Sunday 30 August 2015

Connectors for Audio Interfaces





Are you getting lost in the variety of connectors available for audio interfaces? In that case I would like to pull your attention towards a recent Sound on Sound article once more. The article ‘Making a Connection’ is found in the August 2015 issue. It compares the specs of different connectors. I’ll comment and add my own reflections in this post.


Some topics covered in the article



-       Bandwidth: the article addresses the difference between theoretical and actual bandwidth for connectors. (Ever found yourself in a FireWire vs. USB discussion?—this article brings technical clarity to the argument.)
-       Generations: what is backwards compatible? –and what are the grey zones you need to look out for.
-       Latency: Why your old FireWire devices may still be faster than many USB-devices and how USB3 is improving.
-       Thunderbolt: an overview over generations and current/ future development.

“For people buying right now, I’m afraid the market is in a state of flux as the various standards evolve.”
=Pete Gardner, Sound on Sound=


Thoughts and trends



When I held my first studio-job we were still recording on tape. In the early 2000’s I would book a studio if I needed to get things done. In the mid-2000’s I bought my first interface and the market has evolved a lot since then. Some trends right now are:

-       As the quote above states, the market for multi-track interfaces is more complex than before.
o   As higher track-count has developed for USB, it has taken market from FireWire.
o   The USB standard in particular, has very different performance between different generations.
o   FireWire is still very much in use on interfaces, but not much on computers. This makes compatibility to Thunderbolt important and the long-term future of the standard is uncertain.
o   PCIe is increasingly less relevant in the semi-pro market thanks to connectors like Thunderbolt, mostly the pro-market remains (notably, Avid).
o   Network plugs (RJ45) have become an important contribution to multi-track audio recording (through the Dante-standard). This is natural as it is found much more frequently than Thunderbolt across all brands and types of computers. Focusrite, a major name in FireWire-interfaces, seems to be making a transition into:
-  Network-plug (RJ45) for large-scale professional audio interfaces
-  While they still make FireWire-interfaces (and ensure its compatibility with Thunderbolt), these will probably be phased out over the coming years


Focusrite Clarett with Thunderbolt connectivity



Reflections and Prospects




FireWire
I have been a huge fan of FireWire for a long time. It provides solid track-count and crucially, low latency. But does everyone need this low latency? The answer is, no. Low latency is needed if artists are listening to themselves through a DAW while recording. If you work mostly ‘in the box’ and hardly record acoustic performance you may be less interested in latency. Similarly, if you do live-sound recordings straight off a mixer, latency is not a factor you need to consider.

PCIe
Another standard I have been a fan of is the PCIe; this is because of the high specs it can achieve. As you may have read on this blog before, I was very ambivalent about the new Mac Pro. It is an impressive computer indeed, but it removed the first-choice connector for professional studios entirely from Apple’s products. Connection to PCIe can still be obtained through an adapter (more things to buy and store). In Apple’s defence it could be claimed that it is these sorts of ‘leaps of faith’ that sometimes kick us out of the nest so to speak—and makes us embrace another and more modern way of working.

High-end Equipment with USB
When Yamaha released their new 01v96i some years ago they got much praise for the quality. However, the screen and menus seemed old and some of us were surprised of the relative low number of tracks you could record with it (I know this is subjective). Yamaha were clear that they had chosen the USB2 standard to provide good stability and compatibility with a range of computers. Yamaha have some of the most stable digital mixers on the market so the argument makes sense. The choice was still somewhat conservative. If Yamaha’s thinking remains un-changed in the future, we might see a distinction between mixers that can be digitally cascaded or have peripherals attached (ex: hard-drives on a Thunderbolt set-up), and those who can’t do this.

Mixers for Recording
Will all new mixers have multi-track recording-facilities in the years to come? No, I don’t believe so. We will continue to see capabilities from simple two-track USB-recording and up. Mostly because manufacturers don’t want their products compete with their own siblings. Take a brand like Allen & Heath—all Zed mixers are fitted with high-resolution 2in/ 2out USB recording capacity. If the same mixers could record high-resolution multi-track it would undercut the market for their own R16 and GSR24. On the other hand we see a lot of affordable Midas/ Behringer mixers set up with some sort of multi-track capacity via FireWire or USB (caught speed after Behringer bought Midas). This, together with the low prices is clearly a move to take market shares, and if successful it could force other manufacturers to provide similar capabilities at the same prices.


Midas Venice F32 with full FireWire connectivity (48kHz/ 24bit)


High-end mixers is another field entirely. I don’t believe expensive digital mixers will be made without the infrastructure to record digitally in the future, but that infrastructure will have to be flexible and not locked to one connector. A current example is DigiCo-mixers supporting MADI-standard and Yamaha with expansion slots for a variety of connectors. You will have to buy expansion-cards and interfaces separately, but at this budget it should not be problematic. Product infrastructure and flexibility is more important than having an affordable pre-installed connector that would be limiting your connectivity options.

