July 1987 Scheduling & Booking Page 52

T.hA. ENGINEER /PRODUCER The Technical Journal for Audio Professionals $4.00

AN NTERTEC PUBLICATION IIt alum

Digital Technolog

t :.,r:;° Gait 1 100 1S1411°S ''' ' If all these Fairlights look the same it's has made Fairlight the world's leading digi- because they are. tal audio production system. Each one is designed and hand -built to Eight voices provide the versatility the same exacting standards, with the same required for most session work. And, if 16 bit sound quality, as our much -praised required, Fairlight's multi -port MIDI capa- 16 voice, 14 megabyte Series III. bility allows the control of up to 64 exter- The difference is, now there's a Fair- nal, sampled or synthesized voices. light to suit your exact need and budget. We call them e- x- p- a- n- d- a -b -1 -e Advanced software. Fairlights. Not a set model range, instead This is sampling in its purest form it's a series of compatible options that from the people who invented it. allow you to choose any configuration and Stereo sampling, Page R and CAPS expand its capabilities. Sequencers, Waveform Editing, FFT analy- Right on up to an 80 voice, 140Mb RAM sis and resynthesis, and an extensive sound Series III with Gigabytes of Hard Disc and library are all included. Optical WORM Disc Storage. SMPTE chase /lock provides the ideal setting for structuring musical scores, laying - in sound effects, and synchronizing to multi- track tape and disks. A time -code trigger/ How much event generator also lets you program com- plex SMPTE cue lists Fairlight for film and video post - production. Real -time effects do you need? allow complete control of attack, decay and vibrato for a realistic acoustic feel. You have at your command every major There are no limitations. You don't pay section of the orchestra, and just about any for features you don't need. But you do get synthetic and composite sound you could the exact Fairlight for the job. ever have reason to use. Just decide what you require for your composition, arrangement or production Design your own Fairlight. role and we'll build the Fairlight to suit. For full details and a demonstration of the new e- x-p- a- n- d- a -b -1 -e Fairlights, Even our basic Fairlight call your nearest Fairlight office. is far from basic. Los Angeles (213) 470 6280, New York For $39,950' you will start with a rack - (212) 219 2656, Toronto (416) 964 1885. mounted or portable Fairlight, that is Fairlight dealers - Chicago: Gand unchallenged by anything near its price. Music and Sound (312) 446 4263. Miami: 16 bit Digital audio quality with over - Limelite Video (305) 593 6969. San Francisco: sampling capability ensures the sound that AIC (415) 686 6493.

'Prices and specifications are subject t0 change without notice Systems above 16 voice require external rack mount units (not shown). delivery late 1987 $39.950 system does not include music keyboard Circle (1) on Rapid Facts Card $39,950 K VOICE /4Mb RAM DIAL 20Mb FLOPPY

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RecENGINEER /PRODUCER July 1987 Volume 18 \um her 7

Digital Technology Session Report: The Audibility of Electronics A Transcontinental Listening tests can be useful in Digital Overdub evaluation of pro-audio equipment, As the audio-production industry recog- A recent digital overdub session including monitor amplifiers. nizes the sonic and operational advan- involving Stevie Wonder, Nile By John Eargle 68 tages of digital recording and processing, Rodgers and Quincy Jones linked RE /P considers some of the diverse East and West Coasts studios via a Departments elements involved in this blossoming transcontinental satellite link. technology. By Paul D. Lehrman 44 Editorial 4 News Future Directions in Digital Scheduling 6 -8 and Bookings Letters Signal Processing Policies Recording 10 -11 for and Managing MIDI Technology Production Studios 12 Sound on the Road 14 What technical and operational How facilities can establish, and Film Sound Today 16 developments can we expect in then implement, a viable policy Living with Technology 20 the growing field of digital special toward scheduling sessions and SPARS On -Line 22 effects and signal processing units? ensuring that clients understand its Studio Update 72 By Charles Bagnaschi 24 bookings procedures? New Products 74 By Charles R. Mills 52 Hands On: Classified 79 AMS AudioFile Facility Spotlight: Advertiser's Index 80 By John Binder Genesis' Personal 30 -Use On the Cover. Fisher Lane Studio An All -Digital Nutcracker: The conversion of a farm milking Adapting Digital Technology parlor into a versatile recording fa- An Event Processor Screen display from for 3- Machine Mixing cility presented some unique chal- the newly developed AudioFrame digital and Editing lenges to architect John Flynn and audio workstation, which illustrates one Conventional digital editing sys- acoustic designer Sam Toyoshima. of the potential ways in which MIDI per- tems are normally configured to By Richard Elen 58 formance data might be incorporated handle a single master and slave with the recording and editing of digi- VCR. It represents a technical chal- SPARS Business Conference tized audio signals. Photo courtesy of lenge to modify such a system to Replay WaveFrame Corporation, Boulder, CO. accommodate a pair of replay A report of a 2 -day conference RECORDING ENGINEER /PRODUCER -Volume 18. No. VCRs working with a master deck that provided ideas for developing 7 -(ISSN 0034 -1673) is published monthly by Intertec Publishing Corporation. 9221 Quivira Road. P.O. Box 12901, in a 3- machine mix and editing and implementing business for re- Overland Park. KS 66212 -9981. Second -class postage paid at session. cording and production studios. Shawnee Mission. KS. and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: By Bob Send address changes to Intertec Publishing Katz 38 By Lee Murphy 64 Corporation. P.O. Box 12901. Overland Park. KS 66212 -9981.

2 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 DTR -900 32- CHANNEL DIGITAL TAPE RECORDER

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Circle (4) on Rapid Facts Card Editorial

Given that, by its very nature, our in- time dealing with specific computer dustry is strongly based upon the com- topics: munication of musical ideas and con- What microprocessors and support cepts, I should possibly be less surprised chips were the new system built around? at the ways in which industry profession- Did any particular micro seem to out- als explain their particular visions of the shine the rest? future. Not so much with regard to what Did the choice of micro and /or operat- Increasing Your they are telling me, but rather the chang- ing system affect the system's long-term ing language and vocabulary we now expansion capabilities? seem to be using to explain our individu- What did we know about the software Options al view of technological developments. that was expected to spin through this Not so long ago, the major flavors of device? (Or vaporware, if hardware corn - "technological alternatives" were con- mitments were still a ways off -either to fined, in the main, to By Mel Lambert, Editor developments in allow the company to play chip -gazing analog consoles, tape machines and out- games, or because of possible /eventual board sound benders, studio techniques VLSI decisions.) being pretty much based on these ma- What did we know of the people cur- ture technologies. These days, however, rently writing or being recruited to write the future of the recording and produc- the software? Or, to put it another way: tion industries -not to mention its asso- What could we expect in the way of sen- ciated manufacturing base -is tightly sible man /machine interface? linked with digital technology. Will we be facing boring 4 -color high- The bottom line in all of this is that we definition VDUs, or has anybody really are all learning to conceive of the future been spending some time thinking about potential of audio facilities in terms of display technologies and ergonomics computers, operating systems and theory? Has anyone come up with a software. more appropriate technique for inform- By way of a tangible example, I am re- ing the user of what he or she needs to minded of a recent conversation with a know about system status and control well -known producer and sound design- options than flat- screen displays? er. He and I were catching up on current What did we know (or could make in- technology -an endeavor 1 find myself telligent guestimates) about the system's doing on a regular basis these days -and projected lifetime in the studio? (Or, to were comparing notes on random -access put it more prosaically: How long would editing systems and hard -disk recording it take the opposition to fathom out the systems. unit's inner workings and release their The conversation ranged far and wide own "enhanced" version once they have that morning, before we started to trade a better understanding of the market's opinions on what we knew about poten- reaction to the Mkt?) tial manufacturers of digital storage sys- How would the existence of a digital tems, and what thoughts we had about interface standard or sampling frequen- control and display topographies. cy /bit rate standard affect the unit's While we both seemed reasonably long-term acceptance? Anybody out well- versed in the names of the major there with a reasonable distance at pro- (and up and coming) audio companies ducing cost -effective 18 -bit sampling? cultivating a definite interest in things Why do most of the interesting devel- digital, it gradually began to dawn on me opments seem to be coming from smaller that very few of the companies we were companies and individual -rich compa- referring to were names we would have nies that have simply taken an off -the- even considered barely a year ago. shelf microcomputer system- mentions Not necessarily that any of the compa- of the Atari ST1040 Apple Mac II occur nies had recently demonstrated an ex- all the time now, and probably represent pertise in these emerging technologies; the two ends of the cost, but not neces- rather that some of them didn't even ex- sarily processing power, spectrum -and ist 12 months ago, or seemed to be so make it handle elegant digital processing headed in one specific direction that few and manipulation tasks? of us could have guessed they were Have we truly reached the age when quietly cultivating an interest in digital the young(er) turks will surprise us with processing, to name but one blossoming their proclivity for lateral thinking area of audio technology. around problems that most of us cannot Turning to practical audio hardware, even begin to understand or solve? my producer friend and I found our- Yes indeed. Times they are a changin'. selves spending an increasing amount of EMI

4 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 __, . '' ñ , ' rt - "° r + ;' m Wt. 3 t P .4..a * ; . m r.,

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The "Bothy ' at the bottom of our garden is where we work on advandng console design concept. In there the ''atest improvement to the sonic performance of our consoles - the new EQ - was initally develcped. But we didn't stop there. We took the EQ intc cur own fully equipped 48 track studio where we tested it and analysed it. but most important of all we listened to it - exhaustively. It's just one example of the way we continue to enhance the sound of the SL4000E Series Master Studio System to keep ahead in the technology race. And if you already have an SL 4000 E Series you can stay ahead too, as the new EQ is easily retrofitted to all existing consoles.

There is also a new SSL Studio Computer, the G Series, which with it fast processors anc vast data storage capadty enables processes that used to take mir.utes, to be carried out in seconds. The G Series too is fully retrofitable. With these improvements, and more to come, shouldn't you be using the only totally integrated audio mixing system in the world? AND SOUNDS EVEN BETTER HERE Solid State Logic Oxford Paris New York Los Angeles Begbroke, Oxford, England 0X51 RU (08675) 4353

1 rue Michael Faraday, 78180 Montignv le Bretonneux, France (1) 34 60 46 66 101 Park Avenue, Suite 2506 New York, NY 10178 (212) 315 -1111 6255 Sunset Boulevard Lis Angeles, Califcrnia 90028 (213) 463-4444 News

Sound Genesis introduces access to Sound Genesis' data base of vir- ping and handling. from Cipher Digital, computer music services tual instruments and signal processing Inc.. P.O. Box 170. Frederick. MD 21701: The company's first sonic software functions. 301- 695- 1120(1. product line for producers is scheduled Included in the sonic software license For introduction in August, and will be is six months of free customer support Air, Sigma and CBS /Sony implemented on the Fairlight CMI Series service by voice and by modem. The install GML automation II and Series Ill digital synthesizers. company's support service not only of- At George Martin's AIR Recording According to company president Don fers technical problem -solving expertise. Studios. London, a 48- channel Moving Webb, "The Master Sampler Collection but also assistance with the creative ele- Fader automation system has been add- will contain 20 or more separate pack- ments of musical composition and sound ed to a Neve V-Series console in Studio 3. ages of documents, software and media, production. The second installation was at Joe Tar - each of which includes 10 'virtual instru- More details from: Sound Genesis, sia's Sigma Sound Studios. Philadelphia, ments' from one of three categories: in- 7807 Creekridge Center, Minneapolis. PA. A newly rebuilt Neve Model 8(178 is strumental, vocal and environmental. MN 55435: 612-944 -8528. now equipped with 52 GMI. Faders mod- "Every virtual instrument carries a ules and computer. pedigree that documents its authorship A 48- channel system at CBS /Sony Re- and prior usage. Its purpose is to help Revised edition of Cipher Digital cording Studios. Tokyo, Japan, went into professional sound producers rest easy in Time Code Handbook a custom Neve 43111 Series console.

the certainty of their explicit right to use Subtitled "A Guide for the User from Although the CBS - Sony order marks the virtual instruments in producing their Fundamentals to Technical Specifica- the second GML automation system de- own commercial products, free from any tions," the booklet is divided into two livered in Japan, the local representa- concern of copyright infringement." sections. Section "1 describes basics and tive, Soundcraft Japan, has five systems The company will also supply a "con- applications: section "2 provides ad- on back order, including a system for genial human interface" that is said to vance engineering information, techni- each of two new rooms being built by simplify operation of the CMI. This pro- cal guidelines and specifications. Toshiba /EMI. This pair of systems will be prietary program is designed to connect The revised edition of the Time Code fitted to existing 60 -input Neve V- Series an Apple Macintosh to a CMI, simplifying Handbook costs $12.95, plus $3.50 ship- consoles.

TECHNICAL CONSULTANTS SUBSCRIPTIONS Larry Blake, Film Sound Qualified: Bob Hodas, United States (Domestic ENGINEER /PRODUCER Evaluations and Practices Only) $24.00 Douglas Howland, Broadcast Production Foreign $45.00 Paul D. Lehrman, Electronic Music Non -qualified: EDITORIAL David Scheirman, Live Performance United States (Domestic Only) $30.00 Mel Lambert, Editor Stephen St. Croix, Technology Developments Foreign $60.00 Optional airmail Dan Torchia, Managing Editor for non -qualified readers is RECORDING ENGINEER /PRODUCER is also available for an additional $75.00 per Sarah S. Coleman, Associate Editor edited to relate recording science to record- year. Foreign Alisa Carter, Editorial Assistant subscriptions are payable in ing art to recording equipment, as these sub- U.S. funds only by bank check Ramona Vassar Isbell, Editorial Assistant or money jects, and their relationship to one another, order. Adjustments necessitated by subscrip- may be of value and interest to those working tion termination at single copy rate. ART in the field of commercially marketable recordings and live audio presentation. The Recording Engineer Kevin Callahan, Art Director /Producer is not editorial content includes: descriptions of responsible for any Noelle Kaplan, Graphic Designer claim by any person sound recording techniques, uses of sound based on the publication by Alecia Wright, Graphic Designer Recording recording equipment, audio environment Engineer /Producer of material submitted BUSINESS design, audio equipment maintenance, new for publication. products. Cameron Bishop, Group Vice President Photocopy rights: Permission to photocopy Dennis Milan, Publisher CORRESPONDENCE for internal or personal use is granted by Stephanie Fagan, Promotions Manager Advertising and Subscription: Intertec Publishing Corporation for libaries Cynthia Sedler, Marketing Coordinator and 9221 Quivira others registered with Copyright Dee Unger, Advertising Supervisor Clearance Center (CCC), provided Overland Park, KS 66215 the base Pat Eisenman, Advertising fee $2.00 per Coordinator 913-888 -4664 of copy of article is paid directly to CCC, 21 Congress St., Salem, Telex: 42:4156 Intertec OLPK MA 01970. Special requests Fax: 913- 888 -7243 should be addressed to Sales offices: see page 80 Cameron Bishop, group vice president. Editorial: ISSN 0034-1673 $4.00 +$0.00. Suite 220 Member, ADMINISTRATION Business 1850 N. Whitley Ave. Publications Audit or V' BPA R.J. Hancock, President Hollywood, CA 90028 Circulation Doug Riemer, Circulation Director 213 -467 -1111 JoAnne DeSmet, Circulation Manager Fax: 213- 856-4895 iINTERTECnrunMnro cosrosAnoN Dee Manies, Reader Correspondent IMC EMail: REP -US 19x7 An ,,i,,. , , ,,..,i

6 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 6 tirre to seize power Tascam's Studio 8 puts all the power of a professional recording -aciity into an 8 -track production system that's as easy to hardle as your own instrument. Forge- bewildering patch bay jungles. The fully assign- able 8 busy mixer sends your signals anywhere you want them with The flick of a switch. Forge- open reel headaches. The unique Load feature loads the tepe, senses the end automatiplly and rever lets it run of the -eel. And because Studio 8 uses 1/4" tope, you'll never be s Jck trying to find someone's rare propr etary tape format. Forget video hassles. The "One Plug" SMPTE /EBU interface gwes you easy synchronizer or editor connections. Eut there's something more. Somethng that's greater than -he sun of the features. Startling soand. No other system has Tascam heads. Which means that no cther system has the impact and clarity that come from Tascam's thirty years of recording experience. Oualitr production is what you do. Co it with a major recorcing s_udio. Take control of a Tascarn Studio E.

4198-, 1E AC C>poraton of America 7733 Telegraph Road. Monet ello, CA 90640 213/726 0303

Circle (5) on Rapid Facts Cerd News

Studer announces first U.S. threshold. It's high -tech in the fast lane, The Enterprise Studio -An Update delivery of D820X DASH 2 -track yet the D820X is also exceptionally easy Since the publication of our cover The first delivery was made on May 12 to use." feature on Craig Huxleÿ s The Enterprise to Disc Mastering, Nashville. The DASH - Within days of installing the new facility in the May issure of RE /P, the format D820X offers an AES /EBU digital 2- track, Kling also took delivery of a new consoles in Studios B and C have been port as standard equipment, and 14 -inch Neve DTC -1 digital transfer console. His replaced with Solid State SL4000 -E Series reel capacity for over two hours of con- facility thus became, for a few weeks at boards. tinuous recording. Transport features least, the only all- digital Studer /Neve Studio B now features a 72 -input and tape handling characteristics are operation in the United States. SL4072 with Total Recall automation and equivalent to those of the A820 analog Kling's first session was a CD mastering G Series computer and operating system, 2- track. project for a Dallas production music and while Studio C now offers a 72 -input "I've only had a few days to work with sound- effects client. He also anticipates SL4064 (64-module SL4000 mainframe it," admits Randy Kling, owner and chief using the hardware for archiving rare old plus stereo input modules) with Total engineer of Disc Mastering, "but from recordings from the RCA vaults, and Recall, upgraded equalization and G what I've seen so far, this machine takes historic lacquers from the Country Music Series computer. the Studer tradition over the digital Foundation. Letters

Noise reduction seem to effect the response slightly. (after a while even the most atrociously However, it's not true that if a recorder frequency response -limited material mysteries plays back slightly bright, it will be twice sounds normal). But the ear cannot put as bright with the dbx switched in. back that natural ambience and power From: Michael Cogan, Bay Records Thanks for this opportunity to correct response of the music, and the natural Studios, Alameda, CA. a common audio myth. Keep up the good acoustical doubling and tripling that While perusing your January 1987 work with your excellent magazine! ocurred on those early recordings. issue of RE /P, and the article "Narrow- I just have a couple of questions for gauge Multitrack Applications" by John, in regards to the table of peak Adrian Zarin, 1 came upon the following Natural reverberation acoustic output levels that he included quote on page 25 from Alan Kozlowski with his article. Where can one find the [technical director of Visual Eyes Produc- From: Leslie Bell, Bang Music Worldwide information to compile a more complete tions, Santa Monica, CA]: "I think every- Communications, West Hollywood, CA. table, with every possible instrument one knows there are some limitations to I found John Earglé s article, "Evolu- listed? And how do these power levels noise reduction in terms of what it does tion of Artificial Reverberation" [pub- combine in relationship to each other? to the sound; it tends to compound any lished in the February issue] fascinating. I For example. how much louder are six frequency- response errors that might be too had always tried to figure out why saxophones than one? Or four trumpets in the signal." older recordings sounded better, and or trombones, as opposed to one? Whereas he is basically correct in shy- seemed to have an acoustical life all of I am currently producing a big band ing away from using noise reduction their own. It seemed to me that, despite that's going for the sound of those early when you can avoid it, I feel that his all the advances in recording technology Columbia recordings, and I need to ac- remark may be based on a much mis- over the years, the quality of recorded curately compute the relative power understood myth about dbx -that is, it sound had gotten worse, not better, from levels in making an ambience mix, to doubles the frequency response errors of a peak reached in the early to mid - mix back with already recorded tracks. a recorder. This is actually not true. Sixties, most notably on Columbia pop Any information would be greatly dbx is a broadband system and cannot products. appreciated. effect the frequency response by itself. This disparity can readily be observed Thank you very much For your time, It's true that if you measure the response on the recent double -album sets of TV and a great article! of a recorder using single- frequency sine Toons, compilation LPs of various TV waves, and then switch in the dbx unit, themes. In the cases where the producers Reply from John Eargle you will see that any response errors are were able to obtain rights to the original Lesile Bell has identified one of the doubled. This is a fault of the measuring tapes, the fidelity and frequency re- significant differences in big -band re- technique, not the noise reduction. sponse may be lacking, but all the cordings of the Sixties and those made Any system that incorporates signal - acoustic power response and energy of more recently. In the earlier days, re- dependent gain stages should be meas- the music is evident in full force. cording engineers had no more than ured using broadband signals to approxi- If you contrast those original sound- three or four available tracks, recordings mate music. tracks with their attempts at current and their consoles handled perhaps Of course, response errors in the recreations, it is painfully obvious how 16-20 microphones. A lot of pre-mixing recorder can cause pumping or other much we have lost over the years. It had to be done at the time of the ses- mistracking of the noise -reduction sys- seems that the human ear will make up sions, and only major balance decisions, tem; with heavy bass notes this may for poor fidelity and frequency response such as vocal and rhythm, could be made

8 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 Audio Performance Dual Reverb /Effects Combinations

Many digital processors force a Each DRV-3000 program is a corn - trade -off between enhancing the bination of two effects in series or par- NO sound with effects and degrading it allel. from five Reverb Choose spaces with noise or timbrai coloration. Not or plates, two Early Reflections, two this one. Frequency response of the Echoes, Auto Pan, Flange, Chorus, wet signal is 20 Hz - 20 kHz and dy- Ensemble, two Pitch Shifters and a Pa- NOISE namic range at the effect output is rametric EQ/Driver. Combine reverbs 94 dB: specs equivalent to a CD. for rich and complex ambience, create The DRV- 3000's impeccable sound is dual effects that go beyond special to made possible by a pair of high perfor- unique. mance digital sampling processors Assignable Control Jacks + MIDI NO (DSPs) operating at 44.1 kHz. Real time response adds more effec- Wireless tiveness to any signal processor. The Remote Control DRV- 3000's two assignable footswitch jacks can step through programs, HANDS We designed it into the DRV 3000 for reverb times or cancel ef- fast, easy operation. But most of all for change the fect. The program memory creative results. Work on an effect and pitch without leaving your chair and you shifter speak MIDI as well. can work on it longer, get closer to the Stretch Your Imagination NO sound in your head. This remote puts Start exploring the possibilities at every configuration and combination your Korg dealer. But be ready. The of 32 programs, every programmable DRV-3000 is so powerful, so respon- parameter of 16 effects, right in the sive, so quiet, it will expand your idea LIMITS palm of your hand. of what effects can be.

For a free catalog of Korg products, send your name and address, plus $1.00 for postage and handling, to: Korg U.S.A.. 89 Frost St., Westbury, NY 11590. Korg U SA. West, 7886 Deering Ave., Canoga Park. CA 91304 Exclusively distributed in Canada by: Eriksor Music. 378 Isabey Street. St. Laurent, Quebec H4T 1W1 Circle (6) on Rapid Facts Card KORG® Letters

on this at a later date. tension to MIDI; it's usually only after is an adopted edit decision list software Today, an engineer has 24 or more this that the extension is spread to the format using a cheap and common hard- available recording tracks, and his con- marketing department. Somebody can- ware interface. Once a device has this sole can handle more microphones than vassing the floor of a NAMM show talk- decision list stored, it needs either he will ever need for a big -band session. ing to salespeople, as opposed to elusive SMPTE or MIDI Time Code (not MIDI It is easy then for him to fall into the engineers, could easily get the impres- clocks) to fire these events. "one- microphone /one -channel" trap, sion that MIDI Time Code was still just a MIDI Time Code is real and it's finally with consequent close -mic placement. persistant rumor. (I don't know which here. Developments and applications, as The earlier approach favors natural am- group of "voices" Paul was quoting.) And always, will take a little more time in biences while the latter, in many ways, then there's just plain not tipping your coming than any of us would hope, but represents a misuse of today's hand to your competition. they are happening. Our company is in technology. I have two comments about Paul's contact with several manufacturers who Regarding the acoustical power out- statement that "advances in the actually are going to put it in samplers, puts listed in the table, there is very little economy of directly converting time effects devices and tape decks. So can we reliable data available. To my code to MIDI [clocks] and vice versa just sit back and see what develops be- knowledge, no recent measurements might just make the format moot." fore striking a death knell? History will have been made and, of course, peak The first step is to make clear the dif- prove who was realistic and who per- outputs will vary from player to player. ferences between MIDI Time Code and haps misprojected a trend based on early We can assume, however, that in what Paul refers to as "SMPTE-to-MIDI hints. multiples of the same instrument, output converters." Currently, a hardware box [Editor's note: Paul Lehrman, RE /P's levels will increase 3dB for each doub- such as a Roland SPX -80 or Garfield electronic music consulting editor, is cur- ling of instruments. Masterbeat is needed to convert from rently preparing a feature article detail- The intent of the table was basically to SMPTE time code to MIDI clocks to run ing the potential applications of MIDI underscore the extremely wide range sequencers. These boxes have tended to Time Code in recording and production that we can expect to encounter. As a cost in the area of $1,000. facilities.] practical matter, I would recommend If these sequences could receive MIDI that the producer and engineer rely on Time Code directly (a software upgrade their own judgment and taste in adding that is a lot less expensive per unit Op-amp slew rates reverberation to a set of relatively dry than hardware MIDI conversion), they From: Walter Morton, consulting engi- tracks, realizing of course, that brass and would not need a SMPTE -to-MIDI clock neer, San Diego, CA. percussion will dominate in the power converter. The article, "Understanding Circuit response pictures. True, the cost of SMPTE -to-MIDI clock Principles," by Terry Pennington and Most important of all is to use reverb converters is coming down, but a pure Larry Winter, published in the March settings that really match the acoustics of SMPTE- to-MIDI Time Code converter 1987 issue was a useful introduction to the relatively live studios (often ball- will always cost less -it does not need the subject. rooms and converted churches) that the additional RAM or user interface to However, I believe there are those were popular in the Fifties and Sixties. do the additional mapping from absolute who would contend that slew rate must time to a tempo (and those that do con- be evaluated with overload characteris- vert time to tempo will cost the same). tics. The bottom line is that sound repro- MIDI Time Code However, not everything in a system duction may be "colored" in reproduc- From: Chris Meyer, software engineer, may want to run off the same stream of tion with slew rates less than 200Vps. Digidesign, Menlo Park, CA. MIDI clocks at the same tempo -they This contention is supported by listen- After reading Paul Lehrman 's "NAMM may need absolute time directly or want ing tests on "sensitive" ears, where both Winter Market Replay" in the March to run at different tempi. In these applica- THD and TIM were considered.

