REPORT
REVIEWS
REVEALED
/ Monitoring focus: make the right choices / Eurovision: Rotterdam return / DSP room optimisation: Trinnov-ations
/ DPA 4466 & 4488: new headsets / Solid State Logic UF8: more DAW control / Synchro Arts VocAlign Ultra: get in line
/ WSDG: Studio design with NIRO / Heff Moraes: getting back in the game / NY Philharmonic: sound decisions
V21.3 | June/July 2021 | £5.50
The
Interview
Benjamin Wallfisch
Unleash your creativity
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/ Contents
22 V21.3 | June/July 2021
News & Analysis 5 Leader 6 News 12 New Products
Columns
14 Tim Oliver How has the concept of immersive audio evolved, what exciting technologies are available now, what’s on the horizon, and is it time for studios to adapt?
Craft
22 Benjamin Wallfisch The composer talks to Danny Turner about his writing and pre-production processes, his relationship with technology, and his new LA facility — The Mix Room 26 Heff Moraes Having stepped away from the audio world for the best part of a decade, Heff Moraes is back, with multiple projects on his plate and plenty to say about them to George Shilling 48 Thijs Peters The head of broadcast sound for the recent Eurovision Song Contest sits down with Gijs Friesen to talk about its unique challenges, and building redundancy into all its audio systems
Technology
30 Walters-Storyk Design Group & NIRO John Storyk, Dirk Noy and Romina Larrengina discuss their team’s eye-catching plans for a new studio that will act as a Paris base for Mix with The Masters with Jay Dean 36 Nearfield monitors We take a look at the some of the picks from the current crop of nearfield monitor options, as well as a quartet of monitor controller contenders 45 Trinnov La Remote and D-mon Mike Aiton guides us through the process of optimising a monitor set-up using the system created by French company Trinnov
Back To Business
52 Lawrence Rock The director of audio for New York’s Phiharmonic Orchestra talks about how he’s helped it respond to the last year, the rise of streaming, his working methods, ethos, and how he’s looking forward to getting back to a full season of live events later in the year
Benjamin Wallfisch
30
26
45
48
52
REVIEWS 16 18 22 23
DPA 4466 and 4488 Nugen Paragon VocAlign Ultra Solid State Logic UF8
June/July 2021 / 3
Evolution Wireless Digital
Evolving With You. Evolution Wireless Digital raises the bar by providing the highest dynamic range of any wireless system currently on the market, utilizing advanced features that simplify your setup and guarantee the most reliable connection. Maximize efficiency by taking full control with the Sennheiser Smart Assist app and automatically coordinate frequencies with ease. Increased bandwidth and the lowest latency make it the most powerful tool for those who put quality and performance above all else. www.sennheiser.com/EW-D
/ Welcome
Leader
John Moore
Editor/Content Manager John Moore john@resolutionmag.com
Contributors Mike Aiton, Dennis Baxter, John Broomhall, Simon Clark, Russell Cottier, Jay Dean, Gijs Friesen, Kevin Hilton, Tim Oliver, George Shilling, Rob Speight, Jon Thornton, Danny Turner, Phil Ward
Chief Executive Officer Stuart Allen +44 (0)7999 847715 stuart@resolutionmag.com
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T
The pro’s tool?
he first time I ever sat in a ‘highend’ studio, it was actually a mastering suite in Camden. I’m 99% sure it was The Exchange, but which room has been a subject of hot debate. Anyway, whilst that nugget of mid-90s nostalgia is now lost in the mists of time, the lesson learned that day was not... I was there with my friends, a band, sat in a (to us) lavishly equipped facility, staring at racks of strange dials, whatnots and whosits none of us had more than passing understanding of, to cut a 7” single. Mastering was still very much considered a black art back then, and this was exciting stuff. What’s more, the tracks had been recorded and mixed on a Yamaha MT8X cassette-based studio co-owned by myself and my friend and long-time music technology enabler, Jay Dean. We were only just University age when we scrambled together the money for the 8-track machine, that felt a light-year ahead of the Tascam Portas other friends had, and something we thought would put us in a similar league to the cobbled-together bedroom and demo studios we’d used to record our efforts up to that point. We were on our way; no reel-to-reel required. The MT8X sat in Jay’s shared house, often in the lounge(!), with a couple of mics and a Zoom effects unit. We thought it was the business, in the way only teenagers could. Jay had almost infinite patience and a willingness to push its limitations, and he’d used all tricks on these recordings, too — including creating a lovely reverse reverb on the vocals, achieved by... *checks historical documents* turning the ‘tapes’ over. Witchcraft! Or so we thought, anyway. Money, or lack thereof, meant there was only a standard hi-fi and headphones for monitoring, though. Maybe now you can see where this tale is heading… It took considerable time for a patient and
diligent mastering engineer to bring the tracks up to a releasable standard. Watching that process was, at least as I recall, my first lesson on the importance of good studio monitoring (and the need to show maximum respect to mastering engineers). Jay had done little wrong, but it just wasn’t right. It’s hard to convey the importance of monitoring to a lay person. Unless you’ve experienced its advantages, or — perhaps more likely — had an experience like this, it all seems very esoteric. However, when something you think sounds great turns out not to travel well because of bad decisions based on bad reference information, you learn lessons quickly. Heff Moraes (on p26) will tell you that it's a very rare talent that can mix in any environment. Mike Aiton (p45) appears to be on a one-man mission to prove just how problematic the belief that you ‘know your room’ can be. John Storyk and the team WSDG (p30), can regale all-comers with a list of common mistakes they find when analysing studios of all shapes and sizes. It always boils down to one question, though: are you getting good results because, or despite, of your listening environment? It’s a big distinction. Sat with us that day was another artist on the same label. It felt like his track took about 1/10th of the time and effort, and only needed minor tweaks. The engineer was impressed, and asked where it had been recorded. He explained that he worked at one of the (sadly now-defunct) large music tech retailers, and that the mix had been done at his home with equipment and monitoring obtained and loaned from there. It was another ‘home’ mix, but the difference was night and day. ‘Yeah, I did it in Pro Tools’, he said. ‘Pro Tools? Nice,’ came the nodding reply. It was the first time I’d ever really paid attention to that exotic piece of new technology. I wonder what happened to it?
