REPORT REVIEWS REVEALED / Plug-ins: Hybrid platforms / JZ Mics: BB29 Signature / Rob Bridgett: sound-savvy game design / Sound libraries: crowdsourcing issues / UAD: API Console for Luna / Stephen Baysted: Project Cars 3 / New products: all the latest / Empire Ears: ESR mkII / Meet Your Maker: KRK and the future V21.4 | August 2021 | £5.50 The Interview Garry Cobain Unleash your creativity Introducing GLM 4.1 loudspeaker manager software For 15 years, GLM software has worked with our Smart Active Monitors to minimise the unwanted acoustic influences of your room and help your mixes sound great, everywhere. Now, GLM 4.1 includes the next generation AutoCal 2 calibration algorithm and a host of new features – delivering a much faster calibration time and an even more precise frequency response. So, wherever you choose to work, GLM 4.1 will unleash your creativity, and help you produce mixes that translate consistently to other rooms and playback systems. And with GLM 4.1, both your monitoring system and your listening skills have room to develop and grow naturally too. Find out more at www.genelec.com/glm / Contents 20 V21.4 | August 2021 News & Analysis 5 Leader 6 News 12 New Products Featuring API, SSL, Cedar, Heritage Audio, KRK and more Columns 14 Crosstalk Rob Speight looks at problems with crowdsourced sound libraries, their metadata, and the benefits of the UCS filename protocol Craft 20 Garry Cobain One half of The Amorphous Androgynous (and previously Garry Cobain Future Sound of London) talks about creating their sprawling psyche-tinged, Floyd-esque LP We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal and his adventures in attempting to produce Noel Gallagher 26 Rob Bridgett A leading practitioner in sound design for games, Rob 34 Bridgett is also a pioneering thinker concerning the art and craft of creating best of breed sound, music and dialogue. His new book, Leading With Sound, codifies his beliefs and sets out how sound teams can place themselves at the centre of game design 30 Stephen Baysted A creator of unique soundtracks for TV and games, Stephen Baysted spent his lockdown collaborating 26 remotely with former Dire Straits keyboardist, Guy Fletcher on the music for Project Cars 3. Here he tells us about that project, his studio, and passing hard drives over Unleash your garden walls Technology 34 Hybrid plug-ins We take a look at the rise and rise of DSP hardware-driven creativity plug-in platforms, and how Avid’s new Hybrid Engine and UAD’s API Console have potentially changed the game 36 Reverb plug-ins The last year has seen some interesting developments in the reverb software market, specifically when it comes to 36 39 advances in convolution-driven effects. We take a look at the best new options Introducing GLM 4.1 loudspeaker manager software 39 Meet Your Maker: KRK Craig Hockenberry is the head of R&D for Gibson, and he’s given us an insight into the past, present and future of its 31 For 15 years, GLM software has worked with our Smart Active Monitors to minimise the KRK monitors brand unwanted acoustic influences of your room and help your mixes sound great, everywhere. Now, GLM 4.1 includes the next generation AutoCal 2 calibration algorithm and a host of new features – delivering a much faster calibration time and an even more precise frequency response. REVIEWS So, wherever you choose to work, GLM 4.1 will unleash your creativity, and help you 16 Universal Audio API produce mixes that translate consistently to other rooms and playback systems. And with Console for Luna GLM 4.1, both your monitoring system and your listening skills have room to develop and 18 JZ Mics BB29 Signature grow naturally too. 19 Empire Ears ESR mkII 20 RME 12Mic Find out more at www.genelec.com/glm August 2021 / 3 m908 24 Channel Monitor Controller - Atmos Music® Ready. The big push to deliver immersive music to streaming platforms means your ing a simple Dolby Atmos Music Target Curve setup), bass management and music production room could soon be mixing for Dolby® Atmos Music. If this individual channel delay settings. With a powerful, dedicated remote control sounds like equal parts yikes and yeehaw, we can help the transition be more unit, all monitoring functions are at your fi ngertips, and system info is clearly of the latter with our award-winning 24ch, immersive audio-friendly monitor displayed on the large LCD screen. To top it off , the m908 delivers the fi nest controller. audio quality of any monitoring equipment in the world. The m908 will easily manage your stereo and 7.1.4 Atmos speaker systems, Visit us at gracedesign.com for complete details about the m908 and our providing 12 bands of parametric room correction EQ per channel (includ- entire line of professional audio equipment. • 24 channel AES3 digital I/O • 16 