Twitter -vs- Facebook - Qual O Melhor Para Os Músicos?

Twitter -vs- Facebook - What’s a better site for musicians?

As a social media manager who represents numerous band and solo artists, I spent a countless amount of time working and playing on Facebook, Twitter, and the many other social media platforms which exist in the online landscape. Over the years, I have gained a unique insight into the various platforms out there in the context of music marketing.

So which one is the best for artists trying to promote their music?

In this article I will focus on comparing the two most popular and well known social media site, Facebook and Twitter. While both platforms have their own strengths and weaknesses, when it comes to marketing your music, one of them clearly stands out. That platform is Twitter.

Let me share with you some of the reasons I have found Twitter to be far superior

than Facebook when it comes to music marketing.

1. The ability to reach a wider audience - When it comes to reach, there is one important difference between Twitter and Facebook - Facebook limits the reach of your posts, Twitter does not.

Are you familiar with the Facebook algorithm called Edgerank?

What Edgerank does is it assigns a rank to each Facebook action that occurs (updates, comments, likes, shares, etc). It tries to ensure that only the most relevant and engaging content will be seen be your friends, fans, and subscribers - This normally works out to about 1% of your target audience. This helps to keep your Home Feed clean and relevant, but more importantly it gives Facebook the ability to tax you to reach the rest of your audience.

Twitter on the other hand, has no such limitations. Each time you send out a tweet, your post will be seen by everyone of your followers viewing their Twitter feed at that moment or by looking back at their feed retrospectively. Also, each time you get retweeted,  your reach grows further to include all the followers of the person who retweeted your post.

On Facebook, recieving a like, comment, or share on your post only means that a few more of your friends and a handful of your engagers friends will ever see the post.

So having 10,000 “likes” on Facebook really only means that about 100 of your fans on average are going to see your posts. 10,000 followers on Twitter means that potentially all 10,000 fans are reading each tweet. Now that’s reach!

2. Fan engagement - From my experience in working with Social Media over the years, Twitter is by far the more engaged platform of the two. In my opinion, Twitter is just a far more interactive and personal experience.

Whereas Facebook is great great way to mark important milestones in your musical journey, Twitter is more of a real-time journal documenting the day to day struggles and triumphs in the life of a hungry musician. The kind of insight that allows your fans to know you, not only as an artist, but as a person.

When it comes to marketing your music, the aim is to not simply to build your fanbase. You get the best value for your efforts by building an interpersonal relationship with each one of your fans. Twitter, way more than Facebook, encourages and fosters that one-on-one relationship. When you follow someone on Twitter you subscribing to every dirty little detail of their life. I don’t know about you, but when I find an artist whose music really resonates with me I want to know as much as I possibly can about them. Twitter allows for this in ways Facebook can only wish for. When it comes to fan engagement, Facebook only provides a light snack between meals, whereas Twitter rolls out an entire 5 course meal.

3. Facebook costs more - Let’s start with Facebook. Love it or hate it, Facebook is a staggeringly successful business. In the last 3 to 4 years Facebook has become more money driven than ever (I’m sure you’ve noticed the ever increasing amount of ads that have been showing up in your beloved newsfeed).

Let’s say you want to grow your audience on Facebook. You’ll need to first get to know your way around the Facebook advertising platform, then spend some time writing and setting up some enticing ads to catch the attention of potential fans. Next it’s time to fork out some cash (anywhere from 50 cents up to 2 bucks) to convert to coveted eyeballs that every marketer is fighting for into fans. But that’s not all. After spending a few hundred dollars building up a nice little Facebook fanbase, you now find out that only a measly 1% will see each post on average.

So how do you get the rest of them?

You got it - by promoting your post. A privilege that will cost you no less than 5 bucks a pop.

Cost is the number one reason why most music marketing experts love and swear by Twitter. Twitter all you to promote your music and grow your fanbase year round without spending a dime.

Now combine this with some relatively (or free)  inexpensive third party twitter tools and a good understanding of your target audience, and this form of promotion not only costs next to nothing, it has the ability to drives waves of new fans to your music. All at little or no cost.

Review

Twitter is a platform built around conversation. And as an artist looking to grow your audience and connect with like minded individuals, the world is truly yours for the taking. You can not only find people based on what they are currently talking about, but also what kind of music they are into - something easily determined by which artists and accounts a particular user is following. On Facebook the best I can do is to pay to run ads targeting people who “like” a particular page or interest.

