May 2004
|
|
Features
|
| 5.1 Recording Vibes With ESE |
The dusk outside the Marin County, Calif., studio The Site was magical, with deep reds, oranges and grays mixed with clouds, mist from billowing coastal overcast drifting in and redwood trees towering outside the tracking room windows.
By Rick Clark |
|
| DAWs and Hybrid Mixing |
Alert: The following may alter or validate your views on audio production — or even make you mad. Let's start with a basic fact: Like any product-maker,...
By Kevin Becka |
|
| Keeping Your Sonic Vision Intact |
A few months ago, I received a DVD from an engineer who was looking for a job. He worked on a prominent television show, so I assumed that the DVD would reflect his excellent work.
By K.K. Proffitt |
|
| Matthew Sweet: Happy at Home |
>Tucked away in the Hollywood Hills, surrounded by the sites of countless hit movie location shoots, is the home and personal studio of Matthew Sweet.
By Craig Dalton |
|
| Meredith Brooks Redefines A&R |
With the record industry seemingly more interested in fat bottom lines than long-term career development, many artists stopped grabbing at the “major-label record deal” brass ring long ago and began taking a more proactive role in their business affairs.
By Heather Johnson |
|
| NSCA Expo 2004 |
NSCA's return to the “other city that never sleeps” — Las Vegas — from March 19-21, 2004, kicked off with an unrivaled, Yamaha/Primedia-sponsored...
by Mark Frink |
|
| Pump Up the Volume |
In the past decade or so, the studio environment has changed radically, but one thing that's remained constant is the need for a hardware device to adjust tracking or playback levels.
By David Ogilvy |
|
| Rick Camp Travels With Beyoncé |
Engineers tend to fall into two categories: live or studio. Occasionally, a studio denizen goes on the road and vice versa, but it's the rare engineer who's at home in both situations. Rick Camp is one of those individuals.
By George Petersen |
|
| The Changing Face of Record Production |
By definition, a music producer is responsible for getting the job done. Ensuring that happens is a process that can encompass anything from creating a proper vibe to complete track construction and everything in between: managing the budget, choosing songs and musicians,
By Maureen Droney |
|
| The Console-Workstation Interface |
As mixers, our dream is an all-in-one system that allows complete bi-directional control of workstation and console functions in real time.
By Mel Lambert |
|
| Wireless Ties Built for Speed |
“High-speed networking” ceased to be a buzz phrase sometime during the end of the last millennium, but its significance in pro audio is growing.
By David Weiss |
|
Technology
|
| Field Test: Alesis Prolinear 820DSP Monitors |
Until you look closely at the front panel LCD, Alesis' Prolinear 820DSP appears to be a garden-variety, two-way, active studio monitor.
By Nick Batzdorf |
|
| Field Test: Solid State Logic XLogic Multichannel Compressor |
Solid State Logic continues the modern tradition of large-console manufacturers by adding processor units to its inventory with the latest release of the XLogic series, which employs the Grammy-winning SuperAnalogue technology introduced with the SL 9000 for excellent bandwidth and dynamic range, as well as surface-mount technology for compact profiles.
By K.K. Proffitt |
|
| Field Test: Tascam FW-1884 Control Surface/Interface |
A control surface/FireWire audio/MIDI interface describes most of what Tascam's FW-1884 does, but there wouldn't be enough space on the box if the product name were to paint the whole picture of its functions.
By Nick Batzdorf |
|
| Field Test: Trident S40 Single-Channel Strip |
With its signature black-anodized front panel, colored aluminum knobs and small rectangular push buttons, the S40 is clearly the progeny of Trident's Series 80 and TSM consoles.
By Barry Rudolph |
|
| Field Test: Yamaha Pitch Fix, Vocal Rack and Final Master |
Workstation users, rejoice: A trio of new plug-ins brings Yamaha's proprietary digital processing technology to your VST/AudioUnits-based projects.
By Barry Rudolph |
|
| Technology Spotlight: Microsoft Windows Media Audio 9 |
Two years ago at NAB, Microsoft had a relatively small booth tucked into the very last row of the newly opened South Hall, sharing space with Steinberg, M-Audio and a couple of video companies.
By Tom Kenny |
|
| Technology Spotlight: Studio Network Solutions' Next-Gen Storage |
SANs are storage for high rollers — or are they? Storage Area Networks are specialized storage systems that allow multi-user access, as server-attached storage does, but also provide high performance, which SAS cannot.
