And the Winner Is… Pro Audio Suite’s Mix Competition with Austrian Audio!

Are any of history. Welcome Hi to the pro Audio Suite. Thanks you guys, a professional and motivated. Thanks to try Booth, the best vocal booth for home or on the road voice recording and Austrian Audio Making Passion Herd. Introducing Robert Marshall. From Source Elements and Someone. Audio Post Chicago, Aaron Robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging Sidney, to the video Stars, George the Tech Whittam from La and Me, Andrew Peters Voice Ober Talents and Home Studio GUD And Welcome to another pro audio suite thanks to try Booth, don't forget the code trip a P two hundred that will get you two hundred US dollars off your try booth and of course Austrian Audio Making Passion heard. In fact, we're gonna hear a lot about Austrian audio today because we're joined by a special guest from Vienna, Curt Richter from Austrian Audio. How you could. Hey, guys, I find it's a bit late here on my site, but I'm happy to be here and telling you guys something about Austronaudio. Well, it's hands across the ocean today because we're in Melbourne, Sydney, Los Angeles, Chicago and Vienna. It's not bad? Is it impressive? Five for distinct time zones spread across the world. Absolutely? It was. It was interesting trying to get this one to work. How can we make it? How can we get the times to work that no one's up at three in the morning, You're just look at it. I'm up at at three in the afternoon. Yeah, well, there you go, that's true. Did you ever see a research an engineer? Yeah, exactly. Today we're going to do the giveaway. We're going to draw the winner of our mixed competition to wearin a pair of Austrian Audio. High X twenties. And we should start with that really because it's an interesting backstory because it started off with the high ks fifteens, Kurt from what I hear, and then due to feedback from people who bought the Highkes fifteens, along came the high Es. What was the main feedback you got from the high ex fifteens that made the twenties possible? Well, you know, I wouldn't bring it down to one feedback. It's like it was collecting feedback and you know, as you can imagine, you get completely different ideas and stuff from customers, but some points really turned out to be to make sense, which was a longer cable. Definitely very easy demand, very easy request. But it totally makes sense because when we made the fifteen, our product managers had people in mind that are sitting in front of laptops, so they just want a short cable. But the more pro user, guys that might use it in front of a microphone when they sing or whatever. You think about somebody standing in front of a microphone with a one point four meter cable, the plug will be in the air, in all on the ground, so that doesn't make a lot of sense. Always said, okay, we put in a three meter cable. We changed the optics so that the look of the headphone to a more decent color, like it's pretty much black. Because some people, not including me, I kind of like the style of the fifteen, but some people complained about the silver red combination. You know, taste is different, but anyhow I make yeah, me too. I think it looks a little bit like the seventies. It's I think it's kind of cool, but you know, taste is different. And some people said, ah, we would prefer a more easy look, like a smooth look, not so, you know, not not aggressive, kind of really black do it black? Okay? Back in black? Yes, that's yeah. So, And the main difference for sure is the tuning. So especially if we have the pro use in mind, the fifteen, I wouldn't say the fifteen has a bad unit. I wouldn't say that at all, but it's a little it has some waves in the mid range, and it has a little bit of consumer sound, right, that's also what we wanted to have. But we found out that people that are really more into pro business, they really prefer a flat mid range, no aggressive travel, so smooth high top end, and which is maybe a little bit going into the other direction. We extended the base response a little bit, so the twenty has a stronger base response than the fifteen, which is something that we hear quite often from our customers. But I also have to say also if you look into our tradition, so the company where we all kind of come from, we never had base boosting headphones. That's that's not really what we are after. Our approach is you want to listen to your mix and not to our headphones. So we don't want to emphasize anything that's not there. Yeah, so, but still we gave it a little bit more, you know, in the very low end, maybe to make it a little bit more enjoyable. So when you see like these high fi community nerds that sit in wax on for hours about headphones and the harm and curve and all this kind of stuff, Yeah, do you care about any of that stuff at all? Or do you completely shut that off and just really focus on your real users, you know, the producers, pro engineers and that kind of thing. I wouldn't say there is a fixed policy or something like that. I think we always try to listen and decide case by case if it makes sense or not to us, because there's also there might also be some pro users that tell you weird things, and maybe it's just us not understanding. You know. I come from from really being an engineer, and I think the more I grew into decent, the old I got in doing this business, I found out there is no there's really no wrong or right. I mean, okay, there are maybe some exceptions, like you maybe don't put the x l R cable into your toaster. That might not make no sense, but you guys, yeah, I mean you can try maybe it makes. A funny sound once, or Sylvia Massey did try stuff like that. So yeah, in fact, Sylvia is listening, she'll be doing it right now. Yeah, she like hooked up a did she did. She took an amplifier and then put an AC plug on the end of it so that she could plug a blender into the output of an amplifier and the bass player could play the blender. Basically, yeah, see the current out of the amp is making the blunder go. Yeah, well plugging plugging your headphones into the toaster adds a whole new meaning to the term brain fight, doesn't it. Really? