MIX 545 - May 2022 by Future PLC

Welcome to the MAY 2022 issue of

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FEATURES

30 Return of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: All-Analog Production of ‘Unlimited Love’ BY ROBYN FLANS

05.22 Contents

36 Scott Frankfurt Dives Into Atmos With ‘Temptations 60’ BY STEVE HARVEY

38 Recording Retreat: What’s on Your Island Gear Wish List?

Volume 46, Number 5

BY RICH TOZZOLI

MUSIC

TECHNOLOGY

LIVE SOUND

16 Calexico Back in the

40 New Products: Studio

22 Robot Heart: Burning Man Bus Rolls into Central Park

Studio for ‘El Mirador’ BY BARBARA SCHULTZ

18 News & Notes:

Mixing RodeoHouston; Evergroove Goes 7.1.4; Dave Henszey on Mastering for Atmos

20 Audio for the 64th

Annual Grammy Awards BY STEVE HARVEY

and Live Sound

42 Review:

Mojave Audio MA-37 Tube Condenser Microphone

PRESENTED BY

BY CLIVE YOUNG

26 News & Notes: Eddie Vedder’s ‘Earthling’ Tour; Evanescence, Eddie Mapp and Solotech; Maroon 5 Outdoors in S.F

28 Oak Ridge Boys, Little River Band on the Move

BY BARRY RUDOLPH

44 Tech Spotlight:

PreSonus Sphere BY MIKE LEVINE

DEPARTMENTS 8 From the Editor: This

46 Review: Fuse Audio

Labs VREV-140 Plug-in BY MIKE LEVINE

Summer Is Gonna Rock

10 Current: Industry News 12 Innovations: Meyer

Sound PANTHER Linear Line Array Loudspeaker BY KATIE MURPHY

50 Open Channel: Vintage Gear Emulations

BY CRAIG ANDERTON

On the Cover: Guitarist John Frusciante returned to the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the all-analog production of Unlimited Love, which debuted in early April at the top of the Billboard charts. Produced by Rick Rubin; recorded and mixed by Ryan Hewitt. Photo: Courtesy of Warners.

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26 Mix, Volume 46, Number 5 (ISSN 0164-9957) is published monthly by Future US, Inc., 130 West 42nd Street, 7th 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.

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Vol. 46 Number 5

May 2022

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FOLLOW US twitter.com/Mix_Magazine facebook/MixMagazine CONTENT VP/Content Creation Anthony Savona Content Directors Tom Kenny, thomas.kenny@futurenet.com Clive Young, clive.young@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 Senior Content Producer Steve Harvey, sharvey.prosound@gmail.com Contributors: Craig Anderton, Barry Rudolph, Robyn Flans, Rob Tavaglione, Jennifer Walden Production Manager Nicole Schilling Managing Design Director Nicole Cobban Design Directors Lisa McIntosh and Will Shum 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. 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 Senior Vice President, B2B Rick Stamberger Vice President, Sales & Publishing, B2B Aaron Kern Vice President, B2B Tech Group Carmel King Vice President, Sales, B2B Tech Group Adam Goldstein Head of Production US & UK Mark Constance Head of Design Rodney Dive FUTURE US, INC. 130 West 42nd Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10036

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Current From the Editor

This Summer Is Gonna Rock Every generation has its own vernacular, and every region of the world has its own idiomatic take on what is hip and happening and in the “now.” Here in the States, if something was a “wicked pissah” in Boston in the 1980s, it was likely “hella cool” in the Bay Area in the ’90s. If an experience, an event or a thing was “far out” in late-’60s Los Angeles, it was probably “dope” in early-’80s Brooklyn. In 1970s small-town Indiana, my teenage training ground, things “rocked.” If you had a friend move outside of town to a bigger house with an inground pool, well, that pool rocked. When Danny Ogle got an under-dash equalizer to trick out the audio system in his 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass, both the EQ and the car rocked. The new Steak & Shake in West Lafayette definitely rocked, as did Star Wars when it opened. A weekend in Chicago to see the Cubs was always a rockin’ good time. If your friend asked what you thought of his new girlfriend, it was simple: She rocks. When I bought Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps, Crazy Horse rocked my Advent speakers. Steve Dahl, the original shock jock, and WLUP, the Loop, both rocked it on radio, though I thought WXRT rocked harder. At my first real concert, age 16 or so, Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel rocked Chicago’s Navy Pier to the point that it felt like waves might leap the concrete barriers and crash across Lake Shore Drive. I was told later that it was Texas Swing and blues and rockabilly and country fiddle all rolled into one. To me, the band just rocked out. All this to say, I think that this summer’s touring season is going to rock, both figuratively and literally, for a number of reasons. First, the demand for live music is off the charts. It’s been two years, two summer seasons, of total disruption, and finally the gates are opening up. Ed Sheeran is selling out stadiums in five minutes and considering adding shows. Coachella, taking place next weekend, sold out long ago, while Billie Eilish is still filling up makeup shows while adding others. All to capacity. The Stones, celebrating 60 years (!), sell out six shows in Europe over a weekend. Try getting an Olivia Rodrigo or BTS ticket for under $250. It won’t happen. Fans were ready to bust out last summer; they are ready to rock this summer. In a big way. Second, artists have been backstage waiting, bouncing up and down, shaking out their arms and legs and limbering up their vocal cords, and it’s now two hours past showtime! I know that artists have been playing live these past two years, mostly on mini-runs or one-offs, but this summer will

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bring the first real sense of regularity in a while. Artists need an audience to bounce off of; they need a stage to run around. For the past two years, most have been writing, writing and writing, and many of these songs will be debuting on stage this summer, being worked on from show to show. They are inspired, and they are ready. I have a feeling that we are going to witness some explosive performances this summer. Third, the return of the crews and the return of the touring “community” is something to celebrate. Touring sound is a way of life, with its own rhythms and pace and sense of kinship. In the early weeks, I’m sure every new night and every new town will feel like a reunion stop, building back the muscle memory and remembering the long hours. And loving it. Clair, Rat Sound, Eighth Day Sound, Solotech, Sound Image, LD Systems, SES, UltraSound, Spectrum Sound and all you others … it’s good to have you back on the road. And finally, quite literally, it’s gonna rock this summer because rock, the genre, is on its way back! Much has been written over the past decade about the demise of rock and the rise of hip hop, both economically and as a cultural marker. All true. But rock is far from dead. At Lollapalooza last summer, acts like Band of Horses, Young the Giant, Backseat Lovers and Foo Fighters stole the show. Guitars, drums, bass and sometimes keys. All playing together. But forget genres. There are too many of them anyway. I’ve seen Damian Marley absolutely rock the Greek Theatre on “Welcome to Jamrock,” and I’ve watched Martina McBride’s band kick it in and rock the rafters as she belts out Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” I’m with Dave Grohl: Rock is more about an approach, and a state of mind. The past two years have taken their toll on the live sound and touring industries, no question. Countless venues have closed, many of them longtime staples of the club-tour set. A lot of talented sound people, victims of furloughs and layoffs, have left to pursue other careers. And we’re not out of it yet. But new venues will pop up, new stars will emerge, and old favorites will perform in new ways. This summer marks the return. And it’s gonna rock.

Tom Kenny Co-Editor

Current // news & notes IFPI 2022 Global Recorded Music Report London, UK—The global recorded music market grew by 18.5% in 2021, according to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s Global Music Report 2022, generating total revenues of $25.9 billion, driven by growth in paid subscription streaming. The dominant revenue format globally, streaming (including both paid subscription and advertising-supported) grew by 24.3% to reach $16.9 billion. accounting for 65% of recorded music revenues, up from a 61.9% share in 2020. Paid subscription streaming revenues increased by 21.9% to $12.3 billion. There were 523 million users of paid subscription accounts at the end of 2021, according to the report.. In addition to streaming revenues, growth was supported by gains in other areas, including physical formats (+16.1%) and performance rights (+4%). The Top 10 most popular and best-selling global recording artists of 2021 were, in descending order: BTS, Taylor Swift, Adele, Drake, Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, Justin Beiber, Seventeen and Olivia Rodrigo. Adele’s latest release, 30, topped the global album all-format, album sales and vinyl album charts for the year. The Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears” was the No. 1 global digital single. The fastest regional growth rate globally was Middle East and North

Africa—split out as a separate region in IFPI’s annual report for the first time— which expanded by 35%. Streaming was a particularly strong driver in the region, with a 95.3% share of the market. The USA and Canada region grew by 22.0% in 2021, outpacing the global growth rate. The USA market alone grew by 22.6% and Canadian recorded music revenues grew by 12.6%. Asia grew by 16.1%, with its largest market, Japan, seeing growth of 9.3%. Excluding Japan, the region experienced a 24.6% climb in revenues. In a continuing trend, Asia also accounted for a significant share of the global physical revenues (49.6%). Revenues in Europe, the second-largest recorded music region in the world, grew by 15.4%, a big increase on the prior year’s growth rate of 3.2%. The region’s biggest markets all saw double-digit percentage growth: UK (+13.2%), Germany (+12.6%) and France (+11.8%). Latin America also saw one of the highest growth rates globally, rising 31.2%. Streaming accounted for 85.9% of the market, one of the highest proportions in any region. n

National Recording Registry Announces Latest Additions Washington, DC—Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the complete presidential speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt have been added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Designated as “some of the unforgettable sounds of the nation’s history and culture,” this year’s list, announced by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, names 25 audio treasures deemed worthy of preservation. “We received about 1,000 public nominations this year for recordings to add to the registry,” according to Hayden. Among the music selections are Alicia Keys’ debut album, Songs in A Minor, Queen’s 1975 single “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Bonnie Raitt’s multiGrammy-winning 1987 album Nick of Time and Ricky Martin’s breakout single, “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” Latin music is further represented by Linda Ronstadt’s 1987 mariachi album, Canciones de Mi Padre, and Buena Vista Social Club, which captured an all-star ensemble of 20 Cuban musicians assembled by guitarist Ry Cooder and producer Nick Gold in 1996. The National Recording Registry’s class of 2022 also includes two hip-hop milestones: A Tribe Called Quest’s 1991 album The Low End Theory and Wu-Tang Clan’s 1993 album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

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Reaching much further back, James P. Johnson’s 1921 recording of “Harlem Strut” represents one of the first examples of stride piano. Ernest Tubb’s “Walking the Floor Over You,” from 1941, is included as possibly the first honky-tonk hit in country music. Nat King Cole’s 1961 rendition—with orchestra—of “The Christmas Song,” written by Mel Tormé and songwriting collaborator Robert Wells in the middle of a California summer in 1945, and one of the most recorded holiday songs in history, is also on this year’s list. Also of historical significance are 1950’s “Jesus Gave Me Water” by The Soul Stirrers, the first studio session by a 19-year-old Sam Cook (he added the “e” later); Terry Riley’s groundbreaking 1968 experimental album In C; Sherman brothers-penned earworm “It’s a Small World,” recorded by The Disneyland Boys Choir and first heard at the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair; Andy Williams’ 1962 recording of “Moon River,” which debuted—sung by Audrey Hepburn—in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s; and WSB-Atlanta’s live radio coverage of Hank Aaron’s 715th career home run on April 8, 1974. For a complete listing, visit the Library of Congress website at www. loc.gov. n —Steve Harvey

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Current // Innovations Meyer Sound PANTHER Large-Format, Linear Line Array Loudspeaker by Katie Murphy, Meyer Sound Engineering Director, Acoustical and Mechanical

he story behind PANTHER is one of our teams using creative methods to engineer an innovative large-format linear line array loudspeaker. The entire design process was done during the pandemic, with our engineers working remotely at separate locations most of the time. The story does start, though, at one of our few on-campus meetings in Berkeley—appropriately masked in the parking lot, scribbling on the whiteboard we wheeled out there. John Meyer had decided it was time to completely rethink our flagship line array product. The size, weight and power consumption of LEO, our largest and most powerful system, were proving a hinderance for “green” touring. The size of LYON was fine, particularly its narrow width, which allowed slimmer array profiles than comparable competitors. But it was still a bit on the heavy side, and although power consumption was good compared to externally powered systems, it could be improved. The challenge handed to us by John was to keep the size of LYON, but with the acoustic output and long throw closer to LEO, and reduced weight and power consumption. Of course, linear response could not be compromised in the process. He was confident

Katie Murphy, Meyer Sound Engineering Director, Acoustical and Mechanical

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this could be done by leveraging the latest amplifier and power supply designs, new driver materials, innovative enclosure design, and by applying our own depth of experience in horn design. He also wanted full network integration in each loudspeaker using the Milan AVB protocol. Easy, right? We knew immediately that the only way to realize these goals was with a holistic design process. We needed to have everybody on the same page every step of the way, so that amplifiers and processing, enclosure and ports, drivers and horn design, were all carefully coordinated. This was particularly true to meet goals for weight reduction. Certainly, the all-new, four-channel Class D amplifier made a significant contribution—it was not only lighter, but the advanced power factor correction and higher voltage rails deliver more peak current to the drivers, with less current draw for greater overall efficiency. New driver materials also allowed us to reduce the combined weight of the 12-inch LF cone drivers and the 3-inch compression drivers, while still providing a higher acoustic output. The smaller and lighter amplifier package, coupled with lighter drivers, meant that the enclosure could be redesigned as well, using different materials of different thicknesses to further reduce weight. This also allowed us to redesign the LF ports for greater overall efficiency. The result is a system with more than 150 dB SPL peak output that weighs in at 150 pounds. Another goal was to augment the long-throw capability so that systems could be configured using only PANTHER, with no need for the larger LEO loudspeakers. Accomplishing this would require a new horn. We relied on input from Bob McCarthy, our director of System Optimization, who said that based on current and predicted applications, what our customers really wanted was an 80-degree horizontal with a very smooth roll-off between the -3 dB and -6

dB points. To achieve this, however, we needed more depth than allowed by the LYON-size cabinet. Once again, holistic design stepped in and extended the cabinet front face a few inches in a shallow wedge shape, and this in turn became an integral part of the aesthetic design with the new embedded logo grille. The 110-degree and 95-degree horns we gained from LYON allow the PANTHER system to fill any venue with consistent coverage across the audience. Combined with the reduced weight, the flexible coverage makes PANTHER well-suited for a broad range of applications, from massive outdoor festival sites to larger theaters and hotel ballrooms. John Meyer was adamant that PANTHER bring us completely into the new era of fully networked systems, but we also recognized that there would be a transition period for customers still reliant on hardware with analog outputs. So, we designed the input module with parallel, always-on analog and Milan network connections. PANTHER inputs use the new outdoor-protected Neutrik connectors for a standard IEC IP55 rating without a rain hood. Despite the pandemic, we managed to bring PANTHER to market on schedule, and thanks to our continuing investment in materials and design standards, we reduced the cost well below that of LYON—and most comparable competitors when factoring in amplifiers and processing. PANTHER is a product of close teamwork, holistic design and careful calculations, so it will, quite appropriately, debut on Ed Sheeran’s mammoth + - = ÷ x (“Mathematics”) Tour, with systems provided by longtime Meyer Sound rental partner Major Tom Ltd. ■

