AUDIO FOR POST, BROADCAST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION V7.4 MAY/JUNE 2008 The Trevor Horn interview Le Voyageur is back on the road Getting studio foldback right Are downloads leading to a classical revival? Dominique Blanc-Francard and a room of his own Cornering feature fi lm dubbing at Moscow’s Pythagor REVIEWS: Josephson C720 • Grace Design m802 • M-Audio ProFire 2626 Sonifex RM-4-C8 • Gyraf XIV • IK Multimedia ARC • Sonnox SuprEsser AUDIO FOR POST, BROADCAST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION Designed to Adapt V7.4 MAY/JUNE 2008 ISSN 1477-4216 Like Nature, Genelec DSP series products have the advanced News & Analysis ability to adapt to their environment. To solve challenging acoustic issues associated with smaller working environments Genelec introduces the new SE (Small Environment) Craft DSP System. With it, the new SE7261A 10'' DSP subwoofer provides connectivity for up to eight 8130A digital bi-amp monitors. Newly designed GLM.SE software provides computer control of all essential monitoring functions. Genelec AutoCal™ optimizes equalization, level and distance compensation through the SE7261A low-pass/hi-pass outputs to quickly adapt the subwoofer and each loudspeaker to its immediate environment, even in multiple locations. Genelec’s pioneering work in measuring and calibrating customer systems worldwide Business using our proprietary Room Response Controls led us to develop our new range of DSP monitors, bringing more flexibility and accuracy for our customers. The Genelec SE System brings your listening Technology confidence to professional levels, and provides the most natural and accurate audio monitoring to today’s smaller environments. Reviews EDITORIAL ADVERTISEMENT SALES PRODUCTION AND LAYOUT Editorial Director: Zenon Schoepe EUROPE: Clare Sturzaker, tel: +44 1342 717459 Dean Cook, Tel: +44 1444 410675 Email: [email protected] Magazine Production Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 1273 467579 Editorial office: PO Box 531, EUROPE: Lynn Neil, tel: +44 208 123 5040 Email: [email protected] Haywards Heath RH16 4WD, UK Email: [email protected] Contributors: Rob James, George Shilling, Jon Thornton, www.genelec.com Keith Holland, Keith Spencer-Allen, Neil Hillman, Nigel Jopson, US: Jeff Turner, tel: +1 415 455 8301 Andy Day, Philip Newell, Bob Katz, Dan Daley, John Watkinson Email: [email protected] AUDIO FOR POST, BROADCAST, RECORDING AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION V7.4 MAY/JUNE 2008 ISSN 1477-4216 News & Analysis 6 Leader 16 Products New introductions and announcements. 6 News 74 Headroom Sales, contracts, appointments Notes on notes and praise for a leader. and biz bites. Craft 14 Le Voyageur V1 mkII 50 Sweet Spot V1 is back on the road. We report on The owner of Ireland’s new international- nine months restoring one of the world’s grade studio explains the arrival process. biggest and best mobiles. 52 NFTS — educating for sound 38 Trevor Horn Factoring in time for training in your He defi ned what it was to be a record busy and successful post sound career producer in the 80s and pioneered the can be useful. production methods in use today. 58 Getting foldback right 42 Dominique Blanc-Francard Musicians who can’t hear themselves A leading player in French recording is a clearly can’t perform at their best. survivor and an inspiration. 62 Ten 46 Cameron Craig US recording centres. As happy to grunge up a drum loop as record an orchestra, he’s won a Grammy 64 Pythagor for his efforts. We visit a Moscow post house that has cornered feature dubbing in Russia. Business 54 Classical on an up 72 Your business Recent data suggests that downloads are Live Nation — the son of Clear Channel leading to a classical revival. has potential to do good or not. Technology 68 Lawo mc256 70 Slaying Dragons The addition of it latest and smallest Air movement and wind instruments desk gives Lawo access to a new — Watkinson muses. broadcasting model. Reviews 22 Grace m802 30 IK Multimedia ARC 24 Gyraf Gyratec XIV 32 Sonifex RM-4-C8 26 Josephson C720 34 Sonnox Oxford SuprEsser 28 M-Audio ProFire 2626 36 Holophone H4 Supermini EDITORIAL ADVERTISEMENT SALES PRODUCTION AND LAYOUT Editorial Director: Zenon Schoepe EUROPE: Clare Sturzaker, tel: +44 1342 717459 Dean Cook, Tel: +44 1444 410675 Email: [email protected] Magazine Production Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 1273 467579 Editorial offi ce: PO Box 531, EUROPE: Lynn Neil, tel: +44 208 123 5040 Email: [email protected] Haywards Heath RH16 4WD, UK Email: [email protected] Contributors: Rob James, George Shilling, Jon Thornton, Keith Holland, Keith Spencer-Allen, Neil Hillman, Nigel Jopson, US: Jeff Turner, tel: +1 415 455 8301 Andy Day, Philip Newell, Bob Katz, Dan Daley, John Watkinson Email: [email protected] newsnews Appointments