1987 issue of RE /P, I thought I would tions, it is not economical to have a update Paul and everybody in general on SMPTE time code converter for each Reply from: Terry Pennington, director of the status of MIDI Time Code, and clear device. Instead, one SMPTE-to-MIDI technical marketing and development, up some confusion on its uses. Time Code converter could be pur- Rane Corporation: MIDI Time Code was indeed approved chased, and MIDI Time Code sent to all I fully expected more than just the one by the Japanese MIDI Standards Commit- the other devices in a system at con- response I have received so far on our tee (JMSC) just before the January siderable hardware cost savings. contention regarding slew rates. The im- NAMM show in Anaheim. The MIDI Man- Secondly, the "time" portion of MIDI portance of high slew rates has been a ufacturer's Association (MMA, the Time Code is less than half of what the very hotly contested subject in the audio American and European version of the specification is all about. The other half community for a long while and is one JMSC) had approved it at the previous has to do with "cuing" information: fir- which, I believe, cannot be resolved. We summer NAMM in Chicago. Most manu- ing of events, switching of programs, can apply liberal amounts of science to facturers have been good boys and girls, punching -in and -out of record tracks, the question and come up with some and not announced or implemented etc., based on SMPTE times. As men- very convincing and conclusive evi- MIDI Time Code and its related features tioned above, some things in our studio dence, which leads us to the conclusions until it was approved. Also, there has work on what time it is, as opposed to stated in the article. These are the only been a healthy amount of "wait and see." what bar and beat it is (ie. videotape); conclusions that can be stated without in- The structure of the MMA is such that such devices need to know when to take volving the uncertainties of the human engineers at the various companies col- actions based on absolute time, not MIDI element. laborate on and finally approve any ex- clocks. In other words, MIDI Time Code This is not to say that the human ele-

10 Recordina EnalnaeriProducer July 1987 ment is not important; it is, after all, levels can be checked, analyzed, poked does indeed exist and is a problem. The mainly humans that have to listen to and prodded -there can still be no ex- problem with this is that all of these tests what we build. The problem is that each planation to one who has heard the dif- used either unrealistic frequencies or individual will perceive input in a per- ference. Science cannot explain faith. levels or both to accomplish their tasks. sonal way, and this creates a great deal It should also be noted that anyone us- Unrealistic in the sense that audio does of difficulty when one is trying to quanti- ing any sort of digital medium for a not contain such frequencies at any - fy a subjective phenomenon dealing with source is even more unlikely to hear the where near these levels. the production or reproduction of audio. effects of slew -rate limiting. This is due to Such tests were accurate in a sense; Objectively, we can determine how the fact that all analog audio inputs must they were just not relevant to the suc- fast any given circuit must be to be filtered before they are digitized to cessful, linear reproduction of any audio reproduce any given waveform at any remove any extraneous high frequencies source. If such frequencies and levels did maximum frequency without any above 20kHz to prevent aliasing (distor- indeed exist in audio material, speaker nonlinearities (distortion). Having done tion) in the conversion process. Once manufacturers would not be able to build that, it is inconceivable that an audio filtered, we have guaranteed the max- their midrange and tweeter elements waveform of any kind will cause the cir- imum audio bandwidth and therefore without voice coils the size of those in cuit to distort because of component eliminated all possibility of slew- induced low- frequency drivers. They would burn speed limits. This will be true as long as distortion (or TIM, if you will) in a proper- themselves out due to excessive power the audio waveform does not exceed the ly designed circuit. "Properly designed," dissipation (or lack thereof). maximum frequency used to calculate in this case, means that the circuit will I realize that this is a rather lengthy the required slew rate. This is relatively have two to five times the calculated response to a rather short observation. easy to do, and was carefully attended to minimum slew rate based on the highest The subject of slew rate, as well as other in the example included in the article. frequency of interest, which is the corner audio legends, requires more than just a No matter how much care is taken in frequency of the anti -aliasing filter. few pages. If clarification of any of the the objective end of things, there will still It is interesting to note that many of brief points is required, please let me be perceptual problems when the system the individuals who were opposed to know. I will do what I can to oblige is auditioned. When someone listening to digital audio at its inception were also through the pages of RE /P. Rtip the circuit believes they have heard the those who believed that extremely high RETP welcomes letters to the editor concerning ar effects of slew -rate limiting, the slew rates are important. I shall refrain tides appearing n previous issues or any pertinent in- waveform that caused it can be analyzed from speculating on this connection. dustry topic. Letters may be sent to Mel Lambert, with sophisticated test equipment, and RE/P, 1850 N. Whitley Ave., Suite 220, Hollywood, CA p Some will ppoint to the test developedp 90028. Please mark on the outside of the envelope that verified to not be outside the frequency to prove the existence of TIM, and to it is a letter to the editor. Letters may be edited for length and limits calculated for the system. The quantify its magnitude, as proof that it clarity. DPRLIO2 Compresses De -esses Expands Limits Adite Medea-.

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Probably the single most common was not bulldozed into existence by one nel is running a mixer, there's no over- question people ask me about MIDI is: particular company with its own prod- whelming need for all of that data to be "What's going to replace it ?" To me, that ucts to push- instead, it was hashed out combined on one cable. MIDI is capable is like someone going up to Alexander and compromised over by a number of of carrying the most subtle of musical Graham Bell right after he invented the manufacturers. These companies were events, as long as you don't try to mix telephone, and saying, "Well, that's nice, enlightened enough to realize that serv- too many of them on a single cable. but what are you going to do next ?" ing their common interests made more As MIDI is used for more and more Anyone concerned with replacing sense than pandering to individual non -synthesizer control, multiple MIDI is making the presumption that desires. streams will become more important. In MIDI cannot last as a standard, either But, besides the historical perspective, fact, it's already generally acknowledged because it's too slow, it's too restrictive there are two factors that figure strongly that any device receiving both real -time or, in some other way, it's just "not good in MIDI's favor as a medium for the MIDI information and MIDI Time Code enough." I think that's jumping the gun a will need two separate In jacks, to avoid bit -MIDI is far from exhausted. bandwidth problems. Although technological obsolescence MIDI can be sped up There are several things that manufac- is rampant in the recording industry, it is not by increasing the turers will have to do to accommodate not necessarily inevitable, and that's baud rate, but by multiple- stream MIDI. One is, obviously, a good thing. Digital recording has re- to add more In and Out jacks. Another is placed analog for many tasks, but you splitting the data into to include routines in the operating soft- can still play back a tape made 20 years more than one stream. ware to let different channels and /or ago in just about any professional studio. types of data be assigned to different The same can be assumed of MIDI. jacks. (This scheme, of course, also has New ways of pursuading musical devices future. One is that it is expandable. the advantage of creating more than 16 to talk to each other will be developed There is plenty of room built into the MIDI channels, which some users have over the next few years, but I hope they specification for new commands; not on- been clamoring for, but which I consider will not make MIDI obsolete- rather ly ones that can be used by manufac- a fairly low priority.) they will add to is efficiency and turers to make their own products per- There are, admittedly, circumstances usefulness. form specialized tasks, but also, thanks to in which one cable will have to carry in- Don't get me wrong: I've got the same a set of "non- exclusive" System Ex- formation at speeds much faster than complaints about MIDI as anyone else. I clusive instructions that are just now MIDI, such as between a computer and a get just as frustrated at its bandwidth coming into use, commands that anyone multistream MIDI interface. But the limitations -its propensity to choke can find useful. nature of this communication is deter- when given lots of controller or pitch - For example, MIDI Time Code is mined by the hardware itself, and the bend data -and the fact that certain something that any MIDI device, software controlling it. What may be a types of musical events are very difficult, whether it's a sequencer, mixer, lighting fine control scheme for a Macintosh II if not impossible, to reproduce with it. controller or a synthesizer, can poten- might be completely impractical for a There are, however, ways to get tially take advantage of in one way or Commodore 64. Therefore, there is no around these problems, and although another. Another example is the MIDI particular reason to standardize it (which some of them haven't been invented yet, Sample Dump Standard, which will would either render the C64 useless for I have faith. I consider these problems become more important as studios find music or cripple the Mac II), and certain- more limitations of the currently themselves with a variety of samplers ly no reason to call any such scheme available hardware and software, than of from different manufacturers that they "MIDI 2.0." MIDI itself -it's the way MIDI is used, not would like to have talking to each other. As everything becomes more com- the standard itself, that needs upgrading. Controllers are another area where plex -with MIDI, MIDI Time Code, MIDI should not be dismissed lightly. lots of room exists for growth. There are SMPTE time code, samples and who Before it came along, there were dozens plenty of unassigned controllers, and knows what else flying out the back of a of ways for synthesizers to communicate now that hardware and software is computer -the need for faster com- with each other, but each of these available that can easily reconfigure con- munications will become more and more methods worked with only a small group troller data, just about anything can be acute. But in a telephone network, every of instruments, usually from one made to control just about anything else. user does not have to know all the in- manufacturer. Even the smallest varia- The other factor in MIDI's favor is that tricate digital details of the central switch- tion in a control scheme- whether, for it can be sped up. Not by increasing the ing station to plug in his phone -he only example, control voltages were to be baud rate -the Japanese shot down that needs to know where the socket is. Like- read linearly or logarithmically-would idea when someone came out with wise, while there has to be a lot of intelli- render one unit useless when interfaced "high -speed MIDI" for sample transfer a gence passed between the computer and with another. MIDI changed all that. couple of years ago-but by splitting the the MIDI interface, how it is done is up to In fact, MIDI is one of the few suc- MIDI data into more than one stream. the designer of the interface and the soft- cessful standards that has evolved in any A synthesizer that's responding to only ware; the rest of us (and our instruments) area of communications technology that one MIDI channel doesn't need to see all don't have to know anything except 15 others, just so that it can filter them "where's the MIDI ?" And that's enough. on one channel Paul D. Lehrman is a Boston-based free -lance writer, out. If note information electronic musician, producer and regular REIP con- is being used to play a drum machine, tributor. while controller data on the same chan- ESE

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.:. 1' , 1 1 ,'?1\ ? . f f;1 lltttttlttttttt t t t t t t': ,.:y:if 1'i it"l'111i i r ï ï f i t_ÿ: t_i.j.t.._.3._i i } f-f-f-f1-f:r.:=' f_f1_11 ti1111tl1 i'.i.._.. "r"rr"r . - i_i.i.i_i...... ,.' rr"rr"i . Sound on the Road By Dav id Scheirman

The feeling in the air for summer con- the mainstream, thus guaranteeing new which means that sound system techni- cert touring this season is one of op- markets for live music? cians have the opportunity to work with timism- nearly every recording act from Booking agents, personal managers remote recording trucks. With a bit of the past 20 years is ready to go out and and building facility staff members are well- considered preparation, this can be do live shows. Newly established region- perhaps better equipped to offer answers a painless procedure. al sound companies are finding them- to these questions than are sound com- A high -quality program input will selves being taken seriously in bidding pany personnel, but one thing is certain: benefit not only the recording truck, but for major tour projects. Semi- retired "old there are a lot of shows on the road, with also the live sound efforts. Working with roadies" are being lured back onto the more in the works, and they all need a the band's stage technicians to clean up tour bus as various musical groups sound system of one sort or another. the various output signals from electric scramble to put together experienced The summer season always brings its guitars, keyboards and drum machines sound crews. own set of unique requirements to helps all the parties involved. A com- What's behind the increased activity sound -system work. An outdoor environ- prehensive, versatile snake and splitter tempo this year is a combination of ment, the increased interest in live re- system can mean the difference between several different factors, not the least of a successful show and a miserable one; it which has been the fresh input of tour can also mean the difference, in the eyes support dollars within the past year or The demand for of the event recording and production two from both record companies and high -quality live sound staff, between professional and amateur. corporate sponsorship agreements. As to service this summer's Cooperation with other sound com- these changing financial structures have panies that are often considered to be pumped new blood into the tour busi- concert tours will be "competition" during slower seasons ness, many concert sound system owners at an all -time high. makes large outdoor festival dates both find themselves in the interesting posi- educational and challenging for sound tion of having to say, "Sorry, but we're company crews. While few companies booked up." cordings and multi -media events, and the actually work together in a conscious This fast -paced summer touring season chance to work in tandem with other manner to standardize racks and cabling has come not a bit too soon. The major sound companies on large festival proj- systems, for the few times that two dif- capital expenditures for new -generation ects make this time of year an interesting ferent firms combine forces for large mixing consoles with expanded input one for live sound. events, there are certain things that can sections, and the increasing demand for Outdoor summer work can be one of be done to make these dates go more expensive, studio-quality signal process- the most demanding situations in which smoothly. Advance preparation through ing hardware, has placed a real burden to operate a concert sound system. The early communications about such areas on sound companies to make some increased temperatures and exposure to as power distribution and stage patching choices that will have a lasting impact. relentless sun and summer showers will methods should be done prior to the If console brand "A" is really on the instantly make any weak link in a event, not while stage hands are on call decline in terms of both "trendiness" and system's chain more apparent. Increased and waiting for work directions. quality, then should money and support exposure to dirt and dust in such en- As live contemporary music concerts go in the direction of brand "B" or "C "? vironments as fairgrounds and race- work their way into the cultural fabric Should massive amounts of newly tracks means more shop labor afterward this summer as never before, the de- designed, unproven power amplifiers be for clean -up chores. And the fluctuating mand for high -quality live sound to serv- ordered by the palletfull, or should exist- ac electrical power sources found at such ice these events will be at an all -time ing units be upgraded and refurbished? events can make the sound crew's desig- high. The increasing support of concerts Should the 3 -year development project nated electrical technician one of the by civic authorities, and the growing for a new, proprietary loudspeaker sys- most important people on the payroll. number of new outdoor venues that are tem be shelved in exchange for Security also becomes critical in out- dedicated to the concert -goers' lifestyle, commercially available modular cabinets door environments. With as many as a are guaranteeing that high -level concert from a known manufacturer? dozen or more musical groups on a festi- sound system suppliers will enjoy an in- Profitable touring projects provide the val bill, and the chance for misplaced creasing demand for their services. much -needed cash flow to work out microphones and direct boxes at an all - The 1987 summer season is apparently some of these and other dilemmas. time high, knowledgeable sound com- going to be a time for both the expansion There seems to be no shortage of touring panies keep a vigilant eye on all parts of of existing companies, and the creation groups to accommodate. A primary the sound equipment present onsite. of new ones. Ultimately, the end of '87 question this summer, however, would Crowd control becomes an issue as will find the live-sound industry with a appear to be: Will the early rush of tour- well, particulary with the more ener- larger amount of concert hardware com- ing acts to take advantage of a music- getic rock shows. Security personnel ing into existence than has previously hungry summer market truly be sus- should not be taken for granted; they been available. With good luck, the ex- tainable, or will it collapse under its own should be consciously brought into pro- panding live music market will reach a weight? Is the market for concert tickets duction meetings in advance of the firm plateau, and not fragment again just finite, or is it truly expanding as changes events and given information regarding at a time when more companies than in the youth culture work their way into the need for secure mix positions and ever before are making serious com- wings. mitments to the improvement of audio David Scheirman is president of Concert Sound Con- sound sultants, Julian, CA, and RE/P's live -performance con- During the summer, many record com- for live events. sulting editor. panies fund live- recording projects, R-1 i)

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recording Stereo films demand stereo recordings, MS production recording would be an excellent technique for The approximately right? The answer is an almost definite practical only if everyone- director, stereo backgrounds. often "no" concerning production dialogue, cinematographer, assistant director, pic- 7 -inch separation between capsules enough phase difference to help and a hearty "yes" to most ambient ture editor, sound editor, boom operator, creates when backgrounds. transfer person and the dialogue re- the apparent stereo width mixing XY Stereo production dialogue recording recording mixer -was aware of what to a 4 -2 -4 matrix; a crossed-cardioid -up" in the has been tried and is generally con- was going on. The I/1 -inch to 35mm mag recording can often "build is recording sidered to be more trouble than it is transfer step is crucial; the control af- center. In this regard, if one forest), worth. The best -known stereo produc- forded by an in -house transfer bay would a stationary background (like a should yield tion technique was the 3 -mic setup used help ward off serious problems. Any pro- the spaced -mic technique during the first five years of duction mixer who tries to get clever excellent results. Experimentation is the is carved in stone. CinemaScope. One can only imagine the with stereo recording without first con- key here, and nothing with ORTF and editorial problems caused by reverse sulting the rest of the crew is simply look- My biggest problem to do with the angles and fast cutting, not to mention ing for trouble. XY recording has nothing a mic bar with the headache of mixing while trying to sound: I just find stereo avoid "tennis match" volleys between two large windscreens to be a cumber- not to the actors. some and stupid -looking device. There are many sound a fan of Most of the pitfalls of stereo production mention attention -getting. I'm effects that do not make recording could be sidestepped with the front -facing MS mics because they recording MS (mid -side) technique, using a front - have to be recorded in for a mobile and compact a matter facing hypercardioid microphone in con- stereo. setup; going to mono is simply In addi- junction with the figure -of-eight side mic. of deleting the side information. position is the same It should be obvious that one should tion, the front -facing -axis. record these signals separately, and not Stereo effects recording as it is in stereo: on who have used decode them into a left -right stereo pair The process of recording stereo sound Reports from friends films in- during the shoot. effects has come into vogue in the past MS recordings in Dolby Stereo into left /right) Judgment of stereo width, if any, is a 10 years, and many sound editorial com- dicate that MS (decoded decision that should be reserved for the panines pride themselves in an ever- bleeds more into the surround channel with an final mix, where the flow of the edited growing stereo library. In spite of the ob- than an original XY recording angle. This dif- scene can be taken into consideration. If vious perks of stereo recordings, it "equivalent" included sense as the surround the stereo effect is distracting, the side should be noted that there are many ef- ference makes course, the difference mic can be simply dialed out, resulting in fects that don't have to be in stereo. channel is, of signal, which is neatly provided by a normal mono dialogue recording. A good example is a car pass-by. While (L -R) figure -of -eight mic. This is easier said than done, however, it is possible to shoot an effect for a the side-facing realize, however, that the and one should take a good, hard look at specific scene in a film, carefully noting One should be stuck with this sur- the compromises involved before open- stereo position. this usually doesn't pan one might then like it or not, in ing up the Pandora's box of stereo round information, uses the 4 -2 -4 dialogue. First of all, production and 35mm stereo, which be in the sur- lighting crews usually give the sound Any production mixer matrix. Also, it will not 4 -track team barely enough time to position a rounds in a 70mm "discrete" who tries to get unless it was assigned to shotgun mic; it's a bit much expecting presentation, clever with stereo recording mixers. Again, them to allow us to plot out an elaborate the rear by re- -fast rules and, to move that gives correct left-right posi- recording is simply there are no hard -and tioning relative to the camera's POV. looking for trouble. paraphrase the EPA, your surround vary. The use of plant mics, a second boom mileage may I column, high- or radio mics would necessitate that a As said in last month's recordings, especially second recorder be used because the MS out (no pun intended). In the long run, a quality cassette C, produce superb signal requires two tracks all to itself. mono recording will suffice and the ef- with Dolby can the Also, it's hard enough for dialogue fect can be easily panned during the mix. results. I'm convinced that problem is the medium, but that editors and re- recording mixers to blend An exception during a car series would with cassettes not microphones. As scenes together in mono; one can only be an in -car constant, which would do people don't use quality case with still photography, in the assume that a stereo track will "bump" well to be in stereo. is the sound effects record- much harder across a cut. Stereo is also useful for moving long run the art of Furthermore, if the "you-are -there" "events" like train or plane pass -bys, ing has little to do with technology. the scene, stereo effect works well in the final film, where there is some length involved. Research, persistance, setting any given it should be remembered that this will go Again, with car movement, fast cutting willingness to experiment -in unnoticed in foreign release unless the often makes a stereo effect useful only in situation -it is these factors that make production mixer secures a minute or so mono. the difference. of the scene minus the dialogue. (This Backgrounds are another matter and, In next month's column I will discuss track, of course, will also help the sound whenever possible, should be recorded the concept of a sound library cooper- editors with the English track.) in stereo. The ORTF technique, with out- ative that would be supported by produc- ward facing cardioid mics, forming an tion companies worldwide. Larry Blake is REJP's film sound consulting editor. angle of approximately 110 °, represents I t: P

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Circle (11) on Rapid Facts Card diving with Technology By Stephen St. Croix

I don't know how much you know many other factors appear to be more Junction noise would be non -existent. about computers, but you do know that realistic reasons for the limits of corn - With zero-ohm rails, power supply noise any system occasionally gets itself into a puter speed. But the little time it takes for and glitches would be non -existent. corner and makes you wait while it electrons to travel along a trace accumu- (Which means memory without hun- works itself through a problem. Some of lates to a noticeable figure after several dreds of capacitors!) Theoretical these waits are barely noticeable, some billion trips over hundreds of such paths. designs -the ones that come out of the are a little annoying, while some may So, when it comes to developing engineering department, or show up in result in the computer being sent to its smaller, more powerful, faster computers, the application books from manufac- death by leaving through the fourth - the designers have a double whammy turers -would actually work. story window. (There is an IBM here with against them: registration (how small can In addition to all this, with real control a .44 magnum hole in it; I have no idea they print those multiple layers on those over internal chip temperatures the final who could have done that.) little silicon chips, and still get every- part of the triple hitter for you (instead of In the course of my consulting, I have thing to line up properly); and heat. the double whammy against you) is that done a fair bit of research into just how The tighter they can print these junc- you can now crank up the old clock long a wait is considered acceptable for speed by 10-100 times. (Speed looks like various conditions. It seems that for a The real key to power by the time it gets to the screen.) change to appear on a screen, anything 18- and 24 -bit audio The Cray XMP1 is capable of going shorter than about 60ms (after hitting quickly (and thereby looking very return) is perceived as instant, while up is superconductive powerful) because it is run cold. Liquid to 90ms is instant if it takes a while to A -to -D converters. freon cools this machine. But it is not write the whole screen once it starts. superconductivity. In fact it is nowhere Most people are clearly aware of a delay tions, the less distance electrons have to near it. So the XMP1 does generate heat, of anything over 230ms between hitting travel, and less time is needed for the and this heat does have to be dissipated. the return key and having the screen machine to think of any given thing. This This limits its size and clock speed. respond. means less time per task, and greater With true high- temperature supercon- A system that is capable of responding heat per square centimeter. It all gets ductivity (HIS?), it is definitely possible fast enough to always keep within the pretty warm as it is; what will happen to produce a small desk-top PC with 60ms window is perceived as very fast if when we are able to increase this densi- more speed and power than the XMP1. not instant, and is always preferred, even ty? Ever been to Arizona in August? Booting this Cryo-1000 would possibly by those who don't need the speed. Currently, chips have to be built in consist of starting the pump, waiting When we start asking our computers to such a way as to get the heat out, which three minutes or less for cool down to work on audio, a system that looks great limits how small they can be. However, superconductivity, followed by the sys- running word processing will become the newest breakthroughs in supercon- tem boot. (The superconductivity pump taxed to its limit and be unbearably slow ductivity may make it possible to ignore itself can be operated superconductively when playing with DSP. That 250ms wait this size limitation. Then, as we learn to for even more serious efficiency.) every time you insert a paragraph is a lot accurately make smaller and faster The little bit of time you lose in cool different than a 250ms wait every time chips, we won't keep hitting the wall of down would be forgotten the first time the screen is drawn as you examine an what to do with heat. you rotate a 3 -D color Kline bottle audio splice and drag the picture across Superconductivity makes computers through Nth dimensional space; fly that the window. faster. It does nothing, of course, to ac- hot new transdimensional flight simu- Studio time is expensive; our time is tually make them faster. (Well, it "does" lator complete with animated passengers valuable. Audio can do 20,000 different speed up the electron flow along a trace with the faces of all your friends; watch things per second, per channel. Dead- in a chip by allowing the electrons to the waves of a real -time FFT dance lines are twice as close as they seem, and travel straight along the trace instead of across your screen; or whatever it is you all the associated projects are half as the usual tortured path caused by like to do with your computer. complete as we thought. We need speed ! millions of electron collisions, a phe- Or maybe the way you see it, all this The answer is coming, and it is cool, or nomenon known as resistance.) It does techno-stuff really bytes. Okay, try this: should I say cold. Simple new chemical allow, however, the design of systems superconductive consoles, summing breakthroughs are radically raising the that don't have to take heat into account, buses and mic pre -amps: No Noise. The threshold of the onset of superconduc- and can be as small as we are capable of real key to 18- or 24 -bit audio is super- tivity. This is as important to our industry designing and manufacturing. conductive A -to-D converters. And when as was the invention of recording itself. While all this wonderful speed im- this becomes possible at room tempera- The first two reasons why computers provement is now possible, think of this: ture: HTS cables. Maybe a little help can't go infinitely fast today are: junction With true superconductivity, semicon- around the studio would be nice; artifi- switching speed, and the length of the ductor junction temperatures will be cial intelligence for the masses can't be path that the electrons have to flow to under control, and trace temperature more than a few flops away now. get to those junctions at the speed of gains should be zero. With this true Ever notice how much more powerful light. Light may seem to travel pretty superconductivity all temperatures (faster) your car is on a nice brisk cool fast; for very short distances it may ap- should be stable, which, of course, means day? This has nothing to do with my col- pear crazy to worry about it when so chip header designs and that internal umn; it is because the number of oxygen real estate can be optimized simply to molecules available for oxidizing the fuel Stephen St. Croix, REJP's technology developments consulting editor, is president of Lightning Studios run, and not compromised to run with- is higher in the denser charge. But it just and Marshall Electronic, Baltimore. out melting. goes to show you: Cool is Cool. R'E/P

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This month I would like to take a look incorporate digital audio into their proj- more economical form of digital distribu- at the emerging impact of digital audio in ects. In 1982, Disney created the first tion, and theater owners willing to the film and video industries. Traditional- digital feature-film soundtrack when it upgrade their audio systems, there will ly, acceptance of audio progress has recorded the musical score and narration be little substantial growth in digital lagged behind that of advances in visual for the rerelease of the animation classic audio for the motion -picture screen. technology. This is still true, although the Fantasia. Georgia Moroder followed with There may be an area where digital situation is changing and those familiar the release of Fritz Lang's classic silent will be accepted sooner than in the with digital technology will definitely film Metropolis, with a newly recorded theaters. As this decade progresses, we have a bright future in the film /video digital soundtrack. are finding that motion pictures no industry. Much of the music for major motion longer exist in the vacuum of the cinema Digital has become a common buzz picture soundtracks is now recorded digi- world. Today's feature films are now part word in the recording industry. Music tally and then, in the final stage of post - of the television and home -video distri- studios have been recording direct to production, re- recorded to magnetic ana- bution industries. The time lag between digital for the past five years and, with the theatrical release of a feature film the widespread acceptance and spec- If the cost of digital and its home video release is becoming tacular growth of Compact Discs as a shorter and shorter. Modular home sys- retail medium, the future clearly points cannot be passed on to tems include greatly improved speakers to the majority of music existing in the film producer in higher and higher quality reproduction from digital form from initial recording to hourly rates, the such formats as VHS and Beta hi -fi which home listening. in terms of dynamic range and audio When you consider the technical ad- equipment investment fidelity, comes very close to digital. vantages that digital audio offers to the will not be made. The incredible growth of the home film producer, why hasn't it become video market is revolutionizing the audio more commonplace in the recording or log tape. Last year, for Where the River environment of the home. Superior re- recording of the soundtracks for mo- Runs Black, virtually all the audio was audio, whether it be for first -run movies, tion pictures? There is no tape noise, no recorded digitally and the post- produc- network television, cable or home video, wow and flutter, absolutely flat frequen- tion work done in the digital domain. has never before had such importance. cy response and the dynamic range is If there is such a qualitative and techni- We are dealing with a very sophisticated startling. All of these factors result in cal advantage of digital over analog, why audience; one that pays attention to digital's impressive clarity, from the hasn't digital become the norm in the developments in noise reduction and ap- softest highs to the lowest lows. film industry? The main reason is an preciates the leap forward created by Beyond the superior quality of video, economic one. Presently, the motion - digital technology. When a viewer is sur- there is another advantage digital audio picture industry is attempting to keep the rounded by a mammoth speaker system offers for the film medium. In analog, costs of features from escalating. The ad- and has digital audio at his fingertips, the each successive step of post -production ditional costs of recording digitally usual- soundtrack better be good. drastically raises the noise floor level. It's ly are eliminated from the budget. Despite some of the economic nega- true that in the last 15 years superior Digital machines are expensive, and tives, the next five years will bring noise-reduction processes have been in- the final mixing of motion pictures re- tremendous progress in digital technolo- troduced to the film industry. Sound mix- quires at least two recorders. A more gy for the motion picture and television ers are still limited, however, in the complex, or sound effects-oriented mo- media. A number of major manufac- number of pre-mixes they can make tion picture, may call for as many as four turers are developing equipment that before the noise factor makes any fur- or five digital machines. For sound ef- will eventually evolve into tapeless ther re- recording prohibitive. fects editing, dialogue and Foley, more studios. Others are working on methods Because a digitally recorded tape con- machines will be required. by which digital audio can be put on op- tains only numbers, the microprocessors As you can see, this adds up to a con- tical film tracks, or run in dual systems can easily distinguish between the siderable investment on the part of the with CDs or optical discs. recorded signal and the inherent tape post- production studio. If costs cannot be All of these developments, whether in noise. Consequently, digital soundtracks passed on to the producer in higher hour- equipment, methods or services, must be can be bounced -theoretically, at least - ly rates, the investment will not be made. economically comptetitive in order to through an infinite number of genera- Another obstacle to the growth of significantly change the direction of the tions, with the last sounding just as clean digital audio for film is the distribution film industry. The visuals have reached a as the original. medium. The producer does not want to very remarkable stage of development, This fact alone makes digital recording pay for the additional cost of the digital and the industry looks forward to a extremely attractive to motion picture technology and then have the film finally future where audio will do the same. sound editors and mixers, who routinely released in analog, either on magnetic or In closing, I would like to express my premix hundreds of effects, music and optical film. gratitude to Tom Kobayashi for his help dialogue tracks to create the submasters There have been a number of pro- in preparing this column. As vice presi- for final mixing. Another advantage is cedures developed that run dual- system: dent and general manager of the that digital tracks recorded "hot" are not film in sync with either digital audio Sprocket Systems Division of Lucasfilms likely to print through. stored on videocassette or digital Ltd., and former president of Glen Glenn Some producers have already begun to recorders. However, these types of Sound Hollywood, Tom has played a key Gary Helmers Is executive director of the Society of release systems are limited to specialty role in introducing progressive methods Professional Audio Recording Studios. houses or showcase runs. Until there is a of creating sound for pictures. RE/P

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Circle (13) on Rapid Fads Card Over the past decade digital signal pro- cessors and effects units have made dra- matic changes in the sound of contem- Future Directions is porary recordings, film and video pro- ductions. The technology behind those sounds is now evolving at such a furious rate that predictions run the risk of fall- Digital ing behind real developments. Some in- formed speculation on the directions that future products are likely to take, how- ever, should be of practical interest to all Signal Processing of us. The following discussion will cover five areas that I consider to be of primary importance: signal quality, direct digital Technology interfaces, processor functions, the user's work surface and control interfaces.