John
June/July 2021 / 5
New Gear
New products A guide to the latest new hardware and software Solid State Logic
UC1
SSL is expanding its line of controllers with the UC1 – a USB-powered and connected device that brings the familiar layout and ergonomics of its desk channel strips and bus compressor to users of their software versions. It provides simultaneous multi-function control of the SSL Native Channel Strip 2 and Bus Compressor 2 plug-ins – both of which are bundled with the hardware – within a DAW session. Interestingly, at the heart of the UC1’s functionality is the new SSL 360° plug-in mixer, a piece of software allowing users an overview of all of the SSL channel strips and bus compressors applied in their DAW via one virtual console. This affords a graphical ‘console-style’ visualisation of the settings applied across a mix, which can be physically controlled by the unit via it or the individual plugin instances. The software will also provide similar instant access to current and future SSL-designed channel strip and bus compressor plug-ins going forward. The UC1 offers knob-per-function encoders, switches and feedback LEDs, with a moving coil bus compressor gain reduction meter in a style familiar to users of its original hardware incarnation and its multiple software imitations and models. Along with this, it offers continual on-board display of the plug-in currently in use, and a value readout of the control currently engaged SSL’s Native Channel Strip 2 and Bus Compressor 2 plug-ins are digitally modelled versions of EQ and Dynamics curves from the XL 9000
K SuperAnalogue console. The V2 iterations add the ability to trigger the dynamics sidechain externally, while Bus Compressor 2 expands its feature set with additional Ratio, Attack and Release options, the ability to trigger the sidechain externally, as well as 2x and 4x oversampling. The UC1 is available priced: £499 + VAT, $849 + Tax, €619 + Tax. www.solidstatelogic.com
Lawo
FabFilter
Waves
Lawo’s Radio v6.6 PL-003 software is an upgrade to On-Air Designer, used to customise the firm’s radio mixing consoles and audio cores. It adds the ability to load snapshots using extended logic functions, enhanced AES67 tools, and integrates control of Lawo A__line audio I/O devices. The update also adds new features to the configuration pages of Power Core, Lawo’s RAVENNA/AES67 mixing engine and I/O gateway device, and VisTool GUI Builder. Radio v6.6 applies to all Lawo radio products, including Ruby, Sapphire, Sapphire compact, Crystal and CrystalCLEAR mixing consoles, Power Core and Nova17 MK2 engines, VisTool MK2 GUI Builder software, and the On-Air Designer.
Timeless 3, the latest version of Fabfilter’s delay plugin, introduces a streamlined interface, five feedback circuit effects, four more filters, up to 16 delay taps, improved filter and saturation algorithms, a revised preset library, and more. FabFilter has “upgraded and optimised” its analogue-modelling algorithms, redesigned the interface to simplify operation with a new darker colour scheme and visualisation of delay time, feedback, and mix settings. The interactive filter display makes shaping the frequency simpler and a full-screen mode expands the GUI for maximum focus. Modulation sources and targets help visualise modulation signals and the new source flow area provides an overview of all active modulations. Five new ‘one-knob’ feedback effects — Drive, Lo-Fi, Diffuse, Dynamics and Pitch all shape the sound and be controlled with modulation from the XLFOs, Envelope Followers, XY Controllers, MIDI CCs, and more.
Waves’ eMotion LV1 live mixer and the SuperRack plugin chainer for live sound processing, as well as the SoundGrid Studio and StudioRack applications for low-latency recording and mixing in the studio are all getting software updates. The new code will add integrated monitoring sync between SoundGrid Studio and two DAWs — REAPER and Bitwig Studio — meaning users of those two pieces of software can now automatically switch Soundgrid I/O routing and toggle StudioRack’s input/playback modes from within the DAW, streamlining workkflows. It also provides support for the Waves MyMon personal monitor mixing app in SoundGrid Studio; graphic interface resizing options for all apps including eMotion LV1 and SuperRack, and more features and performance improvements.
www.lawo.com
www.fabfilter.com
www.waves.com
Radio v6.6
12 / June/July 2021
Timeless 3
Software updates
Antelope Audio
PreSonus
The Zen Q Synergy Core is Antelope Audio’s new bus powered14x10 desktop audio interface with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. Combining Antelope’s own AD/DA, and 64-bit Acoustically Focused Clocking technology, it offers recording, mixing, and playback at up to 24-bit/192kHz. It provides two Discrete pre-amps with 65dB of gain via combo mic/line/Hi-Z XLR inputs with phantom power. There are also two DC-coupled TRS line outputs allowing transmission of CV to an analogue synthesizer. Stereo monitoring is via another two TRS outputs, and it provides another eight additional input channels thanks to an ADAT connection. There are also two-channel S/PDIF in and out connections. DAW connection via Thunderbolt 3 gives 16-channels of bi-directional audio, there are two line/Hi-Z inputs on the front alongside two stereo headphone outputs with independent gain control over TRS. The Synergy Core functionality also affords access to Antelope’s range of ultra-low latency plugins and modelling options for tracking and mixingthat leverage the Zen Q's two DSP and single FPGA chips for real-time effects — 37 of which come as part of the package, including Antelope's AuraVerb reverb. Users can create customisable presets with signal routing, level adjustments, mixer and effects settings for easy recall as well as tailored monitoring mixes with adjustable volume, pan and reverb. The on-board Modeling Engine can also be used in pairing with the Edge line of microphones for real-time use of vintage microphone emulations.
Retro Mix Legends is a collection of Mix Engine effects exclusive to the Studio One DAW, comprising ‘Alpine Desk’, ‘Brit Console’, and ‘Porta Cassette’ available individually or as a bundle. The Mix Engine system allows an effect applied on any Studio One bus to simultaneously affect and cross-process all channels feeding that bus. In these cases, that can include features like crosstalk, noise, drive, saturation, and other elements defining the modelled hardware’s character. Alpine Desk aims to reproduce a classic ‘American console’, with Drive, Crosstalk and Noise controls — and a variable variable output transformer for higher drive settings; Brit Console applies the same principle to a classic British design, with unique noise modelling on every channel included and ‘Vintage’, ‘Super’, and ‘Modern’ options; while Porta Cassette draws inspiration from the four-track cassette recorders of the 1980s and ‘90s, including adjustable levels of wow and flutter and pitch adjustment settings that emulate tape speed changes but don't effect playback tempo. The three new options are available as part of a Retro Legends pack, or can be purchased individually.
www.antelopeaudio.com
www.presonus.com
Zen Q Synergy Core
Retro Legends
API
RME
UAD
In an update to its 527 500-series VCA-based single-channel compressor/ limiter — now called the 527A — API has expanded the feature set by including improved LED monitoring of Gain Reduction and a hard bypass option. This brings it into line with the company’s newer 529 stereo compressor units, and also the 2500+ stereo bus compressor, by making the feature sets more consistent across the company's 500 Series options. . The original 527 unit — and thus the updated version too - offered both feedforward (dubbed ‘New’) and feedback (‘Old’) compression styles, a link option for interdependent compression from a single sidechain, a Hard/ Soft knee options, as well as a ‘Thrust’ frequency-dependent sidechain control that adds a high-pass filter before the RMS detector, and output fader control.
