If you’ve been following us over the last week you’ll know that we did a Masterclass at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, we attended Summer NAMM 2019! Summer NAMM was an amazing experience as always. We got to see a ton of new gear, talk to a bunch of vendors, meet some very talented engineers/producers/mixers/songwriters/musicians, and meet some of YOU! It’s always great to put faces to names and meet the wonderful people in this community in person! Thank you for coming to say hi!
While we were at NAMM we did a few interviews for our FAQ Friday episode “How to get a better vocal sound- Summer NAMM 2019” but there were so many amazing people to talk to that we had to break it up into multiple episodes!
Today’s video features interviews with Stealth Sonics, Wireworld Pro Audio, Sonarworks, Burg microphones, Little Labs, OVO Speaker, Nugen Audio, Eventide, BAE Audio, Sound Theory, Rupert Neve Designs! This week we’re back at the studio doing the usual hustle! It never stops!
Ciari Guitars
Nothing quite compares to the anxiety-inducing experience of traveling with a guitar. And Ciari Founder and CEO, Jonathan Spangler can tell you all about it. As you are about to find out, the story of Ciari Travel Guitars came about like many of the worlds greatest inventions – out of necessity.
The Ciari Ascender is a gig-ready, premium travel guitar, fitted with an innovative folding neck and top-notch hardware components, for traveling musicians who value quality and sound, but don’t want to surrender their beloved instruments to the airlines and baggage handlers of the world. In the past, guitar players have come up with creative ways…
The Ascender™ by Ciari™ is the world’s first premium travel guitar, blending pro quality with unrivaled convenience for the most stress-free air travel you will ever experience as a musician.
The Ascender is available in several distinct color options and is finished in our unique Nano-Satin finish. For fans of a more traditional look, we also offer a high gloss finish. You also have the option of a natural neck or Jet Black neck.
Gizmotron
The Gizmotron® 2.0 is a device which challenges guitar and bass players everywhere to re-imagine and re-define their place in the stringed instrument world. Offering guitar and bass players endless sustain, organic violin and cello sounds, and the ability to bow polyphonic chord arrangements. Being an entirely mechanical device, the Gizmotron® 2.0 offers nuanced touch-sensitive playing, where by applying pressure its rotating wheels, the player can control the timbre, attack and sustain of each note or chord.
With the Gizmotron® 2.0, you can create endless sustain, haunting drones or bow polyphonic chord arrangements. It is an effect that entices orchestral sounds from your instrument and unveils a new dimension of sonic enjoyment for players and listeners alike.
Nugen Audio
MasterCheck is the complete optimisation solution for today’s delivery services, a plug-in providing the tools to make sure your music reaches the listener as intended. Streaming apps, download stores and podcasts all use data compression, loudness normalisation or both. These processes can affect your track in undesirable ways: your loud, punchy mix could end up quiet and flat, or suffer clipping and distortion.
MasterCheck reveals these problems ahead of time, and enables you to deliver masters perfectly tuned for specific playout systems.
MasterCheck demonstrates the effects of loudness normalisation so you can find the sweet spot between perceived loudness and dynamics, and allows you to hear artefacts introduced by the encoding process ahead of time. You can quickly find the point where these processes will start to negatively impact the music, putting you back in control.
Stealth Sonics
Are a group of audiologist, engineers and musicians that have been serving the audiology and audio needs of musicians, audio professionals, audiophiles and patients in SouthEast-Asia for almost 10 years. We now bring our in-depth knowledge and experience to precision tuned In-Ear Monitors through Stealth Sonics to the whole world.
Stealth Sonics is approaching in-ear monitors in a whole new way, using science that leverages their innovations in the medical, music, acoustic and aerospace fields to craft in-ear monitors that are as unique as you are—from custom precision-tuned systems to personalized finishes that let your monitors become an extension of your varied lifestyle.
Most people don’t know that your ear is a unique acoustic machine, with a frequency response all its own. And like fingerprints, every ear is different.That’s why we offer IEMs in both convenient, affordable universal-fit models or custom-tuned systems offering the ultimate in personalization. Choose from three multi-driver configurations, including balanced-armature and hybrid-driver options.
Our Precision-Tuned In-Ear Monitoring Systems use our proprietary SonicFlo technology to engineer second-bend impressions that conform exactly to your inner ear canal, for
superior fidelity, minimal acoustic interference and a perfect fit.
Our universal in-ear monitors offer convenience, customization and value at every price point. All universal IEMs feature Stealth Damping Technology with removable faceplates for
extending bass response, and a variety of cable options to further fine-tune your experience.
Wireworld Pro Audio
Like many audiophiles, David Salz has spent decades refining his music listening experience. He is truly passionate about using objective listening tests to create cables that preserve the finest details and expression of music. The closer they get to bringing the intensity and beauty of live music to your listening room, the closer they have come to achieving their goals.
