Road Tests

The dbx brand now offers the dB10 passive direct box and the dBb12 active direct box. While not compact at 5.82” x 5.44” x 2.20,” the direct boxes are similar in size to the higher quality direct box offerings and are fully featured for the variety of needs for both performers and sound people. I give kudos to dbx for using steel over aluminum to help block magnetic fields from penetration into the sensitive audio circuits. This is especially important as direct boxes are often mounted on instrument amplifiers, which have AC power transformers nearby.

(Ed. Note: We took a bit of a different approach on this one. Having fronted a horn band for more than 20 years, I am well-aware of the difficulty of making a good horn sound right in the system with the mics generally available on your typical house gig. It is why I carry my own horn mics on every gig where I am doing the muso thing. So, for this review, we put the mic in the hands of a top-notch sax player who knows his way around a console and then got some feedback from the sound guys on some of the gigs where he used it. Here is what they had to say.)

I first had a look at the IM8 at the 2008 winter NAMM show. John Schauer from Yamaha led me to the secret room where the not-yet-released board was waiting. Yamaha is not the only manufacturer that likes to keep their new products undercover until the moment of release. Just about every mixing console manufacturer conceals their new hardware until they are ready. Whatever the reasoning behind Yamaha's motives, John was definitely in secret-agent mode at NAMM. He told me that this console was designed with houses of worship in mind. It has enough bells and whistles to satisfy a variety of mixing demands and is still very simple to operate. However, as I looked over the board, I thought it would work well in an array of operations outside of worship.

The EV DC-One speaker processor is a long-awaited product that is huge in the value quotient (features and performance divided by cost to own). I took delivery of the DC-One and the first thing I noticed was the size of the unit. While it is the expected one-rackspace high, the 14 inches of depth is way beyond the usual amount for these processors. When I inquired about this, the designers uniformly said that customers complained about having to make patches to shallow depth processors when in a rack of full-size power amplifers. Given the go-ahead on depth the designers made good use of the space and concentrated on DSP features and budgets.

The topic of today’s discussion is the InnovaSON SY48. I’m going to preface this review with a blanket statement — this console is so deep that it will be impossible for me to write everything down without being too long-winded. With that said, let us dive in.

My first real speakers were Cerwin-Vega. I can't remember the model number, but I can tell you that they incorporated a 15-inch woofer and one high compression horn, and they put out plenty of bass frequency response for that design. When I first bought them I felt like I had finally entered the pro sound world. This really has nothing to do with my review, but I was feeling a bit nostalgic when I received them.

Finding dedicated monitor mix mixing consoles is getting more difficult as time goes by. Sure the new digital console offerings have reasonably good flexibility, and the higher-end analog consoles have enough auxiliary sends to get the job done. But what about the market that needs inexpensive and simple-to-use monitor mixing gear? With every musician stealing two mixes for stereo in-ear monitoring, where are you going to get a dozen aux sends per channel and enough channels to handle modern music bands? Well, Allen and Heath’s new MixWizard line has just expanded to solve this dilemma.

I have this one annual gig in the LA area that I should really give up. But I like the people, and the nature of the event lends itself to trying new gear, so it is a great Road Test opportunity. In fact, in the five years I have been doing the gig I don’t think we have used the same speaker system once. This year, the boys at Spectr Audio got the call. After going back and forth a few times on the requirements of the gig, we agreed on a configuration.

Electro-Voice has revived the PL series of pro audio microphones, and brought forth a promising crop of both vocal and instrument microphones that are value priced, but professional in performance. The PL Series is currently on the road with STAIND, Finger Eleven and ZZ Top (on drums). The mics have also proved roadworthy on this summer's Vans Warped Tour. With three-year warranties, EV is making a promise that the quality is worthy for road usage. I received one of each model for this road test review.

If you think Crown would gracefully sunset the popular Macro-Tech line of tour-grade audio power amplifiers, well you are in for a surprise. The new Macro-Tech i Series provides a decent series life extension by keeping the front-panel look and feel, while sneaking in some of the same technology from the I-Tech series amplifiers. One could spend a lot of time comparing the I-Tech with the Macro-Tech i, but the little time I spent on this tells me there are both similarities and differences.

OK, so I have come into the digital age in a lot of ways. I own four digital consoles and I use Reason in my studio. While I am plenty comfortable with plug-ins, there are still times when I just want a piece of hardware — a box with knobs that responds exactly how I expect without having to think about it. Waves is best known for their plug-ins. It you are a Pro Tools guy or mixing on a Venue system, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that you have at least one of them in your arsenal. But what a lot of people don’t know is that they make some pretty nice hardware as well.