Resolution Monitor Focus, D21.1

REPORT

REVIEWED

/ Monitor Speaker Focus

/ Trinnov D-sub and La Remote / The development of NIRO

REVEALED

D21.1

The

Digital Supplement

Monitor Focus

Unleash your creativity Introducing GLM 4.1 loudspeaker manager software For 15 years, GLM software has worked with our Smart Active Monitors to minimise the unwanted acoustic influences of your room and help your mixes sound great, everywhere. Now, GLM 4.1 includes the next generation AutoCal 2 calibration algorithm and a host of new features – delivering a much faster calibration time and an even more precise frequency response.

So, wherever you choose to work, GLM 4.1 will unleash your creativity, and help you produce mixes that translate consistently to other rooms and playback systems. And with GLM 4.1, both your monitoring system and your listening skills have room to develop and grow naturally too.

Find out more at www.genelec.com/glm

/ Hello

Editor/Content Manager John Moore john@resolutionmag.com Editor-at-large Nigel Jopson Contributors Mike Aiton, Dennis Baxter, John Broomhall, Simon Clark, Ian Cookson, Russell Cottier, Jay Dean, Kevin Hilton, Tim Oliver, George Shilling, Rob Speight, Jon Thornton, Danny Turner, Phil Ward Chief Executive Officer Stuart Allen +44 (0)7999 847715 stuart@resolutionmag.com Chief Operating Officer — Publishing, Sales & Marketing Jeff Turner UK/Europe: +44 (0)117 318 5041 USA: +1 415 307 7337 jturner@resolutionmag.com Director of Production Dean Cook The Magazine Production Company +44 (0)1273 911730 dean@resolutionmag.com Finance & Accounts Manager Judith Clegg +44 (0)7977 104648 judith@resolutionmag.com Published by S2 Publications Ltd info@resolutionmag.com c/o 221 Commercial, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Gardens, London, WC2H 9JQ ©2021 S2 Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher. Great care is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication, but neither S2 Publications Ltd or the editor can be held responsible for its contents. The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the publisher.

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REGISTERED OFFICE Gowran House, 56 Broad Street, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol, BS37 6AG. Company number: 4375084

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H

Hi Res…

ello, and welcome to the first Resolution Focus digital supplement. These reformatted digital offerings are not a replacement for our current formats, rather it’s our way of showcasing some of the content from our full print and online publications in a way that’s ideal for digital consumption on a wider range of devices. We hope you enjoy this one, that focuses on the vital area of monitoring; the vast majority of the content here was originally published in Resolution V21.3, which was first published in May of this year — though Nigel’s Jopson’s fascinating interview with Peter DiAntonio on the genesis of the NIRO system is a digital exclusive.

If you would like to subscribe to receive the full print or online version of Resolution, you can visit us at www.resolutionmag.com to get all the details, or read the magazine via Issuu.

We hope you enjoy the new format and the content. Please let us know your thoughts via info@resolutionmag.com and via our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages! We’ll be back in your inboxes and on Issuu with more Focus content soon, so watch out!

Until then, be well.

John Moore

Contents

In this Monitors supplement…

4

Monitor Focus A great selection of nearfield monitor options

18 Monitor Focus: Controllers A range of hardware and software choices 20 Mike Elizondo From Aftermath to Nashville with Genelec 23 Finding Niro – affordable acoustic analysis How REDI Acoustics’ innovative software came to be 30 Trinnov D-Mon & La Remote An overview of an innovative monitor optimisation system 36 Heff Moraes A man with mission talks about his work with PMC 39 RESOLUTION AWARDS NOMINEES Resolution Awards 2021. Vote now!

D21.1 / 3

/ Monitors

Focus: Monitors Making the right choice when choosing monitors is essential. The only problem is, there really isn't a right choice. The best you can do is make the right choice for you and your environment; everyone hears differently, and no two rooms are the same. Wouldn't life be easier if that wasn't the case, though?

Over the next 16 pages, we look at a range of options for nearfield monitoring that vary greatly in price and approach, but we're pretty sure there's something in there for everyone. After that we look at a few control and optimisation approaches that can greatly help make life easier, sound better, or both...

ADAM

AX7A The most popular speaker in Adam Audio’s range, and one that’s been around for a good decade now, the AX7A features its own iteration of the Acoustic Motion Transformer (AMT)-type tweeter. Here it’s called the X-ART (eXtended Accellerated Ribbon Technology, should you be wondering), and is paired with a 7” woofer in a front-ported enclosure design. Power is bi-amped, with 100W+50W provisions to the woofer and tweeter respectively — the former being Class D (PWM) and the later Class A/B. The quoted frequency response is between 42Hz-50kHz with a max SPL per pair of 114dB @1m. High- and low-shelf EQ is available (+/- 6dB at >5kHz and <300Hz), and tweeter gain can be adjusted by +/-4dB. While the AX7As are a long-established favourite for smaller and project listening environments, the AX range offers a couple of bigger options, and Adam Audio also provide a range of Subwoofers to augment them should that be needed. The same elements as this unit are also found in the powerful AX77A mid/ nearfield model, which utilises a 2.5-way system where one of the two 7" woofers it holds 'fades out' above 400Hz to limit potential for phase cancellation in the mids. www.adam-audio.com D21.1 / 4

/ Monitors

Amphion

BaseTwo25 Amphion’s new-look BaseTwo25s are an update on the company’s ‘low-frequency extension system’, which serves to extend and improve the low-end response of a monitoring system. Though they’re designed to be twinned with any of Amphion’s monitor range (or any other comparable monitoring system), the company is keen to stress they’re not a subwoofer in the traditional sense, but rather an effective way to augment a two-way nearfield system and create a three-way solution — in a way that not only improves bass clarity but will also improve mid-range performance by passing off the lower frequencies the BaseTwo25’s woofer in a graduated way. This alleviates issues that can arise with steep filtering while taking the bass response down as low as 20Hz in a coherent way.

The new system configuration twins the line’s existing full-range towers, with its back-toback configuration 2x 10” woofers and radiators configuration, to the new BaseAmp1200 — a 2U unit that combines a 2x 700W amplifier with Amphion’s discrete filtering module, offering a crossover selection (40, 60, 80, 100Hz) and variable-level attenuator. There is also a bypass to switch operation in and out as the task demands. www.amphion.fi/create

ATC

SCM20 ASL/PSL While many studios, and some Resolution writers, continue to swear by the larger ATC SCM50s, the scope of this focus section means we’re inclined to pick these compact passive 2-ways out of the pack. Available in active (discrete MOSFET Class A/B bi-amp with 200W/50W continuous power delivering 108dB SPL per pair @1m) and passive configurations, they feature proprietary ATC 150mm/6” mid/bass driver and 25mm/1” dual suspension ‘S-Spec’ Tweeter with a crossover point set at 2.5kHz, delivering frequencies between 55Hz and 25kHz (-6dB). In both their incarnations, these speakers sit squarely in the middle ground between the smallest offering in the company’s expanding Pro range, the SCM12s, and the larger units the firm has been associated with for much of its near 50-year history. However, everything up from here is active, with the next step being the SCM25A Pro 3-way system. www.atcloudspeakers.co.uk D21.1 / 5

/ Monitors

Barefoot Audio

MicroMain 27 Barefoot Sound’s updated version of its signature MicroMain speaker features its MEME (Multi Emphasis Monitor Emulation) tech, which the company says models the essential response and translation characteristics of other classic studio monitors — ostensibly to save the us the trouble of rigging up other tried and trusted secondary reference monitors (those Cubes and NS10Ms) — as well as new electronics and drivers. The unusual Barefoot design features five drive units: 2x 5¼ ” midbass driver and ring radiator tweeter, with 2x side-mounted 10” aluminium-coned subwoofers that operate in a ‘dual force’ manner. This means they're set back-to-back and physically joined together internally — thus, when they’re run in phase, their movements cancel each other out and reduce vibration at high volumes. Crossovers are set at 100Hz, 600Hz and 3kHz. Barefoot describes this as a ‘3.5-Way’ design, and it offers a frequency response of 30Hz-45kHz (+/-3dB). It is four-way powered, with 500W for the subs, 250W for each of the mid drivers and another 250W for the tweeter. www.barefootsound.com

Blue Sky

SAT 6D The Sat 6D, part of Blue Sky's modular Star System One range, offers both XLR Analogue and AES/EBU Digital inputs— which will default automatically to digital if both inputs are connected. It features Burr-Brown 192kHz/24-bit A/D, and 192kHz/24 D/A, with a Cirrus Logic Digital receiver and sample rate convertor. It offers a 'Pure-Digital' mode for 48- and 96kHz operation, where the native input from the AES/EBU receiver is sent straight to the DAC. It's DSP crossover filters use Blue Sky's BOO optimisation, and the Sat 6D has a USB data port for speakers settings, updates and room correction. This comes via the included SRO software, which can control the speakers via a USB connection, and optimise their performance with the addition of a measurement microphone. This software includes a 1/3 octave 31-band digital graphic equaliser, and selectable parametric EQ. The woofer is a 6½” cast frame unit, twinned with a 1” ring radiator tweeter; it's power by 300W+150W of amplification, and delivers in a frequency range between 45Hz and 20kHz when in full range mode. Setting it up to do that involves removing a 'sealed' plate on the back panel of the speaker and replacing it with the included 'ported' plate, though the company encourages testing of both options to decide what's best for you listening environment and placing. www.abluesky.com D21.1 / 6

m908 24 channel Monitor Controller - Atmos® Ready.

