants to mix.

So in early 2019, Bear started calling a few studio designers. He was in an isolated area, so he wasn’t as concerned about floating floors and

Music // classic tracks Classic Tracks: “I Go Crazy” Paul Davis’ Unexpected Hit Turns Into One for the Record Books

By Robyn Flans

14

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Photo Michael Ochs Archives / Stringer

Paul Davis’ “I Go Crazy” was in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 for four years in the late 1970s, until Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” grabbed the mantle.

While “I Go Crazy” only rose to Number 7 at its peak, it stayed on the charts for 40 weeks, from August 1977 until May 1978. More than 40 years later, the instant you hear the intro, the song is recognizable.

Originally, Davis wanted to give the song to Lou Rawls, who had just come off the hit “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine.” Davis had made a few records, but had only scored one Top 40 hit with “Ride ‘Em Cowboy.” Having not made quite the splash he had hoped, Davis was purchased by Bang Records and Web IV Music. growing somewhat tired of trying to be a front For the demo, Seay says he miked the piano with man and thought maybe he’d just settle on being a the same setup as when he started working at the songwriter instead. studio: “I used an AKG 451 or 452 above, pointing at One fine day in 1978, in the Atlanta area, Davis the second smallest sound hole, and a U87 over the dropped by recording engineer Ed Seay’s apartment low strings toward the back of the piano.” to play him a song he had just written: “I Go Crazy.”

Feingold also doubled the part It was just Davis singing and playing Originally, Paul Davis wanted to give the song on the ARP Odyssey. It was he who piano.

Seay must have been impressed, to Lou Rawls, who had just come off the hit “You’ll came up with the signature 10 notes as they then went to Web IV Never Find Another Love Like Mine.” Having not that recur throughout the piece.

When they played the demo for Recording Studios, where they both made quite the splash he had hoped, Davis was record company head Ilene Berns, had been working, and began to growing somewhat tired of trying to be a front she told them there was no way they demo it with the Korg Rhythm Ace, were going to give the song to Lou an early beat box. Davis went direct man and thought maybe he’d just settle Rawls. “She said, ‘Go back there and with the Fender Rhodes, and Seay on being a songwriter instead. make me a record,’” Seay recalls. went direct with the electric bass.

The Davis team went back in and added session musician Kenny Mims They brought Alan Feingold in and doubled Davis’ part on the Baldwin nine-foot SD-10 Concert Grand piano (previously owned by Ferrante and on guitar (miked with an SM57), and, as Seay explains, everything was recorded individually, which they called “layer cake,” mainly because they Teicher for their live performances).

For a brief time, Web IV Recording Studios had been owned by Chips did not have a large session musician pool to draw from at the time.

They also wanted to add strings, so Seay went to New York (Davis Moman when he had moved his operation from Memphis, where he had recorded such mega hits as “In The Ghetto,” “Suspicious Minds” and declined to go, as he was not fond of flying) and met with Michael Zager, “Kentucky Rain.” When his career did not follow him to Georgia, he quickly who would write and arrange a chart for three first violins, three second departed, leaving behind his equipment, which included an EMT 140 Plate, violins, four violas and two celli.

Zager said to Seay, “You’re going to take off those fake strings, right?” an Electrodyne Console and lots of instruments. Also at the studio was an Ampex 16-track MM 1100 (with 1200 Transport electronics) that was And Seay recalls saying, “No way, we love them.”

Photo Courtesy of Ed Seay

Recording/mix engineer Ed Seay today, from his Nashville studio.

Seay explains that they loved the combination of the real strings and the fake strings, which were in place from when Davis played the Univox Stringman, heard in the moody sounds like French horns. Seay EQ’d the Stringman, while adding reverb and tape slap.

“Basically I EQ’d everything, to some extent,” Seay says. “Back then we only had a few audio crayons in the arsenal—EQ, compression, reverb and delay. Back in the mid-’70s I wasn’t compressing my mix bus either, but would get that added in mastering.”

The strings, along with the Stringman, are featured predominantly in the solo, but also in the choruses. They ended up editing the strings out of the intro altogether.

“We edited that out because it took away; it didn’t add to the arrangement,” Seay asserts. “The intro didn’t have the same emotional impact with the real strings on it. We brought them in down the line.”

When Seay returned from New York, Davis and he had one last piece of the puzzle to record: drums.

“Paul said, ‘I know this drummer from Jackson, Mississippi,’” Seay recalls. “Paul had lived there before he lived in Atlanta, so he and James Stroud were friends. So he flew James Stroud in. I had three tracks left on the tape machine, so I recorded kick, snare with some hat leaking in, and everything else, which were three toms with 421s and a couple of overheads, a couple of 87s, SM57 on the top snare, and I used an ElectroVoice RE20 on the kick.”

Davis’ lead vocals were sung into a Neumann U87, as were harmonies

and Seay’s background “oohs.”

Seay mixed the song in about three hours, he says, with the reminder that there was no automation and he was marking the faders so that he could kill the hiss at the front.

“We went 30 ips and no noise reduction on the Ampex 16-track, and we went 2- track, quarter-inch at 15 ips on the Ampex AG-440B to mix down to,” he explains. “And I think I had another tape machine running maybe some tape slap and mixed a little of that in.”

They had recorded one extra chorus, and having concerns with monotony over the course of the song, they decided to cut it, so out came the razor blade. Then Seay looked at Davis and said, “I don’t know, what do you think?” And Davis said, “Sounds done to me.” To which Seay said, “Yeah, me too.” And simple as that, the song was printed.

Davis took it to Masterfonics in Nashville for Glenn Meadows to master.

The album version runs 15 seconds longer than the single, as it retains Feingold’s wild outro.

Davis says, as much as they could be sure, they knew this song was going to be a hit, but never could imagine the Guinness Book of World Records.

“That was big at the time for an independent record company to have a fairly new artist to have something explode and hang on longer than any other record,” Seay says.

While certainly everyone was pleased that Davis kept the song for himself, the singer/songwriter did actually get his wish in 1980 when Lou Rawls cut “I Go Crazy,” putting it back on the charts at Number 37. n

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

15

on the cover

Mixing Gaga Spoiler Alert: It All Starts With the Song and the Vocal

By Lily Moayeri For all her larger-than-life presence, Lady Gaga has a genuine intimacy in her artistry. She takes the personal to the next level on her latest fulllength album, Chromatica, where she lays bare her mental health issues, her sexual assault trauma, her masochistic tendencies and her journey toward healing.

Part of this healing process is through dance, and Chromatica is, unapologetically, a dance album. Specifically drawing from ’90s dance, with the euphoric elements of that time and that sound, Chromatica provides a safe space for her

16

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

acknowledgments and her confessions.

This intimacy gets its start at her state-of-theart home studio, which once belonged to Frank Zappa. Right alongside her is her vocal producer and mixer of the last seven years, Benjamin Rice.

Rice’s working relationship with Gaga began at Record Plant, where the studio’s famed Rose Mann-Cherney placed him as second engineer while Gaga was working on her Artpop album.

Rice was with her through all of A Star Is Born and Chromatica.

“Every song starts the same way,” Rice explains.

“We’re at her house, and she’s pouring her heart out to us through tears. All the things she’s

dealing with or wants to bring back up or wants to work through, she puts all of her emotion into it. It’s very emotional for us because we have a front seat with her. She’s comfortable to share with us in this close, trusted environment, and that dictates what this song should be about and how she’s going to perform it and what she wants to say.”

Whether at her home studio or at any of the commercial facilities Team Gaga booked for the project—Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles, in particular—cutting the vocals starts in the control room on headphones with Rice and Gaga side-by-side. “There’s an energy

Left: Lady Gaga, with vocal producer/engineer Ben Rice at right, and producer Bloodpop at her shoulders.

Photo Courtesy of E. Scott Kelly

Below left: Mix engineer Tom Norris at the SSL, Henson Studios, with Matt Burns.

Below: Seated in front, Tchami, with, standing from left to right, Bloodpop, Lady Gaga and Benjamin Rice.

Photo Courtesy of E. Scott Kelly

CAPTURING THAT UNIQUE VOICE Whether in the control room, live room or the iso booth for re-cuts, the vocal chain is vintage Neumann U47 mic into vintage Neve 1073 preamp

Photo Courtesy of Bloodpop

with us sitting in the same room, right next to each other, that makes communication so immediate,” Rice says. “There’s no talkback situation.

I give her a thumbs-up. I give her a high-five. We’ll try something, scratch it, try again. We can work it out on the spot.

“She also has her pen and paper as she’s writing lyrics, or her laptop, or her typewriter,” he continues, “There’s something about the team feeling, the cohesiveness of being right next to each other, that you can’t really compare to someone being 30 feet away behind glass on headphones, hearing from a distance.

I want her and I to be hearing the exact same thing. If we’re sitting right next to each other, there’s no gap in communication or what we’re shooting for.”

Gaga typically does a 30-minute warm-up and a cooldown. She’ll sing for an hour, performing the song from top to bottom, discussing the character in between each take. This repetition is not for her to “get it right,” but so she can try different ideas, change a lyric, challenge a lyric or add a harmony. Her performance of each song is exactly that, the same as she would if she were in front of an audience, not a line-by-line, sectionby-section, vocal take.

“There’s something about the team feeling, the cohesiveness of being right next to each other, that you can’t really compare to someone being 30 feet away behind glass on headphones, hearing from a distance. I want her and I to be hearing the exact same thing.”

—Ben Rice into Tube-Tech CL 1B compressor. The level of familiarity with this chain and the way she sounds through it allows Gaga to use the technology as something like an instrument. While the only sound that is being printed is what comes through the hardware chain, Rice has an extensive vocal production/mix template of 60-plus tracks.

“Because she’s so unique and so special as a singer, I don’t want to start raw with nothing exciting, start so dry then figure out how to build it later,” Rice explains. “I have several lead tracks that

route to a lead bus. Each lead track is processed by around 10-plus plug-ins in a series. I have 10 sends ready for send/return FX processing. I keep several of the sends visible on my edit screen so I can make adjustments as necessary.

“As I’m cutting and discussing the takes, I mark sections and create comps on the fly, which I then drag to multiple comp tracks that are processed through the lead bus,” he adds. “This allows me to continually build a temporary lead comp, which we use as our reference as we build. I have four

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

17

or more background vocal buses with a dozen tracks for each bus and separate cut tracks.

With these, I can quickly create stacks, doubles or harmonies. All of these background buses are processed differently and separately from the lead bus so that I can create various textures and tones to complement the lead vocal. The vocal buses are routed to an ALL VOX bus so I can process the combination of all vocals.

“For effects processing, I have 12 to 15 internal returns with a variety of reverb combinations and delay stacks that I can access in real time. With this, I can create a texture that fits the song. Each of the returns are also processed with EQ and dynamics tools. For instance, I keep reverbs and EQs post my delays, and vice versa—in bypass mode, so I can adjust the wetness and dynamic nature of each effect. I use around six outboard sends to physical plates and rooms that Henson has available, as well as an Eventide H3500 and an AMS RMX16 effects processor. This way I can combine internal effects with real plates, real rooms and outboard FX processors in order to create an organic sense of space.

“Lastly, I’ve created a dozen ‘Hard FX’ audio tracks that I always keep near my lead tracks.

Each of these hard FX tracks have different combinations of three to five plug-ins per track that I keep fully wet and ducked in volume. For instance, hard FX track 1 will be a delay fully wet, going into a modulation plug-in around 20 percent, to a reverb at 15 percent, then to a bit of distortion. The track itself is ducked in volume at -12, and each of the hard FX tracks are routed to a special FX bus that has some dynamic and stereo enhancing processing. I can quickly grab words or phrases to create immediate throws and ear candy, while cutting to help build the sonic texture of the vocal production in unique ways.

