John’s first homemade Reamp® box design became so popular based on word of mouth that he wasn’t able to keep up with the demand by artists such as Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Prince, and others. Radial approached John about acquiring the assets of his company and in 2011, John sold his design and the assets of his company to Radial, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In this interview, we talk to John about the early days of his Reamp® business and how it took off. You can find out more about John on his website at johncuniberti.com.

Radial: Let’s start by rewinding back to the 80s. You’re in the studio and are looking for a way to feed a guitar amplifier with a pre-recorded guitar track from a two inch Studer tape recorder. What were the circumstances around that?

John: I had recorded a live album for Joe Satriani in New York and it was done in the traditional way — with a remote truck parked outside the venue. We recorded a direct signal from the bass via a direct box. And another track with the microphone on the bass amp itself.

Radial: So the beginning of the Reamp® era started with bass, not guitar?

John: Yes, apparently, sometime between soundcheck and the live show, the microphone feed coming from the bass amp developed a buzz. I ended up with a pretty nasty buzz on the bass guitar amplifier on the recording.

Radial: What about the direct out from the bass?

John: The direct out from the bass was clean, but the amplifier itself was problematic throughout the show. They tried to fix it during the show, but it was one of those nasty 60 cycle hums coming out of the rig.

Radial: Were you aware of it at the time?

John: No, I wasn’t. Remote trucks are noisy inside and I was likely just listening to both the mic and amp. So, when it came time to mix the record in San Francisco, I push up the fader for the bass amp, and there it is — that annoying buzz.

Radial: But the performance was fine and intact?

John: Yes, the bass performance was great except for the buzz. So, I pushed up the DI track and it was clean like a DI track should be. So once we started mixing,  I said, “Well, I’ll just use the direct feed track.”

Radial: So, problem solved, theoretically!

John: Yes. So we started mixing and, I don’t know, we just weren’t feeling it. And I just kept thinking, “I think one of the problems is that we don’t have an amplified bass. We don’t have any ‘growl.’ It doesn’t sound like a live record. It sounds too much like a studio record. The bottom end is just too clean. I think we really need to dirty this thing up.”

Radial: So you started looking for a solution.

John: Yes, remember … this is the early ’90s, pre-digital. We didn’t have any real method for dirtying up a bass that’s been cut as a DI. So Joe said to me, “Well, why don’t we just take the DI, stick it into a guitar amplifier, put a microphone on it, dirty it up and record it?” I said, “Well, there’s going to be some problems with that because of impedances.”

Radial: Had you tried this before?

John: We had in the past when we’re trying to do special effects and stuff, which was to take a passive DI and invert it. In other words, take the output of the direct and plug a tape recorder’s output into it, and then take what would normally be the input of the DI, and plug it into the guitar amplifier’s input. In other words, it’s a reverse DI.

Radial: Did that work?

John: Well, it has to be a passive box to do that. Because effectively what you’ve done is dropped the level down a bit, but the impedance is not correct. And the transformer really doesn’t like it. And so you don’t get a flat response and you can pick up a lot of distortion.

Radial: So did that work?

John: It wasn’t perfect, but we went ahead and did that, and I kept thinking as we were mixing this record, “There’s got to be a better way. This just doesn’t make any sense.” So I began thinking, “Why hasn’t anybody made a box that sends the signal the other way — plus four line-level professional recording equipment, whether it be a tape recorder, or a recording console, or a piece of outboard gear — with the ability to adjust the impedance and gain and inject it into a guitar amplifier in such a way that the guitar amplifier thinks the guitar is plugged into it?

Radial: So this was kind of the a-ha moment?

John: I just thought, “Somebody needs to do that.” And so I went to the studio’s tech who is a friend of mine. He had his own office in the studio filled with a lot of test equipment. And I told him what I was trying to do and said, “Can you do this for me?” And he says, “I can’t see why that would be a problem.” He pulled out this big cardboard box that had a bunch of transformers in it and he rifled through it and he pulled out this huge, big UTC transformer. And he says, “I think this might do it. It has the right input and output impedance, and we could get the gain down. We just need to put the right connectors on it.” And I said, “Well, can you put that thing in a metal box and bring it to me? I’m downstairs mixing this record.” So about an hour later, he shows up and he’s just got this huge transformer stuck in a metal box, drilled a couple of holes, put an XLR on one end and a quarter inch female jack on the other, and hands it to me. And I go out to the studio and plug it in, and it sounded 10 times better!

Radial: This is still for the bass track on the Joe Satriani record, correct?

John: Yes. Joe walks in and says, “What are you doing?” I said, “Check this out. It’s like Stu is standing here playing.” By then we had this big SVT bass amp in the studio. And I had that makeshift Reamp® box plugged in and turned way up like it would be at a concert and it was amazing! I threw a microphone on the cabinet. And we went into the control room, pushed up the bass amp fader, and there it was. It was exactly what it needed!

Radial: Did you do this for any other songs?

John: Yes, we continued mixing that song, and then I went back and remixed three others using the makeshift box. Obviously there was no automation in that day, so we had to go back and remix. So we lost a day or two of studio time, but the sound of the bass was correct. It sounded like it was supposed to sound.

Radial: So the genesis of the Reamp® box was not for a guitar track, but for a bass track.

John: Yes, that’s correct! The Satriani record was the impetus for why that box, the original prototype was built.

Radial: What did you do with the prototype from there?

John: I didn’t have a name for it or anything. I carried it around with me for other sessions, trying to think of ways of how I might be able to use it. At that time, I wouldn’t say I didn’t take it seriously, but I was really busy being a recording engineer and a record producer. I really wasn’t into building and manufacturing stuff.

Radial: What was going through your mind? Were you starting to think at that point about turning this prototype into a real thing, or was it going to be a quirky little box that you carried around? At what point did you start thinking about maybe this is going to become a real product?

John: There is a guy by the name of Stephen Jarvis that still lives here in the Bay Area. And he was the go-to equipment rental house in San Francisco. All throughout the ’90s he had a warehouse filled with all the latest and greatest audio gear, black boxes, Dolby racks, microphones. And when you came in, whether you were from out of town, or just a local guy, and you wanted a U47, or the new AMS reverb, you’d go to Stephen, and he would bring it to the studio and plug it in for you. He was making a fortune on rentals, and he was great.

Radial: What role did he play?

John: We were renting a bunch of gear from him. I think he saw the prototype box when he was in the studio one day and I probably even told him about it. I didn’t think much of it. A couple of months go by and he sends me a letter with a check for 500 bucks, and says, “This is a down payment for two of your interface boxes because I think I can rent them.” And I went, “Oh, huh!” I hadn’t even thought of that. Then it occurred to me that maybe somebody else might want to do what I did with it. So I built three more boxes, and I gave him two, and I kept one. These were built better, with better connections. They weren’t just a cheesy little prototype. It was actually more refined, something that remotely looked professional.

Radial: Did you have a name for it at this time?

John: I was kicking that around, thinking, “I’ve got to name this thing something.” So I said, “I’m going to name it the Morning After Box, so if somebody loves their performance but not the sound, they can come back the next day and re-amp it, and it’s all good.” But I got talked out of that, which is probably good. So I finally came up with the idea of calling it what it actually does, re-amp. So I decided on the name Re-amp. I got some rub-on letters and put letters on the side of the box and I called it a Re-amp. I gave it to Stephen. He rents it to Mark Needham, Eric Valentine, and a couple of other local guys. And people start calling me and saying, “Hey, I want to own one. Can you build me one?” And so the demands for these things started coming in and I thought, “Wow, I’m actually going to get in the manufacturing business.”

Radial: How did you go about that?

John: I decided that I would test the waters and build 50, but I had to redesign it completely because the boxes I had didn’t look professional enough. And that big UTC transformer was rare and very, very expensive. So I got a smaller transformer by UTC called an 0-10. And we designed a new circuit for it on a PCB.  And then I thought, “Well, what kind of box can I put it in?” So I went and got tubing, 20 feet of this aluminum tubing and I cut it. And then I had the chassis bent and I slid those things in. And I tied them together with a screw on the bottom. I had them all anodized, and they were called Re-amp and they cost me over $100 apiece to build, and I built 50 of them.

Radial: So all of a sudden, you were in business!

John: I had boxes of them in my garage. I remember standing there looking at them going, “What did I do? This is insane. What a waste of money. Nobody is ever going to want to do this. Why did I get talked into this? I built 50, so I could sell three or four to some friends of mine who are engineers.” That didn’t make any sense. I sold three, I sold four, and then I sold 10, and then four or five weeks goes by I sell two more. Then I thought, “You know what? Since Stephen’s rental company is introducing these things to people and that’s how this whole thing got started, I should just send these things to rental companies in L.A.”

Radial: Up till then it had been limited to the Bay area?