As it warms up for its 25th Anniversary celebrations, RME has announced the Fireface UCX II, an update of its original UCX interface featuring 20+20 I/O channels in the same ½ rack-style unit, its SteadyClock FS clock and jitter reduction technology, 2x mic/line combo inputs and built-in parametric EQ. Direct USB Recording (DURec) means that means any input or output of the Fireface UCX II can be recorded directly to a USB storage device using the integrated DSP, which provides stand-alone operation without the need for a computer. The rear panel has ten analogue balanced line inputs and outputs, MIDI I/O and ADAT I/O. The RME TotalMix FX DSP mixer offers routing and monitoring options, as well as the DIGICheck Analyzer — allowing measurement and analysis of the digital data feed in both directions.
UAD's latest software update to its Luna DAW offers the possibility of utilising its first ever end-to-end analogue console emulation in a unique way. The Vision Console Emulation Bundle ($699), models API's L Series preamp, EQs, compressor, gate, filters, and summing circuits. It offers the low-latency live tracking UAD users get with its other plugins — that then switch to native processing for all mixing functions — but consolidates multiple plug-in windows into a single row in Luna’s mix screen for a large format mixer-like experience on the desktop.
www.rme-audio.de
www.uaudio.com
527A
www.apiaudio.com
Fireface UCXII
API Vision Console
June/July 2021 / 13
The Interview
Benjamin Wallfisch
Film composer Benjamin Wallfisch is pushing the boundaries of creative mixing at his state-of-the-art studio The Scoring Lab. DANNY TURNER delves deeper
Photo credit: Benjamin Ealovega
…it helps to treat the composing process in the same way that a filmmaker would experience working with a film editor, where they can directly influence the detail of a cue
M
ulti-award-nominated producer, composer and orchestrator Benjamin Wallfisch has worked as primary composer on dozens of A-list movie projects including the It franchise, Shazam!, The Invisible Man, and Blade Runner 2049 alongside longstanding friend and mentor Hans Zimmer. With over 25 albums released to date, Benjamin has also performed live at over 100 concerts worldwide, conducting orchestras from the Sydney Symphony to the London Philharmonic. Alongside renowned architect Peter Grueneisen, Wallfisch recently unveiled his new Santa Monica-based studio The Scoring Lab. Nominated at the 36th NAAM TEC Awards for ‘Creative Achievement in Studio Design’ the facility features some of the most cutting-edge studio technology currently available. Optimised for re-recording mixers, scoring engineers and composers mixing in Dolby Atmos, 7.1 or 5.1, the facility hosts The Mix Lab built in close collaboration with Dolby Laboratories. Did working with Hans Zimmer on Blade Runner 2049 make it doubly appealing to you? It was an unbelievable honour to be anywhere near Blade Runner and it blew my mind to get Hans’ call at the time. I still consider him a mentor, although we’d already worked on movies like Hidden Figures. When that conversation started it was really about our shared love of electronic music as well as orchestral. I’ve always been a die-hard fan of ‘80s and ‘90s synth music like Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre and when we had the first meetings and watched the movie it was obvious we’d have to get down to writing very quickly. Working with Hans, could you pinpoint something specific that elevated you as a composer? More than anyone I know Hans is able to translate the most abstract story point into a concept. With film scoring, you’ve got to find a mirror that’s fundamental to a movie. Often that takes the form of a melody or theme, but that could also be in terms of your choice of orchestration, structure or the rhythm of intensity of a score. So much of what happens in a score exists in the subconscious realm and Hans is great at finding a jumping off point that’s entirely distinctive. In this case, the score was built around the Yamaha CS-80 synth. Do soft synths still require a lot of effort to match that fullness and depth? A few years ago the answer would have been yes, but there’s an incredible instrument by u-he called Zebra. The filters and oscillators are enormous-sounding and the potential in terms of what you can craft with the LFOs and routing is almost limitless and just as impactful. A lot of it is about how you process the sound, and in the case of Blade Runner we used Studer tape
/ Benjamin in session at Abbey Road
Filmmaking is a team sport and I’m very lucky to have built a team that we can bring on board emulations to create the saturated warmth that you’d expect. 70- 80% of the soundtrack is Zebra but u-he Diva also provides some very distinctive patches too. There’s also a fantastic granular plug-in from Soundtoys called Crystallizer, which mangles those generated sounds. Film composers often have a team built around them. What processes do you implement to ensure sessions run efficiently? Filmmaking is a team sport and I’m very lucky to have built a team that we can bring on board. As soon as you finish writing you talk about the orchestration. My orchestrator David Krsytal and I must have done 15 movies together and he’s an absolute monster. He has his own team, but to get to that point I have assistants helping me to prep all the mix files and generate stems and MIDI files to send to orchestration. There’s orchestral contractors and editors involved, scoring engineers, the stage crew, and of course the musicians who bringing everything to life. How does the process evolve from demo to mock up to live orchestration? Some people use the word ‘demo’ for core themes or musical concepts that work for picture and show that to the director, but the
process has evolved to a point where I always show very finite mock ups to directors. For me, it helps to treat the composing process in the same way that a filmmaker would experience working with a film editor, where they can directly influence the detail of a cue. When you’re presenting a piece you can decide together whether a string or brass moment is required or if a choir is needed, but you also need to record it in such a way that it can be changed if the edit changes. Often the movie’s still being cut while you’re recording, so you need that degree of flexibility. Having orchestrated so many movies, are you now able to set up and record instruments instinctively? It definitely varies from film to film. For example, with Shazam! we were trying to achieve the classic orchestral sound of French movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s and therefore wanted to record an orchestra in a room together as much as possible with minimal separation, tracking and overdubbing, because that’s how they were recorded back in the day. With a hybrid score like Mortal Kombat, you’re layering and separating things out so you can have certain levels of control in the mix to combine all the synths and other elements. June/July 2021 / 23
Craft
…the reason they got those results is because they were brave; they were willing to take chances 10 number one albums, received a Grammy and two Brit Awards. Credits included Annie Lennox, Whitney Houston, Cher, Paul McCartney, Backstreet Boys, Will Young and Bryan Ferry. Moraes often ended up working for extended periods in LA, and with a young family back in London, he abandoned music altogether in 2007 to help his wife with her fashion business. He was lured back around 2016, and helped rebuild the recording studio at Tape London — part of a nightclub complex of the same name in London’s Mayfair, where he is also partner — and helped install a PMC monitoring system. Tape soon became a prime recording location in London for hip-hop, attracting major clients like Drake, will.i.am, Travi$ Scott, Migos, and Moraes has also worked there with the likes of AJ Tracey, Steel Banglez, MoStack and MIST. He now divides his time between making records, managing and coaching young producers (including the highly successful production duo The Elements), running Tape as a senior partner, and a role with PMC monitors at its new Dolby Atmos demo facility located at The Ivories building in Islington, London. What makes Tape so popular with the hip-hop fraternity? It's got extraordinary speakers, it’s a very well designed room. And there’s a Pro Tools rig, a good mic amp and a good compressor. That's all it needs.
