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Studio1A is back. A new city, same sound and more professional audio gear.

So. How was your summer? …or winter for our friends across and around the globe

With Lauras help, Studio1A is now nestled in a (not so quiet) bustling suburb. The change is a positive one. Topping the ‘new feature’ list; a large workshop with endless building potential, not to mention multiple floors and almost a mile of new cable between them. Having hired movers, we certainly were surprised at how much boxing and sorting was involved. The real message is just how much more total space we have for product, mic lockers, electronic workstations and even a video sound stage.

As the components (mainly the Wheatstone console) come together, so will the audio. Only a few equipment casualties lie in the wake of the move. One of our Aphex 230s developed a switching power supply problem. Everything else came right back to life and happily feasted on a steady diet of 60Hz AC.

What to expect in the coming weeks? Several new (and surprising) microphones along with our annual Holiday Product Roundup. This year, you’re back in the celebration as we reveal some of the coolest gadgets on the planet. Holiday time is close.

Ok – enough banter for now. Back to Neutrik XLRs, Gotham installation cable, DB-25s and a lot of temperature controlled soldering.

Perhaps I should lay off the smoky rosin-core soldering for just a bit. I’m almost sure that human-sized rabbit in the lobby isn’t real?

…stay tuned!

@markjensen

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1RU of pure vocal horsepower. The Aphex Channel.

Long, long ago when Studio1A was nestled in the “rolling hills”, I was searching for a sound. As a former radio guy, that compression-wars sound was still hauntingly familiar and comfortable. New media was an infant and podcasting began changing what used to be traditional media. During this time, I remember listening to dozens of high-profile shows that simply didn’t utilize processing of any kind. Now there’s an aural contrast; over-the-air radio vs. the wild West days of podcasting.

I knew what had to be done in building a new media studio …and did it. A microphone processor (or vocal strip) was needed for each microphone to level the host and guests up front. Then, run everything, including music, sound effects and mic audio through a console, eventually blended together as program output. That output needed a true broadcast processor for the final audio massage, before being encoded.

I tried several different brands of voice processors but one of them stood out. The Aphex 230 was my Voice Channel of choice, and remains so to this day. After thousands of podcasts, our bank of Aphex 230s continue to hum (not literally) along every day, working harder than I.

Time does march on and there’s a new strip in town, simply called “Channel”. Channel appears to be a tweaked 230, but it’s dangerous to judge a book by its cover. I say appears, because we have not checked one of these new pieces out …yet. I have spoken with the folks at Aphex and a test drive is in the works. For now, simply know that the legend continues.

Until then, the question looms: has the “Channel” changed?

Channel is a trademark of Aphex.

@markjensen

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2011. Did we really start camping out here at NewMediaGear in 2005? Not quite, but the foundation was being set over at PodSqod.

A lot has changed, yet much stays the same. Not sure we could change all that much anyway! A New Year is here and we’re ready to check out the great new stuff coming out of trade shows like NAMM and CES, followed by Summer NAMM and NAB. Wow. And then, there are those hidden gems we didn’t yet get to in the year past.

It’s good to be back, flip the calendar page over and get back to work. That’s the best part. Bringing you the best in voiceover, broadcast and pro-audio recording gear so you can hear before you buy …or just listen in.

Great to see you out there. …chat soon!

Be sure to check out NewMediaGear page on Facebook! I’ll be posting there between shows.

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mark at newmediagear dot com

Sponsored by BSW. Voiceover, Podcast, Broadcast and New Media Gear is here…

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THE radio guy – Spyder Harrison joins us for an informal chat on mics, classic compressors, radio and loud commercials. From radio voice tracking, spots heard round the world and voicing several channels at Sirius/XM, Spyder is a busy guy behind the mic.

drop by for a rare glimpse inside Spyder Studios…

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Drop me a line with comments, thoughts and suggestions:
mark at newmediagear dot com

Sponsored by BSW. Podcast, Broadcast and New Media Gear is here…

Be sure to check out the NewMediaGear YouTube Channel!

Have you ever heard a sound and knew you liked it …without knowing why? Not so much a song or artist, but a style.

For me, that happened long ago. At the beginning of my on-air career, I worked at an AM/FM combo. We were a medium market, but our signal easily penetrated a large market (Toronto). The cool guys and gals at the station worked album rock on FM. Let’s just say that I worked the AM side. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

We monitored the station in real time. There was no talk show delay (mainly because there were no talk shows. we were all music, all the time except for CBS News at the top hour). There wasn’t a computer in site. ITC 3D cart players to the left and right. A Gates console, read-board and clock to the front. We monitored audio with Electro-Voice monitors and headphones when the mic was latched on. The on-air talent heard the same signal everyone else did. That meant mono, lo-fi along with lightning crashes and other static. Of course, we logged transmitter and antenna specs every hour by hand. If we heard static on the monitors, it was our job to remotely reset the transmitter. After all, everyone had a restricted broadcast permit ; )

Our format was “contemporary hit radio” or CHR. When I was hired, we were in the middle of a compression war with a competing station. My music director wanted a sound “louder” than anyone else on the AM dial, and he may have succeeded, at least in our market. As you could imagine, the music (compared to todays standards) didn’t sound all that great, but we had plenty of listeners.

I remember putting on the phones and switching the huge Gates mic channel on with a big thunk and succession of relay pops. Even I sounded good! It was magic. That super-compressed, low-bandwidth audio sounded great. As I started podcasting and netcasting, I kept searching for that sound. Well, maybe not that exact sound. Add some dynamic range, drop the lightning crashes and give me bit more high-end in the frequency department. Otherwise – I still like to push the processor a little harder than most. If you’re a classical music buff, you are probably cringing right now. Sorry.

So that’s it. At a pivotal point in my life, I was exposed to compression and leveling to make an AM signal sound as it was never intended. Today, I appreciate what the audiophile crowd hears, both the ‘transparent’ and ‘psycho-acoustic’ crowd. The change in sound design that created Home Theater (or was it the other way around) with dramatic dynamics and exaggerated bass. My best friends are severe audiophiles, and the conversations between us are always a blast.

Many people search for sonic accuracy. What goes into a mic or amp is exactly what should be heard. That’s impossible (with the exception of test tones), but the pursuit isn’t. Just as artists experiment with instruments, I experiment with processing. When a customer requests a voice-over ‘dry’ – I can deliver. I can also make the spot sound like it’s for a tractor-pull convention or anywhere in between. These days, my personal taste is somewhere in the middle – as exposure to both extremes has conditioned me.

My breed is definitely outnumbered – big time. As a voice talent, I do just as instructed.

However, when given free reign on the show, I do like to punch it a little. Old habits.

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…or, drop me a line with comments, thoughts and suggestions:
mark at newmediagear dot com

Best,
MarkJensen