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AES 2005BIG, BIGGER, BEST The pre-show buzz? This AES was gonna be big. And despite constant rains, a (somewhat dubious) terrorist subway attack scare and taxis that were as scarce as elevators in the Marriott, nothing could dampen the spirits of attendees, swelled by an effort from pro audio retailers to attract end-users. The show delivered—big time. With 452 exhibitors and more than 20,000 attendees jamming the aisles, business was booming and the joint was packed. At one point, it was so crowded that a bystander commented that AES looked like “Winter NAMM crowds, without the tattoos and piercings.” 
“It’s nice that this show still exists, as a good portion of the record business seems to have been sucked down the Internet,” said Bob Clearmountain, who was preparing his lecture on “the good and bad effects of the Internet on the recording/mixing business.” Indeed, everyone seems to be showing signs of adapting to the changing model of the recording industry. As in the year’s earlier shows, there was increased presence from the likes of Apple, Intel, Texas Instruments and AMD, who continue to push brand visibility in the pro audio market. Speaking of Apple, the company's large booth at AES was set up with a couple dozen computer workstations, hosting ongoing free seminars on Logic 7, Soundtrack 2 and Final Cut Pro throughout the show. These were packed throughout and very popular with attendees.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES Fairlight hosted a party at Tim Robbins' speakeasy on the Lower East Side to announce the upcoming auction of a one-of-a-kind, vintage Fairlight CMI keyboard signed by legendary musicians and producers, such as Peter Gabriel and Hans Zimmer, to benefit the human rights nonprofit Witness (www.witness.org). And PAD and the Walters-Storyk Design Group threw a bash at their most recent joint venture, the newly expanded, five-story Integrated Studios in Tribeca. PAD also wins our “best show freebie” award, giving away a studio tune-up featuring two days of in-house tech services with two PAD staffers, who agreed to fly to any facility in the U.S. Also on Friday, John Oram finally tied the knot. His wedding took place at Sal Anthony's SPQR restaurant in Little Italy. Witnesses at the event—which was followed by a 7-course Italian meal—included engineers Al Schmitt and Elliot Scheiner and a handful of other friends. We're not sure if an AES show sounds romantic, but we understand the newlyweds planned a real honeymoon getaway after the show at an undisclosed location. Legendary club CBGB’s is fighting to survive despite lease woes, but you’d never guess it by the rockin’ pre-AES festivities. Jerry Harrison hosted a listening party for the new Talking Heads dual-disc boxed set (profiled in the October 2005 Mix) and Elliot Scheiner dropped in to talk about his ELS Acura system. Elsewhere in Manhattan, Stratosphere Sound and Universal Audio co-hosted a swanky bash, Apogee toasted their 20th anniversary at the chic Bungalow 8 and newcomers Tainted Blue showed off their midtown digs. 
Seemingly two-thirds of Manhattan packed into the Marriott Marquis Grand Ballroom for the 21st Annual TEC Awards, held Saturday evening. Carlos Alomar opened the show with some guitar pyrtechnics, accompanied by bandleader Larry Batiste and the 2Cold Chile Bone TEC band comprising some of the Big Apple's hottest session players. The Mardin tribute actually began with surprise guest Chaka Kahn serenading Arif with a beautiful rendition of "Through the Fire." Ooh, that woman can sure sing! Later in the ceremony, Laurie Anderson came onstage to accept the Les Paul Award on behalf of David Byrne, handed out by the legend himself, Mr. Paul. And, yes, Les injected his usual humor, at one point grabbing the handcrafted custom shop Gibson Les Paul and trying to take it for himself. Click here for a complete list of all the 2005 TEC Award winners. Sunday morning, AES attendees seemed to be moving more slowly, but the traffic on the show floor remained strong. But the place to be Sunday night was where Manley Labs, Empirical Labs, Mercenary Audio, Lynx, ADAM Audio and a slew of boutique manufacturers hosted a bash that featured Eric Ambel and The Roscoe Trio shaking the walls of The Lakeside Lounge on the Lower East Side. Okay, they handed out 1,000 passes to a club that on a good night holds 150—but a good time was had by all, especially as it didn't rain that night. So how small is this venue? The "stage" (well...6-inch-tall riser in the corner) has wall-mounted guitar hangers—a great idea, BTW—because there's no room for a band and guitar stands on the tiny platform. But besides scoring a couple seats to the always-sold-out Spamalot, the best show in town is always catching one of Les Paul's two Monday night shows at the Iridium Jazz Club, which blend humor and sometimes even a little music between stories, jokes, anecdotes and fun. Les Paul is an American treasure and attending one of his performances is a great way to wind down after some tiring but enjoyable days of hitting the AES floor at the Javits Center. While this AES wasn’t rife with earth-shattering debuts, the consensus is the bar has been raised and the overall quality level of products at the show was at a high. Not a lot of dogs here.
