pucho812
Well-known member
Or my personal fave which came from a digidesign/avid. Guy some years back
AES San Francisco...
- Thread starter Matt Ward
- Start date
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wtmnmf
Well-known member
Sort of a dead show. Kinda like - Avid owns the world, so why should we even try? Everyone else seemed like they were standing near an alley with their hand out for spare change. It's a big contrast to the '80s when everyone had big, new, exiting products, and you needed all three days to take it in. That was like going to Disney Land. This is like going to the Flea Market. I used to travel thousands of miles and spend thousands of dollars to go, now I don't know if it's worth traveling ten miles and spending four bucks.
I did get my free motor fader sample from the Bourns booth though ;D
I did get my free motor fader sample from the Bourns booth though ;D
tommypiper
Well-known member
It wasn't dead by any means, just more focused. ;D It was still very active and tons of people but there was definitely the depressed economy and collapsing pro audio economic realities echoing in the background.
The theme of the show for me was how well the boutique audio business is doing. Lots of our forum members and friends had booths and looked to be doing well. All the juice and buzz of the show seemed to be in the two streets of these boutique makers, with Lundahl on one end, going down along past Shadow Hills, Tab-Funkenwerk, Dan Kennedy, D.W. Fearn, Telefunken, Brad Avenson Audio, Jon's Shiny Box ribbon mics and pres, Cascade mic, every other mic maker, Royer, etc etc etc etc. If you look at the exhibitor list and convention program, it was still a very deep and rich conference.
It did have a California and west coast -centric focus because of the location... The Neumann and Sony and Gefell and other big corp booths were relatively small and on more of an even playing field with everyone else, and there was no juice there, as for me the momentum seemed to be with the smaller, custom boutique makers and anyone doing anything innovative. There was plenty going on and the spirits were high among everyone I chatted with.
It's a curious convention, lots of different business angles going on, like a giant spiders web. Everything from scientific papers being presented, to producers networking, to magazines soliciting ads, to vendors hawking their goods, etc. And DIYer's hanging out.
But we have reached a point in the industry where massive recording facilities and huge spaces and six or seven $ figures are no longer required to build a facility to record a hit record. All you need literally today is a Mac, Logic, a MIDI keyboard and a mic. The rest is built from instruments and loops in Logic, with vocal overdubs, in many genres now, and you are on the same playing field with the rest of your competition (in terms of gear required. Talent is another matter.).
So we are seeing a divergence in the pro audio field. Those who still want to process and work with analog tools == witness the thriving boutique gear makers == on one hand, and the rest of the world on the other hand who are working primarily ITB with Logic and PT. The ITB crowd have no use for an AES show. Young producers just want keyboards, FX and their DAW. That's it. Older producers still cling to large consoles and analog studio environments running DAWs. Many producers fall in between these worlds. To say things are not changing is crazy.
We on this forum tend to enjoy the analog world, or at least its tools, and understanding how everything works and the pleasures of building, modding, designing and using analog gear. So it was a good show from this point of view.
We had a nice dinner Friday night with a few members.
Pucho, I never found you.
CJ was much talked about, but not seen, at least when I was there the first two days. Hope you're doing well, CJ!
When I first walked into the show I was like, "Oh, no, not all this all over again." I almost had to cover my eyes. But it was fun to catch up with friends and chat and celebrate this crazy passion.
The theme of the show for me was how well the boutique audio business is doing. Lots of our forum members and friends had booths and looked to be doing well. All the juice and buzz of the show seemed to be in the two streets of these boutique makers, with Lundahl on one end, going down along past Shadow Hills, Tab-Funkenwerk, Dan Kennedy, D.W. Fearn, Telefunken, Brad Avenson Audio, Jon's Shiny Box ribbon mics and pres, Cascade mic, every other mic maker, Royer, etc etc etc etc. If you look at the exhibitor list and convention program, it was still a very deep and rich conference.
It did have a California and west coast -centric focus because of the location... The Neumann and Sony and Gefell and other big corp booths were relatively small and on more of an even playing field with everyone else, and there was no juice there, as for me the momentum seemed to be with the smaller, custom boutique makers and anyone doing anything innovative. There was plenty going on and the spirits were high among everyone I chatted with.