Heff Moraes The former SARM engineering whizzkid is back in multiple new roles. GEORGE SHILLING finds him running a nightclub, a studio, and advancing the cause of PMC Monitors
B
ack in the 1980s, Heff Moraes landed a job at SARM as night receptionist, starting when Frankie Goes To Hollywood were at both Number 1 and Number 2 in the charts. He was soon thrust into assisting Stuart Bruce (Resolution V10.8) 26 / June/July 2021
on the recording of the Band Aid single Do They Know It’s Christmas? Over the next few years his talent developed and he became Stephen Lipson’s (Resolution V6.8) right-hand man. By 2007 he had acquired recording and mixing credits on nine number one singles and
What led you to choosing PMCs? Thirty years ago, myself, and Stephen [Lipson] went to Metropolis to master an album that we'd worked on for ages. Tim Young had these new PMCs. And we listened to the album and we were like, 'these are way too clinical'. But over the years, I kept coming across PMCs, and I was like, Oh my god, the lack of distortion is extraordinary. If you're recording a band, it helps if you're listening on big monitors, because there's so much distortion, it's a bit of a vibe. But, with PMCs, the lesson for me was you initially have to work harder to correct any issues, but once you’ve done that, whatever comes out of there, it's gonna sound great anywhere. I wanted to be able to make records that sounded amazing in the club. Now, PMCs allow you to do that, unlike almost any other speaker I've ever come across.
What inspires you in your multiple roles? When I came back into the music business in about 2016, my big vision was to return the UK back to its maverick, brave, great sounding record place. Because, from the 60s, musically the difference between the UK and the US, is that church is a big part of the culture there. People from the age of three are singing at least twice a week, great songs, difficult songs. And therefore they learn to be great singers and great musicians. In the UK, the musicians can be slightly inferior, technically, as musicians. Over here, we realised that we weren't quite up to it musically. So The Beatles must have gone, 'we're going to use technology and be brave'. And then people in America were like, How the hell are those guys making those records? Even Visconti came from America to learn how to do the shit that we were doing and took what he learnt to become a major trailblazer. Then in the 80s and 90s, with Trevor and Stephen, and a lot of the records that they were making — every time we went to America, people were like, How do you do that? And the reason they got those results is because they were brave; they were willing to take chances. I love UK hip-hop, and I'm very much part of it, but I feel it needs to become braver and take more chances. So when PMC first talked to me about this role, I realised, actually I can work with PMC in order to get their speakers into more people's studios, in order to give them a solid base. So it's really
/ PMC’s new Atmos-equipped demo studio in Islington, London
about talking to people and educating people about the basics of signal flow and all that kind of stuff. But also you can watch as many YouTubes as you want about this plug in or that plug in. But if what you're listening to is nonsense, it’s all nonsense. Monitoring is the most important thing. So what I'm trying to do in my mission is to help young UK producers to become brave. That mission aligns very nicely with PMC.
Are you talking about bravery in terms of the overall sonic character? Yeah, bravery in everything. Like, going from mono to stereo suddenly, or going from very dull to very bright, suddenly, that kind of thing. And also having a proper, clear picture of what's going on... I was talking to a guy who mixes a lot of drill stuff. And I was talking to him about this distortion thing. And he said, 'Yeah, but I distort everything, so why does it matter if
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June/July 2021 / 27
Craft
Walters-Storyk Design Group John Stroyk, Romina Larrengina and Dirk Noy on WSDG’s work on Mix with The Master’s new home in Paris, acoustic treatment mistakes, and not being software developers
A
s we wait for his colleagues from the Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG) to join us on a trans-Atlantic Zoom call, John Storyk’s effusing about a once-in-a-lifetime baseball blooper from the previous night's Pirates vs. Cubs game. As we talk, his phone pings in the background with messages from friends wanting to discuss the debacle. "I just don't know how to explain it," he tells us. This is the last time in an hour-long
conversation that he has that problem. When John talks business — his is architectural acoustics and technology — he has plenty to say, and a seemingly bottomless well of studio design experience to draw from spanning back as far as his reputation-forging work on Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady studio with Eddie Kramer, and running on through countless other eye-catching builds. We've got together to discuss his company’s designs for a new studio project in Paris, where it is
/ From left: Coordinating the project on the ground in Europe is Dirk Noy; John Storyk, and the team at WSDG’s research group has spent three years developing NIRO; and Romina Larrengina, whose New York team produced the designs based on NIRO’s advice and Mix with The Master’s well-defined requirements
30 / June/July 2021
overseeing the creation of a new base for Mix with The Masters (MwTM). Founded by Victor Levy-Lasne and Maxime Le Guil, MwTM made it's name offering exclusive educational seminars at the La Fabrique facility in the south of France that deliver a week’s worth technical and career tutoring from some of the most experienced and best-known studio practitioners on the planet. In more recent times, it has parlayed its reputation into building an online portal stocked with content that reflects the ethos of those events, and features many of the same big names. The concept of its new home in the French capital is a studio layout built around a centrepiece main seminar/control room that’s big enough to host 15 students. They will sit behind a lift-mounted SSL console, outboard racks and nearfield monitors that can be lowered (we like to think Thunderbirds-style) into a floor cavity. This will allow the space to be utilised as a large live room by the facility's second, smaller, control room, meaning the site can also operate as a commercial recording concern when it is not being used for teaching and filming. At the moment, though, the nascent studio is a building site, and a very detailed set of renders
JS: We abandoned the work that had been done on the interior. All the treatments etc. That was a condition. We just threw that away and started all over again. Would you still take on a project if it had needed to be started from scratch? DN: We would have been honest, we would have told them: ‘Hey guys, I'm sorry, this will not work. We need to redo this and this and this…’ But it was a good, intelligent concept. We did make one or two small modifications, a few repairs — an additional door, some window sizes — things like that could still be changed.
