Genelec's new UNIO PRM (Personal Reference Monitoring) solution ensures reliable and consistent monitoring across multiple environments. In conversation with Sam Inglis, R&D Director Aki Mäkivirta and Regional Business Development Manager Andy Bensley explain how UNIO integrates existing technologies such as SAM (Smart Active Monitoring), GLM loudspeaker manager software and Aural ID binaural headphone monitoring with the new 9320A reference controller and Genelec's first ever pair of headphones.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:21 - About The UNIO Ecosystem
01:53 - 9320A Reference Controller And 8550A Headphones
04:53 - How Aural ID Works
07:17 - Secondary Referencing
11:08 - Is Emulating Control Room Acoustics Desirable?
14:03 - Why We Still Need Monitors
15:33 - Head Tracking Capabilities
17:02 - Incorporating UNIO Into An Existing Studio
18:48 - Professional Tools For Home Studio Use
20:20 - Personal Aural ID Settings
23:37 - Designing The 9320A Reference Controller
26:18 - Developing The 8550A Headphones
30:39 - Setting Up For The Best Workflow
32:40 - Future Developments

Genelec Biog
Since 1978, Genelec active studio monitors and subwoofers have delivered truthful, neutral sound reproduction - enabling engineers and creatives to make accurate and reliable mix decisions, even in challenging rooms.

Founded in Finland by childhood friends Ilpo Martikainen and Topi Partanen, the company’s first monitor, the S30, instantly became the blueprint for Genelec’s future direction. Its active design delivered consistent performance, total reliability, and the ability to adapt to the acoustic environment it was operating in.

The following decades have seen a string of technically innovative Genelec releases, from the now-legendary 1031A nearfield model to the latest coaxial point source models from The Ones family. Genelec’s growing range of Smart Active Monitors work closely with GLM calibration software, allowing each monitor to be completely optimised for the room, producing mixes that translate consistently to the outside world.

https://www.genelec.com/

Aki Mäkivirta joined Genelec in 1995. He originally worked for the Nokia Research Centre and teamed up with Ari Varla of Genelec during a joint venture between the two companies, where Mäkivirta demonstrated how to replace analogue filters with digital processing using the 1031A nearfield monitor. As a result, Mäkivirta joined Genelec to pioneer the creation of the original 8200 series of Smart Active Monitors, before becoming R&D Director in 2013.

Andy Bensley joined Genelec as Regional Business Development Manager in 2019. Based in the UK, Andy has huge experience in analysing and tuning the in-room performance of loudspeaker systems in a wide range of studios – from the smallest bedroom to the largest post production studio.

Sam Inglis Biog
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

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Universal Audio - Behind The Brand
As CEO of Universal Audio, Bill Putnam Jr has pioneered some of the most important innovations of the last 35 years. In conversation with Sound On Sound's Sam Inglis, he traces the Universal Audio story back to its founding by his father Bill Putnam Sr in 1958. We hear how and why Bill Jr decided to relaunch the Universal Audio brand, and how they moved from meticulously recreating Bill Sr's analogue designs to cutting-edge digital modelling, culminating in today's launch of the latest generation of Apollo recording interfaces.

Chapters

• (00:00) - - Introduction
• (00:25) - - Bill Putnam Sr.
• (04:24) - - A Natural Entrepreneur
• (05:49) - - From Physics To Electrical Engineering
• (10:44) - - Early Technological Hurdles
• (12:46) - - Digitally Emulating Analogue Equipment
• (14:39) - - The Challenges Of Emulating Tape And Speakers
• (17:35) - - The SHARC Processing Chip
• (18:18) - - The Endurance Of DSP Platforms
• (20:44) - - Developing The Apollo Audio Interface
• (21:47) - - The Advantages Of Thunderbolt
• (23:16) - - Adding DANTE To The x16D
• (25:02) - - The New Generation Of Apollo Interfaces
• (26:09) - - Multichannel Speaker Calibration With Sonarworks
• (28:21) - - Getting Digital Corrective EQ Accepted
• (29:43) - - Townsend Labs And Mic Modelling
• (30:40) - - The Bock Microphone Range
• (32:26) - - The Motivation For Creating LUNA
• (36:55) - - Developing Products For Guitarists
• (38:46) - - The Next Steps For Universal Audio

Universal Audio Biog
Universal Audio was founded in 1958 by Bill Putnam Sr., a passionate innovator and favourite recording engineer of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles and more. Putnam was the inventor of the modern recording console, the multi-band audio equaliser and the vocal booth, and he was the first engineer to use artificial reverberation in commercial recording. Alongside his friend Les Paul, he was also involved in the early development of stereophonic recording. Many of his legendary studio and equipment designs are still in use today.