It's a curious convention, lots of different business angles going on, like a giant spiders web. Everything from scientific papers being presented, to producers networking, to magazines soliciting ads, to vendors hawking their goods, etc. And DIYer's hanging out.
But we have reached a point in the industry where massive recording facilities and huge spaces and six or seven $ figures are no longer required to build a facility to record a hit record. All you need literally today is a Mac, Logic, a MIDI keyboard and a mic. The rest is built from instruments and loops in Logic, with vocal overdubs, in many genres now, and you are on the same playing field with the rest of your competition (in terms of gear required. Talent is another matter.).
So we are seeing a divergence in the pro audio field. Those who still want to process and work with analog tools == witness the thriving boutique gear makers == on one hand, and the rest of the world on the other hand who are working primarily ITB with Logic and PT. The ITB crowd have no use for an AES show. Young producers just want keyboards, FX and their DAW. That's it. Older producers still cling to large consoles and analog studio environments running DAWs. Many producers fall in between these worlds. To say things are not changing is crazy.
We on this forum tend to enjoy the analog world, or at least its tools, and understanding how everything works and the pleasures of building, modding, designing and using analog gear. So it was a good show from this point of view.
We had a nice dinner Friday night with a few members.
Pucho, I never found you.
CJ was much talked about, but not seen, at least when I was there the first two days. Hope you're doing well, CJ!
When I first walked into the show I was like, "Oh, no, not all this all over again." I almost had to cover my eyes. But it was fun to catch up with friends and chat and celebrate this crazy passion.
The AES is a more inclusive show involving all kinds of audio.. There were several panels about audio measurements and such that professional sound installers would use.
I haven't heard the full reports yet from boots on the ground, gossip about maybe a speaker company changing hands. Not much product buzz.
JR
I haven't heard the full reports yet from boots on the ground, gossip about maybe a speaker company changing hands. Not much product buzz.
JR
tommypiper
Well-known member
Yes, AES is very inclusive, including of course digital audio, research, theory, education, post and broadcast, touring, worship, etc you name it.
There were many speaker designs and companies there I'd never seen before, from boutique on up. Even a few boutique audiophile types.
New products among our forum members included, Brad Avenson has a mid-side encode-decode box that allows you to adjust width, etc, it looks and sounds great. Dan Kennedy of Great River has a new DAW mixing box with 20 channels, pan and volume control on every channel, and all kinds of features. He had his first unit there. Features a Neve-like class A output amps. Etc. Every mic maker had new models, including a bizarre looking ribbon from AEA.
There were new products all over the floor. I think it's easy to get cynical because the pace of uptake has slowed due to the economy and the changing focus of pro audio music production towards an increasingly all-ITB approach.
We say there's nothing new, well the digital revolution is bringing on its on-going revolution which in some ~15 years has utterly changed the audio production and post world and smashed its economic models from top to bottom in nothing short of the word revolution. Whether we like it or not. This was very apparent at the show.
There were many speaker designs and companies there I'd never seen before, from boutique on up. Even a few boutique audiophile types.
New products among our forum members included, Brad Avenson has a mid-side encode-decode box that allows you to adjust width, etc, it looks and sounds great. Dan Kennedy of Great River has a new DAW mixing box with 20 channels, pan and volume control on every channel, and all kinds of features. He had his first unit there. Features a Neve-like class A output amps. Etc. Every mic maker had new models, including a bizarre looking ribbon from AEA.
There were new products all over the floor. I think it's easy to get cynical because the pace of uptake has slowed due to the economy and the changing focus of pro audio music production towards an increasingly all-ITB approach.
We say there's nothing new, well the digital revolution is bringing on its on-going revolution which in some ~15 years has utterly changed the audio production and post world and smashed its economic models from top to bottom in nothing short of the word revolution. Whether we like it or not. This was very apparent at the show.
I always learn a great deal being there. I don't necessarily miss the go go big time studio biz flavor. I never fit in in that scene. I'm much more comfortable with the current atmosphere of big time and small time and medium time on a more equal footing.
The papers and workshops are always pretty good. The Whitlock show is great. I've seen it a number of times and it is sinking in. There is never shortage of things to see. The Ralph Morrison tutorial was great even though I only understood about an eighth of it. It's great to see certifiable geniuses like JJ Johnston and Morrison speak.
