January 27, 2005
NAMM III: Well, it is a King Leisure...
I was all set to check in at the Holiday Inn Express, or so I thought. Due to circumstances beyond my control (they screwed up) I traded my HI Express room with free high speed Internet and breakfast for a Days Inn and Suites that was really a low budget weekly on the doorstep of Little Saigon that was lucky to have electricity or even phone service. In other words, some place I might have stayed during my "formative years" about a quarter century ago. When I came home from my first real tour in the early 80s I did a stint in the weekly rental scene in the shadow of the convention center, none of which exist anymore. I grew up in the area surrounding the Anaheim Convention Center and it's quite a different place these days. They say you can't go home again and that's true. The people living in those houses now have no idea who you are and would probably have you arrested for trespassing.
I got into doing sound because all my friends at the time were playing instruments in punk rock bands while we weren't skating at the likes of Skatopia, The Big O, Del Mar Skate Ranch or The Marina Del Rey Skatepark, among many others. I couldn't play an instrument at that time except for french horn from my years in school band, so I became the sound guy. While french horn is a fine instrument there's not much of a call for them in a rock band. Initially in the band at Van Horn Elementry there were about 15 drummers, a few violins, some clairnets and trumpets. They only needed at most four percussionists, two of which played snare. This was pre Stomp and Blueman Group so they didn't see the need to have a bunch of people beating on things as the primary instrument of the band. Too bad, we would have been way ahead of our time. They threw all of our names into a hat and picked four for the percussion section. The rest of us had to pick other instruments and by the time they got to me it was french horn or cello. Had things gone the other way, I could have easily been a musician, or worse yet, a drummer. I rounded out my playing background with two semesters worth of piano at the Recording Arts program at Golden West College. Personally I would have rather played a B3 as Highway Star doesn't have the same impact when played on a piano but the point of learning was to be able to read charts (check) know chord progression (check) and be able to name the notes we were hearing (not so check) though I could name the frequency.
A wise NAMM attendee will try to get in and out before the weekend. It's difficult to do as it's one big ass show. To see everything and do follow ups will take the entire four days. Even though it's billed as "Trade Only" many that operate on the fringes seem to be lurking and this is particularly true over the weekend. Most of those "in the know" start to leave by the weekend and by mid day Sunday most have bugged out basically staying through the Saturday night parties. Sunday then becomes what I call "guitar players and their girlfriend day" though that's not so accurate these days as there are a significant amount of women in the MI biz or in bands much more so than at other industry shows like NSCA or AES. Sunday is a a zoo. Those in the booths are tired from working all day and partying 'til the wee hours and many attendees are getting in with borrowed badges or guest passes. That's not to say the weekend traffic is all bad. The culture of rock provides for a pleasurable veiwing experience.
I've been threatening to start playing bass for a while and the Tascam line of CD trainers just might be the thing to push me toward doing it. It's a CD player you plug your cans or molds into as well as your axe, put your favorite learning CD or CD of a tune you're trying to learn. The box has got effects, a tuner, a control footswitch and the best part is that you can slow the parts down and not have the pitch affected. Street price between US$130 and US$150. This and a cheap P-Bass is going to get me started playing some bass.
M-Audio (formerly Midiman) had a bunch to show. I'm a fan of both the small, low budget computer speakers/monitors and the USB/MIDI controller keyboards . They also have a complete line of USB mic preamps and a variety of devices to get audio in and out of your computer. I'm currently trying to decide weather to get the 4s or the DX4 monitors for my Final Cut/Garageband system. They basically look like the same product except for thee balanced input on the DX4. I hadn't heard until then that Avid bought M Audio last fall when I was out of the country. That explains the lack of Apple product in that booth and the lack of M Audio product in the Apple booth. Apparently Avid is still pissed at Apple for both Final Cut and Logic as they see that cutting into their sales. I have it on good authority that there are Microsoft engineers working directly with ProTools engineers to supplant the Macintosh as the primary platform for ProTools and have been working on it for a few years now. My experience with PT, or Alsihad as Eric Serafin likes to call it is pretty limited but I can see that using it in Windows isn't quite as clean as it could be. In fact, there wasn't a Mac to be seen at all in any of the Digi booths. There were Dell and Intel logos displayed prominently in some parts of the display.
