soundmanjohn

His name may not be familiar to those of you in the USA, but Adrian Kerridge was a leading pop music engineer and producer in the 1960s and later a pioneer in the field of music recording for film scores here in the UK; and for those of you who have used CADAC consoles, the first 'A' is for Adrian. He ran two major studios here in London, now both sadly gone: CTS Wembley - http://www.malonedigital.com/studios-cts.htm and Landsdowne Studios - http://www.philsbook.com/lansdowne.htm It was pleasure to meet with him on various occasions, both in studios, mostly when being my wife's 'cello porter, and on a more professional level at AES meetings. There's a full obituary here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/those-we-have-lost-memorials-rips-obituaries/1114601-rip-adrian-kerridge.html Regards, John

The Daily Mail is currently being sued by Melania Trump for suggesting she was an illegal immigrant and a sex-worker. Could there possibly be a connection here? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/01/melania-trump-daily-mail-lawsuit And as Rich says, the paper doesn't exactly have a good reputation for accuracy in their stories: they went for a friend of mine in the most spectacular way with the biggest load of snide, suggestive bullsh*t I've ever read. She got a 'clarification' in a tiny paragraph a few months later, as far as I know. The editor is a foul-mouthed misogynist git whose paper regular prints pictures of teenage daughters of celebs with captions drooling over how "all grown up" they are. Pond scum, really, who's paid ten times more than the prime minister of the UK for feeding the paranoia of its prejudiced readers.

I have an MK8, along with assorted other Schoeps capsules and 4 CMC6 bodies, but I also have four KC5 extension cables, so I can make a reasonably low profile M/S pair if I need to. A CCM8 just means that you have a CCM8, whereas a CMC & MK8 means that you have many other possibilities. Regards, John

Pretty sure that the power connector is a 5 pin locking Preh DIN connector with 240 degree pin spacing. We used to use these all the time in theatre, before Sennheiser became the norm. You could also take the ECM50 apart and replace the electret capsule for rather less than the cost of buying a new microphone. Bettersound are still going and are just down the road from me here in London. Let me know if you have communication problems and I'll see what I can do. All the best, John

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of laws and regulations that will have to change or be abandoned, from food labelling to the cleanliness of our beaches. Employment laws will change: current employment rights and protections will most likely go, depending on who we get as a new government. Vast swathes of EU funding for the arts in general and the film industry in particular will go. And a whole load of other stuff that neither side bothered to address in the run-up to the referendum and the Leave contingent are only just beginning to come to terms with. A prime example of this is the county of Cornwall in the south west of the UK, which voted overwhelmingly to leave, and whose chief executive is now demanding that the £60 million that they will no longer receive from the EU in subsidies be replaced by the UK government. The only person who seems genuinely happy is Trump, who sees the drop in the exchange rate between the US and the UK as an incitement for more people to come to his golf course in Scotland. And I've got a terribe pain in all the diodes down my left-hand side... John Just seen this Guardian article: https://goo.gl/bxIkER

And of course, mixed on one of Dick Swettenham's lovely Helios desks. John

QLab's pretty much the de facto sound, video and (in some cases) show-control software for theatre these days. It pretty much stomped all over the competition when it arrived some years ago and has been regularly updated, with much input from its users. It does rely quite heavily on the audio and video capabilities built into the Mac's OS which can occasionally lead to bugs when Apple changes something that been standard for ages. I've been using it for many years, since a beta version came my way, and if you watched the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, much of the sound element, put together by a colleague, was controlled by QLab. A typical theatre installation will run a pair of Mac Minis for redundancy with a changeover switch, although it's rarely needed. Video-heavy shows will use Mac Pro machines for their extra processing headroom. Early on, I had a job persuading one of the major rental companies here in the UK to build a system for me (the first QLab system in London's West End for a show starring Orlando Bloom) but they did it as a special favour. Most playback systems were Windows-based back then, whereas most designers were using Macs for content creation. These days it's rare to find a theatre show that doesn't run QLab. Part of the success of the system is that it's scaleable from the basic, free version, to the all singing and dancing professional version, plus the fact that you can rent a licence for a few bucks a day, if you don't want to lay out the cash for a full licence. Chris Ashworth, who runs Figure 53, is a very nice chap, as are the folks who work with him. Regards, John

Director to composer: "Nick, there's something wrong with that cue." Composer: "What, exactly?" Director: "I can still hear it."

I have a TetraMic and an ST450. PM me with details. John

I got to wear a Point Source Embrace model at USITT 2016 last month, when giving a presentation. I found it comfortable to wear and a roomful of theatre audio guys didn't seem to have a problem with the sound quality either. So much nicer (as a wearer) than the other over-ear boom systems, one of which I also got to wear earlier in the day in an interview and which got tangled up with lanyards and glasses. I listened to others using the Point Source mics and was sufficiently impressed to follow up when I got back to the UK: in fact I'm trying to get hold of one for a show right now. John

Well, the necessity to check hand-baggage on the SLC to ORD flight meant that I did a lot of hanging around O'Hare waiting to pick it up, so never made it out of the airport. But thanks for the suggestions and I'll bear them all in mind for a future visit. John

Try Copic Markers - much used in theatre for colouring mics to match hair colour. http://www.copicmarker.com.au/

Thanks to all for the replies and to Bruno for the offer of a quick guided tour. The weather doesn't look promising at the moment, but we'll see how things go. All the best, John