John: Yes, very limited availability. So I put together a little letter explaining what the Re-amp is, and how people that the rental companies rent gear to might be interested in using it. So I sent these LA rental houses the letter with the Re-amp for free. It was $100 in advertising. So I just sent it to all these rental companies in L.A. that were hugely famous. I sold the 50 Reamps probably within two months after that. The word just got out.

Radial: Did demand pick up in other cities?

John: Yes it came from all over because these engineers that were working in L.A. heard about it and used it, but they were from New York. I was getting requests from people from all over the country for these. So I thought, “Well, I guess I’m in the Re-amp business.”

Radial: And so were you doing all this yourself at this time, or did you have some help?

John: Mostly myself. I had a local metal work company cut the chassis and finish them, and then bend the chassis and drill the holes. Then I had a buddy from one of the studios come over and we’d spend a Saturday and a Sunday in my backyard wiring these things up. And we could probably do 10, 15, 20 of them in one day. I got all the parts, laid them all out in front of us, and we just built them there in the backyard. I also had a company do all the anodizing, and the screen printing. And then we would assemble them. And then I would wrap them up in bubble wrap, put them in a box with just one piece of paper to explain what it was and how it worked. And that was it, and then I’d just waited for orders.

Radial: How were you handling the sales process?

John: Remember, this is before the internet. So I would get phone calls, or letters from people. In fact, I got a letter from Edward Van Halen. “I heard about your box. I want your box. Here’s a check. Send me your box.” Like that. And so I would wrap these things up and I would ship them and I’d make 50. And then I made another 50, and then maybe a year later I decided to maybe do a run of 100. And by then I got away from anodizing and I started having them powder-coated. And when I started powder coating, I could do different colors. So I decided every year I would do a different run of color.

Radial: What was the color of the first run?

John: I think my first run might have been black. My next run was Neve gray. I did red ones later. So, I would change colors. And then this guy that worked for Prince called me and said, “Hey, Prince wants a couple of your Re-amps.” And I thought, “Oh, man, I’m just about to do a new run. I think I’m going to make some purple ones.” So I did a run of about 10 or 20 purple Reamps. And I sent two to Prince and I called it the Prince issue.

Radial: Did it actually have a product name at this time, or were you just calling it the Re-amp?

John: I decided that I better get a trademark for the name, so I applied for a trademark for Re-amp, and the trademark folks got back to me and said, “We can’t do it.” Turns out there was some other product by a company called Re-amp, and it had absolutely nothing to do with music, or guitars, or recording or anything. But the trademark office said, “They already have Re-amp — with the hyphen — and it may be confusing.” So I said, “Well, what if I take the hyphen out of it?” And they said, “You can do that.”

Radial: So that solved the trademark issue?

John: Yes, when they told me that, I said, “Okay. I don’t even know why I had to put that in there.” So I took the hyphen out and then I went back to the Letraset store and I went through all these different fonts that they had. And I found the same one that Radial is still using today. I laid it out, and that was the one I started using.

Radial: So you got the trademark, what about a patent?

John: At the same time I applied for the trademark, I also applied for a patent for the Reamp®. John LaGrue of Millennia Media recommended that. He said, “If you really want to start selling these things and get into this business, you may want to get a patent for it.” And I said, “A patent, that’s expensive. They’re not going to give me a patent for this. Somebody must have already thought of this.” And he goes, “No, I don’t think so.” So I went to the patent library in Palo Alto and I spent two days going through everything that would have been considered what they call prior art, which is electronic circuits that converted plus four line-level to minus 50 guitar pickup level. And, again, this is before the internet, before computers. So it was a painstaking process.

Radial: What did you discover in the research?

John: I went through everything and I went back to John and said, “Man, you know what? I may be able to do this. Nobody’s really bothered with it.” Because think about it. I worked in studios that had echo chambers, which were speaker cabinets powered by amplifiers in rooms being fed from the control room at plus four line-level, microphones in the room picking up that cabinet, and then rerecording the sound as reverb. So I thought, “Well, that’s all I’m really doing. How can I get a patent for that?”

Radial: So what did you do from there once you found this out?

John: I had to get a patent attorney. It turns out that if you write a very, very descriptive document on the application part of it, for example how it’s going to be used, you can pull it off. So, if it’s a box with a transformer and a couple of jacks in a small, simple circuit, they’re not going to give me a patent for that because the transformer is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do — transform. So the idea about how the transformer is going to be applied in a setting was patentable.

Radial: Did you still have doubts about the patent-ability of the box?

John: Yes, but John LaGrue said, “Listen, once you apply for your patent, you can put “patent pending” on your box. And if you put patent pending on your box, you’re probably going to keep away a whole lot of people that might try to challenge it. And I went ahead and did it. I think I applied for the patent in ’95, which was only two years after my first prototype. I didn’t receive the patent until December of ’99. I got this letter in the mail from the patent office and I went, “Oh, I completely forgot about this.” It was three years later.

Radial: Were you still making and selling boxes in that period from ’95 to ’99?

John: Oh, absolutely. I continued to make the boxes up until 2011.

Radial: Were you still making them by hand, or had you gotten into any kind of manufacturing automation?

John: A guy with an audio electronics distribution company in Maine reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in them distributing the Reamp® box. And I said, “Yeah, but I can’t deal with the numbers right now. I can’t build them fast enough.” And he goes, “No worries. We’ve got a guy in Indiana that can build them.”

Radial: So you would hand the manufacturing off to someone else.

John: Yes, and my first thought was, “Oh, man, this is going to get sketchy. I can’t control the quality. Everybody’s going to want a piece of the action, and I’m going to end up with nothing.” So I really gave it a lot of thought and I think I signed an exclusive rights deal with them for one year.

Radial: How did that work out?

John: After a year I realized that these guys were taking way too much off the top and not really doing their job when it came to promoting and advertising. I was personally running ads in all the pro-audio magazines, EQ, Mix, Tape Op. They really weren’t doing that much. So after one year I cut them loose, but I maintained the relationship with the manufacturer and continued to have these guys build the Reamps for me.

Radial: DId they make any improvements?

John: Yes, I went with a custom transformer. They were also powder-coating them.

Radial: What happened to your main job as a recording engineer/producer during all of this?

John: Well, because I wasn’t making them by hand anymore, it became super easy for me. The manufacturers would just send me the finished boxes and I would package them individually, stick a label on it and I would ship it. So on my way to the studio every day, I would just go by the UPS office and drop off three or four or five Reamps. It was pretty straightforward, and pretty easy for me to do that.

Radial: How many were you producing at this time?

John: It was still expensive because I had to put up a lot of upfront money to get the numbers down. I think the most I ever made at one time was maybe 250 of them. I got the price of manufacturing down where I was selling them for a profit. But I was still paying for all the advertising and marketing.

Radial: You mentioned Eddie van Halen earlier. Did he ever end up using it and tell you about it? What guitar players at that time did you start hearing from and knowing that they were using it?

John: With the exception of a couple of guys like Steve Vai, and, of course, Satriani, I was never in direct contact with any of the players. Most of the time the Reamps were being purchased by their people. For instance, Metallica bought a couple, but it wasn’t James that called me up. It was somebody that works in production that bought that. I know the guys from Green Day bought one. Also Beck, the Rolling Stones.

Radial: Did engineers also show interest in the Reamp®?

John: Yes, definitely a lot of engineers had these things. Jack Joseph Puig used them. Andy Johns loved it. Like I said, Steve Vai used them. They were out there and being sold. I would get invoices from companies, but I didn’t know who they were.

Radial: Were you still sending out free units to create awareness?

John: Yes, besides sending to rental companies, I just sent them to recording studios with a letter saying, “Here. This is what it does. Your engineers might be interested in it.” I got a letter back from Allen Sides from Ocean Way. He sends me the Reamp® back and says, “I recorded it right the first time.” 10 years later, once Reamp® had become a thing, I ran into him at the AES Show. He puts his arm around me, and says, “Hey, man, can I get that Reamp® back?”

Radial: Any other bands besides the Stones, Green Day, Metallica?

John: I know Aerosmith was using them. Dave Matthews had one.

Radial: So it was really an organic process of marketing the boxes in the beginning.

John: Yes, putting them into the hands of people that were going to use them was the best advertising I could possibly ever do. I couldn’t have paid for the kind of exposure Sylvia Massy was creating for me. It just made sense. And then I started hearing that people were doing things with these Reamps that I never had intended, or ever ever imagined. Such as re-amping a snare drum, re-amping vocals through guitar amps, or foot pedals.

Radial: The use of foot pedals for reamping has become really popular.

John: Yes, I never thought about that. The guys out there were doing it. They were going, “I never Reamp® anything, but I run the shit through my foot pedals.” And I’d say, “Oh, I never thought about putting a vocal through a wah-wah before, but now you can. That’s awesome. I had never thought of that.”

Radial: So the whole creative side of reamping began to come out.

