Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category

Akai’s answer to the Korg Nano series is now shipping to all major retailers.  I know all Guitar Centers have them (or will have them soon), and the pricing on these units is pretty great.

They’re USB-bus powered, about the length of a laptop keyboard, and thin enough to fit into any sort of messenger/laptop bag you can think of. Sadly, Akai wasn’t at AES this year so I couldn’t get any good info/demos of the units, but from what I’ve seen the build quality on these Akai units seem to be much more solid than the Korg units.

Go check out your nearest retailer and check them out!

Applied Acoustics Systems has announced the 1.1.2 update for their Ultra Analog VA-1 software synth for both Windows and OS X. According to the press release, it’s mostly a collection of bugfixes. Here’s a list of the fixes:

- Fixed lots of preset change glitches;
- Fixed DC output saturation on some oscillator/filter combinations;
- Fixed filter cutoff glitch on large sudden pitch changes;
- Fixed Recorder crash on Windows;
- Fixed automation from plug-in window in Logic 8;
- Fixed audio cuts when the plug-in window was displayed;
- Fixed MIDI Link crash on “Default” channel;
- Fixed Cubase 5 crash on Windows;
- Now works with Cubase 5 64-bit VST Bridge;
- Now works with Sonar 64-bit BitBridge;
- Fixed “Fatal Error 417″ during authorization on Mac OS X;
- Fixed Edit MIDI Link dialog values glitch;

The update is free for all registered users of VA-1 and is available from the AAS website.

We were lucky enough to be invited into the Waves press event that happened at AES. Inside we saw a speech from a small variety of Waves people as well as demos of most of the new Waves plug-ins being launched soon. The only that was missing a demo was the LoAir software, but the rest were covered in pretty significant detail. Let’s take a look at what’s coming to a studio near you soon.

Waves Noise Suppressor and LoAir Subharmonic Synthesizer – $2,800 (TDM) and $TBD (respectively); both available in TDM and Native

Both of the above are part of Waves Post Production bundle. Waves Noise Suppressor (or WNS from here on out) is a broadband noise reduction tool thats aimed at both location and studio recording. It looks like your standard broadband noise reduction plug-in except for the fact that it allows you to work on multiple tracks at a time allowing you to do a lot of noise suppression in a little amount of time.

You know those scenes in movies where there’s a huge explosion and you can feel the rumble? Well, the LoAir Subharmonic Synthesizer is made just for those kinds of scenes. It’s polyphonic, works on either 2.1 or 5.1 setups, and can also be used to enhance the subharmonics on already existing tracks. Something tells me this plug-in will be widely used and abused in the electronic music world, as well as the post world.

Vocal Rider – $400 (Native), $800 (TDM)

This was a lot of fun to see in action. It was also great to see and will be desired by anyone who’s ever had to do lots of tedious vocal automation, whether for music or post. Vocal Rider takes a sidechain input (your music bed) and rides your vocal channel accordingly to ensure a (near) perfect vocal mix. It can also write automation as it tweaks your vocals as well as read any existing automation.

MultiRack – $600 (TDM only; includes a reverb and delay plug-in)

Part of the Waves Live suite, this is aimed at lightening up your live sound rig. The concept is forget all your dynamics and time-based processing racks; use this instead. And after working as a live sound stagehand for some time, this concept scares and excites me. It’s great because it will lower overhead and energy needed to effectively mix a show. It scares because my main job was hauling around racks of amps and processors so that the FOH/monitor guys could do what they needed do, so something like this could put a few guys out of work (which no one needs).

Each rack in the program is it’s own signal chain which can be customized from start to finish. It seems like it has a pretty rich preset function built-in. You can save racks for a band, song, or even part of a song and recall it on the fly. You can also use any Waves plug-in inside the rack which promises to give you that studio sound in the live sound realm.

All the plug-ins discussed above will be available the first week of November and will be included in all of the popular Waves bundles.

