MIX 561 - September 2023

BY CRAIG ANDERTON

26 The New Hitchcock Theatre at NBCUniversal

BY STEVE HARVEY

30 Luke Combs: Gettin’ Global

BY CLIVE YOUNG

34 Classic Tracks: ‘Cherry Bomb,’ John Cougar Mellencamp

BY ROBYN FLANS

Review: Neumann MT

48 Audio Interface BY MIKE LEVINE

Review: Leapwing StageOne2 Plug-in BY BARRY RUDOLPH

Review: Audient EVO SP8 Mic Pre BY STEVE LA CERRA

Review: Trident Series 80B

500 Preamp

On the Cover: The new Alfred Hitchcock Theatre, home to re-recording mixers Jon Taylor and Frank A. Montano, has opened with a new footprint and technology backbone, just a couple hundred feet from the legendary original facility on the NBCUniversal studio lot.

Photo: Peter Zakhary.

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VP/Content Creation Anthony Savona

Content Directors Tom Kenny, thomas.kenny@futurenet.com

Clive Young, clive.young@futurenet.com

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Technology Editor, Studio Mike Levine, techeditormike@gmail.com

Technology Editor, Live Steve La Cerra, stevelacerra@verizon.net

Contributors: Craig Anderton, Barbara Schultz, Barry Rudolph, Robyn Flans, Rob Tavaglione, Jennifer Walden, Tamara Starr

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Group Art Director Nicole Cobban

Design Directors Will Shum and Lisa McIntosh

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From the Editor

The Stuff of Stories

This issue is coming out right when I drive my daughter to college for the first time. For the last few months, we’ve been preparing for that momentous occasion by gathering an ever-growing pile of stuff for her fledgling flight out of the nest—and that mountain is starting to take over our basement. To wax lyrical about it, the accumulation is a physical manifestation of mom and dad wanting to create as frictionless a transition for our child as possible, so that she can go on to achieve great things. It’s also mom and dad trying to clear some stuff out of the house.

Usually we’re good about finding new homes for old things; we hold garage sales, donate old clothes and so on, but inevitably some items stick around too long—generally they’re mine, and specifically, they’re always old technology.

With that in mind, I recently hauled a ton of old tech to an “e-cycling” event at the town dump. It was bittersweet to see it all go—there was the dead iMac DV-SE I drove into New York City to buy at the late, great Tekserve. There was the Yamaha DD-6 drum machine my dad found sticking out of a snow bank one day; it worked when he dried it off, so he gave it to me. There was the TV we had to buy when we were dead broke; the previous one died a week after the kid was born so we didn’t have the money to spend, but we also knew we weren’t going out in the evenings anymore. Now that kid is off to college.

All that stuff was worth basically nothing, but I still found it hard to get rid of. Technology is encased in metal and hard plastics, built to last because it’s sold by promising you the future, and that it will help take you there—so it’s always a slow-dawning shock to realize that the future has come and gone.

Driving back from the dump, however, I realized that I wasn’t reminiscing about the technology itself so much as stories about it. Technology is about information, but stories are about feelings, and the real heart of any story, told in a tour bus lounge or while setting up a studio session or anyplace else, is the underlying message of This is how I felt. The technology I dumped didn’t last, but the stories of how I felt when I got it—incredulous that a drum machine was in a snow drift or despondent that I had to buy a TV—did. How we feel and how we make others feel? That’s the stuff of stories.

Let me tell you a story about Tony Bennett, who died in July at the age of 96. Back in 2006, I went to Madison Square Garden one boiling hot afternoon to interview the audio team on a Tim McGraw/Faith Hill tour. I checked in with security at the employee entrance on 8th Avenue and then

waited for the tour to send down a pass for me. While I waited, in walked Tony Bennett, dressed in a sharp suit despite the heat; he checked in and then waited for someone to escort him up—it turned out he was there to sit in on a song that night during the show. Since we were in New York City, everyone in the foyer did the Professional New Yorker thing and totally ignored the VIP in our midst. However, with nobody watching him and no need to be his cheery public persona...Bennett simply was that friendly guy. A janitor, grungy head-to-toe, walked up to him and said, “Hey man, I saw you in the Sixties at....” Most acts in that situation would give a frosty “Thanks” at best—their turn to be the Professional New Yorker—but instead, Bennett asked him a question and they spent the next 10 minutes talking about the Yankees, the heat, you name it, like they were old pals. No looking down his nose at this janitor, no false charm, and no need to give him the time of day if he didn’t want to; Bennett just talked with him, because why not? Eventually someone whisked Bennett away, but he shook the janitor’s hand before he split.

While I kept waiting for my pass to show up, the janitor quietly swept up the foyer just beaming, grinning ear-to-ear. I remember it all these years later because I saw how Bennett made the guy feel—and how watching that made me feel.

The future, it comes and goes. People we meet, famous like Tony Bennett or not, they come and go. The stuff I’ll be schlepping into my daughter’s dorm while you read this, that’ll come and go, too. I can’t give my kid the world, just a few things to get her started, but that’s not what matters anyway. As she begins her own journey full of ecstatic highs and heartbreaking lows, the most important thing I can give her is the advice to remember how it all feels and be aware of how she makes other people feel, because that’s the only part that endures—that’s the stuff of stories. n

Clive Young Co-Editor

L-Acoustics’ L Series Line Array

By Germain Simon and Scott Sugden, L-Acoustics Directors of Product Management

When the L Series loudspeaker system was unveiled at our Hollywood Bowl Keynote in April, much attention was directed to its efficiency and environmental friendliness. For example, we pointed out that one L2 or L2D element provides the same contour as four K2 elements in a format that is 46% smaller and 40% lighter. We also compared its material savings to an equivalent line source array—56% less paint, 30% less wood, and 60% less steel—plus L Series clocks in at 30% less volume and 25% less weight for unparalleled logistics. As impressive as those stats are, however, the genesis of L Series, which goes back more than five years, was principally focused on designing the next leap forward in audio quality. The fact that we ended up creating the industry’s greenest, lightest, most efficient and fastest-to-deploy system was all secondary in our quest to deliver the best sound.

With V-DOSC in the ’90s, L-Acoustics introduced the modern line array concept; three decades later, this technology is still the standard for live events worldwide. Today, employing the patented new Progressive Ultra-Dense Line Source (PULS) technology, L Series is a breakthrough concept in concert sound made possible through 30 years of intensive R&D in software modeling, loudspeaker technology and electronics. We analyzed hundreds of projects using line source arrays across all genres and venues and realized that most audience geometries and array shapes followed a similar trend. This led to the understanding that a fixed element with predefined progressive angles— rather than a variable or constant curvature design—would provide incredible gains in quality, efficiency and sustainability.

L Series can start with just one L2D enclosure, and to accommodate larger and more complex room geometries, L2 and L2D elements can

be arrayed together with one, two, or three L2 above the L2D to create up to 90 degrees of progressive vertical coverage. The new system improves the sound quality for audiences by minimizing or eliminating the modulations and variations typical of line sources. However, the real “win” is the reduction of the energy in the off-axis area. That challenge arose with the rise of L-ISA immersive technology, where arrays are typically smaller and positioned directly above the objects making the sound. The lack of consistency and stability in the line source, below and above, directly contributed to gain before feedback when an array is placed above the performing orchestra, band or singer. When the arrays are 50% taller and far to the sides, gain before feedback doesn’t usually pose a challenge. With the development of the L Series, the stability in audience coverage and the stability of rejection that creates the best sound were driven by the needs of emerging immersive technologies.

PULS technology provides full-bandwidth control in both the vertical and horizontal planes. For that, L Series leverages two patented techniques: The first is Panflex, which provides sound designers with quick access to a choice of four mechanically-adjustable horizontal directivity patterns—70° or 110° symmetrical, or 90° asymmetrical on either side. Each L2 element includes four Panflex modules, while L2D contains two Panflex modules on the top elements and two fixed L-Fins progressing from 110° to 140° on the bottom elements. L Series also employs the patented Integrated Cardioid technique to control the low-frequency domain

in the horizontal plane without compromise, and offers users a choice of cardioid or supercardioid patterns. Installed behind a cardioid waveguide are four 12-inch drivers in both L2 and L2D. The drivers modify the output of those drivers to exit not from the side but from the front and rear of the enclosures. This unique design results in a perfect summation in the front but gives users more than 20 dB of rejection behind the array, from 200 Hz and below.

Equally important to the sonic success of L Series is the new LA7.16 high-resolution amplified controller, which supports L2 and L2D with 16 channels of high-power amplification and processing—meaning each driver in the enclosure is independently amplified and processed. LA7.16 comes in a new LA-RAK III touring rack offering 48 channels of amplification in a Milan AVB-ready package with more than 60,000 watts of power in just nine rack spaces. Leveraging the high-resolution amplification of LA7.16 and the advanced L-Acoustics Autosolver tools, the L Series output can be perfectly modulated to achieve results that are impossible with traditional line array technology. All it takes is just one listen to realize that, with L Series, L-Acoustics has truly pushed line array technology into the future once again. n

L-Acoustics’ L Series Line Array

Buy Freddy Mercury’s Home Studio

By Clive Young

London, UK—During his lifetime, Freddy Mercury never did anything quietly. Fanfare and grandiosity were the order of the day, and now, even 30 years after his passing, the Queen frontman continues to make headlines as Sotheby’s has announced it will sell off hundreds of Mercury’s personal belongings across a half-dozen different auctions in September. As a collector of art, fashion, exotic furniture, his own band’s memorabilia and much more, Mercury had few peers, and accordingly the auctions, collectively entitled Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own, will feature everything from rare prints to rough draft lyrics, but there will also be some offerings of particular interest for the audio-minded.

Most intriguingly for sound pros is an auction lot consisting what would appear to be Mercury’s mid-1980s eight-track home studio, consisting of a RAM Micro RM 10-channel mixing desk together with a Fostex Model 80 tape recorder and a pair of Electro-Voice Sentry 100A Studio Monitors.

Back in the early to mid-80s, the RAM Micro Range had two versions—a 10-channel and a 16-channel, providing four routable sub-groups, two master outputs, eight-track monitoring, three-band EQ, a pair of aux busses and two headphone outputs.

out considerably more for them at auction. As if to underline that the items are being sold with their historical value in mind, the listing notes, “This is being sold as a decorative object and [is] not in working order.”

Also hitting the block are a variety of test pressings and acetates (including a 7” one for Bohemian Rhapsody), as well as two stereo systems. n

Meanwhile, the Fostex Model 80 was a ¼” eight-track reel-to-reel recorder; designed for 7-inch reels, it ran solely at 15 i.p.s., had a frequency response of 40 Hz to 18 kHz, signal-to-noise ratio of 72 dB, and weighed a hefty 29 lbs.

Mercury’s voice certainly had the power to get loud, and he had studio monitors to match—a pair of EV’s long-running Sentry 100A monitors. The nearfield monitor, intended for post-production, recording and live sound, sported a Super-Dome tweeter that could take 25 watts of input power, and an 8-inch direct radiator woofer.

Bought today on their own, the used items would probably run you about $1,250—most of that coming from the cost of the Fostex—but of course, they’re being sold for their provenance, so one can expect to shell

In September, Sotheby’s will auction off hundreds of items once owned by the late Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury, including the contents of his home studio.

Central to Mercury’s home recording setup was a mid-1980s RAM Micro RM mixing desk.

PHOTO: Sotheby’s

PHOTO: Sotheby’s

The Immersive Education of Alex Solano

Self-Taught Atmos Mix Engineer Now Wants to Teach Others

By Tom Kenny

“ I just got back from a couple of days at Yosemite with the family,” says Alex Solano, soon after picking up the phone in midJuly. “I’ve lived in California my entire life and had never been. It’s just gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. One day we rented bikes, and we went to an area where there was a small pond-slashlake, and the water there was like 40 degrees—it comes right down from the mountains. So, you know, I’m out there on a small rock and I knew I had to go in at least one time. So I jumped. I had to do it.”

A few days off, enjoying nature with his wife and three children, must have felt like a few weeks to Solano, who for the past two years has been a very busy boy.

In 2023 alone, Solano has rebuilt his studio, signed an exclusive mixing deal with an African label, launched a tier-based online curriculum/ consultancy called Mix With Confidence, produced a series of educational videos in Spanish for a major audio manufacturer, created an expansive YouTube tutorial channel, and traveled to South America and Dubai to conduct

high-end audio seminars, among a hundred other projects, not to mention his daily life as a music producer and engineer.

To an outsider, all of this might seem a bit scattered, the piecing together of a postpandemic pro-audio life. Nothing could be further from the truth. For Solano, a near-20year industry veteran and lifelong independent engineer, the past two years have brought focus and cohesion to his dual interests in audio engineering and education, to the point that he launched a company, AlexProMix, to give it a

name. And it’s all because of the emergence of immersive music, particularly Dolby Atmos.

THE IMMERSIVE STUDIO

“The lightbulb moment for me was in late 2021, when Apple announced that they were going to support Dolby Atmos as a format for publishing and streaming music,” Solano says, “but it really goes back way before that. While I was in grad school studying music technology in the early 2000s, I attended a two-week summer program in Cal State Fresno with Bruce Swedien. I learned so much, but mostly he taught me early on that it wasn’t about the technology; it was about the musicality of the mix.

“So when Dolby introduced Atmos Music, and then Apple announced Spatial, I thought back to Bruce, in that he was a pioneer of music technology in the late-’50s, during the switch from mono to stereo,” he adds. “I realized, ‘Hey, this is that change right now. And I can be a part of it.’”

First things first: He needed a new 7.1.4 studio, one that was acoustically true and properly tuned, one that pushed air. If he was going all-in, he decided, he did not want to begin on headphones. He scoured YouTube, audio forums and every online tutorial he could find, whether from an individual engineer or from Dolby. He called friends and former colleagues, including a few from his years at Avid and Eventide. Then he started selling the gear from his rather wellappointed, longtime stereo studio and began converting the backyard casita of his home, about 90 miles east of Los Angeles, into a Dolby Atmos mix room.

“I decided to go with an Avid MTRX for the interface because it does the room EQ and time alignment, and I decided to go Dante,” he explains. “I have three networks in my room. I have a Dante network for all the audio, I have

the Avid S1 and Pro Tools network, and then a third network for my Eventide H 9000 and the LEA Connect amps.”

