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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Y'all ready to be history?
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Get started.
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Welcome.
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Hi.
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Hi.
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Hi.
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Hello everyone.
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To the Pro Audio Suite.
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These guys are professional.
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They're motivated.
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With Tech the VO stars.
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George Witton, founder of Source Elements.
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Robert Marshall, international audio engineer.
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Darren Robbo Robertson and Global Voice.
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Andrew Peters, thanks to Triboo, Austrian Audio, Making
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Passion Heard.
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Source Elements, George the Tech Witton, and Robbo
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and AP's international demos.
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To find out more about us, check theproaudiosuite
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.com.
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Line up, man.
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Here we go.
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And welcome to another Pro Audio Suite.
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Thanks to Tribooth.
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Don't forget the code.
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T-R-I-P-A-P 200 to
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get $200 off your Tribooth.
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And Austrian Audio, Making Passion Heard.
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Now, George did catch up with Austrian Audio
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whilst at NAMM in California.
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And Robert was there also, of course, on
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the Source Elements stand.
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So, you guys both have some stories to
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tell.
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Who wants to kick us off?
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I'll kick it off, I guess, because I
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was there as a content creator this year.
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First time I saw a content creator badge.
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So, it's kind of neat because I've been
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going long enough and showing up as media
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long enough and consistently that they actually now
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invite me for the first time.
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This is the first year where I got
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an email.
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Did they let you go without paying them?
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Yeah.
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This is the first time where I got
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an email months in advance expecting me to
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be there, asking me, you know, here's where
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you get your badge, etc.
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So, I had my QR code.
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It was awesome.
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I parked, went right out of the elevator,
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scanned my badge, QR code.
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They printed me off a badge and I
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was in.
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Wait, did they pay for your parking?
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No, I paid for parking.
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Oh, I was about to say.
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Damn.
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But, yeah, and I was in.
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And what was the very first booth I
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wandered into?
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Straight from the hallway, Austrian Audio.
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It was perfect timing.
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Not only that, was it right there.
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I was going to sit down and do
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that interview that you guys saw on our
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Facebook feed.
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And they were like, we're doing a press
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conference in 10 minutes.
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Why don't you stick around for that?
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So, it was just amazing timing.
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I was there for the press conference and
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was there for the announcement that DPA is
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now owner of Austrian Audio.
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Yeah.
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Which was a big, quite an announcement.
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I mean, we knew about it already because
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we went through it.
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It was already public, but still, it was
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quite amazing that that is the case.
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So, we're really curious to see what comes
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of that.
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Actually, talking about that, I know we've gone
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through this about the DPA thing before.
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But, did it seem like it was a
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really positive thing for Austrian Audio, do you
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think?
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They seemed to see.
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Like, when I talked to Bernard, Bernard, right?
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Or Bernie?
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Bernard.
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Yeah, he seemed pretty.
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I talked to him when we were just
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setting up that day because Freeman didn't give
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us our table for the whole fucking day.
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Day one kind of stuff.
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Yeah, so I was just chatting with him
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for a while.
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He seemed very stoked about it.
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Honored and good company.
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Yeah, he didn't seem to have any...
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No, the PR around it, of course, was
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very positive.
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I mean, that's obvious, right?
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But, you know, the thing that I noticed
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and the thing that they called out clearly
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in the press conference, which will be up
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on one of our YouTube channels at some
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point, I'll throw it up.
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Is that the two product lines do not
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directly overlap each other.
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There is very minimal overlapping of products.
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For example, when Rode bought Mackie, they both
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make a podcaster mixer.
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I mean, they're literally directly in competition with
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each other.
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And now they are both under one roof.
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And I have no idea what's going to
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happen after that, right?
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But in this case, there's so little overlap,
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you know?
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And anything that does overlap, I would say
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the price points are different.
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I don't think DPA had one large diaphragm
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mic in their entire lineup.
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No, they mentioned that they had done one,
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but it clearly was not...
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And then Austrian Audio had one small diaphragm
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mic in their entire lineup, which is basically
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what Andrew's on right now.
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Yeah, the CCA.
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Yeah, so there's totally no overlap.
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I don't think DPA has any multi-pattern
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mics in their entire lineup.
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I don't believe they do either.
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Yeah.
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In fact, one thing one gentleman told me,
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and I don't recall at this point whether
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this was on camera or off, I think
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it was off camera, was that they're looking
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forward to the fact that Austrian Audio has
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a team of software engineers that do the
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software controls for their products.
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They also have the firmware development stuff that
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DPA doesn't have.
