Editors:
Mary (Tone Mistress) Mazurek
and
Kathy (Splice Girl) Dunaj

Volume 17 Number 7
July, 2002

EARS Meets at Metro Mobile Location Recording

2101 John's Court, Glenview, IL
847-998-6420
Tuesday July 30, 7:30 pm

Don't miss this one! Come on out and see Chicago's finest Remote Recording trucks in beautiful Glenview. Parking is free and so is this incredible evening of info and excitement from two of the best engineers in the biz as well legendary Eardrum Editors, Timothy Powell and Mike Konopka.
-Kathy Dunaj-

Agenda: "The first order of business is to briefly discuss the variety of proposed changes dating back to the beginning of the year and to once and for all decide whether or not we want to institute them or leave well enough alone."
-David Moss-

Mike Konopka from Thundertone Audio will discuss all the aspects of Tape Baking and Restoration. Mike has considerable experience with rescuing old analog masters, including remastering the entire Kinks catalog for re-release. Check out

http://www.mikekonopka.com/page3.html for more info!

Metro Mobile's Timothy Powell will talk about all the fun and excitement swirling around the lovely world of live recording. Metro Mobile's two recording trucks, M-48 and M-40, will be on display.

Directions to Metro Mobile from Chicago

From I-94:

Take I-94 to Exit 33 Willow Road west. Drive about 7 lights west (about 3 miles) to Old Willow Road. There's a big Target shopping center that light. Turn left at Old Willow. The speed limit is 20 MPH and the cops are watching. Be careful! Drive about 1 mile (past the train station and the big bump in the road). Turn left at John's Court. John's Court dead-ends in a cul-de-sac. We're at 2101 John's Court.

From I-294:

Take I-294 to the Palatine/Willow Road exit. At the top of the exit, turn right (east). Drive about 5 lights east (about 4 miles) to Old Willow Road, which is after the big overpass. There's a big Target shopping center that light. Turn right at Old Willow. The speed limit is 20 MPH and the cops are watching. Be careful! Drive about 1 mile (past the train station and the big bump in the road). Turn left at John's Court. John's Court dead-ends in a cul-de-sac. We're at 2101 John's Court.
-Timothy Powell-

EARS BBQ in August

Our August meeting will be a barbecue extravaganza. Hopefully Mr. Brotman will grace us with his grilling expertise for another flavorful mouth watering event. Hey Harry we really need our Minister of Entertainment again! Location still pending, hold the date, last Tuesday of the month.
-KD-

EARS Appreciation File/Rcaps:

EARS Co-Operative ProTools "HD" v.s "Mix" System Audio Comparison
 by Gary Khan

Thanx to the much needed and most generous last-minute offer to host EARS in respected area studio Sound/Video Impressions, by Kathy Dunaj and Bill Holtane, EARS attendees at the May meeting were treated to a real co-operative shootout in our best tradition! EARS cheers to their Chief Engineer Kathy for actually tryin' to buy MORE pizza for very latecomers AND her great idea, roping in our most knowledgeable and supportive Jeff Komar, who helmed SVI's ProControl in a very unbiased side-by-side comparison. I then felt compelled to blow off dinner plans, join respected pals Jeff and Kathy and dragging our [Pegasus] Earthworks QTC-1 & Neuman TLM-193 matched pairs, Coles 4038 and Beyer M-160 ribbons AND Rent-Com President, Ron Steinberg [happily] along to arrive about 6, crawl under and behind their mixer, bangin' my head and losin' much needed remaining brain cells for the cause. Credos to Digidesign's Jeff for most professionally "lettin' the (micro) chips fall where they may". Earlier EARS "cries as to the demise" of the "Pro" dealer and rep may be premature with likes of Jeff, Sam Rodgers, and Kevin Shaw. Sam dutifully came thru again, bringin' over the 8 (!) channel Grace Mic Pre's and HD hardware.

As to the varied solo sound sources, many musicians, engineers, studio owners and rep's contributed gear and expertise. Current EARS Prez, Dave Moss let his hands do the talkin' for once [yuk-yuk] on bongos and congas w/ (EARS & engineer vet) Rich Mastella on claves in the room-ambient percussion test portion. Jeff (Jasko's High Tech Heaven) Jaskowiak's own Shoeps 221b's were overhead in X-Y @ +/- 60 degrees.