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah so so. But I mean, of course, Georgia right, it's in the high five scene. There is quite a lot of voodoo stuff going on that we honestly don't really care about, but because we we are pro audio engineers, that's where we come from. But it's there is also some aspects that might make sense. Right. For an example, our top range headphone, the Composer, which guys, I don't know if you had the chance to listen to it, it's it's the most amazing headphone ever. It's it's really it's really really amazing. And I'm not saying this because only only because I'm an Austroologia guy. It's also from from my perspective as a mixing engineer. I could not really mix on headphones so far, and I have I have quite a nice setup of monitoring in my in my producer suite, which includes a midfield monitoring from Loyman which I like, which I have Gandlex clothes. And then I got this Composer headphone together with the full Score one, which is probably the fastest headphone amp on the market, and I said, first my first thoughts were like this is it's just too much money for a headphone. Pros are not going to use this. Then I got it because I'm the product specialist. Lucky me. And now I would give away my main monitoring immediately if I can. If I can't, just send send Robert Hair. This guy is a massive, massive monitor speaker nut I then do his place his places, and there are a lot of speakers around. I've heard a lot of speakers, so if you can impress Robert with a pair of cans, that'll be. A good value. I was impressed, you know, I really I got so much detail. If you get into the situation mixing a bass drum and and you think that that's the zero point seven plus on seventy hertz or I don't know, does that make sense now? And then you you try it and you say, yeah, it makes sense. I can I can hear it on this on these cans, and and you know, in the end, of course, there's always that discussion going on, and I get it kind of yeah, but in the end people listen on ear pods and on MP threes. But I mean that's that that can't be our approach. Right, No, yeah, you should be check. You should be checking your mix on that. But you can, you can, you can make it work on all those things. But I would say that even if you were to mix, okay, if you were to make a mix for small speakers, you'd be better if you didn't know all the different small speaks that you're mixing on. You're better off on a big pair of speakers and just getting it well balanced and letting it be what it is on small speakers. Then monitoring on the horrtones. I guess, yeah, I have horotones as well. I mean, they make kind of sense to me. Because they only give you mid range. And let's be honest, most musical decisions, if you do a mix, is a lot of it is in the balance, is balancing everything right, and the mid range is the most important part on that. So they help you to not be distracted by bass or shiny travel top end. I think that's what they do. But in the end, if you if you tweak it based drum, you need you need a great speaker or a great pair of headphones, and and the composer is it just blows me away. It's I haven't heard such a headphone before. Amazing. It's funny hearing you talk about hiding mixing your headphones or avoiding it, because I always did too. I mean, I'm I'm sort of the other end of the spectrum. I'm not mixing music. I'm more post production and radio imaging and all that sort of stuff. But I always hated mixing in headphones. And you guys kindly sent me a pair of High X sixty fives. Yeah, the High sixty five I think is close to the composer in well. I put them on the first time the first day I got them, put them on the right, and I hated it. I was like, oh my god, I can't deal with that, and they got put in the cupboard at the back of my room for a good three or four months, and then finally. What was it that you didn't like about them? I just I couldn't deal with mixing in headphones. It was just it wasn't necessarily the headphones themselves, it was just that whole Oh my god, it's in my head sort of, you know, feeling when you was trying to mix. And they sat at the back of the room. And then for some reason, I can't remember why, but I dragged them out again, and all of a sudden I fell in love with them, and they're now a day to day thing to me, so much to the point that I went I had to go up to my parents' place at the beginning of this year because my dad was sick and I was looking after my mom, and I put my headphones on the front seat of my car as I was coming home, and someone stole them while I was in the house, oh you know, coming out, and I was lost. I was lost for weeks, I mean burnt. Fine generously sent me a new pair, but my god, I was like, how am I going to do this now. I was like, I love them. I can't live without them anymore. Yeah, yeah, Actually the sixty five was was for me. I wouldn't say I was lying because it wasn't the composer that really got me on mixing and working really on headphones. It was the sixty five because I remember the day when we released, or we've been closed to release the Old five and the OC seven, so our instrument mikes, and we booked a studio in Vienna that we usually used to do our marketing stuff to test our products, to shootouts and so on, and we invited pretty cool funk band from Vienna. They are called Hot Pens Road Club and and we did the first like that name we did. Don't forget that in a while. Somebody understand something about branding apparently. So we did the first recording ever where we only used Austrian audio mics because now we've been able to really do close micing on the toms, and we had the Old five. Would you use on the kick seven? Actually the ALS seven works on the kick. It's not made for the kick, but it works especially together with a mic in front of the resonance skin. The seven as it's a small contenser. It's really fast and kiky, and you you have to use a different kind of equeuing, but you can get out were quite great results, especially if if you do the stuff that many people do anyhow, combining with a second microphone that is outside the bass drum. Right. So, and then I was so excited about this recording session. And my private studio is on the countryside, so I would I have to drive there, and so I couldn't do it on the same day or even the day after because I was in the office working. So I mixed this recording where I sit now with you guys in my office in Vienna, and of course I only could do it in headphones. And it was the first time I went into my studio. I opened the mix on my annoyments and there was nothing left to do except I had to raise a little bit. I had to give a little bit more high frequencies to the mix on the master bus because the sixty five if you can say something bad about it, and I don't want to, but if you're really deep into criticizing something to you know, a positive kind of criticizing, then it's maybe a a little bit too bright. Okay. But on the other side, our acoustic engineer ber Hut he told you, because I told you, why don't we make a headphone that that's really completely flat? And he said, because everybody would be bored to death? And I think it's kind of true. Right, It's on one side also working and listening to stuff you need to have some fun. And also in the travel range, you also can hear rooms and and all that stuff very very precise, and that's also something I want to get from a headphone. So talking harmon