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So they weren't just acquiring a product line,
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they were acquiring engineers in this process.
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And DPA was definitely really excited about that.
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So I don't see how it could in
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any way be a negative.
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We just want to make sure that both
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companies thrive into the future, because they're both...
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DPA is a brand that keeps sponsoring and
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sending us really cool stuff.
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And we just hope that that's part of
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the future.
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We hope that...
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It in no way means that DPA wants
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to replace Austrian's product line.
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No, it's just that way.
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That's not happening.
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And I also asked if the brands would
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remain independent.
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That also is true.
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So Austrian Audio as a brand will remain
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Austrian Audio as a brand, which is very
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smart.
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Because those guys have spent...
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They've spent a lot of time building that
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brand name.
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Nearly 10 years building that brand name.
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Has it been 10 years?
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I don't know.
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Six, at least five or six.
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It was, it would be...
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Oh, let me think.
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It was...
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I met Martin when he came here, and
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that was just when COVID kicked off.
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So was that 2020?
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It's like five years.
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So there was like five plus another two
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before that.
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So you've got probably about seven years, maybe.
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Yeah.
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Which is not a long time, really.
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And that company clearly was in existence not
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publicly for quite a while before that.
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You have to imagine that all that was
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happening.
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So let's call it eight years.
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But yeah, so I think it's all going
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to be good things for them.
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So while we were there, we got to
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see the press conference.
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And if you've already seen our Facebook, then
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you've seen a video where we got to
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see a demonstration of the new OC S10.
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Which is on our YouTube channel as well,
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by the way.
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It is on the YouTube channel.
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And you'll notice the not-so-subtle backdrop
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image that they use.
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It is the hand of God reaching for
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the OC S10.
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It's a bit bold in terms of PR.
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I like it.
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I like it.
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But it's bold.
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But, you know, if you see the video,
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you'll see why the mic is cool.
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It's like a diaphragm floating in the middle
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of a huge, open, unobstructed basket.
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Exactly.
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And that's what they said OC stands for,
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is open capsule.
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That is what OC stands for.
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And so this is even more open.
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They made a very large basket around the
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capsule.
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The capsule is very exposed.
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So this is not a mic with an
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internal pop filter.
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This is a very open, very clean microphone.
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It's sort of like it's a flagship mic.
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It's clearly priced in the ballpark of the
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Neumann U87.
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Obviously, this mic is going to out.
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But honestly, I thought the 818 was like
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right there with the 87 cleaner.
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I've been calling this the U87 killer for
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a while.
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But, you know, that's what everybody says.
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But I really think the OC818 is, I
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mean, I can't imagine why you'd want a
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U87 when you have an OC818.
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It does everything, and then more, and it's
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cleaner.
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The only reason that you do is because
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you're an engineer or you're a studio owner,
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and you have to have certain mics in
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the quiver because that's what the production asks
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for.
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That's what the client expects.
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I just ran with that today where it
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was a well-known show, and I was
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helping them set up another really small studio.
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So they just ended up in that situation
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where the talent is in like some tiny
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little town.
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They found the one studio, and they're like,
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you know, what do you got?
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And I just heard the whole conversation.
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I was like, I got this, that, and
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the other thing.
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The guy had okay mics, like 887, that
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one.
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That's the one.
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That was it.
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Ended conversation.
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All the time people ask me what mic
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should I get, and I go, well, if
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you're buying microphones for brand recognition only because
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that is what you feel is important as
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a voice actor, that you must have a
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certain brand and model because that's what they're
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looking for.
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If you feel like it's going to hurt
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you, fine.
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You should have a TLM-103, or if
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you have the scratch, a U87.
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But that is not the reason to buy
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a mic at all.
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It's just these mics, Neumann, and they absolutely
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earn this, right?
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They've been at the forefront of condenser mic
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popularization.
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RCA and Neumann were the first to make
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condenser microphones.
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They have a huge head start on everybody,
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Telefunken, Neumann.
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And so they deserve it.
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But many, many years have passed, and there's
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revolution and evolution and brands coming and going,
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and there's a lot of room for innovation
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out there.
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Neumann is keeping it kind of old school.
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I mean, they're branching out by coming out
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with their own audio interface, which really was
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not really their own audio interface.
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It was actually a rebadged version of another
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brand audio interface.
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Here, just mute that and tell me who
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it was.
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Oh, crap.
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Man, I knew you were going to ask
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me who it was.
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Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
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I'm thinking of Neve.
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Oh, yeah.
