Resolution V4.6 September 2005 by Resolution

SEPTEMBER 2005 V4.6

THE NEXT GENERATION AUDIO PRODUCTION MAGAZINE

Tim Summerhayes Sound trucking

Ty Unwin — music for TV and a DigitalXBus Taking a lead in Polish commercial radio at RMF FM Cenzo Townshend’s production approach Meet your maker: Chris Gaunt — Calrec The business of the home of the future Why the core issue remains the processor

REVIEWS • RTW 30900

• Ableton Live 5

• TC Helicon VoicePro • Audient Sumo • Neumann BCM 104/BCM 705 • CB Electronics UR422

• AMS Neve 8051 • Altiverb 5 • Edirol R-4

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September 2005 V4.6

ISSN 1477-4216 THE NEXT GENERATION AUDIO PRODUCTION MAGAZINE

News & Analysis 4

Leader

News Sales, contracts, appointments and the bigger picture

Products New introductions and announcements plus Digidesign and Steinberg platform news.

Headroom HD and multichannel; quality and Grass.

Craft 14

54 RMF FM

Commercial radio has come on in leaps and bounds in Poland and this broadcaster has blazed a trail with its ambition and technology.

Tim Summerhayes

Combining live sound and studio engineering backgrounds to yield a prominent career in mobile recording.

Ty Unwin

Musical prodigy turned music for TV specialist and an early Mackie DigitalXBus desk adopter.

Cenzo Townshend

Traditional values and gear and you’ll be seeing his output applauded at this season’s music awards.

Sweet Spot

Is music-only surround sound supposed to be a high ﬁdelity medium or is it just a pleasant spacial experience?

In the picture

Sound professionals require a grounding in picture technology if they are not to be left behind. We start to get you up to speed.

Katz’s column

Bob plays marriage counsellor as Becky and Fred fall out over a small matter of conversion.

Meet your maker

Chris Gaunt — Calrec’s technology man on multichannel, character, and sports cars.

Ten

Your business

Mic techniques for the curious.

Business 58

The home of the future

In the future, our production efforts will increasingly be on tap in multi-room digital homes — but who has the key to the pipe?

The change in ownership of the industry’s two biggest traditional brands may herald the possibility of a return to ‘industry characters’.

Technology 66

When you’re 64

Whether it’s consoles, DAWs or any other aspect of digital audio, the core issue, after all the overblown specs and proclamations, is the processor.

Slaying Dragons There has always been a huge distribution in the degree of impairment of sound quality that people will tolerate. Watkinson suggests an explanation.

Reviews 22

TC Helicon VoicePro

Ableton Live 5

Neumann BCM 104 and BCM 705

RTW Surround Control 30900

AMS Neve 8051

Audient Sumo

Audio Ease Altiverb 5

CB Electronics UR422

Edirol R-4

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

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

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

news APPOINTMENTS APT HAS appointed Art Constantine as its VP of North American Operations. He has previously worked for Musicam USA, Modulation Sciences, Fidelipac and Moseley and will establish a new APT sales ofﬁce in New Jersey serving the US and Canada.

Tokyo-based distribution company APT KK has been named APT Distributor of the Year for 2004. MARTIN BENNETT has been appointed Digidesign’s new European marketing and strategic business manager. He has played a key role in developing Digidesign’s sales channel throughout the EMEA territories and most recently led Digidesign’s efforts across Europe by selling Icon systems into high-end post, music and broadcast. SARAH YULE has joined TL Audio as international sales m a n a g e r. S h e i s a graduate of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.

Nial Holden, Copeman, Ben Holden, Guthrie. UK CABLING specialist VDC Trading has made two appointments to its Board of Directors. Giles Copeman, who has been technical manager at VDC for the past ﬁve years, and Ben Holden, who is production manager, join MD Niall Holden and technical director Dug Guthrie on the Board.

©2005 S2 Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publishers. Great care is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication, but neither

Leader

The recent closure of a couple of UK High Street computer shop chains has given us a glimpse into the dynamic of the consumer/technology equation. Those chains made their money while the going was good and it was undoubtedly very good at the point where households were being alerted to the fact that they could all add a computer to their electrical goods inventory — just as they all added microwave cookers, electric kettles and bread makers in the past. A High Street chain makes progress for as long as it is selling something that the buyer is insecure about — if he knows what he wants he buys it online. When the automobile became available to ordinary folk you just as significantly found retailers of cars in the High Street as some fantastic black and white photos from the 1930s will testify. The computer shop emporium was a sign of different times — the consumer wanted it even though he didn’t know how to start it, drive it or stop it. Why the High Street emporia have disappeared is more revealing. You could say that reducing component and system costs across the board made a High Street operation uncompetitive to a mail order/website alternative but I believe it is more fundamental than that. In the consumer’s mind computer technology lost its mystique. He had absolutely no better idea about what was going on under the bonnet but he now took it for granted that the damn thing tended to work without unnecessary drama and any trivial problems that mum would encounter could generally be identified as finger trouble by the eldest computer savvy child. Just as in years gone by we may have initially watched the newly installed automatic washing machine going into full spin, so the thrill has gone from the power up and down routines of the PC. The appearance of rock bottom-priced PCs on the shelves of supermarkets tells me that the consumer now regards them with close to as much casual contempt as he does any other electrical appliance. That’s good and it’s bad. It’s good because a barrier of acceptance has been broken down to technology that can change lives. It’s bad because that technology is now devalued and has become truly mass market and disposable. Think about this next time you’re buying a computer specifically for audio to make a living on. Zenon Schoepe

Art of Record Production Conference The Art of Record Production Conference will be held in London at the University of Westminster on 17-18 September and is being billed as the world’s ﬁrst conference dedicated to record production. The event will pool the worldwide production knowledge of academics and professionals to map out where production has been and where it is going. The UK music business network MusicTank, CHARM (Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music), University of Westminster and Thames Valley University have joined forces to host the event. Producer Robin Millar will give the keynote speech. Three streams will bring together producers and engineers working in academia alongside sociological observer Simon Frith, chair of the Mercury Music Prize panel, Allan Moore, author of Rock: The Primary Text and Evan Eisenberg, journalist and author of the The Recording Angel. Classical music representatives will include Michael Haas, several time Grammy Award-winning producer; Colin Lawson, director of the Royal College of Music; and session singer Donald Greig. The conference will conclude with a panel discussion chaired by former MPG chairman and Brit Awards judge Andy East with artist, producer and A&R man turned Sony Music supremo Muff Winwood, producer Tom Frederickse, and Pip Williams. www.musictank.co.uk

Cleaning up Big Brother Digidesign acquires Wizoo Digidesign has acquired Wizoo Sound Design headquartered in Bremen, Germany. Wizoo is a developer of virtual instruments, sample libraries, and real-time effects and is led by keyboardist, sound designer and author Peter Gorges, Steinberg Media Technologies co-founder Manfred Rürup, and ﬁlm composer Hans Zimmer. Wizoobranded products include Darbuka, Latigo, and WizooVerb. Wizoo also provides the essential components of many other Gorges, Zimmer, Rürup. influential virtual instrument products ‘Today, virtual instruments are evolving far throughout the industry with its broad array beyond basic plug-ins,’ said Gorges. ‘By truly of synthesis and sampling ‘engineware integrating our technologies more directly technologies’ and sound libraries. into the Pro Tools environment, we can create ‘I was so impressed with the sounds next-generation synthesis and sampling tools and capabilities of Wizoo products and that offer unparalleled capabilities while their core technologies that I became a remaining intuitive and easy to use.’ user myself,’ said Dave Lebolt, Avid VP ‘In addition to the great products and general manager of Digidesign. ‘We Wizoo currently offers, we look forward to evaluate a lot of technology at Digidesign delivering new products for the Pro Tools and Wizoo stood out because of their platform that will be equally as groundinnovative design concepts and “intelligent breaking as Turbosynth and SampleCell instrument” features.’ were earlier in our history,’ added Lebolt.

S2 Publications Ltd or the editor can be held responsible for its contents. The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the Publishers.

S2 Publications Ltd. Registered in England and Wales. Company number: 4375084. Registered ofﬁce: Equity House, 128-136 High Street, Edgware, Middlesex HA8 7TT.

resolution

The CEDAR DNS1000 dynamic noise suppressor was used by engineer Oliver France to remove unwanted noise from the Big Brother 6 broadcast on Channel 4 TV. The DNS1000 was primarily used to clean up noise during the ‘after eviction’ interview with presenter Davina McCall recorded on the George Lucas Sound Stage at Elstree Studios. The use of omnidirectional microphones resulted in the pick up of ambient noise from air conditioning, fans, large OB trucks and neighbouring editing suites. • TO CELEBRATE winning a Sci-Tech Academy Award for its dialogue noise suppression technology, CEDAR is offering the DNS1000 and DNS2000 dialogue noise suppressors at special prices until the end of September with 10% off the usual price of the DNS1000 and more than 20% off the DNS2000. The offers are available in local currency from CEDAR dealers worldwide and direct from CEDAR Audio in the UK.

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September 2005

news Sounds Expo in Olympia 2

APPOINTMENTS

The organisers of the UK Sounds Expo exhibition have announced a change in venue for the 2006 event, moving it to Olympia 2 on 9-11 March. ‘After announcing the move to Olympia, feedback from exhibitors and industry professionals has been very positive,’ said event director Kieron Seth. ‘I know that the move closer to the town will please many.’ The show will feature a special ‘Below 70dB Zone’ and an Education Zone dedicated to musical instruments for the educational sector. www.vcm.co.uk

Netia raises €3.2m Netia has completed a round of funding that has raised €3.2 million through ACE Management and BNP Paribas Private Equity, as well as by Netia’s traditional shareholders. The purpose of funding is to accelerate Netia’s growth in the face of the transition of media markets towards information technologies. The company says it is now fully committed in this direction with the launch of research and development projects in audio, video, mobility, and the Internet. ‘Our strong presence during the IBC conference in Amsterdam will emphasise our intention of becoming a major player in the management and broadcasting of audio and video content over IP,’ said Christophe Carniel, Netia CEO.

Producer Ken Nelson has bought four Enhanced Audio M600 universal mic mounts and has been using them on a variety of sessions. He’s seen with a Soundelux Elux 251 at Parr Street Studios.

HOWARD JONES has joined HHB Communications in a role that encompasses pro audio equipment sales and internal marketing support f o r H H B ’s U K distribution division. He previously worked at UK advertising agency The Bridge and prior to that spent 11 years at TL Audio. Synchronia Recording Studio near Rome has opened with monitoring from Quested and acoustic design by Giuseppe Zappata employing his ‘Stealth Acoustic Environment’ principles. ‘With the SAE technique the space of the control room is carved around the listening point of the sound engineer,’ said director and manager Alessandro Giordani. ‘Not only is it our engineer’s system of choice, but the computerised acoustic measurement of the Quested [VH3280] main monitoring system has conﬁrmed the validity of the SAE technique to give perfect control of low ends and mid frequencies.’

AES set to challenge preconceptions in New York As part of a huge marketing effort to has posted 120 individual sessions build end-user attendance at the AES — 90 lecture papers and four Poster Convention in New York, five of the sessions of 30 additional papers US’s leading pro audio retailers have will provide attendees with a vast agreed to support the AES show as reservoir of knowledge and insight into Official Retail Sponsors. B&H, Dale Kilgore innovative acoustical developments Pro Audio, Full Compass, GC Pro, and applications. David Bialik, AES Guitar Center and Sweetwater have Convention Broadcast Chair, has all agreed to promote customer developed a series of events for the attendance to the Convention via Convention including an audio for HDTV their mailing lists and promotional panel to examine shifts and advances activities. The Convention, which has Bialik in the evolution of this important attracted more than 400 exhibitors technology. and anticipates as many as 20,000 With topics ranging from Next attendees, will be held at the Jacob Generation Audio Communications Javits Center 7-10 October. to inquiries into ‘Feeling Sound’, the ‘We are reaching out to the Workshops represent an extraordinary companies who deal directly with Silverman amalgam of high-level expertise. musicians and industry pros as part of Workshops chair Alan Silverman has our effort to draw more customers to assembled a diverse programme of 14 the exhibit floor than ever before,’ said workshops designed to provide attendees AES executive director Roger Furness. with useful, real-world techniques and ‘This effort will promote attendance to applications and to include a variety of highly-qualified professionals and to Manno forward-looking topics. next-generation pros making their first foray Technical Tours chair Louis Manno has to an AES event.’ fashioned a programme that reflects the Themed as Where Audio Comes Alive to diversity of the New York and New Jersey pro reflect an increased commitment to content audio community with visits to Avatar, Arup for sound reinforcement, Live Sound Events co- Acoustics, The CBS Late Show With David chairs John Kilgore and Mary Falardeau have Letterman, Electric Lady, Trutone Mastering, organised 14 individual workshops to look at Chung King Studios, Sirius Satellite Radio the science, art and technology that is driving Complex, Masque Sound, Food Network, and live sound for performance and installation. Jazz At Lincoln Center Time-Warner Building. Convention papers chair James Johnston www.aes.org

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September 2005

EUPHONIX HAS appointed Eddie Jones as digital product specialist f o r i t s E u ro p e a n office in London. He was most recently technical operations manager at De Lane Lea Post Production in London. SLS HAS appointed Raycom as its newest dealer for the UK to expand SLS monitoring products within the broadcasting industry. INDUSTRY FIGURE Pat Walsh has retired from Neutrik (UK) Ltd after 30 years. Pat joined GE Electronics, Neutrik’s first distributor in the UK, in 1974 as a sales office manager and in 1976 continued his relationship working for Eardley Electronics, Neutrik Marketing and finally Neutrik (UK) Ltd. MARK BROMFIELD h a s j o i n e d beyerdynamic (GB) as technical sales manager. He has previously worked for Amek/TAC, SSE, and LMC Audio Systems. FIRST SENSE has been appointed UK importer of ME-Geithain professional loudspeakers from Germany.

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news APPOINTMENTS CERWIN-VEGA and KRK Systems have hired veteran designer Tim Shuttleworth as their new VP of Engineering. Shuttleworth held positions with Neve and most recently was director, electronics technology development at JBL Professional.

Yellow Shark’s 5.1 Rainbow

Drew with ATC’s Bob Polley

Lochhead, Thomson, Cunningham. COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL Loudspeakers in the US has established Community UK Limited to distribute its products in the UK and Ireland. It will be based in Glasgow and will be headed by Stuart Thomson, Community’s EMEA market manager. Alan Lochhead will manage field sales and Stuart Cunningham, who joins from Linn, will provide internal sales, service and technical support. Larry Howard has been named director of strategic development for Community Professional Loudspeakers. He was formerly director of sales and marketing. Julia Lee has been appointed director of sales and marketing at Community P ro f e s s i o n a l L o u d s p e a k e r s . S h e was formerly a sales manager at the company. C o m m u n i t y has promoted Christopher Barrow to the position of manager of new product development. He has an extensive engineering background with experience in ampliﬁer design. Community has promoted Steve Goodwin to marketing services manager from international account manager and customer service supervisor. DISTRIBUTION OF Schoeps microphones in the UK and Ireland is being handled by ioCo Limited — a company formed by Neal McCormack who has over 15 years experience of distributing Schoeps products.

Purple Records (Overseas) has completed a CD project featuring Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow classic live performances, remixed by Mike Brown in stereo and 5.1 at Yellow Shark Studios in Cheltenham, UK. Studio owner Jeremy Drew reports that winning the contract gave him the final incentive to install a 5.1 ATC monitoring system. The studio’s main reference monitors are soffit-mounted ATC SCM200ASL Pro 3-way actives. SCM20ASL portable active monitors are used for nearfield and 5.1 surround, together with an ATC C4 sub-bass monitor. For the Rainbow project, original material was received on 24-track 2-inch, transferred onto the studio’s Radar, and mixed on a 48-channel Soundtracs Jade. Drew outlined another compelling reason for his investment in 5.1, the launch of Yellow Shark Studios into the orchestral recording business. ‘We’ve just signed a deal giving us access to the magnificent Pittville Pump Room here in Cheltenham, which offers the space necessary for large-scale orchestral recording projects such as TV and film score work,’ he said. ‘And we’ve got Paul Golding, one of the UK’s top orchestral engineers, managing this aspect of Yellow Shark’s business. Our new ATC system will be a persuasive factor in bringing the studio many of the multichannel recording projects that will result from this diversification.’

Two top KL news studios take Aurus

Radio Television Malaysia has purchased two Stagetec Aurus consoles for TV-news studios in its Kuala Lumpur broadcasting house. The installation will be part of a complete refurbishment of all studios. The ﬁrst desk will be installed in Studio 5, which provides TV-news programmes in Bahasa Malaysian and English language, while the second will go into Studio 4, which is mainly used for TV-news in Chinese and Indian languages. Both desks have 24 faders and 28 audio channels.

An Aurus with 32 channel strips, 80 audio channels, and 64 buses will be installed as the centrepiece of the production facilities used by Swiss Broadcasting Service for its broadcasts from the Swiss parliament Bundeshaus. • Stagetec has delivered an Aurus digital console and Nexus audio network to equip Swiss OB specialist TV Productioncenter Zurich’s new 12-24 camera HDTV OB truck. Designed and integrated by Sony UK, the vehicle will be presented at IBC 2005 in Amsterdam.

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Donald J Plunkett

Donald J. Plunkett, a charter member of the AES, executive director for 20 years and past president, died suddenly in July aged 81. He is survived by his wife, Mary Elizabeth, son Christopher, daughters Hilary Jones, Libby Mastoloni and Emily Fleischer, and four grandchildren. As a young man, Plunkett came across a Columbia Graphaphone Cylinder Recording Reproducing machine in his grandparent’s attic, and began a life-long love affair with recording. His career highlights include working at NBC, Capitol Records, Fairchild Recording Equipment, and in equipment manufacture and operation. He was involved in the fledgling independent record market in the days when it was regarded as a niche market and the 78rpm lacquer disc was state-of-the-art. In January 1948, Plunkett met Norman Pickering and Ted Lindenberg who were part of the organizing committee for the AES. He became a member of the committee and was involved in the formation of the Society in February 1948 and attended the ﬁrst formal meeting of the AES in March 1948. During the Society’s formative years Plunkett was president, executive VP and governor. He was appointed AES executive director in 1974 and was responsible for the expansion of membership into Europe and the implementation and stability of AES Conventions in several parts of the world. He remained active in AES affairs far beyond its 50th anniversary in 1998 and received numerous AES honours. An irreplaceable member of the professional audio community, he will be deeply missed by everyone who had the good fortune to know and work with him.

30th SBES nears capacity The Sound Broadcasting Equipment Show, which will be held 16-17 November at The Pavilion, NEC, Birmingham, UK, will mark its 30th anniversary with some special celebrations, including a display of old equipment and photographs, some dating back to the earliest days of the event in the 1970s. There are still limited spaces available for exhibitors and visitors are now able to register on-line at www.sbes.com

September 2005

news

news APPOINTMENTS M I D A S A N D K l a r k Te k n i k h a v e appointed Belcut Project in Minsk as its distributor for Belarus.

The Darkness rock with RTB

C U S T O M CONSOLES has expanded its management team with the appointment of John O’Byrne a s p ro d u c t s a l e s manager.

TURBOSOUND HAS appointed New Musik Sweden as its Swedish distributor. PMC HAS appointed Claire Meacham to the newly created position of UK sales and marketing support for consumer a n d p ro f e s s i o n a l audio sectors. MEGAHERTZ BROADCAST Systems has boosted its technical staff by appointing Andrew Cox as senior project engineer. He joins from the US office of Canadian technology integration company, AZCAR, which holds an 80% shareholding in Megahertz Broadcast Systems. M e g a h e r t z Broadcast Systems has appointed Tim Dye to the position of proposals engineer. He joins from Anglia Television where he held a number of posts including head of engineering.

Producer Roy Thomas Baker is working on the new The Darkness album with a ‘kitchen sink’ approach that involves a selection of Neve outboard. ‘I love the functionality of the 1081R,’ explained Roy. ‘Fortunately, I was the first person to use the 88R series console in the States when I was working at the Village, in Los Angeles with Axel Rose on the Guns ‘n’ Roses record. We recorded the drums in the old auditorium of the Masonic Temple at the Village, which was quite a distance away from the control room. So, to be able to place the mic preamps next to the drums and push the signal, not pull the signal to the control room, while digitally controlling the individual preamp levels remotely from the mixing console in the control room was remarkable. Equally, I used the 1081Rs in a similar situation while at Rockfield Studios; we recorded The Darkness drums and guitars in the games room. ‘High quality mic pres,’ continued Roy, ‘enable you to maintain full high fidelity, frequency response, and dynamics even at an extraordinary high source level, like Dan Hawkins’ Marshall and Mesa Boogie guitar amp, Ed Graham’s large Ludwig drums kit, and Justin Hawkins’ massive vocals!’

Visual 102 goes HDTV with OBV

(l-r) Riva and Barbier with Jean Philippe Blanchard of distributor Audiopole.

OUT BOARD has appointed Jolly Pro Audio, run by CEO Andy Leung (pictured), as Hong Kong and China distributor for its TiMax Audio Imaging delay matrix and showcontrol processor. LINE 6 is now distributing all Propellerhead Software products within the US together with marketing and customer support.

Visual 102’s latest addition to its OB ﬂeet in France is on the road and offering HD vision and all-digital audio facilities. HD1, an expandable 24-camera truck, is the twelfth and the largest vehicle to be commissioned by the Paris-based company and is the ﬁrst OB operator in France to select a Studer Vista 8, although other OB companies are already using Vista 6 and 7 models. ‘Any newcomer, with a little help from a technical operator, can use the Vista 8, which is not the case with some of the other consoles we could have chosen,’ said Pierre

Barbier, Visual 102’s audio manager. ‘The software is very intuitive and very quick, and, after just four events, I’m already feeling very comfortable working with this desk,’ added sound engineer Ludovic Riva. ‘It will change the way I work, encouraging the use of the digital facilities like snapshots, but I think the Vista is just perfect for audio, it is the best desk for our job.’ HD1 made its debut on a live broadcast from L’Opera de Garnier and it will be broadcasting World Cup 2006 from Germany.

resolution

news

news THE BIG PICTURE

• FORTUNE MAGAZINE has recognised Sonic Solutions as the 14th fastest growing company in America in 2005. Criteria used to select the fastest growing companies included market capitalisation of at least US$50 million on June 30, 2005; revenues of at least US$50 million for the most recent four quarters, ending with the first quarter of 2005; annualised revenue growth of at least 25% for the past three years; and annualised earnings-per-share growth of at least 25% for the past three years. • GOOGLE IS to launch an instant messaging and online voice calling service that takes it into competition with established telecoms companies and other online services. Google Talk is an attempt to create an open platform on the web for voice calls and instant messaging. • THE GLOBAL number of 3G subscribers is predicted to grow from 30 million in 2004 to over 300 million by 2010, according to Juniper Research. The report also forecasts that shipments of handsets will break the 1 billion mark by 2009 through the emerging Asia Pacific markets and increasing replacement rates in mature markets. • UK ELECTRICAL retailer Dixons Group has reported an 8% fall in annual profits, and said the outlook for the current year remains ‘challenging’. The owner of Dixons, Currys and PC World also owns the PC City, Elkjop and UniEurope chains in continental Europe and serves as something of a barometer of CE market health. • BROADBAND GROWTH will help propel the value of the worldwide entertainment and media industries to US$1.8 trillion by 2009, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Its report, Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2005-2009, says total spending from new revenue streams, such as broadband and digital downloads, will climb from $11.4bn to $73bn over the next five years. Spending on media and entertainment around the world grew 8% last year to $1.3 trillion. This was the largest gain since 2000. The Internet was the fastest growing medium, with on-line advertising up 36% and access revenues up 21%, driven by the switch from dialup to broadband services.

Biz bites

The IFPI is lobbying US legislators on behalf of record labels in an attempt to compel American radio stations to cough up performance rights payments on the music they play, writes Nigel Jopson. ‘We need to convince the political establishment that our cause is just,’ said Lauri Rechardt, director of licensing and litigation, ‘it needs to be put into legislation, as has been done in all other countries. It’s been raised by the RIAA and the artists representatives ... the US is so huge we would double the value of the global market.’ Performance rights are paid when music is played on radio or TV, or performed for commercial purposes: labels received US$93.5m for performance rights in the UK last year, and just US$9.1m from the US. US radio stations make no payments because Congress decided, in the 1930s, that labels and artists benefited from the promotional value of airplay. This issue is important not just because of the extra $500m a year that might be collected, but because the definition of radio is rapidly blurring ... is a downloaded Podcast of a radio show a radio? When Napster subscribers click on the ‘radio’ drop-down menu and select some genre-specific listening it’s not a radio, it’s a digital stream for which they pay a monthly fee. For two years the IFPI has been signing up international collection agencies for its world-wide ‘one stop’ reciprocal webcasting agreement (webcast videos are not covered). Previously, webcasters had to secure approval from different national collection agencies. These agencies will now license not only their own national rights, but those of other societies signing up to the agreement. Each non-profit collecting society will keep a percentage of the fee to cover its operating costs. The European Commission last year released a statement compelling 16 European nations to end their labyrinthine licensing restrictions, saying they hamper the development of a European online music market. Dutch agency BUMA and Belgium’s SABAM recently proposed commitments to end restrictions requiring online radio stations and download stores to seek individual licenses from each country’s separate royalty agency. In Japan, where Sony once ruled the earbuds, Apple’s iPod now leads the market, with a 36% stake versus Sony’s 22%. iTunes Japan launched with a massive fanfare, boasting a digital first with the entire Rolling Stones catalogue available, thanks to a deal with ABKCO for the classic early cuts. Younger consumers without credit cards were tempted with iTunes Music Cards, available at stores like Kojima and Yodobashi Camera. In just four days, 1 million songs were downloaded, the fastest sales since launch in any of the 20 nations served. It puts Apple head to head with Sony, its new ‘Bean’ flash-memory Walkmen (50 hours play time), shaped to look like mini-perfume flasks, has been outselling iPod Shuffles in Japan. Proving that content is still linked to hardware, Sony has not opted to join the iTunes store. Sony-signed rocker Motoharu Sano went out in a blaze of glory as he was quoted in Japan’s top business daily as saying: ‘It is an individual’s freedom where that person chooses to listen to music. I want to deliver my music wherever my listeners are.’... Sony Music spokesman Yasushi Ide said Sano is ‘no longer considered a Sony artist.’ Sony’s new CEO Howard Stringer is pushing hard to roll out a fully revamped version of the much-criticised Connect service, a retooled Walkman and a (rumoured) video-download service.

Mexican ﬁrst with Zeta

(l-r) TV Azteca’s González, Luis Arandia of Respuesta Integral, TV Azteca’s Luis Baltazar and Rafael Rodriguez of Respuesta. Mexican broadcaster TV Azteca has purchased a 32-fader, 56-channel Calrec Zeta digital console for installation in a new HD ENG truck for HD Live Broadcasts, HD TV Production and special events. It is the first Calrec console in Latin America. ‘After a thorough evaluation of all the consoles on the market we chose the Zeta because it offers the most complete features, but at the same time a great flexibility of use and configuration during live broadcast events,’ said TV Azteca audio manager Eusebio González. ‘It provides us with a huge number of input sources and a variety of audio output stages. ‘This mobile studio will deliver the best image quality and programming in Mexico, and we needed the best audio equipment available. We believe that Calrec give us this quality and commitment, enabling us to focus all our skills, enthusiasm, innovation and energy to do what we do best at TV Azteca; entertain our audience and offer different and attractive programming,’ he said.