“Everything is routed to an ALL FX master bus so I can further control the dynamic nature of all of the FX quickly and easily. That way I can make quick adjustments to how the overall dry vocals and wet returns interact with each other. It is a lot of routing, but it gives me tons of flexibility and control.”

A VARIETY OF VOCALS Once Rice is set up in one of the commercial studios, he and Bloodpop, the overarching producer for Chromatica, work in separate own rooms, but in close proximity, tag-teaming each other with instrumentals and a cappellas, and influencing each other’s production

18

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Mix engineer Tom Norris

decisions. During this phase, Rice’s focus is on extracting the best vocal performances from various locations and sessions, comping Photo Courtesy of Buffy Gudwin and further processing them to create the character that embodies Ben Rice, Lady Gaga’s vocal producer/engineer. the emotion of the song.

He stems down the vocal mixes, prints them, based off the lead that you hear at the moment,” keeps the pieces, compiling everything to make he adds. “If I pitched vocals, if I made harmonies new and different sounds. This way, if new and ran those through processors, I would have vocals are cut, he can combine old stems using, those printed so I could always be playing how say, reverb prints from a year ago as an effect I mix those into the re-takes. It was an ongoing from an early vocal session so that they are thing. I would have writing sessions, working entirely different than the reverbs heard on the sessions, final production sessions, re-cutting vocals cut at a later date. With Chromatica being sessions, my print sessions, my final touch-up in production from February 2018 to February sessions and the stem sessions.”

Rice applies these same production 2020, Rice ended up with endless numbers of these stemmed effects from which he can draw techniques to Chromatica’s vocal collaborators: Ariana Grande, Elton John and Blackpink. from at will.

“The song ‘Enigma,’ in the post-chorus, there’s a Grande was in the studio with Rice for her vocal lot of swimming delay throws and distorted vocals recording, Sir Elton did his vocals with Rice from in the background that don’t melodically match London over Skype, and Blackpink sent theirs what she’s doing in the lead,” says Rice. “Those are to him. “Rain on Me,” the song with Grande, is demo takes I’ve mixed and treated specifically for an example of countless versions, which Rice that sound that I kept in the mix, so when she’s printed and kept, molding the pieces into the singing the main melody, the main effects go in what is heard on the final version.

Producing and mixing talents aside, a different direction. It’s a mixture of things I’d mixed and produced from previous sessions that organization is one of the main factors in managing the vocals. Says Rice, “When you’re gave it more dynamics, variation and change.

“It always feels fresh and different, as opposed making a record in real time that’s a moving to delays and reverbs and production tricks target, it’s so important that you’re keeping up

with it and organizing it in a way that you can constantly be a step ahead of where everyone else is. Gaga can ask me, ‘What did it sound like the first time?’ That may have been 30 sessions ago, but I can have it ready on the spot to show her. If we change the tempo or the key, I have to go back and manipulate those vocals to fit.

“After all these years of working together, I understand what she wants to hear, but I also understand what is the best and moves me the most,” he continues. “We talk a lot artistically about the comps, and she trusts me to make those decisions. If I play it for her and she cries, I know I’ve done my job.”

MIXING THE MUSIC In the same way that Rice is in charge of the vocal mixing, Tom Norris—brought onboard

by Bloodpop—is in charge of mixing the music.

Norris, who got his start posting cheeky remixes of popular songs on SoundCloud under the moniker “getyoursnackon,” is a heavy hitter in the dance scene, having mixed Illenium’s

master, turning up the kick drum into that, the sort of sound you hear on French touch records.

I brought in my Alesis 3630 compressor, which is a total piece of crap, but it really has a sound to it. It’s this $50 compressor that they use in churches. It was used on at least the first two Daft Punk records. That made its way into the more melodic pieces of songs like ‘Rain on Me,’ which has a 'Stardust' vibe.”

Hearing Elton John’s vocals on a song that ends in an LTJ Bukem-like drum ‘n’ bass meltdown can be traced back to Norris, as can the warbles of Inphonik RX950 Classic AD/DA converter on “Babylon,” mimicking the sound of the Akai S950 on 808 State’s “Pacific State.” Norris brings these classic sounds of the underground—which never made it overground, even at the height of their popularity—to the current pop landscape in his crafted mix.

“There is a duality here where we wanted to make Chromatica the most authentic modern tribute to that era of music and get the details right. At the same time, these are pop records,”

“When you’re making a record in real time that’s a moving target, it’s so important that you’re keeping up with it and organizing it in a way that you can constantly be a step ahead of where everyone else is. Gaga can ask me, ‘What did it sound like the first time?’ That may have been 30 sessions ago, but I can have it ready on the spot to show her.”

—Ben Rice Ascend, as well as working closely with Skrillex and Zedd. Norris proved a particularly good choice, as Chromatica’s musical happy place is the underground dance clubs of the ’90s, with which Norris is personally connected.

When calling on Norris for mixing, it’s understood that he also does production adds at that stage. For Chromatica, his role was finalizing.

Norris set up shop at Henson’s Studio Mix, and while he is comfortable working on every DAW, he falls back on Ableton if given a choice. With Henson’s SSL 6072E/G at his disposal, he started using the board’s compressor, then opted for a stand-alone rack.

“The sound of hardware is just different to me than what I’m used to using,” Norris says.

“For Chromatica, the different factor was good because it is definitely an homage to records that were made with hardware decades ago. I was forbidden to use sidechain on any of the songs.

I mostly relied on the SSL G Compressor on the

says Norris. “To have ‘Rain on Me’ against a DaBaby record is a bit of an outlier. That was definitely something I was thinking about, how dance should this be, because it’s also a pop album, so the vocals need to sit up front. That’s the only thing a lot of people hear, and that’s just the reality of it. Also, it’s easy to do that because Gaga has such a commanding performance in everything she does, and the vocals are so amazingly recorded and well done.”

Says Rice, in summation: “It was nice to focus on my skill set as the sonic designer for vocals and for [Norris] to focus on his skill set as the sonic designer for the music. No matter how crazy my vocal sessions were, because I wasn’t having to send it to someone else to pull up in the studio, I could make it sound exactly how I wanted with a thousand plugs, hardware inserts, outboard. [Tom Norris] is a master of dance recording mixing, and we could go back and forth until it felt great.” n

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

19

Audio Education

in a Pandemic

Hybrid Models of Remote Production, Instruction Take Root on Campus

By Steve La Cerra

I

’ve been teaching audio since 1989, and I’d like to think that I’m reasonably good at it, but a few weeks ago, everything I thought I knew about audio education went out the window. The COVID-19 pandemic changed virtually every aspect of life, whether it’s shopping for groceries, traveling, “visiting” our families, or even walking on the street. Some areas of life are being impacted more profoundly than others, and education is definitely one of them.

20

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Online education is nothing new, so it’s easy to say “just move classes online,” but the fact is that online education translates more effectively with some disciplines than it does with others—and for some institutions, audio is definitely not one of them. Audio educators face a multitude of issues, such as ensuring that students have the tools they need to continue learning, maintaining consistent references, delivering high-quality audio via streaming, demonstrating hands-on techniques and keeping students from going AWOL. Some institutions were able to shift gears to online instruction more easily than others. As

an example, the Music Production bachelor’s program at Full Sail University (Winter Park, Fla.) started as an online-only program 10 years ago, so resources were already in place for shifting on-campus students to online classes.

In contrast, the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences (Tempe, Ariz.) put their program on pause, electing to not move classes online— though they have made multiple efforts to keep students involved in the program. Other programs modified their course sequencing to maximize available resources, or modified course curriculum so that it could be taught online.

Getty Images/cihatatceken

Below: Michael Stucker, Associate Professor of Music, Audio Engineering and Sound Production, Indiana University

Above: CRAS instructor Robert Brock with students in the broadcast vehicle at a Phoenix Suns game, a portion of the program that is on hold during the pandemic.

World Audio programs are carrying on, but it is definitely not business as usual.

LET’S GET ENGAGED Keeping students engaged in online learning— especially when it’s not what they signed on for— can be a difficult task. “The idea of converting our program to an entirely online model doesn’t really fit our mindset,” begins Robert Brock, Director of Education, CRAS. “Our hallmark has always been hands-on instruction, so the big challenge for us is redefining our program so that it still meets the objective goals of a hands-

on program, while continuing to operate and educate under these new conditions.

“When the shut-down came into effect, the Conservatory reached out to the faculty and asked them to keep students engaged so that when this is over, their heads will still be in it,” he continues. “We created high-resolution graphics

opportunities. And since we’ve been able to record that material, it’s valuable ‘library footage’ that we can use in the future.”

MANUFACTURERS STEP UP “The support we, and I’m sure other institutions, are receiving from software and hardware

“When the shut-down came into effect, the Conservatory reached out to the faculty and asked them to keep students engaged so that when this is over, their heads will still be in it" — Robert Brock, CRAS of all of our analog console surfaces, and created ways that students could see specific patch bays.

We recorded instructors going through reviews in our control rooms, which helps students visually stay in touch with the studios that they were using.

“We also reached out to a lot of engineers and graduates, and found that they were readily available for Zoom sessions due to the current conditions. Many of our students went home to be with their families during this time, but they were able to continue their education outside of our core program with these additional

manufacturers has been really helpful in keeping students involved,” reveals Konrad Strauss, Professor of Music and Chair, Department of Audio Engineering and Sound Production, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (Bloomington, Ind.). “iZotope provided 60-day licenses for Ozone 9 and iZotope RX for all of the students taking a course in media and mastering preparation so they could continue work using those particular tools. They also offered the Exponential Audio Phoenixverb reverb plug-in for another course that I teach in classical music recording, so students had a good reverb for

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

21

Konrad Strauss, Indiana University, in session at the school’s Georgina Joshi Recording Arts Studio.

their classical music mixes. Sonarworks offered free 60-day licenses for Reference 4 Headphone Edition, which enabled students to have acoustic modeling for their headphones to help make their mixes more accurate.”

Strauss’ colleagues Michael Stucker (Associate Professor of Music, Audio Engineering and Sound Production) and Jacob Belser (Lecturer in Music, Audio Engineering and Sound Production) were in the midst of teaching classes in advanced studio recording when the pandemic hit. As Stucker describes it, “The students were very disappointed when they were told they wouldn’t be able to use the studios. We struggled with ideas on what to do, and then the leader of one of the school jazz bands offered to help.

The jazz band had a brand new chart that they’d rehearsed but hadn’t yet recorded, so we made it a project to record the band members playing that chart individually in their homes, with our students mentoring the jazz band students. Avid provided Pro Tools Ultimate trial licenses for our students and for some of the musicians, and other musicians used Pro Tools

22

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Free. Focusrite donated the use of Scarlett 2i2 interfaces, and Lewitt donated LCT 240 and LCT 440 large-diaphragm microphones, which we shipped out to the musicians. Our students had to help the musicians—many of whom didn’t know anything about Pro Tools—get Pro Tools installed and working. They then worked with the musicians to set up their space, determine microphone placement to get a good sound, and record their tracks.

“The composer (who was one of the band members) provided a MIDI version of the track as a guide,” Stucker adds. “That went first to the bass player in Australia, then to the piano player in Tokyo and then to the drummer, giving us a rhythm section. From there they proceeded to record other instruments. We initially used Avid Cloud for the file sharing, but there are limits to how many people can share a session, and it wasn’t as many as we needed. One student was put in charge of how sessions were exchanged, and they had to solve issues with tracks that didn’t get bounced or aligned properly. We mentored, but it was on the students to figure

out how the file management worked. It was a real-world situation.”

