OXNARD, California - July 2008 – Longtime L-ACOUSTICS user Radiohead has returned to the road this summer in support of its latest album, In Rainbows, which shook up the record industry when it was first made available online last October for basically whatever price fans chose to pay.

After a handful of initial US dates starting in May, followed by a European/UK tour in June and July, the highly innovative and critically acclaimed band now returns to the States for the entire month of August before heading on to Japan for additional performances. more

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 2008: Philip J. Harvey from PilotLight Audio Inc. was hired by the White Stripes to mix front-of-house sound and multi-track record their tenth anniversary tour of 2007 in forty channels of high-resolution digital audio. Harvey put together a Metric Halo rig consisting of five MIO 2882+DSP interfaces passing 24-bit/96kHz audio into his MacBook Pro laptop computer. This endeavor led to the recording and mixing of two songs that were released as B-sides on the White Stripes’ “You Don’t Know What Love Is” EP.

“We ended up with 36 channels, including two audience mics,” he says. “I also recorded a four-channel pre-mix with a separate MIO 2882+DSP unit, utilizing the FOH board mix left/right, plus a pair of Schoeps CMC6MK4 mics in an ORTF stereo configuration at FOH also. I would delay the board mix using the Delay Finder in Metric Halo’s SpectraFoo analysis software to get the time synched to the mics and record those tracks separately, as well as mixed together at 16-bit/44.1kHz, for an easily accessed overview of the gig. If the band wanted a CD right away, I could burn one or transfer the track to a thumb drive.”

It may be hard to believe that the two members of the White Stripes require four-dozen tracks when mixing and recording their live show, but Harvey details the stage setup. “Drums and a few percussion things take about twelve channels,” he says. “Then there are three guitar amps and many different stations onstage that Jack utilizes. He’ll jump on an effected vocal mic that has some strange harmonizer and lots of reverb by the drum set. To the left of the center vocal position he has a Moog station with a monophonic synthesizer. On stage right is a keyboard station with a Wurlitzer electric piano and Hammond C-3 organ, with Leslie, and another vocal mic. Not to mention the vocal mic behind the guitar amps so that when he runs upstairs he can take it with him onto the walkway.”

Harvey is not aware of any current release plans for the multi-tracked material. “The White Stripes wanted to have every show multi-track recorded and archived. Whenever they decide to put out a live concert CD or DVD they can preview the shows with the four-tracked pre-mixes, as a reference to the multi-tracks, and pick the performances they like and want to mix. There is plenty of quality material to work with,” he says. “The results were outstanding.”

“It was quite interesting how the B-side recordings came into fruition,” Harvey reveals. “The White Stripes’ 2007 tour schedule was very busy and Warner Brothers needed to release the second single from their “Icky Thump” album. The band wanted to package the “You Don’t Know What Love Is” single with new acoustic material that could only be heard on that EP, so we recorded it while on tour in Canada.” He continues, “After soundcheck in St. Johns, Nova Scotia, I found myself with Jack and Meg on the top floor of a little square announcer’s tower located in the middle of a horse race track, which was behind the hockey arena the Stripes were performing in that night. The announcer’s tower had three floors and was all wood construction, the only non-concrete place we could find in the area!” Armed with one Metric Halo ULN2+DSP and a MIO 2882+DSP, an assortment of mics, stands and cables, three acoustic songs were recorded in less than two hours. Harvey recalls, “It was so hot in the tower that we had to open the windows between takes, but the wind would cause the mic diaphragm’s to rumble, so we had to sweat while recording.” Two of those recordings made it to the EP. Harvey states, “If you listen to “A Martyr for My Love for You (Acoustic Version),” all the ambience is recorded live in the room, there was no artificial reverbs added to the mix, thanks to the ULN2 and Schoeps combination!”

Philip Harvey’s experience with Metric Halo equipment dates back to the product’s original launch in 2001, when he was working with jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood. “Metric Halo founders, Joe and B.J. Buchalter, were fans of the band,” Harvey remembers, “I was an early adopter of MH’s hardware. I developed a relationship with Joe and B.J. by calling and bugging them so much that they said, “here why don’t you take these MIO units, bash them around and tell us what needs to be fixed.” I was very excited to take part in MH research and development! At that time we were recording 32 channels of 24-bit/48kHz with four MIO 2882+DSP units into my 400MHz G3 PowerBook.” All recordings were captured to FireWire hard drives, “During the eight years I worked with MMW, we recorded roughly two years of shows from their tours.”

“The Metric Halo stuff always works. I have such huge respect for those guys. They’re a small company of seven people competing with huge companies like Digidesign and MOTU with armies of programmers, and the MH hardware/software always sounds better!” The Metric Halo rig is now touring internationally with another Jack White project, The Raconteurs, with Harvey at front-of-house once again, but this time it’s a rig consisting of five custom units. The tour started in mid-April, with promotional shows in small clubs, then immediately escalated into larger venues and appearances at the top festivals in the US and abroad, including Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Glastonbury.

