Funktion One Live Masterclass with Tony Andrews (Founder)

[@Si1983h]

This guy really knows what he's talking about, he's a true music lover and he's dedicated to the unhindered reproduction of music, top guy!

[@hftl412]

Tony Andrews sitting for an interview with a careful product placement over his shoulder for *checks notes* KRK Rokit 5s

[@mynameisHOPKIRK]

Awesome, great insight and wise words from a man of experience, very knowledgable and obviously a deep thinker... could listen to this man all day long, should've rolled out this interview for another hour. Can you tell I really enjoyed this? thanks for the upload, greatly appreciated...thankyou, keep 'em coming!

[@rube6729]

Hell yeah, definitely needed to be way longer!

[@tombaker3522]

What he's saying at 1:01:56 is bang on. We live in a visualcentric world. More attention should be paid to and with our super high resolution 360 degree xray sense.

[@luke144]

I've had a lot of fun in front of Tony's work!!

[@mountjarvis]

Living legend!

[@TimpBizkit]

Tom Danley describes another problem with speakers is when the mids, highs and lows come from separate places on the cabinet. He describes a guitar played back through the speaker as "It sort of sounds like a guitar, but does it really? Perhaps it sounds like a recording of a guitar." He says the holy grail of time alignment is being able to send the speaker a square wave and have it played back and picked up as the same square wave on an oscilloscope with a microphone connected. Not that a square wave is particularly pleasant to listen to but its reproduction requires all the drivers be in phase.

[@carforumwanker]

Danley's new Jericho J2 are probably the best PA speaker to be designed in years . Get Danley and Funktion One together and the opportunities will be amazing. They would work well together as they share so much in common

[@TimpBizkit]

@@carforumwanker I haven't listened to any Danley speakers or any "single source" type speaker apart from headphones so am interested in the difference in sound between a "synergy" type speaker and one with a woofer and mid and tweeter all a different distance from your ears. With the guitar analogy I wonder whether in a dark room you couldn't tell the speaker apart from the soundhole of a real acoustic guitar, after it has been equalized for timbre differences. (Although equalizers have their own phase changes, not sure whether this ruins the effect). It's this I am interested in more than "how loud can you get?" What Tom Danley and Mike Hedden were discussing also was that the speakers sound similar when they are far away as when they are close up. When a speaker is far away it usually more closely approximates a "point source" because all the drivers are closer together relatively speaking, although timing in the longitudinal direction (towards and away from you) is the only thing that can be accounted for.

[@carforumwanker]

@@TimpBizkit no old tannoys or Kef q speakers. ? It’s not that new !! The Darnley Jericho’s j2 are speakers that Rip up the book when it comes to PA . Not established in the U.K. . Many have not heard of them . But when you see a audience of 10k dancing away with a single pair of speakers and the sound quality most companies dream about . Super loud but easy on the ears . I also love “Lacoustic” . But I feel technically speaking we will see a huge return to a more organic sound and the complete utter removal of compression / MP3 type recordings .

[@TimpBizkit]

@@carforumwanker heard a few L'Acoustic boxes and D&B boxes but because I was not the one setting up or controlling the sound I can't make any comments on how they behave. The few line array systems I have heard sounded good from some angles and very "nasal" (or "mouthal" as that sound is caused by blocking off the nose) from others. It could be that the system was only secured at the top so swung around in the breeze, but you could hear the interference changing the sound as it alternated between hi fi and police megaphone in varying degrees. The front stage fill boxes did not have this problem. I have also heard a few of the turbosound horn boxes which I can define as clear and loud but with a bit of mid-high bite to them the way they were set up. The L'Acoustics arcs system behaved surprisingly well for a curved horizontal array of trapezoidal boxes - with the treble muting a bit as I walked from side to side, but not the dreaded police bullhorn sound signature. The O2 Academy has a 6 box vertical array of V-dosc on either side. It's probably quite a lot of speaker for that size of room if I'm honest. Quite hard to get a judgement on sound in a packed Darkness concert in Dec 19. The more budget box I've heard sounding both good and bad is the Bose 802. They definitely have a bit of midrange honk to them but they do quite well for outdoor acoustic. Not the clearest treble in them though. I have heard them sound poor at an indoor disco they were very fatiguing to listen to and tended to amplify brass horn type instruments disproportionately loudly.