Signal quality We've already experienced an evolu- By Charles Bagnaschi tion in digital audio formats from 10 -bit words, to 12 -bit and now 16 -bit. The lat- ter now seems to represent a comfort- What technical and operational able plateau for most effects processing developments can we expect in the growing field applications, even though falling costs of of signal processing digital storage and new conversion tech- digital special effects and units? niques will allow larger word sizes to be used in applications requiring lower noise and greater dynamic range. No doubt many of us would like to see CONCERT HALL the 20kHz barrier broken. It is not likely that bandwidth will increase beyond this

MONO INPUT I HC value, however, simply because of the 0.6 standardization that has evolved around existing 44.1kHz and 48kHz sampling ----i -1 frequencies. On the other hand, there

I I will be improvements in dynamic range and in the more subtle, hard -to-measure Ms RFL L1 RFLMs L2 RFLMs RI RFLMs R2 RFLMs areas of sound quality. - MST 4.1 /.2 4.3 4.4 40 -1 Some of these changes will be brought about by an expanded use of oversam-

PDIy pling technology. Oversampling is an ef- 0.5 fective way of dealing with the abrupt RFLdB L1 RFLdB phase characteristics encountered near 30 3.1 the band limit of sharp cutoff analog fil- ters. The technique is now in digital stor-

DIN Din age devices such as CD players and ran- 2.0 2.0 dom- access editing systems. Several manufacturers also are work- r ing to develop oversampling analog-to- digital converter input stages. These de- vices will remove some of the character- REVERBERATOR istics that users perceive to be the contri- Size GATE ATTACK 0.3 0.4 2.1 bution of the input filters to "digital

RT LOW RT HC DEFINITION sound." Until there's more hardware 1.0 1.3 2.2 available for testing and comparison, the RT MID RTL STOP DECAY OPT. exact nature and significance of the ef- 1.1 1.4 0.7 fect of such filters will be difficult to %OVER RTM STOP establish on an objective basis. 1.2 1.5 Perhaps a greater benefit of oversam- pling input A -to-D converters is that they allow conversion to more than 16 bits of dynamic range. By performing A -to-D conversion with a fast converter of less than 16 bits at an oversampled rate, the OUT OUT data can be processed to extrapolate dig- R Charles Bagnaschi is vice president of engineering at Lexicon. Inc.. Waltham. MA.

24 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 are itized representations of 16 or more bits. in dedicated interface ICs, which should elimination. Some of these processes will In this way, dynamic range is increased smooth the way for its universal use. already available, while others while still maintaining more than ade- Another digital audio interface pro- become available in the near future. quate linearity. tocol gaining favor is the EIAJ standard. As the audio production industry digital produc- Although it isn't necessary to use over - It is quite similar in format to AES /EBU, moves toward integrated sampling to build A -to-D converters that but makes use of low -cost, RCA -type tion systems, new possibilities will need exceed 16 -bit resolution, the problems of phono connectors. (This latter approach emerge for techniques that do not constructing high accuracy, fast conver- will no doubt gain favor for less expen- to operate in real time. For instance, it is sion rate A -to-Ds are formidable. With sive processing devices.) very difficult to perform high- quality oversampling, however, you can use less pitch shifting in real time, particularly on expensive analog circuitry and put more Digital processor functions stereo or multiple channels. However, if of the responsibility for signal quality in Over the past few years, advances in the digitized audio is stored in a random - the digital domain. (Which represents a technology have expanded the use of access medium, a computer can perform good trade off because large -scale inte- digital processors. VLSI techniques have the processing in "reasonable time," with gration techniques can pack a lot of proc- produced new possibilities for tools that while the engineers are occupied essing power on silicon. And, as more can create new types of sounds. Already, other aspects of the production. A pitch - would be people use the chips, the costs come the latest generation of digital processors shifted version of the material down even further, while audio perform- contain ambience algorithms that pro- available when needed. processors ance goes up.) duce a closer approximation of reality. The list of tasks that digital can perform is expanding rapidly. Pack- ing more and more functions into every Digital interfacing It is OK for one piece of hardware, however, limits the Manufacturers are beginning to settle ability of the processor to perform all of on a few sample rates as industry stan- unit to do several them at acceptable quality levels. It also dards. Despite this development, inter- things, if it can leads to compromises in the human inter- facing between units that operate at dif- do all of them well. face that make them more difficult to use ferent sample rates is still quite expen- than devices that have been optimized sive. There is also demonstrable signal for specific jobs. degradation involved in some of the cur- Some of the reverb units being built to- It is OK for one unit to do several rently available conversion processes. day are capable of producing quite con- things, if it can do all of them well: pro- Another problem exists when you at- vincing sounds that are interesting to the ducers and engineers, however, are us- tempt to digitally interface audio pro- ear -whether the intended effect is ing more and more effects processors cessors that output data with a variable realistic or surrealistic. simultaneously. As more units are used sampling rate. (This is a common situa- The key to the 'development of new in the control room, the need to control tion with sampling devices whose data and more realistic sounds is the kind of them quickly and efficiently becomes rate changes as a means of altering algorithms that will be written as the more pressing. As a result, there will con- pitch.) The only readily available solu- possibilities are better understood; these tinue to be a place in the processing rack tion is to convert back to the analog do- might come from an individual identify- for boxes that are dedicated to perform- main and to resample the data with ing a need for a specific type of process- ing one or two high -level functions. Ver- another A -to-D converter. ing and writing an algorithm to produce satility has a place, but not at the cost of Clearly a cost -effective digital solution it. Alternatively, a software developer audio performance and efficiency in use. would be welcomed. What the audio in- may do something experimental that dustry seems to want now is a conven- produces a new class of interesting and User control interface ient way to connect together various usable sounds. Manufacturers are constantly looking "boxes" in the digital domain, the way The commercial success of digital for ways to express parameters and ef- XLR -style connectors and standardized signal processors and synthesizers has fects in ways that allow the user to signal levels have evolved for analog created a powerful motivation for new understand how a particular input in- signals. Whether that involves the use of developments. Many individuals at teracts with the sound. Computer external devices or internal modifica- university computer music labs and graphics could be a very powerful tions, the next few years will see a lot of manufacturer's facilities are looking for presentation medium; price points have activity designed to remove the uncer- the next hot item. It's likely that we will fallen to a level where we can start to ex- tainties now encountered when digital see new kinds of emulations of natural plore graphics that present the three audio devices are connected together. phenomena, as well as simulations of ef- axes of real space. We already have one or two digital in- fects that owe very little to the types of Drawing an entire room or hall is not terface standards; the one that seems to acoustic behavior we are familiar with. really what's required. A presentation be emerging as most popular is the At the same time, because the hard- that allows the user to interact with a AES /EBU protocol. Although it results in ware to execute these types of given class of space to change some of a more expensive interface than those algorithms is falling in price, we're see- the useful characteristics could provide a proposed by certain individual manufac- ing experimentation in the home audio viable human interface. At the same turers, most companies have conceded market, as well as in professional and time, you want to create a display that that AES /EBU will be universal digital semi -pro areas. That development un- allows the user to appreciate key sonic audio language, and have announced in- doubtedly will increase. characteristics: the position of the tentions to support it. Beyond reverb and delay -based ef- listener. where the sound appears to be The cost of the interface will come fects, which still have room for new coming from. how it might appear to down as soon as manufacturers begin enhancements, potential exists for digital move, how the space is changing, etc. more realistically pricing their AES /EBU dynamics processing (compression. Video displays of control information interface chips. With volume usage, the gating and expansion), equalization, are very useful for many aspects of re- complexity of the interface will be buried sample -rate conversions and noise cording, and are going to become more

July 1987 Recording Engineer Producer 25 popular as time goes on. For controlling Separating the control surface from the speculate on the type of developments a dedicated digital signal processor, how- processing hardware also helps ease the that might result from large numbers of ever, something like an Apple Macintosh competition for space on consoles and in users becoming involved in the develop- might be more suitable; a quiet, well -be- equipment racks. ment of sound modification and syn- haved, compact machine that's adept at While it is important to provide a com- thesis algorithms. digital interfacing and offers good pact processor and control surface, this The "program -it- yourself' approach is graphics. should not be done at the expense of not for everyone, however. Recall that It might be more efficient to substitute ergonomic operation. Current wireless the first computers were sold as user - a customized controller for the conven- controls still lack good information feed- programmable devices; they all came tional ASCII keyboard. For most people, back, part of which is due to the limita- with BASIC, and most still do. But how tactile inputs, such as sliders, often ex- tion of portable power sources and the many computer users write their own ap- press parameters better than buttons. We expense of providing reliable 2 -way plications software? The majority of associate motion and "feel" with con- communications free from crosstalk and them have been able to get much more trolling things, however, which means interference. out of personal computers by buying of f- that a manufacturer cannot remove all of In terms of the kinds of parameters the-shelf applications software. the tactile feedback without making that engineers and producers will be con- Similarly, DSP applications are users a little uncomfortable. trolling, we may see some fundamental developed by relatively few companies. Soft -labeled controls have become changes. A few manufacturers have Most users just don't have sufficient time necessary, due to the explosion of con- released interfaces that let thé user pro- to devote to the complex process of trol parameters. If a company builds a gram algorithms directly on an external developing reverb or effects algorithms. dedicated interface into the hardware to PC and then load them into the effects It could be argued that musicians, pro- do one specific thing, it can be made to processor. To date, this approach has not ducers and engineers have already gone do a superb job. But, as people keep seen much use beyond universities and as far into programming as they want to pushing the boundaries of the processor in the hands of a few advanced ex- with some of the MIDI sequencers, map- with software improvements, a user will perimenters. pers and sound modifiers currently eventually run into limitations because The problem has been the difficulty of available. It's unreasonable to ask the of the inability to reconfigure the work developing a good, high -level command broad base of users to go much deeper surface. syntax, while freeing the developer from into the process than that. Both remote and wireless controls of- hardware -related constraints. Once these fer definite advantages. For one thing, problems are overcome we may see a Digital control interfaces the best location for the processing gear market develop for a programmable ef- The idea of one standardized control is not always where the user wants to be. fects unit; indeed, it is interesting to interface and protocol that would allow

1HI TB RB 0 =L0 o TX O TA o RX I o RA

RX TX UART UART TC RC o

RB TB + 0 R IRll TA O RA o

TRI STATE ( OFF ,

RC TC Bus Controller O o Tributary Pin No. Designation FG FG Pin No. Designation 1 FG FRAME GNO. O o 1 FG FRAME GNO. 2 RA RECEIVE A ...L 2 TA TRANSMIT A 3 TB TRANSMIT B SP SP 3 RB RECEIVE B 4 TC TRANSMIT C O o RC RECEIVE C 3 SP SPARE 3 SP SPARE 6 RC RECEIVE C FG 6 TC TRANSMIT C 7 RB FG RECEIVE B 7 TB TRANSMIT B B TA TRANSMIT A I B RA RECEIVE A 9 FG FRAME ONO. 9 FG FRAME GNO.

Schematic of a typical RS -422 serial interface for remote control of digital hardware.

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Circle (14) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording EngineerProducer 27 tent, economic decisions necessitated TX by the competitive aspect of the market. The good news is that the widespread acceptance of Compact Disc technology RX has provided a spectacular cost reduc- UaRT - -0 5 tion in D-to-A conversion hardware. Low -cost technology will now percolate up to the lower-volume effects processing MIDI 4.5 MIDI IN 01 30 IN markets. In addition, new technology now being developed for high-end prod- ucts will soon work its way down to lower- priced devices. Another development in audio proc- essing is the evolution of low cost mass - storage devices. In the next few years we can expect advances in both magnetic -AA/V--O 3 S O-/y and optical storage technologies. Typloel MIDI Although these advances have been Interlees is -- driven largely by the economical. but computer industry, doaant oone loura they fit very nicely with the need for se e true network. SI- dlrectlonel large-scale digital audio storage. eommunleatlone Sr. not readily established Another area to watch will be the between more then development two devices. 3 0---AAP-_ of both general -purpose and application- specific signal processing ICs. Smaller geometries have reduced Schematic of a typical MIDI interface which, although economical, does not configure as a true power requirements and increased speed network. Bi- directional communications are not readily established between more than two to the point that real -time signal process- MIDI- equipped devices. ing is economically viable for many more audio applications. At the low end of the market we are seeing increased users to construct universal controllers ware point of view, but standards rather reliance on full custom LSI circuits to for digital processors is an attractive than cost present the major problem. All produce very capable and cost -effective prospect, at first glance, but an adequate interface protocols consist of three signal processing devices. This move- universal control doesn't seem likely to layers: hardware definition, message for- ment has been helped by improvements emerge in the immediate future. It is a mat, and message content. The SMPTE/ in computer -aided design tools for IC formidable challenge to develop a con- EBU interface succeeds with the first two production, and by rapid improvements trol interface and protocol that will pro- layers but, as it now stands, it is still diffi- in integrated circuit manufacturing vide for all the eventualities in the fast cult for products from different manufac- techniques. changing domain of effects processors. turers to communicate with one another It's important to recognize, however, In the future we will start to see new because of inconsistent message content that improvements in signal processing types of control interfaces. As now de- and meaning. and data conversion do not, in fined, MIDI is very versatile but does run In the future, it would be very useful to themselves, produce better, more usable into limits for certain control applications. have available a good network standard products. Both audio quality and good The control bandwidth is limited, and for processing devices that could corn - ergonomics are going to be demanded MIDI is a daisy chain rather than a true bine control real -time audio data and by a growing group of users. At the mo- wideband network. MIDI is able to prove perhaps some video channels. Although ment, many manufacturers are putting a some spectacular control capabilities, this sounds like a difficult task to achieve, lot of emphasis on bells and whistles, at considering its origins and the limited much of the basic groundwork has the expense of performance. function it was intended to perform. The already been done within the computer A lot of people are smart enough, interface is very well suited to low -cost and broadcast industries. Such a network however, to know that good sound and gear, and for use by people that need to is likely to use either a coax loop or even ease of use are really what you want out exchange only a fixed amount of control an optical data path. (Fiber optic links of a box. If those needs are met, the box information in real time. It will also be will appeal to anyone who has struggled is going to be a good tool. around for a long time. with ground loops, noise and electrical Good products are not developed in a At the same time, there are other safety problems when working in de- vacuum. The design process for any needs in the studio and already other manding performance situations.) product is structured to meet the needs control buses are being used to meet of the ultimate user. If they are to be them. For example, the SMPTE /EBU Developments worth watching economically viable and musically ESbus interface based on the RS-422 DAT will accelerate the demand for useful, digital effects processors must electrical standard has been adopted by "studio quality" audio at "home record- satisfy the desires of studio owners, musi- broadcast and pro-audio manufacturers. ing" prices. In the past, most processing cians, engineers and producers. Effec- ESbus offers more of a networking stan- gear was used as an enhancement on the tive, reciprocal communication between dard; a user can set up a master controller stereo mix. Unfortunately, for years users and designers can shape the many device and a group of listeners, any of we've been using hardware that did not decisions and compromises involved in which can change roles and take over offer the same technical specs as our the development process to yield the the network. stereo mix, but was fine for sweetening most effective tools for the future. RS-422 interfaces are somewhat more and enhancement. The resultant audio expensive to implement from a hard- quality compromises were, to a large ex- R-I I)

28 Recording Engineer,Producer July 1987 Large scale concert sound reinforcement has a smaller future.

IM MT -4 Manifold Technology delivers... twice the output Concert Sound System High output plus high in half the space! fidelity Concert sound is getting smaller. 50,000 -Watt Array To produce high -level sound. System size, that is, not tour dollars! most concert systems aim many In fact, the high -level sound market horns at the same seating area. is stronger than ever. But high Unfortunately, this approach causes transportation and setup costs Lre peaky frequency response, decreased forcing lighter, smaller and more sensitivity and ragged coverage efficient speaker systems. While patterns. With four drivers on each audiences demand better fidelity. horn, a large -scale MT -4 system has That's why we've made fewer independent sources. For Manifold Technology systems &vice fewer phase -cancellation problems. as loud in half the space. The two - Frequency response is smoother, box, 4 -way active MT-4 uses 4 sensitivity increased, and coverage (four!) drivers in each bandpass for perfectly constant. unequaled acoustic output. Now, A flying system that's system can be one quarter the your to none size or four times as loud compared second to other designs. \1T -4 cabinets are optionall The MTA -42 Manifold equipped with a unique two -point Technology adapter combines four flying system that allows true point- compression drivers without aided source arrays. Tilt angle adjustment distortion. And without the phase is easy because track positions are cancellations of Y- adapters! That's 4 pre-engineered for popular array supertweeter and 4 upper -midrange configurations. Trial- and -error compression drivers on identical guesswork is a thing of the past. 60° x 40° constant -directivity Nothing is as easy as an MT -4. horns. To complete the MTH -4 You don't have to wait for the "high" box, four DL1OX woofers system of the future. It's her now! use proprietary phase plugs to For a free MT -4 brochure, see your provide seamless vocals from EV Professional Audio Dealer or 160 -1600 Hz. The result is flawless write: Electro- Voice, Inc., Dept. 138 -dB midbass at 1 meter! REP -4, 600 Cecil St., Buchanan, The MTL -4 "low" box MI 49107. combines four 18 -inch woofers in an ultra compact 36" x 36" x 30" Eleclrol/oice cabinet. More efficient than horn - loaded subwoofers, Manifold Technology design prevents woofer "bottoming" even at 40 Hz win J MARK IV company 11(, 1,600 watts input!

(15) on Rapid Facts Card Hands-On

AMS Audiofile Digital Random-Access Recording and Editing System

By John Binder

Let's face facts. When picture elements However, a number of audio post - decision list was also a priority. originate from film, the majority of audio production facilities, including Editel, One solution we toyed with was install- is produced using traditional film mixing have been sweetening video on a ing a video editor, five VHS videocas- techniques. 24 -track for quite some time. When a sette recorders and five EIAJ- format Why? Because, up until now, nothing track needs to be slipped against the pic- digital audio processors. This setup has been able to improve upon the con- ture, it is re- recorded with the appropri- would meet all our quality and track slip- venience of mag film dubbers when it ate time code offset. This procedure ping criteria, but we'd still waste a lot of comes to changing the timing relation- takes time -time that the client doesn't time winding tape. Maintaining five indi- ships between audio elements. always have. We needed a fast, effective vidual transports was another drawback. way to slip tracks, while maintaining Eventually, we decided that a random - John Binder is a staff audio engineer at Edi audio quality. The ability to work with access, disk -based recording and editing tat/Chicago time code numbers from a CMX edit system was required.

30 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 What Does The Human Clock Do? Ask Roy Thomas Baker.

"At last, there's a device that will allow me to use sequencers without losing the integrity of the music. It

was the first time ever I was able to sync a sequencer to an existing track. Because of the time saved by using this

device, I feel that it should be standard equipment in every studio." Roy Thomas Baker

THE HUMAN CLOCK IS FOR PRODUCERS: Capture all the MAGIC from your artist's demo tapes by using the Human Clock to sync all the additional hit -making touches they need. WHETHER OR NOT THE DEMO WAS RECORDED WITH SYNC. With the Human Clock's exclusive ADVANCE function, you can also move sequences ahead or behind the beat to create even more feel.

THE HUMAN CLOCK IS FOR ENGINEERS: Re -lay lost sync tracks with the Human Clock. Or better yet, create an indestructible sync tone with a Human Clock and a Roy Thomas Baker's magic has touched such artists as: bass drum. The Clock can rescue weeks of work. Queen, The Cars. Journey. Foreigner, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick Devo, Slade. Nazareth. and more recently THE HUMAN CLOCK IS FOR A NEW WAY TO MAKE TPAU. His hit albums have generated over 80 million in RECORDS: Use sequencers and drum machines for what sales, and that figure is still climbing. they do best ... great sound. reliable performance. But DRIVE THEM with a living, breathing and feeling musician to make the music come alive. The best of both worlds!

APM, P.O. Box 9305, ``- Anaheim, CA 92802 Want to know more? Send us this coupon and we'll send you a FREE brochure on the Human Clock. Name Address City State Zip a

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PAT. APPL'D FOR Circle (16) on Rapid Facts Card ply, mainframe and control panel. The power supply and mainframe can be in- stalled over 200 feet away from the con- trol panel, to prevent fan noise from in- terfering with audio monitoring. The mainframe itself is remarkably small, consisting of only 5U (83/4 inches) of rackmount space. Located inside are the system's two 380Mbyte hard disks on which all directory and audio informa- tion is stored. (An additional mainframe is necessary in the 4 -hour recording system.) Audio is sampled into the system via two A -to-D converters that use a 16 -bit linear PCM encoding format. Sampling rates can be supplied as either 44.1kHz or 48kHz; other rates are also available through the factory. Output channel assignment is implemented in the main- frame unit and routed to any of the eight selected D -to-A converters. Although all eight D -to-As are active, currently only five simultaneous outputs are possible. (AMS projects that eight simultaneous outputs will be available in mid -1987.) The control panel interfaces with the mainframe unit via an RS422, 38.4kbaud serial port. A high -resolution video Figure 1. Cue Record Screen. monitor displaying 62 lines of text pro- vides the user with necessary informa- The AMS AudioFile uses a different ap- tion on the parameters to be controlled. proach to video sweetening than stan- Technical Specifications To the right and below this video dard machine control /list management Audio Inputs: two, electronically bal- monitor are 13 softkeys whose functions systems. It is not a synthesizer, but rather anced, 10kfl, line level. change as different display screens are a powerful post -production tool that uses Audio outputs: eight, electronically called up. A set of six dedicated transport time code as the basis for simpler audio balanced and ground compensating, controls allow the system to be operated line level, 1000. manipulation. We didn't need to buy a like a standard tape machine. Dynamic range: 96dB system that would also process the audio; In "global" or "external" mode, the Frequency response: 10Hz to 20kHz, a of available digital audio is synchronized to time we already had roomful ±1dB at 48kHz sampling rate. More than code from the external 3/4 -inch U- matic. signal -processing equipment. Distortion: better than 0.03% at 1 kHz, is available for ad- anything else, we needed control- full output; 44.1, 48kHz, others A numeric keypad AudioFile gave us all that we needed. available. dressing time code numbers, output The system can sample up to two Tape transport control: various channel assignment and offset entry. hours of full- bandwidth mono audio, or Sony and JVC U- matics via RS922/ Two continuously variable knobs on one hour of stereo; four hours of record RS232 output port from 9.6kbaud to shaft encoders control cue and events list time is available upon request. All data 76.8kbaud. scrolling, edit point trimming, and jog triggers: eight independent concerning the audio cues is contained in Audio and shuttle control of the external switch closure inputs per channel. an events list. The timing relationships of U- matic. Backup: Sony PCM- 701/601 format; Below the video monitor are eight cue each individual cue to other cues can be others are available. T8. Each key redefined quickly and easily at any time Time code: read input levels -50dBm triggers, labeled TI thru during the session, with minimal key- to + 10dBm; 24, 25, 30 fps and drop can be assigned to a specific audio cue strokes. Editing is accomplished in the frame; outputs all frame standards, se- and the latter replayed at a specified in- digital domain, and is non -destructive. lectable level and rise time; internal ternal or external time code location. Playback of any cue (as AMS refers to generation or slave to external The start and stop times of each trigger each individual recording) is possible references. can be logged automatically into an time: 1 second, approximate. over any of eight analog outputs. Sync events list. AudioFile also allows for Control panel dimensions: standard AudioFile allows for control of a remote triggering via eight optically rack, 19 -inch wide, 104E -inch (6U) high, isolated switch closures. 3/4 -inch U -matic VCR through an 121 -inch deep. 31/2-inch floppy disk drive enables RS422/RS232 serial port, which operates Main electronics: standard rack A as well as storing and in the range of 9.6kband to 76.8kband. 19-inch wide, 84-inch (50 high, software updates, Audio can be synchronized to this VCR 17 -inch deep; may be mounted up to retrieving events lists. Cue and event lists master, or any other source of external 200 feet from control panel. labeling is handled on a conventional time code. Power supply: standard rack 19-inch QWERTY keyboard. (It should be men- wide, 31 -inch (2U) high, 121 -inch tioned that AMS will be able to supply Hardware configuration deep; must be mounted near main elec- details of its RS422 interface protocol to tronics unit. The system consists of three rack - allow a user or manufacturer to intercon- Circle (100) on Rapid Facts Card mountable units: an external power sup- nect with other computer -based systems.