Wolpert’s project studio has LSR surrounds

Euphonix sales drive

The ﬁrst two orders for the Euphonix System 5-MC DAW Controllers have gone to John Ross’s new facility in Hollywood for controlling several Nuendo and Pro Tools systems and Studio L’Equipe in Belgium for controlling Pyramix and Pro Tools. Other orders include a System 5-MC and an MC for the Robert E. Nims Center for Entertainment Arts and MultiMedia Technology afﬁliated with University of New Orleans. On the broadcast side in the US, NBC has placed an order for a System 5-BP and a Max Air console for the Last Call with Carson Daly show in Burbank, following the installation of three System 5 consoles for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, also on the Burbank lot. In New York, NBC’s Saturday Night Live has placed

an order for a System 5-BP while AARP in Washington has ordered two Max Airs and Dole Foods in LA ordered a System 5-B for its on-air operations. In China, CCTV has added a Max Air and System 5-B to its existing eight Euphonix on-air systems while regional Chinese stations in Zhejian and Jiangsu have installed Max Airs. European sales have included a System 5-B for TVN’s OB truck in Poland (pictured) and a third System 5-BP for a MediaPro remote in Spain. Sky TV ordered a Max Air in Sydney, Dubbing Brothers in Paris has ordered two System 5-Ps, there have been repeat orders for System 5-Ps from NHK and TOA, and Korean orders have included live System 5-BP consoles for the Uniﬁcation Church and Seong Nam Culture and Arts Center in Seoul.

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Engineer/producer Jeff Wolpert recently opened the doors to his new project studio, Kick Audio, in Toronto, Canada, which is outﬁtted with a JBL LSR6300 5.1 system. Dubbed by Wolpert as ‘the world’s largest project studio’, the acoustically treated space measures 32 x 80ft with a 14-foothigh ceiling and two isolation rooms. According to Wolpert, his goal in establishing Kick Audio was to have the relaxed feel of a project studio without any sacriﬁces in quality or space.

September 2005

news

CLOSER TO PERFECTION

Many musicians and recording professionals already consider the DPA 4006 to be the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most precise, natural-sounding microphone. Now the new 4006-TL builds on that legendary platform, adding an ultra-low distortion transformerless preamplifier for increased sensitivity and tighter bass response. The result is an even more remarkable microphone.

DPA 4006 - TL

The DPA 4006-TL. One step closer to perfection. Upgrade your 4006 to 4006-TL specification 4006 microphones can be upgraded to 4006-TL specification. Undertaken at the DPA factory, the upgrade consists of a new preamplifier, a Close-miking grid, a calibration chart and a new mic case. Visit the DPA website for full details.

DPA Microphones A/S, Gydevang 42-44, DK-3450 Alleroed, Denmark Ph: +45 4814 2828 Email: info@dpamicrophones.com

www.dpamicrophones.com

news THE BIG PICTURE

Dream is a R!OT in Atlanta

• CHINA HAS introduced an ‘anti-online game addiction system’ intended to protect players from the mental and physical stresses of too much computer time. The system will encourage players to play less by cutting the beneﬁts they gain and will be implemented by local Internet companies that have signed a code of conduct.

R!OT audio engineers Chris Basta, Karl Gentner and Matt Melberg. Up to three hours of play is considered ‘healthy’ and more than ﬁve hours ‘unhealthy’ at which point players will be subjected to a health warning every 15 minutes.

Three Fairlight Dream Constellations have been bought by production house R!OT Atlanta to go into refurbished rooms. ‘The nature of our business requires fast production timelines without compromising one stitch of quality for our customers,’ said Buddy Hall, MD of R!OT Atlanta. ‘The bottom line is workﬂow. The Fairlight Dream Constellation enables us to work seamlessly throughout our three studios, recalling past sessions with speed and accuracy. Fairlight tools like MediaLink, Virtual Studio Runner and Pyxis allow us to further maximise our work output. The Fairlight system is a true workhorse.’ • Meanwhile, the UK’s National Film and Television School has bought nine Dream Satellite workstations through Tekcare.

• US PRESIDENT Bush has signed a law that could see people who pirate music and films on the Internet in the US to be imprisoned for up to three years. The law targets file-sharers who put copies of songs and films online before their release and also introduces new penalties for anyone caught in a cinema filming with a video camera.

First BC2000D in UK Globecast UK, a subsidiary of France Telecom, has taken delivery of the UK’s ﬁrst AEQ BC2000D digital broadcast console. Installed in its new central London studio and used for Globecast Radio’s evening and weekend programming, it includes RCS Master Control, Burli, a multiline telephone call-in system, and an AEQ Eagle ISDN codec and AEQ Swing portable ISDN/PSTN mixer for outside broadcasts. ‘We chose the BC2000D because it gives us the ﬂexibility that no other console for the same

• THE RIAA says it will file federal copyright lawsuits against 405 students at 18 US universities with access to the Internet2 network, which boasts speeds hundreds of times faster than the Internet. The students are accused of illegally distributing music and films across Internet2, a super-fast computer network connecting universities for researching the next generation of the Internet.

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price could provide,’ said Gary Champion, Globecast’s European head of news.

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The technical implementation of the TV broadcast of the X-Fighters motocross event in Madrid in July is claimed to be the precursor for future ‘super events’ broadcasts. Produced in HD and 5.1, the signals were sent simulcast to TV stations in ten countries, live to the Internet and to selected cinemas in Austria, Ireland, Poland and Spain. Some 150 signal sources were premixed with over 100 effect microphones through the automation of a Lawo mc266 in 5.1 in the Alfacam OB11 van with a Nova73 HD system. Foreign language commentary was then added. Microphones were premixed with audiofollows-video automation and were included as group signals into the mix. Three remote Dallis frames were linked via optical ﬁbre and connected port-redundantly to the Nova73 HD. The connection with the Nova73 HD system of the OB van was also established via MADI while a 48-track machine was also redundantly linked for a future DVD production.

Radio Notre Dame in Paris has upgraded its audio facilities with an 18-fader Studer OnAir 3000 console.

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September 2005

mix outside the box...

news

D-Command D-Command is the new ergonomic mixing surface for Digidesign Pro Tools. Using ICON technology, this is the ideal centrepiece for your Pro Tools|HD studio. D-Command includes 8 high quality touch-sensitive motorized faders, a comprehensive monitor section, metering and transport controls. Expandable to 24 faders. Touch-sensitive rotary encoders incorporate 15-segment LED rings for immediate visual feedback. Dedicated EQ and Dynamics sections provide intuitive “one knob per function” control. Encoders and faders immediately display parameter values when touched. Includes XMON™ remote, rack-mounted analogue I/O audio monitor system capable of monitoring up to 5.1 surround. High-speed Ethernet connectivity provides 200x more bandwidth compared with MIDI controllers, enabling higher resolution and rock solid reliabilty. D-Command truly puts you in the driving seat of the industry’s leading audio platform. Please contact us for further information or to arrange a demo.

Educational

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0117 946 7700

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EQ PANEL — twelve rotary controls provide Freq, Q and Gain over four bands. 5.1 wide streaming selection, and output metering. Alphanumeric LCD. Save, Save As, and Master Bypass switches.

DYNAMICS PANEL — six rotary controls for dedicated compressor/limiter functions, alphanumeric display, 5.1 wide streaming selection, output and gain reduction metering.

MONITOR PANEL — allows operators to control two 5.1 surround inputs, three stereo inputs and two cue sends. Also includes talkback, mono and dim functions.

protools@digitalvillage.co.uk « « www.dvproaudio.com a division of

RMF FM Commercial radio has come on in leaps and bounds in Poland and this broadcaster has blazed the trail with its ambition and technology. ZENON SCHOEPE travels to historic Krakow.

OR THOSE OF US old enough to remember the Cold War and the Wall it is still difficult to view business in the former Eastern Bloc countries without throwing in a reference to the fact that most commercial and free-enterprise progress has been made only in the last 15 years. It’s therefore refreshing and rewarding to see operations that have not just done well but have changed the face of their market through their influence. Radio is a case in point and the story of Polish broadcaster RMF FM encapsulates all that became possible after 1989. But then it is a station of firsts. It prides itself on having broken the State’s monopoly in mass media, having established a commercial radio network, and for implementing modern radio technology. Brainchild of entrepreneur Stanislaw Tyczynski who started the first local commercial radio station in 1989 in Krakow — significantly to be away from the centralisation of the capital Warsaw — RMF FM started broadcasting in 1990. It was broadcasting via satellite in 1992 and 14

delivered its first ‘live’ broadcast into the US in 1993. RMF FM was granted the first country-wide radio licence in 1994 and the following year it launched its first country-wide concert tour — a 1km-long convoy and 60 cities. In the year 2000 its Megafestival celebrated the station’s tenth anniversary and in 2004 the Broker FM Group, which is the holding company, was quoted on the Warsaw stock exchange. RMF FM is the largest radio station in Poland and enjoys the largest share in the advertising market. Thanks to 47 broadcasting points it achieves coverage of some 95% of Poland. RMF FM is additionally accessible via satellite, through the Internet, and it is even rebroadcasted in Chicago for the local Polish community. The station broadcasts music and news programming 24 hours a day and its news is also accessible via the Internet and through WAP. It claims 22 millions listeners weekly, 8 million daily and boasts a listener profile of educated citybased active consumers between the ages of 20-39. resolution

To put these claims into perspective, RMF FM claims some 22% of the audience share, which represents by far the largest chunk of any one operator in Poland. It has 300 employees and claims to be the quickest and most reliable independent source of information in the country. A network of correspondents — located in Poland and around the world — relay information to the station’s listeners. They have reported from Kosovo, Afghanistan and were in Baghdad at the time of the war — apparently they were the only Polish reporters there. From its very beginning RMF FM saw the potential that ‘events’ offered to those who had their own marketing and promotional vehicle. Its strategy has always included the organisation and sponsoring of large events, such as concerts, tours and one-off spectaculars. It takes the credit for the largest ever music event in Poland (700,000 and the Scorpions) and has co-organised the Polish legs of super-band international tours. Its station has an advanced digital studio infrastructure but its bofﬁns have been testing and implementing the sort of multimedia technologies necessary to change its business concept in the future. This technology aspect has been reinforced by the construction of a ‘Multimedia Factory’ some 30km outside Krakow. Described as the largest media facility in Europe — I’ve only seen pictures of it — it looks like something out of a sci-ﬁ Martian landscape with a mass of interconnected ‘monolithic pods’ spread over a huge plot. [see the picture; that’s apparently the real September 2005

facility thing not a model.] The pods house production areas and are likely to be used for the diversification of the company’s activities. Television seems like a natural evolution for the organisation and RMF FM recently applied for a satellite TV channel licence. With this talk of the future it’s important not to overlook the core business of radio. Headquartered in a pleasant old building right next to the tourist attraction of Krakow’s Kosciuszko Mound, the facilities have grown in line with the broadcaster’s activities. It delivers RMF FM playing hot adult contemporary, RMF Classic playing mostly classical and soundtracks, and RMF Max, which started less than a year ago for contemporary hit radio. There are three studios for RMF FM, two for Classic and one for Max all arranged on the first floor. However, it’s the station’s recording studio that is of most interest and it runs Pro Tools with a smattering of sensible outboard through Genelec 1038s and has a dedicated live room. RMF FM engineer Lukasz Myszkal picks up the story. ‘This room was originally a recording studio designed for music,’ he says. ‘It was built ten years ago and was mainly used for recording jingles for RMF FM.’ However, things changed suddenly when the management decided it wanted to differentiate the station and started buying its jingles from Los Angeles. The room was then pressed into service for the remixing and remastering of those jingles but because the studio wasn’t fully occupied it was also hired out on a commercial basis. With the expansion in the number of channels this studio and a similar but smaller control room across the corridor from it were pressed into service for promos, commercials and taking care of station imaging. The room has an interesting layout with a type of raised gallery area running around the back, while at the front — recessed into the floor — is the window into the live room. The recording area is not especially high but it is usefully long and wide to yield a creatively useful space big enough for a band. Lukasz inherited the Genelecs but loves them and believes that like everything else at the station the quality to price ratio was paramount at the time of the purchase and they were chosen as the best buy for the investment. The control room houses a very

old Tactile Technologies mixer used purely as a means of monitoring the output of Lukasz’s Pro Tools as he now does all his mixing in the box. Lukasz has been with RMF FM for almost two years having been head-hunted from a rival radio station where he was in charge of imaging and the sound ID as well as doing promos and commercials for the contemporary hit radio channel. The call came as RMF was starting the build up to its own CHR Max channel launch. He’s delighted with his working environment saying that the studio at his former station was as small as his bathroom. The studios have to be manned for 20 hours every day and two engineers per room cover the 9am to 12 midnight stretch. LukaszAV_07.05 clearly keeps29/6/05 extremely busy. ■ am Page 1 Res_Smart 10:40

”The most exciting new product in years.”

In an industry where new product launches come thicker and faster each year, reactions like the one above are extremely hard to come by, yet this is the most frequent comment we’ve heard from seasoned professionals and hardened critics alike on first seeing the revolutionary new Smart AV Console. Designed for use with today's most popular DAWs including Apple Logic, Digidesign Pro Tools and Merging Technologies Pyramix, the Smart Console represents a quantum leap forward in ergonomics and is radically different from any other console on the market today. Operation via patented ARC technology is so intuitive that the learning curve is measured in minutes rather than days, and project completion times are slashed. A bold claim, but when you find out more about the design, it’s easy to see why: THE ARC

EQ FAN DISPLAY

The Console’s patented touch-sensitive ARC allows instant one-touch selection of any channel or group of channels from those currently in use on the DAW - custom sets of channels can be called up onto the faders in a second or two. What’s more, the ARC also allows instant muting, soloing (or any other custom function) of any channel, even if it’s not currently active on the console.

DISPLAYS

CHANNEL DISPLAY

In addition to the stunning metering on the ARC itself, channels marked on the ARC in your own handwriting appear in the super high-visibility electro-fluorescent display above each fader bank - this can also optionally display your DAW track names, or both. Meanwhile in the EQ department, dualconcentric touch-sensitive EQ pots show the current gain and frequency information on hi-res LED fan displays, whilst detailed plug-in control is available on the central LCD touchscreen with its own dual-concentric touch-sensitive pots.

MODULARITY The entire Console is highly modular, and in additon to the components already described, also comes as standard with support for 3rd party surround monitoring controllers and remote mic pre-amps, a 48, 72 or 96 channel ARC, one or two optional ‘floating’ subsidiary ARCs, and an optional Edit Panel with high quality jog wheel, 40 custom function buttons and built-in 12" hi-definition LCD screen.

SOUND INVESTMENT

MOTORIZATION

Most of all though, the Smart Console makes good commercial sense - other than the undeniable client ‘wow’ factor, tests have shown that productivity is massively increased versus any other existing console design, and operator stress levels significantly reduced - how much could this be worth to your business?

The Console can be specified with either industry standard ALPS touch-sensitive motorized faders, or optionally deluxe ultra-fast Penny & Giles models when only the best will do.

Call today to find out more about the Console and flexible finance arrangements, or to book your personal demonstration.

+44 (0) 20 7692 6611 www.smartav.net smartav@mediatools.co.uk

EDIT PANEL

September 2005

The touch-sensitive aux send knobs are also motorized, as are the pan knobs with their handy LED surround pan displays and a central motorized touch-sensitive surround panner is available to all channels.

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gear review

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

SSL C300 DIGITAL CONSOLE

SSL’s C300 is a compact, assignable console for sweetening and mix creation in ﬁlm and postproduction applications. The C300 Master Studio System integrates DAW control using techniques pioneered by the AWS 900. Automation developed from the C200 provides real and non-realtime control over the console’s signal processing allowing operators to slow down fast moves to a more manageable pace. The C300 incorporates: Dynamic Resource Allocation; mixing capacity of over 500 mix inputs and 80 mix buses with DSP from a single Centuri processor; process linking and stacked channel grouping puts stems and groups under one fader; integrated 128-input multiformat surround monitoring; multi-user conﬁguration; MoXY controller realtime cross-parameter control; integrated multimachine control including DAWs; and multiple sample rates including pull-ups and pull-downs. www.solid-state-logic.com

Platform news: Digidesign The Surround Panner option for the Icon D-Control features an integrated 640 x 480 high-resolution colour LCD touchscreen, two touch-sensitive joysticks with associated Punch buttons, two touch-sensitive rotary encoders with 15-segment LED rings, six Mode buttons for each panner, direct control over panning and divergence via touchscreen, joysticks, or encoders, Custom Assign mode for controlling non-pan-speciﬁc parameters with the touchscreen and joysticks, plus AutoGlide automated panning and touchable on-screen speaker icons to place sounds at discrete sources. Digidesign has two new Avid MediaDrive standalone SCSI hard drives (146Gb and 300Gb) and a new MediaDock Shuttle 146Gb removable SCSI drive. It’s also lowering prices for the 73Gb MediaDrive and 73Gb MediaDock Shuttle. The 80Gb FireWire drive and the 36Gb versions of the MediaDrive and MediaDock Shuttle are being discontinued. Until September 20, customers who purchase a MassivePack 4 plug-in bundle can save more than UK£4,000 on some of the most coveted TDM plug-ins. Customers who purchase a MassivePack 4 Pro bundle get a Pro Tools|HD Accel card in addition to all of the same plug-ins for a saving of more than £6,000. MassivePack 4 includes Phoenix, ReVibe, Smack!, Fairchild 660 and 670 Bundle, Pultec Bundle, H3000 Factory, Quadravox, Channel G, MC2000, Oxford OXF-R3 EQ, Speed, Master X3, A10 Series, and N12 Series. www.digidesign.com

WAVES GUITAR RACK

SMART FLOATING ARC

Smart AV has released the ‘Floating ARC’ — a 48-channel extension to the touch-sensitive selector strip that can be added to any existing Smart Console to expand its functionality. Each Floating ARC is equivalent to the ARC on an E48 and therefore represents 48 signal paths that can be added to the 48, 72, and 96-channel Smart Consoles. Up to two ﬂoating ARCs can be added to any Smart Console. It features the same optical and capacitive touch sensors for instant channel selection, update of parameters into any channel, as well as a clear overview of the entire range of signal paths. As with the Console ARC, a Floating ARC can represent all record Group masters, Aux masters, or Mix stem masters. This would, for example, allow the user to permanently display (and select) 48 bus masters while retaining instant access to channels using the other ARC. www.smartav.net

Designed in association with Paul Reed Smith Guitars, Waves’ GTR (Guitar Tool Rack) system is described as a three-part integrated hardware/software solution. It includes the Waves/PRS Guitar Interface — a hardware impedance and level matching unit — and the Waves Amp plug-in, which offers seven emulated amps at different drive levels, multiple speaker cabinets (two of which can be played at once), and six emulated microphones with different

placement options. The Waves Stomp plug-in has 23 classic and new guitar effects employed using a virtual PedalBoard that is controllable in real-time using MIDI. www.waves.com

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NEW RIBBON MIC BRAND Crowley & Tripp Microphones has unveiled a line of high-end ribbon microphones. Founded by Bob Crowley and Hugh Tripp of Soundwave Research Laboratories, the mics are hand-built in the US and have strong stainless steel bodies, high-level electrostatic and magnetic shielding, and rigidly joined custom transformer and ribbon motors. The Studio Vocalist is a full-size, fig-8 ribbon mic specifically designed for vocals and implements the presence of popular vocal condensers. It claims the highest output of any natural ribbon microphone, enhanced proximity effect for boosting thin sound sources, and a symmetrical frequency response that minimises off-axis colouration. Price is US$1,395. Designed to offer the sonic characteristics of a traditional response ribbon microphone for classical music recording, the Proscenium mic offers‘vintage-style warmness’ with modern design qualities and increased efficiency. Price is US$1,485. Specially designed for radio broadcast, soundstage, and orchestral applications where uncoloured sound is desired, the fig-8 patterned Soundstage Image microphone claims a natural frequency response, high output, and superior stereo imaging when used in distant pair applications. Price is US$1,395. The SPLx Custom mic is tailored to user-defined characteristics. Having assessed an individual user’s needs in the studio or on stage, Crowley and Tripp design a ribbon microphone that will suit that user’s voice, instrument, amplifier or performance space. Custom characteristics include a tailored frequency response curve, extreme sound pressure level handling, bass boost, or an asymmetric frequency response. Prices start at US$1595. www.soundwaveresearch.com

September 2005

gear review A-T UNIPOINTS AND UPGRADES A-T’s UniPoint series has been re-engineered. The fullline miniaturised, condenser range of installation sound microphones incorporate more than 30 gooseneck mounted, boundary and hanging models. N e w f e a t u re s i n c l u d e UniGuard RFI-shielding, new interchangeable condenser elements (cardioid, hypercardioid, omnidirectional and UniLine line cardioid), superior offaxis rejection for improved gain before feedback, 80Hz UniSteep ﬁlter for the removal of low frequencies, and a twostage foam windscreen for improved resistance to pops. A-T has uprated its 3000 Series UHF true diversity wireless systems with the addition of Automatic Frequency Scanning f u n c t i o n a l i t y, a s found on its ﬂagship 4000 and 5000 Series systems. The 3000A Series has Digital Tone Lock Squelch, plus an easy-to-read LCD information display on each receiver unit.

UPGRADE YOUR 4006 D PA 4 0 0 6 o w n e r s are being given the opportunity to upgrade their mics to the DPA 4006-TL, a new version of the classic with transformerless preamp and new components, for Euro 415. This buys factory-based retroﬁtting to the DPA 4006-TL with transformerless preampliﬁer, close-miking grid, DPA 4006TL type ring, calibration chart and new mic case. This design increases the sensitivity and provides an extended low frequency handling capability (15Hz to 20kHz +/-2dB). www.dpamicrophones.com

LA AUDIO CAN LA Audio’s Can-D is a headphone delay unit and ampliﬁer with delay times up to 678ms. The PC90 absolute phase checking system incorporates a separate emitter and receiver module that can be used with its internal speaker and microphone or can connect via XLR to test phase accuracy throughout any audio system. The PC90’s broadband pulse can detect polarity inversion regardless of time delay or distance. The two modules couple together for storage. www.laaudio.co.uk

The Midnight Blues MB/Dk5 and MB/Dk7 Drum Packs provide an affordable miking solution for percussion. The MB/Dk5 consists of four Midnight Blues MB 5k snare/ tom mics, one MB 6k kick drum mic and four AT8665 drum mic mounts. The MB/Dk7 consists of two MB 4k overhead/hihat mics, four MB 5k snare/tom mics, one MB 6k kick drum mic and four AT8665 drum mic mounts.

Audio-Technica’s ATH-T44 and ATH-T22 headphones are aimed at project studios and recording musicians. Both models have a circumaural, closed back design with 40mm drivers and high output neodymium magnets. They are lightweight and have rotating earpieces and adjustable bands. www.audio-technica.co.uk

September 2005 17

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gear review WOHLER HD PRODUCTS

Platform news: Steinberg

Wohler’s extensive portfolio of products now includes a fast growing HD range of audio and video products. The AMP2-E8MDA Dolby E & AC-3/Dolby Digital with HD and SD-SDI demuxer and decoded discrete AES outputs is Wohler’s most sophisticated audio monitor with seven sets of inputs and two inputs each for HD or SD-SDI. The VAMP2S8MDA offers premium quality 8-channel analogue, AESEBU, HD-SDI/SD-SDI digital multichannel audio monitoring and conversion with professional level metering. Wohler’s line of high resolution LCD video monitors includes the MON1-T/7W– HR and MON23W/HR, which feature as many pixels as most modern ‘HD’ plasmas in a 7-inch LCD. www.wohler.com

Studio Case II is the successor to the successful original product and features a brand new version of Cubase SE and special versions of six Steinberg VST instruments. It is available for Mac and PC. Using technologies from Cubase SX3, Cubase SE3 offers the same 32-bit ﬂoating point audio engine, automatic latency compensation and user interface. Studio Case II offers entry-level versions of Groove Agent, HALion, The Grand, Virtual Guitarist Electric Edition and D’cota plus a new Virtual Bassist SE version. ‘This product sets standards for functionality available to entry-level customers,’ said Arnd Kaiser, Steinberg senior product manager for music technology. ‘Cubase SE3 is deﬁnitely the best budget sequencer Steinberg has ever produced, and the included VSTis provide enormous creative potential.’ Cubase SX/SL 3.1 offers full integration of external hardware instruments and effects including Studio Connections Audio integration, support for Steinberg’s Dolby Digital and DTS Encoders and expanded editing and mixing functions. Studio Connections II: Audio Integration allows convenient monitoring and mixing of Studio Manager devices just like VST instruments in the Cubase SX VST audio mixer. Other external instruments not supported by Studio Connections can also be integrated. www.steinberg.net

include a strain relief at the back of the frame and a dual earpiece. The mic claims a ﬂat response and an SPL handling of 140dB. It terminates in a 3-pin mini-XLR intended for use with the Audix RAD360 wireless system but is also available with a 4-pin mini-XLR for other brands of wireless system. www.audixusa.com

AUDIX SLIM-LINE HEADSET The HT-5 is an omnidirectional headset microphone that includes a ﬂexible steel frame that is adjustable for different head sizes. Additionally, the ﬂexible microboom also permits the element to be positioned for sound quality and comfort. Other design features

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September 2005

gear review NEW REDS

A new version of the combined stereo RB-ADDA A-D and D-A convertor that is 192kHz, 24-bit, the RB-ADDA2 has all the features of the original plus an extended frequency range, an optical input and output, front panel pushbutton controls and separate AES-EBU and Word clock synchronising inputs.

RØDE COMPACT Røde’s NT6 compact condenser microphone uses technology from the NT5 model and boasts a separately-housed gold sputtered true condenser capsule that connects to the preampliﬁer body via a heavy duty 3-metre Kevlar-reinforced cable. The capsule head can be mounted via the adjustable 2-axis swivel mount or the M5 stand adapter. Housed in a satin nickel-plated body the preamp module uses surface-mount technology and has switches for 10dB pad and 80Hz 12dB/octave low cut ﬁlter. The preamp can be powered from 48v. www.hhb.co.uk

The RB-PA2 is a dual stereo phono RIAA gram ampliﬁer for converting pick-up cartridge signals to line level. It has adjustable output gain using preset potentiometers and the frequency response is held to within 0.5dB of the RIAA equalisation curve.

The RB-ML2 is a stereo mic and line level limiter that can operate in stereo or dual mono mode. Two mic/line inputs have independent gain, ﬁltering and phantom power and the VCA limiter circuit can operate jointly on the signals (stereo mode) or independently (mono mode) and the characteristics of the limiter can be set via level threshold presets.

