The Rule of Threes

A lot of things come in groups of three. There are three primary colors. The strongest geometric shape – a triangle – has three sides. A BLT has three ingredients – bacon, lettuce, and tomato. And Hear Technologies, the manufacturing group of parent company, Quantum Technologies, has just three full-time employees.

“The three of us have spent most of our lives as sound engineers and musicians, so while designing our products, we are very mindful to the needs of sound engineers and musicians,” says Donnie Pitts, one of the three members of the Hear Tech Development Team.” We have the backbone support of our parent company (which has around 100 employees) and its resources.” Hear Technologies shares a 52,000 sq. ft. space with their parent company, which has staging area for assembling large A/V racks and testing loads of gear. Office spaces and the stock/parts room surround the staging area, and adjacent to the parts room is the office and development space, the Hear Technologies lab.

The company started in the mid ‘90s. “While QTI was installing A/V systems in federal courthouses, they saw a need for specialized audio equipment for the federal judiciary,” explains Pitts. “A couple of system engineers got together and developed the first product—the interpreter box, for foreign language interpretation. Then came the C.R.A.I.S. (Court Room Audio Integration System). Being musicians themselves, the engineers knew of a few problems they could fix in the studio as well. So, in the late ‘90s, Hear Technologies branched into recording studios with the Talk Back 200, 600, and 600MV, designed for consoles that didn’t have that function built-in. It was in the early 2000s when the 8-channel Hear Back system made its way to market and became a staple in not only recording studios, but live sound as well. The 8-channel Hear Back system is still on the market and is still very popular even today.”

Hear Technologies is a small company, and Pitts believes they use that to their advantage. “Because we are small, our customers and dealer/distributor networks get more personal attention than with a lot of larger corporations. Hear Technologies is focused on a small niche in the audio world: personal monitoring. This allows us to do what we do exceptionally well without trying to cover a large gamut of product lines. Most of all, we are willing to listen to what our customers want. Just suggest something—chances are we can make it happen.” Pitts says Hear Technologies prides itself on user experience. “We strongly believe the gear needs to be intuitive enough that someone who has never seen a personal monitor mixer can still walk right up, turn a knob, and understand how to use it without any training,” he says. “The interface has to be performance-friendly; if you’re playing an instrument, you might not have time to dig through a menu to turn down your ambient mic, or turn up the intercom, for example. We make the crucial controls immediately accessible, and the rest of the configuration and functionality no more than one button-push away.” Pitts and the Hear Tech team kept all of these things in mind when designing the Hear Back PRO. They asked their customers “what do you need; what they didn’t like about the original 8-channel system.” The majority of the responses said to keep the interface simple but add more flexibility and functionality. So that’s what they did. “The Hear Back PRO is made by engineers and musicians, for engineers and musicians,” Pitts says. “Each of us comes from a different area of the music industry, and we each bring a different perspective to the process. Our products are manufactured five minutes down the road from us in Madison, AL, in a facility that typically manufactures medical and aerospace products for NASA. They adhere to AS9100 regulations, which is far stricter than typical manufacturing facilities. We think that has made a big impact on the quality of our products!”

The 2016 Winter NAMM Show was, according to Pitts, one of the best shows Hear Technologies has attended since the release of the aforementioned Hear Back PRO. “We were hit with a lot of attention due to the release of our new digital I/O cards – ADAT, AES/EBU, Dante, and Waves’ SoundGrid,” he says. “At last year’s NAMM, we were only selling our system with Analog Input Cards, but now people are noticing how easily we play with any format, and can match the high sampling rates (up to 192kHz) of the high-end digital consoles. Existing customers loved the ADAT Card for the backwards compatibility with the 8-channel Hear Back system; new customers loved the fact that they can choose their format by simply popping a Card in the Hub. Every situation or feature request someone hit us with, we already have or are working on a solution. And those questions help us prioritize what to work on next.”

With the NAMM Show over and done, Pitts says Hear Technologies will be keeping its attention focused on the Hear Back PRO looking forward. “We have a lot of add-ons and accessories planned for the Hear Back PRO that will enhance the personal monitor mixing experience,” he says. “We put an expansion card slot on the side of each PRO Mixer with the idea that we could provide a wide variety of supplemental products for the user to pick and choose from, to tailor it to the way they want to use their system. The engineer might have an expansion that gives him more control from FOH or the control room, while a musician might want to have some sort of insert at their Mixer. The ultimate goal is to make the process as streamlined as it can possibly be.” Two new products are just now coming out for the Hear Back PRO: a stage-box for mixer distribution, and an Intercom Footswitch. The stage box looks reminiscent of a Countryman Type 85 Direct Box, but is a metal housing for a single 8-port Network Card (like the one that comes in a PRO Hub). “This allows you to make one CAT6 run from your Hub (out of the HBUS OUT port) to wherever you’d like to breakout to the Mixers,” explains Pitts. “This is especially handy for an FOH engineer to only have to run one CAT6 up to the stage as opposed to each Mixer needing a home run directly from the Hub. You can get the stage-box with or without a Network Card populated, in case you’d like to use an existing card from your PRO Hub.” On the other hand, there is the Intercom Footswitch, which is a passive A/B switch that eliminates the need for an extra mic just for intercom use. “Plug your vocal/instrument mic into the Footswitch, plug one Footswitch output into your PRO Mixer, and the second Footswitch output into your console or sound card,” says Pitts. “This way you can use your mic as you normally would, until you press the switch, which will mute the signal to the console, and automatically engage the intercom on your Mixer, letting your mic serve a dual purpose. When you let off the Footswitch, your mic will jump back to serving its normal function. This Footswitch can actually be used anywhere you’d need a momentary A/B switch, as it just uses standard XLRs.”

Definitely keep an eye out for Hear Technologies in the future. Too often people underestimate the little guy, and it seems Hear Tech, despite being small, is making a run with the big dogs.