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The success of Renkus-Heinz is a family affair, with three generations of the Heinz family, as well as a number of veteran employees of more than 20 years working together at the company’s headquarters in Foothill Ranch, CA, where the majority of the company’s products are still designed and manufactured in-house.

Ralph Heinz joined the company early on as a trained mechanical engineer who “has a natural talent for understanding acoustics,” according to his father and company founder Harro Heinz.  Patents for innovations such as TRAP (True Array Principle) and CoEntrant technologies reflect the truth of that statement.

As company CTO, Ralph Heinz has been the principal loudspeaker designer at Renkus-Heinz  since 1992 and is credited with developing some of the most advanced digital beam steering solutions on the market today. Renkus-Heinz developed the very first Unibeam – an algorithm that generates asymmetric beams and utilizes the entire array for all frequencies. This allowed for louder beams that could be cast further in a room – and allowed for a more manageable setup. These innovations, along with other unique concepts like Complex Conic horns and Reference Point Arrays, are the foundation of Renkus-Heinz’s well-established reputation for sonic excellence.

We sat down with Ralph to discuss the audio industry, his technical innovations and career at the company, and music in general.

What is your favorite album of all time and why?

That’s an almost impossible question to answer because I love lots of different types of music. However, my parents insisted on my taking piano and music theory lessons growing up. As a result, I did have an affinity towards the progressive stuff as a teenager. So the album I probably listened to more than any other (that’s some type of favorite, right?) was Jethro Tull’s “Thick as A Brick.”

What is the thing that made you want to be part of the audio/music industry?

Back in high school, I was a closet ‘audiophile.’ So I couldn’t have been more excited when my father, Harro Heinz, announced he wanted to start his own company, Renkus-Heinz, and it served the music industry with OEM Compression Drivers.

How did you get your start in the business? And the company?

I was attending San Jose State for mechanical engineering when my father asked me to join Renkus-Heinz as a manufacturing engineer. I took it as my shot to get working in the music industry, and get my own family closer to my parents, so they could see their grandkids grow up.

What is your current position?

I am currently CTO, the only acronym here that was not already taken. (Smile.)

How did your background influence the job you do now? And the company overall?

My background was in manufacturing and mechanical engineering, not acoustics or loudspeaker design. However, my background did provide me with the fundamentals of physics and I quickly learned how to improve our production processes for the drivers and cabinets that we were producing at the time.

To learn the fine art of speaker design, I was fortunate that a lot of smart people before my time, published their work on speakers, horns, crossovers etc. in the AES journals that we had at the office. I also credit Don Keele Jr, with my acoustics tutelage, as we had hired him to consult on our large format Constant Beamwidth horns back in the early 90s.

The CNC routers that I helped spec and procure early on are still in operation today! Not because we are too cheap to update them, in fact, they were simply so well made they survive today.

You and your company are legendary in the industry. In your viewpoint, what is the main reason for that?

Along with producing some of the best compression drivers at the time, my father, Harro Heinz, was one of the first people in the industry to recognize the importance of combining dedicated electronics to enhance a speaker’s performance while providing protection at the limit. Our processor-based Smaart systems gave our customers a reliable platform that lasted well beyond the traditional systems of the day while sounding great doing so.

Which product do you consider your company’s most innovative?

I am very proud of our new ICLive X series. The basic module, the ICLX, is no bigger than a typical 8” two way loudspeaker, yet is capable of adjusting its vertical beamwidth, and steering that energy into the audience (via our Beamware software) and away from reflective surfaces that can degrade the audio. So, on its own, a very powerful, high utility loudspeaker, with high output capabilities and studio monitor-like resolution and sound quality. In addition, the ICLX can also be combined with up to 12 additional cabinets to create a highly directional, fully steerable, line array suitable for up to 90% of the venues out there.

What do you think has been/is the single most important technological achievement in our industry?