[@carforumwanker]

@@TimpBizkit I would like to see a “Jericho J2 “ set up at somewhere like Hyde park , london or Glastonbury etc . 2-3 speakers aside . Using their Amps . The footprint would be tiny !

[@lizichell2]

very informative and educational and fascinating. Heaven in london uses funktion 1 speakers and they sound superb. The bass is excellent.

[@RWL2012]

lizichell2 what about the rest of the frequency range?

[@lizichell2]

''we want new speakers'' ''you gotta do something about this roof'' hahahahaaa

[@rube6729]

I felt like he was holding back a bit in the first half of this and didn't really elaborate much until well into the session. I would LOVE to hear more from Tony in a much longer format, kind of free-form, interview!

[@samnolan7670]

That was amazing to listen to, could have listened to multiple more hours

[@Sebastian-rr7de]

Thanks for uploading. Great discussion

[@danguzman4676]

My first Home Stereo was a Hitachi Ambiophonic System, I think it had a built in 8Track Player also. The Album I liked the most on it was by Yes the album "Tormato" Those Speakers delivered something I haven't heard since, the sound stage came out further a kind of 3d sound. I just got a passive 15" pair of Martin Audio I will power with QSC G7 Amp. Behringer Mixer I got witha flood of RC Connections for Tape, DVD,phono,etc. I also have a pair of EV MHT-1 it's a mega 10" Horn & a high frequency Horn inside the Horn, Base I have 2 Cerwin Vega Subs 1 DL36 powered witha Crown XLS602 in Mono & a Vintage Cerwin Vega with written 4TH Model off the line, it's a 18" witha 10" cone in front was used by a Base Player for Charlie Daniels Band back when Analog was Cool.

[@theaudioforge356]

If you want to be close to this system please lookup the Philips 1980's MFB (Motionial feedback system) THey are so on point and beyond its time like funktion one. FUnktion for live 80's philips for home. Its so important to listen to the actual sound rather than distortion or equipment.

[@ProgressorMusicAcademy]

17:25 dude, just let this wise man talk. you cut out his whole point that he was about to build a foundation for.

[@Bork-Bork-Bork]

legit. made me cringe and feel sorry for tony.

[@TimpBizkit]

One of the highest end "speakers" for mixing is usually the headphones. Because the drivers are right next to your ears it's quite easy to have dynamic range and "headroom" in a pair of headphones (the levels it takes to damage the drivers are usually louder than the level at which it's too loud and you want to take the headphones off your ears and many are enough to blast yourself a live rock/edm concert without breaking a sweat). One side effect of this dynamic range is you can get one driver to do all the frequencies with little of that intermodular distortion "talking into a fan" sound you get when a bass note and a vocal plays through the same speaker at the same time. While there are headphones with crossovers and woofers, mid and tweeters, it's typically not needed to achieve a good sound. Also, headphones are in an acoustically dead environment by nature. The only thing that's missing from headphones is the feel of the bass. Something like the sub pac can fix that, and it also fixes the problem of room reflections causing the levels of bass at different frequencies to be uneven as you move around the room. The other thing with headphones is each ear only hears one cup, whereas with stereo speakers I can hear the right speaker with both ears (with a time delay and treble cut in the left ear) and the left vice versa. Funktion One I have only heard at quiet levels (well the horn subwoofers were turned up loudly) one of the resolution model boxes in a tent. As it was mostly bass in minimalist techno it is hard to quality evaluate them other than fairly crisp and the horn bass you could feel as pressure in your ears without it being muddy like a bass guitar (that you typically get from cranked 18" bass reflex boxes). My DIY Bill Fitzmaurice cabinet speakers with Eminence and Beyma drivers sound fairly similar to the L'Acoustics or D&B stuff with a small amount of the honk of the 802 speakers. They need quite a bit of EQ to tame the upper mids or they do have an unpleasant bite in the upper midrange. Their bass horns I do not have but the ones I heard are fairly similar to the funktion one horns I heard. (The Titan 39 were filtered below 60 in front of the stage and the Tuba 60 was in the corner of the room and sounded like it got low and powerful even without cranking it up much and I could feel and hear the bass loudly in the toilets.)

