REPORT
REVIEWS
REVEALED
/ Tall Pine Records: API Legacy in Poland / Dean Street Studios: Atmos with PMC / Resolution Award nominations
/ PreSonus ioStation 24c: desktop control / Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms: lush space / iZotope Neoverb
/ Source-Live Low Latency: remote heaven / Emika: solo piano to electronic symphony / Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound
V19.5 | Autumn 2020 | £5.50
The
Interview
XxxxxIsham Mark Xxxxxxxx Xxx
Genelec RAW
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For more information visit genelec.com/raw
/ Contents
26 V19.5 | Autumn 2020
News & Analysis 5 6
Leader News News, studios, appointments 12 New Products 19 Resolution Awards 2020 nominations 50 A Day In The Life Thor McIntyre — Sound installation artist & sound designer — often seen found abseiling from a tree
Columns 14 15 16 18
Business UK government inquiry: does streaming pay artists fairly? Sound Opinion Real World engineer says make LUF not war Crosstalk Rob Speight talks to iZotope RX8 manager Mike Rozett More than a waveform Hit’n’Mix Infinity — a new way to store and edit audio with note, harmonic, frequency, and amplitude information 41 Playlist Resolution’s inspirational guitarists: R.I.P. Eddie Van Halen
Mark Isham
Craft
26 Mark Isham A prolific composer: $4bn movie gross, over 400 movies & TV shows, 200 albums, 100 nominations and 57 awards 32 Midge Costin A movie about sound for movies! We talk to the woman who made it 36 Emika Crowd-funding an electronic symphony, deejaying and classical piano scores 38 Tall Pine Records Forest views with API Legacy — a purpose-built Baltic coast studio 42 Dean Street Studios The famous Soho facility upgrades mix room to Dolby Atmos for Music with PMC
Technology
46 Source-Live Low Latency Remote-recording Vienna’s Synchron Stage Orchestra in surround, with creatives in seven countries — game changing software
32
36
38
50
REVIEWS 20 21 22 23 24 25
PreSonus ioStation24c SSL 2+ interface AKG Lyra & RØDE NT-USB Mini Warm Audio Bus-Comp Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms iZotope Neoverb
46 Autumn 2020 / 3
/ Welcome
Leader
Nigel Jopson
EDITORIAL Editor Nigel Jopson nigel@resolutionmag.com
CONTRIBUTORS George Shilling, Jon Thornton, Dan Daley, Dennis Baxter, Danny Turner, Russell Cottier, John Broomhall, Simon Clark, Mike Aiton, Bob Katz, Bill Lacey, Piper Payne, Tim Oliver, Erica Basnicki, Catherine Vericolli, David Kennedy, Phil Ward, Rob Speight and Gijs Friesen
ADVERTISEMENT SALES EUROPE Sean Leslie +44 (0)20 7993 4704 sean@resolutionmag.com US & INTERNATIONAL Jeff Turner +1 415 455 8301 jturner@resolutionmag.com
PRODUCTION AND LAYOUT Dean Cook, The Magazine Production Company +44 (0)1273 467579 dean@resolutionmag.com
PRINTING Gemini Print Southern Ltd, Unit A1 Dolphin Road, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. BN43 6NZ
MANAGEMENT Publisher Dave Robinson dave@resolutionmag.com Published by S2 Publications Ltd +44 (0)1543 57872 info@resolutionmag.com 192 Longford Road, Cannock Staffordshire. WS11 1QN ©2020 S2 Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher. Great care is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication, but neither S2 Publications Ltd or the editor can be held responsible for its contents. The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the publisher. S2 Publications Ltd. Registered in England and Wales. REGISTERED OFFICE Gowran House, 56 Broad Street, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol, BS37 6AG Company number: 4375084
/resolutionmagazine
O
Dream another dream
ur cover interviewee Mark Isham said — “In the first two weeks of the pandemic we decided to build my dream studio” — and it’s a constructive theme other music makers have also followed. In this issue of Resolution we profile two facilities: the fantastic purpose-built Tall Pine studios in Poland, and London’s well-know Dean Street Studios, who on the 7th October opened the doors to their new installation of a state-ofthe-art Dolby Atmos Music mix room in Studio 1. Meanwhile Salvatore Addeo (pictured above) of Aemme Studios, Lake Como (Resolution V18.1), decided the extra time confined to his control room might offer the perfect opportunity to start an indie record label — ‘Casette Musicali’. Our Remote Production special, (free to read at https://bit.ly/Resolution-Digital-V19-3), has clearly inspired some changing workflows. Resolution contributor, recording engineer, producer and imaginative electronic boffin Russell Cottier has been working all over the world from his Liverpool studio. “I’ve been on a remote session with Australia all morning, I’ve got a French one now for a few hours via AudioMovers and Zoom, short break then I will be working on a project for a client in Nashville,” Cottier confirmed.
In this edition, dubbing mixer and sound designer Mike Aiton details the testing and debut of Source-Live LL. The new low latency software from Source Elements allowed Mike to conduct a VO session 19,000 miles across the globe — with barely 2 frames of delay — game changer! Turn to page 46 to read all about Mike’s proof-of-concept session, recording the Vienna Synchron Stage Orchestra, and the making of a 40min documentary about the software and recording for October’s ‘Virtual AES Show’ Technical Program. “Life will change, and perhaps dramatically,” I wrote in this page for our March edition. The problem is, human beings often do not enjoy rapid change. The live performance industry, accustomed to being the top music moneyspinner for the last 30 years, is suffering. The current reality is that we cannot have mass attendance events. This doesn’t mean that other distanced live events cannot or will not happen. Let’s try to think more about how we can help our live colleagues adapt, think ‘outside the venue’, or completely change the current industry model into something new that can work right now. Recorded-music veterans remember the shocking moment when our physical CD sales dropped off a cliff-edge. We just have to keep moving, pivot the client base, and think with a 21st century mindset.
Nigel
Editor
@resolutionmagazine
Autumn 2020 / 5
News
ISE postponed to 1-4 June 2021
After a period of consultation with the industry, and the impact of the on-going pandemic, Integrated Systems Events has announced that ISE, scheduled for 2-5 February, has been postponed and will now take place in Barcelona 1-4 June 2021, alongside a virtual offering. Additionally, ISE will launch RISE Digital, a regular programme of content and networking events which will run throughout the year and support the live show. “From our many conversations, it is clear the industry can’t wait to get back together doing business face to face and we are committed to delivering an engaging and safe in-person ISE in 2021” said Mike Blackman, MD Integrated Systems Events.
SMPTE 2020 esports ‘Game On’
An interactive and immersive remote technical conference experience is planned from November 10-12. Throughout the three-day experience, attendees can join live technical presentations, practical hands-on training, keynote presentations, product and technology demonstrations, roundtable discussions, and virtual panels. One event day will focus on the convergence of esports/gaming, media technology and the unique requirements of the thriving esports industry. Experts from the Audio Engineering Society (AES) will offer a program examining the impact of changes over 2020 on future audio workflows, with case studies adding further perspective to the discussion. “The SMPTE 2020 format actually gives attendees many more options for taking in amazing content and social events. In reality, this year’s conference will be much more accessible than if we hosted the event in downtown Los Angeles,” said Kylee Peña of Netflix, who serves as SMPTE 2020 program committee co-chair. 6 / Autumn 2020
‘In da Club’ producer chooses Genelec Mike Elizondo’s credits range from 50 Cent, Eminem and Mary J. Blige to Carrie Underwood, Twenty One Pilots, Ry Cooder, Fiona Apple and more. He lives and works in a state-of-the-art studio just north of Nashville. A key component of his new setup is his pair of W371A Smart Active Woofers and 8361A Smart Active Monitors. Other gear at the newly-built space includes an SSL 4056 E/G console, a Neve BCM10, an Ampex MM1000 tape machine, an eight-track Scully 280B tape machine and an Endless Analog CLASP tape-to-digital converter. “Initially, I figured the Genelec 8361As and the W371As would be my mains, and I’d rely on a different set as nearfields, but I’ve ended up using the Genelecs for both applications. I remember when we got the monitors set up, and I brought up some of my go-to test mixes and favourite albums to listen to, and I just instantly felt like I was immersed in this music. The low end is important to me, and the low end felt punchy and defined and not at all muddy.”