Sony/ATV Lançam APP (Score) Para Verificação De Royalties

Sony/ATV Launches App for 'SCORE' Royalty Portal

After giving its SCORE royalty portal a makeover in May, Sony/ATV Music Publishing is today (Aug 29) launching an app version of the service, allowing songwriters to access real-time data about their earnings on iOS and Android.

Like its online alternative, the app offers constantly-updated earnings information that can be searched and organized by song title, income source, time period and territory. The app also includes SCORECARD, a feature offering a graphic summary of each writer's royalties for both current and past periods.

“At Sony/ATV we are committed to providing our songwriters and their teams with an unrivaled level of transparency and service, which includes giving them access to the most highly-detailed royalty information available," said Sony/ATV chairman and CEO Martin Bandier in a statement. "The launch of the SCORE app is an important next step in us delivering on that promise and now means our writers can obtain an unsurpassed insight into their historic and current period earnings with one simple click.”

For example, after signing into the app, the home page gives the money earned by the songwriter during the period; as well as what was earned and payed in the previous period. With one touch, writers can see their earnings broken out by country and will have the further choice to click on a map view. The map view gives the ability to click on any country to see revenue by the top license type, the top songs and the top sources, i.e. digital services and collection societies, in those countries.

Adds 2016 ACM and BMI Songwriter Of The Year Ross Copperman (who has written for the likes of Kenny Chesney, Brett Eldredge and Keith Urban): “Sony/ATV continues to pursue fair compensation for songwriters and, at the same time, makes worldwide information related to my songs easily accessible to me.”

The new SCORE app joins a growing list of similar digital initiatives to offer songwriters and other music industry players greater transparency in tracking their earnings. BMG recently launched an app version of its online MyBMG 3.0 royalties portal, and the Kobalt-owned AWAL released an app for artists, labels and managers to track streaming presence.

Tomorrowland 2017 Clama Pelo Título De Maior Mídia Social De Música Com Mais de 1 Bilhão De Visualizações

Tomorrowland 2017 Claims Title of Biggest Social Media Music Event Ever With Over 1 Billion Views

More than 200 million unique fans tuned in to watch the festival. 

If you thought Belgium's Tomorrowland was massive, wait till you see its reach on social media. Even 16 stages, 200 nationalities and 360,000 visitors across two weekends pale in comparison to those viewing the 2017 event from homes and mobile devices.

Official live stream and social media content for Tomorrowland exceeded 1.2 billion views by more than 200 million unique fans. The festival has declared itself the largest engagement for a music event in history -- and that's not taking into account the social streams of those playing the festival, nor the coverage from fans in the field.

“Tomorrowland became so much more than a festival,” headliner Armin van Buuren said in a statement. “It’s an amazing feeling to know that while you’re getting goosebumps at the MainStage in Belgium, literally millions of people around the world are watching my performance, even organizing home parties and having an amazing time as well.”

Viewers around the world tuned in via multi-channel live streams during the July 27-30 event on the Tomorrowland website and via it's official app. Daily coverage included the Main Stage and Freedom Stage, as well as coverage of special-curated stages by A State of Trance, Monstercat, Drumcode, Paradise, and more.

A special Tomorrowland Snapchat “Our Story” was available to users in six languages around the world. More than 77 million snaps were watched by more than 4.3 million users.

“I felt what I felt the first time I played, something that cannot be explained in words or seen on a video,” longtime headliner David Guetta added in a statement. “Not only has the growth of the event itself been amazing but also the content that they produce, like the live registration and after-movie. It just gets better and better each year. I think it’s great that people at home can watch the live stream and experience the festival as if they were there themselves.”

Indústria Da Música Pode Atingir US 41 Bilhões Em 2030

Music Industry Will Hit $41 Billion By 2030 According to New Goldman Sachs Report

An analyst forecasted that streaming will account for $34 billion of the total revenues. 

The global recorded music industry will grow into a nearly $41 billion behemoth by 2030, thanks largely to the growth of streaming, according to Goldman Sachs analyst Lisa Yang and her team.

The Goldman Sachs analyst further predicts that streaming will account for $34 billion of that, of which $28 billion will come from paid subscription while $6 billion will come from ad-supported streaming services. She predicts that another $4 billon will come from performance rights, synchronization will be $500 million, physical and downloads $700 million and other come in at $1.2 billion.

The report further states that thanks to the explosion of streaming, the Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment should carry hefty valuations. Both companies are themselves not listed in the stock market, but the shares of their parents, respectively Vivendi and Sony. Corp., are publicly traded.

