"Colorful" mic preamps have been the primary focus of the preamp market for the past few years, and with good reason. Many recordists who moved from analog tape to digital media during the 1990s found that they missed the natual compression and coloration of tape, and sought relief in vacuum tubes and colorful overdriven circuitry. I have to admit that I am quite a fan of colorful preamps, and own a few that range from "pretty and warm" to flat out "rack-mounted stompboxes". Most of my recordings require some character, and I like to be able to crank up some tubes and get a little hair on my signal when the urge strikes. But what about those times when you need to be clean? What do you do when you need a straight wire with gain? Enter the True Systems Precision 8.

Great Numbers, and a Couple of Frills The Precision 8 is a no-nonsense 8 channel preamp with a few cool features and tremendous sonic purity....

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I’m a big Rush fan. Yeah, I know. Me and 50 million other drummers. I’ve been listening to this band since they showed up on my radar in the late 1970s, and have always followed their tours and new albums. I admit that I fall into the camp of wistful fans who yearn for a return to the art-rock glory days of the band (which pretty much makes me an old burnout) but I still like to hear the new stuff and see what these dudes are up to. And, Rush’s return to a more guitar-oriented (and acoustic-drum-oriented) sound has reignited some of my interest in their performances. Rock music is all about the guitar, and few people are as interesting to listen to as Alex Lifeson. And don’t even get me started about Neil Peart. The other interest I have in this band is that they have always been at or near the forefront of recording technology. They were one of the first bands to jump into digital recording, where they definitely learned some tough lessons, but the engineering work done on their CDs has usually been top-notch. I can almost always learn something about engineering from listening to the production of a Rush CD....

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Every so often a product comes around that justifies a real rave. The Sonitus:fx R3 plug-in package is a perfect example of a product that I just have to praise loudly. Sonitus:fx is a PC-based (DirectX and VST) plug-in bundle that offers a very usable assortment of innovative and practical plug-ins at a value-conscious price. This new version 3 release sports an updated user interface, enhanced metering, several new plug-ins, and some new optimizations. The bundle is available on-line directly from Ultrafunk (http://www.ultrafunk.com), or you can buy each plug-in individually. However the whole package is so damn useful you're better off with the whole bundle. What's in the Bundle? The package features ten individual plug-ins: Compressor, Delay, Eqaulizer, Gate, Modulator, Multiband, Phase, Reverb, Surround, and Wahwah. Each one offers 32-bit floating point processing, VST automation support, A/B comparison switch, and a host of cool presets. The package has...

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The Aardvark Direct Pro Q10 is a 10-input / 10-output 24 bit PCI combination preamp and soundcard for Windows and Mac. The system features 8 balanced audio inputs and outputs, MIDI I/O, and S/PDIF I/O on RCA jacks. Supported sample rates include 44.1KHz and 48KHz, and an upcoming driver update will give the soundcard 88.2 and 96 KHz capability. In addition, the Q10 ships with a free copy of Cakewalk Pro Audio v.9. What's in the Box The system includes a small PCI card and a breakout box. Like other Aardvark products, power for the breakout box is provided by the PCI card, which means no power cord or wall wart - a nice feature. The PCI card is dominated by the large shielded cover which has a professional look and feel. Aardvark Direct Pro Q10 (front and back)

The breakout box utilizes eight combination XLR / 1/4" Neutrik inputs on the front panel, and eight 1/4" balanced outputs on the rear panel. The rear...

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I was asked last year to review the new 3.0 version of Waves Native Gold Bundle. Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am a vehement advocate of Waves' products, and have used Waves tools on virtually every project I have ever done for the last five years. Of course I offered to do the review, and I figured it'd be easy. After all, how hard is it to review a product you love? Waves Native Gold bundle offers a huge host of great processors, including EQ, compression, reverb, chorus, flange, dithering, and the highly acclaimed L1+ Ultramaximizer limiter. These plugins run the gamut from the practical - such as the surgical Q10 EQ - to the utterly zany - such as the totally wacked-out Enigma. The new version 3 processors sport a pretty new user interface, which gives them a nice, 3D look as opposed to the tired, flat, sterile look and feel of the previous versions of plug-ins. Many of the processors have been optimized to offer superior performance versus the previous versions when used on modern CPUs...

