This year’s best gear round-up from Music Radar celebrates gear diversity; whether you’re sitting in a studio, standing on stage or commuting to work, great tools have been released to help you create music. READ MORE

Year one of the new decade offered up a slammin’ set of new audio products sure to make any audio-head squeal with joy. Check out my picks for the best products of 2011 based on their uniqueness, great feature sets and overall quality. READ MORE

Students get ready for the first tracking session on the API Legacy Plus in Gilbert.

The massive process of replacing not one, but two large format analog mixing consoles is beyond its halfway point. The first of two 48 channel API Legacy Plus consoles has successfully replaced the venerable Neve VR at the Gilbert location by completing it’s first week of duties under the hands of CRAS instructors and students. Check out photos of the Gilbert console swap and shots from the first sessions here.

The second API Legacy Plus rolls into Tempe Studio C.

With the first API up and running in Gilbert, attention can be turned to the Tempe facility where another API Legacy Plus has just been rolled into Studio C at that location. There’s still much work to do, but in the capable hands of the CRAS techs Jeff Harris and Cory Smith it’s now a matter of days before the first session on the second of these phenominal sounding consoles. See the progress of the Tempe console swap here.

For 2011 CRAS has upgraded the amps used with the state of the art L-Acoustics Kudo speaker system used at the Gilbert location’s live sound room. The 6 new L-Acoustics LA8 amplifiers each provide 4 channels of output and contain all of the digital signal processing for filters and time alignment. The LA8′s receive their audio and control commands via a digital network and the LA Network computer software provides single point control over the entire system. Better yet, the new amps have made the already phenomenal Kudo speaker system sound even better! Check out more photos of the new amplifiers.

The Conservatory is installing the CLASP (Closed Loop Analog Signal Processor) in its A Studios over the Christmas holidays. The CLASP system allows the user to record audio through analog tape on its way to a DAW. “CLASP is an important way for us to teach the finesse and art of recording,” says Director of Education Kevin Becka. “I reviewed CLASP for Mix Magazine and immediately saw it was the next big thing in boutique audio recording. Its ability to record at different tape speeds in the same project puts some unique and tasty options in an engineer’s bag of tricks.”

The Conservatory is the first audio recording school to offer CLASP in its curriculum and will be offering a certification to all qualified students.

The Conservatory recently took possession of two API Legacy Plus consoles that are slated to be installed over the Christmas break. The consoles will be housed in Studio C at both locations and offer automation, inline design, 3 stereo buses, 12 auxes and a range of API EQ and compressor modules. “We went with API because of their solid reputation for build and audio quality,” says Administrator Kirt Hamm. “The Conservatory’s prime gear directive is to expose our students to the best consoles, preamps, speakers and mics available in all our studios and live rooms.”

The CRAS features gear from API, SSL, Neotek, Genelec, Tannoy, Apogee, Avid, Neumann, Blue, Shure and more in its 8 studios and Live Sound venue. You can see more pictures of the console on our Flickr site.

CRAS live sound instructor Keith Morris guided students through Roland’s compact yet extremley powerful V-Mixing system during a clinic held August 8th, 2009.  Students were given hands on time with the M-400 mixer as it drove sound through CRAS’s L-Acoustics Kudo line array PA system.  In addition students could acquaint themselves with the brand new M-48 personal monitor mixers just released by Roland. Keith demonstrated how musicians can have instant control over their stage mixes, or how the system can allow the front of house mixer to step in and remotely control an artists mix via a laptop.  To top things off, Keith even showed how the Roland system can accomodate multi-track recording with a laptop running the Sonar digital audio workstation.  All of this is made possible through the use of Roland’s digital audio snake system that uses standard Ethernet networking cable to connect the front of house mix position to the stage.  Photos of the event can be found here.

Masterlink Studio’s engineer reviews the Digidesign C24 Pro Tools controller. The Conservatory has two C24s dedicated to Surround production and mixing classes.

Auto Time Adjuster is a $50 RTAS plug-in for Pro Tools LE/M-Powered, designed to ease your workflow when using plug-ins that generate significant latency. Currently to compensate for plugin latency you have to either move individual audio tracks backwards/forwards, or use the included Time Adjuster plugin to adjust the delay of each track in turn. One plug-in change can mean a lot of tweaks every time you change a plug-in in a large project.

Auto Time Adjuster uses audio pinging to automatically calculate and compensate for insert latency on your audio, aux tracks with the click of a button. When you add or remove a plugin on a track all you need to do is click the ping button on the master ATA to calculate all current latency and synchronise your tracks, even when using hardware inserts. ATA’s site has videos demoing the new product.

REAPER is a fully featured, cross-platform (Mac/PC) multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering environment that is only $50, has no dongle or copy protection and can be tested for 30 days with full functionality. Features include a 64 bit audio engine and signal path, low-latency single and multiprocessor performance and stability, audio effects including multiband EQ and compressor, oversampling technical compressor, convolution reverb engine, real-time pitch correction, and a dozen others. The installer is only a few MB so the app is easy on your hard drive. I recently saw it used as the recording platform for the new Digico SD8 live sound digital console at the LDI show in Las Vegas. Digico uses the platform across its entire product line.