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Rat Fink and C.K.
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Today started off with a good omen. I
ran into some people from Lace
Music who are hand-painting guitars with designs licensed
from the estate of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. This year,
Rat Fink, next year Beatnik Bandit! That’s what’s
great about America, like I was thinking when I heard a DJ
play a Ramones song on New Year’s Eve. The power of an
artist whose work lives on
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after their death, as distinctively as Ed
Roth or Joey Ramone’s has, is an amazing thing. Once I got
into the exhibition hall, there was Dave Rat, walking along carrying
his trusty electric scooter. We talked for a minute, he knew I was
familiar with the Rat /Radian
Microwedge, since I used
them for a gig with Cake. The players who wanted a full band mix
got the 15” version and the primarily-vocals crowd got the
12-inchers, which have a smaller footprint. I found them to be strong
and easy to tune, no surprise considering the Rat-related heritage.
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Radian President Richard Kontrimas
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At last year’s NAMM, the Radian
booth only had the 12” wedges. I like to have the option
of the deeper tone of the 15”, which if I don’t
need, I can reduce, while there is no magic way to get the
lower notes out of the 12. When I stopped by the Radian booth,
I checked out some of their mains boxes, including a small
co-ax design, the RPX-108P.
The box is also available in a vertical version, the RPX-108P-V,
which has a little bit more air, and get can produce more
low frequency. There are pole mounts in the bottom of the
cabinets and fly points on the toop. Radian president Richard
Kontrimas chatted with
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Rick Naqvi of PreSonus
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Over at PreSonus,
Rick Naovi showed me a few new pieces. There are two quad
units, the CL44
Comp/Limiter and the GTX44
Gate/Expanders. You can see them in the photo with the
unit that has done very well for Presonus, the ACP88
. For the price, you can’t beat its eight channels of
comps and gates, although many people seem to sneer at it.
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PreSonus CL44 and GTX44
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The key point is that if you have an
unlimited budget, sure you are going to get state of the art
sculpture, tube compressors, whatever. The ACP88 is a different
animal, the military jeep with a roll bar, so to speak, of
EFX units. It does the job and takes up very little real estate.
However, it sounds like PreSonus is raising their audio bar
a little with the two new quad pieces, perhaps we will test
drive them for you, and let you know.
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I also took a look at the DEQ624
Stereo Graphic EQ. It certainly has some strong selling points,
one being the ability to memorize a program and store it. For monitor
rigs, on a bill with multiple bands playing, this could be very
helpful. Even at FOH, I certainly know what it’s like to suffer
through a whole set mixing an opener on the headliner’s settings,
that I hated. The owner can also password protect a program onboard,
and lock out any interloper’s fiddling with your EQ settings.
There are also limiters, something else that many monitor rigs cry
out for and lack. To be able to pick them up as part of the EQ will
be pretty tempting. Some mixers may not want to go in and out of
an additional set of A/D and D/A converters, even if they are 24-bit.
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Tube Tech comps, preamps, and
EQ
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After I looked at the Triple
C Compressor from t.c.
electronic , the next rack over held an assortment of
Tube-Tech products, which I did not know were sold by t.c.;
I only recently saw the gear in racks at the Tori Amos show.
Since her crew could probably buy pretty much anything they
want, I took notice of their Tube Tech products, and incidentally,
the show sounded great, too. We will be bringing you an account
of that system and show.
It is always interesting to me to find
out what people did before the jobs that I am meeting them
in. Giles Communications is a company that publicizes
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Yamaha instruments
and gear, and our contact there is Shane Swisher. Shane, it turns
out, used to work for Clair
Brothers and specialized in orchestral asssignments, and we
discussed the relative merits of the Scorpions-with-orchestra and
Metallica-with-orchestra.
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Yamaha SW500 powered sub
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Yamaha primarily exhibits smaller-scale
M.I. audio at NAMM, while the touring division products are
taken to AES and NSCA. Shane showed me the powered subwoofer
SW500,
500 watts driving a single 15”. XLR’s include in,
pass thru, and crossed over signal for a mid/high cabinet,
which can be placed atop a pole fitted into the top of the
SW500.
Tomorrow I will take a last lap through
the mighty convention center, and bid farewell to exhibitors
who were already looking a little crispy around the edges
today.
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