Report from AES

[Revelation]

First things first. I met the famous Lynn Fuston! My life will never be the same. :rolleyes: Real nice guy. I also had the opportunity to meet Rupert Neve. He got out of his chair (his wife was there too, and I found out that she is involved with the business as well) and we chatted for 5 min. about the Portico and the Masterpiece review I did for EQ. The Q & A is in the October edition and the review of the Masterpiece will be in a future issue.

Bear in mind I heard all these pre's and gear in a noisy place and it was for only 5 min. However I think I got some idea of how they sound.

I got a chance to check out the Great River pre and EQ. Boy both units are a must have for a studio, especially the EQ. Best Eq I heard at the AES hands down. Just like Lynn, it brought a smile to my face in using it. Though it was noisy, I was able to hear a difference between the Great River and my Porico. Portico is a little more in your face with a little more fullness.

Checked out the Cranesong pre's, and Ibis EQ. I should mention that the green knobs look better in person. Some photos I have seen the green did not look very appealing. Both are very nice. Pre's are more on the clean side, then the fat button pushes the mid's more in your face. The Ibis is more on the clean side, but by being able to add color (2nd harmonic distortion) made the unit more flexibile. It seems that every company is adding this feature to their new units.

Checked out the Manely new Langevin EQ which was nice, a little smoother sounding that the Great River. The new TNT has two pre's. The left pre is the Slam, and it was one of the best pre's I have ever heard. It is awesome. The other pre is solid state and was good but I think I would prefer the Slam 90% of the time. It has a 60's 70's and normal mode. It kind of make it sound a little darker on the 70's and a little less high's on the 60's, so the unit is very flexible. Manley Massive Passive is a wondeful EQ as was the Voxbox.

Chatted with my buddy Hugh Robjohns from Sound on Sound magazine (former BBC engineer). Looking forward in seeing his counter part Paul White tomorrow. Checked out the Pendulum pre and two compressors. The pre is very nice, the Quartet II has a switch that adds about 6 db more and gives a fuller in your face sound. Normally I think I would prefer the normal pre on the regular Quartet, but it would be nice to have both options. Their MU compressor is very very nice. It really put a gel in the music. Another thing to add on my want list. A little less color than the Manley MU as far as I could tell. Optic compressor was very nice too. Not sure if I liked it better than the Buzz compressor. They both were really good.

I saw the new Tascam 3200 digital mixer. Man that thing is big. It has the wow factor and seems to be around the same size as the Yamaha 02R96.
Favorite pre's in order.

1. Manley Slam (Best sounding pre I ever heard)
2. Great River
3. Voxbox (sounds more like a tube pre than Pendulum. So depending on your taste, you may prefer the Pendulum)
4. Pendulum (cleaner pre but not solid state sounding)
5. Crane Song (It did not wow me but it was a good sounding pre that would sound good on many applications.)

I will be checking out all this gear again on Saturday and see if I get any more insight on the gear.

[minor2nd]

Many many TOYS! I agree about the noise factor when testing the expensive toys out. Yet i heard many great things....

Finally got to hear the Elux 251 in person and of course meet David Bock. I really need to listen to this thing... actually everything i tested out.... in my own facility, where it is quiet, and where i can A/B test.

Great River pre and eq... beautiful. (hopefully i'll win the pre they are giving away)

Api... delicious! (anybody put their name in to win the 550a?)

Shadow Hills gear... tons of MOJO! Did not get to hear it in action, but s**t... i just want it in my rack cause of how it looks (well, for the price it better sound as good as it looks)

Violet/JZ mics... i think the guy i talked to got annoyed when i said "hey... is this the mic thats supposed to be like the baby bottle?"... well, their JZ3, which has the same body style as the Blue Kiwi, i'd have to say sounded great. It had the VJZ47 capsule. Sounds nothing like the Kiwi. Has nice clarity and more low/low mid boost as compared to the Kiwi. Lovely mic. Comes with 3 interchangeable capsules.

Blue mics... w o w... a u s b mic. great. :rolleyes:

SSL booth... great coffee machine!

Neumann... Solution D... kinda cool.

Will be going back on Sunday to browse and fiddle some more. I think they should let you take samples home... for example take some of the Shadow Hills pre's home. Just a suggestion.

