The Road to Infocomm 2023
Infocomm 2023 has come and past, two years after Covid ruined public gatherings Audio’s largest gathering is still celebrated with its big brother from the video world. While its ok to miss a year missing two years in a row would be a career mistake for those that have attended since NSCA merged with its video family. Scours of independent reps, contractors, consultants, manufactures and operators along with a small limited amount of marketing folks traveled to Orlando for the yearly gathering.
In the past for me this is a very very stressful event. After the first decade I finally stopped taking beta blockers for anxiety and have opted for a less stressful life representing only myself taking breaks outside away from the convention hall. Thankfully I abandoned smoking cigarettes but in the past there would always be a small gathering of social affairs. There still is but its a smaller crowd. Rather showing up a week early to do load in load out I opted to travel the morning of the first day, grab a hotel for two days, rely on the bus system and fly home after the show hitching a ride to the airport. Cheap and cheerful.
Rather a fancy steak dinner I opted for a hamburger at the local secret diner near the convention hall at a near by hotel and Indian food the following night with a gathering of audio geeks. Thanks Coda for the beers. My only appointment was with AFMG being to check out EASE 5 as I have been a user and fan for nearly 24 years of professional audio and much has changed in that world. I was humbled to spend some time with them to check out the updates and make a new friend being Ana from AFMG who gave lots of demos. For audio designers they certainly provide the most important tools of the trade. I was also humbled to spend time with Mr.Bruce Olson who is now the president of the Audio Engineering Society.
Beginning at the airpot I couldn’t help but take a selfie with an out of operations pay phone being an early prehistoric communications device of which our industry started from. Western Electric and RCA would grow to become Ma Bell and well who doesn’t appreciate an analog phone. This would grow into radio, Woodstock and now the current industry as we have it. It should be noted much appreciation and respect to eh independent rep force as the audio industry created the earliest of reps dating back to the days of Marantz.
My strategy was different for this show rather the show floor I was aiming to attend and listen to all 22 demo rooms. The demo rooms at Infocomm are very important and irreplaceable. They belong imo next to the video world and have no place at NAB or AES. LDI is where one used to go for large line array demos now replaced by WFX or CFX as its now called. First stop was Alcons whom iv been a fan of for a long time. Not only were they chosen for Hamilton but they are one of the more premium loudspeaker companies and had guests such as Robert Scovil and Hugo from SPAT demoing spatial audio tools. The stars of the show not limited to but included the new console range from Yamaha and a new spatial audio platform from Fulcrum called Fulcrum One combing acoustical simulation along with spatial acoustic enhancement and spatial audio mixing tools. Say that three times fast.
The demo rooms are still difficult to manage and figure out. Much like attending attending Jazz fest the line up can become confusing to say the least. Odd even hours are not as simple as you would think because each manufacturer alters there schedule for private events etc. Many of the rooms were standing room only or at capacity similar to a nightclub. I advise others to arrive 10-15 minutes in advance which makes it difficult to do back to back demos. Typically one has lots of conversations in the demo rooms with other colleagues about installs coming up or previously completed jobs. Not allot of commercial transactions on the show but I did know of at least two arenas stadiums attending the show shopping for loudspeaker solutions etc. The first day I took a couple of laps around the show floor and later stuck with an aggressive schedule to attend as many demos audibly as possible on day two and day three. Other attendees have lots of audio talent and trained golden ears. I assure you this is a serious professional atmosphere and while yes I made a small pyramid of beer cans at an after party the listening sessions were and are important. The gentlemen with the annoying singing goat ring tone who thought it was funny to play over and over before a demo was not appreciated. Yes were hear to have fun but in all seriousness it wasn’t appreciated by the manufacture who spent some coins on the demo room which is a financial commitment. While I ran out of time to visit my old alum FullSail I was happy and proud to see it on the list of available tours previous in the week.
If I may share some trade show recommendations. Gather and keep all ur swag and business cards and organize them when back at home base. Also in the future ill be keeping a map of the vendors its good to make mental and physical notes by hand. Also this information is not saved by others so if there is that booth from 5 years ago that you don’t remember the name but you remember the location of the booth one needs to be self reliant.
In short after leaving the floor one just needs to repeat the words spatial spatial spatial or immersive over and over again. Years ago the term game changer was used every where. This year it was all about spatial tools from the manufacturers, Flux, Amadeus and missing in action was New Audio Technologies. My first introduction to spatial tools was almost twenty years ago with Level Control Systems at Full Sail using LD88s for my final show production exam of which I accidentally created a feedback loop that almost exploded a large EV X-Array. Shortly after FullSail I worked with a contractor who had the only portable VRAS system and did a couple of spatial installs back in 2001. Meyer sound Space Maps and Qsys 2d space panner are basic tools but these devices have been updated by Flux, Fulcrum One and several other options such as L-Acoustics L-ISA, D&B and Adamson. I was able to attend demos from Renkus-Heinz, Harman, Fulcrum, Q-Sys, RCF, Alcons, Meyer, Void, DB Technologies, Coda and L-Acoustics. Thats not everyone but as many as I could fit in with the schedule provided. Missing in action from the demo rooms was Danley and Ocean way audio of which im a fan of. K-Array had a demo room available on the show floor.
