Resolution V4.2 March 2005

MARCH 2005 V4.2

THE NEXT GENERATION AUDIO PRODUCTION MAGAZINE

Joe Chiccarelli Breaking rules

Post: Besson’s full-service Digital Factory Film print to digital bitstream in Digital Cinema Steinberg top tips — Nuendo 3 Meet your maker: Ari Varla — Genelec Blowing the dust of recent copyright changes Ten things you really ought to know

REVIEWS • Digidesign Icon

• Smart FieldEditor

• Røde NT2-A

• Daking FET Compressor II

• DPA Windpac • Little Labs boxes

• Sydec Mixpander Power Pak

• Crane Song Avocet • Presonus Bluetube DP

March 2005 V4.2

ISSN 1477-4216 THE NEXT GENERATION AUDIO PRODUCTION MAGAZINE

News & Analysis 4

Leader

4

News

Sales, contracts, appointments and the bigger picture

Craft 14

40

44

46

16

Products

66

Headroom

50 Digital Factory

Besson’s full-service residential post facility adopts a low profile in Normandy’s countryside.

52

Joe Chiccarelli

Top control room specialist talks about overused technology, writing on the box, and breaking the rules again.

54

Greg Haver

Drummer turned engineer, producer and mixer on drum miking, the iPod and organisation.

59

Sweet Spot

Ribbon transducer loaded loudspeakers remain an alternative for studio monitoring.

We find out why.

New introductions and announcements plus Digidesign and Steinberg platform news.

Educational agreement, film names and the universal joint.

Steinberg top tips

Nuendo 3 is a major update and postproduction engineers stand to gain most from the new release.

Pointing devices

An integral part of the GUI/WIMP interface, the mouse has moved in and is here to stay.

Meet your maker

Ari Varla — the man behind much of Genelec’s R&D explains why everything is there for a good reason.

Katz’s column

Becky and Fred are ready for radio but have they really got it right?

60

Ten

64

Your business

Things you really ought to know

Business 48

Copyright

Ownership of the very earliest rock ‘n’ roll recordings has passed to the great unwashed — opportunity or conspiracy?

You charge for your skills but you could charge for your name, your opinion and your experience.

Technology 56

Digital cinema

Film print to digital bitstream — suggestions on how the technology could become mainstream.

62

Slaying Dragons

Watkinson has concerns about audio equipment specifications and what they actually mean.

Reviews 22

Digidesign Icon

30

Smart FieldEditor

24

Sydec Mixpander Power Pak

26

Little Labs IBP Junior, Multi Z PIP 3.0

28

Crane Song Avocet

32 34 36 38

Daking FET Compressor II Røde NT2-A DPA Windpac Presonus Bluetube DP

EDITORIAL Editorial Director: Zenon Schoepe Tel: +44 1444 410675 Email: zen@resolutionmag.com Editorial office: PO Box 531, Haywards Heath RH16 4WD, UK Contributors: Rob James, George Shilling, Keith Spencer-Allen, Terry Nelson, Jon Thornton, Neil Hillman, Nigel Jopson, Andy Day, Kevin Hilton, Dan Daley, John Watkinson

ADVERTISEMENT SALES European Sales Clare Sturzaker Tel: +44 1342 717459 Email: clare@resolutionmag.com US Sales Jeff Turner Tel: +1 415 455 8301 Email: jeff@resolutionmag.com

PRODUCTION AND LAYOUT Dean Cook Dean Cook Productions Tel: +44 1273 236681 Email: dean@resolutionmag.com

news APPOINTMENTS SADIE HAS appointed post specialist Guy Gampell to the new role of business development manager for postproduction. He previously worked in the film and TV postproduction arena with AMS Neve, Akai Professional and Feltech.

EUPHONIX HAS promoted Russell Waite to the position of executive vice president of worldwide sales. He was previously VP of inter national sales based at the company’s London office and will now be based at the company’s headquarters in California.

MARK PERRINS has been appointed general manager, D&M Professional Europe following the departure of Simon Curtis to Sennheiser.

The sales and marketing office for D&M Professional has relocated to the former Marantz UK headquarters, close to Heathrow Airport, at Kingsbridge House, Padbury Oaks, 575-583 Bath Road, Longford, Middlesex UB7 0EH. Tel: +44 1753 680023.

SENNHEISER UK has appointed Simon Curtis as director of sales. He has previously worked for Bandridge before joining Hayden Labs for Denon Hi-Fi and going on to set up Denon Pro Leisure Division. Most recently he was general manager of D&M Pro Europe.

(l-r)Lyd-Systemer’s Terje Engedahl, Olav Sundüy, Anders Faafeng, Dag Westgârd.

Lydkraft has appointed Lyd-Systemer as its new distributor in Norway.

©2005 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 Publishers. Great care is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication, but neither

4

LeaderPanelette Head

A simple s l o g a n that you may have seen around emblazoned rather a second Berliner — Synchron has ordered crudely on a rather washed- in to its DFC console for installation out shade lightBerlin-based blue T-shirt facility Atelier 10.ofThe — buyfeature and willencouraging use the DFCustotomix films, own the software we use particularly for thethat German market, as makes pretty powerful well as adubbing a variety point. of projects and The changes to the ownership original versions. of the audioaindustry’s software ‘Having second DFC will make life concerns seen something easier for has scheduling projects and mix of a corporatisation thisexchange engineers and we canofalso intellectual propertythe and it automation between rooms,’ said probably been missed

by Hans.

Berliner hasn’t Synchron’s Michael those tempted by piracy and ‘Positive experiences with flexibility for cracking.

There and is something handling set-ups desk configurations about theDFC mindset ofwhat those make the ideal for we are doing here.’ who software makes AMS steal Neve, UK: +44that 1282 457011 it easier for them to justify the act when it’s a pop at the big corporate. They have stacks of money after all, the stuff’s overpriced, and why not when you can? The reality is that it is theft just as surely as unscrewing a piece of outboard from a rack and heading for the fire exit is.

I’ll go a little further and say that if you use cracked audio software then you don’t belong in this industry because you have selfishly denounced your own responsibility to it for personal gain. You’re also really screwing it up for those who do belong and do show a responsibility to it and you should be despised all the more for it.

Variety is what makes equipment great and I want to see diversity and user choice being as wide as possible. I don’t want to see just the one DAW option appearing on the desktop of every new computer any more than I want to see one single purveyor of plug-ins for audio. I want choice and if you know what’s good for you then you do too. It’s not about driving down the price, it’s about giving a creative outlet and a living to a lot of brilliant software minds that are able to approach the same problem from a variety of different angles. It improves the species.

Software theft will not hurt the bigger operations, and let’s face it the audio divisions of even our biggest companies are not huge by consumer standards, it will kill the small operations and most of ours are very small. Potentially that is disastrous because then we really will have only the large corporations left to deal with.

Condemn those who steal software. Don’t ever buy them a drink because they’re shafting you.

Zenon Schoepe

Sonic completes Roxio purchase Sonic Solutions has announced the completion of its purchase of Roxio’s consumer software division. Under the terms of the transaction, Sonic is acquiring substantially all the business and assets of the division, including all products, intellectual property, and trademarks, including the Roxio name.

More than 200 Roxio employees, based at several US and international locations, will join Sonic. Roxio, Inc., which will retain the Napster division, has officially changed its name to Napster, Inc. ‘Since we first announced this transaction last August, members of both Sonic and

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 Publishers.

the Roxio software division have been hard at work to complete the details of the deal and to join our operations,’ said Bob Doris, president and CEO of Sonic. ‘The new Sonic Solutions will be one of the largest digital media software companies in the world, and the clear leader in CD and DVD creation tools and applications. We’re looking forward with great enthusiasm to 2005 as we continue to provide great technology and tools to our many partners, and outstanding digital media experiences to our hundreds of millions of consumer customers.’

S2 Publications Ltd. Registered in England and Wales.

Company number: 4375084.

Barcelona — a ‘must go’ The European AES Pro Audio Expo and Convention will be held in the Catalan Capital of Barcelona on 28-31 May 2005 and is the first time the event has come to Spain.

© Blai Carda

Roger Furness, executive director of the AES, has introduced the organising committee (pictured) for the event, which will be chaired by Eloi Battle and Luis Ortiz from the Universities of Barcelona and Madrid.

The committee comprises a panel of audio experts from Spain and elsewhere who are working on a series of Workshops, Tutorials, Papers and Special Events. ‘During our very first committee meetings in late 2004, I was impressed by how each of the committee members dedicated himself to make the Barcelona event a “must go” for everyone in the pro audio industry,’ said Furness. ‘The Spanish committee is working extremely hard to put together a Convention programme that gives a state-of-the-art overview on the latest developments in the pro audio industry and a deep insight into what is particular for the audio business in Spain.’

‘We invite everyone from the pro audio business to come to Barcelona!’ said chairman Luis Ortiz. ‘It will be a remarkable and enjoyable event. This is the place to go for every audio professional from all over the world!’

SSL for sale The shareholders of Solid State Logic Holdings Limited have agreed to offer the company and its subsidiaries for sale. A number of expressions of interest have been received and the goal is to conclude a sale before the end of March 2005, according to a statement.

The Group continues to trade as normal and SSL’s clients can continue to expect the company’s ‘usual benchmark quality products and support’.

Grant Thornton UK LLP has been retained as professional advisers by the shareholders of the Group to assist and advise them on the sale of all the share capital of the Group.

Printed by The Grange Press, Butts Rd, Southwick, West Sussex, BN42 4EJ.

Registered office: Equity House, 128-136 High Street, Edgware, Middlesex HA8 7TT.

resolution

March 2005

news New MD with Yamaha purchase of Steinberg Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH has announced the appointment of a new managing director, Kazunori (Kaz) Kobayashi, who is responsible for all areas of Steinberg’s business worldwide. This follows Yamaha Corporation announcing a basic agreement to acquire all common stock of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH from Pinnacle Systems.

Kobayashi joins from Yamaha Corporation and has many years’ experience in the digital audio industry having previously been general manager of Yamaha’s Product Strategy Planning Office for the Pro Audio and Digital Musical Instruments Division.

‘I am very pleased to be appointed as managing director of the most successful and venerable brands in the digital audio industry,’ he stated. ‘Together with the existing Steinberg management team, I will be taking the company forward to build an even stronger brand value for Steinberg, which will remain an independent company within the Yamaha organisation.’

‘We at Steinberg extend a very warm welcome to Mr Kobayashi,’ said Steinberg’s general manager, Andreas Stelling.

‘Steinberg and Yamaha are now best placed to forge new products and technologies that will be a motor of innovation in digital audio for many years to come.’

VCS to develop ‘tapeless production’ for BBC R&M BBC Radio & Music has appointed VCS Aktiengesellschaft to integrate the production systems used by BBC radio networks into an entirely tapeless production environment. VCS as general contractor, together with its partner SADiE, will develop an IT system that integrates the SADiE craft editors of the BBC production studios with the dira! production and playout solution.

The core component of the solution will be a production database that will combine existing tools for search, retrieval and scheduling with SADiE production editors to provide a seamless production workflow.

The editors will be completely integrated into dira! and the agreement includes an option to develop the integration further to support genealogy.

‘This major new contract further strengthens our excellent working partnership with the BBC and in addition we are now looking forward to incorporating the proven capabilities of an established world leader in the field of digital audio editing with our own world-class digital playout systems,’ said Karl-Willi Pieper, general manager of VCS’ Media Broadcasting Solutions.

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March 2005

APPOINTMENTS

Digital X Bus for Tech

(l-r)Anthony Choo, Andy Png, Ian Jones (HHB) and Derrick Ang. Broadcast technology specialist LSV Enterprise has been appointed exclusive distributor in South East Asia for HHB professional audio products.

Producer/Engineer Johnny Tech has purchased one of the first Mackie Digital X Bus 200 digital production consoles and has incorporated it as the main console in his studio. ‘I had a Sony console on order with a custom-built desk and everything,’ said Tech. ‘But I was shown the Digital X Bus and I knew right away that it was exactly what I wanted. The touch screens were a big selling point for me. I knew it would work great in our studio.’

Tech has been producing R&B, reggae and Hip-Hop music since 1984 and has worked with Ice-T, Macy Gray, and Nelly, among others and runs his own enterprise, New Kingz Productions, a division of Hood 4 Life Records.

‘There are just so many configurations that you can do with this board,’ he said.

‘I use the Digital X Bus to record audio and its Mackie Control Universal layer to control Pro Tools for mixing. It really works great, it’s completely stable.’

Calrec doubles up in Oz Australia’s largest independent TV broadcast facilities supplier Global Television has installed 72-channel Sigma 100 consoles into two of its digital trucks. DP3 and DP4 will be used on a wide range of sporting and light entertainment projects each week and the console in DP3 was initially used in the studio for Network Ten’s live Australian Idol programme.

All six of Global Television’s digital units now use Calrec, with two Q2s in DP1 and 2, a VCS in DP5 and a S2 in DP6. ‘We chose Calrec for reliability, build quality and sound quality reasons,’ said Global Television’s audio maintenance/installation technician Chris Beech. ‘Our operators love using the Calrec consoles and the support is outstanding across the range.

‘As an engineer I appreciate the simple layout and construction. Fault finding and repairs are logical and excellent documentation is supplied with the consoles,’ he said.

JOHN CARPANINI has been promoted from executive VP to president of JBL Professional.

He previously served as president of Harman’s Soundcraft Group and VP of sales at JBL Professional, and worldwide distribution director for the entire Harman Pro Group.

Buzz Goodwin has been promoted to the position of executive VP of sales with responsibility for global sales for dbx, DigiTech, DOD and Lexicon. He previously held the position of VP of worldwide sales for HMG. Harman Music Group has appointed Dave Karlsen as director international sales for DigiTech and DOD. Harman Music Group has promoted Noel Larson to VP marketing.

He formerly held the position of HMG director of marketing and communications and, before that, was the market manager for dbx and DigiTech.

Sushil John has been appointed country head-India for the Harman Pro Group.

He most recently served with EVI Audio India as director of operations and has also been associated with Martin Audio and OHM. L e x i c o n P ro h a s appointed Randy Neiman as market manager, recording and broadcast.

He has worked in key management positions at Mackie, Alesis and most recently Gibson Labs.

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5

news APPOINTMENTS WAVES HAS appointed Garrett Soden as director of pro audio marketing and communications. He has previously worked as a senior writer/designer, managing editor, creative director, and director of communications in positions at Occidental College, Commuter Transportation Services, Kenwood USA, and Getplugged.com, among others.

(l-r): Eddy Shenker, president, Jam Industries; Chris Gooddie, sales director, Focusrite/Novation; Jeff Carman, division manager, Erikson Audio; Jenny Dudderidge, Focusrite; Simon Blackwood, MD Focusrite; Rob Jenkins, head designer, Focusrite; Lynn Martin, president, NAPA; Phil Dudderidge, chairman Focusrite/Novation.

FOCUSRITE HAS appointed American Music & Sound and Erikson Audio as distributor of Focusrite products in North America and Canada. They will also be responsible for Novation Digital Music Systems, which was recently acquired

by Focusrite.

SSI bags quad-21 sub

SSI Advanced Post Services in Hollywood recently installed a Bag End Bassault quad-21-inch subwoofer system in its new 5.1 postproduction room. The system is located in SSI’s main dubbing stage, which is equipped with a Euphonix System 5, three Pro Tools HD systems, an AudioVision and a Doremi V1 through a Christie 2k Cinema projector.

‘I ran across the Bassault while doing some searches and was intrigued by it,’ said SSI’s director of engineering, Gary Fradkin. ‘It was an expensive experiment, but it worked out. I wanted a system that goes low — and this one goes down lower than low (8Hz). It goes down so low you not only hear it, you can feel it — and that’s what movies are all about.’

The Bassault system is one of the largest self-contained subwoofers systems on the market in terms of cone size and power yet it has a relatively small physical size. ‘With conventional technology an enclosure to house four 21-inch subwoofers would have to be as big as a mid-size automobile,’ said Bag End president Jim Wischmeyer. ‘But with our proprietary Infra technology, the Bassault delivers the most sound of any speaker system we produce, yet is housed in an enclosure that measures 40 inches high by 36 inches wide by 40 inches deep.’

DPA scores in Opera House and Bowl

NEUTRIK HAS appointed Paxt Limited as its main distributor for Equatorial and North Africa.

DIGIDESIGN HAS employed Steven Webb as UK LE product specialist. He is a graduate of the SAE Institute in Glasgow.

Steve McCale has been appointed product specialist for the Digidesign Venue live sound product line.

He has mixed FOH and monitors for U2, Chris Isaak, The Steve Miller Band, the London Symphony Orchestra, and others.

SCV LONDON has been appointed UK distributor for Frontier Design Group and its new TranzPort control surface.

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A large number of DPA Microphones, including 14 4011 cardioids, ten 4022 compact cardioids, eight 4006 omnis, 32 4061 miniatures and 22 4066 miniatures, are in use at the new Danish Opera House in Copenhagen. The Opera House, which is one of the most advanced in the world, was inaugurated with a gala performance in January and is the gift to the people of Denmark from Danish businessman Moersk Mc-Kinney Müller, and home to the Danish Royal Theatre.

The Danish Royal Theatre has assumed technical responsibility for the venue, and the mics were specified by Claus Wolter, head of sound for the Royal Danish Theatre and Opera. ‘I have to believe in the quality of every single piece of equipment we use in our daily work, and that’s why we always have different

types of DPA microphones and accessories close to hand,’ explained Wolter.

‘For performances and studio recordings by the Royal Danish Orchestra — as well as all the visiting orchestras — we use 4011s, 4022s and 4006s. For miking grand pianos we use DPA’s fantastic magnet mount, and for all kinds of recordings we use the stereo boom, which is the easiest way to make a good stereo recording.’

Va r i o u s types of DPA mics were used by ESPN and FOX Sports for their coverage of Super Bowl XXXIX at Jacksonville’s Alltel Stadium. The 4088 miniature cardioid headband mics were used by a panel of ESPN commentators while FOX Sports’ sideline reporter Pam Oliver has been a devotee of DPA headworn mics since Super Bowl XXXVI. ‘The networks’ on-air talent love the DPA headband mics for their sound quality, visual elegance and versatility but unsurpassed rejection is really why the networks trust DPA products,’ explained DPA technical adviser Gary Baldassari. DPA supplied multiple Windpac windshield systems on the NFC side of the field and on each 20-yard line a large Windpac was used to shield 4011 cardioids.

resolution

GWR uprades with Lawo

The UK’s largest commercial radio network GWR has equipped its Wrexham (North Wales) and Chelmsford (Essex) studios with three Lawo zirkon consoles and one Nova17 router in each. Similar orders have been placed with UK distributor Preco for installation in April at studios in Swindon (Wiltshire).

The zirkon consoles are fitted with 12 faders, one central module and one touch screen for metering, control switching and parameter visualisation and the three studios at each location are networked via the Nova17 router, with the audio signals exchanged via MADI and control signals via Ethernet. The Nova17 handles outside source selection, codec arbitration, RDS routing as well as local commercials and station IDs via programme-related playout servers.

Audio awards The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has honoured CEDAR’s senior engineer, Dr Christopher Hicks, and CEDAR’s engineering director, Dave Betts, with a Technical Achievement Award for the design and implementation of the CEDAR DNS1000.

‘There is no greater honour in this industry than an Academy Award, and to have their work recognised in this fashion is a source of great pride for everyone at CEDAR Audio,’ said CEDAR MD Gordon Reid.

JBL Professional was presented with The Recording Academy’s 2005 Technical GRAMMY Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Accepting the award on behalf of JBL Professional was Harman Pro Group president Mark Terry (centre). Recording Academy President Neil Portnow (right) presented the award. Also pictured is Music Editor Daniel Carlin. (Picture: Diamond/ Wire Image)

March 2005

news

news APPOINTMENTS

MIDAS AND KLARK Teknik have promoted former UK sales manager Richard Ferriday to the newly-created role of brand development manager to increase contact with the brands’ end users and to provide enhanced product support and training to worldwide distributors.

FX GROUP’S marketing director Tony Andrews has been recruited to the board of the UK’s APRS. PA U L RIVENS has joined Riedel Communications as sales director. He was previously sales manager EAME at Telex.

DISTRIBUTOR MI7, based in Malmo Sweden, has opened a branch office in the UK. It will be headed by Aubrey Parsons who has a background that includes artist liaison/sales and marketing for Roland UK and UK marketing manager for M-Audio.

R F M A N U F A C T U R E R Tr a n t e c Systems has appointed Otaritec as Japanese distributor for its S6000 range.

First German AWS to Majer

Producer and engineer Patrik Majer has bought the first SSL AWS 900 in Germany for his Freudenhaus Studio in Berlin, where it runs with a Pro Tools HD3 system and an Otari MTR90.

‘I recently carried out a number of tests to see whether I achieved a better sound using external summing amps, rather than mixing with the digital summing amps in Pro Tools,’ said Majer (pictured). ‘The results were certainly revealing. Using the AWS 900’s analogue circuitry it was possible to achieve more transparency, more depth and much more dynamic range. In my opinion the AWS 900 offers the perfect solution to this dilemma as it allows you to use your favorite DAW for mixing and sum in an analogue way.’

The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBCI and LBC SAT) is the first broadcaster in the Middle East to buy a C Series console with the installation of a C100 with two GSB stage boxes in its main studios in Adma, a facility that has recently undergone an extensive LBC engineers Elie Chikhany and Alexis El-Henoud. upgrade.

• Radio broadcaster, Nippon Hoso, has installed a C100 in the Imagine Studio at its new facility in the Yurakucho district of Tokyo.

Daley first with DSM

AKG ACOUSTICS US has appointed Heather Vosburg as marketing services representative. She previously managed trade shows and marketing events for Gibson USA, Digidesign and EAW. TIM SHAXSON has joined DiGiCo’s sales department to handle technical sales and work alongside sales director James Gordon. He joins from HHB Communications where he spent 12 years as senior pro audio technical salesman.

AVIOM HAS appointed Production Audio Services as its new distributor for

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Lenny Kravitz sideman and session bass player Jack Daley has outfitted his personal production studio with the first API Discrete Summing Mixer (DSM) in the US, which he runs with a Pro Tools|HD3 rig.

‘It’s like the master section and returns of a console,’ said Daley. ‘You can mix out of Pro Tools with the analogue sound of an API desk. It also has a bus compressor and a full patchbay, so you can incorporate a lot

of other analogue stuff. It’s a small console that sounds like a huge API desk,’ he said.

His 19-inch rack system is configured with 72 input channels and incorporates API’s 2500 discrete 2-channel stereo bus compressor, a meter bridge panel, a 7800 discrete four-bus console master, and nine 8200 modules each with eight inputs, level and pan controls, mute, AFL solo, two aux sends plus an insert in/out button.

resolution

news THE BIG PICTURE • SPANISH MOBILE operator Teléfonica Moviles has announced a music service that will allow consumers to download music tracks directly to their mobile phones, based on Coding Technologies aacPlus audio codec. Under the agreement, which involves Warner Music Group as a partner, Telefonica provides music to wireless subscribers allowing them to preview, purchase, play and store full-length music tracks all from their phone.

• DOMINIQUE BAUDIS, president of the French regulatory authority, CSA, told delegates at a conference in Paris recently: ‘Digital radio is an inevitable and desirable evolution of radio. There is no reason to remain in analogue and no reason not to benefit from digital technologies and their advantages to the listener.’

Baudis noted that while Paris enjoys around 50 FM services, programme content could still be extended in the capital. In other parts of the country listeners can access only 10 FM stations.

Philippe Levrier, CSA Counsellor, who is in charge of a planned reorganisation project of the FM band in France concluded that such a ‘re-farming’ of FM licences is likely to free up, at best, 10% of spectrum for new, innovative programming.

Earlier, French minister of industry, Patrick Devedjian, signalled government support when he said that digital radio was his first priority.

• A REPORT from silicom.com says that popular US shows are being pirated in vast numbers online where whole shows can be downloaded free of charge, without adverts, and within minutes of first screening. Apparently the UK leads the way, accounting for around one fifth of global television piracy, ahead of Australia in second and the USA in third.

Research from web monitoring firm Envisional says TV show piracy has increased 150% over the past year.

‘With popular shows such as 24 we’re talking about 100,000 copies of the latest episode being pirated -- with around 20,000 of those shows being downloaded in the UK,’ said David Price, research consultant at Envisional. ‘That is inevitably going to start hitting the likes of Sky, especially as the people typically doing this are the young, affluent demographic their advertisers want to reach.’ He added that users in California with a fast connection could watch an episode before it had even screened on the West Coast.

• UK MNO O2 says that UK customers have logged on to over one billion pages of Internet content in the last three months through its O2 Active portal. According to the Mobile Data Association, O2 accounts for half of the UK’s data traffic.

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Biz Bites

The year started badly for analogue tape users, with news that the Quantegy (formerly Ampex) plant in Opelika, Alabama, had closed with 250 redundancies, as the world’s only remaining analogue tape manufacturer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, writes Nigel Jopson. Recently, SPARS (Society of Professional Audio Recording Services) has arranged for ten employees to enter the factory to manufacture a small quantity of tape, but Studiospares in the UK told me: ‘We have no tape available, we’ve been cleaned out!’ — a story repeated at most European dealers.

US analogue junkies faced price hikes in the panic-buying for 2-inch and 1/2inch media. Nirvana producer Steve Albini scrounged 500 reels of 2-inch for his EAR studios — ‘But I don’t want to go into business supplying tape’ — he warned. ‘We are disappointed that some of our distributors have gotten into price gouging,’ said Quantegy president and CEO Dick Lindemuth. He denied rumours that ingredients for making tape had become unavailable, and said he was working with creditors and: ‘... several parties have expressed interest in investing new money in the company.’

Rumours are rife about replacement sources: ATR Services said it’s in the R&D stages of a formulation, but manufacturing the quality of tape we take for granted is not a trivial matter: ‘Making tape is a craft, like making Martin guitars.

A new manufacturer wouldn’t have the experience to do it right,’ cautioned Lindemuth. And the market is small: Quantegy’s total sales were just US$30 million with a rumoured mere 2,400 reels of 2-inch sold.

Three top US studios closed in 10 days: LA’s Cello (formerly Ocean Way) and Enterprise studios (7 rooms with SSL9000s, 8000s and Neve Capricorns), plus The Hit Factory in NY (the Miami facility continues to operate). Universal closed it’s Gloversville NY vinyl pressing plant, leaving RTI in California as the only high quality/180g vinyl LP pressing plant in the States. But some good news for digital radio in the UK: year-end figures show over 1.2 million DAB units sold in 2004, compared to 35,000 in 2000.

Elvis claimed the UK’s 1000th number one single with a re-release of One Night. Cynics said BMG were pre-empting public domain labels by re-releasing 18 number ones in consecutive weeks, before the EC 50-year recording copyright protection lapsed.

Downloads have now overtaken sales of CD singles in the UK. But many downloads are back catalogue: in a week the number one download shifts 2,500, the physical single sells 25-30,000. Now online services represent a valid income stream, labels need new strategies to manage digital sales and promotion.

Dina LaPolt (LaPolt Law) has revealed to us the Apple iTunes store payment schedule: for every US$0.99 download, Apple keeps $0.34, major labels collect $0.55 and the artist gets ... a dime. Indie artists do better because of contract structures. Apple announced quadrupled profits on the back of iPod sales, a trend set to continue with the introduction of the latest cool accessory: iPod Shuffle, a 512Mb/1Gb, lanyard suspended, budget priced (UK£69/£99) version of the portable player.

Capturing Clinton Presented with an opportunity to record former president Bill Clinton in his own home, recording engineers Fernando Ascani and Jeff Hinton chose a Neumann U87 and a Sennheiser MD421 to record his voiceover for the orientation film shown at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas.

‘We didn’t know what to expect, going to the president’s house,’ said Ascani.

‘We weren’t exactly certain what it was for and what we were trying to match. So we figured we should definitely go with the

Hinton, Clinton and Ascani.

Neumann U87. And we realised, from doing previous remotes, that the Sennheiser 421 just seemed to do a great job, especially when you don’t know your surroundings.’

resolution

First Polish SACD on Pyramix

The Lutosawski In Memoriam album of Witold Lutosawski’s work is Poland’s first SACD and was made using Pyramix. It was recorded in the Witold Lutosawski Concert Studio at Polish Radio Warsaw with top Polish orchestra Sinfonia Varsovia with Jerzy Maksymiuk conducting, soprano Olga Pasiecznik and Janusz Olejniczak on piano.

