Drawmer MCB1 Cowbell Enhancer

I don’t usually do jokes on this page, but just came across this excellent tech-joke from British manufacturer of outstanding studio outboards, Drawmer. I would like this machine!

Amazing machine from Drwamer's Facebook-world

For Worldwide release 1-04-13:

Drawmer Electronics Ltd have teamed up with world renowned dead cowbell virtuoso Gene Frenkle to produce the MCB1.

Since his death in 2000 Gene has dreamt of expanding on his early bell work, and after a chance meeting with Drawmer's creative director late one night in a bar in Sheffield U.K. his dream became reality.

The MCB1 is backed by the Drawmer reputation for quality and servicability allowing us to assure you "Don't Fear The Repair".

Happy Easter From all of us at Drawmer!

University of Glamorgan

'The Atrium' at the University of Glamorgan
(Photo Credits)

Earlier this academic we had visitors from two of the over-seas universities we collaborate with at the Noroff Institute in Trondheim. One of them was an Australian university that offers our students exchange programs in film and animation. The other one—more relevant for my Sound and Music Production students—was University of Glamorgan. Dr. Ben Challis (Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at Glamorgan) gave a very informative presentation on both the programmes they offer and life as a student in Cardiff and later held a Q & A session with my class.

Our school, which is a creative arts institute, currently offers a range of two-year industry training diplomas. Through a number of collaborating universities we also offer top-up years to get a fully accredited international Bachelor’s Degree. After two years of Sound- and Music Production studies, Glamorgan offers two different degrees that work seamlessly together with our programme:

Bachelor ofMusic Technology

Bachelor ofSound Technology

Many thanks to the University of Glamorgan and Dr. Ben Challis for taking the time out to fly over and present the courses in a way a webpage never can!

'The Atrium' at the University of Glamorgan
(Photo Credits)

The Skogbrann Festival 2012

For the second year in a row Alive Dance and its partners held the Skogbrann Festival (Forest Fire Festival) out in the woods South of the Norwegian city of Trondheim. This year we were in a new location close to a large lake. I was in charge of the technical set-up and it was mostly a blueprint of what we used at last year’sSkogbrann Festival. The most notable difference was a new mobile stage on wheels and the logistics operation needed to transport the gear further away from public road. Planning and installation of electric power to the area also had to be done.

Of equipment we were still based around a Yamaha M7CL with Dante MY16-AUD running into a ProTools 9 rig. I’m very happy with the M7CL, it is packed with functions and does the job well. Some people claim they can get much better sound from other boards, but with the stage-boxes the pre-amping actually sounds quite nice. I also believe there’s a limit to how big a difference it will make with another desk out in the woods of Norway. What you won’t necessarily get from any random desk is a piece of kit that works in damp and cold air at night, contrasted by warm and dry sunshine at noon and still “never sais die.” If I thought it sounded quite good before, it sounds even better after that assessment! The speakers were from Meyer Sound like last year. ProTools was running on a standard MacBook Pro and storage was done on a double WD hard-drive in ‘RAID 0’ set-up through FireWire. 32 lines were recorded at 48 kHz/ 24 bit. All sound-equipment was provided by Norsk Produksjon, while Snowdrift Productions brought some of the recording gear. We had a separate camera-crew through Hamstad Media.

The Skogbrann Festival and Alive Dance has built a strong relationship with Morningstar Ministries in the US. From Morning Star we had David Vallier and Amber Brooks. Amongst the local artists we had the magical little duo Snø, talented young songwriter Marion Winsnes and a dance crew from Alive Dance. Other international artists included Sue Rinaldi and Stephen Lynch aka. DJ Agent M from the UK.

Empty stage in the Norwegian woods at night

Sound-check for DJ Agent M

My Office: The Yamaha M7CL

Nice location for a festival

Reverberant view

Amber Brooks & David Vallier on fire

Album release: An-Magritt "Memoriam"

A friend of mine has recently produced an album called “Memoriam” (Album on iTunes, CD on Amazon) for Norwegian singer-songwriter An-Magritt. An-Magritt has lived in the US for a while and done both gigs and worked as a model. Here you can see her entry for Miss Universe Norway. In November we held an online release-party from the Rockheim music museum in Trondheim. Enjoyable night of great music and a strong team, with many viewers in Norway and America. I did the live sound for the event.