By Oliver Masciarotte |
|
| Tools of the Trade |
FOCUSRITE FORTE SUITE
The newest plug-ins from Focusrite (dist. by Digidesign, www.digidesign.com), the Forte Suite for Pro Tools models the ISA 110 EQ and ISA 130 dynamics processors, which are two-key modules from Focusrite's Forte analog console.
|
|
Sound for Picture
|
| The 76th Annual Academy Awards |
It's another crisp winter night in L.A. Annie Lennox stands center stage at the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood and Highland, clad in jeans and faux fur and singing “Into the West” from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as if her very life depended on it.
By Howard Massey |
|
Live Mix
|
| All Access: Switchfoot |
Mix caught Switchfoot at their sold-out Fillmore Auditorium show in San Francisco, while they were out supporting their still-growing The Beautiful Letdown CD. The band has played a few different legs in the U.S. and Canada, and made quick trips to Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand.
By Steve Jennings |
|
| FixIt: Mark Ballard |
During the past couple of years, Mark Ballard has worked as a system tech or at front of house for Kylie Minogue, Travis and Bond.
|
|
| News |
he singers for Treasure Island Resort and Casino's (Las Vegas) newest show, The Sirens of TI, use Sennheiser Evolution 550 Series mics, transmitters and a twin receiver in a 19-inch, IU housing…Acoustical Design Group (Mission, KA), ASCOM Inc.
|
|
| Now Playing |
ZIGGY MARLEY
Sound Company: Rat Sound Systems (Oxnard, CA)
FOH Engineers/Console: Errol Brown, Michael Ver Steegt/InnovaSon Grand Live
|
|
| On the Road: Jereb Carter |
Currently hitting the small-club circuit with New Orleans funksters Galactic during the band's Freestyle 2004 tour, front-of-house engineer Jereb Carter (who has also manned the FOH board for Garage a Trois) shares some insight into creating perfect sound in close quarters.
|
|
| On-the-Spot CD Release |
Advances in technology have made the ability to do our jobs easier and — more importantly — faster. Why FedEx when you can e-mail?
By Sarah Benzuly |
|
| Rod Stewart |
Rod Stewart's new tour has the rock star-turned-crooner singing his favorite hits from It Had to Be You and As Time Goes By. Front-of-house engineer Lars Brogaard took a few minutes to talk about the show.
By Steve Jennings |
|
| The Ultimate Ambience Miking |
When a Delta Rocket streaked into space to place a Global Positioning System satellite, freelance audio engineer Gary Faller relied on a stereo pair of DPA 4041S mics to capture all of the sonic nuances.
|
|
| Tour Profile: Black Eyed Peas + N.E.R.D. |
As if it wasn't difficult enough to mix the Black Eyed Peas — a quartet of rapper/vocalists and a four-piece band who are living up to the reputation that a Grammy-nominated song (“Where Is the Love”) demands — front-of-house engineer David Haines gets to his console and reports, “I just heard Robin Williams is here. That makes me want to mix the show even better.
by David John Farinella |
|
Recording Notes
|
| Classic Tracks: The Doobie Brothers' “What a Fool Believes” |
No one was more surprised than Michael McDonald when the song he wrote for the Doobie Brothers, “What a Fool Believes,” earned Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, as well as Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists at the 1980 awards ceremony.
By Robyn Flans |
|
| Cool Spins |
Graham Parker: Your Country (Bloodshot) Graham Parker has always had a little bit of a country twang hiding behind his new wave and pub-rock leanings;...
|
|
| John Wesley Harding |
John Wesley Harding waited almost three years to release Adam's Apple, his 11th album overall and first for DRT Records.
By Heather Johnson |
|
| Velvet Revolver |
Given their pedigrees — former members of Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots — it would be easy to label Velvet Revolver as either the next rock 'n' roll supergroup or a potential knockoff of their previous incarnations.
By Elianne Halbersberg |
|
Coast to Coast
|
| L.A. Grapevine |
b>Record business bloodletting continues, and with it the collateral damage to the recording industry. But as you've probably noticed, rising from the ashes is a lot of pretty interesting stuff.
By Maureen Droney |
|
| Nashville Skyline |
Since I first heard about producer/engineer Roger Moutenot several years ago, his name has regularly popped up in conversations about a variety of interesting projects that are not the usual mainstream Nashville fare.
By Rick Clark |
|
| New York Metro |
Street-level producers, engineers and musicians are buzzed about the next wave of production techniques, and a lot of them are wondering where big recording studios fit in.
By David Weiss |
|
| Sessions & Studio News |
NORTHEAST
Get ready for the release of Anthrax's greatest hits! The band was in at Avatar Studios (NYC) working on the collection, and used an audience of their fans during one new performance.
