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Mix May 2018 Online Index

Online index of stories in the May 2018 issue of Mix magazine

FEATURES

Dave Cobb at Home in Nashville
By Barbara Schultz. Settling in Nashville has led to the biggest success of Dave Cobb’s career. Since relocating from L.A. in 2011, he’s received four Grammy Awards, three Americana Association Awards, two CMA Awards, the Music Row Award for Producer of the Year, and plenty more recognition for the beautiful, top-selling, artist-centered albums he’s produced with Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell and others.

“Forever Words,” Setting Johnny Cash’s Personal Writings to Music
By Barbara Schultz. As John Carter Cash pored over his late father’s voluminous writings, two goals emerged: to curate and publish a collection in book form, and then to make an album, creating a musical setting for a selection of those works.

The Anthem Shines in D.C.
By Matt Hurwitz. Last October, Foo Fighters belted out the lyrics of their latest single, “Sky Is a Neighborhood,” to a sellout crowd of 6,000 at the opening night of Washington, D.C.’s newest music venue, The Anthem: “Gotta get to sleep somehow/Bangin’ on the ceiling/Keep it down!” But nobody in the adjacent apartment towers was doing any bangin’. They couldn’t hear a peep.

MUSIC

Sarah Shook & the Disarmers Records Years
By Tom Kenny. It reads awfully close to an indie film festival screenplay, the story of how producer-engineer Ian Schreier first heard Sarah Shook sing in a small shack turned into a rehearsal space deep in the woods of Chatham County, outside of Raleigh-Durham, N.C. He was there on a weeknight as part of his day job, chief engineer at nearby Manifold Recording.

Classic Tracks: “Guitar Town” by Steve Earle
By Barbara Schultz. In this month’s Classic Tracks we take a look at sessions for the entire album, which included not only the Top 10 title track, but unforgettable hits such as “Hillbilly Highway” and “Goodbye’s All We’ve Got Left,” and heartbreakers like “My Old Friend the Blues” and “Little Rock ’n’ Roller.”

GTLO Rocks (and Rolls) Rams Head Live!
By Mark R. Smith. Appearances at Baltimore’s Rams Head Live! by Get the Led Out (GTLO), the Philadelphia-based Led Zeppelin tribute band, have become frequent, almost a tradition. The band rocks, the audience jumps, and as in cities across the country, a hot regional band brings high-end live performance to a hungry audience, night after night, in venues ranging from standing clubs (like Rams Head Live!) and seated theaters to outdoor festivals and sheds, with capacities of 250 to 10,000.

REGIONAL: Nashville

Parker Millsap, Gary Paczosa and Shani Gandhi Make “Other Arrangements”
By Barbara Schultz. Parker Millsap’s upbringing in the Pentecostal church strongly influenced his early records in particular. His first success came from “Truck Stop Gospel,” a roots-rocking song from the point of view of a Bible-thumping trucker. Millsap’s latest release, Other Arrangements, includes an occasional Biblical reference, but on the whole, it turns in a new direction.

Nick Raskulinecz: Room for Variety; Black River Booming; Updates from Southern Ground Studios, House of Blues, Ocean Way Nashville, Sound Kitchen, Uno Mas Studios, Parlor Productions, Blackbird Studio, Sound Emporium, Watershed and Prime Recording
By Barbara Schultz.

TECHNOLOGY

Studio Monitors for 2018
No product category in professional audio presents a wider range of product, and a seemingly narrow range of preference among users, than studio monitors. Except maybe microphones, which makes sense, as the are both transducers, sitting at the beginning and the end of the hybrid analog-digital-analog chain. Speakers are subjective, and engineers rely heavily on their monitors in making decisions that affect the mix. If you can’t rely on what you’re hearing, and have confidence in how others will hear it on other systems, then you might want to check your room, or try out some new monitors.

New Products for May 2018
New Studio and Live Sound Equipment from Steinberg, Roland, Ultimate Ears, Zoom, Antelope Audio, Sanken, Io Audio, Yamaha, Clair Brothers, Avid and Martin Audio.

Focusrite Clarett 4Pre USB Interface
By Brandon T. Hickey. For every price range and application, it seems that Focusrite has an audio interface available. The company offers a variety of product families catering to the evolving landscape of computer peripheral connectivity. Whether you need Thunderbolt, USB, Dante, or connectivity to Pro Tools HD Core cards, Focusrite has a product.

Review: Manley Nu Mu
By Barry Rudolph. The Manley Nu Mu is a 2-channel, variable-mu limiter/compressor designed to operate as either a stereo processor or two individual channels. It has a wide processing range, anywhere from extremely transparent for just “touching” a stereo mix, to serving more as “glue” when driven harder.

Review: Audionamix Xtrax Stems
By Michael Cooper. Heralded by Audionamix as “the world’s first fully automatic stem creator,” Xtrax Stems separates a mix—whether mono or stereo—into three separate files: vocals, drums and everything else. You can then export each stem as a separate audio file, or adjust the volume and pan position of each stem to create and export a new mix. Intended applications include remixing (including creating a cappella and instrumental versions of mixes), sampling of individual stems, and singing or playing drums along with stems excluding those tracks.

Review: RJR BAX Mastering EQ
By Wes Maebe. There’s nothing regular about Regular John Recording’s BAX Mastering EQ! I’ll dive straight in and tell you that this box kicks some serious butt. I received the unit just in time for a big album mix session at RAK Studios, so rather than wait for the mastering stage, I decided to strap the RJR across my mix bus.

DEPARTMENTS

From the Editor: Musicians in the Studio, Let Them Play
By Tom Kenny. It’s catching on again, this idea of musicians coming together in the studio and recording live, usually with headphones, sometimes not. Looking at each other, listening to each other, nodding to each other and letting each one’s playing influence the others. I keep hearing it from engineers across the country, and every time it’s said with excitement and enthusiasm. Then we talk about how, of course, this was the only way to make a record back in the beginning. Three to four songs in a day, mixed, cut on vinyl, then driven down to the radio station that night. It really did sometimes happen like that. And today, it’s even easier! A couple of downloads, then a couple uploads. Put it on Spotify. Reach out on social media. The song is out!

Back Page Blog: An Introduction
By Mike Levine and Steve La Cerra. Mix‘s new technology editors, Mike Levine and Steve La Cerra, introduce themselves.

Fifth Annual Mix Presents Sound for Film & Television
The Fifth Annual Mix Presents Sound for Film & Television, an all-day event featuring exhibits and programming dedicated to high-end sound for picture, will be held on Saturday, October 13, on the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, Calif. This year’s event will include a new introductory track on Virtual and Augmented Reality, which will be geared toward working professionals in sound for picture who are looking to branch out into new distribution formats and new means of storytelling.

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