PSNEUROPEMix and Match

DECEMBER 2014

Colette it be APRS Fellowship welcomes Abbey Road matriarch p5

Bose RoomMatch transforms live sound at Kentish Town Forum p46

THE BUSINESS OF PROFESSIONAL AUDIO www.psneurope.com

Review of the year p16

Celestion: building a pro-audio business p42

Sound that really bites! p36

THAT WAS 2014, then. A vintage year? Maybe. The dubious honour of looking back at the last

12 months has fallen to deputy editor Jon Chapple. You can discover what he selected as the significant happenings of the year starting on p16. Jon’s still new to the game (he only joined us in March) but, let me say for the record, PSNEurope has thrived with him onboard. Thanks for all your help in 2014, sir!

The final editorial of the year gives me an excuse to reflect on my personal highlights. So indulge me while I single out the following:

1) Being invited to Shure in Germany to discover just how you create and deploy a major shift in your approach to business (June)

2) A similar experience with Celestion in Ipswich – and listening to how the unassuming Nigel Wood brought about a sweeping change in the company’s fortunes (on p42)

3) Hearing Public Enemy play Metropolis in the summer, courtesy of PMC. Yeah boyz! (Online)

4) Witnessing just how cool Aratechlabs’ virtual mic correction utility is (August)

5) Watching Axwell & Ingrosso, and the incredible Nile Rodgers, plus being taken on a superb backstage tour, by John Penn of SSE Audio (very poorly at the time he was too, so thanks again for that, John)

Finally, a big shout here to Meir Kilim and his team, and to Sennheiser Germany, for taking PSNEurope to Masada in Israel, with the very best of intentions, only to be foiled by politics. (Watch for an update online...)

So here it is, readers: all the best for a fantastic Christmas and a superb New Year!

Dave Robinson

“One major highlight of the year: hearing Public Enemy play Metropolis courtesy of PMC. Yeah boyz!”

IN THIS ISSUE...

BUSINESS4 New chapter for Peavey in Europe5 Roger Waters, Abbey Road Studios’ Colette Barber honoured by APRS Sound Fellowship6 ADAM Audio files for bankruptcy8 Industry appointments10 Events and expos12 PSNTraining14 New products

STUDIO22 Mark Ralph moves into Beethoven Street24 Eli-Audio looks abroad with Iron Eight26 Langdale Technical’s Bill Ward reaches 100 installs28 XTC’s mysterious missing mastertapes30 Feature: Software in the studio

BROADCAST32 Shift to file-based delivery continues33 Upheaval in 700MHz band for PMSE

LIVE

34 RIVAGE PM10: return of the big desk36 Orbital Sound dances with vampires in Paris38 Extreme HD mixing for Gino Paoli40 Radiophonic Workshop look to the future42 Celestion at 90: still updating the business model

INSTALL

44 French natural history museum evolves with Amadeus46 Bose RoomMatch rocks the Kentish Town Forum

BACK PAGES

49 Hither & dither50 Waring Hayes’ 12 Days of Christmas

www.psneurope.com December 2014 l 03

welcomeEDITOR’S COMMENT

Phot

o: J

ake Y

oung

Front cover: The Submotion Orchestra perform at the Forum, November 2014Pic: Laurie Pierce

16 Review of 2014 The last 12 months in pro audio

4 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

business

PEAVEY COMMERCIAL AUDIO is going through big changes worldwide. In August, Hartley Peavey announced that international operations would be ‘restructured’ and that, as part of this, the facility in the UK would be closed. Price competition throughout the supply chain, emanating especially from China, was at the heart of the rationale, but the unique conditions in the UK provided an obvious route to costcutting at a site that “hasn’t been needed for some time” in its original form.

As this affects Europe, there’s a ring of truth to the old cliché about there being no problems – only opportunities. The UK centre had grown with the company’s extraordinary success in MI and sound reinforcement, providing key manufacturing capacity as the brand spread outwards from the US. Later, with the arrival of the MediaMatrix platform, a high-end pro audio dimension prospered and Peavey Commercial Audio became a recognised entity parallel with Peavey Electronics. Both arms pioneered direct sales models in certain territories, making the UK also a pivotal distribution hub for the EMEA region.

Now, though, the building is shutting down. Sporting a workaday hi-vis jacket as he

prepares every last nut and bolt for an epic auction this month, operations manager James Kennedy is sanguine about the changes while looking forward to taking up residence in a new – smaller – facility very nearby. Most importantly, this new building is solely dedicated to the Commercial Audio markets he has helped to build…

“The old place has slowly lost relevance, sad to say,” Kennedy explains. “When there was manufacturing here it made a real contribution to the portfolio, and was sustainable as a P&L centre. We made Trace Elliott amps, Peavey speakers, mics, cables… all of which transferred to China and the US. After that, we found it difficult as a distribution unit too: as the markets became more and more competitive, we were adding a cost layer that was harder to justify. There was value added: when people like VV & Sons in Dubai, Lexon in Spain or Algam in France bought from Peavey in the UK, they had the benefits of shipping and support from here. But the logistics were costly.”

Essentially, the new operation has removed ‘shipping’ but retained ‘support’, Kennedy continues. “Yes, the distributors now have to source the kit from further away, but it is now at a reduced price. We had to land

it here and add a margin, as a P&L business. Now, we can focus entirely on the kind of technical after-sales support that is becoming so important in systems integration.”

The focus is also undiluted by those parts of the catalogue that Kennedy and his team may have enjoyed strumming during coffee breaks, but which don’t deliver mission-critical audio around a stadium. “It was nice to have that association with rock and roll, if you like,” smiles Kennedy, referring to the guitars, drums and amplifiers that glammed up the Corby warehouse for so many decades, “but the industry has changed. The musical instrument support mechanisms have moved on too, and what you now see as Peavey Commercial Audio in Corby, UK, is 100 per cent a pro-audio and installation business. There are no distractions!”

For much of the network in Europe, and beyond, the actual business model changes little. There were only two direct markets – Germany and UK – and, for these, there are now returns to independent distribution along traditional lines that many will find reassuring, even comforting. The sales drive remains split between Mark Coombes, handling the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Iberia, France and

Scandinavia; Christoph Sesseck, covering Benelux, Germany, Switzerland and Austria; and World Marketing Associates, which continues its unique representation of the brand in Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle and Far East and Africa. And it’s no change at Peavey Italia, which has always squeezed its own accordion as almost a franchised distributor-cum-

product developer – and even manufacturer, now making the Peavey HiSys and the Crest CPS powered speakers.

“For us going forward, it’s a very positive move,” reflects Kennedy. “Peavey PA, Crest Audio, MediaMatrix and Architectural Acoustics belong together, and they belong here.” www.peaveycommercialaudio.com

End of an era in Corby spells a fresh start for Peavey’s professional team, writes Phil Ward

UNITED KINGDOM

New chapter for Peavey in Europe

The leaner Peavey, with James Kennedy second from left

DPA Microphones’ d:fine dual-ear cardioid headset microphone is the mic of choice for Tibetan Buddhist leader Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. The 79-year-old religious figure used the d:fine, supplied by DPA’s US office, at the 33rd Kalachakra prayer meeting this summer to project his voice to the nearly 200,000 followers who attended. www.dpamicrophones.com

INDIA

business

www.psneurope.com December 2014 l 5

For the latest news www.psneurope.com

STALWARTS OF THE recording industry gatheredat the Kensington Roof Gardens on 18 November for the annual APRS SoundFellowship lunch. The event, hosted by Sir George andLady Martin, saw the recognition of six newrecipients of the Sound Fellowship, bestowed on individuals who had made a “significant contribution to the art, science or business of sound recording”. Among the inductees this year were Abbey Road’s Colette Barber, Pink Floyd co-founder RogerWaters and Americanrecording engineer Al Schmitt.

6Music presenter and recording artist Tom Robinson kicked off proceedings with the Harewood Toast, the lunch’s ‘keynote’ address. Robinson reminded the audience of producers, studio managersand friends about the “goodold days”– before, in a clever twist, coming to theconclusion that “there hasnever been a better time to be in the industry: all you need is an amazing record.”

Joining APRS executive director Peter Filleul as co-host for the first time this year was Soundcraft design guru Graham Blyth. “Fairly early on at Soundcraft it was decided

there should be a safe distance between myself and the client,” Blyth warned the guests.

Filleul and Blyth read citations for reclusiveproducer Mutt Lange – who sent a heartfelt, simplisticvideo message of acceptance of the Sound Fellowship – and Roger Waters, who sent a heavily edited and stylised monochrome video ‘thankyou’ instead. (Introducing the absent Waters, Filleul, togreat comic effect, said:“Roger Waters: wish youwere here.”)

Terry Marshall received a posthumous Sound Fellowship on behalf of his late father

Jim, the ‘Master of Loud’. Terry regaled guests with tales from Marshall Amplification’s history, and amused everyone by announcing that his father had the foresight to pass away at the “end of the fiscal year, April 5th”.

Al Schmitt’s acceptance was read aloud by Peter Filleul. (Filleul later revealed he is retiring as APRS executive director after 20 years in the role.) MPG chairman Steve Levine accepted the award on behalf of Lamont Dozier, and read out a message penned by the Tamla Motown champion.

The highlight of the lunch was undoubtedly the induction of

Colette Barber into the Sound Fellowship – only the second woman so far to achieve that status.

“I’ve had the best job ever,” said the Abbey Road studio manager. “Thanks to Ken Townshend who employed me 35 years ago. But it’s not about me, it’s about Abbey Road: the producers, the engineers, the artists… and then there’s George Clooney…”.

The afternoon’s events were brought to a close by former Dire Straits manager Ed Bicknell, again sharing anecdotes from a life of rock’n’roll. www.aprs.co.uk

Annual Sound Fellowship bash welcomes The Wall writer and Abbey Road manager, writes Dave Robinson

74 HIGH STREET

Roger Waters and Colette Barber honoured by APRS

Colette Barber becomes the second woman to enter the Sound Fellowship

Sir George Martin presents a posthumous Sound Fellowship to Terry Marshall, son of Jim, as Peter Filleul looks on

Tom Robinson gave the inspirational Harewood Toast

Ed Bicknell dished up the anecdotes in the President’s Toast

As from 6 November, AED Rent Franchise UAE is poised to become the dry-hire partner for professional rental companies in the United Arab Emirates.

“We have built the AED Rent franchise model as an expansion into new territories in Europe, Africa, the Middle and Far East,” says Glenn Roggeman, CEO of AED group. “In 2015, we will start to commercialise this formula, granting selected companies the exclusive franchise for each country to operate as AED Franchisee under the AED Rent umbrella: top notch gear and state-of-the-

art products, large inventories and high standards.”

Interactive workflows allow AED employees worldwide to service, repair and handle equipment like in the Belgian headquarters.

The AED group’s first franchise will be headed by Nigel Pinto. He is backed by 18 years’ experience in the stage and live industry as a partner in Gearhouse Audio Visual, one of the Middle East’s biggest production companies.

Roggeman expects that the new company in Dubai, the world’s fastest moving financial market, will be the both the

gateway for some 100UAE-based companies and open up opportunities forthe Far East.

AED Rent has shipped 200 tons of equipment to the Emirates, including the latest gear by leading audio brands including L-Acoustics, JBL, Shure, and QSC, plus top-drawer video and lighting systems. The equipment will be stored in a 2,500m2 warehouse in the Dubai Investment Park site.

At press time, the AED HQ staff is training 12 employees for the Dubai franchise. www.aedrent.com

By Marc Maes

UAE

AED Rent travels east with first franchise

6 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

business

By Dave Robinson

ADAM Audio, the Berlin-based manufacturer of active studio monitors for the professional audio industry, is restructuring its business, having filed for bankruptcy in mid-November. ADAM was co-founded by Klaus Heinz and Roland Stenz in 1999; Stenz left the company in 2010 to form EVE Audio. (Heinz is pictured here with a pair of high-end ADAM Tensor Alpha hi-fi speakers.)

In a statement delivered on 18 November, ADAM told PSNEurope: ADAM Audio […] had to file for bankruptcy last week, with Mr Heinz and the administrator aiming to restructure the company. “Too fast a growth with too many products created a capital demand we could not raise,” declared Klaus Heinz, founder and CEO of ADAM Audio.

There are currently ongoing

negotiations with different investors to convert [our] positive market acceptance into further growth.

Dr Philipp Hackländer, of White & Case Insolvenz in Berlin, was appointed administrator on 17 November. The German Insolvency Code (1999) is similar to a Chapter 11 filing in the US, and shifts the emphasis of the process away from liquidation towards reorganisation. “All subsidiaries continue their work,” confirms Heinz.

In a Facebook exchange posted on 11 November, ADAM Audio replied to a customer: “We have serious delivery problems; this also applies for spare parts”.ADAM expects to resume deliveries of product in the January. www.adam-audio.com

GERMANY

ADAM Audio looks to restructure after bankruptcy filing

8 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

industrymovers

BBC Studios and Post Production has named Keith Nicholas its new head of operations for the Digital Media Services division. Nicholas will take over from Clive Hodge, who retires from the company in early 2015.

With an extensive broadcast background spanning over 20 years, Nicholas has held senior roles with major broadcasters and media companies, including Walt Disney International, where he was director of broadcast operations, and MTV, as head of broadcast technology. Most recently he managed his own broadcast consultancy business, Cayenne Media.

“BBC Studios and Post Production Digital Media Services has a fantastic array of credits to their name, and I’m proud to become a part of the team and take over from Clive’s fantastic legacy,” says Nicholas. “My appointment signifies a return to my spiritual home, as my career started as a transmission operator in the videotape and telecine department at BBC Television Centre.”www.bbcstudiosandpostproduction.com

Italian speaker manufacturer Eighteen Sound has appointed Pierpaolo Marziali as its new CEO. Marziali, from Macerata, previously spent six years at the Landi Renzo group, which produces autogas systems for cars. “At Eighteen Sound I have

found a challenging environment with very skilled and passionate colleagues,” says Marziali, who has been working closely with Antonia Fiaccadori, the former CEO, and Eighteen Sound’s management on “growth strategies and a five-year business plan” over the past 12 months.“I think that we will have good times in our future, as we continue to be one of the leaders in this highly specialised quadrant of the audio industry [and] the world of music, my preferred and greatest passion.”www.eighteensound.it

Meyer Sound has appointed John McMahon to the newly created position of vice-president of solutions and strategy.Working closely with CEO John Meyer and executive vice-president Helen Meyer, McMahon will oversee “the broad-based strategic planning for new products, product management and multi-product solutions across various vertical markets”.

“As our product offerings evolve and diversify, we’ll lean on John McMahon to develop organisational processes to ensure the many functions of the company are in sync,” says Helen Meyer, executive vice-president and company co-founder. “His leadership will be crucial in maintaining our excellent customer responsiveness as we expand our presence worldwide.”

McMahon has been part of Meyer Sound’s executive team since 2008. The Canadian joined Meyer in 2005 during the acquisition of Level Control Systems (LCS Audio), where he served as CEO.www.meyersound.com

Industry veteran Andy Simmons has joined Orbital Sound in a “strategic appointment” to the position of director of sales.Joining Orbital in early November, Simmons brings over 25 years of international sales

and marketing experience in the pro-audio sector with brands including Crest Audio, XTA Electronics, Peavey and KV2. He will be working to develop the company’s long-term sales portfolio and “make full use of the product-specialist expertise available with the organisation”.

He comments: “Orbital is renowned for its innovation on many levels and across people, products and service, and I am relishing the prospect of contributing to that spirit of innovation, and to the business as a whole.”www.orbitalsound.com

David Ferreira has joined Pioneer Pro Audio as technical sales specialist, adding to the staff responsible for sales and installation of the company’s sound systems for clubs, bars and restaurants.

Ferreira brings to Pioneer seven years’ pro-audio experience, most recently as UK sales executive for Martin Audio. Prior to that, he worked at LOUD Technologies as European service supervisor and technical support specialist.

