The Top 7 Things We Saw at AES 2015

The Audio Engineering Society show at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC is always an exciting event for the industry and gear fans alike. With so many companies announcing new products or refining existing product lines, it can be intimidating to keep an eye on what’s new and what’s improved! Here are, in no particular order, the top 7 interesting exhibits I ran into at AES 2015 with video interviews for each.

1 - Roli Rises Above

The Roli Rise is something I’m really personally quite excited about. I’ve been following the Roli product line since the announcement of the Seaboard, and a portable Roli that is battery powered, is wireless with MIDI over bluetooth, and is well under $1,000? Sign me up, please! I had a chance to play with the Roli Rise and I can tell you for sure, this instrument is worth the wait!

Web: ROLI

2 - DPA Gets Even More Discreet

DPA was on hand with its lineup of high quality and highly functional microphones. They were showing off their latest addition, the d:screet. It was unbelievably small and you can actually use a custom made ‘concealer’ to sew or attach a clip into a piece of wardrobe or costume for ease of application and use! 

Web: DPA Microphones

3 - Heritage Audio 500 Series Meets Summing Mixer

Ok, this one’s for all of my boutique gearhead friends! Heritage Audio has a pretty amazing 500 series chassis and fleet of effect processors that function with individual power supplies. That’s right, each processor in your ‘lunchbox’ now has its own discreet power supply rather than all of them sharing a single one. This concept helps separate crosstalk and noise from one to the next. Even cooler was their MCM-8 which is a summing mixer combined with 8 slots of 500 series processing!

Web: Heritage Audio

4 - MOTU Expands the AVB Line

MOTU's AVB audio interface line just keeps growing and getting more exciting by the day. The concept of being able to connect to your audio interface with several computers over ethernet, Thunderbolt, and USB is an exciting one for both recording studios and live sound engineers alike! No more splitters, snakes, and other jury-rigged setups in order to split a signal between front of house, monitoring, and the recording station. You can effortlessly connect with multiple computers to a fleet of rock solid interfaces all over a simple ethernet connection.

Web: MOTU

5 - Sonnox Restore

Sonnox was on hand to demonstrate their new restoration and correction suite. Already a staple in countless recording studios, the classic Sonnox plugins now have a suite of tools for real-time correction and restoration. The De-Clicker, De-Noiser, and De-Buzzer were all on hand to try. I was particularly impressed by how untouched the fundamental source material was after activating the de-buzzer on a piano track. I didn’t hear much of an EQ cut at all, and the plugin was incredibly responsive.

Web: Sonnox

6 - Warm Audio

Warm Audio has lovingly recreated the Pultec Pro EQP-1A in a hardware box called the EQP-WA. It’s an incredibly affordable tube-based EQ based on a circuitry that is both revered and coveted in studios across the world. If you’re looking for a way to add that Pultec sound to your recording chain, you won’t find a more affordable hardware unit that does the job.

Web: Warm Audio

7 - Yamaha’s Massive Mixers

Yamaha had the Rivage mixing system on hand, and I felt intimidated even putting my hands near the thing. It’s massive, and it’s the perfect mixture of the old-school ‘big mixing board’ and new school ‘sleek digital tool’. Nuage was also available for touching, listening, and drooling over. Nuage is Yamaha’s modular control surface mixer which can be used with multiple DAW programs and audio interfaces (in some cases, simultaneously!). It's more than a DAW and controller combination. Yamaha describe it as "a fuly integrated mixing system." It was quite an impressive piece of gear to behold! 

Web: Yamaha Pro

In a couple of months time Ask.Audio will be at NAMM. If you enjoyed our coverage of AES even a little bit... you're going to love NAMM! So stay tuned...