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So Neve comes out with like a...
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The 88R or the 88R.
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Just bleedingly expensive, like...
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2-channel.
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They came out with the $1 Scarlett
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2i2.
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Yeah, exactly.
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That's what Neve came out with, by the
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way.
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Yeah, and then Neumann comes out with like
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the next closest thing to Apollo, basically.
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From, you know, built by another company.
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Speaking of Neve, I did see all of
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the booths that you're probably thinking of.
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I saw Neve.
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I saw the Neve booth.
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What's the AMS Neve?
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Is that what it's called?
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Yes, AMS Neve.
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I saw the AMS Neve booth, and I
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saw the Rupert Neve booth.
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If you're not keeping score, there are two
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Neve brands, which is a crazy thing.
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Well, Focusrite is technically a Neve brand.
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Correct.
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Well, yeah.
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Neve, but Rupert started Focusrite.
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Well, he started Focusrite, right?
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It doesn't have the name and title.
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And then could you consider Amec a Neve
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brand?
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Kind of.
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Not really.
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Because that's also one of his designs?
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Well, when he left Neve, he then went
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to Amec.
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Oh.
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Oh, he said right.
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I didn't know that.
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Rupert has his fingerprint on almost every circuit
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at this point.
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It's either a Rupert, or maybe it's a
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Telex.
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I'm not sure.
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Universal Audio.
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They're kind of the American Neve.
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Can I say that?
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Yeah, you can say that, I think.
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Well, Ward Beck is the Canadian Neve.
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They sometimes call Neotech the American Neve, but
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it definitely isn't.
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I mean, it is and it isn't.
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But UA is more in that heritage of
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true, like the 40s, 50s, the burgeoning of
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the whole audio industry.
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They were there.
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I didn't have the time to focus in
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on those high-end boutique makers, but I
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did see Neve had an 88 series compressor,
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so it was supposed to be the mate
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to the 88...
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What is it called?
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The 88C is the USB audio interface that
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they made?
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I don't know.
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You can look it up.
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And they have a compressor now that's the
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same form factor.
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It would stack quite a bit.
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A third of a rack space.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Like a chunky third.
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Yeah.
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Let's call it a chunky third of a
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rack space.
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With the big, giant Neve knob with the
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wings on it.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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You didn't have time to go over and
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say hi to Jonathan Little, probably, huh?
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No, I...
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There's this guy.
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I've seen at NAMM since the aughts.
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That's 2008 for you and me, kids.
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I thought that was the 90s, but yeah.
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Since the aughts.
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And his name is Jonathan Little, and his
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company is called Little Labs, and I love
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his vibe.
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He's got all kinds of cool tools.
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He's a cool dude, and he makes really
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cool circuits, and you've never talked to anybody
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who makes equipment who's more enthusiastic about his
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circuits, like the way he talks about them.
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Except for maybe John Hardy.
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Yeah, maybe John Hardy, but I don't know.
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Is John Hardy making new stuff?
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No, he just makes the same preamp for
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the last 40 years, and he can talk
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about it for 40 years.
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Right, but Jonathan is making new stuff.
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Almost every year, he's got something new.
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Maybe every two years, Jonathan has something new,
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and he talks about that circuit design.
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And even if you don't understand really what
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he's saying, and honestly, I don't really understand
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a lot of what he's saying because I
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don't know circuit design, but it sounds amazing,
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and the way he describes it, it makes
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you want to use that thing.
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But it's also not just circuit design.
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He comes up with cool, no-one-else
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-has-it products.
00:12:58
I was telling you how when I was
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in physics class when I was in college,
00:13:02
I went to my teacher and said, how
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do you make a circuit that will just
00:13:05
rotate the phase of a signal?
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Not just flip it out of phase.
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Just continuously rotate it.
00:13:12
Continuously rotate the phase.
00:13:13
Right, and my genius teacher is just like,
00:13:15
oh, yeah, this, that, and the other thing,
00:13:17
and you can't do it with one knob,
00:13:18
but you can do it with the first
00:13:19
180 with one knob, the second 180 with
00:13:20
the other knob, and then two years later,
00:13:25
you're flipping through Mix Magazine, and little labs
00:13:27
has a phase mistress or whatever the name
00:13:32
of his product is.
00:13:33
The names are clever, too.
00:13:34
He has a VOG box.
00:13:35
It's called the Voice of God.
00:13:37
Right, like a low-frequency resonance thing, and
00:13:40
he's got this matrix thing for guitar players
00:13:43
so they can hook up all their pedals,
00:13:45
and then just by pushing buttons, change the
00:13:47
order of how they're connected.
