SOUND ON SOUND [USA] January 2025 by soundonsoundmag

1985 — 2025

THE WORLD’S BEST RECORDING TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE

MUSIC PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES / INDEPENDENT IN-DEPTH PRODUCT TESTS / ENGINEER & PRODUCER INTERVIEWS / LIVE SOUND

E T E L P M KO 15

S T N E M U R T TIVE INS

T N E M U R T S N I L A U T R I V Y L N O E H T S I H IS T LLECTION YOU’LL NEED? CO

Zach Crowell Nashville super producer

Melbourne Instruments Delia Hybrid polysynth with motorised controls

UA Apollo X Gen 2 Monitor correction, auto-gain and more

WIN

Cranborne Audio HE2 HarmonicEQ WORTH $2200 www.soundonsound.com

ON TEST: STEINBERG / TASCAM / WARM AUDIO / BEYERDYNAMIC / SSL / AUDEZE / SLATE / EASTWEST / REASON / FOCUSRITE / HERITAGE

TECHNIQUE: GET GOOD TOM SOUNDS FAST / GRANULAR FX

WORTH £2200 USA $11.99 / Canada C$12.75

142 INSIDE TRACK

IN THIS ISSUE

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January 2025 / issue 3 / volume 40

FEATURES 96 Modular Music Thing founder and Turing Machine inventor Tom Whitwell talks DIY and modular.

118 Recording Toms In A Hurry

WIN CRANBORNE AUDIO

CARNABY HE2 WORTH $2199

There isn’t always time to perfect all aspects of a drum recording, but get your priorities right and you’ll enjoy usable results from every session.

PAGE 78

124 Understanding Granular Delay Granular effects can be hugely powerful, but the chances of finding a preset that does exactly what you want are slim. So why not learn how to tame and tweak them?

138 Spotlight: Drum Mic Sets A dedicated set of drum mics can be a useful addition to anyone’s studio arsenal. We round up some of the best.

142 Inside Track: Zach Crowell Although he grew up aspiring to be a hip-hop producer, Zach Crowell has made it big by leaning into his Nashville roots.

156 Q&A

150 How I Got That Sound

Your studio and recording questions answered.

Producer Robert Orton, aka The Hitmixer, tells us the story behind the impressive bass in Charli XCX’s ‘Boom Clap’.

162 Why I Love... Meters Neil Elkins tells us of his love for things that glow in the dark.

52 TASCAM STUDIO BRIDGE

ON TEST 84

100 95

Audeze Maxwell

154

Becos FX CompIQ Mini C O V E R

PRO X & DT 1770 PRO X Headphones

114

Boss CP-1X Multiband Compressor Pedal

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 4th Gen USB Audio Interface

Heritage Audio Tubesessor Valve Optical Compressor

154 Keepforest Evolution:

Devastator Breakout Pro

Sample Library

Knobula Echo Cinematic Eurorack Module

Lauten Rim Mount Drum Microphone Mount

112

MCAudioLab LUNA.5K Stereo Ambience Processor

12 STL Tones Tonality:

Wes Borland

MusicLab RealGMS

Guitar Rig Modelling Plug-in

Tascam Studio Bridge

24-track Recorder & USB Audio Interface

Native Instruments Komplete 15

TC Electronic Plethora X1

116

Multi-effects Pedal

Polyend Tracker+ Sampler, Synthesizer & Sequencer

106

DAW Software

Eurorack Module

Software Instruments & Effects Collection

152 The Crow Hill Company

Nocturnal Gestures

Project SAM Lineage Percussion

Sample Library

116

Elysia xpector Headphone Amp & Monitor Controller

EastWest Iconic Sample Library

Modular Plug Detroit Pink 87 Sample Library

VCA Compressor Pedal

40 beyerdynamic DT 1990

Steinberg Cubase Pro 14

Polyphonic Synthesizer

Planar Magnetic Headphones

Melbourne Instruments Delia

PSP Datamix a567

Vintage Direct & Replay Box

Reason Studios Reason 13

DI & Re‑amp Boxes

DAW Software

80 United Studio Technologies

EQ Plug-in

88 Universal Audio

Apollo X Gen 2

Rhodes V-Rack

Thunderbolt Audio Interfaces

Effects Plug-in

Sebsongs Bread & Butter

Vega-Trem

115

Guitar Vibrato System

Eurorack Module

Slate Digital VMS

Warm Audio WA76

Discrete Compressor

Microphone Modelling System

Solid State Logic UC1 Plug-in Controller

114

Soundevice Digital Biverb Reverb Plug-in

152 Soundpaint Disco Studio

Strings UDS

Sample Library

WORKSHOPS 128 132 134

Pro Tools Logic Studio One

ON TE ST

M AT T H O U G H TO N

’ve reviewed some larger pedals in Becos’ CompIQ range before — most recently the CompIQ Twain (SOS September 2021: https://sosm.ag/becoscompiq-twain) and, a year earlier, the CompIQ Stella (https://sosm.ag/becoscompiq-stella). I’ve played guitar for a few decades but have put just as much time into recording and mixing, and find that traditional guitar compressors tend to leave me feeling cold: fine for adding sustain but often rudimentary and noisy compared with tools I use in the studio. So I was over the moon about the control and quality on offer in those Becos devices. At heart, they’re studio-quality VCA compressors in a pedal format, but they offer lots of bells and whistles — more than any rack gear I own, in fact. It all adds up to give you supreme control over your tone.

Features Becos have since relocated to Vienna, where they’ve revised and developed their CompIQ concept. Their latest release is the CompIQ Mini and, as the name implies, it’s packed into a tiny enclosure. Becos aren’t the first pedal company to make such efficient use of pedalboard space, but since they specialise in putting more all-analogue control and features into their pedals than most, this form factor presents significant challenges, and their designer told me it took five years and six version iterations to distil and compact all the features he wanted to fit into this format. Those efforts have been very successful. First, the pedal is designed around a THAT 4320 Blackmer VCA chip, and high-quality ‘name’ components are used throughout, including Vishay-Dale resistors, and WIMA, Panasonic, and Cornell Dubilier capacitors. There are high-quality, gold-plated, contact micro-switches, jack connectors and PCB traces and pads, as well as less obvious reliability features such as protection for high voltages and voltage polarity inversion, and all is beautifully assembled in a sturdy enclosure. This pedal should give you years of service. In fact, I’m told that Becos haven’t yet experienced any product failures, and they offer a three-year warranty of the product, even where the original owner sells it on. Perhaps more impressive to me is that, as you should be able to see from the

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

Becos FX CompIQ Mini VCA Compressor Pedal Just how much analogue compressor can you fit in a mini pedal? Becos spent several years answering that question... photos, Becos have packed lots of user control into this pedal without making the top panel feel remotely cramped. The white legend is clear and crisp, and its high contrast with the sturdy black enclosure makes it easy to read in low light, despite the small fonts used. The CompIQ Mini can accept power from 9-12 V DC centre-negative PSUs, courtesy of a standard power inlet at the back/top (obviously there’s no internal battery option in a pedal of this size). Audio comes in on the right side through a Neutrik quarter-inch jack, and out the other side through another. The jacks are offset to allow close placement of similar pedals on your board. In terms of control, you have three pots: one to set the ratio from 1:1 (no compression) to infinity:1 (akin to limiting); another to set the threshold over a generous range (-40 to +10 dBu); and an output gain knob. I like the markings behind these too: white with black ‘gaps’, they’re generously deep and high contrast, making it easy to see/recall your settings; a thoughtful touch. Between those first two knobs, a miniature toggle switch selects hard- or soft-knee compression, and beneath the ratio knob is a five-LED gain reduction meter that ranges from -2 to -20

dB and uses green, yellow and red LEDs to give a visual clue as to how hard you’re hitting things. Again, a great touch given the size of this pedal. At the bottom, beneath the logo, the single (on/bypass) footswitch is flanked by four more controls. The two red trim pots may be tiny but they’re knurled, making it easy to turn them with your fingers, even if a screwdriver gives you greater precision. Labelled Dry and SCF, these blend between the unprocessed and compressed signals and set the frequency of an unusual side-chain high-pass filter, respectively. The former means you can use this pedal for parallel compression: with fast attack times and sufficient gain reduction, that can be a great way to retain note onsets while lifting up lower-level details. The latter is more interesting, since as well as letting you filter low frequencies out of the side-chain (like most side‑chain filters, making the compressor less sensitive to the energetic low end), you can also boost the low end. Technically this side-chain boost makes the compressor more sensitive to low frequencies. But to put it in more practical terms, you’re effectively lowering the threshold for low frequencies by 6dB, and that can help

m908. Immersive Monitoring, Perfected. The m908 monitor controller gets you working in any format quickly and easily, expertly managing any speaker system from stereo to Dolby™ Atmos 9.1.6. Firmware 2.0 includes our new web-based control platform which lets you operate and configure the entire system from any web browser (desktop or mobile). Additionally, the m908’s room correction EQ capability provides 12 bands on all 24 channels at all sample rates. With unrivaled audio performance and mechanical elegance, the m908 is simply the finest all-in-one monitoring tool for modern music production.

“Grace is renown for incredible sonics, however the m908 is an entirely different machine. Not only does it sound phenomenal, but the functionality and routing is on another level. As the centerpiece of our Dolby Atmos room, it handles hundreds of I/O, multiple speaker sets, room correction, and so much more. I can’t say enough great things about it! ”

www.gracedesign.com

Glenn A Tabor III Multiple Grammy™ winning producer / engineer, Gat3 Studio (www.gat3.com)

ON TE ST

STL Tones bring the sound of Limp Bizkit’s unique guitarist to your DAW. JOHN WALDEN

u-metal gave us a different kind of ‘guitar hero’: monstrous down-tuned riffs, lots of creative tones, fewer guitar solos. Whether you’re a fan of Limp Bizkit or not, Wes Borland was one guitarist leading that revolution, and he was as creative in his playing and his tones as in his larger-than-life stage persona. STL Tones now offer a taste of that tonal palette in Tonality: Wes Borland, the latest in their series of artist collaboration plug-ins. As with previous titles, it emulates the artist’s total rig, including stompboxes, amps, cabinets and effects.

Take A Look Around Tonality: Wes Borland can run as a standalone app or a DAW plug-in (VST, AU or AAX formats). The GUI is logically laid out, with the various stages of the signal flow from input to output accessed using tabs at the bottom. In the gear‑focused sections, the graphics provide a cool representation of Wes Borland’s equipment choices, complete with some of his artwork on the cabs, and there are some unique combinations. For example, in the Stomp Boxes tab, you get modelled pedals inspired by the Electro-Harmonix Mini Q-Tron (an envelope filter that can create all sorts of auto-wah sounds) and a Big Muff Pi fuzz. The post-amp/ cab Effects selection provides two different delays (based on Boss and Dunlop units) and

STL Tones Tonality: Guitar Rig Wes Borland Modelling Plug-in an Ibanez chorus/flanger. It’s a compact selection but one that reflects the key pedals found on Borland’s live board. The combination of the three modelled amps and six speaker cabinets also emulate the live rig, and the modelled Diezel VH4 is based on the amp that’s been the source of most of Limp Bizkit’s heavier guitar tones since the early 2000s. For cleaner sounds, such as used for some of the cleaner parts in ‘My Way’, the modelled Roland JC-120 does the business. Sitting between these two, at least in terms of available gain, is a more unusual choice: Borland’s 1965 Selmer Zodiac amp, which provides some very cool edge-of-breakup sounds. The cab selection features an impressive choice of mics, with the ability to mix and match between any two cabs with full control over the mic placement. If required, you can bypass the cab emulation completely and use an alternative cab sim in your DAW. The feature set also includes a gate, a tuner, MIDI support (to configure preset switching and some parameter automation options) and some mono/stereo routing choices. There’s also a neat Input Level Listener tool that can assist you in setting a suitable input signal level, to optimise gain staging into the modelled amp.

My Way Or Break Stuff? The plug-in includes a compact selection of presets, some created by STL Tones that cover more generic styles, and others designed by Wes Borland, which are perhaps more idiosyncratic to the man. There are some very cool sounds to be

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found here and, for those presets whose song inspiration is obvious from the title (for example, My Way 1 or Hot Dog Clean), if you can play the parts, the tones seem very faithful to the original. But if you don’t want to do it exactly Wes’ way, the compact pedal selection and diverse amp/cab combinations let you break out of the Limp Bizkit mould. The modelling really does sound very good, and I’d have no problems putting these sounds up against any of the other guitar amp sims I use. All that said, this is very much a signature guitar rig with a signature sound. If you’re a fan of the colourful, creative, aggressive — and sometimes downright weird! — tones Wes Borland manages to weave into Limp Bizkit’s music, you’ll love it. Beyond nu-metal, though, the plug-in can also be great for a range of more modern rock/metal guitar tones. If that appeals, download the free trial... and may your nu-metal riffs keep Rollin’.

summary Tonality: Wes Borland gives you easy access to the unique signature sounds of one of nu-metal’s most influential guitar players.

$ $149 W www.stltones.com

ON TE ST

Lauten Rim Mount

Drum Microphone Mount

Miking drums is a notoriously fiddly affair. Have Lauten Audio cracked it? MARK GORDON

ot on the heels of Lauten’s recently released Tom Mic and Snare Mic (www. soundonsound.com/reviews/ lauten-snare-mic-tom-mic) comes the Rim Mount, a fully articulating drum-mount system designed to enable optimal positioning of a microphone on the rim of almost any drum. It aims to solve most, if not all, of the issues of stability, positioning and isolation commonly associated with rim-mounted mics. Let’s find out whether it does!

Carry On Clamping The Rim Mount comprises an aluminium clamp attached to two articulated metal arms, by way of a ball joint that enables the arms to rotate and swivel through 360 degrees. A second ball joint connects to a standard 5/8-inch threaded mic mount, and a large lever at the ‘elbow’ joint between the arms is used to lock everything in place. The combination of ball joints and rotating collars provides an almost unlimited degree of flexibility, to the point where, with the lever loosened, the Rim Mount takes on an almost liquid quality. The clamp element features a large, knurled thumb-screw to operate its jaws, which, when fully

opened, stretch to around 35mm — enough to accommodate even the widest wooden drum hoop. The jaws also feature thick rubber ‘teeth’ that not only protect the drum rims but also aid grip and help to isolate the clamp from vibration. The best way to use the Rim Mount is to attach a mic to the threaded mount while it’s in its flaccid state, and then attach the clamp to the rim while supporting the mic. You can then manipulate the arms and move the microphone into position. The lever magically tightens ball joints and elbow joints simultaneously, locking everything in place — and when I say it’s locked in place, I mean it. I was even able to lift the entire drum using the Rim Mount without it moving! To further ease the fitting process, you can disengage the lever, by pulling it up a little, and rotate it to a more streamlined position before re-engaging it.

Sermon On The Mount Lauten were kind enough to loan me their Tom and Snare microphones, which, of course, were a breeze to set up with the Rim Mount, but I also tried a range of mics, including the ubiquitous SM57 and a very heavy and cumbersome MXL Cube, as well as a large-diaphragm capacitor mic. I was able to get each mic into the perfect position and firmly secured. Lauten also suggests the Rim Mount will comfortably hold larger industry classics such as the Sennheiser MD421 and AKG C414, and I have no reason to doubt that. Drums come fitted with a range of different rims (or hoops), and I found that the Rim Mount attached securely to both triple-flange and die-cast rims without impinging on the drumhead. It will even work with S-hoops and wooden hoops, which are often a problem for rim mounts. With the Rim Mount securely tightened on the hoop, the rubber teeth

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

add a significant level of isolation from unwanted rumble and vibration. With its well-engineered metal construction, the Rim Mount has a very industrial look, and the dual-arm construction and rubber teeth immediately set it apart from any system I have previously encountered. The level of flexibility and adjustment offered by its design is quite astonishing, allowing you to comfortably manoeuvre microphones into positions that not only benefit the engineer but also the drummer. Retailing at just over £100, this isn’t a cheap option but, having used many different rim mounts in the past, I have to say that this is by far the most flexible and solid solution I have seen.

summary A fantastically engineered mount that offers unrivalled flexibility, as well as astounding grip and solidity.

$ $99 T Lauten Audio +1 877 721 7018 E sales@lautenaudio.com W www.lautenaudio.com

Sound Amazing

I n t rod ucing

Symphony Studio S E R IES

Features Room EQ, Bass Management, Input DSP, & More.

Learn more at apogeedigital.com

20 YEARS OF ACOUSTIC RESEARCH INTO ONE SOLUTION.

www.trinnov.com

ON TE ST

MCAudioLab LUNA.5K

BOB THOMAS

was shocked to realise that it’s been 13 years since I reviewed MCAudioLab’s TP1tp single-channel valve microphone preamp (see SOS May 2011: http://sosm.ag/mcaudiolab-tp1tp). Since those early days, founder Manuel Curcuruto’s company have relocated to Poland, and expanded their all-analogue 19-inch rackmount and 500-series product ranges, which now cover the core studio requirements such as microphone preamplifiers, equalisers and compressors. There are also three less conventional signal processors, including MCAudioLab’s latest 500-series product, the dual-slot LUNA.5K.

LUNA Exploration

the right) is slightly unusual, in that both three-band EQs have the lowest frequency at the top and highest at the bottom. Under the EQ section, in their respective columns, you’ll find the level controls for the BKG and FRG signals. The fifth control in the FRG column is a Width control that acts alongside the BKG signal to further expand or contract the width of the stereo soundfield. Opposite, in the FRG column, is the LUNA.5K ’s output level control. Between the two control columns is a four-LED stereo level meter that displays signal levels scaled from ‘sgn’ (signal present), through -6dB and 0dB to Over. Below that lies the bypass button and its illuminated-when-bypassed status LED. Internally, the LUNA.5K employs high-quality components, all through-hole types and elegantly laid out across two channel boards, both of which exhibit the excellent build quality you’d hope for from a small, boutique manufacturer such as MCAudioLab.

MCAudioLab describe the LUNA.5K as an “analogue ambient processor”. A derivative of the company’s 2013 (and still in production) rackmount LUNA Vari-Amb Processor, it’s a fully analogue, Class-A, To The Fore stereo device that features the same innovative approach With its maximum input and to enhancing the ‘ambience’ output levels of +20dBu in a stereo signal. Naturally, and frequency bandwidth of MCAudioLab aren’t keen to give 20Hz to 22kHz, the LUNA.5K away everything about how this integrated into my studio setup clever process works. But, in without any issues. Although essence, as well as encoding the the LUNA.5K operates in Class incoming stereo signal into M-S A, I didn’t find heat to be an it runs through the company’s issue, even in the middle of proprietary Analog Ambient a fully-populated six-slot Radial Processor (AAP), a complex Workhorse 500-series enclosure analogue audio matrix that that had been running for More than just a Mid-Sides widener, the derives two additional, parallel most of the day. As you might ‘layers’ that, in the LUNA.5K, surmise from the simplicity of its intriguing, all-analogue LUNA.5K offers are called Foreground (FRG) controls, operating the LUNA.5K you control over front-to-back depth. and Background (BKG). Both is intuitive, but if you’re as layers have individual three-band EQ and accustomed as I am to EQ layouts where balance with the Sides. Similarly, any level controls that govern the tonality and the HF rather than the LF control knob increase in the level of the BKG signal, amount of each being mixed into the M-S sits at the top, you might find yourself which is not phase coherent, won’t change matrix within the AAP, before the decoded occasionally wondering why adjusting the the level of the (unprocessed) Sides signal and processed stereo signal appears at treble is changing the bass, and vice versa! or alter its relationship with the Mid. Using the device’s outputs. the BKG layer to widen the stereo image A large part of my personal learning Since the FRG signal is phase‑coherent, cleverly negates the risk of creating the curve with the LUNA.5K simply entailed increasing its level will result in the ‘hole in the middle’ that can often be listening to its effect on a variety of stereo phantom centre of a stereo image perceived when simply boosting the stems and mixes, in order to understand sounding more detailed and more Sides signal relative to the Mid. just what the unit can and cannot do. present, without changing the level The LUNA.5K’s two-column, five-knob With the FRG layer, I always succeeded of the (unprocessed) Mid signal, or its control layout (BKG on the left, FRG on in creating a sense of ‘focus’ within the

Stereo Ambience Processor

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

• Specifically developed for vocal recordings • Easy vocal clean-up and enhancement • Intelligent noise- and room removal • Industry-leading AI-technology

Available as standalone application and ARA plug-in

ON TE ST

Slate Digital VMS

Microphone Modelling System Eight years on from its groundbreaking release, what’s new in Slate Digital’s Virtual Microphone System? NEIL ROGERS

here does the time go? It’s been eight years since my original review of the Slate Digital Virtual Microphone System, or VMS, which feels like more than enough time to check in and see what this somewhat pioneering product now has to offer. It was interesting for me to reread the original review (https://sosm.ag/slate-vms) and remember how keen we were at the time to unpick and generally assess just how authentic the mic emulations were. Indeed, we decided to focus the review on directly comparing some of the emulations to the real deal — which inevitably led to some mild Internet controversy around the test conditions and how valid the comparisons were, especially considering the natural variations between mics that are over 60 years old and may have undergone multiple services and repairs. My review was positive, however, and my closing thoughts were about being intrigued to see how this new technology would be received and developed in the coming years. It feels like a different landscape now to when the original VMS was released, with most of us entirely comfortable about combining digital tools with our analogue ones. It is also fair to say, I think, that the development of very good-sounding microphone emulations hasn’t sounded the death knell of traditional and vintage recording mics. My sense is that most engineers aren’t necessarily concerned

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

with how authentic something sounds, and prefer to judge gear by the difference it makes in their day-to-day music making. Perhaps in response to this shift, the team at Slate Digital decided to drop the hardware preamp side of the original VMS package and instead focus solely on making the microphone as affordable and simple as possible to use. So, while there are software preamp emulations included in the VMS bundle, the only hardware component now is the ML-1 mic. This behaves exactly like a normal capacitor microphone, with users supplying their own preamp, while the software is neatly contained with Slate Digital’s Virtual Mix Rack plug-in.

Overview Losing the preamp side of the system seems like a good move to me, as I think most users want simplicity and to also feel like they are not having to use, or pay for, extra equipment to get good results. The mic itself is intended to provide a good‑quality ‘blank slate’ for the modelling software to effectively do its thing, and is a neutral-looking mic that would be a fine centrepiece as the only mic in a smaller setup, whilst still looking at home in a studio like mine with multiple other mics kicking around. One of my concerns in my original review was that users could end up getting lost in too much choice, and however you might feel about that aspect of modern production, the Slate Digital VMS now offers a total of 26 vintage microphone

emulations. These are available in a few different bundles, or as a complete collection if you subscribe to Slate Digital’s Complete Access Bundle or All Access Pass. Slate Digital were early adopters of the monthly subscription model, and whilst you can stay outside of that if you wish, the relatively high pricing of the expansion packs seems intended to strongly encourage you to go become a part of the Slate Digital ecosystem — which does include a huge number of emulations, among other production software to explore. The pricing for the VMS is now also significantly reduced compared to the $799 of the original system, to further encourage you into the Slate Digital world. Jumping ahead a little, I can report that the ‘raw’ mic itself sounds better than many mics I have auditioned in that price range, so it’s relatively low-risk if you do want to explore what the VMS has to offer. If you wanted to avoid the ‘choice paralysis’ of having so many models, you would ideally monitor your recording recording session through the Virtual Mix Rack plug-in, auditioning the mic models and then recording with your chosen model in place. I had some concerns about this in my original review, as you would need to be able to record with very low buffer sizes to avoid any audible latency in the performer’s monitoring. However, the continuing development of computer processing means this is now less of a problem, and I’m happy to report that recording at 44.1kHz and with my buffer set at 64 samples (using Pro Tools on my five-year-old PC) produced no audible latency. I can imagine it being more problematic if you were returning to a track to re-record some vocals where the mix has a lot of plug-in processing going on, but this could be worked around with relative ease, and the base mic itself certainly sounds good enough to work with without the emulations engaged if needed.

