Headliner Magazine Issue 42

ISSUE 42 / MAY 2022 SUPPORTING THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET UK £3.95 / USA $6.95 / CANADA $7.95

MAGAZINE / 42

GIVING THEM SOMETHING

JAMES MORRISON 6 MUSIC FESTIVAL

BBC RADIO PRESENTERS ON THE EVENT’S RETURN

FEEDER

FRONTMAN GRANT NICHOLAS TALKS NEW MUSIC

ELECTRIC SIX

KEEPING THE PARTY GOING FOR TWO DECADES

“Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind.”

— Mick Jagger

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SUP P

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42 Resurgence is a theme that rears its head frequently throughout this latest issue of Headliner. As typified by this month’s cover star – a certain James Morrison – this month’s pages abound with tales of comebacks and returns.

Ahead of the release of his Greatest Hits album and supporting tour, Morrison opened up to Headliner about his 15 years in the business and why he is still discovering the artist he truly wants to be. Similarly, although nearer to 30 years in the game, Feeder frontman Grant Nicholas also sat down for an indepth conversation with us about the vast changes he and the band have had to navigate down the years, and how it is still possible to distil and refine one’s creative process after so long writing and recording music.

This sense of developing and fine tuning the tried and true extends beyond the realm of the artist and can also be applied to the return of certain live events. In this particular case, the 2022 6 Music Festival in Cardiff is placed under the Headliner microscope after recently making its first outing since taking place in London in 2020, just days before the

country was plunged into lockdown.

To hear from 6 Music stalwarts Stuart Maconie and Steve Lamacq, as well as 1Xtra presenter and DJ Jamz Supernova about the event’s comeback was both a privilege and a unique opportunity to hear firsthand about how city-based festivals are not just returning, but growing in their appeal.

After what has felt like an eternity of uncertainty for the industry, it’s refreshing and heartening to hear some positive stories not only about the return of certain artists or events to the fold, but also re-emerging with a renewed sense of purpose and direction.

Of course, it would be unwise to slip into a false sense of security about the green shoots we’ve been seeing of late. But where there is cause for excitement and optimism, it’s best grasped with both hands. Long may it continue.

Daniel Gumble Head of Music, Headliner HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

14/ DOM MORLEY 08 / JOE HICKS

26 / ZUKYE ARDELLA

30 / 6 MUSIC FESTIVAL

18/ JAMES MORRISON

36 / IMMERSIVEAUDIO

40/ ALEXX CLOUD

44 / LIVE SOUND

48 / TECHNOLOGY 64 / RICH COSTEY

60 / MUSIC BUSINESS

54 / FEEDER

74 / CASEY STONE 68 / CHRIS LORD-ALGE 80 / MARC DANIEL NELSON

94 / PRO AUDIO

86 / ELECTRIC SIX 90 / AUDIO PRODUCTION

106 / THE PIONEER CLUB

98 / BROADCAST 102 / LIGHTING

110 / SPOTLIGHT REVIEWS

118 / RESA SAFFA PARK 122/ HAL LINDES

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JOE HICKS

Man In The Mirror

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MAN IN THE MIRROR

JOE HICKS Joe Hicks had got used to staying in his lane in terms of the music he felt comfortable releasing. That was until he decided to release his debut album. The singer-songwriter reflects on how giving himself a good talking to in the mirror changed his approach to songwriting.

Joe Hicks is slightly late for his interview, immediately apologising for the reason, which is wonderfully un-rock and roll. “I had a bit of a crazy coffee spillage just now and I covered my kitchen in coffee granules, so I’m calming down after that,” he laughs. “You probably don’t try to make coffee two minutes before you’re meant to go live with someone, do you? No,” he answers before Headliner can respond.

Kitchen crisis solved, he explains that he’s just finished filming his first ever music video for his new single, Mirror Mirror, in which he, ironically, learnt how to make a proper coffee.

about five different locations around Newbury like the hairdressers, the florist, a coffee shop; all places that I go quite regularly. The coffee shop is somewhere I go every couple of days to do my emails and the social media side of music, and they were really up for it and were happy to close for an hour or so in the morning. The girls in there taught me how to use the proper coffee machine, and then moments later a guy, who I believe was an Italian man – so maybe knows a thing or two about coffee – came in and ordered a double espresso. They were like, ‘Right, you’re on your own’. So I made a paying customer a coffee.”

“Half of the video is me singing the song, but the storyline part is in HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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Man In The Mirror

While that is absolutely true in terms of the pay could be more, I’ve always been someone who thinks you’ve got to embrace what the scenario is. I could sit here being like, ‘Woe is me, the Spotify streaming rate is terrible’.

Or I could realise that I’ve got fans in Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and far flung places that I would never have otherwise. So there’s definitely silver linings in all of it. I think you’ve got to make the best of what’s there while trying to improve it as well.”

Hicks’ music blends pop, blues and folk influences, combining intricate guitar composition with classic pop song-craft (although not too much, as he explains later), and he credits his early influences as being slightly more mature than that of his peers.

Raised in the rural market town of Newbury, at first Hicks made a name for himself as a session guitarist, before releasing his first solo single at the start of 2017. Soon after he was made BBC Introducing Artist of the Week, receiving extensive radio play across the UK, and has since accumulated over 2.5 million Spotify streams.

“Quite often, artists get so obsessed – and that was definitely me at a certain time – with getting on these editorial playlists that they look past nurturing smaller relationships, and at the time these more independent people were championing me way more. However that support culminated in me starting to get on some bigger Spotify playlists.

And people ask me about this a lot,” he adds, “they say, ‘Spotify is shit, isn’t it? You don’t get paid enough’.

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“The first CD I was ever given was Westlife when I was about eight or nine,” he recalls, “and then I felt like I was always late to the party. All my friends had Sky TV with access to all the music channels, so my music tastes up until I was about 13 were massively influenced by my parents. I was listening to The Beatles, Squeeze and Sting, and in the car listening to the radio, Terry Wogan was my DJ. I’m really chuffed with that! So my background in music has a lot of ‘60s and ‘70s stuff, and I’m grateful for that because Paul Simon gave me a big, rich tapestry of older music.”

Something clicked when he was given John Mayer’s Where the Light Is on DVD when he was 19.

“I watched this thing and it changed everything for me because I couldn’t believe I was seeing someone play amazing guitar, but mixing it with really cool, accessible pop songs, great melodies and cool grooves,” he enthuses. “That moment was a fork in the road for me.”

In the past Hicks has admitted that if an idea didn’t quite fit what he perceived to be ‘his sound’, he would just abandon the idea, but he chose to stick it out when writing Mirror Mirror even though it saw him straying slightly out of his lane.

“Before I released my first single, I was recording for the best part of two years just trying to work out how I wanted to sound, and it took kind of stumbling across two songs where I finally went, ‘Okay, this is a sound that works for me and I’m comfortable with, and here’s what I want to sound like’, and I put that out. All the subsequent singles after that and the EPs stayed within those realms because that’s where I felt comfortable.”

Hicks initially intended to release another EP, but with some persistent encouragement from producer Sam Winfield, he soon gave into the challenge of writing his first full-length album, and knew he’d need to expand his sonic palette.

“I said, ‘Okay, if I’m going to have 11 songs, they can’t all be the same song or have the same feel; I’m going to have to run with ideas that maybe in the past wouldn’t have fit that mould of the first couple of songs’. I came up with the intro riff and there was definitely a voice that said, ‘That’s going to be too rocky and you’re ‘this’ kind of artist, so it’s not going to fit’.

And then the other voice was in album mode and went, ‘No, just run with this’, and I’m so chuffed I did. That’s why I wanted to put it out first because the people who’ve heard me before maybe weren’t expecting it to hit that hard, and I liked that. I think first singles should be a bit of a statement, and showing the rockiest song was something I was excited about.”

ASPIRING HEADLINER

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JOE HICKS

Man In The Mirror

“I PREFER TO CATCH FEELINGS WHEN I’M ON THE WAY OUT OF THEM SO THAT I CAN CATCH A BIT MORE OF AN OPTIMISTIC EDGE.”

Despite its radio-friendly sound and undeniably optimistic feel, Mirror Mirror tackles the scrutiny we can all be guilty of putting ourselves under at times. Hicks nods, confirming that in a way, the song is about reassurance.

“It’s about when you’re feeling beaten down by the world, acknowledging your fears and giving yourself a damn good talking to in the mirror.

I like to delve a bit deeper into how I’m feeling. I prefer to catch feelings when I’m on the way out of them,” he realises, “so that I can catch a bit more of an optimistic edge. Even though I’m talking about something that’s about fears, doubts, everything that’s gone on during the past two years and the uncertainty of a music career, I think that ultimately it’s about lifting people up, and lifting myself up.”

Hicks reveals that he’ll be releasing the single One More Step along with B-side Make It Home on May 19, the former which sees him pushing HEADLINER MAGAZINE

himself outside of his comfort zone once again.

“That’s probably the poppiest song on the album,” he acknowledges. “It’s pushing the boundaries in as far as how ‘poppy’ I probably would want to go, and it’s interesting for me because I’ve always lent heavily into the guitar playing. This is different in that the drums and bass provide a lot of it so I can sit on the top and do more lead-y stuff. It’s another song that’s a comment on where I’m at in my life and career and wondering if all the time I spend on it is going to pay off in the end. When you pursue something that’s a bit outside of the box like a music career, you really have to spend nearly 24 hours a day on it. You hear stories about people that actually achieve their dreams and then feel hollow, and it’s about me wondering, ‘Will that happen if I get there?’

“Make It Home is the other end of the spectrum of the album, which is quite

acoustic-led, and that’s a bit more of a feel good acoustic sound. My bass player, Josh said that it sounds like a ‘driving with the windows down, your hair blowing in the wind’ kind of song.

I’m excited for both songs; I think it’s a good double whammy,” he grins.

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DOM MORLEY

The Mix Consultant

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PRODUCER

THE MIX CONSULTANT

DOM MORLEY Producer, mix engineer and Professor of Music Production at Leeds Conservatoire, Dom Morley, recently spoke to Headliner about his formative years at London’s iconic Metropolis Studios, his company The Mix Consultancy, and the ways in which he uses oeksound soothe2 in his creative process.

When did you first get into engineering and music production?

I started in the late ‘90s, and managed to wangle a job in a studio in Birmingham that was owned by UB40.

I worked on a couple of their albums and with a bunch of other artists as an engineering assistant. Then I moved to London, and after a bit of freelancing got a job at Metropolis. I worked there for about seven years, starting off as a lowly assistant doing all the 24-hour sessions and working my way up to inhouse engineer. I was Mark Ronson’s UK engineer for about three years and worked with him on his second solo album, Version, as well as the Amy Winehouse Back To Black album and a track for Adele. I won a Grammy for the Amy Winehouse record.

About six or seven years ago, I moved out to this little place in the Oxfordshire countryside; here I’m mostly doing mixing and a little bit of production.

When did you create The Mix Consultancy, and what services do you offer?

I think it was about five years ago.

I’d been fortunate enough to work with very good and very generous engineers and producers from whom I learned a lot, and I realised that nowadays, with most people working in their own rooms, it’s hard for them to get that exposure to people who’ve been doing this for 20 years or more.

I ended up applying for and landing the Leeds Conservatoire gig, which was quite cool, and then The Mix HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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The Mix Consultant

Consultancy came from that – I wanted to extend a small element of that knowledge to people that can’t afford to go into full time education for whatever reason.

There’s so much you can learn from being in it full time and immersing yourself in it, but if that’s not on the cards, you can send a mix to me, I’ll give you all the feedback I can on it in terms of where I think it can be improved and then compile it into a big PDF full of that information.

It might be some advice on the bass frequency or EQ etc., and just provides people with a different perspective on their mix.

Tell us about your gear setup, and how oeksound plugins are used within your creative process.

I’m running Pro Tools, and I’ve got a Dangerous 2-bus+ as my summing mixer and then a Dangerous Monitor ST. I’ve got quite a lot of outboard actually – so I kind of run a hybrid setup, doing a lot of processing out of the box.

Oeksound soothe2 is just one of those plugins that does one thing really, really well, and you don’t have to mess with it. If you’ve got a slightly harsh sounding guitar or drum overhead, you can simply turn one knob up or down, and it gets better. Equally for vocals it’s really transparent, and there’s loads of extra controls for when you want to get a bit experimental with it. It’s beautifully simple, but there’s also an enormous amount of control and functionality in there that you can dive into if you want to go deeper. I’m a big fan, and to be honest I don’t know where the competition for this particular tool is. It is, in effect, a dynamic EQ, and while there are many other dynamic EQs out there, every other one that I’ve used takes longer to get to where soothe2 is when you turn it on.

It’s actually become a favourite deesser for me, so obviously it’s on vocals quite a lot. During a mix, there’ll be HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“IF YOU’VE GOT A SLIGHTLY HARSH SOUNDING GUITAR OR DRUM OVERHEAD, YOU CAN SIMPLY TURN ONE KNOB UP OR DOWN, AND IT GETS BETTER.”

half a dozen things that might sound a bit hard, and it’s fun to slap it on and see what soothe does to make them sound better!

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JAMES MORRISON

Giving Them Something

JAMES MORRISON Image Credit: Parri Thomas

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GIVING THEM SOMETHING

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COVER STORY

After breaking into the mainstream in 2006, James Morrison’s new Greatest Hits album shows why he’s an artist with staying power. He explains why he re-recorded each track, and why – 15 years into the game – he’s now writing the music that he wants to make.

James Morrison wanted to write a new album, but ended up making a Greatest Hits instead, he tells Headliner from his home studio in Gloucestershire. Today the countryside, he adds, “smells like cow poo and possibility”.

At the time of writing, he’s about a week away from starting the UK leg of his Greatest Hits tour, and he’s in a mischievous mood. It’s hard to know what to expect when meeting someone that has been crooning at you from the airwaves since 2006. A sensitive soul-searcher with slightly insipid, auto pilot responses?

Perhaps, after over 15 years, a sense that he’s going through the motions?

Maybe even a trace of arrogance?

As soon as he lunges into the conversation with, “I know, funny innit?” when Headliner confesses to listening to his debut album, Undiscovered in the car more times than it was healthy when it came out, and then noting how outdated the concept of listening to a CD in a car sounds today, it’s immediately clear that he’s none of these things.

and noticeably lights up when talking about performing on stage, connecting with audiences again, and his band – many of whom he’s worked with since 2008. The rest of the time, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, is often playful (at one point he suggests Headliner duets with him on Broken Strings – “I’m not too judgy!”), self deprecating, and occasionally interrupts his own train of thought.

He’s here today to talk about his upcoming tour and new album, HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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JAMES MORRISON

Giving Them Something

The gravelly tone one might expect from being familiar with his soulful singing voice is detectable in his speaking voice (which he attributes to contracting a serious case of whooping cough as a newborn), but he’s not a posh boy; he speaks quickly, although in a manner so relaxed that his words sometimes run together. He drops his ‘t’s’, frequently chucks an “it’s good” onto the end of sentences, and has fun blurting out things that pop into his head – on how the rehearsals are going for the tour (or “the preps” as he suggests they’re referred to), he assures Headliner he’s good to go: “I just sort of dance about in my living room looking in the mirror, throwing shapes.”

As for his Greatest Hits album, this sees him revisit some of his most loved songs (with a couple of new tracks thrown in), although they’ve

been re-recorded and reimagined with a slightly deeper, more soulful timbre, and are likely more true to the way they’ve been honed over years of live performances.

“I’ve been singing those songs for a long time,” he nods, “so to get in the studio and make new versions of them…” he trails off, changing tact. “I just wanted to make a new album at that point, I didn’t really want to have to do a greatest hits. So the fact that I got the opportunity, I thought, ‘I’ll turn it around and do something with it that I want to do’ so it’s not this feeling of, ‘Ugh, I’ve done all that already’, and not really being excited about people hearing the same songs they’ve heard for years. So I thought it’s a good time to update them and make them feel more fresh, more lively, more in the room and update the emotion in the songs as well – and just put a new spin on it a little bit

so there’s some life to them again.”

His debut single, You Give Me Something was a hit all over the world, swiftly followed by his debut album, Undiscovered, which debuted at the top of the UK Albums Chart, and he’s been singing the most popular tracks from his debut effort (and subsequent albums) ever since, which is something you get the impression he still can’t quite wrap his head around.

“I suppose they’re like family members in a way,” he muses on his oldest, most well known tunes.

“You love them unconditionally, but sometimes you’re like, ‘Bloody hell, this is annoying,” he says, launching into a muted Sid James-esque laugh.

“They’re like old friends that are slightly annoying, but you love them… most of the time. I just appreciate it now. I’m a bit older and I’ve travelled

“even though I’m 15 years into the game, I’m still finding my way with writing and finding how to make the music that I want to make.”