The recording team consisted of Zbigniew Kusiak (pictured) from Polish Radio, Professor Andrzej Lupa from the Warsaw F Chopin Music Academy and Bogdan Ywek from Merging distributor ProfiAudio.

‘We decided to make this recording on Pyramix because of the ability to record in surround and use the same format for CD, DVD-A and SACD,’ said producer Marek Wieronski. ‘The recording was done in 7.1 surround and in PCM HD — 24-bit 96kHz. The reason for that was quite simply compatibility with all existing formats and high audio quality.’ The master was later converted to DSD in Salzsburg Austria for commercial release.

The Warsaw Music Academy has recently acquired its first Pyramix system for use in its Music Library Store while Radio West, Poland’s longest Pyramix user, has upgraded its old Pyramix and bought the first Pyramix Native system in Poland.

Sillitto and Tudor Davies.

Total Audio Solutions has installed two multitrack Pyramix Systems at 2nd Sense Broadcast Ltd in Borehamwood, UK. The facility, which specialises in audio postproduction for TV, film and radio to voice recording, ADR and ISDN, is the first in the country to take systems with the updated chassis.

‘Having pushed our Akai DD1500s to the limit on the first series of the children’s animation series Boo!, we needed a new solution that could cope more ably with the increased track counts and file interchange requirements that modern productions require,’ said technical director Richard Sillitto.

‘That solution came in the form of Pyramix.

Having trialled a system in the early stages of production of series 2, we were convinced of Pyramix’s aptitude for the task.’

March 2005

news

THE PERFECT MATCH

The DPA 3521 stereo kit. Two DPA 4021 compact cardioid microphones matched within 2 dB on frequency response, sensitivity and self noise.

Supplied in a robust carrying case with an XY/ORTF holder, two gooseneck mounts and two magnet bases, the DPA 3521 is designed for low profile mounting inside pianos. It's also the perfect stereo pair for drums, horn and string sections and choirs, and a spot pair for acoustic ensembles.

The DPA 3521 stereo kit - the perfect partner for your instruments.

For more information call +45 4814 2828 or visit www.dpamicrophones.com DPA Microphones A/S info@dpamicrophones.com

JUST ADD TALENT

news THE BIG PICTURE • ACCORDING TO a report by Starcom UK, online advertising spend is up 52% year on year to UK£507m while paidfor searches have become the fastest growing media channel. Having eclipsed cinema in ad revenue in 2003, it is now rapidly approaching the scale of radio, according to the report.

Paid-for searches on Google, Yahoo! and MSN are becoming the fastest growing media channel, with advertisers bidding to achieve the highest position on the results page.

Effanel has 8050A reality

• NOKIA HAS teamed-up with Microsoft and US music download service Loudeye to allow users to download songs and ringtones to Nokia handsets equipped with Microsoft’s digital music-playing software. Microsoft will see its Windows Media technology installed on Nokia phones. The handsets will be co-branded. Sony Ericsson says it will sell musicplaying mobiles under its Walkman brand and will work with Sony Connect and Sony BMG on content.

• ACCORDING TO research from Strategy Analytics, 20 million 3G phones have been shipped worldwide as 3% of handset sales in 2004. Motorola and LG were the world’s top 3G mobile phone vendors towards the end of last year.

• PEOPLE DO NOT want to trade multimedia services with size and battery life, according to a report, despite moves to bring music download services to mobiles. Real-time TV broadcasts to mobiles are also unlikely in Europe until technical issues and standards are unresolved. Fifty percent of Europeans said the size of a mobile was the most important factor when it came to choosing their phone, but more power demands required by the new services would suggest larger handsets.

• IBM, SONY and Toshiba are set to reveal a ‘supercomputer on a chip’ that could revolutionise communications, multimedia and consumer electronics. Reports suggest the Cell chip is more powerful and versatile than next generation microprocessors from Intel and AMD. Cell is understood to have at least four cores and is being billed as an architecture capable of wide-ranging functions and parallel processing that allow it to distribute work among its cores to perform many tasks at once.

Video over broadband is expected to benefit from the technology and highdefinition TVs from Sony and Toshiba, a Sony home server for broadband content and the PlayStation 3 all featuring Cell are due to appear in 2006.

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Silva and Singer.

Audio remote recording specialist Effanel Music installed Genelec 8050A monitors in its OSR Mobile Recording Studio for the season finale of the US reality show The Apprentice. The show had dialogue mixed for broadcast and recorded for later postproduction using Effanel’s OSR truck. The dialogue was mixed by independent engineer Jorge Silva through the 8050As while a second Effanel location recording vehicle, ob/u, used 1031As for the music mix and recording the house band backing R&B group The O’Jays.

‘With the 8050, Genelec has continued the great tradition they’ve built over the years in designing speakers for broadcast and taken the technology to an entirely new level,’ said Joel Singer, lead engineer for Effanel Music. ‘The port on the back tremendously improves bass response, the top end is amazingly smooth, and the isolation padding is well thought out. It’s a brilliant design for remote audio applications and we’re looking forward to adding other speakers from the new line in the future.’

Icon for ITV Anglia Scrub, HHB’s Soho-based post division, has supplied a Digidesign Icon and Pro Tools system to ITV Anglia at its Norwich production headquarters where it will sit at the heart of a refurbished Dub One suite.

‘We were looking for a system which integrated better with our existing Avid Unity storage area network and to improve workflow from the edit suite through to sound dubbing,’ said Dave Wyatt, head of technical services. ‘Three years of evaluation, in which we considered other Pro Tools surfaces like Pro Control, culminated in our decision to buy Icon. We were particularly sold on its cutting edge technology while retaining a look and feel akin to a traditional mixing console.’

Recent HHB sales of Pro Tools systems to UK educational establishments include the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal College of Music, the University of Wales and Falmouth College of Arts.

Assistant studio manager Avgoustos Psillas

(pictured) at the Royal College of Music said he needed to ensure that students could record course work in a process that reflects the realities of the commercial recording studio. ‘Pro Tools is essential,

RSI is Studer showcase

Swiss radio broadcaster RSI has placed an order for a Studer Vista 8 for its new UM-2 OB vehicle. ‘Our assignments for this OB van include many festivals and big concerts, but also many classical recordings, including those featuring our own orchestra,’ said Francesco Gonzato, RSI’s production and project manager. ‘We needed quite a large mixer, one with 48 microphone channels, and, out of all the possibilities, the Vista was the most interesting digital desk for us.

Its operating concept is a very good mix of traditional and modern methods, so that the ergonomics seem familiar to engineers of all backgrounds.’

Although the broadcaster is still refurbishing studios it is already something of a showcase for Studer products. Its list includes Studer’s OnAir5000 consoles, routing and processing systems, such as the Route5000, and DigiMedia and DigaSystem radio automation products plus a Vista 7, A928 and OnAir2000. Orders have also been placed for an OnAir1000.

Sonic Distribution Tour Sonic Distribution is taking its Waves, Apogee , SE Electronics, Blue Sky and SPL product ranges on tour across the UK in May. Strongroom Studios, London Monday 9 May; Confetti School of Recording, Nottingham Tuesday 10 May; and Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, Liverpool 11 May. Sonic will also be offering ‘fantastic’ deals on the days on all products shown and be running its Free Loan Service at each venue.

Customers interested in trying out these products can let them know in advance and Sonic will bring the loan stock to your chosen venue to take home on loan for a week. Go to www.sonic-distribution.com/ roadshow and fill in a priority application loan request form. You can also book advance tickets.

DTS buys Lowry Digital Images

particularly for our Film Music courses,’ he said. ‘The audio quality of the new system is exceptional and we got great service from HHB.’ • Also in the UK, Cumbria Institute of the Arts, the University of Teesside and Leeds Metropolitan University have specified HHB Portadiscs for use on journalism and media

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DTS has acquired Lowry Digital Images (LDI), a privately held company and a leader in image restoration and enhancement.

The transaction extends DTS’ business to include image technology and services that support content creation and delivery in the theatrical and consumer markets.

‘The acquisition of Lowry Digital Images represents DTS’ commitment to delivering a full range of best-in-class technologies and services designed to enhance the entertainment experience,’ said Jon Kirchner, president and CEO of DTS.

March 2005

WEB COMPETITION Visit our website for a chance to win this Avalon VT737SP Recording Channel.

The latest digital recording systems provide unsurpassed power and flexibility. Nobody can deny that editing, automation and session management have improved beyond recognition.

However when it comes to optimising your signal path, analogue processing remains way ahead for sheer musical quality. That’s why we’re as passionate about outboard as we are about our Pro Tools systems. Please call us for friendly and unbiased advice.

www.dvproaudio.com « « protools@digitalvillage.co.uk « «

a division of

W. London 020 8752 9638 «« N. London 020 8440 3440 «« S. London 020 8763 6714 «« Bristol 0117 946 7700 «« Educational 01708 771900

news

Digital Factory Luc Besson’s full-service residential audio postproduction facility has adopted a low profile in France despite the grandeur of its scale and ambition. ZENON SCHOEPE takes a day trip to the continent.

I

N THE HEART of the Normandy countryside, a comfortable drive West of Paris, is France’s biggest and most elaborate audio post complex. It is also squarely on the map of film facilities in Europe and the World.

Taking it all back a little bit, the man behind it all, film maker Luc Besson, had clearly identified the mechanics of the film creation process as part of his creative process and started his Digital Factory audio postproduction operation in 1998 in a 17th Century chateau in Normandy. Besson is known for films like Leon, Nikita, The Big Blue, The Fifth Element and Joan of Arc and for his experimentation and technical innovation, but then he is also a cinematographer, director, writer, editor, producer, second unit director and casting director so his appreciation of the business of making films is total.

He wanted a ‘world-class’ facility for his own projects that would also draw outside clients and his choice of setting has created an atmosphere that is as unusual as it is stimulating. The plot is enormous and integrates a variety of refurbished and purpose-built buildings spread out over typically period landscaping and connected with paths and walkways.

So much space and everything done so tastefully and well — even the bits that clients wouldn’t see regularly, like the machine rooms and backrooms, are finished to a very high standard using very high quality materials and boasting a very high level of craftsmanship. Digital Factory now employs some ten technical staff plus a selection of admin and other staff 14

for the other aspects of the operation.

The first dubbing theatre was built in 1999 together with a five-bedroom hotel and a small inn to accommodate production teams. Even from the beginning, the desire to make sure clients were comfortable and content away from the technical facilities was a high priority. Today Digital Factory is the largest residential facility in Europe with three dubbing theatres, a scoring stage that can accommodate 40 musicians, and a Foley ADR stage. There are also ten audio edit suites and a screening room. The residential facilities have been expanded to include 40 bedrooms and suites, a restaurant, outdoor swimming pool, sauna, tennis courts and a fitness room. General manager Bruce Guerre-Berthelot says that all the clients have to do is work, everything else is taken care of for them.

However, the jewel in the crown — and it is some crown and some jewel — is the very recently opened Audi IV. They had decided that they needed a dubbing theatre and one that would stand out in France, Europe and the World. Acoustician Christian Malcurt, who had taken care of the design of the rest of the complex, discussed the plans with Besson and arrived at the theatre dimensions. The building that houses the auditorium was then designed and built around this space. The result is the largest dubbing theatre in Europe (and again one of the biggest in the World) with over 3000m3, a 16m screen, JBL 7.1 monitoring and Kinoton plus Christie Projectors.

‘Luc really wanted the theatre to be the best in resolution

the world with no compromise, including a unique interior design that would inspire, and technical facilities that would satisfy even the most demanding mixers,’ says Bruce.

That said, nothing really prepares you for Audi IV. What hits you first, because of the way you enter the theatre, is the size, or rather the length, of the Euphonix console but you are immediately distracted by the sheer size of the room it is in.

Most people’s impressions of average mixing theatres would include swathes of carpet, table tops behind the desk and a good space, in a good theatre, from the desk to the screen. With the anatomy described, the décor of most mixing theatres is unmemorable with hessian and its many modern derivatives and substitutes block covering the walls. Colours will be bland and neutral and it is true to say that most look best with the lights down.

Audi IV on the other hand will take your breath away. The décor is staggering with elaborate pillars and covings working together with arches and the most wonderfully decorative ceiling. The feel is arty 1930s but there are shades of Paris music hall themes here and some of the taste ingredients of Besson’s highly visual Fifth Element at work here too. I apologise if I’m gassing on a little too much but this room is positively huge and quite unlike anywhere that you’ve ever mixed a film in before. Malcurt apparently had his work cut out making good acoustic sense of the high level décor but it has to be said that he’s succeeded in producing an extremely controlled and pleasant environment. It looks and sounds brilliant.

Bruce quickly points out that there is no reason why dubbing theatres can’t have a vibe just like some recording studios do because the people who use them work long hard hours in them. Making Audi IV a place where clients like to be is sound business.

The two-operator Euphonix System 5-F is the largest in the world with 620 channels and 144 faders.

The size of desk was dictated by the wish to mix direct and to get away from premixing traditions to yield a faster and more creative mix environment. Ergonomics March 2005

facility were a big consideration as was the fact that the system is modular.

‘We looked very carefully into all the top film dubbing consoles systems available and eventually made the decision to go with a System 5-F,’ says Bruce. ‘We had received very positive reports of the System 5 from other Euphonix dubbing clients, the general consensus being that the system is very powerful operationally, is stable and reliable and is backed by a great after-sales support team, which is very important to us. We are also happy to be working with 44.1, the Euphonix distributor in France, they are very professional and provide us with a great deal of confidence in our choice of console. The System 5-F was also the only console to meet our demands in terms of size and delivery time.

‘Another important factor is the evolution potential of the system including the ability of System 5 to directly control workstations through their EuCon protocol,’ he continues. ‘It is a well-conceived product which will be approved by the majority of our users — Euphonix has a growing market share in our profession both here in Europe and in Hollywood. We have already been approached by a number of engineers from the USA who are looking to do projects here partly as result of the System 5.’

One of the unusual qualities of the set up is sophisticated routing and switching of keyboards, mice and monitors to a variety of different positions in the auditorium. It means you can take control of workstations from the editor table behind the console on to the console itself. This adds a flexibility of operation for different stages of a mix.

Besson has gone down on record as saying: ‘There was no other choice. Euphonix is the only manufacturer

March 2005

that can provide the power we need this moment and I believe the System 5 is the way for the future.’

Films already mixed in the theatre since its opening in September include Banlieue 13, Ze Film and WAH WAH. So what you have is a massive dubbing theatre, in a massive and well-featured complex that is residential and different and that works to complement Digital Factory’s picture editing operation in Paris. The investment is clearly massive.

There’s also an element of mystery around Digital Factory that it is keen to maintain. It is one of the biggest builds in XX�Series_216x125mm.psd Europe, possibly the World, The next Generation in recent times yet its creation has been very low

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profile and lacking the usual fanfare that traditionally accompanies the opening of even one new room anywhere else. It makes Digital Factory intriguing and undoubtedly of interest to genuine clients who would be drawn to the place for its superb facilities and, it has to be said, the Besson connection. I’ve never seen anything like it. ■

Contact DIGITAL FACTORY, FRANCE Tel: +33 2 33 12 42 30

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gear

Products Equipment introductions and announcements plus news on Digidesign and Steinberg.

UNIVERSAL MIC MOUNT The Enhanced Audio M600 universal mic mount has been designed to offer an innovative approach to microphone mounting and claims superb isolation, increased musical headroom and greater dynamic transient capability.

It breaks from the convention of suspension mounting by clamping the microphone within two lowresonant aluminium rings that are precision-drilled and tapped at three points. An adjustable mounting screw is inserted at each of the three points and attached to the screw is a techno polymer plastic (Delrin) thrust pad.

The thrust pads align themselves on to the surface of the mic and thus prevent the rotating force of the adjustment screws being transmitted to the microphone.

When contact has been established the microphone is protected from disturbance caused by vibrations that are concentrated in the ultra low infrasonic frequency range. From tests and in practice, Enhanced Audio believes that these vibrations have a significant effect on the normal operation and frequency response of a microphone despite the fact that they are too low to be heard by the human ear.

The M600 is a universal microphone mount and can be used with the majority of microphones available. www.enhancedaudio.ie

Platform news: Digidesign Digidesign development partners have now released a broad range of plug-ins for the Microsoft Windows XP version of Pro Tools. ‘Our Development Partners have achieved nearly complete parity of platform support for Pro Tools plug-ins over the course of 2004, and it has been fantastic to observe,’ said Ed Gray, Digidesign’s director of partnering programs.

A complete list of recommended computers for the Pro Tools product line is available in the compatibility area of www.digidesign.com/compato and Dell now offers Pro Tools recommended system configurations on www.dell.com/precision.

DigiDelivery allows users to exchange any kind of digital file of virtually any size with anyone in the world.

DigiDelivery 2.0 client adds new features for Windows XP and Mac OS X users: you can create multiple deliveries at once, add them to a queue, prioritise them, even quit and relaunch and DigiDelivery will pick up exactly where it left off.

Additionally, you can name each delivery, add billing information, view a history of recent deliveries, and save login information for your frequently used accounts to a pull-down menu.

Digidesign’s Synchronic software instrument is an audio manipulation plug-in that provides musicians and sound designers with an intuitive means of developing distinctive sounds. With a DJ rig-type crossfader as well as full control of all your parameters, Synchronic is capable of performing complex beat manipulations, effects, and cross-modulations. www.digidesign.com

(8-in/8-out), 17 touch-sensitive 100mm motor faders, and five mixer layers plus a DAW control layer.

TASCAM DIGITAL MIXER Tascam’s VL-X5 powered speakers feature 5 1/4-inch woofers, silk-dome tweeters and 60 + 30W amps. The monitors have low- and high-frequency controls and an ‘Acoustic Space Control’ to optimise their performance for room placement. www.tascam.com

MULTIBAND VALVE MASTERING Tascam’s DM-3200 is a 48-channel digital console based on the DM-24 in operational terms but with more buses, more effects, more auxes, USB connectivity and other features.

The interface has 16 rotary encoders with LED indicators to display mixer settings. Up to 6.1 surround panning is available, and the optional IF-SM/DM Surround Monitoring interface card adds multichannel monitor and downmix capabilities. Adding the IF-FW/DM 24-channel FireWire interface card makes the DM-3200 become a computer interface, control surface and mixing console. A meter bridge is also available.

Features include 48-channel mixing at up to 96kHz/24bit, 32 channel inputs and 16 return inputs, 16 buses and 8 aux buses, 4-band parametric EQ and dynamics on each of the 32 channels, 4 stereo effects or two surround effects

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Tube-Tech’s SMC 2BM is a stereo multiband tube compressor designed for mastering and studio recording. Based on the SMC 2B, SMC 2BM adds matched resistor level controls for precise replication of previously-used settings. The 12 step-matched resistor gain controls on the SMC 2BM guarantee channel to channel and recall accuracy. Side-chain controls employ 31-detent potentiometers.

The unit includes variable crossover points for precise control of all three bands of opto-compression. Independent band-specific threshold, ratio, attack, release and gain parameters make the unit flexible, as well as accurate. www.tube-tech.com

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LOLLYPOP CS SERIES Studio Projects’ CS Series of condenser mics picks up from where its C Series left off and sports an entirely new look with ‘lollypop’ style capsules.

The CS1 is a cardioid large diaphragm condenser with three thumb-wheels that control multiposition High Pass Filters, Low Pass Filters and Pads. The CS3 is a dual diaphragm multipattern large diaphragm condenser that has all the features of the CS1 but adds a thumbwheel to adjust polar pattern between cardioid, wide cardioid, hypercardioid, omni and fig-8. www.studioprojects.com

8130A DIGITAL Genelec’s 8130A digital monitoring system boasts a 192kHz/24bit interface and automatic detection of word length and sampling frequency. The system is compact and claims excellent dispersion and precise stereo imaging, making it suitable for near-field monitoring in a variety of situations.

The female XLR input can be fed AES-EBU digital or analogue line as the 8130A automatically detects analogue or digital signals and directs them to the correct signal paths. When presented with a dualwire/single channel signal, detection is automatic and the digital input mode is selected. www.genelec.com

March 2005

gear FAR RENAMES ITS RANGE FAR’s Tsunami range of monitors has been renamed and renumbered to be an extension of the company’s OBS range. The models are now referred to as OBS 1, OBS 5, OBS 10 and OBS 100. www.far-audio.com

VOICE PROCESSOR AND REVERB

TC-Helicon’s VoicePro is described as ‘the most technologically advanced voice-processing unit on the market’.

A combination of proprietary voice processing algorithms and a voice-optimised compilation of vocal effects, including classic TC algorithms, it is designed to allow all aspects of a vocal performance to be altered once the talent has left the studio.

Features include TC-Helicon’s VoiceModeling, Hybrid Shifting and Flextime algorithms that permit the pitch, time and character of a voice to be refined and manipulated.

Sound designers and music producers will benefit from a Transducer algorithm that emulates telephones, radios and other quality reducing devices.

HHB MEDIA HHB has a new range of CD-R discs that offer a significantly higher level of performance and reliability in audio recording than current high-speed CD-R media. The new discs are optimised for 1X - 12X writers and deliver consistently low block error rates and low jitter in audio recording while also reducing the operating stress on the lower-powered lasers used by audio CD recorders. Available in 74 and 80-minute versions in inkjet and thermal printable variations they are jewel-cased or bulk packed.

The original HHB CDR74 Gold 1X - 8X disc remains unchanged.

HHB has also introduced a new 1X-4X General-type DVD-R disc. The DVD-R4.7GB-G uses a custom recording dye in which the optical density has been reformulated

to ensure compatibility with the writers used in popular computers, DAWs and standalone DVD recorders. The new disc is registered with major hardware manufacturers so it is recognised by the drive and the signal characteristics of the laser optimised for error-free recording. www.hhb.co.uk

The VSS3 Stereo Source Reverb for PowerCore is a direct port of the reverb algorithm from TC’s System 6000. The algorithm is made up of nearly 800 parameters that have been condensed into a simple user interface with clear choices at all levels. Industry-standard presets and customisable focus fields from System 6000 are included. It uses Virtual Space Simulation to recreate the natural characteristics of acoustic spaces and the early reflected signals are manipulated separately from the decay or reverb tail of the signal. www.tcelectronic.com

APOGEE ADVANCED AUDIO ROUTING

Apogee Electronics is offering a version 2 firmware update that features Advanced Option Routing for the AD-16X and the DA-16X with X-HD or X-FireWire option cards installed. Advanced Option Routing gives the user the ability to integrate outboard digital processors as digital inserts in to the recording/mix chain. Users can download it from the website.

With AD-16x in version 2 mode, the 16 analogue inputs (up to 192kHz) go directly to the option card and out to a computer via X-HD and X-FireWire card. The return signal from the option card will be routed to all other digital outputs (AES SW/DW and ADAT/SMUX). DA-16X in version 2 mode works similarly: all 16 digital inputs (AES SW/DW or ADAT/SMUX) are routed directly to the option card with the return signal then routed to all the analogue outputs (up to 192kHz). www.apogeedigital.com

March 2005 17

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gear X.400 ARRIVES Mackie demonstrated its Digital X Bus 400 (X.400) production console at NAMM, which is expected to ship in Q2.

It incorporates an up-market feature set for professional recording and postproduction that includes a 96 x 96 channel I-O matrix at 96kHz (48 x 48 at 192kHz) with an additional 8 channels of processing. The X.400 also gets more advanced surround mixing and monitoring functionality including a 24-bus architecture, flexible panning assignment, bus/return switching to an assignable speaker matrix, and fold-down monitoring.

Tracktion 2 is the first major update to Mackie’s recording and MIDI production software. It introduces an enhanced MIDI editor, more comprehensive keyboard control and the ability to map hardware MIDI controllers to filter parameters. There’s also a 64-bit mix engine, improved external synchronisation support, eight aux sends and returns, and integration for Mackie Control Universal and C4 controllers.

Ten new features are being implemented with the V1.2 firmware release for the TT24 console, including three built-in 31-band graphic equalisers, eight dedicated mute groups, scrolling snapshots for faster access, and a usercustomisable fader bank.

Egosys, Inc will license Mackie Tracktion digital audio workstation software and Mackie-branded plug-in products from Loud. www.mackie.com

EV MICS New models in EV’s new Blue Series include The Raven ‘rugged’ dynamic mic and The Cardinal cardioid condenser.

The RE97 is an ultra-low profile, head-wor n omni wired for use with EV and Telex bodypack transmitters via a 4foot cable terminated in a TA4F connector. The RE920Tx is a cardioid condenser designed specifically for wireless use with musical instruments.

It includes an instrument mount clip assembly on a flexible gooseneck, which securely holds the mic in place while isolating it from mechanical vibration. The RE410 is a handheld cardioid condenser vocal microphone with a Warm-Grip handle, internal shockmount and multistage pop filter. www.electrovoice.com

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Platform news: Steinberg Steinberg has launched its USB-based hardware copy protection device as a separate product. Customers who purchase Steinberg VSTi products released for the first time after 1 January 2005 and who do not already own a Steinberg USB key copy protection device as part of their Steinberg product, will have to buy a Steinberg Key as a required component to be able to run the VSTi software. Existing Steinberg Cubase SX/SL, HALion, Hypersonic and Nuendo customers already in possession of a USB Key will no longer have to obtain a USB Key that they do not need, and will be able to buy future Steinberg VST instruments at a reduced price as a result. Supplier of this technology is the German copy protection specialist Syncrosoft GmbH. ‘This system offers many benefits for Steinberg customers,’ explained Claus Menke, Steinberg’s head of product management. ‘The introduction of the Steinberg Key will extend the highly successful current generation of the Syncrosoft copy protection system to all new Steinberg VSTi products, helping to protect not only our investments, but also that of our customers and dealers.’

Groove Agent 2 is the update to the Groove Agent virtual drummer with dozens of up-to-the-minute styles and a battery of new drum sounds within DAW environments supporting VST, DXi, ReWire or AU plug-in formats. The GUI has also been overhauled and features include an allnew top-quality studio kit and ‘painstakingly recreated’ retro drum synths, ultra-hip noisy lofi drums, a diamond-hard metal kit and added percussive sounds. www.steinberg.net

WAVES Q-CLONE Waves’ Q-Clone plugin allows you to insert an outboard equaliser on a channel, adjust it to get the sound you want, click a button to hold that exact sound, and then repeat the process on as many tracks you need.

Q-Clone recreates the shape and phase response of the equalisation in fine detail in real-time and reacts to the adjustments made on the outboard EQ unit itself.

It consists of two components: Q-Capture and Q-Clone itself. QCapture is set up to send a signal to the outboard equaliser and to accept a return of the processed signal. Next, Q-Clone is opened on a track. The settings on the outboard equaliser are then adjusted to achieve the desired sound. When the ‘capture’ button is clicked, Q-Clone models the sound and replicates it on the fly. The process can then be repeated on as many tracks as needed.

Q-Clone can replicate the sound and phase response of any linear filter-based equaliser but not distortion or non-linearity.

The new L3 Peak Limiter uses a linear-phase crossover with user-definable frequencies to divide the audio into five bands without phase distortion between bands. The signal then enters the Peak Limiter Mixer that employs psychoacoustics to maximise headroom use and intelligently determines how much attenuation to apply in each band.

The result, according to Waves, is maximum loudness and minimum intermodulation without losing brick-wall limiting — all controlled with a master threshold parameter. www.waves.com

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NEW TANNOYS Tannoy has developed two new distinct product ranges — Reveal and Precision. Within each range there are options for passive or active versions with varying cabinet and driver sizes.

Reveal, Reveal A active and Reveal D active monitors build on the success of the original models, offering improved cabinet designs

and enhanced acoustic specification with ‘WideBand’ performance and active versions with a calibrated EQ facility for optimising mid/near/close field monitoring in full/half/quarter and eighth space environments. Balanced analogue inputs are provided on all Reveal active models and Reveal D active versions accept SPDIF. Precision and Precision D active models combine Dual Concentric driver and ‘WideBand’ technology to claim superior bandwidth, significantly low levels of distortion, very smooth response, extremely accurate phase control and high sensitivity levels. The Precision D active versions have calibrated EQ for mid/near/close field working in full/half/quarter and eighth space environments plus mid band and high frequency trim shelving controls in a choice of power and cabinet sizes. www.tannoy.co.uk

March 2005

gear NEW NEUTRIKS The NP*X series improves on the design of the existing phone plug by offering the thinnest available 1/4-inch plug with Neutrik chuck type strain relief on the market. The plugs meet the highest packing density of 15.88mm.