Looking at the Universal Music Group, Yang assigns a valuation of 19.5 billion euros, which according to the OandA website, converts to $23.3 billion; while she says that her estimates for Sony Music Entertainment’s performance suggests a valuation of 2.16 trillion yen or $19.8 billion.

Looking at UMG, Yang breaks out her estimates for that company, which helped derive its valuation. In the Goldman Sachs report, she estimates UMG’s revenue at 12.6 billion euros  ($15.05 billion) by 2030 (that’s twice its current level), of which 1.58 billion euros ($1.89 billion) will be from publishing; 9.3 billion euros ($11.11 billion) from streaming; 1.1 billion euros $1.3 billion) from artist services and music licensing; 500 million euros ($597 million) from merchandising and 150 million euros ($179.2 million) from physical and download sales.

In 2016, U.S. recorded music sales were up by double digits for the first time in nearly 20 years to 11.4 percent with $7.65 billion in revenue, according to the RIAA. That was up from $6.87 million in 2015. Although the music business showed signs of a recovery at the half-year mark, the 2016 year-end results show more significant growth, led by streaming revenue. This was the first time since 1998 that the U.S industry experienced a double digit increase in overall revenue.

Porque Sua Apresentação Acústica Não Precisa Ser Chata

Why Your Acoustic Show Doesn't Have To Suck

First of all thanks to Wade Sutton for this article.

Acoustic shows at venues such as coffee houses and restaurants are safety nets for a lot of artists not willing to put effort into learning how to perform.  I said “a lot of”, not “all”.

Think for a moment about how many times you have walked into an acoustic show and saw a singer/songwriter just standing there.  Doing song after song.  Nothing memorable.  Nothing worth talking about.  Background noise.

You know what I am talking about.  The kind of shows after which most people walk away not even being able to tell you the name of the performer.

So many artists forget about and fail to take advantage of what makes an acoustic show in a small venue so important to building a fan base.  The audience is close to you.  The setting is intimate.  The audience can see you expressing emotions with your eyes and face.

Yet so few actually capitalize on the opportunity.  

I have had this article idea cued up for some time and kept pushing it back because I was writing about other things.  But then something happened over Easter weekend that resulted in me deciding it was time to hammer this thing out.

...What Happened Leading Up To Easter Weekend...

About two weeks before Easter weekend, a 17-year-old client reached out to me because she was going to be traveling from her home near Nashville to the state of California, where she would be playing a fundraiser at a coffee house called the Night Owl.  See, the coffee house has this great idea where they invite artists to perform for tips and then the venue matches those tips in the form of a donation to help an area family in need.

We didn't have a lot of time to put the show together because, like I said, she contacted me two weeks before the show plus she was going to lose three days of rehearsal time because her family was driving to California.  We had to bust our butts because I really wanted her to make a splash at the fundraiser.

The show that was put together was barely over an hour in length when rehearsed in full.  It was just her, her guitar, and a microphone.  We worked on everything:  Finding just the right song order, the manner in which she looked at the audience at any given time, the way she expressed emotions, the things she said and how she said them, the stories she told, the way she moved around the stage, and her body language when she was talking.  We even found strategic points in the show for her to bring up the tip jar and that she was collecting e-mails from the audience (so that she could later market to them directly and turn them into FANS).

The artist worked her butt off and went out on a limb when I would suggest doing things on stage that would otherwise be out of her comfort zone.

So what happened?

I woke up Easter morning (the show had taken place the night before) and discovered that the artist had texted me around 3:30 in the morning.  Her mother had also e-mailed me around the same time.  They were both extremely excited.  See, she didn't just break the venue's record for the most tip money brought in during their fundraiser series.

She broke the previous record...by more than double.  

I'm not going to say in this article how much money she made but I will say this:  It was so much money that the coffee house's match was enough to send SIX local kids to summer camp later this year.

Oh, and she also had approximately 70 people at the show sign up for her e-mail list.

At an acoustic show...at a coffee house.

Why?  Because her show didn't suck.

…The Three Excuses...

The “acoustic coffee house show” (ACHS for the rest of this article) is a popular gig for upcoming artists because they don't have to have a full band in place.  Anybody who has ever tried to put together a band can relate with the frustration singers and musicians experience when trying to bring together the right group of people who are all operating on the same wave length and have the same amount of dedication to the project.  It can be a real pain in the ass, even more so if a struggling artist or band find themselves faced with coming up with the money to pay a musician to stand in for a show or two.

