I go to the Audio Engineering Society (AES) show every few years to keep up with the latest gear and software. The most recent show—the 119th—just wrapped up, and O'Reilly Digital Media asked me to tell you about some of my favorite items.

The latest Audio Engineering Society convention attracted more than 450 exhibitors and 20,000 attendees.

This will be an unusual report if you're a home studio owner, because I've always approached AES from a commercial studio owner's perspective. (I have owned and operated Blue World Music, a digital recording studio, based first in New York City and then Austin, Texas, for many years.) Whereas a home studio owner is probably primarily concerned with budget, then quality, and then name recognition, I've had to shop in the opposite order. My studio clients don't care if my Brand X microphone preamp sounds better than my Neve or API; they simply want the Neve or API name. I don't agree with that intellectually, but since my studio pays the bills, I have always bought my gear with name recognition in mind, so I can tell the producers and labels who pay my commercial studio rates that I have the Neve, SSL, API, Pultecs, and so on.

Well, I sold my SSL console last year because I saw the trend: professional music production is no longer centered in commercial studios like mine. A majority of records these days are being made in personal studios on smaller, more affordable systems. I decided that the days of consistently booking an SSL studio in Austin were almost over and that the best assurance for my future as a digital audio aficionado was to find a way to tap into the burgeoning personal studio market.

My solution was to create eSession.com, a database of the top session musicians and engineers. The site, which officially launches in November, allows anyone with a home studio and a high-speed internet connection to hire world-class musicians or engineers to work on their projects; all financial transactions and file transfers are handled by a drag-and-drop interface. The eSession players and engineers have home studios as well, which lets everyone work in their own space at their own time.

Pro Eye for the Home-Studio Guy

So this year I went to AES as an exhibitor to unveil eSession.com to the public, and I was able to see the gear from a completely different perspective. My main concern is no longer who is booking my studio, but making sure that the people in my database all have great-sounding, affordable gear that assures clients any work hired, performed, or mixed through eSession will be the highest quality possible. For the first time, I was able to breeze through the Neve and API booths and finally take a closer look at some of the little guys—the boutique audio companies—to learn what they're building and why. At these booths, you can meet and talk to the actual people who conceived and hand built the gear.

Please keep in mind that my focus is always on professional music production. While bang-for-the-buck is great, the bang usually comes way before the buck for me, so my choices in gear may not reflect the music hobbyist's choices or budget. In this report, I highlight the gear that I feel benefits the more professional home studio market. However, I did discover some great new gear that happens to be inexpensive, which I'll list at the end.

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