REPORT REVIEWS REVEALED / Eurovision: digital wireless solutions / Trinnov MC: a paradigm shift / Ewan Pearson: producing Tracey Thorn / Calrec Connect: managing AoIP / DPA CORE 4099: gets de vote / Wimbledon tennis: Olympic sound inspiration / Mixing console special / Focusrite RedNet X2P / Restoring classics from Petula to Hendrix V17.3 | May 2018 | £5.50 The Interview XxxxxKevin Churko Xxxxxxxx Xxx / Contents There is nothing else on the market that comes anywhere close 36 V17.3 | May 2018 Hugh Robjohns – Sound On Sound News & Analysis 5 Leader 6 News Conventions, studios, appointments 12 New Products 54 Media Production Show 55 Playlist Which movie soundtrack for Resolution writers? 58 Pro or No? Catherine Vericolli, owner and engineer at Fivethirteen Recording Columns Kevin Churko 14 Business The value of music: could Universal be for sale? 16 Broadcast aside Excellence is about building on past successes… and failures 18 Crosstalk 40 The future of music production 20 Sound Opinion Fix it in the mix: who’s the fader monkey now? Craft 32 Mixer Special 36 Kevin Churko producer known for his work with artists such as 49 Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punh, Slash.. ooh, and that nice Shania Twain 40 Ewan Pearson DJ, Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys remixer, and Producer of Tracey Thorn’s new Record 46 Eurovision Getting the sound right for 180m viewers 49 David Hadzis The project manager for United Music Foundation, Switzerland, talks audio restoration 52 Tape London One of the capital’s most fêted private members’ clubs has a high-spec recording studio built-in 52 58 56 Technology Streaming ahead: managing connections between AoIP devices REVIEWS 22 DPA d:vote CORE 4099 23 Focusrite RedNet X2P 24 McDSP ML8000 25 Lectrosonics M2 Duet 26 Nugen VisLM 2 27 Softube Weiss DS1-Mk3 28 Trinnov Optimizer MC genelec.com/theones 30 Leapwing CenterOne 46 May 2018 / 3 Craft his own studio and Capitol Studios (with the great Steve Durkee engineering), Michel taught me how to do vocal edits and to select the best takes, which made me realise the importance of human emotion over technical perfection. I started my own recording facility in Geneva, working with many artists including Petula and Charles Aznavour. I restored and mastered audiophile jazz reissues for a Japanese label, some French or international pop recordings for other labels, was given the opportunity to re-master Saint Germain’s classic album Tourist, and kept embracing all types of music with an open heart. All this work led to being offered a position as project manager for the United Music Foundation, which would require all the experience I already had for my clients. What type of source material has the Foundation worked on? We’ve already preserved hundreds of recordings, from various audio tape standards, acetate discs, and other more unusual media such as late ‘50s Minifon cassettes. These Photo: © Steeve Lunker TDG recordings include previously unreleased works by artists in all music styles, ranging from jazz with legends Sidney Bechet, Lionel Hampton or Sarah Vaughan to pop and rock icons such as David Hadzis Celine Dion or Jimi Hendrix. The project manager for United Music Foundation, Switzerland talks audio preservation with NIGEL JOPSON tarting his career in the music industry as How did you first become involved in audio a musician and composer, Hadzis restoration? progressed to engineering and I never had any formal training in audio. Sproduction, working with artists such as Experience and instinct were the only keys for Charles Aznavour, Petula Clark, Michel Colombier, me, in an era where this was more common. Siedah Garrett, Paul Jackson Jr., Esther Ofarim, Over the years, working was my learning curve. Bernard Estardy, St Germain and Andy Williams. As a young man I started recording as a singer, He now specialises in recorded music heritage and went to MIDEM in Cannes to promote my preservation, restoration and history. record. I sang at a showcase, and some guy came up to me afterwards and gave me his When was the United Music Foundation business card. It was Claude Nobs of the created? Montreux Jazz Festival. Back in Switzerland, In 2013, after finding out the big void there is in we met again and we talked about Petula this field: currently, most foundations are Clark who, just like me, lives in Geneva. Claude concerned about preserving their own archives, Nobs asked me if I wanted to retrieve Petula’s such as INA in France, Fonsart in Switzerland, master tapes. the BBC in the UK, or the Library of