BACK ON TRACK

I really like the old-school analogue feeling of recording with the Crimson 3. The knobs don’t have any play and are coated in a grippy rubberised finish. The buttons are big and have a reassuring press action, though most click audibly in your cans. There’s acres of space on the top panel, clear legending, and every function — setting gains, routing inputs, monitoring sources — requires pushing real buttons and spinning real knobs. I found the whole approach really refreshing — not to mention, fast — given most of these functions in today’s interfaces are controlled remotely via software.

One quirk to the legending is that the back panel has two sets of names; one right way up, and the other ‘upside-down’. Super handy when you’re peering over the top of the interface to plug in a cable.

Once you’ve plugged in an input source, you have to enable the input number pair with a button press. By default, inputs are panned hard left and right when monitoring (i.e. Mic 1 is left, Mic 2 is right, etc.). Activating the Mono button places everything down the middle.

With so many switches, it’s a bit of letdown that there’s no power switch. You have to turn it off at the wall, or unplug the power pack to power down.

The preamps sounded classy with a clarity and firmness to them that’s a bit SSL-ish. A relatively gentle 80Hz high-pass filter and 48V phantom power are available for each mic input. The gain range of 60dB means the pot can often end up in its upper limits, but the good news is there’s virtually no noise even when it’s hard up at maximum. Visual monitoring comes by way of three LEDs for each analogue input — green for signal, yellow for -6dB (equivalent to +9dBu) and red when you’re clipping (+15dBu). It’s two more than you might typically get but you’ll still want to rely on external metering for transient-heavy sources.

MIX OF MONITORING

There’s plenty on Crimson 3 to ensure your artist receives an optimum, no latency headphone mix. There’s a gaggle of dip switches on the Crimson’s underside. Flipping them around will change the architecture of the unit, and setting the fifth switch to On engages Artist mode. In the normal mode, any routing is mirrored in your headphone and main outputs. In Artist Mode, it will automatically route DAW 1|2 to your main pair, and allow you to create a separate mix for your artist that is available in Phones 2 and Speakers B. You can send them DAW 1|2 or DAW 3|4 outputs and use the Monitor Mix knob to dial in the right balance between that and the input signal.

Crimson 3 also has a built-in talkback microphone, a nice touch for any desktop interface. Talkback gain is set by way of a tiny pot in between the instrument inputs and it’s automatically routed into Phones 2 and Speakers B when Artist Mode is engaged. Pressing Talkback dims the artist mix.

You’ll find a similar pot, labelled Crossfeed, jutting out to its right. It’s a feature peculiar to SPL’s Phonitor products. When the Phonitor Matrix button is engaged, Crossfeed controls how much of your headphones’ left channel is fed into the right, and vice versa. This technique results in a less exaggerated stereo image that more accurately mimics the sound of speakers in a room. It’s not a fancy DSP-based spatial simulator — like Waves Nx or the discontinued Focusrite VRM — but it’s a nice option to have if you mix primarily on headphones.

Because the monitoring section of the interface is entirely analogue, much of the I/O is operational and routable without needing to plug in a computer. It means Crimson can act as a mini analogue mixer. In a pinch, you could take it on stage, hook up a couple of mics, instruments and line sources, then send it off to the respective outputs using just the onboard routing buttons. Super handy.

THAT I/O THOUGH

If you could put icing on the Crimson cake, it would be more digital I/O expansion options like ADAT or MADI. Digital I/O is becoming somewhat of a staple these days — an increasing number of desktop interfaces have an ADAT input — and the Crimson’s only option of the two-channel S/PDIF protocol feels limited.

I respect SPL for its decision to keep the Crimson 3 miles away from any kind of software reliance. Tracking and mixing with this interface will take you back to the simple joys of routing without requiring a mouse. Plus, doing away with software updates and DSP will mean it’s more reliable.

It is larger than the average interface, but if you have the real estate and count an analogue monitor controller as a must-have, then this is a great option. Especially for dedicated mix engineers, or professional scenarios that only require a handful of inputs: like a VO booth, or vocal producer.

RECORDING FIRST ALBUMS

Washington still lives in Inglewood — one of the suburbs on the doorstep of LAX — in his father’s house. Rickey Washington was a successful woodwind player in his own right, but chucked it in to break a cycle of fatherlessness and help raise Kamasi. He now travels on many of Kamasi’s tours and guests on the occasional song. Out the back of their house, Kamasi still has his garage studio where he first began recording.