Bundle Up The mic ships with the Classic Tubes 1 and 2 collections, which include emulations of the ‘big hitters’ in the vintage mic world as well as a well-known dynamic mic: the Shure SM7. Apart from the Shure, these are all aspirational, eye-wateringly expensive tube mics most of us will never own, such as the Sony C-800G, Neumann U47 and U67, AKG C12 and Telefunken 251. Also available at the time of writing are four separate expansion packs, including the Classic 87 collection, which offers new

ON TE ST

Rhodes V-Rack Effects Plug-in

V-Rack packs the Rhodes MK8 preamp and effects section into a plug-in. JOHN WALDEN

big element of the Rhodes piano’s sonic palette is its built-in preamp and effects. You can still buy hardware Rhodes pianos (Sam Inglis reviewed the reissued MK8 in SOS August 2023) but realistically many of us will be happier with a software version, and Rhodes’ own excellent MK8 plug-in modelled the preamp and effects and, indeed, expanded upon them in some useful ways. Now, Rhodes are offering these in a dedicated effects plug-in called Rhodes V-Rack — and that means, of course, that you can now use them to treat any sound, not just Rhodes.

All This & More V-Rack’s contents closely reflect the original hardware, with seven effects on offer: Drive, Equalizer, Vari-Pan, Comp, Chorus, Phaser and Delay. As Sam noted in his MK8 review, the software control options expand on those offered in the hardware, and many of these ‘extras’ are to be found in the Details panel (shown open in the screenshot). For example, in the Drive module, you can switch between three alternative drive types, each of which has a distinct flavour, while in the Equalizer module, you can choose between four different

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EQ modes and three different centre frequencies for both the low and high bands, and control the Resonance and Envelope parameters for the mid band to adjust the filter/auto-wah‑style effects it can provide. All the effects sound great, but I particularly enjoyed the Delay. It’s a modelled bucket brigade delay (BBD) like the classic Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, and it recreates the character of that sound in a very satisfying way. The ‘extras’ mean there’s plenty of additional functionality too. For example, you get twin preset systems, operating at both the global and per-effect levels. There are options to reposition both the Drive and Compressor modules to ‘pre’ or ‘post’ positions (I assume relative to the EQ) in the signal chain. You also get the option to enable DAW tempo sync for all the time-based effects. MIDI Learn is also provided — just right-click on any parameter and the pop-up menu lets you set things up in no time. The VCA-style compressor not only sounds great but offers a full suite of controls (accessed through the Details panel), including both side-chain capabilities and a wet/dry Mix knob. The side-chain input means V-Rack can be used for the sorts of routine ‘duck the bass when the kick hits’ processing, while the latter makes it easy to simulate parallel compression without the fuss of configuring an additional bus. Sure, these options are now found on lots of other compressor plug-ins, but it’s great to see Rhodes putting user convenience over a rigid design approach that limits itself to mimicking the original hardware.

Rack & Roll You may well have all these effects types well represented in your plug-in folder already, but if you like your effects to add genuine character — and a suitable dollop of ‘analogueness’ — then Rhodes V-Rack has obvious appeal. The design team at Rhodes obviously have inside knowledge of the original hardware circuitry but it’s another

thing to recreate in software a much-loved classic sound in a convincing way — and they’ve done a good job of it. The first thing to strike me as V-Rack started doing its thing was just how easily it brought that sense of analogue processing to the sound — almost any sound, in fact. And perhaps that’s the best way to describe what V-Rack does: think of it as a ‘character provider’. That’s exactly the role these effects play on the Rhodes pianos, and now you can apply this to anything inside your DAW. It won’t surprise you when I say that it can do some great things with electric guitar sounds, or that it can be used to take the sterile edge off even the most digital of synth sounds. But it can also be fabulous on vocals, where some combination of the Drive, Equalizer, Compressor and Delay make for a really impressive processing chain. Rhodes offer a 14-day free trial and I reckon it’s well worth exploring.

summary Offering the classic effects options from a Rhodes piano in a convenient plug-in format, V-Rack can add character to any sound.

$ $99.95. W https://rhodesmusic.com

_MiniFreak Turns granular With the new firmware update 3.0 digital meets analog, hardware meets software, expression meets chaos, and reality meets boundless imagination. Explore otherworldly tones with 8 new engines, from hypnotic layers to grain effects and ethereal textures. Rediscover MiniFreak.

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Quantum Audio Interfaces Simply put, these are the best interfaces for under $1,000 bucks. Experience the clarity of 32-bit converters and mic preamps that boast a whopping +75 dB of gain for sound quality that’s unheard of at this price point. Thirty years in the making, Quantum comes packed with re-amping capabilities and front-facing instrument inputs co-developed with industry-leading experts at Fender®, making it the go-to interface for guitarists and boundary-pushing audio creators of all types.

Quantum ES 2 |

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“PreSonus’ workstation has always felt to me like software for the modern age: fast, user‑friendly, supremely flexible and ceaselessly innovative. Studio One Pro 7 raises the bar considerably… There’s groundbreaking integration with the vast Splice sound library, browsable in‑app, incorporating near‑instantaneous pitch and key recognition. All this, in addition to offline stem separation, cutting‑edge Dolby Atmos mixing/rendering (introduced in version 6), and a beautifully rounded feature set generally, makes this the DAW to beat, I reckon.” – Robin Bigwood, Sound On Sound Read the full review in the December 2024 issue.

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Reason Studios Reason 13 DAW Software

Thirteen is unlucky for some, but not for Reason users, who gain a new synth, a particularly nice delay and all sorts of other improvements to boot! SIMON SHERBOURNE

eason has settled into an upgrade cadence where every other year sees some kind of infrastructure update, a new premium device or two and some utilities/updates. Reason 13 continues this pattern, with an overhaul of the device and patch browsing system, a new synth, a new effect, and a rejig of the sequencer/editor workflow. This last will be encouraging to those who use Reason standalone, rather than as a modular device rack in another DAW.

Polytone Let’s start with something fun. Polytone is, you guessed it, a polyphonic synth. This is

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

conceived as an accessible polysynth with all the important stuff up front — the poly equivalent to the Monotone synth found in both Reason and the Reason Compact app. Or Subtractor 2.0. This is not to say it’s basic; it has everything you need to emulate the classic big-name polys, some interesting extra sound‑generation options plus one show‑stopping trick up its sleeve. A glance across the front panel confirms all the standard ingredients are present: two oscillators with cross-FM, a filter, dedicated amp and filter envelopes, general purpose envelope and LFO mod sources and of course some chorus and reverb to serve. A major part in keeping things simple is the choice to leave out the spreadsheet-esque mod matrix that’s

The Reason UI has had a slight re-org, with a new split sequencer view and a tidy up of view selectors and editor functions.

been bolted onto the bottom of most new Reason instruments since Thor. Instead, all mod assignments are in context and on the panel like on a Jupiter/OB-8. Points of interest include the versatility of the oscillators, osc shape‑shifting for all types, static or key‑tracked filter FM and an Age control that makes everything progressively wonky. Alongside the usual source waveshapes you get a Digital mode (wavetable) and a choice of band and ‘chaos’ noise generators in addition to the mixer section’s noise source. Perhaps the defining feature of Polytone is the big A/B selector at the top. The synth has two independent but equally spec’ed, layers. You can choose to blend these via a crossfader or mod source, but much more interesting is the Morph option, which glides all panel parameters between their two layer positions.

Browser For version 13, the Reason crew have had another swing at refreshing the preset/ sound/device browsing experience. The left-hand side bar, which was the previous home to all things browsey, is now

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BOB THOMAS

lysia’s aim is “the development and production of high-quality audio equipment featuring that certain something”. In pursuit of it, they do everything in-house at their base in Nettetal, Germany — and I really do mean everything. They design, develop and prototype their products there, they make their own PCBs, have their own SMD manufacturing equipment, machine their own metalwork, and carry out final assembly and testing. It’s an integrated approach that has resulted in the creation of some wonderful products, and the latest is the xpector, a desktop, Class‑A, dual-channel headphone amplifier that’s an innovative headphone and monitor control solution for the DAW-based engineer/ producer and provides a separate, well-featured artist headphone mixing facility too.

Head Lines Despite sharing the form, styling and chunky aluminium housing of Elysia’s qube range of 500-series devices, the xpector is a desktop device and not actually compatible with the 500 series. Its front-panel controls are laid out in three vertical rows, the outer two of which control independent engineer and artist headphone mixes. The inner row handles monitor and headphone switching duties. Each mix has its own front- and rear-panel quarter-inch (6.35mm) stereo headphone output. The rear panel also carries balanced quarter-inch jack sockets for L-R audio inputs (L also caters for mono) and pass-throughs. Those labelled Direct will normally be connected directly to the outputs of, for example, mono mic preamps or stereo processors, and looped through to your audio interface’s inputs. The DAW

Elysia xpector $1450 pros • Innovative combination of headphone amplification and monitor control. • Includes basic M-S monitoring facilities. • Did I mention the stunning audio performance?

cons • None.

summary This innovative product combines a two-channel headphone amplifier and monitor control, and delivers a very high level of audio performance.

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

Elysia xpector Headphone Amp & Monitor Controller Need high-quality but portable headphone amplification for both engineer and artist? Elysia may have the answer. pair carries two of your interface’s outputs. Balanced L-R XLR outputs are provided to drive active loudspeakers. Finally, there’s the power switch and a non-locking connector for the supplied 1A, 18V DC PSU. Assuming you have the necessary leads to hand, setting up the xpector is simple, as its audio inputs and outputs accept balanced or unbalanced jacks. Apart from the Swap switch that’s associated with the engineer channel’s trim function, no mystery surrounds any of the front-panel controls. The bottom three knobs on either channel allow the setting up of individual mixes of the direct and DAW signals and headphone volume levels for both engineer and artist, each of which can be muted individually. In addition, you’ll find ±6dB high and low shelving EQ at the top of the artist

channel, allowing artists to tailor their own sound. The knobs’ opposite numbers in the engineer channel are a Mode switch that sets the format (stereo, mono/Mid, Sides, left, or right) of the signal in the engineer’s headphones or the loudspeaker output, and a ±12dB trim control. The last of those, via the Swap switch I mentioned earlier, allows you to trim the signal levels going into your headphones or out to your monitors relative to each other, to avoid abrupt changes in volume when switching between the two with the Speaker switch.

Great xpectations? Once you’ve got everything set up and understand that Swap switch, operating the xpector and creating engineer and artist headphone mixes is entirely

intuitive. I was very pleased to discover that the rotary pots’ very fine detents lined up precisely with the scales around them and the notch on every knob — it’s a level of attention to detail I’ve not seen before and is to be commended. From an engineer’s perspective, the Swap function integrates headphones and monitors into a level-matched system. On the monitoring side, in addition to stereo, mono, left and right, the Mode switch also allows you to monitor the Sides component of a stereo signal; the mono mode provides the Mid component, of course, to deliver a basic M-S monitoring capability — handy, for example, for quickly checking the Sides for phase issues that might affect mono compatibility. But what about the sound? I hear you ask. The xpector’s stunning audio performance is first rate, delivering

the high levels of clarity, nuance, detail and accuracy associated with Class‑A amplification. Put simply, the xpector is an outstanding headphone amp and one of the best-sounding monitor controllers I’ve used or heard to date. Sadly, for my own prospects of ownership, the xpector’s price tag is commensurate with these levels of performance — but it is fully justified. If you work on projects where accurate, high-quality, mobile headphone monitoring is a prerequisite, such as recording classical music, or critical recording with vocalists and/ or acoustic instrumentalists in domestic or other non-studio environments, or you are simply looking to upgrade your personal studio’s monitoring facilities, the Elysia xpector is an investment worth your consideration.

“Elysia do everything in-house at their base in Nettetal, Germany — and I really do mean everything.”

The rear‑panel layout confirms that although the xpector shares the general form of Elysia’s qube range, it’s not actually a 500-series module. $ $1449.99. T MusicMax Distribution +1 614 897 0007. E sales@musicmaxinc.com W https://musicmaxdistribution.com W www.elysia.com

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beyerdynamic DT 1990 PRO MkII & DT 1770 PRO MkII Headphones

The new MkII editions of beyerdynamic’s flagship headphones are outwardly identical to the previous versions. Internally, however, it’s a very different story! SAM INGLIS

s befits a manufacturer celebrating their centenary, beyerdynamic products tend to stand the test of time. The company’s very first headphones, the DT 48s, were in continuous production from 1937 to 2012, while the still-current

M 160 and M 130 ribbon microphones date back to the 1950s, and the iconic, rectangular DT 100s have been a recording-studio staple since their introduction in 1965. Any new model that enters the beyerdynamic line-up has a lot to live up to — and recent headphone launches have done a pretty good job of it.

The DT 1990 PRO MkII and DT 1770 PRO MkII are essentially open- and closed-back versions of the same design.

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

At the top end of the market, headphone development at beyerdynamic has focused on two proprietary driver technologies called STELLAR and TESLA. In a moving-coil loudspeaker or headphone driver, a coil of wire is attached to the back of the diaphragm, with a permanent magnet positioned inside it. When the amplified audio signal is passed through the wire, electromagnetic induction does its thing and the diaphragm is pushed and pulled at a frequency determined by the signal. In the original version of the TESLA driver, the usual geometry was reversed, and instead of locating the magnet inside the wire coil, beyerdynamic used a ring-shaped magnet that sat outside the coil. This generated a particularly powerful magnetic flux density, with concomitant benefits in terms of sensitivity and low distortion. The TESLA driver was first used in high-end headphones for the consumer hi-fi market, but soon found its way into two studio products: the closed-back DT 1770 PRO and the open-back DT 1990 PRO. These were introduced in 2016, and have proved very popular despite — or, perhaps, because of? — the fact that they were never reviewed in this magazine.

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B E Y E R D Y N A M I C D T 1 9 9 0 P R O M K I I & D T 17 7 0 P R O M K I I

An exploded view of one side of the DT 1990 PRO MkII, showing the new TESLA.45 driver.

To celebrate their anniversary, beyerdynamic have introduced upgraded or special edition versions of quite a few products, and their flagship studio headphones are no exception. Both the DT 1770 PRO and DT 1990 PRO are now at MkII, with an updated version of the TESLA driver that is said to improve performance still further. The new driver, dubbed the TESLA.45, actually reverts to a more conventional structure with the magnet inside the voice coil, but still achieves a flux density in excess of 1T. It also incorporates many of the improvements made in the STELLAR.45 driver used in the DT 700 and 900 PRO X models, while one of the biggest steps forward has been the development of a new diaphragm geometry. In the new TESLA.45 driver, the voice coil is not wound directly onto the back of the diaphragm, but onto a lightweight collar that protrudes outwards. This design ensures that the voice coil remains entirely within the magnet gap even at relatively high excursion levels, delivering greater linearity and lower distortion.

Open & Shut Case The 1770 and 1990 are, respectively, closed-back and open-back versions of a design that is otherwise identical. They are manufactured at beyerdynamic’s Heilbronn headquarters in central Germany, and their construction is pleasingly businesslike and serious-looking, with a ‘none more black’ aesthetic that seems fitting for

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

a professional studio tool. The two models ship in the same lightweight, zip-up, semi-rigid case, which is also entirely black and has no identifying features, so if you’re lucky enough to own both models you’ll open the wrong case approximately 50 percent of the time. It would benefit from having a handle, but most importantly, it offers a decent level of protection whilst being much lighter than typical hard-shell cases. Within the case, a pouch houses the detachable cables, offering the traditional choice of straight or curly. The former is 3m long and the latter will stretch to 5m. These attach to the base of the left earcup using a mini-XLR, and to your audio device through the equally time-honoured mini-jack with optional 6.5mm screw-on adaptor. As well as the headphones themselves, both models also come with a second set of earpads. The stock earpads are velour-covered: in the case of the DT 1990 PRO MkII, they are designated the Producing version, and introduce a small bass boost. The second set supplied with the 1770 have an imitation leather cover and offer greater isolation from external sound, while the alternative Mixing & Mastering earpads for the 1990 are also velour and are intended to flatten the response. (The headband cushion is also replaceable.) However, swapping earpads isn’t something I’d want to attempt on a regular basis. On paper, or in PDF manual, the process is simple: you snag the elastic band that lines the back of the earpad

on a notch in the rim of the earcup, and twist through 360 degrees. If that works first time, it takes a few seconds. But if it doesn’t, the band becomes increasingly stretched and non-compliant, and it quickly gets frustrating. Having swapped the first one with no fuss at all, it took me nearly an hour to do my second earpad. It doesn’t help that the two sets of earpads for the 1990 are indistinguishable once attached to the earcups.

Full Strength The physical design of both models is largely conventional, which is understandable since beyerdynamic

beyerdynamic DT 1990 PRO MkII & DT 1770 PRO MkII $600 pros • Heavy-duty construction with lots of field-replaceable parts. • Good-quality case supplied. • Earpads can be swapped to change the tonal characteristics somewhat. • Attractive, non-fatiguing sound. • Comfortable even when used for long periods.

cons • Swapping the earpads can be a struggle.

summary Powered by the all-new TESLA.45 driver, beyerdynamic’s flagship open‑ and closed-back models are high-quality studio headphones.

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Native Instruments Komplete 15 Software Instruments & Effects Collection

Can NI make Komplete even more complete? JOHN WALDEN

reviewed the impressive update to NI’s Kontakt in last month’s SOS but, alongside the move to Kontakt 8, Komplete has also been refreshed. Available in multiple versions, and at different prices, each Komplete bundle includes Kontakt alongside differing selections of virtual instruments, plug-ins and expansion packs, some NI branded, and others supplied by various NI partners. Komplete updates operate over a regular two-year cycle and SOS last reviewed it in the December 2022 issue. Even version 14, by the time you got up into the top two tiers of the product, represented an amazing range of sounds, spanning virtually every musical genre you could imagine. For busy media composers, sat alongside your DAW of choice, Komplete 14 could easily be the ‘one‑stop shop’ for all your virtual instrument and sample needs. All of which begs the obvious question: two years on, just what can NI add to make Komplete 15, well... more complete?

The Komplete Range There are three main versions of Komplete 15; Standard, Ultimate and Collector’s Edition. The tiers go from 95+ instruments and effects/50+ expansion packs in Standard up to a whopping 165+ instruments and effects/120+ expansion packs in Collector’s Edition, and the tier pricing reflects the different level of content. There is, of course, upgrade pricing for existing Komplete users and, similarly, upgrade paths between the various tiers. NI also offer the introductory Komplete 15 Select and this is now available in three genre-flavoured versions — Beats, Band and Electronic — each of which provides a compact selection of instruments, expansions and plug-ins to suit productions within their respective musical styles and can be used alongside

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

Kontakt remains at the heart of Komplete 15 and NI introduced some significant improvements in Kontakt 8 including a revised UI, the new Tools functionality and Conflux, a powerful new hybrid instrument.

the free-to-download Player version of Kontakt 8. Incidentally, NI also offer a three-tier subscription model with their 360 option, which also includes a free trial period. If you want to explore NI’s sonic world without a significant initial outlay, there are therefore multiple ways to do so.

First, Kontakt While last month’s dedicated Kontakt review covers the main details of what’s new in Kontakt 8, given that it is an integral part of the three main Komplete tiers, there are a number of key headlines that bear repeating here. First, Kontakt itself has undergone a UI refresh, delivering some obvious workflow enhancements. Second, under-the-hood advances to Kontakt’s synthesis features have enabled NI to include a new instrument — Conflux — as part of the Kontakt 8 package. NI describe this as something of a first for Kontakt as it is a hybrid engine, combining both sampling and synthesis technology. Media composers will love it. Third, Kontakt 8 adds a new feature

called Tools, two of which — Chords and Phrases — are included within this first iteration. These can be thought of as MIDI performance utilities offering easy triggering of complex chords and full melodic phrases from a single key press and are available to use with any Kontakt instrument/library. Fourth, Kontakt 8 has a further new instrument called Leap. This provides a ‘sampler within a sampler’ option, allowing the user to trigger both loops and one-shot samples in a very creative (and rather Output Arcade‑style) workflow. New Leap Expansions are offered to support the instrument but, rather wonderfully, you can also drag-and-drop your own samples into Leap and make use of samples within NI’s long-standing Expansions (those aimed primarily at Maschine), many of which are included within each of the Komplete tiers. Finally, it’s worth noting that all the under-the-hood scripting that provides the new functionality described here is also available to Kontakt’s third-party

Komplete 15 adds two new Session Bassist titles; Upright Bass (shown here) and Icon Bass.

developer community. Expect to see this exploited in new ways and in new instruments very soon.

New To Komplete Aside from those offered by their many third-party partners, NI produce a regular flow of their own individual new instruments and expansions in between Komplete update cycles. Selections of these then make their way into the various Komplete tiers when Komplete itself is refreshed. While these may not be ‘new’ (and some users may have purchased a selection of them as individual products), they are new to Komplete. With over 40 new instruments and expansions over the last two-year cycle, this represents a lot of potential ‘new to Komplete’ content. To avoid filling the whole issue, I’ll therefore focus on the headline instrument additions within each of the three main Komplete tiers. However, if you need to confirm the status of a specific instrument, expansion or plug-in within a particular Komplete tier, NI’s website does have a very comprehensive comparison list that is well worth consulting.

