BY KELLEIGH WELCHA June 11 court rul- ing that deemed Fox Searchlight in viola- tion of labor laws by not pay- ing two interns has brought the validity of unpaid intern- ships under the microscope, causing companies in numer- ous entertainment industries to reexamine their programs. While the ruling was in ref- erence to a film company, it does not mean that other fields are in the clear. In the audio industry, where many recording studios and sound companies have internship programs already in place, the future of internships— specifically ones that are unpaid—is uncertain. The so-cal l ed “Bl ack Swan Ruling” found that Fox Searchlight was in vio- lation of labor laws by giv- ing Alex Footman and Eric Glatt remedial duties such as making photocopies and fetching coffee during their internships on the 2010 film, Black Swan. The argument, according to New York Judge William H. Pauley III, was that the two interns were there to learn about film pro- duction, but the tasks they were given had little educa- tional value and were meant for a paid employee on the set. He ruled that these tasks given to the interns classified Central Parking The New York Philharmonic’s annual Concert In The Park series brings clas- sical music to an atypically large audi- ence. The Philharmonic’s FOH engineer, Larry Rock, was tasked with recreating a symphonic performance experience while also blending in the band and voice of singer Mariah Carey. The sound system deployed by Yonkers, NY’s Sound Associates incorporated a Meyer Sound Leo array at the stage, with Milo and M3D cabinets on the delay towers. Links In The Chain Audio starts and ends as analog, even in a digital recording chain. Rich Tozzoli looks at the tried and true hardware bookending his bit manipulation to see which tools are essential to his process and why. prosoun n e w s August 2013 www.prosoundnetwork.com Volume 35 No. 8 FLEETWOOD MAC REUNI ON TOUR—PAGE 44 BY STEVE HARVEY H umans’ deep-seated psy- chological resistance to change is a challenge that software developers must face every time they release a new version of a product. And, the more popular the product, the louder users appear to com- plain. Unless you were living un- der the proverbial rock, you could not have missed Avid’s announcement in early April that it was introducing Pro Tools 11, the latest version of what has become a de facto standard platform in the indus- try. Built on an all-new, 64-bit audio engine, featuring an in- tegrated Avid Media Compos- er video engine, and with new (continued on page 57) DAW Upgrades And Options (continued on page 20) 26 42 N O W A V A I L A B L E O N i P A D A T T H E i T U N E S N E W S S T A N D 1 C olor - 0 C yan / 100 M agenta / 99 Yellow / 4 Black Beyond Black Swan: The Future of Internships GRADING EDUCATION—At the 50th AES International Conference on Audio Education, held in Murfreesboro, TN, the panel “Audio Education Report Card” sought to assess the efficacy of audio programs. Included (L-R) was Chase Trombley, Blackbird Audio Rentals, representing the freshly graduated new hire; educators Douglass Bielmeier of MTSU, Mark Rubel of The Blackbird Academy, and David Tough of Belmont University; and Kirk Immamura of Avatar Studios and SPARS (see page 5 for more coverage of the Conference). NEWS ANALYSIS [ 5 ] [ August 2013 ] soundBUSINESS BY FRANK WELLS MURFREESBORO, TN—“Art, science and business become the three pillars of the education of someone who wants to find a good, meaningful, profes- sional career-level job,” commented David Scheirman as he set the stage in the lead presentation of three days of workshops, panel discussions and paper presentations at the 50th AES International Conference—Audio Education, held in late July at Middle Tennessee State University, southeast of Nashville. While education is a primary fo- cus of the Audio Engineering Society, the conference was the first of the Society’s long-running, subject-spe- cific conference series to focus spe- cifically on education. More than 140 educators and industry professionals attended the event, near triple the minimum hoped-for registrants, evi- dencing interest in the topic. Along- side attendees from 25 U.S. states, multiple countries were represented, including Japan, the UK, the UAE, Norway and Australia. Presentations ran the gamut of education issues, from instructional infrastructure and techniques for ele- ments such as ear training to intern- ships and outcome evaluation. Scheir- man, director of Knowledge Resources for Harman Professional, offered an industry perspective on audio training and course design, noting in part that, “Keeping up with new technologies is difficult and critical…Working pro- fessionals have to constantly upgrade their skills. That means the programs that train the entry-level personnel will be doing the same thing.” The event was co-chaired by MTSU educators Michael Fleming and Bill Crabtree. At the event’s close, Fleming stated, “Our goals with this conference were to stimulate dialogue among member s of the audi o teaching community and between the pro-audio industry and academia, so that there might be a greater sense of understanding and confidence in our respective missions. In many ways, the profession of teaching professional audio from an academic and practical point of view is very young, and we think this conference was a giant step toward helping establishing a sense of community, as well as shared standards and awareness of the different directions and emphases these programs can have. Clearly there are three sets of beneficiaries from this work: audio students, audio faculty and our peers in industry.” In a panel discussion titled “Audio Education Report Card,” moderated by veteran audio educator Mark Ru- bel, the discussions focused on student preparedness for the working world. David Tough of Belmont University outlined his doctoral research involving a broad range of audio experts in the development of a list of critical skills that would equip students for their first jobs in audio. “Competencies needed by future AT graduates are multidis- ciplinary,” said Tough, including not just core audio engineering skills but also physics, music and business. Un- surprisingly perhaps, for professionals BY KELLEIGH WELCH DETROIT, MI—“United Sound should be preserved for its history,” accord- ing to Ed Wolfrum, former engineer at the Detroit studio. That may not happen, however; United Sound Systems’ building—a spot famous for helping found the city’s famed music scene—is in jeopardy of disappearing as part of a proposed project to expand the nearby I-94 high- way with more traffic lanes on both sides. At least 100 struc- tures could be demolished as part of the project, including the United Sound Systems studio building, located on 2nd Ave in Detroit, just north of I-94. Wolfrum, United Sound’s chief engineer from 1969 to 1973, feels the building should be preserved based on its historical significance in the region’s music scene. “Every major artist in Detroit came through there,” he recalled. While the studio has hosted recordings for ma- ny of music’s greats, including Aretha Franklin, Berry Gordy Jr., George Clinton, Miles Davis, the Dramatics, John Lee Hooker, Luther Vandross and Eminem, and was at the fore- front of the age of Motown, it does not have any official historical status that could protect it from demolition. United Sound Systems Recording Studio was established in the 1930s when owner and founder Jimmy Sir- acuse saw an opportunity to join the flourishing Detroit music scene. He originally opened a music store be- fore purchasing the building on Sec- ond Avenue and creating a record- ing studio that is believed to be the first independent recording studio in the United States. In the 1950s, Siracuse added Studio A to the back of the building, creating a space large enough to record an entire orchestra. Additionally, the facility was a re- cording technology greenhouse, ac- cording to Wolfrum, who noted Unit- ed Sound had engineers constantly building their own recording equip- ment for the studio, and improving on existing gear. “Most of the equip- ment was homebrewed,” Wolfrum said. “We didn’t buy much. United was really on the forefront of all this stuff and had this rep- utation as a hot shot technical studio.” The Detroit Sound Con- servancy, a non-profit organi- zation dedicated to preserving the music history of Detroit, is working to find a compromise that would extend the highway without destroying the studio. “Preserving it is going to take a lot of money and a lot of imagination and a lot of peo- ple,” Detroit Sound Conser- vancy founder Charles Gholz told the Detroit Free Press. Luckily, there is still hope. MDOT spokesman Rob Mo- rosi said that no plans are in place yet, and that demolishing the studio is a “worst-case-scenario.” Even with the costs of keeping the studio standing, former engineer Wol- frum said it should be preserved: “It was the mothership of Detroit.” Detroit Sound Conservancy www.detroitsoundconservancy.org AES Audio Education Conference Examines Training Detroit Studio Destined For Destruction? RØDE Mics Buys FiRe sydney, australia—RØDE (rodemic. com) has announced its purchase of the FiRe audio recording appli- cation for Apple iOS devices, a product from Audiofile Engineering. Taking complete ownership of the code, the company intends to release improved versions of its RØDE Rec app based on the FiRe platform, and is working on new, advanced hardware. Icon Digital Lands In US madison, wi—European-based instrument/musical device manufacturer/e-retailer Icon (icon- digitalusa.com) has broadened its scope to the U.S. with the arrival of Wisconsin-based Icon Digital USA, LLC. The US distributor of Icon music-creation products intends to provide “one stop” solutions for musicians, media/audio enthusiasts and engineers, with a focus on working with educational institu- tions. Calrec Debuts Free Training new york, ny—Calrec Audio (cal- rec.com) has announced that it will launch a series of free U.S. training sessions. The program, offering operational training on Calrec’s Bluefin2 range of consoles, includ- ing Apollo and Artemis, is aimed at freelance audio engineers and employees at broadcast facilities who have had no formal training on the platform, as well as those who want to brush up their skills. briefs Engineer Ed Wolfrum (at console) with producer Fred Bridges at United Sound Systems Studio in an undated photo from the early 1970s. Setting The Stage: Harman Professional’s David Scheirman presented his paper “Are Audio Education Programs Keeping Pace With New Developments In Industry?” to open the 50th AES International Conference on Audio Education (left) and Meyer Sound’s Bob McCarthy (right) delivered the keynote address. (continued on page 12) P H O T O P R O V I D E D B Y E D W O L F R U M [ 6 ] DEPARTMENTS Sound Business 5 Classifieds 55 Sound People 54 Advertiser Index 55 Company Index 55 CHARTS Tracks 28 Centerstage 48 Soundcheck 50 COLUMNS/REVIEWS softwaretech . . . . . . . . . 26 Craig Anderton finds the ancient “Mac Vs. PC” debate has been rendered null and void. viewfromthetop. . . . . . . 56 Lee Ellison, CEO of Audinate, relates how he connected with the company, and how its Dante media network system connects with everything else. music,etc. . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Jaques Sonyieux focuses in on Camera Obscura and the Scottish indie band’s new album, Desire Lines. SOUNDRECORDING Building On Bedrock . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Bedrock.LA is expanding into the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, creating a 50,000-square-foot, multi-story complex that will house a creative community involved in a variety of media and technologies. Studio Showcase: Neptone Studios . . 24 Located in the heart of old Destin Harbor on Florida’s most beautiful beaches, Neptone Recording Studio is a full service recording facility founded in 2005. SOUNDPOST/BROADCAST DTS Turns 20 Still Looking Ahead . . 33 DTS celebrates 20 years since the company’s launch, coinciding with the release of Jurassic Park. CEO Jon Kirchner points out some company mile- stones and takes a look forward. Innovative Isolation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 French company Audionamix has made inroads into the post production and music communities with its ADX technology, which isolates key ele- ments of a mixed master audio track where indi- vidual tracks are not available. SOUNDTECHNOLOGY Sound Innovations: The Audibility Of Clock Jitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 In the course of developing a new DAC, renowned audio gear designer Dave Hill found himself on an investigation of jitter and its impact on sonics. Hill documents the quest and offers lab-created files to let PSN readers share his experiences. Field Reports: Product Profiles . . . . . . . 35, 37, 39 Genelec M Series M030 Bi-amplified Active Monitors; Millennia HV-37 Two-Channel Preamplifier; Shure KSM9HS Dual-Pattern Handheld Condenser Microphone SOUNDPRODUCTS Studio Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 SR Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 SOUNDREINFORCEMENT The Sound of Tarrytown . . . . . . . . . . 42 How do you handle audio for modern concerts in an 1885, landmark status-protected, 860-seat theater? Just ask Boulevard Pro, which has tackled audio at the Tarrytown Music Hall for everyone from Smokey Robinson to Fountains of Wayne. Live Sound Showcase: Fleetwood Mac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The perennial purveyors of that ’70s So-Cal Sound are back and making the rounds. We go behind the scenes to check out the audio and clear up all the Rumours. [42] [44] NEWS ANALYSIS DAW Upgrades and Options . . . . . . . 1, 57 They say “change is good,” but DAW manufacturers often have a hard time convincing custom- ers that the truism is true. Steve Harvey analyzes the current state of flux in the DAW marketplace. follow us ONLINE subscriptons: www.mypsnmag.com facebook: www.facebook.com/ pages/pro-sound-news- magazine/71616690976 online: www.prosoundnews.com twiter: www.twiter.com/ ProSoundNews CONTENTS vol. 35 no. 8 August 2013 n e w s prosound A N N A I S O L A C R O L L A This summer’s 50th AES Interna- tional Conference—Audio Education (see page 5) focused on one of the key aspects of the Audio Engineering Society’s mission. Entry-level train- ing, continuing education for working professionals, the dissemination of information on breaking and even ex- perimental technologies, the sharing of techniques by audio practitioners and the hands-on exposure to new tools of the trade are each important to that mission. These elements are also key components of the Society’s conventions. In October, the 135th AES Con- vention will be held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. The fall conventions are the most vis- ible event in the Society’s annual cal- endar for good reason. There’s simply no other audio event on the planet that covers as much territory. Though focused solely on audio, the AES is a broad-based organization and its range is fully represented in the Con- ventions. There is more packed into four days of program content than any one individual can experience. While the surfeit of content can be daunting, the breadth of the Conven- tion program assures an abundance of content available for all comers, regardless of their level of expertise or their primary area of specialty. The planning of this fall’s program has long been in development, with experts in all aspects of audio in- volved in the gathering of their peers, the best minds in the business, as- sembled at the Convention to ensure that the most relevant and timely in- formation is available for attendees. As I write, the program elements are going online for attendees to plan their Convention experience. New to last year’s convention was the Project Studio Expo, two days of training adjacent to the exhibition floor, designed to aid home studio owners in maximizing the quality of their recordings. PSE returns this year, and the same stage will be used for an additional day of training in the growth field of installed sound. This Systems Sound Symposium, will fea- ture content developed by PSN sister publication, Systems Contractor News. Meanwhile, the DTV Audio Group will bring high-level participants for a day of dialog covering the most critical issues in television audio. This DT- VAG event, the SSS, the PSE and a number of additional special events are available to all convention attend- ees. The former “Exhibits Only” at- tendee category is being rebadged “Exhibits Plus,” the “Plus” being these educational and information sessions, which also include the Platinum Pro- ducer and Engineer sessions and the Grammy Sound Table produced by the Producers & Engineers Wing of The Recording Academy. If you’ve read PSN over the years, you may have noticed that I return annually to the AES Convention as a topic for this space at this time of year, to encourage you to make your plans to attend the fall convention. I confess to being an AES true be- liever, as evidenced by my involve- ment for over two decades, first as a Convention attendee, then also on the local level as my local section re- built itself into one of the strongest sections in the Society and, in recent years, as part of the Society’s inter- national governing board. The AES has been key to my own professional growth, both in terms of knowledge and through the interaction with the Society’s membership and the Con- ventions’ participants. As with many things in life, the benefits of AES Convention atten- dance are in direct proportion to the level at which you commit yourself to making the most of your participa- tion. From my own perspective, the more I pored over the program and plotted out a plan to fully utilize the available time, the more I benefited. The more time I spent in the com- pany of leading audio professionals as they shared their knowledge and experience, the more professional I became myself. I encourage you to join us in New York in October. I can’t imagine that you would regret the experience. [ August 2013 ] [ 8 ] vol. 35 no. 8 August 2013 http://www.prosoundnetwork.com FRANK WELLS
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[email protected] [ August 2013 ] [ 10 ] soundBUSINESS BY STEVE HARVEY LOS ANGELES, CA—With the entire country in the grip of a heatwave, Pensado’s Place and Vintage King presented Gear Expo 2013 on Satur- day, July 20. Hosted by Vintage King at its VKLA showroom in Los An- geles, the expo offered the capacity crowd an opportunity to demo gear, speak with manufacturer reps, watch live interviews and mingle with celeb- rity guests from the world of music production. Representatives were on hand from A-Designs Audio, Apogee Elec- tronics, Auralex Acoustics, Blue Mi- crophone, Chandler Limited, Even- tide, Focal, Lynx Studio Technology, Maag Audio, Mojave Audio, SPL/ Brauner, Overstayer, Phoenix Audio, Rascal Audio, Royer Labs, Standard Audio, Tree Audio, Wave Distribution and numerous other companies. Pen- sado, Vintage King Audio and VKLA, Ableton, Bedrock-LA, Avid, Infrason- ic Mastering, iZotope, Gobbler, The Recording Academy Producers & En- gineers Wing, Dorado Music Pack- aging, SAE Institute, Women’s Au- dio Mission, MsDSP and Echopark sponsored the event. Vintage King vintageking.com Gear Expo Packs ’Em In Riverside Acquires Blue Microphones BY CLIVE YOUNG WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA— Blue Mi- crophones has been acquired by global private equity firm The Riverside Company. Purchased for an undisclosed amount, the pro audio manufacturer stated aggressive growth plans would be a part of its future, but added that no changes are planned in Blue’s team. Hillary Money of Blue Mics told Pro Sound News, “This will not affect any upcoming prod- uct schedules. At the same time, the investment by The Riverside Company gives us resources to pump up the areas where we are already thriving, like product de- velopment.” In the statement, Blue Mi- crophones CEO John Maier noted, “Over the past five years, Blue Microphones has launched a whirlwind of innovative new products and expanded distribu- tion globally. Looking forward, Riverside is the ideal partner for Blue to achieve our ambitious expansion goals, both interna- tionally and into new market segments, and I could not be happier to be joining such an ac- complished team.” Blue Microphones bluemic.com L-R: Dave Pensado, host, and Herb Trawick, co-host and executive producer, Pensado’s Place, spoke with various guests throughout the day, including songwriter, producer and musician Rodney Jerkins, and Colin McDowell, founder of McDSP. [ August 2013 ] [ 12 ] soundBUSINESS NEW YORK, NY—Mike Shi- pley, Grammy-winning stu- dio engineer and producer, known for working with a diverse range of artists such as Queen, Aerosmith, Keith Urban and AC/DC, died on July 26. His age and cause of death have not been made public. Shipley was born in Aus- tralia and moved to Eng- land as a teenager, where he started working as an assis- tant at the Wessex Studios. His first recording session was with the Sex Pistols, and Shipley would later on work with producer Mutt Lange for two decades on numerous hit albums by Def Leppard, The Corrs, Shania Twain and Maroon 5. In 1984, Shipley relocated to Los Angeles while working with The Cars, and remained there until his death. According to The Recording Acad- emy, Shipley was nominated for eight Grammy awards during his career, and won three awards, including Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, and Best Bluegrass Album in 2011 for Alison Krauss & Union Station’s Paper Airplane. In a statement, Def Leppard sing- er Joe Elliott recalled the engineer, noting, “I’m devastated to hear of the passing of Mike Shipley. He was a fantastic engineer and a good guy. Nothing got past him if it wasn’t up to scratch, hence Leppard’s nickname for him, ‘bat ears’. From the High ’N’ Dry album in 1981 to the last thing we did together, 1993’s “Two Steps Behind,” he was a joy to work with. RIP Shippers.” Thomas Dolby, who collaborated with Shi- pley both as an artist on his second album and as a producer on Pref ab Sprout’s debut, Steve Mc- Queen, said on Twitter, “Very shocked and sad to hear that Mike Shipley, mix engineer on The Flat Earth and Steve McQueen was found dead yesterday.” Also, Kip Winger, leader of the eponymous ’80s pop-metal act Wing- er, remembered the engineer on Facebook, recalling, “”He was a dear friend. Mike was a kind, generous, funny, supremely talented and skilled person. He taught me how to really make a record... This is a tragic loss to the world to say the least. I’ll miss you Mike. FRAMINGHAM, MA—Dr. Amar Bose, founder of the audio company Bose Corporation, passed away on Friday, July 12, at the age of 83. In a statement, Bose Corporation President Bob Maresca said, “It is impossible to put into words what Dr. Bose meant to each of us, and to Bose. He was more than our Chair- man. He was our teacher—always encouraging us, always believing that we could do great things, and that anything was possible.” Maresca also extended sympathies to Bose’s fam- ily in his statement. Dr. Amar Bose started the com- pany in the 1950s while he was a grad student the