Recording Magazine Reviews KEL HM-7U and HM-3C
Recording Magazine has run the KEL HM-7U and HM-3C condenser microphones through their paces for their May edition. They both come through with flying colors! 
Paul Vnuk sums it up nicely:
As with the Song Sparrow, these two KEL mics impress me. Their sound is unique, their build is solid, and their prices are shocking.
Click here to read the review in its entirety. Contact us to demo the mics or to purchase! You won’t be disappointed.
Proel America Performer Package
Are you part of a small group performing in coffeehouses, bars, restaurants, wineries, or other small to mid sized venues? Are you looking to upgrade your PA system while reducing the overall footprint of your system? Or, maybe, you own or manage one of these venues and you want to provide a consistent and excellent quality system for your events. Proel America has perfect solutions for you- high quality, low cost solutions.
Take, for example, what we’ll call the Proel America Performer Package:
- (1) M8 USB Mixer with 6 Mic Inputs
- (2) Extreme Series 10A Active 2-Way Enclosure
- (1) FRE300KIT – a pair of aluminum speaker stands and nylon carrying bag
- (1) PSE2- dynamic vocal mic, microphone cable, mic stand, and carrying bag
Products shown have a combined retail price of $1321. That’s retail- contact us to locate a dealer with even better pricing for you, and to hear the system for yourself!
What exactly do you get with this package? Here are the specs and details:
The Proel M8 USB mixer:
Highlights:
6 mic preamps, 256 effect presets, a CD quality USB soundcard for recording your mix to your PC or MAC, and for playback from your PC or MAC, carrying bag and 19″ rack ears
Specs:
The Proel Extreme Series 10 Active Loudspeaker:
Highlights:
Great sounding, plenty of power, and less than 30lbs!
Specs:
The Proel PSE2 Pack:
This pack has it all- a great sounding vocal mic, boom mic stand, high quality XLR-XLR mic cable, and a durable nylon bag to carry it all!
Proel RSM200BK black microphone stand:
Proel DM226 Dynamic Vocal Mic:
PROEL FRE300KIT:
A pair of aluminum speaker stands and a durable nylon carrying bag.
Proel America is brought to you by the same folks who bring you Turbo Sound. This is a top notch manufacturer with great gear at affordable prices. Contact us to locate a dealer near you and set up a time to demo the product for yourself. You won’t be disappointed!
For the full line of products available, please visit the Proel America website.
Thanks and happy gigging!
New Products from Seymour Duncan!
Seymour Duncan announces new products for 2012- coming soon to a dealer near you!
’59 Custom Hybrid Pickup
Seymour Duncan is very engaged with their customers through many different avenues, but especially on their excellent forum. The new ’59 Custom Hybrid is a perfect example. This pickup was born from a thread on the forum in which a user had experimented with combining coils from a ’59 and a Custom and put them together to surprising results. This pickup is extremely versatile, with an Alnico 5 magnet; you get the lush vintage warmth of the ’59 with the hot crunch of the Custom. It’s very responsive to volume changes giving you the ability to go from warm vintage, mid-range growl or hot crunch.
Loaded Pickguards for Strat® featuring the Liberator
Strat® players can customize their sound and upgrade their electronics in minutes with our new series of Fully Loaded Pickguards. The Triple Rails Pickguard is locked and loaded for those that play rock or metal using the ferocious Hot Rails for Strat® pickups. The Classic Pickguard features a Custom Stack plus in the bridge, a Classic Stack in the middle, and a Vintage Hot in the neck, giving you the sound of a Classic Strat® and then some. The Bring Your Own Pickups Pickguard allows you to choose your pickup combination so that you can create the tone you desire. Install any combination of pickups in minutes thanks to the Liberator which is installed in the Triple Rails, Classic and Bring Your Own Pickups Pickguard and will allow you to change your pickups in minutes using only a screwdriver. The Antiquity Pickguard features an artfully aged look with true vintage tone and each is personally signed by Seymour W. Duncan.
Joe Bonamassa Signature Pickup Set from the Custom Shop
The Seymour Duncan Custom Shop has teamed up with blues-rock virtuoso Joe Bonamassa to produce the Joe Bonamassa Signature Pickup Set. This immaculately crafted and calibrated dual-humbucker set accurately replicates the P.A.F. pickups in Joe’s beloved 1959 sunburst Les Paul®. Their rich, dynamic, and nuanced voice will appeal to all tone connoisseurs who cherish the passion and power of the original humbucker.
