MIX 565 - January 2024 by Future PLC

Boulevard Recording ★ Companies to Watch ★ Classic Tracks: Bush’s ‘Glycerine’ ★ Rob Bisel on Songs and SZA January 2024 \\ mixonline.com \\ $6.99

THE NEW HOME OF > Depeche Mode Momento Mori Live > John Mayer Solo Acoustic > Classic Rock Gear Hits Auction Block > RBD Reunion on the Road MUSIC PRODUCTION • LIVE SOUND • SOUND FOR PICTURE

REVIEWED • Ultimate Ears Pro Premier IEMs • Shure SM7dB Vocal Mic • Apple Logic Pro 10.8 • Soundtoys SuperPlate

JACK ANTONOFF

REIGNING PRODUCER OF THE YEAR BRINGS A ROAR FROM THE BLEACHERS

Boulevard Recording ★ Companies to Watch ★ Classic Tracks: Bush’s ‘Glycerine’ ★ Rob Bisel on Songs and SZA January 2024 \\ mixonline.com \\ $6.99

THE NEW HOME OF > Depeche Mode Momento Mori Live > John Mayer Solo Acoustic > Classic Rock Gear Hits Auction Block > RBD Reunion on the Road MUSIC PRODUCTION • LIVE SOUND • SOUND FOR PICTURE

REVIEWED • Ultimate Ears Pro Premier IEMs • Shure SM7dB Vocal Mic • Apple Logic Pro 10.8 • Soundtoys SuperPlate

JACK ANTONOFF

REIGNING PRODUCER OF THE YEAR BRINGS A ROAR FROM THE BLEACHERS

FEATURES

01.24 Contents Volume 48, Number 1

26 Jack Antonoff: Reigning Producer of the Year Brings a Roar From the Bleachers BY TOM KENNY

30 Clay Blair on the Boulevard BY STEVE HARVEY

34 Companies to Watch 2024: Pro Audio Edition BY THE MIX STAFF

18 MUSIC

LIVE SOUND

10 Producer/Engineer Rob

18 Depeche Mode Live: Momento Mori World Tour

Bisel on Songs and SZA BY LILY MOAYERI

14 Classic Tracks: The

Simplicity of Bush’s ‘Glycerine’

TECHNOLOGY

PRESENTED BY

40 New Products: Studio & Live Sound

BY CLIVE YOUNG

22 John Mayer Solo Acoustic 24 News & Notes: RBD Reunion; Mixing Megadeth at FOH; L-Acoustics’ Public Destruction of Counterfeits

BY ROBYN FLANS

42 Review: Ultimate Ears Pro Premier In-Ear Monitors BY CLIVE YOUNG

44 Review: Shure SM7dB Dynamic Vocal Mic

16 News & Notes: Film

BY BARRY RUDOLPH

Composer Germaine Franco; Campus Update: CRAS Adds SSL Origins

46 Review: Apple Logic Pro 10.8 BY MIKE LEVINE

48 Review: Soundtoys SuperPlate Plug-in BY RICH

DEPARTMENTS 6

TOZZOLI

From the Editor: Peeling Off the Labels

8 Current: Legendary Gear Rocks the Auction Block BY CLIVE YOUNG

50 Open Channel:

The Atmos Trilogy, Book Three BY CRAIG ANDERTON

22 Mix, Volume 48, Number 1 (ISSN 0164-9957) is published monthly by Future US, Inc., 130 West 42nd Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10036. Periodical Postage Paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Mix, PO Box 8518, Lowell, MA 01853. One-year (12 issues) subscription is $35. Canada is $40. All other international is $50. Printed in the USA. Canadian Post Publications Mail agreement No. 40612608. Canada return address: BleuChip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.

On the Cover: Two-time Grammy-winning Producer of the Year Jack Antonoff is in the running again this year, but his mind isn’t on awards or critics or working with pop superstars—it’s on his band, Bleachers, which will soon release its fourth album and then hit the road for a spring-summer tour. Photo: Alex Lockett.

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January 2024

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Current From the Editor

Peeling Off the Labels Though very few will admit it, each and every one of us, all day and every day, attaches labels to the people, places and things that make up our own private world. Ninety-nine percent of the time, this process is unconscious and autonomic, like breathing or the movement of muscles, and it’s harmless. Labels simply provide a means by which we navigate the world—a tiger might be labeled a threat, same as a smell might be deemed alluring or the sound of fingernails drawn slowly across a chalkboard painful. These types of labels, unconsciously tucked away in the brain, are good. They are part of a vast biofeedback system based on objective recognition and causal response. They’re necessary—and they carry no judgment. In our private lives, most of the labels we attach to people, places, things, and even ideas are relatively harmless. A neighbor might be labeled “conservative” or “liberal,” same as a pending piece of tax legislation in the U.S. Senate. An older aunt who only visits at Thanksgiving, smelling like mothballs and alcohol and giggling at odd times, might become known forever more as “eccentric,” while the newborn who never makes a noise is considered a “good baby.” The 60-year-old woman who lives alone down the street, with an overgrown, weed-riddled yard of aging shade trees that keep the entire property in the dark, might live the rest of her life not knowing that three generations of neighbors had dubbed her the “cat lady.” Still, it’s relatively benign in the grand scheme of things. It’s when we venture further out into the public arena that the act of assigning labels starts to have the potential to do harm. A shy 12-year-old boy who does well in science is considered a “nerd,” a young woman with severe dyslexia is teased, perhaps called “dumb,” because she has a hard time reading in front of the class, or a freshman on the basketball team is labeled a troublemaker for all four years by faculty and coaches alike, without consideration that he has been shuffled between 10 to 12 foster homes in his brief 15 years on the planet, or that he’s an incredible painter and getting an A in art. This is when labels start to come with judgment, and not just when they involve people. A neighborhood downtown that is labeled “urban,” means something very different to a potential homebuyer than a bordering neighborhood realtors have decided to refer to as “gentrified,” or “up and coming.” A “loft” evokes a different image than a “condo.” And a “Clean Forest Initiative,” pretty as it sounds, might actually involve loggers and the clear-cutting of old-growth trees. If you don’t take the time to look beneath the surface and find out more about the whole person or the whole story,

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labels have the power to both harm and deceive. Look at what happened in our own industry. With one throwaway comment from a London stage about then-President George W. Bush, lasting no more than 5 seconds, the Dixie Chicks were branded as traitors, communists, and a whole lot worse. In one night, their career, which had been riding a peak, was over. In the documentary Miss Americana, Taylor Swift talks openly about the agonizing struggles she went through in trying to shed the “good girl” label that had been drilled so deep into her psyche by the country music industry that at first she didn’t know how to speak out for what she believed in and simply be herself. All this being said, I can’t imagine how this month’s cover star, twotime Grammy-winning Producer of the Year Jack Antonoff, deals with the bloggers, critics, anti-fans and strangers who toss labels at him like candy, in social media and in old-school publications—everything from “fraud” to “genius,” from “Savior of Pop” to “Destroyer of Pop,” from “producer on a meteoric rise” to “hitmaker who has lost his touch.” None of it bothers him, Antonoff says. Sometimes he just laughs. Sometimes he counters by shocking them with a tune. He’s been thinking about music nonstop for most of his life, before even picking up a guitar at age 12 and writing his first song. I don’t pretend to know Jack Antonoff. I did my research, watched some interviews and clips, listened to his music, and then we talked for an hour by phone. He doesn’t seem like he’s bent on destruction, and there’s nothing mediocre about him. He seems to know who he is at this point in life, and he’s comfortable in his own skin. There was no rock-star ego. He looks and acts like someone you would want to hang out with. Near the end of our conversation, I brought up a New York Times op-ed piece written by Jeff Tweedy a month earlier, titled “I Thought I Hated Pop Music; ‘Dancing Queen’ Changed My Mind.” In it, Tweedy talks about growing up punk in Chicago, where teens would often find identity through hating something else, typically a music genre. Foreigner fans had big combs in their pockets, and ABBA fans were simply idiots. By the end of the essay, Tweedy is in deep lament for the 35 years he lost when he could have been playing ‘Dancing Queen’ at least once a day. Antonoff’s response? “‘Dancing Queen’ is such a great fucking song!”

Tom Kenny, Co-Editor

Current // news & notes Rock Stars’ Gear Rocks the Auction Block By Clive Young

usic memorabilia auctions are nothing new, but in recent years, their popularity has exploded. Whether looking to feel closer to favorite artists or simply find an alternative investment asset, music fans have jumped at the opportunity to purchase instruments, posters, stage outfits and more tied to music’s biggest names. In recent months, however, preconceptions of what might sell at auction have been shattered as a wave of pro-audio gear once owned by rock stars has begun hitting the block. Studio equipment, stage rigs and more used by The Beatles, John Lennon, Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia and others has gone up for sale recently, exciting audio pros and opening new markets for auction houses in the process. In November, The Zappa Trust held a three-day event with Julien’s Auctions, selling the late musician’s Trident 80B console, tape machines, rack gear, microphones and more. Soon after, online site Analogr hosted an auction of Grateful Dead-related items, including Jerry Garcia’s last stage effects rig and a working ¼-scale replica of the famed Wall of Sound P.A. created by Dead tech historian Anthony Coscia. Mid-December saw multiple studio items hit the block on the same day, as Guernsey’s put the once-lost master tapes for Bob Dylan’s first album up, while in London, Bonhams had the EMT 140 echo plate reverb John Lennon used to record “Imagine” in his home studio, and the restored EMI TG12345 MkI prototype console used to record The Beatles’ Abbey Road album. “It’s hard to say what’s driving the seemingly sudden interest in audio tapes and gear from the earlier days of Rock other than—at least with original Bob Dylan tape recordings that we are auctioning at Guernsey’s—they place the listener in the very room and at the very moment music history was being made,” says Arlan Ettinger, President of Guernsey’s. In some cases, the audio equipment has

Bonhams sold the EMT 140 echo plate reverb John Lennon used to record “Imagine” in his home studio for nearly $73,500 in mid-December.

a connection not only to the artist but also the trajectory of the music industry. “There are only so many guitars on the market from notable musicians,” says Coscia, whose Wall of Sound replica sold for $70,000. “I think collectors and fans in general are more knowledgeable about the gear used to create all this great music, and they understand the history and value in preserving all the behindthe-scenes gear in addition to the obvious— especially in the world of the Grateful Dead where even the casual fan recognizes the contributions the band and its crew made to modern music technology.” The reasons why people bid on stars’ used gear are as unique as the bidders themselves, as Martin Nolan, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Julien’s Auctions, points out: “Amplifiers, microphones, pedals, sound boards and other recording equipment and accessories used by

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rock’s biggest music icons have become the new sought-after objets d’art for fellow musicians and gearheads who are looking for that connection to the original owners…and what’s cooler than saying that you own these audio tech gadgets of music history and displaying them in your living room or even using them in your home or office recording studio?” One person who would agree with that is legendary FOH engineer Toby Francis (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ariana Grande, Aerosmith, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry), who won multiple lots at the Zappa auction that Nolan’s company hosted. “I’m a huge fan of Frank Zappa as a composer, performer, guitarist and producer,” says Francis. “His work was very influential on my life and career—I started listening to his work on records in 1974, saw him in concert the first time in 1975, and it was one of the first great-sounding shows I attended as a young concertgoer. What I heard

Current // news & notes and experienced at the ’75, ’77 and ’78 Zappa shows I attended made me want to be a great live sound engineer. “When I heard about the auction and what items were being offered, I specifically targeted some of the items that had served Frank sonically well and that I knew would make a unique difference for me. The H3000, the Ursa Major Space Station, the UREI and dbx pieces were my main focus, as those are all great vintage units—the Space Station is on Frank’s guitar on my favorite solo! The rack with the pair of 160s and the three 1176s are in the background of so many photos of Frank in the UMRK [Zappa’s home studio] and now they are in a rack in my studio, waiting to be used to shape tone as they did for him all those years ago. I was stupid

Julian’s Auctions recently sold off numerous outboard units owned by Frank Zappa, seen here.

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enough to sell my LA-3A in the early Eighties—it was my first real piece of audio gear—and now I have Frank’s. I bought the gear to use it as he did; the fact that it was his does make a huge difference, as I have the utmost respect for Frank and his legacy.” Not every auction hits the mark—while Bonhams sold Lennon’s EMT 140 for the Abbey

Road console for nearly $73,500, the Abbey Road console didn’t meet its guide price of “a sevenfigure sum.” Similarly, Jerry Garcia’s stage rig remains unsold at Analogr, and the Dylan tape lot was passed at Guernsey’s, as well. Despite those setbacks, rockstar gear auctions are likely here to stay, making the recent slate of offerings only the opening bid. n

PHOTO: Nic Khang

Music Rob Bisel on Songs and SZA Red-hot producer/engineer builds a comfort zone for vocalists—and vocals By Lily Moayeri

n the middle of one of the most hectic urban areas of Los Angeles, Rob Bisel’s home and its detached studio are an oasis. The multiple Grammy-nominated producer (Kendrick Lamar, Doja Cat)—who was named 2022 Top Producer of the Year by BMI and No. 1 producer on Billboard’s R&B/hip hop producer charts—lucked out with his studio space, which was already converted when he moved in. Bisel has put his stamp on the facility with numerous guitars, a piano with its guts hanging out and various synthesizers. These tactile instruments are key sources of inspiration for the 31-year-old producer/engineer, who is riding high from the success of SZA’s SOS. He is one

of the primary producers and songwriters on the collection, with 17 of the album’s 23 songs to his credit, engineering credit on all songs, and mixing credit on eight tracks, including the record-breaking “Kill Bill.” The connection to SZA was made through Rick Rubin, in whose famed Shangri-La studio Bisel was a staple, working his way up from an internship. After six years at Shangri-La, in January 2020, Rubin asked if Bisel would come to his studio on the Hawaiian island of Kauai to work with SZA. “I liked the way some of my friends found an artist and did everything from producing to engineering to mixing, like a one-stop shop,”

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says Bisel. “I wanted that for myself. I had two artists in mind, and one of them was SZA.” They worked in a guest room at Rubin’s place on the island, with only SZA and her Neumann U47 microphone and Bisel and his Pro Tools rig—a modern demo setup in a comfortable space, ideal for a vocalist. The two weeks of sessions in Kauai went so well that when the pandemic kicked in, SZA created a bubble with Bisel so that they could carry on working, mainly in her home studio. There, they worked not dissimilarly to how they worked on the island. BUILDING A SONG Bisel switches between Pro Tools and Ableton,

PHOTO: Nic Khang

Bisel on bass

leaning toward the latter when he’s making beats. “It’s uncommon to know both superwell,” he says. “Usually, the people who know Pro Tools started working in a studio, where you’re entrenched in Pro Tools. People who know Ableton oftentimes started making music in their bedroom and don’t feel the need to make the switch to Pro Tools. “I feel much more confident and faster and organized when I’m recording vocals in Pro Tools,” he continues. “I can control the sound better and I get better mixes for vocals, but when it comes to jamming and coming up with ideas, especially in group settings, you can’t beat Ableton. The way you can add tracks on the fly or add plug-ins or loop things, unloop things, easily bring in samples, take samples out? In terms of arranging ideas, Ableton is a lot better in the way you can quickly shuffle and move things around.” Ideas often begin with Bisel’s tactile instruments. This goes back to his musical training, which began with piano lessons followed by flute in the school band, before moving on to the bass guitar. At the same time, he was singing in choirs from middle school through college at University of Michigan, where he earned a sound engineering degree. “I don’t know if there is a single song I produced for SZA that didn’t start with a physical instrument in this room,” Bisel says. “‘Ghost in the Machine’ started on that piano. ‘Kill Bill’ started on this [Sequential Circuits] Prophet.