AMS Neve (www.ams-neve.com) announced its digital 88D music production console, which combines a 1,000-track, 96kHz DSP engine with Neve preamps, multisource 8.1 monitoring, Encore Plus automation, Pro Tools/Pyramix/Nuendo integration, classic EQ and dynamics plug-ins, and the power of 40-bit floating-point processing. But what really turned heads at AES was its 8816, a 16x2 (and cascadable for more) summing box in a 2U case. Sweet! 
Fairlight’s (www.fairlightau.com) Constellation-Anthem console blends a familiar analog-style music console surface with the power of digital. “It combines three mixing paradigms in one console,” says Fairlight’s John Lancken, “a classic split mode with 48 inputs and 96 monitor returns, a traditional in-line console with up to 96 long faders and 96 short faders, and a Constellation post-production mode. The console reconfigures in seven seconds for a new task, so studios can diversify their business opportunities and operations to do music, film, television and post—all on one platform.” Harrison’s (www.glw.com) Trion digital console made its AES debut. It’s offered in versions for film/video post, broadcast and live, and features a traditional surface rather than a central, shared-knobs approach. Running on the company’s IKIS™ platform, Trion uses a 15-inch monitor for every eight faders, offering a view of each channel’s information, along with Harrison’s PreView™ waveform envelope display. The first console from Oram Digital Developments (www.oram.co.uk) is The Light, a co-design of John Oram and Dr. Danish Ali. The mixer offers recallable, fully automated digital control over high-end analog electronics, can double as a controller for DAWs and is priced from $57,800. Oram also announced The Movies retrofit console moving fader automation, with 40 channels priced around $17,500.
ANALOG TAPE RETURNS! Quantegy (www.quantegy.com) showed a full line of studio products, with GP9, 499, 456 and a range of digital, from DASH to ADAT stock. Those whose tastes run to Euro flavors were pleased to see RMGI (www.rmgi-usa.com) showing favorite Emtec formulations, beginning with 1/4-inch SM911, to be followed later with SM900 and others. And ATR Magnetics (www.nothingsoundsliketape.com)—a spin-off of Michael Spitz' ATR Service Corp.—previewed its lines of pro analog tape in all widths due to come from a new state-of-the-art facility. This revival is great news, especially for those of us who crave that fat, sweet sound of analog tape. Just don’t forget to print alignment tones on the head of your next project!