John: Yes, I think that, and the home studio really is what made it happen.

Radial: Why the home studio as opposed to the professional studio?

John: Because I didn’t have an audience of 100 really great recording engineers that can afford 200 bucks. With the home studio market growing, I could target anybody who goes to a guitar center and buys a recording setup, comes home, and calls himself a recording engineer. Now I’ve potentially got thousands of customers.

Radial: And they were avid buyers of gear.

John: And they all read music magazines. They’d all want the little $200 box that Beck, and the Stones, and Van Halen, and Andy Johns used. Everybody wanted one, but that created another problem. I began getting phone calls,letters, emails saying, “Hey man, my Reamp® doesn’t work. What’s wrong with it? I need to send it back because it’s not working.” And it’s like any qualified engineer that knows anything about anything could figure out what a Reamp® does in about 12 seconds. Plus four line- level, balance in, guitar level, unbalanced out. I started getting Reamps back that were blown up because the buyer thought they were speaker soakers or direct boxes with the wrong connectors on it.

Radial: People were blowing them because they didn’t understand how to use them?

John: Yes, It started off with I would get maybe one or two returns, and weird emails, letters a year. By 2011 when I handed it off to Radial, once a week somebody complained that the Reamp® didn’t work because basically they didn’t know what it was, and they didn’t know how to use it.

Radial: Was this part of the blessing and curse cycle of the home studio? A larger audience of buyers, but buyers that may not have been as educated on the equipment?

John: In every case. From ’94 when I started packaging and building Reamps up until I sold to Radial. I think I only repaired maybe two Reamps the entire time. Only two were sent back to me, and it was only because the transformer came off the PC board when it got dropped, or something. I would never have to explain to Mark Needham or Bob Rock how to use a Reamp®.

Radial: Let’s fast forward to the present day and Radial’s introduction of the Reamp® Station. I understand this unit is similar to what you originally envisioned when you built your first Reamp® box, true?

John: Remember the story about the tech who went through the box and he found that big UTC transformer? At that time he said, “Oh, by the way, this would make a great DI, also.” So my very first prototype was both a DI and a Reamp®, and I still use it because it’s a fantastic direct box. I still use it as a direct box, but when I decided to go into business to make Reamps, I didn’t want to include a DI for a couple reasons.

Radial: What were the reasons?

John: First, it was going to cost me too much to have a multifunctional transformer that was going to do both things well. And everybody has their favorite DI so why would I want to get into that business? And it was just going to be heavier, so shipping was going to be more. I just exited the DI business right away. I didn’t want to compete with other people’s idea of what a good DI sounds like. That’s a whole other world.

Radial: So you think it benefitted from being a sort of specialty box?

John: yes, it probably benefited from the fact that it was really a specialist piece of equipment, if you will. Think about it … would Eddie van Halen or Joe Satriani have taken as much interest in it if they had heard that it had a DI in it? They were probably more likely thinking, “Now this does one thing really good. I just want something that does one thing really good.” And maybe that was a benefit early on.

Radial: Before we finish, talk a little bit about what you’re doing these days.

John: Well, I’m primarily a mastering engineer. I opened my own room at The Plant in Sausalito in 2000. And I was there until 2008 as the chief mastering engineer. And then when the entire studio closed, I moved it to my home and I’ve built a room and I’ve been happy as a clam here mastering records all day. So that’s my primary thing, but I also mix and do recording sessions for other people.

Radial: Do you still work with Joe Satriani?

John: Yes, I maintain my relationship with him and I still do records with him. In fact, right now we’re taking a close look at remixing some of his classic records for ATMOS.

Radial: Talk about the OneMic Series on YouTube.

John: Yes, it is a series of 30 videos that demonstrate how you can record an entire band around one stereo microphone. Everything is videoed, so you can see the entire process. It’s called OneMic: The minimalist recording series.

Radial: What do you do on the videos?

John: Basically I take a band — electric guitars, drums, everything. I get them around one stereo ribbon microphone in a nice room, and I spend a lot of time balancing the singers against the instruments and then apply some mastering techniques. I’m basically trying to recreate a multi-track, multi-channel recording with just one stereo microphone in the room.

Radial: Thanks for your time John!

John: My pleasure!

The post John Cuniberti Interview appeared first on Radial Engineering.

Here is the full interview.

Radial: Share a bit about your background. What influenced you to choose pro audio and engineering as a career path?

Emily: Electrical engineering and pro audio merges my two passions — designing technology and a love of music. Growing up, I gravitated to science and math courses as equally as I gravitated to concert, band, choir courses.

Radial: Talk a little about your formal schooling.

Emily: In my first years of university, I pursued a degree in electrical engineering. At that time, I felt a major disconnect between what I was learning and what I wanted to do for my career. I felt the same disconnect too when I started pursuing co-op jobs, which are very similar to engineering internships in the States. You get to try out an industry and career while you’re still in school to see if it’s the right fit.

Radial: It sounds like something just wasn’t clicking for you at that time.

Emily: Yes, I think it was a combination of having a lack of purpose combined with the lack of creativity that exists in most electrical engineering jobs. And so going into my third year of university, I ended up adding the music option to my electrical engineering degree with an emphasis on audio signal processing and recording techniques. Also at this time, I joined two community choirs and instantly felt a calling back to my true self.

Radial: Talk a little bit more about that experience.

Emily: Through my choral director, I was able to volunteer as an open mic technician and this really solidified my love of working with audio gear. And it really correlated to what I was learning in school to learning about audio signal processing and recording. Upon graduation, I found it was quite difficult to find a job in the music industry in Canada, and in particular on the West Coast in Vancouver.

Radial: What did you do once you set out looking for a job?

Emily: After I graduated, I ended up pursuing a company I had worked for as a co-op student. But after a couple of years, I realized it really wasn’t the right fit. I ended up taking a gamble and applying for a senior engineering position at Radial when I was still very much a junior engineer in terms of my experience level. But luckily, Radial was also looking for a junior engineer as well so they gave me a callback and the rest is kind of history. I’ve been working at Radial and working in audio ever since.

Radial: So you had a background in music and mixed it with a love for engineering. Did it feel like a natural step to mix those two together?

Emily: Yes, from the beginning. And honestly, when I went to university, I had no idea that there was this opportunity to work in music. I kind of just discovered it. I really liked electrical engineering, but I didn’t know I could blend those two passions until my third year. Then of course, when I graduated, it was kind of like, “How can you find a career with this very particular skill set?” So I kind of lucked out too when I found Radial.

Radial: What was it that drew you to Radial?

Emily: I had heard of Radial when I was working as a sound tech. We had a couple DI’s on stage, but I had no idea the company was based in Port Coquitlam until I saw the job posting and I was like, “Hey, Radial, I recognize this company.” And I read the description of the senior engineer and I was like, “Wow, this is my dream job.” This is something that I would really like to do one day. I knew that I probably had a handful of the skills that were on the list of requirements, but I still put my name out there anyways.

Radial: So you were at the right place at the right time?

Emily: Yes, there was a bit of fate and I wasn’t happy with my job at the time, so I was checking job boards and trying to get a feel for what else was out there. And since I wasn’t loving the pure engineering industry, I was also looking at sound technician jobs and exploring that direction. So I kind of lucked out in both regards finding an engineering job and finding something that was in audio.

Radial: Talk about some of the challenges you face being a woman in the primary male-dominated field of engineering.

Emily: Definitely when I was fresh out of school as a female junior engineer, I felt I had to prove more and justify my role more than my male colleagues. During meetings, I was often asked if mine was a non-technical position or if I was an administrator for the engineering department. This was before I joined Radial, of course.

Radial: That must have been awkward!

Emily: Yes it was! And this was when I was meeting with clients, distributors, different departments. And the more I was questioned about my position and being in that position, I began to question more why I was in the field. It was hard having to justify to myself every day as to why I was there. And there were many times that I did want to leave engineering. Like I mentioned, I was actually exploring maybe becoming a sound technician and going back into music just because I was really struggling with being in an engineering department and the people and the conflicts that I encountered on the job almost every day.

Radial: And this was about the time you found the posting for the position at Radial?

Emily: Yes, I was very fortunate to discover Radial. My exposure to pro audio has mostly been through Radial. Even though I work predominantly with male colleagues in the Radial engineering department right now, I have never felt unseen or undervalued like I did when I first graduated from school.

Radial: Did you still feel you had to prove yourself?

Emily: Yes, I did have to prove myself to obtain solo design projects, but that is very much the same for any new engineer. And I mostly remember that I am a woman in a male-dominated field when I am meeting folks from the industry outside of Radial. So mostly if I’m going to tech conferences or meeting with distributors, I often still have to explain my position. And I do still find that when I explain my position, many are surprised to learn that I’m a professional engineer and that I have over seven years of work experience.

