Editor/Publisher: Gary Khan
Editor: Mike Castronovo
President: Mary Mazurek
V.P.: Mike Castronovo

Volume 18 Number 10
October, 2003

EARS meets at The Briar Street Theatre

3133 N. Halsted, Chicago
773-348-4000
Tuesday, October 28 7:30

Directions to the Briar St. Theatre

FROM THE NORTHWEST SUBURBS
I-90 East to Addison Exit. Travel east on Addison to Halsted. Turn right onto Halsted. Travel five to six blocks south to the theatre. Theatre is on the east side of Halsted.

Nominations

Remember, only dues paying members vote or can be nominated in Novembers election. Although our incumbent President has agreed to run for a second time, it seems some of you thought her term was 2 years. For clarification, traditionally in this, and many other volunteer organizations, the members do typically re-elect there officer's after a successful first term but this not automatic. Our organization's term is one year and nominations are open right up to the November meeting so, if you wanna throw yer hat (or other appendage) into the ring, you only need to be a (current) member in good standing. As always, refer to the website, which does have the by-laws viewable. - GK -

Recent meeting recaps:

In a sunny, warm July (ahh!) evening, we gathered at Colossal Mastering for a seriously informative meeting on mastering techniques, tools, issues, recommendations and current trends. Two of the Midwest's busiest mastering specialists, Milwaukee's Trevor Sadler www.mastermindproductions.net and our host Dan Stout www.colossalmastering.com , led another well attended [30+] assemblage as we listened, earned and queried our guest speakers in pursuit of bettering our craft skills and awareness. During the discussion, members CD-r's were analyzed, at no charge, on Dan's system by staffer and newly elected AES-Chicago section Chair, A.J. Bautista, complete with full error report print outs! Many of us sighed with relief or anguished as we found out the true error count performance of our favorite burners. This reporter was amazed but happy to see the excellent results our Alesis Masterlink yielded and, to a lesser degree, the Apple Mac's "Superdrive". A special EARS cheer to their Colossal's new manger, Becky - GK -

In August, we found ourselves in the friendly confines of Airwave Recording for our annual cookout. Long time member John McCortney, opened his doors and generously provided the beer and refreshments. Thanks to my mom, Patricia, for the homemade sausages and to my "bro" John, for the massive grill. Because everyone pitched in and brought your favorite munchies, you kept the cost to EARS down, yet everyone left well fed. You all made this meeting a success. - MM -

Tech-geek Addendum: as if a copious amount of food and the camaraderie among this very well attended gathering wasn't enough, we also did a traditional Airwave gear shoot-out!

Matching levels on our host, Mac's, Neotek Series III from their ever consistent bank of Hardy M-1 Pre's, we recorded touring and recording violinist, David Yonan and pro gear rep / skilled pianist, Kevin Shaw. We set up Chris Willis's vintage ["Delta Records"] nuvistor '47, AEA's new R-84 large ribbon (courtesy of Wes Dooley, himself!) and Mac's Royer R-121 small ribbon, recording them as we listened on his Tascam MX-2424 at 24 bits.

The rare '47 was musically warm and full, but with an expectedly audible noise floor. However, the AEA was damn near condenser-like in character - sans the typical condenser stridency, though with expectedly lower output and typically gradual but smooth high frequency roll off. The Royer's output surprisingly kept up with the large ribbon and was quite musical, though not reaching as deep, with a bit less punch than the AEA and only slightly "peaky". All were more of the uniquely colored, not transparent, school though the quiet M-1 Mic pre's were especially useful here. Their input impedance seemed acceptable for all 3 Mic?s though it would be interesting to see the results of varied input Z's, much like the Crookwood or Vipre allows. Many thanx to Mac, who supportively hosted many a meeting in EARS infancy and again welcomed us well into the night. This from a guy who hates to role tape after 5pm! - GK -

Thanks to John Ovnik of Deaf Dog for hosting last month's meeting. Recap in the next issue.

Pt. 1 of an AES recap by Danny Leake of Urban Guerrilla Engineers - Chicago

Hey folks, here's a running report of the 115th AES convention help in New York from October 10th to the 13th. There were a lot of great exhibits, workshops, and (Yum, Yum) gear. I don't have a lot of space here but I'll try to cover as much as I can.

