Sound On Sound UK June 2021

I mixed a song recently for a friend who has a bare-bones Pro Tools rig. He wanted to use my project as a template for the rest of his album, so we came up with a plan. I would mix a representative song using only the bundled Pro Tools plug-ins, and use the Comments field in each track to explain what I was doing with them. I hope the experience was as educational for him as it was for me. Putting 95 percent of your plug-ins off-limits, and describing in beginner-friendly terms what the others are actually doing, makes you realise how much of what we do is pure habit. Take drums, for example. Under normal circumstances, there are three third-party plug-ins that I use on pretty much every drum mix:…

It’s only three years since I reviewed Focal’s Clear Professional headphones. You’d expect any pair of phones with a four-figure price tag to sound pretty stellar, and I was duly impressed. Nevertheless, Focal’s team weren’t content to rest on their laurels, and the Clear Professionals have been superseded by the new MG model, which introduces several design improvements. One of these is immediately apparent: the closely textured grille on the outer side of the original earcups has given way to an attractive ‘honeycomb’ design formed of graduated hexagons. This makes the area to the rear of the drivers even more open, reducing internal reflections that can colour the sound. In other respects, the MGs are outwardly very similar to their forebears, with the same smart red-and-black colour scheme, the same comfortable fit,…

In the June 2018 issue of SOS we took our first look at iZotope’s Spire Studio, a gadget used in conjunction with an iOS/Android tablet or phone to drag the Portastudio concept into the 21st Century. Spire Studio is a portable eight-track digital recording system, complete with effects, and you can record via its built-in omni microphone or via a pair of combi jack/XLR connectors. There’s a headphone socket and 48V phantom power. What’s New? V2 has an improved LED display plus preamp upgrades and up to eight hours recording time. Bluetooth is used to speed up the Wi-Fi setup configuration and the battery has also been upgraded. A 5V DC PSU drives the Spire and recharges the battery. Recording and playback (48kHz/24-bit) is possible without resorting to external software, though the…

As its name implies, QuickBass is designed to let you tailor your DI’d bass guitar sounds quickly and effectively. Essentially, what we have here is a channel strip that’s optimised for bass guitar. It offers EQ, simple yet flexible compression, saturation and doubling. It supports the usual plug-in formats on Mac and Windows operating systems at up to (in fact, beyond!) 192kHz, with 64-bit processing. Authorisation is through a personalised licence file that lets you use the software on any machines that you own. QuickBass’s graphic user interface resembles a bass guitar body, which acts as a panel for all the controls and is fully resizeable. An intelligent bypassing avoids clicks when using automation to bring the plug-in in or out of the signal path, and the plug-in also compensates for…

Shipped in a tough camera-style carry case with shaped insert, the PreSonus DM-7 drum mic set comprises seven microphones selected primarily for use with drums — though they are also capable of being pressed into service for other recording duties. The microphones are all of Chinese provenance, which is not unexpected at this price, and the standard of finish is very high. The close mics are all dynamic models while the overheads are small-diaphragm capacitor designs. Foam windscreens for the overheads are included, as are rim-mounting clips for the snare/tom mics. All the mics are finished in matte black, and there are no pad or filter switches to worry about. Why foam windshields? If you have done an outdoor gig recently you’ll know that wind noise and microphones don’t make…

Baby Audio made their mark with a couple of plug-ins devoted to very specific effects: I Heart NY is a simple but effective parallel compressor, while Super VHS lovingly recreates analogue video tape. They’re both great and have served as springboards to more ambitious products: first the self-explanatory Parallel Aggressor and now Spaced Out. Authorised using a simple licence code, the new plug-in is described as a “wet effects generator”. Its freely resizeable window hosts two main effects modules, arranged either side of a central panel that balances the output of the two and applies additional global processing. The left module produces delay-based effects while the right-side module is a reverb, but neither is entirely conventional. Step Dancing Delay effects are created using a 16-step sequencer. Each step can be set to…