API 2448 for La Resistance, Puerto Rico API distributor La Resistance, located in Carolina, Puerto Rico, added a 32-channel API 2448 recording console to their well-equipped demonstration facility, which doubles as a professional studio. This is the first 2448 console to be commissioned in Puerto Rico. Engineer Earl Brown (Bob Marley) was the first to demo it and “immediately fell in love with,” says Manager of La Resistance Dennis Morales. “Since then we have been very privileged to have top recording acts come to record, including Latin artists Cultura Profética, Daddy Yankee, producer Sergio George (Marc Anthony) and international artist Akon.” The API-equipped control room is connected to a live room with an 18-foot ceiling, as well as to a vocal booth, and a piano booth with a Yamaha mini grand.
APPOINTMENTS
KBS TV upgrades with Lawo IP mixers KBS, South Korea’s public broadcaster, has upgraded TV production facilities at its HQ in Seoul with IP technology from Lawo as part of an extensive renovation project. The installation, which includes two Lawo consoles – an mc²96 Grand Production Console and an mc²36 ‘all-in-one’ mixer – is part of KBS’ move to a completely new IP-based production workflow. The mc²96 and mc²36 mixers are native IP consoles, with RAVENNA / AES67 built in for industry-standard networking, flexibility, scalability and efficiency. The new setup includes Lawo DALLIS stagebox interfaces and a Nova routing system. System integration was provided by Lawo’s Korean partner, Dong Yang Digital. The 88-fader mc²96 boasts more than 300 DSP channels plus SoundGrid integration, and is the first large-scale digital mixing console deployed to mix concerts at KBS. The 40-fader Lawo mc²36 mixes live studio performances and also serves as sub-mixer and backup mixer for the mc²96.
Miloco adds Arda Recorders, Portugal Comprising three studios, plus a mixing room and a separate mastering room, the Porto studio complex was designed and built from the ground up with the goal of providing artists with the best possible environment for creating and recording. The flagship Studio A is built around a vintage Neve 8068 console, with an incredible 155m2 of recording space housing a beautiful Fazioli grand piano. Apart from the Pro Tools Ultimate HDX plus Apogee Symphony 48 I/O, Ampex MM1200 24-track and a Studer A80 enable working to tape, plus a large selection of outboard. Studio B features a Rupert Neve 5088, and Studio C is a powerful writing and programming room. All the rooms have access to Arda’s extensive backline and microphone collection.
Brian Sullivan has been named CEO of broadcast services group NEP. With 30 years experience in the broadcast sector, Sullivan has held roles at Fox Networks Group, Sky Deutschland and Sky UK. Most recently he served as senior advisor to the consumer, tech and media teams at McKinsey & Company. Prior to McKinsey, Sullivan was president of FOX Networks Group, where he directed streaming strategy and platform and FOX’s direct-to-consumer business. At Sky Deutschland he was responsible for a major turnaround of the business, built through improving customer experience, introducing on-demand entertainment and live sports streaming services. iZotope announced Dr. Jean-Marc Jot will join as vice president of research and chief scientist. As a member of the research team reporting to CTO, Jonathan Bailey, Dr. Jot will lead the company’s efforts in advanced scientific research. Jot joins iZotope from Magic Leap, where most recently he was vice president and head of audio & media. He previously served as senior vice president and head of research & development at DTS, as well as research fellow at Creative Labs and research scientist at IRCAM. Jot will oversee the audio research team and drive the company’s advanced technology strategy and roadmap. Sony Music Group announced the appointment of Tiffany R. Warren to the newly created role of executive vice president, chief diversity and inclusion officer, as part of its commitment to diversity and equity in the workplace. Warren will work with Sony Music Group’s global recorded music, publishing and corporate divisions to expand the company’s on-going equity and inclusion activities and policies. Most recently, Warren served as Omnicom’s global chief diversity officer. She created and implemented the Omnicom People Engagement Network (OPEN), a diversity, equity and inclusion framework. In 2005, Warren founded ADCOLOR, an organization that champions diversity and inclusion in the creative industries.
Autumn 2020 / 7
/ News
APPOINTMENTS Integrated Systems Events announced the appointment of Jo Mayer as its senior director of marketing. Mayer joins from EasyFairs, a leading pan-European multi-format event organiser, and has over 20 years’ experience in trade shows, conferences and B2B publishing. She was pivotal in delivering award-winning campaigns for Easyfairs, Nineteen Events, Clarion and UBM working on flagship brands across a variety of sectors, including ICE Totally Gaming, Ecobuild, IFSEC and Confex. In her new role, Mayer is responsible for overseeing the company’s marketing and content strategy across multiple platforms in the run-up to its flagship event, Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) in 2021, and beyond. Riedel Communications has promoted Peter Glättli to director of research and development. Reporting to founder and CEO Thomas Riedel, Glättli will assume responsibility for Riedel’s five main development hubs, aiming to advance the company’s IP-enabled hardware and software solutions. Glättli moves into his new role after two years as head of R&D in Riedel’s Zurich location, where he led teams in Switzerland and Germany to develop advanced audio engine technologies. Prior to joining Riedel, Glättli had been head of development for Studer/Harman International since 2012, where he was responsible for development of the Studer and Soundcraft product lines of audio mixing consoles. The Audio Engineering Society’s Board of Governors (BoG) has elected Brecht De Man to assume the role of AES director beginning January 1, 2021. Currently serving as a governor of the AES, De Man has held various roles within the Society and continues to work as a sound engineer, educator, and member of the AES Education Committee. De Man will replace Alex Case (past president and membership committee chair) as one of two BoG-elected Directors and will serve on the Board of Directors through December 31, 2022. De Man holds a PhD in Audio Engineering from Queen Mary University of London’s Centre for Digital Music.
8 / Autumn 2020
New ‘Experience Center’ at Genelec US Designed by the late world-renowned studio architect and designer Fran Manzella, the US Experience Center serves as a mix room, a theatre and a research and test centre. The new space is configured to handle formats from stereo to surround to immersive 9.1.6 through a range of Genelec’s Smart Active Monitors (SAM). The new Center joins existing Genelec demonstration facilities in the U.K., Germany, China and India. The installed speakers demonstrate the breadth of Genelec’s product line, which
offers solutions suitable for any size listening space. Three 8351Bs are installed for L-C-R, four 8341As support the left and right side and rear channels, and six more 8341As are located overhead for the front, mid and rear height channels. A 7370 subwoofer handles low-end extension for the overheads, while a 7380 sub handles LFE and manages extension of the centre, side and rear channels. Two W371A Smart Active Woofer Systems are located left and right and are paired with the main left and right 8351B monitors.
CEDAR DNS One for Adverse dialogue
SSL ORIGIN installed at Catalyst Studios
Production sound mixer Dominic Castro worked on the award-winning 2020 Adverse — starring Mickey Rourke — dealing with very noisy environments like air conditioning, fridges and restaurant equipment, and city noise off-set. “It’s important to me to maintain the integrity and quality of the sound, and CEDAR DNS One was my noise reduction choice for the dialogue bus, as well as some individual tracks. It’s very smooth and transparent and it leaves dialogue sounding natural, not gated and loaded with artefacts like I’ve found with other noise reduction plug-ins.”
Catalyst Studios has installed the first Solid State Logic ORIGIN console for a UK commercial studio. The 32-channel SSL mixer was unveiled on October 7th and replaces Catalyst’s 1990s MTA 980 mixer. Studio owner Andy Bowes says “We’re really happy to have installed a console from a world class manufacturer like SSL. This opens up new opportunities for the studio, freelance engineers and producers to add a touch of class to their recordings at an affordable rate.” Located in St.Helens in a refurbished school building, the studio boasts Genelec 8050 monitoring, Pro Tools HD1, outboard from Amek, Calrec and Neve and offers a remote mixing service.
_AudioFuse Studio The new studio reference An 18-in/20-out desktop interface like no other that includes our Creative Suite of monster plugs. Pristine preamp clarity, ultra-low noise and a staggering 119dB dynamic range. Class-leading connectivity, including USB-C, MIDI, S/PDIF and Bluetooth. Advanced monitoring, low latency performance and a tactile control panel that puts creativity first. Sometimes only the best will do.
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/ News
NAB 2021 moves from April to October
The US National Association of Broadcasters has moved the 2021 Las Vegas NAB Show to October 9-13 2021. NAB president and CEO Gordon Smith issued a statement on 9th September confirming the news. “Moving NAB Show to October means we are considering alternative 2021 dates for NAB Show New York, held annually in October,” Smith announced. “On the plus side, the 2021 Radio Show will co-locate with NAB Show in Las Vegas, as will NAB’s Sales and Management Television Exchange, and there is opportunity to add additional partner events.” 2021’s Radio Show had originally been slated for New Orleans. Manufacturers will have to re-think plans, as NAB is traditionally the event where new products and upgrades are announced, which are then ready to go to market around the time of IBC.