Ran into a few of our Chicago "crew": Our illustrious Prez Mary, "Cub" EARS Editor Gary, John Hardy, Hank Neuberger, Terry Fryer, Don Morris, and Joey Fernandez to name a few and Bruce Swedien! We reminisced about the old Universal Recording. He finally finished his book "Make Mine Music" (MIA Musikk publishing). He has a chapter called "The Chicago Years 1957-1976". It is a very good read. Check it out.

SACD had a demo room for folks to check out pop records instead of classical music on their new system. ATC supplied the monitoring guys, next time make sure you program good mixes for your demos. It's been a while since I've heard ""mixes that bad on a system that good" :-)

Can't afford an SSL XL9000 series console? Just get some of their XLogic series processors. These are essentially the components of an XL9000 in one and two space rackmounts. They have a 1R space 4 channel mic pre (can also be remote controlled with the XLogic Mic Amp remote), a multi channel compressor, a stereo compressor, and an input channel with mic pre, EQ, compressor, and gate.

Elliot Scheiner showed off the auto surround system he designed for Acura. Once you've heard surround in a car, you'll never go back.

Aurelex and Real Traps have prefabricated panels that provide diffusion and low-end trapping and they look good! They look custom built.

There seemed to be two "Schools" at the show: The totally Digital Revolution and the Retro Analog Revolution.

Examples:
Digidesign is doing their "thing" again: Sell as many systems as you can and then make them obsolete less than a year later. I met a lot of angry HD owners. On the real "Tip", the new Accel is "an HD on steroids"! Twice as much DSP power as a regular HD, 4x as much as a Mix Plus with the ability toplay even more voices with tons of new third party plug-ins.

Dangerous Music introduced their "Dangerous 2 bus" which is supposed to sound much better than the Pro Tools 2 buss. I have heard very good things about this product.

Nuendo continues its encroachment on Pro Tools "Turf" with version 2.0. Aside from having serious Surround processing and film posting capabilities it's quickly becoming known as a " Pro Tools Killer" for a lot of people. It has become a serious presence in Nashville and Hollywood. TC Electronics PowerCore adds DSP power to Native CPU systems so they can handle a heavier DSP load without loading down the host computer's CPU. It connects via Firewire and has bundled plug-ins. It talks to platforms like VST (Nuendo, Cubase) and Logic.

SADiE continued their run with their Series 5 system that can also be configured to edit DSD. They unveiled software 5.1-surround processor that processes the B-Format outputs of the Soundfield series of mikes.

- Editor's note: Pt. II of Danny's "AES-essment" of this NYC event continues next issue plus a perspective note on our current industry! For now, Enuff said! - GK -

-EARS MEMBERSHIP FORM-


NAME:____________________________________ CONTINUING MEMBER $25:________ 

ADDRESS:________________________________________ NEW MEMBER $25:________


CITY/STATE/ZIP:____________________________ ADDITIONAL DONATION:________


E-MAIL:________________________________________________________


*Make checks payable to EARS     Bring to meeting or mail to: EARS c/o
Pegasus  P.O. Box 578903, Chicago, IL 60657

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Hey you, Dues Are Due so put this on yer "To-Do"! It's time to renew your membership! Help out the organization by filling out the handy form above and sending it in with your $25.00 or more much appreciated larger donation. EARS has kept it's unbiased stance for over 15 years in large part by the generosity and contributions of the many current and past members. In this spirit, member Charlie Kim and partner David Vido of Starlight Studio have fashioned and donated really cool EARS pins. Paid members as of 12/31/03 will be eligible for one of these cool pins.

Additional pins many be purchased for $5.00. Check out the web site for a preview www.ears-chicago.org and let's give hearty EARS cheer to these "stand up" guys!

Send your bribes, ideas and articles to ears@ears-chicago.org, or snail mail them to The EARDRUM c/o Pegasus P.O. Box 578903, Chicago, Il 60657
- GK -

If you have any ideas for stories, wish to contribute an article, or want to include any upcoming events, please contact:

Gary at ears@ears-chicago.org. Or write to:
Peagasus Recording P.O Box 578903, Chicago, IL 60657.