Michael Goodman: Unveiling the Secrets of Centrance and the English Channel

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This week, we deep dive into the English Channel from Centrance. Special guest Michael Goodman chats about how it came about, the many unique setups and creative uses of the English Channel by voice artists and content creators alike. Plus, we explore its features, and with Robbo, Robert and Michael all using one for the show, there's plenty of tips and tools to help you get the most out of this impressive piece of kit, or inspire you to go check one out for yourself. A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth... https://tribooth.com/ And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. https://austrian.audio/ We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here..   https://www.patreon.com/proaudiosuite     George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. https://georgethe.tech/tpas If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZWT5BTD Join our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/proaudiopodcast And the FB Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203 For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website https://www.theproaudiosuite.com/ “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson Summary In this episode of the Pro Audio Suite, our hosts—George Wittam, Robert Marshall, Darren 'Robbo' Robertson, and Andrew Peters—offer an insightful review of Centrance products, particularly focusing on the English Channel. The team is joined by special guest Michael Goodman from Centrance, who sheds light on the technology behind these innovative audio solutions. Listeners will gain an understanding of the technical nuances of the English Channel, such as its British EQ, clean modern circuitry, and wide frequency response, which altogether emulate the classic analog console experience with a distinct English style. In an in-depth discussion, the panel explores the creative uses of the product, and Goodman explains the motivation behind its unique design, such as the five db gain jump between products which correlates with a price difference. Moreover, the episode delves into the features of the Portcaster and SoBox, highlighting how these devices can send audio to multiple recorders, and allowing one device to control another for an expanded multichannel setup. The challenges and eccentricities of integrating these tech solutions into a working studio setup are candidly discussed, including some unconventional methods they would normally not recommend to voiceover actors. To cap it off, the show offers a quick preview of the next episode where Michael Goodman will return to discuss the Passport Vo, making it a must-listen for audio professionals looking to enhance their tech arsenal and push the boundaries of their creative workflow. #ProAudioSuite #VoiceoverTech #CentranceSolutions Timestamps (00:00:00) Introduction to Pro Audio Suite (00:00:52) Centrance's English Channel Review (00:07:07) Comparison: Jasmine Preamp and Portcaster (00:09:01) English Channel as a Portable Voice Recorder (00:13:16) Modern Breakthroughs in EQ Circuitry (00:15:29) Features of the English Channel Parametric EQ (00:19:15) Instamano: The Mono Blend Knob for Instagram (00:25:40) Portcaster's Monitoring and Output Capabilities (00:28:28) SoBox: Link Switches Explained Transcript Speaker A: Y'all ready? Be history. Speaker B: Get started. Speaker C: Welcome. : Hi. Speaker C: Hi. : Hello, everyone to the pro audio suite. : These guys are professional. Speaker C: They're motivated with tech. To the Vo stars, George Wittam, founder of source elements Robert Marshall, international audio engineer Darren Robbo Robertson and global voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to Triboo, austrian audio making passion heard source elements George the tech Wittam and Robbo and AP's international demo. To find out more about us, check theproaudiosuite.com line up. Speaker B: Learner. Here we go. : And don't forget the code. Trip a P 200. That will get you $200 off your tribooth. Now, I should say, before we start the show, a disclaimer. What you are about to listen to is what we would not advise voiceover actors to do. That's all I'm going to say. Speaker A: Do as I say, not as I do. : Yeah, exactly. We have a special guest today from Centrance, Michael Goodman. G'day, Michael. Speaker B: Hello, gentlemen. Pleasure to be here. : It's lovely to have you. Now, today's review is about sentrance itself, but also the English Channel. And I know two of the people are using english channels as we speak. And one has done some funky little setup to his laptop. And that, of course. : But Robert, I just kind of like that setup where I use the TRRs cable going into the laptop. I just like it because it's wrong. One of the things, actually, two things that I ran into and, Michael, maybe you can explain to me a little bit. But I found that when I use the English Channel with the xlrs going across the top, when you get into the portcaster, you're hitting the mic preamp with an amplified signal. And you end up having to not use as much gain on the mic preamp over on the soapbox as you want. Because even with the pads turned down. And I think I ended up using the pad in the English Channel as well to try to pad it back down so I could get into the meat of the soapbox in terms of processing, the compressor especially, and the deesser as well. So anyways, what I did is I have the mic going in the xlr going out and over into the english channel. And then I have an XLR cable going out which feeds into the. Whatever, the