www.rockshopproaudio.com - a uniquely service-oriented approach to the business of consulting on, quoting and supplying your recording equipment and professional audio requirements. Rock Shop offers a comprehensive but specialized list of dedicated recording equipment and theatre FOH systems, from analogue mic preamps, high-end condenser microphones, custom speaker enclosures, surround monitor systems, patchbays and interconnect, to computers, digital interfaces and DAW software, MIDI recorders and playback units, hardware reverb and multieffects processors, MADI audio distribution systems, high-end portable recorders, wireless rigs, and just about everything in between.
Rock Shop Pro Audio also specializes in classic, hand-built British analogue recording consoles, from small-footprint, DAW-oriented tube and solid-state mixers, all the way up to fully-integrated 120 input multitrack control surfaces with motorless dynamic automation. Each line here has been selected for its' world-class reputation and proven quality in the field. Learn more about each major product line we distribute, and the many other accessories we offer - all accompanied by great personal service, and free professional advice, based on decades of industry experience. Rock Shop Pro Audio - the ideal personal consultant, to help you to make the right pro audio choices!
State of the Art Recording Equipment
Trident Audio Ltd., lead by John Oram, is now manufacturing perfectly identical remakes of vintage Trident circuit designs, including the famous Series 80B console, updated with 5.1 surround output, as well as a full line of newer circuits, all from the same classic British designer. John's successful career eventually earned him the title, "The Father of British EQ", due to the incredibly warm, musical sound of his circuit designs. Famous for having designed the Vox AC50 and 1141 "SuperBeatle" amplifiers, the Washburn Equis II, and Oram brand mixing consoles and rack processors, his designs have become a favourite of many of the world's top recording engineers and producers, including such greats as Al Schmitt and Chris Boyes. In the 1970's, while working with Trident Audio Developments, owned then by the Sheffield Brothers of Trident Studios fame, John Oram designed the Trident Parametric EQ with Managing Director, Malcolm Toft. The Trident Fleximix was John's first console design, for which he was reponsible for creating the circuitry, mostly all from first principles, and so, determined the console's sound. In Malcolm Toft's words - "John Oram was responsible not only for that company's innovative design techniques, but also the unique sound quality that Trident became famous for worldwide." Several ground-breaking products flowed from this successful design team, including such greats as the Series 80, TSM, and many more. Today, John's designs combine the best of vintage recording console sound and warmth, with modern discrete circuity of unrivaled quality. Visit our Trident Audio page here.
Oram Sonics Professional Audio leads the pack in today's trend toward high-end recording mixers. With many lower priced mixing consoles available, capable of producing very decent results - the time has come to up the stakes in the more elite marketplace - and Oram Audio has done just that. For less than a third of the price, Oram Professional mixing boards go head-to-head with the highest level of competition - and succeed. Even within the most elite community of studios, affordability is obtainable. In fact, mainly consoles priced much higher, do not come close to the sound quality found on such boards as the BEQ Series 4T. Oram Sonics professional audio products include some very high quality rack units as well. The Oram Sonics MWS (Microphone Work Station) is a stand-alone version of the ultra high quality mic preamps found in Oram's consoles, with exceptional EQ that incorporates high and low pass filters, bass/treble shelving and sweepable mids. If you want the sound of Oram's virtually noiseless microphone preamps without the investment of a new board, this is the unit for you! Oram Sonics Professional Audio products are not for everyone - but when compromise is not an option, affordability still can be! See our section on Oram Sonics here.
Eventide Inc., founded in 1971, in New York City, is a leading developer and manufacturer of digital audio processing products for recording, broadcast, and live performance. Based in Little Ferry, NJ, Eventide invented the H910, the first Harmonizer effects processor, in 1975. In 1988, they introduced the H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer effects processor . Other designs include the Omnipressor, E-Channel, Ultra-Channel, Precision Time Align, Quadravox, H3000 Factory, H3000 Band Delays, Clockworks Legacy, Instant Phaser, Instant Flanger, and Octavox, and now, the H8000, even available with FireWire connectivity. Click here for Eventide products page.
