AES + SF = Gear

Oct 13, 2006 12:20 PM, By Gino Robair and Mike Levine

           

A report on the 2006 AES Convention.

At the Chameleon Labs booth, there were two new tube mics: the TS-2 ($799), a multipattern large-diaphragm condenser, and the TS-1 ($499), a small diaphragm condenser that features omni and cardioid capsules. The TS-1 should be available at the end of October and the TS-2 about a month later. Both come with a shockmount, a power supply, and a case.

Core Sound held the buzz of the show with its TetraMic ($TBA), a "tetrahedral" mic for ambisonic recording. The mic has four small capsules on a metal shaft and is shorter than a pencil. The company says the price will be under $1,000. Core Sound also announced the 4Mic ($750), a handheld, battery operated preamp and A/D converter, compatible with TetraMic, that will give you four discrete outputs or a matrixed 2-channel signal that can be decoded later. The preamp provides 10 mA of 48V phantom power. The company expects to ship 4Mic in November.

Dangerous Music D-Box

Dangerous Music announced the D-Box (under $1,400), an 8-channel analog summing device with 24-bit, 96 KHz D/A converters. Other functions that make it a useful addition to the control room of a DAW environment are headphone amps, a speaker switcher, and talkback functionality.

Frontier Design, makers of the Tranzport, was displaying its newest device, the AlphaTrack ($249). It's a small USB control surface for computer-recording applications that offers a single motorized fader, three knobs, numerous buttons, transport controls, and a touch-sensitive jog-and-shuttle strip, among other features. You select one channel at a time and you can control volume, solo, mute, pan, send, EQ, plug-ins, and more. The jog-and-shuttle strip lets you scroll through your song, and, in some sequencers, even scrub audio. The AlphaTrack is scheduled to be released in January of '07.

Holophone H3-D

One of the new products at the Holophone booth was the H3-D ($1,695), a 5.1 surround microphone. Inside it's futuristic-looking outer shell, it contains five full-bandwidth mics and a dedicated LFE mic whose outputs are available on attached male XLR connectors. The H3-D was announced previously, but is now shipping.

Korg MR-1000

One of the most talked about product releases at the show was from Korg. The MR-1000 ($TBA) and MR-1 ($TBA) are mobile recorders that offer high-resolution 1-bit recording (as used in the SACD format), with support for resolutions up to 24-bit, 192 kHz in multi-bit PCM formats. Korg says the recorders support the currently available 1-bit formats, such as DSDIFF, DSF, and WSD. The table-top MR-1000 offers sampling rates up to 5.6 MHz, with a pair of phantom-powered XLR/1/4-inch combo jacks for inputs, XLR and RCA analog outputs, a built-in limiter, a 20 GB hard drive, and a USB 2.0 port. It can be powered by an external AC supply or AA batteries. The pocket-sized MR-1 has a maximum sampling rate of 2.8 MHz and includes a USB 2.0 port, two balanced mini-plug inputs, a mini stereo headphone jack, a stereo condenser lavalier microphone, a 20 GB hard drive, and the ability to run on AC or rechargeable batteries. The recorders also come with AudioGate software (Mac/Win), which can be used to convert 1-bit recordings to and from AIFF and WAV formats (including real-time conversion), as well as change gain, remove DC offset, and add fades.

M-Audio gave us our first peek at the NRV10 ($899.95), an 8 x 2 analog mixer (with built-in effects) that is also a 10 x 10 FireWire digital audio interface capable of 24-bit, 96 kHz resolution. The mixer offers four mono channels with mic preamps, each with a 1/4-inch insert jack, and two stereo channels (one of which has a mic input). Each channel has 3-band EQ, monitor and effects sends, and a channel/FireWire selector. You can use it as a stand-alone analog mixer or with your DAW, and the NRV10 will be compatible with Pro Tools M-Powered as well as other digital audio sequencers. The package includes the interFX software application, which lets you add real-time effects to each channel, use two real-time VST plug-ins per channel, and save and recall mixer setups.

Muse Research announced that its UniWire networking technology for the Receptor now supports the Pro Tools RTAS plug-in format. With UniWire, you can connect a Receptor hardware device directly to your computer using an Ethernet cable, and play your favorite plug-in synths without your CPU taking the hit. (Or, you can take the Receptor on the road, without your computer, and play the same instruments on stage.)