Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1197255
26 W I N T E R 2 0 2 0 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Sights from the 147th AES Convention Competition breeds innovation and it was on display in New York at the 2019 AES Convention that was held at the Jacob Javits Center at the end of October. Show attendance was robust this year with registration for full exhibit/seminar packages up by 20 percent over last year. Here are some of the highlights. Along with the Cantar X3, Mini, and cool controllers, AATON had its Melody 2 mic preamp, which I had not seen before. It will take two analog mic inputs and deliver AES42, so when you run out of analog inputs, you can keep going. AMS NEVE was showing the Neve Genesys Black, a very cool hybrid console/DAW controller with eight 1073 mic pre's, 16 channels of DAW monitoring, eight channels of A/D- D/A, EQ, motorized faders, and lots of other features sure to make this desk very popular. It's API's 50th anniversary and they are making special editions of their classic 862-channel strip, the 2500 stereo compressor, the 312 500 series mic preamp, and 550A three-band EQ. API has also updated "The Box," their Aaton Melody 2 b y G . J O H N G A R R E T T C A S small, confi gurable console with more summing busses than the original. AUDIO-TECHNICA has a new cardioid condenser mic, the AT5045, that is billed as a high dynamic range instrument mic, which can also be used in stereo pairs. They claim the largest diaphragm of any AT microphone, and it sounded impressive on the show fl oor. Also at the show was the AT4081, a bidirectional phantom-powered ribbon mic for instruments. New from CLOUD is the Cloudlifter Z, a variable load impedance device, plus gain and high-pass fi ltering, for correctly loading certain dynamic mics (think RE-20) or optimizing the tone of any mic. They also have a Cloudlifter Zi, the same thing in a direct box package. AMS Neve Genesys Black Audio-Technica AT5045