curve, somebody, somebody said that before. Right, you mentioned something. You mentioned the word detail. Yeah, that's a word used in describing monitors all the time, right, yeah, what is it about headphones that have that have I guess traditionally to be considered less detailed than studio monitors because coming from my perspective as someone who unfortunately does not have a well tuned control room and a soundproof environment from monitoring, can't really trust my monitors speakers to give me that, you know. So I do lean heavily on headphones and I have for a very long time. How can a driver that's only an inch or half an inch an inch from your ear be inherently less detailed than a pair of speakers that are five to six feet away. It's a good question, and I'm not quite sure if the answer is that I can give are really covering what you have in mind? But there is two problems with with headphone design. One was because that is really in the past our drivers they played down to five herds with really really low distortion. Okay, the problem with some headphones out there that are incredibly established in the market. I'm not going to bash any other competitor here, but we know there are some like in every perspective, this MIC is super established, this headphone is super established, this audio interface is super established, sometimes for a good reason, sometimes more for a marketing reason, or for whichever reason. Anyhow, the problem with the old design is that they couldn't play down that low, especially without creating a high amount of distortion in the signal. So what they all did is they over emphasized the frequencies above this very low area, so sixty two one hundred herds to cover a little bit the lack of being able to really play back low. We don't have to do that because our driver, the THHD is amazing we compared it to some of the competitors that are in the same price range, and we had a cert not thirty percent less, we had a thirt of distortion at the same level at the same volume level like loudness. So that is really amazing. And it's a big change in technology because of new materials that get lighter, that allow more excursion. That's a pretty big point on our drivers. That's why the headphones are called high X. It stands for high excursion. So the diameter, the diameter of the driver is forty four millimeter. It's there are larger ones, but it's a pretty standard size, maybe even a little bit on the smaller one. But I don't know, are you guys musicians, do you remember I don't know in the nineties when when people came up with with hotkey amps for bass playing and they all. Went yeah, and they would played like a four ten instead of playing through two fifteen's. Yes, and they were really fast and punchy and and and and. Had and had the silver cones to silver ex. And it was kind of a new sound for bass amps. I learned drums in these days, but we had a we had a written section in my music school, so where all the drums, drumas and the bass players they joined and then we played together. And the director of the school, who was the bass teacher as well, he had such a hotckey tower and it was crazy because he could play back a CD through this tower and it sound pretty much like a pretty massive stereo system, right because it covered all and it was really fast and not like an eighty inch driver that is maybe better working to be used for sailing instead of playing back fast transience. Okay, so long story short, smaller driver is quick. That's one point, because it doesn't have a lot of messes. Another point why it's good to have a smaller diameter is I think it's called interparticial distortion. I hope that's not lost in translation somehow, because as you guys know, I'm not a native speaker English. But that is that the membrane itself, it only should move to the front and back and in no other direction at all, so you don't want any wobbling on the surface of the the membrane. I don't know, can you maybe you guys can translate that into real English? That makes complete sense. That's pretty good. Say that, say the terminology in alf Deutsch as well. So the street German, it's interpatie as far as as I know, it's interparts somebody listening, so I don't know, And and that creates distortion again, So what you want, you want the membrane to be really really stiff and only moving back and forward. Okay, and to cause. It's the whole speaker thing right, infinitely rigid, infinitely late. That's the ideal speaker. Yes, exactly, And now we have the for good reasons again. Okay, you have a small diameter on the driver, so you can't move a lot air, so you can't play back very deep. But there comes to high excursion in place, so there is really new materials on the Again, the German word is siker is it is it called surrounding of the. Brain films around? Yeah, the film's around Dad allows the mambrane to swing deeper and wider. And this is absolutely a trend given consumer, even a consumer. Yeah, the trend of Bluetooth speakers that are like only two inches tall. Yeah, crazy about the size of well, everybody knows what a little Bow's tabletop speaker looks like. Right. The frequency response to these tiny Bluetooth speakers extends down but deeper than you ever would have imagined as possible ten twenty years ago, right, So that technology has trickled even into consumer yeah, Bluetooth speakers. The hard thing about it, though, is that as you send the driver farther out, now you have to pull that driver back across the magnet. And that is a big magnet, and that is not signal that is true to the signal. That's a new signal that's being forced back against the signal coming in and and and there's a name for it. And I think it also has to do dampening, right, yeah, and how the yeah, and so you you do get other issues with the super high excursion. There's other things you have to battle, like dampening and you're like. Always in life, Yeah, it's never. But you know, because of that, we also we have a really strong magnet and we have the it's a very important point and probably that's related to this problem, and that we have as a ring magnet, so the center of the driver is totally open. That means we have absolute perfect control about the airflow in the center of the speaker. And depending on the material that we have in this center hole. We can control the speed of the membrane in both. Ways and that controls the damping. Yeah, that's less resistance on the way back, yes, and so you lose a little bit of surface pushing area because it's transparency, so you're not moving those molecules out. But yeah, you have like a release of the the resistance to move back in the position. That's in common from the entry level all the way to the high. Level pretty much. I mean the composer has a new driver now that it's also