second ring of a tip ring ring sleeve jack. And that goes into my Mac. And then out of my Mac is the tip ring sleeve. The normal stereo output of that jack. And that goes to a female connector. And I take the output of that. I have an 8th inch to 8th inch or an aux cable. I take the output of that and I plug it into the 34 input of the port caster. And I also take another 8th inch cable, aux cable, and I go line out of the English Channel and into the phone TRRs input of the portcaster as well. And that's how I monitor my own voice. So I have two knobs on the Portcaster. I do not have a USB going into the computer, just a USB going into the power headphones 34 being fed in, which is the computer return and my microphone coming in through the TRRS channel two input. So I have the three four knob for you guys, and I have the channel two knob for my own headphones. And voila. Fully processed microphone with EQ using the built in Macintosh input and output through a TRRS cable. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? Speaker B: Well, first of all, I have to hand it to you. You get the prize for the most creative, innovative use of this technology. And it still sounds good. Speaker A: Can I just say, also the most convoluted. Speaker B: Seriously, I guess it is a statement about the universality of this thing, because I hadn't thought about that use. Normally, what we'd recommend everybody to use is the english channel takes a microphone on the input and gives you a USB output that you plug into your computer. It does have really high quality inlook to digital and digital converters inside. So we believe it's better than the converters inside of a typical computer such as a Mac or PC. And therefore you'll get more audio file sound quality that way. But look, I mean, there's so many Gazintas and Gazawtas in that thing, you can probably slice it many different ways. : Well, here's where I came up with that setup. And I decided to do this setup because I wanted to use the soapbox and the full processing, and I wanted to do something different as well. But where I first came up with that setup, and I think it works really well, is with the Jasmine mic pre, because then it's the same thing. You have the XLR feeding out and then you have the computer just return back to the line input and the Jasmine mic pre itself. The headphone already blends your headphones, your input, your mic input with the headphones. So you don't need the second Aux cable that I'm using here. But it's certainly a great way to literally use the Jasmine mic pre with a computer. If you just want to get the Jasmine mic pre. Speaker B: That's actually true. And to be honest with you, we have received feedback about the Jasmine mic pre. One thing that it sorely lacks, apparently according to some users, is a USB audio interface. People are like, why don't you just put a USB jack that actually does audio on that thing, not just power. So then the Jasmine preamp basically turns into a micport Pro with a line level input and a mixer so that you can bring some music into your program or just listen to a backing track and sing along with it or play along with it, something like that. It really just becomes a mic port Pro at that point. With a slightly better preamp? : I don't think so. It becomes like a focus, right? Blue ISA one where it has a Q mix input or a return channel so you can monitor in low latency what comes out of your daw. Speaker B: If it had a USB audio interface, then it would be exactly like those things. : No, the focusrite ISA desktop is not an audio interface. It has no USB. But it's a preamp with two return channels so you can monitor low latency out of your daw. There's not a ton of mic preamps that do it, but the Jasmine does it too, and it's a super useful feature even without the USB interface. Speaker B: In developing the English Channel, we had to face a couple of decision points, because originally it was actually four devices. It was the Jasmine preamp followed by the dynamics box, followed by the EQ, the black cab, and followed by the audio interface, which is the podcaster. But four devices that just looked like a lot in front of you just looked way too complex. So a couple of voiceover actors heard about that and they're like, can you please put the preamp inside of the soapbox? So that's what we did, and thereby we made jasmine preamp pretty much obsolete in our product line. It's a foster child. Sad to say. : I liked it. So the preamp is the same in the jasmine as the soapbox? Speaker B: Yes. : Can I ask what's the preamp in the passport? Speaker B: The preamp is the same all across, so we call it the jasmine preamp. It's a custom designed discrete transistor preamp with a dual stage. : But the courtcaster doesn't have a Jasper. Speaker B: Cordcaster is portcaster with a very small modification. It's basically the same as Portcaster. : So it is a Jasmine preamp in that one as well? Speaker B: Yes, everywhere is the same preamp. : So basically all your preamps are the jasmine. Speaker B: What differs between products is the amount of gain available. So jasmine preamp, if you need the possible theoretical lowest noise, somehow it's different somehow. : Even though it's a jasmine preamp. It's a better jasmine preamp. Speaker B: Yeah. So we monkey with the gain inside the unit. : Wow. Because the Micport Pro that's got, I think it's 65 db gain. Speaker B: Is that 65? And then soapbox has 70 and the Jasmine preamp standalone has 74. 