AudioTechnologyの Issue 131 の目次

The Sennheiser HD 280 Pro is up there as one of the more common headphones in the modern recording room. They’re cheap, but have enough Sennheiser quality to make them fit for purpose. I have a pair, but a couple of issues have always irritated me. For one, they grip your head with a vice-like firmness that’s great for isolation but terrible for comfort. Second, I found the closed-back design still bled a lot of sound that made its way into a recording. Sennheiser’s new HD 300 Pro bears a distinct resemblance to the HD 280s, yet is a better design and twice the price. It’s still a circumaural closed-back model with a stated frequency response of 6Hz-25kHz and an easily-driven impedance of 64Ω. Passive noise cancellation is up to…

Brathwaite’s current minimalist setup and approach is the end result of several decades of adapting to new technology, and whittling things down to essentials. Originally from the Virgin Islands, he attended the Recording Arts program at Full Sail in Florida and graduated in 1992. Following this he moved to Atlanta, where he worked with the likes of Jermaine Dupri, Babyface, LA Reid, and Dallas Austin, in the latter’s DARP studio, where analogue tape and big desks still ruled. Brathwaite moved to Patchwork studios in Atlanta in 2001 and to Akon’s Music Box facility in 2012. His credits over the years also include the likes of Aretha Franklin, Björk, and Eminem, and recent achievements include mixing N.E.R.D’s No One Ever Really Dies, almost the whole of Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy,…

Rigging has always been a priority, but d&b is really getting this down to a fine art, doing everything it can to alleviate stress and protect its customers’ investment. To that end, d&b decided to offer both tension and compression rigging modes. Tension rigging allows you to set splay angles as you’re flying it — without requiring any compression frames, chains or lever hoists. Compression rigging allows you to fly the array straight, then curve it when it’s in the air. Thoughtfully, the KSL tension rigging cart is 78cm deep, the same depth as the GSL cart. It makes truck packs more predictable, especially when you’re combining systems. If you’re looking for the smallest footprint, you can grab the 60cm deep compact cart instead, with only compression mode available. KSL…

I have worked with quite a few spatial audio tools and plug-ins and the SoundField plug-in by Rode really impresses me. Partially because of its functionality, but more because Rode seems to have gotten so much right on the first try. There is a function that lets you define the orientation of the NT-SF1 as it was used when recording. This is incredibly valuable as orientation of an ambisonic mic can have a significant impact on the recorded material and without this function the need to make adjustments manually could be extremely time consuming. Output can be set between ambisonic formats, mono, stereo and a series of surround formats. This is fairly standard and works well. You can also set inputs to either the NT-SF1 itself or B Format Fuma…

PRICE Select: $299 Standard: $899 Ultimate: $1799 Ultimate Collector’s Edition: $2299 CONTACT CMI Music & Audio: (03) 9315 2244 or info@cmi.com.au PROS New wavetable module utilised to good effect New instruments push into diverse new territory Delay, distortion and modulation plug-ins complement existing suite of excellent signal processors Revamped Kontakt 6 player Plenty of features for instrument builders CONS Massive X not available till February 2019 Kontakt player GUI still can’t be resized SUMMARY A solid update from Native Instruments that adds new wavetable synthesis, a range of highly useable new electronic and acoustic sample-based instruments and new modulation and distortion plug-ins to what was already a rich and deep range of music making tools.…

PRICE CP8: $749 CP12: $949 CONTACT Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or info@jands.com.au PROS Sound quality Conical horn Small & light Best bags CONS Mix out only, no thru Limited user controls SUMMARY QSC’s K series altered what we expect from portable speakers. The CP series delivers that QSC sound for less; dropping a few external accoutrements like LCD screens, but keeping a lot of QSC’s DSP smarts inside. The CP series boxes are also smaller and lighter than their K siblings, but have the same rugged bags, making them winners on the portable scene.…

QUEST QX-280 AMPLIFIERS www.questaudio.com.au Quest Audio has built the QX-280 series from the ground up to withstand the demands of a commercial environment. The class D technology makes it possible to have a compact single rack format with the right combination of power and channel density. Quest’s patented power supply technology, Dynamiq Bass, delivers power during high transients for sonic integrity at the top and bottom end where other amplifiers may lose detail through power degradation. Quest says this technology enables the amplifier to achieve the same performance as amplifiers with two or three times the power rating, allowing uninterrupted power delivery even during rapid bursts of sound. Auto load-sensing transformerless output delivers full range to all impedance loads from 4Ω to 70/100V systems, ensuring smooth operation. Overheat protection with…

Our previous Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Richard Lush, and our latest awardee, Martin Benge, both entered the EMI system roughly a year apart. While Lush went straight into Abbey Road, hiding behind a tower of Fairchilds and trying not to erase John Lennon’s vocal takes, Martin Benge began his journey beavering away at the EMI factory in Hayes. In 1962, 18-year olds like Benge didn’t need recording aspirations to work for EMI; it wasn’t just a music company, it was a vast, vertically integrated electronics conglomerate. “They made everything,” recalled Benge. “Pressed the records, made the record players that played them, and the radios and televisions.” Benge embarked on what he thought would be a promising electronics engineering career with the company. He worked his way through a five-year apprenticeship…