Image Credit: Parri Thomas

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COVER STORY

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Image Credit: Parri Thomas

the world a few times playing these songs, and they become more a part of you. I wrote them when I was young, and I just threw caution to it and tried something. Then 15 years later, they’re a massive part of your life and other people’s lives. It’s quite weird.”

He may not have had a grand plan for his earlier songs, but now aged 37 and a father of two, he’s more certain about the types of music he wants to put out, evidenced by new track Don’t Mess With Love, which moves away from the romantic ballad and strays more in the direction of a classic soul or R&B tune. He was immersed in his parents’ record collection as a child, and cites his major influences as Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Al Green, Van Morrison, James Brown and Toots and the Maytals.

“It reminds me of old school stuff I used to like when I was a kid listening to the radio, or old school summer jams or something,” he nods. “It is slightly R&B but with a pop chorus. It sounded like one of those old school classics to me. I quite like the title – it’s tongue in cheek. It’s just like, ‘If it’s really good, then you don’t need to mess around with it or start putting pressure on it’, and all that sort of stuff. There’s some quite good life lesson lines in there.”

“I’ve got a better understanding of how to get what I want now,” he says, reflecting on his pre-record deal days. “At the start, I had my voice and I sang a lot of different songs at open mics and busking – I only just started writing when I got my deal. So even though I’m 15 years into the game, I’m still finding my way with writing and finding how to make the music that I

want to make, rather than doing…” he trails off. “In the early days, I suppose I was doing an impression of music that I liked, and now I know how to get it a little bit more on the nose, you know? I dunno actually, that’s what I say to myself. Whether that’s the truth is another thing, but I’m more invested in it. When you get a bit older, you just want to write about stuff that’s real and not so poppy – more about stuff that feels good, and I’m getting to understand how to get that. That’s satisfying for me as an artist, and I’m getting played on the radio,” which is something he says never gets old. “Yeah I’m still buzzing!

I never take it for granted. It still feels like such a magical thing.”

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JAMES MORRISON

Giving Them Something

Image Credit: Oliver Halfin

Morrison is aware he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and that his repertoire of mainly romantic ballads perhaps aren’t considered ‘cool’, but after years of working hard at not caring what others think, he’s fine with that now. He’s been open about suffering from a bad case of imposter syndrome in the past and has admitted that he thought that people saw him as “a wet joke”, but he’s built a solid (and fiercely loyal) fanbase and is happy with where he’s at. He once made a video poking fun at ways to try to stay relevant in today’s music industry in which he repeatedly leaves voicemails for Nelly Furtado: “You might remember me, we did a song today a few years back? I was hoping you could maybe retweet one of my tweets?”, meanwhile his management tries to convince him that cat remixes and six second songs are the way to break the internet. One wonders how an artist adapts to the shift from being a Radio 1 to a Radio 2 artist, but Morrison says he’s at peace with that.

“I’m not always gonna have smash hits, but I’ll have songs that people like that they take into their life and they play, and that’s more important to me than having number one hit singles,” he says. “It’s taken me a long time to get it in my head that if they’re there [to see me play live], they’re there

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because they want to be there. ‘Coz I used to play open mics and not necessarily everyone there is gonna like you, I always have that frame of mind when I’m going on stage, and maybe everyone isn’t there because they want to be there – there’s probably people there that don’t like me or haven’t bought tickets especially for me, but they’re there.

That’s where the fire comes from, and I’ll just try and sing the best I can to get them on board so they know I’m doing it for the right reasons. And normally by the end, I’ve got ‘em,” he grins.

He’s not wrong. A week later, Headliner zooms down to Folkestone’s Leas Cliff Hall on a Friday night. It’s packed out with a highly excitable – and mostly female – audience, many rowdy after a few wines who bellow, “Go on, James!” as he takes the stage. There are men there too though, and whether they’ve been dragged along by their other halves or not, even the ones keen to show they’re there ironically by shouting, “Go on, James Blunt” more times than is funny are loudly singing along before long. Morrison’s love of performing on stage is so evident (especially factoring in a two year hiatus), that you can’t help but enjoy every second of it with him.

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“I LIKE THE SAD MIXED WITH A BIT OF VENOM IN THERE.”

His childhood in Rugby was tough, and he doesn’t take it for granted that his childrens’ upbringing is very different from his. His parents divorced when he was young and his father battled with alcoholism until he passed away in 2010. Morrison’s mother struggled to make ends meet and he and his siblings often went hungry.

“I’m a nobody from a nowhere town.

I had no prospects, it was all against me,” he says without any self pity, “but I’ve managed to figure out how to do something I love for a living, make money, be able to feed my kids and not worry about all the shit I had to worry about when I was a kid. That is just

massively winning to me,” he brightens, his words tumbling out now, “and every time I step on stage and I sing, I just love it. I love it for the purity of it. I love singing because it moves people. I just fucking love it!” he laughs.

On the songs that made the cut on the Greatest Hits album, he has a couple of favourites he likes to perform: “There’s a few; every time you play them they’re like little rockets and you can just go straight through the tune and it’s big and it sounds exciting.

Wonderful World is good for that and Nothing Ever Hurt Like You, and I’m actually really enjoying The Pieces

Don’t Fit Anymore at the minute because it kicks off way more than it ever used to at the end. I think it suits the song, it’s good. It’s tragic, but it’s rocky at the same time. Whereas it used to just be tragic. I like the sad mixed with a bit of venom in there. I like it when you get both angles in the song – the bitter side of rejection as well as just the rejection,” he says, over emphasising the last word for effect.

“I’ve got some sunny songs as well,” he insists, “so even if I’m writing about something that’s slightly sad, I’ll try and dress it up so it makes you feel good at least. I don’t like too much misery.”

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JAMES MORRISON

Giving Them Something

Image Credit: Parri Thomas

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He tells Headliner that one song he has to keep in his set, or incur the wrath of the crowd, is Broken Strings.

“I tried taking it out of the tour and people would just cheer it at the end of the set, like, ‘You’ve got to sing it!’ I try to please fans and play what they want to hear because I’ve been to gigs where they don’t play the song you want to hear and it is annoying. I 100% want to hear them singing along.”

The European leg of his Greatest Hits tour picks up again in September, and in the meantime he’s got plenty of UK summer festival gigs to keep him busy, including A Perfect Day festival at Powderham Castle in Exeter in July.

That reminds Morrison of the last time he performed there: “It’s an amazing day out. Last time I was enjoying myself so much that I forgot I was playing the gig,” he HEADLINER MAGAZINE

laughs. “I was drinking beers with my mates and then my tour manager was like, ‘James, the gig!’ I was like, ‘Oh, yeah!’ I’ve learnt my lesson now,” he protests, holding up his hands. “I wasn’t drunk. But I was just enjoying myself so much that I completely forgot about the gig. I did three gigs about four months ago and I was buzzing for about two weeks afterwards. Even being at a gig is exciting; when I’ve got a drink in my hand and I’m watching a band I know I’m gonna love play live, it’s such a good feeling. I just love playing live music. As long as I’m not drunk and everyone else is, it’s fine,” he grins.

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ZUKYE ARDELLA

Surgical Sounds

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New York City-based producer and engineer Zukye Ardella had an unusual route into the music industry – leaving her job as an emergency medical technician to pursue her passion full time. The gamble paid off, as today she’s working with New York’s most exciting hip-hop artists at her very own s5studio in Chelsea, Manhattan, which was founded by her mentor Sonny Carson. Ardella reflects on her music production journey…

How did you go from working as a medical technician to a producer and engineer?

My journey has been unconventional.

I went to school to be a doctor and I have a pre-medical degree. People always find that pretty entertaining because I have not used it once!

I came to a crossroads at the end of college. I was always into entertainment and music since I was a kid, and I really felt like I needed to do it. I knew that I couldn’t be 50 or 60 years old sitting in the studio until 6am trying to start my music career, but I could definitely be 50 or 60 years old trying to be a doctor in the future, if I want to do that.

How did you get your studio experience?

I started producing and trying to figure things out, working with any artists I possibly could to get my beats out.

Sometimes I used to rap over my beats just so I had a song to showcase to people. There was this one showcase that I did, and I ended up getting a free hour of studio time. That was at the original s5studio, which was started by my friend Sonny. I came in, brought a couple of ideas and laid some hook ideas, and I told him that I’m not really an artist, I’m more of a producer. He said, ‘Your beats are great ideas, but your sounds are not good; you have to pick better sounds’. I didn’t really know what he meant at the time because I wasn’t an engineer yet, but I did know that my beats were not sounding like what I hear on the radio.

Sound selection is the first step in getting a professional-sounding record – even before mixing. It’s like cooking with bad ingredients: you can be an amazing chef and you can probably make it taste pretty good, but not as good as if you cook

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with really, really good ingredients.

That was the day that I learned that, because he played some stuff that he worked on and I could definitely hear the difference, sonically. I came back months later because I wanted a beat mixed – still using the terrible sounds that I was using – and he helped me out. Then he was like, ‘Look, I have over 700 clients of my own and it’s almost too much work for me to handle in this space’. He said he could teach me everything he knew about engineering – I just had to come around. Right when he gave me that opportunity, I got laid off from the EMS company I was working for.

Sonny taught me how to engineer. It started off very difficult and rough to understand, but I was doing it every day, and eventually I ended up taking a lot of pride in it. After a year or two I was pretty proficient and was building my clientele, then I started working at big commercial studios in Manhattan to expand my knowledge and my experience. Sonny and I were able to open up a second studio room, and we just continued to grow, grow, grow. Fast forward and we outgrew the space, which led us to s5studio in Manhattan.

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ZUKYE ARDELLA

Surgical Sounds

How was it adapting to this sudden change in career whilst gaining momentum in the studio scene as quickly as you did?

It was a confidence thing; I had been working a lot. I refer to engineering as playing a sport: the more you play the sport, the better you’re going to be, and the more comfortable you’re going to be when it’s game time. You have to be consistent – if I was to stop working for maybe two months, my ears will not be the ears that they are today, because your ears are a muscle and they always have to be worked.

What are some important lessons you’ve learned along the way?

When I worked with my first major label artists in a big studio, I just treated it like I do every other artist.

Some of them are more talented and they’re more comfortable being in the studio, and they work a lot quicker.

They have higher standards because they’ve worked everywhere, so you need to keep up with the speed and make everything sound good, quickly.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is how to control the room and communicate with the artists. When engineering

in high stress level conditions, a lot of it is a mental thing for the artists; sometimes the artist wants to be difficult and you have to understand and identify if it’s just them being difficult, or if it’s something that you could actually do better. Learning how to do that was probably the biggest thing that helped me be a better engineer and producer.

“I REFER TO ENGINEERING AS PLAYING A SPORT: THE MORE YOU PLAY THE SPORT, THE BETTER YOU’RE GOING TO BE.”

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ENGINEER

S5studio is home to Genelec 1234A, 1238A, 8320A and 8331A monitors; why did you invest in these?

I chose Genelecs for the studio because I was doing a shootout against some other monitor brands and I was able to A-B between all of them. When I heard the Genelecs I was like, ‘This is the winner’. They were very powerful and transparent.

I needed them to mix on, but I also needed them in order to produce, so I wanted to be able to hear the low end response and I needed something with a wide frequency response. They did all of that. I started with those and then Sonny was the first person to get the Genelec Ones – he said they are a game-

changer because they’re three way monitors, but they’re small and they can be tuned to the room. Then we just continued to build our Genelec collection from there. We don’t have any subs – that’s how wide the frequency response is on those Genelecs. They’re really good and they’re pretty cost effective for what you’re getting from them.

What do you look for in a studio monitor?

Something that’s as clean and transparent as possible. Some monitors have a mid range bump, like the NS10s – they sound kind of nasty. But the good thing about NS10s is, if you can get something to sound good on them, they’re gonna sound good

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everywhere! But I personally just like to hear what it actually sounds like versus the cloudy version. There’s also monitors that exaggerate the bass and have a high end bump as well. I just want something that’s going to be as true to the sound as possible so that when I’m done with the mix, I can take it to another studio or the car or listen to it on my headphones and quadruple check to see if it translates, rather than taking a shot in the dark.

S5STUDIONY.COM GENELEC.COM

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6 MUSIC FESTIVAL

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6 MUSIC FESTIVAL The 6 Music Festival recently made its first outing since 2020, taking place across Cardiff from April 1-3. Headliner spoke to BBC 6 Music presenters Stuart Maconie and Steve Lamacq, as well as 1Xtra DJ and presenter Jamz Supernova, about the event’s highly anticipated return and what makes it a festival like no other…

The annual city-based festival last took place in London just days before live events across the board were stopped in their tracks by the Covid-19 outbreak. Having landed in the capital just a matter of days before lockdown, the 2020 6 Music Festival was one of the most successful editions of the event yet, featuring a whole host of triumphant performances from the likes of Nadine Shah, Black Midi, Michael Kiwanuka, Roisin Murphy, Bombay

Bicycle Club, Mike Skinner and many others.

This year’s festival featured performances from the likes of Little Simz, Khruangbin, Father John Misty & members of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, IDLES, Bloc Party, Johnny Marr, Pixies and many more The typically eclectic array of artists and musical styles that have become the hallmark of the festival is a direct manifestation of what the 6

Music station has evolved into over the past two decades. Having just celebrated its 20th anniversary and being officially crowned the UK’s most popular digital radio station, the 6 Music brand feels as though it has been on an upward trajectory for the past 10 years. After a highprofile campaign from all manner of artists and broadcasters to save it from closure back in 2011, it has been consistently fine tuning, refining and diversifying its output.

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6 MUSIC FESTIVAL

“YOU CAN GROW UP WITH 6 MUSIC AND YOU CAN INTRODUCE THE NEXT GENERATION IN YOUR HOUSE TO IT AND THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.”

Perhaps most crucial to its success has been the refusal to tether itself to any particular genre or demographic – something that is reflected in both its listenership and the audience that turns out for the 6 Music Festival.

“One of the things the anniversary has almost forced us into is actually analysing what it is that 6 Music does well and why we are still here,” Lamacq explains. “It may sound like we’re blowing our own trumpet, but I think one of the main reasons for its success is the way it has adapted and grown with the audience. 6 Music was possibly a bit cliquey when we first started. It was quite a serious station, but now we are far more accessible. The word HEADLINER MAGAZINE

community is probably overused, but we are a kind of gang. We all like the same things, it’s just a few of us are on the other side of the desk.

“It’s also not a station you grow out of. You can grow up with 6 Music and you can introduce the next generation in your house to it and there is no difference. We’re not a genre or age specific station – that is the rarity. Most stations are aimed at a certain age group or certain type of music, so you can feel at home at 6 Music for a lot longer than you would at most other stations.”

Equally important to the diversity of performers on the bill each year is the festival’s commitment to fully embracing and understanding the

local talent of the hosting city.

“I have such fond memories of all the 6 Music Festivals, particularly when we went to Glasgow,” Maconie tells Headliner. “I remember we had a tiny reservation on the way up in that we wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to someone else’s town and saying ‘here we come to share with you the benefit of our brilliance’. Nothing could have been further from the truth. People showed us the good pubs, the good venues, the good restaurants. I pretty much lived in Barrowlands for four days and started going out for breakfast with the bar staff!”

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Supernova also hailed the platform the 6 Music Festival offers not just local artists, but the location itself.

“It’s beneficial for a variety of reasons,” she explains. “Not just for the music but for businesses and the infrastructure of the city. It brings money and new people into the city.

And sometimes we’re in a bit of a bubble, so getting out of London is a great way to get out and hear about new talent.

“Plus, a city-based festival [compared to being out in a field] has its pros,” she continues. “It’s a lot more inclusive with the kind of people that can come to it. You can get tickets for individual venues if you can’t attend the whole thing, which is nice. And I think there is something about being in a city, perhaps not knowing it so well, and going on an adventure to find these venues. You just have to throw yourself into it.”

Lamacq and Maconie also expressed their fondness for the city festival format.

“I’m all for it,” says Lamacq. “It’s a shorter walk home, there’s a corner shop if you run out of cigarettes or crisps. I’m not saying I don’t like outdoor festivals but give me the choice of walking from pub to pub or venue to venue, I’ll take that.

And I always hope to come back with some music I haven’t heard before.

“Idles played the fringe in Bristol, which is when I first saw them. I saw a few fringe gigs that year and hopefully what it gives you is more of an understanding of the city itself, how it works, the best places to play, what the audience is like.

Because I’ve spent a lot of time following tours around the country, I understand this, but it’s good for people to get out and see that geographically some music goes down better in certain places than others. Whether you have the Bristol

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melting pot or the psychedelia in Liverpool, or the pure indie pop of Sheffield, every area is slightly different, so every time you go somewhere it tells you something about that audience.”

“The 6 Music Festival is just my kind of festival, in that it’s set in cities and clubs,” Maconie adds. “I know some people love getting their wellies on and getting muddy, but I do like a roof, and I really like being able to find out about new places.”

