Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 110 i AudioTechnology

David Buchanan recently won one of AudioTechnology’s subscription prizes; a full KRK monitoring package comprising a pair of KRK Rokit 8 G3 studio monitors and a pair of KRK KNS8400 headphones supplied by Australian Music Imports. Here’s what David had to say about winning the prize: “dB Engineering is a very small PA company servicing my country area. Not much money (okay, some gigs for free) but a lot of fun. My equipment is a mix of new and second hand, collected over many years. To receive the prize of top-quality KRK monitor speakers and headphones has been fantastic. My thanks to Australian Music Imports and AudioTechnology for their support and commitment to the industry and, of course, this very generous prize. I just can’t get over the idea that…

Some 11 years ago, back in Issue 35, we first looked at a pair of Extreme Isolation headphones. So what’s changed in the world of ‘gun muff ’ cans? Not so much, as it happens. Extreme Isolation still has the market largely to itself: performance headphones with considerable acoustic isolation afforded by industrial strength ear cups. The EX-29s are a more recent addition to the range and offer 29dB passive attenuation over the original Ex-25’s 25 decibels (the clue is in the name). These ’phones are made in the US, and feature similar specs to the 25s: 40mm single drivers, 32› impedance, and a sensitivity of 114dB at 1kHz/1mW (which is more sensitive than the EX25s). They’re a comfortable headphone and they sound good. I guess my assumption was that…

When I open a plug-in and see graphics perfectly matching the look of a piece of vintage hardware my scepticism meter hits the red. Sure it looks the same, but how does it sound? So given the opportunity to run a comparison between the Compex F760x compressor/limiter and the new Boz Digital Labs +10dB plug-in, I jumped at the chance. The F760 has long been a favourite of mine during tracking — especially on drum room mics. It’s got power and wallop but with a clarity in the top end, even in serious gain reduction. Does the plug-in version follow suit? The session I chose as a testing ground was a recent Ian Moss tracking gig at Rancom St. We have an AKG D109 omni dynamic hanging from the ceiling,…

KEY LISTENING TRACKS: My Baby Left Me – Elvis Presley Lucille – Little Richard Shake – Sam Cooke Twist & Shout – The Beatles It’s good to listen to the stereo version of Twist & Shout first, because one channel is actually the close mics, and the other channel is just the vocal spill. Only then listen to the mono version, and you’ll hear how much excitement is coming from the sound of the spill into the vocal mics. HOW TO GET THAT LATE ’50s SOUND: Apart from making sure we use the absolute right kit, see sidebar Step 1: The Right Kit, some techniques to get close to this sound would include: • Don’t use many mics on the drums themselves, perhaps only one over the whole kit. •…

KEY LISTENING TRACKS: Key listening tracks: Rhiannon – Fleetwood Mac Hotel California – The Eagles Young Americans – David Bowie Jive Talking – The Bee Gees Close To You – The Carpenters HOW TO GET THAT ’70s CLASSIC ROCK SOUND • The deader you can tune and mute your drums, the better. Use much smaller cymbals for punctuation rather than explosive accents. Even put some light tape on the ride cymbal to make it a nice dry percussive hit without much wash. Don’t be scared to extend the hi-hat stand to its maximum height and drop the height of the snare to get as much separation as possible — or even move the hi-hat a bit further away from the snare. It may be less comfortable for the drummer, but…

My job title is Senior Director of Engineering at Clair Bros where I’ll often be asked to ‘rescue’ a tour that’s sonically going off the rails. More often than not it’s the sub bass that’s getting away from a FOH engineer without the skills to rein it in. When I’m not in the ‘office’, I’m out on the road with Sting, who has been touring fairly consistently, either solo or more recently with Paul Simon, for more than five years now. In that time, I’ve been to many of the big European and American music festivals and heard hundred of mixes on every PA imaginable. The common problem I keep hearing is a lack of clarity in the high end and a bias in the low end that further clouds…

NEED TO KNOW PRICE 1248: $2949 Ultralite AVB: $1299 AVB Switch: $599 CONTACT Network Audio Services: 1300 306 670 or networkaudio.com.au PROS Super low system-wide latency. Massive upgrade in conversion. Up to 512 channels. Wireless remote control via web app. CONS Latency compensation between host and networked interfaces not automatic. Lack of red clip indicators. SUMMARY MOTU doesn’t change things if it doesn’t have to; case in point, its rack chassis. But inside, ESS Sabre DACs and new ADCs bring the conversion up plenty of notches over its older gear. And MOTU’s overachieving AVB spec lets you build a super fast network of interfaces without breaking the bank. “The standard AVB protocol specifies a fixed latency of 2ms, but MOTU has managed to claw back some digits for a fixed…

