Though they might no longer be the sole destination for every musician, following the advent of home recording, gear-packed recording studios still hum with a certain magic. Whether it’s those legendary studios overflowing with classic desks, outboard and mics, to those that sport meticulously designed acoustics, to savvy, future-aimed spaces that keep a keen eye on latest trends, there remains a big allure to the idea of laying down your track in a killer studio.

How you feel when writing and recording in a studio space can be as vital as what tools it can provide to help you reach your musical aims. While some studios specialise in vintage-gear signal chains and traditional approaches, the world’s most innovative studios incorporate new technology, modern standards and enchanting aesthetics to make you feel right at home.

In this roundup, we’ve compiled our pick of the ten most innovative studios right across the world. While ‘innovation’ might reflect on how the studios in question have adapted new tech, we also want to highlight those that have clearly had a lot of personalised considerations which make them stand out from the norm. Some are commercial operations, others are the property of the globe’s most accomplished sonic adventurers. So, without further ado, let’s take a world tour of the recording studios at the forefront of tomorrow…

10. Elfo Recording Studio, Tavernago, Italy

Deep within Milan’s surrounding tranquil countryside, lay the sharp, disruptive features of the angular Elfo Recording Studio. This triple-studio complex can house a twenty-piece orchestra and fifty-person choir in its large main room, while the immaculate acoustics of studio two is perfect for tracking, presided over by an API 1608 console, in tandem with DAWs. The elliptical shape of Studio 3 is down to the Elfo team applying a meticulous study of sound refractions, and its LAN and A/V cabling provides the ability to use all the studio’s spaces from one, state-of-the-art central hub. The commercial studio offers production and arrangement services, and their rates cover the use of any and all its thronging equipment arsenal. Eccezionale!

9. Ocean Sound Recording Studio, Giske, Norway

With a breathtaking view of the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the surrounding Norwegian countryside, the purpose-built Ocean Sound was designed by American sound expert Ric Vaughan to be one of the very best acoustically treated spaces in which to record music. With a large live room, twin ISO rooms and large control room, the studio makes for a tranquil haven in which to submerge oneself in the music production process. Its ISO Booths have perfect attenuation of all sound from the main live room, and acoustics can further be manually controlled in the main control room. Custom built gobos are on hand to fine-tune the room’s acoustics to each particular project. A spellbinding space, providing an inspiring ocean-spectacle from its windows, the studio has reeled in the likes of Arcade Fire, Milky Chance, Swedish House Mafia and Ane Brun.

8. Steve Aoki’s Neon Future Cave, Las Vegas, USA

Not just a studio, but the world-dominating EDM producer’s play-centre, Steve Aoki’s Las Vegas complex isn’t just filled with high end tech, but also incorporates skate ramps, foam pits and impressive lighting. “I call it the Neon Future Cave because it’s in the bunker of my house and I wanted to enter into this room where I was transporting myself into the future,” Aoki told us a few years ago. Built around the Slate Raven Z3C digital mix rack, Focal SM9 monitors and a range of Universal Audio kit, Aoki’s HQ is a space that many of us can only dream of, yet for Steve, the true magic of his personalised space is the mindset in which it puts him; “You set your studio up in the way that you want your environment to be, and you know the way you think creatively is going to be part of the process. It’s not just about what plugins you’re using or how high-tech your gear is.”

7. Studios 301, Sydney, Australia

One of Australia’s most acclaimed studios, Studios 301’s legacy has been forged over nearly a century of use. Though the studio stresses its heritage as the longest-running recording studio in the Southern Hemisphere, it has also warmly embraced the next generation. The 301 Academy offers new engineers and producers the experience of working within a professional recording studio environment. Studios 301 also offers a robust online mixing service and has been at the forefront of pioneering audio formats in Australia. Another objective of the studio is to preserve aural history, offering archival and cultural institutions, record labels and more the means to digitise their analogue archives, cleaning up yesterday’s gems for tomorrow’s ears. The large complex is naturally ram-packed with ultra-modern tech, as well as a staff made up of top-tier industry pros.

6. Deadmau5’s ‘mau5 House’, Toronto, Canada

The nerve centre of the rodent-headed magician’s progressive house wonders, Joel Zimmerman’s studio is also a mind-blowing kingdom of kit replete with the EDM megastar’s mouth-watering collection of synths, including his custom Modcan Series A. The Dolby Atmos-certified studio, decked out with nine ATC speakers, is one of the largest Atmos-approved mixing spaces in the world. The super-sized analog Neve console at the studio’s heart is balanced by two walls jam-packed with modular synths, as well as a trove of keyboard synths. It’s, in a word, jaw-dropping. Zimmerman’s dedication to making his studio the ultimate man-cave goes beyond music technology. Downstairs is Zimmerman’s computer suite, with five custom built PCs, a 2 gigabit internet connection and a near-limitless quantity of hard drive storage space – enough to make any nerd weak at the knees. While Joel’s studio is his private production and play palace, it’s a space that many hold up as the ideal to work towards…

5. Blackbird Studios, Nashville, USA

In the heart of music capital Nashville, sits the hallowed Blackbird Studios, a multi-studio complex that is able to cater to any genre or purpose. With an extraordinary array of technology (and some particularly visually impressive room treatment) Blackbird has welcomed such luminaries as Beck, Kesha, Taylor Swift and Kings of Leon amongst others into its aesthetically amazing recording spaces, which have been described as resembling ‘The Four Seasons meets Moulin Rouge’. Its studios simply exude character, from Studio A’s Abbey Road-aping retro-vibe, to the awe-inspiring diffused walls of the Atmos-ready Studio C, Blackbird sports some notably impressive gear, including the largest API Legacy Plus desk ever built, and a specially modded Neve 8070. As with many other studios, Blackbird encourages education, with its own Blackbird Academy enabling the next generation to get in-depth courses in modern production on-site.

4. Metropolis Studios, London, UK

Metropolis’s status as one of Britain’s top tier studio hubs is well-founded, playing host to the likes of Queen, Ed Sheeran, Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones and many more over the last thirty-three years. In addition to its array of tracking and mixing studios, Metropolis offers some of the world’s very finest mastering suites, as well as a series of writing and production rooms. Built within a converted power station, the huge sound complex has close relationships with the world of music academia, and regularly invites students to use its mixing and mastering sessions. Speaking of which, it’s Metropolis’s innovative approach to mastering that has garnered it global acclaim. Founded in 1993 by Ian Cooper, Tony Cousins and Tim Young, Metropolis Mastering’s aim was to go beyond then-standards in mastering. Their frontier-pushing ambitions continue to this day, with 5 mastering rooms, ready for any and all needs.

3. Real World Studios, Box, UK

Stepping into Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios’ main control room, there’s the unavoidable feeling that you’re boarding a discreetly parked spacecraft, nestled among the bucolic fields, lakes and trees of rural Somerset. A stone’s throw from music technology publishing heartland of Bath, Real World invites artists to let go of their everyday lives, and focus entirely on the creative process, with the residential studio offering dedicated services to facilitate writing, mixing, mastering, post-production, rehearsal and much more. Built in 1986 on Gabriel’s personal – and innovative – take on what a studio should be, the open studios of Real World actively encourage collaboration and networking. Its Big Room, drenched in natural light, is the hub of all, with its 72-channel Solid State Logic 9000K console resembling the helm of said starship. Real World’s unique charm makes it one of our very favourite studios.

2. Hans Zimmer’s Studio, California, USA

Part studio, part top-tier gentleman’s lounge, replete with esoteric decor, gothic skulls and other miscellany. Hans’s home-base is decked out with luxurious sofas, Persian rugs and warm lighting, reflecting its foundational principle of the studio being both a place where the world’s greatest composer will work and chill. While the walls are dominated by a colossal modular patch-bay synth, interspersed with vintage outboard gear, the studio is also cutting edge on many fronts. Zimmer’s aim to make the studio as comfortable as possible goes as far as the 3M multi-touch screen workflow which he uses, with custom-made software designed to help him navigate his go-to DAW, Cubase. High-tech his desktop workflow may be, but the true heart of Zimmer’s studio remains his black Bösendorfer piano, which is often the foundation of some of Hans’s most epic scores.

1. Abbey Road Studios, London, UK

The crown jewel of the studio world, Abbey Road has been the HQ of popular music’s most groundbreaking bands. While its legacy is still a big facet of the studio’s prestige, Abbey Road has embraced modernity and innovation like few others. Launching numerous new studios over the last decade, cementing itself as the premiere destination for modern film soundtracking and, via incubator Abbey Road Red, investing and mentoring those pushing the boundaries of what music technology can be, the St John’s Wood powerhouse remains at the summit of the recording studio industry. Currently, the studio is delving further into the realm of AI in music, VR/AR/ MR, source separation and spatial audio, and has broken new ground in the field of de-mixing. Abbey Road stands today at the intersection between tradition and innovation, a place it has arguably always been. In a previous life (when it was known as the EMI Recording Studios), Abbey Road was the Beatles’ base, and provided them the means to widen the scope of what pop music could be and now Abbey Road’s ongoing quest to expand the music technology playing field continues.

The post Studio Profile: Top 10 most innovative recording studios in the world appeared first on Audio Media International.