The return of the 6 Music Festival after two years away also coincided with the station’s 20thanniversary, which has seen artists and fans from across the musical spectrum paying tribute not only to its musical diversity, but also its ability to transcend any particular genre or age group.

“Ultimately, it’s a station for people who continue to be excited and interested in music, new or old,” Maconie elaborates. “I always say on my Freak Zone show that new music is just music you haven’t heard before. So, while I appreciate the fact there is a very strong drive on finding new British music, which is great, I also think I’m doing my job if I turn people onto older music they might never have heard before, whether it’s Turkish psych or English folk or Japanese jazz.

“The Freak Zone could easily become a very challenging listen because some of the music is very out there, so I try to make my bits warm and engaging and I think that goes across the board. That’s something algorithms can’t give you.”

BBC.CO.UK

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INSIDE CAVATINA HALL

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Euro Expansion

IMMERSIVE AUDIO

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Euro Expansion

Combining both offices and cultural spaces, Cavatina Hall opened its doors at the start of 2022 and is the country’s only privately owned and funded concert hall. The sixstorey multi-functional building has over 9,000 square metres of office space, a chamber music hall, and a recording studio. And at the heart of the building is the 1,000-capacity concert hall, which features a state-of-the-art stage, with AV technology integrated into an extensive digital and analogue network, and L-Acoustics’ L-ISA

Immersive Hyperreal sound technology, supplied by Warsawbased L-Acoustics Certified Provider Distributor, Audio Plus.

The venue was created by Cavatina Holding, one of Poland’s largest property development companies.

It is strategically situated in the Southern Poland city of BielskoBiała, an industrial and artistic hub situated in the Beskidy mountains.

Among the events hosted in the city is the historic jazz festival Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa, which now takes place in Cavatina Hall.

“We can confidently claim that Cavatina Hall is one of the best facilities of its kind in the world, combining commercial industry with the promotion of art in a unique and modern building,” explained Katarzyna Pytlarczyk, head of Fiducia Foundation, the administrator of Cavatina Hall. “The concert hall has been designed so that all types of music can be

gumble

Poland’s Cavatina Hall, a brand new, multi-functional concert hall, recently became home to the largest L-Acoustics L-ISA immersive audio system in Central Europe, and has now been described by Katarzyna Pytlarczyk, head of Fiducia Foundation, the administrator of Cavatina Hall, as “one of the best facilities of its kind in the world”.

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produced perfectly, and its acoustics make it possible to bring out the full range of colour during symphonic and chamber concerts as well as pop and rock performances.”

“Because we are among only a few venues that have such a system, it puts us at the forefront of European venues,” added Marcin Smolik, producer and managing director at Cavatina Hall on the opting for an L-ISA system. “The interest in the technology is huge. It is a treat for artists, and for the audience, it means quality.”

Briefed with selecting top-of-therange technology and providing expert support throughout the complex design, the Audio Plus team, and its chosen suppliers and sub-contractors, were the sole contractors to work on the project from its inception to completion.

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INSIDE CAVATINA HALL

Euro Expansion

“When we were invited to manage the AV installation, we knew this project would be exceptional. We knew this would be a place where we could design the sound technology of the future,” said Sylwester Wojcieszek from SDST, who was responsible for the technology design. “During initial discussions, it was quickly decided that we would design a 360-degree immersive sound system to fulfil this desire, and the best one to fit that brief is L-Acoustics L-ISA technology.”

“Throughout the decades of using stereo for concert sound, we have accepted compromises,” noted Willi Klein, application engineer at L-Acoustics. “The perception of sound spatialisation for large audience areas was always limited; we heard sound from the L/R loudspeaker placement, instead of hearing instruments from where they are placed on stage. L-ISA technology gives the listener a natural experience, essentially delivering what you would hear if there were no sound reinforcement, and you hear the instruments from where they are physically.”

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In total, 141 L-Acoustics cabinets are distributed across the venue in a 360-degree configuration. The frontal system is based on seven hangs of six Kiva II and an SB15m spanning the width of the stage, with further low frequency delivered by four KS28 subs suspended above the audience in an end-fire arrangement. Eight 5XT serve spatial front-fill, while a further nine 5XT serve audio for the seats in the two balconies behind the stage. Two additional X8 cabinets are used as in-fill and six X8 cover the balconies, while 28 further X8, 14 at each balcony level, are placed as effect cabinets.

The system is controlled by two redundant L-ISA Processors.

Stage monitoring is managed by a total of 23 cabinets including X8, X12 and X15HiQ. The entire system is powered by a combination of LA4X, LA2Xi and LA12X amplified controllers, which give a combined 108 kW of power. In addition, to serve events in other spaces such as the foyer or chamber hall, Cavatina Hall has a mobile Syva system, chosen for its aesthetic appeal and audio quality.

Significantly, Cavatina Hall is the country’s first concert hall to utilise automatic object tracking, which allows the movements of musicians, actors, or speakers to be tracked and mirrored by the sound and lighting systems. This also makes it possible to automate stage movements and even trigger multimedia actions automatically. The core of the system is the TTA Stagetracker Core processor, which can communicate with the system’s transmitters via a system of antennas.

The concert hall features DiGiCo Quantum 338 consoles for FOH and monitor mixing, while signal distribution between FOH and the recording studio is achieved via Optocore, with AuviTran converters forming an integrated network.

Smolik concluded that the venue “has a rule that it is not the artist who is the star, but the audience”.

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ALEXX CLOUD

Aiming for the Moon

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ALEXX CLOUD Spanish and Turkish rapper, singer, and producer Alexx Cloud from Santa Fe, New Mexico has been making some big moves in the music scene recently. Here he talks about the challenges of being an independent artist, how he’s developed his sound, and the plans in store for his first headline show this summer.

Joining Headliner on a Zoom call from Florida’s Treasure Coast – which he nowadays calls home – Alexx Cloud is perked up and excited to discuss his path to being a musical artist. He initially reveals that he moved to his current location in 2016, which ended up being one of the best decisions of his life.

“But writing them gave me the tools that I needed in order to be where I am today. I actually ended up dropping out of high school; when I was around 19 years old I just went balls to the wall with my music pursuing it full time, and it ended up being something special.”

When he was growing up, his family moved to Switzerland for a period of time, serving as a catalyst for the young Cloud to discover his love for music and songwriting.

Aim For The Moon is technically Cloud’s fourth album project, although you’ll only find his last two albums on streaming platforms: “I recently took my first two down, just to make some space as things were getting a little cluttered,” he says.

“My songs were horrible back then,” he begins with a chuckle in his voice.

And while he has typically been known for his superior lyricism and finesse as a

rapper, Cloud reveals that he decided to experiment with more poppy melodies on Aim For The Moon.

“The record is a bit of a hybrid, and in the process I found out that I enjoy making pop music,” he continues. “It’s my biggest project to date and it’s seen really good results, something like 100,000 streams in the first week; it’s not a lot in the bigger scheme of things, but for where I’m at as an independent artist, it means everything.”

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ALEXX CLOUD

Aiming for the Moon

“I’M DOING EVERYTHING: MARKETING, PRODUCING, BEING THE ARTIST, SETTING UP SHOWS. IT’S A LITTLE EXHAUSTING, BUT I’VE MADE IT WORK MY WHOLE LIFE SO I’M NOT GONNA COMPLAIN NOW!”

As with many others making their own way, Cloud describes being an independent artist as liberating, but tough: “I’ve got a couple of good friends who make up a nice little street team, but at the end of the day, I’m doing everything: marketing, producing, being the artist, setting up shows. It’s a little exhausting, but I’ve made it HEADLINER MAGAZINE

work my whole life so I’m not gonna complain now!”

When it comes to the production of his music, Cloud tries to be as hands-on as possible, and is constantly vying to make his songs a collaborative effort.

“I did Aim For The Moon with Frank Favetta [Boys II Men, David Guetta], who is the best engineer

I’ve ever worked with,” he explains.

“We’ve been doing this for six years together now, so it just comes as second nature. When I step up to the microphone to record, he knows what to do. Recently I’ve been diving deeper into the music production side of things, telling him where I want things to go and how I want them to sound, and then he puts his own twist on things.

EMERGING HEADLINER

“Usually, nine times out of 10, the beat that I write to doesn’t end up being the beat that we use, because when I put my lyrics that I wrote to a different beat onto a new one, it gives me the freedom to stretch my words, or put them in different places, or play with their cadence. Sometimes I’ll write a line that ends up being in the middle of the song, so I’ll work up and down from that starting point. Some people trip out when they find out how I write – almost in reverse – but it works for me.”

Despite never having actually sang on a track until quite recently, Cloud recognised that hip-hop in the US was changing, encompassing melodic autotune, more accessible lyrics, and poppier elements.

“One day I was just in the studio, and I told my engineer to just press record. We made something crazy that ended up being the song Hallucinations on this latest album.

We decided to go with that particular

style, going through beats together for about five hours to find the right vibe.”

When it comes to collaborating with others, Cloud is also very much openminded: “I love my people, and I love my artists back home,” he says. “They’re the people who I really started with and grew up with, so when it comes to the local scene, I will always support and share ideas with them. Since I started diving into the mainstream and working with those kinds of artists, it’s been absolutely crazy, and definitely game-changing for me.”

This August, Cloud is looking to headline a show back in his hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, “and I know we can sell that out,” he tells Headliner with unabashed confidence. This is quite clearly an artist who knows what he wants, and is prepared to focus the entirety of his

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efforts into achieving his goals.

“Right now that’s what I’m putting all my energy into,” he confirms. “I just want to create a crazy show environment and make it one of the biggest, best shows to come to the city. I’ve pushed the date back something like six times, so my main goal is to make sure that this show is flawless.

“I’ve also got this other project that I’m working on… I can’t say the name yet, but I do have two major industry artists on it – like big time names – so I’m really excited about that.”

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INSTA: @ALEXXCLOUD

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DAVE

All Alone Together

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DAVE Credit: Jordan McLachlan, Red Pepper

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LIVE SOUND

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Following the release of his much lauded second album We’re All Alone In This Together in 2021, London grime icon Dave embarked on a major UK arena tour including two nights at London’s O2, where the show’s sound was delivered by d&b audiotechnik’s SL Series.

“I’ve been involved with Dave since his Game Over EP tour in 2018,” said Charles Bidwell, FOH engineer.

“This is our ninth tour together and it’s been a really significant step up to an arena show - but as always, my goal remains the same.

I need to accurately represent his studio recordings in a weighty live environment; the audience are there to hear every detail with impact, so clarity and headroom from the PA is paramount. I want everyone to leave having understood every bar – Dave’s lyrical content, wordplay and delivery is world class, so both audience and artist deserve that.”

Bidwell is a long-time d&b audiotechnik user, opting this time for 16 of the pro audio giant’s GSL12 three-way line array loudspeakers for the main hangs, with 14 KSL12 loudspeakers for sides, while front fill was handled by six Y10P point source loudspeakers. Twenty SL-SUBs were employed for the deep lows, with another eight KSL loudspeakers utilised in each of three delay hangs to provide ample coverage. The d&b inventory for the tour was supplied by d&b partner SSE Audio, part of Solotech.

The KSL and GSL systems are part of d&b’s SL-Series, which is described by the company as the only modern line array system able to achieve horizontal directivity control over the entire audio spectrum. Through its cardioid dispersion pattern, it is designed to deliver quieter stages for performers, maximum clarity and power for the audience, and minimal noise for those beyond.

“WITH THE SL-SERIES, THERE’S A REAL SONIC TRANSPARENCY OUT OF THE BOX AND THE WORKFLOW IS FANTASTIC, SO IT MAKES A TOUR OF THIS SCALE AS STRAIGHTFORWARD AS POSSIBLE.”

“There’s an awful lot happening onstage during this show,” explained Bidwell. “Dave raps, sings, plays piano and now guitar, there’s a live band that consists of drums, bass, guitar, keyboards and six backing vocalists.

All supported by 16 channels of playback and enormous video wall interludes.

“I need to glue all of these musical elements together into a show that flows perfectly from track-to-track and then make sure that Dave’s vocal is placed front and centre. With the SL-Series, there’s a real sonic transparency out of the box and the workflow is fantastic, so it makes a tour of this scale as straightforward as possible. The ArrayCalc simulation and R1 remote control software are extremely powerful and flexible

tools. The PA flyers were using the ArrayCalc Viewer app on iPhone to quickly reference the ArrayCalc design specifications on the fly. It works brilliantly, so once everything is designed correctly in ArrayCalc, when you unmute the SL-Series you’re immediately presented with the clarity and raging power that d&b are known for.”

The ArrayCalc Viewer app provides data such as splay angle, amplifier channel ID and cabling information, flying frame height and the height of the lowest edge, frame angle, horizontal aiming, pickpoints, weight and load status. Changes to the system design can be distributed to each user immediately.

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DAVE

All Alone Together

Credit: Jordan McLachlan, Red Pepper

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“The integration of the system and the software is key to delivering the kind of consistency we need on a tour of this scale,” Bidwell continued.

“It’s one thing being able to get one venue to sound great, particularly if you’re doing multiple nights there.

But to be able to move around the country and know that the experience you’re giving the audience doesn’t change is really important. I trust the SL-Series to deliver and that’s a huge thing - there’s so much else going on that being completely confident in the system I’m using is crucial.”

Due to the often complex logistics of an arena tour, the practicalities of rigging and flying the PA are also a crucial consideration.

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“The fact that you get so much power from a relatively compact form factor with the GSL boxes makes them very ‘tour-friendly’,” added system tech Rich Kemp. “It’s pretty remarkable really. We could forklift them on and off the trucks with no messing around and were often the first department finished and ready to go.

“We ran the GSLs in compression mode and the arrays were very quick to get set and fly. They go up very fast, which is always really welcome on big tours like this where there’s so much going on at each venue.”

Summing up his thoughts on the tour, Bidwell concluded that “it really doesn’t matter where you use d&b, the

core experience is the same. Incredible power balanced with exceptional clarity, no matter the setting - so it’s easy to scale up and work in the way that suits you. The support from d&b is unmatched too. The company really understands the relational side of the music business and always go above and beyond with training and advice. Alongside the performance of the SL-Series, that really made for a thoroughly rewarding tour”.

DBAUDIO.COM

Case Study

FOCUSRITE PRO IN WAYSTATION STUDIOS GRAMMY®-winning producer/engineer Dave Way's resume runs across all genres, spanning pop, rock, R&B and more, and his credits include such acclaimed artists as Christina Aguilera, Fiona Apple, Ziggy Marley, Macy Gray, Michael Jackson, “Weird Al" Yankovic, Phoebe Bridgers, Ringo Starr and dozens of others, in addition to the acclaimed soundtrack to Echo in the Canyon.

His most recent GRAMMY nomination was for “Best Immersive Audio Album," for his work as immersive audio co-producer on the 2019 album The Savior by A Bad Think.

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Like many working in the world of immersive audio, Way's attention has turned to the Dolby Atmos® format, and in 2020 he took the leap and upgraded his personal facility, Waystation Studio, to be able to mix in Atmos.

Since last year, he has been settling in with the new setup, mixing several projects and even recording an entire album specifically to be mixed in Atmos – helped in no small part by his arsenal of interfaces and a RedNet R1 controller from Focusrite Pro.

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LIFE IN 3D

Inside CODA Audio’s Immersive Demo Rooms

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Inside CODA Audio’s Immersive demo rooms

LIFEIN3D In mid-March, writer, audiophile, and former studio engineer, Ben Jacklin, visited CODA Audio with his mind (and ears) open…

I was recently fortunate enough to be invited along to a demonstration of CODA Audio’s Immersive SPACE system. Having heard CODA’s line array and column systems in use, it is fair to say I was already impressed by the brand, but the 3D Immersive SPACE would prove to be something else entirely.

Sitting in the demo room at CODA’s Hannover HQ, I found myself in the centre of a 13.1 immersive system.

This is by no means the limitation of the Immersive SPACE, which offers

128 outputs if required, driven by the brand’s groundbreaking Space Hub processor.

And then, the demo started.

My first listen of the 3D Immersive SPACE was a demo of a movie theme. In fact, my very first experience was a soloed acapella from that track. One vocal line.

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LIFE IN 3D

Inside CODA Audio’s Immersive Demo Rooms

With a few clicks on the Space HUB control software, the vocals glided through the room. Unlike some other systems I’ve listened to, there were no jitters or obvious crossfading as the sound flowed smoothly through the speakers. The sound moved from left to right, and even swept over the Z-plane from the front of the room, to the top, and to the back.

Now the system had my attention.

This kind of smooth movement and sense of…well, space, was not like the other systems I had experienced. It would soon become clear why CODA’s is different.

Now, it feels like virtually every electronics manufacturer is making a system they like to call “immersive”. The truth is that this magic word means something a little bit different in everyone’s own personal dictionary. Listening to CODA Audio’s Immersive SPACE, it was clear. This is immersive.