“Pops is not into technology — we had to teach him how to text message — but he was always cool to let me have my space there. He likes having us around all the time, and that energy. My studio was definitely lo-fi back in the day. I had like a Digi 002, Behringer mic pres and copies of Neumann mics, but it had a vibe. It was called The Shack.

“I started off making beats with just an MPC and a Yamaha Motif keyboard. Then I got some advice from Tony Austin — my drummer and a really great engineer — and Terrace Martin, who had his own studio, about what I needed to record a full song.

“I bought some mics, then I bought the computer, and a lightpipe extender so I had 16 in. We’d all be in the same room — piano and drums in there. The L-shaped room provided a natural divide, and I bought some individual dividers to help the quieter instruments. It was still pretty tight; you could definitely hear everything in every mic, but there was a vibe to it and it was cool because we could use it whenever we wanted.”

THUNDERCAT’S AWAY

The biggest hit to come out of Washington’s backyard was Thundercat’s breakthrough album, The Golden Age of Apocalypse. He released it on Flying Lotus’s [Steven Ellison] Brainfeeder label, another good friend of the pair. It was the first of many albums to come out of their local tribe of musicians, some of whom are in Washington’s band, The Next Step. “We had been talking about it for years, that we had a sound,” said Washington. “When Thundercat came out with The Golden Age of Apocalypse it cemented the idea that we had something special. We would all be on different tours, but when we were in town we would make sure to come together and play. Even if it was to no-one, for no money. We didn’t care because we found this sound and approach that was different than what was going on in the rest of music.

“We each had our own version of this sound. When Thundercat’s album did so well, we thought we should all buckle down and record, but we were all working! I made up my mind that I was going to record, which was when Lotus asked if I wanted to make a record for Brainfeeder.”

Washington knew he wanted to record his own version of jazz, but his studio was “pretty limited. When you’re working in your own studio, you’re the engineer. Even when you hire an engineer, when something goes wrong and breaks, everyone is eventually going to look at you to fix it. It’s not the most creatively conducive environment to record. That’s when we decided to go to a different studio.”

He hatched a plan. Studio day rates can be fairly cost prohibitive for an independent musician looking to record an album, but they will generally do a deal on a longer term. Washington figured if he could get a few of the crew together that also wanted to record their own album, they could split the cost of a month’s hire and it would work out cheaper for everyone.

“If all eight of us pitched in and bought the days we needed for all of us, we’d get it at a much cheaper price than if we did it individually,” said Washington. “Plus, we’d get the benefit of being there with each other.” They found a studio, King Size Soundlabs in Los Angeles (home of Rob Schnapf’s MANT Studios), which had an “old Neve board, a pretty good mic cabinet, and some great instruments like a B3 organ, some cool synths, old Rhodes and Clavs. It was kind of ’70s and real old school. It was definitely not known for jazz, more like indie rock.”

SWINGIN’ SWEATSHOP

They devised a schedule, sometimes setting aside a complete day for one project, other times switching between a couple in a single day. “Each of us got maybe three full days, and everyone was supposed to be there the whole time every day,” said Washington. “It was a like a musical sweatshop with a rotating boss. You’d change project and the next person comes in full steam ahead! ‘Alright, let’s do it! Here we go!’”

Everyone approached their session differently, according to the sound they were trying to capture. Some recorded live, some overdubbed, some completely improvised, others wrote out charts. Washington goes both ways; charting out the tunes, with an ‘anything goes’ view of the actual recording.

“My songs are unorthodox so I have to explain what’s going on and build a chart,” he said. “I was trying to think of the players and what I could get out of them for each song. If I had a full day I would pick four songs, if it was a couple of hours I would pick one or two songs. I’d give it to the musicians and sit with them individually, and go over the kinds of things they could do and the kinds of places they could go.

“Then when we record, everyone knows I’m wide open. At the end you can do whatever you want to do with my music. If it’s cool, it’s cool. I’ll just go with the flow. If a song that was supposed to be a ballad starts getting played fast, Imma just go with it. Other guys would come in with an idea or rhythm and just jam it out. Music takes these weird twists and turns and my thought process was to record as many songs as I could and then try to find the album within that.”