a little bit wider. It's forty eight millimeters, so it's a little bit of a new design, and it has some bit damp fung so, like there's something on the membrane, very very sin that makes the membrane even more stiff. So. But the lamination, it's Scotch lamination. Yeah, Scotch guard. Scotch guard. There you God makes all your speakers sound better. Do not listen to this man. Yeah. So yeah, but all other headphones have pretty much the same driver. Just this stamping material is slightly different depending on the model, and it's part of the tuning of the. Headphone or any of the headphones multi like they're all just single drivers, single like no crossover, which I'm sure helps, I think, But as the drivers get bigger, like on the composer, do you find that there's a high frequency or is the rigidity enough that the high frequency response is not affected and you don't need a crossover or a driver for that. Honestly, I can only judge this by listening to the headphone, and I love everything on the frequency response and the composer also we had that just before somebody said something about harm and curve. I don't know if it really makes sense in you know, overall, but the travels to boost them a little bit kind of makes sense if you don't overdo it. In the bass, we are not following harm and Colin kof we're really flat. So what you have on the mix is what you hear. And if you listen to crazy ed M music, you'll hear heavy low end, super clean heavy low end. So that's really tricky to get and you can hear it immediately perfect on our on our cans, on our headphones. So I'm sold. Man, I'm a total base head. So yeah, but I see, I don't understand that with the you know, consumer headphones that hype at the bottom end, especially given today's music which is so bottom end heavy anyway, really overpowering. Yeah, it's just crazy. Well, there's definitely too much bass in some headphones. I mean there's one that rhymes with I won't even say it, but who they are. Yeah, I also don't at it for me, so it's too much, and it for it's definitely not useable as a reference if you work on stuff, because it's it's just doubling up. Yeah, you need you need. I wouldn't say you need a super flat response, but it shouldn't go too far out of being flat. Yeah, you need something that you know, is the first thing. And then it can't be like agreed, like too far out of bounds. But it has to be exciting and maybe even kind of cover your genre differences, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well it's interesting, you know as someone who's a voice out a guy like myself. When I got a pair of the High fifty fives, Yeah, the first time I put them on, i took them off. It was like, is it terrible? It's awful? Yeah, And then I went back and listened to them again, and then I realized what I didn't like about them is they were so honest. They were telling me everything, all the things I didn't want to hear that I'd never heard before. I was hearing it. Just shoot yourself andrew everything as awful. But that was the same response because George George and I and another guy, Paul Strick further did a video one of George's videos and we talked about the highs fifty five's and Paul had exactly the same response when he first put on the fifty five and then after he got used to them, that was it. He swore by them because it was kind of like the way of doing a forensic edit if you were just going I think the. Fifty five is probably the best headphone for doing audio restoration because it really doesn't cover anything it. Honestly, I had exactly the same feeling about the headphone, but for me it never really went away. But that's also because I am a mixing engineer. If you're tracking, the fifty five is great because even if you stand in the loud rehearsing recording room, it cuts through. It's going to give you the information that you need, especially voice over artists. Many of them in the end said the fifty five is great for me because it's it's like you said it in the beginning, it's kind of annoying, but then it gives you some extra information that that can also be helpful. Right. I gave mine to Scott Rommel, who's a really well known voice actor here in these states, and he I was just at a studio and he's got the Venerable Parasons there, you know, that have a lot of miles on him and it looks pretty war torn, you know. And then he has the fifty fives and I asked him which ones are using more nowadays, and he said, I mostly use the fifty five. Yeah. Wow, that is really what he has grown to love. It's also it's also the sixty. It's a little bit what we have on the highs twenty now reacting to. But we got back from customers and people about the fifteen. The same thing happened kind of with the High sixty. The high sixty is a reaction to the fifty five, of course, and and the sixty is really much more. I have to say balance. There is no other word. I'm afraid it's it's it's more flat, it's more linear, and and it's it's more use able to really take choices and decisions on the sound right, and there is in general, there is one big problem with with closed back headphones. That's why I always would take an open system over in the closed back system. And the point is for mixing, for mixing, yeah, and the point is not tracking. Yeah, well depends. We we did some tests with open or half open. Your note don't know, but nobody in the world really knows where is the border between open and half open, because there is no. So it's it's it's it's the same as the border between cardioid and white cardiod. Yeah, exactly. So sometimes for some if you know, in the end, it all depends. Are you tracking to a playback that is not going to be changed anymore? And is it a good vocalist, a good singer where you won't have to add it timing and pitch. Then it's fine to use an open headphone for for for singing, if it gives the the artists the better feeling. That's the case. Many times you see many singers taking away one ear cup because they just they just feel better if they hear something of their original voice in the room. So an open back heedphone is maybe a good solution for them. But of course, if you about. How about this solution where they have now many speakers that have the noise cancelation, but they also have literally the microphone. So you hear the room and you hear the headphones, but the headphones are closed and the headphones are not projecting into the room, but you get a little microphone. It's not through the audio system, it's not the microphone. You're just hearing like right there. And it's kind of interesting some of the Yeah, I bring it back. I remember we discussed stuff like dad already in the company because of resources and we have so many different things to do. It kind of what it was sinking again into. That'd be the six thousand