PLASA gains awarding Talk of world body status EMERGING LTD, Leader e c o n o m i c The Qualifications and Curriculum the sales, service and migrations, globalisation of trade and Authority (QCA) in the UK has announced support company the changing dynamic of employment that PLASA is the first trade association b e h i n d M e r g i n g is nothing new for us in the professional to become an awarding body in the Technologies in the UK, audio business. The sheer compact entertainment, conference, architectural has expanded its team nature of our customer base has meant and communications industries. by taking on Kevin that most manufacturers have been PLASA’s accreditation is part of an McCue as product specialist for Pyramix winning export awards for years and initiative designed to allow the national and VCube. He was formerly a dubbing have been looking carefully at what qualifications system to recognise the assistant at Twickenham Film Studios. they make and how they make it. I specific needs of SMEs and larger regard the Scotch Whisky industry as a organisations across the industry. It KMR AUDIO Ltd has announced an glowing example of how you can make means that PLASA now shares the same Audio for Education service with a a market your own and exploit and status as other awarding bodies, such dedicated brochure and department protect it and still retain strong quality as City & Guilds and Edexcel, and all within the company aimed at serving brand images alongside more populist future qualifications developed by the educational community. KMR have concoctions for livers like mine. It is the organisation can be submitted for taken on Gavin Beckwith to head up the the content that sells here, just as it National Accreditation. new department. is the content from all those budding Mozarts and Zappas, who use the gear that our manufacturers make, that fi lls the vats and is drawn off and sold as the music we buy. But if you look at the lot of the modern music content creator today then it’s really not that brilliant. If you go back to the very beginning of the Six Decades of Musical Man — let’s say 1948 for purposes of convenience — you arrive at a time when popular music hadn’t really caught on. People enjoyed their music but it was through the radio, • According to the organisers, the PLASA08 performance or from even singing around the piano; but they didn’t consume exhibition is on course to break all records it. If you leap forward in ten year jumps you see popularisation, an increasing with a worldwide visitor preregistration association with youth and fashion, and a commendable rise in recorded sales offer attracting ‘an unprecedented’ 7,000 alongside good live appearance money. By the 1970s it’s exceeding the excesses visitors to register online. More than 85% of Pompeii. After the new broom of the New Wave the live context began to of PLASA08’s exhibitor space had been wane and the model shifted to primary income through record release. The world confi rmed by February, a record fi gure in fi lled with musicians who spent their time making records they hoped would sell the event’s 31-year history. FOCAL PROFESSIONAL monitors are lots and who had little interest in playing live. The gradual downturn in recorded now being distributed in the UK by SCV sales that followed over the next couple of decades was inevitable because D&M Holdings buys London. consumers weren’t being offered a high value package and the structure wasn’t Allen & Heath there to rebalance income for the musician across a variety of sources. D&M Holdings has bought UK console NAMM, THE US trade association You could no longer take a band on the road and build it up because you’d manufacturer Allen & Heath. of the international music products die trying. No one would have signed Messers Zeppelin if they’d arrived from ‘The acquisition of Allen & Heath is industry, has established NAMM the late 1980s onwards — ironic really when you consider just how much current a strong complement to our Calrec and International, LLC, a new branch of live performance trades on the old days. they’re now selling nostalgia and it’s D&M Pro brands,’ said chairman and CEO the association that will service the not all good memories. Eric Evans. ‘This acquisition broadens our needs of Members abroad, which now And what of our content-providing musician today? He won’t get much of product offerings to our longstanding DJ make up 23% of NAMM’s membership. an advance, certainly no multi-album deal, but he has the prospect of gigging customer base and expands our business Betty Heywood, NAMM’s director in order to create a community that he can sell his mp3s and T-shirts to direct. If in the professional market into installed of international affairs, will oversee he’s really lucky he might record a song that is used in a fi lm or an ad.