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25TH ANNUAL TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE & CREATIVITY AWARDS WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Production teams for Coldplay, Foo Fighters take top Creative Achievement honors;

Avid Digidesign, Solid State Logic, Universal Audio: Double Winners for Technical Achievement

Special tribute celebrates life and contributions of Les Paul

October 12, 2009-New York, NY-Nearly 500 audio industry professionals turned out Saturday evening to recognize the achievements of their peers in sound production and product design. Held for the first time at the Audio Engineering Society Convention, the TEC Awards celebrated its 25th anniversary with a theater-style presentation featuring some of the most illustrious names in sound and music, highlighted by a sentimental tribute to the late music icon, Les Paul.

In the Technical Achievement categories, Avid Digidesign won awards for both the ProTools 8 (Workstation Technology) and VENUE Mix Rack System (Sound Reinforcement Console); Solid State Logic scooped up awards for both SSL Matrix (Small Format Console) and the AWS

900+ SE (Large Format Console); and Universal Audio won with both the 710 Twin-Finity (Microphone Preamplifier Technology)  and UAD-2 Quad (Signal Processing/Hardware). First-time Technical Achievement winners included DPA Microphones with its Model 4099 (Microphones/Sound Reinforcement); iZotope for the Ozone 4 Mastering Suite (Signal Processing/Software) and Nagra for the Nagra VI  (Recording Devices).

Among the night’s winners for Creative Achievement were the production teams behind Coldplay’s Viva La Vida (awarded for both Record Production/Single and Record Production/Album); Foo Fighters’ Live at Wembley Stadium (Surround Sound Production); JVC Newport Jazz Festival (Remote Production/Recording or Broadcast); the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Raising Sand tour (Tour Sound); James Taylor, One Man Band (Television Sound); The Dark Knight (Film Sound); as well as the designers of Santa Barbara’s Playback Recording Studio (Studio Design). The award for Interactive Entertainment Sound Production sponsored by the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.). went to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

This year’s TEC Awards “big birthday” was hosted by industry veteran Chris Stone, founder of Record Plant, World Studio Group, Penteo Surround and co-founder of S.P.A.R.S. The ceremony featured a stellar lineup of presenters including past Hall of Fame inductees: remote engineer David Hewitt; engineer/producer Eddie Kramer; engineer, producer and technologist George Massenburg; and the Pope of Pop, producer/engineer Phil Ramone. The presenter team also included six time TEC Award-winning architect /acoustician John Storyk of the Walters-Storyk Design Group.

The presentation was highlighted by a video tribute to the late Les Paul, pioneer of multi-track recording and the solid body electric guitar, followed by a speech delivered by George Petersen, respected history audio authority and executive editor of Mix magazine. Russ Paul, one of Les Paul’s sons also spoke.

Photo 2:   Phil Ramone presents the TEC Award for Creative Achievement to mastering engineer Bob Ludwig, who accepted on behalf of the production team for Coldplay’s Viva La Vida!  Credit: Alan Perlman Photography+

Photo 1: TEC Awards executive producer Hillel Resner with engineer/produce Eddie Kramer and studio designer John Storyk at the 25th Annual TEC Awards. Credit: Alan Perlman Photography+

For a complete list of the 2009 TEC Awards Winners, go to http://www.mixfoundation.org/tec/09winners.html

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The TEC Awards is presented by The Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio and sponsored by 27 companies in the professional audio industry. Lead sponsors include Gibson Guitar and the nonprofit Gibson Foundation, Guitar Center Pro, Audio Engineering Society, Broadjam, Inc., RØDE Microphones, Shure and Sterling Audio. The Producers and Engineers wing of the Recording Academy contributed audio/video resources to the production. For a complete list of sponsors, visit www.mixfoundation.org/tec/09sponsors.html.

The Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization headquartered in Walnut Creek, California. The Foundation’s primary mission is the further understanding of and excellence in professional audio through educational programs, including the TEC Awards and the TECnology Hall of Fame, as well as scholarships for students of the audio arts and sciences. The Foundation has also been a leader in promoting hearing health in the music environment by supporting programs of the House Ear Institute and H.E.A.R.

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