The m908 is an immersive audio capable monitor controller that will easily manage your stereo and 7.1.4 Atmos speaker systems, providing 12 bands of parametric room correction EQ per channel (including the Dolby Atmos Music Target Curve), bass management and individual channel delay settings.

A powerful, dedicated remote control unit puts all monitoring functions at your fingertips, with system status and setup clearly displayed on the large LCD screen. To top it off, the m908 delivers the finest audio quality of any monitoring equipment in the world.

Learn more at www.gracedesign.com.

• 24 channel AES3 digital I/O • 16 channel analog outputs • 16 channel ADAT Lightpipe in • 24 channel inputs USB • AES3, S/PDIF, and TOSLINK stereo inputs • optional Dante™, DigiLink™ or Ravenna™ modules • optional 8 channel ADC modules for 8 - 16 channel analog inputs • our latest generation AD / DA converters • 4th generation s-Lock pll clocking system for vanishingly low jitter • powerful room correction EQ • complete bass management capability • channel level and delay calibration • comprehensive downmix control • 5 year warranty • made in the USA

www.gracedesign.com

/ Monitors

Dynaudio

BM6A and Core 7 It wouldn’t take you too long flicking through Resolution back issues to find a studio touting its Dynaudio monitoring. Usually, it’s what the company now calls its ‘Classic’ BM units; a range that still persists in the form of the active, DSP-free BM6A and BM15A nearfields and the passive BM5 MkIII (and that still has plenty of life in it yet). However, the 6A has been around for over 20 years now, and in that time the company — having been taken over in the middle of the last decade — has concentrated much of its effort on processing-augmented designs, most recently in the form of its Core models. Introduced in early 2019, the range initially consisted of the Core 7 2-way and Core 59 3-way models, but have since been added to with a smaller 3-way ‘47 unit and a Sub. The Core 7 marries two class-D amps (500W/150W) to the Dynaudio DSP, which offers dual filters that look to address issues regarding its position (desk or soffit) and boundary (wall or corner) and also provide an 80kHz cutoff for combining them with a subwoofer. It also allows the user to select between ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ settings, that apply a full-spectrum band-pass filter to alter frequency response characteristics. www.dynaudio.com

EVE

SC4070 and SC207 Berlin-based EVE Audio was started in 2010 by Roland Stentz, a long-serving audio/electrical engineer and former CEO of ADAM Audio, after he left the company he had started back in 1999. Superseding its SC407 as a sizeable monitoring solution, EVE Audio’s new SC4070 features two 6.5” woofers that handle frequencies up to 280Hz as part of its 4-way operation and ported design. Also key is the rotatable central plate containing the midrange woofer and Eve’s distinctive Air Motion Transformer (AMT — don’t call it a ‘ribbon’) tweeter, which makes the enclosure suitable for vertical or horizontal alignment. This panel also hosts a ‘Smart’ knob and LED ring to select the ‘Room’ adaption filters — low shelf, mid EQ, and high shelf filters with a ‘desk’ setting, all of which can be locked by back-panel switches — and volume control. Powering all of this are four class-D 250W amplifiers.

If all that sounds like a bit too much heft, you could look down the line at the ‘3070 iteration, which delivers a similar package with less power; though for a strictly nearfield solution in the traditional sense, we like the look of the SC207s which combine a single 6.5” driver and AMT with the same DSP package and 150W+50W of bi-amping. These speakers offer a frequency range (-3dB) of 44Hz-21kHz with a quoted max SPL per pair of 116dB. www.eve-audio.de D21.1 / 8

Al schmitt

Capturing the signature sound of one of the most iconic music producer-engineers, “Al Schmitt” features processing for vocal, piano, bass, brass, strings and mix bus.

LEAPWING.COM

/ Monitors

Focal

Trio6 BE Touted as ‘two monitors in one’, the French company Focal’s Trio6 offers remote switching between operation as a 2- and 3-way system with the use of most conventional guitar amp footswitches. In full configuration, they marry an 8” sub driver (and front-facing bass port) with a 5” woofer and 1” Beryllium inverted dome tweeter to make a sizable unit; offering the ability to switch to the ‘compromised’ configuration — which limits frequencies to between 90Hz-20kHz — to check mixes when needed.

Amplification is of the Class-G type, which utilises multiple power rails increasing voltage steps to increase efficiency and reduce heat dissipation, and allows the enclosure to eschew the usual requirement for a heatsink even though it offers up 450W total (200W+150+100) to the three drivers, which adds up to 115dB SPL (peak @1m). Room integration features provide low- and high-frequency shelving (+/- 3db @ 35-250Hz and 2.5kHz to 40kHZ), with a low-mid EQ of +/- 3dB @ 160Hz via controls of the back panel. www.focal.com

Genelec

8430A IP and 1032C SAM While they offer speakers for a wide range of applications, it’s likely that nearfield choices from Genelec nowadays will probably boil down to a choice from among its Smart Active Models (SAM). This will mean either something from its 2-way options, or from ‘The Ones’ range — which will all work in conjunction with its ever-evolving GLM monitor software (and which we talk about later in this focus) as part of an RJ45 connected network. The choice is going to come down to taste, experience, the configuration of your control room and a bit of budgetary side-eyeing, but suffice to say they almost certainly have your needs covered either way.

Decisions could be made a little easier if you have an AoIP workflow, because the 8430A IP is the SAM that integrates that functionality, taking its build cues from the mid-range Smart Active 8330A — with its 5 ⅛” woofer and ¾” tweeter and 50W+50W Class D bi-amped configuration. The larger 8350A offers 200W+150W of amplification, but the soffit-mountable 1032C 250W+150W is the daddy of the line. www.genelec.com D21.1 / 10

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HEDD

Type 07 Heinz Electrodynamic Designs launched its ‘Mk2’ range of speakers late last year, and the Type 07 is a 2-way model from the line that provides a 7” woofer and AMT tweeter with 100W+100W of amplification, delivering up to 116dB SPL per pair with a quoted frequency response of 38Hz– 40kHz. All of HEDD’s Mk2 models now offer ‘closed or ported’ (CoP) functionality depending on the needs of your application (bass response or ‘accuracy’, as HEDD puts it), with the change activated by the addition of plugs to speaker enclosure’s ports and an alteration of the in-built DSP. That processing also delivers the system’s Lineariser phase-correction, which corrects minuscule timing errors between drivers — though this processing, as is the way with such things, comes with a latency of 12ms and may need to be turned off for tracking as it is over the limit of what most people consider perceptible in such circumstances. Also included are DSP-driven shelf filtering options, a range of ‘Desk’ settings to help with reflections from mixer surfaces, and the ability to extend bass response at the expense of higher SPLsall activated via switching on the enclosure's back panel. www.hedd.audio

Kii

Three If you have a big budget for monitoring and the taste for something a little bit different, then Kii Threes could well be the speaker for you.

Designed and built by a pro audio supergroup of talent in Germany, their headline feature is an unusual cardioid polar dispersal pattern that extends down to the (usually omnidirectional) low frequencies. This is achieved by DSP working in conjunction with side- and rear-mounted drivers; of which there are six within each the 40cm deep enclosures — one 6.5” woofer and 1” waveguide tweeter up-front, two more of the large drivers at the rear, with one on each side. Each of these has its own 250W of amplification, along with its own DSP and D/A conversion. Aside from the work to perform tricks on the low-end, the DSP also offers placement options to deal with different speaker positioning — even in corners, it claims — a range of EQ options, and the power needed to deal with all the phase and timing issues its unique design creates. Again, this last correction will need to be turned off for tracking, as processing latencies can run to 90ms. www.kiiaudio.com D21.1 / 11

/ Monitors

KRK

V8 Established in the mid-80s by the eponymous Keith R. Klawitter, KRK is now part of the larger Gibson group of companies but continues with the distinctive styling and the price-competitive character that it is best known for. Most recently, it’s expanded its 'Classic' line of studio monitors with the addition of new 7” and 8” models. They will — no doubt — appeal to a wide range of home users, especially in the project studio and DJ sectors — that have long been the natural home of the KRK range due to both their pricing and their ability to make dance music and bass-heavy content sound good.