Massachusetts In- stitute of Technology. After purchas- ing a home stereo system, he realized the sound did not meet the expecta- tions he had, and decided to start developing his own speaker systems. Now, the company produces speaker systems for private homes as well as commercial systems The company will remain pri- vately held, according to the Bose website. “Dr. Bose was an incred- ible mentor and inspiration to Bose employees around the world. Today, and every day going forward, our hearts are with him and our work will honor him,” Maresca said. Bose Corporation bose.com Rock Engineer Mike Shipley Passes Amar Bose Dies at 83 Community CEO Dorwart Passes CHESTER, PA—Timothy Dorwart, CEO of Community Profession- al Loudspeakers and long-time leader in the Pro Audio industry, passed away on Monday, July 15, 203, due to illness. “We are deeply saddened by Tim’s death,” said Bruce How- ze, Community Loudspeaker’s President, in a statement. “We mourn the loss of our chief ex- ecutive and a good friend, and we extend our most sincere con- dolences to his wife and family.” Dorwart became CEO of Community in March, 2013, leading the company through its introduction of several new prod- ucts at InfoComm. Dorwart has previously served in positions as director and VP with Bose Cor- poration and DMX Music. Since 2007, he had led the Stanton Group through a successful turn- around as its CEO. Dorwart came to Community from Gibson Gui- tar Corporation where he held the position of General Manager, Pro Audio and guided the integration of Stanton Group assets to form Gibson’s new Pro Audio Division. Community Professional Loudspeakers communitypro.com Legendary recording engineer Mike Shipley D A V I D G O G G I N working with new hires, Tough noted that, “Out of the top 20 competen- cies, 19 were communications/lead- ership-oriented.” While students also needed to balance theory and prac- tice, professionalism and the ability to communicate effectively were deemed the most critical skills. Panelist Kirk Imamura, owner of New York City’s Avatar Studios, agreed, “Because the interperson- al skills are so important, I think it overshadows a lot of the technical.” Douglass Bielmeier, newly added to the staff at MTSU, built on Tough’s work for his own thesis efforts. Bile- meier surveyed new hires and em- ployers to determine if students had the skills needed. Students tended to rate their preparedness higher than did their employees. Scheirman also pointed out that while recording is a primary focus of most higher education audio courses, “Sound reinforcement jobs, which support performance and event-based audio, are growing rapidly.” He sug- gested that live sound training may be necessary for the jobs of the future, asking, “What industry are you pre- paring your students to enter?” In further acknowledgement of the need for live sound education, the Conference’s keynote address was de- livered by Bob McCarthy, senior edu- cation consultant at Meyer Sound. McCarthy detailed his role in man- ufacturer-driven education, which is a significant element in continuing education for live sound in particu- lar. Audio is “a challenging field to educate in,” said McCarthy, “because it’s a moving field, and it’s a challeng- ing thing to educate on stuff that you just learned yesterday. And if you’re not just learning something yesterday, you’re not really paying attention too much to what’s going on in this field, because it’s a moving target.” Proceedings of the AES 50th International Conference—Audio Education are available through the AES e-library at aes.org. AES aes.org Audio Education (continued from page 5) Dr. Amar Bose, founder of Bose Corporation Tim Dorwart, CEO, Community [ August 2013 ] [ 14 ] soundBUSINESS WENNEBOSTEL, GERMANY—Dr. Andreas Sennheiser and Daniel Sennheiser recently held a groundbreaking cer- emony to mark the beginning of con- struction of the Innovation Campus at company headquarters in Wennebostel. The 20-million Euro Innovation Cam- pus project will provide Sennheiser employees with 7,000 square meters of workspace to develop new products. On behalf of all shareholders and accompanied by family members Karin, Daniel, Alannah and Dinah Sennheiser, Dr. Andreas Sennheiser welcomed the guests to the ceremo- ny. Attendees included the Mayor of the borough of Wedemark Tjark Bar- tels, the project manager Höhlich & Schmotz, other political and business representatives and local residents. “As the third generation, it is a great pleasure for us to be able to build on our grandfather’s legacy. Today, we are laying the foundation for the Innovation Campus, which marks a new milestone in our development plan,” said Dr. Andreas Sennheiser. For the laying of the foundation stone, the group filled a ‘time-cap- sule’ with documents and products which symbolize the importance of Sennheiser’s company culture. The contents included a photo- graph of the three generations of the Sennheiser family, a current annual report, new Euro coins and a daily newspaper. Also included were the classic microphone MD 421, the IE 800 ear canal phones and a digital handheld transmitter SKM 9000 from the Digital 9000 system. “We will be welcoming visitors here from all over the world,” An- dreas Sennheiser said. “With our cli- ents—artists such as P!NK—we will be able to try out the microphones that we have developed specifically for them in the theatre.” Further- more, a Sennheiser Flagship Store is also planned, where visitors will be able to learn about and purchase the latest products. Sennheiser sennheiser.com Sennheiser Breaks Ground TNDV Supports Twister Relief NASHVILLE, TN—Nashville-based mobile TV production company TNDV donated its talent, time and equipment to capture au- dio from Toby Keith’s Oklahoma Twister Relief Concert. The all-day festival-held July 6 at the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Me- morial Stadium in Norman, OK- featured non-stop performances by a lineup that included Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, Trisha Year- wood, Willie Nelson, Carrie Un- derwood, Sammy Hagar, Ronnie Dunn and Mel Tillis. At the request of long-time client High Five Entertainment, an Emmy Award-winning video production company in Nashville, TNDV provided its new audio truck Vibration for audio multi- tracking and music mixing. TNDV donated its talent, time, and equip- ment to the cause of helping vic- tims of the May 2013 tornadoes that struck the Moore, OK area. “It was an honor and pleasure to be associated with this mo- mentous benefit concert,” said Nic Dugger, TNDV’s owner. “This was also the first project of significance for Vibration and it performed exceptionally well un- der very demanding circumstanc- es. Since the eight-hour concert came together in a relatively short time, our crew had to make swift creative and technical decisions and respond on-the-fly as the fast-paced production unfolded.” The TNDV crew included Nic Dugger, who served as on-site technical manager; Adam Ellis, TNDV engineer-in-charge of Vi- bration; and Mills Logan, a free- lance audio mixer and recording engineer who has worked closely with Toby Keith on all his records and two movie soundtracks since 2005. The crew devoted four days, including set-up and show days, to support their High Five Enter- tainment clients. Executive pro- ducers Edie Lynn Hoback and Martin Fischer, and production coordinators Ashlee Locke and Catherine Melvin represented High Five on-site. TNDV Television tndv.com An artist’s rendering of Sennheiser’s new Innovation Campus, now under construction. [ August 2013 ] sound [ 16 ] INTERNATIONAL WEE WAA, AUSTRALIA—An Adamson Energia E15 system supported a re- cent premier of Daft Punk’s newest album, Random Access Memories, at the Wee Waa Showground in Wee Waa, Australia. Norwest Productions, headquar- tered in Sydney, was tasked with de- signing and implementing a sound reinforcement system that would sur- round a circular LED dance floor located in the middle of the show- ground show ring. The dance floor— constructed for the event—was ap- proximately 85 feet in diameter. “The idea was that the audio on the dance floor would sound like a nightclub with four hangs of PA outside each quadrant of the dance floor,” explained Scott Harrison, Norwest Productions FOH engineer and system designer. “We knew the Adamson Energia E15 system was perfect for the job.” Each of the four arrays consisted of eight Energia E15s with six T21 subwoofers. The line arrays were flown from inside of towers con- structed of scaffolding located in the four corners of the dance floor. The T21s were ground stacked (2x3) in front of each tower. Norwest Productions deployed a DiGiCo SD 8 at FOH to bring in both the main and backup replay ma- chines on MADI, the backup CD on AES3, with analog backups for each of those devices. “Daft Punk’s final track from the al- bum, ‘Contact,’ contains a sweep from around 80 Hz all the way through to 15k or so,” Harrison said. “To hear that sound, hear it smoothly make its way through that entire range, without be- coming harsh or sharp or overwhelm- ing, really is a beautiful thing.” Adamson Systems Engineering adamsonsystems.com LONDON, UK—Members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (RWS) have regrouped for a series of elec- tronic music events this year, in- cluding the recent BBC Proms, which celebrated the 50th anni- versary of the science fiction TV series, Doctor Who. For the events, the RWS has been making use of a Behringer X32 Digital Mixer and EuroLive Active Loudspeakers. Established in 1958 to provide sound effects and original music for BBC radio, the RWS went on to create music and soundscapes for some of the BBC’s radio and TV programming, including Doctor Who. Although the BBC decom- missioned RWS in 1998, original members Paddy Kingsland, Peter Howell, Roger Limb, Dick Mills and Mark Ayres are working to- gether again on a new album and a series of live events. The project will include collaborations with popular musicians who have all drawn from the RWS’ work over the years. RWS’s current rig features a Behringer X32v Digital Mixing Console, two S16 Digital Snakes, the Powerplay P16 Personal Moni- toring System, Eurolive B812NEO Active Loudspeakers and B1800- PRO Active 18” subs. To celebrate the return of RWS and the anniversary of Doctor Who, the RWS joined a 200-strong cast of musicians for the BBC Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall on July 13. The concert, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, will also be shown on BBC television in November as part of the Doctor Who anniversary celebrations. Behringer behringer.com LONDON, UK—Performances by Bon Jovi and The Rolling Stones kicked off this year’s AEG-Barclaycard British Summer Time festival at London’s Hyde Park, with Martin Audio’s Multi Cellular Loudspeak- er Array (MLA) delivering sound to crowds of over 65,000. Historically, Hyde Park concerts have been dogged by offsite noise pollution leading to neighborhood complaints and the need to reduce sound levels on site, meaning that the audience couldn’t hear the per- formances. The new tenants, AEG/ Loud Sound, chose to use Martin Audio’s MLA system to help solve this issue. The MLA system is capable of maintaining an offsite level beneath the 75 dB threshold, according to Capital Sound technical manag- er Ian Colville, who designed and supplied the audio infrastructure for the festival. And, as a result of the audio design, complaints from the neighbors were few. Another key factor in the sound threshold increase was the reori- entation of the Hyde Park stage by around 30° from north facing to northwest (directing it away from Park Lane). “The result is that fans positioned out at the perimeter have been able to enjoy an identical sound ex- perience to those at the front of the stage,” said Capital Sound general manager, Paul Timmins. “But walk five yards outside the soundfield and it will vanish.” Martin Audio martin-audio.com Adamson Aids Aussie Daft Punk Event RWS Fêtes Doctor Who MLA System Rocks Hyde Park The Wee Waa Showground used an Adamson Energia E15 system for the Australian debut of Daft Punk’s global hit album, Random Access Memories. The RWS was mixed on a Behringer X32 mixer during its recent performance at the BBC Doctor Who Proms in London. It would appear that Bon Jovi is wanted, dead or alive, by the audience at this year’s AEG-Barclaycard British Summer Time festival at London’s Hyde Park [ August 2013 ] [ 18 ] soundBUSINESS DIGGING INTO DESPACIO If you read the Despacio article in our July, 2013 issue of Pro Sound News, you know about the thoroughly over- the-top system that James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and John Klett put together for Despacio, a three-day event held in July during the biennial Manchester International Festival. Now there’s a short video documentary of the system, with plenty of input from Murphy, fellow hip spinners Soulwax (AKA 2ManyDJs) and a tour of the system from Klett himself. T.C. AND THE CURLY SHUFFLE T.C. Furlong has been a well-known name in pro audio for 40 years, but few realize that he was the producer and pedal steel guitarist of the Jump ‘N The Saddle Band, which had a 1980s hit, “The Curly Shuffe,” a goofy tribute to The Three Stooges. We asked how the novelty song came about, and the result is a quintessential tale of one-hit wonderdom. Find these blog posts and more at prosoundnetwork.com/aug2013 BLOGGINGS 1970S STUDIOS EDITION Pro Sound News shares links to interesting audio articles every month via @prosoundnews on Twitter; here’s just a sampling—which by coincidence, all involve 1970s studios changing with the times. Get the links at prosoundnetwork.com/aug2013 4French destination studio (AKA “Honky Chateau”) used by Bowie, Elton, Fleetwood Mac, T Rex is for sale: $1.7m. 4London’s famed (and closed) Olympic Studios to be converted into a cinema...and a recording studio. 4Kate Bush’s former studio to be converted back into a residential house. 4Caribou Ranch, the 1,600-acre, Boulder, CO destination studio is up for sale. Price tag: $45 million [prosoundnetwork.com] On the Pro Sound News blog, readers recently spoke out about the potential demise of Detroit’s United Sound Systems (see page 5). Some notable comments: “Every single time I am in Detroit, I drive by United Sound in hopes that it is still stand- ing. It has been vacant, like so many build- ings in Detroit, for far too long.”—Ron Skinner “Didn’t the main room originally have a brick fireplace in the corner and one of the echo chambers was the bathroom? Cut my first tracks there in ‘61 with the Five Teenbeats.”—Fred Nesbitt “Detroit was and is an integral part of the USA music explosion which cata- pulted US as a dominant music region of the world. What an influence on the entire world. Tear it down? Ha! I will chain myself to the front of the building! lol”—Steve Wills “If this was a museum of static art (statues, pictures), there would be no debate on preserving it. Motown’s music was art.”—Bill Price Find more reader comments at prosoundnetwork.com/aug2013 video vault We’re Not In Hollywood Anymore Music videos set in recording studios never get it right, but rocker John Vanderslice set out to capture the reality of recording in the video for “How The West Was Won” from his new album, Dagger Beach. If anyone knows about real life in the studio, it’s Vanderslice, who founded San Francisco’s resolutely analog Tiny Telephone Studio in 1997. Catch the cool clip and commentary at prosoundnetwork.com/aug2013 content comments sweet tweet links [ 20 ] soundBUSINESS them as employees, placing the in- terns under minimum wage laws. “In my opinion, the company screwed up,” said Dan Pfeifer, In- tern Coordinator and professor in the Department of Recording Industry at the Middle Tennessee State Uni- versity in Murfreesboro, TN. “The kids were doing remedial work that should have been done by a regular employee. Whether the interns were getting trained or not, the court said they worked to the immediate advan- tage of the employer, which requires compensation.” Perhaps so, but Paul Christensen, executive director of the Society of Professional Audio Recording Ser- vices (SPARS), said the audio indus- try has been affected in the wake of the ruling: “The concern we have is that there’s no doubt that it’s going to become harder for kids to get intern- ships, paid or not. This now shows us that we need a workable template that could be exchanged and tweaked to be used by people as an acceptable example of doing (an internship).” Some companies have stopped offer- ing internship programs out of fear of legal repercussions, he added. Since the Black Swan ruling, Pfeifer said, he has received a num- ber of calls from internship provid- ers looking for advice. “Providers want to make sure they are not in violation of the law and that they are doing things appropriately. Most of them want to do the right thing. I tell providers to make sure the student is enrolled in an actual in- ternship class and to make sure he or she has more to the course than just showing up and getting a good grade,” Pfeifer said. With fewer internships available, however, it may become more dif- ficult for students to get involved in the pro audio field. “In this kind of industry, it is hard to pick up by read- ing books. It’s difficult to develop your skills unless you work side-by- side with someone with those skills,” Christensen said. Traditionally, internships are meant to provide students with the necessary experience and training to get into an industry, as well as con- tacts for when they start their job search—but if more studios and com- panies cut their intern programs, it will make finding a job that much harder. “The kids are the ones that suffer,” Christensen said. “This is a time when we have more players than ever and education pressures are greater than ever.” At MTSU, Pfeifer said he moni- tors his students’ progress through- out their internships, having them keep a log and write a reflection paper once the internship is com- plete. “The internship has to have a pathway to learning,” Pfeifer said. “If there is not a way to learn, then it’s not something I can award col- lege credit.” Pfeifer also evaluates studios, sound companies, manufacturers and other audio-based companies to make sure the programs will pro- vide students with the education and experience they need. “As an intern coordinator, I think intern- ships are a good thing, but some students aren’t ready or don’t want to do it yet, and they shouldn’t be forced to,” he said. “I think anybody not doing an internship is crazy. The business is not just what you know in your head; it’s a relationship busi- ness. You have to go out there and build relationships.” However, if the legal ramifica- tions of offering unpaid internships keep companies from continuing their programs, students will have to find alternate ways to break into the industry. SPARS, for instance, offers mentoring programs, where au- dio industry veterans offer advice to younger generations looking to start a career in audio. “Mentoring won’t take the place of internships, but it’s a good opportunity for students to ask questions,” said Kirk Imamura, SPARS Board President. From the other side, Jim Jordan of Starstruck Studios in Nashville, TN, said the facility only accepts interns that are working for college credit. “We have a steady stream of in- terns applying for positions, so there’s no lack of people who want to work for free,” Jordan said. “We stick with the accredited thing, because I think it works for everybody.” “Any studio that isn’t paying them and not giving them an opportuni- ty to sit in on a recording session, I think that’s wrong. We try to really give exposure,” he added. As long as providers follow the law, Pfeifer said they have nothing to wor- ry about. “This isn’t anything new,” Pfeifer said. “The law has been the law, and if people are doing their pro- grams right, if the internship is done well and has a teaching mindset, then I don’t think there’s a problem with the law in audio internships.” Internships (continued from page 1) [ August 2013 ] Building On Bedrock BY STEVE HARVEY LOS ANGELES, CA—Music production workflows have changed significantly over recent years, an evolution that has been recognized in the floor plans for Bedrock.LA’s forthcoming expansion into the MacArthur Park neighbor- hood just northwest of downtown Los Angeles. But while the initial build-out phase, due to start in October, en- compasses numerous music produc- tion spaces, the overall vision is for the 50,000-square-foot, multi-story complex to eventually house a collab- orative creative community involved in a variety of media and technologies. “Ten years ago, this wouldn’t have worked,” says KamranV, co- founder of the Bedrock.LA rehearsal and recording facility in Echo Park. “We noticed at Bedrock that peo- ple were asking for a writing room, a mix room, a production room,” he continues, but with the majority of the rooms constructed for rehears- al—2,500 musicians pass through the building each week, he says, and have included the likes of Atoms for Peace, At the Drive-In and Divine Fits—the environment wasn’t exactly condu- cive to production. Those requests came from people ready to take a step up from their home-based production rooms as well as those at the opposite end of the spectrum who are working in big commercial facilities but simply don’t need that much space all of the time, he says. “Now, they’re looking for this [sort of facility] and it doesn’t exist, and it’s too expensive to create yourself.” The opportunity to expand first presented itself when the owners of Bedrock.LA’s building, the Standard Oil Investment Group, offered the company its basement, a raw space of approximately 10,000 sq. ft. Rather than simply construct more rehearsal rooms, however, KamranV and his CyKik consulting company began to formulate a more ambitious plan that would accommodate present-day production workflows. The layout for the basement, which will include acoustical design input from Vincent van Haaff of Wa- terland Design, includes 10 or so pro- duction rooms plus a tracking space of approximately 1,200 square feet and three iso rooms. “[Tenants] can go and track, then pull it back into their room, or, with all the audio- over-Ethernet technologies available, stay in their room and record in the iso rooms, or in multiple rooms. The level of flexibility that has changed the workflow makes something like this work,” he says. The social element is also impor- tant: “They want to have someone sound [ 22 ] RECORDING BY STEVE HARVEY HOLLYWOOD HILLS, CA—Marsh Mas- tering recently relocated, moving out of Hollywood and into a house in the Hollywood Hills. The move not only shortens the commute for newly married owner Stephen Marsh—down a flight of stairs to a lower floor—but also offers a more relaxed environment with, refresh- ingly, plenty of daylight. “This is my fourth studio with more or less this equipment since I left Threshold,” says Marsh, who struck out on his own in 2007 af- ter five years at Threshold Sound + Vision, and six-plus years at So- ny Music Studios before that. He works alongside mastering engineers Stephanie Villa and Fernando Lee at Marsh Mastering. Happily, the layout of the new facility, which is located on the ground floor of a house built by Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan, is similar enough to Marsh’s previous studios that no modification to his mastering set-up was required, he reports. “Nothing has changed; we bagged and tagged everything. Every cable is now where it was previously, with the exception of three digital cables that we needed to lengthen.” The noise floor is actually 4 dB better than his previous facility, he adds. “We ran a dedicated feed with isolated grounds before we moved in and we augmented our existing balancing transformer with voltage regulation.” Signal integrity and noise per- formance are important, as Marsh Mastering has a long history of working with audiophile clients such as Steve Hoffman and label Audio Fidelity. Indeed, apart from the ad- dition of DSD capability last year, he says, his equipment complement has remained unchanged for some time. “On the audiophile side, we shift- ed from doing 24-Karat gold CDs, as gold has gotten insanely expen- sive, into doing dual-layer—CD and DSD—hybrid SACDs. We have a new DSD converter and a new DSD recorder to facilitate that.” Marsh recently remastered a number of reissues for Audio Fidel- ity, including albums from Yes, Bob Dylan and Nat King Cole. Next up Pictured in the lobby at the 50,000 sq. ft. building to house the new BedRock music studio center are (l-r) Standard Oil’s CEO Marc Bohbot, studio designer Vincent van Haaff, Mirrorball Entertainment COO Tony Maserati and Creative Director Stefan Skarbek, Bedrock.LA co-founder KamranV and Standard Oil COO Michael Bitton. D A V I D G O G G I N Marsh Mastering: Moving On Up Stephen Marsh has relocated Marsh Mastering to the ground floor of a Hollywood Hills house built by Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan. (continued on page 32) (continued on page 30) [ August 2013 ] BY JACQUES SONYIEUX Located in Destin Harbor, Nep- tone Studios is set amidst what some consider to be one of the nic- est beaches along Florida’s Emer- ald Coast. A true destination studio that offers on-site lodging within both the on-site facility and a near- by beach house, Neptone attracts clients from all over the U.S.