The 2009 PAR Excellence Awards at AES

Here, the editorial staff of Pro Audio Review is proud to publish the recipients of its 2009 PAR Excellence Award. This award is presented to professional audio companies that introduced a particularly significant new product at the 127th AES Convention. PAR Excellence Award winning products are nominated and selected by a panel of audio engineers, professional end users, and PAR contributors with the oversight of PAR’s editorial staff. These products are chosen based on their potential to enhance the quality of an audio professional’s work. Criteria include innovation in design, performance/ value ratio, enhanced features, and performance improvements over previous versions. [read]

Free Plugin Of The Week – Blue Cat’s Freeware Plugin Pack

Every Monday I highlight free plugins new and old that are worth checking out. See all posts in the Free Plugin Of The Week Series.

Blue Cat Audio has been around for a few years, I’ve used some of their free plugins in the past and I would recommend them over some of the included DAW plugins. Blue Cat came back on my radar when they announced RTAS (Mac + PC) Beta versions for their Freeware Plugins Pack.

Blue Cat’s Freeware Plugins Pack

All Blue Cat Audio freeware audio plug-ins gathered together in a bundle. It’s here! Save download time and get them all in a single package.

The bundle contains a wide range of modulation effects, an EQ and analysis tools to get you started with your favorite Digital Audio Workstation, for free! This bundle is available for Mac and PC, in VST, RTAS (beta), Audio Unit and DirectX plugin formats. Enjoy!

More from Audio Geek Zine

iPhone Apps for Music/Audio

Penton Media – publishers of EM, Mix and ReMix have put together a great list of iPhone Apps for Musicians and Audio Professionals.  Definitely worth checking out.

Go To List

Studio Sense: On ‘Essential’ Software

Sure, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without Pro Tools for recording and mixing; Peak to batch convert WAV files into mp3s; Dreamweaver to post them to a custom website I create for the artist; and Mac Mail to let them know the mixes are posted. And iChat quickly connects me to a missing session file, sends out a mix, or circumvents FTP altogether. I use Toast to compile the mastered mixes and create a Red Book CD, and the iTunes to check the burn. The iTunes Store provides unlimited sonic references in 30-second chunks.

But get ready for a cliché: The most important piece of software operates between your ears. Think about this elementary example: We were born with the same ears we have now, yet those ears learn over time to make totally different decisions than they would have years before. I’m not just talking about mix decisions.

During a recent tracking session at Odds On Recording in Las Vegas [for PAR's inaugural "Facility Review" in our upcoming November issue — Ed.] I walked in on what I thought was a familiar “analog vs digital” debate. But Sean O’Dwyer, a house engineer with a deep discography, altered the slant.

To paraphrase Sean, the problem with digital has nothing to do with inherent sound quality, but that it is easier; everybody’s gotten lazy. All the records I like, the ones that stand the test of time, were made decades ago when there were no quick fixes — no grid, no elastic time, no Auto-Tune — all techniques which create musical blandness. A producer/engineer was forced to engage the artist and their music on some personal, intimate level and learn what he or she needed to perform and make it a memorable piece of work that someone somewhere will love . . . [read]

Radial Engineering SGI Studio Guitar Interface

I know I’m not the only person around who has tried the old 100-foot guitar cable trick: You know, the one where you run the really long cable from the guitar player in the control room to the live room (or iso booth) where the amp is. Like me, you’ve probably noticed that it doesn’t work very well; you get lots of hum and other noise or the guitar player remarks on the “dead” feeling of his normally lively rig. Enter the Radial Studio Guitar Interface (SGI) system ($300 list).

Features

The SGI is a two-part solution comprising the SGI-TX transmitter and the SGI-RX receiver. Built to Radial’s extremely high quality standards, both are very heavy yellow boxes, like steel bricks. The SGI-TX requires power from the included wall wart adapter, and, like some of the other Radial guitar-oriented boxes, there’s the somewhat-enigmatic Drag control. Don’t worry, you won’t be wearing a skirt if you turn it up; instead you’ll notice some pleasing tonal variations that allow you to darken the tone and change the “feeling” of the guitar/amp interface through some impedance-matching mojo. The passive SGI-RX has an essential ground lift button.

In Use

Operation couldn’t be easier. Plug into the TX’s input from your guitar (or bass) with a standard 1/4-inch instrument cable, connect an XLR microphone cable between the TX and the RX, find your signal in perfect condition at the output of the RX, and plug into your amp — done. For this review, I used a 50-foot Gotham GAC-3 mic cable and the excellent Vovox Link Protect A (5- meter length) for the instrument cable. [read]

Top New Product Picks From The 127th AES Convention

Plenty of exciting new plug-ins, and don’t forget about new hardware – recorders, ribbon microphones, and more

The dampening effect of our economic times was noticeable at the just-concluded AES Show at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Even though it was a smaller show with less companies showing in downsized booths, enthusiasm and confidence coming from the big crowd was as strong as ever.

Everyone said they were doing great business so go figure.