This is 3D. We’ve all heard Bohemian Rhapsody approximately 7,381 times. This time, it was different. The harmonies grew around me. I heard new details in Freddie’s vocals.

I heard more detail and fidelity in the guitars, and the drums came to life as if Roger Taylor were sitting in front of me.

Next, we were led through 3D immersive mixes of Ocean Eyes by Billie Eilish and Bohemian Rhapsody. It was then, hearing songs that I had already listened to in various mixes and on various systems, that the difference became even more striking.

“CODA’S IMMERSIVE SPACE FEELS LIKE PUTTING ON YOUR GLASSES AFTER FUMBLING AROUND IN THE DARK LOOKING FOR THEM. THE SOUND SUDDENLY COMES INTO FOCUS.”

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TECHNOLOGY

The mix had movement, and it filled the room in 360, but perhaps even more strikingly, everything had its own place in a way that doesn’t feel possible with a stereo system. That’s what is so exciting about this 3D system. Suddenly, I wanted to hear what was possible with all of my music collection.

So why is it so different? How is this possible in the CODA Immersive SPACE? With a focus on phase, and the time domain.

True unity is achieved in the system by creating a phase-linear set of speakers. The sound from CODA’s speakers hits your ears in unison, no matter where in the 3D space the sound is positioned, how far the stereo spread, and how much the sound moves around during playback.

With mixed systems, or just those without phase coherency, phase quickly becomes a mess. Though most systems are able to give an approximation of the sound of a helicopter moving around or the soundscape of a jungle, there are differences in the speakers. In most systems, the sound doesn’t hit your ears at the perfect time. There’s some sense of

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movement in those systems, but CODA has hit the nail on the head when it comes to a coherent and smooth system.

The result is steady movement without the sound jittering or becoming muddy as it hits you from all of these different speakers. Sometimes with other immersive spaces, you can hear the crossover as the sound gets transported through the speakers. Not with the CODA system.

Hearing CODA founder Svetly Alexandrov speak in detail regarding the focus on the time domain outlined how important this is.

CODA systems take into account every single aspect of the time domain, right out of the box. Using CODA’s DSFIR multisampling and filters, the system is precise and efficient. The result is a latency of just 11ms, unheard of when it comes to systems that can boast linear phase.

Many other systems trying to get a linear response end up with a far longer time window, a delay of up to 60ms, which isn’t workable for most systems, and the result is muddy, and noticeably delayed.

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LIFE IN 3D

Inside CODA Audio’s Immersive Demo Rooms

thanks to the difference in volume (ILD), and the difference in time in the sound reaching each of our ears (ITD). We’re talking in nanoseconds.

The phase coherency of the CODA system is such that, unlike with some other systems, the sound reaches our ears in line with what our brain is expecting, allowing us to perfectly place every single object.

If audio systems expect to provide a true 3D field with long delays in the vibrations hitting our ears, the system is inevitably going to sound muddy and unclear, the opposite of what CODA has achieved. Clarity and unity in 3D sound.

Systems that do accomplish linear responses can’t offer what CODA can – the same phase linearity across all frequencies and a high fidelity sound that doesn’t degrade with loads of complex processing.

Even Interaural Time Difference (ITD) and Interaural Level Difference (ILD) are accounted for in the CODA system.

Simply put, these are part of the systems our brains have developed to understand what is going on around us. We can perceive where sound is, even with our eyes closed, HEADLINER MAGAZINE

CODA’s Immersive SPACE feels like putting on your glasses after fumbling around in the dark looking for them. The sound suddenly comes into “focus”. Even if you were happy with your previous solution (the audio equivalent of walking around without any glasses) you’ll suddenly realise just what it means to have true focus.

In the demo, we were even able to hear the space tuned in two different ways, one with a number of reference points within the 3D space, ensuring that the speakers were as close as possible to hitting your ears at the exact time needed

to pinpoint the sound in the 3D field.

With visual cues (such as those you’d have in a cinema or at a theatre show) the pinpoint accuracy of the system was even more evident. The ability for the system to follow visuals, or to build upon this soundscape with extra sound effects, opens a whole 3D universe of possibilities for visual applications.

I left the demo with my head whirring with possibility, considering all of the opportunities that a truly 3D and coherent system could bring. I also left with a desire to bring 15 years worth of audio mixes collected with me to breathe fresh life into, should I be lucky enough to return.

CODAAUDIO.COM

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FEEDER

Entering a Different World

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FEEDER On March 18, Feeder released their 11th studio album in the form of Torpedo, a brand new collection of songs that spans the sonic extremities of their unique brand of hook-laden rock. Frontman and songwriter Grant Nicholas speaks to Headliner about producing the new record and how the band has been able to so successfully navigate the choppy waters of the music industry for almost 30 years.

Torpedo, the follow-up to 2019’s Tallullah, the band’s most commercially successful record since 2002’s Comfort In Sound, is in many ways a very different beast to its predecessor, not least because it was written during lockdown. The album exhibits some of the band’s heaviest moments in years, while also offering intimate glimpses of Feeder at their most fragile.

Despite the fact that the record was written and recorded largely during the most stringent social distancing measures, the remote collaboration between Nicholas and fellow Feeder

co-founder and bassist Taka Hirose during this time was far from a new concept, with each living at opposite ends of the country and being wellversed in the art of remote sessions.

To find out more about Torpedo and, as Nicholas elaborates throughout our conversation, its already written follow-up, we join him via Zoom at his North London home for a chat about the past, present and future of Feeder…

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FEEDER

Entering a Different World

When did this new record first start to take shape?

How did you manage to record these songs during lockdown?

Pre-lockdown we were looking forward to the second half of our Tallullah tour. The album did really well, as did the first half of the tour, but the second half was canceled due to Covid. So we went into lockdown, but before that I did a bunch of writing and we did some recording. I sent some tracks to Taka and he put some bass on, so we had an album’s worth of stuff pre-Covid. Then it all came to a grinding halt and those songs were just left there, and we were doing what everybody else did, which was just staying at home doing very little. After a couple of months, doing a bit of gardening and all the jobs I’d been putting off for years, I just started writing again, so this album is really what I wrote during that time.

And all the pre-Covid songs haven’t been used, so they will be on the next record. It’s all a bit back to front.

I have a small studio at home where I do most of the Feeder stuff. Taka lives up north so I’ve hardly seen him through Covid, and he has a little set up so I can send him ideas for guide bass, then he’ll do his thing and send it back. That’s how we did the record.

And we did a bit of that on the last album because these days that’s how records are made. The days of going off to California and spending £250,000, unless you’re a huge, huge artists, don’t happen very often. I wouldn’t say no to it! But I have the studio here, which is where we do guitars. We can’t do drums here so we managed to find times where we could get into studios to record them.

But otherwise, it was all done here.

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The songs just poured out of me and they had a slightly different vibe to the songs I’d written before lockdown, so I

didn’t want to dilute it by just putting a few of those on this album. We really kept it focused and had this old school album approach and a lot of thought has gone into the track list and the artwork.

At first it was going to be a mini album for the fanbase, it wasn’t even going to be released properly. But I played it to some people and it got a great reaction, so we decided to put it out as a standalone record. It’s gone from being a mini album to, ‘OK, let’s make it a double album with all the preCovid songs’, and then we just thought it was too much. So, hopefully the next album will be out this time next year, but it’ll be those pre-Covid songs plus a few new ones I’ve just written. But they are very much connected, these albums. It’s the same artist doing the artwork for each.

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“THE HEAVY AND LIGHT DYNAMIC IS KIND OF A FEEDER TRADEMARK. EVEN GOING BACK TO OUR EARLY WORK THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN ACOUSTIC TRACK OR SONGS WITH STRINGS.”

Did you intend to explore the various strands of Feeder’s sound with this album from the outset?

The heavy and light dynamic is kind of a Feeder trademark. Even going back to our early work there has always been an acoustic track or songs with strings. I think it’s important to sequence it in a way so that it takes you back and forth between our different dynamics.

Tallullah was one of the most commercially successful albums you’ve ever had. Did that provide any additional pressure when setting out to write its successor?

No. The only time I ever really felt pressure was after Comfort In Sound because that was a really big record for us, but I don’t think it affected the writing. And I didn’t feel that at all with this record. I was very focused, in that we didn’t want to dilute it or tick too

many boxes. I just wanted it to be what it is, and we stuck to that. It was a very natural album to make.

Did you produce the record yourself?

I co-produced it with Tim Roe and it was mixed by Chris Sheldon, who basically produced Polythene, our first album. He’s mixed most of our albums, so I often work with him. He’s a producer as well and he co-produced Generation Freakshow. We have a great team of people on it, Tim pushes me hard, I push him hard. It wasn’t that dissimilar to the way we made Tallullah. It was all recorded here; we did drums in different rooms.

Who are some of the producers that have influenced your approach to making records? And how do you define the role of a producer?

I’m more the old school producer, where I’m getting lyrics and

arrangements right. Some producers engineer and produce, and others, like Steve Albini, just record the band and what they do. He doesn’t like to mess with the chemistry of the band. And then we’ve worked with people like Gil Norton, who’s worked with Foo Fighters, Pixies, Patti Smith, Echo and the Bunnymen. He’s really tough in the studio and pushes you really hard, but he’s great and I learnt so much from him. He’ll spend ages on arrangements, ages with the drummer. I wouldn’t event dare to say I’ve produced something if I hadn’t worked with those people.

Daniel Lanois is absolutely amazing, Rick Rubin is quite unique. As for what influenced me, lots of stuff, from listening to ABBA as a kid to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Nick Drake, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Gabriel, The Sex Pistols, I’m a huge Police fan. The list goes on. Pink Floyd, Kate Bush, Neil Young, Tom Petty.

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FEEDER

Entering a Different World

How has your creative process developed down the years?

How challenging was it navigating those big changes to the industry?

It’s changed so much. If I think about what we spent on albums and producers in the ‘90s, it’s just a different process. People are now making huge albums in their bedrooms. Technology is amazing because you can do so much more. In the old days when you had to do stuff on tape - if you were lucky you might have a 48-track but it was usually 24.

You had to know what you were doing, and you didn’t have auto tune and things like that. It was a different world and you had to be more organised.

We still work in a semi old school way.

Certain things we do are probably the same as when we first started - things like getting certain guitar sounds, but it is a very different world. It’s great but I do miss that excitement of turning up and not quite knowing what was going to happen.

When it was happening you just adapted as you went along. I’m not all over things like social media. It can be a great thing, but it can also be a dangerous place, so I tread quite lightly. But I embrace the good things you can get from it as well. Everything from the first time working on Pro Tools was a massive change, and then things like Facebook.

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And the whole ‘what goes on tour stays on tour’ thing doesn’t really exist anymore. Everything is on show now, everyone has a camera phone. But it’s certainly taken a little bit of the rock ‘n’ roll out of it. You’d be amazed at how and when people try to take pictures of you. We’re not a big commercial band, but there have been times when, [pauses] I remember once being really hungover and I had to fly

from Belfast and I was in a bad way, and I’m lying on this bench, feeling like death, not even sure if I’ll be able to make it on to the plane, and there was some guy over me with his iPhone taking pictures of me. I haven’t seen the pictures yet!

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JOSHUA FAULKNER ON USING THE MUSIC MISSION “One day you could be recording a string section, the next you could be recording a Skepta vocal or a soprano. So having something as solid and easily portable as the Anubis interface, which sounds amazing every time, is priceless.”

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CRYPTOCURRENCY

The Future of Live Music?

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CRYPTOCURRENCY For more than half a decade, the fringes of the music industry have been alive with whisperings about how concepts such as cryptocurrency, blockchain and NFTs are going to revolutionise the business as we know it. Or, perhaps more pertinently, knew it. Until more recently, those whisperings were just that. The industry’s traditionalists were still discussing the digital revolution solely in streaming terms, while those who understood said concepts and the weight they would soon carry were generally dismissed as championing a niche concern – one that might gain traction in a few specialised corners of the business but would ultimately fail to lay a glove on the mainstream. For some, such arguments were made in good faith. For others, a lack of understanding of the mechanics involved in the concepts underpinned their unwillingness to engage with them.

More recently, however, those whispers have escalated to a shout, whose message is currently reverberating through the industry’s every nook and cranny. On a daily basis, more and more artists are embracing the potential of NFTs as a way of increasing engagement with their audience, while venues of all shapes and sizes are beginning to harness the power of cryptocurrency platforms, with some partnering directly with some of the biggest players in the field.

On April 12, London’s refurbished and vastly expanded Koko put pen to paper on a multi-million pound partnership with cryptocurrency platform Luno, which today lays claim to in excess of 10 million users. The multi-faceted partnership includes the launch of a new multi-purpose space located at the top of Koko dubbed The Luno, which will facilitate everything from DJ sets, digital art exhibitions and immersive events. Crucially, it will also host guest speakers and workshops for the public with an emphasis on

cryptocurrencies and other themes of potentially game-changing digital technology.

Furthermore, the move is aimed at supporting emerging talent via a series of livestreams, while exclusive access to benefits such as fan experiences, giveaways, presale tickets and merchandise will be offered to Luno customers.

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CRYPTOCURRENCY

The Future of Live Music?

“EVERY DAY THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CRYPTO AND MUSIC GROWS STRONGER, WITH BLOCKCHAIN INNOVATIONS BEGINNING TO REVOLUTIONISE THE INDUSTRY.”

“Koko is about celebrating 122 years of culture, whilst fiercely stepping into the future,” said Seb Croft, Koko’s commercial director, when speaking about the agreement. “Our partnership with Luno will allow us to be at the forefront of blockchain technology, supporting artists in new ways and providing game-changing experiences for fans. The opportunities for us to innovate together in the music and entertainment space are endless.”

“It’s exciting to enter this dynamic new partnership at such an important moment in time, as blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionise the future of music,” Olly HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Bengough, Koko’s CEO and founder, elaborated. “Luno has successfully built up a global community of innovators and creators pioneering in this space, and for Koko to join forces as Web3 becomes an exciting new horizon for us all, gives Koko a truly unique opportunity to take part in this ever evolving new space.”

Sam Kopelman, Luno’s UK country manager, was equally excited about the deal: “Koko is a cultural institution and for decades has used its stage to put the spotlight on emerging talent as well as some of the biggest acts in the world,”

said Kopelman. “We could not think of a better partner for our first step into the music and entertainment space and we cannot wait to put our support behind live music in the UK after such a difficult two years for the industry.

“Every day the relationship between crypto and music grows stronger, with blockchain innovations beginning to revolutionise the industry. With Koko we look forward to working with artists and helping them realise the potential of decentralised technology, giving them greater control over their music and their futures.”

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Credit: Sam Neil

MUSIC BUSINESS

The mutual benefits on offer to Koko and Luno will not be lost on the rest of the industry. The increase in customer engagement via digital technology beyond the setting of a live concert will be of great interest to venues, while the likes of Luno are set to become the beneficiaries of a new and engaged user base.

Indeed, this isn’t the first instance of venues entering into lucrative partnerships with cryptocurrency platforms. Last year, AEG’s LA Staples Center inked a 20-year naming rights deal with Crypto.com, which will see the venue renamed as the Crypto. com Arena. Worth an estimated $700 million (according to the FT), the partnership will entail the introduction of premium branded areas and dedicated activation areas within the arena.

“This partnership is about the future,” commented Dan Beckerman, AEG president and CEO at the time of the announcement. “AEG and Crypto. com not only share a vision about innovation and the future of sports and entertainment, but we also

have a shared commitment to our communities where we work and live.

We look forward to partnering with Crypto.com to create meaningful initiatives to bring that vision to life in the years to come.”

Crypto.com’s commitment and investment in the music and entertainment sphere speaks volumes about just how seriously the cryptocurrency sector considers the sector to be. In years gone by, cryptocurrency was largely considered to be a matter for business people and those with a strong knowledge of the financial sector. This significant play to connect with the general public, in this case, gig goers and sports fans, indicates that it’s not a matter of if, but when it cracks the mainstream.

Naming rights of large-scale venues such as the Staples Center deal will no doubt be on the radar of cryptocurrency providers. The huge branding opportunities are obvious, but the ability to create activations within these spaces will be key. One such opportunity may well be there

for the taking at time of writing in the form of London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Opened in 2019 and built on the site of the football club’s previous home, it is widely considered to be one of the best and most technologically advanced stadiums in the world.

The enormous range of facilities and capabilities it possesses, not to mention the fact it hosts not just Tottenham Hotspur football matches but a busy programme of NFL games, boxing matches and (very soon) live music, could well render it ripe for a partnership with a cryptocurrency platform, especially given it has yet to sew up a naming rights agreement.

