"Nero builds on our 20 years of expertise in analogue design heritage, courtesy of David Dearden designed circuitry. As a studio grows, it can be difficult to keep a handle on monitoring but Nero will provide centralized, customizable control for all your monitoring needs - right from your desktop," says Andy Allen, Audient Marketing Director.
Four stereo analogue inputs, including two line level inputs, a dedicated cue mix input, one aux input (RCA or Mini Jack) and both optical and coaxial SPDIF inputs offer users a wide variety of connectivity options. These can be fed to three stereo speaker outputs (with the ability to set and match volumes), one assignable sub output, and four headphone outputs. "Nero has both a monitoring grade headphone output for the engineer and three foldback headphone outs for the artists, providing plenty of volume and crystal clear headphone mixes when recording or mixing," he says.
Audient also developed Precision Matched Attenuation Technology, which perfectly matches the volume of the left and right channels of a stereo signal. Unlike other monitor controllers, this prevents any deviation in volume between the left and right monitors, enabling users to monitor accurately and mix with confidence.
Building on the functionality of the Centro monitor controller, Nero features a range of flexible monitor controls, including dedicated talkback, cut & dim along with polarity, mono, speaker select and cue mix monitoring and the concept of Smart Touchpoints.
"Smart Touchpoints are configurable buttons that allow you to customize your workflow on the fly," says Allen. "Hold a touchpoint down to enter setup mode, then simply route and configure Nero's relevant monitor controls to create and save monitoring combinations that work for you. For example route your sub permanently to any or all sets of speakers without losing the ability to switch it on and off. Or permanently sum an output to Mono for your Mono reference speaker."
"When it comes to talkback, Nero features an internal mic as well as a dedicated mic input with phantom power, enabling the use of a dynamic or condenser mic of your choice. You can then route any input source as well as talkback to any headphone output, which means you'll always be in control of your session.
"Nero utilizes Audient's vast experience in implementing monitor control in recording consoles and desktop controllers, and we feel that knowledge has led us to deliver the best sounding, most flexible desktop monitor controller available at this price point," he concludes.
Nero is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2019 and will retail at $499 MAP.
www.audient.com