“It’s really been great to watch the imaginative ways in which our faculty has adapted,” notes Brian Smithers, Program Director, Audio Production, Full Sail University. “Using the knowledge and experience we gained from delivering online education for over a decade, we were uniquely positioned to make the transition online. One of our instructors set up a Yamaha audio console in a room on campus, put up an overhead camera and holds regular office hours there. Students call in using Zoom during his office hours, and they can ask questions like, ‘I’ve set this up in the offline editor and I think I understand how the channel strip works, but can you actually walk me through this process so that I’m sure I’m getting it right?’ That brings a student as close as possible to having their hands on the console.

“A few of the instructors produced a video walkthrough of building a direct box, and that can be used in a live Zoom class where the instructor turns off the narration and takes

the students through the process,” he adds.

“Students who can’t attend the lecture can access the video with its original narration.”

Scott Wynne, Professor & Chief Recording Engineer, Hayes School of Music, Appalachian State University (Boone, N.C.), took advantage of the large number of student musicians at his institution.

“As soon as it looked like the students weren’t coming back from spring break, I sent out a link to a Google Sheets document, asking all of the students in my program to list what hardware and software they had, what instruments they could access, and their level of ability to perform on those instruments. It was a way to keep them in touch, as well as to gather information.

“My juniors were supposed to record an artist in the studio, so we expanded that idea based

that every student has access to the same “baseline” tools.

“The Audio Production bachelor’s degree program is online-only,” Smithers elaborates, “and we felt it was important for those students to have speakers, as well, so their LaunchBox includes a pair of PreSonus Eris 5 monitors. We have a number of pairs of Eris 5s for faculty, so an instructor who teaches Advanced Mixing Techniques can hear exactly what the students are hearing.”

At CRAS, a similar approach is taken. “On day one,” states Brock “every student is issued a MacBook Pro, an audio interface, a Blue Spark microphone, a mic cable, software and Blue headphones. Essentially, every student has a lab on their laptop, which enables them to have hands-on time even when they are not using our facilities.”

“As soon as it looked like the students weren’t coming back, I sent out a link to a Google Sheets document, asking all students to list what hardware and software they had. It was a way to keep in touch, as well as to gather information."

—Scott Wynne, Appalachian State University on available resources,” Wynne continues. “Let’s suppose they were looking for a jazz guitarist who had a semi-hollow body guitar and a Fender Deluxe Reverb. They could reference the sheet and see which students might have a combination close to that, and what their ability was to record on their own. From there they collaborated remotely using Google Drive by zipping up a Pro Tools session and sending it over to the musician.

That student would download the session, add their part and send it back. It enabled them to experience the online collaboration that we see so often in the industry.”

DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR? Providing a level playing field for students who are working on their own is difficult at best.

When students and an instructor are listening to the same speakers in the same control room, there is a common reference for sonic assessments, but how can you critique a mix when you don’t know what a student is hearing?

Full Sail University has long implemented its Project LaunchBox, a package given to each student that includes a MacBook Pro, an audio interface, software, a microphone and headphones. It provides instructors with the ability to plan classes and assignments knowing

Another tool helpful in the battle against inconsistent monitoring environments was furnished by Sonarworks, which has been working closely with educational institutions to provide extended trial licenses for the Reference 4 Headphone Edition.

“Most of our students already have professional-quality headphones.” reports Wynne, “but they have to go through that learning curve of realizing that their headphones are not flat, and that they need to listen on different headphones to check different aspects of their mixes. Listening to reference tracks with and without Reference 4 helps them understand how their headphones influence their mixing decisions.”

An almost universal problem facing online learning is the poor (to be polite) audio quality of most video conferencing platforms. My initial use of Zoom to conduct a class on effects processing was fraught with issues ranging from poor frequency response to serious side effects from the Zoom codec.

“The audio quality on Zoom is pretty horrendous.” agrees Strauss. “We started using a plug-in called Listento made by Audiomovers that can be instantiated on a workstation, and will stream high-quality audio to a web link.

Scott Wynne, Professor & Chief Recording Engineer, Hayes School of Music, Appalachian State University

When I was mentoring the students in my classical music recording class, we used Listento so that I could hear their mixes with high-quality audio, and that allowed me to make judgments about timbre, ambience and mix.”

MAKING THE GRADE When the COVID-19 shutdown forced classroom students online, many institutions had to modify their thinking in regards to student feedback and grading, which was the right thing to do in light of the disruption foisted upon on-campus students. Some institutions offered the option of a pass/fail grade. At Mercy College (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.), we allowed students a CE/NE grading option, whereby a student earning a grade of ‘D’ or higher would receive Credit Earned, while a grade of ‘F’ would result in No Credit Earned. In either case, the grade was not counted toward the student’s GPA. According to Wynne, “Appalachian State had a very liberal grading policy whereby a student could choose to drop a course after grades were submitted—even if they had failed the class.

They also could opt for certain classes to be graded as pass or fail, so a 65 or better would earn them a passing grade and wouldn’t affect their GPA. The university tried to be as understanding as possible in regards to how this situation might negatively impact the student’s GPA and their ability to pursue grad school.”

Brock doesn’t envision CRAS “lowering or shifting our expectations as far as what somebody

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

23

needs to do in order to successfully Left: Scott Wynne, Appalachian State University, explaining the outboard rack complete our program. If a student was and practicing social distancing right before supposed to have a timed, hands-on students were asked to leave campus. proficiency exam in a particular room, into the studio and set up the piano with they’re still going to have to demonstrate a pair of microphones on DynaMounts, that knowledge. and students could access the DynaMount “Having said that,” he continues, software using the VPN to move the “some of our students were concerned microphone position. The mics would be that they were getting ready to do, for patched into preamps that are normaled example, their SSL proficiency when to the Pro Tools I/O so they’d be able to the break happened, and they wanted record the sound of the piano. We have a to know if they’d be expected to come similar idea for reamping guitars using a back cold. We are officially resuming Kemper Profiler that’s pre-patched into a the program under a hybrid model on Pro Tools I/O setup. Students could upload June 8, but we’ll also offer an optional their direct guitar track, use Rig Manager repeat of the first week of the cycle at to access the settings on the Profiler, no cost [CRAS operates in three-week reamp the track, and then download the cycles – Ed.], which will help them ramp track into their session.” up to speed. Offering that option helps “We’ve been analyzing literally every our faculty, as well, because there will minute of every class to see what can be definitely be adjustments made under moved to online discussion, so that we can the new model we’ll be operating.” increase hands-on time,” says Brock. “For Being in a face-to-face environment with students provides an instructor “Grading in this field is not easy, even example, we have API Legacy consoles, and when students are in those rooms with ways to gauge student response, when it’s in person. There’s a huge they’re learning about analog workflow and, unfortunately, an online learning environment removes that dynamic. subjective factor that comes into play." and the 550 and 560 modules. Using the tools that we’ve built, we can move that “It’s really hard to judge student —Konrad Strauss, Indiana University portion online and take the talk out of engagement in a virtual classroom,” the studio, so that students can focus on admits Strauss. “In person, you can tell when it’s time to move on and when it’s Was the vocal loud enough? Well, maybe it’s a operating the console when they’re in the room. time to review a subject. That really doesn’t little too soft for me, but if it’s within a range It allows us to optimize the use of our control work in Zoom, so I moved to an asynchronous of acceptability, then that’s an acceptable mix. rooms and be able to work with students in arrangement where I posted videos and other But if I can’t hear the vocal at all, then that’s a smaller groups—which is what needs to happen based on social distancing guidelines—while educational material for students to view on poor mix.”

“One thing that helped level the playing giving students the same, or in many cases even their own time, and we would have a weekly class meeting to review and make sure everyone field,” adds Smithers, “is that all of our courses— more, hands-on time.”

“COVID-19,” Smithers concludes, “has made understood what was happening. I also arranged whether they’re on campus or online—have one-on-one mentoring with students via Zoom, access to the same Learning Management us revisit our fundamental principles: What do where I would listen to their projects, critique System (LMS) that our university built from the we want our students to understand and be able and offer suggestions, and help them work ground up. All assignments are housed in the to do when they walk out the door? Yes, losing LMS, and work is collected through the LMS as the ability to do that final recording studio through the revision process.

“Grading in this field is not easy, even when much as possible. That’s been a great vehicle for project is a disappointment, but you have to it’s in person,” Strauss continues. “How do you instruction, communication and feedback from view it from the perspective of, ‘Okay, we can’t do that, but what is it that they really need to grade a mix? Does it sound ‘good’? Well, it students.” know? We’ve already made choices to show sounds good to me. Maybe it doesn’t sound students these certain things when there really is good to you. There’s a huge subjective factor that FACING THE FUTURE comes into play, but what helps is separating the When education returns to “normal,” it will be a an endless list of things that we can teach them. creative from the technical aspects that need normal that may not resemble the previous model, Let’s look at the real universe of what’s valuable to be accomplished in a particular assignment. but audio engineers are great problem-solvers. to them and focus on what’s possible from that Those are easier to judge because you can look “This summer,” explains Wynne, “we’ll examine list, instead of what’s not possible. I’m really at a submission and determine if the student the possibility of using a student VPN to interact proud of the level of creativity that our faculty met those goals, which is a good way of putting with the studio environment to control Pro Tools have put into doing this kind of thing. If you stability into the grading process. Of course, and trigger MIDI sequencing using our grand start applying some imagination, there are a lot a portion of the grade is going to be aesthetic. piano [a Yamaha Disklavier]. Essentially, I could go of fantastic answers.” n

24

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

What to Do When Your Calling Card Is Hands-On Instruction?

By Robert Brock, Director of Education, CRAS I’m approaching my 28th year serving as an audio engineering educator at the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences, which we call CRAS. During this time, I’ve experienced a lot of changes in audio technology, workflows…even changes in our students. With them, I’ve had to react with changes to how and what I teach. Until now, most of these changes have been slow, gradual crossfades, but, in 2020, unprecedented change to where and how we can educate have prompted significant questions, with little time to prepare answers.

HOW DO WE CONTINUE TO EDUCATE? The most popular question is, “How do we keep educating?” Many institutions have proposed, or even mandated, that educators simply convert to online classes. Just take your current curriculum, put it online, do some video conferencing, offer online tests and we’re all set!

For myself, and for many other audio educators, we can only wish it were that simple. At CRAS, the calling card of our program is that it’s built around hands-on education, working in small teams, in production environments that reflect the audio industry we serve. Our pedagogical approach, our assessment methodologies, and even our facilities have all been built around the idea that we’re not just conveying knowledge, but also preparing our students for employment. While these pillars don’t necessarily crumble in a world of social distancing and stay-at-home orders, the approach has to be re-examined, and in that process many follow-up questions come to light.

HOW DO WE EVALUATE THE PROCESS? Teaching and testing on knowledge is relatively easy to do online, but providing experiential learning that builds upon that knowledge is imperative if we’re to prepare our students for employment. Creating opportunities to evaluate both the hard technical and soft personal skills is imperative.

Watching a team of students work as engineers where they’re responsible to track a band by a given deadline, while having an issue with the cue system because someone made the wrong patch, causing the drummer to refuse to play because he can’t hear the bass player, causing the producer to complain that we’re losing takes, making the assistant verbally bad mouth the chief engineer to the guitarist—all of that provides educational opportunities like no other!

In a distance-learning model, how do we create these dynamic, interactive, fast-paced, dare I say, stressful learning opportunities to illustrate both the hard and soft skills needed to gain employment in audio production?

