 | | January 22, 2015 | | New Products |
| Read the November/December 2014 Issue of PAR Now!
Click Here For The Digital Edition | | Today's Review | 500 Series: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
By Lynn Fuston, Technical Editor for Pro Audio Review
Looking forward from the year 2000, I doubt anyone could have foreseen the impact that the 500 Series format would have, either on product designs or sales. Like many technologies—conceived for one purpose and adapted for others—the format has far exceeded its original intent and has now taken on a life of its own, but not without some growing pains.
I believe the format is similar to two other historical audio precedents. First was the Compact Cassette, a pocket-sized tape transport case that was intended as a portable equivalent of a reel-to-reel recorder. With a tape speed of 1 7/8 ips and originally designed for dictation, no one could have imagined that the Cassette would become a dominant force and high quality option for music recording and distribution. Gradual improvements like advanced tape formulations and Dolby B encoding allowed the Cassette to become a very capable recording medium.
Another analogy is audio plug-ins for DAWs. In the early days, they were pale imitations of their hardware counterparts—workable but not great. Today, nearly 20 years after their introduction, plug-ins have improved and are accepted as standard workhorses in our industry. Some emulations/creations offer more features and are even preferred over their hardware counterparts. So, in much the same way, the humble 1.5- x 5.25-inch 500 Series slot has become a very powerful option for designers and engineers . More » |
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| | Today's Blog | First Impressions on the Mackie DL32R
By Strother Bullins, Reviews Editor, NewBay AV/Pro Audio Group
Late December 2014 I received a DL32R—Mackie's new 32 channel wireless digital mixer via iPad Control—for full review within NewBay Media's AV/Pro Audio Group. From an applications standpoint, the DL32R covers the broadest range of audio tasks in the simplest way of any single product I've reviewed, ever. Yes, the DL32R inherently requires a systems-wide commitment to its architecture, but that's not much more complicated than buying an iPad, interfacing with the 3U rack-mount chassis for its physical I/O and learning a well-designed app and wireless network system.
Considering its feature set and Mackie's presence and power in the industry, the DL32R is poised to be the next big thing in all-inclusive audio capture, control, mixing and production at $1,999 street (add iPad, mics, cables, powered loudspeakers, and that's about all for a complete, super-capable mixing/recording system). More »
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| | Today's Video | PAR-Tube Presents: Review Preview featuring Fredenstein F200
By Rob Tavaglione for Pro Sound Network
This installment of “PAR-Tube”—an initiative starring the Contributors of Pro Audio Review in an ongoing video-based review, applications and new product presentation series—is a Review Preview "unboxing" vid presented by Rob Tavaglione on the Fredenstein F200 microphone preamplifier/compressor. More » |
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