Sam Toyoshima designs Tokyo College of Music
“The studio is used by students who major in the Fine Art/Film Scoring course, and needed to be capable of recording an entire orchestra” explains TCM lecturer Hideaki Sano, “since we have a concert hall and other large performance spaces on campus, we wanted the studio to make efficient use of these facilities.” To ensure the best possible results, TCM turned to world-renowned acoustician, Masami ‘Sam’ Toyoshima. The API Legacy AXS-equipped studio has immersive monitoring comprising Genelec 1234A, 1238AC and 1238DF smart active main monitors in a 5.1.2 immersive configuration, with 8351A coaxial monitors for stereo nearfield monitoring. “Genelec monitors have the same sound even when the playback volume is low”, says Sano “that’s one of the benefits. And the fact that it has become the industry standard is the key to our choice.” 10 / Autumn 2020
Live crew help from #WeMakeEvents
#WeMakeEvents is an international movement to highlight that the live events sector urgently needs support from local governments to survive the COVID-19 crisis. Recently announced fundraising events include a one-off live streamed show from 1D band member Niall Horan at London’s Royal Albert Hall on November 7th 2020, raising money for Niall’s touring crew, and supporting the launch of a brand new initiative #WeNeedCrew. Another live stream event ‘An Evening With Amy Macdonald’, at 7pm UK time on November 1st, will donate all ticket profits to #WeMakeEvents. wemakeevents.com Meanwhile, a grant scheme has been established with donations from Amazon Prime Video, BAFTA, BBC, Sky Studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and ViacomCBS. On September 22nd, the Film and TV Charity announced a new Covid-19 Recovery Fund that will distribute up to £2m to UK film, TV and cinema workers who have been hit hardest by COVID-19, helping to sustain them and their careers through and out of the pandemic. www.filmtvcharity.org.uk
Lectrosonics go hot air ballooning on the The Tonight Show When it comes to wireless, sound recordist Jack Goodman gives ‘on air’ a whole new meaning. One recent gig involved capturing audio for rapper and singer Dominic Fike, who jumped out of a plane to reveal his new album What Could Possibly Go Wrong and chronicled the adventure in the YouTube video ‘Dominic Fike Presents: Fight or Flight’. Another was a segment for the August 19 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, in which musical guest Trevor Daniel lifts off in a hot air balloon mid-performance. For both, Goodman needed to capture audio before, after, and during Fike’s descent and
Daniel’s ascent — with no interruptions. For Fike’s video, he turned to the Lectrosonics MTCR miniature time code recorder to supplement his kit of UCR411a receivers paired with legacy UM400a transmitters. On the Tonight Show, seamless recording of Daniel’s performance was accomplished with an HMa plug-on transmitter and wideband Venue2 receiver. “Both times, the results were like I was next to the talent hardlined directly into the recorder without even using RF,” said Goodman. “Everything worked so well — range, audio quality, time code, the split mode — that when the shoots were over, I just bought the gear.”
SHOWS & EVENTS FOR ALL TO SEE BroadcastIndia, [Digital]
29-31 October
CES, [Digital]
DEVELOP:Brighton [Digital]
2-4 November
NAMM, Believe in Music [Digital]
18 January
Cine Asia [Digital]
4-5 November
Prolight + Sound
13-16 April
CABSAT [Digital]
9-10 November
PLASA Leeds
11-12 May
10-12 November
MPTS, London
12-13 May
Reproduced Sound
17-19 November
High End, Munich
3-16 May
Inter BEE, [Digital]
18-20 November
Midem Cannes
1-4 June
Infocomm India, [Digital]
18-20 November
ISE, Barcelona
1-4 June
SMPTE 2020, [Digital]
11-14 January 2021
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©2020 PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Studio One is a registerered trademark of PreSonus Software Ltd. Notion is a registered trade mark of PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc. Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
Technology Martin Dawe
More than a waveform A new way to store and edit audio along with note, harmonic, frequency, and amplitude information
T
oday, the most common method of transporting audio to a listener’s device is as a compressed waveform — the raw data that describes the air vibrations produced by an instrument or vocal cords. This is the simplest way to store audio in a computer, as little processing is required to pass sound from microphone to RAM to speaker. However, is it the best way? A philosopher once asked, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. After all, the falling tree is simply producing vibrations from hitting the ground, and these can only be perceived as sound when heard by a listener. In a similar way, the vibrations in a song’s waveform do not illustrate the intentions of the composer until a human brain perceives it as music. Waveforms are effectively an encoded transport medium for audio, and even when viewed on screen using spectral analysis, without special training, they represent little in the way of what we hear as notes and passages of music. In our minds, we are able to reimagine melodies, and even a child can sing an improvised harmony along to a favourite track. When using a computer however, these simple human feats are difficult even when using the most advanced waveform manipulation tools. A method of storing audio in a way related to how humans perceive audio would provide more meaning and enable more dynamic and powerful editing control. This is one of the reasons we created the Rip
18 / Autumn 2020
audio file format and accompanying technologies. Rip files do not contain waveforms, but instead, highly detailed note, harmonic, frequency and amplitude information. To illustrate how different Rips are from existing formats, if we want to quickly create a harmony, it is a simple matter of copying the relevant notes and adjusting their pitches. No complicated, slow or energy consuming processing of waveforms occurs — the pitches of the notes are simply updated, as if they were MIDI. When we want to play back the audio, notes are converted into sine waves and output to the speakers as conventional waveforms. Parallels can be made with the brain converting notes we want to sing into air vibrations, with the use of vocal cords and other anatomy. To support the Rip format, we invented the Ripper. Comparable to the way our ears and brains convert oscillations transmitted from a source into notes and melodies, the Ripper analyses a waveform, locates the notes and harmonics within, and generates a Rip file that sounds identical to the original when played back. The first tool to utilise the power of the Rip format and make possible a wide range of advanced audio editing tools is Hit’n’Mix Infinity. At its simplest, individual notes (colour-coded according to instrument or layer) are displayed in a piano-roll format. These can be clicked and dragged, selected, copied, shifted up/down in pitch, stretched in duration and so on, all
without opening a single menu. Since the user works with the core components that audio is composed of at a perceptual level, we call this technology Atomic Audio Editing. The possibilities go far deeper than this, providing tools ranging from editing the individual harmonics of notes, to cloning different audio attributes between sounds. They can be invaluable for professional music production/remixing, audio clean-up/ restoration, sound design and other common sound editing, ‘mix fix’ and engineering-related tasks. For Pro Tools, an AudioSuite plug-in is included so that selected audio can be processed and updated in place. Most other DAWs can open up Hit’n’Mix Infinity as an external sample editor for the same workflow. Cubase/Nuendo’s Direct Offline Processing Plug-in also lets audio clips be edited directly from the project folder. What’s more, we’ve made it possible to access and manipulate the contents of Rip files with powerful Python scripting tools. We are hoping that many so-called RipScripts will be written by our coding-savvy users for the entire community to take advantage of! A free, 1-month trial Hit’n’Mix Infinity trial is available from: www.hitnmix.com Tutorials: www.youtube.com/user/HitnMixVideo/videos Martin Dawe founded Neuratron Ltd in 1993 and their highly regarded PhotoScore music scanning and AudioScore music transcription software is used by composers, publishers and musicians worldwide. Hit’n’Mix Ltd was subsequently formed in 2010 to support the new Rip technology.
Awards
AWARDS 2020 REWARDING QUALITY AND INNOVATION
Vote now for the Resolution Awards! The nominations for the Resolution Awards have been drawn from an exceptional panel of industry experts and practitioners. The nomination is our accolade — now it’s over to our thousands of readers to vote…
D
espite the challenges and delays of a global pandemic, manufacturers have continued to develop new and innovative products. Our nominations include both high-tech AoIP equipment and artisanal custom-builds, encompassing the (sometimes esoteric) recommendations from our panel of producers, and drawing on the detail and results from recent reviews by our professional contributors. For the tenth anniversary 2019 Awards, we increased votes more than ten-fold by opening the voting process to our digital community — audio pros who receive our email newsletter, issuu.com readers and our wider Facebook and social media community. This year
we’ve simplified further, with a single destination for readers to submit their choices. Navigate to the URL below, complete your choices on the voting form and click ‘Submit’. We maintain fairness by only allowing one vote per IP address (the numerical label assigned to each device connected to the internet) — the voting page can only be submitted once per reader — so be sure to register all your choices before clicking the submit button. Voting for our 11th annual Awards will close at the end of November, and the winners will be announced in a special digital Winners Supplement, and in the Winter edition of Resolution.