Apple Computer was an exhibitor I didn't expect to see at the show. They had a large booth appointed with the latest and greatest Cinema displays and dual G5s. They were there primarily to promote Logic and Garageband though I stopped by hoping to get a peak at the reported "Asteroid", the firewire audio interface rumored as a companion to Garageband. It's reported to be a low cost two channel interface with mic (xlr no less) and line inputs, and possibly an SP/DIF output to be specifically marketed for use with Garageband though useable with any Core Audio compatable software including Soundtrack, Logic, Final Cut and others. It sounds a great deal like Miglia's Harmony Audio and Apple is going to great lengths to protect leaks surrounding the product going as far so to sue rumor sites under the guise of leaking so called trade secrets. Rumored to be about US$150 retail it's at a good price point. No one in the Apple booth would confirm much less comment on the rumored piece and one person seemed somewhat uncomfortable at my even mentioning it.
The demo for the recently released upgrade to Garageband I thought was good. I've been a Garageband fan since I got my last Mac late in the summer when my aging Powerbook bit the dust on tour. I've been using it to do loops for my video projects and like the ease of use and ability to get pro quality loops out of what is basically a consumer audio package. The new version, bundled with new Macs or available as part of the iLife suite offers the ability to record live to eight tracks as well as manipulate the tempo and pitch of each track. The new version will also auto notate, creating charts on the fly. an M-Audio MobilePre USB and Garageband will give MBox and Protools LE a run for the money, and then some for most songwriters and garage studio types.
That was my NAMM in a nutshell. I didn't go to any of the evening functions, it was a quick in and out, the shortest NAMM I've done in several years. It was fun, but it's good to be home.
Posted by Dave at 05:05 PM | Comments (1)
January 25, 2005
NAMM II: Control Phreak
Back in the cramped spaces of the Orange Umbrella was a neat little addition to the Vertec family. The ability to add power amp and controller modules to the Vertecs you already own to turn them into self powered boxes. The module is basically an iTech that was roughly the same size as the rear panel. The panel is removed exposing a preinstalled molex connector to which the module attaches. Because the Vertec rigging is a stiff pivot point, the change in center gravity effects only the weight dispersion at the bumper at the top of the hang. It's a pretty slick retrofit. I'm not a JBL dealer so I wasn't able to get prices and the pics I snapped are aweful, not useable. I thought JBL might have info and pics on the site by now but they don't. They'll be ready to ship soon I was told by a rep so I'd reckon the info will be posted soon. I've always liked the Vertec and thought is was a great box and this is a dandy addition.
The modules come in a couple of configurations of both power amps and signal processing. Each type of module has a pair of Powercons to provide AC power. They say two modules can be powered from a single Powercon circuit. There is a Powercon in and out on each module. The amps are based on the Crown iTech line. There is a module for the three way boxes (VT4889, VT4888), the two way box (the little guy VT4887) and the subs (VT4880, VT4881). Independent of the amp modules is the control module and it comes in two flavors. The first is a sort of no frills input module based on the dbx DriveRack series of processors and accepts analog input only. Except for a horn shading control, there are no changable parameters on the controller. The second option made me sport a little chub. It's based on the iTech DSP and will accept a Cobranet input. The digital sample piece was crowded and I didn't get as good a look at it as I would have liked. Harman has taken the Crown IQ system, added some devices and rebranded it HiQNet. It basically ties all the Harman product together using what once was IQ. I wasn't able to make it back to get a better demo. Hopefully they'll post something soon with some details. I asked how interoperable the protocol was and open it would be and the rep giving me the tour wasn't sure. I never made it back to the booth to follow up on it.
The module will change both the weight and geometry of the hang so if you have preexisiting configurations you'll need to recalculate. According to the rep giving me the demo, under the watchful ear fo the factory guy, they couldn't tell me how many inputs one could chain together before the system suffered impedance mismatch problems though both guys picked up right away and understood what I was talking about. Obvisouly that won't be a factor with Cobranet inputs. There didn't seem to be any provision for distributed power or signal along the lines of what Meyer has been doing but it's not that difficult to fab something for the task.
The concept of curvelinear or line array has made it to MI now in the form of the JBL SRX 932 LA. Also not yet listed on the site. The first thing that struck me was they looked like small Clair I-4 arrays. They're little bitty guys, about 24" x 18" though I didn't write down the component sizes. They're passive but have a shading control on the back and have the ability to be stand mounted. There are actually two stand mounts, one allowing a down tilt while they other is more toward a traditional flat deployment. The demo had two stacked on each other on a stand. A self powered version of that might make a killer little box for industrials, TV shows and corporates.