• Know your game audio middleware. Download it and get stuck into the tutorials; you need to know how to implement sound into the game. • Master the basic old school game audio skills; they’re still very relevant. • Become familiar with the key DAWs you’re likely to encounter; starting with Reaper, Pro Tools, Vegas and Nuendo. • Listen to the world around you and carry a recorder at all times. • Help develop your hearing and perceptive analysis of sound by challenging yourself to create an audio scene entirely from your own recorded sources. • Sound is a powerful tool for manipulating emotion — but it needs space to work. • It’s important to build trust so clients will take your artistic/narrative sound ideas seriously. • Good personal skills…

1 BX-MASTERDESK Continuing a long association with software developer Brainworx, the BX-Masterdesk steps up the UAD platform’s digital mastering capabilities. Again eschewing any one classic design’s footprint, the Masterdesk combines useful features from a number of different outboard processors with an emphasis on quick and intuitive control. There are four compressor modes, each with their own sonic signature, as well as two resonance filters, a guitar amp-style ‘tone stack’ EQ section and a clever two knob mid/side matrix for stereo widening and bass mono-ising (particularly handy for vinyl mastering). A ‘Foundation’ knob allows for very broad brushstroke tonal setting while harmonic distortion, de-essing and wet/dry parallel compression can also be tweaked to taste. The sound of the BX-Masterdesk is powerful, versatile and sonically pleasing. It can do transparent control, brutal…

With version 12 comes a ‘kompletely’ new addition, The Collector’s Edition. In Komplete 12 Ultimate, you get the Symphony Essentials collection, which gives you amazingly detailed string, brass and woodwind ensembles; solo brass and woodwind; and percussion. Each comes with a pre-mixed stereo output. The Symphony Series in the Collector’s Edition gives you full control over the Close, Mid and Far mic samples. There are a number of differences between the Symphony Essentials and Symphony Series depending on the ensemble. The String Ensemble has an Auto Divisi system that automatically distributes notes between sections, and true polyphonic legato and portamento. Brass Ensemble greatly increases the number of available articulations, and time stretches long articulations. Percussion has more than double the amount of recorded instruments.…

PRICE $5899 CONTACT Link Audio: (03) 8373 4817 or info@linkaudio.com.au PROS Highly flexible oscillators with four very different synthesis techniques Massive 40-slot modulation matrix! Flexibility approaches modular hardware synth but with full recall Most previous Waldorf filters compiled in Digital Former CONS Some user interface interactions need improvement File management of samples is clunky Arpeggiator behaviour is nonstandard SUMMARY While most innovations in synthesis are found in the software world, Waldorf shows it can be done in hardware, too. Quantum is a bi-timbral, eight-voice, hybrid digital/ analogue sound design beast that showcases the best of synthesis while adding Waldorf’s now-classic digital fairy dust. Unique in the hardware synth world.…

ASTON’S STEALTHY ENTRANCE $599 | www.astonmicrophones.com Stealth is the newest mic from Aston Microphones, and is unique in a number of ways. Similar to the Origin, Stealth was developed in partnership with more than 90 top engineers, producers and artists on the Aston 33 development panel who participated in a series of blind listening tests designed to create the best possible sound. The fixed cardioid mic features four switchable voices to suit different situations — Vocal 1, Vocal 2, Guitar, and Dark. Aston says Stealth is fit for both studio and stage applications and can work in both passive and active modes. An autodetect function senses 48V phantom power and switches the mic to active mode which activates a built-in Class A mic preamp to boost the output, as indicated…

DAW OPEN TO FPGA FX US$399 | www.antelopeaudio.com Antelope has released the much awaited AFX2DAW plug-in for its Zen Tour, Orion Studio and Orion Studio Rev.2017 interfaces. The AFX2DAW plug-in essentially acts as a software bridge, allowing you to utilise the processing power of the FPGA chip in an Antelope interface without leaving your DAW environment, and at zero cost to your computer’s CPU. It’s a good value proposition considering Antelope’s sizeable array of FPGA-powered processors, which include many vintage-emulated compressors, EQs, guitar amplifiers and cabinets… even a reel-to-reel tape simulator. You can stack up to four effects simultaneously per plug-in, and run up to 16 instances of AFX2DAW in a session. AFX2DAW is currently limited to macOS computers over Thunderbolt but Antelope says it is working hard to “expand…

Hans Zimmer is the godfather of modern Hollywood film scoring. With a seemingly bottomless creative wellspring, Zimmer is renown for his emotive and dramatic scores that weave sound to sight with the bombast of a floor-to-ceiling tapestry. If his name is attached to something, you know it’s going to be big, bold and dramatic. Hans Zimmer Percussion Library is exactly that. Given just how big a role percussion plays in the majority of Zimmer’s scores — even assembling his own league of 12 extraordinary drummers for the Man of Steel soundtrack — a percussion-focused pack is a welcome addition. Hans has previously teamed up with UK-based sampled instrument developer Spitfire Audio to release Hans Zimmer Piano and HZ02 (Jason Bonham playing his DW Vistalite kits at legendary locations in LA).…

