Here are two nice videos (besides the utterly disgusting promotion in the end of the second video) of Ryan Hewitt talking about the AWS 900 console. Funny thing: the first thing I thought in the beginning of both videos was “hey, my 003 does that too”.

Have you checked out SSL’s halloween gift X-orcism? It’s not available in RTAS, only AU and VST but I thought I’d give it a mention anyway since I had so much fun with it. I guess it’ works in Pro Tools with the wrapper (I still haven’t got it and I’m not in a hurry either). I used it in Live. It’s a howlin’ ghoulish thing, give it a go!

Already time for AES again! Man, time flies. Unfortunately I won’t be attending it this year. The worst part about that isn’t necessarily that I can’t go around molesting the latest gear, but that I’ll miss all the kickass parties I’ve been invited to! Oh well. I’ll of course do my best to cover the news, and hopefully some friendly dude or dudette will supply me with some floor footage as well (if you’re going and is interested, let me know).

In the meantime, here are some of the AES news that have dropped into my mailbox over the last few weeks.
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SSL wants you to buy their plug-in for their DSP platform Duende. Drumstrip, X-EQ, X-Comp and Stereo Buss Compressor are all down by more than half of their regular pricing until October 1st.

More info on Duende at SSL

Here’s a clip of the new SSL console. I messed my recording up, fortunately George stepped up and saved the day!

One of the great things about trade fairs like these are that you can actually grab the faders on a lot of things that you’ll never be able to afford yourself. Here are some of the consoles I enjoyed playing with.
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Hot on the heels of the portable Duende Mini unit (launched in Jan 2008 and showing for the first time in Europe), Musikmesse sees the launch of Duende PCIe. Duende puts the legendary SSL sound inside your workstation hardware and makes harnessing the power of the renowned Duende Plug-Ins more integrated than ever. PCIe is a high bandwidth, half length, full height slot-in PCIe card that works in both PCs and Macs. This card is ideal for those who work with lots of external firewire equipment, or those who want to integrate their SSL processing and workstation into a single case unit. Duende PCIe will be demonstrated in Hall 5.1 on Stand# B.75.
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Remember that I mentioned the rumor of a cheaper SSL mixer? I guess “relative sensible price point” was indeed very “relative”. There’s nothing on the SSL website yet, but VintageKing shows what’s likely to be the new budget SSL console.

Price: $26K.

Via post on Gearslutz

Musikmesse in Frankfurt is drawing near, and while I’m excited to go there, I’m not so excited about what’s been announced for it this far, or the rumors… Or should I say, the lack of rumors.
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SSL has already announced the Duende Mini, and most people expect them to announce a PCI version of the Duende platform at Musikmesse. According to this post “SSL are about to launch a cute analogue mixer at a relatively sensible price point” as well. Where this rumor comes from I do not know, and as the pessimistic skeptic I am, I will not trust it until I hear more about it. Still, I would be interested if it turned out to be true…

Solid State Logic