The slim NP*X phone plug is all metal and is available in mono and stereo versions with nickel or gold-plated contacts and nickel, black or velour chrome housings.

Similar in style to the NP*X series of 1/4-inch phone plugs, Neutrik’s NC**XX series is easy to assemble and simple to use and is available in 3 to 7 pole configurations. The compact die-cast shell has internal threads that mate with the external threads on the boot to eliminate damage sometimes found on exposed threads. It incorporates Neutrik’s chuck-type strain relief and colour-coding on the boot. www.neutrik.com

AUDIX STUDIO CONDENSER The CX112 cardioid studio condenser has a 28mm gold sputtered diaphragm in a capsule mounted on a silicon rubber support.

While the contact point for large diaphragm condensers is most commonly seen in the centre of the diaphragm, the CX112 derives its contact point on the outer edge of the capsule.

It runs from phantom power and comes with a mount — a shockmount and windscreen are optional accessories.

The FireBall is a dynamic microphone designed for the professional harmonica

player. It features a dent-resistant grill ball with a deep red internal pop filter and is designed to fit comfortably in the palm of the hand.

Resistant to feedback and capable of handling SPLs in excess of 140dB, it can maintain its quality sound reproduction even while the artist is cupping the grill ball.

CNC machined out of a solid bar of aircraft grade aluminum, its look is achieved with a three-stage anodising process.

The ADX10-FL is a miniature, high performance condenser with a custom designed flute head joint mount. www.audixusa.com

NEUMANN CARDIOID KK104-S CAPSULE Neumann’s KK104-S microphone capsule for the Sennheiser SKM5000-N wireless system is cardioid in contrast to the supercardioid characteristic of the KK105-S. Developed in response to customer requests, the polar response is said to be especially beneficial for high-volume applications. www.neumann.com

ROLAND PLUGS FROM UA

Under a licensing agreement between Roland and Universal Audio, UA will develop, market and sell plug-in emulations of classic Roland processors for its UAD-1 DSP card.

The first three Roland products to be released will be the Dimension D Chorus, CE-1 Chorus and Roland RE-201 Space Echo.

U A’s P re c i s i o n Equalizer plug-in for the UAD-1 DSP Card will also be available as part of the V3.8 software upgrade for the UAD-1 downloadable from www.uaudio.com.

The Precision Equalizer is a stereo or dual mono 4band EQ and high-pass filter made primarily for use with programme material and is modeled on the behaviour of analogue mastering filters. It is up-sampled to 192kHz. The new UAD-1 Ultra Pak is billed as the most potent combination of DSP hardware and high-quality software plug-ins available for host-based Windows and Mac DAWs. Ultra Pak includes the UAD-1 DSP card plus a suite of 24 powered plug-ins including all the classic UA vintage emulations, such as the 1176LN, LA-2A, Pultec EQP-1A, and Fairchild 670. www.uaudio.com

March 2005 19

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19

gear OMNIA-3FMT

LEXICON MX200

The Omnia-3fmt provides three additional bands of AGC/ Compression to the three existing bands of limiting currently found in Omnia-3fm. This adds significantly to the current Omnia-3 platform.

It features 48kHz sampling, multiband processing, AES-EBU I-Os and a multiband limiter uses a feedback configuration for low and mid bands, while high bands use a feedforward design.

Omnia-3fmt comes with a remote software application that can connect via serial or the optional modem or Ethernet ports. www.omniaaudio.com

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20

Trion is Harrison’s new console system, which features a traditional surface architecture that eliminates the need for a central, shared-knobs control panel. Controls and assignments for each channel are fully accessible as traditional, vertically arranged strips or in an enhanced version expanded across 8 channels for knob-per-function control anywhere on the console. This together with dynamic profiling (calling any channel or set of channels to any fader strip or set of fader strips) allows a single Trion to share and support remote control panels in applications where distributed control is desired. All Trion systems internally generate Harrison’s PreView Display (waveform with history) from any audio source with no DAW required. It is available in dedicated versions and sizes for broadcast, postproduction, live performance, and music. www.glw.com

A&D REFERENCE GUARDIAN

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Lexicon’s MX200 dual reverb/effects processor combines an ‘intuitive’ front-panel design with a USB connection and VST interface for use with software recording platforms that allows it to function as a ‘hardware plug-in’ within any VSTcompatible workstation environment. It has a wide array of reverb algorithms with delays, effects and dbx dynamics.

There are 99 factory presets and 99 programmable slots.

Lexicon has now packaged its Omega desktop recording product with Steinberg’s Cubase LE Software. www.lexiconpro.com

HARRISON TRION

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Audio & Design’s Reference Guardian adds a high level of reliability and resilience to broadcast or studio facilities that require a continuous phase coherent house sync and master clock function. Working in conjunction with two Probox 12 Reference Generators, the Reference Guardian allows the operation of a Primary and Secondary house sync and master clock system to be employed. The Guardian will automatically detect any changes in the output synchronisation integrity of the Primary unit. If any changes occur as set by the operating parameters, the Guardian will switch from the Primary to the Secondary unit without phase timing disturbance to the Reference Signals. www.proaudio.uk.com

FLEXIBLE RACKING RaxX is a British-made rackmounting system that uses uprights, which fix directly to a wall, and side arms that attach to the upright and the front panel of the rack units as ‘an infinitely expandable concept’.

The ‘starter pack’ consists of two 6U upright sections that are fixed to the wall using the screws and cavity fixing plugs supplied. Six 1U side arms complete the pack and are fitted to the uprights with the M6 bolts included.

The advantages of this system are its cost-effectiveness and flexibility. It can be expanded vertically and horizontally since each upright has two rows of holes to take the right side of the first row of products and the left side of the next row along. www.mtraudio.com

March 2005

gear MIDAS SIENA

E-MU CARDBUS E-MU Systems has announced its 1616M and 1616 CardBus digital audio systems for laptops. The 1616M and 1616 include a PCMCIA card and compact MicroDock audio/ MIDI interface and deliver the same DSP effects, zero-latency monitoring and 24-bit/192kHz A-D and D-A convertors as its PCI digital audio systems.

The PCMCIA card can be used standalone for its DSP power and headphone amp or plugged into the MicroDock for a total of 16 inputs and 16 outputs plus MIDI I-O, including two custom preamps with Neutrik connectors, 48V phantom power, and an analogue soft limiting circuit for clip protection.

It ships with drivers for XP and 2000 and a selection of software. www.emu.com

Available in six frame sizes, from 24 up to 64 channels, the Siena desk from Midas has 16 dedicated aux sends that can be configured as stereo pairs if required. In common with the Verona console are the low noise mic preamps and 4-band EQ section, which in turn are based on those of the company’s flagship XL4. Other features include switchable insert points on all outputs, the solo tracking system, which allows the soloed outputs to be shown on the Klark Teknik Helix EQ system, along with clear and accurate output metering. www.midasconsoles.com

AKG BOUNDARY AND MOUNT

GREAT NEWS FROM START TO FINISH

bsyo up ne do pel ne g w i nheoe rci an rge

We are proud to introduce two new additions to our Tube-Tech line of all tube-based studio equipment

MMC 1A

START HERE Microphone Preamplifier & Multiband Compressor Full-blown microphone pre-amplifier with outstanding sonic properties. An additional direct instrument input as well as a separate line input completes the frontend. The 3-band optical compressor is designed to maintain optimum summing of all three bands with a remarkably flat frequency response.

AKG’s C 542 BL small boundary mic has a non-reflective surface finish and a switchable 12dB/octave 150Hz bass filter. The output is electronically balanced and the mic runs from phantom power.

The H 85 universal spider-type shockmount was originally developed for use with the new generation AKG C 414 B-XL mics and compared to the H 100 that is included with most AKG Project Studio Line microphones, it has a narrower outer diameter and an increased clamping range for use

• Mic. Gain in 1 dB and 10 dB steps • Selectable mic. impedance • Optical gain reduction elements • Low, Mid, High Output Gain: off to +10 dB • Master Output Gain: off to +10 dB

March 2005 21

• 8 stereo + 4 mono inputs, 1 stereo output • 23-step gold plated output gain control • Master Output Gain: -10 dB to +10 dB • Fully symmetrical circuitry from input to output • Low noise: < -90 dBU

FINISH HERE

SSA 2A

with a wider assortment of mics. It will become an included accessory with the C 4000B, C 3000B, C 2000B and the C 3000B and C 1000S Project Pack. www.akg.com

Stereo Summing Amplifier This new 16+4->2 channel down-mixing unit targets the critical mastering process.

Sonically it easily outperforms the quality of digital audio workstations and even betters the performance of mixing amplifiers built into the most high-end of analoque consoles.

LYDKRAFT

Mose Allé 20 • 2610 Rødovre • Denmark • www.tube-tech.com

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21

review

Digidesign Icon Playing its role in the great return of the control surface, Digidesign’s Icon is seen by many as more of a statement of intent than just another interface. JON THORNTON crawls all over the Pro Tools flagship.

T

HE ARGUMENT WILL be familiar to anybody who has used Digidesign’s or other manufacturer’s control surfaces with Pro Tools: while you can’t dispute that having faders available to control level and mix is a significant improvement, some of the other functionality of these devices is limited at best. The end result is that you still find yourself spending an awful lot of time interacting with the Pro Tools GUI, while getting the sneaking feeling that you’ve spent a lot of cash on what is effectively a very fancy mouse. And even with current US exchange rates meaning that Icon pricing is dropping (in our favour), a UK£40k basic price tag is a lot of cash for a pointing device.

Icon itself is best described as a number of different elements working together. At the heart (and there’s no getting away from it) is a Pro Tools HD system, configured with as much DSP power and I-O capability as required. The minimum control surface configuration is the D-Control, which consists of a master section that houses a keyboard, tracker ball and a host of other controls, and 16 channel strips.

A heavy-duty monitor arm can be attached to the master section, and additional channel strips can be added to this in blocks of 16 channels. The final piece of the jigsaw is a 19-inch rackmount box called X-MON, which is addressed by the control surface and provides additional audio I-Os for monitoring and studio ancillary purposes (see sidebar).

First impressions are that Digidesign has clearly put a lot of effort into the industrial design and ergonomics of Icon. Compared with the slightly flimsy look and feel of ProControl, this looks and feels like it is built to last. Faders are P&G throughout, and the distinctive touch sensitive ‘mushroom’ knobs for the rotary encoders feel positive in action and allow a 22

good view of the surrounding LED ring while in use.

Each of the basic channel strips has a fader with associated status LEDs, and a set of dedicated controls for mute, solo, input monitor mode, record enable, automation modes and channel select. Above these are six rotary encoders, each with four status LEDs and two function switches. A further bank of illuminated buttons effectively determines what these encoders are doing and showing, from a basic menu of inserts (plug-ins), to sends, pan, or mic preamp settings if you have Digidesign’s remotely controllable mic preamp box configured in your system. Every encoder and fader is accompanied by a six-character electronic scribble strip.

So far, this is pretty standard control surface fare and ProControl users, for example, will have no difficulty in mapping the conventions for selection and editing parameters. This is unsurprising, as the core technology in Icon is a development of the Ethernet control protocol used in ProControl — the changes come from increases in the number of dedicated controls on each channel strip. This can be fairly daunting at first, as you are learning to look for things like post/pre or automation status indicators on the control surface itself rather than on the GUI, but this learning curve is no different to any other digital console in that respect.

Where things take a radical turn for the better is in the integration of the master section with the individual channel strips. Flanking either side of the master section are two identical master channel strips. Both operate identically and mimic the other — ostensibly allowing for ease of control whatever the mix position — although I can’t really see the logic in this as they are only a couple of feet apart.

The function of this master strip is two-fold. At one resolution

level, there are sets of global controls for the console that allow operations, such as input and output assignment, to be implemented across all channel strips. For example, pressing Input Assign brings up available inputs to each channel on the bottom row of encoders — inputs are selected with the encoder and pressing Input Assign again confirms all assignments.

The same process can be used for assigning inserts, outputs and sends for each channel.

A further group of switches allows the selection of global modes for all currently visible channels on the control surface (remembering that the control surface can page through more channels than there are physical channel strips). This allows you to see send levels, inserts, or pan information across all channels of the control surface very easily. There are also controls here for EQ and dynamics, and pressing these repeatedly will toggle through the assigned plug-ins of these types, bringing up the parameters on the rotary encoders for each channel.

Other global controls allow you to change globally the type of information displayed on the scribble strips, or to change the function of one of the switches on each encoder between a mute or a pre/post selector.

You can also globally make inputs, outputs, sends or plug-ins active or inactive by pressing the appropriate global switch, and then selecting the channels you wish to perform this action on. Finally, a ‘Do to all’ or ‘Do to selected’ switch allows you to apply a change made to one channel to all channels or just to selected ones. This makes tasks such as instantiating a common EQ plug-in to all channels, or setting up a common send for foldback for all channels, very quick and easy.

This, however, doesn’t explain the existence of a fader on the master channel strips and although analogue console die-hards might expect it to be, this isn’t a master fader. Instead, it works in conjunction with a small, but powerful switch that changes the Select switch on each channel strip to become a Focus switch. If this mode is enabled, selecting a channel will focus it to the master section, and the fader will then control its level. In addition, by focussing a channel, any EQ or dynamics plug-ins assigned to that channel will appear on the dedicated EQ and dynamics panels of the master section.

These panels provide dedicated rotary encoders and switches for the most common parameters in EQ and dynamics plug-ins. They are dedicated in the sense that the legending isn’t via an electronic scribble strip, but is actually printed next to each control and arranged in a familiar and obvious layout. The EQ section can accommodate up to five bands of EQ with dedicated frequency, gain and Q parameters plus a high and low pass filter. In/Out switching for each band, plus shelf/peak select buttons, input and output gain and metering are also provided. Two scribble strips confirm the plug-in name and the channel that it is focussed on.

The dynamics panel is similar, offering standard parameters for compression, some of which have a dual function depending on whether compression or expansion/gating is the order of the day. Both panels have extensive controls for selecting and/or linking channels of multi-mono plug-ins. It’s clearly a difficult job — as there will always be plug-ins that either do not use all the parameters available or that have more parameters than are available via the dedicated encoders — but what is offered seems to be a very good compromise. It also depends on plug-in developers mapping their parameters properly to the conventions of the panels — although Digidesign reckons that 90% March 2005

review of current plug-ins are fully compliant.

While the inclusion of these panels represents more of a shift towards a ‘conventional’ digital console (and certainly makes operation more akin to one) this is by no means the Icon’s best trick. The award for that has to go to a function called Custom Faders. Custom Faders superimposes a block of channels (by default a bank of 8 although this can be expanded) on to a user-defined position on the control surface.

At its most basic level this can be used to create customised clusters of existing tracks that appear in a specific order, but there are a number of other modes.

For example, you can use the custom fader area to bring up any existing mix or edit groups in Pro Tools, so that all channels belonging to a group will appear in one place on the control surface. Or you can show all of the master faders in a session in the custom faders area. The custom faders area can also work in plug-in mode, which will bring up the parameters of a plug-in on the currently focussed channel on all of the encoders in the custom faders area.

With a bank of eight custom faders, this puts 48 encoders at your disposal for plug-ins, any of which can be flipped down to the faders for fine control.

With a little planning, this also means that you can create a ‘super-channel’ on a custom faders bank — for instance you could have the first fader as vocal level, the next as the reverb send on that vocal, the next as the threshold control for a compression plugin, and so on. Specific custom fader banks can also be stored and recalled using the Bank Select buttons on the master section and although this is a feature unique to Icon, all of the information about custom fader groups and plug-in mapping is saved with your Pro Tools session.

Elsewhere in the master section are the usual window-management buttons and cursor/navigation keys that will be familiar to most ProControl users as quick shortcuts to bring up various windows on the standard Pro Tools GUI. What is new is the soft keys section. This not only allows the configuration of some preferences and settings that are unique to Icon, but also allow many functions that could only previously be accessed by the GUI to be performed from the control surface. This includes creating tracks, managing audio files, creating and editing groups and playlists, together with all of the basic editing functions of Pro Tools. While I suspect that most users will still prefer to edit directly at the GUI, the provision of these functions with some direct feedback via alphanumeric displays does save a lot of switching between looking at the console and looking at the GUI when performing these more basic tasks.

It’s worthwhile looking at metering at this stage, as this is also historically one of the issues that draws your attention back to the computer screen. On Icon it is a quantum leap forward. Each channel has two 32-segment LED bargraphs. These can show signal level (in stereo if the channel is a stereo source, the hottest signal in the case of a multichannel source).

In custom fader mode, these bargraphs can also show input and output level, gain reduction and other plug-in parameters. Because the LEDs used are all tri-colour this multipurposing works very well — if a meter is showing gain reduction, for instance, all segments will be amber. The LED rings surrounding the encoders can also be used as indications of send level or plug-in metering if required, although it has to be said this is more useful in providing an overall impression of what is happening rather than accurate metering.

Overall Icon is an intriguing beast. I have to say March 2005

X-MON

X-MON works in conjunction with the monitor section on the Icon to provide audio level interfacing in a studio environment. All audio actually travels to and from the XMON box itself. The only exception is the signal from the desk’s internal talkback microphone, which is carried to X-MON along a single cable together with control data.

Audio inputs to X-MON comprise a main input (8 channels), an additional surround input (8 channels), four stereo inputs and three stereo cue inputs. In addition there are two inputs for listen-back mics, and an input for an external talkback mic. In most circumstances, these inputs would be fed from Pro Tools interfaces with the exception of the stereo inputs that could come from stereo playback devices. Audio outputs from X-MON are pretty much the same in reverse, 8 main outputs, 8 alternate outputs and a stereo output for mini-monitors. Three sets of stereo cue outputs and a slate output completes the picture.

The monitor section on Icon basically provides the matrixing and level control information to the X-MON, which allows monitoring different sources in environments up to 7.1 surround in addition to handling the usual things like dimming on talkback and generating headphone cues (although these would have to be generated as a physical send from Pro Tools into X-MON — the cue level is simply a master volume control). There are some neat instances of integration here. For example, the auto-talkback function engages talkback whenever the Pro Tools transport is in stop, and disengages it in play or record (Sounds familiar. Ed) It is also possible to trim the monitor output levels remotely from Icon to do some basic system calibration, and multiple surround sources can be monitored s i m u l t a n e o u s l y. W h e n working in a multichannel setup, individual channels can also be muted on or off. Clearly, there’s been a lot of thought given towards working in a multichannel environment so I’m surprised that they didn’t go the whole hog and build bass management in.

that I was much more impressed than I expected to be, and you certainly can’t level the accusation at it of being just an expensive mouse. If you are mixing music or working in post, this is a tremendously functional control surface that almost lets you forget that you are effectively just working in Pro Tools.

Almost but not quite, there are still some things that keep reminding you. For example, having to configure your I-O setup via the GUI. I guess that Digidesign could have focussed us away from the GUI even more if it had wished but that would be really ignoring the fact that Pro Tools is more than simply a DSP engine for a digital mixer. For music tracking I’m still unsure whether the ergonomic is exactly right — I still feel the need to know that channel 6 gain is always where I expect it in these instances — but this could simply be a matter of familiarity. And I’m not sure whether Icon would ever become a reason in itself to move over to Pro Tools.

But if Pro Tools is already your platform of choice, Icon is an extremely compelling product. ■ resolution

PROS

Good ergonomics and industrial design; custom faders are fantastic; X-MON gives very flexible monitoring options; deep down it’s still Pro Tools.

CONS

Fairly steep initial learning curve, even for experienced ProControl users; not entirely convinced that it is immediate enough for a primary tracking desk; deep down it’s still Pro Tools.

Contact DIGIDESIGN, US: Website: www.digidesign.com

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review

Sydec Mixpander Power Pak Building on established products and technological principles, Sydec is now offering a leg up for the horsepower hungry native operator. ROB JAMES powers up the Power Pak.

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HE NEW RANGE of Mixpander Power Pak systems expands Sydec’s reach in the native workstation arena. Sydec has had PC add-on cards for several years — the Mixtreme and more recently the Mixtreme 192 brought the benefits of the Soundscape mixer and proprietary plug-ins to a wider audience and at a significantly lower price point than the core Soundscape workstations. However, Mixtreme often seemed somewhat under-powered in the context of ‘big gun’ sequencer workstations.

Sydec also had the Mixpander 5 and 9 cards, used to add considerable DSP horsepower to the Soundscape workstations, and it seemed only a matter of time before the Mixpanders would be offered as standalone products for use with third party, native software.

The Mixpander Power Pak 48 under consideration here is a UK£2199 + VAT bundle. This includes one Mixpander 9 PCI DSP audio card and an iBox 48-TA audio interface box with 24 channels of 96kHz/24bit balanced analogue I-O plus 24 channels of TDIF I-O. Software is version 4.2 of the Soundscape Mixer in a special edition for Mixpander and Mixtreme.

24

Also included is the FX1 DSP plug-in bundle of the Soundscape Audio toolbox with compressors, gates, expanders, chorus, flange, phase and digital delay. Soundscape Multi Band EQ, Spin Audio Spin Delay, Spin Audio Room Verb M1 and Acuma Labs Final Mix is also included and there is support for inserting native powered VST plug-in effects into the Soundscape Mixer.

The premise here is that it is desirable to provide the native workstation aficionado with high quality multichannel I-O and enough DSP horsepower to ensure rock solid operation and low latencies. To this is added a range of desirable bundled and optional plug-ins from a wide variety of respected authors.

Installation is reasonably simple but takes a while. The Mixpander 9 is a full length PCI card and this may cause problems in some computers. It wouldn’t fit the first one I tried due to overhanging componentry, but went straight into the second. The only physical connection between the Mixpander and the iBox is a proprietary TDM cable. This is only one metre long, something to bear in mind

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when planning an installation. Software and drivers didn’t create any dramas. WDM/KS, MME and Asio2 drivers are all included and have full concurrent multiclient capability. Asio-2 is currently limited to 16 channels. At 48kHz (or 44.1kHz) you get 64 bi-directional audio streams between the host application and the Mixpander card, 24 channels of analogue I-O and 24 channels of TDIF. Thirty-six re-assignable internal buses allow for highly creative configurations.

Soundscape’s mixer is a floating window with 128 columns or strip slots. It can be viewed with the columns at full or reduced width to see more channels on screen at once. The channel structure is very flexible and largely defined by the user. Different configurations can be created, saved and loaded and the mixer has full recall of all parameters including the settings of any real-time plug-ins. Each channel can have a number of real-time processes running at the same time. The 36 internal buses can be used to distribute or group signals to be sent to internal effects processes or to master faders. Any output or send element can be routed to a bus and the input to a channel can also be a bus.

A bus can be assigned as the input for multiple channels allowing flexible signal distribution.

Structurally, all the mixer elements are plug-ins.

Ninety-nine fader and solo groups help the mixing process and a number of elements come in 4, 6 and 8 channel types. A degree of user common sense is expected since illogical placements, such as 8 channel inputs feeding into mono elements and viceversa, are allowed and may give rise to unexpected results. Unfortunately there are no multichannel EQ, dynamics or effects elements.

Well-behaved VST plug-ins, including virtual instruments, are catered for, but these use the host computer’s CPU just as they would in a native application. A VST or VSTi plug-in or chain of plug-ins also uses up one audio stream per channel.

It is important to understand the gain structure within the mixer. There is, in effect, no headroom.

If you input a 1kHz 0dB signal into an input strip, followed by an equaliser, then boost 1kHz by 0.1dB, the signal will clip in the equaliser unless the input gain is lowered. Similarly, there is no headroom on the internal buses. This need not be a problem; it simply requires a disciplined and slightly different operational approach.

Mixer automation relies on recording the relevant MIDI data via the Console Manager utility into a MIDI sequencer. Automation can be enabled or disabled individually for each automatable parameter of every mixer element although the modus operandi is somewhat cumbersome. The Soundscape mixer can also be controlled by third-party hardware control surfaces via the freely downloadable Soundscape Console Manager program. These aspects have an unfinished feel to them. The manual leaves out more than it tells.

The Mixpander Power Pak is going to appeal to native users who are fed up with the compromises inherent in host-based mixing. Unfortunately for them, there are compromises here too. Whether these are important will depend on the way you work. If automation and maybe hardware control surfaces are integral to your workflow, there are going to be problems to solve. For my working practices, a complete Soundscape editing solution makes a lot more sense with a Mixpander added to increase the DSP power.

The virtue of this solution lies in the effortless March 2005

review handling of 64 bi-directional streams to and from the native application and the 48 channels of physical I-O talking to the world outside. Couple this with sufficient DSP to cope with some impressive mixer configurations and you can see the attraction. To give some idea of what we are talking about I designed a mixer with 48 mono inputs, all with 4-band EQ, dynamics and two aux sends. I added three 5.1 inputs for monitoring, aux groups with reverbs and master dynamics, all feeding into two 5.1 groups with a master 5.1 monitor output, without getting anywhere near the limits. If you are a total DSP megalomaniac, further cards can be added at reasonable cost.

Sydec’s Soundscape products have always been renowned for an unusually high level of solidity and reliability and, albeit on short acquaintance, I see no reason why the Mixpander Power Pak should be any different.

For people working on a large scale, and where this is more important than a one-stop solution with fully integrated automation, Power Pak will make for a far more relaxed working environment without the perpetual worry over running out of native DSP. ■

PROS

Serious DSP horsepower; rock solid; serious, professional kit.

CONS

Gain structure requires care; no multichannel EQ, dynamics or effects; automation depends on sequencer.

Contact SYDEC, BELGIUM Website: www.sydec.be

March 2005

Hardware

The Mixpander 9 PCI card has one Motorola 56301DSP handling bus mastering and streaming plus eight Motorola 56362s for processing. Two of these have significantly more memory than the rest for processes requiring this. DSP allocation can be manual or automatic. External interfaces connect via a single, proprietary TDM connector.

Each Mixpander/9 can provide 64 inputs and 64 outputs of audio (192 I-O for three cards) when used with a MADI compatible iBox: iBox 64MADI or iBox 64-MADI-TA. Although the Mixpander Power Pak comes with the iBox 48-TA, offering 24 channels of balanced analogue I-O at up to 96kHz, 24 channels of TDIF I-O at 48kHz plus the 64 channel expansion port, its sibling variants can be substituted (with a suitable cost adjustment). iBox 64-MADI-TA offers 24 channel analogue balanced I-O at up to 96kHz, 24 channel TDIF I-O at 48kHz, and either 24 inputs and 24 outputs at up to 96kHz (Sydec ‘single wire’ mode) or 12 inputs and 12 outputs at up to 96kHz (Tascam ‘double wire’ mode), 64-channel MADI I-O at 48kHz, 32-channel MADI I-O at 96kHz and the 64-channel expansion port.

All the audio connectors are located on the rear panel of the unit, except for the headphone output. The only active control when used with the Mixpander is Meters. This switches 24 tri-colour LEDs indicating -30dBFS (green), -3dBFS (orange) and 0dBFS (red) between A-D and D-A. This section also features an ‘XS’ LED that indicates various operation or setup modes when used standalone.

Otherwise all settings must be made in the Soundscape mixer. This allows individual channel pair patching rather than the blocks of eight channels available in standalone mode. Also for standalone operation there is a Clock source selector. The source can be internal, external (Word clock or SuperClock) or TDIF. The Sample Rate selection button is used to select a sample rate when the iBox is the Clock Master. An input/output routing matrix is used to set connections between the TDIF, analogue and MADI inputs and outputs and the TDM expansion port. Settings will be reflected by the LEDs on the iBox whether set in software or from the front panel.

ALSO AVAILABLE • Mixpander Power Pak 96 (UK£3675 + VAT) with two Mixpander 9 cards and two iBox 48-TA providing 48 channels 96khz/24-bit balanced analogue I-O and 48 channels of TDIF I-O, plus the Soundscape Mixer software and FX1 DSP plug-in bundle.

• Mixpander Power Pak 128 (£6250 + VAT) with three Mixpander 9 cards and four iBox 48-TA providing 96 channels 96khz/24-bit balanced analogue I-O + 48 channels of TDIF I-O, plus the Soundscape Mixer software and FX1 DSP plugin bundle.