[@keatoncreates]

'Because i found my mind going with the sound, umm, i was getting into a medative condition and the cleaner it is the higher you can go' .... Can confirm this is truth, they use this system for local bush doofs and the experiences is like no other, ive never ever heard any festival or nightclub or montiors come even close to the sound a funktion 1 can out in the bush.

[@numusique]

Legend

[@TimpBizkit]

As my hearing drops off rapidly above 16kHz, an mp3 with a bitrate of 128 to 192kbps sounds as good as WAV to me though the problem is it's hard to evaluate unless you record your own songs and it's acoustic music. I'm not quite sure what mp3 does to the sound other than rolling off the high frequencies a bit. I'd be curious to listen on a good set of point source speakers like the Danley Sound Labs SH50 (DSL are a level on from Funktion One in driver combining and alignment, Tom has even found a way to combine multiple compression drivers into one in phase signal!) to see if the presence of multiple instruments in a stereo soundfield is lost. I've found that mp3 preserves binaural so the phase change can't be that great. With WAV in the 44k sampling, you can get some distortion on high frequencies that aren't a factor of 44,000. You tend to get these lower pitched tones coming through, although I don't tend to notice this on a busy music signal. As for DJs sounding bad, I'd bet 9 times out of 10 it's overdriving the mixer. Room acoustics plays a value. Most clubs are so echoey that one venue was using Martin Audio, another was using ProSound (the cheap ones you can buy at Maplin with a 15" woofer and a horn loaded piezo "compression driver". Piezos sound quite good but not on a ringy plastic horn run low enough to mate with a 15....

[@wilburtexeira594]

Well...then tom should tie up with andrews...not for sound ....not for music ...but for the bigger picture !!.. which obviously covers everything..... ! ... so same difference ! We are already too slow...given the knowledge we got collectively from the times the greeks were talking.... OR BEFORE.. ! Tony...your bang on philosophically/the physics.... perfect.. !! ... you have been real and true to your cause... i never thought id know a someone like you ....and your still Alive !

[@scality4309]

.mp3 removes the frequencies we can not hear because there are overlapping ones. .mp3 is bad quality. Handy back when storage was expensive. Not needed now anymore.

[@132dude7]

if u cant hear the difference from 128kbps to a wav or even 320kpbs mp3 your ears might not practiced enough tbh. there is a huge difference in sound quality which you will notice in a club for sure. even on headphones its easy to detect imo.

[@TimpBizkit]

@@132dude7 you won't notice anything in a club over drunk girls screaming. You might in an acoustically damped room where everyone is silent.

[@132dude7]

@@TimpBizkit of course i would. not everyone goes in clubs where drunk girls are screaming all the time ;) the bass isnt even as clear as on a vinyl record or a wav file, and girls cant outscream bass. the whole track will sound way more muddy in 128kbps.

[@DrTune]

34:40 "The best place to listen to audio is outside... in the desert somewhere" ... e.g. Robot Heart @ Burning Man - absolutely no reflections or muddiness, it's like wearing headphones :-)

Dr Tune "IF" there is No wind.

[@victornevares]

Really informative!! Thanks!!

[@Jerimboplaysgames]

56:40 tell him to listen to some old school dubstep by kahn or something it's got massive bass, and nice rhythm. And no screechy midrange harmonics on the bass unless it's coki but he does it right.

[@robertson.aragon1]

finally a good Pirate Music Captain speaking ! very nice !

[@ovechristophermattmann880]

So is there nowadays such a list of affordable equipment which he (or somebody like him) would recommend?