75. : Wow. Speaker B: There's like a five db jump and then there's a corresponding price difference. : I haven't got one, but I know that generously you're going to send one for a review. The Micport Pro, and I know it's been around for a long time, but this is the latest version of it that you've got, which has been around for how long now, the New York. Speaker B: One, the latest Micport Pro has been around since. I want to say that 2018, the. : First Micport Pro was what, 2008? Speaker B: 2009. Eight. You're right. Eight. : I still miss my original. : Well, someone's got it now. They're enjoying it. Speaker A: Hello. : And probably got your laptop as well. : He's got both the laptops. He got a bag full of stuff. Speaker A: Might not be a he. Come on, let's not get sexist here. : Yeah. : Someone who identifies as a thief. Speaker B: Yes, exactly. : I identify as a thief. Speaker A: Yes, indeed. : Now, Michael, with the english channel, who were you looking at when you were designing this? What was your market? Speaker B: The mirror? Speaker A: Before you answer that, I actually want to take you one step back inside your twisted mind. Speaker B: I appreciate that. Speaker A: Where did you come up with the idea for this? Speaker B: So the name of the product, the English Channel. : I'm curious about the name. Speaker B: The name, obviously, is it uses British Egyu and everything else from a channel stripper on a british console, analog console. And therefore it's called the English Channel. So it's a channel from a british console. Now, you can argue that british consoles have been responsible for one of the most prolific periods in the history of the music industry, where in the 70s, early eighty s, a lot of really cool music was produced. I'm not saying that today music is bad, not at all. All music matters, obviously, but I just happen to like a lot of music that was made in the late 70s anyway, so that's the name. And it's sort of kind of a nod to that era. A lot of our customers who buy the English Channel are from that era. They have experience with analog technology, and to them that feels good. Now, how did the product come about? There's really two ways to think about it. First of all, we couldn't get any digital chips during the COVID and so we couldn't build the Micport Pro and podcaster mixerface, all those other things. And I was sitting on a very short lounge chair at a hotel in Mexico, last vacation before COVID And I was kind of anticipating that they were going to hit some trouble. And then I said to myself, we should design some analog products because digital does not look good in the nearest future. And so that's how the analog channel came about. More of a business necessity than anything else. But then as it started to appear to materialize, I was practicing with it. And about that time, I started really recording YouTube videos for the sentrance YouTube channel on a weekly basis. It's a job. And because I traveled a lot, I ended up taking the english channel with me wherever I went. Like, for example, two weeks ago, I was in Indonesia at a trade show, and I had the English Channel, and I did some streams from the trade show floor, which sounded just like what we sound like right now. And I could get rid of the noise in the trade show floor was loud and all that. So I started realizing that this is actually a very cool product for a traveling content creator, because, again, as I said, I was looking at the mirror jokingly, but I happen to be a traveling content creator because I have this job of making videos for our YouTube channel and then podcasts, things like that. I did have a podcaster before, and podcaster obviously came out first, and that's great for doing podcasts, interviews. I know George uses it for that as well, but it doesn't have way to enhance your voice and then also get rid of the noise. Everybody who's starting out in the voice arts at first has to come against this fear of hearing their own voice, because we never know how our voice sounds like when it's recorded right until we have a lot of practice. And then, so I also had a fear of listening to my own voice. And I thought, I probably want a little bit more bass, maybe a little bit less treble here in this area. I kind of sound more confident if I do some of the enhancements. And then, so what this thing allows me to do is honestly develop confidence in public speaking, believe it or not, which is kind of like not the intended use of the product, but it gives me that ability to feel better about myself, which is an unintended psychological consequence of a technological product. : I have a question about the Eq. Is there anything, particularly on the technical side, that makes it a British Eq? I know that sometimes I found that the bandwidths can be pretty wide, and therefore, in that sense, sort of makes it a little bit more english in style, just the wider. I mean, they do get pretty. If I crank mine up here and I put it all the way on the left for the queue, you can kind of hear it. And it's pretty tight, but it doesn't sound like I'm sweeping a sine wave. And on the wide side, it's so wide, you can barely hear me sweeping that at all. Speaker B: It is pretty wide. I mean, it's almost like a surgical instrument. If you put it to 0.4 and is just a shelf almost. At the other extreme, the frequency response of that thing is quite wide. I don't have the spec sheet in front of me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it goes up to almost 100 khz. So it's very wide. It uses modern circuitry. I mean, this is not the circuitry from the course. There's been a lot of breakthroughs in analog technology since then, so that's why it's quiet and it allows us to do some tricks. It doesn't have transformers. So some of the Rupert neve