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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Press Release Of The Week

My inbox is bombarded with hundreds of press releases each week, and a few invariably deliver a chuckle. Unintentionally, of course. Here's the latest "press release of the week"...

My inbox is bombarded with hundreds of press releases each week, and a few invariably deliver a chuckle.

Unintentionally, of course.

Here’s the latest “press release of the week”—

Are you looking for a way to kick up your home theater a notch…or two? 

The (product name/model number withheld) tower speakers will provide you that TRUE home theater experience with two 15-inch subwoofers per tower!

The leader in professional audio has finally brought their experience into the home. These speakers are raved about in high-end audio publications because of their tremendous quality and incredible value. The tower can handle 500 Watts of powerful sound and dishes out unmatched bass with crystal clear mids and highs.

These speakers are sure to turn your living room into a movie theater, wake up the neighbors and provide you with a sound system that rivals many night clubs!

Please reach out for additional information.  Review units are available in limited quantities.

My only question: will these folks talk to my neighbors when they’re ticked off because my super-cool new speakers woke them up?

Priceless.

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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Attention IE users: Serious security flaw found

I just ran across a report today on the BBC News website: “Users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer are being urged by experts to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed.”

The next paragraph mentions “internal experts” - an upgrade in “expert” hierarchy, no? :>)

Anyway, this seems legit. Click here to read the full report.

For the record, I switched to Firefox several years ago and haven’t looked back. Far superior to IE.

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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Welcome! Have A Look Around…

Pardon our dust as we continue to put the finishing touches on the new ProSoundWeb. I’ve been calling this “version 3.0” but as some of our logos through the years show (below), maybe I’m a bit low on the version count.

But over the years, this site has evolved in a significant way three different times. There were the startup/formation years, followed by a transition as the site moved to a much more open, flexible format, and now, what you see here.

Here’s how I describe some of this in the upcoming (January 2009)  issue of Live Sound magazine:

...“time flies” is just too apt as I review the history of ProSoundWeb and read this archived headline: “JBL Professional Speakers Cover the Capital for the Bush Presidential Inauguration.”

That’s from early 2001, and by then, ProSoundWeb had already been seeking to fulfill it’s mission statement as The Premiere Online Pro Audio Community for more than a year.

Shortly after divesting of EAW, his previous venture, Ken Berger started anew in 1999, partnering with Dave Stevens, founder of the Live Audio Board (LAB), to launch ProSoundWeb.

I joined up shortly thereafter, as did some very talented, dedicated people, and off we went in pursuit of building a location to serve the online needs of audio professionals.

Fast-forward to present, and the world wide web has grown in ways we couldn’t conceive of back in the days of sizing photos to minuscule pixel counts to try to lessen page download times to a few seconds.

Now the buzz is “Web 2.0”. Now the buzz is “Someone’s Speakers Cover The Capital for the Obama Presidential Inauguration.”

And now the buzz is the new ProSoundWeb…

Have a look around. There’s lots to see. And more coming soon.

As always, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Or post them here. (Comment section is open!) It’s a blog, after all, one of the new-fangled features of our new place.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

An Open Letter To The Guys & Gals Doing Audio For TV

About 80 to 90 years ago, a nifty little thing called a third-order rumble filter was invented, and the folks doing TV sound just might want to check into the concept.

After 15 years, the analog television in my living room gave up its will to keep on living and required replacement.

Via some careful shopping on the Internet, I settled on one of the new-fangled “Hi Def” plasma screen creations, which arrived just in time for the Super Bowl earlier this year. (Great game, lousy ending… can you tell my office is in Foxboro, MA? But I digress…)

This new TV is a great space saver, and allowed me to move a huge piece of ugly furniture out of the living room, replaced by the thin plasma screen and a nice little stand.  Shortly after the Super Bowl, I learned that I needed an HD-capable interface to actually receive HD channels - d’oh! So, down to the office of the cable company I went, to acquire a new-fangled cable box. 

There I was, all proud of my new “state of the minute” TV, when another friend told me I was missing out on its full capability to entertain unless I also added a surround sound system. (All this just to watch TV? Shoot me!)

Now I haven’t had a stereo in my house for 15 - or maybe even 20 - years.  I listen to music on a wind-up Victrola that spins 78 rpm shellac disks (and my kids have “iPod docks”).

But at their insistence, I wasted a perfectly good Sunday afternoon hunting down the ultimate über-cheap “5.1 system” that came complete with speakers. (In other words, the total suburban “I know nothing about audio” package.)

The next several weeks were devoted to tearing out what’s left of my hair, trying to hook up the “Blue Ray” player, the cable box, the kids X-Box, and blah, blah, blah to this thing.