For over thirty-five years, Lexicon, Inc. has had a dramatic impact upon the professional audio industry, with over eighteen years also in the consumer market, also. Their continued development and introduction of exceptional professional products, such as the 960L multichannel effects processor, complete with the LARC, a motorized-fader remote control unit, and a full line of cost-effective, yet highly acclaimed models aimed at the home studio professional user, has made Lexicon a legend in their industry, and arguably the top contender in the digital reverb field. Click here for the Lexicon products page.
RME is a team of German innovators in the development of user friendly, high-quality digital audio solutions - for affordable prices. RME was founded in 1996, and has earned a position as a premier product provider across mainstream international markets, offering a full line of I/Os, mic pres, converters and MADI interfaces. Interestingly, the team is entirely made up of either musicians or sound engineers (besides being specialists in hardware or software development). The RME staff are in constant contact with industry leaders and specialists - enabling them to get quick feedback on the use of their products in professional settings. RME, an award winning producer, has earned it's ranks as one of the top audio device companies in the industry. Get the specifics on RME Audio products here.
Magix AG is the author of Samplitude and Sequoia - simply the fastest, most flexible and powerful computer-based, native multitrack digital audio recording, editing, and processing systems on the globe, in use by everyone from the BBC, to Sterling Sound's mastering facilities. Featuring 32-bit floating point virtual operation throughout, completely phase-linear equalisation, a host of exceptional processing tools and totally automated latency compensation across all of the available 64 busses, 64 auxilliary sends and 999 tracks, Magix Samplitude and Sequoia are, unquestionably, the the top contenders in their field. Such built-in features as Elastic audio pitch-correction and an adaptive sound-cloning feature take Magix beyond the "field", into a class all its' own. Magix software is written in Germany. Explore the line of Magix recording software here.
EMES monitors are designed and manufactured to exceptionally high standards, using only hand-selected components, creating monitors which provide the very best in imaging and detail, suitable for the most demanding stereo and 5.1 monitoring applications. Emes is a leader in design innovation in the monitoring industry, offering a comprehensive line of both passive and active monitors, ranging from 4" shielded near-fields, to multi-speaker D'Appolito mid-field enclosures, subwoofers and matched 5.1 sets, for extraordinary monitoring detail and accuracy. Emes monitors are manufactured in Germany. Discover the difference quality makes when using EMES monitors, here.
MIDITEMP are famous for their high quality, German-made MIDI song file players, called Multiplayers. These units are capable of managing huge numbers of MIDI songs easily by an intelligent system of 64 banks with 128 songs in each. Alternately you can assign a number to each MIDI song, to quickly call it up. Multiplayers can utilize up to seven SCSI devices, such as hard disks, removable disk drives and CD-ROM drives that are PC compatible. Accessing the MultiPlayers's internal hard disk directly from a PC through SCSI is easy. The name of the song appears on display, and songs come up in about one half of a second - making these units very stage friendly, as well. MIDITEMP Multistations combine many functions such as: MIDI File Player, MIDI File Recorder, a MIDI Matrix with 8 INs / 8 OUTs, MIDI Processing, a Digital Audio Player, a Digital Audio Recorder, an MP3 Player, a Soundfont Synthesizer, and Karaoke Controls. Built to exacting German engineering standards, these devices are a huge asset to modern sound production and performance!
Read about MIDITEMP audio products here.
C-Mexx is a designer of software 'virtual' control systems and control hardware, with a broad range of client DAWs covered, and also, C-Mexx builds multichannel A/D-D/A matrices, for use in high-volume multichannel signal distribution. C-Mexx "C-Console" control systems provide full software control over both software-based recording systems, and also, their related hardware, allowing one console to provide customised control over multiple hardware pieces, plus any software DAW or sequencer that is running through them, with every major DAW on the market tested for guaranteed inter-operability. C-Mexx harware controllers, such as MIR, allow one-handed control of any pair of MIDI parameters in real time, patchable into any point in a MIDI environment. C-Mexx software and hardware are made in Germany. Learn more about C-Mexx products here.
Numerous other brands are also available. If you don't see it here, please ask, as we may already have access to it, or we will find it for you. Your location may impact the availability of certain products. Find more information about those other product lines by using our product inquiry form:
Call Rob Dewar personally, for your next serious recording equipment investment...