—but is particularly popular among New Orleans and Nashville-based clients, according to owner and studio man- ager Donnie Sundal. “Our studio is a fantastic place where clients can get away and not only get a lot of work done, but also enjoy all the great things you can do in a coastal area,” says Sundal. “You can go fishing, go to the beach, go boating or even take a waterside nap after a long session.” Needless to say, this chill vibe can be a welcome departure from working in the stu- dio hours on end, which can be all- consuming and stressful for many artists. “The comment we get all the time is that folks feel comfortable in here, and this is the main thing we are shooting for,” Sundal says. “People do tend to be stressed out, even if they have experience record- ing in the studio. And if they don’t have experience, a recording studio can be an absolutely terrifying place to be for a lot of people.” The facility, originally founded in 2005 and currently undergoing a restoration of sorts, consists of two discrete 2,500-square-foot studio environments: the main studio (A), which features a newly acquired vin- tage Quad Eight Criodisca 24 x 24 8 custom console; and a second room (B), which is centered on an SSL 6000 48-channel mixing desk. Both rooms are served by 32 channels of Apogee converters and are running Avid Pro Tools software. Prior to acquiring the Quad Eight, studio A relied on a control surface for tracking and mixing, in combination with a vast collection of vintage and modern preamps. Sun- dal says that the studio’s primary focus over the last few months has been on refurbishing and restoring the console to its original condition, and of course installing and wiring it. According to Sundal, while the studio has never had trouble attract- ing clients, the Quad Eight puts the facility on a new plateau: “We were still mixing in the box, and I wanted to get out of it,” he says. “I looked at some summing and sidecar op- tions, but at the end of the day, after speaking to other people we trusted like Pepper Denny of Pepper’s Pro Shop, we ended up looking for a console.” Denny was able to locate the Quad Eight in Venezuela and arranged to transport it to the U.S., where it is in the process of being meticulously recapped and restored. “A console is the crowning piece to any studio, and this was certainly the most important link we needed,” according to Sundal. “You can get away without having a console, but for us, it was important. The 24 mic pres, along with the ones we already have, mean that we don’t have to pick and choose between ‘good’ pres and ‘medium’ ones; we have an am- ple amount of them to handle all of our tracking needs.” In addition to a live room with 14’ ceilings that is surrounded on all sides by iso rooms, Studio A fea- tures a spacious control room as well as pinewood floors throughout. There are two separate closets in addition to the iso booths, which are frequently used for amplifiers for electric guitar amplifiers; a Leslie cabinet; or for re-amping purposes. “We made the whole studio fairly dry, with just a bit of ambience,” explains Sundal. While Neptone re- cords many different genres of mu- sic, he says that the acoustics and room arrangement works particu- larly well for bluegrass and acoustic instruments. Studio B, which has been given some acoustic upgrades of late, is located in the same building and was acquired by Neptone just nine months ago. It features a similarly large control room, but as opposed to Studio A, the iso rooms are in front of the room rather than in the rear. Sundal says the acoustics in Studio B are a little ‘wetter,’ making the overall facility very flexible depending on the genre of music being recorded. “We did quite a bit of sound treatment to Studio B recently, and did it all pretty much ourselves,” says Sundal. We added soffits and bass trapping, and also made a lot of the panels that hang on the wall and on the ceiling.” The result is a more acoustically balanced room, he adds. With the Studio B now up and running, Sundal decided to put all his outboard units into movable racks so they can move seamlessly between both studios; this not only brings greater cohesion to sessions working between Neptone’s dif- ferent rooms, but also helps fortify and complement situations where a special piece of rack gear might be called on. “Say an artist comes into Studio B, which has the SSL. I can complement this by bringing in my API and Brent Averill 1073 preamps in a rack,” Sundal explains. Neptone’s doors are open to just about any genre or type of project, and clients appreciate the studio’s flexibility, says Sundal: “It could be recording a band that is self-con- tained, where we just rent the room out and they bring their own engi- neer, right down to some projects that we actually produce and pro- vide session musicians on.” Of all the improvements Neptone has made over the years, Sundal be- lieves bringing in the new Quad Eight console was among his best decisions. “People would always ask me ‘What kind of mixing board do you have?’” he recalls. “I would always have to do a little side step that question; it was the obvious piece that we were miss- ing. Our new console is one-of-a-kind and has its own little mystique to it.” Jacques Sonyieux is a devout explorer of recording studios and the artists that in- habit them. Please send any tips or feed- back to Jacques at: jacquessonyieux@ gmail.com. Neptone Studios Neptonerecording.com STUDIO: NEPTONE STUDIOS OWNER: DONNIE SUNDAL LOCATION: DESTIN HARBOR, FL There’s more 4 For a video tour of Neptone Recording, visit prosoundnetwork.com/apr2013 showcase [ 24 ] STUDIO Sounding Off on the Emerald Coast Founded in 2005, Neptone Studios is undergoing a refurbishment of sorts with the addition of a vintage Quad Eight Criodisca console. [ August 2013 ] On his Continuing Adventures In Software, Rich Tozzoli takes a step back to consider the gear that bookends his bit manipulation. W e all love new gear. Be it software or hardware, we still get a rush when researching a new device that will hopefully help us improve our craft. But sometimes, it’s worthwhile to step back and think about the things that are most used, why they are used and how long you’ve had them. In doing so recently, I learned a few interest- ing lessons I’d like to share about my hardware and hopefully inspire you to examine your own setup. To begin with, I’ve used the same monitors for almost 10 years now. My little NHT PRO M-00s and the accompanying sub have gotten me through countless stereo and 5.1 mixes. I remember buying them off the floor at a Surround Conference in Beverly Hills after Alan Parsons listened to them and liked what he heard (thanks Alan!). I thought, “Good enough for him? Good enough for me.” And wow, have they lasted. Since they don’t make them anymore, I have a full backup set in the closet. They are not the most revealing speakers, but to me, they are a “common man” setup that lets me mix for the masses. In ad- dition though, I also turn to my Adams A5Xs and sub, which are more “in your face” and detailed. I can also take those out with my Universal Audio Apollo mobile rig on location. The monitors are connected to a Grace m906 controller, which is an- other piece of gear I’ve had for many years. It’s clean, crystal clear, easy to use, and can run multiple stereo and 5.1 setups. It was a pricey investment, but well worth it (a theme I’m hitting on). It’s also my headphone amp, so it serves multiple purposes. The 906 is connected digitally (optically and XLR) to my Avid HD I/O (I run Pro Tools HDX), as well as optically to my Mac. That way, I can quickly switch be- tween sources and hear back mixes and files from iTunes and online, etc. I like different headphones for various pur- poses, and use Sony MDR7520s, Beyer DT770s and Ultrasone Pro 750s. Since my room is more of a per- sonal production/composing/mixing room, I don’t need too much out- board gear. In my rack above my HD I/O sits a Korg rack tuner, plugged into a Creation Audio Labs MW1—a high-quality guitar DI/amp splitter. Above that sits a single channel of Grace m103 channel strip, which I turn to for acoustic guitar and vocal recording. In the rack off to the side, I also have some other good preamps, including a Focusrite ISA 428 (which I can connect optically), Universal Au- dio LA-610, Earthworks 1024 and a Groove Tubes Vipre. In addition, I have a Manley Massive Passive EQ, which hooks in analog to my HD I/O. All of these I’ve had for years, and they all get used as needed. My only recent addition to this collection is a Millennia HV-37 preamp, which also goes out with my Apollo mobile setup. I don’t own that many mics, as most of my recording of larger proj- ects is done at bigger studios—but the mics I own, I use the #$)* out of. My Earthworks QTC1s and DPA 2011s are in high use on acoustic in- struments, as well as my Royer 121, Beyer M160 and Sennheiser 421 for guitar amps. For vocals, I turn to my Miktek cv4 and C7. I don’t even own an SM57 (shame on me). But hey, I use what I have. Clean and lean in that department. Being that a large portion of my TV composing is guitar-related, I have a variety of amps, including a Mesa Boo- gie MKIV head which I bought new in 1992. I also have vintage Gibson and Magnatone amps, all of which I’ve had for many years. I like them because they are different, nasty and have clas- sic old tone. The only new amp is a Fender Blues Deluxe, heavily modified [ August 2013 ] [ 26 ] soundRECORDING I n my satirical “Craig’s List” col- umn in Electronic Musician mag- azine, I wrote about a fictional article, supposedly from the mid- ’80s, that described how wonderful computers would be for music. The comment that received the most reader attention was “There are tons of computer options for music. Atari, Mac, Amiga, PC, Yamaha’s CX5M, and if you’re on a budget, even the Commodore-64 or Timex Sinclair 1000 will do the job. So don’t worry! You’re never going to be forced to choose solely between a boring PC or an overpriced Mac.” Well here we are, with PCs that aren’t as boring and Macs that aren’t as expensive, but the bottom line is that for desktop computers, we’re down to two platforms. Then again, does the platform still matter? Both platforms rely on Intel’s family of processors (although some Windows computers use AMD). While different models for different platforms favor different ports, most other components are commodities and common periph- erals have cross-platform drivers (Apogee remains an exception). The expansion card slots are also the same, and Thunderbolt—ini- tially available only for the Mac—is becoming more common on Win- dows, even though ubiquity is still not assured. Furthermore, most DAWs are cross-platform; besides, once you open your program of choice, the operating system drops into the background anyway. By all outward appearances, it seems like the Mac vs. PC debate has been reduced to “it doesn’t real- ly matter.” Sure, some people might prefer one OS over the other, but Apple and Microsoft have borrowed so much from each other there are more similarities than differences; and yes, the cost issue is still rel- evant—for a given price, you’ll al- most always get more power with a Windows machine than a Mac, especially if you construct your own. However, we haven’t yet reached an egalitarian utopia for pro audio. Differences remain, and there are definite reasons for choosing one platform over another. If you really need to use both Mac and Windows in your work and don’t want two computers, then the Mac is your only choice because of its ability to run Boot Camp. Although you can’t run Mac and Windows programs simultaneously (which Parallels and VMware can do for the Mac), Boot Camp essentially turns your Mac hardware into Windows hardware so performance is superior compared to creating “virtual machines.” Run- ning OS X as a virtual machine inside Windows is more difficult, complicated and degrades perfor- mance too much for pro audio. If you need to aggregate multi- ple audio interfaces, again, the Mac comes out ahead. Apple’s Core Audio has an elegant implementa- tion, and while you can aggregate interfaces under Window’s WDM protocol, it’s more difficult under ASIO—which is the usual low-la- tency driver choice for Windows. Another consideration is that some programs are designed for a particular platform. If you use Logic, then the Mac is a given be- cause there hasn’t been a Windows version since Logic 4. Windows- only programs, like Cakewalk So- nar, Magix Samplitude/Sequoia and Acoustic Mixcraft aren’t re- ally Windows-only if you run Boot Camp; still, most users prefer to run Windows programs on Win- dows machines. And while Mac fans often over- rate the ease of use and reliabil- ity, and Windows machines have generally left their glitchy perfor- mance in the past, Macs still have a more tightly controlled hardware/ software relationship. Updating is usually simpler, as is installation of peripherals and drivers. To get the most from Windows machines, softwaretech Do Platforms Matter Any More? CRAIG ANDERTON Getting In and Out By all outward appearances, it seems like the Mac vs. PC debate has been reduced to “it doesn’t really matter.” [ ] (continued on page 30) Rich Tozzoli’s clean and lean workspace (continued on page 30) [ August 2013 ] API Sails Into University winter park, fl—Full Sail University has installed a 64-channel API (apiaudio. com) Vision console in Studio B where it has become the centerpiece of the universi- ty’s Recording Arts Academic Program. Volant Launches with SSL new york, ny—Volant Studios has installed an SSL (solidstatelogic.com) AWS 948 hybrid console/con- troller at its newly rebuilt, Horacio Malvicino-designed space in Manhattan. The A Room will eventually be joined by three other rooms on another floor to provide music recording and produc- tion, plus post production for video and film services. Wood Liaises with D-Box edmeston, ny—Mastering engineer and musician Nate Wood has outfitted Kerseboom Mastering, his studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with the Dangerous Music (danger- ousmusic.com) D-Box sum- ming mixer and talkback and monitor controller and Dangerous Liaison program- mable analog router. Mazur Plays with Radial vancouver, canada—Steve Mazur, guitar player with Our Lady Peace, is using Radial Engineering’s (radialeng. com) EXTC 500 guitar effects interface module during the writing of the band’s new album. Mazur also uses a Radial Tonebone Switchbone AB-Y guitar amp switcher and Tonebone Twin-City buffered AB-Y with Drag load correction. notes tracks ARTIST: COSMIC SUCKERPUNCH ALBUM: GOOD MORNING LABEL: MY INNER ANIMAL PERSONNEL: Produced by: Steve Welkom Engineered by: Stu Heydon Studios: Carmel Recording (Carmel, CA) Mastered by: John Hernandez (Oakland, CA) EQUIPMENT NOTES: Avid Pro Tools HD; True Systems, Universal Audio Mic Preamps; Peluso, Brauner, Sennheiser and Neumann Microphones ARTIST: CAPSULA ALBUM: SOLAR SECRETS LABEL: KRIAN MUSIC GROUP PERSONNEL: Produced by: Tony Visconti Engineered by: Tim Price Assistant Engineer: Cailon Williams Studios: Saint Claire Studio (Lexington, KY) Mastered by: Dave McNair EQUIPMENT NOTES: SSL 9000J console; Avid Pro Tools HD3; Digidesign 192 recording interface; API, Neve, Calrec, Chandler pre amps; Chandler, dbx, Empirical Labs, Universal Audio, Neve compressors; Maxelle Pilchner-Q8 Schoustal, Genelec 8050, Yamaha NS-10 studio monitors ARTIST: THESE ANIMALS ALBUM: PAGES LABEL: SELF-RELEASED PERSONNEL: Produced by: These Animals Engineered by: These Animals Studios: The Rick Room (Greenwich, CT), Finger Music (Brooklyn, NY) Mastered by: Peter Denenberg (ACME Studios, Mamaroneck, NY) EQUIPMENT NOTES: Black Lion Digi 003 Mod console; Avid Pro Tools 10; TubeTech CL-1B compressor; Miktek CV4 tube condenser; Daking mic pre; Chandler Limited TG MKII EQ; Swarmatron, Mini Moog, Prophet 5, Wurlitzer, Rhodes, Roland VP-330 Vocoder Plus synthesizers; KRK RP-8, Dunlavy Iva studio monitors ARTIST: FOY VANCE ALBUM: JOY OF NOTHING LABEL: GLASSNOTE RECORDS PERSONNEL: Produced by: Michael Keeney Engineered by: Thomas McLaughlin, Michael Keeney, and Ian McNulty Assistant Engineer: Orri McBrearty Mix Assitant: Daniel Moyler Studios: Attica Audio Co. (Donegal, Ireland) Mastered by: Vlado Meller (Masterdisk Studios, New York) EQUIPMENT NOTES: Harrison 32B console; Avid Pro Tools HD; ATC SCM25a, Yamaha NS-10, Dynaudio BM15A studio monitors ARTIST: COACHWHIPS ALBUM: HANDS ON THE CONTROLS LABEL: CASTLEFACE PERSONNEL: Produced by: George Patterson, Chris Dixon Engineered by: George Patterson, Chris Dixon Assistant Engineer: Chris Dixon Studios: George’s House (San Francisco, CA) Mastered by: Patrick Haight EQUIPMENT NOTES: Tascam 388 console; Quantegy 911 tape reels; Avid Pro Tools ARTIST: MEGAN BONNELL ALBUM: HUNT AND CHASE LABEL: NEVADO RECORDS PERSONNEL: Produced by: Chris Stringer, Joshua Van Tassel Engineered by: Chris Stringer, Joshua Van Tassel Studios: Verge Music Lab Underground (Toronto, Canada), The Cereal Loft (Toronto, Canada) Mastered by: Jeff Elliot (Fedge Mastering) EQUIPMENT NOTES: SSL X-Desk console; Apple Logic 9; Neve 1073LB, API 512 mic pres; API 550, 560 EQs; Apogee Ensemble; Genelec 8030, 8040 studio monitors ARTIST: IAMEVE ALBUM: THE EVERYTHING NOTHING LABEL: INDEPENDENT PERSONNEL: Produced by: James Marr, Wendy Page Engineered by: James Marr, Wendy Page Studios: Rrampage Productions Studios (Los Angeles, CA) Mastered by: Joel Soyffer (Coney Island Studios) EQUIPMENT NOTES: Apple Logic; TC Electronic PowerCore Firewire; PreSonus Central Station; Yamaha NS-10, KRK Rokit 8 studio monitors ARTIST: JAKE BELLOWS ALBUM: NEW OCEAN LABEL: SADDLE CREEK PERSONNEL: Produced by: Ben Brodin Engineered by: Ben Brodin Assistant Engineer: Bobby Rubalcava Studios: ARC Studios (Omaha, NE) Mastered by: Carl Saff (Saff Mastering) EQUIPMENT NOTES: 1970s API 24x16 console; Avid Pro Tools; ¼” ATR; Soundelux 251, Electro- Voice 635, Royer 1R-21 microphones; Tannoy System 215DMT, Dynaudio BM15 studio monitors ARTIST: JEFF GOLUB WITH BRIAN AUGER ALBUM: TRAIN KEEPS A ROLLING LABEL: EONE MUSIC PERSONNEL: Produced by: Jeff Golub, Brad Harner Engineered by: Steve Sykes, Rupert House, Mark Casselman Assistant Engineer: Spencer Guerra, Eric Lebowitz Studios: LAFX (North Hollywood, CA), The Maid’s Room (New York, NY), EQUIPMENT NOTES: Vintage API console; Avid Pro Tools 8; TAD, Dynaudio BM15A, Yamaha NS-10M, Genelec 1031A and Tannoy SGM studio monitors ARTIST: BELLE ADAIR ALBUM: THE BRAVE AND THE BLUE LABEL: SINGLE LOCK RECORDS PERSONNEL: Produced by: Ben Tanner Engineered by: Ben Tanner Studios: The Nutthouse (Sheffield, AL) Mastered by: JJ Golden EQUIPMENT NOTES: Avid Pro Tools HD3; MCI JH24 2” tape; Apogee AD16x converters; Digidesign 192 interface; Benchmark DAC1; Genelec 1031A, 1094A, Tannoy Reveal, KRK K-Rok studio monitors [ 28 ] LOOK AT THE RECORDING SCENE computer savvy is pretty much es- sential. The flip side is that Windows computers are easier to hot rod and tweak, so with a little bit of know- how, you can get spectacular perfor- mance at a relatively low cost. Finally, there’s project compati- bility—if you live in the Los Angeles film world, you need a Mac in order to swap files seamlessly from one platform to the other. End of story. So ultimately, the platform still matters, but there’s a silver lining. I know several people who needed to switch platforms for work- or proj- ect-related reasons, and the process has never been easier. You can use almost all the same peripherals, and even customize the OS for a familiar environment. My Mac Dock is set up like the Windows Taskbar, and on Windows, the “Recycle Bin” sits in the lower right—as it has since the days of my first Mac Plus. As the French say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Craig Anderton is Editor in Chief Emeritus of Harmony Central; check out some of his music at www.youtube.com/thecraigan- derton. by Vincent Miraglia at Analog Design Group. While I have many guitars (and the likes), I still often turn to the same tobacco burst Les Paul Stan- dard I’ve had since I was 16, and I still use the same ’69 Fender Preci- sion bass I picked up in the mid-90s. What I learned from my setup ex- amination is that I prefer high-quali- ty pieces of gear that do a particular task very well. Most of it I’ve owned for many years. Sure, most of it’s also pricey, but hey, this is what I do every day. I’ve never regretted buy- ing any of it, and without question, it’s money well-spent. This is my profession and the sounds I get, I’m proud of. If it doesn’t sound good, it’s not my gear’s fault, so I’ll look in- ward and work harder on it. The big picture is that I don’t have a lot of hardware, but the pieces I do have, I know what they sound like, and how they can help me get results. But it’s not like I don’t buy new gear; I do— if it offers me something special. So step back and take a look at your setup. Do you need it all? Does it deliver? I mean, really deliver? If not, then consider making a change. Invest in yourself. [ August 2013 ] [ 30 ] soundRECORDING down the hall that can put togeth- er a beat, do some vocal editing or shred on guitar—to be