Solano chose a B&W monitor system that includes 801 Series 1 Tower speakers for left, center and right, with B&W 865 S2 speakers on the sides, rears and in the overheads. A pair of Genelec 7070A subwoofers handle bass management and the LFE send. The room was tuned by an engineer friend from Dolby.

“We had just moved into this house in 2020, and for the switch to Atmos, I found out right away that I needed some new speakers, something big enough to fill the room,” he says. “I got on Facebook Marketplace and I found an older audiophile guy who had these two pristine B&W Series 1s. I went down there to check them out. I plugged them in to his McIntosh amp, and I was just blown away. It was like I didn’t hear the speakers—and that’s something that Bruce used to say: Listen to the music, not the speakers. When I heard these, I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t even know where the speakers are.’”

Today, Solano has more than 100 Atmos mixes to his credit, he’s a certified mixer with Universal Music Group and Warner Group, has immersive credits with record labels such as Atlantic Records, Photo Finish and CINQ Music, and in March, he signed a deal with Africa-based music distributor and publisher M.A.D Solutions as the company’s exclusive Dolby Atmos mixer.

THE IMMERSIVE EDUCATION

While putting together his studio and becoming consumed in his DIY research into all things immersive, Solano realized that although there was plenty of information available, much of it seemed random, overly theoretical and often conflicting, sometimes downright false. Nothing online seemed to bring together the pragmatic and practical aspects of mixing immersive music, things working engineers needed to know. He had the right background, he

figured, and at heart considered himself an educator. Maybe he could fill the need.

“I started off my music technology career in 2005 working for Avid and Digidesign, so that kind of put me in the right place at the right time,” Solano explains. “I met so many engineers and got to go to all these different studios. I was always around the world of production and engineering. Eventually I became a ProTools product specialist, which meant I would get on stage and give product demos.

“Then, because I was at Avid, we would get offers from different companies,” he continues. “I would go on YouTube, and I would type in ‘how to use this compressor.’ The videos at the time were horrible. I started to create videos that showed how to use these tools in the context of creating a song. That has always been my baseline philosophy of education: I’m going to show you how to use this tool in the context of doing this. It’s very practical and hands-on.”

It’s not easy to break down complex technologies and explain processes—or even talk about music and feel—in a way that most people can easily understand. Solano is a natural at it, full of personality and direct in his approach. Over the past decade, he has made dozens and dozens of videos, often for other manufacturers and often just because he wanted to, for his own YouTube channel, with many of them also now available at Mix With Confidence.

“I grew up in a generation where young people make music on computers, on headphones, they publish it on SoundCloud, they watch every YouTube video and they try to mimic what every engineer does, and then it doesn’t work out,” he adds. “They have all this software on the computer, but they don’t know how to use it to make a song. It’s not a matter of accessing technology or media. Anyone can do that. The missing element is, ‘How do I use these tools to make my music sound great?” n

The Dolby Atmos mix studio at AlexProMix, with KRK monitor system.

A one-on-one tutorial session within Solano’s Mix With Confidence online curriculum.

Music // profile

Manny

Marroquin Builds a Dolby Atmos Mix Room

Since opening a Dolby Atmos mix room at Larrabee Studios, the legendary Los Angeles recording facility, owner and A-list engineer Manny Marroquin estimates that he has created more than 200 immersive mixes for artists including Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone, Fitz and the Tantrums, Portugal. The Man and Lizzo, most notably her “About Damn Time,” which took home the 2023 Grammy for Record of the Year.

Studio 3 at Larrabee has now been reconfigured with the installation of a Meyer Sound monitoring system, anchored in the front LCR channels by the company’s Bluehorn System, featuring fullbandwidth monitoring throughout.

“The idea of immersive music had always been intriguing to me, but it never was executed correctly to my mind,” Marroquin says. “When Dolby started reaching out to creators like me, and then shortly after that Apple put it on their platform, it was clear this would be a real progression in audio technology and we went all-in on Atmos.”

Around the same time, Marroquin was building VERSE, a restaurant and bar adjacent to the studio that morphs nightly into a live music recording venue; it includes a Meyer Constellation acoustic system.

“I flew up to Berkeley a couple of times regarding Constellation, and on one trip, John Meyer took me to the Bear’s Lab studio and introduced me to Bluehorn,” Marroquin recalls. “He played a Michael Jackson track, and I heard things in that song I had never heard before. I thought it would be amazing if somehow I could get Bluehorn into one of my rooms at Larrabee. Now it’s here and it just sounds incredible.”

An integrated system comprising three drivers in two cabinets, along with proprietary digital processing, Bluehorn is capable of high acoustic output coupled with flat amplitude and phase response across the entire audible spectrum. The complete Meyer Sound installation in Studio 3 includes three X-400C cinema subwoofers, six Ultra-X20XP and four Ultra-X23XP loudspeakers for lateral and overhead surrounds, and four USW-112XP compact subwoofers for surround bass management.

“You can drive a new Honda and it will reliably get you from point A to point B just fine,” Marroquin offers as an analogy, “but if you move up to a Mercedes S Class, you get there in luxury and you almost feel safer. With Meyer Sound, I have the Mercedes—maybe the Ferrari—of monitors. Whenever I play something, I can adapt to it immediately because the monitors give me exactly what I want to hear. I had that

confidence from the moment I first heard them.

“Today, you have so much information in the deep bass, and with other speakers, too often I have to work down there. I have to carve sounds, do this and that, but with Bluehorn, I know what to do right off. I know exactly what I have to touch.”

The recipient of 17 Grammy Awards, Marroquin is one of the music industry’s premier mixing engineers, with credits on dozens of hit recordings by artists ranging from Kanye West and Alicia Keys to John Mayer, Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran. When the Dolby Atmos Music format was introduced, Marroquin saw it as an opportunity for music creators to move forward into, literally, a new dimension.

At this point in time, Marroquin restricts his Atmos mixing to projects for which he already has done the stereo mix. “I’ve already spent hours working with the tracks, and talking to the producer and artist, so I already have insight into the recording,” he explains. “For me, with Atmos, it’s almost like less is more. I just want to take the stereo mix and fully immerse you in it. It’s an enhancement rather than a new mix. The last thing I want to do is pull apart that subtle glue that holds a great song together.” n

PHOTO: Michael Pieters

In New Orleans, One Network to Link Them All

Connectivity is the watchword at the Department of Music Industry Studies at Loyola University, New Orleans, where a five-studio production facility sits on a Dante network infrastructure enabled and accessed by Focusrite RedNet and Red interfaces.

No matter what platforms students and instructors are working on at the facility, from the Solid State Logic AWS 900+ analog console in Studio A, to the SSL controllers in Studio B, the two Slate Raven MTi 2 digital touchscreen boards in Studio C, or the in-the-box production and mixing environments of Studios D and E, RedNet links them all.

That RedNet network has been built up over the course of the last five years, says Lovell “U-P” Cooper, professor of the practice of Hip-Hop & R&B, and the facility’s recording studios manager. That process started with recommendations

from Sweetwater sales consultants.

“We outfitted the first studio, Studio A, with a pair of RedNet A16R 16-channel analog I/O interfaces with a RedNet HD32R 32-channel HD Dante network bridge, and it worked so well in letting us access any signal from the studio that we quickly put the same combination of RedNet/ Dante technology into Studio B,” Cooper explains.

Red 4Pre 58-in/64-out Thunderbolt 2 and Pro Tools | HD-compatible audio interfaces, with Thunderbolt 2, Pro Tools | HD and Dante connectivity are the main network interfaces for Studios C, D and E.

Four RedNet MP8R eight-channel mic pre and A/D converters facilitate the program’s “remote” recording capability: racks that are placed in the program’s two tracking spaces and performance space. A roaming unit can plug into the school’s network anywhere on campus to create ad hoc recording environments as needed.

“We’ve had instances where we needed to use the tracking room in Studio A, but the control rooms for Studios A and B were both occupied with other projects,” Cooper explains. “Luckily, we could use any of the other control rooms, routing the tracks from the recording room via Dante and RedNet.” n

Tone11 Post House Debuts in San Francisco

Eben Carr, formerly of San Francisco’s One Union Recording Studios, has launched Tone11, a new production and mixing facility featuring a Genelec-equipped Dolby Atmos room.

“I’ve always used Genelec monitoring and technology everywhere I’ve worked, so it made sense to stay with Genelec for Tone11,” Carr says. After 15 years as a staff engineer at One Union then two and a half years engineering at advertising audio house Handsome Sound, he is rolling his experience and business expertise into the new facility. Tone11 is in the city’s Ice House Alley neighborhood, in a building that is reportedly part of one of the largest and oldest masonry constructions in the Bay Area.

“The [Genelec monitors] fit well with the rationale for opening a new studio in San Francisco at a moment like this,” he continues. “It’s about the value of having a real studio to bring new life to the collaborative spirit that made San Francisco such a creative place in the first place. I’m banking on people sharing that

value. Genelec speakers make it easy to give everyone a great, accurate listening experience and to make people feel good about the way audio sounds, which is so important.”

Tone11’s monitoring is configured to comply with the Dolby Atmos format: three Genelec 8351B Smart Active Monitors make up the front wall’s LCR array; four 8340A Smart Active Monitors are used as left-right and left-right rear channels, with four 8340As for the overheads. The immersive system, which also includes a pair of 7370A Smart Active subwoofers, was installed and tuned utilizing Genelec’s GLM 4 and AutoCal 2 software.

Carr, who had worked on projects with local tech brands such as LinkedIn, Airbnb and Logitech, as well as agencies like Duncan Channon, says, “Our target market is a combination of large and small agencies representing tech firms and others, but all of which need great sound for every type of platform, from television to iPhones.”

As the latest development in a career that has included stints at Russian Hill Recording Studios (assisting on film and music projects with Robin Williams, Sofia Coppola and Geoff Muldaur) and Crescendo Studios (one of San Francisco’s original boutique post studios catering to the advertising community), Carr says, “It was a good time to go out on my own. The opportunities are there.” n

Lovell “U-P” Cooper, professor of the practice of hip hop & R&B at Lloyola University, New Orleans.

ACL Upgrades Control Room for 49th Season

Taping of the 49th season of Austin City Limits is underway with a newly installed SSL System T in the audio control room of the 2,750-capacity Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater.

The new System T is the first mixing platform to be installed in 22 years at the ACL Live venue, the show’s permanent home. The system comprises a 48-fader S500m console and dual TE1 Tempest Engines, with a variety of Network I/O interfaces providing microphone preamps, multi-format connectivity and A-D/D-A conversion.

Key Code Media, guided by the company’s senior solutions architect, Andrew Twenter, integrated the new System T into the control room infrastructure, also implementing the production’s first-ever Dante AoIP network and upgrading the DAWs.

“This is a major step for the show; it's going to put us in the 21st century, as well as up our audio game quite a bit,” says Randall Reynolds, audio supervisor for ACL, which is produced for PBS by KLRU-TV and is the longest-running music show in the history of U.S. television. During the decision-making process, he says, “One of the selling points for us during the demo was the mic pre’s.”

The show’s workflow involves two operators at the console during recording, one mixing the live stream plus a feed to the show’s director, and one controlling the redundant 128-track Avid Pro Tools systems and monitoring the gains to the DAWs. A typical show uses around 100 channels, including talkback, but a large band, especially one featuring multi-instrumentalists, can require many more.

The ACL Live venue hosts around 100 shows a year, 20 of which are captured for broadcast on PBS. Those performances are edited down to 13 one-hour episodes, with some ACL shows spotlighting a single artist and others featuring two. Austin City Limits has announced that Lil Yachty, Rodrigo y Gabriela featuring the Austin Symphony Orchestra, DOMi & JD BECK, Jenny Lewis, Margo Price, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Tanya Tucker and Jorge Drexler are scheduled to record shows for season 49.

Artists such as Lyle Lovett and Steve Miller have also independently commissioned the ACL audio team to record their concerts at the theater. “I think that more of these one-offs will happen once people see that we're running an SSL console in here,” Reynolds says. n

PRESENTED BY

Carl Palmer Brings Back ELP on the Road

By Clive Young

Throughout the 1970s, Emerson, Lake and Palmer wasn’t merely one of the biggest bands in Prog Rock—it was one of the biggest bands in the world, period. Formed in 1970 as one of the first Supergroups, ELP went on to sell more than 50 million records, sell out stadiums and build a reputation for staggering, virtuoso musicianship before disbanding in 1979. While the trio reunited numerous times over the years, those opportunities came to an end in 2016 when both Keith Emerson (keyboards) and Greg Lake (vocals, bass, guitar) died only months apart. Now drummer Carl Palmer is carrying on the band’s legacy with a new tour—Welcome

Back My Friends: The Return of Emerson Lake & Palmer—that uses a savvy mix of multimedia and live performance to present the group’s bestknown works in a concert setting once again.

Conceived by Palmer and staged with the full support of his bandmates’ estates, each show finds the drummer performing with guitarist Paul Bielatowicz and bassist Simon Fitzpatrick— and both Emerson and Lake via concert footage presented on video walls above the live band. More than half the evening features the live musicians locking in with performances culled from an ELP concert filmed at London’s Royal Albert Hall in October, 1992. Captured at the time

with a full seven-camera shoot and a 24-channel multitrack recording, that performance from more than 30 years ago is now the bedrock which the current tour’s production is built upon.

Helping put Palmer’s old bandmates back on stage with him nightly is veteran engineer Steve Supparits of Resurrection Studios (Grand Island, New York). Supparits brings his own virtuosity to the proceedings as he simultaneously mixes front-of-house, handles monitors for the three live musicians, and runs switchers for two of the production’s three video walls. All that is accomplished in a compact FOH position that centers around a Behringer Wing 48-channel

Legendary drummer Carl Palmer (left) and FOH/monitor/ video engineer Steve Supparits pause during soundcheck at the Epic Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

digital mixer, a laptop running Steinberg Nuendo, and a pair of Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Extreme ISO video switchers.

“Carl dreams up the ideas, and then it’s my job to figure out how to make them work technically,” laughed Supparits. The first step was to take the 1992 concert material apart and bring it up to modern expectations. “We had the original footage, but it was transferred from VHS,” he explained. “We did a digital transfer, took the timecode off the footage and then cleaned it up—and now it looks wonderful; a lot of it looks like HD.”

The 1992 concert had all three members of ELP play across the stage with Palmer on stage left, so there were many instances where the footage featured only Lake at center stage and Emerson at stage right, whether in closeups or two-shots. Today, the Emerson and Lake material appears on the left and right video walls, while a center wall above Palmer’s drumkit displays the live band, captured through two stationary cameras, two additional cameras run by an operator and a robotic camera controlled by the tour’s video director, who simultaneously runs that wall’s switcher throughout the show.