Based in New York’s Hudson Valley, Metric Halo provides the world with high-resolution metering, analysis, recording and processing solutions with award-winning software and hardware.

www.mhlabs.com

LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA - JUNE 2008: Controversial American artist Matthew Barney and collaborating composer Jonathan Bepler - the team that created the celebrated “Cremaster Cycle” series of art movies - have begun a new project of hugely orchestrated one-time opera/performances set around the world and inspired by Norman Mailer’s 1983 novel “Ancient Evenings.” The first performance, “REN,” took place in mid-May at an abandoned car dealership off the I-5 Interstate south of Los Angeles. Some 600 spectators witnessed the event, which involved a drum and bugle corps, the complete destruction of a Chrysler Imperial by a twenty-ton excavator, the release of several thousand crickets, and much, much more over the course of two spectacular hours. Together with the composer Jonathan Bepler, Daniel Teige, sound engineer at Bepler’s Berlin studio, was charged with the Herculean task of capturing sound for a future video release of the event. In addition to a well-chosen rack of converters and audio cards, Teige and Bepler counted on the bomb-proof reliability and unsurpassed fidelity of four TRUE Systems Precision 8 mic pres coupled with over two dozen Microtech Gefell microphones strategically located throughout the event space.

As is the case with any of Barney’s and Bepler’s works, “REN” is difficult to succinctly describe, though an attempt might be: a melding of ancient Egyptian mythology and symbolism with 21st Century themes and ephemera. The wrecked 1967 Chrysler Imperial used in “Cremaster 3″ sat in the parking lot of the abandoned dealership, which was decked out with believable salesman, eighty new Chryslers, and other nuances so as to look fully operational. The performance began with an approach from all directions by squads of a fifty piece drum and bugle corps, who gathered throughout the huge site to play a vast, surround-sound introduction. After a rousing, post-modern fanfare on the roof, the Imperial was dragged by forty-five laborers into the showroom to compete with a 1979 Pontiac TransAm whose mega sound system played groaning sub-tones. An all-female mariachi band led by the great Mexican singer Lila Downs, and the salesmen (assembled as a “choir”) provided the musical accompaniment as an amazing stockpile of 11,000 crickets emerged from the twenty-ton excavator that eventually shredded the Imperial. Through all of this, the audience moved from seats to the showroom. The music came from all over the lot. From Teige’s perspective, it was tremendously challenging to capture sound, given the event’s radical dynamic range and spatial extent.

Although Barney and Bepler had been working on REN for well over a year, Teige only began his preparations seven months prior to the event. As the date approached, he readied the studio’s awesome collection of Microtech Gefell microphones, making sure that each one was performing perfectly. Even though there would be over two dozen microphones, he needed only a scant four-rack space of mic pres in the form of four TRUE Systems Precision 8s. From the Precision 8s, signal would flow to an Apogee AD-16x converter and two Apogee Rosetta 800s, all of which were clocked to a bank of Pro Tools HD cards in a Magma chassis by an Apogee Big Ben running at 96kHz.

Nevertheless, there was only so much that he could do from Germany! Teige arrived at the abandoned lot two weeks prior to the performance. “It was a huge amount of work to do in such a small amount of time,” he admitted. “It was one of those things where we had so many other things to worry about, we had to trust our hardware completely. The Apogee converters and TRUE Systems mic pres are the sort of thing I never lose sleep over. They always perform perfectly. In this case, we counted on that!”

Although Teige and Bepler concentrated the bulk of their recording gear in the showroom, where most of REN’s action took place, they had mics located all over the lot. With over one hundred musicians and actors and a mobile audience, blocking REN was intense. Making sure that every significant utterance or note was captured - let alone captured with stunning clarity - was the sort of thing Teige and Bepler lost sleep over.

From Teige’s end, everything went off without a hitch. On a larger view, a few audience members were injured by flying glass! “The sound quality is excellent,” he said. However, this came as no surprise as the engineer and the composer had paired TRUE System pres with Microtech Gefell microphones in previous projects “The TRUE Systems Precision 8s and Microtechs are the perfect partners. We’ve had countless unsolicited praise about the clarity and beauty of the sound on previous projects from people who don’t think much about audio. It’s that obvious.”

“REN” is certainly not the last use that combination will see, either. Barney and Bepler have plans for six more performances of similar magnitude but different content to take place in a mine in Poland, a steel mill in England, a taxi garage in New York City, a building site in Abu Dhabi, a ship-breaking yard in India, and finally (and closest to conventionally!) an opera house in an as-yet undetermined location.

TRUE Systems, Tucson, Arizona designs, engineers and manufactures high-value, high-end professional audio products at reasonable prices for the domestic and international marketplace. Tim Spencer is the principal designer and engineering force behind the company. Tim has been with TRUE Systems since it’s inception in 1997. The U.S. built line includes the SOLO series, the P2 Analog and Precision 8 multi-channel mic preamps.

TRUE Systems can be reached via e-mail at sales@true-systems.com or via phone at (520) 721-2735.