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25

review

Little Labs IBP Junior, Multi Z PIP 3.0 Yes, it’s true that most Little Labs products are little boxes, but they’re actually named after imaginative electronics genius, founder and designer Jonathan Little. GEORGE SHILLING reports on two.

T

HE FIRST THING YOU notice about these units is the high quality of the build and the fact that the included power supplies are bigger and heavier than the units they power! Power supplied is around 48V and thick power leads connect to the units using four-pin plugs secured with a ring clamp, which bodes well.

Phase differences between mics or a mic and a DIed signal are a constant source of frustration for engineers. Sometimes, flipping the polarity button on the mic pre of one of the signals will improve the tone when these are combined, but it is rarely possible to get mic and DI completely ‘in phase’. You can change phase relationships by moving the mic around, but you might not end up in the best sounding position, so this can be something of a compromise. You might move the files around to line up in your DAW for a closer phase relationship, but you cannot compensate for phase response errors caused by EQ or cabinet or mic phase response.

The IBP Junior (UK £218+VAT) is an ‘analogue phase alignment tool’ that uses a pair of all-pass filters to shift the phase of the signal passing through with a simple variable knob. Alongside the rear power connector are a male and female XLR allowing you to insert the box on one signal. A green LED glows on the front, there is one well-damped knob and four buttons — it’s simple. With all the buttons out and the knob hard left, no phase shift occurs.

The first button bypasses the phase shift knob.

The second button is Phase Invert, much like that found on the console or mic preamp — pressing it in shifts the phase 180 degrees. The third button selects between a 90-degree range of adjustment or a 180-degree range for more extreme shifts with the knob. The fourth button switches between a higher bandwidth phase adjust and a primarily lower frequency phase adjust, and this, in combination with the knob provides the phase curve.

This last button does not always change the sound dramatically, but can be useful in situations where the tonal balance changes across the frequency range.

With the aforementioned mic/DI scenario, much fun can be had tweaking with the unit while setting up to record, sweeping around to reveal dramatic tonal changes when the two signals are monitored 26

at similar levels. Of course, there is not always one obvious setting — some unusual tones can be achieved on guitars shifting the phase of one of your two or more mics, and with multi-miked drums the possibilities are almost endless.

But with bass guitar an immensely more satisfying blend is quickly achieved. Of course you can always use the IBP while mixing to correct problems rather than at recording. The ‘Junior’ part of the name reflects the parentage — the original IBP additionally includes an instrument DI input and a ‘Re-amp’ output. Phase sweeping quickly becomes addictive, and this is a unique, errm, little box.

The Multi Z PIP (professional instrument preamp) is a very versatile problem-solving box that includes high quality solutions for impedance matching in various situations (UK £375+VAT). The front panel includes Instrument input, a Level knob, and the circuit selector, a rotary knob to switch Hi, Mid or Low Z, plus a Speaker setting. Three earth lift toggles are provided for the input and two of the outputs. There are also overload LEDs. The rear connections are an XLR main output, along with no less than six jack sockets. The word ‘Custom’ also appears three times on the rear, referring to configurable internal jumpers to change the nature of those connections.

First, this is a very classy sounding DI box. The different input impedances allow for passive or active guitars using the high and mid z settings,

with the low setting useful for keyboards (with the least amount of active circuitry in the signal path).

The Speaker setting attenuates the input by 30dB — there is no speaker soak or simulation here, nor a speaker output, but this is useful for running an amp straight into the console and capturing a performance with all the amp settings intact. You can send the resulting signal to a low-distortion amp for acquiring some natural speaker/room characteristics later using the Re-amp circuit which converts line signals to instrument level Hi Z, and functions completely independently of the main DI circuit.

Usefully, a Re-amp level trim pot is provided on the resolution

rear. With this circuit, you can send any recorded (DI) source to a guitar/bass amplifier. Using both circuits, guitar stomp boxes can be sent from and returned to a pro mixer or DAW. This worked beautifully, opening up a truly exciting world of possibilities with my collection of old pedals. Turning this concept on its head, the ‘Balanced only expansion out’ enables you to insert pro gear between guitar and amp. Fabulous.

And sending one guitar to two amps is easy; you can use the volume pot for one of them.

Also among the rear panel jack sockets is a Summing Amp input to blend another signal with the main DI input. Over time, Little has been asked to provide various custom versions of this box, and has therefore included a sprinkling of internal jumpers for different configurations. These include turning the buffered out into a volume pedal insert, changing the Instrument Thru into the main in or an additional summing input, or making the XLR transformer isolated and pre or post the gain pot, or transformerless (and many more!) If you can find the right Allen-key to dismantle the box, the possibilities offered by these features are immense and the audio quality of this unit is unassailable. ■

PROS

Handsome construction; sonic integrity; unique functionality.

CONS

Indispensibility; tiny legending; PIP manual confusing.

EXTRAS

Little Labs in conjunction with Mercenary Audio have introduced the Signal Transmission Device, a guitar/instrument cord line driver. The STD allows you to use long microphone cables or microphone tie lines to extend your guitar or any instrument cable without the loss of tone and increase of noise associated with long instrument cable runs. It also has two outputs for splitting between two amps or between an amp and a direct injection box, with a selectable ground lift on one output to eliminate ground loop problems.

Contact LITTLE LABS, US: Website: www.littlelabs.com UK, Unity Audio: +44 1440 785843

March 2005

review

review

Crane Song Avocet With its pedigree as an outboard manufacturer beyond reproach, you’ve got to wonder if the delights of a monitor controller might be a little off-beam for Crane Song. Apparently not, as closet bird fancier ROB JAMES is quick to point out.

C

RANE SONG IS A curious name for a manufacturer and Avocet equally so for a pro-audio product. Dave Hill, the man behind Crane Song, has been recording since 1972 and the brand dates back to 1995 and has a small but highly respected product line of outboard processors and software. As for the Avocet, I’m no ornithologist so I had to look it up. The Avocet or Recurvirostra americana, in the US and Recurvirostra avosetta in Europe, is a large, long-legged wader, AKA, a ‘cobbler’s awl’ thanks to its very long and thin upturned beak. (Why are we here? Ed) The Avocet I am looking at is a monitor controller.

Designing a successful monitor controller is not as easy as it might appear. There are many pitfalls for the unwary. I’ve reviewed a lot of surround monitor controllers and one or two of the stereo variety and I’ve yet to find perfection.

A monitor controller needs to be as unobtrusive as possible, sonically and physically, yet provide delicate, comprehensive control for its intended application(s).

It must be intuitive in operation and ideally setup. Since it will be in constant use, aesthetics are important too. If it is also simple to install, that’s a bonus. The UK£1550 plus VAT Avocet is immediately impressive with retro-chic design elements (the power lamp and the main level knob) carefully blended with almost flush switches, LED indicators and bargraph meters. The stepped level control is one of the most tactile I’ve ever encountered with 24 concentric LEDs to indicate the current level. There are five steps between the Off and -32dB LEDs. Above this there is an LED every 2dB but the attenuation increments are 1dB. The intermediate steps are shown by the simple expedient of lighting two LEDs. To keep normal listening level at the desirable one o’clock position on the main level control, two 10dB to 30dB in-line XLR pads are supplied for use with 28

power amplifiers lacking input level control. Ease of installation ticks another box.

At first glance I wondered why the main unit is so big (2U). Looking around the back reveals the reason. Dave Hill has eschewed the use of the ubiquitous ‘Tascam’ format 25-pin sub-D connectors in favour of good old XLRs. More expensive but easier to install and arguably sonically superior. The headline features list includes three analogue inputs, three digital inputs, three analogue outputs (all mutually exclusive) and a talkback and headphone system.

With the main unit jumpers in their default positions digital inputs are upsampled, if necessary, to 192kHz and de-jittered before the D-A conversion process.

If desired the upsampling can be set to 96kHz or disabled completely.

The ‘DAW’ digital input can be 1 Wire, 2 Wire or SPDIF, selected via a switch on the rear of the main unit. The main and headphone paths employ relay switched stepped attenuators for level control. Yes, the relays do click, but this is the path to audio Nirvana.

Less laudably the buttons on the remote also click quite noisily. The lengthy remote control cable supplied allows the main unit to be sited well away from the control position. A 15-pin sub-D Accessory socket brings out extra functions such as the buffered stereo output, mono output, talkback mic output, headphone bus output, and input control functions for talkback enable, mute and an input selection control that could be used for pre-listen or solo. This connector will also be used for the planned surround expansion. However, I do wonder how the near essential individual speaker mutes and summing of surround inputs can be accommodated.

The most economical method of keeping the audio path clean is to use purely passive circuitry. However, this brings it’s own problems with impedance and awkward level matching. The Avocet employs discrete class A amplifiers to provide audio excellence and the required range of control.

A regrettably common defect of monitor controllers is thumps when the unit is powered up or down, potentially damaging to drivers and hearing. Avocet is perfectly behaved in this respect. On power up, after an initialisation routine, it wakes up with the same settings as before, except MUTE is always active.

Operation is simple, intuitive and logical. Speaker outs and analogue and digital inputs all have dedicated buttons, so do Phase Reverse, Mute, Dim and Mono. resolution

A jumper determines whether Mono appears on one speaker or both.

Pressing the Headphone Level button also selects Headphone Mode. Now, the Aux, Analogue 1 and 2 input select buttons select the headphone source as either the Aux input or the main input buttons, before or after the main level control. Talk sends the mic input to the headphone output. The remaining button is the odd one out. 16 Bit truncates the digital input to 16 bits. Why, you may well ask, since this is not something an engineer worth his salt would ever do intentionally. After some thought and an email or two, the answer is, if you are delivering only 24 bit masters, there is a chance that somebody will inadvertently truncate them for 16 bit media and it would be better to know how this will sound.

Each input has +/-10dB of gain trim. A second press on the selected input button puts it into trim mode with the LED flashing. The offset is dialed in with the main level control and the input select pressed once more to store. There are also trim pots on the back of the main unit for +/-8dB of gain trim on the analogue inputs. A high gain mode, selected by an internal jumper adds 14dB of gain to the Analogue 2 input.

Avocet sounds all but invisible using the analogue inputs. It would be hard to think of higher praise. Not only that, the D-A is stunning. The manufacturer has reclaimed my favourite Benchmark D-A so I couldn’t make a direct comparison but this D-A is definitely up there with the best on offer at any price.

Taking this into account and considering the entirety of Avocet’s virtues, if you need a stereo monitor controller, put this on your audition list today. I am impatient to discover whether the surround version will be equally outstanding. ■

PROS

Sound; ergonomics; aesthetics.

CONS

No input summing for applications requiring it; switches mechanically click.

EXTRAS

Crane Song’s Egret is an 8-channel D-A convertor with a stereo mixer.

The stereo mixer has level, cue send, and a pan control on each channel.

Each channel also contains a solo and mute button. Egret has a master level control, a master cue send control and a headphone output with its own level control. Each channel has a TRS insert and direct balanced outputs.

The D-ACs support sample rates up to 192kHz and have sample rate convertors on each channel for input jitter reduction. A front panel switch disables the SRC for cases where low latency is required. The convertors can be used independently at different sample rates.

Contact CRANE SONG, US: Website: www.cranesong.com UK, KMR: +44 208 445 2446

March 2005

review

review

Smart Media Solutions CoSTAR FieldEditor Flying in the face of a lot of digital editor sensibility, this stripped down package targets journalists and aims to prove that less is more when the feature set is well defined. ROB JAMES says he has the key.

F

OR THE RADIO JOURNALIST, the digital revolution has not proved to be an unalloyed blessing. Certainly acquisition may be less of a chore, with miniature recorders replacing bulky and frequently temperamental Uhers, but editing, so simple in analogue with chinagraph, razor blade and sticky tape, is another matter. People wanting or needing to do their own editing on location have had an interesting time for the last few years. With DAT, copying to another medium is essential. Editing on MD isn’t much fun for anything beyond the most basic hack and slash. Even the latest miniature disk and flash memory recorders are less than ideal as editing tools, so the answer has been to use a DAW. But, thanks to the features list arms race, most DAWs are serious overkill for this kind of work. Enter the FieldEditor.

An Australian group has taken over Fairlight On Air and renamed it Smart Media Solutions. The company, based in the Netherlands produces, among other things, the CoSTAR radio automation system. The FieldEditor offers a convenient solution to the location editing problem with basic single track and more complex fourtrack modes. Anyone familiar with the editing offered in CoSTAR will be immediately at home.

FieldEditor is unusual in a number of ways. The subject of this review arrived on a 128Mb USB 2 memory key with a price tag of UK£259 plus VAT.

I asked if it is also available on larger (1 or 2Gb) memory keys to facilitate portability of larger projects.

The short answer is, ‘not at present, unless there is a large order from a broadcaster requesting this’.

The FieldEditor is also available embedded in the Maycom HandHeld Recorder. The premise being, record your piece on the Maycom, plug it into the nearest PC and edit your item ready for air using the FieldEditor application. A reasonably recent PC is required, i.e. with USB 2 and Windows XP and a Direct X 9.x capable sound device.

The first neat trick FieldEditor has up its tiny sleeve is to operate without requiring any installation procedure or drivers whatsoever. All you have to do is launch the application from the USB memory stick and you are up and running. The application presents you with a single window, inside which you can add audio cues to your project, edit, fade, crossfade and change levels and finally bounce the finished item down to a file for ‘filing’, transmission or whatever.

FieldEditor is an MPEG only audio editor. This 30

currently means MPEG1-Layer-II audio files. But this is not the whole story. It fully supports Broadcast WAV files and any file playable by Windows Media Player can be imported and converted to MPEG 2 (including sample rate conversion) at a speed, at least on my 2.4GHz P4, vastly exceeding real time. So it is perfectly possible to combine a music bed and sound effects, e.g. ripped from CD, with location recordings.

On the left of the screen the FieldEditor Explorer pane enables audio files to be managed and inserted into the project. Audio files can also be dragged and dropped into the project from Windows Explorer.

There are four stereo tracks with two editing modes, multi or single. Multi shows all four tracks and single, as you would expect, concentrates on the selected track. Track controls are kept simple with buttons for Zooming track height, Solo, Mute and Record. A selected clip or clips can be moved by rightclicking and dragging. In single track mode segments to the right of the selected clip can be locked together when dragging the selected clip. Selections are made by clicking and dragging. You can adjust the size of a selection by dragging the red ends of the yellow bar in the time bar.

Clips may be grouped by selecting them and clicking on the Red, Yellow, Light Blue, Dark Blue and Magenta buttons. The green button ungroups selected clips.

Preset fades and ducks can be invoked by positioning the cursor on a selected clip or clips and clicking on one of the fade buttons. The fade shapes can be changed to suit the operator or material.

Right-click and the Control key are used to considerable effect. Although not totally intuitive, once this is understood, it is perfectly possible to learn most of this application without resorting to the manual. For example, at first I wondered why resolution

the cursor kept jumping around the screen. Then I noticed the blue line with a grey box at each end in the Marker Bar. When ‘follow cursor’ is selected the timeline display jumps or pages whenever the play head cursor hits one of the grey boxes. If you click and drag one of these as close as possible to the other you get a fixed cursor, moving track display at zoom levels of a minute or more.

There is no EQ, dynamics or plug-ins — thank goodness! Although I would have liked to see fixed low and high pass filters to help deal with the vicissitudes of vox pops.

FieldEditor is a perfect example of ‘less is more’ a simple and carefully aimed tool for a defined purpose — radio. A refreshing change from the shotgun approach of including every feature the manufacturer thinks the user might require for a wide variety of applications. There is a real risk that users will pressure Smart Media Solutions into lengthening the FieldEditor feature list. I hope that those responsible think long and hard before adding anything. It may not be perfect, nothing is, but adding too much more would spoil the elegant simplicity.

At this price any freelance or aspiring radio journalist should be able to afford one and it will make a lot of sense to broadcasters for their own staff. ■

PROS

Simplicity; lack of features; price.

CONS

Currently no way to audition clips in FieldEditor Explorer; limited audio storage space on the USB flash key.

Contact SMART MEDIA SOLUTIONS, NETHERLANDS: Website: www.smartmediasolutions.nl

March 2005

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review

Daking FET Compressor II These units are well thought of in the US but have been surprisingly low profile on this side of the Atlantic until relatively recently.

Now mildly retweaked in an updated version, GEORGE SHILLING finds it hard to put it down.

G

EOFFREY DAKING PLAYED in the successful New York 1960s band Blues Magoos before taking an interest in engineering and recording. His career has included designing and building studios, and stints as chief engineer at top NY rooms. In the early 90s he designed and began to market outboard units that are highly regarded, if a little less than commonplace this side of the pond. Subsequently, consoles of various sizes have also appeared.

Daking has drawn from the history of great studio equipment, delving inside classics from API, Neve, and particularly Trident, taking the best of those designs and building modern equivalents, with a nocompromise approach. No valves have been harmed in the making of these units — Daking is a firm believer in solid state technology. He cites the fact that ‘there are no large vacuum tube consoles’, and it’s true that there have been many great solid-state consoles. Furthermore, none of these ‘greats’ used ICs, and Daking also steadfastly refuses to employ them, preferring discrete components for Class A amplifier circuitry.

Daking’s small range of outboard has been updated to incorporate a number of changes, although the mono FET Compressor II looks little different to its predecessor and the updates to this unit are relatively minor.

The 1U fascia hides a rather smaller than normal stainless steel case, beautifully constructed, with braces attaching to the rackmounting front panel. On the rear are Neutrik Combo connectors for jack or XLR connection to the line input and stereo link and XLR line out. In the centre is a 25-pin D connector for the power supply that seems like at least 20 pins more than is necessary, but the cable attaches securely with thumbscrews to the external PSU. This is a chunky and fairly heavy thing to have to hide behind your rack, but it will power up to four Daking units simultaneously and the supplied D-connector power cable is plenty long enough for most situations. It is now supplied free with all Daking products.

Meanwhile back at the compressor, quality of design and construction is very apparent. The businesslike aluminium machined knobs are an in-house design, they seem slightly smoother-finished than I remember on the previous model, and the pointers are clear in any light. The pointer line does not continue down the side of the barrel, but it’s not necessary here with all controls switched. The panel has a classic dark green-grey background, but the white legending doesn’t stand out enough. This is due, I suspect, to the otherwise very attractive polycarbonate coating that protects the screen printing.

32

It all looks very smart, but the impression is also slightly let down by the meter which looks like it has been pilfered from the school science lab and unceremoniously glued onto the front. There is not even a backlight — oddly there is nothing whatsoever that lights up this front panel, so the only way to check for power is to switch the meter toggle to its central GR position to see if the meter zeroes. The meter can also indicate Input or Output level, and its ugliness is soon forgiven when in use — it displays gain reduction very clearly. The other toggle selects between In, Stereo Link and Bypass, the last of these is not a hardwire bypass but rather removing the feed to the compressor’s sensor circuit.

Threshold switches from -10 to +10dB in 2dB steps, just about enough range, as long as you have full control of level from the preceding device.

Ratio is selectable from 1.5:1, 2:1, 3:1, 5:1, 10:1 and 20:1 — a useful range of choice. The nineposition Attack knob ranges from 250 microseconds to 64 milliseconds — each step along is double the previous setting. This is pretty much all you’ll ever need, although I did occasionally wonder what a slower attack might be like on certain sources, such as acoustic guitar — I’m normally a sucker for fast attack and release, but 250 microseconds is plenty fast enough for me!

There are three fixed Release settings of 0.5, 1 and 1.5 seconds, followed by a selection of Auto settings that emulate some classic compressors’ twostage recovery settings. While three fixed settings sounds like not enough, in practice these cover most eventualities, with the fastest great for percussion and other instruments, the middle setting good for most programme material, and the slowest great for vocals and instruments.

PROS

Big, warm, clean Class A FET Compression.

CONS

No lights; poor legending.

EXTRAS

First of the auto settings is the Neve 33609, a classic broadcast programme compressor. This is a well-rounded and warm setting, relatively slow, and quite pleasant on vocals, although with a tendency to ‘pump’ with percussive signals. Next along is the Compex setting, based on the Audio Design design. This has a faster initial release and sounds a bit crunchier than the 33609. It is terrific on drum ambience and programme material — I’d imagine that with a pair of these, you’d have a great stereo mix buss compressor. This is probably my favourite setting, I loved the Compex on percussive sounds.

However, the final two settings are also excellent, based on settings 5 and 6 of the Fairchild 660/670. The second stage of position 6 is ludicrously long, but these are both useful settings to have available. The Make-Up Gain is in 1dB steps from zero to 11dB. On the older version of this unit, this would stay in circuit in Bypass mode. On this unit it doesn’t, but there is an internal board to select either mode of operation, and this can be added to the original model with a US$35 kit.

This compressor has a big, warm yet clean tone, and the sound remains somehow transparent, bright and detailed even when using heavy compression. It lacks the colouration of a 670 or the honk and wail of an 1176, behaving more like a grown-up brother — a little more sophisticated and sensible! Butch Vig and the Lord-Alge brothers are fans of Daking units, and I’m not surprised. This is really top-class. ■

Contact DAKING, US: Website: www.daking.com Golden Age Music, Sweden: +46 322 665050

The Daking Mic-Pre IV offers four channels of class A preamp in 1U with an outboard power supply.

Configured for four mic inputs or four line inputs from Neutrik combi jacks on the back plus four line inputs (+10 to -50) or 1/4-inch hi-Z instrument inputs on the front, the Mic-Pre IV has transformerbalanced I-Os.

Each input offers variable gain, a 20-segment LED level meter with +24db peak indicator, switchable mic/line or hi-z instrument, switchable +48V phantom power, switchable input phase and switchable 20dB pad.

resolution

March 2005

review

review

Røde NT2-A It’s been around long enough to bestow self-appointed ‘classic’ status on its earliest models, but Røde is looking at building on existing strengths rather than just revisiting them.

JON THORNTON contrasts and compares.

I

GUESS I STILL think of Røde as one of the new kids on the block in terms of microphone design and manufacture, but it’s been a long time since the first of its products emerged. As if to underline this fact, Røde sees the NT2-A as a modern reworking of the original NT2, while at the same time almost ascribing ‘classic’ status to the NT2.

While we can debate that particular point, the NT2-A is a very different looking beast to the old NT2. The original succeeded in looking very simple and understated (dare I say classic?) in appearance, with more than a passing nod to a certain German manufacturer in terms of aesthetics. The NT2-A is an altogether chunkier look, sharing some common design values with some of Røde’s more recent offerings. That’s not all it shares either, as the heart of the microphone is the same dual 25mm diaphragm used to such good effect in the Røde K2 valve microphone.

A conventional side addressed design, the ‘front’ of the NT2-A is where all the action is, courtesy of three stubby three-position toggle switches. The first of these selects polar pattern from a choice of cardioid, omni or fig-8. The next selects a high pass filter at 40Hz, 80Hz or off, and the final switch gives the option of a -5dB or -10dB pad. The switches are all very positive in action, and although putting them so obviously on display might not make for the prettiest mic in the world, they sure are easy to see and set.

General build quality seems very good — it’s a fairly weighty microphone largely due to the thickness of the case work. Internally, the electronics are a solid-state J-FET design, with all the switches and components mounted on a tidy looking PCB. It’s clear that much work has gone into this element of the design, as the NT2-A is a very quiet mic indeed, which when coupled with an output that is a little hotter than most means that noise never really becomes an issue.

The NT2-A ships with a protective pouch and a fixed standmount. This mount secures to the base of the microphone and is held in place by a locking ring that is unscrewed from the microphone and then replaced once the stand mount has been put in place. It works well, and seems capable of holding the microphone securely in any position you want, but I can’t help thinking that if you lost the locking ring you’d be screwed.

The first test for the mic was a straightforward comparison against two ubiquitous studio microphones, a U87 and a C414, on male and female vocals. The first impression is that Røde hasn’t produced a ‘me too’ microphone — its tone is very distinctive. On male vocals it has a slight graveliness 34

to the low mids that isn’t unpleasant, giving a slight ‘raunch’ to the sound rather than the more mellow results of the U87. There is also a hint of sharpness on the high frequencies that is quite revealing of overly sibilant vocals and breath sounds — again it sounds a little brighter than the U87 but not quite as open as the 414 in these ranges. Having said that, it never sounds particularly ‘hyped’ like some other budget large diaphragm contenders.

Female vocals seemed to suit it a little less well — there was a tendency for it to sound a little lumpy and boxy in the low mid range here, and this is emphasised by some quite significant proximity effect when used close on the cardioid pattern. Careful positioning, though, gave some very nice sounds when used on a female vocalist delivering a rootsey soul number.

Moving to a nylon strung acoustic guitar again showed just how much Røde has striven to make a microphone that is a true studio workhorse. Used relatively close on a cardioid setting gives a full, slightly overblown sound, yet with plenty of mid range detail — certainly a sound that would sit very comfortably in a mix. Backing off a bit gives more air and results in a sound that is a little less forced, yet still sounds a little more flattering than the unforgiving, but beautifully detailed sound of the 414.

In summary, the NT2-A is likely to find many homes — it would be as welcome in a well stocked mic cupboard as it would be as the only large diaphragm mic in a small project studio. Its price (UK£229 + VAT) makes it a real bargain, which is all the more satisfying as you get the sense that the money is being spent where it matters and not where it doesn’t.

The no frills looks may not appeal to everybody, but where it counts it delivers handsomely. ■

PROS

Distinctive but flexible sonic character; great value; quiet.

CONS

Not the prettiest mic in the world; make sure you don’t lose that locking ring.

EXTRAS

Contact RØDE, AUSTRALIA Website: www.rodemicrophones.com UK, HHB: +44 20 8962 5000

The Røde VideoMic for camcorder users attaches via a standard hot-shoe fitting and is a shotgun design featuring an integral windshield and full suspension mount that isolates the mic from mechanical noise generated by the camcorder. It has a switchable 80Hz filter and is constructed from ABS. Power, for in excess of 100 hours use, is provided by a 9V PP3 battery. Output is at line level via a 3.5mm mini jack.

resolution

March 2005

review

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review

DPA Windpac Daring to challenge an industry standard with a different take on the business of wind cheating, the Danes have come up with an innovative and legitimate alternative design solution that also folds down to almost nothing. NEIL HILLMAN decides that he wouldn’t want to have it to open up in his pocket.

C

UMBERSOME AND SHORT-LIVED or innovative and stylishly efficient?

Overlooking the Hindenburg’s fatal, but 70 years ahead of its time, policy of asking smokers to leave the Airship’s first class lounge if they fancied a fag, these lighter-thanair craft built by the German Zeppelin company were traversing the globe well before conventional aeroplanes could provide little more than a short hop and a quick gin and tonic. So, efficient — yes; but undoubtably cumbersome.

Appropriately launched in the Zeppelin’s fatherland at AES Berlin 2004, the Zeppelin-esque Windpac windshields from DPA have a hard act to follow, given the ubiquitous nature of Rycote Windshield’s place and pedigree in the market. Rycote were the first, and up to now have remained, the best choice for professional location recordists needing to balance the equations of performance against cost, and reliability against replaceability. It is simply impossible to use the interference-tube type microphones, such as the Sennheiser 416 or the Pearl MS-8 stereo shot-gun, outdoors without a windhield such as a Rycote — or the very close design-copy by Sennheiser itself — even on the gentlest of days.

Comprising of just two main parts, a shockmount and the windshield itself, the DPA Windpac (UK £530+VAT) is

fabricated from light materials and plastics with a claimed saving in weight of 50% over its rivals. However, this becomes much less obvious once like is compared with like — with it fully assembled and a microphone in place at the end of a boom-pole — due mainly to the Windpac’s off-middle centre-ofgravity. In fact, in hand-held mode, its lack of a proper pistolgrip makes the device unwieldy to handle. But for most applications, these microphones will be fixed to a boom-pole or a stand, and exposed to the elements.

The specially-developed thin and light gauze material covering the sprung-steel frame of the windshield contributes to its overall lightness: acoustically more transparent than the substances used by its rivals, yet fully windproof at gusts of up to 70mph, and waterproof; moisture simply runs off the surface, protecting the precious investment ensconced within. Ideal qualities then for that onboard, America’s Cup location assignment.