While many top end mixers have a pre-workout routine that can include a lot of prep work; like conforming a session to a preferred template, replacing existing plug-ins with preferred options or stripping them out to the bare track, Leslie Braithwaite reckons it’s all non-essential for getting the mix right and working fast. What’s important? Giving the artist what they want, which can usually be found in the rough mix. “Whenever someone sends me a session, the first thing I want to know is: Has the client been listening to the rough?” explained Braithwaite. “If they’ve been listening to it for a long time, I’ll put it on a track in the session, so I can really scrutinise it and lock into what they love about this rough. Then I…

Over a tall glass of weissbier in Stuttgart, d&b’s Head of R&D Acoustics (née prophet), Mathias Christener, tells me he saw this day coming a good 12 years ago. Not that he’d be downing a few frothies with some Aussie in a hotel bar, but that way back in 2006 — just after he, and his team, delivered the J series line array — he could already see exactly where they needed to go next. J series was, of course, a massive success for d&b. Engineers loved how it sounded, but crucially, it made investment sense. It was light — about half the weight of V-DOSC — and its passive crossover network only required a single amp channel to operate. All great stuff, but Matthias’ mind was already looking over…

TGX represents a bold assault on the touring markets by Bosch. There’s plenty of headline features, and is an impressive demonstration of a huge engineering-based multi-national like Bosch flexing its R&D muscles. This is the first point to make: the Dynacord marque is to be a thoroughbred manufacturer of power amps and DSPs. It will no longer be a European step brother to the ‘all-American’ Electro-Voice. That extra degree of separation will help the market differentiate and distinguish the offerings. No one will assume that here is a range of companion amps for Electro-Voice loudspeakers. Dynacord isn’t owned by EV, it’s owned by Bosch. Helming the design of the new range of amplifiers is an Australian. These amps are Jonathan ‘Jono’ Bailey’s babies, and it was with considerable pride that…

These days I’m opening more VR headsets and gaming console packaging than microphones. Sleek and shiny boxes are par for the course when trying to catch the eye of the would-be consumer; less packing foam and more ‘presentation display’. With one eye squarely on the gaming audio market, it’s fitting that Rode’s NT-SF1 ambisonics microphone arrives nestled in a similarly attractive sleek black box. While I’m always tempted to retain the pretty box, the reality is it will spend its life in a more durable road case, and the build quality of Rode’s microphone looks like it will be up to the recordist’s schlep. BOX OF GOODIES An ambisonic microphone has a fairly specific range of uses. Primary among those is capturing location ambiences, so mounting and wind protection are…

It’s coming up to a decade since QSC’s original K series burst onto the scene with an impressive array of features that changed expectations for portable speakers. The coherent sound quality was the immediate attraction. Solo artists and small groups playing acoustic instruments took to them first, but their appeal quickly spread as their punchy bass response and ample DSP-controlled power worked well for pumped-up music playback, too. The packaging was equally good with distinctive professional looks, flexible and mixable inputs, good handles and the best tote bags. They were clean, loud and indestructible; a good combination. In 2016, they got even better. The totally reworked K.2 Series replaced the K Series. The cabinets were still made from polypropylene but more solidly constructed; the updated 2kW amps and improved drivers…

PRICE US$599 CONTACT www.synchroarts.com PROS APT promotes vocal blending rather than tuning Great for those working with both dialogue & music As many creative applications as there are utilitarian May save you more time during tracking than it does in post CONS UI lag during parameter editing Not the easiest application to master Things get complicated if you keep your options open SUMMARY Whether you’re concerned with dialogue replacement, lip sync for music videos, or tightening up a vocal or monophonic line, Revoice Pro 4 offers a range of great sounding pitch and time related processes. For me, it’s the ability to create natural double takes, automated modulation effects, and optimise an ensemble’s blending that shouts above the competitive chorus. Fluency takes time however, and power users will likely choose…

There’s still a lot of debate about exactly how much the pinna of the ear contributes to our sensation of sound, but Audio-Technica’s M50x/ M60x comparison makes for an interesting exercise. The two pairs of headphones have exactly the same low impedance 45mm driver, which provides deep bass and detailed sound over a 15Hz-28kHz frequency range. The main difference between the two is the M50x is over-ear, while the M60x is an on-ear design. Given the similarity of source, it was fascinating how different the two experiences are. In the over-ears, where your entire ear is part of the listening experience, widely panned sounds felt like they had a bit more space to develop and sounded like they were coming from further afield. Perhaps, simply because the pinna is helping…

In short order, Audio-Technica has also released the BPHS2 broadcast headset range. The standard version is based on the M60x design, but adds a hyper cardioid dynamic headset mic to the unit. It’s mounted on a rigid boom with a flexible goose neck. There’s also the BPHS2S single-ear variant, and the BPHS2C, which is a cardioid condenser mic version. All the models come with a 3.3m detachable cable terminated with a TA6F connector at the headset, and 3-pin XLRM and 1/4-inch connectors at the other end. Prices start at $499.…