Cary Sherman, RIAA President, feels strongly that the lawsuits against end users, and not just the file trading services, is working to thwart illegal file trading. Recent data compiled by the NPD Group appears to back up this claim. According to NPD's sampling of 10,000 households, about 5% of the families surveyed erased all music files from their hard drives. Most of the music files were obtained illegally, but the majority of households only had, on average, about 50 songs. "We are in the middle of a life and death struggle with global piracy," Sherman declared. Sherman also feels that the lawsuits help to create awareness of the illegality of downloading music from P2P sites. "The message is out," Sherman states. To back this up, the RIAA has presented data showcasing that public awareness of the illegal nature of P2P services has increased from 37% to 64% in a little over a year.

The Future: The RIAA has taken a page out of the George Bush Anti-Terrorism manual and has decided to "stay the course until the job is complete." You have to admire their conviction and determination, but like the war on terror, how do you know exactly when the job is done?

../ The 2003 AES Show *Special Report*

As the big 5 major labels are shrinking into the big 3, an inevitable consolidation also appears to be horizon for many of the major players in the manufacturing landscape. Whenever, I approached a stalwart of the industry I found myself evaluating their merger, or buyout potential. Hmmm, XYZ's product line would really fit nicely with ABC's line of interfaces... Whether or not anyone wanted to admit it, industry contraction was on everybody's mind. Who's the low hanging fruit? I'll let you decide...

Emagic/Apple: Makers of the noted sequencer/multitrack recording solution, Logic 6. The Big talk of AES was Logic's new Space Designer reverb plug-in that was offered in version 6.3 on a 30-day timeout. The creamy quality of the impulse response reverbs blew us away, and set a new high water mark for software processing. In fact, we ran it against TC Electronic's external PowerCore system and found TC's reverbs to be wanting. Unfortunately, due to the internal restructuring from Apple's purchase of Emagic, you can't seem to find Space Designer for sale. Talk about taking candy away from a baby!

Before the dreaded self-destruct took place, we were able to use it as the sole reverb on a vocals that we recently received for a remix project. Wow, were we impressed. The reverb can go from dense, thick and soupy to light, airy and effervescent -- And everything in between. Not only did it work wonders on the vocals, but we also employed it on some of the Nord 2X pads that we created for the track. It added a lush softness to the chords without washing them out. Additionally, the diversity of the reverb allowed its utilization on the vocals and the chords without sounding redundant. Well done!

The interface is very sophisticated with a brushed ivory look and a blue window for visually representing the sonic characteristics of each variable. When available, the retail price is said to be $449.00US.

The Future: Impulse response technology, once the sole domain of dedicated hardware processors, now comes in several soft varieties. Only Space Designer has hit the ball out of the park with their first foray. Now it's catch up time for the competition. The bad news is that Apple's restructuring of Emagic has ground their productivity to a halt and left several divisions in limbo as personnel are reassigned, or worse, eliminated.

Steinberg: Makers of Cubase SX, Nuendo and innovators of such technologies as VST, ASIO and System Link were on hand to solely promote Nuendo 2.0. In fact, there wasn't even a mention of Steinberg's Cubase, HALion or any of their soft instruments. Their sparsely staffed booth mostly appeared to be fielding questions about Steinberg's future. The US Marketing Manager, Brian McConnon, put on a great game face when asked about Pinnacle's influence on Steinberg's product line, but he wasn't too convincing. Many AES veterans who sashayed by their booth wondered aloud why Cubase wasn't represented at all. Is Steinberg thinking of rolling up Cubase into Nuendo to simplify the product line? And with Apple purchasing Emagic, would Steinberg focus solely on the PC market?

"(The) answers to the questions you pose couldn't be more definitive," McConnon counters. "Both Steinberg and Pinnacle have made it clear from the outset that development would remain cross-platform. Almost all our products are OSX compatible and our relationship with Apple couldn't be better. New products are now coming with Audio Unit and Core Audio support. It has also been made clear that Cubase and Nuendo will remain separate products for separate purposes," McConnon states.

In addition, many Steinberg employees seem to be fretting over the move to new quarters in Los Angeles and the possible layoffs that may occur when Pinnacle dumps the extra weight.

The Future: Steinberg is talking to Yamaha about incorporating their System Link Technology into the M-Lan protocol.