The RB-MM1 generates a mix-minus to send to a telephone hybrid or codec. A stereo output is taken from a mixer together with a post fader output from the mono telephone fader on the mixer. The caller audio is removed from the mixer signal and this is what is sent to the telephone hybrid. The RB-MM1 has analogue inputs and outputs, output level control, two null cancellation control pots and a switch for a bandpass ﬁlter to condition the signal for the telephone hybrid. www.sonifex.co.uk

USB KVM EXTENDER Adder Technology’s X-USB KVM extender couples high resolution video transmission with advanced USB extension technology. Using Icron Extreme USBtechnology, the XUSB enables USB 1.1-compatible devices to be extended over 120m of CAT cable. The same cable carries high definition video signals at resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 while advanced finely adjustable cable equalisation ensures a sharp picture quality. Like all X-Series products, the X-USB may be used as a standalone device or rackmounted in the X-Series chassis. Up to 16 units may be fitted into 2U. www.adder.com

September 2005 19

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gear review PORTADRIVE V2.0

Portadrive V2.0 operating software includes the facility to copy recordings to external DVD±R/RW and CDR/ RW in addition to the existing DVD-RAM. The added support of the UDF format for DVD-RAM now enables Portadrive sessions to be played back on Fostex DV40 and DV824 devices. V2.0 offers a substantially extended iXML implementation and updates have also been made to the HFS drivers for SDII ﬁles and Pro Tools sessions. The Peak Reset key on the front panel is now assignable, most usefully for slate increment. Phase reverse is now available on all six input channels and with +6dB of gain on the bus mixer, it’s now possible to create a ‘hot’ mix of tracks that have been recorded at low levels for increased headroom. Any input can now be routed to

any track for greater ﬂexibility, and track names now follow input names, with this naming also appearing in the iXML metadata. Timecode functionality is enhanced with the ability to switch off the external timecode error warning from the display. It’s now possible to store markers with a project allowing use when a session is reloaded. A facility for the deletion of markers has also been added and the input parameter setting of the relevant channel now ﬂashes to show that the Solo switch is active. www.hhb.co.uk

STUDER ONAIR 3000NET

Studer’s OnAir 3000 digital radio console has been further developed with the release of the OnAir 3000Net, which migrates the desk from standalone operation to an open and networked part in the infrastructure of a broadcast centre. Local and decentralised audio resources in each Studer ‘SCore’ can be shared by other SCores in the network. All interconnected audio sources are visible in the input routing page on the OnAir 3000Net user GUI and can be patched to faders in the same way as local sources, making operation as easy as with the standard OnAir 3000. Routings, including remote sources from other SCores, can be stored and recalled with snapshots as usual. www.studer.ch

NEXT GEN ARTIST

Riedel is introducing a new series of Artist frames that emphasise scalability and flexibility. Artist is a fibrebased, masterless digital matrix intercom platform for the distribution of analogue and digital audio and TCP/IP data. The Company’s next generation intercom platform allows all frame sizes to use the same type of controller and client cards, significantly reducing expansion costs and the need for spare pooling. Other enhanced features include a speed boost via a doubled CPU clock, increased memory for complex, multinode installations, superior alarm signalisation, optimised thermal concept for quiet operation, compatibility with other Artist frames, and a flexible fibre option enabling the user to easily change from single to multimode or high-power. www.riedel.net

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September 2005

gear review RUPERT’S TRUE TAPE EMULATION

Rupert Neve Designs has launched the Portico 5042 2channel ‘true tape’ emulation and line driver. When the Tape circuit is not engaged the 5042 may be used as a transformer-coupled, high-performance line amp that includes a gain range of +/-12dB. The 5042 incorporates a tape drive circuit that feeds a tiny magnetic ‘head’ which, in turn, is coupled to a correctly equalised replay ampliﬁer. ‘Record’ and ‘Replay’ controls are counter-ganged to keep overall input-to-output level approximately constant; it only changes as it would in a real tape recorder, with changing drive levels to the circuit eventually resulting in saturation. The frequency response and distortion performance of the Portico 5042’s tape circuitry is tailored to that of a typical analogue tape recorder. Transformer-coupled input and output stages, very short signal paths, minimal negative feedback and effectively single-sided ampliﬁers form the essential building blocks of the product range. www.rupertneve.com

SAMSON RESOLV 2.1 SYSTEM The Samson Resolv 2.1 active desktop monitoring system is based on the Resolv series of monitors. With 230W of system power the Resolv 2.1 system consists of the Resolv 50a compact active monitors with 75W of bi-amped power and the Resolv Sub88 80W powered sub. Resolv 50a monitors have a 5.25-inch midrange driver and a 1-inch ferrofluid titanium tweeter. The Sub88 has an 8inch long-throw woofer while an infra-red remote controls system volume, subwoofer volume, and subwoofer mute. When muted, the subwoofer sends

full-range signal to the satellite Resolv 50as. www.soundtech.co.uk

U47 REPLACEMENT VALVE D e s i g n e d a n d manufactured to replace the ‘obsolete’ Telefunken VF14m valve, as used in the Neumann U47 and other mics in that family, and being of the same physical size and appearance, the RV-14m valve from Saturn Sound can be fitted without the need to modify any mechanical part of the microphone assembly. More importantly (providing your microphone is in original condition) there are no electrical modifications required to the microphone, lead or power supply. Any U47/U48 mic that has had previous modifications can be converted back to the original VF14m (RV-14m) working standard. The RV-14m assembly contains no ‘hidden’ components and is a true plug-in replacement for the original rare valve. www.saturn-sound.com

MULTICHANNEL OVER IP APT WorldNet Oslo is a modular, multichannel audio codec designed f o r b ro a d c a s t e r s working with FM, DAB, HD Radio and 5.1. New options include an IP transport card in addition to the existing E1/T1 options providing broadcasters with the option to deliver Enhanced apt-X coded audio over either synchronous or packetised networks. The Ethernet interface can also be used for WAN/LAN data transfer. There are also Quad Encoder and Decoder modules offering four simplex channels per card. Using a Quad Simplex Card along with a fully duplex stereo card will provide a 5.1 solution for broadcasters wishing to transport multichannel audio. www.aptx.com

September 2005 21

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review

TC Helicon VoicePro Take the relevant ingredients employed in vocal processing, add intelligent pitch shifting and harmonisation and put the whole lot in one box. JON THORNTON plays with the apparent length of his vocal tract and turns teenager again.

C HELICON’S NEW FLAGSHIP box is undoubtedly a sexy looking piece of kit, a fact that is underlined by the feature that draws your eye more than anything when you first power it up — the presence of a 320 x 240 pixel colour LCD. As the unit boots up this display looks for all the world like a computer boot sequence as various routines are initialised and loaded — the VoicePro may be dressed up as a traditional rackmount effects box, but there’s no disguising the fact that there’s some serious computer horsepower underpinning it. Billed as the culmination of 15 years of research, the VoicePro is fundamentally a multi-effects processor that majors on pitch and time shifting, harmonisation and voice modelling — with some very respectable capabilities in terms of EQ, reverb, delay and modulation effects thrown in for good measure. What makes it distinctive is the way in which all of these processes have been designed from the ground up to work either individually or collectively on the human voice as their source. Tearing your eyes away from the gorgeous colour display on the front panel for an instant, the rear panel houses the usual interfacing capabilities. Two balanced line level inputs are provided via XLR connectors, and a pair of balanced outputs, again on XLR, completes the analogue side of things. A single DB-25 connector provides 2 channels of digital input and 8 channels of digital output configured as AES pairs. A breakout lead terminating in the appropriate gender of XLR is provided with the unit. A BNC connector allows the unit to slave to an external TTL Word clock source, and MIDI In and Out sockets allow a MIDI device to provide note information for harmonisation purposes, as well as enabling the use of a third-party computer-based editor. Returning to the front panel, and the user interface is typical of TC — in other words completely intuitive, and helped greatly by the colour LCD display. Admittedly, System 6000 users will spend the first few minutes poking the display in an attempt to change parameters before realising that it isn’t touch sensitive, but the use of the dedicated menu keys, soft knobs and navigation keys becomes second nature 22

very quickly. Added to this is an on-screen contextsensitive help function that contains pretty much most of the information in the manual. It’s probably easiest to discuss each of the key processing and effect blocks on offer first, before looking at how they are all tied together. Pitch shifting offers a variety of different modes, the most straightforward being shifting the signal input by a fixed interval. Automatic pitch correction is also offered, either by forcing pitch correction to an incoming MIDI note, or by setting a musical key and scale as the basis for correction. Custom scales can also be created, and there are plenty of parameters that determine when and how an incoming sound is shifted, allowing extremely transparent or very obvious effects to be achieved. The pitch shifting method employed by the VoicePro is a hybrid system, which allows pitch and formants to be shifted separately. The user has control over this, and can set shifting to always shift formants and pitch, or to shift pitch while preserving formant patterns, or any point in between. Depending on the amount of shifting required, this ensures that ‘chipmunking’ type effects can be minimised where necessary, or indeed deliberately achieved. Closely related to basic pitch shifting is the harmony function, which allows up to four pitch-shifted lines to be generated based on the pitch of the incoming note. Again, a variety of different modes are on offer, ranging from fixed, unvarying intervals, to intelligent harmonies based on a musical key and scale, to absolutely controlled harmony notes based on incoming MIDI data. A particularly nice feature is resolution

chord mode, which allows chord sequences from a MIDI keyboard or sequencer to be used as the basis for intelligent harmony generation. Again, there are plenty of parameters to allow for the harmony parts to be ‘humanised’ by the addition of portamento, random pitch and time variations to the harmony voices or modelled vibrato effects. Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of the VoicePro is the Character block, which can change the identity and performance of vocal sounds. A resonance function allows the repositioning of the core harmonic content of a voice, moving energy from a defined spectral band to another one and changing the apparent length of a vocal tract to simulate gender changes, or younger or older voices. Inflection changes can also be added, which makes pseudorandom changes to the pitch and timing of the vocal source, useful for generating very realistic sounding double-tracked parts from a single source. Artificial vibrato based on waveforms modelled from real singers can also be overlaid on the vocal line. ‘Growl’ and ‘Breath’ functions can dynamically enhance and emphasise breathy characteristics or constricted characteristics of the original source. A comprehensive digital EQ is also available, featuring a high pass filter, high and low shelving bands and two parametric mid bands. On the dynamics front, a compressor-limiter and extremely capable deesser are available. And if that weren’t enough, a ‘Transducer’ function allows the emulation of devices such as telephones, loudspeakers and radios by a combination of filtering, distortion and the generation of noises such as hisses, buzzing, hum, etc. At this point, it’s worth talking a little about the internal signal path of the VoicePro, as this makes a significant contribution to the unit’s flexibility. The nominally mono input to the VoicePro is termed the ‘Dry Lead’ signal. This signal can pass through the EQ and dynamics processing, and at this point can be sent to the unit’s internal mixer if necessary. The post EQ and dynamics signal is then termed the ‘Virtual Lead’ signal, and can be passed through the time stretching, pitch shifting/correction, character modelling and transducer emulation blocks. This ‘Virtual Lead’ signal is then also available to the internal mixer — allowing you to decide whether the dry signal is heard alongside the effected signal or not. At the same time as this, the original input signal is also applied to the harmony generation block, which contains its own EQ and dynamics blocks. The output of the harmony block is then also available to the mixer. Conventional effects, split into the three categories of reverb, delay and modulation type, are also included and as you might expect from the TC pedigree, these are far from being a last minute bolt-on. Instead the algorithms employed and the collection of presets offered have been deliberately tweaked to work sympathetically with vocals, particularly the reverbs. There are some nice touches here too, such as the inclusion of a ducker on the reverb and delay patches that can be set to only bring up the level of reverb tails or delays at the end of phrases. The reverb, delay and modulation effect blocks each have individual send levels from each of the three internal signal paths — Dry Lead, Virtual Lead and Harmony. Overall level and pan from all of the signal paths and FX returns are internally mixed to form a stereo output, and this is always available on the analogue outputs and the first two channels of digital output. The remaining six channels of digital output can be configured to carry voices (i.e. the four harmony parts, Dry Lead and Virtual Lead), or blocks (stereo lead, stereo harmony and stereo FX return). September 2005

review A couple of things should be becoming clear to you as you read this. The first is that there’s an awful lot going on inside the VoicePro. The second is that not a lot of it is strictly new territory — if your outboard rack contains a decent harmoniser, EQ, compressor, ducker, de-esser, reverb and delay, you might be asking yourself what exactly this unit will do that you can’t already achieve. The answer is give speed and convenience — TC Helicon has put a lot of thought into the presets that are offered with this unit. More to the point, those presets are built around the relevant combinations of all of the processing capabilities outlined already. This inevitably means that there are a lot of presets to choose from, but the inclusion of a browser mode that allows you to filter presets by vocal source and application helps. Another plus is that although a preset may make use of a large number of individual processing blocks — for example, EQ, compression, reverb, character — each one of those blocks will have a fairly substantial number of individual parameters. Hence the inclusion of ‘styles’ within many of the blocks, which could be described as presets within presets. For example, a preset may include the use of the ‘vibrato’ function within the ‘Character’ block, and this function alone contains six parameters. But a style parameter with fairly descriptive names such as ‘Opera Tenor’ will effectively change all six of these parameters at once, making fine tuning of the overall presets very quick. And it is this ‘Character’ processing block that to my mind is a strong benefit. While the pitch-shifting, harmoniser and effects are up there with the best of what’s currently available, being able to modify the

September 2005

character of voices is an incredibly powerful tool. For that small interval, close harmony ‘tighter than a Bee Gee’s pants’ sound so prevalent in current pop production, it allows you to go a long way to make the effect sound less artificial — yes, soloing the effects reveals some audible artefacts at times, but in the context of a mix this is more than acceptable. And playing around with apparent vocal tract lengths very quickly earned the unit the nickname of the Boy Band in a Box, as grizzled 40-something country session singers started to sound uncannily like Busted. All of which raises more questions than answers — chiefly whether we should be applauding a unit that allows us to make such decisions after the fact, rather than getting the right performances in the first place. As ever, there’s no easy answer — it’s clear in the range of presets that TC Helicon has provided that this unit is targeted as much at spoken voice applications as it is at the singing voice. And in this area of work the ability to gain a much wider palette of vocal types without the expense of additional vocal talent makes a lot of economic sense. But there’s one issue — latency. While some of the processing is more or less real-time, most of the really clever stuff introduces a significant degree of latency. This is easy to compensate for, as a utility screen is provided that shows the current system latency, and in fact the latency can be reduced by trading off audio quality. But with typical values around 35 milliseconds, I can’t really envisage this unit being used easily in an analogue production environment. And if you are in a digital production environment, chances are you are using a DAW with plug-ins that

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can achieve most, if not all, of the capabilities of the VoicePro. And ultimately, you could view it as a rackmount box that to all intents and purposes is a computer running some very clever plug-ins. Make no mistake, I’m a great fan of dedicated units, and I loved this box, which to my mind is certainly the best of its type currently available (UK£1740 + VAT). If you do a lot of vocal work in post or preproduction, then I can see the VoicePro making a lot of sense ﬁnancially and practically. And for voiceover or dialogue work — particularly for animation, the ease of use and palette of effects make it a real winner if you don’t have a wide range of existing plug-ins or outboard effects and processors. ■

PROS

Great, intuitive user interface; every process you need for vocal treatment in one place; ﬂexible signal routing; high quality pitch shifting and correction; voice character adjustment very impressive; well thought out collection of presets and styles speeds up workﬂow.

CONS

Latency an issue in an analogue or live production environment; most of its capabilities you may already have in alternative forms.

Contact TC HELICON, DENMARK: Website: www.tc-helicon.tc

review

Ableton Live 5 GEORGE SHILLING last looked at Ableton Live when it was at Version 2 and much has changed since then. Live 2.1 added essential ReWire support to enable integration with Pro Tools, Logic, etc., Version 3 brought MIDI Key Mapping to enable control of audio Clips, while 4 brought complete MIDI tracks, effects and instruments, with an easy to use piano-roll editor. Now Version 5 brings a whole host of goodies and tweaks.

HE ABLETON WEBSITE hosts a lively and good-natured forum, Live has developed a loyal following, and sensibly, Ableton has involved its users in the development process. A healthy public-beta testing process took place over a number of weeks in order to iron out the bugs in V5. And this seems to have born fruit — the program seems completely stable, and despite the multitude of features bolted on, still manages to remain friendly, inviting and easy to grasp. Screen layout is similar to earlier versions, although green gaudiness has gone in favour of smart businesslike black and grey, and a lot of information is squeezed onto the screen. There are still no ﬂoating windows apart from proprietary VST editors, and panels can still be toggled open or closed to create more space. On the right you are initially presented with a comprehensive series of lessons that can be worked through using this panel and loading corresponding ﬁles and sets in the main program — a great way to learn, and much more helpful than throwing in a PDF manual, although a very good one of those is, of course, thrown in... Help is never far away, as the panel in the bottom left corner is retained, explaining functions as the mouse is hovered if required. Live’s instruments comprise Impulse, a drum sampler, and Simpler, a sampler with some synthesiser controls — these don’t compete with Reason or Logic as sound sources, but they can be fun for throwing ideas together, and Simpler has been improved with independent envelopes for several functions. A library 24

of presets for these is included, along with a new selection of ‘Clips’, the building blocks used for creating tracks or Live Sets, much along the lines of Apple Loops. User Clips can now be exported for use in other Sets. The supplied presets and Clips tend towards ‘plinkyplonky’ (Rather than plinkety-plonk? Ed), but there are some pretty good acoustic drum loops, percussion and keyboard instruments, with new downloadable Live Pack sets appearing on the Ableton website during this review. These are probably not the main reason for buying Ableton Live. Rather, the method of music creation is the strength of this product; it is wonderful to drag audio from the file-browser into the current Set and have it instantly play along at the correct tempo. The much improved file-browser is used for loading plug-ins, instruments, samples, Clips and entire Sets, and now features a Search function that is immensely helpful when trawling through sample collections. Organisational tasks are now easier with provision for creating folders and dragging files into different folders. A CPU-saving Freeze function enables transfer of projects for use on lesser computers. This works much like the corresponding Logic feature. Frozen clips can still be launched instantly, and overall tempo changes are still effective. Plug-In Delay Compensation has been seamlessly included, along with a manual track delay function, although oddly it is not possibly to see the PDC settings. However, it coped admirably resolution

with my UAD-1 card plug-ins. Audio Units are also supported in the Macintosh version, while VST MIDI is now supported enabling, for example, temporelated delays. Apart from third party effects, Live includes a whole host of its own that are accessed via a dedicated browser folder and include sub-folders of presets. The basic tools are perfectly usable, with a comprehensive selection including compressors, EQs, Delays, Reverb, and so on, plus fun things like Redux bit-reduction and Vinyl Distortion. New with this version are such goodies as the unique Beat Repeat which is great for mangling beats and vocals for delay and weird filtered stutter effects. Also new are the Flanger and the excellent Phaser, a tempo-syncable Auto-Pan with level modulation and variable LFO shape, plus the obligatory Saturator distortion effect that works well from slight warming to ‘Rectifier’ fuzz. There is also a folder of MIDI effects such as the clever Arpeggiator. The Device Groups feature allows a chain of instruments and effects to be collectively stored, much like Reason’s Combinator concept. Support has also been added for MP3 and other compressed formats. Bringing audio files into the Set causes Live to attempt analysis and place moveable Warp markers where it thinks the tempo landmarks might be, thus enabling the clever re-jigging to fit the current track. It is remarkably good, dragging the markers enables you to fit just about any phrase or loop with the track, and audio can even have a swing groove applied in various values. There are handy right-click context menus and support has been added for Mackie Control-compatible mixer surfaces. Audio can now be scrubbed by dragging the mouse above the arrangement, and other arrangement improvements include the provision of markers. Live 5 (Euro 499) has come on in leaps and bounds yet remains friendly and is easy to start using. Learning the proprietary icon symbols is probably the only thing that might slow down the new user, but these soon become familiar. Ableton has employed a number of musicians and DJs, and it shows in a product that is obviously partly guided by end-users. The ‘pro’ features cribbed from other DAWs make the package even more usable, and if you’re a DAW driver with the patience to learn some new tricks, this is one of the easiest and most useful add-ons or alternatives to master. ■

PROS

Best tempo-manipulation DAW; easy to learn; PDC; Freeze function.

CONS

Included sound library slightly weak; no PDC view; Warping degrades the sound quality.

Contact ABLETON, GERMANY: Website: www.ableton.com

September 2005

review

RTW Surround Control 30900 Maintaining standards in a surround environment is rapidly becoming an issue for broadcasters. Any operator worth his corn knows that ears do not tell the whole story and if accurate and reliable monitoring and metering tools are provided, they tend to get used. ROB JAMES has a solution.

N THE CONTROL SECTIONS of the broadcast and film consoles I grew up with, monitoring and metering were always inextricable. Current working practices have seen workstations ousting consoles in many applications and this has led to a thriving market in monitor controllers, although it is surprising that there are so few off-the-shelf combined metering and monitoring units. RTW is well known for precision metering and a foray into monitoring control combined with metering seems a natural progression. The Euro 6400 (plus VAT) Surround Control 30900 is the central control unit of a complete surround monitoring and metering system. The main user interface comes courtesy of the included 30050 remote control and a further two Euro 980 (plus VAT) 30050 remote controls can be added and these operate in parallel. Visuals are provided by the Euro 1100, 8.4-inch 30010 TFT Remote Display, which connects via a VGA all-lines connected DB15. While the 30010 is very handsome and has the bonus of 13 control keys taking advantage of spare lines, any standard VGA screen can be connected. Software updates are achieved via Ethernet. The mouse is USB and there’s a further USB port for future use. The 30900 controls, analyses and monitors in surround formats from 5.1 to 7.1 plus stereo and mono. There is a configurable downmix matrix for monitoring or recording, surround test signal generator and measurement microphone input for speaker calibration. The screen is usually divided into two, vertically, with multistandard surround peak meter bargraphs on the right plus additional 2-channel PPM and one of a variety of other ‘instruments’ on the left. These include a surround sound analyser for 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1, 1/3- and 1/6-octave RTA, multicorrelation display, Dialnorm meter, and AES-EBU status monitor along with the familiar vectorscope. These options are all highly configurable and seven factory and 14 user presets help keep things simple. Audio I-O uses Tascam format DB-25 connections with one metering only, two metering/monitoring analogue inputs, two 8-channel (four AES-EBU pairs) digital inputs, and one analogue and one digital 8-channel output. Routing matrices make track configuration flexible. The inputs are selectable in operation but this unit does not sum inputs. The 30900 can be operated in three ways — via a 30050 remote unit, a USB mouse or the control 26

keys on the 30010 remote display. The 30500 is compact but nonetheless positive in use. The volume knob looks odd but is actually very practical because the shaft encoder ‘gearing’ is user selectable to Low, Medium or High. When turned slowly individual steps are always at 0.5dB intervals and it’s nicely detented for a satisfyingly tactile action. A quick press on the knob restores the level to the preset value. Nonilluminated buttons duplicate those at the bottom of the screen. A small inset button and indicator LEDs determine the function of buttons set around the volume knob to Solo, Cut, Swap or Phase. Solo and Cut are non-additive unless multiple keys are depressed together. At the bottom, three buttons change Input and Output selections with the Dim key in the middle. There is no separate Master Cut, although the Dim key can be programmed to be Cut. Meticulous attention to signal levels is the key to successful operation with any monitoring/ metering combination. Once source levels are correctly set, calibrating the speakers using an instrument mic is simple. Output levels can be trimmed from the remote. Used with pink noise, the spectrum analysers give you an objective view of speaker and room performance. The PPM section has up to three groups. Group 1 is always present and represents the current channel format of the entire unit. The other two can be shown or hidden and the display is automatically scaled to suit. Group 2 options are Left and Right or L&R external source PPMs with or without M&S meters. Group 3 is the SPL meter and a variety of scale options are available in the menus. By far the most interesting instrument is the Surround Sound Analyser, which employs a number of strategies to display the complexities inherent in a resolution

surround sound field. The main display is a polygon of varying size and shape — size indicates overall volume and shape shows distribution and gives an indication of dominance with the apex of triangles on each side of the square. Extra lines show the relative level of the front centre channel and two further displays can be overlaid onto this. The Dominance Indicator (DMI) adds a white cross-hair that moves according to where the single most dominant sound is coming from. The Phantom Source Indicator (PSI) adds lines on each side of the square that vary in length with level and have a marker showing the position of possible phantom sources. All this is difficult to describe, but surprisingly effective in practice. The geometric shapes are a lot more informative than an amorphous blob and the extra indicators provide reassuring confirmation of what your ears are telling you. This is a powerful problem analyser when combined with the channel and phase swap keys. The other instruments are all pretty familiar and are as configurable as you might expect. For broadcast and surround mastering the 30900 is a natural. A pervasive air of understated class characterises the construction. On-screen graphics are clear and to the point, not flashy and this is a major plus. This rich combination of monitor control with metering could have easily become too complex for simple operation but RTW has managed the marriage admirably. The Linux-based operating system could be faster when changing screens but, once used to the delay, it soon became second nature to shift focus to another issue for a second or so. It is also available in another version, the 30960, complete with built-in 6.5-inch screen. This fits directly into the 3U racks found in video studios. In the time available, I barely scratched the surface of the 30900’s manifold possibilities. Monitoring and metering should be instinctive and ‘invisible’ until something goes wrong. Once I had it set up the way I wanted, the 30900 quickly faded into the background. Unless you really need to be able to sum inputs, monitor control will be more than adequate for most purposes and checking and calibrating speaker levels is so much easier this way than poking around with a tweaker. The Surround Sound Analyser became indispensable. This combination of tools gave me the clearest representation yet of a complex surround mix. If I could afford it, I’d keep it. ■

PROS

Well chosen combination of features; nicely engineered; excellent Surround Sound Analyser; good long-term investment.

CONS

Only one key for master Cut or Dim; no summing; cost.

Contact RTW, GERMANY Website: www.rtw.de

September 2005

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review

Audient Sumo The whole topic of analogue versus digital summing is one that has attracted much recent debate in the pages of this publication and elsewhere. Whatever your own personal view of whether analogue summing is inherently better than digital, or whether it is only really putting imperfections back into the mix, a host of manufacturers are now more than willing to take your cash in exchange for a box that performs this process without the expense of a large-format analogue console.

UDIENT’S SUMO ENTERS this particular arena (or should that be the dohyo?) in the form a of a neat 1U rack unit. Capable of summing 16 analogue signals arranged as 8 stereo pairs into a single stereo output bus, the unit has been designed from the outset to offer the sort of headroom required from today’s DAW users, with +28dBu available at acceptable levels of distortion (<0.003% @ 1kHz). What sets the Sumo apart though, is the sort of intelligent design and additional features that really add value to what is, at first glance, a rather mundane looking piece of kit. Analogue inputs on the rear panel are via two 25pin D-Sub connectors, each handling four stereo pairs of balanced audio. For those of us for whom soldering or crimping D-Sub connectors is a personal vision of hell (Form an orderly queue. Ed), Audient can also supply ready made looms terminating in XLRs or even more D-Subs that allow direct connection to interfaces such as Digidesign’s 192. If more than 16 channels of summing are required, up to three additional Sumos can have their output buses fed into the master unit’s bus via a third 25-pin D-Sub, giving up to 64 channels. A large 26-LED stereo output meter dominates the front panel, labelled from –36 to +26dBu. With the optional digital output card installed, 0dBFS equates to +24dBu, so the last segment can serve as an overload indicator if required. Although nominally all odd numbered inputs are summed to the left bus, and all even numbered ones to the right, a couple of switches below the meter can make the first two channel pairs into mono inputs, panned dead centre. Sumo also features its own dynamics processing, courtesy of a stereo compressor based on the bus compressor found on Audient’s ASP8024 console, with the addition of a peak limiter. If this isn’t to your taste, or if you feel the need for some overall EQ, provision is made on the rear panel for a pair of fully balanced insert points, which can be switched in or out and also switched to be either pre or post Sumo’s own dynamics processing. A mix gain control allows the pre dynamics and insert signal to be trimmed down by up to 20dB — useful if all of those DAW tracks have been subject to a normalising frenzy. A mix master knob gives the final gain control to the mix bus before it either leaves the unit via a pair 28

of XLR connectors, or hits the optional digital output card. And for its final trick, Sumo also offers a monitor output on the rear panel with its own front panel level control, the source for which can be the mix bus or an external stereo source. A neat and simple touch, and one that makes the unit even more attractive to those who are literally mixing ‘in-the-box’. If I was being picky, having the option of switching between two pairs of monitors would have been a welcome addition. Nevertheless, it’s clear that Audient has provided more than just a high-quality summing amplifier here, and thought hard about its target market. But how does it perform? To find out, Sumo was fed from the first 16 analogue outputs of a Pro Tools HD system and a mix set up. This same mix was then simultaneously output via a stereo bus send from Pro Tools via another pair of analogue outputs. An initial A/B comparison revealed some subtle differences between the two mixes. While the analogue summed version seemed to lack the absolute bass extension of the digitally summed version, there was a sense that mid-range frequencies seemed to tighten their focus considerably, making a mix that featured extensive guitar and vocal tracks breathe a lot better. Imaging generally also seemed to be better defined, and although the Sumo’s output seemed a lot less ‘hyped’ at the extremes of frequency range, high frequency transients seemed to be less smeared. The differences are small, but noticeable, and it’s actually very hard to say that one is better than the other. At the end of the day it’s a subjective call. But the real eye-opener was Sumo’s compressor and peak limiter. Strapped across the mix bus, this proved remarkably flexible and was clean sounding in all applications from gentle bus compression to a more radical approach to maximise loudness. It’s not without its annoyances — most notably the switched rather than variable settings for ratio, attack and release, which I sometimes found didn’t quite match the exact setting I was looking for. Nevertheless, it succeeded in generating mixes that sounded loud and modern, but in a much more satisfying and natural sounding manner than using plug-ins — the unit is almost worth the asking price just for this UK£995 (+VAT). Sumo is an obvious extension to Audient’s resolution

JON THORNTON

outboard product line — coupled with the ASP008 mic preamp it neatly wraps a capable analogue layer around any DAW. You will have to use your own ears to decide if the effect of analogue summing is something you like or need, but when you consider the neat touches and additional features on offer, it looks like an enticing proposition. ■

PROS

Quiet; plenty of headroom; great dynamics section; doubles as a basic studio monitor controller.