Community was showing, among other things, the M12 stage monitor. That could be something of interest to regionals that can't afford the big name stage mons but still need something that can move some air and not sound like ass at higher SPL. I think Community is still perhaps the most underrated manufacturer in the space. That's too bad because not only do they offer a great price/performance, much of the product line outperforms the often higher priced options from manufacturers with much larger marketing budgets. If you need some mons they would be worth checking out. Also of interest could be the Radian Micro Wedge designed by the original punk rock sound dude, Dave Rat.
Electro-Voice is the latest, and one of the last, to jump into what I call the mini line array concept. Hung next to the new Siena and the Helix was a cluster of EV XS 212 with XLE 181 and XLD 281 subs. It's nice and small, the rigging package looks nice. The subs can hang as well on the bumper. Based on the XLC rigs I've used and the X-Line it should be a pretty good little rig. No word of it on the EV site as of yet.
QSC seemed to be making a statement as they only had two amps on display in the booth. They were all about speakers this year. I had stopped to get a look at the Basis QSCControl/Cobranet box. I've been wanting to build another touring rig with full remote control and wanted to spec out a couple of pieces first hand. No such luck. The presenation in the booth was a video of the manufacturing process for both the amps and the speakers.
On the system controller/crossover front dbx rolled out the Driverack 4800. It's a four in, eight out DSP box. It operates and looks like the rest of the Driverack line, though I had a difficult time manuvering through the demo unit and gave up after a couple of minutes. While it appears to be a capable box, what interests me is not the product so much but what Harman seems to be doing with the dbx and BSS brands. We haven't heard a peep out of BSS and the Omnidrive line in quite sometime. Most of what is coming from BSS these days is in the form of Soundweb products. What appears to me to be happening is that dbx is now taking the role of providing the controllers for most portable applications. i don't know that it's just a coincidence or a plan but it looks to me that before too long, dbx could replace BSS as the contoller system of choice not only among the Harman brands but in the industry in general. Though there is too much about the product to get into it here, Soundweb London looks pretty good though to configure it for most portable SR apps might not make sense for many operators.
Another thing that interested me in the dbx corner of the booth, and it was a cramped corner, was the dbx 162SL comp. I've used the 160SL comp quite a bit and like it a great deal. I put the 160SL right up there with Summits and Distressors. The 160SL had a street price of about US$3000 while the 162SL has a street price about a grand less. I'd be interested to try one and see what the difference might be and why it's a grand cheaper than the original. Could be a good value for those looking for a box for mission critical apps.
They didn't have a booth but Lake was at the show in the form of a suite at the Hilton showing latest version of the Lake software used in the Contour and Mesa boxes. I got to get much deeper inside the box than I have on my limited experience with them. It's quite the box and I'm more convinced than ever that at this point it's the pinicle of system controllers for portable apps. Though some have tried, for example KT/Telex, no one has yet to reach the integration with wireless based pen tablets. There are a couple of downsides though. The system is expensive compared to other solutions though they might not posess the same sort of integration as the Contour. It's also not easy for less experienced operators to configure. You can't just hand a blank tablet to someone and expect them to take right to it if they have no prior experience. To deal with this, vendors using the Contour or Mesa have defined presets and once those screens are defined, using the device is as easy as using any other device. it's the same sort of issue that most mixing control surfaces have, if you haven't been on them before, the learning curve could be steep. If you are serious about system controllers and remote operation, this is the box to have.
Whirlwind was showing a nifty little device called the E-Snake. It's been out for a while, but there is now a direct interface to PM5Ds and DM2000s. You use Yamaha MY 16C Cobranet cards to interface Esnake to the console. I'd have to hear it and work with it for a while before I speced it for anything but it at least looks promising.