From left: Calexico’s Sergio Mendoza, Joey Burns and John Convertino

Calexico’s El Mirador Back in the Studio, Back Together By Barbara Schultz

ngineer/producer Tucker Martine says that mixing Calexico’s new album, El Mirador, reminded him of some of his all-time favorite tracks by the Latin Playboys. “Also,” he says, “I couldn’t help but think about walking through the streets of Mexico, where there would be music blaring, and it’s way louder than the sound system can handle, and everything is distorted but really exciting.” Calexico frontman/guitarist Joey Burns says that the songwriting process for El Mirador was actually very groove-oriented. Taken together, these observations reveal much about the band’s latest sounds. On this record, you’ll hear 1990s post-punk rhythms, mariachi,

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bilingual lyrics, guitar-noir undercurrents, and the palpable joy this band felt reuniting after lockdown. Burns and longtime bandmates Sergio Mendoza (keys, bass) and John Convertino (drums), along with recording engineer Chris Schultz, got the album started last summer in Mendoza’s then brand-new personal studio, which he built in his backyard in Tucson, Ariz., mostly out of metal shipping containers. “It’s two containers with space separating them, and he built out that space in the middle and raised the roof to form one continuous room,” Schultz explains. “So the main tracking room is essentially the size of three shipping

containers. He built a separate control room out of metal and wood, and then there’s another small shipping container attached to the control room that’s used as an Iso booth. “When we started working on this record, it was a brand-new, totally untested space,” Schultz continues. “There was minimal wall treatment, but there is a big rug in the middle of the room, some couches and chairs, and a lot of instruments. That’s mostly what the acoustic treatment was, actually: Sergio’s keyboards and all the other instruments that he owns.” “Around the time they were building the studio, my aunt asked my family, ‘I’m downsizing and I have this beautiful old 1960s Kawai 7-foot

PHOTO: Holly Andres

Music

grand piano. Does anybody want it?’ So we moved that to the studio,” says Burns. “I love that so many different pieces found their home.” WRITING, TRACKING AS A BAND Calexico’s creative process is unique in that not only does the band write and arrange all of its songs together, but also the gang-writing flows directly into tracking, and Schultz is on hand for all of it—capturing ideas as they transform into finished tracks. On this project, they all worked in three two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off bursts. Burns bunked with Mendoza during band-tracking sessions, then traveled back to his family in Idaho, then did it all again. A fourth tracking session captured overdubs, including Burns’ keeper vocals. “We’d just kind of throw things at the dartboard and see what landed,” Burns recalls. “Then after that time away to listen and reflect, we’d come back and build arrangements and write lyrics. This is something we’ve done a lot in previous Calexico albums, but this time, especially, it really felt like a celebration. It was the first time we were able to get together in person in a long time, and it felt so good. “We were making a homemade record and cooking our meals, for the most part,” he adds. “We made lots of coffee with John’s vintage 1960s Italian espresso machine that he drove in with from El Paso. I flew down from Boise, where I’d just moved in 2020, and so it was a reunion and a celebration of our friendship, our band and the town we love so much and where the music really emanated from.” During band tracking, Schultz set Mendoza and Convertino up together in the big room, while Burns played guitar and sang a scratch vocal in the iso room. “The sightlines were a little tricky, but we got it to work,” Schultz says. “There’s a large window and a glass door for the little iso booth, and you could use that to see through the big window that looks into the control room, so even though John was in a corner in the main room, he could see Joey through the control room. That helped because they were mostly tracking together. Sergio would play bass, keyboards or something else as they were writing songs and doing basic tracking, and then he would overdub other parts afterward.” Schultz brought his own Genelec 8040B monitors to the sessions, as well as a number of pieces from his mic collection. For Convertino’s

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In Tucker Martine’s studio, Flora Recording and Playback, L-R: John Convertino, assistant engineer Cole Halvorsen, Martine, Joey Burns and Sergio Mendoza. PHOTO: Amanda Haworth

kit, which comprises Ludwig and Gretsch drums, he used a Blue Kiwi on kick, Shure SM57 on snare, Violet Designs Amethyst Vintage overheads, Sennheiser 421s on toms and an Audio-Technica 450 on hi-hat. Burns’ amp was captured via another 57 and an A-T ATM450, going through Schultz’s Rupert Neve Designs 5012 mic pre. “Joey would often start out tracking with an acoustic, though, and that was through the Voodoo VR1 and the Audio-Technica 450,” Schultz says. “Those went into that Rupert Neve 5012, as well.” The overdub phase added contributions from many of their musical compatriots, including bass player Scott Colberg, trumpet players Jacob Valenzuela and Martin Wenk, and guest vocalist Gaby Moreno, as well as Johnny Contreras (vihuela, guitar), Antonio Pro (guitarrón), David Gill (violin), and others. Pro and Gill joined the band in Mendoza’s place, while others flew in parts to add to Schultz’s rough mixes. “We’ve known some of these guys for 20 years,” Burns says. “David Gill and Tony Pro teach mariachi in Tucson, and they brought in some of their students to play the other violin parts on ‘The El Burro Song.’ They also did gritos, the shouts, on that song. I also do one on the break on that record. We just had a lot of fun.” MIXING WITH MARTINE Burns, Mendoza and Convertino then took all of the Pro Tools tracks and Schultz’s roughs up to Portland, Ore., to mix in Martine’s studio, Flora Recording & Playback. “They gave me a lot of freedom up front, and my instinct was to go toward a lot of saturation and to embrace a kind of ‘mid-fi’ aesthetic, where some things are low-fi, others are hi-fi, and then there’s the stuff in the middle that connects

everything,” Martine explains. “I always like hifi more when there’s something kind of dirtier sitting next to it.” Martine points to the horn parts that he “dirtied up” quite a bit. “I made a bus for the horns and I just leaned into the Sound Toys Devil Loc,” he says. “That’s an emulation of an old podium compressor that Shure made called the Level Loc that Tchad Blake made famous by abusing so successfully. It has just a couple of knobs on it, basically: crunch and darkness. The distortion is brash, but you can round it out.” Other key elements to Martine’s mix included the Thermionic Culture Vulture and a UREI 1176 on bass, and his EMT 140 plate reverb on Burns’ lead vocal. “I was also using the Great British Spring reverb,” Martine says. “It’s a rare old box that consists of a 3- or 4-foot spring in a 5-inch round, black plastic tube. It really sounds much more like a plate than a spring, but it’s brighter than my plate. It allowed things to sound like they were from the same universe without clouding each other up.” Like Burns, Martine emphasizes the importance of real-life reconnecting in the studio. “While they were here, we fell into a rhythm where, by mid-afternoon, people would start preparing dinner. John, in particular, loves to cook Italian food,” he says. “By about 5 o’clock, I’d start noticing these aromas coming from the studio kitchen. It added a familial atmosphere to that time of day when the mix is getting close and dinner’s going to be ready soon. “It was September, and the weather was warm, so after we’d had some food and maybe a glass of wine, we’d throw the mix on through my outside speakers. If the mix seemed to be lacking anything, it usually would be really obvious in that situation.” n

Music // news & notes Riding the Mix at RodeoHouston By Clive Young Every year, some of the biggest names in music get roped in to play at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (AKA RodeoHouston), held for 20 consecutive nights annually inside the city’s NRG Stadium. It’s an honor they take on eagerly, too, as it means performing for up to 73,000 people on any given night—a gig that can easily make (or revive) a career in one shot. This year’s 90th anniversary edition attracted 2.4 million visitors over its threeweek run, as people came from far and wide to enjoy an evening of bull riding, steer roping and other competitions, capped off nightly by a one-hour concert on the rodeo’s custom mobile stage. This year’s lineup of headliners included (to name only a few) Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Ricky Martin, Luke Bryan, Maren Morris, Journey, Gwen Stefani, Dierks Bentley, Chris Stapleton, Khalid, Brad Paisley and Marshmello, but the run closed out with a finale concert by country royalty George Strait, the only artist to not share the bill with the namesake main event. Instead, the rodeo’s temporary dirt floor was removed overnight to allow for 10,000 more seats on the stadium floor (the dirt lives in its own nearby building the rest of the year) and Strait performed a full-length concert. Despite the massive size, playing the Houston Rodeo may be the ultimate “stacks ‘n’ racks” gig. While there was a Solid State Logic L550 console onhand this year to produce the rodeo’s live stadium audio, artists brought in their own FOH and monitor consoles, and tied into a giant L-Acoustics P.A. that LD Systems (Houston, TX) provides and installs annually for the length of the rodeo. While each artist’s team mixed their concerts as they saw fit, Malcolm Harper of Reelsound Recording (Austin, TX) returned for his 28th

Malcom Harper of Reelsound Recording handled the broadcast mix for all 20 concerts during the 90th anniversary season, using an SSL System T S500-48 control surface. Photo: George Horton

year of creating live mixes for broadcast so that the shows could appear on screens throughout the stadium and its surroundings, ensuring all visitors didn’t miss a note. Working in the rodeo’s Music Room, located in an entirely different building a quarter mile from the stadium stage, Harper used an SSL System T S500-48 broadcast audio control surface for the mixes, which were also preserved for posterity on JoeCo Audio recorders. Since the artists brought in their own control gear, Harper’s split had to be worked out each day for the show. “Solid State Logic’s System T S500 gave me every option to interface audio from each band with analog mic inputs, MADI Bridge and SRC DANTE units,” said Harper. Traditional analogue splits were tackled with three SSL SB 32.24 stageboxes for 96 Mic/Line inputs, while MADI splits were dealt with using a pair of SSL MADI Bridges plus Opti coax so that they could handle copper or fiber MADI at either 48 kHz or 96 kHz. For shows that required a Dante split, SSL loaned the Rodeo an HC Bridge SRC, which isolated the facility from a touring network, but which allowed up to 256 channels of AoIP to be shared at either 48 kHz or 96 kHz. The result was a nightly musical nightcap that came off without a hitch— for 20 nights in a row. “Just the scale of it is, and how much technology has gone into it, is hard to comprehend,” marveled George Horton, VP Western Region for Solid State Logic, who was a liaison onsite for much of the rodeo’s run. “It’s an incredible event.” n

Evergroove Believes in Atmos: Focal in 7.1.4 Artists including J Balvin, Soulive and itchy-O have visited Evergroove Studio in Evergreen, Colo., about 45 minutes from Denver, in the past, but a total redesign of the mix room to handle Dolby Atmos projects is reportedly attracting new interest in the studio, many of them experiencing the immersive format for the first time. According to Brad Smalling, Evergroove’s head mix engineer, “The redesigned room sounds absolutely incredible, and, so far, every artist who has heard the system has immediately asked me how we can incorporate Atmos into their projects.” A number of circumstances collided to spur Smalling to launch the Atmos-based redesign of the studio after 15 years of working in stereo, not least of which was reading J Balvin’s testimony for the new format following the Colombian superstar’s visit to Evergroove studio. The control room redesign features 11 Focal monitors in a 7.1.4 setup. Two

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soffit-mounted Trio11 Be speakers are at left and right, five Trio6 Be models handle the center, sides and rear surrounds, four Solo 6 Be monitors support the height channels, while a pair of Rythmik F18 subwoofers provide low-frequency extension. Lewis Ticknor at Denver’s PMT Audio helped Evergroove demo the speakers, and subsequently got Josh Estock, director of pro sales at Focal, involved. Smalling says that when he heard a stereo pair of Focal Trio11 Be in his room for the first time, he “fell in love with them immediately. Everyone at Evergroove loves the Trio11.” According to Smalling, “With the announcement of Apple and Dolby’s partnership, combined with our own research, it quickly became clear that Atmos was the future of music, a future we wanted to be a part of. Already, having Atmos isn’t just opening doors—it’s kicking down walls.” n

Music // news & notes David Henszey and Henszey Sound Mastering for Atmos, Hand in Hand With Stereo By Steve Harvey

PHOTO: Steve Harvey

hen David Henszey started putting together his Dolby Atmos room with sales, design and integration company Westlake Pro in 2018, he asked what other immersive studios were doing about music mastering. “You don’t master Atmos,” came the reply. “I said, ‘Oh yes you do,’” he recalls. “I’ll figure it out.” Fast-forward nearly four years, and Henszey, whose Henszey Sound was the first small Atmos for Home music room certified by Dolby in Los Angeles, has indeed figured it out. Working with Gene Grimaldi of Oasis Mastering in Burbank, Calif., who finalizes the stereo versions, Henszey has been mastering quite a lot of Atmos music lately, including Sting’s newly streaming singles “The Bridge” and “Por Su Amor.” Opened for business in January 2019, Henszey Sound, in the Cahuenga Pass across from Universal City, is outfitted with Pro Tools, a dual-screen Slate Raven MTI workstation and a 7.1.4 ADAM Audio monitor system. There is a small iso room for overdubs and vocals. Henszey has been mixing clients’ projects for binaural presentation on YouTube for some time. Now that other platforms offer immersive streaming, his client list has expanded. “Sometimes I get stems and have to do a little bit of mixing to make it an Atmos mix. Sometimes they give me tracks and we do a whole new mix,” he reports. Grimaldi approached Henszey about mastering Dolby Atmos tracks, having no interest in upgrading his own room, after receiving client requests. “David was already set up, and he’s got so much experience,” Grimaldi says. Indeed, Henszey has a deep and wide-ranging resumé from working more than 40 years in the business. He started out working on big band and classical projects in his native Wisconsin before opening his own studio, AD Productions, in 1988. Relocating to L.A. in the 1990s, he went on to work at Cherokee Studios and also mixed various major artists on arena tours and for late-night television. The key to their Dolby Atmos music mastering process, Henszey says, is that nothing really changes. The mixer doesn’t have to do anything special, and Grimaldi can master the stereo track exactly the way he always has.