Clearly the modern “line array” has changed the way that the industry provides sound for most venues. This drove the development of the digitally steered class of loudspeakers that we specialize in at Renkus-Heinz as an evolutionary improvement and culmination of the line array concept.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?

Believe it or not, that would be my very first loudspeaker for Renkus-Heinz, the C-2. That design would still be considered state of the art, if not for the other advances we helped generate. It featured horn loaded bandpass for the lows, and a co-axial mid/high horn based on a 10” mid driver, and two of our SSD-1800 compression drivers. The drivers were mounted to a manifold and compact constant directivity horn all of my design! Not a bad first effort, and the start of my speaker designer phase at Renkus-Heinz.

Tell us a little about your company culture and your philosophy.

At Renkus-Heinz, we are very much a family business, with my father, Harro Heinz, still firmly at the helm. My sister is the company CFO, and we now have third generation Heinz, my son Brandon Heinz, doing a great job as product manager. Everyone benefits from and appreciates the “family style” business climate my father has fostered, so staff turn-over is not an issue for us, and we have a generally happy and very hardworking team of customer-focused employees.

How is your company poised for the future?

Digitally steered, computer controlled and monitored line arrays are the future, and we are at the forefront of that technology!

What music do you enjoy listening to these days?

The music I listen to the most these days would be the simple straight-ahead rock that I am trying to teach myself to play on the guitar, from AC/DC to ZZ Top. One day I hope to see Muse and/or Rammstein (not on the same bill of course) perform live!

In just over 15 years, producer and guitarist Mark Lewis has run up one of the most enviable — and loudest — discographies in rock. He has tracked, mixed, produced, and/or mastered records for a spectrum of metal’s heaviest bands, including Trivium, Bury Your Dead, Whitechapel, Chimaira, Battlecross, Cannibal Corpse, Megadeth, The Black Dahlia Murder, Carnifex, Havok, and many more. He recently sat down with us to discuss his humble beginnings, his career since, his tone-crafting techniques, and how Celestion speakers have been there through all of it.

What was your point of entry into metal and heavy rock?

For starters, I grew up a guitar player. I started at age 12 and went to college for music performance. I eventually went to Full Sail in Orlando, Florida, and have to say I didn’t enjoy the experience all that much. I loved the scene there, though, and wound up meeting Jason Suecof, who was just an up-and-coming producer at the time. He had just produced Trivium’s Ascendancy, which would turn out to be a gigantic record.

Was that the classic “big break” moment?

Yeah, we hit it off and became friends. When I got out of school was right about when he was starting to get in-demand and busy. He needed help in the studio, and the stars kind of aligned.

Shortly after that, you engineered a Trivium album, The Crusade.

That was in 2006. The first thing Jason and I did together was the Roadrunner All Stars in 2005. We had done Bury Your Dead’s Beauty and the Breakdown and a couple of records for the Victory and Metal Blade labels. Sometime at the end of 2007, Jason told me, “I’m not going to hire you as an engineer anymore. You’re going to pay me rent, work out of this studio, and I’m going to build another one.” I guess he thought I was ready to leave the nest. I was terrified, but it turned out he was right.

In your own work, what are your go-to drivers for various applications?

I have a perfect story. For so many years I used the Vintage 30, which I might call Celestion’s flagship. I eventually went down the rabbit hole of different models and revisions. We took in a big shipment of Celestion in July of 2019 when I was working on the Havok record, V. We took a clean D.I. in and planned on re-amping. We had a great tone going on — an Engl cabinet with a Peavey 6534 tube head. I was trying that Engl because it had a sound halfway between a Mesa and a Marshall, and most of my clients want one or the other.

Normally our go-to would’ve been the Vintage 30, but we took literally a day to go through all the speakers and try them in the Engl. We had Lynchbacks, we had G12-H series, we had Redbacks, we had V-Type, we had Creamback 65 and 75, and I’m sure I’m leaving stuff out. The band unanimously decided the Creamback 65 was their favorite. Things quickly went from being — I wouldn’t say a stock Vintage 30 tone, but a familiar sound — to a real standout. The 65 isn’t as popular as the 30, but I now believe it’s every bit as good.