Supparits opted to run the left and right video walls to keep everything in order, techwise. “I chose Steinberg Nuendo as the playback software because it processes video as well as audio,” he explained. “I’m using the VidPlayVST plug-in—a VST video player that can do 1080P

off video and run just like an instrument plugin on a digital workstation, so it doesn’t bog down the processor or lock up the computer. I actually run two instances of that on a lot of songs, like ‘Lucky Man’—I have two videos running concurrently through Nuendo that are synched up with the 24-track audio, so the video is going through my two switchers to the left and right walls. Throughout, you see Keith Emerson on one wall and Greg Lake on the other wall—and then I just mix it live as if they’re on stage.”

It is a true live mix, too, as all the original performances were recorded dry without effects: “I have 12 channels of Keith’s keyboards, two channels of bass, two channels of Greg’s guitars, and there’s individual vocals, so I can bring up Greg’s vocal in a venue and then compress it and use the reverb that suits best for the house. I mix it all with the band and obviously Carl plays live.”

In all, Supparits oversees 54 inputs, with 24 from the video tracks and 30 inputs from the stage—16 of which are from Palmer’s extensive drumkit—plus 10 channels of stereo

effects as needed. Palmer’s kit is captured with Sennheiser e 604s used above and below the two snares, as well as on each of the gongs. Meanwhile Audix MicroDs are on all the toms, while the company’s condensers can be found on the overheads, hi-hats and ride cymbal, and each kick drum gets a single D6. “I’ve never been one of those guys that needs two mics on every kick,” said Supparits. “Nowadays with subs on a separate feed, I find it so much easier just to dial your bass drum into the top part of the P.A. for the click you want, add it to the subs in the venue for the punch, and away you go with one mic.”

The guitar is picked up with a Sennheiser e 609 hung off the cabinet, and the same goes for the bass, the results of which are mixed with the bass DI. “Both guys play a lot of synthesizer parts to emulate what Keith Emerson did, so there’s a bass synthesizer played through pedals, while the guitar player goes through a laptop, so he can create any synthesizer sound while he’s playing his guitar, and that’s a stereo direct. Along with those, the bass player has a 10-string Chapman Stick that is a wonderful sound, so we have quite a variety of sound to work with.”

All those sounds culminate in a concert experience that, across the three musicians on stage and eight crew members in tow, is presented with sincerity and commitment—and the fans sense that, night after night. “Carl’s very driven as far as wanting to put on a really good show and give the audience not only visuals, but the sounds that they’re expecting to hear,” said Supparits. “On the way out, half the people come over crying, just thanking us for doing this and saying how wonderful it was to see the guys again.” With a year’s worth of shows across the U.S., Japan and Europe already lined up, further opportunities to make that connection are in store. ■

The compact FOH position centers around a Behringer Wing console, video playback via Steinberg Nueno on a laptop, and a pair of Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Extreme ISO video switchers.

Throughout the show, left and right video walls play back vintage footage of Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, while the center wall features live footage from five cameras onstage.

Live // book reveiw // presented by A Deep Dive Into Everything SR

By Steve La Cerra

Released earlier this year by Routledge, Sound Reinforcement for Audio Engineers is a deep dive into the workings of current state-of-the-art sound reinforcement systems and their applications in a wide variety of acoustic environments, ranging from stadia to music clubs. Intended for experienced engineers, systems designers and acousticians, the book is divided into 11 chapters on topics ranging from acoustics to sound system design to speech intelligibility. While most of the content was written by the book’s editors, Wolfgang Ahnert and Dirk Noy, they are joined by Gottfried K. Behler, Peter Mapp, Stefan Feistel, Stefan Ledergerber and Gabriel Hauser, who each authored or co-authored some of the chapters.

Noy and Ahnert have considerable backgrounds with the subject matter. Noy is the director of applied science and engineering at Walters-Storyk Design Group, having joined WSDG in 1997, where he has been the head of its European office in Basel, Switzerland since its inception that same year. Using his extensive knowledge and experience in acoustical analysis, measurement, simulation and calculation techniques, audio engineering and media systems design, Noy has worked on numerous international acoustic design and media systems consultation projects.

Meanwhile, Ahnert’s work in the field goes back to 1975 when he worked at the governmental Institute for Cultural Buildings in East Germany—the agency that was in charge of the overall planning of important theaters, concert halls and other cultural buildings. He is also the co-developer of EASE (Enhanced Acoustic Simulator for Engineers) electro-acoustic and room acoustics software, which is the worldwide standard in advanced acoustic simulation, currently available in v 4.4.5.

Bottom line: These guys have serious street cred.

The team warms us up in the first chapter, “Introduction to Considered Sound Systems,” providing a zoomed-out view of the various categories of sound systems and the venues into which they might be installed, educating the reader regarding the requirements not only of the “obvious” types of systems used for speech and music, but also acknowledging the importance of systems that fly under the radar, such as the paging and voice alarm systems required in venues such as transportation hubs and shopping malls. The discussion includes consideration of acceptable reverb times and their influence on speech intelligibility in various venues, as well as the varied goals for installed systems in buildings ranging from sports arenas to religious venues to multichannel theaters.

As the book progresses, we are given in-depth information on focused

topics. The second chapter, “Room Acoustics and Sound System Design,” schools us on how a sound system interacts with room acoustics. It’s an important read, not only for an engineer who hopes to design a sound system, but for anyone who has ever used an audio system—which is just about all of us. Here we find information regarding basics in rooms acoustics, feedback, sound propagation and integration of a sound system within an architectural design. This chapter also presents and thoroughly explains the concept of reverberation enhancement systems, which is cited in a case study of the KKL Luzern Concert Hall in Chapter 11, “System Solutions/ Case Studies.”

One of the chapters I found most illuminating was Chapter 9, “Audio Networking.” Written by digital audio and media networking expert Stefan Ledergerber, we get a comprehensive look at the rise of audio networking from its infancy in the 1990s. Topics covered include pros and cons of Audio over IP, maintaining phase accuracy, address and subnet masks, synchronization, latency and a look at the major networking protocols, including Dante, AES67, Milan and SMPTE ST2110. A highlight of this chapter is the “Common Mistakes in Audio Networks” section, which should be required reading for anyone tasked with creating an audio network, whether it be commercial-grade or for a small home studio.

Other material covered in Sound Reinforcement for Audio Engineers includes an entire chapter devoted to speech intelligibility (how many venues have I visited where I wish the designer had read this?), “Acoustic Modelling—Basics” and “Commissioning, Calibration, Optimization,” which explains proper methods for performing system tests and acoustic measurements. Some of the chapters are math-heavy, and I wouldn’t want to be asked to recall some of the formulas off the top of my head, but having access to them all in one place with an explanation of applications is invaluable.

The publisher describes Sound Reinforcement for Audio Engineers as “an essential reference book for students of acoustics and electrical engineering.” I’d personally aim it toward post-grad students who have more than a rudimentary background in the various topics. The book is not for the faint of heart or those looking for a casual read; to get the most from it, be prepared to think while you’re reading (I found myself often taking notes). Readers who are looking for a no-holds-barred, in-depth reference on the subject need look no further. ■

Pickathon Power Stages With Hydrogen

By Clive Young

Happy Valley, OR—Based outside Portland, Ore., the annual Pickathon festival has aimed to become a Zero Emissions event ever since it was founded in 2010. This year’s edition, held August 3-6, saw the festival move closer to that goal as it became reportedly the first-ever music festival to use a hydrogen fuel cell generator to power stages.

The environmentally friendly generator is a proof-of-concept unit that was originally created during the pandemic by a small group of engineers at Toyota Racing Development (TRD USA) with the support of Toyota’s Fuel Cell Solutions Group. Treating the effort as an after-hours project, their aim was to start the decarbonization of Toyota’s off-grid activities, including motorsport, sporting events, vehicle launches and so on (TRD USA is a subsidiary of Toyota Motor North America). The results were encouraging enough that at the start of 2023, the project became a TRD division called Emerging Technologies, based in TRD’s headquarters in Costa Mesa, Calif., and the proof-of-concept generator has since been put to work at events throughout the U.S. Emerging Technologies reportedly has a road map to create more clean energy products.

The 50KW generator is based on hydrogen fuel cell technology developed for the Toyota Mirai road car, and made its music festival debut at Pickathon, powering multiple stages and equipment. The Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generator utilizes only hydrogen gas and oxygen from the surrounding air and outputs no harmful emissions, just clean air and pure water. The machine makes virtually no noise and emits no smoke, vibration, combustion or hot exhaust into the atmosphere.

“We’ve been excited about zero waste and zero emissions for years now,” said Zale Schoenborn, Pickathon’s founder. “Zero emissions is a much harder goal because of the extensive power needs of a major festival. With the hydrogen fuel cell generator, we now have the technology needed to make festivals zero-emissions events. We’re demonstrating this for the first time for a music festival ever and are incredibly proud of this partnership.”

Pickathon was hand-selected by TRD USA as the first music festival to premiere the hydrogen fuel cell generator because of the event’s reputation for developing internationally adopted green festival practices. Pickathon has nearly eliminated plastic and all single use dishware in favor of reusable and rewashable cups and dishes. ■

The TRD USA Hydrogen Fuel Cell Generator.

Roskilde Festival Rocks On

Roskilde, Denmark—Northern Europe’s annual Roskilde Festival has brought the rock—and EDM and pop and country and…you get the idea—for more than half a century, and July’s 51st edition was no exception. Four of the festival’s stages were powered by systems based around Meyer Sound’s Panther large-format linear line array loudspeakers.

“Roskilde is always aiming to improve the audience experience,” says Lars Liliengren, the festival’s head of production. “After day one of working with Panther, we have realized better coverage of the site, with more clarity, and a system that’s easier to work with.”

A complement of 141 Panther loudspeakers were deployed at the main Orange Stage, which hosted headliners such as Lizzo, Blur, Lil Nas X, and Kendrick Lamar. Panther arrays powered not only the mains but also outfills, center fills and the five delay towers. The balance of the 227 total Panther at the festival was installed in systems at the Arena (46 Panther), Avalon (20 Panther) and Apollo (20 Panther) stages.

The task of designing systems for coverage and minimal cross-stage leakage was handled by Bob McCarthy, Meyer Sound’s director of system optimization.

“In the three smaller venues, it was mainly a one-to-one substitution for Lyon loudspeakers, so we immediately benefited from lighter weight and reduced power consumption,” McCarthy observes. “At the Orange stage, we replaced both Lyon and the much larger Leo loudspeakers on

a near one-one-one ratio with Panther, gaining even more benefits. The improvements in coverage and clarity are just stunning.”

For Roskilde 2023, Meyer Sound systems were installed at three other featured stages. The Gaia stage had Leopard line array loudspeakers for mains with Lina line array loudspeakers for delays, while the Gloria stage deployed Lina systems for both mains and delays. The system at the Eos stage was anchored by Lyon line array loudspeakers. The total complement of 795 loudspeakers also included UPQ-D1, UPQ-D2, and Ultra-X40 fullrange loudspeakers; 1100-LFC, 900-LFC, and 750-LFC low-frequency control elements along with 500-HP subwoofers; and MJF-212A, MJF-210 and MJF-208 stage monitors. The audio systems supplier for Roskilde 2023 was Victory Event, Stage & Tour ApS of Risskov, Denmark. ■

Maroon 5 Goes Immersive Live in Vegas

Las Vegas, NV—Maroon 5 has taken up an ongoing residency in immersive audio at the Dolby Live venue at Park MGM in Las Vegas. Adapting to that format led to some changes for the band’s trio of engineers—but perhaps not as many as you might expect.

Both on the road and in Vegas, front of house is mixed on a DiGiCo Quantum5 desk by Vincent Casamatta. Marcus Douglas manages the band’s monitors on a DiGiCo SD5, while Dave Rupsch handles lead singer Adam Levine’s monitors using an SD10. All three consoles, which reside

on an Optocore network loop and share two SD-Racks, were supplied by Clair Global.

Casamatta says the shift between stereo on the road and immersive in Las Vegas has subtle but significant distinctions. “I need my stereo show on the DiGiCo to exist at all times behind the immersive mix and vice versa,” he says, “so I’m literally booting up the same show file whether I’m mixing an immersive show or have a stereo two-bus mix happening.”

He taps into a combination of subgroups and MADI to assure that each of the audio “objects” used in the Atmos mix retain the same processing used in the stereo mix on the road. “I have a lot of groups anyway in my stereo mix, and I was able to utilize those to create objects out of them,” he explains. “I already have a complete kick bus and a snare bus and a vocal bus, so I can just send those out as objects into the immersive environment.”

At stageside, Rupsch handles monitors for singer Adam Levine on a DiGiCo SD10 console, which feeds the singer’s JH Audio Roxanne IEMs on a Shure PSM 1000 wireless system, the same units the entire band uses. Noting that the singer spends a lot of time on the stage thrust in Vegas—a thrust that three different PA hangs cover—cleaning up non-vocal sounds getting into Levine’s KSM 11 is a project he handles with a Neve 5045 Primary Source Enhancer analog processor going through an I/O on the console, which he says substantially softens the artifacts. ■

Photo: Ralph Larmann.

The Orange Stage at Roskilde Festival was outfitted with a massive Meyer Sound Panther system.

Monitor engineer Dave Rupsch handles Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine’s monitors on a DiGiCo SD10 console.

Eden Prairie Upgrades Amphitheater

Eden Prairie, MN—Municipal venues have to be ultra-flexible when it comes to audio production, able to handle everything from concerts, classes and theater productions to special events and even weddings—and they have to do it on gear that makes the most of the taxpayer’s dollar. That was a consideration that Nic Hentges of Audio Logic Systems faced recently when his company earned the bid for revamping the audio system of the 400-seat Staring Lake Amphitheatre in Eden Prairie, Minn.

When the amphitheater’s previous audio system started to fail, the city began to shop for more up-to-date solutions. “They were looking for a more modern system that would give them higher-end features,” said Hentges. “It had to be flexible and powerful enough to handle theatrical performances, while being easy to

control during small events.”

Audio Logic Systems went with Allen & Heath’s AHM audio matrix processors to handle audio processing and distribution at the venue. For simpler events like yoga classes and weddings, an AHM-32 provides system processing and control over a small number of microphones and playback sources. “If it’s a yoga instructor or city employee with limited audio experience, they can just grab an iPad and have control of the mics and playback while moving around in the audience area,” explained Hentges.