HOW CAN WE ESTABLISH POINTS OF REFERENCE? Do you remember that first time you ever heard a really good mix, on a really good set of speakers, in a really good playback environment? At CRAS, in Studio F, I’ve watched students jaws drop as they listen through the high-end monitors on songs they’d heard a hundred times before. In

that moment, their minds re-defined a new reference point for what’s possible with sound.

Jump to the opposite end of the signal flow and consider the same for the nuances of recording. CRAS has roughly 80 different types of microphones, and over the course of the program students experience how different mics and mic techniques interact with different instruments and room environments. Students experience printing to an analog tape machine and using real tube outboard gear, which provides a valuable addition to their mental library that will serve them for the rest of their life.

Yes, we can emulate some of these things with software on a laptop, but a person who’s done it on the real deal sees that tape speed setting on an emulation plug-in from a different, more informed perspective.

These referential experiences are what many of our students value most while attending our school. How can we create these important defining moments for students on the other end of the Internet as they sit with their laptop listening on headphones?

WHERE ARE THE JOBS? And let’s not forget why most people choose to attend an institute of higher learning in the first place—to get a J-O-B! It seems like an obvious question: Where are the jobs? While many sectors of audio production have slowed or stopped, I’ve talked to professionals in other sectors who are busier than ever. Some of those who have continued working through the pandemic have done so because they’ve shifted their approach in workflows and technologies.

It’s likely that even when we’re able to return to normal, there will be a new normal that education must align with. In order to serve our students, education needs to place an importance on creating a dialog with the industry and ask: “Where is their work being done? What are the changes to how it’s being done?”

Coming up with answers to these questions might seem daunting.

Honestly, I’ve lost sleep over them, but I’m hopeful. I ask my students to answer questions every day, and when they are stuck on one, I ask them to persevere. Look at it from a different angle, try another approach and draw upon everything you’ve learned up until now. If I ask this of my students, then as an audio engineering educator, shouldn’t I ask the same of myself? n

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

25

Lessons Learned in a Decade of Online Audio Education

By Brian Smithers, Program Director, Audio Production, Full Sail University When the COVID-19 pandemic effectively course in Audio Fundamentals, a labor-intensive closed campuses across the country, our period experiment with rich rewards. All of our faculty of adjustment was about a nanosecond. I lead give their students personal feedback on their an entirely online bachelor’s program in audio work, and a number do it via individual videos, production, so our students do their schoolwork which, while time-consuming, are obviously a from home to begin with, and working from great way of bridging the miles. home has actually been pretty nice, all things We work to build feedback cycles into as many considered. assignments as possible, inducting students into While my colleagues in Full Sail University’s the same “try/fail/analyze/repeat” workflow each immersive campus-based programs made of us turns to our advantage in our creative collaborative efforts to quickly—and as seamlessly lives—no easy feat in our accelerated programs, as possible—make the transition to delivering but, again, well worth it for the benefit of our quality instruction in a different forum, in Audio students. Modeling constructive analytical Production we quickly realized that we were the feedback is essential to building self-sufficient least-weird thing in our students’ lives. engineers, producers, sound designers, editors As heavy a lift as it was to figure out what, say, a and mixers; making online students feel part Show Production final project looked like online, of a community of common practice is equally our campus educators had the benefit of an inessential.

Brian Smithers, Program Director, Audio house Learning Management System (LMS) that Known as Project LaunchBox, all of our Production, Full Sail University. their students already used and their colleagues’ students purchase a standard technology package experience of ten years of teaching audio online. customized to their degree program, so they have At Full Sail, we started teaching Music Production online first, and then a worthy laptop, interface and mic(s), along with access to the same DAWs. about six years ago we added the online-only Audio Production program, This not only simplifies the process of creating and delivering online so we were fortunate to have all that experience with distance education curriculum and reviewing student work, it was critical to the success of our under our belts. pandemic response for campus programs, as we weren’t entirely dependent It wasn’t easy when we first went online. We joined a field dominated on the gear and software in our studios and labs on campus. by other platforms and MOOCs, in which most content was delivered as Part of that package is a pair of Sennheiser HD-280 headphones, which recorded lectures that were indistinguishable from campus instruction. We our faculty also have, so we always know we have a common listening quickly realized that was not the way to create engaging online curriculum. reference. If a student submits something mixed on their bass-hyped Obviously, there’s no single best way to teach online, but we approached popular-brand headphones, we can get them to listen to it on the 280s to it as its own medium with unique strengths and weaknesses. hear where they went wrong. In our Audio Production bachelor’s degree Among its great strengths is the ability to engage with students program, students also get a pair of small studio monitors so they can learn asynchronously, allowing each of them to integrate school into their to hear the difference between mixing in the air and mixing in cans. own busy lives. Video lessons, readings, exercises and projects may still To extend the business day and to reach other time zones, a dedicated be sequential, but they are not scheduled. That turns into a disadvantage team of faculty devotes their time to staff two evening support lines—one when a student has a question 20 minutes before a Sunday midnight for technical issues and one for musical questions—that supplement deadline, but that disadvantage turns into another great strength—online our existing LMS technical support team in order to address our audio learning builds skills in project management and independent problem- students’ specific needs. This is one of many ways we’ve responded to solving. student feedback over the past 10 years, as they told us the flexibility and We do still include synchronous lessons, lectures, demonstrations and/ support they need to deal with time zones, work schedules and family life. or help sessions weekly in order to offer real-time interaction and a sense After 30 years of telling students where to be and when, working with of community for our students who are able to attend. All such sessions online students required us to reconsider our approach. After 10 years of are, of course, recorded for later viewing. doing it online, we’re still learning, growing and innovating to meet the If your class sizes are reasonable—which they need to be—online needs of our students. instruction can become potentially more individualized than face-to-face instruction. Teaching on campus, I was almost always talking with groups Brian Smithers recently celebrated 20 years at Full Sail University, where he is of students, but online I instituted one-on-one, real-time oral exams in one the Program Director of Audio Production.

26

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Sound Aboard Snowpiercer From Perpetual Motion Engine to Class-Distinct Foley, the Track Keeps Moving

By Jennifer Walden

Photo Courtesy of Justina Mintz

T

he eternal struggle for equality persists into the frozen future of TNT’s apocalyptic Snowpiercer series. The remains of humanity and all life on earth are packed into a perpetual-motion train, 1001 cars long, and divided by social class. Despite the blatant disparities from First Class to the Tail, there’s one ring that binds them all: the sacred engine. If the train stops, everything dies.

The sound of the sacred engine and the train’s continuous motion are ever-present, though more noticeable in some places. It’s like hearing your own heartbeat while standing still in a quiet room versus standing on the street. The train’s hum signifies life; its pulse flows through the cars.

The need for a variety of engine sounds topped the to-do list of the audio team at Sharpe Sound Studios in Vancouver, B.C., led by supervising sound editor Sandra Portman, lead sound designer James Fonnyadt (responsible for railcar interiors, tech effects and stylized sounds for flashbacks and slowmotion sequences), sound effects editor Gregorio Gomez (engine and track sounds), and re-recording mixers Kelly Cole and Bill Mellow.

AN ENGINE THAT NEVER STOPS “The sound of the train itself is the majority of the soundscape, so Snowpiercer required lots of overlapping sound elements shared between the departments,” Portman notes. “It was a huge team effort. James [Fonnyadt]

28

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

built the cars, with Gregorio [Gomez] focusing more on the engine and track.

But they are not mutually exclusive, as they both contributed to the sound of the eternal engine.”

For his part, Gomez researched bullet trains from Japan and China, recorded freight trains, scoured effects libraries, and experimented with plug-ins such as Krotos’ Igniter, BOOM Library’s Turbine and GRM Tools’ Doppler to devise a recipe of four unique elements: a distorted electric hum, a turbine whine, a rhythmic, underlying pulse and a fourth element that adds a sense of motion—that could be individually manipulated to help distinguish the different locations on the train.

“Each car has different tonalities,” Gomez explains. “When you’re in the Tail, the hum and turbine sound more industrial than in First Class. Also, you hear the sound of the track more in the Tail because they’re right on top of it and the cars are metallic with little insulation.”

The sonic differences between train compartments weren’t arbitrary.

They were related to the train’s actual structure. The post sound team was given a map of Snowpiercer that showed each car’s location and design so that they could craft the sound accordingly.

For example, the front of the train is two-tiered, so the luxurious habitable space of First Class is separated from the track by the sub train—an underground, of sorts, used for maintenance access and cargo transport.

From left, the Sharpe Sound Studios audio team of re-recording mixer Kelly Cole, supervising sound editor Sandra Portman and re-recording mixer Bill Mellow.

Photo Courtesy of Justina Mintz

In contrast, the Tail was meant for storage before it was overrun by nonticketed passengers as Snowpiercer departed, so the interior isn’t furnished or insulated, and there’s no sub train to shield it from the track noise.

The Second Class and Third Class locations offer lessening degrees of comfort. The Night Car in Second Class is a two-level bar/lounge that’s outfitted with tufted walls, hardwood floors, chandeliers and studded leather chairs, while The Chains in Third Class is a bohemian blue-collar artists’ community built from old shipping containers.

“There’s more cushioning and comforts the farther up the train you go, which, of course, act as a sound buffer,” says Portman. “The Tail, which wasn’t meant for passengers, is bare metal, so there’s tons of reverberation and there’s more car movement back there. The Tailies’ belongings are hanging from bunks and the ceiling, so we hear them clanging and banging around.”

Fonnyadt’s design for the Tail uses multiple layers of junk rattling and shaking, which he combined and processed in Native Instruments’ Kontakt.

“They have a very busy, loose and clang-y sound to them,” he says. “Adding tighter panning automation to them helped to create a more claustrophobic feel. Bill [Mellow] did an amazing job of this while mixing the effects. I also used pump compression by adding a ghost sidechain trigger hit that’s routed to a Waves C6 compressor sidechain input on my ambient pads, to add movement in intricate ways.”

Moving up the train, Fonnyadt gradually reduced the shaking and rattling of each car, while at the same time introducing higher-frequency sounds and altering his processing. “I opened up my panning automation so that eventually, when you get to the First Class cars, there is a pristine feel. The open panning gives a feeling of being free. This was the biggest challenge, to sell movement from car to car going up the train,” Fonnyadt says.

A scene from the Tail, where the Snowpiercer stowaways face more severe hardship and a much louder environment.

FOLEY ADDS DISTINCTION, SUBTLETY Meanwhile, the Foley team— Foley artist Maureen Murphy and Foley mixer Dave Hibbert at 1010 Audio in Victoria, B.C.—performed a majority of the focused, original sounds for the clanging and clattering layers.

According to Portman, because Snowpiercer’s sound is all-encompassing, the backgrounds were not delegated to a backgrounds editor as they would be on a typical series. So, in addition to the carefully tailored interior sound designed by Fonnyadt, Murphy “did wild tracks for environmental sounds to use as Foley BGs to help smooth anything over,” says Portman. That included cloth rustles and chain jingles for the Tail, and dangling glass fixtures and hanging beads for The Chains.

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

29

Foley footsteps also helped to define the spaces, as well as each character’s social class.

Murphy’s go-to surface for First Class was plush, high-pile carpet. For the Tail and other metalfloored locations on the train, she constructed a custom platform with a piece of carpet on the floor, a raised hollow wooden box on top of that, a thin piece of cloth to cover the box, and finally a sheet of metal diamond-plate on top. To create different tones and resonances for different areas of the train, Murphy would add or subtract pieces of metal and metal grates.