Raising The Standard In terms of those instrument addition highlights, the Standard edition gets some very good new offerings. For example, two new Session Bassist titles are now included; Icon Bass and Upright Bass. Both of these follow the usual ‘Session’ instrument format, offering a collection of style-based performance patterns that will follow your root note/ chord triggers, and a ‘melody’ option with a compact selection of performance articulations that allow you to play it like any other conventional sample-based instrument. Upright Bass is particularly characterful, but NI’s Session instrument

series has been around for quite some time Native Instruments and the capabilities and sonic quality have Komplete 15 continued to improve. For anyone needing From $599 a genuinely solid, professional‑sounding, bass line — pretty much in an instant — pros these are both great options. • Kontakt 8 is included. Also new to Standard is Karriem Riggin • Sensible pricing tiers. • Wherever you look, there are top-notch Drums, which provides some jazz-flavoured sounds and plenty of creative potential. hip-hop drums and related patterns. In a straightforward Play Series‑style UI, you cons can access a number of very cool kits, • Standard, Ultimate or Collector’s Edition do represent a significant trigger sets of patterns and tweak the investment for the first-time buyer. sounds via some easy-to-use macro-style controls. MIDI patterns can also be dragged summary and dropped into your DAW for further NI have delivered some very worthwhile new options to every Komplete 15 editing. You can also dig under the hood to tier. Both the Ultimate and Collector’s edit the properties of the underlying kit or Edition versions are particularly customise the effects options. impressive, offering a fabulous suite If electric pianos appeal, Standard of top-quality virtual instruments, adds the ‘Tines Duo’ — Phoenix and effects and sound expansions. Diamond — and these deliver an excellent selection of retro-flavoured electric piano many electronic styles, or for cinematic sounds in a very stylish UI. I particularly applications, Session Percussionist is a truly like Diamond, which sounds wonderful versatile choice. and is capable of some beautiful ringing Scene: Saffron is the first of a new tones. If your keyboard skills are limited, ‘Scene’ series from NI. As implied by the both are a lot of fun with the new Chords Scene label, it’s aimed primarily at media and Phrases Tools. Both also offer some composers and, while it’s based around great sound‑design options thanks to the a compact set of samples and a streamlined included processing that’s derived from UI not dissimilar to many of the Play series effects built into Guitar Rig Pro. titles, it provides a really accessible way to However, if I had to pick two personal generate drones and atmospheres that can favourites from the ‘now included easily form the core of a cue. The concept in Standard’ list it would be Session is not particularly new — you can blend Percussionist and Scene: Saffron. As with two sound sources together via an X/Y pad all the NI Session series titles, Session while also modulating the sound via some Percussionist combines a very good macro-style effects — but it sounds great. underlying sample base (over 50 different The focused format is something aspiring percussion instruments) that you can play media composers will find it both very manually, with a very creative performance accessible and genuinely useful. system that allows you to trigger multiple A couple of final observations on pattern variations with simple MIDI key triggers. At one level, it is incredibly easy to use and is capable of adding some stellar percussion to almost any project. However, pop into the Editor page and you can take as much control as you wish, both in sound selection and pattern editing, while the Mixer page lets you control instrument placement and ambience. Whether it’s pop, The new Session Percussionist instrument is a brilliant addition to all three Latin, funk, hip-hop, tiers of Komplete 15. www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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Tascam Studio Bridge and outputs are presented on six 24-track Recorder & USB Audio Interface inputs Tascam-format DB25 D-Sub connectors on

Tascam break their Model range’s recording facilities out into a standalone device that you can hook up to any mixer. Tascam Studio Bridge $999 pros • Sounds great. • Easy to use. • Individual track record arming. • Manual and automatic punch in. • Record standalone or to a computer. • Built‑in digital mixing for headphone monitoring. • Useful tempo, click and MIDI sync facilities. • Outstanding value for money.

cons • Doesn’t support sample rates above 48kHz (but still sounds good).

summary In an age where vintage multitrackers are getting harder to repair and maintain, the Studio Bridge has the potential to free you from the tyranny of the computer screen and breathe new life into your analogue console — but also to augment your DAW with plentiful I/O and hardware control functions.

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

M AT T H O U G H TO N

s I was dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s of last month’s Tascam Model 2400 review, in came the news that Tascam had exploited all of its recording and DAW-control features to create a standalone device called the Studio Bridge. Primarily, it’s for those with a console who want to benefit from the Model-series technology without having to choose a Model mixer, but there are plenty of other potential applications. The ‘Studio’ in the name isn’t just for show, by the way: as a multitracker, it boasts the sort of studio-friendly features that the live-oriented products of the last decade or so haven’t, making it more a modern take on my Alesis HD24 than like a Cymatic uTrack 24 or JoeCo BlackBox Recorder.

Overview The Studio Bridge is a multitrack digital recorder whose 24 analogue line

the rear. Alongside these are quarter-inch jacks for a click output and a (not included) tap-tempo footswitch. There are also five-pin DIN MIDI in and MIDI out sockets, a USB‑B socket for USB2 audio interfacing, and a 100-240 Volt mains IEC inlet with on/off rocker switch. The analogue I/O can be routed to/ fed from either an integrated SDXC card recorder or a USB-connected Mac, Windows, iOS or iPadOS device. As well as delivering most of the functions of my ageing HD24, the Studio Bridge also loosely resembles the Alesis BRC, a remote control unit intended for multiple sync’ed ADAT machines that could, with some setting up, perform a similar role for an HD24. I’ve included a picture of the two units so you can see what I mean: the Studio Bridge is just a shade smaller, but it comes in a similar desktop format and there are physical record-arm buttons for every track, while a master section handles transport and other functions. Of course, things have moved on in the intervening years, so that’s pretty much where that comparison ends, and not least because the converters and recording are built

The Studio Bridge might remind those of a certain vintage of the Alesis BRC remote control — but this time the recording facilities are built in!

into the Studio Bridge rather than being in separate rackmount recorders. The record arm buttons, which flash red when armed, have smoothed edges that make it really easy to swipe to (dis)arm multiple tracks quickly, though there’s also a menu option to arm all tracks at once. Those buttons have additional functions too. First, as with the Model mixers, the Studio Bridge can be set to run as a DAW control surface (HUI for Pro Tools, MCU for other DAWs), and in that mode they record arm your DAW tracks. A third function is accessed using a Shift button: hold Shift and press a record arm button, and you solo that track in the headphone monitor mix. While we’re on that subject, there’s a built in screen-driven digital mixer

that allows you to select and set the level of each channel in that monitor mix (potentially very handy if you’re recording from the direct outs of someone else’s console!). Above these buttons, each track has its own input source and Mon buttons. The former decides whether the track receives its input signal from the analogue or the USB input. The latter decides whether you hear the analogue input or multitrack playback signal in the headphone monitor mix. The single headphone output has its own level control and proved perfectly capable of driving my Audeze LCD-X and Sennheiser HD650 headphones to a decent volume. Beneath that is a click section, with a knob to set the click level in the headphones, and a separate button to switch the click on/off, or (when in the appropriate page on screen) to tap in the project tempo. To the right, the SD card slot accepts full-size cards up to 512GB, though you must provide your own. SDXC cards are specified but my experience suggested that some other cards may work, even if they don’t support all recording formats. For example, one older SDHC card did the job just fine at 16-bit/44.1kHz but the Studio Bridge threw up an error when I tried to use it at any of the other settings

(24-bit/44.1kHz; 16- or 24-bit/48kHz), whereas a more recent, faster SDHC card worked flawlessly at all settings. The remaining top-panel section should be familiar to anyone who’s familiar with the Model mixers. It comprises a compact, tilted screen, whose menus and commands are accessed using a Menu button, the Multi Jog push-turn encoder, and four function buttons. The Menu button accesses the main menu and sub‑menus. You turn the Multi Jog to adjust on-screen parameters, and push it to make your selection, or you can hit a function button to more quickly access whatever item is displayed above it. You’re never more than a couple of clicks/scrolls from any function you might need to use on the fly, and not many more from any other options. The same top-panel zone includes the Shift button and the transport controls, with dedicated buttons for stop, record, play/pause, fast‑forward and rewind.

Standalone Use Basic standalone operation is child’s play. Once you’ve hooked the Studio Bridge up to the mixer’s tape sends and returns and inserted an SDXC card (and for first use formatted it, which takes a few seconds), you must create a new song project, and maybe change the word length and sample rate, which, again, is mere seconds’ work. Then just check that the tracks on which you want to record are set to receive the analogue input signal (the other option being a digital signal over USB) and record arm them. When you’re ready just hit the main record button, and whatever you play through those mixer channels will be captured to the SD card. There are no gains and other settings to fiddle with, of course, as you do all that on the mixer. Hit

The Studio Bridge isn’t just about audio: it also has MIDI I/O which can be used to provide a sync signal to external devices, or as a USB MIDI interface for your computer.

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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SSL UC1 & 360 Link Plug-in Controller

Solid State Logic complete their controller circle with a clever way of integrating third-party plug-ins into the 360 system. SAM INGLIS

ith the launch of the UF1 in mid-2023, Solid State Logic completed the hardware dimension of their popular controller range. The range comprises three complementary units: the UF8 fader surface, the UC1 plug-in controller, and the aforementioned UF1, which combines a single fader with comprehensive metering, transport controls, assignable buttons and more. When the UF1 was reviewed in the July 2023 issue of SOS, the software ecosystem that is designed to support this triumvirate

SSL UC1 $799 pros • With the new 360 Link plug-ins, the UC1 becomes a highly effective universal plug-in controller. • Control over third-party plug-ins is straightforward to set up. • Tight integration with SSL’s own plug-ins and their 360 Plug-in Mixer. • Genuine VU meter to monitor bus compressor gain reduction.

cons • Scanning the VST3 plug-in folder can take a long time. • The limited integration offered by Pro Tools and Logic means the user experience suffers in those DAWs. • Not everyone will feel they need hands-on control over their bus compressor.

summary The UC1 and 360 Link represent the culmination of a hugely ambitious project from SSL’s designers, delivering a controller that is both superbly integrated with their own plug-ins and capable of handling almost any third-party EQ, compressor or channel strip.

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was already very sophisticated, but one killer feature remained to be implemented. That feature is particularly pertinent to the UC1, and so its implementation seems a good time to review what is perhaps the most interesting of the three controllers.

U And Me If you’re new to SSL’s controller range, I’d recommend reading the Sound On Sound reviews of the UF8 (www.soundonsound. com/reviews/ssl-uf8) and especially the UF1 (www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ solid-state-logic-uf1) for background, as the entire system is pretty deep. In a nutshell, it combines old-fashioned MIDI-based DAW control using the HUI or MCU protocols with an additional proprietary technology called SSL 360. This has been developed over the years, to the point where SSL plug-ins can now be used to assemble a sort of ‘shadow’ virtual mixer that makes redundant a lot of your DAW’s mixer functionality in order to offer better hardware integration. The broad idea behind this SSL Plug-in Mixer is not dissimilar to Softube’s Console 1, but there are also many differences. Console 1 workflow is designed to keep you within the DAW environment: touching or turning an EQ or compressor knob causes the Console 1 control window to appear as a temporary overlay on top of

your DAW, which disappears again once you’ve finished making changes. There is only a single Console 1 plug-in, although it’s possible to load different styles of EQ and dynamics into it. By contrast, the SSL controllers and especially UC1 are designed to work with multiple plug-ins, and there’s no equivalent of the Console 1 ‘heads-up display’ overlay. Instead, a button labelled 360 can be used to tab from your DAW interface to the separate SSL 360 application, which displays all the relevant plug-in parameters across all channels as a virtual SSL-style mixer. Reflecting the design heritage of SSL consoles, the UC1 is actually intended to work with two types of plug-in at once. The controls at either side are intended to handle a typical mixer channel strip with filters, multiple EQ bands, compressor and expander/gate, while the central section is tailored to work with an SSL-style bus compressor. It even features a genuine moving-coil gain-reduction meter. At launch, both segments of the UC1 were limited to controlling SSL’s own channel strip and compressor plug-ins. However, the major development I alluded to earlier on is apparent in the introduction of two new plug-ins called SSL 360 Link and SSL 360 Link Bus Compressor. These are both host or shell plug-ins that permit third-party VST3 plug-ins to be loaded

and manipulated from SSL’s hardware controllers. So, in principle, the UC1 can be used to work with any EQ or dynamics plug-in that has a VST3 version.

Proper Channels All of SSL’s recent hardware launches have been highly impressive in the look and feel department, and the UC1 is no exception. Without the UF8’s moving faders and the UF1’s large metering panel, it’s perhaps the most understated of the three, but build quality feels equally good, and of course it’s designed to fit neatly alongside a UF1 and one or more UF8s, with the same optional feet to tilt it. Connection to your computer is made over USB, and the UC1 requires an external power supply. The channel strip and bus compressor sections map perfectly onto SSL’s own plug-ins, as you’d expect. Buying a UC1 gets you a licence for both the Channel Strip 2 plug-in, which is derived from SSL’s XL 9000K mixer, and the 4K B channel strip based on the classic B-series design, giving you effectively the same feature set in ultra-clean and more characterful guises. You also get SSL’s Bus Compressor 2 plug-in, an emulation of the renowned G-series bus compressor with enhancements such as wet/dry mixing

for parallel compression and a variable side-chain high-pass filter, both of which have dedicated controls on the UC1. As with the Console 1, the basic idea is that you build what is in effect an alternative virtual console by inserting one or more supported plug-ins on every channel in your DAW. Unlike the Console 1, though, the SSL system encourages you to view this console on screen as a virtual mixer. Pressing the 360 button brings up the SSL Plug-in Mixer, displaying all of your instantiated channel strips and bus compressors in a row, along with faders, solo and mute buttons. The controller, of course, can only address one channel strip and one bus compressor at a time, and you can choose which ones are ‘in focus’ either by selecting them on screen or by using a pair of rotary dials to scroll through. Depending on which DAW you work in, it may also be possible to have Plug-in Mixer channel selection follow DAW mixer channel selection. And, of course, you can use the mouse to adjust controls on other channels than the ‘focus’ one. The rotaries that are used to change focus are located in front of the bus compressor section of the UC1. Also present there is a small but clear colour display, plus a handful of buttons. Pressing

these buttons allows the rotaries to be temporarily repurposed to step through plug-in presets or channel-strip routing configurations, but it’s also possible to use these buttons as transport controls. In order to do so, you’ll need to add the UC1 as an MCU or HUI controller in your DAW.

Whan Is A DAW Not Adored? Both Softube and SSL have attempted to create parallel mixing architectures that essentially bypass much of your DAW’s mixing functionality, but in both cases, a certain amount of DAW integration and support is necessary to deliver a rewarding user experience. For example, it’s highly desirable to have the order of channel strips in the Plug-in Mixer mirror the track order in your DAW. In Reaper, Luna, DP, Bitwig, Live, Studio One, Logic Pro and Cubase, bi-directional communication ensures that the two orders always correspond. In Pro Tools, by contrast, the channel strips in Plug-in Mixer show up in the order in which you added the plug-ins, and there’s no easy way to change this. Likewise, in most DAWs, UC1 controls can operate the fader, pan, mute and solo buttons on the DAW mixer channel rather than the same parameters within SSL’s plug-ins. Where that’s not the case,

In this screen, I’m busily mapping the parameters of UA’s Mäag EQ4 to the EQ controls in 360 Link. As there’s an extra mid band in the Mäag plug-in, I’ve had to repurpose the SSL’s filter controls as low band gain settings, whilst the 360 Link bandwidth and frequency controls for the mid bands are unassigned.

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

ON TE ST

Steinberg Cubase Pro 14 DAW Software

Cubase 14 introduces a wide selection of new features while refining old ones. MARK WHERRY

ast year’s Cubase 13 release was, in many ways, an opportunity for Steinberg’s developers to refresh and polish the foundations. Because while there were many headline-worthy additions — such as the Channel Zone, improved editing with the Visibility Zone, Track Display, multi-part editing and the ability for the Region Selection tool to be used in certain editors — many of the giant leaps forward were perhaps less obvious. MIDI 2.0 support was added, along with Direct2D for hardware-accelerated graphics on Windows, and a streamlined, more cohesive user interface emerged. And who could forget the long overdue redesign of the Key Commands window? But for all these improvements, there was something about the upgrade that left me feeling a little flat. Everything in

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

Cubase 13 was better, no question. It was sleeker, smoother, and working with it felt undeniably more productive. But when demonstrating this new version to fellow musicians, I couldn’t really point to any one feature that truly ignited excitement. A year on, though, and my view of the latest Cubase release couldn’t be more different.

Drum Track Redux Cubase 14 sees the return of a Drum Track to the application, and if you’re thinking to yourself: ‘Hold on, Cubase has never had a Drum Track!’, you’d only be half right. The very first versions of Cubase — before the program’s rebirth as Cubase SX in 2002 — did in fact offer a Drum Track Class, although its purpose was rather pedestrian. Drum Tracks functioned like MIDI tracks, but with two key differences. Drum maps could be assigned to the tracks, enabling the Drum Editor to display drum names, and MIDI parts located on a Drum Track would open in the Drum Editor by default. Cubase 14’s Drum Track is significantly more sophisticated. Instead of triggering an external drum machine or a VST instrument like Groove Agent, Drum Tracks include a new, dedicated Drum Machine

instrument. This mirrors the way in which Sampler Tracks employ a built-in Sampler instrument. And even though both the Sampler and Drum Machine instruments are technically VST plug-ins, they’re designed to be used exclusively with the Sampler and Drum Tracks respectively. With a Drum Track selected, Drum Machine’s interface appears in a new page in the Lower Zone; although it’s puzzling why Steinberg didn’t consolidate the Drum Machine and Sampler Control pages into a single page, given that a Track can’t contain both instruments simultaneously. Similarly, while Drum Machine’s interface, like Sampler Control, can be opened in a separate floating window, a Drum Track’s ‘Open/Close Drum Machine’ button always opens the Drum Machine in the Lower Zone. Frustratingly, there’s no modifier or command to open it directly in a separate window, which is particularly irksome since it’s useful to have Drum Machine in a dedicated window, especially once you start editing patterns.

Machine Drumming One of the differences between Groove Agent SE and Drum Machine is that the

former is designed for sample-based parameters adjusted. Each page has Steinberg Cubase Pro 14 playback, whereas the latter offers a hybrid settings relevant to the currently selected $579 of both sample and synth-based sound pad, except for the Group page that generators known as Modules. The Sample contains a row of configuration parameters pros Module is straightforward, offering pitch, for each pad within the selected pad bank. • The Pattern Editor brings integrated filter and amplifier components — each These parameters include the note range step sequencing to Cubase. • Modulators are great for complex, with its own envelope. You can adjust that triggers a pad, whether it belongs to performance-oriented parameter the start and end points, fade‑in and ‑out one of up to 32 Exclusive Groups (useful manoeuvres that would be tedious times, and reverse the sample’s playback. for having a closed hi-hat ‘choke’ an open — if not impossible — to create However, the Synth Modules are where one), and the output to use for a pad’s using automation. • Channels can be easily re‑ordered in the fun really begins. playback. Each instance has a master MixConsole — finally! Organised into seven categories stereo output, along with 31 additional • The new, Dorico-inspired Score Editor covering the most common kit drums outputs, which should be enough for reimagines integrated notation for the and some simple percussion, there most purposes. 21st Century. are 38 sonically superb Synth Modules However, you may find you don’t need cons from which to choose. The percussion to separate the outputs of different pads • The relationship between MIDI parts category includes a single-operator FM too widely, since each pad has its own and Pattern Events can be confusing. generator, two noise oscillators, and independent effects chain that’s accessed • A few features you’d hope to find in the two indispensable cowbell Modules! via the Pad FX page. Each pad offers Pattern Editor aren’t fully realised yet. • Modulators can’t be used with MIDI Cowbell 1 is perfect for those Whitney an effects chain with four effects — Bit tracks. Houston-inspired ’80s tracks, while Crusher, Distortion, Filter and EQ — which Cowbell 2 is most definitely the one to can be individually toggled on or off and summary deploy when more cowbell is required. re‑ordered by simply dragging an effect to Cubase 14 adds both impressive new features and time-saving workflow A Drum Machine Kit contains 128 pads a new position within the chain. Of these enhancements to Steinberg’s Advanced organised into eight pad banks, and the effects, Bit Crusher is the most interesting Music Production System, making this pad area displays one pad bank at a time since it offers options beyond simply one of the most musically creative Cubase using the familiar 4x4 grid of 16 Pads. Each setting the resultant bit depth, with controls releases for new and existing users alike. pad consists of four Layers and each Layer to separately adjust how the upper and can host a single Module, which means lower bits are manipulated. the Pad FX chain, which is a nifty touch, each pad can trigger up to four Modules Each of the four Layers has its own and each pad has send levels to delay simultaneously. This is great when extra independent dry and wet mix controls for and reverb effects that are applied to the weight is needed to enhance a sampled kick drum, for example, since you can easily layer a Sample Module with a kick Synth Module, adjusting the volume of each Layer to taste. The only small complaint I have when assigning Synth The new Drum Machine instrument is an integrated part of Cubase’s 14’s new Drum Track. Modules to Layers is that there’s no way to preview a default sound from a Module without first adding it to a Layer. Drum Machine’s interface is divided into pages, including the main Instrument page where Modules are assigned and In addition to a Sample Module, Drum Machine includes an impressive array of Synth Modules covering the most common kit drums their playback and percussion. www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

ON TE ST

Warm Audio WA76 Series

FET Compressors

Warm Audio pay tribute to two different revisions of the classic FET compressor, and throw in some helpful modern features to boot. M AT T H O U G H TO N

eleased in 1968, UREI’s 1176 could act faster than most compressors and quickly gained a reputation for both its sound and versatility. Over the years, various ‘revisions’ introduced changes, with Rev C notably lowering the preamp noise and achieving a more linear response from the FET. Revs D and E were broadly similar, and it’s these popular low-noise versions on which Universal Audio base their current 1176LN. A number of other companies, though, have also created products based on these designs, including Warm Audio, who launched their affordable WA76 (which sounded decent but offered little by way of additional features) a decade ago. To celebrate this anniversary, Warm have just launched four more feature-rich versions: single and dual-channel versions based on the Rev A and Rev D. Called the WA76-A, WA76-A2, WA76-D and WA76-D2, the letter in the suffix indicates the revision, while the ‘2’ denotes that it’s a dual-channel model. Each is housed in

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

a 2U rackmountable chassis, with a front plate that’s consistent with the ‘blue stripe’ or ‘blackface’ styling of the originals. I was sent a WA76-D and WA76-A2, so that I could assess the sound of both revisions, and the features of both the single and dual-channel devices.

Controls & Features The single-channel WA76-D has the controls and layout you’d expect of any 1176-inspired processor, with large input and output pots turned by transparent‑skirted knobs, and smaller knobs to set the attack and release (clockwise for faster). A column of four buttons selects the ratio (2, 8, 12 or 20:1), and multiple buttons can be engaged, including for the famously hard-hitting ‘all‑buttons-in trick’. A large, backlit, moving‑coil meter is switched by another four-button stack to display gain reduction or output level (with 0 aligned to your pick of +4dBu or +8dBu), or off. There’s also a recessed trim pot to calibrate the gain‑reduction meter. Less-familiar features include an input impedance switch (600Ω or 10kΩ). The 1176’s 600Ω was conceived for a time when impedance-matching was the norm, but today most gear is designed with voltage-matching in mind, and expects a higher impedance load. A hard-bypass toggle passes the input straight to the output, but setting the attack to off (fully anti-clockwise) bypasses the gain reduction, while still routing the signal through the device, making it a line amp

that you can drive into saturation. Nice! A Mix knob dials in parallel compression, while a side-chain high-pass filter (30-300 Hz) is set by an on/off switch and a pot. On the rear, the analogue I/O are on both XLRs and quarter-inch TRS jacks, and are joined by two quarter-inch stereo-link jacks; these allow up to 10 WA76s to respond to a shared side-chain signal. A toggle on the front determines whether the compressor reacts to its own side-chain or the shared one. Another neat feature is the side-chain insert point: separate quarter-inch send and return jacks mean you can insert, say, an EQ to sculpt the side-chain, or use an external signal to trigger the gain reduction, such as when using a kick to duck a bass guitar. Removing the top panel revealed the

Warm Audio WA76 Series From $699 pros • Classic FET compression. • Two tonal options, and mono and dual-channel versions available. • Great build quality, inside and out. • A range of useful modern features, particularly on single-channel models.

cons • Dual-channel models have a single set of ratio controls.

summary For classic FET-based compression at a decent price you need look no further, but choosing between the four options on this menu may take more time!

high-quality construction I’ve come to expect from Warm Audio’s gear, and other than for the additional features, the circuit appeared, as claimed, to be faithful to the Rev D. Through-hole components are used, so future repair and maintenance should be easy, and the custom Cinemag input and output transformers are reportedly made to the specifications of the Reichenbach ones in vintage 1176s. Almost everything above also applies to the single-channel WA76-A: the layout of the two is identical, and other than their colour, the differences between the two are on the inside — as per the changes introduced in revisions C and D.

