January 23, 2006
The Difference Between Men and Boys is the Price of the Toys
This year didn't seem to have quite the number of new pro audio products as most of the big ticket items were announced or launched at ETS late last year. My candidate for sleeper product of the show is the recently announced Peavey Versarray. That's right kids, Peavey. Known mostly for MI products and bashed often in some circles where most of those doing the bashing are sans clue. Peavey is a reputable operation that pretty much has a license to print money selling tons of product to those that don't have the budgets or need for other solutions. Plus they do it without ripping off other people's designs using inhouse engineering and R&D. Peavey has yet to make any inroads in pro audio instead relying on the purchase of Crest some years back as an expansion vehicle into that segment of the market. I'm a bit surprised this wasn't a Crest branded product because this ain't your daddy's Peavey PA. This is a well built pro level product that based on the limited demo I had in the plexiglass room, or roadie terrarium as I like to call it, should perform as well or better than other offerings from the pro audio side of the market. It's tough to get an idea in a room that small and made of a material that is easily excited but my initial reaction is very positive. The sound is defined and smooth in the highs and snappy in the lows. The sub is quite good in fact and uses a porting mechanism in which airflow through the ports are used to cool the driver, a massive neodymium, two coil unit. There is a small rack mount distro that interfaces with a range plug which will likely help the smaller operators or bands that buy this rig. They're also marketing a crank tower so the user will be able to hang the boxes in the manner intended. My only question is if the ribbon driver used in the highs will be able to take the punishment that lesser experienced users in that market seem to subject the systems. There are plans to do a touring dog and pony show with it later in the year. This warrants an ABD "go check this out". Don Boomer and his team have done a nice job on this.
Who says analog consoles are dead? Well, for one I have been. Chuck Augustowski may have changed my mind, if only for the time being. Also ranking high this year on the list is the release of APB Dynasonics Spectra series consoles. They were a few months late but doing a ground up company that is that specialized is no easy feat. They are high performance, low cost analog consoles that are built well with quality components. I've talked about these guys before here but this was the first hard product I've seen. I didn't get to hear it but based on my previous experience with these kats I don't doubt it will perform as promised. The console is more spartan in the look and aesthetic, instead designing a piece with rolling curves, designer color and lots of flash, they concentrated on what matters, offering the features and performance required from pro level apps. The construction is robust and solid. When dealing with consoles at this price point it's not possible to go totally modular in construction. What usually happens is that groups of inputs, typically 4 or 8 share a common board where most of the components are on the shared board. If something in the board goes TU, it requires that whole thing to be swapped. The Spectra uses an 8 input module but the key components of each input are on daughter cards so they can be replaced in the field on a individual input. The routing is pretty comprehensive, matrices can be fed from auxes, real LCR panning as well as mono sum. The console has a feature set that is comparable to consoles costing two or three times as much. As the year progresses they plan ot offer other products to eventually have a full line of analog consoles and eventually get into surfaces. These are the guys that could likely be in a position to take the surface away from mimicing an analog desk and start to implement some user interface elements that could define the next generation of console operation.
I used the show to see a couple of surfaces that were announced earlier but that I hadn't had a chance to see. The A&H iLive I've wanted to get up close and personal with since they announced. Not quite done yet and slated to ship later this year, I like the layer interface though the selected operation area of the surface is a bit large for my taste, but that's not really a big deal. I like that the DSP can be remoted and the fact they are designing the surface with the potential for some sort of digital transport. The operation of the aux busses as being on the fader deck only might be a limiting factor for some. The software isn't quite done so I'll wait until I see it further along before I comment. I think the positioning in the market is pretty interesting. They're going right in to what is going to be the most popular, and possibly most congested part in the mid range (US$50k or so) of the market. There aren't that many in that part of the market just yet, but traditionally most of the regional and many of the touring companies are buying consoles in the US$35k to 60k range. I would have thought they might come in lower in the range, where most A&H users are now but they have focused on going toe to toe with the big players in the space. They've got the chops to compete against anyone in the space but the real test will be if the users see A&H as an alternative to Yamaha or Digico. It's more of a perception thing that anything else as they can build the product and support it very well but will the public see them as an alternative to the other offerings.