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A Learning Experience Mixing a CD remotely was a true learning experience. Usually, when tracking a CD, either I am producing the CD or I've been working with a producer since the outset, so I am either setting the artistic vision for the project, or I'm in constant contact with the person in charge of the vision. On this project, I simply took my best shot and won the gig. Now I've got 13 CDs of raw, unmixed tracks in my hand, and I'm really hoping that I'm not about to really piss someone off. In the end, I had to assume that if I won the gig, then the producer and artist must be vibing with my work, and so I had to trust that my mixing decisions would be in line with their artistic vision. I had to go on faith that if I was their choice, then my gut would lead me in the right direction. Turns out I was wrong. When I heard the tracks for Everlasting, my mind said, "DISTORTION. LOTS OF DISTORTION. DISTORTION ON EVERYTHING. SPARE NO EARDRUM. MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE." And so I put together a...

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Mixing the Drums On this song I was presented with some unusual and creative drum tracks to mix. As Rob explained, the drum kit was made to sound very trashy. No mics were used on toms, as they were not played. Instead we had mics on the kick, snare, hats, and overheads. We also had a very crappy sounding mic under the snare, and another ugly sounding mic in the room. Presented with these choices, I decided to take a reasonably straightforward mix on the kit using the 5 main mics on the kit, and leave the ugly snare and rooms mics out of the drum submix. That way, I could use those colorful mics later in the mix. The drummer had used an undamped kick drum with quarters taped to the head and beater. The mic was placed very close to the head, giving the drum a strange, empty, clicky sound. I rather liked it as it was - raw, boomy, round, and thumpy - but it had too much "roar". That roar can step all over the mix - and with 48 tracks, I was going to have to get everything to sit nicely in its place....

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A Little Piano Listening through the rough mix that Rob had provided me, it was apparent that there was a piano part that doubled the bass line. Since I had decided to base the verse around the bass part, this doubled line was very important. I knew that if those parts were going to work together, then I had better pay close attention to the piano and get it sounding right early on. Soloed, I though that piano was rather muddy and mono. It was recorded as a stereo track, but the sound was very up-the-middle. EQ could fix the muddiness. I didn't need any more bass down there, but I definitely saw room for the piano's nice overtones. They would really help the bass line stand out. With some radical EQ - a -18 dB low shelf @ 50 Hz combined with a +7 dB boost @ 2500 Hz, the piano lost its tubbiness and became meaner.



But, with...

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Guitars Most of the guitars on this track were cut with one mic on the guitar cab, and one mic in the room. Usually this is done to provide some mixing options - close and distant. However on this song I was able to use both tracks effectively. For example, on the "tapping" guitar part that starts the song I could have only used one track, and panned it. However by using both tracks, I can get the sound to be a little larger. And due to either careful planning or sheer luck, the sounds are nicely out-of-phase - not too much, but enough to push the sounds out to the edges of the stereo image. So the effect is that the part is balanced, but not mono. The sound from this guitar was pretty muddly, mainly from the close-miked amp cabinet. I used a bass cut on that track @ 160 Hz and a treble boost out around 2600 Hz to bring up the angry distortion. The distant mic was much closer to the desired sound and just needed a little cut around...

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Vocals The vocals on this song were recorded as several distinct chunks: 1. A single track of lead vocals on the verses and the bridge 2. Doubled lead vocals on the choruses backed with a single track sung an octave up 3. Eight tracks of background vocals 4. One extra track singing the "what's your plan" line in the choruses The unprocessed lead vocal track was designed to be distorted. As with the bass track, if the Amp Sim is fed too much bass content, then it bottoms out on bass. So the lead vocal was radically EQed to remove bass and boost treble. I used a Waves Q4 with a -10 dB low shelf @ 273 Hz and a +5 high shelf @ 9000 Hz. I also used a +7 dB boost @ 2300 Hz to bring out all the snarl in the vocal.



This was by far the most radical EQ used on the album for any vocals. The filtered vocals were fed into a Renaissance...