Two Cool? The two dual-channel versions are likewise similar to each other, and I’m told that each channel’s circuitry and sound is the same as in their single-channel siblings. Yet there are significant functional differences between the one- and two-channel WA76s. An obvious advantage to the WA76-A2 and D2 is that they fit two channels into the same amount of rack space as one single-channel model, while costing less than two of them. Most of the same front-panel controls, both ‘traditional’ and ‘additional’, are there too, although the skirted input and output knobs are replaced with larger versions of the attack/release ones, and each channel’s meter is smaller (but plenty large enough!). On these two, there’s no side-chain insert or provision for side-chain sharing. Instead, a front-panel switch determines whether the compressor reacts to

a left-plus-right summed control signal, to the left channel’s control signal only, or the loudest of the left- or right-channel signals, so there’s still useful flexibility there. Worth noting is that both channels share a single set of ratio buttons (the same goes for the meter mode). In terms of their muses, this puts these WA76-x2 devices somewhere between the UREI 1178 and Universal Audio’s 2-1176. The 1178 has separate input and output controls for each channel, but they share the attack, release, ratio and meter controls. The 2-1176 has separate controls for each channel, so tweaking in stereo takes longer but you have greater flexibility when processing two mono signals. Warm Audio’s implementations works very well for stereo, and you can use the left channel to process a mono signal. You can also use each channel to process a different mono signal, but only if you’re happy with the same ratio for both. That’s less restrictive in practice than it may seem: fine to treat two acoustic guitar or backing vocal parts, and 4:1 might work well on very different sources. But you can’t, say, use one channel to compress and the other to limit, so some might see an advantage in shelling out just a little more for two of the mono WA76s.

FET Accomplished? Firing up a mix I know well, I used the review units on a range of sources, including vocals, electric and acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano and drums. They both delivered precisely what I’d hoped they would in terms of sound and attitude.

What’s more, when breaking a DAW mix out to my console, the higher input impedance option meant they played more nicely with the mixer’s inserts (which often seem to struggle with a 600Ω load). So that’s a very welcome addition. As you’d expect, the WA76-D sounds more elegant in terms of coloration and the gain reduction. Yet, it can go from smooth, gentle vocal or guitar control right up to the sort of grabby, assertive drum effects I associate with FET-based compressors. If you’re contemplating a WA76 as your go-to workhorse compressor, this is the flavour you want. Just as billed, the WA76-2A delivers a dirtier, grittier sound and an in-your-face attitude: very vintage, very vibey. There’s more noise and distortion, of course, but I’d wager that most of us who bring signals out of the box these days do so in search of character more than cleanliness, and these have it in spades. I could coax wonderfully explosive drum sounds from this thing, with a forward focus and urgency that I found tough to recreate with plug-ins. Other than the stereo version’s channels sharing one set of ratio buttons, I really can’t fault these compressors. And if greater control of two channels is important, two mono versions won’t cost a whole lot more, and would give you more features to boot. Recommended. $ Single-channel WA76-D & WA76-A

$699 each. Dual-channel WA76-D2 & WA76-A2 $1199 each. T Warm Audio +1 512 348 6585 W www.warmaudio.com

The single-channel versions (top) take advantage of the additional internal and rear-panel space to provide both side-chain linking of up to 10 devices, and an insert point. The insert has a separate send and return, so you can use external processing on the internal side-chain or use only the return for an external side-chain.

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

ON TE ST

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 4th Gen

USB Audio Interface

SAM INGLIS

ocusrite’s Scarlett range are said to be the best-selling USB audio interfaces in the world, and their distinctive red liveries show up everywhere from bedroom studios to serious broadcast and post-production facilities. The six members of the fleet cover a huge range of possible use cases and connection scenarios, with the flagship 18i20 offering everything you need to handle complex multi-channel recording jobs. The two smallest members of the Scarlett family all feature built-in direct monitoring that is handled from the front panel, meaning that you don’t need additional software to use them. By contrast, the 4i4, 16i16, 18i16 and 18i20 all incorporate digital routing and mixing features that have to be set up from a software control panel. It’s this distinction, I suspect, that led Focusrite to stagger the introduction of the 4th Generation Scarletts. The 4th Gen Solo, 2i2 and 4i4 were launched together towards the back end of 2023, and were reviewed in the October 2023

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

Focusrite have completed the overhaul of their ubiquitous Scarlett range, extending the 4th Gen improvements to the three largest models. edition of SOS (www.soundonsound.com/ reviews/focusrite-scarlett-4th-gen). Now, more than a year later, Focusrite have introduced the ‘refreshed’ versions of the larger models. In this review I’ll focus mainly on the top-of-the-range 18i20, but will describe the other two models where they differ.

Getting On The Bus All three of the new models inherit the form factors of their 3rd Gen predecessors, but changes to the model numbers are significant in terms of I/O count. As before, the 1U rackmounting 18i20 features eight analogue inputs with mic preamps and 10 analogue line outputs, plus ADAT optical and coaxial S/ PDIF digital I/O. However, the desktop 3rd Gen 8i6 and 18i8 have now morphed into the 16i16 and 18i16 respectively, indicating that both now feature ADAT in and out as well as stereo S/PDIF in and out. The 18i20

is still distinguished by having a word clock output, and two sets of optical ports instead of one; but this is only so that the full eight-channel input and output quota is maintained at 88.2 and 96 kHz sample rates. If you’re working at 44.1 or 48 kHz, all three offer the same 10 channels of digital audio I/O in total. From the hardware point of view, one of the biggest steps forward also relates to the 16i16 and 18i16: unlike the 3rd Gen 8i6 and 18i8, both can be bus powered. In case your computer or tablet can’t supply the necessary juice, a second USB-C socket is provided along with a generic power supply. My MacBook Air was able to power the 16i16, but only just; simply plugging in another USB cable provoked an ‘insufficient power’ warning, even when no device was attached. Elsewhere, all three incorporate the same hardware improvements that were apparent in the 4th Gen 2i2 and

4i4. Foremost among these are a new, digitally controlled mic preamp design with 69dB gain range, a redesigned Air Presence characteristic and an additional Air Harmonic Drive mode. The digital control has allowed Focusrite to implement their Auto Gain function, which aims to establish appropriate gain settings automatically by analysing the input signal, and a Clip Safe option which turns the gain down automatically when clipping is detected. Like the 2i2 and 4i4, the larger models also boast improved technical specifications. Dynamic range is now 116dB on the mic/line inputs and 122dB on the line outs, at the cost of a 1dB increase in EIN on the mic preamps. All three models also feature a new headphone amp design; this too is digitally controlled, and is thus distinct from the headphone amp used in the smaller 4th Gen interfaces. In terms of specifications, there’s very little to distinguish the latest Scarletts from more ‘professional’ interfaces costing two or three times as much, with one possible exception: as on previous iterations, the line outputs are still calibrated such that 0dBFS produces an analogue level of +16dBu, and the line ins can accommodate a maximum input level of +22dBu. Focusrite explained that these are effectively dictated by the choice of components and power rail voltages; support for the more standard +18 and +24 dBu would require higher voltages, in turn generating more heat, requiring more expensive components and thus increasing cost. In practice, a 2dB difference is unlikely to be problematic in most scenarios.

looks very similar now to how it did a year ago. But, of course, there’s a lot more functionality for it to address on the larger models, which have speaker switching, digital I/O, digital headphone control and, in the case of the 18i20, talkback. In terms of mixing and routing, Focusrite Control 2 and the Scarletts’ built-in DSP are largely unchanged since the third generation. With the 18i20, you get six simple mixer tabs, each delivering its own balance of the eight analogue ins, the 10 digital ins and four stereo DAW playback channels. You can thus create up to six different low-latency cue mixes, which can be assigned to separate physical outputs. Counting the stereo loopback output, there are a total of 13 stereo outputs that can be addressed on the 18i20: five analogue output pairs, the two headphone outs, plus S/PDIF and four ADAT pairs. There are no aux sends, built-in reverbs or other signal processing, while the 18i20’s talkback mic can be routed to any combination of the six cue mixes, but doesn’t have a fader within them, and can’t be recorded directly. For my money, that’s fine, and what was already a very slick user interface in the 3rd Gen Scarletts has gone up another couple of levels with

“The distinction between ‘professional’ and ‘semi-pro’ interfaces is now more about open-endedness of design and ergonomics than it is about raw sound quality or round-trip latency.”

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 4th Gen £630 pros • Excellent specifications and sound quality, especially considering the price. • Existing 4th Gen features like the new preamps and Auto Gain are arguably even more useful on these larger models. • Highly streamlined setup and intuitive operation. • New Focusrite Control 2 app for iOS and Android works well and closely mirrors its desktop counterpart. • The 16i16 and 18i16 can be bus powered, and both have ADAT in and out unlike their 3rd Gen predecessors.

cons • Monitor control and other master section features are quite basic. • Auto Gain timer can be awkward in some circumstances.

summary Somehow, Focusrite are still finding ways to make their best-selling interfaces better sounding and easier to use!

Gen 4. A large part of the reason for the Scarletts’ success is the attention that Focusrite have paid to making the learning curve as simple as possible to navigate, and they’ve managed to make things even less intimidating in this new version. The Input tab offers access to all the same preamp controls that are accessible from the front panel, so you can switch each of the 18i20’s first eight inputs between mic/line and instrument modes, activate phantom power, choose an Air setting and engage Safe Mode. You can also trigger Auto Gain, which is arguably

Soft Power Given that most of the hardware improvements were ready to roll out on the smaller Scarletts in 2023, it’s logical to assume that the additional development time for the larger models relates to the software side of things. The same Focusrite Control 2 utility is used across all Scarletts, including the 4i4 and optionally the 2i2, and

The Scarlett 16i16 and 18i16 now both feature ADAT optical in and out, greatly extending the possibilities when it comes to I/O expansion. Both can also be bus powered, unlike their 3rd Gen counterparts.

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

ON TE ST

Iconic recreates a collection of instantly recognisable classic synth sounds but places them in a modern UI that gives the user plenty of ways to make the underlying sounds their own.

JOHN WALDEN

ongs reach ‘hit’ status for all sorts of reasons, but one ingredient that is more common than most is the presence of a hook. Heck, if you are really good at this stuff, your song will contain multiple hooks. These ear-worm elements are often supplied via a vocal/ lyric line, but instrumental hooks — a drum groove, bass line or guitar riff, for example — can be just as effective. However, if you listen to music from the ’80s, the hooks were just as likely to be supplied by a synth; hear just a snippet of the synth hook, and you instantly know what the song is. In short, many of the iconic hits from that period feature equally iconic synth-based hooks. While every student of contemporary music will undoubtedly appreciate this concept, EastWest have had the very neat idea of turning that concept into a virtual instrument. Designed for their Opus platform, and available as either a one-off purchase or as part of EW’s ComposerCloud+ subscription service, Iconic attempts to deliver the sounds found in some of the most classic synth

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

EastWest Iconic Sample Library

EastWest take all the famous synth sounds from the hits of the ’80s and put them in one virtual instrument. hooks ever recorded, while also giving the user sound‑design tools to make them their own for a modern production context. So, are the sounds of Iconic deserving if its title? Let’s find out...

Make It Iconic EastWest’s team is, of course, hugely experienced when it comes to creating top-tier virtual instruments. However, they did draft some rather special additional expertise into the Iconic project. This included musician and synth programmer Anthony Marinelli. If you ever wondered who created all those classic (yes, iconic) synth sounds on Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, now you know. Anthony’s list of credits includes work with Lionel Ritchie, Supertramp, Van Halen, Giorgio

Moroder, Quincy Jones and a whole host of others. If you want to recreate iconic synth sounds from the history of hits, bringing on board someone who actually created the originals seems like a pretty smart move, especially as he also brought his collection of classic synths along with him. Keyboard legend Greg Phillinganes — who played on the Thriller sessions and has credits with Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Toto, Lionel Ritchie, John Mayer, Donna Summer and Bruno Mars — was also involved in ensuring the authenticity of the sounds being created. Iconic uses EastWest’s impressive Opus playback engine and, as with other Opus-based instruments, Iconic is delivered with its own custom (and very

stylish) front-end. This includes some excellent sound‑design options featuring dual filters, amplitude and modulation envelopes, an LFO, arpeggiator, ring modulation and a range of creative effects options. Many of these are, of course, elements you would find within a synth engine but, as a synth, Iconic is a hybrid design as the role of the oscillators — and the base element of each of Iconic’s core sounds — is taken from detailed sample-based sounds designed using a range of classic hardware synths. It’s a tried and tested approach (for example, IK Multimedia’s Syntronik adopts a similar strategy) and capable of providing all the depth of the original sounds but perhaps without all the CPU demands that a physical model of the original oscillators might entail. In designing the sounds to be sampled, Anthony Marinelli had an impressive array of synth hardware at his disposal. These included the ARP 2600, the Synclavier II, a Jupiter-8, a Phrophet-5, a CS-80, a Minimoog Model D, an Oberheim OB-X and a Fender Rhodes. The instruments were sampled directly but also using a re-amping process and recorded back to analogue tape. This was pushed hard to provide tape saturation and harmonic distortion. Rather wonderfully, you can blend between the cleaner and saturated versions of every sound via the mod wheel, adding an interesting way of changing the character of a sound. The core sample base runs to nearly 140GB and, from this collection of sounds, the design team have then generated over 500 presets inspired by some of the most recognisable synth hooks in the history of pop and rock. The presets have been organized into three main categories — Classic, Classic Elements and Beyond Iconic — with sub-categories in each case for arps, basses, pads, leads, keys, poly and effects.

found. Many of the original sounds were actually designed by layering multiple synths and that’s reflected here, as many of these presets use multiple layers within Opus. If you want to access individual layers created with a specific synth, then these can be found in the Classic Elements preset category. I’m not trying to dodge my responsibility as a reviewer here but, if Iconic is on your radar, then I do recommend you watch EastWest’s own walkthrough video about the product. The background material on how the project was put together is interesting in its own right, but the star of the show is the demonstration of some of these Classic presets. If you need convincing as to just how accurate these recreations are, the video contains plenty of evidence. For what it’s worth, I’ll happily share my own opinion; wherever you look within this preset category, if you know anything about pop and rock music from the ’80s and ’90s, there are sounds you are going to instantly recognise. Indeed, browsing these presets was an absolute joy and induced many a smile. EastWest have supplied names for the presets that provide very obvious clues to each sound’s original inspiration. For example, there are no prizes for guessing where you might have heard Billie Stack 1, Thrilling Lead 1, In The

“As virtual recreations of classic hardware synth sounds go, this is truly impressive.”

EastWest Iconic $199 pros • Incredibly accurate recreations of some truly iconic synth sounds. • Plenty of scope for DIY sound design. • Also great for modern styles such as EDM, hip-hop or pop. • Just another reason why ComposerCloud+ is a seriously good deal.

cons • May not suit some hardcore synth programmers. • Price of entry, if you are not a fan of subscriptions.

summary EastWest’s Iconic sounds fabulous and delivers on its name with a collection of incredibly accurate recreations of some of the most famous synth sounds of the last 40+ years. It is, however, also a very capable instrument for use in almost any modern music production context.

Groove Lead, Colder Than Ice Lead 1, Take On You Lead, The Final Touchdown Pad 1, Love Is A Battle, Don’t You Want Me Pad 1, The Air Tonight, Living Prayer Poly, Jumping OBX Chords, We Built A City Poly or Sweeter Dreams. There are lots of other examples and, while it’s not a limitless list of presets, pretty much every sonic target here is well worthy of the ‘iconic’ tag and hits the sound right on the head. Sensibly, if you want a starting point that is based on a specific synth, the Classic Elements preset category has you

Name That Tune The Classic preset category is where all those instantly recognisable sounds are to be

Browsing Iconic’s Classic preset categories makes for an excellent session of ‘name that tune’ in your studio.

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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EASTWEST ICONIC

Opus provides plenty of ways to customise your own sound‑design efforts within Iconic, including MIDI note mapping for each of your sound layers.

covered. These are also helpfully named so you can easily find your way around. Accuracy of the recreated sounds aside, what’s worth noting about both of these main preset categories is the actual quality of the sounds. They add a very convincing sense of the real thing, with all the richness and detail of the original synth hardware. Iconic or otherwise, these are just great virtual synth sounds to work with.

One Step Beyond That last point is emphasised by the contents of the Beyond Iconic presets category. These presets — of which there are plenty — ably demonstrate how easily the underlying sample-based sounds can be customised within the Iconic engine to bring them right up to date for modern styles of pop, EDM and hip-hop. Clearly,

EastWest are keen to emphasise that Iconic is not just about classic sounds; in a contemporary music production context, it’s also a capable tool for the creation of some potentially iconic synth hooks of your own. There has obviously been a lot of effort put into these presets and there are some great sounds to be found across all the sub-categories. Some are built on single patches, while others layer multiple patches into a composite sound. However, I particularly enjoyed the arp and bass categories. What’s particularly impressive is how the essence of the hardware synth sources comes across in a really satisfying fashion. If, like me, you have neither the budget nor the physical space to fill your studio with some of these actual synths, Iconic is a heck of a way to get a genuine representation of their sounds into your own production process.

Iconic Sound Design

As well as LFO- and envelope‑based modulation, there is also a step-based modulator.

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

As mentioned earlier, Iconic can be thought of as something of a hybrid virtual instrument, combining sample-based sound sources with synth engine elements. While the UI doesn’t let you put your sound programming skills up against those of Anthony Marinelli by getting hands-on with the actual control sets of the original hardware (even if only in a virtual format), the instrument’s front-end does provide plenty of sound‑design opportunities if you want to roll your own. The UI provides a range of conventional effects options including Auto-Pan, Ring Modulation, Drive, Chorus, Phaser, Delay and Reverb. Each of these

effects modules can be toggled on/off individually and offer enough controls to let you customise your sound in all the usual creative fashions. There are also more ‘synth-like’ elements provided. For example, top-left are options to engage portamento, legato and polyphonic options, pitch transpose and to adjust the MIDI velocity response. Top-right you can configure full amp and mod ADSR envelopes, while just below these you get the option to choose between LFO or step-based modulation settings. Bottom-centre of the UI is home to independent low-pass and high-pass resonant filters. Each of these offers a choice of filter types and each also includes controls to configure how the filter cutoff is modulated via MIDI velocity, the mod Envelope or the LFO/step modulator (or some combination of all three). Similar controls appear in a number of the effects modules, providing further sound modulation options. The centre of the UI contains an X/Y pad with a choice between four more creative-style sound modulation options. Each of these essentially provides X/Y control over a pair of parameters from elsewhere in the UI. For example, Stutter controls the LP filter’s cutoff (Y axis) and LFO rate (X axis), letting you generate some very cool filter gating or filter sweeps. Dream provides a combination of modulation of the Auto-Pan/Stereo Double and Reverb effects for some interesting spatial modulation. Space combines Chorus and Delay modulation while, finally, Grit modulates the Phaser and Drive effects. The Automation page provides further possibilities for

WE MAKE

For further modulation options, pretty much every control within Iconic’s UI has a MIDI Learn capability.

MIDI WORK FOR YOU

modulation, and right-clicking on any parameter within the UI pops open a MIDI Learn menu so you can easily link Iconic’s controls to a suitable MIDI hardware controller. As demonstrated by many of the presets, the instrument provides plenty of possibilities for stacking sound layers and, of course, each layer gets its own instance of all these sound modulating possibilities. If you want to make your own ‘iconic’ presets, you will not be short of creative sound‑design options.

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Classic Sound Meets Modern Design OK, so Iconic might not be for everyone. For example, some will prefer dedicated emulations of the individual synths represented here. I can see that argument if you are a hardcore synth programmer. If that’s your preference, then there are suitable software emulations of each of the individual synths used for Iconic that are available from a number of different developers. Equally, as a one-off purchase, Iconic represents a sizeable investment, although its inclusion within EastWest’s ComposerCloud+ is yet another reason why that represents exceptional value for money if you are comfortable with a subscription model for your virtual instrument sounds. However, if you do crave the sounds of these classic synths, but are less concerned about the ‘virtual reality’ of the control surface, Iconic could be an ideal choice. It’s difficult to imagine anyone finding much to fault with the sound of Iconic. As virtual recreations of classic hardware synth sounds go, this is truly impressive and, to demonstrate that, you get a collection of incredibly accurate recreations of some of the most iconic synth sounds from the last 40+ years, faithfully reproduced by a team that includes some of their original creators. And, almost as a cherry on top, the instrument provides an underlying sound set, and a sound‑design engine, to let you bring those impressive sounds right up to date for your own productions. EastWest’s Iconic is aptly named given the collection of instantly recognisable synth sounds its presets include. For some, that may be justification enough to take the plunge. However, there is more on offer than just some synth sound nostalgia. Whether it’s retro or modern, Iconic provides an excellent collection of top-quality synth sounds in a very accessible format. Top-notch stuff and a lot of fun to use. $ $199, or with ComposerCloud+ subscription. W www.soundsonline.com

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www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

31/05/2024 11:04

ON TE ST

The Replay Box: a re‑amp device with tonal options to explore.

United Studio Technologies Vintage Direct & Replay Box DI & Re‑amp Boxes These high-quality boxes promise to add more to your rig than most DIs and re‑ampers. BOB THOMAS

ased in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United Studio Technologies were founded with the aim of opening up access to “gear built like the original classics”. Having opened their account with reworkings of two popular vintage microphones, they’ve now released another product pairing: the passive, transformer-based Vintage Direct Box and Replay Box re‑amping interface.

Appearance Each of these devices sits in an identical, brushed‑aluminium enclosure, whose recessed front and rear panels carry matching control and connector layouts. Internally, the Vintage Direct carries one transformer, whilst the Replay has two. These and all other components in both units are of extremely high quality, right down to the three resistors in the Vintage Direct’s switched attenuator that are made by a supplier to NASA.