Waves: Makers of plug-in processors. Waves was there in force with a booth that was buzzing like a hive. With lots of clandestine meetings behind closed, smokey glass doors, and plenty of executive staff members to query about potential deals, we enjoyed speaking to them about their current and future products. Their new offerings include: SoundShifter, a sophisticated pitch shifting module, Morphoder, a voice processor with dynamic formant shifting, and TransX a transient shaper. But what was noticeably absent was a new impulse-response reverb to compete with Logic's amazing Space Designer.

The Future: We keep hearing about a renegade crew of Waves engineers visiting some of the most incredible acoustic venues all over the world with a boatload of sophisticated equipment. Look for something official at the next big industry hootenanny.

Akai: Makers of hardware samplers was on hand to show their new MPC1000 Music Production Center. But was really there mostly to tell everyone that they're still interested in the US market. After the demise of their distribution arm in Texas, Akai has been scrambling somewhat to set up a substantial US presence. The MPC1000 looks like it's going to be a stillborn. Not only is it heinously ugly, but it's also not very innovative.

The Future: Akai's sampler line is in deep trouble. Nobody's buying the Z line of hardware samplers and the MPC-4000 is just too expensive. Roland's MV-9000 could be the deathblow to a line that only has its legendary name going for it.

Mackie: Makers of analog and digital mixers, studio monitors, amplifiers and other quality products. The big news was that Mackie was changing the name of the company to Loud Technologies because they felt that "there was confusion between Mackie the company and Mackie the brand." I wasn't confused, were you?

Anyway, this is just the end result of Mackie's $43.5 million dollar restructuring package with Sun Capital. Repositioning Mackie to all business from its former crunchy, off-kilter image works better for corporate stiffs.

Oh yeah, the new products. Mackie/Loud announced the next generation dXb 96K/192K digital production console. This sleek new digital mixing desk was developed with Sanewave, Inc. to leverage their digital audio technology and speed up development. Mackie also announced the DreamVerb is a plug-in for their UAD-1 card. Daniel Moore, Recording Product Manager, boasted, "DreamVerb sets a new standard for plug-in reverbs." But he probably hadn't listened to Emagic's Space Designer. Silly rabbit, old-school create-your-own-room reverbs are for kids.

The Future: Mackie may have to get Loud and trim some more fat beyond the pink slip party that they threw on July 23, 2003.

Tekserve: New York City based Apple retailers and repair shop made a splash with their sexy rack-mounted G5. Tekserve, who's been flying under the radar as a pro audio/video retailer, appeared ready to take their turn in the big spot light with a well-attended booth. Owner, Matthew Cohen, corrected me when I commented that the racked G5 "just had the handles hacked off."

"The handles have been 'remachined' to fit in a 19 inch rack space and all the temperature sensors had to be recalibrated for the sideways mount." The fit and finish was first rate. The only drawback was that it can't support the famed Superdrive in the sideways configuration.

The Future: Now what??

Ultrasone: Makers of a complete line of high-end headphones. What interested us here was the "Ultra Low Emissions" claim. The ULE technology shields the user from low-frequency magnetic field emissions, also known as radiation, by up to 98%. We checked out two models the top-of-the-line HFI-650 LE DVD Edition with the optional ULE. The headphones were quite comfortable, but several of our staff found that the headphones lacked enough bass punch. In addition, the headphones easily distorted when flooded with frequencies in the upper mid range. For $300 dollars, we expected a lot more.

We also evaluated the designated DJ model. The HFI-550 LE DJ1's were initially comfortable to wear, but became irritating after working the platters for more than 45 minutes. The bass response is far superior to the HFI-650 with a much fuller sound, but for $169 dollars we felt that the construction was quite cheap with many of the integral parts made of plastic. "I can't see these headphones lasting more than a month," was a typical answer from our staffers.

The Future: ULE is a great attribute, but Ultrasone has to step up their sound and construction if they want to play with the big boys.

Bias: Makers of stereo waveform editing application Peak 4.0. Bias had a nice presence at the show and was showcasing the new Peak 4.0 and Sound Soap Pro on the latest G5 2.0 Ghz dualie. The latest version of the rock-solid, Bias Peak is a pleasure to use. It's got an intuitive, clean interface with clearly marked, large controls and massive level meters. The program has evolved nicely with the times and now features support for Audio Units. Version 4 also contains new DSP tools including ImpulseVerb, an impulse response reverb, Bias Sqweez, a new compressor, and Bias Freq, a 4 band paragraphic EQ. Peak 4.0 can also burn CD's from within the program and has multithreaded processing with multiprocessor support. It also supports bit depths up to 32 bit and sample rates up to 10 Mhz.