CONS

Switched parameters for compressor sometimes don’t quite hit the spot; do you really want to add another conversion step to your audio?

EXTRAS

Audient’s ACS8024 is described as a high resolution mixing console with an integrated hardware control surface that combines the sound and feature mix of the ASP8024 with an additional Command 8 bay ﬁtted for Pro Tools control. The worksurface has been shown with a 15-inch TFT display (17inch is possible) and a keyboard and mouse. This model also sports black walnut side cheeks, armrest and top trim, with US-style knobs and caps.

Contact AUDIENT, UK: Website: www.audient.co.uk

September 2005

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review

CB Electronics UR422 Running alongside the whole messy business of integrating and synchronising various disparate bits of gear is the high level requirement for an elegant way of controlling them all. ROB JAMES comes out of the closet and confronts his universal remote control.

’M A CONTROL FREAK. There you have it; I’m out of the closet, self-confessed. But, while I can accept that this condition might be undesirable, or at the least very difficult to live with in real life, it brings a number of benefits when working with audio recorders, video recorders and DAWs. Especially in sound for picture work. Fellow sufferers will recognise the tell-tale symptoms — getting a thrill when a transport responds to every nuance of finger-on-jogwheel. A quiet frissance of pleasure when a transport is hurtling off in one direction while another is stationery or even heading in the opposite direction, just as you intended. Maybe you feel it when banging a group of tracks into record across several machines with one key press and the absolute certainty that they are doing what you command. Perverted possibly, but undeniably pleasurable nonetheless. Even these delights pale when compared with the sensual satisfaction of instant reverse play (Rob, you’re freaking us out. Ed). For the true control freak, mouse or QWERTY keyboard control is anathema. Leaving functional considerations aside for a moment, this is where CB Electronics latest creation, the UK£700 UR422 immediately scores. CB is best known for bespoke and semi-bespoke control solutions. Its products are found in studios all over the world and especially in sound for picture applications. While there is an unmistakable family resemblance, the UR422 showcases a number of innovations. The entire case is constructed from heavy gauge brushed stainless steel, as is the smooth jog/shuttle wheel. The two-line LCD display is fixed 30

and shows white characters on a blue background. All the buttons, with internal indicator LEDs, are of a type familiar from other CB devices. Overall, the unit looks and feels contemporary and rugged. Just don’t drop it on your foot! Thanks to the front panel overlapping the ‘box’ by a few millimetres, installing the unit into a console panel will be a doddle. It should be made clear from the outset that the UR422 is purely a controller. For many applications in current workflow practice a synchroniser is unnecessary and would have added to cost and complexity. On the rear of the unit there are two 9-pin sub-D RS 422 serial ports and a power jack. A universal inline unit supplies the power. Also included is a clever in-line RS-422 device, which handles two functions. Jumpers allow the RS-422 cable TX and RX functions to be reversed and there is a power jack. If the supply is plugged in here instead, the UR422 can be powered via RS-422 thus reducing the number of cables to the unit. The RS-422 ports can be set up as two outputs or one input and one output. In another departure from previous CB practice, a neat little PC application is included that communicates with the unit via RS-422 to provide a convenient method of programming key functions and storing alternative set-ups, loop and locate points. Keyboard definition files, loop and locate values can be saved, recalled, downloaded to the UR422 and/or uploaded from it. A vast array of audio and video products support variations of the Sony 9-pin P2 serial control protocol. The precise functionality and quality of resolution

control is dependent on both the individual device implementation and the controller. The UR422 is ‘plug-and-play’ with the vast majority of common machines, recognising the device type identifier and configuring itself accordingly. There is specific support for the Rosendahl Bonsai Drive and MIDI Machine Control is available with an optional RS422 to MIDI convertor. Apart from the conventional transport keys, which include reverse play (For sensual satisfaction? Ed), there are seven more full size keys and 10 slightly smaller ones. In many applications the smaller keys will do double-duty as record enables and numeric 18 plus shuttle and jog and numeric 9 and 0. The keys labelled Rec On and Rec Off will frequently be used for just those functions. My experiments with several DAWs and a couple of tape transports indicate that the UR422 is an extremely capable 9-pin controller at the plug-andplay level. But this is far from the end of the story. Every key on the surface can be assigned to any available function on either or both connected machines. Up to 48 record tracks per machine can be controlled by ‘fitting’ a ‘Bank’ key. Eight fixed and 8 dynamic locate keys can be ‘fitted’ and up to 16 loops. If required, new labels can simply be laser printed and inserted in the buttons. Different users and different applications mandate different key layouts. One of the great strengths of the UR422 proposition is versatility combined with simplicity. Some users feel bereft when deprived of reverse play, others never use it but feel similarly possessive about Instant Replay. (The transports locate back 10 seconds and go into play from one button push.) In some applications there is always a fixed start time. A constant locate can be fitted to return to this point at the press of a key. Of course, it would be possible to build a controller with physical buttons for every available function but that would be expensive, wasteful and huge. The process of optimising key assignments for a particular purpose or person will undoubtedly take some time and effort. However, this will still be orders of magnitude less arduous and expensive than the process of designing and building a dedicated controller. Best of all, changing the entire mapping to a previously saved alternative takes just a few seconds. Although the functions offered by the UR422 can, with some considerable effort, be duplicated with computers and suitable software, to assume that this could be a satisfactory alternative for intensive use would be to miss the point completely. Nothing really compares with a personalised set of familiar, intuitive, physical transport controls, occupying little valuable real estate yet endowing the operator with a real sense of security. I don’t think I’ll be joining CFA (Control Freaks Anonymous) just yet… ■

PROS

Low cost entry into the world of highend 9-pin control; handles MMC too; industrial chic.

CONS

Programming and menu system will take a while to learn; display can seem a little cryptic until you are familiar.

Contact CB ELECTRONICS, UK: Website: www.cbelectronics.co.uk Tel: +44 118 932 0345

September 2005

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review

Neumann BCM 104 and BCM 705 …good morning you’re listening to resolution magazine FM and the melliﬂuous voice of JON THORNTON welcoming you to another great day in the city and easing you in with some fab sounds and good listening we’ll be along with the trafﬁc information and your chance to phone in and win matching his ’n’ hers tattoos right after this from Keane…

HE BCM PREFIX of both of these microphones from Neumann shows exactly which market segment the venerable German manufacturer has in its sights. The ﬁrst two products in a new broadcast range are aimed squarely at radio presentation, TV continuity and voice-over applications. Despite the fact that they would undoubtedly perform well in a variety of other applications, much of what makes them distinctive is a

result of this focus on the spoken voice and the broadcast environment. Both microphones share the same exterior shell, with its slightly odd looking shape and integrated rubber shockmount assembly. It’s clear that this really belongs on the end of an angle-poise type microphone boom, and the orientation of the badge implies that being suspended from above is the ‘right’ way round. Speaking of badges, conﬁrmed Neumann anoraks will have noticed 32

that a new colour has been added to the badge livery — while the BCM 104 has a familiar red background, the BCM 705 sports a green background, signifying that this is, in fact, the first dynamic microphone produced by Neumann. Internally, the BCM 104 is a large diaphragm capacitor design, featuring a single diaphragm with a fixed cardioid response. The output stage is transformerless, contributing to a very low (7dBA) self-noise figure. By comparison, the BCM 705 is based around a supercardioid pattern dynamic capsule, drawing no doubt on the expertise of parent company Sennheiser. The dynamic BCM 705 is tuned with a low frequency response that exhibits a fairly steep roll off below 150Hz or so in the free field –however this results in a gentle LF lift when proximity effect comes into play with close miking. The BCM104’s natural response is altogether much flatter, and in its case, a switchable high-pass filter is available (12dB/octave below 100Hz). This filter is not immediately obvious as it is located on the circuit board that mates to the microphone’s XLR connector. Removing a screw allows the connector and board to be slid out, revealing two DIP switches. One of these is for the HPF, the other allows a –14dB pre-attenuation to be set in order for the microphone to be matched to installations that might be ordinarily set up to handle the outputs of dynamic microphones. Although their location might seem a little fiddly to get to, in a situation where a microphone is in a more or less permanent install, having fewer switches for the talent to play with is probably a bonus. Both microphones also feature a head grille that is quickly and easily removed with a quick half twist for cleaning purposes, and a built-in mesh pop shield within the microphone body. Again, this is relatively easy to remove for cleaning and in practice works very well, taming all but the most extreme plosives at normal working distances. For real hygiene obsessives, Neumann will also sell you additional head grilles that can be colour coded with a rubber ring around the bottom — so that each presenter can have their own. First impressions on auditioning the BCM 104 are that it has a typically Neumann sound, ever so slightly larger than life with plenty of ‘sheen’ on the high frequency ranges. The microphone ships from the factory with the high-pass filter in place, which unsurprisingly leads to a pronounced lack of LF extension unless the source is very close to the mic, but even so, I found that switching this out gave a much more rounded and solid character to the majority of voices. Switching immediately to the BCM 705 was initially slightly disappointing –- certainly there’s a lack of detail to resolution

some aspects of the spoken voice here. However, more extensive auditioning with a variety of voices soon changed my mind. If anything, the dynamic microphone was a little more capable of generating that full-on mellifluous DJ sound, and seemed a little more tolerant of variations in working distance than its capacitor stablemate. Out of a music studio and into a radio studio environment and this difference became more obvious. Although both microphones exhibit good off-axis rejection, the BCM 705’s supercardioid pattern, coupled with its dynamic characteristics meant that it was far less susceptible to picking up extraneous clutter and script noise, etc. than the BCM 104. I guess this very much depends on the working environment and acoustic treatment — but in anything less than ideal conditions the BCM 705 felt like it had the edge here. Dialling in some judicious broadcast processing on the output, with generous helpings of phase-rotation, also seemed to favour the dynamic microphone, with BCM 104 sounding a little too brittle and harsh. Having said that, in a more controlled space and with different goals in mind, the BCM 104 (UK£649 + VAT) is the clear winner here for voiceover work, with a nice full, detailed sound that sits well in a TV mix without ever sounding too overblown or unnatural. Comparisons are bound to be made with the U87 in this application, and the sound is not dissimilar — perhaps a little more neutral in the mid-range. Added to this is a cheaper price, and the benefits of the built in pop-shield and shockmount, and I suspect that this microphone will start to make some serious inroads into this market. The broadcast side is a little trickier — certainly both microphones are not without some well established competition in this production area. For me, the BCM 705 (UK£425 + VAT) is the best candidate for the job here, although this will largely come down to a matter of taste and to some extent the nature of an individual presenter’s voice. But both microphones are more than up to the job, and benefit greatly from some really well thought out and well implemented design and packaging. ■

PROS

Nicely executed and effective built-in pop shield and shockmount; detachable head grilles; choice of very useable sonic characteristics between the two microphones; good ergonomics.

CONS

LF extension on BCM104 seems a little too restrained with ﬁlter in place; BCM705 really needs to be worked quite close to sound balanced.

Contact NEUMANN, GERMANY Website: www.neumann.com UK, Sennheiser UK: +44 1494 551551

September 2005

The mc266 with 512 DSP channels The mc266‘s excellence is derived from its initial conceptual design: one of the largest audio matrices, the highest quality signal processing in every channel and sophisticated redundancy arrangements, from microphone input to program output. The compact DSP core with 512 DSP channels underlines the enormous capability of the mc266. The control surface with its graphical support makes it the ideal tool for ambitious productions. Fast access Flexibility of external control, sophisticated audio-follow-video and sequence automation guarantees the flexibility needed for live situations. New: dynamic automation, networking of routing and mixing consoles, workstation remote control

BROADCAST PRODUCTION RADIO ROUTING OB VAN SERVICE

One generation ahead

Amsterdam, 9th – 13th September 2005, Booth No 8.385

Lawo AG · Rastatt/Germany · +49 7222 1002-0 · www.lawo.de

review

AMS Neve 8051 The move to multichannel throws up a number of issues when it comes to dynamics most of them pertaining to conﬁguration and control. ROB JAMES says that you ought to be able to take your favourite dynamics sound with you.

OR SOUND FOR PICTURE post, I’ve never been a huge fan of compressors as a species. Something along the lines of, ‘If God had meant us to use compressors he wouldn’t have given us ﬁngers, automation and the reverse button.’ Music is another matter. Limiters, on the other hand, are absolutely indispensable. The only compressors that have ever really ‘done it for me’ have come from Neve. Even in the digital age, given the choice, I would still use a 33609 compressor/limiter in preference to anything else. The overall effect can be summed up with the word ‘natural’. Even when you deliberately overdo it, the artefacts are far from unpleasant. I have long nurtured the hope that AMS Neve would someday get around to building a proper 5.1 surround version. At the UK price of UK£5950 + VAT, the 8051 is almost, but not quite, what I had in mind. It has the look and feel of the older Neve units but currently lacks limiting. Linking control of left and right signals of a stereo compressor should be second nature, unless of course you enjoy the inadvertent and disturbing ‘autopan’ effect. In surround mixing things can become a lot more complicated. Whether for music or other purposes it is far from uncommon to feed completely different material to the various groups of channels. In these instances applying the same gain reduction to all channels because one channel has exceeded the threshold may be wholly inappropriate. With exactly this dilemma in mind, the 8051 has two sidechains, A and B, each with an independent set of controls for the six transformer-balanced audio paths. Each channel can be controlled from sidechain A or B or both. The six signal paths can be assigned to the two sidechains in any required format. For example, L, C, R, LS, RS on sidechain A and LFE on sidechain B or L, C, R on sidechain A and LS, RS on sidechain B or as a pair of independent stereo compressors, and so on. The majority of analogue compressors apply gain reduction entirely dependent on the input signal level. The 8051 uses the same feedback architecture as the 33609 compressor. This monitors the output of each 34

gain cell and continually adjusts the gain based on this control voltage feedback to accurately apply the required gain reduction. This is arguably responsible for the characteristic Neve dynamic sound. The compression characteristic is ‘soft-knee’ and ratio increases the more the threshold is exceeded. Maximum nominal is around 8:1. Each sidechain’s analysis circuit reacts to the highest signal present and the resulting compression is applied equally to all channels assigned to that sidechain. This multichannel equivalent of stereo compressor linking prevents unwanted image shifts. A 12dB per octave 80/100/120Hz low-pass ﬁlter can be inserted on any one channel to create a subbass or LFE channel and a 80/100/120Hz high-pass ﬁlter can be inserted in each channel’s sidechain path to prevent unwanted compression due to LFE content. Channels are assigned to sidechains using individual push buttons and are automatically assigned to the corresponding control voltage link. This is necessary to maintain the closed loop feedback. Once this is established, further channels can be added to the sidechain output so that they are subject to the same gain changes without their audio content affecting the compression applied. A channel can have its control voltage linked to both sidechains and in this case the sidechain applying the most gain reduction and gain make up controls the channel. Sidechain levels can be

trimmed on four controls that group the six channels into two stereo pairs and two mono channels. The Ext buttons switch in an insert point in the control voltage signal for each sidechain while a send and return allows the control signal to be processed by external devices. Alternatively the Ext mode can take a control voltage from the rear connector instead of the sidechain outputs and this enables the unit to be slaved from a second 8051 or a 33609. A Bias control is used to balance the control voltages from the two sidechains by applying up to 6dB of cut and boost, gently modifying the compression ratios. An adjustable Key Input enables an external source to be used to trigger the gain reduction. The key input control signal can also be used in parallel with the control signal from one of the audio inputs — for example, the centre channel signal can control different compression of front and rear signals in a surround mix. Any spare audio input can, in effect, be used as an extra key input by simply putting it into bypass mode. Gain reduction meters show the degree of processing being applied and once above the sidechain’s threshold level the link button for the largest signal on that sidechain illuminates in red. Any other channel with signal above the threshold and within 2dB of the highest also lights in red. Apart from the standard model the 8051 is also available as a specialised mastering version. This unit differs in that the Trim and Bias controls are indented so they can be accurately reset and -1dB switches are ﬁtted to the Threshold and Gain Make-Up controls. There is also a version for Neve 88R series consoles available new or as a retro-ﬁt. Rotary switches and stepped attenuators still do it for me even before switching the unit on. Leaving aside the ease with which settings can be repeated they are satisfyingly tactile in a way no pot, let alone a mouse, can hope to emulate. The buttons are equally reassuring and latch electronically. I’m not going to pretend that setting this unit up for different tasks is as easy as recalling a preset on a digital compressor, but the rotary switches and stepped attenuators make it as simple as possible. No matter how convenient and cost effective digital processing becomes I have yet to hear anything digital that produces the same effect as passing signals through this unit. I suspect it may be something to do with the nature of properly designed transformers. Whatever, the effect varies from gentle dynamic range reduction, all the way to compressed to hell in the nicest possible way. Real Neve sound for the surround epoch. ■

Contact AMS NEVE, UK Website: www.ams-neve.com

PROS

The sound; versatile control linking; proper engineering.

CONS

No separate limit controls as on 33609; proper engineering isn’t cheap.

EXTRAS

The 1073 DPA and the 1073 DPD are 1U rackmounting dual-channel units that provide two 1073 Class A mic preamps at a new price point. The 1073 DPD adds A-DCs that run to 192kHz and a Neve DSD output.

resolution

September 2005

The Direct-Access Console

Instant access is essential in live situations. This is exactly what the unique AURUS Direct-Access concept provides. Developed from scratch, the AURUS Digital Audio Mixing System sets new standards in the high-end digital audio market. Features: • Totally new design • Perfect for live and production applications • Instant control access via unique dual concentric encoders in the channel strip • Up to 96 channel strips and 300 audio channels • Patented 28-bit TrueMatch converters • NEXUS STAR-based • Compact, portable, and silent – fan free

381 Hall 8/Booth

Industriegebiet See D-96155 Buttenheim Phone: +49 9545 440 - 0 Fax: +49 9545 440 - 333 sales@stagetec.com www.stagetec.com

review

Audio Ease Altiverb 5 An originator of the ‘convolution’ reverb process that has now become relatively widespread, Altiverb has undergone a substantial upgrade. GEORGE SHILLING says the latest version puts it right back in the room.

UDIO EASE BROUGHT convolution reverb to the masses with Altiverb, initially in the Digital Performer MAS plug-in format, then RTAS, VST and TDM and Audio Units. Although there is an HTDM version, all instances of Altiverb make use of the PowerPC’s Altivec engine in the Macintosh’s processor, so there are no PC versions, and I wonder what the Intel-based Mac future bodes for Altiverb. There have been no OS9 updates for some time now, with Version 2, as reviewed in Resolution over two years ago, being the last OS9 update. The strength of any convolution reverb lies with the quality of the impulse responses (IRs), and Altiverb has always scored well — Audio Ease has a three-year head-start on the competition and Version 2 is still very usable due to the high quality of the samples. Registered users have always been able to acquire new IRs from the Audio Ease website as they were added, and these have trickled out every few weeks. In particular, a large library of postproduction spaces has been added since V2. Most impressive to me are the IRs of Allaire Studios, NY where I tracked an album over many weeks last year — using these responses genuinely made me feel nostalgic for this amazing studio. That aside, in terms of parameter adjustment and editing, Altiverb had arguably fallen behind the competition that has sprouted in the last two years. Altiverb must now compete with Logic’s free Space Designer, Waves’ IR-1, IR360 and IR-L, Trillium Labs’ TL Space, Tascam’s GigaPulse and so on, and most of the competition has offered many more editing parameters. This is rectiﬁed with V5, and Altiverb now boasts some whizz-bang features to reclaim its crown. It also claims to be the most processor-efﬁcient convolution reverb. The interface still looks tidy, but is much bigger, and I resent giving up screen space to the rather pointless rack ears (You tell ‘em George. Ed). The very slightly smaller Reverb Time knob now goes up to 150% as well as down. Four ‘pages’ of parameters share a lower panel, alternative IR graphic views 36

feature on a large pane above, including a lovely 3D moveable waterfall display to show frequency content through the decay. On the right, the IR info panel retains the ability to open individual pictures or VR movies in a separate window. 3D VR movies of many of the venues are included — purely eye-candy in most cases, but it is nice to get a sense of where you are pretending to locate things, even if it does make you wish you were holidaying at a European castle instead of stuck inside a studio. In V2, loading settings was simply a matter of loading impulse responses. Now there are presets that use impulse responses; those can still be freely loaded separately on a drop-down list. RTAS/AudioSuite presets are dispensed with in favour of the proprietary preset drop-down list on the window itself, although saving your own presets using the RTAS function works perfectly well. Presets are categorised into useful and familiar categories with four groups of different sizes along with instrument and vocal speciﬁc types — the graphic of the mic positioning and room shape helpfully pops up next to the preset. As a subset of the impulse response list, a third dropdown list accesses the different recorded responses (different room positions or reverb parameters) of the selected response set (usually the location or reverb unit sampled). It all makes perfect sense in practice. Additionally, ten quickly accessible snapshot memories are provided, which are useful for automating changes particularly in postproduction work. The Reverb Time knob is now accompanied by a Size knob for changing the dimensions of the space and there is a brief silence while the algorithm is recalculated when this parameter is changed, but changing other settings never results in clicks or pops. The reverb is calculated ‘just in time’ so that previous tails are retained, even as you adjust the reverb time. However, the reverb time frustratingly seems not to be automatable, so you must use snapshots for automated changes. Dedicated versions of the plug-in can be selected for mono, stereo, quad, 5.0, and 5.1 — separate level control is available for front, rear, centre and LFE. resolution

The central four-page panel allows control of the more detailed parameters, such as 3-band damping with adjustable crossovers, and separate delay and gain for early reﬂections and reverb tail. A powerful 4band EQ is available and there are functions for saving CPU power, even though Altiverb claims to be up to four times more economical than the competition. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature is a page for adjusting stage positions. Audio Ease has developed a clever algorithm based on experimentation in a real-world setting that allows you to move the source around a 2D stage. You simply drag the speaker or speakers around, backwards, forwards, left and right in a 3D representation of the stage area. Direct signal gain is disabled when this mode is used because part of the positioning effect is governed by the balance. So, by using multiple instantiations, you can set up a ‘virtually’ positioned ensemble within the selected space — and it works very convincingly indeed. The Reverse function makes backwards reverb easier than ever, especially when used in conjunction with the CPU-saving Tail Cut level knob, which sets the timing without changing the reverb character. Altiverb (from US$595) is an amazing tool. In the grand scheme of a rich and complex rock and roll mix you might doubt whether all this sophistication is really necessary, and often it is not. But depending on the production style and mix, a really great reverb can make the difference, especially in classical and acoustic music, and Altiverb is unquestionably a really great reverb. And for ﬁlm, TV and radio postproduction, the comprehensive collection of small, unusual and outdoor spaces really comes into its own. ■

PROS

Altiverb is back on top; great presets; impressive stage positioning feature; stutter free parameter changing.

CONS

Processor hungry; not all settings automatable.

EXTRAS

The Audio Ease BarbaBatch batch audio file convertor is celebrating ten years with the release of V4, which offers sample rate and file format conversion for Mac OSX. It introduces resizable windows, tables displaying sound file information, unlimited undo and redo and conversion definitions can be shared by dragging them in and out of the conversion list together with an automatic conversion naming feature.

Contact AUDIO EASE, NETHERLANDS Website: www.audioease.com UK, Unity Audio: +44 1440 785843

September 2005

Broadcast Line BCM 104 – BCM 705

Radio needs characters.

*The design of the microphone is a registered design of the Georg Neumann GmbH.

Microphones from the Broadcast Line oﬀer an inexpensive introduction to the Neumann class. Innovative design*, optimum performance and comfort with the typical Neumann sound all included.

IBC Amsterdam, Booth No. 8.550 Georg Neumann GmbH • Ollenhauerstrasse 98 • 13403 Berlin • Germany • Fon: +49 (0) 30 / 41 77 24 -0 • Fax: +49 (0) 30 / 41 77 24 -50 • E-Mail: headoﬃce@neumann.com

review

Edirol R-4 If you want to do location recording on a budget then your options are limited particularly if you don’t want tape. ROB JAMES test drives a portable 4-channel hard disk recorder that occupies its own price space.

HAVE LONG HAD the need for an affordable 4-channel location recorder. For my purposes, the occasional sound effects gathering session and supplementing on-board camcorder tracks, nothing too complex is required. On the other hand there are some very clear ‘must haves’. I’m fed up with the unreliability and maintenance costs associated with DAT and 24-bit recording is essential. So the most obvious requirements are; hard disk and or flash memory storage, 24-bit recording to .WAV files and direct connectivity to a PC/Mac, analogue and digital audio interfaces, a couple of mic pres with phantom power and reasonable battery life. More than one of the current crop of high-end professional machines could tick all the boxes but would be serious overkill in terms of facilities and especially cost. Until the Edirol R-4 appeared there was nothing that came close to this spec at under UK£3000. On paper the R-4 does what is required and then some at the eminently reasonable price of £935.22 plus VAT. Photographs can be deceptive, the R-4 is around the same size and weight as a hard-back blockbuster novel and the casing is all plastic. A neat carrying bag with Velcro-ed flaps over the connectors is supplied with the machine and a hard case that takes the recorder and accessories is available as a £126.81 plus VAT option. At this price there are inevitably some compromises so I’ll get them out of the way early. Construction is not exactly rugged, about the same level as a semipro camcorder. But in any case, you shouldn’t be even slightly rough with anything containing a hard disk drive (Easier to say than do. Ed). The mic inputs would benefit from another 10dB or so of gain, as could the monitor amp, and the mic preamps might usefully be quieter. The analogue switched ‘limiter’ is, if the manual is to be believed, actually a 3:1 compressor. It has odd time-constants — there is a long hold after an over followed by a very audible release. In any case, Left and Right sidechains are not linked, making it effectively useless for stereo. Editing is fairly rudimentary, but adequate for managing recordings, but it is difficult to be accurate. The built-in digital effects are effective enough but only work at 44.1kHz and 48kHz. It is inadvisable to record with effects and you cannot play back one pair of tracks while recording on the other, so they are of limited value. Vices detailed, there are compensatory virtues. Four-channel recording is at up to 96kHz, 24-bit onto the internal 40Gb 2.5-inch hard disk. File format is WAV or BWAV. Each recording is termed a Project and can contain mono x 1, 2, 3 or 4, or stereo x 1 or 2, or 4-channel x 1 files. Note, the infamous 2Gb limit applies, but is elegantly dealt with. Projects larger than 2Gb are automatically split into multiple files. Markers can be inserted during recording and, if you use the BWF format, the markers travel with the files. Projects can be copied onto Type 1 38

Compact Flash cards for loading into a computer or directly transferred over USB (1.1 or 2.0). Controls are simple and logical. The sloping front panel has a backlit LCD, internally illuminated transport controls, and input and monitor gain pots. On the top surface the power switch has to be held down for a couple of seconds to turn the machine on or off. A Hold switch locks all controls in their current state apart from the pots. Phantom power is switched in channel pairs and System gets you into the main menus. Navigation is easy using the four Cursor/ Monitor select keys with the scrub wheel and Enter/Exit keys. The four analogue input channels are XLR/Jack combo sockets with separate Mic/Line switches for each channel pair. Stereo analogue line out is on phonos as is stereo SPDIF I-O. All or any of the four channels can be mixed down to the stereo outputs but not output in 4channel form. The power supply is an inline type and the jack has a neat cable retainer to help prevent inadvertent disconnection. The R-4 can also run using 8 internal AA alkaline or NiMh batteries although there is no charging facility. Using NiMhs a couple of hours’ operation is possible and you could use an external battery pack if longer duration is required. The final socket is enigmatically labelled ‘L-Connector’ and is the icing on the cake for video use because it’s a LANC remote control connection. When used with a suitably equipped camcorder the R-4 will start and stop recording at the same time but there is no timecode though. There are two built-in mics and speakers — the mics are useful for guidetrack recording but, as you might expect, pick up mechanical noise from the machine. The speakers are fine for editing speech. The filing system is straightforward. Pressing the Enter/Finder key brings up all existing projects on the screen. Highlighting the required project with the cursor keys and hitting the Enter key again loads the project for playback or editing. Projects can easily be divided, trimmed and combined. Since there is only stereo audio output, the only way to use the R-4 to acquire 4-channel material is to transfer via USB or Compact Flash. Fortunately, transfers via USB are resolution

completely drama free. Simply plug in the R-4 and a Windows XP machine sees it as an external mass storage device. If you feel the need, suitable ﬁles can also be moved to the R-4. I’m not going to pretend this device is suitable for critical classical music recordings or that it will put up with the rigours of life on the road day in, day out. However, as a 4-channel acquisition device for sympathetic use, especially in partnership with video, the R-4 is the only game in town unless you can afford to pay a multiple of the asking price. ■

PROS

4-channel recording; remote control from camcorders; price.