[joeq]

First things first. I met the famous Lynn Fuston!


so did I!

[Revelation]

I talked to Audio Technica and found out that they still make the mic's in Japan, and the same people have been there for many years. I was told the 4051 A was more transparent pre. I was given an explanation on the differences on all their mic's. Ah the 4047 is the one that looks very sweet as well as the 4060.

I talked to Presonus. In regards to the Central Station, they said about 150 were defective on the first patch. They made improvements to the units afterwards however many still have some of the old units in stock which is why there have been the returns on the old ones. They were very friendly and helpful with all my questions. I was told the Central Station cost more than they thought but they choose to keep the price at $499 even though they would not make hardly a profit on them. He explained how the D/A converter on the Central Station was on par with some higher end converters as well. Not the Lavery mind you, but some more mid line converters that would be impressive to have in our studios. I tried the MXL mic's which are good for their price.

I met George Massenburg once again, which was a treat. I got to try the Cranesong pre's out again and was more impressed with them the second time around. It was not as noisy as Friday. Very clear open sound that you could add color to with the 2nd harmonic distortion. Their dual compressor is very transparent, but with a flip of a switch some color was added. Their A/D, D/A converter allows you to have a nice transparent sound or you can add color with several knobs. I started liking the Ibis EQ a lot. Very nice unit.

The Tascam 3200 has the same effects as the DM 24 which I was very disapointed in. With such good effects from UAD and Powercore, I can't see ever using the effects on the DM 3200 unless you have run out of CPU power. The fire wire card is not available yet either.

Tried the Soundelux mic's which was very nice. The new Tube E251C is the same mic as the ELUX 251 except it does not have omni and some cosmetic things but it has the same sound. It cost $2,000 less as well. Not overly tubey sounding like some other mic's but more color than the Rode K2. Visited UAD and heard the two new chorus plug ins. Also checked out their pre's which were good. Also checked out Fern equipment. The guy looks like someone who went to Woodstock. He was very pleasant and easy going. His gear is so warm and lush, though very expensive, it's worth every penny.

SSL is working on getting the 900 mixer to work with Nuendo as a controller. They hope to have it working with it next year. I liked the Langevin EQ but it only had bottom and top freq's. Though you may use these areas the most, if you want to change two freq's that are in the same ball park you can't. If you don't mind the more limited EQ, it really sounds great. However I would prefer the Great River EQ that gives you full freq's to work with. I saw some other things as well, but at this point my brain was over worked. If I think of anything signficant I will add some more thoughts on my visit.

[Category 5]

Today was my first full day at an AES show. I am exhausted....

Met Lynn ,and he was as nice a guy as expected, as were the others at the breakfast (thanks guys!) Some others that I met at the show who really stood out were

John Hardy - A super nice guy who spent a lot of time discussing preamp topologies with me. It was a treat to finally meet him in person. Both the M1 and Jensen dual were on display (but not for demo). I wonder why they do not come up more often in mic pre recommendation threads. they seem a great value.

Dan Kennedy - Again, unbeleievably nice and I throughly enjoyed talking about his designs with him. I finally heard the EQ (only a CD in headphones though) and it is at the top of my short list. I enjoyed getting to look inside the box, even though I still don't fully understand it all. It says a lot about the designers pride in the design when they display their designs this way. Very impressive!

David Bock (Soundelux) - had some new goodies including the 251C (cardiod only 251) a new red custom tube design, and his own preamp with some impressively large knobs. Again, I learned quite a bit from our discussion. I demoed the mics, but in headphones on a noisy show floor I was unable to hear the beauty I know these mics have.

Radius had their DI boxes on display, with the top off as well, and their active self powered version looks to be a great way to get active/passive line level signals into your pres. I'll be picking one up soon.

UA had their new choruses on display...and they sounded good. I think i can live without though. They have a new multiband mastering plugin and the Roland Space Delay due out but they were not at the show.

I noticed how conceited the BIG corporate outfits were compared to the smaller mfgr/dealers. It only makes me happier to put my money into the products I know will back up their reputations (Great River EQ - drool).

I also finally met Nathan from Atlas, and he seemed to be a great guy too. I pretty much give my business to Eric at JRR shop since he has taken good care of me for a few years now, but for items I need quickly, Eric doesn't carry, or I need to audition first I will certainly give Nathan a call.

