But does it work in loop mode? I know I usually come up with musical ideas while jamming over a looped section of a song, and retrospective record won’t be so useful if it only remembers what you played over the most recent loop. Avid’s got your back. Say you roll over a looped section of your song multiple times, noodling on a record-armed MIDI instrument, then you hit stop and Shift + C. You will see only your most recent performance show up on the timeline. But don’t panic — you’ll find all your previous improvisations sitting in the Clips bin neatly numbered according to the number of loops that were played back. Hooray! Unfortunately these MIDI clips don’t seem to be time stamped so if the performance didn’t start right at the front of the loop, there’s no easy way of restoring them to their perfect spot on the timeline without a little nudging and shuffling. To better navigate this, it would be cool if Pro Tools created playlists from performances in loop record mode. Also bear in mind retrospective MIDI record’s memory is only one ‘play’ deep. If you start and stop playback, then press play again, whatever you may have performed over the previous stretch is gone.

Another enhancement is the ability to manipulate MIDI notes using key commands. Seriously, this is invaluable if you use ’Tools to program drums or write synth lines. Select a note in the MIDI Editor window, hit the Up/Down arrow keys to bump it up or down in semitone increments, or transpose it by an octave by pressing Shift + Up/Down. Or — wait for it — press Control + Up/Down to transpose a MIDI note in the key of the song. How cool is that? Set the song’s key in the ruler at the top of the MIDI editing space. Like other items in the ruler (tempo, markers, etc) you can easily modulate during a song by clicking the ‘+’ icon and plotting a new key at a later Bar/Beat. Creating chords with shortcuts is yet another way Pro Tools makes use of the song’s key — when a MIDI note is selected, press Control + Option + Up/Down to add extra notes a third or a fifth above the selected note. There are even shortcuts to trim MIDI notes according to grid values and adjust a note’s MIDI velocity in 5- or 15-step increments.

While other DAWs like Cubase, Live and Logic have had or been adding these features lately, let’s not be hasty to bash Avid. Pro Tools has never been the gold standard for MIDI composition and Avid has made a commendable effort to improve the DAW in its less-frequented areas, while still constantly updating its superior mix and edit system. Retrospective MIDI record, better keyboard shortcuts, and the many other micro-improvements are a big step in the right direction for the likes of composers, arrangers and producers.

TRACK PRESETS

Gone are the days of painstakingly setting up sessions by inserting the same plug-ins one at a time on all your tracks. Now with Track Presets, you can save your commonly-used track configurations, plug-in chains, sends, and I/O configurations for easy recall.

The level of Track Preset configuration and sorting is surprisingly deep. Perhaps the easiest way to begin building your own track presets is to simply save tracks with plug-in chains and I/O configurations that you’d use often. Avid supplies a number of presets ready to use for basic mixing stuff but you can make your own categories for specific projects or applications. Finding a track preset is simplified with the tags that auto-assign to each new preset. It’s another long-awaited feature that’s implemented beautifully, and it makes Pro Tools 2018 all the more attractive.

CLOUD LICENSING

Avid’s migration to iLok’s cloud-based licensing for Pro Tools 2018 feels like the unlocking of virtual handcuffs. Being a laptop user, my iLok gets pulled and pushed out of USB sockets a whole lot, and it’s taken its toll on the little piece of plastic. The cap is cracked all over, and the iLok itself — despite being transported in a cloth bag most of the time — has seen better days. Pace’s new metal iLok looks like it’ll handle more of a beating, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of a stonewalled recording session when you accidentally leave it in your jeans pocket at home. We’ve all been there.

What a genius idea to elevate software licensing to the cloud! It makes so much sense to supply the rights to your treasured software using a system that’s accessible anywhere there’s Wi-Fi — a far better alternative to a breakable, losable plastic USB stick.

The process is simple. Make sure your Pro Tools licence is deactivated in iLok License Manager, then fire it up with your iLok unplugged. Pro Tools will prompt you to either plug in an iLok or Activate the software — select the latter to kick off an iLok Cloud session to which your PT licence will be automatically transferred, along with all other Avid licences you may have. Remember that you may still need your physical iLok for your third-party plugs that don’t yet support PACE’s cloud licensing. Otherwise, it works a treat, especially those times when Wi-Fi is easier to find than your dongle.