Warming to the insanity of my quest, I also purchased disgustingly high-priced HDMI cables, poured oodles of time into reading a poor excuse for a manual, and twiddled way too long in trying to position the speakers at places that made some form of sense.

And then I obsessed on getting proper time delay, the right balance for front to rear, and the balance for left to right channels versus center channel versus subwoofer channel.

The effort was actually worth it. (I even admit to having several “I may never leave the house again!” thoughts early on.) Kicking back with a beer and watching baseball on TV is now truly amazing -  I hear guys selling hot dogs on my right while a blithering idiot announcer making beau coup dollars is telling me that the team that’s down by two runs really needs to score in the bottom of the 9th or they’re gonna lose. 

I have even found myself watching music! I’m seriously in love with this thing.

Until… Until… (you knew it was coming)... Until I watch something airing live other than sports, like this year’s political conventions, both the DNC and RNC.

To these broadcast audio engineering and production types, or more plainly, TV guys and gals: About 80 to 90 years ago, a nifty little thing called a third-order rumble filter was invented, and you just might want to check into the concept.

Trust me, the ability to better control 18 dB/octave around 80-100 Hz is a beautiful thing, particularly when we’re hearing from a “correspondent” using a Madonna-approved headset microphone live from the convention floor. The plosives, particularly any time someone uses a word with “p” in it, goes beyond distracting and to the verge of unbearable. 

Meanwhile, I hear full-on music performances with things like kick drums where the low-end is nicely controlled.  So where’s the disconnect when it comes to people just talking into a mic?

C’mon - I know the broadcast networks can certainly afford subwoofers for their audio control rooms. And someone has to be getting paid to properly set up the audio control room, right? 

I also can’t think of a single console that doesn’t include some form of high-pass filter after the mic preamplifier, and Shure makes barrel connectors with 80 Hz filters that can easily be inserted before the mic preamp. 

There’s just no excuse for high-dollar productions on this scale to provide worse audio than a local access cable channel broadcasting high school basketball games. As consumers, I don’t think it’s out of line to expect the “audio for video” gurus of the news world to care a little bit… just a little bit. 

The complexities of getting multitudes of live audio feeds to the right place is intense, and the generally fast-pace/high-stress gig of mixing live television can indeed be stressful. But it doesn’t seem like a lot to ask that an extra 3-4 seconds per channel be taken in order to drop in filtering that will make a world of difference.

While it may be news, it’s also still “entertainment”. So how about enhancing the entertainment factor of every program - instead of the annoyance/distraction factor?

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Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Keeping Fresh The Art Form Of Recording

For many musicians, the thrill of playing live is what motivates them to hone their craft, but on the other hand, recording can often be the biggest burden and source of stress to many great players. What's needed are ways of keeping it interesting.

By Jackson B. Jackson

I saw Pink Floyd’s epic film “The Wall” for the first time when I was 12 years old. It was quite possibly, at that time, that I first realized that recorded music held a certain “power.”

The music of that film, coupled with the vibrant, yet bleak imagery, “forced” me to confront a whole range of emotions.

Shortly after, when I heard the album by itself, I found that the music alone still moved me in the same ways. Certain songs were beautiful and soaring and brought a sense of comfort, others evoked confusion and even fear, and I began to wonder how such emotions could be “captured” within a recording.

Like all good little junior rock stars, I started a band with some schoolmates at age 14. At the time I really wanted to play the drums, but didn’t have the money for a drum kit.

I did, however, own a cheap Japanese “sort of guitar shaped thing”, and I had some experience making it sound like syncopated duck farts, so naturally I was elected to the position of rhythm guitarist. We wrote all the songs we could with the three chords we knew, and practiced our little hearts out, dreaming of the day we’d “make it big.”

The thing I remember most about those days is that no matter what we were doing, whether it was rehearsing, playing talent shows or backyard parties, we ALWAYS had a little tape recording running.

I loved taking those tapes home and listening to them over and over. This was proof that I was in a real band, and it became my greatest goal in life to record an album.

Playing live is great fun, and for many musicians, the thrill of playing live is what motivates them to hone their craft. On the other hand, recording, while appealing to some, can often be the biggest burden and source of stress to many great players.

But I have always seen making recordings as the best part of the gig. A piece of recorded music is a permanent mark on the artistic world, and I became determined to make records that would effect people the way that “The Wall” effected me.

After a year or so of “boom box recording 101,” we graduated to four-track recording, thanks to our lead guitarist’s weekly allowance and a little invention called the TASCAM Porta One Ministudio. If recording my own personal version of “The Wall” was my ultimate goal, what I saw before me now was the first brick.