AWARDS 2020 NOMINEES ANALOGUE MIXER/SUMMING DEVICE AMS Neve 8424 API 2448 BURL B32 Vancouver Solid State Logic ORIGIN
DAW/SOFTWARE SUITE
EQ (HARDWARE)
Bettermaker Mastering Equalizer Drawmer 1974 Manultec Orca Radial Q3
INTERFACE (A-D/D-A)
CEDAR Cambridge v13 iZotope RX8 Merging Pyramix 25th PreSonus Studio One 5
Antelope Audio Orion Studio Synergy Core Arturia Audiofuse Studio Crane Song HEDD Quantum PreSonus ioSTATION24c
DIGITAL MIXER/CONTROLLER
MICROPHONE
Avid S1 Lawo Ruby Radio Mixer Softube Console 1 Fader Solid State Logic System T V3.0
DYNAMICS (HARDWARE)
Bettermaker Bus Compressor McDSP APB-8 Analog Processing Box Rupert Neve 5254 Dual Diode Bridge Compressor Warm Audio Bus-Comp
AEA KU5A DPA Binaural Josephson Engineering C705 Schoeps CMC 1
MONITORING
Adam Audio T8V Genelec 4430 PSI Audio A14-M v3 Quested V2104
PLUG-IN
Leapwing RootOne Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms PSP InfiniStrip sonible smart:reverb
PREAMP
API 312 Mic pre Grace Design m201mk2 Millennia HV-316 Neumann V 402
PROCESSOR
AMS RMX16 500 reverb CEDAR Audio DNS 8D Eventide Blackhole pedal Lawo Power Core MAX
RECORDER
iZotope Spire Studio Lectrosonics DCR 822 Sound Devices MixPre-6 II Zoom H8
TO VOTE: www.resolutionmag.com/resolution-awards-2020-vote/ Autumn 2020 / 19
Awards
PreSonus ioStation 24c NIGEL JOPSON enjoys a hands-on experience of noise/hiss on quiet vocal recordings is refreshing. The maximum input level at min. gain (+16dBu) is also 3-6dB better than many competing desktop interfaces, and the resulting lack of overload benefits instrument amp recordings.
Sounding good
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his feature-packed interface and control surface first caught our eye back in January at NAMM in Los Angeles: the controls from PreSonus’ FaderPort V2, together with a 2x2 USB-C audio interface. Two XMAX mic preamps and 24-bit, 192kHz A-D/D-A converters, headphone and line outs. Another eye-catching feature is the price: just under the magic $300 point in the US, and typically around £260 in the UK. For around £100 more than the FaderPort, what do you get? Two mic/line inputs on Combo-XLRs with 48V, two balanced line outs on TRS with level and mute, a headphone amp capable of driving supposedly ‘difficult’ cans like Sennheiser HD600, and a source-playback balance control. One of the main annoyances with entry-level interfaces is their pathetic amount of preamp gain. The ioStation is truly unusual in offering up to 80dB of mic or instrument gain. The dynamic range (>107dB A-wtd, min. gain) and harmonic distortion (<0.007% 1kHz, min. gain) may, on paper, be matched by competing units; in actual operation, however, the ioStation can be used with the input gain at 50% or less, and the lack 20 / Autumn 2020
This is not the D-A for a mastering engineer, but I compared to my benchmarks (ten times or more expensive) and a couple of similarprice D-As. The problem with budget D-A is that cluttered, loud mixes get ‘shouty’ — then you don’t mix guitars loud enough; also, bass may be less than solid — then you mix too boomy! Andy Wallace’s mix of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is a tough test, and I’m pleased to report on the ioStation it sounded round in the bass, with slightly recessed upper mids and a feathery top end. A-B testing between converters, it seems ioStation had been voiced for energy-intensive rock; its sound will encourage attention to detail at the low end, and not force unwarranted cuts around 2-4kHz. Certainly very usable in the context of a production room or edit suite. PreSonus encourage product registration in order to download Studio One Artist software, plus content including Ableton Live Lite, tutorials from Melodics, 6 virtual instruments, and 9 plug-ins. I downloaded the Universal Control App, which updated ioStation with the latest firmware. For Windows users, Universal Control allows management of ASIO driver settings, and enables ‘loop back’ — for example to record audio from a video game for a livestream. By default, ioStation controls are configured for PreSonus’ own excellent DAW, Studio One (review, Resolution V19.4). For use with Pro Tools (HUI) the Next button is held while powering up, and then the Touch button pressed. For Logic (MCU) the Next and Mute buttons are pressed. The controls operate in a straightforward manner: Fader, Solo, Mute and Arm function for the highlighted track. Transport controls work as expected, with an added bonus: pressing and holding the Loop and Rewind button simultaneously sets the Logic cycle start point at the current timeline position, and pressing and holding the Loop and Fast Forward buttons simultaneously sets the cycle end point at the current timeline position. Anyone who learnt their trade using a tape autolocator is going to appreciate this.
Robust buttons & smooth fades
When the Pan button is illuminated, the central encoder on ioStation’s surface is track pan, when the Channel button is illuminated, the
encoder and Prev/Next buttons move between mixer tracks. I’ve always found moving around the Logic mixer particularly tedious on laptops, and the ability to race down a huge session’s faders with the encoder was great! I also found I could move around Logic’s mixer without staring at the screen too much (always a blessing), because the fader ‘clicks’ as it zips to a new position, giving the clue that you’ve moved 4-tracks to the right (or whatever). Talking of faders, I was particularly impressed with the smooth curves this 100mm motorized fader generated. I’ve never been a fan of the wonky and wobbly level moves generated by many encoders, but even when this baby was in Touch mode to update, the resulting level drives were pretty smooth. My favourite function, and saviour of my much-hammered laptop keyboard, was definitely the Scroll feature. Of course, on a pop song you’ve put your markers in… but being able to zip back and forth through the song bars with the encoder, or shuttle back and forth in increments with the Prev/Next keys, was a real winner for me. I am a tape-era engineer, and my first thought when transitioning to working entirely ‘in-the-box’ was to rush out and buy a large multi-fader control surface. Like many of my peers, I followed a familiar arc with ‘surfaces: disappointment at discovering they didn’t quite do what it said on the tin; rage at the amount of money wasted, and finally, resignation to work entirely with mouse and keyboard. What I discovered with the ioStation 24c was that it wasn’t so much the faders I’d missed, but the classic transport controls, and a better method of scrolling and selecting track functions (especially on a laptop). Combined with nice preamps for quick overdubs and a serviceable D-A, the ioStation makes a powerful case for it’s position on your desk. With it’s well-made illuminated controls, and at a super price-point, the ioStation 24c is a winner.
VERDICT PROS
Truly useful control functions, robust controls instantly configured for all major DAWs. 80dB of mic/instrument gain from 2 preamps. Amazingly good value.
CONS
None at this price, although if it stays on my desk I’ll need to start using a left-hand mouse!
www.PreSonus.com
Solid State Logic SSL 2+ RUSSELL COTTIER takes a look at a 2-in 4-out USB bus-powered desktop interface
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giant of the audio world has had a little baby it seems. The past few years has been interesting for Solid State Logic with a move from the encouragingly unaffordable to the relatively attainable. Success of products such as the XL desk and Matrix has clearly pushed SSL to expand its product range towards the more financially-manageable end of the market. Firstly it is worth noting that the 2+ is essentially the more featured sibling of the SSL 2 and offers MIDI I/O on DIN sockets and two headphone feeds. The unit itself is a nice compact size with controls on the slanted top panel. Definitely a wiser choice for a desktop type interface than using the front panel. The rear of the unit houses all the I/O so you can keep your desk space clear. This was actually surprisingly ergonomic without leaving a spaghetti of cabling across your computer area. There are two combo XLR/TRS sockets for the inputs, a pair of TRS sockets for Monitor output and four phono sockets that provide the discrete outputs 1-4. Whilst one could justify phono as useful for the semi-pro, I suspect this may have been a measure to allow the unit to be built to size and more importantly, to budget. Was this a problem? Not really, in fact it encouraged me to hook up the 2+ to a cassette 8-track machine that I had sitting in my studio for some fun audio processing. The MIDI DINs seems fine quality and allowed me to set up a nice little mobile rig with my Yamaha DX9 and V50 workstations.