DigiCo SD7


What will the future of connectors look like?



-       USB & Thunderbolt for small-scale systems, home-studio owners and semi-pro equipment.
-       Thunderbolt & RJ45 for larger scale pro-end systems (I don’t include MADI, lightpipe or similar here, as these will need another interface to connect to the computer). USB might be added to the list if the standard keeps developing, but it will currently be better suited to semi-pro applications rather than pro, when track-count and latency matters.

How fast will the transition away from FireWire, USB 1 & 2 and PCIe happen? It depends; here are a couple of thoughts:
-       Manufacturers will still differentiate their products into different price-brackets. Currently, this means you are likely to pay more for a Tunderbolt-interface than a FireWire or USB-interface even if they are of comparable quality (Thunderbolt is still a buzz-word). When Thunderbolt-equipment becomes more common, the price will slowly decline which will again increase the amount of users—eventually it will take over for FireWire and partially for PCIe. Thunderbolt and the Dante-standard on the RJ45-plug will be the two main competitors in high-capacity audio interfacing.
AVID will keep producing their PCIe cards for a while longer, but they will be increasingly challenged by the likes of Focusrite and Universal Audio who use RJ45 and Tunderbolt. Eventually, I can imagine even Avid dropping the PCIe standard, but have no idea when.


Conclusion



The market will remain in a ‘state of flux’ for a while still. A lot more products will be available at sensible prices in a few years—when the period of ‘flux’ is over for this time. For a good read on the status of the available connectors, do check out Sound on Sound’s article. Hope I have provided you with some food for thought!


(Photo Credit)

Saturday 15 August 2015

Call for Papers, Workshops and Compositions


(Photo credit)

My alma mater, Leeds College of Music is from the 10th to the 11th of March 2016 holding the next International Festival for Innovations in Music Production and Composition (iFIMPAC). The deadline for the submission of proposals is the 16th of November 2015.

I believe next year’s iFIMPAC should be extra special as the college turns 50 and is celebrating through the year.

For more on the call for submissions, click here.
For more on the conference, click here.







Thursday 18 June 2015

Studio Monitors of Interest



 
This post belongs to the main article ‘Focal Alpha 50, 65 & 80 — Review and Comparison.’ It is a quick over-view over alternative speakers I considered for my last monitor acquisition. My requirements were:
 
1.     Speakers must give a reasonable impression of bass-levels. Driver size should preferably be in the region of 7 to 8 inches.

2.     Mid range clarity. Vocals should be crisp and clear and be easy to position in a mix.

3.     Open and balanced sound that transfers easily to other systems.

I ended up buying a pair of Focal Alpha 80 that you can read about in the main article. The following monitors were the remaining contestants:

-       My favourite. Was initially opting to buy these
-       Adam went bust (now back in business again) just when I was buying
-       I always liked the sound but also know there have been a few issues with consistency of build quality
-       I’ve reviewed them before, click here to read

-       Love these very much
-       They sound a little bit ‘narrow’
-       Solid bass
-       A little more than I planned to spend

From the lower price range:


-       Quite new product with promising price/quality ratio
-       For a brief stint I also considered Yamaha’s HS7 or HS8 as a temporary solution (these don’t really fulfil the requirement of tidy mid-range clarity)
-       JBL and Yamaha were presented in a revealing shootout video on Youtube, find it here
-       JBL was clear winner to me in the video as expected, really keen to try them in real life
-       (Find BBC Music Magazine’s review of the smaller LSR 305 through another blogger here)

-       Clarity, over-all sound and price/ performance ratio has received a lot of praise
-       Several users complain about hiss and low-level noise. Customer service has proven to be good and handles issues with no problem
-       Very keen to try out next generation when bugs are gone



Focal Alpha 50, 65 & 80 — Review and Comparison


Not long ago I purchased a pair of the new Focal Alpha 80 monitors. Before I took them home I tested the whole range at 4Sound’s showroom in Trondheim. Here’s what I found:





About the range


Focal are known mainly for monitors for the high-end marked, so the anticipation was great when they launched three new monitors in the affordable end of the marked. The range includes a 5-inch, a 6,5-inch and an 8-inch. All have Focal’s own ‘polyglass cone,’ which is a made from a composite material that gives it its name. The material is supposed to stiffen up the membrane and improve the performance. All the models also share the same inverted dome tweeter. The basic design is known from the pricier SM6-range and the SM9. In ascending order the Alpha-range sport a solid 55W, 75W and 140W of power. The latter being on the current frontier for an 8-inch, two-way system at this price.

