Andrew Stirling (Stirling MD) & Chris Minto (Director, NHT) at CEDIA 2007

Stirling Trading (UK) Ltd. are pleased to announce the launch of their Home Theatre division with the acquisition of California based NHT (Now Hear This) home theatre products. Stirling and NHT used the CEDIA 2007 show to introduce the line to the UK, which includes outstanding home theatre speakers, processors and amplifiers.

Over the last 30 years NHT’s cutting edge designs have won them a world-wide following in both the consumer and professional audio markets. NHT’s comprehensive product line includes solutions for stereo as well as 5.1 surround sound installations with the ‘Xd Series’, ‘Evolution Series’, the award winning ‘Classic Series’,’ and of course, the custom installer’s favourite, the ‘Architect Series’.

NHT’s Professional Division Director, Chris Minto said of Stirling’s exclusive distribution agreement “having worked with Stirling for 10 years on the professional side, I’m very pleased that they are now embracing the home theatre market. After 20 years of supplying and supporting some of the UK’s finest producers, artistes and studios, they have established themselves as the leaders in professional audio. They now bring this wealth of knowledge and a unique capability to provide excellent customer service to the home theatre customer.”

For price and availability or for more information contact Dave West at Stirling Trading (UK) Ltd. on 020 8963 4790 or by email nht@stirlingtrading.com.

SFL at the CRE at Sandown Park

Würzburg, Germany - March 2007; Sound engineer Peter Kautzsch chose Audient’s ASP008 microphone preamps with ADAT output to help bring the recording of Bachchor Würzburg to life, at the recent "Würzburger Bachtage".

The experienced amateur choir gave a virtuoso performance of Mozart’s Requiem in front of a 1000-strong audience at St John's church on the first night of the festival. Kautzsch had to suspend all mics in the 1960s-built church in the Franconian city. He explains, "All eleven mics were fed through two ASP008 mic preamps".

"The Audient ASP008s are really precise compared to some other mic pres I have worked with," he explains. "The Audient's gain pots are certainly my favourite – they are very smooth and the gain range is well-distributed".
"In my experience, with louder sources it doesn't matter what preamp is used, but with soft sources or ribbon mics, the 008 is definitely cleaner," Kautzsch continues. "I was completely satisfied with the the ADAT converter, too. There was certainly nothing lacking in the sound quality."

Kautzsch posted a sample of the Mozart Requiem on the Gearslutz forum, to positive acclaim, one person describing the recording as, "Spacious, yet warm at the same time," and another, as "Complex, yet real."

The link to read all comments on the Gearslutz.com forum is as follows:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php?t=106842&highlight=audient

The full recording and information about the Würzburg choir is available on www.bachchor-wuerzburg.de

SFL at the CRE at Sandown Park

Audix mics were present at this year’s CRE (Christian Resources Exhibition) between the 14th – 18th of May. Slough based SFL showed a range of Audix including the D – Series, the HT2 and the new HT5 along with the OM vocal dynamic mics.

Dave West of Stirling also attended the show and said ”People are beginning to realise the advantages that Audix has over the ‘industry standard’ mics that are out there. Sonically, Audix are coming out on top of virtually all A-B tests, but is also the build quality that is turning peoples heads.” Dave continued “We are very pleased to have SFL on board as an Audix authorised dealer as they really do offer a wonderful service to their clients and they have done a fantastic job here at the show”.

Click here to find out more about Audix microphones

Aphex Systems has debuted the Model 828 Anaconda, a point-to-point 64 channel bi-directional snake designed to easily and cost effectively connect the Aphex 1788A remote controlled preamplifier system to industry standard consoles, DAWs and recorders. Aphex has set up a tiered pricing program for the Anaconda, allowing purchasers of the 1788A to add the Anaconda starting at approx £2299 for both ends and going as low as £1699 per pair depending on the number of 1788A's purchased. Aphex plans on the Anaconda being available from authorized Aphex distributors around the end of March 2007.

"We feel that the Anaconda represents a revolutionary method of signal transport, at a price point that's remarkably lower than other digital snake devices," says Marvin Caesar, Aphex President. "However, the low price belies the fact that the Anaconda is perhaps the most advanced product in this category, with fully redundant fibre transceivers and power supplies. We've been working closely with industry professionals in the development of the Anaconda, and their reaction to the product is nothing short of outstanding."

