In Broadcast - November 2012 - 34

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WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 14 - NOV/DEC 2012

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AES San Francisco
The 133rd annual AES Convention and Exhibition drew the great and the good of the pro audio, live sound and broadcast sectors to San Francisco’s Moscone Centre on the last weekend of October. Jim Evans reports…
Unlike its European counterpart, the US AES Convention – which alternates between the West and East Coast – is a thriving, wellattended event featuring the broadest spread of seminars, workshops, presentations and technical papers alongside a more than healthy exhibition. There was much to see and hear. Fairlight unveiled new products and a new look. The moves follow fresh capital injection through the company’s acquisition by KFT Investments – giving new impetus to R&D, production and customer support for its audio post-production market. Fairlight also launched new tactile control surfaces for the CC-1 audio processing engine, including the XStream Compact Desktop Controller and Quantum a fully featured, mid-size console. “We saw enormous potential in Fairlight from day one,” said Steve Kepper, General Manager of KFT Investments. “Our ambitions are to leverage its outstanding assets in terms of product, people and intellectual property. Emphasis on customer support will be integral to the brands offering. Over the next 12 months we will be launching a range of new technologies and products, improving our distribution and entering some new markets and aggressively driving growth is sales.” Joining the company from Bosch, Fairlight CEO Jean Claude Kathriner added: “A key focus of my role will be to ensure we maximise the technology we have and maintain a strong focus on continued development to ensure Fairlight provides its customers around the world with real edge digital audio technology and reliable service and support purely focused on one goal – delivering outstanding audio post results.” Audio-Technica launched its ﬂagship 50 Series of elite studio microphones with the AT5040 Cardioid Condenser Microphone. Featuring a proprietary breakthrough element design, the AT5040 employs four ultra-thin (2 micron) rectangular diaphragms that function together providing combined surface area unachievable in a standard round diaphragm. The AT5040’s largediaphragm characteristics and fast transient response also make it suitable for recording acoustic instruments such as piano, guitar, strings, and saxophone. leap pioneered by Genelec in the evolution of the active monitoring loudspeaker – the transition from the analogue to the digital world, where digital technologies, along with software features, increase quality and bring unique user experiences to the customers, and enable seamless integration of monitoring speakers and subwoofers to a wellcalibrated and correctly aligned reproduction system. At Genelec, we believe that progress towards Smart Active Monitors will open a new era in the development of the audio monitoring industry.” Aphex debuted its new 500 Series modules. The 500 Series now includes six models: J PRE 500 Mic Pre; EQF 500 Parametric Equalizer; DUAL RPA 500 Mic Pre; A PRE 500 Mic Pre; the COMP 500 Optical Compressor; and the previously unveiled EX•BB 500 Aural Exciter/ Big Bottom module.
Jim Evans

Audio-Technica’s AT5040 studio mic

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Genelec introduced its new Smart Active Monitor (SAM) concept. As part of a new streamlined marketing effort, Genelec has folded its line of DSP monitors under the SAM classiﬁcation, which now includes all Genelec monitors with a 82xx product name (for instance, the award-winning 8260A Tri-Ampliﬁed DSP Monitor System). Models in the SAM range are capable of automatically adapting to acoustical environments to offer an indispensable tool for sound professionals in broadcasting, post-production, music studios and more, says the company. A SAM system can be controlled with digital networking, enabling users to build highly ﬂexible computercontrolled systems of monitors. Dr Aki V Mäkivirta, Genelec Research and Development Manager, noted: “Smart Active Monitoring is a concept that bundles all the benefits of Genelec’s advanced monitoring systems to a single, easily understandable and descriptive term. SAM is also a concept that describes perfectly the current technology

Genelec models in the SAM range are capable of automatically adapting to acoustical environments

The J PRE 500 mic pre is inspired by the ﬂagship Aphex 1788A remote controlled preamp. They both have the same Jensen JT11K8 nickel input Transformer and Aphex patented mic limiter technology. Designed to provide “no-compromise audio

quality in the convenient 500 series format”, the J PRE 500 also features a Jensen JT-11DL nickel outputbalancing transformer. Nugen Audio, creator of intuitive tools for audio professionals, is porting its line of audio-metering plugins to the Avid AAX format, starting with the Nugen ISL true-peak limiter. “Many of our customers use Avid editing tools, so it was a natural course of action for us to create AAX plugins,” said Jon Schorah, Nugen Audio Creative Director. “This move ensures our customers will be able to continue using Nugen Audio products with Avid’s popular editing software well into the future.” DPA Microphones and ResInno, designers of specially engineered piano legs, teamed up at AES to highlight DPA’s complete line of instrument microphones. ResInno’s Grand Rossa piano design was on display at the DPA booth for attendees to listen to “the superb audio quality they produce through the DPA d:vote 4099P piano instrument microphones and 4006A, 4011A and 2000 Series Reference Standard Microphones”. Denmark’s NTP Technology chose the convention for the American introduction of the new DAD AX32 mastering-quality audio AD/DA converter. Housed in a compact 2RU chassis, the AX32 allows large multi-microphone arrays to be accommodated without the need to transport a second processor. All 32 microphone feeds can be connected back to the control room along a single Cat 5 cable via fully transparent and
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Aphex 500 Series
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In Broadcast - November 2012

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