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

The front panel of the Vintage Direct carries a centrally positioned row of three miniature switches. These activate, from left to right: 12dB of output attenuation; an output polarity reversal; and a ground lift. To their right, a three-position rotary switch selects between the three secondary windings of the unit’s transformer to deliver, in conjunction with the 12dB output attenuator, six output level options from -42 to -22 dB in 4dB steps. The Vintage Direct’s rear panel carries a balanced male XLR for the DI output, and two quarter-inch (6.35mm) jack sockets, one for the instrument input and the other for a pass-through of the input, for onward connection to an amp, effects processor or pedalboard. The Replay Box’s leftmost front-panel switch toggles between the unit’s two transformers, to offer either Transparent or Harmonic colour options. The rest of the switches on the front panel have the same functions as those of the Vintage Direct. The output level control’s rotary

potentiometer, in this case labelled Level rather than Output, has a practical range of -75 to +4 dB, beginning at full attenuation. At the unit’s rear, you’ll find a balanced female XLR input connector that accepts +4dBu line‑level signals; a quarter-inch jack socket that can act either as a pass-through of the signal entering the XLR input or (if the XLR is not in use) an input; and a quarter-inch jack socket that carries the Replay Box’s output signal from the selected transformer.

Transformers The transformers in both the Vintage Direct and the Replay Box are the fruit of a collaboration between United Studio Technologies (UST from here on) and studio engineer Chad Kelly, whose 20 years of experience in the design, development and production of boutique, hand-built passive transformer-based DI and re‑amplification boxes lies at the heart of these new units.

United Studio Technologies Vintage Vintage Direct & Replay Box pros • Both sound utterly superb • Both have clinical and creative applications • Superb value for money, given the performance

cons • You may want two of each!

summary Two superb-sounding, minimalist, transformer-based passive units that, between them, make recording and re‑amplifying electric and pickup-equipped acoustic instruments an easy and creative process.

In the Vintage Direct brochure, the direct inspiration of the transformer in the Vintage Direct is given as a the UTC A12, a 1960s transformer that featured three separate secondary windings. Over a period of several years, Chad Kelly iterated that design, settling eventually on specifications that were as close as possible to the original, and the design utilises the separate secondary windings to deliver three different output levels. This years-long development effort resulted in United’s US-made 5078, which is fitted to the Vintage Direct and which the company claim is one of the largest transformers being used in a current, commercially available DI box. The Replay’s Transparent transformer comes from the SAE ReAmp that Chad Kelly produced and sold successfully for approximately 20 years under his Signal Art Electronics banner. That unit’s original transformer, designed by Kelly, was a transparent, unity-gain transformer. Later, Kelly realised that the ReAmp required more gain to handle operation at +4dBu, which resulted in

another US-made transformer, United’s 5043 step-up transformer. This has 3dB of additional passive clean gain available above its +4dBu input from your audio interface or recorder. The Replay Box’s second, harmonically richer transformer comes from the SAE AngReAmp (if you haven’t got the joke in the name yet, try saying it quickly...). Chad Kelly had experimented with using an inductor to add warmth to the ReAmp’s transparent transformer, a concept that had worked but which significantly reduced the signal level. Fortunately, Kelly discovered an obscure telecommunications transformer and used it in what he describes as “a pretty unorthodox way”, to create a version of the SAE ReAmp that was christened the AngReAmp by one of its first purchasers. This unit’s transformer was created to deliver a gentle high-frequency roll-off, fatter low mids and increased harmonic and phase distortion in the sub-bass region, resulting in a more forward and warmer overall tone and an additional 5dB of passive gain.

On Test With a selection of active and passive acoustic and electric guitars and basses plugged directly into it, and its balanced XLR output connected to a microphone input on my RME audio interface, the Vintage Direct (which can handle a maximum input level of +10dBu)

delivered clean, clear, accurate results, whose character was subtly enhanced by the sense of weight and increased presence that characterises classic transformer-derived harmonic distortion. There was never any shortage of output level, even with low-output magnetic pickups, and I found myself occasionally having to dial back the Vintage Direct’s output to keep the RME in its sweet spot. If you’re not fixated on obtaining the cleanest sound possible from your instruments, you could experiment with pushing the input of the Vintage Direct and taming its output with the attenuator, or you could always connect the Vintage Direct to a valve-based mic preamp and then push that to add character to the dry sound. Those particular approaches should also work very well with keyboards, synths, bass guitars and electronic drums, as there’s no need to restrict the benefits of the Vintage Direct to any particular instrument; if it has an instrument-level output, it can be connected. To audition the Replay Box, I set up a minimalist, all-analogue signal chain that began with a vintage active Countryman Type 85 (the cleanest DI I own) running into one channel of my Pendulum Audio SPS-1 microphone preamplifier. The balanced output of that channel then fed the Replay’s balanced input, and the result was split between a high-end headphone amplifier/monitor

The Vintage Direct, and the chunky Chad Kelly-designed transformer that lies at its heart.

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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Audeze Maxwell

Planar Magnetic Headphones PHIL WARD

ompared to the long‑established headphone brands such as Sennheiser, beyerdynamic and AKG, Audeze are relatively new entrants to the pro headphone business. But the company have made a significant impression in their relatively short existence, and the Audeze products reviewed so far within these pages have invariably impressed with their combination of wide bandwidth, detail, clarity, neutral tonality and comfort. The Audeze Maxwell reviewed here might appear slightly off-piste in Sound On Sound terms, though, because if you go to the Audeze website, you’ll see it listed as a gaming headset. It even ships with a plug-in boom mic attachment with which, presumably, you can gloat at your recently vanquished alien opponents. The Maxwell is also relatively inexpensive compared to some of Audeze’s more ambitious mix headphones. So why, you might ask, are we reviewing a gaming headset? Well, apart from

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

It might be marketed as a gaming headset, but Audeze’s Maxwell has serious studio potential, especially for Atmos. the likelihood, based on previous Audeze experience, that the Maxwell will offer a good level of cost-effective headphone performance, it happens to incorporate a feature that potentially has some significance in the world of Atmos mixing: head-tracking integration with the Dolby Atmos renderer.

Plane Saling Audeze’s USP in terms of headphone technology is the use of planar magnetic diaphragms, in which a conducting voice coil, etched onto a lightweight and flexible diaphragm, is suspended in a magnetic field. This type of headphone architecture (first introduced, I believe, in the early 1970s by UK hi-fi speaker company Wharfedale) is not dissimilar to that of a ribbon tweeter, and it offers the same fundamental advantage in that the diaphragm is driven across its entire area rather than just locally by a centrally positioned voice coil. This means the

diaphragm is less prone to breakup and structural resonance. The diaphragm of a planar magnetic headphone driver will also typically be significantly lighter than that of a conventional headphone driver, meaning it can offer extended high‑frequency bandwidth and have a greater radiating area, so it doesn’t have to move as far. I think there’s little question that, when implemented skilfully, the planar magnetic architecture can result in particularly fine‑sounding headphones, and Audeze’s track record would seem to confirm that. Along with the gaming sector, the Maxwell also incorporates facilities that suit it to more general consumer applications. It offers Bluetooth wireless operation, along with wired and USB connectivity, and it provides optional active noise cancellation. This all means that the Maxwell is an active headphone that incorporates wireless, DSP and amplification hardware, as well as

batteries, and they all contribute to its notably increased weight compared to typical passive headphones. For example, in comparison to the Maxwell’s 490g, my Sennheiser HD650s are 260g and my AKG K371 are 255g. Even before wearing the Maxwells their weight was apparent, and although I found them reasonably comfortable on the head (something that I know other reviews have questioned), the weight was definitely noticeable and felt somewhat tiring after a while. In design and build terms, the Maxwell felt somewhat of a mixed bag to me. The substantially metallic construction feels well engineered and gives the impression that the Maxwell will laugh in the face of the everyday rough and tumble that headphones are invariably subject to. However, some of the details, such as the thumbwheel volume control, are a little awkward and less satisfactory. And returning to the subject of comfort, the Maxwell is not blessed with much adjustment in terms of earcup height relative to the headband. Where many headphones incorporate some form of sliding mechanism that allows the earcups to move up and down, the Maxwell offers just three headband height positions — adjustable by removing four screws, moving the headband and replacing the screws. It’s a perfectly serviceable solution for a single user, but if you find yourself collaborating and passing the headphones to somebody else to use for a moment, you may find adjusting the fit to be a frustration.

Maxwell Measuring One of my regular checks when reviewing headphones is to take a frequency response measurement using a Neumann KU100 binaural head. Headphone response measurements using a KU100 don’t result in definitive, calibrated data, but they do enable some comparisons to be made. So the Diagram 1 frequency response curves illustrate the Maxwell overlaid with data for the Sennheiser HD650 and the AKG K371. The Maxwell was measured via its wired input, but I checked the USB input too, and found its frequency response to be all but identical. The response curve of the Maxwell in comparison to the HD650 and K371 is highly satisfactory and I reckon it hits a good compromise between the slightly scooped (bass and high-mid emphasised) character of the K371 and the more gentle midrange‑emphasised HD650. The messy

character that headphone frequency response measurements show at the top end of the audio range is predominantly a function of how the headphone driver and earcup interact with the ear pinna, and it is not as disastrous as it looks. It will also vary from person to person. But back on the frequency response comparison, if I were asked blind which one of the three headphones was likely to demonstrate the most generally usable tonal balance, I’d probably say the Maxwell.

Majoring In Rendering Along with its internal DSP and amp electronics, the Maxwell contains an array of gyroscopes that enable it to derive its orientation in 3D space. By sending this information over USB to the Dolby Renderer, the Renderer’s real‑time binaural output can be informed by a user’s head position. The result of this is that a sound panned, for example, to front centre will move in the binaural headphone render so that it stays in a fixed position with respect to the listener’s head. So, say I turn my head 90 degrees to the right; the front-centre sound will appear now to be coming directly from the left. It mirrors what would happen if I were listening on speakers. But, say Audeze, the value of head‑tracking in an Atmos mix context is not really about its ability to mirror large head movements. It’s about the constant small, almost subconscious head movements we all make naturally to aid our identification of the location of sounds — especially those behind us. Tracking those movements results in a significant improvement in the overall binaural experience. Setting up head-tracking requires first a download of the Audeze HQ app and its use to calibrate the Maxwell gyroscopes. This is done by connecting

Audeze Maxwell $329 pros • Very high‑quality headphone sound. • Versatile if gaming or day‑to‑day headphone use is your thing. • Head-tracking functions well with the Dolby Atmos Renderer.

cons • Noticeably heavy. • Integration of head-tracking with the Atmos mix workflow is not ideal. • Audeze HQ app feels a little undercooked.

summary The Audeze Maxwell head-tracking headline feature works well and adds a useful quality to binaural Atmos mix work, but it’s the headphone’s outstanding sound quality that really steals the show.

the headphones to the computer via USB, placing the headphones on a flat surface, pressing the Calibrate button and going away for half an hour to make a cuppa. A small headphone driver file that’s downloaded along with the Audeze HQ app also needs dropping in the appropriate Dolby Atmos Renderer library folder, so that the Renderer can understand the headphone orientation data. Once the headphones are calibrated, you’ve installed the driver file, and selected the Maxwell as the USB output of the Dolby Atmos Renderer, the headphones will become an option in the Renderer head-tracking setup window. And that’s pretty much all there is to it. I have to admit to a couple of false starts in understanding the setup process, and the slightly rough‑around‑the edges beta release level of the Audeze HQ app feels a little apparent, but once I’d made everything work, head-tracking definitely brings a worthwhile new quality to the

Frequency response measurements taken using a Neumann KU100 dummy head, of the Audeze Maxwell (red trace), Sennheiser HD650 (green) and AKG K371 (blue).

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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Universal Audio Apollo X Gen 2 Thunderbolt Audio Interfaces

In the latest generation of the Apollo X range, UA have added a range of new features including Sonarworks SoundID integration for both speakers and headphones. Universal Audio Apollo X Gen 2 From $1199 pros • The best-sounding Apollos yet, with very good audio specs. • Highly effective and deep Sonarworks integration. • Versatile Assistive Auto-Gain implementation. • The new x16D and Plug-in Scenes represent a promising development for live‑sound engineers.

cons • No Thunderbolt cable included. • Visual indication of status of Apollo Monitor Correction could be clearer. • Not all Unison plug-ins support Auto-Gain yet, and it isn’t quite idiot-proof with the ones that do.

summary The latest generation of Apollo interfaces incorporate some very impressive developments, none more so than the comprehensive implementation of SoundID correction for both speakers and headphones.

January 2025 / www.soundonsound.com

SAM INGLIS

t’s been a surprisingly long time since I last typed the phrase “Thunderbolt audio interface” at the head of an SOS review. When it superseded FireWire, the new standard seemed to promise everything you could possibly want for audio: high bandwidth, super-low latency, support for hot-plugging and daisy-chaining. But after promising beginnings, the Thunderbolt tide has turned. Mid-priced interfaces that once boasted Thunderbolt connectivity, such as the Focusrite Clarett and PreSonus Quantum ranges, now employ USB instead. There’s a long list of factors in play here. Certification has always been problematic, especially for smaller manufacturers. There are no Thunderbolt chipsets comparable to the ubiquitous XMOS range, which offer ready-made solutions for USB interface design. In the PC world, adoption by motherboard manufacturers has been half-hearted. And, above all, USB is good enough for most use cases.

So much so, in fact, that nearly all audio interfaces are still USB2 devices at heart, and don’t exploit the much greater bandwidth available in USB3 and 4. Thankfully, though, it seems unlikely that Thunderbolt will suffer the same fate as Firewire. It now uses the same Type‑C connector as USB devices, and is being developed not as an alternative to USB but as a superset of it. In practical terms, Thunderbolt is becoming ‘USB plus’: not needed or implemented on every device, but a widely available and supported option in higher-end systems where its special powers make a difference. One such system is Universal Audio’s Apollo range. UA adopted the new standard as soon as it was practical, and have stuck with it ever since. Late in 2024, they announced what is in effect the fourth generation of Apollos, and they’ve very much kept faith with Thunderbolt. And, more importantly, they’ve also developed a tempting raft of new features.

Bolt From The Grey Previous refreshes of the Apollo line have been staggered, with the rackmounting and desktop Apollos being updated separately. This time around, UA have reinvented the entire range in one fell swoop, with the only exceptions being the baby Apollo Solo and the two legacy desktop models that cater to PC users without Thunderbolt. There’s also an intriguing new model aimed at the live sound market, which is described in the boxout. Dubbed the Apollo X Gen 2, the new range is visually distinguished by what UA call a “new look and feel”. I didn’t detect

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much change in the feel of anything, but the front panels of the rackmount models and the cases of the desktop units have reverted from black to a smart pale grey that recalls the brushed metal look of the very first Apollos, more than a decade ago. There is a total of seven models in the Gen 2 line-up: the Twin X and Apollo x4 are desktop units, while the x6, x8, x8p, x16 and the new x16D are all 1U rackmounting devices. Like previous generations, all of the Gen 2 models come with external power supplies; the only Apollo that can be bus powered is the Solo, which has not yet been updated. Sadly, you still don’t get a Thunderbolt cable in the box, which would annoy me if I’d just shelled out four figures for a new audio interface! The integration of UA’s UAD-2 Powered Plug-in platform has always been central to the Apollo range, and that’s still very much the case. All the rackmount Gen 2 Apollos are Hexa models, meaning they feature six processing cores, while the x4 has four and the Twin X is available in Duo and Quad configurations. As before, the DSP can host both conventional audio processors and UA’s Unison plug-ins, which have the ability to reconfigure the input-stage circuitry in the analogue domain, enabling the emulation of a huge selection of mic preamps, guitar amps and other such devices. With the release of the Gen 2 models, this built-in DSP has gained new powers. Thanks to a collaboration with Sonarworks, both Gen 1 and Gen 2 Apollo x interfaces can host corrective EQ and calibration for both loudspeakers

and headphones. Other improvements include further refinement of the Apollo Xs’ already impressive audio specs, with even more dynamic range on most analogue I/O and a pretty staggering drop in THD, especially on the headphone amps. Bass management is now supported in both Gen 1 and Gen 2 Apollo X interfaces, live plug-in management in Console is made easier through a new Plug-in Scenes feature, and UA have implemented their own take on the auto-gain functionality that’s becoming widespread in studio interfaces with digitally controlled preamps.

In The ’Works Sonarworks integration in the Apollo X requires both a SoundID Reference licence and something called the Apollo Monitor Correction Add-on. The latter is currently free with the Gen 2 models on a time-limited offer, while Gen 1 owners can purchase it for $79. SoundID itself comes in five flavours, from basic headphone-only correction at one end of the scale to the full Multichannel implementation for immersive monitoring at the other. The stereo and Multichannel versions are available both with and without the calibrated Sonarworks measurement mic, but you can use a generic measurement mic if you prefer. At present, calibration can be applied to the Apollos’ headphone outputs and to the main Monitor output, whether this is set up for stereo or surround monitoring, but the Alt monitor paths are not yet supported. Everything is handled from a pair of discreet boxes

PELUSO STAGE ONE THE LDC STAGE MIC

When the Apollo Monitor Correction add-on is installed, SoundID sports a new button allowing profiles to be transferred to the Apollo.

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Peluso Microphone Lab www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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Sebsongs Bread & Butter Eurorack Module

id two words ever conjure simultaneous feelings of dread and nostalgia better than ‘General MIDI’? That familiar bank of 128 patches created in the name of standardising instrument responses to the MIDI protocol, the term technically covers far more than just those patches but has become the de facto descriptor for sounds synonymous with barely working school keyboards and quickly eschewed default settings in all manner of DAWs and other software. And, if you’re of a generation, Ross Geller’s immortal keyboard performance in Friends. When I consider General MIDI, one of two sounds enters my head: first is that strange sliding ‘honk’ in the percussion patch, almost like some kind of synthetic dog bark (I still to this day do not know what that sound is), and second is the iconic ‘orchestra hit’ sound. And there it is in your head as well. At just 6HP, the Bread & Butter is modestly sized. Its interface consists of just three knobs and

“While General MIDI might still fall into the ‘too soon’ category for many, I have no doubt that the Bread & Butter will age nicely in years to come.” 94

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two buttons, along with a MIDI input, stereo outputs and several CV inputs. Now, let’s be honest: while perfectly possible, it’s unlikely you’re going to simply plug a MIDI keyboard into the Bread & Butter, choose a sound and play it dry. Of course, if that is you, I wish you well. But Sebsongs clearly have more in mind than that, and much of it begins with modulation. Even with the simplest pulse triggering notes at one pitch as a starting point and a clutch of asynchronous LFOs and gates sent to various jacks, I was basking in astonishingly instant experimental composition glory, at times so interesting that I simply stood back from my system and enjoyed listening. A hit of piano here, a drum there. A bendy-sounding guitar followed by a snappy percussion passage. Pushing things a bit harder, for instance triggering notes faster and faster, the Bread & Butter responded very nicely, even at very fast trigger speeds. The Bread & Butter’s controls and CV inputs are choice and well deployed. Beyond gate and pitch inputs, there’s Hold, which latches notes when a gate is high and can bring out a very different side of many sounds. Bend and Velocity make for some much needed expression (and rather nostalgic pitch-wheel-style note bending, in the case of Bend), which, believe it or not, does lead to some genuine musicality when used as part of a wider network of modulation. The most interesting input for me is the instrument selector, which can cycle through patches with the help of some CV. This is where the Bread & Butter really comes alive, bursting with variety and sonic interest. Random voltages, LFOs: you name it, each brings out something different. Beneath the main Instrument knob are smaller knobs for tuning and panning. The Pan knob is a lovely touch, since it allows for some interesting placement

of sounds all across the stereo image — excellent when united with almost any spatial effect. Turn clockwise for random panning and anti-clockwise for alternate panning. Yes: aside from effects and filtering and the like, I don’t think there’s anything I would want from a General MIDI module that isn’t on offer here. What the Bread & Butter offers is a bank of sometimes awful, sometimes kitsch, sometimes passable, sometimes lovely sounds, that beckon all sorts of creative applications with a streamlined and effective set of controls. Because in fairness — like a litany of sounds we work with in the modular environment — with the right processing, all these have every bit the potential to sound genuinely beautiful. The almost-FM-esque Crystal, for example, or even the grim but harmonically rich Distortion Guitar. The once near‑unusable Dulcimer takes on a very different, wholly unironic appeal if you sequence it with ratcheting patterns and send it to cascade in stereo through a granular delay. The famous designer Raymond Loewy once said: “To sell something surprising, make it familiar; and to sell something familiar, make it surprising.” With the Bread & Butter, Sebsongs have toed that line very well. After all, if the history of art and music has taught us anything, it’s that many once-rudimentary artefacts get revisited and reappropriated down the line in some way — often to great creative effect. The Super-8 camera is a good example of this, as is the Farfisa organ. While General MIDI might still fall into the ‘too soon’ category for many, I have no doubt that the Bread & Butter will age nicely in years to come; surely something of a forerunner in Eurorack’s rediscovery of these horrible, brilliant sounds. William Stokes $

$139

modular.sebsongs.com

Knobula Echo Cinematic Eurorack Module

nobula create modules around interesting ideas that are not always immediately apparent. The Echo Cinematic is a great example of this — you think you’re playing around with a delay running through a reverb when actually that’s not the half of it. Knobula founder Jason Mayo drew on his experience working in studios in the 1980s. They would often route analogue tape delays through channel strips, where they were EQ’ed and fed back to themselves via the effects send. The engineer would then filter and overdub the delayed sound to the edge of destruction, giving us that signature ‘dub’ vibe. Those elements form the basis of what we have to play with in the Echo Cinematic. So, you get a nice, grungy tape-style delay (up to two seconds), sync’able to a clock. The reverb is deep and lovely and good to have, but it is not the main character here. It’s the EQ that takes centre stage, with a nice big knob and an unexpected impact. It feels different because you’re filtering the echoes rather than the input signal, which gives it a sense that the signal is disappearing and degrading after each repeat. But then you’ve also got the feedback system, which has a habit of smearing your audio into surprising textures as it builds into something more sinister. And that build can be slow so that your attention gets pulled back to the Echo Cinematic to grab something to bring it under control, just every now and then. Manipulation is critical, which is again a bit unusual because I often leave delays to do their thing. So in here, you have two LFOs, one for the delay time and one for the EQ frequency, and the ability to record up to 30 seconds of movement from any and every knob and the CV inputs. You can assign the CV inputs to any control simply

by plugging in a cable and then twisting the thing you want to send it to — it seems all too easy. The EQ section has three filter response curves; a low- or high-pass shelf, a peak with notch or band-pass, and a comb with four notches or four bands. A resonance knob piles on the emphasis. You can switch it into the traditional dub path of the feedback loop, or just into the delay output, or over the whole lot including the dry input. The edginess of the filtered feedback loop is such that I don’t feel like it’s safe to leave it alone. Maybe that’s why the knob record function is so useful, because you can push it to the brink, reel it back in and then let it keep doing that on its own. But for me, I like to interact and react to it, give the EQ some movement through the LFO and then dance around the feedback knob. The Echo Cinematic can make a weedy melody line sound huge, reanimate percussion lines and weaponise chords in fabulously groovy ways. Robin Vincent

Modular Plug Detroit Pink 87 Eurorack Module

$399

hen many modules have over-laden themselves with too many features, it’s pretty refreshing to see something that just does one thing. The strangely named Detroit Pink 87 from Modular Plug does eight lots of one thing in a beautifully mechanical and satisfyingly simple way. It’s an eight-track trigger sequencer where you tap in the steps using a clacky mechanical keyboard key. You select a track on the knob, set it to 16, 32 or 64 steps, give it a clock source, and jam away at the button to build up your patterns. That’s it. Whatever you play is quantised to the steps; you switch to Jam mode and play over the top without adding triggers to the sequence, and you can clear a pattern with a tap. It’s also great for triggering envelopes and synth voices or controlling other sequences. Its simplicity also means it might need some help to make it work in a live situation. There’s no way to mute an output or swap between rhythms without repatching, and there’s no pattern saving. In fact, when you turn it off, you lose everything you’ve created. This encourages an improvised approach or a quick bit of programming before you start your set. Overall, the Detroit Pink 87 is fresh, inviting, fun and lets you feel like you’re contributing to the rhythm of your patch rather than expecting a machine to conjure it all up for you. Robin Vincent

www.knobula.com

$149

www.modularplug.com

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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Heritage Audio Tubesessor Valve Optical Compressor

Based on a famous Danish design, Heritage’s versatile homage includes some useful additional features NEIL ROGERS

adrid-based Heritage Audio have been busily expanding their product range in recent years, and having reviewed a few of their outboard devices for SOS I’ve been impressed enough to make my studio the permanent home to some of their EQs. For review here is Heritage Audio’s Tubesessor, an analogue compressor that doffs its cap to the legendary Tube-Tech CL‑1B optical tube compressor. The CL‑1B is still technically in

Heritage Audio Tubesessor $1999 pros • The variable controls work very nicely in use. • Can be both clean and colourful as needed. • Excellent for vocals and bass. • Excellent on drums. • Stylish and substantial looking! • Half the price of its inspiration.

cons • Care is needed when looking for cleaner vocal compression when tracking.

summary A substantial and full-featured optical/ valve compressor that sounds great as the ‘main course’ for vocal processing and all-round studio duties. The extra features helpfully augment this already versatile studio tool.