around other creative people.” Tenants will not be expected to spend money on a build-out that would then have to be left behind when they move out, he stresses. “We’re putting up the capital invest- ment and building the walls. What they put in are things they can take out again.” The basement is currently sched- uled for a January 2014 opening. Meanwhile, construction will begin on a west coast facility for record producer, engineer and mixer Tony Maserati’s Mirrorball Entertainment production group. Located on the first floor, the complex will comprise seven modular production rooms de- vised by Maserati in collaboration with studio designer and acoustician Martin Pilchner, in addition to the expected client amenities. A loading dock with roller shut- ter door offers Mirrorball’s high-end clients secure access to the studios, notes KamranV. The dock also pro- vides access to a freight elevator that opens next to the tracking and iso spaces one floor below. “All the ele- ments are here,” he says. KamranV is eyeing the first floor’s street access as an ideal location for a coffee and juice outlet: “There’s some interesting stuff around here, but there’s not a good coffee shop.” The building already houses the offices of fashion company Bisou Bisou as well as filmmakers, soft- ware developers and equipment manufacturers. But there is plenty of second-floor office space avail- able, he reports. “Downstairs, you pay X dollars per square foot, but you don’t need that for your admin- istrative assistant or the guy that’s pitching your songs. The second floor has a lower cost-per-square- foot; they’re offices, and relatively inexpensive. Once we’re full, we’ll start to look at our options for the third and fourth floors.” Beyond those initial plans, well, the sky’s the limit. Artist showcases, webcasts, manufacturer and local re- tailer demos and other events could all be easily accommodated, he says. Location may be everything in real estate, but so is timing. The neighborhood appears to be turn- ing around, and a collaborative arts complex would only help that pro- cess, KamranV believes. “What makes a neighborhood turn into Echo Park or Brooklyn is its arts culture, founded in music. And what’s great about doing it with the arts is that it doesn’t push people out; it embraces the neighborhood. So we’re putting our stake in the ground.” Bedrock.LA bedrock.la CyKik cykik.com Mirrorball Entertainment mirrorballentertainment.com NEW YORK, NY—The New Black 7 may play country music, but there’s more than a touch of rock to be found in its recent sophomore al- bum, Hangovers & Heartbreak. While that came from the songwriting and guitar playing of vocalist/guitarist Tory Stoffregen and lead guitarist Jason K. Herman, it was bolstered during the recording process by gear from Chandler Limited, particularly the Little Devil Pre Amp. Stoffregen engineered the CD with co-engineering by Chandler Limited’s Wade Goeke, and addi- tional assistance from Grammy- winning producer Ryan Hewitt. The CD was mixed by Cedrick Courtois of Praxxis Media at The Castle studio in Oceanside, CA. “We used a lot of Chandler Lim- ited gear on this project,” said Stof- fregen. “The color and character that Little Devil Pre Amp adds to every different instrument is noth- ing short of amazing. The Feedback/ Bias control—used with the Output control—is a really great tool to add or subtract color to any instrument and it’s especially useful when re- cording vocals. It really adds life to the tracks, making this processor an extremely versatile studio tool.” Chandler Limited’s GAV19T guitar amplifier also assumed a prominent role in the production. The New Black 7 thenewblack7.com Chandler Limited chandlerlimited.com Bedrock (continued from page 22) Jason K. Herman (left) and Tory Stoffregen of The New Black 7 used a variety of Chandler Limited gear on the band’s new album. Anderton (continued from page 26) Tozzoli (continued from page 26) The New Black 7 Worship Little Devil [ August 2013 ] [ 32 ] soundRECORDING is a Poco classic, Pickin’ Up the Pieces. He comments, “Half the time, the job is just getting it through a modern A-to-D converter, not using converters from 20 years ago.” But it’s not unusual for masters from the 1960s and ’70s to be edited together from multiple mix sessions and tape types, he also reports. “You put up the tones and the alignment will be good for half the song, then you have to stop, adjust the azimuth and cap- ture the next chunk. We go to great lengths to make sure that it’s perfect.” The audiophile market particular- ly suits him, says Marsh. “I like work- ing on album material; it’s prefer- able to singles. That’s why I like doing soundtracks, scores, reissues—they’re inherently albums. I prefer that pace. I like to sink my teeth into a project. I want to understand it; I like to peek around every corner.” The main mastering console, built in collaboration with Steve Firlotte of Inward Connections, is outfitted with EAR, GML, Maselec and Weiss EQ, with Apogee, Burl and Prism convert- ers. “For the DSD projects, we split the feeds. We capture on the same pass out of the console to both DSD and PCM,” he says. When Gahan built the house, what is now the mastering studio was intended as a performance space, and was used by the interven- ing owner as a home theater. At the recommendation of acoustical con- sultant Bryan Pape of GIK Acous- tics, Marsh installed a wall to tune the room’s depth, creating space for a client lounge behind it. Visitors also have access to an outdoor area and a gym. A rectangular room with an eight- foot ceiling might not seem like the ideal environment for a master- ing room, but with some acousti- cal treatment, it’s working very well, says Marsh. Taking a cue from his friend, engineer, producer and mixer John Paterno, he chose a modular approach, installing diffusor pan- els at the first and second reflection points and on the back wall, along with numerous bass traps and tuned resonators. “I expected to have huge problems because of the lower ceilings, but the bottom end is really consistent. It was really refreshing to learn that once you control the big things effectively and efficiently, the little stuff doesn’t make any difference.” Having spent so much mon- ey acoustically treating other peo- ple’s buildings in the past, he’s very pleased with his new freestanding so- lution. “Not only do I get to take it with me from an ease-of-use stand- point, but also a sonic standpoint. At least I’ll have an idea of what my next room will sound like or, if it changes, I’ll have a reference point, which I’ve never had before.” Marsh Mastering marshmastering.com Marsh (continued from page 22) “I like working on album material; it’s preferable to singles. That’s why I like doing soundtracks, scores, reissues—they’re inherently albums. I prefer that pace. I like to sink my teeth into a project. I want to understand it; I like to peek around every corner.” Stephen Marsh [ ] BY STEVE HARVEY CALABASAS, CA—DTS, Inc. celebrated its 20th anniversary on July 1, the date declared a holiday—DTS 7.1 Day— by the state of California. Although the audio codec that was destined to become a standard in movie theaters, on optical discs and now in mobile devices, had been in development for several years prior, the company traces its public debut to June 11, 1993—the release date of Stephen Spielberg’s blockbuster, Jurassic Park. According to reports, Spielberg be- lieved that theatrical sound was ripe for improvement, putting his money into the new technology alongside funding from Universal, the film’s dis- tributor, and releasing Jurassic Park in 876 theaters outfitted with DTS play- back. From that humble beginning, DTS can now boast of licensing over two billion consumer electronics prod- ucts, taking into account both its co- dec and post processing solutions, and including contributions from SRS, the company DTS acquired in 2012, ac- cording to Jon Kirchner, chairman and CEO at DTS. “We exist because we believe sound matters; we exist in part be- cause we believe sound drives the pri- mary emotion in most entertainment experiences,” says Kirchner. “And the artistic community both appreciates and understands that.” Spielberg, he says, “wanted to bring more emotion and realism to film-going audiences with the re- lease of that movie, which catapulted us into a significant position in the cinema industry. We later launched our consumer audio technology, Co- herent Acoustics, believing that the home entertainment world at the time, which was laserdisc and soon to become DVD, was lacking in terms of forward-looking technology that would deliver a far more compelling and immersive sound entertainment experience. And that then parlayed into the DVD standard and the Blu- ray standard.” Two decades into its life, DTS is now poised on the threshold of an evolution as mobile devices prolifer- ate. “Three years ago, we had basi- cally no network-connected revenue. In 2009, it was pretty much all about [ August 2013 ] Digital Arts Installs Meyer new york, ny—Manhattan’s Digital Arts has installed a new Meyer Sound (meyersound.com) 7.1 cinema monitoring system comprising three Acheron Studio screen channel speak- ers, three X-800C cinema subs and 12 HMS-10 cinema surround loudspeak- ers with Galileo processing in its new post production theatre. Ocean Way Kicks Off Cup hollywood, ca—ESPN recorded theme music at Ocean Way (ocean- wayrecording.com) featuring trum- peter Wayne Bergeron and percus- sionist Alex Acuna, with Lisle Moore, composer/producer, for its coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. SonicPool Opens in NOLA new orleans, la—Hollywood post production house SonicPool (son- icpool.com) has teamed up with New Orleans-based Maison Post to provide audio and video post services at its new location in the historic Garden District, across the street from Second Line Studios. Cotton Hill Acquired saratoga springs, ny—Strategic advertising agency Fingerpaint (fin- gerpaintmarketing.com) has acquired Cotton Hill, which provides full- service audio and video production at its John Storyk-designed facilities in Albany, NY. Cotton Hill will be rebranded as a Fingerpaint office. CBC Upgrades with Studer montreal, canada—National public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada is upgrading its Montreal facility with four Studer (harman.com) Vista 1 consoles, a Route 6000 routing and signal processing system, three Vista Compact Remote Bays and interfacing equipment. MediaHorse Shook Up los angeles, ca—MediaHorse (medi- ahorse.net) has placed its artist Avila’s cover of the classic Elvis Presley hit, “All Shook Up,” in a national cam- paign promoting Trojan lubricant products as a result of new formal arrangements with various music publishers and copyright holders. briefs sound [ 33 ] POST | BROADCAST Innovative Isolation BY STEVE HARVEY LOS ANGELES, CA—French technol- ogy company Audionamix has quietly been making inroads into the post production and music communities since working on its first major proj- ect, director Olivier Dahan’s Edith Piaf biopic, La Vie en Rose, in 2007. Momentum has since been building for the company’s ADX technology, which at its essence enables content owners to monetize their assets by isolating key elements of a mixed master audio track where the indi- vidual tracks are not available. “The technology was born out of the desire to identify the DNA of au- dio so that, instead of transferring a music file, you’d transfer the DNA and recompose it at the other end,” explains Arnaud Dudemaine, VP op- erations of the company’s U.S. office. “In the process, we discovered this way of being able to differentiate and isolate and basically teach a computer to listen to music and emulate how we can do this naturally in our mind.” By enabling a computer to rep- licate what is known as the “cock- tail party effect,” whereby humans can focus on a conversation across a crowded room while ignoring any other noise, Audionamix is able to isolate vocals and individual instru- ments from any mixed format, from mono to stereo and beyond. For La Vie en Rose, the company created vo- cal and instrument stems from both mono and stereo sources that allowed the filmmaker to reposition them in the soundtrack mix. This is not phase-based technology. “It’s a non-destructive process where the sum of the parts is exactly equal to the original. So what a layman might hear as an artifact is actually not an artifact, it’s impure separation. We get to 98, 99 percent separation, and then that last percent, we can’t quite get automatically, so we have to go in and try and manipulate it. But it’s not about cleanup; it’s about perfecting the separation,” says Dudemaine. Audionamix is hands-off with re- gard to the creative process. “It’s a very deliberate choice on our behalf that we don’t manipulate the audio or enhance the audio. We provide a raw track which is the separation of the original content, but the creative decisions to enhance with EQ, delay and time stretch and ‘make it sound better’ according to that creative vi- sion is not one we take on.” Audionamix divides its services in- to five basic areas: music dissociation, where music licensed for a specific territory, for example, is removed, leaving dialog and effects intact, al- lowing new licensed music to be laid in; dialog isolation, where dialog is removed from content or isolated for use elsewhere; vocal/instrument isola- tion, isolating and preserving musi- cal elements similarly to dialog; sync track/instrumental creation, where lead vocals are removed or replaced; and stem creation, where individual elements are isolated for remixing. Composer Hans Zimmer also had Audionamix extract stems from Piaf ’s La Vie en Rose, remixing it for 5.1 pre- sentation and manipulating the horns into a repeating motif throughout Christopher Nolan’s film, Inception. That inspired the company to further develop its tools for music dissocia- tion, says Dudemaine. “There was a request from CBS for the treatment of foreign versions DTS Turns 20 Still Looking Ahead (continued on page 34) (continued on page 34) ADDING COLOR TO THE MIX—Margarita Mix Hollywood has become a one-stop audio/ video finishing shop with the addition of two color suites and an upgraded hub for media management. The new color suites are integrated with the existing audio bays, utilizing Nucoda Film Master color grading systems to ensure Avid integration with direct connectivity to the ISIS and Avocent network. As part of the expansion, Margarita Mix has added colorists Troy Smith and Michael Mintz, and online editor Adam St. Clair. [ August 2013 ] [ 34 ] soundPOST/BROADCAST of TV shows where the original ele- ments, the foreign dubs, had never been preserved. So when they came to re-negotiate the music licensing rights, the cost was too expensive for the return on investment for those territories, so they decided to change the music. Changing the music do- mestically was very easy because they had the separate elements, but in these foreign territories, they didn’t.” Another early driver of the technol- ogy was a 50th anniversary surround remix of Psycho in 2010, where the di- alog was replaced with French actors, and a French language release of The Blues Brothers. “The voice actors there are just as iconic as our actors are here, so to pull out that dialog and put it into a new surround mix enhances the product for those international ter- ritories,” Dudemaine explains. In the U.S., demand has recently increased for music-only projects. Rod Stewart sang a duet with an ADX-extracted Ella Fitzgerald vocal on his Christmas 2012 album. In Jan- uary 2013, Andrea Bocelli released a duet with Piaf using her ADX-isolat- ed vocal. The company is now anticipating public reaction to Verve Remixed: The First Ladies, an album released July 9 by the jazz label that is wholly de- pendent on ADX. “The clear artistic direction was, ‘We want to use this technology to see if we can broaden the audience of our classic Verve cata- log and bring it to younger genera- tions,’” reports Dudemaine. For now, Audionamix performs the ADX work, pricing each project according to complexity and the de- sired quality level. But the potential for partnerships and software prod- ucts is significant. “We’re really on that cusp of tran- sitioning from being a research labora- tory into a technology company,” ob- serves Dudemaine. “By the end of the year, I’m sure we’re going to have some pretty exciting things to talk about.” Audionamix audionamix.com Audionamix (continued from page 33) “It’s a non-destructive process where the sum of the parts is exactly equal to the original.” Arnaud Dudemain [ ] the home optical AV receivers. This year, around half of our revenue will come from network-connected devices. So in three short years, we basically repositioned the business,” he says. “There will be more entertain- ment consumed on mobile and portable devices in the future than has ever been consumed before, in more environments. When you think about the physical challenge from an audio delivery perspective pre- sented by smaller, thinner devices— no room for speakers, low power and so on—we believe there’s a tre- mendous opportunity to enhance the audio quality in that space.” As a supporter of multichannel surround music even before DVD- Audio had its brief moment in the sun, the company released numer- ous 5.1 titles on its audiophile DTS Entertainment label. Although quantity eventually trumped quality with the massive consumer uptake of Apple’s various iDevices, DTS believes it’s in a position to reverse that trend. “You have an oppor tuni ty through the cloud, and through portable devices, to re-inspire that experience, and re-educate an en- tire generation of consumers around the idea that you can have quality and convenience and portability in a way that you never could before.” Increases in computing and processing power, he says, “really allow you to deliver phenomenal experiences via, say, headphones, through our recent product called Headphone:X,” which can deliver 11.1 surround through headphones. Headphone:X, Kirchner believes, “is going to be pretty impactful in the marketplace as people discover that they can have an out-of-head entertainment experience with mu- sic that is simply far more pleasing and compelling than what they’ve historically been able to get.” But DTS is not just promoting surround technology: “It ultimately is about enhancing stereo, as well.” Consequently, DTS has been hard at work for some time making the transition from optical media into cloud-based entertainment delivery and connected devices, which are ex- pected to be selling at the rate of 1.5 to 2 billion annually in a few years’ time, says Kirchner. “So there’s a phenomenal business opportunity, and a great need to work with artists and content distributors, as well as device makers, to deliver a very, very high-quality entertainment experi- ence across these platforms.” As content producers look for a universal standard codec, DTS believes it has the solution with its DTS-HD Layered Audio technol- ogy, introduced at NAB this year, which enables any consumer device to optimize playback from a single encode. “You can basically realize the promise of what originally was talked about in scaleable video, but you can do it in an audio world with very, very little overhead, delivering the best possible experience for a consumer in a volatile bandwidth situation,” says Kirchner. DTS is also promoting its SRS MDA (Multi-Dimensional Au- dio) object-based spatial audio co- dec as an open standard for film soundtrack playback. “There’s a huge opportunity for us to play a big part in not only setting the stan- dard but ultimately providing the most flexible delivery system to be able to do that.” DTS, Inc. dts.com DTS (continued from page 33) “Three years ago, we had basically no network-connected revenue. In 2009, it was pretty much all about the home optical AV receivers. This year, around half of our revenue will come from network-connected devices. So in three short years, we basically repositioned the business.” Jon Kirchner [ ] BY DAVE HILL I n the course of developing gear, one sometimes does experiments that do not work as planned. The resulting issues include why are things working the way they are and why the device or algorithm sounds the way it does. In the process of developing a new Digital to Analog converter (D/A), such questions arose. The only changes being made at the time that questions were raised about were in the clocking circuits; the analog circuits were not changed. The clock jitter decreased from around 13 ps to about 2 ps. To put picoseconds in prospective, light trav- els approximately 12 inches in 1000 ps; in 1pS of time, light travels 0.012 inches. The measurements indicated that the D/A was working correctly. The first listening test did not go as one expected. On the first listen, the old circuit sounded better. After listen- ing for a short time, with one’s ears learning what the sounds are, the ob- servation changed. The old circuit was not warmer; it was muddier, less clear and did not image as well. This raised a large number of questions (some are technical and some have to do with ear training): • What is the threshold point where lower jitter no longer offers performance improvement? • What does jitter sound like, can mixes be influenced by a D/A with higher than threshold jitter and how do different frequency ranges of jitter influence performance? • Can we be fooled into thinking that a device which has poorer per- formance is the better converter? If so, there is an ear education problem that needs to be addressed. • What are the limits of technology and the level of audible artifacts? An experiment was designed that allowed making recordings with jit- ter that was controlled and repeat- able. An important part of the experiment was to be able to record the files so they would, when time aligned and subtracted, result in an audio file in which we can hear only the jittered component. The experi- ment produced a set of five files (the reference and the files with in- duced jitter) that can be listened to with the set of four difference-only files. The test was set up with an Avid Pro Tools system using digital I/O. The D/A used an ASRC to remove any jitter in the audio be- fore feeding it to an A/D and back into Pro Tools. The A/D was built so that lab equipment could be used as the clock source and this equipment could be frequency modulated to produce jit- ter. There were a great many prob- lems in making this work, and once the first audio files were recorded and listened to, there was a new problem: If one did not hear what was expect- ed, was the experiment valid? It took a fair amount of time and effort to be able to state that the experiment was [ August 2013 ] BY STROTHER BULLINS I f you’re a musician— which is the customer Genelec envisions for its new Music Creation series— the M030 is built more like your engineer’s speakers than your current monitors. To my eyes, Genelecs seem to be used by more profes- sional studios and engineers than any other recognizable studio monitor. That means something to me, especially in an industry where they’re not the top seller. Fellow musicians will empathize here, as I haven’t owned the brand of most of my favorite engineers