So what were the design priorities? I assume aesthetics were quite high on the list as much of this is a potential in-camera location? JS: The first thing we did was the all-important low frequency analysis — which is really the heart and soul of most control room design. We get the internal room acoustic analysis done, this tells us where we need treatments, where we need dampers, etc. That's a complex process, where we use our experience and proprietary software called NIRO — Noncuboid Iterative Room Optimisation — that we've spent three years developing. It figures out where we need dampers and optimising
THE NEW
mc2 36
created by WSDG's designers, led by director of production Romina Larrengena who joins us on the call from her New York office to talk about the details of how their work was created with the help of a very interesting piece of proprietary software by the name of NIRO. Running the project on the ground in Europe, is Dirk Noy, senior acoustician and lead principle of WSDG's Europe office, based in Basel, Switzerland.
AT A GLANCE All-in-one audio production console – powered by A__UHD Core technology Built-in comprehensive I/O incl. Lawo-grade mic pre-amps Frames with 16 and 32 faders
NEW: 48 fader version
256 DSP channels
Get more information here!
864 channels I/O capacity 48 – 96* kHz operation IP Easy – IP setup as simple as analog with Lawo HOME
https://lawo.com/mc²36
* future release
So what was the starting point for the Mix with The Masters project? John Storyk: Mix with The Masters had this dream to build a second facility in Paris. They started the project, but not with us; they created an interesting design and started construction. At that point, we got a call. That's not the first time that's happened with us, but it’s not typical. Dirk went to Paris, just to check it out to see if this was a project that made sense for us and one that we could bring meaningful input to. Dirk Noy: When we first went there, in February, we found that [the design] was robust. We had to fix a couple of things that were not ideal, but the general bones of the structure, and the layout of the rooms made sense. The workflow, and the space, and the room dimensions — the height, etc. — were acceptable for us. We're then putting the meat on the bones; the interior acoustical treatments, the technical infrastructure, acoustical studies of how to pick and choose the materials in the right place, the right material type, the interior design, colour scheme, all those things. It's a full WSDG project from there.
SLEEK. STUNNING. STELLAR.
www.lawo.com
June/July 2021 / 31
Monitor Supplement
Focus: Monitors Making the right choice when choosing monitors is essential. The only problem is, there really isn't a right choice. The best you can do is make the right choice for you and your environment; everyone hears differently, and no two rooms are the same. Wouldn't life be easier if that wasn't the case, though? Over the next seven pages, we look at a range of options for nearfield monitoring that vary greatly in price and approach, but we're pretty sure there's something in there for everyone. After that we look at a few control and optimisation approaches that can greatly help make life easier, sound better, or both...
ADAM
Amphion
The most popular speaker in Adam Audio’s range, and one that’s been around for a good decade now, the AX7A features its own iteration of the Acoustic Motion Transformer (AMT)-type tweeter. Here it’s called the X-ART (eXtended Accellerated Ribbon Technology, should you be wondering), and is paired with a 7” woofer in a frontported enclosure design. Power is bi-amped, with 100W+50W provisions to the woofer and tweeter respectively — the former being Class D (PWM) and the later Class A/B. The quoted frequency response is between 42Hz-50kHz with a max SPL per pair of 114dB @1m. High- and low-shelf EQ is available (+/- 6dB at >5kHz and <300Hz), while tweeter gain can be adjusted by +/-4dB. While the AX7As are a long-established favourite for smaller and project listening environments, the AX range offers a couple of bigger options, and Adam Audio also provide a range of Subwoofers to augments them should that be needed. The same elements as this unit are also found in the powerful AX77A mid/nearfield model, which utilises a 2.5-way system where one of the two 7" woofers it holds 'fades out' above 400Hz to limit potential for phase cancellation in the mids.
Amphion’s new-look BaseTwo25s are an update on the company’s ‘lowfrequency extension system’, which serves to extend and improve the low-end response of a monitoring system. Though they’re designed to be twinned with any of Amphion’s monitor range (or any other comparable monitoring system), the company is keen to stress they’re not a subwoofer in the traditional sense, but rather an effective way to augment a two-way nearfield system and create a three-way solution — in a way that not only improves bass clarity but will also improve midrange performance by passing off the lower frequencies the BaseTwo25’s woofer in a graduated way. This alleviates issues that can arise with steep filtering while taking the bass response down as low as 20Hz in a coherent way. The new system configuration twins the line’s existing full-range towers, with its back-to-back configuration 2x 10” woofers and radiators configuration, to the new BaseAmp1200 — a 2U unit that combines a 2x 700W amplifier with Amphion’s discrete filtering module, offering a crossover selection (40, 60, 80, 100Hz) and variable-level attenuator. There is also a bypass to switch operation in and out as the task demands.
www.adam-audio.com
www.amphion.fi/create
AX7A
36 / June/July 2021
BaseTwo25
/ Monitor Supplement
ATC
Barefoot Audio
While many studios, and some Resolution writers, continue to swear by the larger ATC SCM50s, the scope of this focus section means we’re inclined to pick these compact passive 2-ways out of the pack. Available in active (discrete MOSFET Class A/B bi-amp with 200W/50W continuous power delivering 108dB SPL per pair @1m) and passive configurations, they feature proprietary ATC 150mm/6” mid/ bass driver and 25mm/1” dual suspension ‘S-Spec’ Tweeter with a crossover point set at 2.5kHz, delivering frequencies between 55Hz and 25kHz (-6dB). In both their incarnations, these speakers sit squarely in the middle ground between the smallest offering in the company’s expanding Pro range, the SCM12s, and the larger units the firm has been associated with for much of its near 50-year history. However, everything up from here is active, with the next step being the SCM25A Pro 3-way system.
