Portuguese Distributors Custodio Cardos Pereira SA (CCP) Report A Huge Take-Up Of Soundcraft Vi6 Consoles Among The Country’s Leading Rental Companies

Showcasing Soundcraft’s position as a global leader in digital mixing, three premier Portuguese technical production houses, Décibel, Strong and CLS Audiovisuals, have made major investments in Soundcraft’s digital platform. The addition will lead to the expansion of Vi6™ consoles across many different applications.

João Azevedo, Custodio Cardos Pereira’s Commercial Manager believes there is more to follow. “There is a confidence now in the Soundcraft Vi6 to a point where it is starting to appear on tour riders. It has passed all the technical tests and we can provide new firmware and software updates to customers immediately as we receive it.�

The Vi6’s continuing appearance at major festivals has been a major factor. “It gives sound engineers the opportunity to get hands on for the first time and experience the ease of using the Vistonics II™ GUI,� continued Azevedo.

The first company to invest was Porto, Portugal based Décibel. Rui Soares, who set up the company in 1992, confirms that both their new Vi6’s are permanently out on duty. Aside from providing technical production for the extravagantly-designed Casa da Musica (House of Music), the company also services a number of festivals; including Festival Músicas do Mundo, Sines, where Human League was recently mixed on a Vi6.

“Because they wanted a good quality desk with a lot of channels [to mix the National Orchestra of Portugal] the Vi6 helped us close the business at House of Music,� reports Soares, who also has two Soundcraft Series 5 analog desks in his inventory. “We chose the Soundcraft because the sound was better than the others we auditioned and the price was competitive. We closed the deal with CCP as soon as we tested it.�

Rui’s appreciation is supported by Décibel technicians José Monteiro and Fernando Rodrigues. “I like the ergonomics,� said the former. “With Soundcraft desks it is impossible to touch buttons you don’t want. In fact I can operate the new Vi6 with my back to the mixer, blindfolded. The Vi6 continues to achieve the same quality as their analog boards did.�

Rodrigues also adds, “The Vi6 sounds good; the interface couldn’t be easier, the graphics are excellent — and there are no words to describe the Lexicon FX! Normally outboard processors would be expensive but here you just load up the desk and there is no problem.�

The company with the largest Soundcraft digital inventory, however, is Strong, based in Tondela. General Manager, Teixera de Matos, has a wealth of experience stretching back 27 years and he set up Strong six years ago. The company made its entry into the digital world by simultaneously purchasing a pair of Soundcraft Vi6’s and a Vi4 simultaneously, providing cover for both the FOH and monitor positions. Strong already had plenty of experience with Soundcraft’s analog Vienna’s and Series 5’s in their rental fleet over the years.

Teixera de Matos comments, “The Vi6 is not only intuitive and user-friendly, with all the functionality onboard it is also extremely fast. Everything is in front of you on the monitor, and I didn’t have to scroll though all of the pages like I would have with other brands. By the time the consoles were delivered all the technical team was able to use the virtual mixer, which had been downloaded from the Internet. It’s a very good first approach.� Teixera believes the compact form factor of the Vi4 is also important for Strong’s growing number of theatre shows where seats are at a premium and he has also found his transportation costs reducing considerably.

Strong’s technical manager, João Paulo Martins, recently piloting one of the company’s Vi6’s on the Just Girls tour, highlights further attributes. “Having the EQ on every output is useful as is the ability to link functions on the output graphics. The offline editor is very easy to use, and the ability to swap desks is fantastic. For instance, if we are working with one of CCP’s loan Vi6’s, we can simply plug our show files straight into the USB port of the CCP board.�
Not all the Vi6 purchasers are live tour sound companies, however. CLS Audiovisuals are essentially a broadcast company and although based in Lisbon, they also work in Spain, Angola, Dubai and Qatar.

A 50/50 partnership between parent company Mediapro, one of the biggest broadcast companies in Europe, and Nuno Duarte, Andre Senos and Carlos Lima, the company is equally at home in the world of OB trucks and broadcast studios as it is on a live FOH platform.

CLS first stepped up to digital for broadcast duties during the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. “We had been looking for a digital solution for small and studio PA because we handle entertainment shows for TV,� said Duarte. “In the end it came down to a choice of two desks and we chose Soundcraft based on its user-friendly interface and a sound that was close to analog. Anyone can use the Vi6, and for its sheer simplicity it is a good solution.�

Providing further exposure to sound engineers in Portugal using the Soundcraft Vi6, Puro Audio’s Antonio Monteiro recently sub-hired CLS’s Vi6 for the major Super Bock Super Rock 2008 Festival in Lisbon and Porto; attended by 60,000 people.

