Stephen Court told us: "Ever since we left the recording studios to help our clients achieve the same sound on stage - the quality difference between the studio and a live performance has been a problem, and the singer's voice in particular. Traditionally, in a studio, the vocals are processed through a lot of expensive and complicated equipment. Even if a singer could afford to take all that gear on the road, it would be an almost impossible task to set up. We took samples of singers' voices in both studio and in major FOH tour operations. We also took many samples of compressors, limiters, gates, reverb units and the rest of the gear used to process the voice, pre-set most of the controls inside and put them all into a compact 1U case."
The result, says Court, is a complete voice control and enhancement system which doesn't require any technical set-up. The VMS provides the singer with a professional sound for both live and recording purposes. Court reports that considerable interest has also been shown by hire and production companies as a multi-channel mic amp, comp/limiter and gate. The VMS will be sold under the Studiomaster label by both Court Acoustics to cover the pro audio field, and by RSD in the the MI field.
Key features of the VMS include low noise mic amp for all vocal mics plus 48V phantom powering; Low frequency noise and rumble filters; Noise gate to reduce stage overspill and feedback; Compressor optical - auto setting; Limiter for "almost bullet-proof" overload protection; 7-band graphic equaliser at specific vocal frequencies; DSP pre-set with reverb, echo, chorus and double tracking with footswitch bypass; and fully metered and balanced line or mic level outputs.
The VMS will be officially launched at the Frankfurt ProLight&Sound show (29 March - 1 April 2006). Court Acoustics can be contacted on Tel: +44 (0)1805 804722.
(Lee Baldock)
