Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1300552
AUDIO TOOLS www.postmagazine.com 25 POST SEPT/OCT 2020 London engineer relies on Focusrite for home post studio LONDON — Engineer Jez Spencer has long list of post production and composer credits to his name, including work on the Academy Award-nominated documentary Sama. Other credits include the docu-series Drug Lords, Dispatches and Panorama. When he made the move to working from his small home studio as a freelancer, it was important that his soundtrack work maintained the same quality one would expect from a larger studio. "I do much of my work at my home facility, and it's a relatively small setup," he notes. "When I made the move to working freelance at home, I had a Focusrite Scarlet 18i20 interface, which I loved. It was a gradual process to work up to my current gear complement. After converting to Pro Tools HD Native, I eventually settled on the Red 16Line, which has been phenomenal for me in terms of my work- flow and efficiency. The audio quality is faultless. There's a brightness and a clarity that I wasn't aware of before. It works well with my monitor setup, which is composed of Genelec 8330A Smart Active Monitors and a Genelec Smart Active Subwoofer. I feel like the combination of the Focusrite with the Genelecs has put my studio on such a high level now that I'm as comfortable in this room as any facility in town, really." The Red 16Line is a 64-in/64-out Thunderbolt 3 audio interface from Focusrite (http://pro.focusrite.com) that allows him to work with his choice of digital audio worksta- tions. He can toggling between Pro Tools HD, Cubase and Ableton as projects dictate. With the COVID-19 pandemic increasing his work from home, Spencer is continuing to upgrade his studio. Notable upgrades include support for the Dolby Atmos format, and an Avid S3 control surface. "The other thing that's so appealing about the Red 16Line is that the monitoring control can control as many or as few outputs as you want it to," he explains. "So with this new Atmos room, the Red 16Line can control the whole thing from the front panel, which is great. I've got a potential series for Netflix coming up, which I'm hoping to prep at home in Atmos and then take it into the studio for final mixing — but with the virus out in the world, I may end up doing more of the work at home than I had planned, and I certainly have the right tools for it now!" Isomic & Isovox 2 pair to create remote voiceover workspace Isovox's new Isomic is a microphone that's been techni- cally tailored for voice recording within its Isovox 2 vocal booth (https://isovoxbooth.com). The Isovox 2 portable vocal studio from the Halmstad, Sweden-based com- pany is designed for voiceover or vocal recording and features four layers of acoustic materials, along with a patented construction that controls sound waves from all angles. It is well suited for remote work or work-from- home scenarios where isolation can be an issue. Isomic features a patented triangular capsule that's capable of delivering a high-quality sound in the 7Hz to 87kHz frequency range. Isovox worked with fellow Swedish company Research Electronics AB, owners of the Ehrlund Microphones brand, to create a voice micro- phone that makes full use of the triangular technology developed by Göran Ehrlund. The triangular capsule moving at the heart of Isomic achieves rich, deep and clear results that are perfect for voiceover artists and vocalists alike. Isomic includes Isopop, which works with the integrated filter to act as a double pop-re- moval zone. The mic will be available in mid-October for $1,299. The Isovox 2 vocal booth is available in several options at a starting price of $930. DSpatial's Reality 2.0 enables immersive sound production DSpatial, a Barcelona, Spain-based company that specializes in immersive sound, has re- leased the all-new Reality 2.0 object-based production suite, which is specifically designed for Avid's Pro Tools. Available in four versions (VR, One, Studio and Builder), the software ships in the AAX format for direct integration, including rigs running in combination with Avid's S6 console. Reality Builder, which was released in 2018, is an audio mixing system compatible with all existing immersive and non-immersive formats. Its proprietary physical modeling engine allows users to realistically recreate real spaces and locate, move and rotate sound sources in realtime, transporting the listener to a virtual-yet-realistic dimension. Reality 2.0 has been natively conceived for immersive 3D production. Instead of being designed around a user interface mirroring old audio hardware, it is rooted in the physical world and how humans interact with it, automatically managing an array of complex tasks that, until now, were exclusively executed via manual processes. It is format agnostic and only one mix is necessary for any existing or future delivery format. This allows Reality 2.0 mix engineers to exchange totally-compatible sessions between different studios, each one with a different speaker format or even just headphones — and all without losing any spatial and immersive information. Reality 2.0 is compatible with all immersive or non-immersive formats alike, including Atmos, Auro3D, DTS, NHK, Sony SDDS, Ambisonics — FuMa and ambiX (inputs) and FOA FuMa, FOA ACN, or 2nd HOA ACN (outputs) — and binaural for cinematic VR and 360-degree video. Sound designers could start working in stereo, 5.1, or even binaural, and their sessions can be played back on an Atmos stage while all spatial information is retained. As all positions and related data are re- corded in Pro Tools automation, work from different sound designers could also be aggregated with Pro Tools' Import Session Data feature. Reality VR is available to pur- chase for Pro Tools (11, 12, Ultimate) on MacOS (10.9 and above), start- ing at $578.