Pro audio

In today's crowded field of portable digital audio recorders (Tascam alone has seven different models on the market), the new DR-680 has managed to carve out an impressive niche for itself. It's currently the most affordable battery-powered field recorder that's capable of recording six separate microphone inputs onto their own individual track. That's big news for anyone on a tight budget who's involved with producing reality television, live music recordings, or any job where numerous microphones need to be recorded discretely. There are other portable recorders on the market that can accomplish these tasks, but the closest competitor costs over three times as much. This machine has rewritten the rules of what is and what is not possible on a strict location audio budget.

Have you ever been working on a creative project on your computer and you reach a point where  the work looses its spark and starts to go downhill? It's a painful scenario in which the creative potential of your digital tools somehow destroys the idea you were chipping away at. This is a problem I've struggled with, and instead of giving up on all of my digitally-based artistic endeavors and going back to finger painting, I've decided to try a new approach to how I save my work. 

In the 1983 film Brainstorm, Christopher Walken plays the role of scientist Michael Wood, who invents a helmet that transfers sensations and abilities into the human brain. In one scene Walken sits at a piano wearing the helmet, and he’s able to play a complicated composition on the keys even though he’s never played piano before. That scene has always stuck with me. It would be cool if a technological innovation came along that enabled people to do complicated stuff without training. This day has finally come, and the innovation is called The Schwarzonator.

Musikmesse 2010 got started today in Frankfurt Germany, and there were so many interesting new products announced that I'm starting to drool like a well-groomed Scottish Terrier. The name of this show kind of suggests that it's a big "musical mess." Even though Europe's biggest pro audio tradeshow is highly organized, it's such a crazy event with so many exciting announcements that it lives up to the English interpretation of its name. Here are a few new products that got our tails wagging... 

It might seem like manufacturers like juicedLink are rushing too quickly to adapt current HD capable DSLR's for video work. On the surface it may appear that Canon's new 2.0.4 firmware update for the EOS 5D Mark II renders the recently released DN101 obsolete. While Canon's new firmware does give the 5D Mark II audio meters and the option to turn off the AGC (automatic gain control) for manual control of the audio, the DN101 still provides you with some critical abilities for video production.

Question: How do you put Alicia Keys' ultra rare Yamaha C3 Neo grand piano into a bottle and sell it? Answer: Meticulously sample the instrument in Alicia's personal studio, have Alicia play the piano when you're sampling it, and put all of the samples in a software instrument called Alicia's Keys. Bingo! This is exactly what Danish engineer Thomas Skarbye, Native Instruments, and Alicia Keys just did.