DAWS ON THE MARCH Steinberg’s (www.steinberg.net) Cubase SE3 is a steal at $159, especially with 48 audio and unlimited MIDI tracks, 32-bit audio engine offering 24-bit/96kHz recording and playback—including delay compensation—and a full range of VST instruments, virtual effects and MIDI effects. When are you going 64-bit? Probably faster than you think. Cakewalk (www.cakewalk.com) is leading the revolution by shipping the 64-bit SONAR 5, and other manufacturers are following suit, including Open Labs’ (www.openlabs.com) NeKo Gen2 keyboard workstations and Edirol’s (www.edirol.com) new 64-bit drivers. “Most of you don’t have x64 systems yet, but trust me, within the next year or two you will,” says Cakewalk’s Ron Kuper. “Every new CPU being made by Intel and AMD is going to be 64-bit–capable. And the performance gains are huge and worth the transition.” Kuper cites benchmark tests in which SONAR ran 10 to 30 percent faster on the same box in x64 mode when compared to x86 mode. That 1-terabyte RAM capability doesn’t hurt things, either. In other developments, a 64-bit double-precision mix engine is now available in all versions of SONAR.
Yeah, it has a hot new console, but SSL’s new LMC-1 plug-in, based on the Listen Mic Compressor from the SL 4000 Series console series, was the surprise booth hit. “Over 2,000 customers in the first 48 hours make this one of the most popular products we’ve ever launched,” notes SSL’s Niall Feldman. Part of the success may be due to the fact that it’s free—at least for now. CEDAR (www.cedaraudio.com) joins the Pro Tools PC crowd, offering Retouch, Declip and Auto-Dehiss from its Cambridge workstation. Available as AudioSuite plug-ins on the Pro Tools (PC) platform, each process is quick and simple to use. Waves (www.waves.com) debuted two new native format plug-ins: Tune advanced pitch-correction ($600) and DeBreath ($350), which can identify and remove unwanted breath sounds from voice or narration tracks. Tune offers deep user control for editing and defining any pitch work with a simple piano roll interface; DeBreath can operate nearly automatically, while offering complete manual control. Indecisive plug-in shopper? The UAD-1 Flexi-Pak from Universal Audio (www.uaudio.com) gives you the accelerator card, throws in some staple effects and lets you flesh out the bundle by auditioning from the online library and using the included $500 voucher to pay for the goodies you want. Drawbar tweakers, rejoice! Native Instruments’ (www.nativeinstruments.com) many new AES debuts included the B4 II, featuring an overhauled rotary speaker section and cool extras such as realistic tone wheel leakage. New from IK Multimedia (www.ikmultimedia.com), AmpliTube 2 models more than 80 guitar amps, cabinets and more. IK also released details of its first hardware product, the AmpliTube StompIO USB foot controller. Spectrasonics (www.spectrasonics.net) debuted a 1.5 update for its Stylus RMX, which adds Windows RTAS support, hundreds of new patches and an embedded help system. The company was also showing its New Orleans Strut Library, giving 100 percent of that product’s proceeds to benefit Hurricane Katrina victims. BIAS’ (www.bias-inc.com) Master Perfection Suite collection, originally released in Peak Pro XT 5, will be available stand-alone next quarter. McDSP (www.mcdsp.com) showed Revolver 1, a cool new convolution reverb, and an LE version of the Analog Channel tape emulation plug-in. M-Audio (www.m-audio.com) showed ProjectMix, an 18x14 control surface/FireWire interface, offering eight fader channels and transport controls, plus support for popular workstation apps (including, of course, the new Pro Tools 7 M-Powered).
Tascam’s (www.tascam.com) hi-def stereo HD-P2 records up to 192 kHz/24-bit to CompactFlash, with FireWire loading to your DAW. Also standard are XLR mic inputs with phantom, RCA analog I/O, S/PDIF digital I/O and a SMPTE input for timecode sync. The $499 M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 records stereo .WAV and MP3 files to microdrives or CompactFlash with USB 2 interfacing. 
But the coolest mini recorder was HHB’s (www.hhb.co.uk) FlashMic, which combines a Sennheiser omni condenser capsule, 48kHz/16-bit .WAV linear or MPEG 1 Layer 2 recording (stored to 1 GB of Flash memory) and USB offloads—all built within a handheld mic body.