We then used Rich's janitor-sized janglin'keys up close thru the 221's to observe heinous wide bandwidth transients and upper harmonics which were a workout for any mic pre, as well.

For harmonically rich textures, "not-so" Rich Mastella was joined by (EARS mainstay and master engineer about town and beyond) Mike Konopka who set up correctly angled ORTF using my always handy protractor on Piano. This was the only purposefully stereo test with the same mic's as above on my T-bar at waist of harp per Mary Mazurek's' demonstration at a past EARS meeting at WFMT. "Spoiled By Technologies" all pro rep, Kevin Shaw just blew us away at those ivories - Jeez !

(EARS master classical guitarist) Jeff Jaskowiak then showed off his Segovia-esque chops on his Classical axe. Having recently returned to his engineering career, "diligent" Dave Jeziorski was at the ready at every stage of this shootout.

For any critical A/B comparisons, I sought to make all signal paths as simple as possible but most importantly equal to normalize out any sonic variations. I patched around the console electronics where possible as follows:

- Channel path: mic's thru studio tie-lines directly to identical Grace mic pre's, then line out to mult's which then fed both A/D converter pairs. I briefly checked for input level and tonal variations which would indicate untenable impedance loading from the Grace pre's. As expected, none was heard, even thru headphones, since the EARS gaggle was beginning to babble.

- Monitor path: returned HD and MIX D/A converter pairs (eventually stereo) to separate 2 track monitor returns. This allowed us to quickly switch between systems with minimal electronics. It turned out that the unchangeable output levels from each systems did not allow me to match playback levels this way so for A/B comparisons, I had to patch them thru 4 channels and match trim/fader levels. This allowed us to use channel mute pairs but did force us to go thru more circuitry tho I did bypass eq's on SVI's Soundcraft desk. At this point, Kathy took her helm and ran the analog side.

I then set matching input and output levels on each available unit in the path, i.e. Grace I/O's,etc. I used a mono mic source to eliminate differing phase/gain issues for initial gain structure matching to the L/R near field monitor outputs. This seemed to be the most consistent monitoring at the mix position (duh!) albeit with a much smaller sweet spot. This did, however, minimize the apparent Control Room's acoustical variations especially with ever growing mass of out-of-shape engineers in the room. I asked Jeff to record both systems in 24 bit resolution at 48k simultaneously, which he did effortlessly.

Consensus seemed to be split among the various listening passes as to which sounded best for what. Tho I purposefully stepped aside to allow my peers to jump into this fray, it personally took me only seconds (while initially level setting) to curse and realize I had to spend more money on this beasty. My old ears told me it was noticeable enough for me to tell Jeff and (Sweetwater's) Sam Rodgers "dammit, how do you expect us to make money if you keep sellin' better sh*t" ! Like SVI, we too just took delivery of an HD system (today). Oh well, time to pay THIS one off ! I'll leave the Pro Tools end of the recap to Mr. Komar 'Nuff said, Gary Khan

[PS] I'm putting together an article, to appear in a future Eardrum, to establish standards for shoot outs. This way the test will be more useful to us and still fair to the manufacturers. Would like to hear your input. E-mail me at pegasusrecording@ameritech.net
-G.K.-

Here's some HD information from Jeff Komar, Midwest Product Specialist for Digidesign:

So what has changed with HD? Quite a bit. Higher sample rates: support from 44.1kHz up to 192kHz recording. Higher track counts: support for a total of 256 audio tracks in an HD session with 128 voices. More time slots: up to 512 timeslots with spatial re-use which allows very large & complex mixer configurations. More processing: faster DSP's and more of them on the new cards. Each card also has an equal distribution of SRAM chips which allows for an exponentially higher number of Reverbs and TDM Synths. More I/O and better connectivity: support for up to 96 channels of simultaneous I/O with more formats including: analog, AES/EBU, TDIF, ADAT Optical, TOSLINK, and S/PDIF. Total Compatibility: session compatibility with other TDM & LE systems on Macintosh and Windows. New TDM Plug-Ins: Sonic Solutions noNOISE, Waves Masters Bundle, Massenburg EQ, Sony Oxford EQ all at high sample rates. Better conversion: the new flagship I/O, the 192 offers excellent sonics and excellent specifications such as 120db dynamic range (A-weighted). Other Features include: Real-time Sample Rate Conversion on the 192 Digital Card formats, Soft Clip Limiter functionality on all analog inputs of the 192 I/O, up to 100 ft cable runs via DigiLink from converter to core cards, new dithered 48-bit TDM mixer, extremely low-jitter digital clock & synchronization via the SYNC I/O, and a myriad of other features and benefits. HD is the next generation digital audio workstation that offers excellent fidelity, total compatibility, and incredible performance. More information is available at www.digidesign.com. For more questions or pricing about the new HD system please call Sam Rodgers at Sweetwater Sound at 312-867-0250.

