Pictures from the event
CRAS brought in several representatives from Waves to discuss their products, plugins, as well as demo them while mixing. First to speak was Products Specialist Michael P.A. He started by remarking that the last time he had spoken at CRAS, it was in 2008 when he was doing an event with Eddie Kramer. At that time, the Waves SoundGrid protocol was just starting out. 10 years later, SoundGrid is now the industry standard in live sound and has found its way into studios and broadcast.
Next to present was FOH engineer Stephen Bailey, who gave a presentation on Waves' SoundGrid, an Audio-over-Ethernet protocol with audio networking and real- time processing. He went on to explain SoundGrid's host applications: MultiRack, SoundGrid Studio and eMotion LV1, a complete production mixer. To conclude, he talked about SoundGrid Servers that power all audio processing and mixing on a SoundGrid network.
Last but not least was Ken "Pooch" van Druten who gave a mixing demonstration. He notes the four things needed to create a mix was "Microphone Choice, Microphone Placement, Gain Control and High Pass Filtering", arguing that less is more. Waves makes 193 plug-ins. Pooch stated the reason he likes Waves plug-ins is that they figured out a formula to create harmonic distortion within their plugins that sounds pleasing to the ear. Sometimes he inserts plug-ins without doing anything, simply using it for adding harmonic distortion. Next, he demoed different Waves plug-ins such as C6, CLA-76 (a modeled plug-in of the UA-1176 Compressor), Lo Air and PS22 Spread (spreads the sound of what you place it on).
Pooch, Stephen and Michael teamed together at the end to demo plugins great for corporate events or live sound concerts when the artist is placed in front of the PA (both places with potential for feedback issues). PSE is a look-ahead, vocal gate plug-
in. X-FDBK determines feedback frequencies and cuts based on what it's hearing. Dugan has gain sharing between microphones and eliminates phase issues even when you're talking next to someone, These three plug-ins combined they stated would help work wonders at those corporate events or live sound concerts.
Once the presentation concluded, the members of the audience where invited to come up to the front to view the various Waves or SoundGrid based products they had on display.
More About Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences Section
