Russ, James and Dan chat through issues and highlights from the week's news as well as the usual Pro Tools tips, tricks and community questions answered.Podcast Sponsor - Kii AudioWhether you work in a major facility, independent recording studio, or from your home studio, you’re always looking for ways to raise the bar of sonic performance to give a clear, reliable and consistent advantage over your competition and The Kii THREE system is that advantage. A good monitoring situation enables you to work faster, easier and achieve better results everyday that take the guesswork out of any decision during a production. Kii Audio designed the Kii THREE with the acoustical challenges of today's studio setups in mind. It fits everywhere and can be the one and only monitor solution you need for every task. It really is the first Mini Main monitor system available. To learn more, check out the interview in which Russ chatted with Kii Speaker Inventor Bruno Putzeys about speaker design, room acoustics and why he ended up designed the Kii THREE Active Monitors. DealsLiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Professional Deal - Buy For £159 Reduced From £227Also, don’t forget to check out the deals from our Partners in the Partner Deals section on our Deals page.Talking Points Kindly Sponsored By Universal AudioOffer extended until 31st August 2017 -  Buy any award-winning Apollo rackmount audio interface and get an analog dream studio filled with up to $3,500 of genuine UAD plug-ins from Studer, Lexicon, AKG, Pultec, Fairchild, Teletronix, and more! Buy an Apollo Duo or Apollo Firewire and get a plugin bundle worth $1200, buy an Apollo 8P, Apollo 8 Quad, or Apollo 16 and get a plugin bundle worth $2000, or buy any 2 Apollo rack mounted interfaces, and get a plugin bundle worth $3500. For more details please visit the Universal Audio website. The Hard Truth About Microphones & PreampsVideo Shootout - Waves CLA-2A Plug-in Vs Universal Audio LA-2A Hardware CompetitionsWin Audionamix TRAX Pro 3 SP & Music Production Bundle (TRAX Pro 3 & VVC) - Worth $1500 Don’t forget to check out our win page, to discover more opportunities to win pro audio software and gear from our Partners, in the Partner Win section, on our Win page.Community Feedback Kindly Sponsored by RSPE Audio Solutions“Let’s Talk Avid”, from our friends at RSPE, is an opportunity for customers old and new to call them on the phone as they have some great prices that they cannot publish on-line. So if you are looking for a deal on pro audio gear and you live in the US, especially the west coast, then call RSPE on their toll-free number 855.632.1032 and see what they can offer you. You can also check out a special page to see some of the product ranges but to get the discount you will need to talk to the RSPE team on the phone. Jason Plumb is a large studio owner/operator in Saskatchewan Canada - 1700 Sq feet, Neve Genesys 64 console etc...and has been engineering/producing and mixing since the 90's… On the shitty listening sources topic in podcast 284…  He wanted to chime in on the conversation about referencing audio on different playback sources. He has many ways of monitoring, from Custom, Bryston powered large studio speakers to NS10s and Auratones. He will even listen to bleed on loose studio cans (when left on), on a wireless Bose mobile and HiFi at home and of course his car, which he bought largely because of the stock stereo it came with. We talked about ear buds too. Jason will always listen to mixes on buds... as he believes that the chances are his my clients may be giving notes back to him having listened on buds as well, not to mention millions of others. He does agree with Julian that buds tend to make mixes a bit wide, but a valid listening reference nonetheless. You guys have all said it before and it's really true. It's all about knowing what your systems are reproducing. Know it, trust it, and own it. This Week’s Featured Pro Tools Ex