There wasn't much on the floor that caught my attention but I got to speak with some manufacturers about getting more out of things I have.
I ate dinner at R& G lounge which was the main purpoise of the trip.
The papers and workshops are always pretty good. The Whitlock show is great. I've seen it a number of times and it is sinking in. There is never shortage of things to see. The Ralph Morrison tutorial was great even though I only understood about an eighth of it. It's great to see certifiable geniuses like JJ Johnston and Morrison speak.
There wasn't much on the floor that caught my attention but I got to speak with some manufacturers about getting more out of things I have.
I ate dinner at R& G lounge which was the main purpoise of the trip.
pucho812
Well-known member
unfortunately I missed most of you guys...
Dr pat., tommy, etc, etc,etc.
got in Friday afternoon. Missed bob margaloff key note. I heard it was an ass ripper. Entitled "what the hell happened?" Checked in and got my badge saw some key people and split for an evening AES party. I missed the Friday seminars. Saturday spent the day at the show. There was some really interesting things going on. I'll drop in some notes in a new thread. I find that as far as the exhibit floor goes the field is getting more even. Yeah avid is the big dog right now but they are doing things they should have done years ago. The PT 9 demo was cool mainly because the dude started off with the mic on his laptop and his macbook and recorded sound. then took those sounds to a full system to finish making his point. Avid at this point will be big. They own euphonix now and so forth. But reality is you still need analog in a major way. How else are you going to get a mic into pro tools? Saw some great large format analog boards. Like the new Trident series 82, the undertone audio. I was disappointed that undertone could not demo the surface reflections they talk so much about. However eric was like your local come by the studio and really check it. I will take him up on that offer. The eq on that board though is killer. They will do an outboard version.
Saturday night more aes parties. I missed ther AMS/Neve showcase patry at ase of their system 75 console. But in talking with a former sae student, he was saying AMS/Neve is trying to disgtance themselves from their sae owners and that they have a disclaimer that the system 75 is not really an official AMS/Neve item. I dunno how true that is.
Sunday missed eric valentines physcoacoustic seminar which I really wanted to go to. After all prior to that at the undertone audio booth He was doing that listen test between an mbox pro and a lavrey gold. Did any one do that... Talk about cool. The set up was this. mobx pro and the lavery were both clocked from the same lavrey gold A/D. Then from there the mbox pro and D/A were going into a switch so you could listen to one at a time. Playing stereo recordings that he uses for reference, known well made music like tom petty "You don't know how it feels" he had the outputs feeding a high quality headphone amp and grado headphones.
so listen between the 2 which do you like better and why. I did... Boy what a surprise from the same clock source both units were almost identical. Or were they identical. Fuck they sounded the same. Volume was matched,etc,etc. I suspect the entire time that there was only 1 output going on but after really sitting with it for a few minutes and getting used to those grado's, I heard a difference. A slight difference. not enough to justify the price difference. I won't say which...
Anyway good show. Really good seminars. DId anyone catch doug sax talking about direct to disc(vinyl) recording. Him and bob ludwig both gave a thing about mastering for vinyl. It was Friday. I missed it.
Aside form that some of the players who are normally there were either not there like atr service or not as pronounced. But hey there is still plenty of people trying to salvage and keep professional audio as key. So yeah good stuff.
Dr pat., tommy, etc, etc,etc.
got in Friday afternoon. Missed bob margaloff key note. I heard it was an ass ripper. Entitled "what the hell happened?" Checked in and got my badge saw some key people and split for an evening AES party. I missed the Friday seminars. Saturday spent the day at the show. There was some really interesting things going on. I'll drop in some notes in a new thread. I find that as far as the exhibit floor goes the field is getting more even. Yeah avid is the big dog right now but they are doing things they should have done years ago. The PT 9 demo was cool mainly because the dude started off with the mic on his laptop and his macbook and recorded sound. then took those sounds to a full system to finish making his point. Avid at this point will be big. They own euphonix now and so forth. But reality is you still need analog in a major way. How else are you going to get a mic into pro tools? Saw some great large format analog boards. Like the new Trident series 82, the undertone audio. I was disappointed that undertone could not demo the surface reflections they talk so much about. However eric was like your local come by the studio and really check it. I will take him up on that offer. The eq on that board though is killer. They will do an outboard version.