The microphone housing is accessed via a quickrelease end cap, hinged from the main body of the windshield with soft rubber strips, and secured by two sprung pegs on the cap locating into two mating sockets on the rim of the windshield body. The cradle itself provides effective shockmounting, made from rigid extruded plastic, with soft rubber suspension straps and elasticated locking tensioners to hold either one or two microphones securely in place. The ‘V’ design of the two microphone support brackets enable a range of mic diameters to be accomodated — a stepped lugg allowing the elasticated locking-band to be captured in a variety of tensioning positions and the microphone support itself to be adjusted on its suspension, to ensure the mic sits in the middle of the windshield body.

The unique nature of the Windpac is in its collapsible nature, akin to the large Lastolight reflectors muchloved by cameramen that with just a flick of the wrist fold down from the size of a squash court to the size of a dinner plate. Similarly, with a twist, the Windpac’s windshield envelope stows flat, saving the enormous volume it otherwise occupies, slipping neatly into a

small carry-case supplied by DPA. The microphone cradle is located into place by pushing it onto the windshield’s frame, through a pair of push-fit location slots, and is locked in its rightful place when the end cap is secured over the end of the windshield. The Windpac then literally hangs off the rear bracket of the shockmount, secured solely by the insertion of the two plastic locking pins at the back of the assembly; the sparseness of this arrangement contributes to the low mechanical transmission noise of the Windpac, which can become a problem when handling an assembly like this.

The signal connections from the microphone are brought through the windshield by a short, right-angled XLR coupler, supplied by DPA with the Windpac, that sits securely within the stem of the shockmount and removes the need for a heavy XLR cable to be left clunking around the noise-sensitive end of the set-up.

In use, the DPA Windpac meets its design brief admirably. It out-performed both the ‘fluffied’ and ‘un-fluffied’ Rycote I compared it to in a stiff breeze, with no small part being played by the markedly larger pocket of still air the Windpac places around the mic. Sadly, I was unable to secure a berth on any Transatlantic racing yachts to make the ultimate comparison for Resolution. Living in Birmingham means being as far from the sea as it is possible to be in the UK; but when the rain fell and the wind whipped across Edgbaston reservoir, Midland Sailing Club’s dinghies took to the water and I did my best to provide that near-ultimate test.

I think that the DPA Windpac is expensive; much more so in the UK than a Rycote for instance, and it remains to be seen if it will replace the Rycote in the journeyman’s everyday kit. Yet in extreme Outside Broadcast conditions, like a Rugby League match on a wet Winter night, it performs brilliantly. ■

PROS

Its wet weather performance compared to a soaking ‘fluffy’ windshield is excellent; with the larger protective ‘still-air’ around the microphone giving it a greater edge over its rivals.

CONS

It is expensive compared to its main rival and less user-friendly.

EXTRAS

The Windpac is water resistant as it is treated with a fine coating of protective chemical. However, for extended rainy outdoor use applications DPA has developed a Rain Cover to protect the windshield and microphone. This is now included in the kit.

The Rain Cover is a thin piece of foam that easily pulls over the windshield. It breaks the speed of heavy rain drops, absorbing the sound of the drop, and acts as a shield against water damage to the mic in heavy rain. The foam material means the product is still extremely light.

Also, the locking mechanism on the Windpac’s rear lid has been replaced with a more simple opening system with miniature handles to be turned instead of pinched.

Contact DPA MICROPHONES, DENMARK Website: www.dpamicrophones.com Website: www.windpac.com

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resolution

March 2005

review

review

Presonus Bluetube DP Two channel mic preamps with DI functionality don’t come a lot cheaper than this one particularly when you’ve thrown a bottle into the equation. It’s small and big on the colour blue, according to GEORGE SHILLING.

T

HIS CUTE LITTLE BOX is a dual channel microphone and instrument preamplifier. At UK£165 it is firmly in the budget sector and the price is all the more remarkable for a ‘tube’ device.

The housing is approximately half a rackspace wide — Presonus has designed a rack convertor kit but have not manufactured this yet. The case is very shallow, the whole thing is fairly light, but it seems well built, with attractive curved aluminium coloured finished sides with fins, and a matching front panel that continues part of the way around the top and bottom of the case.

The remaining case is black painted steel, the top features a grill through which the tube is visible, and there are indentations top and bottom for the supplied rubber feet to adhere to and, presumably, for multiple units to stack onto. I imagine this box is most likely to be used on a desktop rather than in a rack. Power comes from a wall-wart of average size but more than average weight that puts out 16V. The lack of a power switch would, I imagine, be a nuisance should you ever rackmount a pair of these.

The Bluetube DP replaces the original Bluetube model, which was similar in many ways. The most noticeable difference is the addition of the circular VUs in place of the combi XLR/Jack inputs (for microphone and instrument respectively) that have been relocated to the rear. Also on the rear are outputs in the form of separate (rather tight-fitting) female XLR and unbalanced Jack sockets for each channel. When plugging in the DC connector, rather than the slow change to an orange glow you might expect from the tube, there is a rather intense red LED light immediately shining from behind the valve, presumably for that famous magical LED warmth!

I suspect the main reason for this is to disguise the rather weak natural valve glow, which is a result of powering the valve with merely 16 volts. When powered up, the round VUs’ yellow background is magically illuminated with blue light. The front panel VU meters are fine but, like the internal LED, are undoubtedly a fashion choice — simpler LED meters may have been better. However, rear inputs keeps things neater.

Each of the front panel’s eight pushbuttons lights 38

up blue when pushed in. And guess what, the four knobs are painted blue... They must have really thought hard about the colour of that internal LED, finally deciding that a blue-glowing tube might have worried some users! The knobs are for Gain and Tube Drive for each channel. Gain range is legended as being from zero to 60dB with 15, 30 and 45 indicated at 90-degree points on the scale.

Although the knob goes past the 60 mark, the spec sheet claims only 54dB of available gain, and indeed there seemed considerably lower levels seen at the output than high-end units set to roughly similar indicated levels.

For most situations and with most microphones there is plenty of gain available, although when interfacing low output mics with professional equipment you very occasionally find that there is just not quite as much gain as you might wish for. The knobs have a ridged barrel and a multipledetented feel, so despite their diminutive size they are pleasant to twiddle. The Tube Drive knob varies from that on the original model in that it has a click-off position at the left.

This eliminates the tube circuit — hence the ‘Dual Path’ in the name. This knob can then be cranked to provide extra harmonics and distortion from the tube circuit. Between the two knobs on each channel is a Clip LED — headroom is adequate and the noise floor is very low, even in tube mode. This usually lit before the signal level strained the professional +4 convertors I was interfacing with.

The front panel buttons comprise 48V phantom

power, polarity reversal, Pad (-20dB) and a useful 80Hz high pass filter for each channel. As a microphone preamplifier I compared it directly with a couple of far more expensive models, and the Bluetube stood up very well. With the Tube circuit off, the overall tone is very natural and uncoloured.

It sounds clean, if slightly less detailed than the more expensive units, but these were models costing around ten times the asking price of the Bluetube DP. Switching on the tube circuit, at the lowest drive setting there is a low-end bloom added to the sound, along with a softening of the tone.

As the Tube Drive is cranked, a slight fuzziness is gradually added, until at full-tilt there is an unsubtle distortion. This probably isn’t desirable for most circumstances when using the microphone preamp, but the lower tube drive settings certainly add warmth and extra harmonics that might be beneficial for certain overdubs. Using the instrument input, there is an enormous amount of gain available, far more than needed for any guitar.

However, this lacked some of the thickness and midrange detail of high-end instrument preamps.

Subtle amounts of Tube Drive enriched the signal, although full drive generally sounded fairly horrible and a bit ‘hairy’ — I actually preferred cranking the Gain full up to overload my convertor’s analogue input for full-on fuzz!

The old model proved something of a favourite for guitarists wanting a touch of valve magic. By inserting the Bluetube between guitar and amp, a useful subtle extra bit of drive and crunch can make for a very agreeable tone, and a little extra gain driving the amp’s input can be useful. This was the only situation where full Tube Drive usually sounded really good! I suspect it may be worth experimenting with a better replacement tube, depending on the main application...

The DP is good value, well made, and boasts surprisingly fulsome sounding microphone preamps that stand up well to comparison with more expensive units. ■

Contact PRESONUS, UK: Website: www.presonus.com UK, Hand in Hand Distribution: +44 1579 326155

PROS

Great mic preamps for the price; simple operation; useful DI; useful preamp for guitarists; compact and portable.

CONS

No power switch; slightly lacking in maximum mic gain; daft internal LED.

EXTRAS

The ADL 600 from Presonus is a high voltage Class A, 2-channel valve mic preamp designed by Anthony DeMaria. It features six valves, military-grade switched attenuators, VU and LED metering as well as

instrument input, line input and selectable microphone input impedance. It employs high voltage power rails (600V peak to peak) delivering 75dB of gain and more than 30dB of headroom.

resolution

March 2005

review

Joe Chiccarelli His CV spans genres and fashions and impresses peers and employers. He talks to NIGEL JOPSON about overused technology, writing on the box, standardisation, and breaking the rules again.

J

OE CHICCARELLI IS A RARITY among producer/engineers — a practitioner whose discography is equally impressive to fellow production pros as it is bankable for A&R execs. Apart from four Latin Grammy wins with politically-minded Colombian heartthrob Juanes, two Grammy Best Rock Album wins with alt-rock outfit Cafe Tacuba and two discs nominated for Best Engineered Recording, there’s work with U2, Beck, Hanson, Rickie Lee Jones, Elton John, Tori Amos, George Thorogood, Bon Jovi and Bob Seger.

In an age of the micro-genre focused specialist, Chiccarelli is a polyglot, with honour-roll credits for Rufus Wainwright, Dub Pistols, The Offspring, 40

Pink Martini, Stan Ridgeway, Clem Snide, Sophie B. Hawkins, Hole and American Music Club (to name but a few).

Joe originally got his break in classic style when, as an assistant at Cherokee, he was catapulted into the hot seat with the notoriously demanding Frank Zappa after an engineer didn’t show. Zappa promptly promoted the young Chiccarelli, who went on to record legendary FZ albums Sheik Yerbouti, Joe’s Garage, Baby Snakes and several others. Resolution cornered Joe in Los Angeles, as he flitted between producing new BMG act Judd & Maggie and recording for guitarist Larry Carlton at Capitol Studios. [Photos by Mr. Bonzai at Studio D, Ocean Way Recording Studios, Hollywood] resolution

Are you using the Neve 8068 in Studio B to record Larry?

On this project nothing is outboard, that room sounds so amazing. We cut the first batch of tracks at Cello and they are both equally great facilities, both have great old Neve consoles. I do usually like to mix and match preamps, it allows a bit more clarity in the mix if I put guitars through an API, drums through a Neve and use my Martechs for vocals. With Larry Carlton we wanted to come up with something that was a little rougher around the edges, having it all go through a vintage Neve with a lot of tube mics really helps. Larry is making a rock album with Matt Chamberlain on drums, Michael Rhodes on bass and Jeff Babco on keyboards, it’s sort of in the Jeff Beck Blow By Blow style — even heavier than that, maybe — people haven’t heard Larry in this setting in a long time. Some songs are being built up in the studio, that makes it more of an exciting process. There’s nothing like the first take of a song, if you demo and re-demo songs they tend to get a little watered down ... that initial vision of the song un-compromised! I did an album with Elton John a couple of years ago and it was similar: he writes everything in the studio.

March 2005

craft Which Elton album was that?

Songs From The West Coast, it was recorded in Hollywood at a number of different locations, some was done in London at the Townhouse and it was mixed at Cello by Bill Bottrel and myself. He’s so passionate and alive and really puts 150% energy into it. Nigel Olsson hadn’t been in the studio with him for about 10 years, as a kid I was a Nigel Olsson fan, so to record him again with Elton was just such a gift. What was interesting to me — now that everyone is click-track and perfection crazy — I went and listened to Nigel’s headphones and he’s just got the vocal and piano cranked up so loud, everything else is buried. He totally plays off the song, and what it’s trying to say. I think that’s the key to all of this, to really respect the song and the artist and dip deep in yourself, get inside the song and make it come alive.

If you’re on the other side of the glass, sometimes that means the ultimate in fidelity, and sometimes that means no fidelity.

What other acts have you been working with recently?

I’ve produced some songs for a Seattle rock/soul band called Maktub and I’m also producing this new band from Brooklyn, NY called The Natural History, very interesting guitar harmonies, perhaps with XTC or Elvis Costello as influences. The last few months I’ve been recording BMG artist Tom MacRae, we took over what were the stables at this old estate and assembled a temporary residential studio in this beautiful idyllic place at the top of the Hollywood Hills.

We recorded live with bass (sometimes acoustic bass), drums, acoustic piano, acoustic and electric guitar, a cello and live lead vocals — all at the same time — keeper takes including vocals! It was pretty tough holding it all together with a lot of rented gear. We had built a couple of booths for the vocal and cello, but everyone else was live in a room built for horses not musicians, I think we just had to be fearless about it and go for it. Tom is a great artist, a wonderful writer, he’s the real thing, and we went for band takes and vocal takes at the same time ... sometimes it’s just a matter of everyone giving up and diving in ... that’s what makes it magic.

After the unexpected sales success of some ‘real’ music albums, do you sense there might be a swing back to majors developing live-playing acts?

Like Norah Jones, you mean? I’m not sure that I’ve

seen that here in the US, although I would love to believe that were the case. I still see tracks that are very over-crafted. But ironically the stuff that breaks through and impresses people is material that showcases real talent and musicianship.

Whenever there’s a new technology there’s a period of discovery, where it tends to get over used. Think of the 1980s when all the digital effects came in, or the 1970s with 48 track recording, there was always a period of experimentation and overuse of new technology, and as a result sometimes the technology overshadows the music. I think we’re just coming out of a period like that, and in a sense there is a swing back towards music and performance, because our infatuation with the technology is being put in perspective.

So are you an analogue die-hard or a Pro Tools technologist?

In 1998 I went kicking and screaming into the Pro Tools world. I was producing a band called The Pulsars who were doing the 80s new-wave-retrothing, they were into Pro Tools and got me into it.

At the time I wasn’t crazy about the sonics of the MixPlus system, but nevertheless the flexibility was overwhelming, it just really opened my eyes, and 3 months into doing the project I ended up buying my own Pro Tools system.

I love the sound of analogue, so I still mix down to analogue. But these days most people don’t want to take the time or don’t have the budget for tape, and I have to say: an HD system, properly clocked, sounds fantastic at 24/96. I don’t have any complaints about

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41

craft it, I think the HD192 sounds amazing and the Apogee convertors sound wonderful too. It’s different from tape, you don’t get the colouring, but I don’t think there’s an argument about it anymore as far as the sonics. I wouldn’t think about using any other system to record now.

Do you sit in front of the screen yourself when tracking, or do you have an assistant do it?

If it’s a very hectic session with a large number of people, or very MIDI intensive, it’s nice to have someone else there, but for the most part I run Pro Tools myself. Unfortunately it’s become the hub of the session — that’s the one sad thing I’ll say about it — it’s still a new technology and everyone is still so taken by it they sometimes spend too much time staring at the computer screen as opposed to worrying about a performance. Sometimes more energy gets put into repairing or manipulating than it does into performing and crafting.

When I started in this industry, I would get screamed at if my penmanship on a track sheet wasn’t up to standard. I’ve received Pro Tools sessions where the tracks were labelled Audio 1, 2, 3 — all the way up to 64. Or labelled Jimmy, Harry, Sally — what is that? I have to deal with the consequence of this, which is to ring up the A&R guy and say another half day is needed because the tracks were such a mess. There are mix specialists like Tom Lord-Alge who have to send out a form ahead of time to clients, saying this is how I want it delivered, and if you don’t deliver it like this I’m not even going to mix it! It’s like a plague now ... how many projects end up with a musician saying: ‘I’ve got an idea for some background vocals but I really want to woodshed it at home’ ... there are songs flying all around the world. It’s tough enough to keep it together during the making of the record, it’s going to be so difficult years from now.

You do a lot of mix-only work, are you doing all the Tools grid-work and grouping yourself?

My pet peeve is documentation for Pro Tools sessions.

I get a lot of songs in to mix — it can take me anything from 2 to 4 hours just to figure out what’s really on a 90-track session because operators haven’t properly labelled sessions. There are songs coming through with missing audio files ... I then have to hunt it all down. Thank goodness the NARAS folks have come up with a paper on standardisation for delivery of PT files. These are major issues, especially when you consider archiving: what happens in another 10 years when there’s a new 8.1 surround system, and everyone wants to go back and remix the stuff?

Do you see any solution to this?

Someone has to step forward and come up with some sort of standardisation, I would hope that software manufacturers working in the professional realm would take part in this and shoulder some responsibility, but an organisation like the AES has to define a way that it’s done, ideally a method that crosses platforms. Without even getting into the archiving issue, I can name a dozen major albums I’ve worked on in the last few years that were done digitally and no one knows where the original hard drives are — they’ll just never be found! What is most sad to me is that this only furthers the idea of disposable music.

Do you mix on an analogue console, or are you fully converted to the world of software?

I do mix in the computer at times, it works for certain projects. I’ve found it works best when you really front load your record: the more you get your sounds exactly where you want them going into the digital medium, the better off you are. If I have to do a lot of processing or use a lot of plug-ins I’m generally less happy. I find I have to be a little cautious about how far I go with everything, especially overall stereo bus compression or EQ. Most plug-ins seem to have an artefact of their own that they add in, and it’s not always a pleasant one.

Do you have any particular favourite plug-ins?

I think my favourite EQs are the McDSP and the Massenburg. Recently I like using all the Eventide stuff and the Princeton reverb — the emulation of the 2016 — and the Space Station sounds cool. I also use Bomb factory, and the UA plugins sound very good. However, there are certain organic things that ‘just happen’ when you’re using hardware boxes that just don’t seem to occur when using software emulations. I do find you have to use them sparingly, and also usually roll off some top end. It’s a bit how digital reverb was in the early days — it can become busy sounding and competitive in a track. For the most part the hardware sounds better. I still love mixing on an analogue console: until the digital summing bus really comes into it’s own, there are going to be analogue mixing rooms.

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March 2005

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Have you tried any of the analogue summing bus DAW add-on products like the Dangerous 2-Bus or Tube-Tech SSA 2A? I’ve only heard the Dangerous 2-Bus, I thought it sounded pretty fast, open and alive, if a little clean.

I choose to mix on a certain console because of the character that console imparts to the music, a lot of the summing bus products like the API, or others that are doing more of a retro thing, are in a similar place. The Dangerous sounded punchy, but colourless. Comparing the 2-Bus to an SSL 9K I preferred it in some ways, but I did like the colour of the SSL better. I also listened to it alongside a very old Neve, which for the particular music I was testing seemed a little soggy by comparison. I haven’t heard the Tube-Tech yet but I’m a major fan of their 3band stereo compressor. I often use it as an analogue stereo bus compressor.

What sort of clients have you been mixing for?

Lately projects for Shawn Colvin, The All American Rejects, Vanessa Carlton, and a new band called All Hours. A couple of years ago I mixed a song called Happiness is a Warm Gun for U2 at Soundcastle studio, they sent about 96 tracks of information and said — take it and do your thing, just go for it. Bono was very inspirational in saying: ‘this is a song that we all love, please respect that but take it where March 2005

you want.’ I did one mix that was a very organic, band-like approach, and one that was a very techno approach to the song. They were really fantastic about it, they’re very willing to experiment and try something, even if the only thing you learn is that where you were at initially was the right place!

‘You can’t write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream’ ...

Does the Zappa influence linger on?

He gave me my break in this business — his spirit of innovation and independence, his fearlessness to try anything to come up with something that was striking and unusual, was fantastic. I hope that in my lifetime he gets the respect he deserves, because some of his classical compositions (which most people haven’t heard yet and are still in the vaults) are just brilliant, I think he’s up there with Bartok and Varese.

I realised with Frank that sometimes making sounds reckless or tweaked is way more exciting than the perfect sound. Nowadays I find the more I do this, the less I’m interested in the very technical side of it. When you’re young and up-and-coming you’re so interested in the gadgets and techniques and everything. I find now it’s more interesting to try and forget about everything and try to learn something new by sort of breaking the rules again. ■ resolution

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Mic-Pre IV

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craft There must be things in common like drum miking, how technical do you get with that?

I’ve got a basic technique when miking drums, but it varies — the room is really critical. I went through a period of really low-tech miking on kits, especially during the late 90s where I was working with a lot of experimental Welsh artists like Superfurries, you’d often put just one mic on the kit. But I usually closemic everything, spot-mic cymbals and everything, but then the room mics vary. I tend not to use a lot of stereo miking, I use a lot of mono room miking, like a Coles right down the centre. But with Melanie’s record I’d started getting experimental, so we’d have the Coles, then we’d have some stereo mics as well, then we’d have some kidney mics behind the kit. So we did all these different techniques which actually gave us a lot of different drum sounds without having to do a lot of different drum tracks. There were a multitude of different ways we could do it, and we did a lot of sampling stuff as well. But there are no great secrets, we all use 57s on the snare, the latest thing I swear by is the NS-10 kick drum thing...

Greg Haver Drummer turned engineer, producer and mixer, Greg Haver combines an organic approach with an adaptive approach. He talks to GEORGE SHILLING about drum miking, unbalanced stereo, the iPod, organisation and organisation.

H

AILING FROM CARDIFF and still based there, Greg Haver started his musical apprenticeship as a drummer, playing in bands, doing sessions and having some success, most notably with the band Waterfront, who had a few US hits in the late 1980s. Greg had earlier set up a production company and experimented with a Fostex E16 and an Allen and Heath mixer, so when Waterfront returned from touring and set up a studio, it was Greg who showed the most interest in its workings, and he saw it as a career opportunity.

He recorded demos and started writing his own material, mainly dance tracks. As well as his hardearned percussive skills he taught himself keyboards and programming and acquired an EMI publishing deal. However, his main love was the recording and mixing process. Haver’s break came when he was offered the chance (in partnership with the studio assistant) to buy Soundspace, where the Manic Street Preachers had recorded their Holy Bible album.

They spruced the place up and the Manics returned, along with Catatonia, the Superfurry Animals and the 60 Foot Dolls during the mid-90s Welsh music boom. Having engineered most of these sessions, Haver co-produced some of the Manics’ Know Your Enemy album and acquired top-flight producer management with Stephen Budd in London. He spent 2004 producing much of the Manics’ most recent album, Lifeblood, followed by six months producing Melanie C’s forthcoming album. He is currently enjoying a well-earned rest touring New Zealand in a camper van while considering offers flooding in to his management office. (Photography: www.recordproduction.com) 44

Do you see production as a managerial role as much as a technical one?

It really varies from session to session. When I did the Melanie C record recently, I realised there was going to be a lot of admin work and a lot of organisational work, because we had big string sections, we had a lot of different studios, a lot of different musicians, so I didn’t want to be engineering that record too because it would just have been too much to take on. Whereas, with the Manics, I engineered that record, but there was less organisation outside of it because they’re quite a small unit and they know what they want to do. I tend not to like to stare at computer screens, I like to be able to listen, so I’ll always have someone working with me just to do Pro Tools.

How do you motivate artists who’ve been in the game for a long time?

I think when an artist gets to that level, I think I’ve been lucky, they’ve always been very motivated themselves.

The Manics are very intense, I think one reason they work with people they know is because they are so intense in the studio, and there’s a lot of abuse being thrown around, a lot of piss-taking and a lot of pain, but you know at the end of the day when you walk away you’ll all get on. But with Melanie, she’s the most focused artist I’ve ever worked with. Before she came in to do vocals, she’d been to a vocal coach, acupuncturist, physiotherapist, everybody. It was just a whole different world for me. But she always came in and it was brilliant, I don’t think we spent more than three hours on a vocal, even with loads of BVs and everything. I’ve done two very different albums over the year, Melanie’s and the Manics’, with two very different approaches to them. resolution

They have an official one here, the Yamaha Sub-Kick...

Corr, really! I used to use Moogerfoogers to create that sub-kick thing, I like the fact you can do it organically...

I didn’t know there was an official one, excellent!

I’m not frightened to use tons of EQ on drums, that’s one thing when I started working with [engineer] Clint Murphy, he was very much the purist, he was using the beautiful old EMI Neve in York Street, bakelite knobs and everything, and he’s very much into ‘pure’, and I’m like, no, just screw the sound up!

Crank up the EQ, it doesn’t matter if it’s distorting a bit, I like to see the clip lights coming on on the channels, you know they’re working then, the mic amps are getting hot!

But I’m very much an analogue desk man, much as I do love Pro Tools, I use it really extensively now. I even mix back into Pro Tools, I’ve completely foregone any analogue tape path anywhere on the session, which some producers would be horrified by, but I find I like to have that flexibility right up to the final part of the mix. I rejected Pro Tools for a very long time, and now I couldn’t live without it really, especially HDs with the chance to load up plug-ins. Mel’s was the first album where we did all our EQing and compression within Pro Tools, the dynamic range of her voice was so great, we could have different compressors with different ratios in different parts of the song, we’d get the whole thing sitting right in the song without having to move any faders. There was no desk automation with that record, all the automation was done in Pro Tools, but we did mix on a Neve.

When you mixed did you use any analogue outboard?

Yes, we had some Pultec EQs and Neve outboard EQs for real high-end air on cymbals and stuff, but we did a lot of EQing down into Pro Tools. I like to have a record sounding good from the start, that’s why I’m not frightened to EQ things. I think it’s important for the artist to hear the record coming together, rather than the classic, ‘It’ll be fine when we mix it...’ And I like to hear that, it gives me ideas when I start hearing things sitting together.

Is the temptation not then to change everything again when you mix?

Yeah, but I’ve lost the fear. If something’s not right, just do it again. I work really quickly, so I found that was my other way of compensating. If I work quick March 2005

craft things, and the honest way he records things, like why use three mics when you can use one. They lodge in the back of your brain.

enough, and I just go with what I feel, then if it’s wrong we can go and change it. If I spent ages getting to that point, then you feel you haven’t got the ability to change things because it’s: ‘Oh God, I just spent two days doing this bit, and if I scrap it now...’ I’d rather just wang through stuff and get it down.

Do you use Pro Tools rather than Logic or anything else?

Yes I’ve always run Pro Tools, because my MIDI programming days were very much hardware sequencer based — MC500s and Yamahas. When I started doing a lot of bands in the mid-90s with the classic instrumentation of guitar, bass, drums, vocals, I skipped that whole thing of everyone starting to use Logic. And now, I don’t use MIDI extensively, my background comes from tape rather than from programming. The guys who started with Logic are comfortable with it as a front end; Tony Visconti uses Logic, I did some work with him on the Manics record — because I play percussion for the Manics as well, I played percussion on these tracks. I flew from Auckland to New York just so I could spend a day with Tony Visconti. It was brilliant, I could find out all the things I wanted to know about how many things were live on Live And Dangerous [Thin Lizzy].

What were the panning things?

Really extreme panning on percussion. I always used to keep things fairly loop-like and fairly central, it’s like hanging tambourines way off on one ear, and guitar on the other one, not frightened to be really extreme with things. You’re always trying to find that stereo balance, and every time somebody does something that’s really unbalanced it always impresses me.

Like Vertigo, that U2 single, I was listening to it on the train the other day, and the guitar’s just hanging off one ear for nearly the whole song. And you’re waiting for the double-track to come in, the chorus is coming and they’re going to track it now, and it just keeps carrying on in one ear. But in the middle eight, when the second guitar comes in, the whole thing completely flies, just by adding one extra dub. I thought, why couldn’t I do that?

So at the moment, that’s my thinking, let’s not put so much on things and make everything count a bit more. I like it when I listen to a record and it gives me ideas. This is my first year of the iPod, just to have that library with you, you’re never stuck for an idea, you’ve always got all your music with you, I must have listened to ten times more music than I did in the last few years, just because I’ll always have it with me, rather than: ‘I wish I hadn’t left

Not many!

Yeah, just the drums, apparently! Apart from all the DAC1 I 3rd Resol 10-6-04 3:37 pm stories picked up a few things — 10/6/04 a few little panning

that CD at home’. And it’s a really good working tool, everything’s catalogued with your mix dates and so on. I’ve been using iTunes in the studio for a while to keep everything catalogued, I’m a bit of an organisational freak.

It’s an important skill to have...

I think it’s vital for a record producer, if you’re trying to control a budget of three, four, five hundred thousand pounds, if you’re not organised you’re going to completely lose track of everything.