Rob Dewar, the main force behind Rock Shop Productions Inc., is an interesting combination of artist, technician and instructor, with over 32 years' experience as a guitarist, and over 23 years spent in and around the pro audio business, often, as an engineer or producer, sometimes, as an instructor, programmer, writer or performer, and always, as an integral part of whatever projects he is involved in. Rob is passionate about quality, in every aspect of his work, a trait which ensures that his clients' expectations are always met, or exceeded. Get the personal service you deserve, by working directly with Rob, and be assured that all of your questions and needs will be met with the highest level of attention. Serving Penticton, Kelowna, the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, and the entire planet!!
Contact Rob at:
PO Box 20181 Penticton,
BC Canada V2A 8K3
Toll Free:1-877-468-0304
Telephone: (250)276-4127
EMAIL ROB
Rob Dewar, Audio Engineer
Rob's persistence in finding and implementing the most flexible, highest quality combinations of high end audio recording equipment, has resulted in a marriage of finely crafted analogue recording consoles and digital audio editing and processing, into hybrid systems of exceptional sonic quality. Throughout his career, Rob has insisted on the highest quality circuitry available to create an amazingly pristine, clear signal path, from the source instrument, to final copy. Explore this website and learn the differences, the reasons why the right choices in recording equipment produce the best results!
Contact Rob at:
PO Box 20181 Penticton, BC Canada V2A 8K3
Toll Free:1-877-468-0304
Telephone: (250)276-4127
EMAIL ROB
Rock Shop Pro Audio Articles
Digital vs. Analogue
Analogue Recording
What most people refer to as analogue recording is the use of tape as a storage medium. Often, 1" or 2" magnetic tape is run across a multichannel recording head, and thus divided into multiple tracks. Sounds great...
However, some inherent problems include:
tape hiss - worsened by the number of copies made ("generational noise")
wow and flutter of the tape (variances in the speed of the tape machine over time)
tape degradation over time (shedding)
maintenance of the equipment (moving parts, and mechanical wear)
linear production (editing is tougher than with non-linear systems)
Digital Recording
Digital Recording changes sound to numbers, by graphing the waveform's level at several thousand points each second, assigning a number to each point, and storing this list of numbers in order. This is done by an analogue to digital (A/D) converter. To change the numbers back to audio, a digital to analogue (D/A) converter is used. While also having its' own unique set of limitations, the digital process has some distinct advantages over analogue recording, including:
no hiss, wow, or flutter added by the medium
easy format conversions with little sound quality loss
lossless copying with no generational noise
effect processing with little or no sound degradation
non-linear editing
Which is better?
The answer lies within the application. Sometimes the actual "sound" of analogue recording, despite it's potential for hiss, wow, and flutter, is what we are after. This however, is fairly quickly dying as a recording arts trend, or at least, as a mainstream recording technology. Newer bands are creating a new demand, for a newer sound. Certainly, in some specific music genres, the use of an analogue tape recording system is still desireable. However, improved methods of digital "simulation" of analogue tape are making the distinction less apparent, and less important. As digital technology improves over time, it's resolution increases. When the market eventually flips over to the regular sale of music on higher resolution CD's - (equivalent to DVD sound, or 24 bit resolution) - we will find ourselves less inclined to use analogue tape in the recording process, as an industry.
So what else, then, of analogue?
Let's not forget - any sound you hear is analogue, because it comes to you as a series of pressure waves through the air - the energy is carried in an analogue form, from the source, to your eardrum. So, "going digital" will never be total, because sound always starts as analogue, kinetic (mechanical) energy. An important consideration lies with the actual audio hardware used to preamplify and process the sounds, that are then either recorded digitally, or put to tape (analogue). In this regard, high-end analogue consoles are still very desireable, in that they are physically comfortable to work with, and have actual knobs, faders and meters that are useable in a physical way, in addition to their pristine, clear and warm input preamplification and equalisation circuitry - the soul of the sound. The problem, though, is that digital control systems have the major advantage of parameter and setup recall and automation (snapshot, and dynamic control), something ordinarily not applicable to analogue console designs, due to the high cost and low reliability of the motor-driven systems needed to power the resetting of all of the knobs on the console surface. However, modern advances in analogue console design, made by John Oram of Kent, England, have resulted in a purely analogue console, built to exacting quality standards with only the best available materials, and made with integrated motorless dynamic digital control of the analogue parameters, and also control-surface capabilities, to allow the integration of an outside DAW into the operation of the console. With this advance, a marriage of analogue warmth and total digital control is created - truly, the the best of both worlds. When connected to very low distortion, high resolution digital recorders, or workstations, pristine, high quality recordings can be produced, with the most detailed and musically pleasant tone possible. Further, a completely analogue mixdown is also possible, with fully recallable parameter setups, and dynamically automated control of every parameter, during the mix process.