I saw much more...and still only saw a quarter of the show. If you ever plan to attend make sure you plan several days to see all there is. It was truly an experience.

Also guys, thanks for having me join you for breakfast. I think some of your tips will help, and it was a cool intro to my first AES experience.

Jim, my wife is concerned that they didn't meet up with Emily...but she returned with BAGS of designer loot from the streets of NY. I have yet to figure out the total cost to me :eek: - I hope yours won't be too bad either ;) .

Shane

[Revelation]

One more thing regarding Yamaha. They told me the same man who designed the NSM10's came out with the The 70-watt HS50M (http://yamaha.com/yamahavgn/CDA/ContentDetail/ModelSeriesDetail/0,,CNTID%253D49338%2526CTID%253D560744,00.html) which has the same purpose as the old NSM10's. They don't sound the same but I was told in some ways they are better. For $450 for these actives monitors, they are amazing. Time will tell. Looking forward in reading a review on them.

[Revelation]

Listened to the new Yamaha HS50M monitors and found that the high's and mid's had a similar sound to the old NS10. They are going to be around $450 a pair. That's $450 for these active monitors. Of course you need a larger pair of speakers for more of your usual playback, but these would be a great 2nd pair for getting a different perspective. They have a sub for it to, for around $350. It sounds very nice together. There are switches in the back to control high, mid and low contour.

I also compared the Soundelux Elux 251 to the Telefunken RFT M16. The Soundelux had more bass than the Telefunken which seemed to have more of a natural sound. Tube sound wise, they were in the same ball park. Both mic's are less than $2,000. Personally I like the Telfunken better. It had a very similar sound to theirr higher end mic's. Some suttle thing going on more in the higher end that is better, but in a mix, there is no way you could tell the difference. But again, bear in mind this was at the AES show. I could be wrong on this, but I did compare all the Telefunken mic's one right after another.

[Kevin Perry]

I also compared the Soundelux Elux 251 to the Telefunken RFT M16. The Soundelux had more bass than the Telefunken which seemed to have more of a natural sound. Tube sound wise, they were in the same ball park. Both mic's are less than $2,000. Personally I like the Telfunken better.


?? The 251C?

[Revelation]

No C at the end of the Elux 251. I have a flyer, and there is no C. The mic may have sounded a little better if I was 6 inches way instead of 4. Due to the noise and not wanting people to hear my sing, the proximity effect was stronger on this mic over the Telefunken. Both were great sounding mic's though. However Soundelux admited that they added more bass on this mic over the Telefunken on purpose. Correction the C is the cheaper one. The 251 did sound better over the C.

Here is the mic. http://www.soundeluxmics.com/products/elux251.asp

[3daudioinc]

I also compared the Soundelux Elux 251 to the Telefunken RFT M16. The Soundelux had more bass than the Telefunken which seemed to have more of a natural sound. Tube sound wise, they were in the same ball park. Both mic's are less than $2,000. Personally I like the Telfunken better. It had a very similar sound to theirr higher end mic's. Some suttle thing going on more in the higher end that is better, but in a mix, there is no way you could tell the difference. But again, bear in mind this was at the AES show. I could be wrong on this, but I did compare all the Telefunken mic's one right after another.


Either there has been a drastic price change (which I'm not ruling out) or this is a mistake. The Elux 251 has never been less than $2000, not even used. I'll check with either Brad Lunde or David Bock for clarification.

[Revelation]

Sorry, I got the mic's mixed up Lynn. The 251C model is the cheaper one. However I though the cheaper Telefunken sounded just as smooth and nice as the 251. The 251 had more bass which may be a good or bad thing. I think singing at different distances would make either one have more or less bass with the prox. effect.

[David Klausner]

In no particular order, here are some of the cool things I saw at the show...

Universal Audio had single channel desktop format versions of their 610 tube pre and 110 series class A solid state pre on display. *Very cool form factor (see Lynn's video) and priced nicely. *They got rid of the high and low filters, but I heard list was going to about $800 each. *They also have a new UAD1 package, that doesn't include any plug ins, but lets you download $500 worth of the plugs of your choice from their website.

