Road Tests

It’s hard to believe, but it has been nearly two decades since 1998, when innovator David Royer launched Royer Labs, a mic company dedicated to creating modern ribbon microphone designs. The first product was the R-121, which employed a patented (U.S. #6,434,252) proprietary offset ribbon technology based on a pure aluminum ribbon and neodymium magnet structure. The result was a smooth, warm sound in a compact and rugged design that quickly found favor with audio engineers everywhere.

At PreSonus, AIR exists because there’s a seemingly endless demand for high-quality active 2-way loudspeaker systems with optional subwoofers.

With the sub as the base, a pole inserted into the mounting cup, and a 2-way box on top, you have a compact ground stack that takes up little space in a small club, church hall, school — anywhere you need a portable full range system that can easily be disassembled and stored until needed.

QSC’s TouchMix series of small format digital mixers build upon the company’s strengths in the budget friendly, easy to operate live sound market. Having used the TouchMix-16 periodically over the last few years, the mixer’s firmware has come a long way. My friends at Meyer Marketing were gracious enough to loan me both a TouchMix-16 and a TouchMix-30 so I could test out the new features for this review.

Audio test and measurement have come a long way in the last 15 years. It wasn’t all that long ago that dedicated measurement hardware was still the only realistic option for critical measurement work. As personal computers and laptops became more prevalent in the audio field, measurement came within reach of virtually any working engineer. The inevitable evolution of this trend is for smart phones and tablets to perform the same measurement tasks that required a high-end laptop only five years ago.

A few years ago, I started wondering if DiGiCo’s SD series was getting a bit long in the tooth. The SD7 has been around for a decade, and despite being one of the most well-appointed consoles in the market, it started showing its age. I’m not sure why. Maybe it is the lack of multi-touch screens, the somewhat dated software interface or the lack of Dante connectivity.

I gotta come clean. I am a confessed microholic and can’t resist checking out cool looking microphone designs — whether new releases or classics. So a year ago, when CAD Audio’s CADLive division unveiled a “reimagined” version of the company’s 1959 Astatic A77 dynamic microphone, as part of its 85th anniversary celebration, I definitely wanted to check one out.

The digital audio age has presented a lot of challenges to the live sound and broadcast industries. One of those challenges is the fracturing and segmentation of different competing digital audio protocols such as CobraNet, EtherSound, Dante, Ravenna, AES67 and MADI, to name a few. A small sub-industry of specialized connectivity companies has appeared over the last decade to address some of these concerns.

Two years ago, I reviewed the then-new Yamaha TF3 (FRONT of HOUSE, June 2015). I enjoyed the console and I saw Yamaha had a winner on its hands, but there was still some work to be done on the firmware. Fast-forward almost two years, and much has advanced with the TF consoles and with Yamaha digital consoles in general.

Ashly Audio has a long history building reliable analog mixing and outboard equipment for the professional live sound and installation markets. While the company carries a considerable legacy of analog expertise, Ashly is no newcomer to digital gear; its Ashly Protea DSP processors are world renowned for delivering top-notch sound and seamless integration with control technologies that users can easily navigate.

QSC has long provided quality, reliable, easy-to-use solutions for audio pros. Having used the compact TouchMix-16, I was curious about the new TouchMix-30 Pro.

Over the last several years, Waves has embraced the live sound industry, releasing numerous solutions targeted directly at live sound engineers. Software such as Tracks Live multi-track recording software and hardware like Waves’ SoundGrid Servers, MGO, MGB interfaces and eMotion LV1 live mixer have anchored Waves’ position in the sound reinforcement industry. These are not simply tweaks of plug-ins originally intended for studio use. Instead,

I’ve long been a fan of DPA Microphones, and I recently had a chance to check out the company’s newest offering, the VO4099-DKIT2 collection of seven models for drum miking applications.