NEED TO KNOW PRICE $499.95 CONTACT Link Audio: info@linkaudio.com.au Or buy online at www.presonus.com PROS Arranger Track & Scratch Pad flexibility Send-less FX Chain routing Instrument chains High DPI GUI New Mai Tai synth covers plenty of bases CONS Little light on in the drum & guitar department SUMMARY It’s all about flexibility of creativity in Version 3 of Studio One. You can change arrangements with impunity, break the chains off plug-in routing, layer instruments with ease, and recreate generations of sounds from a single synth. “The challenge for Presonus has been adding extra power, utilities and improvements, while staying away from that dreaded feature bloat” Considering how long some of the competition has been around, Studio One has become a very popular DAW in a relatively short period of…

NEED TO KNOW PRICE $2066 CONTACT Mixmasters: (08) 8278 8506 or sales@mixmasters.com.au PROS Active Baxandall EQ Standalone, no extra preamp required Separate Main & Aux output controls CONS Expensive, but can double as a preamp SUMMARY This do-it-all tube DI is everything you want in a DI. It can even stand in for a mic preamp, with Tonecraft’s impedance adaptor in front. NEED TO KNOW PRICE $732 CONTACT Mixmasters: (08) 8278 8506 or sales@mixmasters.com.au PROS Recreated Motown-era transformers Choice of preamp pairing CONS Up there for a passive DI SUMMARY For true recreation of that Motown sound, Acme has done the hard work of recreating the original transformers. But you’re going to need a tube pre from that era for extra authentic vintage vibes. Tonecraft 363 Tube DI vs ACME…

Dave Claringbold has spent some 20 years working at the Sydney Opera House, most recently as Director of Theatre & Events. He has recently announced his resignation as he pursues other challenges. In this second part of his recollections, David talks about the importance of people and culture to an institution like ‘The House. When I returned to the Sydney Opera House as Technical Director in 2006, I shared senior management’s ambitions for the Opera House brand; ie. to be something contemporary, accessible and something that provided program for all types of people. Yet our own culture was holding us back from delivering that. The Studio, when it opened, was the first venue we could truly call our own — we could invite artists and ask them what they would…

Over the last three weeks Ginger Recording Studios has had 1 Trinidad James (All Gold Everything, Uptown Funk [writing credit]) drop in to lay a few verses on a Zeus and Apocalypto track while he was briefly in town. 2 James Mustafa also brought in 10 of his favourite string and brass players for arrangement for three tracks to go on a new Osunlade release scheduled for the end of this year. James’ instrumentation included a 10-piece string section including harp and a five-piece brass and wind section. Carl Pannuzzo was around for the better part of a week to complete tracking for the first side of his double album. 3 And over a weekend, Jimi Wyatt took the Hume to Sydney in the newly branded location recording Ginger utility…

The inaugural European Games in June barely registered on the Australian sporting calendar but we had a podium position in production, with a solid contingent flying in to Baku to join the 350 staff and 1000 crew drawn from 28 countries to run the services behind the scenes. No expense was spared for the spectacle, which drew close to 6000 athletes from 50 European countries. The official cost to oil-rich host country Azerbaijan was close to A$1.5 billion, with many of the 18 sports venues purpose-built including the Olympic Stadium used for the opening and closing ceremonies. The two-hour opener alone cost A$95 million, putting it well on par with Olympic Games ceremonies. Audio director for the extravagant opening and closing ceremonies was Auditoria’s Scott Willsallen, no stranger to the…

BOSE F1 PATTERN CONTROL $1699/piece | pro.bose.com By now it’s likely you’ve seen/heard the L1 stick PA in action. Bose has gone further with the launch of the F1 or the ‘F1 Model 812 Flexible Array Loudspeaker and F1 Subwoofer’ to be precise. Designed to serve an even broader set of applications than L1 systems, F1 Model 812 is the first powered portable loudspeaker that lets users optimise sound by creating up to four different vertical coverage patterns. The F1 system provides versatility for a wide range of applications and venues, easy setup, aesthetically pleasing design, and rugged durability. With the F1 system, sound can be optimised for playing at floor level, on stage or facing raked seats or bleachers. To control the vertical coverage pattern, users simply push or…