So the typical ACHS is a great way for the artist to grab their guitar and venture out on their own to do a show and possibly build up their fan base.  But many artists get on stage in this type of setting and just stand there behind the microphone giving the crowd no reason to actually WATCH them.  Then when they are asked about how the show went they respond with, “It was okay.  The crowd didn't react much but I had a lot of fun there!”

Okay.  First of all, whether YOU had fun is in no way an indication of whether the audience had fun.  I know this is going to sound harsh but you having fun in front of a lukewarm audience does more to hurt you as an artist than it does to help you.  Why?  Because a lukewarm reaction (or no reaction at all) from the crowd is a clear sign of a sub-par product...and you do NOT want to be putting a sub-par product out there for potential fans to consume.

When pressed further on the issue, the conversation with these particular artists leads to one of three responses:  “I want them to appreciate my songs” or “Aren't people coming to an acoustic show at a coffee shop expecting something laid back?” or “Audiences don't typically get that drawn in to a show made up of originals that they have never heard before.”

As far as wanting people to appreciate you for your songs, that is fine as long as your songs are awesome.  Insanely awesome.  Blow-your-mind awesome...which accounts for about one-percent of the all the songs currently in existence.  If that.

The other 99% range from pretty decent to shoot me and put me out of my misery...which means your live performance needs to pick up some of the slack.  Nothing is worse than mediocre songs accompanied by no performance skills.  

On the idea that people have a certain expectation when it comes to ACHSs.  Do you know why audiences at that type of show typically have low expectations?  Because most artists haven't given them any reason to expect anything better.  All I need to hear is “I'm doing an acoustic show at a coffee house,” and I immediately wonder if I should be tested for Narcolepsy because I suddenly find myself yawning uncontrollably.  I even yawned while I was typing that.  

Stop doing what people are “expecting” and do something that exceeds their expectations.  Don't give them what they are expecting.  If they are expecting one thing, it is probably because that is all they are used to seeing in that environment.  If they keep seeing the same thing over and over, they become fan-complacent and you become background noise.  So figure out what other people are doing and you do something radically different.  I will guarantee that you will see VERY different results at your shows.  

And the old fall back about audiences don't get into songs they aren't familiar with?  That is true to an extent.  A killer PERFORMANCE goes a long way toward solving that problem.  I remember years ago being dragged to a show in Struthers, Ohio (near Youngstown) to see a band I had never heard until that night.  I was sucked in for two hours because the energy was through the roof and the performance was so good.  And, more importantly, I REMEMBERED THE SONGS because of it.

...Because Last Impressions Are Just As Important As First Impressions...

Back to the show I was helping my client with.  The performance was put together to create a lot of build up going into the end of the final song.  I told her I wanted her to get out from behind the microphone and move to the lip of the stage to put “pressure” on the audience to look at her.  The song ended with her jamming hard on her guitar before hold it in the air and striking a pose that could only be described as very Bruce Springsteen-like.  It was something very different from what one would expect at this kind of show.  But for it to work, everything up to that point had to be planned out to make the audience experience certain emotions.  She drew them in and made them FEEL.

To be honest, I knew the show was going to be a success about one week before it happened.  That is because she told me on Skype that she broke out some of the produced performances while on stage at BB King's in Nashville.  She wanted to try it out and get a feel for it in front of an actual crowd.  When I asked how it went, she said exactly what I was hoping to hear.

“The energy was much different and people were WATCHING instead of just listening.”

One week later in California, with a fully produced show in her back pocket, people weren't just watching.  They were becoming fans.  Most artists doing one hour at a coffee shop would kill to make half of what she made in tips during that hour.  The elation in the text message she sent me and the e-mail from her mother said it all.

Audience expectations are like walls and it is your job to kick them down...and when it comes to live performance, good enough is not good enough.

Astell & Kern Novo Music Player De Luxo

Astell & Kern's New Deluxe Hi-Res Music Player Packs A Mighty Musical Punch

First of all thanks to Mark Sparrow for this article.

How much do you enjoy music? Is it something that you have on in the background when working or is it something you simply can't live without and that you listen to incessantly? If you’re anything like me you’ll fall into the latter group. I’m infatuated with music and my collection of CDs ranges from early medieval polyphony all the way up to new music from around the world. Sometimes I’ll listen to music in the background when I’m working but for at least part of the day I will select an album or a playlist and settle down with a pair of headphones, shut my eyes and let the music carry me away. It’s better than meditation.