Barefoot Sound’s updated version of its signature MicroMain speaker features its MEME (Multi Emphasis Monitor Emulation) tech, which the company says models the essential response and translation characteristics of other classic studio monitors — ostensibly to save the us the trouble of rigging up other tried and trusted secondary reference monitors (those Cubes and NS10Ms), as well as new electronics and drivers. The unusual Barefoot design features five drive units: 2x 5¼ ” mid-bass driver and ring radiator tweeter, with 2x side-mounted 10” aluminium-coned subwoofers that operate in a ‘dual force’ manner. This means theythey're set back-to-back and physically joined together internally — thus when they’re run in phase their movements cancel each other out and reduce vibration at high volumes. Crossovers are set at 100Hz, 600Hz and 3kHz. Barefoot describes this as a ‘3.5-Way’ design, and it offers a frequency response of 30Hz-45kHz (+/-3dB). It is four-way powered, with 500W for the subs, 250W for each of the mid drivers and another 250W for the tweeter.
www.Atcloudspeakers.co.uk
www.barefootsound.com
SCM20 ASL/PSL
MicroMain 27
www.pmc-speakers.com
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TM Advanced Transmission Line
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June/July 2021 / 37
/ Monitor Supplement
Monitor Contollers Genelec
Grace Design
Genelec will soon be marking the 15th anniversary of its GLM loudspeaker manager software. Now on version version 4, which we featured in detail back in Resolution V19.6, it has come a long way in terms of look, feel and operation over that time and is now heavily integrated with the company's Smart Active Monitors and subs. The GLM system utilises a network interface, measurement microphone, and the SAM DSP to optimise speaker response and phase whatever combination of Genelec equipment and/or listening positions the user sees fit to check. The process is operated via a slick software GUI, which had an overhaul for the latest incarnation, and provides a user-friendly front-end for the underlying ‘AutoCal’ process and any other EQ changes you may wish to make. Different combinations of speakers and listening locations can the be saved as Groups, and recalled when needed from the GLM software and/ or stored in the cloud. A single Group can also be saved to the speakers as a default setting to remove the need for software activation.
Grace’s latest monitor controller delivers multichannel and immersive audio monitoring in formats up to 24 channels. The system comprises three parts: the Audio Control Unit (ACU) is a 2U rackmount unit handling audio I/O and DSP (which includes bass management and comprehensive EQ options); the RCU remote and a PSU. The ACU comes with 68 potential digital inputs (AES/EBU, ADAT, USB2 and TOS-LINK), 24 digital outputs (AES/EBU) and 16 channels of balanced analogue outputs. Options allow a further 32 channels of I/O over either Dante, MADI or DigiLink, and up to 16 analogue inputs. Additional rear panel connections are available for word-clock, an external talkback microphone, talkback footswitch and output. In a recent Resolution review (V19.6), Jon Thornton concluded the RCU was “a nicely engineered and tactile piece of kit,” while the audio quality of the system was “astonishingly good.”
www.genelec.com
www.grace-design.com
Merging
Trinnov
Ostensibly an audio interface, the Anubis’ use of so-called ‘Misson’ operation profiles make its potential use case scenarios much more varied — yet simultaneously highly specialised. Recently, its new ‘Music’ Mission has re-cast it as a pro/ project studio tool for tracking and headphone monitoring, but when we reviewed the unit in Resolution V21.1 we were considering its then-singular ‘Monitor’ mission, which placed it as an AoIP-savvy monitor controller. In Jon Thornton’s words: “describing it simply as ‘an audio interface’ is seriously underselling it… That much is obvious from its colour capacitive touchscreen and large, gorgeously weighted rotary encoder. Dedicated illuminated buttons with icons for speaker and headphone selection, mute and talkback make it obvious that at least one of its capabilities is as a flexible monitor controller — and that it is — up to 22.2 monitoring.” All this is Ravenna reliant, but if you’re considering utilising AoIP connectivity going forward, this unit deserves a very close look.
When it’s packed with technology and processing as interesting as Trinnov’s room correction algorithms are, it’s easy to brush over the talents of its D-Mon in its primary role as a monitor controller. However, as Mike Aiton’s exploration of that system on page 45 asserts, with additional features like bass management, simulated dynamic range control, downmixing, headphone cue mixes, an internal routing matrix, the GPIO and Avid Eucon integration (S6, S5, S3, Dock, D-Command and D-Control)... “The world really is your oyster.” With the ability to integrate up to 12 speakers into flexible, optimised (or not, should you wish) ‘mix-andmatch’ set-ups using a whole host of I/O — and all operated from a dedicated controller or web interface — there really is a lot of powerful, time-saving, and workflow-changing stuff possible with this 2U unit and its eyecatching calibration mic. It comes at a premium, yes… But there’s a return on that investment.
www.merging.com
www.trinnov.com
GLM 4.1
Anubis
44 / June/July 2021
M908 Monitor Controller
D-Mon and La Remote
Technology
TRINNOV D-Mon & La Remote MIKE AITON goes 'to inTRINNity and beyond' in search of La Ultimate monitor controller.
T
rinnov Audio, the charmingly clever French audio boffins who research the processing of acoustic fields in 3D, have sent me a D-Mon 12 Integrated Monitoring Processor with their new remote controller, jauntily titled (with not a hint of ethnophaulism) 'La remote', to Trinnotest (to obsessively compulsively test, to within an inch of its life) for a couple of weeks. The Trinnov quite simply turns your monitoring and your room inside out and reveals the truth, so in deference I am writing this review back to front with the conclusion first.
Are You Missing The Point?