I was hoping Shure would launch the long rumored upgrade to the PSM700 ear mon rig and they did launch an upgraded PSM700. I was somewhat disappointed that it retained the same packaging but offered some new features. They did announce upgrades in the audio quality, a different companding scheme, an easier to read frequency selector on the transmitter, a frequency locator feature and two more banks of frequencies. They did have a big ass paddle antenna on display which is good news for those of use that use multiple rigs in multiple locations. The new bands are in the 524-554 MHZ and 632-662 MHz while the original PSM700 series were all in the 700 Mhz band. I would have liked to have seen a more robust rack mount method, for example a full sized chassis with two units per chassis. An LED readout of the frequencies would be nice as well as the ability to store multiple presets or name the devices in plain english. Shure did a nice job of taking the ear mon market from niche using the non mainstream Garwood units to mass market where even musos in tavern bands could afford them but in the upper end Shure has not been able to best the effort by Sennheiser with the Evolution series.
Next up, final thoughts and muso stuff.
Posted by Dave at 12:00 AM | Comments (4)
January 24, 2005
Two New Milos
While we are on the subject of new product news from NAMM (these guys didn't show at NAMM), Meyer Sound Labs has introduced two new Milo boxes, (Milos have been a fav of mine for almost a year or so now) a narrow horizontal box 60 degrees x 10 degrees nominal and a wider Milo 120 degrees x 10 degrees nominal. I'd reckon they are priced in line with regular Milo so bring a Varsity sized wallet if you're interested in getting some.
The Meyer site has the info...
Posted by Dave at 02:42 PM
January 23, 2005
NAMM Part I: The Ghost of Tradeshow Barbie
It's a few hours after another edition of Winter NAMM has been put to bed. I left the show floor two days ago. My last NAMM was 2002 where I was an exhibitor, not just part fo the cattle. Prior to that I had at least attended most years and in my former life did several gigs there over the years. During the few years I was exhibiting the dynamic with what were once my suppliers and vendors changed to one of being my colleagues. Over the years changes in personnel and losing contact with many folks left me knowing far fewer people than in years past over the last couple of decades. This year on the floor I knew hardly any of the people working in the booths and I doubt any of them knew about either me or more importantly the LAB. Of the people I did still know, most of them are now in senior positions at various manufacturers so I'm still able to get a door or two kicked open if required.
Like most other tradeshows, most of the deals happen off the show floor in the smokeless bars in host hotels, prime restaurants in the area or sequestered in suites surrounding the convention center. This year I was fortunate enough to be involved in a few of these demos and conversations that take place under "The Cone of Silence". That's the really juicy stuff I'd love to share, as there were a couple of "Really? No Shit?" kind of moments. If I want to be able to keep peaking into the cookie jar I can't blog the details. That's just the price of poker. For the most part they were all real products in development and within the next year or so it's likely you'll see them or hear about them before long. (Hint...NSCA)
I had initially planned to shoot a bunch of video and stills and I did shoot a fair amount, but most of what I shot was available publically on the manufacturers sites. Besides, most of the people that read A Barking Dog have been to the big time trade shows and know what they look like. My trolling of the show was limited to what I saw in the exhibitor guide or that people had told me about prior to the show plus my personal favorite areas including amp control systems; system controller/crossovers and equalizer systems; measurement systems; consoles , particularly control surfaces and any other overpriced processing or mics in wacky colors or with big knobs. I heard from more than one manufacturer a new mantra with regard to showing products. If it's not done and ready to ship in the next month or two, you can't show it. Finally a sane, self imposed rule from the manufacturers that should do something to stem the disappointment when engineering prototypes are displayed as beta product. With the advent of communities such as the LAB, word travels fast. In the olden days they could show prototypes because word would be slow to get out. Nowadays, if you show it on the floor to the general public, you better be able to ship it PDQ.
The console department, particularly in the low end market is alive and well and may perhaps reach a saturation point here soon as everyone has something in at least the sub US$10k mark, if not the US$5k mark. Most of the stuff looks like it was designed and priced with churches in mind. This has been a huge force driving the market and has undoubtedly kept more than a few manufacturers that might have otherwise fallen on hard times or possibly gone tits up the ability to remain in the game.
What I thought were notable to mention was my first look at the Crest HP series. Not bad, but nothing to really set it apart from any of the others. Except perhaps for the flex on the surface of the console. Pressing down between any of the two module sections produced a fair amount of flex. There were no facilities for me to critically listen to the console. That would be readily available set of cans or mic. That was the case with most of these low end consoles.