“It’s an exciting time to be joining Pioneer Pro Audio,” Ferreira comments. “With Pioneer DJ’s legacy of innovation and Pioneer/TAD’s heritage in speakers, I’m looking forward to helping to develop and expand the Pioneer Pro Audio brand.”www.pioneerproaudio.com

TC GROUP HAS appointed Andy Rust to the position of VP of marketing for install and tour, with responsibility for the marketing of TC Group brands – primarily Tannoy, Lab.gruppen, Lake and White Acoustic.

Based at Tannoy’s headquarters in Coatbridge, Scotland, Rust has assumed the lead role in the marketing of the install and tour verticals and the managing of the core I&T marketing team, as well

as the delivery of strategy and coordination of other marketing teams around the world.

Rust previously served a nine-year tenure as Peavey Electronics’ European marketing manager. The business studies graduate begins his role in Scotland as Peavey winds down its Corby-based operation. Mark Flanagan, the former TC incumbent, has taken a job outside the pro-audio industry.www.tcgroup.tc

Rust revs up for TC Group marketing roleFormer Peavey man Andy is the new vice-president of marketing for install and tour

2015International CES6–9 JanuaryLas Vegas, USwww.cesweb.org

NAMM Show22–25 JanuaryAnaheim, USwww.namm.org

Integrated Systems Europe10–12 FebruaryAmsterdam, Netherlandswww.iseurope.org

Grammy Awards5 FebruaryLos Angeles, USwww.grammy.com

Music Producers Guild Awards12 FebruaryLondon, UKwww.mpgawards.com

BVE24–26 FebruaryLondon, UKwww.bvexpo.com

Brit Awards25 FebruaryLondon, UKwww.brits.co.uk

ISCE3–4 MarchBinley, UKwww.isce.org.uk

Event Buyers Live4–5 MarchLuton, UKwww.eventbuyerslive.com

LLB17–19 MarchStockholm, Swedenwww.llb.se

NAB11–16 AprilLas Vegas, USwww.nabshow.com

Prolight + Sound15–18 AprilFrankfurt, Germanywww.pls.messefrankfurt.com

PALME Middle East11–13 May 2015Dubai, UAEwww.palme-middleeast.com

PLASA Focus12–13 MayLeeds, UKwww.plasafocus.com

The Great Escape14–16 MayBrighton, UKwww.greatescapefestival.com

Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final23 MayVienna, Austriawww.eurovision.tv

Rock am Ring5–7 JuneNürburg, Germanywww.rock-im-park.com

Rock im Park6–9 JuneNuremberg, Germanywww.rock-am-ring.com

MIDEM 5–8 JuneCannes, Francewww.midem.com

Isle of Wight Festival11–14 JuneIsle of Wight, UKwww.isleofwightfestival.com

Download Festival12–14 JuneDonington Park, UKwww.downloadfestival.co.uk

Pinkpop12–14 JuneLandgraaf, Netherlandswww.pinkpop.nl

InfoComm13–19 JuneOrlando, USwww.infocommshow.org

ABTT Theatre Show24–25 JuneLondon, UKwww.abtttheatreshow.co.uk

EVENTS

THE WORLD’S LARGEST trade show for the music equipment industry returns to the Anaheim Convention Center in California on 22–25 January, opening its doors to more than 5,000 music and audio brands, special events, educational sessions and live entertainment.

New for 2015 is Backstage @ NAMM, a networking area just behind the NAMM GoPro Stage at the Anaheim Convention Center’s Grand Plaza which will feature food, drink and live streaming entertainment throughout the day

Inventor, engineer and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak will open Saturday morning, talking music and technology with National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) CEO and president Joe Lamond. NAMM says its members will “hear straight from the source about the hard-hitting lessons learned during the founding of Apple”. Wozniak and Lamond will also explore “innovations in business, entrepreneurship and Wozniak’s passion for music”.

“This event is the crossroads of the global music industry,” says Lamond, “and there is no better place to see all the exciting new products under one roof, meet and hear from industry leaders who are shaping the future for us all and, at the same time, attend some of the most enjoyable music and networking events of the whole year. We’re looking forward to producing a fun and productive show for our members in January.”

Read the interview in the November PSNEurope (or the digital edition at www.psneurope.com/archive-2014/archive) for Lamond’s take on encouraging pro-audio content at the show, pushing for better quality in recorded sound, technology’s influence on the industry and more.www.namm.org

EDITORIALPLANNERJANUARY

Wireless micsGentlemen, start your batteries

Studio monitorsSmall but perfectly formed

NAMM previewGo for the show, stay for Disneyland

ISE previewBack to the RAI with InfoComm and CEDIA

FEBRUARYCinema soundOnline marketingNAMM reviewISE review

MARCHAmplifiersRadio accessoriesProlight + Sound preview

Integrated Systems Europe10–12 February, Amsterdam, Netherlands

www.iseurope.org

10 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

expos&events For the latest eventswww.psneurope.com/events

SPOTLIGHTNAMM SHOW22–25 JanuaryAnaheim, USwww.namm.org

Your complete calendar of expos and conferences for the months ahead

12 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

PSNTrainingDIARY30 October–29 JanuaryYamaha Live Sound Surgery

Where: Various (UK and Eire)

www.yamahacommercialaudio.com

9–11 DecemberMartin Audio MLA M-Tech

training

Where: Bedford, UK

www.martinaudio-mla.com

10–11 DecemberShure Distribution UK: QSC

Q-SYS Level 2 training

Where: Waltham Abbey, UK

www.shure-academy.co.uk

11 Decemberd&b audiotechnik line array

workshop

Where: Backnang, Germany

www.dbaudio.com

11 Decemberd&b audiotechnik line array

workshop

Where: Backnang, Germany

www.dbaudio.com

A range of commercial packages are availableContact advertising manager Ryan O’Donnell on +44 (0) 20 7354 6000 or rodonnell@nbmedia.com

By Jon Chapple

THE SOCCER SIDEKICK iPad app by Calrec is an assistive mixing tool designed to simplify the job of tracking the onfi eld audio during a football match. Launched at IBC2013 (but demoed to PSNEurope at this year’s

show), Soccer Sidekick “provides an alternative approach for highly experienced operators while allowing those with less experience to create a quality mix very simply”. Watch Calrec product manager Henry Bourne show us how it works at www.psneurope.com/soccer-sidekick

PSNEurope tries out Soccer Sidekick

By Dave Robinson

THE RESULTS ARE in from the fi rst ever joint PSNTraining/JAMES Training Survey!

The survey, which ran online from September until early October, was created by JAMES (Joint Audio Media Education Support) executive director David Ward in order to identify training needs across all sectors of the pro-audio industry. Here are a few of the fi ndings.

Of the 33 respondents, 83% said they worked in the industry full-time, classifying themselves as live sound engineers (68%), studio engineer (45%), and/or simply as a “mixer” (57%).

We asked which possible ‘creative’-style course names most closely matched the needs of the respondents, to gauge where the gaps are in the training canon. The biggest demand was for ‘creative mixing’ (54%), followed by ‘mastering techniques’ (45%).

When it came to course names with a ‘technical’ theme, ‘the acoustics of spaces’ was desired by 63% of

participants, then ‘choosing equipment’ (58%) and ‘acoustic design’ (54%)

The most popular needs under the ‘stagecraft’ banner were ‘electrical safety’ (76%), and ‘rigging and safety’ (71%).

Of ‘less technical’ style courses, 55% wanted Entrepreneurial skills, with 50% requesting Music Business.

Under ‘basic maintenance skills and integrated systems’ CPD (continuing professional development), 75% asked for ‘systems management’, 60% highlighted ‘integrating media for live sound’ and 55% ‘rigging’.

One-day courses were popular with 52% of respondents, though 35% don’t mind attending at weekends. But only half of participants are willing to stay overnight in a hotel to attend!

We can also reveal that the lucky winner of the £50 iTunes voucher is Tom Parnell, a senior audio supervisor at BBC Radio, based at MediaCityUK.

“I’m really glad that PSNEurope and JAMES are making efforts to track training needs and opportunities across our industry,” Parnell says. “It’s an area that can be neglected with increased outsourcing and production effi ciencies.”

Thanks to all who took part in our survey. We’ll let you know what happens next… www.psneurope.com/trainingwww.jamesonline.org.uk

PSNT/JAMES Training Survey: The results are in!

By Jon Chapple

THE FIRST OFFICIAL d&b audiotechnik training seminars recently took place at the new premises of its Thai distributor, One Systems Global.

The company’s chief operations offer, Alfonso Martín, explains the rationale behind delivering d&b-specifi c training: “The structure and content of the training sessions created by d&b audiotechnik makes them accessible to all our customers, both current and prospective. The participants were a real mix of people with different skill levels and different reasons for attending: from some of the most respected and senior sound engineers in the country to audio guys just starting

their careers at local rental companies. “We also welcomed a good number

of people who were considering joining the d&b family and appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the brand’s systems and its value.”

The sessions ranged from a seminar exploring electroacoustics to one-day workshops on line arrays and the d&b Remote network.

“It’s great that we have been able to host these fi rst offi cial d&b audiotechnik training sessions in Thailand and have had such a positive response,” says Martín. “The One Systems Global team is looking forward to go ahead with the next set of training events, probably in January 2015.” www.dbaudio.com

d&b delivers inaugural One Systems Global seminars

By Nathan Lively

LOTS OF SOUND engineers want to be great, but you don’t hear much about going in the opposite direction.What if you are trying to develop a reputation for being completely terrible?Björgvin Benediktsson is here to help. Here are suggestions from one of his best posts, 10 Ways to Become the WORST Live Sound Engineer in History, along with some comments of my own.

1. You shouldn’t care about what the band says. Your opinion is the one that matters.I’ve developed a fantastic technique to accomplish this: When an artist says, “Hey, can you X, Y, Z,” I say,

“Sure, no problem.” Then I pretend to turn knobs and make changes. “Thanks,” the artist says. “You’re an

idiot,” I say in my head. Read the full article at www.psneurope.com/training

The Essentials: 10 tips to become the WORST live sound engineer ever

Photo: Andreas Schepers

Jon Chapple compiles this month’s list of hot new products

14 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

technologynew products

ALLEN & HEATH

What is it? A personal monitoring app for its Qu series of mixers, unveiled at InfoComm in June.

Details: Qu-You allows up to seven performers to control their monitor mixes using an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. It has a ‘four-wheel drive’ view, presenting chunky thumbwheel

level controls for four groups of sources, plus a master mute and output level control.

And another thing: Qu-You, available from the Apple App Store, is compatible with Qu-16, Qu-24 and Qu-32 live, studio and installation mixers.www.allen-heath.com

QU-YOU

K-ARRAY

KH8What is it? A self-powered loudspeaker incorporating K-array’s ‘slim array technology’ (SAT).

Details: The KH8 features eight built-in DSP channels per enclosure drive, which separate sections of 20 HF, MF and LMF transducers, resulting in “exceptional coverage control” and a rated maximum SPL of 145 dB.

And another thing: The KH8 s the first product by K-array to use the FIRmaker sound optimisation tool, which launched last year.www.k-array.com

CENTRANCE

i5 AUDIOPHILE CASEWhat is it? An iPhone case which incorporates a 24bit/192kHz DAC and sound card.

Details: The i5 fits the Apple iPhone 5 and 5S and iPod Touch 5G, streaming asynchronous high-resolution audio directly from the device’s lightning jack.

And another thing: It also includes a powerful headphone amp and larger battery, which delivers 11 hours of battery life for extended recording, mixing, mastering or listening sessions.www.centrance.com

NEUMANN

U 47 FET COLLECTORS’ EDITIONWhat is it? A reissue of Neumann’s classic ’70s studio mic, the U 47 fet.

Details: The original U 47 fet, which contributed to recordings by Kate Bush, Bruce Springsteen and REM, was the transistorised successor of the U 47. It permitted the processing of very high sound pressure levels and could, for example, be positioned directly in front of loud amps.

And another thing: For the Collectors’ Edition, production has resumed according to the U 47 fet’s original documents and schematics.www.neumann.com

POWERSOFT

DIGIMOD INTEGRATION KITWhat is it? A plug ’n’ play solution for active loudspeakers.

Details: According to Powersoft, the kit offers all the components necessary to easily design a “complete, but simple” plug ’n’ play solution around any DigiMod amp module.

And another thing: Luca Giorgi, Powersoft’s pro audio business unit manager, says the package will substantially reduce time to market: “It offers a great deal more flexibility than our previous DigiMod IS [Integrated Solutions] series, since rather than coming pre-assembled it enables the OEM customer to configure his own spec.”www.powersoft-audio.com

ANOTHER YEAR over then. Another year of buyouts and buy-ups; of live music being under the kosh; of at least one paradigm shift in the technology of audio networks. And, of course, a Pro Sound Awards that was even better than before.

This time around, we’ve broken down the major trends of 2014 into six broad subheads. Was it a classic year? See what you think...

MERGING TECHNOLOGIESThe recent trend towards consolidation in pro audio – either by strategic alliance or acquisition – continued unabated in 2014, with a number of high-profi le announcements in the live, studio, install and broadcast markets throughout the year.

After dramatically announcing its arrival in June 2013 with the buyout of live console manufacturer Allen & Heath, London-based private equity fi rm Electra Partners made further additions to its pro-audio portfolio this year – fi rst with the acquisition of Yorkshire, UK, broadcast console specialist Calrec in March, then with a “substantial investment” in DiGiCo and subsequent formation, in August, of a new pro-audio group comprising the three

brands, with DiGiCo’s James Gordon as group CEO.

Gordon confi rmed that there would be a strategy “to share technology and resource across the group and allow some interconnectivity across the product lines”. “The combined R&D teams are about to enter a new world of possibilities and we intend to take full advantage of their resource, passion and experience,” he said. “It’s an amazing opportunity for us, and just maybe the whole British pro-audio industry.”

Also on the buy was Yamaha, who on 18 March entered into a “defi nitive agreement” to acquire wireless conferencing brand Revolabs (reporting on which was this writer’s fi rst assignment for PSNEurope, in fact). The acquisition fi lled yet another gap in the assets of the Japanese audio giant, which also owns Nexo, Steinberg and – since January – Line 6. Yamaha acquired the amp-modelling specialist in a deal signed in late December of last year, and under the terms of the agreement operates it as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Two of the biggest names in broadcast equipment and systems integration, TSL Products and IPE Systems, announced their intention to merge at IBC in September.

TSL, which owns microphone/audio processing company SoundField, also announced a strategic partnership with ARG ElectroDesign in April.

Other notable mergers and acquisitions from 2014 include 4HM’s investment in Bel Digital Audio, forming the Bel Digital Group; Richard Lienard’s Sound Hire’s acquisition by Plus 4 Audio; and Utrecht-based sales and rental giant Ampco Flashlight Group’s taking a controlling share in the Purple Group, a smaller Dutch operation based 40 miles to the south specialising in dance music events.

DANTE TRIUMPHANT?On the networking front, 2014 was unmistakably the year when Dante – the media networking protocol developed by Sydney, Australia-headquartered Audinate – came into its own. Microphone and headphone giant Sennheiser announced its support for the technology in April, at NAB in Las Vegas (its great rival in the professional marketplace, Shure, signed up to Dante in June 2012), and in June – just nine months after announcing its 100th OEM partner, Studio Technologies – Dante reached another milestone with news of its 150th licensee in the form of Kramer

Electronics, revealed exclusively by PSNEurope.

Complementing the seemingly irresistible rise of Dante was the AES launch of the Media Networking Alliance, formed to promote adoption and support adopters of the newly ratifi ed AES67 standard. AES67, an Ethernet-based networked audio-over-IP interoperability standard, is a

layer-3 protocol suite based on existing standards and designed to enable interoperability between various IP-based audio networking standards, such as Dante, the broadcast-focussed RAVENNA, Livewire and Q-LAN.