The possibilities seemed endless, and we got to work right away, recording anything and everything, including our symphony of animal flatulence, and hours of Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix cover tunes. We figured if those guys could make great recordings with limited a limited number of tracks, so could we!

As the years went by. I saw my buddy’s four-track and Radio Shack microphone-filled bedroom progress to an eight-track project studio, and finally a professional recording facility equipped with a 16-track tape machine with a 24-channel DA7 and a Mac-based DAW. I’ve had the pleasure of making hundreds of recordings within those walls before building a studio of my own.

’ve recorded as a solo artist, a band member, a session musician (in many different studios), and a few years ago permanently moved to the “other side of the glass” full time. I can honestly say that the “magic” of recording has never eluded me, and I still feel a sense of wonder and adventure every time the tape is rolling.

I’m a few years past 30 -  not at all old by any stretch of the imagination. However, I sometimes feel that the days when recording music was something special were 100 years ago.

Too often I see those who just don’t understand the magic of recording; young musicians who take the studio experience for granted, older musicians and recordists who are too burned out and bitter to enjoy recording anymore, beginning engineers who don’t know what it means to make your gear “bleed for you,” or those with such severe cases of gear lust that they are never productive with the equipment they currently have.

Advances in home recording and project studio gear have been so great in the last 15 years that many fail to see exactly what a privilege it is to practice the recording arts. We must not forget that recording IS an art form, and that our main goal as recordists should always be to help create music that will touch someone emotionally.

I may not ever create “The Wall,” but today I feel privileged to be a bricklayer.

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Staying Analog In An Increasingly Digital World

It seems like every company on the planet has seen fit to bring out an amazing fancy new digital mixer, even some well-established companies that haven’t produced a mixing console before at any level.

This explosion of the digital sound reinforcement product sector over the last half-decade or so has produced a tempting array of solutions.

I’ve watched these developments carefully, worked with most of the offerings, and seen other companies utilize these powerful tools to great benefit.

My sound company recently started looking for a set of new consoles to support our expanding activities, so I began talking in earnest with manufacturers over what they could offer me in return for my money.

After carefully weighing a number of factors, I’ll be taking delivery of an analog VCA console from the great folks at APB-DynaSonics, headquartered in New Jersey.

This article briefly explains my decision to buy an analog mixing console in today’s market and why I’m pretty sure I’m not insane for having done so (contrary to the opinions of many!).

“But Bennett! How could you resist the allure of the brand new Hobart R2CZ?” Let me assure you, it was a difficult decision.

First of all, I’m not buying analog, or writing this article, because I hate digital. I’m a well-known advocate of DSP and the flexibility available in essentially every digital mixer. I’ve got racks full of the stuff myself; it’s great problem solving equipment that I use on nearly every show.

The issue here isn’t one of whether or not digital is a good thing, but one of whether or not it’s the right decision at this point in time for my company.

One of my first considerations when I began this hunt was budget. I discovered early on that I could sink around $10-$20,000 into a new mixing board. This immediately narrowed my possibilities. If I’d had $40,000 to spend, or $4,000 to spend, my decision to buy analog might have been different.

I’m sure I’m not alone in looking into a new desk at this price point, and I think my observations are valid for many small sound companies.

I won’t try to dodge the issue; one of the main reasons I’m staying analog is sound quality. I don’t side with people who believe digital audio equipment automatically sounds like junk. I’ve heard too much fine sounding digital gear for that to be true.

However, digital consoles in the price range I can afford have often left something to be desired in my opinion. Any time you pack that much complexity and power into something so compact and affordable, quality compromises have to be made.

The analog desk I have acquired has some of the cleanest, clearest sound output I have ever heard, and what’s more, it continues to sound good even if you abuse it with excessive levels or radical EQ. I have no qualms about putting this desk on any show, at FOH or monitors, headliner or opener, acoustic or rock.

Hand in hand with sound quality goes ease of use. My company works with a lot of artists and many other companies throughout each year. While I am fairly comfortable mixing on nearly anything, I’m not buying just for me. This console is going to be used by BE’s hot off the bus, late for sound check.

The last thing they or I need to be doing at that juncture is learning yet another user interface. With an analog layout, every switch and knob is in plain sight, they’re all labeled, and if you’ve seen one VCA console you can pretty much work with any of them.

True, at the end of the night I’ll be resetting most of those controls by hand one at a time, but at least I know where they are and what they need to be reset to.

The choice of an analog board was also driven by my need for a reliable, easily repaired mixer that would still be with me a decade from now. I don’t have enough equipment that I can afford to let some of it sit around the shop being repaired and this board in particular is too large an investment not to pull its weight at every show I book.