“I might lean a thick steel plate on an angle Photo Courtesy of Justina Mintz against the diamond plate and that would create vibration and resonance,” she says. “Also, Dave, The Night Car, in Third Class, modeled after a bohemian, burlesque-type event space in TNT’s Snowpiercer. the Foley mixer, added his magic by using a bit of EQ to help distinguish different areas.”

“Each location had its own specific setup, and we took pictures and made notes on what went into each of them so we could go back and recreate those sounds as necessary,” Murphy adds.

Footwear for the Tailies consisted of thin-soled, lightweight shoes, except when boots were visible.

The Brakemen, regardless of gender, all wear thick-soled shoes. And the more military-esque Jackboots wear, you guessed it, heavy boots. “For the Jackboots, I wore boots that were five sizes bigger than normal for me, so they sounded really The Foley pits at 1010 Audio, Vancouver, with custom surfaces including a metal floor to represent the Tail big. I wanted to have that hollowness of the boot, section of the train. Inset: Different footwear for Foley footsteps representing the Tailies and Jackboots. which gives a bit of resonance and mass,” notes Murphy. chose short, tight, metallic reverbs to create a sense of claustrophobia in Available technology provides another indicator of class differences on the Tail.

Snowpiercer. Fonnyadt designed sophisticated UI sounds for First Class, “For the most part on the dialog, I kept the reverbs mono,” Mellow says. but instead of sci-fi, soft-synth tones, he opted for real-world recordings, “Then, as you move into other areas of the train, like The Chains where you like microwaves and cross-walk beeps, which he cleaned up using iZotope immediately see a difference in height and expansiveness, we opened up RX 7 and processed with Decapitator, Crystalizer and Devil-Loc Deluxe by the reverbs into the surrounds. We even splashed the reverb into the ceiling Soundtoys. speakers in the Dolby Atmos mix, to give you a sense of The Chains’ size.

In contrast, tech sounds in the Tail emanate from low-quality devices, so Then we dulled down the reverbs in First Class because the soundproofing Fonnyadt added distortion or bit-crushed the sounds to give them a grungy is bet ter and the wall coverings would impart a more ‘normal’ room sound.” feel. “As we go up train, each car would have a clearer and softer and more Cole and Mellow mixed in the 7.1 format (with downmix to 5.1 and upmix precise sound to the UIs being used,” he says. to Dolby Atmos) on Sharpe Sound Studios’ Stage A, on an Avid D-Control surface running Pro Tools 2020.5.

MIXING ALL THE MOVING PARTS Keeping the train sound in the foreground required a balancing act. While On the mix side, re-recording mixers Kelly Cole (dialog/music/Foley) and it was important to hear Snowpiercer’s presence, the dialog always needs to Bill Mellow (effects) used Avid’s ReVibe and Space, and iZotope/Exponential be intelligible. It was especially difficult to find that balance in the sub train.

Audio’s PhoenixVerb to help define each car’s interior. For example, they “The first time we go down there, we were told it was supposed to sound really loud,” Portman says. “But sometimes the characters are talking quietly to each other so others nearby can’t hear what they’re saying. It was quite a challenge to balance realistic, intense sound with production dialog.”

Sound effects editor Gregorio Gomez

30

Foley artist Maureen Murphy

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Lead sound designer James Fonnyadt

MUSIC IN MOTION The locomotion of a train, whether steam-based or driven by a perpetualmotion engine, creates its own, inherent rhythmic sound, which in this case can be heard in the low-end-pulse layer of Snowpiecer’s sacred hum.

Composer Bear McCreary tapped into the rhythmic pulse of trains as

Photo Courtesy of Jesse Giddings

The Engine Room, the most secret, secure car on Snowpiercer.

inspiration for his score. Bringing effects and music together harmoniously required collaboration between both departments during the editorial phase, and careful selection on the dub stage.

Cole says, “We treated the music and sound design as equal partners.

For each scene, we had to decide which was going to tell the story stronger.

Many times, because we had extensive sound effects from our designers, we would pick and choose which elements we were going to play to juxtapose against Bear’s score.”

Because their main mix was in 7.1, Cole could spread the music stems into the surrounds to make space for the effects that needed to be front and center. “The 7.1 format gives us more panning options and more separation in the surrounds,” he says. “And because Bear delivers a wide music session with nearly everything split out into stems, I could go through and pick the pieces that were complementing the train and complementing the action. For one challenging sequence later in the season, I ended up doing an internal remix of the score. I went through all of Bear’s elements and rebalanced them—while maintaining the intensity of the score—to craft it in such a way that the effects could come through stronger.”

Another important consideration during the mix was pushing the contrast between the cars, so that there would be a dramatic shift from scene to scene.

“The contrast was something we had to work on a lot in the beginning,” Portman concludes. “The producers and directors and picture editor were really pushing on that. They wanted to feel the changes in location every time we went to a different environment. We were emphasizing the scale of the train and also the scale of the class discrepancies.”

With “one thousand and one cars” and as many distinct environments, and with class-defined characters moving in and out, Snowpiercer never slows down—not in the script and not in the soundtrack. n

mi x o n l i n e.co m | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

ALBANY, NY UPSCALE STUDIO FOR SALE A unique opportunity for anyone in the sound recording industry.

The interior of the building was designed by John Storyk, an internationally renowned architect of sound recording studios.

The building is fully built out to the highest standards in the industry with a front reception, offices and three (3) sound studios.

Equipment not included as part of the sale, but is also available for sale.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT: http://properties.ikonrealtygroup.com/13-Walker-Way-Colonie-NY

OR CONTACT: Bruce Ginsburg Principal/New York State Licensed Real Estate Broker IKON Realty Group, LLC PHONE: (518) 456-5440 ext.11 CELL: (518) 573-5853 E-MAIL: Bginsburg@ikonrealtygroup.com

(518) 456-5440 www.ikonrealtygroup.com

31

The "I’m Standing With You" stage orchestra, with a video wall depicting partcipants from around the world

“

”

I’m Standing With You Music Fosters Unity in Stunning Remote, Worldwide Production

T

he recent “I’m Standing With You” project had all the markings of a hot mess, with plans for as many as 170 artists turning in individual performances on cell phones from their noisy homes with no hard synchronization. But when you have a determined music director/arranger like Sharon Farber, a visionary film director like Gev Miron and expert mixer like Michael Stern, CAS, potential for disaster can turn into the exquisite.

A few months ago, Farber and Miron had an idea to put together a small lockdown rendition of Diane Warren’s Academy Award–nominated song “I’m Standing With You,” to raise money for the United Nations Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization. Warren was all in.

“When I wrote the song for the movie Breakthrough, I always thought it would live outside of that movie. I loved the movie, but I always thought that the song was bigger,” Warren says, noting that it has been used for other such events as the ACLU, 50th anniversary

32

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

By Robyn Flans of Stonewall Forever, and the Academy of Country Music women’s voices.

Warren had no compunction about Farber changing the arrangement of the song, from the very first moment where Cellist Tina Guo plays a 4-bar phrase heard throughout as a motif, by various instruments and vocals.

“I was like, ‘Do whatever you want, the song exists in its form,’ and I think what she did as far as arrangement and production is quite brilliant,” Warren says.

Initially the idea was to access the local musical community, but Warren, Farber and Miron decided that the idea should represent the global experience. Once they opened up that landscape, the outpouring of phone calls from those wishing to participate brought together—virtually— musical artists spanning six continents and 11 nations. As it snowballed, the arrangement grew.

And it grew to embrace not just multiple cultures, but a myriad of musical genres including pop, classical, world and gospel, to “give the message of one world,” Farber says.

Miron did not want to use Zoom. Not for the

material he would be editing, as he wanted to communicate the isolation of the separateness of the times, along with the images of the abandoned city streets. A Zoom Gallery view would defeat that. They also rejected the popular Zoom platform because they wanted to place the orchestra musicians in their proper positions.

Warren was pleased about the choice: “I was really blown away when I saw it,” she says. “I thought it was going to be like a lot of the other videos that look like the Brady Bunch with little squares with faces popping up on the screen, but it was super powerful; a stunning work of art.”

Liyah Bey Lapidot sang the provided guide vocal (as well as a featured spot), which Farber had generated in Digital Performer for all the featured singers—each participant was to perform the song in its entirety and improvise at the end, so that Farber could create duets, trios and other groups within the arrangement.

A MULTITUDE OF VIDEOS When the contributions came in, mixer Stern received a grand total of 173 instrumental and

Music Director/Arranger Sharon Farber at the SSL in The Village Studio D, with, inset, one of the stars of the video, her daughter Eden Kontesz-Farber..

significant amount of audio forensics, cleanup and restoration, so he called up iZotope in Boston. “iZotope were incredibly responsive and helpful,” he acknowledges. “They provided me with their RX7 Advanced Suite.”

While restoration and cleanup is not something typically used in Stern’s work as a music scoring mixer, the majority of the film and Songwriter TV projects in his background, Diane Warren they were essential in preparation for this project, which ended up at ly prefer the control of graphic 255 tracks.

Auto-tune but because of the size, Stern mixed pretty much scope and volume of this, I used entirely in the box, and his each as needed,” Stern says. monitoring setup included With an overwhelming Bryston 9BSST 5.0 Surround Director Gev Miron amount of instrumentalists, inPower Amplifiers, a Bryston 4B cluding the 73-piece Texas Mediamp to power Ultrasone PRO 650 headphones, and Dynaudio Acoustics BM15 cal Center Orchestra (many of whom are medical Passive Monitors with a Dynaudio Acoustics professionals, representing those on the front BM14S Active Subwoofer through an SPL lines), Los Angeles orchestral session players, the Surround Monitor Controller Model 2489. He Spirit of David Gospel Singers, a Los Angeles– made use of Altiverb, as well as his Lexicon PCM based choir, Farber on piano and Stern on guitar, 96 Digital Reverb externally for the orchestra, and Tony Levin on bass and Tal Bergman on drums, the TC Electronic M5000 Digital Reverb for the as well as 19 featured singers, including such stars choir on the Gold-Plate setting. He used Eventide as Renée Fleming (U.S.), Soprano Sumi Jo (South compressors and reverbs extensively, as well, and Korea), The Voice’s Chris Mann (U.S.), Tina Arena the Waves Eddie Kramer Master Tape Emulation (Australia), Mario Frangoulis (Greece), Federico (“because it can often take the edge off and warm Paciotti (Italy), Russell Watson, and 9-year-old up instruments that are close-miked and kind of show-stealer Eden Kontesz-Farber (Sharon’s abrasive.”). He also made use of Graphic Auto- daughter)—well, a bit of distortion was inevitable.

Stern says his clarion moment came about tune and AudioSuite Auto-tune.

“It’s rare that I use AudioSuite Auto-tune. I vast- two weeks into the project when he realized that Photo Courtesy of Emily Shur

choral parts. Stern and Miron’s job was to sync all the musicians separately, the audio in Pro Tools, and the video using Adobe Premiere and to work on the video while Farber was in charge of working on the 19 featured vocal parts. Not everyone ended up singing the whole piece, but Farber says she was able to edit in a way that made sense for the project, featuring everybody and creating a powerful presentation.

“It was an interesting process because everyone has a different style,” Farber says.

“How do you do it so it sounds like one unit?

Everybody sang the chorus, but everyone has different phrasing, so I had to cut and paste and cut and paste, fade in and fade out, in order to cut things that didn’t work together and move it so it looks the same. It was a nightmare, but a creative and satisfying one!"

As daunting as the project was, everyone had faith that Stern could pull it all together. “If this were a real concert in a huge hall, there would be reverb and the sound of the hall and that’s why we have great engineers who can make this happen,” Farber notes. [Warren adds: “How the f--- did he do it?”]