USB only? No problem!
Finally there is a Kensington lock socket for anti-theft measures and a USB C socket that also provides all the
/ Handy for hardware synths — MIDI I/O on DIN sockets
power to the unit. USB C and USB A cables are provided. This was the point that I started to get curious as to how SSL managed to run a unit with low noise floor specs from 5V USB bus power alone. Stepping up the voltage for phantom power is a fairly trivial task as the current draw is relatively low but what kind of wizardry are the two preamplifiers, six line outs and two headphone amps using to get all that action from only 9 Watts maximum supplied by USB sockets that predate 3.1 standard? It certainly does provide enough power to run even a drum recording session with headphones up to max. I did some test sessions on an old windows laptop with USB 2.0 and the 2+ behaved impeccably. The front panel of the unit is a light brushed metal look with screen print that matches the look of other SSL products, though the unit is obviously made of much lighter materials than a Fusion for example. The front panel is dominated by a large blue SSL-style knob for the monitor level and there are knobs for gain on each of the two input channels. The right side of the panel offers knobs for input/USB audio mix, phones A and phones B levels.
Red glowing 4K buttons
Each input channel has buttons for 48v, line and a Hi-Z mode that can be engaged in line mode. The channels also have an LED level meter that usefully flashes in the red area when phantom power is applied, though there is no continuous indication of phantom apart from the button position. The pre-amps sound very respectable for a budget device and I managed to make some great recordings on them. I was initially filled with scepticism when I saw the channels’ red glowing 4K buttons, but actually again these are surprisingly usable. They add a high shelf boost and some saturation to model the EQ, VCA and bus compressor distortion of an SSL 4000 series console. These worked great for drums, guitars, and even bass DI but overcooked the top end a little with certain vocals. The input mix knob can be used to mix between the two mono input signals as a feed and the USB audio device output. This of course gives latency free monitoring. I found this to
be far less hassle than hitting submenu after sub-menu on my expensive studio interfaces. The Stereo button next to the mix knob allows the two inputs to be used as a stereo pair and forces a pan in the output mix. The four output channels allow phone mix B to be assigned to one of two stereo output feeds. The benefits of a separate headphone mix all powered by one unit are more than obvious on a location recording. SSL tells us that the 2+ uses AKM converters chips capable of up to 24-Bit 192kHz, the input A-D converters sound very good, but what about the D-As? Well they are perhaps not quite up there with my studio converters, but they sound good and I had no qualms about running a recording session and mixing a record on them. Mixes translated well and the outputs sounded nice and clear. The unit retails at £239 (inc VAT) and you get a production pack software bundle including SSL Native Vocalstrip 2 and Drumstrip, Native Instruments Hybrid keys, Pro Tools First, Ableton Live Lite and various samples. This unit will definitely be a game-changer in this price bracket.
VERDICT PROS Ergonomic layout. Bus Powered including two headphone amplifiers. Preamps sound very useable. CONS
Phono Sockets are less than ideal. Easy to overuse the 4K button!
www.solidstatelogic.com
Autumn 2020 / 21
Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms JON THORNTON is impressed by lush spaces and multichannel control of reverb propagation
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iquidsonics’ Seventh Heaven plug-in (review Resolution V16.4) turned a few heads when it was released. An impressive emulation of the Bricasti M7, it really shifted the goalposts with what is possible with plug-in reverb. The company have now turned their attention to multichannel reverb, and at the same time have thought long and hard about the specific needs of the post-production world when it comes to using (or abusing) reverb. The result is Cinematic Rooms. It should be stressed from the outset, that although many of the features and functions are built around a multi-channel workflow, Cinematic Rooms works perfectly splendidly in stereo — and I’d really encourage anybody involved in any form of audio production to give it a demo. That’s because, without beating around the bush, the reverbs are just stunning. Quite why this is could be down to the fact that the reverb engine was developed from the ground up — in part to deal with the demands of multi-channel work, but also to acknowledge that the processing limitations which defined older reverb algorithms are no longer relevant. So with an ‘achromatic reflection engine’ and ‘constant density reverb algorithm’, the intent was to build a best-in-class synthetic reverb.
The reverbs are just stunning
Whatever they’ve done, it certainly works. There’s a lushness to larger spaces that never really sounds synthetic, and early reflection patterns manage to avoid sounding coloured or phasey even when emulating very small spaces or ambiences. Cinematic Rooms is available in two versions — Standard and Professional. And contrary to what you might expect, both are completely multichannel capable — working in channel configurations up to 7.1.6. The Professional version does however feature a wider range of presets and unlocks one of the most powerful editing features for surround work. Fire up a stereo instance to start with, and you’re presented with a crisp, clean interface with an easy-on-theeye colour scheme. The master decay time control is front and centre, with areas for early reflections and reverberation components on the left and right respectively. Below the 24 / Autumn 2020
central decay time are two tabs which switch the UI between EQ controls (applied across the wet signal outputs) and the room definition parameters for both the reflection and reverberation stage. Further tabs in each of these sections switch between groups of these parameters. The UI fits an awful lot in without ever being overwhelming or cluttered. There are some other neat features in the UI too. The whole plug-in window can be scaled in size to suit your screen real estate. Presets can be filtered by minimum and maximum reverb time. And — more useful than you might think — any parameter can be locked to retain its current value when other presets are recalled — very cool for evaluating different presets but fixing the decay time, for example. Switching to a multi-channel instance changes thing up a gear. Whilst the UI stays largely the same, this really unveils the features that make Cinematic Rooms incredibly appealing in a multi-channel / post-production environment. The most significant of these is the ability to scale or bias nearly every parameter differently in different surround planes (available in the Professional Edition only). As a simple example, we might wish to have the overall decay time a little longer in the surrounds than in the fronts. And the UI is every bit as elegant here.
Multi-channel management
In a surround instance, a small icon showing a pictogram of the channel arrangement appears in the menu bar of the plug-in window. Clicking on this expands a view, that shows this icon (all surround channels — aka the master), together with an icon for each stereo plane in that arrangement. So in 7.1.2 you would get front, side, rear, centre and elevation. Clicking on any one of these, and then editing a parameter will then apply the scaling or biasing to that parameter in that plane. Switching back to the master, and subsequently changing the master value will then keep the proportions of that scaling intact, but allow overall changes. A tiny icon under the parameter shows that it has been edited in a particular plane — useful for keeping track of what you’ve
done. And all surround plane editing on a given parameter or parameters can be quickly and easily reset. The second key feature of note is the control given over the propagation of reverb in space. This can be free — in other words sound heard in one channel will produce reverb and reflections in its channel that will also propagate to all channels. Or propagation can be ‘locked’ to only the stereo plane for that channel, or disabled completely and confined to the source channel only. Together with some comprehensive ways to control the cross-feed for this propagation between channels (and modifying it in each plane to boot), this goes a long way to solving problems of reverb or reflections tracking the pan position of a source. These might sound like small things, but boy do they speed things up. Where you might have fudged a similar approach using multiple instances or multiple reverbs with different routing, it’s now done in a flash. And the ability to apply scaling to nearly every parameter in every plane is eyeopening in terms of sound design and creating immersive sound. Whilst variations of some of these approaches have been around in other multichannel reverb plug-ins (Exponential Audio’s excellent Phoenix springs to mind), they don’t come close to the scale and flexibility on offer here. You’d still have to prise Altiverb out of my cold dead hands for some things — but Cinematic Rooms might well be the only other reverb you will ever need for some years to come.
VERDICT PROS Fantastic sounding reverbs; clever and intuitive user interface; not too demanding of system resources; equally at home in stereo and multichannel workflows. CONS
You really need to shell out for the Professional Edition to get the most out of its multi-channel editing capability.
www.liquidsonics.com
/ Review
iZotope Neoverb NIGEL JOPSON gets a reverb assistant
unwound and replaced with more subtle or appropriate plug-ins. But delays and reverbs have been played to with every overdub and double-track, musical choices of vibe and tempo have been made around them, and removing or substituting something which every musician has tuned their performances to is very difficult.