Because he had everything written out, Washington managed to get the most songs recorded of anyone, about 45 in all. Out of that he picked 17, which became his first album The Epic.

It would be natural to assume that with so many changeovers, they’d stick with one recording setup that adequately served everyone. They weren’t going for adequate though. Each artist was trying to execute their specific vision, so the setup would be altered to match. To handle the changeovers, they went down to the Hollywood Musicians Institute and grabbed a bunch of interns to help wrangle leads, instruments and mics. “Tony Austin was running the sessions,” said Washington. “Everyone’s approach to the recording setup was different — in one scenario the bass might go through the Ampex, in another scenario I get it — so we had the interns moving gear around and re-patching every session. My approach was to have everyone playing at the same time, so my setup of the room was chock full. Only the orchestra and choir would be overdubbed later on, whereas others overdubbed everything.

BIGGER THAN A CALIFORNIA KING

King Size Soundlabs is an amazing studio, but for his Harmony of Difference EP, Washington found a new favourite joint, Vox Recording Studios. Washington described it as “like King Size Sound on steroids.” Vox was the famed Electrovox studios, where the Wrecking Crew stationed themselves for a time, and jazz luminaries like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie recorded. It went out of business right around the time composer and guitarist Woody Jackson came into a pot of gold from scoring Grand Theft Auto V. “He used to work at a store called Black Market Music which was the best analogue recording equipment store in L.A,” recalled Washington. “He made a bunch of money scoring Grand Theft Auto and basically bought out Black Market Music.”

There’s an entire storage area full of vintage equipment, with racks of synths — “every Moog and two vinyl-based Mellotrons, which I’d never seen” [Jackson used to be a Mellotron technician – Ed] — rows of amps, and walls of drums and guitars. It’s a musician’s paradise, “like a kid in a candy store,” said Washington. On the engineering side, there’s an incredible array of analogue gear. At its core is a custom Deledio Console, built for Wally Heider, that has 24 channels with Universal Audio 1108 preamps, Universal Audio EQs, and API EQs on each. It was used on the Beach Boys’ Smile sessions. There’s also a Neve 5442 suitcase, and Neumann 18×4 console from Sunset Sound lying around. On the outboard side are all variety of Urei compressors, two Neve 2254e compressors, and a Fairchild 670. Pultec, Lang and Universal Audio EQs are also in the racks, flanked by a stack of Ampex 351 preamps and tape machines. Washington has a particular affinity for old Ampex tape machines, and not having to choose which channels to send through the old tape was a huge selling point for him: “Most studios have one or two. He has like 30 of them.” He then recorded the strings at Henson, which “doesn’t have some of the custom stuff but the room is so beautiful,” said Washington. “Then I got infamous mixing engineer, Russell Elevado [D’Angelo’s mixing engineer – Ed]. He shipped a bunch of his gear over from New York to Henson, and just brought a whole other level to it.”

MODERN SEPARATION

For Washington, going to the trouble of finding a place stocked with vintage gear is not about emulating the hey-day of jazz. “It’s beyond jazz. The heyday of recorded music was the time just before we went digital,” said Washington. “There’s a warmth and a natural feeling that happens with analogue that you seem to lose as you use more digital components. On the flipside, there’s a clarity you get with digital that’s cool. I try to mix it up. To me, it’s all about what sounds the best. I’m not too philosophical with it. Even though we recorded to Pro Tools, we always mixed down to 1/2-inch tape. Russ, who mixed the last two records [including Washington’s latest Heaven & Earth], didn’t use any plug-ins, it was all analogue. Old mics and old pres with natural reverb. We mixed it at Henson and they had six different natural plate reverbs and four echo chambers. We were keeping it out of the box as much as possible.”

Kamasi doesn’t really have a template for the kind of music they’re recording, so it’s all about what sounds good to his ears. “A lot of the records I use as references aren’t jazz; like Beatles records, and King Crimson records,” said Washington. “To me it’s more about finding the character of the song than trying to make it sound like a classic jazz record. I try to take it from scratch because there’s no real good reference for a lot of stuff we’re doing. There’s no record that also has two drummers and two percussionists and upright bass, a whole load of keyboards, a grand piano and a whole orchestra — strings, winds, brass and a big choir. All playing intensely. There are jazz records that have orchestras, but it’s usually alongside a small jazz band playing softly.