Looking for a monitor controller that you can trust for immersive audio? The Trinnov D-Mon is one of the best, cleverest and most flexible monitoring controllers in town. Because we as an industry are still almost all in total denial of our monitoring and room deficiencies, many of us have been pigeonholing the Trinnov D-Mon into the audio awkward room. “Oh I don’t need one of those, I know my room” or “I just add an EQ” or “Aren’t they kind of expensive compared to Sonarworks?” We have been doubly missing the point, by not wanting to admit the truth. Not only can this clever box and its programmable remote help your monitors to be the best and the most truthful that they can be, it can help them integrate into the most modern workflows too. Top-flight totally flexible monitoring control with acoustic genius built in — what’s not to love? With both functions built-in, as well as efficacy, comes massive cost efficiency. The two functions share the same hardware. Think of it as two for the price of one! With its internal computing cleverness comes the ability to be almost infinitely flexible in features. It’s high level software monitor control! If you want a monitor controller for stereo and for surround (with multiple outputs) or want to be able to mix music in Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 and immersive formats, then this should be the top of your list (oh, and it can also take care of your acoustic
issues with correction for physical speaker position, phase, EQ and acoustics too). So, as a quick recap for those who have not met a Trinnov, let's dive into the box itself and how I used it.
The hole truth
The last time I tried a D-Mon I learned the hard way that the biggest lie in professional audio is perpetuated by virtually all of us: “I know my room”. You think you do, as you may be familiar with the nodes (the obvious humps), but most of you have never officially met your anti-nodes (the dips), and you have no idea of what you are missing — you are getting the hole truth, not the whole truth! So, although we all gayly spend lots of money on Brand X monitors, “mine are flatter than yours” and “these translate really well to the mix stage” and brag about them ad nauseum on forums, and most of us spend some hard-earned pounds on good stands, less of us spend money on getting our acoustic treatment right or ensuring good accurate monitoring paths.
Set phase to stun?
“My monitors are accurate — they are truly flat”, unfortunately that’s less than half the story, even if it were true, which sadly for many brands it just isn’t. The frequencies of a signal need to be reproduced accurately, but so does the timing (phase). As mere mortals (albeit sometimes with ‘spendy speakers’) we are sensitive to phase between approximately 300-3000Hz due to the 20cm distance between our ears. So, if you think you can just EQ your way out of bad monitoring or a poor room (yes, you — cinema mixers!) then think again. Phase kills! As a post mixer, if you have to premix in one room, and final mix in another, then the two things you are most often battling with or continually adjusting are the atmospheres and the reverbs. These are both highly phase dependant. Room tones and atmospheres are like pink noise and very broadband. If you have nodes, anti-nodes or startlingly fundamental phase errors you will have almost certainly made inaccurate and poor choices with your EQ or your reverb balances. Had a listen to your
/ Trinnov's tiny La Remote balances simplicity and flexibility well
June/July 2021 / 45
Craft
Thijs Peters The head of broadcast audio at the European Song Contest talk with GIJS FRIESEN about getting back to some semblance of normality
48 / June/July 2021
vacation to talk about the event from a broadcast audio perspective. Can you introduce yourself and tell me how you got involved with ESC? I started off more than 30 years ago as an audio engineer at the Dutch Broadcasting Facilities (NOB Audio), but together with a partner I started a business for myself. I built a small Audio-OB van, with which we got hired a lot. So I built another one and slowly our business (dBmg) grew into a company with four trucks and 10 audio engineers. Five years ago I sold the company, and now I am working as a selfemployed audio specialist. Because of my many years of experience I had various connections with the NPO/NOS/AVROTROS. I was involved in the 2018 edition of ESC as well, so I think they found me because of my overall experience in the broadcasting industry in combination with my prior experience with the ESC.
/ Thijs Peters
As a Head of Broadcast Audio, what did your day-to-day work look like? Most of my work was done long before there was anything going on at Rotterdam Ahoy, the venue where the contest took place. I worked closely together with Jeroen ten Brinke, the Head of Live Sound at ESC, and together we made a plan from scratch to make all the technical bits and pieces come together and we assembled an audio crew consisting of 40 audio engineers.
Photos: Ben Houdij and Nathan Reinds
T
he Eurovision Song Contest, the world's biggest live music event, took place in Rotterdam, The Netherlands this year. Even in it's 65th year it remains very popular and according to the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) no less than 183 million viewers tuned in to this years' edition. The show was produced by the NPO/NOS/AVROTROS for the EBU and some of the biggest broadcast, lighting and live sound companies in The Netherlands worked together to deliver all the technical facilities and people. Broadcast companies NEP The Netherlands and EMGUnited joined forces and were the official technical supplier of Broadcast Services. They worked together with Ampco Flashlight (Official technical supplier of live and wireless audio). Thijs Peters was Head of Broadcast Audio during this year's ESC. With the hustle and bustle of show preparation behind him, Resolution briefly interrupted Thijs' well earned
What I did there was checking if we were actually doing everything we were supposed to do. I was also in very close contact with the contest team, to function as an intermediary between them and the technical crew. There were 38 countries participating, so that means you also have 38 opinions from delegations, who all want the very best for their performance. Sometimes it was really easy to do what they wanted, but sometimes it was almost impossible to do it in practice. Do you have an example of that? Well, you have to be able to read between the lines. If someone asks me to boost 0.5 dB at 8kHz on the lead vocals, then my conclusion is that they are pretty happy with the sound! There are so many things that are not consistent during a performance, if someone is holding the mic in a slightly different way the sound is changed a little already. So boosting that 0.5 dB is possible, but it's impossible to hear the exact effect of this during the show. Also we noticed that during the final, everyone was singing louder. You just have to use your ears and change the level or EQ accordingly.