I got to spend quite a bit of time with my pals from the corner of Church and Main St in Whitinsville. The EAW badged UMX96 first went public late last year but has been in development for a couple of years. I was fortunate enough to see an engineering prototype at NAMM last year and came away pretty positive. The thing I like best is the touch screen, perhaps the best implementation of touch screen interfaces on a surface to date. It's big, it's bright and it's not too densly populated with controls and is pretty responsive. It's also of a design where for many functions where there is more than one way to do something. I also like the "Big Knob" feature where a motor driven encoder provides tactile feedback much in the way of a traditional knob. Having built in FFT in the form of Smaart is very cool as well. I see this as more of what I call a transition surface, with the main appeal being to people reluctant to switch to surfaces because they don't like working in a layered environment. I would have liked to see more onboard effects though with an expansion card the number can be increased. And a second cue bus and cue system. That's one thing that most others haven't done yet and when I mention this to most of the designers they get it right away when I explain for example, doing a wedge and ear gig or having two mixers working on the same surface. In some ways the UMX faces some of the same challenges in the market as does the iLive. Both are charting new territory with the brands and both have been prejudiced by former places in the market and going against the established players. If there is one thing to take away from the show this year, it's judge the products for what they are now, not for whatever reputation they may have had previously. This is a time of great change in the pro audio world and to dismiss something based simply on old prejudices one is likely to miss the boat on some new products that could be beneficial to what we do.
A cause near and dear to me is the subject of hearing conservation. They've been out in force for the last several years to help educate those that might not be familiar with how easy it is for people that do what we do to permanently damage their hearing. Shure usually sponsors a mobile hearing lab where you can get a test and all the ear mon companies in attendance are promoting safer listening. Hopefully it's working though lately some of the posts I've seen on the Web seem to indicate that myths and untruths about how bad this is still abound. The House Ear Institute was there with plenty of good info as was Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers. House has a campaign targeting kids and teens that features a large, walking, talking ear called Earbud to help promote the dangers of listening too loud or too long. I attended the Sensaphonics press event to see what Micheal Santucci had to say. They were announcing their featured product called 3D Active Ambient but also making a general pitch for hearing conservation. The ambient product is an idea that's been kicking around for a while with at least a couple of other manufacturers doing something like it but this is the first time to my knowledge that it's been shown as a completed product. What happens are small mics are built into the ear mons and controlled by a pack. The idea is to give the artist wearing the molds more control over the ambient environment. I've witnessed that when artists want more control over the ambient environment and can't get it, they result to pulling one mold out and leaving one in. This typically can result in higher levels for the remaining ear piece to compete with the ambient sound, driving the level dangerously high while sacrificing any sort of tonality. Pretty much the worst possible combination. I had a particularly bad experience with this some years back and as a result I think twice about taking a gig where the artist wears only one mold. Most of the acts I do ears for I don't add any additional ambience unless there is a strong desire from the performer. Using room mics can work, but in some cases summing them with the mix can lead to some issues with distance and timing. By putting the mics in the molds, this eliminates that problem and the pack gives the artist the ability to control the level of ambience. They had a demo area set up with a small surround sound system but I didn't get a chance to try it.
I stopped by Shure to see if they yet had the next version of pro level ear mon rigs. The Sennheiser ie300 and later the G2 surpassed them in terms of features, ease of use and performance. Shure was busy over the last couple of years basically getting a stranglehold on the lower end market, worthy for sure but the byproduct was losing much of the upper end to Sennhieser. The couple of guys I spoke with did lament that so it's not like they don't realize what's up, they are well aware of what's going on. They did though release a helical antenna for ear mon apps that looks good and is affordable. It will be neat to see what they come up with for the predecessor to the PSM700. Especially if it's anything like the new UHF-R series. Shure has always been known for good quality radio mic products at an affordable price. It's not got the compact form factor that the Sennhieser packs do or the radio performance of the Lectrosonics but you could get full featured products at affordable prices with well known mic elements. One of the problems with some of the other lesser known though high performance radio units is the mic element. With the Shure stuff you have the consistency of stalwarts like the SM58 and related Beta lines. You know what you are getting and how it behaves but there wasn't anything really high end. Until now. The Shure KSM9 seems to be an answer to the KK105 on an SKM5000 body. My pals out with a pop princess for most of last year were using one but I'm not supposed to tell anyone that I knew about it. My current gig is with a longtime Shure endorsee and both me and dude at the other end of the wire are eager to try it. The coolest thing I think about the new stuff isn't the mic (though that's been needed for a while), it's that networking, coordinating frequencies and spectral analysis are being brought to the masses in an affordable, widely available package. The receivers network together via ethernet with control software that can not only coordinate between the Shure units, but allow for users to enter parameters from other radio devices so when the software calculates safe channels, even though it can't actively monitor the non Shure gear it can take all of the frequencies into account when trying to find clear air. You can use a spare or extra receiver to monitor the spectrum in real time though future versions will be able to interface the much more cost effective Winradio tuner for that app so you won't have to dedicate a channel of UR to use the analyzer. There's lots of channels, it's pretty easy to use and the mics and packs can take config info from the receiver after you find enough channels. With more and more acts using more radio channels, it' not uncommon for me to use 20 or more for a rock show though the theater guys have dealt with that for years. Now with DTV and expanded production value, the rock guys have to deal with it too.