Wireworld Pro Audio is moving in a direction of steady growth and progress with dedication to loyal, well-trained staff and excellent customer service; people that take pride in creating a product that truly does live up to its reputation.
This radically new cable design surpasses the sonic limitations of conventional cables to provide faster cleaner attack with more complex and intense tone quality. This extremely flexible and quiet cable is also very durable, thanks to a high strength core made of DuPont Kevlar fibers.
OVO Speaker
OVO portable digital USB speaker delivers 24-bit high resolution audio and really packs a punch – it’s much louder than any speaker its size. This means movies and games are more exciting as it helps you and your friends become immersed in the action.
No audio latency, no battery charging, no pairing or software issues, ever. Just plug to your PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone, Switch, PS4 or digital instrument and enjoy!
Designed and manufactured in Japan, see how the full digital signal processing, passive radiator for deeper bass, and peak power capacitors create the ultimate sonic clarity.
Whitestone
They worked with their electrical engineer for 5 years, on how to implement the features they envisioned…circuit design, prototypes…add features, scrap features, new prototypes, listen…tweak… build revisions…listen some more…tweak some more…over and over. They almost threw in the towel on several occasions because they felt what they’ve created was a truly unique, truly exceptional processing device.
They designed features into the P331 that never sound overly processed, unnatural or heavy-handed. From the gentle parallel LIFT filter to the optional output transformers and clean solid-state output gain, all aspects of the P331 were designed to provide a tool which helps achieve that elusive element, that “something special” which is difficult to describe but unmistakable when heard.
The Whitestone Audio P331 Tube Loading Amplifier was developed to bring professional tracking, mix and mastering engineers versatile, elegant, precise and repeatable audio circuit variation. There’s nothing like running a signal through a well-designed piece of analog gear, at “unity” gain without any “processing” applied at all. Simply exploiting the sound of some of these analog input and output gain circuits with processing bypassed is often-times just the thing to bring subtle life or organic size and depth to recorded audio. That’s what the fully balanced P331 is all about; giving you control of how an audio signal passes from input to output and how it can be enhanced throughout its journey.
Useful Arts Audio
Useful Arts was born out of an aesthetic quest for vibrant, living sound straight from the source — not merely a technically clean sound that needs enhancement after enhancement to speak in a mix. Back in the days when the U-47 was a commonly-used “standard” microphone, there were no “standard” preamps — studios used hand-built consoles with custom tube preamps designed to capture the personality of the recording. In the same way, Their hand-built products are designed to enhance dynamics and perceived tonal richness, not simply to make a small signal electrically bigger.
The concept behind the SFP-30 is simple: Take the exact audio and power circuitry from the SFP-60, put a single channel into a tabletop format, and make it less than half the price of the SFP-60. Done. Everything about the SFP-30 signal path is identical to the SFP-60, except that the SFP-30 lacks the DI input. Other than that, you can now get the finest, most flexible tube preamp available — with the legendary variable second harmonics from the SFP-60
The concept behind the BF-S is simple. We took the audio circuitry of the BF-1 and coupled it with the linear power supply from the SFP-60. The result? Astounding clarity, headroom and noise specs that only come with the nearly-noiseless high voltage that a linear power supply can deliver.
Eventide
Our more than 40 years in the business is testament to our dedicated delivery of relevant products that artists are excited to record with. What started in a New York basement in 1971 has become a ubiquitous name in audio broadcasting and recording. They’ve revolutionized the industry with our H910, Harmonizer, Instant Phaser, and they’re incorporating today’s technology with more recent favorites like our stompboxes and plug-ins.
Most reverbs are earth-bound and constrained by the physics of the real world. Our Blackhole reverb breaks the rules by allowing you to create virtual spaces that could never exist in reality (at least the one we inhabit). At large sizes, its soft attack and lingering, harmonic tails allows it to really shine on guitars, strings and pads. At small sizes those very same qualities can add an angelic sheen to vocals or turn a simple drum track into an otherworldly rhythm section.
UltraTap is a unique multi-tap effect capable of rhythmic delays, glitchy reverbs, huge pad-like volume swells and extraordinary modulation. It’s the perfect tool for creating drum fills, vocal choruses, swelling guitar chords and other evolving effects — everything from reversed reverbs to a massed church choir singing a Gregorian chant in Notre-Dame Cathedral!
Fix Audio Designs
THE FIX CONSOLE
AN INFINITELY ADJUSTABLE AND EXPANDABLE FRAME DESIGN THAT CAN BE SET AT JUST ABOUT ANY ANGLE.