Stern didn’t use the word “nightmare,” but certainly the word “challenge” proved an understatement.

“In the cellphone recordings, there were a lot of barking dogs,” Stern notes. “A lot of mismatched ambiences, of course, some of them had a huge amount of clicks and pops. There was one cello track that had a thunderstorm raging that was equally as loud as the cello.”

As performances were collected, Stern received them via Dropbox and says he had to strip the audio out from the video using Quicktime.

Anything not shot on an Apple product was not compatible, so Miron extracted those.

“There was a zero bar with a count-off and they would clap or snap their fingers at bar one, and then I would still have to line them up,” says Stern, who used the latest version of Pro Tools Ultimate 2020 at his 5.1 studio, The Mix Lab, which is in a solar-powered building in Chatsworth, Calif. “Every single track needed to be massaged in terms of playing in time and in tune,” he adds, explaining that even those in the best shape might take 45 minutes to an hour and a half to make sound like an ensemble, as no one played together in the same room. With so many musicians performing alone, there had to be an extensive amount of Auto-tune usage.

Once Stern put everything into Pro Tools, it became very clear it would be in need of a

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

33

JUST THE MUSIC, PLEASE The project took about two months from beginning to end, especially for Farber, who wrote the arrangement, then re-arranged it, then brought all the musicians together and worked on the lead vocals while producing the project with Miron and Warren. The song debuted on the UN’s YouTube Channel May 22, 2020. The first Digital

Photo Courtesy of Lisa-Ann Pedriana

using lowpass filtering on all of the cell phone recordings and setting the filters anywhere from 3 to 7 kiloHertz, depending on the track, was a game changer. For the filtering Stern used the Waves V-EQ4.

“It was a night and day moment for me,” Stern says. “With so many elements at the end of the song all going at once, it sounded like a haze of distortion. The upper midrange and highs on cell phone recordings are so very harsh, and with so many tracks, were adding up unbearably.

When I applied the filters, that was the moment I thought, ‘This is going to be okay,’ It was a formidable undertaking.”

Mix engineer Michael Stern at his personal studio, The Mix Lab, in Chatsworth, Calif.

Performer file was delivered to Stern April 15 and mixing in Pro Tools was completed May 9, 2020.

Stern completed the mix in just under a month as elements came in over a few weeks and were conformed to the phrasing and tuning.

On another note, Stern was not provided the video until they were close to the end of the project. “As a mixer, you think of things musically first,” Stern says. “I’m a musician first. So when the picture came, some of the singers weren’t

loud enough for their moment, so that required an adjustment both technically and emotionally, as I was so close to the mix at that point. But after I saw it to the final picture, it made perfect sense.”

Farber came to his studio—maintaining social distance and both wearing masks—and they worked collaboratively to make the final adjustments. Then, Stern says, he handed it off to Patricia Sullivan at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, Calif., and she did a “beautiful job” mastering it.

All worked on a voluntary basis, which so far has raised more than $6 million for organizations working in pandemic relief.

Stern asserts that everyone’s hard work paid off: “I do believe the end result sounds like they’re all playing in the same room at the same time.

So many people wanted this to be beautiful and great. I was thrilled to play guitar on it, as well as engineer it, and particularly play on it with (bassist) Tony Levin in my headphones was a thrill.

It makes me deeply appreciative of the talent pool and the willingness of creatives to give.” n

I n t ro d u c i ng t h e

4560 CORE Binaural Headset Microphone Immersive audio is now within easy reach with the new 4560 Binaural Headset Microphone.

Perfect for sound designers, engineers and musicians who want to capture authentic and accurate immersive audio.

Learn more at d p a m i c r o p h o n e s . c o m / 4 5 6 0

Tech

new products

DPA CORE Micro Shotgun Mic

Adamson IS219 Subwoofer

With its supercardioid polar plot, DPA’s 4097 CORE Micro Shotgun Mic offers a highly directional pick-up pattern as well as low self noise and high sensitivity. The mic is capable of handling high SPLs, which allows it to deliver undistorted natural sound, even when users speak loudly or yell. It shines in outdoor locations, handling inclement weather and limiting intrusive background noises.

Due to the highly directional pick-up pattern, it is easy to focus on what the interviewee is saying. While the speaker’s voice is captured clearly in front of the mic, background noises are captured at a lower level (off axis), making the entire interview clear and pleasant to listen to.

The 4097 CORE Micro Shotgun Mic is outfitted specifically so that it can be used in difficult filming locations like a car. Its foam windscreen protects it from wind noise, even when windows are down (due to tight spaces and camera placement). The built-in shock mount is also particularly useful when filming in a moving car.

The Adamson IS219 is a dual 19-inch front-loaded subwoofer with a maximum SPL of 143 dB. Designed to fit under standard 60 cm stages or in ground stack configurations, the IS219 also has front and back grilles for cardioid applications with no visual indicator to the audience. It weighs in at 90 kg and ships with removable handles.

The enclosure is loaded with two lightweight, long excursion, 19-inch SD19 Kevlar Neodymium driver utilizing Adamson’s Advanced Cone Architecture and a dual 5-inch voice coil. It is mounted in an ultraefficient front-loaded enclosure, designed to reproduce clean, musical low frequency information.

The cabinet construction uses marine-grade birch plywood as well as aircraft-grade steel and aluminum, and is equipped with two front and back Speakon NL4 connectors, or barrier strips available upon request.

Yamaha RIVAGE Systems Yamaha Corporation has introduced new additions to the company’s professional audio lineup—the RIVAGE PM5 and RIVAGE PM3 Digital Mixing Systems. The systems feature new CS-R5 and CS-R3 control surfaces, along with the DSP-RX and DSP-RX-EX DSP engines.

The CS-R5 control surface for RIVAGE PM5 systems features three large touch screens and a condensed selected channel section that contribute to smooth intuitive operation. The CS-R3 control surface for RIVAGE PM3 systems packs full RIVAGE PM series functionality and performance into a console that is only 45 inches wide, making it the most compact console in the series.

The new DSP-RX engine provides 120 inputs, 48 mix buses and 24 matrices, whereas the DSP-RX-EX engine has 288 inputs, 72 mix buses and 36 matrices. The availability of two DSP engines with different mixing capacities, along with the two new control surfaces, offers greatly expanded flexibility for creating systems that are ideally suited to applications of just about any scale.

36

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

d&b KSLi System d&b audiotechnik’s KSLi System features the KSLi8 and KSLi12 loudspeakers, combined with (KSLiSUB/KSLi-GSUB) subwoofers and the new 40D high performance installation amplifier, plus a complete catalogue of system-specific accessories and customization options.

The KSLi8 and KSLi12 loudspeakers, with 80- and 120-degree horizontal dispersion, respectively, provide consistent pattern control down to the lowest frequencies, in part due to the geometry of two front-facing 10-inch drivers and two side firing 8-inch drivers, which couple and apply cardioid techniques to cause directivity with low-frequency headroom.

The new KSLi SUB excels where space or weight limits exist, either flown in an array KSLi-SUB or ground stacked KSLi-GSUB. Designed for fixed installation applications, the 400 installation amplifier is the most powerful 4-channel Class-D installation amplifier in the d&b range. This amplifier provides the power density required to drive the KSLi loudspeakers to full potential.

Eventide CrushStation Plug-in The Eventide CrushStation plug-in, part of the company’s H9 Series and adapted from the hardware pedal of the same name, offers excellent sound and some unique features to stand out from the crowd.

From a distortion standpoint, it provides a range of effects, from light saturation to bit-crushed demolition. Unlike some distortion processors that only have a couple of controls, CrushStation offers a variety of

adjustable parameters, giving you significant control over what it does to your sound.

The Drive knob governs the amount of distortion. The Sustain knob lets you add compression and sustain. The Sag control aims to replicate the sound of badly designed or dying tube gear.

You also get a knob to add in octaves above or below the source, or both. You can create cool octave-divided effects, especially if you keep the distortion on the low side. The Grit knob, when turned up, adds low end to the distortion, giving you a fuller, more fuzz-like tone.

Celemony Updates Melodyne In major update of Melodyne, Celemony has added the new Melodic Algorithm, which detects sibilance, breaths and other noise components in audio and displays them as graphically different than the pitched part of notes. Noise components can now have their levels changed or be deleted entirely without affecting the pitched parts.

As a result, Melodyne (Melodyne Assistant and higher) can now be used as a de-esser, selecting a note or range of notes and reducing the noise level. The pitched-note information remains the same; only the noise components get reduced. It’s also handy for editing breaths and noise artifacts that get into a vocal track. The separate status of noise events is also useful when editing pitch. When transposing a note, the sibilance or other noise components are unchanged, which is a more realistic result.

Celemony also has updated Melodyne’s pitch-detection algorithm, giving it more power to analyze pitch deviations and home in on the intended pitch of a note. When detecting notes in a vocal (or monophonic instrument) track, it no longer chooses the pitch based on averaging the full duration of a note. It now places more weight on what it detects as the central part of the pitch.

Lectrosonics D2 Digital Wireless Mic System Lectrosonics’ D2 digital wireless microphone system utilizes the Lectrosonics fourth-generation digital architecture for excellent flexibility, ultra-fast setup, studio quality audio and ultra-low latency. The system includes the DSQD 4-channel digital receiver, DBu digital belt pack transmitter and DHu digital handheld transmitter. System features include 24-bit, 48 kHz digital audio, two-way IR sync, three levels of encryption, and a tuning range from 470-608 MHz (470614 MHz for export versions).

The DSQD digital receiver is a 4-channel, half-rack design with high-resolution color display, analog or Dante digital

outputs, and rear BNC antenna ports with “loop-thru” buffered BNC outputs to another receiver. The DSQD is compatible with the latest Lectrosonics all-digital transmitters including the DB Series and DHu, the stereo DCHT and the half-rack M2T. The DSQD is also backward compatible with any Digital Hybrid Wireless transmitters including the SM Series, LT, HM Series, SSM, HH Series, UM400, UM400a, LM Series, MM Series and WM. Three different receiver diversity schemes can be employed depending on the needs of the application, including switched (during packet headers for seamless audio), Digital Ratio Diversity or Digital Frequency Diversity.

Yorkville Sound Synergy Loudspeakers Line The most recent addition to the Yorkville Synergy line of active loudspeakers is the SA221S active subwoofer. Designed as a companion to the Yorkville SA153 full-range active loudspeaker, the SA221S employs dual 21-inch neodymium woofers with 4.5-inch voice coils housed in a bass reflex enclosure constructed from 15mm birch plywood.

The SA221S features a frequency response ranging from 28 Hz to 100 Hz (±3 dB) and is capable of generating C-weighted SPLs up to 130.6 dB (continuous) and 142.6 dB (peak).

Onboard amplification is Class-D, capable of supplying 6000 watts (program) and 17,000 watts (peak) power to the two drivers. A Yorkville proprietary DSP platform provides system protection from over-excursion (X-Max), voice coil overheating (VC-Thermal) and clipping.

The DSP employs IIR filters for crossover and equalization, and adds a small delay to time-align the SA221S with the SA153 full-range box. The SA221S crossover point may be set using 50Hz or 100Hz low-pass filters.

Radial BT-Pro V2 Bluetooth Direct Box Radial’s BT-Pro V2 is a Bluetoothenabled direct box that connects wirelessly to smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices and provides a pair of balanced analog audio outputs to feed a PA system. Each BT-Pro V2 has a unique identifier, allowing multiple units to be used within the same building. The latest model of the BT-Pro can also be powered via 48V phantom from a mixing console.