An Allen & Heath SQ-6 compact digital console was also included to allow for more hands-on mixing during larger events with a dedicated audio engineer. A DX-HUB and DX168 stageboxes were added to the system to provide distributed I/O around the stage as needed. “The clients had

been avoiding digital consoles for many years,” explained Hentges. “They were really pleased once they started working with the SQ. All-in-all, I believe this system to be a great fit.” ■

Audio Logic Systems recently upgraded the audio system at Staring Lake Amphitheatre in Eden Prairie, Minn., with a passel of new gear, including an Allen & Heath AHM-32 audio matrix processor.

The New Hitchcock Theatre

By Steve Harvey

Photos: Peter Zakhary

A view from the screen looking back at Hitchcock Mixing Stage 6, which includes a two-position Avid S6 console, Meyer Sound monitor system and fewer but more comfortable seats than the original.

In Los Angeles, several major film and television studios have launched massive development projects in the last few years to expand and modernize their facilities. One of those studios, NBCUniversal, broke ground in 2020 on the Campus Project, a transformation of the Universal Studios Lower Lot (the Upper Lot is the theme park) at the company’s nearly 400-acre Universal City, Calif., site.

The new campus, now in the final stages of construction, will include an 11-story, 350,000-square-foot office building, an 84,000-square-foot employee center, an eight-story parking garage and other amenities, interconnected by landscaped walkways and outdoor gathering spaces. The company has also opened eight new sound stages, bringing the total to 35 on the lot.

The campus has sprung up on a site that was previously home to a handful of buildings that included the Alfred Hitchcock Theatre, a sound mixing stage originally built in 1980. To continue the legacy of the legendary filmmaker, as well as what many considered to be one of the world’s best-sounding mix stages, NBCUniversal’s $1 billion master plan also funded construction of a new mixing stage bearing the Hitchcock name.

The new re-recording studio has been constructed in the shell of what was formerly Universal’s Sound Stage 6, a stone’s throw from the Hitchcock Theatre’s previous location. Built in the late 1930s, Stage 6 hosted some notable movie productions over the years, including Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948, Spartacus (1960), The Blues Brothers (1980) and Scarface (1983).

Thoma Thurau, Senior Vice President of NBCUniversal StudioPost, says that his department was pleased to be offered Stage 6 as the new home for the Hitchcock. “It’s a great spot because it’s adjacent to a lot of the other StudioPost sound buildings, not too far from the picture building and adjacent to our Avid editorial department—but it was not without considerable challenges to get it built.”

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

The project took just under 15 months, beginning in early 2020. Instead of using the more typical block-fill construction method, they used shotcrete, or sprayed concrete. “We tested it with our acoustician, who’s from the Salter Group, to ensure that it was going to give us the same isolation that block-fill does,” Thurau notes. “It shaved weeks and weeks off the job.”

To accommodate the height required for a multi-format, immersive monitor system, while also duplicating the original Hitchcock Theatre’s screen geometry, the construction team had to dig down by as much as 12 feet, shore up the foundations of the adjacent buildings, lay isolation slabs and reinforce Stage 6’s original frame to bear the loads imposed by a modern stage construction. The completed 80-by-56-foot room’s ceiling height is 23 feet at the 45-by-18-foot screen.

“This was built from the inside out, keeping the 1938 skeleton of Stage 6, which in the long run, I think, is probably more aesthetically pleasing, and keeps some of the history of its original function,” Thurau says.

The 90-year-old building’s history is on display as a decorative wall of wood reclaimed from Stage 6. More salvaged wood was used to build the stairs to the second floor. A stylized silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock, handcrafted on the lot in 1983 for the original theater, has been rehung on the new lobby wall.

Further, Thurau says, while the old Hitchcock was a theater, complete with rows of stadium seating, the new location was custom-built for its intended purpose: “It’s truly a mix stage, versus a theater turned into a mix stage.”

“The one thing essential to making it versatile was to not have theater seats; that gave us a lot more room,” adds Frank A. Montano, one-half— alongside Jon Taylor—of the award-winning, two-man, re-recording mix team that relocated to the new Hitchcock stage (Taylor mixes dialog and music; Montano handles sound effects). Montano reports that he

and Taylor were consulted regarding not just technical but also architectural choices during the initial stages of the project. “We got to put our two cents in early,” he says.

MODERN TECHNOLOGY BACKBONE

Hitchcock Mixing Stage 6, its official full name, offers separate playback, recorder and picture workstations and features a 96-fader, dual operator Avid S6 console system. Taylor recalls that he first used the S6, temporarily perched atop one of Universal’s Harrison MPC consoles, on a project with more than 600 music tracks. “The music was going to be evolving to the final, so I had no choice but to start everything on it. After the first hour, I said, ‘I love this thing. Can we just go ahead and put it in permanently?’”

For monitoring, the team elected to go with a Meyer Sound cinema system, a departure from their previous JBL-based system. “We were both introduced to the Meyer HD in 1997 or ’98,” Taylor says, adding that a few years prior to auditioning speakers for the new Hitchcock, they arranged a demo of Meyer Sound’s Bluehorn system. “Phase alignment was absolutely perfect. Anything out of phase would go right behind your head—and you realize you can’t do that on a normal setup. I ended up buying Meyer speakers for home before we did this room.”

The new monitor system, which supports Auro and IMAX formats, as well as Dolby Atmos, includes a combination of Meyer Sound’s Acheron and HMS Cinema Sound series

speakers with a total of eight USW and X Series subs, plus an Ultra X42 for the IMAX VOG channel. “They represent the material very well,” says Montano, who reports that he and Taylor solicited opinions from their mixing colleagues in addition to auditioning the speakers. The consensus was that Meyer Sound speakers are transparent and revealing. “That’s a big benefit,” he adds. “We can hear and rectify any issues before they go beyond the stage.”

In-house senior engineer Joe Birkman tuned the room, Montano continues. “He was done in a couple hours. It’s normally a handful of days. They were really tight, right out of the box. Plus, acoustically, this room is fantastic; it translates great.”

When the original Hitchcock was built, its acoustics represented the state of thencurrent cinema design, which was quite bright and reflective. “When Atmos theaters started being built, they were generally much more dead,” Montano explains. “They didn’t have all that drywall and hard surfaces. So we have to be more like the newer theaters.

“We’re also fortunate to have a great projector,” he adds, noting the Christie CP 4440 4K. The resulting picture is a quantum leap from the days when mixers had to work from a black and white dupe or, later, a Quicktime copy. “If it looks really good, it’s going to sound better, and vice versa,” Montano laughs, “but that said, schedules are so tight now that filmmakers are doing everything at once: color timing, checking sound, VFX.”

Taylor agrees that the quality and accuracy of the projector on the mixing stage has taken the focus away from the picture and put it back on the audio. “Not having anybody comment in a negative way on the picture since we started in this room has been amazing,” he says, with a sense of relief. “Now we can concentrate on the sound.”

The mezzanine and lobby at the entrance to the new Hitchcock Mixing Stage 6.

Re-recording mixers Jon Taylor, left, and Frank A. Montano, at right, bookend Thoma Thurau, Senior Vice President of NBCUniversal StudioPost.

The machine room houses the Christie CP 4440 4K laser projector and racks of Focusrite RedNet units supporting the Dante audio network.

WORKING AS A TEAM

Taylor and Montano became an unofficial mix team in January 2013, having worked together on Fast Five a couple of years earlier. Their work together has garnered numerous accolades, including four Oscar nominations, for Unbroken, Birdman, The Revenant and First Man. They won BAFTA and CAS Awards for 2016’s The Revenant and a CAS Award earlier this year for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. Montano has five additional Oscar nominations dating back to 1993.

“We have a lot of things in common, so it was just a natural thing,” Montano says of their working relationship. “Our mixing styles fit really well, without even talking about it. There’s a shorthand. You hear something and just know that we’re on the same page. Dialog, music and sound effects all share the same frequencies, so it’s all about storytelling and give and take. And there’s no ego about it.”

“You can’t sit here and drown the music and call it a good mix, so there always has to be those handoffs,” Taylor chimes in. “Frankie will just give a little nudge to this one thing, and I’ll be like, ‘Okay, I’ll just drop this down here,’ or vice versa.”

For Taylor, working as a team is all about efficiency, but he now thinks about it differently. “I used to think of efficiency as a way of saving the clients’ money, but now what we care about is making sure we get the time that we need to get the quality that we want to achieve. That’s where efficiency is.”

They can’t both work at the same time, Taylor points out. “We take turns. While Frankie is listening to the monitors, I’ll be in the headphones, taking care of consonants or reverbs or cleaning up, or whatever I can do.”

At the same time, Bill Meadows, in-house mix tech and a 32-year veteran at Universal, keeps everything running smoothly on the Hitchcock stage. “We count on Bill to keep us straight. We’re blessed to be here and to work in this environment together,” Montano says.

There are four editorial suites immediately behind the stage, one of which is outfitted for nearfield mastering with an Avid S1 and Meyer Sound Amie and UP-4slim speakers. Any of the suites can play back directly onto the stage or vice versa.

In fact, lot-wide fiber connectivity means that virtually any sound department room can access any other, explains Michael Morongell, Supervising Engineer, NBCUniversal StudioPost, adding that, “We’re pretty much an all-Dante facility.” A peek into the Hitchcock stage’s machine room confirms that the racks are stacked with Focusrite RedNet Dante-capable equipment. Some rooms on the lot still use older audio technology, but once the planned upgrades are implemented, he says, “We’ll have complete interchangeability.”

Morongell and his group are responsible for, among many other things, a production network with extremely secure mass storage that is shared across the lot and a satellite network for synchronization, as well as the Dante shared audio network. The lot’s KVM network enables the engineering department to remotely service and troubleshoot.

VERSATILE, OPEN-PLAN FACILITY

Having worked in dark rooms for much of their careers, the mix team wanted as much natural light as possible in their new home. “The concept was also to keep the open-air feel,” Montano says, pointing overhead in the lobby to the exposed wooden joists and trusses of the original building. “And as many windows as we could get,” he adds. A sliding wall of glass by the upstairs conference area—the table is also made from reclaimed wood—looks down onto the Paseo, one of the campus’ main walkways.

In addition to the spacious lobby, conference area and edit bays, the building also offers upstairs and downstairs kitchens, and an executive office for visiting directors, producers and the like. “The whole space is versatile,” Montano says. “The concept was to make it filmmaker-friendly, however they choose to use the space.”

In the same way that a motion picture is a collaborative effort, Hitchcock Mixing Stage 6 was also all about teamwork. “We’ve got a great team; that’s what makes it fun,” Morongell says of his engineering group, some members of which he’s known for 30 years. He also worked closely with Jose Castellon, Manager, Studio and Cinema Design at Dolby Labs, and Miles Rogers, at the time Meyer Sound’s EXP Applications Development Manager.

“We get a lot of support from NBCUniversal, all the way up through Comcast,” says Thurau. “They see the value and the service that we bring to our internal as well as external customers. That support is great to have—especially nowadays, during these trying economic times, being able to continue to modernize and stay relevant in a very capital-challenged and marginchallenged business. Being able to continue to excel is great.” n

Re-recording mixers Frank A. Montano and Jon Taylor recognize that they sit in the mix chairs and get to hear all the accolades regarding the new studio from those who bring in the projects. They also are effusive in their praise and thanks for the support throughout the process from the entire NBCUniversal team, including: Donna Langley, Chairman & Chief Content Officer, NBCUniversal Studio Group; Jimmy Horowitz, Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal Business Affairs & Operations; Ian Trombley, President, NBCUniversal Operations & Technology; Michael Moore, President & General Manager, Universal Studios; Thoma Thurau, Senior Vice President, NBCUniversal StudioPost; Michael Morongell, Supervising Engineer, NBCUniversal StudioPost; and the entire NBCUniversal StudioPost engineering team.

One editorial suite is outfitted for nearfield mastering with an Avid S1, and Meyer Sound Amie and UP-4slim speakers.

Luke Combs: Gettin’ Global

In the space of seven years, four albums and a staggering 17 Top 5 singles on the Billboard Country chart, Luke Combs has become one of the biggest names in music. This year, he’s been taking his hits around the globe on a world tour, and while the journey will see him ultimately hit 16 countries—August was spent in Australia, and October will find him tearing through Europe—Combs spent most of the spring and summer packing NFL stadiums across the U.S. Playing to audiences of up to 65,000 a night, Combs entertained one and all with smashes from his most-recent collections, Growin’ Up, released last year, and its followup, Gettin’ Old, which came out in March.

Combs’ career took off like a rocket in 2016, and manning the front of house desk since those early days has been engineer Todd Lewis, the first person hired for the singer’s crew. “I missed out on the van touring days,

By Clive Young

but just barely,” Lewis said with a chuckle. “We were all on one bus; the band, me and the tour manager rode around on an XLII for a year and a half when we were opening for Brantley Gilbert. Then we graduated to two buses—and now we’re up to 60 or so on the crew.”

Also there each step of the way has been Special Event Services (SES) of Mocksville, North Carolina, providing sound and lighting. “As soon as we started opening, we needed gear that we just didn’t have,” said Lewis. “SES had some basic baby-band package that they let us use as we grew; we’ve stuck with them, and they have been awesome.”

The audio gear Combs has now isn’t a baby-band package, of course; Lewis builds house mixes on a DiGiCo Quantum7 console, and his FOH position runs light when it comes to outboard gear. “I’ve got a Bricasti M7 reverb, an Eventide H3000 Harmonizer, a Rupert Neve 5045 and that’s

Special Event Services (SES) of Mocksville, North Carolina provided all sound and lighting for the U.S. leg of Luke Combs’ world tour.

really all I’m using,” he said. “I’m not using plug-ins or anything like that; those 7s just sound so dang good, I don’t feel like I need another weak point in the audio path, so everything’s in the desk. In a stadium show where you’re in a big concrete and metal box, you’re not going to hear the finer minutiae of all these crazy outboard units or plug-ins. You could turn every reverb off and it probably would clean up your mix, but you got to put a little spice on there.”

Lewis works with 56 inputs out at front of house, and the console’s snapshot feature comes in handy throughout the show, since Combs is backed by a seven-member band, many of which are multiinstrumentalists. He explained, “From an automation standpoint, it’d be great to just mix analog-style and not have any snapshots, but when the instruments change song-to-song, you’ve got to be able to

move that stuff around, just to balance out the energies of the mix and keep it all in check.”