David Henszey points to his dual-screen Slate Raven MTI workstation. Monitoring is through a 7.1.4 ADAM Audio system.

“Then I take it and make that exact same thing happen in the Atmos mix,” he says. There is a trust between the two engineers. “I take screenshots of my settings. David puts them up on his screen, pulls up his plug-ins and starts doing his thing,” Grimaldi says. “We have to be really careful that the numbers, as far as gain reduction and things of that nature, are precisely the same as they were at Gene’s place,” Henszey stresses, to ensure that the level and tonal balances are identical between the stereo and immersive versions. The pair use the same complement of plug-ins, he says, which for Atmos projects need to be linkable across buses and objects: “Everything has to work at the same time because there are multiple streams.” There tends to be lots of plug-ins in a row, including multiband compressors and limiters, plus, Henszey says, “Some plug-ins to ‘not do’ anything, just to give a certain sound.” Overall, he says, “It takes up a lot of computer power.” He adds, “To make it worthwhile, you have to be able to do it in a reasonable amount of time. We have it down to a very smooth process, and it’s very quick.” “The workflow is the important thing,” Grimaldi agrees. “When you bang it out consistently, it saves so much time.” “It’s all about clients getting the same thing that they’re used to getting with a stereo mastering engineer,” Henszey says. n

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64th Annual Grammy Awards Back Onstage, Back to Live On-Air, Back to Work! By Steve Harvey

PHOTO: Courtesy of Michael Abbott

Audio Fun Facts

Jon Batiste was a star of the night, performing and taking home five Grammy Awards..

in March 2020, bringing out various tour and production managers to introduce their respective artists’ performances. “I thought that was a smart and timely recognition of all these people who have been devastated over the past two years,” Abbott says. It’s hardly a secret that many artists perform with prerecorded track augmentation these days, and not just on television, but as Abbott notes, “There are acts that just don’t play to track, like Brandi Carlile and Chris Stapleton.” In Carlile’s case, augmentation instead came in the form of a “live” string section. Show producers in general place a high level of attention to stage visuals these days, Abbott says: “Grammy producers requested no mic stands, no music stands, no cables, so we used DPA 4099 RF mics for the string section.” Similarly, for John Legend’s moving performance in support of Ukraine, he continues, “We put Shure TwinPlex TL47 lavs on the choir. I think it’s one of the best, if not the best, sounding lavaliers. It’s especially nice for dialog, as it provides for superb off-axis rejection.” Shure mics were also used by Jon Batiste, who won five of his 11 Grammy nominations, and Silk Sonic, who won four Grammys, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year, plus numerous other artists. Steve Vaughn, Soundtronic’s RF

f there was one takeaway from the 64th annual Grammy Awards live telecast on CBS, April 4, says Michael Abbott, the show’s longtime audio coordinator, it was simply this: “We’re back to work.” Last year’s awards show was produced under very strict coronavirus protocols—Abbott worked alone in a temporary office for the weeklong production—with no audience and fully prerecorded performances, a process requiring 75 remix approvals by broadcast time. This year’s show, in contrast, featured a slew of live performances in front of a live audience, with hardly a mask in sight. The pandemic still made its mark, though. When the planned late-January broadcast date had to be delayed due to a surge in the Omicron variant, the Staples Center (recently renamed the Crypto.com Arena), longtime home of the Grammy Awards show, had no suitable April openings available, so the broadcast decamped to Las Vegas for the first time, landing at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. This year, the Grammy show acknowledged the pandemic’s impact on the many production personnel sidelined when gigging shut down

• 31 songs were performed on 20 different setups. • The show, mixed only in 5.1, is automatically folded down to stereo where necessary. • Two dedicated mirror-image music mix trucks (Music Mix Mobile) enable the mixers to maximize rehearsal time. • Each act gets 90 minutes on stage, plus up to 90 minutes with the music mixers, to refine its sound prior to the live performance.

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coordinator on the show, oversaw 28 channels of Shure Axient Digital RF mics and 34 channels of Shure PSM 1000 in-ear monitors. Lady Gaga, Brandi Carlile and Justin Bieber favored Sennheiser vocal mics, while Lenny Kravitz sang into an Audio-Technica wireless, and Chris Stapleton opted for an sE Electronics dynamic. Abbott relishes the high value placed on the audio for music’s biggest night. Ultimately, he says, there is a trust between the artists, many of whom have performed on the show numerous times over the years, and the audio crew, some of whom—like Abbott—have worked on the production for more than three decades. “Artists know they’re going to get taken care of by the The wireless system setup at audio crew,” he says. “I say to the MGM Grand artists’ representatives when Arena included they show up for the first 28 channels of Shure Axient time, ‘I want you to walk away Digital RF knowing that your artist got mics and 34 the best they possibly could channels of Shure PSM 1000 have expected.’ I always say it’s in-ear monitors, a collaborative effort.” n overseen by Steve Vaughn, Soundtronic RF coordinator.

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PHOTO: Christian Lamb

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Burning Man’s Robot Heart Gets A Transplant By Clive Young

very year, thousands converge in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for Burning Man—the annual cultural project/party/ art tech explosion that attracts upwards of 80,000 to revel and self-express in the middle of nowhere. Part of its appeal for music fans has been the evolution of “sound camps” that present artists, musicians and DJs throughout the event, and among them, Robot Heart has grown over the last 15 years to become one of the most celebrated. The sound camp is centered around a radically modified 1972 Ipswitch double-decker bus, outfitted with a stage and homegrown audio system that covers up to 10,000 partiers a night as it serves up electronic music performances

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that kick off at midnight and roll on well into mid-morning. This spring, however, the Robot Heart bus will make a rare appearance far from the playa in a very different kind of wilderness—New York City’s Central Park—as it becomes the focal point of Fare Forward, a two-day festival of music, artistic experiences and more. Musical guests for the April 30-May 1 event include DJ duo Swamy & Dill, musical artists Formerly, DJ/Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, Turkish DJ/producer Carlita, musician Acid Pauli, musical artists The Illustrious Blacks, Canadian folk music act The Weather Station, DJ/producer Behrouz, British musicians Cymande, DJ Francesca Lombardo

and Danish electronic artist Be Svendsen. Wherever the bus roams, it’s run by a loose collective of 80-100 people with a core team of roughly 20 members who are more deeply involved in the production of events. “Robot Heart is a community of doers and dreamers, and is the result of an incredible amount of energy and time contributed over the years,” said a member of the organization’s audio team. “There are so many people who have brought their passion to this project, and in discussing it, we always take the approach that it’s not about any of us individually.” One name unquestionably connected to the organization, however, is the late George “Geo”

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PHOTO: John Dill/ Robot Heart Foundation

Mueller who first brought the bus to Burning Man in 2008. Over the ensuing years, the vehicle evolved with both LED lighting—Mueller cofounded LEDoriented companies Color Kinetics and Ecosense— and a hand-constructed audio system that has steadily changed and expanded as the sound camp has grown. Following Mueller’s unexpected death due to a brain aneurysm in March, 2021, the Fare Forward festival in New York marks one of Robot Heart’s first official events since then as the collective explores how to best continue its founder’s legacy and ethos. “What’s great about Central Park is we can share it with people from all different walks of life who may not have the opportunity to go to Nevada to Burning Man…to come and see the sound system, see the bus and experience this,” said another member involved in coordinating the collective. The bus is street legal and spends most of the year housed near the playa in Gerlach, NV, while its audio system lives in Oakland, CA with the group’s lead audio engineer. Driving a 50-year-old bus across the U.S. might not be the most practical idea, of course, so for the trip, it is getting a three-day ride on a lowboy semi-trailer, followed by a 53-foot semi carrying the sound system and more. Once the convoy reaches the Big Apple, the system and crown-like heart will be built onsite over the course of two days and added to the bus. If the Robot Heart collective is all about art and experiences, it’s fair to say that the sound system is a manifestation of that philosophy, as it is almost entirely hand-made—a choice made in equal parts for the aesthetic, necessity and challenge it entails. “It’s a combination of doing what we can with sometimes constrained resources, but also to build the best system we can,” said the audio team member. “One of our core values is that every year, we do something to continue to improve the system—so this year, for example, we’re working on redesigning bass cabinets, and that’ll be a big change. “The only components that are ‘off the shelf’ are the actual drivers in the speakers and some of the stuff in our racks,” he added. “Obviously, we’re using amps and processing from different vendors, but it’s stuff that we’ve put together in a unique combination. The sound system itself is a piece of art in its own right and it’s completely unique.” The four-way speaker system is designed with sub cabinets mounted across the lower deck of the bus facing the crowd, while above

them is a multi-panel LED signage rig across the upper deck/stage. Immediately right and left of the signage are black mid stacks, flanked by distinctively white point-source arrays, with the larger horns providing mid-highs and smaller horns using compression drivers for highs. The point-source arrays, which sit in an aluminum exoskeleton intended to make them easier to aim, were made by the audio team working from a vintage late-1980s mold. “It’s an old design that we’ve modified and adapted,” said the audio team member. “We’ve stiffened them and added composite to help the horn surfaces more effectively project sound in the context that we

need them to.” Powering all that is an 80 KWh generator located inside the bus. “We are meticulous about phase alignment and tuning,” he added. “It’s perhaps the cleanest sound system on the planet; there’s lots of headroom and it’s just beautiful the way that it sounds…. The clarity is incredible and it doesn’t need to be overpowering.” Out in the desert, Robot Heart is best known for its house music, but the Fare Forward event has a more diverse, New York-oriented lineup intended to be more inclusive. “We want to show people that the bus doesn’t just play the music [that] I think it may be pigeonholed for playing,” said the coordinating member. That said, the audio team member noted that Robot Heart’s Burning Man lineups have made it “the defining force behind the Playa House sound, and we’ve also had some exceptional live acts. Thievery Corporation, Bob Moses, HVOB have all come and played live with us; we had an acoustic set with RY X, which was incredible.” Much as the audio system has evolved over time, Robot Heart’s musical programming may start to as well, with the East Coast event providing an opportunity to discover what else can be brought to the table. “We want to continue to grow and evolve, and push ourselves as well,” said the coordinating member. “That’s what’s exciting about going to a new location; we’ve held events in New York before, but we’ve never brought the bus—and there’s a very different context when this bus is the sound system. I think we all want to see what happens, because no one really knows what this is going to feel like. There’s some ‘unknown’ now, which is really exciting.” ■

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Eddie Vedder’s Earthling Tour Blasts Off Seattle, WA—RAT Sound has long handled audio for rock impresarios Pearl Jam, so it was only fitting that the sound provider tackled the recent solo tour of frontman Eddie Vedder, supporting his new album, Earthling. On the move throughout February, the production played nine shows across six U.S. cities with veteran Pearl Jam engineers Greg Nelson and Karrie Keyes alongside, taking on the FOH and Vedder’s personal monitor mixes respectively. They were joined by Brett Heet, tackling monitors for the all-star band backing the singer, which included Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Glen Hansard (The Frames), Chris Chaney (Jane’s Addiction), Josh Klinghoffer (touring Pearl Jam/RHCP member), and Andrew Watt (Grammy Award-winning producer of Earthling). Nelson worked nightly behind a new DiGiCo Quantum338 mixing console supplied by RAT, while Keyes, who has been with Pearl Jam from the start, moved from her usual SD5 worksurface to a more compact SD11 to exclusively focus on Vedder, while Brett Heet mixed in-ears for the band on an SD5. The journey marked Nelson’s first time on the Quantum338, mixing 65 inputs coming from the stage, all shared on an Optocore loop with Keyes and Heet in monitorworld. “After getting my hands on one for a day, I absolutely fell in love,” he remarked. “The worksurface is perfect for how I mix and it had all the amazing Quantum toys to play with. I am really loving the Naga 6 six-band dynamic EQ, which I use on acoustic guitars and some background vocals. I also use as many of the Mustard processing channels as I can. With both of these tools, I’ve eliminated a lot of the

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plug-ins I was using before. I still have some outboard gear that I use and have fun with, but with Mustard and the Spice Rack, I can get by with carrying far less.” Keyes was also on a new desk, having opted for the diminutive SD11. “Ed has a complex monitor system, so Brett and I thought it was best to divide up the duties so I could focus solely on Ed, while he could give his full attention to the band, which proved to be a good call,” she said. “Ed does not use IEMs; instead, he has seven vocal and instrument mixes put across wedges, ground sidefills and flown sidefills. I had the full input list so could access anything that was needed, and I was able to put my workflow in a format that was much smaller but still easily accessible. We were playing sold-out theaters on this run, and while Brett’s SD5 had to be crammed onstage, I could go just about anywhere—including the front row, where I occasionally mixed from. I’ve started using the SD11 for Ed’s other solo gigs—his smaller, more stripped-down ones—and it’s worked out quite well.” When Pearl Jam’s tour picks back up in a couple of months, Keyes will transition back to a SD5 to mix the main five-piece band, with fellow monitor engineer Tommy Caraisco mixing touring sidemen Boom Gaspar and Josh Klinghoffer, the tech mixes, and the support band. Nelson will continue with the Quantum338, but it will be a bit of a challenge: “Pearl Jam’s input list is closer to 90 inputs, so I’m just barely going to fit that tour onto the Quantum338, but I’ve been having so much fun getting back to mixing again, and this console has been a big part of that.” ■

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Photo: Steve Jennings

Nashville, TN—Evanescence just wrapped up its first U.S. tour in two years, supporting its latest album, The Bitter Truth, and along for the ride was Eddie Mapp, the band’s front-of-house engineer since May 2003, using gear provided by Solotech, the band’s sound reinforcement provider since 2017. The tour carried a L-Acoustics K2 loudspeaker system, with the most typical P.A. deployment featured left and right mains of 16 K2, with six K1-SB hung Evanescence’s massive Solotech Systems Engineer Hilario L-Acoustics rig. Gonzalez (left) and Evanescence behind each array, plus 12 more K2 flown per side FOH Engineer Eddie Mapp (right) for out-fill. “The band loves to feel the low end on at the tour’s house mix position the stage, so we also deployed 16 K28 as floor subs to facilitate that,” said Hilario Gonzalez, Solotech’s able to modify and quickly fly systems engineer. The subs were necessary, said Mapp, our hangs for each venue. With as “there’s a lot to manage impact-wise on the low end, its variable directivity of 70, 90 from the kick drum, bass guitar, Moog Taurus pedals, and 110 degrees, we were able to synths, et cetera.” keep the sound off the walls yet Across the stage lip, six Kara were provided for frontalso spread out the dispersion fill, while two ARCS II per side handled off-stage fills. to cover the extreme sides when Supplemental stage monitoring was accommodated by two more ARCS II plus two KS28 for side-fills, and the full loudspeaker needed. It’s definitely a great box, and we had so many audience members and visiting techs commenting on the clarity of Amy’s voice and how good complement was driven by more than 40 LA12X amplified controllers. Gonzalez noted, “K2 is very versatile and lightweight, so we were easily everything sounded.” ■

Maroon 5 Rolls Into San Francisco’s Oracle Park San Francisco, CA—Maroon 5 brought its truckload of hits to San Francisco’s Oracle Park stadium recently for a splashy one-off, with the help of Sound Image (Escondido, Calif.) and a massive EAW Anya system. Sound Image fielded a sizable EAW Anya system for a recent Maroon 5 gig at San Francisco’s Oracle Park.