Would you say the Creamback 65 is your new go-to?

Let me put it this way. On the records I’ve done since that big speaker tryout, I’ve usually sent clients a few tracks of guitar sounds and asked them to make a choice. Only, I don’t tell them which track uses what gear. There has been an overwhelming preference for the Creamback 65. The Vintage 30 still has a strong role, of course, for when we know we want that sound. On the last Whitechapel record we did, we used Marshalls with the driver that Celestion makes just for them, which I think is called the G12 Vintage.

Can you speak to how Celestion drivers interact with your favorite amps under the high-output demands of metal?

A lot of producers are scared of low end in guitar tracks. I’m first to admit I’m the other extreme — sometimes I’ll take some back out when we’re mixing. One thing that stands out about the Vintage 30, its Mesa and Marshall variants, and the Creamback 65 is, I can hit them with all the low end I want from the amp and the speaker reacts properly. I’m looking not just for boom like a cheap car subwoofer, but for the speaker to interact with the amp in a certain way that’s musical. This is apparent on the Havok record, where there was a lot of energy from 80 to 100 Hertz. I use the Celestion models because I know they’ll deliver this and not s*** the bed. I can’t say that about some other brands.

Tell us about your miking techniques and signal chain.

I almost always use a Shure SM57, almost always through a Neve 1073 preamp or high-end clone. I use Avid HD I/O, Apogee, or Black Lion converters. But that mic/preamp combo is always the basis for heavy guitars. I may add an older Sennheiser 421, but I’m very conscious about not complicating things with too many mics. Even with just two, I’m checking for phase issues so we don’t lose transient information and things like that. I start with the mic dead center, pointing at the dust cap of the cone, then may move it left or right, which removes more 10kHz the more you go. You want the right balance between not too bright and not too dark.

Have you ever used new Celestion drivers to bring a vintage acquisition back from the dead?

Recently, in fact. I just scored an amazing deal on a ’74 Marshall model 1960. It had a mixture of Greenbacks and some other original Celestion drivers. One had been re-coned by someone who did a terrible job. I replaced them all with a combination of Vintage 30s and G12s, and now this is my favorite cabinet, hands down.

What would you say is your desert island amp head?

That might be my Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier, revision F. Or maybe my Driftwood Purple Nightmare. That brings up something I’d like people to understand. Yes, I have a lot of gear, and these days there are a lot of songwriting tools like plug-ins that model every option imaginable, but you don’t need every option. When bands like Metallica started, they had what they had. Not a million options. And where you lived at the time or your financial abilities had a lot more to do with what was available to you, so metal bands got their tones based on what was ready at hand. They made their gear limitations into their identity. When I’m working with a band, I try to start with what they know and what excites them in terms of tone.

Carrying that theme further, what would you say is the most valuable thing you didn’t learn in music school?

That you just need to do the work. No degree is going to put you on the street with the ability to get a big record. When you’re first out of school, studios and labels are going to expect you to work cheap or for free to get your name out there, and that’s not always bad. Live as minimalist as you can for as long as you can and invest in good gear. When I started, I was often sleeping at Jason Suecof’s studio and making maybe 800 bucks a month. I had a roof and could eat, but I didn’t have money for anything else. Fortunately, I didn’t do anything else.

You have to work up to where producers and artists trust you. That’s what happened with me. When Jason got busy, bands were like, “We loved working with Mark so maybe he can just do the record?” Of course, I wasn’t getting paid what he got, but you work your way up. Don’t be afraid to work with bands who need development, just like you do as a producer or engineer. You’ll learn together. That’s the thing that’s going to be your college.

