TIME TO DANCE

I’ve been checking out the smallest complete stereo Blackbird system, two TLA1164A ‘sticks’ and two TLA210A subs. An underage disco at the local footy club seemed a good test in a typical application. One of my boys plays junior footy and they’re popular events; a few hundred kids in the big and boomy clubrooms. There was room in the wagon for the Blackbird system and a couple of team mates. When we got there, the boys had the speakers set up in no time. The TLA1164A array simply slots into a pole mount on either the top or the side of the TLA210A sub cabinet, depending on the desired height of the stack. It makes putting speakers on stands seem awkward and old-fashioned. Connect the source via the XLR/jack combi input socket and start listening.

Fired up, the Blackbird system is instantly likeable for its open but still direct sound quality, if that makes any sense at all. The published specifications for the Blackbird system are similar to what you’d expect from an equivalent point source, powered speaker system with a sub: Frequency response of 50Hz – 15kHz at -3dB, a sensitivity of 97dB, and max volume of 130dB, but these do little to describe the different types of sound output. The only spec that points to the difference is the high frequency dispersion of 120 by 15 degrees. It takes a little while to get used to the arrays; if you stand close to the sticks they sound weird, not bad but you can hear parts of individual drivers with the main sound developing behind you. It smooths out quickly when you move away from the array with the sound seeming to be on-axis and even over a wide plane. It’s not necessarily intuitive as there’s a lot of separate drivers in each array but they’re matched, lightweight and moving fast so transients are well produced and the narrow vertical focus throws them deep down the room.

I regularly lend the footy club a system for these dances; usually a couple of well-powered 15-inch speakers on stands and they fill the dance floor. Granted the Blackbird is a bigger more powerful system but it’s a beast by comparison in this situation. One side pointed across the dance floor, the other angled more into the room. It filled the whole clubroom and turned the underage disco into a bigger event. To get the same width and depth with point source speakers you’d need more speakers, more cables, on potentially dangerous speaker stands, possibly delays and a messier setup. The audience didn’t think about any of this, they were young and impressionable and they thought the stick system was ‘sick as’… high praise, indeed.

SIDE BY SIDE, TO THE POINT

The Bridge Hotel in Castlemaine was happy to let me try the Blackbird system in a pub-gig setting. On a wintry Sunday afternoon I set it up beside the venue’s good-quality, point source dual 15-inch plus horn system, with sub. That way I could A/B the two systems without upsetting the acts. It was a fairly good comparison on paper, but there were significant differences in use. Both systems worked but immediately noticeable was the way the Blackbird system made the point source boxes sound really boxy, especially in the couple of octaves below 1kHz. Also different was how the Blackbird system ran happily without any external EQ at all whereas the powered boxes needed lots. Preset 1 is intended to reduce low-mid boom and feedback, a common problem on small stages, and that was the only EQ I needed on this small stage. A noticeable amount of sound comes from the sides and rear of the sticks but it doesn’t cause the problems you may expect. It’s nearly full-range and quite stable with open mics, I’ve had performers telling me they don’t need separate monitors with stick systems and I believe them. In this setting the spill from the sticks seemed to blend in nicely with the separate monitors.

Out front of house the mids and highs cut through the Bridge Hotel’s band room easily and evenly, as I was expecting by now, and the vocals were noticeably clearer at the back of the room. Up the front there were people sitting at table’s right in front of the bottom of the sticks and they said no worries, not too loud or harsh. Job well done and an uneven comparison in the end. The customers noticed too and I packed up answering questions about how it worked and how much it cost.

I took the system to the Theatre Royal Castlemaine for a loud listen, as I did in 2014 with the earlier version, and although memory is risky it seemed more powerful than I recall. It’s a big old cinema with a high roof, quite reverberant and it takes a lot of sound to fill it. It’s too big for a single TLA1.4 system to fill but I like the way it throws diction to the back of the room better than the much bigger horn-loaded house PA. The Blackbird system is quite loud and stable when pushed but it doesn’t want to yell or bite like horn-loaded boxes and full volume screamy stuff is the only thing I wouldn’t recommend it for. It hits a limit at a certain intensity and if that’s not enough you may need to move up to the AT CLA700A composite line array system.