Tasked with putting the entire show together in two weeks’ time, with three days to load in, 120 people worked 72 hours straight. Sound Image general manager George Edwards and his team provided turnkey production, looking

after sound, lights, video, stage, roof, barricades and catering. “We have been using EAW’s ADAPTive P.A. system for quite a while,” says Edwards. “Our crew is as good as it gets and was able to rig up 24 Anya boxes in 90 minutes, which was critical since we were under such a time crunch to get everything done before the concert started.” In total, Sound Image Productions relied on two-dozen EAW Anya loudspeakers and 24 SB2001 subwoofers for the concert. “In addition to sounding amazing, the Anya system is fast and reliable,” adds Edwards. “We don’t have to utilize delays with it and EAW’s Resolution software allows us to focus the audio wherever we need to within the space.” ■

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Photo: Steve Jennings

Solotech Helps Evanescence Share The Bitter Truth

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Photo: Zeke Hamilton

Nashville, TN—No one knows if the Little River flows next to the Oak Ridge, but the legacy acts named after each—the Little River Band and the Oak Ridge Boys—definitely have a few things in common. Besides both being seasoned platinum-selling acts still on the road entertaining audiences, they’re also both served by Nashville-based Brantley Sound, which in turn recently hooked up each act with an Allen & Heath Avantis digital mixing system. “Little River Band had been carrying a different console for quite some time at monitors,” said Brantley Sound director of operations Zachariah Orbin. “Avantis checked all of the boxes and then some when it came to finding a next-level replacement. Its compact design, overall ease of use, and horsepower under the hood were primary factors in that decision. We set it up for a day of rehearsals and I used that time to get the console in-between the artist and their inputs. Immediately, their response was an overwhelming, ‘Yes, this is it!’” The Oak Ridge Boys, too, have the Avantis on the road, albeit theirs is at the FOH position, overseen by engineer Marko Hunt. Starting life as the Oak Ridge Quartet in 1947, the Oak Ridge Boys are indisputably one of the longest-running groups in American country music. The quartet’s current lineup—lead singer Duane Allen, tenor Joe Bonsall, baritone William Lee Golden, and bass Richard Sterban—was responsible for the band’s most well-known hits including “Elvira,” “American Made” and “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight.” While the group may have been around awhile, it’s touring with modern tech. “I had the pleasure of checking out one of Mike Bangs’ (Allen & Heath live sound & touring manager) dLive training classes awhile back,” says Hunt. “One of the things I took away from Bangs was how simple and straightforward the dLive workflow is; I felt I could just go out and do a show. This type of workflow approach carries through to the Avantis, but the truth is it’s as

The current tour finds the Oak Ridge Boys with audio provided by Brantley Sound and lighting supplied by Entertainment Rental Group.

Sharing a Dyn8 tip he recently picked up, he adds, “To get crisp side-stick on the snare, use the dynamic EQ by setting the highmid just above 1 kHz, set narrow and boosted several dB. Adjust the threshold so that when sidestick cracks, the peak remains— but when the snare is hit hard, the peak flattens out. Solves an age-old problem.” Asked to sum up his thoughts Marko Hunt (FOH, The Oak Ridge Boys) on Avantis, Hunt adds, “It’s mixing on the Allen & Heath Avantis. amazing that a desk this compact can be so powerful. The two touchscreens are less than an arm’s reach away, simple or complex as you want to make it.” While outfitted with a suite of native dynamics and with 24 SoftKeys programmable for a large and effects, an optional Avantis dPack provides variety of functions, I’m not hunched over my an upgrade of additional dLive processing, desk hunting for stuff when I need it. We’re including Dyn8 (up to 16 instances), DEEP really happy with the rig all around.” Hand in hand with the audio upgrade is a new Compressors, the Dual Stage Valve Preamp, plus more models as they’re added. “What struck lighting upgrade as well, with the production me from the first show was the clarity of the carrying Martin Professional ERA 300 Profiles preamps and how quickly I could dial in the supplied by Entertainment Rental Group, vocals with the channel EQs, Dyn8 and great overseen nightly by lighting designer David selection of compressors in dPack,” says Hunt. Boots. ■ Photo: Darrick Kinslow

Oak Ridge Boys, Little River Band on the Move

he band is back together—again! With the return of guitarist John Frusciante, for the third time, and with producer Rick Rubin at the helm and engineer Ryan Hewitt at the board, The Red Hot Chili Peppers have reassembled and reignited, creating a new thread in their identifiable string of magic that defies a label, yet encompasses all styles. Listening to Chad Smith’s hard, funky drum groove, Flea’s fierce, pumping bass, Frusciante’s tasteful, melodic guitar work, along with Anthony Kiedis’ distinctive, multifaceted vocals—weaving through the deeply layered songwriting—it’s clear the Peppers are full of Unlimited Love (Warners, April 2022). “We’re firing on all love cylinders,” says drummer Smith in mid-March, sporting a big smile behind the SSL 4000 console at EastWest Studios, during the final mix. A SONGWRITING REUNION Josh Klinghoffer was the guitarist back in mid2019, before the pandemic, when the group began working on material for a new album. The way Smith remembers it, they were all less than underwhelmed with the outcome. At the same time, Flea and former member Frusciante had been talking about how the latter wanted to come back. The reason was pretty basic: Frusciante felt that before any of them left the planet, he wanted to enjoy a sense

of collaboration and exchange of ideas that he had only recently come to appreciate, mainly through his work with friend Aaron Funk on several electronic projects. He had done a lot of reflecting, he says, on how he might have been controlling when he had been a part of the Chili Peppers, and he wanted the opportunity to offer a more “sharing experience” with his former bandmates “I started wondering what it would be like if I were as supportive of them as I am my friend

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RETURN OF THE

Aaron?” Frusciante confided. “If I just try to let them be themselves, rather than making my own visions the center of everything. It felt like if somehow any of us died leaving it the way it was, it would be terrible.” The idea was to give and take, to go with the flow. By January 2020, the guitarist was in a private rehearsal studio with his former bandmates, jamming and playing the old tunes, and, within a couple of months, working on new ones. Then, Bang! Covid hit and the place shut down. Soon after, Jeff Greenberg, president of the Village, let them mask up and work at his studios. It was…kinda like old times, getting into that familiar groove. “We weren’t doing any recording, we were just writing,” Smith says. “Everyone got comfortable, and it was just what we normally do—we jam and improvise and some song ideas come out of that, whether it’s a bass line, guitar riff, drum beat or whatever. Then the melodic instruments would come in with some ideas. I’d have things I’d be working on at home, John would bring in song parts and riffs, Flea would come in with a bass line or piano thing and we’d work on that, and we fell back into our usual creative process. “That felt good and familiar,” he continues. “Chili Peppers has never been a band where it’s, ‘Hey, I have this completed demo or drum machine part I want you to do.’ Everyone has their creative input, which is a big part of why we sound the way we do.”

John Frusciante, Rick Rubin and Ryan Hewitt are back with ‘Unlimited Love,’ along with that big, funky, rockin’ sound and an all-analog production chain By Robyn Flans

It’s also the strong personalities on their instruments and the chemistry as a unit, Smith asserts, that creates the sound. Producer Rick Rubin, whose last record with the band was 2011’s I’m With You, said on a recent podcast that when he came into the studio to check out what was going on, it made him cry. “I didn’t see him cry; I was too busy playing the drums,” Smith says. “He was probably emotional. He’s been with us since the early ’90s, all our records except for one with John and me. He’s a

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BIG, PUNCHY, GROOVY DRUMS When engineer Hewitt, who has now worked on 10 projects with Frusciante, entered the preproduction setup at Shangri-La that September, he asked if it would be okay to start from scratch. They gave him carte blanche, so they took everything down and cleaned out the room. The foundation became a 1969 API console, a Neve BCM10 sidecar and racks of Neve 1073 preamps, which most of the band went through. “The thing about the Chili Peppers is you just have to make them sound like the Chili Peppers,” Hewitt states. “It’s literally called, ‘Get the f—k out of the way.’” While Smith has recorded drums at ShangriLa quite a bit, he says that he’s never properly spent the time searching for the sweet spot to place the kit. As for Hewitt: “I’ve gotten great drum sounds there, but it makes you work for it.” For a couple of days, they tried out myriad drum and mic combinations, settling on a

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PHOTO: Ryan Hewitt

Gretsch set, changing a cymbal here and there, but mostly just switching snare drums out depending on the song. Rubin suggested that they build a drum riser, which Hewitt says made a huge difference in the sound. Then it was, “Okay, carpet versus no carpet. Carpet was like, ‘Wow!’ All of a sudden the low end came out of the kick drum into the room like we hadn’t heard in any situation. Now let’s try it in different places on this riser. We found the sweet spot, we put the snare down, we played, and, ‘Okay, cool, there’s our spot, now let’s go through the top three kick drums again.’ We’d make notes about how everything sounded.” Hewitt, who started out as an assistant engineer with the band 20 years ago, says they tried a bunch of different mics in the kick drum and ended up with an AKG D112 inside and an AKG D12 and Neumann FET 47 on the outside. “I’d switch my complement of mics all bused down to one track, so if there was a sensitive song, you’d want more of the resonant head than the beater head,” he explains. “We’d change up the balance, and Chad was listening with his headphones. He’d do a take and come in and listen, and he’d say, ‘No, more of this, more of that,’ so we’d dampen this head more, or do this or do that.” Hewitt placed D12s on the toms, noting: “Chad had his toms wide open, very little damping. That’s another thing we played with. ‘How are we going to dampen the toms and keep them Bonham-esque?’ We want them to sound open, but settle down and not ring all the time. We took off the top heads, and one of my favorite tricks is throwing a handful of cotton balls in the bottom, so when he hits it, the cotton balls go up and then fall down and then the bottom heads don’t resonate anymore.” Shure SM57s were placed on the snare, top

PHOTO: Ryan Hewitt

sensitive guy, and he walked around, we played. He didn’t go into producer mode. He just was soaking it in, smiling. It was pretty awesome, because we hadn’t played it for anybody.” After spending a little more time on the material, the band convened at Rubin’s ShangriLa studio/house in September 2020. The songs were mostly rehearsed, but Smith says that once they get into the studio, things can change, especially when working with a producer of Rubin’s talents. “He’s good at finding the essence of the song,” Smith says. “He’s got great ears. He’s a big-picture guy.” A few songs would still be written in the studio, but about 50 were in good shape, according to the team, 17 of which are on Unlimited Love. The rest have been finished and mixed and are in the vault; fans are already speculating on the release of a quick follow-up.

Recording live in the studio, from left: Flea, Chad Smith and John Frusciante.

John Frusciante, on the couch, and Chad Smith taking a break.

PHOTO: Ryan Hewitt

Frusciante’s lineup of guitars and Marshall amps.

and bottom, with a 57 on the hi-hat, AKG C12s on the overheads, a Telefunken U-47, for mono room, vintage PZMs on the wall, AEA R88 and Royer 121 ribbon mics, and a “crappy old Sony mic through an Empirical Labs direct box.” The trick, Hewitt says, is to not overcomplicate things with Smith in the Chili Peppers context. There are no samples, and he’s a drummer who hits hard. “You can’t use a lot of the trash mics that you might use with someone who plays quietly because they will distort,” Hewitt asserts. “Keep it simple, keep it direct and keep it punchy and bright. And here’s a little nugget I’ve learned when you record a tall drummer: You need to use a spaced pair of overheads, pretty far apart, because Chad has a far reach.” GUITAR, BASS, MODULAR SYNTH As for the other instruments, Hewitt used an EV RE-20 on Flea’s bass cabinet, along with an Acme DI box. “Flea is such a powerful, aggressive player that you need a microphone that is slightly forgiving and soft-sounding to counter his aggressive playing,” Hewitt says. “You don’t want a detailed, super-responsive mic for someone who is playing that hard. The DI box is a simple transformer that sounded so great on him. Those both went to Neve 1073 preamps and then Distressors. Super-simple. I also had a Little Labs in-between phase box on the DI to bring it into better phase coherence with the amplifier.”