But for every winner there are dozens of losers, and by September David Davies, writing in PSNEurope, was

2014: Six of the best

16 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

review of the year

“Direct and specifi c questions persist that must be addressed clearly, comprehensively – and above all, publicly – if AVB is to achieve the kind of mainstream success originally envisaged” David Davies

Acquisitions, athletics, AVB and Atmos… Jon Chapple refl ects on the year that was

The German national football team lift the 2014 World Cup trophy

Frank Turner says Britain’s live music circuit is “facing a meltdown”

Photo: Agência Brasil

posing the question ‘Has the AVB dream lost its lustre?’ in response to the rival networking technology’s “perceived loss of momentum and […] image problem” for use in pro-audio applications.

Although Audio/Video Bridging remains strong in the broadcast and automotive sectors (Jan Eveleens, CEO

of Axon Digital, presented a two-hour session on AVB for broadcast at the European Broadcast Union Network Technology Seminar in June, and there are a number of ongoing schemes relating to AVB deployment via infotainment and driver assistance cameras), Davies was forced to conclude: “The sheer

number of companies behind AVB and the considerable investment already made in related products strongly suggest that the project will not come to an ignominious conclusion. But, as this article has demonstrated, direct and specific questions persist that must be addressed clearly, comprehensively – and above all, publicly – if AVB is to achieve the kind of mainstream success originally envisaged.”

PRO SPORTS NEWSThe FIFA World Cup, the world’s most widely viewed sporting event, was arguably the year’s greatest showcase for professional audio products and brands in all their myriad forms, with kit from Allen & Heath, Lawo, Riedel, Sennheiser, Clear-Com, Focusrite, Salzbrenner Stagetec Mediagroup, TSL Products, Community, Powersoft, Renkus-Heinz, DAS Audio, Electro-Voice, DPA Microphones, Systembase, Sony and DELEC all playing a starring role in the Brazilian footballing extravaganza.

But pro audio’s sporting prowess isn’t just limited to football: this year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Winter Olympics in Sochi, Wimbledon Championships, Tour de France and European Athletics Championship in Zurich all called upon the expertise of the European live, installed and broadcast sound communities to make their matches, races and opening and closing ceremonies heard.

As an interesting aside – and testament to sport’s ability to push forward technological innovation – the Glasgow 2014 games saw a team from the BBC’s R&D

department demonstrating and testing a number of its latest developments. A virtual reality trial combined existing research by BBC R&D, assisted by University College London, into 360-degree video and spatial (or ‘3D’) sound, creating what it described as “the most immersive live virtual reality broadcast to date”. The demonstration from The SSE Hydro stadium in Glasgow featured a panoramic

360-degree camera, with multi-channel sound giving a sensation of height, as well as width and length, sourced by a Soundfield microphone.

IMMERSED IN SOUNDPro audio’s summer of sport was also marked by tests into the possibility of 3D audio accompanying future World Cup broadcasts. “We are very enthusiastic about the prospect of 3D audio,” Host Broadcast Services’ senior engineering manager, Christian Gobbel, told PSNEurope in July. “Once you include a second layer of speakers, it’s amazing the difference you hear when you switch back to flat 5.1 – it sounds almost mono by comparison!”

HBS carried out a number of immersive audio tests during

the tournament, making use of “a very special microphone from Schoeps”. “It is a very ambitious project, Gobbel said. “Even so, I think it could be a revolution in audio.” One for 2018, then?

In cinemas, Dolby Atmos, along with rival ‘immersive audio’ formats like Auro 11.1 and DTS Multi-Dimensional Audio (MDA), continued to change the way cinema audiences experience film

sound – and manufacturers of cinema speakers, among them JBL Professional and QSC Audio Products, revealed that they are reaping the benefits. “There’s no question that the emergence and popularity of these new immersive sound formats has created yet another catalyst for sales of ‘B-chain’ technologies like processors, amplifiers, and loudspeakers,” commented Chuck Goodsell, senior manager, cinema, at JBL Professional.

For CinemaCon 2014 in March, QSC installed what it believes to be the largest cinema sound system ever assembled, at the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. It was also, naturally, the largest Dolby Atmos install ever.

In October, Belgian visual technology company Barco

What did 2014 bring us? Not more 3D TV, as anticipated. Instead we got 4k! I’m glad – not because I didn’t want to spend all day wearing special glasses, but because we don’t yet have the tools to mix in 3D. Yes, there’s Dolby Atmos, but it needs to expand into more cinemas before we can warrant the spend. 2014 did give us the exciting news that spatial surround sound was back on the map through Fairlight, an object-linked AirPan user interface that allows sound to be placed in a 3D environment using a virtual reality controller; which means I can soon mix 3D! Come back, 3D TV!

We also saw changes to R128, the final word in loudness... except it wasn’t. The BBC brought us Jamaica

Inn and the audience began complaining: “We can’t hear it!” Nobody knew why: the levels were right; the music and SFX weren’t too loud – unfortunately, the new trend in 2014 was just to act very, very quietly. So what are the lessons, knowing that R128 won’t save you from these mumbling thespians? Well, it seems that location recorders are now ordering retakes with more projection. How times have changed, and how fantastic that in 2014 audio is finally seen as important.

At Jungle, we have said many times about how speaking to us early on in the production process is so important, and this year it happened over and over again. Thanks, Jamaica Inn! www.junglestudios.co.uk

REVIEW OF 2014BY CHRIS TURNER, SOUND DESIGNER, JUNGLE

March’s CinemaCon featured the largest cinema sound system ever installed

The Sennheiser Digital 9000microphone system can be integrated into Dante AoIP networks

18 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

review of the year

– the driving force behind Auro 11.1 – acquired Erfurt, Germany-based 3D audio specialist IOSONO and rebranded it Barco Audio Technologies.

Barco this year passed a landmark 500 planned Auro 11.1 installations – but the company’s senior director of strategic business development, Brian Claypool, is hoping for an end to the immersive sound format war in 2015. “Creating a standardised format for immersive sound is critical,” he said following the IOSONO announcement, |as it helps to control costs for content to be produced and distributed and will ultimately speed the adoption of immersive sound worldwide.”

Outside of the cinema, developers have been looking towards older technologies to create spatial audio – especially in broadcasting, where binaural recording, a technique thought by many to be long dead, is forming the basis for experiments into immersive audio by BBC R&D at MediaCityUK in Salford.

After producing a number of test recordings, including a radio drama production of The Wizard of Oz – which gave the sensation of objects being thrown about by the tornado that takes Dorothy to the fantasy land – and a recording of Elbow in concert, the BBC

trialled full 3D sound on last Christmas’s Nine Lessons and Carols concert and radio drama Private Peaceful, although these were based on standard surround signals converted into binaural. According to Chris Pike, senior scientist with BBC R&D, “there are lots of potential applications for binaural sound, and when done really well it’s very convincing”.

EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATIONPSNEurope launched PSNTraining (www.psneurope.com/training), our dedicated online training section, in the first week of June. Comprising a microsite, monthly editorial page and fortnightly newsletter, PSNT highlights courses, projects, online packages, demo days and teaching seminars, forming our three-way vehicle to bring you what’s going in the pro-audio training world.

The launch of PSNTraining came during a year when we significantly increased our editorial coverage of pro-audio education and training, both in print and online, recognising the importance of keeping oneself highly skilled in order compete in an industry that’s arguably the most competitive it’s ever been.

LIVE MUSIC IN THE TOILETThe sad state of Britain’s small music venues, or ‘toilet circuit’, was once again thrust into the spotlight in 2014 with the formation of the Music Venue Trust and its endorsement by chart-topping singer-songwriter Frank Turner.

Turner’s petition, which has attracted close to 30,000 signatures, urges British culture secretary Sajid Javid to adopt the ‘agent-of-change principle’ – meaning that the person or

business responsible for any change in the area surrounding a music venue must take responsibility for managing the impact – to protect the UK’s live music venues from closure. At press time, the Music Venue Trust had also recently announced the timetable for Venues Day, which on 9 December brings 250 delegates together to “celebrate the work of independent live music venues”.

Among the venues believed to be under threat are the Night and Day Café in Manchester and The Fleece in Bristol. The Boileroom in Guildford was saved from closure in September after the local council dismissed resident complaints about “antisocial behaviour”, pointing to a lack of evidence linking the claims to the venue. Here’s hoping for some decisive action from Mr Javid – or his successor – next year.

20 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

review of the yearBoxer NicolaAdams, MBE,with Glasgow 2014 mascot Clyde

September saw the return of a bigger, better Pro Sound Awards following 2013’s inaugural event.

New for this year was The Pre-Roll, two sessions of talk and Q&A ahead of the main event. Up first was the Producer Sessions, which saw former PSNEurope editor Phil Ward do a Parky as he welcomed Monty Python’s go-to soundtrack man Andre Jacquemin, Depeche Mode

collaborator Ben Hillier and Smiths, Morrissey and Blur producer Stephen Street to the stage for an incredible line-up of studio talent.

Next on the agenda was the Live Sound Sessions, which featured Dave Swallow (Amy Winehouse, La Roux), Jon Burton (The Prodigy, Stereophonics), Matt Kanaris (Lana Del Rey, Goldfrapp) and Charles “Chicky” Reeves (Grace Jones,

Prince) trading tales of life on the road.

This year’s winners included double winner Sound by Design, recipient of both the Permanent Installation Project of the Year and Installed Audio Team of the Year awards; Capital Sound, recognised for its contribution to the groundbreaking 2013 British Summer Time concert at Hyde Park; and Andrew Dudman, who

recorded the Oscar-winning score for Gravity – also a winner in the Best Sound in Post-Production category – at Abbey Road.

Paloma Faith’s A Perfect Contradiction won Best Recording Production, while Metropolis completed the list of winners in the studio category, taking home the prize for Best Studio.www.prosoundawards.com

THE 2ND PRO SOUND AWARDS: TWICE AS NICE

2 2 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

Marc Canham has installed a pair of SP Acoustics SP25M monitors and SP2250 amplification in his Oxfordshire studio. “Working on the SP25M monitors is a joy,” says Canham, a composer known for film scores like The Disappearance of Alice Creed and game soundtracks for inFAMOUS Second Son and Far Cry 2. “The detailing and openness is phenomenal – I can sit in my studio for 18 hours solid when I’m in crunch mode and they are still a pleasure to work with and deliver sound I can trust 100 per cent.”www.spacoustics.co.ukwww.marccanham.com

Jake Gosling, Paul Epworth, Pharrell Williams and T-Bone Burnett are among the shortlisted producers for the 2015 Music Producers Guild Awards. The list, on 7 November , highlights many of the year’s major recording projects, with artists such as Paolo Nutini, Ed Sheeran, George Ezra, Royal Blood and Lana del Rey delivering nominations for their respective producers, engineers and remixers. To view the full list, visitwww.psneurope.com/mpg-2015

Freelance film and TV post engineer Howard Bargroff, of Sonorous Post, has installed a surround-capable LCR monitoring system comprising three PMC twotwo.6s at his premixing facility. The twotwo-based monitoring system replaces a similar LCR set-up consisting of three PMC TB2 nearfields. “I’ve played mixes I’ve done on these back on other speakers – on JBLs and Genelecs – and they still sound good,” says Bargroff. “Essentially, the PMCs just work in a room, and the mixes you make translate, which is very important to me and to my clients.” www.pmc-speakers.comwww.sonorouspost.com

One of France’s leading recording studios, Question de Son, has enlisted Amadeus for the acoustic design and custom studio monitors for two of its three studios, A and B. The owners of Question de Son, Jordan Kouby and Frederic Vectol, invested in the equipment in order to capture “the much sought-after sound and vibes of classic 1970s studios”. www.amadeus-audio.comwww.questiondeson.com

SOUNDBITES UNITED KINGDOM

PRODUCER MARK RALPH has left his room at The Old Dairy and taken over the lease at Beethoven Street Studios in Queens Park, north London

Like The Old Dairy, Beethoven Street was previously run by Jerry Evans and Tad Barker (of Tickle Audio Hire) – however, the facility had been left mostly empty since Paul Epworth moved out to renovate The Church (see last month’s PSNEurope). With The Old Dairy now sold to Westminster Community Homes, Ralph was in the need for a new studio, and his close relationship to Evans and Barker led to him taking over the company that owned the lease at Beethoven Street. This marks a return to his old haunt for Ralph, who had a room at the Beethoven Street facility before moving to The Old Dairy.

Ralph, whose career began as a session guitarist, working with the likes of Gwen Stefani, Robbie Williams and Ronnie Wood, before making a name for himself with his own band the Filthy Dukes in 2009, is now in demand for his production and engineering skills, having worked with Franz Ferdinand, Hot Chip and Jagwar Ma.

Ralph has, since moving in and taking on the lease at Beethoven Street, already made an impact on the facility, building three new production rooms on the ground floor of the three-storey building. The new rooms measure around 16sqm (172sqft), and have been floated to isolate sound transmission between the rooms as much as possible within the space.

All three rooms already have clients ready to move in, among them Cambridge band Clean Bandit – whose recent album New Eyes was produced and

mixed by Ralph – and electronic music duo Jack Beats. “The rooms are empty; we’ve done the isolation but we’re leaving it entirely up to whoever moves in to put acoustic treatment up,” explains Ralph. “I can see the rooms being used for writing or production, but I could see a mastering room there, too.”

The largest studio in the facility is Ralph’s own, which takes up the whole of the first floor. The control room houses an SSL 4048E console, previously belonging to Tony Visconti at Good Earth Studios (now Dean Street Studios), which has been recently serviced and re-capped by Pete Higgs. Ralph is moving in plenty of

his own outboard equipment, but there isn’t room for his old console – a custom-built 56-channel analogue console designed by German producer Conny Plank. The console, which was one of only two ever made, was built in 1974 and used to record Kraftwerk, Can, Neu!, Brian Eno and Ultravox. It has now been loaned to The Park Studios in Brighton.

Around the control room is Ralph’s collection of vintage synths and samplers, of which he considers himself a collector: “Although I’m a guitarist, I’ve never really been interested in collecting guitars,” he says. “They don’t excite me, whereas synths give me something new.”

The top floor of Beethoven Street houses one last production room (home to songwriter Ed Harcourt) and a roof terrace, kitchen and lounge for use by all the studio’s clients.

Unlike the smaller production rooms, Ralph’s studio has its own live room, with plenty of space for recording drum kits and live bands – something he will be looking to make use of himself, but may also decide to rent out for commercial use in the future: “Right now, I’m busy and I don’t need that,” he says, “but if, in a few years’ time, maybe I’ll want more time to myself.” +44 (0)20 8964 3399

… ‘cause Mark Ralph is rockin’ in two by two. The producer, formerly of The Old Dairy, has taken over the lease, reports Mike Hillier

Roll over, Beethoven…

studio For the latest studio news www.psneurope.com/studio

24 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

studioBELGIUM

ELI-AUDIO WAS founded last April by audio engineer Yves Van Moerbeke. Having built for many years DIY audio projects like SSL bus compressors, Universal Audio 1176 compressors and API 500 series modules, Van Moerbeke has decided to bank on the experience he’d gained to start designing his own gear.

Under the banner ‘Iron Projects’, Eli-Audio released several types of hand-assembled modular boxes. “The Iron Projects were conceived out of the need for a simple yet high-grade high-impedance converter and balancing unit,” says Van Moerbeke. “We were asked to develop a platform for direct-injection transformer testing and came up with Iron One, a very basic DI box featuring the footprints of some of the best transformers available.”

The Iron One, a single-channel, high-grade, direct-injection device manufactured with high- grade iron, was Eli-Audio’s first product. “The modular concept refers to the choice of transformers used in the boxes,” Van Moerbeke explains. “Clients can choose between the Lundahl LL1935, our favourite Iron, with a typical frequency response of +0dB/-2dB from 10Hz up to 45kHz; the Jensen JT-DB-EPC, also used by Radial in their JDI; the Cinemag CM-DBXPC, a great pick preferred by many manufacturers; or the installed-in-reverse Pikatron UP3096M microphone input transformer, our most economical choice.”

