The first pop act to perform at the Las Vegas Sphere, the Backstreet Boys took up a summer residency at the fully immersive venue to mark the 25th anniversary of the release of their Millennium album. Relaying the band’s performance through the Sphere’s 360° sound system, involved the use of an SSL Live console and five Digital Audio Denmark Core 256 interfaces for playback, to host plug-ins and for and recording.
Six-piece multi-genre Australian band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard recently toured the US with their Phantom Island show, featuring…
The close to their 15 Years tour, Lisbon’s 68,100-capacity Estádio da Luz was the biggest stadium show yet for Portuguese-speaking band,…
Planning the band’s last live performance for Birmingham’s Villa Park Stadium, Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning Production Director…
English musician Steven Wilson is currently circling the globe with The Overview tour, an ambitious live multimedia and concert…
When did you first meet Kevlar? Think carefully, your answer may betray a lot about your past.
If it was sometime around 1976, you were either enjoying the finer points of cutting-edge reference loudspeaker performance or reading spec sheets in the hope that you soon would be. If you were five years ahead of the audio boys, you were more likely risking your life for country or cash.
The characteristic noises of death and destruction are contrived by nature to be unpleasant. If their cause is indifferent to their creation, then our ears ensure that we read them as alarming, even terrifying.
Certainly, this was the case with many of the records released in the wake of the introduction of CD. The sound of corporate exploitation, combined with artistic apathy, was as excruciating as it was depressing.
It is the early hours of Saturday morning. I'm somewhere in a cold, dark wood with a film crew. The Marantz has just died on me...
My hands are almost too cold to change the batteries in the recorder. The director, crew and cast are waiting to start the next take. I am beginning to doubt I will ever be warm again. Batteries changed. Camera rolling. Sound rolling. Slate!
I read an iPhone app review on iTunes yesterday: ‘I’ve stopped using the Google Analytics website and just use the app…’ it claimed. It’s a big claim, given the extent of information Analytics provides. So I downloaded the app and gave it a try. And I had to agree…
I have a theory about smartphone apps. I think they are changing our whole approach to mobile devices and shaping future computer operation.
A recent TED presentation saw Sarah Angliss examine the connection between Britain’s Industrial Revolution and Detroit’s motor industry, and the music they have produced. In the reflections of unforgiving industrial environments, she can see an ‘art out of noise’ model at work.
Curiously, I’ve drawn exactly the opposite conclusion over the way modern businesses have turned music back into industrial noise.
For a while, each visit I made to America was preceeded by a delivery of fine Cuban cigars. In a very Bond-like arrangement, I was to take these with me ‘for personal use’ and deliver them to an American whom we shall call Steve.
It was quite legal but it had an enjoyable air of opulence and sedition... and it was intimately tied in with cutting-edge digital audio.
The term ‘social networking’ is on a lot of lips at present – from university graduates through IT specialists to pro audio and A/V companies, and most acutely, broadcasters. A subject that, until only recently, was the preserve of anthropologists, sociologists and other academics, has now become mainstream, with direct relevance to our personal and professional lives.
You don’t have to be afraid to have tit.com crop up in your browser history. Against all reasonable expectation, it’s not a pornography site – although judging by the ‘Sorry, there is no adult content here’ disclaimer it carries, it probably has a very high bounce rate…
Regardless of content, a short domain name is worth money. And it’s a sweet introduction to an overlooked aspect of the internet’s creation and operation.
Feelings were running high around the table. Present were some important voices representing contrasting – and sometimes diametrically opposing – views on education in pro audio. What it was, who needed it, where they should get it, what it should cost.
That was in the early 1990s and I’m not convinced we’ve made progress on answering any of those questions.
There’s a man in Dallas who reckons that a collection of records isn’t complete without eight-track cartridge releases to sit alongside vinyl, cassette, CD, DVD, concert programmes and other music memorabilia. In fact, he’s setting up a museum specifically to celebrate the eight-track format…
And he makes a very a valid point – it’s not the best recordings that get the collectors excited, it’s the rare releases...
Some say a wedding isn’t a wedding without a fight. In some communities, it’s the highlight of the day.
I’ve never actually seen a wedding brawl myself, but I had a ringside seat at a wedding reception that saw music producers and musicians quietly alligning themselves against the ‘non musicians’ present. The tension stayed beneath the surface but it was tangible.
London, Paris, New York, Munich; everyone listen to the same pop music.
I remember a television interview with Jeff Beck from a few years ago, when he described a generation of rock guitarists who were ‘trying to play the same guitar solo’. That’s one of the problems that comes with heroes – but heroes set benchmarks and inspire achievement. In contrast, Simon Cowell’s X Factor ‘talent show’ places musical ambition low on its agenda...
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