dollars headphones. By the way, Well, I mean this is something that you see on the consumer headphones, like the blue consumers have the airplane noise canceling. They also have the opposite, which is I've got these closed ear headphones and they clut stuff out. Let me walk down the street in safety. Yes, microphones. So what I want I want the brain of the O C eight one to eight in my headphones. Yeah, we already discussed a headphone with probably the spy on board that could do crazy things like what what Robert just said with with mics on it. So you could also if you play flute in your room exercising, it could give you the image of a great church playing in and stuff like that. And so there is different ideas. But yeah, I think that's the only thing that I'm never going to run out of stock is ideas. But not a problem. Yeah, especially because mushrooms are so popular nowadays. One of the most powerful questions there is, right, what if? Yeah? What if? What? Yeah? Sure? Well, should we do our giveaway? We should? We should do our giveaway. We probably don't need to play them all, do we we? Although maybe we know we don't need to play them all. We should just play the winner because you, I know, Kurt, you said before you've narrowed it down to two. I'm curious actually, because I've got a feeling I know which to you. Before we go there, we should just say that if you want to hear all the entries, go back a couple of episodes and you can hear them all there. But yeah, because because we refined it, like Kurt voted from the list that. We from our with the down list that's right exactly. So it was which was we sent four? More over we had who did we have? I've got to find my lists. Tan Ray king Ray Kington was our Ray Kington was our Linda yea Ray Rim and Linda Linda. That's it Linda. Who's the other one. Who's the that did the toes? And that was Ray that was y he was out. He was our sort of special mention, that special. Came in on the short bus. But it was it was a grand entrance. It was so yes, it was indeed, so Kurt, you get the you get the casting vote, mate, it's all down to you, so little drummer, that's not a drum roll. It wasn't an easy choice. You you wieled it down to two, did you? Yeah? Yeah? And in the end, the one that I finally have chosen to be the winner is really just based on emotions. It's but it's funny because I think one of them sticks out in terms of emotion, and that is because I tried to get my head around. So why is this because it's they are in the end, they are pretty similar, right, But why is this one making me curious about this BBC thing? And and and so and it's I think it's first of all, he or she I don't know, to be honest, used a small room on the vocals, which is maybe not very common because many sometimes you want it dry and fat and that stuff. And I think the blending, the timing. I'm a drama I told you, and this this mix had the best timing. So the when the blending between the sounds, the music and the vocals, and how fast it happened, that was what made me decide. It's tea Time. Experience a new destination for adventure, nature, science and Culture. National Geographic Today tonight at seven on the National Geographic Channel. Always Wonder, that's the one I voted for. Yes, we're on the same page. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but I just liked it. But yeah, timing, rhythm, feel. They had the best feel. I think. Chris Caine also pretty good. Special Chris was up there with all of this too, I think, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. So now George has to jump in that fed xbox and we have to ship them over. To I don't know whether you can see this, but at the bottom of my list here the two people mentioned are Chris and T and Tam. Yeah, there go. Yeah, they were the two that were pretty much unanimous around the four of us. I think, yeah, everybody had them in the top two. Yeah, everyone had exactly yeah. Yeah, so there you go. Well, so what did they win again? What was the thing twenties? Yeah? Yeah, I have a lot of fun with your high X twenties. They're really cool hat phones. Absolutely, we'll expect to report back once he had a chance, he or she I should say, he's going to change it. She's going to listen to the twenties Andrea's twenty You'll go, actually, can I see it at Newbix. Or she or yes? We just say. But yeah, I just out of interest. The high X twenties now live in my booth. The my main headphones in there when I'm working. What are you wearing right now? These are the fifteens, so I use these out here when we're doing podcasting and the fifteens and yeah, so I've got the twenties in the booth and then the sixty five's here when I edit. Well, it's interesting. I'll give you some feedback on the high X twenties. Two. Now the boys have given you theirs. My wife does voiceovers as well, and she's always just went worn this crappy old pair of Sandhais's. We were going on holidays to Fiji. I've told this story, and I literally ran into JB High five because I wanted headphones for the plane and didn't really have anything I wanted to take that I could risk losing. So I bought these crappy old Sandhais as a pair for me and a pair for my wife and sort of said, here you go. These are So she's been wearing those in the booth now for oh god, three or four years. When the high X twenties arrived, I said to her, chuck these on, tell me what you think because we've got to talk about it on the show. And she came back and it was exactly the same feedback as what Andrew was talking about. She came back and she said, I love them, but I can't wear them because I hear shit that I haven't heard before. She said, I can't. I'm just going to have to sort of get used to wearing them and sort of get my brain in that space and then they'll be perfect. So I remember it. The first time it was with the sixty five and I went when it came out at home, I really had a party alone with this headphone listening to my playback to my entitle and it was the first time I heard that there is a on Sledgehammer from Peter Gabriel. Well the crazy good song there. It seems like they had the production ape too long in tailing. I don't know if you guys and you can't listen to it. There is some mechantism printed through the layer and you hear the brass. You know, it starts with just exactly the heavy brash stack and you can hear it just half a second before it really comes. Yeah, well that's yourself a favor to mate, Have a look up on YouTube. Look up. Harry Styles does a cover of that song on the Howard Stern Show. Okay, and it's fucking good. It's really good. It's really because it's just such a I mean, don't give Peter Gabriel and yeah, don't give it with we's done with from but pink and oh my god, is that so or us? That's so? Yeah? So? Which which is what album? How many did you