Hugh Robjohns has been Sound On Sound's Technical Editor since 1997. Prior to that he worked in a variety of (mostly) sound-related roles in BBC Television, ending up as a Sound Operations Lecturer at the BBC's technical training centre.
He continues to provide audio consultancy and bespoke broadcast audio training services all over the world, lectures at professional and public conventions, and occasionally records and masters acoustic and classical music too!
Specialist high-end equipment manufacturer Millennia Media have produced an innovative dual-channel parametric equaliser with a difference — user-selectable valve or solid-state circuit topologies. Hugh Robjohns investigates.
The craft of mixing is all about controlling and balancing the relative levels of different instruments. Most of this balancing is done by riding the faders, but dynamic compression can also be a very useful and powerful tool if used appropriately. Hugh Robjohns explains some of the techniques and traps involved in mix compression.
Artificial reverb algorithms are designed to add 'fake' room ambience to recorded sounds — but a prototype reverb unit from Sony purports to deliver new levels of realism by imposing the characteristics of actual reverberant spaces on the sound. Hugh Robjohns explains....
Pro Tools is virtually an industry standard for music production and post-production, even though its powerful mixing and signal processing capabilities have previously only been fully accessible through a computer screen. The recent introduction of Digidesign's own ProControl addresses that problem. Hugh Robjohns just loves being in control...
The latest version of Behringer's Composer dynamics processor appears to provide all the facilities anyone could ask for, with a separate expander/gate, compressor and limiter for each of its two channels.
Designed to interface the Kurzweil K2000/K2500 synths directly with digital recording equipment, the DMTi also has a role as a general-purpose digital format convertor. Hugh Robjohns checks it out.