Do you know what Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios have in common? (Besides making incredible blockbusters that drive millions to the cinemas and being two of the most important production studios in the galaxy!)
Well, they both have chosen SPL Surround Monitor Controllers for their studios – In case you don’t know, the SPL Surround Monitor Controller (SMC) is a one-point analog volume control and switching matrix for system-independent 5.1 surround and stereo monitoring.
Warner Bros. recently bought 12 SMCs and Universal Studios, LA, acquired 13 SMCs.
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Nicholas Varley grew up in England and studied cello, composition and music theory in Manchester. After a brief period in France he moved to South Africa where he worked as a sound engineer at Sony Records’ Downtown Studios. Nicholas went back to France in 1986 where he started to work as a sound engineer at Studio La Marque Rose in Paris and would later become the main composer at KBP (Paris). After 10 years in this position, he started working as an independent composer. It wouldn’t be too far-flung to call Nicholas Varley a multitalent, considering that he has proved himself an outstanding producer, composer, musician, arranger, and sound engineer.
Nicholas’ versatility is perfectly reflected on his wide variety of compositions. He has composed the soundtracks to Disney’s “Trail of the Panda” and Albert Pereira-Lazaro and Emmanuel Klotz’s “Lascars” (Round Da Way), as well as for online and offline campaigns for brands like L’Oréal, Armani, Armani Diamonds, Cartier, and Arthur en Vrai. He has also worked as music producer for Absolut, Klio Rosco, Lisa Caruso, Tony Parker, Inside Jack, and Anka Badiu.
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Producer, musician and sound engineer Mirko Schaffer is a well known figure in the German rock scene. He started his career as a musician for the German-American hardrock band Kingdom Come. Ever since he has worked in the field of music production and sound engineering for artists such as Die Ärzte, Farin Urlaub, Xavier Naidoo, Ray Garvey (Reamonn), and Andru Donalds, just to name a few. As a composer, he is also responsible for the first – and so far the only – platinum soundtrack to a German movie “KeinOhrhasen” and its successor “ZweiOhrKüken”. The latter reached Gold status.
Mirko tried SPL’s latest and hottest software DrumXchanger in one of his current mixing projects and came back to us pretty excited with the following comments:
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Producer, drummer and instrument library developer Chris Marr is the man behind the sound of SPL’s brand new DrumXchanger. He has produced the “SPL Surrounded by Drums” DVD and, among other things, some sample libraries for Yamaha, Technics as well as ddrum3 and 4.
We asked Chris how he recorded the samples for DrumXchanger: “I played the drums myself. Every drum part was recorded with four microphones through two Channel Ones and two Track Ones. Additionally, I inserted a Transient Designer in every channel. The overhead signals were recorded and pre-amplified with a GoldMike MK2 with two Transient Designer. Ambience Close and Ambiense Far were also captured with a Transient Designer looped into each channel.”
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Guillemots FOH engineer, Jonny “Turbo” Lucas, had a problem many engineers who mix double bass live face: getting a warm, full sound without feedback was becoming a nightmare.
Who do you think Jonny turned to to solve the problem? You got that right! He actually asked if we could deliver a modified version of the SPL GoldMike MK2. And we did.
“We use double bass on stage which is inherently hard anyway. We had found some great pick ups from a company in Canada (magnetic Biesle System) and a Barcus Berry piezo. But the problem was that the pick-ups sounded OK, but required batteries which is never a great way of working. View Full Article »
Credits: Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, Simple Minds, Spandau Ballet, The Tubes, Scott Walker, Najwa Nimri, Heaven 17…
“I wouldn’t start a mix unless I had at least 4 channels of the Transient Designer available. Especially effective on drums and percussion, it is an incredibly useful tool when it comes to dynamic processing, both in the studio and live. Great in adding that extra bit of ‚front’ or attack to transients, often necessary to withstand brickwall type limiting. What’s really exciting about this unit is what it can do to the release of your signal.”
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