do? It's his fifth so. That makes sense. Forty years to work Robert what I wanted to say Pink and John Legend that was the guy. They they did a recording together with Herbie Hancock. He did a new arrangement. They recorded it Life in Abby Road and and it's it's dunning recording. It's it's it's Herbie Hancook. It's it's just amazing because he plays so little and it's wow, it's it's so good. It's it's it's what you don't play sometimes. Yeah. I think Miles Davis said that it's the music is in between the notes or something like that. What he said, Yeah, exactly. Our show is a master of tangent. We would love to do this. We'd love to talk music for another hour. Yeah, but I want a different tangent. I wanted to know what's the microphone in the PG sixteen. I have no clue, No is it is? It just like it's it's it's an omni. That's all I know. It's why you asked. It's just there for the I'm just curious about it actually, because I was looking at that like it's it's not it's it's like a gamers thing obviously. Yea. You know the problem with the peaches. I think it's it's quite good sounding for for your headset, especially if you look to some of the competitors. There's really a lot of scrap out there. But the problem is being an omni it picks up a lot of the room. And then then there is then there is all these software like Google Meeting and teams, and they all have this ought to gain building, which kind of makes sense. But if you if you have done somebody talking five meters away of you, the microphone picks up a little bit, and and that the software things, oh, I have to raise the game because you and. Yeah, so. Yeah, but I was looking at it and I was trying to imagine the mic creator Mike on the end of that boom. Yeah, but it's it's not it's not it's my creator is it's also I mean, it's it's stunning. Yeah. Yeah, it might make a pretty good sounding like boom Mike for a you know, like someone who just wants very consistent placement. Is the PG sixteen the same can essentially the same as the fifteens with with a boom. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to get those because I sat in my laptop all day long doing production, editing, listening, not production, but listening to people's audio and evaluating and then doing little videos and then doing a zoom call, switching back and forth constantly. And I'd love to replace my tired, old other company headphones. Yeah, it's it's one great benefit I sing off the PG sixteen that you actually can really hear nice music because it's just it's just a normal headphone with you know, with a boom and not any kind. Of with all the sixty dollars mic on it. Yeah, and it doesn't matter that much for communication. It's not about fidelity as much. But oh I can I ask you one last thing. And I don't mean to open a rattle on this, I really don't, but you're going to how much because there is so much weight in the in the audio file world put into what the amplifier is that you're plugging your headphone into headphone. How much weight do you put on that decision when you're plugging in let's say one hundred dollars for a headphones whereas it versus a one thousand dollars pair of headphones. I mean, people get so up in arms when you plug a thousand dollar mic into a scarlet two. I too, you know, does it matter that much At the end of. The day, I'm mixing. Since twenty five years I learned that some people hear stuff that I can't hear, and and it's I'm not saying it makes sense what they hear in terms of because only very very little people can are so. But I would never say again because I really learned. That no, it's that's bullshit. Nobody can hear it except some maybe some cable decisions where I really say, listen to that's physics. It won't work, okay. And but amplifiers, it's a tough one for it totally depends like on the mic, it depends on the headphone. If you have an eight hundred own headphone, it's a totally different story than having a twenty five home headphone because it's the twenty five home headphone is easy to drive. You don't need a lot of power in your amplifier. Having the composer on the full score one for an example, which is the great amplifier that we make for the composer, but also for other headphones. It makes a difference even to my lovely headphone amplifiers that are building into my apoges, But is it a huge different. No, it's not. Is it a huge different if I use ten seventy three on my OC eight one eight or Annoyment V seventy six B, No, it's not. I agree it the microphone. The microphone is more important than the pre amp, and I agree that the headphone is more important than the amplifier. Definitely. It's interesting you say that, though, because I funny you pick the ten seventy three, because I use my OC eight one eight through my NEED ten seventy three, and it is quite a unique combination like nothing else sounds like that. Yeah, it's that's a big point. I think it's it's really the combination. But you can't say the ten seventy three is the you know, otherwise there wouldn't be so many different models. But still, I think that I did quite a lot of comparisons, and if you're really honest to yourself and you do a b X blind comparisons, that the ice is really getting super sin It's it's really it's really tough to get AB's X tests in this range because the differences are just not huge if you have a ribbon mic, even a normal dynamic mic. That's another story. A condenser is just less in findlish where it's it's just less sensitive to the pre emp finicky. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I mean just like with microphones, Like people are comparing microphones, if they are not consistent with placement one inches in and out, it's going to change the sound of the mic. Yes, And with headphones, if you don't fit them all properly so that they can't the pads seal your head properly. If the thickness of the pad isn't exactly right or the same, that's going to change the exactly But there's so many things that matter more than what exactly the headphone. It's the it's the right type of mic and the right I didn't make this point before because we kind of lost got lost into other topics. It's the thread that's our show for you, that never happens on the show. That's the problem of a closed back headphone is also it's never going to be one hundred percent reference headphone because the as it's a closed system, everything about your HEADPHM, if you have glasses, which haircut you have, if you like to have caps on, it's going to change the sound. So I can't say George and Kurt we hear the high ex fifteen in the same way because we have that different headphones and and our our you know, it's the shape is and and on an open system. That's why an open headphone own it's easier to build as a reference headphone because it is already