MONITORS E-mu (www.emu.com) enters the monitor world with its PM5 Precision Monitors ($349.99 each), bi-amplified near-fields featuring discrete Class-A input and MOSFET output stages. In a different direction, high-end monitor manufacturer ATC (www.atc.gb.net) announced the PA65ASL, an active three-way system designed for sound reinforcement and priced at $7,500/speaker. 
Canada’s Energy Speakers now has a pro division, run by former Tannoy N.A. head Bill Calma and distributed by Bryston (www.bryston.ca). EnergyPro’s first offerings are the reference E7a ($1,295/pair) and E9a ($1,899/pair) powered two-way near-fields with analog and digital inputs. The monitors use digital user bits (rather than bit-rate reduction) to remotely control system volume, so listeners aren’t subjected to 8-bit playbacks at low levels. Powered subs (with accelerometer control of cone motion) and passive monitors are also available.
MIC, MICS, MICS 
Possibly the most awaited mic of all time, Schoeps (www.schoeps.de) finally unveiled its first shotgun, the CMIT 5U, which features a featherweight (3.125 ounce) design and blue-anodized housing. RODE’s (www.rodemics.com) $499 NT-6 is a small-diaphragm mic with the cardioid condenser capsule separated from the body by a 3-meter Kevlar-covered cable—ideal for hanging or difficult placements. 
Breaking ground—at least from a price point—are DPA’s (www.dpamicrophones.coma) new 4090 and 4091 models, which are designed for capturing instruments and retail around $600. Two years ago, you could nearly count all the ribbon mics in the industry on one hand; after this AES, the number nearly doubled. Crowley and Tripp (www.soundwaveresearch.com) showed The Vocalist, Soundstage Image and Proscenium—three U.S.-made ribbon models. SE Electronics (www.seelectronics.com) launched the $749 SE Ribbon model; Groove Tubes showed its Velo8; and Royer Labs (www.royerlabs.com) announced the R-122V tube ribbon mic, which takes the technology of its R-121 and R-122 combined with a triode-driven circuit to raise the mic’s sensitivity to -29 dB. And to keep new and vintage ribbon mics sounding great, Wes Dooley of AEA (www.ribbonmics.com) unveiled a high-gain, no-phantom preamp optimized for ribbon mics with 84 dB of quiet gain. New players in the live mic arena included audio legend Bob Heil demo’ing his Heil Sound (www.heilsound.com) PR40 cardioid dynamic with extended low end, while Bob Avenson of Avenson Audio (www.avensonaudio.com) announced the TVM, a cardioid tube condenser for handheld vocals.
Rupert Neve Designs (www.rupertneve.com) showed its Portico line, including the 5042 tape emulator/line driver and the 5043 stereo comp/limiter. The first non-tube product from Pendulum Audio (www.pendulumaudio.com), the PL-2 is a stand-alone version of the dual peak limiter in the company’s popular Quartet II Tube Recording Channel, with a choice of MOSFET or JFET sounds. Universal Audio’s Solo Series tube Solo/610 and the Solo/110 Class-A mic single-channel mic pre/DI combos use the classic Putnam 610 and Precision 110 designs at an under-$1,000 tag. Part of Ivor Drawmer’s signature series, the Drawmer (www.drawmer.com) S3 is a 3-band, stereo opto-compressor with 10 tubes in a Class-A design. Formed by industry vets, Bricasti Design (www.bricasti.com) is a new company with decades of experience. Its world-class M7 Stereo Reverb offers up to 192kHz clarity and 100 presets of classic and new ambiences. 
Manley Labs (www.manleylabs.com) unveiled the Langevin Mini-Massive Stereo Equalizer, based on the passive EQ sections of Manley’s Massive Passive but in a 1U chassis and at $2,800—about half the price.