Congress in I thought I would find about one or two the US. They tend to limit the source of what tapes, but eventually, I found seven full boxes of they preserve to their own country. them in Montreux, and took them back home Although the United Music Foundation did, where, by chance, I had just set up my very first of course, preserve some recordings from the home studio. There were also multi-tracks, archives of public radio services, and some mainly from Pye Studios in London or United- unreleased Montreux Jazz Festival concerts, Western Recorders in Los Angeles (recorded they also aim to be there for all the recordings with the Wrecking Crew), on 3 or 4-track 1/2” that are not currently covered by any other tapes, as well as 1” 8-track and 2” 16-track similar non-profit organisation, regardless of tapes, also recorded in the US. Little by little, the music style or the country they come this led me to start working on Petula’s reissues from. The amount of tapes that can be in the ‘90s and 2000s. I also got to write some preserved only depends on the available funds songs for her, and went on to co-produce three to do it, so it is up to patrons and sponsors to of them in Los Angeles with the late Michel keep us going. Colombier. During these sessions, held both at / Before, After May 2018 / 49 / Craft David Hadzis What has been your most extreme restoration recordings available to the public by releasing challenge? ‘no-compromise’ Collectors Editions including Last October, I restored about 20 tapes from not only the best possible restoration and the late ‘50s to early ‘60s that had been in a mastering work, but also all their historical flood in a Paris basement. Their AEG hubs were background through biographies, interviews, so rusted that they disintegrated like crackers! pictures and memorabilia. This process requires lots of patience and ‘soft One of our releases, the Sidney Bechet in experimenting’. One of these tapes had become Switzerland box set, which includes four CDs of so loose it wouldn’t stay flat on the tape head, rare or unreleased recordings preserved and resulting in a warbling sound. So I had to restored from original audio tapes and acetate transfer it holding it with my thumbs on both discs, plus a 216-page art book, has received two sides of the tape head to keep it still. In this field, national awards: The Best Reissue Award from anything goes! It’s the result that counts. The the Académie du Jazz (Paris), and the Memoriav Millot Jean-Baptiste © Photo: golden rule is to always be gentle with the tapes! — Swiss Commission for UNESCO Award. What motivates copyright owners to bring material to you? Which digital format do you archive to? The Sidney Bechet box With the come-back of vinyl, I hear more and We only preserve audio in high resolution set sounds like a more about labels wishing to cut lacquers (minimum 24-bit 96kHz) using state-of-the-art labour of love! directly from tape. But this becomes converters and wiring (Prism Sound and Vovox That set took two years increasingly difficult since, over time, tapes get respectively). Most importantly, when it comes in the making. Not only dropouts, clicks, splices no longer stick and to audio tape, our policy is to always set the because of the need to be replaced, and there’s the dreaded tape head’s azimuth to the recorded content, to condition and the ‘sticky shed syndrome’ that requires baking the avoid phasing and get the most complete various types of media tapes before being able to play them. The frequency range. We don’t use any sort of involved (mainly tapes, baking process dries the tapes and temporarily computer-automated system running a series rarely in good condition, and 78rpm acetate restores the chemical properties of the binder of tape machines, and we never will. We aim to discs), but also because we had to source all the that holds the different oxide layers together. use technology to serve the music and not the information behind these recordings. Eventually, I’ve had to do that a lot, especially with Ampex other way round! it became a 216-page art book with four CDs, tapes from the ’70s and ’80s. Not to mention including a quite thorough essay in French and working with tapes so covered with mould I had What happens to the audio after restoration? English, as well as 250 restored photos and 140 to wear a surgical mask to avoid bronchitis, due With the support of patrons and sponsors, the facsimiles of rare memorabilia, most of them to the nature of that kind of fungus! 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