As always for my monitor-reviews I’ll leave the tech-specs brief and rather get on with the testing. For more technical information I’ll refer you to Focal’s own web-page and recent reviews particularly by Sound on Sound Magazine. At the end of my own review I will comment on the articles both from SoundOnSound and MusicTech, since some of our opinions differ and some coincide.

How do they sound?


The monitors had a distinct family-sound across the range as could be expected. At the showroom, the staff had already crowned the Alpha 65 their favourite. This is consistent with several reviews by Sound on Sound, where they tend to favour mid-sized 6- to 7-inch drivers (or indeed 5 inch systems) over 8-inch drivers, in two-way systems. The reason is that many people feel an 8-inch driver with a 1-inch tweeter creates too much space between bass and treble, which leaves something missing in the middle. The point is true, but the back of the medal also has a shiny front-side. I actually tend to favour 8-inch drivers for their capacity to “unfold” everything from the bass and up through the middle. Think of it as a Chinese fan: the more you unfold it the bigger it gets. With a bigger membrane you create a space for the bass and “unfold” the mids—you get more resolution and more sense of space between the low downs and central elements like vocals.

I had compiled a CD of tracks ranging from R’n B to Rock, and the speakers were switched trough a Mackie Big-Knob for quick A/B testing. Here’s my track list:


For the tracks containing low bass the Alpha 80 proved an instant success. On Mariah Carey’s “Fly Like a Bird” it created an impressive space between the lows of the bass and the highs of Mariah’s voice. The sound was accurate and the full spectral range of the monitors made it really enjoyable listening! On tracks with prominent vocal layering (‘Playa Playa,’ ‘I'd Like To’), the Alpha 80 provided a present, open and spacious vocal-sound. This would make them an excellent choice to mix vocal harmonies on. The next one in line to impress was the Alpha 50. It had a clear and present vocal sound and managed to deliver far deeper lows than what you’d normally expect from a 5-inch speaker.

If the Alpha 80’s bass can be characterised as ‘deep,’ the Alpha 65’s keyword is definitely ‘punchy.’ Dream Theater’s ’Never Enough’ has lots of punch and made the Alpha 65 stand out as the winner. For those familiar with the Dynaudio BM5 mkii, the real treat in the their bass is the punch they pack—they never went very deep. A great reference track for me on the BM5 is Dream Theater’s ‘Just Let Me Breathe.’ The Alpha 65 reminded me of that vibe. The Alpha 80 on comparison does not deliver the same low-end punch (this may be one of the places where ‘something is missing’ like discussed above), but they go down deeper. The 4Sound staff favoured the Alpha 80 as an EDM-monitor (as I believe many will), but I would like to challenge that notion. I would rather choose a pair of punchy Alpha 65s for EDM-production. And flying in the face of all convention I would further prefer the Alpha 80 for mixing vocals and recorded instruments because of its spacious sound and great separation between highs, mids and lows. Opinions will differ on this, so I encourage you to seek out a well stocked show-room or to read multiple reviews for the best overview.

The Alpha 80 goes down to a whooping 35 Hz (entering into the lowest audible octave), and delivers a total of 140W. This makes it necessary for you to consider the size of your room. When I first set them up in my home, another member of the household thought there was a large motor vehicle standing outside on the road. Yes, they go deep! If you intend to use the Alpha 80’s as a lone pair of nearfield monitors you should be aware of the resulting implications. If you’re mixing for radio you’d do well with for instance a pair of Mixcubes on the side, or a way of rolling off the bass on your output (room correction software, bypassable eq. on master—either software or hardware). Personally, I might switch to a pair of headphones once in a while to scale down the size of my listening system.

I ran a speaker-test with a group of music-production students two years ago. We tested speakers from 300 Pounds to 3,000 Pounds a pair. The students felt Foo Fighters’ ‘Weenie Beenie’ sounded almost the same on all systems because of its limited bandwidth. ‘Alone + Easy Target’ gave a similar effect across the whole Alpha range. But just as with Dream Theater the Alpha 65s scored a few points extra thanks to their punch.

For the hip-hop track I can only say that bigger is better, and the Alpha 80 was the winner. For vocal clarity I also found the biggest to be the better. The Marion Kristina track was also favoured on the Alpha 80 and the 50 came second. For tracks where the vocal was central I found the Alpha 65 a little too fatiguing. There was a little too much mid-range and as a result I might have mixed lower vocals if I worked on them. On the other hand this makes the most important part of the track stand out if you like to work that way.

In the highs the speakers sound quite similar. The Alpha 80 was again the favourite since it had the biggest separation between highs and lows, and let the highs stand out alone without competition from the mids. The Alpha 65 also sounded open and clear in the top, but I perceived them as a little bit harsher than the smaller Alpha 50. Hence, also when considering the highs I would chose the Alpha 50 as the first runner up to the 80. The Alpha 50 are the least open sounding of the three in the highs, but it has a smoother and more comfortable sound to work on over time.