So right down to receipts — it drives me nuts, obsessive-compulsive gone mad! At least when I get to the end of the record I know everything that’s been spent, how many days we’ve had and who has played on what. I think that’s a really big part of production that people forget.

How do you monitor?

I’m not that picky with monitoring, I still like to shred my ears on NS-10s every now and again. I like KRKs, all their sizes of monitors are great, I just bought their little tiny ones, and they’re just fantastic speakers, with the big Eight’s for a lot of mixing, but as long as I’ve got NS-10s and something that’s got a bit of bottom end around I’m pretty happy really.

I’m not too fussy with gear as long as you’ve got the essentials there. And sometimes I like it when places haven’t got certain things, because I find if I can do something else, that’s what keeps it interesting. ■

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March 2005

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45

sweet spot

Ribbons, line arrays and hifi Ribbon transducer loaded monitors remain an alternative for studio monitoring. SLS Loudspeakers’ director of technical communication R BOB ADAMS and director of R&D IGOR LEVITSKY give an outline of the technology involved and also deliver a crash course in line arrays while they’re about it.

F

OR YEARS AUDIOPHILES have been experiencing the special sparkle that ribbons add to their home theatre listening experience. I remember my first experience with ribbon loudspeakers — another (equally picky) audiophile in my apartment complex had a set of Magnepan loudspeakers. I was hooked; I had to have ribbons — those wonderful planar ribbon loudspeakers.

As I enjoyed my new loudspeakers, I immediately noticed one glaring deficiency; the lack of substantial sound pressure level. In fact, in a very short time I managed to ‘burn up’ my loudspeakers by trying to play them at too high a volume.

Subsequent to that experience, I have followed the development of ribbon loudspeakers with great interest. I learned that as early as 1925, patents were issued for ribbon loudspeakers. These early devices were quickly recognised as a tremendously effective way to convert acoustical energy into electrical energy and vice versa. Scientists learned quickly that ribbon transducers were especially efficient at reproducing the crispness and expressive tonal quality of higher frequencies. However, as with my experience, they were continually hampered and limited by thermal problems. Therefore, the use of ribbon transducers for anything other than near-field, close environment listening was very difficult at best and considered impossible by some.

There have been attempts by various manufacturers to build ribbon devices that could be used in larger listening environments. However, as with their predecessors, heat was continually a problem. SLS Loudspeakers developed a ribbon planar transducer that overcame this thermal problem and became applicable to the contemporary sound reinforcement market with the PRD line of ribbon drivers.

What makes a planar ribbon driver so unique?

The ribbon driver has fewer moving parts (Figure 1), greater surface area, and less distortion due to

In a standard dome transducer, the energy is transmitted through the voice coil, adhesive joint, bobbin, and then through another glue joint to produce the sound. The driving force is distributed along the circular joint of the voice coil and the dome, not directly across the vibrating diaphragm. In standard low frequency drivers, the dome is connected through a glue joint to another larger cone constructed of paper or other lightweight material.

In the case of compression drivers, the mechanical requirements of forcing energy through the throat and around the phase plugs in the compression chamber generates turbulence and distortion that results in a harshness that is often controlled using electronic equalisation.

This distortion can be observed in the cumulative decay spectrum (or waterfall) plot obtained with a

Figure 1

break-up resonances, transmission delay or wave cancellation. Compare the simplicity of construction of the ribbon planar device with the mechanical aspects of a standard dome transducer shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

46

Figure 3

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MLSSA analyser. As shown in Figure 3 there is a significant amount of high frequency interference visible above 1700Hz for an extended period of time.

The diaphragm of the ribbon transducer is a flat radiating surface that does not change its character of vibration with frequency. The air mass vibrating along with the diaphragm creates an ‘ideal’ coupling condition for Figure 4 sound energy transfer of the ribbon as shown in Figure 4.

A planar ribbon transducer has a less reactive impedance and is virtually free of problems associated with voice coil inductance, diaphragm resonance, or phase shifts. This results in a coherent wavefront. Very importantly, with a mass weight of approximately 50 to 100 times less than conventional dome or cone transducers, planar ribbon drivers have excellent sensitivity and high frequency extension. Because of the light diaphragm weight, the ribbon’s decay time is greatly reduced as can be observed in the waterfall plot below of Figure 5.

Simply speaking, the planar ribbon transducer is

Figure 5

a more accurate transducer with less distortion than either a dome radiator or compression driver. The broad frequency response of the SLS PRD drivers makes them especially suitable for use in a line array.

Line arrays are unique. They are not new, but they are relatively new to the contemporary music market.

They provide pattern control and coverage (distance or throw) capabilities for a given amount of power that is not possible with conventional loudspeakers.

Sound quality, if originated from a properly designed line array, can be more natural, rich, and full.

However, there are some basic principals the must be understood if line arrays are to be used successfully.

Most loudspeakers can be considered as point source devices. As such, their energy is distributed in a spherical wave front. The total energy available from the loudspeaker is spreading spherically (forward, up, down, etc.) as sound moves away from the loudspeaker. The radiation of sound from a point source provides a steady decline in energy based on the distance traveled. Specifically, the energy from a point source loudspeaker or cluster of loudspeakers will lose 1/2 of its power (6dB in sound level) for every doubling of the distance the sound travels.

Technically, the sound pressure level of a spherical wave is inversely proportionate to the square of the distance from the source.

That is not the case with line arrays. Due to continuous March 2005

sweet spot and extended dimensions of the vibrating element (i.e. the number of transducers), a line source radiates sound in the form of a cylindrical wave. This pattern difference is depicted Figure 6 in Figure 6, the sphere representing the point source loudspeaker and the cylinder representing a line array.

The cylindrical propagation of the energy from a line source results in a much more efficient projection of the sound wave. As Figure 7 depicts, the sound Figure 8

Figure 7

pressure level from the line source reduces only 3dB with each doubling of the distance traveled.

Specifically, in a cylindrical wave with the doubling of the distance sound pressure level decreases by only -3dB. It is understood that the inverse square law is valid for any loudspeaker in the far field. However, wave propagation of a line source provides more of a near field listening experience in the far field. Generally speaking, for a conventional single loudspeaker in a typical space, the near field is usually around 1 to 3 meters. This listening distance is quite common in a studio, but is not the case in an auditorium or concert situation. Therefore, the added SPL available from only a -3dB reduction in energy from line arrays can be very advantageous in those environments.

Hence the popularity of line arrays for contemporary music concerts.

However, loudspeakers are often stacked on a stage, although some space is often provided between the audience and the performer. This space is usually no more than 6 to 10 feet from the stage. That means to project an SPL of 126dB over a distance of 200 feet (not unusual at all), listeners near the stage are subjected to a SPL of up to 140dB. Anything over 106dB has a serious impact on listener fatigue. To circumvent this, many designers install additional (delayed) clusters to cover distant areas without overpowering the listener at the front.

Additionally one must consider the sensitivity and power handling capacity of the driver to project the desired SPL over the coverage distance. A line array has a major advantage with its -3dB SPL reduction rate. That’s one-half the power to produce the same levels with a line array.

Also, the greater the distance, the more effect the natural room acoustics will have on the sound being heard. The energy ratio for the arrival of the early and late reflections (C50 and C80 parameters) has a direct impact on the intelligibility of the sound. The further a listener is located from the source, the more indirect energy will be heard due to the influence of reflections and reverberation. This can create a severe imbalance to the delivered bandwidth because, if the distance is very great, air absorption may be noticeable at very high frequencies. The higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) do not project as far and are masked by the abundance of low frequency sounds in the rear of the listening area. Systems comprised of March 2005

conventional voice coil devices, either dome tweeters a line array, it is only a vertically clustered group of or compression drivers, suffer from this limitation. loudspeakers.

However, ribbon planar line arrays do not have This is complex for the user and is it helpful to this limitation. A well coupled line array using ribbon use a software program specifically developed for the planar transducers possess an almost magical ability design, aiming, and alignment of line arrays. In the to project high frequency sound over very large case of SLS Loudspeakers, this software package is distances, thus compensating for air absorption and called Line Array Simulator Software (LASS). Figure reverberation effects and delivering high quality 8 depicts a line array design and identifies the aiming sound to large areas. lines of individual loudspeakers while providing Keep in mind that with any line source there frequency specific information about the cumulative is some distance at which it no longer is a line affect of the entire array. source; wave propagation takes on the characteristics It is hoped that the above information has helped of a conventional (spherical) form. Therefore it is you to develop a familiarisation of line array basics important to know at what frequencies the line array and planar ribbon arrays more specifically. There does not propagate as a cylinder. To know that, you are additional aspects to line arrays that should be must know the type and size of drivers being used to pursued for a more complete understanding of how form the line array and the length of the array. they work. ■ High frequencies from a cone are radiated from Contact only the centre of the cone. Depending on the size of the cone, one frequency might be radiated from the SLS LOUDSPEAKERS, US Page 1 XR_firewire_res2.qxd 21/2/05 1:18 PM outer edge of the cone, another (higher) frequency Website: www.slsloudspeakers.com is radiated from the mid-point of the cone, and other (even higher) frequencies are being radiated from the inner part of the cone. A ribbon transducer is isophasic. All of the The Dream ADA-8XR: frequencies being produced by the diaphragm are in • The XR provides you with the ultimate in Prism Sound phase across the entire performance. surface of the diaphragm and throughout the • The XR works at sample rates complete path of travel. To from 32k - 192k. the listener, that means they • The XR has enhanced clocking hear all those frequencies technology. simultaneously, as they were meant to be heard.

• The XR also supports AES, SPDIF Finally, when installing a and DSD. line array, an installer must keep in mind that a line Call us NOW! array should be considered also available for as one loudspeaker with Pro-tools I HD a cumulative coverage pattern resulting from the physical interaction of all the devices in the array.

A major mistake made by the ill informed is in the aiming of the line array.

While the array contains ‘lined up loudspeakers’, it PRISM MEDIA PRODUCTS LIMITED PRISM MEDIA PRODUCTS INC. William James House 21 Pine Street is not a simple group of Cowley Road Rockaway Cambridge CB4 0WX NJ 07866 individual loudspeakers.

UK USA Too often, installers will line Tel : +44 1223 424 988 Tel : (973) 983 9577 Fax : + 44 1223 425 023 Fax : (973) 983 9588 up loudspeakers ‘aiming’ http://www.prismsound.com Email: sales@prismsound.com each device according to NOTE: Digidesign, Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, Apple Computer Inc and Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) do not endorse or support the Prism Sound ADA-8XR unit. Not all Pro-Tools, Nuendo, Cubase, Logic or Digital Performer an individual coverage controls or configurations are supported by the Prism Sound ADA-8XR. Prism Sound reserve the right to amend their own product specifications without notice. Digidesign, Pro-tools I HD are trademarks of Digidesign a division of Avid Technology Inc. Digital Performer is a trademark of Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU), Nuendo and Cubase are trademarks of Steinberg Media technologies GmbH a division of Yamaha Corporation, Logic is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc pattern. The result is not

XR + FIREWIRE = A NEW ERA

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business

Copyright or copywrong?

From January 2005, ownership of the very earliest rock ‘n’ roll recordings passed to the great unwashed. Anyone can start a record label and release a CD including recordings such as Elvis Presley’s That’s All Right Mama, Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock or Ray Charles’ Things That I Used To Do, and have no need to pay royalties to the master recording owner.

I

N THE EUROPEAN UNION, copyright on recordings expire after 50 years, compared to 70 years in countries such as Canada and Australia, and 95 years in the US. The reissue record label pressing That’s All Right Mama will still have to pay mechanical royalties of 8.5% to the composer — or rather to his estate — Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup, the bluesman who penned the young Presley’s hit, died in 1975 (a composer’s work remains in publishing copyright for their life plus 70 years).

The imminent lapse of copyright on the recordings of these famous songs, and the prospect of a far greater catalogue from the 1960s soon becoming public domain, has galvanised the UK music industry into action. The IFPI put a formal request to the European Commission last June, asking for the term of copyright for recorded works to be extended, as part of the EC’s review of a series of copyright directives.

The BPI has marshalled various organisations under the auspices of the Music Business Forum, to pressure the UK government to lobby the EC for a copyright term review.

Some of the 21 different organisations involved, including the MMF (Music Managers Forum), the MU (Musicians Union), AIM (Association of Independent Music), PPL, Bard and Pamra — in particular those representing musicians — have significant differences of opinion with major labels concerning copyright ownership. Musicians’ representatives would prefer to see recording copyright revert to the artists concerned.

MMF chairman John Glover resigned from the Music Business Forum in October. But in the great British spirit of tough negotiators, MU chief John Smith said: ‘Let’s have the term reviewed and get into the minutiae afterwards.’ Disparate parties were induced to bury their differences because the UK Minister for Arts, Estelle Morris, allegedly finds it impossible to talk to more than one organisation representing our UK£2 billion industry.

Calling for the industry to step up its campaign for an extension of sound recording copyright, BPI executive chairman Peter Jamieson said: ‘We have to make sure that all the UK MEPs and UK MPs are abreast of the issue, I think it is a no-brainer that the UK has to come out firmly behind this.’ In an official statement the BPI complained that: ‘The British record industry — which invests more in new British musical talent than any other — has less time to earn from its work than other UK creative industries; recording copyright suffers from unfair discrimination at the hands of Copyright Law.’ In coverage from BBC entertainment news, Peter Jamieson spoke of a ‘free-for-all’ in Europe, and under the headline ‘Music bosses head royalties fight,’ the 50-year limit was represented as a ‘legal loophole.’ In its newsletter, the IFPI claimed that ‘Differences in the term of protection between major music markets, such as the US and the EU, create an obstacle to the development of online services.’ IFPI European regional director Frances Moore argues that 48

NIGEL JOPSON when the 50-year term was established ‘many years ago,’ it was supposed to reflect life expectancy and ‘life expectancy is longer now.’

In fact, the pan-European 50-year term was established in 1993 when, according to the UK Office for National Statistics, average life expectancy was a mere 1.5 years less than it is today. The harmonisation of terms for protection of recordings actually resulted in some countries significantly extending their time limit — Denmark’s was previously set at 25 years.

The IFPI’s claims regarding online services seem to have been overtaken by events — there are already 15 different national stores from market-leader iTunes — a development that was inevitable to accommodate the music industry’s complicated territory-based licensing agreements. In his AGM speech at the BPI,

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Peter Jamieson said: ‘The end of the sound recording copyright on the explosion of British popular music in the late 50s and 60s, not just the Beatles, but many other British artists, is only a short period away. If nothing is done they will suffer loss of income not just for their sales in the UK but their sales across the globe.’

Guitar player Bruce Welsh of the Shadows (originally the backing group for Cliff Richard) worries: ‘Our stuff is still selling, and there’s about 250 various compilation albums out there world-wide. I’d like the period extended as soon as possible, and 95 years sounds good to me.’ With the 50-year limit still in effect, Bruce will be 68 when the very first Shadows material is out of copyright, and 113 when his most recent recordings are finally free for the public to gorge upon.

Many of the arguments made for an extension of the term highlight the 95-year US period of protection.

But the current US term of copyright only came into effect after the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998 passed into law. Also known by it’s opponents as ‘The Mickey Mouse Protection Act’ — after Disney’s extensive lobbying — including a lavish US$6.3 million in campaign donations to individual members of Congress. This intense lobbying was to avoid the spectre of the copyright to Disney’s 1928 cartoon short Steamboat Willie (featuring Mickey) entering the public domain in 2003, closely followed

by Pluto, Donald Duck and Goofy.

March 2005

business Disney’s leadership of a group of Hollywood studios and music labels in this lobbying was seen as extremely cynical by libertarian groups and commentators, especially in view of the heavy use Disney has made of traditional folk tales and biblical stories for its movies. The New York Times scolded: ‘The purpose of the 1998 Congressional extension was not protecting artists, but enriching media companies that hold property rights in their creations, virtually in perpetuity. The founders did not envision copyright being put to this use, and the Supreme Court should not allow it.’

There is a danger that intense and well-funded lobbying from industry pressure groups may in future induce politicians in different nations to play ‘copyright leapfrog’: progressively extending the copyright period to harmonise with another country’s slightly longer term. Adam Eisgrau of the American Libraries Association highlighted the balancing act that needs to be achieved in copyright law: ‘Making money isn’t what copyright law is about. The purpose of the law is to provide a sufficient incentive to authors and inventors to create information, not because there is a constitutional entitlement to compensation but because the information created was regarded as a public good.’

The fact is, there has been a vigorous and valid public domain music reissue industry for decades, it’s merely that it has not touched the body of work in the rock era — artists who are perhaps closest to the hearts of prominent movers and shakers at the majors.

There are several well-established independent labels that have carved a market niche for themselves restoring and reissuing historically important music.

These labels have mainly prospered by having a better product offering and more consistent catalogue availability than the original master owners.

Naxos, the budget-price classical label, has a thriving historical arm that’s made a speciality of paying attention to audio quality. Naxos uses two mastering engineers, Mark Obert-Thorn and Ward Marston, who have made their names restoring historical recordings. Marston, who’s won many plaudits for his work including a Grammy and the prestigious Gramophone Magazine Historical Award, says: ‘A lot of transfers of old recordings simply make them sound like old records. What I try to do is to make them sound like live music.’ Mark Obert-Thorn has transferred over 200 CDs for reissue labels such as Pearl, Biddulph, Romophone, Cala and Music & Arts. He is a musician and collector of 78s, who describes his technique as ‘modern interventionist’ and uses a selection of analogue EQ with CEDAR for declicking.

A good example of Mark’s work is the January 2005 Naxos Historical double CD release of a performance of Puccini’s Tosca by the legendary Maria Callas (Naxos 8.110256-57), recorded in 1953 in Milan at La Scala. The Times gave the disc a good review, and respected critic Robert Farr commented: ‘It was only two or three years ago that EMI issued highlights of this performance. It played for a mere 56 minutes and cost the same as this Naxos issue of the complete work. It also had all the limitations found on the previous EMI issues of the complete work. Now all lovers of opera can confidently add this re-mastered version of a truly great, iconic, recording to their collections.’

EMI has an analogue tape master, but ObertThorn used several 78s and carefully varied the pitch of his playback equipment using a Korg chromatic tuner for reference (a problem with many March 2005

early recordings is pitch variation due to early tube/valve recording and cutting equipment). Maria Callas fans have benefited, as EMI replied to the success of the Naxos release by rushing out a full length, freshly re-mastered version of its own (EMI Classics 5 85644 2). The storm-in-an-opera-buff’s teacup continued however: the new EMI version is pitched flat — I’ve got the CDs and some of the 2minute-odd pieces in Act One are 5 seconds longer!

However, the main point is that, thanks to the efforts of a niche label, the consumer now has more choice and better music to enjoy.

I asked Naxos director Anthony Anderson what criteria his label looked at when considering a public domain release: ‘We might think a recording will sell a few thousand copies, and it fits into where we want to go as a catalogue. Then there are other recordings we might be unsure would sell, but we would want to release because of the historical importance, or the artist in that particular repertoire.

We don’t sell thousands of every title, but there will have been a catalogue or artistic reason to have done the restoration.’

Rapid developments in audio software have also been a driver — CEDAR 2 including the azimuth corrector and DH-2 de-hisser were introduced in 1994. ‘Quite often Mark or Ward will tell me they’ve done a transfer, perhaps for another label in the past, but that now they can do it a lot better because the technology has moved forward quite significantly!’

Several UK companies in the reissue market, including Naxos, Pickwick, Document and Delta, are now organising a counter-lobby to argue that the copyright period should remain as it is.

Pickwick A&R manager Graham Betts, whose label has released public domain recordings by artists like Fats Waller, Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters stated: ‘If we do nothing, then the EC will think there is no opposition within the music industry to this [copyright extension lobby].’ The European Commission had a deadline of 31 October 2004 for receiving comments on the Terms of Protection, a working paper has been written and a draft directive can be anticipated in the second half of 2005. Any changes would probably take until 2007 to come into effect. A major change in the law would depend on the strength of lobby from individual nations and it would seem that it might be quite difficult, especially with the new member states in the EU, to obtain any form of unanimous agreement on the subject.

What does seem likely is that more public domain labels will spring up to take advantage of the wealth of rock and pop material that will become available over the next decade.

With Universal launching a digital-download-only imprint, and UK download sales now on a par with physical single sales, the online route would seem an obvious path to go. Specialising in restoration work may be a useful future income stream for mastering facilities.

If the US extended copyright term had been in effect 50 years ago, how many ‘cease and desist’ orders would rock musicians have received from the owners of master recordings of Robert Johnson and other great blues musicians? As Anthony Anderson of Naxos pointed out: ‘The high profile artists like Elvis are the ones everyone is talking about, but I think the real argument is about all the music that is not currently available, that languishes in the archives of the major labels and to which the public have no access.’ ■ resolution

steinberg top tips

An introduction to Nuendo 3 Nuendo, Steinberg’s media production DAW, has gone from a no-name application to a serious contender in just four years. Nuendo 3 is a major update and while the system has already enjoyed success in recording as an editing workstation and mixing environment, postproduction engineers have probably gained most in this new release. Steinberg’s ANGUS BAIGNET gives an overview of what you can expect from the new release.

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QUESTION THAT IS OFTEN asked on the official Nuendo user support forum (www.nuendo.com) is about the relationship between Nuendo and Steinberg’s venerable music sequencer, Cubase SX. While the similarities are there (both use the same audio engine and employ similar GUI concepts), they belie the ongoing separation of the two products. A list on Steinberg’s website of functional differences between Nuendo 3 and Cubase SX3 runs to five and a half pages, and Nuendo 3 seems to be defining its image against that of Cubase SX with its functional emphasis on post and larger recording studios. While Cubase SX3 continues functionally to be a subset of Nuendo 3, with Nuendo 3 including full MIDI and scoring functionality as a consequence, the added features in Nuendo 3 as a whole put it in a league of its own. The differentiation here is also of a different nature than, for example, in Pro Tools, where the number of available audio tracks is one of the defining features of the ‘level’ of a customer. Cubase SX and Nuendo customers are in the enviable position of both having access to certain ‘fundamentals’, such as unlimited track count and automatic delay compensation, as standard.

So what’s in it for the main target group in this update: the post community? A serious boon will be what’s been billed as a ‘complete set of media management tools.’ What’s meant here is new features to make organising and finding audio files on your HD faster and easier.

First up is an extended search tool located within 50

the pool that searches only the pool or any desired folder or drive for any media Nuendo 3 supports. A single right click in the Pool opens the contextual Pool menu, from which the user selects ‘Search Media...’. All media, both video and audio, that match a search are displayed. Anyone managing large FX libraries with thousands of files will find this invaluable especially when using the newly introduced user attributes. This will save a lot of post editors’ headaches by allowing audio file categorisation directly within the pool environment. Any number of these attributes, which can be textbased or numeric, can be used to set up categories in the pool. All ADR recordings, for example, can now be searched for or sorted by and dragged into the Project Window with an absolute minimum of tedious manual searching.

Meanwhile, over on the ‘Edit –> Rename’ box, batch renaming becomes even easier.

Here detailed renaming functions have been made available that allow clips, regions, events and parts to be relabeled in batches.

Eight user-defined entries can make up a new name, with smart predefined entries for standard data like date, previous name, number pre- and suffixes as well as the user-

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definable categories also available for name creation.

Another addition to Nuendo of interest mainly to the NTSC post crowd is a Pull Up/Down 0.1% option for playback through DirectX, DirectShow or Quicktime making re-alignement of original audio to video that has been pulled by a Telecine process very simple. Users of Liquid Edition, Pinnacle’s video editor, will be able to move video projects containing all audio laid out so far directly to Nuendo 3, using either an inter network application call or by going the old route of carrying an HD or DVD with an X-Send project along to the edit suite with Nuendo.

The new MixConvert plug-in allows automatic up- and downmixing between different multichannel formats. Beyond this, the mix engine has also seen a few tweaks, with post-panner metering now available, as well as the rather handy new AFL/PFL function, which has been combined with a new Audition Channel. Monitoring only parts of the mix while leaving the whole mix untouched is often a capability overlooked in software DAWs, with Nuendo 3 offering a flexible way of monitoring any channel(s) independently of the mix going to any of the standard mixer outputs.

Then there are the cosmetics. As the general functional differences between the top DAW applications become slightly less apparent over time, many users of other DAWs will be looking to see if Nuendo 3 appeals to them in terms of look and feel. Overall the Nuendo 3 look is somewhat darker, but also more polished than its predecessors. If the default setting is a little too dark for you, you can use the Brightness, Contrast and Saturation sliders in the General Appearance dialog to lighten the GUI up.

There are some interesting additions here to complement the range of colour options already present in Nuendo 2, which already allow selection of shading for the project window background and so on. New in Nuendo 3 are the options to build your own level meters for the Mixer. Just open up the preferences dialog and select ‘Appearances –> Meters’ to open the colour selection panel. There you can

March 2005

steinberg top tips choose not just the colours but also how they merge into each other. Combined with the more universal controls mentioned above, you can blend a palette of colours and hues throughout the application to suit your own personal taste. In the Project Window, colour selection is now also available for each track, allowing you to label your tracks with user-definable colours for instant recognition, even in a busy mix.

Different shades of one colour can, for example, be used to denote similar types of tracks. All FX tracks in a post project, for example, can be coloured red, with different tracks being in distinct shades; this becomes indispensable when navigating upwards of 100 tracks in the Nuendo 3 mixer and Project Window with FX, dialogue, background and music all in the same project.

AAF is one of the hot topics in DAW-land this year.

The new kid on the interchange standards’ block, AAF was created by a consortium of leading industry names, and is an open standard. With Logic 7 Pro, Adobe Premiere, AVID and SADiE already supporting the standard, anyone needing interchange with those products will be pleased to hear that support is now ‘out of the box’.

Steinberg has also been keen to point this out in relation to the increased price. From Nuendo 3, the SRP for Nuendo has increased from UK£1499 to £1999 (both inc VAT). Steep, you might think, but Steinberg points to the extra Digitranslator 2 costs for Pro Tools users, while Nuendo 3 supports not just AAF but AES31, OMF, Open TL and many others at no extra cost, plus the other new features.

An aspect that has seen considerable refinement is the integration of external hardware. This will probably be of more interest to those with larger recording studios than those using Nuendo 3 in post applications. For those looking to use digital hardware, Steinberg has implemented the first stage of a new technology developed with Yamaha called Studio Connections in Nuendo 3. Presaging the intention of Yamaha to acquire Steinberg from its current owners, Pinnacle Systems, and first announced in March 2004 the new technology aims to make external digital hardware such as mixers, outboard effect and musical instruments far easier to integrate into DAWs such as Nuendo.

Steinberg has fitted Nuendo 3 and Cubase SX3 with the new technology, while Yamaha has adopted the standard in its DM2000, DM1000, 02R, 01V and 01X digital mixers, as well as the Motif ES and SPX2000 products. Full recall allows any supported hardware to store its data for a Nuendo 3 project within the software’s project file, using V2 of Yamaha’s Studio Manager application. Anyone using one of the larger Yamaha digital mixers in their studio will instantly see the potential, with the recall stage already saving time through storage of all relevant parameters for a project.

Further stages of the Studio Connections technology should see Nuendo storing automation data and using that data to control fader movements, EQ settings and the like in real-time. Other manufacturers of digital hardware have already expressed an interest in adopting the standard, so proponents of a digitalonly studio will be excited by the prospect of such tightly-knit integration between software DAWs and all manner of digital equipment.

Recording studios mixing ‘in the box’ will be particularly interested in the External Effect Plug-in introduced in this latest Nuendo version. While this function is already seen in other applications including Apple’s Logic, Steinberg has refined it in Nuendo.

Essentially the plug-in allows outboard effects to March 2005

be used in exactly the same way as a virtual effect plug-in, a Send signal to outboard effects equipment, allowing the ‘wet’ signal to be incorporated into the mix just as easily as a virtual effect, either as a Send or an Insert effect. While the normal input/output latency is compensated automatically, the plug-in compensates for the latency of the actual hardware effect equipment as well. A ‘ping’ button comes in very handy as it allows automatic measuring of the latency introduced by the external hardware.

Naturally the external hardware needs to be set to 100% dry when making use of this functionality.