Radial: Do you get the sense that the trend of women working in pro audio engineering is changing?

Emily: I think it’s still not the normal career choice for a woman. So there’s still a surprise element. But definitely, the advantage I see to being a woman in engineering is that my role does help pave the way for this industry to become more inclusive. I can create a safe space for young women engineers to build their careers. We’ve already had a couple of young engineering co-op students in the department and it is a great opportunity to be able to mentor and to give back.

Radial: Do you see yourself as breaking the stereotype of a typical engineer?

Emily: I do pride myself as being an approachable person. I do not know if that’s more a personality trait versus being a woman, but nevertheless, I think I am often seen as someone at Radial within the engineering department where people feel safe asking questions and seeking advice from. If you think of the stereotypical electrical engineering professional, you might think of someone who is a little bit more introverted and standoffish. So, I think it’s great when you have different personality traits in the department and different people. So I think being a woman kind of brings that perspective into our department.

Radial: Do you see the role of the engineer transitioning and morphing as a general trend?

Emily: I think it’s great when engineering departments can diversify because I find we can kind of help each other out with our strengths and weaknesses. And we do have some employees in our department that are a little bit more introverted or just don’t want to have a very close relationship with production. They would rather focus on their designs, focus on their projects. And both of those roles are valid, but you do need people in there that can integrate and communicate cross-department.

Radial: Does this trend towards diversity go beyond engineering?

Emily: Yes, I think engineering isn’t the only industry that realizes it needs to change. I think this field is more vocal about it because women are still such a minority in this field, so I feel like that’s why it’s a conversation.

Radial: Let’s talk a little bit about the products. Using the new Reamp® Station as an example, what’s the first thing you do when you start on a new project? Where do you put your focus?

Emily: I usually start by analyzing the whole system. When I get a new project, I usually look at everything as a whole, and then I’ll start breaking down the system into smaller components. When I get it to components that I’m happy with, I start researching and designing and building those individual components one at a time.

Radial: So you take it stage by stage?

Emily: Yes, as I build one stage, I will start to build upon it, such as building the second stage. For example, with the Reamp® Station, I started with the input stage and then kind of looked at how that was sounding; what I was emphasizing, and then looking at what components I should use for the output stage. So we had something that was comprehensive and consistent throughout the design.

Radial: You mentioned that you start kind of by breaking down the stages. Are you talking about the stages of the circuit flow of the product itself, like from the input to the inner workings, to the output?

Emily: Yes, exactly. So I look at the desired feature set that the tech team wants us to include in the product. I look at the signal flow from input/output and kind of look at where we can start including those blocks. And then once we have a good block diagram and a good flow, it’s down to choosing what we want to do in each section.

Radial: Some people may be familiar with John Cuniberti, who built the first reamper back in the 80s. Radial acquired John’s company and began manufacturing the JCR based on his original design. John mentioned in this interview that the original idea for his Reamp® box was a combination DI and reamper, similar to what the Reamp® Station is today. Were you aware of that?

Emily: No, I wasn’t! That’s really cool to think that the new Reamp® Station has evolved in a way to circle back to the original intentions that John had when he started out!

Radial: Talk a little bit about the influence that John’s design had on your process of designing the Reamp® Station.

Emily: I was introduced to John’s original reamper and was able to take a look at it, explore the design a bit. We had talked about using the JCR circuit early on and it was nice to be able to take a look at the original box and confirm that using that circuit design would be the right thing for this box as well.

Radial: Did you consider any other DIs along with the JCR?

Emily: Yes, I also looked at the ProRMP which is a great device, but just thought that the transformer in the JCR would be a better fit for the design intentions of the Reamp® Station. The JCR essentially has a patented Reamp® transformer in it which is what makes it so special. I knew it would be a slam dunk to put that circuit in the Reamp® Station.

Radial: Did the JCR’s passive design have any influence on your decision?

Emily: Yes, definitely. The fact that the JCR is a passive device helped make both sides of the Reamp® Station — the DI side and the Reamp side® — have more isolation between the two. This allowed me to do a lot with the circuit board to make sure that the two parts were completely separate from one another.

Radial: Did you have some experience with the JCR before?

Emily: Yes, a couple of years ago I worked with the engineers on the Reamp® JCR so I did have some insight into the unit and the circuitry. By the time we finished that product, I had a pretty good familiarity with the JCR itself. John’s association with the JCR is of course legendary, and it was a real honor to sort of follow in his footsteps in expanding the design with the Reamp® Station.

Radial: Talk about some of the challenges and some of the highlights with regards to the Reamp® Station, from an engineering perspective.

Emily: For the Reamp® station, probably the trickiest part was the power supply. It’s really low current. Since it’s a phantom power device, the goal was to try and build a good DI that doesn’t generate a lot of current while still being very clean and having a very clean signal path with good isolation. So that took quite a bit of work and fiddling around with. And you don’t get to choose what power supply you’re using for phantom, it’s always an external source. So the goal was having enough filtering so that, like I mentioned earlier, we have enough isolation. And it was also playing around with audio op amps or doing the output drive stage for the DI, something that had low power consumption, but still sounded good and still was going to work nicely in the design.

Radial: Sounds like you spent quite a bit of time and effort getting this stage right.

Emily: Yes, there definitely was a lot of playing around with that. Just a little recap on what a DI does … it takes in an unbalanced high impedance instrument signal and then converts it to a balanced DI output. So the goal is trying to keep the impedance high even when you have a through jack that goes to a guitar amp.

Radial: How did some of the existing design criteria come into play in this design stage?

Emily: With some of our older products like the J48, it’s tricky to not have your instrument be loaded down by the guitar amp when you have it through. So the goal with the Reamp® Station design was just looking at clever ways to use a switching jack. We actually implemented a buffer stage as well, but were able to introduce some cool new features from listening to feedback from different customers.

Radial:  What’s unique about the Reamp® station versus some of the other Radial DI boxes?

Emily: I used a brand new really nice op amp for the Reamp® Station. And it’s definitely a new op amp to the Radial line. So whenever you use a different op amp, it brings out a new sound and color. This one is definitely meant to be low noise, low distortion. It still has the driving capabilities for DI, but definitely an improvement in that regard. And as I mentioned earlier, most of our DIs don’t have this input buffer as well for a guitar amplifier through. So that’s a new added feature with the Reamp Station, which improves the integrity of the signal going through to the output stage, but then it also improves the signal integrity. That’s going to your guitar amplifier as well. So overall a really great improvement of the design.

Radial: For those that may not know, describe what an op amp is.

Emily: The op amp is called an operational amplifier. And it’s a component that could be configured as an amplifier, or it could be configured as a buffer, so it helps convert impedances. So for the Reamp® Station, since it is a new amplifying device, it is configured more to drive the output signal. So it can change the color of your sound because it’s not a complete passive signal. So any electronics that you put in a signal path can add some color, distortion, and any of those factors of noise, but depending on the amplifier used, the op amp that you choose and how you use it, you can achieve the cleanest sound possible. And in a DI application, that’s really what you’re trying to achieve. You’re trying to really capture that signal integrity of the instrument.

Radial: And when you say capture the signal integrity, does that mean keep it as pure and true to the original as possible?

Emily: Yes, it is basically to keep the integrity of the original input, not build and improve upon it. And it’s basically so you can have an output device like a source device such as mixer or a dub where you’re able to record that instrument and still have the integrity of the signal.

Radial: Talk for a second about the lessons you learn along the way when designing a new product like the Reamp® Station.

Emily: I find that you learn a ton when you complete any new project from start to finish. Even though the Reamp® station may have been smaller compared to my last project, the PZ-Pro, I do find it builds upon my knowledge of audio components. It gives me the opportunity to work really closely with Hutch (Radial’s senior design engineer) and to kind of get his insight on audio principles and testing techniques, and also kind of dip into his extensive knowledge of audio components and what he looks for in his designs and kind of shape how I can apply that to my own.

Radial: So there’s a continuum of learning along the way.

Emily: Yes, it’s great kind of going through the full process from start to finish. You learn a lot. And there’s also this whole element of which I’ve been kind of dealing with for the last six months, which is designing for production since the Reamp® station is going to be a product that goes through larger production runs.

Radial: You mentioned the PZ-Pro, another Radial product you designed. Was the approach to designing the PZ-Pro similar to the Reamp® Station as far as from a philosophical standpoint?

Emily: Yes, I did follow a very similar path. But talking about earlier how you have a really big system with a really large feature set, which is what the PZ-Pro is in a nutshell, it really benefited from breaking down the design process into those smaller components. And the amount of research and development that I did into the EQ of the PZ-Pro was just so rewarding. Also, just building all those circuits on a breadboard, listening to them one by one and making little tweaks and then finally getting to the point where I could put everything on its own circuit board. That was rewarding. And designing the PZ-Pro for manufacturing was also extremely difficult as well, since it implements two daughter boards and a main board.