As Kopelman said, the relationship between music and crypto grows stronger by the day. And if current trends persist, it may not be long before we’re discussing the industry in pre and post-crypto terms in the same way consumption is now viewed in pre and post-streaming terms. Only time will tell.

KOKO.CO.UK

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RICH COSTEY

Achieving Absolution

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Rich Costey is a producer and audio engineer who has such a stunning CV of incredible artists that you only wish you had three hours to interview him and talk about them all: Biffy Clyro, Muse, Foo Fighters, Fiona Apple and so many more. Headliner talks about Costey’s amazing career, how his time working at Philip Glass’ studio shaped him professionally, and how Waves plugins fit into the whole picture.

One of the most fascinating times in Costey’s career is undoubtedly his time working at Philip Glass’ The Looking Glass studio in New York.

“WORKING WITH MUSE ON ABSOLUTION IS ONE OF THE MOST FUN ALBUMS I EVER HELPED MAKE.”

“I still remember the first day I was sitting at the console and Philip Glass walked in,” he recalls. “He just sat on the couch and opened up a notebook and started working on something.

I was terrified sitting there, as I’m a huge fan. Working there was a crucible for all kinds of learning.

“I learned a lot about orchestral sessions and about synth programming. While the music often just sounded like a series of arpeggios flowing over you every day, the specific output was often quite different. So you’d be working on a commercial that he was writing music for one day, and then the next month, you’d be mixing quadraphonic sound for an opera to be installed in La Scala in Italy.”

Out of Costey’s very illustrious career so far, two projects that really stick out for him are working with Muse and Fiona Apple.

“Working with Muse on Absolution is one of the most fun albums I ever helped make. It was like we were kids and there were no grownups around to tell us you shouldn’t do drum overdubs in the swimming pool.

We just did whatever we wanted. The

feedback coming out of speakers was so gratifying, and the gratification was the work itself. The Fiona Apple album [When The Pawn, 1999] was fantastic in a different way, although kind of similar in that we took as long as we wanted. It took 11 months and nobody heard anything until it was being mixed: her manager, her label – nobody heard a fucking note.”

Not only is Costey a big user of Waves, but he has a pretty legitimate claim to being one of the longestterm users they have.

“I’ve been using Pro Tools longer than almost anybody I’ve met,” he says. “Waves were one of the earliest third-party plugin manufacturers that

I remember hearing about. I know for a fact we used Waves on the Fiona Apple record back in ‘99. On every track, I was using the Waves DeEsser.

And that was kind of game-changing because I was using so much compression on her vocal.

“Every single track I work on is using two instances of a Waves DeEsser; I still use that all the time. I use their L2 plugin all the time, too. I still think the H-Delay is a great delay that does what you want and it’s easy to handle. The C6 gets used a lot.

I try to be careful with multiband compression, but that one sounds less processed than some of the other ones.

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It’s very easy to sort the presets that will apply and then you can adjust depending on the singer. That gets a good workout. I still use some of the Chris Lord-Alge compressors — those to me are kind of cartoonish versions of the real thing, but sometimes that’s good. If you put on the CLA 1176, there’s automatically top end being added in that plugin. So I use that, even though my actual 1176 is sat there behind me.

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“Waves came out with a new SSL plugin which I did some presets for,” he adds. “I feel like those plugins are probably the closest I’ve heard to something that sounds like the actual console. There’s certainly a lot of pros to using the SSL plugin over the actual old consoles!”

And with all that said, things certainly aren’t calming down for Costey. “I produced the Frank Turner album

that just came out, and it was Frank’s first number one album in the UK. I was really happy to see that happen for him. And I’m in the middle of four albums right now.”

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Outside the Box

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CHRIS LORD-ALGE Since getting his start in the studio world in the ‘80s, Chris Lord-Alge has gone on to engineer and mix for artists including James Brown, Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, Madonna, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks, Green Day, U2, and many, many more. In 2008 he acquired his own studio, MIX LA and, unsurprisingly for one of the most proficient mixers of our time, boasts the very best studio gear available. Recently, he took the plunge into immersive audio and upgraded MIX LA’s Studio A for Dolby Atmos work, facilitated by an interface and converter infrastructure based on Focusrite RedNet components. Here, he gets candid about Dolby Atmos music and explains his unconventional approach to immersive mixing.

Why did you finally decide to upgrade to an Atmos setup?

If people are starting to serve the Impossible Burger on their menu, well guess what? You better add it also.

You can’t just say, ‘I’m not going to do it because I don’t believe in it’. No, I’m gonna install it. I’m gonna get the best rig in here and I’m going to get all my friends who know about it to hook me up. The biggest names in Atmos helped me to put it together. I’m all set up for it.

Despite seeing the potential in the format, what are your current reservations about Dolby Atmos music?

I focus on stereo; Atmos is a side dish as far as I’m concerned. The problem with Atmos is that the artist still doesn’t hear it the way I hear it in my room, and the translation on Apple still isn’t worked out. Hopefully in the future we can solve that problem, but as of right now, it’s kind of a grey area. I’ve heard so many really bad Atmos mixes, and HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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“I’VE HEARD SOME REALLY COOL [ATMOS MIXES], I’VE HEARD SOME VERY GIMMICKY ONES AND I’VE HEARD SOME THAT RUIN THE SONG.”

it’s horrible that the artist doesn’t have any say in it. The big problem with Atmos is that no matter what, no one gets to hear it how [I] hear it. People are finding their way with it, and I’ve heard some really cool [Atmos mixes], I’ve heard some very gimmicky ones and I’ve heard some that ruin the song. So I’m hoping not to be one of the guys that ruins a song! Certain music is really cool in Atmos and certain music gets unglued. Bands like Muse, Pink Floyd and Roger Waters – that’s all built for Atmos, but pop records? I don’t know. I really think that the artist needs to be involved, because it’s their music. In a perfect world, the artists show up to hear the Atmos mixes in the room that it was mixed in and then hear the fold-down in a pair of headphones so they can hear the compromise as to what’s going out on iTunes.

Despite your reservations, you still went ahead with the studio upgrade, so you must foresee it’s a wise investment?

I think that any engineer that wants to focus on the future needs to address new formats and make the plunge financially to at least be able to monitor it properly. Then listen to some Atmos stuff, get to know the renderer and get someone to tune your speakers properly – then you have a great playing field to learn from. It’s not an exact science, it’s a lot of experimenting. You have a lot of places to put stuff; you can jam your socks and underwear into 13 different drawers now!

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Stereo improved over the years and all sound improves over the years, so we’ll see what happens. The best thing about Atmos is that it brings people into listening more. It pulls people away from listening to MP3s on a phone and gets them to consider listening to stuff that’s more three dimensional. That brings attention to the sound of music rather than it becoming a disposable piece of art.

Your Dante-networked RedNet setup helps interconnect two Avid Pro Tools workstations and a new 9.1.4 Ocean Way Audio speaker system with a SSL SL4064E mixing console. Why did you invest in a Focusrite RedNet system to complete your Atmos studio setup?

The simple fact of it is, I’ve tried every interface and I know what they all sound like. It’s impossible to beat RedNet because of the Dante connectivity; to me, that’s the only way to go. My friend, Phil Wagner was the president of Focusrite, and I helped in some of the sonics in these converters. I know all the gear, so it was a no-brainer to get on board with Focusrite and solve the problem.

The RedNet and the Dante connectivity lets you connect perfectly and I can go between rooms now with it – because I have multiple rooms – so I can connect them all.

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As we understand it, your Pro Tools HDX rig (operating at 96 kHz/48-bit) feeds a pair of RedNet HD32R 32-channel HD Dante network bridges. Using Dante Controller, you select the tracks for distribution over the Dante network through three RedNet A16R MkII 16-channel analogue interfaces and into the mixing desk, at which point your stereo mix from the console is then routed back through one of the A16R MkII units and a HD32R HD Bridge and is captured in the Pro Tools computer. Meanwhile, a second Pro Tools system is dedicated solely to mixing in Dolby Atmos, which is natively 48 kHz/24-bit; why the separation?

one computer that’s 100% the multitrack for the stereo mixes. The second rig is 100% digital and it’s 128 tracks at 48k, which is the standard for Atmos. You have to have the special Dante RedNet card to make all the digital work, but they’re completely separate. When you go from one to the other, it keeps the setup really clean.

I have a stereo setup and an Atmos setup, and they’re completely separate. A lot of guys will try to do this all under one roof. That doesn’t work for me; I want to have

I personally think if you’re going to do it, do it right. So you have to do the original stereo mix first and then once you’ve created that, then make the parts for Atmos. You

Your Atmos mixing technique is unique in that you don’t do it in the box: your immersive mixes are made from stems that are created with vintage outboard gear, mixed on your SSL console in stereo, and then input into a computer with the Dolby renderer. Why do you take this approach rather than do it all in the box?

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Outside The Box

“MOST PEOPLE ARE JUST MIXING IN THE BOX; I’LL BE THE ‘OUT OF THE BOX’ GUY.”

whole combination of new and old creates the best final result. I can’t mimic that in Atmos, but what I can do is mix a song with stereo and be very happy with that. Then I run what I think is enough passes of stems to cover what I would need in Atmos.

Every track is different though; once I’m done with the mix we’ll create some new tracks and then notate what tracks we’re soloing – so we’re literally just soloing certain tracks on the console – and we just keep printing and keep printing. take the original multitrack and go right into Pro Tools and do it, but I prefer to make the original stereo version and then focus on making the Atmos spread out of that.

Making any mix requires having a really good toolbox of soundcreation devices: plugins, outboard gear – whether it’s from the ‘60s, or a brand new plugin you got yesterday.

As for using the analogue workstation to get the sound with the plugins and the outboard stuff, the HEADLINER MAGAZINE

How was it adapting to Atmos mixing?

You’re really only as good as the weakest link in your chain. So, if I’m not an expert in Atmos, why would I take a chance mixing it? I’m not going to just jump in there and say, ‘I’m CLA, I can figure this out. It’s gonna be great’. I work with the best Atmos mixers there are to help me, because I’ve done 27,000 stereo mixes and a couple 100 in Atmos, so I’m gonna rely on learning from the best. I want to learn from other people that are really good at it, hear some things, let them do it

and see what they come up with. I’m willing to make that investment. Then when I hear it back in my system, I’m like, ‘Okay, well this is what it sounds like when the best Atmos mixer in the world does something for me from my stems; this is how they translate it’, and then I get a very good bearing on what I have to do. I think that is the smartest approach. It’s all subjective, and it’ll get faster and faster. Most people are just mixing in the box; I’ll be the ‘out of the box’ guy.

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CASEY STONE

Keeping Score

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CASEYSTONE As one of the industry’s foremost talents in the world of film and TV score recording and mixing, Casey Stone has put his signature touch to some of the biggest and most successful titles this century, including Frozen, The Hangover trilogy, Ant-Man, Don’t Look Up, WandaVision, Vice, The Nice Guys, X-Men: Apocalypse and many more. Here, he tells Headliner about his journey into the business and his approach to work in the studio…

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Keeping Score

How did your career in music and audio begin?

I started guitar lessons around age eight, and when I was 10, my mother, who was an amateur singer/ songwriter, went into a studio to record some demos. I went to some sessions and knew then I wanted to be recording and mixing music. I attended the University of Southern California (USC) and took a degree in music recording. As completion of that degree approached, I already was doing internships at studios with an emphasis on music for film and television. So, the beginning of my career was doing runner and assistant engineer work at a few smaller studios but at the same time also engineering projects for student film scores and a bit of small album work.

How did you establish yourself as a professional in your field?

Connections I made at USC certainly helped. One studio I worked at was called The Sound Chamber and was owned by the head of my department at USC, Richard McIlvery. I had done some assistant engineering there and one of the projects that came in was to record (and compose really) the score for Paul Thomas Anderson’s first feature movie Hard Eight (1996).

Paul and composers Jon Brion and Michael Penn were there and the engineer was Brian Foraker. Besides a little mistake of not having the Studer 24-track resolved to house sync during the making of a DA88 sub-reel to send to Aimee Mann to record vocals elsewhere, I acquitted myself pretty well on that gig.

On the next film, just a year later, the same group wanted to return to Sound Chamber and do it again, but Brian Foraker had recently moved to Nashville and was not available. So, I got the gig! That was Boogie Nights and yes, it is mostly songs, but there is some score in there and I recorded and mixed that.

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What were the biggest challenges you faced in taking up a career in audio professionally?

The freelance lifestyle is always tough but more-so at the start of a career. By which I mean, living in L.A and making very little money! I liked my freedom to turn down assisting gigs when I had an engineering gig come up, so that was a benefit. Some people get into very comfortable assisting gigs and stay there. I have my family to thank for that, firstly stretching the finances to send me to USC, and then to be supportive as I made my way up in the business.

You’ve worked on many highprofile films. Are there any that stand out as being especially memorable?

Our first session recording the score for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation at Abbey Road Studio 1 was amazing and challenging! We had a full orchestra set up from the night before but hadn’t got any sounds yet as the musicians weren’t there until the morning. Big movie, big expectations, control room full of VIPs, and composer Joe Kraemer walks up to the podium to conduct a piece that was a

main theme for one of the characters.

It was a very dynamic piece that started quietly and built to a fortissimo orchestral blast, and during this first take I’m subtly but frantically tweaking mic gains and finding reasonable percussion levels as the piece plays on. The enjoyable part was that Joe’s fabulous piece of music played down perfectly by the top-notch musicians in the best orchestra recording space in the world, and it sounded pretty great on the first take!

What are some of your essential audio tools when recording and mixing?

The most essential thing when recording is microphones! I tend to use a lot of the classics for orchestra: Neumann M50, U67, 87, 47fet, KM84.

I love Schoeps and Sennheisers too.

When recording an orchestra, the remote preamp racks from Neve you can connect remotely to the Neve 88R (either the ‘Air’ or ‘1073’ versions) are great and get a lot of use. Even the onboard 88R preamps sound great.

As for mixing, my first love for surround score mixing was the SSL 9000J, then a fair amount on the Neve 88R, but

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Keeping Score

quickly digital was preferred for several reasons, the most important being full, instant mix recall. That was Euphonix System 5. Some of my favourite mixing experiences were on that console. But now it’s pretty much all Pro Tools all the time for me.

Some of my go-to plugins are Fabfilter Pro-Q 3, which recently replaced Oxford EQ (which I still like very much). I use a lot of Waves (specifically the UM226) for 5.1 unwrapping, Kramer PIE compressor, L2 (multi-mono) for bus limiting, the J37 and Abbey Road Plates/ Chambers and Saturator. Cargo Cult’s Spanner is very useful for what I do. Reverbs are important: Altiverb, Valhalla (all of them), Avid’s ReVibe plus several others that get more occasional use.

How much has the art of recording and mixing film scores changed since you first started out?

Not that much! There was a major change when film sound went from ‘Dolby Surround’ to ‘Dolby Digital’ or to put it more generically, from a matrixed stereo master which was opened up into Left, Centre, Right, Surround (mono surround) when played back, versus actual discrete six channels of sound (LCR, Stereo Surrounds, Sub). It’s a deep subject, but I think score mixing techniques had to fundamentally change to make the most of that. Of course 70mm film prints could have discrete surround, but standard 35mm was stereo optical with various types of dressing put on it until digital happened. Since then we added a few options with surrounds, most commonly 7.1 which gives stereo side surrounds and stereo rear surrounds. We’re still in the early stages of the next biggest change in that vein, which is Dolby Atmos.

Part of your setup is based around gear from Merging Technologies.

How does this help your workflow?

I recently changed my interface and monitoring controller. Previously I HEADLINER MAGAZINE

had a Prismsound Orpheus which gave me enough channels to do 7.1 monitoring with great sound. I actually did not use a monitor controller: my speaker setup is bass managed through a Neumann KH810 subwoofer with a remote volume knob that controls all channels, so with a little EQ on my monitor bus in Pro Tools, I was pretty happy with that. But the new Merging gear has improved this in numerous ways.

Specifically I have a Hapi MkII and an Anubis. The Hapi has an eight-channel DAC card in it and the Anubis supports two mic/line inputs, four outputs plus headphones - none of which I’m currently using. You can think of the Anubis as a monitor processor and controller, though it really is an audio interface also. For anyone who only needs stereo monitoring, an Anubis by itself does all of this. The sound quality

is even a bit better, especially in how solid the low-end sounds and feels.

The Anubis now provides the monitor EQ and delays for my surrounds - it could also do bass management, but I haven’t tried that yet. I can also use the Anubis to switch between multiple inputs to monitor my 7.1 mix, my stereo mix, the demo mix, and my system audio for playing reference material.

These Merging pieces both feature networked audio (Ravenna), meaning, they are on their own gigabit ethernet network, and audio can be routed between them and my computer using a virtual audio driver that I select as the audio engine for Pro Tools - I can send up to 64 channels from Pro Tools into the network.

