AES Show New Gear Wrap Up - Part 3

Here we are at the last of the AES Show wrap up reports. Today I'll look at outboard gear and miscellaneous cool stuff that defies a category. First up, outboard gear.

dbx show its 676 tube channel. It's a really good looking box with a tube mic pre, a 3 band parametric EQ and 162 compressor built in. The price is a reasonable $999.

Pulse Techniques has brought back the entire Pultec line. If you always wanted to own a particular Pultec piece but didn't want to pay the vintage prices, here's a way to get a brand new one. Pulse Techniques claims these are all built to the original design specs. Prices go from $2500 to around $4500.

One of the more unusual 500 Series line of products comes from the Awesome Transistor Amplifier Company. The pieces have a very unique graphic design, have are all discrete circuitry and use very high quality parts. You get the normal mic amp, EQ and compressor, but also a pretty cool way to turn it into a mixer with an external mixing controller.

Miscellaneous

If you ever wanted to record a live show without dragging a full DAW with you, the Cymatic Audio Live Recorder is the answer. There are two models - the 16 track LR 16 that retails for $399 (a playback only version is also available) and the 24 track uTrack 24, which is a recorder/player and sells for $999.

I'm a huge fan of Hearback and own one of their personal monitoring systems. Now the company has introduced the Hearback Pro which provides 16 channels with individual level controls, as well as an intercom to talk to various stations, aux, pan, presets and even a lockout to keep that mix from being changed.

Radial is fantastic company that always has some new tool that solves a problem. At AES they introduced the Headload, which is an amplifier attenuator with a few twists. The box has tunable resonance, speaker cabinet voicing, a DI out and even a phase shift control. Of course, there's also a headphone out for late night rocking out in your bedroom.

Nagra was once the king of field recording and its trying to get back to where it once was with the introduction of a number of hand-held recorders that range from $975 on down. There are three models, the SD with its built-in high-quality mic, the mid-priced Lino and the Pico. These are built like tanks (like other Nagras actually) and definitely a step up from most others on the market.

Finally, I've written about this before, but Triad-Orbit stands are just the bomb! Finally, the mic stand re-envisioned. These are built to last a lifetime and have more small great ideas that a mere mic stand should have. The company has been building auto parts for a long time and this is a sideline, so they're not going away anytime soon. Definitely worth checking out.

That's it. I'm sure I missed a few things, but these are the highlights that caught my eye.

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AES Show New Gear Wrap Up - Part 2

Yesterday I discussed new loudspeakers and software from this year's AES show. Today we'll look at microphones and consoles (yes, they're back - in a way). Here we go.

Microphones

AKG Perception mics

AKG launched some new mics in its Perception series. First is the small diaphragm P170 ($80), then there are a 3 large diaphragm entries - the P820 based around a tube ($700), the P420 ($200) and P220 ($150). I wasn't able to listen to them (not that it would have told me anything) and there was no literature readily available, so can't say much more.

Advanced Audio CM1084

My friends at Advanced Audio released a KM84 style CM1084, which appears to be very versatile and is only $399. They also showed their 251 close, called the CM251, which sells for a very reasonable $995. I own a couple of AA U87 clones and they're great, so I can't wait to try these new ones.

Cathedral Pipes Mic

One of the coolest variation on the U47 comes from Cathedral Pipes. Owner and designer Charles Dickenson told me he put an LED beneath the grill as a joke when he was continually asked to make the mic brighter. It was only when people started to order it with different colored LEDs did he realize that was something that people really dug. These mics are very meticulously hand-built in Southern California and sell for around $1500. There's also a cool version of the RCA 77 as well for only $800.

Josephson C700

Josephson Engineering showed their very cool C700 series. It's been around for a while but it never caught my eye. It's a combination Blumlein (2 figure 8 capsules) and MS mic (with a third omni capsule) rolled into one so you can change the directional pattern of the mic after you've recorded. Price is around $8k.

Gefell KEM975

Another unique mic along the same lines was the Microtech Gefell KEM975 line array mic. Just like a line array sound system you see at concert venues everywhere, this mic has 8 capsule elements. The idea is to make the mic very directional in a vertical plane so the mic only picks up what's in front of it, not above or below. A 9th mic at the rear of the main body is to extend the frequency response below 200Hz. It's up for a Tech Award and costs around $11k.

Reissue Sony C38B

Sony showed its C38B, a reissue that's been around for a couple of years but also skipped my attention. This was the FET followup to the amazing C37A. Sony says it's an exact reproduction and sells it for around $2200.

Reissue Neumann U47FET

Speaking of exact reproductions, Neumann has reintroduced its famous U47FET. Once again, it's supposed to be identical to the original version. It's around $4k. There are other very good reproductions around, but none of them say Neumann on the body.

AT 5045

Audio Technica showed its brand new 5045, a side-address mic made especially for high SPL instrument capture. Despite its shape, AT says it has the largest diaphragm area of any mic it sells. The price is around $1600.