Universal Audio was re-founded in 1999 by Bill's sons, James Putnam, a skilled audio engineer and Bill Putnam Jr, who earned a degree in Electrical Engineering. Their two main goals were to faithfully reproduce classic analogue recording equipment in the tradition of their father and to design new digital recording tools with the sound and spirit of vintage analogue technology. Their award-winning products include the UAD Powered Plug-Ins platform and the Apollo audio interface, first introduced in 2012. Universal Audio is headquartered near Silicon Valley in Scotts Valley, California. A few miles away in Santa Cruz is the Universal Audio Custom Shop, where their classic analog gear is still hand-built, one unit at a time.

Sam Inglis Biog
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts

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Andrew McPherson is a composer and Professor of Design Engineering and Music in the Dyson School of Design Engineering, based at Imperial College. Here he talks to Nick Rothwell about the Augmented Instruments Laboratory, a music technology research team that he leads, whose ongoing projects include the Magnetic Resonator Piano and the Bela open-source platform.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:30 - A Background In Composition And Electronic Engineering
01:57 - The Magnetic Resonator Piano
09:50 - TouchKeys USB Touch Sensor
13:05 - Developing Ideas Within A Community
15:47 - Using The Piano Within Different Genres
17:19 - Bela Open-Source Hardware Platform
22:15 - Augmented Instruments Laboratory
23:50 - Laurel Pardue / Augmented Violin
25:15 - Getting Nuanced Performances
26:22 - Overcoming Latency Issues
27:31 - Future Predictions

Andrew McPherson Biog
Andrew McPherson is a computing researcher, composer, electronic engineer, and musical instrument designer. He is Professor of Design Engineering and Music in the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, where he leads the Augmented Instruments Laboratory. Andrew holds undergraduate degrees in both engineering and music from MIT, an MEng in electrical engineering from MIT, and a PhD in music composition from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Imperial in 2023, he has been a professor in the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London.

Andrew’s musical instruments are widely used by performers and composers across many genres, and his research has led to three successful crowdfunding campaigns and the spinout of Augmented Instruments Ltd, which develops Bela, an open-source audio maker platform. He currently holds two fellowships: a Senior Research Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering on embedded hardware for audio and music, and an ERC/UKRI Consolidator Grant investigating the cultural implications of engineering decisions. He is deeply committed to teaching: Bela is used in the classroom by dozens of universities, and his online course on audio programming has been followed by learners around the globe.

https://andrewmcpherson.org/
https://instrumentslab.org/

Nick Rothwell Biog
Nick Rothwell is a composer, performer, software architect, coder and visual artist. He has built media performance systems for projects with Ballett Frankfurt and Vienna Volksoper, composed sound scores for Aydın Teker (Istanbul / Kapadokya), Shobana Jeyasingh, AWA Dance, Luz&Mannion Dance (Flamenco) and Undercurrent Theatre, programmed physical media sculptures with Simeon Nelson and Rob Godman, live coded in Mexico and in Berlin with sitar player Shama Rahman, collaborated with the body>data>space collective in Prague, Paris and Dresden, written software for Studio Wayne McGregor, Beinghuman in Kathmandu, the Pina Bausch Foundation and Nesta's FutureFest, consulted for Tate Modern, and developed algorithmic visuals for large-scale outdoor projections in Poland, Estonia, the Cambridge Music Festival and Lumiere (London / Durham). He has taught design at CODE Berlin and currently runs the Computer Science undergraduate course at University of the Arts London.

Nick Rothwell - Project Cassiel - https://cassiel.com

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Music Producer and DJ Danny Briottet gives a fascinating insight into his formative years, including the global musical influences that shaped his career, being part of Rhythm Riders and organising warehouse parties across West London.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:30 - Rhythm Riders
03:15 - London Sound Systems
06:02 - Getting Into Music and Visiting Berlin
12:33 - DJing in New York
17:05 - Renegade Soundwave
22:28 - Warehouse Parties
24:20 - The First Singles on Mute
26:59 - Equipment Used in Early Recordings
30:03 - Creating A Unique Sound
35:50 - Releasing 'In Dub'
39:35 - Favourite Equipment and Workflow

Kevin Briottet Biog
Musician, DJ and producer. Founder member of Renegade Soundwave, UK electronic music pioneers at the forefront of the original dance / electronica explosion of the late 80s/ 90s with seminal tracks such as The Phantom, Women Respond To Bass and Probably A Robbery. RSW name-checked as a primary influence on artists such as The Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers, whist the 1988 release Ozone Breakdown is often cited as the first Jungle tune.

