Odd Thought from the Convention Floor
Occasionally getting lost in the maze of upstairs meetings and demo rooms, one could sometimes miss-step and wind up in the "Plastic Surgery 2006" show in the adjacent Moscone North Hall. Maybe having that event next door was no coincidence. After all, we are in the entertainment biz.

Day Four: Post-Breakdown
Compared to the non-stop party/social scene happening during the other AES days, last night was pretty mellow, especially with most people concerned with getting their booths broken down and suitcases packed. But Emmy Award--winning composer Scott Singer held a open house at his remodeled Scott Singer Productions, attended by local players and producers, such as Narada Michael Walden and some of SSP's gear suppliers, among them Universal Audio's Matt Ward and John Oram, who designed the facility's new custom console.

DPA New Grid
DPA unveiled a new grid for its 4003, 4006, 4051, 4052 and 4053 mics. The attachment alters frequency response, making the mics more versatile than ever.
www.dpamicrophones.com

Digital Audio Denmark AX24 DXD
Digital Audio Denmark has upped the bar on sample rates by releasing its AX24 DXD AD/DA box. The unit is scalable with a mic pre option and a few different I/O options. Everything is sampled at 5.6 Megahertz/5-bit and then downsampled to 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192, 384, DSD and DXD (24-bit/352.8 kHz).
www.digitalaudio.dk

Red Type A
Red showed its Type A tube mic that allows the user to attach a variety of Red capsules along with compatible capsules from Blue.
www.redmicrophones.com

Chameleon Labs TS-2
This tube mic with power supply will alter the voltage to the capsule, giving you the ability to tweak the sonic characteristics of the mic. The company also revealed its small-capsule tube mic, TS-1, that will accept AKG 451 E capsules and pads.
www.chameleonlabs.com

Pelonis Monitors
Noted studio designer Chris Pelonis demoed some absolutely amazing sounding custom studio monitors he's about to bring to market. Based on customized 10-inch Tannoy Dual Concentric coaxial drivers, the speakers have one of the most serious passive crossover designs we've seen -- or heard. An optional subwoofer is also available, but unless you have a huge room or do a lot of high-SPL hip hop mixing, you won't need the sub.
www.pelonissound.com

Telefunken USA Ela M250
The Ela M250 is a 2-pattern (cardioid and omni) version of the Telefunken Ela M251, priced at either $6,995 or $4,995, depending on the power supplies, accessories and warranty provided. In other Telefunken USA news, the company is also developing a new line of precision ribbon microphones.
www.telefunkenusa.com

Mercury Grand Pre
Available in 1- and 2-channel versions, these preamps feature: 0 to 60dB input gain control in 12dB steps, a ±8dB fine-gain control and a newly designed FET direct input. I/Os are balanced using the original Sowter transformers. The internal power supply uses a toroidal transformer and is regulated for super-low noise and stable performance.
www.MercuryRecordingEquipment.com

Elysia Alpha Compressor
Elysia's all-discrete Class-A Alpha compressor offers unique features such as an integrated M/S matrix, onboard parallel compression, sidechain and audio filters, and additional soft-clip limiters.
www.elysia.com

FOR ADDITIONAL PRODUCT INFORMATION, CHECK OUT MIX'S PODCASTS, sponsored by Sennheiser

Wild Frontier
I was just at the Frontier Design booth, checking out the company's latest product, AlphaTrack. It's a small USB control surface for computer-recording applications that offers a single motorized fader, three knobs, numerous buttons, transport controls, and a touch-sensitive jog-and-shuttle strip, among other features. Basically, it works on one channel at a time, and gives you control of volume, solo, mute, pan, send, EQ, plug-ins, and more. The jog-and-shuttle strip lets you scroll through your song, and, in some sequencers, even scrub audio.

Glyph Goes 800
Blogging from the show floor, cool! Interest has been high over at our booth with the new 800 products. We've had the FireWire 400 based line for a couple of years and as technology moves forward we've gotten a chance to upgrade to the newest stuff. The bottom line is that FireWire 800 gives more performance basically because we're using SATA drives, which give 10-15% track count inmprovement in a DAW environment. Check out the new GT 051, GT 103 and GT Key, all announced here at AES. We also have the new GT 062 that features three drive modes, smaller enclosure and multiple connection options.

Robert Scovill, Whaddya Got?
Boy really great time at AES this year. LOTS of buzz around the Digi-booth especially surrounding our new mixing platform Profile and packed crowds around the ICON demos as well. A lot of genuine excitment about these products. Also, don't know if you've heard but our buddies over at WAVES have release a huge bundle of TDM Plug Ins called "Live Bundle" that is avaialble for VENUE. The Plug Ins include many of the favorites from their line like L1 & L2 etc. We're pretty stoked that these tools are going to be available for the family mixers who have chosen VENUE. Also Joel Forner from Troo Trace was at the booth giving some great demos of Troo Trace, the FFT Analyser Plug In for VENUE. Boy it seems like that list is growing daily ... well over 300 VENUES in play in the world and that number is growing very rapidly, especially with the Profile work surface coming online.

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