00:13:49
Just cool, no one else has it stuff.
00:13:51
Yeah, he has a sweet headphone amp called
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the Monotore because it lets you sum different
00:13:59
sets of mono signals, like sum left, both
00:14:03
inputs to your left ear, both inputs to
00:14:05
the right ear.
00:14:05
I mean, every single way of summing things
00:14:08
is a mode on the Monotore headphone amp,
00:14:10
right, and it's an ultra-clean, ultra-clean
00:14:13
headphone amp.
00:14:14
So anyway, that was cool.
00:14:16
I saw my friends from Grace Design, Eben
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and Michael.
00:14:19
They have a new audio interface?
00:14:20
A new audio interface.
00:14:21
They finally launched their multi-channel, rack-mounted
00:14:25
audio interface, the serious one that you put
00:14:28
in a studio that lets you plug every
00:14:30
single signal into it.
00:14:32
And it's got a low-latency DSP mixer
00:14:34
in it, right?
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It does.
00:14:35
It has a monitor mixer that does up
00:14:38
to eight outputs, so you can create eight
00:14:41
headphone mixes, and it's a two-rack space,
00:14:44
64 in, 64 out.
00:14:45
And it's $64.
00:14:48
No, what did he say?
00:14:49
I think he threw me a number, and
00:14:51
it was high, as you would expect, but
00:14:53
the thing is, it's modular.
00:14:55
$62, I think it was, wasn't it?
00:14:57
Oh, yeah.
00:14:58
Canadian.
00:14:59
You can buy it almost empty with one
00:15:02
card, you know?
00:15:04
But you can load it up with cards,
00:15:06
and you can choose whatever I.O. you
00:15:08
want.
00:15:08
You can have a mix of AES and
00:15:10
analog.
00:15:11
It'll plug into a DigiDesign rig.
00:15:13
It'll plug into MADI.
00:15:14
It'll plug into Dante, you know, web.
00:15:19
It does all that stuff.
00:15:20
So let me ask you a question.
00:15:21
Was there anything there that competes with this?
00:15:23
No.
00:15:24
And I showed the Passport VO to numerous
00:15:28
vendors because, first of all, I did show
00:15:31
it to Michael Grace from Grace Design.
00:15:33
He does all their hardware design.
00:15:35
And I was saying earlier how software, when
00:15:38
we were talking about DPA and how they
00:15:40
were happy to get, he said the reason
00:15:41
we could make the 107 was we finally
00:15:43
had a great software team because the 107
00:15:47
is running a web server on board, and
00:15:50
so every single thing you see on laptop
00:15:53
or tablet or whatever.
00:15:55
So they're doing it like Motu where you
00:15:56
can just go to a URL and talk
00:15:58
to it.
00:15:58
Yes.
00:15:58
Yeah.
00:15:59
Everything's on board.
00:16:00
So he said we couldn't have done that
00:16:02
without the software team we have here.
00:16:04
And so I showed this to Michael Grace,
00:16:06
and he gave it high praises.
00:16:08
I mean, obviously, he's not been able to
00:16:10
use it, but having a guy who designs
00:16:13
hardware for the last 35 years give our
00:16:17
design and our physical product praise was really
00:16:20
pretty awesome.
00:16:22
But I showed it to a lot of
00:16:23
other companies that don't compete in any way,
00:16:25
obviously.
00:16:26
Lots of my companies, right?
00:16:28
I mean, it was really fun showing it
00:16:30
to all these different microphone vendors and saying,
00:16:32
you know, this thing is the next best
00:16:35
thing in broadcast and podcasting, and people are
00:16:38
going to want to have this to use
00:16:40
with your microphone.
00:16:41
So imagine next year at NAMM show, a
00:16:43
number of these microphone booths have passports at
00:16:45
their booths.
00:16:46
Oh, that'd be nice.
00:16:47
That will be good.
00:16:48
So you were saying you've spoken to a
00:16:49
couple of microphone guys, you know, I guess
00:16:52
encompassing all of them, if you could sum
00:16:54
up their thoughts in a few sentences.
00:16:56
Were they like, wow?
00:16:56
Or just like, oh, yeah, that's a good
00:16:58
idea?
00:16:58
Or were they sort of like, eh, meh?
00:17:00
I didn't get any meh.
00:17:02
I got mostly, oh, cool.
00:17:03
That's really nicely made.
00:17:05
I didn't get any big wows.