When you put together all the enhancements Pro Tools 2018 brings, it makes for one very appealing upgrade. Thanks to iLok Cloud support you can have peace of mind that your DAW will start up when you need it to. The MIDI and playlist comping keyboard shortcut additions will save hours. Track Presets are another huge time saver. And the EQ graphs are a functional value-add to the Mix window. Well done, Avid.

Show Photos: Brett Schewitz

KICKING OFF AT STUDIO 606

Worthen’s tour schedule usually kicks off just before the band starts doing promo — television or small club shows. This year, they all decamped to a room in the Foo Fighters’ own Studio 606. “I take the back room and Ian will go in the iso room with monitor world,” described Worthen. “It gives us a starting plan. I’ve done it so many times, and I know what I’m listening to through the L-Acoustics 108s (coaxial powered speakers) that I can generally go into any show with minor changes.”

The stadium rig is pretty spectacular, with 250 L-Acoustics boxes [see PA sidebar] but Worthen keeps his gear and mix approach fairly simple.

The whole show occupies 54 channels, including the runway portion. Despite the length of the show, and operating one of the newest digital consoles, Worthen doesn’t use any snapshots throughout the entire gig. He also stays very light on the effects. He can count the number of effects he uses on one hand. There’s the SPX distortion patch he uses for Dave’s vocal on Run, with a long delay. The same distortion appears on La Dee Da with a verb on the distortion for a rockabilly sound. The only other occasion delay appears on Grohl’s vocals is in Arrows. He also has a short slap delay on drummer Taylor Hawkin’s lead vocal for Sunday Rain, and a H3000 patch for the backup vocalists. “The records aren’t dry like my mix, but why are you going to add a bunch of reverb to a massive reverb chamber like a stadium?” questioned Worthen. “It’s just added noise. Instead I EQ everything so I don’t have to add effects to make it sound big. I also run my gates open and light. That way when he hits it, it sounds like a natural drum that rings out — to a point… I don’t want it to warble.”

AXE BATTLE

Even with EQ, getting three guitars to fit isn’t an easy task, especially when they’re set to stun. “You have to create a lot of distinction between the three different guitars,” said Worthen. “It’s a battle of volume on stage, which makes it harder on me. It comes to me offstage as a wall of sound. Each guy has two cabinets, Pat [Smear] has two gold Soldano cabinets, Dave has one on each side of the drum riser, Shifty [Chris Schiflett] has two Friedmans, and two Voxes that get played on about four songs in the set.”

Over the years, Worthen says getting the guitars right has been a battle. Recently, he decided to change up the entire chain. Firstly, there was the shift to the Yamaha PM10. “I battle them less with this console than I have with others,” he said. “Right off the bat my guitar actually sounded like a guitar and I didn’t have to work hard at it. Previously, I had to EQ the snot out of it, and I don’t like doing that to anything.”

The second big change was moving almost entirely to Royer ribbon mics. Each guitarist has a single ribbon on his cab, with the exception of a Sennheiser 609 on Schiflett’s second Friedman.

“I was using the black, active Royer 101 on Godsmack,” said Worthen. “In rehearsals, Ian and I were talking about the fix for these guitars being to find the right microphone. We’d both been struggling for years with guitars. I told him about using the Royers and f**cking loving them! He said, ‘let’s try it.’ So we got a couple of loaners and put them in front of the cabinet. Ian was like, ‘These things are amazing!’ Then we went to Royer via our new guitar tech, who hit up his friend at Royer. They asked us if we wanted to try some new prototypes and do some R&D on them. They’ve been great.”

Worthen uses the natural frequency response of the microphones to create tonal separation, combined with a bit of high-end shelving. On the left, Schiflett’s guitar tone combines a prototype Royer R-10 [see our review of the final product this issue] with a bit of the top end shelved down, using the Sennheiser e609 dynamic for more presence. Grohl’s is another prototype R-10 with the top end boosted, while Smear has the more standard R-121 passive ribbon, set completely flat. “The different microphone makes him a little bit darker, so I don’t have to have the battle of high end,” explained Worthen.

While he doesn’t run a whole lot in stereo, each of the guitars is duplicated on another channel. Worthen then delays the second channel by about 8ms to spread them out. For Schifflet and Smear, both channels are panned hard left and hard right, with the delayed signal on the opposite side to their stage sound. “It makes it a little easier to separate Pat and Chris,” explained Worthen. With Grohl being in the centre, and the focus of the show, his guitar is panned a soft left/right, about 40% each way.