TC Electronic is also doing a new package of the Powercore2 PCI card with no plug ins, mostly designed as a lower cost version for folks looking to add a second card. *They also will be doing a vocal doubler based on technology from the VoicePro. *It's going to be pretty pricey - I heard $1295 list - but it sounded killer.

David Bock was showing the red "Ferrari" mic that Lynn had posted pictures of some time ago. *At $8K, it's going to be pretty much a custom job, but it features his new elliptical capsule (which he co-wrote the patent for), which supposedly combines the benefits of both large and small diaphragm mics, plus gets rid of the mid-band resonance issues at 1-2K that can plague many mics. *He also had the first unit from "Bock Electronics", which was a 2 channel tube mic pre. *A really purist design inside and out (besides phantom power, the only controls are a single knob per channel for a stepped resistor network to control gain), he designed it to be as transparent as possible - for "when you only want to hear the mic." *He went with tubes because he finds solid state "transparency" to be it's own color. *It will probably be in the $5K range.

Over at the Las Vegas Pro Audio booth, Brad Lunde was showing rack gear from ADT, a high end German console company. *There were a variety of form factors, including several fixed rack units, a single rack space chassis with modular components (pre, compressor, EQ) that were either 1/4 or 1/2 rack width depending on the module, and some vertical rack modular pieces that looked more like they were straight out of the consoles. *There were certainly ample controls on everything, and the reputation the gear has is top notch. *Not inexpensive, and I didn't get the chance to hear anything, but knowing Brad's penchant for distributing droolworthy stuff, I was really intrigued.

Sony had one of the coolest things at the show at their booth. *Not necessarily something I'll be rushing off to get, but they had a tiny little handheld compact flash field recorder with a pair of high quality condenser capsules (arranged a bit like the Rode NT4), and high quality preamps and converters. *The coolest thing was that while the signal is being recorded into flash, it's also being split and run through a -20 dB limiter. *If the signal ever clips, using technology borrowed from their diversity wireless systems, the unit will shift the record input over to the limiter input, which has been recording into a buffer. *It also looks at the levels that were being recorded before the clip, and automatically brings up the level of the limited signal to that volume and crossfades it in, so it doesn't clip, and the transition is seamless. *The audio quality is supposed to be great, and the titanium housing is supposed to be scratch proof. *When asked how scratch proof, the Sony guy said that if you took a coin and ground the edge of it on the face of the unit, then yeah, it would scratch - the coin, that is. *List on it is about $2K.

Tascam also had a compact flash recorder - approximately DAP-1 kind of size, with built in mic and speakers, phantom power for mics, plus SMPTE timecode, all for about $1K list. *They were also showing the X48 - their next generation 48 track hard disk recorder, with 48 tracks at up to 24 bit 96 KHz and 24 tracks at 192 KHz. *It looked pretty cool, with lots of I/O options and records in Broadcast WAV, so transfer to and from DAW's should be easy. *It probably won't ship until next year.

M-Audio had their ProjectMix I/O on display. *Basically their version of a Digi002 type interface, with 8 mic/line inputs, ADAT, and SPDIF I/O, wordclock, and full control surface with 8 motorized faders. *The really interesting thing is that the ProjectMix and ProTools M-Powered can be had for about $700 less than a Digi002, and the software will resolve to the wordclock on the unit.

Another cool interface was from Mackie, with their Onyx1200F. * This rackmount firewire box has 12 of their Onyx mic pre's, plus ADAT, SPDIF, and 4 headphone outs - a pretty complete setup for folks looking to do live bands on a budget.

Summit had a little half rack, single channel, 4 band parametric EQ. *I didn't get to hear it, but it looked interesting.

Eventide had a firewire card for their H8000, which will let you use it as a processor in your DAW (the interface is a VST plug in). *You can actually also use it for I/O, since the converters are excellent in the H8000.

Princeton digital, makers of the hardware re-issue of the old Eventide 2016 reverb, was showing some plug ins, including TDM versions of the 2016, Ursa Major Space Station, and a new plate reverb, plus a VST room reverb.

Auralex had some very cool looking wood diffusers designed by Russ Berger, including a "space coupler" that is supposed to make small rooms sound bigger, and can also be used to isolate reflections from one section of a room to another when used as a divider.