That said, Lewis is perpetually riding the faders throughout every show, creating a dynamic mix that leans into the Southern Rock vibe that seeps into the show due to the slide guitars and B3 organ onstage. A far more crucial reason for riding the faders, however, is because the musicians are often out on the tour’s goal post-shaped thrust. “You get a banjo with a microphone inside of it 60 feet in front of a P.A., so you’re working to get the best mix,” he said. “I don’t sit there and compress the crap out of everything and just let it ride.”

Inevitably, the most challenging moment every night on the stadium run was to mix the show’s finale, where all four opening acts returned to the stage. “Our two mobile BGVs are out on the end of the thrust,” said Lewis, “so with Luke and the four guests, that’s seven in front of the P.A.—which can get interesting. It took a minute to wrangle that in and make it sound like humans singing again, but after the first two shows, we were pretty dialed in.”

All those guest vocals are captured with Shure Beta 58 capsules on Axient Digital wireless handhelds, while Combs himself is heard through a Shure KSM11 condenser mic. “It does the right things to his vocal in the right places,” said Lewis. Elsewhere onstage, background vocals are hardwired Beta 58s, and all guitars go direct into modeler units. Meanwhile, the drum kit is nabbed with the standard Beta 91 and 52 on kick, Beta 57 on snare, Sennheiser e 904s on the toms, Sennheiser e 614s on the hi-hat and ride cymbal, and a Shure VP8 for overhead.

With Combs and company using every inch of the stage and thrust, keeping track of which vocal is coming through which hardwired BGV mic in any given song could be an accident waiting to happen. However, monitor engineer Michael Zuehsow solved the issue by creating a GPIO routing system where every background vocal station has a multi-button footswitch with each singer’s name on it; the musician simply steps on their name to route that microphone to the right channel. “I’ve only got three background vocal channels,” said Lewis, “but if they step on their name, their vocal comes up on their channel strip; it’s pretty convenient and it keeps all the mixes the same.”

Over at stage right, Zuehsow uses his own Quantum7 desk to look after 18 wireless in-ear monitor mixes, plus a number of other wired mixes for video, lighting and crew, adding up to nearly 30 ear packs at every show. While making use of the console’s Nodal Processing, Mustard channels and its Spice Rack offerings, the desk is also outfitted with a DMI-KLANG card. While KLANG is typically used for immersive monitor mixing, Zuehsow uses it to provide widening for numerous stereo sources, keeping them from piling on top of each other and fighting for space in the in-ear mixes. The KLANG setup also allows him to make use of a DPA 5100 mobile 5.1 surround microphone that resides at FOH; while the mic is there for post mixing captures, Zuehsow uses it in the moment to better portray the audiences’ enthusiasm in the IEM mixes.

Hanging well above the stage on the U.S. stadium run was the largest system of Outline GTO loudspeakers used so far for a major American tour. Having offered Outline products for more than a decade, SES fielded a system based around GTO and Mantas boxes, with a design created by systems tech Joseph Lefebvre. “I’ve used GTO in stadiums and other largeformat setups and have been really happy with it, so I knew its capabilities

Photo: David Bergman.

and power,” said Lefebvre. “When it came time to design this stadium rig, I thought it would fit best and it’s been fine.”

Faced with having to cover 220 degrees from the stage, the system actually used more GTO loudspeakers in the side hangs than on the main left-right. The main hangs each had 16 Outline GTO 15-inch boxes and a single GTO-DF, with eight GTO-LOW hung behind them for low end; meanwhile, each side hang comprised 20 GTO over one GTO-DF. “The main hang has a good bit of downfill on it, so it’s covering the lower bowl, just before where the delays outside

the endzone start taking over,” said Lefebvre. “The three delay hangs are a mix of six GTO 15-inch over eight of the GTO C-12, which is a 12-inch. Then there’s rear-hangs because we sell seats pretty far around—I have a 24-box array of Mantas, an 8-inch box, that is taking care of the people further back. It’s in close proximity to the sidehang just adjacent to it, and that’s working out better than I thought it would. All the low end and low mid that I’m getting from that big sidehang is helping with the Mantas, so it’s working well.”

Ensuring that the system covered each venue

was Outline’s OpenArray simulation software and its Armonía control software, which worked in conjunction with Newton processors on the front end. “I’ve had a lot of assistance from the guys at Outline in Italy for getting imported drawings into Open Array so I can figure out my deployment,” said Lefebvre. “It’s all run via the network program, Armonía; I have plenty of tools at my disposal there in terms of EQ-ing, filtering, FIR filters, shelves and all that stuff. For the front end, I have two Outline Newton 16+8 FPGA processors that get all my consoles in and then all my outs to the P.A. via AES with analog callback.”

In monitorworld, Michael Zuehsow presides over a DiGiCo Quantum7 console outfitted with a DMI-KLANG card.

Luke Combs’ live audio team includes (l-r): Michael Zuehsow (Monitor Engineer), Dan McLaughlin (RF Coordinator/Tech), Wesley Hancock (PA/Stage Tech), Emma Berry (PA/Stage Tech), Joseph Lefebvre (Systems Engineer), Caleb Imoden (PA Tech), Michael Grabarczyk (PA/Delay Tech), Jerry Slone (Production Manager), Nick D’Andrea (PA/Stage Tech), Stephen Millet (Crew Chief) and Todd Lewis (FOH Engineer).

Photo: David Bergman.

For all the technology brought to bear on the tour, the focus remains on the music and connecting with the vast audiences, rather than big sets and the like. “Luke literally wants to walk out on stage and do the thing,” said Lewis. “I guess the biggest gag we have would be on the song ‘1, 2 Many’—they basically stop the song, he grabs a beer and shotguns it. When we were at Arrowhead Stadium, [Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and reigning Super Bowl MVP] Patrick Mahomes came out and shotgunned one with Luke.”

The result is that after each show, everyone

in the audience goes home having had a good time—one that is, despite the size of the venues, just as real and true as seeing a show up-close in a small club. That authenticity is on display every night. “If you come see a Luke show, you’re watching a band play,” said Lewis, “and I go for the live sound when I mix them. We get the heart and essence of the song really good, but it’s not perfect if you’re comparing to the album. It’s humans playing with each other, and that comes across. I make sure that it’s tight and it’s good, but it’s not the album—and if you expect that, go see a tracks band.” n

The production carried the largest system of Outline GTO loudspeakers used yet on a major American tour.

Luke Combs broke attendance records when his tour hit Nashville’s Nissan Stadium in April, playing to more than 95,000 people over two nights.

Classic Tracks

“Cherry Bomb”

John Cougar Mellencamp’s 1987 hit, and the new sound of The Lonesome Jubilee

By Robyn Flans

The recording of The Lonesome Jubilee in September 1986 marked engineer David Leonard’s first of eight projects with John Cougar Mellancamp, and it coincided with the initial directional change for the artist, shifting from guitar-based rock ‘n’ roll to a roots Americana collection of stringed instruments that have since become his standard.

A large group of musicians—Kenny Aronoff, drums and percussion; Larry Crane, guitars, mandolin, harmonica, autoharp, banjo, backing vocals; John Cascella, accordion, keyboards, saxophone, melodica, penny whistle, claves; Lisa Germano, fiddle; Toby Myers, bass guitar, banjo, backing vocals; Pat Peterson, backing vocals, cowbell, tambourine; Crystal Taliefero, backing vocals; and Mike Wanchic, guitars, dobro, banjo, dulcimer, backing vocals—joined Mellencamp just outside of Bloomington, Indiana, at his picturesque Belmont Mall Studios. Leonard remembers it with a big window looking out onto a horse field.

At the time, the studio was equipped with a Trident 80B console, known for its “rock ‘n’ roll sound;” Otari-MTR 90 2-inch tape machine (which it still has); Ampex ATR 1/2-inch and Otari 1/4-inch decks; Fostex four-way speakers in the wall and Yamaha NS-10s up close for monitoring; Fairchild and LA-2A compressors; Neve mic preamps; API EQs and various other pieces of outboard gear.

Mellencamp would typically bring in lyrics and maybe a cassette of him playing chords and singing lyrics. From there, as Leonard recounts, “We just made it up as we went along to find a sound that John was hearing.

“Traditionally, we would all go in the control room and somebody would play guitar and John would sing, or John would play guitar and sing and Kenny would have a conga or bongo, and everybody would just work out the arrangement sitting around listening to each other—working out intro-verse-chorus, introverse-chorus—and what the hook was going to be for the whole form of the song, and then we would go out on the floor and play it all together,” Leonard adds. “John’s a great arranger with his band and with those instruments. He knows what he wants, and he and Don (Gehman, producer) would bounce stuff off each other all the time.”

Drums, bass, guitars, accordion, violin and vocals were recorded live. There were some punch-ins and add-ins, but for the most part, “Cherry Bomb” and the other tracks on The Lonesome Jubilee were recorded live.

“We set up everybody on the floor and everybody plays together, and that’s how it’s done in Indiana,” Leonard says with a laugh, adding that Mellencamp always sang live, though he “probably recorded another couple of vocal tracks that could be comped. He liked to be on the floor with the band with headphones on, singing and calling out the shots.”

Drummer Kenny Aronoff notes that even if Mellencamp re-did his vocals, he would only do a few passes. “John wanted to get a whole song done in one day,” Aronoff says. “He wanted to

PHOTO: Erica Echenberg/Getty Images

get all overdubs and everything finished in one day. He wanted to know immediately, ‘What do we have here?’”

The extra vocals on the second verse of “Cherry Bomb,” provided by Taliefero, Myers and Wanchic, were overdubbed, as was the autoharp in the third verse. Leonard concedes that recording the autoharp can be a little tricky, as it has a lot of mechanical noise due to the bars and the mute.

MIKING ARONOFF’S KIT

“That whole record/song was different for Kenny because he usually had a very high snare sound, and [“Cherry Bomb”] was a deeper snare than usual,” Leonard says. “That room is a very, very live drum room. It’s got like a black composite rubber floor, and it’s all drywall with a vaulted ceiling.”

Aronoff gives kudos to Mellencamp for bringing his drumming to the foreground, both sonically and in general. By mere virtue of the artist wanting the drums loud in the mix from day one on “Jack and Diane,” Aronoff garnered lots of attention throughout the musical community.

Back in 1987, Aronoff was using the same 5x14-inch Ludwig Acrolite snare drum on The Lonesome Jubilee that Gehman had provided on its predecessor, Scarecrow. He assumes to this day that it was Mellencamp’s decision to detune it on Jubilee

As for the mics on Aronoff’s kit, Leonard admits that it was a while ago, but recalls a Shure SM57 on the snare, or possibly an AKG 451, or perhaps a combo. He used an E-V RE20 on the bass drum, and Sennheiser 421s on the toms, with Neumann U67s as the overheads.

While working to get the snare sounds, Leonard says that he and Gehman came up with their own vernacular for communication and expediency, assigning nicknames to describe different frequencies—like the “boing, crunch, crack or knock” sounds.

“When you work with people enough, you can have a name for it,” Leonard says.

VOCALS AND GUITAR

Mellencamp sang into a U67. According to Leonard, his vocal chain has forever been the Neumann mic into a Tube-Tech mic pre, then into an LA-2A.

He says they probably used SM57s on the guitars, which went through Neve preamps and/or the preamps in the Trident 80B; the monitor panel handled playback of the 2-inch tape machine.

“Most of the tracking went through that 80B for those mic pres,” Leonard says, “because we only had maybe half a dozen outboard mic pres—maybe two Neves, a couple of APIs and the two Tube-Techs.”

On Germano’s fiddle, they “probably used a U47 or C-12,” and on Cascella’s accordion, “most likely the C-12 if Lisa was on the 47.”

Leonard can recall it being a packed house with background singers in the hallway and musicians in the lounge, sometimes as many as nine at a time, with drums, accordion, two guitars, Mellencamp, violin, Crystal and more.

When asked about the studio vibe, Leonard laughs. “Well, there were a lot of cigarettes, so a lot of smoke. John’s rule was he liked to have everybody in the control room if there was music being made; nobody in the lounge, everybody accounted for. The vibe was very creative. I think they knew they were on to something. It was a big change in his sound.”

Leonard confides that they did not all adapt to that change immediately.

CREATING A NEW SOUND

“The whole sonic landscape of that album was all very acoustic and organic and in the room and live, and that was something that took a minute to find,” Leonard says. “It’s always a challenge to find what other people are hearing in their head.”

Sometimes Mellencamp would suggest that Leonard listen to a particular song by another artist for reference to a sound he wanted, perhaps in the way a guitar or track might have been treated.

“John has a very wide range of influences,” Leonard says. “He listens to a lot of music, so he’ll pull up stuff, and that’s the challenge—to hear what’s in that track that could relate to what you’re doing or what you’re trying to do. That’s always fun to see how somebody else treated this or that. Sometimes the drums are not as loud as you think they are. Talking about music is hard.”

“Cherry Bomb” was not particularly challenging, Leonard adds, because it is not an aggressive song. “The more aggressive the song, the harder it is, because there is more competition for the space,” he explains. “On The Lonesome Jubilee, a song like ‘Paper in Fire’ would have been more challenging because it was more bombastic. ‘Cherry Bomb’ was a lot more relaxed of a song, more R&B, so it wasn’t as challenging in a sonic way. The only

challenges

would have been the choreography of the finger snaps, doing the reverb on the snaps in the breakdown to make it have the texture.”

He then admits that the mix was the “hard part.”

“Everything is fun and games until you have to mix,” he laughs. “That’s when you have to commit. The challenge there was giving John a cassette at the end of the night to take home, and then he’d come in in the morning and if he didn’t like it, you could tell right away.”

Because the artist was trying to define a new direction, it complicated the situation. They would go up to Mellencamp’s house and he would reference artists that didn’t necessarily make sense in the musical context, Leonard remembers; the comparison was that they were forging their own directions.

In the end, obviously, it all worked out. The album charted high in 10 countries, going to No. 6 on Billboard’s Top 200, with “Cherry Bomb” hitting No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Chart. The record received many accolades.

Aronoff, in particular, says he appreciated the new direction of the album.