Those songs started the week I got that piano and that synth. I was inspired by having a new toy. It could also be a toy in the box, like a new plug-in that has a sound or idea you’ve never heard.” An accordion Bisel was given as a high school graduation gift came into play on “Low,” another song on SOS. It began with Allessandro Buccellati jamming on it, building an idea. That idea was sitting around for a year and a half before an A&R contact passed it to Aire Atlantica, who made beats from the accordion source material. This recontextualization felt right for SZA, who recorded, wrote and cut her part to it in one day, right at the end of working on SOS. THAT SZA VOCAL For SZA’s vocals, Bisel uses what he calls “the classic L.A. pop vocal chain,” which is her U47 into a Neve 1073, then into a Tube-Tech CL1 B compressor. He typically has vocal effects baked into a session to inspire and influence what an artist is doing, noting that he has found having extreme effects such as Auto-Tune, reverb or distorted delay turned all the way up in the artist’s headphones might bring something out of them that they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. “For SZA, we carved this niche for sonic reasons, but also partially for psychological

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reasons,” Bisel explains. “I try to not do anything in a super-permanent way. I like to give myself wiggle room after the fact to undo things. I think it’s important to create some sort of vibe for an artist when they’re writing. Whatever keeps things interesting and exciting. The same way we hate hearing our voice recorded on our phones or on video, I don’t think artists are immune to that. Anything that softens that and helps them disassociate themselves from their own voice can be helpful.” Bisel’s years in choir come in handy when working with vocalists—in part because he knows the “lingo” and in part because he knows how to not hurt their feelings by using insensitively phrased critiques that affect their confidence. His is a signature vocal touch that is warm and earthy. When it comes to mixing the vocals into a song, which Bisel does in Pro Tools, he starts with the conventional bass and drums. Once he has those where he likes, he drops in the vocals, making sure he has a good place for them to sit without other elements stepping on them. A fan of spring reverbs, Bisel references Amy Winehouse and Arctic Monkeys, whose use of spring reverb brings “vibe and character and depth,” he says. “It’s an easy way to make something feel vintage-y and old-school. It adds percussive sounds like bangs and rattles. It makes it a little more 3D.” Bisel has said previously that he approaches a mix as if he’s never heard the song before. In addition to listening to roughs and finals in the studio and in the car, Bisel recommends playing back a mix in different environments. “It’s amazing how different a song sounds when you’re playing it for your friends at a party versus by yourself on a Tuesday night at 3 a.m.,” he says. “I’ve heard songs that didn’t really interest me that much, but then when I heard it at a social event, I realized it’s a really good song. That’s one way to refresh your ears a little bit. “I didn’t reference a ton of stuff when we were mixing SZA, but listening to other music, being aware what similar records might do, those are the benchmarks you want to touch on that help you step back a little bit and get a broader sense of what you’re doing instead of being so zeroed in. It’s definitely not easy to be objective and forget to loosen up the demo-itis.” n

Classic Tracks The Simplicity of Bush’s “Glycerine” Frontman Gavin Rossdale Recalls How a Spark Became a Song By Robyn Flans

m I ripping this off?” thought Bush’s lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Gavin Rossdale, as the song “Glycerine” began to write itself. “Maybe this is someone else’s song,” he recalled thinking, as the music and lyrics continued to reveal themselves so quickly in the basement bedroom of his home at 37 Montigu Square, London, West One. While Rossdale says he’s not one to describe his work in clichés, like “songs are my babies,” or “they just come through me; I’m just a channel,” this particular song was definitely inspired as he sat on his bed with a big tape recorder on his side dresser and began writing on guitar with a distortion pedal. The Bush frontman was engaging and enthusiastic as he discussed “Glycerine,” the song he considers the most successful he’s ever written, one where he was in that moment of having a parallel conversation inside the creative conversation. “You reflect on it once you have the shape [of the song],” he explains. “In my life, it’s always been about pushing around my shapes. A guru of mine said writing songs is either easy or impossible, and that’s how it goes. If I’m laboring over something, it’s not right.” This particular time, however, it came so easily that Rossdale was truly concerned he had stolen someone else’s song. “You just have these incredible moments; flashes of creativity you are lucky enough to receive and expose and record,” Rossdale explains. “The first step was I played it for the band in a rehearsal room in Harlesden in West London, a super-ghetto rehearsal room, and they were not paying attention. After I played the song, they were still chatting, and I thought, ‘First off, this might be someone else’s, and secondly, if it’s not someone else’s, nobody gets it and can I play it again?’ That’s a band for you; they always beat up the singer!”

Bush’s Loaded: The Greatest Hits 1994-2023, which was released in November 2023 and includes the hit “Glycerine.”

The stark production of the track, recorded in January 1994, was released as the fourth single of Bush’s debut LP, Sixteen Stone, on November 14, 1995, and materialized as a result of many variables coming together all at once. DRUMS OR NO DRUMS? Rossdale says the demo was just guitar and his vocal. He had never recorded a song without drums, and the intention was to have the band join in. When we spoke, he couldn’t quite remember if the band actually ever did record the song, but says there seems to be a point in the second chorus where the drums sound like they were going to come in, and perhaps they had at one point. “Alan [Winstanley] mixed it as if the drums were still going to come in,” Rossdale recalls. “That’s what was so genius—and it might be that

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PHOTO: Shervin Lainez

“

the drums were there and he just muted them.” The production team of Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley also needed a minute to recall how the recording of “Glycerine” went down with the band, back in the days when they were still called Future Primitive. “Someone at the record company found out there was a software company called Future Primitive, so they had to change the name,” Winstanley explains. “They came up with the name Bush, which they said came from Shepherd’s Bush, which is where we recorded the album,” to which Langer adds with a laugh, “It has other connotations as well.” Winstanley remembers listening to Nirvana and going out and buying records that Rossdale was into, like the Pixies and PJ Harvey, before coming in to work with the band on the album. Both Winstanley and Langer are listed

100,” he continues. “It was a breakthrough. We decided to forget about the double-tracking, just getting down to basics.” WEST SIDE STUDIOS, LONDON Winstanley says they started the album in Studio One at West Side Studios, London, which at that time housed a Neve VR console. “Glycerine” was recorded on a 24-track Studer A800 tape machine, with a Neumann U87 at the front of Rossdale’s vocal chain. “We used the normal kind of limiters and compressors—I think I was using Audio Design Compressors in those days, and I remember that Empirical Labs launched the Distressor that year and we rented one, which I used to compress Gavin’s vocals,” Winstanley says. “I liked that piece of equipment so much we immediately bought two of them for West Side Studios. We didn’t use much effects. The guitars are dry. As for mics, I would have had a Sennheiser 421 and Shure 57, and a bit of a room mic.” Nigel Pulsford, Bush’s lead guitarist, wrote the arrangements for the overdubbed strings (double-tracked), performed by Gavyn Wright (violin and viola) and Caroline Dale (cello). The

PHOTO: Courtesy of Alan Winstanley

as producers on the record, along with the band. Langer spent more time in the rehearsals helping to shape the material, while Winstanley, the engineer, did more of the heavy lifting during tracking. “The arrangements were very simple,” Langer says. “We just recorded it. It wasn’t like making a Madness record or a They Might be Giants record, or even an Elvis Costello record. There weren’t that many overdubs. We were purposely keeping it simple.” “Glycerine” turned out very simple. When I shared Rossdale’s recollection that they may have experimented with a full-band recording on “Glycerine,” it jogged the two producers’ memories. “I think halfway through, we had the band come in, and maybe we took them out later, but that was near the end,” Langer notes. “I think we tried having bass and drums coming in, but then I think we just didn’t need it. It was poignant, and it would have been a bit bombastic to have them come in. “We did most of Gavin’s guitars to a Marshall 100, but then we did a track to a Marshall 50, and then we redid all his guitars in a day because it sounded so much better than the Marshall

Producer Clive Langer, left, and producer/engineer Alan Winstanley in London’s West Side Studios, circa 1994.

viola and violin would have been miked with U87s, with a U47 on the cello and another few as room mics. “Nigel delivered really beautiful strings,” Rossdale says of the arrangement, which includes the haunting final chords. “His father had just passed away, and he wrote some very, very beautiful strings, and that also informed the decision, ‘Don’t put drums in there now; don’t hide those strings.’ It’s funny how all these different, unusual circumstances happened to bring about what is effectively a ballad with a distorted guitar. People at that point in our career weren’t handing out too many compliments. Still, for me, it’s the most successful song that I’ve ever written.” Rossdale concedes that had it been done in a traditional manner, it would not have had distorted guitar; it would have had acoustic guitar and power drums in the middle. “What happened? Where did it all go wrong?” he says with dramatic playfulness. “It was a special song,” Langer adds. “It stood out as something special, like the intro to ‘Machinehead,’ when I think of Bush. The thing is, we made the record as Future Primitive, and then they had problems with their record company, and we didn’t hear anything about it. We thought it was a lost album, and it didn’t come out until a year later. We didn’t have any expectations. It took off really quickly when it finally came out.” Sixteen Stone, released in December 1994, eventually hit Number 4 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, with “Glycerine” reaching the Top 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. In November 2023, the cut was included in a 21-song greatest hits package called Loaded: The Greatest Hits 1994-2023. “I remember being aware of the potential power of the song,” Rossdale says. “I had no concept of the future; I didn’t know what that meant. I was very naïve. I was in London playing rock music when people didn’t like rock music. There was clearly no commercial endeavor. If I was commercially minded, I would have been studying the Kinks closer like everyone else, or Blur or Pulp. When you look back at them now, all of them, whether you liked them or not, were incredible bands, but they were too tidy for me. I liked more sweat and mess and feedback. I had more rage than that. I let go of all commercial concepts and began Bush.” And look what happened, I remark. “I know,” he says. n

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Music // news & notes Film Composer Talks Tools for Demos First impressions are important, so scoring composer Germaine Franco uses an arsenal of plug-ins even on her film music demos. Franco was the first Latina to win a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, in recognition of her work on Encanto, and the first Latina to receive the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature for her work on Coco. Other recent projects include composing and producing the score for the Netflix smash hit The Mother, along with two No.1 Netflix films, Work It and The Sleepover, among others. When mixing for major motion pictures and other high-profile films, Franco’s workflow often includes a significant amount of collaboration. After first orchestrating and developing her ideas, she produces demos that are shared with filmmakers, editors and music supervisors. Because of this, Franco says it is important to have a wide variety of reliable tools in her workstation. “It’s vital to have the perfect plug-ins and tools, because it is the norm these days for demos to sound incredible the first time you present them,” she says. Franco’s toolbox includes various Nugen Audio plug-ins, such as Halo Upmix, Halo Downmix and Paragon. Nugen’s Halo Upmix was essential for upmixing synths to 5.1 and 7.1 formats for her work on The Mother. “Halo Upmix was used extensively on The Mother because we wanted to widen the synths and put them in and around the live orchestral recordings,” she explains. “It is a very helpful tool because I often have to deliver in different formats. It’s very reliable and I think it sounds great; it completely expands the stereo sounds of the synths that I work with.” Franco also used Halo Upmix on Encanto. “Everyone was working remotely at that time, and we had several musicians on the project who

Film Composer Germaine Franco

all recorded at home, in stereo. I still had to deliver the mix in 5.1, so Halo Upmix was extremely helpful in those circumstances. Because of those capabilities, Upmix has become one of my favorite plug-ins.” Halo Downmix also gets a workout. “Sometimes the directors or editors don’t have a surround setup and are only listening in stereo. In these cases, I mix for surround and then will run it through Halo Downmix to deliver to the editorial house. This way I know they are hearing it exactly as I intend.” ■

CRAS Adds SSL Desks to Two Campuses The Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences has installed SSL Origin mixing consoles at its two campuses in Arizona. The two new Origin 32-channel in-line analog consoles are installed, respectively, in Studio B at the main CRAS campus in Tempe and Studio B at the satellite campus in Gilbert, where students are first introduced to the signal flow and operation of large-format recording consoles. “Students who enter our program have access to both consoles,” says Robert Brock, director of education at CRAS. “On any given

day, we’re running the same class at both locations in parallel.” The two new Origins have replaced a pair of 25-year-old consoles that were used by CRAS teaching staff to instruct students on the concepts of audio signal flow and the features and functionality of analog consoles. “We didn’t see any need to change the core concepts of the training, so it was just about what piece of equipment helps us illustrate those concepts well, that is new and that is going to be reliable,” he says.

