Best of Show: Hit Products From AES NYC 2019

Three Mix reviewers/editors—Mike Levine, Steve La Cerra and Barry Rudolph—walked the aisles of the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York mid-October and picked the following Best of Show products.

Here, in no particular order, are the pro audio products they found.

Solid State Logic Origin: The big “star” of the show was SSL’s new Origin Console smartly priced at $50K base. In less than 2 meters width, the Origin is an all analog, inline, dual channel design, with 16 buses, E Series EQ and the Classic stereo Bus Compressor.

Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate: Powerful plug-in with intelligent detection, Adaptive Decay, Leveller and MIDI triggering.

Roswell Pro Audio Mini k87 Microphone: Small-sized large-diaphragm cardioid condenser mic that sells for $349, designed for clean reproduction. Sibling to existing Mini K47 that has a more “vintage” sound.

Soyuz The Launcher: Transformer/gain booster for mics, designed to add color.

Cranborne Audio 500 R8: It’s an audio interface, it’s a 500 series rack, it’s a summing amp. Very impressive.

United Studio Technologies UT FET47 Condenser Microphone: A copy of the Neumann U47 FET, it features an Eric Heiserman designed HZ Series capsule with a German-style dual backplate and custom CineMag output transformer. $799.

Tonelux JC37 Microphone: Cardioid-only version of the Sony C-37a. The “JC” is for Joe Chiccarelli; he and Sunset Sound have quite a collection of the original mics to reference. The Sony C-37a was always a favorite for snare drums, brass and solo trumpet, piano, acoustic guitar and vocals. The included power supply runs two mics. $4,300 a pair.

Steinberg WaveLab 10 Mastering Software: Allows users to integrate external effect devices into the signal flow; Reference Track for adding a reference audio file and then toggling between the reference audio file and other tracks; offers users the option to access and modify audio with other editors like SpectraLayers from within WaveLab; records and renders live input streams through the Master Section and the inserted plug-in chain.

Microtech Gefell M Cube microphone system: Made for 3D recordings using time delay stereophony. It uses nine omni M 102 or M 221 Gefell microphones spaced 1meter apart in a cube, with the ninth microphone in the middle front pointed at the source. $20,000.

AEA KU5a Ribbon Microphone: Wes Dooley has a new end-address super-cardioid active ribbon mic he says is “road ready” $1,199.

Pultec EQM-1S Mastering Equalizer: Mastering version of the EQP-1S with some extra features and full-range progressive-taper Elma Switch stepped controls instead of continuous variable pots. $4,895 each.

Eventide H9000 and H9000R Multi-Effects Processors with version 1.1 software: Significantly updated with a new bank of Vintage Emulations such as H3000 Micropitch, Unitide, SP2016 Reverb, Instant Phaser Mk II, and Instant Flanger Mk II.

Apogee Clearmountain Domain plug-in: For Domain, Bob Clearmountain has created presets based on specific instruments and vocal processing from his big hit records. There are five processors in a single plug-in: delay, pitch-shifted delays, three personalized convolution reverbs with many internal parameters for each you can tweak to taste. $349. Native.

Nugen Audio SigMod plug-in update: SigMod is a single-process plug-in that now has 12 modules. With it you can do things like: Mid/Side conversion of stereo, Protect is automatic shut off of audio when exceeding a preset max, Tap and Crossover is an audio signal splitter, and Insert allows any VST or AU plug to be inserted anywhere in an AAX DAW.

DynAudio Core 47: A three-way compact monitor and a Core Sub with a frequency range of 13 Hz to 200 Hz, 120dB, all in a small cabinet. It has both analog and AES/EBU digital inputs and weighs over 100 pounds. $4,000 MSRP.