Higher up the specification line, but equally interestingly priced, especially for the cost-performance ratio they offer those on a budget, are the company’s V Series. These come in 4”, 6” and 8” and are versions, Class-D bi-amped with 55/125/200W+30W respectively. The largest model, the V8, offers a +/-3dB frequency response of 35Hz-19Hz from its Kevlar built woofer and 1” dome tweeter and front-ported design, with adjustable DSP driven EQ and attenuation options controlled by the back panel.

These are going to adhere to the characteristics that define the range, no doubt, but if that's what you're after then go for it. www.krkmusic.com

PreSonus

R80

PreSonus’ eye-catching 2-way active R80 units come packed with 100W+50W of Class D amplification for their 8” Kevlar woofer and Air Motion Transformer (AMT) tweeters, delivering a frequency response of 40Hz-22kHz and peak SPL @1m of 107dB. They offer optional bass correction of between -1.5dB and -6dB, which can be applied in relation to placement and proximity to walls. There’s also switchable high-pass filter points of 60, 80, and 100Hz if they’re needed for pairing with a subwoofer. High-frequency boost and cut options can be applied about 2kHz to help tailor the sound to room conditions. Energy conservation settings can deactivate the RF shielded units after half an hour of inactivity, and input can come via XLR, TRS or RCA connection. While we like the blue finish as shown in the picture, it may be worth noting that the faceplate element of the R80's design is also available in a black version, should you feel that more circumspect styling is required. Beyond the R80 line, sit the company's Sceptre range, which is notable for its coaxial drivers. Like the Unity Audio MiniBoulder (below), these combine the high- and mid-frequency drivers into a single unit, to create an eye-catching design, while DSP provided

by Fulcrum Acoustics minimises phase issues. www.presonus.com D21.1 / 12

/ Monitors

Neumann

KH80 DSP and KH750 DSP The Neumann KH 80 DSP may not look like the most exciting option in the company’s nearfield monitor range, but they are currently the only model that takes full advantage of its new automatic monitor alignment software and the MA-1 measurement microphone. The system, reliant on Neumann’s first such mic, an ethernet connection, and Mac or PC software, can make calculations based on tests of the speakers and the room in which they are placed. It can then optimise the amplitude response and their phase relationship, to create better sound. Should those bi-amped 150W+55W speakers not really offer the power or performance your room requires, there is an option to take advantage of the same alignment software by investing in either the KH750 DSP or KH750 AES67 subwoofer, which can provide the necessary DSP processing to align and correct any pair of speakers from the KH line when they are connected to it. www.neumann.com

Ocean Way

Pro 2A Charmingly on the monolithic side of the nearfield monitoring spectrum, these somewhat unique trapezoidal, ported enclosures are every bit the Ocean Way monitor — though far from the massive size we are used to associating with the US company's high profile studio installs. Delivering 250W per side, as a 2-way active system with digital and analogue inputs, they utilise a silk fabric dome design tweeter with a reinforced aluminium cone woofer similar to that which you'll find used by Barefoot Audio. They claim a uniform frequency response of 35Hz-25kHz, and 110 dB maximum SPL between channels, and offer input adaptations that can tailor them for use with a subwoofer by providing a roll-off at 85Hz. The most likely pairing from the Ocean Way line for such a combinationwould be in the form of the S10A sub, which delivers 110dB SPL itself thanks to 300W of amplification and a 10" woofer — with a frequency response of 20Hz to 120Hz. It provides with controls for Gain, LF Adjust, Crossover, and Delay, and inputs via XLR. That's it as far as Ocean Way's nearfield options go, but you could easily while away some time dreaming of some of the monster mains it has on its website. www.oceanwayaudio.com

/ Monitors

PMC

Result6 PMC is best known for its larger install models, but the company sees its result6’s as an ideal introduction to its ATL (advanced transmission line) technology. The concept of that is a more advanced method of bass porting that utilises the specific internal structure akin to an organ pipe — that’s the transmission line, and in this case there’s roughly 1.5m/5’ of it — of the cabinet to route the energy from the bass driver on a path lined with custom-designed acoustic materials. These absorb higher frequencies while leaving the remaining low-end to exit from a front-panel vent, extending response in a way that is consistent from low to high volumes.

Getting into specifics, the Result6 is a 2-way active system, with a 1” tweeter (and the other interesting acoustic technology that is the D-Fin surround, designed to offer better diffraction of higher frequencies) and 6.5” woofer.

These are powered by 100W+65W of amplification, which can deliver 112dB SPL @1m. Frequency response ranges from 45Hz to 22kHz. www.pmc-speakers.com

PSI

A23-M Swiss company PSI is happy to tout its newer 3-way A23-M units as ‘100% DSP-free’, seeking to champion the design’s ‘flat’ frequency response. These tri-amped (Class G/H) speakers, designed in the image of its larger A25 models, offer 140W+70W+50W of power to their handmade tweeter and woofers, delivering up to 111dB SPL (short term max SPL @1m). Interestingly, the company tunes each speaker in its own anechoic chamber, and delivers them to customers with a report showing individual frequency responses (now that’s precision). Recommended for listening distances above 1.5m, they deliver a frequency range of 34Hz–23kHz. If you’re in need of something smaller than the A25 or A23, the A17-M has many of the purely analogue charms of its larger siblings, but with a 2-way design (Class A/B, 80W+40W) and an understandably limited response of 43Hz-23Hz. These are pure nearfields, but tout the same flat frequency performance as the A23-Ms, and will also be handmade and individually calibrated. Both options can be augmented by one of the company's compatible subwoofer models, should your needs demand it. www.psiaudio.swiss D21.1 / 14

/ Monitors

Quested

S7R and SB10R The S7R delivers the unpretentious look and feel you’d expect from Quested, in a — relatively, compared to some of Roger’s monster installations you’ll find across the world — diminutive package. Incorporating a 6½” low-frequency driver with a double flared front-loaded port design and a ⅛” soft dome tweeter. The amplification provides a total of 190W RMS to the drivers (120W+70W), and the maker quotes SPLs of 107dB (using pink noise @1m) and frequency response is 68Hz–20kHz, with a +/- 2db tolerance and a -6dB cut off down to 58Hz. Should your application require it, the S7R can be beefed up with the SB10R sub that will take the bass response down to 25Hz with its 10” driver. It uses the SBC250 amplified controller to power it, a 1U rackmount unit delivering 250W that also features a variable crossover operating between 40Hz-to-135Hz, gain control from -14db to +6db, output level metering and a bypass function. www.Quested.com

“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity” Isaac Newton quested.com | info@quested.com

/ Monitors

Unity

MiniBoulder 3 The latest addition to Unity Audio’s range is a 3-way active design sharing the same electronics, tweeter and woofers as its larger Boulder Mk3 models. The interesting design ethos sees the unit combine its 5" mid woofer, and AMT-type ‘JET5’ tweeter into a combined, 'coaxial' driver the company calls X-JET. Cosmetically, it gives the speaker a conventional 2-way nearfield look, at least at first glance, but is designed for phase accuracy and mid-range clarity.

The X-JET unit, provides a combined frequency response from 694Hz to a bat-bothering 50kHz. Picking up duties on the low-end is an 8” woofer in an unported cabinet. The three units are powered by a similar combination of Class D (300W) for the woofer and 2x 100W of Class A/B for the X-JET elements that ADAM Audio chooses for its AMTstyle systems. In line with the larger Boulder system, which differs by offering two of Unity’s distinctive 8.5” crystal membrane drivers as part of a much more powerful system, the MiniBoulder offers a high-frequency 10kHz Shelf switch (+/- 2.5dB) as well as a mid driver cut/boost switch (+/-3dB). www.unityaudioproducts.co.uk

Abbott Studios, Boston — acoustic upgrade using NIRO™ (Non-cuboid Iterative Room Optimization) Analysis

Advanced acoustic analysis service for small critical listening environments

www.rediacoustics.com

/ Monitors

Yamaha

HS8 The era of the ubiquitous white-woofered monitor may be over, but Yamaha still honours that look with the HS Series from its Pro Audio range — though, there is no ‘10 iteration to be seen. The HS8, though, is a 2-way bass-reflex bi-amplified nearfield studio monitor with 8" cone woofer and 1" dome tweeter, with 75W+45W of power with a 47Hz-24kHz (-3dB) frequency response. Of course, the NS10 was not per se a monitor speaker, nor was it ever ‘the worst speaker that Bob Clearmountain could find’ as the apocryphal tale its haters like to tell goes. It was, at least according to our former editor Nigel Jopson’s telling of the tale (Resolution V6.3), a success story built on word of mouth. This did centre around Clearmountain, and his use of the speakers mixing Avalon at the Power Station — but Clearmountain says that they were recommended to him by Bill Scheniman, via Greg Ladanyi, after the latter had spent time working in Tokyo at Take One studios.

