Sweetwater Gearfest 2012

Gearfest 2012 was another great experience for me, once attended with my friend D. Lyles. This was my third time attending the event and I had just as much fun as the last two years. I got to see a lot of familiar faces, chat with some important people, and drool at sale prices at every tent. I noticed some products weren’t on sale for as low as they were the previous year. Sales were still were still good and you’d have to be a fool to come and not buy anything. I always put together a wishlist of what I want but after seeing other products on sale it makes it hard to make a final decision. Though I’m not in the market for a new mic the Miktek C7 was on sale for $749! Thats $150 off regular price. Another great sale was the Radial Q3 for $529, down from the regular price of $599 (which I actually ordered last night). The workshops last year I think were “ok” but this year they were good. Though I spent most my time in the tents with manufactures, I got to check out seminars from George Massenburg, Fab Dupont, Mike Wells, and one from Mojave showing off their mics in different configurations on acoustic guitars. Gearfest isn’t a place where new products are introduced, but It caught me off guard to see the new Daking Hybird compressor for the 500 series in Geoffe Daking’s lunchbox. Geoffe told me last year he was working on it but I didn’t expect to see until NAMM or maybe AES later this year. He said its called a hybird compressor because its VCA that acts like a FET. He said it was shipping now (though I haven’t seen on it any sites yet, including Daking’s) and he actually offered to sell me the one right out of his lunchbox. Dave HIll gave us a demo of his Europa mic pre and Titan compressor. I was blown away at what the Europa could do. You really could hear a difference with each knob twist. I ended up leaving gearfest with a API 6 slot lunchbox, Chandler Little Devil Pre, and tascam pr-10. People I noticed I didn’t see this year were Waves, Slate audio (and digital), and McDSP. Overall though another successful event for Sweetwater and I look forward to next year. Gearfest, unlike other similar events, is completely free. All you need to do is get there. With events like NAMM in LA and AES in NY out of reach for me, Fort Wayne is a tolerable 6 hour drive for me from Nashville. If you're like me and can get to Indiana faster than NY or LA I highly recommend checking out Gearfest next year. I forgot my digital camera so I had to take pics with my galaxy nexus, but here is a link to some photos I took. https://plus.google.com/b/113269535296910365369/113269535296910365369/posts/FLbNQUfxLGG

Winter NAMM 20112 wish list

 So the new year has came and its now January. January is one of my favorite months for two reasons. 1, Winter NAMM, and 2, CES. New studio gear and gadgets, one day I will have to attend both of these events. Here is 10 things I wish to see at NAMM this year.

1. The Avalon 737 is one of my favorite channels strips. Its been years since Avalon has released anything new. Would love see some new gear from them.
2. Same goes for Summit Audio. They were bought out a few years ago and said they would continue to build new gear. Well its been a few years so here’s to hoping we see something new soon.
3. I’m pretty stocked on plugins from last year but if Softube, McDsp, or Sound Toys announces anything new I will be excited to check it out. Hey Sound Toys, if your reading this would be a good time drop juice!
4. Dangerous has been one my favorite companies with products like the d-box, 2bus, and bax eq. Here’s hoping to see a compressor next.
5. JDK audio has been putting out products every few years. In a short time they produced the R20, R22, R24, and V14. I hope the R26 is a channel strip.
6. What ever happened to the Apogee Mic? Maybe we will see it at NAMM
7. Speaking of Apogee I hope see an upgrade to the ensemble. Something to go between the Symphony and ensemble would be much appreciated.
8. Geoffe Daking told me at Sweetwater’s Gearfest he was working on a new 500 series piece. Lets see it at NAMM!
9. Dear SSL, I absolutely love the alpha link. Excellent converter. But everyone doesn’t need 24 channels. I hope they will announce an 8 or 16 channel converter based off the alphalink.
10. I’ve never used a Vintech pre before but have heard great things about it. I want to see a the eq from the x73i shrunk to the 500 series format.

What do yal hope to see at NAMM?

Newer Doesn't Always Mean Better

In the audio world, newer doesn't always mean better, though in most cases it does. In electronic products such as smartphones, TV's, video game consoles, and computers, are contanstly being replaced by newer models with more impressive specs and performance. In audio however, this isn't the case. Lets take the Empirical Labs Distressor for example. The Distressor had its 15th year old birthday last year. The Avalon 737 channel strip is also more than a decade old. The RME Fireface series is coming up on a decade. The Lynx Aurora converters are now over 5 years old. Yet these products are still popular and selling well today. If you notice, most of the new gear today is made to sound like the old gear of the past. The Vintech series is made to recreate the classic Neve sound, and the Daking mic pre and eq is modeled after the Trident console. I'm not saying go buy the oldest gear you can afford, but I am saying if your looking at gear and one was built in 07, and one 05, don't expect the one built in 07 to sound better because its "newer". 


Because audio gear made over a decade ago can still be relevant today is actually a good thing. I don't think anyone will reinvent the microphone anytime soon. What I mean by this is you have condenser, ribbon, and dynamic mics. Will there be an awesome new technology to come out that will replace these types of mics making them obsolete? Not likely. So its a good thing because the same mic, mic pre, eq, and compressor you use today will still be able to function 20 years from now. This means you can buy gear and use it for the rest of your career. How many other industries can say that? Another good thing is that after a decade of production there are plenty of used ones available for cheaper. The bad thing about old gear still being relevant is that prices aren't likely to drop because of a products age, which makes sense. It something has been selling well for over a decade then why drop the price? If anything prices go up. An engineer I know was telling me the other day how his friend bought a tubetech CL1B for around $1800 brand new years ago. Now the price is almost doubled at $3500. So don't let the age of a product discourage you from purchasing it. (Unless its truly vintage and may be in need of constant repair.) Who knows, that gear you may end up buying that's a few years old may end up being a classic. Then you can be the one saying you bought it at lower price 10 years later when the price is doubled.