CONS

Analogue circuitry could be better; no 4-channel audio output; no 4-channel digital audio input.

Contact EDIROL, JAPAN Website: www.editrol.com UK: +44 870 350 1515

September 2005

“It’s the first thing I plug in now. I love it. It just sounds great.” Garrett Lee a.k.a Jacknife Lee - Artist/Producer - U2, Snow Patrol, Eminem and others too many to mention.

“Great idea, sounds fantastic and you can link several together for 7.1- Perfect” Simon Osborne – Sting

“What a great product! Not just a great sound, but great value too.”

“Focusrite have made it possible for me to enjoy sounds I thought you could only buy at auction in Southebys.” Guy Sigsworth – Britney Spears, Bjork, Madonna, Julio Iglesius and many more.

“A creative palette; bold strokes, vivd colours, pure... filth!” Cenzo Townsend – Graham Coxon, New Order, Ordinary Boys, Kaiser Chiefs. Beastie Boys

believe

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Tim Summerhayes He has combined live sound and studio engineering backgrounds to yield a prominent career in mobile recording. Tim Summerhayes talks to GEORGE SHILLING about the merits of console designs, festivals, EQing to tape and broadcast sound.

IM SUMMERHAYES STARTED out in the music business in the early 1970s as a gigging PA engineer with ambitions towards studio work. A chance meeting led to employment on the RAK Mobile as assistant to Doug Hopkins. Summerhayes was onboard for the upgrade from 16 to 24 track and when Hopkins became more involved with the ﬂedgling RAK Studios, Summerhayes was let loose recording punk rock gigs using the truck’s 3M M79 24-track machines and API console — the latter still in use in RAK’s programming room. He followed Hopkins to Basing Street where they 40

revived the Island Mobile, subsequently deciding to go freelance as a studio engineer. His mobile career was revived by the Fleetwood company where he was given charge of its second truck until the recession struck. Several years later, he teamed up with an ex-Manor Mobiles employee he’d previously poached, Ian Dykhoff, and together they bought the company and rebuilt the truck from the bare metal, investing in a Euphonix console. When they needed more investment they struck a deal with the Sanctuary Group and shortly afterwards swallowed main rival Manor Mobiles, who with EMI backing, resolution

according to Summerhayes, were ‘squashing us!’ However, ultimately this arrangement didn’t work out business or personnel-wise, and ex-Manor engineer Will Shapland left to form his own mobile recording business. In recent years Tim has regularly covered the Brits and MTV Awards broadcasts, and has recorded numerous big events such as the awardwinning Robbie Williams at Slane Castle DVD, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Live in Hyde Park CD, as well as classical recordings such as the original Three Tenors concert in Rome, and most recently the massive opera project ‘1984’, composed by Lorin Maazel. September 2005

craft How has the role of the engineer changed? Over decades, the ergonomics of a control desk have evolved with things like Quad Eight, Helios, MCI, API, and ended up in the 1980s with the SSL board which anyone could use — with a layout that everyone agreed would work and did work. What’s happened to the ergonomics of today’s digital consoles when you get a fader and a knob? The knob can do anything you want, depending on what layer of the menu you’re in. It’s absolutely remarkable. I’ve done a bit of work on a Libra Live, and nothing is obvious, nothing is within easy reach, and I absolutely hate it. You get a result, but it’s not easy to craft the sound that you know is in there somewhere and get it out. Who makes desks designed for what you do? We do concert recording and broadcast, and the desk has to be reliable, sound good, and we’ve settled for Euphonix. I’ll honestly say it’s the best sounding board in the world, and for what we do it is the best board in the world. I’ve found nothing to top it. SSL brought out a digital board that looks like an SSL control board, and you walk into a studio, some trucks have actually got them, and you think, ‘Wow, I can use this’, but that’s where the good news stops really, because to actually use these things is a nightmare! You still have to have the guy in the white coat do all the programming, it’s just not intuitive at all. The Japanese have almost got it sussed with the Yamaha road boards, the PM-1D and the 5D, and they have proved to be reliable, and where they’ve really scored is they’ve made a worksurface that is familiar to the live mix engineers. They’ve obviously done a bit of research: How would you like this laid out? Would you like this feature? You can look at it and just fathom your way through it easily. Once it’s set up, it does what it says, they’re relatively easy to use, the snapshot store and recall works, and that, pretty much, on the live broadcast is all I need it to do.

there, and if you do it through the digital system, any deﬁciencies you’re compensating for in your head, and everyone’s happy with it. When you play it back, it’s absolutely identical, because it’s been converted and reconverted even during the listening process, so no-one takes away something they haven’t heard exactly before.

What are you multitracking with now? The favourite one is still the Sony 3348, because it’s a fantastically built machine, I don’t think it’s ever let me down. With the current tape problems, we’ve been almost forced to go the disk route, and we were ready for it anyway. We discarded Pro Tools as a recording format because of its unreliability. When it’s running

What about digital recording? I loved it from the off. I remember in studio times, you’d get the band in there, and they’d rehearse, and the producer and everyone would be happy with it, and I knew when they came to ‘To use Antares Autotune in a live situation is extremely dangerous. The main have a listen to the first recording it would sound problem is that it works, but if anyone or anything is out of tune, the loudest thing different. However well the analogue tape had been in a gig is the vocals, and they will be picked up on the ambience mics. If you’ve got a retuned vocal against tweaked and lined up, it was always different, and the live ambience sounds it’s a train-wreck, there’s nothing you can do about it, you cannot use them. The only I’d hate that. Whereas on the digital recorder, I time I’ve used it successfully, we infiltrated a boy band’s crew, who we knew, and said, they’re very good, always listen through the machine, because if you but a little bit pitchy. The guy was quite prepared to try a rack of standalone Autotunes, probably just on tweak something, you’re compensating for any chromatic. We managed to use them live on air, he used them front-of-house, and I took the output of those, deficiencies in the machine’s electronics. so any pitch change happened for both of us, and it just worked. But that takes a lot of guts, and a lot of Over the years you develop templates of what collaboration from the PA guys.’ you think things sound like, you know what a guitar Res_horizontal_07.05 27/6/05 5:39 pm Page 1 sounds like, so you do a tweak here and a tweak

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craft ﬂat-out for two hours with 56 tracks, we’ve had too many failures to trust it. We’ve settled on Merging Technologies’ Pyramix, and it seems to be very good. We still insist on doing a tape backup, just in case. We’re not that conﬁdent about it yet.

So you give clients a FireWire drive as their multitrack? We do, yes, we record Broadcast WAV ﬁles that can be imported easily enough into a Pro Tools Session, and that keeps the clients happy, because every rhythm guitarist in the world has got a Pro Tools system. We’re also looking at what causes these things to fail, and that’s becoming quite interesting. Most of what we do is TV based, and you’re relying heavily on the TV company providing a synchronisation source for the audio tapes. When the old formats, analogue or 3348, have a disruption in timecode or disruption in the video sync lead, a light comes on, and it just carries on. The new technologydisk recorders, and the top of the range Tascams, the DA98s or the HR models — it sees a blip in anything and it just stops: ‘I’ve got a problem, I’m not recording, sort it out!’ You can’t do that, you’ve got to get this stuff on tape somehow, so we thought about it and found a few ways not to rely on other people’s synchronisation sources — and it works. We take the sources from TV, we clock our timecode to their source. We let go of their source but monitor any drift. If there is any drift, there’s a problem. And we’ve ﬂagged a few problems with some of these TV companies, and they’ve always said ‘No, it’s not us’. And every time, miraculously, the problem solves itself, just afterwards a guy comes in the door and says, ‘Is it alright now?’!

How do you monitor that? An old Adams Smith Zeta 3. We’re generating our own code, and using our video sync source as a master clock, and so far, it’s proved a very reliable way to do it. What is the general attitude of broadcasters when you roll up? OpticalCon�216x125_E�Globe.psd They love it, it takes so much pressure off them.

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All they’ve got to provide us with is talkback and sync source, we provide them with a stereo mix of whatever they want, and they sit back with their feet up. The people we work with are pretty cool — we know everyone by now, and they will help us out with supplying some of the hardware for rigging audience mics. Most of what we do now is for DVD with high-deﬁnition pictures, which is becoming more popular. The high-deﬁnition frame rates are such that

September 2005

craft every preproduction starts with a meeting of, how are we going to sync all this together. There are so many convoluted frame rates that you’ve got to get your head round it, and it’s quite a discussion. The wall board gets ﬁlled up with how it’s going to be routed, how this is going to read this, how that’s going to sync, and it’s a complicated process.

How do you cope with festivals? I personally don’t like doing festivals, I ﬁnd them incredibly hard work. RockAmRing is a nice one to do, they’ve got some huge bands on. It’s a live on-air mix with a multitrack backup for future use. Fortunately I can work pretty fast. If we don’t get a soundcheck — they’re rare, some of the headline bands come in the day before — normally, you get a line check before they come on, there’s a 20-minute turnaround where they reset the entire stage, a line check, a quick bash around, and you’re on. I always tell them the ﬁrst song is my soundcheck, and if it’s going well I usually mess it up so they can’t use it for broadcast, and everyone accepts that. Normally it’s okay, it’s by the seat of your pants. Sometimes you sit there and think, this is really good, other times with your head in your hands — it’s a train-wreck.

desk, it will be the sweet spot. I tend to use cardioids looking sideways, you don’t get the PA direct onto it, and you don’t get the slapback of the hall directly, it’s just a general left-right feel. Often it’s so far from the PA that you get horrendous delay, but with modern mixing techniques it’s easy to time-slip it back in. You wouldn’t want it exactly back in, it sounds ﬂat, it’s nice just to get a bit of delay, an idea of the size of the place. And often when you’re mixing surround you can put some effects, and if the band or producer is involved you can experiment with a few stupid ideas. A lot of people don’t like involvement from the band, but I welcome it. They give you a bit of a hard time, but they get what they want, then come back for another one. ■

DVD

‘DVD has saved our lives, we were among the ﬁrst to do the live concert records, and among the ﬁrst to get in and start mixing it. We got a reputation, we know what to do. We’re now putting our own mix room together, we’ve just moved to Denham where we will have a land-based facility, we’ll have a Euphonix. We still love what we do, but mixing is a big element. And we can do the encoding as well, because so many projects have left us sounding good, you buy it and put it on, and think, what the hell’s going on? Now we give them the Dolby AC-3 or DTS encoded sound, they can do nothing but lay it into the master.’

Do you EQ to tape? If we’re doing a proper recording I always process to tape. I always imagine Bob Clearmountain getting a tape I’ve recorded and going, ‘That’s a good recording’. So I hate recording flat to tape, I despise it, and normally put an apology on the reel, because it’s good to get a good recording and it’s half-way there. If I’m given a flat-to-tape and you’ve got to mix from scratch, it takes forever. If someone’s got his ear on it and sorted out even half the mess, it’s such a nice thing to do. Do you use onboard desk EQ and compression across the mix? At least. I’m not a purist in recording by any means. Those people who can go out and even record an orchestra with a stereo mic just sound crap to me. And I think the BBC’s approach to recording live rock and roll music is absolutely appalling. I honestly think they approach every band as though it’s a jazz group. I have heard some good stuff, but generally, I don’t know whether it’s their attitude or their training, but it always sounds the same. I heard the start of Live 8, and they played a montage of the previous Live Aid soundtrack, and we all know that sounded like crap. It came on with U2 and Paul McCartney, and I thought, this sounds the same. I thought, they’ll clean it up in a minute, I can’t believe they’re getting away with this. And the next band came on, and I thought, this is appalling. Travis came on, and it sounded fantastic, something happened to turn it around, I don’t know what it was. I do think that if you’re recording modern music you’ve got to go the whole way and do exactly what they’d expect you to do in a studio. How many ambient mics do you use? It depends on the size of the venue, never fewer than six, rarely more than 12 or 15. Sometimes it’s difficult to get them where you want them, the award shows are the worst because there’s nothing on the wings of the stage to put them on. The best place is to hang them from the truss, but the logistics of doing that is often prohibitive, the cost of getting extra people in. And with Health And Safety, you’ve got to be so careful, you’re not allowed to kill your assistants these days! Generally I put a couple by the FOH mixing September 2005

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Ty Unwin He’s a musical prodigy turned music for television specialist with his own work space. Ty Unwin is also one of the ﬁrst power users in the UK of Mackie’s new DigitalXBus desk. KEVIN HILTON gets him to explain his working methods.

HILDREN OFTEN HAVE an idea of what they want to do in adult life. Whether they achieve the dream is another matter. Ty Unwin knew from the age of eleven that he wanted to compose music and, specially, compose music for television. Seeing the TV series version of Wolfgang Petersen’s epic Das Boot, which was underpinned by an impressive electronic score by Klaus Doldinger, inspired him. While Unwin started as a lover of lush romantic classical music he later turned to the more minimalist influences of Philip Glass, Eric Satie and John Cage. This influence can be heard on the recent BBC series Your Life in Their Hands. He began learning the piano at the age of nine and gained a Grade A when not much older. He says he was more interested in writing his own compositions than playing the work of other composers and when aged 14 got into synthesisers and drum machines. At the age of 16 he won the BBC Song for Christmas competition, which led to other TV appearances. He studied music and composition at Huddersfield University and, on leaving, wrote music for a number of children’s programmes and later became regular composer on the mid-1990s BBC series Vets in the Wild, followed by the celebrity-based Born to be Wild. His later credits include the 2000-2001 epic series Space, fronted by actor Sam Neill, and the dramadocumentaries Genghis Kahn, Pompeii: The Last Day and Super Volcano. Originally from the UK’s Midlands, Unwin is currently living in a small village not far from Oxford. He has a temporary studio set up in a bedroom, based around 46

a Mackie DigitalXBus console and many keyboards. He is planning to move soon and build a separate studio with a control room and live area. He spoke to Resolution about the need for a mixing console, music libraries and hardware versus software.

You have a large set-up of synthesisers and computers but you mix on a console instead of in a virtual environment. Why is that? I don’t understand how people use virtual faders and interfaces to mix in software. I need to mix from hardware; the physicality is very important. It’s as though you lose something unless you can pull on the faders. That’s part of the reason I’ve now got the DigitalXBus, because of the control surface. Others are starting to see consoles as redundant or at best just use hardware for sub-mixing, relying on computers and interfaces for the main mix. I use the DigitalXBus like a traditional mixer, with the computers and synthesisers running into the desk. At the moment I’m waiting for the FireWire card, which will allow me to connect from the DigitalXBus into the Macs. Why did you decide on the DigitalXBus? I used to have a Yamaha desk but I wasn’t happy with the sound and couldn’t really get to grips with it. After that I moved onto the Roland VM7000 series, which cost a fortune and sounded amazing but the user interface was not ideal. The DigitalXBus was the ﬁrst desk where the sound quality I wanted was there. Whatever you put into it comes out the same and the processing is in a league of its own. Moving to the DigitalXBus made sense because I’d resolution

used Mackie Control in the past and that is integrated now into the desk. It was also a logical move because I use UADs. I’m something of a DSP freak so having the combination of the DigitalXBus and UADs, as well as PowerCore and the Creamware Scope platform, gives me a powerful set-up.

What do you record onto? Generally Nuendo or Cubase. I’ve also got Logic, which I use if I’m working with someone who has it too, and Ableton if the project is very loop-based. Otherwise I use either Nuendo or Cubase. You’ve got comprehensive outboard gear, so do you use that for EQ and other processing or do you prefer to work within the desk or the Mac? It depends on the project but generally I’ll process either in the Mac or in the desk with the UAD. The Mac also has a UAD card so I can use a combination of the two. Theoretically it’s possible to do everything within the desk; the internal EQ on it is good enough so I don’t have to worry about outboard effects. Do you try to strike a balance between software and hardware? At one time I was working mostly with synthesisers and held back completely from computer systems because I was into hardware. When people were getting into Atari and Mac in the late 1980s, the Akai ASQ10 digital sequencer was the only piece of software that convinced me it was the way ahead. Later there were lots of samplers on the market and it September 2005

craft was only the Tascam GigaStudio system that switched me over to working mainly with software. It enabled me to do things that I couldn’t do with hardware samplers, which made a great difference to the way I work. Because of the amount of work I do for television it’s important to be able to sync properly to the image you’re working to on screen and hardware often had problems syncing up to SMPTE. I’ve still got hardware but it’s not used very often. GigaStudio is now my main tool; I couldn’t live without it. The kind of work I do is very intensive in the amount of processing required. I have four GigaStudio systems but some of the Hollywood composers go even further and are running 25. We do need that kind of power, particularly running the big production music and instrument libraries like VSL [Vienna Symphonic Library] and Quantum Leap. It would be very easy to have a solo violin on just one machine, so you can see how it all mounts up. If people want to put up with less realistic sounds, that’s fine, and there is the argument for getting in real players, but because of the nature of the work I do, it’s not really possible. Scenes are sometimes being changed right up to the last dub. A scene might be finished as far as I’m concerned but the director may alter it or pull it altogether, which means that the audio recording needs to be changed and if that change comes through in the early hours of the morning you can’t call in a flautist or a violinist to play a new part. At one time we couldn’t get away with a sampled solo instrument but it’s different now. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t or don’t use real musicians but I only do it for a film that is locked completely. Universal Audio Half Page

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review and 626s for the centre and rear. Super Volcano has a 5.1 soundtrack but not for the music. I could have done fake 5.1 but there was so much going on with the effects that it would have been redundant. High deﬁnition will be appearing through next year and I can’t see myself getting through 2006 without doing 5.1 for at least one project. I had a surround sound system at my old place and my attitude towards 5.1 music is that it shouldn’t be used purely from an effects point of view. We can put the bass and the drums in the rear channels and pan everything around but are we doing that because we can or because it’s musically correct? In some cases it might be enough to take the stereo mix and just pull it forward to give a sense of extra depth and use the rears for big effects and to give a sense of space. The idea of ﬂying instruments and sounds round people’s heads is pointless.

Do you have to work hard to get a balance between the sound effects and the music? When you write for TV you need to be aware of everything that goes around the music. On smaller projects I’ve sometimes had to integrate sound design within the score because there wasn’t enough budget for a sound team. On Space, things were rushed because I was brought in to replace someone and I didn’t know what was going to be done in the dub. I spent time putting in sound design and when it came to the ﬁrst dub that clashed with the big effects the actual sound designers had put in. For Super Volcano I had to judge how much of a hole to leave for the effects. It takes years of trial and error to know where to leave gaps. You need to be cautious; you can’t go hell for leather if everything else is going big as well. Something will give way if the limiter is being pushed and it’s usually the music. That’s why I’ve gone in a more minimalist direction, making things small. It’s easy to make everything bigger but more difﬁcult to be intimate. ■ Res_MTvertical_06-04

Can the technology dominate the music rather than being a tool? Technology can occasionally get in the way of the music — that’s the frustrating thing about it. Over the years I’ve read the magazines and dreamt of owning this or that keyboard. Now I’m in a position where I can have what I once dreamed of. The trouble is that when I was limited in what gear I could afford I still knew what it was all about but now I’ve got unlimited access to equipment I know only ten per cent. It’s especially true of software and I have to hit the manuals. Is there a danger that with wide access to music programs, libraries, synthesisers and samplers music can begin to sound alike? That’s why I steer clear of the presets and the loop syndrome. Anyone with a home PC and £500 can knock out something, but writing for picture is something different — it’s another leap. Sometimes you can’t avoid using a sound because it becomes associated with particular things in people’s minds. On Pompeii: The Last Day I used the Bizarre Guitar sample as part of the volcano effects and although I was cautious about it the production team loved it. Later I heard the same sample on another programme and swore to myself that I wouldn’t use it again. When I came to do Super Volcano the producer kept referring to that particular sample; in a way it had become September 2005

associated with the sound of a volcano, so I used it again. People think that if they’ve got the software and the gear they can do the job, but if you’re going to do it properly you’ve got to have certain tools. Central to that is the mixing console. I had one of the ﬁrst two DigitalXBuses in the UK, this January, because I could see where the desk was going. It’s had its software problems but I saw the potential, particularly in integrating it with UAD and using it as a hub for the computers. It’s mixing down from four GigaStudio systems, as well as other sources. Sometimes I’m running all 72 channels but other times it can be just eight. Of course, once it’s on television people can’t tell what something was mixed on, which is different from sample libraries because sounds can be recognisable. I try to get in ﬁrst with new libraries; even if I use a sound very occasionally it’s still worth having everything available.

What arrangements do you have for surround sound, given that the recording space you have at the moment is temporary and not purpose-built? The layout I’m using at present is conﬁgured to the shape of the room and the main problem is that I don’t have any surround sound capability because I couldn’t ﬁt in the loudspeakers. Luckily the last couple of projects I’ve worked on didn’t call for surround. When it’s all set up I have Mackie 824s at the front resolution

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Cenzo Townshend You’ll more than likely be seeing his output applauded at the season’s succession of music awards yet his approach remains ﬁrmly based on traditional values and gear. NIGEL JOPSON gets him to spill the beans on ribbon mics, obscure outboard and that EMI desk.

ENZO TOWNSHEND’S RECENT credits read like a sampler for the current wave of ultra-hip UK bands. When Resolution caught up with him at his Audient/Pro Tools/Radar-equipped suite he shares with producer Stephen Street at Olympic Studios, he’d just put the ﬁnishing touches to The Kaiser Chiefs Mercury Awards-nominated album Employment. Cenzo co-produced Hothouse Flowers, The Wedding Present, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Editors and The Departure, and has turned the knobs for artists including Blur, LLoyd Cole, Travis, The Ordinary Boys, Idlewild, The Rakes and U2. He has recently recorded and mixed (with Stephen Street) four tracks on New Order’s CD Waiting for the Siren’s Call, and is mixing the latest Graham Coxon album. 50

Did you manage to ﬁt all the Kaisers in your production room without a riot? The Kaiser Chiefs song I Predict A Riot we did entirely in here, we recorded it and mixed it in two days because they didn’t have the budget to go elsewhere. We were in the middle of making The Ordinary Boys album, they discovered the Kaiser Chiefs and took them to their label B-Unique, who asked us to record it. We ended up recording just six songs with them; unfortunately we didn’t have time to do more as we were recording New Order. After doing two tracks down here we went next door to Olympic Studio 2 and recorded the backing tracks through the EMI [an EMI TG12345 mixer, of the type installed at Abbey Road circa 1968, now restored on a wheeled chassis resolution

for use at Olympic], we also recorded another tracking session at The Townhouse, and ﬁnished the rest here. This was meant to be our little ‘ofﬁce’ to do vocals and guitars; we’ve kind of outgrown it in some ways, but everybody loves it!

Tell us about the EMI desk, it’s a Mk III with 16 outs, as supplied to the overseas studios, with the presence EQ control on each channel... The EQ is perfect for anything you want to do. I’ve recorded the Cranberries, The Ordinary Boys, Kaiser Chiefs and Graham Coxon through it, it’s been in Olympic for a year now. It has instant character — for drums especially. It just has a character that’s September 2005

craft fantastic, especially going into Pro Tools. I don’t think it’s a particularly ‘fast’ desk, it does lop off the transients a bit, so you can get an awful lot more level into Pro Tools than you could going through a normal mic amp. The presence EQ is my favourite, the bass is a little bit woofy ... but I do tend to drive it quite hard.

You achieved a very punchy drum sound for the Kaiser’s in your own overdub suite. The recording room here was not designed to do drums, it was intended only for vocals and guitar. We had to put the kit in there... as soon as I pushed the faders up on the Coles overhead microphones, which were running through a couple of 1073s, that was the sound. I had an NS10 and a 47 on the bass drum — plus a few fill-in mics — and that’s basically the sound. The Coles are my favourite mics, I try and get away with using them on everything, but sometimes they complain a bit! I also like Royers, I’ve tried the Oktavas, but the Coles are the ones I always come back to. I generally record everything through my Neve 1073 modules, or my 1272 preamps, which are modified with a gain control and pad, phase switch and phantom power; they sound fantastic. I’ve heard that you are something of a connoisseur and collector of vintage recording equipment ... which are your favourite classics and how do you use them? I often use Telefunken V72 mic preamps on overheads, fed from my Coles. What I’d like to do with the V72 is have a modification so I can drive the input more and attenuate the output; otherwise I risk overdriving the input on the desk. Lately I’ve been using Olympic’s vintage PYE compressors on vocals, but you can’t look at the meters, it’s better to cover them up! I’ve just bought some old BBC limiters, which were apparently the forerunners to the classic PYE units. I’ve also acquired a German Vacuvox compressor [based on the Rohde & Schwartz UL23]. It’s supposed to sound a bit like a Fairchild — I took the lid off, it’s amazing — there must be about 20 valves inside. I also love guitarist’s reverb pedals, I have some Boss and Carlsboro delay pedals. They are totally amazing on vocals for slapback, there’s an earthy sound to them. I have some STC 4021 Ball and Biscuit microphones; I use them as room mics or overheads — or in a dustbin — anywhere! You can EQ them to such an extent without the sound getting horrible. I sometimes split the mic over three channels and EQ for bass, mid and top, and then compress them. For vocals it’s amazing, Bernard from New Order sung with it and I’ve also used it on Graham Coxon’s vocals.

Working with Graham must have been quite and Stephen will talk about the song, maybe we’ll a change from the young bands you’ve change the arrangement a bit. He’ll spend quite a been recording; he plays all the instruments long time finding the guitar sound he hears in his himself, doesn’t he? head — I think we had eight or twelve amps at one He’s the most unusual person I’ve ever worked with, point — with my Little Labs box it’s easy for me to in the most fantastic way. He’ll come in with a song just switch between them. in his head: we’ll put a click track down with him playing an acoustic or electric guitar, then he’ll run What microphones do you use for recording in and play drums to it, maybe in two takes. Then electric guitars? he’ll do another guitar or a bass, there’s never a fixed It’s usually a Shure SM57 and a Neumann U47, way of working with Graham, he has all the sounds sometimes I put the U47 off-axis, sometimes I’ll have and parts organised in his head before he starts. On them on different cones. Alternatively I’ll just use two the first album we did with him, he’d sometimes do 57s, one pointing at the centre and the other at the the drums and then the guitar solo — without even cone edge. I treat them as one, and I always have a 11/5/05 10:02 Page 1 my Coles or maybe my Telefunken Elam aResoAudioExcelSDevicesAd guide vocal — it was quite disturbing at first! He am room mic,

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craft 251. I use the Little Lab boxes, I couldn’t do without them, and they’re fantastic for splitting guitars or basses into different amps. There’s one input and three outputs, all with individual gains, phase and earthlift. It’s incredible the difference in phase between ampliﬁers, something I’d never really noticed before. There are three individual line inputs on the back of the Little Lab, so I can also ‘re-amp’ recorded tracks back through amps and change the sound. Even in the best recording studios in the world — like Olympic — you tend to get jaded and do things the same way every time, because you know it’s fast and it works, so I actually like recording bands in houses. There’s scope to get different sounds and colours that you can’t achieve in conventional

studios because there aren’t the variety of acoustic spaces to use.

Have you recorded a band on location recently? We set up my portable studio in Jane Seymour’s house near Bath for New Order. We recorded eight songs, four of them are on this album and four have been kept back, possibly for the next. We set the band up in the ballroom, and the control room in the library — a beautiful book-lined room with lots of natural light. There’s a corridor that runs the length of the ballroom with a stairwell at each end. If you record drums in there, or record a tambourine in the corridor, it sounds like nothing on earth. We recorded to Radar mainly, which is networked to our Pro Tools system.