“When I look at the pictures of how old records were made, by comparison we play with much more separation. We had each of the drummers in their own room. The horns, bass and piano were all in the same room, but it was big, so they were spread out. We used a lot of pedals and effects, we were re-amping things. We weren’t on a quest to emulate the sound of anything. It was more like, ‘What’s the sound of us?’”

WIRELESS COMMAND

To get the most out of Ox’s inherent abilities you’ll need to make it talk to its own app via a computer or iOS device. After downloading and launching the Mac app, follow the on-screen prompts to first connect to Ox’s built-in Wi-Fi, then connect it to your usual Wi-Fi. Once you are told the software has been registered, the Ox app GUI appears. I love that the interaction between Ox and device is completely wireless, especially when you have the unit sitting with your guitar amps at the other end of your studio.

The interface is basic and intuitive. First, there’s the rather extensive list of cabinets ranging from a 1×10 to several 4×12 varieties. 50W/100W output level options are provided and the Speaker Breakup knob lets you “control the harmonics and sonic complexity that occurs only at certain frequencies and volume levels on various speakers”. No complaints here whatsoever — playing through the cab emulations is a thoroughly lifelike experience and UAD’s modelling and DSP prowess shines in each model.

Level/Mute/Solo controls for Mic 1, Mic 2 and the Room Mic let you find the perfect balance capturing the cabinet’s tone. Mic emulations include an SM57, MD421, R121, 160, U67, C414 and Direct. A four-band graphic EQ with HPF and LPF is provided for each mic, or you can choose a parametric EQ if you prefer. I was impressed with the natural character of the Room Mic channel and the Damp switch (which puts a rug under the amp).

ALL-IN-ONE

On the Master channel is a tasteful chain of an EQ, 1176 SE Compressor, Delay and Plate Reverb inserts. These effects are what I think makes Ox more than just a load box. It’s a self-sufficient, stage-ready guitar rig. Many guitarists will find there’s more than enough configurability within Ox to get you through a show without needing tons of pedals or extra gear.

Of course, the app allows you to create and save your own presets. Click Assign at the top of the app to designate any of these presets to the six positions of the Rig knob on the unit for easy access to your favourites.

As a recording solution Ox offers loads of tonal options and outputs to work in any studio setting. Its app integration and preset-building ability makes it comfortably handle the demands of guitarists playing live. Whether your home is the studio, the stage, or both, Ox is a well implemented fix for amp lovers who never get to turn their amps up.

WORK WITH ME

Installation to a Windows 10 system using the packaged CD was straightforward; as we’ve come to expect. I also elected to download and install Cubase AI, using the bundled license. At over 6.5GB I wonder if the CD couldn’t be replaced with a thumb drive and also include a recent version of the DAW for both Windows and macOS to make things even simpler. Cubase AI is not prescribed, but if you don’t have any existing DAW affiliations the provided version is relatively powerful and incorporates direct access to the RT4’s settings and monitor mixing capabilities. You can even save custom configurations within each project. For the remainder of this discussion I’ll instead focus on the dspMixFx application, required by all non-Cubase users to configure the driver and DSP settings.

Both the UR-RT4 and RT2 incorporate an onboard SSP2 DSP chip to handle monitor mixing duties. While they can run standalone, with the last configured Scene (including the capability to run as a four-channel preamp with inputs routed directly to outputs), you need the software interface to access many controls.

Sample rate and Buffer settings are standard but you’ll also find settings for the cutoff frequency of Input 1-4’s HPF, channel assignments for Headphone bus 2, level calibration for line inputs 5 & 6 (-10dBV or +4dBu) and Loopback (the routing of driver output pairs back into the equivalent driver inputs; handy for recording screencasts, presentations, software instrument outputs, or any number of other possible uses). dspMixFx allows users to configure up to two low-latency monitor mixes (under Windows 10 the roundtrip latency was 0.94ms when running at 48k) blending input sources with software outputs. The mixer incorporates EQ/Compressor channel strips and four Yamaha guitar amp emulators which can be monitor-only or applied to recordings. An effects send routed to the REV-X reverb is also included. All of these useful and highly usable onboard effects are also bundled as VST3 plug-ins. Just be sure to check they’re supported by your DAW.

