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113th AES
AES Los Angeles 2002 Report
By Chris Kathman
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David Scheirman, Don Pearson, Sam Berkow,
Mark Gander
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It is only when I go to a convention like AES that
I realize just how many people I have met over the last
two years that we have been working away on Prosoundweb.com,
that I did not know before. Sam
Berkow and
David Morgan hailed me before I got ten feet inside
the floor of the main exhibit hall.
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I was a little cross-eyed, having driven in from beautiful
Ontario, CA, after mixing Suicidal Tendencies the day before
at Power 106’s P3 festival, outdoors at Glen Helen Pavilion.
Sam told me that, in a few hours, a birthday celebration for
“Dr. Don” Pearson would take place at the nearby
Hotel Figueroa, and I said I would be sure to join them there.
When Sam had posted on the Live
Audio Board about Don’s birthday, I was one of the
many knuckleheads who added their own anecdote about Don’s
generosity to aspiring and misguided youngsters.
The next day, when I described the attendees at the party
to some people who could not make it, they both commented
that if someone had dropped a bomb on the gathering that night,
it would have taken out a big percentage of America’s
audio brain trust. (See the pic, with David
Scheirman, the good Doctor, Sam, and Mark Gander.)
I saw Don at the Meyer booth, the day after, and commented
that he looked like he was in pretty good shape, considering
the festivities. He replied “You still look bad!”
Why you, I oughta …!
 I
stood and listened to the smallest Meyer line array cabinet,
the M1D, with its accompanying sub placed at the top of each
small array, playing a DVD of a Corrs concert. It sounded
so great, and created such a a three dimensional sound picture
in mid-air, that I completely forgot to take a picture of
the way it was flown!
Over at the always crowded Starbucks area, on the mezzanine,
I sat down and visited with an old friend and teacher, Scott
Fraser, who I recently spent a Kronos Quartet soundcheck with.
That story will appear here soon. Sam Berkow had been telling
me again about how great Nuendo is, and I talked about it
to Scott while we were standing in line. A big league recording
engineer (who shall remain nameless, because I did not ask
his permission to quote him, and no, it was not Mixerman!)
overheard us and commented that he knows one person who has
totally switched to Nuendo, and no longer uses Pro Tools or
Digital Performer.
USC’s Ken Lopez swept by at 100 miles an hour, with some
of his students working as volunteers at the convention. He
will bring a class of them up to the Greek Theatre tomorrow,
where I will be taking care of the Clair Brothers rig, and
they can ask me questions, while I assist my good friend Michael
Pollock, who mixes surf-reggae rising star Jack Johnson. I
have been on a corporate show the last three days, it will
be a real pleasure to greet Michael and Jack.
 Marc
Lopez showed me around the Yamaha DM1000, little brother to
the 2000. Marc was one of the teachers at the PM1D
class I took, and continued to be clear and bright eyed
at AES, even after processing dozens of people before I came
along. The PM1D 1.5 will arrive around March 2003, with the
ability to use two control surfaces on one engine. The DM1000
will be available for about $5,000.
 Before
I visited the Eric
Clapton mix position last year with Ken Berger, I had
never seen an XTA graphic equalizer. At AES, Guy Lewis explained
to me that long before the company made the digital crossovers
most of us associate them with, they had a base of analog
gear. Synchronicity struck, in that the corporate gig I just
did provided me with an XTA graphic in my house rack –
I was struck by how comparatively minor movements of the faders,
as I tweaked a satellite feed, produced clearly audible alterations.
Very nice unit!
 At
Anthony DeMaria Labs’ booth, I chatted with Lori Baxter,
who showed me an ADL product that actually does not use tubes!
That’s right, the O/S/L 1600 stereo limiter has opto
attenuators, and is like the venerable LA-3A design. It can
be used in linked stereo or dual mono modes.
 Bob
Doyle, formerly of Midas, has gotten used to me showing up
and taking pictures of him at conventions, and I got a good
one of him presiding over a demo of the D5 Live console, the
flagship product of Digico, the company he is with now. The
D5 live has three sets of eight faders and then pages down
through layers to transform them into 64 or 96 channels. It
communicates through a fiber optic cable to the DiGiRack onstage,
and, most interestingly to me, uses touch screen technology.
It provides gates and comps, but in the basic version does
not have EFX, which can be added as as optional feature.
 I
stopped dead in my tracks staring at the Allen and Heath Xone
V6, what they call their “audiophile rotary club mixer.”
Suddenly I was back in my college dorm, wailing away on my
SG through my rackmount Altec greenface amp … but no,
I was at AES 2002, talking to Al Nichols and Glenn Rogers
of A&H. I asked Glenn why Allen and Heath would attempt
to penetrate the DJ market (they are also making a whole series
of more “normal” looking DJ mixers) when most of
us think of it as being sewn up by Numark, Rane, and Vestax.
He explained that the selling point of the Allen and Heath
DJ mixers was actual pure audio quality, that he feels is
missing in much of the existing products by the other companies.
Okay, I’ll accept that, I’m one of the people who
like the ML5000 just fine, but I still played the devil’s
advocate and asked, well, what about your lack of onboard
sampling? Glenn replied that the A&H mixers have aux outs
so that the DJ concerned with good sound can also hook up
a pro-level outboard sampler.
Like many of the other line array manufacturers, JBL is building
smaller versions of its original VerTec box, in their case
the VT4881, VT4887, and VT4888. I ran into Mark Gander and
walked up to the line array presentation, where I did not
get to meet Dr. Christian Heil, but I did sit and listen for
a while to Thomas McCauley (pictured at the top of this article)
discuss some of the principles of their MONARC
MLA5 speaker.
 Rob
Schnell of Audix showed me their new D6 kick mic, which we
will be reviewing soon. I have used their D4 quite successfully
for kick drum, but many people psychologically feel like it
is too small compared to the B52 or D112. Rob is a drummer
himself and described how many kick drums the team actually
analyzed, to discover that the fundamental tone of a kick
is actually not under 100 Hz, but really more around 125.
 Larry
Droppa welcomed me to the ATI booth, which, in addition
to their Paragon boards and API desks, was partnered with
the Audient products including graphic EQ’s and their
live and studio consoles. I was familiar with the ASP recording
board, and took my first look at the Aztec live desk, with
its metal exoskeleton. I told Audient’s David Dearden
that it looked quite straightforward and usable.
 Ex’pressions
Center for New
Media had a booth, and I greeted CEO Peter J. Laanen.
I had given a talk
there earlier this year, and had a good conversation with
Peter over lunch afterwards. Since then, I had visited his
native Netherlands, on tour, and we discussed the sights I
had seen over there. I also handed out some of the much-desired
“I’m Mixerman!” buttons to some of the students,
who did not believe for a second that I was Mixerman.
Look, I’m Mixerman, OK! Somehow I make all those records
in between the live gigs I do. Really! Hey, Big Boy believes
I’m Mixerman! For those who do not know, Big Boy is Power
106’s morning DJ, blazing hip-hop all over Southern California,
where he can also be seen on ever-changing billboards attired
as Uncle Sam, Spiderman, Santa Claus, naked with a boa, or
in diapers! Thanks for posing with me, Big Boy! Thanks, everybody
at AES!
Gotta go help big speaker cabinets and lotsa amps make beautiful
sounds!
I can do this!
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