LIVE SOUND COMES ALIVE AT AES! Adamson’s (www.adamsonproaudio.com) T-21 Sub has two SD-21 Symmetrical Drive™ kevlar/neodymium dual voice-coil, 3,000-watt drivers mounted back-to-back and ported out each end of the front. The 58x36x23-inch cabinet flies above the Adamson Y18 line array or stand-alone using the five splay angles of Adamson Integrated Rigging™ captive hardware. AKG (www.akg.com) married its K171 supraural and the TEC Award–winning K271 circumaural closed-back headphones with its popular Micromic miniature goosenecks to create the HS171 and HS271 broadcast-quality headsets. Four models provide a choice of a dynamic or condenser cardioid capsules. A single-muff version will also be available. 
Allen & Heath (www.ilive-digital.com) debuted its iLive digital mixer. The iDR-64 mix engine holds 8-channel cards for 64 inputs and 32 outputs, which can be groups, auxes, matrixes or mains, and can be used as a stand-alone mixer. Available control surfaces have 28, 36 or 44 faders, and house four more cards for eight assignable and eight mix inserts. Custom-color backlit displays over each fader provide good visual cueing. The selected channel section has an analog feel and is placed at eye-level beside an LCD touchscreen. APB-Dynasonics (www.apb-dynasonics.com) is about to begin deliveries of its Spectra-C and Spectra-T analog consoles, available in 24/32/40/48/56 mono input frames, with a 24-input expander offered. Spectras feature input and output VCA control, 4-band EQ, Burr-Brown preamps, 10 aux buses, optional redundant power supplies and more. 
Eastern Acoustic Works (www.eaw.com) sought input from hundreds of end-users to help define its new umx.96 digital mixing solution. The result is a mixer with everything but the kitchen sink, and the answer to most questions is “It’s in there.” An onboard 3x12 speaker processor, integrated SmaartLive, 15-inch touchscreen, tri-color assignment buttons, a 24/96 mix engine, 48 mic pre’s, eight stereo line inputs, 24 aux/group buses, 16x8 matrix, four stereo multi-effects...the list goes on, and it’s expandable to double the number of inputs. Glyph Technologies’ (www.glyphtech.com) GPM-216 Personal Monitor is a 16-channel digital mixer with two local inputs split to feed a main mixer, while also being digitally mixed via Cat-5 to other units in a peer-to-peer fashion for onstage or studio monitoring, without the need for connection to a digital console. It runs on Linux and has a built-in reverb and tuner. Rear connections include inserts for the two local inputs and the mix, plus speaker outputs. The 2U front panel has a large LCD screen, bass/treble/volume controls and 16 illuminated channel-select buttons. LA Audio’s (www.laaudio.co.uk) CAN-D stereo headphone delay is packaged in the same six-sided aluminum extrusion as the company’s other interface boxes. A three-digit display shows delay times up to its maximum of 678 ms, or in meters or feet. Alternatively, it can be used to delay near-field monitors. It’s about time. Sennheiser’s (www.sennheiserusa.com) SKM5200 handheld UHF transmitter offers interchangeable capsules with six Sennheiser and two Neumann elements. It provides two channel banks: one group with 32 fixed frequencies and a second custom bank of 20 frequencies that can be used over its 36MHz-wide bandwidth. In addition to the usual RF and battery info, its LCD shows a 6-character name. Shure (www.shure.com) announced its UHF-R network wireless system with a choice of capsules, including the KSM9 that was beta-tested with several top touring acts this summer. A network interface scans for optimum frequency assignment, and the system operates across one of three 60MHz bands, employing onboard filtering that tunes along with the frequency. Up to 40 systems can be used together in a single band. 
Yamaha’s (www.yamahaproaudio.com) M7CL digital console puts all the faders on one page and a touchscreen LCD. Offered with 32 or 40 mic input channels with recallable mic pre’s, there are four stereo inputs and internal processing provides four stereo effects and eight graphic EQs. Beyond the LCR bus, there are 16 mix buses, eight matrix outs and three expansion slots on the rear panel. Files can be stored on a USB memory stick or synchronized and stored to an XP PC using an editor from within Yamaha’s Studio Manager over an Ethernet cable.