Sad to hear of his passing: he's been a part of my musical life since I was very young and in his memory I'd like to recommend you listen to his recording of this beautiful melody that so inspired the producers of the film 'Ghost'. In my view, it's by far the greatest version. I think you'll agree that it paved the way for his future with The Beatles - it's the chains that did it for them. Regards, John

Have you looked at the ART MX821S? Blurb says: ART MX821S, Microphone-/Line-Mixer with Stereo Out, 8 Mono Channels, 8 independent Input channels with switch for Input Level and Tone Control, balanced XLR- and unbalanced 1/4" TR Connectors on each Channel, 48-Volt-Phantom Power on each XLR-Input (selectable with DIP-Switch), Main Out with balanced 1/4" TRS Jacks and Master Level Control, unbalanced Pre-Fader-Output (RCA) and Aux-Bus-Input (to connect more units), 19", internal Power Supply No USB, though, but then neither has the Behringer. Regards, John

Hello folks, I have a four hour stop-over in Chicago later this month and I'll have my recording kit with me in my hand luggage. I could hang around in the lounge for four hours, or I could take the El into town and find a really great location to record sound effects of trains running over elevated sections of the track. What I need is a decent spot to record, with minimal street traffic, fairly frequent trains and low likelihood of being mugged. (Just kidding - I know your city is the safest in the world...) Any suggestions? Thanks, John

It's difficult to know: the software doesn't seem to have been updated since 2012 and the rather clueless lady at Senneheiser needed guiding in order even to know what a DMI-2 P was. I'd had one on order from one supplier for over a month and they were having problems getting any sense out of Sennheiser, so I rang direct. Eventually, the lady told me that it had been discontinued, that they didn't have any and wouldn't be getting any more. I cancelled my order to the original supplier and found one in stock at Pink Noise, which I grabbed, and then got a phone call from the first supplier to say that someone from Sennheiser had just called to say that one would be delivered next week. I explained that it was too late and they agreed to return whatever turned up from Sennheiser. It's not the first time I've had problems with Sennheiser UK: they took over three months to repair my MKH60 and the explanation was that the one person who looked after microphone repairs had been off because his son was ill. It doesn't inspire confidence, does it? If you've got some free time next week, I'm setting up a load of surround mics, including a Neumann IRT cross using 2 DMI-2s, to photograph for a lecture I'm doing in March: not sure where, yet, but somewhere in central London. Let me know if you want to come and have a play. Regards, John

This isn't confirmed yet, but I was told last week by Sennheiser UK that the DMI-2 Portable had been discontinued by Neumann. However, they seem to be pretty disorganised unless you want anything basic, so I'll check when I go to BVE next week. I've managed to get hold of a couple for my KM184D set-ups and I find them immensely versatile with the software, but you do need the software to make any changes to the mics, other than basic stuff. That said, if you do go the Neumann route, I'm more than happy to loan you a DMI, if I'm not using one. Regards, John

Nice piece about your dad on the BBC Radio 4 obituary programme Last Word this afternoon with an interview with your brother Mark. Can you access via the Internet? Or I can download and forward. Regards, John

I had the immense good fortune to work with Alan on a number of theatre shows, including Les Liaisons Dangereuse and Private Lives: two totally different productions that showed off his extraordinary range. And as Jaques in the RSC's As You Like it, he was completely perfect. A truly great actor and one of the kindest men you could wish to meet. So sad to hear of his untimely passing.

And another sad passing, I'm afraid: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12054197/Eric-Tomlinson-recording-engineer-obituary.html

Condolences to you and your family, Jeff. Sad to hear your news, especially at this time of year. John

The usual cause of problems with M/S systems is that they're badly set-up: level setting is as important as the physical side and attempts to get super-wide imaging by increasing the side signal to a higher level than the mid signal will always prove problematic. Oh, and to make use of the mono channel of a stereo signal originally recorded in M/S, all you need to do is mono it up or pan centre. No need for any fancy and time consuming processing. And of course, if it's the raw mid/side signal, you just need the mid channel: again, no time-consuming processing required. On a related, but sad, side-note, my colleague Mike Skeet, passsed away last weekend. Mike was a passionate advocate of M/S and made very many excellent recordings of effects and music using various custom-designed set-ups. Much of his microphone stock was not sold prior to his death and is now for sale by his executors. It includes a number of both Schoeps and Sennheiser Figure-of-Eight and Cardioid microphones at reasonable prices, (a M/S set of MKH30/40 will cost you UK£1,200.00, as will a Schoeps CCM8/CCM4 set-up) as well as a superb Pearl DS60 for the afficionado of fine Swedish audio engineering. I've listed them, with UK prices, on the For Sale list, and will pass on the details of the person looking after the sale in response to private messages. Thanks, John

There was a thread about much the same thing a few weeks ago and I pointed the OP to various bits available on the used market. One of them - an MKH30, plus cables and Rycote - seems still to be available, although there is much interest in it. Find it here: https://www.bblist.co.uk/item.php?item=53547 MKH40s are easier to find used: MKH50s, not so much... Best of luck, John

You can, of course, use AES to connect the ULN-2 to the 744, if you do go that route. It's not exactly bag friendly, but I've used a ULN-2 with an external battery via the XLR power connector. It's a while since I did that, but as far as I remember, the ULN-2 consumes about 10 watts, so would draw just under 1 amp from a 12 volt supply.