The program has been critiqued by some reviewers as being hard to use with a modular approach to some of the products sonic enhancements. Although, some of the processors do look and feel like they are a separate entities (Bias Sqweez has a black and gray interface while Bias Freq4 is white), they integrate seamlessly within Peak.

Bias also demonstrated the next version of SoundSoap at the show. SoundSoap Pro is a welcome evolution to the original SoundSoap. After using the original SoundSoap in a variety of applications, we felt that the interface was really lacking. Its simplicity was its downfall, since you are unable to get inside the program to dial out unwanted noise and artifacts. Thankfully, Bias has stepped up to the plate and addressed this inherent problem head on by really nailing the interface on SoundSoap Pro. Not only does it allow the user to really delve deeply into the art and science of noise reduction, but it also serves as a visual metaphor to other software developers on how to properly construct a truly effective interface.

Bias divided the sound processing into four separate steps, Hum & Rumble, Click & Crackle, Broadband and Noise Gate. You can go through the suggested order or you can just apply any combination of the four to get the desired results. Like SoundSoap, SoundSoap Pro features a "Learn Noise" function that automatically finds the best possible settings for audio restoration. From there, you can tweak the multitude of parameters to achieve the best possible sound to your ears. The realtime, visual spectrogram has also been greatly improved allowing the user to see, via a color-coded system, exactly what noise needs treatment. SoundSoapPro will ship after Winter NAMM. A retail price has not been announced.

The Future: With Bias starting to hit the development ceiling with Peak, its great to see them successfully attacking a niche market like audio restoration. Look for the company to continue their offensive in these specialized markets. Our suggestion would be for Peak to develop a comprehensive utility for Surround Sound applications. There are several overly complicated solutions for achieving surround sound, but users of Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro are screaming for an application that would allow them to simply create surround sound by either converting a stereo file into 5.1 and/or going through a step-by-step process to create all necessary channels.

Fxpansion: makers of a VST to audio unit adapter for Mac OS X. When OSX went to the new Audio Units standard, previous users of VST plug-ins were left holding he proverbial bag. This wrapper works behind the scenes to make your investment in VST plug-ins and instruments work seamlessly with any compatible Audio Unit program like Logic 6, Performer 4.1, Final Cut Pro, etc. With minimal latency, this adapter is a little piece of heaven to long-time Mac users. Why didn't Apple provide this??

The Future: Fxpansion's adapter was a brilliant way to brand the company in the crowded software marketplace, and a great way to pave the road for their new plug-in suites, MindFX Volume 1 & MindFX Volume 2, due at Winter NAMM.

Native Instruments: makers of Reaktor, Absynth, Kontakt, Intakt and other soft instruments. We admire Native Instruments. From the get-go they've set the high-water mark for quality and innovation. Although the learning curve on several of their marquee products is daunting, and the usability is, well, very German, NI continues to blaze a trail for everyone else to follow. We checked out Absynth 2 and found the new version to be almost twice as powerful as its predecessor with new sampling features, better CPU performance and sweetened filters. The program is also just plain fun. Whether we're creating lush, thick pads, gritty textures, or hardcore, eardrum bursting, sonic anomalies, Absynth delivers!

NI also generated the most buzz at the show for a possible merger with one of the industry powerhouses. Their product consistency makes them very attractive to a larger company who wants to round out their offering with a comprehensive software division.

The Future: Native Instruments products are only getting better and easier to use. We'd love to see their Traktor DJ product truly take the soft mixer market to the next level by incorporating some new mixing paradigms and innovative tools into their next release.

WaveArts: Makers a three new processing plug-ins. WaveArts debuted their TrackPlug, MasterVerb and WaveSurround plug-ins for the VST, MAS, Audio Units, RTAS and DirectX formats. Of the three, the WaveSurround was the most useful, especially for creating faux rear channel 5.1 mixes, but you must use restraint if you don't want to create major phasing problems. MasterVerb was effective on drums and percussion, but didn't have the depth and smoothness to compete against Logic's Space Designer or the Waves' reverbs. We didn't care for the "brittle" quality of the TrackPlug and wouldn't recommend it to users looking for a compressor/EQ plug-in. Additionally, the graphical user interface (GUI) could benefit from a talented interface designer. The anti-aliased text and choppy vector images are an eye sore and far below current standards.