Radial: So while the two are very different products, the PZ-Pro and the Reamp® Station, the design process was similar.

Emily: Yes, it was great to go from start to finish with the PZ-Pro and then take on a smaller project like the Reamp® station, which still had its problems that it had to solve. But it was great to be able to do something so large and then kind of scale it back and implement those same processes on the Reamp® station.

Radial: Let’s switch gears a bit and talk about what advice you’d have for other women engineers who may be considering a career in pro audio. What advice would you have for them?

Emily: I would definitely tell them that the pros outweigh the cons if you love doing what you do. It is okay to admit that it is difficult to work in male-dominated spaces. I definitely wish I had given myself more grace versus I often would blame myself for other people’s ignorance if that makes sense. But I don’t think women engineers, I don’t think they need to change to become thicker skinned.

Radial: What’s one change you would like to see happen sooner than later?

Emily: I definitely believe the system as a whole needs to just become more inclusive. And the other thing is I’ve met some wonderful people in the industry and I’m really glad I stuck it out. Not everyone you meet is a bad apple, I guess, is the other way to phrase it. Definitely, the people that I work with now here at Radial and just how inclusive the environment … it definitely restores my faith in the industry-changing and how it’s supposed to look. So it’d be great to kind of emphasize that and to tell young women engineers that it does get better and we’re trying to make it better too.

Radial: What about someone that may not have that advantage of being in a city that’s a center of the industry, like Vancouver? What can they do if they are not located in a major city?

Emily: I do think engineering as a whole is changing due to COVID. I do think there’s more remote jobs out there. So definitely not being in the hub isn’t too much as a factor as it used to be. For example, right now, I’m working out of Sioux Island and I go into Radial home office in Port Coquitlam, in the Vancouver area, once a month to kind of catch up and follow up with production on my projects and stuff like that.

Radial: So engineering jobs are becoming less city-specific?

Emily: Yes, I think that hurdle is changing. As for meeting people and getting exposed to the industry, I would really recommend a student engineer go out of his/her comfort zone by moving to new places and trying to build a career in audio if possible. And if that’s difficult, reach out through the different engineering groups either on campus. Just reaching out to people and trying to engage and build mentorships.

Radial: What trends do you see on the horizon that you think are going to influence the design and production of pro audio gear in the coming years?

Emily: This is a tricky question to answer, and I can really only answer it from an engineering perspective. But definitely what I’m battling as an engineer post-COVID is just the influence that COVID had on the supply chain and what that has done to the design world. It has definitely made engineering more difficult. It adds a lot more constraints for product development because I find you have to kind of adapt your design processes to fit the state of the supply chain environment. This systematic approach that I was talking about earlier, even though you may not have everything figured out for the design, you have to point out very early on what components are going to be difficult to source and start thinking about it very far in advance because most components are a 56 week lead time. So if you want to do a production run in the next year, you have to really be thinking ahead.

Radial: What improvements has Radial made to adjust during these challenges?

Emily: We’ve improved our testing software to ensure the best results from new components. There are more open source and different audio analyzers out there. We actually use them in production to make sure that the quality of our products are being captured there, that we’re making sure things that are going to customers are at the appropriate level and stuff like that and not having to use a really fancy piece of the kit to do that. And we’re also automating that process too so there’s less human intervention like inserting cables and pulling out cables to complete tests. We’re able to just have all that switching done automatically. And then as Hutch always loves to remind me we’ve upgraded our labs and what testing capabilities that we can do and we’re really lucky.

Radial: How has working with Hutch [read an interview with Hutch here] changed your perspective on engineering and design?

Emily: I’m really fortunate that I get to work with someone like Hutch who has worked at some amazing companies in the past and just get his insight into what he checks when he is testing. And so that really helps as well and we’re able to pass that down to junior engineers and our co-op students as well, get them excited to work in audio. It’s been a really rewarding experience working with Hutch, and continuing my journey in engineering and design here at Radial.

To read an interview with John Cuniberti, click here.

To read an interview with Hutch, click here.

The post Radial Interview — Emily Swan appeared first on Radial Engineering.

Radial: Let’s start with the source of hums and buzzes in a system. Is the power line generally the source?

Bill: This is sometimes true. You can’t argue with the fact that, if the power line wasn’t there, there wouldn’t be any of these noises if everything ran on batteries and never plugged in. But as long as we have things that plugin, the power line itself is the root source of the noises. However, much of the source of buzz and hum falls on the equipment itself. So I’d say it’s about 50/50. Power lines can be excessively noisy, true, but more and more equipment is using switching power supplies and wireless, so it’s not just the power line anymore.

Radial: What’s the source of this buzz and noise?

Bill: The air is full of radio frequencies and all kinds of radiated signals. Also, the power line is full of interference. It’s not just pure 60-cycle AC. Let’s use the analogy of a highway. We could have glass-smooth highways and it would require almost nothing in the way of suspension on a car. And if you think of your car and the smooth ride as being a noise-free signal, it’s riding along and being powered by this less-than-perfect highway. 

Radial: So how do you cure the noise problem on this audio highway?

Bill: There are two ways to cure the noise problem. You can either make the highways glass smooth. In other words, get all this trash off the AC power. Or you can tolerate normal roads that have the occasional bumps and whatever by putting incredibly good suspension on your car. I call it the Cadillac syndrome, moving without the feeling of moving, as Cadillac owners like to think. 

Radial: Does the building structure itself have any influence on noise and buzz?

Bill: Yes. I wrote a paper for the AES back in 2011 titled “Power Line Noises: The Rest of the Story.” It turns out that there is a coupling mechanism that is inadvertently designed into the way buildings are wired. It has to do with the fact that equipment almost always uses the ground conductor or that third pin on the outlet as a reference point. It’s primarily there for safety, but it inescapably gets involved in signals, because the chassis and the ground connection of all audio connectors have to be tied to the chassis for safety purposes. So if there’s noise on the ground conductor, it becomes a threat to the signal. And equipment interfaces, like balanced interfaces, are theoretically able to completely reject any of this noise. But in the real world and to save money, manufacturers use less than perfect balanced interfaces.

Radial: So this means that noise rejection in those devices is not as good as it could be?

Bill: Yes, in some devices, noise rejection is not as good as it might be. And of course, unbalanced interfaces, the RCA connector or the quarter-inch tip sleeve connectors, have a built-in high vulnerability to noise. It’s just part of the scheme. That’s why balanced connections exist. Professionals get tired of trying to deal with all the noise of RCA cables and all that stuff. So, for this reason, consumer gear has a built-in sensitivity issue. 

Radial: So what can be done about AC power noise?

Bill: Well, pretty much the only thing you can do because most of this noise occurs at frequencies higher than 60 hertz, is apply filters. For example, a low pass filter passes low frequencies and attenuates any noises or frequencies that are above the cutoff frequency of the filter. Now, this has its limitations, but it is sometimes very effective at dealing with power supply noises, noises from fluorescent lights, and various high-frequency noises. The majority of those noises occur at frequencies of say 50 kilohertz or higher. And filters to stop those frequencies from entering the equipment are fairly small and not terribly expensive. 

Radial: Is there a difference between buzz and hum in terms of the aspect of filtering?

Bill: Yes, buzz has quite a different character than hum. Hum would indicate that it’s almost purely a 60-cycle or 60-hertz thing. But the harmonics of 60 hertz, like the 10th harmonic, would be at 600 hertz and has an edgy higher frequency. So it’s really well imitated by just saying buzz and it’s very annoying. So those become extremely difficult to take out with filtering. 

Radial: Is filtering a perfect solution to removing buzz and hum?

Bill: Unfortunately, no. Sometimes there’s just nothing else to do but to work on the interface and try to make it immune from buzz and hum. So filters are not the end-all of getting rid of noise. 

Radial: Talk about the Radial Power-1 and Power-2 units with regards to filtering.

Bill: There’s a filter built-in to the Power-1 and Power-2 products. It’s an industry-standard filter that passes regulatory tests for safety, being flameproof, and being able to withstand high voltages, et cetera.

Radial: What do the filtering components in Power-1 and Power-2 have to do?

Bill: There’s a long list of things that the filters do. But as you lower the frequency of a filter and try to get down to where you could actually eliminate some of the buzz from the power line itself, the components in a filter, the inductors and capacitors involved, become very large and very expensive. Something that would filter out all the buzz components, starting with maybe the third or fifth harmonic of 60-cycle, would be as large as a refrigerator and it would cost thousands of dollars, so nobody does that. That said, the filters in Power-1 and Power-2 will get rid of things like AM radio stations, which may be radiating into the power line.

Radial: What type of filter attenuation do the Radial Power-1 and Power-2 offer?

