Sound On Sound UK April 2021

We owe the famous saying “If it sounds right, it is right” to Joe Meek. It sounds like a truism — but only if you overlook what’s involved in deciding that something sounds right. Meek himself practically invented modern recording technique, where instruments are miked close up and liberally processed to tape. Doing so brought him into constant conflict with more conservative elements at IBC Studios. When your colleagues are looking at you like you’re mad, and technicians are muttering about the possibility of destroying expensive equipment, it takes courage to say ‘Actually, I like the way this sounds.’ Nowadays, we like to think we’re all open to sonic innovation. But is that really true, or is it just that the frontiers have moved? I was talking recently to a couple of…

Sugar Bytes’ impressive virtual instrument product line — whether on desktop or iOS — never fails to combine the deep, powerful and creative with just a touch of madness. As such, they might not be to everyone’s taste but, if experimental electronic music making is what you do, then a dollop of Sugar Bytes might well be in order. Feature Rich DrumComputer for iPad is a full port of the desktop instrument. That means you get an eight-channel drum synthesizer (eight separate engines layering resonator, wavetable/analogue oscillator and resynth/sampler sound sources with an impressive collection of presets), choke group configuration, powerful modulation options, filter, compressor, overdrive, reverb and mastering effects, a 16-step pattern sequencer with multiple controller lanes for each of the eight drum channels, humanise and swing, comprehensive sound and pattern…

Sony have an enviable reputation for producing high-end microphones, and their range has recently been augmented by two ‘pencil mic’ models: the ECM-100U unidirectional microphone and its ECM-100N omnidirectional counterpart. Both use electret capacitor capsules, which puts them alongside the likes of DPA and Earthworks. Both models are designed with a view to instrument recording in the studio, as well as having a frequency response intended to make the most of high-sample-rate recording. The ECM-100 microphone capsule is designed with a flat response and covers frequencies from 20Hz up to an astonishing 50kHz. This isn’t the first Sony mic to reach such highs — their previous C100, reviewed in February 2018 (see http://sosm.ag/sony-c100), had a similarly extended frequency response, but was even more unusual in that it took a dual-capsule…

When I reviewed zplane’s deCoda ( SOS November 2020), I speculated whether the company might further exploit the potential of its Focus Mode options, and their latest release, PEEL, which is available for Mac and Windows in the usual formats, does just that. Before you even use it to isolate any sounds, PEEL is a very useful audio visualizer. Used as an insert on any audio channel, the main display maps in real-time the energy in the audio signal on spatial (horizontal) and frequency (vertical) axes. It’s similar to the Multipanorama option in Cubase’s new Supervision audio analysis plug-in, but I found PEEL’s display easier to interpret. You can instantiate multiple instances in your project and colour-code the display of each, so you could use it for exploring masking or to…

In our January 2018 Inside Track feature (http://sosm. ag/inside-track-0118), Billy Decker explained that he could mix hit songs in 45 minutes. He wasn’t joking. But while he explained a lot about how his DAW template and being based in Nashville (his main focus is country music) helped him mix so quickly, he left many of us scratching our heads. Was it really possible? And if so, how? Nearly three years later, Decker has teamed up with journalist Simon Taylor to release a book, Template Mixing and Mastering: The Ultimate Guide to Achieving a Professional Sound (Crowood Press, ISBN: 9781785007491), and in its easy-to-read, nicely illustrated 128 pages he gives us much more detail. Decker explains that he started looking for a faster approach to mixing because he wanted to be able…

The PW3X6BT has an integrated mixer section, which can accommodate two mic/line sources plus a stereo backing-track feed, via either Bluetooth or mini-jack. Most of us are lamenting the scarcity of gigs at the moment, but the prospect of some smaller-scale outdoor events in pub gardens and the like is inching closer, and that’s a scenario for which the Powerwerks PW3X6BT is well suited. It can be used on its own for a solo performer/duo working with backing tracks; it can be used in pairs for stereo operation; or, where more low end is needed, it can be teamed up with one or two of Powerwerks’ matching 10-inch or 12-inch subwoofers. One interesting thing about the PW3X6BT is its column format, which falls somewhere between a conventional box and a line array.…