Canadian Musician - September/October 2020 | Page 68

HOT GEAR DW Collector’s Series Private Reserve Exotics Drum Workshop (DW) is now shipping its Collector’s Series Private Reserve Exotics, which are hand-crafted at DW’s California custom shop. John Good, DW’s drum designer, traveled the world to handcurate a collection of select wood species that can be ordered as exotic finishes over available DW shell configurations. Included in the 2020 collection is tortoise shell pommele, moabi, horizontal padouk, vertical padouk, super maple curl, African chechen, and monkey pod. Each Exotic can be custom ordered in hand-sprayed polyester gloss lacquer or matte finish hard satin lacquer. In addition, they can be combined with a wide array of bursts, fades, and transparent lacquers to create a one-of-a-kind look. Every Collector’s Series kit is crafted using a host of available grain orientation lay-ups and patented manufacturing techniques such as Cool Tempered Shells and Timber Matching. For more information, contact Drum Workshop: 805-485-6999, [email protected], www.dwdrums.com. DW COLLECTOR’S SERIES AFRICAN CHENCHEN FINISH Make Noise 0-CTRL Controller & Step Sequencer Make Noise has released the 0-CTRL patchable, clockable controller and step sequencer for voltage-controlled synthesizer systems. The 0-CTRL is designed to be “patch pals” with the 0-Coast. It is a tabletop device with inputs and outputs that follow Eurorack standards, making it a good partner for a modular system or another patchable tabletop synth. It is fully analog and patch programmable with no menus or modes. Users can sequence and control the pitch, strength, and time of their synthesizer voice, per step. Other features include voltage control over stop and direction, dynamic reset, and pressure and touch gate outputs for human-generated events and expression. For more information, contact Make Noise: [email protected], www.makenoisemusic.com. 68 CANADIAN MUSICIAN Avantone Pro Planar Reference- Grade Headphones Avantone Pro has released the Planar reference-grade open-back headphones. They’re designed to provide the comfort and sonic detail needed by musicians and engineers for long studio sessions, though can also be used by podcasters, live-streamers, and hi-fi enthusiasts. The headphones feature Avantone Pro’s planar drivers, which were introduced in the MP-1 Mixphones. The new drivers improve accuracy, high-end detail, clarity, natural bass, and response time. Traditional moving coil drivers use a magnetic field to push/pull the driver in one direction and rely on the surround’s elasticity to return the driver to the neutral position. Planar drivers utilize a technology that mixes principles between dynamic and electrostatic drivers — they are constructed by a precise array of magnets that are evenly spaced across both sides of a thin, electrically-active diaphragm. The company says that due to the nature of this magnetic field’s precision, force applied to the membrane is distributed in a symmetric fashion, which produces a signal with very little harmonic distortion and faster response times. And because planars use front and rear magnets to apply equal force in both directions, there is less weight applied to the driver material, which results in a more natural sound with less distortion. As well, the open-back design, combined with a finely-tuned chamber, results in a very flat-frequency environment, without the typical pressure build-up, acoustic resonance, and frequency curve of closed-back headphones. For more information, contact Yorkville Sound: 905-837-8777, [email protected], www.yorkville.com.