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Continuing a tradition of providing the leading amplifiers for tour sound applications, Crown’s MA-12000i amps were featured in XXXX Audio System’s live applications for a number of sold out shows this past summer. Artists such as KISS, Sammy Hagar, Jason Aldean, Frankie Valli, Daughtry, Lifehouse, Ne-Yo, John Michael Montgomery, Gladys Knight, Al Green, Sheryl Crow, Mike Ness and the Black Keys all performed with sound systems that integrated MA-12000i amps and JBL VerTec speaker systems.

Doug Pumphrey, sound integrator for XXXX Audio Systems, said, “We constantly rely on the MA-12000i amps because they are built for tour sound applications. These amplifiers are made to power the larger venues we dealt with on a consistent basis this past summer. We have and will continue to utilize Crown, specifically the MA12000i for all the artists we work with.�

Comprised of three models – the MA-5000i, MA-9000i and MA12000i – the Macro-Tech i Series builds upon its predecessor by incorporating Crown’s advanced, patented Class-I circuitry, which efficiently delivers significantly greater power while simultaneously reducing overall amplifier weight by more than half. The new lineup is also equipped with comprehensive status, fault, and load monitoring via standard Ethernet networking and Harman Professional’s HiQnet™ connectivity and control protocol and System Architect™ interface. Furthermore, a universal power-factor corrected power supply ensures that the new models can be used literally anywhere in the world, delivering full rated power regardless of where touring schedules may lead.

At 28 pounds, the Macro-Tech amps garner new appreciation because of their practicality for portable applications. “In our work, anytime you make something lighter and increase its performance at the same time you’ve done your job. We will continue to implement additional MA-12000i amps into our inventory for concert system applications,� stated Pumphrey.

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Extending AKG’s position as a global leader in microphone technology, AKG Acoustics recently announced the acquisition of the worldwide distribution rights for the Crown family of microphones. The integration of Crown microphones into AKG Acoustics’ product portfolio adds to AKG’s global position as one of the world’s leading sources of high-quality microphones. As a result of the partnership, AKG distributors now handle the worldwide distribution for two of the industry’s leading microphone brands.

Crown is a Harman International company that specializes in manufacturing amplifiers, microphones, and system control products for audio markets worldwide. Thomas Stubics, Product Manager for Recording and Broadcast at AKG stated, ” Crown microphones are among the elite and are top-of-the-line products that are very well known for their outstanding performance. The diversity of the Crown microphone line is the perfect match for AKG’s stronghold as a source of industry-leading products.â€?

AKG Acoustics is looking forward to its partnership with Crown International as each company has played a major role in the professional audio industry. Stubics continues, “With AKG’s expertise in the global microphone business, the new partnership of AKG and Crown is a logical next step that will benefit the customers and business partners for AKG and Crown microphones. AKG has invested a large amount of time and money into its distribution infrastructure, and the partnership with Crown will solidify our global distribution strategy.�

Harman International, the world’s largest professional audio company, acquired AKG in 1993 and then purchased Crown in 2000 in order to gain a stronger foothold in the microphone market. Both companies have made major contributions to the art and science of audio engineering and are responsible for a large number of groundbreaking products that have become milestones in microphones, headphones, amplifiers and wireless systems.

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In an increasingly common instance of Studer Vista 5 SR live sound consoles being deployed by leading sound engineers at Front Of House and monitor position for the same event, Keith Urban’s FOH engineer Steve Law and monitor engineer Jason Spence both manned Studer Vista 5 SR consoles at the recent NFL Live Kickoff concert in New York City’s Columbus Circle as part of CLAIR’s support package for the award-winning country music artist. The event was broadcast nationally on NBC and the NFL Network with onsite broadcast support by Metrovision, whose OB truck featured a specially-configured Studer Vista 5 console with mixing by John Bates, Audio Engineer and support by Mike Christopher, Truck Technician. The concert was hosted by Deion Sanders and featured live performances by Usher and Natasha Bedingfield in addition to Keith Urban, with guest appearances by New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg and NFL greats Lawrence Taylor and Warren Sapp.

Traffic at this usually busy junction in the heart of New York City was suspended for the day as Firehouse Productions and CLAIR collaborated to transform the streetscape into an impressive temporary outdoor concert venue. New York-based Firehouse Productions, who provided stage and control electronics gear, fielded a team led by senior engineer Mark Dittmar. Firehouse supported the main stage with JBL VERTEC VT4889 full-size line array elements in towering arrays on either side of the stage, while Mike Wolf, CLAIR’s corporate services manager, led a team onsite that relied on the company’s own proprietary JBL-loaded i-3 and i-4 line array enclosures for extended audience-area coverage and delay tower positions.

