Q It Up: What’s new in your tech rack?

Well, this won't be at all impressive to anyone, but we just replaced our old monitor speakers with new KRK active nearfields.

The old cabs were 20-year-old JBL farfields that hung from the ceilings ... foam rubber rings crumbling into dust and falling in our coffee, woofer cones that sounded more kazoo-like every day, peeling veneer ... it was getting ugly.

The farfields gave us a good idea of the overall mix, but the nearfields are like microscopes that let us hear lip pops, the clicking of ballpoint pens and the drone of HVAC air movement in the background. If we can hear up close what's going on, we can fix it before it goes to air. Response is flatter than the JBLs, which had a very pronounced boom at the bottom. And the Sweet Spot is now more of a spot, than a big diffuse ball of sound that's fuzzier than a Wookie.

I like the change, and KRKs are going in all of our studios now; swapping out another pair of JBLs and an old set of Alesis passive speakers.

A wee little box called a Class-T amplifier from Dayton Audio. The power supply is as big as the actual unit. I had been using a big box amp for years, then in mid-2017 tried some powered monitors. Probably more due my imperfect operation position than the quality of the monitors, I didn't like the sound and took them back. I went back with my old speakers, and got the little Dayton amplifier. Sounds just fine, and I have swapped a big box on my desk for a small one. That and a replacement video monitor is all I've had to do for some time. Coming up this year - solid state drives for the PC.

Nothing from me on NEW GEAR. Just fight against arrogance by default- If you have Sales working like crazy and your BREAKS are CHUNKED UP-AWESOME! If you are tender of those spots as Copywriter and Producer -AWESOME! Just work through to SOUND sincere; avoid making your Listener Overthink knowing the spot is one of 15-Don't make suffering -for your favorite Listener has to hear too much "IMPORTANT information" as it is. 1-800-BLITZ, 1-800-BLITZ, THAT'S 1-800-BLITZ! Sorry Jerry.

My favourite new tools is iZotope RX. Increasingly, I live in a world where I have little or no control
over some of the Voice-Over content I must employ... a wide range of talent, techniques and gear is used.
In an effort to have a more consistent product, at least from a technical aspect, I am using RX to speed up
a good portion of the more forensic editing... plosives, mouth noises, ambient sound etc. The inbox does
not hold back, so I am using RX and several other bits of tech to expedite more and more tasks.

Kevin

Newest acquisition is iZotope RX6. This package can solve, or at least ameliorate, some pretty intractable problems.

Not brand new, but fairly recent (late 2015) is our 48 channel Harrison Trion console with a 1024 x 1024 audio router. Now THAT was major upgrade. It has a positive affect on everything we do.