New Blue Works With iPhone 4 & 4S

What: The already well known Mikey mic is now available as the Mikey Digital and works with the iPhone 4, 4s and iPad. This a very very sleek and cost effective way to drastically improve recording on your iPhone.

When: Spring

How much: $99 MAP

SmithsonMartin Takes Touch To A New Level

What: SmithsonMartin showed off the new Emulator Modular, a customizable touch control surface that at first blush will draw comparison to the JazzMutant Lemur. There are distinct differences to point out though; mostly regarding the software, which incorporates some ingenious concepts. The Emulator software lays "on top" of your computer screen running, say Tracktor, you can then "cut out" a section, say the crossfader, and incorporate the actual crossfader Traktor GUI element into your custom touch surface control layout and make it touchable and visible on the Emulator touchscreen. Nothing like this has ever been available before in the controller world and needs to be seen to believe. One missing link is no OSC support, but it's on the way.

When: Febuary

How much: $2500 MAP

Mackie Takes On The iPad

What: The Mackie DL1608 is a truly new take on the compact mixer. Essentially you get a 16 channels of Onyx mic pres and a whole lot of DSP processing. The cool part is that all that DSP is controlled by an iPad app user interface including gain, faders, onboard dynamics, EQ and dedicated internal aux sends for reverb and delay. The DL1608 also has four analog aux sends as well as an ethernet jack. The ethernet jack allows for plugging into a router and "walkabout" with the iPad, controlling a mix from anywhere "in the house", whether that's the front of house in a club or a living room. Very cool concept that won't break the bank.

When: June

How much: $999

isoACOUSTICS - A New Idea

What: isoACOUSTICS is a patented speaker isolation desktop stand. Think of it like shock absorption for your speakers. isoACOUSTICS decouples the bass from the desk or mixing station and is modifiable into 14 different height and tilt adjustments. The live demos really effectively demonstrated how much this new idea can mprove your monitors for a great price.

When: March

How much: $99 MAP

Apogee MiC Is Very Nice

What: Apogee has a new large-diaphragm condenser mic that looks and sounds brilliant, even from the NAMM stage floor. Apogee's MiC uses a Hirose connector on the mic body (not a standard connector type, but a very durable connector used in audio field equipment), and can be plugged into a USB computer port or with the 30-pin cable into an iPad, iPhone 4, or 4s. The Apogee quality AD/DA conversion takes place in the mic itself and it's class compliant, so it's truly ready for plug and play.

When: Now

How much: $199

Symphony I/O Has A New Card Up Its Sleeve

What: Apogee announced a new 16-in/16-out analog I/O Card for the Symphony IO interface system. The Symphony systems, via a variety of card options, allows for a customized DAW interface built around the I/O (both analog and digital), and even mic preamp needs of the user.

When: February

How much: $3495 for 16-in/16-out analog via DSub multi-pin connectors.

Spark Goes Digital

What: the digital version of BLUE's analog Spark mic. Spark Digital includes cables for direct computer connection via USB or directly to the 30-pin iPad connector port. Spark Digital also has a well designed multifunction toggle/knob controle for mute, gain control and headphone volume. An awesome little mic!

When: Spring

How much: $199 MAP

BLUE's Take On Tiki

What: BLUE microphones introduced Tiki, claiming to be the smallest portable USB microphone on the market. The Tiki uses two mic elements, providing coverage regardless of the computer's USB port orientation. One big feature is that the Tiki has built in processing from the famed DSP boys at Izotope, aiding with both sound source localization and noise cancellation. This is a sweet little mic for laying down a quick acoustic guitar track or making a Skype call on your computer.

How much: $59 MAP

When: Spring

DP On A PC?

What: In what must be a shock for many Digital Performer users, DP now runs on PC's. DP has long been a Mac-only application, even going back to Mac OS 9 days of allocating RAM to apps "by hand". MOTU was showing DP 8 running on HP workstations. Upon release MOTU is stating that similar spec machines (Apple/PC) will achieve similar performance.

When: Spring

How Much: TBA

Apollo, A Giant Step For Interfaces

What: 18x24 AD/DA FireWire/Thunderbolt audio interface.

Four Universal Audio mic pre's.

Onboard Duo or Quad UAD-2 plugin DSP built in.

Really? How can it get better? This is huge!

UA has entered into the interface world by turning it upside down- the only question is when and how much.

When: March
Thunderbolt option available this summer.

How much:
$1999 MAP for Duo
$2499 MAP for Quad

A New Face From RME

What: The new Fireface UCX is the little brother of RME's flagship Fireface UFX with some tricks that even the UFX can't do. With new drivers the UCX serves as a very low latency audio interface, but the UCX can also boot in class compliant mode. This allows for an eight-in/two-out interface with MIDI for an iPad (using the camera connection dongle sold by Apple). When using RME's driver every channel has EQ, dynamics, reverb and delay availed via built-in DSP. This is an extremely flexible and powerful interface from a company that has been a mainstay for years, delivering AD/DA conversion at a reasonable price.

When: Soon!

How much: $1649 MAP

Twitch Lets You Scratch Your Itch

Novation's Twitch is a DJ/performance controller that ships with Itch DJ software but also includes templates for Traktor, Live and other programs. A very cool touch strip controller allows for back spinning and navigation through tracks. The Slicer section works directly with the Itch software to chop up and rearrange  beats in realtime with the touch pads. Fader effects allows the crossfader to control Itch software effects in addition to volume. Overall this looks to be a very capable and tactile controller and also serves as a two-in/four-out audio interface. Nice!

When: Now

How much: $499 MAP

Focusrite Gives You Control

What: The Focusrite Control 2802 is a small-format mixer with an all-analog signal flow featuring fully automable flying faders, an extensive monitoring section, and a great sounding, analog stereo bus compressor that's even patchable into specific mic input channels on the 2802 itself or inserted into your own analog preamps. The 2802 makes for a great summing mixer for your DAW. Going one step further, this analog board also serves as a DAW controller. No detail seems to have been left out of this well laid out board. The big news is the $1000 price drop from $4999 to $3999!

When: Now!

How much: $3999 MAP

A-Designs Gets Another A Grade!

The JM-3001 is a channel strip module with a preamp and EQ. The EQ is from the A-Designs 500-series EQ module and the preamp is brand new, solid-state design. The preamp has a very clean and neutral sound that is less colored than A-Designs' revered Pacifica preamp. If you are in the market for a high-end pro preamp, A-Designs is a must see.

When: Now

How Much: $2650 MAP

You Will, You Will... Rock You?

Inspired Instruments introduced their second generation YouRock MIDI guitar featuring upgraded onboard sounds and a redesigned pickup system. The YouRock guitar includes USB, 1/4" audio out (for onboard sound output) and a headphone jack. The guitar can be used as a MIDI controller with Macs, PC's or even iPad programs such as GarageBand.

When: May

How Much: $249 MAP