‘My band has a replica of an Acoustic Amp 408 cabinet, it dates back to the seventies. The original speakers were a mix of types and brands, but basically these were 15” speakers rating at 75W each. The cab sounded great with our bass player’s vintage Ampeg Blueline SVT head and the Aguilar DB751 head. However, 2 of the 4 speakers gave out, so it was time for an upgrade. I suggested putting in the Celestion PULSE 15 as this would not only upgrade all 4 speakers, but also boost the overall power rating of the cab to 1600W.

I can confirm the setup never sounded this good, the low-end is just mind blowing, but even for a 4 x 15” bass cabinet, we get a clear, crisp and well defined bass sound with a lot of headroom.’

From Stephane V.

The F12M-150 Triple Cone is a new guitar speaker designed for use with profiling amps, modeling software, impulse responses, and the technology for emulating guitar amps and speaker cabinets.

Digital tone-emulation technology is more popular than ever, and guitarists who use it require full-range, flat and accurate output. General-purpose pro audio speakers (as in powered stage monitors) offer flat reproduction but are somewhat clinical sounding and lack the organic, immediate response guitar players want. On the other hand, traditional guitar speakers deliver immediacy and feel at the cost of accuracy, because they are purpose-built to generate more harmonic resonances the harder they are driven — which can undermine the work the profiling/modeling rig is already doing. Celestion’s F12-X200 was the world’s first speaker to combine the best of both these worlds, with the drawbacks of neither: we call it Full Range LIVE Response.

Now comes the F12M-150 Triple Cone which provides a solution for players seeking a Full Range Live Response speaker that is more compact and affordable than its big brother, the F12-X200.

The F12M-150 has a unique design featuring two additional tweeter cones integrated into the main woofer cone (making it “Triple Cone”). This enables the speaker to deliver near full-range frequency performance: from 60Hz up to 12kHz, for a rich and detailed sound, whatever your set-up.

Combining Celestion’s Pro Audio and guitar speaker know-how, response is flat and neutral, ensuring no unwanted colourations that could overwhelm the input signal. But with an optimised woofer cone and lighter moving mass the F12M-150 is designed to closely mimic the responsiveness of a traditional guitar speaker, delivering all the tactile feel you would expect from playing though a conventional guitar rig.

On the side of accuracy, the F12M-150 is a wide frequency range speaker, with response from 60Hz to 12kHz. The higher frequencies are reproduced using specially designed tweeter cones integrated into the speaker’s primary or “woofer” cone. This enables the F12M-150 to deliver a wide range of audible frequencies and harmonics. Not only that, special Celestion technology guards against unwanted sonic colouration of the input signal. All this ensures an accurate rendition of whatever amp/cabinet combination the musician is emulating.

On the side of immediacy, the F12M-150 employs proven design principles that have made Celestion royalty among guitar drivers since the dawn of rock and roll, such as straighter cone sides and a lighter moving mass compared with pro audio speakers. The physicality and tactile response of the speaker is live, as it would be playing through a traditional guitar amp.

The end result is that by using the F12M-150 in a monitor wedge, backline cabinet, or any familiar stage or studio application, guitarists can enjoy the instant fingers-to-music connection of their favorite amp setup alongside the multitude of amp setups offered by their solutions of choice for amp and cabinet emulation. As realistic as modeling technology has become, the Celestion F12-X200 makes it more real.

Specifications:
• Nominal diameter: 12”.
• Power rating: 150W.
• Impedance: 8Ω.
• Sensitivity: 96dB.
• Chassis type: Pressed steel.
• Voice coil diameter: 2”.
• Voice coil material: Round copper.
• Magnet type: Ceramic.
• Frequency Range: 60 – 12,000Hz.
• Resonance frequency (LF): 60Hz.

The new Celestion SpeakerMix Pro plugin (VST, AAX, AU) is designed to be a studio-grade application, enabling you to produce stunningly realistic guitar tones in your DAW. Far more than just an IR loader and mixer, SpeakerMix Pro delivers pristine sound, while offering a whole host of features. All with an intuitive and instantly familiar interface.