Technicalities


The eq. at the back of the cabinets has a +/- 6 dB bass and a +/- 3dB treble adjustment. I found these useful when adjusting the speakers to the room. On extreme settings I found the on-board eq. interfering too much with the character of the music so I used it sparsely.

On the pair of Alpha 80s that I bought there is a slight hiss. I could hear this on all the models at the showroom also, but not unless I put my ear close. As long as you’re playing music this is no problem, but if you’re sat in the studio writing it can be a little bit annoying. I have a power-switch for the speakers on my desk so I work my way around it. The hiss is not worse than what I’ve heard on other similarly priced speakers and it has no annoying artefacts that stand out, just a very gentle white noise. I’m extremely sensitive to these things, but it’s not very prominent on the Alpha-range so this shouldn’t be a problem for most. The speakers have a power-saving device that makes the power cut if they receive no signal for a while. When they receive signal again they wake up quickly. If I am listening on low volumes I occasionally have to turn up the volume a little bit to wake them up. This is no problem once you get used to it.

Conclusion


Focal has managed to create an impressive range of studio-monitors that re-defines the price-point. These stand out from the competition in power, depth and clarity. They are priced just above KRK Rokit, JBL 3-series and Yamaha HS and just below Adam AX and Eve SC. In a sense they’ve carved out a new price-point. I would not have bought a current 5-inch monitor priced below Adam A5X… until now. The power and clarity made the Alpha 80s my favourites, but next in line is the Alpha 50. For a 5-inch it goes surprisingly deep, sounds as open as you could hope for and has a good overall balance. Not to mention, it is also powerful enough to fill a decently sized showroom with power to spare. –A new affordable 5-inch that I’d be happy to recommend, that’s rare! The Alpha 65 has a punchy bass and a good overall performance. I rank them last of the tree, but there will be differing opinions in the press on this. Regardlessly, they are very capable monitors with lots of mids, punchy bass and better performance for your money than most of its competitors. They get my stamp of approval, and still has margin to spare.

Summing them up in one-liners:
Alpha 80—big sounding speaker with lots of clarity and impressively low register.
Alpha 65—all-rounder with punchy bass and wide appeal across genres.
Alpha 50—playing deeper and clearer than almost anything of its size at this price.

Big thanks as always to the helpful staff at 4Sound Trondheim’s big and hypnotic showroom! Big thanks also to Norwegian music producer Geir Simonsen for coming along as an extra pair of well trained ears.


4Sound's Showroom lets you try the whole Alpha range


Comments on other reviews


Music Tech Magazine



First, a correction: The LF eq. is a +/- 6 dB, not 3 a +/- 3 dB as stated. The treble is +/- 3dB. The same eq. set-up is found across the whole range.

For the Alpha 80s, Huw Price feels there’s something missing in the upper mids; and that having another set of monitors to switch to for critical listening would be good. I agree that having a smaller pair is a good idea, but cheifly for another reason. As previously mentioned, when your mix is supposed to transfer to another system (e.g. someone’s kitchen radio) it is good to have a pair of small speakers with less bass and narrower bandwidth. I do not agree however, that a smaller pair (or a pair with more prominent mid-range) is needed to better assess how vocals sit in the mix. Price’s conclusion is that Alpha 50 is better suited for critical listening to the likes of vocals and guitars. This overlooks an important point. If you remember the image with the Chinese fan: with a big membrane like in the Alpha 80, the sense of distance between the vocals and instruments lower down in the mix increases. This enables you to hear the separation between the instruments better. Said in another way: For its size, the Alpha 50’s sound is opened and spacious, but its biggest sibling will naturally open up much more. To give him his due, Price holds the most conventional view in the music production press. On another point, we agree that there is less punch in the Alpha 80s than in the others. Again, I would emphasize that this is offset against an impressively deep frequency response that will let you assess low-end content in your mix with great ease.

Music Tech rated the Alpha 80 at 8/10 and the Alpha 50 at 9/10. I would flip those scores around or put them both at around a 9, with the Alpha 80 a little higher than the 50. Yes, no doubt, some details could have been marginally improved, but I don’t expect it at this price!

Sound on Sound



The Sound on Sound (SOS) review focuses on the Alpha 65 and does not compare the models. As a review of the Alpha 65, SOS’s Bob Thomas and myself have pretty similar views. Not surprisingly, SOS chose to focus on the Alpha 65, as they often tend to favour the middle options in two-way systems (6 to 7 inches).

Thomas brings out another important topic, and that is the burn-in process. My pair of Alpha 80s performed noticeably better after clocking a few hours of music. The showroom had also burned in their display speakers, and all the eqs were set to neutral while burning them in.


My own work-space with the Alpha 80s