On Frusciante’s main guitar rig, he placed an SM-57 up close and a Telefunken U-67 further away. “I don’t think I even EQ’d him,” Hewitt remarks. “The tone is in his fingers, in his pedals and in his Marshall amps.” Hewitt used a U 47, U 67, KM 54 combination on the acoustic guitars; a Shure SM 7 on Kiedis’ lead vocals; an AKG C-12A on Frusciante’s vocals; a C12 on the piano; and a U 47, Sony C-37, C-38, Mojave MA-37, Royer 121, U 67 and RCA BK-5 on guitar and keyboard overdubs. Everything went through the Neve 1073 preamps, except guitar/ keyboard overdubs, which went through various preamps, including Quad Eight, Chandler Limited TG2 and REDD 47, CAPI, Vintage UA and API. One thing that may be different on this record is the Frusciante-influenced DX7 synth and Mellotron overdubs. “He’s a master of modular synthesis,” Hewitt says. “He has this big modular synthesizer that he will tweak and mess around with for hours and get sounds. We have a lot of that on this record where it’s programmed, but it’s flowing with a band that is not playing to a click.” “I’m pretty good at programming a DX7 synthesizer, but I had never recorded it through an amplifier,” Frusciante admits. “I had just recorded it straight into the board. So we were recording it into an Ampeg tube amp, and Ryan was using whatever microphone [a U 47, U 67 or RCA BK-5, depending on the sound] and going through all the old nice mic pres, and we got

such warm sounds that I would have thought they were a Mellotron.” Frusciante was excited that he and Flea exchanged ideas for the first time since 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik. He gives an example on “Bastards of Light.” “There’s a synth sound that comes in halfway through the second verse, which was Flea’s idea, and I went to the modular and executed it,” Frusciante says of one of his favorite cuts on the record. Then the two collaborated on one of the unreleased songs; while Flea was playing the DX7, Frusciante modulated the sound of it. The actual recording process remained the same, something of a Chili Peppers standard: “All four of us in the room, no click, no nothing, tape, boom, play, make it good,” Smith says. “Once we get the arrangement down, then it’s just all about nailing the performance.” Smith, it should be noted, is the official “take-chooser” and was joined on that process by Frusciante on this record. If it ends up between two takes, they get out the knife, which Hewitt says is lots of fun. Unlimited Love was recorded old-school to ATR tape on a 24-track Studer A827 machine. Tape has become so expensive and hard to come by that Smith says now, after a few good takes, they record over the material they know won’t be used, which they never did in the old days. ANALOG MIXING AT EASTWEST Frusciante felt good about the fact that he was able to return to the band having had

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PHOTO: Ryan Hewitt

engineering experience on his own records (“Now I have moves,” he says with a laugh), even though the music was quite different. He was heavily involved in the recording and mixing process alongside Hewitt, who made seven solo records with Frusciante. They both agree there is a hint of telepathy when they work together. For example, Frusciante says, he and Hewitt were recording a digital delay only on certain notes of some horns that had to be manually controlled. “We’re recording the treatment to tape, so Ryan had to be turning up the send at the right time, while I’m at the digital delay turning up the feedback just at the right time, so we communicate across the room in such a great way,” Frusciante explains. At EastWest Studios, during a visit late in the mix process, Smith and Hewitt fell into a debate about the “sound of analog versus the

PHOTO: Ryan Hewitt

Two sides of John Frusciante, working with modular analog synths and (inset) at the API console.

sound of Pro Tools” and running it through “all this beautiful old stuff.” As Smith puts it, “Sound is sound.” To which Hewitt says, “Pro Tools is great, and everyone talks about the sound of tape and bouncing the sound of the tape into Pro Tools, and that’s fine. But it’s not the sound necessarily that we’re using it for; it’s the pressure, the creativity. If you really want backward reverb, you have to f—ing work for it.” Also, Hewitt says, it’s not just the sound of the tape, it’s about the documentarian approach: “When you record on tape, you really have to be present,” he declares. “There’s no Undo button; there’s no Apple-Z.” Clearly, analog complements the vibe of this band, which Hewitt aptly describes as live music, played in a room, all together. “Not having the power to Undo, that is…,” Hewitt pauses. “It’s like recording without a net to a degree.

PHOTO: Ryan Hewitt

Engineer Ryan Hewitt at the Neve BCM sidecar console during tracking. Inset: Hewitt leaning over to adjust the Ampex ATR-102.

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Chad Smith’s drum setup, on a riser about 4 inches off the floor.

Of course we can do punches and cut the tape together, but the pressure it puts on everybody, including me, to get it right going down, is inspiring.” The mix proved much the same. “In Pro Tools, you can retroactively change things, but with analog, you have to rewind, press Play, and adjust the fader in exactly the right place,” Hewitt says. “‘Oh shit, I didn’t get it, I have to do it again, do it again, do it again. I want this to be muted here—rewind, press the mute button, press the automation button,’ all these things. It’s just a process of focusing and doing. Yes, it takes longer, but it sounds like someone cares. We have piles of gear, an SSL console from the ’80s, running its original software automation, mixing down to an Ampex ATR-102 with ATR tape.” The challenge, he adds, is to find the sweet spot of how hard you can hit the tape. Hewitt’s recording philosophy is that it should sound like a mix from the jump. “That four-piece, as it comes off the floor, should come very close to the final product,” he says. “It’s a lot more difficult when you are recording with tape. With Pro Tools, you can put plug-ins on and mix as you go. Every time you put the tape up, it sounds different—your console sounds different, your machine sounds different, your idea of what the balance should be might be different. It’s much more demanding to be able to bust out a rough mix. If you record everything so your faders are pretty even and not erratically all over the place, it will be a lot easier in the long run. My goal is to have all my faders at the same level and record into that mix. “I don’t have a million tracks to record setups of things that might work later in the mix,” Hewitt continues. “The whole point is to make

Notes on Songs

The Red Hot Chili Peppers having some fun, from top to bottom: Chad Smith, John Frusciante, Flea and Anthony Kiedis.

it sound like a record coming out of the speakers when you’re listening to it in the control room.” A REAL GOOD TIME Frusciante is happy. He feels his objective of mutual support was accomplished. That said, the other members gave him lots of freedom and no one “ever even raised an eyebrow,” he says. “No one ever said, ‘You’re going too far.” And Hewitt loves the record they’ve made. “The band that I grew up with was back together

again,” Hewitt marvels. “I started listening to the Chili Peppers when I was in junior high, when John and Chad joined the band. It’s an incredible blessing to work with your favorite band.” The title Unlimited Love sums it up for Frusciante: “That was really the main purpose for it for me. I realized how much I love those people and how one day one of us will be gone and another day another one will be gone, and there was just this feeling that we can still do this right now in a way we never did it before.” ■

Drummer Chad Smith says Unlimited Love is like most Chili Peppers records—a mixture of funk, hard, fast and slower. The single released on April 1 called “These Are the Ways” is one of his favorites because he got to completely rock out. “John [Frusciante] came in with these parts, and it immediately sounded kind of Who-ish with the suspended chords and the way he was playing it, so I went to my best Keith Moon impersonation,” Smith recalls. “It’s got a lot of drumming on that one, high energy and pretty fun, and I get to stretch out a little.” Smith also loves “Tangelo,” which has no drums. He calls the acoustic guitar–based song “Beatle-esque” and says he knew immediately it did not call for drums. “One Way Traffic” is another of Smith’s favorites because it’s “kinda loose, and Anthony tells a funny story.” He says there’s a middle section reminiscent of AC/DC, which he describes as “joyful.” Smith also mentions “Here Ever After,” which he likens to Siouxsie and the Banshees with a postmodern vibe that’s a little different for them. It was a tune that Hewitt says he had to remix because the original mix lacked the necessary energy. “In the remix, I just went more aggressive with EQ, with parallel compression,” the engineer explains. “I dug in harder. I amped it up to get as much aggression out of the drums as I could. It’s like this tribal drum beat that’s relentless, and I think I was being a little polite the first time.” A cut called “Veronica” stands out to Hewitt and Frusciante, who wrote the song at ShangriLa after Rubin and Kiedis asked him to write something around a guitar part they heard him play. Hewitt calls it “Beatle-y and stunning” with great melody and gorgeous lyrics, as well as tempo and time shifts from 4/4 to 6/8. “We played it over and over again to figure out how all the transitions were going to work.” Hewitt says, adding that Frusciante managed it with reverse reverbs and his modular synthesizer. On “Bastards of Light,” Frusciante says they were able to sync the tape to his 1981 Roland MC-202 sequencer; they also figured out how to sync it to Smith’s drums even though he did not play to a click track.

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PHOTO: Mark Webb

t began with a phone call, Scott Frankfurt recalls: “Hello, I noticed that you’re a studio and you’re in Woodland Hills.” Next thing he knew, he was recording and mixing a 60th anniversary album with The Temptations—featuring a guest appearance by Smokey Robinson—at his homebased studio, all while upgrading his room for Dolby Atmos work. “I can’t believe how the phone rings and then these people are in the house,” Frankfurt says. “I just pinch myself.” Not that he usually gets starstruck. Heck, he’s hosted the likes of Sergio Mendes, John Legend, Common, members of Earth Wind & Fire, the Kardashians and the Laboriel family at L.A.-based Scott Frankfurt Studio, which he runs with his wife, Sharon. But here he was, welcoming Smokey Robinson, who penned The Temptations’ very first

Scott Frankfurt in the middle of his Genelec-based 7.1.4 control room.

Sc o t t Fran kf u r t D i ves Int U.S. No. 1 hit, 1964’s “My Girl,” and Otis Williams, the group’s sole surviving founding member, into his home. For the Temptations 60 album’s lead single, “Is It Gonna Be Yes Or No,” a new song by Robinson, Frankfurt arrayed the group’s five current singers— Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks, Willie Green and newest member Tony Grant, plus Williams—around the tracking space. “We had Dave Garfield on keys, ‘Ready’ Freddy Washington on bass and Steve Ferrone on drums,” he reports. “It was like I was transported all those years ago to when they were in the Snake Pit,” as the main studio at Motown in Detroit was known. Frankfurt is a big fan of the Blue Bottle vocal mic, but he only had one, so he called Kevin Wait, the company’s head of artist relations. “That was the sound I had in my head, so we had a Blue Bottle for every one of the Tempts,” he says. “I’m also a fan of the inexpensive but very good-sounding [FMR Audio] RNC compressor, so my signal chain was the same for each guy. Then I had my [Neumann] U 47 on Smokey, so that on his song, he would have a lead vocal presence around the band.” Like the old Motown days, everyone was rehearsed and on top of their game. “There was none of this endless overdubbing and fixes,” he says. “The first

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take was basically it, then the second take maybe had a little something, so we comped them, and 70 percent of the live vocal was the record.” After playing Robinson his mix a few times, he says, “Smokey asked me for a fade and to change one little thing, then he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘That’s the record.’ It was oldschool production.” Originally brought on to mix one or two songs, Frankfurt ended up mixing 10 of the album’s 12 tracks, all originals, with Dave Darling and Narada Michael Walden mixing the other two, in one case with engineer Jim Reitzel, for release at the end of January 2022. “It was a heavy cast of characters,” he says, with T.C. Campbell, Ron Tyson, Dennis Nelson and K. Sparks, in addition to Robinson, Williams, Walden and Darling, all involved in the production. “It made it incredibly fun to record with all these different producers and all their different workflows,” he says. “I just loved having that front row seat.” Then, in November 2021, Weinger asked Frankfurt if he could mix everything in Dolby Atmos. “He said, ‘Can you provide an ADM?’ I didn’t know what that was at the time. I said, ‘I would love to do it; I’ll pull it together,’“ the engineer says. “By December, I was going to Atmos university,

PHOTO: Courtesy of Scott Frankfurt Studio

First Song Up? Smokey Robinson and Temptations 60

By Steve Harvey

Otis Williams, the sole surviving founding member of The Temptations, with Frankfurt.

so to speak,” says Frankfurt, former VP of design for music software developer Spectrasonics. With guidance from Dolby’s Ceri Thomas and freelance consultant Josue Catalan, as well as mastering engineer Chris Berman, he soon had an upgrade plan. Already using Genelec 1031A speakers at his stereo mix position, with a pair of Genelec 1032s diametrically opposite at the guest workstation, Frankfurt elected to integrate more 1031s, at the sides and overhead, to create a 7.1.4 system. One Genelec subwoofer now supports LFE, while a second handles bass management. To enable system alignment, he persuaded Dirk Williams, who designed and built the studio’s custom-milled, aircraft-grade aluminum studio furniture 20 years ago, to come out of retirement and build adjustable mounts for the ceiling speakers. “They’re works of art,” he says.

Frankfurt has a particular way of approaching a mix. “I do all the vocals and the effects first, before I start processing the drums and the band. Then I bring everything up to my vocal concept.” That way, he says, “I never get to the point where I can’t hear the vocal.” This being his Dolby Atmos debut, Frankfurt

o Atm o s Frankfurt installed Avid MTRX Studio and DAD units to handle monitor tuning and control. “I’m still using my Avid S3 and Dock and an iPad for fader control and I’m running the Dolby Audio Bridge on my same computer,” he adds. Everything was working by January. All he had to do then was learn how to operate his new Atmos setup, he laughs. “I was emailing and calling Steve Genewick at Capitol Studios, asking a million questions. A shoutout to Steve for helping me.” Frankfurt started with that Smokey Robinson song, in the process developing an immersive mix concept that would work for the entire album. “I’m a Temptations fan,” he states. “I want to hear their harmonies. Where are they in this 360-degree world? Where’s the lead singer?” The answer was to place the listener at the center of a semicircle of singers. “And the lead vocals are not on the wall at the front, like a stereo mix, but a little closer to you. Once I had that sorted, the rest fell into place.” “I’ve now come to learn how valuable it is to have the person that mixed the stereo also do the immersive mix, because of the trust with the band,” he adds. “The approval process—that’s one of the biggest hurdles to getting these mixes out into the world.”