With that said here are the awards which while are intended to be funny should be sincere, honest, noteworthy and made up. I must say I did put some actual thought on after attending the trade show.
Best new loudspeaker – Alcons QB363 runner up – L Series by L-Acoustics
Best spatial system – Amadeus
Best spatial demo – Meyer Sound
Best spatial mix – Fulcrum One
Best spatial system – Flux:Imersive
Most intelligible speech – Renkus Heinz
Best applications crew – DB Technologies
Best up and coming stadium solution – Adamson
Best sub experience – Meyer Sound
Best improvement – L-Acoustics L Series
Best looking demo – CODA
Best family of sound – QSC
Best video demo – 7th Sense
Best demo room video – Meyer Sound
Best demo room lighting theme – Alcons
Best demo room lighting operator – Renkus Heinz
Best console demo – Yamaha
Best Rational hang – Alcons runner up Meyer Sound
With that said ill explain a little in detail. The fake awards started at NAMM and have grown since then, I thought about the award winners on the flight back home and decided that spatial would have as many awards as possible.
The Alcons loudspeaker had really good sound quality in my opinion. The Amadeus system demo at the Renkus booth was very impressive replacing previous devices such as LARES and VRAS. Congratulations to both Meyer Sound and Fulcrum for having live musicians something that is difficult in this environment and only for the brave. Also QSC was brave using current popular demo tracks rather the standard trade show tracks. Renkus-Hienz also had typical demo tracks that were predictable and appreciated. The production for Meyer was Meyer-tastic and it showed that they did an immense amount of prep work, congrats to Richard Bugg and the gang. Several rooms had speech only devices of which Renkus-Hienz dominated from an audible STI perspective using steerable columns. Chris at DB is all over the new control standards and word on the street is several arenas are getting Adamson rigs installed in the near future. In the past others would say Meyer doesn’t do metal which all changed when they picked up Metalica and now they have a giant 21” subwoofer which was the best low end sound on the show floor. L-acoustics L series speaks for itself so I won’t mention those improvements as im still learning French. Coda had some fancy inwall solutions and QSC’s family of sound is nothing but impressive using the Q-Sys Intrinsic correction. they have a large family of sound that matches tonaly. Congrats to them they deserve it. 7th sense had some blazing fast video mapping with sub zero latency and some one must have spent months producing the video for Meyer sound. Getting to hear a Radiohead demo track from QSC was only surpassed by a TOOL demo track from Renkus-Heinz with themed lighting for support which was very appreciated. Spending time at the Alcons demo room one could get experience and knowledge past down from other engineers and learn about spatial audio tools. Giant congratulations to Fulcrum Acosutics, first demo room at the show celebrating 15 years in business and rolling out a new platform from scratch is no joke, providing futuristic tools that will become required necessities in the future. And they support Sketchup!
Star of the show and best demo was the new console from Yamaha. Yes they had a new conference microphone and a new DSP but the new DM7 is a true workhorse worth investing in and stole the show. I don’t know the gentlemen’s name but I was allowed to physically pick up the console, do a real time power cycle (40 second reboot) and get fast hands on usage. Relying heavily on Dante, gone are the YDGAI card slots opted for built in plugins such as the Dugan Mixer and almost all the Neve plugins like the Primary Source enhancer one could ever need.
Special rational thanks to my pals at Rational Acoustics for the swag bag. Speaking of swag thanks to RCF for my newest favorite sunglasses, Fulcrum for the cool stickers and QSC for literally rocking my socks off on the trade show floor. Also after making fun of manufacturers website cookies Joe Fustolo reminded me of the famed Renkus-Heinz actual cookies. Lastly I must say that our small little industry has lost many audio friends, colleagues and heroes. RIP Don Davis who passed away at the age of 94. His influence will continue on.
Shout out to Shure bros microphones whose booth was way too busy to visit and thanks to Meyer Sound for an amazing experience. Iv been a life long fan and rarely have I gotten to attend a demo.
After working on the Sphere Las Vegas project I can only imagine a huge range of spatial options for many applications as I have been an applications engineer for nearly two decades. Using Spatial audio in restaurants, conference rooms and even FOH provide new life in what has become a stagnant yet growing industry. With the latest tour from Taylor Swift breaking every record possible one imagines new hope in the live sound entertainment, production and audio world. Selfishly I must brag that after returning from Infocomm I was greeted with an email that I have become a “Member” of the Audio Engineer Society something I suggest for others to achieve as well. Hopefully in the near future I’ll obtain my Fellowship. While I miss working on the giant system at Sphere Infocomm 23 has shown me new promise in professional audio industry all thanks to Spatial Audio.