 

Official video for "11" by An-Magritt on Youtube

Pictures from behind the scenes:

See an edited version of the event on Youtube here!

 

An-Magritt with her live-band. View of Trondheim and the fjord through the glass.

Recording the live-set

Preparing to shoot the interview at the Rockheim music museum in Trondheim, Norway.

On Immigration and Education

Over the last few years the UK Government has made it harder to get a residency permit for foreigners. It may be good or it may be bad, and the grand scheme of it is not the topic of this blog-post. But I will comment on the part of the policy that affects foreign students.

Recently one of my friends, a talented and hard working Indian national who has been an entrepreneur in Singapore’s media industry, was told that the UK institute she studies at was no longer allowed to be her ‘sponsor.’ That means she will have to shift her studies to another institute or leave the country with an un-finished education that the UK Government seems to have no intention of refunding. The institute she studied at was Point Blank Music College—a distinguished industry-training college with a long track-record in educating music professionals. The dispute is solely over clerical issues that has nothing to do with Point Blank’s well established courses. You can read BBC’s article on the case here.

Studio 1 at Point Blank

Leona Lewis, a Point Blank Alumnus

When the new rules for immigration came into play a couple of years ago I remember the concerns from some of my non-EU friends in UK academia. Some were worried whether they would be allowed to stay in the UK, even though they had been there for a long time and were carrying out Doctoral or Post-doctoral level research for their institutes.

It is important that we don’t loose track of what this case is really about. The UK government wants fewer mouths to feed in a time of economic hardship, which is understandable. But if it is not already obvious I shall present three reasons for why academics and the education industry should not be mixed up with just anyone who is competing in the labour marked:

1. Foreign Money

The UK higher education industry is one of the most distinguished in the world. People bring their hard earned or borrowed money of any currency into Britain and leave it there. Any further explanation shouldn’t be needed…

2. Strengthened International Positioning

With the high position held by UK universities it is lucrative for academic high achievers from all over the world to work in the UK education industry. This brings:

a) further competitive advantage for the learning-institutions.

b) a broader and more internationally aware academic staff that is more up to date on current global affairs.

c) a more seamless interfacing with other institutes, alumni and prospective students from around the world who are willing to pay for a UK education.

3. Research

International Post-graduate researchers will help to create more globally applicable research, which further strengthens the position of their UK institutes. They will also have access to publish their research through channels that would not otherwise be accessible for UK researchers. This will be due to both language and personal networks.

I hope the UK Government comes back to its senses ASAP and gives Point Blank Music College back its border license!

Some Studio Monitors

Adam A7X, Adam A77X, Event 20/20 BAS & Eve SC207

Some time back I had the chance to sit down at the Production Room in Leeds to test some studio-monitors. You can read my comments here, but if you desire a complete analysis you should also read some of the more comprehensive reviews available. This one will not be as in depth. But that said, it has not been hard to choose a winner amongst the tree models I tested!

The set-up at the Production Room. Notice the stylish Zaor iDesk!

The three models in question are Adam A7X, Adam A77X and the Event 20/20 BAS. Having used both the old Event TR-8 and the ALP 5 for many years I was extremely excited about the re-release of the 20/20.

Event 20/20 BAS

Adam A77X

Adam A7X

The speakers were fed signal from a computer through the USB connection on the new Yamaha 01V 96 VCM (sorry for all the Yamaha-letters!), and distributed through a Coleman Audio MS6R. For better or for worse, the music was streamed from online. Still, the tracks had high enough resolution to give a clear idea about the individual character of the monitors in question.

I have used three different reference-tracks when testing. I’ve written my rather un-edited notes for each monitor under the different tracks. I know both the Miles Davis and Corinne Bailey Rae mixes very well from a number of different reproduction systems.

1. Miles Davis “Freddie Freeloader”:

Event 20/20 BAS

-       Pulled down the low shelf to half past ten and kept it there for the rest of the session.