Wound on the historic Leesona machine that created humbuckers for Gibson back in the ’50s and ’60s, the set features an Alnico 2 magnet in the neck pickup and Alnico 3 in the bridge. Period-correct butyrate bobbins, lightly antiqued nickel covers, wooden spacer, and retro-style “Bonamassa” P.A.F. stickers heighten the vintage vibe.
Only 1,959 sets will be sold worldwide and each will be hand signed by Seymour and Joe and include a special USB flash drive with the story of the making of the Joe Bonamassa Signature Pickup Set.
KEL Audio Song Sparrow Review
The current issue of Recording Magazine is singing the praises of the Song Sparrow from KEL Audio with a great review!
These are well-built and unique sounding microphones that truly deserve a cult following of the highest magnitude!
-Paul Vnuk Jr, Recording Magazine
Click on the image to read the review in it’s entirety. And… if you want to find out first hand why the Song Sparrow got such a great review, contact us and we’ll work with you to to set up a demo. This is a great mic to have in your arsenal for vocals, acoustic instruments, drum overheads, you name it! Like all KEL Audio microphones, the Song Sparrow is made with top notch components (dual FET, WIMA film capacitors) and ships with a shockmount and flight case.
ADAM A7X Wins Best Studio Monitors- Again!
Congratulations ADAM Audio!
The readers of SOUND ON SOUND, one of the world’s premier music recording technology magazines, have voted for the best products in 2011. The annual SOS Awards are amongst the most prestigious awards in the industry.For the the second year in a row, the ADAM A7X has been voted Best Studio Monitor. So, really, congratulations again!
This is further proof the A7Xs are fast becoming the standard for accurate studio monitoring. Here’s one of the many reasons why:
The X-ART Principle: moving the air in a 4:1 ratio
The X-ART Tweeter
ADAM has been well known for their Accelerating Ribbon Tweeter(ART). They have now improved upon this technology even further with the release of the X-ART tweeter (eXtended).
The X-ART membrane consists of a pleated diaphragm in which the folds compress or expand according to the audio signal applied to them. The result is that air is drawn in and squeezed out, like the bellows of an accordion.
This makes the tweeter much more efficient than standard technology, which results in incredible accuracy of playback all the way to 50kHz and stereo imaging like no other monitor available.
See for yourself- more area= more dynamic
ADAM diaphragm comparison to a 1" dome tweeter
“The famous ART tweeter as used in ADAM’s monitors has also undergone reconstruction in the X model providing 4dB higher efficiency and reproducing frequencies accurately all the way to 50kHz, which has made such a difference. The ART tweeter from ADAM has always been one of its strong points, but this new X-ART tweeter is a perfect balance in what is an excellent piece of craftsmanship. ”
(Audio Media, 09/2009)
And now HEAR for yourself- contact us to schedule a demo of these excellent monitors. Hearing is believing!
KEL Audio HM-7U Condenser Microphone
KEL Audio’s Flagship HM-7U Small Cardioid Condenser Microphone
Tired of the glut of thin, bright sounding inexpensive condenser microphones being offered? There’s actually a mic, a full line of mics, in fact, that brings you high end mic performance at an everyday price. And they don’t do it by using cheap components- they do it by simplifying the design so they can use excellent components.
Case in point- the HM-7U small supercardioid condenser microphone. This microphone boasts class ‘A’, dual transformerless FET circuit, a K47-syle capsule and WIMA film capacitors, resulting in a super clean, warm, open sounding signal. Add to that a low cut filter, -6dB pad, and a “phantom power present” indicator, and you have a mic should be in everyone’s arsenal.
Want to check it out for yourself? Contact us- we’ll make it happen!
Here are some other KEL users to give you their take on the HM-7U:
“The last decade has seen the number of cheap, brittle sounding condenser microphones skyrocket. Most of these are aimed at the home studio market and only succeed in looking like the large diaphragm condensers and tube microphones of the past. The KEL HM-7U large diaphragm condenser microphone is an exception. It offers a full 20Hz – 20kHz frequency response and a “super cardioid” polar pattern at an incredibly reasonable price. Aside from exceptional warmth and clarity, the HM-7U delivers a 6db pad, useful for tracking louder sounds, and a low frequency roll-off filter to help tame unwanted rumble from creeping into your recordings. The HM-7U comes with swivel mount, shock mount and flight case.”
“I took a pair of U87′s as room mics down while tracking drums and put up a pair of 7U’s and the drums and room became transparent. Everyone in the control room went WOW!!!!!”
