ProAudio Review - July 2008 - (Page 60)

UpSAMPLER Capsule Reviews and Product Review Updates sE Instrument Reflexion Filter sE Electronics USA | 617.623.5581 | www.seelectronics.com When the sE Reflexion Filter (RF) came out a couple of years ago it was one of those clever devices that made everyone ask why nobody thought about that a long time ago. The more recently released Instrument Reflexion Filter (IRF, $199 list), a mini version of the Reflexion Filter, makes you ask the same question again. The 6.5 inch by 8 inch apparatus is light enough to be supported on a conventional microphone stand using the clamp assembly that is attached to the end of a gooseneck that in turn attaches to the back of the IRF with a thumbscrew. The IRF provides two services. First, it reduces off-axis sound such as room reflections and ambient noise by shielding the rear and the sides of the microphone. Second, it reduces the amount of instrument bleed into other mics. The IRF uses a unique multilayer absorber material that provides the sound absorption of acoustical foam from a much more compact material. The IRF is designed with a central tube and a spring–loaded plunger to allow end-firing microphones such as a Shure SM-57 to be set back into the IRF so that the acoustic screening can work as effectively as possible. The IRF’s gooseneck is a bit flimsy for my taste and depending on the weight of the mic, I more often than not found myself keeping the included foam bung in the tube and then adjusting the IRF independently from the microphone rather than using the devise to both absorb sound and hold the microphone. I typically use the Royer SF-12 for overheads when tracking drums. The SF-12 is in essence two figure-8 ribbon microphones, 90 degrees off-axis in a single enclosure. The SF-12 is magic when you are tracking in a decent sounding room and often it works well in bad sounding rooms (the smoothness and round top-end of the ribbon often warms up an edgy, brittle sounding room) but there have been several occasions when tracking in overly harsh sounding rooms with low ceilings that the mic hasn’t been usable. I found that by eliminating most of the unwanted reflections, the IRF is a lifesaver in these situations. I recently tracked in one such bad sounding room and the SF-12 along with the IRF completely changed the sound of the room, resulting in amazing sounding overheads. I often have difficulty with phase correlation when simultaneously recording acoustic guitar and vocals, especially if the singer moves their head around quite a bit while singing. Using a single IRF mounted to the vocal mic stand to isolate the vocal mic from the guitar resulted in the best sounding acoustic guitar/vocal recording that I’ve ever recorded. The IRF is an amazing bang for the buck but ultimately I’d rather spend a bit more money and have something somewhat more robust. Additionally, I’d actually love to see an IRF-mini that would be somewhat more effective on drums. Hat bleed into the snare mic and cymbal bleed into tom mics are two of the biggest hurdles in tracking drums and while I did have good results using the IRF on toms, the contraption is simply too big to work with the snare drum. — Russ Long But we made a special effort with Apogee to allow our consoles to control Apogee converters via EuCon as their I/O interfaces are a perfect fit with our systems and are extremely high audio quality. You can control levels, mic pre controls and so on in the Apogee I/O through EuCon from our control surfaces. That lets us tightly integrate our products with Apogee I/O. That’s how we handle I/O interfaces for DAWs. PAR: What technological developments in terms of converters is Euphonix paying attention to these days? AW: The main thing for us is not so much building our own converters. What’s more important is to be able to integrate our consoles to other people’s converters. We think that’s the way of the future, and our clients should be able to choose from a range of converters. If we, through EuCon, can control converters from our console, it gives the client a much better solution. We’re very good at making consoles and control surfaces; Apogee is very good at making I/O. So EuCon connects our consoles to digital audio workstations with high-quality converters. STUDIO | Feature TRENDS Continued From Page 21 Andrew Wild: The reason that Euphonix sets apart from other I/O is that it’s all MADI-based and very high quality for professional applications. Our System 5 and S5 Fusion consoles have DSP cards with MADI in and out and our converters are designed for this format as part of these systems. MADI transports up to 64 channels down a single coax cable at 48k. Our I/O modules convert from analog and digital to MADI and back. You can get MADI cards for a computer so that you can actually connect our I/O to a PC or Mac that has a MADI card in it, but that’s a lot of I/O going into a computer. Most people moving to DAWs don’t have that much I/O. The build quality is also important: the products are designed to go into a broadcaster’s mobile truck that’s bouncing around the country, or in critical film and live installations where quality and reliability are paramount. People who know our converters find that they are very high quality and sound very good. However, they’re not the sort of converters somebody in their home studio would use, mainly because they are designed for high-end applications. PAR: How does Euphonix handle I/O interfaces for DAW? AW: All of our consoles and controllers support the EuCon high-speed Ethernet control protocol, which can connect with Macs and PCs and control any applications that support EuCon, HUI or Mackie control protocols. Through EuCon, our consoles can control Nuendo, Cubase, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, and Apogee’s Maestro over high-speed Ethernet. If somebody uses one of our control surfaces with a DAW they can choose whichever I/O they like the best. They can decide if they want Apogee, Pro Tools, PreSonus, or another manufacturer. http://www.seelectronics.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ProAudio Review - July 2008

ProAudio Review - July 2008 Contents Publisher's Page: Inside Broadcast Production Studio News and New Products Steinberg Nuendo 4 Digital Audio Workstation Developments & Trends: Digital Audio Workstation I/O JZ Microphones Black Hole BH-1 Apple Logic Studio Behind The Scenes: JBL Professional – A 60-Year Legacy Broadcast News and New Products WLOY: Real World Facilities For An On-Campus Radio Station Post News and New Products Hot Gear InfoComm 08 Chandler Limited TG1 Abbey Road/EMI Series Limiter/Compressor Live News and New Products Cerwin-Vega! Professional Active Series CVA-28 and CVA-118 Speakers QSC Audio Model GX5 Power Amplifier From The Road: A Week In The Life — Gear Essentials Contracting News and New Products Taming The Driving Factor — Drums UpSampler: sE Instrument Reflection Filter Buyer’s Guide: Live Sound Amplifiers Single Slice: Roger Powell “Fallout Shelter”

ProAudio Review - July 2008

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