00:17:07
No one got it that, like, this thing
00:17:09
routes like no other product.
00:17:11
At least two people got the routing as
00:17:13
a cool thing.
00:17:14
I've got to tell you, at the show,
00:17:16
the saturation point is very high.
00:17:19
And explaining and showing something new, you know,
00:17:22
at their booth when they're there to sell
00:17:24
their product to other, it's hard.
00:17:26
You're not really going to connect very well
00:17:28
with people.
00:17:29
Especially since I didn't have it, like, plugged
00:17:31
into a computer, you know, with a mic
00:17:33
plugged into it, the whole demo thing.
00:17:35
You know, I'm freaking briefcasing at NAM.
00:17:38
You know, what can I do, right?
00:17:39
It's the best I could.
00:17:40
But I got some very nice positive feedback.
00:17:43
And to say that this thing could be
00:17:45
an ideal booth companion.
00:17:47
He missed an opportunity by not having one
00:17:50
at our booth as well.
00:17:51
Yeah.
00:17:52
Because we're sitting there playing through a UA
00:17:55
Apollo.
00:17:57
Yeah.
00:17:57
Yeah.
00:17:58
We're going to have one up and running
00:18:00
for sure at VO Atlanta probably, right?
00:18:04
I mean, if there's ever a show to
00:18:06
take it to, it'd be VO Atlanta.
00:18:08
Well, VO Atlanta and NAB.
00:18:11
Yeah.
00:18:11
There you go.
00:18:12
Are you guys at NAB?
00:18:13
Hell yeah, we are.
00:18:14
Oh, yeah.
00:18:14
You're back this year.
00:18:17
NAB, absolutely a no-brainer for the Passport
00:18:19
VO.
00:18:20
I did show it to people that were
00:18:22
more broadcast-related, you know, because again, NAM
00:18:26
is music.
00:18:27
And they seem to get it even more
00:18:29
so.
00:18:29
The question is, do podcast people look at
00:18:32
broadcast stuff as, like, too complicated?
00:18:35
Like, oh, that's over my head.
00:18:37
Or too expensive.
00:18:38
I don't know about the price point thing,
00:18:39
because there's some seriously big-dollar podcast production
00:18:43
going on.
00:18:44
There is.
00:18:45
Big money.
00:18:46
So it's not a price point thing.
00:18:48
I showed it to several people at PodFest.
00:18:50
When I told them the price point, nobody
00:18:53
said, oof.
00:18:54
Nobody reacted to the price like that.
00:18:56
It's two interfaces in one.
00:18:58
Come on.
00:18:58
They all were like, oh, okay, that's not
00:19:00
bad.
00:19:01
One guy thought it was worth a lot
00:19:02
more than that when I told him what
00:19:03
it was.
00:19:04
Dude, it's $300 an interface.
00:19:06
It's two of them.
00:19:07
And it's a gold digger.
00:19:08
Yeah, it's a gold digger switcher.
00:19:11
That was cool.
00:19:12
I think that got the most reaction was
00:19:15
when I was trying to explain all the
00:19:16
things that it does.
00:19:17
It is not stereo.
00:19:18
Showing the mic switcher and showing that it's
00:19:20
a switcher, you know, a single-button switcher,
00:19:22
that got a few eyebrows, because nobody's doing
00:19:26
that.
00:19:26
Nobody's got it, yeah.
00:19:27
Nobody's doing it.
00:19:28
And it can still do stereo if you
00:19:30
need it to.
00:19:31
Yeah, that's right.
00:19:32
I mean, there was so much I didn't
00:19:34
get to talk to and engage with, because
00:19:35
there's so much in this hall.
00:19:37
This is like AES times three.
00:19:40
The other thing that was in this hall
00:19:41
times three was three stupid AI voice companies,
00:19:44
including, do you know who's doing AI voices
00:19:46
now?
00:19:47
Oh, God, don't tell me.
00:19:48
The ones that do your sound ID and
00:19:51
flatline your room.
00:19:52
Oh, yes, sound ID.
00:19:54
The company that does room calibration.
00:19:57
Yeah, what does room calibration have to do
00:19:59
with frickin' AI voices?
00:20:02
Um...
00:20:04
Sound...
00:20:05
I'm glad I'm forgetting it now.
00:20:07
Yeah, screw them.
00:20:07
Exactly.
00:20:08
Screw them, because they're doing voice...
00:20:10
Now, I will say this.
00:20:11
This is music-related, mostly.
00:20:13
No, it's not, though.