It would be perfect for a program of soul or jazz bands in a park on a sunny afternoon. The Blackbird is great outdoors, where you usually need wide coverage and long throw. The old problem of the level being too loud and too harsh near the speakers and too soft and muffled away from them is also greatly reduced. It’s the middle of winter here, there’s no outdoors shows, but I’ve listened to them from over 50m away at my place and they stay remarkably clear. You can’t see them at that distance but you can sure hear them. The technology is catching on with solo acts, duos and small bands using the smaller portable arrays. Even my friends in the Bluegrass/Ol’ Timey worlds are starting to use them and they don’t really like any speakers, and don’t use foldback. They enjoy the spacious sound and the way they can hear them when they play.

MIX ’N’ MATCH

I spoke to a couple of production company owners who use AT gear and both SSL Productions Steve Pannan and Fat Sound’s Ray Eberle had nothing but praise for their Blackbird systems. They confirmed the improved power and particularly the transparency of the new PowerSoft amp platform and both agreed there’s nothing directly comparable to the Blackbird system in the way it can handle such a wide range of gigs, from music to corporate, indoors or outdoors. They choose how many subs they think they’ll need for the type of event and both used the taller 24-driver TLA1244 array for bigger shows or outdoors. The longer stick has a theoretical advantage because the longer the array the lower the frequencies included in the controlled projection characteristics. For the directional characteristics of line arrays to work all the way down to the lower frequencies the array has to be impractically long, so there’s always some compromise involved, but taller is better.

All the systems in the AT range share hi-fidelity audio, high quality components, solid construction and they’re built tough for Aussie conditions. They come with a five-year warranty and excellent service. AT reports the Blackbird has become its top-selling speaker system and I can see why. From musical performances to outdoor sports events to car launches, versatility is the Blackbird system’s main strength, convenient transport and set up are great features, while taming difficult acoustic environments is the party trick. Keep up the good work AT.

WHY LINE ARRAYS?

Evolved from the once common rectangular boxes full of speakers hung vertically on either side of the proscenium arch in town halls, the idea behind them is that mounting drivers in an array allows their outputs to overlap. In some places they add together, in others they cancel and subtract. By controlling the number and size of the drivers in the array and the spacing between their centres, the speakers’ directional characteristics can be controlled. Typically used to project sound in a wide horizontal plane (120 degrees) and a narrow vertical plane (15 degrees) line array systems lose less energy over distance and throw further than point-source designs.

FILTER THE CREAM

Price: $139

To the recording engineer, EQ filters are a way of carving out space in a mix. To the FOH engineer, high pass filters buy headroom in the sub sends. But to the electronic music producer, filters are practically instruments.

Arturia’s new trio of filter plug-ins are derived from classic analogue synths. In typical Arturia style, every ounce of possible musicality and manipulation is squeezed from each one. No matter what kind of music you produce, these filters are creative tools you need to have in your arsenal.

PRIME PREAMPS

Price: $249

There’s a certain appeal in running ‘cold’ and ‘sterile’ DAW tracks through bits of analogue gear to ‘warm them up’. The next best thing — when taking tracks on a physical trip out of and back into the digital domain is impractical — is to throw a harmonics-inducing plug-in across those tracks. Arturia’s trio of preamp emulations mimic three classic channel strips and does a wonderful job curing your digital woes with analogue mojo.

All three plug-ins have a few things in common, the first of which is a pair of VU meters to get you thinking and seeing analogue. The plug-in’s DNA is really showcased through its breakup characteristics. An Input Gain knob lets you drive the preamp stage from subtle warmth to the border of mayhem, while an Output knob keeps your levels in check. A minimal equaliser section models the original hardware. Then as a beneficial value-add, all three plugs let you process stereo tracks either L/R or M/S (the latter of which turns the equaliser, input gain, and output controls to middle and side, respectively). Better yet, they’re all relatively low on CPU usage.

FLIP THE SWITCH

I’m actually quite impressed with the features KRK has built into the Series 4 monitors. Aside from the grille on/off option, there’s a tonne of options when it comes to adjusting the EQ, and all the models in the range feature the same controls. All up there are 49 permutations of this digital EQ, and are adjusted via a five-position potentiometer for low-end and another for high-end. These are set curves comprising a mix of different amounts of low shelving at 60Hz and cut and boost PEQ at 200Hz, as well as a flat setting (thank goodness). The V8s arrived with the +3dB 60Hz firmly on, so I spent a couple of hours mired in bass before thinking there was a tad too much bum going on and checking on the EQ settings. The high-end adjustments consist of various combinations of high shelving at 10kHz and PEQ cuts and boosts at 3.5kHz, alongside a flat setting.