And speaking of cool looking wood diffusers, both Blackbird and Digi had photo's of George Massenburg's new room, with the strangest array of protruding wooden bars I've ever seen. *Someone who had checked it out in person said it sounded amazing, but was the most "anti Feng Shui" thing he'd ever seen, and another commented it was like an Indiana Jones movie where the wall of spikes is coming toward you. *Supposedly, John McBride had commented during building that if George's crazy experiment didn't work, it was nothing a few gallons of gasoline and a match couldn't fix, but thankfully, from all reports it's been a resounding success.

[3daudioinc]

EveAnna Manley's Crazy AES report (http://www.manleylabs.com/galleria/EVENTS/AES2005NYC.html)

EA just sent me a link to this page, in case you want to read what the life on the other side of the booth is like. There's a reason for her nickname: Vanimal. As you will read.

[3daudioinc]

And this quote from that page:

Or was it the "Liquid Channel"? To Rupert, I dared not repeat the tales of ***t I was giving to Ph***-Us-Rite Phil all weekend after that Rack Robbery unit won the preamp category at TEC awards... but to Phil directly I was relentless. He came up to my booth smugly cradling his beloved TEC award. I shouted out,"Where's my bandsaw! We gotta cut that trophy up into 40 pieces so that the 40 other people's products you emulated and ripped off can get their fair share of what you stole from them!" The Travesty..........


She's not exaggerating. I was standing there.

[David Klausner]

A few other items I forgot...

Royer was showing a tube ribbon. Apparently, this is something Dave Royer had hanging around in the "mad scientist" part of his workshop for some time, and when someone finally asked him about it, he said "oh, that's a tube ribbon." When people checked it out, they were floored, and said he had to go into production on it. BTW, Aspen Pitman at Groove tubes was also thinking about a tube ribbon at some point.

Drawmer had a 3 band multiband tube compressor - the S3. Something I found even more intriguing was their 3-Sum, which is a 3 way multiband splitter and combiner, so you can take 3 different compressors of your choice (and/or EQ's or other hardware) and process each frequency range with the unit of your choice. Really like how a certain compressor tightens up the low end, but prefer another for the highs? This box will let you use them. Nobody could give me definitive pricing, but best guess was it will street for $8-900.

[kevinc]

A few other items I forgot...

Royer was showing a tube ribbon. Apparently, this is something Dave Royer had hanging around in the "mad scientist" part of his workshop for some time, and when someone finally asked him about it, he said "oh, that's a tube ribbon." When people checked it out, they were floored, and said he had to go into production on it. BTW, Aspen Pitman at Groove tubes was also thinking about a tube ribbon at some point.

.


Has there ever been a tube ribbon mic ?

I figure there must have been something like this back when there were more tubes in everything but I don`t remember seeing one anywhere.

[3daudioinc]

Has there ever been a tube ribbon mic ?

I figure there must have been something like this back when there were more tubes in everything but I don`t remember seeing one anywhere.

Not that I'm aware of. One of the big advantages of ribbon mics is that there are no active electronics to contribute to noise. There are still those who believe an "active ribbon" is a travesty.

[Revelation]

And this quote from that page:

Or was it the "Liquid Channel"? To Rupert, I dared not repeat the tales of ***t I was giving to Ph***-Us-Rite Phil all weekend after that Rack Robbery unit won the preamp category at TEC awards... but to Phil directly I was relentless. He came up to my booth smugly cradling his beloved TEC award. I shouted out,"Where's my bandsaw! We gotta cut that trophy up into 40 pieces so that the 40 other people's products you emulated and ripped off can get their fair share of what you stole from them!" The Travesty..........


She's not exaggerating. I was standing there.

Personally l don't think I would want to spend my money on the Liquid Channel. But the fact that Focusrite came out with the Liquid Channel deserves an award for pushing the technology envelope further with pre's and compressors . Some of the pre's and compressors are right on, while other,well... you can't win them all.

[kevinc]

Personally l don't think I would want to spend my money on the Liquid Channel. But the fact that Focusrite came out with the Liquid Channel deserves an award for pushing the technology envelope further with pre's and compressors . Some of the pre's and compressors are right on, while other,well... you can't win them all.


They didn`t even come up with the technology.

Sintefex did right ?