00:20:15
Oh, it wasn't?
00:20:15
Because all you do is you just give
00:20:17
it anything you want, and you just start
00:20:18
flipping through voices that you want, and it'll
00:20:21
just sing, and it'll talk, whatever you give
00:20:24
it.
00:20:24
It doesn't talk.
00:20:24
It doesn't matter.
00:20:26
It just mimics what your crappy voice switches
00:20:29
out.
00:20:29
It was like, now I'm a little girl.
00:20:32
Now I'm a guy.
00:20:33
It was just like, come on.
00:20:35
And it was cheap, too.
00:20:37
Yeah, that's what's scary.
00:20:38
It's true.
00:20:39
It's true.
00:20:41
Also, I saw Roswell Audio, because I always
00:20:43
come and see Roswell, the fellow that owns
00:20:45
it, Matthew McGuinn.
00:20:47
He's like Mike Parts, isn't he?
00:20:48
Yeah, he was Mike Parts originally, and now
00:20:50
he's making full fleshed-out product.
00:20:52
His little K87 is a pretty damn good
00:20:56
-sounding F portable.
00:20:58
It's a U87, right?
00:20:59
It's intended.
00:21:00
That's literally 87s in the model name.
00:21:02
I mean, obviously, he's not trying to pull
00:21:04
a punch there.
00:21:05
He's got a K47 and a K67 as
00:21:07
well.
00:21:08
This was another thing.
00:21:10
Customizing microphone.
00:21:11
That's pretty cool.
00:21:12
Custom shops for microphones where you can get
00:21:14
any kinds of color.
00:21:14
Can you just get it wrapped instead of
00:21:16
painted?
00:21:17
Probably.
00:21:18
Singers have been doing that with handheld wirelesses
00:21:20
for years, just wrapping them in gold-plated
00:21:24
sequins and lace.
00:21:27
I saw Studio Float.
00:21:29
This is a company that does studio design.
00:21:31
I've looked at these little isolators for the
00:21:33
ceiling and the walls.
00:21:34
Talked to this gentleman for a while that's
00:21:36
from the Studio Float company.
00:21:37
It's crazy how expensive those things are.
00:21:39
Yeah, they're way overpriced.
00:21:40
They're like $6 each or something.
00:21:41
They're really expensive.
00:21:43
I also stopped by Odyssey microphones, Odyssey headphones,
00:21:49
known for making disgustingly expensive.
00:21:52
I was going to say more really expensive
00:21:53
stuff.
00:21:54
Planar headphones, but they make a $300 gamer
00:21:56
headset that's a planar headphone.
00:21:59
Tried it on, and it was pretty freaking
00:22:00
cool because it has head tracking, so as
00:22:03
you move your head, the sound, the mix,
00:22:06
it maintains center.
00:22:08
Sony had a crap load of—a really big
00:22:11
booth, actually.
00:22:11
Sony came in strong.
00:22:13
I didn't even see their booth.
00:22:14
I didn't even make it to their booth.
00:22:16
Were they in the same hall?
00:22:18
You did.
00:22:18
They were the wall in front of us.
00:22:21
Oh, that was Sony's booth.
00:22:22
They were so big that you didn't even
00:22:23
realize.
00:22:23
They had a huge Atmos set up with
00:22:26
a stadium practically for sitting there.
00:22:29
There's massive amounts of headphones.
00:22:32
Their microphone that goes from zero to 50
00:22:36
k.
00:22:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:39
I skipped Sony.
00:22:40
I don't know.
00:22:41
Sometimes I like to focus on the smaller
00:22:43
vendors.
00:22:44
I just mostly do.
00:22:44
Chef's had the best set of mics.
00:22:47
It was called the Desert Island Stereo Set.
00:22:52
These things were like those really small, very
00:22:56
small body, interchangeable head mics.
00:23:00
So they have a whole range of capsules.
00:23:02
Whenever you see an opera or you see
00:23:05
an award show, it has a long, skinny
00:23:08
stalk.
00:23:09
Almost like the one that the Beatles up
00:23:11
on the roof.
00:23:13
I think we worked out that the Beatles
00:23:15
one on Abbey Road was AKG.
00:23:19
Oh, was it AKG?
00:23:20
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was AKG.
00:23:20
But Chef's is famous for the super slender
00:23:23
little, yeah.
00:23:24
And that's very hard to do because it
00:23:26
definitely increases the noise when you get the
00:23:29
preamp so far away from the capsule.
00:23:32
But they make the preamp five, six feet
00:23:37
away from the capsule.