Anyway, all this to say the NS nomenclature does live on in the Yamaha catalogues — where it always has, in its hi-fi ranges. www.yamaha.com D21.1 / 17

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/ Monitor Controllers

Genelec

GLM 4.1 Genelec is marking the 15th anniversary of its GLM loudspeaker manager software. Now on version version 4.1, which we will be reviewing in Resolution V21.6, it has come a long way in terms of look, feel and operation over that time and is now heavily integrated with the company's Smart Active Monitors and subs.

The GLM system utilises a network interface, measurement microphone, and the SAM DSP to optimise speaker response and phase whatever combination of Genelec equipment and/or listening positions the user sees fit to check. The process is operated via a slick software GUI, which had an overhaul for the latest incarnation, and provides a user-friendly front-end for the underlying ‘AutoCal’ process and any other EQ changes you may wish to make.

Different combinations of speakers and listening locations can the be saved as Groups, and recalled when needed from the GLM software and/or stored in the cloud. A single Group can also be saved to the speakers as a default setting to remove the need for software activation. www.genelec.com

Grace Design

M908 Monitor Controller Grace’s latest monitor controller delivers multichannel and immersive audio monitoring in formats up to 24 channels. The system comprises three parts: the Audio Control Unit (ACU) is a 2U rackmount unit handling audio I/O and DSP (which includes bass management and comprehensive EQ options); the RCU remote and a PSU. The ACU comes with 68 potential digital inputs (AES/EBU, ADAT, USB2 and TOS-LINK), 24 digital outputs (AES/EBU) and 16 channels of balanced analogue outputs. Options allow a further 32 channels of I/O over either Dante, MADI or DigiLink, and up to 16 analogue inputs. Additional rear panel connections are available for word-clock, an external talkback microphone, talkback footswitch and output. In a recent Resolution review (V19.6), Jon Thornton concluded the RCU was “a nicely engineered and tactile piece of kit,” while the audio quality of the system was “astonishingly good.” www.grace-design.com D21.1 / 18

/ Monitor Controllers

Merging

Anubis Ostensibly an audio interface, the Anubis’ use of so-called ‘Misson’ operation profiles make its potential use case scenarios much more varied — yet simultaneously highly specialised.

Recently, its new ‘Music’ Mission has re-cast it as a pro/project studio tool for tracking and headphone monitoring, but when we reviewed the unit in Resolution V21.1 we were considering its then-singular ‘Monitor’ mission, which placed it as an AoIP-savvy monitor controller. In Jon Thornton’s words: “Describing it simply as ‘an audio interface’ is seriously underselling it… That much is obvious from its colour capacitive touchscreen and large, gorgeously weighted rotary encoder. Dedicated illuminated buttons with icons for speaker and headphone selection, mute and talkback make it obvious that at least one of its capabilities is as a flexible monitor controller — and that it is — up to 22.2 monitoring.”

All this is Ravenna reliant, but if you’re considering utilising AoIP connectivity going forward, this unit deserves a very close look. www.merging.com

Trinnov

D-Mon and La Remote When it’s packed with technology and processing as interesting as Trinnov’s room correction algorithms are, it’s easy to brush over the talents of its D-Mon in its primary role as a monitor controller. However, as Mike Aiton’s exploration of that system on page 24 asserts, with additional features like bass management, simulated dynamic range control, downmixing, headphone cue mixes, an internal routing matrix, the GPIO and Avid Eucon integration (S6, S5, S3, Dock, D-Command and D-Control)... “The world really is your oyster.”

With the ability to integrate up to 12 speakers into flexible, optimised (or not, should you wish) ‘mix-and-match’ set-ups using a whole host of I/O — and all operated from a dedicated controller or web interface — there really is a lot of powerful, time-saving, and workflow-changing stuff possible with this 2U unit and its eye-catching calibration mic. It comes at a premium, yes…

But there’s a return on that investment. www.trinnov.com D21.1 / 19

Mike Elizondo The producer, songwriter and bass player has found huge success in diverse genres. GEORGE SHILLING (who also likes wearing several hats) compares notes

M

ike Elizondo studied classical double bass for a good number of years before finding himself in a studio, employed by Dr Dre, replicating electric bass parts from old records on hip-hop productions. He was soon part of the Aftermath label’s core team, and co-wrote Eminem’s The Real Slim Shady and coproduced tracks on Snoop Dogg’s 2000 album The Last Meal. He co-wrote and co-produced much of 50 Cent’s Get Rich Or Die Trying, including the hit In Da Club. Other credits included Mary J. Blige, and Eve and Gwen Stefani’s singles and in 2005 he

produced Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine album. Other diverse credits have followed including Regina Spektor, Alanis Morisette, Jay Z, Ed Sheeran, twenty øne pilots, and Rag’n’Bone Man. In 2018, he moved from LA to Nashville, setting up an impressive studio with a classic SSL 4056E/G and the latest Genelec The Ones monitoring system.

How come you made the big move?

I’ve been coming to Nashville for ten or eleven years, primarily as a songwriter. I love the environment and the work ethic. The D21.1 / 20

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talent pool is immense — a lot of incredible musicians. As an experiment, a couple of years ago opted to make some records out here that were not based in Nashville but just — ‘Hey, let’s meet in Nashville and go and record there.’ And just had a great time.

Were there any disadvantages to having a solid musical education?

No. I took the approach that the more knowledge I could have, the more wellrounded I’d give myself a chance to be. If I was getting into classical music and studying, I wanted to be as authentic — I didn’t want a crash course; I wanted to study with the best.

And I studied with guys from the LA Philharmonic. For a good time, I thought that was going to be my career, playing in an orchestra. And I loved playing acoustic, straight-ahead jazz. I loved fusion. But I also loved playing heavy rock. I don’t feel like it gets in the way. And it’s definitely come in handy in string sessions and horn sessions and it’s easier to talk to musicians in very specific terms.

At the outset did you listen to a lot of rap records for research?

I didn’t. I met Dre when he was starting his Aftermath label. He had a lot of artists, and he was experimenting. I’d just show up with my bass. In the initial sessions, it was ‘Here’s a record, can you re-play this bass line?’ They were really keen on having real electric bass, so I learned how they liked to hear things and how I should play. A lot of times they were referencing records that I was already familiar with. Eventually, he would want me to come up with a bass line. That’s where the songwriting door was opened. Then I started playing more keyboards and guitar, and that led to production. He was very generous and offered me equal splits on the publishing, and then would give me production credit where he felt I’d contributed. That opened the doors for the productions that came later.

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AWARDS 2021

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/ Craft

/ The control room of Elizondo’s Nashville studio, with new Genelec The Ones monitoring

Tell me about these Genelecs I’ve used Genelecs for years, then I went through a phase when I was using Adams, and Focals, but what sparked this was that I had a control room where I didn’t want to put mains up in the walls and go through that whole rabbit hole, so I asked my friend Adam Hawkins what he thought, and he turned me on to the Genelec The Ones. It just seemed like the perfect situation where I can have these speakers as my mains, and maybe keep NS10s or Proacs for nearfield. Then these Genelecs showed up and they just blew me away. They sound great as nearfields as well.

I’m using them 90% of the time. Occasionally we’ll switch to the Proacs, or I’ve got another listening station with Focals. But my main source behind the SSL is the Genelecs. Some speakers, you feel like you have to learn them.

But for myself and other engineers that have come in, you quickly understand what they are giving you. That’s been crucial, and they’ve been phenomenal.

How was it setting up the Genelec software?

That was intriguing. The cool thing is that you can have multiple prime positions. Ninety percent of the time the artist is hanging out on the couch at the back, and rather than making them come up to the board, you can hit a button on the software and it makes the couch

the prime position. It definitely makes a difference, but you have to remember to switch it back or it sounds really strange! I even have a third position where I do my programming and what it does is pretty phenomenal.

And do you tune it to taste?

Absolutely, it’s very intuitive to bump certain frequencies; when it was first set up we experimented a little bit. But now it’s set exactly the way I like it. Really the test is when you take it out of the room, but really, there was no learning curve, it translated really well.

If I crank it to the level you’d normally have your mains it sounds incredible. But at a lower level, it still has the same punchiness and focus. That’s what’s blown me away.

You work in diverse genres; why do people come to you?