32 Recording Engineer Producer July 1987 Take aNeotektowork for a test drive.

No one judges performance just by reading the specs. To appreciate a recording console you have to put it through its paces. Hear what it'll do in your own studio. With your material. Your room. That's where the rubber meets the road. We're so sure you'll like what you hear, we want to offer you an easy way to compare our consoles to any others: Borrow a Neotek demo module. Fleetwood Mac did. They ended up cutting an album on it. We found out when they asked for a second one for stereo tracks. Check out what's under the hood. Hear our mic pre with the finest condenser mics. That's an easy one; manufacturers already use our consoles to demo their best. Try synth inputs and see why New England Digital uses Neoteks to show off the Synclavier. Drive it with a digital track. You'll hear how our consoles make digital recorders sound their very best. While you're at it, check the construction quality, the control layout, the flexible signal flow, and our very special equalizer. Then, if you can wait a few weeks, we'll put you in the driver's seat of a new Neotek console, custom built for your personal requirements. Like we did for Stevie Wonder. The way we figure it, we haven't come in second in a comparison yet. So we can't lose. Neither can you. So if you want to hear for yourself what's so special about a Neotek, drive one at work. And if you're planning to keep our demo module for your next album tracks .... well, that's OK too. NEOTEK

1154 west belmont avenue chicago, illinois 60657 (312) 929 -6699 Circle (17) on Rapid Facts Card (We've found the standard panel to be the cue to be kept is represented by a very easy to work with.) shaded portion of the tape graphic described above. Currently, edits are per- Software -driven screens formed with a Grab Time feature. By us- Each major function is addressed by its ing the Play Up To and Play From soft - own menu -driven screen display. keys, edits can be trimmed to an ac- Presently, these include Cue and Events curacy of 0.1 frame (3ms). Record; Cue and Events Edit; Cue Future software updates will include Library; Events and Filing System "rock- and -roll" location of cue edit points screens. with the control pots; variable ramp -in The Cue Record Screen, shown in and -out slopes; level adjustments; and Figure 1, is used to enter audio cues into balancing of stereo cues. the system. Several input modes can be As mentioned, the Cue Edit Screen in- selected including analog mono, analog cludes a Cue In and Out function that Figure 2. Events Record Screen. stereo, EIAJ- format mono (PCM digital), governs what portion of the cue is to be or EIAJ- format stereo. In the latter replayed. The Events Edit page, shown in mono /stereo digital modes, the audio is Figure 4, adds "List In" and "List Out" to input directly via a video-format digital these capabilities. bitstream, thus avoiding additional D-to- The difference between the designa- A and A -to-D converters. tions Cue In and List In is the same as Record levels are monitored with two that between video EDL categories Play peak program meters displayed in the In and Record In. The similarity is not ac- center of the video screen. Should audio cidental; one of the major advantages of levels ever exceed the system's AudioFile is, that the system like video headroom, a visible clip graphic is dis- editors, uses time code numbers to per- played. Record time still available on form digital edits of the audio material. the hard disks is updated dynamically [For the sake of clarification, it should throughout the recording process. Cues be remembered that a "cue" in this con- may be recorded with either local or ex- text represents the original source ternal time code labels. material recorded onto the hard disk; an Once the recording is completed, a "event," on the other hand, is the same name may be assigned to the cue via the or shortened material from the cue now Figure 3. Cue Edit Screen. keyboard. If no name is given, AudioFile contained in a list of related events. In defaults to a cue name of "rec" [number]. other words, the same cue might appear The output channel designated for the in the same or edited versions cue may also be specified on the cue throughout a list as discrete events. The record screen. Re- recording "blown" advantage offered by a disk -based takes is a simple procedure, involving random -access editing system, of course, the use of a Discard and Re -take func- is that events comprising of identical tion. Given the speed of random access cues need only be recorded onto the provided by the system, any cue may be hard disk once and will simply be auditioned instantly, to determine replayed at the appropriate time code or whether or not it's a "keeper." trigger points-Editor.] The Events Record Screen, shown in Once an events list has been created, Figure 2, allows the operator to record cues contained in that list are now while playing back from the events list. known as events and can be re- edited In this way, a final mix can be recorded several different ways, while leaving the into AudioFile as a separate cue. This original cue edit intact. This task is done task can be accomplished with a pro- in the Events Edit Screen, which is one of Figure 4. Events Edit page. grammed time code start or a manual the system's most powerful utilities. In punch-in. Another use is to store console many ways, the Events Edit resembles automation data with the events list. the Cue Edit Screen, because it displays The Cue Edit Screen, shown in Figure the tape graphic and has the same edit- 3, allows for non -destructive editing of ing functions. recorded cues. On this screen display the The Events Edit page allows the oper- name of the cue to be edited is high- ator to control when and what portion of lighted, and its audio content is repre- the cue will be played back into the sented by a graphic located at the bot- events list by manipulating the cue, and tom of the screen. The graphic takes the using List In and Out times. Because the form of a piece of tape that moves across editing process is non -destructive, List In a "reproduce head" while it is being and Out points may be easily trimmed played. User -friendly editing provides per client request. the operator with full transport control The Cue Library Screen, shown in over this piece of virtual "tape." Figure 5, lists all the cues, in alphanu- Extraneous audio may be deleted from meric order, that are presently stored on the head Cue In and tail (Cue Out) of the hard disk. Any cue that is auditioned each cue. (These terms are important in will play back only the portion selected Figure Cue Library Screen. 5. discussing audio editing.) The portion of in the cue edit process. From this screen,

34 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 Yamaha's newest musical instruments. For years,Yamaha has been making musical

1;4 n r,,, , , instruments that allow performers to express what 1"1i4 they feel. Our new line of MZ Series professional dynamic microphones continues this tradition. The three -layer laminated beryllium film used in the diaphragms of the MZ102Be, MZ103Be and MZ105Be offers greater control over piston move- ment for heightened presence and accuracy through- out the entire frequency range. .l,irll..11, w Throughout the entire line, a superior acous- tic damping system makes use of a mesh screen and photo-silkscreen technology. The benefits are extraordinary long -term stability and absolute uni- formity. This uniformity can be especially impor- tant when matching pairs of mics for stereo. A tight cardioid pattern provides excellent off- axis rejection for superior feedback suppression. To reduce handling noise, all MZ mics have a unique three -point floating suspension system. And a special windscreen with three times the impact resistance of conventional types. So you know it can take a pounding. We even use gold -plated audio connectors. But when you listen to Yamaha MZ mics, you

1111i i -f>,;illl hear more than the result of advanced technology. You hear a one -hundred -year tradition of making music. For complete information, write Yamaha International Corporation, Professional Audio Division, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622. YAMAHA Engineering Imagination Circle (18) on Rapid Facts Card cues may be assigned to trigger keys for tion of the location and timing of cues Audio editing for picture playback. The "record trigger" function has proven to be an invaluable aid dur- Maintaining high quality audio for logs the start and stop times of cues ing mixdown. While the system is in video has always been a rigoruous task. played from these triggers, while using global or external mode, transport con- Since Editel took delivery of the Audio- either internal or external time code. trol is assigned to the VCR and the events File system, our task has been simplified Cues may also be manually inserted into list is locked to its time code track. considerably. The unit has proved in- the events list with the insert key. To add a sound effect, the VCR can be valuable in our Express Transfer System, The Events Screen, Figure 6, is where jogged to the appropriate video frame a post -production method that allows all these operations come together. The and the external code stored by using clients to shoot on film but edit with the upper portion of the screen displays the the Grab Time function. Any cue in the speed of tape. events list in a vertical format. Named cue library can be inserted into the list, In the past, audio had always been the here are list start time, cue names, output and its location specified by the grab bed slowest step in the process, which led to channels, cue durations and list stop time code value. AudioFilé s random - a dangerous temptation. After the film - times. When a cue is slipped, the stop access ability makes this process clean to-tape telecine transfer, we synchronize time changes automatically, depending and quick. the audio-shoot elements with the video- on the duration. The output channel can When the events list has been com- tape. These "scratch elements" are then also be re- assigned at this point. pleted, it can be stored on a 31/2-inch flop- taken to an off -line video editing system, In the lower portion of the display py using the Filing Screen, shown in where an off -line master and a video screen in horizontal graphic time line Figure 7. Each list file is stored with its EDL are produced. representing all eight channels. Cues are own name and can be recalled at any At this point, the temptation might be represented by shaded blocks that move time. Other functions available on this to pull the sync lines off the video master toward a "reproduce head" while the screen include event list merging, event and sweeten them. However easy this events list is played. A visual representa- deletion and list time code offsetting. process might be, it adds generations to the process; tape generations and added noise that we want to avoid. Now we can avoid the tape genera- tions, retain original quality and reduce editing time. At Editel, we go back to the original shoot elements and load "keeper" takes into AudioFile with exter- nal time code. Using the video EDL, we conform these audio takes to the off -line video master. This sequence is handled in the Events Edit page, simply by enter- ing the video EDL numbers directly into the Cue and List Cut points. All conform- ing of audio tracks takes place complete- ly in the digital domain. Because a butt -splice editing routine is not available in the system's software, Figure 6. Events Screen. Figure 7. Filing Screen. sync lines need to be checkboarded across two channels. After the sync lines are cut, the music, sound effects and voice -over are added. We mix back into AudioFile using the Events Record screen. That way, when the time comes

to lay back onto the 1 -inch video master, the audio can come directly from AudioFile. We are awaiting installation of an ar- chiving update that will allow us to download the digital audio cues associ- ated with an events list. Cues and direc- tory information will be stored directly onto videocassette using in the Sony

PCM- 701/601 digital format. Currently . we back up audio jobs onto our analog 24- track. A CMX interface would also be advantageous, eliminating manual data entry. AMS has informed us that it is working on editing butt-splice and cross - fade routines that will allow cues to be merged; these upgrades will be incor- porated into a Cut and Paste screen. In terms of storage time, we have already handled 30- minute industrials with disk time remaining. Although addi- Author John Binder in Edite! editing room. tional storage has been promised in the

36 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 future, we have found the present system configuration to be sufficient. When Editel /Chicago purchased the Stop Press: System enhancements announced by AMS AudioFile we did so with excitement, but also with apprehension. Because our sys- Since John Binder of Editel wrote his type of butt- splice editing John Binder tem represented the first U.S. delivery, in -use assessment earlier this year, all refers to in his report. This page has we feared that it might be racked with updates mentioned in the report are been developed with the help of several flaws and not live up to our standards. now available in the United Kingdom, British mastering facilities who are and will be made available shortly to now using as a stereo editor for re- We also knew that the manufacturer was it AudioFile owners in the United States. cord and CD preparation. based in England and wondered if the The maximum storage time current- Back -up or archiving is also avail- support we needed would be available in ly being offered is just short of eight able with Data-Dump. The entire cue the event of a failure. As it turned out, hours, although the company claims library, individual cues or an events there was little need for concern. that technically the storage can be in- list can be dumped from AudioFile via AudioFile worked out of the box, and creased in 2-hour multiples to what- a slightly modified Sony PCM- 601/701 was put directly to work on some spots ever maximum a customer may need. processor to videocassette. Along with for the Super Bowl. A conservative esti- Systems released earlier in the year the audio cues, titles and time code in- mate of the time saved to do the job was were able to offer up to five simultane- formation is also dumped, so that on ous outputs, whereas now all eight are reload, work can begin exactly where 30 %. Needless to say, because our clients available. it ended at the finish of a previous were happy, we were happy that AMS A new Cut-and -Splice edit page has session. has been superb as far as support goes. also been added, which permits the Software updates have been provided at no additional charge. Clearly AudioFilé s forte lies in the fact that it provides us with incredible speed and flexibility, while actually increasing The most appealing aspect of the AMS What makes me appreciate the Audio - the quality of our final product. With this AudioFile is its versatility. At Editel. we File system the most, however, are the production tool, the audio quality we are have used it for digital film mixing, Ex- years we've had to do recording and able to supply to our clients on their press Transfer, industrials and audio lay - editing on tape. R-Eu 1 -inch C- format video master is just one backs. This one unit allows us to record, digital generation away from the audio edit and conform audio entirely in the elements that come into our room. digital domain. Photos by Ellen Pinkham. I

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Circle (20) on Rapid Facts Card Circle (19) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording Engineer Producer 37 An All-Digital Nutcracker: Adapting Digital Technology for 3-Machine Mixing and Editing By Bob Katz Conventional digital editing systems are normally configured to handle a single master and slave VCR. It represents something of a technical challenge to modify such a system to accommodate a pair of replay VCRs working with a master deck in a 3- machine mix and edit session.

Caedmon Records is the oldest spoken word record company in the United States. Although Compact Discs are rou- tine for Arabesque Records, Caedmon's music division, they are still rare birds for spoken word product. That's why was both pleased and surprised to hear executive producer Ward Botsford's re- quest: Could digital equipment be adapt- ed to mix and edit a proposed Caedmon CD of The Nutcracker Suite? Botsford had digitally recorded Tchai- kovsky's music in London, masterfully performed by the Philharmonic Orche- stra led by Michael Tilson Thomas; in Caedmon's New York studio, he had digi- tally recorded E.T. Hoffman's Nutcracker Story, delightfully read by Christopher Plummer into our M -S stereo microphone. Now he wanted to know if I could put together a system which would control one VCR replaying the PCM- encoded voice track, another playing the PCM -en- coded music, mix the two together, and even perform pickup edits on the mix when necessary -all in the digital do- main. Suddenly I was involved in an un- common engineering challenge. In fact, soon learned that this was to be a digital Executive producer Ward Bots ford (left) and session engineer Bob Katz at the Neue console and first: no one had ever taught the Sony DAE -I 100 editor controller during production of The Nutcracker Suite in Caedmon Record's PCM -1610 and DAE -1100 editing system control room. to dance like this. Before I was ready to say "Yes, we can

Bob Katz is a New York -based independent recording engineer specializing in classical, jazz, folk and spoken -word recordings.

38 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 We goodbye to one -color sound

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he full -color sound of the ESQ -1 Digital Wave MUSIC TECHNOLOGY's Paul Wiffen had a great time Synthesizer makes other synths sound ...well ... mixing colors with the ESQ -1's 32 on -hoard wave- black and white by comparison. forms and 3 oscillators per voice. "After a few minutes of twiddling, you can discover that, for example. an After all, a broad pallette of sound is your first criter- analog waveform can make the piano waveform sound ion for a synthesizer. And the major international more authentic, or that a sampled bass waveform can music magazines who've reviewed the ESQ -1 seem he the basis for a great synth sound. Fascinating stuff!" to agree. Even though its flexibility is unmatched in its class. The tone colors possible with 3 digital wave oscilla- creating sounds on the ESQ -1 is simple and intuitive. tors, 4 envelopes, 4 DCA's, 3 LFO's and 15 routable Mix a little blue bass with some bright red vocal and modulation sources for each ESQ -1 voice impressed pink noise and get a nice deep purple tone color. KEYBOARD magazine's Jim Aikin. "The ESQ's voice offers far more than what you'll find on a gpical But there's one color you won't need a lot of to get synthesizer -even on some instruments costing twice your hands on an ESQ -1- long green. The ESQ -1 as much ". retails for just S 13951'S. In somewhat colorful comparative terms, Peter Menga- There are sound librarian programs for the ESQ and ziol of GUITAR WORLD wrote, "The ESQ -1's sound most personal computers. so you can save and sort combines the flexibility and analog warmth of the your creations quickly and easily. If you'd rather just Oberheim Matrix -6. the crisp ringing tones of a DX -7, plug it in and play, there are hundreds of ESQ sounds the realism of a sampler, the lushness of a Korg on ROM cartridges, cassettes and disks available from DW -8000 and polytimbral capacity of the Casio CZ -1 ". Ensoniq and a host of others. The easiest way to see the possibilities for yourself is to follow the wave to your authorized Ensoniq dealer There are hundreds of ESQ tone for a complete full -color demonstration. colors available on cartridge, cassette and disk. And For more information and the name of your nearest now, each ESQ -1 Ensoniq dealer call: 1- 800 -553 -5151 includes an Ensoniq Voice -80 Program Cartridge. Added to the 40 internal programs, that's 120 great keyboard, acous- tic, electronic, percussive and special effect sounds right out of the box. (ensonia"

ENSONIO Corp. Dept R. 155 Great Valley Parkway. Malvern. PA 19355 0 Canada: 6969 Trans Canada Hwy. Suite 123. St Laurent. Oue. H4T 1V8 c ENSONIO Europe BV. Domplem 1, 3512 JC Utrecht. Holland Australia: Electric Factory. 188 Plenty

Rd. . Preston. Vic 3072

All quotes used by permission ESO -1. Oberheim Matrix -6. Korg and Caso are trademarks of ENSONIO Corp. ECC Development Corp . Korg USA and Casio. Inc respectively.

Circle (21) on Rapid Facts Card do it," I inspected the video, audio and hear about the project. An analog ver- digital patching of the digital equipment sion of The Nutcracker had already been rented by Arabesque, and made a cur- produced for the 1985 Christmas season. sory block diagram of a proposed modifi- The 3- record (or 3- cassette) set was turn- cation. I then explained our proposal to ing out to be one of Caedmon's best sell- Sony's field representative, who agreed ers, with 45,000 copies sold as of January that my theories seemed sound. But, un- 1986. Now the label wanted to make a til tested, there would be a degree of un- Compact Disc version, a deluxe 2 -CD set. certainty, since no one had ever tried Naturally, I asked him why he hadn't this before. thought about mastering the CD from the My idea was to use the DAE-1100 ed- analog '/a -inch (which would also save itor to the limit of its abilities. Although 100 potential man -hours of 3- machine the editor can control two playback mixing and editing)? He answered my VCRs, it can only start one player auto- question by explaining that he wanted to matically in preparation for an edit. avoid the accumulated tape hiss from an could put the PCM- encoder voice tape on analog voice tape and an analog music this VCR, which would provide repeata- tape. It would be improper to dub that to bility of entrance (to the microsecond, as CD, he said. a matter of fact) as well as flexibility -we The first step in producing the all -dig- would be able to "slip" the voice track ital Nutcracker would involve re- editing against music. the 1610- encoded originals of Chris- It was untenable to consider manually topher Plummer's voice, conforming starting either the voice or the music in a them to agree with the studio takes used digital 3- machine mix situation. First of to produce the original, edited '/a -inch all, there was the unpredictable delay be- master. The next step would involve the tween starting a VCR and the onset of music replayed from Botsford's edited sound. And, more important, we planned 1610 master tapes of the score (and sold to use the digital editor to perform pick- to CBS Records for a music -only version). Three Sony BVU -800 U-matic decks and a up edits during the mix. For the voice -over version, the music Time Line Lynx time code synchronizer (top) In order for the DAE-1100 or any other would have to be reorganized and re-ed- used during the digital editing and mix stages. digital editor to perform an edit, there ited to suit the story, and perserving must be an editing rehearsal, during Botsford's original creative mix. We which the operator examines the digital mapped out the following schedule: bit stream before and after the edit point. This digital information is stored in inter- Monday and Tuesday: Ward Botsford nal RAM and used to perform a crossfade would digitally edit the voice master at the actual edit location. tapes during the day and in the evenings It is absolutely necessary that the edit- I would patch in the extra equipment and ing rehearsal exactly match the real edit, experiment until it works. or there can be a glitch at the edit point. Wednesday: Botsford and Katz would In our case, we would have to ensure edit the music, using the original 1/4-inch that the music and voice before the edit as a reference for where the music paus- point were identical both during the re- es occur. hearsal and the real edit. Thursday and Friday: We would mix. The only solution, therefore, was to The Weekend: Backup days. control the second VCR holding the It turned out we would need all seven PCM- encoded music with a time code days and nights, plus the following Mon- synchronizer. day to dub the CD master videocassette Ultimately, these turned out to be rela- that was sent to Japan for Compact Disc tively trivial problems, but one question manufacture. would haunt us until the end: Could we On the appointed Monday, the equip- make the digital editor cut into a com- ment arrived. I patched in the normal posite audio mix, as opposed to the DAE-1100 system and left for other straight output of a single VCR? chores. When I returned at 5 p.m., Bots- The next step was to set a date for the ford reported that he had only managed mix /edit session, and arrange for about two hour's worth of voice editing, A.T. /Scharff Rentals to deliver the equip- what with constant interruptions by of- ment needed to supplement the existing fice business (does this sound all too fa- PCM -1610, DAE -1100 editor and two miliar?). Obviously, we would never get BVU -800 U -matic VCRs. We ordered an the project done that way, so he prom- additional BVU -800, a PCM -1630 proces- ised to install a "Do Not Disturb -This sor and a Time Line Lynx Synchronizer. Means You" sign on the door of the con- Caedmon's Neve console and EMT 245 trol room for Tuesday. Stacked in the rear of Caedmon Records' con- digital reverb would be used to mix and Monday evening was to be the ulti- trol room (top to bottom): Sony PCM-1610, sweeten the voice and music material in mate test of my theories: Could I make 1630 and a second 1610 digital audio proc- the analog domain. the DAE -1100 edit the output from Caed- essor, plus the electronics cabinet for the Sony With the technical arrangements un- mon's Neve console? The equipment cer- DAE -1100 digital editing system. der way, I sat down in Botsford's office to tainly would accept a mix, for I could

40 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 Our latest Ampex hits the top of the charts with its newest

release, Ampex - 16 7 digital mastering tape. releWe not only pioneered digital audio tape, we also refined it. The result is Ampex 467, a tape that sets the highest standards for all digital audio applications. And it's available in all open reel and cassette formats, including the new 80- minute cassette length. More top performers record their hits on Ampex tape than any other tape in the world. While opinion may vary on what it takes to make a hit, there's no API1 lid I argument on what it takes to master one. Redwood N i1. I3 1 :to o Circle (22) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording Engineer Producer 41 MIXING ANALOG IN ANALOG CONSOLE OUT VIDEO OUT T MIXING (TWO CHANNELS) CHANNEL VIDEO IN )TWO CHANNELS) 2 OUT CONSOLE (TIME CODE) (2 INPUT CHS.( VIDEO COMPOSITE OUT VIDEO VIDEO OUT (VOICE) SYNC I N OUT 01 IN TRANSPORT COMPOSITE COMPOSITE ONTROL SINO IN - SYNC LOOPTHRU PCM 1630 AID BVU ROO PCM 1610 62 (ENCODES THE MIX) PLAYER (VOICE) DIA ( VOICE)

PROCESSOR :)

VIDEO INPUT OUTPUT SERIAL RECORDER: VIDEO VIDEO O DIGITAL DECODER VIDEO I VIDEO IN INPUT OUTPUT OUTPUT TRANSPOR TRANSPORT INPUT Il L (TWO CHANNELS) VIDEO CONTROL IN CHANNEL 2 CIME CHANNELS) ENCODER INPUT INPUT (TIME CODE) OUT CODE SERIAL DIGITAL (TWO VIDEO OUTPUT #2 CHANNEL 2 TIME CODE OUTPUT I CHANNELS) CONTROL OUT (TWO (TIME CODE) IN COMPOSITE MIXING PLAYER A: CHANNELS) DIA INPUT SYNC OUT #1 CONSOLE MONITO SERIAL VIDEO IN (TWO TAPE MONITOR TRANSPORT DIGITAL (TWO CHANNELS) E INPUT CONTROL OUTPUT CHANNELSV BVU 800 (TWO CHANNELS) TIC IN )TWO CHANNELS) PCM 101011 RECORDER CHANNELS SWITCHED (MASTER UNIT . MASTER CLOCK) DAE 1100 RECIPLAY BY J (SEE NOTE 3) THE EDITOR EDITOR TRANSPORT TIME CONTROL CODE IN TIME CODE IN (MASTER} 1. Video inputs for three BVU -1, .n -800 NX U-matic decks SYNCHRONIZER also function as external sync.

ANALOG 2. The VIDEO VIDEO IN MIXING "serial digital" outputs on the OUT TIME CODEC (TWO CHANNELS) CONSOLE DAE-1100 are two channels of BNC-to- (CHANNEL 2) 12 INPUT CHANNELS) VIDEO IN VIDEO OUT 02 (MUSIC) BNC cables carrrying the AES/EBU- TRANSPORT CONTROL format serial data stream. 3. As with normal editing, the master o PCM- 1610's D/A input is set to "Ext, " BVU 600 PCM 1630 D/A and the A/D to "Digital." The replay PLAYER (MUSIC) (MUSIC) PCM processors are set to "!nt" and Block diagram of three PCM digital processors, companion U-matic videocassette recorders and "Analog." master editing system used during the production of The Nutcracker Suite. 4. The Time Line Lynx synchronizer is set to "Code-only Master" mode. feed console tone into the 1610's analog Botsford and I proceeded according to 6. Composite Sync Output 2 is identical inputs. When I tested the editor, how- schedule. By 3 p.m. Wednesday after- to output 1, and available for expansion. ever, my digital theories came up all noon, he had finished editing the voice zeros: the 1100 kept locking up, putting segments and called me in to edit the a button on the 1100 that marked the out nasty error codes in little red letters. music submaster. My plan on cutting the time code location at which the next To say the least I was disappointed. music was very simple: conform every- piece of music would begin, or fade up. Nevertheless, I spent the rest of that thing to the already mixed I/ -inch tape, In this way we constructed a music sub - evening studying the DAE -1100 and how duplicating as closely as possible all the master complete with silences, whose it worked, pulling cables, trying all kinds original pauses. Why fiddle with what spacing and timing would match the ulti- of cross patches. Eventually, I learned worked musically the first time around? mate length of the two CDs (about 72 more about the internal block diagram of While the music was being digitally ed- minutes each). the editor than the average field service ited, I replayed the 1/4-inch master via the Because we did not want to produce engineer is expected to know. console's built -in cue speaker, manually our submasters on U -matic C -75 video- Tuesday morning I gave Botsford the arispeeding the tape for sync with the cassettes (danger of dropouts), we em- news. I found a way to mix, but we music that was being digitally edited. ployed three C -60s of about 50 minutes couldn't put together the pieces in the All the music was laid down at unity each, counting overlaps required to cut same pass, a very dangerous proposition gain, allowing us to ride level in a subse- them together later. I knew that there for such a long composition. But I also quent mix. In certain places where the could be some minor timing error in this told him that my Monday night research music was to be faded out, we gave the conforming process, but made sure that revealed a possible solution: All we digital about 10 more seconds at unit the spaces would always be a little would need was another 1610, bringing gain and then faded. "long." That way I could correct any er- the total to three units. A call to Laying down the music was not a very rors in the music track spacing by adding A.T. /Scharff revealed that another rental complicated process, except at certain small pauses (or room tone if necessary) unit was absolutely unavailable, but the points in the work where the music end- to the voice segments. firm's Josh Weinberg volunteered to call ed or was faded and it was intended for Later, during the mix, it turned out Sony for us to see if we could arrange a the voice to be heard alone. For those oc- that the spacing was perfect 90% of the loaner -after all, no one had anticipated casions, I kept the '/, -inch reference tape time. The other 10% was fixed by using that we would need three digital audio rolling (in cue) as well as the 1100 -in ef- the synchronizer's offset function to processors. fect editing silence. As soon as i heard tighten the music closer to the voice. While waiting for word from Sony, the music on the cue speaker, I punched By early Wednesday evening we had

42 Recording Engineer,Producer July 1987 making the musical edited the music and, amazingly, were That evening I found that the word whenever necessary, back on schedule. sync (44.1kHz) patches I was using were result even more satisfying. However, our loaner 1610 was not yet probably causing the glitches. Changing The sonic result? Very pleasing ...it confirmed, which meant we might not be over to composite sync and routing the was certainly the quietest voice -over mix able to pickup -edit while mixing. Bots- sync (as shown in the accompanying I've ever done. If you ask me if I would it again I'd say: "Yes, with certain ford and I agreed it would be too danger- block diagram) proved to be the perfect do ous to stop the mix at each of the numer- solution. Saturday and Sunday the equip- changes... but that's another story." ous voice entrances for, as mentioned ment performed without failure. above, you cannot manually cue a VCR - The mix proceeded without a hitch; at based digital tape the same as an analog one point we mixed for 55 minutes with- 12.1:íP t/. -inch. We decided it would be better to out a stop or an edit. In addition, the produce a spaced voice-only digital sub - 3- machine mix approach was well worth Photos by Mary Kent master, to be coordinated against the the trouble; it allowed us to slide tracks music submaster we had just edited. Keeping the DAE-1100 patched for normal editing, I placed Botsford's pre - edited voice segments on the playback VCR. I then moved our music submaster to the VCR that was slaved to the record TAKE IT ON THE ROAD. The mix proceeded without DO. a hitch; at one point we SEE WHAT IT WILL mixed for 55 minutes without a stop or an edit.

VCR and set up the console to monitor a _ mix of voice and music. I also played the -/_ reference 1/4-inch via the cue speaker to determine what musical points Botsford had originally chosen to hit the voice. It took me the rest of Wednesday evening and Thursday day to digitally edit a pro- perly- spaced voice tape (actually on three C -60 U- matics) and produce a time code -based cue sheet for all the voice en- trances and exits. 3- machine mixing The good news came mid-Thursday: tough. prewired in advance. You can be Sony would be able to loan us another Rack -Pack cases are with you'll up and running in minutes, not 1610, scheduled to arrive Friday morn- Hit the road them and Bumps hours. Also, interlocking Rack -Packs ing. The other bit of good news was that know just what we mean. of location shooting can be stacked to form modular my spaced voice tape would almost let and jolts typical toll, when you're workstations. the piece mix itself. In theory, we would can take its even So, the next time you and your the machines and move being careful. just have to start unique equipment decide to hit the road, faders for two hours. Friday morning we That's why we put those in pliant high density you'll be better off leaving those hooked up the third 1610 according to little ribs the shell, to absorb shock. fragile old plywood and fiberglass my latest block diagram and attempted polyethylene -Pack just that, it cases at home. Move out with an edit. To my relief, the edit worked the The Rack does virtually all im- Therrnodyne cases, and you move first time. We could mix two PCM- encod- repeatedly handles Minimal vibration reaching out with total confidence. ed tapes under programmable control, as pact. is instantly overcome well as pick up anywhere in our mix and the intenor by the elastometric shock mounts digitally edit. Delicate However, the processor playing back supporting the rack frame. remains totally unharmed. the music tape became intermittent, and equipment tight? You And, versatile there were occasional glitches at the edit Water bet because Rack -Pack opens both front points. By this time I had developed a and back, so everything can be nose for digital problems and my nose was telling me that the trouble was prob- ably in timing. Botsford let me have Fri- day night to tidy up the situation, as long by 1rTHERM0D as I promised we would be mixing INTERNATIONAL LTD Saturday morning, come what may. 20850 Alameda St., Long Beach, CA 90810 (213) 603 -1976 Circle (23) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording Engineer/Producer 43 1 Session Report: n Transcontinental Digital Overdub

Nile Rodgers in Master Sound Studio, New York (left) and Stevie Wonder in Los Angeles, as they appeared on video monitors at Wonder's personal-use Wonderland Studio.