technology color. Yeah, he loved his transformers. And they gave you that bass. They gave you that strange kind of phasing sound. I mean, a lot of people prefer that. And there are manufacturers of audio interfaces. There's one right here in Chicago that loves transformers as well. And those guys, we've had a shootout, and it was very interesting because I brought some of our gear to their studio, and then they had some of their interfaces, and we had an interface shootout. And the results of the shootout were inconclusive in that they loved theirs and I loved mine. : Did they want to do a black lion edition of the sentence? Speaker A: Yeah, of course. Speaker B: No, they hated our stuff because we didn't have transformers in it. And I was like, you guys, this doesn't sound natural. What goes in is not what goes out. And they're like, yeah, that's exactly the point. So different styles. : So talking about that, though, if you're talking about late 70s, early 80s when you were designing the English Channel, what sort of preamps were you thinking about? It sounds like you weren't thinking about Neve. You were thinking about maybe API. Speaker B: We wouldn't necessarily want know, copy somebody else's design, so that wouldn't be prudent for a lot of reasons, one of which just personal pride. We wanted to have our stuff. So you could argue that the whole concept of the british invasion and the british consul and all that is largely a psychological construct than any particular style of circuitry. Design. : It's not an homage to any. Like, this isn't a V 72 club. Speaker B: I wouldn't want to do that. There's so many people that say, oh, we make a microphone and it's the best U 87 this side of U 87, whatever. And that is a great marketing strategy for some people, but we decided not to do that. Like, okay, this is the Neve 1998, right? But in a different chassis. No, not at all. This is a sentence product that it is completely from ground up sentence. And then any marketing reference to Great Britain is an homage rather than any specific lift of any circuitry. : I don't think I can think of any smaller three band, fully parametric EQ on the market at all than this. Speaker A: No. Speaker B: You can find these graphic eqs and pedals a lot. : It's smaller than a 500 series module. It's like half the size. Speaker B: Exactly. I didn't have one either. : But find a three band parametric that's this small and it's XLR that's fully balanced. Speaker B: You should try it on some instruments. It's pretty cool. You should also try. So, box on a snare. I was blown away. Speaker A: Really? : Compressor is really good. Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty nice. I have a video up on our website where I actually go through a history of the sound of the snare drum by turning the compressor knob on the soapbox. So without compression, it's essentially the 60s. With medium compression, it becomes the gated snare starts to come in, and then if you compress all the way. If you turn the knob all the way to the right, then it becomes the. Becomes the gated compressed snare. With the additional. Speaker A: I was going to say, you'd have to be winding the gate up as well. Right in the will. : Say, if I can make a request for the soapbox too, that the gate is an expander, that'd be my only request. Speaker B: So it doesn't pump as much or you can make it not pump as much. : So it slides down to its. Whatever range -60 or minus, even infinity. But it never just goes there, it always has a slope. It opens more gradually and closes more gradually. Because I don't know if I can do it. But you can kind of even sometimes you can hear someone breathe in, you can hear it take their breath and like, chop. Speaker B: It's pretty drastic. It's just basically on off. And it was designed to be that way. And it took a while to get the timing just right so that it covers the majority of applications. Obviously, we didn't have the space for a couple more knobs seems pretty quick. That was the point. So if you really use the gate, then it becomes pumpy. So it can be like that. : Yeah, well, I found a good way around that is to use the blend. Speaker B: The dry wet control. That's pretty much your answer. : Yeah, it effectively changes the amount. So it always leaves a little bit. And it doesn't sound quite as, like, cut. : It's like the range control. I like that. That mix of the dry wet will give you. Speaker B: That is a poor man's expander, if you wish. Speaker A: No, it's a sentence expander. : Yeah, that's what it is. Speaker B: The trick is old. The trick is not our invention. : So tell us about the instant mono. I think that's another one that it's kind of a unique thing that you don't find that behavior on all interfaces. Speaker B: The insta in Instant Instamano actually stands for Instagram. And we put that in portcaster. And what we've learned is that Instagram, originally, they may have changed that now, but originally it was mono. So therefore, if you connect a stereo usb audio interface to Instagram to do a live stream, then the left channel will go through and everybody will hear whatever's on the left channel, but the right channel will essentially be lost. So a musician who, let's say, is a guitar player and a singer at the same time. So a singer songwriter, they would plug the guitar into one channel and the voice, the vocal microphone into the other channel, and then only one of those things would come through. And that was extremely frustrating. We had an earlier product called Mixerface, where there was no blend, no stereo blend. It just two channels come in, two channels go out. : I've