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The staff evaluated all the large-format analog consoles currently on the market, Brock reports. Ultimately, having been teaching on four SSL consoles, two 4000 Series and two AWS 948s, in other rooms at CRAS for many years, they selected the newest large-format console from the manufacturer. “The Origin sounds good; it’s a pro-level console. It’s an SSL—whether it’s a small interface or a largeformat console, SSL is not going to put out something that doesn’t sound great.” Everything revolves around signal flow at the

Music // news & notes One of two SSL Origin consoles newly installed at CRAS.

school, he explains. “A core concept of CRAS on a technical level, when we’re training a student to be a professional, is to think in terms of signal flow more than anything else. If you can understand signal flow you can navigate your way through almost any situation. We’re big believers in teaching it from an analog standpoint, because it’s easier to see, touch, grab and feel, which we have always felt is helpful for our students. They can visualize the signal flow even when they move into DAWbased environments.” Since the consoles were installed, CRAS instructors have found that their jobs have become a little simpler, he also reports. “The instructors who teach this console fundamentally feel it’s an easier console to teach. It allows us to get to the core concept of what we’re trying to teach relatively easily—easier than it was before.” n

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Martin Gore, left, and Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode perform onstage during the Memento Mori tour at The Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

Mixing Depeche Mode’s Momento Mori World Tour By Clive Young Depeche Mode knows a little something about music for the masses, and its unique blend of synth pop, goth, alternative, rock and more continues on the group’s most recent album, 2022’s Memento Mori. A hit with critics and fans alike, the collection paved the way for the 202324 Memento Mori Tour, which has brought the group—now a duo of vocalist Dave Gahan and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Martin Gore—to packed arenas and stadiums around the globe. Supporting Depeche Mode’s modus operandi at every stop has been UK-based audio provider Britannia Row Productions, which has now worked with the band for 30 years.

Along for the ride are FOH engineer Jamie Pollock and monitor engineer Mike Gibbard, each ensuring that their mixes reflect what’s happening onstage with clarity and purpose. Depeche Mode has never held the recorded versions of its songs as sacrosanct, as evidenced by the bumper crop of remixes the group has released over the years. Bringing that philosophy to the FOH position, Pollock had to develop each song’s mix not necessarily to reproduce the recorded version or simply give it a more “live feel,” but instead to best support the song’s latest evolution. “I could play you one of their songs that everyone knows, mute the lead parts to listen to what’s underneath it—and you’d say, ‘It’s not the same song,’” he said, laughing. “The music is so

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creative, and there’s so many layers to it; it’s quite brilliant. I spent some time with Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records, who discovered them, and we had conversations about how some songs came about in the studio. You think you know what drives a song and you interpret it that way, but there’s definitely been times where I was wrong. He was able to tell me about a song’s creative process, and once you understand the fundamentals of what it was about, you can then play on it [in the mix]. I think they look for things that make it exciting, a little different. We recently started playing ‘Black Celebration,’ and how we’re doing it now is very different—and they wanted that. I think they were looking for something a bit new and fresh, and that’s the evolution.”

PHOTO: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

Live

PRESENTED BY

At the FOH mix position, Jamie Pollock presides over an Avid S6L-32D console and copious amounts of outboard gear.

At stageside, monitor engineer Mike Gibbard oversees a Solid State Logic L550 Plus console along with two UAD 2 Live Racks and additional outboard gear.

PHOTO: Courtesy of Britannia Row

onto the stage thrust. A shorter plate reverb from a Bricasti M7 gets applied to Gahan’s vocal for some depth, and a tc electronic System 6000 reverb gets blended in with it for character as needed. While an Overstayer Modular Channel was originally going to be part of the vocal setup, it ultimately landed on the guitar, next to a GML 8900 dynamic range controller. “I try to put a range of colors on my palette that I know I can use if needed, and that’s an example,” said Pollock. “The Overstayer is a good piece; it always shapes things well, has a lot of parallel paths, and has plenty of flexibility. It’s really clever stuff.” The variety of drums get numerous outboard units dedicated to them, too. “I have an API 2500 on the drums, which is a classic,” he shared. “Christian Eigner, the drummer, plays electronic drums for a couple songs, so I use a UBK Fatso on that, just for a little tape saturation.” Meanwhile, a Chandler TG1 Limiter gets used sparingly with the rear pair of drum overhead mics. Set up lower than the front pair and at an angle, the rear overheads are used for more of a room mic sound on their own or in conjunction with the front pair; the result “is being completely annihilated by the TG1—it’s a character thing that isn’t used all the time, but has a really interesting sound.” An Eventide Harmonizer H3000 is also onhand, as is an Eclipse. Meanwhile, for a master bus chain, Pollock has a Tube-Tech SMC2B multiband compression going into a Chandler Curve Bender Mastering EQ, followed by a Rupert Neve Designs Master Bus Converter, using its Silk transformers for a little saturation. The resulting mix is heard via an L-Acoustics K Series P.A., looked after by system engineer Terence Hulkes. While the hangs vary daily depending on the venue, typically there are 16 K1s with four K2s on the main hangs, bolstered by a dozen flown KS28 subwoofers in the air (not cardioid). Side hangs consist of 12 K1 boxes with eight K2 down on each side, while rear hangs are each handled with 16 K2s. KS28 subwoofers are placed on the ground in a three-high spaced sub arc, Kara IIs handle frontfills, and A15s are used for outfills. All that is driven by L-Acoustics LA12X amps throughout. The complex monitor system includes two d&b audiotechnik SL-GSub subwoofers flown per

The front-of-house mix position has a similar vibe—there’s plenty of familiar gear on-hand, much of it analog, but the way it’s all brought together is a new approach. Pollock mixes nightly on an Avid S6L-32D console, with a backup desk sitting nearby in case of emergency. Given the size of the tour, playing stadiums and arenas, he wanted to have “an insurance policy” as he put it, where he could switch consoles instantly if needed. As a result, the two desks gain-share a pair of Stage 64 racks on stage for analog inputs; additionally, various RME MADI routers on stage distribute digital MADI sources to both E6L-192 engines. “I’m sending a lot of MIDI commands back and forth between the two consoles, so every time I fire a snapshot, it also fires on the second desk,” said Pollock. “Both consoles go into a DirectOut Prodigy MC, and that is actually driving everything. All my analog outboard gear and Schoeps audience mics go into the Prodigy, so there’s a lot of routing back and forth, and I’ve set it up so that if I hit a button on my Elgato Stream Deck, it’ll switch the MADI patch, moving everything to the backup console.” When it comes to that outboard gear, there’s plenty to get moved over. For the all-important vocals, there’s a pair of Rupert Neve Designs 5045 primary source enhancers and Shelford Channels, used to squeeze out a little more gain before feedback when the group heads out

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side in stadiums, trimming back to three KSL18s per side when in arenas. They supplement the sizable mosaic of d&b audiotechnik boxes and Shure PSM1000 IEM systems in play onstage. Stereo mixes are heard across the deck via a phalanx of 16 d&b M2s, while the drums get the added vibe of two B6 subs. At stageside, monitor engineer Mike Gibbard oversees mixes on a Solid State Logic L550 Plus console. “I use it because of how it sounds—what comes out of the bus of that desk is ridiculous,” he said with a laugh. “The preamps are so good, the summing…. Using it almost feels like cheating; I’m good at what I do, but with that desk, I can elevate it to another level.” While he makes use of onboard effects in the SSL, he often turns to a pair of UAD 2 Live Racks, each running at 96k and tied to a pair of DiGiGrid MGBs, for multi-tracking 128 channels; everything is clocked to an Antelope Audio OCX HD Master Clock. “I’m running 32 channels of UAD,” said Gibbard. “That’s 1176 compressors; SPL Transient Designers, mainly for the drums; a Manley VoxBox on Dave; a Manley on the guitar channels, using the tape oxide saturation quite a lot; and for reverbs, there’s Lexicon 224s and EMT 250s.” Despite all that, there’s still room for outboard gear, too, with a trio of RND 5045 primary source enhancers, used to double-up vocal channels for in-ears and the d&b boxes. Alongside them sits a Radial three-slot 500 Series frame, housing a Shadow Hills Mono GAMA Mic-Pre, RND 542 Tape Emulator and an API 550A three-band EQ, all for a vocal chain. Those vocals are captured through a standard-issue Shure SM58 for Gahan and variously a 58 and a KSM9 for Gore. Much of the stage instrumentation is DI’d, and the drums are surrounded mostly by options from Austrian Audio (OC818, OC18 and OC7s), along with the occasional Audix D6, Shure Beta 91 and AudioTechnica AT4051b. Finding the right ways to present the band’s music to the crowds and the band itself has been an unusually gratifying experience for the two engineers, both of whom are electronic music artists in their own right and were initially influenced by the band. “It’s one of the best tours I’ve ever done in my life; it’s a box-tick band for me, and they are absolutely lovely people to work for,” said Gibbard. “For me to come into this and really deliver how they want to hear Depeche Mode on stage, I’m really enjoying it, and they’re all having a lot of fun.” n

Live // profile // presented by John Mayer has never been one for standing still—he spent the spring and fall of 2023 filling arenas on a solo acoustic tour, and used the summer months not to take some time off, but instead venture into stadiums as a member of Dead & Company on that supergroup’s final tour. In both cases, his voice and legendary guitar playing was heard via systems provided by UltraSound. Both tours happened to be mixed by Derek Featherstone, who also wears the hat of UltraSound CEO. According to Featherstone, mixing one voice accompanied by guitar or piano is not the simple chore it might seem. “With one vocal and one instrument, there is nothing for the artist or engineer to hide behind,” he points out. “The mix is either right or wrong. The detail in compression and effects is plainly audible, so you have to mix with greater accuracy.” Making that happen was an FOH mix position based around a vintage Gamble EX68 analog console paired with an Avid S6L digital mixer. “We also made a conscious decision not to use any wireless mics, wireless guitar feeds, or in-ear monitors. That’s part of the reason for the Gamble, as there is something rewarding in having a mic or instrument on a cable going into an analog desk. For vocal inserts, we leaned on the Summit DCL hybrid tube compressors and Empirical Labs Distressors.”

John Mayer’s busy 2023 included spring and fall solo arena tours, sandwiching in the final summer run of Dead & Company. All of those jaunts featured audio systems from UltraSound, centered around Meyer Sound Panther arrays.

With no band bleed to worry about, Featherstone selected the Neumann KMS105 supercardioid condenser for Mayer’s vocals. “We could use a condenser just like we would do in a studio since we don’t have to sacrifice any sonic reproduction to navigate around background bleed.” Getting that clean input back out into the house was a duty placed upon UltraSound’s Meyer Sound Panther arrays. “The Panther system reacts accurately to subtle mix changes, especially in this stripped-down environment,” says Featherstone. “With just a voice and guitar, it’s critical that the P.A. does not influence

Photo: Thomas Falcone

Derek Featherstone, FOH Engineer and CEO of UltraSound, manned a vintage Gamble EX68 analog console paired with an Avid S6L digital mixer nightly.

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Photo: Thomas Falcone

John Mayer Makes the Most of Solo Acoustic Tour

tonality. The Panther system only puts out what you put into it.” Although the exact system configuration varied with particular arenas, a typical deployment used front left and right arrays of 18-each Panther loudspeakers with side hangs of the same length; when needed, extreme side hangs of 20 Leopard line array loudspeakers per side were used for 220-degree coverage. In most scenarios, three short delays of Lyon line array loudspeakers were added for balance and intimacy in the far upper seats. Dual hangs of six each 700-HP subwoofers filled out the deep bass notes. A total of eight Meyer Sound MJF-210 stage monitors were deployed for foldback, with three each at the two guitar performance positions, and two at the piano position. “The guitar positions are set up so the center wedge is vocal and the side wedges are guitar in stereo,” says Featherstone. “This keeps the three wedges from fighting each other.” Rounding out the sound crew for the tour were system engineer Michal Kacunel, monitor engineer Ian Dubois, monitor tech Alex Pritchard, and P.A. techs Sean McAdam, Riley Gajewski and Erik Swanson. John Mayer’s solo acoustic tour resumes shortly in the UK and Europe, with most of the same UltraSound crew and front-end gear flying over and joining up with a similar Panther system from a Meyer Sound rental partner. ■

Live // news & notes // presented by RBD Wraps 54-Show Reunion Tour RBD ruled Latin Pop in the 2000s, selling more than 15 million records worldwide before calling it a day in 2009. When the group reunited for a 26-city, 54-date tour across the U.S., Colombia, Brazil and Mexico this past fall, along for the ride was a sizable audio rig from Clair Global, overseen by FOH engineer Miguel Tapia on an Allen & Heath dLive mix system. A DM64 MixRack and an S7000 Surface were at the center of the system, providing 128 input channels and 64 mix outputs coupled with a configurable 64-bus architecture. With the analog split allowing Tapia to choose which preamps fed the FOH mix engine, he augmented the system with a pair of DX32 modular I/O expanders that between them housed four Prime input cards and two Prime output cards for a total of 32 Prime preamps and 16 Prime outputs, in addition to the 64 inputs and 32 outputs offered by the DM64. The remaining slots in the DX32 were populated with AES input and output cards, which were used to interface with a Cedar DNS8; meanwhile, a Waves card was chosen for multitrack recording and playback duties. Tapia chose to use Prime on the five lead and two backing vocalists, as well as guitar, bass and drums. The remaining Prime I/O was used to interface with his Neve Portico II Master Buss Processor and provide feeds to the P.A. Elsewhere in the setup, Tapia used dLive’s Deep processing emulations of

RBD’s longawaited reunion tour spanned 26 cities and 54 shows, including a stop at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

classic hardware and Dyn8 engine for his signal processing: “I absolutely love the native dLive processing; I think I use just about everything. I really like the Mighty compressor on snare and kit subgroup, and I also like the Dual Threshold Expander on drums. I use a lot of Dyn8 (multiband compressor and dynamic EQ), the transient controllers, the de-esser and more. “The dLive system has been fantastic so far, especially the Prime Input Cards and Outputs,” Tapia added. “The dLive system is super robust and delivers a big, clear sound, making every show a memorable experience.” ■

Mixing Megadeth’s Metal Maelstron Megadeth tore it up live in 2023, and the band has extensive plans for more touring in 2024. Keeping the metal maelstrom in fans’ faces every night is FOH engineer Stanley Soares and producer/monitor engineer Chris Rakestraw. Soares’ current setup when mixing Megadeth includes a DiGiCo Quantum 338 in conjunction with Waves SuperRack, Waves Mercury, the Studio Classics Collection and Abbey Road Collection bundles, all powered by two Waves Extreme SoundGrid Servers. His setup involves three dedicated computers: the first hosts Waves SuperRack, the second manages recordings and virtual soundcheck through a DiGiGrid Stanley Soares, Megadeth front-of-house engineer, with the Waves F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQ plug-in open on his screen