“I loved that we came up with something unique,” he says. “I knew it was unique because it was still a powerful rock band with a lot of great, radio-friendly songs that kept the same balls and energy. I always wanted energy—and on that Jubilee record, we did keep that energy up, but we added these new sounds, and I recognized that that was cool. John was always looking for new ideas, and to see him excited was really cool because it made the room really upbeat. When the boss is down, you have to work hard to keep yourself up, but when the boss is up, you feel up!” n

Tech new products

SSL B-DYN 500 Series Module

Solid State Logic has introduced the 4000 B Dynamics (B-DYN) 500 Series module, which recreates the original circuit design found in the channel strips of SL 4000B consoles. The dynamics section in the 4000B console channel strip was unlike any other SSL dynamics module, using the fader VCA as its gain element, rather than a dedicated VCA. The B-DYN’s dynamics processing is divided into two sections: Compressor/ Limiter and Gate/Expander. The compressor offers fixed compression ratios of 2:1, 4:1, and limiting ratio at 10:1. Release times are also fixed at .2, .4, .8, 1.6, and program-dependent Auto.

1mW, frequency response of 20 Hz – 18 kHz, and 27-ohm impedance. AM PRO X 30 is the flagship of the new range, with three balanced-armature drivers, a three-way passive crossover, sensitivity of 124 dB @ 1mW, frequency response of 20 Hz –18 kHz, and 56-ohm impedance.

Shure MVX2U Digital Audio Interface

Shure’s new MVX2U Digital Audio Interface—a single-channel, XLR-to-USB-C solution that slides on to an XLR plug—is one of the smallest consumer audio I/Os yet released for XLR mics and cables. The MVX2U ships in Auto Level Mode, which sets gain in real-time, reportedly providing up to +60 dB of clean gain. The MVX2U’s integrated software can additionally be controlled with the ShurePlus MOTIV Desktop app, where Manual Mode allows users to alter

integral setup assistant tool. The XS3 includes 11 predefined buses comprising two PGM, two auxiliary, six CF (N-1) and one PFL, and also sports an IPx slot for Dante or AES67 interfaces. There are eight APC ports for control surface and I/O modules, a 16 x 16 USB audio interface, a MADI SFP port, and Dante 4 x 4 channels on a separate network port. Each bundle comes complete with a power supply and cabling.

Waves Magma Springs Reverb Plug-in

DSP settings, presets and additional parameters, including EQ, limiter, and compressor presets. Intended for streamers, podcasters, content creators, musicians and the like, the interface also ships with Phantom Power enabled for those using a condenser microphone.

DHD XS3 Core Audio Processor

Westone AM PRO X In-Ear Monitors

Westone Audio has introduced its new AM PRO X series of universal in-ear monitors, available in three driver configurations and incorporating the company’s proprietary balanced-armature technology and StageSense filter system. AM PRO X 10, the smallest of the range, uses a single balanced-armature driver and states a sensitivity of 114 dB @ 1mW, frequency response of 20 Hz – 16 kHz, and 19-ohm impedance. AM PRO X 20 sports dual balanced-armature drivers and a passive crossover, with a sensitivity of 119 dB @

DHD Audio has added to its modular range of audio studio equipment and systems with the introduction of its new XS3 core audio processor, which supports up to 20 stereo faders on DHD audio mixing consoles. Within every DHD system, cores process all the audio and connect control surfaces, while also performing input/output routing and interfacing with the outside world. Occupying 1U of rack space, the XS3 is designed to enable configuration via an

Waves Audio is now shipping the third plug-in of its Magma series—Waves Magma Springs, serving up seven different spring reverbs, evoking different eras. The different springs within the plug-in include: ’50s, intended to recall the vibe of early rock & roll, tapping into the sound of old Memphis Blues records; Twang delivers a familiar “Tele-into-Vox” sound; Motor City is said to provide size and weight that was so often heard on 1960s soul and R&B; Classic is intended to be a versatile spring reverb sound, almost like a smooth plate reverb; California recalls classic recordings from the 1960s and 70s with a bright tone said to accentuate vocals; Heavy is said to create a thick, overblown sound; and Dark Space serves up familiar vibes that are key to Dub music. Magma Springs is available as a single plug-in, or in the Mercury, Pro Show and SD7 Pro Show bundles.

Blaze Audio CDD Loudspeakers

Blaze Audio has launched its new Constant Directivity Device (CDD) Series loudspeakers.

Designed with an eye toward maintaining a low profile, the compact series offers three models: CDD528-BA Bi-Amped, CDD528-P selfpowered and the CDD523. The CDD528 models offer wide, 180-degree symmetrical horizontal pattern control, as well as patent-pending midhigh frequency gain shading that provides a 45-degree vertical pattern from 420 Hz to 18 kHz. The loudspeakers incorporate four 5-inch low-frequency drivers with acoustic centers designed to minimize comb-filtering, with a frequency response down to 54 Hz. Featuring a bi-amped design, the CDD528-BA is intended for permanent installations such as performing arts venues, commercial theaters and Houses of Worship, while the CDD528-P is designed for use as a portable P.A. solution. Meanwhile, the CDD523 incorporates three vertically mounted 2-inch mid-high frequency drivers and two 5-inch low-frequency drivers, with a frequency response down to 65 Hz. It was designed for front-fill or under-balcony applications, or as a compact loudspeaker system.

a variety of configurations. The bar can be used for traditional stereo bar positioning as well as other methods, making use of its lockable L-shaped arms—for example, a two-mic setup for miking acoustic guitar and vocal, or miking the top and bottom of a snare drum with a single microphone stand. It can also deal with standard stereo bar applications such as head-to-head stereo Blumlein configuration, standard spaced pair, ORTF and others. Its etched gradient markings allow for repeatable mic setups. The FlexBar is made of aerospace-grade aluminum and has a non-reflective black finish. Designed in partnership with Triad-Orbit, it can be used with all Triad-Orbit accessories.

custom values), with or without polarity changes, AudioMatrix offers users support for up to 64 channels of audio. Potential use cases include immersive speaker array management; bringing audio to the center for fine tuning; converting stereo to mid-side and back; mirroring sounds; creating a giant mono channel; LFE level control work; sending audio to the subwoofer; basic upmixing/downmixing; and more.

KRK Scott Storch Studio Monitors

KRK launched its new limited-edition Artist Signature Series with the Scott Storch Classic 8ss Studio Monitor. Limited to a run of 500 pairs, the Classic 8ss—with the “ss” signifying the storied producer of acts like Beyoncé, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent and others—incorporates visual elements that underline his input. Each Classic 8ss sports a distinctive gold chrome electroplated front baffle, as well as Storch’s logo and signature. The Classic 8ss is an active two-way studio monitor that incorporates a 1-inch textile soft-dome tweeter paired with an 8-inch Glass Aramid Woofer. The built-in power amplifiers provide a total of 100 watts, with a 75-watt amp driving the woofer and a 25-watt amp for the tweeter. The Classic 8ss defaults to a flat frequency solution and has the optional ability to engage +2 dB KRK Bass Boost.

Royer Labs FlexBar

Dual-Mic Utility Bar

Royer Labs has released its new FlexBar Dual Microphone Utility Bar, a microphone positioning tool designed to hold two mics in

Sound Particles AudioMatrix

Sound Particles has introduced AudioMatrix, a channel routing plug-in that allows users to reroute any input to any output. Using regular connections or special gain values (-3 dB, -6 dB or

Techivation M-De-Esser Plug-In

Techivation has launched its new M-DeEsser plug-in, intended for use by both audio professionals and enthusiasts to rein in sibilance and harshness in audio recordings. M-De-Esser makes use of a proprietary spectral shaping algorithm and is built around a GUI that provides access to a variety of features and parameters, including Sensitivity, Strength, Softness and Air control. There’s a Frequency Range Slider, as well as Fast/Med/Slow Modes, Diff & Filter, a Gain Control, Input/Output meters, and an A/B Switch. The plug-in runs in stereo and mono, offers presets and sports undo/redo options. n

Tech // reviews

Brainworx bx_limiter True Peak

Plug-in Features a Wealth of Control and Fine-Tuning Options

By Rob Tavaglione

The concept of the simple, brutish, one- or twoknob limiter may still be viable for mono channel insertion, but for most of us, our L-R bus, or mix, or master includes a complicated and fully featured limiter plugin—something like Brainworx’s bx_limiter True Peak, which brings plenty of options to the fine art of massaging 0 dBFS levels without creating inter-sample “overs.”

There are a number of familiar controls here: Gain, Ceiling, Release, Mode (Classic or the quicker Modern) and a Link control that lowers the Ceiling as you raise the Gain.

Some of the finer controls include Channel Link (the company recommends this stay at 75 percent for music mastering), Limiter Mix (if you like to parallel-process), and numerous monitoring options (Left, Right, Solo In Place, Mid, Side, L/R swap) with informative metering (level, gain reduction, true peak, dynamic range and LUFS).

Brainworx’s well-known saturation circuit, XL, is included, along with a bypass button, which is eminently useful for finetuning this feature. XL is more subtle than extreme, but in a way, that makes it useful for the modern practice of inaudibly smoothing out peaks with saturation (often combined with a clipper), thereby allowing much more overall level.

True Peak also has tonal controls, which as you’ve probably guessed, are more broad and subtle than EQ and therefore suitable for mastering purposes. The Foundation control offers a way to pump up the bottom end in a way that is gently musical, not unlike a colorful transformer; thankfully, it too has a bypass to aid in fine-tuning. There’s also a high-pass filter and a low-pass filter for the side-chain, which essentially allows you to ignore really low and really high frequencies that may cause undesirably severe or jumpier operation.

Four memory states (A/B/C/D) help make complicated comparisons easier so you can maintain your objectivity; ample window resizing and numerous color options keep things looking nice, too (I like lime green).

Overall, there’s enough control here to allow you to royally screw things up if you’re not careful, but I find myself frequently using similar settings and

largely just automating Gain and tweaking Release on bass-heavy masters.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

COMPANY: Brainworx

PRODUCT: bx_limiter True Peak

WEBSITE: www.brainworx.audio.com

PRICE: $299

PROS: Transparent control of peaks; useful options and tonal controls; maintains excitement at extreme settings.

CONS: Somewhat expensive; lacks dithering.

So let’s address the elephant in the room: true peak limiting, or the concept of preventing consecutive samples at 0 dBFS from creating playback distortion when converted from digital to analog (or converted via a codec). Is it a smart practice that ensures clean downstream playback, or is it an energy-killer that takes away the competitive bite from your blazing masters? I hear wisdom in both arguments, but I’ll concur that many true peak limiters do actually take away something aggressively desirable, and bx_limiter True Peak does indeed seem to maintain all the boldness and energy of the peaks, while keeping true peaks down to an acceptable 0.1 dBFS, at least according to my downstream, third-party meters. n

Tech // reviews

Neumann MT 48

Company’s First Audio Interface Is a Tour de Force

By Mike Levine

After Sennheiser purchased Neumann in 2005, the latter began to expand its product lineup beyond microphones. It launched its first studio monitors in 2010 and its first headphones in 2019. This year, the Berlin-based company has broadened its portfolio again by releasing its first audio interface, the MT 48. As with the company’s other products, it’s high in both quality and price.

If you’re familiar with the Merging Technologies Anubis interface, you’ll notice some distinct similarities between it and the MT 48. That’s because Sennheiser purchased Merging in 2022, in part to bring the company’s audio interface technology into the Neumann line, so it’s not surprising that the MT 48 is based heavily on the Anubis while offering USB-C connectivity and a significantly lower price.

The MT 48 includes built-in dynamics, EQ and reverb, excellent onboard touchscreen control, and app- and web-based remote control. It even comes with a padded carrying case with the Neumann logo embossed on top.

AROUND THE HORN

The MT 48 is a compact tabletop interface housed in a solid metal chassis that’s the same color as Neumann microphones. It’s powered by an included (multi-country) USB-C external power supply.

The interface includes four analog inputs (two XLR mic/line and two 1/4-inch Hi-Z/line) and four analog outputs (two XLR main and two 1/4-inch TRS line), as well as ADAT/S/PDIF in and out on Toslink optical ports.

If you include the potential I/O from the ADAT optical port,

which is eight channels at 48 kHz (four at 96 kHz, two at 192 kHz), the potential total I/O count is 12-in and 12-out. Counting the two separately addressable TRS headphone outputs adds another four outputs.

Additionally, there’s an RJ45 port that supports AES67, an open standard used in broadcast and audio production. You can connect to Neumann monitors through it, and the bi-directional port can carry high-channel-count/high-sampling-rate, networked audio in a compatible system.

Neumann also equipped the MT 48 with 1/4-inch GPIO/MIDI In and Out ports. In GPIO mode, you can plug in footswitches and other compatible remote controls. In MIDI mode, you can connect MIDI gear using TRS-to-DIN5 adapters (not included).

Most of the I/O is located on the rear panel. with TRS inputs 3 and 4 (Instrument/Line) on the small, front-facing part of the unit, as are the headphone jacks. A mic-stand mount is included on the bottom of the unit, making it easier to integrate the MT 48 into live performances.

I did notice that the enclosure gets hot to the touch when the unit is on for a while. After reading the manual, I discovered that the heat is a feature, not a bug: The case is designed to function as a heat sink. In addition, there’s an ultra-quiet fan inside the frame, which, in its default setting, only turns on when the room temperature gets unusually high.

PRESSING AND TURNING

All of the MT 48’s functions can be controlled via the knobs, buttons and touchscreen on the top panel. The latter is an LCD multitouch display, approximately 3.5 by 2.25 inches. In its default state, the screen is the control interface for a mixer capable of four simultaneous mixes (each on its own page in the software), blending the input signals with the audio returning from your DAW.

Mixer channels feature volume faders, pan sliders and solo buttons. Tapping on the channel name lets you access the built-in

The back panel hosts most of the I/O, including the Optical and AES67 digital ports.

DSP functions, such as Preamp controls, EQ, Dynamics and Reverb, along with other utility functions. Through the Settings menu, the MT 48 provides significant customization.

Each mix is routed to an output pair: Speaker A, Speaker B, Headphones 1 or Headphones 2. Each output pair has a dedicated selector button on the top panel. When you press it, the appropriate mix appears on the touchscreen.

The MT 48 also offers a comprehensive set of monitor control functions. Monitor switching is available through the Speaker A and Speaker B buttons. One of the top-panel buttons turns on a built-in Talkback mic, which you can set to latch in the unit’s Settings section. From there, it’s possible to change the talkback mic’s gain and specify which of the four mixes will receive the signal. You can even route it through Input 4 to record it in your DAW.

