Beyer DT770 : March 1999
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Like the DT100, the DT770 is a closed headphone, but there the similarity ends. This headphone is designed for optimum listening quality in situations where open headphones would be inappropriate, and a new lightweight diaphragm, which is around one-fifth the mass of that used in other current designs, is claimed to give a high-end transparency that challenges that of electrostatic headphones. That's equivalent to building a dynamic mic with the high-end performance of a capacitor model. The DT770 features circular, fully sealed acoustic chambers with foam-filled velour ear cushions that fit over, rather than resting upon, the ears. Inside is a ported bass reflex system and the frequency response is quoted as 5Hz to 35kHz, though the roll-off limits are not specified. A 3m coiled cord is fitted to the phones and terminates in what appears to be a gold-plated quarter-inch jack plug -- but unscrew the barrel and there's a 3.5mm stereo jack inside. However, unlike that of the DT100, the cord doesn't unplug so replacement will involve some disassembly. Each phone is supported in an anodised aluminium yoke and these are in turn supported by a well padded, adjustable headband. In use, these phones are a comfortable, snug fit and offer a useful amount of isolation from outside sound. The headband grips the yokes tightly, so there's no tendency for the size adjustment to slip once the phones are in place. The overall weight is 270g, which though not featherweight, is reasonably low for a quality closed phone. Soundwise, the DT770s don't display any of the boxy characteristics of earlier closed models and they present the mid and high frequencies extremely clearly, responding well to dynamic transients. Similarly, the low end doesn't disappoint, with more than adequate low-frequency extension and a good balance between the bass and the mid/high part of the spectrum. The nominal SPL is around 96dB, with 100mW of power equating to 116dB. A typical safe monitoring level for moderate periods is around 90dB. Of course listening on headphones is a different experience to listening on loudspeakers, but the overall tonal balance is surprisingly close to that of a pair of top-flight monitors. You don't get the same physical impression of bass because only your ears are involved, whereas with speakers it's your whole body, and the stereo image always seems to exist inside your head rather than in front of it, but for track laying late at night or for scrutinising a mix for imperfections, the DT770s are hard to fault. Other than the lack of an unpluggable cord, these are fine studio headphones. Paul White
Roland Vocal Collection JV-Series Synthesizer Expansion Board
The choirs really are streets ahead of anything found in the rest of the expansion card series (or the JV's internal waveform ROM) and sound to me as though they're taken from the same sessions as the Spectrasonics Symphony of Voices CD-ROM. There are 131 patches based on these waveforms, occasionally in combination with the JV's own internal waves, though relatively few are straight choirs. There's a huge selection of scat singing patches with velocity switching, but although the quality and realism is amazing, I can't think of a time I'd actually want to use any of them. Then again, we all have different musical needs. By contrast, the choirs are lovely, and anyone into New Age, film music or ambient music styles is certain to appreciate them. The Gregorian choir is particularly haunting, as is the Boys' choir, though there's also a full church choir for that classic big vocal wash sound. The designers have also created a number of very textural pads using combinations of the vocal waves and the JV's synth, organ, string and other waveforms, again well suited to New Age, film music, commercials, ambient and so on. To finish, there's a selection of Amens, but the designers have also managed to come up with some patches that include reversed vocal phrase samples, giving them an eerie Exorcist kind of feel. My own view is that although the preset examples are undeniably impressive, the real strength of this card is in allowing you to choose from a number of exceptionally good choirs to either create your own patches, or substitute for the lesser choirs in patches that you already have. Of course, if you use a sampler, you can buy the complete four-disk set of Symphony of Voices for under £300, giving you over 2Gb of samples, but if you don't have a sampler or you want to combine vocal and synth sounds in the same patch, the Vocal Collection has a lot going for it, and it's amazing what the designers have managed to squeeze into 8Mb (16Mb of samples compressed). Paul White
Music Engineering by Richard Brice
The Beginning Music Engineering is divided into 15 chapters, each devoted to one specific aspect of the subject matter. After an opening scene-setting chapter, the meat starts in Chapter Two with the physics of sound, the origins of musical scales and temperaments, and the harmonic series. It soon becomes clear that Brice's approach is not heavyweight and theoretical, but neither does he skate over complex subjects. The casual reader is given just enough to enable sense to be made of following chapters, while a list of references allows the more investigative to pursue their interests more fully. This may not be the best book for those wanting every last detail of a technical theory, but it does provide very readable overviews of each topic, generating sufficient understanding to allow the reader to make the best use of equipment and techniques. Chapter Three moves on to consider microphones, with a very basic outline of some of the more common operational techniques. From here on, the book suddenly becomes a lot more meaty, with a thorough examination of the fundamentals of valve amplification, including some practical circuit designs. This