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MGB interface, and the third handles Smaart and walk-in music duties. “The Waves integration provides a clean and efficient workflow, allowing me to keep focus on the mix,” Soares noted. “Several plug-ins are my go-to’s. I consider the F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQ as the ‘The Swiss Army Knife’ of plug-ins. I’m a huge fan of dynamic EQs, and the F6, with its real-time analyzer, is a perfect fit for many of my applications, not to mention that it’s zero latency. I apply it on my snare bus, for instance, to expand 4 to 5 kHz range at every hit, adding a crisp top-end bite to the snare tone without introducing excessive hi-hat bleed.” Over at monitors, Chris Rakestraw uses an Avid S6L with a couple Waves Titan-R SoundGrid Servers, Waves SoundGrid Rack for Venue and Waves Mercury, Studio Classics Collection and Abbey Road Collection bundles. Like Soares, Rakestraw favors the F6 dynamic EQ: “F6 is number one on my plug-in list—I keep a pretty aggressive band for plosives, then a band for lows around 150 to 200 Hz, and a mud band around 300 to 500 Hz. [Megadeth singer] Dave Mustaine has what I would consider ‘many voices’ in his vocal range, so this helps navigate all of his different tones. I can’t really see mixing any vocalist without this plug-in. I never keep the same setting, since I make slight adjustments every night, depending on what’s happening with Dave’s voice. Touring can be really hard on singers, as there are good nights and bad nights, and the F6 helps me navigate changes in vocal tone/quality.” ■

Live // news & notes // Tampa, Fla.—Every live sound pro has occasionally wished they could take a sledgehammer to some irksome gear—and recently a few pros got to live out the dream as they helped L-Acoustics dispose of counterfeit speaker systems. The fake L-Acoustics systems were recently seized following a judgment by the United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, which ordered Se7ven Sounds Music to pay $5 million in damages. The court further granted L-Acoustics the right to destroy the 136 counterfeit speakers confiscated during the investigation. L-Acoustics invited local rental partners to destroy several counterfeit speakers, subwoofers and amplified controllers before delivering them to an independent sustainability firm that will

recover and repurpose the fake products’ raw materials. The wood used in the cabinets will be repurposed for new wood products or renewable energy production. Metal will go toward creating home appliances, while plastic will find new life in office furniture, car parts and containers. “This event allowed our partners whose businesses were impacted by this company representing counterfeit products as authentic L-Acoustics technologies to have fun while releasing some frustration,” says BJ Shaver, Director of Sales for the Americas at L-Acoustics, who was present at the event. “Showing the industry that we are removing these fake products from the market helps to sustain the trust that our partners, production crews, audiences and artists place in L-Acoustics.” ■

Photo: Zack Wittman

Sonic Destruction: L-Acoustics Demolishes Counterfeit Systems L-Acoustics hosted a destruction event to mark the disposal of counterfeit speakers recently seized following a judgment by the United States District Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division.

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on the cover

THE MIX INTERVIEW:

JACK ANTONOFF Reigning Producer of the Year Brings a Roar From the Bleachers By Tom Kenny

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n the 11 months since Jack Antonoff took home a second straight Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, he has: produced and/or written for some of the year’s most successful album releases, including by Taylor Swift (Midnights), Lana Del Rey (Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.), and The 1975 (Being Funny in a Foreign Language); formed a joint venture with Dirty Hit Records that includes management and a label deal for both him and his band, Bleachers; left Sony to sign an exclusive publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing; married Margaret Qualley; been famously photographed toasting martinis with Taylor in NYC to celebrate yet another record achievement for number of hits by a female artist; finished the writing, tracking, mixing and mastering on the fourth Bleachers album; and, just for kicks, to close out the year, blitzed through a five-city, two-week Bleachers tour in early December—two shows in Florida, then Chicago, Los Angeles and New York— trying out some of the new songs onstage for the first time. And those are only the highlights. On the day he sat down to talk with Mix in early December, Antonoff was in Chicago, sneaking a quick lunch before heading out to the Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom for soundcheck ahead of the Bleachers show that night. Earlier

that morning, the video for the first song from the upcoming album, “Alma Mater,” featuring longtime collaborator Lana Del Rey, had been released to much fanfare on the Internet. Things were in motion. Doors were opening, noises sometimes popped up, and once or twice, Antonoff had to pause and answer a question in the background, yet he never once lost track of our hour-long conversation. That’s not easy to do. He never missed a beat. The ability to focus in the midst of chaos might be considered a prerequisite for a producer. Antonoff has that talent in spades; that’s how his brain works and always has. He‘s talked openly and honestly about his struggles with depression, grief and mental health in the years following his sister’s death, while they were teenagers. Throughout his life, he says, music has provided both the lens and the focus that allows him to write, create and produce music. Music is always on his mind. Ironically, it’s music that allows him to ignore the critics who rush to either praise or diss his work. Antonoff has been called everything from the Savior to the Destroyer of pop music. The media fixates on his “meteoric rise,” tossing him in with fast-peaking megaproducers, as if salivating over the prospect of a fabulous fall back to Earth. None of it seems to affect him. He is fully aware that in these days of social media,

a 24-hour-news-cycle, and limitless on-demand entertainment, the public’s taste and attention can be fleeting. At age 39, he says, he’s happy with who he is and what he does. At heart, he’s a punk rocker with a knack for pop, perhaps born two decades late. Awards season is now in full swing, and Antonoff is up for six Grammys, including a potential third consecutive trophy for Producer of the Year. On this day, however, his mind was on soundcheck and the show. With the bright lights of Taylor and Lana and pop superstardom turned down for a brief moment, and a record release and tour coming up in March, he seems both excited and relaxed, happy to be heading back out on the road as a guitarist and lead vocalist, just “one of the guys in the band.” That’s where our interview begins: Mix: So you’re playing a show tonight in Chicago, I hear. I’m glad to see you still spend a good bit of time on the road. I’ve talked to a lot of talented people over the years, whether artist or engineer, who say that their time on the road has a big influence in how they approach their time in the studio. Jack Antonoff: Oh, absolutely. My life has always been both. And there's no world in which I could do it any other way. They're very separate passions, but they do speak to each other, and

PHOTO: Shane Timm

PHOTO: Alex Lockett

Bleachers, with Antonoff on guitar, live at Barn on the Farm in the UK, 2023.

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they work together in my head. I understand why some people hate touring, I understand why some people hate sitting in the studio. I happen to love both and it's just what I've always done, just in different capacities, ever since I was a kid play songs with my friends, then going to my room and playing around with my Roland VS840 8-track. When I play live, there's this magic thing that happens that is very in the moment and can only be happening right there. It can be no other way because there are no do-overs. It's literally life. You know when you're really cooking and you know when you're not. There's this specific feeling that you know from being on the road, where there's sometimes just lightning in a bottle. The same feeling can hit you in the studio. It might be that the timing is a little wonky, or the take wasn't captured perfectly, or one of the stereo mics was kind of crapping out a little bit. It doesn't fucking matter. You know that feeling—and when you have that feeling, that's the take. In the studio, I like to use my computer to bounce things around, back and forth, maintaining that spirit. If I'm recording a drum set, say, and I have eight mono mics and maybe two, three or four stereo tracks going, I’ll dial in the sound to how I really like it and bounce that immediately if I'm being somewhat cautious—but I'll have plug-ins on it, run it through outboard tape stuff. The point being, if you're working digitally, just put things down. We try to do that as much as possible when we're actually working because I want to be working with what I thought

A few candid moments in the studio, as Antonoff takes a break with, above, Taylor Swift, and at right with Verdine White, bassist and founding member of Earth, Wind & Fire.

was interesting when I did it. I don't want to have this sort of trap door where I can go back and fix it if it's not good. It’s simply not good! Move on. You spend a lot of time in recording studios, I imagine, and I know you recently built a pretty cool one at home. Do you like them? What does a good studio do for you? I see a recording studio primarily as a really cool creative space. There’s something powerful about making the choice to go somewhere where you're going to do something like make a record. I like the whole idea of going in, and I think we're all lucky to be there. You don’t go to Disney World to spend the whole time bitching about your problems. If you're in Disney World, then you should enjoy the ride. I think of studios like that. And just because some of us go every day, I don't think it’s a place that should be taken for granted, because a recording studio can be magical and special and we’re lucky to get to

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Antonoff, who is rumored to have a fondness for Polaroids, at his home piano while Lana Del Rey looks on.

PHOTO: Laura Sisk

PHOTO: Alex Lockett

Antonoff in a familiar late-night pose.

go so often, even if your studio is at home. I just think that if you're going to turn the thing on and spend time capturing bits of your soul, you should treat the experience with honor and respect—and so every time I go into a studio, I try to carry that feeling with me, and it really, really helps. It helps me feel like something's going on in here that's bigger than me in a room. How’s your relationship with technology? Could you engineer if you wanted to? I know enough about technology and what it can do, but I wouldn’t want to engineer myself. To me, an engineer is another artist in the room. Laura Zisk engineers me and most of my projects. I don't want to hear what I want to hear. I want to hear Laura’s interpretation of it, because that's when you start to find things that you wouldn't normally find. You need other people to do the shocking stuff. I might say something like, “This should be sort of dirty and crushed, or this should be whatever,” but I don't micromanage. I want to hear what her interpretation sounds like, and then I want to mess around. There's so much shit to play with, and I want to play around, and then I want to

PHOTO: Alex Lockett

A small sampling of sessions with the 1975, including one with Antonoff on upright bass and another kicking back on the couch.

find that random fucking thing that becomes the bedrock of the song. Because the truth is, we get to a point in the recording where we can get a great drum sound, we can get a good bass sound, we can make this sound warm and great, we can do whatever we want—but what is that thing that's going to tie it all together for Laura? That’s what I want. Also, in a quite literal way, she is genius at capturing those magic moments that we talked about earlier—at recognizing when that's happening and capturing it in a way that makes us very happy. Do you start thinking about the sonic space when you sit down with Laura? I think a lot about the space as being really delicate. What I love about the general sonic field, this circle of sound, is that no matter what the hell we do, our bodies have ears that have limitations. We human beings hear things a certain way, if we’re lucky, so I think about how to use that field in a way that's most impactful for whatever I'm trying to get across. Sometimes I want something to sound so bare that you can make it feel so loud and it'll be impactful because it's just this one thing—the same way you might hear someone shouting at you from across the street, whereas when 20,000 people are singing along, you can't make out an individual voice. But there’s something beautiful in that, too. I think a lot about the space in terms of the

emotion behind whatever it is I'm trying to say. This dovetails into the use of reverb and echo and stacking, but it could be anything. Do I want someone to feel the guitar player, or do I want them to feel the idea of guitars? Do I want someone to hear the vocal like they're being told a secret, or do I want someone to hear the vocal like it's coming from the sky, like the voice of God? I think so much about this. Well, it’s almost 2024. What are you looking forward to in the year ahead? I’m looking forward to creating more music, working with my friends and with new people, and seeing how Bleachers will continue to evolve. Something happened with the band in the amount of time we’ve toured together—as our audience grew, as our catalog grew, as we

just started getting more and more shows under our belt. I've been in bands and played my whole life, but this is the first time that I've made a fourth album with the band. There's been a shift, and I can't fully describe it, but the best way I can is that everything else melts away and the reference is just the band itself. In the past, it would be a lot more of, “Let's do this like the Ringo drums, or let’s do this internal Pink Floyd thing, or let’s do this, or this.” We were playing with all these reference points for the purpose of finding something that doesn't feel like a reference point. Now it's more like, “Oh, do it like you did it in that one show.” It's not a conscious thing, but it's a beautiful thing when you recognize it to where you just start to reference your own mythology and your own past, and the result is something that is more unique and more yourself than you even knew you had. That’s why the album is self-titled, because it felt like it took us four albums to fully be able to distill what we are. If you can make things work with a group of people, it makes life and challenges seem possible, not terrifying. What we can do with ourselves is really important and obviously a huge deal. What we can do in groups of people can equal so much more than the sum of their parts. It is a whole different faith in humanity, and that feeling applies whether I am in the studio or on stage performing. ■

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CLAY BLAIR ON THE BOULEVARD Engineer Rebuilds Classic L.A. Studio Around a Neo-Classic British Desk

ggin PHOTO: David Go

By Steve Harvey

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PHOTO: Gregg White and Clay Blair

Blair’s classic Hammond B3 organ.

likes of Glenn Miller and Count Basie, and was behind Liberace’s record-breaking success. The studio’s client list was a true who’s-who of the business: Ringo Starr, Ray Charles, Carly Simon, Alice Cooper, Liberace and many, many others. Pink Floyd finished and mixed The Wall at Producers Workshop. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was mixed there. Much of Steely Dan’s Aja was tracked at the studio, with engineer Bill Schnee behind the desk. As often as not, projects mixed at the studio went next door to Doug Sax for mastering. Schnee’s name came up a lot when Blair was

PHOTO: David Goggin

PHOTO: Gregg White and Clay Blair

everal months after moving to Los Angeles from his native North Carolina in the summer of 2010, Clay Blair was looking for a mix room to move into when he spotted an ad on Craigslist. There were no details, just a photo of a white-painted brick wall. When he got to the nondescript, singlestory building on Hollywood Boulevard, close to Capitol, United Recording and EastWest Studios, the power was off, so he had to use a flashlight to look around. What he saw had his Spidey senses tingling. The place, apparently, was a mess, with torn carpet on the floor, more carpet on the walls, and water damage. “But I just knew, this is an actual studio that has been here for many years. You could smell it,” he recollects. “So I said, ‘Where do I sign?’” Blair was right to trust his instincts. The studio was originally built in 1966 as Continental Recorders. From 1987 until just a month or two before Blair arrived in L.A., it was Westbeach Recorders, owned by Bad Religion guitarist and Epitaph Records founder Brett Gurewitz. During those intervening 23 years, Bad Religion, The Offspring, blink-182, Concrete Blonde, Mazzy Star and numerous others worked at the facility. More significantly, perhaps, between Continental and Westbeach, the building housed both Producers Workshop studio and Doug Sax’s Mastering Lab. Producers Workshop was established by Seymour Heller, a larger-than-life talent agent and artist manager who handled the

Left: Owner/engineer Clay Blair proudly shows off his new Sound Techniques ZR36 console at Boulevard Recording, Los Angeles. Above: The spacious iso booth can be used for instruments and voice.

researching the room’s history, so he arranged to meet the legendary engineer, along with Elvis Presley’s engineer, Rick Ruggieri, who also frequently worked at the studio, to pick their brains. He learned that the room had sounded its best in the late 1960s when it had Armstrong tiles in the control room. It took a lot of work, Blair admits, but he eventually restored the studio, which he named Boulevard Recording, to its former glory. “I went back to Armstrong tile, and it greatly improved the sound of the room,” he confirms. REBUILDING A CLASSIC STUDIO Initially, Blair installed a Trident 80C mixing console. Five years later, he replaced it with a 40-input API from Greg Rike’s studio in Florida, where it had been used to record Deep Purple and Backstreet Boys, to name just a couple. The console’s lineage went even further back, Blair found, to when it had originally been customordered by ABC-TV in New York. “The only other one from that era I’ve seen was at RAK in London, so it was a very rare desk,” he says. The API took things to the next level, he notes. Everything ran smoothly, even during the pandemic, until one Sunday night in November 2021, when no one was working and a lithiumion battery sparked a fire. “It started in the lounge, luckily,” Blair says. “If the mics had been out, they would have been ruined, but they were all in their cases. They didn’t even smell of smoke when we got to them.” The control room, not so lucky, was a total loss.