unsealed. But it's the same thing as a microphone. I mean, you're only true microphone is an omni You're not You're not really built like like like you know, a classical recordings will go out with a decatory and three omnies, yeahs, but not imparting a sound. And the omnies are flatter, aren't they just by nature? Not not really, not not necessarily. I mean there is one point about the real omni sola thing either really it's a pressure no, I don't know. That grad not a pressure gradient. But yeah, pressure is that they can't go That's why they are really used for recording huge church organs is they can't go really low without distortion. But then there is all different kinds of characteristics also to to omnis, and. Well, they don't have proximity effect. They don't have proximity effect. That is true. Figure of eight has the stronges isn't right, and. Then they don't have the comb filtering from the side trying to pull audio from the side and cancel it. So there's no cancelation and off access coloration, although there is some off access coloration depending on how big the body. Often if you look to the m fifties which were usually used to make deck annoyments annoyments, Yeah, the reason why they were used is because they had such a dramatic off access toleration because they. They were right, they were kind of brightened front and the. High high had the frequency become the more they were focused. So they are not an omini about the whole spectrum. And by the way, also there is no no cardioid is a cardiod about the whole spectrum. If you if you look up our text spec sheets from on our website, we are honest with all that stuff. We show that the polar pattern diou diagram on different frequency ranges, so you can see how the how the polar pattern changes. And if you that's for a very very important point, especially for small condenser mics because they are getting loose used a lot of spot mics. So in an ensemble and the problem is It's quite easy to build one that has a nice frequency response on axis, but the off axis frequency response is making the big difference. Because if you pull up the fader because you want to have a stronger signal of the clarinet as it's playing a solo or whatever, and all of a sudden the wood winds from next to it starts sounding shitty, then you have a problem. So you're not helping yourself. Yeah, actually, what was the studio, Robert that you recorded that music? Four first source elements in Austria. Vienna via synchron stage. It's a huge Yeah. It's beautiful, but it was really funny because the video that goes with that, that whole thing, I noticed someone the I think it was the person playing the harp was marked up with an eight one eight. Yeah that's a fun real Yeah, that's an early that's an early OC one eight because that that was done, I mean that was been one of the first eight. When eight were released in in summer nineteen. And maybe it could be possible that they even already had like beta samples for testing or something. And I know that that in the musik for this very famous Viennese concert hall where they have the concert of the Vina Philarmonica playing over the years this what's the name? Oh, this is ridiculous for me, and I hope nobody in Vienna listens as that's what it's called. It's it's it's a it's in crazy production because it's they recorded on on on Naiya, so the first January of the year and then you get the CD seven days later or something, so it's it's really on. And they you always use eight one eight on harp, so it seems like it's the industry standard for harp recordings now. But that's cool, but I'm happy it seems like it also becomes a standard for being used on overheads because it's doing a brilliant job on overheads. Yeah. Can I tell you one other weird thing I do with the OC because I don't record a lot of music anymore, unfortunately, but I have been experimenting with it only because I have these things to my it's my disposal. I have been running my OC went eight into my Universal Apollo twin through what plug in? Can you guess which plug in? I know what you're doing because I'm doing the same thing a Unison plug in. The I'm using the Sphere microsphere the mic model. It works great with that, it's not the Townsend microphone. You can still get all kinds of different colors and it's it's great. We are not big fans of that, of the idea in general, big. Good way that picks off the client, Thanks George. But if you change it just to say, give me different colors. Running your mic through a competitors plugging. No no, no, no, no, you got me completely wrong. No, no, we of the I think it's cool. I have a friend of mine, he's a producer here in Vienna, and he's pretty successful and he does the same thing. He had the original mic and and he said, hey, dude, I I'm not only using the OC eight one eight anymore to do the because the basic signal is such more solid. But I still have these choices. Okay, but what what I meant is and by the way, it's it doesn't make any sense because nobody knows. I mean nobody, maybe not, but we know it may be best for an example, what a C twelve should sound like, because if you I'll. Give you a different word for it. It's is it bs, it's a different It's like every c twelve sounds different, yes, exactly. Over the years, there's so much variable exactly. Market. Yeah. It's funny because when I first met Martin, when Martin came over to Melbourne or years ago, in fact, it was when COVID first kicked off. I think he was over here and we were talking about the Ghostgate one night because he was over demonstrating it to Group Technology to distribute here in Australia, and we're talking about the development of this c KR twelve capsule. Yes, and he was saying about all the C twelves they gathered from all all over the world. And the funniest one, he said was Quincy Jones, the late Quincy Jones. Yeah, that his CE twelve, which he loved, was actually broken. There's a studio here in Chicago that had a SEA twelve and the thing was noisy and engineers would talk about it. But at the same time, every time he told the customer like, oh, I'm on to see twelve, like they didn't hear any of the noise and hear any of the bs and they're just like CE twelve. Yeah, Yeah, you had to like put up a second mic just be like we're gonna do another one just in case, and it's like Dumbo's feather. But isn't that the beauty of wordia though? I mean, Quincy obviously heard something in that mic that he. Just loved to get the story on the point is that I think it was just the backside of the capsule that was broken, so he could only use it in cardioid all the time, So it was not like it sounded completely rubbish. I mean like they're broken fifty seven at Ocean Way or whatever it is. You know. So another question with the plugins. You have the polar pattern