Following their acquisition by guitar giants Fender, PreSonus have been on something of a roll. With a sparklingly spruced up iteration of their increasingly versatile DAW Studio One and the now cross-platform Notion Mobile astounding us last year, we caught up with the company to find out more about PreSonus’s aims for 2023…

“Not just more bells, but also better whistles” was how we wrapped up our review of PreSonus’s Studio One 6 recently, after spending some quality time with this feature-packed multimedia workstation. The breadth of Studio One 6’s new features – which include video editing, lyric incorporation and Smart Templates – seemed to indicate a move towards a more holistic philosophy, perhaps in tandem with the perennially cool ethos of their new parent company, Fender, who acquired the venerable music technology brand in 2021. Later in the year, an improved version of Notion Mobile appeared in platform agnostic form, and what, for our money, is the slickest route to sketching and composing orchestral music. We caught up with Arnd Kaiser (above, left), General Manager for Software and Chris Swaffer (above, right), Product Manager for Notion, to learn more about these major releases, and to learn more about the company’s major drives in 2023…

AMI: Last year, both Studio One 6 and Notion Mobile wowed the home production world, balancing advanced feature-sets with easy to navigate interfaces. How long had these new iterations been in development before release? And were Studio One’s new features – and the creation of Notion Mobile – influenced in any way by community/audience feedback for specific new features?

Arnd Kaiser: Last year was a great year for us, with both a major Studio One update and a brand-new version of Notion Mobile released. With projects of this scope, we are working in parallel with smaller teams sharing the work. In the case of Studio One 6, the team started back in January 2022 with part of the team still involved in Studio One 5.5 and subsequent maintenance updates. We’ve been working on Notion Mobile for quite some time—several years, actually, because we ported the original Notion code to the Studio One framework and also rewrote a lot of code. The first result of this effort was the Studio One score editor we released with version 5 in 2020. In turn, Notion Mobile inherited a lot of new Studio One code. It’s the shared codebase that allows us to work efficiently across projects and offer regular free feature updates for all applications.

When adding new features, we incorporate a lot of user feedback. We conduct regular surveys, monitor discussions on various forums and social media platforms and run a dedicated community-driven website (answers.presonus.com) where users can post, discuss and vote for feature requests. On top of that we’re organising local Studio One Meetups in places around the world where users meet other users, sometimes including beta testers or PreSonus staff. All this information combined provides us with a vivid picture of what Studio One users need and how they’re using our software. We’re planning to add more layers to this in the future and provide our users with even more ways to communicate their needs.

AMI: A notable addition to Studio One 6 was the refinement of video editing and the addition of the video track. Was this focus spurred by a desire to expand Studio One’s abilities beyond music production, and edge it further into being a broader multimedia toolkit?

Arnd Kaiser: Studio One users have been asking for extended video support for a long time, and we’re excited to see how well the new video features in Studio One 6 have been received. While our focus remains on music production, nearly 50% of our users describe their main activity as “content creation” involving mixed media, so the line between pure music production and content creation involving mixed media is blurred. One of the main aspects that sets Studio One apart from other DAWs is how well it responds to a user’s specific workflow needs. This includes, for example, convenient drag-and-drop import of mixed content (audio and video). We’re planning to add more video-related features in our next updates. We’re excited to see what users are going to do with it.

AMI: There’s also of course a raft of compositionally-focused upgrades, with the Lyrics Track and the raft of tailored Smart Templates. Were these additions intended to entice those who might not have previously favoured Studio One as a songwriting workspace?

Arnd Kaiser: Lyrics support has also been a long-time feature request from our users. We feel that Studio One has the perfect foundation for a complete end-to-end lyrics workflow, from songwriting to vocal recording, from mixing to live performance. We’re quite happy with the result.

The concept of Smart Templates was born when we discussed ideas for new workflows and how we could implement these without adding bloat. The new template browser shows the most important applications and workflows in one place. Combining tailored templates with user-interface customisation helps the user to focus on the task at hand without being distracted by unrelated tools and objects. In addition, we provide interactive tutorials as part of these templates, which are great for anyone who is new to Studio One and its many possible applications.

AMI: Of Studio One 6’s new plugins, which is your particular favourite?

Arnd Kaiser: ProEQ has become really powerful with the addition of dynamic bands but my favourite is probably the Vocoder. I’m a big fan of vocoders, and I love the vintage vibe of it. It’s great when combined with other plug-ins, and the Freeze feature opens the door for practically limitless filter shapes.

AMI: Turning to Notion Mobile, and is the now platform-spanning flexibility of the app something that had long been on the cards, and how has the app been refined over the years since its original launch?

Chris Swaffer: Notion has been on Windows, Mac and iOS for over a decade, so it was always known as a cross-platform app. But yes, supporting Android has long been the number one feature request, not just for standard Android phones and tablets, but also for education use on Chromebooks and family use on Fire Tablets. With so many more devices potentially running Notion, this was a challenge! But at the same time we had an opportunity to fully rewrite Notion on Studio One’s underlying software framework. This gave us a custom platform we could use and evolve as needed, underpinning an app that looked and worked exactly the same whatever device or operating system it was running on. This rewrite in turn also benefited other PreSonus applications: Our first product during this time was actually Studio One’s Score Editor, for example.

Over the years the Notion Mobile app has developed both in response to our users’ feedback and requests, and more broadly, to our ever-changing relationship with mobile devices. New generations of users expect a different experience from the one we set out to make in 2010: Our original app was very much based on the Notion desktop version, whereas our new version has been designed from the ground up as a truly mobile and adaptive experience.

AMI: The free aspect makes Notion Mobile a great way for beginners to immerse themselves into the mindset of a composer. For music production novices, why would you say that understanding scoring and sheet music is still an essential skill for the professional world?

Chris Swaffer: Even understanding notation just a little is a powerful and liberating skill to have. Having enough knowledge to whip up a lead sheet in a session or jot down and share your ideas makes you a more diverse (and employable!) musician—even just by speaking the same language as musicians you work with. It’s also useful as a different compositional approach: In production you can get really hung up on finding the right sound, to the detriment of making progress with the song. With notation, you move ahead and focus just on the piece itself—and the reverse approach is just as useful for notation users!

Music notation is often held up as complicated, but really it’s no more or less so to the uninitiated than, say, a piano roll view, guitar tab or rack of modular synths. Our goal when we came to design workflows between DAW and score was to make it as easy as possible. In Studio One, you can have lead sheets, Chord Track, lyrics and “human-readable” notation in a DAW at your fingertips, with no specialist knowledge.

Of course, I’m a little biassed when it comes to Notion. But a free notation and tab app that allows unlimited instrument tracks and access to the sounds of the London Symphony Orchestra, that works the same whether you are running it on an iPhone or Chromebook and that directly transfers with Studio One—that’s pretty special!

AMI: What has the impact been following the Fender purchase of PreSonus in 2021, has the company’s focuses changed in any way, or has the acquisition only cemented PreSonus’s existing aims?

Arnd Kaiser: Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) acquired PreSonus for what it is, not because they wanted it to be something else. PreSonus perfectly complements Fender’s portfolio of brands and products by adding recording and production, as well as live sound and performance products and services. This has been our focus before the acquisition, and that hasn’t changed. We’ve seen steady growth since I joined PreSonus in 2012. Merging with Fender has allowed us to accelerate this growth and, with help of additional resources for our software team, provide PreSonus users with even more exciting products and updates.

AMI: With the increasing robustness of the PreSonus Sphere membership package, do you see it as becoming essentially the only music production suite that its members need? And how essential is it to foster and nurture the PreSonus creative community in 2023?

Arnd Kaiser: PreSonus Sphere is the perfect combination of application software, sound and learning content and services for a steadily growing user community. Although we are committed to continue providing a perpetual Studio One licence, in less than one year PreSonus Sphere has passed the perpetual licence product in terms of monthly new users. I see that as proof that we made the right decision to offer this membership package, and in my opinion, it perfectly complements Studio One as a user-oriented and workflow-driven music-production platform. We keep adding more content and more features and services on a monthly basis, so as a member, you know exactly what you get with a monthly or annual membership. Studio One is regularly being updated with new features and workflow improvements.

This year, we have several exciting updates planned which will be free for PreSonus Sphere members and Studio One 6 users. Together with new hardware products we’re planning to release, 2023 will be a great year for the PreSonus creative community.

The post PreSonus interview “Fender acquired PreSonus for what it is, not because they wanted it to be something else” appeared first on Audio Media International.

The biggest pitfall for any project studio is the scourge of unwanted resonances. While these are present in any untreated space, help is at hand via a range of increasingly adept room calibration packages, which can automatically neutralise the effect of those pesky bouncing sound waves, we speak to a pair of companies at the vanguard…

When kitting out a home studio, it’s likely we’ll spend an inordinate amount of time selecting the best monitors (or headphones) for our listening purposes. But while we might choose a pair of speakers that deliver completely neutral, detailed sound, a bigger issue that often doesn’t get mentioned might be altering our perception of the mix without us even realising it. We’re talking about the frequency-emphasising qualities of your room itself. At worst, when sound waves (at the same frequency with each other) lock into phase they naturally bolster that specific frequency range. When this happens, every decision we make is based on false information.