Saturday night more aes parties. I missed ther AMS/Neve showcase patry at ase of their system 75 console. But in talking with a former sae student, he was saying AMS/Neve is trying to disgtance themselves from their sae owners and that they have a disclaimer that the system 75 is not really an official AMS/Neve item. I dunno how true that is.
Sunday missed eric valentines physcoacoustic seminar which I really wanted to go to. After all prior to that at the undertone audio booth He was doing that listen test between an mbox pro and a lavrey gold. Did any one do that... Talk about cool. The set up was this. mobx pro and the lavery were both clocked from the same lavrey gold A/D. Then from there the mbox pro and D/A were going into a switch so you could listen to one at a time. Playing stereo recordings that he uses for reference, known well made music like tom petty "You don't know how it feels" he had the outputs feeding a high quality headphone amp and grado headphones.
so listen between the 2 which do you like better and why. I did... Boy what a surprise from the same clock source both units were almost identical. Or were they identical. Fuck they sounded the same. Volume was matched,etc,etc. I suspect the entire time that there was only 1 output going on but after really sitting with it for a few minutes and getting used to those grado's, I heard a difference. A slight difference. not enough to justify the price difference. I won't say which...
Anyway good show. Really good seminars. DId anyone catch doug sax talking about direct to disc(vinyl) recording. Him and bob ludwig both gave a thing about mastering for vinyl. It was Friday. I missed it.
Aside form that some of the players who are normally there were either not there like atr service or not as pronounced. But hey there is still plenty of people trying to salvage and keep professional audio as key. So yeah good stuff.
I saw the Ludwig, Sax, Fremer mastering panel. I thought it was really good. I generally walk out of the mastering jerk off festivals in frustration but I stayed for the whole thing. Fremer had great video of lacquer blank manufacturing and two pressing plants. They all seemed happy and a little frustrated with vinyl as the audiophile format. That seems like the right attitude. There should be a better digital alternative to CD's although they can sound good. They just mostly don't.
pucho812
Well-known member
Gold said:
I agree. I really wish the sacd would have taken off but it failed. I sat in as a fly on the wall with doug sax on a few sacd mastering sessions... boy was that quality. SACD was so good except you couldn't make a ref with available stuff at the time... Sony really dropped the ball on what could have replaced the cd and changed audio in a good direction.
pucho812
Well-known member
Got into AES Friday. Saw Some key people, Went to undertone audio but the booth was full so went back the following morning. Friday took a quick look around to see what was what in terms of exhibits. Not enough time to really do anything so split. Studio party in the evening.
Saturday spent the day at the show. B-lined to undertone audio to check out things... The console eq is fantastic and very musical. The fact that each eq band can be inserted individually and can also individually put out of phase is really smarts on their part. The board sounds good but I do see it as their bread and butter. If anything the rack mount versions will do more for them. and the surface IMO is purely academic. Reality is we have lived with non porous surfaces for a long time, does it really matter? To me it does not. I took their audio test but had mastered material to deal with. It was very close between the mbox and lavry gold. But they both had a lavry clock as a clock source. Most people running an m-box will not. I heard the difference between the 2 and it really stood out in the upper mids. I thought it was cool Eric invited me down to his studio as I am local. Will take him up on the offer. Nice to see the trident board. Inline and split monitoring at the same time is smart. Lots of inputs to mix that way. The board at the show was 32 channel with 24 monitor. Since the channel has inline monitoring as well, you get double the inputs on mix down. The show board had up to 92 inputs to mixdown with channel and every monitor path having an eq of some variety(3 band, hi and low pass filters, channel eq). Not bad and the price is reasonable. If you want that trident sound, there you go. Got snubbed by API so they can go stick it where the sun doesn't shine. It was as if they were bothered I was asking questions. Then they were annoyed I was remixing their source material in checking out the API 1608. SSL had the new AWS 900, I can't afford it but I know a few who can. Very nice indeed. Talked with Hutch from Rupert Neve designs, Good conversation about an upcoming 5088 install going to a client of mine. Spent time with a lot of the new smaller companies like cloud mics. Not bad but who needs an rca 44 copy. Plus the mic was over exaggerated in terms of sonics. Part to the 44 sound is the big body. Pulse Techniques is now making a eqp1a model. Who needs another eqp1a clone? Well they went as far as to recreate the original transformers for it. Right down to the material used. It was very cool. plus built by hand and totally top notch. Shadow hills has a new remote monitor box. It was very art deco as much as the other Shadow hills stuff. The remote volume control reminded me of an old telephone base. Very cool. Yes avid is the big thing but not too exciting. What you wanna look for is the new pro tools cards in 2012. Ran into Fum at the Shiny box booth, his new 4 channel pre amp is good. I can't wait to hear one. Left the show and had another studio party in the evening. Skipped out on the private Neve system 75 demo at SAE as AMS/Neve is saying it's not a real neve product but more of a SAE Neve. AMS/Neve said to be distancing from their sae lord. I dunno. Not exciting to me.