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labored day and night to get everything just right. One song exceeded the target loudness by 0.3 dB, he reports, but veteran mastering engineer Kevin Reeves, UMG’s VP studio operations, walked him through how to match the spec without having to adjust the whole album down. Solving the challenges presented by his first commercial Atmos release was fun, Frankfurt says. But what’s really fun about immersive mixing, he says, “is making a song explode out of the speakers into the hearts and minds of the listener, and doing it in a format where there’s some headroom and some surprises.” ■

What’s on Your Dese By Rich Tozzoli

fter a year off for the world to do its thing, this year’s recording trip to St John, USVI, was a reminder that keeping it tight and simple is paramount in having a successful mobile session. This year’s journey allowed myself, keyboardist Bruce MacPherson, engineer Mike Dwyer and bassist Hank Skalka to compose and mix for a variety of TV shows with diverse sound palettes, all thanks to a team effort in preparation. We had to make sure we had what we needed on a remote island a few thousand miles from home. Then we checked and rechecked everything on the list before traveling. I made sure my MacBook Pro was updated with the latest version of Pro Tools Ultimate, and that all my plug-ins and software drivers were working on the mobile system, based this year around a Universal Audio Apollo X4 with Thunderbolt 3. That fed a small Behringer MicroAMP HA400 and a pair of IK Multimedia ILoud MTMs. We also brought a SansAmp Bass Driver DI and Line 6 HX Stomp for bass and guitar work. MacPherson had a Novation keyboard controller, along with Roland JD-08 and Roland SE-02 analog synths. The rest of our toys were inside the computer. While we wished we could have flown more gear down, well, you have to make due with what you have. Of course, we were on Island Time and would start each day around 7:30 a.m. with a French press of Zabars or Vermont Coffee Company bean. From there, it was game on! I’m happy to report that there were no scorpions or power outages this year, but I was told that a lizard jumped out of my guitar case at the airport. Here’s a hit list of some of the stars and essentials of the 2022 trip:

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BLACK BOX ANALOG DESIGN HG-2MS This is one of those plug-ins I had heard about but hadn’t yet got my hands on. It quickly became one of the stars of the trip. Plugin Alliance’s HG-2MS delivers mono, stereo or Mid/Side modes of analog tube saturation and color. It emulates four different vacuum tube stages, combined in series and parallel circuits, and features a useful filter section with four variable filters and a flat mode. There are separate gain controls for 6U8A triode and pentode tubes, and a Parallel Saturation circuit for the choice of two different 12AX7 tubes. To put it bluntly, it’s the best tube saturator I’ve heard. Either subtly or aggressively, it found its way to guitar, bass, drums, keys, percussion and the master bus. Dialing in the filter section, we even used it after reverbs to drive them. We all liked the Variable Density control to boost both Pentode and Triode, the Air Amount for a little extra top above 10 kHz, and the always useful Parallel Mix for Wet/Dry balance. It’s one of those plug-ins you want to overuse because it just makes everything better.

rt Island Gear List? Eighth Annual St John, USVI, Recording Retreat

By Rich Tozzoli

KIT PLUGINS BB N105

WAVES ABBEY ROAD RS124 Wow, this thing is a beast. Based on a serious modification of the Altec 436B, it is modeled after the same hardware used at Abbey Road Studios. The Studio setting has faster attack and release times and is fiercely aggressive; the Cutter setting is a modification that features a slower attack and release. We had one set up on a parallel bus at all times in full-blown Cutter mode, along with a Waves Abbey Road RS 56 Passive EQ for tone shaping. With the Super Fuse enabled, it was a game changer when it came to adding punch and attitude to our bass and drum tracks. It’s like the best of an 1176, LA-2A and LA-3A without any grit, and it delivers gobs of ’tude.

Having spent years working on a vintage Neve console, I immediately felt right at home when diving into the Kit Plugins BB N105 V2. Based on the legendary Neve 8078 at Blackbird Studio, Nashville, the N105 provides all the analog vibe, tone-shaping capabilities and overall Neve-y goodness you could ever need when working in the box. By slapping instances across all the tracks in our mixes, the N105 provided subtle saturation, cohesion and glue all before even touching any knobs, much like you’d expect when working on a real console. From there, the EQ section made it effortless to dial in the sounds we were looking for. We added smooth top end to drums, thick lows to bass and a touch of edgy midrange to electric guitars. Not only did the N105 provide all the tone shaping we needed, but it helped sit the instruments right into the mix. Where things got really fun was when we switched the channel from the default line amp setting over to the emulated mic preamp, allowing us to dial in just the right amount of grit using the preamp knob. This really came in handy when working with otherwise sterilesounding virtual instruments. We were able to add some light saturation and even full-blown distortion that brought these tracks to life. Without question, we all gave it high marks. —Mike Dwyer

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LINE 6 HX STOMP

SOFTUBE SPRING REVERB As a guitar player who grew up on tube amps, I love my springs. The Softube Spring Reverb delivers the goods and lets you twist just a few knobs to get that “sound.” The two large knobs are for Wet/Dry Mix and One, Two or Three Springs. In between sit smaller Bass and Treble knobs, along with a Tension slider and Shake slider, which creates the explosive sound when you drop your spring amp. We used it on virtually every guitar track and found it to have a warm, dark tone that brought extra life to our DI guitar tracks. We even drove it into a compressor for extra attitude, and we used it on percussion and keys because it was so good. Simple, easy and sonically spot-on.

The bulk of our guitar sounds this year were through the small but powerful Line 6 HX Stomp hardware unit. Connected to the HX Edit software via USB and to the recording interface via a pair of TRS cables, we controlled the sounds from the desktop. This allowed us to quickly dial up different amps and cabinets, changing the sounds within them with a few mouse clicks. We used a number of the Fender- and Marshall-style amps and a variety of cabinets from 2X12 to 4X12. For some of the dramatic crime-type shows, we even called up some of the wilder FX settings with chorus, pitch and delay. What I like most about it is the overall feel of pick/finger attack, its flexibility and of course the tones it delivers. With more than 300 amps, effects and cabinets, it definitely makes a great travel rig.

Reduce an entire microphone section down to two channels Reduce an entire microphone section down to two channels.

EVENTIDE SPLIT EQ In an age where nearly every plug-in developer has their take on a clean, digital EQ, it’s rare to come across something truly unique and revolutionary, but that’s exactly what Eventide has accomplished. At the heart of Split EQ is what Eventide calls structural split technology. This splits the incoming signal into its transient and tonal information, allowing you to EQ them independently of each other. On this trip, Split EQ was a real lifesaver when it came to working with prerecorded drum loops. It allowed us to completely transform the character of the drums to fit the vibe of the tracks we were working on in a way that a traditional EQ could never do. For example, by setting one of the bands down around the fundamental of the kick drum, we could boost the transients in that area while cutting that same frequency from the tonal information, giving us a tight, punchy kick. In other tracks, we did the exact opposite, giving us a longer, rounder sound. We also used it on our bass tracks, boosting midrange only in the transients to add a ton of attack, allowing the bass to cut through a dense mix without taking up too much room. On clean, staccato guitar parts, cutting upper-mids from the transients while slightly boosting the same area in the tonal signal helped to tame the harsh spikiness without sounding dull, like it would if we had simply cut that area with a typical EQ. —Mike Dwyer

* One Master Sum Box can handle Stereo Satellite Boxes for an expanded summation system for up to twenty microphones

Key features: • High quality microphone summation system • Cost-effective control of entire microphone sections • Great sound quality • Smart and easy handling

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HEAVYOCITY SYMPHONIC DESTRUCTION ORCHESTRAL VI

UNIVERSAL AUDIO AVALON VT- 737SP It wasn’t all about the new gear on this trip. UA’s Avalon VT-737sp Class A vacuum tube channel strip plug-in served a specific purpose. In use on the Master Fader, we turned to the 4-band EQ for that thing that the Avalon does so well—”high air.” Just the smallest amount of 32 kHz Treble air band, a touch of 20 kHz High Mid, the Low Mid cut a touch at around 150 Hz and a small boost at 60 Hz does wonders for the entire mix. The proof is in the Bypass, and every time you do that, it makes you contemplate how we hear 32 kHz. There’s no denying it’s there, in a tasty sweet way, and our mixes were better every time because of it.

ROLAND JD-08 The new Roland JD-08 has the goods of the original JD-800 and then some. The small size, of course, helped on the island. The sounds of the original (which I have) are all inside with the added polyphony (128 voices). Its four-part layering capability made it nice and full with voices to spare, even when using a sustain pedal and long decay and release times. Its ’90s digital grit and analog subtractive synth sounds of the ’70s are abundant and ready for real-time sound design, which is exactly how we used it on tracks. While recording with MIDI, the front panel controls were faithfully sent as CC data and edited or used to manipulate parameters on other virtual instruments. Like the Roland SE-02, which we also used on this trip, the JD08 is compact and powerful. The new JX-08 will be next on my list! —Bruce MacPherson

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It was important to have something new and inspirational. Well, the Symphonic Destruction VI is far more than the title suggests. It’s the sounds of an epic hybrid deconstructed orchestra run through analog gear with 400 sonic sources and more than 200 badass presets. However, you can tweak and modulate so many parameters that the sound quickly becomes your own. We used a lot of “hybrid” settings that showcase the cinematic textures of the plug-in and helped us work quickly on ideas. With so many creative options on this thing, it’s an undeniable score in a box. We also turned to the company’s Damage 2 plug-in for huge drum hits and percussive sound design. The combination is potent, and I can’t recommend them enough. Continued on page 49

Tech

new products one offering different attack and release times; Make Up, which gain trims the signal output for optimization; and Dry/Wet, which mixes the compressed signal with the original one to maximize control over the resultant sound.

Bettermaker Stereo Passive EQ Aiming to give an analog experience a digital reinvention, the Bettermaker Stereo Passive Equalizer works in tandem with an associated DAW plug-in that offers control and instant recall for settings. The unit offers familiar settings of low boost or cut at four possible frequencies; high boost at 10 possible frequencies with bandwidth control; and high cut at three possible frequencies. Bypass, output gain, and reset round out the controls. Published specs include a 7 Hz to 30 kHz frequency response (-0.5 dB) with tighter tolerance in the 20 Hz to 20 kHz range. Maximum input level is 24 dBu, max output is 27 dBu. Dynamic range reaches 101 dB, and the unit reportedly imparts very little distortion or crosstalk. Output gain is ±8 dB. Stereo signal enters and exits the unit via rear XLR jacks. Another feature is a hybrid analog/digital signal path—the highpass filter is a modern musical digital implementation, whereas the rest of the signal path is boutique analog. Distributed by TransAudio Group, the Bettermaker Stereo Passive Equalizer is now available at $1,999.

Roswell Pro Audio Mini K67x Microphone The mic’s name, K67x, refers both to the capsule design and circuit topology. The proprietary 34mm capsule design is dimensionally based on the K67, although Roswell has created a proprietary voicing, which is said to give the mic its characteristic extended frequency response. The “x” refers to the vintage circuit design with custom output transformer. The microphone interior also includes hand-selected, audiophilegrade capacitors, and it’s all enclosed in a heavy, solid-steel body with durable metallic gray finish.

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Each mic ships with Roswell’s exclusive Cutaway shockmount, a microfleece mic sock and a flight case. Like all Roswell microphones, the Mini K67x is designed, assembled and tested in California.

Black Rooster Audio VLA2A Mark II Plug-In Black Rooster Audio has updated VLA-2A Mark II Vintage Leveling Amplifier plug-in, bringing new features to its emulation of a late-1960s vintage opto compressor, including a larger GUI and new Ext SC (sidechain), Emphasis, Cell Sel (selector), Make Up gain, and Dry/Wet mix controls. The company’s real-time Spice component-based circuit simulation approach still allows the plugin to re-create the original opto compressor’s input and output transformers, sidechain and audio path tube stages, emphasis filter network, and the T4A cell. New features include: Ext SC switch, which allows users to control the gain reduction of the main signal via the envelope of the external sidechain signal; Emphasis, which controls the sidechain pre-emphasis— useful for keeping high frequencies in check, preventing over-modulation, and allowing for a higher sensitivity to higher frequencies; Cell Sel, which switches between a choice of three different opto-electric cells—A, B and C—each

Yorkville Sound YXL15SP Powered Subwoofer The new YXL15SP powered subwoofer, largely intended for use by working DJs and musicians. is the latest addition to the YXL Series of powered cabinets. The new sub provides 1,000 watts (peak) with efficient speaker components, making it loud for its size. Weighing in at just over 60 pounds, the YXL15SP includes a 15-inch woofer with 3-inch voice coil. The recessed control panel provides access to Master Level Control and three performance modes: Punch, Smooth and Deep. Connections include two XLR/quarter-inch Combi inputs and a pair of XLR Link outputs. The 15 mm plywood cabinet is faced by a strong, full-length metal grille.

allowing access to all jack screws for future retightening while the bay remains fully in place. On the back, a half-dozen EDAC 56 rear connectors are used, configured to industry standard pin-outs.

Alcons Audio LR18i Installation Line Array

Neutrik powerCON TRUE1 TOP L Connectors Distinguished by their “L” suffix, Neutrik’s new series of powerCON TRUE1 TOP L input and output cable connectors accept cable outer diameters of 10 - 16 mm (0.39 - 0.63 inches), as they are intended for use with SOOW 12/3, SJOOW12/3 and H07RN-F3G2.5 cables. A patent-pending cable entry meets standards requirements for preventing disassembly by hand. As a result, the connectors are certified to EN 60320-1, IEC 60320-1 and UL 60320-1 when applied to appropriate cables. This allows mains cables to be assembled in accordance with UL 817, CSA C22.2 No. 21 and EN IEC 60799. The NAC3FX-W-TOP-L connector injects power into a device or a coupled cable, while the NAC3MX-W-TOP-L receives power. The new L connectors are rated to 20 A (16 A in Europe) and 250 V AC. They are IP 65 rated in the mated condition and built from UL 94 V-0 and UL F1rated UV resistant materials. The latched, twistlocking, single-phase AC power connectors offer weather resistance, including UV light resistance, and can be used for applications like first runs from power distros to daisychained devices, as well as for various instances where junior service cable may be deemed too lightweight. The connectors can be used with SJ* cables, as well.