Today marks the end of the 2009 AES Show in New York City. It was our first real trade-show and was a lot of fun. We met a ton of great people, all of whom we hope to keep in contact with for a long time.

Obviously AES is an audio nerd’s dream come true: it’s wall-to-wall gear and like-minded individuals talking shop and other having fun. There’s parties, lectures, and even science-heavy white paper lectures (for those who are into those kinds of things). But most importantly it’s gear. Whether new or old, analog or digital, software or hardware, it’s all used for recording, mixing, mastering, post production, and more.

We literally walked by every single exhibit and gave every product some attention. However, some products blew our mind a little bit more than others, so I thought I’d go through the tech that I was most excited about.

• Cloud Ribbon Microphones:  Particularly the JRS-34. These microphones sound and look amazing because of their background and the people involved with them. Stephen Sank, who’s father replaced Harry Olsen at RCA, has been restoring and modifying classic RCA ribbons for some time now. RJ Cloud and Stephen Sank have been developing modern ribbons with vintage souls since 2006 and the mics are now becoming available to the general public. The mics sound amazing, are built inside the United States, and are considerably cheaper than buying an RCA 44/77.
• Audient Zen: It’s no secret that the way of the commercial studio is going the way of small, efficient, and hybrid. I love giant analog consoles, and while I’m sure they’re still being sold, I’m sure consoles like the Zen are being sold much faster. The Zen offers you all the flexibility you’re going to need from a small-form analog/digital console with a considerably lower price tag than it’s competitors (even if you buy it fully loaded). The console designer has been designing circuits/gear since the 60s and was on-hand to give me an in-depth tour of the board. And, as much as I love SSL, Neve, and API, I must say that this is the only desk that got me really stoked.
• Dangerous Music D-Box: Okay, confession time: I can be a bit behind in terms of higher end gear. I don’t work in a big studio. So while I was a bit familiar with Dangerous Music’s tech, I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing and hearing the D-Box until Saturday. After being given a very detailed tour of the box, I have to say that if I was ever building a serious project studio around a Pro Tools LE system, I’d HAVE to own this thing. It’s a monitoring solution, cueing setup, talkback/headphone solution, analog summing box, and D/A convertor.
• Two Notes Torpedo VB-101: With all the buzz surrounding the Digidesign Eleven Rack, I have to believe you’re going to hear a little bit about this amazing unit once it starts coming around in the United States. The Torpedo is based on a convolution algorithm which delivers amazing sounds. It’s got 16 amp/8 studio microphone choices, USB control with the Torpedo Remote software, 24bit/192kHz analog I/Os, AES/EBU/SPIDF digital I/Os with a wordclock sync, and is fully MIDI assignable. That’s all well and good, but the two best features of this unit is the fact that you can use your own guitar/bass amps the box and you can create your own IRs (impulse responses) with the Torpedo Capture software! Have a buddy in Europe with a killer amp/mic combo that you’d like? This software and box gives you the ability to do that. A must have for any serious studio guitar player.
• Grimm Audio LS1/AD1: Confession time part two: I’m a scientist and I’ll never try to convince you that I am. So when Sanjay and I met with the Grimm guys and they went into the reason their gear is world-class, a lot of it went over my head. Which is all well and good because as much as I love great sounding stuff, I also love great looking gear which is why the Grimm stuff caught my eye (A/D convertor with wood front panel? yes please!). Knowledge of high-level audio science or not, the LS1 (they’re flagship studio monitors) were astounding. They’re sleek, built solidly, and sound like some of the best monitors I’ve ever heard. Make no mistake, though: this is high-grade, expensive, and most definitely pro gear. The price tag reflects this, but I’m 100% certain that this gear is worth every penny.
• Thermionic Culture: By now it should be no secret that I’m a huge fan of hand-made, high quality, analog gear. Thermionic Culture makes gear that falls under each of those three criteria for awesome gear. From preamps to EQs and just about anything in-between, these guys have all the bases covered for your tracking, mixing, and tone-shaping needs. The great thing about the gear is that while a bit more pricey than your run-of-the-mill dbx or M-Audio gear, it’s certainly well worth it for any studio desiring the all-valve analog sound whether it be project or commercial facility.
• Endless Audio CLASP: When I read the press release for this, I had to read it again to make sure I had read it right. A way to incorporate that somewhat forgotten tape machine into your daily digital work? Endless Analog is making that come true with CLASP (Closed Loop Analog Signal Processor). The way it works is simple: once the CLASP rack-unit is installed, it runs as a plug-in inside your Pro Tools system. As you record, it hits your tape machine first and then goes right into your Pro Tools system. Your PT transport now can control your tape machine transport, you can do tape punches just as easily as you can do punches in PT, and you can even change the speeds at which your tape machine is running on the fly. It’s kind of expensive but has taken a number of years to develop. It’s limited in it’s market as it’s really only open to studios that already have tape machines or newer studios that have a tape machine in their budget, but it’s amazing nonetheless.
• Novation Launchpad: The APC40 seems to be a pretty big hit with Live users, but I think this piece of hardware might put a pretty sizable dent in the market for Akai. At first glance, you may notice what this device doesn’t have: no faders, no encoders. But what it does have is much more important. It has a) a lower price ($199 retail), b) great feeling pads, c) the ability to link up to six units together at a time and work in tandem with an APC40, allowing you to work with both at the same time, d) the high-quality you’ve come to expect with Novation controllers, and e) Automap. Don’t write this thing off. You can still control sends, levels, panning, and all the other stuff with the Launchpad, just in a slightly different fashion.
• iZotope Alloy: I’ve been a fan of RX since I was introduced to it a couple of years ago so I make sure to check out everything that comes out of iZotope’s factory. Alloy is a somewhat rare departure from their normal territory, but I’m stoked to get a hold of this. I’d write a bunch of words about the software, but perhaps you’d like to watch our video in which the head of iZotope’s beta-testing department gives us a great walkthrough of the program.