Out of the Iron One grew the Iron Eight, a high-quality eight-channel direct-injection box in a custom single unit (an anodised, printed 19-inch enclosure) featuring the same circuit as the Iron One and the same choice between the above transformers.

“I’m not married to one brand or another; sound quality is my main priority,” comments Erik Loots, a Belgian live sound engineer and music lecturer at the PXL university in Hasselt. “I did some A/B testing with the Iron Eight and other brands and the

difference is clearly audible. Bass sounds so much more compact, with more effective lows than with standard DI boxes and less artificial high frequencies with an acoustic guitar. The Iron Eight stands out when synths, backing vocals or loops are routed alongside instrument inputs, as is often the case today.”

Martijn Herman is a freelance keyboardist and the owner of Sidamosae, a mastering-only studio in Limburg. “Just like in my mastering studio, I’m against compromises onstage,” he comments. “I use two Nord keyboards, and their piano sounds in the mid frequency

(1Khz) are perfectly balanced by the two Cinemag CM-DBX transformers. My Moog Sub Phatty keyboard’s two outputs are channelled through a Jensen – bass players will know why: the Radial JDI’s round bass sound.”

“We are currently working on the Iron Two,” says Van Moerbeke, “a stereo half rack-sized device [with] two channels of high-quality impedance matching and signal balancing for small set-ups.” A first prototype will be ready by the end of the year, as will an advanced version of the Iron Eight. www.eli-audio.com

With the Iron Eight, an eight-channel passive DI box, the Belgian designer/manufacturer is eyeing the international audio market, says Marc Maes

Eli-Audio, the high priest of DI

“The Iron Projects were conceived out of the need for a simple yet high-grade high-impedance converter and balancing unit” Yves Van Moerbeke

The Iron Eight up close

Yves Van Moerbeke

UNITED KINGDOM

PRODUCER/SONGWRITER Steve Booker’s new Cake Sounds studio opened its doors this summer following the installation, by Langdale Technical Consulting, of a 48-channel SSL Duality equipped control room – an install that marked the 100th control room design and build for Langdale Technical Consulting MD Bill Ward.

In a career that encompasses working for 12 years with Trevor Horn as head of technical at the Sarm group of studios and setting up installation design and build company NFK (the brand which morphed into Langdale Technical), Ward has, unsurprisingly, seen a number of major changes over a century of installations. He’s also seen diversification into sectors as varied and unexpected as some of the largest mega-yachts afloat on the seas today to medical and educational facilities throughout the UK. However, Ward freely admits he is still always happiest working at the top end of the pro-audio market.

Along the way to the 100th install, top-end music studio installs in Britain have moved from being huge commercial

builds to almost exclusively private affairs. Ward was responsible for all the studio builds at Sarm, with some of the rooms being done more than once in his time there – such was the pace of investment. “It’s something I’m still incredibly proud of – it was just the perfect place and the perfect time to be there,” he says. “The technical team was responsible for some amazing builds, including the first SSL J Series and Euphonix console installs in the UK; we also had fantastic fun with builds at Sarm Hook End, Sarm West Coast in LA and even a couple of rooms out in Ireland.”

However, nowadays it’s notable that most Langdale commercial studio work is based abroad, although a strong private sector still keeps Langdale busy in the UK.

Since leaving Sarm. Ward has been responsible for builds in Russia, France, Iceland, Egypt, Norway and a host of other foreign locations, but, despite this, the majority of the work is still UK-based. This is mainly due to a very active post-production market, which has complemented the private studio market. Langdale has

been responsible for multi-room installations at a host of Soho facilities, including 750mph,

Factory, Jungle and Wave. Both 750mph and Factory have relationships with Langdale that go back well over 12 years.

Ward admits it’s nigh-on impossible to choose favourite rooms, although some of the big music rooms and multi-room post-production complexes have been particularly rewarding (see box). From a music point of view, the rooms at Sarm West became great technical and creative benchmarks, and it’s been pleasantly surprising that a number of clients over the years have matched those rooms. “They are the designs you love because they tend not to be limited by such tight budgets, which means you can be let off the creative leash a little more,” Ward comments. However, at the other end of the spectrum, Ward also admits to still being surprised by the number of enquires that go something along

the lines of: “Err, hello, I wonder if you can help. We’ve spent our entire budget on equipment already, we need to be open in five days time and we need someone to install everything quickly for us… can you come

Chris Hook joins Langdale Technical founder and MD Bill Ward as he looks back over his remarkable career and over 100 studio room installs

100 studios? A piece of Cake

A 2014 Langdale Technical install at the Shanghai Audio & Video Group in China

The SSL Duality at Nile FM in Cairo

Unusual situations for Hook include a live area in an empty swimming pool, the newly installed SSL room that flooded up to the faders and the installation stopped by a political revolution

26 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

studio

The desk count for the first 100 rooms

studio

www.psneurope.com December 2014 l 27

Sarm West Studio One in London was a huge build in the mid-90s that started off as a fairly straightforward control room tweak and desk swap-out but turned into a major project that took on a year-long build life.

The project initially involved getting every worthwhile acoustic designer of the time to enter plans for the refurbishment of the famous ‘temple’ control room, which was an icon of the former Basing Street Studios. Following this, John Flynn’s Acoustic Design Group came on board, by which time the project had taken on a huge expansion.

Massive building work ensued, with Ward responsible both for the project management and technical installation which saw the control room extended enough to house 80 channels of the UK’s first SSL J Series console.

While Trevor Horn has since left the premises, it was recently chosen (again) for Bob Geldof’s latest Band Aid initiative.

The Beach, Newcastle was a new build for singer/songwriter Paul Tucker, one half of the Lighthouse Family. This was one of those rooms that was built with very little technical compromise: the facility is based around a Neve VX60 console and the initial outboard list was huge – pretty much two of everything you could ever want. As Paul Tucker recently recalled: “It wasn’t particularly cheap at the time, but it was definitely the right call – 14 years later we’re still yet to have our first wiring problem.”

Harrogate International Centre in Yorkshire is about as far removed from top-end studios as you can imagine, but it still represented one of biggest installs I’d ever undertaken. The space was designed as a multi-function conference and seminar space, and buried in the structure I installed as comprehensive an AV network as you can imagine.

The space itself was built with moveable

walls, which gives it incredible flexibility to go from one 600-seat space to 10 individual, acoustically secure rooms, although that in itself caused a few technical headaches.

Although not one of the ‘100’ control rooms, it’s a good example of the variety of work that audio technical design can include these days.

750mph, London, was the first of many, many post-production rooms and also the beginning of a longstanding relationship with White Mark, with whom Langdale has worked extensively.

When work on the complex commenced in the late ’90s, it was as a new build at a site on Golden Square that had previously been used as a tailor’s sweatshop and commenced with the removal of all the old steam lines that operated all the industrial irons!

It was a rcutting-edge Fairlight-equipped technical design, and is also fondly remembered as the first installation where plasma TVs were installed. I think they were some of the first in the country – at the time of the install, they were fantastically expensive and the only UK supplier was Harrods.

TOP BILLINGBill Ward pick his four favourite installs

and sort everything out, please?” Sometimes, it’s very much a case of education first.

Over the years, there have of course been a number of more unusual situations, including a live area in a (thankfully empty) swimming pool, still complete with tiles, ladders and sloping floor; the newly installed SSL room that was promptly flooded up to the faders by the adjacent river having its second-highest flood in 100 years; and the installation stopped by a political revolution.

Although Ward admits that Langdale lives slightly more under the radar than it probably should do, this year has so far been one of the busiest to date. UK builds include an educational facility at the University of West London and the private SSL Duality build for Steve Booker, both of which are already signed off, and an order book with post-production work in Soho that will take things well into next year. www.langdale-technical.co.uk

28 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

studioUNITED KINGDOM

IT IS FREQUENTLY the curse of British bands that they be defined by two or three early, sometimes unrepresentative hits. XTC is no exception, but while any band would be glad to have a Senses Working Overtime or Making Plans for Nigel to its credit, the group’s progressively more ambitious 14 studio albums – including two as psychedelic alter-egos the Dukes of Stratosphear – contain melodically ingenious riches in abundance: from exquisite acoustic miniature Mermaid Smiled (on 1986’s Skylarking), to the enigmatically beautiful Rook (1992’s Nonsuch), to the full-on orchestral, Vaughan Williams-goes-pop overtones of Greenman (1999’s Apple Venus Volume 1).

Fourteen years after the group’s final album, singer, guitarist and principal songwriter Andy Partridge is aware that XTC’s reputation continues to grow in absentia. “I think we actually got better over time. We were the other band who got better,” he laughs, in wry reference to a legendary British four-piece who – like XTC – forsook the rigours of live performance to achieve greater heights in the studio.

Alas, unlike the Fabs, one couldn’t quite claim that the XTC catalogue has always been treated with reverential care. Setting out on a combined 5.1 and stereo reissue programme last year in conjunction with Panegyric label boss Declan Colgan – whose other clients include Robert Fripp and King Crimson – Partridge was understandably distraught to find that many of the group’s mastertapes cannot currently be located by latterday owner UMG.

“There was me thinking that they are in a situation like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, inside a huge warehouse with an old fella pushing a trolley down the aisles going, ‘Ooh, there’s Gentle Giant, there’s The Subs... ah, XTC, there they are,’” he says. “Sadly, my vision of our

tapes residing in a temperature-controlled environment with Dexion shelving [has proven to be incorrect].”

‘PUNKY SKIFFLE’While the search goes on for the originals of landmark albums such as English Settlement and Black Sea, Partridge has busied himself researching additional audio and video material for the reissue of Nonsuch – undoubtedly one of Gus Dudgeon’s final great productions before his tragic death in 2002 – and, imminently, 1979’s distinctly spiky, Steve Lillywhite-produced Drums & Wires.

“The surround sound for Drums & Wires is pretty minimal as there weren’t 5.1 instruments to use on some tracks,” laughs Partridge. “It was cut virtually all live, with very few overdubs. ‘Punky skiffle’ I think I’d call it.”

In delivering the reissues – which are being released through Ape House/Panegyric – Partridge has been crucially assisted by a new collaborator, Steven Wilson. Best known as a

founding member of Porcupine Tree and now a distinguished solo artist in his own right, Wilson has established an increasingly hectic sideline as a remix/remaster engineer thanks to landmark reissue projects for primarily prog-oriented acts such as King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Yes.

“My intention with all the classic albums I remix is to be as faithful as possible to the original material, and that’s partly borne out by the fact that I only remix albums I genuinely love. I definitely have the fan’s perspective,” says Wilson. “So I am not about to change history or try and ‘improve’ anything in a revisionist fashion, although if possible I do aim to find a little bit more clarity or depth. I also try to retain as much dynamic range as possible; I don’t like things to be too compressed and limited.”

Based in his own Hertfordshire studio, unofficially dubbed No Man’s Land, Wilson works in the box using Logic Pro X. Universal Audio plug-ins remain a mainstay – “they make such

fantastic emulations of classic outboard gear” – while the monitoring set-up revolves around Mackie HRH824 MkIIs for stereo mixes and Genelecs for surround work. Now, after something of a ’70s focus these past few years, he is moving on to a slew of ’80s classics with more work for XTC and an imminent reissue of Tears For Fears’ 1985 Fairlight-fest, Songs From the Big Chair.

Meanwhile, back at his Swindon base, Partridge is nurturing new music from his own Logic-based ‘shed studio’ and the facility of a local friend, producer/engineer Stuart Rowe (check out their

wonderfully disorientating 2012 collaboration with American polymath Peter Blegvad, Gonwards). A part-improvised album with Rowe and singer/songwriter Jen Olive under the name The Clubmen is likely to be released next year, while Partridge also continues to write for others – albeit with distinctly mixed results.

“I keep writing songs for other people that don’t seem to be being accepted,” he laughs ruefully, “so I am mulling the possibility of a multi-disc album set entitled My Failed Songwriting Career!” www.burningshed.com/store/ape/collection/405/

A major new 5.1 reissue programme promises to underline XTC’s status as one of the great British bands… or at least it will do if the record company can actually locate all the mastertapes, writes David Davies

Senses (still) working overtime

“There was me thinking that [the mastertapes] are in a situation like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, inside a huge warehouse with an old fella pushing a trolley down the aisles…” Andy Partridge

XTC in 1992: (L–R) Dave Gregory,Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding

Remixerextraordinaire

StevenWilson Photo:

Lasse Hoile

Photo: Kevin Westerberg

30 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

studioUNITED KINGDOM

ANALOGUE GEAR IS wonderful, and the audio world would be a duller place without its dirty little circuits. But analogue audio isn’t always easy, convenient or practical, which is why it’s even more important to pay reverence to the digital tools that have made a signifi cant impact on an audio engineer’s workfl ow.

Thanks to software, we now have more control over an audio fi le than ever before. Some software has been so singular in its effect that it deserves to be singled out. While certainly not a complete list, below are several such products that have changed (and continue to change) what can be made possible in the audio realm.

The time-savers

SONNOX FRAUNHOFER PRO-CODECSome may grate at the idea of listening to compressed audio, but with an every growing supply of internet radio stations, streaming services and the like there’s no escaping it. The best a mastering engineer can do is provide the best sounding compressed fi le for its fi nal digital delivery mode, which means that “generally people have to produce – certainly more than one, but maybe up to half a dozen different formats of a song,” says Sonnox MD Rod Densham.

“Before this product if somebody wanted to produce an MP3, they would have to fi nish the mix, then they would have to

offl ine convert it to MP3, then you’d have to run up a player to listen to it and, nine times out of 10, you wouldn’t be happy with it and would want to change something. So you’d go back, offl ine MP3-convert having changed the mix a little bit and listen to it again. You’d become locked into this cycle of change the mix until you’re happy with it. It was all horribly linear, and extremely tedious.”

The Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-Codec has changed all that, allowing engineers to audition and encode MP3 and AAC codecs (including Apple’s iTunes Plus codec) in real time.

Users can also A/B test codecs, compare the input signal against the codec output and change a fi le’s bit rate – again, all in real time, which saves countless hours of mundane work.

“Really it’s a tool to enable you to produce the best quality compressed fi le that you can,” concludes Densham.

SADiESADiE, short for Studio Audio Disk Editor, has also won praise for its time-saving capabilities, especially in the broadcast sector. Renderless fades, for example, make for quicker work editing a radio programme and

allow the user to quickly and easily save alternate via an EDL fi le.

“In 1990 you would listen back to the audio hundreds of times; nowadays people expect the faster-than-real-time processes to always produce identical results, which cuts out masses of re-listening. They now have the fl exibility to be tweak an edit many times to achieve artist perfection,” says SADiE senior support engineer Steve Penn.

“SADiE’s most important features are its audio integrity and the editing, and many of our basic features are key

to the workfl ow – operating inside a project, copying between multiple EDLs, Slip, Trim Window, editing whilst recording and so on.”

Also a favourite amongst mastering engineers, the latest incarnation has also brought new time-saving features such as the WAV Master update, which is “aimed at mastering engineers for whom delivery to digital distribution channels is becoming more important than CD-R or DDP fi les,” saysPenn.

Acclaimed mastering engineer Eric Boulanger, based at The Mastering Lab in California,

As the digital audio age matures, Erica Basnicki takes a look at the software that has shaped how audio professionals work, and where those applications might take us in the not-so-distant future…

Better, faster, stronger, softwarier!

(L-R): CEDAR DNS One; Pyramix 3D Panning; SADiE WAV Master

studio

www.psneurope.com December 2014 l 31

explains: “These days, artists and labels are mainly releasing hi-res files (for example HDTracks); Mastered for iTunes and other 16-bit digital downloads and (maybe) CDs. Thanks to the new mastering features in SADiE 6, I can generate all of these files with just a few clicks of the mouse. The new software will also generate WAV file masters that are cut gapless and therefore maintain any track spacing or fancy crossfades between tracks (like Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, for example, or a live concert with applause segues). Now all the different products will match track length, et cetera.”