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PHOTO: Gregg White and Clay Blair

PHOTO: David Goggin

Now, two years on, Boulevard Recording has emerged, Phoenix-like, from the ashes. By the time Josh Nyback and his Nyback Builds team arrived, Blair says, the walls had been stripped to the studs. The team had to work from old photos and Blair’s memory to restore everything from the acoustic treatments to the wood trim. The Armstrong tiles are back, as

Left: Vintage technology savant Danny White, seated at the new Sound Techniques ZR36 console, featuring 24 in-line plus a dozen System 12 input channels, with 56 channels on mixdown, which he provided to Clay Blair, owner/operator of Boulevard Recording Above: Racks of vintage and modern outboard gear

is the unfinished linoleum floor, both of which, Blair says, “are a big part of the sound.” Although Nyback Builds teams are busy building rooms all over L.A., “They’ve never tried to replicate something that existed previously, but they absolutely nailed it,” Blair says with admiration. “You walk in and it still feels the right way. I told Josh, ‘I want you to be proud of what you did; not because you built it well, but because the feeling is still there.’” The control room and live room sound as good as they ever did, says Blair, who has been working out of a studio space in North Hollywood since the fire. He finally got to work at Boulevard in late November and says he was blown away by how faithfully the room has been restored. “It was like déjà vu. I didn’t expect it to sound the same, but it does.” The control room now features Atomic Instrument SixTen midfield monitors. Blair bought a second pair for his NoHo room. “They are loosely based on some of the better Altec designs of the day. A lot of those designs were two-way; this is three-way. I also have a pair of Amphion One18 nearfields.” BRINGING IN A CLASSIC CONSOLE Boulevard Recording also now sports a new Sound Techniques ZR36 console, featuring 24 in-line plus a dozen System 12 input channels, with 56 channels on mixdown. The brand, established in 1964, went out of business in the early 2010s but was resurrected by Danny White and his team a few years ago. Blair’s ZR is the first new Sound Techniques console to be delivered to a Hollywood studio since Jac Holzman put one into Elektra Sound Recorders in 1968, shortly after Sunset Sound installed theirs. Before cutting a couple of records with Richard Thompson a few years back, Blair listened to some early releases by Fairport Convention (the band Thompson co-founded), which had been produced at London’s Sound Techniques studio, where the original desks were designed and built. He thought nothing of it again until his insurance money came through. Then, he says, a friend in Georgia who had used the new ZR console, engineer/producer Jason Kingsland, connected him with White,

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PHOTO: Gregg White and Clay Blair

cut some tracks. “When I started doing the overdubs on the Sound Techniques, I said, ‘I wish I had cut everything with this!’’ he recalls. “People ask me what it sounds like. An API is punchy, with midrange sparkle. A Neve is woolly and harmonic. This Sound Techniques is immediate, big and clear. Clear does not mean transparent; it means you get what you expect, in the best way possible.” Blair even had a hand in one of the desk’s features. “I use a summing mixer; it’s part of my sound,” he explains, “so I said, ‘What if we added a feature where you press a button and it turns it into a summing console?’ Now, you press one button on the master fader, all the faders are disengaged, and everything goes to 4 The spacious live room dBu line-level. I could open a mix session while houses both grand piano I’m tracking, hit the button, and all the faders and organ, if needed. stay where they are for the tracking session, but I can sum my mix down.” After using the sidecar for a while, he realized how well his mixes were who is based in Southern California. “Danny and I hit it off,” Blair says. “We like the same music and the same studios, and we’re both obsessed translating. “I wasn’t fighting anything,” he says. “Everything I recorded through it was effortless to balance. Every mix was much easier. The Sound with recording history.” White sent Blair an 8-channel Sound Techniques sidecar to evaluate. Techniques ZR has changed my view on everything. I am so happy to have He took it to a studio that had an API similar to his former desk and it and for people to hear it.” ■

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COMPANIES

TO WATCH

2024 PRO AUDIO S

EDITION By the Mix Staff

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upply chain issues have largely been resolved, the trickle of artificial intelligence flowing into audio products has become a flood, and the race continues for the ultimate headphone playback of immersive music. Meanwhile, you can still buy a 2-channel compressor for more than $20,000, if desired, or a custom 32-channel hand-made analog console. You gotta love this industry! Here we present a collection of professional audio companies worth keeping an eye on in 2024.

AVID

APOGEE DIGITAL

Things seemed to be humming along at Avid heading into 2023. The Pro Tools subscription model had gained enough traction that it was becoming normal. The S6 platform had matured to the point where it was now about making deals with other companies to share control and network functions. And the rumors of Sketch provided hope that Avid might finally have a full music production system, ala Ableton or Logic, inside the editorial prowess of Pro Tools. Then came whispers that the company was for sale, followed by reassurances that all was well, followed by a $1.4 billion sale to private equity firm STG in early August. No more stockholders, and a bit less uncertainty. Things are already looking up for 2024. Just a few weeks ago, the company released its latest Pro Tools update, which includes the long-awaited integration of the Dolby Atmos Renderer. Big things sometimes follow big changes. Now that corporate life seems to be settling down at Avid, it’s time to unleash the engineering development teams. Expect a flurry of new products and creative tools.

At the NAMM Show back in April 2023, Apogee released the jamX audio interface, aimed at guitarists and offering built-in compression developed in hand with legendary mix engineer Bob Clearmountain. It follows in line with previous releases such as Duet 3 and BOOM audio interfaces, and even the HypeMic podcast/vocal mic, in that the software control, preamps and pro-level converters are high-quality, affordable, versatile and simple to use. The entry-level products for musicians, podcasters and content creators are about the best bang for your buck you’ll find in any product category. In 2024, we’re looking forward to seeing what the company will do in immersive music, having signed a deal with Ginger Audio last November to incorporate the latter’s GroundControl Sphere software into a complete Dolby Atmos mix system based on Apogee’s flagship Symphony MkII interface. Look for a presentation near you in 2024; the company is taking its Dolby Atmos Music solution on the road.

AUDIOTONIX

DOLBY

Most people in pro audio wouldn’t recognize the name Audiotonix, though nearly all would recognize the company’s brands. Over the past 15 years, the company has quietly become the world’s leading console maker/marketer through acquisitions and MBOs, beginning with DiGiCo, Calrec, Allen & Heath and SSL. Group One joined the company, KLANG was acquired by DiGiCo, Slate Digital and Sound Devices came onboard, and in the past year alone, SSL acquired Harrison, DiGiCo acquired Fourier and the parent company bought sonible. We now know that Audiotonix is not a console company; it’s a technology company that looks 10 years ahead— and they make smart buys, from Calrec’s pioneering FPGA integration to sonible’s expertise in AI. Each company has been left alone to develop its brand, while Audiotonix brings the research and development that leads into the future. A cloud-based platform emerged a few months ago. Surely, there is more to come.

Someday, business and technology schools will devote class time discussing the unlikely rise of Dolby as a licenser of noise reduction systems. to a leader in audio encoding/decoding technology, to its evolution into a dominant platform/ format for delivering surround sound around the world, whether in film, broadcast, streaming, music, videogames or live sound. For the past four to five years, the company has focused its attention on the music industry, first working with UMG, Capitol and PMC on the production chain, primarily working on re-issues, then signing a flurry of deals with Amazon, Tidal and eventually Apple, for its Spatial releases through Apple Music. Public attention seemed to slow a bit in 2023, while behind the scenes, the company has been doing its best to educate and work with the creative community while continuing to partner with technology companies. Last month, a Pro Tools update included the long-awaited, integrated Dolby Atmos Renderer. Atmos is everywhere. If you’re not paying attention, you should be.

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WOMEN’S AUDIO MISSION Terri Winston is one of the true unsung heroes of the recording and music industries. While a professor and director of the sound recording program at City College of San Francisco, Winston faced the fact that only about 5 percent of audio and recording professionals were women, and decided to do something about it, establishing Women’s Audio Mission in 2003 as a nonprofit focused on young women in areas typically underserved by public monies. At first, she would load gear into her trunk or in a shopping cart and host recording workshops for girls and young women in neighborhoods around the Bay Area. That soon turned into a recording studio in San Francisco, with a much-expanded curriculum, then a satellite facility in Oakland, and another in San Jose. By the time of WAM’s 20-year anniversary in October 2023, more than 22,000 women and gender-expansive individuals had been served through the training and mentoring programs, with 2,000 in the past year alone. Last year, WAM received a $1 million donation earmarked for a five-year expansion plan into Los Angeles and Nashville. We can only hope that New York, London and others soon follow. We as an industry are all better off for the work Winston began 20 years ago.

AUDIOMOVERS The pandemic put Audiomovers on the map, but it was the software company’s audacious moves in 2023 that ensured no one will mistake it for a one-product outfit. Able to help audio pros work from home during the height of the COVID days with its Listento remote collaboration plug-in, Audiomovers became an industry standard virtually overnight. Abbey Road Studios acquired the company in 2021, and 2023 saw it bring a bevy of new offerings to market: Omnibus 2, designed to route audio between devices and applications; Inject, facilitating the introduction of sources into a DAW; and the Audiomovers Binaural Renderer for Apple Music Plug-In, allowing users to hear how immersive sessions will sound on Apple Music while still working in any DAW. With all that on its plate, plus a recent bundle collaboration with Avid, Audiomovers is moving at a fast pace—let’s see where it heads this year.

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APPLE For a computer company, Apple sure has a huge influence on professional audio. From the hardware of its desktop and laptop computers, to updates in its MacOS and iOS, to the use of iPhones and iPads for remote control, to the deliverables it requires for playback on Apple Music, Apple Spatial and AppleTV+, if the company speaks, the audio industry listens. In early 2020, UMG and Dolby announced deals with Tidal, Amazon and other streamers to deliver music in Atmos, and it made the news. Six months later, the announcement of Atmos feeding Apple Spatial made a giant splash, and the music industry suddenly became more interested. Not to forget: Apple Logic Pro is still the best $199 you will ever spend in audio, and its 10.8 update last fall added 32-bit floating-point processing. So…Yeah. It always pays to keep an eye on Apple.

SENNHEISER 2023 was an interesting year for Sennheiser, which kicked things off not with a new product, but instead by forming a brand-new executive management board, with leaders drawn from across the company’s three primary divisions—Professional Audio, Business Communication and Neumann—as well as internal authorities on Supply Chains, Corporate Functions and Development. The new products did come, however—Neumann entered the interface race in the Spring with the MT 48, which was a top buzz product at the NAMM Show in April. The company also threw its hat in the immersive audio ring when it unveiled a working prototype of its AMBEO 2-Channel Spatial Audio live renderer at NAB 2023, adding immersive creation tools to its immersive playback systems. Nonetheless, it was the company’s playful side that was on display a few months later when it introduced a limited-edition run of its legendary MD 441-U microphone…as a Lego kit. With the new year upon us and NAMM only weeks away, one can only guess what will the company do next.

RØDE SONY Sony had largely disappeared from the pro-audio world over the last decade, save for the presence of the C-800 as the aspirational mic of the hip-hop world. Then unexpectedly, new mics appeared (the C-100 and C-80) awhile back, and things got reved up a notch in 2023. Sony began promoting its RA360 immersive audio format in earnest, and hand-inhand with that, unveiled its new 360VME Virtual Mixing Environment which combines a measurement service, software and headphones to reproduce the sound field of a reference studio. Since Sony knows a little something about making physical products, too, it also launched MDR-MV1 Reference Monitor Headphones for sound engineers to use for immersive music mixing. With the spatial music and mixing markets taking off, Sony’s timing to re-engage with the pro audio market is perfect, and 2024 may see that effort now bear fruit.

Australian mic manufacturer Røde closed out 2023 with the surprise acquisition of Mackie, turning heads and garnering some thoughtful admiration in the process. Many acquisitions feel like death knells; this one felt…right. The two companies have remarkably similar histories, having both come to prominence with the home recording boom of the early 1990s. Today, each is a key player in specific corners of the pro-audio world, and they have both focused heavily on content creator gear in recent times. However, it may be their differences that sealed the deal for Røde’s parent company, Freedman Group. Røde has a long history in the recording and broadcast world, while among its fellow Freedman brands, Event is known for studio monitors, Aphex has its outboard gear and interfaces, and SoundField is a mainstay in ambisonics. The acquisition of Mackie gives Freedman Group an instant beachhead in live sound, thanks in part to the ProFX compact mixers and Thump line of powered loudspeakers. Where this takes Røde— and Mackie—next will be a fascinating thing to watch play out.

ALLEN & HEATH Compact, lightweight, power-efficient live sound control packages are increasingly a must-have, whether for touring, installation or corporate gigs—and that kind of rig is one of Allen & Heath’s fortes. The console manufacturer hit that big-capability/small-footprint sweet spot twice in 2023. First it launched its CQ Compact Digital Mixer Series with a trio of offerings, and then followed up in October with the debut of the Avantis Solo Mixer, a 12-fader, single-screen desk with the same 64-channel, 42 bus architecture as the original Avantis but nearly 50% less weight. Meanwhile, on the integration side, the company also unveiled the i DX88-P, a 96 kHz expander designed for fixed installations. With all those new offerings, and its larger dLive desks only growing in popularity, it is a safe bet Allen & Heath has more up its sleeve for 2024.