While the tech in use might be top-notch, we can never be entirely confident that the sound we’re listening to isn’t being corrupted by the physics of our rooms. So, for those vital mix decisions – EQing, compression, applying dynamic effects and everything in-between, we’ll be essentially painting up an inaccurate picture. It’s an image that will change, often quite significantly, once we take it out of this space.

While physical room acoustic treatment and foam panelling can help eradicate particular problem areas in your studio, another solution is to invest in some room calibration software. Companies such as Sonarworks, IK Multimedia, DIRAC and Rode have made particular strides in this domain, establishing a thriving marketplace of intelligent solutions, which make their own determinations of problem areas, usually via a specialised omni-directional microphone. They then suggest some tailored EQ curves that will effectively compensate for these issues.

To stress, this isn’t *removing* the problem frequencies from the room itself. To do that, you’d need to install some physical absorption panels (or enlist the services of a mallet-wielding builder) those waves are still bouncing around, and that’s precisely what the room calibration software adapts to.

Room With A Skew

While the range of solutions on the marketplace might differ in terms of their feature sets, they all rely upon their tailored mic to build a 3D picture of the room. It’s this reading that feeds the sister software the foundation on which specific equalisation is applied to nullify the physical effects of our room. While perfect for smaller home studios, the flexibility of packages like IK Multimedia’s ARC system means that it’s also massively beneficial for those who travel around when producing, or need to mix in multiple studios. Depending on how bad your room might be, the results vary between slightly clearer, to a night-and-day upgrade of your mix’s presentation.

We spoke to IK Multimedia to find out more about the ARC system in particular, and why their package had the edge in this competitive landscape. “The first version of the ARC System dates back to 2007. At that time, the solution was really pioneering. Users quickly discovered and appreciated how much easier it became working when using a calibrated monitoring system.” Explains Davide Barbi, IK Multimedia’s CTO.

“Obviously, the most important function for a correction system to work properly is the measurements, and, therefore, the mic accuracy. MEMS microphone technology, which is used in combination with our ARC System software and our range of studio monitors with built-in ARC processing, has been considerably improving over the years.” Says Barbi. “We also designed a dedicated measurement mic based on a precision MEMS capsule to allow for total unit-to-unit consistency and much more stability over time, age and ambient conditions, basically making the whole system more reliable.” This evolution has lead to IK Multimedia’s latest solution, the ARC System 3. “ARC 3 combines a precision measurement process (with 21 points taken over three height levels) with a state-of-the-art correction algorithm that linearises both the amplitude and phase response, without adding pre-ringing or artefacts.” Davide details, before emphasising that the ultimate goal of the ARC System is to provide the most accurate monitoring picture possible; “The main goal of the ARC System (both the software and the embedded version in studio monitors) is to deliver accurate and reliable monitoring without sacrificing the musicality and usability of the monitors in an artistic context, as is the music creation.”

Lost In Translation

Sonarworks have been at the forefront of room calibration for years, and have now made strides to apply the same tailored sonic profiles to headphones. While most would recommend a neutral pair of cans as a starting point for home mixing, affordable studio-grade headphones are still often inconsistent from each other. SoundID Reference – Sonarworks’ multifaceted room calibration hub – contains tailored profiles of numerous industry-standard headphones, pre-tailored to compensate for their own particular impartations. While the service offers four Target Modes, the ‘Flat Target’ setting is the one that is most angled towards balanced, uncoloured mixing.

We caught up with Sonarworks, and firstly asked them if they could detail the biggest problems most often thrown up by untreated rooms. “First of all, SoundID Reference makes sure that the base response of your room is as tight and as accurate as possible.” Sonarworks co-founder and CPO Martins Popelis explains. “Wrong perception of bass response is often one of the key problems in small untreated rooms that throws producers off guard and leads to mistakes in the mix that don’t sound so good outside your room. Second SoundID Reference removes the random colouration of sound that is caused by sound reflections from various surfaces in the room like walls, tables, mixing consoles etc. Lastly SoundID Reference makes sure that the sound that you hear is neutral and balanced so that you can accurately hear all the details of your mix and are not mixing some critical aspect just because something else in the mix is too loud. All of that leads to very significant improvement in the way how mixes translate from your room to the outer world, ensuring those who listen to your mix will enjoy it.”

Sonarworks has also begun rolling out SoundID for personal audio, which follows an adjacent aim of tailoring your listening devices to the types of frequency responses that you personally like. While a different modus operandi, this development emphasises that really at the heart of ‘correction’ is simply selective EQing based on an ideal listening target. “Our big dream is to rid the world of the ‘translation problem’, as such, so that music creators have to spend exactly zero minutes of their lives worrying how their mixes will translate outside their studios. Calibrating consumer devices to the same reference sound that we bring to studios seemed like a good idea. We thought that if we could achieve that, everyone would hear the same thing and everyone would become happy.” Martins says, “No more hours spent on tweaking the mix to translate after it’s done. This hypothesis proved out to be wrong because a very small subset of the consumers actually like or prefer the studio reference sound.”

SoundID for personal audio, then, is built around the realisation that everyone’s preferred equalisation taste is actually wildly different, and not necessarily in-step with the producer’s intent. “Once we learned this through research, we built SoundID. And yes, it’s absolutely our dream to get to a world where everyone has their own sound profile based on studio reference sound. For producers it would mean that they have to spend zero minutes worrying about translation, they would just know that everyone will listen to their art in the way they enjoy it most. We’re working for this dream every day.”

With these factors in mind, it’s well-worth taking the time to dig deeper into the wider issues that can cause misaligned frequency responses in untreated rooms, and think a little bit more about the tailored types of equalisation, beyond the ultra-flat paradigm, you personally respond to. No sound exists in a vacuum, and understanding how frequencies interact in your room, within your headphones and inside your own ears, will help to refine both your critical and relaxed listening.

Welcome to issue 7 of Audio Media International

The post Calibrating your set up in a home studio appeared first on Audio Media International.

Responding to the restrictions of 2020 by building their own bespoke studio space, Belle and Sebastian’s latest record, Late Developers, is the second in under a year to have been born in this new creative HQ. We caught up with the beloved Scottish indie popsters’ keyboard-man Chris Geddes to find out more about the band’s fruitful new era…

Hugely admired by the indie-leaning press (and just about anybody who appreciates a whistle-able hook), Glasgow’s Belle and Sebastian have a long-cemented position as top-tier songwriters. On their 90’s classics, If You’re Feeling Sinister and The Boy with the Arab Strap the six-piece, led by the unmistakable feather-toned vocals of Stuart Murdoch, attracted a rapt audience of devotees. Their distinctive personality was at odds with much of the then en-vogue Britpop posturing. The band continued to produce exceptional material throughout the 2000s and 2010s, with successful work under the auspices of Tony Hoffer pushing the band into a more eclectic sonic direction.

In 2020, ahead of the pandemic, work was due to start over in Los Angeles on the band’s eleventh studio album, helmed by The Killers and The War on Drugs’ stalwart Shawn Everett. However, due to the pandemic, those plans were scuppered. Instead, the band elected to build their very own studio space and self-produce this new record in its entirety.

The resulting – two –  records, A Bit of Previous and the recently released Late Developers are quintessential Belle and Sebastian, containing some of the most affecting work in the band’s entire canon, as well as steps into wholly new territory (evidenced by epic synth-pop anthem I Don’t Know What You See In Me).

We caught up with the band’s keyboard player, Chris Geddes, to find out the full story about this studio build, the resulting creative surge and what it’s like being in a band still at the top of their game after twenty seven years.

AMI: Late Developers is such a fantastic sounding record. I understand that originally you were going to record out in LA with Shawn Everett. At that point, did you envision making two records, or was the creation of album two a consequence of those changing plans?

Chris Geddes: Yeah definitely. If Covid hadn’t happened when it did and we’d gone with our initial plan of going over to the US to record with Shawn it would have just been one album. We had the usual four or six weeks in the studio booked to do that recording. I guess it was a consequence of the change of plans, and the recording moving to our own purpose-built space in Glasgow that things became a bit more open ended. There was no immediate prospect of getting out on the road so we just kept on writing songs and bringing new songs in. We just kept working on new music for longer than we planned to.

AMI: Can you take us through that conversion process from rehearsal space to studio? At what point did you realise that’s what you were going to have to do, and what gear did you need to get in there that was essential for the band?

CG: I think it was late Summer of 2020 that we decided we were going to do it. It was a space that had been our practice room before and we had done some bits of recording there already. We had enough mics to get a mic on every instrument that people were playing. We already had headphone monitoring and a room set-up as a control room. The big thing that we did was move the control room to a different area so the room that had been the control room could become an ISO booth.

As a practice room it had just been one big space, but Brian McNeill, a producer and engineer that we’d been working with, decided to divide that up to create a drum booth separate to the rest of the live room. The other big thing was getting all the cabling in, and getting a patch bay. In the past we’d always done that in a pretty ad hoc way. When you get an opportunity to start from scratch you try to make the cabling as neat as you can. That was the big thing really.