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MARC DANIEL NELSON

Sound & Vision

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MARCDANIEL NELSON Since entering the world of audio recording, mixing and production over two decades ago, L.Abased, Grammy-nominated engineer and producer Marc Daniel Nelson has become one of the pro audio industry’s most versatile studio talents. From bands and recording artists spanning multiple genres, through to TV, film, trailers and commercials, he has successfully plied his trade in a great many fields. Here, he talks to Headliner about his journey into music and audio, and the kit that is so essential to his process…

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Sound & Vision

You have worked across so many fields and industries. How did your career begin?

For me, it always goes back to The Beatles. When I was in high school, I was playing guitar and I remember listening to The Beatles growing up, but it wasn’t until the Anthology came out and you could see George Martin at the desk and all that cool stuff.

I always really liked playing guitar and writing songs, but I also really liked creating music, where you could almost approach it like woodwork. If you are a songwriter or a player, there is only so much that you can do, you can’t do it all. So my parents let me build a studio in our basement, and I really went to town on it. I got myself a four-track and transformed half of our basement into my own recording studio.

How did you make the step into making music professionally?

I was a really bad student, I had ADHD. I was bored a lot of the time, and I didn’t care about algebra and things like that. I cared about the things that I cared about. I can remember being HEADLINER MAGAZINE

asked by someone at the time, it may have been a social worker, about what I wanted to do with my life, and they said if I liked music why didn’t I go to broadcasting school? I said, ‘Because I didn’t want to be a DJ’!

Anyway, she ended up finding a space at a place called the Recording Workshop in the late ‘90s, and I got into it. I did a course and came back home and lived about 40 miles out of Chicago, and I started sending resumes out to all these different places. The only one I had a response from, and I must have sent out about 50 of these resumes, was the largest studio in Chicago - the Chicago Recording Company. I went there for an interview and they said they had an internship, and I wouldn’t be starting for three months, but I saw all these gold records on the walls and I just knew it was exactly where I wanted to be.

So, I started there as an intern, and then I started assisting on sessions and got a little bit stuck doing night sessions for a while. That went on for about a year and a half and then I freelanced.

That was my introduction to SSL (Solid

State Logic) – I believe it was a 6000 – and it was very intimidating, but I was cocky enough to think that I could handle it [laughs]! I think the people there saw something in me – they cut me down, got my ego in check and taught me that there are all these things that I still needed to learn. Seeing the professional side of music-making was great. It was a while before I was properly learning the craft, but it was great to just be a part of it.

I came to work with one of the head post-production guys in Chicago called Tim Butler, who was this great guy – very intimidating, incredibly powerful.

A lot of people were turned off by him because he was very intense, but he’d talk to anyone and I really liked him.

And he’d push you in the studio. I got to work with him for a year and I learnt how things work, how to run a room, how to talk to clients, what to talk about.

I also learned that the most important things are not necessarily the technical aspects, it’s more about how to handle things when something happens.

How to speak with people in different situations. Those skills are so important.

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“I LEARNED THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE TECHNICAL ASPECTS, IT’S MORE ABOUT HOW TO HANDLE THINGS WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS. HOW TO SPEAK WITH PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS. THOSE SKILLS ARE SO IMPORTANT.”

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Sound & Vision

“YOU COULD BLEND THE CLEAN AND THE HARDER SOUNDS TO CREATE SOMETHING NEW, AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I LIKED.”

You work across so many fields and disciplines. Is there a particular field you enjoy working in most of all?

Like I said before, it all goes back to The Beatles. I got into this to make records: recording bands, working on songs, creating arrangements, and then mixing the songs. But when you have spent so much time working on all of those aspects you can be fried by the time it gets to the mixing part. So I started finding work that was just mixing, because that would be just hanging out with yourself or just one or two people, and working on something with a completely fresh perspective. I also loved movies growing up and I wanted to understand movie-making and the process of movie-making. So I then started to work out how I could do music as well as work in film. I also started going to film school in Chicago, so I was working in both worlds.

What are some of your essential pieces of kit in your studio set up?

Fifteen years ago, if you were working alone in your own house and didn’t have a consistent amount of work, you’d be in trouble. A lot of people would want to know that you were working on a console, people would often want you to be in the room with them, there were all these ridiculous standards at the time. But now, technology allows you to do so much that you just couldn’t do back then. For HEADLINER MAGAZINE

me, being in my own room with all my own stuff has been everything, and I’ve been in that atmosphere for about eight years now, where everything is consistent and set up just the way that I need it to be.

I remember I went through all these different tests to find a summing amp that sounded like the records I liked growing up and the ones that I really liked working on, like the SSL 4000, 6000 and 8000. The Sigma is my favourite.

The UF8 has been a game-changer for me, that’s the eight-channel controller. That and the UC1, which are inexpensive when you consider what they are and what they would have been 20 years ago. The options that they give you, and the fact that you can travel so easily with them, is absolutely amazing. And you can still put out great quality records. It’s taken me many years to get the setup and sound that I want, but now it just works so well.

The new SSL Bus+ is a neat one. I got a hold of that early, way before anyone else even knew what it was. I was very interested because I love compressors, not because I love compression, but because I like to be able to colour things slightly. I was interested in The Bus+ because there are a thousand SSL bus compressors out there, so I wanted to see if this was different. I

always say, I will never put my name to anything unless I’m absolutely floored by it.

I remember when it turned up, and I was immediately impressed by how heavy it was when I took it out of the box. The features were great, but I also just liked the way it felt. That initial impression is everything for me. If I had taken it out of the box and it had felt light and cheap, then right off the bat it creates a bad impression. But straight away, it felt great, and this was before I even plugged the thing in!

What attracted me the most was the fact it was a VCA compressor, as well as the fact I could get a nice transparent sound, while also being able to get a really good heavy sound.

It’s exactly what I wanted from a compressor - it was like the people at SSL had read my mind. You could blend the clean and the harder sounds to create something new, and that’s exactly what I liked. This one box could do everything I had been wanting out of the box for a long time. I really cannot praise it enough.”

MARCDANIELNELSON.COM SOLIDSTATELOGIC.COM

ELECTRIC SIX

Life of the Party

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“ELECTRIC SIX IS JUST LIKE YOUR FAVOURITE PAIR OF PANTS; YOU NEED TO BUY NEW ONES, AND YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT, BUT IF THEY STILL FIT, IT’S VERY DIFFICULT TO THROW THEM AWAY!”

Many will know Electric Six as the American rock band who achieved international recognition in 2003 with their iconic singles Danger!

High Voltage and Gay Bar, whose in-your-face musical celebrations of hedonism – described as a combination of garage, disco, punk rock, new wave and metal – have brought them prolonged international success. 14 studio albums, two rarities albums, and one live album later, the band’s lead singer Tyler Spencer talks to Headliner about their upcoming record, and plans to get back out on the road once again this year.

touring during the second half of 2021.

“For a band like us that’s been going for so long, it was kind of nice to be off the road for a year and a half,” remarks Spencer, “because we’ve never really stopped touring the whole time and the pandemic forced us to actually take a break.

Although the band is originally from Detroit, frontman Spencer has lived in New York City for the best part of two decades. His two daughters, he tells Headliner, have been keeping him busy of late, and when it comes to music, there appears to never be a dull moment.

“We started in the ‘90s, and the bands that were on stage around Detroit during that time were all trying to rip off Britpop or shoegaze stuff; that just wasn’t exciting to me – it wasn’t a party. Although I’m not much of a partier in real life, I wanted the band to kind of portray that, and that’s been really easy to maintain. Electric Six is just like your favourite pair of pants; you need to buy new ones, and you need to do something different, but if they still fit, it’s very difficult to throw them away!”

While the latest Electric Six record is already waiting in the wings, ready for a release at some point later this year, Spencer also recorded two solo albums during the pandemic and spent the majority of his time

Over the years, the band’s often wacky, catchy songs have provided a running social commentary on current affairs around the globe – a premise that couldn’t be more relevant today as the world

continues its long Covid recovery.

“Our second album came out during the Iraq War, and that was something people needed then more than ever,” Spencer recalls.

“Every time for us, it’s now more than ever. As you get older, you realise that you’re never going to outrun this shit, so you’ve just gotta keep doing what you need to.”

The band’s most recent tour marked the release of their latest covers album Streets of Gold, but in true E6 fashion, Spencer is already looking forward to the next project...

“We have 14 or 15 original studio records – that’s our bread and butter, if you will,” says Spencer.

“We’re really looking forward to getting this record out because it’s been about four years since the last one, and for us that’s an eternity.”

And while there’s no official release date for the album as of yet, Spencer tells Headliner that it’s made up of a bunch of really catchy pop numbers, and that it’s going to be a lot of fun to start playing these songs live.

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Life of the Party

“Our last 10 or 11 albums have all been recorded at home, and we usually don’t bring in producers to work with – most things we get done at our guitar player’s house,” he reveals. “I did the first round of vocals in the middle of the pandemic using a safe setup in his garage, and then moved that to the house after everyone had their shots.

“I live in New York, the rest of the band lives in Detroit, we’ve got one guy who lives in Barcelona, so a lot of it was done over the web, sending files back and forth. The main reason I think it’s taken so long is not so much the pandemic, but because we’re all having kids!”

In the meantime, the band are set to play the Great Estate Festival, taking place over the weekend of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with tickets available now. Described as ‘a most rambunctious garden fete’ set within the mystical grounds of the Scorrier Estate in Cornwall, the festival is now on its fifth outing with an increased capacity this year.

“This one’s been a long time coming,” says Spencer. “I’m excited to go to Cornwall; I’m doing a solo acoustic set earlier in the afternoon on the same day. As a band we probably only play two or three festivals a year, and so it’s always a treat for us. We’re more of a club band I guess HEADLINER MAGAZINE

these days, and so when we get to do festivals, we just really take it in and enjoy it.

“I do very much enjoy being on stage; you’re addressing different audiences in between songs and the experience is always different, but for me, it’s the other 23 hours that I also love – travelling and seeing places and catching up with old friends on the road. The job I have is really great in that regard.

“Actually we’re doing a lot of performing as a band this year. There’s two festivals on this upcoming tour; I’ve got four or five solo acoustic gigs planned – something I haven’t done since the pandemic – and then we’re going to Scandinavia for the first time in 18 years to do a full run.

There’s a lot to look forward to.

“I’ve also started working on my next solo album, as well as having a new audio book coming out soon. I have quite a few irons in the fire, on top of taking my daughter to piano and gymnastics lessons and things like that!”

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ON SET IN NEW MEXICO

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From Breaking Bad To Finch

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FROM BREAKING BAD TO FINCH

ON SET IN NEW MEXICO Fun fact: In the Breaking Bad episode Buried, the coordinates that pinpoint where Walter White buries his money are that of Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico, where the hit TV show was filmed. And it’s not the only notable production that was filmed at one of the USA’s most coveted production hubs, and boosted by Netflix’s acquisition of the studio complex in 2018, the state has been used to film everything from Stranger Things, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Better Call Saul, and recently, sci-fi film Finch (starring Tom Hanks) and western series 1883.

With five Primetime Emmy nominations and four CAS awards for sound mixing, Darryl L. Frank is a household name in production sound mixing in New Mexico, and has worked on high profile productions including Breaking Bad, Logan and Terminator Salvation.

Frank will never forget the scene in Breaking Bad when White throws a pizza on the roof of his house, which he captured with a boom mic outfitted with an HMa plug on transmitter:

“[Director] Vince Gilligan really respected the idea of capturing sound design in-camera,” he recalls.

“Car engines, guns cocking, you name it – there was almost no Foley on that show. So, when Walter White threw the pizza on the roof of his house, my job was to capture the flop when it landed. We had a truckload of pizzas for as many takes as we needed, and out comes Bryan Cranston and nails it on the first take.

The sound was exactly what post needed, and the crew ate very well that day!”

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From Breaking Bad To Finch

“IN NEW MEXICO THERE WERE A LOT OF MIDDLE-OFNOWHERE PLACES. AT NO TIME DID I HAVE AN ISSUE WITH ANY OF THE WIRELESS.”

For his recent work on 1883 and Finch, the latter which explores humanrobot relations on a post-apocalyptic Earth, he relied on a Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless rig including Venue2 receivers, wideband SMWB transmitters and their dual-battery SMDWB siblings, SMV and SMQV high-output transmitters, and up to 30 R1-series IFB receivers depending on production needs. All frequencies are coordinated using Wireless Designer software.

On 1883, Frank served as second unit mixer along with Richard Bullock Jr. as first unit mixer. The first thing Frank’s cart had to stand up to was the environment: “We were outside most of the time, so working on this show was all about embracing the weather,” he points out.

“Rain, heat, dust, 50-mile-per-hour winds, you name it. We shot a couple of days in Montana where I don’t think the winds ever dipped below 40 miles per hour. This made holding up booms impossible, and so increased the number of wireless channels we needed. There and in New Mexico, there were a lot of middle-of-nowhere places. At no time did I have an issue with any of the wireless.”

That durability also proved vital as the show’s protagonists forged westward through rivers and streams: “That was a possible horror story that turned into a success story,” he recalls.

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“On 1883 I showed up on a day’s notice because the previous mixer had quit abruptly. On my second day, they’re crossing a river on horseback and at the deepest point, the water is touching the saddles. I asked for whatever waterproof packs I presumed the production had rented, and their response was simply, ‘We have insurance. Let’s go for it’. I put my packs in plastic baggies, we did the scene, and the actors came out just soaked.

No gear failed and everything sounded great!

“Now, if something truly gets submerged it may indeed fail, but here’s the thing about Lectrosonics.

They’re super quick about repairs. Sure, it may cost a couple hundred bucks to repair, but a lot of other companies would simply tell you to buy a whole new unit.”

The next hurdle was that westerns always mean horses, which tend to ignore wireless range limitations.

Fortunately, so did Frank’s Lectrosonics equipment.

“The thing with any western is that you’re told the horse is going to run from point A to point B. When you start rolling, of course that goes completely out the window. Plus, just about everything but the sound department is on wheels: process trailers, ATVs with cameras mounted on them, and so on.

Meanwhile I’m standing at my cart.

They would go until I couldn’t see them, but I could still hear them!”

Finch also had its share of outdoor filming, but the biggest challenge Frank recounts facing was setting up comms for the film’s star.

“I knew right away we were going to need something special for Tom Hanks,” he explains. “He had heat and air conditioning built into his costume so I knew he wouldn’t want to keep taking off his helmet if someone needed to talk to him. Plus, sometimes the conversation between, say, him and the director needed to be private without everyone on the IFB feed hearing it. I wound up using an IFBlue R1c for a separate channel just for Tom’s helmet. If anyone needed to talk to him, they could just transmit on that channel.

“On every show, you’re going to do something you haven’t done before and may never do again,” he points out. “You never know what gymnastics the director is going to need. Whenever that director asks me, ‘Are we getting it?’ Lectrosonics gives me the confidence to say, ‘Do you like what you hear in your IFB? That’s what we’re getting!’”

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KING OF THE ROAD

Live and Kicking

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PRO AUDIO

The past couple of years have been unlike anything the pro audio market has ever experienced, but for the UK’s Martin Audio, it’s been an even stranger period than it has been for most. Here, the company’s marketing director, James King, tells Headliner about the company’s acquisition

by Focusrite just weeks before the word Covid entered the public consciousness and how the company is rolling back the years to enjoy prepandemic levels of success…

2020 was a seismic year for Martin Audio, not simply due to the pandemic, but also the acquisition of the company by Focusrite just a few weeks earlier. What was it like to experience such a tumultuous spell?

When the deal was done, we were extremely excited. We saw it as a longterm scenario and something that would bring stability, investment and increased access to componentry, so

there was a lot of excitement. And that was reciprocated - there was a sense of everything being in sync. Then, weeks later, the lights went out on live events. But Focusrite were unequivocal in their support. If we had been under any other arrangement in the company’s history it would have been a dire moment, but Focusrite gave us all possible support. They believed in us, and we came up with a plan on how we would contain costs etc.

And it was relatively simple in our approach, but it had longterm positive implications for us as a business. For instance, if the government said we could keep the factory open safely we would. And there was a level of demand around the world, so we could still produce and ship product. We were able to reduce costs and generate enough revenue to keep our heads above water. The fact we kept the factory open gave us a bit of a head of steam

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as things started to turn around, so people knew we could deliver, and it gave us a head start over some of the supply chain issues that are affecting the globe.

We were able to return to revenues close to 2019 in a shorter space of time than we thought - it took about 12 months to return to those levels, and since then things have accelerated at an incredible rate. We’re about 50% up on this time last year and about 30% up on pre-covid times. Things are looking very positive.

With the issues caused by the pandemic, are we yet to see the full implications of Brexit on the touring market?