According to Jason Spence the Studer Vista 5 SR couples sonic integrity and user-intuitiveness allowing him to sound great and work fast and effectively on the fly in demanding concert stage monitoring environments: “Sonically the console sounds stunning,� Spence explained. “Hands down, it is one of the best sounding consoles I’ve ever mixed on — even from my studio experience. It’s the most intuitive digital console control surface on the market. You get a very analog feel with the ‘inline’ design of the channel strips. It’s just a matter of grabbing a knob on any given channel on the control surface and adjusting. No diggings through page after page or guessing which virtual knob you need to grab to adjust a parameter.�

“We had 61 inputs for the concert, playing 8 songs over about 45 minutes,� Spence adds. “And because we brought in our tour’s preprogrammed Vista 5 SR’s, we were able to interface with the local production via analogue splits or digital splits right off the desk.�

Working at front-of-house with Keith Urban, Steve Law is equally about the sound, interface and general versatility. An early adopter of the Vista 5 SR, Law helped Studer finesse the design and featurset of the Vista 5 SR. “I have always been one for taking risks on new technology to give it a run and see what it will do,� Law said. “I was one of the very first guys to take out a DiGiCo D5 but the Vista 5 SR is something even better: it sounds great and makes my job easier. The preamps are great, the signal path is great, and there’s no latency
so that by the time the audio signal gets to the speakers, what you’re putting in is what’s coming out. There are so many consoles that don’t do that, especially lower-dollar digital consoles that host a ton of external plug-ins to try and compensate and you end up losing everything!�

Law is clearly an acolyte of analog sound coupled with digital versatility: “You have to figure that the Vista system’s digital format can support almost 1700 inputs, yet the sound is thick and full. And it’s not just the frequency response, it’s also the perceived depth and width of the sound. Digital consoles in general have suffered from sounding overly-precise, but the overall Studer sound is analog. The phase integration between input and output gives it a dimension of width that sounds amazing.�

“The Vistonics user interface is the best in the market today,� notes Law. “There’s nothing worse than hunting through a menu of operations while trying to keep up with the artists. Instead, with the Vista 5 SR, it’s so good to have real knobs right beside S each function, which makes the console more hands-on and more tactile� Law enthuses. “More fingers and ears: isn’t that how music is supposed to be?

Firehouse Productions can be reached at: www.firehouseproductions.com/index-02.html

CLAIR can be reach at: www.clairglobal.com/

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA, OCTOBER 14, 2008 – Neutrik, designer and manufacturer of the XX series XLR cable connector, debuted its new look at AES 2008. The company recently received a full makeover, updating its branding and marketing to adhere to its new corporate image. more

MONTREAL, QUÉBEC─This past summer was non-stop recording sessions for the Le Studio Mobile remote truck, from “Rencontres�, a spectacular event featuring Canada’s best known singers and “Les Misérables� to Alanis Morissette and Simple Plan. But probably the most unforgettable recording was the 400th birthday celebration of Quebec City on July 20 featuring a concert by Sir Paul McCartney. McCartney and his band performed to a roaring crowd that swelled to over 230,000 fans in The Plains Of Abraham National Park, which would normally peak at around 60,000. The birthday celebration was an historic event in and of itself, but it also marked McCartney’s first performance in Quebec.

“It was certainly a highlight for me personally that Le Studio Mobile was used to record Sir Paul’s first concert in Quebec and on this very special anniversary,� states Guillaume Bengle, owner and operator of Le Studio Mobile. Le Studio Mobile was hired to record the event for Videotron for a live Pay-Per-View special and an HD special to be aired around Christmas. Paul Hicks, who mixed The Beatles’ “Love�, produced the recording and Stéphane Lemay engineered the show which lasted close to three hours.

“For the McCartney performance, we used about 72 channels of the two Yamaha DM2000s we have installed in our truck, 48 from our Yamaha AD8HR-24 stage pre-amps and the rest from the consoles’ preamps. The inputs then went to redundant 48-track recorders.