or studios before, though I can consider it now. Genelec has approached its new M Series in an admira- bly attractive way for artist-level end users ($695 each). Starting with unique aesthet- ics and physicality, the M030— and bigger sibling M040—features cabinetry that is not only “green” but which also saves in manufac- turing over the long term, based upon Genelec’s manufacturing de- tails for the M Series, which is a benefit ultimately passed onto both the customer and our Earth’s ecological future. The company’s trademarked Natural Composite Enclosure (NCE) material is made of wood fiber and recyclable ma- terial, which Genelec reports is 50 percent wood fiber, 50 percent polymer/recycled ma- terials, and also doesn’t re- quire a lot of handling during manufacturing, which is done in Finland. Genelec provides addition- al value in the M Series, like efficient, cooler running (“90 percent more efficient”) Class D amps, paired with a core set of response-shaping con- trols (sans the expansive and expensive DSP of the 8200 line). The aluminum housing of a flagship Genelec line—imag- inably more durable for a studio- hopping pro and offering a certain aesthetic—isn’t something M Series customers will pay for. Now, they don’t have to with the styling of the M Series molded enclosures. Here are Genelec’s own provided specs: The M030 bi-amplified active monitor utilizes a five-inch woofer and 0.75-inch metal dome tweeter, powered by 50 W and 30 W ampli- fiers respectively. The free-field fre- quency response is 58 Hz to 21 kHz (+/-3 dB), while peak SPL is 103 dB at one meter. The M030 measures 10 3/4 inches H x 7 1/2 inches W x 7 1/2 inches D and weighs 8.8 lbs. The M040 bi-amplified active monitor employs a 6.5-inch woofer with a one-inch metal dome tweeter, powered by 80 W and 50 W ampli- fiers, respectively. The free-field fre- quency response is 48 Hz to 21 kHz (+/-3 dB), while peak SPL is 107 dB at one meter. The M040 measures 13 1/4 inches H x 9 1/4 inches W x 9 inches D and weighs 15.4 lbs. I used the M030s for hours most days for two months, sitting both on my studio desk, and in innovations: the manufacturer’s view inthefield tech@ psn [ 35 ] soundTECHNOLOGY A Matter Of Time THE AUDIBILITY OF CLOCK JITTER Genelec M Series M030 Bi-amplified Active Monitors Genelec M Series Bi-amplified Active Monitors (continued on page 38) Dave Hill (continued on page 39) [ August 2013 ] [ 36 ] soundTECHNOLOGY BY RICH TOZZOLI S ome reviews are easier than others. Luckily, we get to use a lot of what I’ve previous- ly referred to as “the good stuff,” and Millennia’s HV-37 preamp fits squarely into the “good stuff ” catego- ry. In my extensive use of the HV-37 in various acoustic recording applica- tions, it gave me everything I needed. Incorporating a pair of HV-35 500 series module preamps into a fully self-contained single space rack unit, the HV-37’s layout is quite simple. Included is a quarter-inch Hi-Z in- strument input with a small gain knob (15- 60 dB), followed by but- tons for instrument input, 80 Hz roll- off filter (3 dB per octave), DC cou- pled ribbon mic mode (with 10 dB gain boost), +48 VDC phantom pow- er, polarity switch and 15 dB pad. Fi- nally, there is a signal present light in- dicating signal at -46 dB (green) or a +22 dB peak (red). Double the above description, add in a power switch and a small power-on light, and that’s the front panel. On the rear, there is XLR I/O per channel and the IEC power cable connection for the in- ternal power supply (120 – 240 VAC operation) completes the package. With its transformerless input and ultra clean design, it provides just what you’d expect it to: an uncolored and accurate signal path. When re- cording, I use different preamps for different purposes; it has to do with the player, instrument, mic, room and purpose. Sometimes a colored preamp is just what’s called for, and other times ‘invisible’ is needed. The HV-37, in my opinion, is invisible: It steps out of the way of the mic and allows recording like no amplifier was there. I like that. I’ve had a handful of projects re- cently that called for an almost clas- sical approach in purity of sound, even though it wasn’t classical music. I broke out some of my favorite go-to mics, including an Earthworks QTC- 1 matched pair and DPA 2011C matched pair. Working in both my Pro Tools HDX and UA Apollo mo- bile rigs, I used the HV-37 on cello, violin, overheads, acoustic guitars, vibes, shakers, percussion and even voice. The noise floor of the HV-37 is hardly even there; it is low enough to use in super delicate recording situ- ations. Sure, I used very good mi- crophones and very good Mogami cable (for both my HDX and Apollo rigs) with fine players and exceptional instruments—that never hurts—yet the beautiful thing is those instru- ments translated to the end recording almost like I was standing in front of them. This is thanks in large part to the HV-37. I realize I was probably supposed to use the DI to make it “official,” but hey—I’m focusing on the real-world use of this preamp. Honestly, I didn’t need the Hi-Z input, so this applica- tion would have been forced. One suggestion for Millennia: How about making the power-on light a little bigger, or brighter? If you aren’t standing directly in front of the unit, it’s very hard to tell if this guy is on until you hear the mics go live. It’s a minor issue, and if any sound degradation was a trade-off, I’ll just look closer. Overall, for a street price of under $750 per channel, HV-37 buyers get a high-end preamp that excels at cap- turing acoustic music. The HV-37 de- livers on all the adjectives you might expect to hear; it’s clean, pure, invis- ible and musical. It helps me make great music and is now a valuable part of my acoustic recording rig. Millennia mil-media.com BY STROTHER BULLINS Shure’s new KSM9HS handheld vo- cal microphone offers users the de- tailed, smooth and balanced sound of the original KSM9, but with a different pair of polar pattern selec- tions, which I found to increase its usefulness substantially. With the KSM9’s well-deserved status as a premium handheld vocal condenser, the primary question I had about the KSM9HS was, are subcardioid and hypercardioid patterns more useful than super- and standard cardioid? With solid dynamic cardioids (and most likely SM57s) almost always within reach, I believe so. I used the KSM9HS in a variety of common live applications: main- ly lead male and female vocals, plus close-miked acoustic guitars, guitar amp cabinet, snare drum and percus- sion (djembe and tambourine). Especially in less dense, acoustic instrument mixes, I really appreciated the increased environmental “air” in the signal from the subcardioid set- ting. For a more crowded and ampli- fied stage, the hypercardioid allowed me to simply click a switch instead of swapping in a different mic for more gain before feedback. From a pure flexibility standpoint, the KSM9HS is an incredibly useful “main” live microphone. Vocalists generally seemed to like their voices via the KSM9HS, and it seemed to encourage confidence at the mic. Most commented on the crispness and detail it brought to their performances—overall, a full and rich bottom with no overt boom- iness, thanks to very little proximity effect, and a notably open top end. The KSM9HS ($874) is a great tool for a “first-grab” live microphone kit, and likely the premium live hand- held condenser choice for the most important artist on stage. I really like the subcardioid pattern, which makes the KSM9HS unique in the wide range of common live condensers in the marketplace. Paired with a half- dozen SM57s, KSM9HS users will have a solid collection of transducers for most any gig, at any professional level. Shure shure.com Millennia HV-37 Two-Channel Preamplifier Shure KSM9HS Dual-Pattern Handheld Condenser Microphone [in the field] Millennia HV-37 Two-Channel Preamplifier Shure KSM9HS Microphone “The HV-37, in my opinion, is invisible: It steps out of the way of the mic and allows recording like no amplifier was there. I like that.” [ ] [ August 2013 ] [ 38 ] soundTECHNOLOGY a variety of different locations, ap- plying the corner and desktop EQ settings when appropriate, with no sub. I’ve given them a full range of input, too, from iPod and MacBook headphone outs to high-quality bal- anced analog summing of tracks I’ve recorded and am intimately familiar with. I felt very comfortable with these monitors all along, growing more fond of them all the time. Whether recording and mixing, or editing, composing and writ- ing, these small boxes offer all the creative appeal needed for music creation. I listened to them for en- joyment, with a range of carefully produced material, too—from ear- ly Beatles to Yeezus. I started with common rock references, first be- lieving with AC/DC’s “Shoot To Thrill” at 90 dB; the bottom end is controlled, tight, powerful and real. From there up, it’s what I recall hearing in Genelec nearfields (they definitely resemble their 8000 kin): in general, detail in reverb tails and the snare drum buzz that I almost forgot was there. Basically, whatever is in the mix, I felt I was hearing more than usual using the M030s. Genelec’s new bass port design— the trademarked Laminar Integrated Port (LIP, actually integrated into the cabinet mold and utilizing its legs and the gap between them)—works well; I was surprised that I didn’t long for a subwoofer using a speaker this size. M Series design is neat-looking, too: efficient and beautifully modern European to its core. In our musician = IKEA world, this appealing design goes a long way. I’ve never used DSP monitors be- yond the audition and review period. Primarily as a self-recording musi- cian, I never felt compelled to spring for the feature, though I would al- ways try to spend a bit extra on get- ting sufficient response tailoring and a more powerful—and hopefully bet- ter overall—monitor for the money. With the M030, Genelec includes a substantial 80 W of Class D ampli- fication—a more powerful Genelec than I could have afforded before. In that way, this particular Genelec completely fits my bill, as I get the attributes I can most appreciate and more comfortably afford. These M030 monitors look good and feel substantial—with notably tight cabinets—and the switches feel high quality and sure. They seem to be quite scratch resistant, too (a pleasant benefit of new cabinetry ma- terial) and the material allows the M030 to be a Genelec with its trade- mark neutral character. I expect the cabinet material alone will be a topic discussed in some circles, as these speakers burgeon in the marketplace. If these monitors set new trends, and I expect they will, this Music Creation Series mentality will influ- ence more use of eco-friendly com- posite materials, if not even the de- velopment of similarly designed, and similar-looking, cabinetry in our in- dustry. I think that’s a good thing. Further, I appreciate the effort of Genelec to provide, for lack of a bet- ter phrase, a “stripped down Gennie” Series for the guys in the band that do know what “the good monitors” sound like. Genelec genelec.com Genelec (continued from page 35) “If these monitors set new trends, and I expect they will, this Music Creation Series mentality will influence more use of eco-friendly composite materials.” [ ] [ August 2013 ] [ 39 ] soundTECHNOLOGY valid. Jitter can be caused by many things in clock circuits. To keep this relatively simple, we are not look- ing at PLLs used in word clocks and elsewhere—just oscillator circuits, the source of the clock. There are many types of oscillators and a large amount of information on the net, in books and papers that a circuit de- signer can make use of when develop- ing a clock circuit. Some of the best sources of information come from amateur radio work, and in micro- wave and space communication. Jit- ter in clocking is not a new problem; technical information exists showing that since the earliest days of radio and computing circuits, many very good engineers have worked to inves- tigate the sources and effects of jitter. Looking at all of the data, you learn many things that are surprising. A pendulum clock is more accurate than a quartz watch. It is possible to make a quartz crystal oscillator that will outperform most other types of oscillators, including rubidium and other atomic clocks, for short- term accuracy (and the problem with clocking for audio is short-term ac- curacy). Rubidium is great if you need to be remain within 10 ps in 10 days—a change that no one could hear. Digital audio clock variations (jit- ter) on the order of a few picoseconds or greater in a short time window, like 10 ms or 100 ms, will be audible. The largest cause of jitter is noise, which can affect any clock, no mat- ter the type of clock base (crystal, atomic and so on). Noise increases as frequency goes down, thus LF jitter is the hardest to work with. A common example is power supply noise; in clock generation, power supply noise is more critical than for mic-pres or tape-head playback electronics. The next problem is turning the oscillator output to a clock waveform; all approaches to this have issues. The basic problem is the need to turn a slow-moving sine wave into a very fast, sharp, vertical-edged square wave. Once we have a square wave clock, the next thing to overcome is jitter induced by logic circuits. Jitter in logic circuits, depending on the type of logic, can be very large. If you are trying to achieve sub-picosecond jitter, there are very few logic choices and the better parts are very power hungry and costly. If the jitter is low-enough level, it will not be audible, but it is a level versus frequency relationship. The five jittered audio files have been online since June. The phase- canceled (subtractive) files are now available. Some were played at Audio Days in Paris and the AES Conven- tion in Rome. Listen to the source files to form an opinion first, then lis- ten to the phase-canceled files. Think of what you might feel compelled to do with an EQ to change the sound of the jittered source. What is the re- sult of playback on a very low jitter playback system? The effect of jitter does not sound like what most people think. If one can draw any conclusion from these experiments, it is that we all need ear training when it comes to recognizing new problems; education will help everyone. Innovations (continued from page 35) What is the threshold point where lower jitter no longer offers performance improvement? Dave Hill [ ] THERE’S MORE4Hear the audio files via prosoundnetwork.com/ aug2013. [ August 2013 ] Focusrite iTrack Studio Focusrite has announced the iTrack Stu- dio kit, which combines the company’s iTrack Solo computer audio interface with closed-back monitor headphones, condenser microphone, XLR mic cable, and a long 30-pin device link cable. Designed for recording music on the Apple iPad, the iTrack Studio in- cludes a CM25S studio condenser mic, XLR cable and HP60S closed- back studio headphones. It re- cords 24 bit, 96 kHz, and features Focusrite’s digital conversion technology. The 1.2m Device Link cable connects directly to the iPad with a 30 pin cable, and can also connect to the iPad 4 and iPad mini via a lightning adapter. Apple Logic Pro X Apple’s long-awaited Logic Pro X features a new interface, as well as a number of new creative tools for musicians and an expandable collection of instru- ments and effects. Among the new features is Drum- mer, a virtual session player that automatically plays along with a song in a variety of drum- ming styles and techniques; and Flex Pitch, an integrated pitch editing feature for audio recordings. Apple also introduced the new Logic Remote, a new way to play and control Logic Pro X from an iPad. Drummer is powered by the performances and sounds of session play- ers and recording engineers, including mixer/producer Bob Clearmountain (Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Simple Minds, Crowded House, David Bowie). Flex Pitch helps users fix out-of-tune vocals and change the melodies of recorded audio by manipulating individual notes within an audio waveform. Track Stacks lets users organize and collapse multiple tracks into one, or can be used to create layered instruments. Smart Controls allow users to manipu- late multiple plug-ins and parameters at once. Sony Sound Forge Pro 11, SpectraLayers Pro 2 Sony Creative Software has upgraded its Sound Forge Pro 11 and Spec- traLayers Pro 2 soft- ware applications. Sound Forge Pro 11 has received additional new elements includ- ing reportedly more ef- ficient recording and processing workflows and new signal and effects processing plug-ins. SpectraLayers Pro 2 offers new spectral casting and molding for layering, a new shape tool to extract drum sounds, frequency range display options, new looping features for playback, and new resampling and remixing options. Also, while Sound Forge Pro 11 and SpectraLayers Pro 2 are separate applications, they are now configured to work with each other. McDSP AAX Plug-ins McDSP has released 64-bit AAX plug-ins (Native and DSP) for Pro Tools 11. The Mac-only release (a Windows version will debut in the near future) re- quires the iLok2, and is a free upgrade for McDSP v5 customers. McDSP will continue to provide 32/64-bit AAX Native and AAX DSP plug-in format support for Pro Tools 10 and Pro Tools 11 customers. Installers will contain both 32 and 64-bit versions of the plug-ins. McDSP v5 plug-ins include support for Intel-Mac systems running Mac OS 10.5.x (Leopard), 10.6.x (Snow Leopard), 10.7.x (Lion), and 10.8.x (Mountain Lion). The AAX format is only supported in Pro Tools 10.2 and later versions (including Pro Tools 11), on Mac OS X 10.7.4 and later versions. MXL Revelation Solo Tube Microphone MXL has unveiled its new Revelation Solo Fixed Cardioid Pattern Tube Microphone. The Revelation Solo mic is in- tended to create a vintage tube sound, and features a cardi- oid pattern, a 32 mm Gold sputtered capsule and an EF86 tube. This design is aimed for vocalists, and comes with an aluminum flight case, shock mount, Mogami cables and custom power supply. The MXL Revelation Solo is available starting July 11, 2013. This is the third microphone in MXL’s Revelation family and will be on display during Summer NAMM at booth #800, Hall A. iZ RADAR, ADA II Power Supply i Z Technol ogy has an- nounced a new power supply for its hard disk multi-track recorder, RADAR 6, and its standalone converter, ADA II. This new power source is said to be environmentally friendly and reduce thermal energy waste. Sonic Farm Creamliner, Silkwork Sonic Farm Audio is now shipping two new products: the Creamliner and Silkwork. The Creamliner is a stereo line signal conditioner, intended to im- prove the sound of digital stereo busses and digital PA boards by running the signal through a pentode, and, if selected, also the output transformer. The result is said to be a warmer and somewhat ‘glued’ stereo image, with a smoother sound. The Silkworm is a 500 solid state microphone and instrument preamp said to provide a discrete, low-distortion, servo-controlled gain stage and trans- former on both input and output. The output can be switched to a solid state, balanced line driver, bypassing the transformer. sound [ 40 ] PRODUCTS There’s more information on all the products featured at prosoundnetwork.com/aug2013. Universal Audio Pultec Passive EQ Plug-In Collection Universal Audio and Apollo Audio Interfaces have announced the Pultec Passive EQ Plug-In Collection, which revisits the Pultec EQP-1A and MEQ-5, and adds the HLF- 3C filter. The EQP-1A Program EQ aims to bring out individual frequency ranges without significantly altering neigh- boring frequencies. With the companion MEQ-5 Mid-Range Equalizer, users can tweak the mid-range with band overlap and unique filter interactions. Finally, the HLF-3C adds 12 dB per octave low and high cut filters, providing retro-flavored tone sculpting. The Pultec Passive EQ Plug-In Collection is available on the Universal Audio Online Store. It is part of the new UAD Software 7.1, which also includes the Millenia NSEQ-2 Plug-In and new Flex Routing for the Apollo and Apollo 16 Audio Interfaces. firstlook [ studio ] [ August 2013 ] Yamaha StageMix 4.0 iPad App Yamaha has released StageMix 4.0, an update of its digital mixer control app for the Apple iPad. StageMix allows engineers to adjust console param- eters and sound levels by wireless con- trol, rather than at the mix position. Designed for use with its Yamaha CL, M7CL, and LS9 digital consoles, the update includes new features such as Dynamics Parameter Editing, Out- put Port Delay Editing, Output Port Levels (Gain/Attenuation), PEQ Copy and Paste, Phantom Power Switching, Mix Send Pre/Post Switching, HPF Slope Parameter (CL V1.5 only), Retina Display Support, and other enhance- ments. The App also provides features such as Mute Group Masters; Channel Naming; Channel Pan; Send Levels in Meter Bridge; Tap Tempo; Selectable Input and Output Meter Positions; and DCA Faders (CL and M7CL only). Allen & Heath GLD-112 Mixer Allen & Heath has introduced the GLD- 112, a larger version of its GLD- 80 mixer, with an extra bank comprising eight control strips, increasing the chan- nel count to 28 fader strips in four layers. The GLD-112 is in- tended for applications where visibility of more channels in a single layer is required and also offers a dedicated shelf to hold an iPad running the free GLD remote app which allows extended processing and custom views. GLD-112 retains the same analogue-style channel processing control sec- tion complemented by a graphical 8.4 inch touch screen as the GLD-80. Four additional soft keys are included next to the faders for scene-controls and other user defined functions. A fully-customizable drag ‘n drop layout allows assignment of inputs and mixes to fader strips. There are 28 fader strips in 4 layers, each with motorized fader, a channel LCD display which can be named and color-coded, plus a rotary control for direct access to gain, pan and aux/ FX sends. Line 6 Relay V75-SC Wireless System Li ne 6 has rel eased its new Relay V75-SC 14-channel digital wire- l ess handhel d mi cro- phone/transmitter with super-cardioid dynamic capsule. Designed for use with the XD-V75 digital wireless system, Relay V75- SC is designed to isolate vocals while rejecting stage noise. The V75-SC is the first Line 6 vocal wireless solution to be released under the Relay brand. The XD-V75, XD-V55 and XD-V35 vocal wireless systems will also join G-series instrument wireless solutions as part of the Relay family. The V75-SC features 24-bit audio, 10 Hz to 20 kHz frequency response and a dynamic range of up to 118 dB (A weighted). Relay V75-SC also offers four microphone models, including three based on popular super-cardioid live micas, allowing vocalists to choose a sound to match their voice, performance style and venue. Powersoft Ottocanali 4K4, 8K4, 12K4 Amplifiers Powersoft has expanded its Ottocanali series with the addition of three new 8-channel power amplifiers for fixed in- stallations—Ottocanali 4K4, Ottocanali 8K4 and Ottocanali 12K4. The three amplifiers have been designed to work at low or high impedance, can run at 2 ohms as a standard operational param- eter and can power 70V and 100V dis- tributed lines without the need for external