Aviom A640 Personal Mixer The new flagship A640 Personal Mixer from Aviom faced more than a few supply-chain challenges in coming to market, and it wasn’t always easy. But the updated, next-generation leap in technology is now shipping, with augmented user control and customization, a newly streamlined interface on a color display, and new features intended to provide more options on stage and in the recording studio. In addition to the newly simplified user interface on

a color display, Aviom has added a new Channel Mapping feature, which lets users create a custom channel layout for each A640, using any of the 64 network input sources. An Aux Mix allows any combination of channels from the main stereo mix to be sent to the secondary mono output, simplifying integration with a supplemental tactile transducer system, subwoofer or powered wedge. A new Intercom feature allows users to communicate with each other over the Aviom network whenever the A640 is used with Aviom’s D800 A-Net Distributor products.

Van Damme Purple Patch PPE56 Patchbay Following two years of development, Van Damme has introduced the new Purple Patch PPE56 2×48 bantam patchbay. Created in conjunction with the pro-audio installation team at Langdale Technical Consulting in Landford, UK, the unit is both designed and manufactured to cater to modern-day patching needs. Housed in a steel chassis and including aircraft-grade aluminum construction, the PPE56 offers fully programmable normaling options, including full-normaling, half-normalling, parallel and no normalling settings, all of which are adjustable while the patch remains terminated. The unit also provides individual earthing selection for all patch points, allowing for phantom power and unbalanced signal pass-through to be selected point by point. The patchbay’s individual 110 Ohm impedance jack modules are secured to the chassis behind a fully removable front panel,

The LR18i pro-ribbon line array from Alcons Audio is a three-way, compact line array loudspeaker system specifically designed for fixed live sound installations. The LR18i implements the company’s pro-ribbon technology for mid and high frequencies, which the company says results in an impulse response with up to 90 percent less distortion. Pattern control in both the vertical and horizontal planes are aided by the cylindrical wavefront of an Alcons Audio RBN702rs 7-inch pro-ribbon transducer, while the pro-ribbon’s power handling of 1500 watts (200 milliseconds) provides considerable headroom. The RBN702 is coupled to a highefficiency, horn-loaded 6.5-inch midrange transducer, coaxially mounted behind the HF driver. The LF section consists of two reflexloaded 8-inch woofers with an oversized 3-inch voice-coil Neodymium motor-structure. The LR18i is controlled by the Sentinel amplified loudspeaker controller with system-specific drive processing, including “VHIR processing,” offering phase-matching with any Alcons Audio system, and Signal Integrity Sensing, which is said to dynamically compensate cable length and amplifier impedance effects, aiding low and mid frequency reproduction. ■

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Tech // reviews Mojave Audio MA-37 Large-Diaphragm, Tube Condenser Microphone By Barry Rudolph

esigner and self-confessed Sony C-37A aficionado David Royer has fully realized his dream version of that famous microphone by way of his new Mojave Audio MA-37 largediaphragm condenser tube mic. The MA-37 embodies all the classic and quirky qualities of the original in an up-to-date, modern system with high headroom and low self-noise.

Imported and marketed by Los Angeles-based Superscope, the C-37A was commercially released in the U.S. in 1958 and first shown at the Los Angeles Hi-Fi Show. It was produced until 1965.

SONY C-37A The Sony C-37A was developed in post-war Japan in 1954-55 and was initially used on symphonic recordings. Sony had started to produce semi-professional tape recorders and other audio equipment, and was interested in an alternative to the expensive German Neumann U47. The smallerC-37A was also less intrusive than the bulky U47 when used on camera for live TV performances. The C-37A got its name from the 37mm outside diameter of the mic’s C-3 capsule. A break from the traditional dual-capsule design of the U47 and other condenser microphones at the time, the C-3 uses a single, 6-micron-thick Mylar diaphragm sputtered with a conductive 0.3-micron layer of gold; it was one of the first capsules to use DuPont’s Mylar film as a diaphragm material. Meanwhile, the Neumann U47’s amplifier circuit, based around the pricey Telefunken VF-14 triode tube, was replaced by a single-stage, cathode-follower impedance converter using a 6AU6 (EF-94) pentode wired as a triode. (The screen and suppressor grids are tied to the plate.) The cathode-follower circuit has a gain of about 1 and requires a special output transformer to develop sufficient output gain and more headroom than is typical for most condenser microphones. The Mojave Audio MA-37 is just like the C-37A in that it uses a mechanical “shutter” to switch its polar pattern from cardioid to omnidirectional. By either exposing or blocking holes drilled in the backplate of the capsule, the polar pickup pattern changes from an omnidirectional pressure mic when closed to a cardioid pattern when fully open. While changing patterns, you must mute the output of the mic or make the change before powering it up. Called an adjustable tuned acoustic chamber, the technology was developed by RCA in the late 1930s for its line of Varicoustic ribbon microphones and subsequently for the 77D and 77DX models. Sony adapted it for switching between cardioid and omnidirectional polar patterns both on its C-37A mic and the very similar and now discontinued C-800 model—not to be confused with the modern Sony C-800G mic.

MOJAVE MA-37 Mojave Audio’s MA-37 uses a 37mm capsule with 6-micron Mylar diaphragm designed in California. An EF806 tube (long-plate EF86 pentode) wired as a triode is used because of their reliability, consistency and availability, as compared to the 6AU6. The MA-37 retains much of the original’s form factor and functionality, with updates to improve reliability and operation. I liked the very small holes drilled in the lower body to help keep the mic cool, and it’s good to see the classic U-shaped shock-mount yoke retained. The windscreen is made using a double layer of metal gauze, and on its backside is an access hole to toggle the shutter open and closed using a small, flathead screwdriver. Back on the front of the screen, full CCW is marked “C” for cardioid, and full CW is marked The Mojave MA-37 comes “O” for omnidirectional. Users of the in a hard-shell case with original C-37A will remember these as C19-foot Canare cable and “U” for unidirectional and “O” for omni. power supply I used a small jeweler’s screwdriver to change polar patterns; Mojave says that it will start including a screwdriver for this purpose. The mechanical design of this screwdriver-operated switch is much better than on the C-37A, where it was sometimes a problematic point of failure. I’ve seen shutters used on other new mics, too, but on the MA-37, it is impossible to physically move the capsule back and forth when changing patterns.

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MODERN POWER SUPPLY The accompanying solid-state linear power supply is better made than the original’s CP-2 unit, which has a tube rectifier inside. (It does pay homage to the original with its large, gray, cube-shaped steel box with chrome carrying handle.) Mojave MA-37 shutter assembly, done by All connections and controls are on the hand in Southern California. front except for the IEC power connector and 120/240 voltage mains switch on the back. I like that the chrome handle makes the doubt it will get used in the mix. Despite the mic’s distance, the sound was very present, power supply easy to find in dark studios! The MA-37 power supply comes with a with a solid and constant midrange focus that 5.8-meter (19-foot) five-pin XLR (Canare) cable sounded great. Using the studio’s Trident A-Range console, I to connect power and audio to the mic’s short, pigtail lead protruding out of the lower side immediately noticed (by the console’s mic gain of the mic’s body. As with the C-37A, you may setting) that the MA-37’s output was about the connect additional cable(s) in series to extend same as a modern dynamic microphone, or even the distance between the mic and the power Royer’s R-121 ribbon, placed in the same position. The cathode-follower circuit, along with the supply without compromise. The output transformer is housed inside the Lundahl output transformer and handmade power supply cabinet, like in the C-37A, although capsule, are all factors for this mic’s extreme the MA-37 uses a newer Lundahl LL1750 output headroom capabilities, low noise and overall transformer. The power supply’s front-panel pleasing sound quality. Like the C-37A, the MAhas a power on/off toggle switch and a three- 37 is now my favorite condenser snare drum mic. My next use was on a rock song, recording a position HPF rotary switch. Different values of Wima capacitors are switched in series with small, 5-watt guitar amp that I built from a kit. the Lundahl transformer’s primary winding to I switched the MA-37 to omni pattern (power supply again set to M) and placed it 7 cm away, engage the different HPF curves. The M position is for flat response from 30 Hz right in front of the center of the dust cover of to 18 kHz, ±3 dB; the V1 position switches in a first- a Hellatone 30, 12-inch speaker in an open-back order highpass filter with its -3dB point at 100 Hz; Avatar cabinet. For a less bright sound, I would and V2 moves the frequency up to 200 Hz. These move the mic outward on the cone but still keep are smooth and subtle filters, definitely useful for it close. According to the manual’s frequency response charts, the microphone is flatter in the live recordings or location work. Note: For recording very quiet sources such as bass while in omni-directional mode. I used about 30 dB of gain from a Sunset acoustic guitars or boomy narration voice-overs in a home studio, the V1 position works best as Sound S1P Tutti preamp and got a clear and well-articulated rhythm guitar sound. If the it does not overly thin out the sound. amp distorts, you’ll hear it immediately; all of the dynamics and color of the amp and guitar LET’S RECORD EVERYTH ING! My first test was recording a snare drum within are easily captured with the MA-37. I liked that I a small drum kit during a tracking session. I had the MA-37 switched to M, cardioid pattern, and PRODUCT SUMMARY about 35-cm away from the snare. The producer COMPANY: Mojave Audio wanted to achieve a certain overall drum sound PRODUCT: MA-37 Large Diaphragm Tube that included bleed from the rest of the kit, so Condenser Microphone the mic was a little further away than I would WEB: mojaveaudio.com/ma-37 usually place it. PRICE: $3,499 MSRP I found that the MA-37 captured the complete PROS: A solid, all-around, utilitarian condenser ambience around the snare drum, including any mic better than the original. quieter, subtle playing like rim accents, stick CONS: Be careful when using a screwdriver to drags and the sounds coming from beneath. change patterns. Even though I recorded a bottom snare mic, I

could freely place a (usually inherently) fragile condenser mic as close or as far away as I liked—just like a more rugged dynamic. I wanted to try the MA-37 on an orchestra instrument, and I was pleased with the sound it captured on a bassoon in a large woodwind ensemble that also included two French horns, two flutes and concert (pedal) harp. The MA-37 was in cardioid and on a boom stand aimed at the instrument’s left side about halfway up and 80 cm away. About 45 dB of mic preamp gain was required from the studio’s SSL Duality SE console. Again, the entire 1.34-meter length of the instrument was well-covered, with no “hot” notes and a resultant sound that was balanced and not overly bright. There was clarity with good articulation, and the low frequencies were defined and well-heard. After recording, I could solo the track and sometimes hear the bassoon’s mechanism—the whisper key, high D key, etc.— but it was not an issue for the overall recording. Next use was at a local studio with a large, vintage API console and a female singer who played piano at the same time. With the mic set in cardioid pattern, she sang about 30 cm away, sometimes wandering a little further off-mic. The MA-37 in cardioid doesn’t have an excessive proximity effect and sounds very natural, with a good balance between chest and presence. My singer sang a new (lyric) version of “America The Beautiful” using tremendous dynamic range—literally from a whisper to full-voice, big gospel-like moments. The engineer/producer didn’t want to use any EQ or compression when recording, preferring to deal with it later. The MA-37 captured it all; right down to the noise floor of the studio’s live room! Loud singing moments were loud without the mic compressing or distorting. The MA-37 has smooth high frequencies and it was not sibilant at all. About 40 dB of mic gain was required from the API, and there was still plenty of headroom available. BETTER THAN EVER David Royer’s MA-37, with its huge dynamic range, honest sound and solid utility honors the legacy of the Sony C-37A and opens up the idea of using a condenser microphone more often and on any source. It comes in a rugged, foam-lined travel case that holds the mic, cables and power supply, and it is a solid choice for anyone in the market for a new condenser studio microphone. ■

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Tech // spotlight PreSonus Sphere Much More Than a Software Subscription By Mike Levine

t’s taken me a while to warm up to the concept of music-software subscriptions. Perhaps irrationally, I’ve worried about losing access to my multitrack files if, for some reason, I could no longer afford to pay the monthly fee for my DAW or plug-ins, or if the developer went belly-up. Sphere’s home page makes accessing its features easy. Of late, however, my resistance to subscriptions has diminished. With many of the plans now available, you arguably get interoperability with Studio One, and ReWire support for slaving a better value than you would by purchasing the software. A case in to DAWs. Sphere members also gain access to a vast collection of instrument point is PreSonus Sphere, the subject of this technology spotlight. Sphere’s value is not only in its breadth and depth of software, add-ons for Notion. These include strings, horns, woodwinds, plug-ins and sample content. It also provides access to educational percussion and more. Another Sphere benefit is exclusive content from Studio One’s materials and collaboration tools, online storage for your music, and a community of other subscribers to work with or learn from. Artist Exchange Portal, where users share presets, FX chains and Even better, the price is just $14.95 per month, or $164.95 annually. If other settings. Sphere users get unique Exchange content from you have your own studio, you probably spend a lot more than that artists, producers and engineers such as Neil Zaza, Alli Walker, Tony Succar, RMB Justize and many others. annually just purchasing or updating your music software. IN THE STUDIO The centerpiece of Sphere is Studio One 5 Professional, which is the highest level of the popular and very capable PreSonus DAW. What makes it so sweet for Sphere members is that they also get every plugin, sound collection and add-on published by PreSonus for Studio One, including all the ones offered for purchase to retail users. For example, in the plug-in department, Studio One Sphere lets you download the entire line of “Fat Channel” emulations of classic analog processors, each of which would otherwise cost extra. Sphere members also get all of the “Mix Engine Effects,” designed for master bus use to imbue your mix with different console or tape flavors. These include Brit Console (an SSL emulation), Alpine Desk (API emulation) and Porta Cassette. You also get access to a wide range of premium samples and loops beyond what comes with Studio One 5 Professional. Particularly if you produce hip hop, EDM or contemporary pop, you’ll find a substantial amount of useful content. The other application that comes with Sphere is Notion, a robust notation program that lets you create everything from simple lead sheets to complete orchestral scores. It offers features like a video window, programmable hit points, handwriting recognition,