PLUG-INS, PLUG-INS & MORE PLUG-INS!
Judging by the many fascinating and powerful new plug-ins offered, no software plug-in developers were out work.

Not only is the new crop of plugs more powerful, they seem to all be part of a new wave of super-beautiful GUIs that are wonderful to look at but also display more information in new useful and meaningful ways. [read]

Third senior executive leaves Avid in four months

Monday, 05 October 2009 -  Avid Technology has issued a statement following Friday’s resignation of Gerard ‘Tex’ Schenkkan from the post of VP and general manager, audio. “Given the recent integration of our audio and video groups into a single product organisation and the corresponding changes to our organisational structure, Tex has made the decision to pursue opportunities outside of Avid. Tex made valuable contributions to our audio products during his time with the company, including playing a central role in developing this new single audio and video product group. Avid wishes him well in his future endeavours.” Schenkkan’s departure follows the September exit of Frank Loyko, who joined Digidesign (now Avid) from LOUD as worldwide director of live sound sales just two years ago, and the further loss of chief technology office Dave Lebolt to Apple in June. [source: pro sound news europe]

Blue Microphones Mikey

Wired.com: Review – Portable iPod Mic Records Audio On The Cheap

[Ed. note: In addition to being a multi-talented designer for Wired magazine, Victor Krummenacher is the bass player for Camper Van Beethoven and an audio expert with more than 20 years of experience.]

The Mikey is touted as a “portable recorder for your iPod with awesome sound.” Although the “awesome sound” part is debatable, Blue Microphones’ Mikey is an undeniably smart and easy-to-use device. Simply plug the 2.5-inch black trapezoid into the charging port of a compatible iPod. (Compatible in this case means iPod fifth-generation, iPod classic, and iPod nano second- through fifth-generation.) Once the microphone is hooked in, it operates using the media player’s voice-memo function. It offers hi-def and low-def recording resolutions, while audio sensitivity has three levels of adjustment.

In our tests, the quality of the recordings depended on both the generation of the iPod and the audio source. We noticed fidelity was far better in fourth- and fifth-generation iPods than second and third. Voice recording yielded clear playback with great separation, but live music tended to peak out with some irritating compression spikes. But in conversational recordings, as well as use in a songwriting session with acoustic instruments, Mikey yielded usable and smooth-sounding files.

At best, Mikey is really a tool for recording audio fast and on the fly. There are better means of portable recording available, sure, but they’ll run you bigger bucks and certainly don’t fit as easily in your pocket.

WIRED No software installation. Gain control is adjustable. Not terribly bulky. Can be used with an iPhone …

TIRED … but only when iPhone is in Airplane mode. Big enough to dwarf the iPod Nano. Can’t capture complex audio (read: a live concert) perfectly. But hey, what do you want for less than a C-note?

• Manufacturer: Blue Microphones
• Price: $80

Taking The New Mackie Onyx-i, M-Powered Mixer For An Initial Spin

Mackie Onyx-i 820i 8-channel analog mixer

As noted a couple of weeks ago, I received a new Mackie Onyx-i Series mixer/interface that will run Pro Tools without the need for Avid hardware. (Read all about it here in Part 1 of this report)

My first inclination was to take it to the studio and try it out, and then I got to thinking that actually, a lot of people interested in buying this system might/probably be more likely to be using it in a home situation.

So instead I set up the Onyx mixer with my home PC laptop running Vista Home Premium (ugh), a set of headphones, and an inexpensive microphone. (Later, I took it into a bigger “pro” studio and also evaluated the M-Powered capability, and that will be the subject of my next report.)

The Onyx-i 820i that was supplied to me offers 8 channels, 3 of them with Onyx mic preamps, It’s also outfitted with a variety of Perkins EQ configurations, two aux sends, talkback controls, and flexible control room routing.

FireWire I/O lets you route all channels, auxes and the master L/R to many DAW software programs, (such as Pro Tools M-Powered 8, Logic, SONAR, Cubase, Ableton Live, and Final Cut Pro) for recording, and enables you to return a stereo signal to the control room, or into a channel, for mix integration.

I decided to first listen to the mixer, alone, using a set of Audio-Technica D40 fs headphones and a Audio-Technica M31 dynamic cardioid microphone – decent quality pieces that would be comparable, in price, when matched with the Onyx-i/Pro Tools 8 M-Powered combination. [read]

Cable Anatomy 101: A Look At Six Key Factors To Keep In Mind

Cable selection presents two primary challenges: myriad choices and overall quality.

I’ve explored these challenges and have defined six factors that can help point you in the right direction.

These factors include appearance, durability, flexibility, sonics, conductivity and shielding. Let’s have a look.

Appearance
Understand the difference between the look of quality – like shiny gold-plated connector housings – and actual quality construction and materials.

A primary problem arises when assumptions are made that the materials inside a cable housing are as fancy as those that can be easily seen in the connector.

For example, molded cable housings can hide poor construction, such as inadequate shielding.

Copper is the most widely used material cable component, offering high conductivity. (Silver is also highly conductive, but cost can make it impractical.)

It only makes sense that signal should travel through copper, tip to tip. [read]