Today brings us the final installment of our AES report from the 107th AES show. We hope you’ve enjoyed it. We’ll return to our regular inSync programming tomorrow.
AES Report, Part 7.
NEUMANN
Riding high on their third straight TEC Award the folks at Neumann have not been resting on their laurels. Instead they’ve developed a great new handheld mic called the KMS-105. The KMS-105 true condenser has a windscreen made of three metal basket layers (no foam to deteriorate) protecting the supercardioid capsule. The transformerless output configuration and surface mount componentry allowed them to make an extremely lightweight mic. In fact, it’s so lightweight we initially thought it was a dummy non-working model, until we plugged it in and it worked. Now, this is a Neumann so you know it’s very high quality. The big surprise, however, is the price tag. They expect to bring it in at $599 retail sometime in February. It’s still more than the venerable SM-58, but this is a Neumann folks.
AMEK
Rupert Neve has been busy since last year. Now they have a whole new line of gear they are calling Pure Path, presumably because of the high integrity of the signal paths they contain. Currently there are three units: the Channel in a Box or Channel strip, the Driver in a Box, which is designed to drive signals over long lines, and the Stem Compressor, which as you may have guessed is designed with the special application of stem and post production mixing in mind.
SUMMIT AUDIO
Speaking of Rupert Neve, their Rupert Neve designed MPE-200 preamp will soon have a TDM compatible plug-in interface that ships with it. Now don’t get too excited. It’s not an actual TDM plug-in; it just looks like one. The software is designed to provide a convenient way for Pro Tools users to be able to control and automate MPE-200 parameters. It will also be a handy addition to the slave units they are about ready to come out with. The slave units are made without all of the controls and are designed to be used with a master or this software.
METRIC HALO
Their ChannelStrip|SP is a low cost alternative to its ChannelStrip signal processor plug-in. It’s based on the same quality, high-resolution algorithms originally implemented in ChannelStrip, and ships compatible with TDM, AudioSuite and RTAS (Real Time AudioSuite). While there are many channel strip plug-ins starting to appear we really like the Metric Halo piece. It sounds fantastic and is extremely intuitive to use.
FOSTEX
The first speakers made of fruit! Seriously folks, their new NF-1 ($1200 per pair) have woofers made from banana pulp fibers. They are rather strange looking beasts (see photo), but claim to have much more linear response characteristics. Also on display was their nifty VM-200 digital mixer and VR-800 digital recorder. The digital mixer has motorized faders and is optimally designed to be a practical front end for computer digital workstations like MOTU 2408 etc. With any luck we may be able to talk the guys at MOTU into doing a template for it so it can be used to control Digital Performer.
ANTARES
Makers of the incredible Auto Tune plug-in, (believe me when I tell you it is being used on many major records you’re hearing on the radio right now) they now have come up with Microphone Modeler. This plug-in allows any reasonably high quality microphone to sound like virtually any other microphone. Sounds too good to be true, we know, but remember that’s what we all thought about Auto Tune when they announced it. Besides, even if it doesn’t make an SM-58 sound 100% like a U87 it’s still a useful tool for getting different timbres and characteristics without having to have a $20,000 mic collection.