designer and then you have the stereo maker. Yes, and can you please make a four band combo of the polar pattern with the stereo maker so I can have mono bass and a nice stereo upper. And nice Here you go, now you're thinking. Say it again. Yeah, you're stereo plug in right where you can just do like a bloom line and then you can change it to any pattern, right right, Okay, So now I want to have the bloom line setup and then in the top band I want to do bloom line, and the bottom band I just want to do maybe omni and I can I can change the stereo setup. Okay, I understand. So you want to have the face lean your blending in between the frequency ranges to create different stereo techniques on different all right, that sounds crazy. We have we have some We have ideas coming up for the plugins, especially for the Polar designer. Yes, honestly, we are a little bit struggling with the plugins because we are in the We are a hardware company, and it's it always takes a lot of effort to keep those things up. Are those made in juice or do you know what you're using for those plugs to make them? They are now made in juice. We have to redo show over the juice and that helps so much. Yes, yeah exactly. But the ones that you know are not made in juice. There they were kind of. Yeah, that's that's why it's not easy for you to jump in silicons. You got to do it all over again. Yes exactly. But I mean I still work in Rosetta and it's no problem, and. And I use utel max all over the place. This is another show. But I was going to say, we need to get we need to get Kurt back and have a because we haven't even touched on microphones we've been what we need. We got two more repisodes, got microphones and when we've got plug ins. So yeah, so we'll have to do together for another late night mate. Sure, an, no problem, that's that's okay for me. I just saw I think to do that at eight in the morning. I'm a late guy, so I would really stand up out of the bed coming to microphonic. Don't think we want that. I think it must be it must be an audio engineer thing. I think were I mean Roberts a night owl. I'm a night owl. You're must be an engineer thing. When I worked for the for a producer here in austral we most of the time we started working at two in the afternoon. Right all the rock stars, you know, they're sort of you know, they're not even out of bed until midday, so you know, really you're not going to start a session. Till only the young ones, not the older ones. They're all tucked up in bed. Exactly. I'll leave you with one more though before we go. This is the sign of something really unusual for voiceover. If any voice over people are listening, Burnt sent me the C C eight, which is the pencil mate, because I wanted to try that out. So now that is also one of my setups. The CC eight into an l A six ten sounds gorgeous. He's so impressed by it. He's got the box sitting behind him there already. Look, you can't travel with the LA sixteen, but you're also using the CC eight on the road too, aren't you. Is that the year road eight? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I use it because Mike caught pro. It matches kind of to the eighteen eight, doesn't it? Or something? It was bizarre, remember remember I sent you the the sample of the Centrance Mike port Pro with the c C eight in my car, and it sounded. Like the eight one eight. It was so bizarre. Yeah, actually it's I think that's a good point because it's not so far away from the eight one eight in terms of sound. It's it's pretty. It definitely has the same signature. So but I think that's good because then you can combine its good with an eight one eight if you do an ensemble recording or whatever, or you you you you need it on the. Go or something. But something is interesting. I seek Andrew that you that you mentioned pre amps that are all pretty much coloring I'm not a specialist in voiceovers, but I always have the feeling if I do record something for your video or something, oh my god, just nothing that gives me a little bit of distortion because it's all going to come up in the in the final So I'm always looking after the cleanest pre empt ever. But the six ten is really a color beast and the ten seven three as well, So this is interesting for me. If I'm doing like imaging and promos and stuff like that, well that's different that that. You know, historically we use a shotgun mic for that, and so I run a shotgun through a grace design, okay, and what I want that's the that's the primo. Well, it's actually the pre ams clean, but the MIC is hyped out of the stratosphere. But for long form stuff where I know that someone's going to do a lot of equeuing and they're going to spend time, you know, assessing the file I send them, then I would use the eight one eight and the ten seventy three. But I've been playing because my daughter she does voice apps as well, and just in an experiment, I put the CC eight into the six ten to see what it was like. On her voice and it sounds really really nice. I believe works really well. That's a few bits and pieces I use. There you go cool. Well we should wind this up, I guess and get you back in other time to talk get really down and dirty with microphones. So thank you Kurt, and enjoy your slip. Thanks for inviting me. It was really lovely check with all of you. Yeah. Well we've been wanting to do this for so long now because you guys have been so supportive of our podcast that it's been great to get you on. Awesome. Yeah, and now it sounds good. Thanks Kurt, and thank you Kurt and all the team at Austrian Audio for supporting this little show with totally any great things to try and you and play with and just really use. I mean as you can see this. Yes, oh this is the seven o seven right, yeahs seven o seven. Well, let's let's go around the room. I'm on the I'm on the high X fifty five's and the eight y and eight. Andrew's on the fifteens and is that the eight one? I'm on the sixteens and the sixteen of the eighteen Okay, I mean I'm on the OS seven seven zero seven. This is my every day at my desk, interviewing, zooming podcast. Microphone and the High X fifteens. Yeah, I mean, no one can see this, but my high X fifteen's the color match is perfect. The right, yeah, right, that's you, Andrew. I've got to be color yeah yeah, does it match. So I'll round it out. I'm on the O D five, but I hate to say I don't have any high X yeah that's right, yes, yeah, you were not in July yet. That's it? That was fun, is it? Over the pro Audio Suite and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Voodoo Radio Imaging. We take support from George the techwom don't forget to subscribe to the show and joining the conversation on our Facebook group to leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just say today, drop us a note at our website dot com