—Bil VornDick, Multiple award-winning engineer and producer, Nashville Recording Legend
“…the HM-7U is the perfect example of high end quality at an affordable price…”
Visualize room modes….
We thought we’d share a great video and some info that was passed on to us by Haverstick Designs to help understand room modes:
“Many of you have probably seen this before, but it is a very interesting way to show the phenomenon of room modes using a resonant plate and some salt. This is a good way to visualize how tangential modes distribute throughout a room at various frequencies and how you can get cancellations (no salt) and buildups (lots of salt) throughout the room at various locations and in some very cool patterns!”
So there you have it! Now you can see a good representation of what goes on in your room while you are trying to mix, and why your mixes might not be translating as you had hoped! With some strategic treatment and possibly a second look at how you have your control room set up, you can likely correct a lot of mode issues in your room.
Happy mixing!
Cool Room Mode Calculator!
Here’s another find from our friends at Haverstick Designs- a very cool room mode calculator that let’s you “see” the effects in your studio of everything from your room’s dimensions, your listening position placement and subwoofer placement on the intensity of room modes.
The Amroc Room Mode Calculator:
Graph of the "Bolt-Area" showing cumulative good room ratios.
“You can explore “known rooms” which are popular room ratios or you can add
your own room to see how it fares. All dimensions are entered in
centimeters, so you can type in a Google search for example “12 ft to cm”
and it will display the conversion for you.Click around and explore the various tabs. There are notes for each tab that
gives you a description of what it should be used for. The “floor” tab is
probably the most interesting of them all.For the “floor” tab, you can set the height of the subwoofer and listening
position on the right side of the graph by using the sliders. Notice how
this changes the intensity of the various modes at the bottom. Next, you can
click on a specific mode at the bottom and see the distribution of this mode
on the graph. Then, you can drag the red dot in the upper left hand corner
of the graph to where the listening position would be located in the room -
allowing you to see in real-time, how the placement of the listening
position affects the intensity of the various modes.”-Haverstick Designs
Have fun! Let us know what you discover about your room! Send us a screenshot and we’ll give you our two cents.
Intellistage All Terrain Portable Staging
The fine folks at Intellistage Portable Staging have introduced their new All Terrain Portable Staging line of products!
Contact us to help take all the guess work out of building your stage and providing a quote!
The revolutionary new All Terrain Staging system from Intellistage can do just about anything and just about anywhere! All Terrain Staging by Intellistage™ goes where no stage has gone before! Use it outdoors, in the rain, at the beach, on a sloped hill or just about anywhere you can imagine!
• Each stage is height adjustable from 24, 32, 40 and 48″ heights.
• Available in both weather resistant and waterproof finishes.
• Features All Terrain design that can easily be set-up on uneven ground (each stage leg adjusts independently).
• Lightweight, durable and rugged aluminum construction.
• Fast and easy assembly and disassemble.
• Modular design (stage platforms come in 4′x4′ sections) allows stage to be expanded or configured as needed.
• Compact storage.
• Stairs, guardrails and skirting are available.
• Can be configured in various heights and configurations to form chair risers and choral risers.
See how easy All Terrain Staging from Intellistage is to transport and assemble:
For more information and to check out the FAQs, please visit the All Terrain Staging website.
Need portable staging for indoor use? Visit the Intellistage website!
Have Metrix line array – will travel
The Adamson Metrix System must be heard to be believed. So we took it on the road! This ultra compact true two way line array system is unmatched for medium SPL for smaller to mid-size venue installations. It blew everyone away who heard it.
We demoed a ground stack for convenience, but this system is recommended to be flown, using the carefully designed, integrated AIR rigging system, which allows 6 various rigging angles between each enclosure, measured in the logarithmic scale.
Contact us for an onsite demo at your facility or on location at a client’s facility. We’ll make it happen!
Adamson Metrix:
Applications
Small to Medium Permanent Installations
Houses of Worship
Theatres and Nightclubs
Fill arrays in Large Format Tours
Main PA in Smaller Touring Applications
Features
Adamson’s patented wave shaping sound chamber
8.5” Kevlar Neodymium L/MF Driver
1.4” B&C Compression Driver
Adamson Integrated Rigging (AIR™) System ‘revolving disk rigging’ in METRIX-t
Adamson Enclosed Installation Rigging (EIR™) System in METRIX-i
Black aluminum rigging frame
Metrix array and sub in action