We didn’t really have to spend loads on gear. We bought a couple of things that might have been better than what we’d used before. We bought some UA 610 mic pres and an SSL Bus Comp. We got a few better mics than what we had. Sarah [Martin] bought herself a Neumann U 87 for her vocals because she quite likes her voice to be bright sounding. We also bought a Peluso P12 off our road manager which became Stuart’s main vocal mic. It was just kind of luck, but it really flattered his voice.

AMI: Did the writing process between A Bit of Previous and Late Developers blur together, or was there a marked distinction between the writing of both albums?

CG: No there wasn’t really a distinction. I guess the way it panned out was that there were a lot of songs ready – slightly more than an album’s worth – ready to go even before that process started. Stuart especially was writing quite a lot by that point, and coming in with quite a lot of new songs. I’d say maybe more of the newer things ended up on A Bit of Previous, and the older stuff ended up on Late Developers.

Once we had 25 plus songs we knew it was at least two albums’ worth. I think we knew that we wanted to get as much of it out as we could. We decided not to do a big sprawling double album. It was only when we were deciding on potential track listings that the albums became two separate things. I think during the whole process we were just thinking of it as a bunch of songs that we were working on. In a sense it was to the detriment of meeting deadlines and releasing stuff. If we’d settled on 11 songs and worked to get them finished we could probably have released the first album earlier than it came out, but we wanted to keep our options open. In the end it worked out fine.

AMI: A key track is that first single, I Don’t Know What You See in Me. How did the collaboration with Peter ‘Wuh Oh’ Ferguson originate and how did that evolve?

CG: It came through management as far as I know. Stuart has always been open to collaborating with younger, up-and-coming artists and Pete’s a fan of the band – his parents were Belle and Sebastian fans. When Pete and Stuart met they really clicked. I think maybe the way we’d envisaged a collaboration going might have been us writing for another artist and it turned out more the other way round, where Pete was writing for us, but it was good fun.

We all got on really well, the song is great. I learned a great deal about modern synth production from Pete. I’m listening to the stems a lot right now to learn to play it live. Figuring out what patches he used to make it sound so big. The way he’s programmed it and layered it gives it real size.

It is interesting, we did have I Don’t Know What You See In Me in time to have gone on the previous album, but on that one it just did stick out a bit too much sonically. On that album we wanted to keep it a bit more unified.

AMI: On that note, with Late Developers there’s quite a range of genre-nods, The Evening Star sounds quite soul-like, while Do You Follow has a funkier spine – but it all feels consistent. Do you feel like the band has more freedom now to be stylistically flexible?

CG: I think we’re in a sweet spot where we can do different stuff but we always sound like us. I guess because Stuart and Stevie and Sarah all have pretty recognisable voices, so as long as it’s one of them singing it always kind of sounds like us.

I think The Evening Star sounds similar to stuff we’ve done before, but I think we’ve got better at it now. We might have tried to make older things a bit soul-y but it still would sound like us, we’d put strummed acoustic guitars on it and stuff, whereas with these tracks, we’ve kind of locked in on a soul groove, and let it breathe a bit more.

AMI: In terms of arrangements, there’s some really sumptuous choices. There’s that shimmering organ underpinning the title track and the flute work on So In The Moment – and is that a harpsichord on Will I Tell You A Secret? At what stage do those decisions get made?

CG: Yeah, it’s not a real one, it’s a sampled one. In terms of deciding what instrument gets used, it tends to be pretty early. Usually the songwriter will have a fair idea of what kinds of things they want people to play. Then there is flexibility to try a part on a different instrument, we’re always open like that. I think especially over these two records, there’s maybe less full-band live performances than there used to be, and more things that were built up one instrument at a time.

AMI: Which members of the band are involved in the mix process?

CG: Well I’m there, but normally the principal writer of the song will be there with the mix engineer giving notes. In the past it was whenever we heard a rough mix of a song everyone in the band would have notes on it. But you can’t really do that. You can’t mix by committee too much.

With these two records there’s three or four distinct mixing processes because there were the songs we did completely in our own place, which Brian would have recorded and mixed. Then, there were songs that we recorded with Brian but then sent to Shawn Everett for mixing. Then there were three tracks that Matt Wiggins did with us. He’s a really great producer.

AMI: Which tracks changed the most would you say from their starting point?

CG: Probably Do You Follow as it pre-dated the album recordings. It was one which we’d actually demoed for our 2019 album Days of the Bagnold Summer but it didn’t really fit the vibe. We’d kind of got it to a certain place but we were never quite happy with the final arrangement and mix. Shawn Everett had a go at mixing it and improved its groove. We took that idea and did another version of it which ended up being the final one. That was a fairly convoluted process. A lot of the others were reasonably straightforward.

AMI: How much of the production of the record relied on software, and did you use many plugins or software tools to shape the sonics, or did you keep things largely in the physical realm?

CG: It was a mixture. In terms of the band stuff, if it sounds like a band playing then it probably is. We tracked all the guitars through real amps. We used a little bit of sample replacement on drums sometimes just to bring the kick and snare up above the level of cymbals and stuff like that. In terms of the keyboard stuff, it’s a mixture because I do have all my synths in the studio. I’ve got some nice stuff – a Roland Jupiter-8 and a newer Oberheim Prophet as well as some nice mono-synths. Sometimes I’ll use an in-the-box sound for the first run through of something just for speed. Usually I would go back and try and replace it with something different, though sometimes that original sound is better! I had the Hammond and Wurli in the studio, so they’re both real.

It’s nice to have all my own gear to hand, for the first time. I’ve found a good tech in Glasgow who’s fixed a lot of things for me.

AMI: With the Glasgow studio established, is this going to continue to be your HQ, and how often are you all in there together these days?

CG: We’re planning to go back in soon, I think we would hope to carry on in there. Having gone through the process of getting it up and running it would be nice to keep it on and create more than these first two albums in the space.

AMI: So you’ve got a tour coming up in July this year, which tracks from these albums are you most looking forward to playing live?

CG: I think I Don’t Know What You See In Me is going to be really good fun. I spent quite a lot of time working on that before Christmas to try and work out how many of the parts I can physically play before I run out of hands. That one will be fun. When we toured in the US last year we started playing tracks from A Bit of Previous –  Unnecessary Drama and If They’re Shooting At You were both really fun to play. We’re excited to get back out there.

Late Developers is available now. Find out more about Belle and Sebastian’s upcoming Summer tour at belleandsebastian.com

The post Interview: Belle and Sebastian on self produced album Late Developers appeared first on Audio Media International.

It’s often been said that music production is a pricey passion, but in 2023, it’s quite possible to get your hands on some quality hardware and software whilst abiding to a fixed budget. In this feature we’ll outline some solid choices to fit the core needs of any home studio.

Creating a home studio is by no means a one-size fits all situation. Beyond the room you’re working with, the volume levels you’re allowed to exceed and the keyboard and hardware space you’ve got in play, you also really need to work within a realistic budget to prevent that all-too-easy slide into bank-breaking territory. 

While some might scoff at the idea of not investing every penny into making a home studio as high-spec as possible, realistically, most people don’t start off their studio ambitions with limitless cash at their disposal. More often than not, a home studio build is a gradual, cumulative process that takes several months, if not years, to establish.

But, getting that foundation right is very important, and in the following sections, we’ll highlight five core studio essentials – DAW, Interface, Monitors/Headphones, MIDI Keyboard and Microphone – as well as an extra add-on that can augment or enhance a budget home studio. We’re keeping to strict price-restrictions, from (just under) £3,000 to as little as £1,000. While affordable and accessible, all the products listed are recommended choices for any home studio. 

YOUR UNDER £3,000 / $3714 STUDIO

INTERFACE – Universal Audio Apollo Solo 

The titans of the audio interfacing world, UA have muscled into the budget-end of the market in recent years, with the Thunderbolt 3-powered Apollo Solo being their latest foray. Sporting two mic/line inputs and a simple-to-use main display, the interface also houses a DSP chip, enabling it to take on the processing power of some of the company’s acclaimed UAD plugins. A brilliant first step into the UA’s advanced interfacing universe. 

DAW – Apple Logic Pro X 

Apple’s flagship DAW has evolved into a versatile music production workstation over the last decade, with the freshest updates bringing Dolby Atmos support, heaps of in-built samples, instruments, impactful drum and sample-triggering sequencers and a multitude of mix-shaping plugins. For the price, it’s astounding how far you can go in Logic Pro.

MONITORS – Neumann KH 120 A 

As any producer will tell you, hearing your mixes with absolute clarity is pivotal to ensuring the end results sparkle. We’d recommend spending the biggest chunk of your budget on your monitors if you can. Neumann’s KH 120 A’s are suitably high-end, bi-amplified options, sporting customised waveguides, premium-level tweeters and long-throw composite bass drivers. A pair of these would be a wise investment. 

MIDI KEYBOARD – Arturia Keylab 88 MKII  

With the budget you’re working with, you can afford to splash out on a more expansive MIDI controller keyboard. Arturia’s Keylab MKII 88 is an 88-note aftertouch keyboard, sporting sensitive pads, hardy faders and robust rotaries. Arturia’s hardware gels extremely well with the vast majority of DAWs out there right now, and its transport controls will synchronise instantly with their core parameters. 