00:23:38
Yeah.
00:23:38
They also have this freaking crazy ORTF 3D
00:23:41
microphone rig for stadiums.
00:23:44
So this thing will get mounted.
00:23:46
It doesn't have the basket around it with
00:23:48
the dead cat, you know, for wind and
00:23:50
everything in this picture that you guys are
00:23:51
looking at.
00:23:52
But what was really cool was there was
00:23:54
heating elements on all the capsules.
00:23:56
So that keeps the condensers.
00:23:57
Can they fly that along with the camera
00:24:00
that goes zooming across?
00:24:01
It's not meant for that.
00:24:02
It's meant to walk down and provide a
00:24:05
3D sound representation of what that entire room
00:24:09
stadium sounds like.
00:24:11
So it's doing not just a standard ORTF,
00:24:15
but a 3D ORTF.
00:24:16
So it's four sets of ORTF capsules.
00:24:20
ORTF in all four directions.
00:24:22
Yeah, it's freaking nuts.
00:24:24
It's got to be $20, $40.
00:24:27
But that's Chef's, you know.
00:24:29
They're always there.
00:24:30
I mean, Chef's is going to be like
00:24:33
Chef's and DPA.
00:24:34
That's sort of like the top of the
00:24:36
hill.
00:24:37
I tried out $700 Focal headphones, and then
00:24:40
I tried out probably $80 Focal monitors.
00:24:45
That was fun.
00:24:46
I stayed around until after they tell you
00:24:48
to leave.
00:24:50
And so I just sat there and listened
00:24:52
to these ginormous, probably soffit-mounted monitors from
00:24:56
Focal.
00:24:58
I got to say the bigger ones sounded
00:25:00
better than the inner ones, the smaller ones.
00:25:03
Different or better?
00:25:05
It could have been placement, but the single
00:25:08
woofer.
00:25:09
Yeah, I know.
00:25:10
The single woofer ones just sounded more thick
00:25:12
and tubby in the low-mid.
00:25:14
I don't know why.
00:25:15
It was weird.
00:25:16
Well, also it only has one mid-frequency
00:25:18
driver.
00:25:19
Right.
00:25:19
I mean, basically just add a tweeter to
00:25:21
the big ones, and you could just buy
00:25:22
two of the small ones.
00:25:23
Right, exactly.
00:25:25
What else?
00:25:26
What can we wrap this up with?
00:25:27
There was one other thing.
00:25:29
I don't know if you went to, I'm
00:25:31
trying to screw up their name, but like
00:25:32
Cranbourne or something.
00:25:34
I miss Cranbourne.
00:25:35
And they've had it for a while, but
00:25:38
I've always thought it's a very good product
00:25:39
idea, which is they have a 500-series
00:25:42
rack with the USB audio interface built into
00:25:47
it.
00:25:48
Oh, yeah.
00:25:48
So if you want to have a good
00:25:51
interface, and then you want to just pick
00:25:53
your mic pre and have the world's choice
00:25:55
of mic pres, because you know you have
00:25:57
a 500-series.
00:25:58
It's all there.
00:26:00
That's, I think, a pretty cool product.
00:26:02
I saw the MB7 Shure MB7 Plus and
00:26:06
the Shure MB7i.
00:26:10
The MB7i has an input jack on the
00:26:13
back for another microphone.
00:26:16
Oh, so they're kind of doing the mic
00:26:17
creator thing.
00:26:18
Yes.
00:26:19
They're doing what the mic creator does from
00:26:21
Austrian Audio.
00:26:22
Austrian Audio came up with that idea first,
00:26:23
guys.
00:26:23
That's right.
00:26:24
Exactly.
00:26:25
Innovators, not the imitators.
00:26:27
That's right.
00:26:29
MB7 has a mic in now, and that's
00:26:31
what they're doing.
00:26:32
So they were celebrating 100 years.
00:26:36
So yeah, there was a lot, and I
00:26:38
was dying to see Jacob Collier come by
00:26:41
the booth at Shure, and I just didn't
00:26:43
make it.
00:26:45
Was there a commotion when that was happening?
00:26:47
No.
00:26:48
The Shure booth was actually one of the
00:26:49
most active ones.
00:26:51
It was very active.
00:26:52
They had a lot of people showing up
00:26:53
at that.
00:26:54
But when you've got these musicians showing up
00:26:56
at your booth, it's going to be a
00:26:57
mob scene, and they know it.
00:26:59
There's a huge amount of energy around these
00:27:02
musicians.