DIGICO It seems like only yesterday—okay, 20 years ago, give or take—that DiGiCo was the new kid on the block, introducing its D5 Live digital mixing console to a live sound industry that viewed the emerging field of digital desks like a kid taking medicine: It didn’t want to, but it knew it had to. Two decades on, digital consoles are the heart of every FOH position, whether at a festival, on tour, or in an installation setting like a house of worship. In many, many of those situations, you’ll find desks from DiGiCo, now one of the most widely used brands of console around. 2023 saw the company launch its long-awaited compact Quantum 224, followed by its new flagship desk, Quantum852, featuring five seventhgeneration FPGAs and next-generation SHARC DSP processors, plus a jaw-dropping 78 touch-sensitive, 1000-nit LCD screens for full daylight operation. This year will see those Quantum852s start popping up on tours, and who knows what the console company will unveil next?

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HOLOPLOT

MEYER SOUND 2023 was not a bad year for Meyer Sound. Its flagship Panther line array system, not even two years old yet, was an integral part of stadium tours by Ed Sheeran, Metallica and Dead & Company. Meanwhile, arena-filling acts like John Mayer and Volbeat, among others, took Panther on the road, and festivals like Outside Lands and Roskilde wanted a tiger in their tank, too. The new P.A.’s impact was underlined in late September when the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco installed the first Panther club system—a likely portent of how the system’s fast acceptance may find it moving quickly into other realms beyond the touring world. When it comes to installation, however, Meyer Sound knows that well too, and recently unveiled its Nadia integrated digital audio platform for Constellation acoustic systems at New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center. The company’s Leo and Leopard systems remain as vital as ever in the installation space, so with so many product offerings on the go, Meyer Sound will surely have plenty on its plate in 2024.

How did Holoplot, a Berlin, Germany-based audio reproduction company founded back in 2011, become one of the most-discussed audio brands in the world overnight? Simply by being the audio playback system for Sphere, the one-of-a-kind, multi-billion-dollar Las Vegas venue that opened in September with a residency by U2, no strangers to hype themselves. The Sphere system consists of approximately 1,600 permanently installed and 300 mobile Holoplot X1 Matrix Array loudspeaker modules and includes a total of 167,000 individually amplified loudspeaker drivers, all of which apply the company’s 3D Audio-Beamforming and Wave Field Synthesis, ensuring all 20,000 seats get the same clean audio experience. With so much attention being paid to the innovative venue and its technologies, Holoplot was ready for its close-up, introducing its new X2 audio reproduction system in July, along with multiple updates to its Plan sound system design software. Having grabbed the world’s attention, it’ll be interesting to see what’s next for the company.

L-ACOUSTICS

SHURE

L-Acoustics had a bang-up 2023 that saw the longtime line array manufacturer’s gear used on headlining tours and festivals around the world, all while bolstering its presence in the rapidly emerging world of immersive live sound, and, oh, releasing an innovative new flagship line array, the L Series, with a high-profile unveiling at the legendary Hollywood Bowl. Speaking of Bowls—the Super Bowl saw Rihanna belt through a K Series system at halftime. As the year progressed, Depeche Mode, Slightly Stoopid, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Gojira, Paramore, Post Malone, Iron Maiden, Chris Young, Andre Rieu and countless other arena and stadium-filling acts took L-Acoustic rigs on the road. Dream Theater did too, as it was the first tour to carry the new L Series, which is remarkably smaller (46%) and lighter (40%) than its predecessors. Meanwhile, the company’s spatial audio ecosystem, L-ISA, hit V3.0, and incorporated Mixhalo’s fanfriendly tech into it as part of a distribution arrangement. Whew— if that’s just last year, imagine what’s in store for this one.

Let’s be honest: Shure is always a company to watch. While the venerable mic manufacturer could arguably coast on the reputation and sales of its iconic legacy offerings, instead it keeps doing a little—and sometimes a lot—of everything. Lobbying the FCC on behalf of RF mic users everywhere? Check. Hosting an ongoing “Celebrating Women in Technology” panel series? Check. Growing the next generation of audio pros with the PAMA/Shure Mark Brunner Pro Audio Scholarship? Check. That doesn’t even get to the gear—in 2023 alone, Shure launched the GLX-D+ Dual Band series of wireless systems, the MXA902 Integrated Conferencing Ceiling Array, the MVX2U Compact Digital Audio Interface and the SM7dB broadcast mic. It also updated Wireless Workbench, acquired wireless software company Wavemark, and joined the Q-SYS Technology Partner Program for good measure. If there’s anything Shure didn’t do in 2023, that probably means it’s on the agenda for 2024.

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Tech Harrison Audio 32Classic Console Harrison Audio has launched the 32Classic mixing console, a 32-channel, in-line/splitrecording desk designed for traditional and modern hybrid workflows, its 32 mono mic/ line channels, four-band parametric EQ and other built-in features, such as 64 channels of high-end AD/DA conversion and a Dante AoIP interface, make it suitable for a variety of mixing environments. Key features include transformerbalanced mic preamplifiers and main mix outputs; balanced line input, insert points and direct outputs; eight multitrack buses, four aux sends and a stereo cue send; 64 channels of AD/DA converters; 12-wide Atmos monitoring (7.1.4); and a DAW-compatible frame design.

preamps, SSL has also introduced a 4-channel Pure Drive Quad unit as well.

audio software engine was built with the aim of providing a solid sandbox with plug-ins ringfenced from each other. Should a plug-in crash, the rest of the system will not only be unaffected, but transform.engine will immediately restart that plug-in.

Adamson ArrayIntelligence V1.1

Audeze Maxwell Firmware Update

Adamson has updated its loudspeaker design and deploy software with the release of ArrayIntelligence V1.1, incorporating features and improved workflow based on user-generated feedback. The interface has been streamlined; the new Header Bar graphical layout is intended to bring clarity, indicating which pages are available online, simplifying navigation and enhancing workflow. Elsewhere, the Global Assign feature has been revamped with the aim of creating a more efficient tool for managing entire systems of networked Adamson Speakers, Bridges and Gateways. ArrayIntelligence V1.1 ensures detected items are ordered accurately by switch port; that in turn streamlines system setup and minimizes complexity.

Audeze has beta-launched headtracking support for its Maxwell headset, which is compatible with the Dolby Atmos Renderer for professional mixing. The firmware upgrade utilizes built-in hardware already included in every Maxwell headset; users open up their latest Dolby Atmos session, connect the Dolby Atmos Renderer application, and plug in the USB dongle or USB cable to create and monitor Dolby Atmos mixes with real-time headtracking, providing an immersive preview of their audio creations. Headtracking follows the orientation of one’s head and allows one to interact with the virtual room in real-time when monitoring binaurally with headphones.

Allen & Heath Avantis Solo Mixer

Solid State Logic Pure Drive Octo SSL’s Pure Drive Octo is a 2U rack-based microphone preamp unit that incorporates the SuperAnalogue PureDrive technology introduced by the company’s Origin recording console. Offering a new Drive mode, analog and digital connectivity options and an integrated USB-C soundcard providing conversion up to 32bit/192 kHz, AES/EBU outputs, and ADAT out with SMUX, the Octo sports four mic preamp input impedance options, enabling engineers to explore various tonal possibilities or match each mic pre’s impedance closely to the microphone. Additionally, each mic pre includes independent +48V phantom power, polarity inversion and a high-pass filter. While the Octo has eight mic

new products

Fourier Audio transform.engine Fourier Audio’s new transform.engine is a Danteconnected server designed to run all VST3native software plug-ins in a live environment, providing processing on a platform specifically designed for live productions. Designed as a turnkey solution for plug-in hosting, transform. engine is controlled by a remote Windows or macOS client application; users can connect to the engine via a standard Ethernet cable, install their plug-ins and start processing. The

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Building on the original Avantis mixer first released in 2019, Allen & Heath has unveiled the new Avantis Solo—a 12-fader, single-screen desk that provides the same 64-channel, 42bus architecture as the original but reduces its footprint by nearly 50 percent. Built around XCVI, Allen & Heath’s 96 kHz FPGA engine, it has full onboard processing and 12 RackExtra FX slots, all while reportedly running at 0.7 ms latency. Control is handled via the 12 faders across six layers, providing a total of 72 fader strips; there’s also an HD 15.6-inch

touchscreen with dedicated rotary controls and 18 assignable SoftKeys, all connected under the Avantis line’s Continuity UI, the same as the dual-screen Avantis.

Earthworks Audio SR5117 Wireless Capsule When Earthworks Audio debuted its SR117 handheld vocal mic, it subsequently spun out a specialized SR3117 capsule for use with Shure wireless mics. Now a dedicated version for Sennheiser wireless transmitter systems—the SR5117 wireless capsule—has been introduced, completing the overall 117 family. The SR5117 is a supercardioid condenser wireless microphone that is compatible with all Sennheiser wireless systems, designed with an aim to provide a clean frequency response voiced with clear sound. It is built for touring but can be used everywhere. All 117 wireless capsules are designed, tuned and assembled in the U.S.

consistent workflow for Soundscape console control with DiGiCo and SSL consoles, and offers support for bi-directional communication. The OSC bridging functionality can also be used for generic OSC controllers, allowing any connected controllers to communicate with two DS100s.

JBL Professional IRX ONE All-in-One Column P.A. The new JBL Professional IRX ONE All-in-One Column P.A. includes a 3-channel mixer, Bluetooth 5.0 audio streaming and more in a 34-pound package. Central to the system is its line array-like, C-shaped column of a half-dozen 2-inch high-frequency drivers, said to provide users with a wide sweet spot. The column itself is three separate parts— the array and two spacers—that are stacked above the base’s 8-inch woofer, which uses a bass-reflex design to get low-frequency response down to

40 Hz. The 3-channel mixer has 1/4-inch and XLR inputs with included 48V phantom power and 1/4-inch balanced mix-out. dbx automatic feedback suppression (AFS), 5 EQ presets and Soundcraft audio ducking are available onboard.

DOCtron IMC 500 Series Module The DOCtron IMC is typically used for analog loudness and saturation in a live setting; now the handmade audio processor is available in a two-slot 500 Series unit format. The unit features a fully analog channel strip for the bus and master signals, with adjustable input level (0 dB to -10 dB); a 2-Band shelving equalizer (60 Hz and 12 kHz) with +/-14 dB range and bypass switch; VCA compressor with adjustable threshold, ratio (1:1.5 to 1:10), attack and release; and more. It also has a notable drive stage made possible by Lundahl transformers. n

d&b Soundscape En-Bridge, En-Snap Update d&b audiotechnik has released En-Bridge, a new software tool for the Soundscape ecosystem that provides OSC bridging and third-party protocol translation for the remote control of Soundscape parameters on the DS100 signal engine. It allows BlackTrax tracking systems to be used for automatic object positioning on a Soundscape system, including the company’s latest BT-1 system, by translating the BlackTrax RTTrPM protocol into DS100 OSC commands and providing additional mapping functionality. The En-Bridge software reportedly delivers a more

Tech // reviews

As the flagship of Ultimate Ears Pro’s inear monitor offerings, the Premier sports a frequency range of 5 Hz to 40 kHz.

Ultimate Ears Pro Premier In-Ear Monitors UE Pro’s Flagship IEM Packs Considerable Hardware, Sound By Clive Young

ltimate Ears Pro was one of the pioneering brands in the world of in-ear monitors—I still remember its founder excitedly telling me about the brand-new company he was about to launch when I interviewed him for a story on Van Halen’s 1995 Balance tour. Back then, IEMs were an esoteric, boutique product, looked at by many with both keen interest and a fair amount of wariness; today, they’ve become an accepted, mature part of the pro audio marketplace and have been welcomed into recording settings and audiophile circles as well. With that broad acceptance has come a variety of price points and levels of quality, and that brings us to Ultimate Ears Pro’s new flagship IEM—the UE Premier. IN THE DRIVERS’ SEAT Providing listeners with a no-corners-cut listening experience— and carrying a price tag that reflects that approach—UE Premier is Ultimate Ears Pro’s statement on what, indeed, the ultimate in in-ear monitoring might be. The Premier packs an astounding 21 drivers and a five-way crossover into each IEM with the aim of providing as much detail and accuracy as possible, giving all parts of the frequency spectrum equal opportunity to be heard, with a reported range of 5 Hz up to an ultra-high frequency extension of 40 kHz. Breaking down those 21 drivers in each ear, there are four Dual

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Diaphragm Mid-Lows in parallel to two Dual Sub-Lows; a Quad Mid driver providing detail; and Knowles’ patented proprietary Quad High Super Tweeter and UE Pro’s own proprietary True Tone driver—used for upper-register harmonics and overtones— handling the high-end. That’s five different groups of drivers, in turn requiring the five-way passive crossover to accommodate them all. While people like to joke that the IEM biz has been in an arms race to see who can serve up the most drivers, the presence of 21 in each ear isn’t so that they can blast your eardrum deep into your brain. They’re there to slice up the frequency spectrum more finely; separating the low-mids from mids and mid-highs creates a better opportunity for them all to be heard properly, and spreading the workload among multiple like-ranged drivers makes the process even more granular, reducing the opportunity for distortion. As a result, while the Premiers are designed for use onstage and offer a reported -26 dB of isolation, they may well be best appreciated in a quieter setting, where their ability to convey nuance can really shine. Still, that’s a lot of hardware to fit in your ear, and while every UE Premier set is custom-made, they all have one thing in common: They are a tad bigger than other UE Pro IEMs. For comparison, the Premiers jut out of my ear perhaps half a centimeter further than my long-serving UE 11s, and while those 11s fit within the concha of the ear (the circular bowl just outside the ear canal), the Premiers

Ultimate Ears Pro Premier IEMs pack 21 drivers into each ear.

