FEATURES
Class of 2018: A Baker’s Dozen of This Year’s Coolest New Studios
By Barbara Schultz. Each June, Mix surveys facility designers and acousticians for their latest studio projects. This year’s “class” includes facilities in major and smaller U.S. markets, as well as new rooms and redesigns in Toronto, Monterrey and Rome.
The Music of Jesper Kyd: Composer Brings Ambient, Acoustic Vibe to State of Decay 2
By Jennifer Walden. Scoring an open-world game is tricky because the player has complete control over how he or she plays the game. Without a defined, linear storyline to follow, the score needs to be flexible enough to complement any play style, says BAFTA award-winning and Billboard/MTV Video Music Award-nominated composer Jesper Kyd.
Punk Rock Troubadour Frank Turner Aims to Be More Kind with His Latest Release
By Anthony Savona. For his seventh studio album, Be More Kind, punk folk hero Frank Turner wanted to do something different from his previous projects. He wanted to keep the key elements—his heartfelt lyrics and his rollicking backing band, The Sleeping Souls—but add some electronic elements to their sound.
MUSIC
Angelique Kidjo’s Remain in Light: Cross-Culture Advocate Re-imagines Talking Heads with African Spirit
By Barbara Schultz. This past April, Harvard University named Grammy-winning artist Angelique Kidjo its 2018 Jazz Master, in honor of her inspiring artistry and activism. Originating from Benin, Africa, Kidjo is an international treasure, dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls around the world, and using her magnificent voice to unite cultures through music.
Skating Polly, Brad Wood and The Make It All Show
By Barbara Schultz. Brad Wood engineered, produced and mixed Skating Polly’s latest album, “The Make It All Show,” in Seagrass Studio, the personal space that he has owned and operated for the past 14 years.
REGIONAL: Midwest
John Fields at Creation Audio, Minneapolis
By Barbara Schultz. “In L.A., there’s always that possibility of meeting somebody who changes your life,” says producer/engineer John Fields. Fields—whose long and varied resume also includes Soul Asylum, Pink, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers—is back in Minneapolis, however, after living and working in Los Angeles for 14 years.
Mix Regional: Midwest U.S.
By Barbara Schultz. Updates from Pachyderm Studios, Audio for the Arts, Ambient Studios, Minnehaha, Gaslight, Shock City, 416 Wabash, Static Shack, DNA Music Labs, Wild Sound, Stone Soup Recording Studios, The Pearl, Clutch Sound and Element Recording Studios.
TECHNOLOGY
Tech Feature: Acoustic Materials
The science of acoustics is just that: science. The basic laws don’t really change, though they are greatly affected by the environment in which the sounds interact. Inside a recording studio, with high-resolution audio across a wide frequency range, bouncing off of walls, floors, ceilings, consoles, couches and all kinds of objects, the need for treating acoustics is paramount.
Tech Profile: Acoustic Geometry
By Tom Kenny. Acoustic Geometry and its signature Curve Diffusor exist today because awhile back, John Calder faced a problem in his Minneapolis basement home studio that he had just put together with a business partner. It was an 1906 structure, and the ceiling was relatively high, but sounds were bouncing all around and there were room modes throughout. “It sounded dreadful,” Calder says.
New Products
New studio and live sound equipment from Harrison Consoles, PS Audio, VEVA Sound, Focal, Neutrik, Harman, Adamson Systems Engineering, Mackie, Sensaphonics and Martin Audio
Review: Steinberg UR-RT4
By Mike Levine. Drop the name Rupert Neve and anyone involved in the recording business will stop and turn their head. So you can bet it created some serious buzz when Steinberg announced it was collaborating with Rupert Neve Designs to develop the UR-RT series of audio interfaces.
Review: NUGEN Audio Stereo Pack
By Barry Rudolph. NUGEN Audio expands its fine collection of intuitive tools for audio analysis and processing for modern professionals with Stereo Pack, a bundle that provides essential software plug-ins for stereo image enhancement, correction, precise low-frequency control and more. The package includes Stereoizer 3, Monofilter 4 and Stereoplacer 3.
Review: Warm Audio WA-47 Mic
By Steve La Cerra. Warm Audio has been making quite a name for itself in creating “tributes” to classic audio products, manufacturing them using modern production techniques and selling them at affordable prices. One of the company’s more recent offerings is the WA-47, which, as its name implies, is based on the classic Neumann U47 tube microphone. Given the current prices for U47s on the secondhand market, the WA-47 is relatively affordable. But can it match the original?
Review: Retro Instruments Revolver
By Barry Rudolph. Retro Instruments’ Revolver is the company’s latest all-tube processor, having started out as an experiment back in 2011. It seems that Retro’s Phil Moore was not satisfied with it as a viable product until the 2018 Winter NAMM Show, when he showed the first units. Revolver fits perfectly into the Retro Instruments product line and upholds the company’s unwritten mission of building—to the highest-quality standards—the “new classics” that recall the most coveted and vintage audio gear of yesteryear.
DEPARTMENTS
From the Editor: Sound Science in the Real World
By Tom Kenny. If you want to know what’s going on in the audio industry, talk to the studio designers—they’re usually a step or two ahead of the curve because they are building for the future.
Need to Know: 5G, by Jeff Baumgartner
New platform will accelerate wireless speeds, connect the Internet of Things—and drive competition.
Need to Know: 5G and Pro Audio, by Clive Young
When the FCC closed bidding in its auction for frequencies in the 600 MHz spectrum in April 2017, the situation didn’t look good for the countless audio professionals whose wireless mics and in-ear monitors operated in that frequency band. And then things got worse.
Back Page Blog: June 2018
By Mike Levine and Steve La Cerra. Thoughts from Mix technology editors Mike Levine and Steve La Cerra on downtime, musicians v. loops, etiquette and analog sound.