Danny’s production and remix credits include Depeche Mode, Cypress Hill, Grace Jones, Aswad, Radiohead, Moby and Orbital, together with a wealth of World Music artists such as Esma Redzepova (Macedonia), Amina Anabi (Tunisia) and Cheick Tidiane (Mali).

Danny Briottet continues to DJ globally playing his unique mix of dub-influenced sounds from bass and breaks, through dubbed-out deep house and downtempo electronica, and hosts The ElectroScope Show on London’s Soho Radio, mashing up electronic music from the 70s to the present.

Danny’s new full-length artist album is due for release next year.

https://www.dannybriottet.com/

Kevin Paul Biog
Kevin Paul started his career as a DJ but quickly found his passion was sound engineering. His first audio job was at Soho Studios in 1991, moving to Konk Studios six months later, where he worked alongside successful producers and engineers such as Bob Clearmountain, Adam Mosley, Pascal Gabriel and Gil Norton, as well as bands such as The Kinks, Galliano, Terrorvision, UFO and Elastica.

After working on archiving the Depeche Mode back catalogue in 1994, he was offered an engineering role at Mute Records’ in-house studio, which eventually lead to a position as Head Engineer, which gave him access to the entire Mute Records roster. Highlights include mixing Goldfrapp’s “Felt Mountain”, David Bowie’s “Hours” and Nick Cave’s “No More Shall We Part”. He also worked in 5:1, mixing Moby’s “Hotel”, Goldfrapp’s “Black Cherry“ and more for DVD.

In 2004 Kevin went freelance and re-mixed the entire Depeche Mode and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds back catalogues for SACD/DVD. Since 2008, Kevin Paul has been in charge of mixing and remixing performances at the iTunes Festivals in the UK and Germany. He has mixed over 100 artists to date, including Adele, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The XX, Calvin Harris, Foo Fighters, Jack White, Linkin Park, Florence & The Machine, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Jessie J., Norah Jones, Oasis, Mumford & Sons, N.E.R.D., Lykke Li, James Blunt, KT Tunstall, Hot Chip, Paul Weller and many more.

He continues to record, engineer, produce and mix many projects in music and film, runs the mixing and surround mixing modules for the Masters Degree course at UK’s Westminster University and divides his time between London and Berlin. Recent works include the International selling new album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and mixing the latest album of Denmark’s “Dúné” with the first single premiering at the Danish Music Awards, plus the latest iTunes Music Festival.

http://www.kevin-paul.com/

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President and co-founder of Arturia, Frédéric Brun, talks to Sam Inglis about the company's eventful history, taking in highlights such as the innovative MiniBrute, the epic PolyBrute and the company's first stage keyboard, the new AstroLab.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
01:52 - Storm & The Early Days Of Software Synthesis
02:53 - Emulating Classic Analogue Synths
07:23 - How To Approach An Emulation
08:24 - IRCAM And Physical Modelling
10:56 - Expanding Into Hardware
13:43 - The MiniBrute: Arturia's First Analogue Synth
18:16 - Synths For iPad & iOS
20:03 - The MatrixBrute
24:26 - The Importance Of User Feedback
26:48 - Development Time
28:53 - Moving Into Different Market Sectors
30:36 - Pigments: An Original Soft Synth
31:37 - The PolyBrute Morphing Analogue Polysynth
33:32 - AstroLab: Arturia's Stage Keyboard

Arturia Biog
Based in the French city of Grenoble, Arturia have built on their roots as pioneering developers of virtual instruments to become one of the world's leading manufacturers of analogue, digital and software synthesizers, controller keyboards and audio interfaces.

Launched in 1999 by college friends Frédéric Brun and Gilles Pommereuil, the company initially started out by developing software that could accurately emulate retro analogue synths. In 2003 they started to work with some of the major manufacturers, turning out virtual versions of classic Moog, Roland, Yamaha and Sequential Circuits synths.

In 2012 they launched their first analogue synth, the MiniBrute, later followed by the MicroBrute, MatrixBrute and PolyBrute.

Celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, the company continues to grow and their product line now includes a wide range of soft synths, apps, controllers, audio interfaces and hardware synths.

Sam Inglis Biog
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts

Get a print or digital subscription to Sound On Sound magazine.