UE Premier is Ultimate Ears Pro’s statement on what, indeed, the ultimate in in-ear monitoring might be. cover that and most of the antihelix (the curved ridge that forms the concha). Placed side-byside, there’s no denying that the Premiers look huge compared to the 11s, but when worn, they don’t look big in the ear; they look like ear monitors. The larger size doesn’t affect their stability either; I’ve found that the Premiers can be worn comfortably for long periods of time and are reasonably unaffected by vigorous testcase bursts of headbanging (i.e., they stay put). Along with the IEMs themselves, you get a hard case, a 50-inch IPX Earloop clear cable, cleaning tool, polishing cloth, and a booklet with

wear and care instructions, advice for responsible listening and warranty information. The Premiers also work with UE Switch faceplates, which allow you to change the look of the outer shell. AN EAR FOR DETAIL So how do they sound? My frame of reference is based around those UE 11s that I’ve had forever; the 11s were first introduced in the latter 2000s, and they remain a robust, popular model that Ultimate Ears Pro still sells today. Doing an A/B comparison of the Premiers (21 drivers; 5 Hz to 40 kHz) versus the 11s (4 drivers; 5 Hz to 22 kHz) probably wasn’t a fair fight, but it did underline what the Premiers do so well, which is to

reveal additional depth and detail, along with more high-end and a greater sense of air. Put another way, the 11s are great for hearing, which is why they’re perfect for the stage, while the Premiers are ideal if you also need to use your IEMs for intensive listening as well. The Premiers handled a variety of genres that I put through them, from broad-soundfield classical to claustrophobic, bass-heavy hiphop, presenting them all with accuracy and definition, particularly in the low end. On one ambient, modern-rock test track, a kick drum that had welcome, solid hits on the 11s had a notably more defined attack that was the closest I’ve experienced to the real-world thump of a kick in an IEM, due to the sense of space and placement that the Premiers conveyed. Enveloping synths, ricocheting delays, reverb trails and other atmospheric details in the same track all had greater clarity, helping draw me deeper into the music while aiding my ability to focus on specific sonic attributes. That quality of sound doesn’t come cheap, of course, and a pair of Premiers are not churned out in 20 minutes either. UE Premier IEMs run $2,999, and because they’re custom-made to the shape of your ear, getting personal digital ear scans or ear molds made locally will be an additional cost (in my case, it was about $70 for molds at a nearby audiologist’s office). Once UE Pro gets them, there’s a turnaround time of 15 business days, but this is one of those cases where something is worth the wait—and also, one where you get what you pay for. If you need IEMs that will take you on an aural deep dive into music, whether for work or pleasure, the UE Premiers will be very hard to beat. n

While larger than other UE Pro IEMs, the Premier is still compatible with UE Switch faceplates.

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Tech // reviews

Shure SM7dB Dynamic Vocal Microphone Versatile Mic Adds 3-Mode Operation, Excels on Loud Sources By Barry Rudolph

riginally released in 1973, the Shure SM7 Vocal Microphone (updated in the early 2000s to the SM7B) joined the SM57 and SM58 as one of the company’s three moving-coil, cardioid, dynamic models based on the Shure SM5 Series Boom Microphone, which was introduced in 1964. All three—57, 58 and SM7B—now employ a variation of the Shure Unidyne III element, though the SM7B’s diaphragm design, along with additional acoustic space behind it compared to the other two, allows for more low-frequency extension and an overall flatter response. Other primary differences are the SM7B’s “yoke,” or gimbal mount, an internal “air suspension” shock-mount, and a large foam windscreen. The SM7B also featured two frequency response switches on the rear of the mic body. The new SM7dB is the first upgrade or variant of the SM7B in 20 years, and for the first time, Rodger Cloud has licensed a custom Shure-designed, built-in preamp tuned by Shure engineers specifically for the new mic. The SM7dB has three operating modes: Bypass and two Preamp modes, with either +18 dB or +28 dB of additional gain. These are set with slide switches on the back of the mic and replace the original’s (without preamp) flush-mounted filter switches. The preamp requires +48-volt phantom power, but you can leave it always on and freely switch back and forth between the original

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SM7B in Bypass mode and then the SM7dB with the additional gain if you like it. In Bypass mode, the mic’s XLR connector is directly connected to the mic element’s coil, and no phantom power is required. When sending the mic for review, Shure assured me that Bypass mode sounds exactly like a SM7B in every way, with the same output impedance of 150 ohms and the same sensitivity of -59dBV Pa. However, with phantom power switched on and in either Preamp mode, the output impedance drops to 27 ohms and the rated sensitivity increases to -41dBV/Pa for the +18dB boost position, and -31dBV/Pa for the +28dB boost. Just for reference, a Shure SM57 has an output impedance of 310 ohms and a sensitivity of -56dBV/Pa, while the typical Neumann U87 Ai condenser is rated at -28dBV/Pa sensitivity. The +48-volt phantom power is required for the SM7dB’s active modes, and you can freely switch between them while phantom is applied without problems. As a standard procedure, however, you should always mute the channel/mic preamp inputs connected to the SM7dB’s output before initially switching on/off phantom power. A MAJOR UPDATE It’s been about 20 years, so the updates are substantial, including four easy-to-adjust slide switches to replace the recessed switches

used in the SM7B. These switches change between Bypass, +18dB or +28dB of boost, and both the high-pass filter and presence boost on/off. According to the included chart, the highpass filter, or bass roll-off, starts at about 350 Hz and continues down to 50 Hz. The Presence boost starts at 900 Hz and continues up to about 7 kHz, with a maximum boost never more than about 4 dB. In fact, the microphone is “ruler-flat” in response from 1 kHz to over 4 kHz. The effects of these filters are the same in either Bypass or Active modes, and the same as the original SM7B microphone. However, the new slide switches are easier to use but protrude slightly, precluding the use of the rear security cover plate that was supplied with the SM7B. The SM7B’s popularity stems from its wide range of uses—everything from radio station DJs going out over the air to recording engineers tracking loud singers, guitar amps and drum kits. It is a full-range, rugged, dynamic microphone, though for very quiet sources— whisper vocals, fingerpicking guitar parts, or certain percussion instruments—obtaining a proper recording level requires about 60 to 75 dB of mic gain. For the professional recording engineer using proper gear, this low output is not an issue, but it can be problematic for the inexperienced or beginning artist/producer/engineer using an inexpensive USB interface and expecting condenser microphonelike performance and sensitivity. Recently, major USB audio interface manufacturers have recognized this and have upgraded and released new models/versions of their preamps, with more gain for any microphone. IN THE STUDIO For some of my tests, I turned to a Millennia HV-37 stereo preamp, which contains two HV-35 microphone preamp circuit boards, with up to 70 dB of gain with the ribbon mic switch in. This is the proverbial “wire with gain,” a directly coupled amplifier design that uses no transformers in the audio path. The true sound of the source is revealed with no analog color added. I work in Pro Tools HDX Ultimate, and all listening and recording tests were done at 24-bit/96 kHz. The outputs of the HV-37 were directly connected to my Crane Song Interstellar analog-digital converter and master clock, and all playbacks passed through the DAC within my Avocet 2 Monitor controller.

PRODUCT SUMMARY COMPANY: Shure Incorporated PRODUCT: SM7dB Dynamic Vocal Microphone WEBSITE: www.shure.com PRICE: $499 MSRP PROS: Selections for Bypass (original), +18 or +28 dB of extra gain. CONS: The gimbal mount is difficult to reorient. With the SM7dB in hand, I decided to try a microphone “shootout” as part of a quest to find the best mic for an upcoming vocal session. I placed my singer about an inch away from the end of the SM7dB, and about the same distance from a metal windscreen I typically use in front of a Soundelux/Bock U195—a condenser mic with a 1-inch dual-backplate K67 capsule in a fixed-cardioid polar pattern. Both mics had no roll-off switched on, and I used the +28dB position on the SM7dB with its stock foam windscreen. The mic comes with two foam screens that basically allow a singer to “eat the microphone” without much “p” popping. Plosives are ancient history now. Plus, the SM7B and now the SM7dB have internal metal “cages” that provide about three additional inches from the mic’s front to the actual element inside. Back to the shootout. The outputs of the two channels of the HV-37 were directly connected to the two line inputs of the A/D converter through VoVox Sonorus audio cables. These high-end cables were also used for connecting each mic to the HV37’s mic inputs—no patch bays or patch cables. I ended up using only slightly more preamp gain for the U195 to match recording levels. The differences were stunning! The SM7dB is a drier-sounding mic, meaning it seems to

only pick up what is directly in front of it, with very little of the surrounding room included. It provided a warm sound with minimal proximity effect, and it didn’t bring in too much “air” or cut the upper midrange frequencies. (The condenser had more air and upper-midrange clarity and more deep bass pickup). For a very loud singer, the SM7dB is the one, and being able to switch in additional gain right at the mic is definitely advantageous for soft, spoken-word podcasts or whisper-quiet singers. In my tests, I tried the SM7dB on many different sources and compared it directly to an original SM7B in the studio. There are really no differences but I did have a problem re-orienting the gimbal—the U-shaped mount that you have to completely take apart to change its orientation. The SM7dB comes ready to go for an overhead boom, as seen in radio stations and podcast videos, but I wanted to use it on a mic floor stand or short stand and boom. Flipping the mic over inverts all the lettering, and if you’re okay with that, you can use it right out of the box. For drums, I found the SM7dB excellent when both close to snare drums and inside the front hole of a bass drum aimed at the beater head. The Bypass mode, along with the Presence boost position, worked great for recording a kick drum, giving me a good but not excessive “point,” or edge, without EQ or compression. On snare, it reminded me of using the world’s best—a brand-new Shure SM57, another popular snare drum mic, though the SM7dB brought out a bigger low-frequency “size.” Loud electric guitar amps had similar results. Another fine addition to the mic locker, the SM7dB is ready to provide an upfront, clear sound no matter how loud or how soft it is and using any mic preamp. It is a big winner! n

The Shure SM7dB mic comes in a package that includes a gimbal mount and two foam windscreens.

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Tech // reviews Apple Logic Pro 10.8 Update Adds AI Mastering, Power-Packed Plug-ins and 32-Bit Recording By Mike Levine

ogic Pro 10.8 may not be a major-number update, but Apple has added enough new features to its flagship DAW to make it seem like one. The most notable additions are three new plug-ins: Mastering Assistant, which uses artificial intelligence; Sample Alchemy, an instrument plug-in designed to turn individual samples into playable instruments; and Beat Breaker, an effects plug-in that slices your audio and lets you change the timing, pitch and more in real-time. (Note: Sample Alchemy and Beat Breaker were previously introduced in the iOS version of Logic Pro.) Apple also added two new editing tools, 32-bit floating-point recording and a couple of new sound packs, among other enhancements. MASTERING ASSISTANT Arguably, the most impactful addition in 10.8 is the Mastering Assistant, an AI-powered plug-in that is easy to use and offers a limited but useful set of parameters for tweaking AI-generated results. When you open any project, the Mastering Assistant appears, bypassed, in the last insert slot of the Stero Out channel. Once activated, the next step is to press the Analyze button, which triggers an analysis of the entire song, or a section defined by the Cycle. This typically lasts about 30 seconds, depending on the song’s length. Once the analysis is complete, the plug-in displays its automatic settings, separated into sections for EQ, Dynamics and Spread (stereo width). A spectrum analyzer sits in the middle of the GUI, and above it there’s an EQ curve expressed as a single line that runs across the frequency spectrum. The Character menu lets you switch between four mastering styles: Clean, Valve, Punch and Transparent. Clean provides punchiness with minimal coloration. Valve offers a more saturated sound. Punch gooses up the midrange. Transparent features modern and tight-sounding compression. One caveat: If you’re running Logic on an Intel-based Mac, Valve, Punch and Transparent will not be available. For tweaking, the Auto EQ slider increases or decreases the intensity of the automatically generated EQ curve. With the Custom EQ button pressed, you can activate manual controls for supplemental Low, Mid and High-frequency filters, for what Apple calls “broad stroke EQ adjustments.” The Dynamics section offers a Loudness knob—which controls

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The Mastering Assistant incorporates AI processing to generate results, which can then be tweaked.

the amount of compression applied—for adjusting the LUFS level of a song. In its default setting, the output aims for -14 LUFS, which is close to the sweet spot for most streaming services. A horizontal meter displays Momentary, Short Term and Integrated LUFS measurements on separate lines. Also available is a True Peak meter. Although it sometimes shows values higher than -1.0 dBTP, the manual says that the signal goes through a true peak limiter and won’t exceed -1.0, keeping your music compliant with streaming service requirements. It’s a handy feature, but it would be helpful if you could turn it off. Some mastering engineers advocate using that extra decibel of headroom to make a song louder. The Dynamics section also offers an Excite button, which adds upper-midrange saturation designed to sound like a vintage transformer-based console. The Spread section is simple but effective. A Width knob lets you enlarge or reduce the stereo field, and right next to it is a Correlation meter to make sure you don’t widen it too much and cause phase problems. The Mastering Assistant features Bypass and Loudness Compensation buttons. Turning on the latter makes it possible to A/B the processed and unprocessed signals at the same volume, which is critical to accurately assess the effect of the processing. I tried the Mastering Assistant on various songs in different genres, and it did an excellent job of polishing them. While it doesn’t have as many user-adjustable parameters as other AIassisted mastering plug-ins I’ve used, it does an excellent job of transforming a mix into a finished-sounding master. BEAT BREAKER The Beat Breaker plug-in is an impressively powerful and deep real-time effects plug-in. It nondestructively slices up the audio on the track it’s inserted on and allows you to change timing, pitch and volume for each slice within a user-specified number of beats. The GUI features a small, vertical Input buffer display that shows the original waveform and highlights which slice is playing at any given time. A larger horizontal display shows the waveforms after processing. Superimposed on the latter are vertical Slice Markers that you can drag to different locations. Adjusting timing, repeats or volume is accomplished by dragging

color-coded lines representing the various slices. The waveform display updates as you edit. In Time mode, users can change the speed of each slice by typing a value into a numeric field. Typing a negative value reverses playback. You can also change the Curve value, which adjusts the speed of a slice over time, creating an effect similar to vinyl scratching. Repeat mode lets you subdivide a slice into two to eight segments, so creating those fast, stuttering drum fills popular in EDM is easy. In Volume mode, you can change the level or make the volume ramp up and down on each slice. Beat Breaker includes an extensive collection of preset patterns accessible via the Pattern Slots at the bottom of the GUI. Clicking the pencil icon at the far right reveals dropdown menus from each Slot for accessing a large variety of Pattern Categories. Only one Pattern can be active at a time. You activate it by clicking on the Slot it’s assigned to. Using Logic’s regular channel automation, you can switch between Patterns during a song. Beat Breaker provides significant power for altering audio, whether applying it to a onebar loop or a full-length track. It’s one of those effects that inspires creativity. SAMPLE ALCHEMY Sample Alchemy, the new sampler in Logic’s lineup, was designed to quickly turn samples into playable MIDI instruments. There’s no multisampling—it works with one sample at a time—but given that limitation, it provides some highly creative features. You can drag and drop audio into Sample Alchemy from the Finder or any of Logic’s track types, including Audio, Software Instrument, Live Loops or the Loop Browser. If the source is MIDI or a drummer track, Logic will automatically convert it to audio. Once the sample is loaded and you’ve trimmed its start and end points, you can experiment with

Beat Breaker, left, and Sample Alchemy.