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production but there’s a very long waiting list, and it was almost inevitable that other companies would look to cater for the demand. More than one company seems to have had the idea around the same time, so the Tubesessor is jostling for attention alongside a few other options for those looking for that CL‑1B sound.

Overview The Tubesessor is a stylish, substantial-looking device that fills 3U of rack space and sports chunky dials and a vintage-looking VU meter on the front. While you can tell from the aesthetics what its inspiration was, I was pleased to see that Heritage haven’t tried to mimic every aspect of the Tubesessor’s muse. Also commendable is that, while Heritage do intend this device to deliver the characteristics that made the CL‑1B so appealing, they’ve taken the opportunity to add a few extra features that might help their version stand out from the crowd. One of the desirable traits of this style of compressor, compared to some other vintage ‘tube opto’ designs such as the LA-2A, is that it gives the user greater scope to fine-tune their compression settings and, in keeping with its inspiration, the Tubesessor features fully variable ratio, threshold, attack and release controls. Expanding further on the theme of controllability, Heritage have included a Tube Saturation control and five different

side-chain filter options. The latter allow you to focus the compression towards or away from certain parts of the frequency spectrum. The options on offer here are high-pass filters (80Hz, 160Hz or 5kHz) and peak boosts (1 or 3 kHz). On the rear, you’ll find the expected balanced audio I/O on XLRs, as well as a quarter-inch jack link socket that allows two units to works in stereo. Two dual‑triode valves protrude through the rear panel, one a CK5755 and the other a 12BH7A — these are exposed to allow for both cooling and ease of swapping out. There are also chunky input and output transformers, including an AMI UT10, and at the other end of the device, a larger power transformer. As with all their valve-based designs, Heritage are keen to point out that they have secured large quantities of key NOS (‘new old stock’) components so that customers can feel reassured their unit is suitably future-proof.

Into Action The Tubesessor arrived at my studio when I was deep in a mixing project that involved me breaking things out of the box to use certain hardware pieces. Needing little invitation to go down a rabbit hole with a new piece of gear, I immediately patched in the Tubesessor and experimented with it on the lead vocal and bass guitar parts — two key elements in a mix that I still often enjoy using hardware on. Cutting to the chase, the Tubesessor really is an excellent compressor for bass guitar. Using a higher ratio it felt ridiculously

easy to dial in a vintage-sounding direct bass sound, and I found myself liking a fast attack and release with a generous amount (around 6-10 dB) of gain reduction. For the bass parts, I also enjoyed playing with the low-pass options in the side-chain filter section as well as the Tube Saturation facility, which proved as valuable an option for a touch of gentle tone‑shaping as for more obvious saturation effects. Having started with the relative safety of mixing, I soon felt at ease putting the Tubesessor to use compressing bass guitars while tracking, and as it proved such a forgiving and reliable option I used it in that context on several sessions. A device you can pretty much ‘set and forget’ like this can be a real asset in a busy session. The original CL‑1B is arguably best known as a vocal compressor for rap and R&B vocals. These aren’t genres I typically work on, but when I played around with this style of compression on vocals it was easy to understand why it has garnered such a strong reputation. It can add all the colour, sheen and character of simpler vintage designs but, as I mentioned earlier, the variable nature of the main controls means you have the flexibility to dial in transparent dynamic control much more easily. While the gain reduction can seem transparent, though, there’s definitely a more obvious analogue ‘vibe’ to be found if you want that, and on vocal tracking sessions I was sometimes surprised at just how ‘colourful’ the review unit was — the saturation seemed to kick in quite quickly when using anything other than moderate settings. Sometimes, therefore, I found myself having to be careful to not overdo it when tracking, but in the more controlled environment of a mix session, I was able to get much more stuck in, discovering different styles

of compression and colour with this device: fast and transparent or slow and ‘gooey’, it all seemed to be there once I’d become accustomed to the controls.

Transient Delight I’ve reviewed plenty of nice compressors for SOS in recent years, and have learnt not to typecast tools as being good for specific things — whatever their reputation, I always try them out on a range of material to see what they can do. Yet, in this case, I was still surprised at just how much I liked using the Tubessesor on drums. It worked superbly on one session in particular, in which I used it aggressively on a mono drum overhead channel. Encouraged by an excellent drummer who was in control of their own dynamics, I was able to get heavy-handed with some ‘smacky’ sounding compression, and we liked the result so much that this channel ended up being a central part of the drum sound for that project. It also performed admirably on close kick and snare mics on different tracking sessions, and when used moderately it worked very well indeed for combining dynamic control with a little tube coloration. In short, this seems to be a compressor that can make a positive contribution to pretty much any aspect of live drum recording and mixing, and it would no doubt work just as well for shaping and adding vibe to programmed drums. Depending on how hard you hit the input stage, the Tube Saturation section can be quite subtle on sources with plenty of sustain in the sound, like guitar and vocals, but on more transient-dominated or bass-heavy sources things get a bit more interesting. It’s hard to put this sort of character into words but whether it was

the subtle tube saturation or more obvious distortion, it always sounded tasteful to my ears. It’s worth noting that while the side-chain filter is there to fine-tune the response of the compressor to different frequencies, the balance that results from the compression also has an impact on the results from the saturation stage, so there’s some indirect interplay between these controls. I found that the last three side-chain filter settings often worked well when I was dialling in more character.

Final Thoughts For the most part, I’ve considered the Tubesessor as a studio tool in its own right, rather than attempt a direct comparison with its inspiration. I have fairly limited experience with the Danish original in its hardware form, but I recall it as being a touch cleaner and more transparent-sounding than the Tubesessor. This isn’t a criticism because, for mixing in particular, I really did tend to find the coloration was desirable. The most impressive aspect by far for me, though, was just how versatile this compressor is — it performed a number of different roles in my studio without breaking a sweat. There’s plenty of competition in this price range for an all-around studio compressor but, at around half the price of an original CL‑1B and with some excellent extra features, I’d suggest that the Tubesessor would be a strong contender if you’re looking for a hardware compressor in this style, and well worth putting on your list of gear to audition. $ $1999. T Heritage Audio +1 800 605 3127 E support@heritageaudio.com W www.heritageaudio.com

On the rear, along with the analogue audio I/O, you’ll find two valves and the input, output and power transformers.

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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Melbourne Polyphonic Instruments Synthesizer Delia

Melbourne continue to push the (motorised) envelope with their latest polysynth.

WILLIAM STOKES

‘T

he Synthesizer Revolution Begins Here’ declared Melbourne instruments upon the release of their maiden instrument, the Nina. I reviewed that synth almost exactly a year ago, a formidable desktop unit sporting myriad statement features that, generally speaking, did not disappoint. I suppose, by that rubric, we’re more or less a year into that aforementioned revolution; not a bad time to take stock, and what better way to do that than with a successor? Enter Delia. A six-voice keyboarded synth blending

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digital and analogue with a distinctly less populous panel than its elder, the Delia (named, one assumes, after the great Delia Derbyshire) doesn’t so much take Melbourne Instruments’ grand designs further afield as it does substantiate them. But that’s by no means to say it doesn’t have more than a few tricks of its own. The aforementioned ‘revolution’ of course refers to the Nina’s marvellous motorised knobs, which (spoiler alert) are present and correct on the Delia — improved, even. In fairness, and with pun-based marketing aside, the design is a huge breakthrough and should

absolutely be chalked up as such. For the unfamiliar: with the Nina, Melbourne Instruments managed to come up with a way to incorporate brushless motors into their synth design, meaning that the synth’s knobs could be programmed to move by themselves and thus end the plight that is unrepresentative physical values when switching presets. It’s a brilliant way to return a healthy dose of knob-per-function playability to a synth, no matter how deep it goes under the hood, and best of all, it really works.

Motorhead That’s only the beginning, though. Melbourne are using motors with lightning‑fast responsiveness and incredible torque that can perform a handful of useful little computer-driven tricks. They accurately assume any position on the clock face at the push of a button, for instance, and they can also move at different speeds, very slowly indeed if desired, to handle certain types of automation. I’ll explain that in more detail anon. Most fun to discover of all, they can also take on steps or detents to suit particular functions. It was an ambitious design decision, but in the Nina review I concluded that in the end it paid off. By the looks of things it has positioned both

is still a nascent feature, and I commend that attention to detail.

Twenty-first Century Architecture

the Nina and its developer on a highly respectable stratum of the industry, and in record time. One immediate stumbling block in all of this, of course, is the price. At $3599, I’m pretty sure the Nina is the most expensive desktop synth I’ve played to date. Best tack on a few pounds for electricity, too: the Nina requires 8A! I should point out, though, that the Nina’s price is not simply due to its motorised knobs. By any metric it’s a powerful instrument with an array of top-spec functions; for one thing its circuitry is fully discrete, designed in-house. Its 12 voices combine analogue oscillators with wavetable synthesis and Moog-style ladder filtering; it has onboard drive, beyond-stereo imaging for days, effects, and the rest. Melbourne Instruments, to their credit, went into that situation with both eyes open: “We’ve started at the top” they said at the time, and they weren’t wrong.

Trimming Down So you can see why, on this occasion, for the developer to expand upwards would be unwise. And happily, they haven’t. For starters, the Delia lops a good $1200 or so off the price tag of the Nina, and as you might therefore expect, shortcuts a few things where acceptable. Its panel has 22 knobs in total, 11 fewer than the Nina, and many of these have here become multifunctional. Even the inclusion of a velocity sensitive, aftertouch-endowed keyboard seems to have done little to compromise the

savings incurred, presumably, by things like including fewer motors. But this isn’t to say that the Delia looks or feels any less impressive than the Nina, at least on a physical level. Its acrobatic knob-turning startup procedure is just as satisfying, its build quality feels just as weighty. I personally am a big fan of its somewhat retro-futuristic aesthetic, with shining metal side panels and big soft‑key buttons, whose key caps can also be switched out for those of different colours, sold separately. That might in fact come in very useful, since you need not switch out colours wholesale: you could colour-code your buttons in any combination to suit your workflow. Now, I’ll do my best not to spend this entire piece listing all the ways that the Delia is different to the Nina. It’s a natural temptation, the Delia being a follow‑up to the Nina and all; but its motorised knobs, while a headline function, are really one of only a handful of true commonalities between these two distinct instruments. Even these have been given an apparent tweak from what I can see — or rather, feel. Attention seems to have gone into adjusting the motors’ response to knobs reaching their extremities: with the Nina, it would feel like you were in danger of breaking something if you accidentally turned a knob too far into the brushless motor’s field of magnetic resistance. With the Delia, turn a knob beyond its highest setting and it will allow you to continue turning, it’ll just be a little more resistant. In many cases, for instance with the filters, it will jump all the way around and back to zero. Not that this was a deal‑breaker in the case of the Nina, but it’s a clear improvement in the tactility of what

A major distinguishing factor from the outset is Delia’s digital front‑end, with two DCOs per voice. These were undoubtedly another money-saver but sonically, denote little compromise. At the most basic level, the oscillators do a good job of emulating their analogue counterparts (in this respect the Delia’s onboard digital oscilloscope is something of a flex, if nothing else), interpolating triangle, saw, square and pulse waves across the travel distance of the Shape knob. Beyond this, the Delia leans further into the digital side of things. Oscillator 3, as with the Nina, is allocated to wavetable synthesis, a job it does very well indeed and at high resolution to boot. Each wavetable can constitute up to 256 waveforms of 2048 samples, and atop a host of factory wavetables to choose from it’s possible to load up to 127 custom wavetables in WAV format. It’s also possible to switch the interpolation of waveforms on or off for smoother or coarser motion, and through all of this the Delia’s screen provides a useful graphical readout of the wavetable motion (as well as a preview when scrolling through wavetables). Oscillator 4 offers a choice of colour-editable noise, external signal processing via the Ext L and R inputs and XOR; a widely accepted substitute for analogue ring modulation, often named the latter but here unashamedly labelled exactly what it is, which is in short a way

Melbourne Instruments Delia $2399 pros • Motorised knobs, and improved ones at that. • Phenomenal flexibility and depth. • Excellent design, with attention to detail and user workflow.

cons • I found myself wishing the HPF was analogue. • Some functions contribute little to the workflow.

summary In the wake of the Nina, Melbourne Instruments have made all the right moves with the Delia. A streamlined, user‑friendly, brilliant-sounding polysynth.

www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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Project SAM Lineage Percussion Sample Library

A striking new sample collection brings SAM’s orchestral percussion bang up to date. DAV E ST E WA RT

talwarts of the cinematic sampling scene since 2001, Project SAM enjoy a well-deserved reputation among orchestral sample users. The Utrecht company’s enduring popularity stems from its brass and big band libraries, the long-running Symphobia series and two powerful True Strike percussion collections released in 2003 and 2006 respectively, both of which were successfully moved to the Kontakt platform in 2021. While True Strike 1’s musical content is still highly rated, its creators felt it was time to move on. Company co-founder Vincent Beijer explains: “We wanted to redo True Strike for a long time. True Strike 1 was recorded after our SAM Horns, Trombones, Trumpets and Solo Sessions back in 2003. After our endeavours recording orchestras and big bands in the Symphobia and Swing! Series, we felt like going back to orchestral percussion and applying our knowledge and experience to

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a new take on True Strike. Lineage Percussion marks the start of a new era of instruments from Project SAM.” SAM’s new baby was recorded at the Broadcasting Music Centre, Hilversum, the same concert hall used to record the Symphobia libraries. Though adopting a broadly similar approach to True Strike 1, Lineage Percussion (henceforth LP for short) is a much larger, all-new library with an expanded instrumentation consisting of 70 individual instruments, 10 sets (combinations of instruments from the same family) and 14 kits that combine a variety of instruments. Also included are two kit builders you can use to build your own instrument ensembles. Rather than clogging up users’ hard drives with dozens of listening perspectives, the samples were captured from conventional close, stage and far microphone positions with an additional stereo mix created by the production team. When selected, this ‘premixed’ channel temporarily deactivates the other mikings, enabling you to conserve RAM — a sensible compromise would be to use

the premixed audio while programming, then switch to the three live mic positions to fine-tune your final mix. The library is available in two versions: Lineage Percussion Pro (51GB installed) contains 70 instruments, while the 8.3GB Lineage Percussion Core offers 45 essential instruments, fewer articulations and a single premixed mic position. It also omits the kit builders, but it costs a lot less and the sound quality is identical! Both versions run exclusively on Kontakt and Kontakt Player version 6.6 and up.

Presentation It’s funny (and mildly horrifying) to recall that the original version of True Strike 1 ran on Nemesys Gigastudio, a ghastly piece of software which nevertheless heralded a new age of unlimited sample disk streaming. Today’s sample players offer facilities undreamt of in the Giga era, and SAM have taken full advantage with LP’s newly designed Kontakt engine. Owners of the Pro version can set up mixes on the XY Stage grid, a 360-degree virtual performance space which allows

you to alter the instruments’ panning and miking perspective: move an instrument horizontally to pan it left or right, or vertically to make it sound closer or more distant. The Kit Builder patch accommodates up to 15 instruments, each with its own mix settings. The premixed mic position is used by default, but if you prefer you can select the ‘Custom Mix’ tab and adjust the close, stage and far microphone balance. You can also use the built-in convolution reverb to add an epic, cathedral-like ambience to the global instrument mix. First introduced in Symphobia 4: Pandora (reviewed in SOS in June 2020), SAM’s Adaptive Sync feature intelligently time-stretches crescendo rolls and swells so that their climax occurs on an upcoming hit point (surprisingly difficult to do manually). It has four sync modes: Sync to Downbeat calculates the amount of time left until the next bar, Sync to Beats stretches the crescendo over a specific number of beats, while Sync to Seconds sets the crescendo length in milliseconds and is not tempo-dependent. Sync Off bypasses the time-stretching and lets you choose one of the five original recorded crescendo lengths. Last but not least in this parade of technological wonders is the Note Stacker, a thoroughly entertaining pitched-instrument tool which allows you to play custom chords with a single key press. You stack up notes by clicking on intervals above the root note of C in an on-screen display, thus creating a chord which can be played with one

finger at any pitch you desire. I found playing the chorus melody of Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ on parallel atonal chords to be a gratifying musical experience, but SOS readers will no doubt dream up saner uses.

Tuned Percussion All instruments in LP were performed by Eddy Koopman, percussionist of the brilliant Metropole Orchestra. Bowing to Mr Koopman’s experience, SAM’s recording team closely followed his advice on how many dynamic layers to incorporate in the instruments: the snares have 10, the timpani seven and the marimba’s straight hits use six. The same instruments have respectively 10, six and eight round robin variations. This depth of sampling gives the library a vastly more dynamic and organic sonic character than its True Strike predecessor. Running the gamut from walloping fortissimo hits to ominous quiet strokes, LP’s timpani epitomise epic orchestral drama. Their dramatic crescendo rolls work like a dream with the Adaptive Sync feature, while their distinctly non-classical effects comprise scary low groans, comedy pitch‑bends and spooktacular metallic noises made by (I think) playing an upside-down cymbal laid on the timpani skin. The set of four Adams timps were played in a choice of hard and soft mallets and collectively span two octaves. Turning to the melodic instruments, the marimba is a star turn. Played with medium mallets and chromatically sampled over a F2‑C7 range, its straight

Channel One Mk

Project SAM Lineage Percussion €399 pros • A highly dynamic, musically detailed orchestral percussion collection containing some stellar instruments. • Features 70 instruments performing hits, flams, tremolos and rolls in a splendid concert hall acoustic. • You can position individual instruments anywhere on a virtual soundstage. • The Adaptive Sync feature sorts out the timing of crescendos and swells.

cons • Though covering a wide range of classic and contemporary orchestral percussion, it lacks the large ethnic drums now commonly heard in cinematic productions.

summary Following in the footsteps of Project SAM’s True Strike, Lineage Percussion is an all-new orchestral percussion library containing 70 instruments recorded from multiple mic positions in a famous concert hall. Featuring deep dynamics, kit-building facilities and customisable stage positioning, the library offers a wealth of creative options while remaining easy to use for beginners. A Core version with fewer instruments and articulations and a single premixed mic position is also available at a reduced price.

hits and mod‑wheel-controlled rolls sound great from all three mic positions, and its sweetly incisive attack and rich, resonant sustain are a delight. Joining the marimba in my favourites folder is

The perfect front-end for the modern producer.

Track One Mk 3

Compact and competent www.soundonsound.com / January 2025 The next generation of Channel-Strips – For more information: www.spl.audio

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a spreadsheet where each cell is populated by a note which can play one of up to 48 different ‘instruments’ and up to two ‘FX’. An instrument is usually a sample, but the Tracker+ has added three synthesizer slots, which can each load one of five different synth types. Rather than covering much of the same ground as the original Tracker review, I will focus on what the Tracker+ offers over the original.

Plus Size

Polyend Tracker+ Sampler, Synthesizer & Sequencer

Polyend’s hardware tracker continues to evolve and improve. RORY DOW

ive years ago, you would have been forgiven for scoffing at the idea of a hardware tracker. And yet here we are, amid what looks like a hardware tracker revolution. As I finished the Dirtywave M8 review (see SOS September 2024), Polyend’s Tracker+ landed on the doormat. Less than a year before, I reviewed the Polyend Tracker Mini, which improved upon the original Tracker released in 2020. It is fair to say that trackers are officially popular again. Polyend could be credited with igniting the current explosion. The Tracker+ is the latest revision of their initial desktop tracker device. Improvements include support for stereo samples, eight more tracks (bringing the total to 16), six new synthesizers, audio over USB and extra memory.

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The Tracker Mini, Polyend’s smaller, more portable version, recently had a version 2.0 software update to align it with the Tracker+. So, if you enjoy the Tracker experience, you can have a Tracker+ in the studio and a Mini for travel and easily swap projects between them. Sadly, the original Tracker does not have the CPU or RAM capable of offering these new features, so you’ll have to upgrade to take full advantage.

Trackwhatnow? If you need a tracking primer, refer to my review of the original Polyend Tracker from November 2021 (www. soundonsound.com/reviews/ polyend-tracker). In short, trackers are sample-based sequencers. The sequencing is a different paradigm from the MIDI piano rolls we’ve become accustomed to in modern DAWs. Tracks scroll downwards and resemble

Polyend’s marketing tagline for the Tracker+ is “Not new, but better”. At a glance, you might not see any difference between this and the original. The Tracker+ has the same physical size and layout as the earlier version, but Polyend have improved the build quality. The original buttons, which were hard plastic, have been replaced with a more tactile rubberised feel. The jog wheel, which caused problems for some users on the original, has also been upgraded and feels much more sturdy. The inputs and outputs on the back are identical, with a micro-SD card slot, USB Type‑C port, and 3.5mm jack sockets for stereo line in/out, mic input and MIDI in/ out. The USB cable supplies power and class-compliant MIDI but now works as an audio interface with 12 stereo outputs. Inside the box is where the real improvements lie. A more powerful microcontroller brings the Tracker+ in line with the Tracker Mini. And there’s more RAM available for samples: around 720 seconds of mono or 360 seconds of stereo sampling (at 44.1kHz), a sizable improvement on the original 130 seconds of mono sampling. If required, you can stretch this out using lower sample rates. The increased CPU power also allows for more tracks in each pattern. The original Tracker was limited to eight tracks, but the Tracker+ doubles this to 16, although it has some limitations

that we’ll focus on shortly. A Song can contain up to 255 patterns, and a pattern can contain up to 128 steps.

