picture caption: l to r, Luke Bednar, Becky Fimbres, Greg Stefus and Tyler Emigh (seated)

Each year, for the last 15 years, the Nashville AES chapter and NAPRS has held the AudioMasters Benefit Golf Tournament at the Harpeth Hills Golf Club. The event benefts the Nashville Engineer Relief Fund (NERF) who’s missions is “to allow financial assistance…for individuals in our (engineering) community who, through illness and tragic circumstances, are unable to practice their profession or face other serious problems”.

The Conservatory of Recording Arts sponsored a hole again this year to support the cause. CRAS students Tyler Emigh, Luke Bednar plus CRAS employees Becky Fimbres and Greg Stefus gave out over 250 Sonoran Dogs and other goodies to golfers as they made the trip around the course on day one which hosts the live sound community. Day two does it all over again for audio engineers and sponsors.

“Its great to be a part of and help out the Nashville audio community which has given so many of our grads a great start in their careers in audio,” says CRAS Administrator Kirt Hamm. “We’ll be back again next year to do our part in supporting this great cause.”

In addition to regular classes, the CRAS offers a range of optional evening and weekend courses and guest lectures including hands-on mic, preamp, DI and processor builds, instructional classes on networking, and tips on building your own studio. The Home Studio Clinic pictured above covered the gear and proper integration techniques used to put together a personal audio/music production studio. The clinic is designed to show students easy and cost effective ways to build a studio with limited space and money.  Materials are passed around so students with no construction background can get a good idea of how to build floors, walls, etc in addition to getting to actually touch materials they can use for building.

SPARS (Society of Professional Audio Recording Services) has elected new board members including new president Kirk Imamura of Avatar Studios, New York; CRAS Director of Education Kevin Becka and CRAS Board of Directors member Candace Stewart of East West Studios, Los Angeles. Others elected include Jessica Dally, live sound and post editor and mixer, Los Angeles, CA; Dave Hampton, engineer, educator and author, Los Angeles, CA; Mark Rubel, Pogo Studio, Chicago, IL and Rick Senechal, Microsoft Studio, Redmond, WA. Re-elected to the Board were Trevor Fletcher, Hit Factory-Criteria Recording, Miami, FL; Scott Phillips, Blackbird Studios, Nashville and Sherri Tantleff, Full Sail University, Winter Park, FL

“There was a very active field of 16 candidates running for nine open seats representing three different membership categories. SPARS president Kirk Imamura says : “I am honored and excited to serve as the new President of SPARS. SPARS and our industry are each going through a challenging transition.” READ MORE

This month two Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences (CRAS) instructors headed in different directions to share their knowledge as guest instructors at special training events.

Sound Reinforcement department head Keith Morris headed east to St. Louis to join 6 time TEC award winning live sound engineer Robert Scovill for The Complete Front of House Engineer seminar and workshop.  Keith led attendees through the fundamentals of the industry standard Smaart audio analysis software.

Digital Dept. head Robert Brock headed west to sunny California to deliver a day long immersive training on Apple’s Logic Pro 9.  The event was held in Bob Clearmountain’s private Berkeley Street Studio located within Apogee Electronic’s headquarters in Santa Monica.  Attendees included nearly all of Apogee’s employee’s as well as invited friends of Apogee.

CRAS offers certifications on both Smaart and Logic Pro as part of enrollment in its Master Recording Program II curriculum.

Australia’s Audiotechnology Magazine visits the Behringer factory in China

SSL users were among the majority of nominees and winners at the recent 36th annual “American Music Awards” (AMAs). The star studded event was broadcast live on ABC from the NOKIA Theatre in Los Angeles and featured 43 artists and projects competing in 23 categories, with 60% of the nominees and 74% of the winners using SSL consoles to create their hits. SSL users who were nominated include: Alicia Keys, Brad Paisley, Brooks & Dunn, Carrie Underwood, Chris Brown, Coldplay, Daughtry, Enrique Iglesias, J. Holiday, Jonas Brothers, Jordin Sparks, Kanye West, Kenny Chesney, Lil Wayne, Mamma Mia, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, MercyMe, Rascal Flatts, Reba McEntire, Rhianna, Sugarland, Taylor Swift, The Dream, Usher and Wu-Tang Clan.

“The Conservatory’s SSL studios and classes focus on real world applications and its great to see that the AMAs reflect how strong SSL’s products are in the industry,” says Director of Education Mike Jones. “SSL is one of the few, if not the only company that has maintained a consistent look and feel throughout their product line. If you start on an SSL 4000 Series console, you can easily understand and operate an AWS 900+ or Matrix from their current line.”

photo caption: Students setting up for a session on the SSL 4000+ in Studio A at the Conservatory’s Gilbert location

l to r: CRAS Instructor Michel Henein and Ironman Composer Ramin Djawadi

CRAS Instructors have a legacy of rich experience in the audio business. Mike Jones mixed an Evanesence live performance for Fox TV, Jeff Harris and Kevin Becka worked on George Benson and Al Jarreau’s Grammy winning CD, and Michel Henein made some lasting friends, like composer Ramin Djawadi, when he worked for Hans Zimmer. Recently, Ramin and Henein hooked up in Hollywood to talk about old times at Media Ventures and Ramin’s score for the summer smash Ironman, starring Robert Downey Jr.

On this day in 1904 British engineer John Ambrose Fleming invented and patented the two-electrode vacuum-tube rectifier, which he called the oscillation valve. It was also called a thermionic valve, vacuum diode, kenotron, thermionic tube, or Fleming valve. This invention is often considered to have been the beginning of electronics, and without Mr Fleming, we wouldn’t have all this great sounding audio gear.

This clever audio geek above is sending voltage across the magnetic strip on the back of his driver’s license with aligator clips then uses his finger to alter the voltage which in turn adjusts the frequency of a low pass filter in real time.

I found something interesting tied to our post back in Februaray titled Sound and the Physical World. Check out the video and you’ll see patterns formed when different pitches
are sent across a metal plate covered with sand. It seems the shapes are tied to carvings found in the 15th century Rosslyn Chapel featured in Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code.”

The shapes, called Chladni patterns, are named after German physicist Ernest Florenz Friedrich Chladni (b. 1756, d. 1827, pronounced shladnee). After 27 years of study and research into the patterns at the chapel, a 75-year old musician and ex-Royal Air Force code breaker and his composer son Stuart have used Chladni’s patterns to decipher an ancient melody “frozen” in the structure. They were finally able to unlock the melody by matching the patterns to the carvings and are having a world premiere concert in the chapel on May 18, when four singers will be accompanied by eight musicians playing the piece on mediaeval instruments. You can see more details of their findings on their website.