For those of us who are fanatical about our music, sound quality and clarity really matter. While I can listen to music on my iPhone, I really enjoy it best when I’m listening on my home audio system. So what can I do if I’m away from home or not in my music room and I really want to listen – rather than hear – to some music?

Well, for the past few weeks I’ve been treated to a music player that offers the same kind of performance as my main audio system but in a much smaller and more portable format. The Astell & Kern KANN is a new HI-Res music player from the geniuses at Korean company IRIVER. I looked at the AK70 and the AK Jr a while back, but this time I’m trying out the slightly more expensive and far more capable KANN to see what extra it offers for the money.

The KANN is a chunky piece of kit. This is no iPod Nano. It’s a trapezoidal shaped device that’s quite angular and no lightweight at nearly 10oz or 280g. The weight is mainly due to a huge 6200mAh battery that provides up to 15 hours of playback. This is definitely a music player for long-haul flights.

Finished in a unique ribbed aluminium, the KANN is available in a grey or blue finish. The first thing you notice about the design is the exquisite knurled volume control that sits like a cut-out cylinder in the right hand side of the player. It’s so tactile that you feel the urge just to turn it, just to feel its satisfying click. The screen is a 4-inch WVGA (480 x 800) touchscreen. It’s fairly responsive to touch but not the most detailed screen, but as it’s only displaying low-res album names and artwork, it’s absolutely fine. These devices aren’t mass-produced so it’s unlikely that Astell & Kern is going to be able to use something like Apple’s Retina screens.

Astell & Kern

The build quality of the Astell & Kern KANN is second to none and fashioned from a seamless block of aluminium.

The top and bottom plates of the Astell & Kern Kann are made from a Neoprene type material that’s smooth to the touch and which doesn’t show up fingerprints or scratches from trying to locate the headphone jack. It’s a thoughtful touch that keeps the player looking really nice. On the top plate there is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a 2.5mm jack for using a pair of balanced headphones. Bext to those two there’s another identical set of jack sockets that are for taking a line out, both normal and balanced, so you can hook up the KANN to an external amplifier. Finally, there’s a small power button for tuning the device on and off.

At the other end of the KANN, on the base plate, there are slots for Micro SD and SD cards. You can choose either format and they’re good for sizes up to 256GB in Micro SD and 512GB in SD, which should be enough for most people’s music collections, even in Hi-Res formats. There’s also 64GB of onboard storage, giving a total capacity at any one time of up to 832GB.

Also on the baseplate is a USB-C port for charging up the KANN and a Micro USB port that you can use to feed the digital signal into an external DAC or to use the KANN as an external DAC itself, taking the signal from another device. This is a very flexible device that can functions as a music player, a transport player or an external DAC. The possibilities are endless. It’s certainly a really good way of keeping your digital music collection on one device that you can either listen to portably or as the main transport centrepiece to your audio system, much as a CD player would have served 10 years ago.

Physical controls on the Astell & Kern KANN are quite minimal because most of the controls are on the device’s touch screen. Just under the screen there are some discreet buttons for stopping, playing, pausing, as well as Skip and Reverse buttons for navigating through your tracks.

At the heart of this gorgeous player sits a single AKM AK4490 DAC that can handle native DSD playback up to DSD256 (11.2mHz) as well as PCM audio playback up to 32bit/382kHz. Many other Hi-Res players will downsample files to 24-bit, but the KANN can handle these in native format.

The DAC feeds the signal through to a specially designed headphone amplifier that has normal and high gain settings. The KANN will drive headphones with very low impedance so there’s virtually no pair of headphones it can’t drive.

Astell & Kern

At one inch thick and 10oz in weight, the Astell & Kern KANN is no slender iPod Nano but it does include a large battery with up to 15 hours of playing time between charges.

The fabulous design and amazing specifications are one thing, but can you really hear a difference listening to the KANN? Well, yes you KANN. I set up some blind testing as I’m very much aware that there can be a placebo effect when listening to audio. It’s all too easy to get carried away with the marketing hype and believe that expensive always means better.

To start with, the KANN has a very low floor level in its amplifier circuitry. There’s little or no noise in the background that you can hear on cheaper devices. If you want you can even use a pair of Astell & Kern’s balanced 4-pole headphones that will squeeze out any last vestiges of noise and has the strength to increase output with its double transmitting signals.