Sunday spent the day tooling around San Francisco. What a great city. Sorry I missed alot of you guys. Some other time. It's good to see a few companies doing 24 buss format boards. It's the way I like to work. Outside of that ran into a lot of old engineering friends I have not seen in over 10 years. Another AES come and gone. This time no pictures as I do not wish to incriminate...
Saturday spent the day at the show. B-lined to undertone audio to check out things... The console eq is fantastic and very musical. The fact that each eq band can be inserted individually and can also individually put out of phase is really smarts on their part. The board sounds good but I do see it as their bread and butter. If anything the rack mount versions will do more for them. and the surface IMO is purely academic. Reality is we have lived with non porous surfaces for a long time, does it really matter? To me it does not. I took their audio test but had mastered material to deal with. It was very close between the mbox and lavry gold. But they both had a lavry clock as a clock source. Most people running an m-box will not. I heard the difference between the 2 and it really stood out in the upper mids. I thought it was cool Eric invited me down to his studio as I am local. Will take him up on the offer. Nice to see the trident board. Inline and split monitoring at the same time is smart. Lots of inputs to mix that way. The board at the show was 32 channel with 24 monitor. Since the channel has inline monitoring as well, you get double the inputs on mix down. The show board had up to 92 inputs to mixdown with channel and every monitor path having an eq of some variety(3 band, hi and low pass filters, channel eq). Not bad and the price is reasonable. If you want that trident sound, there you go. Got snubbed by API so they can go stick it where the sun doesn't shine. It was as if they were bothered I was asking questions. Then they were annoyed I was remixing their source material in checking out the API 1608. SSL had the new AWS 900, I can't afford it but I know a few who can. Very nice indeed. Talked with Hutch from Rupert Neve designs, Good conversation about an upcoming 5088 install going to a client of mine. Spent time with a lot of the new smaller companies like cloud mics. Not bad but who needs an rca 44 copy. Plus the mic was over exaggerated in terms of sonics. Part to the 44 sound is the big body. Pulse Techniques is now making a eqp1a model. Who needs another eqp1a clone? Well they went as far as to recreate the original transformers for it. Right down to the material used. It was very cool. plus built by hand and totally top notch. Shadow hills has a new remote monitor box. It was very art deco as much as the other Shadow hills stuff. The remote volume control reminded me of an old telephone base. Very cool. Yes avid is the big thing but not too exciting. What you wanna look for is the new pro tools cards in 2012. Ran into Fum at the Shiny box booth, his new 4 channel pre amp is good. I can't wait to hear one. Left the show and had another studio party in the evening. Skipped out on the private Neve system 75 demo at SAE as AMS/Neve is saying it's not a real neve product but more of a SAE Neve. AMS/Neve said to be distancing from their sae lord. I dunno. Not exciting to me.