Friendly Neoverb
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his year has seen an unexpected blossoming of reverb plug-ins, with developers focusing on control features which step outside the normal metaphors of early reflections and algorithm types. For iZotope, who have never had a reverb product, Neoverb represents the first fruits of their April 2019 acquisition of Exponential Audio, well known for R4, PhoenixVerb Surround and Symphony. Neoverb is billed as re-inventing “how a mixing reverb for the modern-day music producer should look, sound, and feel”. Building on the automatic configuration ideas iZotope pioneered with Neutron (review Resolution V15.8) a Reverb Assistant in Neoverb “helps you craft a customised reverb preset intelligently”. When instantiated, the plug-in window is dominated by a triangular central blend pad, which allow mixing (or muting by clicking the apex points) between reflections and two types of reverb. The reverb types can be selected between Plate, Large Chamber, M.Chamber, Room, Hall and so on with small <> buttons. Clicking a right-facing > to the left side of the Pad opens an advanced settings panel where Time, Size, Diffusion, Attack, Crossover and Damping may be adjusted for the reverb, and Time, Size, Diffusion, Angle and Lowpass adjusted for the Reflections. A small quaver note symbol next to both reverb sections and the Pre-Delay syncs Time and Delay to song tempo in the DAW. To the right of the interface are Pre Delay and Modulation controls, and the bottom of the window displays Pre and Post EQ curves.
Send in my reverb assistant
To the left of the preset chooser (logically arranged in ‘Vocals, Percussion, Instrument, Experimental’ folders and so on) is a Reverb Assistant button. When pushed, this displays a simplistic Style slider (Realistic to Dramatic), five Size choices, and four Tone buttons. “Play Audio and begin” the assistant commands at the top of this window. What this actually means is you (the operator) begin adjusting. The assistant’s help is not audio program dependant — you’ll get exactly the same Time/Size/Diffusion settings fiddling with the Assistant sliders
whether the audio is from a beat box or a vocal. Nevertheless, the Assistant window does a great job of shielding users unfamiliar with how controls like Diffusion and Attack might affect their audio, and gives a suitable starting point. The Assistant then proceeds to generate Pre and Post reverb EQ curves, which the user has to click on a button to accept. I’d characterise this reverb as ‘on the warm side of Lexicon’ — hardly surprising, as Michael Carnes, the founder of Exponential Audio, was Principal Engineer for Lexicon on the 960L. In truth, the sound is actually much closer to the Exponential Audio R2. A sympathetic, musical reverb — R2’s ‘Perc Plate’ and ‘Deep Ocean Hall’ — sprang to mind. Neoverb is a sympathetic reverb with a nice solid low end, and a manageable HF diffusion that won’t startle the producer. Mark Ethier, founder of iZotope, said “We started out building products that made sense to us as musicians, not engineers.” The Exponential Audio products, which have fed into Neoverb, are built from a totally different standpoint, targeted towards experienced professionals who understand exactly what they want when dialling up some ambience. As music production pros have shifted to roles as ‘finishers’ of recordings started by musicians, one of the thorny problems faced is the often-impossible task of undoing reverb and delay choices. Unlike the tracking projects of the past, sessions arriving for mixing today have often had the rough mix set in stone for months. Overly harsh EQs can be replaced and carefully sculpted, and ham-fisted compression can be
The extremely simple Neoverb reverb assistant offers ‘slider and switch’ settings more similar to setting tone on a guitar amp than deciding on early reflections on a quality reverb. The triangular Blend Pad offers simple creative tuning with the ability to mix (or mute) between early reflections, medium or large reverbs. The Advanced panel can be left shut, or popped open for tuning later by a mixer. But the master stroke is the final Assistant process, where pre and post reverb EQs are automatically set. Equalising a reverb send and/or return is a quick, easy, broad-brush method of retaining the spirit of an ambience while trimming overly boomy or clattery sound. But almost every musician I’ve watched recording themselves will instantiate a reverb or delay plug-in on the channel they are recording, rather than as a send and return, so this element of Neoverb is a very welcome addition to the plug-in. I can see Neoverb being recommended by mixers to their clients as a reverb of choice, because the risk of ambience drenching-out musical ideas is low, and the option for careful tuning later are many and varied. At the current price of $199 (regular $249) it’s good value, offering a huge variety of spaces — as demonstrated by the naming of the presets — which range from the amusingly-named ‘I can Haas’ through ‘Fat Plate’ to ‘The Abyss’. For connoisseurs of reverb, the overall effect is of individual plating of Lexiconic cuisine, with Reverb Assistant smoothing the path to a Mi-x-chelin star or two. Neoverb is a sweet-sounding reverb, well suited to acoustic and electric instruments, and guaranteed to sit well in most mixes.
VERDICT PROS Sweet sounding, Assistant makes it easy to operate, sits well with traditional instruments. CONS
Maybe not for DJ Smylie.
www.izotope.com
Autumn 2020 / 25
The
I think a good score becomes a character in the movie sitting on your shoulder — one that you embrace and feel belongs there
Mark Isham
Fresh from working on Bill & Ted Face the Music, DANNY TURNER interviews one of the movie industry’s most prolific composers
Photo credits: Photographed by Jake Isham; Art Direction by Tyler Parkinson
Interview
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merging in the ‘70s as a touring/session musician, working alongside prominent artists including Van Morrison, David Torn, Brian Wilson, Joni Mitchell and XTC, American jazz trumpeter and synthesist Mark Isham stumbled into the world of film composing when a demo for his album Vapor Drawings (1983) attracted the attention of director Carroll Ballard, who hired him to compose the score for the Disney drama Never Cry Wolf. Isham embraced the role and has gone on to record a catalogue of soundtracks over the past 40 years for lauded movies such as The Hitcher, Point Break, Warrior, The Conjuring, Crash, A River Runs Through It, The Black Dahlia — collecting numerous Grammy and Emmy awards, Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. If you want the numbers, it’s $4 billion movie gross, over 400 movies and TV shows, 200 albums, 100 nominations and 57 awards. Lockdown has seen Isham busy writing the score for the upcoming Bill & Ted Face the Music and live performing some of his bestknown soundtrack themes via online stream. Take us back to before you were a film score writer. Trumpet was your initial instrument, but why did you segue into electronic music? I came out of school as a trumpet player obsessed with jazz, but my father taught at university and came home one day with a record
/ Isham found an ARP Odyssey in a music store he worked in, and has been an analogue fan ever since
given to him by a friend at the music department who said “this is the future of music!” The record was The Silver Apples of the Moon by Morton Subotnick. Although I didn’t understand it, I was intrigued and it planted a seed. Pretty soon after I heard that The Beatles had used something electronic on their new record and Walter Carlos brought out Sonic Seasonings. From then, I just got obsessed with it.
Your debut album Vapor Drawings was quite cinematic. Did you see your early albums as promotional tools to develop a career in soundtrack? No, I don’t think I ever have. My mother played in the opera orchestra and I used to go to those rehearsals and loved the idea of music helping to tell a story. I’d written some music using traditional Chinese instruments, an ARP 2600,
Craft Album-Ready Recordings on Your Desktop
Z E N TOUR SYNERGY CORE
18 × 26 D E S K T O P AU DIO IN T E RFAC E W I TH ONB OARD RE AL -T IM E PLU GI N PROCES S IN G
Autumn 2020 / 27
Facility
Tall Pine Records Forest views with API Legacy — CAROLINE MOSS visits a brand new Baltic coast studio
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/ The 40m2 Room B is above the control room
This was clearly a good education for Sieradzki, who today presides over Tall Pine Records in Kolbudy, 15km from Gdańsk and its international airport, on the Baltic coast in northern Poland. Painstakingly designed and built from the ground up, the studio opened its doors on 14 February 2018, a fitting date for the labour of love it embodies.
From the ground up
espite being in a rock band, Lukasz Sieradzki knew at the age of 16 that he really wanted to be on the other side of the glass in the recording studio. “I had all the trappings of a musician: the long hair, torn jeans and Converse trainers with holes, but even then, I knew I’d have more fun recording than playing,” he explains. Sieradzki’s transformation from would-be rock star to recording engineer and, more recently, studio owner began soon after this teenage epiphany with the acquisition of a Tascam Portastudio. By 1996 he was working in a local cultural centre in Kolbudy, recording performances from a tiny studio next to the
concert hall. “Acoustic treatment was based on eggboxes and foam, and the recording system was built from two Intel Pentium 486 PCs with Sound Blaster cards connected to an Allen & Heath GL2400 live mixer,” he remembers. “It was a hard time in Poland, just a few years after the fall of communism, and only public radio stations had access to Western gear, but I was young and I could only learn from my own failures.”