The Mute button shuts off the currently selected output. If you hold it down for more than two seconds, it shuts off all the outputs.

On the right side of the mixer is the Home screen, a vertical row of buttons for various functions, including switching mixes, DIM, Mono, Solo Clear and Menu (which offers access to the Settings menu and other preferences). One notable option in Settings is Crossfeed, which sends some of the left channel into the right, and vice-versa, which simulates listening on speakers when monitoring on headphones. You can even adjust the amount of the effect. If you mix on headphones regularly, it’s a handy feature.

The front panel also features a large Rotary Controller knob that governs volume and gain adjustments, excluding those controlled by the channel faders. The Rotary Controller is located close to the right side of the touchscreen, and several times I accidentally activated one of the software buttons, such as DIM or Mono, when turning it. (Because I’m left-handed, my ring finger and pinkie hang over the side of the knob when I turn it, bumping the buttons. I’m guessing that a right-hander would be fine.)

That aside, the onboard user interface, including the touchscreen, switches and knobs, is extremely well-designed and intuitive.

GOING REMOTE

Controlling the MT 48 remotely from a Mac, PC or tablet requires downloading the MT 48 Toolkit from the Neumann site. It contains the Remote Controller app and shortcuts to the Web app. The Remote Controller offers the same

controls as the Touchscreen.

The Web app provides an expanded view, but its response is sluggish compared to the Remote Controller. The Web app can also run on a tablet, but you must first connect the MT 48’s AES67 port to your Wi-Fi router with an Ethernet cable.

I discovered that the Remote Controller and Web app, in addition to the Touchscreen, can be open and active simultaneously, which allows you to show different screens on each (for example, the faders from two different mixes), which can be handy during a recording session.

CHANNELING

As you would expect from Neumann, the preamps and converters on the MT 48 are of exceptionally high quality. The dynamic range of the mic inputs is an impressive 136 dB. The gain range on the mic inputs is 78 dB. That’s enough gain for virtually any mic, even low-output dynamic or ribbon models.

The preamps have their own section in the mixer, which features software switches for options like a -12 dB or -24 dB Pad, a 40 Hz, 60 Hz or 80 Hz low-cut filter, 48 V phantom power, and polarity reverse.

You can also insert individual Dynamics and EQ processors on each input or output channel. The Dynamics processor offers three different options—Gate, Compressor and Limiter— which can all be turned on and off separately. The Compressor is relatively transparent and

PRODUCT SUMMARY

COMPANY: Neumann

PRODUCT: MT 48

WEBSITE: neumann.com

PRICE: $1,850

PROS: Pristine-sounding preamps and converters. Onboard touchscreen control. Excellent monitor-control features, including built-in talkback mic. App and web-based remote-control. Built-in dynamics, EQ and reverb. Flexible configuration options. Built-in, adjustable Crossfeed for headphone outputs. Solid metal chassis.

CONS: Web app has a sluggish response. TRSto-DIN adapters for MIDI ports not included.

provides plenty of parameter options. One is an Auto-Gain function allowing you to add compression to an input signal without changing its level in the cue mix. The four-band EQ provides multiple filter choices for each band, and a graphic display.

You can use the processing (on each channel) only for monitoring, or you can print it. You can also configure the mixer to output a wet and dry version of a track.

A single Reverb processor is available to all channels via a send. You can globally set parameters such as Reverb Size, Decay, Predelay, Low Cut, High Cut and Diffusion. Reverb, EQ and Dynamics settings can all be saved for later recall using the Snap (snapshots) function available on each processor’s screen.

REAL WORLD

I used the MT 48 as my interface for several weeks and was highly impressed. My recordings, both of miked and DI sources, were amazingly clean and crisp. The headphone amps sound excellent and have plenty of power. The overall sound quality is exceptional.

It’s not just the sound, however. The builtin effects and all the user-configurable options make the MT 48 super-versatile.

I also love the Touchscreen. Although I had the Remote Controller app and Web app at my disposal, I ended up using the Touchscreen most of the time because it’s just so convenient—the issue with accidentally pressing the software buttons aside.

Yes, the MT 48 is costly on a per-channel basis, but you’re getting studio-quality sound. It’s a similar proposition to buying a Neumann microphone: You have to pay more for exceptional performance. As long as the channel count is sufficient for your needs, you’ll be glad you invested in the MT 48. n

The Web-based control app.

Leapwing StageOne2

Manipulating the Stereo Image for Width and Depth

By Barry Rudolph

Leapwing StageOne2 is a reimagined version of the company’s StageOne1 plug-in for stereo mixing and mastering, essentially manipulating the stereo “stage” of finished stereo mixes (or any stereo audio) to add depth and extra width outside the left and right speakers. It also has been updated to work as a multiband processor.

Maintaining mono-compatibility and phase integrity, of course, becomes a concern when using any stereo widener processor, so StageOne2 adds a new switchable (on/off) Phase Recovery algorithm that identifies problematic out-of-phase elements and resets them automatically, eliminating any loss or change in the sound when stereo audio is summed to mono.

The plug-in also adds some sophisticated tech for developing and evaluating any modification to the stereo field. First, the beautiful Visualizer screen displays, as individual “points of light,” all spatial L/R audio dynamically. Relative pan positions are shown horizontally on the x-axis within a calibrated L-C-R stereo field shown at the top of the screen. The instantaneous frequency makeup of the audio is

displayed vertically on the y-axis, from the lowest frequency (20 Hz) at the bottom to the highest (20 kHz) at the top.

The relative amplitude of these points of lights is indicated by variable brightness; louder equals brighter. What first appeared to be a jumbled mess in the Visualizer was quickly understood after my first session.

StageOne2 uses a frequency “weighting” scheme that acts like a crossover filter but without fixed slopes—it is equivalent to about a 12 dB/octave curve. Stereo audio is split into three adjustable frequency bands, or sections, called Low, Mid and High, and each has its own separate collection of algorithms for changing the five main effects: Width, Depth, Phase Recovery, Mono Spread and Center Gravity. These five effects each have grouped Bypass buttons for individually turning that process on/off. Phase Recovery has its own separate on/off buttons for each of the three bands.

STEREO WIDTH CONTROL

The StageOne2 Width control will “stretch out” the stereo stage beyond

the left and right monitors while keeping the phantom center locked in place. Off-centered sounds will also move beyond their occupied pan positions. Turning the Width control toward the negative side (-) will reduce the stereo width down to mono, if desired. The Visualizer immediately shows whether you have an actual stereo recording or not.

I brought up a stereo drum kit recorded with a mix of both close and distant microphones. Because there are now three bands, you can elect to widen (or not) a designated range of frequencies easily—although I would like those crossover frequencies, which appear as faders, to be adjustable with a mouse. I ended up typing new values into their data windows. I started with the top frequency at 20 kHz and the bottom at 20 Hz—a button to reset them to these full-range values would be a nice update.

When starting a new music mix, the Width control is useful for spatially positioning and setting how wide individual stereo tracks are allowed to be—anywhere from full mono to extra-wide stereo. Strings, choirs, pads, stereo pianos, etc., can now be placed within the overall stereo field with less conflict. Width is adjustable from -100 to +100.

Controlling stereo width this easily without worrying about phase problems or monocompatibility is all-new; it’s nice to get a new mixing tool.

STEREO DEPTH

The Depth control adds reflections that are “directionally-optimized” for creating the sensation of sound waves emanating in a frontto-back space, or room. The Default value is 0, with no depth added.

I discovered a new kind of EQ by setting

PRODUCT SUMMARY

COMPANY: Leapwing Audio

PRODUCT: StageOne2

WEBSITE: www.leapwingaudio.com

PRICE: $249 MSRP

PROS: Amazing tool to build bigger mixes stereophonically.

CONS: Some of the controls need refinement.

5000 Hz and 400 Hz, respectively, and setting the Depth of the Mid frequency band to 100. On the same drum kit from previously, these settings caused a “scooped” sound, but unlike using an equalizer where you take down the midrange band and/or boost the top and bottom bands.

When inserted after stereo reverb returns, increased Depth builds the sensation that the reverb is omnidirectional, with an almost spherical, 3D quality rather than just reverb returns coming from the left and right monitors. This was all new to me and bears more usage on different source tracks. This effect should be verified on headphones.

MONO SPREAD

Mono Spread is a filter that creates pseudostereo and will widen the phantom center channel. It is good to understand that this effect is, as are all of StageOne2’s processors, always mono-compatible. Mono Spread will increase the level of the phantom center of stereo audio without sacrificing stereo width.

I inserted a mono-to-stereo instance of StageOne2 on a mono recording of an electric 12-string Rickenbacker guitar, and it worked great! I set the crossover frequencies to 20 Hz and 20 kHz so that all frequencies were affected. The Width, Depth and Mono Spread controls were all set to 100, the maximum. This “stereoized” guitar track became louder and brighter-sounding, but, when made mono in my monitor controller (L+R summed), it went back down in level and returned to how it was originally.

CENTER GRAVITY, PHASE RECOVERY

Center Gravity will pan the phantom center signal left or right. The Default is 0, or no change. It works

on stereo recordings or mono recordings, also using Mono Spread. CG’s utility is priceless in my mixing process when I’m setting up the spatial size of different, individual stereo pairs.

Phase Recovery is for stereo audio recordings that have become phase incoherent, but only in certain bands of frequencies. Generally, I’m finding Phase Recovery clears up the sound overall. The included presets called “Wide Guitars” and “Tight Bass” are good starting points.

USING STAGEONE2

Using StageOne2 is simple, although not all of the controls work in the same manner, and the blue-on-blue color scheme makes it difficult to see the state of a particular button(s). I liked that option+click (Mac) resets any control to 0, or default value, with the exception of the crossover filters. All values are adjustable by clicking and dragging with the mouse, except that the crossover filter controls appear like faders, as mentioned.

These are typical issues with first software releases. The separate bypass buttons for the Width, Depth and Phase Recovery effects is an excellent feature. The resizable Visualizer screen is mesmerizing, with amazing detail and resolution. Using the L-C-R calibrated stereo field shown at the top of the screen, it is easy to see when those “brick wall” extremes are hit. My only request would be to make the Visualizer window itself larger.

As a music mixer, not a mastering engineer, I discovered all the utility of StageOne2 simply by switching on one effect at a time. Even though StageOne2 is made for finished mixes, I found fantastic uses for any stereo pad, reverb returns, remixing stereo choirs to rebalance them, and stereo orchestral stems.

The one caveat is that you now have the power to remix (to a certain degree) recorded audio almost a little too easily, so I often found myself backing off my initial extreme settings.

For mastering engineers, Leapwing StageOne 2 works at up to 384 kHz (DXD) and also as a 64-bit plug-in in VST3, AAX and AU formats for MacOS (10.10 and higher) and Windows 8 and 10. n

The Visualizer screen displays, as individual “points of light,” all spatial L/R audio dynamically. Relative pan positions are shown horizontally on the x-axis within a calibrated L-C-R stereo field shown at the top of the screen.

Audient EVO SP8

8-Channel Smart Mic Preamp With A/D and D/A Conversion

By Steve La Cerra

The EVO SP8 from Audient is an eight-channel “Smart” microphone preamp with onboard A/D and D/A, and dual ADAT optical I/Os. It can be used as a stand-alone, digitally controlled analog mic pre, or as a way to expand the channel count of any audio interface with ADAT optical I/O, but taking full advantage of its Smart capabilities requires combining the EVO SP8 with Audient’s EVO 16 (24x24) USB interface.

A maximum of two EVO SP8s may be connected to an EVO 16 for creating an “EVO Expanded” recording system with 24 channels of I/O at sample rates up to 48 kHz (sample rates of 88.2 and 96 kHz require use of dual optical ports, reducing channel count).

The EVO SP8 is built into a solid, all-metal chassis with roughly the same footprint as a mid-size laptop (rack ears are available as an option). Front-panel features include two mic/line/instrument combo jacks, eight channel-select buttons, 48 VDC phantom on/ off, instrument and Smartgain buttons, high-res LCD screen, and a rotary encoder for entering data.

The rear panel hosts six balanced combo jack inputs, eight balanced TRS line outputs, (2) ADAT optical I/O, BNC word clock input, a USB Type-C port (for firmware updates), and an IEC power receptacle.

GETTING SET UP

The first time the EVO SP8 is powered on, a screen prompt guides you through a brief setup procedure to adjust basic parameters such as screen brightness, clock source, analog output source and sample rate. To revisit these settings or access other system parameters, press and hold the encoder until the Setup menu appears.

Most of the Setup menu settings are self-explanatory, but a

few are worth mentioning. Clock Source options include Internal, Digital or Word Clock. Sample Rate can be set to 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96 kHz, or Auto, whereby sample rate is derived from the clock source. Output Source switches the TRS outputs to source audio from one of two paths: The first option is “Analogue,” in which case the jacks output signal from the mic preamps, post-gain, enabling you to use the EVO SP8 as you would any stand-alone analog microphone preamp, while providing redundancy via the optical output. The other option for Output Source is “Digital,” in which case the EVO SP8 acts as a D/A for audio routed to the ADAT optical input.

Audient refers to the UI for the EVO 16 and EVO SP8 as the “Motion UI,” which makes getting around fast and easy. Tap on a channel button and turn the encoder to adjust gain for that channel; press “48V” to turn phantom power on/off. The instrument button applies only to front-panel inputs 1 and 2 and engages a JFET DI for either of those channels. When in instrument mode, phantom power cannot be turned on; attempting to do so causes an angry ghost to appear on the LCD!

The EVO SP8 and the EVO 16 have a feature called Smartgain, which automatically sets input level, either on a per-channel or global basis. While running Smartgain, the preamp “listens” to the input source for about 10 seconds and sets gain accordingly.

Smartgain settings were almost identical to the values I’d have set manually. One exception was using Smartgain for multiple microphones on an entire drum kit simultaneously: Due to leakage, Smartgain had difficulty determining preamp level for the hi-hat mic, but if I initiated Smartgain only on the hi-hat channel, and played only the hi-hat, Smartgain worked fine. When

the Smartgain process has finished, colored circles show status (success or failure) for each channel.

I initially used the SP8 with my main interface, a Metric Halo Labs LIO8, and Digital Performer. Word clock out from the LIO8 was connected to the EVO SP8, and optical out from the EVO SP8 was patched into the LIO8, expanding the analog input count by eight. The EVO SP8 synched without any issues, but there was one repeatable glitch: If I changed the LIO8 sample rate to 176.4 or 192 kHz, the EVO SP8 would lock up and mute. The only way to resume normal operation was to restart the EVO SP8. Other than that, changes to the sample rate were properly acknowledged by the EVO SP8.