The BT-Pro V2 makes it easy to quickly connect to any smartphone, tablet or mobile device for high quality audio playback through a sound system. It wirelessly pairs over Bluetooth, eliminating the need to search for adaptor cables and providing you with the freedom to move around while staying connected. Audio quality is provided using the Bluetooth 5.0 protocol, allowing the BT-Pro to be used for playback even in critical listening environments. While the BT-Pro V2 is designed to last with a 14-gauge steel outer shell and high durability connectors and controls, it also has an enhanced reception range thanks to the plastic injection-molded insert, which allows wireless signals to pass through unimpeded. Balanced XLR outputs are provided for connection to pro audio equipment. n

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

37

Tech // reviews Universal Audio Luna 1.05 A Powerful DAW With an Analog Sensibility

By Mike Levine

U

niversal Audio refers to Luna as a "recording system" because of its tight integration with the company's Apollo and Arrow audio interfaces. Luna uses the DSP from UAD devices for powering UAD effects and for virtually eliminating latency when tracking. Luna is a free application, but you must be a registered owner of a compatible UAD interface.

Luna incorporates the industry-standard analog modeling made famous in UAD plug-ins to create a recording environment where you can apply built-in tape emulation on every track. Some of the optional Extensions available for purchase, including Neve Summing, can enhance the analog vibe even more.

Currently, Luna is for Mac only. I tested it on a "Garbage Can" Mac Pro running a UAD setup that includes a first-generation Apollo Twin Duo and a UAD 2 Quad Satellite.

One of the advantages in creating a new DAW is that the developer isn't bogged down with legacy features. They begin with a proverbial "clean slate," and can employ the latest technology—and the experience gleaned from using and evaluating other DAWs—to inform their design.

Indeed, some of the features in Luna's GUI will seem familiar. Its structure of two main windows, the Timeline view and the Mixer view, is reminiscent of Pro Tools, and a number of its essential key commands are the same. Selecting multiple tracks in the Mixer creates a temporary track group, just like in Logic Pro X. The way you can open and close horizontal sections of the Mixer (Sends, Inserts, etc.) reminds me of the Cubase/Nuendo console.

The point isn't that Luna is derivative. UA was smart to see what works and what doesn't in other DAWs and adopt some of the better existing ideas to supplement their innovative ones. One of those innovations is called the Focus Browser. It's a sizable vertical strip at the extreme left of both main screens. Contextual in nature, it shows different lists of choices appropriate to what you're working on. For example, if you press a Send slot in the Mixer view, a list of available sends will automatically show up in the Focus Browser.

Or let's say you're using a virtual instrument or processing plug-in.

Clicking the Preset window in the instrument's GUI brings up a list of all the available Presets in the Focus Browser. It's a smart feature that helps make Luna super-efficient.

Another innovation is called Workflows. It lets you change the contents of the Toolbar buttons at the top of both the Timeline and Mixer windows to match what you're doing at any given time. It

38

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Luna’s Timeline view.

provides four choices—Record, Edit, Mix and MIDI—which you can switch between by pressing buttons or selecting from a dropdown menu.

IMPORTING AND CONVERSIONS You can import any WAV, AIFF, AAC or MP3 file, no matter the sampling rate. Luna will convert the data on the fly to conform to your session. You never have to worry about those "Your audio is at the wrong sample rate" error messages that are so common in other DAWs. Luna also automatically time stretches any file with embedded tempo information to match your setting.

Whenever you import an audio file into Luna, it automatically puts it on a new track in the Timeline. There's no global audio window (à la Pro Tools' Clip List) where you can manage all of your session files and choose which ones to bring into the Timeline. As a result, your Timeline can get pretty cluttered if you, say, import a collection of drum loops you're planning on using to create a song-length part.

I was a bit surprised—but extremely pleased—to find that Luna supports AU plug-ins. I didn't expect that for a couple of reasons: First, UA has its own robust plug-in collection, for which an "all UAD" Luna could help spur additional sales. Second, third-party plug-ins are a significant cause of instability in DAWs. Keeping it all "in-house" would have made things easier in the coding department.

But, as someone who has a significant investment in plug-ins, including some that are key to my own workflow, the AU support made Luna much more accessible and practical.

RECORDING The hardware/software integration of the Luna system manifests itself most spectacularly when you're recording, thanks to a feature UA calls Accelerated Realtime Monitoring (ARM). It uses the DSP in your UAD system (if you have more than one UAD device, it will pull from both) to create input monitoring without any noticeable latency. When tracking guitars, bass and vocals, I experienced no delay with ARM activated.

With ARM on, I was also able to successfully record new audio in a session that was well into its mixing phase, and contained many tracks and lots of plug-ins. In other DAWs, this would cause the new track to be out of sync. I would have had to freeze a bunch of tracks or even do my overdub to a reference mix in a new session and import it back into the original to avoid timing issues.

ARM turns on and off globally. If you have a lot of UAD plug-ins while recording (the more tracks in record, the more DSP needed), Luna will sometimes switch off certain ones to borrow their DSP. But as soon as you turn ARM off, everything reverts to normal.

Luna allows you to create up to four separate Cue mixes, depending on the interface you own and its output configuration. (I had the option for two on the Apollo Twin.) You can even assign two aux busses to ARM for monitoring reverb and delay without latency. Configuring the Cue mixes is not as intuitive as some of the other features in Luna.

Luna's Mixer handles the same functionality as the UAD Console app for those recording through UAD interfaces into other DAWs. One of those functions is hosting Unison-Enabled preamp plug-ins that you can insert in your recording chain to change the character of your Apollo or Arrow preamps.

EDITING AUDIO You can adjust both Clip Gain and Pitch in the Timeline directly from any audio region, referred to in Luna as a Clip. You can make these adjustments from the Clip itself or bring up a dialog box with those parameters on knobs, along with some other adjustable parameters.

For waveform editing, you don't get an array of tools, as is the custom in many DAWs. Instead, the cursor becomes the Editing Tool, which is contextual and changes function depending on where you place it in a Clip. You can use it to select edit points or ranges within a Clip, add fades in and out, and add crossfades between two

Clips. To cut, you place the cursor on one spot or drag to create a range, then use the Command + E shortcut.

Luna's audio-warping features are robust and include five different user-selectable algorithms.

Select an audio clip and choose Warp from the Focus Browser, and you'll see all the transients displayed as draggable Warp Markers.

MIDI AND INSTRUMENTS The MIDI recording and editing features are straightforward. You edit directly in the Timeline's MIDI tracks using Clips or Notes mode.

Notes mode turns your MIDI track into a piano roll-style editor with a contextual multi-tool. You can open a Velocity editing lane at the bottom of each track, and right-clicking on a note brings up additional editing functions, including Quantize.

Clips mode allows you to edit MIDI regions.

For example, if you've put together an eightmeasure beat, you can easily copy and paste it throughout the song.

Overall, Luna's MIDI implementation doesn't offer the depth available in programs like Logic Pro X, Digital Performer and Cubase, nor does it include notation editing. But its MIDI toolset is solid and is more than adequate for recording and editing virtual instruments.

Luna's virtual instruments are quite impressive.

Only one, the multipurpose virtual instrument called Shape, is included. The other two are available for purchase. Shape has a broad range of excellent-sounding instruments, including drums, basses, synths, horns and even strings with various articulations. You can also open four simultaneous instruments in each instance of Shape, which makes layering sounds easy.

Shape also includes Ravel LT, adapted from the full version of Ravel, one of the optional instruments. Another optional instrument is Moog Minimoog, a spectacular emulation that UA developed in conjunction with Moog. It may be the best-sounding software Minimoog I've ever played.

Luna currently offers several Spitfire Audio orchestral instrument packs as Extensions and several bundles of Extension products, all of which you can purchase from within the application.

MIXING The Mixer in Luna is configurable and easy to use. You can show or hide the various sections above the fader area by clicking disclosure arrows. The default pan control for a stereo track

PRODUCT SUMMARY COMPANY: Universal Audio PRODUCT: Luna WEBSITE: www.uaudio.com PRICE: Free for owners of Thunderbolt Apollo and Arrow interfaces (Mac only) PROS: ARM feature allows for no-latency monitoring; excellent, analog-like sound; tape emulation can be added to every track and bus; Neve Summing option adds console emulation CONS: No dedicated order for audio track management; no level readouts when editing automation; no Windows support

features separate left and right knobs. However, if you'd prefer a single knob for stereo, just control-click on the pan control and it switches.

Configuring buses and sends is fast and easy, thanks in large part to the Focus Browser, which displays choices automatically.

Automation is well-implemented. You can access parameters to automate from the Focus Browser. You can write or change automation in real time or by drawing-in and editing breakpoint lines in the tracks.

My only complaint about the automation is that you don't see a readout of its current value when you click-on or click-and-move a breakpoint. I found this problematic when dealing with volume levels, in particular. In some situations, the only way to tell if a line is entirely straight is visual, which isn't all that accurate.

Bus Spill is a useful mixer feature I haven't encountered in any other DAW. Every bus track you create has a Spill button, and when you click it, you see only the bus channel, the master (aka Main) channel and all the channels assigned to the selected bus. It's great for making sure that you've assigned every track you intended to a particular bus, or just to hide the rest of the tracks so you can focus on one section.

Mixer Modifiers is another handy time-saving feature that allows you to quickly change settings to multiple items in the Mixer rows that reside above the Fader section. By clicking or swiping, you can copy and paste output assignments and sends, power off plug-ins and cue sends, and more.

Luna's mixdown features are powerful. In addition to doing full stereo mixes (real time or offline), you can tell Luna to render individual tracks and buses. (continued on page 41)

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

39

Tech // reviews MXL Revelation II Microphone Versatile, Affordable, Multipattern Tube LDC

By Steve La Cerra The Revelation II from MXL is a large-diaphragm tube condenser microphone designed for vocal and instrument applications. Its lineage traces back to one of MXL’s most successful products, the Revelation, but the Revelation II takes advantage of the latest manufacturing technologies to bring its price down to a point that’s accessible to pro and project studios.

Intended to capture the warmth of a classic tube microphone, the Revelation II utilizes a 6-micron, gold-sputtered, dual capsule with a diameter of approximately 1.25 inches. A continuously variable pattern control on the external power supply allows the Revelation II to produce in-between pattern settings such as wide cardioid and super-cardioid, in addition to the standard three (cardioid, omni and figure-8). Amplification circuitry is based around an EF86 pentode, and the output is transformer-balanced.

The Revelation II is packaged in an aluminum briefcase with a nice set of accessories, including the external power supply, 7-pin Mogami cable for connecting the mic to the power supply, standard 3-pin Mogami cable for audio output, shockmount with spare elastic bands, and a cleaning cloth. No hard mount is provided, as befits a microphone of this size and weight. Photos of the Revelation II don’t do it justice. The body paint and black chrome accents look pretty darn good.

POWER UP The power supply for the Revelation II is a sizable brick with some heft to it. Controls on the power supply include the pattern control, low-frequency rolloff switch (–12 dB/octave @ 125 Hz), a phase reverse switch and a ground lift. Power supply input voltage can be switched between 110 or 220 VAC, and the mic ships with a “Please Check Voltage” notice taped across the IEC receptacle.

MXL advises not to hot-plug the microphone, and I concur, having blown up a power supply or two by doing so in my distant past.

My first sessions employed the MXL Revelation II on drums, starting with outside kick drum.