“The reason we use the drum mics we do is because our mics get a lot of abuse,” said Worthen. “Especially during load out. People step on them, they get tossed on the floor and kicked around. The Royers don’t get abused as much, because whoever strikes the mics gets to those first. Still, as far as travelling goes, they’ve been rock solid. People said the Royer R-101s vibrate apart, but I never experienced that. These prototypes are German-level engineering; built like little tanks. There’s nothing fragile about them at all.”

SOFTLY SCREAMING

Worthen spends a lot of the night manhandling guitars, especially when guests pop up unannounced. “Most of the time I know who’s coming,” said Worthen. “Other times it’s been, ‘Hey, on the next song, Zac Brown’s guys are going to get up there and play.’ All of a sudden I have six guitarists on stage.”

Vocals are a different story: “I hardly ever touch Dave’s vocal.” It’s counterintuitive, considering Grohl is a hugely dynamic performer, and can transition from ballad-crooning to full-pelt screaming in half a beat.

The way Worthen keeps a lid on the vocal chain is by setting up his compressors to see less input, but deliver plenty of output: “Dave has a really powerful voice. The way I run his vocal — screaming to singing lightly — it doesn’t ever really go away. You hear every word he says. Dave uses a Sennheiser MD431 II dynamic hand held. It has a large diaphragm, similar to an MD421, in a handheld body. I run it into a Neve 276 channel compressor, followed by the standard surface compressor on the group. The lower input gives me less bleed, because he’s right in front of the drums, which are right up high at mic level. It’s a lot cleaner that way.”

Keeping with his philosophy for simplicity, Worthen doesn’t use any de-essers. “The way I EQ his channel, there’s no room for error,” he said. “Dave’s esses could tear the roof apart, but I don’t like de-essers. I don’t see any point in them. It’s all in the way I run my compressors. When he really belts it out, it doesn’t blow your face off. You’ve got an extraordinary voice, that’s very powerful, with a simple microphone, mixed simple. A de-esser would just complicate things. I’d probably be chasing him all the time.”

Drummer Taylor Hawkins sings a lot of backups during the set, and the occasional lead vocal, including playing Freddie Mercury to Grohl’s Bowie during their cover of Under Pressure. “Taylor is a little more difficult because he’s a singing drummer,” said Worthen. “I have an EQ on him completely notching out 500Hz and 3.15kHz — basically the snare and hi-hat. His channel EQ is a bit crazy, too. I alter the high end on that more than anything else. When he’s singing by himself, his high end is flat; during backup, his high end is shelved down because his vocal mic is so close to the hi-hat. I don’t need another hi-hat mic. His vocal mic is a Sennheiser e904, which is usually a tom mic. He likes it because it’s small. He can grab onto it, put it right in front of his face, rather than a big old vocal mic. It’s also the best solution to bleed than any other mic we’ve used on him.”

Worthen mixes on groups rather than DCAs, and sends his vocal groups directly to the master matrix, skipping the stereo master. “That’s so I can get separation, not just in level, but with EQ as well. I can EQ the band, but not touch the vocal.”

PITCH ISSUES

In Melbourne, the show had a shorter runway than normal, and the FOH tent was 10 feet closer to the stage than it usually is, because of the fresh cricket pitch underfoot. Worthen says it’s a noticeable difference, it puts him closer to the stage volume, which includes “wedges and side fills on stun, plus I’ve got Pat’s guitar right down my throat. The 10 feet also makes a big difference in terms of hearing the stereo image. Further back I’m hearing both sides, versus more of one side than the other.

Worthen is used to doing his best with loud bands. He tries to keep the level around 102dB at FOH, with a gradual increase in level throughout the show. “There are certain songs where I throttle it and bring it back. Depending on how Dave writes out the setlist. It’s not the same every night and not one song sounds the same either.” Outside of stadiums, the stage volume, combined with strict noise limits can be a problem. “In Athens, at the Acropolis, the dB limit is so ridiculously low. My stage volume was 6dB over the limit, and I hadn’t even turned the PA on!”

During the set, Grohl does a couple of numbers out at the tip of the runway, including the beginning of crowd favourite, My Hero. However, probably the biggest change is the part in the show where the video diamond comes down to create a ceiling over the band. “It’s supposed to emulate being back in a shitty little punk rock club,” said Worthen. “Because the roof gets so low over the drums, it changes their dynamic and the bleed down Dave’s vocals, because the drum riser comes forward. The whole thing gets smaller. I move things around, and bring the guitars up so it kind of sounds like it’s back in a club again. It’s different every night and he doesn’t necessarily play the same songs. I just feel it out when that ceiling comes down.