got a mixer, right? Speaker B: The older one didn't have that blend knob. Now, since COVID and since that whole idea of streaming from home came about, we learned that this is not good. And then that Instamano is essentially a mono switch for mono blend knob for Instagram, which essentially unifies or combines your microphone and your guitar that you plug into channels one and two and then sends that to Instagram. And then your fans hear both things. That's really what it's for. Now, why is it a blend knob and not a switch? Because I had a hole I needed to plug with a potentiometer, and it kind of felt good. : How does it work exactly? All the way left. Right goes all the way to left is all the way left. Speaker B: Yes. So when you turn it counterclockwise, which is to the left, you are printing. Mono printing. When I say printing, I mean, is sending a mono signal into Instagram. So, in your usb stream. : But what's it doing electrically? Is it bringing the right side fully over to the left side? Is that what it is? Speaker B: It's creating a monomix. So it takes 50% of the left and 50% of the right. It combines them together and creates a mono mix. And then it sends that mono mix to the left channel and that same exact mono mix to the right channel. That's the proper way of doing it. : So what happens if you have it 50 50, like straight up at 12:00 now what's. Speaker B: So then it's in between mono and stereo. And I am still trying to figure out a good use case for that. : Well, it's like faking headphones for stereo. If you want a little left right bleed. Speaker B: Yeah. : At the 12:00 position, it basically takes. Left is 100% left plus 50% right, and right is 100% right plus 50% left. Is that what's happening? Speaker B: It becomes 50 of, let's say 50 of each? Yeah. So it's slightly less than stereo. So now I have to correct myself. I said that I'm struggling to come up with a use case. I'm not. Because we make two microphones that you can plug into podcaster. These are tiny little mics that are housed inside the XLR shells. And then they are angled so that when you plug them into channels one and two over the podcaster, you form a xy stereo pair. And then at that point, portcaster becomes a stereo field recorder with two mics. And then you can record concert, a band, whatever, or sounds of nature, animals. We have people recording all kinds of things. Creeks, mountain creeks. And then. So there, what you can do is you can record in, like, full stereo. But sometimes if you're way too close to the source, the full stereo might actually sound uncomfortable. So in that case, you might want to reduce the width of the stereo perspective slightly. And that's where the mono stereo blend ability to kind of grow gradually between the two comes into play. Because I've stuck this actually big sewer in California about a year ago, and I recorded the sound of the mountain creek because I thought it would be cool. And I stuck the portcaster on a rock right next to gurgling water. Right. And I realized that the two microphones recorded completely different sounds from water hitting the rocks. And it actually sound like way too much stereo. So I had to blend it down a little bit, and then it was a little bit more listenable. That makes sense. : I can't think of one product that has that. George, can you think of any other product that has that? : It's one of those majorly missing features of almost every other standard stereo interface. Like if you look at a scarlet two I two, people try using a scarlet two I two all the time to do things like this. And then they get frustrated when one person's voice is in the left and the other one's in the right. And that's not what they need. What they needed was a mixer, but they're using interface and they just don't conceptually understand what the difference is. : That is a unique feature. That pan move someone to the left or right is a very unique feature to these sentence interfaces. And you don't see the input pan on any device. What you do see is the ganged stereo monitor pan on almost all devices. So two places where sentrance has been unique. The Instamano knob. I can't think of any interface that does that unless it has a full mixer. The other thing that's unique is technically the original mixer face is the only interface I know of that has a separate left right usb versus input play. : It's unique too. Absolutely. Speaker B: Yeah. And then that use case it was useful for, and it was designed for, is when you have a guitar in one end, your voice in the other end, and you might want to listen to a little bit of a background track. And that gives you a blend between the guitar and the voice in the headphones. It essentially affects the headphones. Right. So you can keep your levels where you want them with the two level knobs, but you can adjust your headphone mix with those two other knobs, but. : You could affect the blend. You could blend in more of your input than your output. But when you played back, your mix was different because it wasn't really. Yes. Speaker B: This was for monitoring only. : Totally. So what then is interesting also is the original mixer face. And I'm not sure if this one has, but the original mixer face at least also uniquely had a mono switch for the output. So you could at least hear the two centered. You weren't recording them centered, but it has a mono switch. And is that in the portcaster or does that switch go away? Speaker B: It's still everywhere. And I have to say it confuses a lot of people, including famous youtubers. We won't name names, but essentially this thing was designed to be so flexible, it's