Therefore, reliability during and after the gig is an enormous issue in my mind. I always carry a spare console in case of failure, of course, but there’s no way I can afford to carry a spare identical console. If my FOH desk goes down, I’ll be finishing the show on something considerably less capable and probably rack-mounted. I’d like to avoid that, for obvious reasons, so I take reasonable steps to avoid console failure.

First of all, I buy redundant power supplies for my consoles, an option for every analog console I considered. The number of digital consoles with that option in the sub-$20K category is slim. In fact, there may only be one. I don’t believe just because a power supply is running a digital console it’s any less likely to fail, so I find the lack of this option untenable.

Digital consoles crash, an issue analog gear is generally exempted from. Some digital equipment kicks the bucket more gracefully than others. The high dollar ones tend to lose the control surface, but keep passing audio, which is better than the alternative. The ones in reach of my checkbook drop everything, including audio. All the advertising about “only five seconds to reboot” is fantastic, but that’s five seconds that could be in the middle of a song or an important speech.

If this was rare I’d be less nervous, but it’s impossible to work with digital gear on a regular basis without having had some of it crash on you. I’ve spoken to many of my colleagues about this, and while some have been far luckier than others, there’s no escaping this basic truth.

Now that’s not to say that there aren’t occasional problems with analog consoles as well. However, the console I bought is modular in banks of eight. You could take a chainsaw to everything right of the master section and the thing would still be usable for whatever channels you didn’t hack up. Hot sun, dust, and moisture aren’t going to gum up any motorized faders or short delicate little digital pathways. Hell, I had an analog console catch on fire once, opened it up, replaced some resistors, and used it on a show that evening.

I can even carry spare channels on the truck at minimal expense. On a digital console, an internal failure of even small magnitude could cost you your entire surface, and it’s not like you can take it to just any electronics technician for repair. A digital mixer also tends to have a lot riding on it. Lose that surface and you’re down all your channels, all your compressors, all your EQ, and so on.

Two other motivating reasons for my analog choice are flexibility and ease of signal chain modification. With digital, you’re stuck with whatever’s built into that console from the get go. Don’t like the compressor on the console you have? If you don’t have the cash for high-dollar digital, you’re stuck with your console’s stock dynamics, unless you want to haul around outboard.

When I compare costs between analog and digital, I include all the outboard I have to carry with an analog mixer. If I’ve got to carry it for my digital mixer, too, a lot of cost and size advantage is lost. Analog gear is inherently flexible. I can use whatever effects and dynamics I want, connected in any order.

I can even use two comps on my lead vocal, something I’ve found to be difficult to impossible to accomplish on the majority of digital consoles, at any price range. This patch anything, anywhere capability has helped me out on any number of tough shows.

The final reason I chose analog is its longevity. Near and dear to the heart of any small business owner is return on investment. How long is the gear that you buy going to keep its value? I worried that if I bought a new digital console, in just a few years it might be obsolete, unsupported, or no longer rider-friendly.

I’ve mixed on several-decades-old analog consoles on many occasions without complications, but the marketplace for digital gear is in constant flux. I would be concerned that by the time I’d recouped my investment in a digital console it would be so far surpassed by current offerings that I wouldn’t be able to pay someone to take it off my hands.

Out of no particular devotion to analog gear, I therefore find myself with an entirely analog signal path, from a mic on the stage through my console and processing out to my speakers. It just so happens that my speakers, from tiny portable boxes to line array, have internal all-analog processing and amplification.

This is for many of the same reasons I chose analog mixers – first and foremost fidelity and reliability. The designer of these speakers believes strongly in analog, and has used it to great advantage to make each speaker sound good both during normal use and during periods of heavy limiting. The components inside are not easily prone to failure, even in that hot vibrating environment, with the added advantage that field repair and diagnostics are simplified.

Conveniently, the company that makes my speakers also makes rackmount analog processing for integrating their speakers into a coherent system.

I’m living in an analog world and loving it. My systems sound better than ever, and I certainly feel that I’ve made the right decisions for my company. I’ve got the proper tools not only to take on my gigs for today, but for the next few years, and I know and trust them to make my clients look good every time.

Digital processing in all its many forms is a wonderful tool, but like anything in live audio, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, and laying it on too thick can have real drawbacks. 

Bennett Prescott is a frequent contributor to the ProSoundWeb Live Audio Board, owns a sound company in New York state and represents EONA ADRaudio in North America.

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Recording In Houses Of Worship

Capturing quality recordings of worship services and other church events depends upon attention to every detail. Here's what to look for, and how to go about it, from veteran church sound recordist/engineer Scott Kramer. (This article is courtesy of Church Production, the world's leading technology magazine for production-oriented houses of worship. Click here to learn more about Church Production and read more in-depth articles.)