Synthesis The original Tracker was focused on sample playback. Samples can be one-shot, looping, sliced, converted to wavetables, and there’s even a granular mode. However, the most significant addition to the Tracker+ is the five synthesizer engines that can be used instead of samples. In addition to the 48 sample instruments and 16 MIDI tracks available to each project, there are now three synthesizer slots. The three slots can be allocated to one of five synthesizer engines, and each synthesizer can play up to six voices: • A CD is a 303-inspired synthesizer with sawtooth and square oscillators, a sub-oscillator, noise, and three low-pass filter types. • FAT is Minimoog-inspired, with three oscillators and three filter types. • VAP is designed for polyphony and has two variable‑waveform oscillators and a multi-mode filter with 15 filter types. • WTFM is a 2-operator FM engine with feedback, variable waveforms, and the same multi-mode filter as VAP. Lastly, PERC is a drum synthesizer with six engines for kick, tom, snare, hi-hat, cymbal and percussion, which can be played as a complete kit. The name PERC is perhaps a nod to Polyend’s first-ever product, a mechanical MIDI-powered drum trigger. There are a lot of algorithms and tweakable parameters. You can achieve classic TR-style kicks and snares, FM percussion, classic analogue disco toms and more. The tom algorithm can even be played chromatically, producing more than just tom sounds. Most of the synths have the kind of modulation you would expect: one or two envelopes and LFOs. In the simpler ACD and FAT synths, modulation is hardwired to pitch or amplitude, but in the more complex VAP and WTFM

synths, you can use a modulation matrix to assign them. Each synth patch can also have up to seven macros assigned. These can be named and assigned to modulate up to five parameters in varying amounts and then sequenced later to add movement to your sounds. I am very impressed with the new synthesis options in the Tracker+. When judged on sound alone, there is a simple charm to all the synths. They sound great, although you might call them retro in character. When you start sequencing them and automating the macros, magic can — and often does — happen.

Track Count Although Polyend market the Tracker+ as having 16 tracks, there are some restrictions. Tracks 1-8 can be used for anything. They can sequence samples, external MIDI, the new synths, or all three simultaneously. Tracks 9-16, however, can only be used for MIDI or the internal synths. If you are only interested in using the Tracker in a strictly old-school sense — to sequence samples – then tracks 9-16 will not be much use.

Audio Interface The other headline new feature for the Tracker+ is the addition of a USB audio interface. Once you plug the Tracker+ into your computer using the included USB‑C cable, your computer will have access to 14 stereo inputs and one stereo output. The 14 outputs are reserved for the master stereo output, the first eight tracks, the reverb and delay outputs and the three synth slots. The interface is locked to 16-bit/44.1kHz. As I noted in my review of the Tracker Mini, the single stereo output is unused. I had hoped it would be used to allow sampling from the computer, but this hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps there is a technical reason why it can’t be done, but it seems like a missed opportunity.

Conclusion In all other aspects, the Polyend Tracker+ is identical to its predecessor. It has the same robust software,

Polyend Tracker+ $799 pros • An even better Tracker. • Improved build quality. • Stereo sampling. • The new synths are fantastic. • 16 tracks...

cons • ... but still only eight sample tracks. • Still no use for that USB audio input.

summary Polyend continue to improve the Tracker system with updated hardware, and some welcome software improvements like stereo sampling, 16 tracks, USB audio interfacing and five new synthesizer engines.

the built-in FM radio for random sampling, the performance page for live remixing your song, the offline sample editor, stem export... and even the bonkers Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator. It remains a highly enjoyable way to make electronic music. Over the last three years, Polyend’s incremental improvements to the Tracker concept have culminated in a mature product that feels well built and fun to use. For me, the synthesizers are the best new improvements. They sound great, and there’s enough variety to find the sound you’re looking for. It’s a shame that you only get three synthesizer slots. The Tracker’s main competitor — the Dirtywave M8 — allows all 128 instrument slots to load a different synthesizer if you want to. But Polyend’s approach does have advantages. Any of the synths can have up to six‑voice polyphony, which only one of the M8’s four synthesizers can do. Ultimately, tracking is, and always was, about limitations. Some are good, and some are not. Polyend are slowly weeding out the bad limitations (like mono samples) and adding more cool stuff. It’s good to see the platform evolving. $ $799 W www.polyend.com

Round the back we find 3.5mm sockets for audio out, line in, mic in and MIDI I/O, a micro‑SD card slot and a USB‑C port.

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Toms To Go! Recording Toms When You’re In A Hurry If time is tight for a full-band session, you won’t be able to perfect all aspects of a drum recording. But if you prioritise, you can still ensure you get decent results every time. NEIL ROGERS

n an ideal world you’d have the time and budget available to approach a band recording session just as you’d like. We should always aspire to make great recordings, and I really don’t want to ‘dumb down’ the art of recording drums... But this article isn’t about sessions where you have time to audition different drum heads or tune the toms to the key of the song. It’s about the practical reality of recording bands with acoustic drum kits in less-than-ideal circumstances. I was inspired to write it after a recent discussion with a year-three music tech student about how best to approach record a typical indie/rock style band playing live in the studio. The

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catch was that their college only offered 2-3 hour studio slots to their students. That’s a pretty big ask for any full band recording involving a drum kit! But with experience, you’ll learn how to prioritise and pace the setting up of a session, what fall-back options you can deploy to save time, and when and where you should be spending time fighting battles. Below, I’ll focus on how you can get a tom sound to a good or, at worst, usable place in the space of just a few minutes, freeing up precious time to do everything else you need to do on the session. Often, when trying to get a band set up quickly to record, I’ll follow the steps that I’ve described below. I’ll then be presented with a natural break of 15 minutes or so in which I can fine-tune the

toms further, with the bonus of actually having heard them in the proper context!

The Kit Comes First As I explained to this student, it’s hugely important to understand that, after the quality of the drummer and their performance, the sound of the kit will almost certainly have the biggest influence over the sound that comes from your speakers. More so than the mics, and more so than the rest of the recording chain or your mix processing. It should be obvious, then, that when recording live drums engineers should spend enough time right at the start of a session making sure that the drum kit is fully optimised. That’s before you focus on mic choice or techniques, never mind sweating about which preamp to use for the hi-hat spot mic! While it might not be quite so tight on a typical commercial studio session, time is nonetheless often a rare luxury, and more often than not I find myself tasked with getting a drum kit prepped and miked up as quickly as possible. I try to run my studio in a way that

Even in a hurried session, there should be ample time for a drummer to get their toms sounding good before you record — but you might need to encourage some drummers to spend sufficient time and attention to that. It can help to have plenty of spare tuning keys to hand and, if you know what you’re doing, tools like a DrumDial, which can often help you locate a problem quickly.

facilitates that. For example, I always have a good-sounding drum kit set up in my studio, with decent heads and in decent shape tuning-wise. Sometimes that pays dividends, and if you have the chance to keep a kit in good session-ready condition, or at least to get in early and set up in advance of a session, I’d encourage that. But, understandably, drummers will often prefer to use their own drums, and even if they’re happy using the house kit they may have very different ideas about tuning and the tone, particularly with their toms. In that scenario, there’s only so much you can do in advance, so you’ll still need to spend a good chunk of the available time assessing and treating the sound

of the drums. To keep on top of things, you’re going to need a plan, and a good starting point is to ask yourself what signals you absolutely must capture to ensure you can get a good result. On a short session like this, for example, before I could start to get the rest of the band up and running with headphone mixes, I’d definitely want to know that I had something good coming through my kick, snare, and overhead mics. Get those choices and techniques right, and you should have a decent image of the kit, as well as a cue mix that allows all the artists to feel and respond to the groove. Only then will you really know how much time you have to get a result from the rest of the kit mics, including

the toms, as well as from the other instruments. When it comes to the toms — which you’ll recall I said drummers can be very particular about — you’ll probably not have much time to experiment, but this doesn’t mean you have to put up with them sounding like cardboard boxes. The trick is to have a few good, reliable techniques that you can reach for quickly, that you can rely on to assess and, to some extent, manipulate these often mysterious parts of a standard acoustic drum kit when time is tight and you really need to get some recordings down.

Drummers Have Feelings Too Here’s my most important piece of advice: talk to the drummer. Drummers are

THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL RF

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Go With The Grain Understanding Granular Delay

Clockwise from bottom left: Unfiltered Audio Silo, Output Portal and Arturia Efx Fragments.

Granular effects can be hugely powerful, but the chances of finding a preset that does exactly what you want are slim. So why not learn how to tame and tweak them? PAUL WHITE

here are numerous granular effect pedals and plug-ins, but what exactly is granular delay? What can you expect from it, and how can you get it under control in your compositions and mixes? In this article, I’ll answer those questions, but since the scope of the sounds you can create with this type of effect is so broad, I’ve also created some audio examples to demonstrate the possibilities. You can find them on the SOS website at: https://sosm.ag/GranularEffects. At its core, a granular delay stores audio into a temporary buffer, just as a conventional delay does, but then it breaks down the input signal into short sections that we call ‘grains’. These grains can be anything from a few milliseconds to several hundred milliseconds in length, but the real trick is that the individual grains can be processed in different ways before being sent to the output. Depending on the grain length and the types of processing applied to the individual grains (the most common

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are pitch‑shifting, reversal, time‑stretching and/or re-ordering, sometimes with a random element applied), the effect produced can be anything from glitchy chaos to rich, evolving soundscapes.

Key Parameters A typical granular delay will, of course, include the sort of controls you’d commonly find on a regular delay pedal or plug-in (specifically delay time and wet/dry mix, along with a feedback control to recirculate the repeats) but you’ll also find a Grain Size control that determines the length of each grain. Smaller grains can be stretched and overlapped to produce smooth, textural effects, or they can be used to create glitchy effects. Longer grains can also be stretched and overlapped to produce flowing soundscapes, but they can also be used more overtly to produce rhythmic effects. A Grain Density control will adjust the number of grains that are generated per second: the higher the density, the more likely it is that result will sound smooth and flowing, whereas low grain densities

can create a variety of effects, from stutter repeats and glitches to crystalline jangles and sparkles if combined with pitch‑shifting. There will usually be a pitch-shift control too, which adjusts the pitch of individual grains. The most musically pleasing intervals will be octaves, fourths and fifths, but modest pitch detuning can also be useful. If applied using a randomiser, individual grains will appear at different pitches, which is an effect that can make for interesting ear candy if not pushed too high in the mix. Such effects often benefit from a separate reverb being added after the granular processing — some granular plug-ins have this feature built in, but it’s easy enough to place a reverb plug-in or pedal directly after the granular delay. Time-stretching is a similar process to pitch‑shifting, except that now the grains will play back at their original pitch while their length is adjusted by stretching or compressing them in time. Time-stretching is a good means of fine-tuning the grains’ overlaps, so that they produce a more continuous sound, but if you need to achieve something more glitchy, you can use it to shorten the grains. Feedback usually works in the expected way: you set how much of the delayed signal is fed back into the input of the delay

Pro Tools

TECHNIQUE

Access to other apps in Pro Tools is a game changer.

JULIAN RODGERS

hen Avid release a new version of Pro Tools, they are always careful to make sure it continues to be able to do the things it has done in the past, and not to disrupt existing users and workflows. For example, the 2024.10 release added a huge amount of extra functionality to the Import Session Data window, to allow selections of tracks to be matched with tracks in the open session. But rather than change the window’s existing behaviour and disrupt users’ muscle memory, they chose to introduce a new mode to facilitate this new feature. This kind of retrospective compatibility has long been a strength of Pro Tools: I just opened a Pro Tools session created in Pro Tools 6 on a PC in 2003, on an Apple Silicon Mac running a current version of Pro Tools, without incident! Occasionally though, features do disappear. A good example is the ability to drag and drop clips from the timeline to virtual samplers. This was possible back in the days of Pro Tools 8: editing samples on the timeline and dropping them into AIR’s Structure sampler was a fantastic workflow. This was broken with a subsequent update, but after a long wait it was finally reintroduced in Pro Tools 2024.10, which I was very pleased to see. In this article we’ll explore some things which you can now do directly within Pro Tools, which you couldn’t until very recently.

Now that Avid have integrated the Dolby Atmos Renderer into Playback Engine, you no longer have to leave Pro Tools to mix in Atmos.

using Pro Tools to mix Atmos right from the beginning, it used to be necessary to route multiple audio channels out to another computer running the Atmos Renderer. When Avid introduced the Dolby Atmos Bridge to the Playback Engine, it became possible route audio out of Pro Tools and into the Renderer application running on the same computer, but this still required a lot of setting up. It’s only for the last year that Pro Tools has had an Atmos renderer integrated into Pro Tools itself (other DAWs have had this feature rather longer). This makes it significantly easier to mix Atmos in Pro Tools.

Vocal Tuning Vocal tuning was probably the most frequent reason in music production for round-tripping audio out to an external application and back into Pro

Tools. Well, Pro Tools now finally has ARA2, and there’s a slew of software titles that have received the ARA integration treatment. Some of these are ready to go if you own the software, while some have ‘lite’ versions which you may have access to as part of your Pro Tools subscription plan. Although there has been a bundled version of Melodyne offered with Pro Tools for some time, round‑tripping audio out to another application is a complete flow-killer. ARA fixes this, and alongside Melodyne, you can now use Synchro Arts’ RePitch within Pro Tools via ARA2. As many Pro Tools users (including me) discovered, there simply is no comparison between tuning in ARA and round-tripping.

Stem Separation Only a few years ago, the idea of un-mixing audio or ‘stem separation’ was little more than an audio dream, but it’s now a standard feature in many DAWs. While Logic Pro and Studio One have integrated these features into the DAW itself, Pro Tools offers a bundled ‘lite’ version of Steinberg’s SpectraLayers. The applications for such technology include DJs playing live, removing spill from live recordings, and making it easier for musicians to analyse performances when trying to learn. These legitimate uses of the technology sometimes get mired in questions around legality and audio quality, but surely everyone who has tried this technology would rather have it than be without it, even if the results can be frustrating. SpectraLayers Go, the version bundled with Pro Tools, is limited to separating vocals from the rest of a track, but the results are best in class, and while the a cappellas it can create don’t yet sound great in isolation, it is

Dolby Atmos Pro Tools has been central to the development of Atmos mixing, but while big post‑production mixers have been

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Alongside Melodyne, you can now use Synchro Arts’ RePitch directly within Pro Tools, using ARA2.

Logic

TECHNIQUE

Track Stacks are your shortcut to quick and easy stem bouncing. SAM BOYDELL

et’s start with the basics. You’ve created a piece of music and you want to convert that into an audio file that’s playable outside of your DAW. Logic Pro calls this ‘bouncing’ a mix — a term taken from the days of tape, when it was common to send audio from a group of tape tracks to another tape track in order to free up the others, ping-ponging audio around the tape machine before finalising to a stereo master. It describes what is essentially the same process today: taking multiple tracks and squeezing them into a single stereo file. The other option is to ‘export’ audio. Many DAWs (and certainly Logic Pro) tend to see this in terms of exporting a single track or clip from a session. In fact, we can easily use the export process as a faster and better way to get full mixes and stems out of our project — with a little bit of setting up.

Bouncing Back If you go to File / Bounce / Project or Section, the default settings here will bounce everything that currently plays and is active in that session within the boundary you’ve created on your timeline — that’s the yellow (or grey, if inactive) bar that runs along your timeline (Screen 1). For those starting out, PCM stands for Pulse Code Modulation. The file types

The Bounce option is fine if you want to export a stereo mix of your entire project, but choosing the Export option can be much more flexible.

categorised as PCM are the ones that involve no lossy data compression, the WAV file format being the most common. The other options are data-compressed, producing smaller files of lesser quality. Now, for some of you this will be all you ever really need, but if you work in a professional environment, your sessions may have to be exported multiple ways, for example as stems. Stems are groups of tracks that are exported together, which combine to recreate your stereo mix. This allows for increased flexibility for other people working with your audio (a video editor, for example, might want to rebalance your vocals in a dubbing session). Commonly, you might export separate stems for drums, vocals, music, and so on. This can take a lot of time if

you do it individually. In days gone by, I had to solo all the drum tracks, then perform a bounce, and then repeat the process for the next stem. On big sessions, this took up hours of my day. Thankfully, since the introduction of Track Stacks, we can set up sessions to export everything we need with just one click. This is also incredibly useful when you have plug‑ins on your master bus that you don’t want to be active during a particular bounce. For example, I use Sonarworks SoundID for monitoring, but I don’t want its room-correction EQ processing my final mix, and I used to have to bypass it each time I bounced (which, painfully, I often forgot to do). If we set up a template that allows us to flexibly export audio at any stage of the

Nested Stack Tracks: the ‘±INDOOR INTERVIEWS’ Summing Track Stack includes subsidiary Track Stacks for each interviewee, and feeds another Mix Bus Track Stack. Because Summing Track Stacks include audio bussing, each one can easily be exported individually, and you can export multiple Track Stacks at once.

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mix, then we can use the Track Export function instead and do all our exporting in one go without changing anything within the project.

Summing In The Way The first step is creating a template that uses Track Stacks. In my example, I’m mixing a documentary, but the same applies to any use case. Within my session, I’ve used Track Stack folders to group together audio tracks. To do this yourself, highlight all the tracks you want to group and right‑click a track. Go to Create Track Stack and choose to create a Summing Stack. Summing Stacks are essentially busses that are organised into folders. In contrast, a simple Folder operates as a VCA (volume control only) that doesn’t actually mix audio, and so does not have additional routing options like applying processing to all the tracks in the group. They therefore cannot be exported in the same way Summing Stacks can. Screen 2 shows some of the routing in my documentary project. I have a Track Stack named ‘±INDOOR INTERVIEWS’, within which are further Track Stacks — one for each interviewee. Each track stack feeds its own bus, allowing for total control over each element. You can get as creative as you like, but it’s best

to keep it simple so that your session is most functional for your needs and relative to what you are exporting. In my session, I’ve also set up an auxiliary track called ‘Mix Bus’. Everything in the session eventually ends up there, and from there is routed to Logic’s default Stereo Out.

“Since the introduction of Track Stacks, we can set up sessions to export everything we need with just one click.” Now, I can place Sonarworks on the Stereo Out for monitoring, but when I export ‘Mix Bus’, it won’t process the final master because the export is taking place beforehand.

Feel The Flow This routing does have the potential to trip you up, in that you have to remember that anything after the Track Stack you’re exporting won’t be included — including any bus processing on the Stereo Out, and possibly send effects too, depending on where they return. This is why it’s best to set up Track Stacks for all effects that relate to each

group. For instance, I have a Stack for all sound design, as well as a separate one dedicated to sound design send/return effects (only), knowing that if my client wants to, they can turn down the reverb on the sound design, say. When I compose musical scores, I have a Track Stack dedicated to orchestral elements, another for effects, one for vocals only, and so on. Creating templates with these already in place will dramatically improve your workflow later on in the project.

Final Steps So, we’ve got our session laid out, all we need to do now is export. Select all the Track Stacks you want to export and go to File / Export / # Tracks as Audio Files. Choose your options and click Export. Voila! We’ve created a scenario where we can export all tracks, all stems and a final stereo mix in one fell swoop. No more sitting at the computer waiting to bounce again! You could even go one step further and create multiple mix busses that have different limiters on them, set to produce the loudness values required by different streaming services. People often ask me how I produce work on such tight deadlines — this is how!

Sonarworks SoundID is inserted on the Stereo Out bus, but because everything in the mix goes to a Full Mix bus, I can export that without having to remember to deactivate Sonarworks. Everything I’ve highlighted here can be exported in one go (the ‘Dead VCA’ track allows me to mute any alternate mix busses I’ve set up).

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Studio One

TECHNIQUE

The Launcher, with the Playlist shown to the right.

size, although the number of bars We put Studio One’s new clip launcher through its paces. same within a scene can vary from scene to scene ROBIN VINCENT

ith the release of Studio One 7, PreSonus introduced an entire clip-launching engine. It has more of a Logic Pro vibe than an Ableton Live vibe, and brings an enormous amount of versatility to your timeline. It’s early days, and the functions are relatively simple, so I thought before it gets too complex, we should break it apart and have a look at what makes it tick. Let’s start by getting an overview of what it can and can’t do using the ‘DJ Jazzy Jeff — Get Some Air’ demo song that is freely available to download and mess about with in Studio One. When you open up the project, you are faced with the tracks and clips spread around the existing timeline that we all recognise. The Arranger track is active and populated with intro, verse, chorus and so

on. It’s all ready to go and sounds fantastic. A version of the song is also available in the new Launcher. To open the Launcher, click on the Launcher button in the toolbar; it looks like a 3x3 drum pad. It’s also bound to the B key on your keyboard, and you can find it under the View menu.

Basic Overview The Launcher appears in a very similar way to a Scratch Pad, and overlays itself across half the timeline. What you’re looking at is a grid-based representation of the same project. Each column is called a Scene, and you’ll notice that the Scenes are taken directly from the Arranger track. You can replicate a project in the Launcher by dragging your verse/chorus Arranger sections directly onto it. This action brings all the clips with it ready to play. Another thing to notice is that all the scenes in the Launcher are visually the

and clip to clip. It’s just that the Launcher is not following the timeline. The Launcher and the timeline are sort of connected, but not always, while absolutely being so... In that you can use them independently or in combination, but the timeline ultimately has control (most of the time). This will make more sense in a minute, but let’s look at the interaction between the two. When you first turn the Launcher on, the arrangement still has the focus, and if you hit Play on the transport, it’s the arrangement that plays. To flip it over to the Launcher you need to engage the Toggle Cell Playback Active button, which is the little grey sideways arrowhead just to the left of the Intro scene header at the top of the Launcher. When you click it, the focus is thrown across to the Launcher, but nothing actually plays back because we haven’t yet launched a Scene. Click the toggle again,

When you first open the Launcher, the arrangement will still be in focus, and it’ll be the arrangement you hear when you hit Play. To activate the Launcher, hit the Toggle Cell Playback Active button.

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You can mix and match Launcher and arrangement playback on a per-track basis. Here, the kick and snare are playing according to their content on the timeline, while the other tracks are being triggered by the Launcher.

and the arrangement will resume playback. However, it doesn’t resume from where it was; rather, it resumes from where it’s got to, because the timeline continues to play regardless of what’s in focus. So, in the Launcher, click on the Play button in the Chorus scene header, and the Chorus will play and loop around.