The noise-suppressors

CEDAR DNS ONEAvailable as a software plug-in, DNS One is one of a range of hardware and software dialogue noise suppression products manufactured by CEDAR Audio. On its website, the company also claims it’s “the world standard for background noise suppression”. Given the number of awards various DNS products have won, including a Technical Oscar, it’s hard to argue against CEDAR’s case. Gordon Reid, managing director of CEDAR Audio, explains the company’s approach to DNS:

“In the ’90s, we were approached by a number of post-production studios that were moving from analogue to digital processing. The question that they asked us was, ‘Could we build a digital implementation of an existing analogue noise reduction process?’ Our answer was that, while in principle we could, there was a better solution. We would analyse the requirement and produce the digital process that best satisfied the need, rather than try to emulate an analogue box from 30 years earlier.

“The DNS process brought that kind of hands-on, tactile, noise reduction into the digital domain for the first time. It isn’t a veneer of controls placed over a conventional spectral subtractive de-hisser. Even if you overlooked the unacceptable latency, if you tried to use the types of de-hissers developed for CD remastering for dialogue noise suppression, you would obtain

artefacts. So it wasn’t just a question of putting a set of new controls onto an existing process, the DNS algorithm was developed specifically for the job.”

As well as being widely used in post-production studios, the DNS process has suppressed background noise on location, in newsrooms, on sporting events as well as in the fields of surveillance and forensics.

At IBC this year, console manufacturer Lawo demonstrated the DNS One running on its mc2 consoles, though no further announcements were made. That’s not to say further incarnations of DNS aren’t possible, says Reid: “No doubt other DNS products will be developed because the need for dialogue noise suppression is so wide-ranging – from a dialogue recording that’s 50 years old through to something that’s going to air tomorrow, or a movie soundtrack being finished, or even something that’s going live-to-air right now.”

IZOTOPE RX4A newer kid on the audio repair block, and more affordable than the CEDAR Cambridge suite, iZotope’s RX bundle is staking its claim as a verb – “RX it out!” – much like Hoover has with its own brand of cleaning up.

The latest version makes audio enhancement and repair even faster for engineers with the addition of RX Connect, which allows users to send audio to RX and back again without having to leave the DAW.

As the product management director and product manager for RX4, Rob D’Amico, explains, “Right out of the gate, the whole concept of RX Connect and being able to take audio from your DAW into RX in a real simplified manner was really the bubble-up effect of talking to a lot of customers that were having [workflow] issues [in RX3].”

D’Amico points out that getting customer feedback early in the product development phase has always been important to the company, both to solve problems for existing customers and to make its products intuitive for new ones.

“We actually get our customers involved to the point where we’re sending them early wireframes of what (the software) can look like and

how it could function, to get that early feedback. We spend a lot of time and focus when we decide on the requirements and the functionality that we’re going to develop.

“We really want RX to be that tool to remove the mundane, manual tasks from your workflow, so the end-user can have more time for creativity and experimental work. We really want to inspire and enable creativity… so giving users the tools to shorten the manual labour of those tasks that computers can take care of is definitely at the forefront of solving those types of problems for all of our customers.”

The forward-thinker

MERGING TECHNOLOGIES PYRAMIXMerging Technologies’ Pyramix has always had a reputation for rock-solid recording and playback of audio, and is a firm favourite amongst classical music producers. Now, says software products manager Johan Wadsten, it’s reinventing itself as the “DAW for the networking age”.

“Networked audio is starting to take hold and people are understanding what audio over IP is,” says Wadsten. “I think I can say with a degree of confidence that we are the only workstation with native connectivity in audio over IP (AoIP). We’re not talking about using an option card. Our DSP runs on RAVENNA and AES67. [That technology] is creating a huge change in how people use workstations in general.”

With its sights still set on the future, Merging announced in October 2014 that its future 3D panning and mixing engine (to be incorporated in the next version) will work with Auro-3D tools. It is not an exclusive partnership, explains Wadsten, but part of the company’s over-arching goal “to futureproof us against ever increasing speaker configurations. Rather than make [Pyramix] something where we create a limit, and then we have to work hard to create a new limit, we just decided to make something that doesn’t have a limit.”

Pyramix’s final big step forward owes much to the past, as the company embraces Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording, allowing users to

encode an audio signal at upto 11.2MHz and capturinga true analogue of a soundwhile still working in thedigital domain.

Wadsten explains: “People used to use two-inch tape for their gigs when they wanted to do something special with analogue gear, and now they’ve

got a replacement for that when that special group comes in – but not at a two-inch tape price point [laughs].”

www.cedar-audio.comwww.izotope.comwww.themasteringlab.comwww.merging.comwww.sadie.com

It would be hard to talk about software and not mention Avid’s Pro Tools, long the industry standard DAW in post-production and recording studios around the world.

Whether it remains so may depend on how well the new ‘Avid Everywhere’ platform is received. Announced at IBC2013, the new platform promises users will be able to “connect with audiences in a more powerful, efficient, collaborative and profitable way”, but so far no dates have been set for a launch.

“We’re hard at work bringing the technology preview – with the cloud collaboration, marketplace, metadata tracking, and all the other connectivity and collaboration workflows to market,” says Avid marketing director Tony Cariddi (pictured). “Believe me, I want to get my hands on it as much as you do [laughs].”

Similarly to Adobe, Avid is also rolling out a subscription-based payment policy that will keep users up-to-date and the Avid Everywhere

platform running smoothly. Currently the majority of Pro Tools users have until 31 December, 2015 to upgrade to Pro Tools 11 for US$199 (approx. £127 or €159).

Until then, Pro Tools users have a few new tools to get their hands on. At AES 137 in Los Angeles last month, the company introduced two more options in the Avid Artist Suite: the new Pro Multiband Dynamics and Pro Subharmonic audio plug-ins.www.avid.com

THE NEW STANDARD?

Loudness legislation has had a drastic effect on delivery requirements across Europe. In this case, software developers have been the ones to do the adjusting, creating the tools that enable engineers to conform to new standards.

“The big change that comes with loudness normalisation is the need to measure the loudness across the entire programme,” explains Jon Schorah, founder and director of Nugen Audio (pictured). “With real-time hardware tools this can destroy established workflows – for example, a five-minute edit within a 30-minute program would require a 30-minute measurement to obtain the new loudness levels. As a result, we have specialised in a number of real-time and off-line tools capable of measuring and adjusting loudness much faster than real time, which, when used together, allow the engineer to maintain a highly efficient workflow which also incorporates loudness normalisation.

“As understanding about loudness issues deepens, engineers and

producers are now looking beyond simple compliance and are beginning to utilise loudness tools to ensure other aspects of audio quality, such as dialogue clarity, upmix/downmix loudness consistency and platform-specific loudness range. We are already able to provide tools to meet these emerging requirements, and are continuing to develop new products and options to facilitate the production of better quality audio within the constraints of today’s highly demanding commercial environments.”www.nugenaudio.com

LOUDNESS – BEYOND COMPLIANCE

32 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

TV tech-focussed PSNEurope sister title TVBEurope has reported that its first ever TVBAwards, held in late October at the Hilton London Wembley Hotel, were “a resounding success” which celebrated talent throughout the entire broadcast industry. TVBEurope staff writer Holly Ashford writes of attendees’ “excitement for the future of what will hopefully be an annual fixture and highlight in the broadcast industry calendar”.www.tvb-awards.com

i2i Events, the organiser of the Broadcast Video Expo (BVE), says the 2015 edition of the show – to be held at ExCeL in east London from 24–26 February – will attract more visitors “from outside the M25”. A concerted push to swell attendance figures follows the decision to cancel the BVE North 2014 event, which should have been held this week in Manchester.“Three years on, we know that more and more visitors from outside the M25 are attending the London event, so we have decided to put all our effort into the main show next February and make it the best one yet,” says BVE marketing consultant Diana Little, speaking on behalf of i2i. “We have lots of exciting new initiatives for the 2015 show and we will be revealing them over the coming months.”www.bvexpo.com

Digigram has announced a partnership with ATC Labs which will see the audio technology company integrate Digigram sound cards into its Perceptual SoundMax line of audio processors and ALCO Blue IP codec. “The combination of quality and features offered by Digigram’s sound cards is exceptional, making the components an ideal fit for the high-end products that we offer,” says Dr Deepen Sinha, CEO of US-based ATC Labs.www.atc-labs.comwww.digigram.com

Asset finance provided by Medialease is funding Goldcrest Post’s “radical expansion” of its presence in the UK’s post-production market. The post house, part of Goldcrest Films, hiring a full team of film and drama drama post experts and significantly upgrading its facility in Soho, London.www.medialease.com

SOUNDBITES EUROPE

BROADCASTERS AND POST-PRODUCTION houses have been moving over to file-based operations in recent years. As part of this there has been a shift towards automated quality control (AQC), including checks for loudness and audio channel configuration. This development has accelerated in recent months and is set to continue into 2015.

At the end of November the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) was due to publish a supplement to its R128 loudness standard, providing guidance on monitoring and control for short-form material such as commercials and promos. In the UK the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) will amend its specification to include momentary and short-term measurement when the EBU has published the update and broadcaster tests have been completed.

Loudness, in the form of R128, has been part of the DPP’s proposals and subsequent specs since the body – formed by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 (C4) – published its tape-based standards in 2011. Since then it has released specifications for file operations, setting the target of 1 October this year for all British broadcasters to have either fully adopted this way of receiving and delivering programmes or begin the transition.

The DPP reports that every UK broadcaster is now using R128, after setting the target for full adoption at the end of September. BT Sport has been fully file-based since it went on air in 2013 and now expects all material delivered to conform

to the DPP AS-11 specification, as does Channel 5. ITV and C4 made “a full transition” on 1 October, with file-based as the default standard for received programmes. The BBC is phasing in this methodology, starting with network productions from both its in-house departments and independent producers. BSkyB is also taking DPP AS-11 format files and plans to finish migrating to the format by the end of October 2015.

As part of this a number of manufacturers have had products tested and passed under the DPP’s Compliance Programme. Among these, which have also gained AMWA (Advanced Media Workflow Association) certification, are Telestream, Root 6 Technology, Cinegy and Dalet/AmberFin. “The programme has had a very positive response from the industry,” comments Kevin Burrows, DPP technical standards lead and chief technology officer for broadcast and distribution at C4. “This is a great endorsement of the value of the DPP’s standards and guidelines, and thanks to manufacturers’ enthusiastic engagement we are expecting many more products to be certified.”

International loudness specifications for long-form programmes began to be established from 2006 onwards, but in Europe national bodies such as the DPP have been waiting for the EBU to finalise R128 for shorter material, including commercials, interstitials and promos. Two leading advertising and

programming distribution companies in the UK, IMD and AdStream, recently wrote to Kevin Burrows on behalf of the wider market regarding changes to the DPP’s Commercial Standards.

In terms of audio, Burrows’ reply covered audio silence as well as loudness. He wrote: “There has been some confusion about the number of frames at the start or end of commercials that should be mute. This should be six frames (historically it was 12), with full audio soundtrack during the rest of the material.” On loudness he added that there would be “further amendments” to the DPP spec covering momentary and short-term measurement following the formal publication of the EBU’s supplement to R128.

An EBU spokesman told PSNEurope in mid-November that this specification was in the final approval stage and that if there were no objections it would be published at the end of the month. “For short-form content such as commercials and promos – as well as interstitials – there is a special need to give guidance using the parameters Maximum Momentary Loudness or Maximum Short-term Loudness in addition to the basic parameters Programme Loudness and Maximum True Peak Level,” he said.

The spokesman confirmed the R128 supplement will provide this guidance and also clarifies that the LRA (loudness range) measure should not be used for short-form content. “LRA is based on a statistical

analysis of Short-term Loudness values (3s),” he explained. “For commercials and promos this leaves too few data points for a meaningful result.”

By adopting AMWA and EBU standards the DPP is hoping that it will be able to specify its delivery requirements to international broadcasters. Kevin Burrows stated during IBC that the group was “in dialogue” with major studios in the US with the aim of getting them to work to its guidelines as time went on. “This would reduce the number of versions from 20 to 10,” he says. “It would be a great advantage.” www.digitalproductionpartnership.co.uk

Distributing broadcast programmes as data files is now established among many TV companies and facilities but, as Kevin Hilton reports, adjustments and additions to the specifications that make this possible are still being made

Shift to file-based delivery continues with new DPP and EBU specifications

broadcastFor the latest broadcast news

www.psneurope.com/broadcast

“The DPP Compliance Programme has had a very positive response from the industry” Kevin Burrows, CTO for broadcast and distribution, Channel 4

www.psneurope.com December 2014 l 33

broadcastEUROPE

BROADCASTERS AND WIRELESS microphone users are facing the reality that the 700MHz frequency band will be cleared and made available for mobile broadband, 5G and LTE (long term evolution) services in the near future. This is despite the fact that the World Radio Conference, which would ratify the move, does not meet until next year.

National regulators, including Ofcom in the UK, are moving ahead despite the publication of a recent study arguing that the cost of clearing DTT and PMSE (programme-making and special events) operations from the UHF spectrum would “significantly outweigh” the potential value of reallocating it for mobile use.

Like other European frequency licensing bodies, Ofcom has made clear its support for the reallocation of frequencies in the 700MHz spectrum. This was underlined on 19 November when the regulator announced that it would allow mobile network operators to run broadband services in the 700MHz band on frequencies currently used for digital terrestrial television (DTT), specifically the Freeview platform, and wireless mics.

This is planned to happen by the start of 2022, or even two years before that. By doing this, Ofcom hopes to make faster and more affordable mobile data services available to consumers and business users alike. Unlike the clearance of the 800MHz band, however, it says there will be no major switchover for DTT viewers, merely “a simple retune of existing TV equipment”.

Ofcom states that it will also “ensure that users of wireless microphones in the PMSE sector, such as theatres, sports venues and music events, continue to have access to the airwaves they need to deliver their important cultural benefits”. A spokesman for the regulator told PSNEurope that it was working closely with the PMSE community and would confirm next year what alternative spectrum could be used for wireless mics. “As far as we can say, we have identified a number of bands for wireless mic use,” he said.

A consultation process is currently underway, which includes looking into where existing radio mic equipment would need to be replaced. “A decision on funding [for that] is yet to be made but that is a matter for government,” said the spokesman.

Outgoing Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards comments: “This is a crucial next step in the development of the UK’s communications infrastructure.”

A study published at the end of October questions this, arguing that UHF spectrum is of higher value to DTT than for mobile usage by a factor of four to one. Future use of the 470–694MHz band was prepared by strategic telecommunications consultancy Aetha for terrestrial and satellite telecom infrastructure management company Aertis, UK transmission provider Arqiva, the BBC, BNE (Broadcast Networks Europe), the EBU and TDF, the high speed media network group.

Among the conclusions of the report is that the €38.5 billion cost of clearing DTT from the UHF spectrum would “significantly” offset the potential worth of it for mobile services. The study evaluates the costs and benefits of turning 700MHz over to mobile services compared to it continuing to house DTT, PMSE, radio astronomy and white spaces.

Other observations include that DTT could need extra spectrum to develop, especially with the current interest in ultra-high-definition TV, and that wireless mics and other PMSE equipment would have no alternatives to the 470–694MHz bands they are currently allocated.

The Aetha study focusses largely on DTT but Lee Sanders, a partner in the consultancy, says the loss of 700MHz would be bad news for PMSE as well. “It looks very likely that the 700MHz band will go to mobile, LTE and 5G,” he explains. “That would mean a reduction in the amount of spectrum for PMSE, including interleaved frequencies. Although there would

be spectrum beneath that there would be a big impact [on wireless mic users], especially for large events.”