We’ll be taking a closer look at some of the other new functions in the next few issues, including DV Resolution OBS 23/2/05 4:37 pm Page some hot tips on features not explained in the

OBS:

official manual, such as Nuendo 3 drum correction capabilities, and a Step By Step guide to using the new Warp To Picture feature. We’ll also be delving into the cooperation going on between Steinberg and Euphonix centred on the EuCon technology. And with the acquisition of Steinberg by Yamaha, we’ll be looking in detail at getting the most out of the combination of Nuendo and Yamaha digital equipment using Studio Connections technology developed by the two companies. ■

Contact STEINBERG, GERMANY:

1Website: www.steinberg.net

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know how

Pointing devices Pointing devices have been controversial since they first appeared. An integral part of the ubiquitous GUI/WIMP interface, the mouse has moved in and it’s here to stay. ROB JAMES says that it’s not always rude to point.

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UMANS ARE NOT supplied ready programmed to use pointing devices. It takes practice for them to become instinctive, to develop the ‘muscle memory’ if you like. Remember the first time you ever saw a mouse or a trackball?

Those early attempts at making the cursor go where you wanted? Once learnt, there is the mousetrap of overuse and bad ergonomics and RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) is a serious problem for some.

Douglas Englebart invented the mouse at the Stanford Research Center in 1963. Commercial exploitation really began at the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) with the Alto computer. Apple built on these foundations with the Lisa and Macintosh and the rest is history.

The first mouse was wooden and employed metal wheels set at 90 degrees to each other. Another PARC engineer, Bill English, substituted the familiar ball and roller mechanism, which is still the most common configuration today.

Mechanical mice rapidly pick up debris on their rollers and this necessitates regular cleaning to maintain performance. In 1982 the first ‘optical’ mouse was developed. This relied on a special mouse mat with engraved lines to operate. Modern

optical mice capable of working on many and varied surfaces use an LED for illumination and, what is in effect, a grey scale camera to take successive pictures of the surface under the mouse at very high (e.g.

1512fps) frame rates. Image processing converts the differences between successive images into movement information. The latest designs from Logitech use a laser LED to increase accuracy. Anecdotal evidence suggests these laser mice even work on mirrors.

Arguments about the merits of using keyboard or pointing devices are superfluous (although they can while away an idle hour in the bar). Keyboards shortcuts are great for repetitive operations, and well worth learning, but try re-drawing a waveform using a keyboard. Many other audio and video editing and mixing operations are arguably easier and quicker to execute with a pointing device. However, for real productivity a dedicated hardware interface is still the way to go. Another fruitful source of debate is the number of buttons. Apple has always maintained a single button is more efficient, but OS X natively supports multibutton rodents and many users are switching to third-party mice to exploit this.

The scroll wheel is a major innovation. Usually doubling as the third, centre, button, the scroll wheel

adds a third positional axis and sometimes a fourth in the latest versions where the wheel also tilts left and right. Mice are available with four, five or even more buttons. For most people, three buttons and a scroll wheel give the best compromise between maximum control, application compatibility and the learning curve.

Once you are used to having three buttons and a scroll wheel a single button mouse can be very frustrating.

There is an obvious relationship between sensing precision (CPI or counts per inch) and screen resolution that governs how far you need to move the device to achieve the desired movement on the screen. Standard resolutions are 400 and 800CPI. To complicate things, Windows allows you to alter the gearing and there is also an adjustable pointer acceleration function. This moves the pointer further on screen, for a given hand movement, the faster you move the mouse or spin the ball.

Mice are losing their tails. Cordless mice have been with us for some time but battery life and range issues were problematic. More recent designs largely overcome the limitations and offer a serious alternative. The obvious disadvantage is that tailless rodents have a tendency to wander a lot further afield than their tethered cousins.

“The best-sounding soundcard I’ve ever reviewed.”

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52

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March 2005

know how

The ‘dead mouse’ or trackball is the most numerous mouse rival. In my experience people generally prefer whichever they first used. Since it doesn’t move, the Trackball takes up less space.

Touch pads, most commonly found on laptops, share this virtue but are something of an acquired taste. The pressure sensitive ‘pointing stick’ also found on laptops hasn’t really taken off. Some people swear by graphics tablets, but except for drawing and painting, I’m not convinced. Joysticks are another option, although like head trackers, they are generally better suited to specific applications and people who need to use them.

More exotic devices include the BossWave FinRing, which, as the name implies, sits on your index finger and responds to wrist movements with the buttons operated by your thumb. GyroMouse Ultra, a mouse with gyroscopic sensors, is especially suitable for presentations, since it can be used in free space.

But how about surround panning just by waving your hand about? Other 3D motion sensors have possibilities as mouse substitutes.

For the majority of audio and video users of computers other than laptops, the choice is likely to be between mouse and trackball. The next decision should be which interface(s) you need or want.

Early mice were RS232 serial but these are now an endangered species. The majority of current mice and trackballs will come with USB and an adapter for PS. Adapters tend to be specific to individual manufacturers and even models. Don’t assume you can use every USB mouse as a PS2 mouse.

March 2005

Although trackballs come in various shapes and sizes with mechanical, opto-mechanical or optical sensing (which relies on a patterned ball) there are relatively few to choose from. For mouse fanciers, the sheer breadth of choice can be bewildering.

The most important consideration is comfort. After that, any mouse from a reputable manufacturer should have more than sufficient resolution for our purposes. If you want a cordless mouse then you need to consider range and battery life. I currently use and recommend optical mice, including radio cordless, and a couple of trackballs along with a fair number of keyboard shortcuts. ■

Sources

T h e m a j o r p l a y e r s a re Microsoft and Logitec; both have a wide range of suitable models. Kensington and Cursor Controls (makers of Trackerball) are good sources of trackballs. Gyration make the GyroMouse Ultra, freeing users from the tyranny of the desktop. For anyone wanting a graphics tablet, Wacom is a good starting point.

Contour makes a variety of devices aligned specifically for use in the audio and video industries and are worth investigating.

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meet your maker needs of our customers but we have never really taken commands from the established market trends.

If we had, we would have probably never made an active monitor in the first place nor have attempted to sell them in the US or UK, they were so much against the trends back then.

With our new 8000-series we took a long and deep breath before we launched the products, but in the past we had been successful by doing things the way we thought was right, so why not now? Motorcar bodies used to be quite rectangular and were made out of wood some 80 years ago but then somebody started rounding them up and making them out of metal — and for very good reason. The same applies to the 8000-series: everything is there for a very good reason. You can argue an opinion but not the facts.

Ari Varla The man behind much of the research and development at active monitor manufacturer Genelec discusses the domestic reference, low end, the pitfalls of digital filters and control, and everything being there for a good reason.

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SELF-DECLARED AUDIO hobbyist from the age of 14, Ari Varla studied for a masters degree at Tampere Technical University before joining Genelec in 1980. He has worked on every Genelec monitor apart from the first version of the S30 from 1978. Now chief R&D engineer, acoustics, his research has contributed to the application of waveguides in combination with direct radiators. He points out that in the early 80s they simply called them short or semi horns instead of waveguides and adds that waveguides have since been adopted by several competitors but, in many cases, still with ‘a lack of deeper understanding of their desirable operation’.

He has also investigated the impedance behaviour of loudspeakers (starting in the 1980s with Finnish amp guru Matti Otala) and their interaction with the feeding amplifier — the 8040A and 8050A models use this type of related technology for distortion reduction. With Genelec’s latest models, the LSEsubs and the 8000-series 2-ways, the main research has gone into ‘minimising systematically all kinds of nonlinearities and aberrations that we know will eventually limit the perceived sound quality’.

He holds two international patents and numbers guitar playing, vintage tube amp repair, amateur telescope making, fishing, vintage fishing gear, motorcycling, and playing ice hockey among his interests.

What’s special about Genelec’s approach to monitor manufacture?

We take it seriously. If you look at our designs over the two and a half decades there’s clearly a systematic way of improving different sound quality parameters 54

ZENON SCHOEPE

in every model generation. Our first product, the S30 in 1978, already had the on-axis frequency response uniformity of today’s accepted standards, which was quite exceptional for its time. Then we moved further on to minimise a monitor’s secondary sound source generation and at the same time to improve its directional characteristics closer towards a constant directivity system in the legendary 1022A model (1983) where for the first time our pioneered waveguided mid- and high-frequency systems were integrated into the cabinet mold. Then came the time to maximise the undistorted maximum SPL capacity of a direct radiator large soffit-mounted monitor and our 1035A in 1988 really set the mark about 10dB higher than was achievable with conventional soft dome designs. This technology is still valid today.

In the 1990s we concentrated on redefining closefield monitoring, applying all we had learned and putting it into the smallest possible package. It was the 1031A that had a flat on-axis response down to 47Hz, a waveguided directivity optimisation for the HF and was sufficiently loud for rock and roll monitoring.

Now with our new 8000-series monitors we continued this development process by paying a lot of attention to improving all sound quality parameters at the same time to make the progress more audible.

Are we restricted in monitor design by the industry’s conservatism?

The music industry is not necessarily conservative; there are a lot of creative people across the whole human spectrum there. Of course we as a monitor manufacturer are supposed to adapt to the current resolution

Cabinet, crossover, driver or amplifier — where are the limitations?

I think today’s amplifiers (if designed properly) are the least limiting factor — viewed against their performance. Their power and distortion figures can be considered sufficient. Passive crossovers can many times perform quite acceptably, but their design has so many limitations and tradeoffs that luck presents itself as a big factor in the final result. The passive electronic crossover can be considered as the next evolution from a purely mechanical one.

With an active crossover there is almost total freedom to design the responses, equalisations and transition bands, within good engineering practice of course.

The driver and the cabinet form an inseparable combination (together with the crossover) and that’s how we always approach the design. The limitations here are many: driver excursion, stroke volume, cabinet volume and front baffle size. The three first ones affect the LF-limitations, the last one the directivity. To summarise this: a small box has more LF and directivity limitations than a bigger one. To compensate this, a small speaker should be listened to at a shorter distance so that it sounds louder and delivers more direct sound to the listener’s ears.

The market is full of highly affordable monitors, how are those price points hit and where are the compromises?

Genelec has never got into the lowest price point battle because that would have meant sacrificing our engineering philosophy. Our only goal has been to be the technology leader because there are always customers for the best. Low-level engineering is sometimes called ‘compromising’ but the term is equally applicable to a certain human state of mind.

Where do you stand on the use of ‘domestic reference’ loudspeakers in many studios?

‘Domestic reference’ as a definition is as vague as it can be. First one should define the ‘domestic’ i.e. whose house or lodgings we are talking about?

Then apparently the ‘reference’ here means speaker systems possessing flaws or imperfections — isn’t that what people’s home systems are supposed to have?

Now we only need some wise guy to decide whether these ‘domestic references’ are dull sounding or overly bright, are they boom-boxes or dry in bass and if they have a nasal over-emphasised midrange or a valley response. The number of variables soon become endless, hardly a desirable feature for something called a ‘reference’. It’s much more useful to call a reference something that lacks all these imperfections to the least and has its performance accurately specified and is widely available.

March 2005

meet your maker Are end-user expectations of low-end unrealistic for the small sizes of cabinet that most are actually listening on?

Sometimes, but there is no general rule here. Enduser expectations vary hugely and a good example is about opinions of what is considered loud. Here the range can be something like 30dB. The use of subwoofers through dedicated bassmanagement has enabled people to get more used to small speaker setups delivering powerful full-band performance. Despite this, we have always tried to design our systems so that no matter how small they are, they always deliver a very low useful LF-cutoff for their size. The new 8000-series is an example of this, the 8050A 2-way 8-inch woofer reaching clean down to 35Hz -3dB with good SPL. Genelec has always majored on the monitor/ room interaction issue but how do you reconcile this with the fact that acoustic treatment is often not addressed in small rooms using your small monitors?

For that particular reason we established a technical customer support department some ten years ago whose job is to help our customers with their control room issues and to provide them with speaker inroom measuring services. This on the other hand also benefits us in collecting measurements and experience from real life situations. An example of this, just recently, was our AES-preprint presented in San Francisco about the mixing console loading effects upon meter bridge mounted nearfields. Without a large measurement databank the clear acoustic mechanism behind this phenomenon could not have been so clearly evidenced.

The other factors that we are using in making our speakers more adaptable into difficult room acoustics are a controlled and uniform directivity, offering more direct sound to the listening position while simultaneously ensuring that the indirect radiation towards the room boundaries has practically the same spectral content as the direct sound. This is very important in achieving a good consistency between near field and far field listening.

Third, we have for a long time used the active speaker characteristic to easily include the necessary electronic tone controls for room response tailoring.

March 2005

No matter how well a speaker behaves in an anechoic lab, the result will always be different when it’s been brought inside reflective boundaries. The key here is to have speaker specific function of the controls and to have them operated in a predictable way that will most probably fix the problems associated with different speaker positioning. Again, wide experience and plenty of data will help in this matter, too.

The digital monitor is as much of a misnomer as the digital microphone, but what are the real advantages and where could it lead?

There are some potential pitfalls when designing a loudspeaker with digital filters and controls. If we first think about the equalisation of a single drive unit — normalisation of its transfer function — we have to remember that the impulse response (and its resulting frequency domain responses) depends upon the measuring angle because of the interaction of the cabinet edge reflections. We may only obtain one valid equalisation result at each measuring angle because we are just trying to compensate a three-dimensional process in one dimension. We cannot subtract the diffraction artefacts in anything other than one measuring point in space, elsewhere the subtraction turns into adding. So, making things better in one point makes them worse in others. This becomes even more the case when attempting to compensate systems that have poor temporal performance.

The paradox here is that you need an already excellent acoustical system to unleash some of the potential of digital equalising. But compared to what is achievable with the best analogue filtering techniques today the improvements are likely to remain marginal.

Many times the flattest on-axis responses do not necessarily result in the best sounding systems because then you would have ignored the total radiated power response — this often looks quite different but is very important, although it is much more troublesome to measure and that’s why it is usually neglected.

I think that many acoustic imperfections in a speaker system remain audible regardless of the complexity of the DSP-program used to compensate them.

In an ideal world, should monitors that are used in a multichannel configuration be similar to from those used for stereo?

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Stereo is a multichannel format, only a special case of a 5-channel one (or any number of channels). If we think about backward compatibility and the fact that 99% of music is being sold and produced in the stereo format the answer is yes. There’s no good practical reason why the speakers couldn’t be similar. With a subwoofer, though, you have to take care of proper crossover filtering between the main speakers and the subwoofer to maintain compatibility from 5.1 channel system all the way down to mono. The concept of a subwoofer as a separate unit must be forgotten and instead thought of as an integrated bass extension system for the main speakers making them all fulfill the ‘full bandwidth’ criteria.

What are your thoughts on the use of the ‘.1 channel’ outside sound for picture work?

It’s so amazing how this low frequency effects (.1) channel that takes care of less than 1% of the channel capacity has created most of the reproduction problems in a 5.1-channel system. I think it’s a total misconception in musical recording. The principal idea of an LFE-channel was to allow a higher modulation of the main channels without the need for two hours of the movie to be prepared to handle the last minute low frequency blasts and by doing so wasting the precious headroom and bandwidth of the main channels. The musical quality issues of such a LFreproduction mechanism came second.

Whenever we have multiple sound sources — acoustic or electronic — and we want them to work coherently it requires that these sources have identical frequency and phase responses. Unfortunately neither of these is the case with the LFE-channel in relation to the main channels. A typical production method is feeding part of the main channels’ bass information into the LFE in the hope that it will somehow sound ‘deeper’ or ‘more fundamental’ than it would through the main channels. It will not. Unfortunately the steep low-pass filtering of the LFE makes it produce combfiltering interference with the main channel signal around 100Hz, which will make the system sound sloppy and have a lack of punch. There’s really no reason why the main channels can’t carry all low frequency information in musical recordings — and without artefacts. That’s why I keep the LFE-cable disconnected in my DVD audio player. ■

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Digital cinema The idea of replacing traditional film prints with a digital bitstream offers many advantages — consistent images, reduced costs to the studio, and more flexibility for exhibitors. Although recent years have seen significant advances made in digital projection technology, it still remains unclear how and when digital cinema will become a mainstream reality, says JASON POWER from Dolby.

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IGITAL CINEMA IS CERTAINLY poised to change the way people see films. Movies are shown free of scratches, picture movement, and screen dust. They play back exactly as the director intended, every single time. Audiences feel a much greater sense of realism, of actually ‘being there’.

Exhibitors benefit as well. Digital cinema gives them the ability to play alternative content, such as advertising, arthouse, or non-commercial films, and it significantly improves scheduling flexibility for times and screens. Digital cinema also saves studios money by eliminating traditional film prints. Hollywood has already moved to digital methods for movie creation, so it is logical that digital distribution follows.

Although digital cinema offers the potential to deliver an even more thrilling and involving experience to cinema-goers, it also presents a unique set of challenges. It is why Dolby has spent nearly five years analysing the industry before developing and designing suitable products and services to fit requirements. By getting involved in the standards processes and by giving time for these standards to take shape, Dolby development teams have been able to make them the basis for the design of a dedicated digital cinema playback system, which we announced at ShoWest 2004.

The cinema industry has always been provided with a large range of specifically designed presentation equipment — from audio processors to film platters, from 35mm projectors to automation of the show, the latter controlling the lights, the opening of the 56

curtains, and the change of soundtrack when the film starts, as well as the opposite actions at the end of the show. Looking around a projection booth you can see the unique requirements, electrical conditions, and operational environment that make this necessary. We see no reason why this will change with the introduction of digital cinema. Some believe repurposed products will enable our industry to take advantage of the economies of scale afforded by the broadcast or consumer industries. We believe this to be a false economy, as equipment not specifically designed for the cinema will have operational and reliability limitations. Furthermore, it may not offer the flexibility to support new image formats and other standards as they are established.

Another key factor affecting the rollout of digital cinema is the file format used to store the digital movie.

Numerous representatives of the film distribution and exhibition industries have observed that it will be essential to have global compatibility of digital cinema ‘packages’ — the digital files that are essentially virtual ‘prints’ of the movie. As long ago as December 2001, 20 cinema trade associations around the world united to issue a joint call for digital cinema standards, with the goal to encourage the development of ‘fully interoperable’ products.

Despite this, throughout the digital cinema trial phase of the last few years, the server systems in the field have used proprietary file formats, requiring different files to be created, or mastered, for each server system at costs of maybe tens of thousands of resolution

dollars to the distributor. The costs and complexities of mastering and distributing multiple file types make it even more unlikely that exhibitors will be able to get compatible digital versions of the movies they want to play.

Fortunately, good progress is being made by organisations such as DCI and SMPTE in specifying an open file format for use in digital cinema. The Digital Cinema Package format contains all the digital information needed to play the movie and can be thought of as a big box containing all the parts of the movie. If you open the box, you will find smaller boxes called Reels — these are similar in concept to film reels as they each represent a section of the movie, although the length is not limited as it is with film. Each Reel box will contain the elements of that section of the movie — for example, images, sound, and subtitles.

The Digital Cinema Package file is based on a format called MXF (Material eXchange Format) which makes it very flexible — essentially the boxes can be as big or small as you like, and there is no limit to the number or type of pieces of content you can put inside them. For example, a Reel box can contain one set of images with two or more soundtracks, which means that multiple soundtracks can be distributed together with a common image track as a single package. In the future, this could simplify distribution and enable exhibitors in multilingual areas to choose which language to play. When the Digital Cinema Package is created by the film distributor, Playlists will also be created, which tell the system which boxes in the March 2005

technology Digital Cinema Package to play when — Reel 1 then Reel 2, the French audio when the French version is selected, and so on.

These Playlists would also make it possible for the distributor to include different cuts of the movie — a PG version might have certain sections omitted, or even replaced with alternative images and audio. These features are very similar to the structures already found on many DVD discs in the home. The first movies have already been mastered in the open MXF-based format, and the Dolby Digital Cinema presentation systems already in the field are already using it.

The file interchange format is not, however, the only area where further agreement is required.

For digital movies to play on all types of server, mastering studios and server manufacturers all need to support a single image compression technology. At present, MPEG technology is used most widely, at far higher data rates than were conceived for its original broadcast applications in order to yield high quality on the big screen. Current MPEG servers use modified broadcast decoder modules or PC plug-in cards.

However, many commentators believe that, in the long term, DCI will select an alternative image compression technology that meets their requirement for resolutions up to 4K (an image about 4000 pixels wide) to be supported in the future. This leaves many exhibitors confused: if they buy MPEG equipment now, what will the upgrade path be to a future DCI format? One possible solution is to use a purpose-designed digital cinema decoder — with careful design, this can offer not only support for MPEG decoding of the highest accuracy, but also far more adaptability for future formats compared with Document1 10:18 AM Page 1 standard MPEG 12/8/04 hardware decoders.

Security is another key reason behind the requirement for digital cinema purpose-designed playback products. If the studios are going to commit to releasing fantastic quality movies in digital form on an ongoing basis, they need to be sure that they will not fall easily into the hands of pirates. Recent events with so-called Oscar ‘screener’ preview copies have demonstrated that even DVDs of pre-release films hold an enormous attraction for the would-be pirate.

With digital cinema, we encounter an even bigger threat — street copies of a stolen digital file would be identical to the director’s master copy and if this happened, all value to the exhibitor would vanish.

Careful system design is vital to ensure that the digital file can be protected at each stage far more effectively than has ever been possible with the film print. The data can easily be kept secure at every step — from the production house all the way to the cinema — thanks to sophisticated file encryption techniques. Similarly, good design of digital cinema products can ensure that the data is never ‘in the clear’ - that is, never unencrypted and extractable.

However, it is difficult to achieve this level of security when simply customising an office PC or broadcast product that was not originally designed to be secure — ideally security needs to be incorporated

PROfessionals need PROline MU Metal shielding March 2005

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technology into the product from the ground up. Having been created specifically for the cinema environment, the decoder part of Dolby’s presentation system, the Dolby Show Player, has optimum security features, not only protecting the content using cryptographic techniques, but also applying a high degree of physical security, making it inaccessible to even the most determined pirate.

Current watermarking techniques allow the source of a pirated copy to be traced and are therefore a good interim solution for digital cinema. These techniques were the cause of much of the recent Oscar ‘screener’ publicity, following their successful use to track the source of pirated copies. Watermarking is one of the technology solutions offered by the content protection company, Cinea, which Dolby acquired last year. In the long term, techniques are also in development to thwart the camcorder pirate.

As well as offering additional security, digital cinema also introduces complexities. In principle, the technology could allow far greater control over what can be played when, so there are many control issues for exhibitors and distributors to resolve. However, while D-cinema will eventually simplify certain aspects of distribution and exhibition, we must be careful not to let technology for its own sake force changes in business practices. Any changes should evolve only with experience, at a pace acceptable to both parties, and only with their active involvement. In designing a next-generation film presentation system, we will work to enable continuation of current business practices with as little disruption as possible. Again, a dedicated product approach is an advantage, as information about which movies are played when can be stored securely within the playback product for the exhibitor to use and disclose as they wish.

Digital sound is already a major success story for the cinema industry. Not only has it given filmmakers a new tool to enhance their storytelling, it has also provided exhibitors with the ability to offer an even more compelling experience. But with digital cinema on the horizon, much attention is now focused on picture, rather than sound. So what does the future hold for cinema audio?

We believe that the cinema sound system of the future will contribute to an even more realistic, immersive movie-going experience. Digital cinema will

also give us far greater flexibility in the way that we present movie soundtracks. The capacity for additional audio channels for each release might enable cinemas to play different language versions, or to offer dedicated tracks for hearing- or visually-impaired customers.

Some filmmakers have even expressed interest in using additional auditorium channels such as roofmounted speakers for special effects.

But the future won’t just be about more and more channels. Perhaps the most important development in the coming years will be the introduction of metadata — information about the soundtrack that is carried with the release. This will enable the presentation of a soundtrack to be optimised for each cinema to suit the specific equipment and environment.

Sounds far fetched? In fact, some of this happens already in home DVD players — the audio is optimised for replay on different types of home system from big home cinemas to small TVs using metadata in the Dolby Digital soundtrack. If we can take the same idea and adapt it for cinema sound, maybe we

can reproduce the director’s intentions even more accurately, and make sure the cinema continues to be the most dramatic, most exciting, and most involving place to experience a movie.

The need for digital cinema products that are practical to install and use in a cinema environment, that offer long-term reliability, and that have the flexibility needed to support open standards now and in the future has led us to the conclusion that a new generation of digital cinema server system will be required to support any sizeable rollout. We also believe that any new technology of this significance will need support throughout the chain — from mastering to exhibition — to really deliver the best possible cinema experiences. With our expertise in the development of entertainment technologies, the design of projection booth electronics, and imaging and security we believe that Dolby can play a unique role in providing solutions that benefit studios, exhibitors, and audiences as digital cinema moves from the trial phase into a mainstream rollout. ■ brauner.microphones © 2005

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katz’s column

Ready for radio When we last met Becky and Fred they were working on a new mix, and now they’re convinced they’ve got a hit on their hands. Things have been moving fast and they’ve lined up the local radio DJ to debut the new hip-hop tune. Mastering engineer BOB KATZ listens in on progress.

‘H

EY,’ SAYS FRED, ‘we’ve got a great mix, and all the mastering tools from that super Rubidium plug-in bundle — let’s master this tune ourselves. All we gotta do is pump up the level, right?’ ‘Yeah, let’s pump it up!’ replies Becky.

‘Fred, the first thing I hear we gotta do is put on this multiband compressor. Set it to that preset called Hot Master. Listen to that baby — wow, it’s hot already!’

‘But Beck, I think the top end got dull now that it’s compressed. Let’s throw in the Rubidium Sparkler EQ. Oh look, a preset called “turn up the lights and dance”, can’t lose with that. Yay, it’s really got a sheen — I see the dust shaking off the tweeter! But wait a minute, now it needs some bass. It’s gotta kick like Fat Boy’s last hit, everyone’s playing that in the clubs. Put on that Fat Boy CD and see if we can match that. OK, hit that “Earthquake” preset; listen to that kick drum now!’

‘The next thing Rubidium says we need is to plug in the limiter. They say we can get another 6dB of level. Let’s try for 7! OK, kick up the threshold; it keeps on getting louder and louder. Boy, this thing is fat and juicy and loud now. And not an over on the meter. But wait, how come Fat Boy’s CD still sounds louder than ours? It’s got a certain edge.’

‘That’s from clipping, Beck; you know, positively everyone is clipping now. Forget the overs on the meter. The trick is to back off the limiter a little and add some gain from another module post the limiter until it lights up the red lights. All right, there it goes.

Now we’ve got the edge and I swear, our CD sounds hotter and grittier than even Fat Boy’s. I wanna dance... can’t wait to hear this on the radio.’

Anticipation mounts. The night of the radio debut, they call all their friends. Some are listening in their cars, some on the hi-fi at home, and Becky and Fred at their respective project studios. They are expecting dozens of phone calls of congratulation, but the only ring of the night is Fred calling Becky with his tail between his legs. ‘Becky, did you hear the radio? It sounds awful.

Fuzzy, distorted, wimpy. The music is not even as loud as the announcer’s voice, and the bass, that bass is so unclear. It’s gotta be that creaky radio station ‘cause it sure was kicking when it left here!’

‘I dunno, Fred. Maybe it was our mastering, I told you we should have sent out for mastering.’

Res_horizontal_07-04 11/6/04 3:19 pm ‘No you didn’t, I was the one who told you that!’

‘Oh, I don’t want to argue, I just want to fix this

mess. Let’s book a session with Bob as soon as he can get us in.’

Bob the mastering engineer was very patient with his friends since he’s already seen many other instances of well-meaning mix engineers attempting to master their own product and falling flat on their faces.

‘OK guys,’ says Bob, ‘first let’s hear your original mix before you pumped it up... Hmm, your mix doesn’t sound half bad. It’s got dynamics and clarity and transients and pretty good stereo width and depth. Those are prime ingredients for a mix that will translate well everywhere. The tonal balance needs a bit of minor tweaking, but it looks like these tweaks will preserve and enhance your mix. Now let’s hear your mastering...’

In the cold light of day, the calibrated system and acoustics at the mastering studio reveal that Becky and Fred had leached all the dynamics out of their product. Instead of sounding punchy, it was decidedly wimpy, and of course that didn’t help on the radio.

Bob demonstrates that by using that Earthquake plug-in, they had made the kick drum so heavy that the beater could not be heard at all; all that was left was a lump with no dynamics or definition. On the other side of the spectrum, the high end was so screechy that it could not be played loudly without tearing the cilia out of anyone’s eardrums. And that HF rise had taken all the midrange punch out of the vocalist until his voice sounded like it was coming out of a 3-inch speaker.