Yes, it’s only as we emerge from one crisis that we now see another minefield to navigate. The realities of a post-Brexit world have started to become more prevalent as other events move aside. The industry has

“IF WE HAD BEEN UNDER ANY OTHER ARRANGEMENT IN THE COMPANY’S HISTORY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A DIRE MOMENT, BUT FOCUSRITE GAVE US ALL POSSIBLE SUPPORT.”

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proved itself to be quite robust, so if you can get through that, you have to think as a company that there are very few challenges that should phase you. If you’ve made it through to this point you should give yourself a pat on the back and be full of confidence to move ahead.

Have you explored any new markets over the past couple of years?

We’ve pretty much explored everything going! We’ve been looking at where demand may spring from, where things are starting to open.

One of the strengths of the brand has always been the breadth of the portfolio, so we can cater for everything from cruises and bars to restaurants and nightclubs. There are very few installation applications we

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can’t cater for. We continued to invest in R&D during the pandemic, so we released a really important product called TORUS, which sits between a point source and a line array. It was a product we had been missing but after introducing it last year it has significantly driven opportunities in stadia. And now about 50% of the design work we get involved with includes TORUS. That has paid dividends, and it is also coming through as a live sound solution which is pleasing to see. It’s really opened up some new opportunities and revenue over the past 12 months.

Many of Martin Audio’s rental partners have been vocal about their loyalty to the brand, not just through Covid, but over the course of several decades. What is it

about the company that inspires that kind of commitment?

I wholeheartedly believe in that extended family ethos. It can sound a bit clichéd, but we are a relatively small company; we are 60 people, so we are not at the level of having hundreds of people working for us.

We’ve always bobbled around that, and it has always been about the relationships we’ve developed over time and doing right by our partners through difficult times.

We have a very open approach with all of our partners, if we have difficulties we don’t hide it, we talk about it and try to find a solution. It’s something we want to continue; even though there is a pathway for us to substantially grow over the next three to five years, we want to retain those

PRO AUDIO

personal relationships, where people feel they can just pick up the phone to me or to Dom [Harter, managing director]. It’s something our partners feel very strongly about. Yes, these companies love the product, but our relationships go beyond that.

What are your plans for the remainder of 2022?

We’re looking forward to an extremely busy festival season; it’s great to see Glastonbury back and a number of

other key festivals are back. So we’re gearing up to be able to support a number of our partners again. There is a lot of work going on in that regard.

As for new products, we’ve been a little quieter than usual over the last couple of years; we’ve been a bit more pragmatic of late and there is a lot of investment going on in the background with R&D. We’re very mindful of the supply chain, and just introducing a product if you don’t have supply chain backing is a bit of

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a false dawn. So, we’re spending time making sure that anything that we do release can be supplied in a timely manner. We expect there will be some new announcements at the back end of this year, and we’ll be even more proactive on that front in 2023.

MARTIN-AUDIO.COM

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CAPITOL GOLD

Networking Opportunities

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CAPITOL GOLD KTOO 360TV, a full-time public TV channel based in Juneau, Alaska, that broadcasts coverage of all three branches of government proceedings from the Alaska Capitol building, has recently installed Riedel Communications’ MediorNet distributed AV network infrastructure as part of a major networking upgrade.

used to produce Gavel Alaska just prior to the onset of the pandemic. A flagship KTOO television programme featuring live and recorded coverage of committee meetings, Alaska senate and house floor sessions, press conferences, and other legislative events, Gavel Alaska is distributed online and on the station’s state-wide TV channel.

The Riedel MediorNet signal distribution and processing system connects six buildings across Juneau, a town that is physically isolated by mountains and water, and ties into KTOO’s main router system to handle all video and audio inputs. It thereby connects the community and greater Alaska to events and happenings taking place at the Capitol.

The show aims to bring the state legislature to people across the vast and at times difficult to reach areas of Alaska, which became even more isolated during the pandemic.

The MediorNet deployment at the heart of a larger project that brought new robotic cameras and HD-ready video production equipment into the four control rooms that were

“Without this new installation and the addition of MediorNet, we don’t know how we would have done coverage, as there would not have been a safe way to proceed,” commented Mikko Wilson, production manager at KTOO. “With our new remote camera setup and ability to work remotely and distributed across campus, we managed to do full legislative coverage without any

incidents. The system is completely hands-off.

“The quality of the coverage has gone way up. We used to miss events due to setup time. Now what used to take 15 minutes or more to move from room to room only requires two button pushes,” Wilson continued. “The system is super user friendly and flexible. We now have access to more content, such as multiple views of camera feeds and direct access to computers for sharing PowerPoints.

“Our new system brings the programming and the legislature as close as being there without being there. Before we were shooting blind, but with MediorNet’s zero delay, flexibility, and multiviewer feature, we can see what we are shooting on the return feed in real time. A TV operator in Portland can get the return feed at home even.”

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The MediorNet system is made up of 15 MicroN devices interconnected with high-speed fiber links, and these nodes are distributed in the KTOO and legislature control rooms, as well as in the Capitol building. Within the Capitol, MediorNet connects all SDI feeds from each meeting room while also providing return feeds, a full bidirectional link between the two control facilities, and a connection to a state museum nearby.

Together, the Riedel MediorNet and legacy routing systems provide 300 HEADLINER MAGAZINE

SDI inputs and outputs, with more than 4,500 channels of audio routing.

The inputs at the Capitol are grouped together by room through a series of presets. With just a few touches to a Riedel RSP-2318 SmartPanel at each control position, production teams can instantly route the inputs as needed for any production. The system launched in HD 1080i but is fully 3G-SDI-ready.

“If you’re watching proceedings from the Alaska Capitol building, you’re probably seeing MediorNet

at work,” said Patti Gunnell, vice president of Key Accounts at Riedel Communications. “This new project in Juneau is a great example of the innovative solutions including forward-looking, software-defined, distributed audio and video network infrastructure that Riedel offers.”

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BLACK PUMAS After two years of empty stages, the Black Pumas celebrated their return to live music with five nights of shows in their hometown in Austin.

Lighting designer Marc Janowitz explains how he pulled out all the stops to make the gigs ones to remember.

“I had always leant heavily towards small fixtures I could dangle or arrange with minimal structure, but to be honest [KNV Dot] then fell out of HEADLINER MAGAZINE

my mind,” Janowitz admits. However, then the Black Pumas tour came along.

“When this project came up, I started thinking about modular small sources, and this put the GLP’s KNV Dot back in front of me. We were running out of fabrication time and this was already engineered.”

The journey that led him to specifying 60 of these compact fixtures began

with a Grammy appearance, and developed through a short residency at Stubb’s in the band’s native city of Austin, Texas.

Once they started rebooking shows post-pandemic, the band wanted their intertwined puma logo to be the centrepiece.

“They had made a Grammy appearance earlier that year and [the Grammys’ production] had built

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“FOR THE BLACK PUMAS THIS WAS A MONUMENTAL SET OF SHOWS: FIVE NIGHTS IN THEIR HOMETOWN CELEBRATING THE RETURN OF LIVE MUSIC IN AUSTIN.”

a logo piece for the occasion,” he explains. “From that, the band inherited the two puma cut-outs, intertwined – which they wanted to be converted into the centrepiece of their stage set.”

Janowitz was then tasked with creating a design with the puma logo as its focal point, although it first had to go through several geometric iterations before the original layout metamorphosed into a 10ft (3m)-diameter circle.

“I was originally hired to design a five-night limited engagement at Stubb’s at the end of May,” he recalls. “For the Black Pumas this was a monumental set of shows: five nights in their hometown celebrating the return of live music in Austin. For anyone who’s played Stubb’s, the idea of designing a production there immediately comes with challenges – perhaps the biggest one being that nothing can rig from their roof.

“For that engagement we came up with a compromise for the puma logo design piece. Working with local hometown hero vendor Ilios Lighting, we were able to make a 10ft-wide octagon of linear fixtures with the pumas mounted in the centre. Every piece was mounted by ladder on a ground supported network of truss and pipe. The full stage design took two days to install and was never going to be tour-worthy,” he admits.

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Hometown Glory

Janowitz and programmer Meagan Metcalf worked long into the night all week long programming the shows. During those sessions they discussed how to make this rig tourable with a lightweight self-illuminating structure at its core.

“After the third show of the run I had a meeting with the band’s management,” says Janowitz. “They commissioned a touring version of the design and wanted to have it ready for their tour dates starting in August. I returned to my studio in New York and got cracking on ideas. We experimented with all kinds of sources, looking at ways to create a circle out of straight pieces. We got as far as a heptacontagon [72-sided polygon] before realising that something in the approach had to change.

“Ultimately I chose the [KNV] Dot for a number of reasons, not the least of which was its ability to fit into a circular array.

It could give a nice background surround; the installation into the scenery could easily be established – it just required space and a mounting bracket. The fixtures are lightweight, adding only 90lb [40kg] to the entire structure, and we knew the white light would cut through everything. We had established Gateway Productions in St Louis as the HEADLINER MAGAZINE

tour lighting vendor and worked closely with them on the integration of the Dots into the scenery.”

One of four fixtures in the KNV series which can be combined seamlessly to provide a large canvas, the versatile, IP54-rated KNV Dot features a central 30W ‘hyper’ LED surrounded by 16 smaller RGB LEDs, which can be used as a pixel-mapped surface, strobe, blinder, washlight and more.

“The KNV series have always been impressive,” notes Janowitz. “As a large building block, the ability to use single sources in so many ways was a major draw, and was the final piece of the design puzzle: answering our need for a forward-facing fixture. And the fact that it was already housed solved a number of fabrication details. Together with the pixel tape, the way everything has been brought to life dynamically on this tour has been incredible.”

The structure itself was built by Gallagher Staging and the LED tape integration was handled by Edgelight RGB. GLP.DE/EN/

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106 THE PIONEER CLUB

Blue Hour, Ramona Marx and Loud Minds

BLUE HOUR, RAMONA MARX AND LOUD MINDS

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“THIS ISN’T SOME GENTRIFIED EAST LONDON PLACE FOR MUSIC YUPPIES, THE PIONEER’S CHARM LIES IN ITS BRICK AND MORTAR MINIMALISM.”

Surviving multiple threats to its existence, including Tesco very persistently trying to turn it into a supermarket, The Pioneer Club in St Albans continues to survive in the brutal modern landscape for music venues in the UK. To lose it would be a tragedy, considering its history boasts launching the careers of The Zombies and Enter Shikari. Now a registered charity and thanks to vital funding from Enter Shikari themselves, The Pioneer lives on, particularly as a youth club and the country’s oldest skate park.

The threat of closure, however, has meant its gig schedule took a huge hit, but on one particular Saturday evening, Blue Hour and their support acts proved this is a live venue that must be protected at all costs.

It may not be much to look at from the outside, located off the busy Harpenden road in a heavily wooded area and next to a disused

fire station, but once you walk up the ramp to its entrance with its graffiti logo above you, you get a sense of its magic fairly quickly with its hugely popular skatepark to your left, and then through to the main hall where its recently upgraded stage is found. This isn’t some gentrified East London place for music yuppies, The Pioneer’s charm lies in its brick and mortar minimalism.

The Zombies, known for timeless classics Time Of The Season and She’s Not There, have spoken about how songs were written at The Pioneer when the venue was born in the sixties. The Pioneer also became particularly vital in the UK circuit for up-and-coming bands in the early 2000s as all manner of alternative rock subgenres entered the mainstream; think Linkin Park, Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance, blink 182.

The venue enjoyed the energy injected from homegrown UK talent uploading their demos on MySpace, while Enter Shikari and their friends and family were more or less running the place (frontman Rou Reynolds’ father was head of security).

Other bands about to become huge would also stop by: Gallows from Watford down the road, and from further afield the likes of Bring Me The Horizon. Other local acts may not have gone on to play at the Download and Reading Festivals, but did enjoy this wave — Dexter’s Fish can forever exclaim that they finished ahead of Shikari in a local battle of the bands, and Violent Delight got airplay on Kerrang! with their decidedly not-PC, I Wish I Was A Girl.

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Blue Hour, Ramona Marx and Loud Minds

On a cold Saturday evening in February, Headliner takes comfort in that not too much has changed at The Pioneer. Only things for the better, the bar is now licensed to boost the coffers (the evening’s sound man announces over the PA a few times that The Pioneer is a charity, and the best way to support charity is by buying a beer), the sound system is now excellent, and the rave lighting from the Shikari days has also had a great face lift.

form. The quartet admit chatter between songs isn’t their strong suit, as “we are Ramona Marx” and a few songs later “we are still Ramona Marx” draws laughter from the audience, and “erm…..f**** Boris Johnson, how about that?” is of course a crowd pleaser. It’s a chaosinducing set as they all end up topless, band members are between the stage and the audience, and the attendees gleefully agree to a mosh pit that originates from every side of the room. One to watch.

Hemel Hempstead’s Loud Minds open proceedings with a Muse/Nightwise-esque swagger, and a prodigious ability on their instruments sure to make any older musicians present very jealous. They tear through their set including singles Tears Must Fall and Debt in quasi-operatic style, as the huge drums and guitar are supplemented with grand piano and orchestration.

They end with headline-band confidence as they spend a good two minutes hammering out their final chord of the night — here’s hoping The Pioneer welcomes them back soon.

It quickly becomes obvious most have come to see local heroes Blue Hour as the anticipation builds, and everyone makes sure to be at the front as they walk onto the stage. They are another band this evening who show enormous promise despite being very young indeed, with a loving following to boot. Huge, anthemic songs such as new track Ultraviolet (which they just dropped with their first music video) get the huddled crowd moving with ease — the atmosphere is electric.

Clearly plenty more to come from these boys. All in all, an absolute joy to see music back at the Pioneer with loads of people there to enjoy it.

Ramona Marx also hail from Hemel but offer a very different prospect. You weren’t likely to see a band sporting grey trackies in the early 2000s, but make no mistake, this is punk in its most aggravated and shouty

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“THE SHARONA IS THE COMPANY’S FIRST EVER 16-DRIVER CONFIGURATION WITH A TRUE FOUR-WAY CROSSOVER.”

Renowned custom in-ear monitor manufacturer JH Audio has unveiled a brand new flagship IEM – The Sharona – the company’s first ever 16-Driver configuration with a true four-way crossover.

Sharona features the all-new Knowles RAU Quad Supertweeter, which produces an extended treble response starting where most balanced armature drivers roll off (12 kHz), and pushes out to 25 kHz. According to JH Audio, Sharona offers a highly accurate, well-rounded sound signature with the punchy lowend of the Layla and the smooth midrange growl of the Roxanne model.

The addition of the RAU is designed to deliver expansive stereo imagery full of depth and width, while creating more air for high-range reproduction.

Paired with Freqphase and Acoustic Sound Chamber, Sharona is fully loaded with JH Audio’s industryleading technologies and built for life on tour.

include strong tactility perception, an IP67 sealed connector system, minimal socket wear, metal parts resistant to sweat exposure, and a miniature design.

Sharona features a 16-Driver BA Configuration with true four-way integrated crossover (passive), along with an all-new proprietary RAU Quad Super Tweeter BA with 12 kHz 25 kHz range.

JH also says that the system has been tested and approved for medical devices, and provides easy integration into design and product.

In terms of product specifications, Sharona will have an input sensitivity of 114dB @ 1mW, an impedance of 16 Ohms, and noise isolation at -26 dB. Also included with Sharona is a Litz Wire T2 Cable and Connector System (non-attenuated), which JH says features consistent high durability, no intermittence and pull force stability.

Additional T2 Connector features

JH Audio Sharona carries an MSRP of $2,299 / £1,840, with more information about a release and shipping date coming soon. Keep an eye on the Headliner website in the coming weeks for further details.

JHAUDIO.COM

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WAVES AUDIO

RetroFi

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WAVES AUDIO Is this the new go-to choice for true analogue lo-fi sound? Waves describes its new RetroFi plugin as ‘the ultimate lo-fi FX chain’, with everything music creators need to produce authentic lo-fi textures, warm analogue sounds, and mesmerising nostalgic vibes.

Headliner’s Spotlight Reviews editor investigates…

Firstly, you should know I’m a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and my parents were avid music listeners. From as far back as I can remember, they were far happier on the settee in front of the open fire with our Grundig Radiogram in the corner – mono and valve in those days – than they were in front of the black and white television. So I would fall asleep to the sounds of everything from the Beatles to The Ink Spots, Rachmaninoff to Mozart. As the ‘60s became the ‘70s my father discarded the old radiogram in

favour of a new fangled stereo system comprising HiFi separates and bookshelf speakers. I could now borrow the Dog of Two Head album from my Japanese Telecaster copy-wielding friend from down Stanhope Avenue and record it on cassette, so I could learn to play 12bar like Rossi and Parfitt.

However, the Beatles and The Who records along with Elvis and Everly Brothers singles never sounded as good on the new HiFi as they did on the old radiogram. In theory they should have sounded better, especially the stereo ones, and for me this was a defining moment – a realisation that nothing stays the same, all things eventually come to an end and ultimately, everything moves on. I think what I’m trying to say here is that the positive emotion and feelings of wellbeing that the former setup evoked were no longer evident in the latter.