Sanders adds that a new home might be found for PMSE in “the centre gap of the 700MHz band” but overall the Aetha report is of the opinion that it would be “not appropriate” for WRC-15 to grant a co-primary allocation to mobile in

470–694MHz. Which is quite a conclusion from an organisation that usually supports the removal of technology and service restrictions on individual bands.

As PSNEurope went to press, spectrum watchdog BEIRG issued a statement expressing its “concern and disappointment” over Ofcom’s decision. www.ofcom.org.uk

Wireless mic users and digital terrestrial broadcasters are contemplating further spectrum reallocation, despite arguments that the cost of clearing frequencies outweigh the benefits to the mobile sector. Kevin Hilton reports

Upheaval in 700MHz band looms

34 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

London Speaker Hire (LSH) is expanding its business with a new 12,000sqft rehearsal and production complex in the east of the city. Offering a “unique new home from home for anyone in the entertainment industry”, the Pro Sound Awards 2014 finalist says LSH Spaces East has “something for bands, musicians and production companies alike”. Based next to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, the complex boasts a 2,850sqft showcase and pre-production hall, three themed rehearsal rooms, storage space for bands on tour, access to the latest AV equipment and a “fully stocked pro shop”.www.londonspeakerhire.com

Sound Hire, the rental and sales outfit founded by Richard Lienard in 1976, has been acquired by broadcast event specialist Plus 4 Audio on the occasion of Lienard’s retirement. In a note posted on the Sound Hire website, Lienard reports that he is “very happy that Plus 4 are taking the reins, as the type and quality of work they already undertake fits perfectly with the Sound Hire ethos”. He will be working on an advisory basis with Plus 4 for “the foreseeable future”.www.plus4audio.co.uk

PreSonus has announced that the new Algam–Music Distribucion alliance will serve as its exclusive distributor in Spain and Portugal, commencing immediately. Algam, one of Europe’s leading distributors of MI and audio products, will take care of the supply chain, while Music Distribucion, a well-established distributor based in Barcelona, is to take charge of sales and marketing activities.www.presonus.comwww.algam.netwww.musicdistribucion.com

Capital Sound fielded its full Martin Audio MLA system for the first time at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 3 November for a special one-off performance by Paul Rodgers. The former Free and Bad Company frontman was backed by a Memphis R&B band comprising musicians who had played on his latest studio album, The Royal Sessions, which was released earlier this year.www.capital-sound.co.ukwww.martin-audio.com

SOUNDBITES JAPAN

TEN YEARS HAVE passed since Yamaha last launched large-scale digital live production consoles in the shape of the PM5D and PM5D-RH. Since 2004, Yamaha’s agenda has focused on smaller footprint devices: the MC7L and LS9 desks, and in the last couple of years, the CL and QL ranges.

Last month at theInterBEE show in Japan, the world’s biggest music company unveiled the long awaited RIVAGE PM10 flagshipconsole – with a name that recognises both its PM heritage and a new wave of design, as seen in last year’s NUAGE post-production console launch. Yamaha claims it is “one of the most powerful and flexible digital mixing systems ever developed”.

At the core of the RIVAGE PM10 is the newly-developed RY16-ML-SILK Hybrid Microphone Preamplifier, a collaboration with console veteran Rupert Neve, which delivers “supremely consistent, natural-sounding audio, even at high gain levels”, says the company. It is partnered with a 96kHz, 24-bit A–D converter, followed by enhanced Yamaha VCM digital modelling of Rupert Neve Designs transformer circuitry and Silk processing.

Yamaha has worked with TC Electronic to include two reverbs, the VSS4HD room simulation reverb and the highly

creative “NonLin2” stereo reverb, as featured in the TC System 6000 devices, and with Eventide, to add the H3000-Live Ultra-Harmonizer as a standard inclusion in the RIVAGE PM10 system.

Twenty-four of the control surface’s channel strips extend into the twin, 15-inch touchscreen displays, while rotary encoders feature ‘horseshoe’ ring indicators for optimum visibility.

Further innovations include greatly enhanced Scene functions, dual monitor busses, the ability to run up to 384 FX processors at once and four USB connections for data storage, mouse/keyboard control and more.

The backbone of the RIVAGE PM10 system is Yamaha’s newly developed TWINLANe ring network, which can handle up to 400 audio channels at 96kHz,

32-bit over distances of up to 300 metres. TWINLANe can connect up to eight RPio622 i/o units and, at launch, up to two CS-R10 control surfaces and up to two DSP-R10 DSP engines.

An optional HY-Dante card can be used to integrate multitrack recording or other hardware, including other Yamaha digital consoles.

“For a number of years, the industry has been asking when Yamaha will launch a new, state-of-the-art digital console for large scale productions,” says Chihaya ‘Chick’ Hirai, director of the Pro Audio Business Unit, Yamaha Corporation of Japan. “We have always said that, when it comes, it will be as much a landmark for the industry as the PM1D and PM5D were.

“So I am very pleased to say that, with RIVAGE PM10, that time has arrived.

“We believe that RIVAGE

PM10 will be another pivotal moment in the history of digital audio mixing. It delivers a system which will be the most versatile, the most user-friendly and the most reliable for all larger events.

“We look forward to introducing sound engineers to RIVAGE PM10 and inspiring them with the dawn of a new age for live sound digital mixing systems.”

The only shipping date confirmed at press time was “2015”; regarding pricing, Yamaha notes, “It is important to understand that the PM10 is a very scalable system.”

Yamaha kickstarted the live digital console revolution in September 1999 when it launched the PM1D digital mixing system at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Production of the desk finally ceased in December 2009. www.yamahacommercialaudio.com

Yamaha has launched RIVAGE PM10, its first large-scale live console in a decade, writes Dave RobinsonReturn of the big desk!

live For the latest live news www.psneurope.com/live

36 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

liveSTAGE Entertainments brand-new production of Dance of the Vampires recently opened in Paris at the newly renovated Mogador theatre. Directed by its controversial creator, Roman Polanski, the complex musical has taken the city by storm - adding to its impressive 16-year track record, which includes playing to audiences of over seven million in 12 countries.

Sound design is by Thomas (Tom) Strebel of audiopool, bringing his experience of designing the Berlin production to the new show. Describing Dance of the Vampires as “quite rock-based musically”, he specified an all-d&b audiotechnik loudspeaker system, featuring the T-Series.

The focus for the French language version has been very much on intelligibility, as he explains:

“It’s a very dynamic show, with a big rather than a very loud sound and as such, we needed plenty of low end and headroom to get the energy we wanted. Dance of the Vampires is very cleverly written with good songs and orchestrations, and very dense arrangements that nevertheless allow enough room to put in the vocals.

“Clarity was a priority, and a lot of work was done by the creative team on diction. Our task was to help bring this out, using TiMax to aid intelligibility, with the sound following the actors around the narrow stage.

“This was also our objective

with the overall sound design, using a straightforward left/right music system, with band fills front stage to give us coverage up to row 10 of the stalls. We used a separate flown left/centre/right system for the vocals, with front fills. The overall result is excellent – the T-Series is a small system and works very well aesthetically, giving us the wide dispersion angles we need without overpowering everything.”

The band comprises 10 musicians onstage complemented by pre-recorded click tracks to add the strings, woodwind, brass and some chorals, with the cast including nine principals and an ensemble of 20. The full speaker line-up comprises fifteen T-10 cabinets aside for the main left/right music system with J-Subs, and a T-10/Q-10/E6 combination for the vocal system – all amplified by d&b audiotechnik D6 and D12s. d&b audiotechnik Q7s were used for stage monitoring, and E8s for stage FX.

On the radio mic front, Strebel has used Shure UR1-M transmitters with U4D receivers, and FOH is the Stagetec Aurus digital mixing console. The mixing surface incorporates 64 faders, multiplied by no less than eight layers, giving sound operator Nicolas Lemperier control over the complex mix. This involves over 50 live inputs from the band, 37 from the cast, plus the sound FX, reverbs and additional tracks – adding upto some 120 inputs in total.

Polanski’s Dance of the Vampires haunts Paris with the help of Orbital Sound and an Aurus console

Fang you very much

Clarity was a priortiy in the lavish production

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At the heart of the system isthe Nexus Star audio routingnode, using fibre-optic links to talk to all the remote racks installed around the theatre, adjacent to the sources andthe amplifiers.

Overall, the sound system is a truly European affair, integrating equipment from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Britain and France.

With a tight set of deadlines and a highly complex production, teamwork played a very important role. Tom worked alongside associate sound designer Laurenz

Zschokke, and the Mogador’s resident head of sound, Bertrand Billon as production engineer.

Specialist installation expertise was provided by Robin Whittaker for the TiMax installation and Christian Fuchs for the Aurus, with equipment supply and technical support from Orbital Sound. Nicolas Lemperier is sound operator, with Patrick Bergeron as no2, supported by trainee Damien Thiebaud and radio mic technician Arnaud Dannenberg.

The Mogador theatre is equipped with a permanent

full delay and surround system, made up principally of L-Acoustic 8XT (driven by LA4 amplifiers) and Meyer Sound UPJuniors. Bertrand Billon provided an insight into the choice of system:

“Our objective when we installed the house delay and surround system was to make it re-patchable so we could accommodate any design requests. As all the speakers are driven by LA4 amps, we can achieve EQs and delays relative to the main PA without the need for any extra filters. We also have a Dolby Lake processor that we can use to drive any speaker – it all adds up to a very flexible system.”

Working with Roman Polanski was extremely interesting for Strebel and his team, as he continues:

“He brings such a detailed perspective to the production, and has an excellent feel for theatre, despite one tending to think of him as a film director. He is incredibly knowledgeable

and knows exactly what he wants to achieve.

“This is a visually stunning show, and works beautifully in this theatre, but it also has considerable depth, and the combination is extraordinary. We had a great team spirit on Dance of the Vampires, which made getting to grips with what is a very complicated show both enjoyable and exciting. The more advanced and

sophisticated the requirement, the less time you have to do everything!

“We all worked hard together and are pleased at the end result, although you never actually finish refining and fine-tuning.” www.orbitalsound.comwww.audiopool.netwww.mogador.netwww.stage-entertainment.nl

Audio suds: cleaning up in French theatre d&b T-Series speakers form the main hangs

38 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

live

GINO PAOLI IS a seminal figure on the Italian singer-songwriter scene, and many of his songs are Italian pop classics, including La Gatta, recorded in 1960. Never one to rest on his laurels, even at the age of 80, Paoli recently released an album of his songs with a jazz slant, accompanied by Enrico Rava and Danilo Rea, among others. His latest live venture (accompanied by pianist Rea) features the application of a unique system based on Merging Technologies products that enables live sound mixing and processing using DXD (Direct Extreme Digital, with a 352.8kHz/24-bit PCM sample rate/bit depth).

Igor Fiorini, CEO with Rome-based Italian Merging Technologies distributor VDM, explains: “This brand-new modus operandi originated from a simple idea: in the recording world, in spite of endless work going into ensuring top sound, end products are often listened to in low-quality compressed formats, such as MP3.

“The live world is unaffected by this, as the audio ‘chain’ for an important concert is

always high quality. This led me to think that the noticeable difference in quality between 48 or 96kHz sound and DXD could be maintained and heard at live events. In fact, even if an analogue signal is fed to the sound reinforcement system’s power amps, the profound difference in sound quality thanks to the system used to mix and process the sound upstream ensures noticeably superior sonic quality nevertheless.”

One of the Paoli/Rea concerts was staged at San Miniato, a picturesque town in the Italian province of Pisa on a hilltop on the Via Francigena, a major mediæval pilgrimage route linking northern Europe with Rome. One of the first in the world at which the set-up had been used at a live event with a paying audience, it featured Merging Technologies’ Horus (or Hapi in this specific show) networked audio interfaces and Ovation Live virtual Mixer and VDM Design’s Live Station System 24 – a computer designed by VDM’s design division specifically for live work (both recording and concerts) based on the

concept of impact resistance and reliability.

Fiorini continues: “After the extremely positive initial tests, we began presenting the idea, which immediately attracted the interest and support of sound engineer Luca Giannerini and

producer Aldo Mercurio, then artists like Paoli and Rea – and the idea became reality.”

Also convinced that it was absurd to invest in huge amounts in quality PAs and then feed them 48kHz signals, Gino Paoli’s sound engineer

Luca Giannerini add:, “I’m collaborating with Igor on the project and was really amazed the first time I used it – it’s very easy to mix with and I’d never heard such a clean, well-defined sound on live events. The ‘breath’ of Paoli’s vocals and the

DXD technology kept audio quality high for Italian veteran Paoli, writes Mike Clark

Like a fine wine

(L–R): Luca Giannerini, Danilo Rea, Gino Paoli, Igor Fiorini

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piano’s harmonics can be clearly heard. Apart from the sound quality, the dynamic range is also superior.”

From a practical point of view, all that’s needed is a mini computer and a display for virtual mixing – engineers can prep the computer and go to gigs with a unit more or less the size of a briefcase containing an impressive mixing system that enables them to mix (and record) 32 tracks in DXD with no problems or delays, and process signals’ EQ, compression and so on at a much higher quality than live digital consoles.

Ensuring front-end quality at San Miniato was Tuscan rental firm Bufalo Sound Service, which works mainly on Italian concerts, festivals and theatre productions, but also abroad on events like the 2014 Trondheim Metal Fest in Norway.

Entirely amplified by D12 power amps, the d&b audiotechnik rig comprised

four Q1 two-way enclosures stacked atop a pair of Q-SUB subwoofers either side onstage.BSS owner Alessandro Bufalini comments: “As far as monitors were concerned, as well as four d&b Max 12 two-way full range

wedges Paoli also used a Shure PSM personal monitor system.”

With the singer’s DPA d:facto II, Giannerini also carries a DPA 4099P stereo mic system and a pair of 4011C compact cardioids for the piano.

Bufalini opined: “In spite of being re-converted to analogue before being fed to the amps, the audio quality was in fact very good. The sound would have been even more appreciated if the local authorities had allowed

us to fly the system, but grids were out of the question as they would have obstructed the splendid view of the valley.”

“Even ‘lay’ members of the audience noticed the difference in sonic quality,” agrees Giannerini. “At San Miniato, an elderly lady told me she’d never heard such a beautiful concert – I appreciate this feedback more than any hair-splitting ‘techie’ at the shows. Moreover, I can now take my mixing set-up as cabin luggage when flying!”

“All the effort that has gone into this ongoing project to date has also been repaid by the response of audiences, who immediately perceive sonic presence, depth and listening pleasure,” concludes Fiorini, “so we’re convinced this project has a great future.” www.bufalosoundservice.comwww.dbaudio.comwww.dpamicrophones.comwww.merging.comwww.shure.comwww.vdmgroup.it

Super high quality audio for Gino Paoli

40 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

liveUNITED KINGDOM

MANY LIVES, FACES and years ago, a small group of pioneering academics, engineers, mavericks and eccentrics made music and sounds the likes of which mere mortals had never heard before. They worked mostly individually amid an array of technologies both old and – at the time – new in a strange building somewhere in the Maida Vale constellation. The fruits of their labours reached a wide audience, but the true value of the work was only full appreciated by obsessives and enthusiasts – often strange young men – who were similarly removed from the world, listening in the safe confines of their bedrooms.

Today, members of the Radiophonic Workshop (RWS) are performing their music live to audiences that include the grown-up versions of the people who once rarely set foot outside their doors. So far this year, Workshop stalwarts Paddy Kingsland, Peter Howell, Roger Limb and Dick Mills, with composer and RWS archivist Mark Ayres and drummer and percussionist Kieran Pepper, have performed at a variety of venues, including the Glastonbury and Camp Bestival festivals and the University of Chichester, which hosted a day dedicated to the history and legacy of the ‘group’.