[Revelation]

True but Focusrite is the one that put everything together. It's not usually to get ideas from one company and use it with your own ideas. Look how many company's add "Iron" in their pre's now. Sould we tell company X to pay company A for "Iron" since they had it in their pre first?

[3daudioinc]

They didn`t even come up with the technology.

Sintefex did right ?

Yea, but Focusrite was the one that married it to the hardware.

Look back a ways. The Roland COSM idea was the same-emulation of existing sounds by modeling. That idea predates the LC by what, 5-6 years?

It's the integration/implementation of the software to the hardware that makes it truly unique, regardless of whether it is successful, moral, or ethical, or even sounds good.

In that regard, it is a revolutionary piece, no matter how mad it makes who. The black powder rifle was revolutionary too, and people's opinion of it varied greatly depending on which end of it they were standing.

[Revelation]

Focusrite is the first company to come out with this. Imagine what improved boxes will come out that will give more authentic sounds over the Liquid Channel in the next 10 years. Dedicated hardware will be replaced at some point when the emulation hardware steps up another 2 notches. This is a threat to many company's which should make them feel a little nervous. However you will always have dedicated hardware lovers' and I don't see replacing a Massive Passive any time soon with a plug in. But we know as technology grows, it will happen some day. Look at the UAD, Powercore plug, Waves IR-1 and other high end plugs. They are getting there now with some of the plug ins. One is the George Massenburg plug in for PT. Too bad I can't use it yet in Cubase.

[kevinc]

I guess I was thinking the Sintefex stuff does have hardware boxes as well so they`re kind of similar.

But now I indeed remember reading there was a whole lot more going on in the liquid channel than just controls for the software and some converters. So I agree with you and Lynn that it is a technical achievement. :cool:

A lot of what I`ve heard about it says it just plain isn`t that great a sounding box to begin with much less imitating great vintage gear with any kind of real authenticity. I haven`t heard it myself though so there you go.

As far as the plugs are concerned I stopped believing the idea that they sound like the originals a few years back and when I occaisionally use them I just think of them as tools instead of vintage recreations. They`re fine as tools but I wouldn`t push the idea on anybody that they really sound like 1176`s and Fairchilds because they don`t and they never will in my opinion.

I like the idea of simply coming up with better and better software compressors that really sound as good (or BETTER !) than hardware units out there. I guess you need to start with a blueprint for the sound somewhere though so it does make sense in a way.


I`m shamefully off topic here though so sorry about that.

[Jim Dugger]

I think it's unlikely devices like the liquid channel will ever fully replace real analog hardware.

Afer all, from where would they get their inspiration?

Technically, analog still has significant advantages over digital for non-linear (compressors and limiters) processing. This will always be true, because analog and digital handle signals with out of band components in drastically different ways.

While Moore's law will provide us with the ability to simply throw processing at the problem and make really incredible digital gear (it already does, in my opinion), digital gear will always be best at signals that already exist in a rather normalized state, such as line level. For providing the first electrical interface for capturing sounds, analog still rules excluding not-yet-proven technology like laser microphones and other digital transducers. Even the liquid channel depends on a pretty significant amount of analog technology.

[kevinc]

I think it's unlikely devices like the liquid channel will ever fully replace real analog hardware.

.

The other thing is even modern analog hardware can`t replace vintage analog hardware.

It`s been argued to death in the various forums by cats who know a heck of a lot more than I do.

Anytime theres a new U47 or 1073 copy (or design based on) theres somebody there to say it just doesn`t sound like the real deal. Modern components just can`t sound exactly like the older ones now matter how you tweak them.

So how on earth are you supposed to achieve anywhere near an exact copy with number crunching if you can`t do it with real parts ? The methods of modeling sounds seems realistic but it just can`t happen at his point.

[David Klausner]

More stuff I forgot about...

The "500" series form factor module seems to be gaining popularity. A Designs was showing a version of their Pacifica pre in that form factor, and Buzz had a modular system with higher voltage, but I understand they are planning a series that will run on standard "500" voltage and fit standard "500" racks.

With API, BAE, Purple Audio, and OSA already doing that form factor (and possibly others I have forgotten or left out), it may be getting time to invest in a rack and start the mix and match thing...

[joeq]

I missed it at the show, but I read in an email from Mix magazine about a new Active Bass Trap from Bag End. Tunable! I would have liked to have seen that in action.