The V4 models are set with 75Hz low-end EQ curves rather then the V6 and V8 models being set at 60Hz, because four-inch drivers don’t, like, do 60Hz… ever. Anyway, there’s a pile of adjustment if you need it for wall proximity and/or console muddiness. But hey, I set them flat, because I don’t have a console and I don’t believe in equalising monitors.

Beside the EQ pots there’s also a set of dip-switches for, yes, more settings. These are to do with the mechanics of the system, and again, I’m impressed with the thought put into these features. First up, there’s a dip-switch for ground lift, which while helpful in a poorly-earthed system, amounts to a last minute fix for shoddy mains power wiring. The next dip-switch flips the monitor between -10dBV and +4dBu input levels — fair enough, standard fare. The next few dip-switches I love: The fourth and fifth switches turn the bright LED KRK logo on the front of the V8s on or off, or flip between two brightness settings — great if you don’t fancy blinding lights or if you like to mix in a darkened area.

IDLING ALONG

Switch number three is my favourite. This will instigate sleep mode for the monitors, which means the monitors will shut down after 30 minutes of not receiving signal input. I’d love a feature like this on my own monitoring as I tend to arc up my system during the day, and often keep it running until late evening. That’s 420W of amplification running for 10-12 hours a day, drawing around about 90W each in general use and about 35W when sitting idle. A sleeping monitor saves energy and consequently hard earned dosh. To wake up, all the monitor needs is -50 dBu at the inputs. However, it was a bit weird when the two V8s came back online about two seconds apart from each other. When it first happened, and knowing about the sleep function I thought I had a faulty or DOA monitor on my hands.

Another uncommon feature and something that’s yet to be deployed with the Series 4 KRKs is the mini USB port on the back of the monitors. KRK are keeping schtum about the use for this, other than pointing out the port “… is for possible future updates and/or features.” I can imagine this being implemented for alterations to the DSP-based EQ. Perhaps an app for more precise EQ nudges?

STAND UP IMAGE

Here’s something else you don’t see too often in monitoring — the Series 4 V model monitors are available in either black or an off-white cream colouring. The models I received were the white, which in all seriousness would not be my choice. Monitors should be black, or at least very very dark grey. The white models on my monitor bench were already showing signs of dirt and discolouration. I’ve no idea why you’d want white monitors, but as they say, different strokes, there’s no accounting for taste, etc, etc.

Sound-wise I have to say KRK do a great job with bottom-end. The Kevlar cones, combined with KRK’s square front porting, offer some very respectable and concise low-end, whilst high end is both accurate and unfatiguing. In terms of stereo imaging the V8s are quite a smart setup. The image ‘stands’ where it should with a minimal amount of set-up and ‘toeing’. I quite liked the V8s, and could happily live with a pair were I not over-endowed with monitors. When being informed of the price for the V8s I was astounded. For the money, at the moment I don’t believe you’d find a better bang-for-buck proposition. Impressive sound and imaging, plenty of customisation, and some change out of a two-grand investment. Well worth your auditioning.

You have the chance to win a pair of KRK V8s. Just subscribe to AudioTechnology’s print edition by the 31st of October, 2018, and answer the subscription prize question to go in the running. Thanks to Jands for this amazing prize. Subscribe here.

Photos: Ben Sullivan

AT HOME IN THE STUDIO

Hamilton and Moyes worked in their respective home studios, which they built soon after Apocalyso. “Julian has a studio that sits above his garage,” outlined Moyes. “It consists of one big room, which is a really good writing room, and also works well for overdubs and vocal recordings. My studio is slightly bigger and on the bottom floor of my house. I call it Piper Lane and it is divided into a smallish control room/writing room, which has an artist/producer kind of workstation, and another room where I can do more isolated acoustic recordings. It’s not really big enough for a proper drum kit, although I have recorded kits in it, and I have all sorts of percussion there, like a marimba, a vibraphone, and tons of other noise makers.”