The sound quality from the KANN is going to be very much reliant on the source files. Of course it does a marvellous job playing Hi-Res formats like DSD and FLAC, if you have them, but it’s on the regular MP3 or AAC files that it really can show it’s pedigree. We all know there’s a trade off when we rip CDs to iTunes. A lot of detail gets thrown away but that’s the price we pay for carrying hundreds or even thousands of songs around in our pocket. But even with the lossy files, a great player like the KANN can breathe new life into your music collection.

The quality of the KANN's amplifier really drives a good pair of headphones and injects an incredible sense of musicality. I was listening to António Zambujo’s excellent ‘Até Pensei Que Fosse Minha’ album, ripped at Apple’s AAC setting, and the warmth and detail available, especially in the low acoustic bass notes was incredibly revealing. This is a player that can wring every last ounce of detail from any digital file and serve it up in a musical style that really draws you into the music. Normally, when I’m reviewing devices like this, I end up listening to the audio rather than the music; with the KANN I found myself listening to the music and forgetting the audio. I try to make mental notes as I’m listening, especially on how the music is being presented, but I found it very hard with the KANN as I kept drifting off into the music, forgetting that I was supposed to be producing a forensic and subjective review of how the player sounded.

Astell & Kern

There are two headphone outputs and two line-out outputs on the top of the Astell & Kern KANN. The smaller 2.5mm outputs are balanced outputs.

In use the Astell & Kern KANN is a gorgeous piece of kit. Everything about it exudes high quality. Yes it’s on the chunky side but, frankly, I love music and I want long battery life and the best performance possible. I’d be happy to take the hit and put up with an extra 10oz of hardware in my work bag in order to be able to enjoy music reproduced as well as my main home hi-fi system does. And, on the plus side, it means I could move my music from my iPhone to a dedicated player and free up that incredibly expensive Apple RAM for other things like photos or apps.

As well as playing stored music, the KANN has dual band Wi-Fi built in so you can connect to a music streaming service like Tidal and Spotify via your internet connection. I particularly enjoyed listening to Hi-Res tracks from Tidal without having to rip music to my computer first. Streaming services can be quite a high monthly outlay but if you enjoy music as much as I do, it’s so convenient to be able to stream CD-quality tracks from almost any album ever recorded.

The Wi-Fi capability also enables you to access any DLNA/NAS servers on your home network really easily. Astell & Kern has also developed its AK Connect app which means you can access and stream the music already held on your smartphone. It’s a great idea and it works really well. As you’d expect, the KANN also includes Bluetooth capability so you can connect to wireless headphones using the apt-X and apt-X HD codecs.

Verdict: Astell & Kern have really pulled a chunky rabbit out of the hat with the release of the KANN. Yes it is quite large at nearly an inch thick and 10oz in weight, but if you really love your music you’re going to fall in love with the KANN. Its long battery life, superb build quality, exceptional musicality and masses of dual-media storage means it ticks every box you could ever want ticked. It’s fair to say that $999 is quite a bit to shell out on a digital music player, but for those of us who live to listen to music, this is a way of having the best digital music on the move or at home. It's the ultimate player and external DAC.

Prices: $999 / £899 / €1,099

More info: https://us.astellnkern.com

Specifications 

• DAC: Single AKM AK4490 DAC
• Native DSD playback up to DSD256 (11.2mHz)
• PCM audio playback up to 32bit/382kHz
• Built-in amp with normal/high gain switch:.
• Output impedance: Single-ended 3.5mm: 0.65Ω / Balanced out 2.5mm: 1.3Ω
• Interfaces: USB Type-C support (charging & data transfer) and Micro USB for USB audio out and USB DAC
• Dedicated Line Out (2.5mm balanced & 3.5mm single-ended)
• 64GB internal flash memory
• Micro SD card support up to 256GB
• Full-size SD card support up to 512GB
• apt-X HD Bluetooth codec support
• 4" WVGA 800 x 480 LCD touch screen
• Battery: 6,200mAh 3.7V Li-Polymer battery (up to 15 hours)

Astell & Kern

The Astell & Kern KANN is impeccably presented in a box complete with cable and clear plastic sheets to protect the screen.

Codemasters Revela Os Sons Do Video Game De Formula 1

Codemasters audio team revs up the realism of formula one gaming with the Sound Devices MixPre-6

For three decades, Codemasters® has been one of the United Kingdom’s leading videogame developers with such classics like the TOCA series of touring car games, as well as Dizzy, DiRT, GRID Autosport, and the official games of FORMULA ONE™. The F1 racing series is created by a team of professional artists and sound designers headquartered at the company’s Birmingham studio.