MICROPHONES – Warm Audio WA-47 JR 

Taking their cues from the microphone heavyweights of yesteryear, Warm Audio have a rep for bringing expertly crafted microphones in the vein of the icons, at an accessible price. The WA-47 JR is a transformer-less FET condenser that imparts a similar warmth to its Neumann inspiration. Its large diaphragm capsule easily captures every nuance of vocals, acoustic guitar and anything else you throw its way. 

EXTRA – Vicoustic Flexi Screen Lite 

With the bedrock established, you can use the remaining cash to invest in one of Vicoustic’s noise-eliminating Flexi Screens. The Lite version won’t set you back much, but will totally eradicate outside noise spill when recording vocals. Vicoustic’s special absorbing material is expertly woven to make sure that the vocal frequency is isolated from any intrusion. 

TOTAL = £2,894 / $3582

YOUR UNDER £2,000 / $2476 STUDIO

INTERFACE – SSL 2+ 

Condensing the technical expertise of one of the industry’s large-format goliaths into a desktop interface, you’ll be guaranteed superior clarity when using the SSL 2+ as your main I/O. A 2-in, 4-out interface, the SSL 2+ also houses a pair of stunning microphone preamps, as well as the company’s Legacy 4K analogue colour enhancement. It’s an affordable way to capture premium-grade audio. 

DAW – PreSonus Studio One 6 Professional 

PreSonus’s DAW has had a slew of appealing upgrades recently (as explored in our recent review) meaning it’s now every bit as robust as some of the more popular DAW figureheads. Its Smart Templates make starting focused projects super easy, while the in-built plugins span every studio process. A mightily slick DAW that won’t break the bank. 

MONITORS – IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Monitors 

IK’s initial leap into the monitoring world may have been dismissed by some because of their diminutive size, but ask anyone who’s mixed with a pair and they’ll explain that these bi-amped beauties are anything but disappointing. Delivering a combined 50 RMS of power via class D power amplifiers, the Micros present a stunning depiction of the stereo field. Extraordinary for the cost and footprint.  

MIDI KEYBOARD – Novation Launchkey 88 MK3 

Novation’s brand of Launchkey MIDI controllers are aimed at the expressive player, with top-notch DAW integration and tactile build quality throughout. Famed for its synth acumen, Novation’s breadth of controller and sample triggering options have become a core focus for the company over the last few years, and the 88-note Launchkey is the daddy of them all.

MICROPHONES – Aston Microphones Spirit 

A bona-fide modern classic, Aston Microphones’ large diaphragm condenser may only have been released a few years back, but its astonishing sonic quality has garnered praise and respect from many big names. Switches on the side allow you to change up the polar pattern, while its distinctive aesthetic will make it a snazzy stand out in your budget studio. 

EXTRA – Sonarworks SoundID Reference for Speakers and Headphones 

With the essentials in place, the remaining cash is able to be put to good use on some high-end studio calibration. Sonarworks are experts in this field, and their measurement mic/software combo Reference will allow you to correct those difficult to tame resonances and bouncing frequencies in your studio, calibrating audio response across your entire system.

TOTAL = £1,805 / £2234

YOUR UNDER £1,000 / $1237 STUDIO

INTERFACE – Audient EVO 4  

Studio legends Audient have been a desktop interfacing champion for years, and the 2in/2out EVO 4 is arguably their most impressive yet. Don’t be put-off by its dinky size and simple controls, within this versatile, mobile-ready box, are a pair of beefy analogue EVO mic preamps that present immaculate audio quality, in tandem with the digital hyper-accuracy of Smartgain to auto-adjust levels. A mighty little powerhouse, EVO 4 does the job and then some.

DAW – Ableton Live 11 Standard 

Regularly hailed as one of the most creatively stimulating DAWs, the formerly dance-music angled Ableton Live is now a multi-faceted artistic paradise, and one of the world’s most beloved musical playgrounds. Packed with sample-based synths, a raft of processing effects and a thriving community of add-on developers. Designed for both production and performance, the Live eco-system provides endless scope. 

HEADPHONES – Audio-Technica ATH-M70x 

Headphone monitoring tops using speakers if you want to zone into your projects in detail, and Audio Technica’s ATH-M70x’s provide some of the most pristine clarity available for the price. The 45mm large-aperture drivers provide the power, while the carefully-tuned frequency response brings perfect balance, without a hint of colouration. The contoured ear-cups bring all-important comfort also.

MIDI KEYBOARD – AKAI MPK MIni Mk3 

A controller which takes the time out of set-up. Akai’s MPK Mini MK3 brings universal integration and a dinky but hardy route into hardware control. With 25 Mini keys, an OLED display for parameter feedback and 8 infinitely tweak-able rotaries to control MIDI CCs, the MKP Mini is a highly recommended first foray into hardware control of your software. 

MICROPHONES – RODE NT1-A 

Rode’s respected NT1-A is a low-noise, large-diaphragm condenser that is able to handle well in any situation, from piano, guitar, drum or vocal recording. The gold-sputtered capsule within has been manufactured to sub-micron tolerances to provide that characteristic warmth you’d typically find among the vintage stable of microphone icons. 

EXTRA –  GIK Acoustics B4 4’ Bass Trap 

With the remaining cash, you’ll be able to take some first steps toward making your recording space behave better acoustically. GIK Acoustics offer a range of standalone panels, absorbers and reflectors. Installing a bass trap can be one of the most discernible additions, particularly in small rooms. One or two of these will do wonders for flattening out any low frequency resonances that your room might be emphasising.  

TOTAL = £966.50 / $1195

With these product suggestions, we’ve hopefully made the point that establishing a legitimate home studio doesn’t have to cause painful financial outlay. The above options could be used as your foundation, or mixed and matched as part of your own set-up. A crucial factor to underline is that acquiring the gear is just one part of the process. Learn to use and get the best out of each item you own, and you’ll be able to maximise its potential when making your music.

The post Kitting Out Your Home Studio on a Budget appeared first on Audio Media International.

With an expressive use of acoustic guitar, lushly layered arrangement and autobiographical lyrics, Charlie Cunningham has made a stamp as an artist with a distinct personality. With album number three, Frame, set to land in March, we caught up with the Buckinghamshire-born songwriter to learn about a unique creative process.

With delicate ripples of acoustic guitar, heart-tugging melodies and soothing vocals, Charlie Cunningham’s latest album, Frame, is just the kind of musical respite that many of us will appreciate in the midst of these uncertain times. Since his debut LP, Lines established an acoustic and flamenco-leaning signature to his work, Cunningham has expanded his textural palette. 2019’s Permanent Way brought wider instruments and atmospherics to the table. On his new record, Charlie continues to augment his emotive approach, peppering his mixes with allusions to golden era jazz and neo-classical music. We spoke to Charlie to find out more about the making of this latest entry…

AMI: Hi Charlie, what was the starting point for Frame?

Charlie Cunningham: It will have been getting back home after a long tour in 2020, one that was cut short by the pandemic, and then being suddenly faced with this indeterminate stretch of time ahead. And, with the world being as it was, it was a particularly unique set of feelings to try and get my head around. Writing these songs was probably my way of doing that, or at least attempting to.

AMI: Which songs on the album took the longest to get right, and which didn’t develop much from their initial form? 

CC: More often than not a song will go on quite a substantial journey, I’ve learned to be more open to that – lots of trial and error. Some of them I wrote on the guitar and ended up on the piano and vice versa, or what I think is going to be something stripped back and understated can turn into something much more expansive, with the opposite also being the case sometimes.

AMI: How long did the recording process take, and did you have a particular sonic tone/aesthetic that you were trying to conjure on Frame? 

CC: The recording itself didn’t take too long, it was more the writing that took up most of the time, I don’t write very quickly unfortunately, especially lyrics. The initial ideas can come quickly but saying something is finished can be a real challenge for me, though I’m pretty sure that’s the same for a lot of people. 

I was listening to a lot of the late 50s ‘golden era’ jazz records and embracing the opportunity that time was allowing me to learn more about that world, both culturally and artistically. It was a wonderful and shamefully overdue period of discovery, and it reinforced my desire to make something warm and ‘classic’ sounding, though through a modern lens, so to speak – and in a way that feels authentic to me and my sound. 

AMI: Going right back to the start of your story, how did you first discover music? 

CC: It would have been through the music my parents were playing, which was always really varied. I’m grateful for that in hindsight. We also had an old piano in the house which I spent a lot of time sitting in front of, trying to work things out. Another significant moment was the Beatles Anthology documentary and albums which all came out when I was 11. That coincided with my next-door neighbour giving me his old acoustic guitar, that was a big moment, the piano took a back seat for a good while after that.

AMI: The centrality of flowing acoustic guitar is a notable USP of yours, we really love the zoomed-in focus on your hands moving around the fretboard during the So It Seems video. How do you get the best out of acoustics when recording and mixing?

CC: Thanks very much! I like how that video came out too. As far as acoustics, we used a pair of Schoeps MK2 microphones, and then we spent a long time listening to different placements of them and then also the room positioning, trying to get the best of all worlds. I also do a lot of takes, improvising ideas, letting the parts develop naturally.

AMI: Do you typically write and record in a home studio? If so, what is the core of your setup?