If you’re monitoring via your DAW, the roundtrip latency performance doesn’t equal market leaders’ but it’s definitely within a good range for most applications. Steinberg do however deserve credit for accurately reporting this latency within the driver (add the Input and Output latency figures to determine roundtrip latency). While latency performance was mid-market, this additional buffer may explain the far more positive results in my audio stability testing; which will be at least as important for those considering live applications.

The real issue with dspMixFx and the RT4 is the lack of DSP power. While the smaller RT2 may be well served by the onboard DSP, it’s not possible to insert a mono instance of the channel strip onto all six input channels of the RT4. What’s more, the amp sim (only one per device) and channel strips cannot be chained, the use of even a single amp simulator cuts the number of available channel strip inserts to two, and while volume and pan controls are unique to the two discrete monitor ‘Mixes’, per-channel reverb send settings are only active in one of the mixes with the return applied to both. Notwithstanding, for many simple applications all this would likely be a non-issue. What the dspMixFx mixer does, including the saving of effect settings and mix scenes, it actually does very well; it’s just not as full-featured a mixing experience as those currently offered by RME or MOTU devices, of similar channel counts.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE?

I know, I know. I’ve buried the lead. What you all really want to know about is those Rupert Neve-designed transformers. Perhaps most importantly, the UR-RT4 sounds pretty damn good. I very quickly jammed out a little five-track ditty (drum machine, P-bass, synth, high-strung acoustic guitar and electric guitar) using Radial JS and Lehle splitters — along with calibration tones — to record simultaneously to channels with the transformers enabled and disabled. For my test ’control’ chains, I used a Radial JDV mkIII DI and UA 2108 preamp. For starters, the D-PRE channels performed very nicely indeed. In fact, the difference between the recordings made through these channels and the controls were at times negligible. When ABing against the ‘transformed’ recordings, the differences weren’t drastic, but they were notable. In very simple terms they had slightly less sparkle but more punch and low end bloom; and for some sources this augmentation was definitely worthwhile. Interestingly, when carrying out earlier listening tests for the DACs and headphone channels I’d noted a similar, though not as pronounced, voicing when making comparisons with other reference devices. While it’s not trying to be everything for everybody, the UR-RT4 does have a sound and it’s more musical than scientific.

MORE OR LESS

It might seem trite to point out that the Steinberg UR-RT4 is a UR-RT2 with more; but it’s the extras that let you know where ‘UR’ priorities rest. The I/O count expands while the DSP and digital interface options remain static. Steinberg deliver more of less to keep things simple for users who care about capturing a variety of tones with a minimum of fuss. The bundled cross-platform software options make it an ideal platform for recording musicians or perhaps an upscale solution for podcasters and vloggers. Sometimes a Super Supreme or Long Island Ice Tea is just too much, the UR-RT series identifies a few key ingredients and lets you season to taste.

SELECTIVE HEARING

On the master bus, the accuracy with which Gullfoss is able to distinguish between dominant and dominated elements of a mix is incredible. A shaker tucked underneath a wall of guitars and synths would classify as dominated, and turning up Recover brings it nicely into auditory view. On the other hand, the kick and claps in a techno tune were too dominant, and the Tame control affected those quite independently. Remember, Gullfoss is using EQ curves, so if you’re using it on a master, your mix might be better served by simply turning up or down the individual fader for those dominant or dominated tracks. In other words, don’t overdo it.

Gullfoss works just as well on individual tracks — electric guitars, piano, sax, strings, you name it. In my tests, the plug-in never failed to bring clarity, focus and accentuation of detail.

If like me, you’re struggling with the idea of handing over control to the machines, there’s a way of thinking about Gullfoss that makes the transition more palatable. See, the real power behind Gullfoss, is not in its ability to make decisions for you, but its dynamic response. For a while now, engineers have warmed to multi-band dynamics as a way to EQ, based on the amplitude of frequency content at a given time. Often using it to occasionally tame a certain area of the frequency spectrum without killing the source’s tone by notching it out with an EQ. Gullfoss can play a similar role, just 100 times more in-depth. As a tool for fixing problematic tracks, it’s invaluable.

With Gullfoss, I will gladly surrender my rights to a row of Gain, Frequency and Q knobs in exchange for its intelligent ability to treat audio in an utterly musical fashion. Soundtheory’s got a winner here and I’ll be using it often.