The Anaconda Model 828 is comprised of two identical units on either end of a high speed fibre run. There are eight ADAT optical inputs and outputs on each unit. Each unit has an ultra-precision crystal generating internal word clock; selectable external word clock is fed through one BNC with selectable 75 W or high input impedance; word clock distribution through eight BNCs; and one RJ-45 for control and metering/status feedback of Aphex 1788A's. Each unit has two fibre transceivers with automatic failure switching for redundancy. The transceivers use industry standard SC connectors for use with low cost, readily available multimode fibre. Two internal power supplies automatically switch if one fails. The units are designed to be mounted in the rear of a rack for ease of connection and space efficiency.

Hopewell Junction, NY (March 14, 2007) – Metric Halo is pleased to announce that major updates for ChannelStrip|TDM and ChannelStrip|RTAS are now shipping. The 2.2 update is freely available to all registered OS X users of ChannelStrip and provides a large number of significant enhancements and bug fixes.

Metric Halo’s ChannelStrip has been an integral part of the sound of myriad Grammy-award winning, Gold and Platinum records, hit TV shows and blockbuster movies. Originally developed in 1998, ChannelStrip was the first plug-in to bring classic large format console-style channel processing to Pro Tools. With the first 48-bit EQ on the platform, ChannelStrip has been the critical tool for getting “the sound” for thousands of professional recording engineers, producers, composers and musicians world-wide.

ChannelStrip 2.2 is a Universal Binary, and supports Pro Tools 6.4 – 7.3 on both PPC and Intel Macs. ChannelStrip 2.2 also provides complete support for HD|Accel DSPs and PCIe cards on all Mac platforms. In addition to extending ChannelStrip support to PCIe cards and HD|Accel DSPs, ChannelStrip continues to support Mix and HD systems.

New features include:
· Support for plug-in clip-light and system wide clip indicator reset
· Support for Accel chips and 192k on TDM Accel systems
· Complete page table support for all supported control surfaces
· Universal Binary support for TDM and RTAS
· 16/8/4 mono instances per Accel chip at 1x/2x/4x rates

Notable bug fixes include:
· Fixed Gate bug at 96k on Mix and HD systems
· Fixed lack of support of PCIe systems
· Fixed DSP chip allocation bug
· Fixed window resize bug

According to B.J Buchalter, V.P. of R&D at Metric Halo, “The 2.2 release of ChannelStrip for Pro Tools systems is the best release we have had since the original introduction of the product. We know that ChannelStrip is the ‘go-to’ plug-in for a huge number of Pro Tools users and that the lack of support for many of Digidesign’s newer technologies was getting folks down. We are happy to be able to say that ChannelStrip now supports all current Pro Tools technologies and is completely rock solid. With this release we are re-affirming our commitment to the Pro Tools community, and to our loyal customers.”

“Back in the late 90's I wrote a review of ChannelStrip for Keyboard magazine and basically said its a ‘must have DSP tool!’”, says Mikail Graham of www.mikailinfo.com. Mikail continues, “Well now its 2007 and ChannelStrip since that time has stepped into the world of Apple "Audio Units" along with hot new Pro Tools HD and LE versions and more and I have to tell you its still one of my most valuable DSP tools as it covers the ground of four or five separate plug-ins and more, yet just as powerful in each department as much of the competition is in just one. If you are one of the few who haven't yet tried ChannelStrip I suggest you download it today and prepare to get happy!”

It’s an Accelebration!
In order to celebrate this major release, Metric Halo is holding a ChannelStrip Accelebration. For a limited time, (from March 14 to April 14, 2007) Metric Halo is reducing the price of new ChannelStripTDM licenses to $499 and new ChannelStripRTAS licenses to $249 – a 25% savings!

How to get it
The ChannelStrip 2.2 update is available immediately as a FREE download from Metric Halo’s website at http://www.mhlabs.com, for registered owners of OS X ChannelStrip licenses.

OS 9 Customers need to upgrade to an OS X license before they can take advantage of the improvements to ChannelStrip. Upgrades are available for $149 from Metric Halo at http://www.mhsecure.com/upgrade. The original OS 9 serial number is required to complete the upgrade.

For new customers, ChannelStrip is available from Metric Halo authorized dealers and direct from Stirling.