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Audiohead.net Winter NAMM 2004 Trick new goods for your studio setup By Stephanie Jorgl |
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Audiohead  Interviews Tech Tips Events Goods and Gear Featured Music
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The tempest force of audio descended once again on Anaheim, turning the town temporarily from a Disney haven, into Audio Central for four straight days. The NAMM conference is the largest audio trade show of the year in the United States, with a record-high 1,340 exhibitors hosting their most cutting edge audio, MIDI and other musical and recording and performing-related products for an overwhelming 74,236 registrants to study, lust and beg for. Korg Controller Tops Hall E Stepping onto the show floor in the computer-based recording mecca at one end of the convention center — the infamous “Hall E” — I quickly spotted some seriously trick goods — for one, the new Korg Legacy Collection, which includes a super bad retro analog-style controller, modelled after the MS-20. Designed to look and function like an old analog synth, the MS-20 allows you to play, tweak, and physically patch cable connections on the front panel of the controller. The MS-20 comes with three software synths for less than 500 bucks. When it comes to retro-feeling, but modern working technology, this puppy had to be the show topper. Pioneer Scratches DVD Over across the hall at Pioneer, people were raving about the DVD scratching machine, the DVJ-X1. Coincidentally, I’d just heard about the DVJ-X1 a few weeks earlier in a note from Jack Dangers that contained the DVJ-X1 web link and just three words: “Oh my god.” This sweet device allows you to scratch DVDs live like records and is just one more symbol of the true coming of the next wave in video remixing as a performing art. Rock Solid Hardware and Interfaces Apogee unleashed a new 192kHz audio interface, providing 16 channels of audio conversion through a single box. The AD-16X and the DA-16X, Apogee’s latest and most advanced conversion systems take the legendary quality of Apogee to the next step by adding 192kHz sampling rates, the C777 clocking technology that’s featured in the Big Ben, a redesigned power supply, and an optional FireWire expansion card. These new implementations make the AD-16X and DA-16X Apogee’s most powerful and flexible conversion interfaces yet. Apogee additionally showed off its renowned USB-connected audio interface, the Mini-Me. This compact, smooth-sounding interface also just picked up the 2003 TEC award for “best converter.”
Edirol added FireWire support to its line with the FA-101. This interface is Edirol’s first FireWire-based audio/MIDI interface and offers 8 channels of analog I/O plus S/PDIF I/O. Edirol also showed off its huge line of USB-connected controllers and mixers. Somewhere among the deejay-related isles, a few gear-hungry mix kids were drooling over Evolution’s X-Session controller, a complete digital DJ solution that comes with Ableton Live XS and Arturia Storm XS. This sweet box has 16 assignable MIDI control knobs, 10 assignable MIDI buttons, and an assignable 60mm crossfader for mixing and scratching, plus LCD screen displays, and controller assignment capabilities. Kyma Is Here For Mac OS X! Symbolic Sound delivered a Mac OS X version of its renowned sound design software, Kyma, which works with DSP hardware that is also sold by Symbolic Sound. Line 6 expanded its line of Variax modeling guitars and unveiled a new acoustic version dedicated to producing acoustic instrument sounds — so you don’t have to stress about potential feedback while you’re performing. M-Audio delivered its largest and most feature-rich FireWire interface yet, the FireWire 18/14. The I/O box supports sampling rates up to 192kHz and lets you port in and out through an assortment of analog and digital connections. Mackie showed off its new Onyx series of analog mixers at NAMM which add a FireWire option so you can port multiple channels to your computer, or return a stereo pair back to the mixer. Mackie also showed a bunch of smaller mixers that are great for home studio use. TC Electronics unleashed a new, affordable PowerCore PCI card for both the Mac and PC, that is capable of running DSP-accelerated plug-ins within VST and AU host software. This latest addition to TC’s PowerCore line of virtual processing solutions offers five discrete processors and nine TC-quality effects in a single PCI-configuration. Universal Audio showed off its ever-expanding line of great vintage plug-ins, including the great new UAD-1 Studio PAK, which comes with 20 plug-ins including the Fairchild 670 Compressor, DreamVerb and Cambridge EQ. Yamaha debuted a new MLan-based audio and MIDI interface, the i88X, which comes complete with a pair of mic pres and six inputs with 24/96 converters, ADAT, S/PDIF, and MIDI. For Your Listening Pleasure... Ultrasone showed off its large line of great-sounding, high-quality mixing headphones. Ultrasone headphones designed to better represent surround sound, reduce sound pressure and prevent ear fatigue. The company’s patented S-Logic surround sound headphones are also said to have lower magnetic field emissions—less than 90 nT—as compared to other commonly used headphones. And Then There Was Software Ableton showed off its highly acclaimed Live 3 software, which allows you to draw waveforms straight onto audio files, while you stretch and tweak them in real time. Live expert Dave Hill Jr. also happened to be present near the booth, answering questions about the killer app. |
