December 1, 2010
Feature
Sound Restoration Software
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By George Petersen
Buzz. Hum. Click. Pop. Hiss. EMI. RFI. Wind noise. It’s a tough (audio) world out there. Sound happens. Some of it is good and some—well, not so good. Once upon a time, any sort of blemish on a track was there forever. And equalization and gating alone can only do so much. …
Mastering Engineers | The Finishing Touch
Dec 1, 2010 8:00 AM, By Blair Jackson
Periodically, we like to check in with folks in the world of mastering to see what’s happening in that end of the audio business and find out what’s on their minds. The good news? Even with the downturn in the economy and the falling fortunes of the major record labels, there still seems to be a high demand for that “finishing touch” that professional mastering gives to a project. …
Product Reviews
NuGen Audio Stereo Pack Plug-In Suite Review
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Brandon Hickey
NuGen Audio, based in the UK, makes a range of stereo-analysis and image-manipulation plug-in tools such as the SEQ 1/SEQ 2 linear-phase EQ and VisLM-H/C loudness meter. NuGen’s Stereo Pack suite ($179) features three imaging tools that offer some interesting new processing ideas. …
Rupert Neve Portico II Channel Strip Review
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Barry Rudolph
The audio artistry of Rupert Neve is fully realized in the Portico II channel strip, which features his unique thinking on circuit design in its mic/line/DI input, EQ, VCA-based compressor and output sections. …
Cloud JRS-34 Active Ribbon Microphone Review
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Kevin Becka
About a year ago, a new microphone company based in Tucson, Ariz., released its first product: the Cloud JRS-34 ribbon. The mic is made entirely in the United States and owes its engine to Stephen Sank, the son of Jon R. Sank, who designed ribbon mics for RCA from the late 1950s to the early ’70s. The JRS-34 features the same ribbon used to refurbish countless RCA 44s, and promises high-quality, smooth performance. The mic is also available in a passive version for $300 less. …
AES 2010 Product Picks
Nov 11, 2010 5:56 PM, By Mix Editors
After celebrating its first World Series win, the city of San Francisco was still in a party mood when the 129th Audio Engineering Society convention (November 4-7) came into town. With the current state of the economy, a few regular exhibitors skipped this expo, but if there was a downturn in the industry, it certainly didn’t show on the faces of the thousands of enthusiastic attendees that packed into the Moscone Center for four days of nonstop pro audio action. Here are some of the highlights. …
Music
Music: Bruce Springsteen
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Barbara Schultz
Anyone who’s seen Bruce Springsteen in concert knows that The Boss doesn’t hold back; when he and the E Street Band are onstage, they’re giving their audience all they’ve got. Why play for an hour when you can go for two—or three? Why fade out when there can be “One more time!”? So if Springsteen’s going to issue a box set, it’s not going to be an early LP wrapped up with a few bonus tracks and a taller booklet…
Music: Restoring Hank Williams
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Barbara Schultz
In 1951, Hank Williams was at the peak of his talent and his star power, and fans could hear him on the radio every morning at 7:15 on WSM-Radio’s Mother’s Best Flour Show, promoting baking products and playing a selection of country, standard and gospel tunes. Williams made all of these 15-minute programs over the course of a year, bringing his band into the radio studio whenever they were off the road. …
Music: Le Lab Masters Celine Dion Concert DVD, CD
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Matt Gallagher
Mastering engineer Marc Theriault mastered Celine Dion’s 2010 DVD and CD release, Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert, at Le Lab Mastering (Montreal), which Theriault and his partners, Denis Savage and Dominique Messier, opened in July 2009. …
Music: Fran Healy Masters ‘Wreckorder’ at The Lodge
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Barbara Schultz
Fran Healy, frontman for the band Travis, was at The Lodge (New York City) to master his latest solo album, Wreckorder, with mastering engineer Joe LaPorta and chief mastering engineer Emily Lazar. …
Music: Introducing Blade Studios
Dec 8, 2010 4:08 PM, By Barbara Schultz
Veteran pop/rock/country drummer Brady Blade and business partner Scott Crompton are moments away from opening a new multistudio complex, Blade Studios, in Shreveport, La. With a design by Russ Berger Design Group, the facility is set to go online in mid-December. …
Classic Tracks: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Watching the Wheels”
Dec 8, 2010 4:20 PM, By Matt Hurwitz
John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Grammy-winning album Double Fantasy was released in November 1980, just weeks before Lennon’s tragic murder. The disc spawned three Top 10 singles, including “Watching the Wheels,” this month’s “Classic Track,” which producer Jack Douglas counts among his favorite songs on the album. …
Live
Maroon 5 Tour Profile
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Sarah Benzuly
