Crying like a rainstorm!

I was listening to Linda Ronstadt's Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind on the train today. I haven't listened to this album for quite a while now but listening to it again was just such a treat! Produced in 1989, long before the days of the 'loudness' wars began, it was just an amazing sonic and dynamic experience that is missing in so many songs produced today.

Recorded and mixed by one of my audio heroes George Massenburg at Skywalker Studios, and featuring a A list of musos and singers including Aaron Neville, Lee Sklar, Dean Parks, Carlos Vega, etc....the arrangement was impeccable and the detail was vivid. Every instrument and voice was in the right place. Did I mentioned that Linda's vocals were absolutely amazing and captivating?

One of the things that all audio engineers constantly need to do is to continuously reference their own works, whether live or studio, to other works that are out in the market. It's unfortunate that so many of the CD's that I've bought in the last decade or so are obliterated by massive compression and leveling by so called mastering engineers that specialise in making them louder at the expense of dynamic range. While some compression is necessary to deal with dynamics in the limited headroom inherent in digital recordings, it has been an absurd downhill slide since the discovery of multiband compression and usually demands from clients who want their recordings to be 'louder' than the other fella's album.

Anyways, listening to this album was a breathe of fresh air.... it sure made a long journey much more enjoyable today!

toys toys toys

After my recent house moving, I stumbled upon my good old Terrasonde Audio Toolbox safely tucked into one of my cases :


The ATB was a trusted companion from 2000 to 2003, performing various tasks such as loudspeaker impedance and polarity checks, frequency sweeps, time alignment, cable testing, reverb time and sound level measurements, amongst other things. It was the first real piece of audio test gear that I had and although superceded by newer models, there's nothing quite like an ATB! Before this piece of gear, one would need several pieces of separate equipment to conduct the aforementioned tasks. I used to just chuck the ATB into my backpack whenever I had a gig. The only thing that bugged me was the portable battery pack, which stuck onto its side like a serious tumour - I reckon it was kinda an afterthought after the initial design....

I've since moved on to other pieces of gear for my work - I primarily use Rational Acoustics' Smaart for most of my electroacoustic measurement work albeit I still use Smaartlive5 and Acoustictools rather than Smaart 7. For a handy and portable tool, the replacement for the ATB is the NTI XL2 combined with the Minirator MR Pro :


Although not having as many functions as the ATB, the XL2 is a great piece of gear with the ability to do a fair amount of acoustical tests including sound level and NC measurements, wireless time alignment and polarity checks when combined with the Minirator Pro. This kit goes with me almost everywhere now, along with my trusty Whirlwind QBox . With a combination of the good old ears, Smaart, XL2 and QBox, it's almost like the justice league for live sound setup and troubleshooting. Muahahahhaha...