transformers. Powersoft’s approach to class D amplification gives the amplifiers high output power, up to 12000W over eight channels for the largest model. Every amplifier in this series has two universal switch mode power supplies with PFC (Power Factor Correction) each independently powering a set of four channels. In addition, patented SRM (Smart Rails Management) tech- nology reportedly maximizes the efficiency of the system, reducing the power consumption at any load and usage condition. Meyer Sound Compass 3.0 Meyer Sound has released Compass 3.0, the newest version of its central- ized platform for controlling the new Compass RMS remote monitoring system, in addition to the Galileo and Galileo Callisto loudspeaker manage- ment system and CAL column array loudspeakers. Compass 3.0 is available for free download from the Meyer Sound website. Compass 3.0 sports a newly streamlined remote monitoring control inter- face that allows users to perform mute, solo and wink ID functions and moni- tor more than a dozen loudspeaker performance parameters. Compass RMS supports both Windows and Mac operating systems and is backwards compat- ible with all Meyer Sound loudspeakers equipped with an RMS module. Use of Compass RMS with the Compass 3.0 software requires RMServer, the new purpose-built network hardware that hosts the loudspeaker status reporting functions. Ashly Audio Compass Control Processors Ashly Audio has made all its processors and amplifiers with Ethernet or RS- 232 control capability compatible with Key Digital’s Compass Control Tech- nology. This addition allows end users to control the Ashly products from an iPad, iPad Mini, iPhone or iPod Touch wireless device. The Ashly Audio products that integrate with Compass Control include the ne24.24M modular matrix processor; the ne4400, ne4800, and ne8800 pro- cessors; the Protea 3.6SP and 4.8SP processors; the ne800, ne1600, ne2400, ne4250, and ne8250 amplifiers; the nXe and nXp amplifiers; and all Pema integrated processor/amplifiers. RCF SUB 8004-AS Subwoofer RCF has debuted the SUB 8004-AS subwoofer, featuring a high power, hypervented 18-inch woofer with four-inch inside/ outside voice coils. The unit is powered by a 2,500 watt digi- tal amplifier module loaded in a separate chamber in the rear of the box. It is capable of pro- ducing 136 dB max SPL and the input board includes volume control, signal, power and limiter LEDs, deep/punch switch, high pass, phase, and cardioids switches and delay control. [ 41 ] soundPRODUCTS Vue Audiotechnik al-8 Line Array Vue Audiotechnik has unveiled its new al-8 Compact Line Array System, available starting this fall. The al-8 is the second member of Vue’s al-Class, and joins the al-4 Subcompact Line Array System introduced earlier this year. Like it’s smaller sibling, the al-8 utilizes beryllium compres- sion drivers, Kevlar/Neodymium transducers, onboard net- working, and full compatibility with VuePoint beam steering technology and SPL and coverage control. The al-8 system components include flying, transport and handling accessories, the al-8 acoustic element, and the rack- mount V6 Systems Engine, which provides system amplification, DSP and networking capabilities via the SystemVUE control software. The al-8 acoustic element houses a pair of proprietary 8-inch LF transducers with large 3-inch voice coils. The 2U rack- mount V6 Systems Engine will tri-amp up to four al-8 acoustic elements. The V6 also houses a 64-bit DSP engine. firstlook [ sound reinforcement ] [ August 2013 ] QSC KLAs Revitalize Church elkhart, in—Restored after a fire, the First Baptist Church of Elkhart, IN now houses a QSC (qsc.com) system of 13 KLA12s, a pair of KLA181 subwoofers, four KW181 subs and a pair of K8 front fills in its sanctuary, installed by CSD Group Inc. of Ft. Wayne, IN. JBL Energizes Emporium Festival nijmegen, netherlands—Dutch rental company Story Sound recently provided audio for the Emporium Festival in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, fielding JBL (jblpro.com) VTX Systems throughout the nine stages on site, with 24 V25 line array elements for the main stage, and 16 for each smaller stage. Renkus-Heinz Parks At Parker Church anniston, al—Oxford, AL-based Sound Solutions has installed Renkus- Heinz (renkus-heinz.com) Iconyx digitally steerable column arrays in the 300-seat sanctuary of the Parker Memorial Baptist Church, with a single pair of IC24-R-II columns cover- ing the space. D.A.S. Is Off To The Races yonkers, ny—The new Dan Rooney’s Café & Bar restaurant at the Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway was recently outfitted with one D.A.S. Audio (dasaudio.com) LX-212A sub bass sys- tem, four Convert 12A array enclosures, and two Road 12A stage monitors. Crown Goes To The Movies struer, denmark—The Danish Cinema Apollon in the town of Struer recently upgraded its sound system by installing a Dolby Atmos surround sound system, powered by Crown (crownaudio.com) DriveCore Install (DCi) Series amplifiers. SpectraFoo for Rascal Flatts new york, ny—Rascal Flatts’ FOH engineer Jonathan Loeser has been using Metric Halo (mhlabs.com) sound analysis software, SpectraFoo, paired with a Metric Halo LI0-8 inter- face, at each stop on Rascal Flatts current arena tour. briefs sound [ 42 ] REINFORCEMENT BY KELLEIGH WELCH NEW YORK, NY—Each summer, New York City’s classical music enthusiasts eagerly await the start of the New York Philharmonic’s annual Concerts in the Parks, a free concert series that brings the talents of the orchestra to each of New York City’s five boroughs. Started in 1965, Concerts in the Parks transforms the outdoor setting of Central Park in Manhattan for two nights, and for one night each in Pros- pect Park in Brooklyn and Van Cort- landt Park in the Bronx, into a full out- door concert venue. On hand mixing at Front of House is New York Philhar- monic’s FOH engineer, Larry Rock. One of Rock’s greatest challenges when mixing the orchestra is ampli- fying the sound so that the shows’ 60,000 spectators get as close to the acoustic experience a possible. “In my case, I need to be sensitive to what the sound of the orchestra should be,” Rock said. “The stage area provides no acoustical support, so generating it artificially in terms of balance is a challenge.” For these outdoor shows, the phil- harmonic performs on a flat stage with no amphitheater setup. “For large audiences and especially in this area where people are accustomed to amplified sound, I have to create the sound of the symphony orchestra; it’s not just reinforcing,” said Rock. To help project the sound across Central Park, Yonkers, NY-based Sound Associates provided two hangs of Meyer Sound Leo line array loud- speakers for the sides of the stage, along with delay towers set up every 200 feet, each equipped with Meyer M3D and Milo speakers. “The idea is that if you’re way back in the field, you’re hearing one sound; each speaker is time aligned BY CLIVE YOUNG TARRYTOWN, NY—When it comes to colorful local history, Tarrytown has plenty to spare. Located an hour north of New York City, the small Hudson River town at one end of the Tappan Zee Bridge was the site of a major Rev- olutionary War incident, when Ma- jor John Andre was arrested as a spy; was the village Ichabod Crane rode through in the fictional Legend of Sleepy Hollow; and has been called home by the likes of John D. Rockefeller, Bruce Jenner, Mark Twain and Cab Calloway. It also happens to be where I grew up, and for a media-obsessed kid, one of the most interesting remnants of Tarrytown’s history was the Mu- sic Hall, an 860-seat venue built in 1885 that a century later was a rarely used rental house. Built by chocolate manufacturer William Wallace, the imposing building with its beautiful Queen Anne brick façade had hosted the likes of Mae West and Woodrow Wilson in decades past, but had been converted into a movie theater that closed in the mid-Seventies, when it was nearly turned into a parking lot. Placed on the National Register for Historic Places in 1980 and envi- sioned as a potential cultural destina- tion, the Music Hall initially struggled to come back (and indeed continues to be restored to this day, thanks to dona- tions), but now hosts a robust, eclectic line-up of artists year-round. Just one recent month saw the Music Hall pres- ent no less than 16 shows, with acts like singer/songwriter Aimee Mann, in- die rockers Fountains of Wayne, kiddie songstress Laurie Berkner, maverick film director John Waters, R&B legend Smokey Robinson, The Daily Show’s John Oliver, jazz master Gato Barbieri and others. To say it offers something for everyone is an understatement. Providing sound for all those events is Boulevard Pro (Ridgefield Park, NJ), the Music Hall’s first-call audio vendor, which brings in a va- riety of control gear and backline for each show, running sound through the house PA. “The biggest consideration was that everything had to be self- powered because there’s no room,” said Björn Olsson, executive direc- tor of the Music Hall. “We installed a Meyer Sound rig, and we bring in a L-Acoustics self-powered monitor system most times because there’s no place for amp racks in the wings. It’s a very good system; they’re pretty du- rable because they’ve had every kind of show possible go through them, 200 shows a year, and I’ve never seen them fail.” The Meyer system in question is an M2D compact curvilinear ar- ray, backed up by HP-700 subs and M1Ds, purchased through Sound Associates in Yonkers, NY. Because the aging venue can’t support a flown system, the M2Ds are ground- stacked, with five placed upon a sin- gle sub on each side of the stage. The bottom three boxes per side fill the orchestra, the top boxes fill the bal- cony seating, and it’s all been tuned with Meyer Galileo software. While the wood-and-plaster venue was built in a time before electric am- plification, Anthony Cioffi, Boulevard Pro’s owner and director of produc- tion, suspects that’s part of why it’s such a good-sounding room: “Back then, it was vaudeville and com- munity gatherings, and all that was Classical Concert at the Center of it All The Sound of Tarrytown Thousands flocked to Central Park in July to hear Mariah Carey perform with the New York Philharmonic. Audio provider Sound Associates fielded a sizable Meyer Sound system for the main PA and delay towers. (continued on page 52) (continued on page 57) Boulevard Pro’s Anthony Cioffi mans a Yamaha PM5D at the Tarrytown Music Hall. [ August 2013 ] Fleetwood Mac Doesn’t Stop BY LARRY JAFFEE At a November 1979 New York press conference, attended by this reporter, to promote the release of Fleetwood Mac’s then new album, Tusk, bassist John McVie refuted a rumor that the band was on the verge of breaking up: “We’re doing all right, but I don’t see Fleetwood Mac in wheelchairs playing ‘Rhian- non.’” They’re not getti ng car ted around yet, but over 30 years later, Fleetwood Mac remains a major- league concert draw for Baby Boom- ers, and as such, the band had so much gear that the 49-city U.S. leg, which began in April and ended in July, required a dozen 53-foot trail- ers to carry equipment for every stop, including the June 22 show at the Jones Beach Amphitheatre in Wantagh, NY. As it has for decades, Clair [Lititz, PA] provided audio for the band’s journey. The 2013 tour’s FOH engineer was Dave Kob, who was a system engineer on Fleetwood Mac’s Ru- mours tour in 1978. The main moni- tor engineer was Dave Coyle, who found invaluable having at his dis- posal Kob’s deep-rooted knowledge of the band’s live sound tastes. Coyle mixed on stage for “the girls,” mean- ing Stevie Nicks, but also backup singers Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks. He says Nicks directed him to “listen to the band’s studio al- bums” to hear what it should sound like. Coyle worked one Fleetwood Mac show in 2009 as a fill-in moni- tor engineer, and then was asked to work a Nicks solo tour. He’s been on the 2013 Fleetwood Mac tour from its start. The other monitor engineer, Ed Dracoules, handled the band’s main “guys,” including Bucking- ham, Fleetwood, and McVie, while Coyle also mixed the band’s two also male backline musicians: keyboard- ist Brett Tuggle and second guitarist Neale Heywood. The twin monitor boards were both DiGiCo SD10s. The monitor set-up used a com- bination of in-ear monitors and wedges. Nicks has been using Fu- ture Sonics’ MG5Pros for a little over a year. “Stevie likes how the Future Sonics have a real driver, a real speaker, while Mick and Lind- sey like loud wedges,” Coyle ex- plained, adding that the lead vocalist also pays a lot of attention to the FOH mix. He characterized the ef- fects as being pretty simple. “Luckily in the 1970s, they didn’t have a lot of effects,” Coyle quipped. “They’re a straight-forward rock band.” The Jones Beach show was one of three outdoor shows on the 49-date tour, the others being Comcast Are- na in Mansfield, MA, and the Hol- lywood Bowl. The change, however, was welcomed by Kob at the FOH position. “Everything changes for an out- door show,” said Kob. “Indoors shows are way more reverberant. I use my effects a lot more when I’m outside.” Still, he said the end goal was the same: “Translate out here what they’re playing on stage. This is such a different band than what recorded Rumours 35 years ago. There’s no comparison. They were basically folk-rock then and a little left-over blues from the old Fleet- wood Mac/Peter Green days. Now it’s louder, a different feel. It rocks more now than in 1978. That’s what it evolved into.” Kob explained his involvement with the band when it was at its re- cord-selling peak. “Richard Dashut, who was the engineer on Rumours, mixed their first two tours [with the Buckingham/Nicks lineup], and I was a system engineer. It was a very long tour. My first tour mixing for them was Mirage (1982). Then I had a long hiatus with them, and I was doing other stuff [including tour- ing with Madonna, The Eagles, The Who, and Page & Plant, among other notables]. I didn’t work with Fleet- wood Mac again until The Dance in 1997. I didn’t hear from them again until ’09, when I did the tour with them four years ago. And here we are again. So it’s only been four tours, but spanning over 32 years.” Did all that historical knowl- edge help with anything that might come up in 2013? “You know what you’re getting into in advance,” Kob laughed. “I know them all individ- ually, so that always helps—famil- iar face and all that. I do most of Stevie’s solo stuff and have done so for years,” including Nicks’s Jones Beach show last year in the rain. Crew chief Dave Moncrieffe commented, “Working with Dave Kob is always a pleasure, not only for his ‘Old School’ view on system alignment and equalization, but also for his ability to mix his artists true to their sound. Plus Dave is a blast to be around and a very accom- plished fisherman.” In the 32 years that Kob has worked with Fleetwood Mac, have both the FOH engineer and the band kept up with technological advancements in live sound? Ko- bs laughed again, noting that while he had a digital Avid Venue Profile sidecar, his focus was the Yamaha PM5000 desk. “I’m using an analog board; I’m an endangered species out here, but I much prefer analog. Digital takes the fun out of mixing; it’s more like operating a lighting desk. It’s a disconnect that prefer not to do if I can help it, but I can mix shows on digital boards.” [ 44 ] LIVESOUNDshowcase On the recent Fleetwood Mac tour, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham sang into Beyerdynamic TGX-80 and Audio-Technica AE6100 vocal mics, respectively. P H O T O B Y G R E G C R I S T M A N | W W W . G R E G C P H O T O G R A P H Y . C O M (continued on page 46) Dave Kob, FOH engineer on the recent Fleetwood Mac tour, first toured with the band as its system engineer on the Rumours tour in 1978. P H O T O B Y L A R R Y J A F F E E The vocalists were not using wireless mics, which Kob noted was “a rarity these days.” Nicks and the backup vocalists used Beyerdynamic TGX-80 handhelds, while Buck- ingham’s voice was captured via an Audio-Technica AE6100. “It came from his solo tours, and I didn’t change it; changing things with Ste- vie takes a while, too. It took me a year and a half to get her to try the TGX-80 and like it.” The 16-speaker full PA system, based around Clair i-5 line array boxes and supplemented by side hangs, didn’t require any ground subs. “The one thing I really like about i-5 is the low-end cabinet that hangs right with the array,” said Kob, who added that he likes to tune the PA to Roxy Music’s Avalon. “Those Bob Clearmountain [mixed] tracks are absolute classics.” Preparing for the tour involved a month of band rehearsals, includ- ing two weeks of full production re- hearsals in LA at a Sony soundstage in Culver City. Generally, the tour had been “going quite smoothly. It’s a much better vibe than it was four years ago for lots of reasons,” said the engineer. “They’re selling more tickets, they’re playing better, they’re getting along better. It comes down to everybody else.” Moncrieffe points out that after the final U.S. date on July 6 in Sacra- mento, the tour takes off some time before hitting Europe and then Aus- tralia; the first European date is Sept. 20 in Dublin. It’s all a long way from the rambling, 7-minutes-plus tale Nicks told the audience that evening (and indeed, every night of the tour) about how she and Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac. At Jones Beach, Nicks ended by asking the guitarist if she got the story right, and he pointed out she’d omitted a key element to the story: Fleetwood called Buckingham to join them, and it was Buckingham who said the two of them were a package deal. Nicks offered a belated thank you to her former boyfriend for in- sisting that they “take your hippie girlfriend too,” but not wanting John McVie to be the forgotten man, add- ed the bass player suggested back in ’75 gruffly that they “keep the girl.” And the rest is history, as they say. Clair clairglobal.com Caption 3: On the Fleetwood Mac audio crew were (l-r): Ricky Avila (PA tech), Hope Stuemke (PA tech), Donovan Friedman (systems engineer), Meg Tempio (monitor tech), Dave Coyle (monitor engineer) and Dave Moncrieffe (crew chief). [ August 2013 ] [ 46 ] LIVESOUNDshowcase Fleetwood Mac Clair (Lititz, PA) VITALstats FOH Engineer: Dave Kob Monitor Engineer: Ed Dracoules, Dave Coyle Crew Chief: Dave Moncrieffe Systems Engineer: Donavan Friedman Techs: Ricky Avilia, Meg Tempio, Hope Stuemke FOH Console: Yamaha PM5000; Avid Venue Profile Monitor Console: DiGiCo SD10; Avid Venue Profile House Speakers: Clair i-5, i-5b, BT-218 subs, iMicro front fill, i-DL Monitor Speakers: Clair 12AM, ML-18, R-4III sidefill Personal Monitors: Shure PSM 1000 House Amplifiers: Crown MA3600VZ Monitor Amplifiers: Crown MA3600VZ FOH Equipment/Plug-Ins: Summit TLA-100A; Yamaha SPX2000; Lexicon 480L; Bricasti M7; Eventide Eclipse; Aphex 612; Tube Tech CL-2A Monitor Equipment/Plug- Ins: Crane Song Phoenix; TC Electronic 6000; Yamaha SPX990, SPX1000; Summit TLA-100A Microphones: AKG 414, 451; Audix D4, SCX25A; Audio-Technica AE6100; Shure SM58, SM57, Beta 91A, Beta 98AMP, KSM313/NE, UR Series; Beyerdynamic TG-X 80, TG D52d; Countryman DI Fleetwood Mac (continued from page 44) “I’m using an analog board; I’m an endangered species out here, but I much prefer analog. Digital takes the fun out of mixing; it’s more like operating a lighting desk.” Dave Kob, FOH engineer, Fleetwood Mac [ ] P H O T O C R E D I T : T A N Y A M A T U R O THERE’S MORE 5 See fan- shot video of Fleetwood Mac drifting through “Sara” at Jones Beach Amphitheatre at prosoundnetwork.com/aug2013. [ 48 ] centerSTAGE TOP 10 TOURS OF THE MONTH LEGEND: (he) house engineer. (ahe) ass’t house engineer. (be) band’s house engineer. (me) monitor engineer. (ame) ass’t monitoring engineer. (bme) band’s monitor engineer. (se) systems engineer. (ae) ass’t engineer. (tech) technician. (cc) crew chief. HC: house console. MC: monitor console. HS: house speakers. PMS: personal monitor systems. MS: monitor speakers. HA: house amplifiers. MA: monitor amplifiers. Top 10 grossing tours according to Billboard. Some tours did not report grosses for all shows; rankings may be affected as a result. Equipment and crew information are provided by the respective sound reinforcement companies. ACT / STATISTICS CREW EQUIPMENT 3 KENNY CHESNEY | MORRIS LIGHT AND SOUND INC. John Mills (cc/se); Chris Rabold (be); Bryan Baxley (bme); Phill Robinson (me-Chesney); Justin Meeks, Phil Spina, Kyle Fletcher, Tanner Freese, Preston Grey (techs); Jamison Beck (patch) HC: Midas Pro9; MC: (2) Midas Pro9; HS: 100+ Nexo STM; IEM: Shure PSM 1000 (Chesney), Sennheiser (band); HA: Nexo NUAR Universal Amp Racks; HARDWIRED MICS: Heil; Shure SM57, Beta52, SM58; Sennheiser; Audio-Technica; WIRELESS MICS: Shure Axient with KSM9HS capsule 5 JUSTIN BEIBER | CLAIR Gordon Mack III (be); Alex Macleod (me); Arnie Hernandez (cc/se); Joel Merrill (mse); Niall Slevin (rfe), Hank Fury, Banjamin Turner (tech) HC: Avid Venue Profile; MC: DiGiCo SD10; HS: Clair i-5, i-5b, i-3; MS: Clair SRM; IEM: Shure PSM 1000; HA: Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q; MA: Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q; HARDWIRED MICS: Shure; Sennheiser; Radial J-48; WIRELESS MICS: Shure UHF-R; Heil PR 30; Crown CM-311; FOH EQUIPMENT: Waves Mercury 7 JASON ALDEAN | SPECTRUM SOUND Chris Stephens (he); Evan Richner (me); Joseph Lloyd (pm); Jeremy Seawell (se); Ryan Stotts (mtech); Bob Campbell (tech) HC: Avid Venue; Midas 431 preamps; MC: Avid Venue; Midas 431 preamps; HS: d&b audiotechnik (64) J8, (8) J12, (16) J Sub, (24) B2, (8) Q10; IEM: Shure PSM 1000; Ultimate Ears UE-7, UE-11; HA: d&b audiotechnik D12; HARDWIRED MICS: Audio-Technica AE6100, AE2500, ATM350, ATM450, AT4050, AT4081; Shure SM57; WIRELESS MICS: Audio-Technica Artist Elite 5000 series wireless with T6100, T1000 transmitters; FOH EQUIPMENT: Lake LM44; ATI DDA 212XLR; Waves Platinum Bundle; Crane Song Phoenix; SPL Transient Designer; Massey De:Esser, vt3; MONITOR EQUIPMENT: Massey L2007, vt3, De:Esser 9 BRUNO MARS | SOUND COMPANY Derek Brener (be); James Berry (bme); Erik Rodstol (me/mtech); Jeff Hargrove (cc/se); Mike Gamble, Austin Dudley (techs) HC: DiGiCo SD7 with SD Racks; MC: DiGiCo SD7 with SD and Mini Racks; HS: Clair i-5, BT 218, i-micro; MS: Clair BT 218, CM-22, BT 118; IEM: Sennheiser SK 2000, AC 3200 combiner; Clair antenna combiner, Helicals; HA: Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q; MA: Lab. gruppen PLM 20000Q; HARDWIRED MICS: Earthworks KP1, SR30, SR 40, DP30/C; Beyer M88, Opus 88; Shure SM 57, Beta 57a, Beta 91; Sennheiser e 945, e 602, MKH 416; Heil PR 30; Radial JDI; Audio-Technica ATM25; WIRELESS MICS: Sennheiser SK 2000; FOH EQUIPMENT: Waves Mercury; MONITOR EQUIPMENT: Waves Mercury 2 THE ROLLING STONES | CLAIR Dave Natale (he); Robert Bull (me); Jo Ravitch (se); Steve Carter, Robert Taylor (mon techs), Thomas Huntington (PA cc); Matt Patterson (RF/mon tech), Brandon Schuette, Tim Joyce, Kory Lutes (PA techs) HC: (2) Yamaha PM4000; MC: Midas Heritage 3000, Avid Venue Profile; HS: Clair i-5, i-5b, P-2; MS: Clair 12AM, R-4, i-5b; IEM: Shure PSM 1000; HA: Crown MA-3600VZ; MA: Lab.gruppen PLM; HARDWIRED MICS: AKG; Shure; Neumann; Sennheiser; Beyer; Countryman; WIRELESS MICS: Shure UR series; FOH EQUIPMENT: Aphex 612; Yamaha SPX-990; Manley EL-OP; iO processor, Alesis ML-9600; Tascam CD-RW2000; Apogee Rosetta 200; Smart Research C2; TC Electronic 1128; MONITOR EQUIPMENT: TC Electronic 1128; dbx 160a; Aphex 622; Dolby LM 44 4 BOB SEGER | CLAIR Bruce Knight (be); Peter Thompson (me); Chris Nichols (cc/se); Matt Moser (ae), Tom Ford (tech) HC: Avid Venue D-Show; MC: Soundcraft Vi6; HS: Clair i-5, i-5B, i-3, i-DL, P-2, FF-II; MS: Clair 12AM; IEM: Shure PSM 900; HA: Crown MA3600VZ; Lab.gruppen; MA: Lab.gruppen; HARDWIRED MICS: Shure SM91, Beta 57A, SM57; Audio-Technica AT4060, AT4047; Audix D6; Sennheiser MD 421, E-904; Earthworks DP 25, DP 30; AKG C414; WIRELESS MICS: Shure UR; FOH PLUG-INS: Crane Song Phoenix; Waves Live Bundle 6 ONE DIRECTION | EIGHTH DAY SOUND Mark Littlewood (be); David Martell (me); Vince Buller; Chris Hall; Chris Delucian (techs) HC: Yamaha PM5D; MC: Yamaha PM5D; HS: d&b Audiotechnik J8, J12, B2; V8, V12; IEM: d&b Audiotechnik M4, Q Sub; HA: d&b Audiotechnik; MA: d&b Audiotechnik; WIRELESS MICS: Shure 8 FLEETWOOD MAC | CLAIR David Kob (he); Ed Dracoules, Dave Coyle (me); Dave Moncrieffe (cc); Donavan Friedman (se); Ricky Avilia, Meg Tempio, Hope Stuemke (tech) HC: Yamaha PM5000; Avid Venue Profile; MC: DiGiCo SD10; Avid Venue Profile; HS: Clair i-5, i-5b, BT-218 subs, iMicro front fill, i-DL; MS: Clair 12AM, ML-18, R-4III sidefill; IEM: Shure PSM 1000; HA: Crown MA3600VZ; MA: Crown MA3600VZ; HARDWIRED MICS: AKG 414, 451; Audix D4, SCX25A; Audio-Technica 6100; Shure SM58, SM57, Beta 91A, Beta 98AMP, KSM313/NE; Beyer TG-X 80, TG D52d, Countryman DI; WIRELESS MICS: Shure UR Series; FOH EQUIPMENT: Summit TLA-100A; Yamaha SPX2000; Lexicon 480L; Bricasti M7; Eventide Eclipse; Aphex 612; Tube Tech CL-2A; MONITOR EQUIPMENT: Crane Song Phoenix; TC Electronic 6000; Yamaha SPX990, SPX1000; Summit TLA-100A 10 BLAKE SHELTON | CLAIR Jeff “Pig” Parsons (he); Brad Baisley (me); Tim Holder (cc/se); Jared Lawrie (mse), James Higgins (tech), Art Rich (pm) HC: Avid Venue Profile (96 Ch.); MC: Avid Venue Profile (96 Ch.); HS: Clair i-5, i-5b, BT-218, i-dl, i-micro; MS: Clair SRM; IEM: Sennheiser G3; JH Audio JH-13, JH-16; Aurisonics; HA: Lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q; MA: Crown; HARDWIRED MICS: Sennheiser e-901, e-902, e904, e905, e906, e614, e602, e914, e935, 421; WIRELESS MICS: Sennheiser em2050 receivers with SKM2000XT, e535 capsule; FOH EQUIPMENT: Avid VenuePack 3; Rane Serrato; MONITOR EQUIPMENT: Avid VenuePack 3; Crane Song Phoenix; McDSP MC2000; Flux EQ 1 TAYLOR SWIFT | EIGHTH DAY SOUND No audio information available due to press blackout soundCHECK [ 50 ] A SAMPLING OF REINFORCEMENT LEGEND: (he) house engineer. (be) band’s house engineer. (me) monitor engineer. (bme) band’s monitor engineer. (se) systems engineer. (ae) asst. engineer. (tech) technician. HC: house console. MC: monitor console. HS: house speakers. MS: monitor speakers. HA: house amplifiers. MA: monitor amplifiers. To be included in Soundcheck, fax, mail or email a current, typed list of acts, venues, personnel and equipment each following the above format. E-mail is strongly preferred. E-mail to