useful. We possibly overloaded it for an average user. So I have customers who are tweaks and they love it. Because they can use in so many different ways. But for example, the mono stereo monitor switch allows you to print in stereo, but listen in mono. Right. Whereas the mono stereo blend knob, you're listening to whatever you're recording. So if you're blending with the mono stereo knob, you're actually printing mono, which is an important distinction. : And again, I can't think of any interfaces to do this. Most interfaces don't give you these types of choices. They're just features you can't find on a focus. Right. Or something like that. Speaker B: That's more for videography, things like that. So there's also a third. There's a line output on the podcaster. And then that allows you to record to essentially three places. So you can use the podcaster to send your audio to three separate recorders, one being the internal SD card recorder, one being the USB whatever it is that you're recording to or streaming live to. Right. And then the third one, the line out goes out to the camera. So that's for video applications. And then you can record audio onto the camera as well. : Can I give you a total feature for that? Speaker B: Go. : Okay, so you're recording stereo audio onto the internal card of the Portcaster? Speaker B: In this case, yes. : And then you had the line output stereo technically going into the camera. Right. So put a timecode generator in this thing, record three channels of Timecode onto the Portcaster and then drop one channel of Timecode. Speaker B: It's been brought up so far we've dealt with people who do shorter things and they just jam sync it. Where? I don't know what the current thinking, current wisdom is, but about 20 minutes of content recorded, it doesn't yet drift yet far enough. : But it's a lot of work still. It's still a lot of work to go find it. Like timecode just lines it up for you. You don't have to go. Speaker B: Yeah. After about an hour, it starts becoming a problem. But so far, I don't think we've dealt with anybody who's using these for very long periods of time. It's a voiceover artist who's recording for 30 seconds or if it's a youtuber. Then again, it's not a long thing. Speaker A: On the soapbox, Michael, on the bottom of the soapbox, and I think I've figured this out, there are three link switches for each of the processing, for the gate, for the compressor, and for the Deesser. Can you tell us what they do? Speaker B: We wanted SoBox to be extendable to multichannel situations. So, for example, for stereo or for multichannel recording. What you can do is you can actually line up several of these soapboxes and you can have one of them control the others in a linked situation. So in a stereo program, that's important because you don't want the two channel, the left and right channel to pump differently. You want them to sort of be in sync. And what those switches do is they allow you to choose. There are two jacks there called smart link. One is the link in and the other one is link out. So you can actually control one soapbox with another soapbox, and one became the master and the other one became the non master. : But that's not like the slave of a compressor that's just controlling the same knob. It's setting the two knobs at the same position. Speaker A: Right. : There's still two parallel monocompressors. Speaker B: No, if you switch the switch to the remote, then the knob becomes useless on that unit that is in the remote mode. Essentially, it will only listen to what the other unit tells it to do. : Right. And what is the other unit telling it? Is it telling it where to set exactly so they. Speaker B: Because it's a control signal, it's like. : Working on a VCA kind of thing. Speaker B: You can have one soapbox control another soapbox. : Is the VCA controlling the gain reduction or is it controlling the position of that knob? Speaker B: The position of the knob controls the VCA unless you flip the switch, put it in remote, and then a remote signal controls the VCA. And the knob essentially sits there doing nothing. You can rotate the knob on the slave unit and it would not do anything because the slave unit would be listening to the signal from the master unit. Speaker A: Okay, so how are we linking those together? : Is that the USB connection, the little 8th inch connectors. Speaker B: Trrs. We're having an arc here. TRrs comes back. : Is it trrs or just trs? Speaker B: Trrs. : Are you using the whole TRRs cable for the VCA? Speaker B: Yes, because there's three things that we can control. Gate, compressor, and Deesser. Speaker A: There you go. : All three are on one link. You don't need three links. One wire, one wire gets you linked. Speaker A: That's the smart link. : That's cool. Speaker A: Yeah, right. : So much innovation in these things. It's great, man. : Wow. Speaker A: There you go. Very cool. : That's part one of our chat with Michael Goodman from centrance, talking about the English Channel. Next episode, we have Michael back to talk about the Passport Vo, the collaboration between this podcast and centrance. Catch you next time. : Well, that was fun. Speaker C: Is it over the pro audio suite with thanks to Triboof and austrian audio recorded using source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and mixed by Robbo. Got your own audio issues? Just ask robo.com tech support from George the tech don't forget to subscribe to the show and join in the conversation on our Facebook group. To leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just say g'day. 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