TransAudio Group, founded by industry veteran Brad Lunde, has quickly become the premier U.S. importer/distributor and/or U.S. sales and marketing representative for high-end audio. Success hinges on TransAudio providing dealers and end users with a higher standard of product expertise and support far beyond the norm.

www.transaudiogroup.com

Burbank, CA… Mojave Audio, a company founded by David Royer (known for his work with ribbon microphones) is pleased to announce the introduction of the Mojave Audio MA-201fet Cardioid Condenser Microphone. Evolving from David’s 20-plus years as a designer of custom microphones, the MA-201fet is an ideal choice for recording vocals, dialog work of all types (including broadcast and voiceovers), recording acoustic instruments such as guitar, piano, and wind instruments, as well as choral work. Additionally, this new microphone is a great choice for kick drum, bass amps, drum overheads, capturing drum room sounds, and orchestral recording. more

Glendale, CA, July 22, 2008 – Video Equipment Rentals (VER), a national AV, audio, broadcast and computer equipment rental company, has transitioned RF Central, a leading microwave technology provider and brand of The Vitec Group, from news production into mainstream television production, using its equipment for broadcasting NBC’s popular “American Gladiators” and “The Biggest Loser” programs. more

OXFORD, ENGLAND— Sometimes you reach a time when you are so excited about what you’ve achieved you simply have to stand up and tell the world about it — and for us at Solid State Logic this is one of those moments. more

Steinberg Ships Sequel 2 and add-on content

Steinberg North America today announced the shipping of Sequel 2, a new version of Steinberg’s successful music creation and live performance software. Sequel 2 introduces new features, including a hardware Controller Learn mode, Track Freeze, a virtual keyboard, Track Icons and many more.

“This new release builds on the successful launch of Sequel last year, with more functionality that makes music creation even more creative and fun, while making no compromises on ease-of-use and accessibility,” comments Nadine Roos, Steinberg’s Marketing Manager for Sequel. “Many Cubase owners will also find Sequel an attractive, mobile composition tool for sketching out musical ideas, with the included content and the new Sequel Content Sets add even more audio content to fuel creativity.”

The new features include a unique Controller Learn Mode, which allows extremely easy setup for almost any hardware controller to offer tactile control over practically any Sequel 2 function, instrument or parameter. Track Freeze enhances CPU efficiency, while the new Track Icons visually label tracks, making them easy to find and adding an attractive new element to the Sequel user interface. The Sequel MediaBay sound management system has also been improved, while new the new Audio Reverse effect and the Audio Warp features offer even more creative options.

Steinberg has also released three new Sequel Content Sets for the genres of Rock, Industrial and Hip Hop. Each content set adds 200-300 top quality loops in the respective style, and are available from www.steinberg.net.

Sequel 2 is currently available at authorized Steinberg retailers for $99. Updates to Sequel 2 from the previous version are available exclusively from Steinberg’s online store for $29.

The Netherlands, Amsterdam, July 22, 2008 – Nucomm, Inc. is introducing its new 7 Series HD ready products at IBC 2008 (Stand 1.A30). Nucomm’s entire ENG/OB product line is now capable of HD operation using built in encoding/decoding technology. Presenting today’s broadcast arena with the convenience of field upgradeability, all 7 Series products can be delivered with HD capability or delivered as SD for a future field upgrade to HD via a software key. Prior to this announcement Nucomm’s HD product line consisted of the CamPac 2 HD/SD wireless camera transmitter and Newscaster DR HD/SD diversity receiver, which have been well received as the premier wireless camera system in the industry. The 7 Series replaces the SD product line as Nucomm’s standard product. more

The Netherlands, Amsterdam, July 22, 2008 – Nucomm, Inc., a worldwide provider of premier digital and analogue video microwave systems, is broadening wireless camera control capabilities through the IBC 2008 showcase of its CC-1 Camera Control unit (Stand 1.A30). Designed to work with Nucomm’s signature CamPac 2 HD/SD COFDM camera-back transmitter, the CC-1 expands the features of the CamPac 2 through a software-based data interface that allows the CP2/CC-1 to work with various camera manufacturer’s control panels and command protocols. more

Former Members of The Distillers Record Debut Album

Pictured at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood are (L-R) guitarist Tony Bevilacqua, singer/songwriter Brody Dalle, and mastering engineer Brian “Big Bass” Gardner. Photo by David Goggin.

Distinctive singer/ songwriter/ bandleader Brody Dalle, and guitarist Tony Bevilacqua, were on hand at Bernie Grundman Mastering for the mastering of the debut album from their new group, Spinnerette. Also on the album are drummer Jack Irons, formerly of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and guitarist Alain Johannes, of the band Eleven. The new Spinnerette collection was also produced by and written with Johannes. Brian “Big Bass” Gardner mastered the new album.

The Distillers, featuring Brody Dalle, was formed in Los Angeles in 1998. The group had several line-ups, with Dalle writing, singing and playing guitar on the bands three albums. Spinnerette, founded in 2007, has a mashup of new material on their official website, http://spinnerettemusic.com/, and MySpace pages.

For info about Bernie Grundman Mastering, visit: http://www.berniegrundmanmastering.com