Sunday spent the day tooling around San Francisco. What a great city. Sorry I missed alot of you guys. Some other time. It's good to see a few companies doing 24 buss format boards. It's the way I like to work. Outside of that ran into a lot of old engineering friends I have not seen in over 10 years. Another AES come and gone. This time no pictures as I do not wish to incriminate...
pucho812
Well-known member
fudge I repeated myself
tommypiper
Well-known member
Hi guys, thanks for your reports. You were obviously better connected than I was at the show, being full time studio and engineer career types. I walked past the UTA console several times, but hadn't heard any buzz about it before the show, so I didn't linger long. I did see the odd use of the old-style tube meters in the center for L-R, and the tubes in the output stages, and the weird looking knobs and EQ layout... I thought, cool, glad this is happening, then moved on. It looked very odd and eccentric! Can't wait for your report, Pat. I'm sure their rack units and DAW mixer will be a hit and can't wait for those as well. I didn't notice the listening tests, that would have been interesting.
It's good to see the large format analog console bug is still alive and well, with so many bigger companies still at it as well as Undertone. It's kinda like hi-end sports cars like Ferraris, sure has great performance and the best studios will have them. But the mainstream working guys, especially in modern genres where it's mostly around MIDI, these demographic users will never have a console, they just want to get from A to B. For them, it seems like it being "digital" is "quality enough." But they may well buy the channel strips and rack units! Smart biz move. Funny name, I guess meant to be opposite of overtone?
Yes, I've heard previous AES sessions demonstrating DSD / SACD and it is an amazing sounding format. Clearly audible to me, however others in the room didn't seem to react to it. It's not a failed format btw, they are still releasing titles. And you can get hybrid CD/SACD players for cheap which sound pretty good. It's not a dead format. But I agree, Sony and Philips certainly could and should have / should still push it harder. I think the bottleneck has been editing in the DSD format. There is little DSP product out there for editing DSD format. Pyramix makes a DAW, but I believe it temporarily transfers DSD to high rate PCM for DSP work, then back to DSD. I had hoped DSD would supplant PCM for all of us... maybe one day. :-\
I walked past the UTA console several times, but hadn't heard any buzz about it before the show, so I didn't linger long. I did see the odd use of the old-style tube meters in the center for L-R, and the tubes in the output stages, and the weird looking knobs and EQ layout... I thought, cool, glad this is happening, then moved on. It looked very odd and eccentric! Can't wait for your report, Pat. I'm sure their rack units and DAW mixer will be a hit and can't wait for those as well. I didn't notice the listening tests, that would have been interesting.It's good to see the large format analog console bug is still alive and well, with so many bigger companies still at it as well as Undertone. It's kinda like hi-end sports cars like Ferraris, sure has great performance and the best studios will have them. But the mainstream working guys, especially in modern genres where it's mostly around MIDI, these demographic users will never have a console, they just want to get from A to B. For them, it seems like it being "digital" is "quality enough." But they may well buy the channel strips and rack units! Smart biz move. Funny name, I guess meant to be opposite of overtone?
Yes, I've heard previous AES sessions demonstrating DSD / SACD and it is an amazing sounding format. Clearly audible to me, however others in the room didn't seem to react to it. It's not a failed format btw, they are still releasing titles. And you can get hybrid CD/SACD players for cheap which sound pretty good. It's not a dead format. But I agree, Sony and Philips certainly could and should have / should still push it harder. I think the bottleneck has been editing in the DSD format. There is little DSP product out there for editing DSD format. Pyramix makes a DAW, but I believe it temporarily transfers DSD to high rate PCM for DSP work, then back to DSD. I had hoped DSD would supplant PCM for all of us... maybe one day. :-\
tommypiper
Well-known member
THere are two units on page 12. WHich one? Yours or Metoo's?
pucho812
Well-known member
bottom one in a fancy wooden box
pucho812
Well-known member
drpat said:
eq with pre amp or just eq?
JBVries
Well-known member
I was there. Just didn't know anyone. Was happy to meet Paul from Lynx and get a bunch of NKK switch samples. He even followed up with me and sent out like 60-70 bucks worth of LED lit rocker switches free of charge. Gotta love useful swag. Maybe I will meet some of my DIY cohorts next year
pucho812
Well-known member
next should be the NYC AES.. If we are lucky Dave will come out of hiding for pizza and beer... speaking of this years aes there was no CJ... I hope he is well.
pucho812
Well-known member
drpat said:
oh so did you win the drawing he was having? bastard... ;D I so want a pair of the eq's but eric want's me to get the versions with pre amps. I got a few clients that are picking up some eq's w/pre's as well. very nice...
