Recording - March 2017 - 4

publisher:

FadeIn
Hear it all and hear it right
I recently returned from the Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim; see our report on
page 10-and many thanks to Zaor Studio Furniture for my Dr. Evil moment pictured
above. While there, I noted the many companies, new and old, that were displaying
new ways to hear music and new environments in which to hear them. Sennheiser
devoted a fair bit of its booth space to the AMBEO virtualization platform, allowing
a 3D simulation of a space to a user in headphones. Industry stalwarts Primacoustic,
GIK Acoustics, and Auralex were on hand with their well-liked acoustic treatment
products, but new firms were popping up with products of their own wherever we
turned-some well thought out, and others frankly stinking of snake oil. (A word of
advice: please don't try to tell a magazine editor with a Ph.D. in nuclear physics
that your acoustic products make rooms sound better because of quantum theory. To
quote Charlie Brown, "It's hard on a face when it gets laughed in.")
The headphone and monitor product spaces were also exploding, with
formerly "audiophile only" companies trying their hand at attracting pro users...
and at least one pro company schooling the audiophiles in return; see our Prism
Sound CALLIA review on page 38. JBL was displaying the powered versions of
its 7 Series monitors, the children of a long and proud history spanning 70 years
(read the interview on page 26 to learn more), while at least one newcomer was
tantalizing listeners with demos of great new speakers to come.
Long story short: the recent trend of monitoring and acoustics becoming "cool"
enough to attract proper attention from home studio owners is continuing, and even
gaining momentum. There's still the temptation to drool over racks of blingy new gear,
but more and more recording musicians are getting a similar thrill from playing back
tracks in their rooms and having clients love the sound quality... knowing all the while
that when those clients walk out of the room with their check mixes, they'll come back smiling, because that great sound is translating properly to smartphones, cars, computer
desktops, and home theaters. Translatable mixes, thank heavens, are becoming sexy.
With that in mind, this issue has reviews of new monitors, new headphones, new
interfaces and converters, and monitor control systems to make sense of it all. All
those tools are wasted if they're not used wisely, though, so I'm pleased to offer a pair
of articles by two respected Recording contributors. Bruce Black does some detective
work to learn why a room that measures well on a realtime analyzer still sounds thin
and wimpy, and James Lindenschmidt explains the science behind the cheapest and
easiest acoustic fix you'll ever encounter: just moving your speakers around.
Every year, products get better and the overall level of technical quality available to
even the beginner rises noticeably. Twenty years ago, we were warning people away
from products that were genuinely bad, whether in design or sound. Nowadays, our
goal is to convince people that even if a track is most likely going to be heard as
a 128K MP3 on earbuds or a smartphone speaker, it still pays to make it start out
sounding as great as it possibly can. Who knows... if it catches on, you might finding
people asking you to make it available on a CD or as a high-resolution download.
It's easier than ever to make great-sounding music and hear it in a space that
lets you work with it effectively. So why not do it?
Enjoy the issue.

Thomas Hawley
Brent Heintz

associate publisher:

EDITORIAL
Mike Metlay
special projects editor: Lorenz Rychner
technical editor: Paul Vnuk Jr.
editor at large: Beto Hale
copy editor: Diana Smethurst
músico pro editor: Fernando Curiel
editor:

CONTRIBUTORS
Paul Vnuk Jr., Alex Hawley,
Allen Goodman, James Lindenschmidt,
Bruce Black, Marty Peters, Aaron J. Trumm
SOCIAL MEDIA
Brent Heintz, Paul Vnuk Jr.
ART & PRODUCTION
Joseph Hawley
production manager: Colin Courtney
web goalie: Colin Courtney
creative director:

PLAYBACK PLATINUM SERIES
Lorenz Rychner

editor/producer:

CIRCULATION
Tiffany Sepe

circulation manager:

ADVERTISING SALES AND MARKETING
director: Brent Heintz
classifieds manager: Colin Courtney
ADMINISTRATION
Thomas Hawley

accounts receivable:

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS
Thomas Hawley
vice president: Brent Heintz
president:

SUBSCRIPTIONS/ADDRESS CHANGES:
1-800-783-4903
ADVERTISING/CLASSIFIEDS/MAIN OFFICE:
(303) 516-9118
RECORDING MAGAZINE
(ISSN 1078-8352; USPS 002-298)
is published monthly, 12 times per year, by
Music Maker Publications, Inc.,
5408 Idylwild Trail, Boulder, CO 80301-3523
Tel: (303) 516-9118 Fax: (303) 516-9119
Email: info@recordingmag.com
Los Angeles Editorial Office:
beto@recordingmag.com
Periodicals Postage is paid at Boulder, CO and at additional mailing
offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RECORDING,
Subscriber Services, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834-3000.
Tel: 1-800-783-4903, Fax: 1-973-627-5872. Subscription rate:
$23.97 per year. Distributed to the music trade by Hal Leonard
Corporation. All material is subject to worldwide copyright protection,
and reproduction or imitation in whole or in part is expressly
forbidden without written consent from the publishers. All reasonable
care is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of the magazine,
but Music Maker Publications, Inc. cannot be held legally responsible
for its contents. The publishers cannot assume responsibility for the
return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or materials. All
trademarked names, whether indicated as such or not, are owned
by their respective companies.
Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #41491032. Canada
Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542,
London, ON N6C 6B2

RECORDING MARCH 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - March 2017