The Audio Lead on F1 is Brad Porter, who worked his way up to that position after landing a job as a quality assurance tester in the competitive gaming industry. “I’ve always been a gamer since I was about 6, so (eventually) I started looking into game audio, and I tailored my third year projects at university toward game audio.”

Codemasters Junior Sound Designer for F1, David Gurney recorded these sounds trackside at Goodwood Circuit in the UK in 2017. It features a flyover of Hawk T1s by the Royal Air Force Red Arrows aerobatic team followed by passing race cars on the track. To make the recording, he used the MixPre-6 in an Orca bag with a Superlux S502 stereo mic and Rycote baby ball gags.

Rounding out the F1 team is the Senior Audio Designer, James Kneen, who got his start burning games onto CDs. He has been with “Codies”, as the company is affectionately known, for about nine years, while the Junior Audio Designer on F1, David Gurney, joined the team in early 2016, just before completing a research degree in game audio.

The trio has worked exclusively on F1 2017 in recent months, and they always take audio very seriously.

“Racing is sort of a niche genre, especially something like F1,” Brad says. “Obviously with racing games, they’re not really one of those games you can play with the volume on mute. We have quite a lot of fan feedback if we get anything wrong. Fans like to hear the engine tone, and they like to know, based on the engine tone, when to shift gears and all that. So we work really hard to try and get that right, and get our vehicles sounding as authentic as possible.”

Over the years, the company’s audio teams have used a range of audio gear, including a Sound Devices 788T-SSD, which was used on projects like the DiRT franchise and GRID Autosport, where the 12-track recorder was onboard the vehicles with the sound designer adjusting levels on the fly. But when it came to capturing the high-octane sounds of Formula 1 racing, Brad says they needed something different.

“We’ve still got the 788T-SDD, and that still gets used. Although it doesn’t really get used for F1 because of its size. We’d never get that in an F1 car. We have to go with smaller devices.” 

That meant turning to other smaller, prosumer audio recorders, but using them has posed some issues.

“One problem we have with some of our other non-Sound Devices recorders is the gain controls can get knocked quite easily,” Brad says, “so you’ll set the gain and want it to remain at that level all the time, but quite often on our other recorders, that gets knocked, and it’s actually ruined takes for us before. You know the levels have been way too hot or we’ve recorded nothing at all on occasions. One thing we were looking for when we were looking at other devices to replace some of our other (recorders) was the ability to lock out the gain controls so you can now use the rotaries as just volume faders.”

They found that ability when two team members purchased MixPre-6 audio recorders from Sound Devices for personal use.

“I’d never really used a Sound Devices piece of gear before,” admits James. “I knew of Sound Devices, I know (the company) has a really good reputation. The MixPre-6 in particular—the specs were what I was looking at—4 XLR inputs. I’ve been thinking about using it with the Sennheiser Ambeo mic, so it was important to have those inputs. I just thought the form-factor of the thing was very attractive. It’s a nice little, buff, compact unit.”

Other features attracted David. “Preamp quality was one thing that really drew me to the MixPre-6 over some of the others,” he says. “When you’re out in the field, having clear access to all of the interface, it’s not feeling small, and everything is tactile. You can record very easily with it and get good results out of it, and I saw that potential when I was looking at the videos online.”

Brad adds, “All three of us were watching some video reviews while we were comparing the Sound Devices MixPre-6 to some of the competitors, and they were preamp tests, and Sound Devices on every video was coming up with the cleanest sounding preamp.”

So, James and David placed orders as soon as the new audio recorder, with its ultra-low-noise, Class-A Kashmir™ preamps, was available in the UK. Once the team had the MixPre-6 recorders in hand, they put them through their own trial runs.

“The first thing that strikes you is the build quality and form factor. It’s really beautifully engineered. It’s quite gorgeous. The preamps are amazing quality. They’re really focused, warm and smooth, and lovely,” says James, adding, “We did some internal tests between the MixPre-6 and a competitor’s recorder. We found that—we don’t do a lot of dialog ourselves—but the actual quality of the dialog on the MixPre was more intimate and warmer. It doesn’t sound as harsh…. It’s an amazing product.”

“Yeah, (the sound) is more like you hear it,” David says, “and with the projects that we work on, it needs to be accurate, and these recorders seem like they do that.