HOW DOES IT SOUND?

Audio quality from the EVO SP8 is very good. It’s not as transparent as the LIO8, but bottom end is solid and tight, while the midrange and top end are smooth and clear. The preamps and converters lean toward the warm side of the

in a Strat and switching the input to Instrument mode made the guitar come to life with crystalclear high end, plenty of detail and a balanced frequency response. The guitar sounded like a Strat should, especially noticeable when using amp simulator plug-ins.

BRING IN THE EVO 16

When I asked the folks at Audient to send me an EVO SP8, they suggested that I try the unit with an EVO 16, and I now see why: The two make an excellent pair. Documentation states that pressing Smartgain on one device in an Expanded system turns Smartgain on for all of the devices. Given that the EVO 16 is connected to a computer via USB, while the EVO SP8 has no connection to the computer,  I was expecting this to be propaganda.

At this point, I had a cable connecting the EVO SP8 optical out to EVO 16 optical in (which routed audio successfully), and the feature didn’t work—but then I had a very sneaky thought: What if Audient figured out a way to

PRODUCT SUMMARY

COMPANY: Audient

PRODUCT: EVO SP8

WEBSITE: www.audient.com

PRICE: $499

PROS: Very good sound quality; easy to use; useful Smartgain feature; elegant integration with EVO 16.

CONS: May not have enough gain for low-output microphones; mixer app screen is difficult to read; locks up when sent external clock at 176.4 or 192 kHz.

Not so clever is the color scheme for some of the mixer app’s controls and text. I found the phase button almost impossible to find, while 48 VDC, mute, solo and mono buttons were difficult to see, as was some of the text. One thing to be aware of is that you cannot use the mixer app with only an EVO SP8—an EVO 16 is required to bridge communication between the EVO SP8 and the app.

spectrum, so if you hear any harshness, you can be sure it’s either the source or the microphone. There’s a subtle color happening in the EVO SP8, but it’s tough to pinpoint, even using an RTA, which suggested a very slight (1 or 2 dB) shelf from 250 Hz down.

EVO SP8 preamps have plenty of gain to accommodate most microphones, but struggled with my RCA 44BX (most preamps do), which requires tons of gain and is very sensitive to input loading. The EVO SP8 didn’t quite have enough gain to amplify the 44BX to nominal levels on acoustic guitar or vocal recordings, and some background noise was evident at the maximum gain setting (58 dB). If your plans include using a low-output dynamic mic with the SP8, you may need a Cloudlifter-type device to make up the difference.

The DI inputs sounded equally good. Plugging

use the ADAT optical bus to carry additional data without interfering with the digital audio? I connected another optical cable—this one from EVO 16 optical out to EVO SP8 optical in— pressed Smartgain, then lo and behold Smartgain was initiated for both units. My propeller hat off to the engineers at Audient.

An all-EVO system with these connections also enables you to take full advantage of the EVO mixer app. As you’d expect, the app provides access to all of the EVO 16 front-panel controls, plus adds control over four cue buses, facilitates low-latency monitoring and allows settings to be stored and recalled. When an EVO SP8 is connected, its channels automatically populate the mixer app, and the app controls preamp gain, fader level, pan, solo, mute and phantom power for all devices on the optical network. Very clever.

EXCELLENT VALUE

It’s obvious that Audient did a lot of homework when designing the EVO SP8. In addition to Smartgain and the voodoo of two-way communication via the ADAT optical bus, the company has incorporated other smart features, such as automatically muting the output when phantom is switched, or the ability to mute a channel simply by pressing and holding the channel button. Channels can be easily linked, and clipping an input causes the illuminated number at the center of a channel button to change from white to red. Even a firmware update was easy, given an Internet connection.

Whether you plan to use it as a stand-alone mic preamp, expander via ADAT optical for your existing interface, or as a complement to an EVO 16, the EVO SP8 delivers the goods at a very reasonable price. n

The rear panel hosts six balanced combo jack inputs, eight balanced TRS line outputs, (2) ADAT optical I/O, BNC word clock input, and a USB Type-C port (for firmware updates).

Trident 80B 500 Pre-amp

Low-Cost Module Delivers Classic ’70s Rock ‘n’ Roll Sound

By Barry Rudolph

The new Trident Audio Developments Series 80B 500 Pre-amp, essentially the sound and electronic design of the legendary Trident 80B console preamp from the late ’70s and early ’80s, is now available as a single-slot, single-channel 500 Series module. The 80B is the fourth Trident 500 module now available in a line that includes the 80B EQ, the A-Range EQ (two slots) and the ever-useful Hi-Lo Tracking Filters.

The Trident 80B 500 Series Microphone Preamp has both Line and Mic inputs and runs Class-AB. It uses a Lundahl LL1538 mic input transformer, plus an electronically balanced line input available using a front panel ¼-inch TRS jack. The Line input impedance is specified at 1-megohm, making it perfect for direct guitars, basses, electronic keyboards and synths.

Gain for the microphone input is specified at -10 dB to +65 dB, while the Hi-Z Line input has a range of -20 dB to +20 dB. Another Lundahl LL1517 transformer is used for the output, for a maximum of +27 dBu driving 600-ohm impedances.

Back in the day, Trident used Bellclaire transformers in the original design, and Trident’s current product designer, Taz Bhogal, says that the Lundahl transformers’ design make them the closest fit to retain all the characteristics of the classic 80B sound. That sound differs significantly from the sound of the Trident A-Range, which runs Class-A and uses Ed Reichenbach’s Jensen JT-13K transformers.

INPUTS, KNOBS, BUTTONS

Because of the dual inputs, the 80B can handle a wide range of signal levels—

anywhere from -60 dBu (XLR Mic input) to as high as +24 dBu (Line input) without an attenuator (pad) switch. There are separate Gain controls for both the low impedance (150ohm) mic input and the high-impedance line input.

A Line switch toggles between the two inputs so you are able to maintain separate settings for recording both an XLR mic and a direct instrument. I liked the “calibration” mark on the front panel by the Line level input control knob that represents a standardized setting. There is also a detent at 0 dB on the Line control (straight up at 12 noon) for recalls and/or returning to a standard operating level. I love that all the Trident 500 modules retain the aluminum control knobs from the original consoles.

Besides the Line input changeover switch, the front panel has lighted buttons for flipping output Polarity, 48-volt phantom on/off, and switches for both the continuously variable 30 – 350 Hz Low Pass and 2 – 20 kHz High Pass filters. Both filters are available for both mic and line input sources.

Trident 80B 500 Series Microphone Preamp.

I found these 12 dB/octave (second-order) filters perfectly suited to tracking any source in the studio, from close-miked acoustic guitars to lead vocals to drum overheads. The front panel rounds out with an Output VU meter using eight colored LEDs to measure output levels from -20 dB to +15 dB.

For this review, I received two Trident 80B 500 Series Microphone Pre-amps, and I installed them in my API 6B 500 Rack. The full-sized square buttons and the bright, focused VU meter LEDs were easy to see and verify from across my control room.

FIRED UP IN THE STUDIO

To get an overall feel for the sound and operation of these preamps, my first tests involved bringing out my Jensen mic splitter transformer box (with JT-MBE-E) to feed the same mic signal to both the Trident 80B and several other preamps in my collection that I know well and use all the time. This way of comparing preamps—i.e., using the same mic—can reveal a lot about the differences in their general sound quality, noise floor, and pleasant or harsh overload characteristics with hot signals.

I started by recording a new Fuchs Clean Machine II guitar amp plugged into a 30-watt, 12-inch Hellatone speaker in an Avatar openback cabinet. I tried both a Shure MV-7 dynamic mic and Mojave MA-D, positioned in my usual locations on and around the speaker cone. Here, slight changes in the mic positioning were easy to discern—as they should be—even with loud guitar sounds.

The front-panel markings on the 80B matched my other preamps with the same 30 – 40 dB of gain usually required for close-miked, loud guitar amps and typical dynamic microphones. The 80B was clear-sounding, realistically picking up the increased headroom of this boutique guitar amp’s dynamics. I grew to appreciate the continuously variable High-Pass filter on the 80B for reining in low-frequency bumps

PRODUCT SUMMARY

COMPANY: Trident Audio Developments

PRODUCT: 80B 500 Pre-Amp

WEBSITE: www.tridentaudiodevelopments.com

PRICE: $649.99 MSRP

PROS: Great little workhorse mic pre that is not crazy expensive.

CONS: Mic Gain control knob could use detents.

and high-frequency harshness when required; adjustable HPF and LPF filters typically appear only on console channel strips.

VOCALS

Vocals also shined when passing through with the Trident 80B. I have my Trident Decca-Dent 500 rack mounted at the top of my outboard cabinets so I can adjust them immediately. Depending on the singer, sometimes I will do some old-school gain “riding” while in Record, and the continuously variable gain control makes that easy.

Because of the 80B’s semi-parametric filter control knobs, there is no room for an Output level control on the front panel, and I do wish the mic gain control knob had detents to add a “feel” for this process. Having said that, the precise mic gain control and the 80B’s inherent dynamic range and low noise floor makes gain riding less necessary in order to still sound transparent.

I put up a David Bock U195 cardioid condenser (normal mode, no low cut), with my singer positioned about 8 to 10 inches away. I used around 50 dB of gain, which gave me plenty of level going into a Retro Instruments 176 Limiting Amplifier.

The Trident 80B sounded great, and the

filters were very gentle in their effect(s), with the HPF set at 50 Hz or lower for singers, or acoustic guitars set at 50 to 150 Hz, depending on the mic, its distance, and the guitar’s body size. The LPF did work well on cymbals and hi-hats, though for me, that is usually a mix decision.

The Trident Audio Developments 80B 500 Pre-Amp sounds great and took me back to the times of my youth using Trident consoles. It’s all there! n

Trident reports the Lundahl transformers’ design make them the closest fit to retain all the characteristics of the classic 80B sound.

I grew to appreciate the continuously variable High-Pass filter on the 80B for reining in low-frequency bumps and high-frequency harshness when required; adjustable HPF and LPF filters typically appear only on console channel strips.

Open Channel

Dear Screenwriters and SAG-AFTRA

An open letter from the music industry; we feel your pain

By Craig Anderton

By Craig Anderton

Hello! We’re the music industry, and we know what you’re going through. We were devalued long before you were. People were stealing our music when your customers were still buying DVDs. And with music requiring little bandwidth, music streaming had a head start on video streaming. The movie industry had to wait for widespread broadband.

When streaming music became a thing, if customers were okay with ads, they didn’t have to pay anything for unlimited listening to whatever they wanted. If they didn’t like ads, paying less than the price of a single CD provided a month of unlimited listening from a collection of tens of millions of songs. Oh, that reminds you of Netflix? Well, you’re mostly right, except that Netflix creates new content. The music streamers make money without actually having to create any new music. It’s a pretty sweet deal.

And now, you’re being told the movie/TV model is broken, so you need to tighten your belts. We’ll ignore that the people telling you that are the ones who broke the model. But, hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time to trash a profitable, established model and instead try to chase Netflix’s success.

Well, the music business model got broken, too, but in a weird way streaming kind of saved us. Although nuclear energy never did make electricity “too cheap to meter,” music became too cheap to steal. Revenues inched up, labels made some money again, and new income sources emerged for artists.

THE RICH GET RICHER

So, take it from us: Go with the flow. Been there, done that, and we’re still here. Sure, we understand it’s upsetting that you’ll have to shoot your own auditions, and pay for your own lighting and writers. Sounds bad, right? It’s not! Some people are doing that now, but instead of pitching movie studios, they’re making bucks on YouTube. It could be a good side hustle to supplement your income from waiting tables.

If you’re concerned you won’t be able to match Hollywood’s quality, look at some YouTube or TikTok videos. Quality isn’t a thing anymore; authenticity is. Without corporate overlords telling you what to do, now’s your chance to make that film noir project about how sausages are made.

Of the subculture of people who monetize music and videos on YouTube, only channels with millions of streams make money. But we’re realistic. The record business was always about the rich getting richer, and everyone else owing the label money. And we’re resilient. When big-studio

budgets disappeared, we migrated to home studios—and some musicians produced megahits on laptops in their bedrooms.

Oh, and about AI taking over your jobs. The music business couldn’t make stealing or streaming go away. It can’t make AI go away. Neither can you. However, so far it’s almost painfully obvious when web content has been AI-generated, and people didn’t like the de-aging in the last Indiana Jones movie’s backstory segment. So, hopefully there’s a best-case scenario: fakery becomes unhip, and AI does your grunt work.

EVEN MORE ABOUT MONEY

As to base pay and residuals… Not to get all French Revolution about this, but if a business isn’t doing well, isn’t that on the people running the business? To paraphrase Disney head Bob Iger, when he essentially said “the model has changed and we have no idea yet how to deal with it,” at least give him credit for honesty. But talk about a self-own—shouldn’t the C-level folks tighten their belts until they figure out a business model that works? I kinda thought that was their job.

Yeah, us music industry peeps know what you’re going through. Like you, we have to pay for food, clothing and shelter. But consumers think that anything you can see or listen to online should be free, or at least dirt cheap. They don’t want to pay us for what we produce for them. Which brings up the elephants in the room for music and movies: Subscribers need to pay more, and streaming services need to go all-in on ad-supported free tiers.

Did you notice that when Netflix added more subscribers recently, their stock price went down? That’s because their revenue didn’t go up as much as expected. For years, the holy grail for streaming services was subscribers. But the crazy proliferation of video streaming services has diluted the available subscriber pool for each one. Now, the holy grail is revenue—extracting more money from fewer subscribers.

Spotify raised its single rate to $10.99. That matches cost increases from Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music. Spotify’s Daniel Ek said, “These updates will help us continue to deliver value to fans and artists on our platform.” Sounds good to me. I’m tired of music being devalued. If people aren’t willing to pay something like $19.99 a month to listen to all the music they could ever want to hear, then they can listen to an ad-supported version. Ads kept radio free—deal with it. Netflix raised prices and cracked down on password sharing, and they’re doing fine.

But if price increases mean fatter executive compensation, that won’t help. Streaming companies depend on content. Giving greater financial incentives for the people who create the content is better for all concerned.

Who knows? Maybe someday the bean counters will stop counting beans long enough to remember why there are beans in the first place. ■