DACS

Based in Gateshead, DACS Ltd distributes and manufactures a wide range of pro-audio tools. With a carefully selected portfolio of respected brands, DACS is at the forefront of artistic and technological innovation. As well as distributing other brands, DACS also offers a wide range of services, ranging from custom cabling to full studio design; specializing in acoustic treatment and design their years of experience ensures truly effective schemes that do not just ‘improve’ a bad room – they create defined environments that will get the best performance possible from a room within budgetary and aesthetic constraints.

As a partner of Netaudio’08, DACS represents the following brands:

• Cycling ’74 – Max/MSP – the software tool that sets the standard or sound art and computer music. Max/MSP combines the Max graphical programming environment with MSP audio extensions, to give you close to 400 objects, the building blocks of a complete audio application development environment. Max/MSP is a dual platform application for both OSX and Windows XP, and patches created on one platform will open on the other. As part of the Netaudio raffle, you can win two Max/MSP/Jitter bundles plus Pluggo, Mode and Hipno plugins. Visit the festival stall for all info.

• Eobody: the sensor-to-MIDI system that enables artists to use sensors in their creation and opens the frontier between external audio and video environments and artists becoming an essential bridge linking the world of analogue sensors to the world of digital process.

• MsPinky: Ms. Pinky’s I.W.S. system has two uses. Firstly it allows you to use your turntables to control playback of sound and video files, and secondly it is possibly the most fun, hands-on controller for the Max/MSP development environment. The I.W.S. ships as four vinyl 12 inch “records” and downloadable software, and makes use of basic analogue DJ and digital music production technology you probably already own.

• Soundman OKMs: Similar in appearance to the small in-ear headphones you usually find supplied with a portable CD or MD player, the Soundman binaural microphones where developed to try to capture sound the way we perceive it by making the microphones small enough to fit in the ear. Using computer matching, the pairs of microphones are carefully selected and in use the results are startling, generating very realistic spatial stereo imaging.

• APG speaker systems: APG was founded in 1979 by Alain Pouillon-Guibert, an ESME engineer and an expert in electroacoustics. Since the beginning, the company has always manufactured speakers aimed at solving all types of sound system problems. They have a very simple strategy which was evolved from the goals they set themselves: the manufacture of durable products which reproduce the original sound with nothing added, or taken away.

The Netaudio’08 festival main stage is powered by APG. All other products will be available for demonstration and testing within the Netaudio Market. DACS and Netaudio’08 will offer a number of specialised workshops and a festival raffle with great prizes. Details will be announced on the Netaudio blog.