Thanks go out to Guitar Center's Pro Audio Manager Jim Johnson and his assistant Steve Pridmore for pulling together a well worth attending June meeting in Highland Park. At the last minute, the Cubase demo was canceled so they quickly came up with plan b. Our meeting turned into a mic pre listening affair demoing Groove Tube's Vipre, Universal Audio's 2-610 and Avalon's Class A AD2022 and VT737-SP. The mics we recorded with were the Neumann KM184, M147, U87, and Octava MKL-2500. Engineers VP Jack LeTourneau set the gear up as well as patching, and Charlie Kim manned the Roland VS-2480 keeping us rolling all nite. President David Moss once again offered his percussion skills for the bongos, and singing her soulful silky tunes was Toti B (Totianna Martinez).

Here's the setup for the evening: Calibration set on each mic pre with 1kHz tone, one mic directly into Mackie 1642 VLZ (no eq), Mackie sub outs directly into each mic pre (line in), mic pre outs (line out) into the Roland recorder. We monitored off KRK V8's. All mic pre's were recorded flat, no EQ or compression, and sent to individual tracks to the Roland. Solo performances were recorded, starting with bongos and a KM184. Next vocals were recorded using first a M147, then a MKL2500, followed by a U87.

After all performances were recorded, we A/B compared each mic pre keeping in mind which mic was used, because the mic itself had it's own unique sound. The VT737-SP is tube, has more options with EQ and compression, and is single channel. Whereas the Class A has dual channel inputs, but is not tube. The Vipre is all tube, and is single channel. The UA 2-610 is tube and is dual channel. Overall as engineers we agreed that they all sounded great depending on what your needs are, what type of sound you are going for, and what your budget allows for.

Thanks again to Jim and Steve at Guitar Center for staying open later than usual and hosting June's meeting. We also very much appreciated the pizza and beverages. For more information and pricing on any of the mics or mic pre's call Jim Johnson at 847-579-1830 or check out www.guitarcenter.com
-KD-

Member News!

Congratulations to our very own Eardrummer Mary Mazurek for her new position as Governor for the Chicago Chapter of Naras. Way to go girl! Congrats go out also to fellow EARS member Fran Allen-Leake for her re-election as Governor as well. Keep up the great work!

Sharon Heneghan from The Tape Company is moving on after serving our audio community for many years. Sharon left her sales position at the end of June and will be greatly missed. Thanks Sharon for your support of EARS over the years, we'll miss you and wish you lots of luck!
-KD-

Dues Corner

Special thanks to Don Morris for always being so generous to us and supporting us (again) by paying his dues. You're the best! Thanks also to newcomer Mike Iwinski for kicking in some cash to join up.

Not sure your dues are due? Feel free to email me (Kathy), and I'll tell you when you're up for renewal. To make a dues payment for 1 year's membership send a check for $15, or more if you can swing it, (payable to EARS) with your name, contact info, desired destination for EARDRUM newsletter/meeting notice (preferably e-mail), phone number, and career status/ specialty/occupation/goals to: Pegasus Recording P.O.Box 578903, Chicago, Il.60657. If you move or change your email address, you must contact Mary or Kathy or you will not receive the EARDRUM. Thanks!

Who have you been working with lately? We want to know! If you have any ideas for stories, wish to contribute an article, want to include any upcoming events, or have a tech tip, please contact:

Mary at pegasusrecording@ameritech.net. Or write to:
Peagasus Recording P.O Box 578903, Chicago, IL 60657.

Kathy can be reached at SVI, or
kathy@soundvideoimpressions.com.