FIX Audio Designs will be delivering a 64 input IMMERSIVE console to a client in NY, with 7.1 panning on the floor including mid-surround, and quad panning for the ceiling
Sonarworks
Sonarworks started off in 2012 when two music lovers met a scientist. A perfect storm of acoustic know-how and passion for good sound became the software that’s currently transforming sound monitoring.
Every member of the Sonarworks team makes sure that the progress behind our products constantly marches onward but the passion burns constant.
Reference 4 Studio Edition offers the full package of highly powerful software, providing consistent reference sound, both in the studio and on the go. You can also measure your studio with the included mic, in only 10 minutes. Reference 4 then creates a calibration profile. For headphones, select a pre-made profile and you’re ready to go. Calibration can be run in DAW via plugin for lowest latency or via Systemwide for maximum versatility.
Sound Theory
Soundtheory emerged in 2016 after nearly 14 years of fundamental research. For more than a decade, they have worked on an alternative approach to signal processing inspired by quantum theory and mathematical methods such as non-commutative algebra, differential geometry, and information theory. Sound, theory.
They discovered deep insights into how the human brain processes sound. This research spiraled into the development of new and unique methods for realtime audio processing. They are particularly proud of our highly advanced human auditory perception model which allows us to analyze sound the same way a human would perceive it.
Gullfoss is an easy-to-use tool for everyone from the amateur musician to the professional mastering engineer. Its clean user interface offers a set of basic parameters that can be adjusted to improve the clarity, detail, spatiality, and balance of a mix or recording in a matter of seconds.
Little Labs
Little Labs was founded in 1988 by Jonathan Little. He moved to Los Angeles from the San Francisco Bay Area in 1979 with a background in electronics. he learned his craft at his father’s lab at Stanford University, the Palo Alto music scene, and a year course he took at College for Recording Arts in San Francisco in 1978, with mentors Dave Tonneli, Leo De Gar Kulka and Tom Lubin.
Since 1988 Little Labs has created audio tools for use in the pro audio industry, to aid the audio engineer in his quest for sonic pleasure for himself and his clients. Little Labs products specialize in addressing previously un-addressed audio applications, empowering the audio engineer with new tools, allowing new techniques to explore deeper into the control of sound.
Keep an eye out for the LL2A!
BAE Audio
BAE are manufactures of high end microphone preamp/equalizers faithful to vintage designs of the seventies and before. With a penchant for high quality transformers like Carnhill (St lves) and Jensen, everything is as close to the vintage philosophy as possible. Not only that but they insist everything is hand-wired/soldered using discreet electronics and not economized on a circuit board.
The UK Sound 276 Stereo Compressor is a dual version of their 176 compressor, a modern take on the classic 1176 style compressor. Now you can add a high-quality stereo compressor to the rack without breaking the bank.
The Input control adjusts incoming levels from the preamp, working similarly to the threshold on a standard compressor. Choose between four Ratio settings, 4:1, 8:1, 12:1 and 20:1. Flipping the “!” switch will engage the “all buttons in” setting found on classic 1176 style compressors, the perfect tool for adding layers of depth and excitement to any source. Use the Output dial to send the perfect level to you DAW or Tape Machine.
Burg Microphones
Are a new Berlin pro-audio company. Burg Microphones is the brainchild of producer, engineer and analog audio lover, Andrew Myburgh. Our first release, the M1, is the revolutionary new tube microphone by world renowned audio designers Andreas Grosser and Eckehard Dux.
The vintage German tube microphones have long been revered as the world’s best. They believe the M1 stands proudly amongst them and is the beginning of Burg Microphones legacy to produce the highest quality and innovation for recording audio professionals.
The M1 has a German made Mylar M7 capsule made by Siegfried Thiersch and a Russian military grade long life tube. Its body and mechanics are built to last a lifetime. The M1 build quality and appearance are unprecedented.
The M1’s amplifier has an incredible linear frequency response with minimal cut off below 30Hz or over 20Khz. With two custom built Haufe transformers; one in the mic and another in the power supply, the amplifier design, combined with the German made capsule and the new capsule basket design give the M1 its unique sound.
The M1 also has a super low noise floor, a monster output and handles SPL better than your favourite FET kick drum mic does. Variable polar patterns and true cardioid is a main feature.
Jammy Instruments
Jammy Instruments U.S. Corp is a music tech company focused on designing innovative hardware and software solutions to make music practice and creation mobile and accessible.
Our product line includes Jammy Guitar, a digital guitar with a detachable neck, featuring proprietary optical sensors and mechanical solutions that enable modular design, and companion apps for iOS and Android.
With Jammy Guitar, we aim to provide the best option for both hobby guitarists looking for a full-fledged super-portable instrument to practice anywhere, and for music creators in search of quality and affordable stringed MIDI controller.