/ Studio owner Lukasz Sieradzki
/ Control room centrepiece — the 48-channel API Legacy AXS
38 / Autumn 2020
The idea of creating his own studio occurred to Sieradzki back in 2014, when he started to plan what this ideal facility would look like. “First of all, my idea was to build a studio in an old mill in Kolbudy or a transformer station in Gdańsk,” he says. “It turned out that we couldn’t buy and convert historic buildings into recording studios, so the most rational decision was to build the studio from scratch.”
Enter MIDI Architects run by Alicja and Piotr Karaś, who worked with acoustician Marcin Czapiewski to create the studio from the ground up. The building has been constructed on two foundations, one for the 60m2 Live Room A and the other for the 35m2 control room and 40m2 Live Room B. Czapiewski, who studied acoustics at the Wrocław University of Technology, runs his own design company, ADU Marcin Czapiewski, specialising in recording facilities, listening rooms, theatres and lecture/conference rooms. He was introduced to Sieradzki in 2015 and worked with him throughout the entire planning, design and construction of Tall Pine. “We had three main goals: a great sounding main live room with a big, rich sound, mainly for recording drums; a comfortable control room with reliable monitoring; and a world-class, state-of-the-art design,” recalls Czapiewski. “We created a spacious main live room with 7.3m-high ceiling, with lots of wood and diffusion to provide a rich, dense sound. I used CATT-Acoustic software to study the sound reflections and reverberation times, combined with spreadsheet calculations. I was also using BEM simulation software to predict and analyse the low frequency behaviour of the smaller rooms and optimise the solutions, which differed greatly between the rooms. I used slotted and perforated resonators, absorbing and hybrid-absorbing materials and diffusing elements: both geometric and reflection phase grating diffusers.” Low frequency response in the control room posed a challenge. “I was using BEM simulation software to analyse and optimise low frequency absorption types and placement, as well as loudspeaker and furniture placement, to obtain the best low frequency response possible,” he says. “Reconciling all these elements was not so easy.” Sound isolation was provided by implementing a box-in-a-box construction and floating floors for each room, with customdesigned studio windows and a high-quality ventilation system designed to be almost inaudible even flat out. The latter proved to be another challenging part of the acoustic design process, according to Czapiewski: “Designing the ventilation system was difficult due to the available space, and I have to praise my colleague Adrian Bil for his effective and creative work.” Ultimately, the architectural and acoustic teams worked closely together to solve any issues and accommodate specific criteria. “Their job wasn’t easy, but they all understood each other’s unusual requirements,” says Sieradzki. “It was only this good cooperation that allowed us to create a great sounding building without compromise.” There was no compromise either when it came to selecting a centrepiece for the control room: a 48-channel API Legacy AXS analogue console. “The API Legacy was my dream from the beginning,” says Sieradzki. “When starting this journey, we decided to use a
well-known, large-scale analogue console as the heart of our studio. Today’s market offers many good consoles, but my priority was to get the best sound and quality. When I had to buy a console there were only two options — vintage Neve or API.” Ultimately, it came down to stability. “We are quite a large, fully-booked tracking studio, so great sound alone is not enough; we needed a console which we can rely on 24 hours a day,” he says. “API could offer us a lovely, big sound and invaluable support.” This support was provided both locally, by API’s Polish distributors Henryk Krol and Mietek Felecki
from Studio DR, and by the US manufacturer itself, which sent assistant service director Phil Cappelli to Poland to oversee installation of the Legacy. This has been custom-built and is loaded with 32 212L mic preamps and 48 550 three-band EQs, and features API Final Touch moving fader automation across all 48 channels, 48 channels of EQ and a 2500 stereo bus compressor.
API dual inputs deliver analogue options
Although Sieradzki was confident of his console choice, it also held a few surprises once the
Autumn 2020 / 39
/ Plenty of ceiling height, natural light and huge control room glass
sessions started. “After a while we discovered that it offers differences compared to other consoles, mainly in routing, which gives us a lot opportunities,” he says. “The first and most important one is that it’s dual input instead of in line. This means it’s a 48-channel console that in fact has 96 channels and six stereo returns, and all of them have line inputs, giving us the ability to record simultaneously onto multitrack tape and Pro Tools, and at the same time record repro outputs from the tape machine. As a result we are recording analogue sound with digital conveniences.” The second benefit of the API Legacy for Sieradzki was having separate bus outputs from direct outputs. “API has separated these outputs so it is possible, for example, to record different signals to Pro Tools and to tape, or derive stems during mixing, and use groups for parallel compression at the same time. Moreover, if some unusual patching is needed, everything is possible, thanks to the welldeveloped patchbay. Another lovely feature of the console is the Final Touch automation; it is so easy and intuitive. After a few minutes everyone understands it and can use it, even when tracking.”
/ Outboard galore, and a 24-track 2-inch Studer A827
40 / Autumn 2020
Other key pieces of equipment are a Pro Tools Ultimate setup with HDX2 and Apogee Symphony II and Avid 192 HD A-D/D-A converters. Main studio monitors are a pair of ATC SCM110ASL Pro wall-mounted speakers. “Apart from great and true sound, these monitors are becoming more and more popular so people know what they can expect from them,” says Sieradzki. A good selection of nearfield monitors includes Barefoot MicroMain26s, Auratone 5C Super Sound Cubes and Yamaha NS10s.
Vintage gear with soul
Clients hunkered down in sessions at the remote studio will be pleased to discover that an extensive selection of outboard equipment from the likes of Chandler, Neve, Tube-Tech, Universal Audio, API, Purple Audio, Empirical Labs, dbx, Yamaha and Lexicon is at hand. Sieradzki has also stayed true to his love of vintage gear while equipping Tall Pine; classic models include a Roland RE-150 Space Echo tape delay and an EMT 140 plate reverb, the latter currently undergoing renovation. And for those clients wishing to go fully analogue, a 24-track 2-inch Studer A827 that Sieradzki
found in Paris is available. “It was working at Disney studios as a spare and it had less than 1,000 run hours,” he enthuses. “It’s in mint condition, like new, and it’s used very often. A lot of people have never had the chance to record on tape, don’t know how to do it and are afraid of the ‘restrictions’ set by analogue, but given the ability to record simultaneously to Pro Tools and tape, a lot of people decide to use it. “Vintage gear has a soul, especially the microphones. During our sessions we use mostly vintage mics, starting from classic Unidyne through to the Telefunken U47. They are not as universal and reliable as new models, but they have great character. We often have to compare and choose between a few microphones, but this always gives great results. Maybe this isn’t such a popular way of working nowadays, but in my opinion there is no such thing as a universal microphone for everything. We need to put some effort into getting good sound and choosing the best option throughout the entire signal chain.” And there are mic options aplenty at Tall Pine, catering for every musical style and taste, with cardioids, ribbons and condenser models epitomising modern and vintage technology from the likes of Neumann, AKG, Telefunken, Royer, Coles, RCA, BumbleBee, Beyerdynamic, Electro-Voice, Shure, Sennheiser, AEA, Soyuz, Flea and Dynacord. The spacious Live Room A, with its high ceiling and spectacular forest views, can accommodate smaller orchestras, live track full bands and record big rock drums. Live Room B, on a mezzanine level reached by a spiral staircase from Live Room A which it overlooks, has a height of 3.4m and has been designed to provide a natural, musical response for smaller band sessions. There is also a 15m2 isolation booth for guitar, bass cabinet and vocal work. Adding to the inspirational views from both live rooms, which reinforce a connection with nature, the entire facility is constructed from natural materials such as wood, stone and high-quality fabrics. All the hard work that has gone into the planning, design and construction of Tall Pine is borne out by the fact that since it opened, the studio has been pretty much fully booked. In addition to back-to-back sessions, Sieradzki has also been organising a series of workshops, Back To Mix School, the first of which was with Sylvia Massy. “She is a very inspiring and interesting person, from whom we have learned a lot,” he says. More than two years down the line, Sieradzki still hasn’t shaken off the initial excitement and enthusiasm of having his own studio. “Despite having done many sessions, I still feel like I did just after the opening,” he says. “It’s been a very intensive time, and it’s still developing. I’m always thinking about what can be improved, trying to collect microphones … I love it and can’t stop!” www.tallpine.pl www.milocostudios.com/studios/tall-pine-records www.studiodr.pl.