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Do you mix within Pro Tools or on an analogue desk? If I’m mixing in my own room, I have D to A outputs 1-24 from the Radar convertors and the rest selected from the Pro Tools 192. I use the 48 inputs on the Audient, I’ll put all the faders at 0 or -5, I’m using the desk to enable me to insert analogue equipment — sometimes I’ll chain two or three compressors together — I’ll have a fast compressor followed by a slower one and then a limiter, for example. I just can’t get the same result with plug-ins. If you’ve got PYE limiters and Distressors and vintage EQ ... I have done projects where I will do a sub-mix in Pro Tools — I might have the drums coming out of just two outputs

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Is that because you prefer the sound of the Radar system? Yes, there’s something about the sound of Radar that is fantastic. Radar is very quick and easy, especially if you are recording a whole band, you can just arm the tracks, hit record and go. It doesn’t throw up strange error messages, it doesn’t crash, and for the type of work that Stephen and I do — mainly bands ‘to tape’ — it seems to be a quicker way of recording. That’s the essential ethos of band work to me: to record quickly and not make musicians wait around for ages while I sort out why output 3 isn’t going to track 7, or input 17 isn’t going to multitrack return 4 with several plug-ins. When musicians are eager to play and fresh, that’s when it’s exciting. We’ll record ﬁve or six takes and do rough comps of the takes in Radar. If they need to be ﬁddled with any further we’ll transfer to Pro Tools, which is a very simple process because they can be networked together with an Ethernet cable, you can just open the song up as a Pro Tools session. I really love Pro Tools for mixing, but there are certain things that I maintain just take much longer with PT — however good you are at working it!

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craft — and I’ve thought it sounds great. Then I’ve checked it with the tracks coming out of individual outs and there is a big difference, to me. I still do mix moves in Pro Tools, although if I have a vocal heavily compressed I would work on the fader, because obviously the automation is before the desk and would affect thresholds and so on. I’ll do little moves on the analogue faders, if I make a mistake I’ll just rewind the song and drop in on the mix. Pro Tools is brilliant for that.

Do you use group compressors for drums, vocals and so forth? I’ll have the Audio & Design Compex limiter on bus 23 and 24, the SSL compressor will be on another pair for drums and bass. Then I’ll add those to the mix, as well as the original signal. I’ll compress the master bus as well. In my room I tend to use the Tube Tech multiband as a master compressor. I do rough mixes in here, and I’ll always take them upstairs [to Olympic] to reference them when I’m finally mixing. It’s very hard work to make them sound better ... which is good, because it pushes me! The bottom end on the Audient is phenomenal, compared to an SSL G series. There’s very little in line to change the sound, the Audient also has a very nice sounding EQ that I can’t seem to replicate with anything else, I’d love to have a rack of these to take around with me when I’m mixing. Our desk used to belong to Ian Broudie, I went with him to look at a fully automated digital desk from another manufacturer. While we were supposed to be looking at this very expensive console, we kept gravitating to a prototype Audient that happened to be there. In the end he ordered a 48 input Audient, the first they made. Do you enjoy that change in the two mixing environments, do you find you work in different ways? Working in my own room, the audio coming from Pro Tools will be going straight into a compressor, so I have to get the levels fairly well adjusted in Pro Tools in advance, otherwise obviously the compression will be changing all the time if I do big moves. There are two insert points on each channel on the Audient desk, which is interesting. I can have a bass drum without any compression on the main fader, then I can have a compressor slamming on the same bass drum on the small fader, and just feed a small amount into the mix. I still have another insert available for an external EQ on the main fader, without changing the compressor sound. On an SSL I’d have to come out of the multitrack return and use another line input. I do use all the buses on the SSL when I’m mixing, I’ll have a Neve 33609 or an EMI TG for drums, a 33609 for brass, then I’ll feed them back into the mix. Who or what inspires you technically and creatively? I grew up assisting people like Flood and Alan Moulder in the studio, and the techniques they used for recording and mixing I took to be quite normal, I had no idea that it was completely barking! Together with Mark ‘Spike’ Stent, whose assistant I was at Trident, they are my favourite ever producer-mixers. ■

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sweet spot

Where are we going? Is music-only surround sound supposed to be a high ﬁdelity medium, or is it just a pleasant spacial experience? PHILIP NEWELL asks if surround sound is capable of giving us all that we have grown to expect from the best stereophonic reproduction, plus, the sensation of greater envelopment within the music.

WO-CHANNEL STEREO has achieved a very high degree of sophistication over the 50 or so years of its commercial existence. Within the limitations of different loudspeaker designs producing their own characteristic sounds, good stereo control rooms can produce reliable music mixes whose sounds in other environments are largely predictable. There are things that we know about stereo that can aid the compatibility between control rooms. For example, flush-mounting the loudspeakers in a rigid wall generally leads to a flatter overall response in well-controlled rooms. The room acoustics are also, almost universally, designed with the source and reception ends of the rooms being of a different nature. This could be a relatively dead front half with a diffusive rear half, or a reflective front half with an absorbent rear half, or any number of variations on these themes. Either way, in experienced hands, these rooms can help in the creation of reliable, predictable and musical mixes. Of course, once the commercial recordings arrive in people’s homes, all things are possible. One loudspeaker behind the sofa and one behind the magazine rack are possible domestic placements in homes where musical fidelity is not a prime requirement. Nevertheless, the careful placement of the loudspeakers in a suitably furnished room can usually render a reproduction quality that is largely limited only by the quality of the recording. With this simple, two-loudspeaker arrangement, a piece of music that is well recorded and mixed will tend to reveal itself according to the quality of the system on which it is heard and the suitability of the listening room. That is, it sounds better when reproduced on a better system in a good room. Over the years, the majority of stereo recordings have been made in a professional way, with the mass market getting whatever they could from recordings and audiophile systems giving superb results. But many surround mixes now seem to be done only to mass market standards, with the audiophiles’ enjoyment never entering the thoughts of the mixing personnel because the surround mixes have never been heard on any decent system before reaching the shops. Is the concept of high fidelity now a lost cause? Some mixers are known to eschew the use of very high quality monitoring loudspeakers, even for stereo, claiming that for their type of music — a summer pop song, perhaps — high fidelity reproduction is not the goal. They are more concerned about how a mix will sound on the radio, or in a bar or a car, because audiophiles are unlikely to buy that sort of music, anyhow. If people wish to take that approach, they are free to do so, and conventional stereo recording set-ups allow this type of flexibility of working practice. In the case of surround sound, there are two quite distinct approaches to making a mix — two or threechannel stereo plus ambient surround or fully discrete 5-channel mixing. The first approach uses essentially a frontal stereo stage, with the reverberations or certain effects distributed among some or all the loudspeakers. This method is essentially like that of a cinema, where 54

it is considered to be unwise to put any important instrument in the surround channel to avoid ‘The exit-sign effect’. This is due to the natural tendency for people to look towards the source of any predominant sound. It is a life-saving reﬂex in daily life, but in a cinema it only leads to the observation of illuminated signs above the emergency doors. When all the action is taking place on the screen, no cinema director wants the audience to be facing towards the rear of the theatre, hence the restriction of the surround channels to ambient sounds.

Fig. 2. Quadrophonic control room of the 1970s showing the two ‘front walls’ of a stereo room facing each other. Note front speakers are ﬂush-mounted but the rear ones are mounted above the sofﬁts of the machine alcoves — another source of asymmetry.

Fig. 3. Stereo control room adapted for surround in the general manner shown in Fig. 1. The surround loudspeakers are mounted on pedestals at the sides and rear of the room [Eurosonic, Madrid. Control room designed by Sam Toyashima].

Fig 1. A typical stereo control room with addition of multiple, small loudspeakers for diffuse, ambient surround.

When mixing music in this manner, an arrangement shown in Figure 1 could be perfectly adapted from a very high quality stereo room. Nothing in this control room would in any way compromise the normal stereo capabilities. The only problem with standardising on the use of such a room for surround mixing is that many music producers still want to pursue the idea of fully symmetrical surround monitoring. Many of these producers totally fail to realise the impossibility of the practical realisation of what they are asking for if they are aiming at high ﬁdelity, repeatable results. Yet, despite this, a whole industry has developed trying to supply these needs, even though accurate symmetrical surround monitoring is only truly possible, in an anechoic chamber. The early attempts at making quadrophonic control rooms failed badly. Many of them merely put two ‘front halves’ of typical stereo control rooms face to face. The differentiation of the front and rear halves of stereo control rooms had not fully developed in the early 1970s when these early quad rooms were built, so the true repercussions of the problems were at ﬁrst not fully appreciated. Figure 2 shows a room of 1977 construction, still in use as a recording control room, but in which nobody has even attempted to work on a modern surround mix. Incidentally, the one room in this studio complex (shown in Figure 3) that does work resolution

in surround is a control room where the monitoring and acoustics closely follow the concept shown in Figure 1. However, it is principally used for mixing music stems for films. As we have previously discussed, such a room optimises stereo reproduction by the use of different acoustic surfaces for the emission and reception of the sound waves, but in a room where loudspeakers can face in all directions, this concept is not an option. The fact that all of the generally accepted stereo control room designs are asymmetrical from front to back, coupled with the fact that all rooms for symmetrical surround mixing must be symmetrical, creates an obvious conflict. By definition, therefore, a room that is optimised for symmetrical surround monitoring cannot be optimised for the frontal stereo channels. Whether this is a problem or not depends on the importance given to the frontal stereo panorama in a symmetrical surround mix, and also upon whether the room will be used for any other type of mixing, such as two-channel stereo or ambient surround. The twochannel and the ambient surround acoustics would both be compromised by the symmetrical surround requirement. The two approaches to surround mixing are therefore incompatible to the degree that no one room can be optimised for both forms of surround. In a recent AES Journal paper[1] Slawomir et al made a study of the least destructive places to make cuts in the data rate when surround mixes needed to be transmitted by radio over limited bandwidth channels. The outcome of this extensive study led to the conclusion that overall data compression was not desirable. Better subjective quality could be maintained if the front left and right channels were left uncompressed and the centre front and the two rear channels were ‘sacrificed’ to the relatively high levels of data compression. This strongly places the emphasis on the need to keep front left and right at the highest possible quality levels. If a room has been optimised for the best overall response from all directions, then the quality of the front left and September 2005

sweet spot right channels will inevitably be compromised. There would appear to be no reason why if the sanctity of the front L and R channels is important when dealing with data compression, it should not also be as important in terms of monitoring. For two-channel stereo reproduction, the flushmounting of loudspeakers is always desirable so the flattest in-room response can be achieved over a goodsized working area. Unfortunately, with loudspeakers pointing towards each other, they are also pointing towards the solid walls in which the opposing monitors are flush-mounted, as clearly shown in Figure 2. These plane surfaces, which are necessary to flatten the response of the loudspeakers that are mounted in them, are very disturbing to the responses of the loudspeakers that are pointing at them. There is no obvious solution to the problem other than to use large, full-range, free-standing loudspeakers in highly controlled rooms; at least if quality monitoring is required as opposed to simply listening to a pleasant sound. However, this loses the response benefits of flush mounting, and smaller loudspeakers tend to have reduced low frequency responses that usually lead to the use of a subwoofer, or subwoofers, and these can bring their own problems. If the crossover frequency to a subwoofer is kept below about 80Hz, the general tendency is that the direction from which the low frequencies are arriving will not be obvious. In the case of surround systems, for one person, fixed in a listening position equidistant from each loudspeaker, this could be a good solution, but for any other listeners, or any other listening position, the low frequencies would not arrive synchronously with the higher frequencies. This would give rise to a disjointed transient response and a loss of fidelity, but one reason why this effect is often not noticed is because the transient responses of the majority of subwoofers is so poor that no position can yield an accurate transient response. Figures 4 and 5 show the response in the time domain of two different subwoofers. Figure 4 shows the response of a typical bandpass subwoofer. The plots show that the low frequencies arrive late, continue to ring long after the drive signal has stopped, and that the ringing is at the natural frequency of the loudspeaker, which may be well away from any musical excitation NX-6A 3rd 9-5-05 5/9/05 frequency. TheResol result is time-smeared bass,3:58 with PM a

Fig. 4. Waterfall plot and step response of typical bandpass subwoofer in anechoic chamber.

Fig. 5. Waterfall plot and step response of a horn-loaded subwoofer in anechoic chamber.

tendency to a ‘one-note’ boom. This is the audible reality of many surround sound systems — professional and domestic — but it can hardly be construed as highfidelity bass. Figure 5 shows the response of a hornloaded subwoofer with overall dimensions nominally similar to those of the bandpass enclosure in Figure 4. This subwoofer does provide a rapid response but lacks sensitivity at low frequencies and thus cannot reproduce reasonable levels without overload. Figure 6 shows the time response of a good quality, large monitor system, flush-mounted in the front wall of a well-controlled room. Note the speed and relative uniformity of the decay (the extended response at 150Hz was found to be due to a resonant open cable tube). The important point to note is that the in-room decay of this system is much shorter than the anechoic chamber response of the typical subwoofer shown in Figure 4. The use of satellite loudspeakers and compact subwoofer cabinets cannot achieve this sort of synchronised and rapid time response, at least not at the SPLs expected in music control rooms. Compact subwoofers therefore cannot be considered to provide high fidelity reproduction. They merely tend to ‘fill out’ the bottom end. Other recent work [2] has shown that unless the crossover frequency to a single subwoofer is kept below 50Hz, it will almost certainly be deemed less Page 1 than stereo full-range bass, and hence involving

Fig. 6. Waterfall plot and step response of a large, full-range studio monitor system, ﬂushmounted in the front wall of a well-damped control room.

again is one step backwards in terms of fidelity. So where are we going? Time and time again, every step ‘forwards’ in surround seems to be coupled to a corresponding step backwards in what we conventionally have thought of as reproduction fidelity. And, of course, how many people have the money to buy a system of surround components of equal quality to those that they could afford for two-channel stereo? Two loudspeakers at £500 each or five at £200? Quality or quantity? Accurate transient responses or a muddy boom? Does anybody still care? ■

References

1. Slawomir, K Z, Rumsey, F, Kassier, R, Bech, S, ‘Comparison of Basic Audio Quality and Timbral and Spatial Fidelity Changes Caused by Limitation of Bandwidth and by Down-mix Algorithms in 5.1 Surround Audio Systems’, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp174-192 (March 2005). 2. Martens, W, Braasch, J, Woszczyk, W, ‘Identification and Discrimination of Listener Envelopment Percepts Associated with Multiple Low-Frequency Signals in Multichannel Sound Reproduction’, AES 117th Convention, San Francisco, USA, (October 2004).

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in the picture

Digital Video — threat or promise? Picture and sound may have always been tightly linked but progress in the picture technology — and particularly the affordable variety — and the economics of programme production have meant that sound professionals require a grounding in the subject if they are not to be left behind. ROB JAMES introduces a series of articles that will bring you up to speed.

N AN INDUSTRY WHERE professional expertise and credibility are hard earned, new and cheaper formats are often regarded with suspicion. Quite apart from the natural but ultimately futile reluctance to embrace change, this is perfectly understandable. People have a considerable investment in the established technology of the day. The suspicion is often well founded since sound is notoriously ‘tail end Charlie’ in any new picture development. The conflicting interests of manufacturers, content commissioners, producers and providers and those who service their needs can make it extremely difficult to form a balanced view about the virtues and vices of new formats and technologies. This is by no means a new phenomenon. Even as late as the 1960s most film material shot for television was 35mm. In the context of the huge and expensive broadcast video cameras of the time and the similarly challenging ‘quadruplex’ 2-inch video tape recorders, even 35mm film equipment seemed comparatively compact, flexible and cost effective. 16mm film was (maybe still is) disparagingly referred to as ‘bootlace’. But, as soon as film emulsion and equipment development permitted, 35mm was obsoleted in a very short time and the equipment rendered worthless. Much the same happened later with 16mm film. Even where this is still used for shooting, postproduction is

almost invariably digital. One of the most poignant sights I’ve seen was a skip full of Steenbeck 16mm editing machines. ‘Portable’ location ﬁlm sound recording in the early days was a Leevers-Rich or similar mains powered recorder weighing at least 50kg in the back of a van. Perfectone and EMI audio recorders improved the performance-to-weight ratio but they too went the way of the dinosaur as the all conquering Nagra took over, only to be replaced by DAT and now by Flash, optical and hard disk recorders. In postproduction, magnetic ﬁlm recorders all but vanished in less than a decade. Similarly in video acquisition, quadruplex VTRs were replaced by 1-inch helical scan machines, digital VCRs and camcorders replaced these in turn. The next stage, hard disk and/or solid state memory is already upon us and non-linear editing already reigns supreme. Now we face new challenges. In recent years insatiable demand for low cost content has led to a more general relaxation in the technical standards acceptable for broadcast and other forms of distribution. This has led to wholesale use of consumer formats such as DV for acquisition of both picture and sound. At their best, formats such as DV can produce socalled ‘broadcast quality’ results that are arguably superior to many of their ‘professional’ predecessors. However, there is a crucial difference. The key words are ‘at their best’. Resilience and safety margins are the key factors that separate truly professional formats and equipment

in the picture from their consumer cousins. For example, both DV and DVCAM are DV25 formats, but the more professional DVCAM runs the tape at twice the speed, simply to reduce the number of dropouts. However, taking a consumer camera, adding professional audio connectors and doubling the tape speed does not make it any more physically robust. The same small pieces of plastic will still break off at inconvenient moments. Practical picture and sound performance is also about resilience and margins. How does the camera perform when the image sensor is overloaded? Is the picture noisy in low light conditions? Does the format record 24-bit audio so there’s decent headroom? What happens if the images need colour or other correction? Are the analogue audio inputs quiet and distortion free? In the case of DV and the cheaper forms of DVCAM the answers are not encouraging from an audio perspective. It has always been legitimate to use consumer or semi-pro equipment for acquisition in certain circumstances. For example, in the 1970s, Super8 film cameras were used to make a documentary about a lone yachtswoman that would have been impossible, or at least expensive and impractical to shoot, on 16mm. Derek Jarman, Lars Von Trier and several others have used Super 8, Hi8 and DV to shoot successful movies, partly for cost reasons but also artistic, to obtain a certain ‘look and feel’. In most cases separate sound was also recorded and postproduction involved transferring the rushes to a more professional format at the first available opportunity with the rest of the process undertaken more or less conventionally to maintain quality. Now that HD is fast becoming de-rigeur for production, another titanic format struggle is looming and not just at the high end. One consumer contender, HDV, uses MPEG encoding to keep the data rate down. While MPEG is fine for delivery it is less well suited to tape-based acquisition since a dropout that would lose a single frame in DV can lose an entire sequence of frames. There will be all manner of claims and counter claims about the resilience or otherwise of the error correction schemes, etc. used to counter this. Several other HD acquisition formats are jockeying for position at this end of the market. In postproduction a lot depends on what needs to be achieved. So far as the pictures are concerned, if the raw material is up to the required standard then DV25 is generally fine if all you want to do is cut and add some titles. In fact the character generators built into desktop video editing packages are often excellent, relegating expensive standalone units to live studio work. Simple cuts-only editing does not require the encoded video to be decoded and reencoded. The trouble starts with colour correction, effects and compositing. Even the simplest effect, a fade or superimposition, requires that the compressed video be decoded, mathematically manipulated and re-encoded. Some codecs do this a lot better than others and there is a further problem with colour correction and keying. Without getting horribly technical about it, the colour space used by DV (and HDV) is less than ideal for effects, especially chroma-key. Luminance (the greyscale picture content, brightness and contrast) and chrominance (colour information, hue and saturation) are sampled separately. Thanks to the way human eyesight works, the colour can successfully be sampled using less and less accurate samples than the luma without obviously deleterious results until you start messing about with the images. At which point you really need more and more accurate samples to avoid September 2005

ugly artefacts. Unfortunately, despite some ingenious workarounds, the only real solution is to originate in a format with a better colour space. On the sound front, things are a little brighter. 16-bit 48kHz isn’t so bad after all. So long as it is used properly, with decent mics, preamps and most important, technique, then conventional postproduction methods can be applied. The real challenge is keeping the sound in sync. Then there is HD. HD implies surround sound and in many cases this will have to be produced within existing budgets, just as freelance crews are being expected to shoot HD at the same price as SD. We are in a period of big and exciting changes. Basic editing and manipulation tools capable of

working with HD material are now given away with operating systems. More sophisticated software and hardware varies wildly in cost and capability and in this rapidly developing market the old adage about ‘getting what you pay for’ doesn’t always apply, especially when the principle concern is sound. For those of us with more than a passing interest in picture, there are lots of interesting new techniques and pitfalls to discover. In future articles we will be examining many of the new video technologies and products with an emphasis on their audio implications. The future is more than promising but there are many threats — technical and commercial. Welcome to the wild frontier! It’s going to be fun. ■

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The home of the future In the past, if you had a multi-room media system you were either the boss of Sony or someone who was pretty damned handy with electronics and gizmos. In the future our production efforts will increasingly be on tap in multi-room digital homes… but who’s got the key to the pipe?

ULTI-ROOM MEDIA no longer means a custom installation, it means every piece of music you own available at the press of a remote control, streamed over a wireless network from a central server to systems in each room. It means your TV will guess what you want to watch, record it for you and skip all the adverts. Sport fans can watch the prerecorded match, while a weepy is screening in the bedroom and grime plays in the garage. Multi-room digital music systems generally follow one of two models: either a computer or a dedicated box CD-ripper/disk server streams music to sound systems via 802.11x (WiFi). Apple’s simple Airport Express, an unassuming £99 little white box with audio and USB connections, acts as a WiFi receiver for music streamed from the iTunes application. More sophisticated devices, like the popular £180 Roku M100 SoundBridge, have displays and remote controls. Creative’s £150 Soundblaster Wireless Music puts the display on the remote control — surely the most desirable place — but does not support AAC (as sold by Apple’s iTunes music store). The remote uses RF rather than IR, meaning you can ﬂip tracks while wandering around the house, but I found the Creative software did not get along well with iTunes on my 58

Windows XP box, deciding it was going to strip all the ID3 (artist and title) tags from my 192k VBR LAMEencoded MP3s. There’s a good choice of devices from manufacturers like Turtle Beach, Netgear and Philips, all with digital and analogue outs, but it’s important to check your music library file-format and existing network protocols (are you using WEP?) are supported. The original Slim Devices Squeezebox only supports 802.11b not 802.11g, Squeezebox 2 uses the higher speed protocol, in addition to streaming FLAC (lossless) through its natty Burr-Brown 24-bit convertors. But unlike the Soundbridge, the Squeezebox 2 cannot stream DRM-encoded WMA tracks purchased from Napster. And if you want to stream iTunes-purchased DRM-encoded AAC you either have to buy the Apple Airport, or use Jon Lech Johansen’s DeDRMS or SharpMusique to strip DRM on a Mac, or on a PC use the free VLC media player to generate key files on the computer that has been authorised using the Apple iTunes player, then re-stream. In view of the above, it’s not surprising that dedicated hardware-based devices still sell and they’re now even featured in the pages of esoteric hifi magazines that discuss the benefits of £900 solid resolution

NIGEL JOPSON

silver mains cables. For around £12,000 you can buy the Linn Knekt Kivor, which stores up to 2,760 hours of uncompressed PCM, allows concurrent access by 16 users, has 8 stereo 24-bit D-A convertors, and automatically accesses Internet databases to label CDs as they are loaded on the Tunboks (Linn-speak for the disk drive). There are plenty of more modest alternatives: Yamaha’s Musicast does a similar job with an £1800 80Gb (upgradable to 2Tb) server and 8 zones over 802.11b using £600 powered wireless clients. There are video outs from each client for track selection on TVs, and MP3s can be streamed to all clients, or PCM to one client. The £1500 Linkserver from Cyrus with £650 client stations follows a very similar concept, with the added twist of using any WiFi equipped PDA as a remote. My favourite is the £369 Sonus ZP100, which leaves WiFi network bandwidth clear by using a proprietary wireless link. Each Zoneplayer includes a 2 x 50W amp, local line in and preamp outs, subwoofer out, 4-port Ethernet and, sensibly, upgradeable ﬁrmware. No music is stored on the Zoneplayers, you just pop a software CD into your PC and connect one ZP100 to the computer or router by Ethernet cable or 802.11. This leaves the music September 2005

business

collection where disks are cheapest — the linked Zoneplayer automatically ﬁnds audio on the PC. A unique selling point, apart from the Apple look-alike cool design, is the comprehensive £299 wireless controller with 8.9cm colour LCD. There’s global and local level and mute controls with parental locks (!), linked party mode, and remote servers can be rescanned for music. The Sonus is just one example of a cutting-edge trend that’s reached the mainstream: Polk’s LC-ip line of speakers have digital ampliﬁers with room acoustic compensation built in and are IP addressable, allowing easy integration into a home network, and servicing from any computer anywhere. IP technology is also at the heart of B&W’s home iCommand system, a distributed network of iPod-size nodes attached to your system’s components. Each node has a microprocessor and network address, allowing two-way communication between all components, wall keypads, and controller, which can be any wireless PDA. Like the Polk speakers, iCommand nodes can be operated and serviced from any computer, anywhere, with access to the network. In the US the TiVo PVR (Personal Video Recorder) has become a way of life in many homes: according September 2005

to the Yankee Group, 3 million US households have a TiVo or a Replay box costing around US$13 a month and a cable or satellite set-top box for an extra $5 to $10. By the end of 2007, that number should be over 24 million. Shows can be recorded for future viewing, adverts are skipped and — the killer — TiVo tries to guess what you might like to watch based on previous viewing. It’s a simple Bayesian system that can be trained by using the thumbs-up/thumbs-down buttons to comment on a suggestions list. Two TiVos are required to record two shows at once, programmes can be transferred between boxes and additional subscription fees fall to $6.95. Massive storage, digital audio, networking, editing playlists, movies ... it didn’t take long in the pro audio community for the dedicated DAW to move to a computer and Microsoft would certainly like everyone to think its XP MCE (Media Center Edition) on a hot PC can replace all those dedicated gizmos and PVR subscriptions. The concept is beguiling: keep all your entertainment in one place. Microsoft has been improving MCE for 3 years, the 2005 version sees impressive improvements, and computer manufacturers have ﬁnally responded by building good-looking powerful home PCs, minus the ofﬁce resolution

colours and hurricane cooling-fans. Take a look at the UK’s Elonex Artisan hifi-styled PC, or the US’s Alienware DHS 2. TV can be recorded while using the PC for other purposes, all the obvious PC audio and video functions have been made easier to use and, importantly, controllable via remote on a distant screen. The Start Page entries spawn pop-up previews of commonly/ recently accessed content. Hover over My TV and you will see pop-ups for Recorded TV, Live TV and Movies. This remote-friendly transformation has extended to all aspects of the OS, menu-like pop-ups appear when you click the More Info remote button, or right-click the mouse over any object. The big focus of MCE 2005 was to improve the earlier much-criticised S-Video picture quality. MCE 2004 encoded incoming TV at 6Mbps, which was sufficient for most US TV shows, but often displays artefacts on fast-moving content like sports. MCE 2005 now encodes at a 9Mbps, resulting in muchimproved picture quality and clarity. The newer version displays far fewer MPEG-2 compression artefacts, natively supports DTV displays, and can show 720p and 1080i HD video at its native resolution on large flat screens. TV freaks can save on 59

business TiVo subscriptions — there’s support for up to three TV tuners, one of which can be HD. With the volume of media entering our homes, it’s clear that conventional what’s-on guides can’t keep up. With MCE 2005 you can click the Cast & More link and start a ‘browsing experience’ in which you’ll discover other movies featuring the same actors as the selected movie, or which meet other criteria. The ‘Record in Future’ feature schedules a recording that will occur if ever a particular movie should happen to appear on any EPG (Electronic Program Guide) in future, and US users can view a screen of all the movies playing across all received channels right now, displayed with DVD box-style graphics. There’s an On Next button as well, for movies starting within the next hour. Those engineers in Redmond have been busy. The MCE content can be distributed around the home by wired or wireless Media Centre Extenders (typically £125-£175) and many people choose an Extender for the living room because they’re small and fan-less. A recently released gizmo turns an Xbox games console into an extender, and let’s not forget the Portable Media Centers from the likes of Creative and Samsung. Digital PVRs have totally changed the likely future of television (what’s an advert, mummy?), but commercial networks have been positioning themselves for this eventuality for quite some time, with subscription and premium channels, pay-perview sports events and video-on-demand libraries. The road to these solutions was paved with massive marketing budgets, and now consumers have become accustomed to paying incrementally for visual entertainment. It’s become a given that special    



content deserves a special price. In contrast, the music industry seems inward looking, spending too much time worrying about illegal copying and downloading. The process of purchasing a CD then ripping, or of selecting a download, then storing, sorting and listening to digital music still seems hopelessly convoluted. The means to easily manage ever expanding playlists are there, but the process of acquiring and storing purchased music is still tedious. It doesn’t take much to realise that a $15 per month Napster-To-Go subscription for your MCE PC will deliver more songs than you can ever listen to, plus the benefits of portability, without using gigabytes of your own hard disk or requiring any cataloguing or sorting. So what if Microsoft’s Janus technology ensures that music, including the portable players, evaporates the moment the subscription lapses? The problem is that Bill Gates & Co don’t just want to own the Digital Rights Management keys to the software playing your music, they want to own the software running the entire networked home of the future. They won’t stop in the living room, they want your kitchen, your bathroom, your garage ... maybe the car too, one day. It will be a shame when I can’t enjoy ‘My Music’ because I forgot to update the firmware on ‘My Fridge.’ The film and television industries are constantly rearranging their grip on the actual content pipes entering our homes. The music industry seems to already be in the process of relinquishing the keys to its newly-minted digital content to a bunch of computer-orientated corporations. At the production end of music, producers and engineers have done little to prevent the progressive erosion of their credits on digital content, and codec technology has largely  

been ignored as relating to low-fi ‘computer stuff.’ But it’s quite conceivable that most music will soon pass through a codec on its way to the consumer, the codec not only controls final audio quality in a manner reminiscent of vinyl mastering, but will in future have all payment mechanisms embedded in it. By the time we all wake up, the keys to the sonic quality of the music we produce, and the keys to its revenueearning power, will be owned by someone else. It seems likely subscription services, where the consumer only rents content, will play an increasingly important part in the future of music. Benefits to artists and producers could include true accountability, detailed auditing, and the elimination of any degree of guess-timation (based on general play lists and artist popularity) in per-play payments. The impetus for this needs to come from the artist side of the fence, however, as it will matter not one jot to EMI if Aqualung is actually outstreaming the latest from Coldplay, as long as the subscription pennies for filling the audio pipe are being passed along from Microsoft. Sky TV does not hand its content to the Comet chain of stores in the UK for distribution, even though Comet sells Sky subscriptions. I quite see that running an Internet shop is not the ‘core competency’ of a record label ... but why do the DRM keys reside on Apple’s and Microsoft’s servers ... Comet and Currys are not running playout centres for Sky content! Executives with more MBAs to their names than myself would no doubt observe that Microsoft’s $6 billion R&D budget eclipses EMI’s total sales, but I’m left with the suspicion that it might all be down to a matter of attitude — a perception of the value of music — and some marketing chutzpah. ■

 

AURORA CONVERTERS. IT’S TIME TO SEE THE LIGHT.