[email protected], fax: (212) 378-0470, or send to: Soundcheck, Pro Sound News, 28 E 28th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival CROSSROADS AUDIO Dallas, TX WHICH STAGE, CAFÉ WHERE, NEW MUSIC ON TAP LOUNGE, SONIC STAGE, PERIPHERAL STAGES Manchester, TN Chris Williams (he), Dave Bell (he), Philip “Opie” Odom (he), James Magruder (he), “Moose” Vanlerberghe (me), Bill Larmour (me), Ed Spoto (se), Brandon Bowman (ae), Brian Mace (tech) HC: Avid Venue Mix Rack, Profile, Yamaha M7CL48, LS9- 32, LS9-16; MC: Avid Venue Mix Rack, Profile; HS: Meyer Milo, Mica, Mina, UPQ-1P, UPJ-1P, 700-HP, 600-HP; MS: JBL VP7212MDP, VRX915M, Sennheiser G3; HA: Meyer; MA: QSC, Crown Flatwater Music Festival DYNASAUR SOUND AND LIGHT Hastings, NE PRAIRIE LOFT CENTER FOR OUTDOOR LEARNING Hastings, NE Don Robertson (he), Neil Brunkhorst (me), Doc Ivo (se), Robby Collins (tech), Heather Wenske (tech), Tim McNally (tech) HC: Midas Pro4; MC: Soundcraft 400B; HS: Bronto Boxes with Triceratops; MS: IVO Studios, FTB-15; HA: Crown Macro-Tech; MA: IVO Quadralux Kings of the Mic Tour IRONMAN SOUND St. Louis, MO SCOTTRADE CENTER St. Louis, MO Bob Horner (he), Rusty Shaw (me), Kevin Hayden (se), Ian Goodman (ae) HC: Midas Heritage 3000; MC: Midas Heritage 3000; HS: Martin Audio W8LC, W8LM, WSX; MS: Martin Audio LE1500, WS218X, WS18X; HA: Lab.gruppen; MA: Crown MA 36x12 Marshall Tucker Band B&K PRO AUDIO AND LIGHTING Rock Hill, SC SPRINGS PARK, SC Keith Ludlam (he), Butch Bailey (me), Bill Orr (se), Christian Lopez (tech) HC: Yamaha M7CL; MC: Yamaha LS9-32; HS: EAW KF730, OAP Dual 18 Subs; MS: Radian Microwedges; HA: QSC PLX3602, PL380, 3602 Raquel Rodriguez, Kimberly Caldwell, Peaches & Herb SPIDER RANCH PRODUCTIONS Pescadero, CA CIVIC CENTER PLAZA San Francisco, CA Pat Mckeown (he), Alex Moran (se), Welmerink (me), Duane Klose (se) HC: DiGiCo SD8, Yamaha PM5D; MC: Yamaha M7CL, Avid Venue SC48; HS: McCauley MLA6, M88; MS: Adamson M15; HA: Lab.gruppen; MA: Lab.gruppen Rock on the Range LOGIC SYSTEMS SOUND & LIGHTING St. Louis, MO COLUMBUS CREW STADIUM Columbus, OH James Ziggy Stull (me, ae), Chip Self (se) HC: Avid Venue SC48; MC: Yamaha PM5D-RH; HS: Nexo STM M46, B112, S118, NUAR, Geo-T, CD-18 Southside Johnny & The Asbury BOULEVARD PRO Ridgefield Park, NJ SUGARLOAF PAC Sugarloaf, NY Anthony Cioffi (he), Joe Prinzo (bhe), Larry Sharkey (me), Daryl Moore (se), Vernon Perrone (se) HC: Yamaha CL5; MC: Yamaha CL5; HS: L-Acoustics dV-Dosc, dV subs, SB218, 108P; MS: L-Acoustics 112P, SB15P; HA: Lab.gruppen; MA: L-Acoustics Tony Bennett/JFK Profile in Courage Awards ALL TECH SOUND & PRODUCTION SERVICES Avon, MA JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY Boston, MA Chris Rando (he), Tom Young (be), Rob Gil (me), Carol Furguson (se) HC: Yamaha CL5; HS: JBL VRX 932, SRX 718; MS: JBL STX 812M; HA: Crest 8200, 9200; MA: Crest 8200, 9200 Center of the Universe Festival with One Republic and Neon Trees AXIOM AUDIO Tulsa, OK COX MEDIA STAGE Tulsa, OK Ben Bruce (he), Seth Weeks (ae), Jared Breen (tech), Chris Loyd (tech) HC: Avid Venue Profile; MC: Yamaha PM5D-RH; HS: Meyer Milo; MS: JBL, Shure; MA: Crown XTi 6000 The Grand Del Mar Summer Concert Series MORNINGSTAR PRODUCTIONS LLC. Murrieta, CA THE GRAND DEL MAR Del Mar, CA Jake Hendricksen (he), Michael Ruiz (me), Alan Morgenstern (se) HC: Avid Venue SC48; MC: Yamaha M7-48; HS: JBL VRX 932LA, VRX918S, Radian RCS-218; MS: Radian Microwedge; HA: Crown I-Tech; MA: QSC Marshall Tucker Band PRIME TIME ENTERTAINMENT Livermore, CA CAPITOL THEATER Sacramento, CA Michael Oliver (he), Michael Grass (me), Dave (bme) HC: Allen & Heath GL4000; MC: Yamaha M7CL; HS: EAW KF 750; MS: JBL SRX812M; HA: QSC; MA: QSC Nathan Osmond PEARL PRO AUDIO Godfrey, IL TOWN AND COUNTRY FAIR Bushnel, IL Don Lanier (he), Steven Lanier (me), Wynn Headbanger (se) HC: Soundcraft Expression 3; MC: Crest HPW 44; HS: Peavey QW 2, VR218; MS: JBL, Peavey QW, MR, ML; HA: Peavey IPR 7500, CS 4080, CS 4000, CS 3000, CS 1400; MA: Peavey IPR, CS 3000, CS 1400 Riverside Symphonia SKYLANDS PROFESSIONAL AUDIO LLC Blairstown, NJ TINICUM PARK Erwinna, PA Mark Clifford (he), Greg McGrath (be), Marc McCarthy (se), James Bellando (ae), Taylor Clifford (tech), John Danaher (tech), Nick Baughman (tech) HC: Allen & Heath iLive T112, iDR-48; HS: EAW KF 730, SB 730; MS: EAW LA-212, JFX88; HA: QSC PL380; MA: QSC PL380 Solid Brass Band, Independence Day “Ignite the Nite” GARY BUTLER PRO SOUND SERVICES West Palm Beach, FL GREENACRES COMMUNITY PARK Greenacres City, FL Gary Butler (he), Mike Cherry (me), John Eddins (tech), John Kerrison (tech) HC: Roland VM-C7200; MC: Roland VM-C7100; HS: Electro-Voice T-Series; MS: Electro-Voice Eliminator E; HA: Mackie FR; Samson S1000 TGT and Fantasia RMB AUDIO Raleigh, NC RED HAT AMPHITHEATRE Raleigh, NC Robert Weddings (me), Roger Dennis (se), Matt Johnson (ae), Cooper Cannady (tech), Gaither Hawkins (tech), Wayne Sowder (tech) HC: Yamaha PM5D-RH; MC: Yamaha PM5D-RH; HS: Martin Audio MLA Compact, DSX, W8LMD; MS: Martin Audio LE1200, WS218X, W8T, WS18X, Sennheiser EW G2, G3; HA: Martin Audio, Lab.gruppen; MA: Lab.gruppen ACT SOUND CO VENUE CREW EQUIPMENT [ 52 ] soundREINFORCEMENT so it all reaches the points at the same time,” Rock explained. “We’re creating an illusion. It’s an illusion of sound reproduction and we try to make it as realistic as possible. There’s a notion that we have with the orchestra to make it audible and pleasing to the audience.” Simon Matthews, a system spe- cialist with Meyer Sound, remarked, “Using the Meyer Leo system at the Philharmonic was a unique experi- ence for it, and it turned out to be a great opportunity. In an environment with that range (Central Park), we were able to reproduce the frequency with great clarity.” The miking of the philharmonic also played a big factor for the perfor- mances. Rock noted that every instru- ment did not get its own mic; instead he staggered the mics along each sec- tion to pick up an even sound from the orchestra: “We put a mic on the first stand where the principle player is, and put a couple behind that one. Also, because we don’t have isolation, there is bleed from every section into every mic. So part of it is to work with that and make it as organic as possible. Balancing the strings versus the wood- winds and creating a proper balance (is also a challenge).” For the July 13, 2013 concert in Central Park, Rock was tasked to mix another performer on top of creating an organic sound for the orchestra— pop sensation Mariah Carey. “To ac- tually have that kind of performer is very unusual. The sound from her band was more isolated, and we man- aged fairly well,” Rock said. Unfortunately, because the show took place outdoors, Rock had to cancel soundcheck the day before be- cause of rain, which made it more difficult to prepare for the concert with Carey. “The orchestra accom- panied her with arrangements made specifically for this event to embel- lish her sound,” Rock said. “It’s an unusual event for the orchestra to accompany her, which is all the more reason to have a rehearsal. “ At FOH, Rock used a Studer Vista console and recorded the per- formance using a JoeCo BlackBox recorder. For playback synths for Carey, he used Avid Pro Tools. “As far as set up is concerned, the key factor is how the system is put to- gether. We have a stage box, a central preamp rack with multiple mic pres and analog to digital converters right under the stage,” Rock said. Ultimately, Rock said his main goal for the Philharmonic is to create the natural orchestra sound without overwhelming the audience. “Today’s systems are powerful tools. Perhaps in some situations, the high sound pressure is desirable, but we don’t really want it to be painful, and it shouldn’t be. Part of my goal is to use the best equipment and use it well within its limits, rather than pushing it too hard,” Rock said. “Over the years, just given the kind of society and culture we live with, the level of amplification has gone up. So we’re amplifying considerably more than we did a couple of decades ago, but the challenge is to represent (the sound) without it coming out too overwhelming and unnatural.” New York Philharmonic Nyphil.org Meyer Sound www.meyersound.com NY Philharmonic (continued from page 42) FOH/Recording Engineer: Larry Rock Systems Engineer: Bob Hanlon Techs: Rob Gordon, David Bullard FOH Console: Studer Vista 8 House Speakers: Meyer Sound Leo, 1100-LFC, Milo, Mica Monitor Speakers: Meyer Sound M’elodie FOH Equipment/Plug-Ins: Lexicon 300L Microphones: Schoeps MK 4, MK 4V, MK 21; Neumann KM 184 VITALstats THERE’S MORE 5 See fan-shot video of Mariah Carey performing “Looking In” with the New York Philharmonic in Central Park at prosoundnetwork.com/ aug2013. [ August 2013 ] Universal Audio has hired David Lenat as Direc- tor of U.S. Sales. Lenat brings with hi m nearl y 10 years of experi- ence as Line 6’s Director of Sales, where he special- ized in E-Commerce. In his new posi- tion, Lenat will manage all U.S. sales representatives as well as spearhead the domestic channel marketing activities for Universal Audio. “We’re looking forward to having David represent UA in such an important capacity,” says Greg Westall, Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “His years of experi- ence with dealers and customers make him an incredible asset to the UA team, and his expertise and leadership in both sales and technology is a strong combination that will help position us for future growth and opportunity.” CADAC has named Richard ‘Fez’ Ferriday to lead its brand develop- ment team. Ferriday brings years of experience in the live sound produc- tion industry to the position, hav- ing more than 10 years with Midas/ Klark Teknik in the same role. Pat- rick Almond, who was previously responsible for CADAC marketing, as Soundking Europe Marketing Manager, is now appointed Assistant General Manager for Studiomaster and Carlsbro, focusing on the rees- tablishment of the UK and Eire sales and distribution of these brands and their marketing activities. TC Electronic has named Thomas Lund CTO for Business & Produc- tion, and Thomas Valter VP of Busi- ness Management for Broadcast & Production. Lund formerly held the position of HD Development Manag- er with TC Electronic. He was among the first to document the sonic con- sequences of the ‘loudness wars’ in music production, and for more than a decade, has presented papers on loudness and true-peak level at rel- evant audio conferences around the globe. Valter was formerly the HD Business Manager at TC Electronics, and in his new role, will be able to focus entirely on developing business strategies for the broadcast and pro- duction segment. RCF has added Ken Voss as its Manager of In- st al l ed Sound products. In his new rol e, Voss will also lead the Media Relations for RCF’s U.S. distribution. He will work to help grow the RCF busi- ness in contracting and installation areas and develop go-to-market strat- egies, increase product knowledge and awareness and improve compa- ny communications. Prior to joining RCF, Voss served as an independent manufacturer representative with Sta- rin. He has represented RCF for 10 years now, and during his tenure he was honored with numerous factory awards. Ger man audi o console special- ist Lawo AG has hired Andreas Hilmer as Di- rector of Mar- keting & Com- mu n i c a t i o n s . In his new role, Hilmer will di- rect all marketing and communications strategies for the Lawo group of companies. Prior to joining Lawo, Hilmer led Rie- del’s Communications’ Marketing & Communications department for nine years. Sensaphonics re- cently hired Dr. Heather Malyuk as the company’s new audiologist. Dr. Malyuk has worked at Sensa- phonics as a clini- cal extern for the past year, earning doctoral student of the year honors in audiology from Kent State University. She is also an accomplished fiddle and guitar player who still gigs and teaches profession- ally, specializing in Old Time Appala- chian music. In her new position, Dr. Malyuk will be running the Musicians Hearing Clinic, seeing music clients at local venues, and also seeing other audiology patients. Williams Sound has appointed Kent Peterson to the position of Techni- cal Sales Specialist. Peterson brings more than 20 years of experience in the audio and acoustics indus- try, including recording studio man- agement/engi neeri ng, i ndustri al intercom systems design, and high- performance audio system design specification and installation. David Lenat Ken Voss Andreas Hilmer Dr. Heather Malyuk Thomas Lund Thomas Valter Q: What is your new position, and what does it entail? A: My new position is Marketing Manager for Cadac. My role is to help develop and build up- on the brand identity and positioning of Cadac with the pro audio market. Q: How has your background prepared you for your new role? A: I have spent the past 15 years with Midas, starting off as the Marketing Co- ordinator working with Webby (David Webster) before he and Bob Doyle left to start DiGiCo. It was during this time that we launched the Heritage series, which included the Heritage 3000, the industry standard for concert touring. During my time at Midas, we went through the hard transition from being the market leader in analogue, to arriving quite late into digital world with the launch of the XL8. So I am fully aware of the problems of moving into the world of digital and the efforts that are required to convince people that our way of doing things is the best way! Hopefully, between Fez (Richard Ferriday, Cadac Brand Development Manager) and myself, we can bring the benefits of “hindsight” gained from Midas, so Cadac can avoid a lot of the potential problems. Q: What new marketing initiatives are we likely to see from the company? A: We want to become closer to our end users and listen to what they want. This has always been a core value at Cadac and we intend to build upon this philosophy. To help with this, we are currently looking for suitable premises for a second office and demo facility in the middle of the country, to increase our geographical coverage in the UK beyond the south east of England, and the opportunities for international visitors to experience Cadac products. We are also planning an end user training program for our distributors, and improvements in technical support, with both Fez and Ben Millson (Cadac International Sales Manager) working on that. We are also developing our website and better exploiting all the marketing tools available to us. Q: What are your short- and long-term goals? A: In the short term, we intend to raise the awareness of the brand and get a firmer foothold in the concert touring market. With the CDC four now ship- ping and the flagship CDC eight scheduled to do so in September, we will have the products to achieve this. In the longer term, we want to continue to build up a strong and highly motivated distributor network, as we see this as a vital way of growing and supporting the brand. It is crucial that the personal relationships between Cadac and the end user are strong within each terri- tory, and we see the distributor as key to this. Our overall aim is for Cadac to become the driving force at the top end of the pro audio mixing console market in all segments—including theatre, Cadac’s traditional core business. Everyone at Cadac is extremely passionate about the brand and what it stands for, and this has resulted in some radical product concepts which will have a major impact on the market. To help with this goal, the incredibly talented R&D team has been bolstered by an addi- tional nine engineers since I have joined the company! Q: What is the greatest challenge that you face? A: The main challenge is going to be reminding people of Cadac and how great these beautifully engineered consoles sound. The little Live1 analogue desk sounds just like the J Type, and that is a phenomenal sounding desk. We want people to try the consoles; the CDC eight has a unique user interface which is incredibly easy to use and sounds fantastic. It is going to be an in- teresting challenge, but because of all the people and passion involved, the future is looking very bright for Cadac 60SECONDS James Godbehear Cadac sound [ 54 ] PEOPLE n Williams Sound has appointed Audio Gear as the company’s new representative for Southern California. Audio Gear will promote Wil- liams Sound’s full line of wireless communication technology from its three offices in Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas. n Bexel’s Technical Sales & Solutions business segment is now the first authorized U.S. reseller of Lawo products. Lawo products will also be incorporated Bexel’s Engineered Systems & Solutions business segment, which designs and implements solutions for the broadcast industry. nMiddle Atlantic Products awarded BC Electronic Sales as Commer- cial AV Rep of the Year at a sales meeting held before InfoComm 2013. BC Electronics represents Middle Atlantic for the Commercial AV mar- ket in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Southern Illinois. soundREPS [ August 2013 ] [ 55 ] soundCLASSIFIEDS recruitment acoustical products studio furnishings To advertise in the classified section of PRO SOUND NEWS Contact Doug Ausejo at (650) 238-0298 or
[email protected] equipment for sale For the latest news, visit us online at prosoundnetwork.com Help Wanted - Director of Sales Kaltman Creations LLC, the leader in RF solutions for pro-audio wireless is seeking a person to fill the newly created position of Director of Sales. The candidate for this position must have sales management experience in the professional audio equipment markets and/or sales management experience in the test & measurement equipment fields. As the Director of Sales, the hired individual will be required to develop and manage global resellers, rep’s, and house accounts who address the concert and industrial productions markets, worship and theater markets, and commercial install markets. The position requires an individual that can ‘take charge’ and advance our Invisible Waves pro-audio wireless solutions brand to the next level. Position located at the main office near Atlanta, GA. Please visit www.kaltmancreationsllc.com to view the Invisible Waves product line and then call Mark Kaltman (678-714-2000 or email