MXL Giga Mic

Here's an interesting mic from MXL called the Giga Mic. It has the largest body of any mic I've every seen; probably twice as long as the biggest U47. No info on the mic though.

Telefunken USA M60FET

Finally, Telefunken USA brought out a new small diaphragm condenser called the M60 FET. It's the company's first FET mic. No price yet.







Consoles

Trident Series 88

Recording consoles made a bit of a comeback at this show. Trident finally showed a shipping version of its Series 88. This one has 24 input strips with a 24 channel monitor section. The inputs are also dual inline so there's 72 inputs for your mix. All this for around $25k.

Daking Console

Geoff Daking showed his currently unnamed console, which was very cool indeed. It came complete with his Trident A-Range-style mic amps and EQ, plus dynamics on each channel and a cool routing with parallel compression in mind. It also has a very complete monitor section. Around $65k for the 24 input version.

Tree Audio The Roots Jr.

This Tree Audio The Roots Jr is basically The Roots console without the master section. Each channel has a direct out only. Around $16k for all tube retro audio.

SSL XL-Desk

Finally, SSL showed its XL console, which is basically a mixer attached to a 500 Series rack. It comes with 8 SSL mic pres, 16 input channels, 4 stereo channels, the famous SSL buss compressor, 18 500 series slots and much more. The price is only $20k with empty slots. It's one of the more brilliant things I've seen in a long time.


That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll look at outboard gear and miscellaneous audio stuff.

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AES Show New Gear Wrap Up - Part 1

The 137th AES Convention just wrapped up in Los Angeles, where the entire music creation community came together to teach and learn new techniques, show off some new gear, and just share the love. The show appeared to be small, taking up only one of the halls in the massive LA Convention Center, but the size was deceiving as there was so much going on.

Most of the manufacturers I spoke with were very pleased to be in LA, since there's much more of a music business here now than in San Francisco and even New York, the two cities that the show usually alternates between. The last time the show was here was 12 years ago, but from the response, I bet we see it more frequently in the future.

Before we begin Part 1 of the new gear overview, a couple of quick observations:
1) There were fewer smaller software and accessory companies exhibiting than at NAMM.
2) 500 series mania seems to have plateaued.

Now let's get down to business, beginning with loudspeakers.

Gibson Les Paul speakers

Gibson was showing their Les Paul line of loudspeakers, complete with a nice flamed maple top front. I asked if these were simply rebranded KRK's (a company that Gibson now owns) and was told in no uncertain terms that wasn't the case. There were 3 speakers in the line - a two way 8" ($999 each), 6" ($799 each) and 4" ($599 each). They seemed to sound OK from what I could tell on the floor, but there was no information available other than the spiel by the booth guy. I guess my big question here is "Why?"

JBL Series 7 Speakers

JBL showed its new Series 7 at a private showing at the Clive Davis Theater in the Grammy Museum. The Series 7 was made specifically for multichannel, from 5.1 all the way up Atmos, and were designed for a big sound from a small box. All I can say was, "Wow!" I don't think I've ever heard as much low end from a 5" woofer.

The speakers come with mounting brackets for theaters, and are designed to sound the same off-axis, which I can attest to. I walked around the room and the sound was surprisingly close.

The system sounds great but isn't cheap. A 5.1 system (the smallest they'll sell at the moment) comes with a BSS processor and an 8 channel amplifier and runs around $10k, but the system is just being introduced so prices and exact models and specs are fluid.

Genelec 8531 speaker

Another speaker of interest is the Genelec 8531, a totally new design that breaks many of the rules of what we expect in a speaker. First of all, it's designed around the waveguide front baffle built around a dual concentric mid and tweeter, which means that it couldn't use a traditional woofer. Genelec engineers came up with a new design that provides dual ellipsoidal woofers instead of the traditional round one. The result is a bandwidth that goes down to 32Hz from a relatively small box. Very cool.




Software
Like I said in the opening, there wasn't a lot of software at the show. Sure, big players like Waves, Slate, and iZotope were there, but not many of the smaller software companies for the most part. There was a few exceptions though.

Sound Radix Drum Leveler

Sound Radix, the company noted for it's Surfer dynamic EQ plugin, introduced something called Drum Leveler, which has dynamic beat detection that allows you to change the level of individual drums within a loop. In other words, if you have a loop where you think the snare is too low, Drum Leveler will allow you to increase the volume. It also has dynamic upward and downward compression and expansion so you could even out an inconsistent drummer easier than with just a compressor. The price is only $149 when it's released next month.

Audionamix ADX Trax

Sort of along those same lines is Audionamix and their ADX Trax, which provides audio source separation for DJs, remixers and audio post production. With ADX Trax you can easily isolate a vocal from a finished stereo track and either raise or lower the volume or eliminate it completely. Lots of other companies have tried this in the past, but this really works. And it's only $299, or you can subscribe for a mere $20 a month.

UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt

Finally, Universal Audio introduced the Thunderbolt version of its very successful UAD-2 Satellite. The big difference is the newly updated versions are either in quad or octo formats, providing twice the processing power as before. The prices range from $999 to $6k, depending upon the software package.

That's it for today. Lots more tomorrow as we look at new mics (lots and lots of new mics) and even the return of recording consoles. Also, I'll cover all this and more in this week's Inner Circle podcast.

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AES 2012 Report - Part 3: Software

Here's the last part of my 2012 AES report, this time built around recording software and hardware.




The first thing I saw at the show was something that I liked the best. It's the Forte interface by Focusrite. Not only does it have a couple of Red mic amps on board, but it has a number of nifty software control features as well. And it sounds great, with a lot of attention given to the audio signal path. I'll cover this more in an upcoming post.












Focusrite also showed their new iTrac Solo interface, one of the first designed just for the iPad, although it can be used as a normal USB interface as well. What I liked best is that it came with regular Apple-style connector for a direct connection to the iPad or iPhone without any messy adaptors.













Eventide showed its H3000 Harmonizer Factory plugin. For those of us who grew up with this hardware piece, it's nice to finally have the software version.









Speaking of plugins, Soundtoys had a couple of cool ones. Instead of following the leader on all the typical ones, they went for emulating some devices with lots of color but mostly overlooked by other plugin manufacturers: the Shure Level-Loc compressor and a copy of the the Altec 1567 mixer, with it's own distinct color. At $129 each, very inexpensive as well.









Publisher Hal Leonard had a nice display of my books front and center. Thanks guys!














Surround sound was back in the news at AES. Here's the ISOSTEM, one of the best surround upmixers and downmixers that I've seen from Nugen Audio. I believe this was a prototype of the hardware and software, but it has great promise.













Speaking of surround, Auro 3D had an interesting new surround encoder/decoder where the surround signal sits on top of a normal PCM signal. It seemed to sound pretty good, from what I could tell on the floor. I think they'll face an up-hill battle getting adoption though.











Nugen Audio also showed their excellent mastering plugins for broadcast, complete with an intersample multichannel peak limiter, a cool dialog analyzer, and a broadcast level controller. These are musts if you're doing audio for broadcast where staying within a network spec is imperative.










iZ showed the latest version of the 24 channel Radar dedicated recorder, which now retails for about $10k, as well as their stand-along A/D and D/A convertor.

Finally, here's a bit of the future of analog hardware, distributed by Trans Audio Group. It's basically a digitally controlled analog version of a Tube-Tech Pultec.

Here's the software control. Very cool.

That's it for this years AES report. The next one is 2013 NAMM.

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AES 2012 Report - Part 2: Hardware

Yesterday we looked at the big hit of AES 2012, today we'll look at some of the hardware that I found interesting. Keep in mind that when I attend a trade show, I only usually stop at a booth that immediately catches my eye or that I've previously determined will have something new to see. I do miss some cool new things this way, but I feel that if an exhibitor can't get his marketing together enough to make it clear that he has something new and groovy, that's on him.

The legendary George Augsburger has been making his own monitors for the studios he designs for decades, and now they're commercially available from Pro Audio Distribution. The GA-215VS-A3 (that's a mouthful) are 3-way monitors complete with DSP.

For an audio world that's more and more in-the-box, there sure were a lot of analog consoles at the show, even if they were small. Here's a Neve-like sidecar from former Neve guy Geoff Tanner and his Aurora Audio.

Here's another small desk from UT Audio.

Of all the small boutique consoles, this might be the coolest. It's a tube console built around the original Universal Audio model of yore from Tree Audio, only with a solid state output stage for greater headroom. It's called The Roots.















Fairlight used to be a company based around music machines but now they're clearly in the post world. Here's their new Quantum.











I just love this piano mic array from DPA Microphones. They were like this for a comparison, of course, but wouldn't you like to try them all on a session?

Here's a MicroTech Gefell microphone diaphragm that's been converted into a watch. They had some cool mics as well. A very understated company.












I loved the look of these U47 and 251 clones by TAB Funkenwork. The story was that these were made from the original Telefunken designs. Don't know if it's true or not, since everyone in this game seems to have a different story, but I liked the workmanship.












TAB Funkenwork also made some very nice looking VT72, 77 and 78 clones, complete with NOS Telefunken tubes and the original transformers.












I love these Golden Age Project Pre-73's. Sort of a Neve sound for not so much money. On the bottom was a new 4 channel version.















Some new 500 series compressor and EQ models from Daking Audio.

And finally, this mic isolation booth that looked kinda cool but honestly sounded awful. I don't know how something that's supposed to deaden the sound can be so boingy.

Part 3 on software tomorrow.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.