A recent digital overdub session involving Stevie Wonder, Nile Rodgers and Quincy Jones linked East and West Coast studios via a transcontinental satellite link. What technology was involved, and how did the participants handle the inevitable time delay inherent in digital audio connections spanning some 3,000 miles?

By Paul D. Lehrman

In early March, a highly unusual record- each other, using digitally- processed ing session took place simultaneously at audio and commercial communications Master Sound, the new recording facility satellites. at the Kaufman Astoria film- studio com- The session was actually two dates, plex in Queens, New York, and with each studio in turn acting as the Wonderland, Stevie Wonder's personal - master. Rodgers, in New York, con- use studio in Los Angeles. The clients ducted a chorus of teenagers in an over- were Wonder, Quincy Jones and Nile dub of Wonder's anti -crack song, "Stop, Rodgers. Don't Pass Go", the multitrack master for Although, without doubt, the session which was laced up on a machine in Los became something of a media event, it Angeles. After that, Wonder played a also served a serious purpose: to harmonica solo on a single version of the demonstrate that a high- quality session theme to the TV show Moonlighting, be- could simultaneously involve two ing produced by Rodgers in New York. studios, located thousands of miles from In each case, a stereo monitor mix

Paul D. Lehrman is a Boston-based free -lance writer, from the originating studio was digitally electronic musician, producer and regular REIP con- encoded via a PCM processor and set up tributor. as a video signal to a satellite, from

44 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 Producer Nile Rodgers (left) and Master Sound co -owner and chief engineer Ben Rizzi at the Trident TSM console in New York setting up a stereo monitor mix of Rodgers' Moonlighting theme for satellite transmission to Wonder- land Studio, Los Angeles.

After the basics for "Stop, Don't Pass Go" had IFollowing the recording of overdubs to his been laid down, a New York teenage choir led anti -drug song, Stevie Wonder returned the by producer Nile Rodgers gathered around a favor by adding .solo harmonic overdubs to Calrec Soundfield microphone for overdubs Nile Rodgers' score for the Moonlighting TV onto the digital master tape in Los Angeles. series, the basics for which were replayed from Master Sound, New York.

which it was received and decoded by of a new commercial service that the become a vocal proponent of linking the overdubbing studio. The overdub principals hoped would be used often by studios via satellites, and was a major tracks were then themselves PCM encod- the professional recording industry. motivating force behind the event. Also ed and sent back over a different satellite Satellite links on the East Coast were on hand was Mark Schubin, another New transponder to the originating studio for provided by Teleport Communications. a York-area consultant, and probably best the monitor mix. company that supports a 150- mile -long- know for his work as a system designer In addition to the two digital audio fiber -optic communications network in and broadcast supervisor at New York's paths, a pair of satellite channels were the metropolitan New York area, with Lincoln Center. also used to provide audio -video financial services, broadcasters and talkback between the two locations. In inter -city telecommunications carriers this way, participants on both ends could among its 40 or so customers. The net- Satellite overdubs see as well as hear each other, and the work connects to the company's own During a pre -session reception at communications and musical pathways satellite uplink and downlink facilities on Master Sound, Mendell shared his vision could be kept completely separate. Staten Island, the southernmost borough of a worldwide network of studios, The music path was always on -line; of New York. A permanent node of the wherein "an artist in London could book whenever tape was rolling, a signal was network is installed at the Kaufman a session in New York as easily as if he going out over the satellite, with no Astoria complex. were booking one in his own town." special intervention from the engineers. On the West Coast, the satellite links Master Sound co -owner and chief engi- On the other hand, the audio talkback were handled by IDB Communications neer, Ben Rizzi, explained that the major system, as in a conventional session, was Group, a national supplier of satellite purpose behind the new service is to pro- operated at each end by pushbuttons on transmission and distribution systems, vide producers and artists faced with each console, so that participants in one whose headquarters are located in Los time -scheduling problems -which could studio could confer with one another Angeles. IDB parked one of its mobile make it impossible for them to be in the without being overheard by the team at trucks outside Wonderland, adjacent to same place at the same time, for the other end. Wonder's new remote -recording unit. example -"an opportunity to work dubbed "1- DER-1," which was seeing together." He also lauded the fact that Cast of players service for the first time. the sound coming from the remote loca- The participation of many companies The satellite transponders themselves tion is not a copy; "It's a clone of the and individuals, all of whom donated were provided by GTE Spacenet, who original sound," he offered. their services free of charge, was donated time on both its GSTAR II and Stevie Wonder talked about the ability necessary to pull off the event. Although SPACENET I satellites. to send tracks back to his home studio the complexity of the operation was con- Among the independent consultants when he's on the road. stantly being pointed out, the message involved with the project was Harry "If I'm on tour and I'm writing a new was also being conveyed that the session Mendell, a New York -based inventor and song I want to record," he explained,

was not to be considered a 1 -shot event. technical consultant, and a longtime col- "my voice is going to sound very dif- Instead, it represented the inauguration laborator of Wonder's. Mendell has ferent, depending on if I do it when I'm

July 1987 Recording Engineer Producer 45 IL

Stevie Wonder (left) and Producer Quincy Jones at the console in Wonder's personal -use Wonderland Studio.

i

1

Part of Stevie Wonder's keyboard setup at Wonderland.

performing every night, or if I wait until Jones also pointed out that the tracks from different locations being after I get back. It's important for an ar- system's potential worldwide capabilities recorded simultaneously. tist to preserve the feeling he gets when could open up some interesting cross - "I suppose you could have two musi- he's performing." cultural opportunities. cians doing overdubs at the same time to According to Quincy Jones, "This [digi- "It's always difficult to get musicians the same backing track," he said, "but tal satellite link] solves a problem we've from Africa or Brazil into studios in the they wouldn't be able to hear each other been dealing with for years. When I was United States," he said. "And it's just as in sync." doing the soundtrack for The Wiz, we hard for us to go there to work with had a situation where I had to ask them. Now we won't have to." Laying the tracks Michael Jackson and Diana Ross to redo Although the Wonder /Rodgers session Finally the session began. First, a track. I was in New York and they were was concerned only with 2 -track audio, Wonder recorded a chorus of profes- in Hollywood, and there was no way any Ben Rizzi was asked if there was a way to sional singers in his Los Angeles studio. of us could get away to meet the others. carry 24 digital tracks on a single satellite Then Rodgers assembled his teenage "So, I made a copy of the master tape transponder channel. He replied that it choir around a Calrec Soundfield micro- and gave it to an assistant, who flew out could indeed be done, using an appropri- phone in one of Master Sound's isolation to the West Coast, got the tracks and ate data -compression scheme. booths. Except for the fact that the then flew back. It took three days. If we "We just haven't done it yet," he con- master tape and producer were 3,000 had this system, we could have done it in fided. He also explained that the satellite miles away in Los Angeles, it was a a couple of hours." service was mostly designed for over- typical recording session. In addition, because Jones wasn't able dubbing to previously recorded tracks - "Shall we send the track over to you to be at that particular session, he had to that there was no way, because of the dry ?" Rizzi asked Jones. leave it up to others to make sure the unavoidable time delays in the system, to "Yeah, we'll figure out what to do with track was recorded correctly. do a transcontinental "jam session" with it when it gets here," came the reply.

46 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 Behind Every Synclavier There's a Success Story

Profile: André Perry C.E.O. and Chairman of the Board of The André Perry Group and Le Studio Visionary producer André Perry heads one of the most sophisticated music and video production facilities in the world. Located in a beautiful and secluded Quebec setting. LE STUDIO and THE ANDRE PERRY GROUP have proven that, with the right personnel and equipment. a studio doesn't have to be in a major urban center to stay on top. With his facility constantly booked. it's clear that Andre's philosophy of total service has paid off. Recent projects range from network TV series to records and videos by such leading artists as Chicago. The Bee Gees. David Bowie. and The Police. He comments on the success of his first Synclavier Digital Audio System and his future plans. The Synclavier was so simple to learn and use that two weeks after installing the system we did the music and sound effects for a major network Movie of the Week. It's been so cost -effective that we're already ordering a second system for our new Washington. D.C. facility."

Circle (24) on Rapid Facts Card -0266 New England Digital White River lot Vermont. 802/295 -5800 NY 212/977 -4510 LA 213/651 -4016 Chicago 312/266 Authorized New England Digital Distributors Nashville 615/327 -4343 London 202 -4366 Tokyo 341 -4660 Toronto 416/868 -0528 (BOUNCED LATER) Ir

SONY PCM.3324 SYNC WITH SONY PCM -3324 DIGITAL MULTITRACK VARIABLE ..(4-44.- DIGITAL MULTITRACK (MASTER) OFFSET ISLAVEI

TRIDENT TSM CONSOLE

MONITOR MIX

AMS DIGITAL i DELAY 520ms

SONY PCM 1630 SONY PCM.1630 CONVERTER CONVERTER

ORIGINATING STUDIO i

GSTAR II OR

SPACENET I SATELLITE

REMOTE STUDIO SONY PCM-1630 SONY PCM 1630 CONVERTER CONVERTER

MUSICIAN

AFigure 1. Schematic ola technique for linking two distant studios via digital audio signals car- ried in conventional satellite channels.

Can we get more of the lead vocal in After a pure, 1 kHz tone emerged from Dealing with delay the chorus' mix ?" requested Rodgers. the speakers, Los Angeles was asked to The foremost question in just about "No," replied Wonder, "I don't really turn the master tape back on. When the everyone's mind was how to overcome want them to hear it!" audio came across clear as a bell, there the time delay inherent in any transcon- After they found the right place to was a collective sigh of relief. tinental satellite transmission. After all, if come in, Rodgers and his choir ran Mark Schubin was asked if the problem the signal from a tape went up to a through several takes. Wonder spent a was the cables. satellite, then down to another studio few minutes tightening up the group's "Well, no," he replied, and then and a track overdubbed to that received rhythm, with Jones occassionally calling lowered his voice. "lt was the sampling signal, which was itself sent up to a for them to "Hit it harder!" rate," he whispered. "I think someone in satellite and then back down, there Halfway through the session, some- Los Angeles must have inadvertently would be a large difference between the thing went wrong. The monitor mix be- changed the sampling -rate switch on the time the original track was played and ing sent from Los Angeles began to 1630 prior to uplink. So while they were the time that the overdub made it back distort in the Master Sound control room changing the cables, I flipped the switch to the originating studio. in New York, as if it were being scram- on our downlink unit to the other rate." The answer was actually fairly simple. bled through some misaligned delay line. The track done, Rodgers took the As can be seen from Figure 1, the Looks of concern passed among the chorus outside for cold drinks, and Rizzi original 24 -track output was mixed to engineers. reconfigured the Trident TMS console to stereo in New York, encoded with a As various parts of the signal path deal with a multitrack mix. The master PCM -1630 and sent up to the satellite. were checked over, Rizzi asked his tape for the Moonlighting theme was The stereo mix, however, was not moni- counterpart in California to turn off the cued up on a Sony PCM -3324 digital tored directly at Master Sound; instead, it master tape and send tone. At the same 24- track, and a second PCM -3324 loaded was first passed through a digital delay time, a couple of cables behind the with another tape, blank except for a set to 520ms and only then routed to the PCM -1630 converters were replaced. SMPTE time code track. control room monitors. Therefore, the

48 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987

Also located aboard the 1 -DER-1 mobile were several Sony PCM-1630 digital processors for converting stereo analog signals to video sig- nals suitable for uplinking to New York ria conventional satellite channels, and also reconverting incoming video feeds.

To handle replay and recording duties at the Los Angeles end of the transcontinental overdub session, a pair of Sony PCM-3324 DASH-format digital 24-tracks were housed in Wonder's new mobile recording truck, named "1- DER-1."

The Los Angeles Connect ion An on- the -spot report from mix would appear in the monitors at And just about 31/2 hours after the ses- engineer/producer David Rideau same sound of sion started, the video screens went precisely the time that the From a West Coast perspective, the Wonder's overdub harmonica was arriv- blank and the music stopped. session began with Stevie Wonder lead- ing in New York. ing an overdub in the traditional sense, The harmonica overdub was recorded A usable technology with a young vocal choir in his studio on the second digital 24 -track in New Although the session was considered performing backgrounds on Wonder's York. When the session was over, the by many to be a technical success (and anti-crack anthem "Stop, Don't Pass two tape decks could be lined up -with they hope a musical one as well-we'll Go." This was followed by a group of the second one offset 520ms back from know when the records come out), there young people led by Nile Rodgers in New York "beaming in" additional its original start time to compensate for remained the question of how useful the BCs on the same number. Apart from the delay the harmonica track idea was. After all, there was no radical -and a short break while the New York crew copied (in the digital domain) onto the new technology at work; what was sorted out a slap effect in the head- original master. unique about the session was the number phone mix, the initial segment of the The exact delay setting was worked of different companies, each with its own world's "first bi- coastal simultaneous out during tests the previous week, ac- crucial part to play, who cooperated to recording" went smoothly. cording to Harry Mendell, by sending out pull it off. After a short intermission, during a signal from one track of the 24- track, At the beginning of the event, one which technicians repatched the studio recording it on another track as it re- observer wanted to know what a session for a Los Angeles overdub, Stevie Wonder showed his harmonica exper- turned from Los Angeles and then like this would cost if everyone involved tise as he "blew" over Nile Rodger's measuring the difference in time code were charging normal fees? tracks of the new Moonlighting theme. the events. An AMS "About $12,000 for a 4 -hour session," between two 1 was particularly impressed by how DMX -1580S DDL was called into service replied Harry Mendell. Representatives short a time it took to switch from do- to provide the necessary delay. of the various companies then rushed up ing overdubs in New York to doing them Over the next hour, Wonder meticu- to the questioner to qualify Mendell's in Los Angeles. I was left with the im- lously assembled his harmonica solo and statement. Each satellite transponder pression that the session could just as then the work was done. Someone in Los costs $400 -$500 per hour. they said; well have involved two rooms in the Angeles put on another of Wonder's more if an overseas link is involved. The same recording complex usingstandard tapes, Rodgers pulled out an electric cost of getting the signal to the satellite tie lines. In fact, the session went so smoothly that there was extra time to guitar and started jamming along with it. using Teleport's fiber -optic network and reverse the overdub roles once more, cut us off soon," dish is $170 per Figures "They're going to half -hour. so Rodgers could handle a guitar over- came the word. "CBS needs the tran- weren't immediately available for the dub to one of Wonder's songs. sponders!" IDB mobile satellite unit but, when one

July 1987 Recording Engineer Producer 49 also figures in the cost of booking two state -of- the -art recording studios, the price tag starts to add up. In addition, it turns out that, in actual- Future Potential ity, six satellite transponders were used for the transcontinental session. As a free -lance engineer/producer, London Philharmonic via satellite for "We're double- feeding to Los Angeles," my imagination was running wild that afternoon string date? Or what said Paul Dujardin of Teleport Communi- throughout the entire session. All that about group members repairing vocals cations. "Our first plan was to go all Ku- is now required for a remote, high- while on tour? band, and just use GSTAR II. However, quality audio connection is an A -to-D To further ease the initial setup costs, the installation in Los Angeles was basi- converter, a small console and a satel- studios in major cities could be linked cally just an ENG truck with a small - lite dish -a setup that could easily to local earth stations via fiber optics aperture dish, which was fine for trans- many geographical and politi- New for session), or destroy (as in York this mitting, but the receiver performance on cal barriers. microwave. Not only would these links the Ku -band was borderline. So we got a As with any technology, of course, save the studio the cost of permanent such technology is going to be too cost- satellite uplinks, but also free them pair of C -band transponders on SPACE - ly for most of us for a while yet. It was from maintaining the licences needed NET I for security." estimated that the overdub session cost to broadcast on satellite frequencies. If enough people use the proposed about $3,000 per hour. In the not so Overall, I'd say the Wonder/Jones/ service, it will inevitably become easier distant future, however, l can imagine Rodgers session could be considered to set up and the price will come down. a growing number of studios being pre- nothing but a success; it proved, at There's some question, however, as to pared to handle satellite sessions. Such least, that a high -quality audio connec- whether that will happen. In an age of multi -city global jams would be possi- tion is available to almost anywhere in tightening record-production budgets, it ble, promoting what Quincy Jones rep the world It's also very encouraging to seems that spending several thousand ferred to as a "fusion of musical see so many people investing energy- cultures." practically everyone involved on the extra dollars so a superstar can do an over - A last- minute mix for a video shoot project donated their time and equip- dub (which doesn't include what the super- could be transported coast-to -coast in ment-in what, even a short time ago, star gets paid) may be viewed as a frill. the time it takes to play it back. The would be considered a wild concept. As one invited guest-a rather well - known free -lance engineer -said: "If they can bring the cost down it'll be great. But, right now, it certainly isn't for everybody." Time will tell. R'E/P

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50 Recording Engineer Producer July 1987 e challenge you o hear he . . . ' * 775°' - ~"0111111111P ftellt difference! al* -

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audio technica. 1221 Commerce Drive, Stow, Ohio 44224 (216) 686 -2600 Circle (30) on Rapid Facts Card n Scheduling and Bookings Policies for Recording and Production Studios

By Charles R. Mills

How best should a facility establish, and then effectively implement, a viable policy toward scheduling a session and ensuring that clients understand its booking procedures?

Recording and production studios are a procedures are crucial to the smooth, ef- part of that large animal that lately has ficient operation of the studio, and suc- become known as "The Service Indus- cessful longtime client relationships. try," as such they must be able to re- There are three main areas that should spond to a great variety of situations, cir- be addressed when setting up a booking cumstances and types of people. Effec- office: defining policies; establishing pro- tive booking and scheduling policies and cedures: and addressing client needs.

Defining bookings policy Successfully addressing the subject of scheduling and booking requires that. first of all, you have a clear understand- Negotiating the Session ing of the studio's goals. In many small businesses this goal is never stated, and exists solely as a body of past history and During negotiations with prospective session current attitudes. However, a relatively clients, consider the following: simple internal statement of purpose The type of project. from the owner goes a long way in shap- ing and defining the way the studio does Necessary staffing levels. business. The policy statement should Times of day selected for the session. address business priorities (profitability. Who pays the bills. longevity and growth); the general na- ture or interest of your company (record- Cash payment or credit terms. ing, post -production, advertising, films, How to bill the extras, such as rental items, and so on): and any major personal goals recording tape and meals. for the firm. Next, define such basic areas as the

Charles R. Mills is studio manager of Clinton Record- ing Studios. New York.

52 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 DON'T GET STUCK WITH TIME ON YOUR HANDS.

`Z0 o lo 3z SMART SYNCTM IT 9 settings. Syncro is easily the most sophisticated and versatile synchronizer You don't have time to try to salvage a major around, yet so simple to use. There are project once you discover the sound transferred to your absolutely no manual adjustments. All 59.94 time coded master was locked to 60 Hz line fre- parameters are loaded by software. Why can quency. Or, when your client hands you the revised picture, we do the impossible with such simple sped up 10%, expecting you to lock it with the original hardware and sophisticated software? multi- track. With our exclusive, patent pending, Smart Sync feature ISoundMaster Auto Restored Timebase IT'S THE SYSTEM. SYNChronization' "I, set your varispeed by entering four Only the Soundmaster Integrated Editing System digits, establish your offset anywhere in the show, roll and offers you auto restored timebase synchronization. The record. Your Soundmaster'" Integrated Editing System will PC based controller, the revolutionary Syncro, and our treat that tape exactly as any other. How is the miracle perform miracles performed? highly sophisticated software combine to that are impossible with any other system available today. IT'S THE SOFTWARE. No, Soundmaster won't leave you stuck with downtime on your hands. It will be profitable That's right. As the time code is read from tape, time instead. Why not take a everything is handled for you automatically by some moment, right now, and give sophisticated software. Everything. Your machine is us a call. Wed love to synchronized while running off its standard speed. And, 5yn_ç.ró show you the true power here's the clincher. Even though the time code on your tapes is divergent, with the real world difference changing of the Soundmaster system. every frame, Smart Sync maintains a constant system offset. So you can start and stop anywhere in the show, and pick -up locked with confidence. How does Smart Sync do it? ITS THE HARDWARE. Our Syncro'" machine controller can synchronize, not just chase, from a fraction of, to several times play speed. With Smart Sync, you control literally thousands of varispeed

1987 -Soundmaster Internationa.Inc souna mos=sr Soundmaster International, Inc., 306 Rexdale Boulevard. Unit #5 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M9W IR6, 1416) 741 -4034 Telex 06- 963548

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TORONTO MONTREAL SYDNEY TOKYO PARIS Circle (31) on Rapid Facts Card kind of service you will and will not pro- studios will negotiate demo rates with tax write -off business, you can skip over vide them; for how much; and in what jingle houses if they are promised that this section. If you're in business to make manner. A concise statement addressing the finals will also be hooked at that facil- money. however, that goal must be re- these areas will provide the framework ity. Such deals require an act of faith in flected in your policies and practices. for developing the rest of your booking which you may or may not wish to be- Credit and collection processes are diffi- and scheduling policies and procedures. come involved. cult for some people to deal with. Poli- If you use a rate card, you should real- Another consideration when establish- cies that state you will run credit checks ize that it is your most obvious public ing policy is whether or not you wish to on anyone who is unknown to you statement of policy. Develop it with become involved in "spec deals." These makes this procedure less of a personal great care, after you have developed a involve the case where someone wants issue. general policy statement for yourself. to produce an album at your studio for Some things that you might request (or The Rate Card. The rate card provides less than the normal rate, in exchange insist upon) of your unknown client in- one of the earliest signals to prospective for considerations such as points, pay - clude provide a deposit before the date is clients about your studio's ability to per- backs, future projects, etc. Remember considered firm; pay in cash (the green form whatever tasks they might need, as that spec deals offer high risk for little stuff) at the end of the date, or use a maj- well as what you expect of them. Gener- cash up front, and require a great deal of or credit card (if you are set up for that). ally speaking, prospective clients would faith on your part. They are also very dif- No third party post -dated out -of -state not expect to walk into a $25 per hour ficult to enforce. (See Rosanne Soifer's ar- checks, please. studio in New York or Los Angeles. and ticle, "Independent Production Con- Purchase orders can be lovely, but re- be able to use two digital multitracks tracts," on page 82 of the April 1987 member that they too can become as locked together with video playback or issue-Editor.] worthless as the aforementioned check 35mm projection included in the rate. In- Hold Firm and Cancel. The areas in when you're dealing with an unknown versely, they might expect all of this and which your policies should be fairly ex- client. POs can also work against you in a more from a $325 per studio hour. plicit are matters related to the session dispute. for example, where a producer It is, therefore, important that the rate status. Is a first -hold a request or a com- has you perform more work than is spec- card clearly detail the items that are in- mitment? When should it be either re- ified on the PO. At certain times. cluded in the basic rate, and what can be moved or firmed? What about second Cash = Credit. made available to them at additional (third, fourth, etc.) holds? Once a date is Rate Structure. In determining your charges. Items such as petty cash, food, "firmed" can it be cancelled without pen- rate structure, consider what you will phone calls, etc., may not be listed on the alty? Under what circumstances? What charge per hour using staff engineers rate card, but a clear policy must exist. should you do with a client who won't and what you will charge using indepen- Keep in mind that having clear -cut pol- firm or release a date until the last dent engineers. Also, consider daytime icies does not necessarily render you in- minute? vs. nightime rates vs. costs. What will flexible, but simply gives you and your Although some of these items will be you gain or lose by allowing for day rates client a starting point for negotiations. discussed in a later section on the care or lockouts? During negotiations, some of the items and feeding of your clients, keep in mind Assuming that your goal is to maxi- that should be taken into consideration that clear policies make it easier for you mize your income, how does the ideal of are as follows: the length of the and your client to know what the deal is. fairness affect your decisions when con- session(s); the type of project and neces- Other areas for determination are: length sidering the following scenario? Two dif- sary staffing; times of day; who pays the of bumpers, (how closely is the next ses- ferent clients are trying to book the same bills; cash vs. credit; billing extras such as sion booked); time not used (do they pay time -one long and the other short ses- rentals, tape and food. all or part); what constitutes overtime sions. Who do you choose? And what Demo rates are also to be considered and what do you charge? about cash vs. credit; regular or new cli- under the topic of negotiations. Some Cush and Credit. If your studio is in the ent; and payment record, etc. Last but not least, you should have a policy related to your dealings with other studios. How much information will you share? Will you grant them credit? Some studios have strong business relation- The Policy Statement ships with their colleagues; others are notorious credit risks.

A production facility's policy statement, which Booking procedures would constitute a clear understanding of its The book should be set up so as to pre- business goals, should address the following areas: sent a clear, concise. complete picture of what is going on at your studio. It should Business priorities- profitability, longevity and be large enough for all information to be growth. clearly visible, and its placement should General nature or interest of the studio - make it accessible to all appropriate recording, post -production, advertising, film viewers. It should convey as much basic infor- sound, etc. mation about the sessions as possible in- Major personal goals for the business. cluding: the client, the hours booked, Kinds of service that you plan to offer status (firm or hold), project title, con - tract(s), engineer, assistant engineer(s) prospective clients. set -up, special requests, producer, equip- ment alignment, rentals, and other infor- mation that various members of your

54 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 K U R Z W E I L RMNDOM SMMPLING Volume I Notes and News from Kurzweil Music Systems Issue No. 1 Introducing RANDOM SAMPLING - and percussion parts for movies like from Kurzweil Music Systems. RS really Little Shop of Horrors ... major studios isn't an ad or an editorial. Its a synthesis like NBC and Tri -Star ... stars like Rick of the two... with a touch of fun so wE Springfield and Barry Marilow ... and don't get bored. You'll be seeing RS in Jack -in- the -Box and other commercials. music magazines everywhere .. and at Phil starts a new Olivia Newton -John your local Kurzweil' dealer ... so you car, album in June. He sa s, "The Kurzweil keep up with all the special news from is at every session- always." Next on Kurzweil ! SPEAKING OF SPECIAL.. Phil's list? "I want to expand AEMP to how about the new Sound Modeling 24 tracks ... and add one or two Program' for the Kurzweil 150 Fourier 250RMX's!" DID SOMEBODY SAY Synthesizer ? Using the 150's additive 250RMX ?... All right. We knew the synthesis capabilities, SMP manipulates 250RMX would be hot... but how hot the frequencies and amplitude envelopes can you get ?!? We've kicked production of up to 64 partials right on the right in the ROMs to meet the demand. screen of your Apple Ile. The result: an So if you've already ordered a 250RMX, infinite number of new sounds! SMP's don't worry. It's on the way... soon! After price is just as incredible... FREE! You do all, our ROM wasn't bui,'t in a day. KURZ- need Version 1.6 software for your WEIL OWNERS ... WHERE ARE 150FS... but that's free too. If you haven't YOU ?... What ?!? You haven't sent in your checked out SMP ... well ... what warranty card? How are we supposed to can we say? TAKE FIVE ... a quick five send you our quarterly newsletter and ... because Patrick Moraz is joining update notices? Send your name, the Moody Blues your June 12 -July 17 address, and Kurzweil serial number to: ...fully "Kurzweiled "... end again Kurzweil Music Systems, Inc., 411 August 24- Septemoer 6. Can't catch the Waverley Oaks Rd., Waltham, MA tour? Patrick's "Human Interface" solo 02154. And if you need to locate a Kurz- album is due out in early June... and like weil User Group let us know and we'll he says, it's "about 90% Kurzweil." Now help you find one. ...So what do you that's music to your ears! TAKE FIVE, think about RS? We want your feed- TOO... with Advanced Electronic Music back! We want to hear from you! Who Production's Phil Shenale. Using a Kurz- knows? You might just see your name in weil K250, Phil's programmed keyboard print! Now wouldn't that be news ?!?

