AES (or CR's Big Day Out)...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Well, my day at AES is now over. I’ll state for the record that I don’t have the foot skills necessary to stand around and talk to people all day. My dogs are barkin’ right about now. That aside, I could easily make this entire post about my observations viz. that special sub-group of audio professionals that would populate a convention like this, but I don’t really see how that would serve any purpose. Also, I had planned to take a bunch of pictures of Audio Engineers in their natural environs, but the Soundcraft guys thought I was an industrial spy, and set the Moscone Center security on me, so my photo-taking adventure was curtailed. (Thanks, Soundcraft. Your console sucks and you’re a bunch of fucking cunts.)
That being the case, I’ll just give some color commentary about the things I found interesting, and leave the actual product research to you.
This is Geoff Tanner. He is very English, very easy to talk to, and has forgotten more about making audio products than the vast majority of us will ever manage to shoehorn in to our tiny human-sized brains. I spent a very enjoyable time getting a demonstration of his new console, and I’m a better person for it. It’s like getting communion from the Pope. Except I’m not Catholic so that metaphor is shaky at best. Several more pictures of the console on my Flickr page.
This is the Blue Robbie mic pre. This isn’t new or anything, but this is the first time I’ve seen one in real life. Let me just state for the record that I thought it was a little tiny thing. It is not. That knob is the size of a coffee cup. There is something terribly awesome about this thing. I had a Blue engineer hold my iPhone next to it for scale. This was, by far, the biggest surprise of the show.
This is the entire Purple product line in the Mercenary booth. I love the way Andrew does business, and I love their products. I want a whole Purple studio (but apologies to Andrew, I think I’d like Geoff’s mixer). The boat on the lower left-hand side is full of Purple’s new aux buss. It isn’t a normal 500 rack, but rather has a special connector and a shitload of DB25 connectors on the back. Also note the graphic EQ. Unlike an API 560, which is sort of a special-effect cart, this is a proper graphic, and very, very cool. I want. And the comps. Mmmmm.
Other cool things I saw:
innerTUBE Atomic Squeeze Box: Very, very smooth compressor. The fellow that makes ’em gave me a whole demo, and I kind of chuckled at how his idea of “extreme” and mine differ (“it goes to 20:1!!!!!”) but an extremely smooth box. Also, they have their own mic built in to the body of a Mag-Lite which is, aside from being on the eccentric side, an excellent sounding mic.
Avedis Stuff: Avedis makes some really nice shit. ’Nuff said about that.
Bricasti Reverb: Fucking forget it. There is no other hardware reverb worth talking about. IR reverb can suck a dick. Lexicon might as well throw in the towel. It’s over. Bricasti won. Next. Also, they had their new remote there, and boy, howdy, that thing is t3h s3xy. Straight up.
Lexicon PCM-96: Speaking of Lexicon, I lol in their general direction. I wanted to like this box so bad. I almost had Adam talked in to buying a pair for “research,” even. Dave Gamble of Sonalksis and I went over to demo it, and Dave was able to hard-crash Logic in about 8 seconds flat, without even actually trying to do so. I kind of felt bad for the engineer. Plus the booth was shoe-horned in with the whole Harmon dog ‘n’ pony show (yeah, fuck you, Soundcraft, you whiney little bitchfucks) and that colored my opinion to begin with. Enjoy the world of car stereos, guys. The PCM-96 is made out of fail.
Anyhow, that’s the general lie of the land. If anyone has any specific questions I’ll be happy to attempt an answer, with the caveat that once I took a spin around the show floor, I spent most of my time among the tweaky boutique manufacturers, so if you want to know about the latest set of headphones from AKG, you’re gonna have to look elsewhere.
10 comments
I hope you stopped by the SPL booth to tell them that their "Analog Code" moniker is silly.
See, aren't you glad that I talked you out of the PCM-96?
--Adam
SPL was in the Plug-In Ghetto that Digi created. Needless to say I didn't spend much time over there.