Fully compatible with your personal library of Celestion and third party (.wav) Impulse Responses, you can mix up to six channels (each with individual parametric EQ functionality) of different speaker responses into a stereo or mono track. The software also fixes sample rate/project mismatches.

SpeakerMix Pro gives you ample opportunity to further enhance and finesse your speaker responses. Deploy the unique Z-curve function to closely model the dynamic electrical coupling between amp and speaker for ultimate accuracy and feel. Add Celestion’s outstanding room responses (included) or incorporate your own into the mix for a superb ‘live’ sound.

Perhaps most significantly, it’s as the host program for Celestion’s proprietary new Dynamic Speaker Responses where SpeakerMix Pro represents a genuine Next Generation virtual speaker solution.

So What Is a Dynamic Speaker Response and What Does It Do?

Celestion Impulse Responses have become the go-to speaker emulation solution in the studios and live rigs of many top professional guitarists, bassists, and music producers. Looking to define the next generation in digital tone with greater accuracy and realism, we have developed the Dynamic Speaker Response (DSR).

A traditional speaker IR captures the performance of that speaker in a specific cabinet with a particular microphone in a certain position, at a pre-determined level. But there are an additional factors at play when it comes to speaker tonality: the cone of a speaker played very quietly barely moves, the cone of the same speaker played loud does move: it ‘ripples’ and ‘shakes’ in a non-linear way. This adds additional harmonic complexity and character to the sound: it’s part of the reason why loud amps sound so exciting.

The IRs that we’ve been successfully using for several years represents the speaker’s frequency response captured at a single, optimum level. A Dynamic Speaker Response goes a step further, it reacts to the signal level. The DSR models the speaker’s sonic characteristic dynamically, shifting in response dependent on changes in the input level, for a more natural, ‘analog’ feeling and sounding output.

Benefit from a More Intuitive Workflow

When using Impulse Responses in the standard way, if we want to “move” or “change” the microphone we need to find a different IR that was recorded with our new mic in the new position;  that’s quite easy, simply scroll through an IR library and find the file that gives the sound that we want to hear. It’s not quite as intuitive as moving a microphone on a stand but it has worked very well for several years now and produced a lot of fine performances and recordings as well as having the well-documented advantages of convenience and repeatability.

Use DSRs with SpeakerMix Pro to provide a fast, simple and intuitive way to select microphone, speaker, and cabinet type with just a few clicks. The graphical interface enables rapid selection of speaker, cab and mic, as well as pinpoint positioning of the microphone across the speaker cone. What’s great is that this can be done while listening to the changes in sound as we make the adjustments, just like in the traditional physical studio.

For an additional bonus, we can also adjust the dynamic electrical coupling between the output stage of an amplifier (the Z-curve function) and the DSRs —or IRs, which are fully compatible with this function—and mix in room sound together with the speaker response to fine-tune the final sound of the performance.

Enhance Tone with a Highly Comprehensive Toolset

Celestion’s SpeakerMix Pro plug-in is designed to be a highly sophisticated and intuitive guitar speaker tone engine. It enables you to rapidly load your existing IR library into your DAW, while offering a comprehensive set of invaluable tools designed to make the most of your virtual speaker tone.

Beyond that Celestion have also integrated into the plug-in the next generation of speaker response, the Dynamic Speaker Response (DSR). Not only is it an accurate replica of a speaker’s frequency response in the digital realm that’s easy to use providing consistency and repeatability in the recording process. The DSR also responds to a player’s ‘attitude’ and playing intensity as well as the relationship between the amplifier and the speaker, capturing these subtle but important real-time nuances and injecting digital tone with true analogue realism.

SpeakerMix Pro – click here to buy now from our online shop

Browse our range of Dynamic Speaker Responses here

Find out how you can shape your perfect guitar tone with Robbie Miller’s demo of SpeakerMix Pro and our DSRs.