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September 2005

katz’s column

The Incompatibility Race

WARM - THE NEW COOL Guy Berryman, member of one of the hottest British bands to emerge for some time, is passionate about what he refers to as ‘real

Becky and Fred have had a tiff and the culprit is a small matter of conversion.

music’. As bass player and co-writer with

Marriage counsellor BOB KATZ steps into the breach.

Coldplay, his innovative and creative musical talents have seriously contributed to the band’s mega success over recent years.

ECKY CAME TO ME the other day sighing, ‘Fred and I just had our first fight, all over a measly A-D and D-A convertor.’ ‘I don’t know if I can handle your fight, Becky,’ I replied, ‘but convertors are right up my alley. Tell me about it.’ ‘Well, I wanted to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon, and I knew we could afford it if we saved $6000 by buying a cheaper 16-channel convertor,’ she said, drying a tear. ‘That’s what started it, cos Fred wanted to buy the more expensive one. But at my insistence, we bought this mid-level convertor and hooked it up to the classy analogue console that you fixed up for us. But the A-D convertor overloads all over the place when we’re tracking, and the D-A reads way too low on the meters on playback.’ Uh oh, this newlywed fight is really my fault, I thought. Fred’s following my advice to accept nothing less than the very best audio. But what do I know about love? I’ve got to figure a way out of this mess. ‘Let’s draw a picture,’ I told Becky. ‘On the tracking side, it’s natural that your professional console will overload your semi-pro A-D. The two are incompatible. ‘You need to think of your console as producing up to +20dB over 0 VU on peaks, or +24dBu, which is almost 13 volts. So your A-D has to be able to take up to 13 volts on peaks. You can fix this by building an adjustable attenuator inside the A-D on each channel, though it will void the warranty. Here is the schematic for a balanced attenuator you can build with two fixed resistors and a variable resistor, with an attenuation from about 5dB to infinity. ‘That’s not too expensive — though it would have been much nicer if the convertor manufacturer provided adjustable input gain. But on the D-AC side we have a conundrum.

‘Notice it has a ﬁxed output level of +14dBu (3.9 volts) at 0dBFS (full scale peak). Despite having balanced connectors it’s really a consumer D-AC because its output level is 10dB too low. Your convertors were designed to interface with an alldigital console, which doesn’t care about analogue levels, or a consumer-level analogue console. You September 2005

“Recording onto ProTools I wanted something that would give a warmer analogue sound” Check out:

www.tlaudio.co.uk/guy

can’t fix this with an attenuator, you need 10dB more amplification. And even if we could change its internal gain, it’s doubtful that it can produce +24dBu without clipping. It needs a better internal amplifier and power supply; that’s a lot of money and would cost you your honeymoon. I don’t know what to do!’ ‘Power supply,’ said Becky. ‘Our console has a mountainous power supply, can’t you use that?’ ‘That won’t work because if we goose the voltage inside your convertors it will blow the cheap chips.’ I scratched my head… ‘Wait a minute!’ I exclaimed. ‘Becky, you’ve just given me an idea. We’ll take the mountain down to Mohammed. This is your console’s internal block diagram…’

‘Unlike your new convertor, the manufacturers of your console have built in plenty of headroom, and excellent signal-to-noise ratio. We can use its calibration trimpots to reduce its signal level. Take a signal generator and audio voltmeter, recalibrate your console’s output and meters to produce –6dBu at 0VU and, presto, it will match your newly-acquired convertors. And you won’t have to build a thing! Now there’s one difference between pro and consumergrade equipment; pro equipment doesn’t cut corners. The moral of the story, always buy a convertor with adjustable I-O trims and lots of headroom. ‘But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. This is a workaround, not a total solution. Recalibrating your console creates an incompatible monster that won’t easily interface with other professional-level gear. But you’ve got lots of spare inputs and outputs and you can leave those calibrated at the +4dBu standard. With care, you and Fred can beat this episode of The Incompatibility Race.’ Later that week, I drove the newlyweds to the airport, smiling all the way. I’d saved a marriage and an audio studio all in one day. ■

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

Guy Berryman Coldplay TELEPHONE +44 (0)1462 492090 // EMAIL info@tlaudio.co.uk //

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PASSIONATE ABOUT TUBES

Chris Gaunt The man behind the technology at UK digital broadcast console manufacturer Calrec discusses the implementation of multichannel, imparting character, progress in display technology and high performance sports cars.

HRIS GAUNT HAS SPENT his entire working life in the audio industry with his interest stretching back to ‘doing the sound’ for dramas while at school and a Saturday job in a hiﬁ shop where he was introduced to the wonders of the Quad Electrostatic. He studied Electronic Engineering at university and developed skills in organising a range of social events, which sometimes included setting up the lighting and sound. After graduating 62

ZENON SCHOEPE he installed and serviced sound equipment in the ballrooms and nightclubs of the MECCA group before joining Calrec as the test department supervisor in 1978, where he worked on the J-Series, L-Series and M-Series broadcast consoles and moved from testing into system design and project management. He was one of the driving forces behind Calrec’s UA8000 music console, project managing the design and build, and taking responsibility for all schematics and resolution

backplane design, and even installed the ﬁrst desk at Abba’s Polar Studios. Following the purchase of Calrec by AMS in 1986, Chris spent more than ten years with AMS in several roles and contributed signiﬁcantly to its digital console projects before rejoining Calrec in 1998 after it had spun off again on its own. He has overseen the development of Calrec’s entire range of digital desks and is responsible for the continued development September 2005

meet your maker of the Alpha, Sigma and Zeta System Plus range of consoles. He is also involved in Standards activities with the AES, IEC and SMPTE while his other passions include cricket, photography and folk music.

What is special about Calrec products? They sound great, are reliable, easy to use and designed specifically for live production environments. Calrec mixing consoles are ideal in a high pressure, live broadcast environment; controls are easy to identify and fast to operate and the surface gives an immediate and comprehensive display of all settings. Physically the consoles are light, have narrow fader widths, high input headroom and low noise, all of which are still so very important for broadcasters. Low current consumption ensures a cool control surface for operator comfort and helps to make the desks extremely reliable. They also have unique redundancy features and power systems, which ensure that they will stay on air. Because we only make mixing consoles for the broadcast market the design is optimised around those requirements; this technology is then used to make a range of similar products suitable for the different broadcast applications and different budgets. By comparison, many of our competitors have to compromise the design of a product so they can sell a ‘postproduction’, or a ‘film’ or a ’broadcast’ version of their console. The scale of their presence and their level of expertise in each market will determine how suitable their ‘broadcast’ offering is. Demands from other sectors of the market often mean that they only have a limited broadcast product range. What are the specific demands of a broadcast worksurface and how does it differ from other worksurfaces? Broadcast audio operators are very demanding creatures! In a live environment they are under such pressure that they need the console to tell them everything they need to know instantly. It is vital that monitoring and metering systems enable the operator to see, or hear, virtually any input, output, channel, group, etc at a glance, and to be able to easily and quickly reconfigure these systems for different programmes. The operator also needs feedback of control positions and input source selection, for an increasingly large number of channels. Fader widths have to be narrow so that an operator can control 4 or 5 faders with one hand, and so that 72 faders can be fitted across the width of a standard OB truck. Because the operator wishes to remain in the ideal monitoring position, it is vital that all the important controls (i.e. all the controls!) are easily reached or accessed from a central position. This will be more important as surround operation becomes the norm. In addition, an operator may be sitting over the console for many hours so it is essential that the surface is cool and that displays are very visible and have a long life. From your standpoint, what are the absolute strengths of analogue technology against digital? Actually there are very few, and there are less as digital technology improves. However, one clear advantage that an analogue desk enjoys is that there is no single point of failure that can result in loss of programme, which is why Calrec has designed its digital products with redundant features that give a similar level of security. September 2005

How do you impart ‘character’ and ‘sound’ to a digital desk? A good audio designer can use DSP to shape the sound in any way they want, which is one of the beneﬁts of working with DSP engines. So the problem of how to impart ‘character’ and ‘sound’ to a digital desk isn’t really a problem at all. The real problem is the same as it has always been, which is that the characteristic of a ‘sound’ is very subjective. We go to great lengths to ensure that the desks faithfully reproduce the incoming signals with the absolute minimum of distortion and colouration. The characteristics of the sound of the EQ and Dynamics are based on many years of experience with analogue Quested_S8_Resolution_ad_5-05.qxd 4/5/05 consoles such as the UA8000, and are chosen to help

the operator ﬁnd the desired sound or effect with a minimum of control adjustment. A key component in any such desk is the digitally controlled microphone preampliﬁer. Here we have more than 25 years of experience with digitally controlled analogue consoles, which has enabled us to achieve high headroom with low distortion and noise, together with low current consumption and high packing density.

Some suggest that the capabilities of most digital processing cores are now largely similar and what differentiates them is the implementation, do you agree? 2:13 Page 1 the core as the result of the Well, Ipmwould deﬁne

Aspirational sound, inspirational price Make a sound judgement with the new S8 monitor speaker from Quested Contact us now t +44 (0)1404 41500 f +44 (0)1404 44660 e sales@quested.com w www.quested.com UK Distributor Sonic8 Limited w www.sonic8.com t 08701 657456

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meet your maker

implementation. It is not difficult to buy a chip that will do the job, but how the chips are used does make all the difference. The way in which fixed and floating point processing is implemented in the different parts of the signal path and the allocation of noise and headroom bits are bound to affect the quality of the sound and the ease of operation in a live broadcast environment. Consoles designed for other purposes can be made cheaper by using fewer headroom bits, for example. For the architecture, there are a number of philosophies, the most common of which utilises a quantity of DSP cards on a TDM backplane. The DSP cards are characterised by their programming. Here, the size and capacity of the backplane is the main limitation to the size and complexity of the design. We use a second backplane in our largest design, the Alpha. This helps us provide the flexibility of routing, etc, demanded by broadcasters. If a desk is small and simple enough it could be designed without the need for the backplane at all, greatly reducing the cost.

What is often overlooked is that while DSP devices such as the SHARC are excellent at EQ and Dynamics processing, they are not very efﬁcient at the mixing consoles main job, i.e. mixing and routing. Calrec was one of the ﬁrst companies to offer the routing and mixing of all channels and groups to all of the buses all the time, when many manufacturers relied on a certain diversity factor to limit the total number of mix nodes.

What are the difficulties associated with the implementation of multichannel in a desk? Currently broadcasters use up to 96 stereo and 34 mono channels on our Alpha 100 console i.e. 226 mono channel equivalents. It’s safe to assume that many of those 96 stereo channels will need to handle 5.1 inputs before long, requiring 400-plus mono channel equivalent signal paths. These large numbers of channel requirements have been seen in the film industry but at a price way above what a broadcaster could afford to pay. The difficulty any manufacturer will have is to provide them at a price not much

higher than currently paid for stereo. Now consider moving to 96kHz and you double it up to 800plus mono 48kHz channel equivalents. The above mentioned problems of mix node processing imply very large data rates. So we need to improve the processing speed of our products by a factor of at least four in the next few years, at no extra cost to the customer. Also, in broadcast applications, there can be problems with incoming signals so Calrec provides the ability to spill out the legs of a surround signal to allow adjustments to be made to individual components. This spills the surround signal to 2 x stereo (for LR and LsRs) and 2 x mono (for Centre and LFE) legs. The advantage of using two stereo legs for the LR and LsRs rather than four monos are that it gives faster operation when the signals need to be adjusted separately from the surround channel. In addition, it ensures that during adjustment, the overall balance of the surround channel is not upset e.g. by adjusting the EQ of L and then R. It also allows adjustment of

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Deﬁning the Essence of Video for Post 64

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www.fairlightau.com September 2005

meet your maker The cost of a console is a three-way compromise between up-front development cost, future flexibility and performance. If more investment is made in the original design then manufactured cost will be lower, but this higher design cost now has to be recovered from sales, which may be difficult to increase in a relatively small market — therefore the cost may not be significantly reduced. The audio industry’s fortunes are largely dictated by the device manufacturers who continue to produce faster and higher density parts, with greater performance/pound ratios. Display technology is developing at a rapid pace to meet the demands of mobile phone users, PDAs and personal DVD players. Lower cost, highly visible displays will dramatically improve the options of console surface designers.

the front and rear width of the surround signal, which is not possible if they are treated as mono legs. When working with a large number of surround channels it is essential to be able to meter each and every sub channel of each incoming signal simultaneously. We already have a freely conﬁgurable, full-colour screen-based metering system that provides 6-channel metering of all channel inputs and all surround outputs simultaneously. The monitoring system also provides full surround monitoring of all inputs and outputs.

‘Custom’ was a term strongly associated with analogue broadcast products, how relevant is it now? The digital console has in fact, made customisation easier. Calrec uses a system of identical single cable connections to each control panel, which can therefore be laid out exactly as the customer wishes. The desk

frame is such that custom panels, for use with external devices for example, can easily be incorporated. However, there is still a requirement for a degree of further customisation, which is something that Calrec has always been in a strong position to provide. As over 95% of the product is designed and produced in house, we have excellent control of all aspects of its conﬁguration. Also, the company has made signiﬁcant investments in engineering, surface mount and test equipment over the last few years. This kind of continued investment continues to provide us with a unique ability to offer fully customised solutions.

How do you make a cheaper desk? It is quite simple — by compromising on facilities or performance, but all customers are quite rightly demanding more of both!

Where are we in the evolution of the digital console? Are we building our own tools and making fires or have we only just crawled out of the swamp? What will herald the next evolutionary step? I’d say we’re way beyond making fires — it’s more like we’re turning out high performance sports cars. We haven’t designed the warp drive yet though! Digital consoles can do all you need a console to do, and they can be as reliable as you need them to be. In fact, they do much more than their analogue ancestors, not least with the likes of setup memories and memorised patching. More importantly, they are reliable enough for users to be confident in them. This cultural change in users is a good benchmark for where we are. At Calrec we can quickly incorporate the absolute latest technologies available and we are continually exploring new methods in software generation and reliability. As devices get faster, eventually the hardware will become an irrelevance and all programming will be done in high level languages. As the processing elements of digital consoles become a commodity, the focus of attention will be very much on ergonomics and sound quality. The Calrec ‘Hydra’ audio network, which is used to connect consoles together to share sources and destinations, uses deterministic Gigabit Ethernet technology that ensures forward development (10G is already available) and industry standard compatibility. The benefits of this are real now, in the form of cheaper installation costs and more efficient use of studio resources, and will increase over time as 10G becomes available at lower cost. The bandwidth this offers will allow significant change and cost reduction in the way signals are routed in large-scale applications. ■

Staggering Performance at an Unrivalled Price • Up to 240 Channels in a large format surround sound mixing system • Integrated 96Trk Disk Recording, Non Linear Video and Server Based Networking • Fully conﬁgurable mono to 5.1 Bus Structures with Bus to Bus Mixing • Ready now with Tri-Level Sync support for a full HD production environment • User speciﬁed surface options including In Line Panel with OLED display technology • Total Dynamic and Clip based automation with full Plug-in support including VSTs • Unmatched price/performance ratio with unparalleled system capabilities

Deﬁning the Essence of Surround Mixing September 2005

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www.fairlightau.com 65

technology

When you’re 64 Like so many things in a rapidly changing techno-centric world, the underlying technology propelling digital audio is often misunderstood. This is natural as the analogue/magnetic world continues to blend, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes not, in the rapid evolution of the digital universe. Whether we are talking about digital consoles, DAWs or any other aspect of digital audio, the underlying core issue, after all the overblown specs and proclamations, is the processor, says CHARLIE BOSWELL, director of Digital Media and Entertainment at AMD.

RILL DOWN TO THE TRUTHS at the core of the processor and you dispel the myths surrounding much of today’s digital audio performance. The closer you look, the more you’ll find that the statement: ‘digital is digital’, is untrue. At the processor level, there are vast differences housed in that tiny piece of gear. It’s here where we examine the limitations, the breakthroughs, and what’s really going on that makes a difference. And finally, and most importantly, what this means to the end user. A critical driving factor in digital development has been the shift away from proprietary systems toward open standards. The reason is simple, as only a very few could afford the elite systems. Simultaneously, there has been a populist trend among music creators and software/hardware vendors to bring more capability to off-the-shelf systems so that independent producers and musicians could take advantage of digital advances. Commercial facilities, too, embraced this development as it showed them a way to remain competitive on a cost control basis. The problems came when reality collided with the hype. At first, digital sound reproduction was bad, particularly compared to standard analogue technology.

Then the interminable menu structure was more an encumbrance than an emancipation. On top of it all, systems were unreliable, unstable and ultimately ended up costing much more than what was promised in order to get high levels of performance. At AMD, as we designed our new 64-bit processors with the needs of the digital content creator in mind, we wanted to remove the traditional technology limitations from the platform that have forced creative artists to become their own IT departments. We wanted to shift the paradigm from ‘working on a computer’ to ‘performing with a computer’. The creative imagination works at the speed of thought. Media creators need freedom from technology in the process of accessing their imagination and getting it directly to the medium of choice. This was frustrating with previous systems and architectures, as systems crashed when overloaded or didn’t work right or suffered from latency problems. With previous processor designs, computers simply couldn’t keep up. The real challenge was twofold: make the processors robust enough so the systems remained stable; and reduce latency to negligible rates. Our answer was to totally redesign the outdated, 20-year old PC platform architecture that has been the bane of the media creator’s existence from the beginning. Our new platform and processor design we call AMD64 technology with Direct Connect Architecture. The idea was to avoid the pitfalls of older architectures using front-end DSPs to boost horsepower. Front-

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end DSPs were originally necessary to get desktop computers to perform at levels high enough to process audio at acceptable resolutions. There are inherent problems with that approach. DSPs add considerable expense. Worse yet, with the arrival of 24-bit/96kHz performance levels, exponentially more arithmetic operations are required. This is something DSP-based systems don’t do well. When you don’t have the ability to perform ever-higher numbers of arithmetic operations, it forces you to dither prematurely. You, the media creator, are taken out of the creative moment and as a consequence, your art suffers. One primary reason why the traditional PC platform architecture was incapable of eliminating the need for front-end DSPs is that there is a bottleneck inherent in the platform architecture wherein all data travelling to and from each processor, memory and I-O system hubs connect through a single point. When all your data has to be routed through one location you get a bottleneck, and this can reduce performance when you really need it most. Our innovation: Direct Connect Architecture. We redesigned the platform so that processors are directly connected to memory on independent wires with no front-side bus bottleneck. Processors are directly connected to I-O, and processors are directly connected to other processors. This provides a very scalable architecture and results in extremely low latency. Direct Connect Architecture represents a balanced architecture wherein I-O and memory are not competing for bandwidth, and can yield the dual benefit not only of higher performance but also of greater application stability as well. This is especially true with Windows-based applications as they can now rely more on the core systems than on Windows and are thus more stable. One pillar of Direct Connect Architecture is HyperTransport technology. This open-standard technology provides a scalable, high-bandwidth interconnect between processors, I-O subsystems and other chipsets. Each dual AMD Opteron processor with Direct Connect Architecture supports three HyperTransport technology links capable of moving a whopping 12.8Gb of data per second. This bus technology was designed specifically for high definition audio/video streams -– the future of digital media content creation and playback. Overall system

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performance can be increased by removing the previously mentioned I-O bottlenecks and efficiently integrating with legacy buses, increasing bandwidth and speed and reducing latency. It also provides bandwidth for supporting new interconnects, including PCI-X, DDR, InfiniBand and 10G Ethernet. The other pillar of Direct Connect Architecture is the integrated memory controller. It eliminates the need for the front side bus by changing the way the processor accesses main memory and does so at the same clock speed as the processor rather than the typically slower front-side bus speed, resulting in increased bandwidth and reduced memory latency. This enables AMD64 technology-based processors to handle multiple uncompressed high-definition streams for professional NLE and DAW applications. Further, the low system memory latency allows DAW applications to work with an unprecedented number of plug-ins and virtual instruments. This, of course, is where the rubber meets the road. In recording, engineers are focused on real-time tracking and when mixing, you need high-level performance in front of a client. What you don’t need is to waste time rendering or to be stuck with time-consuming work-arounds. Latency and lack of stability with plug-ins has been a particular challenge for older architectures, as users load up more and more plugins and watch their computer choke. This happens because in traditional dual processing systems, CPUs compete for memory bandwidth over one set of wires. Plug-ins are memory-intensive and can add to latency problems created by the front-side bus bottleneck. In digital audio, this could mean dropped samples, or worse, a system hang or crash. In dual AMD Opteron processor-based systems with Direct Connect Architecture, each CPU has an independent wire to its own memory, which means you can load more plug-ins with confidence while maintaining performance and stability. We believe 64-bit computing will be pervasive in the near future. The huge data requirements of sound production and postproduction demand it. Yet, as we move toward pervasive 64-bit processing, it’s important that we not leave behind 32-bit software that is in widespread use. An additional advantage of Direct Connect Architecture is that it increases performance and reliability for 32-bit software right now, while at the same time providing an upgrade path to true 64-bit computing, when the user decides the time is right. The processor and platform architecture is prepared to handle that leap. It’s not just in controlled studio situations where the technology has proved itself. Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival DVD recorded in Dallas was engineered by Elliot Scheiner using an AMD64-based Verari Systems DAW64 to record live a legendary list of September 2005

guitarists. The concert was recorded on 48 channels in 24-bit resolution at a 96kHz sampling rate. The Verari Systems DAW64 based on dual AMD Opteron processors running Windows in 32-bit mode and Steinberg’s Nuendo 2.0 software provided the backbone for the live digital recording. This meant that the performances of 25 legendary guitar players in front of more than 40,000 fans depended on this technology to work without fail. You simply cannot sustain a system crash or even a dropped sample during mission-critical situations like that. In fact, we believe Direct Connect Architecture is so stable that it will continue to find live action use without reservation. We are developing a website now, called AMD64live.com, to support that effort. Very elegant solution, you say, but what does all this really do for me? Our belief is that this kind of architecture, for the first time, delivers on the promise of what computing can do for digital audio. For the first time it sets you free to create and experiment, ironically, in ways that have not been possible since we all worked in the analogue world. Stability, sonic integrity and ease of use are not words we have come to associate with digital audio systems -– until now. Initially, in order to embrace the speed and power of the computer, we were willing to accept the incredibly frustrating and unnatural constrictions that method of working forced upon us. We now have the technology to remove the distractions and get to the core of the creative matter. One of the most important things that gives us the most direct feedback from professionals who face these challenges daily is our formation of the AMD64 Masters Group, made up of some of the top producers and artists. They include Phil Ramone, Chuck Ainlay, Elliot Scheiner, George Massenburg, Frank Filipetti and Rob Hill, among others. Our aim is to embrace the passion of these professionals and nurture the basic creative impulse of those of us in the pro audio business. We intend for this technology to be in the service of artistry and invoke a renaissance in the sound production business. It’s an exciting time to rediscover why we all got into music in the first place: the sound, the process, the creativity. Those kinds of statements are easy to make. The way to prove the real value of 64-bit technology is to listen to the difference and make your own value judgment. We created AMD64 technology with Direct Connect Architecture to eliminate the problems computers have caused in the creative process and our partners have responded with high performance software and hardware systems built upon it. The times and the technology are rapidly changing and before you know it, you’ll be 64. ■ Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

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Mic techniques for the curious The session’s going well but you need something a little different. KEITH SPENCER-ALLEN goes off the wall and suggests directions for miking experimentation that deviate a little from accepted practice. IN CONTACT — Contact microphones are extremely useful tools and some types give a really good representation of the instrument but they lack the ‘air’ that a normal mic can give. Add a mic on the instrument, combine the signals and listen (possibly changing the polarity of one). It is surprising how little of the mic signal is needed to achieve ‘naturalness’.

Armed with this technique, you can amaze musicians by letting them play close together with a minimum of acoustic screening, still have a high level of separation, achieve a good sound, and appear a miking genius!

WEARING THE PZM — Percussionists with an arsenal of tools can present a miking challenge particularly when this extends beyond handheld instruments to tuned percussion. It’s rare that a single mic will capture all the percussion at an equal-sounding distance even if the percussionist is skilled at using distance from the mic to achieve equal volume. Adding mics can add problems so a suggestion that Crown published in tech notes for its early PZM mics was to hang a boundary layer mic around the player’s neck so it’s on their chest. The hemispherical polar pattern will then pickup whatever instrument the player turns to, all from the single mic. There are some obvious difﬁculties but the larger PZMs don’t suffer from clothing noise against the back plate. And it works.

DISTANT DRUMS — Overhead mics on a drum kit are the norm but sometimes, due to a combination of local acoustics, the kit and the player, we get a sonic discrepancy between the majority of the drums whose axes are vertical, towards the overheads, and the bass drum that ﬁres horizontally. Adding a ‘distant’ bass drum mic 2-3 metres in front and positioned on the drum’s axis can be very effective, capturing the change in tonality and knock that you have to recreate with close miking. Some have suggested the use of a directional riﬂe for this but trading directionality for a better off-axis response has led to success with mics such as the E-V RE20. Some degree of screening from the rest of the kit might help, or you could consider ‘extending’ the bass drum shell towards the mic.