I can’t help but chuckle to myself when I remember the birth of digital Compact Disks in the ‘80s, and the slow but steady change to digital – first through mastering and then recording itself. I’m in no doubt that this change heralded a move from acceptable audio quality to superior audio quality, especially in broadcasting. But with regard to music, not everyone is convinced that the days of noisy old analogue should be confined to the dustbin of time.

No music business professional can dispute that on paper, the signal to noise ratio and dynamic frequency range of digital are vastly superior. So what is it about valves, transformers, vinyl, tape and cassette that create such a desire for old analogue character? Let’s find out.

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WAVES AUDIO

RetroFi

PLUG’N’PLAY Harping back to my early days of warm and fuzzy, it’s not surprising that the whole industry surrounding analogue outboard is as buoyant today as it’s always been. Not to mention the plethora of plugins now available, all professing to do a better job of messing up your audio.

I myself have used Waves Abbey Road Vinyl and Saturator even

on podcasts to get a little of that broadcasting feel. So, I was more than willing to give Waves’ new RetroFi a whirl when it was released earlier this year.

Firstly, it has a very easy to understand interface where everything bar the preset menus – which are extensive – are on a

single layer GUI. It is split into four distinct sections with the usual in-and-out trims, some additional pass filters and a mono knob along the bottom. All four sections can be switched in and out, offering one or more sections at any given time from which you can build sounds using the Device, Space, Noise or Mechanics sections.

DEVICE The first ‘Device’ section is dominated by a styler rotary with which to select the analogue decade that most takes your fancy – a nice touch. The ‘Device’ selector throws up a random selection of three EQ patterns and one flat EQ pattern. Although I’m neither familiar with or remember all the various devices that were around in these eras, with a little High Pass

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you can create something not far removed from the early transistor radios and those all-in-one record players that you could stack a few 45s at a time on. There’s even something in the 50s device that’s close to the bass heavy radiogram I mentioned earlier!

On the right side of the Device section are the ‘Squash’ control,

which is not unlike a single threshold compressor, and a somewhat fierce control labelled ‘Ringer’. This immediately reminded me of the AM atmospherics I used to have to put up with when listening to Radio Caroline and later Luxembourg in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. Luckily. there’s a mix control for this section so you can dial in as little or as much of your chosen device flavour.

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NOISE There’s a comprehensive selection of noises via presets in the Noise section which can be either gated to (with the source) or ducked (in between the source material), and the threshold dictates when the Gate/Duck activates.

In addition, there’s a very useful pre/post space button which will include the noise in the echo and reverb if

desired. There’s also a Level control to blend in your chosen flavour of noise. The extensive range of noise available means there’s no scenario that can’t be effectively covered by RetroFi.

MECHANICS The Mechanics section is very straightforward but has independent controls for set A and set B. These are not for either channel but are slightly different in respect of the artefacts they produce – an endless array of tape and vinyl effects. Each set has Wow, Wobble and Speed controls which can produce anything from dodgy pinch

rollers to chorusing. Set A seemed to be reminiscent of tape transports while set B seemed far more tuned to the components of a turntable. This is the section for enhancing that old vinyl sound as well as stretched old tape, worn out reel-to-reels, and suspect cassette copies.

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RetroFi

“THIS IS A GOOD AND COMPREHENSIVE SOFTWARE PLUGIN WHICH CAN GIVE YOU ANY RETRO AUDIO FLAVOUR YOU DESIRE.”

CONCLUSION Along the top of this plugin you’ll find the Preset menu, which is by far and away the largest collection of presets I can remember seeing in a plugin. The number of individuals who have lent their time to the creation of many of these is incredible, not to mention how good the presets themselves are. Rather than spending hours searching for sounds you want, just go straight for the presets, which are extremely well indexed and an excellent place to start.

This is a good and comprehensive software plugin which can give you, as its name suggests, any retro audio flavour you desire. It’s laid out in such a way with excellent presets to speed up the creation or recreation of whatever it is you’re looking for. I can see this becoming the key lo-fi tool in your studio arsenal for all things vintage. And more impressively, you can pick this plugin up at the moment for a mere $29.99 / £23.99.

One of the more obvious uses is the ability to keep your audience guessing, by creating what sounds like a very HEADLINER MAGAZINE

‘retro’ sample but which is – in reality – a newly recorded piece with RetroFi recreating the vintage vibe. Equally, all creative possibilities are endless when it comes to RetroFi’ing sections, tracks and whole songs. This really is a very extensive tool, so while I’m going through a few more of these presets, don’t wait up!

RetroFi is available in all the usual formats for Apple including M1 support, as well as Windows 64bit systems.

WAVES.COM

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RESA SAFFA PARK

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RESA SAFFA PARK Simultaneously a music and Netflix star at just 25 years old, Norway’s Resa Saffa Park is a rising star who deserves your attention. Headliner speaks to the Ragnarok actor/ singer-songwriter about Norway’s special place in the music industry right now, landing her big Netflix role, and her stunning slice of indiepop on latest single Tendencies.

Born Theresa Frostad Eggesbø in Dubai, Park is nowadays based in the Norwegian capital of Oslo after honing her craft at the prestigious Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts, founded by none other than Paul McCartney. She’s been releasing her sultry indie-pop since 2018, a year that saw the release of single God Is Drunk, her biggest song that is just shy of one million Spotify streams at the time of writing. Park is visiting friends on Norway’s southwestern coast in the city of Bergen, and dives into the back room of a museum to speak to Headliner via Zoom. “It’s snowing outside so I’ve just sat in this

old museum, I think it’s for modern art.”

Regarding her parallel careers of acting and music, she says, “I’ve always done both at the same time. Acting and music is kind of the same performance style — the performance of emotion. Or, at least, a communication of emotion.

Perhaps acting is more extroverted and music is more introverted, at least for me. I like to write music alone, and I like to dig a bit deeper into things when I do music. People do mostly know me from Ragnarok but hopefully that will change. It’s kind of hard to because the character I play in Ragnarok is very different to the character I am in my music.”

Netflix’s hit Norwegian series Ragnarok sees a coming of age story meet both climate change and Norse mythology. Park had been building her credits in Norway steadily, but was actually in Liverpool when this huge opportunity came along, and it

ended up influencing her decision on whether to stay in the UK and move to London, or head back to her Nordic homeland.

“I did some comedy shows, which is very common in Norway if you’re in the acting community,” she says. “And then you have a foot in the door, so everyone kind of knows your face, not in a sense of fame, but within casting circles. I was also in Skam, which broke through internationally, so I just got asked to try out for the part for Ragnarok. I was in England at that time, so I couldn’t do the audition physically and did a self tape.

“At this time I had to move out of my place in Liverpool. I heard at one point that it was between me and one other person for the role. So I thought to myself, ‘If I get it, then it’s meant to be that I’m moving home to do that.

But if I don’t get it, then it’s meant to be that I’m staying in Liverpool and maybe moving to London’.”

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Nordic Tendencies

It’s fascinating how some musicians relished what they saw as a huge creative opportunity during the lockdowns we have just lived through, while others found this time to be a big creative block. Park falls into the latter category: “It was kind of shit actually, to be honest about that,” she says. “I’ve had so much time to write, I really have, but there comes a point where you just have so much time, but you have no life lived to draw from.

There’s lots of things you can write about in solitude and loneliness. But also, you want to be able to look within yourself after an experience with people. I feel we need life around us in order to reflect on things.”

The tail-end of February saw Park release the seven-track EP Spaces, led by its first single Tendencies. A wonderful showcase of her sound, it’s a deft blend of Rhodes piano, melodic bass guitar and Park’s whispery vocals with just the right touch of huskiness taking centre stage. One of the song’s standout lyrics is: ‘I don’t mind it ‘cause HEADLINER MAGAZINE

no afterparties interest me, guess I’m old for 23.’

and produced this album. I needed some grunge.”

“It’s about not feeling part of something: the tendency to call it a night early at a party, going home, feeling too old for 23. I am an extrovert, but suddenly, things weren’t as fun anymore. I don’t know how to explain it. That’s the reason I write about it. The feeling of solitude or loneliness in a crowded room.”

For someone who claims to be bad with tech, Park has some impressive bits of gear in her home studio. “I have the Shure SM57 microphone,” she says. “Which is really nice; I always love using it in the studio. My soundcard is a Focusrite Scarlett, which has worked for me with no problems.”

In terms of how Spaces fits in her discography so far, Park says it has a bit more edge.

Your scandi-homework is to check out Ragnarok, presuming you are one of Netflix’s 3.5 billion subscribers. But your homework will be graded totally incomplete if you do not listen to new EP Spaces, for some gorgeous, spacey indie tunes straight out of Norway, via Dubai and Liverpool.

“I really wanted all of the songs to be live drums, because my last EP had more electronic drums and was more electronic overall, more poppy and polished. I worked with many different producers; I wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted it to sound. This EP has a tiny, tiny, tiny spoon of grunge; I’m very inspired by Nirvana. You might not hear it but to me, it makes sense in my songwriting, like how that influenced

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122

HAL LINDES

Strait Talking

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STRAIT TALKING

HAL LINDES Hal Lindes is probably best known for his work as a full-time member of Dire Straits, which he was a member of from 1980 until 1985, however he went on to forge a successful career as a film and TV score composer after leaving the band. He reflects on his first impressions of Dire Straits, explains how Tina Turner ended up recording Private Dancer, and delves into his guitar and amp collection.

You were a full-time member of Dire Straits for five years in the ‘80s; how did you come to join the band?

When David [Knopfler] left the band, I got a call asking if I was interested in coming down and having a play.

I was like, ‘Yes, sure!’ because Mark [Knopfler] was on fire at that point. As a guitarist, I wanted to check them out and see what all the fuss was about firsthand. I was very happy to be invited down, and I didn’t really know what to expect. It was super chill and there was nobody there but the band; they weren’t auditioning a tonne of people. I think they might have seen one person before me. It was a funky

old place and it had a huge window overlooking the Thames; there was a terrific atmosphere there. One by one, each of the members walked over and introduced themselves and we would chat, so it was more like a social thing than a, ‘get your guitar and play’ thing. I immediately was struck by how much I liked the guys. They’re all super interesting and we got along really well. At some point Mark said, ‘Fancy having a play?’

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What happened next?

He handed me a Walkman, which was a big deal back then. I’d never even seen one. I’d read about it, so it was quite a big deal to be handed a Walkman. He goes, ‘Have a listen to this, and don’t worry about the changes, just get the spirit of it’. So of course, the song was Tunnel Of Love, and those changes are not for the squeamish! So I’m listening to this thing going, ‘Holy crap!’ – and that was the first thing we played, Tunnel Of Love. It was just amazing; it was so explosive. The chemistry was there and we locked in together. I think we all knew that this was it for us at this point. Then we played a couple of other songs. This was in the summer around August, so you still had very long nights and you could see the sun setting over the Thames through this big window. The sun was starting to go down, it was a big red ball of flame and we did Sultans Of Swing. That was probably one of the most magical moments that I had with the band.

They had me at Sultans. Afterwards Mark said, ‘Do you want to grab a glass of wine?’ So we went to a wine bar and we were just chit chatting, and at the end he goes, ‘So do you want to come back tomorrow?’ So I was like, ‘Okay’. At the same time that I was auditioning, there was a keyboard player auditioning called Alan Clark.

We started the tour in Canada and we went down to the US. At one point I was talking to Alan when we were having breakfast and I said, ‘I was never officially asked to join the band’, and he goes, ‘Yeah, it’s funny you said that because neither was I’. All Alan and I ever got was, ‘Do you want to come back tomorrow?’ So we went over to Ed Bicknell and said, ‘Did we get the gig or what?’ He laughed and said, ‘Of course you’re in the band!’

But that just illustrates how casual the whole thing was.

Mark Knopfler wrote Private Dancer, which was recorded by Tina Turner.

How did you come to play on this, HEADLINER MAGAZINE

and how did it come to be a Tina Turner song?

We came in for rehearsals at the same place by the river and Mark must have had about 20 songs – all cracking, good songs. The original idea was to have Love Over Gold as a double album, and Private Dancer was one of those songs. It was very different to Dire Straits, but I loved the whole lyrics about being a private dancer and being from the woman’s perspective.

In a lot of his songs, Mark takes on a character and he gets away with it, but I think it was a little bit too much trying to take on the character of a woman dancer. I campaigned heavily with Mark; I kept going, ‘Come on, we gotta do this!’ But sadly it didn’t get there. It did get recorded, but it got shelved. Then Tina’s manager was over recruiting songwriters for Tina’s album and he met with Ed and asked him if Mark had anything. He goes, ‘Actually, Mark does have a song that would be perfect for her’, and that’s how I ended up being on the Tina version. She loved our version of it, but they couldn’t use it because it was recorded under our deal with the record company, so the record company owned it. She wanted us to recreate it exactly as we recorded it, but the problem with that was Mark was not available so that’s why it ended up being the rest of the band

without Mark. Being American, they wanted a star guitarist, so they got Jeff Beck in to do the solo. I put more of a dance feel on it; it’s kind of like I’m doing my version of a Nile Rodgers rhythm on it. Mark’s version was pretty amazing. He would never release it, but I wish he would. I think even now in this day and age, he would absolutely get away with it, too.

It seems likely that you have an enviable guitar collection…

I have a problem! I need therapy [laughs]. I try to hide them like an alcoholic who hides his bottles of alcohol. My wife has no idea, but once in a while she might go, ‘Did you know there’s three guitar cases under the bed?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, really?

Wow, how did that happen?’ I think the gag is, ‘I only need one guitar more’ or something. I think it’s deeper than just a guitar; it takes you back to your youth. There’s a red Gretsch Duo Jet that I got when I was in Dire Straits that I used to use on stage. That guitar, to this day, is my number one.

It’s phenomenal. It doesn’t quite sound like a Gretsch, it doesn’t quite sound like anything. It has its own unique tone that is very musical. Actually, Mark played it on the recording of Two Young Lovers and Twisting By The Pool. I’m a huge Telecaster guy too, I don’t know what

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“THEY HAD ME AT SULTANS. THAT WAS PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST MAGICAL MOMENTS THAT I HAD WITH THE BAND.”

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it is about the Telecaster – it’s just so basic. It just has a couple of knobs and a couple of pickups; if you can’t do it on a Telecaster, you’re probably not gonna be able to do it on anything else either. I love all the wacky stuff like baritone guitars and high strung guitars which are basically the top six strings of a 12 string without the bottom six – so that pitches you an octave above where you would normally be. I love ukuleles and the mandolin too.

What is the earliest point in your career you recall playing through a Celestion speaker?

In my teenage years I used to play in a club band and we’d perform six nights a week. I got a Marshall, and I can’t even imagine how I used that in a nightclub. It must have been so loud; I’m amazed I can even hear you!

But I loved the speakers. I remember there were four of them in there, and in those days you’d be wearing flares and would try to make those flares rattle from the wind pressure from the speakers. They sounded phenomenal when you pushed them super hard, but also if you took the volume back you got this crystal clear, really musical, warm sound out of them.

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I took the back off and I saw these green things and I had no idea what they were. They were green Celestions [G12Hs].

Later I got an AC-30 Vox, which when I stopped using the Marshall, was my go-to. I was using Blue Vox Bulldog speakers, and I had no idea that they were Celestions, but years later I found out those were actually Celestions as well. Those were my two favourite speakers, the Greenbacks and the Bulldogs, and I found that if you put either of those in a Fender amp, it was a game-changer. One of my favourite amps is a Fender Super Champ, which came out in the ‘80s. I have a Celestion G10 Greenback in there and it’s phenomenal. It’s one of the best amps I’ve ever heard, and I use it 90% of the time. I have a closet full of amps but that’s the one that gets used. I also have a Fender Deluxe Reverb and I have a Greenback in that too, which sounds so good.

What is it about the Celestion tone that appeals to you?

I don’t want to hear it; I don’t want to hear any colour. I just want to hear the sound that’s in my head, and for some reason, the Celestions do that. It’s not

like, ‘Yeah it scooped on the mids and it gives you a good bottom end’ – I plug my guitar in and go, ‘Yeah, that sounds great’, and that’s it. I don’t analyse it. You put other speakers in you think ‘Yeah, that’s okay, it’s fine’.

There’s just something about the Celestions that works for me. I don’t question it. A lot of people tend to think of Celestions as something you would drive really hard because they want that raunchy, overdriven sound, but I play pretty clean. I play a lot with my fingers and it’s a great, clean tone – and clean tones can be tricky because you don’t want it to sound thin or piercing. You want something that’s full bodied, rich, has a lot of character and has a lot of warmth. And that’s Celestion – there’s nothing out there that even comes close.

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