To avoid overloading the input of the mic pre, I turned on the mic’s pad, which (unlike the remainder of controls) is located on the microphone body. Positioning the mic approximately 16 inches from the front kick head produced a classic low-mid knock that you expect from a large-diaphragm condenser outside a kick, but yielded a bit less low end than I anticipated; I was able to get that from the close mic.

40

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Next, I set the Revelation II on a boom stand approximately 5 feet high, centered over the kick drum and angled slightly toward the snare. The pattern control was set two dots to the left of cardioid (yielding a wide cardioid pattern), bass rolloff was turned off and the mic was connected to a Drawmer 1969 preamp/compressor set to compress a few dB. My first reaction was, “Wow, this mic loves toms”— which were captured with a wonderful balance between attack from the stick and the tone and resonance of the shells. Kick drum, however, was rather boomy and almost dominated the kit. Turning on the rolloff removed a bit too much of the bottom end, and gave the subjective impression that the hi-hat was louder (it wasn’t). I opted to disengage the rolloff and instead used a 50 Hz, 6 dB/octave filter in the DAW, which tamed the kick drum without compromising the sound of the toms.

Hearing the way toms sounded when the Revelation II was used overhead inspired me to use it to record a floor tom overdub, where the part was kind of a jungle rhythm.

For this recording the Revelation II was plugged into a Great River MP2-NV, placed just above the rim of the floor tom and angled toward the center of the head. It killed. The tom was big, fat and round with a perfect balance of attack and girth. I kind of wished I had another Revelation II (or two) to close-mic all of the toms—though placement would be difficult due to the size of the mic/shockmount combination. Speaking of placement, in spite of the fact that the mic weighs in at two pounds, the pivot on the shockmount didn’t slip once, which cannot be taken for granted.

Used as a room microphone for the same drum kit, the bottom end of the kick drum overwhelmed the kit; turning on the rolloff at the power supply restored order and balance.

BRING ON THE VOICE AND GUITAR Using the Revelation II to record vocals proved to be most interesting. I’m not sure I’ve ever used a microphone that has a phase reverse switch on its power supply. Most of us are accustomed to using phase reverse (“polarity reverse,” if you want to be picky) on the mic preamp or in software—like when comparing the phase between the kick in and kick out mics mentioned earlier. However, there’s a valuable application for that switch when recording vocals.

If a singer hears his or her voice through headphones, and it is out of phase with the acoustic transmission of the voice through the air (and/or the mechanical transmission of the voice via bone conduction), the resulting loss of low-mids in the cans is substantial.

Locating the phase at the power supply provides a singer with the ability to instantly compare the difference between the mic being in-phase or out-of-phase with the natural sound of their voice, and the perceived restoration of low-mids subsequent to flipping the phase switch can be profound.

Listening in the control room, you’ll hear no difference on a lead vocal track whether the phase is reversed or not—but the singer’s headphone monitoring experience can be vastly different. If reversing the phase allows them to hear their voice more clearly in the ‘cans (and sometimes it does), you’ll get a better performance.

When a singer is working really close, the Revelation II can get a bit thick in the lowermidrange. As a result, I preferred using the rolloff when recording vocals, which allows a singer to get in very close to produce an intimate sound, while maintaining clarity and tight lowmids. The Revelation II’s grille is constructed from a single layer of mesh; this, combined with the extended LF response, means you’ll need to use a pop filter when recording vocals; then again, you should be using one anyway.

The Revelation II also proved to be a good choice for recording acoustic guitar. I set the mic to cardioid and placed it about 10 inches from the area where the neck meets the body, with the capsule turned slightly toward the sound hole. The resulting sound was gorgeous: very “hi-fi,” bright and articulate without being harsh, with a clear representation of the pick on the strings when the player strummed. It was a little big in the bottom without the rolloff, which was fine for a song that featured only guitar and vocal, but

I think I’d use the rolloff if the track was to be part of a busy mix.

A bit of care should be exercised when changing patterns on the Revelation II’s power supply. It can take as long as 15 to 20 seconds for the power supply to stabilize when changing from one pattern to another. During that time some thumping noises can be produced, so it would be wise to mute your monitors.

As you’d expect, setting the microphone to omni reduces the proximity effect heard in cardioid and figure-8, but I also felt like the omni pattern exhibited a subtle difference in the upper midrange, adding a little bit of “air.” Also, I felt that the settings in-between cardioid and omni were a bit darker than straight cardioid.

Call me crazy (everyone else does).

When recording vocals using the figure-8 setting, I could not detect any sonic difference between the front and rear of the microphone.

The manual for the Revelation II includes some great information regarding polar patterns and suggested mic placement on a variety of instruments. It would be nice if they could add a chart that shows the various patterns in relation to the position of the pattern control.

IT’S A REVELATION MXL appears to have a winner on its hands.

The Revelation II sounded good on just about everything I tried (though it was too etched on cabasa for my taste) and I could easily see it being a workhorse microphone that gets used in a wide range of situations on a daily basis.

It looks great, MXL did an excellent job on the package, and the modest price point means a pair isn’t out of the question. The Revelation II should definitely be on your audition list if you’re shopping for a microphone in this price range. n

PRODUCT SUMMARY COMPANY: MXL PRODUCT: Revelation II Variable Pattern Tube Condenser Microphone WEBSITE: www.mxlmics.com PRICE: $499.95, MSRP PROS: Useful on a wide variety of instruments, vocals; extended low-frequency response; variable pattern control CONS: Bottom end can be overwhelming at times; tough to position in tight quarters; HPF is a bit steep

UA Luna (continued from page 39) The Tape slot in the Mixer lets you add the sound of analog tape to each track individually.

UA's Oxide Tape emulation is included with Luna and sounds excellent. UAD offers its Studer A800 tape emulation as an optional Extension.

If you already own the plug-in version, Luna will automatically make the Studer A800 available for the Tape slot.

The optional Neve Summing Extension emulates the summing characteristics of a Neve console. Controls include Trim (input level), HR (headroom) and Hi Ω or Lo Ω (impedance). With Neve Summing installed on your Main (master) track and buses, you get subtle saturation and presence that's quite pleasing.

IMPRESSIONS I used Luna for several recording and mixing projects, and my overall impression is extremely positive. For a version 1 application, I found it quite stable. Crashing during sessions was rarely an issue, which is more than I can say for some DAWs that have been on the market for years. Luna also includes an autosave feature that protects you if you do lose data.

The Luna user interface is exceptionally intuitive and provides a well-designed overall approach that includes some useful new features and concepts. Luna's AU plug-in support is also noteworthy; being able to open familiar processors and instruments makes the transition from other DAWs much easier.

As you would expect from a Universal Audio product, Luna sounds excellent, even if you don't have the Neve Summing and the Studer A800 tape emulation. Perhaps Luna's most impressive feature is the ability to record with no latency using ARM. Sure, there are some features it would be nice to see added. Video import and render is one, so you could use Luna when writing music for picture. Value readouts when adjusting automation would be another. A better way to manage imported files would be a big help, too. To that point, UA says it's planning more comprehensive media management features for a future release.

But overall, Luna is super-impressive. It may not yet have the depth of features of some of its competitors, but for music production, it's already a force to be reckoned with. If you already own an Apollo or Arrow, do yourself a favor and check it out. I'm confident you'll be intrigued. n

mixonline.com | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | M I X

41

Tech // back page blog Visualizing Proper Balance; The New Drive-In Concert Mike Levine: Mix Technology Editor, Studio

Steve La Cerra: Mix Technology Editor, Live

Balancing Act. This isn’t the Product of the Week column. That said, it’s all about a product, the iZotope Tonal Balance Control 2 plug-in, which I’ve found it to be extremely useful when mixing.

What’s unique about TBC2 isn’t that it displays frequency data about a mix—there are plenty of products that do that. What makes it different is that it shows how the frequency balance compares to what’s typical in a variety of genres.

The idea is to place TBC2 at the end of the master bus chain. It displays, in real time, the frequency content of your mix inside of four ranges: Low, LowMid, High-Mid and High. The contours of the zones will vary depending on the musical style you’ve chosen from the Target drop-down menu.

TBC2 makes it easy to see if the mix falls within the range for each frequency band or is above or below it. What’s even cooler is that it will create a custom reference curve based on any song you upload to it. So if you want to match the frequency content of a mix with that of a specific song, it’s easy.

TBC2’s ability to show where the frequencies in a mix reside compared to a reference range is beneficial in lots of situations. My studio tends to absorb too much bass, which leads me to create bass-heavy mixes. With TBC2, it’s easy to see when there might be too much low-end energy in a mix, and I know I need to bring down the kick or bass, or both, to compensate.

The other frequency bands are also a help. I can easily see when my mix has an overabundance of lower midrange, and is likely muddy, or is too bright or not bright enough.

To sum up, I don’t know of another plug-in on the market that offers the functionality of Tonal Balance Control 2. I put it on the master bus of all my mixes and find myself referring to it constantly.

Meet Me at the Drive-In: You may not be able to have a concert in your car, but it’s starting to look like you’ll be able to put your car in a concert. COVID-19 has all but shut down the touring industry, at a time of year when most acts are usually out on the road making hay. Shows have been few and far between, but drive-in concerts are growing in popularity, providing what appears to be a safe alternative to cramming tens of thousands of people into a confined space.

On June 20, tickets went on sale for Garth Brooks’ Drive In Concert, which aired at more than 300 drive-in theaters across North America on Saturday, June 27. Within two hours, 50,000 tickets were sold, but a glitch in the Ticketmaster website forced sales to be stopped. At that time, Ticketmaster estimated that another 120,000 fans were waiting to purchase tickets.

The ticket price is $100 per passenger car or SUV, with a maximum of six occupants, making it way more affordable for a family of four to attend a show than the usual ticket scaling permits. Each drive-in location will provide approximately 250 to 300 tickets, aka parking spaces. Following cues from drive-in movies, audio will be broadcast to the radio inside each vehicle.

The Brooks concert is being produced by Encore Live, which has reportedly consulted health experts to establish safe protocol for the event.

Vehicles will be spaced six feet apart, staff will wear personal protective equipment, and capacity of public restrooms will be limited. Concession areas at each venue will be required to adhere to local regulations.

Brooks’ Drive In Concert was created and filmed exclusively for this event, and it will reportedly be the largest show ever to play at outdoor theaters across the United States and Canada.

Whether the drive-in concert trend will continue after the pandemic has passed remains to be seen, but at least for now drive-in shows are providing some much-needed entertainment for music fans and some much-needed work for the concert industry.

And if it rains? Well, just roll up the windows.

Product of the Month: Celemony Melodyne 5. Arguably the most notable new feature in Melodyne 5 is the new Melodic Algorithm, which detects sibilance, breaths and other noise components in audio and displays them as graphically different than the pitched part of notes. Noise components can now have their levels changed or be deleted entirely without affecting the pitched parts. Celemony also updated Melodyne’s pitchdetection algorithm, giving it more power to analyze pitch deviations and home in on the intended pitch of a note. When detecting notes in a vocal (or monophonic instrument) track, it no longer chooses the pitch based on averaging the full duration of a note. It now places more weight on what it detects as the central part of the pitch.

42

M I X | J U L Y 2 0 2 0 | mi x o n l i n e.co m

Product of the Month: Avantone Pro Kick. As its name implies, the Kick from Avantone Pro is an ultra-low-frequency microphone designed to capture the bottom octaves of a kick drum or any other instrument with significant LF content. The Kick employs a loudspeaker as its microphone transducer, specifically the AV10-MLG “white cone” woofer originally developed by Avantone for use in its Pro CLA-10 studio monitor. The 18 cm driver is housed inside a 10-inch birch drum shell and is supported by a double-braced stand featuring adjustable height and angle (included). n

9000