Where once they made music and sounds as individuals, these technicians-cum-musicians are now playing together, using modern computer programs, keyboards and sequencers to perform tracks that were originally painstakingly assembled on quarter-inch tape, tone generators and early synthesisers. Old technology has not been left behind completely, with two Tascam reel-to-reel machines playing a prominent part in the show. A stereo 32 is for pre-prepared clips and loops

and a four-track 34 “occasionally plays in some quad premixes”, according to Ayres, who is musical director on the tour and also triggers illustrative video clips. “We’d use Studers if we could carry the things,” he adds.

The RWS is performing a mixture of tracks from a variety of BBC productions that benefited from its involvement, including The Changes, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (both Kingsland), The Body in Question (Howell’s vocoder-based Greenwich Chorus), Out of the Unknown and Doctor Who, the last two highlighting the enduring influence of Delia Derbyshire. There is also new material that will feature on the group’s forthcoming album and a version of Telstar, written and originally produced by another electronic music pioneer, Joe Meek.

As befits something that was not originally conceived to be performed live, the RWS shows are mixed front of house by an engineer with a studio background. Mark Phythian started his career at Amazon Studios in Liverpool in 1983 and later went freelance. Phythian was introduced to Paddy Kingsland by producer-mixer Danton Supple at the Workshop’s 2009 gig at the Roundhouse in London. “He asked me to help them with their live shows,” he says. “The Radiophonic Workshop was the reason I became an engineer but I said I didn’t do live sound. Paddy said, ‘You’re an engineer and you know how our old stuff sounds.’”

This convinced Phythian, who says the FOH mix is “fairly easy to do” and everything “worked out well”. This relative ease is, he says, because “much of the hard work has been done in the pre-mix stage”. The RWS has taken advantage of modern software to prepare and playback many

of the layers of sound that characterise its music.

A Behringer X32 digital console is used on-stage in conjunction with Peter Howell’s Mac, running MainStage, to premix all the group’s on-stage synths, tape machines and other sources down to stereo groups, witch are fed to the front of house desk. Ayres’ Mac, loaded with Logic and handling the 5.1 surround feeds, busses through the Behringer, which is also used to feed personal monitor mixers, connected through a Mark of the Unicorn interface. Ayres says he also does “a bit of onstage mixing” as part of the performance.

FireWire is used for interfacing the digital parts of the show through two stage boxes, with feeds delivered for any processing such as equalisation, dynamics, reverb and overall level control. So far on the tour, Phythian and the RWS have been working with the front of house desk and loudspeaker rig provided at the venues. “Essentially, the main audio is done in Peter’s and Mark’s Macs,” he says. “If Ihad everything on separate faders on the FOH desk itwould be a nightmare. I stillhave to do quite a bit of fader riding, though.”

The Logic program is used to control the surround aspects. Phythian says this is only a “small area” of show, although what does feature makes a strong impact. “It’s more like a big hi-fi,” he explains, “with more stereo in the front and wispy or punchier bits in the surrounds. It’s all about creating an experience.” The cinema convention of a centre channel comes into play during the performance of Kingsland’s Brighton Pier from The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which features video and dialogue from the second episode

of the TV series (in which the pier in question is clearly identified as being at Southend-on-Sea, Essex).

Ahead in time and space for the Radiophonic Workshop is the idea to bring in a second X32 desk for front of house mixing and the long-awaited album. In

the meantime, the Regeneration Tour continues and will make a pre-Christmas manifestation at BFI Southbank for a 5.1 celebration of the group’s contribution to TV science fiction. www.theradiophonicworkshop.co.uk

Members of the influential electronic music grouping have left the fastness of their studios and taken to the road, performing classic tracks alongside new compositions. Kevin Hilton looks at the regeneration of the Radiophonic Workshop for live performance

Radiophonic Workshop live: back in time with the future

Dick Mills with one of the two Tascam tape machines integral to the show

The Workshop performing The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Out of the Unknown’s mind-melting Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO

42 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

UNITED KINGDOM

CELESTION MAKE GUITAR speakers, right? Correct. But in the last few years, a sea-change has occurred for the business, and now a substantial part of Celestion’s revenue is generated by sales of loudspeaker components to third-party makers of sound reinforcement systems.

How did that come about? All in good time: the company celebrated 90 years of operation in 2014, so let’s have a little history first.

The first suggestion of the company above a shop in Hampton Wick in 1924, where brothers Cyril and Ray French tinkered with their designs for wireless radio sets. In a moment of serendipity, the British Broadcasting Company Ltd was taking shape around the same time, and suddenly there was a demand for the brothers’ creations. Cyril French patented his first ever loudspeaker design in 1925 and called it the ‘Celestion’… Brother Ray designed and built intricate mahogany cases for the speakers: original examples are still dotted around the Ipswich factory today.

Through the Second World War, Celestion made speakers for factories, tanks and submarines. In rolled the 1950s and 1960s, and the company’s G12 permanent magnet loudspeaker, which had until then been used in home ‘wireless’ sets, found new fans on the rock’n’roll scene, as first Vox, and then Marshall, installed them in their guitar cabinets. Celestion became the sound of rock!

Skip now to 1992, when Victor Lo, a hi-fi enthusiast, acquired Celestion and hi-fi brand KEF for his Gold Peak electronics business, creating

GP Acoustics. So began the shift of high volume product manufacturing from the UK’s Ipswich factory to GP’s base in China, before it became what is now an accepted business strategy. KEF remains a sister ‘consumer division’ of GP Acoustics to this day.

Joining GP in the early Noughties, new MD Nigel Wood brought a new outlook. “There came a point when Celestion needed to decide what it wanted to be,” he reflects. “Fundamentally, we were making PA drivers (a small part of the business), guitar speaker drivers (a very important part of the business) and complete speaker boxes. We reviewed the business and realised that box [designs] were old and coming to the end of their lifecycles; we would need to make a huge investment if we wanted to pursue that business. But a number of our OEM loudspeaker system manufacturers pointed out: ‘Yes, we’d like to buy your drivers, but we can’t but them from someone who is directly competing with us. If you want to grow your business with us, you need to think again.’”

Celestion was effectively cannibalising its own market: and so over a two-year period beginning in 2004, the company phased out its ranges of PA and installation boxes to concentrate on the component market instead.

Here endeth that – sometimes painful, but ultimately effective – period of change. Guitar speaker manufacturing continued to be as lucrative as ever for the business. But how to grow next?

It was at the NAMM Show, some five years ago or so, when Celestion’s marketing/

artist relations manager, John Paice, first revealed to PSNEurope the next step. “A big push into line arrays” was the kind of confidence Paice expressed. And we waited, and we waited… until, in early 2013, Paice revealed that, indeed, the sale of pro-audio drivers, both high and low frequency, was becoming a seriously big deal for Celestion. Then, at the company’s 90th birthday celebrations at Prolight + Sound earlier this year, Wood revealed that not only was the company making 1,000 compression drivers a day, but that pro-audio sales generated 65% of the company’s revenue, practically double that of the guitar loudspeakers.

From the 40-strong UK HQ in Ipswich, Celestion was on track to sell 500,000 compression drivers by the end of 2014. And in another five years, Wood estimates 85% of the business will be from the pro-audio sector. (“I don’t want the readers to get this idea that guitar speakers aren’t important to us – that part of the business has never been healthier!” he emphasises.)

Whichever way you look at it, the Celestion plan has produced incredibly impressive results. Earlier this year, PSNEurope sat down with Nigel Wood and John Paice to try to pinpoint just exactly what the formula for that success is.

Below are six key points

from our discussion. They’re not exhaustive, but they are fundamental. As Wood said repeatedly during the interview, “This made a big difference!”

CONFIDENCE FROM THE INVESTOR IN THE STRATEGYNW (Nigel Wood): Probably the most important thing to start with was Gold Peak. We had a discussion with the Gold Peak board saying: “We are here and we want to move to there. This will be a five-year plan, so we need to work together over [that time] to achieve our objectives.” The great thing with Gold Peak is that they are more interested in the long term than the short term. So we put together a plan to work with the shareholders to make available the capital investment to drive the pro-audio business forward – that was the single biggest driving factor.PSN: So they threw a load of investment at you?

In this, a year celebrating an anniversary rarely seen in the pro-audio business, Dave Robinson discovers how Celestion plotted and executed a daring land-grab of the loudspeaker component market

Celestion: 90 years old but more determined than ever

“Having our engineering team meet with a customer’s engineering team is probably one of the most important meetings we have”

All smiles, despite the wind, for (L–R) John Paice and Nigel Wood

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NW: They made a lot of money available. We took that resource and we put it into engineering, we put it into product, we put it into a sales force, we put into marketing. All of those individual elements with the plan and the commitment allowed us to be successful.

WINNING THE TRUST OF CUSTOMERSNW: A lot of people trust us, as well. We have heritage, we’ve been around for 90 years. Hopefully we’ll be around for another 90 years. They know that we’ll be here in five years’ time, in 10 years’ time, and we are just a very, very reliable partner. Behind us is Gold Peak, who are a very reliable partner for finished goods contract manufacturing: Gold Peak Industries has a US$2billion turnover, which makes us very dependable. GP knows our business is dedicated to the audio business and the music business and that is very important as well. If you’re a loudspeaker manufacturer who’s looking for a driver partner, you want someone you can trust for at least five years. It’s really, really important. JP (John Paice): Plus, we have our own factory in Guangdong province, which means both design and manufacture remain within the organisation, so there are no project disclosure issues.

SHARING THE STRATEGY WITH CUSTOMERSNW: When we started to develop the software tools and the initial products, we shared with key customers, in confidence, what we were trying to do and how we were trying to get there. They were very supportive.PSN: You’re talking about the line array developers, the sound reinforcement systems builders.NW: Yes, and their support and feedback proved what we were trying to achieve was correct. They were buying into the plan, into the dream. So to really ensure we have the right market products we work very, very closely with our customer engineers.JP: It’s a two-way process. It’s not just, ‘Can you tweak this, can you tweak that?’ – increasingly, it’s , ‘What is the end point you are trying to achieve with this new product?’. And understanding that final goal enables us to work faster and design better. You can

also gain valuable insight into how the marketplace might be shifting. Steerable column arrays, for instance: when we started to develop these compact array drivers, the AN series, it suddenly became apparent that it wasn’t just one or two esoteric little projects that were out there, it was actually a shift in the marketplace. NW: Having our engineering team meet with a customer’s engineering team is probably one of the most important meetings we do It’s so important for both partners. They can see in a year’s time what will be available from a driver so they can start to design their products around our products, and we can see what their requirements will be as well. When we work very closely with our customers we work in strict confidence as well, because commercially sensitive issues are discussed. PSN: What is the shortest time you can go from a customer meeting to producing final product? NW: It depends on how complicated the product is. But anywhere from 90 days to two years.

THE RIGHT TEAM AND THE RIGHT TOOLSPSN: So Nigel comes back from China with the green light to invest in staff and machinery. NW: We did invest in a lot of engineering tools as well, because ultimately we are an engineering company so we want our engineers to be as efficient as we can possibly make them.JP: When I started in 2003, there was Ian [White] who was for many years our head of engineering (and now works for us as a consultant), Paul Cork [then senior project engineer, now head of engineering] and one other project engineer, a couple of people in the drawing office and that was it, really. Now we have a development team of 11. PSN: You claim to have the largest R&D team of any driver manufacturer.JP: As well as the development team we also have a dedicated research team that feeds both the Celestion and KEF brands. That works well because ultimately, the acoustical science is the same. All research and development is conducted in the UK.PSN: The software is your

secret weapon, right?JP: We’ve spent 15 years developing our own software; we call it Projector. It allows us to understand the activity of each little tweak in a model of a loudspeaker design. Projector takes the principles of FEA – finite element analysis (a mathematical approach to solid mechanics) – and applies them to loudspeaker manufacture: mechanically, thermally, acoustically, electrically. We believe that no one else models all four of those elements together.

RELIABILITY AND CONSISTENCY IN MANUFACTURINGNW: When we moved into the pro-audio sector, we realised it’s difficult to make good compression drivers consistently. We saw that as a challenge, and an opportunity. [With some manufacturers]

you can get [lower] prices for the drivers but they don’t have the consistency. We put a lot of engineering and factory effort into manufacturing small precision parts to high tolerances. Because we have a large factory, we have massive capacity – and because of that we grew compression drivers manufacturing very quickly. More than 1,000 compression drivers are sold every day.

SEE IT THROUGHPSN: What does Celestion need to do next in order to stay on top of its game? NW: We are half way through our [10-year] journey. We are very comfortable with our strategy but as we learn about the market, as the marketplace changes, we have to tweak and refine the strategy. I guess, hopefully, what will happen over the next couple of years is that we bring out some

innovative products that will hopefully change the industry. PSN: How often do you have to report into Gold Peak?NW: Every quarter, more or less. On a day-to-day basis we’re pretty much left alone to run the business.PSN: And that works for both of you?NW: What you seem to find is that when you run a very successful business, you are left alone!PSN: And Gold Peak is run by the same man who bought the company 20 years ago?NW: Yes – Victor Lo.PSN: And he still has the passion for hi-fi?NW: Absolutely. He is very, very passionate and an interesting character: every time I meet Victor, he says, ‘You need to invest more money in this business!’ It’s a nice problem to have. www.celestion.com

PSN: Two years ago, you weren’t using neodymium magnets, just ferrite ones. JP: There was a point – probably burnt into Nigel’s memory – where the price of the neodymium shot up double, treble, even more.NW: At its peak the cost increase for us to buy the neodymium magnets for any particular driver was greater than the selling price of the driver.JP: At that stage it becomes much more difficult to justify. What we tried to do instead was hedge against

any further price increases by looking again at the well-used ferrite technology and see what we could do to that. Obviously one of the key advantages of neodymium is the weight…PSN: About half the weight, isn’t it? JP: With the FEA software we looked at how we could pull out as much of the metal weight as possible to make lighter ferrite drivers, so that if the price of neodymium stayed high there was a lighter ferrite option. NW: We now have lighter weight

ferrite and neodymium drivers, so we make both types of product. Also, the price of neodymium has come down to a more sustainable level. It’s, like, three times the price of what it was three years ago – but it’s not 20 times the price. PSN: Wow!NW: Yes – wow. That was an interesting time! Now, Today we just warn our customers about the last couple of years of volatility and that nobody really knows the future price of neodymium. Just be warned!

THE NEODYMIUM PROBLEM

Celestion woofers on the production line in Ipswich

Planning for UC Audio Devices, a new white paper by Plantronics, has been added to NewBay Connect. The white paper – outlining the three stages of a unified communications (UC) audio deployment: plan, deploy and adopt – examines the audio aspect of a UC roll-out, advising how to organise a “thoughtfully considered plan that includes user input” which will “will make the overall roll-out run smoothly and increase user adoption”. For each stage, Plantronics has compiled FAQs and supporting checklists to help the reader through the entire process.www.plantronics.comwww.newbayconnect.com

Symetrix, the US-based digital signal processing specialist, has been added to Audio-Technica Europe’s (ATE) distribution portfolio for Turkey. “We became aware that Symetrix would be a perfect fit to support our existing product range, especially in the installation business,” explains Onur Esame, business development manager, Turkey, who joined ATE in January.www.symetrix.cowww.eu.audio-technica.com

Brighton, UK, video production company Shy Camera has produced a short film documenting Flying into the Dawn, the Wind Tunnel Project installation at Farnborough Airport which was the cover story of the September 2014 PSNEurope. With narration from its creator, sound designer and artist Thor McIntyre-Burnie, the film, recorded in-situ using a DPA 5100 mobile surround microphone, seeks to “provide a sense of this site-specific work”, says Shy Camera. Watch it at www.psneurope.com/flying-dawn

The O2 Arena in Prague is the latest large-format multipurpose venue to install GEO S12-ST sound reinforcement systems by Nexo. Supplied and installed by Nexo’s Czech distributor, MusicData, the GEO S12-ST cabinets are flown from a central ‘cube’, carrying large screens on each side, which descends from the ceiling.www.nexo-sa.com

SOUNDBITES

44 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

installationFor the latest installation news

www.psneurope.com/installation

FRANCE

SEPTEMBER SAW THE 20th anniversary reopening of the French National Museum of Natural History (MNHN)’s Great Gallery of Evolution, featuring an install of site-specific, custom-designed Amadeus speakers. The refurbished gallery also features equipment by Merging Technologies, Solid State Logic and Flux.

