There were some cool celebrity sightings today. For a minute we thought we were at NAMM when we saw the huge line snaking around the Harmon booth. But instead of a hair guitarist, we found Geoff Emerick signing copies of his book about recording The Beatles. And we saw plenty of people heading up for the Steve Miller panel where he talked about the 5.1 30th-anniversary version of Fly Like an Eagle.

But back to the floor...

Continuing on the "pro is back in pro audio" theme, the boutique gear was flourishing. Over at Rupert Neve Designs, there were plenty of new products to check out, including an amazing new 16-channel (expandable) mixer with 135 dB of dynamic range, and three new modules: a 2-channel mic pre/DI, a 5-band EQ and a stereo field editor. Dangerous Music's quality is more accessible now than ever with their new single rackspace monitor box that includes a converter, input switching, separate monitor and master output controls and more. Wunder Audio showed a new console that features an ingenious new summing bus. It allows you to choose a Neve, API or Wunder flavored output. It was "up periscope" at the Earthworks booth as they showed their new P30/C and P30HC periscope mics. The frequency response spans from 30Hz to 30kHz and the mics can be nicely tucked into tightest spots due to the unique mini-gooseneck.

Our intrepid reporters are checking out Digiworld as we speak, and we'll have a full report tomorrow. Meanwhile, visit www.mixonline.com/aes for up to the minute coverage from the convention center.

Dolby Lake Controller Version 4.1
Dolby (AES booth 602) launches Version 4.1 software for its Dolby Lake controller. The update adds a LimiterMax loudspeaker limiting to eliminate clipping for assured speaker protection.
www.dolby.com

Our Favorite Show Demos
Usually listening to mics at a tradeshow is nearly pointless, but to spotlight its new KMD small-diaphragm digital microphone system, Neumann (AES booth #402) made a glass case with two of its new two KMD cardioids mounted over a musicbox mechanism. Even over headphones, you could tell the KMDs handled the HF transients of the pinging tines with no problem and smoothly captured all the harmonics and decay. Nice!

Pro Tools Update: I was just at the Digidesign booth, where I heard about Pro Tools 7.3, which will be coming for LE, M-Powered, and HD soon--probably in late November. Version 7.3 will be a Universal Binary release, and will have a large number of user-interface improvements including saveable window sets and upgraded looping functions. The new version will also offer integration with Sibelius notation software (recently purchased by Digidesign). That will allow Pro Tools users to automatically export MIDI tracks into Sibelius where they can easily be turned into lead sheets.

Mastering Panel: One of the coolest aspects of my first AES Conference has been seeing legendary figures up close and in action. The Platinum Mastering panel afforded me a chance to see and hear the great Bob Ludwig for the first time--a big deal for me in that, during my A&R years, I had sent so many albums to Bob at Gateway without ever actually conversing with him. He turned out to be as articulate and insightful as I'd expected. Ludwig, who moderated, was joined by panelists Stephen Marcussen (who'd mastered Matthew Sweet's Altered Beast for me), Herb Powers Jr., Brian "Big Bass" Gardner, up-and-comer Adam Ayan and Belgium-based Darcy Proper. The most intriguing topic in this discussion of the critical final step in the creative process involved the additional degrees of complexity--and confusion--brought on by the digital age.

Meyer Sound Constellation: Just got back from Meyer Sound, where John Meyer introduced us to a system called Constellation that allows a room designed for one purpose to be made acoustically proper for another purpose. For example, a hall designed for theater performance can be sonically altered to host a rock concert, and then can be altered again to host an acoustic performance, in each case sounding as if the room had been specifically designed for that type of performance. The system involves three rackmount processors, custom calibrated mics, and a new line of specialized self-powered loudspeakers (the Stella line). Available now. A system is already in place at the University of California at Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium.

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