‘How could we have gone so wrong?’ whimpers Becky.

‘It’s a matter of perspective,’ replies Bob. ‘After Page 1 made hundreds and hundreds of masters and you’ve auditioned them on an accurate system, you know The first Windows XP based Pro Tools HD suite in the UK, incorporating a Carillon AC1 HD CPU and AVXL video hardware.

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what “far enough” means, and you also know what problems excessive EQ can cause down the road. Do you know that your Earthquake preset boosted the bass drum 6dB at 32Hz when in your case, even 1dB would have overloaded the woofers at the club down the road? Your mixing speakers don’t reproduce 32Hz so how would you have known? Now it’s true that Fat Boy’s CD has hot bass, but it obtains its punch and clarity from other frequencies than just 32Hz. When it comes to your high boost, the problem is that your mix reproduction system self-compresses, so you could not hear how ugly and sibilant you were making the voice, nor how much midrange suck-out it was causing. This system is so revealing I usually can make EQ decisions in less than 0.5dB steps.

‘I don’t know where you got your ideas about clipping, Fred,’ continues Bob. ‘Contrary to what you may have heard, clipping is a very dangerous thing to do. You have to know all the possible consequences, and where and how to use it if at all in the mastering stage. The clipping you performed was so excessive, it caused serious “tearing” distortion when it reached radio, or MP3 for that matter. I’m not a big fan of clipping on outputs; if you can get a clean, loud recording and mix happening without clipping. It’s a bad thing to perform clipping in the mastering because subsequent generations multiply the distortion. As for your levels, your master was so hot that the limiter took away all the transients and the RMS level probably overloaded the radio station’s processors by several dB. Plus, a lower RMS level would have sounded better at home! Let the listeners turn up their volume controls and stop trying to beat the laws of physics.

‘Anyway, I suggest we take a completely different approach in the mastering to get a great-sounding record. I would pick a completely different compressor, one that will fatten the sound and clarify it at the same time, but requires great skill to set up at this end. But first, I think your bass drum is lying a bit flat because the samples you chose just don’t hit the mark. I can improve it tremendously in the mastering, but if you want an A+ grade, I suggest you go back and work a bit more on the drum tracking and mixing. Go for a clear sound; do you see that your current bass drum sounds lumpy and undefined when you hear it on an accurate system? Don’t hesitate to bring your work mix over here for a listen before you commit, since your speakers are not telling you what you need to know. And finally, here are a couple of other mix suggestions I can make if you have the time...’ ■

Information Resolution recommends Bob Katz’s book Mastering Audio — The Art and the Science as an essential source of information for every pro audio enthusiast who cares about sound. You can buy it on line at www.digido.com

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Things you really ought to know You can rely on your charm, your smile, your bare-faced front and you’re ability to fly by the seat of your pants, but there is no substitute for a little sound grounding to make you feel comfortable in your own abilities. JON THORNTON suggests areas for improvement. of other principles. Being able to understand Word clock distribution and trouble-shoot clocking problems, knowing when jitter is problematic and when it isn’t, and understanding the process of dithering and when it needs to be applied in a production chain, are all now essential skills.

Added to this is the need to train your ears to listen for the different objectionable artefacts caused by digital systems. In an analogue system we’re used to listening for noise and distortion, in a digital system we have to start listening for completely different things.

BASIC ELECTRONICS — I don’t necessarily mean having the capacity to design and produce ground-breaking pieces of analogue and/or digital hardware, but I do mean being able to use a soldering iron and multimeter competently. Add to this a solid understanding of interconnection types, signal level and impedance, earthing strategies and logical fault-finding, and whatever your discipline you’ll get out of more sticky situations than you’ll imagine. Not to mention the potential money you’ll save by doing some of your own maintenance or installation.

analogue process in a creative way — trading off headroom for tape compression, over-biasing (or not) and mixing and matching analogue and digital technologies in a complementary way. Now if I could only find some tape...

UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL AUDIO — While most people have a broad idea of sampling theory, working in an increasingly digital environment now requires more than a passing knowledge

WORKING WITH ANALOGUE TAPE — Given the predicament of Quantegy’s US plant I debated this one, but still maintain that this is an essential skill. Once the mainstay of the assistant engineer’s duties, lining up an analogue tape machine requires an understanding of signal level, operating level and the basic principles of magnetic recording. If you have all these, then tape line-up is not just a mundane yet essential procedure, but it also lets you use the

EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SYNC — Once the preserve of audio post engineers, having a thorough understanding of synchronisation is becoming important everywhere. From a basic chase sync set-up to multimachine motion controlled scenarios, you need to understand timecode (LTC, VITC, serial), its relationship to digital audio and video sync, and when and how you might need to resolve sync (think DAW synced with 2-inch tape, for example).

With the ability to expand your work horizons ever more essential, if you want to look towards postproduction you’ll need to add a good understanding of video and film formats, the ‘black-art’ of 9-pin control and the whole notion of video and audio pull up/pull down.

EmbracingSound™ Technology involving your senses.

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DU: 10.2.2005 GB

MICROPHONE TECHNIQUE — A no-brainer, this one. On the basis that garbage in equals garbage out, getting the source right is a fundamental tenet. Working with microphones and microphone positioning isn’t the black art that some make out. Once you accept that a microphone has no brain, and you couple this with some hard listening and an understanding of how sound behaves in an acoustic, developing microphone technique is simply a matter of practice, experiment and evaluation. As important is the development of a ‘microphone memory’ — lodging in your brain how different microphones sound and behave — are they hard, soft, brittle, detailed, warm, or smooth?. Once you have this, matching the right microphone to a particular source to give the sound you have in your head becomes much easier.

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creating emotions

PLATFORM SUPPORT — Not a reference to 1970s footwear but an acknowledgement that a computer of some description is likely to be one of the most important tools in most audio set-ups. Without debating the relative advantages of either computer platform or different software packages, you need to be able to look after, maintain and repair this tool. This means understanding the hardware, knowing how to maintain and optimise hard drives, knowing the OS inside and out, having a thorough understanding of how the OS integrates with hardware and software drivers, etc. A diligent and structured approach to back-up is also essential, and you can probably throw in a more than passing familiarity with basic networking skills and technologies — likely to become even more important in the next five years.

48538_msg • prolight+sound 2005 • Resolution • Motiv: Know-how • 105 x 256 mm / A • 4c • CD Rom • kb 26.1.2005

PLEASE RELEASE ME — The single most misunderstood and/or seriously abused aspects of signal processing in my experience is dynamics processing generally — and compression/limiting specifically.

Exacerbated, no doubt, by increasingly sophisticated plug-ins and ever hotter CD releases, it seems that the whole notion of dynamics in recordings is being eroded. Throw away your multi-band processors and look-ahead peak limiters for a day or so, and go back to basics. Learn how threshold and ratio interact with each other, listen to the effects of the time constants on the programme material. Pay particular attention to the most powerful control on a compressor — then release parameter, and learn how it can alter the dynamics of a sound. Not to remove the dynamics, but to alter them in a way that puts life back into your recordings rather than squashing it out of them. Now go back to those fancy plug-ins, and apply the same approach. Rant over.

REVERSE ENGINEERING — Some might call it critical listening, others might be more honest and just call it stealing... but I prefer the term reverse engineering. Put simply, this is about listening to a recording, taking it apart and working out what is being accomplished and how it’s been done. Remember what works in different situations and apply liberally to your own work. Do it right and you’ll probably annoy significant others for ever more as you point out just how well that change in the snare sound works when moving into the chorus. Good starting points — well, pretty much any of the 10 most influential albums from Resolution V3.7.

WORKING WITH OTHERS — Everyone will have their own take on this one in terms of percentages, but many audio professional will acknowledge that working successfully in this industry can require about 20% technical skill, knowledge and ability, and about 80% tact, diplomacy, psychology, communication skills... the list goes on. Knowing how to deal with the unexpected, how to handle the client who flies off the handle, how to deal with the band who are trading blows in the studio — all of these form part of the rich tapestry that is working in audio. I don’t believe that these are skills you can teach, they have to be learned and the only way to learn is by experience. Strategies to cope include breathing exercises (for you), mediation skills (for them), or simply knowing when to hold them and when to fold them.

100 % installation, 20 % know-how No matter how good the meeting is, the technology always functions perfectly – in the conference centre or a seminar room, at workshops or congresses.

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Frankfurt am Main 6 – 9 April 2005 For more information in the UK: CONT@CT Frankfurt Exhibitions Ltd., Phone (020) 7688 6655, Fax (020) 7688 6657, info@uk.messefrankfurt.com, and in the Republic of Ireland: GeoLogistics Ltd., LEP International, Phone (01) 8 16 66 00, Fax (01) 8 16 66 01, info@ireland.messefrankfurt.com Supported by VPLT (Professional Lighting and Sound Association of Germany) and EVVC (European Association of Event Centers).

MUSICIAN (DRUMMER) JOKES — Trading them is an accepted part of life and good sources can be found on the web but try www.wholenote.com/humor/ for starters. ■ March 2005

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slaying dragons

Equipment specifications Audio equipment, like any other equipment, has specifications. But what do they mean? JOHN WATKINSON has always had concerns about audio specifications and shares some of them with you.

john watkinson

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‘Sometimes I wonder if I have become too cynical, but then along comes another wall of physics-defying propaganda.’

‘The incomplete specification was born and raised in the audio industry. To be really meaningful, a specification must include all of the parameters that affect the sound.’

‘The things that equipment can do to sound all boil down to some sort of filtering — the addition of unrelated signals or the addition of related signals.’

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’M NO LONGER SURE what specifications are for. The scientific view is that they give a prospective purchaser something concrete about the performance of a product. The cynical view is that the purchaser has no idea what they mean and works on the more-must-be-better principle, buying the product with the biggest numbers on the spec that is also within the budget. The truth is somewhere in between. The more-must-be-better brigade must be quite large, judging by the way specifications are measured.

I think I took the first faltering steps towards cynicism when as a child I learned that the size of a TV tube is specified by measuring the diagonal, giving the biggest number possible for a given tube. A larger step towards cynicism was when I learned that the Institute of High Fidelity appeared to have re-defined the Watt to be smaller than real Watts so that audio amplifiers suddenly seemed more powerful. Another invention along these lines is the concept of music power, that is more powerful than real power, or even peak music power that is more powerful than music power. I read recently of a pair of active speakers suitable for use with a PC that claimed 20 Watts peak music power output. They come with a plug top power supply rated at 5 Watts!

A useful approach is to divide specification details into areas that affect sound quality and those that don’t. For location work, portability, power consumption and ruggedness are important, but don’t directly affect quality. For live work, the ergonomics of the controls are important, but again don’t directly affect quality.

Where the highest quality is the goal, areas such as size, weight, power consumption and user hostile controls are less important. One item that often isn’t specified is how long it takes for the thing to work again after a power interruption. That bargain-priced workstation may not be such a bargain after you have bought the uninterruptible power supply without which it is practically unusable.

That cheap radio mike may not be so cheap when it has munched its way through a stack of batteries faster than the better-engineered model.

If we consider areas that affect sound quality, the things that equipment can do to sound vary wildly, but all of these things boil down to some sort of filtering, the addition of unrelated signals, e.g. noise, or the addition of related signals, e.g. distortion. Sensible specifications can include frequency response, signal to noise ratio and total harmonic distortion.

Frequency response is generally considered to be highly important by audio engineers, probably because it is easy to measure. It’s also fair to say that people can’t get enough of it. There is now no shortage of equipment with a hopelessly over specified frequency response that appeals to the more-must-be-better brigade. The fact that there is no reliable evidence that vastly over specified frequency response is necessary doesn’t enter into it.

I don’t have a problem with over specified frequency response provided the equipment actually does have the response claimed. Where I do have a problem is where claims are made for wide frequency response that the equipment cannot possibly deliver. SACD is resolution

a perfect example where we had a raft of propaganda extolling the massive audio bandwidth, whereas the designers of the noise shaping filters had set the practical bandwidth to be essentially the same as that of a regular Compact Disc.

Of course frequency response is meaningless unless the spread of levels to be expected over the specified range is also given. Thus if the frequency range is quoted without a number of dBs level range, it is a cosmetic specification.

It often seems that the only specification given is frequency response, whereas in audio what is needed is a balanced specification including frequency response, time accuracy and positioning or imaging accuracy. This is a great shame, because it is now well understood that high quality sound requires high time accuracy and imaging ability. While it is not particularly difficult to measure the time accuracy of audio equipment, a lot of manufacturers don’t do it, or have done it and don’t want us to know. In the case of loudspeakers, timing accuracy generally isn’t quoted because it is appallingly bad, especially where stone-age techniques such as porting or transmission lines are used.

In the case of imaging accuracy, the audio industry doesn’t even have a measurement technique or a unit. Every other industry that purveys images has a unit of imaging accuracy. We call ourselves audio professionals, but we have no way of measuring how well we are doing. The lack of a suitable unit has certainly impeded progress. Naturally, directivity has a large part to play in imaging. Microphone manufacturers are much more open about the directivity of their products than loudspeaker manufacturers. It’s not uncommon to find that smoothing has been applied to speaker polar plots to make them look better. The official reason is that it reduces the amount of data needed for a polar plot, whereas physics says that it’s the narrow dips and peaks in polar plots that cause image smear.

Signal to noise ratio is an important parameter, and in the digital domain this has a lot to do with word length.

Convertor specifications make fun reading. The LSB is widely misused. An LSB is the bit at the bottom of a binary number that means one or zero. However, it is frequently misused to mean a quantising interval. When resolution or voltages within a quantising interval are being considered, we get fractions of an LSB. Of course there is no such thing as a fraction of a bit.

Distortion is a factor that is seldom described by specifications. It comes in two flavours. Linear distortion is where there is no change to the spectrum, but some frequencies lag behind others in time.

Harmonic distortion is where extra frequency components are found in the spectrum due to a nonlinear transfer function. Linear distortion is relatively inaudible on continuous sounds, but it destroys realism and imaging information in transients. It’s typically not found in specifications.

Harmonic distortion is where the extra frequencies in the spectrum are related to the spectrum of the original sound. Actually in digital systems we can also get anharmonic distortion where distortion products March 2005

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alias. Distortion is usually quoted as THD (total harmonic distortion). While it serves a purpose, THD just lumps together all of the distortion products as a single quantity. Unfortunately, the ear is sensitive to the distribution of distortion products and two devices with the same THD can sound different because the distortion is differently distributed. Tube amplifiers working in Class-A can have quite large amounts of THD and the result is that the sound gets warmer (although it could be the heat from the tubes). The same amount of THD in a solid-state Class-B amplifier would sound excruciating.

The specification that really makes me laugh is the power handling of loudspeaker drive units. This can only be aimed at the more-must-be-better brigade.

I would have thought that what was wanted was the actual sound power that could be radiated, but instead the power that is wasted as heat is specified.

Thus the less efficient the drive unit, the higher the power rating can be. If cars were sold this way, the unit would be gallons per mile, also known as the Bush, and the car that consumed more gallons per mile would be the better one.

The incomplete specification was born and raised in the audio industry. To be really meaningful, a specification must include all of the parameters that affect the sound. By quoting only a few parameters, those are important by implication. There is then a temptation to design to the specification. For example, it is easy to extend the frequency response of an analogue tape recorder by under-biasing. If the frequency response is all that is quoted, it looks better. Pity that under-biasing raises distortion. Using resonance extends frequency response, but it does for the time accuracy.

We also have to consider the devices that are untestable by normal means. These include dynamic range compressors and things like bit-rate reducing coders such as MPEG. Test any of these with sine waves and they pass with flying colours. However, when a dynamic range compressor is changing gain, it must, by definition, introduce distortion. I don’t see how a distortion specification is meaningful in such a device.

In the case of MPEG audio coders, the coder hasn’t got a specification as such, because the performance depends on the bit rate and the difficulty of the source material. The audibility of the artefacts depends on the information capacity or resolution of the loudspeakers. Sometimes I wonder if I have become too cynical, but then along comes another wall of physics-defying propaganda. The current advertising for DAB digital radio makes a big play of the low-noise reception and slags off FM radio for buzzes and crackles. My FM radio doesn’t buzz or crackle, nor does it suffer from MPEG compression artefacts. My first exposure to a real live DAB radio in a real live domestic environment was a massive disappointment. Instead of the rich pure sound promised on the box, it sounded to me like it had a sock in it. Maybe they were relying on the old meaning of pure, which was a substance used in leather tanning whose primary ingredient was dog droppings. ■ March 2005

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your business

The new league of extraordinary gentlemen You charge for your skills but you could charge for your name, your opinion and your experience. DAN DALEY has said it before but you’ve got to work out what you’re worth, and what you could be worth, to know where you’re heading.

dan daley

M

‘At a time when the home recording studio is becoming as ubiquitous as the home theatre in people’s residences, the perception of what the audio professional can bring to the table needs to transcend signal path.’

‘Like a good billiards player, you should not be looking just at the next shot but the next three shots.’

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ETA-DATA IS, SIMPLY PUT, information about the information. The term is a staple of pro audio in the computer age. But it recently took on another meaning in this domain. META is the acronym for the Music and Engineering Technology Alliance, Inc., a new entity comprised of some well-known names: producer/engineer/mixers Phil Ramone, Elliot Scheiner, Frank Filipetti, Al Schmitt, George Massenburg, Ed Cherney, Chuck Ainlay, and Rory Kaplan. What they’re doing indicates some new wrinkles in how creative types in pro audio can find ways to leverage their experience, abilities and name recognition. But, like meta-data itself, this new entity also tells us something about the state of the industry, as well.

Ostensibly, META’s stated mission is to offer the collective talents of its crew to the audio and electronics industries at large, providing input and insight for developers of new products, formats and technology platforms. Certainly, each of META’s members have proven apt and able to help shape the course of pro audio technology from a technical and a creative perspective.

What they also offer collectively is an imprimatur — a blessing bestowed by associations with authoritative names. And that is worth as much, and likely a whole lot more in some circumstances, than the talent alone. Anyone selling almost anything to do with professional audio as well as consumer audio electronics would derive benefit from having these names linked to their efforts.

There’s nothing new about this; one suspects that Gibson sold a lot more guitars based on the name ‘Les Paul’ than it might have had it been dubbed the Model Mk1/A1 guitar. Gibson is in fact the perfect example, in that for years now it has advertised those guitars well beyond the confines of guitar enthusiast magazines, taking ads in upscale venues such as the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, as well as going massmarket with a television campaign last Christmas.

It has sold a lot of guitars to people who otherwise might have spent US$5,000 on skis, watches or other lifestyle products. Smart stuff, that.

META has the potential to go well beyond the purview of backstage pro audio, as well. While perhaps only Ramone has sufficient marquee value to be recognised widely beyond the trade circuit, the artists

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your business this crew’s names have been associated with, from Billy Joel to the Rolling Stones to you name it (or him or her) offers an instantly high ‘Q’ score with the general public. Elliot Scheiner’s ability to wield those credentials was well-displayed when auto maker Accura rolled out a surround-sound auto sound option last year, a project the Eagles and Steely Dan engineer/remixer consulted on. In fact, META itself was not introduced at an AES Convention or even a NAMM show, but rather at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

This is the true meta-data we can derive from META: at a time when the home recording studio is becoming as ubiquitous as the home theatre in people’s residences, the perception of what the audio professional can bring to the table needs to transcend signal path. Ramone, Cherney, Massenberg, Schmitt, et alia are leveraging not only their talents but their personnas, too, and it’s telling about the age we live in that it’s not a slam-dunk which of those attributes is necessarily worth more to a potential buyer than the other. Sorry, but engineers and record producers are a dime a dozen. Mick Jagger’s engineer, however, might sell a T-shirt or two.

Looking at the array of new products rolling out at NAMM reinforces this. Digi-Tech is introducing a line of stomp boxes that trade on hallowed names in the guitar pantheon, including boxes approved by Eric Clapton and (the estate of) Jimi Hendrix. You don’t get Eric Clapton; you don’t get his guitar or his amplifier; you do get sound chips programmed based on samples taken of recordings of his guitar parts. And you get his name. Good for you. And for Eric’s bank account.

There is no sarcastic intent there. Anyone who knows me knows that Socialism is not on my agenda.

You’re supposed to make money doing what you like, as much as you can. The fact that META has an ‘Inc.’ after it speaks reams: this is a for-profit venture, as it should be. All of the corporation’s members have done their share and then some of pro bono work for the pro audio industry. They’ve also done well professionally. This is now a synergy that can let them do even better.

And therein lies the lesson. Everything you do needs to be thought of from the perspective of a strategic career plan. Like a good billiards player, you should not be looking just at the next shot but the next three shots.

It’s not as daunting as it sounds. It is about building the personal brand. Not many people will accumulate the credits that Phil Ramone or Al Schmitt have, but lesser credits properly leveraged can produce excellent results. Music today is as fragmented as the Balkans; each genre has its own universe of magazine and aficionados. Building your presence up in the media of genres you’re successful in is a great idea. Not everyone gets on MTV (although is does seem that way lately, doesn’t it, with comedians and ex-wives brought on to provide a Greek chorus of talking heads as the network deconstructs yet another fried career), but everyone can get on local and regional cable programmes.

Setting yourself up as the expert is a useful thing to do, and a few efforts in that direction will create momentum of their own. My last book, about the business end of country music in Nashville, was four years old when Nick Barraclough contacted me to use it as the basis of a BBC Radio documentary last year, as well as bringing me on to do audio commentary as he prowled the streets of Music Row. Sometimes even no credits can be leveraged.

(Ashlee Simpson, are you listening?) At the recent NAMM Show in Anaheim, guitar-maker Epiphone had a party featuring artists virtually no one had ever heard of outside their home towns. Consider March 2005

this blurb from Epiphone’s PR machine: ‘Sugarcult continues to be the featured face of Epiphone today.

The Santa Barbara-based quartet has shared stages with such greats as Green Day, Blink 182, The Hives, Sum 41, Good Charlotte and many more. MTV and FUSE TV along with Alternative Press and others have applauded the group, suggesting that Sugarcult remains larger than life in today’s rock world.’

Considering that Sugarcult likely made their record in some form of garage on some form of Pro Tools and sells them mainly via a website or at gigs, this is not a bad thing for them. The release went on to note other Epiphone figureheads, including Maxeen and Freakhouse, whose sound is likened to ‘the spacious melodic world beat of the Police and the anthem-like drive of U2 to the aggro-punk angularity of the Pixies

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and the Replacements.’ (I know that I won’t like them then. Ed) Right — lots of names we know, even though we’re clueless regarding the putative stars of the show.

But they are bringing some value to Epiphone, if for no other reason than Epiphone believe so.

The bottom line is that what you do and whom you’ve done it with, or for, or to, have implicit value to someone. It’s important to recognise that not every career will have the kind of success that Phil Ramone or an Elliot Scheiner has had. But in a culture that constantly looks for new faces and new stories and new ways to get messages across — commercial and otherwise — determining what you’re really worth to an increasingly open marketplace once you shut down the computer for the day is a career unto itself. But it could be a very rewarding one. ■

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headroom UNIVERSAL JOINT I read John Watkinson’s column with interest and as just occasionally happens, found cause to take issue with him on a fundamental point (Resolution V4.1).

Page 55 column 1 asserts that the ‘u’ in the dBu unit comes from Universal, the film studio. It should be well known to all who have been in this industry for a year or 20, that the term ‘universal’ comes from that well known engineering device the ‘universal joint’, once common place in the audio industry. Of course the anti-smoking lobby and fear of infections causes joints to be less universal these days but the derivation remains.

Peter M Harrison, Bury, UK It may well be that Peter is right on this. Of course the correct name for the universal joint is the Hooke joint, which should not be confused with the constant speed joint used by those who are really hooked.

John Watkinson

EDUCATIONAL AGREEMENT As usual for Resolution, issue 4.1 was an interesting read, and I lost my usual half-day’s work whilst reading it. John Watkinson, also as usual, was largely spot on, although I can find no dictionary that supports his claim for the use of capital letters for volts/ohms/ amperes/watts, etc, let alone deciBels.

The letters from Rob James and the anonymous author (p58) were something that I found myself agreeing with totally. There is a limit to what detail I can go into without severely breaching confidentiality, but I have given many talks in many different countries at schools of audio, universities, colleges and institutes. It seems to me that when I speak to people doing Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Science or Master of Science degrees (or their equivalent outside of the UK), who are also doing audio systems courses, Res_MTvertical_06-04 20/4/04 1:37 pm they are far more alert to the problems than most of the

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people doing arts degrees or ‘operator’ courses.

The former tend to have a better (more realistic?) outlook, even though we are ultimately looking at an artistic end result. In fact, the term ‘recording engineer’ is a throwback to a time when they all were true engineers, and I can’t help feeling that Michael Schumaker would not be the seven times world F1 champion that he is if he only knew how to ‘operate’ his racing car. Almost certainly he knows a heck of a lot about the mechanical engineering of the car. Many years ago I was an instructor of seaplane pilots, and I had to teach a lot of ground classes. Part of every pilot’s training involves examinations on air-frames and aerodynamics, and in the case of seaplanes, hydrodynamics as well! You can’t get a pilot’s licence just by learning how to fly! Ask John Watkinson how much theory he had to do before he got his licence for helicopters. Those things are mechanical nightmares. They would be a danger to all concerned unless their pilots knew them intimately.

But, the really big problem that I have to face, as a studio designer, is the number of people who now want me to build studios suitable only for recording bad musicians.

They want me to build studios in which ‘academy’ trained operators can record musicians of mediocre quality. I know that it may seem like bad business, but I refuse to do such work. It has been my experience that many commercial schools of recording technology are designing courses that will appeal to the widest range of students. This often means designing courses that teach the students what they (the students) think they need to know before they begin. Yes; the students are dictating what they want to be taught. Many of these students never intend to work in the industry, they just want to learn more about how to operate their own equipment, but this part of the market can influence the whole course structure, because it is so commercially luring to the owners of the schools. It attracts the maximum number of students, and hence maximises profits.

Only a few months ago I had to threaten to send back1a client’s design fee when he tried to downgrade Page the acoustics because he thought that they were unnecessary. Fortunately he backed down, and when the studio opened and he saw his client’s reactions, he was glad that he took my advice. He had never before realised what he would have been missing, because he had never worked in rooms like those before. And he even found musicians showing interest in his studio who he previously thought were out of his league.

What I now find is that so many people are so limited in their outlook. It is hard to teach imagination and experience, so if many students don’t have a basic foundation in the understanding of what recording can achieve, then obviously we will be left with a glut of ex-students who are no more than operators.

Philip Newell, Moana, Spain (letter edited)

Viewers may have enjoyed Alfie, Ocean’s 11, The Italian Job or relished the regular transformation of successful popular book to blockbuster but it’s all a little too obvious for me and I’m tempted to ask ‘why bother?’ when there are still examples of good original stories and entertainment.

The thinking is typified for me by The Magic Roundabout, which in honesty inherits only a passing resemblance to the original but could quite as easily have been marketed simply as something else. The reason it wasn’t is because they wanted to benefit from the association of the brand identification. The same logic assaults our senses with any number of girl/boy act ‘interpretations’ of former hits — few will acknowledge that the new versions improve on the originals but they strike a chord of recognition with the public and aid acceptance. A poor show on all counts for industries that are meant to be creative.

As for Troy... take one of the best yarns ever told and reduce it to that. They even had the cheek to change the story presumably because the original never quite stood the test of time.

ZS

The departure of Burkhard Jaeger from Otari Europe after 18 years was marked by his colleagues with a commemorative gift. This depicted the three ‘important’ dates in his life so far: his birth (7 September 1960, which he shares with a number of other luminaries), his joining of Otari (Studio Sound May 1987) and his departure from Otari (Production Partner January 2005).

NAME AND SHAME Excellent article with Bernard Lohr in the last issue (V4.1) but I’m intrigued by the content of your leader and precisely what you are hinting at. Is this a general assault on the film biz or are you naming names?

Hollywood has been re-making films and stories into films since the beginning so it’s really nothing new.

Gavin Khoors, Antwerp, Belgium How much is actually ‘nothing new’ is probably my point.

It’s true that the film industry has always pilfered the archives and literary back catalogue but I can’t believe it has ever been as blatant and cynical.

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