If we were to conduct a poll regarding audio recording among churches, I think we would find that a large percentage of churches record their services.

The reasons vary: some churches may simply want to archive their weekly sermons, while others may make available recorded copies of their services on CD, tape, or some other recordable medium.

Some churches may even go beyond the simple duplication of their service and offer their programs on radio, television, and even Internet-based broadcasts.

Regardless of the “why” regarding church service recording, audio teams should always strive for excellence.

In 2 Timothy 2:15 it’s written:

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

This scripture passage obviously exhorts us to handle God’s word correctly and, in this article, we’re going to discuss some techniques on how to record the word of truth with excellence.

Past Podcast Experiences
Over the course of many years, I have had the privilege of producing service recordings for weekly broadcast for two different churches.

Both pastors were gifted speakers and their sermons deserved to be faithfully reproduced with excellence.

One church provided my studio with professionally recorded multi-tracked source material. The other church provided me with a stereo mixed CD recorded directly from the FOH console.

While both services had to be edited, remixed, and mastered, both programs didn’t sound the same from a quality standpoint.

This fact wasn’t necessarily a result of one service being multi-tracked and the other being recorded to CD, but instead, the difference in the final product was a direct result of the source audio.

The source audio from one church was excellent and the other church’s audio signal was beset with technical problems.

In order for this church program’s audio quality to be at an acceptable level, these problems needed to be addressed and ultimately corrected.

Starting With The Source
Believe it or not, some of the best audio recording principles I learned in college didn’t actually come from an audio recording class.

They instead came from an information technology class.

One of the first lessons we learned in computer programming is “garbage in equals garbage out.”

There are great software programs available today which can correct some of these problems. However, if the source audio is clean, you’ll most likely have a higher quality end product.

Clean Source Audio
Clean source audio is dependent upon the entire audio chain.

As an example, let’s consider the recording of a pastor’s sermon. The audio chain will most likely include a microphone (as well as its placement), cables, a mixing board, and some sort of recording device.

If possible, it’s important to use the highest quality microphone your budget allows. Our church invested in a Sennheiser MK2 lavalier microphone with a Shure UHF wireless transmitter and receiver.

As a result, our pastor’s audio signal is consistently strong and free of any unwanted noise. While the signal still requires proper EQ and compression, the end result is a highly professional sound.

In comparison, inferior equipment may produce unwanted and unfixable results. Cables and connectors are also equally important elements in the audio chain.

Even the slightest problem with an audio cable or connector will be evident in the recorded audio.

Always take the time to check every cable and connector for potential problems. If there is a problem with a cable or connector, make sure it’s taken out of the audio chain immediately.

Very few technical problems will ever just simply disappear.

Importance Of Good Mixing Console
The mix process plays a major role in obtaining quality recordings. A great mix begins with a good mixer, and I’m a big fan of digital consoles.

While they might not be as “warm” sounding as an analog console, they’re generally packed with features and deliver high quality audio.

When our church replaced our 10-year-old analog console with a digital console, our audio team immediately noticed an overall improvement in the sound.

This was pri­mar­ily due to the elimin­ation of several out­board equalizers, compressors, and effect processors, which were all being used in conjunction with the analog console. The digital console, however, has the digital EQ, compressors, and effects built-in.

By eliminating the outboard equipment, we eliminated the inherent signal noise these units introduced. However, digital boards nearly always require proper training for effective operation.

Properly Train Audio Crew
Retaining a good, dependable audio crew is a challenge for most churches, however, it’s key to maintaining professional-sounding audio and recordings.

If your church is in the market for a new sound system or even just a new mixing console, make sure to include training sessions as part of the package.

Our church recently purchased a Yamaha DM2000 as our main sanctuary mixing console. The board it replaced was a large 40-input analog console which served our church well for nearly 10 years.

Our director of communications made sure to include audio training classes as part of the package price. As a result, our audio crew made a quick and comfortable transition from the world of analog mixing to digital mixing.

In contrast, I just purchased a used digital console for my recording studio. The console, which is one of the best available today, had been briefly used by a church, but their audio team was not comfortable with the new technology.

Therefore, they removed the digital console and re-installed a more traditional analog console.

While this is purely speculative, the church may not have had proper training on the digital console and, therefore, didn’t achieve a level of comfort and confidence in its use.

Record To High-Quality, Easy-to-Edit Medium
In order to obtain a quality recording of your church service, make sure you’re recording to a high-quality and easy-to-edit medium.

It’s safe to say that the majority of recording today is in the digital realm. However, for reasons of convenience, our church records the service audio to both analog and digital mediums.

While cassette tapes will most likely go the way of other past recordable mediums, many people still use them in portable players or even in their automobiles.