CC: I really don’t have much of a home recording set-up at all. I had a Zoom Digital 8-Track for years which did me well, I found it much more intuitive than a computer. With writing, I tend to get things to a certain level of semi-completion, and then go and put that down at a studio, usually quite crudely and with the intention of taking it away and refining the lyrics etc. Sometimes those early recordings are the ones I end up using which can feel special, but that doesn’t happen as often as I’d like. 

AMI: What would you say has been the most vital music production technology (software or hardware) for you as a creative? 

CC: The Schoeps Microphones were fairly pivotal, we used them for both my piano and acoustic guitar, and they complimented them both beautifully. Would highly recommend!

AMI: What’s next on the agenda for you? 

CC: I have a couple more singles coming out ahead of the album release, and then I’ll be getting back out there and touring it, which I’m really excited about. If you’re reading this… please come!

Frame is released on March 31st. Head to charliecunningham.com for tour dates and more information.

Welcome to issue 7 of Audio Media International

The post Interview: Charlie Cunningham on new album Frame appeared first on Audio Media International.

Applying subtle polish to a growing list of top-tier tracks, including crucial cuts from the new Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, we spoke to the Grammy-nominated MixGiant himself, Noah Glassman to learn more about how he found his feet in this competitive world, and his narrative-driven philosophy.

One of the mixing world’s ascending lights, Noah Glassman (aka MIXGIANT) has applied his subtle, considered touch to such world-beating records as Doja Cat’s Planet Her and Burna Boy’s Love, Damini as well as a multitude of tracks and projects. Working often in conjunction with his mentor – Grammy Award-winning Jesse Ray Ernster – Noah injects his particular narrative sensibility into his mix philosophy, letting the track lead the way and zoning into its emotional core. We spoke to Noah about this approach, his career development to date and gained some all-purpose mixing advice. But first, we asked about his first steps into the world of mixing…

AMI: Hi Noah, Firstly, can you tell us how you first became interested in music production and mixing?

I guess the start of it was my guitar. When I graduated high school I decided I really wanted to pursue electric guitar. I was really into Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix and people like that. So, I just bought this Strat – which I named ‘Suzanne’. I decided to really throw myself into it, and that naturally led to production. I wanted to learn how to make my stuff sound good when I record it. So basic early production led to engineering and, eventually, mixing.

I didn’t study music ever. I studied film production in college. I worked with this artist called Tiffany Day and produced a music video for her. She told me that I should see the setup of the guy that mixed some of her tracks, that was Jesse Ray Ernster. So I hooked up with him via his Instagram, and that’s how we first met.

AMI: So you began working together shortly after, I’m guessing you learned a great deal from starting working with Jesse. What were some of your biggest takeaways from that relationship?

I would say the biggest takeaways were how to maintain and interact with clients. How to please people and make sure that they’re happy. Jesse and I have always been on the same page about not gatekeeping knowledge. At the end of the day, no-one is going to hire me just for the way I EQ a snare!

Jesse was and is great at listening to his clients and figuring out what they need. That’s something that I learned from him. I think making that human connection is more important than the technical stuff more often than not. I know a lot of mixers have hard and fast rules, like ‘no revisions after three passes’, but I don’t think the job is done until the artist is happy. If that takes five or ten tries, so be it.

Jesse is an amazing friend and I’m grateful he took me under his wing, and now we’re in a collaborative, co-mixing place which is cool. I don’t assist him anymore. We kind of mix side-by-side.

AMI: How do you start on a typical mix project, do you listen to the demo and bounce around ideas?

 I’m quite flexible. I go through his battle in my mind constantly over whether I should make a more formal starting place. It really just depends on every song. I’m not at all of the belief system that a mixer should start with dry stems, I hate that idea. If you work with an artist really closely and have been building a song that the artist loves and has an emotional connection to, then not trusting their judgement is a mistake. Everything you do in isolation, even putting on a compressor, is doing something to their song.

I do think producers are mixing more these days, I think all these roles are changing. We’re not all recording at Abbey Road or EastWest. You have to do things to sound good in small rooms. So, I like to receive both dry and wet stems, but I usually use the wet – especially for the instruments. Why would I want to create your guitar delay?

I think my job is slowly revealing itself to be more of a song ‘finisher’. I love mixing and I love production, really every part of it and I think depending on the song, it might just be like ‘hey can you finish the record, and tidy up the loose ends?’.

AMI: So you see yourself as someone rounding out the rougher edges and colouring in some of the space? But, are there any catch-all techniques you apply to the majority of your mixes?

I guess. I’m detail oriented. One thing that I’ve started doing a lot more of as a standardised thing is clip-gaining vocals. I go through an entire song and clip-gain every syllable if I have to. I don’t use de-essers because I like to manually turn down every ’s’ and every sibilant sound. It takes a long time but it proves to be very worth it.

I really like dynamics and open sounds. Compression has its uses and can sound effective in small doses but I’m still trying to find that balance between wider dynamics and compression – I want to preserve the space as much as possible. I’m using a clipper instead of a limiter at the end of my mix bus. Acustica Audio’s Fire The Clip plugin has proved to be a great way to bring warmth. I was about to analogue mix buss stuff, but now I’m not, because of that.

AMI: I was listening to the Burna Boy track, Alone earlier. It’s got a real sorrowful vibe with that constant acoustic guitar, and his vocal. What was your mindset when working on that track?

So I’d been working with Amaarae on her Black Panther tracks, and was in Amsterdam when Jesse called me to say he’d been working with Burna Boy for the film. I had done Burna’s album previously and brought Jesse onboard there, so it was a nice way to return the favour. I jumped at the chance to do it.

After some initial mixing in Amsterdam, I heard that Burna wasn’t a fan of the arrangement. I returned to LA and heard that they’d re-recorded the arrangement, so we got some updated stems. I basically started going in and worked all night, Jesse did his thing, too. The next day, I was invited over to Burna’s house and I set-up on his kitchen table. It was very cool, his mum made jollof rice for us.

We just went through the song and worked on perfecting the hook. Burna has such an incredible instinct. It’s sometimes easy as a technical person to get lost in the analytical stuff, and you forget the overall song. He’s got such a superb presence, and I did the best to keep as much low end in his vocal. I used Eventide’s Squid EQ to EQ the transient and the tone separately. That’s a great plugin that can really help you to play with that separation.

AMI: Can you explain more about your narrative- based philosophy when it comes to mixing?

It’s funny, I’d never really realised it until recently, but my filmmaking studies definitely have an impact. I’m always thinking about how I can enhance the emotional experience. For me, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I care a lot less about sonic fidelity than I care about emotional connection. I would rather my mixes feel really good rather than sound really good.

If a track needs to be chaotic, I allow it to be chaotic. Of course, if I make it sound terrible nobody will hire me, but I definitely think there’s a balance to be struck between something technically good, and something feeling good.

You also need to know what not to mix. Know what to leave alone. I really want to remove my ego completely from the songs I’m working on. If the track needs one EQ on one thing, then I’ll just do that. I feel like I’m trying to be a servant of the song.

AMI: What’s next on your agenda, Noah?

Well, I’ve been working on an album for a little over a year and a half with an artist called Amaarae, a Ghanaian singer. It’s really fantastic. If I showed you the Pro Tools backups it’s absolutely massive. I engineered the whole album as well as production, so being part of every process has resulted in this huge Pro Tools project. But that’s pretty much finished now, and should start being released this month.

Find out more about Noah’s work at mixgiant.com

The post Interview – Grammy-nominated MixGiant Noah Glassman appeared first on Audio Media International.

With a hugely respected body of work under his belt, video game maestro Jesper Kyd’s pulse-pounding new score for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide finds the composer harnessing the unpredictable magic of analogue synths from the 1970s…

As the architect of some of the very finest scores to grace the last twenty years of video games, the name Jesper Kyd is synonymous with both quality and individualism. His work has been acclaimed by both gamers and those who just like to wallow in solidly written, dense soundtracks. With the Danish-born’s frenetic, epic soundtrack for the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Darktide building anticipation for the first-person shooter’s release, we caught up with Jesper to delve into his idiosyncratic scoring approach, and drill into the conflicting disciplines of writing for both interactive entertainment and films.

AMI: Hi Jesper, first off, let’s talk about your work on Warhammer: Darktide, it’s a really awesome soundtrack, and a dazzling fusion of genres and sonics. What was your starting point?

Jesper Kyd: The starting point was the lore of Warhammer, the more I dug into the world the more awesome I found the lore is. I can’t think of a franchise out there that has better lore than Warhammer. It’s just unbelievable. They’re been going at it since the 80s and keep adding more to it. One of the first things I was told by the developer was that they were looking for music that gave you a sense of ‘machines that were alive’. I wanted to deconstruct that idea.

So, the game takes place 40,000 years in the future, on a planet called Atoma Prime. There’s a city called Tertium, which you go into to eradicate the bad guys (called Chaos). This city was built thousands of years ago, but the inhabitants there have forgotten how its machines work, they only really know how to maintain them. So they look at this machinery as something almost sacred.

That gave me a good way in; what I found worked well to illustrate that was using vintage synthesisers. They don’t sound fresh out of the box, and they all sounded aged. Each synthesiser is pretty unique once it has aged a significant amount. All the components inside have got slower. So I started creating electronic music with these vintage synths, making stuff that sounded a bit anarchic.