Bill: In both, the attenuation starts at around 40 or 50 kilohertz, and certainly extends up past 20, 30 megahertz, somewhere in that region. This means it even filters out signals like ham radio and citizens band radio, which are very frequent. That said, the usual offender is local AM radio stations that come in. Power-1 and Power-2 are very good at those frequencies.

Radial: Talk a little more about the design of Power-1 and Power-2.

Bill: The primary function of Power-1 and Power-2 is surge protection and safety. The filtering is a secondary function, but both offer filtering as well.

Radial: What’s the primary difference between the Radial units and competitors?

Bill: A big difference between Power-1 and Power-2 and their competitors is the high-quality MOV we use. 

Radial: What is a MOV?

Bill: MOV stands for Metal Oxide Varistor, and they’re made out of various zinc oxides, crystallized, and have electrodes plated on. So they have semiconductor properties. What happens is that the MOV starts drawing a small amount of current all the time, even though it’s operating below its rated threshold voltage, where it should start conducting current. It’s not supposed to draw any current at lower voltages, but a low-quality one or one that has really seen a lot of service hits will gradually deteriorate by lowering the threshold voltage.

Radial: How can you tell when this happens?

Bill: They start drawing enough current to actually get physically warm. It gets warmer and warmer and unfortunately, there’s a negative relationship between heat and threshold voltage. So the hotter it gets, the lower its threshold voltage gets, and it draws more and more current. It’s an escalating, runaway condition, so it gets worse, and worse, and worse the hotter it gets. And eventually, it’ll smoke and sizzle and burst into flames.

Radial: For a home studio owner, this could be catastrophic!

Bill: In the past, there were times when people were on vacation and their little hardware store-bought UL strip is sitting quietly under their desk and “protecting” their computer. It catches on fire and they come back from vacation, and their house is burned to the ground.

Radial: Were regulations passed to address this?

Bill: Yes, UL recognized this is a problem. So now, MOVs are required to have a thermal cutoff switch so that when they reach a certain temperature, a little bimetal switch opens up and disconnects it from the circuit. So it’s only allowed to get to a certain level of heat and then it shuts off.

Radial: So did this fix the problem of cheap power strips bursting into flames?

Bill: Not entirely. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of the equipment sold in this country that does not have a UL Listed sticker. So it’s a buyer beware mentality.

Radial: In addition to the made-in-USA MOVs that differentiate the Radial Power units from others on the market, are there other differences people should be aware of?

Bill: Yes, another important differentiator with the Radial Power units is the fact that they do not contaminate the ground. This is something that’s a little tough to explain but there are a lot of surge suppressors that are advertised making it sound like not contaminating the ground is a plus. They will say it’s a three-mode suppressor design. Now, what that means is that they have put a MOV across the line, the line, and the neutral. And they put a second one between the line, the hot conductor, and the safety ground or the chassis. And they put a third one between the neutral, the other blade of the AC, and the chassis or the safety ground. 

Radial: How does this differ for the Radial Power units?

Bill: In the Radial Power units, there’s one MOV that sits across the line with two blades. There’s no connection to ground. There’s a reason that it doesn’t need to be there. Because surges between either side of the AC power and safety ground can only originate because of the way code requires buildings to be wired. They can only originate inside the building. And the most dangerous surges are the ones that come from outside, like lightning.

Radial: So the biggest dangers for power surges come from outside.

Bill: Yes, such as lightning or fallen power lines. These can cause huge surges on AC power. Imagine a traffic accident that wipes out a telephone pole, and cuts it off at the ground. The pole falls over and some four, five, 10,000-volt power lines that normally sit way at the top of the power distribution lines, now falls into a residential 240-volt line. For a few seconds that it takes for the power company’s breakers to trip out, you have a 10,000-volt line connected to the power coming into your house, creating a huge surge.

Radial: So essentially, two big differences in the Radial Power units and others on the market are the quality of the made-in-USA MOV, and that the units are is a single-mode suppressor and not a three-mode. 

Bill: That’s correct. Remember, there is no danger created by dumping currents into the safety ground, so a three-mode suppressor design is just smoke and mirrors.

Radial: Let’s circle back to the use of both filters and high-quality MOVs in the Radial power units. Can you remind us what the benefits are of both?

Bill: Put simply, the filter is the thing that keeps noises out such as RF interference and the MOV is what protects from voltage spikes such as lightning and power surges.

Radial: Do most off-the-shelf power strips, including those bought at a hardware store, have protection for both noise and surges?

Bill: Probably not. For example, if you buy a surge protective outlet strip at Home Depot for 20 bucks, all it’s going to have is MOVs, and probably not very good ones at that. Certainly nothing you would want to trust your expensive audio gear with protecting in case of a power surge. And, to the recent point, 90 plus percent of those sold at a Home Depot or hardware store are three-mode, because they think it’s perceived as better, when it’s really not.

Radial: Talk a little bit about the alert light on the Radial Power units.

Bill:  There’s a little light on the unit that shows it is protecting equipment plugged into it. It monitors the internal thermal switch. So if the MOV has ever gotten enough accumulative spikes to cause it to go into thermal runaway and try to overheat, the thermal switch will open and that indicator light will go out. That’s to tell you it’s time to replace the surge suppressor, that it has done its job, and now it’s time for a new unit.

Radial: When that light goes out, does the unit stop sending power?

Bill: No, power will still be passing through. The light is just to notify you that the equipment is no longer being protected from a surge. A surge protector like Radial Power is there to help protect your equipment, and the high-quality MOVs Radial uses will do that consistently and for a while. Like any other circuit, after that MOV has weathered enough repeated surges, the unit will require replacing. But because of the high-quality made-in-the-USA MOVs used in Radial Power, you’ll have greater protection, as well as noise filtering, for quite some time before the surge suppressor needs to be replaced.

Power-1

Surge Suppressor & Power Conditioner

The Power-1 provides filtering against interference along with peace-of-mind surge protection.

Power-2

Surge Suppressor & Power Conditioner

The Power-2 provides filtering against interference along with an innovative slide-out LED tray to illuminate your rack gear

The post What it Takes to Design Clean and Safe Power appeared first on Radial Engineering.

Judging a book by its cover
After taking one look at a Radial D.I. you’ll immediately understand that it’s built to handle whatever you can throw at it. All of our D.I. boxes feature a 14 gauge steel chassis with I-beam style construction that creates a housing so strong that you can drive a truck over it without damage. This prevents any possibility of applying torque to the device’s circuit board, which can stress it and over time lead to component failure.

On top of this, we utilize a book-end design that even our competitors have begun to imitate. The extra metal overhang of the outer steel wrapper protects the connectors and switches from taking a direct hit from a falling mic stand or an errant footstep on stage. This is also useful for preventing impact against an XLR or 1/4″ jack that is plugged into the direct box, which would otherwise act like a pry-bar that can lift the connector from its traces on the circuit board and require replacement. The outer shell of a Radial D.I. is finished off with a durable powder-coat finish to keep the product looking great from one tour to the next, along with a non-slip neoprene pad on the base to keep the unit in place on stage and prevent scratches and scrapes.

Strength from the inside out
The circuit board and the components on it will arguably make even more of a difference in the lifespan and dependability of a product than the outer chassis, and Radial devices don’t skimp in this category either. All of the switches and buttons (like the ground lift and pad features found on nearly all of our direct boxes) are high-rated components designed to withstand up to 10,000+ cycles and still function, preventing failure down the road long after most audio gear sold today would be considered obsolete.

Through-hole mounting to the printed circuit board (PCB) is also widely employed for added durability even in the face of environmental stressors. This means that components such as transformers and blocking capacitors have their leads run right through the PCB, instead of ‘surface-mount’ connections that apply solder to a single connection on one side of the circuit board. Think of this as the difference between hanging a 40″ TV from the wall using thumbtacks or adhesive strips vs. drilling through the drywall into a wall stud. Component failure is equal to device failure, so doing whatever we can to strengthen each and every piece of a D.I. means it lasts longer, performs better, and is more reliable for our customers – musicians and engineers who need their gear to work night after night without fail.

On the subject of important components, an audio transformer is the single most crucial part in a passive direct box. It is the engine that drives all the key features of the device, and the audio specs of the transformer will directly impact the overall frequency response, phase, and distortion characteristics of the D.I. To that point, our best passive direct boxes like the JDI feature premium Jensen transformers, widely regarded as the best in the industry and prized for their exceptional signal bandwidth and overall audio performance.

The team behind the product
An undeniable part of the success of our products comes from the people that make them – the team at our headquarters Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. From concept to prototype to finished product, every step along the way includes an in-house Radial team member who takes pride in what they do and believes in our goal of creating great products that benefit people who are involved in making music all around the world. Each and every Radial product is hand assembled right here in Canada, with stringent quality assurance practices and testing that includes precision audio analyzers as well as critical listening to ensure each D.I. meets the same high standard that we’ve set for ourselves.