I think if artists only work with someone from their genre, they can get bored doing the same thing over and over again. So maybe they want to work with someone who’s going to bring a different perspective. So the fact I’ve had success in multiple genres makes me a little more intriguing. They know I’m capable of doing stuff that gets on the radio, so I’m not going to go way off the deep end. #mikeelizondo #musicproducer #songwriter #bassplayer #eminem #50cent #maryjblige #ragnboneman

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/ Technology

Affordable acoustic analysis – finding NIRO Software solution — NIGEL JOPSON gets his ultimate room REDI

Y

ou want to build a mixing or criticallistening room and your experience as a production pro means you’ve already selected a monitoring system and equipment, and you also have a good wiring team and trustworthy builders. You want the optimum design within the limitations of your structure, but the thought of hiring an architect, and ‘buying into’ someone else’s vision conjures up rather too many £££ signs. Alternatively… you’re an installer, acoustician or system implementer; you know all the constraints you face with a client’s building, what you’d really love is a black box to feed all the information in, to receive an assessment of the optimum splay of the walls, angle of the ceiling and the ideal complement and tuning of absorbers. These are perennial problems in

/ From left: Dr. Peter D’Antonio and John Storyk

our industry, and now some very wellrespected names in audio have come up with an innovative acoustic analysis service.

REDIacoustics have designed some cool software, and named it NIRO (Non-cuboid Iterative Room Optimization).

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/ NIRO Process: Architecture, Acoustics, Audio & ‘Auralization’

The faces behind REDI certainly have the experience to inspire confidence in whatever NIRO finds. Dr. Peter D’Antonio pioneered the recording studio diffusor industry and invented a wide range of novel fractal and optimised diffusing and absorbing surfaces, for which he holds many trademarks and patents. There can be few engineers and producers from the ’90s who haven’t sat in a great control room with an RPG diffusor on the back wall. D’Antonio was the brains behind RPG, and has teamed up with John

Storyk, founding partner of WSDG, a global architectural acoustic consulting and design firm, and PK Pandey, founder of Guitar Center’s GCPro B2B division, Symphonic Acoustics, and Boston’s Mad Oak Studios.

Architect Storyk is a legend, having started his career designing Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios, with subsequent credits ranging from NY’s Jazz at Lincoln Center performance complex to studios for Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, Whitney Houston, Green Day and Paul

/ Frequency plots, before and after acoustic treatment

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/ Acoustic research centre, containing the 24’ long, 7 ton, 2’x2’ impedance tube used to verify resonators

Epworth (The Church Studios, Resolution V13.8). “The NIRO process is by far the most robust tool we have identified for accurately predicting acoustic anomalies in a small environment and at the same time optimising the most correct geometric arrangement of boundaries and listener/ speaker configuration — particularly for low frequency behaviour!” he told Resolution.

D’Antonio continues the story: “John Storyk has always been supportive of my research, so when I had more time after I sold RPG, I wanted to focus on the projects that I’d never quite fully finished — one of them being to finally make a design system for critical listening rooms. When I started RPG in 1983 control rooms were really not very well scientifically designed. Different producers had hit records and then everybody would copy their rooms. Around a decade or so ago, we developed an image model called the ‘room sizer and the room optimizer’, which does something like NIRO (but not to the same extent) on a rectangular room, not taking into account the impedance of the wall surfaces and not taking into account the low frequency absorbers that were necessary.”

/ Abbott Road Studio, Boston, showing treatment panels

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/ Temporal decay successfully controlled without introducing dips in the frequency response

To address the modal resonances and speaker boundary interference at low frequencies, a wave acoustics solution, the Boundary Element Method (BEM) is used.

At mid and high frequencies, geometrical acoustics will control interfering reflections.

“You can divide the control room into two frequency domains,” reveals D’Antonio.

“There's a transition point where the modal aspects of the room transition into statistical reflections and we call that the Schroeder frequency, after Manfred Schroeder, one of the greatest acousticians. In order to deal with problems below that transition frequency, you have to use wave acoustics because the audio wavelengths are so long.”

Indeed, the 17 metre wavelength of sound in air at 20Hz is considerably longer than any control room most of us have worked in.

“With loudspeaker-tuning approaches, all they are doing is essentially ruining the frequency response to accommodate problems in the room. So that may work alright if you've only got a project studio and you can't make any modifications to the room — it gets you a little closer — but the ‘holy grail’ is to make the room neutral and then allow people to adjust the room to suit their taste.”

Over the years acoustic designers have used a simple square root equation for cuboid rooms — but that only really works

when you have perfectly reflecting boundaries, all the modes are excited and all the modes are heard. This occurs with a speaker and listener in opposite diagonal corners. Unfortunately, this is not how we listen to music! It’s necessary to use wave acoustics to solve low frequency modal issues. Additionally, as long ago as 1948 it was shown that when you have a loudspeaker in a particular location, you have the equivalent of another imaginary loudspeaker across every boundary. As D’Antonio explains, what you're ultimately hearing in a listening room is the coherent information from both sources.

“Not only do you have modes, but you have speaker boundary interference. Then there's another issue, which is the uniformity of the temporal decay — most audio pros have seen the loudspeaker waterfall plots.

Together… all these form a monster problem for acousticians to solve.”

The ‘black box’ studio designers dream of

The software for NIRO was written in Python, an open-source computer language, with REDIacoustics’ senior acoustic engineer Rinaldi Petrolli handling the coding. Petrolli has a degree in acoustic engineering and is a collaborator for PyTTa (Python in Technical Acoustics), an open-source library that D21.1 / 26

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/ Predicted vs. measured for the Abbott Road subwoofer

allows users to make and evaluate acoustic measurements within a Python language interpreted framework. NIRO has three main modules: an iterative Geometry Module that relies on BEM (Boundary Element Method) to predict a room’s modal response, and an iterative genetic algorithm to simultaneously determine the optimal room geometry and positions of speakers and listeners.

“We have an animation on the REDIacoustics website that gives you some idea of these hundreds of changes,” explains D’Antonio. “As the geometry changes, we monitor the steady-state frequency response, and we monitor the speaker boundary interference. The geometry module only affects those frequencies below the Schroeder frequency, because that's where the room modes are, and that's where the speaker boundary interference is. The principal goal of the geometry module is to eliminate dips in the frequency response, which cannot be mitigated with acoustical treatment.”

NIRO’s ‘Damper Module’ operates to minimise the influence of interfering specular reflections and to further minimise modal

emphasis and temporal ringing, using new Acoustical Parametric EQualizer (APEQ) modules — fine-tuned acoustic treatments specific for each problematic frequency.

Their complex surface impedances are calculated, using the Transfer Matrix Method and validated by impedance tube measurements.

D’Antonio explains the parametric metaphor: “Everybody's familiar with an electronic parametric EQ. You can adjust the Q, the gain and frequency. We wanted to develop a sort of acoustical parametric equalizer, so you add an acoustic absorber that removes energy at the various frequencies of interest. In the damper module we use a predictive approach and an experimental approach. The predictive approach uses a procedure called the Transfer Matrix Method, with which you can predict the frequency, the absorption and the impedance of a resonator, which can then be manufactured. I’ve just finished completing the design and the fabrication of an Acoustic Research Centre at RPG,” reveals D’Antonio. “We have a 24ft long impedance tube, 2ft by 2ft. We can test D21.1 / 27

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these resonators that our software predicts, and we can verify if they actually resonate with predicted performance.”

The final NIRO module is a geometric acoustics reflection module, to identify interfering reflections at the listening positions. While there are several software suites already in use by acousticians to perform such calculations, Peter emphasised to us that the unique aspect of NIRO was its ability to perform hundreds and hundreds of iterations of room shape, to deliver the optimum result for each project.

“Having the ability to predict the performance of the room before it's built is quite unique. One of the things that the boundary element program gives you is a pressure plot of the room. It shows you where the nulls are, where the high-pressure regions are, so you know exactly from the calculation where to put all of the absorbing elements. An acoustician will receive a very extensive report. They get the results of every single module. So, if they can change the geometry [of their room], we provide them with architectural drawings.”

Who can benefit from the service?

The NIRO predictive design service will benefit a range of clients who need to commission high-end listening environments, including musicians, engineers, audiophiles and home theatre owners. A sample 41-page report is available to download from the REDIacoustics website, and very comprehensive it is too. The positioning and construction of wall elements, traps and absorbers is specified in great detail, along with treatment recommendations and construction details for each item. Predicted frequency response charts and decay spectrum responses for the mix position are illustrated, together with pressure distribution at listener ear-level for the entire room. This allows an experienced acoustician or designer to further expand

the report into a fully developed set of construction documents — or at the same time, permits a DIY approach for production pros interested in tackling the fabrication of their own custom damping modules. In future, the plan is for there to be several ‘certified manufacturers’, providing treatments that can be integrated with NIRO designs.