The last time Mix caught up with Maroon 5 was last year when they co-headlined with the Counting Crows. Since then, there’s been a bit of a change: They’ve trashed the backing tracks, added a new keyboard player (PJ Morton), brought on a new monitor engineer and released their latest, Hands All Over. …
Live: Lanois Submerges Toronto in Sound
Dec 8, 2010 4:45 PM, By Sarah Benzuly
Daniel Lanois brought his artistic vision to Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square with an all-night multimedia performance and temporary installation entitled “Later That Night at the Drive-In.” Accompanying the layered video images and lighting effects was a Lanois-composed soundtrack of live and recorded music heard through 100 Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers mounted on 24 towers. …
FixIt: Modest Mouse Monitor Engineer David Campaniello
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM
odest Mouse Monitor Engineer David Campaniello on Using EAW MicroWedge …
Tears for Fears Tour Profile
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Sarah Benzuly
Pop/rockers Tears for Fears recently played 17 shows on the East Coast, where engineer Doug Lemke mixed through house-provided P.A.s, trying to re-create studio engineer JB Blot’s mix. …
Live: CCS Bets on JBL
Dec 1, 2010 8:00 AM, By Sarah Benzuly
A/V integration firm CCS Presentations Systems brought in an assortment of JBL Control Contractor loudspeakers for the audio system install at Talking Stick Record (Scottsdale, Ariz.). …
Load In: Sound Reinforcement News, December 2010
Dec 8, 2010 6:04 PM, Compiled By Sarah Benzuly
Read Mix News For the Concert Touring Professional In the December 2010 Issue of Mix …
Road-Worthy Gear: New Sound Reinforcement Products, December 2010
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM
Mix magazine new sound reinforcement products column in the December 2010 issue of Mix magazine live sound products section article…
All Access: Rascal Flatts
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, Photos and Text By Steve Jennings
Country superstars Rascal Flatts (Gary Levox, lead vocals; Joe Don Rooney, vocals/lead guitar; and Jay DeMarcus, vocals/bass) are touring in support of their latest, Unstoppable. The trio is supplemented with a wonderful set of backing musicians, including drummer Jim Riley, keyboardist Tim Akers, guitarist Jonathan Trebing, steel and banjo player Travis Toy and fiddler John Jeansonne. Mix caught up with the act at the Sleep Train Amphitheatre (Wheatland, Calif.). …
Sound for Picture
SFP: ‘True Grit’
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Blair Jackson
You never know what fascinating world directors Joel and Ethan Coen are going to visit. Their 2009 entry was the Oscar-nominated A Serious Man about an introspective Jewish fellow in suburban Minneapolis in the late ’60s. The year before that brought us the wacky comic caper…
Columns
Gear Stories With Sylvia Massy: Mr. Williams and the Fairchild 670
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Sylvia Massy
Mr. Williams led me through the darkened third-floor corridor of an abandoned brick office building in downtown Joliet, Ill. Cardboard boxes and ceiling plaster lay strewn on the floor, and a jolt of fear pulsed through me as we stepped over piles of debris to reach the illuminated doorway at the end of the long hall….
Current
Audio-Technica Mourns the Loss of Ken Reichel
Oct 22, 2010 4:09 PM
Esquire Studio Digs
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, Compiled by Sarah Benzuly
Since January, Mix technical editor Kevin Becka has been working as the lead audio consultant for the Esquire House 2010 recording studio in Los Angeles. …
Industry News, December 2010
Dec 1, 2010 8:00 AM, Compiled by Sarah Benzuly
Read Mix December 2010 Coverage on New Hires, Promotions, Distribution Deals in Pro Audio…
On the Move: Bill Norton
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, Compiled by Sarah Benzuly
Read Mix profile on Earthworks COO Bill Norton …
Departments
On the Cover: Abkco Records
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Barbara Schultz
For more than 50 years, the Abkco label(New York City) has been home to some of the most iconic recordings of the rock ’n’ roll era. The Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, The Kinks and The Animals are just a handful of the greats that have been Abkco’s life’s blood for decades. …
Editor’s Note: The Meaning of Avid
Dec 1, 2010 8:00 AM, By Tom Kenny, Editorial Director
It’s almost been a pro audio sport, on and off, for the past 15-plus years: Avid bashing. Practically from Day One, back in 1994, when the hot-tech Tewksbury, Mass., company made Digidesign its first acquisition, many Pro Tools users have been quite vocal in their love-hate relationship with the parent company. …
Tech’s Files: Restoring Vintage Gear, The Quest Continues
Dec 8, 2010 7:04 PM, By Eddie Ciletti
Due to circuit simplicity and component size, vintage gear is more easily serviced than most newer equipment, which is one reason I’m constantly revisiting the topic. In the process of increasing functionality and complexity, miniaturization has made visual analysis—and heat dissipation—of audio equipment more challenging. Yet some of the same basic problems plague all gear regardless of its place in the evolutionary time line. …
Brian “Big Bass” Gardner Q&A
Dec 1, 2010 9:00 AM, By Barbara Schultz
Brian “Big Bass” Gardner Interviewed by Mix magazine in December 2010 issue by Barbara Schultz …