Playlist
Resolution’s inspirational guitarists The death of Eddie Van Halen on the 6th Oct, and the public commentary on his legacy, reminds us virtuosity still has significance John Broomhall Guitarist Song Why
Chris Bailey Guitarist Song
Jeff Beck ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’ (Blow by Blow 1975) To me, a true original, an absolute one-off. Such emotion and yearning in his playing; it can be pure magic.
Why
Emre Ramazanoglu Guitarist Song Why
Ali Farke Toure Goye Kur (The Source 1993) There’s so much great playing, his raw live recordings are really awesome. He owns the amp and drives everything from his gentle understated playing.
Ian Shepherd
Nigel Jopson Guitarist Song Why
Eddie Van Halen ‘Hot for Teacher’ (1984, 1984) I was recording in the US in 1984. Eddie completely re-invented the way the guitar was played; his unique approach engendered a step-change for his contemporaries and successors. He pushed the Floyd Rose Tremolo to stardom — lock nuts and dive bombs. We take it all for granted now, but if you’d seen how other players sweated to learn his tricks, you’d understand how influential he was.
Bert Gedling Guitarist Song Why
Jim Hendrix ‘Voodoo Chile’ (Electric Ladyland 1968) My older cousins saw Hendrix at the Isle of Wight festival and bought the record. As Roger Mayer (who made Jimi’s pedals) said “Input from the player projects forward the equivalent of electronic shadow dancing”. You had to let your imagination go, to understand. The liberation of the human spirit after centuries of repression. With a wah-wah pedal.
Steve Vai Passion and Warfare 1990 This album is beyond incredible. There’s a track in there where he plays the guitar to mimic his childlike self at school in a discussion with the teacher. ‘The Audience Is Listening’ at the start. Baaaaad ass.
Photo credit: James Cumpsty
David Davies Guitarist Song Why
Allan Holdsworth ‘Tokyo Dream’ (Road Games 1983) A phenomenal grasp of chord progression and harmony means that Holdsworth’s music still sounds like no other.
Philip Newell Guitarist Song Why
Dave Mason ‘Look at You Look at Me’ (Alone Together 1973) Enormous power and fluidity under total control. It was jaw-dropping when I first heard it, and it has ever-since remained a benchmark for me.
Phil Ward Guitarist Song Why
Andy Gill ‘Paralysed’ (Gang Of Four 1981) How to make a guitar sound like you’re hammering at injustice, Thatcherism and all of society’s ills, like it’s a chisel and you’re standing at the Berlin Wall.
Guitarist Prince Song ‘Lets Go Crazy’ (Purple Rain 1984) Why This song was the gateway-drug that got me hooked on Prince, and all kinds of other stuff from there. I’d been listening mostly to prog and hair metal(!) but the iconic guitar solo in this track convinced teenage-me that eclectic was cool, and the diversity of styles on his albums at that time encouraged me to experiment with all kinds of other music.
Ed Lister Guitarist Song Why
Steve Vai ‘Tender surrender’ (The Seventh Song 2000) Simply such a ridiculous style of guitarist you can’t not love, this track (and all of his to be honest) are so unique in style and over the top technique you just drift away feeing like you’re listening on another planet! Perfect escapism for 2020!
David Hadzis Guitarist Song Why
Henri Don Jeany ‘The Rainbow’ (Living for Today, 2017) I was lucky to book and record South African guitar player Henri Don Jeany (who had toured with BB King) while producing a new Tony Hatch song for Petula Clark. He has the feel, the groove, and he understood it all… Autumn 2020 / 41
A Day in the Life
Thor McIntyre-Burnie Sound installation artist, sound designer and director of public arts company Aswarm — is he out of his tree?
7
.30am and I don’t feel I slept a wink, the night serenaded by rain drops falling from the canopy above onto this tin caravan roof; I’m also feeling somewhat invigorated, because I’m out working in the wilderness with an amazing company of creative folk for ten days in the whirligig woods of Cheshire. 8am We have four vertical dancers (aerialists), to rig on counterbalance lines from a glorious 500 year-old oak, but before that myself and rigger Simon have to figure out how to get six speakers 30’ up into its canopy. I want to animate this tree with periphonic sound. I’m here with one of the UK’s most experienced aerial dancer/ choreographers Lindsey Butcher, and we’re collaborating, co-directing a week of R&D for a project called A Heightened Sense of Tree. An idea inspired both by the concept of ‘Psithurism’ (the sound of wind in trees) and Lindsey’s performing in Canadian Red woods. We received Arts Council funding, initially in partnership with the National Trust in the New Forest.. 9am I’ve positioned two RCF Monitor 8s, one at the root bass, and one 20’ up the trunk, these will provide the core vertical plane and the 8” drivers some sub heft. Rigger Simon flings throw lines out from 40’ up in the canopy to midway along the taller branches, from which we haul up RCF Monitor 5s, then two lighter Control Ones on lower, wider, outrigging branches. The effect is the ability to shift sound up from the roots out to the branches, mimicking the tree 50 / Autumn 2020
sap path, and suck sound in like CO2 from the leaves down into the roots. Perched atop on old school desk rigged with an umbrella taped to a stick that fits perfectly into the ink well (it’s the little things), my MacBook pro, Logic and trusty old FA-101 soundcard fire up, and with a ‘whoop’ of delight it works! Although it is of course only one of ten different trees we’ll be working with — octopus week! In this instance my aim is to animate the tree so that it can work both as a stand-alone installation to walk around and also for the dancers to perform within. This illustrates my work with sound. I work best site-responsively. My career grew from pulling apart old TV’s on a Fine Art Degree in the ‘90s and becoming fascinated by how sound, when separated from its complicit partner of the screen, works with places, objects and context — and then how multiple channels of sound can create scenarios for audiences to walk within and ‘physically explore’ listening. A Music Tech course later I found myself doing a second line of work, sound design for theatre, dance and son et lumière in the arts festival sector, currently scuppered by COVID… 12 noon and I’m trying to squeeze in a group Skype meeting before lunch, about another project marking the 40th anniversary of the Brixton uprising of 1981, with Border Crossing Festival bringing Aboriginal Australian song writer Jessie Lloyd to work with Asher Senator (Smiley Culture) and various local groups. My task being to create a way for songs, cultural stories and voices to permeate from a network of key buildings. I’m trying to articulate how a combination of GPS-tagged audio apps and Aboriginal inspired painting on the pavement could work, when I realise my battery charging cable has failed and I’ve left the caravan door open… amidst a flurry of feathers, squawks, expletives and apologies, I try unsuccessfully to flush two over inquisitive chickens out, as my phone battery goes… 2pm I’m in a circle of tree’s trying to record a poet in between rain showers before his train departs. The aim being to cut-up his prose around a circle of speakers positioned at the base of each
tree, that will respond to a suspended speaker and 18” cymbal (with transducer) which swing like two pendulums in the circle between, from a catenary between trees high above. I’m enjoying how the recorded patter of rain on leaves phases between these two oscillating sources, the latter percussively playing the cymbal with rain both live and recorded. 6pm I’m being hauled up a line, back in the old Oak, juggling a Sennheiser 416 on a pole, MKE Platinum lavs on my head exploring the spatial soundscape: sub aqua water gurgles up the trunk, single thuds and pops of small pyro (which I recorded in a tube) burst up and whistle out onto the limbs, as long breaths (recorded in a hugely resonant space in Lebanon years earlier) suck air in, down, and out — like the tree breathing. Up here floating in the canopy, my thoughts turn to a concurrent project inspired by the altered sense of hearing lockdown gave us — The Diasonix Project. An online activity and game which asks two isolated people to play a form of ‘spot the difference’, but with their ears, each listening to one side of a pair of soundscapes with subtle differences between them. Created by five sound artists I commissioned with the help of emergency ACE funding in response to how they were hearing the world differently during lockdown. The project is an attempt to explore new ways of working with disparate ‘self-isolating’ audiences. Now I want to make a soundscape from up here! 11pm Having successfully tried plunging and then hauling an upturned dancer headfirst into a vat of water, side-lit, so that drips fall from her hair like an inked brush tracing the trunk, we’ve found an image that works gorgeously with the sound. Now for steaming mugs, boots too close to the fire, deadcat windshields under redhead lamps — perusing forecasts and plotting the next day ahead. Thor’s Website: www.aswarm.com Diasonix project: www.aswarm.com/diasonix2/
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