NEED TO KNOW PRICE ProFX4v2: $299;ProFX8v2: $549;ProFX12v2: $649;ProFX16v2: $1099;ProFX22v2: $1399;ProFX30v2: $1999 CONTACT CMI Music & Audio (03) 9315 2244 sales@cmi.com.au PROS Whisper quiet preamps Useful FX Well priced USB input and recording. CONS No ‘signal present’ channel LEDs, only overload Short-throw faders a bit dinky on the 22- and 30-channel models SUMMARY Compact mixers are sold on features as much as they are on sound quality. The ProFXv2 excels in both. It started with a problem. I needed a small-format mixer to put next to a drum fill. I wanted our drummer to be able to plug in his in-ears or headphones, turn down the level of the wedge, and for it to be easy to revert back when he’s finished. Which was when I noticed Mackie’s ProFX v2 range…

KEY LISTENING TRACKS: My Generation – The Who Uptight – Stevie Wonder I Want To Hold Your Hand – The Beatles Mr Tambourine Man – The Byrds Heatwave – Martha and The Vandelles HOW TO GET THAT EARLY ’60s SOUND • Let the drums ring; take out or reduce the dampening in the kick drum, and use a full head on the front of the drum. Tune the drums up a bit higher than you’d expect, particularly the toms. Open up the hi-hats a bit more. • Play a bit harder. • Use two dynamic mics for the kit — one out the front of the kick and one at cymbal height pointing towards the centre of the kit, so that the cymbals are pointing at the side of the…

“There’s no fat with his music” is how mixer Tom Elmhirst would sum up the In Colour multi-tracks Jamie Smith (aka Jamie xx from The xx) handed to him to mix. “I’m not going to lie” he said multiple times. “He’s done alright without guys like me around. It was 97 to 98% there. He’s so above average, and I mean that as a massive compliment. What he does on a laptop and a pair of headphones is not available to all of us.” Elmhirst first heard the now 26-year old Jamie, when The xx were performing one of their first shows, back in the day when they were still a four-piece — “18 and shitting themselves ” remembered Elmhirst. “They hid behind loads of dry ice. I’ll never forget…

In the last couple of issues I’ve pointed out the perils of buying third party laptops/ tablets for audio, and extolled the virtues of the good ol’ PC desktop for same. However, there is a third path, and that’s buying a tablet direct from Microsoft. As I explained in AT108, generally the big problem with laptop/tablets is that you don’t know what array of components they contain, or whether any of these (and their associated software drivers) will interrupt your audio stream and cause clicks and pops in your recordings, without the ability to disable them and cure such issues. Well, now that Microsoft has its own Surface range of tablets, we finally find ourselves on level pegging with our Mac brethren. Because just like them we are being offered…

NEED TO KNOW PRICE $5799 CONTACT Amber Technology: 1800 251 367 or sales@ambertech.com.au PROS 32 channels of clean, high-headroom SSL summing Integrated DAW control of analogue input gain levels Extensive I/O and comprehensive master section Multiple device remote control via web browser Informative front panel display CONS Web browser control reliant on network Software installation may cause heartburn Wall wart PSU Pricey SUMMARY An innovative software approach to hardware control, extensive I/O, and the monitor and master section features make the Sigma stand out from the summing pack. The Sigma wants to be the miniaturised analogue hub of your studio and mounts a persuasive case with great design smarts and superior sonics packed into a small footprint. Back in Issue 106 I reviewed the Phoenix Audio Nicerizer Junior and was…

NEED TO KNOW Price $499 Contact Rode Microphones: (02) 9648 5855 or info@rodemic.com Pros Internal rechargeable battery Onboard EQ & pad make it a flexible run-and-gun mic Cons 4 is not better than 3 Summary The Rode NTG4+ has everything your camera doesn’t have in the sound department — high-pass, high-shelf boost, and a 10dB pad — to let you capture sound in every situation. Its internal rechargeable battery also cuts the need for a phantom power source. But don’t be fooled; it’s not better than an NTG3, just different. Location sound for film and TV is my specialty, and I’m always interested in loading up my blimp with a new shotgun mic, especially one with cool onboard features like Rode’s new NTG4+. It has three digitally-switched buttons with LED…

Producer/Engineer Julian Abbott has opened up No Wave Studio in Byron Bay around a SoundWorkshop Series 34c “factory custom-modified with API transistor outputs and full bantam patch bay with over 80 ins and outs. I recently purchased it off Craig Field in the Blue Mountains, and he imported it from New York where it was originally commissioned to go into a private studio in the Chrysler Building in 1979. I am currently working on showcasing the console’s amazing sound with a cover of Grand Funk Railroad’s Got This Thing on the Move. I’ll be recording it all live with my best clients doing the song some serious justice!”…