In fact, the information was so detailed, I began to think that the NIRO report must be rather expensive. Not a bit of it.

“REDIacoustics offers this analysis as a fixed-fee service and delivers a detailed analysis and recommendations report.

Turnaround time for this service is usually within a week or so after all the critical information for a project is obtained. Fee structure depends upon the exact nature of the project variables, but to date has never exceeded $5,500USD. REDIacosutics is continuing to optimise this software as well as explore multiple solution sets for APEQ's (Acoustic Parametric EQualizers) — in other words applied surface treatments. Stay tuned for more research and development on that front!”

REDIacoustics’ NIRO is, effectively, the ‘black box’ that ordinary studio-builders have dreamed of for many years. The NIRO program has been successfully utilised in nearly 80 projects over the past two years, several already completed and installed. An early example of NIRO’s success is illustrated by the renovation of Abbott Road Studio in Boston, owned by engineer Rob Jaczko, whose credits include Warren Zevon, Don Henley, Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor.

The fact that REDIacoustics is helmed by two respected pioneers of acoustic design is reassuring, and NIRO is sure to take its place as an answer to one of audio’s most bothersome questions: “I basically know what I want with my new room — can you recommend someone good who can sort out the acoustics — for a reasonable budget?” www.rediacoustics.com D21.1 / 28

Our new generation of active reference near and mid-field monitors and subs take monitoring to the next level. They deliver a forensic level of detail that allows you to work faster, without fatigue and with complete confidence, knowing that your finished mix will translate technically and emotionally anywhere.

Every cutting-edge element of their new ground up design has been created for the highest possible resolution with the lowest possible colouration, so they are packed with innovation such as all-new drivers, sophisticated DSP & Class-D amps, and our latest ATL™ bass-loading and Laminair™ air flow technologies. With digital connectivity and configurable via the inspired SOUNDALIGN network interface, these scalable solutions can grow with you with the option of active subs to create one of PMC’s unique XBD systems for extended bass and dynamics.

Whether you’re recording, mixing, or mastering in stereo or the latest immersive formats, with our monitors you’ll know why we are regarded as the absolute reference and guarantee the best possible results.

Hear more – make contact sales@pmc-speakers.com www.pmc-speakers.com @pmcspeakers_pro

/ Technology

TRINNOV D-Mon & La Remote MIKE AITON goes 'to inTRINNity and beyond' in search of La Ultimate monitor controller.

T

rinnov Audio, the charmingly clever French audio boffins who research the processing of acoustic fields in 3D, have sent me a D-Mon 12 Integrated Monitoring Processor with their new remote controller, jauntily titled (with not a hint of ethnophaulism) 'La remote', to Trinnotest (to obsessively compulsively test, to within an inch of its life) for a couple of weeks. The Trinnov quite simply turns your monitoring and your room inside out and reveals the truth, so in deference I am writing this review back to front with the conclusion first.

Are You Missing The Point?

Looking for a monitor controller that you can trust for immersive audio? The Trinnov D-Mon is one of the best, cleverest and most flexible monitoring controllers in town.

Because we as an industry are still almost all in total denial of our monitoring and room deficiencies, many of us have been pigeonholing the Trinnov D-Mon into the audio awkward room. “Oh I don’t need one of those, I know my room” or “I just add an EQ” or “Aren’t they kind of expensive compared to Sonarworks?”

We have been doubly missing the point, by not wanting to admit the truth. Not only can this clever box and its programmable

remote help your monitors to be the best and the most truthful that they can be, it can help them integrate into the most modern workflows too. Top-flight totally flexible monitoring control with acoustic genius built in — what’s not to love? With both functions built-in, as well as efficacy, comes massive cost efficiency. The two functions share the same hardware. Think of it as two for the price of one! With its internal computing cleverness comes the ability to be almost infinitely flexible in features. It’s high level software monitor control! If you want a monitor controller for stereo and for surround (with multiple outputs) or want to be able to mix music in Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 and immersive formats, then this should be the top of your list (oh, and it can also take care of your acoustic issues with correction for physical speaker position, phase, EQ and acoustics too).

So, as a quick recap for those who have not met a Trinnov, let's dive into the box itself and how I used it.

The hole truth

The last time I tried a D-Mon I learned the hard way that the biggest lie in professional audio is perpetuated by virtually all of us: “I know my room”. You think you do, as you D21.1 / 30

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/ Trinnov's tiny La Remote balances simplicity and flexibility well

may be familiar with the nodes (the obvious humps), but most of you have never officially met your anti-nodes (the dips), and you have no idea of what you are missing — you are getting the hole truth, not the whole truth!

So, although we all gayly spend lots of money on Brand X monitors, “mine are flatter than yours” and “these translate really well to the mix stage” and brag about them ad nauseum on forums, and most of us spend some hard-earned pounds on good stands, less of us spend money on getting our acoustic treatment right or ensuring good accurate monitoring paths.

Set phase to stun?

“My monitors are accurate — they are truly flat”, unfortunately that’s less than half the story, even if it were true, which sadly for many brands it just isn’t. The frequencies of a signal need to be reproduced accurately, but so does the timing (phase). As mere mortals (albeit sometimes with ‘spendy speakers’) we are sensitive to phase between approximately 300-3000Hz due to the 20cm distance between our ears. So, if you think you can just EQ your way out of bad monitoring or a

poor room (yes, you — cinema mixers!) then think again. Phase kills!

As a post mixer, if you have to premix in one room, and final mix in another, then the two things you are most often battling with or continually adjusting are the atmospheres and the reverbs. These are both highly phase dependant. Room tones and atmospheres are like pink noise and very broadband. If you have nodes, anti-nodes or startlingly fundamental phase errors you will have almost certainly made inaccurate and poor choices with your EQ or your reverb balances. Had a listen to your mono atmospheres in stereo recently? Hearing some width? That’s the phase errors in your speakers and your room. Just how accurate is your phantom mono?

The ideal is, of course, to have a welldesigned and treated room, with a good accurate monitoring system, and then add a Trinnov to wring the very best out of it. With the fragmentation of the music AND post industry — and pandemics — most of us are working in smaller, possibly slightly less-thanideal environments, and this is probably here to stay.

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The Trinnov can correct for less than ideal speaker geometery as well as the phase and frequency issues at the chosen listening position. It measures your elevation, azimuth (angle of dangle?) dB level and time of arrival as well as frequency, phase, reverb time and a ton of acoustic stuff that is above my pay grade and my humble (very vintage now) BSc in Chemistry!

La Remote

The La Remote is USB bus powered, I just plugged it into the front USB slot of the D-Mon and its presence was auto-detected.

/ The simple but powerful, USB-powered La Remote unit

You can also plug it into a Mac and it will connect via the networking side of the OSX Trinnov app (it shows up in the gateway part).

Clever stuff. As a remote it has some heft and is reassuringly weighty. It has a small highbrightness monochromatic LCD screen for button legends and display purposes like metering. It has a very sexy feeling volume knob, that is weighted and stepped with magnetic feel. This volume control is acceleration programmable, so the faster you turn it the more it goes through the gain range, and the slower you turn it, the more accurate it is.

There are eight totally programmable buttons, a rotary select knob for scrolling through to different programmable knob pages, and a non-programmable mute button with a bright red warning LED. La Remote can connect right across the Trinnov range from a D-Mon, to an MC-Pro or an ST-2, and can recall different profiles/presets, switch speaker sets, toggle downmixes, engage bass management, bypass the Trinnov correction, solo or mute individual

/ The D-Mon rear panel and its connectivity options

Connectivity

The D-Mon 12 is a 2U 19” rack mount unit, with a plethora of audio and computer/ networking connectivity. Analogue I/O is via eight balanced DB25 inputs, 16 balanced DB25 outputs, and eight balanced XLR outputs — all Tascam pin config. Digital I/O offers 16 AES3 DB25 AES3 inputs and 16 DB25 outputs, all Tascam config, eight AES3 DB25 inserts, and wordclock input and output on BNC. General Purpose I/O (via a loom to a DB25) is two GP control Inputs and I GP control output on ¼” jack, midi in and out on five-pin din, listenback and talkback inputs on XLR, headphone output on stereo ¼” unbalanced jack. There is also USB 2 (front and back), USB 3, VGA, HDMI and DVI and ethernet (more on that later) and one of those funny historical PS/2 keyboard ports.

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speakers. It can even control the headphone volume or the talkback (some of these features are only for the D-Mon series).

La Remote is totally customisable and configurable from a web browser page of a computer attached to the D-Mon. Just select which functions you want from the page and drag and drop them to the buttons in the layout page you would like. There are unlimited layers.

