Blog
NAMM Kicks Out the Jams
Every January, it’s a pleasure to leave the cold, snowy streets of New York for the Winter NAMM Show, held in the sunny climes...
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Blog
Building Dangerland, Part 1: Leaving The Carport
Twenty-three years ago, I converted my freestanding two-car garage into a studio. The Carport, as I called it—there was another studio in town called...
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Video: NAMM’s In Memoriam Industry Tribute 2017
NAMM's ongoing Oral History Project compiles an annual "In Memoriam Industry Tribute" video that it plays as part of its onsite programming...
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Seen on the Scene: A Photo Tour of NAMM 2017, Part 2
The Annual NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA was jammed to the gills as usual with the latest in pro audio and the MI...
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Seen on the Scene: A Photo Tour of NAMM 2017, Part 1
The Annual NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA was jammed to the gills as usual with the latest in pro audio and the MI world....
Blog
Book Review: The Vinyl Detective—Written in Dead Wax
We’ve reviewed a lot of books on the Pro Sound News blog over the years, but this may be the first one that’s fiction....
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Testing, Testing
Let’s salute the unsung hero of modern recording software: test and measurement. In the days of tape, your test gear was VU meters that...
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Can Credits Go with the Flow?
The recording industry has come to understand how crucial credit metadata is, and why it should ideally be documented onsite throughout the ...
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Guest Post: Building A Home Studio
Michael Capone may be COO of CableWholesale.com, but he’s also a musician—and now the proud owner of a home studio. In this guest blog...
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Audiobooks Are Having A Moment
Sometimes it seems like everything old is new again—for instance, during the summer when all the sequels come out, or when you walk into...
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Inside the Audio of Creed and Fruitvale Station
One of the surprise hits of 2015 was Creed, the spinoff of the Rocky film series, which raked in praise from critics, more than...
Studio Sense
Bizarro World
No matter your political persuasion, you must admit that the recent election cycle has been crazy and has taken some sort of toll...
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Mixing and Mastering with “Self-Driving” Audio
Here’s an interesting workforce statistic: Far more jobs are lost to robots than to companies sending jobs overseas. But of course, as recording engineers,...
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Miking Traditional Jazz Combos Live, Pt. 1
My experience has been that many live sound engineers are not familiar with the techniques (now seen as rather archaic) needed to produce an...
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Dolby’s Discourse on VR, Technology and Inspiration
New Wave provocateur turned internet audio pioneer turned professor Thomas Dolby is out and about, promoting his new tech memoir, The Speed of Sound....
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The PSN Holiday Gift Guide, 2016 Edition!
The holiday season is once again upon us. Below I share a few hints for what might make an ideal gift for your favorite...
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Book Review: Thomas Dolby’s “The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology”
Thomas Dolby’s new memoir, The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology, is pretty unique. After all, we're talking about a...
Mr. Bonzai's Music Smarts
Mose Allison, 1927-2016
I was just wondering about jazz/blues poet laureate Mose Allison lately, because I'd heard he had stopped performing. Back in 1992, I took...
Studio Sense
Samsung/Harman Deal: Good News for Android in Pro Audio?
So I’m wondering if a Samsung-owned Harman could finally be the heavyweight catalyst we theorized back in 2014: a pro-audio conglomerate powered by a...
Mr. Bonzai's Music Smarts
Leonard Cohen, 1932–2016
I first met Leonard Cohen in 1988, as editor-at-large with Mix magazine, for my monthly “Lunching with Bonzai” column. I appeared at his doorway...
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The 141st AES Anderton Awards
It’s been said the only survivors of a nuclear war would be cockroaches and Cher’s career…but then there’s the Anderton Awards, "honoring" the...
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Inside 2 Chainz’s New Home Studio
Rapper 2 Chainz recently purchased a new home in the Hollywood Hills, complete with a 1,400-foot studio. Legendary guitarist Steve Vai owned the...
Studio Sense
Scam Alert!
If you’re a small pro audio-oriented business owner—studio owner, audio engineer, live sound provider, all of the above—you’ve surely warded off attempted scams, phishing,...
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Sennheiser Pops Up in New York City
Sennheiser has always had a strong footing in the consumer audio world, but this year finds the German manufacturer taking a more aggressive stance...
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Frank Zappa’s Utility Muffin Research Kitchen Gear Goes to Auction
Frank Zappa had a fascinating career, recording more than 60 albums before he died in 1993 at the age of 52. Much of that...
Studio Sense
Dear American High School Student
Audio engineering does provide some challenging and lucrative opportunity, but frankly those positions are under heavy competition. With today’s audio educators doing a fantastic...
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VIDEO: Inside Paisley Park’s Studio A
Fans around the world mourned the passing of music superstar Prince, but now his fabled studio/rehearsal complex/home, Paisley Park in Chanhassen, MN, is open...
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Videos: Time-Lapse Takes of AES 2016
Every year when it opens, the AES Convention's exhibit floor is a sparkling wonderland of the latest and greatest in pro audio gear. Of...
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Examining the Art of Genius at AES
What defines the art of genius? PSNEurope—the European relative of Pro Sound News—offers one possible definition: It’s the moment when the clouds part, when...
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PSN Peek: The Sound Design of Hamilton
When it comes to Broadway, the only word on anyone’s lips for the last year has been Hamilton. Having generated arguably the biggest buzz...
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AES in L.A.: The Sequel
Los Angeles is the home of Hollywood, and certainly Tinsletown is all about sequels, so it’s only fitting that this month will see the...
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Changing Mindsets
That women aren’t well-represented in pro audio is not exactly news, but it’s one thing when this kind of discussion plays out in the...
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Is Video the DAW’s Final Frontier?
With a few exceptions, most recent DAW changes have been incremental: We haven’t seen huge breakthroughs like when Opcode’s Vision merged hard disk audio...
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Retro PSN: One to the 100 Club
Veteran FOH engineer Monty Lee Wilkes died August 26, 2016; while he was known for mixing everyone from Prince and Britney...
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Podcast Explores Women’s Presence in the Studio
The dearth of women in pro audio is no secret, and organizations like Women’s Audio Mission and soundgirls.org have long proven that women belong...
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Video: Producing Simple Minds’ ‘New Gold Dream’
While Simple Minds remains best-known for the eternally omnipresent "Don't You Forget About Me," the group's true highwater mark has always been...
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No Longer King Of The Hill, Top Of The Heap
New York State has seen a downturn in music production and the recording industry. As other music- and technology-savvy regions around the country line...
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Fix It Before The Mix
When multitrack tape recording progressed beyond a few tracks, a new phrase was added to the recording lexicon: “Fix it in the mix,��...
Studio Sense
Headphone Freakout Solutions
As an engineer or producer, you’re surely used to seeing weird looks on the faces of the talent—maybe it’s just looking through the...
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AES LA Convention to get Historical
The upcoming AES Convention in Los Angeles next month promises to have some momentous offerings, including its first International Conference on Audio for Virtual...
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Heck of a Home Studio
There are different levels of home studios—typical consumer ones outfitted with basic MI gear; serious workspaces owned by professional recordists and musicians; and then...
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Pokemon Go Invades Pro Audio
There's been a lot of talk about how creating sound for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality apps will change the face of pro audio;...