00:27:02
By the way, everyone, Jacob Collier was using
00:27:05
Source Connect during the pandemic.
00:27:07
Oh, was he really?
00:27:08
There you go.
00:27:09
Yeah.
00:27:11
Without any prodding from us, we caught him
00:27:14
on some podcast talking about it.
00:27:16
It was pretty cool.
00:27:16
Anyway, a lot of fun.
00:27:18
We wish you guys could be there in
00:27:20
person.
00:27:21
And now that NAMM has basically opened its
00:27:23
doors to the public, you can.
00:27:26
Oh, really?
00:27:27
You can go to NAMM.
00:27:27
Well, you can buy a ticket.
00:27:29
You can buy a ticket to go to
00:27:30
NAMM now.
00:27:30
It did not used to be the case.
00:27:32
You had to be an industry representative.
00:27:35
You had to be a guest of a
00:27:36
vendor.
00:27:37
What's funny is this, back when it was
00:27:39
more exclusive, it was physically bigger.
00:27:42
That's true.
00:27:43
The booths were much larger.
00:27:44
Yeah.
00:27:45
Huge.
00:27:46
Neumann would put up a $200 booth
00:27:49
that was the size of two semi-trucks
00:27:52
next to each other.
00:27:53
But here's the difference.
00:27:54
Back in the day, retail owners, and my
00:27:59
dad's music store is no exception.
00:28:02
The first time I went to NAMM was
00:28:04
as a guest of my dad's, Taylor's Music
00:28:06
Store in Westchester.
00:28:07
I went as a guest of Taylor's 20
00:28:09
-something years ago.
00:28:10
And that's why they went.
00:28:12
They would go there, shop at Yamaha, do
00:28:14
their orders.
00:28:16
And that was it.
00:28:17
But that's almost dead.
00:28:19
Do you know what it reminds me of?
00:28:20
I used to do all the setup for
00:28:22
the Ace Hardware show.
00:28:25
And it was the same thing.
00:28:26
It was exclusive for Ace Hardware store owners.
00:28:30
Yeah.
00:28:31
But they would go in there and they'd
00:28:32
be like, all right, I'm going to order
00:28:33
50 lawnmowers and 600 leaf blowers, and I
00:28:37
think I might need those.
00:28:38
And there's just buyers.
00:28:39
There's people.
00:28:41
This is crazy.
00:28:43
That's what NAMM was for.
00:28:44
And that's so they had much bigger booths
00:28:45
with offices and ISO rooms for meetings.
00:28:48
And that's gone.
00:28:51
Was Neumann even there?
00:28:52
I don't think Neumann came to NAMM.
00:28:54
AKG was there for sure.
00:28:55
But not Neumann.
00:28:56
I didn't see Neumann.
00:28:57
Because actually, I can tell you this about
00:28:58
AKG, just word to the wise.
00:29:01
We had AKG pair of headphones at the
00:29:04
booth.
00:29:04
Which are nice, right?
00:29:06
Well, they are.
00:29:06
They're very nice sounding.
00:29:07
Comfortable.
00:29:08
Somehow, Vincent's like, and they're his headphones.
00:29:11
I felt really bad.
00:29:13
And he's like, oh, something's funny.
00:29:15
And he takes them off.
00:29:16
And there's like a hairline crack on the
00:29:17
headband.
00:29:19
And I'm like, oh, man.
00:29:20
Yeah, plastic.
00:29:21
And I'm like, oh, man, this looks like
00:29:22
it can come off because it's like the
00:29:24
headband.
00:29:24
Yeah.
00:29:25
And I'm like, well, don't worry about it.
00:29:27
Go over to AKG.
00:29:28
They'll set you up.
00:29:29
So he goes over there and they give
00:29:31
him a pair to use.
00:29:33
So we're fine for the booth.
00:29:35
But then I start looking at it.
00:29:37
And I'm like, can't they just give you
00:29:38
a headband?
00:29:39
He's like, I don't know.
00:29:40
He didn't say anything about repair.
00:29:41
And I go, they're not fucking repairable.
00:29:44
Yeah.
00:29:44
Yeah.
00:29:45
Like crazy.
00:29:47
Yeah.
00:29:48
Not excusable.
00:29:48
Well, I'll tell you, I did get to
00:29:50
try the Hi-X 20s, which I'm dying
00:29:52
to get a pair now.
00:29:53
But, yep.
00:29:54
I tried the Hi-X 20s from Austrian
00:29:56
Audio, the headphones, and I compared it to
00:29:58
the head.