Our products have a three year transferable warranty, but also include lifetime support from our dedicated tech team, customer service and repair departments. One testament to the reliability of our devices is the fact that despite building and shipping over 100,000 units every year, we still have just a single service technician who handles all product repairs in North America.

There isn’t just one thing that makes a Radial direct box stand the test of time – it takes a number of choices at every step along the way. From the design of the chassis, to the components inside, and the team behind the product – building a D.I. that can handle the rigors of concert touring requires all of this to be aligned, with the goal of building the most reliable device possible.

The post How to build the world’s most reliable DI appeared first on Radial Engineering.

Some phrases we hear from our customers are: “built like a tank,” “trusted devices for studio and stage,” “those bright colorful boxes.” Browsing our catalog (or looking through your gig bag), you’ve probably noticed that our products have used almost every color in the Pantone library. Often times the color of the device has a purpose, for example, Blue = active, Green = passive. Keeping a simple reference like this helps anyone grabbing a DI out of their gig bag know what to expect. However, as our product catalog grew to include hundreds of innovative devices, so did our color palette. While the sharp colors we use have appealed to many and make it easy to spot our products on stage, we know that some musicians and engineers prefer a more restrained and consistent look across their stage and studio devices.

Over the past couple of years we have been refining our artwork design, both on new devices as they are released, and on legacy products in order to group similar devices together with the same overall look and color scheme. We want to keep the quality of our products as the #1 priority while elevating our visual appeal to cater to more musicians. Some recent examples of these updates can be seen in our Acoustic Series (including the PZ-Pro, PZ-Pre, and the AC-Driver) and the Headbone amp head switcher. All upgrades have been solely cosmetic, and nothing has been touched internally, resulting in the same build quality and tone you love, just in a more refined, sleeker package.

PZ-Pre

Acoustic Preamp

The PZ-Pre is a power-packed preamp that lets you switch between two acoustic instruments and feed the PA with a built-in Radial direct box. Piezo optimized for orchestral instruments.

AC-Driver

Compact Acoustic Preamp

The AC-Driver is an acoustic instrument preamp designed for use on stage, with helpful features to streamline your performance and ensure the best possible tone from your instrument.

Headbone VT

Amp Head Switcher

The Headbone VT is a specially designed switching device that lets you toggle between two different tube amp heads while using a single speaker cabinet.

What is a V2?

A Version 2 Radial product is a revised version with updated features. Thanks to our passionate user base and artist roster, we get hundreds of product suggestions and improvements each year. We appreciate the feedback and often incorporate these ideas into new designs or updates on our current products. If a Radial product undergoes any significant feature changes it will always be labeled as V2 after the product name.

When we have the opportunity to update a product with enhanced features, we also look at aesthetics as a way to better communicate the product and our brand. Many updated ‘V2’ products will include noticeable changes to the artwork on the unit, though this is not always the case. There are some Radial devices that have such an iconic look and feel that the updates have been more subtle. Our popular Reamp products have been a staple in many studios and can be quickly recognized by the bright orange plating. Our philosophy is that products that have been widely adopted as a go-to item should retain the same look and feel. The JX44 and JX42 is another example of a professional switcher that has been the cornerstone piece in many pro rigs, and yes, they will remain bright yellow.

JX44 V2

Concert Touring Guitar & Amp Signal Manager

The JX44 V2 is a guitar signal manager designed to handle four guitar, four amplifier with effects routing and midi control.

JX42 V2

4 Input, 2 Output Guitar and Amp Switcher

The JX42 V2 offers professional guitar and amp switching for any touring act, with the ability to handle up to four instruments and two amplifiers simultaneously.

The goal of all these changes is to make better products for the artists, technicians, and engineers, that support us and rely on Radial night after night. We take pride in having our products in your studios, music venues, and on your pedalboard, and as we continue to update our devices, both visually and with enhanced features, we hope you will continue trusting us for your gigs, sessions, and anything else that cultivates your passion for music.

The post What’s a V2 or a Redesign? appeared first on Radial Engineering.

Share a bit about your vision for the HDI and how that fits in the context of Radial’s legacy in direct box design.

Radial has developed a reputation over the years for designing and building the best direct boxes. That said, virtually all direct boxes are what you might call utility boxes. They have a quarter-inch input and an XLR output and virtually no controls, other than maybe a ground lift or something like that. With the HDI, I want it to go beyond that basic utility functionality, creating an instrument preamp while retaining the essence of the function of a DI. I wanted something that was more creative, fun, inspiring, and musical.

So how does the HDI differ in this regard?

The HDI is unlike other boxes on the market, in that, one goal was to introduce color, character, and distortion into the signal chain … particularly transformer distortion into the unit.

What was the primary goal with this direction?

The goal was to elicit some of the vintage warmth, richness, and flavor typically associated with classic tube-based devices. To achieve this, we developed some tube simulation circuits plus we had a custom transformer built by Jensen.

So the HDI uses a proprietary Jensen design?

Yes. This transformer gave the HDI an extremely wide range of transformer related character once we added other circuits around it. It can be much cleaner than a typical transformer, however we push the transformer into a region where the tone is particularly colored. Let’s call it an exaggerated transformer.

What would you say to the purists who claim that a direct box should be a pure, basic utility box, with no other bells and whistles?

Well, I can’t argue with the purists. But in respect to this, there is a Color knob on the HDI. And in the fully counter-clockwise position, you get a clean and pure audio signal, probably cleaner than any other existing products. So in terms of addressing the “purist” question, the HDI probably does purist better than most. It is no slouch in the realm of “fidelity”.

But by turning the Color control, things begin to happen, correct?

Yes, the Color control can be turned clockwise to add color. So, the HDI does achieve quite a wide range from ultra-clean at fully counter-clockwise to a generic amp simulation effect as you turn the knob clockwise.

What exactly is happening signal chain-wise when the Color knob gets turned?

That’s where it gets complicated! The HDI has four parallel circuits inside it. There’s a Color knob and a Presence control. These two knobs determine the blend of the four circuits. The Clean Mode with Presence control turned all the way towards flat is exactly that … flat and clean and as true as we could make it. As you turn the knob towards more color, a bunch of things happen. For one, we force a little bit more even harmonic distortion in the transformer itself.

What does that do?

As you go lower in frequency and louder in level, transformers tend to add distortion. And because of the combination of those two factors, they have characteristic transformer distortion that people are used to and often associate with the vintage sound, such as with the sixties or seventies kind of tone that people are often striving for. So, we’re able to both reduce the transformer character in our circuits and exaggerate it depending on where a user sets their controls. Sonically, what it seems to do, probably the strongest effect, is it seems to add low mids. Basically, that’s the harmonics of the lows, generally perceived as low mids.

And what does that do to the tone? Does that give it a warmer tone?

Yes, warmer, richer, thicker. A long time ago, I worked for a company that made tube gear. As our products became popular, all of a sudden tons of other companies started coming out with tube gear. And every second ad that you saw claimed their tube-based device made the tone “warm.” In a tech talk I did many, many years ago, I said, “…it’s not the tubes.” Tubes are basically pretty clean and have been used in hi-fi and mastering gear. Typically, it’s the transformers that often provide some warmth, and often it’s the combination that really works well. That said, the better transformers tend to also be pretty transparent, which is where the circuits around the transformer can be designed to increase or reduce inherent colors. Much of the magic with tubes is how they sound when pushed near clipping and, in instrument amps, well into clipping.

Talk more about the circuits incorporated in the HDI.

There are four parallel circuits in the HDI. One is particularly clean and flat. A second one is with the Presence control turned up but it’s still clean and that adds a special EQ curve. This simulates tonal qualities of cleanish guitar amps. So turning up the Presence control gives it an immediate guitar amp quality, but still clean. The third circuit simulates the sound with the color up and that brings in a discrete circuit that’s set up like the topology of an old triode guitar amp phase splitter. And the idea here is to introduce some familiar distortion characteristics, tones that are immediately familiar. There is also pre-emphasis in this color circuit and then de-emphasis is with the Presence control set at “flat”. In other words, it boosts highs and then cuts highs. The tone tank of a guitar amp typically boosts a lot of highs. The de-emphasis or cutting highs section, more or less approximates a 12-inch speaker, similar to what you find in most guitar amps. As you turn the presence control up you get less and less of that speaker effect and you get a brighter sound.

So in essence, the HDI incorporates very complex technology under the hood, but the user interface and control is basically simple and elegant, correct?

Yes, all of this under the hood technology is a bit complicated electronically but in reality, there’s just a Gain control, Color control and a Presence control. And anybody can sit with the HDI and in 10 or 15 seconds dial up an inspiring sound. So technically and from an engineering standpoint, the HDI might be deep, but for the user it’s real simple. The end goal is to inspire the player. Sound and simplicity shouldn’t be underestimated.

What type of instruments does the HDI work best with?