Not only did some of these sequences that I created sound more organic and alive, but they also sounded like they were barely keeping up. That added a funk to it. I was using these old drum machines and analogue sequencers as well, to create this kind of swing, it added to the feel that the instruments were being performed as opposed to being perfectly sequenced in a DAW. That’s an important part of it.

AMI:The main theme in particular, kind of sounds like a smashing together of fantasy and sci-fi, with shades of both Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer. How long did that theme take you and how long was the whole process?

The whole thing took a few years (on and off), but the main theme was the first thing I created. It has a really intense bass-line running through it. In the game, you start at the bottom, you are what the developers called a ‘reject’, so this idea that you work yourself up from the bottom led me to incorporate a lot of folk music instruments and acoustic performances to celebrate where you came from, to remind you of who your character is, no matter how high you rise in there ranks.

Also you get hired by the ‘Imperium’, and that’s when things get epic. We had a big live choir which we recorded in Budapest with the Budapest Scoring Choir – it helps give the sense that now you’re a badass for the Imperium.

That first track took a while to create, because I wanted to build it using analogue sequencing, I wanted to build the score around the idea that the electronics sounded as organic as possible. The analogue sequencers I used were the Roland 104 and an old ARP Sequencer. They’re really interesting instruments that definitely sound like they have life in them.

AMI: There’s so much incredible synth-texture on this soundtrack, pieces like Immortal Imperium have a real savage, industrial grind to them. What were some of the key vintage synths you used to build up this aural universe?

Key synths I’d say were the Yamaha CS-80, that was a big part of the sound, also the Prophet 10 from the 1970s – that’s probably my favourite keyboard of all time.The Roland SH-5 and SH-1000 are a big part of it, too. The latter has such a cool sound, the filter on there is unbelievable. I think it was Roland’s best ever filter.

The Korg Monopoly is pretty great, my Octave Cat is an original, from the 1970s – that’s one of the most out-of-control instruments ever. I also like to use Waldorf stuff. But I tend to always lean on my big Eurorack system, which is featured heavily in the score.

AMI: What is it about that older gear that made you want to use it for this game? Do you think those analogue sounds outshine more modern synths?

 I do use modern synths as well, but when you play these new instruments that are trying to emulate older instruments there is a difference that you have to appreciate. If you were to do a quick comparison between them, things sound pretty close. But when you do things the ‘wrong’ way on a vintage synth, real magic can happen. When you do the same on a modern keyboard, it doesn’t have the same effect. They emulate how you’re ‘supposed’ to use it. Those experiments into the weird just don’t go as deep on a new synth.

AMI: That sounds exciting and explorative, but there must be a lot of challenges to using this older gear…

 I think the biggest challenge is the fact that they are old. The CS-80 came out in the beginning of the 70s, so that’s got some years on it. They don’t always have MIDI, so you’re trying to really capture a performance. Other times, I build in like a CV Gate, then suddenly you’re able to sync things up with Cubase and with your modular, then everything runs in tempo, which is a huge help.

AMI: It seems like the role of a video game soundtrack composer is changing constantly. What have been the biggest shifts you’ve experienced over the last decade?

 I think that the emphasis on music in games is growing. Developers are aware of how important music is. I feel like in film and TV, you don’t need to tell people that music is important, because without it a certain genre of film won’t work. But, for video games, people are really catching on to that now.

I get that totally because the gameplay needs to be fun first and foremost. The music adds a huge amount of depth, but I think people are catching on to the fact that people will want to keep playing the game more if it has a good score.

AMI: What are the major differences between writing for games and say your work on films – which do you prefer?

 Jesper: I don’t think I can live without doing both, if we start with video games, the amount of creative freedom that you can achieve is astounding. For the games I work on, I get asked to do my thing and I get really creative on those projects. I think that’s what I’m known for as well. In film, it’s very important that you can transition between cues very fast. You might have ten seconds of ‘walking’ ten seconds of ‘danger’, and then two seconds of ‘elevation’. It’s about always enhancing what’s on the screen.

The post Interview: Jesper Kyd on making his Warhammer 40,000: Darktide score appeared first on Audio Media International.

Providing an insight into the inner state of the human brain when listening to music, and presenting a creative audio/visual spectacle to boot, Sound Mind is a neurofeedback installation like no other. We caught up with its builders to learn more…

We all know how music makes us feel inside, but what if we could peer inside our heads and see, visually, how our brain waves are reacting to different forms of music? Part scientific exercise and part artistic installation, Sound Mind has been designed to lift the lid on precisely this all-important interaction.

Conceived by dBs Institute graduate Mark Doswell, and serving as the major project for his Innovation in Sound MA, Sound Mind ‘paints’ the activity in the human brain via LED lighting arrayed across a large dome-like structure. Based in Bristol, Mark enlisted team mates, Rory Pickering and Jim Turner to construct this futuristic dome. 

Doswell crafted a slick signal chain, beginning with a consumer-aimed electroencephalogram (EEG), running through a brain-wave organising application, into Ableton Live and then out to a light-controlling workstation, which triggers different LED lighting states across the structure. 

Keen to dig into this fascinating new foray into brain/music interfacing further, we spoke to Mark and his team to find out more…

AMI: Hi guys, firstly what was the starting point for Sound Mind, and had the world of  neurofeedback been of interest to you generally? 

Mark Doswell: There were a few starting points really, I was really surprised to find out that there were consumer-grade EEGs available on the market. There was one that was used to aid in meditation and therapy. After that I discovered that there was a third-party app called Mind Monitor. That allows you to send OSC (Open Sound Control) messages which you can then pick up inside software like MaxMSP or Max for Live (inside Ableton Live). Both these things were quite exciting to me. 

I’d built a biosensor before to use on plants, in the hopes of making music with them. I used it on myself at one point then started to wonder about what other bio signals you could use in a musical context. I played around with my heartbeat and galvanic skin response before I thought it’d be cool to scan human brainwaves. 

AMI: At what point did the Sound Mind project find its feet then, and how did the team come together? 

Mark: I met Rory at Hackspace, and Jim is an old friend of mine. Hackspaces are cool creative places which are equipped with laser cutters and 3D printers. They’re great for facilitating ideas. I started talking to Rory about my idea of illuminating a brain via EEG, and he explained how he typically makes light installations. Then we became collaborators

Rory Pickering: I’d been building a few things using LEDs and I’d always wanted to do something with music. I heard Mark’s idea and just thought it sounded very cool. For quite a while we were talking about building a literal brain that sits above somebody’s head, over time we realised it didn’t need to be quite so literal. It’s more an abstract representation. 

Mark: Studying at dBs forces you to get stuff done, but the fact that we had this deadline, as it became my major project, meant we had a motivating force. The innovation course was great, and it was really useful for showing me what MaxMSP was capable of.

Rory: I’d never heard of dBs before getting involved with this project, but they were very encouraging, and facilitated our mad idea. I was quite impressed by the space and the people.

AMI: So what are we seeing when we’re watching the colours light-up, are they representing emotional responses? 

Rory: So we had five channels of incoming data (corresponding to brainwaves), the hardest part was mapping these to different visual parameters. The data stream that indicates excitement, we might map to a visual parameter that is indicative of that state of mind. Like a strobe effect, or the speed at which some kind of LFO in the visuals is scaled. We used several different programs per track. We’d change the mapping for different songs, so you get quite interesting results. It also varies depending on the person.

Mark: At the moment, we do know that alpha waves are more active during a music listening session, or during relaxation or meditation. So we can demonstrate this. It’s also true that gamma waves are more likely to appear when stressed. We were focusing on emphasising this but then we realised that the best approach was to balance the science with art. We wanted to make it a creative installation ultimately. 

Sound Mind is not mapped to brain *regions* yet. So, if you’re processing a certain element of music, like rhythm, the left hemisphere of your head should probably be the most active. This is something we’re looking at doing for the next iteration though. 

AMI: So Rory and Mark were responsible for the concept and technical set-up, and Jim was tasked with building the structure itself?

Jim Turner: Yeah, I designed the structure of it. I was throwing ideas out to Mark and Rory over a weekend. The whole thing was made on a very low budget, so we had to be creative to make it look impressive, and have an angularity to it. To display the ideas we had. Overall it took three to six months. 

Mark: Over half of that time was deciding where to go with the structure. We didn’t want to do anything that had been done before shape-wise which made it quite challenging.

AMI: What was the first test, and I guess a big question is how do participants interface with it?

Mark: So we use the Muse Headband, it’s designed for meditation but is a four-channel EEG. It’s surprisingly very reliable. There’s a lot of academic papers written on it. So we used that as our brain-scanner. This was going to my phone which had an app called Mind Monitor, which renders the incoming EEG data. That’s sent via OSC data to Ableton Live to automate some Max for Live devices. This is sent to the video mapping and light projection suite Mad Mapper.

Rory: It was Mark’s girlfriend that first tried it out. She recorded her brainwaves into Ableton Live, so then we had a recording to work with. Even though we were bending the DAW to a new purpose, it did become our main way of organising the control data, whereas the visuals were determined by Mad Mapper, taking the MIDI from Live. 

AMI: Were there any big surprises, and how responsive was it? 