By using both Yamaha DM2000s and six AD8HR-24s, Le Studio Mobile has a total of 96 microphone inputs with the consoles’ built-in preamplifiers. On-board recorders include a Steinberg NUENDO 48-track hard disk recording system and three Tascam X-48 48-track hard disk recorders; both systems output Pro Tools-compatible Broadcast Waves. The truck also has Sony PCM 800 48-track and Studer A-80 24-track recorders available. Processors include Aphex, dbx, tc Electronics, Lexicon, Urei and Waves with a Klein and Hummel 5.1 system, and Yamaha, Auratone, and Crown monitors and amps. Video components include a Panasonic 42� plasma display and three Sony KV8-AD10 video monitors with camera. Microphones include Shoeps, AKG, Sennheiser, Electro-Voice, Crown-PZN, Shure, Beyer, Audio-Technica and Sony.

Now in its 30th year of operation, Le Studio Mobile is recognized across Canada as a leader in location recording. A complete recording studio on wheels, Le Studio Mobile specializes in multi-track recording and live mixing for music, television and special events across North America.

For more information on Le Studio Mobile, telephone 514-273-6861 or visit www.studiomobile.com.

For more information on Yamaha DM2000 consoles, write Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc., 6600 Orangethorpe Avenue, Buena Park, CA 90620; telephone 714-522-9011; e-mail casales@yamaha.com; or visit www.yamahaca.com.

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About Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc.:
Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc. offers a complete line of integrated professional audio products for the commercial recording, production, broadcast, live sound, and sound reinforcement markets. The company has a dedicated dealer network, intensive field training, and 24-7 tech support in the U.S. and Canada.

PHOTO CREDITS:

Sir Paul McCartney: Pierre-Luc Dufour – Quebec City Press

Paul Hicks, Stephane Lemay: Guy Bengle – LeStudio Mobile

Hollywood, CA – October 2008… In the high pressure world of location sound, there is little room for ‘Oops, I missed that.’ The ability to capture the take when it matters most is paramount to ever being called back for another project. For production sound mixer Joe Foglia, this type of challenge is an almost daily occurrence. From his days with NBC’s Miami Vice to his Emmy award winning work on the NBC sitcom Scrubs to his latest project, the upcoming Fox 2000 Pictures film Marley & Me, Foglia relies extensively on the tried and true performance of his Lectrosonics wireless equipment. more

1969 Sister Console Identical to Lost Stax Board.

Pictured at Memphis’ Stax Museum are curator Carol Drake and Ardent Studios’ founder John Fry.

John Fry, founder of Memphis renowned Ardent Studios, has donated the historic recording console which was used for many years in his studios, often shaping the sound of countless Stax Records hits during a period when Ardent worked closely with the Stax label and recording studios.

The console was made by Memphis company Auditronics, owned by Welton Jetton and Steve Sage. Auditronics had supplied smaller consoles to both Ardent and Stax in 1966. The donated console was fabricated from amplifiers and equalizers made by Spectrasonics of Odgen, Utah.

The 20-input, 8-output console was installed at Ardent’s location on National St. in 1969 and moved to Ardent’s present location on Madison Ave. where it served in Studio B until 1985. Auditronics also supplied Stax with an identical console for their A Studio in 1970.

When the modest Capitol Theater was transformed into Stax Records in 1959, it began launching the careers of artists such as Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, Luther Ingram, Albert King, the Bar-Kays, Booker T. & the MG’s, Johnnie Taylor, Rufus and Carla Thomas, and dozens of others whose influence remains vital in the music of today.

Today, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, located at the original site of Stax Records, has more than 2,000 exhibits, videos, stage costumes, photographs, instruments used to record the Stax sound, including items such as Phalon Jones’ saxophone that was retrieved from a lake intact after the fatal crash of Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays; Otis Redding’s favorite brown suede jacket; Albert King’s famous purple Flying V guitar; Tina Turner’s gold sequined stage dress and Ike Turner silver lame suit and Fender guitar; the organ used by Booker T. Jones to record Green Onions; and Isaac Hayes’ restored, peacock-blue 1972 Superfly Cadillac El Dorado complete with television, refrigerator, and gold trim. In the Hall of Records approximately 800 45 rpm single records and 300 LPs are on display.

Visitors can stand on the exact spot where much of the great Stax music was made, in the recreation of Stax’s legendary Studio A, now including the legendary console from Ardent Studios which is identical to the one formerly housed at Stax.

Songs recorded on the Ardent console now at the Stax Museum include Isaac Hayes’ “Hot Buttered Soul,” The Staple Singers’ “The Staple Swingers,” Best of Sam & Dave, Led Zeppelin III, James Taylor’s “Mudslide Slim and the Blue Horizon,” Big Star’s “#1 Record” and “Radio City,” ZZ Tops’ “Fandango” and “Tejas,” the Bar-Kay’s “Too Hot to Stop,” and hundreds of other recordings which define the sound and songs of a generation.