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COLLABORATION Whether you’re downloading content for Studio One or Notion, Sphere’s website makes it easy. Just click on the product’s image, and it takes you to a dedicated download page for that item. Once downloaded, installation is usually just a matter of dragging and dropping the icon into Studio One. Alternatively, you can rightclick it and choose Studio One. The latter method works for installing sound sets into Notion. Another benefit is instant access to updates. Whenever PreSonus updates Notion or Studio One, Sphere users are immediately eligible to download the new version at no extra cost. The applications, plug-ins and sound content are only part of what Sphere offers. Another valuable feature is called Workspaces. It’s a cloud-based collaboration system that allows you to invite other Sphere members or anyone who opens a free account at PreSonus.com to collaborate on a project. After setting up a “Workspace” from the Sphere website, you can upload Studio One files (audio and MIDI)—and files in other formats, your collaborator does not need to be using Studio One— share them with your collaborators. The Workspace infrastructure lets you exchange messages with the others involved and even

Both Studio One 5 Professional (left) and Notion (right) are included with Sphere.

attach comments to specific points in an audio file, which is a handy feature. Studio One also offers an export option called Convert to ZIP File that lets you save your entire session to a cloud-based Workspace. You get 30 GB of storage included with your Sphere membership, which you can increase to 100 GB for an additional $3.99 a month. ASKED AND ANSWERED PreSonus recently launched a new Sphere feature called Community. It’s like a specialized forumstyle social network for Sphere members and is designed to facilitate connecting for collaborative projects, Studio One tips and advice, and info on other music production topics. When you first launch Community, the site asks you to create a user profile. After doing so, you can browse through an extensive list of topics that includes Arranging, Audio Editing, MIDI Editing, Composition, Drums, Guitar, Songwriting and so forth. You can choose the topics you’re interested in, and you’ll only see those in your browser unless you opt to see the complete list. In addition to asking and answering questions, you can post audio files or links to Community’s built-in audio player to get feedback on your work. It’s an excellent way to tap into a network of Studio One users who are musicians, engineers, producers, video editors and so forth. The Learn tab on the Sphere website lets you access a collection of tutorial videos on general music production topics, including use of Studio One. Sphere also offers monthly live-streamed mix critiques hosted by two of PreSonus’ software specialists, which you can also watch later on demand. Also included is access to more than 60 Studio One tutorials from Obedia, covering a wide range of topics. What’s more, you can access a listing with links for tutorials available on YouTube from various Studio One experts. While there’s no shortage of Studio One

Some of the additional content available to Sphere members.

learning materials, there isn’t enough text documentation about the non-application aspects of Sphere, particularly Workspace, Community and Exchange. PreSonus does offer videos about them, but not enough text-based info. I don’t like to spend five or ten minutes watching a video just to find an answer to a single question. SPHERE OF INFLUENCE After checking out the various aspects of Sphere, my overall impression is highly positive. Sphere does a lot more than just deliver software. It’s an entire music production ecosystem. It includes two powerful applications, a ton of content, excellent integration between them all, and cloud-based storage and collaboration. And, it gives you access to the talents and knowledge of an entire community of like-minded recording musicians, engineers and producers. It does what a subscription program should: It gives you value. You get access to more products and content for your dollar than you would by purchasing outright. If Studio One or Notion were the main application I used for creating or producing music, I would join up without question. Considering that many subscriptions cost more and only offer processing plug-ins, you can see Sphere’s value.

Sphere should appeal to a wide range of users. Music production novices will love the learning features, including the tutorial videos and the ability to ask questions online with other members. If you own one of Studio One’s lower-tiered versions, notably Artist, making the jump to Sphere would increase your feature set and instrument-and-sample collection significantly. Even if you own Studio One Professional, you will benefit from the vast amount of content you’d get for joining Sphere. That said, I don’t think that Sphere will tempt many longtime owners of other DAWs to switch. You won’t get nearly as much out of it if you’re not a Studio One user. It’s a lot to ask someone to change their main music application, no matter how good the deal is. However, Studio One is a powerful DAW with a rich feature set and dedicated mastering and live performance sections. It could be tempting for someone unhappy with their current workstation. You won’t find a Sphere demo if you want to check it out, but for $14.99, you could buy yourself a month of access. After that, I’m betting you’ll decide to continue. ■

PRODUCT SUMMARY COMPANY: PreSonus PRODUCT: Sphere WEBSITE: PreSonus.com PRICE: $14.95/month or $164.95/year PROS: Excellent value. Includes Studio One and Notion. Access to all premium plug-ins and content for Studio One and Notion. Easy to access. Excellent integration of features and apps. Cloud-based collaboration tools and offsite backup. Extensive collection of tutorial videos. CONS: Workspace doesn’t allow direct session access for collaborators. No demo available. Lack of text documentation.

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Tech // review shorts Fuse Audio Labs VREV-140 By Mike Levine Fuse Audio Labs, a plug-in maker out of Dusseldorf, Germany, recently released the VREV-140 ($59, Mac/Windows), a plug-in emulation of the classic EMT-140 plate Drive Circuit, reverb. Although there are many excellent 32-Second Decay EMT-140-style plug-ins on the market, the VREV-140 should be competitive due to its winning combination of authentic sound quality, useful extra features and excellent value. The only user-adjustable parameters on the original EMT-140 were the decay time and the cut amount on a filter set at 80 Hz. While no plug-in will sound as rich as the original, digital versions do provide significantly more control. Plug-in emulations are also capable of performance that would be physically impossible or impractical on a hardware plate reverb. The electromechanical EMT-140 required a large footprint—8 feet by 4 feet, and weighing 600 pounds—to create its max decay time of 5 seconds. Conversely, the VREV-140 offers up to 32 seconds of decay and takes up precisely zero physical space in your studio. Parameters on the VREV-140 are plentiful. You get a Power (bypass) switch, a Drive control that governs an onboard saturation circuit, an HQ (high-quality) switch that turns on an anti-aliasing process in the amplification stage, and an overload light that lets you know when you’ve turned the Drive control high enough to start saturating the signal. The Decay-time adjustment looks and functions like the one on the hardware, with buttons for increase and decrease. The Sync switch locks the Predelay control to the host tempo, allowing for tempo-based settings. The EQ section consists of three different filters. One is a Low-Cut filter with a 12 dB/octave roll-off

MOST IMPRESSIVE FEATURE

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adjustable from 10 Hz to 1 kHz. The other two are Low- and HighShelf, Baxandall-style filters with 15 dB of boost or cut at 150 Hz and 5 kHz, respectively. Next to the Predelay knob are controls for stereo Width and Balance (on stereo instances only). The former controls the width at the stereo output and ranges from 0 (mono) to 200 percent, with a default of 100 percent. The Balance knob enables you to compensate for the left or right level at the output. All the parameter knobs on the plug-in give you a text readout during adjustment, which is helpful for creating precise settings. In addition to Mix and Output controls, you get a Lock button at the bottom right. Clicking it locks the Mix knob at its current setting, allowing you to change presets without affecting the wet/ dry balance. The far right of the GUI includes a VU-style meter that you can set to show input or output. I tried the VREV-140 on a couple of mixes, and it shined on every source I processed, including guitars, vocals, drums and percussion. I compared it to a couple of significantly-more-expensive EMT-140style plug-ins, and though its tone might be a tad less lush, it still sounds excellent. It was a nice bonus to have the Drive circuit. When using the VREV-140 as a send effect, I could add saturation to the reverb signal while leaving the source clean. As an insert, I was able to overdrive both the reverb and the source. Turning the Mix control down to 0 turned the plug-in into a saturation processor capable of everything from subtle overdrive to heavily crushed sounds Having the 32-second maximum decay time was great for sound design. At one point, I opened up a plucked-sounding synth patch with the VREV-140 set to its max decay, and just hitting one note created an epic-sounding effect. Despite its realistic emulation and versatile feature set, the VREV-140 is one of the least expensive EMT-140 emulations on the market, and it is definitely worth checking out. ■

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SONNOX CLARO EQ AND OXFORD ENVOLUTION

Equipment For Sale

Claro is Sonnox’s latest EQ and features 20 Hz – 40 kHz frequency range, and 26 bands with three VINTAGE & VALVE distinct views: Produce, Tweak and MICROPHONES Mix. Each stepping up a notch in From Russia features, they allow you to keep it simple or go deep—but there’s another tel.: 007 916 160 1491 feature that we used to great effect on e-mail: alchkhaidze@mail.ru our trip. When you assign multiple instances of Claro, they can be viewed in relation to each other. The display Panels for Install will highlight frequencies that clash as_aalchka_class.indd 1 7/14/21 12:03 AM in yellow, and by using the Invert EQ button, boosting the frequency of one selected channel will inversely cut the other. We used this on bass and drum tracks to quickly help us get our kicks and bass tight. We also used a ton of the UAD Sonnox Oxford Envolution, which is a frequencydependent envelope shaper. By increasing the Transient knob and pulling back the Sustain, you can musically “cut off” the business of percussion loops. This allowed us to add in our own delays and reverbs to the leftover sound and create unique pulsing grooves. Super cool!

AUDIO EASE ALTIVERB 7 What keeps this convolution reverb plug-in relevant after all these years (released in 2001) is not just that V7 features more efficient CPU usage and 64-bit support. It’s truly about the sound of real reverb in real spaces… and vintage gear. Because one of the shows needed big orchestral sounds and haunting choirs, we turned to one of my favorite IRs. Hallgrimskirkja is an Icelandic church in Reykjavik and the tallest building in the city. Its sound is amazing, and we “swam” tracks in it for pure vibe and character. We also used the bright Fender Super Reverb spring and dark Magnatone Custom 480 verb for guitars. Altiverb is still a classic in our book.

ONKART GROMT GROMPRESSOR This one’s a little different. Bassist Hank Skalka showed up with this pedal and we were smitten by its build and visual display. It’s a 32-bit floatingpoint digital compressor with true or buffered bypass perfect for bass production. With Level, Threshold, Attack and Release knobs, you can also control input gain, blend and active sidechain compression. It’s super useful (and cool) to look at the display and dial in your parameters, which is unusual for a pedal. Besides bass, we used it as a clean guitar DI. We liked that it can grab hard but still be very musical. ■

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Open Channel Vintage Gear Emulations

o to any forum where recording engineers discuss music and you’ll encounter opinions. A lot of opinions. Many don’t reference facts, because sound is subjective. They say that a compressor “glues” tracks together, or an EQ has a “warm” or “transparent” sound. Often, they apply these loving descriptions to vintage gear, or software emulations of said gear. By Craig As to whether software emulations can sound Anderton exactly like vintage gear, there have been plenty of A-B comparisons where “golden ear” types can’t tell the difference between the original gear and the emulation. So, we know it’s at least possible to emulate vintage gear in software with extreme precision, even if that goal isn’t always achieved. But why is there a fascination with vintage gear, anyway? Does it really sound “warm,” “transparent,” “silky” and the like? Or is there something else to consider?

of a dB, even an expert would have a hard time telling the difference. In any case, the musical result in a mix was indistinguishable. Give me a curve from a vintage EQ, and it is possible to do a convincing reproduction. Still, the key phrase is “with enough effort.” I realized that there was more to vintage EQ than the sound. It was also about limiting your choices.

INSPIRED BY LIMITS Hardware constrains design options. Only so many knobs can fit on a front panel. A rotary switch can select only so many positions that choose a frequency. Passive devices couldn’t produce sharp peaks like today’s active devices, so by definition, their changes tended to be subtle. When designing an equalizer, engineers had to think carefully about what frequencies would have the maximum musical impact. They had to decide whether the panel space they could dedicate to one low-band knob was better served with a lowpass filter, a bell response, or a shelf…and if a shelf, whether it should have resonance. If a lowpass, what kind of slope? Or maybe it was worth removing something else to make room for a switch that could choose between a bell ROLL YOUR OWN I’m old enough to have used Pultec EQs when they were new hardware. I and shelf response. So when today’s recording always liked what they did to tracks and program material; it sometimes “So when today’s recording engineers talk engineers talk about how vintage EQs somehow make it magically seemed downright difficult to dial about how vintage EQs somehow make easier to get the sound they want in “wrong” settings. Naturally, I it magically easier to get the sound they quickly, it’s because their controls was quite pleased when software were designed to do exactly that. emulations appeared that could join want quickly, it’s because their controls Also, studio time was expensive. my digital world and sound like what were designed to do exactly that.” You couldn’t spend hours I’d used back in the “big studio” days. Then I ran across a post from someone who bemoaned that his DAW had agonizing over EQ settings—you had to dial in the right frequencies as an emulation of the Pultec EQP-1, but not the companion MEQ-5—he had rapidly as possible. Meanwhile, this caused another side effect: promoting spontaneity. As “only” a six-stage parametric. However, because his DAW allowed creating effects chains with custom front panels and the user’s choice of controls and mentioned before, until very recently, music was a real-time, evanescent curves, I thought it would be a fun project to try and emulate a Pultec MEQ-5 experience. Perhaps one reason why people gravitate to “classic” rock with parametric EQ. That meant having the same controls, with the same music is because it was recorded quickly and in-the-moment, so the results incorporated the spontaneous feel that’s part of live music. The vintage characteristics and ranges. I even added a hint of harmonic distortion. I didn’t have a hardware unit for comparison, but when compared to gear of that time didn’t get in the way of spontaneity. So… I don’t think models of vintage gear are snake oil (although I am various software emulations, I couldn’t tell the difference, and I doubt most other people could, either. Most important, when applied to audio, it skeptical about claims of using reverse-engineered alien technology to obtain produced the same overall change in timbre. Although I’d done this project “the quintessential, precedent-shattering apex of consummate warmth and mainly to provide fodder for a weekly blog, over time I often ended up transparancy”). The inconvenient truth is that the people who designed older gear didn’t just give you a device that could do anything, and then say “hey, using the “faux” MEQ-5. Concurrently, I started checking out other vintage EQ models in depth, you figure it out.” They purposely avoided being a jack-of-all-trades in favor to determine whether I could benefit from the various vintage “characters.” of being a master of one thing—making the process of recording, producing and mixing music faster and more liberating. I appreciated that they had various differences and sonic qualities, but… The other inconvenient truth is that today’s spectacularly capable gear, Then it hit me. With enough effort, I could obtain the sound of any vintage EQ with a with hundreds if not thousands of options, may be impeding the process good parametric. Although maybe it wasn’t accurate down to the last tenth of making great music—not helping it. ■

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