So ends my giant wall of text. While there was tons of gear at this years show, the above pieces were my absolute favorite. There wasn’t a lot of disappointments at the show, but there were a few.

• No Digidesign!
• No Akai
• No Apple
• Overall smaller show than last year which means…
• SSL and Neve booths weren’t as large as they’ve been in years past
• I’m not meant to live in NYC, as this trip has shown me
• The Javits center’s food sucks and is too expensive

Other than that, it was a blast. We’re definitely going to be at AES San Francisco next fall, hopefully with an intern or two doing most of the writing (we missed a lot of great parties to write!). Maybe we’ll get a shot at NAMM in January? We sure hope so.

Closing note: Sanjay took quite a bit of video at this years AES including demos of the Launchpad, CLASP, Alloy, and new gear from both Monster and Waves. Be sure to check out and subscribe to the YouTube channel here!

Some of the most creativity-inducing and interesting gear at this years AES was the Thermionic Culture gear.

The first item up for praise is the Culture Vulture Mastering Anniversary Limited Edition box. It’s a tube box that gives pretty much anything you run through it some interesting tones and really seems to inspire some creativity in the studio. They’re apparently only making 99 of these and I’m willing to bet they’ll sell out as fast as they can make them.

The Culture Vulture Mastering box will have all of the features of the regular Culture Vulture, but will include a number of additions that you’ll be able to appreciate:

• Balanced input/output transformers
• Stepped input drive and and output gain
• -10dB output switch and low level outputs for re-amping
• 10 different types of distortion with filters

Sadly, you probably won’t get one of these. I won’t probably ever have one of these. But if you ever get a chance to check this thing out, you need to. These kinds of units are what make recording fun.

The other piece of gear that was on my custom burned CDR press kit is the Phoenix Master Compressor. It’s the Phoenix compressor but with some additions, just like with the Culture Vulture Mastering unit. This one, too, is limited edition. And it sounds great.