December 2, 2020
What better way to celebrate sE Electronic reaching 50,000 Facebook followers and Amy Lee (lead singer-songwriter and pianist of Evanescence) joining sE’s stable of artists than by giving away her preferred mic?
November 1, 2020
No matter if you’re into podcasting, want to record vocals, or if you need a starting point for a professional quality music studio in your home, the UX22 Ultimate bundle is exceptional value for money providing an ideal foundation on which to build your personal home studio at a minimal cost.
October 20, 2020
Waves Audio has just released an impressive update to their entire suite of plug-ins, most notably, featuring resizable GUIs, improved Preset Browsing with search functions, better display on MacOS Retina capable systems and more.
September 26, 2020
This week, Sound And Music took a big step forward and became 100% Carbon-Neutral with the installation of an array of 70 solar panels on the roof of our warehouse facility in Moorabbin.
September 21, 2020
The Sensel Morph, an innovative, pressure-sensitive controller in tandem with Sensel’s Buchla Thunder Overlay makes a potent tool for expressive playing when performing on the legendary Buchla Music Easel Command 208C.
August 10, 2020
If you’re a fan of Metalcore, August Burns Red is as good as it gets! And from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of all places! Their drummer, Matt Greiner – who is a founding member of the band – used the sE V PACK ARENA drum mic kit to create a killer demonstration of his beats and techniques on their 2007 single, “Composure.”
The song is from their second album, Messengers, released in 2007. Throughout the piece, Matt displays intensely complex and impressively compositional drum patterns. It’s hard to imagine how he keeps it all in his brain, nevermind nailing the clearly taxing physical execution of it.
As the camera angles switch, we can see the V7 X on Matt’s snare, a pair of sE8 small-diaphragm condensers as overheads, and V BEAT mics on each of the toms. The camera doesn’t cut to the V KICK – presumably because of the inevitable mess of cables that goes along with miking drums – but we can definitely hear it! Christopher Pollock, the band’s audio engineer, did a great job tracking and mixing these drum sounds!
Check out the latest August Burns Red album, Guardians, out now on Fearless Records!
August 3, 2020
When it comes to modern mixing, Console 1 is the best of both worlds. Get all the tremendous sound and feel of analog hardware mixing with the freedom of digital. Run the Console 1 plug-in in your DAW of choice and control the sound of the legendary Solid State Logic SL 4000 E desk with the dedicated hardware. Console 1 is compatible with all major DAWs. Work faster and get better results with all of the benefits and convenience of in-the-box mixing. As an added bonus, new Console 1 registrations come with three additional products that include five Console 1 ready plug-ins at no extra cost for a limited time.
Register your new Console 1 between July 1st and September 30th and receive Transient Shaper, FET Compressor and Passive-Active Pack, which includes 3 EQs: Focusing Equalizer, Passive Equalizer, and Active Equalizer, for free, in addition to the Solid State Logic SL 4000 E console emulation that’s already included.
1. Register a new Console 1 between July 1st and September 30th, 2020
2. Licenses to Console 1 and Transient Shaper, FET Compressor and Passive-Active Pack will be added automatically to your Softube account
What does “register a new Console 1” mean?
Console 1 is both hardware and software. When you buy the hardware, you take it home, unbox it and plug it in to your computer. It looks great. The next step before you start using Console 1, you need to register it. To do this, go to softube.com, log in or create an account, and download your software using the license code that came in the box. After that’s done, you’ll be able to get your free plug-ins and start mixing.
August 3, 2020
Mixonline.com product of the week,
BY STEVE LA CERRA
PUBLISHED: 07/31/2020
Hands-on control for the Waves eMotion LV1 software-based mixing platform, with touch-sensitive, 100mm faders and 16 channel strips.
Co-engineered by Waves Audio and MIDI control manufacturer MIDIPLUS, FIT is a hands-on mixing control surface designed to work in conjunction with the Waves eMotion LV1 live software mixing platform.
Built into an aluminum chassis with dimensions of 17.6 x 11.18 x 2.71 inches, FIT features 16 channels, each of which includes a 100mm motorized, touch-sensitive fader; a rotary encoder with push-to-switch; Mute, Solo, and Select switches; and a scribble strip. The channel Solo switch can activate Cue or Solo depending upon the mode setting in the LV1. The 16 rotary encoders can control preamp gain or pan (per channel), with their function shown in the display.
A dedicated Master channel provides a 100mm motorized, touch-sensitive fader, a touch-and-turn rotary encoder that can control any eMotion LV1 parameter, Mute and Solo switches, and a “User” button that sets the 16 channel Select buttons to a user mode whereby they provide instant access to mute groups or other assignable keys.
Eight dedicated layer select buttons facilitate instant access to channel layers in the eMotion LV1, while eight Utility buttons enable frequently used commands such as fader flip to be called up without need to dig through menus.
Rear-panel features include two USB LED ports capable of supplying 5 VDC (0.5A) for LED work lights; a 12 VDC power receptacle with on/off switch, and a USB port for connection to the host computer (FIT is a class-compliant USB device for Mac OS and Windows).
More info here.
July 20, 2020
The Spatial Mic Converter plugin transforms the raw audio signals from Spatial Mic to a format useful for audio production.The output from Spatial Mic Converter can decode to first or second order ambisonics in ambiX or FuMa formats, in addition to mono/stereo virtual microphone patterns with flexible higher-order options. To accomplish this, Spatial Mic Converter uses an internal 64-channel filter matrix and measurements from an anechoic chamber. Spatial Mic Converter is available as VST3 and AAX and requires a host that supports multi-channel audio tracks such as Reaper, Pro Tools Ultimate, Nuendo or Plogue Bidule. The plugin and demo session are available as free downloads to test system compatibility.