I have often found that, in post production facilities, the functionality/complexity ratio paradox of the remote can be a problem.

Often, if a piece of equipment of this ilk does what you want it is too complicated to be able to use effectively — especially for visitors/freelancers. Conversely, if it is easy to use, it isn’t powerful enough. Trinnov have scored here with a simple but powerful remote that is very easy to personalise to your workflow. You can also save your customisations and import them into other La Remotes.

C/LFE and Surrounds off and be greener. The Avid Omni to Trinnov connection is a straight digital DB25.

I had to configure the output connections in the studio set-up page, i.e let the D-Mon know that, for my Dynaudio BBC surround monitors, L R is plugged to outputs 1+2, C to output 3, Ls to output 5 and Rs to output 6, and the PSI 21s were plugged to outputs 7+8.

Once the speaker sets were created, I generated test tones from the Trinnov to prove each individual speaker connection, and to set the gain on the active PSI speakers to the same volume as the Dynaudios/Quad Amps, so that if I changed speaker sets whilst in Trinnov bypass, there would be no volume jump (when active, the Trinnov would correct for level differences).

Once checked, I then generated a panned test tone in Pro Tools to check the full pathway through from Pro Tools to the speakers. All good.

Looming it up

The Trinnov tetrahedral measurement microphone was connected to four analogue inputs via a loom and is powered by an internal 9v PP3 battery. Do not use phantom power. Once you have positioned the mic in your listening position, making sure it is straight in all elevations and planes, put the Trinnov monitoring into mute (to prevent any howl arounds). Go to the Optimiser settings/ calibration tab page / The distinctive Trinnov and set a calibration mic measures going. It will ask you to elevation, azimuth, dB switch the microphone level and time of arrival as well as frequency, on. It will then start a phase, reverb time and series of test tones of other parameters

I connected my Avid Pro Tools HDX system to the D-Mon digitally from my Avid Omni. I then connected the first five DB25 analogue outputs to my Quad 520 power amps for my 5.0 Dynaudio BBC Ls5/12a monitors, and the last two outputs (7&8) to John York’s PSI 21 active stereo monitors that I have on loan, so that I have the ability to switch between two different speaker makes as well as two different speaker set widths.

The ADCs & DACs are 24-bit 96Khz, with 118 dB signal to noise ratio. The internal processing is all 64-bit floating point. The specs are very game-on and top-flight.

Initial Set up

The monitoring outputs from the Avid Omni are in Pro Tools internal film order (L C R Ls Rs LFe). When I set my room up, I chose my Quad amplifiers to be in AES/EBU pairs, L/R, C/LFE, Ls/Rs so that if I was working in stereo only, I could turn the amplifiers for the

Measure by measure

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what sounds like pink noise. Make sure the volume on La Remote (or the Mac app) is loud enough to measure about -30 on the meters page (so that the room is excited enough).

Once you have set levels, stop this ‘initial level set’ calibration and start the real one. The D-Mon will measure each speaker of each set.

To measure the 7 speakers took about a minute or so. Once finished, you can turn the microphone off and then you can tell the D-Mon to compute, this takes around another minute or so for it to do all the clever maths (unlike me).

The results

Once finished you can nerd out and check your results, with before-and-after graphs for each speaker as well as 3D plots of speaker positions and elevations etc and lots of other fun stuff (like phase angles at different frequencies). It’s totally fascinating. You can download your measurements/settings to a PDF file if you attach a USB FAT32 stick to the D-Mon and then you can play ‘monitoring top trumps’ with your engineer friends as to who has the flattest monitoring/best room!

When you have finished your measurement, you can then store a preset with your studio speaker sets and your acoustic measurement/optimisation. You can save other presets with the same (or different) speaker sets but with the optimisation measurements taken at different positions (i.e. ‘the expensive seats’ or the client couch) etc.

You now no longer have to share your engineer’s chair with the hoi polloi! It’s really quick and easy to make measurements.

Please note: NO rooms are ever flat,

despite what acousticians tell you. No monitor systems are flat either (even in an anechoic chamber), but some are flatter than others… and very few speakers indeed are remotely phase accurate across much of the frequency range. With the Trinnov correction you should be able to get your monitoring to within +/- 2dB and mostly phase accurate.

Flexibility vs. simplicity

The D-Mon, because it is so powerful, does have an element of complexity — and like all things with power and capability, it’s key to understand the premise and the way it works allows in order to enjoy the power of what it can do. Once configured with a basic set-up — thanks to the help of Paul Mortimer from Emerging Ltd, Trinnov’s UK distributor — I was able to navigate my way around and (after just two quick phone calls to remind me of things I had forgotten after a week) make my own custom studio set-up and my own monitor calibration , and store my own La Remote custom button configurations. I still haven’t read the Trinnov manual yet!

Once set up, it’s plain sailing and I'm just using my La Remote buttons. Happy days!

Many of the advanced functions were not applicable to me, such as bass management (my monitors are full range and I don’t run a sub), or simulated dynamic range control, downmixing, or headphone cue mixes, the internal routing matrix, or the GPIO or Avid EUCON integration (S6, S5, S3, Dock, D-Command and D-Control). You even can set up the D-Mon to do unusual things such as only optimise your surround speakers, or only correct certain parts of the frequency range, D21.1 / 34

/ Technology

or share the sub with the L and R in stereo mode, but treat it as a discreet destination in 5.1 mode. The world really is your oyster.

Networking

The D-Mon was connected to my studio network switch, and assigned an internal IP address by my router. My studio Mac was then able to access the D-Mon via the OSX Trinnov app. What’s really cool is that, if I was stuck, I could ring Emerging in Reading or Trinnov HQ in France and they could remotely log in to my Trinnov D-Mon and check my settings. How cool is that?

The listening bit

Sound Supervisor and Re-Recording mixer John York owns a Trinnov D-Mon 6 (for 5.1 monitoring) for when he's working at home, and was a convert from my last Trinnov test.

He premixes feature films or dramas at his home studio, so is confident that when clients attend playback at screening rooms or another mix theatre, the correct decisions have been made and the mix is in the best possible shape.

He has 5.1 Dynaudio BM15s, which sound very similar to my Dynaudio Ls 5/12a.

Graham Kirkman (Luminol Audio) is a very experienced freelance re-rerecording mixer and has been a staff mixer in some of Soho’s top luminaries, such as NATS & Halo Post.

Interestingly, when I first played Graham some music in my studio, he preferred the music with the Trinnov in bypass. This is because “it sounded a bit bassier and

brighter — as if the loudness button was on”.

As soon as we switched to voice recordings (our more natural diet), without the Trinnov, Graham would have been reaching for the EQ as “it sounded very uneven”. As soon as I switched the Trinnov in, the need for EQ went and “the voice sounded much more homogenous”.

We tried listening to several atmospheres too and all of us felt the mid-range errors around 500Hz in the room and slight phase complications of vague mono imagery on stereo speakers without the Trinnov.

The Last Word

So if you have got this far, there is at least hope for you. Every time I come across Trinnov, I’m more convinced that the audio paradigm has changed. Get onboard and get arguably the best monitor controller in town, and get the best out of your monitoring and your room. Trinnobunking isn’t professional anymore, and is strictly for amateurs.

Mike Aiton was weaned at the BBC. But after breaking free nearly 30 years ago, he become a Senior Dubbing Mixer at Molinare, Head of Sound at both ClearCut Pictures and also at ESPN. He is now one of London's busiest freelance dubbing mixers, and he can mostly be found in his Twickenham post suite, Mikerophonics, thrashing gear to within an inch of its life. Mike works for Source Elements as a part of the Solutions Team In his spare time he takes therapy for his poor jazz guitar playing and his addiction to skiing and Nikon lenses.

A new lexicon At Mikerophonics (my Twickenham post studio) I have been expanding the lexicon of studio speak with my ‘well-eared’ post colleagues, Graham Kirkman and John York, defining adjectives such as; Trinnovation — the excellence of science in achieving great monitoring; Trinnosophise — the art of discussion regarding the desire to remove room nodes, and of course the verb to Trinnopolise — to dominate your studio monitoring with examples of just how good it sounds! Trinnobunkers are defined as those who are part of the monitoring/acoustics flat earth brigade who have not yet discovered just how inaccurate their studio monitoring/acoustics are.

D21.1 / 35

/ Craft

Awards. Credits included Annie Lennox, Whitney Houston, Cher, Paul McCartney, Backstreet Boys, Will Young and Bryan Ferry.

But success meant Moraes often ended up working for extended periods in LA, and with a young family back in London, he abandoned music altogether to help his wife with her fashion business. He was lured back in 2016, and helped rebuild the recording studio at Tape London — where he is a senior partner — and helped install a PMC monitoring system.