-CR
You didn't actually listen to the PCM96? You should have checked out their surround demo. I went and listened to the Bricasti after we spoke, and I prefer the PCM96 sound. Not to mention that it's $1000 less and you get two full reverbs over FireWire. So less than half the price if you look at it that way. And there's no software front-end on the Bricasti, you you have to write down your program edits on a post-it note or something.
Crashing beta software? Not as tough as you think at a tradeshow. Obviously you've never had to demo 1/2 done software in front of a crowd of people. You can feel yourself age with every crash.
I like Bricasti, and I'm all for rooting for the underdog, the independent versus the megacorp, etc. But the PCM96 is the better product, and I can't imagine that anyone is disappointed with the purchase.
I listened to the '96 plenty. I took Dave over on the second go-round where he managed to break it badly without even trying. There are some construction issues as well. The plug-in implementation is a joke. Twice over. Stupidity squared.
Now, Megacorp, Inc. should be able to hire someone that knows how to, say, make an AU or a FW driver that doesn't suck. There are people out there that can accomplish this amazingly not-impossible feat. They are, after all, Megacorp, Inc. and have, like, an R&D budget. And this isn't the first trade show the '96 was at. Beta software isn't beta software if it's the same after 9 months and it's for sale. It's just plain ol' fashioned broken.
I've never had to demo 1/2 done software at a trade show because nobody sees our 1/2 done software. The 96 is made out of F.A.I.L. and I stand by that statement. I'll take two '91s though.
-CR
When I first saw that BLUE pre I thought about how it really looked like the head of a toy robot I had as a small child. I thought about it so much in fact, that I had to...
http://usera.imagecave.com/thesimulacre/Robbie%20the%20Preamp-bot.jpg
When I saw it a second time (in person), I had a similar reaction to yours. Especially since there is a lack of visual detail cues that would trip the brain to register a larger size in a photo. Like the kind of cues that reassure you that Megalon and Gamura aren't stomping on ACTUAL cars.
Pretty impressive, actually, if it was intentional.
I saw it crash twice myself. Lexi knows there's a problem, but I'm confident it would get fixed. Interesting to hear the excuses from different people.
Lex Engineer: "Yeah, we've been getting the 96 Surround ready for the show but those problems will be handled in the next update, along with the new pitch algorithms."
Lex sales guy: "Most of the people having problems never read the manual."
They're probably both right.
I hate the anti-photography attitude some companies have. My wife and I cover CES every year for our website, and most companies are happy to let us take pictures - we're giving them publicity! - but there are always a few luddite companies who think we're going to steal the soul of their products with our magic boxes.
Last year Yamaha, maker of what I'm sure I would have told you were some fine digital pianos, threw a fit and actually kicked us out of their booth. Apparently they had all of them on display at the world's largest electronics show TO KEEP THEM HIDDEN. Insane.
Why would you display something at a tradeshow and not let people take pictures? Those people are paranoid idiots. Sure I get (almost all Japanese) engineers come by to take photos and ask questions. I allow any photos and answer all of their questions, because I hope to be treated with respect at their booth.
(Better question, why would you launch a product and not have photos on your website? Marketing fail.)
Once I had a competitor rip literature out of my hand. I've had other competitors give me snarky replies and get uptight when I was in their booth. It's usually the young guys who haven't figured out that we'll all end up working for the same company in 5 years.
What synthetic said.
These days, most people just ask for a card and a url where all the pictures will go up.
Interesting items not mentioned:
- Dan Kennedy's new stereo feed forward compressor prototype
- Electrodyne EQ and pre in 500 format at A Designs booth (will fall under the new Pete's Place umbrella http://www.petesplaceaudio.com/ )
- 8 channel 16 slot 8 buss 500 format bucket at A Designs booth
- BURL Audio A/D and D/A converters and 500 format pre with JFET input and BJT output all discrete
- ATD2 XM monitors, will have to give these a listen in a better setting, preferably alongside a pair of ADAM S2As for comparison
Items I'll be picking up in the not so distant future:
- Purple Audio inductor based graphic EQ (targeted for Jan availability)
- Purple Audio Action compressor - close to the MC77 at a fraction of the cost
Comments are closed on this post.