NAMM 2013 Overview Part 2 - Audio Products.

When I go to a NAMM show or an other similar exhibition, I no longer go to see a specific item. I usually walk the floor waiting for something to jump out at me. Sometimes the product is obvious, and other times it's buried in the back of a booth, but if I see the need or use for it, you'll see it mentioned here. Sometimes it's a "why hadn't anyone thought of that before" product, while other times it's a new twist on an old problem solver. Here are some of the audio items that caught my eye at NAMM 2013 (in no particular order).







First comes the audio-technica AT5040, a new microphone that distinguishes itself by its unique quad capsule (seen in the upper left center in the back). This configuration provides more than twice the area of a normal one inch round diaphragm used in other large diaphragm mics. The result is extended highs and lows and lower noise. Looking forward to hearing this one.












The next item is the ME-1 Personal Monitor mixer by Allen & Heath. This is a CAT-5 based system that allows you to mix up to 40 input sources. It also has a couple of cool things like a built-in ambience mic and a simple two knob "me and everyone else" system to break it down to what's most important in the quickest amount of time. A&H have always built great sounding gear (their consoles have been consistently great for the money through the years), but for some reason sometimes get overlooked. The ME-1 could bring a lot of people into the fold that weren't A&H lovers previously.








Much has been written about Slate Pro Audio's Raven MTX mixer control surface that was shown at last year's AES show. That unit was back in a more refined state at NAMM, but a new entry was a baby version dubbed the MTi. It has the same unique display that toggles between the Slate mix and traditional Pro Tools mix and edit windows, along with some built-in hardware for monitoring and cue mixes. I was told that it will be about $3,500 and ship in April, about a month after the larger MTX.










As I wrote yesterday, Chinese mics have hit the floor in terms of price, so the only way to go is up. MXL has a new mic called the Genesis II that supposedly sounds like the venerable AKG C-12, only for $595. Who knows if it's even close, as you can't tell from a demo on the show floor, but it sure is a trend that's the wave of the future. The fact that it does have a hand-selected NOS Mullard 12AT7 tube weighs in its favor though.















I've been raving about the Monoprice 8323 headphones for about a year as the best phones you can get in the $25 range. Now Monoprice has decided to jump into the audio game with both feet with a full line of audio gear that ranges from mics to speakers to cables to mixers to guitars and more. All the gear is surprisingly good for the price, and the prices are astoundingly reasonable. Hopefully I can try out some of this gear soon and give you a report.










SM Pro Audio is another company with great products for great prices. At the show they introduced their 500 series modules and racks. The racks come from 1 to 8 spaces and have a unique feature in that they have internal audio routing built in as well. Also available for the 500 series was a unique dual band optical compressor, a 5 band parametric EQ that has 5 full spectrum overlapping bands, and a tube preamp. Big bang for the buck here.







Finally I stumbled upon an interesting company called acouStaCorp that had a number of unique temporary acoustic controllers including this big air-filled pillow called a AqFlex. This system is said to work on frequencies below 250Hz. It takes up a lot of room, which probably isn't that big of a deal in a theater, but is a unique approach to acoustic control that you don't see much.

That's it for the audio portion. Tomorrow we'll look at musical instruments.

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Winter NAMM 2010 Overview - Part 3 - Audio And Recording

In the final part of the 2010 Winter NAMM overview, we take a look at the audio and recording side of things. While there were no blockbuster products again this year, there were quite a few useful boxes. Let's look at some.

First of all, SM Pro Audio lived up to their monicker of "clever audio solutions" with a variety of great boxes that were truly clever audio solutions. One of them that I really liked was the DiDock (pictured left), which featured an iPod or iPhone dock complete with balanced and unbalanced outputs with level controls and a headphone amplifier. This is the perfect box for any kind of live applications that include an "i" device. SM also had a number of other boxes that I liked including the Jackeroo all-in-one tester/generator and gender bender, and a number of volume controllers, summing amps and outboard VU meters. Every item had a really substantial feel to it and the "bang-for-the-buck factor" was very high.

And speaking of clever solutions, Lehle had a number of cool guitar-oriented pedals that solve the problem of switching between amps, guitars, pedals, or just about anything else you can think of.

Speaking of fixit boxes, Tascam came out with a number of boxes that had you thinking, "Why did this take so long to come to market" Balancing up an unbalanced line (and vice-versa) has always been a royal pain, but here were a couple of 8 channel rack-mountable boxes, about 15 years too late. Better late than never, I guess.

Tascam also featured a number of "trainer" boxes for guitar, bass and even vocals, that allow you to play or sing against existing tracks or loops, record it, slow it down, add effects, and do all the things that help you to increase your skill level fast. Once again, where was this when I really needed it?

Portable solid-state recorders were everywhere again but one of the coolest was the Xacti XPS01M (totally Japanese model number) by Sanyo.  The unit was incredibly small and light, maybe too much so since it might be easy to lose because it feels like a feather. Even so, it had a pretty nice display, enough functions to do what needs to be done, and a 150 buck price tag.

This has nothing to do with recording (at least in the traditional sense), but it seems like the  next big thing in guitar pedals is to make them look well-used. I guess this company figured that if players would pay big bucks for a beat-up "relic" guitar, they'd do the same for a "relic" pedal. It's true that the only thing that counts is how it sounds, but sometimes you just want something to look brand new so you feel like you got your money's worth for a second.

A cool device that I really liked was a plug-in battery meter that really tells you the battery strength while it's under load, which is the only way to know for sure how much life the battery has left. All you have to do with the Batt-o-meter is plug it in, although it tests batteries outside of the device as well. Good idea.

Stepping back into the recording world, Movek's myMix is a new twist on the personal headphone mixer, adding a built-in digital recorder along with virtual mixer. Up to 8 units can be connected together for 8 different mixes via ethernet and an ethernet switch. Nice form factor, but I had a little trouble navigating. From experience, the last thing a player wants is something complicated when mixing his headphones. Perhaps I didn't spend enough time with it.

For quite a few years now, the vast majority of new microphone models have been made in China. Some of the biggest microphone brands have even resorted to having some of their mics made there, or at the very least, some of the parts. Chinese manufacturers have now apparently decided that it's OK to put out their own versions of these mics, so at the show it was common to see knock-offs of Shures, Neumanns, Sennheisers and just about any other major brand you can think of. I find it hard to imagine that the IP attorneys of these companies are sitting idly by, despite the difficulties of international justice. Wanting to do my part, I started to play a game with these Chinese imitators, going on the booth and checking out the mic details closely, taking some pictures, and then covering up my badge and scurrying away when approached, giving them the illusion of some American industrial espionage. They did it to us for a long time and now deserve the return favor.

Here's another blatant example of a Mackie console rip-off from China. Once again, I hope there's a team of IP attorneys working on this. After all, these things are plenty cheap already compared to what they used to cost. At least with an American company you have some home-grown QC going on.

Enough of the rant - one last product that caught my eye. It's called Mic Check and it's used to clean and disinfect microphones. A really good idea that probably can done for a lot less money with just a typical drug store-bought handi-wipe, but give them points for the packaging.

That's it until the next trade show (NAB in April). Next post - back to our regularly scheduled program!