Soundcraft had the GB series in the booth and was showing it. It was too crowded to get a good look at the two times I was there. The Orange Umbrella room was a zoo. It was a conference room off the arena floor that was stuffed with too much gear and too many people. There was one way in and one way out and at one point I thought if they were going to get any more people in the room, they need to use some sort of lubricant. Yamaha used the same sort of single point of entry room (in a ballroom at the Marriott) though it was devoid of any pro audio gear at least they were able to arrange it in a way where it wasn't assholes to elbows.
Mackie has updated the low end by adding the Tapco line, or should I say reviving the Tapco line a couple years back to deal with the low cost knock off artists. The Mackie product that caught my eye, I plan on picking one up, is the Onyx 1220 mixer with the firewire card. Now that I'm into Final Cut, Garageband and getting into Logic this makes total sense. I've been using a Mackie 1202 for my video post and recording to vid but the Onyx makes much more sense. At the price point it seems like a pretty good deal. I was about to pick up a couple of M-Audio USB devices when I saw this was much more what I needed. I was considering some sort of surface but needed something where I could pick up analog inputs and outputs if required. They were also showing a larger frame Onyx which is what the SR series should have been in the first place. I only have the dealer pricing but looking at it compared to other similar offerings from other manufacturers, the low end is getting crowded and there will be new round of price/performance based consoles for the low end from which to choose.
While not exactly low end, Midas was showing the new Siena. Basically the mon console partner to the Verona. Looks pretty good for a mid range desk, though as is the case in all lower cost desks, the tactile feel of the controls feel a bit weak, flimsy in fact. This is true I think for most every manufacturer that offer consoles with this price/performance. There are probably as good or better consoles in that price/performance group but young turks with wood for the Midas name will likely flock to this. It seems like a nice desk, but it's not a Heritage or even XL250. There is a cute little control link that allows one to select Helix slave channels as the out cue buttons are depressed. Nice touch, though I think it's doubtful that users of the Siena or Verona will have the budget for a Helix rig. Speaking of Helix, saavy readers will recall some issues I had with a Helix couple months back. The most recent upgrades take care of all the issues I had. Current owners are advised to upgrade to the latest version firmware.
Control surfaces continue to gain traction at all levels of the biz. Since NAMM is primarily an MI show and not pro audio show, not all the surface makers are represented though they have people attending. Soundtracs/Digico wasn't exhibiting, the only PM5Ds I saw were rentals in the other booths and the only surfaces I saw in the Yamaha booth were the MI line, though the 01x looks pretty neat. InnovaSON was showing in the Sennheiser booth what appeared to be a Sy 48. Mackie was showing the completed TT24, recently shipping about 200 in the channel with orders for several hundred more. Mackie was also showing a 32 x 32 remote stage box for the TT24 that operates over ethernet to a card in the TT24 with the console encoders remotely controlling the mic gains. The remote box is not yet shipping.
Digidesign's first foray into professional sound reinforcement and more than three years in the making is called the "Venue". The same name Soundcraft used for a lackluster performing mid range console less than ten years ago. A mixer buddy of mine used a prototype of this new console for a leg of a tour he was on last fall. He was giving it rave reviews when I saw him a couple months ago. The specs on are on the Digi site, but basically it's a multi layer topology surface with remote racks and digital snake. A couple of things that stand out to me is the ability to use the surface mutes and faders in the event of a console controller failure, use of Protools plugins and the ability to record directly to Pro Tools. On the minus side, the kiss of death is the ability to do only a max of 16 aux outputs according to info I downloaded but the presentation made no mention of such a limitation. This is a huge caveat in terms of using the console as not only a traditional monitor console, but as a high performance ear monitor console as you have to use the auxes to drive the plugin effects as well. The aux routing is in software so hopefully with tweaks and adding a few I/O cards they can fix it, depending on how the software uses the soft knobs to display the master section of the auxes could make a software only fix problematic. If it's going to compete with a PM1D or D5 (or even PM5D or D1) it's got to be able to be used as a high capacity mon console as well as FOH. They also showed an Aviom like remote control monitor system. This is owing more to the heritage of Digi/Protools as a studio recording application company. Artist mixed remote mons are a neat concept, but not widely used in concert touring and I don't think that's likely to change anytime soon, if ever.
We're not done yet kiddies. We still got system controllers, speaker systems and a few other tidbits to cover in the next installment.
Posted by Dave at 09:36 PM | Comments (6)