Zoom is taking on the likes of Sound Devices and Nagra with its grown-up field recorder, the F8. With 8-input/10-track recording, low-noise preamps (-127dBu EIN), and support for 24-bit/192k audio (with onboard limiters), the F8 is built to capture pristine audio anywhere. The F8’s timecode clock uses a precision oscillator that generates timecode at 0.2ppm accuracy for rock-solid sync. Weighing in at under a kilo, the F8 is easy to lug but durable thanks to an aluminium chassis. Meanwhile, the display is a revelation – a bright 2.4-inch full-colour backlit LCD. The F8 records in BWF-compatible WAV format at 16- or 24-bit resolution, and at any standard sample rate up to 192k. When recording files in MP3 format, you can choose bit rates of 128, 192, or 320kbps. There’s plenty…

APOGEE MAKES WAVES www.apogeedigital.com Once upon a time, the only company Apogee was drafting any alliances with was Apple. Perhaps because it saw itself in the mirror; makers of sexy, top-shelf hardware. Brushed aluminium exteriors with a minimum of external fuss, and identical power buttons — a match designed in California. But then the Mac Pro showed its dark side, and Apogee followed suit with a new blacked out look that came with fresh alliances. First Avid, now Waves. It means you now have two options to think about when buying an Apogee interface. You can either opt for a Pro Tools-branded Apogee Duet or Quartet and receive a full copy of Pro Tools software as well as one Tier Two and one Tier Three plug-in gratis. Or if you…

DRUM SAMPLES To hear the results of Michael’s retro drums approaches, head to tinyurl.com/retro-drums to stream or download some examples. STEP 1: THE RIGHT KIT The most important parts of achieving any of these drum sounds are right at the source. The drum kit needs to be setup and tuned for the style, and the player needs to understand the concept of playing to the mics. For anyone trying to get in the ballpark for the first time, it’s worth spending time looking at images on the web of drummers (and their kits) of the era you’re interested in. For sounds up to the late ’60s, it was at most a simple four-piece kit, usually with two full heads on the bass drum and almost no dampening, except some felt…

KEY LISTENING TRACKS: Respect – Aretha Franklin Honky Tonk Women – The Rolling Stones Hello Goodbye – The Beatles California Dreaming – The Mamas & the Papas HOW TO GET THAT MID TO LATE ’60s DRUM SOUND: • Start using more mics closer to the kit, but not as close as you would for a contemporary kit. Think more about ‘coverage’ of the drum sounds. Possibly start with a kick mic (dynamic, right in the drum) a snare bottom mic quite close to the bottom snares (a dynamic or pencil condenser) and a condenser as an overhead. Place dynamic mics underneath the rack tom by about 30cm, and above the floor tom by about the same distance and pointed more towards the snare. • Take off the front head of…

WWDC keynotes are always a mixed bag of interesting new tech developments and awkward tech heads introducing them on stage. Did anyone catch Eddie Cue doing the Cuban dance?! Besides getting a good look at the new tools and toys, Apple will release in the short term, it’s also a glimpse into where the behemoth may be heading over the next few years. Let’s see where our imagination can take us… APPLE MUSIC For music lovers and producers alike, Apple Music is no doubt the biggest development from WWDC, and already available to the public. I’m going to presume you don’t live under a rock, so I won’t go over the features bit-by-bit, but here a few interesting points for anyone working in the music industry. Generally, music streaming is…

NEED TO KNOW PRICE $3799 CONTACT Sound & Music: (03) 9555 8081 or www.sound-music.com PROS Exhilarating stereo imaging Balanced, well controlled listening experience Superb, non-fatiguing detail Exemplary headphone amp Attainable price point CONS Intentionally left blank SUMMARY MunroSonic’s new EGG 150 monitor speakers keep the sE version’s recognisable shape and all the benefits of a curvy physique. But production has shifted to the UK, and no detail is missed. “There’s a lot going for the humble egg when it comes to sound reproduction” I’m not afraid to try new things, apart from icky stuff. Like eating deep fried tarantulas on a stick… and sky-diving. Jumping out of a plane toward earth at 9.8m/s 2 is not a pastime I’m keen to indulge. Fortunately these ‘new-things’ on my monitor stands aren’t…

The Keylab 88 has the same parameter control set as the 49- and 61-note variants. There’s the standard master volume, pitch and modulation wheels, and octave up and down buttons. From there you have two banks of 10 encoders, nine faders, 16 pads, transport control, 10 push buttons, and an LCD with parameter and value adjustment encoders. NEED TO KNOW PRICE Expect to pay $1399 CONTACT CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or sales@cmi.com.au PROS Quality construction gives keybed solid feel Excellent integration for Arturia users Can sit a laptop on it CONS Some GUI elements a bit small for live use SUMMARY Arturia’s Keylab 88 looks like a stage piano, and is built like one too. But with thousands of sounds bundled in, and Arturia’s fully-featured MIDI Control…