1987 by Kurzweil Music Systems, Inc All rights reserved Kuawel and Sound Modeling Prcgrara are trademarks of Kurzweil Music Systems. Inc Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer. Inc

Circle (26) on Rapid Facts Card staff need to know to get the job done. subtleties (adding time to the bumper or ally serve your clients better. If you have The book should be visually organized changing the time booked). good manual systems, fine. If they need in such a way that you can maximize the Accurately hearing what is being said some improvements, it might be a good potential of your rooms and your staff by and learning to interpret the meaning time to investigate the use of a computer knowing who's where, and when. Its lay- can often forewarn you of potential prob- to help organize the mounds of paper- out should give a good visual impression lems. It can also provide excellent oppor- work generated by your studio. of all activity and interaction of clients, tunities for selling and marketing at the Automation. A number of companies staff, sessions and facilities for a given book. By using problem solving tech- now offer office automation systems for period of time, whether it be a day, a niques, you may be presented with op- recording- studio operations. Such week or a month. portunies to inform prospective clients of systems vary greatly in scope, modual in- Besides maximizing income potential, tasks your studio can perform that they tegration, power, flexibility and cost. If a good book graphically helps you con- had never thought of. you have a multiple -room operation with trol costs such as overtime, multiple Bumpers and Overruns. Once your a sizeable paperwork load, or if you want equipment rentals of the same item, set- policies are cleary expressed and the ses- to be able to format and analyze large up /breakdown time among rooms, etc. sion times clearly recorded in the book, amounts of administrative data, or if you It should not contain extraneous infor- the issues of bumpers and time booked are single -handedly trying to manage mation that will only serve to confuse or but not used become fairly easy to deal bookings, accounting and management detract from its purpose. It also should with. When clients run past their of your studio, you should investigate the not become a message center for non - bumper, when necessary let them know use of computers in your front office. business matters. You should have strict that another session is booked into the Some basic aspects that seem common rules that clearly identify who sees and room after them, and politely but firmly to the existing, prepackaged studio who writes in the book. let them know when you need the con- systems are that the more integration If equipment and /or instruments are to trol room cleared. you seek, the less flexible the system is be rented, it is useful to note that in the Remember: Your goal is not to get likely to be. In addition, although many book, together with information regard- them out, but to get the next client start- operations are common to all studios, ing who is acquiring the rentals and ed on time. It may be necessary to come few prepackaged systems will adapt fully which vendor is supplying them. into the room at the end of the session in to your way of doing business. Also, the The person at the book must have order to clear it. (As the police have dis- old adage of "garbage in= garbage out" good listening and information -gathering covered, sometimes your mere presence still holds true. skills, in order to obtain as much useful can accomplish this task with a minimum Consider multi -user systems from the information as possible about the upcom- of angst.) outset, as well as the future operations ing session. This information not only in- In order to accomplish all of this, its es- you might want to add to the system. cludes basics, such as accurate set -ups, sential that you establish and maintain a One powerful advantage a manual calen- who obtains what rentals, etc., but, by good flow of information with your staff. dar or book offers over a computer observing the client's pauses, constant By keeping accurate records, you will be screen is the ability to present an enor- reiteration of a question, use of words better able to resolve disputes, track past mous amount of data in a powerfully like demo, limited budget, and other events, plan for future events and gener- meaningful visual format; as a result, many studios have automated office systems while retaining manual booking calendars. Longer data terminal ex- perience and more powerful software Keeping "The Book" developments will likely change that situation in the future. [For further information, see Robert The day calendar should convey as much basic in- Carr's article, "Automating Recording formation about the recording session as possible, Studio Operations," on page 38 of the including: December 1986 issue -Editor.] o The client's name. Care and feeding of clients o The number of hours that have been booked. The first task to perform in this area is The status (firm or hold) of the booking. to define the types of clients and then to o determine their needs. Advertising o The project title. clients often operate under a lot of Appropriate contacts for the session, plus pressure; their main concern is to get the telephone numbers. job done and move on to the next proj- ect. Record producers often "live" with a Session engineer to be used (staff or freelance). project for a period of time and may not Assistant engineer(s) for the project (staff or be as concerned with the moment but freelance). more with the overall project. In other words, producers may be less frantic on Special requests. a day -to-day basis, but more attentive to Session producer. details of technical quality and budget. Equipment to be rented for the session. Film scoring clients are in some ways a Musical instruments to be rented for the session. combination of the above two types. There are often several people in charge; ...Plus any other information that various staff they are under time pressures; the ses- members might need to know to get the job done. sions are often spread over several days or weeks; and thus they become a part of

56 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 is times when they seem more your place during their stay. Which brings us to: "The customer there are the quality of the corned Learning the rhythms of your clients always right!" Right? Well, the answer is concerned with the cus- beef than with the quality of the sound can save untold grief and help reduce the pretty obvious. What to do when in on their masters. You should pay close number of surprises. Each of them will tomer is not so right? Tact is always in a to their eating and drinking have their own unique technical, ad- good order. Remember: If you are attention it can often make the difference ministrative and social requirements. dispute with a client and you have good needs; minds at least) between a good The impression you should give to every backup that makes it clear that the studio (in their and and a bad studio. one of your clients is that you are there is not at fault, don't sell the facility the staff short. Such an attitude will come back to haunt you later. New Clients. Clients who are new to often bring you may require some additional care when New clients and handling. No matter how good your There are times with them attitudes that reputation, they may be somewhat nerv- clients seem more have been cultivated ous about dealing with a new situation. A concerned with the quality their dealings with little more hand -holding, some reassur- the corned beef than through ances about your studio's ability to per- of other studios they either form complex tasks, coupled with your with the quality of the love or hate. "We've been hoping for your call" at- sound on their masters. titude makes for a nice beginning. Most often new clients bring with them attitudes that have been cultivated for them; that you will do whatever you through their dealings with other studios several can to help solve a problem. Make time they either love or hate. Either way, part Manners. There have been available for them to ensure that sessions of your job is to overcome such attitudes. magazine and newspaper articles written run smoothly. When you are providing new clients recently about America's lack of unquali- service Required Skills. In order to do a good with quotes or proposals, it is important fied success in the burgeoning articles cite job at the book, you should have ex- to be as thorough as possible in describ- sector of our economy. The showing, in- cellent organizational and communica- ing what you offer and at what costs. many reasons for this poor the "me" tion skills. You must be able to effectively Studio Personality. Does your studio cluding too much television, at home, the communicate verbally with your clients have a personality? Yes! The people on generation, bad breeding family, working and staff, and you must develop consis- your staff comprise part of its personali- breakup of the nuclear Fi- tent writing patterns in the book so that ty, but the physical space also contri- mothers, uncaring fathers, etc., etc. who have a the rest of the staff can glean the infor- butes to it. By being aware of your nally, you inherit people how to mation they need in order to best serve studio's personality, you can answer wide range of ideas concerning necessary, teach the client. questions to yourself, such as: Which act. Demand and, if At least some technical background is engineer and assistant would be best for them good manners. common sense should essential so that you can answer ques- this date? Which room would the client When in doubt, how you feel when tions about the studio's abilities to per- probably be the most comfortable in? prevail. Think about phone at the other form (or not to perform) various tasks. A By understanding your studio's per- someone picks up the while finishing their con- basic knowledge of music and its ter- sonality placed next to the client's per- end of the line in their office. minology is also very important. sonality, you can sometimes answer un- versation with someone with a client and a "Networking" establishes you as a asked questions and solve seemingly in- Or you are speaking staff stands between you. Or an source of information, as well as the explicable, non -existent problems. member who insists on airing dirty booking person; this in turn enhances Dangerous Trends. Trends often turn employee in front of a client, making the studio's value to the clients. into habits; today's favor can become laundry uncomfortable. Schmoozing can become part of a per- tomorrow's habit, which may then be everyone Even from the point of view of booking sonal style that can help smooth over dif- presumed to be policy. Part of your job, scheduling, employee training and ficult situations; it is imperative, however, when clients lose sight or "forget" how and of behavior are of paramount that it be done at times appropriate to the you operate, is to bring them back to standards Many corporations consider circumstances, lest it be perceived as reality concerning your policies. This importance. skills and manners a primary wasting someone's time. situation can become still more complex telephone of new employee training and It is also important to understand and when dealing with clients that are also ingredient appreciate the telephone in all of its competitors. orientation. Booking and scheduling can be as guises and uses: as a marketing tool, for Today's recording industry has created or as simple as your business exchanging information and, sometimes, a situation where many music houses complex needs require, and your resources allow. as a weapon. Some people who don't en- and producers have established their But, no matter how you approach it, for gage in face -to-face confrontation will own in -house studios, even though they studios such considerations return to their office, pick up the phone still book time at commercial facilities. recording are the nerve center of the business -the t you have it. Understand that this Their policies will undoubtedly be dif- through which all information escape valve and may have noth- ferent from yours, and their perceptions focal point and from which all activity do with anything over which you about you will be different from other passes ontrol. (When they get you rattled clients. Consequently, you may have to begins. used in developing your ay want to use the hold button -af- determine how and when to apply or The care policies, and the itely asking them to hold- scream, modify some of your specific policies and booking and scheduling with which you implement your pro- k on line apologizing for the delay procedures. skill cedures, will be major contributors to en allow them to continue their Care in Feeding. When it comes to your business success. IEP k gue.) the care and feeding of your clients, July 1987 Recording Engineer Producer 57 Y J Facility Spotlight: Genesis' Personal -Use Fisher Lane Studio

By Richard Elen

The conversion and upgrading of a farm milking parlor into a versatile recording facility presented some unique challenges to architect John Flynn and acoustic designer Sam Toyoshima.

38 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 STUDIO CONTROL ROOM

.

L .M DRUM ROOM LJl_IIi

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,., . .- .. -w- .._ . ^M Fi sher Lane Farm, a 5 -acre site located southwest of London, didn't look like an ordinary farm to the band members of Genesis. They saw a recording studio. Trusting their musical and production instincts, the band purchased the farm near Guilford in 1980, and began the process of converting part of it into REL. AaATION AREA Genesis' personal -use Fisher Lane Studio. The site consists of a farmhouse, a list- ed barn and a number of outbuildings, in- cluding a milking parlor, which eventual- ly became the new studio building. Ar- JO KITf f-J chitect John Flynn, who was responsible 00 for the original work at Jethro Tull's Mai - son Rouge studio in London, was ap- proached by the band shortly after the farm's purchase to install a 24 -track re- plan of the new Fisher Lane Studio. showing the location of the existing and added control cording facility on the site. Floor room areas. The construction was carried out in two phases. The first phase -to install the studio in the existing building -was com- phase decided that there was no need for pleted a few months after the purchase. with. By the time phase two was about to begin, the building permits had all been a floating construction. Thanks to the sorted out. rural nature of the property, earth -born Thanks to the rural vibration was minimal; consequently, it nature of the property, Original studio was just a matter of laying a concrete earth -born vibration In the early days at Fisher Lane Farm, slab for the floor of the facility. the band wanted to be up and running as According to architect John Flynn, studio was minimal. soon as possible. As a result, a contractor "The acoustic treatment in the was on site, ripping out the old interior of area was virtually nil. There was a sep- drum room for Phil [Collins), which The second stage, which included doub- the milking parlor -it had been used as a arate we lined with stone. He's been very ling the size of the building and con- garage in recent years-while the initial pleased with it." structing a control room designed by drawings were still being complete. The As can be seen from the accompanying acoustic designer, Sam Toyoshima, was building didn't have sufficient height for floor plan, the studio area was divided di- completed last year. the intended purpose, however. So the the original phase of Despite the fact that it would have first task after clearing the interior was to agonally during with the drum room off the been more economical in the long run to dig out the floor and relay a new one, construction, the partition between studio and construct an entirely new studio building virtually at foundation level, two feet end of division that still exists. on the site, the vagaries of British below the previous floor surface. As a control room -a treatment in the control building license requirements meant result, it became necessary to dig a "The acoustic on Audio- Kinetics mod- they they had to work within the existing trench all the way around the building to room was based was pretty building envelope -at least to begin ensure good drainage. Then remained ular boxes," Flynn says. "lt the matter of placing an entire acoustic small, and there were a few limitations. stemming from the size and Richard Elen is a U.K. -based free-lance writer. produc- shell inside the building. largely er and session engineer. The acoustic consultant for the first shape. But. overall. it worked well."

July 1987 Recording Engineer,Producer 59 After the completion of the original tion may not be so surprising, since ma- "Sam sketched acoustic details for phase, the studio was used by the band jor additions had to be made to the every nook and cranny of the new room, for years: four it was the location for sev- building. and I had to take it from there into draw- eral solo and band albums during the "Sam was primarily responsible for the ings and get the studio built. And, in period. Then, in late 1983, Flynn was design of the interior acoustics of the view of the building contractor's lack of control room," says Flynn. "We were al- experience in this type of work, I was on Toyoshima can test his ready fairly committed on the actual con- site for a great deal of the time. struction of the soundproof 'envelope'- "There was some overlap between the designs at JVC's acoustic but he also made some suggestions about design stage and the construction." facility with up to the treatment of the existing studio area. The bottom line is that Flynn was full -scale models. "We had the physical size of the rooms largely responsible for the practical ele- already set up, and the interior shapes ments of the building work, including lo- laid out. Sam came up with conceptual cations of the lighting circuits and their asked to carry out a feasibility study on a drawings containing the essential geom- resistance dimmers. new control room, simply by placing a etry and acoustics. He then came over to The completed control room can be new room on the end of the studio. look at the site." considered typical of Toyoshima's de- However, plans began to take on a ra- Some of Toyoshima's design required signs to date, with the notable exception ther dramatic shape as time went by. modifications to the new building works that the original partition between the This was due partly to suggestions from that had been constructed before he had drum area and the studio butts up to the Genesis producer Hugh Padgham, who become involved with the project. new, triple -glazed control room window. was well- acquainted with developments "Then Sam went back to Japan," Flynn "It's a quirk of the design," says Flynn, at Town House, Virgin Record's west - recalls, "and we got on with the shell. "but it works very well. The partition can London studio. Eventually, they called in We had completed the shell just in time be removed later if necessary, without studio designer Sam Toyoshima, who for his next visit -and it was then that we affecting the viewing window, but the was responsible for Town House Four. spent three days, often until two or three amount of separation is excellent." The result is the present design, which in the morning, with him feeding me de- The two SSL display monitors for the includes a new control room, equipment tails on the traps, the fabric lining details, Primary Computer and Total Recall auto- room, relaxation area, kitchen and other and so on. mation systems are located in the area facilities. "We sketched them out, on the backs above the central window. of drawings, usually, and from there I Phase two construction drew them up into something we could Acoustic treatment The 6 -month time span for construc- build from," Flynn says. Drapes cover part of the stone walls in the drum room, which can be added or removed as required to alter the acous- tics. A similar technique is used in the rest of the studio area, where the only additional treatment is a series of angled plywood ceiling panels, backed with ab- sorbent material, that reflect sound back to the walls. (Originally, these panels

There is the feeling that his designs are "known to work" before they are ever realized on the client's premises.

were to have been faced with modular absorbers, as in the first control room. These were omitted, however.) The win- dows are triple -glazed throughout, the outside consisting of a sealed, double- glazed unit to minimize potential con- densation problems. The doors feature an internal sandwich construction of lead sheet and Rockwool, and use magnetic seals. They provide a quoted separation of at least 40dB. In the lock between studio and control room, both doors open inward (toward each other) making the seal foolproof.

Rear view of the new control room, showing tape machine soffits and client monitoring areas.

60 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 Traps are constructed of plywood with Rockwool on both sides, and run down from the structural ceiling. The ceiling it- self features a stepped construction, with Control Room Equipment additional treatment beginning above the slope behind the console. About a foot behind that is located a precast con- crete slab forming the structural roof. The outside roof of the building is com- Console: 56-input Solid Stale Logic Monitoring System: Westlake HR -1 prised of corrugated sheeting-an exten- SL -4056 E- Series with Primary Com- cabinets driven by six Crown PSA -2 sion of the original milking parlor. puter and Total Recall automation power amps; Acoustic Research AR- and Auratone Air conditioning is based on three systems. 181S, Yamaha NSIOM 4C close -field monitors powered by Quad 520 amps. Without the ability to test a design in Multitrack*: Two Studer A800s with Dolby SP24 noise -reduction racks. Reverb systems: Quantec ARS Room advance, it is often Simulator, Yamaha REV-7 and AMS the client who provides RMX-16 digital reverbs; EMT tube plate. the laboratory. Effects processors: Audio and Design Scamp rack; Lexicon PCM-41 and two heat -pumps; two supply the studio plus AMS DMX-1580S delays and pitch Dyna -Mite, Kep- Mastering transports: Two Studer the old control room, and one the control shifters; Valley People ex !! and Gain Brain compressor-limit- A8ORC 2- tracks; Sony PCM-1630, digi- room. Separate air conditioning systems system ers ; (IRE! LN1 178 stereo limiters; Neve tal processor, DAE-1100 editing equipment room (located behind cool the model 1078 equalizers; Friend Chip and companion DMR-2000 U-matic the lounge the tape machine alcove) and SRC time code and MID! synchroniza- VCRs; various cassette and Beta hi-fi area. Because of the confined space in tion system; Drawmer noise gates. videocassette decks. the ceiling, the routes taken by the air conditioning ducts, with their baffles, are complex. "Although the room is large." Flynn says, "the acoustic characteristics are

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T _IN. __== dynof ex° I r.. IDU4B AUDIO NOISE REDUCTION SYSTEM r o s a DD An Vile) [Dom il !1 L[M BBiuAKL THRESHOLD LEVEL IN REF ER Circle (25) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording Engineer Producer 61 similar wherever you are in the room." Responding to the continuing trend toward The main monitors are Westlake The control room is large, with a seat- recording systhesizers and direct-inject in- TM-4s, with two bass drivers, driven by ing area at the back. Cassette machines strumentation in the control room, additional Crown PSA -2 amps. Close field monitors and tape storage is located at either side, space has been provided in back of the con- are Acoustic Research AR -18LS units. set into the rear wall. sole for musicians to be able The carpeted space to "play into the The outboard complement features a between mix" during overdub and tracking sessions. the seats and the wood -paneled Quantec QRS, Yamaha REV-7 and AMS floor area is occupied by the 56- input, RMX-16 reverbs (the latter including key- customized Solid State Logic SL-4000 vides the laboratory. As a result in this board interface); an original tube EMT console. Space is provided on all sides of case, though, very few modifications plate in a back room; Audio and Design the console, with a window to the right were needed once the construction had Scamp rack; Lexicon PCM-41 and two and the tape machines in an alcove on been completed. AMS DMX -1580S units; Friend Chip SRC the left. Mobile, wood -faced rack units time code interface and synchronization house outboard gear next to the patch - unit; four Valley People Dyna -Mite signal bay Very feu modifications on the left -hand end of the console. processors; a pair of Drawmer noise There's sufficient space for synthesizers were needed once the gates and assorted Valley People Kepex and other equipment. construction had Il and Gain Brain units; a UREI 1178 Sam Toyoshima, unlike most other been completed. stereo complimiter; dbx models 160 and studio acousticians, is in the unique posi- 163; and a pair of Neve 1078 equalizers. tion of being able to test his designs at Sam Toyoshima and John Flynn are JVC's acoustic research facility in Japan Control room equipment now regularly collaborating, offering a with up to full -scale models. Toyoshima, The original equipment installation in- complete architectural and acoustic de- in fact, spent 10 years of research before cludes a pair of Studer A800 multitracks sign service for the studio industry, via he tackled his first studio: There is the and a pair of A80 stereo machines, plus a their jointly formed UK -based company, distinct feeling that his designs are Sony PCM -1610 digital stereo system and Acoustics Design Group. The group has "known to work" before they are ever DAE -1100 editor, complete with three also been joined by Hugh Padgham, who realized on the client's premises. Without U -matic machines. In addition, there's a acts as consultant. the ability to test a design in advance, it full complement of cassette and Beta hi -fi is often the client who effectively pro- video machines. ReP

62 Recording EngineerProducer July 1987 Conventional audio technology imposes limits. The 480L Digital Effects System removes them. While most studio equipment is telling you where to stop, the 480L calls you to go beyond anything you've imagined. Into impossible spaces and dramatically processed instrumental voices that somehow retain "unprocessed" clarity and detail. What it Into delay -based textures so new there are no names for them yet. Into ambient simulations of unparalleled realism and transparent depth. Into stereo sampling, digital Doppler shifts.... Into unheard sonic territory. Explore softwware on a wh1>le new level ofelegance and looks sophistication, including revs rb algorithms based on new research into the acoustic behavior of great musical spaces. With two high speed digital "Machines," the 480L runs two programs at once in parallel or series configurations - with digital mixing. If you still look at obvious reverb and effects as unrelated processes, the 480L will (Iu111gc your idea of what digital processing can do. The 480L is a genuine technological breakthrough - and sounds like it. From basic tracks through CD masters, from sound effects pre- lay to final mixdown, it enhances every step of the production process. Entirely within the digital domain, if that's where you prefer to work. Digital audio is changing standards for every part of the re- cording studio. With audio performance that equals or surpasses any digital recorder, the 480L sets its own standards. And with expandable hardware, it will continue to raise them. If making unique, exciting, ravishing sound is s ou part of your job. talk to your Lexicon Advanced Products dealer. Once you hear the astonishing performance of the 4801 Digital Effects System for yourself, the advantages will is astoii_is1iirii be obvious. lexicon I.r,ir. Ilie.. 100 lira%err Stuee1. \\altham. \I:\ 02131 16171891 -67911 Circle (38) on Rapid Facts Card SPARS Business Conference Replay

By Lee Murphy

A report of a 2 -day conference that provided details of various schemes for developing and implementing a successful business plan for recording and production studios. _t The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a integration? Are you at the beginning of Hat, Olives Sacks' national best -seller, the production chain, at the end or describes a person who could not identi- preferably somewhere in the middle, go- fy even the most common objects (like ing full circle to control your own supply hats), but who instead approached peo- channels at the start, and distribution ple and things as abstract puzzles or tests channels at the finish. Will your facility which, without some striking feature to be a turnkey operation, producing all key him, the man invariably failed. elements of a client's project? Don't laugh. The disorder afflicts Next, Costa suggested, your integrity thousands of otherwise sound individuals Conference coordinator and keynote speaker will be severly tested, as you evaluate who call themselves executives, but who Guy Costa, Motown Hitsville Studios, Los Angeles. the competition. For instance, how do don't truly understand a basic foundation your operation costs compare of good with the business: Planning. competition? Some 60 of these lost souls traveled to tional aspects of a business into proper "If you're receiving lots of resumes," Los Angeles in late April, to attend the perspective Costa says. he quipped, "you're probably paying too 2 -day SPARS 1987 West Coast Business "This is especially important in our 'cre- much in salaries." Conference at UCLA, where seven born - ative environments, where the desire/ - Service and support are essential, so again industry leaders shared their drive is typically greater than the avail- you must determine whether you can knowledge and experiences. Some, like ability of resources required for success." match or better the quality offered by Chris Stone, president of the Los Angeles The "definition of business," in histori- your competition on these critical points. Record Plant, even opened their finan- cal terms, may be easy. But, when it How does your facility compare in your cial records to illustrate the points they comes to a proposal, you need to provide marketplace for location, capacity were and making. an answer to consider the question: Why efficiency? It was a pilgrammage well worth the do you want to get into this venture? Finally, Costa calls for a critical time and money. Securing an answer begins to call for a analysis of the competition. Who is the level of analysis few of us are prepared to competition? How do they function? Day one: morning session undergo, though some do it intuitively. Who are your customers? What does Guy Costa's keynote presentation, en- Then look at hard -edged questions such your competition do to win them over? titled, "A Business Planning Guide," is as: Is the planned objective needed and Costa says that owners often get choked summarized in Table 1. how will you accomplish it? And, why do for price with a single client. Which is Some of these elements are considered you think it will be successful? why Motown, its own best client, is open- by studio owners planning for a new You now need to evaluate the market- ing its doors for outside audio-post for room or new business. However, Costa, place. Costa advised that studios look video business. who is vice president of operations at closely at an overview; Is the market Consider management analysis: Who Motown, contends that the "realities" of growing or shrinking? You should have are they? How will they be compen- being in business are too often not few problems listing your major clients, sated? Are individual responsibilities perceived. Planning, helps put the emo- but it becomes more difficult to define clearly defined and are their functions the size of your potential market. How adequately supported? Sales, service, many customers? How many dollars? marketing and technology also Lee Murphy is owner/mixer figure in of Brigg's Bakery, a single - Then consider the potential: room audio -post for video facility in New York, which What this analysis. Who said it would be easy? caters primarily to broadcast and corporate clients. breadth and depth of services will you He is also a co- founder with his technical director, Jim provide? What are your strengths and Stephen, of a product line known as Stable Cables. Analyzing the finances weaknesses? And, what is your market The buck starts here. Where's the

64 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 it precludes the charm of a money to come from, and how is it to be so on (while "boutique" business). Econo- used? Costa suggests that professional ac- so-called Table 1. Costa's Catechism and labor accrue counting services be sought for the mies of administration in a larger studio (and so does traffic preparation of monthly income 1. Define the business. statements and balance sheets. 2. Evaluate the marketplace. flow). Doppler's recent expansion into Next follows the definition of objec- 3. Evaluate the competition. As for operation, Caldwell says tives stage of planning: start -up, short - 4. Analyze the management. a multi- studio the finances. cost estimates with a fairly term and long -term goals. This is fol- 5. Analyze he developed 6. Define the objectives. of accuracy. His thoughts, in lowed by definition of strategy, where high degree 7. Define the strategies. 2, offer some sage advice. the studio owner details the conditions of Table 8. Prepare the summary. An interesting plus that Caldwell has a specific plan and how it's to be ex- plan. 9. Complete the in the wake of Doppler's expan- ecuted. found is what he calls "Coat -Tail Tech- Costa suggests, this is a good time to sion nology:" an older installation benefits create a matrix of potential risks and to a new, state- of -the- their dollar values. Also, he advises to through a 30 -month minefield of munici- from its proximity room. At the same time, he warns, a prepare a survival strategy to deal with pal and institutional barricades. The art can spoil clients and potential downside realities -for exam- creation of Clinton Recording depended new control room in older rooms. ple, what happens if your building burns upon state financing, federal guarantees staff to work much of what seems obvious down? and personal commitment. Among been told it) are some The final phase of creating a business "I hired a Harvard student," Merley (after you've which are not. There are two cost plan is the summary where all informa- said, "to create a report that recording - things that Caldwell thinks deserve spe- tion is written into a concise statement of studio business would increase 25% over areas in the years ahead: purpose. Costa provided the following the next two years. She did, and our loan cial consideration insurance, both of which are example of a business plan summary: package was approved. Utilities and The Whodunnit Studio, a closely held "We then went through six months of rising rapidly. seminars to New York corporation, is seeking management relations training, because Other wisdoms: Schedule and sell clients on new technolo- $15,000 in additional financing to pur- I wasn't sure I wanted to work with my educate day with one open studio, chase electronic recording equipment to partner -to-be." gy; start each fill it; and, finally, duplicate the new R -DAT tapes that are "We incorporated clients' needs into not prebooked -you'll create a business plan, expected to hit the market within the our facility; showed them the plans; took occassionally to expand. next two months. This sum, together with them on -site to confirm that Clinton was even if you don't plan and Caldwell did everything, an additional $25,000 invested by the addressing their specific desires. We If Merley right, Dave Porter, presi- principals, Joe and Sally Cheap, will made sure our credit relationships were or most things, Annex. didn't do every- enable the business to go after a niche strong even before opening." dent of Music or most things, wrong. He owned that is not expected to be filled at least for thing, right? But during his the next 12 months. Whodunnit believes Day one: afternoon session a going business a New that they have the distribution and If there was anything daunting about presentation, entitled. "Adding that at manufacturing channels and that they Merley's presentation, Wilber "Pete" Location," came the admission his primary location in can lock up the Spring Valley City Caldwell, of Doppler Studios, Atlanta, the very least, something to be marketplace for an extended period of made conferees feel right down-home Menlo Park, CA, left time and become an overnight success. again. Beneath Caldwell's good of boy desired. out, "20 The final stage -completing the exterior, however, lay the sensibilites of "It is," as Porter pointed plan -entails packaging the business yet another keen businessman, and one minutes from everywhere." years in Silicon Valley, plan. Design a cover and binding, and that could relate the trials and tribula- After eight that his computer- making also write a title page, introduction and tions during his presentation, entitled Porter found in the chips; table of contents. "The Evolution of the Multi- Studio client base was no longer Operation." business was flat if not descending, and Opening a new studio First, Caldwell weighed the virtues and the strongest opportunity for growth and lay "20 minutes away" in Now, let's shape Costa's tutorial into vices of various sized facilities. Three or diversification reality -the process whereby Bruce four rooms provide flexibility, but a San Francisco. the obligatory market Merley put together Clinton Recording larger operation becomes less personal. He conducted the capabilities of Studios in New York. Merley's presenta- The bigger the facility, the more services research, to determine facilities, as well as the tion entitled "Opening a New Studio" you can provide to clients (and the competitive He comparison - focused on his own experiences. longer the lines of communications to ac- availability of clients. shopped other San Francisco studios and There are a number of obstacles to be complish this). Diversification permits himself in a hub of networks and overcome by anyone opening a new rock music, advertising, audio post and located studio in the bureaucratic swamp of a large city. (It may not be much easier to do it in a smaller community either.) Like other speakers at the conference, Table 2. The Doppler Effect Merley was able to look back on his ex- double them. perience and use that hindsight to bene- 1. Estimate overall costs, then cost, then multiply by 2.5. fit other studio owners. Merley brought 2. Estimate installation 3. Expand studios and maximize compatibility. exceptional administrative talents to his 4. Construction cash requirements mandate super attention to receivables. working at the Yale School of task from 5. Own your own building, or the landlord will own you. his in- Music, and later beginning own, 6. Although it's a corporate (business) loan, bankers always lend to people. dependent record label. In the end, Merley slogged his way

