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2009 Grammys sound great with Aphex preamps and Anaconda Digital Snake System |
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Held at Los Angeles’ Staples Center for the sixth consecutive year, the 51st Annual Grammy Awards show once again turned to Aphex’ remote controlled microphone preamplifiers. This year, in addition to the stacks of Model 1788A preamps that have been used at prior successful Grammy shows, the team responsible for the ceremony’s audio broadcast also chose Aphex’ new cost effective Model 188 remote preamplifiers. Also at the Grammy’s for the first time, was Aphex’ Anaconda 64-Channel digital snake. “We’re thrilled that the audio production team at the Grammys chose the reliability and superior sound quality of the Aphex signal chain,” says Marvin Caesar, Aphex president. For the entirety of the Grammy telecast on Sunday February 8, every note and word that was broadcast, sent through the house PA, and recorded, went through 20 of Aphex’ Model 1788A and an additional seven Model 188 remote controlled preamplifiers. Led by audio coordinator Michael Abbott, the audio engineering team included Peter Gray, a co-owner and engineer of PEG Audio Associates, who was in charge of the installation and operation for the recording and broadcast music audio. He was more than pleased with the 188s. “They sound great, look slick, are easy to set up, and are space and weight efficient. And I really like the dual ADAT outputs for splitting options as well as the ability to do SMUX,” he said. The Aphex Anaconda system was also employed for the show. Denali Video used the Anaconda for program and router feeds to the floor, as well as back up and emergency returns. Hugh Healy, Denali’s broadcast audio engineer, said that the audio quality going through the Anaconda was pristine, with no glitches. The snake proved so reliable in use at the Grammys that Denali has planned on using the Anaconda again for the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony. The Aphex Model 188 houses eight high-quality mic preamps in a single 1U rackmountable chassis. Like the company’s popular 1788A, all settings of the Model 188 may be remote controlled via Ethernet or MIDI, using Aphex’ 1788A-RC hardware remote or the 1788SW control software (PC and Mac), or via Pro Tools®. The 188 has one analog output as well as two ADAT Optical outputs, each carrying eight channels of audio. The two outputs may be used for redundant operation, or to combine for higher sampling rates (SMUX). The Anaconda Model 828 is a 64-channel bidirectional snake comprised of two identical units on either end of a high speed fiber run. There are eight ADAT optical inputs and outputs on each unit, as well as an RJ-45 jack for control and metering/status feedback. Each unit has two fiber transceivers and two power supplies with automatic failure switching for redundancy.
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