Featured Pro Audio Product Lines
Eventide
Lexicon
Trident
Oram Sonics
RME
Magix
EMES
Miditemp
C-Mexx
Other Audio Lines
Rock Shop Pages
POP-UP Inquiry Form
RSP Productions Portal
Audio Links
Rock Shop Site Product Highlights
Oram Sonics Light Series
Oram Sonics's flagship console, featuring unique and groundbreaking new technology which provides total motorless dynamic digital automation of every parameter (motorized flying faders), on a pure-analogue console, without the use of any VCAs in the circuit paths. All control is accomplished through a MIDI interface.
Click here for more Light Series information...
Oram Sonics GP-40
Based around the highly-successful Oram BEQ Series 24, the GP-40 is a superbly-crafted, timeless design of a fully-modular, top-line and astonishingly flexible British analogue console, offering classic inline-monitoring configuration, metal knobs, high-end analogue VU meters, and the availability of automatable motorized faders and channel mutes, as well as top-drawer finishing touches like a polished wood body kit, matching producer's sidecar, and a Connolly hide-wrapped wood front armrail. The GP-40 can be ordered in framesizes from 24 to 120 inputs, and can be further customized to suit any application.
Click here for more GP-40 information...
Magix Sequoia V9
An integral part of leading production, broadcast and mastering studios worldwide, Magix Sequoia is an indispensable tool for any type of professional media production. 999 tracks, 64 sends, 64 busses, perfectly phase-linear equalisation and totally automatic latency compensation across every signal path in the system, are just the tip of an incredibly huge iceberg. Built-in Elastic Audio pitch correction, the Analog Modeling Suite of effects, actual Varispeed control over playback, and a set of mastering tools so good, it is used by New York's Sterling Sound, add to the impressive list.
Click here for more information...
TL Audio M4 Tube Console
The TL Audio M4 tube console, following on the heels of the acclaimed TL Audio VTC, offers 16, 24 or 32 channels of warm, tube-driven mic pres, feeding a flexible and full-featured console which is perfectly designed to meet the requirements of a DAW recording front-end, and an analogue mixdown console, in a more compact and lower-cost package. 10 Hz - 40 kHz audio bandwidth, four-band channel EQ and four auxilliary sends fill out this small but exceptional console. Available with an optional ADAT output, the M4 is virtually plug'n'play with most digital interfaces.
Click here for more information...
Rock Shop Home Recording Tips
Mastering - When?
Professional engineers know - but here is a great tip for beginners. In using your DAW software, you will notice that you have, usually, two (sometimes more) distinctly different areas to add effects to your multitracked audio - one being on the individual channels, and the second being after the mix, on the stereo "remix buss" output strip. Mastering is a process applied to a finished recording - as a whole. Trying to both mix and master in one pass is a common error made by greenhorns, and can result in too many variables during mixing, and a lower-quality final product, because of that. So, it may be a good idea to leave your output flat and unprocessed, or only perhaps minimally compressed across the stereo buss, when you do a mixdown, and also, try to use as little dynamic control on your individual channels as you can get away with, except for necessary limiting, or to obtain desired "artifacts" on a particular sound. Then, after the mixdown, load the entire mixed audio file into a new song project, and experiment with mastering that mix, with your choice of dynamic and equalisation processors, carefully applied, of course. You will regain much CPU power, and retain the original mix - in it's original form. Then, you can produce several "finished" masters, and listen to them, to choose the one you like best. Issues which seem to span across every master file you output, can likely be corrected by adjusting your mix project, and outputting a new file. Issues which appear in only one ar two possible masters, will have their source in your master process setup, and can probably be corrected only by modifying that final stage of processing.
Why choose The Rock Shop?