[@Tazmanian_Ninja]

Would have been interesting to hear his take on saturation, used in music production, in everything from electric guitar amps, to tape and tube saturation. When producing electronic music, many find it beneficial to degrade the sound.

[@TheRandyPan]

Really interesting lecture!!

[@christopherkennedy314]

Tony Andrews, THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!!!

[@lizichell2]

this guy is spot on with mp3

We all have to drop Mp3 and wma, there are other lose less compression formats Much better sounding, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis.

[@GZWA]

best looking speakers

[@RWL2012]

what about sound?

[@GZWA]

@@RWL2012 I got to hear them at Beta in Denver a few times in 2014-15. They sounded amazing but I did not have much reference for comparison.

[@RWL2012]

​@@GZWAfair enough

[@hueyhueyhueyhuey]

best hair in the biz

[@pointblankmusicschool]

*ahem* imgur.com/a/jd5AV

[@gabbajon5654]

I wonder what he thinks about breakcore

[@wilburtexeira594]

He's The Pearl from BLUE OYSTER !!

[@skyoptics]

and also a room full of blank faces i bet hahaha

[@milesaharrison]

Sage words and advice from Tony as ever. He must have been rippping his ears off when he heard the awful sound quality in this recording/video. I'm surprised he didn't demand to set the mic and levels up himself!? Turn the gain down ffs!

[@maxferreiroMop]

Its funny most of the audio masterclasses have horrible audio.

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

The desire for rigid and shiny surfaces in a live sound setting does have a reason: hygiene. It is really hard to work out how to acoustically treat a building in ways that won't soak up sweat and gank. It can be done.

[@TimpBizkit]

I suppose a plastic coating. Think crash mat. At least an indoor smoking ban will mean you don't have that to deal with.

[@Ravewayvideos]

THANKS = )

[@RWL2012]

Tony Andrews sitting next to KRK speakers, awkward!

[@nevillemosey9746]

@mondo odnom Yep why - they don't make studio monitors!

[@dionreload]

They do make nearfield monitors.

[@vlkn.music.official]

Sorry dude but KRK rockits are not bad ;) May be one of the best studio monitor in the world !

[@wilburtexeira594]

What are you guys 13 ??? ? its like you don't even give a f#@k about the real story !!

[@kevinsane]

My thoughts exactly lol

[@yam2k]

22:35 made me laugh so fuckin hard :D:D:D

[@StereoAnthony]

hahaha amazing!

[@rube6729]

No kidding..and I couldn't agree with him more! lol

[@johnbarr7215]

wow. how do I get in contact with him?

[@tylerweb4017]

He reminds me of the Alex grey of speaker design 😂

[@indopleaser]

A whole hours talk about sound quality with this static coming through the speakers , can anyone hear this?

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

I have to say, the flashlight systems were really good, even by today's standard. Yes, absolutely I know what a phase plug is. Crappy sound quality has been a de facto standard ever since we invented reproduction, and before that we had crappy instruments and crappy buildings.

[@nivzip87]

Jimmie hendrix And other stuff😂 I trust a guy who used some mindaltering letters

[@scadz_]

As if anyone older than twenty is still capable of perceiving anything above 20kHz... so why that nonsense of "96kHz sample rate minimum"?

[@KongoBilly]

this is not the frequency of the sound.. this means the digital sampling rate of the analog sound..

[@robertocalderonabogado1427]

The most iconic part of his work is with TURBOSOUND. Too bad they sold the company.

He is right, mp3 is a disgrace to music but tell this to millions of kids who think that an Ipod sounds good...

[@ArmorKingEmir]

8 dislikes came from beringer

[@Tomis13789]

18:00 Huh any DJ that legit show up to play on a Rig like these guys build with Lossy formats, is an absolute joke in my opinion. Probably ripped the song off a streaming service too. Lesson 1 of Mix School.

[@nasreddinemrabet5850]

KV2 beat them hardly

[@skyoptics]

terrible mic work for a sound school :)

[@paulallen9518]

Professional DJ's actually show up with mp3s? LOL. I'm a bedroom DJ and I only play aif files...