The Future: In the crowded plug-in landscape, WaveArts has to step up every component of their products if they want to compete in this cutthroat market. However, version 4 of their PowerCouple, TrackPlug and MasterVerb, is due anytime now.

../ FreeFloat Writes Its Own History

The idea behind the product is ingeniously simple. Instead of an elaborate shock mounted system, use a cushion of air to support each foot of a turntable. The system is said to effectively separate the turntable from harmful bass frequencies that could lead to needle skipping without the bouncy side-effects of a shock mounted system.

Sounds great so far until you read the "history" of shock mounting turntables. Seems that FreeFloat BV thinks that the need for shock mounting happened when "Dance music changed track in the early Nineties." Ah, no.

According to Bob Casey, former owner of Virgo, one of the first sound companies dedicated to nightclub systems, the need to float turntables happened much, much earlier.

"In spring of 1973, a club by the name of Infinity, located on lower Broadway, opened up with great fanfare, great crowds and too much vibration on the floor. So much so that the stylus literally jumped across the record. No matter how much the DJ weighted down the needle (the old dime on the head trick), it did not stop the bounce. When the DJ, who's name was Bobby Guttadaro or Bobby DJ, noticed the damage the needle was causing to his records he quickly switched to a tape deck backup. And unfortunately that's the way the opening night had to proceed," Casey recalls.

"Even though I was not the sound contractor for the club, Bobby called me the next day and pleaded with me to come down and look at the situation. My first reaction was to instruct the owner to suspend the entire booth from the wall. He said that that would be impossible. That is when I came up with the idea of infinite suspension by the use of rubber bands," Casey remembers.

"We cut holes in the booth tabletop about 1/2 inch larger than the turntables," Casey continues. "Using the cutout squares, I built sides on the squares so they would resemble upside-down milk crates. I then placed 'teacup hooks' (the little gold ones easily purchased in a hardware store) in eight positions under and around the 2 holes in the tabletop and another 8 hooks on the upside down box. I then began to cross points left to right and back and forth with 1/2 inch rubber bands and after the weight of the turntable was neutralized up and down, I used 1/8 inch rubber bands to stabilize the back and forth motion of the turntables."

The inspiration for the design came from the suspension system of an old 1947 Packard. "It worked so well, most all other sound contractors adapted this suspension technique for the next 20 years. Most notably was Richard Long, a "friendly" competitor who always was polite enough to call it the "Casey Suspension."

Bob left the disco industry in late 1979 and ventured into more commercial and industrial sound projects. However, whenever he found himself in a nightclub he'd always wander by the DJ booth to see how things had progressed. "I was quite surprised to see how the design advanced through the years. Today, the systems are much more compact and centered around the legs, but it still is that same basic idea I had waaaaaaay back in '73," Casey fondly remembers.

Jeroen Backx, founder of FreeFloat, defended his history by stating, "I think (Bob Casey) did a great job in that club back in the 70's but I doubt if the club your talking about had the possibility to have more then 10,000 people and used the same sound systems as we have nowadays, What we try to tell on our site is the existence of the major dance industry in Europe." No I don't think Infinity and Studio 54 had the same installed systems that are common in most mega clubs today, but severe vibration caused by low frequencies created exactly the same type of problems that Backx described in FreeFloat's "history" in the 90's. The fact that Casey's design is still utilized in the majority of clubs all over the world only reinforces the effectiveness of his innovation.

Backx goes on to state that FreeFloat's captured air design is far removed from Casey's solution. "...the way Bob Casey used to separate the turntables had nothing to do with captured air. It's a complete different way and the (rubber band supports) he used do not act like captured air. The vibrating air caused by bass vibrations is stifled by the captured air inside the Freefloat. So although Bob Casey found himself a solution, it has nothing to do with the technical solution we found."

Although Jereon Backx feels strongly about his product, FreeFloat's Eurocentric history is clearly slanted to their narrow perspective. What it comes down to is respect. Just like the early rock musicians who tipped their hats to the Blues legends, FreeFloat clearly owes an innovator like Bob Casey his due. We'll let you know how Backx's FreeFloat system holds up against Casey's design when we go Head2Head in a future article.

The Future: Hopefully FreeFloat will quickly update the history section on their web site to give credit to Old Skool pioneers like Bob Casey. Also, if I was FreeFloat, I'd steer way clear of BellSouth's Cingular Communications...you even used their orange color.

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