PRODUCT SUMMARY COMPANY: Apple PRODUCT: Logic Pro 10.8 WEBSITE: apple.com/logic-pro/ PRICE: $199.99 PROS: AI mastering plug-in built-in. Beat Breaker offers powerful audio manipulation. Sample Alchemy excels at creating instruments from user samples. Slip and Rotate tools add new editing options. 32-bit floating point recording added. Improved MIDI 2.0 support. Two new sample packs. Drummer tracks can have separate drummers in different regions. Accessibility features improved. Update is free. CONS: Mastering Assistant only offers one mastering style on Intel-based Macs.

five different Play modes: Classic, Loop, Scrub, Bow and Arp. What’s particularly impressive is that you can insert up to four sound-generating modules, known as Sources, into the sample. Labeled A, B, C and D, the sources can be placed anywhere in the sample and generate sound from the point where they’re placed. Their playback behavior does depend on the Play mode selected. For example, if Bow is chosen, the playhead goes back and forth on one Source or between multiple Sources to simulate the motion of a violin bow. Arp (arpeggiator) mode makes the playback jump between the Sources, so the repeats start at different points in the sample. In Loop mode, you’re limited to two Sources, but each can have an independent start and end point. To add more variety, each Source can be assigned to three synthesis types—Granular, Additive or Spectral—making it possible to mix and match them within a sample. Each synthesis type gives you a small set of parameter controls. A filter stage before the output includes variations on Low Pass, Bandpass and more. The filter can be set to a specific source or to affect the global output. A built-in mixer allows adjustment of each source’s level. The possibilities for creating unique instruments for music, or effects for sound

design, are practically endless with this extremely impressive plug-in. Like Beat Breaker, its deep feature set is complex and will have a learning curve for many users. OTHER IMPROVEMENTS Beyond the new plug-ins, the addition of 32-bit floating-point recording in Logic Pro 10.8 is a big deal. If you record at that bit depth, you can eliminate clipped notes or passages after the fact by lowering the overall level. The two new editing tools added in 10.8 are called Slip and Rotate. The former lets you drag events within a region in either direction. With the grid Snap turned on, you can drag by a specific amount, which can be handy. The Rotate tool cycles the region around as you drag it, so depending on which direction you’re going, the beginning appears again at the end, or vice versa. The 10.8 update also adds two new sample packs—Hybrid Textures and Vox Melodics—to Logic’s extensive collection. Hybrid Textures offers a range of MIDI and Pattern Loops that use Sample Alchemy as the instrument. It’s an excellent place to go for examples of how to use Sample Alchemy. Vox Melodics consists of audio clips of vocal samples and lines aimed mainly at electronic genres. Finally, Logic Pro 10.8 features a revamped Create a New Track window with color-coded icons for Audio, Drummer, MIDI and Software Instrument tracks. You can also designate the default region type for individual software instrument tracks from the Track Inspector. Also new is support for different drummers on separate regions of the same Drummer track, which gives you more programming options. Other notable additions include the option to show editor data in high-resolution MIDI 2.0 format, the ability to import object and bed tracks from Spatial audio projects, and a new accessibility setting to make Logic speak playhead position when playing, recording or scrubbing. THE LOGIC IS CLEAR Logic Pro has been the best value in the Mac DAW market for quite a while. While there’s no shortage of formidable competitors, none can beat Logic’s combination of comprehensive professional features and low price. The powerful additions in 10.8, particularly the new plug-ins, make it even more formidable. What’s more, like all Logic updates, 10.8 is free for existing owners. n

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Tech // reviews Soundtoys SuperPlate Exquisite Models of Five(!) Classic Reverbs, With EQ and Filters By Richard Tozzoli

hat’s better than an excellent, old-fashioned, tonesoaked plate reverb? Five of them! That’s especially true when they all come wrapped inside a single plugin. Add in some preamp models, equalization, filters and ducking options, and that’s just what Soundtoys SuperPlate offers. Let’s explore some of the features that make this new release so useful. The most prominent feature is the fact that this powerful plug offers the option of choosing from five meticulously modeled plate reverbs: EMT 140, EMT 240, Audicon, Stocktronics RX4000 and EcoPlate III. On top of that, you can select from three kinds of preamp color: Clean, Tube and Solid State. Add in some modern controls such as pre-delay, modulation, a full-feature EQ with Low and High Filters, a decay ducking feature, and, of course, infinite decay time, and…well, there are a lot of options to play with. Let’s start with the preamps. Tube mode is based on the original EMT V54 preamp from the original EMT 140 plates. Solid State

mode is from the EMT 162 preamp used in later versions of the EMT 140; it also features a built-in compressor. Clean mode has no preamp modeling, taking away any of the dynamics or harmonic distortion characteristics. You get both a low-cut filter (20 Hz to 1kHz) with selectable slopes and a high-cut filter (20 kHz to 1 kHz), also with selectable slopes. Pre-delay ranges from 0 to 250 msi and modulation can be further tweaked with the Modulation rate in the Tweak Menu.

KNOBS AND CONTROLS The Input knob controls the amount of signal sent to the preamp, and the Output knob controls the overall amplitude and volume of the effected signal post-reverb. A Mix knob controls the wet/dry ratio and lets you place SuperPlate directly on a track if you so choose. The large Decay Time knob, which allows for the choice of either short or long (measurements of RT60 at 500 Hz) settings, is where most of the action takes place. By turning it fully clockwise, the unit will go into infinite decay. The Tweak button opens a Tweak Menu, which offers Modulation Rate, Stereo Width and Balance (L/R), and 2-band parametric EQ, all postreverb. You simply click and hold one of the EQ selections, and it defaults to a wide bandwidth. To tighten the Q, simply hold down Control on a Mac and Alt on Windows. In the upper right of the EQ display, a small toggle switch allows you to turn off the EQ bands but leave the Low- and High-Cut filters on. One of the more unique features in the Tweak menu is the Auto-Decay option. It gives you dynamic control over the decay time, depending on the amplitude of the input signal. It’s helpful in lessening the buildup when using long reverb times. The Threshold knob sets where it will A peek at SuperPlate on a track featuring a 1922 Steinway D, recorded at Clubhouse Studios, Rhinebeck, N.Y. start to engage, Target defines how

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much reduction happens past the threshold, while the Recovery knob sets how fast or slow the decay returns to its normal setting, from 1 ms to 0.5 seconds. PUTTING THE TOYS IN PLAY I found that a great way to first learn the basic sound differences between the five models is to take a source like a cymbal swell or piano note, something that has a nice top frequency range, and quickly run it through each plate type. For example, after starting with the Classic 140 and switching to the Stocktronics, you can hear the clarity up top change. Then to the Goldfoil 240, where the low-mids become more pronounced. The AudionSTET and E Plate III are the closest in character to each other, and then back to

the Classic 140, which sounds great on almost anything—always. From there, you can click through the preamp types, experiment with driving the input and lowering the output, then push the boundaries of the EQ, which I love to do. I love gobs of reverb on things like cymbals, pianos and strings, so I pushed the Decay Time knob above 16 and turned up the EQ bands to create a lush environment where sounds can swim in the sonic goodness. By adding in some modulation, you can get pitch shifts that border on uncomfortable, which is just how I like it. This is especially true when you overdrive the tube setting, turning up the Input and adjusting the Output to accommodate the new levels. I also got some great results

by automating both the EQ and modulation parameters to create sonic palettes that ebb and flow. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are some amazing presets in the Soundtoys Effect Rack, which can use up to 15 Soundtoys effects in one plug-in, including SuperPlate, if you have the licenses to do so. NEXT-LEVEL REVERB Long in the making, SuperPlate is more than worth the wait. It’s taking the plate reverb to the next level, and I use it as much as a sound design tool as a reverb. From short hits on guitars and snares to monster tails on pads and pianos, you’re left with something that you want to feature in every mix. n

Turning a Plate Into a Plug-in To find out a little more about the excellent modeling of these classic reverbs, I ran a few questions by Chris Santoro, SoundToys’ Lead Engineer. He explains: “As far as sourcing the plates and ‘why them,’ we simply tried to collect and model at least one of every major commercial plate reverb that has ever existed. Some of these plates were nearly unobtainable and took awhile to track down, while for others we were actually able to find and invest in multiple units. Since all electromechanical gear is unique, it was useful to have multiple versions to listen to and see how much they varied. Having multiples also allowed us to

experiment with tuning them by adjusting the tension to see how that changes the sound, without fear of breaking one. Not only did we have multiple sets of some of the plates, we also collected multiple sets of electronics (drivers and amplifiers) for the EMT140s to explore all the variations and mods that have existed throughout the years. In the end, we chose the units that we felt sounded the best and were representative of ‘that sound.’ “As far as turning them into software, we measured the plates and their associated electronics in various ways, and we developed some proprietary techniques to match the sound using a specially designed reverb

algorithm. Convolution could have captured many of these plates decently, but using a sophisticated algorithm allowed us to extend the plates to do all the extra fun and ‘impossible’ stuff—like extended decay times and decay ducking—to make SuperPlate more than just a plate modeling reverb. Plate reverbs are an important part of recording history and culture, so we wanted to give people access to that entire history of plate reverb in one product, with an easyto-use and playable interface. That’s why we chose the plates we chose—trying to provide a somewhat complete survey of the history of plate reverb.

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Open Channel The Atmos Trilogy, Book Three

movies, with a side hustle of “Cool, this would work for music, too!” It took five years after the first Atmos-enabled theater opened before the first Atmos music release appeared. That gives a hint of the industry’s priorities. Talk to some installer friends, and you’ll hear the main Atmos markets are studios that work with major labels, indie studios with FOMO who want to get into remixing for Atmos, and the kind of C-level elite executives who buy “aged” Les Pauls for $8,500 and want a new toy for their mansion. As mentioned previously, Atmos is part of the ongoing widening of the dividing line between the haves and have-nots…for now. We also need to consider demographics. The baby boomers who amassed enough wealth to buy a big Atmos system, and for whom music was a near-universal cultural touchstone, are dying out. By the end of 2022, millennials accounted for only A TALE OF THREE MARKETS People who say Atmos hasn’t gained Immersive sound wasn’t invented 14 percent of new home purchases. That’s not conducive to feeling rooted traction among consumers haven’t for music. It was designed as enough to set up a gorgeous audio/ been to a movie theater in 10 years. video system in a starter house that By the end of 2022, more than 10,000 surround-sound technology for even have enough space for a movie theaters had either installed or movies, with a side hustle of “Cool, doesn’t home theater. committed to install Atmos playback this would work for music, too!” That’s okay; Atmos has a secret systems. Atmos is a slam dunk for weapon for ultimate consumer movies. Who wouldn’t want to be in acceptance: Scalability. Engineers can mix for as many speakers as they the middle of the action instead of just watching it? Naysayers saw attendance plummet during the pandemic and predicted want, and Atmos will scale to the playback system—whether it’s a binaural the end of movie theaters. Not so fast, said Barbie, J. Robert Oppenheimer rendering for headphones, a 2.0 (stereo) setup, standard 5.1 surround and Taylor Swift. If you do something better than just shove recycled system, or a 7.1.4 “gold standard” home Atmos system—so consumers aren’t franchise movies down people’s throats, they won’t only go to movies— forced to do anything different. They can stick with stereo, listen to music on a cheap surround setup with sound bars, or get addicted and upgrade they’ll turn out in record numbers. Sure, many theaters still have surround systems instead of Atmos, to a fantastic system. Atmos doesn’t change—consumers choose whether and some “Atmos” mixes are really surround mixes so that they’re more to change. universally compatible on playback. Still, the handwriting is on the wall: If studios produce content people want to see on the big screen, movie THE TRAIN IS ROLLING… theaters will have an incentive to augment the moviegoing experience with Overall, Atmos has taken a lead that will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome or ignore. Streaming services are building up content with increasingly immersive sound. Gaming isn’t going anywhere, either, so neither is Dolby in its quest to Atmos soundtracks, it’s used in the majority of cinemas with immersive make games more entertaining. According to PC Gaming Wiki, there are at sound, and despite the license fee, even affordable soundbars and AV least 70 Atmos-enabled game titles, and the list keeps growing. Also, games receivers have built-in Atmos. Over time, competing systems will fade into the background. Exposing don’t necessarily require a full-blown home Atmos system. Headphones more people to Atmos will create demand for more made-for-Atmos mixes. with head tracking are good enough for many, if not most, gamers. To ease the transition, the Dolby Renderer does a credible job of downmixing And then there’s music… to stereo, so it’s easy to mix for Atmos and generate a stereo version, too. Slowly but surely, Atmos will shake off the term of being “promising,” and THE FUTURE OF ATMOS AND MUSIC Music technology rides on the coattails of mainstream technology. long-term, become the standard way people listen to music. At least that’s what my Walmart crystal ball said. Then again, it said that Personal computers weren’t invented for running DAWs, the Internet wasn’t developed for streaming songs, and immersive sound wasn’t King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was going to be a box office hit, so we’ll invented for music. It was designed as surround-sound technology for just have to see what happens. ■

n October 2023, this column asked, “So…Who Needs ‘New’ Mixes?” and questioned whether remixing classic tracks in Dolby Atmos is a great idea. Then November looked at “Speed Bumps in the Immersion Transition.” After a holiday break in December, now it’s time to complete the Atmos trilogy with a peek into the future—where’s Atmos going? Will it take over the world, By Craig Anderton or will it fizzle like previous efforts to market surround? So, I bought Walmart’s “Nostradamus Jr. Crystal Ball” ($1.99 on sale), asked it those questions, and after the obligatory “always in motion is the future,” here are its predictions.

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