By Breean Lingle |
|
Insider Audio
|
| Ghosts in the Machine |
How many Elvis clones does it take to change a lightbulb? None. We have machines for that now. Remember when drummers were the butt of that joke? It...
By Paul D. Lehrman |
|
Bitstream
|
| A Profound Audio Loss |
This month, I'm taking a look at an increasingly viable alternative to bulky linear PCM sound files and lossy-compressed, but compact, audio files. That...
By Oliver Masciarotte |
|
Tech's Files
|
| Thinking in Time |
Normally, I'm down in the hardware trenches with my soldering iron, but in the spirit of this month's “The New Means of Production” theme, I thought I'd step into the virtual realm.
By Eddie Ciletti |
|
From the Editor
|
| “The New Means of Production” |
Last May, Mix presented “What Can Save the Music Industry,” a highly read and talked-about themed issue that rocked the audio community....
By George Petersen Editorial Director |
|
Feedback
|
| Letters to Mix |
AN APPLE WITHOUT BUGS In the article “Taking the G5 Live!” by Kevin Becka (February 2004), I think the author [may have] encountered a bug...
|
|
Current/Industry News
|
| Corrections |
In the April 2004 “Table of Contents,” we mistakenly said that Widget Post in L.A. took delivery of the first Digidesign ICON; Widget was...
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| CRAS Grads Take Home Grammys |
Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences (Tempe, Ariz.) graduates Moka Nagatani and Darrell Thorp have taken home 2004 Grammy Awards:
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| Gear Lust Sated at the Village |
Village Recorders (West L.A.), Digi-design and Focusrite hosted the U.S. premiere of Focusrite's Liquid Channel channel strip to a “who's who” of L.A. engineers and producers on March 4 in Studio D's control room.
By Barry Rudolph |
|
| Industry News |
Dr. James Andy Moorer, inventor of NoNoise restoration system and co-founder of Sonic Solutions, has joined Sonic Studio's (Plymouth, MN) advisory staff…Former director of engineering Domenic Buonincontri has been promoted to general manager for Cerwin-Vega (Simi Valley, CA
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| Mastering “Revolution” |
Lorenz Vauck (pictured) is the man behind the computer at XARC Mastering (Dresden, Germany), where he provides low-cost, fast-turnaround mastering services to an international clientele.
By Barbara Schultz |
|
| Melting Crayons to Make Records |
Since the age of 10, Shawn Borri has tried to duplicate the wax recording techniques used by the North American Phonograph Co. founded by Thomas Alva Edison in 1888, beginning with melting crayons around a roll of toilet paper.
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| Ninth Annual L.A. Open |
The Ninth Annual Mix L.A. Open charity golf tournament, Monday, June 14, 2004, at the Malibu Country Club, is filling up.
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| Notes From the Net |
Download Me a River
iRiver's iHP-120 is a 20-gig (10- and 40-gig models available) portable MP3 player that allows users to record MP3s or uncompressed .WAV files through either an analog line-in or a digital optical line-in, as well as a built-in mic and FM tuner.
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| Porcupine Studios Brings in George Benson |
Porcupine Studios (Chandler, Ariz., www.porcupinestudios.com) recently hosted George Benson, who worked with producer Paul Brown on guitars and vocals on his upcoming CD;
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| Powered Up in NYC |
Bob Power has been busy in New York City mixing Me'shell Ndegeocello's new Maverick CD, Comfort Woman, at Chung King Studios' Gold Room.
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| Preamps in Paradise |
What do you get when you bring together 10 leading preamp manufacturers, sit them down at a table and let them loose?
Compiled by Sarah Benzuly |
|
| SAE Hosts Debutante Ball |
SAE Institute recently held a coming-out party for its new and expanded New York City campus in the heart of Manhattan's bustling Herald Square.
By David Weiss |
|
| Streisand Dedicates Renovated Sony Scoring Stage |
Sony Pictures Entertainment (Culver City, Calif.) threw an elegant afternoon soiree on February 9, 2004, to celebrate the renaming of its recently renovated...
By Maureen Droney |
|
| Tascam Celebrates 25 Years of Portastudio |
In 1979, Tascam's cassette-based 144 Portastudio helped launch the home recording boom, as musicians could use TEAC 4-track reel-to-reel recorders to do their own multitrack recording, including record, overdub, EQ, bounce and mixdown multiple tracks in one portable box that weighed just 20 pounds.
A MEETING OF THE MINDS |
|