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Once a year I write an article about a recording project, picking out one song and exposing the entire recording process from start to finish. The first Point to Point article covered an alt-country band called Four Mile Mule and their amazing niche hit, "Black and White Movie." It was released in 1999 and became the most popular article on ProRec. Last year I followed up with the second Point to Point article, featuring a local Dallas rock band called The Happiness Factor, and that article went on to be the most popular article on ProRec. This year's installment is sure to please.Debra Soule is an Adult Alternative artist with a killer voice and a knack for writing catchy, memorable songs. Her debut CD, "Vapor", features 12 songs that sprawl over a large range of material both stylistically and sonically. Stylistically she covers a range of ground from Streisand to No Doubt, with a little Garbage and Tori Amos thrown in for spice. Sonically, the CD includes...

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The last three years have been exceptionally good for powered loudspeakers. This is good and bad. Good, because there are so many excellent choices now. For the most part these speakers all sound great, and they're generally better than most of the midfield monitors available ten or so years ago. Bad, because it's so damn hard to choose. I chose ten of the more well-known speakers to review. All of them are biamplified systems with between 90 and 250 watts of total system power. Eight of them use 8 inch woofers. All are ported systems: nine conventionally ported, one with a passive radiator. Most utilize liquid-cooled metal dome tweeters with computer-designed tweeter waveguides. All are approximately the same size and weight, give or take. Are you starting to see a pattern emerge? The real differences are differences in price – which varies widely – and details of quality and design. Most of these systems are really excellent. However, as I studied and listened to these systems, I was able to find and define clear preferences. Hopefully, my findings will coincide with yours....

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The KRK V8 is a biamplified system with an 8" woofer and 1" silk dome tweeter. Probably the most remarkable attribute of this system is its unusual gold-colored woven Kevlar woofer cone. The system is ported with a long, narrow port that extends across the bottom of the cabinet. The cabinet has the typical KRK look with it's stone-like Zolatone coating.

The Dynaudio BM6A is a biamplified nearfield with a 7" woofer and a 1" silk dome tweeter. The speaker is the only one of the bunch to offer a rear-mounted port. The system enjoys a reputation has having excellent transient response, and excellent imaging, resulting primarily from the unusual and rather amazing woofer – this little 7" woofer sports a huge 3" voice coil and a powerful magnet, giving it a powerful electromagnetic engine.

Roland has its own unique approach to the powered nearfield solution. The DS-90 is billed as a "digital monitor speaker". The system features 24 bit D/A converters that allow the user to feed the speakers directly from the digital output of a digital mixer.

The Behringer Truth B2031 is a biamplified monitor featuring an 8" polycarbonate woofer and a 1" ferrofluid-cooled titanium tweeter. A 150 watt amplifier drives the bass speaker while a 75 watt amplifier powers the tweeter. The tweeter is mounted into a computer-designed waveguide horn to improve imaging and time alignment.

Probably the most popular biamplified nearfield in use in major production facilities, the Genelec 1031A has seen widespread acceptance in broadcast, video post, 5.1 mixing, and music production and mastering facilities (in fact all of the local post facilities I've worked in use Genelec 1031As). The 1031A offers an 8" polypropylene woofer and 1" metal dome tweeter housed in a computer-designed waveguide. Power is provided by a pair of 120 watt amplifiers.

Yamaha MSP10

Our Score:

Imaging 8

C

Dynamic Performance 8 Frequency Response 7 High Volume 7 Sound Quality 7 Price / Performance 7 Overall 74 C List price Approx $1600/pr ...

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Conclusions First, the obvious: NS10, May You Rest In Peace. Now that Yamaha no longer makes the NS10, and now that so many new, great alternatives abound, I think we’ve finally seen the beginning of the end of that speaker. For me, that’s just fine. I like the NS10, but there are much better speakers out there. It’s time to move on.

Secondly, these are some great speakers. I was quite impressed with the overall quality present in the lineup. Computer-aided design has improved the quality of speakers more than any other aspect of recording technology. Probably half of these speakers were among the best sounding speakers I’ve ever heard (and as a recovering audiophile, I’ve heard quite a few esoteric speaks in the last 20 years).

Thirdly, can we just close the books on the concept of digital speakers? This is a bad idea whose time will never come. While we’re at it, let’s close the books on the idea of speaker modeling. Speaker cabinet modeling is a great effect when you’re recording an electric guitar, but it has no place in pro audio mixing.

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Tannoy 800A

Our Score:

Imaging 9

D+

Dynamic Performance 7 Frequency Response 7 High Volume 7 Sound Quality 7 Price / Performance 5.5 Overall 68 D+ List price Approx...

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