Therefore, we always make a cassette master tape of our church service and make duplicate copies the same day.

Even though cassette recording is inexpensive and convenient, it falls far short in providing high-quality audio. For that reason, we also record to both a CD and a digital multi-track recorder.

From the CD master, we can make CD copies for anyone interested, and the digital multi-tracked audio gives our team the ability to remix the audio for our television and radio broadcasts.

Also, it’s easier to edit audio recorded to a digital format. If something in the audio needs to be fixed, we simply digitize the audio into a digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Pro Tools, and the audio is represented graphically on the computer screen.

Editing is accomplished easily when you’re able to reference the audio visually as well as aurally.

Master The Stereo Mix
If your church has the capabilities, always master the stereo-mixed audio.

One of my favorite pieces of audio equipment is my mastering unit. By simply including it in the audio chain, the final audio quality is taken to another level sonically.

This unit provides limiting, compression, expansion, and EQ all in one program. When it’s applied, the audio becomes clearer with more separation between the different elements.

It also makes the audio louder and closer to industry standards.

The final audio is then at a more acceptable level for broadcast on radio and television.

Additionally, mastered audio provides a higher quality sound for the audio masters from which the duplications are made.

Prepare Your Audio Team For Excellence
I’d like to leave you with a few points I’ve mentioned previously.

One of the primary elements in producing high quality audio and recordings is proper preparation. Make sure that the entire audio chain is not only set properly, but that it is also free of any technical problems.

I like to think of audio recording and production as a subtractive process. Simplify the process and subtract any potential problems.

Also, always rehearse when possible. This allows the audio team to properly set levels as well as all channel settings.

Additionally, it’s important to anticipate audio events. Write down cues if necessary and always label your channels.

Great recordings depend on attention to every detail. Invest plenty of time in preparation and posture your audio team for excellence.

Your final recordings will always reflect the extra effort put forth.

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Friday, April 18, 2008

APB Dynasonics ProRack Monitor M1016

A quick look at the compact APB Dynasonics ProRack Monitor M1016 mixer.

It’s always nice to come home to a present, and the upstanding folks at APB Dynasonics saw fit to let me demo one of their brand new ProRack Monitor model M1016 mixers for my birthday! I’ve literally just opened the box today and taken some photos, but I’ll have plenty of use for it coming up, and of course anyone else who’d like to take a spin is welcome to borrow it.

Yes, that means these are now shipping and you can even have one for yourself.

If you haven’t heard of the fine mixers coming out of Totowa, NJ on the LAB yet, I don’t know what rock you’ve been living under. Many of us LABsters have been having extremely positive experiences with APB Dynasonics’ excellent analog mixers, and there’s no reason to expect anything but smiles from the new rack mount set, but that’s my job to find out.

The M1016 offers the following features (shamelessly copied from their website):

• 16 Mono mic/line input channels, all with Spectra-quality microphone preamplifiers in a 10u (17.5” in x 19”) package.
• Built in Passive microphone splitter system on rear panel with Pin 1 lift switches.
• Minimum phase shift circuitry and internal Mother /Daughter Board construction derived from the Spectra console design.
• 48 volt Phantom Power switch, Polarity Reverse switch, Mic/Line switch, Mic Pad switch on input channels.

• Variable frequency high-pass filters on all input channels with a 20Hz to 400Hz sweep range at 12dB per octave.
• Input channels feature fixed high and low frequency EQ bands and two mid-sweep EQ bands, with EQ On switch with LED, The EQ internal design is based upon Spectra circuitry.
• Two (2) Mono mixes switchable between a pre or post fader source and include XLR balanced outputs and pre AFL (solo) TRS insert points.
• Eight (8) Stereo mixes, each with rotary level control and pan fader. These outputs each have balanced XLR outputs, Line (bus) inputs with each pair routed through return faders associated with each stereo master output section and pre AFL (solo) TRS insert connectors. Output may be selected to mono operation by front panel switch, making use of only the left inset point feeding both left and right output connectors.
• Internally illuminated Mute and PFL/AFL switches along with 6-segment LED channel metering on all input channels.
• Eight sets of 10x2 segment output meters on each of the 8 Stereo Output master sections. Master output level is controlled from eight (8) 60mm stereo faders, with each of these output sections having internally illumined Mute and AFL switches. Bus level signal monitoring using bi-color LED’s are provided on each stereo mix bus pair.
• Rear panel rotates and may be locked in any of three preset angles (referenced to the front panel) – 90 degrees, 135 degrees, or 180 degrees.
• 100-240 VAC, 50/60Hz Power Supply - Field replaceable (plug in) without disassembly of mixer.
• Adjustable lamp dimmer provided for the 4-Pin XLR connector for use with (optional) gooseneck lamp.