To learnmore about the Stax Museum, visit: http://www.soulsvilleusa.com/
To learn about Ardent Studios, visit: http://www.ardentstudios.com/

Pro Audio Company Gives First Public Showing of High End HiFi Product

Denver, CO – October 10, 2008 — Sonic Studio, LLC, in conjunction with their representative VRS Audio Solutions, provided the first public showing of their new ultra–fidelity music server, Amarra. Taking place at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in the mile high city of Denver, VRS staged demonstrations of the newest member of the growing media server class in their demo room.

Based on Sonic Studio’s legendary line of professional linear PCM products, Amarra is an integrated software and hardware alloy that leverages Sonic Studio’s storied history in pro audio with the industry’s longest running digital audio workstation. Amarra’s hardware is drawn from the exclusive FireWire–attached, Series 300 line of DSP I/O Processors while the software derives from soundBlade, Sonic Studio’s high end production application.

Unlike prior audio server products, Amarra runs on the stable, secure and friendly Macintosh operating system. To ease user interaction, Amarra also coordinates with iTunes, the industry standard for asset acquisition, storage and playback. Able to play uncompressed audio files up to 192 kHz, Amarra is architected to accommodate future enhancements as technology and the server market advances.

Amarra is a whole new concept in music servers. The same technology that produces the master files used by record labels large and small for music distribution on Compact Disc, DVD-Audio and for download, is also used to create a music server that handily bests all others in fidelity, the foundation of any audiophile product. Amarra provides the highest quality playback, coupled with the convenience of iTunes, the world’s most popular music delivery system. Soon to be available through select dealers, more information about Amarra is available at www.amarraaudio.com. For more on Sonic Studio, visit www.sonicstudio.com.

About Sonic Studio
Sonic Studio, LLC is the premier manufacturer of ultra–fidelity PCM and DSD content creation systems. Sonic Studio’s Emmy award–winning NoNOISE II suite is the leading audio restoration toolset for archivists, record labels, videographers and forensic investigators while their product lines for Red and Scarlet Book premastering define the state of the art. Sonic Studio’s digital audio workstations and software are in use at major studios, record labels, broadcast and post production facilities worldwide. Based in Marin County, California, Sonic Studio has an international network of distributors and channel partners who share their commitment to quality and service.

soundBlade, Series 300, amarraaudio.com, sonicstudio.com and the Sonic Studio logo and type are trademarks of Sonic Studio, LLC in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

New York, NY, Oct. 14, 2008 – A world renowned creative collective for over 28 years, Elias Arts, a company devoted to music composition, strategy and production, has relocated and expanded its presence within New York City. The announcement was made today by Dante Piacenza, Executive Producer/GM, Elias Arts, who is based in New York.

Elias Arts has relocated its East Coast headquarters into a new, 5,000
square foot facility located at 394 Broadway in Manhattan. (The phone numbers
are 212/807-6500 and 212/924-8500.)

Built specifically for Elias Arts, the new location features a full album
quality mastering room to be used for composition, finishing and client presentations, a large performance/live room, fully appointed to support an orchestra section or live band with isolation capabilities, and two additional studio/composition rooms. The new facility also includes a large conference room, production and executive office space, and all new digital infrastructure. Elias Arts most recently completed projects for NHL, UPS and ESPN in the new studios.

Piacenza said, “We are really excited to have the opportunity to re-introduce Elias Arts to the New York advertising community. This is a breath of fresh air for us, and a truly big step toward solidifying our presence as a full-service music and branding collective. Elias Arts continues moving in a wonderfully progressive direction, and we’d like to invite all of our clients and friends to check out our new studios!�

ABOUT ELIAS ARTS:

A world renowned and pre-eminent creative collective for over 28 years, Elias Arts is devoted to music composition, strategy and production. The company has employed the emotional strength of music and sound to launch, grow and reposition the most recognized brands and companies worldwide. Elias Arts has worked with well over half of the Fortune 1000 companies, and has also helped turn numerous startups into everyday brand names. Among the clients Elias Arts has worked with are AOL, Mastercard, Sony, Columbia Pictures, Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Ebay, Honda, Intel, Visa, Yahoo, Universal Studios, Microsoft, McDonalds, ESPN and General Motors, to name just a few

With offices in Santa Monica and New York City, global resources and a renowned roster of gifted composers, producers, and marketers, the mission of Elias Arts is to constantly strive for creative excellence and distinction through the art of music and sound design. The company is the recipient of over 700 major industry awards from around the world.

For more information, please visit www.eliasarts.com

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