It was good to go but a couple of days is quite enough for me on the show floor. It's always great to see friends away from the show floor and catch up. Looks like I'll be overseas during NSCA but if others want to keep the ball rolling on notes for the shows (Bink is doing a great job on the LAB) let me know and we should be able to work something out.
Posted by Dave at 11:26 PM
January 22, 2006
All This Machinery Making Modern Music
This years version of the National Association of Music Masochists seemed to be more packed than normal. In some places if they were to get any more people in they'ed need to use a lubricant. My first NAMM visits were many, many years ago as a young turk working for various PA companies doing the associated events and after parties. Later I attended as a buyer (and NAMM member) for the various PA companies I managed, later as a consultant to manufacturers, later as an exhibitor and most recently as a member of the media. That's right kids, ol' Dave has attended as a member of the media, a regular Wolf Blitzer of pro audio if you will. This year I thought I'd try to get in on my own and it was decided that I'm not quite a media outlet, and I don't meet the requirements to join NAMM. Nevermind that I've attended most years for the couple of decades. Fortunately I've met enough people that I'm able to make a call or two and come up with a pass. The last couple of years Live Sound International was nice enough to credential me so I could do these posts from ABD. Having a media pass is great. There is a small area to sit and use a computer but best of all, free refreshments so we can forgo four dollar a cup swill that they pass off as coffee in concessions and if you play your cards right, at the press conferences around lunch time, you get fed while listening to the latest greatest pitch. I usually find a couple that I find informative.
Another reason to go is that it's a great place to meet up with others in the biz and do some networking. This year while going to find a few nuggets to write about, I also had some meeting with folks about a variety of things and shaking some hands and kissing some babies. While this year it seemed more difficult to get in, there didn't seem to be any shortage of those lightly or not affiliated with the biz. The show is organized and well run, but it seems to have outgrown the Anahiem Convention Center even though there was an expansion a few years back. Hotel rooms in the immediate area fill up and jack the rates so that the crappy dives that cater to budget minded tourists in the Anaheim Resort area most of the year get a coat of paint jacked rates three or four times the norm. Forget about any hot water on Sat or Sun mornings. If you can afford it and get in, the Marriott and the Hilton are right onsite and home to many of the private parties and functions. It seems they are a lot tighter on the credentialing process this year though it was still packed balls to the wall. A typical schedule will be mostly upper level biz types or people that don't want to fight the crowds on the weekend attending the first two days, Thursday and Friday, returning home before the weekend. That's what I've done the last few years. The weekend seems to be more musos and those working in the stores with Sunday being what I like to call "check out the guitar player's girlfriend" day. By Sunday most of the bosses and higher ups have left and you can see the exhaustion of those in the booths, subjected to 8 hours of show per day plus evenings jam packed with networking and partying well into the wee hours.
My trips to the various trade shows these days aren't so much to see stuff as they are to meet with various people and network with others that I know but don't really see most of the rest of the year except for the shows and an email or call every now and again. You seem to forget how many people you've worked with or met over the years until a big show hits and a pretty significant portion of the day catching up and saying hi. I used to troll each row of each show to make sure that I didn't miss anything. NAMM is just too big these days to do that in a couple of days and also do meetings and networking on the show floor. And most of the stuff is MI anyway, not specific to pro audio. A few weeks prior to the show, I start looking at the press releases for what's coming out, noting the things that look interesting to me. By that point I've been made aware of any private demos or events and plan accordingly. When I hit the show, the first stop is the press room for good coffee and perhaps snacks and to get the latest press kits and press releases. For the younger companies or companies with a new idea, using the press room is a way to get more exposure for your product. Become a NAMM member (or AES or NSCA depending on the show) and use that network to get the word out on your product. Most of the press kits are available on CD and that's what I use in addition to my notes as an info resource for whatever I'm looking at. I take the show in short blasts of a couple hours at a time, retreating to either the Hilton or Marriott to surf some WiFi, grab a bit to eat and sit in a comfy chair for a few minutes away from the sea of people that has become the show.
Next up, the gear.
Posted by Dave at 01:38 PM
January 19, 2006
Voyage of the NAMMed
Posted by Dave at 01:38 PM | Comments (2)