Back in the arrangement, the Timeline is still moving. If you click the toggle button now the arrangement will resume playback from wherever it currently is. It’s an interesting way of auditioning part of a song during playback. Now, so far, we’ve flipped from Launcher to Arranger and back again, but each track

The SERIES SlatFusor

has its own toggle, which is where things get really interesting. In the Arranger, set up a loop around the verse section, enable Looped Playback, and set it playing. Over in the Launcher, set the chorus playing, and it will steal the entire focus so that the arrangement is greyed out, but the song pointer is still travelling. You should be able to see the track toggle arrows to the left of the cells in the Launcher. Assuming

Modern Elegance Superior Acous�c Panels & Bass Traps

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SPOTLIGHT

Sontronics Drumpack

Drum Mic Sets

A dedicated set of drum mics can be a useful addition to anyone’s live or recording setup. LUKE WOOD

apturing a good drum sound can be a challenge, and with the high SPLs and potentially awkward mic positions involved, a set of dedicated mics can make a lot of sense. So, in this month’s Spotlight, we round up a variety of all-in-one mic bundles designed to capture a whole drum kit in all its glory. A bonus to investing in such a set is that in addition to their obvious use, the models included often come in handy for other sources, too — kick mics tend to work well on bass amps, for example, and a good pair of small-diapragm capacitors can do far more than simply sitting above a drum kit!

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AKG Drum Sets The AKG line-up includes three Drum Set packages: Session, Concert and Premium. Session combines a P2 kick mic with four P4s designed for snare and tom duties, while overheads are taken care of by a pair of P17s. Concert then relies on a D112 MkII and four D40s for kick, snare and toms respectively, and includes a pair of C430s for overheads. The flagship Premium set includes a D12 VR kick-drum mic along with four D40s, but adds a C451 B that can be used as a dedicated hi-hat mic, plus a matched stereo pair of C214 overheads. All three kits come supplied in a hard carry case with an assortment of mounting hardware. $ $485 to $2399. W www.akg.com AKG Drum Set

Audix DP7

Audix

Audix cater to a wide range of applications and budgets, with no fewer than 10 dedicated drum sets on offer! The cost-effective FP5 is a five-piece kit that comprises a selection of the company’s Fusion series mics designed for kick, snare and toms (f6, f5 and f2), while the FP7 adds a pair of f9 overheads. The DP4 then combines a D6 kick mic with

a trio of i5s intended for snare and toms, while the DPQUAD includes a D6, an i5 and a pair of ADX51 overheads, and the DP5A bundles together a D6, i5, D4 and two D2s. Opting for the larger DP7 will gain you a pair of SCX1C overheads, and the DP8 also includes an SCX1HC for hi-hats, while the flagship DP Elite 8 kit includes a pair of SCX25-As for overheads. If that’s still not enough choice, there are MICRO variants of the DP5 and DP7 that feature the company’s MicroD capacitor mics. All of the kits are supplied in a hard case with the appropriate clips and mounts. $ $319 to $2649. W www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ audix-dp7

W https://audixusa.com

Behringer BC1500

Behringer BC1200 / BC1500

There are two all-in-one sets in the Behringer line-up: the BC1200 and BC1500. The former includes a KM1200 kick mic along with four TM1200s that can be used to mic up snares and toms, and a pair of CM1200 small-diaphragm capacitors designed for overhead use. The latter places a C112 on kick duties and includes four TM1500s for snare and toms, while overheads are taken care of by a pair of CM1500s that provide a little more flexibility than their lower-cost counterparts thanks to onboard high‑pass filter and -10dB pad switches. Both sets are supplied in a hard case, and come complete with a set of clips. $ BC1200 $129, BC1500 $189. W www.behringer.com

CAD Audio Stage7

CAD Audio Stage

CAD Audio’s Stage4 is a four-piece kit that includes their D10 and D19 kick and snare mics, along with a pair of D29s that have been designed for use on toms. The D10 and D19 both feature an integrated clip that allows them to be mounted directly onto a stand, while the D29s sport a built-in rim-mount clip. Opting for the Stage7 will gain you a third D29 and a pair of C9 small-diaphragm capacitors that can be used as overheads. Both kits come packaged in a padded carry case. $ Stage4 $179, Stage7 $199. W www.cadaudio.com

DPA DDK4000

beyerdynamic TG Drum Set Pro

Avantone CDMK-8

Avantone CDMK

Avantone’s CDMK (Complete Drum Microphone Kit) series comprises five sets that bring together second-generation versions of the company’s dedicated drum mics. All five employ the Mondo and ADM for kick and snare duties, combining them with a range of different choices for the rest of the kit. The CDMK-4 and CDMK-5 add two and three ATOM tom mics respectively, while the CDMK-6 includes a pair of ATOMs and two CK-1 cardioid capacitor mics intended for overheads. The CDMK-7 retains the overheads but adds a third ATOM, and finally, the flagship CDMK-8 benefits from a hypercardioid version of the CK-1 that can be used as a hi-hat mic. All five kits are housed in a vintage-style tweed case that also comes loaded with all of the necessary clips and shockmounts. $ $499 to $899. W https://avantonepro.com

Available in Medium and Large variants, beyerdynamic’s TG Drum Set Pro kits bring together a selection of mics optimised for use on drums. Despite their names, both are seven‑piece kits that include a TG D71 boundary microphone and a pair of TG I53s that can be used for kick drums and overheads respectively. As for snare and toms, the Medium set relies on a set of four TG D35s, whereas the Large kit beyerdynamic TG Drum Set Pro L includes two TG D57s and a pair of TG D58s. Both sets are supplied in a padded carry case and come complete with mounting clips. $ Medium $699.99, Large $999.99. W https://north-america.beyerdynamic.com

DPA DDK4000

Supplied in a durable Pelican hard case, the DDK4000 brings together a selection of DPA’s renowned high-end instrument mics and promises to capture a natural and precise drum sound. A 4055 kick drum microphone is joined by a 2012 cardioid microphone and a trio of 4099 Core instrument microphones — models that boast high SPL handling figures and are recommended for use on snares and toms — while overhead duties are taken care of by a pair of 2015 wide cardioid microphones. The kit includes a full complement of accessories, including three drum microphone clips, a set of MicroDot to XLR cables, and adaptors for the 4099s. $ $5150. W www.dpamicrophones.com www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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SPOTLIGHT

DRUM MIC SETS

Earthworks DK7 Gen 2

Earthworks DK Series

Earthworks are renowned for their accurate, neutral-sounding mics, and their range currently includes two sets designed specifically for drums. First up is the DK6, a six-piece kit that includes the company’s DM6 kick drum mic, three DM17s designed for use on snare and toms, and a pair of SR20 Gen 2 overheads. The set is supplied in a premium hard case along with mounting hardware. The company’s flagship offering is the DK7 Gen 2, which takes a no-compromise approach to drum miking, combining the DM6 with four of Earthworks’ miniature DM20 Gen 2 mics and a pair of SR25 Gen 2s. The latest iteration of the kit benefits from optimised internal electronics, a newly designed rimmounting system for the DM20 Gen 2s, and a smaller, more durable carry case. $ DK6 $1499, DK7 Gen 2 $2999. W https://earthworksaudio.com

Lewitt BeatKit / BeatKit Pro Lewitt’s BeatKit range offers four- and seven-piece sets designed specifically for capturing drums live and in the studio. The entry‑level BeatKit places the innovative dual-capsule DTP 640 REX on kick duty alongside an MTP

440 DM snare mic, while a pair of LCT 040 Match small-diaphragm capacitors tackle the overheads. Stepping up to the BeatKit Pro supplements the kick and snare mics with a trio of DTP 240 TTs designed specifically for toms, swaps out the LCT 040 Match for a pair of LCT 140 AIRs — which come equipped with pads, high-pass filters and two switchable voicing options — and packages the mics and their assorted hardware into a sturdy carry case. $ BeatKit $449, BeatKit Pro $999. W www.lewitt-audio.com

sE Electronics V Pack Arena

PreSonus DM-7

PreSonus say that their DM-7 kit provides everything you need to capture an authentic drum sound, as well as being versatile enough for use on guitar amps, percussion, pianos and more. It includes a BD-1, which boasts a frequency response tailored for kick drums, along with a set of four ST-4s that have been designed with snare and toms in mind, plus a matched pair of OH-2 small-diaphragm capacitor mics aimed at overhead use. The kit comes complete with clips and windscreens for the OH-2s and a set of rim mounts for the ST-4s, with everything tucked neatly into a hard carry case. $ $299.99. W www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ presonus-dm-7

W https://presonus.com

looking to supplement their existing mics — loses the overheads entirely. All three sets are supplied in the same hard carry case with the appropriate mounting hardware. $ $749 to $1149. W www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ se-electronics-v-pack-arena

W https://seelectronics.com

Sennheiser e 600

Designed to provide everything you need to capture a powerful drum sound, Sennheiser’s e 600 kit houses a selection of the company’s Evolutionseries instrument mics in a heavy-duty case. There’s an e 602-II — a large dynamic mic designed specifically kick drums — along with a set of four e 604 clip-on mics designed to handle snares and toms, and a pair of e 614 supercardioid capacitors that can be used as overheads. $ $1049. W www.sennheiser.com

sE Electronics V Pack

Lewitt BeatKit Pro

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sE Electronics’ V Pack line-up includes three drum sets that cater to a range of different requirements. The flagship model, the V Pack Arena, combines the company’s popular V Kick mic with a set of three V Beats that can be fixed to toms using the included V Clamps, a V7 X snare mic and a pair of sE8 small‑diaphragm capacitors for overheads. The V Pack Club Standard scales things back slightly with two V Beats/V Clamps and a pair of sE7 overheads, while the V Pack Venue Standard — which is aimed at those

Sennheiser e 600

Shure DMK57-52

Shure PGA / DMK

Available in four-, six- and sevenpiece variants, Shure’s PGA range offers a selection of drum-miking solutions that each feature a selection of their cost‑effective mic models. The PGADrumKit4 includes a PGA52 for kick, a PGA57 for snare and a pair of PGA56s for toms, while the PGAStudioKit4 swaps out the PGA56s for a pair of PGA181 side‑address capacitors. The PGADrumKit6 and 7 then retain the same kick and snare mics, but include either two or three PGA56s and a pair of PGA81 capacitor mics for overheads. There’s also the DMK57-52, which includes Shure’s flagship Beta 52A kick mic and a trio of the ever-popular SM57s. All the company’s kits are supplied in a padded carry case with all the necessary mounting hardware, and the PGA sets all include a set of XLR cables. $ $329 to $549. W www.shure.com

Sontronics Drumpack / Drumpack Plus

The Sontronics range includes two bundles dedicated to drums: the Drumpack and Drumpack Plus. The former is a five-piece set that includes the DM-1B kick mic, a DM-1S snare mic, and a set of three DM1Ts complete with mounting clips for toms. The latter then introduces a pair of the company’s popular STC-10 small‑diaphragm capacitors that can be used as overheads. Both sets are supplied in a rugged ABS flightcase, and offer a significant saving compared to purchasing the included mics individually. $ Drumpack $674.73,

Drumpack Plus $857.08.

W https://sontronics.com/

Sontronics Drumpack Plus

the t-bone

the t-bone DC 4000

There are five possible choices in Thomann’s the t-bone range. First up is the DC 1000, which includes a BD 200 kick mic and a set of four clip-on CD 55s designed for snare and toms. The DC 1200 then features a DM1 for kick, four DM2s for snare and toms and a pair of DM3 overheads, all housed in a carry case complete with mounts. Next, the DC 1500 places a BD 300 on kick duty, while four CD65s handle snare and toms, and a pair of EM500s tackle the overheads. The DC 4000 includes a BD 25 Beta and four CD 65 Betas (for kick and snares/ toms respectively), as well as a pair of EM 81 overheads. Finally, the DC 4000 Set combines the previous offering with a set of four beyerdynamic MKV 87 snare and tom mounts. $ $94.77 to $544.60. W www.thomannmusic.com

Telefunken Drum Package DD5

Telefunken Drum Package

Telefunken currently offer four sets of mics designed to capture a drum kit, all of which feature their highquality M82 and M80-SH kick and snare mics. The four-piece DD4 and five-piece DD5 include two and three M81-SH tom mics respectively, while the DC6 and DC7 are six- and seven‑piece sets that, once again, each come equipped either two or three M81-SHs, but also add a pair of M60 FETs that can be put to work as overheads. All four kits are supplied in a hard-shell case complete with a full complement of mounting hardware and a set of XLR cables. $ $1199 to $2495. W www.telefunken-elektroakustik.com www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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INSIDE TRACK

Zach Crowell Although he grew up aspiring to be a hip-hop producer, Zach Crowell has made it big by leaning into his Nashville roots. PAUL TINGEN

“

My career took off when I began combining urban music, which I loved and had been doing for a long time, with country, the music I grew up around in Nashville,” recalls Zach Crowell. “As soon as I started being honest and making the music that was naturally in me, my career officially started. It also felt very natural because this was right at the time when country music started going that way, with the group FGL, Florida Georgia Line, making country with hints of urban music, and R&B and rap rhythms in their flows and melodies.” FGL broke through in 2012, as one of several acts that reshaped country with crossover hits. Two years later, Crowell enjoyed his first major success, and went on to become one of the leading country producers in Nashville. To date he’s enjoyed more than 30 number one hit singles, and most recently a number one album with Jelly Roll. Crowell’s remarkable achievements are built on a unique set of skills and musical sensibilities that he developed as a teenager and while working as a hip-hop producer.

Coming Up “I grew up in Franklin, south of Nashville, which is where I live today. My family wasn’t in the music business, but I knew people who were, and I was aware that making a living from songwriting was an option. My dad is an amateur musician, who still plays guitar, bass and sings in the band he started at middle school with his buddies. He did not teach me to play, but we were constantly in record stores buying whatever new music had come out. Loving music seeped in my bones more than playing it. “At high school I was the DJ with a big stack of CDs. In the ’90s I was in love with hip-hop and R&B. It was when Tupac and Babyface were huge, and Southern

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Zach Crowell works mainly from his own home studio in Franklin, near Nashville.

rap took off, with No Limit Records and Cash Money Records. When I graduated from high school, I wanted to make music, and bought an Akai MPC2000, had Cubase, and started making rap beats. I had no idea what I was doing. I gradually bought more pieces of gear, and collaborated with people in Nashville. We had a small record label and put out independent music. That got me into writing R&B as well. I wanted to be Mannie Fresh, who produced a lot of the Cash Money Records stuff! By that time I was selling beats to rappers around town for $50 or $100, and in 2008 I sold some beats to Jelly Roll. “My cousin is a successful country songwriter named Josh Hoge. I was his tour manager when he was a pop artist around 2007-8, which led to me also writing pop music. He was collaborating with Ashley Gorley, one of the most

successful country songwriters of all time. I eventually started writing with Ashley as well, and he signed me to Combustion Music in Nashville. I was supposed to make urban pop, but there wasn’t much of an outlet for this in Nashville at the time, so someone at Combustion suggested I try and write some country songs, and put me in rooms with other writers. “I had been producing for 15 years in the underground rap music world, and was able to quickly make professional-sounding demos in a normal room. I could make a song in 30 minutes or an hour that was fresh and innovative, and this led to me getting into rooms with more heavy hitters really quickly because I had skills that not many people had in the Nashville community. I would make beats on a drum machine and play guitar loops and edit

them in a computer and make it sound all weird, which stood out in Nashville. When I showed up in the country world, what I was doing was new.”

Urban Music Crowell’s first big placement was still in urban music, when he co-wrote and co-produced the song ‘Confe$$ions’ by Christian rapper Lecrae in 2012. The next year he was a writer and producer on the song ‘Strong’ by country singer Will Hoge, which was followed by what Crowell now describes as his big breakthrough. “The song that changed my life wasn’t a number one song. It was a Keith Urban song called ‘Cop Car’ that died somewhere on the charts. I wrote that with a new artist at the time, Sam Hunt, and a buddy of ours named Matt Jenkins. It was a very different song that really stood out. The whole of Nashville was www.soundonsound.com / January 2025

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FE ATURE

Hear The Sound W https://open.spotify.com/

track/7982sGZuvo5OXsY6REzgIn

W www.youtube.com/

watch?v=AOPMlIIg_38

Robert Orton • Charli XCX ‘Boom Clap’ J O E M AT E R A

nglish producer and four-time Grammy Award‑winning mixer Robert Orton, aka The Hitmixer, has worked with million-selling artists including Lady Gaga, Enrique Iglesias, Backstreet Boys, Sting, Lana Del Rey and Robin Thicke. Asked to pick a sonic highlight from his hugely successful catalogue, he chooses the bass in Charli XCX’s ‘Boom Clap’. “One of the most important elements of ‘Boom Clap’ is the sub-bass sound that comes in on the chorus, and the trick was getting everything to fit around it, because it’s huge. It’s absent in the verses, but lands on one of the choruses with the word ‘boom’ when it first comes in. “The verses have got this much smaller-sounding bass part, but when you hit the chorus, this all-consuming bass sound takes over. I had to figure out how to make that sound as big as possible without taking over everything, to allow for all the other things that are obviously really important for the chorus to work. “The song has this sort of odd, stilted rhythm made up of all these different elements that come together to form the

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groove — there’s an acoustic guitar which is more rhythmic than melodic, the snare, and then this slightly weird hi-hat. These sounds all bounce off each other to form something that’s really quite hypnotic and interesting to listen to. “So, you get this big boom from the sub, which has to dissipate to make space for these other elements that come in, and compression was the key to achieving that. The bass is keyed off these sounds to ensure they have space over the top. It’s actually quite a complicated processing chain going on, and is really quite different to what I would normally do. Mixing is all about balance, but in this particular case, it needed this type of finesse to get the rhythm to work properly.”

Bass Management “The bass sound itself has very little processing on it because it was such a cool sound. It was all about getting everything else to work with it. When you’ve got a great sound to begin with, you don’t really need to do much to it. The kick in the verse and the kick in the chorus are the same sound, but they’re treated differently. When that big sub comes in the chorus, I used a transient designer to add attack

to the kick so that it pokes through at the beginning of the bass sound, but then gets out of the way. And because that makes the kick sound a bit smaller, there’s also some saturation that comes in on the kick there as well. That also changes the shape of the kick so that it fits better with the sub sound. The saturation was from the stock [Avid] Lo-Fi plug-in, but it’s added in parallel so it kind of blends and locks it all together with that sub-bass. “Interestingly, when this song first came to me, the sub-bass element was there but wasn’t as prominent, and for me it was a standout element. The song’s called ‘Boom Clap’, so it’s got to have this huge boom that comes in on the choruses and that has to come from that bass. When I started mixing, I pushed that part right up in the balance and then finessed other parts around it.”

Word Building “It’s also important to say that the vocals are obviously such an important part of the song as well. Charli XCX sang an amazing vocal and her voice is front and centre. The way the vocals are treated also accentuates the boom and, as that sub-bass comes in, there’s a separate stack on the words ‘boom clap’. Those are treated differently and it’s an important element of the mix that that phrase is much drier than the rest of the chorus. All these things come together so that, effectively, there’s all this emphasis on those words. By taking the reverb and the delay off them, it not only makes them more in your face but also creates more space for the boom of the sub-bass.”

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Genelec’s new UNIO PRM (Personal Reference Monitoring) solution ensures reliable and consistent monitoring across multiple environments. In conversation with Sam Inglis, Aki Mäkivirta and Andy Bensley explain all.

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How loud is a concert grand piano?

What is the approximate sound pressure level of a concert grand piano, about 12 inches above the hammers during a triple forte passage — or, in other words, as loud as it could get? I’d like to make sure that if I’m getting any distortion it’s not at the microphone (I have the maximum SPL ratings of all of my mics). I’ve been getting decent results with mics about 18 inches above the hammers, but I’d like to bring them even closer in. I can experiment with this, but is there a general Goldilocks zone, for a worst-case scenario fortississimo passage? SOS Forum post Hugh Robjohns, Technical Editor It’s difficult to be definitive, as every piano and pianist will be different, but there’s some published research into this question so ball-park figures are available. Microphone company DPA state that “the sound pressure level inside a concert grand piano can exceed 130dB SPL peak at less than eight inches (20cm) over the strings...” and I’ve read other papers that claim peak levels of 136dB SPL immediately above the hammers. The initial impact of hammer on string

How should I ‘correct’ an inconsistent snare?

I have a recording of a drummer where the sound is decent, but there are some issues with the performance. In particular, there are quite a few snare hits that are too quiet, where he didn’t quite hit it right. EQ and compression is getting me nowhere, and it seems a shame to just replace the snare entirely, because the sound generally is pretty good. Is there a right way to tackle this? Jim Barnes via email Matt Houghton, Reviews Editor There are plenty of tools you can use to even out the levels, and on drums I often like to use Sound Radix Drum Leveler rather than a compressor as it doesn’t impose a ‘curve’ that changes the sound. But a mis-hit drum isn’t just quieter: if it sounds bad you won’t get a good result however loud it is, and that means you

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is effectively a point source, so the level of that first transient will reduce by around 6dB for each doubling of distance: if it was 136dB SPL at eight inches, it would be close to 142dB at four inches, and 148dB at two inches — in theory! In practice, I doubt many pianos, let alone most pianists, are capable of generating that kind of SPL, and I suspect there would be tuning and other mechanical issues to resolve. I’ve used Sennheiser MKH20s close to the hammers in a grand piano on several occasions and not had distortion problems. Without the pad, these are rated for a maximum SPL of 134dB. I’ve also used AKG C414B-ULS mics (rated at 140dB SPL) without the pad. To be confident, I would suggest using a mic rated for something in excess of 130dB SPL where possible. However, in practice there are probably very few occasions that get anywhere near that level. Also, remember that the maximum SPL rating of a mic is not its clipping level, but rather

the level where the output generates 0.5% Total Harmonic Distortion (some manufacturers use the 1% THD figure because it will be higher!). On transient peaks it’s pretty hard to hear even 3% distortion (which defined the standard maximum operating level for open-reel tape machines), so I suggest you don’t get too bogged down with the numbers. The vast majority of mics will cope perfectly well, even with a gorilla at the keyboard!

do really need to replace the offending hits somehow. One approach would be to use, as you imply, a drum replacement plug-in, and for the replacement sample I’d use a good hit (or load a sampler with multiple good hits) from elsewhere in the recording. But there are a few reasons why that might not be my first choice... First, as you say, you’re replacing the many good hits, not just the problem ones. Second, if the hits are too quiet and there’s lots of bleed, it can sometimes be fiddly setting up the trigger plug-in so that it works consistently well throughout the track. Third, the bad hits will be present in all the other mic recordings, including the overheads and room, and they can be really important to the snare sound. While you could bounce down a stereo mix of the drum mics to create your replacement sample, you still have to devise a way of turning down the other mics without causing collateral damage. Not impossible, but it takes care and time.

So... If you’re going to spend all that time and effort, why not just opt for simple edits and crossfades? Just copy a good, solid hit (or several) from elsewhere in the recording, and paste it in place of the offending hits. Most DAWs have tools to make this sort of thing quick and easy: with a tab to transient function, a paste command and suitable crossfades, manually replacing dodgy hits in a typical rock track won’t take forever, and there needn’t be any phasing or other artefacts, as you listen carefully to the result. What I really like about this approach is that most DAWs make it really easy to cut/ paste all the drum multitracks in one go, so the ‘new’ snare is heard in all the drum mics, just as if it were the real performance. Do listen carefully to each edit: make sure the timing is right, adjust the fades if needed, and check that you haven’t truncated any sustained sounds such as cymbals or open hi-hats that are still playing when the snare is struck.

A pair of DPA mics designed for close-miking inside a piano.

“The vast majority of mics will cope perfectly well, even with a gorilla at the keyboard!”

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