Moyes has three sets of monitors at Piper Lane; Barefoot Sound MicroMain27s, EMES Pink TVs, and a Pure Evoke 2S radio: “I’ve had the Pink TVs for 10 years, and they are my main work horses. The Pure is a small reference speaker, but you can crank it pretty loudly and it’s not fatiguing to listen to.” His mics include a Wagner U47, Josephson E22, and AKG C451B, “which is a good condenser, and Julian sang many of his vocals through that,” said Moyes. “He also used my Shure SM7B and SM58. On Kuckles Julian sang through the Placid Audio Copperphone to get that radio voice type effect.”

At the heart of both studios are “Mac Pros from 2009,” explained Moyes. “We both have one, and they’ve reached their limits of upgradability, which means we’re kind of stuck in this antiquated past. We also both have the Lynx Aurora 16 as our soundcards, and are running Pro Tools HD from 2009, so we’re one step behind the upgrade that allows faster-than-real-time bouncing.

“For a while we had incompatible versions of SoundToys’ plug-ins, and because we use Ableton for our live shows, we tried that, and it seemed to resolve the problem. When working in the studio Ableton is not quite as second nature to use for us as Pro Tools is, but sometimes it’s better to open up something you’re less familiar with, just to see what happens. There were a few times when we went to Ableton out of pure frustration and ended up doing a few things that were pretty good. Ableton is also built to be manhandled a bit more than Pro Tools is, and it can be faster to get ideas out with. To communicate between the two DAWs we simply print everything as audio.”

CLICKING TOGETHER

Being early 40-somethings, Hamilton and Moyes obviously come to DAWs with considerable experience from the pre-DAW days, augmented by their education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where Hamilton studied classical piano and Moyes, classical percussion. Whereas many modern beat makers click in their arrangements with a mouse, with little understanding of music theory, the two Presets members engage with the DAW world with tons of musical and instrumental know-how.

“Our conservatorium backgrounds are helpful in many ways, but sometimes they can be a bit of a hindrance,” said Moyes. “On the plus side, orchestrating songs or figuring out interesting combinations of sounds has always been very natural for us. One of the reasons I was drawn to electronic and dance music was because of the notion in classical percussion that whatever you can hit is basically a percussion sound. Electronic music is an extension of that almost infinite sound world.

“On the other hand, many people who don’t know much about harmony or how chords fit together can have a more direct experience of music and are closer to the magic. The little knowledge we have of music can get in the way of that. What we do share with many young beatmakers is a lack of interest in virtuosity. There are players who don’t listen well and demolish bands by their need to show off, rather than play a simple groove. Today’s generation of producers — who have grown up with DAWs — look at music as one piece with lots of small components they can put together. They really think of music like true producers, which is super-positive.”

TIMELY MANUAL LABOUR

Moyes says that while their experiences with analogue have an impact, “our sensibilities from performing are even more important. Rather than things being locked to a grid, the right amount of variation in groove and dynamics is much more interesting. If you don’t, your ears become bored very quickly. We’re not doing things that are too drastic and risk throwing you out of your listening experience, but we’re always chasing subtle variations to keep things interesting without the listener being conscious of it. Entire symphonies are built around this way of thinking, and classical music performers almost take it for granted. Whereas in dance and electronic music you really have to push hard to get that kind of variation.”

While Moyes said that he and Hamilton “both click and play. We try, as much as possible, to keep our unique sense of groove. Sometimes we really are into a very rigid, fully-quantised sound, but at other times we get into playing things by hand to get it to sound more natural. With this new record, for the first time we really appreciated manually moving things around in time to get a better flow. It’s about the way the rhythm and sounds work against each other, and the space between everything… or to stick with a good live performance that has not been tampered with too much.”

SOFT LAUNCH PAD

The pair spent a couple of years at Hamilton’s studio working at his computer and writing everything in the box with soft synths and drum machine plug-ins. Halfway through the process they then decamped to Moyes’ Piper Lane studio, because it has more scope for doing things outside of the box. 

“We used various starting points when writing, pulling up Native Instruments Maschine or Battery, loading in a bunch of different sounds to get to something that felt like the beginning of something cool,” described Moyes. “More often than not we mapped the sounds out on a keyboard and played it like it was a drum kit. Then we’d pull up a bass or some other kind of synth sound, and we’d try building up a groove from the ground up. If anything felt really inspiring, Julian would grab a microphone and he’d start throwing down vocal ideas. We did this over and over until it amounted to an arsenal of repertoire.

