AES
October 2006
Page 2
To Page 3 - AES 2006 Gear Page
Noticing that we had several drinks in our bellies, but no food, we left the Gold Dust Lounge and walked over to the excellent Hana Zen, meeting Arlynne along the way. Here's Foxtick, Jeff, and Bunny enjoying sushi and Kirin.
Bunny and Valky at Hana Zen.
Arlynne and Donald at Hana Zen.
The Digi Trolley in front of the AES Convention the next morning.
Mike Rivers, Lanis, and Hank Alrich discuss the art and science of mic preamps at the Gordon booth. Hank in particular was raving about how amazing this mic preamp sounds, and I trust his opinion quite a bit. Grant Carpenter insists on performing all the soldering and everything himself, and it's a work of art.
Jan-Al was passing out free reverb units. I nabbed this beautiful pink Echo Mic. Creates lovely reverb when you speak into it.
Always the thoughtful recording engineer, on my next recording session at Blueberry Buddha, I set up this mic next to my Lawson as a possible alternative!
I met Geoff Emerick during his book signing.
I stood in line along with everyone else while
Geoff and Howard Massey were there, signing their new book. I got up to Geoff,
and not really knowing what to say, I pointed to the huge plastic pink Echo Mic
and asked, "Did you ever use one of these vintage mics on your sessions?"
He paused for a second, maybe not expecting someone to say that or being taken
aback for just a second, and then let loose with a laugh. Howard laughed along
with him.
After having his picture taken with a cell phone, Geoff seemed to like my camera
that Fett from Performing Songwriter used to take a picture of Geoff and I,
saying, "Yeah, yeah, use a real camera, use something that uses film." I didn't
have the heart to tell him that it was actually a Nikon D50, a <gasp> digital
camera...
Recording engineer Geoff Emerick is best known for his work on the Beatles records, first working on "Tomorrow Never Knows". He also experimented, feeding Lennon's voice through a Leslie rotating speaker to create a cool watery effect for his voice. Emerick worked on Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album and Abbey Road, and also worked with Elvis Costello, Art Garfunkel, Cheap Trick, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Robin Trower.
I stopped off at the TapeOp booth to say hi to Larry Crane and compliment him on the excellent job. After a few minutes he said, "I want to see the EQ Panel. Here's a badge if you wanna go." and with that we were off.
At the EQ Panel design luminaries Geoff Daking, Doug Fearn, Saul Walker, George Massenburg, Greg Gualtieri, Rupert Neve, Malcolm Toft, and Paul Wolff discussed the building and designing and philosophy of equalizers.
At one point, the moderator mentioned Behringer, setting off Massenburg: "Well, we're talking about designing. Do they do their own R&D? Don't they copy other people's designs?"
After the AES show, Arlynne and Donald picked me up, stopping off in here in North Beach to feed the birds before continuing to Afghan North Beach restaurant and then on to The Cat Club with another friend Sarah. A very fun weekend!!!
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