I’ve played around with this unit on a few trade show floors already, and it’s well built and feature packed… the ProRack series is really unbeatable in terms of quality and feature density. If you need to go small but still need a real feature set and the sound quality of a full frame analog board, I know of no alternative. 8 stereo/mono mixes plus 2 mono mixes, each with its own set of meters and little fader for a bus in (tracks, anyone?)... any show you could reasonably bring a compact mixer to, this mixer can handle. It would also make a great matrix, come to think of it.

Check out the discussion on the ProRack M1016 in the Sound Reinforcement forum.

 

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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

TC Electronic M350 Processor

A quick look at the compact tc electronic M350 digital effects device.

The friendly guy in the brown truck dropped off some packages last Friday, one of which was a TC M350, which is positioned by TC as their lowest-end digital effects device (list price $249). It’s a “dual engine” device, with one engine dedicated to non-reverb effects (like delay, flanging, chorus, phaser, tremolo and compression) and the second dedicated to reverb. It has two inputs, two outputs (all balanced, BTW), as well as S/PDIF digital I/O. It has a MIDI port for control, set-up dump and firmware update. A standard IEC jack attaches to the locale-specific power cord; the switch-mode power supply accepts any mains line voltage.

Natch, the first thing I do with any piece of gear is to open it up and poke around. Inside are two PCAs. One is a single-sided job that’s the power supply (it looks like TC buys somebody’s supply) providing +15V and -15V for the op-amps, +5V for the converters, and +3.3V for the digital stuff. The other PCA holds everything else. A Freescale (formerly Motorola) 56362-120 (about $8 in 1K qty) is the DSP, which is connected to an SRAM and a flash EPROM. Presumably, it’s clocked at 120 MHz (it has an internal oscillator and I didn’t check to see if the system clock is brought out to a port pin) so the DSP does 120 MIPs, which is obviously sufficient. Like all Moto 56K parts, it’s a fixed-point 24-bit processor, with a 24 x 24 MAC and 56-bit accumulators. An Atmel ATMega 8-bitter handles MIDI and user interface. The DAC and the ADC are AKM parts. Opamps are 5532s. Ferrites are used at all I/O ports for EMI suppression. I/O is balanced although it appears that the outputs use the simple build-out to ground for the inverting line (which is fine).

The M350 can be configured, via rear-panel switch, in one of two ways: One is as two parallel effects engines, with one input for the effects engine and the other for the reverb. In this mode, both engines have stereo out which are combined to drive the outputs. A balance control sets the relative level of both engines in the mix. The other configuration is serial, with the effects engine first, followed by the reverb engine.

I’ve been pretty vocal about my dislike of the dual-engine with one output configuration. It has to do with how I mix. I like to bring my effects into the console on their own inputs. I like to set up, on the input channel aux send knobs, the proper blend sending to an effect, while trying to keep the effect’s input level decently hot (best effect S/N), and then adjusting the level of the effect in the mix on the return fader. Usually the return fader lives somewhere other than at unity.

Having two effects combined in the box means you have to put the effects return faders at unity (or some other convenient level) and then establish the level of the effects in the mix on the effect input, which is a pain, perhaps less so if your console has faders for the aux send masters. Of course you’re boned if you want to use the box in the parallel mode but also send the delay output to the reverb (since vocal that’s fed to both a reverb and delay with the delay kept dry sounds kinda weird to me). So it’s a simple matter to say “this is a single-engine device,” especially since each engine’s effect select has an “off” position.

This brings up another important topic: User Interface. And the M350’s interface is kinda spartan, similar to competing products in its price range. There are the expected input-level and blend (wet/dry) knobs, and the effect balance knob.(There’s no output level knob, which is fine, as most users set it to maximum.)

Each engine has a 16-position effect-select switch (as noted, one position is “off”). The Delay/Effect engine has two pots for parameter adjustment and the Reverb engine has three such pots. The 12 o’clock position of each pot is what TC calls the “normal” setting. One could reasonably ask, “What’s normal?” For example, the Reverb engine has controls for Predelay, Decay Time and “Color.” If you choose the Gold Plate program, what’s the decay time? Seriously. At my show on Saturday, the opening band had a mixer-person, and he asked for a 2 second reverb. On many pro-level reverb boxes, the reverb decay setting is simple. On the M350 (and similar units from Lexicon and others, let’s be honest here), there’s simply no way to know your decay time.

And this is where the whole dual-engine-summed-into-one-output concept falls on its face: you can’t cue up just the reverb to fine-tune it… you also hear the delay engine. (Similarly, you can’t cue up just the delay without hearing reverb.)