THE MIKED CEILING — Boundary layer mics have an improved LF response when mounted on larger hard surfaces, effectively increasing the size of the back plate. Fixing the mics to walls or windows is useful but a permanent pair on the ceiling is best. That hemispherical polar pattern covers the studio floor, makes a great musicians comms mic, gives you instant overhead pickup using the maximum studio height, and on those creatively draining sessions can be fed directly to a logging recorder so that those inspired licks are never entirely lost!

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ten NAFF MICS — In the same way that a stopped clock reads the correct time twice a day, there is a train of thought that states there is no such thing as a truly bad mic — you just have to ﬁnd what it is good for! Philosophically we are a long way from the standard studio multifunctional workhorses here and we’re looking at the oddities of the mic world — the cheap, the quirky, and maybe even the damaged. I’ve an old Shure 55 that had all the marks of a very hard life before we crossed paths yet it delivers a distinct guide vocal no matter what sound level surrounds it. On drums, the same mic turns a clunky hi-hat into a shimmering hi-ﬁ impersonation, or very close to it. Yet it is very probably broken and way out of original spec. I’ve a very cheap early electret mic of uncertain make yet it can bring out the rough and hard edge in a voice in a way that no other mic can yet it does nothing else. Such mics are the colour in your palette.

REINFORCED STEREO — Stereo is an illusion that fools the ears. When multitracking to create a stereo image take a different approach. Place a pair of mics in the optimum position for an effective stereo image and keep them in the same position. All overdubs can then be positioned left or right in front of those mics and recorded and the resultant pairs panned hard right and left. Obviously this is for speciﬁc types of recording but the effectiveness of the result, where the reﬂections in the room from each separate recording reinforces the acoustic illusion, is impressive.

MOVING MICS — One of the assumptions that we make about mics is that they are placed on a stand and they remain static. If we are after a special effect maybe this can be disregarded. Most of us will be familiar with the sound created when one of two mics receiving a similar signal is moved — the sliding sweep of frequency cancellations. Consider the effect of moving mikes around the studio, carefully tutored assistants walking the mics on paths that take them closer to and away from each other. The key effects are cancellations in the summed signals when they are close, the effect of changing room acoustics, and the Haas effect when different mics are closer to the sound source they assume precedence. With these mics panned or summed, experimentation can lead to a deep fuller effect that is impossible with signal processing.

MODIFYING RESPONSE — Although all mics have a predeﬁned polar pattern there are opportunities to modify that. The rear pickup of a cardioid (or omni) can be tailored by placing an acoustically absorbent panel behind it. Or a foam cut-away, such as from a ﬂight case, can be created for that mic. Why bother? Well sometimes there is a necessity for a particular mic in that position with that sound but the rear response is not wanted.

REALLY MOVING MICS — We can also take the above moving mic concept and ‘regularise’ it. Two mics can be suspended pendulum-like by their cables and swung with differing intervals. This is a gentle effect and you need mics that aren’t upset by a gentle breeze. Alternatively there is the advanced version where one mic is swung in a circle on a short cable and a second mic on a longer cable attached to a boom (ﬁshing rod style) and swung in circles in the opposite direction (The looks you must get. Ed). Tricky (I’ve never made it work) but apparently the effect on a guitar solo is extraordinary but difﬁcult to repeat!

TURNED BACKWARDS — If you have a limited number of mics available, or even if you just feel adventurous, the sound available from the rear of a mic can be another option. With a cardioid pattern mic it will be a fuller, bass heavy signal with a possible skew to the HF, and an overall decreased sensitivity. While you may wish to place some foam over the mic front to decrease front pick-up, you can also put another (identical) mic facing forwards for an increased range of miking possibilities. While this may seem like a hypercardioid or ﬁg8 approach, you still retain separate signals for further processing. ■

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slaying dragons

Do we all have Golden Ears? While human hearing seems to have deﬁnite physical limits, there has always been a huge distribution in the degree of impairment of sound quality that people will tolerate. JOHN WATKINSON puts forward some reasons for this dreadful inequality.

john watkinson ‘The golden-eared syndrome has some foundation. There are people who can listen to reproduced sound and detect minute deﬁciencies. However, there are also many who claim to be able to do so and can’t.’ ‘The majority of people aren’t interested in perception and seldom have any need to use their senses to the limit.’

HERE’S AN OLD ADAGE that says the more you learn the more you become aware of what you don’t know. It’s the corollary of ignorance being bliss. As I had the misfortune to have goofed off to look at something interesting when the ignorance was being handed out, I don’t expect a lot of bliss. Figuring out how compression algorithms work certainly isn’t bliss. One of the compensations of understanding

compression is that one can make a decent living out of explaining it. However, one of the things I ﬁnd truly hard to explain is how anyone who has heard a CD can listen to MP3. The sensation I get from MP3 is that the musical objects have been replaced by cardboard cut-outs that have been brutally shorn of any air or ambience. There are great voids in the stereo image and the reverberation just stops instead of decaying. Yet personal MP3 players based on Flash memory have become enormously popular, with some designs becoming icons. Clearly it is I who is out of touch, or am I? The varying opinions about compression are only a recent symptom of a much older phenomenon, which is that the majority of people hear without listening. By that, I mean that out of the information actually available in sound, most people seem to extract very little. The same is actually true of all of our senses. Most people also see without observing. We frequently see what we expect to see and not what is there, especially where colour vision is concerned. But why? I remember many years ago an episode of a TV programme called Candid Camera in which they put a tiny crap loudspeaker in a parrot’s cage in a shop so that the parrot could appear to have conversations with shoppers. Even to my youthful and naïve ears, and even through the grotty loudspeaker in our telly, it was obvious that this was a bloke imitating a parrot reproduced through a tiny crap loudspeaker. Yet lots of people fell for it. On one level it was hilarious, but on another level, I couldn’t understand why people could be taken in by such a transparent trick. It would be a few years before I did understand. A long time ago, before Pontius got his pilot’s licence, hearing and vision were not for entertainment, but for survival. The creature with better hearing was less likely to be eaten and more likely to ﬁnd food

and thus had an evolutionary advantage. Of course, to give a balanced picture I must point out that the proponents of intelligent design hold an alternative view of where mankind came from. Actually their very existence calls evolution into question. I mean, what evolutionary advantage does it confer believing nonsense like that? It must be to gain power by stifling scientific viewpoints. The various senses, and the number we have is certainly more than five, combine to produce a model of certain aspects of our environment. We can only hear at certain frequencies and see at certain wavelengths, but there is no way that we can know what we are missing. The model is three-dimensional and our bodies are part of it so that we can, for example, avoid obstacles or pick things up. The model in our minds, whatever a mind might be, is created using the inputs from all of our senses, or from whatever senses are working or can work. For example, we don’t fail to recognise our friends in the dark or on the telephone because we can recognise their voices even if we can’t see them. Clearly these senses are incomplete, but we cannot by pass them and have never known anything else, so we call them, optimistically in my view, reality. Although there is no real consensus on what consciousness is, my view is that it is no more than a working real-time model of our surroundings that is good enough to make survival judgements. When all the senses are operating well, there will be a strong correlation between the senses for a given set of circumstances. Probably to avoid overload of the senses, the lower levels of the brain filter out a lot of stuff and only give us the juicy bits. For example, although we have two eyes, we only feel like one observer. I reckon I am observing the world from a single point inside my head half way between my eyes. The differences between the images get processed at lower levels to give depth to the model. As the quality of one sense goes down, the depth of analysis of the remaining senses ought to increase. But it doesn’t always work like that. If it looks like a dog and sounds like a dog and smells like a dog and so on, we are convinced it’s a dog. And as the quality of the information goes down, and the information gets less canine, many of us will still be convinced it’s a dog even when it’s not. And when the power

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September 2005

slaying dragons

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fails and it gets very dark, many people get frightened because they have never listened before and have no practice in finding their way around by hearing, where as some of us just listen as we always have and carry on regardless. I suspect what happens is that people subconsciously accept the minimum level of correlation between the senses that works most of the time. You might call it perceptual economy, although some people refine it into perceptual apathy. The majority of people aren’t interested in perception and seldom have any need to use their senses to the limit. Let’s face it: we’re less likely to get eaten on the way home these days. Thus when there is a disparity between the sound quality different people will tolerate, it’s not generally a physical thing. Our physical hearing limits are well understood, except by SACD marketing people, and do not differ dramatically from one person to another, yet our ability to listen does vary. What I find astonishing is that although my frequency response must be coming down with age, I can still out perceive many younger people because I have been listening for a long time and have had a lot of practice. There is nothing stopping anyone improving their powers of perception except their own inhibitions. Listening to real sounds or live performances is very important. It is so very easy to get fooled about what is normal if you always listen to the same speakers and never go out into the world. Recently I have taken to testing loudspeakers by instant replay of live performances with the speaker where the performer was. Thus the golden-eared syndrome has some foundation. There are people who can listen to reproduced sound and detect minute deficiencies. However, there are also many who claim to be able to do so and can’t. These include people who can hear how much better vinyl disc is than CD and so on. Oddly, these people always play their vinyl discs with radial tracking arms, which despite their phenomenal cost are audibly inferior to parallel tracking arms for any number of physically valid and easily demonstrable reasons. I think what matters in audio is not bandwidth but information capacity, or as Zen might prefer it, resolution. Media that lack resolution include Compact Cassette, MiniDisc, MP3 and DAB as it is currently broadcast in the UK. I don’t like to listen to these formats, not just because it’s unrewarding, but also because protracted exposure could shift my expectations downwards. Last time I listened to MP3 there was so little information I though it was a dog. SACD doesn’t lack resolution, it just uses far more bits than necessary to achieve the resolution it has. By roughly the same ratio that marketing exaggerates its performance. However, there are signs that DAB hype is taking over from SACD hype. We are now told in commercials that DAB radios get around twice as many stations as analogue radios. Not my analogue radio. We are also told that only digital radios can pause and rewind, whereas certain aircraft radios for years have had a facility to replay the last message from the control tower. Aircraft band transmissions are, of course, analogue. While I am by my own actions inseparable from digital audio, I distance myself from downright attempts to mislead like this. What they don’t tell you is that it is only a small step to convert a radio receiver having some storage capacity so that it can fast forward over commercial breaks. All that is needed is software with a sense of smell and it could be automatic. ■ September 2005

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dan daley

Change partners The change in ownership of the industry’s two biggest traditional brands is a sign of the times but it also heralds the possibility of a return to ‘industry characters’, according to DAN DALEY

‘Misner and Peter Gabriel bring back to the equipment/technology side of pro audio something that has been sorely lacking for many, many years: personality. At a time when the music industry as a whole has devolved into a largely anonymous corporate suburban subdivision, the infusion of some larger-thanlife personality is a welcome development.’

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HERE COMES A MOMENT in every industry when a point of change occurs. Usually, it is discovered only with the visual acuity of retrospection; we can look in the rear-view mirror of pro audio and see when digital overtook analogue as the primary format of music recording. Other seachange events can be seen coming like a train lamp at the other end of a tunnel, such as the demise of many of the ﬂagship music recording palaces. However, in those cases for far too many people, the event, as inevitable as it was, still had to take place for it to be believed. Ouch. Then there are the events, just as crucial to the evolution of a business, that are more or less predictable, allowing us to take a front-row seat as they unfold as if in slow motion. One of these is going on right now, and it’s worth watching. It’s the changing of hands of the industry’s two leading legacy manufacturers of battleship consoles, Solid State Logic and AMS-Neve. At ﬁrst glance, the changes — the sale of SSL to a joint venture comprised of musician Peter Gabriel and broadcast entrepreneur David Engelke, and the acquisition of AMS-Neve by Tom Misner, the owner of multinational multimedia education conglomerate SAE — follow the pattern established by digital technology in every industry that

it’s touched: large-ticket items are undermined in both price and performance, putting their economics at risk and ultimately toppling them. Neither SSL nor AMSNeve took the necessary evasive action to forestall this eventuality soon enough; SSL’s US$88,000 AWS-900 mixer gets raves for its performance but it arrived a day late and a dollar (or two) over market budget. AMS-Neve is rumoured to have its own scaled-down technology platforms ready to roll, but the same dynamic applies there as well. These are textbook examples of how legacy companies that don’t readily adapt to change have it forced upon them. The good news is that both companies have marques whose values are more robust than their most recent balance sheets. ‘SSL’ became a surrogate for the word ‘console’ in the 1980s in the advertising business in Manhattan in much the same way that Xerox came to stand for copier. I remember losing commercial sessions when we had to admit to the agency that we didn’t have an SSL in our studio. Never mind that the redoubtable Trident Series 80 was a sonically wonderful piece of gear, or that the account rep at the agency couldn’t tell an aux send from his arse. SSL did what every brand in any industry in the world strives to do: they made their name tantamount in importance to their product.

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Neve still has similar power to its moniker. In fact, the change of ownership could be the impetus the company needs to put its relationship with its own legacy into proper context. In many ways, Neve’s greatest competitor was itself, in the form of the legendary 80 series of desks that largely defined record-making in the 1970s and 80s. As good as the V and VR series were, they never attained the perceptual status of the vintage desks, and many music sales that might have gone to a new console went instead to a classic pre-owned one. To this day, some engineers and producers maintain their old Neves the way a resident of Havana does a 1957 Cadillac, with an ingenuity fueled by passion. Enough time gone by, enough of an investment in a new generation of technology and people to use it, coupled with the perceptual invigouration of new leadership at the company, could create renewed interest in new products with a brand that most other pro audio companies would die for. It certainly worked for Vox and Marshall. But what interests me most about the change of guard at these two emblematic companies is the people. Peter Gabriel brings a tremendous presence to the picture at SSL: legitimate creative chops trimmed with just enough celebrity, as well as a technical validity that engineers respect. His long-time ownership of his studio, Real World, makes him a doyen of the upscale personal studio movement yet sympathetic to the realities faced by conventional studio owners. Gabriel founded Syco Systems, which co-developed the Tablet, one of the world’s first DAWs. Real World Multi Media, part of Gabriel’s Real World Group of technology and music entities, won awards for technological and creative innovation. More recently, he has been associated with OD2 (On Demand Distribution), a leading European provider for the distribution of on-line music. He is Bill Gates with a better wardrobe, Richard Branson sans balloon. David Engelke is less well-known — Boolean out ‘SSL’ from a recent Google search on him and he goes from several thousand hits to less than 30 — but has been quietly yet effectively in the thick of the audio industry’s consolidation free-for-all. He was an executive at Pinnacle, the US company that acquired Steinberg (Nuendo), then sold it to Yamaha just before selling itself to AVID/Digidesign. On the AMS-Neve side, try to picture this same combination of artistic temperament and business savvy in one person and you get Tom Misner. Misner is an entrepreneurial throwback to the titans of industry that built early 20th century industry. He has an ego (he commissioned his own autobiography, available at any SAE school) and can be ruthless, two very useful qualities in business — you can’t accomplish great things unless you believe you’re great, and sentimentality becomes a liability as soon as you cross the seven-figures threshold. Misner’s greatest achievement is the network of SAE schools he’s built throughout the globe, the only global entertainment technology-oriented multimedia education effort in the world. But he’s also a mixer of some note, and financed and propelled a massive September 2005

renovation of Studios 301 in Sydney and more recently completed a multimillion-dollar project that brings doctorate-level degree certiﬁcation to pro audio academia and puts yet another world-class studio on the market in Byron Bay, his personal and corporate Valhalla on the Australian East coast. Misner and Gabriel bring back to the equipment/ technology side of pro audio something that has been sorely lacking for many, many years: personality. The legends of this business, from Rupert Neve to Joe Meek, have all infused their products and inventions with personal charisma tinged with a patina that ranges from eccentricity to outright lunacy. At a time when the music industry as a whole has devolved into a largely anonymous corporate suburban subdivision, when the biggest news is not the technology itself but who’s buying the technology companies, the infusion of some larger-than-life personality is a welcome development. It recalls the days when the music industry itself was a personality-driven enterprise. And this is not mere nostalgia talking -– that same kind of forcefulness of spirit has also successfully rejuvenated companies in other sectors, most notably Steven Jobs’ return to Apple. This change in the reins at these companies also offers another opportunity, one in which the producers and engineers are once again the source of much of the industry’s technological evolution. The same people making the music 40 and 50 years ago developed much of the equipment used to make that music. If a particular tool did not yet exist, they would invent it. Product development was very much along those lines for years to come: the technology developers listened to their peers to guide their R&D. As pro audio became an industry, the paradigm slowly reversed: companies developed products from within and marketed them to potential users. As the industry continues to move downmarket -– ringtones and consumer remixes -– the voice of the professional gets increasingly drowned out. The ears now coming into executive positions of power at SSL and AMS-Neve are tuned to those professionals’s voices. That’s not to say that both companies are not going to pursue scaled-down product lines. That genie’s not going back in the bottle. But they can redeﬁne the upper tier of professional audio technology by creating the tools that the next generation of professionals -– rather than the dilettantes -– will want and need. This is already happening in the conventional studio business. New owners, albeit mostly already wealthy ones, are picking up the pieces of some of the shuttered studios in the US, reinvigourating a sector that had become bloated with too many studios killing each other in rate wars but which could never go completely disappear because the need for large, well-maintained acoustical spaces for recording music would diminish but never completely go away. What’s left is increasingly better matched to the reality of the music business in a digital world. SSL and AMS-Neve, by listening to producers and engineers, are positioning themselves to provide the tools also better matched for the next iteration of music production. ■ resolution

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headroom HD FLOWS Congratulations on Nigel Jopson’s informative article on HDTV in the July/August edition of Resolution (V4.5). Considering audio, however, I think the view that 5.1 audio will ‘slowly start to flow’ with European HD programming is perhaps a little pessimistic — we have been greatly encouraged by the serious plans being made by Europe’s broadcasters to offer a significant range of 5.1 programming from the launch of their HD services. Whilst I agree that in Australia, as in the US, the amount of 5.1 programming for HD steadily grew over the first years of transmissions, in Europe we are starting from a different point — at a basic level, the major pay TV broadcasters who will be the first to offer HD already offer 5.1 with their SD services, so they have an expectation to live up to. In the US and Australia, this expectation did not exist as there was previously no SD with 5.1. Fortunately, the adoption of 5.1 by some of Europe’s SD broadcasters and the need to supply international programming to the US market means that several OB companies, post facilities and broadcasters in Europe already have practical experience of working in the format, in a way that the US and Australian industries did not have prior to their HD launches. I believe we can expect 5.1 to be a key feature of Europe’s HD services, right from the start. Jason Power, Market Development Manager, Dolby UK Jason, thanks for the kind words about the article, I’d be more than pleased if it transpires I was too cautious in my European 5.1 audio predictions! I take your point about SD: however, there are still techniques that are relatively new to SD (such as digital single camera radio links) that have yet to be developed for HD. The Athens Olympics HD coverage was much criticised for motion artefacts for this reason (dropping Steadicams and SD into the HD mux), despite the practical experience of Visions, Alfacam and AOB. Multiple MPEG coding and decoding during global distribution made matters worse. NBC in the US has had several years to hone its HD sports coverage: yet spot mics are still out of phase, and viewers have to scramble for their volume controls as mono network and station breaks scream in. On FOX HD sports, surround sound mixers seem impervious to the elevated levels accompanying trashy graphics as they are flown in -and is that loud ‘swish’ really necessary on every sports camera switch? Drama productions have an obvious synergy with surround sound, yet John Walton of BBC postproduction tells me the Beeb is only now recording a prototype drama in 5.1: ‘... we’ve got some ideas but we need to try them before we do a programme in earnest.’ I believe 5.1 audio could be a real sellingpoint for HD, but we are at the start of a long learning curve, and should be cautious about cheapening the proposition by trumpeting the benefits of 5.1 before we have some true industry benchmarks to reference. As DAB proved, it is the early-adopters who can be most critical of hi-infidelity! Nigel Jopson

HEARING THE GRASS GROW Whilst leaﬁng through my magazine collection (and I know what you’re thinking…) I came across issue May/ June 2005 of your esteemed publication, and saw the spine message — ‘my head’s attracted to a magnetic wave of sound’. I presume this is a competition? Am I

right? If so, I (for once in my life), know where it comes from — my favourite Move track of all time, I Can Hear The Grass Grow. Is there a prize involved? Please send to my home address; and if you can see your way to adding SatNav and alloys that would be nice! Tony Besgrove, SCV London Spot on Tony you old Mod! There was almost a competition with wonderful prizes (possibly from distributor SCV) for anyone who could get a year’s worth correct until I realised that you could Google search the phrases with accuracy. I now do it for fun and for the regular emails from readers who identify them legitimately (some of the phrases are pretty damn obscure) and want to share the moment. Anyway, why would you need SatNav on a pushbike? ZS

PEAKED QUALITY In response to your Leader (V4.5) I think it’s fair to say that the technical quality of audio material arriving at listeners’ ears probably peaked in the early ‘90s. Both analogue and digital technology had matured by then, yet we had not set foot on the quicksand of destructive coding for maximum profit. I have CDs — even vinyl discs — from that era that sound truly excellent in their own right, not because of any diminished expectation. The same holds true for certain movies on Hi-Fi VHS. Broadcasters strived for quality first and foremost, with DVB and DAB mere clouds on the horizon. The use of lossy compression during production as a matter of course would not have been tolerated, even if it had been widely available! TV film footage from previous decades may have deteriorated prior to transfer, and we must allow for that. You state that in the context of sports coverage, today’s TV sound is ‘undoubtedly better’, then imply in the following paragraph that sound is now generally the poor relation to picture. Even though these sentiments appear to conflict, I disagree with both — most of the time they can’t even get the aspect ratios right, let alone the sound! One only has to watch news or ‘reality TV’ to see how standards have plummeted. Wayward levels and the use of video actuality from mobile phones are becoming increasingly common. It seems that anything goes! I would suggest that nowadays, both sound and picture alike have assumed the value of fast-food, with streamed content via the Internet having helped ‘lower the bar’ in the public perception of what is satisfactory. The film industry does not appear to have reached the turnover point yet, but the threat looms large. Once ‘D-Cinema’ rolls out fully, bit-rates will be slashed (as happened with DAB) along with skilled projectionists’ jobs. You are absolutely right about marketing and perception. But it’s also a matter of education. Richard Poole, BBC World Service, London I was contrasting the relative contributions of audio and picture in the context of the tennis coverage. My point was that when the picture options were more basic then the power base between the two disciplines was more equal and as the picture has become more sophisticated then it has left the importance of audio behind. I agree with your comments about compression and the lowering of the bar but who needs to be targeted with the education? The consumer? They take what is given. I believe we

resolution

need to consciously raise the bar but that would require revolutions within the methods of delivery -- the horse has not just bolted, the stable door is hanging off its broken hinges. Practitioners have their own personal professional standards and pride in their craft to work to, as long as that still matters then there is hope. But we still need to ‘talk up’ the importance of audio. ZS Sonifex MD Marcus Brooke is running the UK Great North Run half-Marathon (September) and the Great South Run 10-miler (October) to raise money for a Children’s Hospital that is being built near the grounds o f t h e J o h n R a d c l i ff e Hospital in Oxford, where his daughter Georgia received open heart surgery. You can make a donation at: www.justgiving.com/marcusbrooke

Advertisers Index

AES ................................................................... 48 Audio Technica ................................................. 21 Brauner ............................................................. 29 Calrec ............................................................... 12 Cedar Audio ................................. Back Cover 76 Dean Cook Productions ...................Classified 71 Digidesign ........................................................ 52 Digital Village ................................................... 13 DPA .................................................................. 11 Enhanced Audio ...............................Classified 71 ESE ................................................................... 70 Euphonix .......................................................... 27 Fairlight ................................................... 64 & 65 Focusrite .......................................................... 39 Genelec .............................Inside Front Cover 02 Golden Age ...................................................... 73 Harman ............................................................. 31 HE Studio Technik ............................Classified 71 HHB Aurora ...................................................... 60 Jesa .................................................................. 44 Lawo ................................................................. 33 Loud/Mackie .................................................... 07 Lydcraft ............................................................ 19 Media Tools ...................................................... 41 Merging Technologies ..................................... 25 Mutec ............................................................... 56 Neutrik ............................................................. 42 Neumann .......................................................... 37 PMI ................................................................... 23 Quested ........................................................... 63 RTW .................................................................. 57 Sadie...................................Inside Back Cover 75 SBES ................................................................. 68 Schoeps ............................................................ 17 SCV Fostex....................................................... 55 SCV Hearback .................................................. 45 Shure Distribution ............................................ 51 Smart AV .......................................................... 15 Sonic Distribution/Apogee .............................. 67 Sonic Distribution/SE Mics .............................. 69 Sonic Distribution/Waves................................. 09 Sonifex ............................................................. 66 Soundfield/Drawmer ........................................ 20 Stagetech Medientechnik ................................ 35 Studer ............................................................... 18 Studio Spares ................................................... 43 Tannoy .............................................................. 53 TL Audio ........................................................... 61 TL Commerce ...................................Classified 71 Turnkey ............................................................. 49 Ultrasone .......................................................... 72 Universal Audio ................................................ 47

September 2005

....introducing the

SADiE LRX Flexible Location Recorder The remarkable new SADiE LRX has been designed to fulfil the needs of an ever more complex recording environment. It is as effective in capturing original soundtracks for film and television production as it is for producing location audio recordings for release on distributed media such as CD or DVD.

The flexibility of the LRX hinges on its ability to utilise a standard laptop running Windows XPÂŽ via USB2 as the host computer together with combinations of the same high quality i/o cards as the SADiE H64 multitrack workstation. A tactile hardware control surface is employed, incorporating a small assignable mixer and full editorial interface, plus dedicated transport keys.

This powerful combination is supplied with a tailored multichannel version of the SADiE on-screen graphical user interface. Timecode and professional genlock facilities are incorporated and a video stream may be simultaneously captured for playback or on-set ADR. The system supports a wide range of industry file interchange formats, plus a second external drive may be simply attached via USB2 or Firewire to mirror recordings and provide simultaneous safety copies. Contact your nearest SADiE dealer or main office and visit our website for further details and a brochure.

www.sadie.com United Kingdom: SADiE UK The Old School, Stretham Ely, Cambs. CB6 3LD. UK Tel: +44 (0)1353 648 888 Fax: +44 (0)1353 648 867 USA: SADiE Inc 475 Craighead Street, Nashville TN 37204 USA Tel: +1 615 327 1140 Fax: +1 615 327 1699 Europe: SADiE GmbH Villa Leinen, Kollwitz Strasse 16, 73728 Esslingen. Germany Tel: +49 (0)711 3969 380 Fax: +49 (0)711 3969 385

DIGITAL PRECISION

Award Winning Clean Dialogue Air conditioning

Reverberation

Wind

Trafﬁc rumble

Air conditioning, excessive reverberation, wind, rain, and traffic rumble cause problems in the studio and on location. Until recently, you had to live with them, but now CEDAR produces a range of Dialogue Noise Suppressors to help you reduce or even eliminate the unwanted background noise. There’s the award-winning DNS1000™, the fully automated DNS2000™ which runs in the Pro Tools™ environment, and the eight-channel DNS™ software hosted by our own CEDAR Cambridge™ platform. It’s not only the quality but the remarkable flexibility of CEDAR that has persuaded Fox, Lucasfilm and Universal to use the DNS range of products, as do networks such as the ABC and CNBC. So, whether you’re on location for The Lord Of The Rings, Spiderman or Castaway, posting The Wheel Of Fortune or Jeopardy, or even broadcasting The Golden Globe Awards live, you know that you can rely on CEDAR. In February 2005, the ©Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® honoured Dr Christopher Hicks and Dave Betts with a Technical Achievement Award for the design and implementation of the CEDAR DNS1000™. In the words of the Academy, “the DNS1000 can be found on virtually all dubbing stages worldwide, and has become the tool of choice for removing unwanted noise by re-recording mixers everywhere”.

CEDAR Audio Ltd +44 1223 881771 CEDAR Audio USA +1 207 828 0024 CEDAR Asia +66 1 822 9227

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