HITS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED Auralex (www.auralex.com) pArtScience: These affordable acoustical products developed by Russ Berger for Auralex Acoustics include the $119 AudioTile, offering a unique blend of absorption, diffusion and reflection; and the $399 SpaceArray, combining hemispherical diffusion with a wood finish. CEntrance (www.centrance.com) Universal FireWire Driver: It’s not quite “peace and happiness for all people,” but the idea of a universal driver for multiple ASIO FireWire audio devices on the Windows XP platform comes pretty close to our idea of nirvana. MSR/StudioPanel (www.msr-inc.com) Salon Acoustics: Take a 2-inch-thick absorption panel, wrap it in printed fabric (with stock or custom designs), add a frame and you’ve got acoustical material that looks and sounds great. MusicXPC (www.musicxpc.com): The Professional M3 is a Pentium-based laptop customized for audio production with features such as fanless CPU cooling technology. 
PreSonus (www.presonus.com) Inspire 1394: Small in size (yet big in features), this four analog input/two analog output, 24-bit/96k FireWire interface features two preamps with phantom power and dual-mono line-level (or RIAA phono) ins. A simple (Mac/PC) software panel provides access to all controls. Street is $199. RSS (www.rssamerica.com) Digital Snake: The S-4000 from Roland’s commercial division is a modular and adaptable snake system that handles up to 40 channels of analog/digital audio over a single Cat-5e line. SNS (www.studionetworksolutions.com) globalSAN X-4 for Pro Tools: Priced at $6,999 with 1.6 Terabytes of SATA storage, this is finally the storage area network solution for the rest of us.
A GREAT SHOW WAS HAD BY ALL Even with torrential rains every day, the joint was packed! And not only with traditional AES veterans, but with lots of new faces, both attendees and exhibitors. For the AES (and the industry as a whole) to survive, grow and prosper, requires a constant infusion of new blood—and many of these will come from non-traditional sources. More of them will be come from a "street" background than the usual audio school backgrounds, especially as technology becomes more accessible, inexpensive and democratized. Some kid cutting bedroom tracks on SONAR or Cubase may not fully understand the nuances of gain structuring, mic placement or the need for accurate monitors, but by encouraging audio enthusiasts at every level to experience AES, everybody benefits. Thanks again to AES for an awesome performance!
AES-KAREs
AND MORE Meanwhile, we’ll feature other cool debuts from AES in our new products sections in the months to come. The good news? AES returns to San Francisco from October 6 to 9, 2006. See you there! Contributors to this report included Kevin Becka, Sarah Benzuly, Mark Frink, Tom Kenny, Sarah Jones, George Petersen, Barry Rudolph and David Weiss. |
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Emcee Will Lee (of The Late Show with David Letterman band fame) kept the audience in stitches all night. The masterful Lee appeared first in the guise of a lounge singer, performing "That's Engineering," a hilarious parody of "That's Entertainment" that this famed bassist wrote on a plane the week before. Despite some video playback hiccups—okay, let's just call them technical difficulties—early on in the show, the night just kept rocking, highlighted by Ahmet Ertegun's heartfelt, funny, warm, gracious tribute to his friend Arif Mardin. Then Arif came out and told some stories, looked around the room and thanked many of his friends and colleagues, and received his second standing ovation of the evening.
BIG CONSOLES!
PLUGS, APPS AND STUFF
LITTLE RECORDERS
The 6-inch woofer LSR4326P ($1,399/pair) and 8-inch LSR4328P ($1,699/pair) use HiQnet networking, allowing all speakers to be controlled from the mix position via (included) software or a wireless remote. Parameters include global volume control, mute, solo and input switching from analog or 24-bit/96kHz digital sources. Speaker front baffles include a meter display and illuminated controls for all user functions. A companion sub is in the works. 
GOING OUTBOARD