The delay engine has an interface quirk related to this “normal” setting. You actually set the delay using the tap button. If the delay time knob is in the “normal” position, the delay time you tap is what you get (and you can fine-tune it by turning the delay knob). However, if the delay time knob is not at normal, then the time you tap gets varied by the amount the knob is offset from normal, which is annoying until you realize what it’s doing. Advice: leave the knob at 12 o’clock and tap your delays and be done with it.

TC tells us that the M350 is “Perfect for Computer Recording ... Through the included software, the user can control and edit the M350?s parameters stand-alone and in any AU/VST environment. “

The demo unit didn’t include a CD, so I followed the link to “control software” where I was able to download the Vyzor Control Software for OS X. I installed it, connected the unit to my M-Audio MIDI gizmo, and ran the software. I was then asked for a serial number for the software (!!), which is NOT the same as the unit’s serial number. How to get a serial number? Follow the link where you’re asked for an e-mail address and your name.

Note to TC: You’ve just annoyed me. The Vyzor software has one purpose: to control this particular box. So why do I need to register it and get a serial number? It’s not like I can use the software to control my LXP-5? No! So, please: drop the stupid serial number.

I haven’t had a chance to play with the control software yet. I hope that it offers reasonable control of things like reverb time, kinda like how a Lexicon MRC makes the LXP-1 and LXP-5 units actually usable.

Another potentially interesting use of this box is as a plug-in for a DAW, using the S/PDIF I/O. The note above mentions “the user can control and edit the M350?s parameters stand-alone and in any AU/VST environment. ” There’s a comment about this: “For more information about availability of an Audio Units version of the Control Software, please click here.” So I clicked there, and we’re told that “We hope to have the Audio Units version available for download from our webpage in march 2007.” Well, it’s the lusty month of May, so I’ve filed AU support for the device under vaporware. (Maybe by the time it’s real, I’ll have figured out how to use Logic 7.)

About the control software, called Vyzor M350, apparently written by a third party.

The product’s web page tells us that, “through the included software editor, parameters and preset recalls may be fully automated or real-time controlled.” Ignoring the awful syntax of “may be real-time controlled,” I downloaded the software, and installed it on my MacBook Pro.

As I noted before, for whatever stupid reason TC requires you to get a serial number for the software. So I registered for the software, and it asks for my name and my e-mail address. I expected to get an e-mail with the magic serial number, but no, I just get to a web page with the serial number. So the deal here: print that web page so you don’t lose the number and have to re-register. Why ask for an e-mail address?

NB that the promised Audio Unit support still has not materialized, although there is VST support if your DAW software can use it.

After getting a serial number, I connected an M-Audio USB Uno MIDI interface to my MacBook Pro, then connected the MIDI tails to the M350. I ran the software and it asked me which MIDI port to use, so I selected the Uno and it seemed to recognize the M350. I was able to fetch user presets from the box. The main window of the program has an image of the M350, which, when clicked, opens up a large photo of the front panel and all of the user interface controls are clickable and changeable. However, after changing a few controls the software (which was v1.00) crashed. Restart, re-set MIDI port selection, open up the front panel, play a bit, crash again.

I did about five or six cycles of this, until I got pissed off and checked the TC Electronic web site and sure enough, there’s a v1.3 of the control software. I downloaded it, read the READ ME FIRST.pdf file, which told me that I needed to update the firmware in the M350 to work with the new software. OK, that’s fine ... except the disclaimer: “The M350 software upgrade can only be done using a PC running Windows. (emphasis theirs) We have only tested it under Windows XP, but it may also work under other versions of Windows.” On the next page, we’re told, “Please note, the software update cannot be made under Mac OS X. (again, emphasis theirs) This is not a deliberate choice on the side of TC Electronic. We know a lot of studios and musicians use the Mac.”

In other words, go fuck yourselves, Mac users. This is an EXCELLENT reason to take the unit out of the rack, put it back into the box, and return it.

Oh, I figured that I had nothing to lose by at least installing and running the v1.3 software without doing the firmware update, so I did.

And it turns out that what’s labeled as v1.3 on the web site still shows up as v1.0 when one does “About Vyzor M350 ...”

Ooops. Somebody at TC needs to, you know, get that sorted out.

Gotta dig out the ThinkPad and do the FW upgrade. I suppose I could try it under Parallels, as the new v3.0 has some excellent hardware support (I can talk to a Silicon Labs serial JTAG dongle using a Prolific USB-to-RS232 converter with the SiLabs software running in Parallels).

Poll! Should I do it from the Mac under Parallels, knowing that I could brick the M350?

Check out the discussion on the TC M350 in the Sound Reinforcement forum.

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