Link: Download Spatial Mic Converter & free listening session
Spatial Mic Converter offers the capability to change the microphone’s aim at the point in space where the audio was recorded. This is useful when aligning audio position with 360 video, aiming the mic at specific sounds that should be in front of the listener, or used in combination with the virtual mic output stage to focus directional polar patterns at different parts of the soundfield.
Link: Skip ahead to learn about the virtual mic output and pattern decoding with Spatial Mic
The ambisonic output can be sent to a variety of plugins from Facebook 360, SSA, Blue Ripple Sound, IEM, SPARTA and others for further processing while mono or stereo outputs can be used with standard mono/stereo audio production plugins.
The built-in Spatial Mic Converter filters are specific to the raw signals from Spatial Mic and as such are only valid for Spatial Mic. Note that the plugin also offers the ability to load custom 64-channel .wav filters for any 8-channel second order microphone, however this is beyond the scope of this article. Spatial Mic Converter should be the first plugin in your signal chain when processing the raw signals from Spatial Mic.
Filter
Four built-in filters that transform the raw capsule output are available. Type 1 and Type 2 allow for a tonal choice and both have complimentary low noise versions. In general, the Type 1 filter selection will have a slightly more pronounced mid-range vs Type 2. While Type 1 and Type 2 offer the best spatial resolution, Type 1 LN and Type 2 LN conversion filters offer lower noise alternatives for recording quiet sound sources.
Options: Type 1, Type 2, Type 1 LN, Type 2 LN, Custom (64-channel .wav expected)
Tilt
Tilts the Spatial Mic recording direction up and down. Rotation and roll are maintained when tilting.
Range: ±45°
Default & Reset: 0°
Rotation
Rotates the Spatial Mic recording direction left and right. Tilt and roll are maintained when rotating.
Range: ±180°, continuous
Default & Reset: 0°
Roll
Rolls the Spatial Mic recording direction side to side. Tilt and rotation are maintained when rolling.
Range: ±45°
Default & Reset: 0°
Highpass
Activates a selectable frequency high pass filter, useful to cut wind noise or other low frequency artifacts.
Options: Off, 80Hz, 120Hz, 150Hz
Orientation
It is often desirable for the orientation to correspond with the real-life position of the microphone.
Normal: The Spatial Mic capsule array is aimed up.
End-Fire: The Spatial Mic capsule array is aimed forward.
Inverted: The Spatial Mic capsule array is aimed down.
Trim
Controls input level. Plugin processing may increase the signal level. If output meters clip, you may need to reduce trim.
Range: -20dB to +20dB
Default & Reset: 0dB
Outputs
Selects the output type. This should correspond to the input type of the next plugin in the signal chain. Note that the output types differ in channel count, ordering and level weighting.
Options: ambiX 2nd Order, ambiX 1st Order, FuMa 2nd Order, FuMa 1st Order, Virtual Mic
R Channel Output Note: The ‘R’ channel is silenced by default unless the Tilt control is adjusted. By clicking on the ‘R’ channel label of the output meter, Spatial Mic Converter plugin will generate the R channel from the W channel. When enabled the R icon will change to a green color. This may enhance the presence of height to recordings that are mostly horizontal, however it is best to use your ears to confirm this is the right choice.
There are 3 main sections to the Graphical User Interface.
Processing
This section displays and allows user input to change mic orientation, rotation, filter and more.
Inputs
Shows the unprocessed level with clip indication for each of the 8 capsules.
Outputs
Shows the processed output level with clip indication. Channel ordering changes based on output format selection.
The Virtual Mic output section enables the creation of mono or stereo microphone polar patterns that can be aimed in the soundfield using the plugin tilt, rotation and roll controls. The virtual mic interface is shown on the plugin GUI when it is selected under the Outputs dropdown menu as shown below.
Polar patterns are created using three controls:
Type
Four different types of virtual mic decoding are available: In-Phase, Basic, max rE and Figure 8. Within each type, the pattern and width can be adjusted to manipulate the stereo field and polar pattern shape.
Figure 8: Traditional Omni → Cardioid → Figure 8 microphone patterns
Basic: Virtual mic patterns capable of second order cardioid (pattern = 2)
Max rE: Maximizes energy concentration vector by focusing energy signals in the direction of interest.
In-Phase: Full side-lobe suppression with no out-of-phase components
Pattern
The pattern control is continuously adjustable and changes the focus of the pattern from omnidirectional to a narrow pattern based on the virtual mic type selected. The pattern control can also be thought of as changing the ‘order’ from 0→1 for Figure-8 and 0 → 2 for all other pattern types.
Width
The width control duplicates the polar pattern created and offsets their aim by the selected angle to create a virtual stereo microphone pair. The stereo width angle is continuously variable from 0° → 180°. When Width = 0, a mono signal is created.
Spatial Mic Converter has 15 built-in presets to quickly audition different configurations. The following chart shows the characteristics of each one.
We hope you enjoyed this walk-through of the Spatial Mic Converter plugin. The ability to decode second order ambisonics as well as virtual mic patterns opens up a wide array of possibilities. In the future, we’ll look at using multiple plugin instances and the virtual mic to decode channel based formats such as 5.1 and 7.1 in addition to a highly configurable Mid-Side decoder. Drop us a line and let us know your favorite configuration or further enhancements that you’d like to see to this powerful tool!