“Some people say I’m an emotional mixer. I mix based off the vibe coming from the band, which is true. If they’re on fire, then I mix them like they’re on fire. If they’re being sloppy, I try to fix it as best I can… but you can’t fix sloppy. I’m constantly thinking about the space. I don’t mix for myself. I mix with people who buy tickets in mind. How would I want to hear it if I came to this show? I’m constantly looking up in the high seats to see if those people are having fun or not. The environment’s not necessarily under my control, but if they’re sitting down pouting or on their phones, then something’s wrong up there.”

All reports so far have been glowing, I don’t think Worthen or the Foo Fighters lost any fans that night. I’m sure they’ll be back to fill more stadiums soon.

RADICAL PIANO: KEY-HITTER

I’ve always hankered after a realistic Reason piano. Radical Piano delivers four, with physically-modelled variations on each! As if this wasn’t enough, mechanical noise can be mixed in and out, attack and decay tweaked and velocity response finely tuned (very helpful on a less-than-ideal synth keybed). The wealth of control is suitably daunting and the browser has a ream of radically different patches. They range from the standard choices to inspiration sparking, and just plain weird — long decay, absurd amounts of reverb and almost no intonation — ideal for… I’ll know it when the time comes. The onboard effects are easily manipulated with one-knob compression and reverb. The stereo width knob is probably my favourite feature, allowing the piano to morph throughout a track from reserved and mono, to epic and wide. Originally a Rack Extension (undoubtedly leaving some previous purchasers a little miffed), Radical Piano makes a worthy addition to the rack as a sound designer’s tool in Combinators; as a mix-compliant instrument; and, with a hammer-action keyboard and continuous sustain pedal, a viable stage piano for those using Reason live.

HUMANA: TEXTURE-THICKENER

A choir patch is often a sound I hear when visualising a track, but I was often disappointed by the sounds available to me in Reason, offering not much more than your typical ’90s digital synth. One of three sample-based sound engines (can’t really call them synths, as such) developed with Soundforge, Humana features three properly sampled choirs along with male and female solo sections, catering to the specific sonic needs of the producer. The powerful Mars choir lends itself to epic, filmscore-like tunes. It’s an all-male choir with plenty of bass end and punch. The female and children’s choirs also have their place, but like the other two sample devices (Klang and Pangea), Humana doesn’t set my imagination on fire. Instead, it fills the very specific role as a thickening texture, while Klang and Pangea will probably best serve to reinforce melody or harmony. Though not destined to stand on their own, these three modules bring an organic touch to the Reason rack, for some (often) much needed contrast to the predominantly electronic sounds surrounding them.

DRUM LOOPS: IDEAS QUICKER

Finally! Reason loops that were created within the last five years! Ask the nearest millennial producer and he or she will tell you: there is a stark difference between a 2010 dubstep loop and a 2016 one, for example. Last updated in 2010, Reason’s drum samples and loops were in desperate need of an overhaul, and that day has come. Including all the latest (and not so latest) sounds of hip hop, drum ’n’ bass and trap (which was on the fringes in 2010, and remains the sound of rap today since booming in 2012), drums in Reason have finally been updated. Personally, I’m still using NI Battery for all my drum samples, but a collection of contemporary loops allows for quick beats and an instant groove when a track isn’t vibe-y enough, or when a programmed drum beat isn’t quite providing the pocket required for the perfect bass take. I appreciate this inclusion, Propellerhead, and I hope many others in my demographic may start to make this their DAW of choice after its modernisation in this revision.

JUST GIVE ME A REASON

Reason 10: still the only place you can put an Audiomatic on everything; the home of patching and re-routing; and still my go-to DAW, despite the obvious allure of Ableton Live. Producing contemporary and relevant music is now eminently possible in Version 10, and, while taking said music to the live stage is still not an option (Mattias, please, give us a Performance Mode!), Reason has gone some way to closing the gap on the seemingly unassailable Ableton. Now more than ever, producers of the new millenium have a reason to contemplate this surprisingly affordable, highly creative alternative to Live, offering gigabytes of content and a wealth of sound now comparable to its rival.