leads neatly into a review of the workings of some of the classic electric instruments such as electric guitars, Hammond organs, Theremins, Clavinets, Rhodes pianos, Mellotrons and so forth. The Middle Chapter Six covers the principles behind such electronic effects as echo, reverb, fuzz, wah-wah, phasing and flanging, dynamics processing, vocoders and much more. Again, block or even circuit diagrams are included where they aid the explanation of a particular process. By the halfway stage, we are reading about the elements of electronic sound synthesis, followed by a chapter on MIDI and sequencing -- nothing earth-shatteringly new, but a good grounding with enough detail to interest an experienced MIDI user. Chapter Nine covers the diversity of sound recording, starting with magnetic theory and the physics of recording on magnetic tape. After establishing the basics, Brice goes on to examine analogue and digital applications, although the world-wide standard of 2-inch 24-track analogue recording is notable by its absence, and hard disk recorders are, we are told, limited to only two tracks! However, omissions and errors are generally few and far between. The secrets of digital audio, from sampling theory to psychoacoustic masking, are the topic of the next chapter, which also spends some time looking at various audio computer file formats and the hardware associated with digital audio on typical PC systems. Intriguingly, the following chapter is devoted in its entirety to spatial sound processing systems including Roland's RSS, Ambisonics, EMI's Sensura, Dolby Surround and various other surround and pseudo-surround systems. Chapter 12 considers sound mixing desks and associated technologies such as metering, line-up, console architecture, controls, automation and even the signal processing principles employed in a digital console. The End The two penultimate chapters cover power amplifiers in all their guises and loudspeaker technology, and the final chapter discusses video systems, specifically in relation to synchronisation. In an industry where multimedia is increasingly important, the inclusion of a grounder in the video arts is most welcome, especially as it explains the key elements of both PAL and NTSC analogue video as well as the most common digital video formats. Never again will the prospect of producing music-to-picture be scary! The included audio CD is given its own appendix of track descriptions and explanations. The contents include calibration tones, frequency sweeps, and odd and even harmonic series, followed by examples of 'typical' recording techniques for comparison. The largest section contains 17 examples of various kinds of signal processing and audio effects, before an assembly of simple analogue synthesizer patches, sound samples, and musical excerpts. The last two sections of the disc provide mixing and production examples, and a collection of surround and pseudo-surround processing. In all there are 55 tracks. Conclusion Music Engineering is a welcome addition to the small library of titles available to the budding audio engineer. It offers a clear, no-nonsense approach to the subject, with the emphasis on practicalities rather than heavy theory, and tackles the underpinning technical issues in a simple but readable way. There is a lot of emphasis on electronic circuit design, but even if you couldn't tell the difference between a beam tetrode and a 1 percent MOS resistor, there is still much to be gained from reading this book. The content is well judged, far reaching and generally accurate but unfortunately, the same can not be said for the graphics. Although the majority of figures are of the expected standard and clarity, far too many photographs appear to be amateur snapshots, woefully underexposed (or printed), or with glaring camera flash hot-spots.Similarly, some of the graphics and diagrams are very poor and many have been scanned extremely ineptly, with such bad bit-mapping that the text can be hard to read and technical detail becomes almost unintelligible. This disappointing lack of attention to detail is most uncharacteristic for a Newnes title, but don't let it put you off. Even with the poor graphics, there is still much to praise here and I can thoroughly recommend this book. Hugh Robjohns
Published in SOS March 1999 
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Go into any top recording studio and the chances are that you'll find not one, but numerous pairs of Beyerdynamic DT100 headphones. DT100s are tough, they're loud and you can replace almost all the parts in the field, but to be honest, they aren't the best sounding headphone on the market. They're fine for musicians monitoring while recording, but less good for making value judgements on a mix. In recent years, Beyerdynamic has extended the DT series considerably, each time bringing about an improvement in sound, and the latest in that illustrious line is the DT770 reviewed here.
When I did the recent roundup of Roland Expansion boards in the November '98 issue, the Vocal board had been announced but wasn't shipping. Now it's here, and it's quite different to anything else in the series. Developed in conjunction with Spectrasonics, the Vocal Collection comprises 82 new vocal waveforms and comes complete with a demo MIDI file disk. About one third of these waveforms are choirs, with about the same number of jazz scat singing phrases. The remainder is mainly given over to vocal phrases, some of which are playable in reverse.
The perfect all-round audio reference book is still to be written and, I suspect, never will be. However, this new tome by Richard Brice is extremely comprehensive, and is pitched to appeal to both relative newcomers in the subject and more experienced practitioners. I certainly found much of interest within its pages, and the handy demonstration CD which comes with the book is useful in illustrating some of the points raised.