Tape soon became a premier studio in London for hip-hop, and Moraes now divides his time between making records, managing and coaching young producers, running Tape, and a role with PMC monitors at their new Dolby Atmos demo facility located at The Ivories building in Islington, London.

Heff Moraes The former SARM engineering whizzkid is back in multiple new roles.

GEORGE SHILLING finds him running a nightclub, a studio, and advancing the cause of PMC Monitors

H

eff Moraes landed a job at SARM as night receptionist, at a time when Frankie Goes To Hollywood were at Number 1 and 2 in the UK charts. He was soon thrust into assisting Stuart Bruce (Resolution V10.8), and over the ensuing years became Stephen Lipson’s (Resolution V6.8) right-hand man. By 2007 he had acquired recording and mixing credits on nine number one singles and 10 number one albums, received a Grammy and two Brit

What makes Tape so popular with the hip-hop fraternity?

It's got extraordinary speakers, it’s a very well designed room. There’s a Pro Tools rig, a good mic amp and a good compressor.

That's all it needs.

What led you to choosing PMCs? Thirty years ago, myself, and Stephen [Lipson] went to Metropolis to master an album that we'd worked on for ages. Tim Young had these new PMCs. And we listened to the album and we were like, 'these are way too clinical'. But over the years, I kept coming across PMCs, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, the lack of distortion is extraordinary’. If you're recording a band, it helps if you're listening on [certain big monitors], because there's so much distortion, it's a bit of a vibe. But [with PMCs], the lesson for me was, you have to work harder, but once you work harder, whatever comes out of there, it's gonna sound great anywhere.

What inspires you in your multiple roles?

When I came back into the music business, my big vision was to return the UK back to its maverick, brave, great-sounding-record D21.1 / 36

/ Craft

/ PMC’s new Atmos-equipped demo studio in Islington, London

place. From the 60s, musically the difference between the UK and the US, is that church is a big part of the culture there. People from the age of three are singing at least twice a week. Great songs, difficult songs. Therefore they learn to be great singers and great musicians.

Over here, we realised that we weren't quite up to it, musically. So the Beatles must have gone, ‘we're going to use technology and be brave’. And then people in America were like, ‘How the hell are those guys making those records?’

Even Visconti came from America to learn how to do the shit that we were doing and

REPORT

REVIEWS

REVEALED

/ AI: sound engineering / Spotify: binaural commercials / Aloha’s in-sync remote musical collaboration

/ Grace m908: immersive control / Lectrosonics DCR822: receive & record / Genelec GLM 4 — calibrate your senses

/ Cole Whitecotton: battling deepfake audio / Studio tour: coping with COVID / Resolution Awards 2020 Winners!

took what he learnt to become a major trailblazer.

With Trevor and Stephen and the records they were making, every time we went to America, people were like ‘How do you do that?’ They got those results because they were brave; they were willing to take chances.

I love UK hip-hop, but I feel it needs to become braver. So when PMC first talked to me about this role, I realised I can get their speakers into more people's bedrooms and studios, in order to give them a solid base. It's really about talking to people and educating people about the basics of signal flow. You can watch as many YouTubes as you want

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D21.1 / 37

/ Craft

/ The PMC QB1 XBD system at the heart of Tape Studios in Mayfair

about this plug in or that plug in, but if what you're listening to is nonsense, it’s all nonsense.

[Monitoring] is the most important thing. So what I'm trying to do in my mission is to help young UK producers to become brave. That mission aligns very nicely with PMC. I really believe that UK music could be on the verge of great things. It just needs to sharpen up its act. Whatever happened to that swashbuckling, maverick mindset? We're great when we're brave, that's when we excel.

Are you talking about being ‘brave’ in terms of sonic character?

Yeah, bravery in everything. Like, going from mono to stereo suddenly, or going from very dull to very bright, suddenly. Also having a proper, clear picture of what's going on...

Did you help build the new demo room for PMC at The Ivories?

It was built by Oliver Thomas from PMC. He

did an amazing job, I just did a couple of tweaks; obviously I tweaked the bass end, because that's what I do.

What do you think about Atmos?

Dolby Atmos is actually a really exciting platform. What is fantastic about Atmos is it's scalable. So you can listen on headphones, which you know, 80-something-percent of people do now. You can listen in a fancy room, like the PMC room, or you can listen on any scale of speaker system.

Presumably, to do it ‘properly’, you still need multiple speakers?

What I often do is start mixing on headphones at home and then I just take it into the studio . As soon as you hear it in the studio, you go, ‘okay, maybe change this and that’, particularly with the EQ because I'm listening to PMCs at the studio, so I can separate things from a clearer perspective.

D21.1 / 38

/ Resolution Awards

Vote now for the Resolution Awards!

The nominations for the Resolution Awards have been drawn from suggestions from our writers, all industry experts and practitioners. The nomination is our accolade — now it’s over to our thousands of readers to vote…

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espite the ongoing challenges of global pandemic, 2021 has continued to see the development of new and innovative products. Our nominations include high-tech AoIP equipment, digital and analogue processing, artisanal custombuilds, and reinvigorated DAW and plug-in software — all of which reflects the (sometimes esoteric) recommendations of our writing team, trusted colleagues and peers.

Since the 2019 Awards, we have opened the voting process to our digital community — audio pros who receive our email newsletter, issuu.com readers and our wider Facebook and social media community; this year, as last, we’re making it even simpler to

AWARDS 2021 REWARDING QUALITY AND INNOVATION

DAW/SOFTWARE SUITE L'Acoustics L-ISA Studio Nuendo 11 Pro Tools 2021.6 UAD Luna MIXER/CONTROLLER (ANALOGUE OR DIGITAL) Calrec Brio Medley Lawo MC236 48-fader Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Orbit Solid State Logic UF-8 ANALOGUE OUTBOARD API Select T25 Little Labs LL2A ADT Olympic 500 EQ Solid State Logic 500 UV EQ

have your say, by offering an online voting portal through which to submit their choices.

Simply navigate to the URL below, make your choices on the voting form, and click ‘Submit’.

We maintain fairness by only allowing one vote per IP address (the numerical label assigned to each device connected to the internet) — the voting page can only be submitted once per reader — so be sure to register all your choices before clicking the submit button.

Voting for our 12th annual Resolution Awards will close at the end of November, and the winners will be announced in a special digital Winners Supplement, and in the Winter edition of Resolution.

AWARDS 2021 NOMINEES INTERFACE (A-D/D-A) Antelope Galaxy 32 AVID Pro Tools | Carbon Focusrite Red8Line Prism Sound Dream ADA-128 MICROPHONE DPA 4097 CORE micro shotgun JZ BB29 Scope Periscope Telefunken TF11 FET MONITORING Focal Alpha 65 Evo Genelec GLM 4.1 Grace Designs m908 Trinnov D-Mon + La Remote PLUG-IN Bettermaker EQ232D Leapwing Al Schmitt SynchroArts VocAlign UAD API Vision Console

PREAMP AMS Neve 1073OPX API Select T12 Cranborne Audio EC1 RME 12Mic PROCESSOR Flock Audio PATCH XT LAWO A_UHD CORE Lawo Home Studio Technologies 5422A RECORDER Lectrosonics SPDR TASCAM DR-10L iZotope Spire Studio Zoom PodTrak P8

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There's more in store…

REPORT

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REVEALED

/ Monitoring focus: make the right choices / Eurovision: Rotterdam return / DSP room optimisation: Trinnov-ations

/ DPA 4466 & 4488: new headsets / Solid State Logic UF8: more DAW control / Synchro Arts VocAlign Ultra: get in line

/ WSDG: Studio design with NIRO / Heff Moraes: getting back in the game / NY Philharmonic: sound decisions

REPORT

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/ Plug-ins: Hybrid platforms / Sound libraries: crowdsourcing issues / New products: all the latest

/ JZ Mics: BB29 Signature / UAD: API Console for Luna / Empire Ears: ESR mkII

/ Rob Bridgett: sound-savvy game design / Stephen Baysted: Project Cars 3 / Meet Your Maker: KRK and the future

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/ Flock Audio Patch: digital ease, analogue kit / Audio Digital Technology Olympic EQ & Pre / Inspired Acoustics Inspirata

/ Volker Bertelmann: abstract to soundtrack / Marc Sylvan: quiz show sting king / Resolution Awards 2021: all the nominees

V21.5 | September 2021 | £5.50

V21.4 | August 2021 | £5.50

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Interview

Benjamin Wallfisch

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REPORT / Marshall Studios: retro Neve, modern outlook / Product Focus: consoles & summing mixers / Pro Tools: where next?

Garry Cobain

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Guy Fletcher

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