“For personal use, I’ve got a few recorders, but the MixPre-6 is my only Sound Devices, and it’s my recorder of choice,” David says, then laughs, adding, “when the application requires something that’s decent. There are others to use if you’ve got to be discrete, but this is the recorder I take with me to do almost anything.”

Although purchased for personal use, it didn’t take long for the lightweight MixPre-6s to find a way into the team’s professional gear bags and on location trackside for race day.

“Obviously, with our job, we’re trackside quite often,” Brad says. “We’ve recently been to Budapest, and it was really hot and sunny. There’s not much shade around, and again… I had one of our other recorders, and I was struggling to see the display on mine in the sunlight, but Dave had no problems—”

David jokingly chimes in, “I had to turn the backlight down on the Sound Devices, because it was burning my eyes.”

“Some of the takes I was doing,” Brad continues, “Because I couldn’t see my display properly on the device I was using, sometimes the levels were too hot. I had to keep shielding the screen so I could see what the levels were peaking at, but we don’t have that problem anymore…using (the MixPre-6s) trackside, and that’s been real useful for us.”

So useful, the company now plans to invest in Sound Devices gear for future projects.

“We’ll be buying at least one MixPre-6 for the company in the next few months, followed by another one a year later,” Brad discloses. “Now that the MixPre-6 is here, they’re at an affordable price-point now, which is why I think (Sound Devices) has found a bit of a niche in the market. You’re competing with some of the recorders we would’ve bought in the past, but you’re offering amazing quality for that price.”

For the most accurate sound effects possible, the team does on-board recordings during test laps at the tracks and records externals on race day using K-tek boom poles with Rycote windshields. They pair their audio recorders with a wide variety of microphones, including miniature DPA 4061s and 4062s, shotgun mics like the Sennheiser MKH 60 or Rode NTG3, and stereo mics like the Rode NT4.

Being able to handle an assortment of microphones is one requirement the team considers vital in an audio recorder, but another feature that has proven beneficial during long sessions at the track is powering. The MixPre-6 offers several powering options from USB-C to AA batteries or L-mount Lithium-Ion batteries. For portability and longevity, the F1 audio team prefers to use the optional accessory called the MX-LMount battery sled.

“The L-mount batteries are awesome,” James says. “The Orca bag that I’ve got gives me access to the two sides of the L-mount sled. I found I can put one battery in, and when that’s getting low, I can put another battery on and unplug the other one, and you can constantly hotswap them. That is really useful track-side…. The L-mount accessory is great.”

When not recording the hum of powerful racing engines, the audio team has found other on-the-job uses for the MixPre-6 in the studio, such as when called upon to record team member interviews for the company’s Marketing Department.

Brad adds, “It’s great for that because it’s such a small form factor as well. You don’t have to carry a bunch of gear around with you. We can go anywhere. We can just take a MixPre-6 with us and a microphone, and we’re good to go.”

Size, inputs, and preamps are all qualities that make the MixPre-6 a “go-to” recorder for Codies’ F1 audio team, but sometimes it’s what a device doesn’t have that’s just as impressive.

David says, “While the MixPre-6 has loads of features, it doesn’t have loads of stuff that we don’t need, because what we do is different—”

“It’s not cluttered,” Brad interjects.

“Right, I mean we don’t use timecode and all that sort of stuff,” David continues, “So we don’t need a timecode generator built into the device, and it just makes it far simpler.”

“Every function feels important,” James finishes. “It’s perfect.”

ABOUT CODEMASTERS:

Founded in 1986, Codemasters is one of the UK’s most successful games developers. Based outside of Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, the Southern campus is the global headquarters for Codemasters Software Company Limited and houses teams that create titles including the DiRT franchise. Other locations include studios in Birmingham where the Formula One series is developed and Runcorn, Cheshire which houses the Evolutions Studios success with Driveclub and Motorstorm. The company also has supporting teams in Malaysia and India. For more information, visit Codies’ website at: www.codemasters.com.

Founded in 1998, Sound Devices, LLC, designs both Sound Devices audio products and Video Devices video products. Sound Devices offers portable audio mixers, digital audio recorders and related equipment for feature film, episodic television, documentary, news gathering, live-event, and acoustical test and measurement applications. Video Devices offers digital video monitors, recorders and related products that address a range of video productions, including fast-paced studio applications, live sports, and events, as well as mobile, TV, film, and documentary productions.