July 1987 Recording Engineer/Producer 65 plan, finding most of them to be too generalized for the specific needs of Table 3. Porter's the Law recording industry. Business plans that 1. A cause a change studio's gross billings should rise by the same amount as is invested f in the marketplace ware during any given year. should be implemented, he considers, 2. Labor costs should not exceed 25% of gross. rather than those that simply capture 3. Ancillary services, such as tape duplication, can help buffer some share of a marketplace which swings in music recording. already exists. 4. Banks want to know how big a risk -taker you are. Given Universal's successful track record in the $20 million per year Chicago audio market, it seemed sensible ad agencies. The space itself was then bucked "on- hold," but then often can- that Allen's studio should create ways to designed to be almost entirely billable celled a short time later, presumably improve client services and productivity. (providing direct client services), which after confirming space and time in a first - He committed his facility to purchase a was essential, given the city's relatively choice studio. Jones broke the client of disk-based recording system. Equipment high rent levels. The San Francisco site this nasty habit by having his traffic per- costs for the Synclavier, console, video houses two studies: Studio I is a 24 -track son call the agency person back soon and outboard audio equipment were audio-for -video room; while Studio II after the original 'on -hold' booking, to $400k. Universal's cost -of-money for- functions as an 8 -track media and jingle report that "another client wants the mula is 2% per month, or $8,000 a room. time being held for you." month to break even. Interestingly, the new location does Guy Costa confirmed the point by say- At three hours a day utilization, five not compete with the original Menlo ing, "Don't be at the affect of your days a week, it was determined that the Park site, where billings, in fact, have market," a situation he indicated could basic session price would be $120 per since increased by 15 %. happen to even the best studios. He hour. Additional time booked becomes Porter's business plan, summarized in pointed to audience member Skip Saylor, profit, as do additional sales such as Table 3, is self -disciplinary insurance whose Los Angeles studio caters to what video lock -up at $50 per hour, 24 -track against what he calls "LED Fever," the Saylor himself describes as musicians rental at $50 per hour and tape and flop- sometimes chronic compulsion to buy who've been "86'd" by every other py disk sales. A total of $50k in leasehold new equipment. Planning can also help Hollywood facility. improvements came out of cash flow, an owner compete effectively against "Skip probably makes more in his and all equipment is leased at 2% above what he dubs "Hot Tub Studios" -"set up studio than we do at Motown," Costa the prime. by Daddy Warbucks who give their kids offered. Was it worth the investment? Allen $300k to shelter money, " he says. "Yes, and with your artists!" Saylor says that, so far, his new room has In all, Porter filled a 12 -page presenta- replied. booked $200k -only 10% of which was tion with savvy and inventiveness, con- The baseline in business, Jones of- not directly attributable to the Synclavier cluding that as long as financing is fered, is mirrored in a simple statement system. What is more, Allen concludes, available for the acquisition of equip- that probably should be framed and "I don't have to rewind tape!" ment, and expansion into new areas of placed directly in front of all studio audio and audio-for- video, his facility will owner /managers: "If you're coming to Second day: afternoon session continue to thrive. the party, come prepared." Which is a The following may take you a few kind of an inverse, positive variation on minutes to accept, but if you started an Day two: morning session the old saying: "If you can't stand the equipment rental business, and then In his presentation entitled, "Entry into heat get out of the kitchen." rented all or most of your specialized Video," Fred Jones, president of Fred Where do studio owners learn all they gear to your own recording studio, you'd Jones Recording Services, Hollywood, apparently know? Murray Allen, presi- probably be making a lot more money discussed methodologies that closely dent of Chicago Recording, matriculated than you do right now. Maybe even as tracked those of others who had spoken much as Chris Stone, president of the before him: objectives, proposals, strate- Record Plant, Los Angeles, whose pre- gies, marketing, facility, utilization, fi- Table 4. Murray's Maxims sentation entitled "Getting Into the Rent- nancials and so on. Then he turned the al Business" confirms the old saying that 1. I never met I session into a call -in radio show. a banker didn't like. 2. However, never let the person you're the best defense is a strong offense. Jones claimed a 1 -inch VTR is essential doing a deal with introduce you "Five years ago we said diversify or in the to Los Angeles market to satisfy cli- his banker. die," Stone recalls. To avoid the latter, he ents that audio laybacks are accurate. 3. "Rewind" is wasted time. set up Livingstone Audio Rentals as a Other conference participants disagreed, separate yet equally and fully owned ex- however, offering that an audio layback tension of the Record Plant. machine created a better quality sound through the studios of Chicago as a ses- Why the rental business? It seems that on videotape. And Pete Caldwell re- sion player, and brought to the con- Stone's business planning led him to con- sponded that access to a 1 -inch video ma- ference a curious and charming mix of clude that his studio (and not an outside chine also opens the door for dub busi- street smarts and board -room intellect, rental company) should derive income ness at the end of a sweetening project. heavily seasoned toward the former. from all the toys requested by clients. In Console flexibility for video sweeten- Allen's business wisdom is summarized effect, the Record Plant would be its own ing was discussed, centering on a board's in Table 4. The last of these three best customer. Clients are aware of the capabilities and not its brand name, at maxim's sparked his determination to corporate relationship, and even support least for audio post -production. "Add a Synthesizer Room," the title of it- because a studio's hourly rate charge On the subject of client relations, Jones his presentation. goes above the line (is fixed) in most said that he's increased bookings 80% Universal, by Murray's own account, budgets whereas rentals go below it (are with one agency that traditionally doesn't use a common form of business not fixed).

66 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 leaves the lessee paying for it twice -in Stone told the SPARS conference that you operating as a DBA? Then your tax if big principal and big interest payments. he encountered stiff resistance when he bite could be a great deal bigger than Not everyone agreed on this latter attempted to add $25 per hour to the you formed a sub Chapter S corporation." of point. Murray Allen of Universal Record- price of a room into which he installed a Polon estimates that the latter type ing raised another consideration: If the new digital multitrack. Clients were business, earning under $100k in profit, leasing may be higher (and refusing to pay a premium of $250 per might pay a tax rate of 17 %. cost of the loss of ITCs), then day, based on a 10 -hour session, yet remembering upon purchase at the end of were ready, able and willing to rent the taxes levied lease period are computed on the basis same unit for $1,000 per day! Table 5. Stone Cold Logic a unit's lower value at that time, And when Stone doesn't have a par- of the 1. Rent before you buy. than when it was brand new. ticular unit on hand to rent, he re -rents 2. Cartage is a revenue producer. not Motown's Guy Costa, who moderated from a friendly competitor and splits the not an ancient city. the conference, closed the 2 -day event fee. In addition, when he rents to others, Rs are: Risk, Reward and 3. The three with the recommendation that studio is tacked on as an ex- not all that other stuff. the cost of trucking Ration, owners consider two sources of planning tra charge. 4. Hot new gear can return 4 % -5% of design information: Venture Plan, a soft- In 1986, the rental company returned a original cost per day. ware package by Cliff Allen; and Develop 30% net profit on total sales, with a large Your Business Plan, a book by Richard part of that activity based on 4 -day he Leza and Jose Placencia. weeks and 3 -week months. In six Regarding equipment acquisition, In summary, the conference stressed months, Stone had recovered 144% of pointed out that before the new tax laws ad- that planning is an essential element of his original investment on much of the went into effect it was probably more business. Without it, studios survive by gear. His collective wisdom is summar- vantageous to own equipment and lease sheer good fortune or sheer energy. But ized in Table 5. the space to house it. However, with the it is these abstracts are not appropriate If some studio owners find it difficult to loss now of Investmant Tax Credits substitutes for planning. owe money, Stone says the only way he almost certainly more prudent to lease All too often, studio owners do not can sleep at night is to owe a lot of equipment and own the facility. plan so that they might properly identify money. What items do you lease and which do the most basic business realities. Clearly "The banks become your partner" he you purchase? Polon favors leasing of as a case of the Man Who Mistook His confides, and they're not going to let the more disposable hardware, such computers. A lease on a high- ticket, long- Multitrack for a Client! anything (bad] happen to you." Stone RE/P says he's sleeping very soundly these term investment, such as a console, days. Martin Polon, president of Polon Re- search International, probably knows more about the economics of the record- ing service industry than any other civilian. His presentation was entitled: "An Economic Forecast for the Re- Mega Mix" mainder of 1987, with a Focus on the Studio and Recording Industry." FINALLY! forecast, I must report, was Po lon's A High Quality, based on a negative short -term premise: Professional tltldi9"!*111tltl mr How do we all survive until the Nineties? AUTOMATION After which Polon predicts smoother sail- an .d System at -p11901111.11...4 ing and surer times. AFFORDABLE Meanwhile, there's the federal deficit Price. ,., ..,.. a.. ! effect on currency rates to overcome; its interfaces studio owners. Easily clearly impacts to your exist- "Remember that recording studios are ing console. importers," Polon stresses, "that buy Full fader equipment from Japan, Germany and automation Britain, to name three supplier nations." Mute and solo What happens to the value of the yen, 8 Subgroups mark and pound, relative to the dollar, is Real time and edit critical to studio owners. step Mix merge rise and fall on currency Interest rates Copy, bounce, and deficit movements. Polon considers delete fades that interest rates are not going to fall SMPTE compatible again soon. In his view, they'll probably Runs on IBM and hover in the average 10% range, and compatibles and could rise further. As a result, waiting for Macintosh 512 & prices to drop before purchasing equip- Plus PATENT PENDING ment is probably not a valid proposi- tion -not now anyway. MIDI BASED MIXING BOARD Po lon's strongest thrust centered on taxes and the new federal tax laws. AUTOMATION ON YOUR PC "Learn them," he advised. "Consider Musically Intelligent Devices Are the way your business is configured. 3 Brian Street, Commack, NY 11725 516 864 -1683 Circle (28) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording EngineerProducer 67 The Audibility of Electronics

By John Eargle

Listening tests can be useful in evaluation of a variety of pro -audio equipment, including monitor amplifiers. However, it is important to separate myth from reality when making sonic judgments of electronic hardware.

The range of listening experiences that to pro-audio systems. Many studios rou- straight -through, line-level input /output take place in a pro-audio dealer's demo tinely specify exotic consumer amplifiers path through a pair of consoles of similar room are normally quite different from to power monitor loudspeakers, and the architecture but of different manufac- those that occur in a typical high-end hi- present concern with high -grade cabling turer? Where measurable differences ex- fi store. A recording or production engi- and hookups had its origins in the hi -fi ist, we would expect some listeners to neer is concerned with a large palette of hear differences some of the time. But, sound differences, beginning with micro- it is often surprising how much distortion phones and progressing on through may go undetected by many listeners on equalizers, limiters, compressors and, of certain types of music. course, consoles. While auditioning a It is a rare listener I will attempt to sort out myth and new piece of studio equipment, an engi- who will freely reality associated with sonic judgments neer is certainly concerned with what it admit that they hear of electronic hardware. sounds like; but he may also be as con- cerned with its no differences at all. reliability and stability The testing environment during a long tracking or remix session. Too often, power amplifiers may be When it comes to power amplifiers, en- compared under the most informal of gineers may be inclined to take matters conditions. In a typical dealer showroom, more or less on faith, feeling that the world. Certainly, we have witnessed the either professional or consumer, an unit's specifications pretty much tell all. impact of high -grade consumer loud- amplifier may be auditioned for 15 Or, they may feel that any sonic dif- speaker systems in classical recording. minutes. It is then removed and another ferences between amplifiers are a good amplifier put in its place. The listeners order of magnitude less than those result- Subjective differences usually know which amplifier is which, ing from microphone choice, micro- What about the differences reported to and often they will be virtually unani- phone placement and signal processing, exist between amplifiers having substan- mous in their judgments of sonic charac- and may thus be ignored. tially the same measured performance teristics. It is a rare listener who will On the other hand, the hi -fi specialist parameters? Does a $6,000 stereo ampli- freely admit that they hear no dif- store deals with a very simple transmis- fier necessarily sound better than a $600 ferences at all. sion chain, consisting basically of source, model? Controlled listening tests general- The problem is that there's often an pre -amp and power amplifier. It is worth ly lead to the conclusion that any dif- expectation that a certain model will noting, however, that many of the ferences are minimal -as long as both sound better -and so it will. Even the developments taking place in high -end amplifiers are operated below their clip- mere tactile aspects of an amplifier can consumer audio have found their way in- ping point. influence that expectation. Extra heft, Going beyond power amplifiers, what finely turned metal knobs, big handles, John Eargle is president of JME Consulting Corpora- sonic differences might exist between tion and a regular contributor to RE/P. meters and the like may all be calculated microphone pre -amps, or between a to produce this reaction.

68 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 AMPLIFIER INPUT A

AMPLIFIER B

X" IS EITHER AMPLIFIER A OR B O AUDITOR IS ASKED WHICH ONE IT IS.

SELECTION PROCEDURE

Figure 1. Double blind testing

STRAIGHT WIRE PORTION

LISTENING ROOM DRIVE AMP MONITOR LOUDSPEAKER AMPLIFIER PORTION

FINE ADJUST TEST AMPLIFIER REMOTE IDENTICAL LOUDSPEAKER (MUST BE INAUDIBLE IN LISTENING ROOM) COARSE ADJUST

Figure 2. Hafler's straight wire differential test.

Even when there is no particular ex- When he is ready for the actual trial, detect differences. a listening test, conducted by pectation, the first person to comment on he presses a button labeled X: X may be Such Clark and Ian Masters, was re- sonic differences in an articulate manner either A or B, and the auditor is asked to David in the January 1987 issue of tends to sway the whole group. determine which it is. After he makes his ported Review magazine. Five amplifiers The testing dilemma can be solved judgment, he goes on to the next trial. X Stereo were used, ranging from a low-cost re- through what are called "double- blind" is randomly varied between A and B so to a pair of highly regarded, ex- procedures. Neither auditors nor testers that the listener approches each trial ceiver tube amplifiers. Between know which of two amplifiers is playing fresh. The basic test setup is shown in pensive mono these extremes was at least one amplifier at the time of the trial. Auditors are Figure 1. in driving control-room merely asked to identify differences, not The key here is that the auditor is widely used A total of 25 preferences. For example, in a given listening for differences, not preferences. monitor loudspearkers. on an overall statistical basis, trial, an A -B switch is in the hands of an When levels are carefully matched be- auditors, to detect differences between the auditor. He is asked to switch back and tween amplifiers, and when the ampli- failed were carefully forth between the two amplifiers, noting fiers are operated within their linear amplifiers. The amplifiers linear limits, so that the any differences that may exist between power limits, then most auditors-skilled operated within of amplifier overload and re- A and B. as well as unskilled -fail to reliably nature

July 1987 Recording Engineer/Producer 69 covery were not apparent. RIAA filter so that the response of the ter? Double-blind testing would certainly While no single test is ever definitive phono section can be tested with an ex- determine that answer but, even on enough to make the sweeping statement ternal program source (not a vinyl disc). general principles, and in the absence of that nobody can reliably hear dif- Under these conditions, it may be possi- more compelling reasons, it is a good ferences -ever-note that the Stereo ble to identify slight variations in RIAA idea to bypass the Review unnecessary. evaluations are in accord with response of different pre -amps. Typical- double -blind tests that have taken place ly, gain is matched at 1kHz, and should a The elsewhere. critical loudspeaker - given pre -amp phono section exhibit a amplifier interface slight rise in its low- frequency boost (a In the double -blind amplifier tests men- not -uncommon occurence), then many tioned earlier, the loudspeakers used auditors will judge it as sounding presented a fairly smooth resistive load warmer. There is a tendency to to the amplifiers, making their job a bit In a typical recording studio evalua- easier. Conventional studio monitors "go with the crowd" and tion, microphone pre-amplifiers some- may be quite different. Because of their times can be hear things that are identified by the spectral relatively high efficiency, the unit's mo- characteristics not really there. of their noise floor, often tional impedance curve may show the ef- near a subliminal level, or by their fect of considerable load reactance. susceptibility to clipping at high mic in- At the AES Convention in Los Angeles put levels. (Both of these aspects were last Novemeber, Stanley P. Lipschitz and important in the tube-vs.- transistor com- John Vanderkooy presented What differences can be heard? a paper en- parisons made a few years ago.) Such titled "Computing peak currents into Any slight difference in gain setting be- problems as these are largely operational loudspeakers" (preprint number 2411). tween amplifiers A and B in a double - in nature, but they lend credence to the What they and others have noted is that blind test can be spotted easily by skilled belief that consoles can sound quite dif- under certain transient -drive conditions, auditors. Usually, the gain difference ferent from one another. a loudspeaker may actually present an may not be commented on for what it is; Another concern here is the effect of effective resistive load to an amplifier rather, the louder amplifier may be excessive signal transmission through a that may be less than one-half its steady judged as brighter, or having more particular console. Many engineers state impedance minimum value. detail. routinely switch out, or patch around, In particular, they measured a theater In double-blind tests of phono pre- any part of the console architecture not loudspeaker system with a rated im- amplifiers, it is common to use an inverse actually in use. Is the result audibly bet- pedance of 4f1. From their tests, they discovered that the LF section had an ac- tual minimum of 1.4811, while the HF sec- tion had an actual minimum of 2.4f1. This is the type of information that an engineering consultant laying out a mo- tion picture sound system should have access to, but which is not present on CAKE and any manufacturer's specification sheet.

PUNCH! In a typical recording studio evaluation, mic SERVODRIVE WISHES 1 pre -amps sometimes THE can 63 -YR. OLD VOICE -COIL be identified by the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" spectral characteristics The SDL subwoofers produce the most punch for their compact size. And, they deliver a solid, clean, of their noise floor. effortless sound that is unachievable with voice coil speakers. Consider the new Servo -Drive loudspeakers, While most featuring the powerful SDL -4 and SDL -5. We modern solid-state ampli- offer the best in bass for professional sound fiers may voltage clip rather gracefully, reinforcement, and the ultimate in low- frequency the onset of internal current limiting in reproduction. the amplifier may be quite audible. It is not uncommon to see bridged amplifiers which, on a voltage basis, may have a steady -state output capability of, say, 400W. Often, a 100W amplifier, if it has generous current capability, may actual- ly sound better and play louder -simply because it does not go into current - limiting mode as easily as another model. SERVODRIVE Bi- amplification is certainly the pre- ferred way to implement loudspeakers in INTERSONICS, a INC. 3453 Commercial Ave. Northbrook, IL 60062 312 - 272 -1772 control room, and it will minimize (but Circle (27) on Rapid Facts Card

70 Recording Engineer Producer July 1987 not get rid of) many of these problems. action, good or bad, is effectively elimi- Yet another recent paper draws atten- nated. What you hear out of the main Many engineers routinely tion to the audibility of amplifiers in a dif- loudspeaker, after the null setting has switch out, or patch ferent way. David Haller, writing in the been made, is simply the residual distor- February 1987 issue of Audio, describes tion and phase-amplitude anomalies pro- around any part of the under test. a method for "nulling out amp distor- duced by the amplifier console architecture is, tion." Again, this is a type of A -B test, Obviously, the better an amplifier hear out of the not actually in use. and is based on the premise that A and B the less sound you will that the are presented together and subtracted. main loudspeaker. Haller states What remains is simply the difference residual output from the loudspeaker general, these can be detected during im- between the two. In this particular test, a varies anywhere from sheer distortion clean ar- partial A -B testing, however difficult that comparison is made between an ampli- (with bad amplifiers) on up to amplitude may be to carry out. fier and a straight wire bypass around it. tifacts, due only to phase and The high -end hi -fi world has no Figure 2 shows the basic setup for such deviations in the test amplifier. are rather critical monopoly on dogmatism and the doc- a procedure. The main loudspeaker is Although these tests do trinaire. There are sonic high priests in located between the output of the driv- and demanding of careful setup, they that many places waiting to be defrocked. ing amplifier (the straight-wire portion of isolate the actual distortion products this There is a tendency to "go with the the setup) and the output of the amplifier may be generated by an amplifier. In ear resolu- crowd" and hear things that are not real- under test. Because the output of the sense, they offer a degree of discussed ly there. The best advice we have for any driving amplifier is common to both, its tion that the double-blind tests earlier simply cannot attain. It seems ob- engineer, experienced or new to the vious that this kind of testing is the way field, is to be unremittingly honest in all to go, as it will isolate differences be- listening tests. tween amplifiers well below the acuity of From time to time, all of us have had to equip- The better an amplifier even the best trained listeners. Those invest in certain pieces of new recording engineers interested in this ment merely to remain competitive in is, the less sound you testing method should study Hailer's arti- our trades. Sometimes the demand is is nothing will hear out of the cle in detail. genuine, and other times it Let us be main loudspeaker. As we have seen, there are many more than industry faddism. design that relate sure we know the difference. aspects of electronics RE IP to audibility, both subtle and bold. In

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Circle (29) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording Engineer/Producer 71 Studio Update

Northeast uses hard disk storage and downloads to Studio A features a Trident Series a 51/4 -inch floppy for transfer to another SOB console, Sony MCI /JH 24 -track Effanel Music (New York) has recently similarly equipped facility. Automation and Studer A810 2- track. Outboard expanded its remote recording services functions are handled at the console via gear includes a Lexicon 224X, Yamaha to include equipment and facilities rang- an infrared remote key control unit. 10 REV7, Eventide 1745M,and UREI ing from its compact portable multi -track George St., Wallingford, CT 06492; Cooper Time Cube. Monitors available system to a 45 -foot 18 -wheel mobile 203 -269-4465. include Yamaha NSIOMs and JBL recording 4435 studio. with Crown amps. The 3 -room mobile unit is equipped Dreamland Recording (Woodstock, Studio B features a Tascam M -520 with dual Otani MTR90/2 24 -track re- NY) has recently added keyboards in- console and a Tascam MS-16 16- track, corders, two Otani MTR -12 4 -track re- cluding a Steinway B and a Yamaha Studer A -62 2- track, Otani 5050 corders, a 40 -input Series 34 Sound DX -711 FD. 2- track, Tascam 44 4- track. Aurotones, Workshop console with an extensive Other new equipment includes three JBL 4411s and Yamaha NSIOms are patching system. stereo Drawmer DS201 gates, Tube also available. 14804 W. 117th St., The portable system can be set up in Tech PEIA, a Roland DEP5 and a Neu- Olathe, KS 66062; 913-829 -2727. the lounge of the mobile truck providing mann M40 mic. P.O. Box 383, Bears - two independent control rooms in one ville, NY 12409; 919- 338 -7151. unit. North Central Randy Ezratty, owner -engineer, says Midwest Royal Recorders (Lake Geneva, WI) re- he sees the new truck's lounge as an cently took delivery of a second Mita- overdub /MIDI room for location album Streeterville Studios (Chicago) has add- ubishi X -850 32 -track digital recorder. tracking projects. ed Bob Miller to its staff as engineer. He Locked with its identical predecessor, the Ezratty and his assistants have recently has worked at Universal and Genesis stu- new Mitsubishi will help provide a full 64 completed a 3 -week project with Paul Si- dios. 161 E. Grand, Chicago, IL 60611; tracks of digital recording capabilities. mon in Zimbabwe for the Graceland Live 312 - 644-1666. The studio has also added eight Neve concert video. They were contracted for Focusrite ISA 100 EQs for use with the 64- channel audio portion of the The Sound Factory (Olathe, KS) has re- their SSL console. Highway 50, Lake video. 66 Crosby St., 4B New York, NY cently updated their software library to Geneva, WI 53147; 414 -248-9100. 10012; 212-807 -1100. include Macintosh Plus with Southworth Total Music MIDI se- Southwest Stardust Recording Studio (Upper quencer SMPTE jam box, Digidesign Montclair, NJ) has recently installed a Soundesigner 2000, and soft synth and Omega Audio and Production (Dallas) Trident Series 24 console with 36 in- Opcode DX /TX. has become the first post -production puts and short loaded to 28 x 24 x 24. Also featured are a Yamaha QX -1 company in the Southwest to install the This is the first Series 24 console installed 8-track event MIDI sequencer, Emulator CMX CASS-I audio editing and console in a studio in the United States. 615 I 8-bit sampler, ESQ -1 digital synth with automation system. Valley Road, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043; 10k note MIDI sequencer. The CASS -1 computer aided sound 201- 746-2359.

39th Street Music Productions (New York) has recently taken delivery of two Timeline Lynx modules, Yamaha SPX -90 digital effects unit, Yamaha DX- 711FD synth, Yamaha 81Z and a Yamaha FB-01. 260 W. 39th St., 17th Floor, New York, NY 10018; 212- 840 -3285.

AudioLink (Boston) a 16-track audio post -production facility has added a Mac Plus computer running Performer and Sound Designer software. The facilty has also added to its Sound Ideas Series 1000 Compact Disc sound effects library with the purchase of the Series 2000 Compact Disc library of 22 new all digitally recorded Compact Discs. 1380 Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02135; 617 -783-0433.

Trod Nossel Recording Studios (Wall- ingford, CT) has recently added a Sony MXP 3036 console. It features a new Pictured ¡left to right! are Charles Pell, Stephen Potter, Rick Larson and Bruce Bell of Larson time code driven automation system that Technologies, Burbank, CA.