It works great for bass, works great for keyboards, works great for guitar. Basically anything with a quarter inch jack will be enhanced by the HDI. It even has a 3.5 mm jack intended for musicians with modular synths.

Talk about the Distortion characteristic of the HDI.

Most guitar players are used to playing through amplifiers and there’s a certain feel or dynamic that comes with playing into an amplifier in terms of how hard a player picks, how they ride the volume control, those kinds of things. So the distortion had to work in a way that they are familiar with.

Is this related to the transformer?

The transformer is part of it, as well as the discrete circuits simulating tubes, as well as the pre-emphasis and de-emphasis, boosting the highs before the distortion and rolling off the highs after the distortion.

And what effect does that have?

Rolling off the highs after the distortion obviously reduces some of the buzzy and nasty harshness that you find in a typical $100 fuzzbox. In this way, it’s just using a similar topology to that of a vintage guitar amp. In many instrument amps the last stage is typically the one that distorts first and then the stage before that distorts when you increase the volume a little bit more. And the first distorts once you turn on the gain up a little bit more or play harder so that even when all three stages are distorting, they’re all sharing some of the burden. So it’s not just one stage clipping, so to speak. And that’s kind of how you get to the range of it starting kind of slow or gentle and gradually getting more aggressive. It’s not instantly aggressive, it’s a gradual thing.

What makes it different in terms of the way it’s doing the distortion

For the distortion quality, we are using proprietary Radial discrete circuits that emulate tubes, and this proprietary approach to creating distortion is one component of the HDI that helps really set the unit apart from everything else out there.

Why did you take this approach?

Well, there is no point in doing the same thing that everybody else has done forever and ever. The point here was making the HDI different, but by different, also better, more usable, more playable, more fun. Certainly more creative. In other words, simply being able to plug in and have an immediately good sound should make everybody in the room smile.  The tricks that this box does for an engineer, a recording engineer, they would need a pretty serious chain of plugins or processors, a couple of EQs, a compressor, a couple of distortion devices, all in the right kind of a series parallel arrangement. It wouldn’t be so easy! So this does all that quickly and simply and without the user really needing to know what’s going on under the hood.

Talk a little more about the purpose of the transformer in a preamp such as the HDI.

If you have a transformer it’s probably going to add color, and that goes for any transformer based instrument preamp, however the effect ranges from very subtle to significant and sometimes not very pleasant. In the case of the HDI, we have the transformer and it does add subtle color, but we also have a circuit in there that reduces that color or increases the color. So it can be cleaner than a typical transformer equipped box but also, when increasing color, that it does it in a musically pleasing way. It helps to use Jensen transformers.

And Jensen is considered the state-of-the-art provider of transformers for a device like this?

Yes. I think the Jensen standard transformer is truly the best that’s made. We don’t use the standard Jensen transformer for the Color circuits. We use one of the top of the line Jensen transformers in the HDI to drive the Mic level output, but in terms of getting color and reducing color, we have a specially designed Jensen transformer that was tailor made for the HDI.

Share more about the opto-compressor in the HDI.

The opto has several purposes. First, it gives some added protection so that if the player does some aggressive thumb slapping on the bass or that kind of thing, it holds levels back a bit and can keep signal levels from going over the top. A bit of a gift for the mix engineers. It can also get kind of funky and fun to play into which is a gift to the musicians. It also helps maintain the apparent relative loudness between the clean and color circuits once the color circuit is driven well into distortion.

Meaning there’s not a lot of tweaking required to get a great tone?

Yes, there’s not a lot of knobs. It’s basically gain and threshold or input and output gain depending on the design. Essentially fixed attack and release times, fixed ratios, etc. It’s the simplicity and elegance of it that’s really the magic. And so the Opto feature in the HDI is another one that follows that theme. It’s just simple basic fixed attack and release, fixed ratio but carefully chosen. The Opto works on the clean channel in this box. The driving force behind that is that as you turn up the gain, in the Color channel, the signal can get clipped so that channel sounds a somewhat quieter compared to the Clean channel and the opto compensates.

How would you describe the goal of the opto compressor in the HDI?

The opto has two purposes. One is to keep that balance between clean and colored still smooth. So as you change that knob it doesn’t change level. And the other is just to offer a little bit of added protection so that if somebody does some thumb slapping on the bass or that kind of thing, it holds it back a little bit and doesn’t freak out the engineer or the audience. The opto is a useful thing that adds a little bit of a control, but it also adds a little bit of nice funkiness to the tone.

Could the HDI essentially simplify a setup, such as a guitar player needed less pedals and effects?

Yeah, I would expect some people to do that. And I would expect other people to do exactly the opposite. For example, there’s a lot of people using digital amp simulators like the Kemper. And we’ve found that this thing works really nicely after a Kemper, and it works really nicely before one sometimes. Some of the newer amp simulators do a wonderful job, but it’s not quite analog tube-like exactly. The HDI seems to bring some of the analog back into the path, maybe sounding a bit less brittle.

What about the HDI’s usefulness at Front of House?

I think it certainly is going to help a lot of front of house engineers, especially in those situations where the DI mostly considered backup in case an amp fails. In that case, the HDI will give a much more immediately usable signal, much more amp-like. Maybe more importantly, it should blend easier with a miked-up amp signal for those that blend amp and DI. And even on its own, as the only signal, the sound quality will likely be far better than what they were using.

What are some other potential uses of the HDI?

On stage, it gives arm’s length control for musicians that depend on monitors rather than amps. We anticipate that the HDI may become the go-to instrument preamp in recording studios, the next standard for studio gear. My background is in world-class studios so this product had to fit in that picture. In fact, most of the circuits would qualify as being mastering equipment quality and were developed for high end mastering. Of course, the HDI is still affordable for project studios and is a good way to get some amp flavor without needing to set up an amp and dealing with the loudness. Basically, a truly better instrument preamp for recording.

How did you design the HDI to be as low-noise as possible?

We did this in three ways. Where there’s op amps in the path, we’re using some of the lowest noise, lowest distortion parts available. In fact, the input op-amp that we use is the lowest distortion op-amp made at this point in time. The second way is keeping the power supply very quiet and we use a pretty new circuit there to filter as much noise as possible so that the power supply rails are ridiculously quiet. The third way is attention to board layout and making sure the sensitive bits are distanced from the noisy bits. That’s just careful layout, best design practices, that kind of thing.

How long was the HDI in development before it became a reality?

It was probably four months initially to get a good working prototype that I could demonstrate to other people. And there’s been a couple more months on top of that for a second prototype and production ready unit. And some of that is basic R & D, checking out little sub-circuits ideas and concepts. Another part is the real schematic and board layout — putting parts in and seeing how it works in a real environment. Part of it is just refining and listening. I do a lot of listening and adjusting by ear. It’s like mixing. You can’t just do it by numbers. You have to do it by listening and tweaking. Where a recording engineer might be twisting knobs and pushing buttons, I’m choosing parts and adjusting values, selecting circuits. It’s basically the same approach, just a different level of our audio technology.

What type of testing did the HDI go through before final design?

We have a number of good guitar players and bass players at Radial. And initially it was just the closest player around for the first tests. But as we got to the really decent first prototype we invited everybody in and had several bass players and several like guitar players and we tried all the keyboards in the studio. We just spent two or three days just messing around and seeing what it could do. One of the first reactions was one of the guys here plugged in a bass, and we both kind of looked at each other, and it was like, who needs an SVT? It was THAT kind of a sound immediately. And that’s off a couple of little studio bookshelf speakers. But it was that kind of room-filling sound that you associate with a big SVT stack or even a double stack. It was huge. We have a, a nicely equipped studio right next door to the design lab and we certainly have a lot of musicians here in the building. And some of them are actively performing weekend guys, you know, who are really quite talented. So it’s fun, and I love getting everybody’s opinions, ideas, thoughts and questions.

Is it fair to say that there’s, there’s not really any other manufacturer, especially in this class that’s focused on the level of quality and design with direct boxes in the way that Radial Engineering is?

Radial is the leading manufacturer for instrumentalists and engineers and we have a rather wide range. I don’t see anybody else doing the type of design we’re doing with the HDI. As I originally said, most boxes are kind of boring utility devices. The HDI is different. This is almost a unique product category than that of a traditional instrument preamp. It does so much more. I don’t see any companies actually taking this type of approach with audio design. It’s like a cross between an instrument preamp, a vintage amp simulator, and a direct box. It really is different.

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The post The Radial HDI – A Modern Approach to Instrument Preamp Design appeared first on Radial Engineering.

Twin-Servo

Microphone Preamplifier

The Radial Jensen Twin-Servo & 500 series preamplifier is an updated version of what may well be the most spectacular preamp ever made.

The post Jensen Twin-Servo® 500 – A Classic Reborn for Today’s 500 Series appeared first on Radial Engineering.