-       They exerted a comfortable double-bass sound for listening.

-       The whole recording sounded classic analogue and warm.

-       Stereo image was not very wide, but neither is the recording.

Adam A77X

-       Unnaturally bright and wide stereo for this old recording.

-       More forward sounding than the Events.

-       Had to pull down the high shelf eq.

Adam A7X

-       Sounds truthful, a little more forward sounding than the 20/20’s, but still realistic.

-       Less bass extension than the two above, so you might want to consider a sub to check mixes in a large room.

Later I have found that lowering the bass shelf on the A7X can actually give a greater sense of bass-extension. The logic seems to be that the higher end of the bass-spectrum doesn’t get to mask the lower register to the same degree as it rolls off. A good reference track to try this on is D’Angelo’s “Feel Like Making Love.”

2. Corinne Bailey Rae “Put Your Records On”:

(This has become one of my regular test-tracks for assessing midrange and vocal clarity)

Event 20/20 BAS

-       Mix sounds familiar, but slightly boxy.

-       Much “bigger” sounding than the A7X.

-       Lacking some crucial information in the midrange.

-       In spite of what sounds like a huge bass extension it has less definition in the bass than either of the Adams.

Adam A77X

-       Amazing bass extension, but too forward sounding to reveal how the mix really sounds.

-       Seems to have the most accurate bass levels of the tree.

-       Most “comfy” to listen to.

Adam A7X

-       Appears as the most truthful.

-       The whole mix sounds amazing.

-       Round and nice bass, but not with a lot of extension.

-       Bass is clearly defined.

3. A piano piece by J. S. Bach

(I’m sorry I didn’t have the foresight to write down what it actually was). The recording was done on a 20^th century grand piano, so there were no fortepiano-sounds.

Event 20/20 BAS

-       Losing midrange information again! Feels like standing outside the door to a recital room. May work as background music for your living room, but not useful to represent acoustic sounds in a studio!

Adam A77X

-       Too bright! No grand piano sounds like this, and the brightness doesn’t help you to make a better mix here!

Adam A7X

-       Definitely the winner for this track!

Verdict

Event20/20 BAS

I really wanted to like the Events! I know so many mixes on the TR-8’s and I have loved them for years. I have always loved how the TR-8-sound translates very well between different listening systems. As you can imagine I was pretty pumped when I heard there was a new 20/20 on the way. But I’m sorry to say that they did not deliver. If you’re reading any of the major reviews out there I feel Sound on Sound for example is giving it even more credit than it deserves. It is said that this is a speaker first and foremost for the electronic musician, but I can’t find any useful application for it as a monitor to mix or record on at all. There is just too much lacking in the mids for it to be able to present any instrument (and especially vocal) in a truthful way. I’m curious to try them out in a different room and see if there’s a hidden epiphany somewhere, though I have my doubts.

AdamA77X

Lots of bass extension and lots of highs. In a home-cinema this speaker might do well, but I don’t really understand how the makers of the critically acclaimed A7X thought that their customer group could mix on these? Lots of top, lots of bottom, not much balance.

Adam A7X

By far and away the winner! I both wanted and expected it to be a closer race! To my ears Adam has one of the most detailed midranges in this marked-segment at the moment. That’s also why I find myself playing the likes of Corinne Bailey Rae and D’Angelo on them whenever I have the chance, to unfold vocal textures in the mixes. I have later found that lowering both the eq. shelves is beneficial to tidy up the bass and remove a bit of excess brightness.

Other alternatives

Eve SC207

Not long ago I bought a pair of Eve SC207 for a small studio I have designed in Norway. At first run-through they sound rather “boring,” but when you get used to them it’s easier to appreciate how clean they sound. If you want midrange details for editing vocals I would go for the A7X. But to get a transparent overview over your entire mix the Eve SC207 might be just as good. One of the main distributers in Scandinavia has told me that they expect the Eves to have less technical faults than the Adams as well, but ultimately it’s down to what sound you prefer working with.

Now, you go test some speakers and tell me what you think in the comment box!