“The soft synths we used the most were LennarDigital Sylenth, Arturia Mini V and Native Instruments Massive and Maschine. That’s it. We only use a few. As songs developed, we might go through different kick drums and different snare drums, and I might throw down some live hats or grab snippets of another drum kit for a fill section. There was no limit to how far we could take things or where we grabbed sounds from. We were looking at it from the perspective of a collage. Within one song there might be six years’ worth of material. For example, Tools Down has a string part we wrote for an entirely different song that didn’t make it on to our previous album.”

CHOIR OF MANY

In their search for variety, the album went from in-the-box, to out-of-the-box, to a recording tour around the world. As well as the guest vocalist contributions and a number of external instrument recording sessions, they recorded two choirs for Downtown Shutdown, one in LA and one at Bruce Adderly Sound Studios in Victoria. “Downtown Shutdown took a long time to evolve,” said Moyes. “Julian had layered his vocals to make them sound like a choir, but the melody really felt like it should be sung with voices of people from Africa or the Caribbean. So we found a community choir in Shepparton in Victoria made up of central African refugees, and they did a really good job. Then we found a Caribbean choir in Los Angeles, and they also added flavour and colour to the track.

“We really wanted to take the production to the next level. We’ve always been self-sufficient, but in order to get a sense of inclusiveness, celebration and variation, we wanted to work with ingredients that are outside of our control, to some degree. It makes for very interesting music when you have all of these different components working alongside each other. 

“Practically organising the recordings sometimes tested our patience, but working with live elements in the sessions wasn’t difficult for us. It’s something we’ve always done. When we first started working with Pro Tools in 2001, the MIDI component was really basic, and seemingly added as an afterthought. So we used Pro Tools as a glorified sampler, always recording individual sounds from drum machines and other gear as real audio. We’d then program the audio in the time line, and build up arrangements that way. Today the MIDI capabilities in Pro Tools are much better, but combining electronic and organic sounds has always been fundamental to the way The Presets work.”

ROUGHING IN AT HIGH QUALITY

The very last stage of the making of Hi Viz obviously involved the mix, and on seven of the songs Hamilton and Moyes enlisted the mixing skills of John Hanes, who works with the world’s number one mixer, Serban Ghenea. In addition, three songs were mixed by Scott Horscroft and one by Eric J Dubowsky. “The reason we got involved with John is because he mixed Uptown Funk, and part of The Weeknd’s Starboy,” explained Moyes. “We particularly liked the sound of I Feel It Coming on that album. Those songs were really close to the sonic ethos we were trying to achieve.”

Working in the box allowed The Presets to build on the quality of their rough mixes, something Moyes said they’ve been trying to improve on with every album. “We really broke through on this record and got very good at it,” said Moyes. “It meant the differences between the final mixes and our rough mixes was minimal. We’d send the tracks off to the mixers and after we got them back, we’d pull up our rough mixes to compare, and try to figure out what we liked about what they had done and what we liked about our mixes. We got into a really forensic process to get to the bottom of what makes things sound the way they do!

“During rough mixing we had the UAD SSL G Channel on the drums, as well as a UAD dbx 160VU as a parallel. We mainly used the outboard in my studio to get the raw vocal, bass and guitars recordings in at a more controlled level, but occasionally we would do rough mixes through them to spice things up a bit. In some of my other projects I run the masters out through my Neve 1073s, and then into the Cranesong STC8, just to get everything to open up a bit. In some cases there definitely is a colour shift when you mix through a bit of outboard at the very end. At other times it’s better to keep it in the box.

“One thing that made rough mixing more difficult was that we worked at a higher sampling rate, 88.2kHz. It forces you to mix things down to stereo pairs as much as you can. Many of the songs would be made up of 10 different sessions. The recordings of the choirs would each be 25 to 30 tracks, which you’d need to consolidate into one session.

“We used that higher sampling rate because the mix engineer for our previous album, Tony Hoffer, worked with it, and it’s really great for clarity and depth. Even though we slam everything hard with plug-ins like the Waves SSL G Bus compressor on the master, we still felt that 88.2k helped in getting the album to sound as bright and shiny as possible.”