BIAS announced the addition of Roxio’s Jam CD burning software for Mac OS X to its Peak 4 product, and new entry-level pricing for its renowned sound cleaner upper, Sound Soap. Celemony’s Melodyne, which adds unique capabilities for editing audio, will soon be more accessible via Melodyne Uno. This simplified version of Melodyne works as a great general purpose sample editor. Cycling ‘74 announced that its RTAS, VST and AU-compatible plug-in set, Pluggo 3.1, is ready for Mac OS X. The company will also soon release a Free and open-source OS X Tool called Soundflower that is designed to make it easy to route audio output from any CoreAudio app to another app. Soundflower can be downloaded by clicking here. As usual, Digidesign hosted a huge booth, showing off Pro Tools HD, control surfaces and the Mbox, while hosting interviews with top mixers, engineers and producers like Stewart Copeland, John Feldmann and Omar Hakim. The Emagic-Apple partnership was clearly evident at this year’s NAMM, as an Apple-labeled booth replaced the Emagic name so many were used to seeing. Emagic/Apple unveiled a new Pro bundle called Logic Pro which wraps all of Emagic’s software apps into one for an extremely affordable price, plus Logic Express, which is an entry level version of Logic. Further, the companies unveiled a new application called Garageband — a powerful 64-track loop-based composition program designed to draw entry-level musicians into home and computer-based recording. Emagic/Apple also demonstrated the latest version of their entry-level scoring software, Soundtrack, which finally adds the ability to save your own custom plug-in presets. FXpansion showed off its smokin’ BFD drum module software instrument, its highly popular VST-to-Audio Unit adapter, and its all-new VST-to-RTAS adapter, which now gives Pro Tools 6 LE and TDM users access to the world of VST plug-ins and instruments. IK Multimedia hosted demos on its wide line of virtual samplers and effects processors, including the mega soft sampler Sample Tank 2, the insanely powerful plug-in amp module Amplitube, and the virtual mastering application, T-Racks. MOTU demonstrated the power of DP4 and its Mach 5 plug-in alongside an amazing line of hardware that ranges from USB to HD units. Native Instruments interviewed top deejays, sound designers and producers on stage about their use of NI apps, while regularly hosting demos in Traktor, Kompakt, Spectral Delay, Absynth 2, Battery, B4, FM7, Kontakt, Reaktor and Vokator, which are now all ready for Mac OS X. Native Instruments’ apps Absynth 2, Kontakt, Reaktor 4, Traktor DJ Studio 2 and Vokator picked up seven awards from top industry magazines the show.
In about the coolest-vibed booth on the show floor, Propellerhead Software invited guests to come kick it on a velvet couch and talk Reason under pacifying light from a beaded retro lamp shade. Kiosks were mounted about the perimeter of the Propellerhead conclave, where the virtual-gear hungry could dip their toes into demos of the latest versions of apps like Reason, Recycle and Rebirth. Spectrasonics showed off its super powerful bass module from the gods, Trilogy. Quite possibly the only bass module you will ever need, Trilogy is stocked with a huge palate of dual-layered, multi-velocity bass sounds, including acoustic, electric and synth basses. Trilogy comes with a 3 gig sound library, designed by award-winning sound designer Eric Persing. Spectrasonics also demoed its software synth module, Atmosphere, and previewed its new realtime groove module, Stylus RMX—which greatly expands upon the company’s Stylus virtual instrument. Stylus RMX is scheduled to arrive in September. A new company called Synthogy jumped onto the scene with an amazingly high-quality virtual piano called Ivory which rivals the sound quality of hardware-based apps like Gigastudio. Ivory runs on Synthogy’s proprietary 32-bit sample-playback and DSP engine, which was specifically built from the ground up to bring out the resonance, response and character of three of the world's finest Concert Grands. The product features over 20 Gigabytes of all new samples, which were brought to life in some of the finest studios and concert halls around. Waves released a new plug-in called “Convolution Reverb,” a new sampling reverb that offers some familiar controls like pre-delay, reflection density, and reverb time. The plug-in is available in both Native and HDTM formats. |
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