channel analog outputs • 16 channel ADAT Lightpipe in • 24 channel inputs USB • AES3, S/PDIF, and TOSLINK stereo inputs • optional Dante™, DigiLink™ or Ravenna™ modules for additional 32 channels of I/O • optional 8 channel ADC modules for 8 - 16 channel analog inputs • our latest generation AD / DA converters • 4th generation s-Lock pll clocking system for vanishingly low jitter • powerful room correction EQ • complete bass management capability • channel level and delay calibration • comprehensive downmix control • 5 year warranty • made in the USA “I found it hard to think of something that, after a little interrogation of the manual, that the m908 couldn’t do. And to cap it all, the overall audio quality is astonishingly good. Another winner from the Grace brothers” -Jon Thornton, Resolution Magazine www.gracedesign.com m908 24 Channel Monitor Controller - Atmos Music® Ready. / Welcome The big push to deliver immersive music to streaming platforms means your ing a simple Dolby Atmos Music Target Curve setup), bass management and music production room could soon be mixing for Dolby® Atmos Music. If this individual channel delay settings. With a powerful, dedicated remote control sounds like equal parts yikes and yeehaw, we can help the transition be more unit, all monitoring functions are at your fi ngertips, and system info is clearly Leader of the latter with our award-winning 24ch, immersive audio-friendly monitor displayed on the large LCD screen. To top it off , the m908 delivers the fi nest Editor/Content Manager John Moore controller. audio quality of any monitoring equipment in the world. John Moore The m908 will easily manage your stereo and 7.1.4 Atmos speaker systems, Visit us at gracedesign.com for complete details about the m908 and our [email protected] providing 12 bands of parametric room correction EQ per channel (includ- entire line of professional audio equipment. Contributors Mike Aiton, Dennis Baxter, John Broomhall, Simon Clark, Russell Cottier, J Dean, Gijs Friesen, Kevin Hilton, Tim Oliver, George Shilling, Rob Speight, Jon Thornton, Keeping on Danny Turner, Phil Ward Chief Executive Officer Stuart Allen keeping on +44 (0)7999 847715 [email protected] Chief Operating Officer — he creative industries provide specifically Stephen Baysted’s tale of producing Publishing, Sales & Marketing unique challenges that are often the soundtrack for Project Cars 3 during Jeff Turner hard to relate to unless you’ve lockdown — a tale that includes wrangling an UK/Europe: +44 (0)117 318 5041 experienced them for yourself. They orchestra-like performance and sounds out of isolated musicians being directed over Zoom, USA: +1 415 307 7337 are often first-world problems, as the modern parlance would put it, but problems and passing hard drives over garden walls. His [email protected] T that nonetheless affect lives and livelihoods. work with Guy Fletcher for that gig, among Director of Production The last year or so, of course, has only served to many other things, displays a lot of ingenuity Dean Cook focus some of these to a and commitment to The Magazine Production Company burning hot point of irritation delivering the best results +44 (0)1273 911730 for a lot of people. possible in the [email protected] We’ve seen the circumstances. It’s a way of importance of keeping doing things that, you Finance & Accounts Manager production of the arts going, suspect, will continue to be Judith Clegg and how people have tackled refined going forward, and is +44 (0)7977 104648 the problems of finding likely a glimpse into the [email protected] inspiration when there isn’t future whether we like it or Printing much going around, and not. Gemini Print Southern Ltd, Unit A1 fewer people to bounce off; In his column, Rob Speight Dolphin Road, Shoreham-by-Sea, dealing with ever-changing looks at a fantastic lockdown West Sussex. BN43 6NZ working circumstances and produced crowdsourced environments; the sound library, and the issues Published by S2 Publications Ltd uncertainty of employment it throws up about the best [email protected] situations and freelance way to catalogue such c/o 221 Commercial, contracts. endeavours, while we talk to our cover start 71-75 Shelton Street, These are not new things to many in our Garry Cobain about his ingenious methods for business, an industry rife with such realising an epic vision for the new Amorphous Covent Gardens, circumstances. But now, unfortunately, a lot of Androgynous LP with a realistic budget. London, WC2H 9JQ other people know what it’s like to live like that Every project, in its own way, is a battle in ©2021 S2 Publications Ltd. All rights too and may have bought a newfound one way or another and our interviewees in this reserved. No part of this publication appreciation for the circumstances of some.