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The Old Soundman vs. NAMM 2004
Returning aboveground, I went by the Audix booth to check out what they were pimping this year. I was pleasantly surprised when I talked into their new I5 mic, while listening on headphones. It has good tone and is quite directional - my voice trailed off immediately when I moved my head to the left or right. They say it goes from 50 Hz to 16K, and will sell for $179 list.
 Dave Lawler examines the new Audix I5 |
Hey, the guy who mixes the Foo Fighters likes it! He uses it on snare,
which it seems like it would be good for, perhaps giving you less ambient
information than the usual suspect. I hailed the world-famous “Docktrdave”
Lawler, who was walking by, and recommended he take a listen to the
I5. Consulting for Meyer, mixing Diana Krall, this guy is like royalty
compared to those of us still stowing stage boxes at the end of the
night.
Speaking of stage boxes, I almost forgot while I was down in the basement,
getting snubbed by musicians who have met me numerous times but steamed
right past, intent on getting those friggin’ endorsements, I was walking
around and noticed another old soundman standing in a booth full of
cables. I liked the cut of his jib, so I stopped and talked to him a
little bit.
It turns out that his name is Mark Hellinger, who runs a company called
A.P. Distributing,
featuring products made by a Korean company named EWI. I guess he posts
on the LAB regularly, not that I would know. I didn’t hold that against
him, though.
He showed me a couple of snakes that I thought were pretty cool, for
users who do not require a zillion channels. One was the “hot snake”
which includes two Speakon connectors. I have never seen that before
you can send speaker level right down the snake, when a client wants
the amps to be by the mixing board at FOH.
 Hot snake |
 Splitter snake |
That one will be available in the near future, but right now you can
buy a “splitter snake,” which takes advantage of an ADAT style connector,
to sprout off a short run to the monitors, while sending a normal long
run to FOH. “Everybody needs snakes,” Mark laughed, and you can’t argue
with that!
I continued onward in my reluctant tour of the premises, counting the
hours before I could flee to freedom. Walking through the lobby, my
ears caught the melodious sounds of an ensemble of young people called
Devine Guitars. They are on the right track - no SMPTE, no MIDI, no
word lengths or bytes, no Pro Tools, no click track, no amp modelling,
just classical guitars. Just music.
After too brief a pause basking in their performance, I was off again,
this time to the Mackie
booth. People had been telling me about some new 24/96 digital console
of theirs for the live market. Well, an underling gave me a presentation
on the TT24, and I have to say, it’s pretty outrageous, especially for
the price of $6,600.
 Mackie’s digital “turbo tough” TT24 |
Gates and comps on every channel. Built-in EFX. You can flip it between
functioning as a house or monitor board, and the 12 auxes are equipped
with comp/limiters. It has a pretty small screen, but you can hook it
up to a laptop for a larger view, and control.
Total recall. 24 analog XLR’s and the ability to bring in another set
of 24 digital inputs. The preamps and the inserts are analog circuitry,
and the conversion occurs after them.
They are going to sell truckloads of this thing. To churches, to little
venues, to corporate providers. But, unfortunately, I cannot buy a pair,
since there are not enough channels to deal with the acts at my club.
Hey, Greg Mackie! Is it too much to ask, for you to make one with a
bigger frame size and some more inputs? I’ll take two if you do!
I met some soundmen from Irvine named Roberto Arcos and Juan Gomez,
who have a company called Krypton Audio, and were checking out the new
Crown
I-Tech amps. The amps have onboard DSP, which of course was loaded
with VerTec presets, since it was in the hangar-sized JBL booth. Those
guys with the square orange badge don’t miss a trick.
 Crown’s new I-Tech amplifiers |
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The presets are loaded in with a laptop and, unfortunately for an expert user like myself, cannot thereafter be modified via the front panel LCD window.
It will, however, allow you to inspect the ohmage that the amp is driving at, to see if there is a blown speaker. That is a great feature, and you can view it remotely on a laptop, from a network of amps linked by Ethernet cables.
There is a built-in pink-noise generator. You can turn it on and off
from the front panel, or from your laptop, as well as adjust attenuation,
input sensitivity, or set a peak voltage limiter. There are AES/EBU
digital inputs as well as the traditional analog ones.
By this point in time, I was going cross-eyed from overdosing on the
hype that covered the convention floor the way I cover pancakes with
maple syrup. Suddenly, I found something that made me smile! Yes, there
is still room for art in the dog-eat-dog world of music marketing.
WindTech makes
windscreens out of a trademarked substance called SonicFoam. They are
a division of Olsen Audio Group, Inc. They make goosenecks and desk
mounts and stereo arms and clips and windscreens for 58’s, for lavaliers,
and for shotgun mics. But, to me, their crowning achievement is, yes,
the tie-dyed windscreen!
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It really cheered me up to see this simple splash of color, and I
vowed to make my escape while I was still in a good mood. But, as I
walked down a corridor, there above my head, inexplicably, was a beautiful
woman acrobat in a shiny plastic fetish suit, doing tricks on a set
of red cloths, right next to …
Ah, they have sucked me back in! Yes, a union rigger was coaxed to hang
a new Midas
8-bus Verona desk up there in the air next to her. I wondered aloud,
“What does this have to do with audio?” A guy next to me with a press
badge said, “I don’t know, but you’re taking a picture of her, aren’t
you?”
Guilty as charged! All you need to know is that the Verona is bigger
than the Venice and cheaper than the Heritages. If it’s a Midas,
it must sound OK, the Venice kicked ass. Their slogan for the Verona
is the “compact console with big console attitude!”
Hey, did you ever hear the music of the late Wesley
Willis? He was a schizophrenic who ended many of his songs with
taglines from TV commercials. I wish he hadn’t died, I would give
a lot to hear him holler at the end of a song, through a pitch changer
- “Rock over London! Rock on, Chicago! Verona - compact console
with big console attitude!”
That would rule.
- THE OLD SOUNDMAN