[email protected]) to discuss this opportunity. Director of Sales, Canada Meyer Sound Laboratories, Inc., a global leader in loudspeaker innovation is seeking a senior level Pro Audio Sales Director to oversee all Canadian sales activities. The successful candidate will have 7-10 years of prior pro audio sales experience & strong knowledge of Meyer Sound products. To learn more about this exciting position please visit www.meyersound.com/about/careers/?id=281 ADVERTISER PAGE ADVERTISER PAGE Pro Sound News (ISSN# 0164-6338) is published monthly by NewBay Media, L.L.C., 28 E 28th Street - 12th Fl, NewYork, NY 10016. Pro Sound News is available without charge in the USA to qualified professionals engaged in sound recording, broadcast, video recording, audio-visual, sound reinforcement and associated business. The publisher reserves the right to refuse applications and restrict free copies sent to a company or organization. For subscription information or to email customer service, please visit our online Subscribe Center at www.MyPSNmag.com. Reprints available upon request, call our Reprint Coordinator at Wright’s Reprints: 877-652-5295. Periodical postage paid at NewYork, NY and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Pro Sound News, P.O. Box 234, Lowell, MA 01853. Please allow6-8 weeks for address changes to take effect. ©Copyright 2013 by NewBay Media, L.L.C. PRINTED INU.S.A. Acoustics First 8 Applied Electronics 1,47 Argosy Consoles 6 Audio-Technica 19 Audix 32 B & H 53 Bosch Communications 9 D&B Audiotechnik 38 DBX 27 Ebtech 30 Electro-Voice 9 Focusrite 13 Full Compass 18 Genelec 4 Kaltman Creations 43 Lectrosonics 10 Meyer Sound 59 Neumann USA 11 QSC 60 Radial Engineering 21,49 RCF USA Inc. 14 Sennheiser 11 Shure 7 Sony Creative Software 23 Sweetwater 17 Sweetwave Audio 46 Vintage King 20,25,52 Yamaha Commercial Audio 2,3 Yamaha Corporation of America 45 Yorkville 15 advertiserINDEX companyINDEX The following companies are mentioned in this edition of PRO SOUND NEWS. Use this index to reference your copy. Ableton…10; A-Designs...10; ADAM…26; Adamson...16; ADX…33; AKG…46; Allen & Heath...41; Amiga…26; Analog Design Group…30; Aphex...46; API...24, 28, 30; Apogee…10, 24, 32; Apple...5, 26, 30, 34, 38, 40, 41, 57; Argosy…47; Ashly Audio…41; Atari…26; Audinate...56; Audionamix…33, 34; Audio-Technica...44, 46; Audix…46; Auralex Acoustics…10; Avid...10, 24, 26, 33, 35, 36, 44, 46, 52, 57 Behringer...16; Bexel…54; Beyerdynamic…26, 44, 46; Blue Microphones…10; Bose…12; Brent Averil…24; Bricasti…46; Burl…32; Cadac…54; Cakewalk…26; Calrec Audio…5; Chandler Limited…10, 30; Clair…46; Coherent Acoustics…33; Community Professional Loudspeakers…12; Cotton Hill…33; Countryman…46; Crane Song…46; Creation Audio Labs…26; Crown...42, 46; Dangerous Music…28; D.A.S.…42; DiGiCo...16, 44, 46, 54; Digidesign…57; DTS Inc…33, 34; EAR…32; Earthworks…26, 28; Eventide...10, 46; Fairlight…57; FiRe…5; Focal…10; Focusrite...26, 40; Genelec…35, 38; Gibson Guitar…12, 26; GML…32; Gobbler…10; Grace Design…26; Future Sonics…44; Groovy Tubes…26; Harman Pro Group...5, 33; Icon Digital…5; iZotope…10; iZ Technology…40; JBL...42; JoeCo…52; Klark Teknik…54; Korg…26; L-Acoustics...42; Lawo…54; Lexicon…46, 52; Line 6…41, 54; Lynx Studio Technology…10; Maag Audio…10; Magix…26; Manley Labs...26; Martin Audio...16; Maselec…32; Mesa Boogie…26; Metric Halo....42; Meyer Sound Labs...1, 5, 33, 41, 42, 52; Microsoft...26, 30; Midas...54, 57; Middle Atlantic Products…54; Miktek…26; Millennia Media...26, 36; Mojave…10; Mogami…36; MsDSP…10, 40; MXL…40; Neumann...52; NHT…26; Overstayer…10; Peavey...; Pensado’s Place…10; Phoenix Audio…10; Powersoft…41; Prism Sound…32; Quad Eight Electronics…24; QSC...42; Radial...28; Rascal Audio…10; RCF…41, 54; Renkus-Heinz...42; Riedel...54; Riverside…10; Rocket Shells…; RODE Mics…5; Royer…26; Schoeps…52; Sennheiser...14, 26; Sensaphonics…54; Shure...36, 46; Sonic Farm…40; Sony...26, 40, 46; Soundking…54; SPL…10; SSL…24, 28; Stanton Group…12; Starin…54; Steinberg…57; Studer…33, 52; Summit...46; TC Electronic...46, 54; Tree Audio…10; Tube Tech…46; Ultrasone Pro…26; Universal Audio...26, 36, 40, 54; Vintage King…10; Vue Audiotechnik…41; Waterland Design…22; Wave Distribution…10; Waves...; Weiss…32; Williams Sound…54; Yamaha...26, 41, 42, 46, 57 [ August 2013 ] viewfromthe [ 56 ] TOP BY KELLEIGH WELCH W hen the opportunity to join Audinate as its CEO came up in 2008, Lee Ellison knew the company was good fit. Audinate had already released Dante, its patented media network solution that has been adopted by numerous audio manufacturers, and combining that effort with the company’s team of designers made Ellison’s decision an easy one. “I had previously worked with Da- vid Myers (co-founder of Audinate) at another Australia-based company. David and Aidan Williams, our other co-founder, met me in Portland and mentioned they needed a CEO, and described what Audinate was doing. Immediately, it became apparent that the company had something special: a team of incredibly bright people with significant expertise over a broad spectrum of IP technologies,” Ellison said. “So when I considered the op- portunity to join Audinate, we had great people and great technology, combined with a solution that solved customer problems. It seemed like the perfect ingredients for success.” As the developer of the digital media network system Dante, Au- dinate has grown as a well-known collaborator with many equipment manufacturers in the industry. “It’s fantastic to see Dante installed with our partners in major stadiums, universities, hotels, the Olympic Games, courtrooms and shopping centers,” Ellison said. “Having said that, I get just as much satisfac- tion when I see a forum post from a sound engineer who expresses how great Dante is to use.” Prior to joining Audinate, Ellison had worked in telecom and IT tech- nology companies for 30 years, but had little exposure to the pro audio world. It wasn’t until he was hired at Audinate that he was fully introduced to the industry. “I was indoctrinated into the market. First, there was the annual NAMM show, then ISE, and then 45 days later, ProLight & Sound. Af- ter meeting hundreds of companies, it was apparent that past network- ing technologies were too complex to setup and had limitations. Pro audio companies developed legacy audio networks. Audinate is a networking company, not a pro audio company, and that ties nicely with my past ex- periences.” Based in Sydney, Australia, Au- dinate was founded in 2006 and stemmed from the Australian compa- ny National ICT Australia (NICTA). It has operations in Portland, OR and in the United Kingdom, which pro- vide sales, marketing and technical support for those regions. “Being globally dispersed causes some pretty horrific times for confer- ence calls,” Ellison said, “but we have a very committed team. We have 30 people in the company with one of the industry’s largest teams dedicated solely to A/V media networking.” Since Ellison’s induction to the company, the company has released new products he’s particularly proud of, including the end-point chip, Ul- timo. “This will expand the market for network audio,” Ellison said. “It has been a lot of hard work by all of us, but I am fortunate to be part of the market success and to work with our OEMs to build a recog- nized Dante brand. There are about 150 Dante-enabled OEM products now available, with hundreds in the development pipeline—some pretty significant brands who have yet to be announced, that recognize Dante meets their use cases across all mar- ket segments.” Audinate’s initial focus was on live sound, and in 2006, Dante was used for the first time at a Barbara Streisand concert, Ellison said. Since then, the company has grown to ac- commodate the commercial installa- tion and broadcast markets. “We are also active with partners in the emergency communications and public address markets. In the future, there will be the need for a wide area A/V systems that are rout- ed over Layer 3 IP networks. This is why we are spending a great deal of time in the IETF standards bodie— to make sure we can use RTP-based standards in the future,” Ellison ex- plained. Ellison noted that the company keeps it focus on customers rather than its competition, making sure to constantly improve the company’s services. “Our attention is on our customer needs and how to create and feature rich capabilities in Dante. We con- tinually get feedback from customers who have implemented other net- working technologies, that Dante was the easiest integration they have ever had,” said Ellison. “Our customers realize that they can’t do everything in-house, and it is strategically better to concentrate on where they can in- novate and create value in their own products.” Audinate is also constantly grow- ing in its research and development department. “New capabilities are being added to Dante to monitor net- work status and performance,” said Ellison. “Advanced technologies are always being created, new standards are constantly evolving and Audinate will continue to enhance Dante’s toolkit.” Audinae www.audinate.com Making The Connection LEE ELLISON, CEO, AUDINATE Lee Ellison “Immediately, it became apparent that Audinate had something special: a team of incredibly bright people with significant expertise over a broad spectrum of IP technologies.” Lee Ellison, CEO Audinate [ ] AUDINATE PARTNERS LICENSEES Allen & Heath www.allen-heath.com Ashly Audio www.ashly.com ASL www.asl-control.co.uk Atero Tech www.aterotech.com Auvitran www.auvitran.com Aviom www.aviom.com Bitner Audio www.bitner-audio.com Bosch www.boschcommunicatons.com Bose global.bose.com BSS www.bss.co.uk Crest Audio www.crestaudio.com Delec www.delec.de DHD dhd-audio.de Digico www.digico.biz Electro Voice www.electrovoice.com ESS www.essaudio.cn Extron Electronics www.extron.com Focusrite global.focusrite.com Four Audio www.fouraudio.com Harman www.harman.com Inter-M www.inter-m.com Jato www.jato.co.jp JoeCo joeco.co.uk Klark Teknik www.klarkteknik.com Lab.gruppen AB labgruppen.com Lake lake.labgruppen.com Lectrosonics www.lectrosonics.com Linea Research www.linea-research.co.uk Link SRL www.linkusa-inc.com Midas www.midasconsoles.com Nexo nexo-sa.com NTP www.ntp.dk Open Access www.oa.com.au Peavey www.peaveycommercialaudio.com Peavey MediaMatrix mediamatrix.peavey.com Powersof www.powersof-audio.com PreSonus www.presonus.com RTS www.rtsintercoms.com/rts/line Sierra Automated Systems www.sasaudio.com Shure www.shure.com Solidyne www.solidynepro.com Sound Devices www.sounddevices.com Soundcraf www.soundcraf.com Stagetec www.stagetec.com Stewart Audio www.stewartaudio.com Symetrix www.symetrix.co Televic Conference www.televic-conference.com TEQSAS www.teqsas.de VUE Audiotechnik www.vueaudio.com Xilica xilica.com Yamaha www.yamahaproaudio.com AUTHORISED IMPLEMENTERS Atero Design www.aterodesign.com ZP Engineering www.zpeng.com done without amplification. Now you have those natural acoustics and they work to your benefit if you’re an engineer who knows not over- power the room. We have the chal- lenge of a small stage, so the moni- tors can sometimes overwhelm the front of house, but in general, most people love our sound.” Sharing its walls with a number of stores, restaurants and apart- ments, the venue has a 100 dB limit at FOH, which is appropriate for the room, as well as most of the acts that play there. “We know that if we book Todd Rundgren again, it’s going to be a loud night,” Olsson laughed, “but it should be in a way, because that’s what he does and we’ve come to accept that. Still, we try to keep it within 100 decibels, not only for the neighbors but for the integrity of the building; every- thing starts shaking loose!” Because of the variety of shows and events at the Music Hall, ranging from rock concerts to dance school recitals, the venue has its own mix- ers—a Midas Venice 320 and a Ya- maha M7CL—but it still brings in whatever a rider requires, such as the Fountains of Wayne show, which found Boulevard Pro fielding a Yama- ha PM5D at the FOH position and a CL5 for monitors. Bringing in gear is no picnic, however, since the load-in door isn’t at stage level; instead, it’s at the back house left of the orchestra, three steps above street level (there’s no nearby parking lot). Thus once gear is rolled or lifted in, it has to be rolled between irreplaceable antique glass partitions, then down a 4-foot- wide orchestra aisle to another ramp to get it on stage. Once gear is up there, it needs to be taken out of cases and off wheels ASAP—oth- erwise it’s liable to roll right off the traditionally raked stage. Despite the Music Hall’s oddities, it’s become a standard tour stop for many acts, and that popularity has only grown over time. In the 10 years since Olsson came aboard, its budget has grown from $130,000 to roughly $3 million today and the number of annual visitors has risen from 15,000 to 85,000. That influx of visitors has in turn helped revitalize the town’s Main Street, as the venue generates more than $1 million annually for the community, in recent times helping attract art galleries, restaurants and even a high-end guitar boutique to the area. The good vibes that have extend- ed out to the community, however, are mirrored inside the Hall, too. “We work in a lot of venues,” said Boulevard Pro’s Cioffi, “and this place? It’s quirky and nothing is ex- actly perfect, but I like it. This is our favorite theater!” Tarrytown Music Hall Tarrytownmusichall.org Boulevard pro Blvdpro.com flexible offline bounce functionality, low-latency input buffering, dynamic host processing and GUI enhance- ments, including expanded metering selections—well, what’s not to like? As Rich Holmes, director of prod- uct management for Pro Tools at Avid Technology, stated during a roll-out of version 11 to the press, “It’s hard to keep technology that’s 12 years old moving forward.” He was referring to the lack of support in Pro Tools 11 for the 32-bit fixed-point architecture of HD Accel, TDM and the Pro Con- trol and Control|24 surfaces. The online forums are currently sagging under the weight of com- ments being posted about that lack of backward compatibility with its obvi- ously popular worksurfaces. Accord- ing to Neil Hester, one of the team behind the Pro Tools Expert web site, in an article posted in early August, “A thread was started on the DUC [Avid’s online Pro Audio Community site] by users to air their views (at what has been dubbed a short-sight- ed decision by Avid) that has now turned into one of the biggest threads I’ve ever seen on the forum. It is now pushing some 84 pages.” As Hughes notes, Pro Tools 11 has discontinued support for what is now considered a large format console for the first time. But as he also notes, “these units were the first that Digide- sign/Avid produced.” And there’s the rub; how many software manufactur- ers are able to support everything the company has ever produced, forever? For those willing to change, Avid still makes plenty of control surfaces, including a number originally devel- oped by Euphonix, which the com- pany acquired in April 2011, that are arguably superior—although obvious- ly not, for some users—than the older Pro Control and Control|24 surfaces. Meanwhile, other manufacturers are releasing new products and new ver- sions of software that could well chal- lenge Avid’s primacy. Yamaha’s Nuage is a case in point. Officially launched at the end of 2012, Nuage, a modular and expandable system, cleverly avoids ma- ny of the challenges associated with the release of any new product by combin- ing components from a variety of sourc- es. The control surface is new, to be sure, but the system leverages the power of software from Steinberg, networking from Audinate, computer power from Hewlett Packard and even a chassis as- sembly from Argosy Console to create a powerful platform for post, especially, as well as recording applications. Increasingly, software developers have unleashed their platforms from specific hardware and allowed them to be used natively. The computer on which the DAW resides is therefore typically a significant factor in the power available to the user. Yamaha has removed that variable in Nuage, however, by standardizing on HP’s Z280 workstation. “If they let the user choose what- ever PC they want, maybe they even build it from parts and pieces from one of the online vendors, then Ya- maha doesn’t know for sure that PC is going to work, flawlessly, for audio for months and years at a time delivering the production workflow that’s needed in these studios,” observed HP work- station engineer and demo specialist Dan Bennett at a trade show earlier this year. As a known quantity—and with a three-year warranty—the Z280 removes at least one source of doubt from the user’s mind. Steinberg, acquired by Yamaha in 2004, once threatened to give Pro Tools a run for its money, signing up a veritable who’s who of record pro- ducers and engineers to help market its Nuendo software platform. Nuage is off to a rather more sedate start, with Yamaha Commercial Audio log- ging its first installation only recently. To be fair, Yamaha has been busy setting up retail partners around the globe for the new product. The first fruits of those efforts are an installa- tion at Temple of Tune, a post house in Belgium, closely followed by The Institut National de L’audiovisuel (INA), a noted multimedia and train- ing organization in France. The collaboration between Ya- maha and Steinberg is reminiscent of the Fairlight FAME, which, back in 1996, integrated Fairlight’s MFX hard disk recorder/editor with a con- sole work surface manufactured by Amek. But FAME, contrary to the song, did not live forever. Fairlight, too, did not live for- ever—in that particular incarna- tion, anyway—but now resurrected (again), it is once again collaborating, this time with DTS. The company launched a new software product, Fairlight 3DAW, earlier this year. The new multichannel “3D” production platform supports the MDA (Multi- Dimensional Audio) object-based mixing and playback system (devel- oped by SRS, now a part of DTS). If any platform is giving Pro Tools a run for its money these days, espe- cially among musicians and compos- ers, it’s Apple’s Logic Pro. The ever- secretive company took everyone by surprise on July 16 with the introduc- tion of Apple Logic Pro X, following months of online scuttlebutt regarding the platform’s demise. Having seem- ingly learned a lesson from its disas- trous launch of the Final Cut Pro X video platform, Apple appears to have actually improved the user experience. For its end-users, MOTU has just introduced a Windows version of its Digital Performer 8 platform, nearly half a year after launching the Mac version. A program that offers a highly customizable interface, DP may not be for everyone—as it really is unlike most other platforms in its operation and even nomenclature— yet its longtime fans are no doubt pleased with the major upgrade. Alternately, for those who can op- erate without the convenience of di- rect file compatibility with the most ubiquitous DAW, Sound Forge, Cake- walk, Pyramix, Samplitude, Studio One, MixBus and other platforms have unique capabilities that have gar- nered them their own loyal user bases. [ August 2013 ] [ 57 ] soundBUSINESS Music Hall (continued from page 42) Analysis: DAWs (continued from page 1) Fountains of Wayne, performing to a sold- out crowd at the Tarrytown Music Hall, built in 1885. Reaction to change is a challenge that software developers must face every time they release a new version of a product. [ ] [ August 2013 ] MUSIC [ 58 ] etc. ON PREPARATION: Preparation for us is pretty much the same for every record. This usu- ally involves writing the songs, getting together and working on them so we can play them live, doing some pre- production with the producer, and then recording them. You have to be as prepared as you can, because it’s not a rehearsal and going into the studio costs money. For basic tracks, it’s all in there and we do overdubs later on. I know our music doesn’t sound live to a lot of people, par- ticularly our last two records; some people think we’ve layered a mass of stuff on there. This isn’t the case—it’s just five people playing in a room. For this record, it was the first time that the whole band demoed the record together. Usually, I just demo myself, then we will go and record. We did this in Glasgow with a guy called Paul Savage, who owns Chem19 Studios, part of the Chemi- kal Underground record label. He’s a very good engineer and also the drummer the band Delgados. He helped us get the songs into reason- able shape for moving forward and making this album. ON BEING UNCOMFORTABLE: To a certain extent, being slightly uncomfortable can actually be very beneficial to making music and to recording. This time, we spent more time tracking than we did in the past. On a typical tracking day, we would choose one of the songs and when we felt that we’ve got a good take and the drums were solid, we’d move on or we would try it again until we got it. If nobody felt comfortable, we might try changing the speed to cre- ate a better foundation before moving on. Other times, if we were uncom- fortable, we might try changing the sounds—for instance a snare, or a guitar or keyboard. ON CHANGING IT UP: We definitely didn’t want to repeat ourselves on this record, even though we love the last two records that we made. We wanted this one to sound fairly different, and we didn’t want a big wall of sound or to hide behind all the reverb. We wanted to sound exposed and more in control. It was important for us to hear the indi- vidual instruments, so listeners could tune into whatever they wanted, rath- er than having them wonder what a particular sound was. It just felt that it was time to get a wee bit more up front, rather than hiding in the back behind all this reverb. ON RECORDING IN PORTLAND: We recorded the record with Tuck- er Martine in Flora Studios in Port- land. It was beautiful and probably the nicest studio I’ve ever been in. It was very comfortable, stylish, and homely. Tucker created this wonder- ful atmosphere and you’d think that it has been there 20 or 30 years, but is actually quite a new studio. It was re- ally conducive to us making the best record that we possibly could. To be honest, we went to Port- land with very little gear; there was just this whole array of guitars, and drums, keyboards and pianos. Kenny obviously took his Jazzmaster guitar because he can’t create the sound that he makes with any other guitar. But we used a lot of instruments that were in the studio, such as a Mel- lotron. We also used a lot of differ- ent snare sounds, and tried to use a different snare on each track, which made it sound very exciting. I used a Telecaster, which I’ve never used on previous records, and we experiment- ed with a few Gibson guitars, which maybe we wouldn’t have used before. ON TRUSTING A PRODUCER: I think you’ve got to try and learn to trust a producer. You can’t just trust somebody because you’re sup- posed to, but when you’re making a record, you’ve got to go into it think- ing that you are putting all your ef- fort and art in someone’s hands, and you’ve really got to try and be open- minded. At the end of the day, you have a producer because you want them to be in charge and you want their wealth of experience. To a cer- tain extent, you’ve got to listen to them. Tucker was a very good lis- tener; if there was something I liked or didn’t like, he was there to listen. A lot of times, he would spend the time mixing the song and we would come back later in the day and we would explain what we liked or what we didn’t like, then would take it from there. ON GROWING: Our growth has been very organic. I think the whole music business is hard; there’s never a point where you say, ‘Oh, we’ve made it,’ because fi- nancially, it’s very difficult. I don’t think a lot of people realize that. It’s always been a struggle, and I think it’s always going to be a struggle. Jacques Sonyieux is a devout explorer of recording studios and the artists that oc- casionally inhabit them. Please send any tips or feedback to Jacques at: jacquesso-
[email protected]. Exposed and In Control BY JAQUES SONYIEUX Camera Obscura has just released its third album, Desire Lines, recorded at producer Tucker Martine’s Flora Studios in Portland, OR. The Glasgow, Scotland-based quintet, which was recently picked up by major indie label 4AD, still churns out catchy songs that are best characterized as indie pop, but the arrangements are more sophisticated and the production more refined. Desire Lines is marked by its transparency and clear view into each of the parts. Guitarist Kenny McKeeve’s Jazzmaster parts are crisp, while singer Tracyanne Campbell’s vocals are exposed and up front in the mix. The drums are more defined as well. Pro Sound News spoke to Tracyanne about how the band’s production val- ues shifted and the struggles of getting by in an industry that is reporting fewer and fewer record sales. I’m an AES member. Are you? www.aes.org/join Join me IRENE TRUDEL Technical Director, WNYC’s Soundcheck Scottish indie popsters Camera Obscura recorded its latest album, Desire Lines, with producer Tucker Martine in Portland, OR’s Flora Studios. A N N A I S O L A C R O L L A