Mark: One caveat to using SoundMind was that you had to close your eyes. Any eye movements would make litter jumps or artefacts. I had a conversation with Alan Harvey, a neuroscientist who did a great TED Talk called ‘Your Brain on Music’, which was very inspiring. He told us to make sure the subject’s eyes were closed. 

It differs from conventional neurofeedback, because usually you’d be getting that data back in real time and you’d learn to control your brainwaves. With Sound Mind the participants are getting it later. The audience is watching this happen in real-time and getting an insight into what’s going on in the subject’s brain.

AMI: What kinds of music were you playing? 

Mark: Jim made a track, I made a track and one of Rory’s friends made something. One was music for study, one was relaxing and trance-like, then mine was a mixture of emotions, a bit of a breakcore track. It had speed and pitch variations and dissonant tones. I did that to try and play around with the reactions, and trigger some interesting illuminations. 

AMI: Are you thinking of developing this concept further on both the artistic and scientific fronts?

Mark: I’d like to. I’d like to do two variations that cover both the artistic side and scientific. It might be two different structures. I want to use the neurofeedback concept more, so people could be creating music using SoundMind. A way of doing it so eyes can be open would be great. 

Rory: I think it’d be fascinating to see things the other way, so the brainwaves are affecting the music. It’s something we tried to do at the end, but we ran out of time I think this project was great in that it highlights how music changes what’s happening in your brain and your emotional state. To make it a full loop would be interesting. 

AMI: Do you think we’re going to be seeing a lot more human brain interfacing applications, is it the future of musical control?

Mark: I think generative music is becoming a lot more mainstream and the fact that EEGs have become consumer grade and affordable opens doors. It’s quite exciting. We will definitely be seeing more of it. 

Rory: EEGs started out as a medical technology, but it’s now commercially available. I think the creative uses of it haven’t really been explored yet, it hasn’t been in people’s hands long enough. But, it’s only a matter of time… 

Welcome to issue 7 of Audio Media International

The post Interview: Sound Mind installation – visualising your response to music appeared first on Audio Media International.

From immersive product demos, in-depth masterclasses and a raft of eye-popping new gear peppering the corridors, booths and studios, the return of Miloco’s gear showcase at their jaw-dropping London HQ brought sights and sounds to remember…

First held back in 2017 at their SE1 studio complex, Miloco’s Gear Showcase was on the way to becoming a bright new fixture in the calendars of the UK’s music technology industry. With the pandemic sadly putting pay to the event in recent years, the re-launch was met with a high degree of enthusiasm from attendees, exhibitors and industry pros alike.

Having evolved into one of the world’s biggest studio and production-related companies, Miloco currently oversees 170 studios across the globe, as well as offering studio construction via Miloco Builds, a huge array of gear via Miloco Gear and a bespoke sample library outlet via Drumdrops. Connecting with the industry is essential to Miloco’s ethos, making the return of the open-door Gear Showcase something that had clearly been expertly planned.

Upon entering, our first port of call was the central live room of The Pool studio. Within, the likes of Sony, KMR, Trinnov, Flare Audio, Chandler, Help Musicians and Source Distribution were eagerly presenting their latest wares…

The Pool and The Vault

Flare Audio’s E-Prototype and Calmer distortion-reducing earphones were the first products to take our interest. The E-Prototype in-ear ‘phones boldly claim to change the internal shape of the ear canal so sound quality heard by users is dramatically increased. This ‘Mirror Image’ sound technology is startlingly innovative. “What we’ve discovered is that we’re able to create two flat surfaces inside the earphone, a bit like a periscope, and we can produce a mirror image of the impulse and the driver onto the surface of the eardrum. It’s unlocked a whole new world of sound quality.” Flare explained to us. Calmer, Flare’s initial foray into in-ear technology, uses a similar ear-canal-adjusting philosophy to reduce stress-inducing, peaky sounds that people might hear in their day-to-day lives. They’ve become a big seller.

Sony’s brand new entry-level C80 microphone took a central position in the space (and would later be road-tested in The Bridge studio). Alongside its legendary brothers, the C-100 and C-800, the microphone features a two-part metallic anti-vibrational body structure, dual-diaphragm and Noise Elimination Construction which minimises vibration.

Up in a separate vocal booth, Source Distribution had a plethora of astounding synths set-up and ready to play, including the Moog Matriarch, Arturia’s analog polysynth the PolyBrute and ASM Hydrasynth. This gave us our first chance to explore the Polybrute’s new in-built multi-axis MPE performance controller, the Morphée, allowing X, Y and Z axis navigation of sounds. We might have spent a little too long getting lost in its five dimensional universe…

KMR Audio presented a multitude of wares. From outboard, microphones to some choice speakers – namely the jaw-dropping NNNN Comium 30 speakers. Sporting a distinctive, fan-like appearance, these full range 2-way monitors harness your room’s boundaries, turning them into an amplifier to generate higher SPL. It also does away with back wall reflections. Elsewhere, choice hardware from Gainlab Audio, Universal Audio, Cranborne Audio and an always-staggering Shadow Hills mastering compressor stocked the racks, while a Townsend Sphere L22 microphone could be modelled to any other microphone voicing at will.

In the Pool’s Control Room, a pair of Genelec’s state-of-the-art 8351Bs were wowing ears via their incredible, precise power. This latest addition to ‘The One’ family, delivers exemplary point-source monitoring. With newly elevated SPL, room calibration and further-reaching high frequency response.

In the smaller Vault area, Audient’s ASP 4816 Heritage Edition desk was being demonstrated. This in-line, completely analogue mix console brings large-format multi-channel dexterity with a much smaller footprint. Audient were keen to explain the range of clever things the 48 input console is capable of; “This is available in two configurations, there’s the Standard Edition and the Heritage Edition. It contains the recording and monitor paths in just one channel strip, this halves the space required yet has the same functionality as a larger desk.”

The Bridge and The Red Room

One of the most fun parts of the evening came when Sony demonstrated the new C80 mic with a live vocalist. “The C800 was a classic in the studio world, but very hard to get hold of in Europe and the UK.” Sony explained to a studio-full of enthusiasts. “What we did about ten years ago was bring out the C100 as a new flagship studio mic. As of yesterday, when they arrived in the country, we’ve now got the C80. Sony’s first studio mic that’s less than £500.”

Singing a two minute section of a song, the guest vocalist, Sophia, put Sony’s world-class family of mics to the test. While differences were detected between all three during the shootout, the overall quality bar was extraordinary, particularly for the ultra-affordable C80.

Elsewhere, numerous other engaging experiences were on offer, with an Atmos Demo in the Red Room, revealing the full scope of the space’s Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 setup. Harnessing the power of the ATC SCM45A as the left, front and right speakers, four ATC SCM25A’s overhead and dual Augspurger subs, the Atmos experience in this gold-standard mixing studio is nothing short of mind-blowing.

Later at The Red Room came the event that many people had been waiting for, a production masterclass with the acclaimed Charlie Hugall. The producer and mix engineer’s credits included Ed Sheeran, Florence and the Machine and Celeste. Hugall was talking us through his approach to the arrangement of Tom Grennan’s huge hit, Found What I’ve Been Looking For. “I thought I’d talk through this tune because basically, a lot of it was done on a bit of a shoestring budget, and it’s really the sum of the parts. Some of those parts are a bit ropey, but that’s part of the charm.” The MPG-award winner explained. “Tom came in with this amazing, gravelly, gritty voice. So one of the main things that I believe in with production is to just try and support the vocal, and facilitate its feeling.”

Opening up his original Pro Tools project, Charlie divulged how he had taken the original demo and gone away and added instrumental and rhythmical life to it, experimenting with quite freeform ideas (including some ‘obnoxious’ piano and ‘dodgy’ strings). He told the attendees how some of those basic recordings wound up in the final mix. “When I opened the project up after five years, I was like ‘Oh my God, what was I doing?’” Laughed Charlie, “But I wasn’t thinking about the solo’d tracks as individual things when I was arranging it, if things felt good for the song overall. They stayed.”

While the packed studio looked on in awe, Hugall isolated each of the huge-sounding track’s constituent parts, and explained that when it comes to production, often questing for things that sound too ‘perfect’ in isolation can be detrimental to the feel of the song. Once a vision is secured, Charlie told us that he needs to inhabit that song’s world “I wanted to create a feeling where the listener felt like there was too much going on. It was an intentional kind of thing. It informs my conduct on a personal level as a producer too. I’m not going to be sitting back being low-key. If I want the track to be lively, I’m going to be up on my feet, hyping up the artist. I want to match the energy of the artist and bring energy to a session that I want to get in the track.” It was a fascinating and inspiring masterclass.

It’s fair to say that those in attendance at Miloco’s Pro Audio Gear Showcase gained much from the evening. Whether by testing out mouth-watering pro-end gear, learning from the wisdom of seasoned pros, or just taking in the incredible surroundings of Miloco’s extremely cool HQ. Next year’s event can’t come soon enough.

Check out milocostudios.com for more information, and stay tuned for information about next year’s event.

Welcome to issue 7 of Audio Media International

The post Inside The Miloco Pro Audio Gear Showcase 2022 appeared first on Audio Media International.