also connected via MADI. They sent us their signal and we split that and gave it to the P.A. and monitoring people. But we also put the MADI signal back into the Dante network. We made sure everything was available on both MADI and Dante streams. For mixing the music, we built what we called 'The Music Room'. This was a big container with two Lawo mc2-56 Mark III desks, a main and a backup desk. Music Producer Thijmen Zinkhaan mixed all the music from there. So with this setup we created the 'international feed', which is the whole show except the commentary feed. Those feeds were done completely separately, as is usually done at
international events. Riedel, who was also responsible for all communications at the ESC, had an exclusive deal with the EBU to make all those commentary feeds. They used their own MediorNet system for this. It's all IP feeds going straight to the MCR of the countries. So it's 'two of everything' for redundancy purposes. Can you tell me something about that? Yes, two OB-vans, two FOH Digico SD7’s, two MON Digico SD7’s, two Lawo's for mixing music and everything was available in both Dante and MADI streams. Redundancy made the process
So it is not just a matter of recalling snapshots? Switching the cameras was a fully automated process, all timecode based. But for audio, we didn't automate much. We did recall a snapshot per song, but there was no automation, except on the effects. Changing parameters on the reverb or delay units during a song can easily be automated. Can you talk us through the complete audio setup? Let's start at the FOH-world, where all the Shure Axient Digital receivers were located and from there they were connected via Dante & MADI to our Lawo desks in the OB-vans. We had two OB-vans (NEP UHD 1 and UHD 2) where the programme sound was created, so that is everything except the music. UHD 2 was the main OB van, UHD 1 acted as the backup. At the audio heart of those trucks is a Lawo mc2 56 Mark III audio console. From there we used MADI to send the audio to the backup setups. The Playback-world (the place where all the music tracks were started, located between the F.O.H. and monitoring setup) was
If someone asks me to boost 0.5dB at 8kHz on the lead vocals, then my conclusion is that they are pretty happy
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June/July 2021 / 49
Back to Business
guided the Philharmonic through an explosion in the recording of sound and vision — both as an augmentation of its archive, as content for broadcast, and latterly via social media and streaming. His work in New York has garnered him three Grammy awards, all connected to his work with John Adams on On the Transmigration of Souls, which he co-produced with the composer. He’s also worked with Lorin Maazel on The Complete Mahler Symphonies, Live; Deutsche Grammophon’s New York Philharmonic DG Concerts CDs and downloads; the Grammy-nominated Sweeney Todd: Live at the New York Philharmonic and sets for the New York Philharmonic Special Editions label among many others. Our chat interrupts his preparations for the return of the Orchestra to the annual Bravo! Vail event in the Colorado ski resort during July, and comes as he is assessing the success of its first couple of New York-based parks concerts and socially distanced events of 2021 — the first having been being at the West Side’s new ‘Shed’ space at Manhattan’s Hudson Yards, followed by the annual Memorial Day concert that you can see on Phil+.
Lawrence Rock As the New York Philharmonic, along with its home town, begins to return to something approximating normality, we talk to the Orchestra’s audio director about his evolving role, the challenges of streaming, mic choices, and saving a lost year
T
he venerable New York Philharmonic was inspiringly agile in its response to the pandemic’s encroachment on life in the spring of last year. Almost immediately, it began to enlist its long rollcall of talent for home performances, and put out content over its social media and YouTube channels that branched out in scope and scale as 2020 dragged on. Come Autumn/Fall, its musicians and technicians were out on the streets of Manhattan performing for its followers. Then, in February of this year, it launched its NYPhil+ subscription streaming service, to both leverage its considerable archive of classic performances — which are being remastered for it — as well as present new events from its programme for the upcoming season and beyond. Lawrence Rock — who, in reliable audio engineer style, quickly insists we call him ‘Larry’ — has been audio director of the Phil’ since 1997, with a purview that puts him on point for all audio activities including recording, 52 / June/July 2021
broadcasting, and live sound. So, to say he plays a key role in how the general public interacts with the Orchestra in real life and online would be an understatement. Having cut his teeth in radio and then with the symphony Orchestra in Chicago, he has
Does it feel good to get back to something akin to normal events? I spent a lot of last year preparing performances made from iPhone recordings of individual musicians. It was a good thing to do to be visible and audible, but it really ran its course. From last fall, we started to do various things — mostly location video captures. The first event we did indoors was in April for a small invited audience. Then you did the Memorial Day event at St. John the Divine? This year we streamed it live, too — which is always a little scary because you rely on the internet. That was also with a live audience, but very distant. We didn't have a stage this year to spread the performers out. There’s an eight second reverb time there as well, so it's a bit peculiar as, as it goes.
I assume the biggest change within your job has come been the rise in the amount you’re recording, especially with the streaming and filming the concerts? Yeah, it really has changed, and ever since March 13th of last year, video has figured prominently. There are requirements for doing audio for video, including — of course — the sampling rate. The video standard is 48kHz, but all the archival recording I've been doing, ever since 96kHz became practical, has been at 96kHz. You can convert rates, but when it's live you have to decide about that. You're also always having to keep in mind what’s going to happen to this audio... Dynamic range is another can of worms. Do you just have to make an educated guess about limiting dynamic range? It seems that, ultimately, all you can do is make a call based on taste and experience? Yes. The problem — either feeding it live or uploading it — is what algorithm will be applied to it as a matter of course by YouTube, Facebook, Amazon or whatever. Regardless of what I do, it's going to go through something else, and then the data compression. You don't want to feed something that's wide open and totally uncompressed hoping for the
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best down the line, because it's inconsistent. Nor can you pretend what you're doing is exactly what's going to be represented when people are streaming. So it ends up being an approximation. It’s a bit of a shot in the dark, because you don't know — and it can vary from time to time, instance to instance. On Memorial Day, we began with the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 — strings and harp — and it starts very quietly, but it has to be audible. At the same time, it can't be like pop radio. Did you work on how the audio would be presented for the NYPhil+ streaming service? That’s something that's been post-produced, so you can package it and do what’s necessary. For one thing, you're uploading a file to the streaming service’s specifications, so it definitely gives you an advantage. It’s not so much the case when we're linking to YouTube and Facebook.
really widely spaced. There, all the wind players were 12ft apart so, even for a small orchestra, they were over a very large area. There's no way you could ever get a blend. With St. John The Divine, we were a little closer, but the acoustic in there is so reverberant, you would really have to have people tightly seated to get a blend and control that — which of course, is desirable. I hang a couple of mics for the mains, and you get some of the main floor and the ambience, but there's no way to get a natural blend, so it was inevitable that we would have to mic every player. For video, they have to accept that microphones would be visible — and I've done my battles with TV directors about microphones. Some don't want to have anything hanging over the orchestra, but they're okay with standard mics. Then others are just the reverse... Then there are some that don't want to see mics anywhere!
I noticed a lot of close mic placements on the livestreams, more than I was expecting, Is that to do with performer spacing due to social distancing? Besides St. John The Divine, there was another Episcopal Church that we worked in — St. Barts in mid-Manhattan — where everybody was
It looks like the Schoeps Colettes that you are using, or is it the smaller CCMs? It's the Colettes. I first learned of Schoeps in the 70s; what really put the brand on the map here was the introduction of the Colette series. TV sound crews brought in Schoeps mics with these skinny little cables, and this was a brand
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