Winter NAMM opened on Thursday with the introduction of the new North Hall giving the giant show in Anaheim more space than ever. Mostly housing audio products, the new structure sports a glass exterior bringing a lot of natural light to a building that sports 25-foot ceilings,100,000 sq. ft. of exhibit area, and a second-floor outdoor balcony for the exhibitors that face Katella Blvd. There was plenty of new gear on hand that Mix will cover over the next four days.
Allen & Heath had its SQ series consoles at NAMM for the first time. The rack-mountable SQ-5 has 16 onboard preamps, 17 faders, and eight softkeys while the SQ-6 provides 24 preamps, 25 faders, four assignable rotary controls and 16 softkeys. Both models support up to 56 input channels via remote expanders and both feature a networking slot for optional Dante, Waves and other cards. An ecosystem of apps, remote expanders, networking cards and personal mixers multiplies SQ expansion and integration possibilities.
Audinate introduced Dante AVIO, a family of cost-effective endpoint adapters allowing easy connection of legacy analog and digital audio equipment to Dante networks. The Dante AVIO series features six new adapters including line-in and line-out analog adapters, a bi-directional AES3/EBU adapter and a bi-directional stereo USB adapter. Each Dante AVIO adapter acts as a completely independent Dante network device, allowing legacy gear to enjoy the benefits of networked audio. These devices can now seamlessly transmit high quality, uncompressed audio streams over long distances without the noise and ground issues common to analog connections.
The F124 bass enclosure from Funktion-One features two voice coils and intense magnetic flux controlling a 24-inch cone for impressive accuracy, excellent transient response, and extended depth to below 30Hz. The Funktion-One design team worked closely with Precision Devices to find the best performing solution, eventually developing a double 6-inch voice coil motor with an unprecedented Bl factor of 50 to give the necessary motive power.
Internet Co. had their Sound it! 8 Basic DAW at the booth. It supports up to 192 kHz, 24-bit PCM files with timed recording with selectable preroll, insert recording between markers, and overwrite recording. Sound it! 8 Basic’s editing features include cut, copy, paste, trim, and merge; crossfades with selectable time and custom crossfade curves; normalize, fade, reverse phase, insert silence, and swap L/R tracks; and an undo history.
Wave Alchemy’s Evolution drum machine features 28,000 samples including vintage and modern drum machines, synths, and acoustic instruments, found sounds, foley and more. Evolution’s slick, creatively inspiring interface enables up to 12 ‘voices’ to be brought together in a kit preset, each one a mix of three discrete sample layers, loaded via an easy-to-use browser. Evolution also boasts an incredibly powerful sequencing engine and FX Sequencer, where the pitch, panning, effects sends and Macros of each voice are modulated over time allowing up to 12 sequences available in a patch.
Digital Audio Denmark is at the show as part of the AES@NAMM initiative demonstrating a complete digital studio setup, including Dante AoIP with AX32, MOM, Pro | Mon | 3 and SPQ. The MOM is a remote control, connected via Ethernet, and no audio is passing through the unit. The audio-routing happens within the AX32 or DX32R and is set up via the DADman software facilitating a complete in-the-box signal flow and experience.
D.A.S. showed its brand new Event-212A powered, 3-way line array employing two D.A.S. 12-inch loudspeakers in a dual-band configuration where each speaker operates in a specific frequency range. The D.A.S. loudspeaker units have been teamed up with a single M-75 compression driver and purpose-designed injected aluminum high-frequency waveguide.
Gig Gear LLC launched the Two Hand Touch Harness, a wearable iPad and tablet case that is secured to the chest via a flexible harness, leaving both hands available to interface with remote mixing apps and other apps necessary during live production. Two models are available: the Two Hand Touch 9 and the Two Hand Touch 12, which are designed to perfectly fit the standard iPad 9.7-inch size and the iPad Pro 12.9-inch size, respectively.
Bittree showcased the 1×16 PS1625QX pass-through panel. It is available in a range connection types: 16 male XLR connectors; 16 female XLR connectors; 8 male and eight female XLR connectors; or 16 female 1/4″ TRS jacks. Audio signals are passed through to two DB25 connectors on the rear of the units, providing easy interfacing with Avid ProTools and TASCAM-compatible equipment. A large silkscreened diagram on the rear panel shows the unit’s TASCAM-standard pinout, providing an easy wiring reference for engineers.
The Soundtheory LTD. GULLFOSS plug-in is an intelligent automatic equalizer that uses their unique computational auditory perception technology to identify and resolve problems in the frequency balance of a signal. It supports AU, VST/VST3, and AAX formats. The equalizer is capable of changing its frequency response, at the highest precision, more than 100 times per second and without introducing audible artifacts or degrading signal quality. Together with the highly advanced computational auditory perception model that has been developed by Soundtheory, GULLFOSS is the first and only product of its kind.
Watch: The NAMM Show 2018 Is Open! See What’s Happening
