Summer NAMM '99 in Review: Recording and Computer Hardware

By Jeffrye Glenn Tveraas
jeffrye@harmony-central.com

August 27, 1999 - Here's the most frequently asked question I get these days from audio folk like you. "Jeff, I have a personal studio and I want to purchase one box that will improve my overall sound the most - what should it be? Oh yeah, it has to cost less than $300." Despite the plethora of outboard (and onboard) options like digital reverbs and modulators and such, and the care one must take when people are asking you for a very subjective judgement, my answer has been the same for quite a while now. And it has just been improved.

I believe that the BBE (www.bbesound.com) Sonic Maximizer is the single best "magical musical black box" around and I recommend it to both my friends whenever they ask. Used judiciously, a BBE adds a fine level of detail and "air" to individual tracks and overall mixes that gets you closer to that commercial studio sound than any other relatively inexpensive add-on can. And they've just improved it with the release of the models 482 and 882 featuring their "leaner and meaner" 4th generation processing engine. If your mixes are in need of clairity, check out these new boxes from BBE.

BBE 482

Soundscape Digital Technology was showing their PCI digital audio card system, the Mixtreme. This is one of the new wave of audio cards with one or more DSP's (Digital Signal Processors) right on the card which takes most of the work load off your main CPU by doing it on the card. Mixtreme has an 80Mhz Motorola DSP chip that takes care of the up to 24-bit, 16-track recording and real-time effects processing. There are interfaces for digital, analog, and ADAT technologies, and the latency problem is nil since the software and hardware are fully integrated with the on-board DSP. The mixing software has a great look and is supported by Waves, TC, and Aphex plug-ins, and it's expandable. Again, for Windows users only (what do they have against us Apple users?). Also look for their R.Ed next-generation DAW, which has just started shipping. More info at www.soundscape-digital.com.

This show is getting louder but it's not as bad as shows past. Nashville is definitely mellower than El Lay and the lack of the west coast hipper-than-thou attitude is a big plus for me. It's simply easier to get my work done without wondering if that's really Eddie Vedder or Van Halen up ahead of me. Actually it was Jason Scheff, bassist and singer for "Chicago", once from San Diego, my old stompin' grounds. I jogged his memory about some old nightspots in SoCal we used to play and he was kind enough to say that he remembered me before we were interupted by an over-zealous Alesis rep who just "had" to show him the new stuff. So I didn't have a chance to slip Jason a copy of my CD but I did get to overhear the starline tour at Alesis and yes, they had some stuff to be excited about.

For me their big news was the new MasterLink ML9600, the first affordable ($1699 MSRP) standalone product to combine hard disk recording, editing, and DSP software for pre-mastering and CD-R creation. The ML9600 can store, deliver, and play 24-bit/96kHz audio on standard recordable compact discs, as well as standard red book too. This is a great tool for bridging the upcoming gap between current CD audio technologies and the new super CD's with greater bandwidth and definition (have you noticed that an awful lot of gaps are getting bridged these days?). With the 3.2 gigabyte internal hard drive you can burn your own CD's right in the ML on its 4x CD recorder. This is major stuff and you should go to www.alesis.com to get the Boz Scaggs lowdown on this puppy.

Alesis MasterLink ML9600
(Click for a close-up)

OASYS PCI

Korg had several new goodies that caught my eye (I'm better now) but the hippest for me was their new Oasys PCI card featuring open architecture synthesis, EFX, and audio I/O. This monster features not one, but five DSP's onboard to do the work of a full-fledged multi-algorithm synthesizer. It features analog modeling, FM, sample-based, and wavetable, plus a host of others all loadable from disk with over 100 effects algorithms, many from their "Trinity" workstation. The card offers 12 inputs and outputs: stereo analog, stereo S/PDIF and eight channel ADAT optical (like the 1212 I/O card). I/O is 24 bit and features zero latency due to all the onboard DSP horsepower. Full ASIO support for Mac and Windows apps as well as standard Windows drivers. Version 1.0 will be Mac only (around October) with Windows to come soon afterwards. The price isn't set yet, but expect it to be around $2300 MSRP. This is like getting a Trinity workstation and 1212 I/O card in your computer - very hip.

I think it's amazing how much sheer musical power is at our computer geeky fingertips these days. It is so damn seductive. It's so easy to sequester yourself in front of your personal computer with your instruments and microphones and little else and create aural excitement all the way from burning inspiration to burning CD's. And yet the one thing hardest to reproduce is the sound of musicians playing together. There is a synergy, a synchronicity if you will, where the result is always greater than the sum of its parts. Believe me, I know. I've been recording as a one-man band since 1969 with my Lafayette Radio Electronics sound-on-sound 1/4" reel to reel tape recorder, bouncing mono tracks and starting all over again when you get it wrong. And my best efforts have been the ones with more than one mind on the menu. Use the technology, but don't let it get ion the way of what's real. That's a tip from your uncle Jeff. Back to the show.