Amadeus’s director of research and development, Michel Deluc, and designer Bernard Byk created new speaker and subwoofer configurations for the 180+ speaker MNHN sound system. The new speaker design extends the PMX series with a four-inch coaxial driver model, the PMX 4, and also adds two compact sub-woofers created specifically for the install, the ML 8 and the ML 12 SLIM, with eight- and 12-inch drivers respectively. Also used are the previously released 5.5-inch PMX driver model and a modified ML 12 subwoofer.

Byk, co-founder and CEO of Amadeus, comments: “I trained as an architect, and this training definitely influences both the products we develop and the projects we work on. I think that, for an architect, the starting point is to decrypt the space and to think of the way to put one’s work in a cultural, social and environmental context.

“That’s the way we design our sound systems: we think about their integration in different places, and we supervise

this integration. Each space has its own acoustical characteristics and, above all, its own architectural properties. Our work is to take these phenomena into account to increase the transparency of our sound systems.”

For amplification, Amadeus developed and launched two prototypes: the MULTIAMP and A Series (both tobe released in 2015). According tothe company, “these two new Amadeus amplifier series extend, complete and perfect the ‘hi-fi’ dimension andsound of the Amadeus speaker products”.

“The National Museum of Natural History install is a high-point of the many years in speaker and amplifier design by Amadeus,” says Amadeus marketing manager Gaetan Byk. “It is a perfect example of the outcome from the Amadeus brand philosophy, [which] is built on the long-standing, close and productive relationships we have maintained with talented designers and scenographers, both in France and around the world, for over 35 years.”

“This kind of integration job, filled with aesthetic taboos and security issues, requires not only very high-quality products but also deeply involved partners,” concludes Marc Piera, co-founder and CEO of Comportements Sonores and the

scenographer for the installation. “Amadeus really was exemplary in that matter, and this contributed to the final success of the project. Their commitment even led the company to create specific RAL colours and wood finishes, putting the final distinguishing touches on this successful integration. Amadeus even developed the amplifier system to deal with these 186 independent speaker lines.

“Solid State Logic interfaced the system, and Merging Technologies dealt with the programming side using their Ovation system, even adapting their product for us on the practical and ergonomic side. The system filtering issues were handled by Flux, Merging Technologies’ long-time partner.”

“In the end, I was able to stay asclose as I wanted to the sound that Ihad imagined, specified andchampioned for this type of electro-acoustical mission: to get as much definition as possible in the sound image and the timbre. ‘Traditional’ systems like Amadeus PMX speakers remain the safest solution to work with difficult acoustics.” www.amadeus-audio.comwww.comportements-sonores.comwww.fluxhome.comwww.merging.comwww.solid-state-logic.com

Over 180 specially designed Amadeus speakers were installed in the Paris Museum of Natural History for its 20th anniversary, writes Jon Chapple

MNHN evolves with Amadeus

46 l December 2014 www.psneurope.com

installationUNITED KINGDOM

A BOSE ROOMMATCH speaker system, designed using the company’s Modeler software and powered by PowerMatch amplifi cation, has transformed The Forum in Kentish Town, north London, as part of six-fi gure, Marquee AV-installed audio solution.

The install marks a major step forward for the RoomMatch brand – designed by Bose to overcome, using its acoustic waveguide technology, the performance limitations of conventional line-array and point-source loudspeakers – which has been largely associated with larger venues and stadia since its launch in 2011.

The venue, originally built in 1934, was bought from Mean Fiddler in 2007 by British entertainment group MAMA & Company, which spent £1.5m refurbishing the art-deco former cinema and increasing its capacity from 2,100 to 2,300. Other MAMA venues include the Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen, The Borderline in Soho, The Jazz Cafe and The Barfl y in Camden, The Garage in Islington and various venues in other major British cities. It also operates the Lovebox, Wilderness, Global Gathering and The Great Escape festivals (see PSNEurope June 2014).

“We had The Fly Awards [at The Forum] in February – it was part of our [The] Fly magazine, which we were pretty much closing down, so we wanted to go out with a last hurrah,”

MAMA director Ivor Wilkins explained to PSNEurope. “We spoke to the guys at Bose and they kindly said that they would put a system in to fi t that, so we had everyone from Thurston Moore to The Horrors [playing through it].”

The Forum’s old sound set-up simply wasn’t able to fi ll the entire venue, according to Tom Simpson, senior acoustic designer and technical trainer at Bose Professional Systems Division UK, who designed the new solution. Although he recalled that the sound at the front of the venue was “perfectly intelligible”, he explained: “We came to listen to a band here – we were sitting in the VIP area, about halfway up the balcony – and the band was playing and I could see the lips of the lead singer moving, but couldn’t understand anything that was coming out of the [six-year-old] sound system at the time.”

Tasked by MAMA & Company with developing what became the system for The Fly’s “last hurrah” on 6 February, used by Bombay Bicycle Club, Wild Beasts and Peace (as well as the aforementioned Horrors and Thurston Moore), Simpson went to the drawing board and “experimented with a design we could use for a demonstration, based on the cabinets we had in the UK at the time”. He explained: “The solution we offer is a customisable solution, in terms of tailoring the array to fi t the space, but it’s made out of non-custom components – there

are 42 modules in the range, and as a designer I can choose from that selection of coverage angles to produce an array.

“With the demo system we put in here, it was very much a case of ‘What can you do with what you’ve got?’. In order to get a system in [in time], I had to fl y the arrays about three metres higher than they are currently to make the angles that I had work. Based on the feedback [from the bands], we took that away and kept that in our minds if we were invited back to put a system in here permanently – how that would impact on the design.”

As it happens, Bose was invited back – after impressing all in attendance at the awards with its Simpson-designed prototype system. “I suppose, initially, we saw it as a little bit of a risk, because we weren’t sure whether it was something that was going to fi t the artists involved,” commented Wilkins, “[but] we came in on the night and it just sounded fantastic. So when we then started having the conversation about looking at a much more permanent fi xture, it was pretty much we’d tried and tested it at that point, so we didn’t really need much more convincing to actually get the [permanent] system in place.”

“The Bose system is great for some of the heritage artists,”

he continued – The Boomtown Rats played The Forum recently, while Marillion and Erasure will appear on 11 and 14–15 December, respectively – “and because it’s nice and compact and very clean, but [we can also use it] for some of the other stuff we have in here – the cooler stuff promoted by people like Soundcrash, such as Submotion Orchestra tonight [14 November] and Gorgon City tomorrow, and some of the acts we’ve had like [jungle producer] Congo Natty recently – because it’s fl exible and adaptable and doesn’t suffer in the bottom end.

“What we’ve suffered from in the past is not having the ability to be fl exible to accommodate whatever bands are coming in. We used to fi nd ourselves taking the old system out because people were saying: ‘Well, we don’t think the system you had is going to have the reach and it’s not going to get in the back of the room or it’s not got enough bottom end…’ But now we’re in a position where [the new system] complements all of it, which is great.”

The permanent Bose system made its debut on 12 September, with the last ever show by indie singer-songwriter Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. “We get very good projection out of it,” confi rmed Simpson. “It has to cope with quite a range

of musical material: you need good vocal projection and clarity for that kind of band [the ‘heritage’ acts], but then you need to handle the punch and the kick of the heavier bands. [The Forum] also does a lot of electronic dance music stuff, where if you really want to you can get down to 30Hz – occasionally dipping down to 25 – [so] you need a system that can do that.”

Bose describes the installation as the beginning of “a partnership between MAMA and Bose” – and Wilkins reveals that he’s already eyeing up other MAMA venues to receive the RoomMatch/PowerMatch treatment. “We’re probably going to be doing some work on The Garage [in Highbury] in the new year,” he said, “so it’s something that would defi nitely be interesting for us.”

Although that isn’t yet set in stone, the two companies will defi nitely be collaborating at next year’s The Great Escape. “Because there is a limited amount of clubs in Brighton, we’re looking at churches and open-air spaces,” Wilkins revealed, outlining his plans for the 2015 festival. “Because we need to be able to keep it evolving and growing.” wwww.pro.bose.comwww.mamaco.comwww.marqueeav.com

Jon Chapple reports exclusively for PSNEurope on Bose’s play for the European live market with a major install at The Forum, Kentish Town

A Match made in heaven

“I could see the lips of the lead singer moving, but couldn’t understand anything that was

coming out of the sound system at the time”Bose UK’s Tom Simpson on the pre-RoomMatched Forum

Dub/electronica act Submotion Orchestra christen the Bose system on 14 NovemberPhoto: Laurie Pierce

The full RoomMatch installation at The ForumPhoto: Laurie Pierce

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Hither and producerPlenty of glasses a-chinkin’ as the end of the year approaches

Please send all contributions for possible publication to drobinson@nbmedia.com

Producers Rupert Hine (left) and Hugh Padgham

www.psneurope.com December 2014 l 49

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Old friends meet at the annual APRS Sound Fellowship lunch in November...

Cheers! Roland Systems Group’s Peter Heath toasts the arrival of the M-5000 digital mixing system at the worldwide launch early last month

Dave Harries (left) and Ken Townsend, formerly of Abbey Road

(L-R) Steve Levine, Ken Scott, Cheryl Scott and Dennis Weinreich

(L-R) Adrian Kerridge, John Leckie, Ken Townsend, Jim Jones, Fiona Gillott, Matthew Cocker and Richard Hale

It was the 40th birthday of Greg Parmley (previous PSNLive contributor and now managing director of the ILMC event) last month. His friend (and super talented former bandmate) Paolo Morena (http://paulmorena.com/) sent us this pic of the two of them being all rock’n’roll…

Brian, meet Ryan! The Queen guitarist meets PSNEurope’s own plank-spanker Ryan O’Donnell at a one-off showing of the Dolby Atmos-ready short One Night in Hell, written by Brian May and of course, featuring his music

50 l December 2014

seasonalbusiness

12 Hayes of Christmas!PSNEurope asked Waring Hayes, technical brand manager at XTA Electronics, what he wants from Father Christmas this year

A graduate of Belfast University with a 2:1 in Electronic Systems Engineering, Waring Hayes worked at Klark Teknik in Kidderminster for nine years before sailing down the Severn a short distance to join XTA. A decade of design engineering for the audio control company has seen him expand his role into the “frillier” (his word) world of brand management with just a sprinkling of technical support. (With typical dry humour, he adds: “I also like dogs, and my favourite colour is green.”) But that doesn’t mean we’re going to change the hue of his Santa hat, as we ask, what would you like for your 12 days – or, if you will, Hayes – of Christmas…?

DAY 1: CHANNEL TUNNEL TO IRELANDLet’s not start too big! I would be happy enough with a single

bore that didn’t even have to fit lorries, or even 4x4s. Just a way for me to visit the homeland with my car that doesn’t take a day to do what I can do in a plane in 45 minutes! It’s Christmas – there are gifts to carry and with all our APA [Adaptive Power Amplifiers] frenzy at XTA right now, time is even more precious than ever. OK – let’s compromise – I’ll fly, and a conveyor belt under the Irish Sea to take large parcels will do.

DAY 2: MAKE KARAOKE A NATIONAL UK PASTIMEI’m not a bad singer, but I’m also not a public singer. This isn’t for me – this is to recognise all the processors that XTA export to China and the far east that get specced into karaoke bars, and the fact that karaoke is so big there

that these institutions can be the size of casinos and have budgets to match. That doesn’t, unfortunately, mean there’s a classy step up in quality of singing. You can’t polish a turd, as they say.

DAY 3: REDTOOTH: THE NEXT NETWORK Breathe out – I’m joking. There will, of course, be another network along in a minute, but in the meantime, let’s all work together with what we have and get behind AVB and Dante. We’re supporting both with APA – the idea of entrusting all your audio to a Cat-5 cable to wasn’t just unheard of 10 years ago, it would have seemed like crazy talk. Now, a dusty, heavy multicore is not more of a rarity for transmitting live audio.

DAY 4: FIR: NOT JUST A TREE FOR CHRISTMAS Here at XTA, we would love to help promote better understanding of what FIR filtering can do for audio, especially in speaker processing – our core business, after all. Our new APA amplifier supports FIR filtering, of course, as do our 4 Series Audio Management Systems, but many engineers’ experience with it stops at recalling a preset. We’ve built a custom training facility here at XTA HQ to spread the message and debunk the myths.

DAY 5: BRING BACK 80S- STYLE POWER OUTPUT SPECS!Oh, hang on – it’s nearly happened already. Remember when you bought a car stereo or cheap home system and the power was specified as “200WPMPO! [4WRMS] per channel!” Nonsense. The same thing is happening with power specs for class-D amplifiers. It’s all very well quoting a peak power of 12,000W per channel, but if this is only at 1kHz and can’t even be sustained for the length of a single kick drum beat, it’s useless. We’re trying to be as honest as possible with our APA power ratings, and

we think we’ve got the best sustained power available by designing in more energy storage and designing out wasted heat generation. DAY 6: BAN SOCIAL NETWORK ECARDSI am as guilty as the next man for getting my nose stuck in Facebook, but please, everyone: spend an evening getting into the Christmas spirit and write some real cards and post them. Ask everyone for their address using your favourite electronic method, by all means, but spread some real rather than virtual festive cheer.

DAY 7: A NICE BIG KNOBNot like that, silly! I mean from a command and control standpoint. Simpler is better in so many circumstances – touchscreens aren’t ever going to be as intuitive as a physical control, which is one of the reasons XTA gear is still so popular and why APA might have a colour screen, but it also has a Great Big Knob and plenty of direct controls so using it is as easy as any other amplifier you’ve ever owned.

DAY 8: NATIONAL AUTUMN BANK HOLIDAY ACROSS THE UKAugust bank holiday just makes you more aware that that’s the end of the good weather and it’s all dark nights and damp clothes until Christmas. Let’s have a day off in October, and call it “Visit your UK audio trade show”: support PLASA in its new home at ExCeL, or come to BPM in Birmingham – you’re spoilt for choice these days!

DAY 9: FOX-PROOF HENSApparently this year I am buying lavender Pekin chickens in the run-up to Christmas. The neighbours had a massacre a few months back but have persevered, and if our household are taking the poultry plunge this year, I would like to suggest someone invents a breed that can repel foxes with a hard stare.

DAY 10: BUCKS FIZZ REVIVALYes, keep thinking the worst… The background to this is the BPM show. At this year’s greatly expanded event, with the PRO show running alongside, there was just as much of a bun fight to be the biggest boy racer in the hall with the fattest bass and the most underground EDM offering. I put a stop to that in our corner with Land of Make Believe and made a lot of people smile in the process. Let’s get it to number one for Christmas!

DAY 11: SAY NO TO A CASSETTE REVIVALChild of the ’70s and ’80s I may be, and whilst I am delighted to support Record Store Day, please, please don’t bring back cassettes. I tried so hard with them at the time, and had a very expensive Akai tape deck that was amazing, but only amazing as far as tapes went. They were still crap and a tedious recording medium. If we are reviving anything, make it MiniDisc!

DAY 12: B&O TVCan I justify this for Christmas? I’ve had three second-hand ones over the years, and they design such timeless audio equipment that rarely dates and keeps performing, I feel XTA is a kindred spirit. In fact, I know they use some of our processors in their R&D listening rooms. That’s such a load of self-justification to buying a stupid price telly – don’t deny me this luxury when I’m cleaning out chickens on Christmas day! Joy to the world! www.xta.co.uk