72 Recording Engineer-Producer July 1987 studio Update

Pictured in Studio Two of Metropolis Audio Pty. Ltd. are directors /left to right) John Norwood, Ernie Rose, Roger Savage, Ian 'Mack' McKenzie, Ian Robertson and Ted Gregory.

sweetening system is an integrated time England Gregory, general manager of code-based audio editing and console au- Metropolis, says, "Success in todays fast - tomation system that can simultaneously Tape One Studios (London) has added a moving music and sound recording in- control up to six audio tape recorders Neve DTC- 1 digital tape transfer console dustry is depending more and more on a and 15 additional sources, permitting to be used in conjunction with an AMS mixture of entrpreneurial flair and skill- precision mixing of an entire soundtrack. AudioFile digital random-access record- ed operators with the best facilities," he It can also automate 32 faders of a VCA ing and editing system. London, added, "they all have reputations in control console. 8036 Aviation Place, England. these fields which are second to none. Dallas, TX 75235; 214 -350 -9066. This venture affords them an opportuni- Battery Studios (London) has ordered a ty to share in the future of music record- 36- channel Mitsubishi Wastar console ing in Austrailia." Southern California equipped with Compumix PC automa- Over the years, the studio has re- tion for Studio 5. The new room is being corded acts such as David Bowie, Mike Craig Harris Music, (Studio City, CA) developed to house a synthesizer Brady, Joe Cocker, Men at Work, Leo has added a Massenberg EQ, a Roland package and will feature a Mitsubishi Sayer, John Farnham and the original MKS-20 digital piano module, and a X -850 PD- format digital 32 -track and a soundtrack score for the Australian film Yamaha SPX -90 to their facility. Fairlight Series III. 14/16 Chaplin Rd., Crocodile Dundee. The studio is a 24-track facility aug- London, England 01- 459 -8899. McKenzie, who won the 1974 "Engi- mented by a complete time code locked/ neer of the Year" award for Renee Gey- MIDI compatible Synclavier Digital Australia er's album It's a Man's, Man's World, has Music System and features a Sony recently worked on albums /singles for 5800 3 -inch and PCM FI, Lexicon AAV Australia (Victoria, Australia) has performers such as Pseudo-Echo, Kids in AMS and Drawmer gates. P.O. Box 110, announced a new joint venture with the Kitchen, Geisha, Little River Band North Hollywood, CA 91603 -0110; three of Australia's leaders in the record- and John Farnham. 818-508 -8000. ing industry. "Recording is a unique kind of business Roger Savage, former original part- and it's important that those in manage- Larson Technology (Burbank, CA) has ner in Bill Armstrong Studios (later to be- ment are actually involved in the record- purchased seven Otari MTR- 90011s come AAV Australia); Ernie Rose, man- ing process to understand the needs of a through Everything Audio. ager of Audio at AAV Australia and Ian studio. This formula worked at Platinum The facility specializes in audio post- "Mack" McKenzie, former manager of and I'm confident that it's going to be the production for the television and motion Platinum Studios and an original engi- same at Metropolis," McKenzie says. picture industries and provides ADR and neer with Bill Armstrong Studios are Future plans include rebuilding their Foley post- production capabilities, audio partners with AAV Australia in the new audio facilities, a refurbishment program and video transfer services, electronic venture called Metropolis Audio Pty. for Studio Five and adding new meeting sound effects editing for TV shows and a Ltd. and lounge areas. 180 Bank St., South systems design /fabrication division. Directors of metropolis will also in- Melbourne, Australia 3205; 03- 699 -1844. 4109 Burbank Blvd., Burbank, CA clude Ted Gregory, John Horwood 91505; 818 -845-4100. and Ian Robertson. R-1 t

July 1987 Recording EngineerProducer 73 New Products

Maxell R -120DM API model 3124 mie digital audio tape pre -amplifier The new R -DAT cassette features The new mic pre-amp comprises four gain control, LED metering, 20dB pad, durable magnet particles and binder sys- model 312 mie cards housed in a lU self- Jensen input transformers, and all -dis- tem to produce high output level, high powered unit. It features balanced XLR crete circuitry using the API model 2520 carrier to noise ratio and low dropouts, connections on the rear, unbalanced op -amp. the company claims. high '/ -inch inputs on the front panel, Circle (102) on Rapid Facts Card The R -120DM can record up to two hours of program material. The company is also introducing a PCM 1/4-inch tape available on 10- and 7 -inch reels. Circle (81) on Rapid Facts Card

Pristine Systems Sound Manager software for CD libraries The software allows the user to find and play any CD music cue or sound ef- Richmond Sound Design Cetec Vega model R -33 fect in a sound library within seconds, Command /Cue 4096 console wireless mic system the company claims. The computer -controlled console is The new portable wireless transmitter designed Other features include the ability to for theater sound and features can be mounted on a camera, sound cart, locate and retrieve sound effects and levels and routing control for up to 4096 shirt pocket or belt. faders. music cues using the Sony CKD-006 The receiver is designed for applica- multiple disc CD changer. The unit can be configured into differ- tions requiring ultra -portable equipment, ent formats The software runs on an IBM -PC and to handle various sound -ef- such as field TV and film production; compatibles. fects matrix systems. It can also be used camera -mounted ENG wireless; and with live PA Circle (86) on Rapid Facts Card mixers running mies while sound-system feeds to roaming cameras the computer is handling taped effects and recorders. and automating level control. The R -33 Pro Plus can run up to eight Circle (101) on Rapid Facts Card hours on a 9V battery. Signal -to-noise ra- tio and dynamic range are a quoted Forat Electronics F16 JL Cooper PPS -1 104dB. sampling drum computer sync box Circle (90) on Rapid Facts Card Based on 16-bit digital sampling tech- Designed to allow MIDI syncing be- nology, each of the unit's 16 voices has tween multitrack machines and equip- independent tuning, volume and pan ment that can respond to Song Position Community Light and Sound controls, and is available through direct Pointer, the PPS-1 converts MIDI sync to CS60B sub -woofer loudspeaker outputs or a built -in stereo mixer. Sounds an FSK sync tone that is used to stripe The new base reflex loudspeaker fea- are stored on a built floppy -in disk drive. the tape. tures four proprietary ferro-fluid cooled Each sound comprises 500,000 bytes of MIDI Song Position Pointer enables the 15 -inch drivers and a large ducted port. data, which provides individual samples unit to "chase" tape and eliminates the Operating frequencies are a quoted of up to six seconds at full audio band- need to return to the start of the tape 35Hz- 800Hz; power handling capacity is width, or 25 seconds with reduced HF when corrections or overdubs are made. rated at 600W rms/ 1.5kw program, with response. Circle (97) on Rapid Facts Card a maximum SPL of 132dB measured at Circle (106) on Rapid Facts Card 1W, lm. The cabinet also features an internal 150Hz crossover network with dual high - pass output jacks. Circle (111) on Rapid Facts Card

Shure model 839 condenser lavalier mic The lavalier mic features a wide -range frequency response tailored for lavalier operation, low distortion and low RF susceptibility. The model 839 can be used with either battery or phantom power. Circle (109) on Rapid Facts Card

74 Recording Engineer Producer July 1987 New Products Gold Line ASA 30B real -time analyzer The new third -octave analyzer fea- tures 30 hands on standard ISO centers, a built -in microphone SPL reading from 30dB -123dB and external line input lev- els of -85dBm to +4dBm. Circle (103) on Rapid Facts Card

Soundcraft Series 200BVE production console The new mixer is designed with an op- tional linear cross -fade depth control, for linking to external video editors to pro- vide automated level control during assembly editing of audio material to picture. Three types of input modules are avail- able, including a mono input with 4 -band, fixed frequency equalizer; a mono input with a 4 -band equalizer and variable frequency of the two mid -bands; and a stereo input module with 4 -hand fixed frequency EQ. Frame sizes accommodate 8, 16, 24 or 32 channels. Circle (107) on Rapid Facts Card

FATIGUED The Mic Preamp by you've been wishing for DIGITAL? is here!

45 4B 4221 24 21 3051 3 3918 33" 365, 3615 Gi ÿ 9ÉV n 3960 3312y GAIN 167f#7111#"1 d nidrlii a Ll tl' e:. - Commercial digital multi track 2.5kHz square wave response of 3 channels cascaded with standard anti- aliasing filters (top) and Apogee The M -1 Mic Preamp linear phase filters (bottom) The John Hardy Company M -1 Mic Preamp gives you superior Whether your digital system is quality of sound at a very affordable price. Features include: tape or tapeless the sound you hear is 990 discrete op -amp colored by harmonic dispersion in your Jensen JE -16 -B mic input transformer existing low pass filters. DC servo circuitry Retrofit the Apogee linear phase pin -compatible filters in your digital machine and hear the difference. THE JOHN HARDY COMPANY For more information The Manufacturer of High- Quality Audio Equipment call or write: APOGEE P.O. Box AA631 (312) 864 -8060 TELEX: 910- 380 -4670 ELECTRONICS CORPORATION Evanston. IL 60204 (JOHN HARDY CO) yO40,1 213)828 -197,.

Circle (34) on Rapid Facts Card Circle (35) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording Engineer/Producer 75 New Products

Garfield BGW model GTA Time Commander real-time 48, 96 and 384 ppqn clocks. The unit also amplifier clock and synchronizer features zero to eight beat and adjustable The modular unit, which is designed The unit syncs to live input, such as count in or manual cueing, on beat for live- performance and touring applica- MIDI note data, and provides seven si- punch -in /out, real -time adjustment of tions. features low feedback circuitry, multaneous sync outputs. lead/lag and a SMPTE /MIDI Time Code built-in dc speaker protection and over- An input source control selects sync to option. sized indicators. 24 or 48 ppqn clocks. Outputs include 24, Circle (117) on Rapid Facts Card Each input features XLR balanced con- nections and two 1/4-inch TRS phone jacks. Front -panel controls comprise de- tented gain controls with 41 steps for each channel. Circle (104) on Rapid Facts Card

lmn.M/r/ Ir/wii ; Law Commander 4 5

11111 00011

AKG Acoustics V3.0 software Aphex Type E for the ADR-68K Aural Exciter effects processor The new unit is designed for portable The new software provides five new stage and studio use. Instruments or mies programs including Dual Digital Delay can be plugged directly into the Type E, Lines, Multi -Tap Stereo Processing, Multi - negating the need for a dedicated pre- Effects, Poly Chorus and Stereo Sampling. amp or mixers. Also featured are MIDI preset send and The Type E can also serve as a low - receive, 100 factory presets, a register noise, pre -amp and direct box, the com- recall function and a mode for comput- pany claims. ing delay time in terms of beats per min- Circle (110) on Rapid Facts Card ute and note value. Circle (113) on Rapid Facts Card

Shure FP51 gated compressor -mixer The new device combines a gated The FP5I also features four transfor- memory compressor with a 4- input/ mer- coupled XLR inputs and one output. mono mic mixer in a portable unit. each switchable for mic- or line-level op- Community Light and Sound The unit provides a 40dB compression eration. It features phantom power plus a CS52 3 -way cabinet range with a compression ratio of ap- built -in oscillator for line or level checks. The unit has a quoted bandwidth of proximately 10:1 in normal operating Circle (105) on Rapid Facts Card 40Hz -20kHz and uniform wide -angle dis- range. persion, an extended frequency range, and a coherent wavefront design, the company says. Midrange frequencies are handled by a 61/2cinch cone drive coupled to a short compound horn. High frequencies are handled by a PZT driver mounted on a wide -angle pattern control horn. The unit uses a fuseless protection cir-

MVO. cuit to guard against excessive input á ,,, . .11.0 levels. ,s. ONIC m....Q 04110 atn Circle (115) on Rapid Facts Card

76 Recording Engineer, Producer July 1987 New Products

Ross Systems Hurricane H218CD is designed as a single- cabinet speaker systems sound system that features dual LF18 The new speaker system series can be drivers, dual HF01 high- frequency con- bi- amplified and features caster sockets, stant directivity horns. stacking corners, edge extrusions and Circle (116) on Rapid Facts Card heavy -gauge expanded steel grills. A computer- optimized crossover working at 300Hz and 4kHz was developed for each model. HF01 constant directivity mid -horn covers the range from 300Hz -4kHz and is said to eliminate crossover distortion, phase cancellation, and horn throat distortion. H 115CD is designed for high SPLs in a limited space or as close -field stage mon- itors. The 3 -way system provides vocal projection and full -range response, the company says. H118CD is designed for high SPLs with extended base response. Frequency re- sponse is a quoted 40Hz- 18.5kHz, ±4dB. H215CD is designed for high SPLs and extended low- frequency response. Fre- quency response is a quoted 37Hz- 18.5kHz, ±4dB.

AFFORDABLE RELIABLE TIME CODE: $625 For Film and Video Production HOLDS up ON THE ROAD

TYPE 85 FET DIRECT BOX AMP. INST. PICKUP

ef/ r -. ! INPUT r

SPEAKER

:4(00.4r COUNTRYMAN ASSOCIATES INC. 424 STANFORD AVE -- REDWOOD CITY, CA.- 94063-PHONC 415-364 -9966

Circle (36) on Rapid Facts Card Circle (37) on Rapid Facts Card July 1987 Recording Engineer/Producer 77 New Products

Kurzweil Applied Creative Technology Sound & Vision Sound Modeling program for K150 DB8 direct box MICRO 1 tape controller The new program allows the user to The 8- channel transformerless DI box The new unit features direct search-to- design new sounds for the 150FS synthe- is designed for drum machines and key- cue, auto punch in /out, tape and record sizer using an Apple Ile PC. boards, and features line-level, high -im- loop with pre -roll, rehearse mode with Frequency and amplitude envelope of pedance unbalanced inputs and mic -lev- pre -roll and cue tone output. up to 64 partials per sound model may be el, low- impedance balanced outputs. Also featured is shuttle speed, digital designed in data table or graphic display Frequency response is a quoted 10Hz read out, full transport controls and trig- form. to 25kHz, +0.2dB, and maximum input ger out. The program requires Version 1.6 soft- level + 10.5dB. Red LED clipping indicat- Circle (114) on Rapid Facts Card ware for the K150FS synthesizer. ors are provided for each channel. Circle (112) on Rapid Facts Card Circle (118) on Rapid Facts Card

E -mu Systems Emax rack digital sampler The Emax Rack Digital sampler is a rack -mountable version of the Emax, a digital sampling keyboard. The unit can add power to MIDI keyboard -based ver- sions and offers sampling via a MIDI - equipped guitar. The unit features MIDI Overflow Mode and multi -timbral capabilities make it suitable for MIDI keyboard and sequenc- ing setups. Circle (100) on Rapid Facts Card

A

coming in August: RecENGINEER /PRODUCER

Microphones and Current Developments in Studio Selecting and Using a Production Monitor Designs Music Library Monitors Looks at the principles of design in moni- Here's an "insider's view" of how to se- toring systems, and shows how systems lect and use music libraries for video Stereo Microphone Evaluations: may develop in the future. sweetening and film post -production. An Overview of Techniques and Subjective Assessments Discusses stereo micing techniques, and analyzes the differences between profes- Other Features sional microphones. Time Code Applications for Plus our regular departments Microphone Principles and Recording and Production Applications Engineers Managing MIDI Details the basic types of microphones, Covers the effective uses -and pitfalls - Sound on the Road how they function, and how to select the of time code in recording and production Film Sound Today best mic for the sound source. facilities. Living with Technology SPARS On -Line A Re- Evaluation of Ribbon Advertising and Promotion News and People Microphones Principles Letters to the Editor Discusses the myths about ribbon mics- Shows recording and production studios Studio Update including their supposed fragility and how to set up a public relations program New Products sensitivity to handling noise. or ad campaign.

78 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 MIN

HELP WANTED THE MOST COMPLETE Classified SELECTION OF STUDIO MANAGER Sound Recording Technology Facilities Advertising rates in Classified Section A full -time, (12 month) position as Studio Manager (including maintenance/produc - are: tion) for Sound Recording Technology facilities used by established (75 Majors) audio TEST $1.00 per word per insertion. Initials and baccalaureate level program. Possibility of abbreviations count as full words. limited instructional duties associated "Blind" ads $25.00 additional. Minimum with the Sound Recording Program and /or classified charge $20.00. Classified is responsibilities associated with develop- TAPES also available at $112 per inch. Order ment /maintenance of Electronic Music must be accompanied by payment to en- Studios. Teaching experience and degrees All formata including cassettes preferred with background in sure publication. substantial professional recording. Strong experience Write or phone for free catalog Classified columns are not open to and knowledge in production, studio pro- advertising of any products regularly cedures, with specialty in audio mainte- nance is required. Grade and salary depen- produced by manufacturers unless used dent upon qualifications and background. oro and no longer owned by the manufac- Forward letter of application, support STANDARD TAPE LABORATORY, INC. turer or distributor. materials and placement files to: 26120 Eden Landing Road at5. Hayward, CA 94545 Classified Advertising should be sent Director, School of Music to RE /P, Advertising Department, 9221 SUNY at Fredonia, NY 14063 14151 786 -3546 Quivira Rd., Shawnee Mission, KS 66215. Women & Minorities are encouraged to apply. Circle (39) on Rapid Facts Card

FOR SALE VIDEO SWEETG ENG: exp'd with 24trk + automated console, knowledge of sampling sys., digital efx. computerized edit controller, SMPTE FOR SALE, working audio studio components. xfers. Asst. Maint. Tech/Trainee: self motivated, Knabe piano. 8 track and 4 track Scullys, 2 track basic elect. good soldering skills, interested in MCIs. microphones, and outboard audio and audio /video. Audio/Mag Xfer Eng: quality control b4lb tech, energetic, willing to work flex. hours. Send AUDIO CONNECTORS JACK PANELS video equipment. Call 212. 333.3621 for complete ,PrewuPd list. 5-87,31 Resumes: Sound Services, 7155 Santa Monica Blvd.. LA, Ca. 90046 Attn. Don Schlegel. 7.87.lt available, 24 TRACKS -519,800 That's no misprint, that's your total price for a brand-new 24 track deck! The ACES Co. of England makes a complete line of studio gear, built to rugged, top -quality standards, all available at unheard of prices. 32 input in -line console, $13,780! This board has all the features MULTISWITCH° SWITCHES right price. Why even consider semi -pro or at the The one -stop source for all your electro- when you can have used 24 track equipment, mechanical npvds Standard and custom brand-new, full featured gear, all with a 2 YEAR F available WARRANTY! Call or write, and find out how. YOU assemblies CAN GO 24-TRACK TODAY! FACTORY DISTRIBU- PRO SOUND TOR, ROCK STUDIO SUPPLY. Box 5997, Norman, 13717 So Normandie Ave Gardena CA 90249 12131 770 2330 Outside CA Cali Tou Free 18001 471 2471 OK 73070. (405)329.8431 2-87-6t IN OUR CONTINUING EFFORTS Circle (40) on Rapid Facts Card MCI 636 CONSOLE 36X24 Automation, Mic Pat- ching, Plasma PK Meters $32,000. 2 -JBL -4430 TO SERVE YOU... Monitors w15234 Crossover $1,900. McIntosh MC 2500 Power Amp $2,000. Call Eric Pilhofer (6121 From time to time, Intertec Pub- 374-2690. 7.87.1t lishing Corp. makes its subscrib- er lists available to carefully Sound Off FOR SALE: BTX SHADOW4700 w /Cipher reader screened companies or organiza- generator $6.000. DBX900 Rack w/3.903. 3,904, 3. TwoWcays 905, $2250. REVOX A -700 $1,000. TEAC Model 5 tions whose products, services. or in- $700. Call Joel: Days (914) 338.7151. 7-87-1t formation may be of interest to you. For Studio Demos or Retail Sales In every case, list users must submit SOUNDSHEETS: Flexible vinyl discs their promotional material for ap- sound great, won't break! proval. They may use the list only UDI() CASSETTES: Send for your MISCELLANEOUS free "Cassette Tall:" neocsletter complete once. kith latest Prices.

wTD TO LL FREE 1 800 EVA TONE FL USED PROFESSIONAL RECORDING EQUIP- No information other than name and EG Y' P 0 8' 7020 R C..arnair 33518 MENT: Buy. Sell, Trade. DAN ALEXANDER AUDIO, is although address ever divulged. Circle (41) on Rapid Facts Card Phone 415 -474 -1625 or 213 -466 -0472. 7 -87 -31 names may be selected by segments to which the particular offer might FREE CATALOG: Institute of Audio -Video appeal. Engineering, 1831 Hyperion, (RP), Hollywood, CA (800) 551-8877 or (213) 90027. Recording School. We that the majority of 666 -2380. Approved for International Students. are confident High Performance Employers: Call for Employees /Interns. 3-87 -61 our readers appreciate this con- trolled use of our mailing lists. A few Audio Transformers! people may prefer their names not be Wide bandwidth Low hysteresis distortion BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES used. Flat group delay No overshoot or ringing Call for free applications assistance MOBILE SOUND/CONCERT REINFORCEMENT If you wish to have your name re- (Mon -Thurs, 9am -5pm Pacific time) BUSINESS. Colorado Location. Established client moved from any lists that we make base. $27k includes all equip.. vehicle. contracts to others, please send your thru 2/88, 8 more. Write: Brochure, Box 1292. available Frisco, CO 80443. 7.87 -1t request, together with your mailing jensen transformers address label to: INCORPORATED SOUND REINFORCEMENT COMPANY with ex- cellent location, reputation, equipment. and Direct Mail Mgr. 10735 Burbank Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601 steady financial growth seeks qualified buyer. Intertec Publishing Corp. Phone (213) 876 -0059 Staff will stay. Recording Engineer/Producer. P.O. P.O. 12901, TELEX via WUI 6502919207 MCI UW Box 12901, Dept. 501, Overland Park, KS 66212. Box 7-87-1t Overland Park. KS 66212 Circle (42) on Rapid Facts Card

July 1987 Recording Engineer/Producer 79 Advertiser's index Rapid Rapid Page Facts Advertiser Page Facts Advertiser Number Number Hotline Number Number Hotline Alesis Corp. 15 9 Klark -Teknik Electronics Inc. 11 7 516/249 -3660 Allen & Heath Brenell IBC 2 203/795-3594 Korg USA 9 6 Alpha Audio 50 33 804/358 -3852 Kurzweil Music Systems, Amek Systems & Controls Inc. 55 26 Ltd. 13 8 818/508 -9788 Lexicon, Inc. 63 38 617/891 -6790 Ampex Corp. 41 22 415/367-3809 M M M 18 -19 11 Apogee Electronics Corporation 75 34 213/828 -1930 Manny's Music 50 32 212/819 -0576 Audio -Technica U.S., Inc. 51 30 216/686 -2600 Musically Intelligent Devices Bacon, Kenneth Assoc. 23 13 800/231 -TAPE Inc. 67 28 516/864 -1683

Circuit Research Labs Inc 61 25 602/438 -0888 Neotek Corp. 33 17 312/929 -6699

Countryman Associates 77 37 415/364-9988 New England Digital 47 24 802/295 -5800 Denecke Inc. 77 36 818/766 -3525 Otari Corp. 3 4 415/592 -8311 Electro- Voice, Inc 29 15 Pro Sound 79 40 800/421 -2471 Ensoniq Corp. 39 21 800/553-5151 Rane Corp. 21 12 206/774 -7309 Eva -Tone Inc. 79 41 ....800 /EVA -TONE Solid State Logic 5 212/315-1111 Fairlight Instruments IFC -1 1 213/470 -6280 Soundmaster Intl. 53 31 416/741 -4034 FM -Tube Craft Support Systems Inc. 17 10 516/567-8588 Soundtracs, Inc. 27 14 203/348 -2121

Future Disc Systems 37 19 213/876 -8733 Standard Tape Laboratory, Inc. 79 39 415/786 -3546 Hardy Co. 75 35 312/864 -8060 Studer Revox /America BC 3 615/254 -5651 Intersonics 70 27 312/272-1772 TASCAM Div. /Teac Jensen Transformers 79 42 213/876 -0059 Corp 7 5 213/726 -0303

JRF Magnetic Sciences, Inc 71 29 201/579-5773 Thermodyne International Ltd. 43 23 213/603 -1976 Kahler Div. of APM 31 16 Yamaha Intl. KCC Audio /Video 37 20 212/228 -3063 Corp 35 18

NEW YORK, NY NORWOOD, AUSTRALIA sales Offices .Stun Kushine Hastwell, Williamson 212 -702 -3401 Rouse Pty. Ltd. 29th Fluor P.O. Box 419 866 Third Ave. Norwood, Australia New York, NY 10022 Telephone: 332 -3322 OVERLAND PARK, KS SANTA MONICA, CA Telex: AA87113 Mary Tracy Herbert A. Schiff LONDON, ENGLAND 913- 541 -6637 or 213- 393 -9285 Nicholas McGeachin TOKYO, JAPAN 913 -888 -4664 Jusun Perlman Roseleigh House Haruki Hirayama P.O. Box 12901 213- 458 -9987 New Street EMS, Inc. Overland Park, KS 66212 Chris Woodbury Deddington, Oxford Sagami Bldg., 4 -2 -21, Shinjuku, Telex: 42 -4256 I ntertec OLPK 213 -451 -8695 OX5 4SP England Shinjuku -ku, Tokyo 160 Schiff & Associates Telefax: (0869) 38040 (03) 350 -5666 501 Santa Monica Blvd. Telephone: (0869) 38794 Cable: EMSINCPERIOD Santa Monica, CA 90401 Telex 837469 BES G Telex: 2322520 EMSINCJ

80 Recording Engineer/Producer July 1987 Designed for the Working Professional! Performance The Sigma Series offers you the Sigma will satisfy your Current and Maximum Flexibility, in layout and Future needs in 16, 24 and 32 track design features that reflect the evolution recording as well as MIDI First of Sigma Engineering. Generation Recording and Sound Built to the Highest Standards, to Reinforcement Applications. which AHB has established its reputation For more detailed information on the on... for over 14 years. New AFIB Sigma Console, Contact your Authorized AHB Dealer Today.

f bPfMfLL U.S.A. Allen & Heath Brenell (USA) Ltd. Five Connair Road Orange, CT 06477 / (203) 795 -3594 U.K. Allen & Heath Brenell Ltd. 69 Ship St. Brighton, BNl IAE England Tel. (0273) 24928 / Telex 878235 j!- /. r . J I ILI. CANADA: a 11, .. GerrAudio,Toronto e " . `. 361 -1667 101 , (416) e . é . J ' y "P. ° e e ' - d - . d e 4, > r.i: . _ me- - e e / . r ¡y3l/ ° `'" . - . e .... e :.r << i . . . 4 s..*#.0-'ss e . - >> j ', . 4. l w a ¡ . : . .., <' ír . r .% fj> ` r w: ' .. .. / I / y/'Ti: .0040. /. t../ .//' //./--///////// /// / 74 /44 // 40111. . / /J /i/ // J0010 - /%/J / ~% / - / // //// i "a. // 4 . . i / 471011" - / 'Ì ,.'4I,;:, Sr;; /// i ' / .4" " j/ ///// / 444./..., //// 400.:11, Q, < //ÿ ./4 /// // 0.0. ". / /".,/ / / . / ' ' - ' / _ ' ' . Af*\or s - O ` ¡ 4 Mr. - .r; - . ' , - /i - i / `.. o . ; i / '._ ifr, j"0±y i- ,/ r "í . / /s / '52> // \= . . // / - _ /;//4;,.. .4/ // . - ,- / ` . / / 'ti/ '/ i- / o": / « / 472- -. / / /_ i// / í/ !/i//./ y /. / r / % ./.-,/%"'/ / o i/. ....,, ...4.'": .. " " // '/ / / /.. ."//. .. - / Every Bit a Studer

_ntrodicing the D820X DASH Format Digital Audio Recorder

The wait is over. Digital has fina ly- enterec the Studer era. For over 35 years, Studer has concentratEd exclusively 3n one goal: designing and manufacturing the world's finest audio production equip- ment. So when it comes down to hat professionals want. Studer delivers. The D820X is no exception. Listen to it- carefully! You'll hear flaw- less sonic resolution, thanks to proprietary digital processing circuits and uncompromising analog input /output electronics. Then do a razor -blade edit. Feel how the controls shuttle tape with STUDER effortless precision. Note how the meter overbridge panel provides com- prehensive control of all operating modes and level adjustments. STUDER REVOX AMERICA. INC. 1425 Elm Hi!I Pike, Nashville, TN 37210 Finally, tilt up the transport to examine construction and craftsman- (615) 254 -5651 ship. No other digital recorder can match what you'll see. Offices: Los Angeles (818) 780 -4234 The D820X is built to last. It's every bit a Studer. New York (212) 255 -4462 Chicago (312) 526 -1660 Dallas (214) 943-2239 Robust Twin -DASH format at 15 ips 14" reel capacity PWM auxiliary tracks with config- San Francisco (415) 930-9866 uration for CD subcode mastering data Fully programmable operating keys Service diag- nostic displays Internal operating system provides RS232 access to transport and digital audio operations.

Circle (3) on Rapid Facts Cani